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Author Archives: Mr. Dan Kelly

Chicago writer interested in many things.

Sad Pumpkin

Sunday, August 15, 2010

We decided to grow pumpkins again this year (see here for the previous, Frankensteinian results from 2006). When you grow pumpkins on a half acre of land, you’d best be ready to do without, well, area. If you let them, the damn vines stretch out over 20 feet (or more) in all directions. In 2006, […]

Filed in gardening, Halloween, wtf? | | Comments (0)

Friends, They Are Jewels Pt. 2 Owatonna, MN/Columbus, WI

Saturday, August 14, 2010

If you’re bound to see every last brick Louis Sullivan laid atop another, the last century made your job easier. By the 70s, most of Sullivan’s buildings were smashed and scattered, and in a useless bit of serendipity, seeing Sullivans has turned into one-stop shopping. A single Sullivan, the Bayard-Condict Building, exists in New York, […]

Filed in architecture, travel | | Comments (0)

“The male mice’s testicles were no longer pink.”

Saturday, August 14, 2010

My cat has been having trouble with his eyes, so he’s made several visits to the vet in recent weeks. Vet visits are an in and out proposition, but this time Nate was with us, so I minded him while Mike consulted with the vet. Having a little more time to spend in the waiting […]

Filed in kooks, pets, wtf? | | Comments Off on “The male mice’s testicles were no longer pink.”

Duck, Duck, GOOSED!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fascistic Chicago police turn the hose on peaceably assembled duck protesters.

Filed in wtf? | | Comments Off on Duck, Duck, GOOSED!

Look at My Dumb! Gee, You’re Thumb!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I love a good hoax or practical joke, but the gist of the Dry Erase Board Jenny hoax seems to be, “Ha ha! You thought she was real! But she wasn’t!” There’s no game here, other than, I suspect, an attempt to garner some hits with a hot piece of… Uh, a very pretty girl. […]

Filed in ethics, Internet, ramble, rant | | Comments Off on Look at My Dumb! Gee, You’re Thumb!

Sorry, Kane

Saturday, August 7, 2010

I guess this qualifies as a bootleg toy. Alien-inspired Whac-a-Mole game in a pizza place (Giovanni’s) in International Falls, MN. Actually, this is awesome. Added bonus: Bizarre art from a spider-stomping game. Same principle as Whac-a-Mole, kind of, except you use your feet.

Filed in alien, doodads, film, toys | | Comments Off on Sorry, Kane

I Collect Soda Pop Bottles

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

My latest acquisitions from a neat little antique store in International Falls, MN. If you weren’t aware that I collected bottles, my criteria are simple. 1. I prefer fired-on labels. But since most modern pops (I’m from the Midwest and Chicago, so I call it “pop”) have paper labels, I’m willing to give a local […]

Filed in antiques, bottles, doodads | | Comments Off on I Collect Soda Pop Bottles

He Holds Up a Mirror to Society, and It Is a Tacky Mirror

Monday, July 26, 2010

A.O. Scott demonstrates the tendency to try too hard to validate Todd Solondz’s plodding, soulless movie-making. “He is unsparing in his attack on the complacencies of the suburban upper middle class, but to describe his attitude as cruel or contemptuous is to miss the compassion and the almost rabbinical ethical seriousness that drives his inquiries. […]

Filed in film, rant | | Comments Off on He Holds Up a Mirror to Society, and It Is a Tacky Mirror

How to Declare an Unsung Genius, No Matter How Rightfully Unsung He or She May Be

Monday, July 19, 2010

1. Find a period in history during which great strides were made in a particular artistic field and/or large groups of noteworthy individuals were lauded for their inarguable levels of talent. 2. Note appearances of peripheral attention-seeking figures (PASFs) in the noteworthy individuals’ lives. You may need to go all the way back to art […]

Filed in ramble | | Comments Off on How to Declare an Unsung Genius, No Matter How Rightfully Unsung He or She May Be

Harvey Pekar Made Me the Man I Am Today (Sort of)

Monday, July 12, 2010

Harvey Pekar died yesterday. If the name doesn’t ring a bell you probably weren’t a comic collector in the 80s and 90s, or you missed the film version of Pekar’s comic American Splendor where Pekar was played by Paul Giamatti (accompanied by James “Doc Venture” Urbaniak and Judah “30 Rock” Friedlander as Pekar friends R. […]

Filed in art, comics, young dan kelly | | Comments Off on Harvey Pekar Made Me the Man I Am Today (Sort of)