And We Shall March

"In other words I’ll talk for whiskey; if you want me to shut up, switch me to champagne."

Title for this post comes from an astonishing poem by Stephen King - yes, that Stephen King, as if there were any other,*** who is in my Writerly Pantheon and if you look down upon his work fuck you and maybe you should stop reading my site - which the CFE flagged for my attention. 

It's up on Playboy. It's called The Bone Church. It is the latest example of how he has evolved himself over the years. I am reluctant to excerpt more from it than the bit snagged for the post title in part because I cannot decide, but mostly because you should read the whole thing without any sort of framing guide from me besides this here rave.

It's glorious.

It's upsetting.

It's delightful.

It's perfect.

The CFE is wondering if I need to breathe into a paper bag.

Wow.

*** SK is sort of a Frederick Douglass Two Truths At Once thing for me. SK is a wonderful writer who has been part of my life since adolescence. His work is among that which has shaped my concept of Story, which is why he's in my personal pantheon. But SK's work also often demonstrates him to be the King Of Magical Negroes, which is problematic. Exception being Susannah Dean/Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker  kick ass schizophrenic black woman in the Dark Tower series.  And you know what? Around here SK gets a LIFETIME PASS FOR ANYTHING HE HAS DONE IN THE PAST OR MIGHT DO IN THE FUTURE TO PISS ME OFF based *solely* on what he did with Susannah/Odetta/Detta. As it's probable you don't know the source inspiration for the name of that character, Google that name (without his attached) to find out why. She's an inspiration behind the white people you have heard of. Here's a short video. SK knew exactly what he was doing when he tapped her personage to inform his fictional character. I think what he did with that character honored the spirt of the real life Odetta, and he nailed it. 

Milestone Forever / holding

Today, nine Parents Choice awards, four Eisner Award nominations and one Emmy and Humanitas award-winning hit TV series later, Milestone is back, its continuity mysteriously merged with the DCU. While we saw the DC side of the story in “Justice League: When Worlds Collide,” Milestone Forever gathers the original artists from Milestone’s launch titles: John Paul Leon, Mark Bright, Chris Cross and Milestone Founder Denys Cowan, to complete the tales told in the original runs of STATIC SHOCK, ICON, HARDWARE, SHADOW CABINET and BLOOD SYNDICATE. Milestone Editor in Chief Dwayne McDuffie reveals the final fate of each of Milestone’s launch characters in a bittersweet tale that chronicles the literal end of a universe, and the birth of something new, with major consequences for the future of the DC Universe.

Extended Trailer For Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love

Because his music and voice are fantabulous, because it's a highly enjoyable movie, and because it's my site so I can upload whatever I want!

I also want the dvd. I am impatiently waiting for the dvd. Why is the dvd not yet out? As soon as the dvd exists, that's pretty much all I'm gonna watch for a month! I will get every single version of the dvd, ala the King Kong dvds, because I have an all region for a reason and I am that pathetic. I want the dvd NOW. I've never been able to see him in live performance, so this movie - which I hope you can also go see if it comes to your area - is as close as I will get.

Considering the Higher Mind stuff he's been doing with his music over the years, I do feel a wee bit of guilt that I want the dvd in part because this guy is so fucking hot.

If you run his name through the search function over there on the siderail more entries will come up, including a link to a pretty good BBC radio documentary. But I don't think the entry about how I discovered his work via Peter Gabriel forever ago will pop up, as I don't believe I actually wrote that one. I thought about writing it when the idea came and went in my head, but I don't think I did. It's not in the Vast Pile Of Partially Written Draft Posts, that's for sure.

Because I'm programming this to post at a later date at 2:45 a.m., I'm way too lazy to search my own site and find context/background links to add.

Maybe I'll do it later.

Probably not.

I kinda have a sucky track record with that sort of thing.

! I BRING WHAT I LOVE !

eSkeptic Celebrates Carl Sagan's Upcoming 75th Birthday With A Massive Pile Of Stuff

Which I can't possibly get through in a week, so I hope it stays up for a while. Articles, videos about him, all sorts of stuff! 

If you also decide to roam through the offerings, here's a little background music for you:

Obama. Thriller. Fox News. You MUST Watch.

I have no idea how I got through life without entertainment from the internet(s) back in the day.

(Note the belt worn outside of a sweater.)

It's not immediately obvious in this video, which is very different than what this guy usually does, but this is the guy who does an Obama impersonation 20 billion times better than the guy on SNL. For one, he absolutely nails the man's speech pattern, which is 80-percent of the whole. His name is Iman Crosson, and during the election his work provided a much needed outlet for hilarity.

I've always felt someone should get him together with the woman who does the deadly Hillary Clinton impersonation on Garrison's show. Whatever comes out of that would sure to have me laughing for weeks!

Heads-up for this one came from one of the TTWLA zombie peeps. Rock on!

For the record: the Zombie Purist in me Disapproves of most of the makeup in this video. Max Brooks and George Fuckin' Romero are the only people who Understand. Even James didn't get my zombie zealotry, now that I think about it.

Clearly The In-Progress Build Notes Of The Halloween Costume Never Happened While It Was In-Progress, So Here's Some Of It After The Fact

This is an image heavy post. Pics up top are small, pics toward the bottom are slightly bigger. Click any to Embiggen.

At first I felt guilty for not staying home to pass out candy, which is enormous fun, despite the occasional idiot. But with Halloween on a Saturday, combined with my having been in nonstop work mode for about six weeks and desperately needing to blow off steam, I decided to accept two party invitations instead.*** When another uber-cool opportunity came up, and the organizer said it was fine if I wore the costume I was planning to wear for the evening, I threw that into the mix!

The plan for this costume was it had to be constructed from materials I already had in hand, as there is no free range money available in my household to purchase anything. I was going to build a period-accurate Elizabethan middle class suit, one that would pass the exacting muster of St. Ives, except that it would be a mummy suit! 

Yes, it is an awesome idea.

Then I discovered I was out of boning needed for the bodice (consumed in other projects for friends earlier in the year I had forgotten about), and when it came right down to it? Actually I didn't feel like dealing with cartridge pleating if I couldn't also make the bodice. But I liked the idea so much I just altered the approach.

Wrap skirt for the bottom, reconstructed 3/4-length sleeve T-shirt for the top. I sacrificed my custom Chuck Norris Facts shirt for this costume. Chuck Norris does not write books. The words assemble themselves out of fear. I still can't believe my fabulous contribution to CNF did not become cannon, but I made it into a shirt for myself anyway.

What I had to work with:

 

• About four yards of black satin leftover from a witch costume I made for a kid a couple of years ago
• A giant bolt of mauve tulle, gifted by The Gardener of Eden next door
• A pile of cream linen
• A pile of natural muslin
• The linen/muslin came out to a combined total of 13 or so yards

Two gores would work fine for this skirt, but because of additional layers involved that would take the longest to create, so that's what I made first. Because I have already drafted several base skirt patterns for myself I was able to save time by pulling a template from the closet. For this one I used my 44' length template (designed for when I'm wearing heels).  O look! Cuddle Kitty in the way when I was cutting that out:

     
Each gore was constructed from two layers, satin and tulle. Satin the provide a firm base to hold the whole thing together, tulle to soften the color bleed when the linen and muslin were laid atop. Gores made, the linen, muslin and tulle were then cut into strips. This pic is from early in the process, there were many more before I was done:

 
 Then it was just a matter of laying each strip down on the base one at a time:

            
 
I sewed the strips in with about 1/4- or 1/2-inch seam allowance depending, with the hope that down the road the exposed edges would become ragged. 

In truth, it bothered me that this suit couldn't be all linen or all muslin, because I'm Type-A obsessive that way. To work around not having enough of either to make a solid suit, the front gore was linen, the back muslin. For the top I used a mix of both for front and back. The front was mostly linen.

Due to time constraints - I got ambushed by Unexpected Things during the build period and had to set this project aside for a bit - I did not take a single picture of the construction of the top. I finished it on Halloween, about three hours before I had to garb up and get to the show site. The short version is I took a T-shirt with long sleeves, disassembled it so it was like a butterfly chicken breast, sewed the new elements atop the front, back and sleeves, then reassembled it.

In all, it took about three weeks to build this suit. Had I not been Ambushed it would have taken about two, I think. Though I had planned to, I ran out of time and could not give the entire suit a coffee bath for false aging. That failure bothers only me. Even after splattering the final result with stage blood and clay, I think it looks entirely too clean. Nobody else who saw it had a problem with the look. 

Originally this suit was made with the intent of wearing it at two parties, meaning standing around eating and drinking, or sitting around eating and drinking. Not a lot of movement. But through the fabulous people I met through Thrill The World event, word came down that a zombie team was needed to perform Halloween night at Halloween on Pine, a street fest in Long Beach. The LBC city fathers made a hefty donation to the Thrill The World LA chosen charity, Inner-City Arts, to get a team to come down for two performances during the festival and teach anyone in the crowd who was interested in learning the Thriller dance in between. (Another team performed as entertainment for the halftime show at the Clippers game that night. I don't know if the Clippers organization also made a donation to Inner-City Arts.) 

I checked in with our leader, Zombie Slave Leia, to see if it was all right if I participated in my mummy costume instead of in the Red Carpet Zombie costume I wore for the big event. She said that was cool! So then all I had to worry about is if this outfit would work if I had to do a lot of dance movement in it. I would not know until we got on stage. Turns out it could! 

  

But I did have to do a bit of last minute trimming in the 'green room,' a law office which I shed all over, and cut away some of the trailing bits on the skirt so I wouldn't trip on them.

Here's what the suit looked like from the back. Yes, the strips on the back gore are wider than those on the front. Urg. 

Below, a group shot of my fantabulous zombie peeps that night. I am most jealous of the kid with blue hair, with his Most Excellent exposed ribcage outfit! (That kid could also dance up a storm):

  

Here's an outfit shot from the front our Zombie Slave Leia's hubby took for me. This was after I had slashed about two inches of trailing bits from the front of the skirt:

  

That grey on my hands and arms is potter's clay. It's also in my hair in giant chunks. Some of the stuff in my hair is leftover from the official Thrill the World event the weekend before, because I was all it'll be handy for Halloween next weekend! I added fresh clay to the hair that afternoon. As is typical when I zombie up, I later had to use pliers to get the bulk of the clay out, and it will probably be about three weeks before all of it is gone from my hair. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

The outfit was only part of the costume. Flesh wounds are necessary for zombies! My feeling about zombies is they should not have decoratively cute wounds. The wounds should be overt and gross. 

As a dark-skinned zombie who has had the benefit of spending time in coroner autopsy rooms looking at a wide range of actual dead bodies, I have a sense of what brown dead bodies look like. That's why I have a personal aversion to the reverse minstrel look you often see darker skinned zombies use when they zombie up. I think this approach is taken because all of the DIY zombie makeup guides out there are predicated on white skin. That approach is perfectly fine for those with lighter skin, but it doesn't quite work for darker skin. I think that if you take an ichor approach over a traditional blood approach with darker skin zombie wounds, it works better. Happily, ichor works perfectly with mummy zombies!

Because of the length and heat of the day on the official Thrill the World event, I didn't do Serious Woundage (or for when the Zombies Of Debt rolled in Pasadena), but I did for this Halloween. I only wounded both sides of my face because I didn't have time or enough raw materials in hand to do my arms and neck. Using a combination of liquid latex, toilet paper, black/blue/purple greasepaint, crackle, and clotting fake blood I built up two disgusting wounds. That only took about 45 minutes:

      

Okay, maybe you can't see the gradient of bruise effect in that picture, but you could in real life.

What does all this come down to? Awesome Halloween!

*** I had one party invite in Long Beach, one invite to a hootenany in Hollywood. After our performance I wandered around for about an hour trying to find the LBC party site, only to end up in San Pedro the first time and Wilmington the second. I just suck at navigating the Here Be Dragons Lands outside of LA proper - especially at night, and eventually gave up. Headed back to the Silver City, hit up the H'wood party for a short time, then went home to shower and fling Moiself into bed.  
 
 

 
 
 

 

  

A Message For All The Remaining Days Of Your Life

I discovered Hugh MacLeod, the guy whose design I use for my Most Awesome business cards, several years ago by accident when roaming the internet(s) looking for something else. I'd stumbled upon a series of posts he did called How To Be Creative that just knocked me over. More research revealed that he's behind the Mr. Hell cartoon from the 90s I loved, and it turned out he's an artist who primarily works on canvases the size of a business card. He offered up some of those works as templates for custom business cards. Though shipping was !!! due to Himself and his partner buiz card company being based in Europe, I very quickly snagged my fave design, and have been using it ever since. I love my business cards.

(The only person who has business cards more awesome than mine is Gary Leonard, a phenomenal LA-based photographer whose business card is partially in braille. At least the one I have is. Wrap your head around the meta of that.)

MacLeod runs a very active homeport that includes a widget featuring daily-ish creations. I have that widget programmed into the siderail of my homeport, but you'll never see what shows up there if you're visiting through a feeder thingy. Honestly, if you're anything like me when it comes to visiting various homeports - look at the main text, ignore the rest, go along your merry way - you might not ever see it. Over the weekend, the work below showed up in the widget. I pull it to the main site for the benefit of all:

  

Yup.
 

! The Interstitial Arts Foundation Auction Is Live ! What You Need To Know If You Win The Piece I Made For The Cause

This is a fundraiser for the IAF. Artist and crafty types created works based on short stories in the upcoming anthology. Based on the preview images, people threw down some gorgeous, interesting work! If I had any free moolah at all, there are at least two pieces I'd bid on!

They're doing this by rolling out one piece at a time from now through early December. I don't know when my piece will be on deck, but if you go to the auction page and sign up for alerts, you'll get a notification as each new piece goes up.

Build notes for my contribution are here. My source material is the story "Berry Moon" by writer Camilla Bruce. Here is what my piece, a quilted wrap skirt, looks like:

  

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE SKIRT: It comes with a spool of purple thread so the winner can make their own button hole for the tie. Because the skirt can fit three size ranges, and I have no idea of the size of who might snag it, I didn't want to limit by making the buttonhole ahead of time. HOWEVER, if the winner prefers not to make their own buttonhole, I will do it for them!  How that will work:

• When you get the skirt from IAF, put it on and mark where you want the buttonhole to be.
• Send me an email via the handy addy provided over there on the side. In that email you will provide your snail addy.
• I will send you a postage paid mailer. You will put the skirt in there and drop it in the mail.
• As soon as it gets into Moi hands, I will make your buttonhole and send it back.
• Easy peasy!

Go forth and bit on any of the items! They're all lovely.

 

Creating Pissed Off Unicorns - A Guide

Over at her homeports, Corinne describes the evolution of the fabulous piece she created featuring unicorns and orcs. I *love* 

Go look at her process details. Not being a person who can draw, I found the post fascinating. I also think she should sell prints of it or something.  

Again, full context details later. Just need to get through this weekend..

Thrill The World 2009 At LA Live - Aftermath!

It was beyond awesome! 

Update! Record set. As of this update (Oct. 29, 2009) 22,923 dancers, in 32 countries, participating in 278 global events, raised $85K for 80 different charities worldwide. ROCK ON.

Here's our Thrilling in Los Angeles, in the plaza between the Nokia and the movie theater. If you know where to look you can see me dancing for a good four minutes, total! (Warning - shooter never stops moving the camera for some reason, so look away when you get dizzy. On the other hand, my guess is shooter was perhaps trying to get a little bit of everybody in at least once.)

Word is the participant count for TTWLA is around 2,300. Pulling on extensive experience elsewhere, I'm calling that number off. I think more people danced than officially registered. That felt more like a neighborhood of 4- to 5-K crowd to me.

Since you don't know where to look above, a couple of screencaps!, helpfully labeled "ME" (in the handwriting of H.P. Lovecraft).

 
 
 
 I made tons more, but I think that's enough.  O wait, I like this one:

 

And from the video of this kid, who danced and filmed himself at the same time:

 
 

I could hear Moi chattering on his video - fave line Ooo I just saw my hair on the jumbotron! He also accidentally got a shot of Moi on-the-ground at the start of the dance.  He was a nice kid:

 

Oo, here's a still from Gary Leonard, in whose gallery I see parts of myself all over the place, but only this one near-whole body shot! Really, it's like Where's Waldo. This pic is from one of the early rehearsals. I'm just happy I have a pic of me taken by the great Gary Leonard. (It's not just me. When it comes to chronicling Los Angeles, it's like if Gary Leonard didn't shoot it? It didn't happen.0 No, really. If Gary didn't shoot it, it didn't happen. I took his picture once because he happened to walk in front of me at a Thing. Still giggle about that. Man o man, to get a look at his archives...

 

Then there was this, which I found out about on Monday when the CrackBerry exploded. For the record "it was horrors" was not what I meant to say. I was ambushed after 3 hours straight of teaching day-of newbies the dance; there was a disconnect between what was in my head and what came out of my mouth. As usual:

I've got a bunch of posed shots of me with various uberFun people, but that's enough. I'll hold onto those for myself.

So basically, Sunday was sleep for a very long time, then do as little as possible. I pretty much just searched for photos and videos all day, astonished and delighted watching all of the different videos from all over the world. I must have went through at least 200 of them, but I'm calling these two teens from Sao Paulo my fave: 

I shall explain why these two are my fave at a yet-to-be-determined later date. I'll also add the one thing I found hilarious after the fact. At the time, after three hours, I was like PLEASE SOMEBODY COME SAVE ME.

Pissed Off Unicorns Being Ridden By War Orcs - ARRIVED!

 
It's by artist/writer Corinne Duyvis, and I LOVE IT SO.

Context links later.

<glee>

! Thrill The World !

In a few hours, many thousands of people all over the world will dance Thriller at the same time. Locally, we're throwing down at LA Live Which is also serving as a fundraiser for Inner City Arts. 

I am dancing for these people/things:

• The memory of myself at age 9, hysterically delirious with joy at my very first concert, watching The Jackson 5 at the Front Row Theater. 
• Mom, who took me to that concert.
• James, who could bust out some MJ moves like you wouldn't believe.
• Mrs. & Mr. Classy, by request.
• The Animator
• In solidarity with the Truth of this column, particularly the graph excerpted below.
• O and also this poem, which Alice Walker wrote in 1991.

This is going to be a blast!

Update (short version)! It was phenomenal day. Longer version later.

  

"The beauty and power of Michael Jackson, particularly in the first 30 or so years of his life, was that he was black. It’s important to stress and explain that because in this “post-race/post-black” moment, it’s become obvious that a lot of Negroes rushing to free themselves from the so-called shackles of blackness, aided by “colorblind” and “progressive” non-Negroes, don’t even know what blackness is: Working like a dog while mired in poverty in Gary, Indiana — endless rehearsals, mastering backbreaking craftsmanship, sweltering under the heat of a father’s dream deferred — all while aiming for a big time mapped out by sweat, hope and faith; that’s black. Not letting your lack of material comforts impede your forward motion; that’s black. Being rooted in the working-class/struggling-class vortex of innovation, perseverance and resilience that has birthed all the Negro musical r/evolutions in this country; that’s black. Building effortlessly on the past and setting a whole new bar for the future; blacker than black. Exercising the prerogative of organic genius by laying claim to shit that already exists and just making it your own; B-l-a-c-k. Mapping the template and setting the pace that will govern the globe; b-b-b-b-black. Coming of age amid proud shouts of “Black is beautiful” and effortlessly embodying the adage, but somehow getting infected with the centuries-old disease of white supremacy and internalized racism that will have you repeatedly take a knife to your natural-born beauty, that’s so very black. Being universal in your struggles and triumphs just by being you: black."

When H.P. Lovecraft Realized His Speck Status In Relation To The Cosmos, It Freaked Him Out In A Bad Way. My Light-Bulb Moment Upon Realizing The Same Was More Like Neil deGrasse Tyson's - "That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile." **

I don't know who the hell musician John Boswell is. I'd never heard of him until stumbling across A Glorious Dawn on the internet(s). In this case my general ignorance of what's going on in pop music cannot be blamed on Me, since this guy came from the internet(s), which are vast and there's no way to keep up with all that's going on there.

A Glorious Dawn knocked me over. Besides being a lovely tune, it triggered memories of my Child Self sprawled in the basement in Cleveland watching Cosmos - and throwing a fit if something was going on in the family that did not accommodate me being in the basement watching Cosmos.

 I downloaded Boswell's song, turned it into a cd so I could listen to it in the car and on the home stereo, figured out how to get it onto the CrackBerry, sent the link to many friends I thought would also grok. Then I sent a paltry donation (between paydays when discovered), and eagerly waited to see what he would do next. The first one was so powerful, it signaled that whoever he is and whatever he's up to, he's not done.

Yup.

That Boswell opened his latest, We Are All Connected, with a partial passage from one of my fave Neil deGrasse Tyson passages has pretty much cemented my ! Woo ! Below are the full lyrics to the new song, which is part of his emerging Symphony of Science.

[deGrasse Tyson]

We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature's imagination
Is so much greater than man's
She's never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I'm this guy standing on a planet
Really I'm just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There's billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There's this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it's all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it's all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

The two things I Shake My Fist At Over The Injustice Of It All is that I cannot draw/paint, and I cannot dance/choreograph. Happily flailing around is not the same as dancing. Boswell's new one? A dancer should choreograph it.

I cannot wait to see what Boswell comes up with next for this project. I've already got a playlist set up, ready to import the newest. By the time he's done I'm gonna have the most awesome cd ever!

James would have loved loved loved this. Not fair.

Related.

** Here's deGrasse Tyson's full quote, wonderfully sampled in the song. This paragraph s part of my DNA.

Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching prestine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we all all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kinda cool. That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that! It's not that we are better than the universe. We are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. 

Symphony of Science!

New piece by the Glorious Dawn (aka the Carl Sagan song) guy!

The Internet(s) Were Created By The Scientist Types For Sharing Knowledge, But Mostly We Use It To Share AWESOME Things Like A Cracker Meets Prime Suspect Mashup!

A few of the jokes sail over my head because they're specific to television in England. The rest is absolutely pitch perfect. Two of my fave crime dramas, featuring three of moi fave actors = Me in hysterics on the floor. Enjoy!

From Now Through Next Saturday My Morning And Evening Yoga Will Be Replaced With Morning And Evening Thriller Dancing In My Living Room

Because after a long time yakking about it, this year I'm actually going to participate in Thrill the World!

The LA event takes place Oct. 24 in the giant, blinky, freshly-minted LA Live mall the city fathers and their developer buddies built downtown. Practice sessions have been going on throughout the region in public spaces such as parks & libraries, at businesses, in homes and I've heard of a couple of ambushed parking lots, but my schedule is such that I didn't have time to hit one up until last night.

What fun!

Here we are about to start the sixth or seventh run-through (there's tons more people behind me and off to the right. Most were locals, but I talked to people who came in from Pasadena, Long Beach and the IE just for this. Wowie.):

 
More than one person on the ground looking up at the jet black sky blazing with arclights from the surrounding towers went 'wow, it's so pretty up there'. Our city is a fabulocity of urban. We who live in it tend not to lay on the ground and look up. 

I didn't take a lot of CrackBerry shots due to not being able to take pictures and concentrate on not screwing up shoulder-step-nothing-step-shoulder-shoulder-back-shoulder at the same time.

The instructors were a combination of pro dancers and TTW veterans, and they were Made of Awesome.  This session kind of broke into two groups. One was lead by a woman called The Queen Zombie, a pro dancer who was lithe, gorgeous, personable, flexible. The other was lead by a guy whose name I got, but did not write down, so by the time I got home I forgot it. It started with an M. Update! His name is Mahdroo.

The Queen Zombie started off slowly, but then moved at a pro pace that I could not keep up with. Think A Chorus Line - here are the moves, got it? here are the next moves, go - which was uber-cool to watch, but left my I'm Not One Of Those Black People Who Can Dance, Actually, in the dust. 

Then I noticed the guy in a green T-shirt off to the left, leading a small group with whom he was breaking things down slowly using mnemonic tricks. One of the people near in my group joked "that's the remedial class." And I was all o really? Yay! and  shifted over into his group. For me, that made all the difference, even though I'm still kind of sucky with everything that comes after down-clap-slide-set-shift-roar-stomp. I'll figure it out by showtime. The two groups would merge for complete run-throughs lead by Queen Zombie.

Here's me with M and the cheery guy to whom I loaned a pen (but I didn't write down his name, either..his T-shirt reads "free hugs" which immediately made me think warm fuzzy thoughts of CCI) after 2.5 hours of practice. You can see M in this video from tv news shot that morning. He's the one in the top hat.

 
I wanted a pic with the Queen, but didn't get one. Though it will be a zoo that day, I'll try to get one with her come showtime, because she is indeed made of Fabulous.

Basically, what the instructors do is teach you the dance cold. These volunteer veteran dancers - pro and enthusiast - are sprinkled throughout all of the practice sessions in the region. They know they're dealing largely with everyday people; their approach is one of positivity; they don't care if you're not a dancer, they just want you to have fun and do your best. They are there to help you bring your A-Game. I'm saying this because the TTW homeport has a bit of Stern Messaging about how exact you need to be with the dancing, which could scare folks off. You don't have to be perfect dancer. You do have to be committed to it though, and if you are your ! Woo Joy ! will come through in your performance and you won't suck as bad as you think you do.

I think anyone who would think of participating is already There with their whole heart, and probably not as bad as they think as far as their dancing abilities.  Once the group gathers for show, and the energy is crackling among all and the group mind forms? You'll be fine. (But you do need to practice ahead of time so you can tune in. You can't Grock if you're not prepared to pick up the Frequency. Ask Kenneth. He'll tell you all about that part.) This is preparation:

 Anywho, for the LA Thriller dance the dress code is Red Carpet Zombies! Which makes sense. Era doesn't matter, style does. The main firm rule is no T-shirts. The second rule is don't wear anything that will hurt your feelings once the costuming people throw blood all over it and shred it.  If I had gotten off my ass over the past 1.5 years and made myself a full set of Victorians, that's what I'd wear next week. But I haven't, so I will be wearing my $8 do-over prom dress, since it was purchased over the summer with zombie action streetwork in mind. (Rev. Billy has a choir. I dream of a mobile social justice strikeforce comprised of zombies.) I will also clay my dreads that morning, with full knowledge that I will be dealing with clay in my hair for at least three weeks after. TOTALLY worth it.

What else? Oh! What I didn't realize until I showed up is that LA Live still has the MJ panels from the events that happened after his death still on site, mixed in with new panels for the soon to be released rehearsal footage/film. People wrote tributes all over the new as they had the old:

 

So. Thrill The World is probably happening somewhere in your area on Oct. 24 and 25. If there's not one in your area, well, bring the rain yourself! That's the glory of this type of thing - you can join in with 2 or 200 people. Here's a series of videos to help you. If your are within striking distance of Los Angeles, join in with the home team! 

Because I will never be other than what I am, what was one huge thing I immediately noted about just this one practice for the home team? Latinos, Blacks, Filipinos, Whites, Mulits, all gathered together trying to figure out the dance and having a great time. I've seen pictures of what's happened at some of the other practice sessions, and most of them maintain that diversity.

I love this town!

Update! A very small part of the Santa Monica practice group on Saturday, lead by a guy from Africa. You can't see him in the shot because he's at the front with the non-remedial group. The guy in black was the remedial group leader:

  

Days later update! So many people showed up for the rehearsal in the Valley (they can call it North Hollywood all they want, but we on The Other Side Of The Hill know the score) that the room in this dance studio was over capacity, and they had to open up another room.

  

Even later update! The organizers also put together something called Express Practices. These were 1-hour sessions held in corp-heavy areas during lunch hour! How considerate is that?! One was held Friday in downtown LA in a grassy area in front of the Central Library. Here is our instructor manipulating one of the THREE security guys who showed up from Maguire Properties, trying to tell us to go away. This had a happy ending, mainly due to how she handled it. She told the security guys to get their supervisors down here, probably knowing that would take a while, and then just had us quietly working through the moves while they were dealing with that. Eventually they gave up, but left two security guards in place in case we - I dunno, zombie rioted or something - and we finished our practice. The privatization of public spaces thing that some of us rage about and the rest of you go Who Cares? Small example of why that's a problem. Small, less serious example of why this kind of thing (citizen use of public-yet-private spaces) has ended up in the California Supreme Court. For the record, the security guards who showed up were fabulous, in that they did not do what they could have done about us dancing on their grass in front of the city library. More than that I will not say. 

 
 

Moving on, here is a sucky CrackBerry night shot one of the final rehearsals at Pan Pacific Park down on Beverly. Three groups of zombies dancing at starter/intermediate/advanced levels. We had a beautiful moon above. At this moment I can't remember if it was waxing or waning, and I don't feel like looking it up, but it was gorgeous. One of the dancers who hit up an outdoor session in Santa Monica earlier in the week said that while they were Thrilling, the marine layer rolled in, as it does in that part of the region, and they Thrilled through deep fog. 

 
 
 

 

Fave Salazar v. Buono Coverage So Far

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Symbol-Minded
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Hopi / Sierra Club / holding

The Hopi Tribal Council passed a unanimous resolution on Sept. 28, arguing that environmental groups were depriving the tribe of coal revenues it needs to secure the survival of the Hopi culture. They declared that the Sierra Club and several other groups were no longer welcome on Hopi land. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., announced that he stood with the Hopi Nation, and called environmental activists “among the greatest threat to tribal sovereignty.”

My Nifty Clippings Container

This is actually a scale-model sampler of some sort of recycling container offered by the city. Soon as it came into my hands I knew I had found the perfect clippings container! 

When I'm at the dining room table cutting things, I put it on the floor right next for easy cutting drops. 

 

When I move to the machine, I take it with me, put it by the chair, and again easy thread and clippings drop!

    

Already it's made a huge difference as far as managing project clutter.

Right now it's filling up with discards from my Halloween costume, currently under Build. 
 

Woah

There's a boatload of stuff sitting here in drafts, dating back to before Mother's Day. I could have sworn I wrote up the elephants in LA post though? And the hunting surfers thing? But the drafts indicate I started them and wandered off. 

We'll see what I can do about this. About 1/3 of the drafts I can kill behind the scenes. The rest I'd like to finish, if for no other reason than to help this space ride out the Confluence of Stuff To Do/Time To Do It that's on the near-immediate horizon...

Guess Who Belongs To These Shoes

 
 

Hint 1: Jam-packed weekend had me at the West Hollywood Book Fair for a few hours. 

Hint 2: Hollywood People took Hellblazer and turned it into a movie. 

Hint 3: In the movie nobody pronounced his name correctly. Including him.

Hint 4: Owner of these shoes has nothing to do with the Hellblazer film adaptation.

It's possible 2-4 only qualify as 'hints' if you live in my mind.

The Next-To-Last Sewing Post About The "Berry Moon" Skirt I Made For The Upcoming Interfictions 2 Auction, Source Inspiration From A Story By Writer Camilla Bruce.

Normally when I incorporate quilting into the design of a piece of clothing intended for everyday wear, I do the quilting directly on the shell - in this case the body of the skirt. In other words, the skirt itself serves as backing for the batting and the quilt top. But because the shell of this skirt is an extremely open weave, that wouldn't be possible. The three layers of the quilted strip for this project this had to be built and shrunk separately, then attached to the shell.

Earlier I talked about what I wanted to pop on this, and why. So for its quilting I followed the outlines of the Stage 1 flowers and the Stage 2 connecting channels. This is what the final result looked like (flipped onto the backing so you can see it clearly). 

 

Purple thread was used for the piece, something else that's pretty obvious only from looking at the backing. What's uber-cool is when you look at the final result from the top you think I used two different threads to quilt, because sometimes the thread it looks like it's red and sometimes it looks purple. Looking at it, you might have the reaction of o my goodness how she must have suffered quilting this thing with two different threads and be all impressed.

(That reaction has actually happened to me many times, universally from people who do not sew. Depending on who is saying it and what kind of mood I'm in at the time, I let them believe what they want. Exceptions are a kid or an excited newbie sewing person. Them I'll immediately drop with the explainer. So if you're reading this and you are not a kid or an excited newbie sewing person? DO NOT READ THE PARAGRAPH ABOVE THIS ONE, OR THIS PARAGRAPH, OR THE ONE IMMEDIATELY BELOW. YOU NEVER SAW THIS ENTRY.)

What's actually going on there with the fluxing thread is a common optical illusion anybody who sews knows about. Your thread appears to change color depending on the background. That's the reason you're often told to choose a thread lighter than your background, so it will be invisible. But if you don't want invisible thread for your quilting (! boring !) and you want to add another small but fairly significant element to your final piece, you take your swatches to wherever it is you get your thread and lay a bit of the thread you're thinking of using over each swatch. You will instantly see what I'm taking way too many words here to describe. The thread that changes the most against each individual background swatch? That's your guy.

Okay! The super shrinky thing. Think I said this already, but in case not, I like texture best, and loooove the nubblies  that come once a quilted item has been shrunk. No matter what you use for your batting it's gonna shrink a bit...the batting is going to force your top inward into the whole. You need to factor that into your design. Different batting shrinks at different rates. You'll need to experiment. Natural batting shrinks more than man-made batting.

Because I have a feel for how much the fantabulous Warm & Natural brand of batting shrinks - ! lots ! which is one of the reasons I use it -  I pin to capture the shrink effect down the road.  When I pin the top of whatever I'm making down on the batting & backing, I stretch it out as much as possible before stitching, and sometimes I will create false folds or nits in the top in hopes of creating extra nubbly.

Anywho, off it goes to the 24-hour drug dealer laundry, to be twice washed and twice dried at super hot. Super hot in order to get super shrinky. Though it is quite probable that two cycles are not necessary to get super shrinky, I convinced myself otherwise so long ago that this is what I do. I get a lot of reading done at the laundry.

  

Back home, iron, slash it into the final shape needed for the binding. Even though this is something to be worn and not an actual quilt, you still need to square it off and bind it. I didn't take any pictures during this stage because the slashing is traumatic - doubly so in this case due to the deadline. If you and your rotary fuck up during this stage the result is tears and solace in a big mug of Whaler's. The stories I could tell about how many of my early projects were ruined when it came time to square off. All that drama even though binding is just boring, actually.

For this project the binding was done on machine as opposed to by hand as usual. But truth be told, no matter how you do binding? It's boring. Not to mention traumatic.

Here's up close after slashing to square off, while in the midst of binding.  You can see a bit of the super shrinky effect going on. (Compare to the picture above to get an idea of how much you have to quilt of the piece, even knowing you're going to slash it away. The base was 3 flowers wide. The final strip for use is 1.5 flowers wide.) When you see the final piece it will make sense why I bound this in two radically different types of cloth:

  

Here's up close attaching the piece to the shell. The edge on the bottom of the image also serves as final trim for that entire side of the skirt. Was that hell? Yes. Yes it was. Measure 20 times, cut once:

 

The blood cloth used as trim was also an extreme open weave. That cloth is also used for the waist and the hem. For the hem what I wanted to do was force the cream cloth of the shell through the loose weave of the blood cloth, thus creating random bits of cream breaking through the blood all around  the whole hem. I was only partially successful in that.

Next and (to the relief of some) final entry in this series - why I decided to make a skirt in support of the Interstitial Arts Foundation auction, even though I remain vague on what exactly interstitial means, exactly. 

In that post you will be given a link to images of the final skirt, which only three four people have seen so far. I think the IAF pictures are going to better than mine, so I'd rather wait for their hard-working volunteers to do the grunt work and take nice pictures for the auction page that I can just link to.

The IAF auction goes live in November. If you like what you've seen here so far in these series of build notes, take a look when the auction launches and buy it from them. All proceeds from its sale goes to the IAF. Like all of the other creator types supporting this effort, my contribution was created as a volunteer.

Let's end with a picture of Cuddle Kitty getting all up in my way during the quilting stage:

 

There's a reason all textile ingredient lists around here include the words And Cat Hair.

Note! The final product was run through the wash cycle one more time and taken immediately from there to the post office. So if you have extreme cat allergies, shouldn't be a problem.

Developing.

Source material.

The Internet(s) Is A Phenomenally Wonderful Tool For Information, Except For When It So Absolutely Is Not, But In This Case What Happened Is Not The Fault Of The Internet(s)

So! During this action packed weekend, there I was at a Thing. Conversation turns to zombie works, because someone in the group had just seen Zombieland and was encouraging the rest of us to go check it out. Which naturally leads to  discussion of classic and modern zombie works in book and film, and the comparison of the same, and then my having to be talked off the ledge when I launched into my whatever those things were in 28 Days Later, they were NOT zombies thing. Which is sort of Pavlovian with me when that movie comes up. I'm working on it. (I liked 28 Days Later, by the way. Except for the part where people refer to the creatures as zombies, BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT.)

Somehow, the conversation turns to The Mist, and that's when it all went awry.

O Flying Spaghetti Monster help me, but I honestly felt myself revving up for an actual fight with the guy I was arguing with. Not a I Will Shout You Down fight, but a I Am Going To Deck Your Sorry Ass fight. I'm *not* proud of this, and I *still* don't understand why I reacted that way, but it happened. It had to be something more than the What Would A Girl Know About These Things that was in his tone, because that's so common when dealing with some male members of the Tribe that I don't even register it anymore. And this was certainly not a Tribal Mating Ritual Dance. Additionally, I don't know anything about this guy, so I had no context for what might be influencing his stance, if that makes sense.

Anywho, here's that a bit of our exchange, slightly reconstructed:

Me: It was an excellent adaptation right up to the end where they fucked it up with the unnecessary change at the end.

Guy Who Knows Not What Of He Speaks: The ending was the same in both.

Me: ...

GWKNWOHS: It was just a short story, anyway. They had to add to it for the movie.

Me: ... First of all, it wasn't a short story, it was a novella -

GWKNWOHS: They're the same thing.

Me: ... So. ...If that were true? It wouldn't be called a novella.

GWKNWOHS:  There's no such thing. They just say that because people wouldn't pay money to buy a short story. 

Me: ... Okay. So. Uh. There's a fairly specific word count cut-off for each category - short story, novelette, novella, novel -  which has nothing to do with the consumer end of -

GWKNWOHS: No there isn't. 

Me: ... So. ... In the original novella, which was published as part of collection and not put out on its own, a collection I have and have read many times, the ending is left open. They go off into the mist not knowing what's ahead, there's a potential beacon of hope through a voice on the radio, and THE CHILD IS NOT DEAD FROM A GUNSHOT TO THE HEAD BY THE HAND OF HIS OWN FATHER WHEN THE ARMY SHOWS UP TOO LATE OUT OF THE BLUE TO RESCUE THE FATHER. THE CHILD IS IN THE CAR WITH THE REST OF THEM AS THEY DRIVE OFF INTO THE UNKNOWN HOPE OR HORROR OF THE MIST.

GWKNWOHS:: Well, never read the story, but the Wikipedia entry said -

And that's when I stopped listening to him, and absolute truth be told, I will not be able to look at this person in the same way again. Ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but it's gonna take a while. 

We actually go around a couple of more times before I back off by making the offer of let's bet $1 on it. That's where we left it.

I backed down only because the vibe from those around us clued me in that my reaction to what he was saying was not at all in proportion to the fluffy conversation that the group was having, and realizing the group conversation had begun to shift  (uncomfortably for the rest of them) into a 1-on-1 fight that was completely unnecessary. I was willing to have that fight mind you, until the Clue Switch flipped in my head and signaled Why Have This Fight?

I try not to be judgmental - no really, swear to god I do - but what the motherfucking fuck with speaking from a position of complete and total absolute ignorance about something that is verifiably concrete? The novella of The Mist, first published in 1980 and published again in 1985, has one ending. The movie adaptation of The Mist, released in 2007, has a completely different ending. Depending on where you choose to start counting, the novella version of The Mist has had the same ending for 27- or 22-years. A new ending to The Mist was not introduced until the movie came out TWO DECADES LATER. 

But! I'm such a Type-A OCD competitive loser when it comes to certain topics that what's the first thing I do when I get home - even though I am completely exhausted and just want to go to bed? I call up the Wiki pages for both the original novella and for the film adaptation. I'm curious as to what the hell is being said on Wiki about the adaptation of The Mist as this guy was so completely sure of what he was insisting. I read through every single word on both of the entries. 

Whatever the hell he thought he read on Wiki? He didn't.

So then, *then*, omg then - what the fuck is wrong with me Then - I DO NOT STOP. I do a general internet(s) search about the two, because I had a vague memory that when the adaptation came out Stephen King did a publicity perp walk along the lines of I'm Fine With The New Ending Really I Am, presumably to calm the reaction to the change from people like Moi.

I read through *every single word* of the top hits on what is pulled by THREE different search engines on the adaptation of The Mist. I even watched a YouTube vid of Stephen King talking about it. 

And it turns out that Hey! I was right about that, too.

Which means next time I see this guy, he owes me a dollar.

Harder? As I interact with this guy in the future I will have to actively work not to White Noise anything that comes out of his mouth.

Even more difficult? Processing what is it about my competitive nature when it comes to certain things to explain why I am compelled to do this research and then compose an ENTIRE blog about it, when all I want to do is go to bed.

Attention Teenage Boys Aged 13 to 15 Who Live In Los Angeles/SoCal Who Want To Learn A Particular Type Of Performance - Special Shout-Out To Black Teen Boys

 iO West is offering a new slate of improv classes designed for young people. The classes are open to both girls and boys. Because this is my homeport, and because I have a specific motivation behind this entry, I'm focusing on teen boys and their parents. If you are a teen boy who has always wanted to find out up close and personal what this whole improv thing is about Because You Are The Funniest Person You And Your Friends Know Swear To God Everybody Says So Even Your Mom, now is the time to start negotiating with your parents to pay for a bit of world class training. Registration for the teen classes is open now. Select deets: 

TWEENS (12-14 year olds)

Tuesdays 4:00-6:00pm
Weekly performance 6:15 – 6:45pm 
Begins Tuesday, October 20th
Ends Tuesday, December 8th 
Cost: $325 
Location: ADT
Showcase performance Saturday, December 12th, 10am

TEENS (15-17 year olds)

Wednesdays 4:00 – 6:00pm
Weekly performance 6:15 – 6:45pm
Begins Wednesday, October 21st
Ends Wednesday, December 9th 
Cost: $325 
Location: ADT
Showcase performance Saturday, December 12th, 10am

Note: For my purposes, you don't have to be funny. I don't care if you're not funny. If you're familiar with the history of some of the greatest of the this type of group in the past - "funny" was not the end-all. In fact, stepping out "funny" was actively and at times brutally discouraged, because "funny" can be a dishonest crutch. Some of my fave groups now, "funny" is not how I describe them out the gate (even though they also happen to be funny. It's complicated). 

What I care about is that you're eager to try and Roll With It in front of an audience if actual people you do not know sitting right in front of you, even if you're scared. I'm scared, too, so that's no problem.

Lemme tell ya, this type of training opportunity didn't exist when I was a kid (not that I would have been allowed to explore it if it had). The first time I heard the name Del Close it was because of the late, lamented Wasteland series from DC Comics. When I later accidentally found out who he was, I was like woah, that's the same guy??? Listen, even improv college teams did not exist in My Storied Youth! The closest we had was the forensics team. Somewhere in the basement back at the Ancestral Homeland, my Mom still has my trophies. 

Though I am not actually aware of any teen boys being regular readers of the BGF Central homeport - except for those two I heard from a couple of years ago - I am posting this in hopes that it will be flagged by regular or casual readers who know of SoCal-area teen boys aged 13 to 15 with an interest in live performance or improv. (For my needs, the live performance part is more important than the improv part.) I am hoping that you forward this post to the parents of those kids. Actually, I'm begging you to do so. In this situation, for which I have no template, I need to be my own Rainmaker. Step 1 is Open Mouth And Speak.

I don't know if this will work. I do know it will fail if I don't try.

Technically, these classes are offered to any young person between the ages of 8*** through 17, which you know if you clicked on the full-of-details linked in the first line of this post. Just thought I should mention that. But as this post is not strictly about what iO West is actually doing and is of course about what Me Me Me and also Moi needs, I'm highlighting the bits I care about. 

For my purposes, Super Special Bonus Points if you are a black/African American/multiracial who wouldn't fare well on the Paper Bag Test (ask your parents) teen boy between the ages of 13 and 15. 

Parents! Concerned about letting Your Darling Child go to a theater that has a bar and is filled with theater types? Or perhaps you have a job and are concerned about being able to get Your Fabulous Child to/from class? 

• The classes and showcases for the teen stuff take place in the back part of iO West, where there is no alcohol allowed. In the listing ADT stands for Andy Dick Theater. The entrance for that is on Cosmo, and is separate from the mainstage theater entrance, which is on Hollywood Boulevard.

• The bar doesn't open until 7:30 p.m. anyway, and there is a very large man at the door strictly enforcing the 21+ rule for that part of the theater. So if your kid gets the Fever and decides to run off and join the Circus, he's not gonna get through our front door. 

• He's also not gonna get through the back door, because that one's either always locked, or surrounded by heaps of adult improvisers with common sense enough not to let a teen con his way past them into the mainstage area. 

• The instructors at iO are compassionate, patient, no-bullshit and lots of fun. All of them have been doing what they do for a very long time. All of them have live theater, film and television credits that can be verified up the wazoo. Quite a few of them you've probably seen on your screens.

• The other students/staff/visiting performers have turned out to be really nice people. (If they seem a bit ... intense ... at first blush, that's because they're Theater People with an overlay of Working Class Hollywood People.) I know for a fact some of them are Straight Edge. Some of them are public and private school teachers. Some of them are lawyers. Some of them are the smiling faces you get your coffee from in the morning at your preferred coffee spot. What I'm trying to say is these are not fly-by-night people. 

• iO West is conveniently located along the route of several major bus lines, as well as being within easy walking distance of the train stations at H'wood & Highland and H'wood & Vine. (I say this as a person who routinely endures Car Drama.) The public transit element means Your Glorious Child can get himself to and from the theater with ease via bus pass or token, without interruption to your already overloaded family/work schedule.

• See that email addy on the siderail to the right? That goes to directly to Me. If you have questions about what it's like to be at iO West, but you want to run them past someone who is not an employee of iO West, send an email with IO WEST TEENS in your subject line and I will absolutely read and answer your note with honesty and to the best of my ability within a reasonable timeframe. If I don't know the answer, I will try to get one from the iO bosses or provide you with the best direct email contact for the person who can handle what you want to know.

Okay, that's all I can think of for now. More on this later.

*** I admit that the former camp counselor in me would love to watch someone trying to run an improv class for 8-year-olds.

Bill Hicks - Play From Your Fucking Heart

Swiped from one of my fave local blogs, LA Eastside.