Snake Oil Saleswoman?

Snake Oil comes from the 19th-century American practice of selling cure-all elixirs in traveling medicine shows. Snake oil salesmen would falsely claim that the potions would cure any ailments. now-a-days it refers to fake products. “why did you buy that snake oil? it does absolutely nothing!” Medicine or therapy that doesn’t work. Most of the stuff sold at health food stores are snake oil products. any dubious or fraudulent remedy or cure (The route of the fraud the word is derived from resulted from a misunderstanding of a traditional Chinese joint and muscle painkiller derived from the skin of the Chinese water snake) That snake oil is so obvious. When will people learn? con faker snake-oil snake oil salesman snakeoil   A woman that likes to cause mischief and sexual deviance Stay away from her, shes a real snake oil girl jezebel jade trollop vamp wench

 

Steve Earle Snake Oil Lyrics

 

Ladies and gentlemen, attention please
Come in close so everyone can see
I got a tale to tell
A listen don’t cost a dime
And if you believe that we’re gonna get along just fineNow I’ve been travelin’ all around
I heard trouble’s come to your town
Well I’ve got a little somethin’
Guaranteed to ease your mind
It’s call Snake Oil y’all
It’s been around for a long, long time

Say, your crops’ll burn if it don’t rain soon
Ain’t seen a drop since the tenth of June
Well I can open up the sky
People never fear
If you ain’t impressed yet, just tell me what you wanna hear

Well you lost your farm so you moved to town
You get a job, they shut the factory down
Now you sit around all day long feelin’ sad and blue
You need Snake Oil y’all, tell you what I’m gonna do

I can heal the sick, I can mend the lame
And the blind shall see again, it’s all the same

Well ain’t your President good to you
Knocked ‘em dead in Libya, Grenada too
Now he’s taking his show a little further down the line
Well, ‘tween me and him people, you’re gonna get along just fine 

 

Those of you that have known me for more than a few month know my abiding interest in ‘Alternative Medicine’ .  My family has come to love and accept that part of me, so much so, that they will choose my herbals over prescription medications for pain relief.  My brother Matt, has taken to calling my Bay Leaf Massage Oil ‘Snake Oil’.  Bay Leaf Oil is good for so much more than sore muscles, it kicks migraines right out of my head, soothes allergies, and you can use it (from a seperate bottle of course) to braise a beef roast before popping it in the Crock=Pot to simmer all day.

Both my Mum and brother Matt ask for that oil frequently, and when I say I can make them up a small bottle to use when they need it, they both say, “It only works when you do it!”

I also keep a tiny spray bottle of Bay Leaf oil handy for our cats, I use that instead of a poison treatment for ear mites.  It washes all of the ear mites out of their ears, and it isn’t dangerous to the cats’ health, in fact, it helps them pass hairballs easily.

Another way to use the bay leaf oil is to soak it into the wood of cupboards and drawers, bay leaf oil is an amazing insect repellant, and is safe for food, kids and pets.

 Mum, in particular, appreciates it enough to spring for the oil and herbs to make my different oils.  She especially appreciates the Sage Oil I make for her psoriasis, and the Arthritis Oil of Bay Leaf and Chillie Peppers.

 The marvellous thing about these herbals is how easy they are to make and use.  All you do is take a quart bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, add 12-18 large Bay Leaves (Laurus nobilis), and sit the jar or bottle on a sunny windowsill for 4-6 weeks.  Be sure to label the bottle without covering up the sides.  It is safest to use both the common and scientific name when labelling herbals; the common name may change from region to region, but the scientific name remains the same all over the world.

 

And Another Blitz Poem

Trees In Belt

 

Researching my family tree

Researching the Norse World Tree

Trees in bloom

Trees in the wind

Wind in my hair

Wind in the wires

Wires in the wall

Wires on the poles

Poles have shifted before

Poles immigrated to America

America the Beautiful

America, Land of the Brave

Brave Pioneers

Brave New World

World in Black and White

World without end

End of the book

End of the line

Line on paper

Line in the sand

Sand between my toes

Sand on the beach

Beach at the ocean

Beach the boats

Boats bobbing on the waves

Boats tied at anchor

Anchor the poster to the wall

Anchored in the real world

World of Warcraft game

World of magic

Magic act

Magic both High and Low

Low prices for one week only

Low-pressure front is stalled

Stalled the lawn mower

Stalled at the starting line

Line of descent

Line forms here

Here is my house

Here is the victim

Victim of circumstance

Victim of the times

Times are changing

Times are listed below

Below the waterline

Below the belt

Belt out the tune

Belt of rotgut

Rotgut

Tune

Steve and the neighbours

This post has two ‘prologues’:

The first is over 20 years ago, when we were living in mid-Mesa, AZ.  We had a trio of cats.  The first was Kliban, the result of a shameful mesalliance between a noble Siamese Queen and a charming rogue of an Alley Cat.  Kliban was a lovely light red and cream tabby cat, with the delicate face of a Siamese, oh, and the voice.  Well to be honest, he was all Siamese, except for the markings.  To anyone that didn’t know Kliban he was an utter terror, to the fortunate few who were accepted into Kliban’s ‘family’ he was utterly devoted, adoring, and protective.

When our niece, Kryssi, was born we were concerned about how Kliban would react.  He stared for the longest time at the tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle before he moved close enough to smell.  He finally crept close enough to identify the bundle as a human kitten, and not just any kitten, one of ‘his’ human’s kittens!

From that moment on he was the human kitten’s knight-errant.  He defended, groomed, and listened to the baby, when he heard the hungry or dirty cries he would run in search of the nearest member of his family to take care of the baby.

At the same time, Kliban had a couple of cat buddies that lived with us, Boynton and Steve.  Boynton was a long-coated grey tabby that had appeared at the door one day, and moved in as soon as the door was opened.

Steve, like Kliban, belonged to a neighbour to start with, but he chose us over his first home.  Steve was a snow-white short-coated cat with slanted yellow eyes; he was also about half the size as a normal cat.  Boynton was normal-sized and Kliban, well Kliban weighed about 35 pounds (2 stone plus!).

Steve first met us when his human, Y____, brought him over when he visited, Steve found our home so relaxing that he would go home as a limp scrap of white fur, draped over Y___’s arm like a towel over the arm of a waiter in a fine restaurant.  Y___ would look down at his kitten and say, “Steve!  What will the neighbours think??”

The second one is much more recent, last Christmas as a matter of fact.  Mum was given a 2010 Kitten-A-Day Calendar, and she has torn the pages off one-by-one.  I found one of the pages on the floor and it looked like Steve, and was draped over a roll on a cat tree.  I picked it up, began to laugh, and ran for Matt’s room.

I was so excited that I dropped the picture facedown on the floor.  Matt was leery so I picked it up, got it set right, and proudly displayed it while chanting, “Steve!  What will the neighbours think??”

Matt was completely delighted, with it, so I scanned the pic, and started playing with it in PSP.

I added the mask below…

So I then had this image to work with.

At which time, I reduced the size of the image, and renamed the image.  I also added the words I wanted to be a part of the finished product.  I used the font ‘Magneto’ and matched the colours to the colours I had used for the backgrounds I wanted to use.

I made my first background layer by opening a blank page in PSP, flood filling with the yellow from Steve’s eyes.  I then added another mask to the 1^st background.

For the base I used the background below:

The second layer was another blank image, this one was flood filled with a green from the background of the Steve image.

I then added a third mask to the green layer.

I resized it to fit the composition I had in mind.

I then assembled all the images into the composition I wanted, the font provided some needed motion to what was otherwise a rather static image.

I resized the entire image to a more manageable size.

And what was the first name I added to the tag??

My Shopping List of Art Supplies

I get to go shopping for new art supplies next week and I would like to know what kind of colored penciles art the best.  I have used prisims, are there better ones out there?  What is the best kind of markers?  Where is the best place to buy these? I do mostly odd, unusual type stuff, especially faces, but not real-looking,  more cartoony.  I mostly have sharpies and cheap markers.  What else can you not live without for drawing supplies?  What about watercolor penciles.?

Thanks for the help,

Carolyn H.

One of the ladies from Soul Food sent out these questions earlier today, and I thought the wisest answer would be on my blog, so she can add it to her favourites amd refer to it at any time.

First, I am partial to the Prismacolors for sharp-edged colouring, they hold the point well, and the colour can be applied evenly, and will blend a bit with application of a blending stick.  Granted the less ‘forgiving’ a medium is the more I like it.  The Crayola coloured pencils are good for laying down a base colour layer to put your details over.  And I would recommend a can of Workable fixatif, as well as some fine sandpaper to keep your Blending Sticks clean and pointed.

Markers are sadly, limited and limiting.  Because they dry so quickly, they don’t make a uniform layer without a great deal of poring over, and working in a demented degree of pointillism; there  is not much ‘blending’ that happens, just some bleary mushy-paperness.  They could work well with a dry-paper watercolour work.

I have Sharpies, and they are as good of a watercolour pen as your going buy.   They have a lovely shelf life, as well as tons of tint, and blend well with other media, i.e. watercolour and pen-and-ink.  Again we’re talking about the dry paper watercolour work.

I keep a range of charcoal and graphite pencils, there don’t seem to be too many producers of quality ones out there, I have been using  General’s ’Kimberly’  for over 30 years and I have very little problem getting what I want out of them.  I also keep a broad selection of coloured chalk, the wee pillars of charcoal in all of the  B values, lots of black and white charcoal, and the graphites in a range of H values.  Again, blending sticks, sandpaper, and Workable Fixatif is a must.  That gives you a non-smudge base for adding details.  When I do pencil work I add a spray of fixatif up to five or six times before I say, “Enough.”

My #1 tool for drawing is my Conté coloured charcoal pencils.  They are a tad delicate so I don’t consider them portable, but they can stay home and keep on doing what they’re wonderful for, detail work on a coloured chalk base.

Watercolour pencils… Watercolour is actually my favourite media.  I have played with watercolours for over 35 years and I am totally committed to Rexel Derwent watercolour pencils.  They’re pricey, but the investment shows in the quality of your finished product.  They work excellently with the tubes of watercolour paint, and have the most amazing colour, not smudgy or murky, but clear and consistently the same colour.  I have been using my present set for about 20 years, and I only need to replace two or three of them.

One thing to never skimp on, what you are putting your artwork on.  Your work won’t looks its best if it is on corasible bond typing paper.  I like a softly ‘toothed’ watercolour paper for watercolours and acrylics, and real canvases for oils.  Nothing else has the right feel for me.

I also keep an old fashioned fountain pen with a variety of nibs in sizes from Crowquill to Extra-Bold Calligraphers and a bottle of India Ink.  I enjopy the confidence one must have to work in ink.  Good ink does not erase or get covered over well, if at all.

As far as where to buy them, any art supply or crafting store should carry all of these goodies.  I have found a few gently-used goodies at second-hand stores, but not enough to count on it as a source.  I have found the drawing charcoals, charcoal pencils, and coloured charcoals at Wal-Mart, and I’m sure it could be found in most of the department Stores.