1000 Fields of Roses

Another GISH Hunt week just gone – I think this is my fifth year?
It felt a bit low key this year, although I enjoyed it. Started off the week with a flu type thing, so I’ve only done six items…

Item 29 –
Make a book jacket. No, we mean a REAL book jacket.

This was hurried, not quite I wanted. I was feeling a bit rough and just wanted to start on something…I meant to update it with something better later in the week.

Item 52 –
Everyone needs a driver’s license to drive, and obviously there are lots of different kinds of licenses, but there is one that people often seem shy to share. Take a photo of a published poet showing us their Poetic License.

I am published – many years ago, in an anthology put out by a vanity publisher.

Item 161 –
TV shows get crossover episodes all the time, but we just don’t see enough Poetry Crossovers! Choose two of your favorite short, well-known poems from wildly different genres of poets and write the words on separate slips of paper. Then, rearrange the words to form a brand-new poem that creates the genre mash-up the poetry world has been yearning for. You must use all the primary words in your new creation, but you can add or remove conjunctions and articles as needed to make it flow.

Item 25 –
Son-flower.

One of favourites, and the quickest to do.
Note the eyeroll (my boys are familiar with GISH week now!)

Item 16 –
I (Misha) often make other people get tattoos, but this year I’m flipping the script and making you help me get one: Design a pointillism-style tattoo for my shoulder that incorporates a baby cheetah, a sockeye salmon and the words “wild and precious life” or something similar. The baby cheetah represents my son; the sockeye salmon, my daughter… and the phrase has deep meaning to me. I intend to use a mashup of the designs I like best, so give it all you’ve got. (Then, if you are so inclined, get a pointillist tattoo of three things that have deep significance to you — but you don’t have to do this part to get your Points.)

Another of my favourites! 😀

Item 121 –
Art is subjective, so there’s really no such thing as “bad” art in our opinion. Prove us wrong: create a piece of art so truly awful, it deserves to be in the Museum of Bad Art. The subject of your creation: a terrible, haunting, “big eyes” portrait of a character from Supernatural or another well-known pop-culture universe, in the style of Margaret Keane. But make it so bad, it’s kind of good.

Definitely not one of my favourites, but at least I got it done… it’s meant to be a character called Bobby Singer.

Well, that’s it for another year…just waiting for the sign up for next hunt.
Maybe it’s time now for an early night?

This weekend I participated in the GISH Book Bash – a GISH hunt with a literary bent.
It was a very short hunt (36 hours), so I didn’t get much done. What I did get done required minimal energy expenditure…

58 – Oh, no… Your library (local or personal) has been infested with bookworms! Show us the epic battle between you and these massive, book-munching behemoths.

23 – The last line from the poem on page 47 of my (Misha Collins’) book, Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You, written on a single blade of grass lying on a sidewalk. 

69 – Kafka’s insect having tea with the Lord of the Flies, complete with a tiny insect crown.

32 – Cave paintings were the first “written” stories, but we just don’t see enough of them these days — so let’s bring it into the 21st century. Depict your favorite movie or TV show’s story in a prehistoric style worthy of the Lascaux Caves, painted on the walls of your “(hu)man cave” or den.

Guess which TV show! 😆

All in all, not some of my best work. But still fun.
And…BOOKS! Yay!
😀

It’s that time of the year again – the annual week long GISH Hunt.
This is my fourth year, with a few minihunts as well over the last year or so. It’s a global scavenger type hunt, so I was put in a team with members all over the world. There were just over 200 items to choose from, so I got to do fun (and challenging) things.
For some reason I have come down with some sort of cold every year during this week, and this year was no exception. Added to that was the covid lockdown in my area, which started a few hours before the Hunt started, and ended at exactly the same time as the Hunt. I didn’t leave the house at all, so had to make do with what I had (except for another jar of Vegemite to help recreate the Mona Lisa – that was picked up with the essential grocery shop mid-week).
Nevertheless, I completed fourteen items! 😀

Item 52 – A tiny portrait of Marilyn Monroe on a “beauty mark” on someone’s cheek.

Item 112 – Steam Punk Rock.

Item 191 – It’s International Lost in Translation Karaoke night & you’re up next! Choose an English-language song and translate it into at least 3 different languages using Google Translate, then back to English (a language with some of the most arbitrary rules and inconsistencies on the planet). Then sing the resulting lyrics. (Example: English -> Russian -> Russian -> Gaelic -> Gaelic -> English. Got it? Good.) Please caption this video with the final English lyrics.

The languages I translated “Eye Of The Tiger” into – Scots Gaelic, Amharic, Catalan, Welsh, Latin –

Item 90 – Pop culture is taking over everything—even breakfast. Create a yogart (yogurt art) portrait of your favorite pop culture character on the top of a bowl of your yogurt, with colored yogurt and inclusions. Maintain edibility.. Post it on social media tagged #GISH, #Yogart, and the character, actor(s), or series

– Yes – the TARDIS (“sexy” 😆 ) is a character!

Item 147 – Your splendid coat of arms—and I’m not talking about heraldry.

Item 96 – Over 16,000 people have signed a petition to get Jeff Bezos to buy and eat the Mona Lisa. Down with this elitism: delicious art belongs to the masses! Create an exact, edible replica of the Mona Lisa, complete with frame. Feel free to eat it after you create it. Post your image on social media and tag @JeffBezos, @GISH and #ArtFeedsTheSpirit.

Item 19 – You’ve heard of Dad Jokes. Tell a Dadaist joke.

Item 40 – ). Resting B***** Face, The Musical! Write a song with happy uplifting lyrics, and perform the whole thing in a monotone, one chord/one-note fashion, with resting b*tch face the whole time

Item 197 – Baby kneads a new pair of shoes. Create baby sneakers out of bread.

Item 155 – Olympian Simone Biles proved she is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) at this year’s Olympics — not just through her athleticism, but by putting her own mental health first. She had the “twisties,” a phenomenon where a gymnast’s brain loses track of where they are. Metaphorically, we’ve all been there and had times where we feel a little lost. Create a personal compass to help reorient yourself, with the things you value most at true North.

Item 156 – Remember Thorgi, a corgi dog dressed up as the God of Thunder? Loki deserves the same honor. Show us a dog version of the God of Mischief. Lokita? Labradoki? You get the idea.

Item 28 – Pug of War.

Item 154 – Gishbot needs an retro-modernist upgrade. Meet Steampunk Gishbot!

Item 5 – Flipping your perspective can help you overcome a challenge. Create an ambigram featuring two words that help you regain balance. The first word should be something you struggle with and the second word, one that brings you peace. Bonus points if you also get it tattooed (permanent or temporary tattoos will both be accepted due to covid).

So – there it is…
There were many charity and volunteering items to choose from but I was unable to do those, for one reason or another…
The items I do complete never look as good as they do in my head. I’m still pleased to have finished them.
And next time, maybe you can join me! 😀