Past Blogs

“Do you know what a grawlix is?” a young relative recently asked me.

“I certainly don’t, but I would like to know,” was my reply.

“Well”, he said, “it’s the name for those funny symbols cartoonists use in place of swear words.”

He and I are both hard core readers, and we were delighted to acquire this new word which he had come across in a witty young adult book he had been reading.

My curiosity piqued, I decided to find out more about the grawlix. The word was invented by Mort Walker, the cartoonist who created Beetle Bailey. In 1980 he wrote a book, The Lexicon of Comicana. Intended as a satire, the book explores the devices cartoonists use in their drawings. After researching cartoons from around the globe, Walker catalogued a set of symbols he calls  “symbolia”. Then he invented quirky names for the symbols.

One day in a book store, Mort was looking for his book and couldn’t find it. He asked a salesperson for help and was told his book was in the “Language” section. He had been looking for his book under “Humor”. The joke was on him: his satirical book was taken seriously and his tongue in check names are now found in dictionaries.

Here are a few samples of his witty word inventions.

Agitrons: wiggly lines around a shaking object or character

Blurgits, swalloops: Curved lines preceding or trailing after a character’s moving limbs

Briffits: Clouds of dust that hang in the spot of a swiftly departing character or object.

Plewds: Flying sweat droplets that appear around a character’s head when working hard or stressed.

A rainbow must have been overhead on the day Vera Neumann was born. This iconic mid-century artist’s scarves are explosions of color and design.  She is also famous for making wearable art affordable in an age when the term “wearable art” didn’t exist. “Color is the language I speak best,” she said.

Born to Russian immigrant parents in Stanford, Connecticut in 1907, Vera was given art lessons as a child and taken to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art every Sunday. Her father gave her 50 cents for every sketchbook she filled. After graduating from Cooper Union and Traphagen School of Design, Vera began her career designing children’s furniture and murals.

The perfect alchemy occurred when Vera married George Neumann. His family was in the textile business, and together they created their company, Printex. Beginning with placemats which they silk screened on the dining room table in their small apartment, the company flourished.

The outbreak of World War II brought fabric shortages. Vera began experimenting with parachute silk which was available at army surplus stores. The scarves she created are now part of design history.

Vera was an astoundingly prolific artist. Using a Japanese sumi brush, she painted designs filled with bold colors, movement and spontaneity. Subject matter ranged from flowers, fruits,vegetables, butterflies and leaves to geometric designs. In addition to her scarves, other products with her trademark signature of “Vera” followed by a ladybug include sheets, towels, table cloths and napkins, dishes and casual clothing. Her mission was to produce one print a day which explains why her archive encompasses 7,000 designs.

When I was thirteen years old, I was thrilled to find a Vera blouse marked down to a dollar…..definitely within my budget. I happily still wear that blouse and my collection of Vera treasures continues to grow. I check out the scarves in every antique and thrift store I visit and sometimes I find a vintage Vera. That is a rainbow day!

Elephant mothers don’t get cards, flowers or presents on Mother’s Day, but they definitely deserve them. Mammal mothers are all stellar (compared to snake moms, for example), but the female pachyderms all should receive a huge bouquet of carrots for exceptional mothering.

Female elephants have the longest gestation of any animal…..22 months. Then, while still standing up, they deliver their 300 pound babies. Fortunately, each mother takes one or two “nurse” elephants with her to a secluded spot for the birth, and, again fortunately, twins are extremely rare.

The big baby is helped to its feet and soon starts nursing. Each day, 10 gallons of milk are consumed and 2 pounds of weight are gained. To produce this much milk, the new mothers have to eat copious amounts of food. Younger female elephants called allomothers baby sit for the calves so the cows can forage.

Elephants are not born with loads of instinctual behaviors. They do not even know what to do with those peculiar trunks that keep getting in the way. Some of the babies suck on their trunks the same way human babies suck their thumbs. All the females in these matriarchal herds teach the babies the skills necessary to survive. The ladies also fight off lions, hyenas and other formidable predators.

Baby elephants are walking from birth, so tending them is like having instant toddlers. The calves fall in ditches, wander off and get stuck in mud. Every mom takes responsibility for all the babies. The herd is a child care cooperative.

Calves aren’t fully weaned for five or six years. Boys continue to stay in the herd until they are young teenagers. The girls never leave home. The herd is one big girl party; mothers, daughters, aunts and cousins.

I recently completed a big elephant art unit for many first and second graders. We talked about science facts like the ones above. We also saw examples of how people in India decorate their elephants for special holidays and parades. The kids resulting art work was pure joy.

To find spring in Wisconsin, a scavenger hunt is necessary. Swelling buds and returning birds are present, but discovering them takes patience, persistence and luck.

Spring in the southeastern states is an entirely different scenario. The season sweeps in like a diva who is delightfully in your face. Everything that can flower seems to be doing so simultaneously. The woods are snowing dogwood blossoms, azaleas line yards and walks, magnolia flowers are gigantic and wisteria are dripping like huge purple raindrops. Flowering redbud trees line the Interstates for miles with their lacy, lavender flowers. Subtlty is not practiced here.

Anyone weary of an endless northern winter can get a head start on spring by taking a road trip south. In a mere five hour drive recently we went from 34 degrees and not a leaf in sight to 65 degrees and blooming daffodils.

However, our most dramatic spring happened in the southwest. We had flown from Wisconsin on a frigid, snowy April day and landed in Albuquerque at night. A snowstorm had just come down from the mountains and blanketed the city. “1,430 miles and no spring,” we moaned.

The next morning the famous New Mexico sun came up and big clumps of snow started dropping off the trees. By 10:00 AM the snow was all gone and we realized to our delight that every flowering tree was in splendid full bloom. Divas do like grand entrances.

Scary reports about drones frequently pop up in the news causing many people to think of all drones as sinister military weapons. But not all drones are mercenaries.

Thirty years ago, I came home to find a drone flying around in my living room. Since my husband and son were flying it, I wasn’t the least bit scared. I did, however, strongly suggest that the outdoors might be a better place to fly their remote control helicopter.

My husband has built many of these remote control aircraft over the years. They are tricky to build and even trickier to fly. On more than one occasion, he would return from a flight with a sad expression on his face and drone pieces in a bucket.

We were recently visiting the famous zig zag Lombard Street in San Francisco when a little darting drone appeared overhead. ”It’s taking pictures,” my husband noted. Later we saw the drone make a perfect landing on a nearby sidewalk.

Not all drones are this lucky. I recently found this hilarious item in Dutch News. So if you fear drones, just get yourself a chimp.

Chimp Attacks Drone Flying Over Dutch Zoo

Officials at Burgers Zoo in Arnhem found out to their cost how intelligent chimps are, when one knocked a drone which was filming the apes’ enclosure out of the sky.

The drone was being used to make footage for a television programme but did not go down well with one of the inhabitants. Once the drone had been spotted, the primates armed themselves with long sticks, the zoo reports on its website.

One chimp, a 23-year-old female called Pushi, was sitting in a high tree when the drone came buzzing by.

She managed to swipe it with the stick, causing it to fall to the ground. The chimps then proceeded to dismantle the spy plane, which kept on filming during the process, the zoo said.

Zoo spokesman Bas Lukkenaar told USA TODAY Network it was no surprise that Pushi was the ‘main perpetrator’.

‘Some are good at throwing and others only produce poor shots and Pushi is a very clever and capable chimpanzee,’ he said.

Click here to watch the video.

The Above Article Was Found at DutchNews.nl April 14, 2015