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anybody know?

I’m scanning some small paintings to upload and I have to resize them to get them to fit the blog. Unfortunately, they lose a bit in the translation; the resolution isn’t as clear and the colors aren’t as true as when they’re full size. Does anybody know how to do a better job on that? How I can make them smaller — because I post them rather large so they look “better” — and still clear? (Um, unlike this question.)

I thank thee for any help you can give.

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an irresistibly bad idea

So.

Starting next week, I will be teaching a 12-week drama workshop at a private hoity-toity Jewish prep school here in town.

Yep. I mean, seems logical. The perfect fit for my evangelical shiksa self, don’t you think?

Oh, yes.

Bottom line: It was just too flat-out ridiculous to pass up.

Last week, I drove up to their school and had what turned out to be a TWO-HOUR interview where I met four different men. The first one was short, looked like Billy Bush, was not Jewish, and apart from acting nervous and tongue-tied, seemed utterly generic. He gave me a tour of their school but didn’t seem to know what to say about it. I had to keep asking questions to get him to say anything at all, like some horrible blind date. But without benefit of alcohol.

The next feller was the high shool principal of the hoity-toity Jewish school. He was also short, wore a yarmulke, stared lasers at my boobs, and isn’t that nice, baruch atah adonai. The entire time he cross-examined me, he played absently with the small green clock on his desk, spinning it round and round. I could tell he thought very highly of me as a person.

The next gentleman was the grade school principal. He was not short. He handed me his card, said, “Call me” and walked away. That was all. “Call you” for what, Peaches??

The last man was The Head of The Arts “Collective” they are starting at the school. The “main guy” I needed to talk to in order to get my shiksa self into The Fyvush Finkle Arts Collective. (Not the real name. I’m not making fun here; there is a famous Jewish name in there, just not that one.) He was the art teacher and sported a grey turtleneck, khaki vest, and matching khaki pants. He, too, was short. Also balding, with little round glasses and tiny brown eyes. All that was missing to complete the cliche was the beret. I swear, if he’d been an actor playing an art teacher in a movie and had come out of wardrobe in that, the director would have said, “Please find something else; no one really dresses that way.” He was like a living cartoon and I struggled to look him in the eye. Allegedly, his class was in session, it was the first day of school, but he took me to the back of the class and talked to me for AN HOUR while his kids did Yahweh knows what. They were not creating art, I know that, but they did spend a very long time with their heads bowed over a single piece of paper. Vest Boy, meanwhile, asked me questions and answered them himself, so of course, I found out later he was very impressed with me.

When class was nearly over, he excused himself to go set the captives free. I watched the tight smiles and furrowed brows flicker across the kids’ faces as Vest Boy droned on and on, past the class bell, past all reason, past the end of time. Once the kids bolted from the room, he came back to me and said, “You know, some of these kids have me for several years in row. Sometimes, after a while, they actually think I’m boring.” Said without the slightest sliver of irony. I smiled a tight smile, as I remember. After another monologue where he blabbed about his “partner” Rachel, about “filling the artistic well,” about the personal lives of his students (ahem) and after I purposely, blatantly took my cell phone out of my purse to look at the time, he finally said: “Well, the job is yours if you want it.”

Oh, boy!

Want it?

Want it??

For reals?

Wow!

It’s just like Christmas!

Or I mean Chanukkah!

After all, the four of you have kept me here for TWO AGONIZINGLY MONOTONOUS HOURS. I don’t like any of you. I don’t like that you’re a private Jewish school and it doesn’t matter to you that I’m not Jewish. I don’t like that this is a private school without a dress code. I don’t like your outfit. I don’t like your beady eyes. I don’t like the word “collective.” I don’t like that you have a “partner” and that you talk seriously about “filling the welllll.” I don’t like that I had an instant violent dislike of Principal Laser Eyes even before he proved himself to be Principal Laser Eyes. I don’t like that you’re all making me promises of “bigger and better things to come,” dangling your artsy little carrots.

After a steady five-year diet of major disappointments and broken promises, I don’t believe any of you for one teeny-tiny split second.

I mean, what’s more like Christmas and/or Chanukkah than that?

So, of course, I emailed Vest Boy two days later and said yes. Five seconds before I wrote that email, I was sure I was going to say no. Violently and unequivocally.

But … quite honestly …. and I am so very lame as we all know …. I thought it might make for some good blogging.

Seriously.

An irresistibly bad idea is irresistible for a reason, you know.

So instead, I compromised. They wanted an entire year commitment to this “after school collective,” but the job is too far away and far too part time right now, so I committed to the first session only and told them I would need more for it to work for me long-term. The conceptual arsty carrots being dangled would need to become actual artsy carrots. (And somehow you would all have to become tolerable and non-pervy and taller if you could manage that, mkay?)

Basically, I said yes with room for no later on.

Vest Boy emailed back almost immediately, so excited.

Oh, I too, Vest Boy, am positively brimming over.

You have no idea.

Local shiksa teaches drama to a bunch of rich Jewish girls and boys.

Nothing more irresistibly bad than that.

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closing ceremonies, beijing

~ So it looks like China blew its wad on the opening ceremonies.

~ Check out the drummers in the bike helmets. Stealing supplies from the athletes’ lockers, I see. Tsk, tsk.

~ Yeah, you know, I saw all this in one of the Oz movies, that freaky one with Fairuza Balk.

~ I wonder if there will be more goose-stepping by the Chinese military. I do prefer my Olympic experiences to be bookended by displays of large-scale ominous imperialism.

~ You know, that Bird’s Nest stadium is dammmn ugly. It has to be said. I think The Hair Ball would have been a better name and I think it should be demolished now that the games are over, just for me. Unless they need it as the site for future persecution of Chinese Christians and athletes who failed to win gold.

~ I’m a little grumpy right now.

~ Gah. Are they kidding? The Chinese government spent $40 BILLION on these Olympics??? Holy moly! You would think they wouldn’t have to steal equipment from the lockers, then.

~ There’s my pet, the beefy peach!! She’s only 4-8, you know. She’ll fit great in her new Lincoln Log Cabin for Pocket Pets and Olympic Gymnasts!

~ Oh, look. A choir of telegenic kiddies singing — er, lip-syncing — the Olympic anthem.

~ Attention, Mayor of London: Please button your jacket. Just because you’re the love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Phil Donahue doesn’t mean you have to look like a schlub.

~ Now the President of the IOC, the mayor of London, and the mayor of Beijing take awkward turns waving the Olympic flag. It is entirely gay.

~ Did I mention I’m a little grumpy right now?

~ Here comes a double-decker bus that says “London 2012.” A bunch of actors dressed in London street clothes lumber like zombies towards the bus. I do prefer my Olympic closing ceremonies to feature zombies whenever possible, as long as they are international zombies.

~ What are “London street clothes,” Trace?

~ Shut up, me.

~ The bus just unfolded — uhm, I guess — and British pop star Leona Lewis appears. She starts vocalizing. Seriously. It sounds like scales. Sort of.

~ Oh, here’s Jimmy Page. Wow. Isn’t he dead??

~ They perform together, I guess is what you’d call it. I don’t actually know what I’d call it.

~ I’m uncomfortable.

~ David Beckham randomly appears.

~ Some actors pretending to be athletes pretending to say goodbye to their pretend Chinese friends. They climb an airplane stairway to nowhere and stand there. Don’t fall, goobers.

~ One actor/athlete unrolls a scroll …. there is a pause. Oh, dear GOD! The 7 years of tribulation have begun!!!!

~ Not really.

~ Again, I cannot stress enough that I am kidding here.

~ That didn’t really happen.

~ Two dudes painted white dance together atop some metal thingie. I’d prefer they do this in the privacy of their own home, but hey, I’m a gammie that way.

~ Back to scroll boy. He looks at the scroll, then gazes longingly at the Olympic flame. So I guess I’m supposed to, too.

~ Oh, the flame goes out.

~ People in the audience boo, basically.

~ Ingrates.

~ That was $40 billion, pippa. Shut yer yaps.

~ People dressed in mylar undulate on the aforementioned metal thingie.

~ Now they’re all lumped together, moving. Making flowers or babies or something.

~ Symbolism is irritating.

~ I’m grumpy. Have we covered that?

~ There’s a lot of bug-like crawling. Furious activity. Dragging of long red-orange cloths. Oh, I see. They come together and make the Olympic flame. Or a fire poker. But probably the Olympic flame.

~ It lives on. Get it?

~ Oh, dear. Chinese pop stars. Oh, dear. It’s giving me flashbacks to my flight to Thailand on Korean Air where all they kept playing was the caterwauling of some Korean Rosie O’Donnell lookalike who is a huge pop star in their country.

~ There was a commercial and now they’re back and the Chinese pop stars are still singing. It is god-awful. You know it’s true, God. Don’t get all mad at me.

~ Jackie Chan is singing. It IS the Apocalypse.

~ Chinese disco and fireworks and The Beast rising from the sea.

~ Ooh! Hold the Apocalypse! It’s my Olympic crush, Michael Phelps, from London. Thank you, Jesus. No bathing suit, though; a shirt and pants. Oh, well. If he can win 8 gold medals, I imagine I can cope with his clothes-wearing. He wants to pinch himself, he says. Oh, lemme help you with that, Peaches.

~ Placido Domingo now to cleanse the musical palate. Chinese girls twirl around in white gowns like Greek goddesses.

~ And …. it’s all over. I’m still grumpy. But now, believe it or not, kind of sad, too.

~ Farewell, Olympics 2008. You were truly spectacular.

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olympic thoughts for an olympic afternoon

You know, just sittin’ around with my Olympic thoughts. My deep and wide Olympic thoughts.

~ Quite honestly, I do have some Olympic fatigue. Just being real, you know? Once track and field started and the athletes seemed to be competing to see who could be the biggest asshat more than anything else, my interest dropped precipitously.

~ Although, right now, boxing — BOXING! — is on. And I don’t even like boxing unless Rocky Balboa is involved.

~ On the other hand, I am in love with this Thai boxer’s last name: Boomjumnong. I keep saying it out loud. “BoomJUMnong. BoomJUMnong. BoomJUMnong.” MB doesn’t say anything. I can read his mind, though. And it’s not good. You know, “how much longer do we have to live, blah blah, white man’s burden, sigh, etc.”

~ In a President Tracey administration, athletes would have to prove they know the National Anthem as part of the qualifying process for any US Olympic team.

~ Because don’t you sometimes think that that’s why they’re not singing along?

~ Because they don’t actually know the words to the anthem?

~ Wait! This just in: The US Women’s Basketball team DOES know our national anthem! Lisa Leslie is singing her GUTS out! I love that. I want to kiss her now please. Adorable and heartwarming.

~ Or am I just a gammie and a jingo? Gammie Jingo? “There was a gammie had a name and Jingo was her name-o!”

~ I loved that song in school. Remember? “J-I-N-G-O”? Cool song. Really fun. And educational, with the spelling and all.

~ Uhm, has anyone looked at the words to some of the other countries’ anthems?

~ I mean, Good LORD.

~ Here’s China’s, for instance. It’s called March of the Volunteers, as in “Okay. Raise your hand if you want to help us build a 4,000-mile-long wall”:

Arise! All who refuse to be slaves!
Let our flesh and blood become our new Great Wall!
As the Chinese nation faces its greatest peril,
All forcefully expend their last cries.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Our million hearts beat as one,
Brave the enemy’s fire, March on!
Brave the enemy’s fire, March on!
March on! March on! On!

~ Whatevs, China.

~ Okay. I’m crying with laughter right now. This British dude — James DeGale — just won gold over his Cuban competitor in the middleweight boxing match. I guess there was some controversy surrounding a possible biting by the Cuban boxer. They show a replay. Looks like a possible bite or hickey to me. I guess you can give someone a hickey in real life, but not in boxing. Okay. Good to know. So there are TONS of Cubans in the audience and the British dude is loudly booed during the medal ceremony. The commentator pulls him aside, congratulates him, and asks him what happened. The dude says, in a thick Cockney accent, “Listen, the geezer bit me! It was completely mad! The geezer bit me! I mean, I’m Olympic champion, but that was MAD!”

“What do you think about being booed?”

“Well, there’s Cubans everywhere in ‘ere. Wot am I supposed to do?”

“So do you think people will call you chubby or chunky anymore?”

“I don’t bloody care! I just won the Olympics!”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Hurrah for crazy Cockney dude!

~ Uhm, so synchronized swimming. The US team looks great, although I have to say the whole waterproof turquoise eye shadow they’re all sporting is very Strictly Ballroom. Hellooo, Tina Spaahkle.

~ And the caps always make me think of the Mennonites.

menncap.jpg

“Ve are a plain people. Ve don’t like de modern world. But to earn de mad money, ve make swim caps for de US Synchro Swim team. Praise de Lord. Amen.”

~ Also, has anyone seen Shannon Miller’s Claritin commercial? Yikes! She’s been Jennifer Grey-ed! And, somewhere, the rest of her nose is corking a nice cabernet. Lordy. I’m glad you’re all “Claritin clear” now, Shannon, but seems like chopping your nose off would really help with the allergies, too.

~ So. Yeah.

~ Bela Karolyi wrote this post.

~ Just FYI.

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i knew it

Wow. Bob Costas is now reporting that the IOC is finally investigating the ages of some of the members of China’s Women’s Gymnastics team. There are definite discrepancies in the records of 3 of their gymnasts. If they are proven to be under 16 years of age, their team would end up with only 2 individual bronzes; Nastia would get that gold on uneven bars that she was edged out for; and the U.S. team would go from silver to gold.

Wow. WOW. But we all knew something funny was going on, right?

Muy interesante, chicas y chicos, no?

Also, two other Olympic crushes, Todd Roger and Phil Dalhausser, just won gold in beach volleyball! Men and women’s teams BOTH get gold!! WOO HOOO!!

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that voodoo that you do

Bob Costas just said, “Soo …. the US track and field team just laid a big fat egg over at The Bird’s Nest.”

It was just the way he enunciated “Bbbig Fffat Eggg” that got me.

Yeah, about that. Both men’s and women’s relay teams dropped their batons and didn’t qualify for the finals.

Jamaica is heavily favored in both.