Too old for this

Sorry I've been offline for a few days! Last week was the Ann Arbor Art Fair, and I was out on the street drawing alongside the most imaginative sidewalk chalk artists of southeast Michigan!

"Please meet Midori No Daichi. An original character of mine, shelled using sculpts by Ball Jointed Doll companies Volks and Fairyland. Midori would be the catalyst for my writing during a time of great strife. I purchased this Volks School A Sweet Dreams head (released 2007) back in 2020 during our global pandemic. She would later be put onto a Fairyland Feeple65 Body to truly flesh out who this character of mine might be. Being a medical professional I found the overwhelming nature of this world event to be unsurprisingly terrifying, difficult, and draining. Purchasing the doll that would eventually become my Midori was just a way for me to find joy. Buying dolls is what a life long doll collector does after all. Just a doll purchase. But she would be anything but just another purchase. After painting, sewing, and wig making I found myself a muse. She would inspire a great deal of writing. A skill I love but hadn’t ever expected to connect to my doll collecting practices. So please enjoy this entry as my earnest gift to the world."

-Joshua Crawford, Somerset

.joshybearhuggies on Instagram

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt

I had another client today get confused and upset at how I labeled their final file.

(If you don't know already, I'm a graphic designer)

The filename was something like "ProjectnameFNL-BLEED-DIE.pdf"

I also named the email "Projectname Final File - Bleed & Die"

Now, for the non-designers out there, a bleed is how you get the picture to the edge of the page in a document. You can't just print an 8.5x11 page in that situation, you have to print a larger page, and trim it to 8.5x11, and that overprint that you cut down is called the "bleed".

Die is short for dieline. If you are printing something in a different shape than a cutter can make (basically anything without straight lines) then you need a die. A die also helps trim things a lot faster, some can do a hundred sheets at a time, as opposed to manually doing it (which I'm not even sure how you'd even do that)

In this situation, I was making a box. They are notoriously tricky, but I've done a bunch before. And the person I was dealing with was new, and she had to send along the final approval to her boss.

She wasn't rude, but was clearly uncomfortable in our meeting today. I really had to explain it to her, and said that these were industry standard things and her printer needs this info. I also have worked with her boss before and absolutely knew that they'd understand the terms.

This is a kind of sample of what I mean. The dieline is the pink line. It is where things will be cut. You can see that it is a special shape that can't just be cut out regularly.

Everything blue outside the pink line is the bleed. you won't see any of that in the final folded box.

And the white lines you see are just the fold lines. They are usually part of the die line, but have a different process to use them.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Nolan's The Odyssey between "junk skeletons" and wrecks: Arpa [translator's note: Regional Environmental Protection Agency] is working in Sicily. What's happening?

It's not the first time that this production stirs up a hornet's nest in Sicily. In Lipari, divers are reportedly already working on cleaning the sea. Here is what we know.

[Translation of the article below the cut]

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias, 1659 (aged 2) by Diego Velazquez

This is an example of boy dressed in gowns in the first few years of his life. The more formal of the gowns that children of both sexes wore were based on the fashionable gowns that grown women of the period wore. It can be tricky to tell the difference between girls and boys in portraits, but boys' gowns were often plainer and less decorated, and they might be shown with accessories, toys, or pets meant to declare their gender.

Wikipedia says, "the painting directly admits the little boy's precarious health: from strings criss-crossing his chest and waist hang metal bells and at least two protective lucky amulets, a cornicello, and on the string across his left shoulder hangs a black object, likely a fig-hand carved of jet. By contrast, nearly thirty years earlier, Velazquez painted a robust Balthasar Charles at age two or three with a staff, sword, exuberant sash and plumed hat." You can see Balthasar Charles's portrait here, and I would note that it also includes a gorget, a piece of armor that goes around the throat. Very masculine!

Here is another portrait of Philip Prosper after he was "breeched", or transitioned from skirts to breaches.

Les Modes parisiennes, no. 281, 16 juillet 1848, Paris. Robe de chambre et lingeries de Mme Colas, rue Vivienne, 47. Toilettes fournies par la Maison de Commission rue Louis le Grand No. 9. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Look for example, what the satirical magazine l'Esquella de la Torratxa made to mock the bizarre design of Milà's house!

Like many architects of the time, Gaudí designed everything that was supposed to be in the house. Outside, inside, furniture.

but perhaps tired of the curves of art nouveau (and of people whispering behind their back that their buildings looked like something a pastry chef could create), as soon as the fashion sensibilities changed and Art Nouveu was no longer in fashion, they renovated with great ardour and absolute indifference towards the works of art so unique and suitable for THEIR houses.

Just look at what they did to Casa Batlló... Gaudí would be spinning so hard in his grave if he saw, he would screw right through his crypt of Sagrada Familia and straight into the metro.

So... lots of ladies had killer vanity tables like that one.

further context: there is no indication that anyone at all was antagonizing the bison; the teenage boys mentioned just "scattered when the bison charged." in fact the photographer "said every visitor he observed in the park Friday, including McDaniel and his grandson, were keeping a “respectful distance” from the animal, and had done nothing to provoke it to charge." bison was probably agitated because of mating season. there is also no indication that the grandfather was playing hero - "The grandson was able to escape using some fancy footwork, but McDaniel was a sitting duck as the bison charged at him, hooking him with his left horn near his hip before flipping him some eight feet into the air."

"When I was four, I learned to sew by making Barbie clothes.

I traded my toy gun and holster set to my sister for her. I re-named her Estelle, because I didn’t buy Mattel’s Barbie “teenage fashion model” story.

The sissy kid in Oklahoma got bullied because he sewed and played with dolls.

In my mind, Estelle was a grown-up  27 years old. Her story: she lived in a Big City, and did grown-up things. My refuge.

We both eventually landed in New York, with designing as my career.

In early 2020, Covid came. Everyone was locked inside with the deadly pandemic raging outside. How to keep myself sane in this crazy time? That thing that kept me company, soothed my nerves, and provided escape from the harsh world outside. I played with Estelle and made lots of doll clothes.

The silver lining of this—the Doll Couture books!"

-Kenneth King, New York

.kennethdking on Instagram

These are native UK languages. And whilst I absolutely agree that other languages (such as Scots, Urdu and Punjabi) should also be allowed on leaflets, the fact that Reform thinks Celtic languages that have existed longer than ENGLISH on this island shouldn't be on political material is fucking telling of how supportive they allegedly are of the United Kingdom as a whole.

These people don't support 'the British people'. They support the ENGLISH, and a very specific group of English people at that.

People in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall deserve to be represent in every aspect of their lives. That includes the language.

The only reason Farage hasn't been able to go after Welsh is because it's legal protections are stronger than the others and he physically can't. But I PROMISE that would have been on there too if he could have done it.

It won't be the first time Celtic cultures have been targeted or treated as an 'other'. It won't be the last. All it takes is reading any article about Gaelic revitalisation, Cornish roadsigns, or making Welsh compulsory in school to know that. A large percentage of the English don't get why these cultures want to celebrate their own culture. They don't want it.