xmascard 05: credits, comments
- This year's theme came with a timely December court ruling in the Scopes
trial of the 21st century nearby in Dover, PA with a progressive message from
a conservative Republican U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in
Kitzmiller v. Dover:
http://www.aclu.org/religion/intelligentdesign/index.html
But the anti-evolution forces in the fundamentalist strains of all the major
religions are alive and well, seeing science to be in conflict with their
narrow ideas of religion. This resonates with the US elite's ignoring of the
clear signs of man's increasing damage to the planet, propagandizing against
the science of global warming and environmental impact.
- The inspiration for the fish out of water was a
Non Sequitur cartoon "Why we
evolved after the dinosaurs" by
Wiley Miller from the
early 1990s when bob still looked at the comics in the newspaper: the fish
gets flattened by a dinosaur foot as he tests the land. This would have made a
great illustration for the 1992 recipe
sudden flat fish, but by this time the hand illustration period had come
to a close for the What, Me Cook? Book.
The gorilla santa is recycled from the
chocolate chip cheesecake illustration. The reindeer in shades was
recycled from the 2000 Christmas card,
while Santa's reading glasses reflect the new reality for bob and ani who rely
on tube readers to compensate for contact lenses on middle aged eyes. It took
a while to figure out how to do the FrankenSanta with the right background
items and the big elf at the controls. And this year saw another ridiculous
battle in the Christmas wars centered on the use of the more inclusive
greeting "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".
- As for the personal chatter, July saw us attend a fairy tale wedding of an
old (and new) friend in Pisa with a reception out in the hills of Tuscany,
following a trip to Lebanon after a 7 year absence, meeting up with ani's
family and relatives, including her much younger first cousins Hovig and Narin.
Along the way we got our photo snapped up against a door in Rome.
- It was a year of many natural disasters, whose effects were amplified by
human assistance. Showing the fragility of our lives and the necessity for
some common care among us that is significantly absent in the way we live our
lives in modern society. And of course there were also the totally manmade
disasters like the ongoing war in Iraq. What a mess. Too much for a card sent
with a touch of humor to keep connections alive with many people we have met
scattered over the planet.
-
- Printing instructions (for web card)
This year we created PDF output for US 8.5x11 paper
size.