So, I do have soft spot for red heads. Perhaps there are other guys that share the same feelings.
One of my favorite bloggers, Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool, re-blogged a fan art by German designer and illustrator RaidesArt of iconic red heads.
See more HERE.
Art Appreciation
Born in present day Ukraine, January 27, 1841, Arkhip Kuindzhi was considered one of the most talented Russian landscape artist of his time.
Kuindzhi grew up poor and lost his parents at a very young age. In 1855, he became the student of Russian romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky.
It is said that Kuindzhi's work is heavily influenced by Aivazovsky's style, especially when it comes to sunsets, storms, and surging oceans. Kuindzhi is known for depicting the illusion of illumination in his paintings.
In his 20s, Kuindzhi studied painting at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, then joined an artists' cooperative which eventually became the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions. He would return to teach at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in his later years, but then fired for supporting students' protests.
Sources:
Wikipedia.org
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436833
https://www.wikiart.org/en/arkhip-kuindzhi
Art Appreciation
Dutch painter Govert Flinck was born on January 25, 1615. A pupil of Rembrandt, Flinck's work followed the style of his teacher; Rembrandtesque.
A Baroque painter of portraits, genre, and narrative subjects, Flinck is recognized as a history painter. His popularity among aristocrats led to many commissions for official and diplomatic paintings.
See my previous blog entry HERE.
Source:
Wikipedia.org, britannica.com
https://www.pubhist.com/person/260/govert-flinck
Tonight is the AVN Awards, and because of the ongoing pandemic, the event will be streaming live.
Like previous years, I like to predict fans choices. There are sixteen categories from Favorite Female Porn Star to Favorite Domme. I'll be honest, it's time consuming going through each one, watch their performance, and decide whether they are better than another.
This year I decided to put aside the bracket system I typically use, and select those I do watch.
But I did use the bracket system in choosing who I think should win the coveted AVN AWARDS for Best Male Newcomer, Best New Scarlett, Best Trans Newcomer, and Best New International Scarlett.
Check them out. Oh... and don't forget to watch the AVN tonight at 8 PM (PST) HERE.
AVN STARS (FANS AWARDS)
FAVORITE FEMALE PORN STAR
(1) Lily Larimar
(2) Melody Marks
(3) Anne Claire Clouds
FAVORITE MALE PORN STAR
(1) Damion Dayski
(2) Anton Harden
(3) Jack Ripher
FAVORITE BBW STAR
(1) Estella Bathory
(2) BADKITTYYY
(3) Fit Sid
HOTTEST NEWCOMER
(1) Blake Blossom
(2) Freya Parker
(3) Angel Youngs
HOTTEST MILF
(1) Cory Chase
(2) Sarah Vandella
(3) Natasha Nice
FAVORITE CAM GIRL
(1) Bailey Rayne
(2) Mary Moody
(3) Zoe Canbebought
MOST EPIC ASS
(1) Anna Claire Clouds
(2) Abella Danger
(3) Jillian Janson
MOST SPECTACULAR BOOBS
(1) Anna de Ville
(2) Lena Paul
(3) Blake Blossom
SOCIAL MEDIA STAR
(1) Mia Malkova
(2) Maitland Ward
(3) Eva Elfie
AVN AWARDS
BEST NEW SCARLETT
Blake Blossom
BEST MALE NEWCOMER
Damion Dayski
BEST NEW INTERNATIONAL SCARLETT
Freya Mayer
BEST TRANS NEWCOMER
Jade Venus
Images taken from Twitter profiles
So, I'm pretty stoked. YouTuber and Smosh co-founder Daniel Padilla interviewed streamer Kaitlyn Siragusa (a.k.a. Amouranth).
If you're unfamiliar with Kaitlyn, here is a quick summary:
Kaitlyn Siragusa is a cosplayer and streamer known as Amouranth. Born December 2, 1993 in Houston, Texas, Kaitlyn started as a cosplayer, designing her own costumes. She was later the costume designer for the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet. She is best known, however, for streaming on Twitch.
Kaitlyn has over four million followers on Twitch, but her account has been suspended multiple times. When asked why, she explained, "I think it's because it's a girl on Twitch and she has cleavage." She added, "It seems to be accepted widely when male-dominated industries use women for looks, but when women are using their own looks it's not acceptable anymore."
The interview touched on stalking, dating, mental health, childhood, investments, future plans, and other things. I've included a few interesting topics discussed during the interview below.
When asked by Daniel if Kaitlyn streams when sleeping, she explained that she receives the highest views while she sleeps, "I actually have more viewers when I'm asleep than when I'm awake. When I'm asleep it'll spike to 20K... When I wake up, they leave. It goes back down to 10K."
Regarding whether dating is a challenge, Kaitlyn said, "It's really hard for me to feel like I can date anyone. What type of guy wouldn't be willing for me to ignore them for 15 hours a day, while I talk to other guys online. He would have to be desperate."
The interview showed how Kaitlyn is savvy when it comes to business and investments. She shared that she owns a gas station and has investment in Visa. She added that she recently signed with Playboy to be a Playboy model.
She added that companies like Playboy benefit in selling lewd images of women but when a woman does it on her own is frowned upon, "If it's companies using women for personal gain, but they don't respect women when they do it on their own... Being entrepreneurs, getting profits out of their own body completely -- that's weird."
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPJHQ5_DLtxZ1gzBvZE99_g
https://www.kaitlynsiragusa.com
This past weekend, I got grossed out with my girlfriend.
We were in San Antonio. Her friend invited us to her daughter's 16th birthday celebration. Needless to say, we had a blast, and my girlfriend had a few too many wine.
We woke up Sunday morning, and slowly made our way out of the hotel. After packing our stuff in the car, we walked over to Schilo's.
Schilo's is said to be San Antonio's oldest restaurant. I've visited this place a couple of times in the past and remember their killer breakfasts and tacos.
Since my girlfriend loves tacos, I thought this place would be perfect.
After waiting 30 minutes for a table outside, we waited another 10 minutes to finally get the attention of the waitress--granted, there is a pandemic and the restaurant may be short-staffed.
My girlfriend ordered Chicken and Biscuits, with side orders of grilled peppers and tomatoes and hashbrowns. I ordered two tacos.
At first, I was surprised with what she ordered but then realized she was probably working out a hangover.
They brought over our food fairly quickly; although, they did forget the side order of hashbrowns.
Before her was a plate of a decent sized fried chicken breast and two biscuits. Sausage creamy gravy was served on the side in a small bowl. In another side bowl was grilled peppers and tomatoes.
She poured the gravy over her food and began to eat.
At this point, I'm getting grossed out.
I have nothing against fried chicken and creamy gravy. In fact, I've had that a couple of times in the past. I think what got me was watching her pour gravy over her plate and watching her devour her meal with gusto.
When the waitress came by, she asked for her side of hashbrowns. Oh, and she asked for another bowl of gravy. ANOTHER BOWL.
Both were brought to her and she quickly moved the hashbrowns from the small plate onto her main plate and then pours the other bowl of creamy gravy over everything.
She ate everything. Nothing was left on the plate.
This is probably a testament that Schilo's serves delicious chicken and biscuits. For me it's different. A realization. An epiphany.
Art Appreciation
Referred as the "Queen of Pastel," Rosalba Carriera was a Venetian Rococo painter known for miniatures, portraits, and introducing a new use of pastels.
Born on January 12, 1673, Carriera was a self-taught painter who began a career in making portrait miniatures for the lids of snuff-boxes. She established a reputation which gained her acceptance into Rome's Accademia di San Luca.
Her work evolved into portrait-painting where she exclusively used pastels. She is created as initiating a new style, the Rococo style. The Rococo style emphasized the use of pastel colors, spontaneous brush strokes, dancing lights, subtle surface tonalities and a soft, elegant and charming approach to subject matter.
Her earliest known pastel portrait is of Anton Maria Zanetti. Zanetti promoted Carriera to other collectors throughout Europe. Not long after, her name was recognized by many collectors, diplomats, and royalty.
Sources:
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/rosalba-carriera/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalba_Carriera
https://hyperallergic.com/594151/the-life-and-work-of-rosalba-carriera/
Pardon the Interruption
Last year, many of us witnessed something incredible at the U.S. Capitol.
Whereas the day was supposed to demonstrate the greatness of our democratic election process, it brought out the ugly in our society.
Protest is a democratic right given by the First Amendment in our Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Yet, what occurred on January 6th at the Capitol was not a protest but a riot.
The federal Anti-Riot Act (1968), which is part of the Civil Rights Act, makes it a felony to "travel in interstate commerce... with the intent to incite, promote, encourage, participate in and carry on a riot." Riot is defined as "a public disturbance involving (1) an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which act or acts shall constitute a clear and present danger of, or shall result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual."
Additionally, "to incite a riot" is defined as "to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot", includes, but not limited to, urging or instigating other persons to riot..."
Organize. Promote. Encourage. Urging. Instigating.
People do have to right to protest an election outcome. These types of protests have occurred numerous times in U.S. history. Democrats protested after the 2000 election and then again in 2004. Democrats blamed the election in 2000 on "hanging chads." and the use of electronic voting machines in 2004.
And during the election recount in 2000, there was the Brooks Brothers riot, which Roger Stone takes credit for organizing, but it was in no way violent. Republicans in corporate attire descended upon Miami-Dade County and successfully stopped recount by intimidation, but it never turned violent as seen during the January 6th riot.
January 6 was different. After weeks of purporting false claims of a "rigged" election, Trump encouraged his supporters to attend his rally with a tweet, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"
Moreover, at a Georgia rally, two days before January 6, Trump told his supporters, "we're going to take what they did to us on Nov. 3rd. We're going to take it back."
At the pro-Trump rally on the Ellipse, Trump capitalized in his false narrative of election fraud and encouraged his supporters to go to the Capitol and intimidate and fight, "We're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you...we're going to walk down to the capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness... We will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections... I want to thank the more than 140 members of the House. Those are warrior. They're over there working like you've never seen before. Studying, talking, actually going all the way back, studying the roots of the Constitution, because they know we have the right to send a bad note that was illegally gotten... Nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our elections were... But I said something's wrong here... And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
Before his speech finished, a group of pro-Trump supporters were assembling outside the Capitol. More joined the group after the speech. Trump returned to the White House where he watched coverage of the protestors, according to many with firsthand knowledge. He did not walk with his supporters as he said he would.
At 1:00 p.m. protesters began storming through the police barricade around the Capitol building. An hour later, protesters broke windows and began climbing into the Capitol.
At 2:38 p.m., Trump sends out a tweet asking the protesters to "stay peaceful"; although, rioters had already breached the Capitol and began injuring Capitol police officers.
Throughout the afternoon, elected officials from both parties, Fox News anchors, and many others were asking the President to come out and stop the insurrection, the violent uprising.
At 4:17 p.m., over three hours later, Trump tweets a video repeating his false narrative and asking his supporters inside the Capitol to go home, "I know your pain, I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt.It's a very tough period of time. There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil.I know how you feel, but go home, and go home in peace."
Scholars say the United States was very close to a Constitutional crisis had Trump succeeded in stopping the certification and overturning the election.
Merriam-Webster defines "insurrection" as a violent attempt to take control of a government. President Joe Biden and other Democrats call the event at the Capitol an insurrection. Republicans disagree. One Republican Congressman called it a normal tourist visit.
The U.S. Crimes and Criminal Procedures Code defines "Rebellion or insurrection" as "whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto..."
The goal of the group that stormed the Capitol was to disrupt the electoral count. They were successful at it, temporarily. And the argument is that those involved where guided by President Trump who said, "We're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you...we're going to walk down to the capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness." Added to that, Trump released a video after the rioters stormed the Capitol saying, "We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side... We love you. You're very special."
Incited. Gives Comfort.
Sources:
Wikipedia
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2102
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/11/15/its-insanity-how-brooks-brothers-riot-killed-recount-miami/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/politics/january-6-committee-firsthand-knowledge-trump-actions/index.html
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jan/11/timeline-what-trump-said-jan-6-capitol-riot/
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1069977469/a-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when
Art Appreciation
French artist André Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, a town north of Paris, on January 4, 1896.
Masson began studying art at the age of eleven at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He later studied in Paris.
In his early works, he experimented with cubism and surrealism. He then turned to a more structured style often producing works with a violent or erotic theme. In fact, when he escaped German occupation and arrived in New York City, customs found a cache of erotic drawings in his luggage.
His work became an important influence on American abstract expressionisms, such as Jackson Pollock.
Source: Wikipedia, Barnebys.co.uk, Moma.org
