I’m pushing for the black circle in the top left.  That looks like a good one.

That’s the picture that hangs above my laptop.  I stare into it as a I write.  I am not quite sure what made me decide to write about it, but I suppose it’s only natural.  I’ve had it for maybe six months now.  Most people know of Gérôme (if they know of Gérôme) from his depiction of gladiators, which is most famous for the thumbs down symbol.

I actually came to learn of Gérôme from some random bit of historical reading I was doing at the time.  Gérôme did a depiction of the Grand Conde, who was a famous French general during the Thirty-Years war (and one of the great generals in history.)

Sometime later I searched out the artist and found Gerome.  His historical works are my favorite, but history seems to have preferred his orientalist undertakings.  In researching this article I found this gallery, which is rather extensive.   Or this one, which has everything (but with more annoying pagination).  Enjoy!

Allow me to post about GuideStar, a website that lets you review the publicly released documents of nonprofit companies. It requires registration, but it’s free and worth the time if you’re out to throw some money around.  My paranoia toward everything lends me to wonder what GuideStar gets out of the deal and I find the testimonial data beyond useless, but I enjoy reading the financial statements.  It seems to be a damn good deal: now why can’t everything be regulated similarly?  If we put a tenth of what we put into any given project making sure the other 90% was spent correctly, I’m convinced the country, the world, the everything, would come out of the deal twice as well as they do now.  Alas, I wax depressive, but keep GuideStar in mind the next time you’ve got a nagging urge to donate…

Final rant: GuideStar has a short list of reasons why they might not have the 990 Form from a particular nonprofit.  The last one refers to religious organizations that aren’t required to file.  I can be convinced sometimes that there is a valid and compelling reason for religious organizations to not be taxed (freedom of religious and that bag), but what exactly frees them from reporting standards?  What makes a religion different in the world of honest financial governship?  History, I suppose.  Phooey.

Don’t know. Here’s Alan Moore reading Rorschach’s journal.

You don’t hear author’s reading their works all that often. Occasionally at readings, occasionally audiobooks. Conferences will have parts of that.

As for Comic Book writers, hmm? Has Frank Miller ever read Batman outloud?

Enjoy the weekend!

For those lacking an immediate copy, allow me to point you here.  This is Shirley Walking explaning the Batman theme.  Pretty incredible, eh?

Music of the Bat 101

(I’ll try to have something better for next week.)