Any expressions of violence at the Tea Party today?

Mmm. Yes. Consider this one:



And this one — from the Tea Party opposition:



All of these people seemed pretty friendly to me. The cheesehead guy joked that he hoped I got his good side. And the man with the "Open Season" sign let me know that somebody had ribbed him about misspelling "RINO," and I laughed and said "Oh, yes, you know they're putting all those misspelled Tea Party signs up on Flickr." Wouldn't it be funny if the smart alecks mocking misspelling made their own mistakes? Then Meade pointed out that some people would be critical because of the crosshairs drawn on the animals' faces and the idea of "open season." They had a long talk and the idea seemed to be that, yeah, the humor was a little edgy and the crosshairs were not on a human being's face. Hmmm.

And how about the edgy humor in "Cut off my reproductive rights and I'll cut off yours." You know what that means. Reminds me of a poster I saw and sketched long ago:



It's all in good fun. Or is it?

We were talking about khat, and Kev said...

"I thought khat-blogging had kind of gone out of style lately."

I thought I'd do a post with a LOLcat, saying something on this theme, so I went to Flickr to find a picture of a cat, and I got pleasantly distracted by this comment on the photograph that I blogged yesterday. Screen grab:



See? The commenter — jjmadison — has a cat face avatar and his comment — "wow, all that on two packs of Splenda??" — continues the drug theme. Ah! My drug of choice is synchronicity. I'm high on it now. I'm even singing: Oh! Oh! Oh!

Not really, but I do have to shout above the din of my Rice Krispies.

Now, somewhat giddy, I do still want to make that LOLcat, and I search my Flickr photographs for "cat." But I haven't been good about labels over there, and the collection of "cat"-labeled photos seems a bit absurd. There's a latte with a foam cat face. A picture of a poster that says "Don't Shoot the Cat." There's the very young me with a cat and my same-age son with a cat:



[ADDED: Yes, Chris is holding a "Hilter cat" and we were just talking about Facebook groups like "G-D BLESS HITLER," but stay away from the Nazi synchronicity. The brown-shirt acid that is circulating around us is not specifically too good.]

There are the pages from my Amsterdam sketchbook about the Cat Museum — the Katten Kabinet. There are some bat orts.

Most absurd, there is a set of LOLcats, made from photos taken of paused — pawsed — frames from the movie "La Dolce Vita."

What was that all about? Don't you remember back on August 11, 2007, when TRex said "Every time I look in over [at Althouse], something so weird is going on that I feel like I just bumbled on to the set of a Fellini film," and I was all:

"Im in ur hair/Lickin ur i"
"Im ur soul/gettin outta heer"
"Ur head/my roller coaster"
"Im ur/windsheeled wipurrz"

But these Rice Krispies were enough, and I don't want an egg at this hour. So I look to you, dear readers, to pick up Kev's khat-blogging theme and make some LOLcats. You can make them here, and you can email them to me at annalthouse (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'd love to pass out some of the Althouse blog drugs: frontpaging and tags.

And I'm hoping TRex will bumble over here and see that something weird is going on. And also that something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake.

UPDATE: From Lem:



AND: From Zachary Paul Sire:



AND: From Palladian:



From Kev (who started all this):

Solitude and the lake.

I took my walk to work yesterday down by the lake -- Lake Mendota. That makes the walk a few blocks longer, but the lake has its mystic pull for the solitary individual, as I was and often am on my walks around Madison.

My camera took note of the other solitary figures.

The woman with a computer:



The man with a skateboard. He's feeding the ducks, which you are not supposed to do:



The man with headphones...



... and the man with a book and his foot up on the railing, the man tying his shoe, the seagull on the lamppost....

Are they -- are we -- lonely?

I think about 2 of my favorite Thoreau quotes, which I wrote down long ago on this page of my "Amsterdam Notebooks":

"A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will."

"Why should I be lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?"

Castrate rapists? Bobby Jindal is on the same page as radical feminists.

TPM has this:



This is one of those places where the right wing is on the same page as radical feminism. I immediately thought of a poster I saw years ago in Amsterdam. This was back in the days when I carried a sketchbook instead of a camera:



Click here to enlarge. Here's the relevant detail:



To be fair, Jindal would use chemicals instead of scissors. (And I know the scissors are lopping off the wrong body part.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 35, the final page.

It's the last day of this 35 day project. The full set is now available here.







With that, we close The Amsterdam Notebooks — and see a final litter square on the back cover, a detail from Page 1:



Once again, we wonder: Does it?

MORE: "A final litter square"? I meant little, but I'm going to accept the typo as a true Freudian slip.

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 34.

It's Day 34 of this 35 day project. Tomorrow's the last one. Here's the set thus far.

This page records my venture onto one of those tour boats that show you around the canals. After avoiding them through my entire trip, I yielded to the inevitable on my last day in the city. I loathed the experience.

The guide with the monotone voice had one theme:



(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 33.

It's Day 33 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.)

I visit the Anne Frank House. The sign says no photography. I ask if it's okay to draw, and the woman selling the tickets doesn't quite understand what I'm saying. I realize that if they don't want people taking photographs, they would probably object even more to someone taking the time to stand there making a drawing. I say never mind. If someone tells me not to draw, I'll stop, I decide, but I'm not going to seek out a ban. There isn't a no drawing sign. I feel guilty and clandestine the whole time I'm there.

But, in fact, it's early in the morning, and it isn't crowded at all. I have a long time alone in Anne Frank's bedroom. I make this drawing of the pictures on her wall. She's a kid interested in pop culture — movies — Greta Garbo. "Ninotchka" is a new movie that she's excited about.



(Enlarge.)

I feel I'm doing something wrong, drawing these things, absorbed in one girl's interest in the pop culture of long ago— ephemera, preserved under plexiglas.

I find myself noticing everything that is incongruent with the suffering of the Holocaust: the ornate toilet, the Shelley Winters Oscar, the misconceived book covers. I collect a variety of things on one page:



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The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 32.

It's Day 32 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.)

Here are some observations about fashion:



And here's a running list I kept of names of stores and restaurants that amused me:

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 31.

It's Day 31 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) This is the page of the notebooks that has the least to do with Amsterdam. I was just watching TV, "Oprah," to be exact. Gail Sheehy was on, pushing her then-new book about menopause, "The Silent Passage." Looking back on this drawing, I notice it's lot like blogging. I copy out a (near) quote that happens to strike me and then make my own comment. Sheehy was strongly pushing hormone replacement therapy back then, and subsequent reports about that were very negative. I was struck by the fact that it was testosterone that women needed to preserve their sexual feelings.



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The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 30.

It's Day 30 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) Not much happening on this page. Just walking around, hanging out in a café. I notice and draw a small building the purpose of which I don't understand. It has potted plants on top and a little door, but no windows. In the café, I jot down the first names of the Motown singers I hear them playing.

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 28.

It's Day 28 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) I'm still at the Stedelijkmuseum, where we saw that video installation yesterday. Today, I look at a huge collage by Henri Matisse and draw a tiny detail, and then I go on to the sort of thing that makes people think sculpture is just terrible:





This sculpture was room size and not made of any fine material like marble or wood. It was just a shoddy assemblage. And, yes, the devil is sitting on a toilet. The angels are holding it aloft. It's called "The Triumph of Love." Doesn't that give you a wonderful opportunity to think deeply about... what? How crappy your last relationship was?

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 27.

It's Day 27 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) Yesterday, I felt deprived of language. Today, at the Stedelijkmuseum, I suddenly encounter a way too much language. This is a video installation with two TVs playing simultaneously and continuously. I've written in the audio portion in comics fashion:



(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 26.

It's Day 26 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) I'm in the museum, but passing the time by reading. If you're following the series, you already know, the book I'm reading is "Walden." Why should I feel lonely?





(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 25.

It's Day 25 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) I'm in the Rijksmuseum.

First, I draw some details from a nice "Temptation of St. Anthony" painting by Teniers — with my word balloons):



Next, I record a little drama about the relationship between human beings and artwork... and between Dutch and German:



(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 24.

It's Day 24 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) On yesterday's page 23, I was inside the Rijksmuseum and looked closely at two Vermeers. Today, I'm still in the museum, and now I'm noticing the live human beings there. I draw two women, one in front of two Dutch portraits and the other by a mother and child sculpture.

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 23.

It's Day 19 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) Inside the Rijksmuseum, I draw details from two paintings by Vermeer.

"The Milkmaid":



"The Love Letter":

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 22.

It's Day 22 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) The first picture today is, like yesterday's, an homage to Mark Beyer — hence the anxiety-infused image. It's meant as an allusion to a series of his called "Fear of Buildings," which I can barely remember now but think ran in RAW Magazine. You may remember from page 2 of these drawings that my hotel room looked out on the Rikjsmuseum. (And it helps to know that the most famous painting on display is "The Night Watch.") The second page shows a museum guide who amused me.





(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 21.

It's Day 21 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) This page, perhaps my favorite in the whole set, is strongly influenced by Mark Beyer's thoroughly brilliant comic "Amy & Jordan," which I'd just read.



(Enlarge.)

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 20.

It's Day 20 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.) Today, I visit the Van Loon Museum:





If "Mrs. Rittenhouse" means nothing to you: go here. More here.

The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 19.

It's Day 19 of this 35 day project. (The set thus far.)

Today's page puts side-by-side two drawings that observe couples in restaurants. One is a general observation about the way men and women relate to each other in restaurant conversation, which, traveling alone, I overheard constantly. The second depicts a particular woman, who deviated from the norm and gave her partner hell about every little thing.

I was feeling lonely on this trip, but I often thought about whether I would be happier if I were this particular woman or that, sitting with that man, experiencing that conversation. The answer was usually no. I put a lot of effort into trying to reshape my loneliness into a profound, spiritual solitude. That worked some of the time, and the drawings are the direct record of this effort.

Throughout this trip I was always aware of the vacations that other people had that were denied to me. They could pursue fun and relaxation, but had the threat of interpersonal friction. I was on an art pilgrimmage, far from any of these things.