One Little Petunia

Day 312: "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch,
An onion patch, an onion patch,
And all I do is cry all day.
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo!
The air is so strong, it takes my breath away.
I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch,
An onion patch, an onion patch,
Oh, won't you come and play with me?"

Modern music seems to have lost the plot somewhere along the line. For the most part, today's lyrics are just variations on a theme, told in different ways depending on the genre. There's even a song about it, the "Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song," a topic which I find eminently uninspiring. Give me the good old tunes like "Purple People Eater," "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World," "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," and yes, "Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch." Nonsense is good for the spirit, uplifting when the chips are down.  Does anything on today's radio make you laugh? I thought not. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the world needs more silly. We are lonely little petunias, each of us, choking on the fumes of the world's onion patches. Let's stop crying and play.

Stranger Things

Day 350: The Odd Onion has not made an appearance for quite some time, but I haven't forgotten this "100 Possibilities" photo project. I always select my onions with an eye toward their photographic merits, but as you can see, this one was a little long in the tooth by the time I got around to making its portrait. Many of its predecessors have gone straight into the soup/stew without achieving the slightest fame. This one spoke to me while I was packing up my kayak gear for a fall survey of Lake St. Clair. "Take me with you," it said. I could hardly object. It had been patiently sitting on top of the dryer for over a month without being called to duty. Now I suppose you'll think it rather odd that someone would take an onion kayaking, but I can assure you there are stranger things going on in today's world. The Onion hopes we have made your day a little brighter, if no less surreal.

La Cebolla

Day 136: Me gusta la cebolla. Ellas comen las cebollas. La cebolla no es un animale, es un vegetale. Yes, I am back practicing Spanish again. I have a decent vocabulary, but my grammar is appalling. The simplest things like "who," "which" and "how" trip me up. I can make my verbs agree with their subjects and my sentence structure is reasonably good, but those little words need a lot more practice, and to that end, I have signed on with DuoLingo. The site was recommended to me by a native speaker who teaches intermediate and advanced classes in the same building as Morris dance practice. When I arrived early a few weeks ago, I sat outside the door listening in. When I spoke with her afterwards, she suggested DuoLingo as a prerequisite for her intermediate class. Oh, how I would love to become fluent!

DuoLingo lets you go at your own pace, and allows you to return to earlier lessons for practice. The student is asked to type in responses. Sometimes, an unmistakable visual clue is given; other times, you are given a sentence and asked to translate it to or from Spanish. By typing in the words over and over, the spellings and tenses are drilled into your head without the need for painful memorization. I'm finding it quite an enjoyable way to learn a second language (or in my case, refine one I'd already begun to study). They offer courses in many other languages as well...and KLINGON is in the works! That will be my next project.

Spectacled Onion

Day 37: I had decided several days ago that I would go to see the Sunday matinee of "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them," and indeed that was my plan when I went to bed last night. I even left a note on my desk so I'd be sure not to forget. However, when I woke up this morning, I realized I hadn't let my supervisor know to pick me up on his way to work tomorrow so I could attend the Park's Tuesday turkey-feed. Then I remembered that I had to go to the post office to mail a package as well, but couldn't do so on a Sunday. Wait...is it Sunday or Monday today? It has to be Sunday because I'm going to the movie. Yesterday was Saturday. Today is Sunday. No, wait...

After several minutes of deliberation, I gave up and flipped open my cell phone. For several more minutes, I experienced a sensation not unlike having just come through a substantial, rolling earthquake, i.e., disorientation, nausea, dizziness. Saturday? SATURDAY? And then a brief moment of denial: "The phone is wrong" and illogically, "Must not have changed over from Daylight Time."

Nothing makes sense any more. Abstraction: A Spectacled Onion. The logic of the absurd.

Optical Onion

Day 10: A few of my readers will remember my Odd Onion project: take 100 photographs featuring an onion in creative ways. Most notorious among the photos so far was "Whistler's Onion," for which I tore my bedroom apart and recreated the setting of the famous "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1" with myself as Mother, holding the Onion on my lap. While not a recreation in that sense, this image was strongly inspired by the works of Piet Mondrian, whose minimalist approach is very pleasing to my eye. Viewers will also notice that there is an optical illusion at play here. The lines are purely white, but as the eye moves across the canvas, it will appear that there are dark dots at the intersections, hence the name of the piece, "Optical Onion."

Venus Recumbent - A Nude

Day 231: Nude photography provides a unique set of challenges, not the least of which is the fine-line distinction between beauty and vulgarity, so easy to cross in posing a model. A hand in one position may be discreet; shifted an inch to the side, it may become distastefully suggestive. The graceful lines of the recumbent form can convey anything from sultry seductiveness to shy revelation. As one artist put it, what is not seen tantalizes the imagination. Uncovered, it is only exposition for exposition's sake.

Given my model's limitations, I have tried to create that which makes classic nudes something which can be admired even by those with the most Victorian morals. If you're looking for porn, just keep walking. Nothing here for you to see.