August 21, 2012

At the Pool Table Café...

Untitled

... you can call the shots.

(The photograph was taken yesterday at The Raw Deal in Menomonie, Wisconsin.)

76 comments:

nichole said...

How was the food?

Meade said...

Raw. Except for the muffins. We only had coffee.

James said...

The media is saying that Paul Ryan's addition to the Republican ticket has had no effect. So I'm surprised to see Romney now leading Obama in Wisconsin :)

Ryan propels Romney to the lead in Wisconsin

Michael said...

I love the look of afternoon light slanting across the green felt of a pool table. Chalk dust caught in that light becomes powdery motes. I spent many hours leaning over those tables earning and sometimes losing money I needed and didnt have. Risk taking. Pure.

Scott said...

That picture is embarassing and unethical. ;-)

nichole said...

Gotcha. Looks like they take their coffee seriously! Maybe next time we go up that way...

...speaking of which, hope you guys got a chance to stop for pie at Norkse Nook.

Michael Haz said...

That's how I'd make the living room look in my dream house.

fivewheels said...

Menomonie?

Doo doooo, doo-doo-doo.

edutcher said...

Ah, yes, many's the happy days of my childhood - the stale air, the slanted afternoon sun...

James said...

The media is saying that Paul Ryan's addition to the Republican ticket has had no effect. So I'm surprised to see Romney now leading Obama in Wisconsin :)

Hell, they're talking about the Romster taking IL.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Just read their menu.....blech. Sounds horrible. No wonder the place is empty.

Too bad, because it is a lovely looking establishment.

garage mahal said...

Hell, they're talking about the Romster taking IL.

:-)

ricpic said...

Where duh people at?

chickelit said...

Somebody's been snookered.

Hagar said...

Well, we would not want to have customers cluttering up that nice interior, would we?

ricpic said...

Somebody's been snookered.

chick to the penalty box for painful punning.

Alex said...

Romney is gonna win in a landslide by 400 easy peasy. The American people just LOVE the GOP abortion plank!

Love it!

Chip Ahoy said...

All those lines that are not vertical converge on a single spot located on the window, the slat that divides two panes, near the bottom. You can hold up a paper or string and see that they do. So it's an explosion. A café burst.

That shows you how to draw such a scene. It's mathematic and runs counter to artistic intuition, the stretching and pinching and exaggerating does. It's why people say they cannot draw such things, they don't see the perspective that is so clear in this picture.

john said...

That's scary, Chip. In an harmonic way.

ndspinelli said...

nichole, The pies @ the Norske Nook using in season fruit are superb. Otherwise, I think their pies are only good..a few very good[Chocolate Cream and Coconut Cream].

wyo sis said...

I would say it's risky to eat in a restaurant with the word raw in it's name.

Maybe it's just me.

I don't have time to read all the debate on the other threads re the election, but there is one thing to keep in mind. All of the debate and the posturing and the personal indulgences come to a halt when the economy does. After that it's about survival. No one cares about your cultural biases when they're fighting over scraps.

Chip Ahoy said...

Notice all the lines parallel to the main compositional lines also converge on a single point. Like a side burst.

You can make perspective adjustments in Photoshop. It's really weird. When you move one point then its opposite moves equally for double distortion. It gets very strange very fast, but it's useful sometimes like when you want to put something on top of something that is photographed at an angle as most things are. The perspective adjustment can get the new layer to match the perspective and that's really cool. You can type something on somebody's t-shirt then distort the text layer to fit the orientation, it can be crumpled too.

Chip Ahoy said...

The second point of convergence that gives this image its two point perspective, is to the right outside the frame.

But you could grab that point and move it inside the frame and that would make the perspective more severe, the distortions much greater. The pool table wold take on a diamond shape.

Conversely, the main perspective point on the window pane can be moved to outside the frame like the other one and the image will be less dramatic, the distortion softened. For you are god of the perspective points and you can put them wherever you want even outside the frame.

Penny said...

"... you can call the shots."

Eight ball, center right pocket for the win.

MadisonMan said...

I think pies at the Norske Nook are overrated. The crusts are dreadful, and if you have a bad crust, the pie falls on that.

chickelit said...

Nice perspectives, Chip A. It took the Dutch forever to master that in painting.

MadisonMan said...

So who was the brainy Republican who okayed having the National Convention in August in Florida?

RNC attendees, say hello to Isaac.

So the news won't be on Platforms, or the excitement of the party, but rather on flooding and high winds.

chickelit said...

MadisonMan said...
So who was the brainy Republican who okayed having the National Convention in August in Florida?

Won't some lefties say this is payback karma for Republicans? Of course, it presupposes that hurricanes are caused or intensified by AGW, but this topic flared up during Katerina.


MadisonMan said...

Hurricane climatology has Florida under the bullseye in late August and early September, regardless of any warming, anthropogenic or not.

So why tempt fate and have a huge gathering there?

I hope they got a good rate on the Convention Center. Maybe they can get money back.

edutcher said...

garage mahal said...

Hell, they're talking about the Romster taking IL.

:-)


More like :O.

Alex said...

Romney is gonna win in a landslide by 400 easy peasy. The American people just LOVE the GOP abortion plank!

As opposed to the Demos' same sex marriage plank?

Good luck.

MadisonMan said...

So who was the brainy Republican who okayed having the National Convention in August in Florida?

As opposed to the rocket scientist who put the Demo convention in NC?

PS Conventions used to be in July and August. Now, for some reason, they're 2 weeks apart around Labor day.

garage mahal said...

Had a awesome vacation in Door County last week. Plenty of sunshine, and plenty of horse smallmouth bass.

Learned today that there was a murder less than a mile from where I was staying though. Sort of spooky. The alleged murderer called the sheriff from Birhdos at noon on Sunday to confess, right at the time I was filling up for the ride home.

MadisonMan said...

Okay edutcher, I'll bite. What weather hazards are most likely when the DNC occurs in Charlotte.

Ensemble guidance for Isaac can be viewed here.

Biggest question mark for intensity: How do the mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba disrupt the storm?

rhhardin said...

Doberman cleaning peanut butter jar.

edutcher said...

MadisonMan said...

Okay edutcher, I'll bite. What weather hazards are most likely when the DNC occurs in Charlotte.

Stormy and unsettled for a Democrat win.

Quaestor said...

That place reminds me strongly of the upscale billiards club my mates and I visited regularly in the early 1990s. It had similar decor, the hardwood floors, the generous glass up front, the stamped metal ceiling panels and mouldings, the period lighting -- all very similar, except our place was classier and much bigger.

They had eleven full-sized pool tables (all matching repros of 19th century tables with leather pockets) and a full-sized snooker table.

The bar was at the rear, and above the bar was a balcony with table seating for sixty people where they served a full dinner menu. It was fantastic -- food and drink and fun with occasional live music or karaoke -- perfect for yuppie couple or yuppie families. Above the balcony and invisible from the billiard palor was a disco. This was one super-cool establishment.

Then the bikers started to show. The management tried to discourage them with a dress code, but they nibbled at the edges of that defense. They parked their hogs in all the available space in front of the club. The families started to avoid the place because they didn't want to escort their kids through a phalanx of lowlife thugs just to get inside. When that happened the management had to relax the anti-biker rules just to stay afloat. Next, a gay friend of mine (gay, but not in-your-face gay) was brutally assaulted at the bar. A biker struck him in the head with a 12oz glass beer stein, sending my friend to hospital and the biker to jail. The next week I saw a fight break out which involved broken cues used as spears. That brought the cops out in force. 20 bikers were arrested and charged, the club suffered about 5 grand in damages, and I stopped going there. Within a year the parent corporation went Chapter 7, caused by the unsavory nature of the clientele and the astronomical insurance rates. Since then the location has been the scene of several club/restaurant/bar reboots. All have failed. It went from urban elegance to urban blight mainly because of bikers.

rhhardin said...

Grid imposed.

ampersand said...

They should change the name of the town to Enoonie , as the pictures on the menu takes all the mmmmmmm away.

Anonymous said...

EVERY-ONE:

You are invited to the Oval Room tomorrow night for the free champagne and cheese reception to celebrate our victory in Nov. We keep the WH and we keep the Senate. We will toast to Todd Akin. GOP is our perfect opponent. Why raise money when we have GOP is our opponent.

Come on, join us, tomorrow. NB: We will have a special appearance of Valerie J. who will personally thank us all for working hard in the CORE (COmmittee to Re-Elect) the POTUS, the greatest in our history.

Anonymous said...

Me forgot. The boy from Florida, Rubio, I mean. If you want to bring him along, then that is fine, of course. We can toast to Akin and to the boy.

LoafingOaf said...

LOL! Hurricane headed to the Republican Convention? I guess is God is voting early....

caplight45 said...

@Quaestor
Sounds like my church on a Sunday morning. I hear ya man. Some of my little old ladies can be vicious.

Synova said...

I don't know why anyone would assume a Hurricane was a bad thing.

The Newsies will be all about how the Republicans are dealing with the hurricane. Instead of asking questions about the "War on Women" the Newsies will give delegates and leader-types opportunities to talk about how the hurricane impacts the lives of those already struggling because of the economy.

We'll get the high lights of the major speakers and Romney and Ryan's speeches and then a piece about a food drive or something.

Ann Althouse said...

It was before 7 a.m.

KCFleming said...

Dylan was in my little town tonight. I was busy with a neighborhood meeting discussing zoning changes wrought by Agenda 21 sustainable development crap.

Would have preferred a few songs.

Titus said...

I was in Menomonie twice and did a guy who was a Hotel/Restaurant major at UW-Stout. That was actually a 4 year degree there. I stayed in his dorm and we had breakfast the next day at either an Embers or Country Kitchen.

How low class is that?

I have done much worse though.

Another kid who was a hockey player from my hometown of Waunakee and went to Stout and was a hockey player was beat up and killed by some other hockey players in some bar. I think they did away with the hockey team for a few years.

I always wondered what type of kid goes to college at River Falls, Oshkosh, Parkside, Superior and Stout.

I was really skinny and ugly when i did the guy.

But everything worked out. I am fab now and married to a really rich Indian/UK Musclehead who is very worldly.

I could still be at that Embers in Stout!

tits.

KCFleming said...

"The trouble with Socialism is that it takes too many evenings."

P.S. "Fab" appears then to be rather meaningless, generally a bow to whatever fleetingly passes for fashionable amongst gays.

Titus said...

Bloomer Wisconsin has an amazing pie place.

I did the band director at Bloomer High School too. I was judging a high school band competition one weekend and his wife was visiting her sister in Escanaba. The sex with him was horrible. And his bed sheets and comforter was horrible-it was black and after we did it the jizz was sprayed all over the black comforter andthe entire comforter looked like a Pollack painting.

And I have been to The Joint in Eau Claire and each time had some decent rough trade.

I am all about diversity, including ethnics (especially) and even disadvantaged in the socio=economic sphere. But just for sex, not marriage. I am like Halston in that way.

Titus said...

Pogo, fab in the gay world is big paying job, excellent education, hot husband and very nice home-probably similar to the straights....with the exception of the hot husband, natch.

KCFleming said...

The definition differs widely compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

Just fashion, but you'll argue otherwise.

Chuck66 said...

I like Menomonie. Mills Fleet Farm is especially fun. I was there 9 days ago, and the service station across the street put on their sign something about building their own business, and not the gov't doing it for them.

caplight45 said...

Chuck66 said...
"I like Menomonie. Mills Fleet Farm is especially fun."

Is that where they grow those cute little enema bottles? I enjoyed one of them the other day before a prostate biopsy.

I looked over my shoulder at the doc and nurse mid procedure and said, "Hey, Doc, I have a tickle in my throat. Mind scratching it while you're up there?"

caplight45 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadisonMan said...

I don't know why anyone would assume a Hurricane was a bad thing.

Well, if I were a Republican Delegate, I'd find it fascinating. But in this aspect, I think I am an outlier. Generally speaking, when people go to conventions, I think they prefer not to be inconvenienced by the weather.

I would think restaurants would close early, elevators wouldn't work, roads would flood and be impassable. Not much of a reward for being a loyal party worker and getting to go the Convention, is it?

Of course, it's still a week away. But all the planners have to account for it now. What a headache.

Synova said...

Madison Man, I've no doubt at all that it would SUCK.

But that's not the same thing as "bad for the Republicans."

:)

Titus said...

Pogo, I used to care how I dress but now I am old amd a tshirt and sweats man, so fashion to me is not fab and has not been fab in my vocab for awhile. Sure, I appreciate and can look at someone all dolled up but I aint doing that anymore.

And at my high paying job I dress very nice but definitely not fab. And I would not work at an employer that required it because i would not be able to hit those expectations and neither want to.

I did at one point know all about fashion but I am older now and could not tell you shit about it.

I don't know any fashion. Tonight my husband asked me about Maroon 5 and I was like who? I am all about how does the house look, did you have a good day, let's take the dog for a walk and let's go to Maine for the long weekend.=that's fab to me...happiness, contentment and responsibility.

In a few years, fab to me will be living on my father's farm north of Madison Wisconsin and raising clumber spaniels, breeding them, and hopefully showing some champion lines around the country. I will still definitely have my place in the city to escape every now and again though.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I believe I mist out on sex on several occasion fearing a rape charge later on.. I was terrible at reading/misreading cues.

There is really no way of knowing for sure, as there is no way of knowing anything for sure... legitimately.

wyo sis said...

Every time Titus posts I find myself thinking "I've so misjudged teh gays. You know I should really give this classy guy lots of consideration and respect, because he's so smart and refined."

Titus said...

Lastly, fab to me is receiving a call from my mother telling me my father, who has alzheimers and delivers Meals On Weals, finds the home of the new meals participant on his route.

Meals on Weals is one of the last thing my father still does and when he accomplishes it I think it is fabulous. And when he is lost out there 2 miles from his home I feel awful.

And it gives this man, who had many responsibilities in life, some sense of gratification because he Completed it without getting lost.

Goodnight MaryEllen.

LoafingOaf said...

Uh-oh. Look what's going on with the Republicans in the swing state of Ohio:

"A top adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich has come under fire for a statement critics say was racist and aimed at suppressing the vote of African-Americans.

"The comments from Doug Preisse, the Franklin County Republican chairman, were yet another salvo in the ongoing battle between Ohio Democrats and Republicans over early voting hours. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted last week issued a directive that excludes weekend voting, which Democrats say was politically motivated.

"Preisse told the Columbus Dispatch in a story published Sunday: 'I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban -- read African-American -- voter turnout machine.'"

Ralph L said...

Halston, Titus, really? I'll believe that you're fab, not so sure about you're being forty.

wv - umerfo

Ralph L said...

Oh come on, L. Oaf, how many of those voters have jobs in Obama's economy? Weekday voting, no problem. Maybe their overseers--I mean--GOTV drivers have other jobs during the week, though. Seriously, don't you think more Repub voters have weekday jobs?

We don't have weekend voting here, either, or on the Monday before Election day.

pm317 said...

teleprompter-in-chief, a telling pic from Reuters..

pm317 said...

chip ahoy, I know what you are talking about.. I was the only gal in my Engineering Drawing class who got the perspective right in the final exam!

Synova said...

Rules that are the same for everyone ALWAYS disenfranchise black voters.

Explain why that is, Loaf, without using words that would make a Republican who used them sound like a racist prick.

A real racist prick, one who genuinely believes that black people need special help to do ordinary things even while they loooove them so much.

Toad Trend said...

Pinching Loaf typrd

"Uh-oh. Look what's going on with the Republicans in the swing state of Ohio:

"A top adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich has come under fire for a statement critics say was racist..."

Now there is some hard-hitting 'proof'.

'Critics' calling a republican, 'racist'.

Let us know when something new or hard-hitting occurs, like when you dems realize it was you who penned Jim Crow, etc.

Idiots.

bagoh20 said...

Hey you unemployed Americans. The reason you can't find a job is because some guy in Ohio said something, and he's a Republican. Could you vote for the guy in charge of your bad situation right now, cause he thinks that man in Ohio is real bad. Please?

Man, is it really that bad, guys? Come on, it's still close. You don't have to lose complete composure, and break down into sniveling fools...yet.

Chip Ahoy said...

pm317 is a girl.

I would like it if everyone understood what I'm on about. I know that most of you do but some of you don't. It is for those few who never could draw a picture like this that show how this picture illustrates the idea so well.

You the artist chose your own vanishing points and that determines how your picture will look, natural or more like a comic book.

Sorun said...

Today we might have a "Naked at The Pool Table Café."

traditionalguy said...

As for hurricane Isaac, the word is the GOP party goers want proof it's a legitimate hurricane before they apply the hurricane exception and abort their convention.

They found them a fake doctor of meteorology who says Tropical storms are famous for saying they are a hurricane, but then are only 50 mph blow jobs with lots of moaning all night long.

Seriously, the air traffic could be a real problem if tropical storm winds bring an intense thunderstorm for 12 hours.

garage mahal said...

"Preisse told the Columbus Dispatch in a story published Sunday: 'I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban -- read African-American -- voter turnout machine.'"

Can you rent a movie or withdraw money from a bank when the they're closed? HUH?

Cutting down the available times to vote is preventing all that fraud of voting early!

Ruth Anne Adams said...

I think the blogstress is being held hostage somewhere. Has anyone got the ransom note?

Toad Trend said...

In the mind of the democrat/leftist, a regularly-scheduled rate increase REDUCTION for ANYTHING, is a CUT.

So, why should anyone be surprised that not INCREASING the time that voting polls are available to EVERYONE in the mind of a leftist is RACISM.

Leftist 'logic'.

caplight45 said...

Chip Ahoy

Last night I read and re-read your posts about perspective, stopping to go back to the picture numerous times to be sure I understood what you were saying. It was classic Althousian "Cafe Post" commenting.

I don't have the eye, which in large measure really means the brain, of an artist. So even though there was nothing for me to add to the discussion and even though I probably don't "get it" I did enjoy trying.

My take away was probably three fold the first being that the photo had a richness and beauty that I had not perceived in a glance.

Second would be that Ann has an instinctive ability for photography and visual composition.Unless she would say otherwise I doubt she stood their thinking about multiple lines of perspective. My hunch is she just did a point and shoot.

Which leads me to the third thing which is Ann is incredibly proficient with a "point and shoot" camera which in this case was a Panasonic DMC-ZS7.

I doubt that I have an artistic cell in my brain but I loved every moment I spent in the three art history courses I took in college (Minoan, Mycenaean and Greek Art, Etruscan and Roman Art, Renaissance to Modern Art).

Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.


MadisonMan said...

Isaac *should* be seriously disrupted by Hispaniola and Cuba -- if those two islands weren't there, or if they were just low little things, damaging hurricanes would be far more frequent in Florida.

And it's still not certain which coast of FL Isaac will go up -- east or west. Either way, though, headaches.

Michael said...

Titus: There is absolutely nothing "fab" about tee shirts and sweat pants. Northing. Ultra low class. Ultra coach. Dress properly every day.

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