The latest auction item is up! Last week for our drawing prompt over at Bobbledy Books, we asked kids what their favorite food is. We got some great responses in, so check them out OVER HERE. Clearly we all need to spend some more time enjoying our food.

I drew some baby birds, waiting eagerly for their next meal. Too bad it’s probably not going to be mangoes or ice cream:

Go on and put your bid in for these tragic little birdies over here.

And: if you’re interested in getting auction notices by email, SIGN UP FOR AUCTION ALERTS HERE.

A new auction is up! This week’s auction was the writing prompt for folks over on the Bobbledy Books blog. To get a full run-down of the responses, have a look HERE. This is the illustration they were writing about:

We had a couple of entries by non-kids. Both authors suggested that perhaps the subject matter isn’t appropriate for everyone, though I beg to differ. But JUST IN CASE, I’m posting them here, on the Idiots’Blog, where no one is ever offended by anything. And so, here you are:

“Bad Bunny” by Don

He has a devilish look in his eyes, our Bad Bunny. Why does he play the recorder? His answer might surprise you.

“Bad Bunny, why do you play the recorder?”

“To lull the snakes to sleep,” he replies. “For the snakes want to eat me, and I want to stay alive.”

Ah! A valiant reason. However, Bad Bunny is lying. There are no snakes.

Bad Bunny, you see, couldn’t help himself. He had the carrots with the maple-butter glaze, which were so delicious. And he dived into that salad with the rich balsamic vinaigrette dressing, which took him to new heights. He knows, our Bad Bunny, that garden-fresh is the right way to go, but he just couldn’t help himself.

And now, that maple-butter glaze and that balsamic vinaigrette have made their way through Bad Bunny’s little bunny digestive system. So he plays the recorder not to lull any snake, but to cover up the other melody he is producing out of his rear. See the way the tail is off to one side? A warm wind has pushed it there. The one solitary note is not the refrain of a recorder song, but a hiney note. And the legs, they are crossed as legs can only be crossed when there is pressing business in the near future.

Bad Bunny. Stop eating our food and disguising your gas.

I doubt that there is a child out there who would be offended by a story about farts. In fact, those are the only stories that get any traction around here with the 5-and-under set. I particularly like the cover up of lulling snakes to sleep. It’s bad enough Bad Bunny is trying to claim innocence, but even worse that he’s pretending to be a hero at the same time. Bad Bunny indeed.

Strangely enough, our second entry followed the same basic storyline.

“People vs. Rabbit” by Stu
Official Transcript, Kent County Circuit Court, People vs. Rabbit, p. 47.

“And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth?”

“I do.”

“Please state your name, title, qualifications, & strangest hobby.”

“I am Dr. Lapin, Chief Criminal Animal Forensic Corporeal Behavioral Analyst, Chestertown Police Dept. I hold a Master’s Degree from la Sorbonne on Semi-representational, Two-dimensional, Mammalian Art & a Ph.D. from Williams College in Criminal Psychology. I whittle dill gherkins into figurines, take time-lapse photos of them as they wilt, & edit them into full-length, feature films about aging & death.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lapin. Now, have you seen this image before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Let the record show that Dr. Lapin is indicating his familiarity with the image previously entered into evidence as Exhibit A. Dr. Lapin, have you had time to study this image closely?”

“I have.”

“And were you able to draw any conclusions from your analysis?”

“Yes. In my opinion the music depicted in this scene is not emanating from the mouth of the subject’s clarinet but from a point several centimeters south of his fluffy, white tail.”

“But, Dr. Lapin, the Defense would have us believe that the very opposite of what you say is true. Upon what evidence do you base your conclusion?”

“I base it upon the entirety of the visual evidence. There are specifically six key clues, none of which may be overwhelmingly damning on its own, yet — taken as an aggregate – all point unerringly towards the sole conclusion I’ve previously stated; that the bunny in the picture is not a clarinetist, nor even a flautist, but a producer of flatus.”

“Would you be so kind as to enumerate & elucidate those for the members of the jury?”

“Certainly. I will start at the bottom & work my way upwards. #1. The subject’s feet. Note that one foot is crossed over the other, a universally recognized mannerism indicating embarrassment. #2. The ambiguous positioning of the sound bubble. While one’s first assumption, given the clarinet being fingered by the subject, would seem to be that the audience is being treated to a musical performance, a closer inspection shows the point of origin of said bubble pointing more towards the gluteal area of the subject rather than towards the bulb of the instrument, as initially expected. #3. The color of the speech bubble. While some shades of green could perhaps be construed as denoting, for example, the verdure & freshness of Spring, the bilious hue here clearly represents something noxious. #4. The musical note. See how it has six distinct bends in it? While we can’t rule out that the illustrator’s hand was jittery from having recently imbibed an espresso drink called “Italian Rocket Fuel” at the gluten & caffeine emporium contiguous to her domicile, it seems far more likely that the squiggly note she rendered is instead indicative of a noise that is far from melodic. #5. The dual focal points of the subject’s eyes. Note how the subject’s right eye strains to stay on his instrument while the left drifts inexorably towards the offending bubble. He’s clearly appalled by his faux pas, yet can’t resist checking on the damages. Finally, #6. The ears: one up, one down. The mixed signals being sent here, much like those conveyed by the eyes, are clearly the result of the subject trying desperately to maintain a façade of probity whilst all too aware of the olfactory devastation spreading around him. And the sheepish, downward-trending ear, where is it pointing? Straight at the ‘musical note.’”

“No further questions, Your Honor. Your witness…”

Frankly, the evidence is all there. I’m not even sure anymore whether I meant for the offending note to be coming from the instrument or from the rabbit. I suppose it’s up to you, the Idiots’ jury, to decide.

Guilty or not, Bunny Toot Toot is now on the auction block until Monday, April 29 at 12:30 EST. Go put your bid in here.

Also: if you’re interested in getting auction notices by email, SIGN UP FOR AUCTION ALERTS HERE.

As you’ve probably noticed if you check in here regularly, we’re back to posting a weekly auction item. The idea is that every other week one will be more kid-oriented (Bobbledy) in nature and one will be more tuned to the sensibilities of the Idiots’ crowd. But I’ll post the kid illos here too, in case any of you 1) are kids, 2) have kids, 3) have a kid-like sensibility. We suspect that a good chunk of you must fall into category three or else you would have given up on this blog long ago.

Plus, Robbi’s twisted creative leprechaun is such that even her stuff for kids is seldom purely sweet or affirming. As in the case of this week’s auction item.

The illustration was created as a prompt for our biweekly Bobbledy writing prompt series, in which we ask kids to name an illustration and then write the story that comes to mind when they look at it.

Here is the post with all the kids’ stories (if you don’t know, kids have amazing, odd brains), but here is our favorite of the batch, by a kid named Simon.

Somebody Bent Him

He’s being sad all day long. The pizza’s name should be Peter Sam. It does have a family: the family always is happy. The mommy, the daddy, two  brothers, and four sisters. He’s sad because he’s bent. Somebody just bent him.

If you are inspired by Robbi’s bent, demoralized pizza, it can currently be had over on Ebay for only 2 cents. Perhaps the bidding will heat up at some point, but perhaps not. Perhaps this pizza is just too sad.

This is to say that the latest auction is up.

The Bobbledy kids wrote some funny stories inspired by this painting. Have a read.