Foray into the outside world was summarily both a disappointment and a renewed hope for the world of cinema last night.

Let's begin by overanalyzing everything.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has one too many 'of the's in it's title. But, so did the previous one.

Apart from the movie being something of a sociopolitical commentary about human beings and what we do when our backs are against the wall, and how much the new super-alzheimers-apes are beginning to be like us, the movie was excellent.

I will say this, and I'm going to reference some other movies here, so if anyone doesn't want spoilers or doesn't want to hear my thoughts on movies then you should stop reading.

Special effects are not special when they're in every damn scene.

They are simply then. . .the movie. When people go into a movie and say 'OMGZ the special effects were so awesome!'. Sure they were. Because chimps and gorillas cannot act or be controlled and taught to choreograph fight scenes. Or maybe they can, only Jane Goodall would know. I bet she choreographed chimpanzee spaghetti westerns. Because why not?



When the movie is made with 1,000,000 or whatever special effects shots, they HAVE to be good, because that's the movie. The movie can still be crap. The special effects are not special they are the only means to make a movie about apes. They were good, yes. But the film falls apart without a storyline or believable and relatable characters.

On the whole though, The Planet of the Apes and the of the Dawn of their Planet of the Fall of the Humanity of the Apes was good. Worth $8.50 to see once? Well there were no crying babies in the theater, so sure. Kinda. Not. But sure.



This is how Arnold looked when he heard about Michael Bay doing something stupid. Like remembering to check a teleprompter. Or not doing that shitballs.

Michael Bay. . .stop it. Who were katana-helicopter-bot, gangster-trenchcoat-bot and John-Goodman-bot. Why were the dinosaur-bots so pissed off? If they were made with Cybertron technology couldn't they just understand Optimus? Why does every Asian person know kung-fu? Why did John-Goodman-bot smoke? Why was his cigar also a rocket launcher? If Transformers have energy weapons that conceivably never run out of ammunition why would they transform their weapons into guns that shoot bullets and DO run out of ammunition? Seems counter-productive?

Plot-holes do not a good story make, cracka.
                            -William Shakespeare

It might be fine for some people, and by some I mean people with frontal lobotomies. But the majority of people out there who are not breathing through their mouth can pick out plot holes pretty quickly. And the majority of those people are willing to give producers the benefit of the doubt on the first one.



Oh, Optimus can fly? That would have been useful for literally the entire movie while he was trying to run away or towards something and was either too late or not soon enough for the whole movie.

Plot hole. But, maybe there was some weird reason behind Optimus' lack of flight that wasn't explained in the movie or was obvious to people who know about the weird Extra-terrestrial Agway package that everyone was fighting over that gave Eighteen Wheels of Kickass the ability to fly. I'll give Mikey the benefit of the doubt on that one.

The other thirty-seven or so plot holes are a no-go. They made that movie un-watchable.

Yet, the worst part, I paid for my ticket. That dastardly sumbitch got my money again. Fuck.

So I sat though it. It was awful.

Michael Bay won again. But no more! I refuse to pay for another Michael Bay film.

Why the world is an amazing place and nobody really gets that.

There is no linguistic root for the word 'pyramid'. Really. Every language in the history of languages has been scoured for any word that could possibly be the root for the word pyramid and one does not exist. Yet, there are pyramid structures on every continent in the world, and a good many of them are so ancient that their true purpose is a mystery.

These are structures that have stood for thousands of years. There are dolmens and standing stones and ancient buildings that have no business being where they are or built the way that they are and people still get bogged down in Paris Hilton and her filthy snatch.

Know what isn't interesting? Tyler Perry. The dragon honestly is still trying to figure out who he is. Is he a woman, is he a man, is he old, is he young, is he even funny?



People get bogged down in silly shit like American Idol and Lindsay Lohan and celebrity train wrecks and all of this other crap and how often do people settle back and look at some of this ancient shit and be all like: "Motherfuckers built a Peruvian city on top of a mountain with stone quarried hundreds of miles away and they did it with rope and llamas!?"

Now that's some insane shit.

Know what else is amazing? Llamas.



Know why? They're the most efficient pack animal in existence. They can carry heavy loads for long distances, require very little upkeep and feeding, will eat just about anything (they're favorite food is duck l'orange) and they produce wool that is among the warmest of fibers known.

Holy snap, llamas rock tits!

While we're on the subject of llamas, let's talk about moose.

Know why moose isn't pluralized with a 'ee' like feet? Because it is an American Indian word and was only added to the English Lexicon in the last four hundred years.



Know how the dragon knows all of this random shit? Neither does the dragon.

It probably has something to do with relentless curiosity and a small touch of one time being kicked by a horse. Which is probably unrelated but might also not be.

Yet, like ancient philosophers who devoured knowledge the way an eight year old devours popsicles on a balmy summer afternoon (because if your tongue ain't a weird color, it ain't summer), the dragon craves brain-food. And by that the dragon doesn''t mean browsing Wikipedia for nonsense that anyone can edit, although lately I hear they've been running a pretty tight ship on all the bogus information out there, it means reading textbooks that the dragon happens to find, it means watching National Geographic documentaries and owning them on DVD so that they can be watched again and again, it means touching the hot stove again because Newton's second law of physics simply MUST be put to the test. . .again, it means run-on sentences and getting used to writing a blog every day so that people out there can also find the thirst for knowlegde in themselves, it means realizing that no one reads this blog but doing it anyway, it means realizing that the 'it' in the last portion of this run on sentence was an undefined pronoun and might not be fully understood and the writer in the dragon might be slipping a little bit, it means realizing that's what editors are for and not taking them for granted, it means only now realizing that the word knowledge was misspelled a few lines back, it means the dragon kinda wants a popsicle right now. . .

Aliens? Seriously?

Hi Everybody,
There are two owners in Dragon Alley. One, well..... you'll see. And the other.... again, you'll figure it out. I am the one. I write to the other and he'll...... nobody knows what he'll do. BUT.... I for one am VERY interested to find out. So, instead of us chatting in the store, we decided to chat here, in public, like when we go to the coffee house & all ears are on us. All ears are on everyone.... it's a coffee house rule I suspect. Hm? Speaking of..... let's go to Stagecoach or The Jive today. I'm getting tired of our house coffee.

Meet Geoffrey Chaucer Little Cloud, Star of: A Cat'rburry Tale
 

So Dragon,
Do you think you can get those aliens to come into the store and rearrange some stuff for us so we can write & begin work on that next project we're talking about?


 

It may be time to move things around, adjust the space a bit...... find a way to use suspended animation in our wee beasty of a store:

(yes...I still think a microspace was a good idea)

 

 

 

 

 

Who are we shifting around today?

4 Thieves ~ homemade balms, salves & good smelly stuff

JDaniels Designs ~ Crystals, staves and art

I. S. Bishop ~ art & anger?

Karen Katz Designs ~ heirloom jewelry w/a twist (my favorite is the key necklace)

Gina Reeves ~ chain mail jewelry, awesome display!

Scott Tabor ~ painting, freakishly good painting

Sean Miller ~ hand crafted book page ornaments

 

... and of course Karen Henry & Taylor R. Powers ~ art, books,... and stuff.

Baby Store, Baby Steps

And there are books in the works to announce this week. Can the aliens send out a satellite into deep space, probe interstellar space and announce that we're open 6 days a week, from 11 am to 7 pm and if they like baseball..... ok, JK..... we don't have any baseball stuff BUT, our neighbors in the front do. And Ommegang: The Prohibition Store has some lovely things for sale (including off the charts good cheese, chocolate, and todays lunch).


OH.... and we're about to start selling..... well, we'll let them know that one when the time is right. No..... we still can't sell gold fish in tiny jar necklaces, but maybe we'll ask our artists who craft jewelry.

Response???

OH.... by the way..... Draco...... YES..... women should still have the right to vote and NO, I don't think we can get Gary Busey to come hang out in the store with us.


Today is all about writing.


The other one

 

No shit? They actually just DID launch a probe into deep interstellar space. I can't wait to hear about this one! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/sofia-vergara-joe-manganiello_n_5566540.html

Aliens for thought. . .

So this has been on the dragon's mind today. Spent a good deal of time falling asleep last night watching Ancient Aliens and ruminating on some of the stuff that these ancient astronaut theorists had to say.

For the most part they were discussing whether Da Vinci was an alien or had alien help with all of his endeavors and whether or not some of the most brilliant minds of the past thousand years should come under scrutiny.

This is what the dragon took out of it, besides being utterly flabbergasted at some of the neato shit that is apparently down in Peru. . .like H-Blocks and perfectly quarried stone that was made with such precision that computers would be hard pressed to duplicate it, and with stone age tools at that. Or by aliens with space-ray-boner-guns. . .but the dragon digresses.

There are a lot of truly amazing individuals out there. Scientists and inventors and Russell Crowe in 'A Beautiful Mind' and philosophers and a godawful amount of just as talented individuals who help them along the way and support them and follow them and lend their expertise when the genius just isn't quite genius enough and they all get questioned and stonewalled by society.




This guy raised an interesting point last night. And I paraphrase: If we did find life on Mars or the Moon or some other celestial butter churn, we couldn't tell the world. It would destroy us as a society and as a culture. And not just America. . .every culture would be wracked.

All of these crackpots would be proven right, or at least be given credibility.

And that's who brilliant minds are in their time. They're crackpots. They're witches or devil worshipers or ovine intercourse enthusiasts.

I looked at this guy last night and thought. . .



. . .holy shitdough. . .he's a genius.

He's a genius and the world is standing in his way.

What I suppose the dragon is getting at here, is that people are misunderstood in their time, almost always. Unless it's aliens. But, the world as a society and/or whatever conglomerate the world would like to be identified as. . .needs to look at people who may seem different and give them the benefit of the doubt.

Don't believe everything you read on TV, and sometimes listen to the homeless man who claims he can cure hemorrhoids with his fingernail clippings. Because he's probably an alien and known this to be true.

Because science. And aliens. And science-y aliens.

 

Welcome to Charred Bricks

Welcome to Charred Bricks, Home of Dragon Alley Art. Here, we will feature our books, art, thoughts, stuff, nonsense, silly things, whatnot AND of course, featured artists in the alley.

'Nuff said.


Draco, Dragon in Residence @DragonAlleyArt


Oh wait.... who are we?

'Words and art'

Taylor Ryan Powers and Karen Henry are authors and artists. Dragon Alley manifested as a result of the dual vision of both artists. It is from the pages of the soon to be   works of the co-authors. Dragon Alley is both a place of health and wellness and unique arts.

Specialty services are also featured. Unique tattoo designs and 'transitions' coaching will accompany word art and artsy words.

The owners will be in the studio and online from Tuesday to Sunday. Times will vary.

Dragon Alley also features uniquely talented local artists, & visionaries.

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Email:

DragonAlleyArt@gmail.com
 

Our Motto: Follow us! Or don’t…. we don’t care. We CARE.... but we also care that you care that we don't care.
We're doing what we love to do and think you should too.