It's almost Spring!!!!!!!

Our Hibiscus is blooming twice, which hasn't happened since September!

It's good to be here, following the blog. It looks great, and reminds me to get on with my own blog, which I haven't touched since July. Slainte Mhath!

Sean

All the Names

The Conquistadora's new outpost in The Azores. On to Portugal!

Finnbar!

Hello from California! This is Finn. I am sorry it took us so long to send pictures but I have been crate training/house breaking (heart breaking more like it). We got him on Monday from a nice family in Santa Clarita. His mom is a brown toy Australian Shepherd and his dad is a black Chihuahua. His eyes are sea green and he is a licking machine. In his litter he was the middle child, just like me and Eilidh! He will probably be about 12-15 lbs, and don't worry we are bringing him to Maine the next time we come! Sean and I are absolutely adoring being "doggy parents". We both miss you all and are happy to read all about the goings-on there in Maine and New York! Love you all!

Some Mainer's have no electricity. We do!

Debord by the drop

10
The concept of “the spectacle” interrelates and explains a wide range of seemingly unconnected phenomena. The apparent diversities and contrasts of these phenomena stem from the social organization of appearances, whose essential nature must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is an affirmation of appearances and an identification of all human social life with appearances. But a critique that grasps the spectacle’s essential character reveals it to be a visible negation of life — a negation that has taken on a visible form.

Knocked Up By Wolves

Finished up with the 48hr Music Festival the other day, I was in the impromptu band Knocked Up By Wolves, and the pics are starting to roll in:

Baby Shower

And still More @#$%%^ Fing Snow

The roofs are holding.

Hot In Oz

it's too hot to care about anything

LUCAS and The Contraption

Hi - Am trying (again) to post.

Lucas has a new muzzle harnass. (It's not the same for biting dogs, he can bite, chew, bark and barf. I needed the harnass because he was dragging me through ice patches when he had his lease attached to his collar. question for the cosmos: How can a 17 pound dog drag a 100+ woman?

This contraption works very well, I can hold the leash with one finger and traipse anywhere.
But with the last snowstorm, Lucas dove into the very wet, very icy snow and tunneled head first. Result: his face froze and the contraption froze to his face. A very sad pup.

BTW: at 11 on Saturday mornings, Lucas can be seen in his new training session at Petco in Augusta (the store in Sears plaza). Sit! Wait! Free! Good dog! Widdgie widdgie woo!

Snow at S+Ps

Debord by the drop

9
In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false

More $%7*! ing snow. Pray for our roofs.

Green Caped Elves roam New York

Catching up on his blog, I have realized that I have one strange but wonderful family.

I was walking around the other day and spied an elf woman in a long green cloak on Park Avenue. I tried to get my camera out, but could only snap this bad iPhone photo as she walked away. Who knows how many of these being walk and live among on a regular basis.

Cut my finger opening a can of beans today and it is hard to type. Please forgive typos!

%*#&)>+@Fing! Snow

Happy Birthday Andre Breton costume party Feb 19th

Woof Phfoot

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.

It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.

Debord by the drop

8
The spectacle cannot be abstractly contrasted to concrete social activity. Each side of such a duality is itself divided. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each of these seemingly fixed concepts has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.

National Cheeky One day

Happy Birthday Ben

Ice Melt from Peggy

Hooray, the ice is melting. Nice Booger video, Ellen. What a proud grandmother I am! I miss you all, even you, Booger.

Our cat plays too.

Debord by the drop

7
Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image. The social practice confronted by an autonomous spectacle is at the same time the real totality which contains that spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to the point that the spectacle seems to be its goal. The language of the spectacle consists of signs of the dominant system of production — signs which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that system.

Per the request of grammy and grandfather

Must Read

I don't agree with everything Kunstler says, but this is a good bit, http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126104/

I want to say thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes. It was great to hear from everyone and I had a good day. Love and miss you all.

debord by the drop

6
Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the project of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.

Chrome Lobster Vol. II

I finished it today:

I also got it up on etsy for sale:
here

The next one is gonna be Jesus crucified on a guitar in hell. No, really. It's a commission.

Debord by the drop.

5
The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual excess produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective.

The Baby Bird is 24

Happy Birthday Eilidh

Feeling much better now, sir...

Pretty ugly illness all things considered but I am up and about today, a little stiff and sore but I think I will be able to eat some soup.

Debord by the drop

4
The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

Pyramid of toilet paper by Peggy.

Just for you Boogar

debord by the drop

3
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.

Happy Birthday Grandfather!

William Lloyd Mc Farland

Starr Hill
Dorothy Agnes, William Lloyd and Peter Lloyd

Today is Grandfathers birthday Febuary 4 1913 - January 2 1992

I think we all owe a bit of our creativity to him

Happy Birthday Papa

Peggy's Ice

Debord by the drop.

3
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.

Its February!

And February is before March, and march is before april, and april is spring. And not a minute too soon. So, I think a family blog is a great idea. I am also in favor of lobsters as artistic subjects. I am thinking of someday making a miniatures monster out of pieces of one's shell stuck together the wrong way. Conor Says hello....

Snow

Hi Everybody! I'm bored at work. I'd rather be at home. This is my desk. Miss you all!
-Eilidh

Dobord by the Drop

2
The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.

NATIONAL EYEBROW DAY IS COMING

Sunday Febuary 8th at 12:56 AM is Eilidh Morag's Birthday.

I think she wants something called spray on Boogeroff.

Happy Birthday

Baby Bird

Super Bowl Sunday

Darn I can't top The Earl's terrifying close-up photography, but here's how we spent Super Bowl Sunday. We went to our friend's house out in Sunset Park -- Michael Sandy and Baby Declan. Can you guess what team they were supporting?

I was the only person without a Steelers shirt, but I was rooting in spirit.






Bonus: You can see the new work on Ben's tattoo. It's quite impressive.

Chrome Lobster

Working on a new leather jacket for radjacketscheapmoney.etsy.com, to whit: a chrome lobster. Still in progress but have a look at these reference pics I took of Renee, our Parisian model from the deep: