NO, Mr. President

Let's have the courage to stand up for the little babies at every opportunity.

Spitfires And White Cliffs Of Dover

If you like airplanes and nostalgia, you'll love this short film.

Happy Memorial Day!

Honor Our Heroes

You May Kill Me But You May Never Insult Me

The title of this post is a line I stole from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, known familiarly as Pirates 3, or, if you're in the loop (as of course I am), succinctly and to-the-pointedly, P3. It's all good. And yes, because I know you're dying to ask, I do think there will be a P4.

The subject line is uttered by (who else) Captain Jack Sparrow, darling dreadlocked doppelgänger of adorable Johnny Depp (or vice versa, and who cares), to his longtime nemesis, Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company.

As, like Captain Jack Sparrow, I do not care to be insulted, I make every effort to be polite. However, there are times when, I confess, I am less than cordial. Most often this occurs when I find myself the barely-welcome guest of an art museum or behind the wheel of my car, navigating the treacherous lanes of central South Carolina ... where you are as likely to chance upon a primate driver as a human one.

No insult to monkeys intended.

You rampallian! You fustilarian!

But since I admire the works of William Shakespeare (especially the sonnets), and even cleverly fashioned my vanity plate after a line from Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1), and since The Bard was nothing if not a skilled crafter of elegantly rancid rejoinders, I bring you a post containing some of the most pithy pejoratives you will ever encounter this side of Stratford-on-Avon.

You may wonder how I came to be in possession of this treasure trove of tart-tongued taunts. Remember when I was so rudely insulted while taking in a hoity-toity exhibit at the Columbia Museum of Art? You know, the time when a gender-challenged lackey enjoined me to cease and desist pointing at the paintings, and I was disinclined to acquiesce to her its request?

Well, let me tell you. After I had exhausted the industrial-strength light sword that is my index finger, and we had absorbed all the oil-based impressionism and post-impressionism and realism we could possibly retain, my mother announced that she wanted to do what we should have done all along: go shopping.

Specifically, she was keen to visit the museum gift shop. "YES!" I agreed, knowing we'd have a marvelous time there. And so we waved goodbye to all the long-tailed primates in blue embroidered coats (well, except for that ONE), and followed the yellow brick road to the postage-stamp-sized souvenir shop embedded in the museum's main floor.

I had worked my way nearly around the entire perimeter of the tiny establishment when I saw it: a Shakespearean Insults mug which was clearly destined to be mine. You may view a mug exactly like it, and even purchase one for yourself -- or a fortunate friend! -- by clicking here.

But in case/even if you don't feel like doing that, allow me to share with you the insightful and breviloquent barbs so brightly inscribed upon my mug's ceramic surface.

If your gigglebox is easily upset, the trick is not to read any of these while possessed of a mouthful of coffee. And as you read, it might be fun to envision your own nefarious nemesis, and imagine the look you would receive if, without warning, you hurled one of these bad boys in their astonished face.

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You rampallian! You fustilarian! <>><<> Light of brain <>><<> Bolting-hutch of beastliness <>><<> Mountain of mad flesh <>><<> Long-tongu'd babbling gossip

Veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth <>><<> I do desire that we may be better strangers <>><<> O gull, O dolt, as ignorant as dirt <>><<> Clod of wayward marl

Roast-meat for worms <>><<> Infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker <>><<> Lump of foul deformity <>><<> All the infections that the sun soaks up

Elvish-mark'd abortive, rooting hog <>><<> The soul of this man is his clothes <>><<> Quintessence of dust <>><<> Canker-blossom <>><<> Poisonous bunch-back'd toad

A fusty nut with no kernel <>><<> Foot-licker <>><<> Lewdly inclin'd <>><<> Beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave <>><<> Thou art a boil, a plague sore

And I saved these, my favorites, for last. Think Nancy Pelosi, or the terrorists she so earnestly endeavors to champion:

False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand <>><<> Highly fed and lowly taught <>><<> Not so much brain as ear wax <>><<> All eyes and no sight <>><<> Anointed sovereign of sighs and groans

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As you were.

The Art Of Going Rogue

Last Saturday I very nearly was ejected from an art museum. True story.

In celebration of Mother's Day, my mother, TG, three of our four children, and I paid rather dearly for the privilege of experiencing Turner to Cézanne ... an "important" collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings appearing briefly at the Columbia Museum of Art.

(Whether the exhibit was in actuality important is something I will leave to the experts. I am a mere dilettante; most of the art on my walls came from Hobby Lobby.)

It was enough for me that there were a couple of Renoirs (most notably La Parisienne, pictured above), a few Monets, a sprinkling of Millets, one or two Cézannes, and a single van Gogh (Rain - Auvers, 1890).

That morning I awoke anticipating what was sure to be a delirious rush of endorphins induced by concentrated and purposeful exposure to high artistic culture. I got dolled up and wore a big straw hat to lend myself what I hoped was a sophisticatedly bohemian cachet.

Just like when I go to Wal-Mart.

Not being any stripe of a shrinking violet, however, my cover might have been blown early on. Story of my life ... also true, as is any self-respecting life story.

I became captivated by a Daumier depicting a shepherdess.

Having arrived at the museum in the late morning, our little gang ran a gauntlet of smiling volunteers spaced every few dozen feet, walked upstairs, relinquished our tickets, and entered the hushed gallery.

We were provided with no art-viewing tutorial of any variety before gaining access to the actual pictures we had collectively forked over eighty-seven dollars to see. You'll need to remember those little details.

Apparently it pays to look as though you know what you're doing. Or maybe not.

The first thing we noticed was that all of the magnificent mid- to late-nineteenth century oil paintings were framed behind glass. Just like my stuff from Hobby Lobby!

(Tacky. Make that über-tacky. Although I have never been across the puddle, never darkened the doorways of the Tate or the Louvre, I have visited a couple of tonier museums stateside in my day -- including Chicago's Art Institute and the National Gallery -- and glass in the frames was a first for me.)

Part of my considerable excitement in viewing these paintings was the prospect of being able to clearly see the brushstrokes made by temperamental geniuses many decades before I was born. Glass makes that impossible. You could be looking at a poster ... from Hobby Lobby.

But because we had no choice, we suspended disbelief and attempted to look past the glass to the beautiful artworks within. Not so difficult, as it turned out ... and at times downright delightful.

We had passed from the first room of pictures to the second (of six) when it happened.

I became captivated by a Daumier depicting a shepherdess accompanied by -- wait for it! -- sheep, and a sheepdog. They were just sort of moseying down a lane (as they do), but the sheep were rather marvelously rendered, in my opinion.

Two sheep in particular instantly became dear to me, and by this time my mother had come alongside, and I was exclaiming over the detail of one sheep's cute face when I did it: I pointed at the sheep so that my mom would have no doubt which one I meant.

And when I did, my index finger came within, oh, three inches of the GLASS.

Baaaaaad.

Suddenly we were made to feel like criminals.

Faster than you can say drop cloth, he she it was by my side. I mean no disrespect (sort of), but honestly, folks, it makes me nervous when I cannot readily discern -- i.e. at a glance -- whether a person is male or female.

In my view, androgyny is even tackier than oil paintings hidden behind glass. There; I've said it and I'm not sorry.

Said Genderless Museum Muscle began to chide me for failing to maintain a proper distance between my person and the painting.

"But I never touched it," I said. "All I did was point, and I can't hurt it by pointing. I paid to see the pictures and I'm going to look at the pictures!" I may have gotten a tad bit animated, as is my wont when I am being harassed.

I think I let it be known, Garbo-esque, that I preferred to be left alone ... a faint wish that fell on deaf ears.

"But you got closer than twelve inches," it iterated. Then, ominously: "The cameras."

The cameras? The cameras what? The cameras are on? The cameras like sheep? The cameras can't see past my hat? The cameras aren't into androgyny any more than I am?

We may never know. The sexually ambiguous culture bouncer retreated to a doorway and commenced surveilling me the way a great big crow eyeballs doggy kibble served al fresco. Waiting, no doubt, for me to go all renegade recidivist and POINT MY FINGER AT A GLASSED CANVAS AGAIN.

Funny ... when the Columbia Museum of Art strategically placed massive LED billboards all over town touting the importance of this exhibit, clearly they wanted us to take careful notice of that.

When we visited their website in order to discern the who-what-where-when-how-and-how-much of this event, it was obvious they wanted us to absorb that information.

When TG opened his wallet and handed them his credit card to purchase the tickets, they accepted with alacrity and, I have no doubt, have already spent the money.

But when we presented ourselves at the museum and were ENJOYING the actual paintings, suddenly we were made to feel like criminals. Like unwashed and unrepentant boors who, with our very eyebeams and the nearness of our index fingers, were capable of doing irreparable harm to the artwork ... not to mention the delicate psyches of watchdogs both electronic and eunuch-ey.

I even pointed a few more times.

I daresay when Renoir, van Gogh, Daumier, Corot, Millet, Monet, Manet, Bevan, Smith, Cézanne, Pissarro, Whistler, Turner -- and countless other brilliant artists -- conceived, dreamt of, studied for, executed, perfected, agonized over, and ruined their hands and eyesight in order to give birth to these breathtaking works, the very least they hoped for was that the pictures would someday hang on a wall and that someone would LOOK -- REALLY LOOK -- AT THEM.

And maybe even get all excited, and lean in, and point out a precious detail, and share it with their mother, on the day before Mother's Day ... or any other day.

Imagine me getting all bent out of shape if a total stranger had the temerity to openly admire my children ... my masterpieces. Not going to happen.

To quote one of my four great works, namely my astute daughter, Audrey: "If they didn't want us to look at them up close, they should have put them behind a barrier."

True. But I'm glad they didn't. Because if they had, I would have missed the moment -- however fleeting! -- when I connected with the face of a dumb animal painted a century ago by a spectacularly gifted and passionately creative human being.

And although I'm sure the museum employee profiled me as a potentially dangerous Rude Rudy, a would-be art terrorist, someone from whom the paintings needed to be defended, I am glad to report that I continued leaning in, and I even pointed a few more times.

Did not the legendary Diana Vreeland maintain that elegance is refusal?  She did.  And so, elegant or not, I refused to stop admiring, noticing, experiencing, emoting, considering, searching, gleaning, wondering, gasping, and appreciating.

In the end, despite opposition both active and passive, you'll be gratified to learn that we got our money's worth. And not just somehow, but triumphantly.

Then we partook of a lovely late lunch at my favorite restaurant, where we laughed and talked and whiled away the afternoon.

In many ways it was priceless.