You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)

It feels like time to swap out the Smiley icon in exchange for this keen set of debating puppets, courtesy of Avenue Q. But before we go, I want to give a plug to Bren Bataclan, a local artist and very swell guy who painted the Smiley icon and its mate (seepapersource) along with dozens more cheerful and ever-so-slightly insane looking critters.



Last year, Bren left smiley paintings all around Boston with notes on them saying they were free if the person who took them promised to smile more often. So you know he's nice and kind of hippy like that. But we actually paid for ours (L gave them to me as a birthday present) and got to visit his house and see his cool toys. The best thing about the two Bren paintings that L gave me doesn't really show up at 100x100 pixels: their pupils are little spirals rather than dots, which gives the two of them a vaguely psychotic look—love woozy or possibly hyp-mo-tized!—as they gaze into each other's eyes on my office wall. Which is how I feel when I gaze at Lisa, so there you go.



(Props to vampyrusgirl, too, for recognizing Bren's work right off.)