#259

Hello, all.
I hope you had a good Christmas.
We had a fine time, but we're back to work now. You'll find us on our website, and etsy.
We made a few home-made presents for family this year, as you might expect. Jo's brother, Andrew, asked me several weeks ago if I wanted to help him record the Beatles' song "When I'm 64" for my in-laws. His step-dad, Steve, just turned 64 this year, and Andrew sang it at their wedding years ago, so it has some significance to them. It's not my favorite Beatles song, being more of a John guy myself, but I think we made it work. We passed the 16 track recorder around so that Steve's sister, Kate Power, and her husband, Steve Einhorn, could sing and play a bit of banjo and guitar on it as well. We even talked Jo and our daughter, Kaity, into singing a few lines in the last verse. Our son wouldn't sing, but we put the squeeze on him tight enough to get a few whistles out of him for the song. So if you're interested in hearing it, you can download it using this link. If you click on it and it doesn't download, try right clicking on it, then choosing "save target as."

When we played it for them on Christmas, we were hoping they'd recognize the singing voices as their family, but they thought it was the Beatles until they heard some of the lyrics changed. We got rid of "Vera, Chuck, and Dave" and replaced it with their grandkids, "Jimmy and Kaity Rae." Once they realized what they were listening to, they were brought to tears. Score!

Here are the credits, in order of appearance:

Bass and lead guitar-Dylan Curry
Drums, vocals, and guitar-Andrew James
Banjo and vocals- Kate Power
Guitar, vocals, and "mouth trombone"-Steve Einhorn
Vocals-Kaity Curry
Vocals-Jo James
Whistling-Jimmy Curry
Vocals-Yellena James

Hope you enjoy it. . .
-Dylan

#258

Hello, everyone.
This is a newsletter first. . .
No links in this email to our art.
Why, you ask?
Because I'm hiding them until after Christmas,
and I'm not even going to give you hot and cold clues.
We are thankful to be booked up until after Christmas production-wise.
Thank you very much to everyone that kept us so busy
this year. We appreciate your support.

So without any art to sell, what do I write?
I sat down to write some silly parody of
The Night Before Christmas.
What came out instead sounded more like
The Raven and was kind of. . .stupid.
But friends, I'll tell you plainly,
I am not above being stupid.
So please enjoy. . .
. . .a piece of work too dumb to destroy. . .

"A Magicless Christmas"

Once upon a merry Cringle
As I sat there eating Pringles
With twinkling stars upon my set
It was David Letterman
And David Arquette

When the ceiling did open
And down came a ladder
And I jumped up and was like,
"What's the matter?"

Then from the attic
Who should appear?
But six white rats
With etsy beards

They winked at me once
Which was a bit off-putting
Then they scampered away
Like they found some pudding

Another glorious Christmas ends
Good night
God's speed
Good luck
Amen

-Dylan

#257

Hello, everyone.
We have some new pieces on the website since I wrote to you last, so be sure to check that out. . .



I hope you all had a tasty Thanksgiving on Thursday, and continue to enjoy the leftovers. Here's a tip from Captain Hobo for enjoying your leftovers . . . you can roll just about anything up in a tortilla and eat it with one hand, leaving your other hand free to set a fire in garbage can, thumb a ride, or play the harmonica (not recommended.)
We celebrated Thanksgiving in Lincoln City on the coast with Jo's folks. We stayed in a trailer in their yard, which is their guest room. The bed is several inches from the ceiling, so I'm recommending to Jo that she wear a helmet next time. I tried to keep count of how many times she bumped her head, but it's difficult to count when you're nursing your own concussion.

-Dylan

I'm back!
Sorry to have been gone so long.
We finally have some new pieces listed both on etsy and our website.
Click away. . .



Our daughter will be coming home soon for one of the longest Thanksgiving weekends I've ever seen scheduled, about 9 days long. I say she's coming "home" but she doesn't call this house home. She calls it "my parents' house" since she never lived here. But we want it to feel like the home she knew before we moved, so we've transformed the craft room/ junk room/ guest room into something that resembles her old room. We painstakingly peeled the springtime themed decals off the walls and painted over the worst shade of pink ever mixed in a paint can, choosing instead a nice off-white. We put up a few decorations, and suddenly it became the best looking room in the house. To be honest, the other bedrooms weren't giving it much competition. Would you believe that our bedroom isn't decorated in the slightest? I know. I'm surprised too. It kind of looks like a room in a halfway house, without any art on the walls and a cheap particle board dresser in the corner. I guess after living and breathing art the rest of the day, Jo just wants somewhere void of all art to collapse and recharge. Our son's room is definitely no match for our daughter's new room. It looks like someone placed a bomb inside the dirty cloths hamper.

-Dylan

#255

Hi, all.
Here are two great places to find us: our website and etsy.

I hope you all had a memorable Halloween. This might be the last Halloween our son will go trick-or-treating. He's 15, so he's just a growth spurt away from scaring people into turning off their porch lights, which is how I knew it was time to retire from trick-or-treating when I was a teenager. Jo made his costume this year, like so many costumes before. He was a lumberjack, complete with a homemade beard and paper mache ax. Here's a picture. . .


This is the first time we've lived in a neighborhood that had an actual shot of attracting costumed candy beggars. We've always lived in places hidden from the road or off the beaten path, but we're in the suburbs now. The number of solicitors we've had ringing our doorbell in the last few months was the first indication that we'd better stock up on candy for Halloween. We did in fact get enough trick-or-treaters to satisfy us and drive our dog crazy, but the serious candy collectors went straight for the rich neighborhood around the corner. All the streets leading into it were lined with cars parked on both sides. Shameless! I could hardly find a spot to drop off our own group of kids.

-Dylan