I cannot get over how persuasive the movement is of this snake’s “faux-spider” tail lump-and-floofs is. Structurally, it looks practically nothing like a spider; it’s like a skin tag put on a feather boa. But the way the snake moves it is an amaaaaaaaazing piece of puppetry. I could watch this video all day.
If you want more danger noodles, here’s the excellent Ze Frank explaining how kangaroo rats put snakes in their place:
Just a quick, loose sketch I did of our rabbi at the bimah while she was leading Rosh Hashanah services. (Our particular rabbi trained as a cantor before being ordained, and happens to play harp; harp isn’t a standard part of Jewish services.)
My son voted this sketch of the week because “I really like the curves on the harp. All the geometry in that one is very beautiful.” (I spent most of last week working on faces, which I’m terrible at; weak as it is, this is the best sketch of the lot 🤷♀️)
My son voted for this sketch to share this week. He liked several, but “the fairies one is just too adorable”:
The reference is this photo of my wife and daughter dressed up to go to out local Renaissance Festival a couple weeks ago:
Apparently this hat made my wife look like “Sadie Adler” from Red Dead Redemption II, which I guess bodes poorly for me 🤷♀️
My son nominated this sketch, noting: “That one in the back looks like it has strong opinions.” I can’t quite recall where I saw these little guys, just that it was in a Michigan State Park this past summer, as part of a canoe trip that went moderately off the rails (massive duckweed, inclement weather, thousands of dead fish blocking the river, etc.) This park was maybe our third choice, in terms of places we were supposed to be that night.
For the record, I was almost positive he was either gonna chose the Jubilant Sorceress or Captain Tenacity:
Mostly I like how the two images interact (they were in adjacent slots on the spread). The reference for the sorceress is my wife in a Halloween costume she got for cheap at a thrift shop a few years back, while the captain is me about 20 years ago. Serendipitously, the ratio between their sizes is roughly our real-life size difference.
My best sketch from Week #37-2024 is this one of a young Salvador Dali:
My reference for the sketch was this picture of Dali and Man Ray I stumbled across on the Library of Congress website:
Until I saw this photograph, it never dawned on me that Man Ray might be Jewish (which he was), nor that he was American-born (I thought he was French, because he was most famous for the work he did while living in France), nor that he thought of himself as a painter (I knew him for his photography). 🤦♀️
For the record, the Young Dali sketch narrowly beat out this space captain from Friday, September 13. She is taking no shit, folks:
My son suggested I share this one, which he characterizes as “handception” . The sketch I’m highlighting is the lower one, but it doesn’t make sense without the context of the larger page, so here you go:
Remember when you were a kid and would fight over who got the bigger slice of cake, and so your mom made one of you cut and the other choose, in order to ensure fairness and decrease the amount of kvetching and whining she’d have to deal with, so she could just get on with her life?
Well, turns out you can fix gerrymandering exactly the same way (more or less): Schneier on Security: A Self-Enforcing Protocol to Solve Gerrymandering
This protocol is self-enforcing (i.e., it requires no outside arbiter or commission or oversight board or judges), mathematically verified, and fair—all of which taken together basically guarantees we’ll never ever ever use it, because (waves hands) will-of-the-people-constitutionalism-orginalist-intent-textualist-consistent-with-traditions-blah-blah-bullshit.🤬🇺🇸🔥
I do not endorse Seinfeld or Seinfeld (no deeply held conviction or ideological bone to pick there; he just never particularly worked for me, as a comedian or writer), but I do wholeheartedly endorse both the above sentiment, and reading the entire op-ed it came from (here’s a gift link 🎁🔗 ):
“Opinion: The life secret Jerry Seinfeld learned from Esquire“[*]
The takeways summarized in the op-ed are good and worth your time, and the core message is a fundamental truth:
Dedicating yourself to the mastery of a craft—against all odds and despite all distractions and obstacles—is the only path along which there is relief.
Along these same lines—delving into and reflecting on what it means to dedicate yourself to craft—I likewise wholeheartedly endorse this documentary (noting that, over the last decade I’ve revised my opinion on it in at least one important detail: although I still love the documentary, I no longer even mildly like any of these comics).
[*] I also don’t endorse Esquire—again, it never really worked for me is all. I do endorse the Washington Post, though. I read a lot of news reporting from a lot of sources, and there’s is consistently the most even-handed and makes the most honest attempt at being honest and accurate, in my humble.
Holy Moses! The “suave devil look” for magicians (goatee, tuxedo, etc.) was invented by a Jewish magician named “Herrmann” (which I think is German for “Mr. Man”—which just so feels like a name assigned by a census taker who was fed up with weird Yiddish shtetl names he couldn’t spell) who performed for Lincoln!
New York Times: “How a 1933 Book About Jews in Magic Was Rescued From Oblivion” (🎁 gift link)
In fact, Herrmann (shown in the picture at the top, courtesy of his Wikipedia entry) is so synonymous with the look that if you prompt an A.I. with “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee” it gives you a picture of this otherwise obscure 19th Century French stage magician:
