Try Everything Once

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053: Metaphysics On A Napkin

Ian Jay

on April 8, 2006

Aaaaand we're BACK, TEO enthusiasts! This page doesn't have much going on in it, but it's kind of an explanation for next week's planned page. (Whooooo!) I'm happy with everything here except the last two panels. Those I kind of rushed. (And don't think about what Whirlypants is standing on in that last panel. …Though if you really have to, pretend he's standing on his own speech bubble. He is THAT extreme.)

This week was kind of boring, but today I got to see two things I doubt many have the privilege to see. One was an iron smelting, headed up by my cousin Christian (he's a mega-awesome artist, specializing in big sculptures made of wood and iron), up at the University of Maryland campus. Basically the set-up was this: First pieces of scrap iron (gears, rebar, car parts, kitchen sinks– I am not joking here) are broken down and tossed in the top of this giant forge, which looked something like one of those homemade smoke cooker things that guys at tailgating parties sometimes smoke turkeys and stuff in, only huge and vertical. There's burning coke (a mixture of carbon and… something… some kind of stuff that burns really hot) in the forge, and soon the iron is totally melted at a temperature of over 2500F. Then a team of students dressed in thick leather suits, helmets, heat-resistant spacey-looking gloves, and plastic or brass-mesh face shields hoist a stout metal bucket (suspended upon a complex rigging of pulleys and wheels. Picture a boat lift at a marina and you've got a vague idea) up to a spout on the forge. Orange-hot liquid iron pours out into the bucket, which is then hurried over to a waiting mold, usually made out of some kind of thick sandy stuff that felt like soft brick. The iron is poured into the mold, then left to cool– and all the while there's fire shooting out of the hole in the top of the mold. It's crazy to watch. Then, after all the molds have been filled (and kids from many art colleges come to get their iron pieces cast. One group of kids from MICA were munching on cookies that were, so sayeth my aunt Donna, baked with pot in them. Though I can't exactly confirm Donna is a reliable source of information), the bottom is pulled out of the forge, and all these blazing chunks of yellow metal come pouring out. Then everyone goes out for booze ("Drinking is half of the iron-pouring process!" said Christian), an activity I could definitely understand the logic behind, since it's probably better to remember the good things about the iron-smelting process (conquering the Earth's primal fire, creating beauty and meaning where once was chaos) instead of the bad things (working in close quarters with sizzling hot liquid metal that could potentially melt your face and limbs off). It was a neat experience, and one I might try again, if I ever need something to be… uh… smelted.

The other unusual thing we saw was on the way home from the iron smelting. I was staring out the window, looking at some building marked "BOOK EXCHANGE" and commenting on how good an idea it was to exchange old books for new ones, when I turned my head and spotted something so improbable that I took no hesitation in pointing it out to my mom and sister. A yellow sports car, about the size of a Mitsubishi Lancer (though Jilly insists that it was a VW Beetle) was on the other side of the highway, perfectly balanced on its right side, all four wheels in the air and facing us. We could see all the different little bits on the underside of the car, and we could see a police car and road flares and people shouting and waving their arms wildly at this perfectly balanced car. We're still not sure how the car got that way (did it run up against the median? Did it swerve to avoid something?). I'm still wondering what the driver thought when he suddenly found himself ninety degrees clockwise to proper driving position. Did he think, "Oh, crap, I wrecked my car"? Or was it more like, "Well, dang, I wrecked my car, but it sure must look cool balanced like this"? My mom thought it looked like a piece of performance art. I rather thought it looked like a Hot Wheels car set down by some absentminded giant toddler. Either way, the dude's got an interesting story to tell his friends, at least.

In webternet news… nothin' much. Oh, yeah! Might as well provide the link to my new Deviant Art account. Visit and behold: A bunch of crap that has no relation to TEO whatsoever! I still feel uneasy about having one, though.

Aaaaand… that's it. It's really late. See you next week, when Spring Break will be here, a new Starving Artists update by me will be posted, and I will go absolutely cheese crackers over the amount of drawing work I have to do. (Yeah, I'm a paid commercial artist now. I did a design for the doors of a local small business and I'm working on a T-shirt for a trail run thing being held out in West Virginia. If you need anything drawn… well… don't ask me right now, because I've got a lot of stuff going on right now. But later! Oh, later you can catch a piece of my drawing magic… and I get money, too!)

Sincerely,

Ian Jay