Up with a Head

I want a mounted head for my apartment, but not like an actual mounted head. I want something big and impressive and animal-like.

I want one of Lily Lamberta's recycled cardboard and paper mache heads, colorfully painted and with magnificent fabric hair or horns or something equally impressive.

Lily has a show up at 821 cafe right now and the heads on display are absolutely amazing.

There's a giraffe and a dog and a camel and something mountain goat-like and, and, and... In most cases, these heads are bigger than their actual animal counterparts.

But they're so beautifully done, down to the detailing of the mount board, with shading and appropriate ears and nostrils and more personality than I can possibly convey in words.

They really have to be seen to be appreciated and you could do a lot worse than to stop by 821 to check them out.

Lily is the mastermind behind All the Saints Theater Company, the fine folks who bring us the Oregon Hill Halloween parade every year; she also spearheaded the puppet making effort of last year's May Day parade (in which yours truly marched). She is incredibly talented and fun in more ways than any one person should be.

In between admiring the heads and going in for closeups, not one, but two waitresses asked me if I wanted my usual black bean nachos.

Am I really such a creature of habit that I'm that predictable? Apparently so.

Unlike Lily's mounted heads which are anything but the expected. I can't imagine the person who wouldn't react with delight, or at the very least a big old grin, on coming upon one of them mounted on a wall.

I'd just like for one of those walls to be mine.