Cowboy Who?

#Ryo #RoninWarriors

#CowboyWho

FLASHBACK TIME! Who is this behatted Beatle-liker?

The post The unexpected appeared first on Bad Machinery.

The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced to over 27 years in prison after he was found guilty of attempting to use military force to overturn an election and plotting to assassinate current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brian Winter of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas joins Nick Schifrin to discuss the ruling and the Trump administration's response.

One of the aspects of being an “arts professional” that really sticks in my craw is when people get self-conscious with me about the validity of their opinions about art. The conversation might proceed with “I’m not an art person, so…” or “you’re the expert…so” and then a self-imposed invalidation of their feelings, emotions, or genuine responses to an artwork. Sure, I have spent my whole dang life devoted to contextualizing, illuminating, and engaging with art. What a privilege! But what moves me and keeps me coming back for more is fostering conversation. 

At my museum jobs, all I have really desired is creating a shared sense of expertise. How would a bison minder respond to this work? How does a dancer feel about the taut depiction of muscles? My worst wound is someone asking me to tell them what to think, as if I hold a key that they cannot possess. We both have keys. The locks work for either of us. Your expertise is your own. Mine might be informed by study, context, history, and absorption of information, but when it comes to matters of the heart, we are on even ground. 

I wrote this to the artists of Texas Vignette, an upcoming show that I juried, to explain that selection or rejection is a matter of taste:

“A word of advice/caution to artists out there, either those in the show or not included this time: there is no magic key to my opinions. The best you can do is to just be yourself. I’m a person with individual taste and on another day or with another person choosing, the results could have been entirely different.” 

So, here is the irony of this article: I’m about to tell you the artists at The Armory Show I liked the best. Am I a member of some sort of nebulous concept entitled “the art world?” Yes. Is my opinion somehow given more weight because my CV lists my qualifications? Yes. But is my selection of a top six any more intelligent, valid, or worthy than that of the security guard standing nearby? I think not. That person must stand there all day looking at this stuff. And if, when their feet are tired and they have had to deal with a thousand schmucks making dumb comments all day, they STILL want to look at an artwork, well, now that’s really something.

So, here is a list of one person’s favorite six artists from the 2025 Armory in New York City:

1. Nate Lewis, Zidoun Bossuyt

Nate Lewis manipulates paper in an embossment technique that creates an uncanny and undefinable texture. Here dancers in motion reach for each other longingly and their bodies are made up of sculpted, cut, folded, and paper tableaus sourced from fragmented musical scores and evoking the pulsing EKGs of Lewis’ background as a critical care nurse. Works that are inherently static, therefore, dance and pulse to an unheard score.

2. Huê Thi Hoffmaster, Eric Firestone Gallery

In a convention center of hype and bombast, Hoffmaster’s large, abstract works that simultaneously suggest calligraphic script, vibrant gardens, or colorful explosions of fireworks provided me with a moment of repose. Bursts of color felt playfully active and refreshingly still, like the cooling breeze that follows the tumult of a downpour. Hoffmaster’s paint explodes all over the canvas with dynamism, but his restraint in leaving areas of raw canvas provided my eyes with a place to rest.

3. Anne Buckwalter, Uffner & Liu

Buckwalter’s renderings of domestic spaces with winks and nods to the erotic amongst a kind of Grannycore aesthetic have long captured my amusement and joy. In this presentation of new work, particularly her works on paper, Buckwalter has turned household props into protagonists. Patterns take over without direct reference to a particular space. By breaking down figurative and literal walls, oblique and suggestive storytelling turns to satisfying abstraction, as Buckwalter allows the patterns normally found in an antique quilt to both smother with a kind of oppression or bleed or release into freeform freedom.

4. Marie Watt, Catharine Clark Gallery

I watched as children, jaded art elites, and joyful compatriots walked underneath cloudlike clusters of tin jingles, forms grounded in Indigenous histories of adornment and healing rituals of the Ojibwe people. Visitors freed themselves from conventional decorum by activating the tinkling sound and tactile satisfaction of touching art (at the imploring of the gallerists). In stepping outside the detachment that sterile art spaces often convey, Watt’s work became a form of care. Enter the booth and blankets normally associated with comfort invoke histories of trade, colonization, and both the harm and nurturing we apply to one another. The work nods to canonical art history for the insiders among us — from the stripey minimal aesthetics of Barnett Newman to the columnar geometries of Constantin Brancusi. But the overwhelming sensation of the solo presentation is love and a meditation on communication across languages, geographies, and generations.

5. Judith Blum Reddy, 1 Mira Madrid 2 Mira Archiv

While I delight in seeing work by young artists recognized and launched into the stratosphere from the moment they emerge from the womb, I am particularly moved and surprised when I discover the work of someone who has been working and striving and fighting for decades. Can we do better about foregrounding the work of women in the halls of our institutions? Reddy’s gathered works with quips, maps, and lists made me chuckle with their politics, mockery, humor, and incisiveness. The layering of pencil, pen, ink, paint, and wax formed flags, maps, treatises, and tracts that combined a sense of absurdist, magical charting with layers evocations of bureaucracy and political posturing. How rare is it to elicit a chuckle and a groan simultaneously about the state of the world and our place within it?

6. Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Patel Brown

I am always ready to leap when an artist I admire says “Do you want to see my favorites?” Heck yes. My artist friend Crystalle Lacouture is a paper nerd, an investigator of patterns and abstractions, and she pulled me at breakneck speed to meet a new kindred. Hatanaka’s printed-paper textile works were rippling and floating off the wall, dancing to unseen air currents in the seemingly stagnant space of an exhibition hall. We gushed over the ostensible fragility of Japanese washi paper that looked like one whisper of air would dissolve it fully, only to experience and hear about its strength and durability — Hatanaka learned a papermaking practice handed down through centuries of Japanese traditions. 

Monumental tide lines evoke ice and water in the high arctic. Linocut printing techniques are surrounded by sheets imprinted with gyotaku, the traditional Japanese method of printing real fish. We talked about Hatanaka’s joy in catching the fish herself; she provided pointers on how I might ink my own fish and still be able to eat them, and we marveled at her sewing together hundreds of scraps of washi to create life-sized silhouettes of her own body, that, in the confined space of the booth, felt like larger-than-life deities devoted to the stewardship of the natural world.

 

Read more coverage of this year’s Armory Show here.

The post You Like What You Like. One Texas-based Human’s Top Six Artists of the Armory appeared first on Glasstire.

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.

For last week’s 2025 Fall Preview picks, please go here.

1. Breadth of Latino/a Voices
Art Museum of South Texas (Corpus Christi)
September 12 – January 4, 2026

From the Art Museum of South Texas (AMST):

“This group of works from the AMST’s permanent collection honors the range of expression among its Latinx artists, featuring César Martínez, Candace Briceño, Alex Rubio, Kathy Vargas, Ivette Olivares, Ricardo Ruiz, Luis Jiménez, Gaspar Enríquez, Benito Huerta, Antonio E. Garcia, Francisco Delgado, Vincent Valdez, Maricela Sanchez, Amorette Garza-Morales, Joe Peña, Teresa Ruiz, Delilah Montoya, Rolando Briseño, Rigoberto A. Gonzalez, Jesse Amado, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Veronica Castillo, Martha Castillo, Patty Jolet, and Stephanie Mercado.”

2. Going Home: A Group Exhibition featuring PDNB Artists
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery (Denton)
September 11 – October 29, 2025

From Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery (PDNB):

“For 30 years, PDNB Gallery has operated in the city of Dallas in Uptown and in the Design District. For Going Home, PDNB Gallery is officially open and ready for business in its new Denton home. This celebration exhibition will highlight the artists that have helped make PDNB a lasting success in Texas and beyond: Peter Brown, Keith Carter, Earlie Hudnall, Jeanine Michna-Bales, Stuart Allen, Michael O’Brien, Esteban Pastorino Diaz, Chema Madoz, Michael Kenna, Cheryl Medow, Patty Carroll, Al Satterwhite, Ruth Orkin, Nickolas Muray, John Albok, and Lucienne Bloch.”

Read about PDNB Gallery’s relocation here.

3. Andy Coolquitt: C0oOT
McLennon Pen Co Gallery (Austin)
September 13 – October 12, 2025

From McLennon Pen Co. Gallery:

“Known for his improvisational approach and deep engagement with the object-world, Coolquitt brings together four bodies of work — Monochromes, Outfits, BMs, and HopsonShouse vitrines. These works transform everyday textiles, clothing, and found materials into charged compositions that hover between painting, sculpture, and performance. With a practice rooted in Austin since the 1990s, Coolquitt has long blurred the lines between art and life, creating environments and discrete sculptures that ask: how does an object think, and how might it stage itself?”

4. Jesse Amado: Hidden Beauty of Doodles
Cothren Contemporary (Houston)
September 13 – November 8, 2025

From Cothren Contemporary:

“San Antonio artist Jesse Amado presents his latest body of work, in abstract, material-driven conceptual works, rich in subversive beauty and social commentary. Amado begs the viewer to engage with curiosity, rooted in their own personal recipe. A septuagenarian renegade, Amado’s continuously evolving works have been collected in multiple private collections throughout the U.S., as well as major museum collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.”

5. Juan de Dios Mora ¿Me Voy o Me Quedo?
College of the Mainland (Texas City)
August 25 – September 18, 2025

From College of the Mainland:

“Mora blends his hybrid Mexican culture and American experiences into a single entity and focuses on the economic, social, and cultural issues of life on the border. Using a surrealistic approach, Mora portrays characters interacting with customized devices and vehicles created to facilitate the daily life, duties, responsibilities, obligations, and entertaining events of the operators. Though ramshackle, decked out, or shabby in appearance, the structure of each device shows the ingenuity and capability of the characters and their will to survive. Mora’s intention is to make a social comment on a culture that frequently has to rely on their surroundings for survival, and to portray the freedom, hope, and style of the crafty creators.”

The post Top Five: September 11, 2025 appeared first on Glasstire.

A reader writes:

I’m in the middle of a pretty bleak job search, involving lots of form rejection emails. The first few times I got one, I wrote back a succinct note to the effect of “thank you for letting me know” before realizing how depressing this would be for all of the rejections that would soon start rolling in.

I figure most places don’t care, so I’ve stopped responding to those rejections, but I’m wondering: is it worth ever sending something polite but more personal, hoping that maybe they’d change their mind, or am I living in the job-search equivalent of a 90’s rom-com? “Gosh, we usually get crazy people who yell at us, but this person is so nice and that gosh darn it we should hire her instead!” (Career success, happiness, and extraordinary riches ensue, etc. Sandra Bullock has a cameo.)

They’re very unlikely to change their mind, even if you send an incredibly gracious and personable response back.

That said, there are times when it can make sense to do that anyway. Specifically, if you progressed to the interview stage and seemed to really click with your interviewer, it can be a good investment to send a gracious note thanking them for their time, referencing something valuable you took away from the discussion, and otherwise building on the rapport that you began in the interview. Not because you’re expecting them to change their mind, but because it might solidify you in their head as someone to think of the next time a job opens up that you might be well-matched with (or if you were a top candidate for this one and then their final choice falls through, or they want to refer you to an opening at a partner organization, or so forth).

To be clear, this wouldn’t just be a perfunctory “thanks for letting me know.” This would be a note that builds the connection in some way. (Also, if the form rejection comes from a general hiring email rather than the hiring manager’s own email, don’t just reply to that — send your message directly to the manager so they actually see it.)

It doesn’t make sense to do it if you didn’t progress to the interview stage, since in that case there’s no rapport to build on.

It’s still unlikely to result in anything, particularly a Sandra Bullock appearance, but sometimes job searching is about scattering little seeds around and seeing which ones sprout into something, and this can be one of those seeds.

The post is it ever worth it to respond to rejection emails? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Fellow milkman down!

In her first television interview since joining the Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett defended the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, claiming abortion policy should be left to state legislatures. What do you think?

The post Justice Barrett Defends Overturning ‘Roe v. Wade’ appeared first on The Onion.

Chicagoans are waiting tensely to see whether President Donald Trump will follow through on his threat to deploy the National Guard. The Onion examines the pros and cons of sending troops to the city.

PRO

They get to see where The Good Wife took place

Troops barely go to go anywhere last administration

Sends strong message to anyone who thinks they can just get away with going about their day

City could use more bored people with guns

---

CON

Fewer troops available to invade Dubuque

Leaves recruitment tables at America’s high school cafeterias unmanned

Brutalizing civilians should be the police department’s job

Projectile sandwiches more hazardous when wet

The post Pros And Cons Of Deploying Troops To Chicago appeared first on The Onion.

The post Trump: ‘Political Violence Has No Place In My Inner Circle’ appeared first on The Onion.

OREM, UT—As law enforcement officials search for a person of interest in the assassination of 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, witnesses on the scene at Utah Valley University admitted Thursday they had assumed the shooter was just an ordinary gunman on campus. “When that first shot rang out, we all figured it was going to be a run-of-the-mill mass shooting” said UVU junior Michael Tompkins, who explained that when students spotted a man clad in black and carrying a rifle on a roof overlooking the crowd, they had no reason to suspect anything unusual. “It’s chilling that a person we thought was a normal, unhinged campus shooter was actually a political assassin. You see a deranged guy with a rifle on the quad every day. I suppose it was a little suspicious that he wasn’t shooting droves of students.” At press time, the FBI announced that the gunman had escaped by blending into the heavily armed crowd.

The post Witnesses Assumed Charlie Kirk Shooter Was Just Ordinary Gunman On School Campus appeared first on The Onion.

SALT LAKE CITY—Alarmed by numerous reports that the vice president was currently en route to the state, sources confirmed Thursday that a visit from JD Vance was the last thing Utah needed right now. “We’re already going through a lot, but to add JD Vance on top of everything else?” said one Utah resident, who pleaded for anyone with contacts in the vice president’s office to put a stop to his trip immediately. “Ugh, the last few days have been really hard. And suddenly we’ve got JD Vance coming to Utah. Now whose idea was that? It’s been utter chaos here, and now they just want to rub salt in the wound.” At press time, Arizona had reportedly volunteered to pretend to be Utah.

The post Visit From JD Vance Last Thing Utah Needs Right Now appeared first on The Onion.

A study published in Nature Climate Change found that warmer temperatures drive Americans to consume more added sugar, especially from sodas and frozen treats. What do you think?

The post Study: Warmer Weather Drives More Sugar Consumption appeared first on The Onion.

OREM, UT – Americans who champion the right to bear arms were shocked Wednesday as controversial commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, as opposed to the ordinarily acceptable trend of mass shootings in schools. Dale Shaw, an investment advisor from Salt Lake City, says the event has cast a shadow over his activism supporting […]

The post Second Amendment activists in shock as Charlie Kirk shot instead of just schoolchildren appeared first on The Beaverton.

A growing population, leaking pipes and changing climate threaten the state’s water supply. Texas lawmakers hope a $20 billion investment will help.

Texas’ Solar for All program was intended to bring solar panels and batteries to low-income neighborhoods and create jobs by training workers to install the technology.

Houston City Council member Joaquin Martinez said the case of the new firetruck, which cost approximately $1 million to $1.5 million, reinforces the need for fiscal responsibility in city purchases.  

Thirty stations must figure out how to make up for the loss of at least $17.7 million in federal funding that came at the direction of the president without wearing out supporters.

In brief: Today’s forecast is our GIF to you, our beloved Houston readers. Houston’s weather will be unchanging for awhile, and it’s been five years since we’ve done a GIF-only forecast. So it’s high time we do it again.

Basically our forecast for the next 10 days:

You’ll walk outside every morning, look up, and see this.

Afternoon temperatures will basically feel like…

The humidity will be such that, if you stay outside too long your co-workers will be like …

Rain? There will be …

What will be different this weekend?

Surely a front or something is coming next week to bring some rain, or pull us out of the 90s, right?

So when does this change?

Matt will have a more in-depth forecast for you tomorrow. Probably. Maybe. I guess we’ll see.

In response to the letter earlier this week about a company that announced it would no longer clean out office fridges, we talked about how cuts that save only minor amounts of money can be a harbinger of more significant problems to come. Today, let’s talk about what other signs of financial trouble you’ve seen at work — the early signs that foretold something worse.

Some examples shared in the comments:

“This was back in the financial crisis of 2008. One morning we get a company wide email with the subject line ‘Milk.’ Went on to say that we since we had been spending so much money on it, the company would no longer provide milk for coffee/cereal (they kept the non-dairy creamer). Sure enough a few months later — massive layoffs.”

“A company I worked at modified all the paper towel dispensers in the bathrooms to use smaller paper towels. Like, they actually installed a bracket inside of each one. They also sent out an email that plastic spoons would no longer be provided in the break room (but kept the knives and forks). Definitely a harbinger for cost cutting.”

“My partner’s employer removed all living plants from the building in a cost-saving effort.”

“My indicator was when they locked two of the stalls in the ladies room and all but one in the men’s room to cut down on cleaning costs. The place closed a year later.”

“I observed the CFO rifling through desk drawers throughout the building looking for extra pens. Later, doling out office supplies one at a time.”

“Drastically increasing the price of parking; changing free electric charging to pay-for chargers; changing plain visitor parking to paid parking through an app; increasing ID replacement costs; changing rules around reimbursements for various things to be much more onerous; no more dishwasher detergent for dishwashers provided; changing toilet paper from regular to cheap one-ply; requiring justification for using any vendors not on a suddenly created, very short list that doesn’t include vendors historically used for years upon years previously … There are so many ways a company can start nickel-and-diming their employees if things get tighter. Some might make sense as a one-off, but if you get a lot of them all together…”

Please share your own examples in the comment section.

The post let’s talk about signs of financial trouble at work appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
People who say there's no good use for AI need to think harder.

Today's News:

Oh, not another flashback!

LONDON—Promising a “dark, brooding romance,” Wuthering Heights director Emerald Fennell assured fans Thursday that her new movie would be a faithful adaptation of Twilight. “When you take on a classic, people are understandably going to have strong feelings, but trust me on this—you’re going to love it,” said Fennell, who stressed that the upcoming film was practically a “scene by scene” adaptation of the supernatural-fantasy novel written in 2005. “The respect I have for Twilight is tremendous. In fact, I gave hardcover copies of it to the entire cast. I can’t wait for the world to finally see this film. The performances of Jacob [Elordi] and Margot [Robbie] as Edward and Bella are going to blow everyone away!” Reacting to the news, many fans insisted Fennell would never be able to top the Twilight adaptation that starred Laurence Olivier.

The post Emerald Fennell Assures Fans ‘Wuthering Heights’ Will Be Faithful Adaptation Of ‘Twilight’ appeared first on The Onion.

Gather ’round, friends, and lend me your ears! Today, I bring to you a marvelous proposition, one that can become a reality with everyone’s help. It may seem far-fetched at first—the ravings of yet another humble dreamer. But I really believe that we can accomplish this as long as we stay united as one. For alone, each of us is just one little person. But together, absolutely nothing can keep us from attaining our desires. 

So, c’mon, everybody, and join in! There’s too many of us for them to stop us from jerking off all at once!

Of course, we’re vulnerable if we stay isolated while rubbing one out. But if we lock arms and touch ourselves, side by side in a public park, then the impossible is possible! We can shout “No!” at the authority figures who tell us to keep our sexual organs in our pants. We can overcome the powerful who want us to remain flaccid and dry. For nothing they do will ever change this underlying fact: There is strength in our engorged numbers. 

Some of you might fear the consequences of joining me in this communal act of self-pleasure. I don’t blame you. Many of us won’t make it to climax, particularly if we’re arrested for public indecency and dragged away by the police while still desperately pawing at our crotches. But no matter what, don’t stop fondling yourself! For even as our brothers- and sisters-in-arms fall, other rock-hard cocks rise in their place, ready to be furiously manipulated in the face of incredible odds. 

I’m going to show you how this is done: Basically, you start touching yourself really slowly. See? Like this. But then go faster and faster. It feels better that way.

So how about it—sir, are you with me? If so, follow my example. Put your hand in your pants and start beating off! How about you, madam? Will you stand up and say “Enough is enough” to those who would deny you your pleasure? Then the time has come to begin diddling yourself. After all, one person jerking off in a dark room does nothing, but everyone on the face of the earth jerking off simultaneously? 

Friends, that can change the world. 

Not so long ago, I was exactly like many of you: fearful, isolated, and mistaken in my belief of the cynics who said my dreams about group masturbation were impractical. In the darkest of those moments, I tried to cheer myself up by turning to my favorite porn video on xHamster.com, “Busty Amateur Sucks And Fucks.” It was then that I happened upon the view count: 837,000. Stunned, I checked out my other favorite video, “Horny Stepsis Sneaks Into My Room After Yoga.” 1.3 million views. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. 

Not at all. 

There are millions—no, billions—of us: decent, hardworking people who just want to play with themselves in public without any consequences and would do exactly that if the elite didn’t rely on keeping us disillusioned and sexually repressed. Though each of us is just a single drop in the ocean, if we all band together, we can produce a massive tidal wave of bodily fluid so powerful it can overcome anything.

So today I ask you, my brothers and sisters, to ignore the doubters and skeptics and join me. Be you man or woman, teen or elder, I call upon you to plunge your hand into your underwear and start rummaging around. We will either go down tugging and rubbing, or we will enjoy orgasms that will stay with us for eternity. 

And to those still uncertain of whether to participate, I ask you to recall that all it takes for evil to triumph in this world is for good, horny people like ourselves not to beat off together.

The post C’mon, Everybody, There’s Too Many Of Us For Them To Stop Us From Jerking Off All At Once! appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Attempting to garner camaraderie from a group of regulars at his local watering hole, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth loudly announced Monday that he would be buying everyone in the bar a round of F-22 fighter jets. “Guys, the next round of aeronautic defense systems is on me,” said a visibly inebriated Hegseth, twirling his finger around in the air to indicate that his fellow bargoers should put their $370 million supersonic stealth Raptors on his tab. “Hey, everyone, raise your missile launchers for a toast! Anyone want to join me in the bathroom to take out a Yemeni village with a drone? No? Okay, your loss.” According to reports, a winking Hegseth also sent a nearby table of ladies a round of tanks. 

The post Pete Hegseth Buys Bar Round Of F-22 Fighter Jets appeared first on The Onion.

The post Home Depot Garden Center Offering 1.5 Cubic Feet Of Squirrels appeared first on The Onion.

The happy couple tied the knot in a small ceremony at a local courthouse since they were there for Smith’s arraignment anyway.

The post Ashley Byron and Connor Smith appeared first on The Onion.

1. This used to be a rite of passage, but for your generation, I believe it’s considered optional.

2. You may be asked questions that you’re not expecting. Don’t panic. Try to figure out the best response from the available options.

3. Most people just bluff their way through it the first time and see what happens.

4. It might not last as long as you think it will. It’s quicker now than it was in my day because teenagers don’t have the same attention span.

5. The occasional involuntary grunt is okay, but try to avoid making other noises. You don’t want to throw off someone else’s game.

6. At some point, you might wonder why years of schooling have not adequately prepared you for this experience.

7. Once it’s over, you may feel unhappy with your performance. Don’t get too upset. You can always try again, but I recommend waiting until you’re better prepared.

8. Remember, people usually do better on their second try.

9. Keep in mind that there isn’t a level playing field. Data shows that it’s easier for males to achieve a positive outcome.

10. If things do go well, don’t brag about it. Just quietly enjoy feeling superior to your peers.

Sex advice: 1–10
SAT advice: 1–10