Monday, November 27, 2006

Google Searches



Windows, 2006. Oil on Panel, 12x16








We had a very nice, quiet Thanksgiving. The cooking went smoothly, with the exception of the the stupid turkey. Perhaps we were a little late getting it into the oven or perhaps it ALWAYS takes longer than the estimates according to the weight of the turkey suggest. So for whatever reason, we found ourselves eating at 7:30pm, which is dangerously close to my non functional time of the day. Despite that, we had fun and Doug and I enjoyed hearing what the kids are thankful for. Family, friends, our pets, and cheese (my son is kind of quirky) were some of the highlights.

On Saturday I spent some time going through the papers on my desk and came across a list of hits to my blog that result from google searches. I had been keeping track of them because they were so funny. I am sure that finding my blog as a result of some of these searches must have been a real disappointment. With the exception of the ones looking for me of course. heh.


Here are some of my favorites (they are exactly as entered-my comments are in parenthesis):

understanding men crabby (uh, yeah, good luck in figuring that out)

my husband works too many hours

oppressive & censored

seedy bookstore sex (I couldn't figure this one out so I looked it up-it linked to this post where I described artist Nan Goldin's work, thankfully it didn't refer to me because well, my mom reads this)

did hippies wear dreadlocks

boy tights (a result of mentioning that I put my son in tights for Halloween)

how to sew a magician's cape

mod podge (I sang its praises once)

woodstock (of course people are searching for my very favorite place!)

attending Raffi concert on broadway (ok, I am sure that I have NEVER mentioned Raffi, maybe concert made it come up)


A whole slew of hits looking for fellow bloggers and artists that I have mentioned and which are my best shot at getting repeat visits:

james wolanin

francis livingston (a lot of people are looking for him!)

wolf kahn

barns Wolf Kahn

steven larose

neil hollingsworth

harold hollingsworth


And relating to a post about art materials safety, the one where I discussed toxins in my studio:

safe to use turpentine while pregnant

liquin safety

turpentine, oil paint paranoia

toxin of oil, turpentine

underpainting

oil painting when pregnant


My discussion of a Paul Simon concert last summer still attracts many, many searches for:

paul simon in a turkey suit

saturday night live turkey suit

who wore turkey suit on snl (must be a youngster)

still crazy after all these years turkey

and endless other variations on that particular performance.


But the all time winner of the most mistaken hits to my blog resulted from my posts concerning the death of our hamster. Let me first say that I have been really shocked to learn that there are so many horrible health issues with hamsters. I thought we had it bad just because I had to trim Fluffy's teeth once a month. Sheesh. These poor people.

hamster funeral (I get tons of these)

lump on hamsters chest

odd growth on hamsters back

kids hamsters funerals

open sore hamster mouth

watery eyes hamster

growth on hamsters lip

can hamsters go blind (only if they masturbate, sorry couldn't resist:-))

And the best one, AND most disturbing:

hamsters butt is bleeding will it die (I am guessing yes)


So there you go. Clearly I should be talking more about art and artists instead of prattling on about dead hamsters and Paul Simon if I ever want to increase my return visitor stats.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep smiling when I look at "Windows" because it is one of the first of your barn paintings that(for me)I have anthropomorphized. I sense a certain attitude from this barn.

View of Field from Route 20 folds or undulates through space very nicely. I'm a sucker for these new sans-barns landscapes.

Anonymous said...

Oh Tracy those poor little hamsters!! We had one once and one of the kids decided to bring home a pal for it. Well ... absolute mayhem ensued with the 'visitor' attacking our little Hammie, both escaping and charging round the place, and my son capturing the intruder and getting bitten hard on the thumb!

Glad you had a good Thanksgiving holiday and thanks for the posting about the Google Searches ... its amazing isn't it? That make me look at mine .... extremely boring compared to yours though. These were the only ones remotely curious:

'free pastel nudes gals pics'
'ocean state help wanted.com'
'pastel cats New Zealand'
'lesly nice people'
'collage myself' (oooh could be painful!)
'www finn no blog'
'tracy finn art'

Yours are so much more fun!

Anonymous said...

Least you are back and posting!

Tracy Helgeson said...

Steven, It is a bit jaunty isn't it? Glad you like the landscapes. I am feeling a bit disinterested in doing them lately. Once I get going it's fine and they usually turn out well, but I have been much more intrigued with adding structures recently.

Lesly, Sounds like quite an event! It is always tempting to get a few of them but hamsters don't play with others too well.

I don't know-free pastel nude gals pics look pretty interesting. Wonder if they found what they were looking for:-)

Thanks, Lauren. I meant to put up another post over the weekend, but the time slipped away while I was doing, well, nothing and I didn't get to it. Nice to have a breaking from the blog too sometimes:-)

Tracy Helgeson said...

Another good one just showed up-designer chickens. What on earth are those and who would be looking for them, on a blog?

Anonymous said...

My favorite search string on my blog so far is "extreme nudity". I'm still not sure what that's supposed to be. The way I see it, you're either nude, or you're not. I'm not sure how one gets extremely nude.

Most of my hits are from people looking for specific artists. Which makes me happy, because that's exactly why I bother with the blog.

Tracy Helgeson said...

Chris, maybe they were looking for really exciting nudity. Not just regular plain old nudity.

Anonymous said...

Tracy-- these google searches are too funny! Those poor people with the hamster bleeding from its butt--- I hope your art helped brighten their day... :)