Cheers!

I am off to Seattle to dramaturg two shows for Greenstage Theatre this summer - both are Shakespeares: Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest. Greenstage has been a favorite theatre company of mine for quite some time - they've been doing free Shakespeare in the Park shows for 23 years and generally I can claim that for each show presented A Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All.
I am about to embark upon a cross-country road trip with my sister-in-law Linda who has been in my life since 1974. First we'll drive up to Martha's Vineyard to meet up with her sister then we'll start the trek west from there. Exciting stuff!
This week after my foray into off off Broadway with American Decameron, I managed to pack another 5 boxes to send to Seattle and finish up another nifty pair of flip flop socks!
Ahh, me dogs ain't barkin' no more!

Annika, Jose and I drove into the City.

Knotty Bits

I am a member of the Puget Sound Lacemakers Guild, even though I haven’t shown up at one of their monthly meetings in well over two years, mostly because they hold meetings about 40 miles from my neck of the woods while I’m in the Seattle area and those meetings conflict with other stuff I have to do on Saturdays.
Recently I picked up the book “The Lace Reader” by Brunonia Barry and am so thoroughly engrossed by it I think I’ll just sit down and knit me some lace edging. Nothing as fancy as the bobbin lace created by ladies at the Lacemakers Guild, or characters in "The Lace Reader," just a simple edging for pillowcases or frilly hankies or lingerie.
The reason I’m a member of the Lacemakers Guild is I’ve published a book on macramé lace, which is what macramé was called in Victorian times. It’s just macramé done on a small scale, with a lot of bling thrown in, like Swarovski crystals for added sparkle power. Funnily enough, macramé has always been knotted on a small scale in places like Italy and South America, and it doesn’t hold the same hippy-dippy connotation for the rest of the world that it has here in the US with rustic hemp knottery (read rustic to mean scratchy).

Let Them Eat Lead

A few years ago I was visited by Milit-arie Antoinette who showed up only to help celebrate one of my two annual birthdays – I was born on Easter, and as Easter is a holiday based on the lunisolar calendar and rarely falls on the same date, I get to celebrate two birthdays a year, one on the actual date of my birthday and the other on Easter Sunday. Frankly I find Milit-arie a bit of an odd bird contradiction; but hey, with militant right-wing rifle power looming right there under my nose, who am I to ruffle feathers?
As you can plainly see, Milit-arie Antoinette brooks no quarter for slaggers, vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells, which is really unfortunate seeing how most of my friends are ne’er-do-wells. I had half hopes that day that she’s take a couple of pot shots at that dastardly bobcat Super Bob who was in the habit of treeing my puddy cats every time he blew through the neighborhood, but no luck for me or the puddy cats. As far as I know, Super Bob remains at large. As does Milit-arie Antoinette.

This is SuperBob, archenemy of puddy cats

How to Save the World

Phinneas B: How I Came Back from the Future to Save the World from Japanese Porn is the title of a new book by best-selling author Waylon Lenk. This opus in ink defies description – you just have to read it for yourself. It is HILARIOUS. If you don’t think it is the funniest, most spot-on interpretation of the current world-crisis as told by a future world-saver, you are sticking your head in the sand and pretending you were born with an intellectual handicap that won’t allow you to absorb facts. Lenk’s mastery of the socio-semiotic sci-fi genre befits this post-modern American classic; it reads as if Salmon Rushdie, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Dave Barry collectively donated snippets of their creative DNA to formulate a hybrid monster-child. It's both funny and funny-looking.
I heard on the Grapevine while driving down to LA last week, that Paul Wendkos is tentatively scheduled to direct the film version due out next year in time for the Christmas season. I can’t wait.

Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop In

What is this world coming to?
Double-nosed dogs, crocheted canoes…the universe is NOT unfolding as it should.

Or is it? Has reality shifted 120 degrees out of phase? Is everything you know wrong nowadays? Contrails, chemtrails, ELFs abound. Has a preponderance of bad geomantic decisions re: skyscrapers, mining techniques and butt-ugly architecture finally done its true damage to this world? Are jackdaws strutting in peacock feathers?
Food just doesn’t taste the same. The nightly news on TV is pablum for the masses. Cellphones and microwaves disturb our sleeping patterns, and set us up for brain tumors. And, of all ungodly things, keyboards on laptops have so many bugs in them the words jump around on the screen ending up in sentences two lines above where they should be, making people think they don’t know how to type any more.
Here’s the solution: Turn off, Tune out, Drop in. Turn off your electronic devices, tune out the hyper-hype on television and go drop in on your friends to see what they’re up to. Strike up some real live human conversations. Go on, you can do it!

Keepin' Tabs on Tabi Socks

I don't know what my fascination with tabi socks is all about, but I do like 'em and have bought another three pair on eBay. Invariably I give one pair away in some sort of sock swap within days of actually getting them in the mail. Now who could resist Sumo wrestlers on their tootsies? I ask you.
I love these stretch jersey ones more than the knit ones. I actually had an identical pair to these but lost the right sock. I kept meaning to take the left sock apart and make a new pair out of some lovely jersey scraps, but haven't done it yet, so I bought another pair. I'll keep the original as a pattern.
The third pair celebrate the cherry blossoms blooming right now in Washington State. Sigh. I wish I was there...

Dr. Sybil deGroot

June 24th is St. John's Day and often you can find St. John's Wort blooming around here at this time of year. 7 years ago, it was on this day that my mother, Dr. Sybil G. deGroot passed away. She was 78 years old.

My mom was one of the most remarkable people you could ever meet; in her youth she had been a Rockette at the Radio City Music Hall, later she became the first woman in the U.S. to hold a Doctorate in Engineering Psychology (which is also known as Human Factors and Ergonomics).
To try to sum up her brilliant life and career in just a few sentences seems so inadequate and trite. After so many years I still can't find the words. Even what I wrote in my book isn't enough:

"Those who knew her will agree, my mother led a most remarkable life. Highly intellectual and only sometimes circumspect about it, she was a curious blend of scientist and social butterfly. Her eyes flashed sage green whether engaged in scholarly pursuit or dancing a fandango on the neighbor's coffee table. I will always miss her."

My Hero

I was perusing DudeCraft's blog just now and came across a photo of my beloved Hero robot...oh how I miss him! I received a Heathkit Hero Robot kit as a Christmas gift sometime in the mid-80's (Thanks, John, wherever you are! You always gave me the coolest stuff!) and set about putting him together immediately. I think it took me 3 or 4 days to get him finished to the point where he could roll down the hallway and sing "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..." My cats hated him with feline fury and swatted angrily every time he came within range.

I finally let him go one day in early 1999 when I took him to Goodwill's to drop him off with a couple of bags of old clothes. One of the attendants was so thrilled by the prospect of owning his very own robot I said to him "Oh hey, this guy is for you -I'm giving him to you, not Goodwill."
My final memory of Hero is looking back in the car mirror and seeing that excited kid clutching him as I drove away...Miss you, little guy...

Fiction Film for Class

Here is my fiction film for class, it's titled "Invisible."



I know you'll think it's just a tad morbid...

Weird Stuff People Used to Smoke

I remember the smell of clove cigarettes from highschool and college the first time around. But what about those Cocarettes?
The Cocarette cigarette, a tobacco and cocaine mixture was popular way back when. The package in the photo displays much testimony of the benefits of this concoction, suggesting that Coca neutralizes the depressing effects of nicotine in tobacco. Alrighty, then.

And what about Cubeb cigarettes? Sounds spicy, no?
Marshall's Prepared Cubeb Cigarettes (1881-1940s) was a brand so popular its sales continued until World War Two. Blosser's Cigarettes, Dr. R. Schiffmann's Asthmador Cigarettes, and Requa Cigarettes were also non-tobacco medicinal brands smoked as a treatment for asthma and other bronchial problems.
Huh.

Heavenly Herbal Combinations

I am a great believer in the healing power of herbal blends (not that bogus new age pseudo-aromatherapy crap shoved up our noses daily by perky actress/models on infomercials). We respond to smells on an emotional level; an aroma can trigger a whole string of forgotten memories thanks to our olfactory nerves which are located within the nasal cavity. The area of the brain associated with smell is the same area as that associated with memory. Aromas can trigger all sorts of chemical actions and reactions within the body and because the olfactory nerves are a direct extension of the brain's limbic system, reactions to aromas are relayed immediately.

Anyway, enough ranting. here are some of my favorite mixes of essential oils:

Rosewater and Saffron
Anise and Vetiver
Rosemary and Mint
Lavender and Mint
Lavender and Orange
OakMoss and Cubeb



Tobacco Flower all by itself. Ahhh...

The Ministry of Magic Strikes Again!

I am sooo excited! When I return to the Seattle area after this term ends I am going to go on a Mini Cooper-oriented event the first weekend of June! Return to This is Stonehenge is fast becoming a legendary annual trip for Mini owners in the Northwest. I couldn't go last year because the week before the trip a tray fell on my foot and broke a toe that hurt so much I knew I wouldn't be able to manage a 3 hour road trip. I was very sad. Here is a photo from the trip that I so wished I had been a part of.

I really enjoy going on Mini rallies; it is always so fun to see the astonished looks on drivers' faces as 40 or 50 Mini Coopers pass by them on the highway! Silly silly stuff, but whot the hell.

I also indulge in Mini sightings in Seattle and on the eastside. Whenever I see a Mini parked in a parking lot, I put one of my You've Been Spotted by the Ministry of Magic! cards on their front window. Hee hee hee!

Camino de Santiago and Other Pilgrimages

I've been thinking alot about doing a pilgrimage walking along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain maybe in a year or so. I'll only be walking the last 70 miles so I can qualify for the pilgrim's passport. I guess you could say that since the concept of doing pilgrimage is common human experience shared amongst all the major religions, it can be thought of as a Jungian archetype. It's been haunting me for a few years as something I need to do. Loreena McKennitt's Santiago

I first became aware of pilgrimages through Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; he got the idea from Boccaccio, even though the people in Boccaccio's Decameron weren't on pilgrimage, but escaping the plague in the city of Florence by hanging out at a country villa for ten days (Decameron refers to ten days).

Dream Exercises

I've been doing guided meditations for donkeys' years so I wasn't particularly tempted by the lucid dreaming exercise proposed in class, partly because I don't have a need to dictate to my mind what to dream about, and partly because I like to let my unconscious mind come up with unexpected combinations of things. So I thought I would share a healing meditation that came to me a few weeks ago.

I was relaxing with my eyes closed, letting my mind drift along gently when I decided to focus on parts of my body that were in pain or causing me concern. As my energy shifted from one pained area to another I began to identify and call out each area: Right elbow. Back of neck. Left big toe, etc. so that I could direct healing energy towards them. Soon a vision of three rather scary men appeared in my mind's eye; they drove up to me and opened the door of a large black sedan, indicating that I was to come with them. Immediately I was afraid. As I focused my concentration on them, each man began to shrink in size until he was as only as big as an apple pip. I gathered up the three seeds and planted them in the garden at the side of the house. They immediately started growing into rose bushes and bloomed into vibrantly colored roses, unfolding again and again. It became evident to me that there was a correlation between my heart chakra and these lovely flowers, as if I was being told that while fear can settle in the heart so easily and cause us to make rash decisions based on it, it wasn't necessary to interpret my reaction to those men in that car as fear.

Somehow or another it reminded me of Joseph Campbell's take on the Bardo Thodol where one has to let go of earthly concerns, such as fear, in order to get beyond reincarnation and achieve nirvana.

Performative Space SketchUp Animation

Here 'tis...a veritable inundation of performative goodness:

New and Improved pre-SketchUp Version!!!

Here's the non-SketchUp version of my building animation! it looks exactly like what I had in my mind's eye! And I didn't even need to use SketchUp for it! Ha! Now, don't be jealous...

Funkadelic Building/City Animation from SketchUp

Here's one of my building/city SketchUp animations:

A Few Misconceptions

Laplander Ice Torture is really a misnomer. It sounds like a horrible ordeal to endure, but it isn't. It's a kind of snowcone filled with cherry red syrup, coconut and pineapple bits, rum, and chocolate. The torturous part is you can't eat just one. They're addictive. It's not the same thing as Sammi Ice Torture.The Sammis like to add stuff like birch twigs to their snowcones. Don't ask me why. Don't ask them why. No one knows. It's just one of those funky traditions from way back when.

And to clear up Waylon's assertion that I took out a third of Norway in that botched moose mission: that is an erroneous statement. It was Jose, not me who ordered it. Or Dr. Z; he orders all sorts of crazy things. All for the sake of Art, whoever that is. Scandinavia is a pretty big place, so maybe they won't notice. I'd hate to see the bill for that boo-boo, if you know what I mean.

I do take responsibility for the Badger March and the Great Hedgehog Cure. Too bad Spud still hasn't grown all his spines back yet.

Sacred Geometry and the Likes

Just found this nifty little tome on The Golden Section at a second-hand store yesterday (along with a couple of books like the Penguin edition of Ibsen's Ghosts and so forth)and and I do agree with the book's cover, it is nature's greatest secret. That and sacred geometry and Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music.

Hell, even Pythagoras knew that an oscillating string stopped halfway along its length produces an octave relative to the string's fundamental, while a ratio of 2:3 produces a perfect fifth and 3:4 produces a perfect fourth. Pythagoreans believe that all these harmonic ratios give music healing powers which can "harmonize" an out-of-balance body. No shit, Sherlock.

If you are looking for a good book covering hands-on healing may I suggest Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan? I love this book but always get the ketheric confused with the etheric. Silly me.

Oh hey, if your Bardlibido is up for it, take a look at a scene from Taming of the Shrew starring that rascal Waylon Lenk and his friend whose name was McGill, she called herself "Lil" but everyone knew her as Nancee.