Avant et Apres Le Corset

 

This beautiful work of art featuring gorgeous Parisian ladies in various stages of dress/undress is so lavish and detailed that I can hardly take it all in. So, as an experiment, I cropped out some close shots to get a better look. The original poster had some sort of very finely-written text, undoubtedly in French. I would have loved to make some sort of animation out of this, but the frames were  not the same size (unless I cut them up into TEENY little pieces!). I am not always the best at determining if pictures are circa Victorian or Edwardian, but I'm tending towards the latter because of the pigeon-breasted stance and huge bustles.

What is the best thing in life?

 

"NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME!"

Why doesn't anyone understand me? My friend Rosetta Stone doesn't have that problem. 

FIGHT! Coot vs Swan

Part Two of bird bravery!

Momma Duck protects the babies - AMAZING !

Sometimes I think that if I had been raised by ducks, I would have turned out a whole lot better. This mother mallard is incredibly brave in fighting off a seagull predator which would have grabbed her babies for a light snack. I've seldom ever seen such courage in any being, human or animal. 

The Troll Doll Channel: 💗TROLL WEDDING MARCH!💙

Two of my favorite Dam trolls renew their vows (for perhaps the 15th time!). 

😳"MY DOG STEPPED ON A BEE!" (courtroom re-enactment)

Oh boy, this took a long time to make! I took the Monty Python "foot stomp" gif and literally grafted the image of the bee onto it, frame by frame. I didn't do a perfect job - I see stuff in the background that I swear I got rid of! But for me, it's pretty advanced animation. I couldn't use the Sousa Liberty Bell March (the Monty Python theme), so I found the next best thing, the Washington Post March (by Sousa, of course).

😱SCREAMING COWBOY!🤠

I honestly do not know how I have lived my life not knowing about this! I never reveal my sources, but suffice it to say it has been around YouTube for a long time. It has to be in my current top five.

Transparent gifs!

 

Back by popular demand! THE LAUGHING JESUS

 

I'd LOVE to post this on YouTube, but would probably be thrown in jail for it. I recently received a warning about harassment, threats and bullying for posting THIS video:

So do YOU see any harassment, threats and bullying in this video? It's a guy dancing around in a church service. That's it. I've tried everything to contest this warning, as it could lead to a lot of trouble if I don't. But YouTube is now saying they can't review the material because it has been deleted. AND GUESS WHO DELETED IT? YouTube, of course. It's a circular argument, a perfect Catch-22, but I won't stop contesting it and appealing it, or trying to. I still DO have the original material, the gif I made which was the source of the offending "removed" video. But that's not enough. And now they are claiming ***I*** deleted it, and thus they can't  proceed. It's insane, but it's the kind of convoluted arguments YT ensnares you with so you can NEVER find justice. I've been dealing with a guy named Jeremy (OR, maybe he is just another bot!) for weeks now, but I am hitting obstacle after obstacle. I have also thought of sending another version of this which is (inexplicably!) still on YouTube, but that might mean I lose my channel altogether. It is Big Brother writ large. Please, Elon Musk, buy this thing so we can post videos of dancing preachers again!

😮MEET PERFECT PATTY!😮

I knew Patty perfectly, and believe me, she was far from perfect. One of the cruellest and most destructive individuals I have ever had the misfortune of encountering. And since she was blood kin, there was no escaping her. NOW I have learned to evict her from my mind and my heart and my thoughts. I simply say to those shades which want to ruin my serenity and my life: "DISMISSED!" And those shadows retreat somewhere, and soon, I don't even remember what the memory was. 

MORTICIA ADDAMS: "Mind if I smoke?"

The Troll Doll Channel: TRIPLE UNBOXING! Viking Bank, Cave Man Plushie, ...

Three new and unusual trolls. I don't have room for these either. . . 

Lovely Victorian corset ladies!

 

I was NOT going to make any Amber Heard videos! AND THEN. . . . . . . .

 

Goat Birth! Welcome Blossom!

It's another day on Sunflower Farm, which means the birth of another adorable kid. It amazes me how the newborn goats almost immediately begin hopping around on those springs we call legs. When the world is too much, when all seems woeful, just have a  look at the goats - they're better at this life business than we are.

EERIE, ANCIENT FOLK SONG: "She is only a pauper, who nobody owns"

This snippet came from a very strange documentary from decades ago, about a woman from rural Maine in the late 1800s who was ostracized from her community for what was considered the ultimate sin. This woman had a desperate life of privation from childhood on, and was violated and made pregnant at age 13 (already stigmatized by poverty, and now by illicit pregnancy). The baby was taken away from her and sent away, perhaps even sold, destined to be an unpaid farm laborer. She was forced to go on struggling through a harsh life, marrying a poor farmer, being widowed, then later in her life meeting a younger man whom she thought understood her soul. 

She married him for love, a rare thing back then, in spite of her community's disapproval of the age difference. A few years later, someone came to visit her and recognized the young man. To everyone's horror, this turned out to be the baby she had been forced to give away at age 13. Without any knowledge of it, she had married her own son. She spent the next few decades of her life living as a hermet, with virtually no contact with other human beings. Only occasionally, someone would begrudgingly donate food to keep her alive. Children would be sent over to her shack with bags of basic provisions, a sack of potatoes, a few garden vegetables - and THROW the sack over her fence so they would not need to talk to her. The town congratulated themselves on their charity towards such a sinner.

This woman was a pauper - a person so poor and so devoid of fundamental resources that she becomes a pawn in the hands of the powerful. I was horrified to learn that paupers were actually bought and sold as an acceptable form of slavery. They were expected to be grateful to be "rescued" from starvation and homelessness and given the golden opportunity to perform unpaid, backbreaking labor on a farm for room and board. The only escape from this fate was death.

This song seemed to sum it all up. It was so eerie it made my hair stand on end. The words are as follows:

There's a grim horse hearse
And the hearse has no springs,

And hark to the dirge the sad driver sings:
"Rattle her bones (her bones)

Over the stones (the stones)

She is only a pauper

Who nobody owns."

This evokes the image of a corpse lying in the back of a rickety old wagon, given a pauper's burial which the community no doubt thinks is too good for her.

Yoo-Hoo from Honolulu! (family photos)