RUBE

I refer, of course, to the late Mr. Reuben Lucius Goldberg, an early-20th Century Renaissance man. A sculptor, engineer, inventor, writer, and cartoonist, he founded the National Cartoonists Society... and every year, the Society presents the Reuben Award to the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Goldberg created several successful (if little remembered) comic strips, including Boob McNutt and Ike and Mike (They Look Alike). His most enduring contribution to American popular culture, however, was the Rube Goldberg machine, a device of ridiculous complexity that would perform a basic, mundane task. Using a maximum of effort to achieve minimal results, the “Rube Goldberg” has now entered the language: Webster’s defines it as “accomplishing by extremely complex, roundabout means what seemingly could be done simply.”

Goldberg’s legacy lives on as people create - mostly for entertainment - his eponymous devices. Witness this Honda advertisement from 2003, “Cog”:



Amazing. But now the group OK Go has ratcheted up the Goldberg-Meter to a new level with their music video “This Too Shall Pass.” Check it out:



If you hate the music, mute the sound... but by all means, watch the video. It’s unbelievable.

Nitpickers may say that the machines in these videos are not true Rube Goldbergs, since they don’t actually accomplish an everyday task that would be more easily done by simpler means. Squeezing toothpaste onto a toothbrush, for example... or wiping your chin with a napkin. But that’s mere pedantry. It’s all about the entertainment value, innit?

And old Rube would be proud, I’m sure.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to the Mistress of Sarcasm, who turned me on to the OK Go video.]

UNCLE REBUS

Uncle Rebus here, with a visual pun for you.



Gaze upon this image of a sculpture located at the upscale Aventura Mall in Aventura, Florida. Click to embiggen if you need to take a closer look.

Now: This piece of Fine Art, intentionally or not, suggests a well-known television personality. Who is it?

Leave your answer in the Comments. Use your imagination... and look below the fold for my thoughts on the matter!

My Esteemed Commenters have deposited several fine suggestions in the ol’ Feedback-Bag. I’ll confess that I had been thinking “David Letterman,” but Peggy U has nailed it with “Art Linkletter.” After all, what is a sculpture but Art? WTG, PeggyU!

THESE CARDS BITE...

...because they have teeth.

Welcome to the world of CardSharque.com, home of the most twisted e-cards on the Inter-Webbynet. Each one is a mini-video, roughly a minute in length... and most of ’em are completely deranged.

Take a look through the various e-cards available. Send one to a friend.

You might even recognize one of the actors.

ART IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

They (whoever “they” are) say that Art Is Where You Find It. All I can say is, whenever we are with Uncle Phil and Aunt Marge, we manage to find plenty of Art. For at their pied-à-terre in Hollywood, Florida, it’s all around us. Their house is a veritabobble treasure trove of Gorgeous Stuff. I won’t even try to be snarky and call it “Gorgeous Crap,” because none of it is crap.

The only other person I know with the same kind of gift for discovering Found Art is the Mistress of Sarcasm. It must run in the family.

Here, for example, is a terra-cotta statue. I call him “Pre-Columbian Dude,” although I strongly suspect he is post-Columbian.


Pre-Columbian Dude.

Next up we have a Portrait in Relief, a fellow I like to refer to as “Cracked Caesar.”


Cracked Caesar.

So many philosophical metaphors you can build with this as inspiration... and so little time.

There’s lots more. Some of it is left over from Phil’s career as purveyor of miscellaneous scientific equipment:


A brace of antique microscopes.

These babies are solid brass, and they are gorgeous. I can almost imagine Louis Pasteur using a ’scope like this.

How about these? Every one a work of Modern-Age Art... but what are they? I’ll provide the answer in the extended entry.


Mystery Art. WTF are these things, anyway?

Maybe a better title for this post is “Home Is Where The Art Is.” As long as we’re talking about Phil and Marge’s home, that is.

Not all the art in Broward County resides with Phil and Marge, though. There’s this fellow we caught up with at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, parked contentedly in a waiting lounge all by himself:


Airport Dude.

I can only guess that his name should be Art... for that is what he is. He’s either a very realistic sculpture or an amazingly immobile ascetic, because he was in the exact same position in the exact same place on two separate days...

Toasters!

Yes, indeedy - they’re all toasters. Aunt Marge has a formidable collection of antique toasters, all of which (I believe) are in working condition. Toaster aficionados - yes, there are such people - will recognize the copper number above as a Model 1B14 Toastmaster, a highly popular style that was introduced in 1947 and lasted for seventeen years. (Most people are familiar with the chrome-plated version, the classic image of the pop-up toaster.)

How ’bout that? Utilitarian Art!

ON RECREATIONAL HOMUNCULI

The old toys of our childhood possess a special magic.

She Who Must Be Obeyed can tell you all about it. She still has her stuffed Lambie, a treasured Play-Companion from her earliest days. Most of the time, Lambie reposes on a shelf in the closet, as befits a Dowager-Lamb of considerable years... but when the Missus holds that tatterdemalion ovine body, I can almost see her eyes grow misty as the years peel away in her mind.

Alas, I possess no such relics of my Snot-Nose Days. I can remember the toys I played with when I was not much more than a toddler - a rubber giraffe and frog come to mind - but those playthings long ago ended up on some suburban Midden-Heap.

I would imagine that the shamanistic powers of dolls are especially potent, but having grown up in a generation in which dolls were Girl-Playthings, I have no such personal experience. Boys of my age-cohort did not play with Recreational Homunculi; G.I. Joe and other “Action Figures” had not yet been invented. And as much as I enjoyed my model rockets, I cannot imagine forming the sort of affectionate bonds with them that girls form with their dolls, even with a few decades worth of nostalgia thrown in as leavening. I can only go by the second-hand evidence that comes from living in a house full of women... and that evidence says that doll-power is powerful indeed.

To all of my esteemed readers who are scratching their heads and wondering just what ole Elisson is going on about, there is a point to all this. A few months back, SWMBO’s mother celebrated a major birthday, and we were casting about for appropriate gift ideas. It was then that SWMBO remembered that we had, tucked away in a cedar chest, an old doll that had belonged to her Momma.

The doll was, as could be expected from a plaything that was somewhere around sixty-five years of age, not in the best condition. The clothes were missing a few snaps and ribbons; the socks, stained with age, had deteriorated and displayed several holes. Moreover, the internal network of strings and bands that held the doll together was in tatters. But those are all things that could be repaired. How would Mom react to seeing her Old Friend again... all new and shiny? That is the birthday gift we settled on: Have Mom’s doll restored.

Strange as it may seem to the layman, there are people who, either as a living or as a hobby, restore and repair all manner of dolls. And so that is where I brought Nancy Lee - that, by the bye, was the name of this Old Friend - to be brought back to her former glory...



It was a slow and lengthy process, to be sure, but today I retrieved the finished article. A simple construct of string, polymeric composition, cloth, ribbon, leather, mohair, and paint, but one that is imbued with a special magic. The magic to bring back memories of a long-ago childhood.

Here she is, all restrung, reconditioned, and with clothing freshly pressed. I can only imagine Mom’s reaction when she sees her childhood Play-Buddy. Perhaps we’ll throw in a box of Kleenex when we pack ol’ Nancy Lee up...

FROM THE ELISSON ARCHIVE...

...comes this collection of Rude Caricatures.


Myron B., music teacher.

Back in my Snot-Nose Days, I cultivated a minor talent for caricature - “minor” being the operative word. My drawings were not especially skilled in likeness or execution... but they provided a certain amount of amusement, as well as being a good way to survive a boring middle-school class or study hall.


Harold M., fearsome-looking science teacher.

My subjects, more often than not, were teachers. They were available, they were visually interesting - those wrinkles! Those odd hairstyles! - and they made especially good targets by virtue of their convenient position in front of the classroom.


Chemistry teacher. For the life of me, I cannot remember his name. Check out the Don Martin feet!

Was there malice aforethought in these drawings? No, no more than the usual amount of malice a student bears for Those Who Inflict Scholarly Labors. They are attempts at childish ridicule aimed at people who, seen from a more adult perspective, were not deserving of it.

I wonder whether they would consider themselves insulted or honored were they to see these pictures today.

[More below the fold.]

Patrick C., social studies teacher.


Myron B. again, in a more light-hearted moment.


Fred H., social studies teacher.


Ken S., German teacher.


The long-suffering Ken S. again.

PARTY HARDY

She had an Ed Hardy tat above her ample ass
She had a snootful of Scotch in a Martini glass
It seemed to me that she had lots of class
So I asked her to dance.

She slurred her words – perfect Whisky Diction
She responded to my subtle pelvic friction
And pretty soon I started getting an eriction
Hoping to get in her pants.

Tattoo on your titty
Tattoo on your back
My favorite’s the one
Over your Ass-Crack
Makes a snazzy target
When I take aim
I like to Party Hardy
It’s my favorite game

Oh, I wish this night would never stop
Gonna try to get you out of that halter-top
You look like you could use some Horizontal Bop
Can’t you feel the romance?

Tattoo on your titty
Tattoo on your back
My favorite’s the one
Over your Ass-Crack
Makes a snazzy target
When I take aim
I like to Party Hardy
It’s my favorite game

[This would make a fine Country Song: all it needs is some music. Anyone want to give it a try?]

Inspired by the fine Sunday Ink posts over at Dead Dog Walkin’.

SATURDAY INK

A red-maned Irish faerie graces the thoracic spinal area of a young woman in Philadelphia. Oh, and check our the Ed Hardy-style neck-skull. Sweet!

Alpha K-9, the resident blogger at Dead Dog Walkin’, has a regular feature at his site, Sunday Ink, in which he posts pictures of interesting tattoos - usually sported by attractive or interesting young ladies.

I was thinking of ol’ K-9 a week ago today as I was walking through the courtyard at Philadelphia’s City Hall, for along came a lovely young thing with a Serious Tattoo. I asked if I could photograph her, and she happily acceded. And so, as an homage to the finest Inkblogger (and Chipmunk-Tale Raconteur) of Austin, Texas, I post it here.

Think of it not as a “Cheesecake Photo,” but rather a “Cheesesteak Photo.” It’s Philly, yo!

A MISS IS AS GOOD AS A DE MILO

As I was wand’ring in the city
I caught a glimpse of iv’ry titty
A veritable Venus.
A sight that would attract the eye
Of any reasonable guy
Who owned a working penis.
Her back was arched, her arm was raised,
Her eyes were closed (but slightly glazed)
As though in throes of pleasure.
O, if I could but take her home
(I’d need a second mortgage loan)
A sculpture for to treasure!
But I suspect the Missus would
(If she is thinking like she should)
Think this idea’s no winner.
She’d say, “If you’re so fucking rich,
Enjoy your ice-cold plaster bitch -
Get her to cook your dinner!”

AN EVENING AT THE FABULOUS FOX

Interior of the Fabulous Fox Theatre, showing the view from the Dress Circle. Although this image does not capture its full glory, the trompe l’oeil ceiling has twinkling stars... and clouds that drift lazily across it.

Last week we caught a show - Ray Romano and Brad Garrett, if you’re curious - at the Fox Theatre in midtown Atlanta.

Over the years, we’ve seen many shows at the Fox. We’ve also been backstage, thanks to Elder Daughter’s friend Erica, who has appeared there in productions of Mamma Mia and A Chorus Line. Hell, we’ve even been onstage, getting an insider’s look at the Mamma Mia set an hour before showtime.

Built in the late 1920’s with a distinctively Moorish design, the Fox is now a registered National Historic Landmark. And it ought to be, for it is absolutely stunning. It’s a real Atlanta treasure.

[Moorish architecture is one of the handful of gifts bestowed upon Western civilization by the world of Islam, along with the words “algebra,” “alcohol,” and the happy concepts of jihad, female circumcision, and honor killings. I’d be perfectly happy if the world of Islam kept those last ones to themselves.]

It would be a great bit of history to say that Gone with the Wind premiered at the Fox... but, alas, it would not be true, for the movie most people identify with Atlanta had its premiere down the street at the Loew’s Grand. But Disney’s Song of the South did premiere at the Fox, introduced by Walt Disney himself. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!

Interestingly, back in the days of institutionalized segregation, the Fox was the only theatre that accommodated both black and white patrons. If you were a Person of Color, however, you purchased your tickets at a specially designated box office in the back (which still exists), you used a separate entrance, and you sat in a separate section up in the second dress circle. Presumably, you also had a separate opinion concerning Song of the South: “Uncle Remus? They oughta call him ‘Uncle Ream-Us’!”

A TIP...

...o’ th’ Elisson Fedora goes to El Capitan of Baboon Pirates for his latest tour de force: a retrospective of Art History with especial emphasis on a certain individual with Great Farookin’ Hair™.

Here’s a taste:


“American Jimbo” By El Capitan, with apologies to Grant Wood.

The image that inspired Cap’s PhotoShoppy Masterpieces may be familiar to those who read this account of last year’s Hysterics at Eric’s - the weekend that was notable for the Infamous Drahr Fahr, among other things - and who took the time to make clicky-clicky on all the links.

There’s more to the good Captain than meets the eye. We already know he can write a mean Blog-Post... but this is the best evidence to date of his Mad PhotoShoppin’ Skillz. And a connoisseur of Caravaggio, to boot! A feckin’ Renaissance Man, I tells ya.

NEWLY RELEASED...

...in the now-moribund CD format is this Fine Album.


[Click to embiggen.]

Naw, I’m just kidding. This one is unavailable in stores... or pretty much anywhere else. It’s the product of a cute little PhotoShop-based meme Libby has been trying to propagate.

Create Your Own Album Cover!

It’s simple, especially if you have PhotoShop or some other image-editing software. Here’s all you do:

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The title of the article is the name of your band.
   
2. Now go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last few words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your album.
   
3. Finally, go to http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days, where the third picture - no matter what it is - will be your album cover.
   
4. Use PhotoShop (or any similar image-tinkering app) to put it all together.
   
5. Post the result on your blog.

Clever, no?

I’m not tagging anyone with this, but if it’s your cup of tea, have at it. What I find amusing is that this random approach yields results that would look perfectly at home in the Remainder Rack of your local music shoppe. Say, does anyone still actually buy CD’s any more?

Update: Just for shits ’n’ grins, I did a second one:


[Click to embiggen.]

Hey, this is fun!

DOCTOR ATOMIC

Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

- John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV

A little over seven months ago, I stood with Elder Daughter at the hypocenter of the Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion. It was a powerfully emotional moment, as was our subsequent visit to the Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Believing as I do that the atomic bombing of Japan was a tragic necessity, given the circumstances of the time, did not diminish the psychological impact of seeing the photographs, hearing the voices...and knowing that this was the very spot where it happened, where over 140,000 lives were sacrificed to nuclear fire.

The performance of John Adams’s opera “Doctor Atomic” the Missus and I saw yesterday afternoon was no less emotionally striking.

Modern Opera is not for everybody. I know that there are parts of Adams’s other masterwork, the acclaimed “Nixon in China,” that make She Who Must Be Obeyed want to yank her hair out by the roots...yet she was brave enough to accompany me to the Atlanta Symphony Hall for yesterday’s semi-staged show. And she actually enjoyed it!

We had excellent seats: fourth row center orchestra, close enough to see every facial expression, every twitch of conductor Robert Spano’s baton. And an extra treat (for me, anyway) was seeing James Maddelena, the baritone who originated the role of Nixon in “Nixon in China,” playing Chief Meteorologist Frank Hubbard.

Gerald Finley, as Robert Oppenheimer, was superb, giving the appropriate weight to his powerful arias, while the other performers (including Richard Paul Fink as Dr. Edward Teller and Eric Owens as General Leslie Groves) more than held up their end. The libretto, drawn from elements as diverse as John Donne (the above sonnet being rendered as an aria by Oppenheimer); the Bhagavad-Gita; various communications and documents from Los Alamos; Charles Baudelaire; and Tewa Indian poetry, at times sounded a bit like the nutty writing on the Eggagog blog (SWMBO cracked me up at one point by pointing that out), but told the story very effectively.

How do you show an atomic explosion on stage? You don’t. But you bring the subsonics up to a tooth-rattling level...and, while the protagonists cover their eyes with welder’s glass, you project an image of the Trinity fireball, followed by a photograph of a Japanese woman and her daughter amidst the chaos of Hiroshima.

The closing voiceover is that of a Japanese victim, quietly begging for water.

Mizu-o kudasai...
Mizu-o kudasai...
Mizu-o kudasai...

I knew those words; I had seen and heard them before, in the Memorial Hall in Hiroshima. They were a fitting and eloquent coda, and they made my heart pound with remembered emotion.

Want a taste? Here you go:

FINE ART - AND AFFORDABLE, TOO

As a Proud Daddy, every so often I’ll put up a few pictures of the Mistress of Sarcasm’s fine artwork. And now I am pleased to announce - because, after all, what is the point of operating this Bloggy Pulpit if one cannot whore oneself out for the sake of one’s offspring? - that, if you are so inclined, you can now purchase the Mistress’s hand-crafted items for your very own.

Yes: the Mistress has her very own Online Craft- and Jewelry-Shoppe. Here’s the link, for your bookmarking convenience:

Jocelyn Gayle Designs

Keep in mind that, in these times of economic uncertainty and jobs moving offshore, that every purchase you make at Jocelyn Gayle Designs supports American entrepreneurship...and helps keep the wolf away from my little girl’s door. Plus, she crafts the kind of items that will have your friends sit up and take notice. Like her Birds pendant or Vertigo brooch, evoking the spirit of the late Alfred Hitchcock...or the “Bite Me” tooth X-ray pendant. Wear it to your next oral prophylaxis appointment and watch your dental professional’s astonished reaction!

Everything the Mistress sells is 100% hand crafted by her, right here in the good old USA. No Indonesian sweatshops! Not yet, anyway.

THE MISTRESS’S TORCH SONG

The Mistress in her studio, wielding her acetylene torch.

The Mistress is hard at work in her studio these days, getting ready for a trunk show she’s hosting next week. Hand-made necklaces, pendants, brooches, and earrings - that kind of thing.

Quite the artist, she is.

She has a few Hitchcock-inspired designs. Quick: what movies are these based on?








Take a peek below the fold for more.

A galaxy of necklaces.



Cat necklace detail.



Jacob’s Ladder.

BUT, IS IT ART?

What do these things all have in common?


New Yorker magazine cover, September 24, 2001.


RAW, Issue #1.


Harper’s magazine cover, August 2006.


New Yorker magazine cover, February 15, 1993.


Garbage Pail Kids. [Click to embiggen.]


Self-portrait.


Wacky Pack sticker, 1973.


Maus II (detail).

If you guessed that these are all the creations of one Art Spiegelman, you are correct.

Spiegelman, the child of Holocaust survivors, came to prominence in the world of underground comics back in the late 1960’s. He is perhaps best known for Maus, a graphic novel in two parts that chronicles his father’s experience leading up to and during the Holocaust. He also worked for the New Yorker for ten years, creating some of that magazine’s most memorable (and controversial) covers. (It’s hard to imagine that the same cartoonist who drew scurrilous material for underground titles like Real Pulp, Young Lust, and Bizarre Sex could land a gig with that most staid bastion of New York literary pretentiousness, but, well, there you are.)

I’ve written here about Wacky Packs and Garbage Pail Kids, two of the stranger excrescences of Kiddie Popular Culture of the 1970’s and ’80’s, and how they were, no doubt, inspired (directly or indirectly) by MAD Magazine. As it turns out Spiegelman created both...and he acknowledges that MAD Magazine was a significant Childhood Influence.

Last night, I had the good fortune to attend a lecture Spiegelman gave at the Atlanta outpost of Savannah College of Art and Design. For over two hours, he had the rapt attention of several hundred audience members as he talked about everything from 9/11 (he was close enough to watch the whole thing), to the underground comics scene, to his years at the New Yorker, to the Great Muhammad Cartoon Controversy of 2006, to Dick Tracy and Peanuts, to the work of will Eisner.

He spent quite a bit of time talking about how MAD Magazine - and its sister EC Comics publications, including the entire stable of pre-Code horror comics - helped mold his sensibility and sense of humor. He reminded me of me...except for the fact that he has Artistic Talent.

Afterwards, I had a chance to speak with him briefly and reminisce about some of the shared elements of our New York-area childhoods. It was all too short a dialogue, because I could have listened to his stories for hours.

But thanks to the miracle of the Printing Press, coupled with Spiegelman’s extraordinary vision, I can see his stories anytime I want to.


Art Spiegelman. [Click to embiggen.]

STUPID SHIT ‘R’ US

That would probably be a good name for Chez Elisson, were I to give my home a name. You know: like some Ridiculously Wealthy People do. Shady Grove. Mar-a-Lago. Breaking Winds. That sort of thing.

Yep. Stupid Shit ‘R’ Us. How entirely appropriate...for my surroundings are packed to the rafters with Stupid Shit.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were digging around in my nightstand for a flashlight when I espied a pile of these things:


Garbage Pail Kids. [Click to embiggen.]

Garbage Pail Kids!

These revolting – yet eminently collectible - sets of stickers came packaged with bubble gum back in the mid-1980’s. Featuring incredibly grotesque caricatures based on the then-popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, these were a huge hit with the prepubescent set, thanks largely to their felicitous combination of grossness and cleverness. I amassed quite a pile of ’em, despite my being a generation older than their target audience.

But the Garbage Pail Kids did not spring full-blown and full-grown into the world. They had their antecedents in the form of Wacky Packs, another set of stickers packaged with bubble gum. Wacky Packs lampooned consumer products, and their arrival circa 1973 was greeted with the same frenzy among the Newly-Pubescent that the Garbage Pail Kids were to inspire a decade later. My ice-cream truck was festooned with ’em, thanks to the generosity of the local kidstabulary.


A typical Wacky Pack sticker, 1973.

One could make a case for the Garbage Pail Kids being the bastard offspring of Wacky Packs and the Cabbage Patch Kids...but what inspired Wacky Packs?

I have a theory. It was nothing but MAD Magazine. What else?

Buried in the bowels of the basement of Chez Elisson, there is a pile of old MAD magazines, many of which date back to the 1950’s. Among them are several of their earlier anthology-style issues, among which is a confection called “More Trash from MAD.”


More Trash from MAD, Issue #2, circa 1959.

The second issue of “More Trash...” came with a special insert: several pages of MAD Labels, cut-and-paste pre-gummed stickers that were parodies of then-existing consumer products. Things like “Belch-Not Strained Babies, Made In East Africa, By Cannibals For Cannibals.” Or “Roll Las Vegas Pineappl’d Dice.” Or “Tuna Brand Canned Bumble Bees.”


A MAD Label from the Collection d’Elisson.

Stuff that was immensely appealing to the third-grade Elisson...and which was the direct inspiration for the Wacky Packs that would appear about ten years later. Or so it seems to me.

Now: Who else besides Old Uncle Elisson can spin theories like this about the Stupid Shit you probably don’t give a flying fuck about?

METAL SHOP WAS NEVER LIKE THIS

The Mistress of Sarcasm is heading into her final months as a Metals and Jewelry major at the Savannah College of Art and Design (otherwise known as The Place Where I Send Honkin’ Big Checks Several Times a Year).

I don’t mind writing those Honkin’ Big Checks because the Mistress is making good use of her time there. She has (kinahora) made the Dean’s List almost every single quarter since transferring there in the fall of 2002. And she makes such interesting stuff in her studio.

The locket in the picture below is one of her own creations. A sturdy oak tree, rendered in sterling silver, with a long branch that wraps around the neck and a little door in the trunk that lifts open to reveal a jewel. Around the jewel is a tiny scroll with an appropriate message. And the piece has a theme, a concept around which it was designed: the idea that friends grow like branches from the trunk of a single tree. While friends may grow apart as they mature, as the branches of a tree grow apart from one another, they still remain connected – and they still share roots. It’s a powerful message, not only for friends, but for family.


The Mistress shows off some of her handiwork.

This unique locket became a wedding present to one of the Mistress’s close friends who tied the knot last year. My two cents: One, I’m very glad we took pictures. Two, that marriage had damn well better last.