Quick statistics

The Year of Magical Painting has existed for 2,320 days.  This is the 1,805th post.  What's that--like two a day?  I'm exhausted.

According to Google, the most viewed post yesterday (5 times!!!) was titled "The Left Nostril of Maria Bartiromo", from September 20th of 2007.  Honestly, what are the odds of that?  How does that even happen?  Why isn't the most viewed post the most recent one?

Interestingly enough, the nostril post focuses on the early, not used version of Big Maria that had "Todd, your boss is on the phone..." written in the arch above her head.  It eventually ended up as something along the lines of "If I see that bitch Erin Burnett on the Today Show one more time I'm gonna freak out."

Which really was outstanding.

This is the post in its entirety ...

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The Left Nostril of Maria Bartiromo

This is, of course, a shot of it, along with the rest of her face as it stands now.



But we get ahead of ourselves. This, you may remember, is where we left off.



This is where we were this morning, after having done plenty of whiting (blacking) out.



And then later, this (although it is possible that the images directly above and below are, in fact, identical):



Ditto this:



Don't move too quickly. Take a look at the nose above. Like Mary Poppins might say, change is in the wind. Or something like that.

Now look at this:



Thank God we got rid of that weird goober of a right nostril. But look at the left. I was sitting there, experiencing self-loathing, when suddenly I realized her right nostril was too fucking low. The whole thing needed to move up about a quarter of an inch.



And now we've gotten rid of the "Todd" verbiage. Things are looking good (in my humble opinion). I'm starting to think about exhibition dates. Possibly next week. Still to come is new copy (reading: "If I see that bitch Erin Burnett on the Today Show one more time I'm going to freak out!"). The area above her head will, I'm thinking, remain black. You can see how we modified her veil(s).

It's better in person. But then, isn't everything? Or, at least, aren't a lot of things?