I spent a good 15 minutes scanning the internets for James A. Peterson, and couldn’t find a single blessed thing. Any information would be appreciated. If any readers from Wharton, Texas have fond words for him, share them now. Because otherwise, this is all James A. Peterson (January 6, 1930-May 17, 1987) gets.

Which seems sad, somehow. Unless he really liked carnations. And cheap plastic paperweights. In which case, sure, sounds like a plan.

But if you DO think that a small puck with a flower in it, imprisoned in resin through the next millennium, is a fitting tribute, then, really, at least scrape the label off before giving it to the Salvation Army. Just a friendly suggestion. No-one ever says, “Oh, this is perfect! Barbara’s kicked off 26 years ago, and SHE was born in 1930 and died in 1987. Barbara will love this! I can just scrape off the name!”

Of course, then you realize that this was another fine Jan and Nadine production.

And that name is NEVER coming off, because it’s on a piece of scotch tape, permanently embedded in its half-assed, slightly misprinted glory, just under the surface of the resin, FOREVER.

I tried to find anything I could about Jan and Nadine’s specialty shop. The little town of Wharton, TX is pretty silent about them. In fact, of this entire mess, really, only Wharton exists. The only logical conclusion is that Jan and Nadine are some sort of fly-by-night scam, manufacturing cheap resin mementos about some alleged James A. Peterson (1930-1987), donating them to thrift shops as some sort of massive tax dodge. Nothing else makes any sense at all.

Salvation Army on 1325, Round Rock, Texas

Something went powerful wrong at the cat factory last week.

It wasn’t every day that the corpses of dead cats lurched to their feet in a stumbling mockery of life, mewling their alien hunger to the uncaring, breathing world. Really, it was only Wednesdays, because Wednesday was zombie cat day, had been for years. But this was a special Wednesday.

This Wednesday, Design had gone to a bit of extra effort in their zombie cat, added a touch of something special. Nobody’d ever thought to stitch a bit of dalmation fur into the mix for contrast, or add some floral print shower curtain for a splash of color, a way to add a tropical theme to the ol’ god-forsaken abomination.

Usually when they reanimate the cat, it moans and wanders in a more or less straight line. They didn’t often hide their face in embarrassment, but you really had to feel sorry for this one. Bad enough to be dead and stitched together from cat scraps. Worse that someone had a sense of whimsy about the entire thing.

Never did see that cat again. Kind of a relief.

Meow!

Take a walk on the wild side. Or at least, take a drink on the wild side. We don’t endorse drinking out of something wiht a picture of a leopard on it, particularly with no brand name, or ingredients, or even a warning label—”warning, may cause a leopard-like aftertaste in pregnant women.” We assume that if you pour yourself a tall glass of leopard, you’re probably pretty open-minded, and willing to suffer a bit for your beverage. But no-one suffers like Lumpo, the Special Needs Leopard.

The other leopards laughed at Lumpo. They did not laugh cruelly, because really, Lumpo the Leopard had it coming. Creatures that try to hunt down gazelles with whimsical hamhocks instead of forepaws need to be able to take a bit of good-spirited derision. And any top-level predator with a floral-print coat, even in neutral savannah tones, is going to get ribbed, just a little bit. Heck, even the aardwolves laughed at Lumpo. And they were fricking aardwolves.

But Lumpo wasn’t concerned.

He really had bigger things to worry about.

Like, why his eyes pointed in different directions, and the way his face occasionally faded into a vague blur. That REALLY worried Lumpo, though the hamhock thing was a bit of a concern. No-one likes their face smudged off into the ether, it’s undignified.

Lumpo the Leopard from Savers on South Lamar; Frankencat from Goodwill on 183 and Metric, Austin.

“After I ate the SIXTH cake I was this big.”

This cat is intense. Those are the eyes of a cat who’s eaten one too many cans of dollar store tuna. Cans that she tore open with her teeth. And then, twitching under the feverish influence of discount seafood, she popped open a copy of Tammy Faye Bakker’s Cosmetic Secrets and went to town. These things seem like good ideas when you’re tripping on tuna.

Oh…but regarding that sixth cake? View her in all her glory.

“The oompa-loompas will just roll her out to the juicing room. For squeezing.”

It took me a while to figure this one out. I couldn’t place where I’d seen this cat before. I think it was the false eyelashes, glitter-green eyeliner, and feather boa, but the decadent velvet brocade, funny squishy hat, and INCREDIBLE GIRTH tipped me off.

It’s Henry the Eighth.

No, hear me out. Henry was slightly taller when he was lying down than when he was standing up. And that man could definately wear his gold brocade.

Seperated at birth? I think so.

Bad kittens are sent to the fourth circle of hell, where demons nail evil demonic minnows to their noses and tear off three of their legs. when they try to swat the fish away, they fall over. And how the minnows laugh.

Not sure why the cat’s wearing a gay pride skullcap. One of those weird gay cat monks, I guess. He may be part snail, thus the eyes.

So basically, if you want a one-legged, gay snail-cat, Goodwill’s got you covered. But you knew that.

Roundest Cat Evar from Savers on South Lamar. Crazy 80s cat from Goodwill on 2222, Austin.

Once again, I’ve let the kittens pile up, and I apologize. Take them, they’re yours.

It’s not widely known that Bastet, the goddess of perfume and cats, and Anubis, the Egyptian god of embalming, had a son, and that he was the Egyptian god of Cool—thus, the name Hep. Frankly Egyptologists only recently learned that the Egyptians had any fashion sense at all, since they were all wearing goatees and man-skirts long past when the French were doing the “tights, colored tunics, and flowing moustaches” look.

Hep’s role in the complex Egyptian afterlife was to judge the soul of the dead’s hairstyle, and whether they managed to avoid those frustrating lifetime skirt creases from accidentally putting any weight at all on linen. He would also issue forth scathing critiques of their kohl and henna. Any souls that were found unworthy were subjected to a most terrible and ferocious makeover.

And then there’s this guy.

We have clearly abandoned the usual stereotype of the noble lion, here. We have left Grace and Dignity’s house, through the garden out back, down the street, and are hunkering down in a portapotty next to Indolence, with Squalid banging on the door asking us what the hell we’re doing. This is not a lion, this is a chew-toy, and proud of it.

A face only a mother could gnaw on.

I’m not sure I would give this to my dog, even if it were a chew-toy. It would give her an even more inflated sense of her self-worth, at least until she figures out that lions aren’t generally made out of rope.

They’re really only impressive from the front. Turn a lion around, and it’s really less like a ferocious, man-eating predator, more like a Czechoslovakian cinnamon bun. Mmm, lionclaw. Smother that thing in melted butter and pass it over here!

One more for the road:

“Stop mocking me and light the damned pipe. I tied my hands together in a freak yoga accident, and I really don’t need you reminding me of my personal tragedy, thank you very much.”

Knotwork lion from Goodwill on Stassney and 183. Strangely cool cat from Salvation Army on 183, near Metric, Austin.

What does “Justice” look like to you? Is she blind, with a veil wrapped around her eyes to represent her impartiality? Or are her eyes open and keen, ready to spot falsehood? Is she matronly, or a scholar with a sword?

Or is justice really a dancing baby being crushed under a sink fixture?

This is definitely allegorical of something, but I’m really at a loss as to what. I’m pretty sure it was built from a quick trip to the church supply store, then the plumbing supply store. Though why it’s balancing a 1958 Oldsmobile hood ornament, I do not know. Perhaps because it is a baby wearing a sink fixture, it is always young and fresh. Yet it gets poor mileage. The two rusty collection plates show that it’s going to cost you some money, but you’re not going to know where it goes, because they’re, like, still rusty, and what’s with that?

Or maybe it’s not some sort of complex symbol. Maybe it’s an heirloom from a time when we were strong because we WORKED to be strong, and we carried two elephant-sized cheese plates on our head, uphill, both ways, when we were FIVE, and we liked it. Or we didn’t like it, but we’ll tell you we did, and that will explain why we have a better work ethic than you, why you should get a job, and why our heads are perfectly flat.

Goodwill on 183 and Metric, Austin



The last thing you would ever want to hear from this artist is, “I paint what I see.” Because at that point you’d either want to increase said artist’s supply of the tiny blue pills, or perhaps cut them off from said tiny blue pills. Either way, we’re looking at a mandatory change in their tiny blue pill routine.

This is actually an allegory of the defeat of Sauron at the hands of the company of the Ring, represented by a giant chicken foot, and the hobbit Frodo, here depicted as a tiny legless cat with huge, dark eyebrows. The watermelon seed motif is actually from Tolkein’s earlier notes on the “Ring” saga, originally entitled “Lord of the Watermelon Seeds.” True story. All of this was of course written on the back of the canvas, but since no-one can truly know the mind of an artist—least of all the artist—I’m pretty sure it really represents the War of the Roses, or possibly repressed homosexuality, the former of which is just about 90% of all artwork’s true meaning and the second is another 3-6% (unless you read Kinsey, then it’s 10%).

I’m dancing with watermelon seeds! Whee!

Quibbling aside, I love how much raw happiness is expressed here in just a few brush strokes. At least I think it’s happiness. There’s the smallest chance he’s trying to escape the horrible blue blob behind him. That also makes sense.

Artist? Robot? Robot artist? A mocking portrayal of the modern media culture? Humanity betrayed by the increased industrialization of society? Weltschmerz? You make the call.

The strangely lionlike countenance of this person is at once frightening and alluring. Definately someone to keep away from small, beloved animals. She’s like a banshee from a Quentin Blake/Roald Dahl novel. With little blue people dancing on her hair.

Gaze upon her, but do not love her, for her eyes are on fire and you will burn your cheeks and eyelashes on her.

Verdict?

Very pretty!

Goodwill on South Lamar near Manchacha, Austin

Meanwhile, in Africa–or possibly India, but my money’s on Africa–the last remaining member of the rare species, homo elephas is killed not for its tusks, which are indeed valuable, or its pelt, which is indeed not, but because, really it was the only appropriate response.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but this looks like two slender legs, ears mounted at the hips, and a trunk coming out of the most compical place possible. Am I wrong?

I don’t think I’m misreading this, here. The trunk is winding its way around the poor creature like a snake explaining original sin, and from the front it does present a good elephantine face, but from the side? No, this is a world long after the nuclear apocalypse, where small two-legged elephant-like things scamper over the blasted wastelands of civilization’s final spectacular demise, making vague quacking sounds as they desperately try to work out how to tell if they’re male or female. Sometimes one of them falls over, and that’s really the end of it, unless they can somehow get close enough to a tree, or maybe an Easter basket, to lever themselves to an upright position. It won’t last, of course.

When they get excited, they flap their ears majestically, like those long-ago creatures called “birds.” They don’t fly, but it makes a heck of a sound.

Goodwill on 183 near 620, Austin<.I>



Sometimes a man turns to the sun in the west, pulls back his hat, and screams in sheer, unadulterated horror at the wrongness of it all. When you’re on the great plains, and your only friend’s yer horse, and he’s gotten a restraining order and you can’t come within 500 feet…when you’ve eaten beans all week, and then you sit too close to the old campfire, and there’s kind of a flare of bright light and then nothin’ for a few days, and then you gotta climb onto a saddle and ride for six or eight hours, and you know, they say it burns twice, and that’s pretty much the truth of it…but mostly, when the cows start chanting in a low chorus and one of them turns toward you and it’s got a HUMAN FACE and it says your name, they ALL say your name, and you know that even so, it’s still time for them to take the last ride on the cargo train tomorrow, and you’re getting paid for it, faces or no faces…that’s when you gotta scream.

But that’s your Thursday scream, because tomorrow’s probably worse.

Savers on Burnet near 2222, Austin

So pretty much every level surface in my room is filled with…stuff. I do occasionally buy these dreadful things, and between that, the empty bottles from my meds and the carefully rinsed and cleaned sour cream tubs, that’s pretty much it so far as viable storage space goes, and it’s kind of an effort to find a place to put something anymore.

So when someone found this in my bedside cabinet, I really didn’t have an answer for them. “There wasn’t any room on the bookshelf” didn’t seem to fit the occasion.

Two talented astrobotanists and a team of highly-trained stunt writers haven’t figured out what this is. The continuum between “pagan idol” and “pencil holder” is just too broad. If it is a pencil holder, the people demand answers. It should be a ceremonial pencil holder, something used to hold the pencil of the hierophant during the Mass of St. Pignolla the Ostentateous, patron of petty bureaucrats and button-makers.

Or maybe it’s a potato. One of those Three-Mile Island Reds I’ve heard so much about. Apparently once you slice them they cook themselves.

File under “Dangerously Miscellaneous.” It’s like H.P. Lovecraft’s paperweight. It’s either a synesthetic representation of the sky over a dead planet where the stars dance to the endless discordant strains of a mad piper, or Tsoggatha’s chewing gum.

There is no angle I can take on this that it doesn’t look faintly obscene. I like that in a piece of high school art. But I’m still not certain about all the tiny holes. Does it need to breathe? Or worse, is something inside it still breathing? *shudder*

This mother’s day, give your mother something she’ll treasure forever. Or if you forgot Mother’s day, give her this. She won’t.

Savers on South Lamar near 290, Austin

…Hmm. Maybe I should have saved this guy for Christmas. But after all the damned bunnies, it’s good to get back to something a little more cheerful.



I like him, he works on levels. Just to start with—and I’m guessing that he somehow escaped from a headshop to wind up in a Goodwill’s crapateria, so this may in fact be unintentionally ironic, the corner smoke shop is not America’s bastion of subtle nuances—the idea of a skeleton hovering over an ashtray really works for me. It says, “Say fare-thee-well to your fetuses, oh pregnant females.”

For reasons that are not clear to me, he’s playing a pendaflex accordian file folder. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it’s very secretarial. “Arrr…me and Davey Jones just got back from Office Depot. That be a fine, fine office supply and stationary store, matey, it is. Now if you’d be helping me with that chest and those barrels, there, they be having a special on post-its and Almond M&Ms, and I thought we’d stock up for the crew.” And I’m okay with someone playing an accordion file folder, that’s your basic level two whimsy, textbook stuff—I have NO idea why he’s apparently chewing on a World War II fragmentation grenade. That’s just dangerous.

Oh…no, that’s not a starfish in the bowl of the ashtray. Once again, the magic word here is subtle.



In the background, please notice the bottle of DIY Gin. Have you ever heard of one of those country craft “instant soup” gifties? It’s beans and some dried herbs? This is pretty much the same thing, but with gin. Just add water. Or possibly just add vodka, which seems like a pretty good way to start the week. The recipe is apparently three cups of juniper berries, a heck of a lot of dried fruit of some sort, some twigs—yum!—more coriander than is usually found in a typical Thai restaurant, and some boll weevils. Enjoy!

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin