I used to do a lot of drawings with gel pens. I liked the scratchy, frenetic energy I got. I tried again recently and… most of what I drew was pretty bad. I’m probably too used to fineliners. The more presentable stuff:
(A day late, alas. Drawn yesterday, but only scanned today.)
15th November is the saint’s day of St. Albertus Magnus, patron saint of SCIENCE, so it behooves me to draw something scientific; even if it is, at the time of writing, just past midnight and therefore the 16th now.
An old Laughing Cow alarm clock (named after the Dairylea cheese). It laughs as an alarm sound. Rather creepily. My brother gave it to me years ago because the noise was creeping him out.
The sky grew black as coal in the middle of the day
My great-grand-daddy watched
As his house was blown away
– Winds of Change, Geoff Moore and the Distance
Inspired by… well, recent events – which I have not been hit particularly hard by, and there are people whose lives have been ruined; spare a thought, and a prayer, for them – and the text from the Gospels which the Pope preached on a few weeks back:
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them, just as he was, in the boat. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” 41 And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
Mark 4:35-41, RSV(CE)
A wine bottle, beer mug, pair of sandals:
People say that half of life is showing up. When my dad was at university, the local student council (I forget the exact name; JCR?) was run by Marxists. The Marxists won every election, despite only about 10-15% of the students supporting them, because their supporters all came out to vote, while everybody else just shrugged, and said, well, the Marxists are going to win again, they always win, why bother voting? Life lesson there.
Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song.
— Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
When I first read this about 15 years ago, my first thought was that you could have said the same of Chesterton when he was writing. My second thought was that, actually, you could say the same of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and to live with such men still living was worth being thankful for. Hearing there was a new Cohen album out was like God giving you a present.
Cohen died yesterday, so: to have lived when such a man was still living is worth being thankful for.
Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. Rest in peace, Leonard.
inadaptation 