Copying the Anchoress

The Anchoress has her own Quiz results posted. That’s why I went to the Quiz Farm to take the “Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?” test. The results are below!

Serenity (Firefly)		94%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)		75%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)		75%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)		69%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)		69%
SG-1 (Stargate)		69%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)		69%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)		63%
Enterprise D (Star Trek)		50%
Moya (Farscape)		50%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)		44%
FBI’s X-Files Division (The X-Files)		31%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

So, what results do you have? Are you stranded with the original cast of “Lost In Space”? Hey! Lemme know, why don’cha?

Taxes? Yeesh!

Just when I think I’m confident in my ability to do something, change comes along. As always with the Gubmint, the change is not exactly for the better.

Tele-File is dead. I’ve been tele-filing my taxes for a few years, now. It had gotten pretty easy. The IRS mails you the returns, you fill them out, and you call them at the 800 number. The computer voice walks you through the process, and when you are done … BINGO! … your taxes are filed!

Not no more, Compadre!

No, the IRS sent a nice, multi-colored postcard – a bog thing! – to say that the Tele-File was dead. It then directs me to go to the IRS E-file page, online. Easy, right?

Wrong!

Before, I refused to efile my taxes, because you were required – as far as I understood! – to use a tax program, like Quicken or something. A program that you had to purchase! Yeah, I was gonna do that. Buy something I couldn’t afford to do my tax return so I could, maybe, pay the Gubmint money I didn’t have. Ohhhh, yeah, thats a good idea to me!

Okay, so I type the addy in my browser, and off I go! So far so good. Except … you cannot simply file your return at the IRS. They aren’t equipped. Or they aren’t interested in being equipped. No, you have to go to an outside website to use a tax-preparer. This is through a link to an IRS page called FreeFile. Isn’t that special, eh?

Okay, so I’m off on a new adventure. I click on a link and head to a new site – that of a tax-preparer. Off-site. Away from the IRS. A third party! Just what I wanted. I like having my meager earnings seen, possibly, by a third party, don’t you?

Trust me, I do not like doing this stuff without enough information at hand. Too many places give you little iconic links to help you. But when you click on them – within the form you are working on – you end up with your form erased. Luckily, this site does not do that. They are fairly into the 21st Century.

So, I doggedly filled in the tiny blank boxes, and hit the “next” buttons, and progressed through the site. It was tedious, but not as difficult as I had feared. I actually finished in less than a half-hour. Now, that’s because I have damn near nothing. But I did finish. Not too many error pages popped up during the ordeal.

So, I learned a lesson, I think. I did what I had to do. I was afraid it would be hard, or impossible to complete. It wasn’t.

“…I’m scared o’ lots o’ things. But y’ can’tlet that run yer life. Sometimes y’ gotta . . . grit yer teeth

‘n go ahead. Usually what yer afraid of doesn’t happen. Or

it’s not as bad as you were expectin’.”

Isaac Benning, 1780 – “Benning’s War”

Maxfield Parrish: Living Colors

Cinderella (Enchantment) – 1913

Besides the spectacular colors, something a Maxfield Parrish painting always has, there’s also an attention to details that is unimaginable. In fact his art was always so much that it would not be mistaken for a photograph. The colors were simply too vivid, the settings too perfect. Just beautiful beyond belief.

There are quite a few Artists that I think are fantastic, those whose works I think are among the finest any man or woman has ever produced. And right at the top of that list stands Maxfield Parrish. On an earlier post you would have seen “Moonlight”, my favorite Parrish painting. I have yet to find a print of this for sale anywhere. Nertz!

Take a little time to wander through any Gallery of Parrish’s works. Soon you will be enthralled at the depth, vibrancy, power that the colors he produced hold. “Garden Of Allah” is one, and “Daybreak”. The skies Parrish produced, the water – still or falling, or waves crashing – all evoke a living world. So many painters seem to have problems making their works seem alive, whether an abstract or otherwise. There is just something missing from what they produce. In Parrish’s case it is the opposite. There is too much life! Does that make sense?

Aquamarine – 1917 (Isle of Lesbos)

When I was younger, I was a drawing, painting kid. I can still remember being punished for drawing on a nice, white wall with a yellow crayon. I hadn’t figured out that white walls were not big pieces of paper waiting for me to toddle along. And over the ensuing years I thought I would be a painter. Ask anyone in my family about the life-sized John Wayne that once adorned the door of my bedroom. I wasn’t bad, as a painter. I even read up on the techniques Parrish used for his colors. (Did you know, for instance, that Maxfield Parrish didn’t mix his colors? He used pure pigments, atop clear varnishes, to let light blend his colors. This in the age of oils not acrylics. Talk about time-consuming!)

Alas, I was not good enough, or driven enough, to enter the world of painting. But I had gained a tremendous appreciation for the works of Maxfield Parrish. Along with him I discovered N.C.Wyeth, whose children you may have heard somthing about. Others soon came along, as well.

(To be continued! Interested?)