November 24, 2008

Tag - you're it!

Tagging season is in full swing and I've been tagged by two fine artists this week.  Alice Thompson and Susan Beauchemin both honored me with this distinction.

This is a fun way to get to know your blogger friends in art! The rules of this great game are:
1. Put a link in your posting to the person who tagged you.
2. List 7 unusual things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 other bloggers at the end of your post and comment on their blogs to let them know.

These are my seven;

1.  I can recite Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest” word for word.  Once upon a time I went for light treatments for a skin problem I was having, which required me to stand naked in a tall cylinder filled with tubes of UV lamps for 30 minutes at a time. There is not much to do in there but contemplate life. To pass the time I would recite the play out loud. I nearly got up to Act II before the timer went off.    I can only imagine what the nurses in the office thought listening to me arguing with myself in a pronounced British accent thusly:

Jack. How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
Algernon. Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
Jack. I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Algernon. When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.]
Jack. [Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. [Takes muffins from Algernon.]
Algernon. [Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
Jack. But I hate tea-cake.
Algernon. Why on earth then do you allow tea-cake to be served up for your guests? What ideas you have of hospitality!
2.  I love to eat spicy food that mere mortals dare not.  Wilbur Scoville consults me for heat ratings on peppers.  It must be the endorphin rush from the heat, like a runner's high.  That said, I find those silly XXX hot sauces like Endorphin Rush to be nasty bitter extracts.  I like taste with my heat, which leads into tidbit number 3.
3.   I am an avid cook.  I do the lion’s share of the cooking in our house, my wife does the baking.  Baking is science, cooking is art.  Don’t get me wrong, my wife, Susan, is a great cook, too.  Baking requires precise measurements for things to do what they are supposed to do and that’s not my way.  My maternal grandfather was a professional pastry chef and explained precise measures to me as a boy as he poured baking powder or salt into the palm of his hand.  Years of practice taught him to know what a teaspoon of whatever looked like.  Where measuring is concerned, I am a palm of the hand guy myself.  
4.  I’m gay -- Well, maybe not actually gay.  I often listen to show tunes or vintage disco while painting.  Lately it’s been “High School Musical.”  How many straight men over the age of fifty do that?  My mother,  an aspiring actress, would wake me for school every day with her best Debbie Reynolds rendition of “Good Morning, good morning, we talked the whole night through. Good morning, good morning to you...” from "Singing in the Rain.” Of course I couldn’t really be gay, aside from the obvious choice of the gender of my partner; I dress like a biker (or a beatnik) and have the body of Balzac.  One of my models likes to rub my tummy for good luck while whispering under her breath, “Buddha Belly.”  This brings me to number 5.
5.  I slept with David Hasselhoff.  Well, maybe not actually slept with him, it was more of a sleepover.  When I was a small boy, my parents were very good friends with his parents, Joe and Dolores Hasselhoff.   (My mother pronounced their name Hazelhoff, as in witch hazel, back then.) When my parents would visit Joe and Dolores, they would pack my sisters and me in the car with our PJ’s.  Eventually we and the Hasselhoff kids would fall asleep watching TV waiting for our parents to finish playing Canasta or whatever parents did in the fifties.  I haven't seen him in fifty years.  It’s a pity we lost touch, I know he rides a Harley and I’d love to go on a ride with him sometime.
6.  My mother was an ailurophobe, I am an ailurophile.  I didn’t grow up with cats but now I couldn’t imagine my life without them.  But then anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that.  J’embrasse mon chat sur la bouche.
7.  I suffer from terrible stage fright.  Painfully shy as a small boy, my mother thought the stage might help bring me out of my shell and enlisted me in a summer stock production of “Rumpelstiltskin,” where I played a peasant.  I did get to wear a cool costume, but seeing all those people looking at me freaked me out. I was an acolyte at my church for four years, which petrified me, but I kept on despite myself because I loved the robes.  The theatre is in my blood and in high school I became involved in set design and construction.  I did a bunch of scene painting for Peabody Opera Theatre back in the 80’s.  To this day I love to wear costumes. On any given day I either look like Maynard Krebs or a Hell's Angel.  But if it’s Oktoberfest, the lederhosen comes out.  Renaissance Festival?  No problem. Christmas?  Ho, Ho, Ho.  Indeed I have so many fencing shirts, capes and waistcoats hanging in my closet, the cleaning people are beginning to wonder about me (see number 4).  
My 7 victims, er tags are:
I don't know if I mentioned this, but we are designing and building a new house/studio which is really eating into my painting time.  Hopefully tomorrow will see me at the easel.

15 comments:

Alice Thompson said...

I love you for doing this, and you cook too! Thank you so much Mark. I appreciate it all. I'll be back to comment again later... I've got to absorb it all fully before I can respond.

Susan Beauchemin said...

I knew you'd have something to say! This is definatetly not boring. I enjoy your artwork and your way with words!

Kate Merriman said...

This is great - hilarious! Based on this data, you are my dream man, but sadly taken. Do you have a twin?

Mark Adams said...

My pleasure, Alice.

Mark Adams said...

Thanks, Susan. Back at you! Your take on watercolor is totally unique and exciting.

Mark Adams said...

Kate, It so happens I do have a twin. He is very busy this time of year; making lists and checking them twice, etc., etc. I hope you've been a good girl {;-)>

Madison Moore said...

Mark, your way too funny. You got me hysterical!!
Madison

Alice Thompson said...

I said I’d be back to comment but I am very hesitant. I summarized your tag the following way.
1. You have an overwhelming need to rehearse when naked.
2. You have exotic taste.
3. You are telling us that you are better than your wife in a traditional women’s role.
4. You are “gay”...”maybe”.
5. You went back to your childhood to explain your desire for male bonding.
6. You feel that you have inherited your mother’s characteristics.
7. You love pretending, but you are frightened so you keep what you pretend in the closet for cleaning people to find.

I may never learn more about Kismet after this.

Mark Adams said...

Alice, Interesting take on my tag. However...

1. I even paint naked on occasion. Even Santa takes his clothes off sometimes.

2. Yes I do.

3. Not at all. Susan is better at everything than me (except painting), Thank God! I never meant to give the impression that I am a better cook either. This is just how we divide the household duties. Since she has a "real" job and I work flexible hours, I try to put a nice meal on the table when she comes home. Admittedly, I don't know how the dishwasher works or the washing machine. If I had to, I could learn, but she does that stuff so I don't have to.

4. I'm definitely not gay, nor even metro. I'm merely a gay sympathizer. My gay friends are some of the warmest, most creative, intellectual, fashion forward people I know. I'm just overly theatrical.

5. I just think it's funny that I rubbed elbows with "The Hoff" in my youth.

6. Most definitely. My mother was a model and actress, her brother Bob an orchestral conductor and operatic translator. Her other brother, John, was a costume designer and stage director. My dad was an electrician.

7. I am Peter Pan. Heck, my first wife was named
Wendy (really).

I hope I cleared things up. I'll still tell you about Kismet. I have to figure out how to get my website back up first. (long story)

Mark Adams said...

Thanks, Madison. I'm glad I could make you smile.

Alice Thompson said...

I've always been terrible at reading comprehension, thank you Mark for enlightening me where I misunderstood.

Diana Moses Botkin said...

Ha... I see now you were tagged just the other day! If you don't want to play again, I sure understand. You've come up with some very interesting tidbits about your personality. You'd do well at that game "Battle of the Sexes"!

Anonymous said...

Your tagging game has brought me many smiles and laughs! I actually wake my girls up with 'good morning- good morning' for school everyday. Oddly- the girls have actually taken to calling my mom-mom instead of mom, this happened organically - I am still unsure why.
It is very endearing. They love all your new pieces as do I. Willow asks for you often, saying she really misses you- Sonny too.
We have lots of art coming your way for the holidays.
I absolutely love all that you wrote Dad! Its hysterical, and so accurate.

THANKS!!!

Mark Adams said...

Hi, Holly.

I miss the girls, too (and you of course). With luck we will be out in February to see them and my new grandson. I'm glad you were amused by the tag.

Sherry Maxwell said...

Mark, this is soooo awesome. Thanks for sharing it. Your wife must be a wonderful lady... :)