Bad jokes and dark humor for a dark time (corona virus)

What I worry most about is that the self quarantine will be over too soon. Just when you start getting used to not having to deal with other people.

Who would have thought pangolins would be the downfall of democracy and capitalism?

If it was George Bush, he would go off and eliminate armadillos. [Turns out it was Joe Biden, and he sent masks and test kits two years too late.]

Expect to hear about the war on bats.

Update: America watched in horror as Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, in public, on camera. At the same time coronavirus is raging through the country and a lot of deaths are from side effects of coronavirus. So when a person dies of a heart attack, having Covid19, it is not clear if it should be counted as a coronavirus death or a regular heart attack. It turns out George Floyd had, or had had, coronavirus - the jokes write themselves.

Update: Reality is funnier than I could be. The pandemic has started to play itself out, as a nasty but not usually fatal disease, that everyone gets, with symptoms that can be meliorated with medicines, vaccines, and therapies. Just in time for this the US government is sending people masks and test kits - both of which strategies have been prone to failure anyway.

Early Spring Magnolias - sheltering in place in Concord

So I am awed by all the great artists and lately have enjoyed listening to David Hockney videos on YouTube. Like him, I find the perception of space to be inherently beautiful. And I don't have much hope of being as great a colorist as him. I note that Van Gogh is the master colorist but his paintings are often flat. Depth and color are different dimensions of beauty. Parallelism and transformation defining a narrative are also aspects of beauty.
And so I have been doing a lot of drawing and always wondering: what is the point since I am not as good as a "real" painter? Ultimately graphic art needs to be something you enjoy looking at every day. On whose wall would my talents put me? However I find a rendering niche that is within Hockney's approach but that he missed or wasn't interested in: Species specific details and closeups. I can take his wonderful ideal of a "no focal point" Grand Canyon and apply it to a near foreground landscape. So that different parts of the picture are beautiful.

Coronavirus Chicken Soup

OK so I stocked up on frozen chicken wings and tried to make a little soup yesterday - with the flavors I wanted to put in my mouth. I am coming down with something, could be a passing headache or death. Either way, here is a great soup recipe. Scale up or down as desired. Makes 4 cups of soup - two or three servings. Note I forgot to use onion and am glad, but it would probably work. So would a little celery.

Ingredients:
4 cups of water
2 frozen chicken wings
1/2 a small carrot (about an inch long segment of a large carrot) - chopped
2 mushrooms - sliced thin
fresh ginger - one nice mm-thick cross-section slice
juice from 1/4 lemon
pinch of thyme
1/2 tbs butter
fresh parseley - chopped
1/4 cup rice, or less

Method:
Put water in saucepan and bring to boil
Put wings (frozen or defrosted) in water and boil for an hour or so
Add other ingredients, except rice
Cook for another hour, adding rice in the final half hour
Add salt and serve

Some more drawings from around Woods Hole

The Research Vessel Neil Armstrong:

 Waves at Nobska:

Cedar swap revisited - real vs drawn

Views of Eel Pond in Woods Hole

Ineffable Cedar Swamp