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Martini Glambassador's avatar

Today’s hed artist is Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. Get off his lawn!

https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/pieter-bruegel-the-elder

I know a lot of you will want to linger over these works that are SO PACKED with details, so I’ve provided links to every one of them in the write up. Service-y!

Mariah's avatar

The Niederlandisch Proverbs are a joy to sort through.

I'm also a fan of his Tower of Babel, which has a delightfully low-country "king/foreign agent tells us to do something that everyone knows is a disaster" energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_%28Bruegel%29

Emil Muz's avatar

Happy Birthday Martini!

I had Xmas cards that featured one of those paintings, I might still have a couple strays in the Decorations tote.

theCryptofishist's avatar

I guess that posting the "Triumph of Death" on your natal day would be... off somehow.

theCryptofishist's avatar

Yeah! It just confuses most people.

Martini Glambassador's avatar

It’s in there! Haha, I hadn’t thought about the birthday angle

theCryptofishist's avatar

Whoops, must have flashed by a little quickly...

Babe Paley's avatar

Happy, happy birthday, my dear friend!

Cincinnatus's avatar

Would also recommend Hendrick Avercamp in the same genre. Younger than Bruegel the Elder. Per Wikipedia: "The Flemish painting tradition is mainly expressed in Avercamp's early work. This is consistent with the landscapes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder."

Robert Eckert's avatar

Bruegel sniffs, "Kids today, and their painting!"

Cheryl from Maryland's avatar

Avercamp is great fun. Many of his paintings show winter festivals, like people playing golf on frozen rivers (17th C Europe had what is called a little ice age, with several decades of colder temperatures).

avidlurker's avatar

One of my favorite artists. Not for art reasons because I don’t know enough about art to have art reasons. I’m just fascinated by the glimpses into ordinary life. And yes, I love the details.

Up Here in the Clouds's avatar

Happiest of Happy Birthdays! Enjoy!

Suzie Greenburg's avatar

Happy birthday! I hope you have the best of your favorites today. Thank you for all your work, you've given me lovely things to watch and read, and I am grateful.Vous êtes trés chouette!

(I hope I'm calling you cool and not a large hunting birb)

Robert Eckert's avatar

You are calling her a little cabbage, which in French is considered cool

Gingerwentworth's Theory's avatar

And what about vachement chouette then??? (sorry to make angry demands of the birthday girl! )

Suzie Greenburg's avatar

That tracks

Menotsure's avatar

A cake in the shape of that tower would be great.

Alas, I cannot provide one.

theCryptofishist's avatar

That would be a birthday party... "We were having a lot of fun, it was a successful party, they we had cake and all the children started speaking weird, new languages."

Martini Glambassador's avatar

It’s the thought that counts 😄

Menotsure's avatar

I hit my thinking quota early this morning. You got in just under the wire.

Now, ...more coffee.

OneYieldRegular's avatar

Giving all of US a bounty of Brueghel - that is some birthday present! Joyeux Anniv!

NatalyaResists's avatar

Happy Birthday! I hope you get gifts as wonderful as the ones you give us!

Internet Personae's avatar

It’s the birthday of the Glambassador - everyone gets to wear party hats and dance!

SkeptiKC's avatar

GLORIOUS salutations on this, the grand anniversary of your spectacular debut upon this Earth, our brilliantly creative Martini Glambassador! Abundant happy and festive returns of the day!

Corvid Opera's avatar

All the happiest of birthday wishes to you, our Glambassador! 🎂🥂

Timothy Storey's avatar

I actually have 2 of his paintings as 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles. They are fun and challenging.

Linoleum von Curmudgeon, Esq.'s avatar

Those can be profitable if you do some work with them.

1. Mount completed puzzles in olde thrift store frames from Ye Olde Thrifte Storee.

2. Schlep mounted puzzle down to a mid-size city museum in Florida or Texas or Alabama.

3. Approach museum staff to sell "recently found priceless art needing to be sold to finance stray animal shelter" ASAP because PUPPIES and KITTIES.

4. Acquire and keep vaguely European stage accent. (Personally, I use Faux French)

5. 'Splain the lines all over the piece as being 'craquelure'. DO NOT say 'crackle'.

By saying the word 'craquelure' in a vaguely European accent to a small museum in Dixie you can make and sell these puzzles by the bushel basket.

But DO NOT try this in any Big City in a Blue State. They'll just call the police.

Menotsure's avatar

Crack allure sounds vaguely sexy, or druggy, ...or both.

Gingerwentworth's Theory's avatar

Just the last word before you pass out!

Richard Careaga's avatar

You have to wonder when the life begins at conception crowd will trip to the logical inference that a pharmaceutical agent that prevents a fertilized ovum from adhering to the uterine lining is an abortifacient and therefore fair game for criminal prosecution.

Spleen Victoria's avatar

I disapprove of that statue. If’n she plucked out her eyeballs whycome the statue’s got eyeballs? That’s 2 eyeballs too many and now she just looks like a serial killer. Also no bloody gore holes. How is that even festive, pffft!

Gingerwentworth's Theory's avatar

Ms Glamb.-- Have you seen the Hopper pictures turned into slow-moving moving pictures by TCM? I used to find them so nice to gaze at. You can see them on youtube if you describe them just that way. (Do you see the same youtube we see?) "TCM Hopper paintings animated"

Kate Bergam's avatar

This was brilliant thank you

Emil Muz's avatar

So are we just going to ignore the 800 lb kitten in the room??

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/12/1218895581/cats-research-study-environment

"If I could figure out how to get the food cans open, all you white people would be dead in a week"

--your cat

Liminal's avatar

The whole "trans women will rob young cis women of their trophies" frosts my grundle. I am a non-sports person, always have been. I'm built for comfort, I ain't built for speed. I also ain't built Ford tough. I also can't hit, throw, or catch a sportsball with any degree of accuracy. Not even a golf ball, and those fuckers hold still.

So I was on the Outside of sportsball all through school. And I overflowed with the message I got about how sportsball is all about learning teamwork and leadership, it's about fair play and hard work, it's about giving it your all and then being a good sport if the other side's "all" is more than yours.

It's not about just winning. Winning is nice and all, but it's about the game, about the competition.

Except now dudes are trying to get into the girls clubhouse to dominate their sporting events.

Well, numero uno, being trans is a WHOLE lot if all you want is to win a trophy. And numero two-o, what part of "I deserve a trophy because I am the best except for that person" would you consider sportsmanlike? What part of having to face a competitor with some advantages over you is learning about teamwork and working to be your best?

TalentNotAutotune's avatar

Super Happy Fun Ball LIBELZ!

Demodocus's avatar

My boy-child grew over 4 inches between his 9th & 10th birthdays. Thought he wasn't supposed to do that until *after* puberty hit. o.O

Fiddlesticks's avatar

RIP Andre Braugher. Much too young.

Brooklyn 99 had such a great cast, and I loved him on that show. :(

Resource NW's avatar

Thank you for the Penobscot story. Here in the PNW we are looking at the Elwha dam removals and hoping for good results, but it is slow going. General habitat, both in the upper reaches and the in the riverbed at the mouth are rebounding quickly, with assistance (quick being a relative term). Salmon, steelhead, and other migrating fish populations are growing very slowly. It is a start, hopefully not left too late.

Revenant's avatar

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Got all ready, went out tp the car to drive to my first in-person doctor appointment since last winter, and the car started! But then the oil pressure light came on, and by now I know that trying to drive anywhere is a good way to destroy a costly motor. I've been noticing suspicious puddles of dark fluid beneath the passengers' side front tire, so this is not too big a surprise. If this turns out to be another seriously costly repair, fuck if I know how I'm going to pay for it, because I already have an intractable $2K credit card debt and no liquid assets other than an already badly drained 401k (down to about 25k).

Maybe this time the tow truck driver AAA sends will not be a fucking raving jihadi like the last one; tow truck drivers used to be huge and silent about crime and its punishment and quite capable of lifting one end of my Golf to maneuver it into a better position for towing

Amezed's avatar

There's a nonprofit called American Consumer Credit Counseling that helped me pay down my (much larger) credit debt in 3 years. Very easy to set it up. Also, if you insure your car with Geico, it includes free roadside assistance and is 1000% better than AAA at this point. Good luck with everything!!

Gingerwentworth's Theory's avatar

If I had those particular problems right now I'd feel way better.

Crip Dyke's avatar

Happy Birfday to Martini!

Happy still-getting-better-day to Mme Shoenkopf!

Queen Méabh's avatar

I had a 3-day-long job interview at the U of Penn back in 1989. All I can say about it is that the staff at the International Student Office were some of the most unfriendly, uncooperative and unorganized people I ever met in my entire life. I did not get the job, but I could tell within half an hour of meeting them that I didn't want to work there, so no loss.

Robert Eckert's avatar

How can you say that about Donald Trump's alma mater?

Shocktreatment's avatar

Michael Bishop, an author who was best known for his award-winning science fiction but who ranged far beyond the genre, venturing into realism, noir mystery and even Southern Gothic, died on Nov. 13 in LaGrange, Ga. He was 78

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/books/michael-bishop-dead.html

Shit!

Blanche de Shambles's avatar

Mya Lesnar, the daughter of Brock Lesnar (the wrestler) now competes in shot-put at the collegiate level, so of course, all the transvestigators are saying she's a man.

These people clearly never watch track and field, because if Mya Lesnar is trans then literally every woman who competes in shot-put is trans.

Alpaca22's avatar

I did shot put , javelin and discus at school. I am a straight white woman. Would have loved to see them try that with me

Blanche de Shambles's avatar

You must have some arms on you.

Alpaca22's avatar

I did have. Not any more.

Revenant's avatar

then these fucking fucks would gladly bar them every one from competition, even if it turned out that shot-put was all trans vs, trans, because the precious children might see them.