Nice Work

Oh, that Ricky Raccoon! The silly fellow is pretending to show off “his” Smith & Wesson .22 target pistol, but it’s not really his. Ricky snatches everything that isn’t nailed down and many things that are. The .22 belongs to me.

This is the pistol I used the other day when I took my daughter shooting at the range. Liz wielded a Beretta Neo .22. You may call it a toy, but many a paper target was quaking in fear that day. Don’t mess with the Liz.

Me, I was pleased with my own paper-punching. I just love that S&W. Although I had not practiced in a long, long time I was still able to entirely remove the ten-rings from my targets. Heh.

Naturally, I studied the other shooters and gauged their skill. I came to the same conclusion I always do: the skill of the shooter is in inverse proportion to the toughness of his appearance. The men who affect a hard-guy look — the swagger, the backwards cap, the muscle tees — make a lot of banging but present no danger to their intended targets — to everything else around them, yes, but not to their targets. The real marksmen inevitably look like vacationing dentists. Neat, centered, patient, relaxed, innocuous.

Liz and I brunched at our favorite IHOP yesterday and perused the local paper. A forkful of cheese blintz stopped halfway in its transit when I spotted this thrilling headline:

Could it be true? Dare I hope? Has Narnia broken through to our drab world?

A quick search through the paper revealed nothing about centaurs, dryads or fauns. Maybe they’ve emerged stealthily, or maybe they are waiting to see how things work out for the giants. Who knows? Nice Work will keep you updated on this exciting mythopoeic development.

My daughter reports the following dialogue. A five year old boy was conversing with his mom yesterday. At top volume, too — even though the playlet took place across the street in front it still came in loud and clear through the second floor window in back where Liz transcribed it at this computer. Figure about 75 decibels. (A diesel truck is about 84db.)

Boy: “Hey, Mo-o-o-om?”
Mom: “Ye-e-e-e-s?”
Boy: [After a suspenseful pause] “What’s your favorite sport?”
Mom: “To play, or to watch?”
Boy: [Annoyed at having to state the obvious] “To PL-A-A-AY!”
[Long pause while she considers]
Mom: “Umm … GOLF.”
Boy: [Vehemently] “I can play golf!”
Mom: “Oh, yeah?”
Boy: [Dripping with scorn] “Tsch. Of course. It’s easy!”
Mom: “Well, it doesn’t seem so easy for Tiger Woods.”
Boy: [Con brio] “It’s easy for ME! Watch me. WATCH ME PLAY GOLF!”

Ha! I’m looking forward to moving to L.A., but that kid-talk is the sort of thing I’m going to miss. In California children are illegal.

Moving house gives me sad. I’m convinced the real reason Satan prefered to “reign in hell” over serving in heaven had nothing to do with hubris: he just couldn’t face another realtor.

Robert le Pieux couldn’t stand it either. He wanted to stay put. In this detail from Jean-Paul Laurens’ famous painting of the Relocation of Robert le Pieux, we see the tenth century French monarch moaning with his wife, Berthe of Burgundy. The thought balloon is a later addition.

Me, I’m with Berthe. Someone is coming over in about an hour to take pictures of our current shack. No time to play with my little friends on the Web. Sorry to leave you in the lurch, kids, but here’s a good site for you to enjoy while I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Assessors: Dirty Harry’s Place is fun and opinionated and loaded with movie stills. You will thank me.

Can it really be June 21st already! The solstice has come and gone. The days are growing shorter, the nights longer. The wicked north wind begins to swell its chest and prepares to hurl Canadian snow against our frail huts. Soon the world will look like this photo Liz took one dreadful night last December:

Oh, wait. I forgot. We’ll be in southern California before long. We won’t huddle in fear while the scary trees of winter creep in to surround us and try to frighten us away with their muttered threats and whispered warnings of doom. Those gnarled elms, embittered by the Dutch pandemic, can murmur and hiss all they want: they have no power in L.A.. There, under clear skies, we shall be serenaded by the merry avocados and friendly pistachios.

In the meantime, as the gloom gathers here in the upper Midwest, we must dispel the darkness by manufacturing our own happiness. And what better way than by not going to the movies?

The selection of films to skip makes it hard to choose. How about Get Smart? Not all that funny as a TV sitcom; nor likely to improve with super-sizing. Can a feature length My Mother the Car be far behind?

And look: another Mike Meyers comedy… Oh, never mind. It’s gone.

Guess we’ll have to read a… a… you know, one of those things you read.

I started another Web Log today. It’s called Kevin Atherton’s Drawings and that’s all that it is or ever will be.

Here’s what its header looks like:

The first post at the new web log sets out the why’s and wherefor’s, so I won’t go into all that here. I’ll only say that Nice Work was originally meant to be a showcase for my professional work, but it’s gotten so far off that track it will never return. I can’t even find the Mission Statement.

Which is fine. I’m going to continue to use Nice Work as my Sword of Truth and Justice, while Kevin Atherton’s Drawings will be my online portfolio. Two completely separate projects.

The die is cast. We are moving ourselves to California with whatever worldly goods remain after the garage sale. The garage sale is this weekend. You’re invited. Need a snow-blower?

What this means to the mini-industry that is Nice Work is anybody’s guess. Maybe nothing at all, considering how my illo work has been located in Cybercyberland these dozen years past.

Maybe quite a lot. Will my inner-Moondoggie succumb to lure of the surf? Might. Who knows? And Hollywood won’t be so far away either. Will I hear her siren song? You know, I’ve long nursed a secret dream to be a CGI. This might be my big break.

In the meantime, problems galore. Stuff to pack. Stuff to discard. Stuff to pack, move and then discard. And what about my guns? Are they even legal for non-rioters in L.A.? Will our earthquake insurance premiums go up? Will my high school Spanish prove serviceable after years of neglect except on Cinco de Mayo? Well, one thing at a time. And the first item on the agenda is procrastination.

Did you ever wonder how the kids’ novelty restaurant, Chuck E. Cheese, got its name?

The question never crossed my mind for even a second, but during a listless browsing of Thomas Cahill’s book, The Mysteries of the Middle Ages, I found out.

Amazingly, the name “Chuck E. Cheese” has its roots in 9th century France. It seems Charles the Bald, one of the early kings of France, was a big promoter of local agriculture. In particular he boosted the cheese industry, earning an everlasting place in the hearts of French dairymen. Indeed, cheese fanciers throughout Christendom sang his praises. Among those satisfied nibblers was Pope Adrian II who bestowed on Charles the title, “Emperator Caseoli.”

Charles’ name frequently appeared on coins and portraits abbreviated as “Carolus E. Caseoli” which, Americanized, becomes “Charles E. Cheese.”

Fast forward to 1984. Restauranteur Nolan Bushnell was in the middle of reorganizing his bankrupt “Showtime Pizza.” He needed a catchy new name. He just happened to pick up a used copy of Cahill’s book and saw the picture reproduced above. For some reason — he can’t explain it — his first thought was, “Chuck, you dirty rat!” The rest is dining history.

Nice Work did not go to the movies again this weekend. Instead we enjoyed a nice Father’s Day Brunch at the Milwaukee Art Museum. As we noshed we glanced around Santiago Calatrava’s soaring, light-filled Windhover hall, but we didn’t see any comics-to-movie CGI exercises, certainly none involving rampaging green giants. Sailboats on Lake Michigan, yes. Container ships, yes. Outside: skaters, bicyclists, strollers. Inside: musicians, other brunchers. But no mass destruction despite my best efforts at the buffet table.

So we didn’t see The Wonderful Hulk and have nothing to say about it. Which puts us ahead of all those pitiable movie reviewers who did see The Wonderful Hulk and still have nothing to say about it. Poor kids. Forced to compare and contrast with Ang Lee’s earlier version, or with — God help them — Iron Man. We raise our Father’s Day flute of champagne in a toast: Better You Than Me!

Here’s a painting that hangs behind the LCD screen on which I write:

It’s from ‘92. I was happily working as a full-time dad and eking out Toys-R-Us money (during Naptime) by designing ads and booklets and brochures and whatnot in my basement studio with the aid of a fax machine (!) and the fledgling Internet. Back then I had to explain to ADs how to receive a file over the phone. Imagine! Naptime also provided opportunities, hastily grabbed, to knock out some paintings, including the one reproduced above.

A viewing of Kurosawa’s Sanjuro some years previous had sent me off on a Japanese kick and I was scribbling kanji all over the place. The script here reads “seiko” which means “success.” The katakana on the left is my name sounded out. Hope it doesn’t mean anything awful in Japanese like “how foolish the emperor looks in his outlandish garb.” If so, I sincerely apologise to the hundreds of Shintoists who, inexplicably, gravitate to this web log.