BIG ORANGE FUZZY IN THE NAVEL

My pal Benji, and many of you know my pal Benji, was asking for funny potential band names the other day.
Twas a very good time, as many of you know.
So, I am heading into the shower today and peel off my sweater and thermal undershirt (GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER ladies) and notice my orange-red thermal has left a bright fuzzy in my navel (GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER everybody) and I call out to the wife
"There's a big orange fuzzy in the navel" like it is the 8th wonder of the world and she comes running to see (GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER EVERYBODY) and I briefly remember Benji's game, and write it down. So I can post it. As I do with every silly thing in my life.
Back to the frigid north: I just walked Penny over to our post office (we have no mail delivery in our town, you have to go get it)(yes, it is a DINKY town) and you can see Penny on the bridge over the river, looking at the river behind my house, and then the PO itself. I put her back into the house and shoveled snow, and realized that I had to use the roof rake for the first time in a couple of years. My southern friends probably cannot imagine it, but garages and buildings will collapse under the weight of accumulated snow, esp. when you are talking about the old shack that is our garage (seen in the far background behind me). A roof rake is a really long handled shovel so you can stand on the ground and reach up and pull snow down.

le dawgs...

The wife works with 2 super nice people and we wanted to give them a new year's gift of flowers, and you know potters. We are always giving people pots. I made the blue green vase for Julie and for Chris who has a golden retriever, the brown dog vase. One of my favorite pots from 2009 matches her vase and so I pictured those together too, 2 happy brown dawgs....
Our weather report is for snow. I do not think we will drive 100 plus miles tonight in the snow to the TV studio for the awards party. It has not been as snowy as it could be, but we get a few inches every day and it has piled up and is an icy mess.
The artist documentary I mentioned yesterday that I am to be part of is supposed to include interviews and more parties and openings later on, so I don't mind giving tonight a miss....


(vases by Gary Rith)
Let's dig some cursive....

go with the SPAGHETTI BURRITO

I made this tomato sauce with veggies last night and the yummy vegan raviolis, and you know, there was a little left over for lunch. Frequent readers will remember that I will toss anything into a tortilla, like spaghetti. In this case, I added bean dip, rice cheese, salsa and habanero sauce and warmed 'em up. Holy cats that is TASTY.
The wife calls earlier and she is like "I want burritos for dinnah" and I am thinkin' we could go with the potato burrito and some beers....
and man, check out our ICICLES huh?

ME: ready for prime time?

Everybody yesterday is like "Gary, you and your teapot are gonna be on TV?" and I am like
"well, yes, but its not the first time" which sounds like I am some kind of pro, or maybe just a little jaded. Or maybe I am simply full of baloney.
The story goes like this:
Laura emails last October "I need a piggy bank for a baby shower, can I visit your studio?" and Laura comes along on a Saturday afternoon, and my first thought, of course, is
"goodness, you're tall!" (I am a compact person myself, and find that I look up to most of the world) but I manage to keep my mouth shut and hopefully Laura is not reading this today, but if she is, I am telling the truth when I say she is the absolute best person and I am glad I met her.
Anyway, she chooses a piggy and mentions she works doing something arty for WSKG radio and TV and I, of course, say
"Oh! Me and my teapot were on your station back in 2007, I was interviewed live during the spring auction when my teapot was donated for fundraising" and Laura says
"I know, I was there, right by you, on the phone" and I am embarrassed, of course, because obviously I am one of those stars who forgets everybody they meet.
ANYWAY, turns out Laura is friends of some of my friends, Liz and Nicki (you have seen us partying with Nicki at the Chapterhouse happy hour) and later on I get another email from Laura, along with hundreds of other artists in upstate NY:
"WSKG is having a competition and traveling exhibit. There will be judges, and a certain number of items will be accepted, and from that group, there will be prize winners blablahblah"
Laura kept sending reminders, I kept forgetting about it, but just before the Dec 1 deadline I emailed in an app, with this teapot as my entry.
Laura emails on Dec 11
"the judges were very impressed! Here is the list of accepted entries" and mine was IN so I mailed my piece to the station and forgot about it.
Yesterday, Laura emails again:
"The winners! First place, blah blah, second, blah blah blah third place 3d--Gary Rith!"
And I am like "wow!"
And she goes on to say something like
"we will be filming the awards party Friday and somebody will arrange for your interview and then your pieces will go on a tour of upstate New York".
And I am like "party? Friday? Filming????? INTERVIEW??? What????"
I don't know any more yet, but this link has the full announcement. Sadly, the studio is over an hour away and we may be having a nasty snow storm Friday...I dunno if I can make that party although I should try hard.

"what am I going to do without Penny????"

There is a big old mill building on the corner, now used for about ten apartments. It is clean and tidy and filled with friendly working people, all of whom we have met are very nice.
The nature of our village is that our house on Main St does not have sidewalks and walking the dogs to the north is a bad idea. Because our old street, once for horses, is a state highway now, covered with trucks. But if we walk the dogs south, we get to move off the road and see all the scenery, and that means that every time we walk the dogs we go past these apartments. Several times a day. I would wonder if people think I am crazy or have nothing better to do than walk past their building, but as I say, everybody has always been very nice, especially since our old dog Buster is very friendly, and Penny the beagle is probably the most friendly dog you have ever met. She meets you and she yelps with joy and rolls around, and she really DOES do the Snoopy dance for you, even in all this snow.
Yesterday a woman we see every day and who has cute pink boots and who adores Penny stopped to pet my happy dancing little beagle. She seems a little down on her luck, maybe even really down on her luck, and says with tears
"oh Penny what am I going to do without you? I am moving next month"

a wee bit o' boredom can lead you straight to ....

Idly hanging around on the internets and decide to enjoy the uber rockabilly punk Cramp's tune BIKINI GIRLS WITH MACHINE GUNS....

wee little display, part 3, at Aurora Arts and Design

My pal Dee last November was like
"Gary, you gotta meet Jacci, she's starting this new gallery in Aurora" and there were emails and it turned out I had met Jacci a couple of years ago, when she bought pots from me for her daughter, to celebrate her daughter's finally passing a driver's test. I would say a piggy mug is great incentive and reward, and the girl made it on the third try.
SO ANYWAY Aurora is this fab little town north of Ithaca, up Cayuga Lake a bit, and it has a little college and cute main street and such, and this is the former school bldg, tres gorgeous, right on the lake front.
I made my display yesterday, after Jacci and the gang said
"make it bright, colorful, wild" and after you saw me rummage around the garage, I got my display together and brightly painted.
The wife this morning is like
"this thing is still wet" and I am like "no no, its fine, really, it will be dry by the time I get there" and I arrive and Jacci is nearly hyperventilating with joy she loves my display so much (she is soooo nice, that's her down there in her photo studio) but then Jacci is like
"is this oil paint? It's still wet" and I am like "latex, its supposed to be sticky..." and I hide my hand which is purple and wasabi green....
Blah blah blah, did I mention my teapot won a BIG FAT PRIZE and I am gonna be on TV? Sorry to sound jaded, but, ahem, it is not the first time me and my teapots have been in TV (readers may remember 3 years ago) More on that later....
and there is our house, with the snow getting deeper and deeper...

wee little display, chapter 2

So as I was showing you yesterday, I need a display TODAY for a new gallery (more on that later) and I need the display now. Last night I had a wee drinkie poo and went down to the basement after dinner to finish it. At the suggestion of my crafty wife, I had taken old wooden wine crates and bolted them together into this space age configuration, then painted the whole mess with leftover paint from our house- which is purple with wasabi green accents. I was low on purple, but had a lot of wasabi green, and that makes up most of the display, with 2 purple shelves. Looks smashing, I think. At the top I had made an elephant to hold my name like a flag and a pig to hold my business cards, both of which have holes under so they can be screwed. Onto the shelf. Ahem.
There was also a knothole, and the missus suggested a clever little way to stuff it would be add a crabby clam....
the missus also noticed, ahem, that the, um, paint is still, you know, a little wet but I am loading and delivering it shortly....and I will get shots of it filled and displayed later.





VIVA VOCE: I heard this on the radio and I was like HOLY CATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A little like Charlatans UK, eh wot?

a wee little display project

..and a wintry looking pine cone.
I am part of a new gallery opening January 7, which is what, 2 days from now? I have lotsa potsa, but need a display.
I am one of those cheapo-look-around-the-garage types of guys, and the wife suggested turning these old wine boxes into this sort of space age type display. So I am down in the basement and got this thing together, looks great doesn't it? It fell over a moment after I took this pic, haha! Better now, so I can improve it, than covered with pots, eh?
Just painted it white. I refuse to buy new paint. I am now out of white paint. Can you guess what what I am going to paint this display now? STAY TUNED tomorrow.....

now that I have offended all of America...

Well, Taylor Drift fans anyway, how about some more wintry scenes? And here is the missus, with our houseguest Georges lurking over her shoulder, and then he went out to check the weather....

the irritations of POP and LITE ROCK

The newspaper tells me last week that American men listen to more lite rock than they care to admit. NO. Not in this household.
But you go to the store and there is Taylor Swift and that irritating song "your eyes have the smoke form the drift of a distant fire" or whatever that horrible 70s song was, and it bumps around in your head all day driving you NUTS. I am not sure why anybody would like it or Taylor Swift, but I will admit they are catchy. Go down in this post to scrub that out of your brain with a little RAMONES. Gabba Gabba hey.
In other news there are my dreams. Started the night, again, with a zombie dream. I was trying to smash a zombie face in with a chair and was glad to momentarily awake and find myself nose to nose with the beagle, then of course, I spent the rest of the night in Chicago--the most Parisian, Disneyfied Chicago you have ever seen. It was gorgeous and wonderful, not like the Chicago when I lived there, which was a lot more, you know, industrial.
Dig this wee teaset. Maybe the best thing you will see all day :)


(teaset by Gary Rith)

"you're not going to..."

"You're not going to take my picture are you?" asks the missus by which time it is already TOO LATE and I explain
"You look good from that angle, and I wanted to show all that snow blowing off the rooftop".
A little snowy here at our house this week. Maybe even a lot. I need to shovel again. Penny, of course, loves EVERYTHING in life (except other dogs, squirrels, bunnies...) and she loves playing in the snow. I don't think I would go sticking my face in it like she does though, and you can see that Spike would NEVER stick his head in the snow.

"too much time on his hands"

The wife's cousin from France, a man I absolutley consider a favorite relative and who reads this blog, told his wife who told my wife "he must have too much time on his hands" what with all the BS I blog and all. The wife hears this on the phone and sez
"plus he's got facebook and now his sock monkey has facebook too!".
I later explained to the missus that this misses the point, and how could she, as my bookeeper, forget?
A) it takes only minutes to post on FB or here and
B) over 50 percent of my business, according to the year end report she just compiled, stems from the internets
SO, my various cousins, real and imagined, friends, real and imagined, you have to see my devilishly clever formula:
Messing around online pays big bucks, yes it does, it only LOOKS like I am wasting everybody's time :)Speaking of wasting my time and my sock monkey Georges, Miri mentioned the other day that he looked cold out in the snow, where are his clothes? I found, amongst the wife's mess, some cheetah scraps. I got the scissors and made him this fetching scarf (you can see that later he made me a pizza as thanks) and I was rolling and had more cheetah fleece and lined my glasses case with the stuff--MEOWRRR!!!!!
I have asked the wife, who supposedly has more fleece somewhere, to make me a cheetah computer case. With ears.




Lately we are walking in the blowing snow with the dogs and me and the missus say that she is the hawt young Julie Christi and I am Omar Shariff in DR ZHIVAGO, which if you have seen it, features a sh!tload of blowing snow.....and a very catchy tune...

its not a blizzard but it is a bit dicey out there...

About ten degrees, super windy and snowy out there, has been for a couple of days, supposed to continue that way for ...... a few months I guess.
We live east of Lake Erie and south of Lake Ontario and both dump up to 200 inches of snow on upstate NY each year (more in some spots). It is totally ordinary and routine. Our summers are very nice. I am strong as an OX thanks to shoveling :)

the president needs ME

I just dipped my camera in my tea, it isn't even 6 on a Sunday yet, and you wonder why I am up. Me too.
Working backwards, it is very snowy outside again and the dogs were reluctant to go out, but its their toilet, so out they go. I was excited to get out of bed today because my wee little kiln was cokking yesterday and I knew I could unoad it early and it has beautiful BEAUTIFUL results and potters like to open a nice kiln load. Before that, of course, I was dreaming I was asked to be a special diplomatic asst, I swear I am not making this up, to the president in talks with the Koreans and Japanese over....beer exports. It was a very friendly and congenial meeting and I quite like the Koreans and Japanese who were super friendly, and I can tell you for certain, now that I have met the president in my dreams, I can tell you he inspires loyalty and confidence and is a great man. Good to know.
In other news, the wife has been most saint-like, and has spent a large part of her vacation mending my crapola. I cannot believe it. This one pair of my Levis has become a total art project. She has been adding a sweet colorful patch each year almost for 15 years. Quite motley. You know I have to bake her all the triple chocolate cookies she desires as a reward. AND do her duty with taking the dogs out in the PJs. In the snow. The woman who patches your jeans does NOT have to go out into the snow with the dogs for quite a few nights.
(one of these pairs of jeans, true story: I was sitting there teaching a pottery class at Cornell, and when you work on a wheel it is between your knees, your legs apart, and I looked down and wondered if I was seeing a hole developing in the jeans crotch. And a whole class looking on. Were they able to see my red undies? Was my willy safe from view?????? Let's just say they have a triple reinforced crotch panel now.)
We watched Cary Grant in THE AWFUL TRUTH last night, a comedy from 1937. You didn't remember I am a huge Cary Grant fan??? He was the absolute BEST, holy cats that was a funny movie, and with an amazing dog too.
OK, a couple of pots and then....






The Sweater Song--you MUST watch this...

a clever little gizmo

My SIL has a birthday coming up and this may blow a surprise, except she asked for it: a funnel filter for coffee and a cup. If I had been thinking more clearly, I think I would have had a tortoise and hare, but a tortoise and a pig makes sense if you think about it. Maybe it doesn't.....
So, you know, yesterday is all about finishing the new year's cleaning. I cleaned my third of 3 desks and it looks clean and I even started my sock drawer and realized I have so many argyle socks they can have their own drawer. Kinda k!nky, I know.....
AND it has been snowing a little every day and I realized yesterday that the wife had on purple pants, pink mitten and scarf and purplish hat and was near the pink flamingo, and I thought it a very pleasant contrast to the GLOOM of winter....







Lunch Lady Land...we lived in New Hampshire for many many years and Adam Sandler and Sarah Silverman both grew up near us in Manchester, attending the same high school with Adam a couple of years ahead of her. They are unusual in that you do not
often think of Jewish comedians growing up in New Hampshire, and in this case, lightening struck twice. SLOPPY JOES SLOP SLOP SLOPPY JOES....

let's talk New Year's day

(Spike surveys the mess and throws a few things on the floor to make his point)
New years in this house means CLEAN up. Like spring cleaning, but more, and inside. I was bad and lazy last year, so I gotta double sized pile on my desk. I have 3 desks actually, and yesterday cleaned the easy 2 out of 3. So I could feel successful. This desk though is like, impossible, but I'll try. Later.
So, you think RESOLUTIONS??? I have my private resoultions, which seem to be the same each year, and my public resolutions, and then my rejected resolutions.
Public resolution:
drink good whiskey, none o' that cheap stuff---I do well with this one each year
Rejected resolution:
keep my mouth shut--everybody sez I am more amusing when I blab my mouth, so why stop?
And forget it, the 3 private resolutions are PRIVATE and get your minds out of the gutter you filthy preverts, nothing like that....



Here are a couple of things out of the kiln this week---the black bowl has a very pleasing pattern I plan to use again and the black mug in particular has the kind of ridges I really like and that circle handle... tres good.


(pottery by Gary Rith)