Hagop Sandaldjian's microminiature sculptures at the Jurassic Museum

By Jack Brummet, Arts Editor

Hagop Sandaldjian was a musician and music theorist who later in life, became an artist, creating "microminiatures"-- tiny sculptures resting on the eye of a needle.  The sculptures took a long time to create, and a sneeze, or even a slight movement could destroy the work in an instant.  The Jurassic Museum in Culver City has a great exhibit of his work (among their many other great exhibits). I shot these images of his work through magnifying glass viewers at the museum using an iPhone (and with a photography permit where I promised I wouldn't sell the images to you. 

The challenge he created for himself was that each sculpture had to be small enough to fit through the eye of a needle!

You can read more about Sandaldjian here, on the Museum's website. 

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The CVS Clown in Santa Monica (but it might technically be in Venice)

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor


This demented looking, Emmet Kelly-style clown in a tutu dominates the facade of a CVS drugstore on Main Street.  What next...chupacabras on the top of every WalMart?

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Faces No. 262 - faces on the beach today in Venice, Calif.

By Jack Brummet (in Santa Monica)

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A Ballard Shaggy Dog Story

By Jack Brummet, Ballard and Nordic Heritage Editor




As you may or may not know, the now trendy hipster neighborhood of Ballard in Seattle was, and to some extent still is, a Norwegian-Swedish-Danish stronghold.  Stan Boreson and others have often told "Scandahoovian" stories and jokes.  This is one:

Ole is the Pastor of the local Norwegian Lutheran Church and Pastor Sven is the minister of the Swedish Covenant Church across the road.

One day they are seen pounding a sign into the ground, which said:

     DA END ISS NEAR!
   TURN YERSELF AROUNT NOW
   BAFOR IT ISS TOO LATE!

As a car speeds past them, the driver leans out his window and yells, “Leave people alone, you Skandihoovian religious nuts!”

From the curve they heard screeching tires and a big splash. Shakin’ his head, Rev. Ole says “Dat’s da terd one dis mornin’.”

“Yaa,” Pastor Sven agrees, then asks, “Do ya tink maybe da sign should yust say, ‘Bridge Out?’”

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Bubba and The Pope - one more shaggy dog story

By Jack Brummet, Shaggy Dog Story editor

Bubba, an airline mechanic, was bragging to his boss one day, "you know I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."

Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, "OK, Bubba how about Tom Cruise?" "Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it." So Bubba and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door,and sure enough, Tom Cruise, shouts, "Bubba! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!"

Although impressed, Bubba's boss is still skeptical. After they leave Cruise's house, he tells Bubba that he thinks Bubba's knowing Cruise was just lucky."No, no, just name anyone else," Bubba says. "President Bush", his boss quickly retorts. "Yep", Bubba says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington" and off they go.

At the White House, Bush spots Bubba on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, "Bubba, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee first and catch up. "Well, the boss is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he expresses his doubts to Bubba, who again implores him to name anyone else. "The new Pope", his boss replies. "Sure!" says Bubba. I've known the Pope a long time" So off they fly to Rome.

Bubba and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Bubba says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope." and he disappears into the crowd headed toward St. Peter's. Sure enough, half an hour later Bubba emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Bubba returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.

Working his way to his boss's side, Bubba asks him, "What happened?"

His boss looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the Japanese tourist next to me asked, "Who's that on the balcony with Bubba?"

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The Romney Express

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Jesus and Saint Peter Golfing

Jesus and Saint Peter are golfing. St. Peter steps up to the tee on a par three and hits one long and straight. It reaches the green.

Jesus is up next. He slices it. It heads over the fence into traffic on an adjacent street. Bounces off a truck, onto the roof of a nearby shack and into the rain gutter, down the drain spout and onto a lilly pad at the edge of a lake. A frog jumps up and snatches the ball in his mouth. An eagle swoops down, grabs the frog. As the eagle flies over the green, the frog croaks and drops the ball. It’s in the hole.

Saint Peter looks at Jesus, exasperated. “Are you gonna play golf?” he asks “Or are you just gonna f*** around?”

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Painting: The closer - "I've got a deal for you."

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Drawing: The contestants Paul, Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich

By Jack Brummet
[hand drawn on india ink scratchboard; digitized and captioned]

click to enlarge

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Newt's South Carolina win::::::::::The Republican ship is taking on water

By Jack Brummet, Paranormal, Art, Poetry, and Persiflage Editor (filling in for National Affairs Editor Pablo Fanque, on vacation in Belize)

I very much enjoyed Ex-Speaker Newt's win in South Carolina.  Why?  Because it was nice to see a cannonball blown through Mittens's aura of inevitability.  It's also nice to see the GOP in disarray/upheaval.  We have a different winner in each of the contests so far.  I don't know what the real pundits are saying, but I think this also bodes well for Ron Paul. 

The Mittens juggernaut has been slowed down--the ox is mired in the mud.  Do I want to see Newt as President?  No.  But as for the GOP itself, I enjoy the confusion and chaos.  Neither the establishment/money elite, or the Tea Party faction, or the fundamentalist wing seem able to right the Republican ship...and they're taking on water, fast. 

Why do I enjoy this SO much?  As Alfred Pennyworth said in another context "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

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Painting: DNA Transit

by Jack Brummet

[3'x4'; acrylic, pen, ink, and mixed media on raw canvas, 2005]

click to enlarge

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Our 2010 Predictions on GOP candidates (all things considered...not bad)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
and Jack Brummet, Arts Editor

In late 2010, we guessed who would be running for President from the Republican (and Tea) Party in 2012.  Of our candidates, three are still in the race.  Many of our picks didn't even get off the ground; we missed Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann; Sarah Palin performed a protracted will she?/won't she skit; and several of our picks faltered before the Iowa caucuses.  On the whole, we did a lot better job of guessing than we did in the 2008 contest.

Who is the next candidate to bail?  We are guessing Rick Santorum.  The South Carolina contest is extremely volatile.  Newt has incredibly, surged ahead in the last few days, and in some polls is besting Romney.  But then he was hit with some new dirt from his first wife.  And he even made some hay with that in the most recent debate. 

Despite everything he has said and done, we somehow prefer Newt to Rick Santorum.  We think he will nudge Santorum out in SC.  Ron Paul will remain stable, but will stay in the contest because he has rabid fans that keeping pouring money into the campaign. 

It looks like Florida may be where the rubber meets the road.  Let's see what happens in South Carolina this weekend. . .
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ATIT Reheated--> Poem: Kirkland Snow Day

Snow Day in Kirkland

By Jack Brummet

In silhouette

Against blue bisque skies,

Crows bounce

On the snow-humped branches,

Shaking snow to the ground.

They survey the valley

For prey

In dark relief

On the powder-white fields.

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Seattle Snow and Icestorm 2012

 Jack, journeying out on foot for shotgun shells, beans, bacon, Sterno, and whiskey: 1/20/2012.

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Stop Internet Censorship—make your voice heard on SOPA and the Protect-IP Act

Make your voice heard on

SOPA and the Protect-IP Act

1. Sign the AVAAZ petition:  http://www.nosopa.org/2011/12/10/sign-the-avaaz-petition/
2. Call or email your legislators:  http://www.nosopa.org/2011/11/17/call-my-representative/
3. Stir up trouble in other appropriate ways.

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The Ballard News Tribune goes after The Onion

By Jack Brummet, Ballard Editor

My daughter pointed out last night that in their latest issue (and often in the past), it looks like The Ballard News Tribune is taking on The Onion.  This issue is chockablock with examples, starting with the wack lead story. . .

click to enlarge

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Poem: Lost At Sea

by Jack Brummet

The rings of the splash
Send dopplers
Into the void,
Widening and disappearing
In the cold and lonely sea.
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Poem: The Vault

by Jack Brummet

You spend decades slowly
Building a vault with rebar walls
And titanium lining around your heart,
But your loved ones are safecrackers.
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The Star Wars Porn Parody (this teaser *seems* largely SFW)

By Mona Goldwater, Adult Entertainment Editor

Combining, as it does, many people's two favorite things, doesn't it seem like this upcoming porn movie will be a blockbuster?   They've done The Brady Bunch.  Isn't Star Wars long overdue?

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An uneasy, but productive partnership: Martin Luther King and LBJ

Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson had an uneasy partnership, with some mutual suspicion on both sides.  Nonetheless, they did work together, and accomplished much.  On his birthday,  many of us wonder what would have been different had Reverend King lived beyond 1968. 

LBJ hands a pen to MLK after signing the  Civil Rights Act of 1964

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Painting — Ojo, the B Movie Monster

By Jack Brummet

[artist note: all digital;untouched by human hands. The source image was a photograph of the artist.   I don't know if there was ever a horror movie with an Ojo or not.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen a horror movie with a Cyclops, either.  That's just not right.]

click to enlarge

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ATIT Reheated: Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils

By Jack Brummet, Comparative Religions Editor
[reprinted from All This Is That, January 6, 2005]

My friend, Doc, recently detailed his involvement in the Rama cult (he didn't jump the rails, but his former guru, Rama, did). [1] He also wrote a couple other interesting pieces on Rama earlier in the week. Rama sounds a little like Marjo Gortner, Jimmy Swaggart, or any other charlatan with a good rap. He was prodigiously good at extracting cash from the flock. Interestingly, he hooked in a lot of software developers just at the moment when many software businesses were cranking up their acts and starting to make boatloads of money.  [Ed's note: see: http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/take-me-for-ride.html; http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/rama-in-wired.html; http://drstephencw.blogspot.com/2005/01/rama-lama-ding-dong-home-page.html]

Thinking about cults reminded me of my Baptist roots. We were American Baptists. I'm not sure about the other Protestant sects, but our church had definite opinions on the other churches. The Jewish faith was well-regarded, since it was the cornerstone of the Protestant religions. I didn't hear much about the Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Churches of Christ, Grace Fellowship, Reformed Protestant, United Brethren, First Christian Church, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal, or even the Menonite, Quaker, Episcopal, Amish, Shaker, or Evangelical Covenant churches.

The Catholic Church was regularly and savagely excoriated. I remember preachers railing against "The Cult of Mary." "THEY FORSAKE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR HIS VIRGIN MOTHER AND CONDEMN THEMSELVES TO PERISH IN THE FIRES OF THE GREAT DECEIVER!"

In our church, the crucifix was empty, but in the Catholic Church, Jesus eternally suffered, nailed to the cross. "THEY CELEBRATE THE AGONY AND MURDER OF OUR LORD IN THEIR STATIONS OF THE CROSS!! THIS CHURCH CELEBRATES THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST TO HEAVEN."

"THEY DO NOT EVEN READ THE BIBLE! THEY IGNORE THE GOOD BOOK! THE NEW TESTAMENT OF CHRIST OUR LORD IS IGNORED!"

Confession was an excuse to sin even more--a free pass to perdition! Our ministers ranted against The Priests, The Nuns, The Brothers, The Bishops, and Cardinals. Most of all, they railed about the devil incarnate: His Holiness, The Pope, in his gilded palace, The Vatican.

The Reverend bemoaned "THE ABOMINATION OF THE EUCHARIST," the foul and damning Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and its perversion of what was clearly intended by Our Lord to be symbolic. Jack Chick, the infamous creator of religious tracts, would later designate the Eucharist as "the death cookie."

"THE CATHOLICS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OUTRAGES OF THE SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE IN WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND OF GOD'S PRECIOUS CHILDREN WERE MURDERED! THE CATHOLICS RAN THE INQUISITION!"

There were, of course, also degrees of weirdness within our own denomination. The Southern Baptists with their prohibitions against makeup and dancing among other things, were considered a hopeless bunch of joyless prunes (even in our church, that went so far as to use Welch's Grape Juice for communion). Looked even further down upon were the Immersion Baptists--who took you to the river for baptisms, even in January. We did that only in the summer, but it was more ceremonial that doctrinaire. Still further down the line were the Foot Washing Baptists. At last you come to the Snake Handling Baptists, who were so out there that they did indeed feel like a cult. There is probably another splinter sect of Baptists somewhere, performing even wackier acts in the name of religion.

When does a cult become mainstream? When does a cult jump on the rail and become a church, or religion? I'm not really sure. Clearly, the Church of Latter Day Saints has transcended cult status and gone on to become the fastest growing church in the world (I think Orthodox Judaism is the second fastest growing).

[1] check out the links in the articles there--one to Wired and one to a whole (free) book on the Project Gutenberg site).

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Painting: Elizabeth Taylor

Painting with acrylic, duct tape, pen, marker, and Mr. T's left eye from a kite by Jack Brummet

Reminded of this painting I did because her movie Butterfield 8 was on TV last night. . .

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Painting: Moby Dick

By Jack Brummet

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20 of our favorite Presdential images: JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Link, Obama, Reagan, Truman, Ike, Taft, Ford, Clinton

By Jack Brummet, Mona Goldwater, and Pablo Fanque, ATIT Editors

As you know, if you've been reading ATIT for long, one focus on this blog is the U.S. Presidency.  We've published hundreds of articles and photographs of the Presidents over the last seven+ years.  Here are 20 of our favorite images.

Dick Nixon, who would become President some years after this

photo, is lighter than air

President Lyndon Johnson plays with his cattle

President Ronald Reagan studies his crib notes before a speech

16 year old Bill Clinton meets JFK on a field trip to Washington, D.C.

President Dwight Eisenhower is lassoed at his inauguration

President Ronald Reagan goofs for the cameras

President Bill and Hillary Clinton sometime before

he took office

President Gerald Ford meets Billy Preston, George Harrison, and Ravi Shankar

President Bill Clinton greets former President Gerald Ford at a dinner
celebrating Ford.  What a sweet picture.

President Jack Kennedy tried to restrain soon to be President Lyndon Johnson

President Lyndon Johnson gives his friend Abe Fortas (Associate Supreme

Court Justice) The Johnson Treatment

In an oddly-mirrored room, President Johnson gives his successor, President Dick

Nixon, the Johnson Treatment

President Abe Lincoln pre-beard

Soon to be President Obama, happy on the campaign trail.  We wish we could see

this look on his face again.

President Dick Nixon meets some actors in space garb.  Jack can't
track this down, but seems to remember it was taken at Disneyland

Paul Krassner's realist gave a twisted spin to this photograph of President Reagan at a meet
and greet.  This is Pablo's favorite Presidential photo, because Pablo is one sick biscuit.

President Howard Taft in all his voluminous glory

A bandaged President Jack Kennedy ekes out the last bit of a cigar

One of Jack's favorites - President Harry Truman serenades Lauren Bacall. After Truman's wife

Bess saw this picture, she hit the roof and forbade him any more shenanigans like this.  This is Mona's favorite, and she says she understands why Bess was angry.  Look at those pins on Bacall!

Maybe the most famous of the all - Blitzed out on goofballs, Elvis meets President Dick Nixon at the White House and asks for an honorary drug agent badge

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Alien Lore No. 219 — Did young Barack Obama visit Mars?

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Editor

photograph of Mars' surface courtesy of JPL/NASA

“Simply put, your task is to be seen and not eaten,” retired astronaut Army Maj. Ed Dames, told a young Barack Obama as he was sent on a mission to Mars.  Wired's Danger Room recently told of  a claim by Andrew D. Basiago and William Stilling (who say they were time-traveling government agents) that the CIA organized missions to explore Mars during the 1980's.  More than one of these missions included the 19 year old future President. 

Basiago and Stilling say that BHO was one of a group of young people selected to teleport and from Mars.  Mr. Obama is said to have visited Mars twice between 1981 and 1983 via a "jump room."

The CIA wished to “establish a defense regime protecting the Earth from threats from space” as well as a legal claim to “territorial sovereignty.”  "Obama’s CIA handlers needed him to 'acclimate Martian humanoids and animals to their presence' in order to secure the U.S.-Martian alliance."  

Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesperson says that The President never went to Mars, unless you count "watching Marvin the Martian."

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