J is my middle initial. What about it?
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In other news, I am haunted by the story of a woman who married a cobra.
A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India’s Orissa state, reports said.
Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar. [...]
Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.
Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.
Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world’s largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres.
“I am happy,” said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off.
“Bimbala was ill,” Bhoi told local OTV channel. “We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake … she was cured. That made her fall in love.”
Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding.
Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
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I’m not very competitive, but I couldn’t resist joining Crack Skull Bob’s Self-Portrait Marathon (found via Blaugustine). Check out the marathon portrait gallery, complete with thumbnails. Sparky Donatello himself is a terrific sketch artist, and I’ve become an instant fan of his blog.
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I like it.
Dave, I’m so glad you didn’t resist joining. The colour-enhanced portrait with initialled forehead is striking.
It may actually happen one day, when Big Bro stamps bar-codes on everyone to keep track of them.
Great portrait, if a little menacing – which I’m quite sure you are not! Hope you’ll do some more.
qB – Thanks.
Natalie – True, but I think numbers or bar-coded labels would be more likely. I did once see a guy with a bar-coded label tatooed on the back of his neck, as a matter of fact.
Jean – Menacing, eh? Maybe it’s the Bluebeard associations?
I don’t know if I like the cobra wedding or the J more. I was recently talking about my favourite letters of the alphabet & my daughter thought I was nuts (she’s 15, letters of the alphabet don’t mean a great deal). bpNicol, a Canadian poet, I think greatly favoured the letter H, h and did a concrete poem series on it if I recall.
On the image, hmmn, enhanced photo with books in the background, nice, and nice red lips (meaning good iron, or so I’ve been told), if you don’t want to try your hand at drawing, how about some of those neat filters also… in watercolour, or neon glow, or mezzotint? Or, oh, oh, the lighting effects one, one of my favourites. So many possibilities.
Brenda, I’m glad you liked it. Your comment stirred up memories of a poetry project I undertook many years ago: a poem for each letter of the alphabet. I like them all!
There’s iron in the water here. This area was the center of iron production in the world for a few brief decades in the early 19th century.
I spent sometime fooling around with Photoshop, and might use some of the results. I like what one can do with the “liquify” effects. I’m not averse to drawing, but my scanner is broken.
Ah, no excuse, Dave. My scanner’s in storage. Ye olde or almoste newe in your case digital camera takes a fine image. Liquify, yes.
bpNicol did a whole concrete poetry booklet on the letter H. It was a love affair; he’d always been enamoured of H since he was a child, when the infactuation first struck. It was a really interesting composition. There are many ways to love a letter, as he amply illustrated.
Now J, oh there are possibilities…
Digital camera? I never thought of that! Hmmm…
I don’t have a scanner, so that’s exactly what I do – use my digital camera to photograph it. It’s what a scanner does anyway, right?
I think you should have written your initials directly on your forehead. Then you could have joined this particular mystery. Well, maybe too much facial hair for that.