Ugh. So, I can't keep up with an ACEOp fable a day with my current work schedule. I'll continue doing them, but I'm going to be far behind the Mrs. Sorry to disappoint the two or three of you who were interested.

TENTH ACEOp Fable:

THE CROW AND THE FOX

Summary:
Crow steals cheese, flies to tree to eat it. Fox sees her, says, "hey, you're looking mighty fine, yo. All sexy like. Too bad you can't speak." Crow opens mouth to prove him wrong, drops cheese, fox gets the snack.

Moral:
Don't be a sucker for flattery.

My take:
I think the crow knew what the fox was up to. She decided to throw him a bone (or cheese, if you will), in gratitude for the compliment. Plus, she probably figured the cheese would add unwanted weight to her sexy figure.

Here's the wife's take.

NINTH ACEOp Fable:

THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN

Summary:
Ass goes around wearing a lion's skin, scaring the local animals. Fox isn't scared, because he sees the donkey ears poking out and hears the "hee-haw."

Moral:
Don't get suckered into fearing fraudsters.

My take:
One word. Politicians. Every single last one of them. I'll say no more, so as not to alienate potential bidders.

Here's the wife's take.

EIGHTH ACEOp Fable:

THE STAR-GAZER

Summary:
Dude falls into a ditch while looking at the stars instead of where he's going.

Moral:
Dream all you want, cold, hard reality will be there to catch you when you fall.

My take:
This one makes me think of the Pixies lyric,
With your feet in the air, your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind

I'm extra fond of this one, so I'm going to charge a little more. Look at those great feet!

Anyway, having been beaten down by life, I am definately with Aesop on this one. Star-gazing is great and all, but only after rent is paid. Man, I'm cranky.

Here's the wife's take.

SEVENTH ACEOp Fable:

THE CROW AND THE PITCHER

Summary:
You know this one. The crow is thirsty, there's water in a pitcher, but not enough for the crow to reach it. So the crow drops in some pebbles to raise the water level to a drinkable height.

Moral:
Uh, smart people are never thirsty, I guess.

My take:
The crow in this fable is female. The wife points out to me that if this were a male crow, he'd get his head stuck in the pitcher and then parade around, proud of his accomplishment. In this case, I have to agree.

Here's the wife's take.

SIXTH ACEOp Fable:

THE CRAB AND HIS MOTHER

Summary:
Crab mom tells crab kid to walk straight. The kid laughs at her hypocrisy.

Moral:
Don't be a hypocrite. Or maybe, don't deny your true nature.

My take:
This is the age-old battle between free will and determinism. Could the crab ever walk straight? That's not for me to say. I'm sure some crabs try to learn, though. Just like some humans try to get along with each other.

The wife's take.

FIFTH ACEOp Fable:

THE BOYS AND THE FROGS

Summary:
Boys throw stones at frogs for enjoyment. Frogs say, yo, dude, this activity may be fun for you, but it's killing us. That's it. The whole fable.

Moral:
What's fun for you might have bad consequences for others.

My take:
If the frogs were well armed, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm thinking payback. Give the frogs appropriate weapons, like guns and machetes, and the boys will will have to find other means of amusement.

The wife's take.

New stuff from artclass:

DEAD TREE

This one is my favorite one so far. I feel like I'm starting to get it. This of course means I'm about to enter a phase of great self-doubt and murky depression.

MODIGLIANNI-ISH FACE

I like the jaundice look in this one. I could have titled it LIVER FAILURE.

FAMILIAR STILL LIFE

Obviously, there's a limit to the prop budget for the class. That shouldn't matter, though. It should make progress (or regress/anti-gress) more noticeable.

Don't read Band Books - listen to their music!!!

What? Oh. Banned Books. Carry on, then. But I gotta say, I'm a little skeptical about how serious a threat these "hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools" are. Sounds more like a way to boost sales of 1984 to me. That's a book which I have no intention of ever reading again. Why read it when I'm living it?

I should note that fellow google-linker Steven Chabot makes note of google's hypocrisy, given their whole China brou-ha-ha. Me, I'm just too busy making sure I touch my toes the way Big Brother likes to worry about such things.

PS more ACEOps on the way - I have to do an image of a hypocrite (that word twice in one post? Yup, guess so) crab, a crow with a pitcher, and now a stargazer in the ditch. Where d0es the time go?

WINDOW

I'm playing around with light in this one. Not exactly a Vermeer, but you get the idea.

I imagine this guy is in solitary confinement, with one small window high above providing the only light. His crime? probably unpaid parking tickets.

Or maybe he's a prisoner... IN HIS OWN MIND. Dude.

OR - I think this is the one - he's just going through initiation for a fraternity. You know, that fraternity where they lock you in a room, naked, with one small window way up high. Yeah. College is important.

JUNGLE JELLY MAN

No story here. This is just an image of one of the pieces of jewelry you can find over at nutmegnine.com.

ACEOp FABLE NUMBER FOUR:

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

Grasshopper gives Ant a hard time for working all summer. Winter comes, Ant is living off it's labors while Grasshopper is starving to death. Ant says too bad, so sad, I'm eating all the food you wish you had.

Aesop moral: Work if you want to eat.

My moral: Can't really argue with that one, except to say that life is short. Especially for bugs. Well, most bugs. Don't work too hard. Here's an image of Ant on his deathbed, and let me assure you he is NOT wishing he had spent more time at the office.

And here's the wife's take.

ACEOp NUMBER THREE:

THE DOG AND THE WOLF

Wolf wants to eat the dog sleeping outside the stable, dog wakes up and says I'm to skinny, come back after I've had a big feast. Wolf says true-dat, leaves and comes back later. The dog is on the roof, the wolf says "get down here, dinner!" and the dog says, "You can eat me if I'm sleeping where you can get me."

Aesop's Moral: Be like the dog and learn from your mistakes.

My moral: If your dinner is talking, you can bet he's going to lie to you. I'll ignore the odd animal choice here (as Iris
asks, why is a wolf wanting to eat a dog when there are probably chickens on the farm?), and point out the other side of the story. The wolf has mouths to feed, and now this poor cub will probably starve to death. Thanks, dog.

This is probably the only good argument against cannibalism: if your meal can talk to you, chances are he'll make excuses that will delay and perhaps deny you the calories you need to make it in this wolf-too-stupid-to-eat-dog world we live in.

SPEAKING OF TERRORISM DETERRENTS...

It's that time of year again, when we reflect on 9-11 and how that day confirmed all of our political/religious beliefs, regardless of what they are. Well, I'm here to stop all that. You see, I'm going to invent a time machine that will take me back to that day. I'm also going to invent a pill that will increase my size. Sort of like Enzyte, but for my whole body. Hopefully my clothes will grow in direct proportion. If not, I'll contact the folks at that Big N' Tall clothing company and commission them to hook me up with some gargantuan threads. There I'll be, all Gulliver-in-Lilliput-ish, catching the planes in my hands. It's a perfect plan, so long as I can eventually get back down to normal size.

What, you think it's impractical? Maybe you're right. Banning shampoo from airplanes and turning this country into the USSR is a MUCH better idea.

Yo-Yo's: The new terrorism deterrent.

I figured that out by using this. Here's the link to the source of my theory.

No need for thanks - money will do nicely.

2nd ACEOp Fable:

THE BOY AND THE WOLF

You know this one. Shepherd boy runs into town, saying there's a wolf. He's lying, of course. He laughs, the populace get's irritated. This happens two more times. The fourth time, there is a wolf, and no one believes the kid. All the sheep get eaten. Moral: Don't cry wolf unless there is a wolf. My only problem with this one is the notion that people will stop believing the wolf-criers. People love to be scared, because it gives them an excuse to hate people (or wolves?) they don't like.

I don't know why the boy in the picture is so... voluptuous. Artistic license, I guess.

My hand makes an encore for the sake of perspective:

UPDATE: What perfect timing! Illustration Friday's theme this week is "farm." Who doesn't love a two-fer?

First ACEOp Fable:

THE FARMER AND HIS SONS

My summary: dying father tricks his sons, saying there's something special buried in the vineyard. In reality, he just wanted them to till the field, which they did unintentionally while digging around. It's supposed to be a moral about the value of hard work. I just don't understand why the father couldn't just say, "hey. Till the field. The grapes will grow better." I guess you could say the sons were lucky, in that most get-rich quick schemes don't deliver. At least they turned a profit, albeit inadvertantly.

Anyway, here's one of the sons digging around. The other one is off on a Pepsi break.

In order to give you perspective of the size of an ACEO, I introduce:

MY HAND

ART INSPIRED BY NEW GOOGLE FEATURE

The wife reports on her blog about a cool new google feature: Google Book Search. They now have "full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace." Good thing, as I'm a slow reader. Here's the official announcement.

Back to the wife, and the purpose of this post, is that she's decided to do an Aesop fable a day and give her take on it. The first one is already up, and is, I must say, a good read.

But that's not all: I've been a little lax on the art lately, what with the new job and all. I've been suffering a little bit of painter's block. To move that obstacle out of the way, I'm going to paint an aceo to go with each story. The first one will be "The Farmer And His Sons."

Stay tuned.

IT: Inspired By Design

This is an image of a very rare Zebra-Striped Chalupa Tulip. So rare, in fact, that it doesn't exist. Yet. I could design it, were I so inclined (and gifted).











Tulips are among the most un-natural plants on earth. Take a look through a garden catalog:

Do you think most, if any, of those plants would exist without human intervention? Wait, don't think. I'll tell you. No. No they wouldn't.

Humans aren't the only animal that designs their environment. All organic material leaves a footprint (don't tell the Sierra Club). Usually it's done in a trial-by-fire method. We're just now starting to understand how design at the DNA level works. The more we can understand, the more we can control the outcome.

One human who is good at this is Norman Borlaug. Next time you hear talk of Frankenfoods, be midfull of the fact that Frankenfoods prevented mass-starvation.

I'm inspired by those who are designing the building blocks of life, who bring us beauty and save millions of lives.

IF: SAFE

Only about 1/3 of bunnies born live until the next breeding season. Ain't Mother Nature nice? This is what pops into my head when people extole the virtues of "natural" things. If it's not cruel, violent, and unfair, it's not natural.

Happy-Daisy (HD for short), our dog pictured here, was abandoned for whatever reason at a park in Reidsville. Mother Nature had tragic plans for her. She was picked up by a kind individual, who gave her to us. She has cost us a lot of money and time. And yet, we consider her a family member. Our most recent common ancestor was millions of years ago - how un-natural is that? HD does nothing to ensure our DNA gets to survive another generation. We just enjoy her company.

Anyway, HD, you're with us now. You're safe.