It’s the darkish lady of 50% gray saturation, risen from the dead to drain all the toner from your photocopier! For the love of god, save the gem tones! SAVE THE GEMTONES!

There’s an old legend about how the patron saint of bakers got her patronage. Apparently, she was engaged to be married to a pagan king, and decided she would rather be Christian than be married to a pagan king. So, as is was done in the days of martyrs and pagan kings, he gave her an informal, untutored round of breast reduction therapy. Miraculously her breasts grew back (which is, actually, an amazing little miracle, if touched with whimsey). Ultimately she died anyway of a bad case of pagan betrothal, but her icon showed her holding a platter of two pale, doughy lumps that were NOT steamed buns. But neither here nor there. And I really have no idea why I’m rambling about this, except that she could easily be the patron saint of leeks or other pale root veggies, if she had half a mind to go down that road. And weren’t undead, because there are no vampire saints.

Except of course for Saint Mareaux the Exsanguinated. But he was decanonized in 1836 for excessive eyeshadow.

Anyway.

I’m not sure why I thought this was funny. I did, it was REALLY funny at the time–something about weird trust-building exercises like “don’t fall backward and spike yourself!” that ghosts play. But it was 2008, and I was a different person then.

A bit like a ghost, a bit more like a cartoon sea lion. Or a mascot from a shaving cream commercial. A Spooooooky shaving cream commercial.

Happy Halloween! Now off to scare the trick-or-treaters with ceramic clowns. The neighborhood loves me, I’m sure of it.

Pale and Deathy from Savers on Burnet near North Loop, ghostly candle holder from Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

I like the fact that, after this thing escaped from Edward Gorey’s bedside endtable, it took the time to get its nails done. That’s how you know it’s a classy knob. Thing. Possibly fandangle. It’s certainly elegant, it’s got the curves of a 1940s Hollywood musical starlette. Particularly if her upper half was made out of lime “jolly ranchers” and fractured in a freak pas de deux accident.

On the other hand, it may actually be a lounge singer from the Mos Eisley Cantina. And maybe she wasn’t made of jolly ranchers. Maybe that’s her only functioning eye, and I’m judging her. If so, I’m sorry, and George Lucas  did a terrible thing to you. To all of us.

Does it make any more sense from this angle? No? Okay.

One thing that really bugs me about this is that the green nub is like 3 degrees off of symmetric. It’s…really empissing. Why? WHY?

That, dear, is probably an end.

I know that macro photography is kind of a “thing,” you can get any number of things blown up to hideously large scale with the click of a search button. But the fleshy pinkness of the balloon, the twisted little umbilicus knot, it looks like some strange pro-life advertisement. “Think before you pop…choose inflation.”

Uh…thingie…from Texas Thrift near I35 and 51st, balloon butt from Salvation Army on 1325 near Round Rock

This here’s a little something from the “why did they frame that?” bin. And the “why did they donate that?” bin, too, which runneth over.

Odds are, nobody’s going to frame Grandpa’s EKG, and this PROBABLY isn’t a seismograph taken in Los Angeles before “The Big One.” This almost certainly is a printout of Baby’s First Heart Murmur. “Oh look, sweetie, he has your arrhythmia.” I would be much more impressed if the cheerful orange daisies lined up with the ventricular contraction. Frankly, the entire thing is just thick with shoddy workmanship. The next time Grannie embroiders tiny little floral runners to edge her grandchild’s heartbeat diagram, tell that old dame to show some EFFORT. Really.

…And then they give it to Goodwill. Of all the precious moments that you’d care to toss, this one tells a story of dashed hopes that puts any number of high school “LOVE YOU SHERRIE” oil paintings to bed without first base. I should have kept this one for the centerpiece of a dadaist “pro life” wall, next to the scary picture of Torso Baby and the Red Wagon. We always think of these things months too late.

 Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

Strange pagan celebration, or ash tray? You be the judge. I’m holding onto “a joyful celebration of the feminine, eternal and in endless motion,” but I’m not sure. It COULD be four sisters celebrating in a joyful explosion of estrogen and Sarah McLachlan MP3s. On the other hand, you could rest a stogie quite well between their shoulders, and not get a bit of ash on your carpet. And symbolically, a cigar, and four dancing sisters, you’d really have the whole yin-yang thing all in one go.

I like the stylized forms, the minimalist approach to shape, how the artist expertly suggests the human arms and heads without adding any more detail than we need. I am slightly less enamored of the “what happens when you feed seagulls ten pounds of milk chocolate? Let’s find out.” hairstylings. That is an unfortunate brown, and that is an unfortunate splatter zone.

Hmm. From this angle, I’m not thinking “endless circle dance” so much as “four chicks in a hot tub.” Which is good. She’ll want to wash that stuff off soon.

…And then, tragically, the Thursday full moon ritual was interrupted when the High Priestess’s face melted and ran into the ceremonial basin. But at least they got the caramel seagull poop off the acolyte. That made it a little better.

Make-up by Tammy Faye, ladies. Her secret is to use the 402-1006 XLG “Drop Flower” tip from Wilton Cake Decorating’s “Springtime” catalog.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

I don’t know what’s sadder–the tragedy that befell America’s favorite mouse, or the fact that I COULD have lined up a shot of Mickey with a poodle head and utterly failed to. I think the latter.

14, huh? Is that the number of ladies that have fallen for Pluto’s sweet lines, the number of angry, spike-collared husbands he’s left in his wake? The number of broken hearts? Or does that just mean he’s 84 in dog years?

Sadly, I may never know what Mickey was holding. I’m guessing it was somehow related to dogs, or something he yanked out of his luggage in a fit of rage. “I TOLD you never to bring that cocker spaniel slut here again! You could have had everything. You could have had it all, fellah! The bed, the ottoman, I would have even forgiven you for the time you brought my newspaper back covered in mud. But this…oh no, not this.”

All of which would have been substantially funnier if I’d lined the shot up so that he had a poodle head, that’s all I’m saying.

Let Mickey hold your giant soap. Mickey loves soap. And he’s here to help you wash. Wash and scrub. Scrub away the dirt and sin. Keep scrubbing until you, too, have no face. Mickey would prefer it if you were faceless. Perhaps torso-less as well. Mickey’s somewhat demanding.

Mickey sans head from Goodwill in Oak Hill on the “Y,” Mickey Ashtray from Goodwill on 183 and Metric, Austin

But I didn’t, much to my shame, and now Father’s Day is nearly a year away. But the world can’t wait for Super Dad.

Superdad! With powers granted to him by our yellow sun, he fights crime with his power of invisible underpants! Superdad! Able to launch his head over a ten-story building (Sproiiing!!)

“Look, up in the sky! My god, where’s his underpants”

“Lady, where’s his head?”

This piece brings deep questions of identity. Obviously, you wouldn’t give this to Superdad and put pictures of dad on it–that would be completely silly. So, what do you put on it? Pictures of what Dad really wants for father’s day? A new car, maybe a really good sandwich, or a sexual favor of some sort? No, probably not. This was meant to hold pictures of the family on it. So Superdad, in his heroic apotheosis, is subsumed into his role within the family to a degree he has never before experienced. This isn’t simply emasculating, his identity is to be consumed, utterly replaced, by pictures of his children, just possibly his wife. Or else he has no head at all, just some rather festive wiry springy things. For as long as Superdad sits on his desk at work, he will face this dreadful choice: Either give yourself entirely to us, and accept that you have no self at all outside the smiling faces of your family, or we will, metaphorically if not actually, have your head.

And your underpants.

Savers on South Lamar, Austin

I’m pretty sure it was Nietzsche who said, “When one gazes too long at a pillow, sometimes the pillow gazes back.” And how true that is.

We’ve got several of these pillows–well, not this EXACT pillow, because this pillow is special, and that’s not short-bus special or “I love it because you made it” special (though indeed it may also be that kind of special). No, this is “aliens from space are among us” special.

The pillows we have, which turn up with some regularity at our local crapatorium, are a little uncomfortable to lounge on, kind of like you’re resting your head on a muppet with a skin condition. But at least they don’t stare at you.

In its timeless transmigration between the stars, and its not-so-timeless period on the sofa soaking up spilled beer, or just maybe used as a dog bed, what has this pillow seen? Your mind may very well snap at the insights it has, or at least you wouldn’t want to have gotten the same view of Aunt Gertrude’s rear that it did. No-one wants that.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

Fact: After clowns, shell art, and violated dolls with no clothes and unfortunately Cyndi Lauperine hair, mysterious bottles of twigs, berries and leaves rotting in translucent oil are the biggest shelf-wasters at your local Goodwill. Normally, one can laugh them off, “peppers from the ’90s floating in brown murk, how droll,” but once in a while, you find a treasure.

Remember: in retail parlance, a “gift” is something you would never ever buy for yourself.

If you have the expensive “Led Zepplin Extras” boxed set, cue up “Stairway to Indigestion” now. I’d start from the bottom and work my way up, but how do you define bottom? Maybe I’ll just start at the ones that actually make sense.

I don’t know what these are. I’m guessing peppers, because they were obviously meant to impart their delicate flavor to the gourmet experience this thing proposes. But they might easily be polyps, or the young of some strange sea creature. The top one is an impudent little thing, isn’t it? “Oh yeah, you WANT to splash me over your salad. But you’re not ready for that kind of zest.”

So sad. So alone. Are one pepper and two bay leafs, and possibly a juniper berry or allspice pod, really up to the task? No, probably not. Mostly these things are just used to make a kitchen look authentic and well-stocked, and if that was the case they could have gone the extra mile and added a second dessicated pepper. But no. That’s too much zest.

Then things get a little weird.

Do people particularly need a bottle of what appears to be strawberry shortcake-flavored canola oil? I mean, it’s pretty, kind of, the strawberry is dark and lustrous, but what’s the rest of that crap? A sprig of wheat? Corn, maybe barley?

In ancient Egypt, the bodies of the wealthy were preserved with grave goods to take with them to the afterlife. Maybe it’s like that. Maybe they thought the strawberry would get hungry. Here, strawberry, have some millet to tide you over until Osiris and Seth judge your soul as worthy. Safe journeys.

Please excuse the quality of this next image, I was laughing.

Yeah, it’s hard to make that out, but it’s corn. Corn! What flavor does corn soaked in oil impart to your food? Corn flavor? What would be the point? I mean, there’s not a lot of point to the bottles filled with carrots and peppers, I’ve yet to see any recipe call for carrot oil, but at least it looks like something. This looks like tired, wet corn. I guess you could upend the entire bottle into a kettle and have a very small serving of popcorn in one convenient go.

Hmm. I’ll have to check to see if Orville Redenbacher has a patent on single-serving stovetop popcorn yet. This may be marketable, in that sort of “80s single serving decadence” sense of the word.

Your label says thyme but your body says compost.

I checked under the bottle for a “Best when used by” label. I couldn’t find one. I assume this means “best when used by never.” I’ve always found the delicate paradox of something cosimultaneously labeled “gourmet flavor” and “not for consumption” delightful. But that’s a label you wouldn’t need for this bottle, which is is clearly not meant for any sort of use at all.

Lastly…old man butt and twigs.

Thank you.

Goodwill on Brodie in Southwest Austin

This makes me feel a sense of undefined, yet pervasive, non-point floating guilt. This is something of a zeroeth-world problem, but I just can’t reconcile this one.

Cute little puppy, big, winning eyes, granted he’s got sort of a Gorbachev thing going on with his forehead, but still, a heart-warming little guy. Why would you paint him on a bowling pin? Is this appropriate? Do we want our children lining up sets of 10 puppies and chucking massive balls of polyurethane at the poor things? What does pindog teach our children?

He’s really a bit of a penguin, isn’t he? The black and white isn’t helping there. But I can’t tell whether he’s been sitting still so patiently because someone’s holding a biscuit over his head, or because he’s trying to keep his egg warm.

I bet “March of the Penguins” would have been a shorter film with a lower mortality rate if the penguins had been tricked out with a four-foot-tall french press. They would have been warmer. Probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep much, but how else are you going to stay awake all night when the night’s three months long?

Would YOU like a series of bowling pins shaped like harmless, unsuspecting furry animals? Next door neighbor’s dog barking for three days straight, need to work out some aggressions? Call the Masons. They’re here to help.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

This is reminding me of “The Little Prince.” In certain ways, at least. For one, I’m pretty sure they’re on a geometrically precise, perfectly round planet about 40 feet across. For two, that ‘s self-evidently a baobab tree, and those things are well-known destroyers of small, spherical worlds.If I was living on a geometrically precise sphere 40 feet wide, I’d seriously talk to my landscaper about using any plant much larger than creeping thyme.

“Oh John, it’s perfect! Except…”

“Except, oh love of my life?”

“It’s a small thing.”

“Give me the word, and I will fix it. Anything for you.”

“Well…”

“This was to be our dream house, Martha. Live the dream.”

“I can’t fit my shoulders through the front door. And the windows are on the small side as well, small and shingled over. And the roof looks not so much like a roof, but more like a Jello Pudding Pop left in the sun for 10 minutes, just long enough to start melting a bit but before the ants show up. And I’m not sure about that tree. I think it might be a toilet paper tube. A BIG toilet paper tube, with twigs and coconuts stuck in the top. One of them fell off and rolled around the planet.”

“So…we should probably just start over then, is what you’re saying.”

“I’d not rule it out.”

“We do have great access to the sun, you know. That was in the brochure.”

“Maybe that’s why the roof is falling over, some sort of a collision on a low pass.”

Theory #2, and this is almost always theory #2–it’s an allegory for death. I mean, look, the guy’s wearing a halo and the girl’s got a strange radiant aura and may in fact be bigger than a house, which you won’t be able to fit into. Sounds like a Sartre play to me.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin