Once again, everything's gone arse over teakettles in wolfkittenland. Stability, i do not know ye. i'm still close enough to young i can laugh delightedly: whee and whoopsie-daisy! but the era of living out my days in an abandoned boxcar get less romantic as they loom larger on the horizon.
Ah but fie on that for today. Today i awakened in a snug little bed in a pretty new apartment - well, not new since the last time; i'm not THAT unstable i hope! - hailstones pattering my window. And i could lay contentedly under the covers and listen until they were done; no rushing out to Leeloo Dallas Moolti Jobs today.
Ah yes, i am once again employed. And employed. And busy as ever. And yet curiously still well below the poverty line; i guess i took that vow in a life i no longer recall, but still seem bound by it. My mornings now are filled with birds - i'm the bird room assistant in the warehouse section of a major pet store chain. Lots of poop and screeching; but i'm left to myself better than three-quarters of the time, my head free to roam while my hands do what they must. Afternoons are 'free' but so far have been filled with one and another small side gig. Two evenings a week i have the Clinic, teaching women's health exams to medical students. After that its off to the theater, tho by the end of this week that will only be weekends. Two days off a week, but not consecutive and alternate Thursdays aren't really 'off' at all as that's the day i clean a yuppie condo. No statue work til next summer alas, as that makes me nearly as much dosh as the Clinic job; however, one way and another and another i'm staying just barely afloat and that's what matters.
Aside from that, i've returned to a world i thought i left behind a quarter century ago, and that may be the strangest of all. Once upon a time, in a journal far, far away, i undertook to write a 'small' history of all the strange places i've been in my life. Strange in internal ways; i'm no world traveller despite my gypsie leanings. i couldn't compose such a thing and not include the events of 1987-88, my Basketcase summer; an era with a strongly identifiable astral signature to it. And at the time i was writing (a little over five years ago), as i got to that section, i realized i could detect traces of that same signature in the air once again. In fact, part of that feeling was an internal urging to check in with a certain silvered Duke; at that time i had NO idea where or who he was, little say that he'd come to play a regular role in my life a few short years on.
Lest he sound too central - i've had a few other quasi-mythological characters pass through my life, to greater impact - his presence is part of the return of a group we half-jokingly referred to as thee Dark Lodge. Less than a formal coven, more than a group of friends, a high percentage of what i term 'natural witches', that is, those with an active Awareness of things beyond our mortal ken. There may be a story there, but one for telling another time. For now, i'll simply say that when that era passed and we all went on to our separate lives, i thought it was an era done and over with.
Its not.
The focus has shifted some. Guggi, who was at the center and helped hold it together, has been gone from this life for over a decade - tho i rather suspect if we got all the key players together and made a serious attempt, we might hear from him even now. Who plays what role isn't important; the fact is that somehow, something rather like thee Dark Lodge has drifted back together, and once again become the central feature in my life.
In MY life! Which has been led as a 70s stoner, a hippie, a punk, a pagan, a goth, as mother and Brownie troop leader, as social gadfly and village witch, as real-time performance art, as crowgrrl and woodnymph, sacred energie technician and faerie shaman. The One Who Wears the Masks stays the same, but everything else mutates subtly, regularly, a dance ov give and take with my environment.
So for the waves on the sea of possibility to have returned me just *here*, so clearly back with the strongest of all the tribes whose tokens i wear around my neck, tattooed to my skin, painted on my back - ov all ov those, Here is where i have returned. To the Source. i wonder how long i'll stay this time..
14 October 2010
20 August 2010
freelance quantum wufkitn
Friday the 13th has traditionally been a good day for me, and this just past was no different. Except maybe that it was better than some - ? Top ten, i'd say, if i were able to count such things. Actually, its the weekend as a whole i'm looking at, or even back into the week.. from the new moon on, let's say. A good time to mark a beginning.
Dark moons have been a noticeable event in my life for the last twenty years or so. i've mentioned that fact before. Long enough you'd think i'd remember to pay attention when one's coming up, but they're as likely to sneak up on me as not. i hit a peak, crest a wave, look at my little Lunabar app, and - oh, go figure. That's been as certainly true with this one as any.
So maybe it wasn't until Saturday that it struck me, really; but then, i'm often so caught up in the moment i don't have time to Process until afterwards. But at some point Saturday i realized - i have a stack of checks sitting on my desk, waiting to be deposited. Wait, now, i have *what* - ?! But its true. i'm hardly rolling - all but one are for less than a hundred dollars - but neither am i in danger of defaulting on the rent, at least for next month. After that, who knows. Its a crapshoot - welcome to the world of freelance! - but right now, just for today (if you will) i'm doing ok.
Also on Saturday, after closing night for the last play, i had a really nice conversation with one of our troupe members. Who is also going the freelance route, a bit further down the path than me tho. But he was very encouraging, seemed like he Sees it how i See it. i've been feeling pretty good about how things are going anyway, but hearing someone else's take on it was really nice (and definitely appreciated, pal, if you're reading this!)
Somewhere along the way with this, i also had a moment of feeling.. of realization.. how can i put this. Five years ago i was in such a different place - emotionally, financially, physically.. and at the time, i Saw that a wave of change was coming in. i didn't know where the wave would take me, only that Something was building. Now, i suddenly feel like i know what it was building towards, that i'm Here, Now, this is It. By which i don't mean at an end or stopping point; maybe the end of an era or phase and the beginning of a new one, but not Over over. i'm certainly not ready to be done, by a long shot.
Saturday night i went home early, no reason to stay out. In a good frame of mind after hanging out with my pal. My apartment, lovely new place, was quiet, a lazy humid breeze drifting up from the lake. i went into the living room in the dark, still not used to having so much space of my very own, and started doing yoga - a nice long session, stretching myself beyond my usual limits. Moving very slowly, Subliminal time, so as not to pull anything; and then settling into statue mode. i wanted to try a new pose, see if i could hold it, and i think that i can, that it will work (a variation on the Venus de Milo - obviously variant, as my arms are staying attached thanks just the same!) Did my regular workout after that and then went to sleep to the sound of crickets and the gentle oscillation of my fan.
Things are coming together in my life - i feel that finding this apartment is a symbol of that, not the cause, of course. But as if that was the last key i had to turn in the lock, and now the door has opened. Life could be very scary right now; i have no idea how i'll pay rent in October, little say electric or food or heat. i signed a year lease that i can't promise i'll be able to carry out. And yet somehow i'm not worried - in fact, i'm quite the opposite of worried; serenely trusting in thee yoniverse that S/He will provide.
i don't believe there are accidents - maybe causes and effects we can't perceive or understand. Not accidents, though. i'm here, where i am, because this is where i am *meant* to be at this juncture. The place fits me too perfectly. And if i managed to make this lucky stumble, to some place i feel so content, so able to live my life, then i Trust and believe that the means to maintaining it will appear. This is already beginning to happen; opportunities i would not have expected or looked for seem to be springing up. i'm cautious about getting too optimistic, settling back and thinking i've nothing to worry about, but at the same time trying not to worry things *out* of existence, either.
A final tangent and i'll close: i'm a reader with a broad spectrum of tastes, have been my whole life. i therefore pick up books at the thrifts fairly regularly; a twenty-five cent investment can provide a week's worth of entertainment, albeit some much more entertaining than others. One of my recent acquisitions, "Timescape" by Gregory Benford, might not seem entertaining to most folks. Its what is known as 'hard' science fiction; that is, the science in it is real, or real enough to speculate upon. There's not much sex (what little there is involves the closest thing to a villain in the piece, nothing racy at all) and even less violence. Nary a car chase to be found. i've been looking forward to getting home every night so i could get back to it.
The book deals with the possibility of a sort of time travel, or at least communication backwards in time; and the problems arising if such an endeavour proves successful. Since the author is equipped with a working knowledge of quantum physics (circa 1980), one of the possible consequences of such communication is the notion of parallel universes - a concept i've spent a lot of time thinking about.
One of the most interesting things in the world to me is when you go far enough around the circle that magic becomes a science, and science blurs and dissolves into spirit. Sir Arthur Eddington is quoted as saying "The stuff of the universe is mind-stuff", one of the shaping mantras of my life. This book doesn't go quite that deeply in, but it does ultimately begin to deal with the question of what happens when the universe splits in two (Another look at this, one more accessible to the general populace, occurs in the movie "The Butterfly Effect").
The protagonist realizes, near the end of the story, that his universe shifted and changed, and that his former future was no longer 'future', that it, in fact, no longer *existed* for him. He is even able to narrow it down to approximately when the shift happened, one of several events that might have thrown the switch (as readers in the 'outside observer' mode, we know very clearly which event, as the outcome - the author chose a well-known historical moment - turned out very differently in our world).
What intrigues me is the notion that his fictional description of the sense of shifting futures, and at least one theoretical speculation on how this could happen, very strongly mirror my own experiences, and intuitive sense of the same - my 'magic' just took a giant step closer to his 'science'. Is it then so wildly improbable that 'magic' brought me into this apartment, is bringing me new opportunities, even that it put a randomly-chosen book from the thrift store into my hands with a possible explanation for how such things might happen - ?!
Of course, any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to less advanced civilizations. But whether its that hoodoo that you do or the Wheeler-Everett-Graham model doesn't matter to me. All i know is, the universe is unfolding as it should, and for once i seem to be surfing the crest of the probability wave. Um - cowabunga??
Dark moons have been a noticeable event in my life for the last twenty years or so. i've mentioned that fact before. Long enough you'd think i'd remember to pay attention when one's coming up, but they're as likely to sneak up on me as not. i hit a peak, crest a wave, look at my little Lunabar app, and - oh, go figure. That's been as certainly true with this one as any.
So maybe it wasn't until Saturday that it struck me, really; but then, i'm often so caught up in the moment i don't have time to Process until afterwards. But at some point Saturday i realized - i have a stack of checks sitting on my desk, waiting to be deposited. Wait, now, i have *what* - ?! But its true. i'm hardly rolling - all but one are for less than a hundred dollars - but neither am i in danger of defaulting on the rent, at least for next month. After that, who knows. Its a crapshoot - welcome to the world of freelance! - but right now, just for today (if you will) i'm doing ok.
Also on Saturday, after closing night for the last play, i had a really nice conversation with one of our troupe members. Who is also going the freelance route, a bit further down the path than me tho. But he was very encouraging, seemed like he Sees it how i See it. i've been feeling pretty good about how things are going anyway, but hearing someone else's take on it was really nice (and definitely appreciated, pal, if you're reading this!)
Somewhere along the way with this, i also had a moment of feeling.. of realization.. how can i put this. Five years ago i was in such a different place - emotionally, financially, physically.. and at the time, i Saw that a wave of change was coming in. i didn't know where the wave would take me, only that Something was building. Now, i suddenly feel like i know what it was building towards, that i'm Here, Now, this is It. By which i don't mean at an end or stopping point; maybe the end of an era or phase and the beginning of a new one, but not Over over. i'm certainly not ready to be done, by a long shot.
Saturday night i went home early, no reason to stay out. In a good frame of mind after hanging out with my pal. My apartment, lovely new place, was quiet, a lazy humid breeze drifting up from the lake. i went into the living room in the dark, still not used to having so much space of my very own, and started doing yoga - a nice long session, stretching myself beyond my usual limits. Moving very slowly, Subliminal time, so as not to pull anything; and then settling into statue mode. i wanted to try a new pose, see if i could hold it, and i think that i can, that it will work (a variation on the Venus de Milo - obviously variant, as my arms are staying attached thanks just the same!) Did my regular workout after that and then went to sleep to the sound of crickets and the gentle oscillation of my fan.
Things are coming together in my life - i feel that finding this apartment is a symbol of that, not the cause, of course. But as if that was the last key i had to turn in the lock, and now the door has opened. Life could be very scary right now; i have no idea how i'll pay rent in October, little say electric or food or heat. i signed a year lease that i can't promise i'll be able to carry out. And yet somehow i'm not worried - in fact, i'm quite the opposite of worried; serenely trusting in thee yoniverse that S/He will provide.
i don't believe there are accidents - maybe causes and effects we can't perceive or understand. Not accidents, though. i'm here, where i am, because this is where i am *meant* to be at this juncture. The place fits me too perfectly. And if i managed to make this lucky stumble, to some place i feel so content, so able to live my life, then i Trust and believe that the means to maintaining it will appear. This is already beginning to happen; opportunities i would not have expected or looked for seem to be springing up. i'm cautious about getting too optimistic, settling back and thinking i've nothing to worry about, but at the same time trying not to worry things *out* of existence, either.
A final tangent and i'll close: i'm a reader with a broad spectrum of tastes, have been my whole life. i therefore pick up books at the thrifts fairly regularly; a twenty-five cent investment can provide a week's worth of entertainment, albeit some much more entertaining than others. One of my recent acquisitions, "Timescape" by Gregory Benford, might not seem entertaining to most folks. Its what is known as 'hard' science fiction; that is, the science in it is real, or real enough to speculate upon. There's not much sex (what little there is involves the closest thing to a villain in the piece, nothing racy at all) and even less violence. Nary a car chase to be found. i've been looking forward to getting home every night so i could get back to it.
The book deals with the possibility of a sort of time travel, or at least communication backwards in time; and the problems arising if such an endeavour proves successful. Since the author is equipped with a working knowledge of quantum physics (circa 1980), one of the possible consequences of such communication is the notion of parallel universes - a concept i've spent a lot of time thinking about.
One of the most interesting things in the world to me is when you go far enough around the circle that magic becomes a science, and science blurs and dissolves into spirit. Sir Arthur Eddington is quoted as saying "The stuff of the universe is mind-stuff", one of the shaping mantras of my life. This book doesn't go quite that deeply in, but it does ultimately begin to deal with the question of what happens when the universe splits in two (Another look at this, one more accessible to the general populace, occurs in the movie "The Butterfly Effect").
The protagonist realizes, near the end of the story, that his universe shifted and changed, and that his former future was no longer 'future', that it, in fact, no longer *existed* for him. He is even able to narrow it down to approximately when the shift happened, one of several events that might have thrown the switch (as readers in the 'outside observer' mode, we know very clearly which event, as the outcome - the author chose a well-known historical moment - turned out very differently in our world).
What intrigues me is the notion that his fictional description of the sense of shifting futures, and at least one theoretical speculation on how this could happen, very strongly mirror my own experiences, and intuitive sense of the same - my 'magic' just took a giant step closer to his 'science'. Is it then so wildly improbable that 'magic' brought me into this apartment, is bringing me new opportunities, even that it put a randomly-chosen book from the thrift store into my hands with a possible explanation for how such things might happen - ?!
Of course, any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to less advanced civilizations. But whether its that hoodoo that you do or the Wheeler-Everett-Graham model doesn't matter to me. All i know is, the universe is unfolding as it should, and for once i seem to be surfing the crest of the probability wave. Um - cowabunga??
05 August 2010
new diggins
Alright, i confess - i am a bad blogger. At least in the Y Hlo Thar World expository sense most people use when they blog; i'm far too good at the Oh Teh Noes Why Didn't He Call, staple hand to forehead sort. i am trying to be better about it - and oh, nothing gets me doing something creative like telling myself i really *must*, now, tonight, get around to some OTHER project. Like writing a blog.
Having decided that yes, i am due - its been a month since my last one already, omfg, how can that be?! - i've proceeded instead to work on decorating some papier mache fish i'm making for a friend's shop, make and eat dinner, begin emptying my cupboards, sort and re-file my three crates of records and do some active listening towards the next play's sound design.
What's that about emptying cupboards, you say? Funny thing, that; as it ties right in to the topic i've chosen to soliloquize upon this month. To wit, my new apartment. i've put up some pics in the past of where i used to live, but i doubt any of them gave the proper impression of just how freaking *small* it was. Funky dog-leg hallway aside, it really was only two rooms, kitchen and bath. Which meant that my workroom had to do double duty as my kitchen - or should that be the other way around?
Yeah, i crammed a whole lot of stuff into not very much space and i made it work. However, in the middle of April i came down to a notice that the landlord was facing 'financial difficulties' (well, who isn't these days?) and we should expect our utilities to be going away, oh, any day now. It was not much of a step from that to the few remaining tenants fleeing the proverbial sinking ship the house had become - and just like that, as of June i suddenly found myself once again a squatter in my 'own' home.
Now, it's a little-known fact that i am not actually a Tremont resident. Most people *believe* i am, since i'm there every day one way or another; but the truth is, for the last three years i've resided in the nearby and, dare i say, equally trendy arts district of Gordon Square. But with this handwriting on the wall, perhaps the time had come to move to Tremont at last - after all, i've only been hanging out there for more than twenty years. i was even approved for an apartment down near Steelyard, yet chose not to go - heresy!
Sorry Tremonsters, but you just couldn't compete with what i found. Here's what sold me:
Ginormous closet of awesome, clawfoot tub on hexagonal tile, *living room*, full-size stove, linen closet - linen closet!! - PORCH.. Yeah, my world, it has been rocked. Still pinching myself.
This, then, is my excuse for not blogging all month - yeah! A good one, this time! i've been busy doing this:
i mentioned the ginormous closet, which can be seen in the first collage. When i got the keys and walked through on my own, i discovered two more closets, at which point i KNEW i'd died and gone to heaven. In addition to that spans-the-living-room one, i have a bedroom closet for clothes, and a walk-in off the dining room (now workshop/office).
At long last, i'll be free of my one pal's grumbly taunt that 'i sure have a lot of stuff'. True, i do; but i suspect if you took everything in *his* 2bdr+den house and crammed it into two rooms, it'd seem like a lot, too. Now i've got things stored out of sight, and my furniture isn't piled on top of itself. Well, mostly. This building's 93 years old;
i think i've done rather admirably with all this, if i do say so myself.
Not all the artwork is hung, and there are a few shelves still waiting to be filled. The futon bunk needs re-assembled, and i've a chair i want to bring from the storage locker. A chair, i might add, that has BEEN in that locker since it came back from Conneaut five years ago. i might even add in a coffee table, altho my lovely 1950s Swedish pine occaisional table must languish in the dark with the 1930s deco vanity a while longer.
Oh, and about those cupboards? i applaud my landlord's commitment to keeping the place vermin-free, i really do - par*tic*ularly after the last place =P But i'm one who takes full advantage of to-the-ceiling original kitchen cabinets. i cook for large groups on a somewhat regular basis, i bake at the holidays, i have Grandma Vernye's Fire King china and more tchotchkes than you can shake your stick at. Emptying every single cupboard, shelf, and cabinet in kitchen AND bath is a pain in the tuchus. Especially since i only just finished filling them all up. Ah well - there had to be a drawback somewhere..
Having decided that yes, i am due - its been a month since my last one already, omfg, how can that be?! - i've proceeded instead to work on decorating some papier mache fish i'm making for a friend's shop, make and eat dinner, begin emptying my cupboards, sort and re-file my three crates of records and do some active listening towards the next play's sound design.
What's that about emptying cupboards, you say? Funny thing, that; as it ties right in to the topic i've chosen to soliloquize upon this month. To wit, my new apartment. i've put up some pics in the past of where i used to live, but i doubt any of them gave the proper impression of just how freaking *small* it was. Funky dog-leg hallway aside, it really was only two rooms, kitchen and bath. Which meant that my workroom had to do double duty as my kitchen - or should that be the other way around?
Yeah, i crammed a whole lot of stuff into not very much space and i made it work. However, in the middle of April i came down to a notice that the landlord was facing 'financial difficulties' (well, who isn't these days?) and we should expect our utilities to be going away, oh, any day now. It was not much of a step from that to the few remaining tenants fleeing the proverbial sinking ship the house had become - and just like that, as of June i suddenly found myself once again a squatter in my 'own' home.
Now, it's a little-known fact that i am not actually a Tremont resident. Most people *believe* i am, since i'm there every day one way or another; but the truth is, for the last three years i've resided in the nearby and, dare i say, equally trendy arts district of Gordon Square. But with this handwriting on the wall, perhaps the time had come to move to Tremont at last - after all, i've only been hanging out there for more than twenty years. i was even approved for an apartment down near Steelyard, yet chose not to go - heresy!
Sorry Tremonsters, but you just couldn't compete with what i found. Here's what sold me:
Ginormous closet of awesome, clawfoot tub on hexagonal tile, *living room*, full-size stove, linen closet - linen closet!! - PORCH.. Yeah, my world, it has been rocked. Still pinching myself.
This, then, is my excuse for not blogging all month - yeah! A good one, this time! i've been busy doing this:
i mentioned the ginormous closet, which can be seen in the first collage. When i got the keys and walked through on my own, i discovered two more closets, at which point i KNEW i'd died and gone to heaven. In addition to that spans-the-living-room one, i have a bedroom closet for clothes, and a walk-in off the dining room (now workshop/office).
At long last, i'll be free of my one pal's grumbly taunt that 'i sure have a lot of stuff'. True, i do; but i suspect if you took everything in *his* 2bdr+den house and crammed it into two rooms, it'd seem like a lot, too. Now i've got things stored out of sight, and my furniture isn't piled on top of itself. Well, mostly. This building's 93 years old;
i think i've done rather admirably with all this, if i do say so myself.
Not all the artwork is hung, and there are a few shelves still waiting to be filled. The futon bunk needs re-assembled, and i've a chair i want to bring from the storage locker. A chair, i might add, that has BEEN in that locker since it came back from Conneaut five years ago. i might even add in a coffee table, altho my lovely 1950s Swedish pine occaisional table must languish in the dark with the 1930s deco vanity a while longer.
Oh, and about those cupboards? i applaud my landlord's commitment to keeping the place vermin-free, i really do - par*tic*ularly after the last place =P But i'm one who takes full advantage of to-the-ceiling original kitchen cabinets. i cook for large groups on a somewhat regular basis, i bake at the holidays, i have Grandma Vernye's Fire King china and more tchotchkes than you can shake your stick at. Emptying every single cupboard, shelf, and cabinet in kitchen AND bath is a pain in the tuchus. Especially since i only just finished filling them all up. Ah well - there had to be a drawback somewhere..
05 July 2010
Holy Pink Fourth
Once again i haven't posted in a while. i guess i'm not in a very reflective period right now; plus the time it takes to sit down and write about things is time i'm not spending DOING things. i am doing a lot of things. Actually i suppose i do update on them; but these days i micro-blog via status updates (@wolfkitten - "Follow me on Twitter!"). But my head is full, there's a promise of rain on the breeze and its just me and the netbook on a futon on the floor. Yes its 3am on the night of the fourth as i write and i'm rambling.
Part of what's keeping me busy is The Move. The place i've been living the last three years Went Away, basically - landlord lost the place and no one's bought it yet, everyone but me moved out by early June. This mirrors my situation of five years ago in curious ways - it was exactly this time of year when i came back from Conneaut to Collinwood, and - well that was an adventure in and of itself. Both times i've been semi-squatting, which appeals to me on some urban punk traveller level but is maybe not quite so romantic when you're actually doing it.
This time, it was rather like watching the shoreline crumble around my little oasis on every side, knowing sooner or later it was going to eat away at my foundations. At the same time, i didn't have to bail suddenly, so i was able to look around a little and find something that was right for me. Which i believe i have.
i'm still not completely finished; next weekend is scheduled to be the last big transfer, which means having everything *ready* to go before then. i'll get it done somehow, but of course this has ALSO been one of those manic energie periods when Everything is Happening At Once. And of course this place didn't come through until i was right on the edge of that next big wave coming in.
Summertimes roll.. One reason i've always loved Jane's Addiction so much. Not only were they THE summer soundtrack back in the day, but they captured the essence of those times so perfectly. i could, an i cared to, find parallels back to the endless Basketcase summer; the July 4th i lost and then re-found my High Priestess Tarot earrings on a beach i can all but see from my new living room. But to get there i have to use a stepping-stone, touch base with my most recent midsummer transformation. At that time, i could Feel that sort of wave i'd known in the 80s building again. And i had no way of knowing i'd be where i am, that i would reconnect with people who were There before, none of it. Not sure i could have even *pictured* this existing like it does. And yet here we are.
Last year at this time i was writing about a Horrible Holiday. To me, July 4th symbolizes a secular version of the ancient midsummer rites. Though to call it 'mid'summer seems somehow wrong - i understand the position it held in the calendar for pagan ancestors quite well, but we don't follow the same calendar, the same rhythms anymore. Its not that we have none; they're just attuned differently. July 4th taps into the celebration of the seasonal influences, but its overlaid with a different sort of festivity that glorifies all the forms of dominion i've rejected my whole life. Ergo not one i'm generally too comfortable with. In years past we'd try to get out of the city altogether - i've attended a few Rainbow Gatherings, and would go camping if at all remotely possible. And those were choices i made even before i got to know the joys of fireworks-induced panic attacks.
This year was different, though, and to my mind a lot better. Well, maybe not better than camping with friends; that's hard to beat. But good. Of course, it started off with an entirely different gathering of the tribes - a gathering of the tribe i have probably the strongest ties to: the Clepunk crew. Anymore people talk about 'the eighties' and everyone thinks Flashdance, Cindy Lauper, and big hair metal. Yeah, that was out there, but that wasn't remotely MY 80s. Mine was the local hardcore punk scene (which has never yet been properly documented), intermixed with Rainbow hippie stuff by way of what would become stoner rock. But with the emphasis on hardcore.
Did any of us then think we'd be doing this thirty years later? (and i have to correct myself, because i WANTED to write twenty =:o) We couldn't think that far ahead; Reagan was probably going to start a nuclear war anyway, so Live Fast Die Young seemed an eminently reasonable response to the world around us. Until, of course, some people started doing exactly that and you realized a cool bumper sticker does not a practicable life course make. However, the good thing about it now is that those of us who are still standing - and there are many more still here than not - have generally learned to be a little more intelligent about it.
Its not that we don't still like to go out and kick it; but most of us have come to terms with the fact that we have times when we can do that - and times when we can't. Even if there were still places like the Lakefront, Pop Shop, Underground and all the rest, we can't spend every weekend blowing it out like we used to (there are still scenes where you can find that, but its different energy for different times). Which makes the times we do get together for that reason all the more special.
i realize its a little preposterous to say that an event called Cleveland's Screaming was a positive celebration - dare i say life-affirming? Fuck it, i'm a punk but i'm a hippie too; effing deal. A celebation of Us, of our tribe, of having been through all we've collectively been through and still be able to drink, play fast music and have fun. As the screaming part of the title might suggest, there was always pain underlying our good times, but one of the things i always liked about the Cleveland scene was that we had fun anyway. We might go to war with Russia tomorrow but fuck it; tonight we're gonna get blasted and enjoy ourselves.
When i started writing this, i was thinking about the pain, and i feel there's more there to be said on that topic. But not just now. Right now, i'm still high on the sheer exuberant energie of seeing so many faces together again, of seeing bands i love and grew up with play out once more (some maybe for the very last time), of touching the same heart and spirit that fueled me then. Friday and Saturday night we all gathered - not at any of our old places; are any of them even still standing?! - but a newer club that understands and encourages the old vibe.
We've had a few 'reunion' shows over the years and i've been to most of them; this was the first time i was actively involved in one. It made a difference to how i perceived it, particularly on Saturday. i convinced the promoter to let me do my glasswalking routine - and not just at 'sometime' during the weekend, but right before the Saturday night headliners, the Pink Holes (and Jim, if you're reading this, i hope you understand now why i wanted that spot!) For one, i know how people react when i do it, enough to know these were *exactly* the people who'd appreciate it, and that was exactly the time when they'd appreciate it most.
But i also wanted to bring something back from other tribes, other worlds i've travelled to, as a sort of gift. Although i've had a lifelong love of carnivals, i didn't move into my circus grrl phase until after i'd left the punk scene. Likewise the theatrical aspects - i may not have been born in a trunk, but i was raised in very close proximity to one; but the closest i got to theater in those days was The Subliminals, the blacklight performance art troupe i was in. Now, these things are the biggest part of what i do, and i was really excited to be able to bring that to the table.
And it was awesome. i hear video was shot; maybe by the time i post this i can link it. (Alas not yet. Check back, i'll edit it in if it goes live).
Of course, to really grok the enormity of the weekend in fullness, you have to know about Les Black's Amazing Pink Holes (i could probably philosophize about the significance of so many of us taking new names on joining the tribe). And i'm not sure if i'm up to finding the words that can explain them if you were never there.
i leave it to others to tell stories of the crazy shows they put on. i know i SAW them back in the day, but i think i missed a lot too; they may have played nights when i was home with two little kids making pizza and getting ready for the afterparty. What i can say is that seeing them live always seems to be this intense, cathartic experience - not exactly the same sort i experienced seeing Crash Worship, for instance; and yet closer to that than you might imagine. They were (are?) a sort of ultimate expression of having fun despite the pain. You lost your job, you crashed your car, you found out your guy or girl has been stepping out - fuck it. They'll make you forget that for a night.
Because really, who can remember any of those things when there's a stripper in a tiny jungle thong bikini tossing gift bags with CDs and cans of silly string out to the crowd, smoke bombs are going off onstage, pool noodles and trampolines - trampolines! - are being thrown into the audience, a gigantic stuffed animal is being torn to bits like a pig among the Maenads and good lord, what do you mean they're only three songs into the set?!
And by the grace of a connection back, a strand from before i severed ties that re-wove itself a bit sooner than the rest, i wound up directly in the heart of this maelstrom. i got asked if i could run lights for them - which is a bit of an in-joke, because their 'lights' consisted of four strands of twinkle lights - the musicians in pink and the lead singer in white - connected back to a junction box with regular old light switches wired together. A far cry from the 75 channel intelligent lighting programmable system i'd run the weekend before (and that weekend should/may yet be be an entry unto itself).
This meant that as soon as i'd jumped into that tray of broken beer bottles, MC Joe Gizmo and i were striking my props, i found my barefoot way back to a rear corner, and it was ON. Like i said, i've seen the Pink Holes before, but never from that perspective. Of course, what with the styrofoam pellets, the silly string, the smoke and the stage lights, i couldn't see much but the backs of the bassist and drummer. Reports are still filtering back to me of the things that went on, onstage as well as off. Stagediving, nudity, silly string in inappropriate orifices, they brought it all.
And where i come from, that was a freakin' RITUAL. i first started travelling in pagan circles in the middle of my time in the punk era, and could never escape comparing the two. i can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of bonfire nights i've been to that approached the sort of energy we'd raise during a good show. None of the punk side was Intentional in a magickal sense, but does that make it any less valid?
Not to me, friends. Not to me. Our tribe came together and celebrated, and maybe i'll get a chance this week to note down the rest of it before its gone from my firefly brain. But if i don't, it will be strictly because of finding the time. The high points were many, and i'm still both honored and charged to have been present for our reunion tribal stomp.
Part of what's keeping me busy is The Move. The place i've been living the last three years Went Away, basically - landlord lost the place and no one's bought it yet, everyone but me moved out by early June. This mirrors my situation of five years ago in curious ways - it was exactly this time of year when i came back from Conneaut to Collinwood, and - well that was an adventure in and of itself. Both times i've been semi-squatting, which appeals to me on some urban punk traveller level but is maybe not quite so romantic when you're actually doing it.
This time, it was rather like watching the shoreline crumble around my little oasis on every side, knowing sooner or later it was going to eat away at my foundations. At the same time, i didn't have to bail suddenly, so i was able to look around a little and find something that was right for me. Which i believe i have.
i'm still not completely finished; next weekend is scheduled to be the last big transfer, which means having everything *ready* to go before then. i'll get it done somehow, but of course this has ALSO been one of those manic energie periods when Everything is Happening At Once. And of course this place didn't come through until i was right on the edge of that next big wave coming in.Summertimes roll.. One reason i've always loved Jane's Addiction so much. Not only were they THE summer soundtrack back in the day, but they captured the essence of those times so perfectly. i could, an i cared to, find parallels back to the endless Basketcase summer; the July 4th i lost and then re-found my High Priestess Tarot earrings on a beach i can all but see from my new living room. But to get there i have to use a stepping-stone, touch base with my most recent midsummer transformation. At that time, i could Feel that sort of wave i'd known in the 80s building again. And i had no way of knowing i'd be where i am, that i would reconnect with people who were There before, none of it. Not sure i could have even *pictured* this existing like it does. And yet here we are.
Last year at this time i was writing about a Horrible Holiday. To me, July 4th symbolizes a secular version of the ancient midsummer rites. Though to call it 'mid'summer seems somehow wrong - i understand the position it held in the calendar for pagan ancestors quite well, but we don't follow the same calendar, the same rhythms anymore. Its not that we have none; they're just attuned differently. July 4th taps into the celebration of the seasonal influences, but its overlaid with a different sort of festivity that glorifies all the forms of dominion i've rejected my whole life. Ergo not one i'm generally too comfortable with. In years past we'd try to get out of the city altogether - i've attended a few Rainbow Gatherings, and would go camping if at all remotely possible. And those were choices i made even before i got to know the joys of fireworks-induced panic attacks.
This year was different, though, and to my mind a lot better. Well, maybe not better than camping with friends; that's hard to beat. But good. Of course, it started off with an entirely different gathering of the tribes - a gathering of the tribe i have probably the strongest ties to: the Clepunk crew. Anymore people talk about 'the eighties' and everyone thinks Flashdance, Cindy Lauper, and big hair metal. Yeah, that was out there, but that wasn't remotely MY 80s. Mine was the local hardcore punk scene (which has never yet been properly documented), intermixed with Rainbow hippie stuff by way of what would become stoner rock. But with the emphasis on hardcore.
Did any of us then think we'd be doing this thirty years later? (and i have to correct myself, because i WANTED to write twenty =:o) We couldn't think that far ahead; Reagan was probably going to start a nuclear war anyway, so Live Fast Die Young seemed an eminently reasonable response to the world around us. Until, of course, some people started doing exactly that and you realized a cool bumper sticker does not a practicable life course make. However, the good thing about it now is that those of us who are still standing - and there are many more still here than not - have generally learned to be a little more intelligent about it.
Its not that we don't still like to go out and kick it; but most of us have come to terms with the fact that we have times when we can do that - and times when we can't. Even if there were still places like the Lakefront, Pop Shop, Underground and all the rest, we can't spend every weekend blowing it out like we used to (there are still scenes where you can find that, but its different energy for different times). Which makes the times we do get together for that reason all the more special.
i realize its a little preposterous to say that an event called Cleveland's Screaming was a positive celebration - dare i say life-affirming? Fuck it, i'm a punk but i'm a hippie too; effing deal. A celebation of Us, of our tribe, of having been through all we've collectively been through and still be able to drink, play fast music and have fun. As the screaming part of the title might suggest, there was always pain underlying our good times, but one of the things i always liked about the Cleveland scene was that we had fun anyway. We might go to war with Russia tomorrow but fuck it; tonight we're gonna get blasted and enjoy ourselves.
When i started writing this, i was thinking about the pain, and i feel there's more there to be said on that topic. But not just now. Right now, i'm still high on the sheer exuberant energie of seeing so many faces together again, of seeing bands i love and grew up with play out once more (some maybe for the very last time), of touching the same heart and spirit that fueled me then. Friday and Saturday night we all gathered - not at any of our old places; are any of them even still standing?! - but a newer club that understands and encourages the old vibe.
We've had a few 'reunion' shows over the years and i've been to most of them; this was the first time i was actively involved in one. It made a difference to how i perceived it, particularly on Saturday. i convinced the promoter to let me do my glasswalking routine - and not just at 'sometime' during the weekend, but right before the Saturday night headliners, the Pink Holes (and Jim, if you're reading this, i hope you understand now why i wanted that spot!) For one, i know how people react when i do it, enough to know these were *exactly* the people who'd appreciate it, and that was exactly the time when they'd appreciate it most.
But i also wanted to bring something back from other tribes, other worlds i've travelled to, as a sort of gift. Although i've had a lifelong love of carnivals, i didn't move into my circus grrl phase until after i'd left the punk scene. Likewise the theatrical aspects - i may not have been born in a trunk, but i was raised in very close proximity to one; but the closest i got to theater in those days was The Subliminals, the blacklight performance art troupe i was in. Now, these things are the biggest part of what i do, and i was really excited to be able to bring that to the table.
And it was awesome. i hear video was shot; maybe by the time i post this i can link it. (Alas not yet. Check back, i'll edit it in if it goes live).
Of course, to really grok the enormity of the weekend in fullness, you have to know about Les Black's Amazing Pink Holes (i could probably philosophize about the significance of so many of us taking new names on joining the tribe). And i'm not sure if i'm up to finding the words that can explain them if you were never there.
i leave it to others to tell stories of the crazy shows they put on. i know i SAW them back in the day, but i think i missed a lot too; they may have played nights when i was home with two little kids making pizza and getting ready for the afterparty. What i can say is that seeing them live always seems to be this intense, cathartic experience - not exactly the same sort i experienced seeing Crash Worship, for instance; and yet closer to that than you might imagine. They were (are?) a sort of ultimate expression of having fun despite the pain. You lost your job, you crashed your car, you found out your guy or girl has been stepping out - fuck it. They'll make you forget that for a night.
Because really, who can remember any of those things when there's a stripper in a tiny jungle thong bikini tossing gift bags with CDs and cans of silly string out to the crowd, smoke bombs are going off onstage, pool noodles and trampolines - trampolines! - are being thrown into the audience, a gigantic stuffed animal is being torn to bits like a pig among the Maenads and good lord, what do you mean they're only three songs into the set?!
And by the grace of a connection back, a strand from before i severed ties that re-wove itself a bit sooner than the rest, i wound up directly in the heart of this maelstrom. i got asked if i could run lights for them - which is a bit of an in-joke, because their 'lights' consisted of four strands of twinkle lights - the musicians in pink and the lead singer in white - connected back to a junction box with regular old light switches wired together. A far cry from the 75 channel intelligent lighting programmable system i'd run the weekend before (and that weekend should/may yet be be an entry unto itself).
This meant that as soon as i'd jumped into that tray of broken beer bottles, MC Joe Gizmo and i were striking my props, i found my barefoot way back to a rear corner, and it was ON. Like i said, i've seen the Pink Holes before, but never from that perspective. Of course, what with the styrofoam pellets, the silly string, the smoke and the stage lights, i couldn't see much but the backs of the bassist and drummer. Reports are still filtering back to me of the things that went on, onstage as well as off. Stagediving, nudity, silly string in inappropriate orifices, they brought it all.
And where i come from, that was a freakin' RITUAL. i first started travelling in pagan circles in the middle of my time in the punk era, and could never escape comparing the two. i can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of bonfire nights i've been to that approached the sort of energy we'd raise during a good show. None of the punk side was Intentional in a magickal sense, but does that make it any less valid?
Not to me, friends. Not to me. Our tribe came together and celebrated, and maybe i'll get a chance this week to note down the rest of it before its gone from my firefly brain. But if i don't, it will be strictly because of finding the time. The high points were many, and i'm still both honored and charged to have been present for our reunion tribal stomp.
21 April 2010
to market: a manifesto
i am having a small but minor epiphany and yes, the irony is intentional - but no less true. Its also no less an epiphany, which is why its enough to get me off my duff and over here posting.
i have spent the last two mornings in one of my own personal circles of hell: the world of corporate marketing. How could such a thing happen? Well, i threw something at the wall, and for some reason i don't entirely fathom, it stuck. i'll even go so far as to say that the reason may be that the Main Corporate BooHoo knows his stuff well enough that he sensed *something* about me - a certain energie that, if properly yoked to Company In Question might show some potential returns. But, like Cinderella's wicked stepmother, i said - if.
The fact is, what i've got simply won't work with their yoke. They'd get a little juice out of me, but not what they were hoping for, because they'd be coming with a colander to try and harvest water. So to speak. And in the past, my response would have been to try and freeze myself, or put me in a baggie, something, anything to keep from falling out the holes in the sieve - when in fact, a sieve just isn't the right tool, and i am not the right match for them.
i've spent much of today agonizing over this; am i being a Class A fool to turn down a job offer - just saying the offer actually gets made? (one reason i think i'm not is that, despite giving them two days of my time and labor, there's been no guarantee i actually am, nor will be, hired). And why does the possibility that i MIGHT be fill me with such dread? After all, i've been out of work for a long time now. Any port in a storm, right?
Uh, well, maybe not. i could go on with the metaphors, but ultimately what i'm realizing is, traditional marketing just doesn't work on me. And i may be - well, i am - part of a new paradigm that needs to be reached in new ways. You want to retain my business? About the *last* thing you'd want to do is call me up. No matter what sort of doublespeak term you couch it in, to me, that's telemarketing. Which means first and foremost, no matter what you have to say, i am not interested. i don't care how great your message is, you have just found the No. 1 way to make sure i not only don't listen, but will come away with a negative impression of your company for having used it. You also will not reach me with direct-mail, television, or print ads. You *might* reach me through an effective radio campaign; i'll admit to finding that "Five Dollar Foot-Longs" song pretty catchy.
Of course, i am about as far from a typical consumer as you can get; i may not have Cayce Pollard's allergy to corporate brands and logos, but my antipathy to them is pretty deeply ingrained. There are things i'll happily be a walking advertisement for, but none of them are corporations. And even something like the Liminis, i'd be kind of particular about wearing a logo shirt - tho hm, i'd have no problem at all wearing a Morticia's Chair tshirt (and really, why don't i have one after all this time?!). i guess it would come down to the design; i *am* nearly as picky as Cayce when it comes to color and font (not that you'd ever guess reading this, eh?)
But i'm also realizing, or re-realizing, that if i am going to get out there and promote any given something - business, band, concept - it simply, absolutely HAS to be something i Believe in. Not like hey, yeah, i guess that doesn't suck; like, i am seriously, personally, all about this idea. It reflects my core beliefs.
Ergo, a company, say - restaurant - that wants me to promote them is going to have to have a decent selection of vegetarian items, for starters. No, a turkey sub does not count. A cheese sub isn't any better. A sub with tempeh, or soy cheese, or vegan hotdogs? NOW i'm interested. And don't tell me how you use 'quality ingredients' - who's gonna come out and say they don't, right? McDonald's uses that. Are you using locally grown, organic, sustainably harvested ingredients? That i want to hear about. So you've got a points program to reward customers? *yawn* Who freakin' cares. i'm in a million of those; at best it means i get spam mail from your company that i won't read. Want to get me talking you up? Tell me how your delivery drivers are fueled by recycled fryer grease from your kitchens, or your packaging contains at least 40% post-consumer waste. Don't tell me you use 'the finest' imported olives; tell me about how you compost all the vegetable waste.
And most of all, don't make the mistake of thinking that you can present the same old products you've been hawking for twenty-plus years but Now, Follow Us on Twitter! and i'm going to think, ooh, shiny. You want me to follow your twitter feed? Be small, be 'indie', be Green. Be about the same ideas *i* care about. Be entertaining most of the time; give me a reason to WANT to know what you have to say. So that when you do have a sale, or a special, or a new product, i already know I Like You and I Care.
Needless to say, the company that i wasted ten hours of my time on is none of those things. And hey, what do i know; they've been around thirty years and have multiple locations, while i'm an aging anarchist that can't afford to eat there anyway.
But i still think i'm right.
i have spent the last two mornings in one of my own personal circles of hell: the world of corporate marketing. How could such a thing happen? Well, i threw something at the wall, and for some reason i don't entirely fathom, it stuck. i'll even go so far as to say that the reason may be that the Main Corporate BooHoo knows his stuff well enough that he sensed *something* about me - a certain energie that, if properly yoked to Company In Question might show some potential returns. But, like Cinderella's wicked stepmother, i said - if.
The fact is, what i've got simply won't work with their yoke. They'd get a little juice out of me, but not what they were hoping for, because they'd be coming with a colander to try and harvest water. So to speak. And in the past, my response would have been to try and freeze myself, or put me in a baggie, something, anything to keep from falling out the holes in the sieve - when in fact, a sieve just isn't the right tool, and i am not the right match for them.
i've spent much of today agonizing over this; am i being a Class A fool to turn down a job offer - just saying the offer actually gets made? (one reason i think i'm not is that, despite giving them two days of my time and labor, there's been no guarantee i actually am, nor will be, hired). And why does the possibility that i MIGHT be fill me with such dread? After all, i've been out of work for a long time now. Any port in a storm, right?
Uh, well, maybe not. i could go on with the metaphors, but ultimately what i'm realizing is, traditional marketing just doesn't work on me. And i may be - well, i am - part of a new paradigm that needs to be reached in new ways. You want to retain my business? About the *last* thing you'd want to do is call me up. No matter what sort of doublespeak term you couch it in, to me, that's telemarketing. Which means first and foremost, no matter what you have to say, i am not interested. i don't care how great your message is, you have just found the No. 1 way to make sure i not only don't listen, but will come away with a negative impression of your company for having used it. You also will not reach me with direct-mail, television, or print ads. You *might* reach me through an effective radio campaign; i'll admit to finding that "Five Dollar Foot-Longs" song pretty catchy.
Of course, i am about as far from a typical consumer as you can get; i may not have Cayce Pollard's allergy to corporate brands and logos, but my antipathy to them is pretty deeply ingrained. There are things i'll happily be a walking advertisement for, but none of them are corporations. And even something like the Liminis, i'd be kind of particular about wearing a logo shirt - tho hm, i'd have no problem at all wearing a Morticia's Chair tshirt (and really, why don't i have one after all this time?!). i guess it would come down to the design; i *am* nearly as picky as Cayce when it comes to color and font (not that you'd ever guess reading this, eh?)
But i'm also realizing, or re-realizing, that if i am going to get out there and promote any given something - business, band, concept - it simply, absolutely HAS to be something i Believe in. Not like hey, yeah, i guess that doesn't suck; like, i am seriously, personally, all about this idea. It reflects my core beliefs.
Ergo, a company, say - restaurant - that wants me to promote them is going to have to have a decent selection of vegetarian items, for starters. No, a turkey sub does not count. A cheese sub isn't any better. A sub with tempeh, or soy cheese, or vegan hotdogs? NOW i'm interested. And don't tell me how you use 'quality ingredients' - who's gonna come out and say they don't, right? McDonald's uses that. Are you using locally grown, organic, sustainably harvested ingredients? That i want to hear about. So you've got a points program to reward customers? *yawn* Who freakin' cares. i'm in a million of those; at best it means i get spam mail from your company that i won't read. Want to get me talking you up? Tell me how your delivery drivers are fueled by recycled fryer grease from your kitchens, or your packaging contains at least 40% post-consumer waste. Don't tell me you use 'the finest' imported olives; tell me about how you compost all the vegetable waste.
And most of all, don't make the mistake of thinking that you can present the same old products you've been hawking for twenty-plus years but Now, Follow Us on Twitter! and i'm going to think, ooh, shiny. You want me to follow your twitter feed? Be small, be 'indie', be Green. Be about the same ideas *i* care about. Be entertaining most of the time; give me a reason to WANT to know what you have to say. So that when you do have a sale, or a special, or a new product, i already know I Like You and I Care.
Needless to say, the company that i wasted ten hours of my time on is none of those things. And hey, what do i know; they've been around thirty years and have multiple locations, while i'm an aging anarchist that can't afford to eat there anyway.
But i still think i'm right.
06 February 2010
If you were to ask me, what's it going to be then, Art or Majik? i couldn't answer you. Because i'm not at all sure i can distinguish, any more. i'm not at all certain that any pure, true artist (define as you will) is free of the taint of shamanism; no moreso than i could find something shamanic that bears no stamp of the artistic.
i've noted before that preparing a piece of artwork is like preparing to entheogenically journey is like preparing to cast a spell. There's no difference, is there, Mr. BBC? In fact there is so little that i'm not entirely sure i could even disentangle by referencing the final outcome. With the first, there is assuredly something tangible, but the other two may produce tangible results as well. The second is the least likely, but then again what one brings back from journeys beyond thee Veil might well feed inspiration for the first; the creation of which involves the third.
i walk a razor's edge between the three, always have. Is this the line i walk?
i see no difference between that and a journey into Faerie; my Otherworld is equally at home and likely to appear under blacklights and strobes as by firelight 'gainst the trees. Most of my favourite bands would transport you straight into another realm, a shamanic, participatory event that Boujeloud himself would recognize.
These are the rituals of thee Kali yuga, mad Shaivites smearing themselves with cremation ashes - all is one, all is one, all is one.
And so if i write that i received email sent from beyond the grave last night, it is only of a piece, yes? i've known precious few shamen who were Conscious enou that i'd credit them the ability to work such a piece of majik. One, i believe, spent himself in a last final effect of simply staying alive - those who know me know that story. Another - well, might once have had that power, but chose to forego it, at least from my perspective. The third - must there be three for such things? - the third has pulled it off i do so solemnly swear. Here, have an example of art becoming majik in his hands:
Now, before anyone texts this in to the National Enquirer.. the email is 'only' from an autoresponder. That it bears a crowbird's stamp as apparent sender is merely a fluke of how he set it up. That it comes from a message board that was never, ever active, long months after i might have thought it shut down is explainable, if unusual. That the very next message in my inbox queue *has his name as subject line* - well, an accident of fate, innit? Particularly if the message notification was just a pointer to the same poem the second email carried.
It isn't. The friend who sent the poem doesn't even know the dreamland board exists.
Each year i seem to lose several friends. A drawback to aging i suppose; moreso because walking a razor's edge is a path few can navigate well. i was going to say, successfully, but i'm far from certain 'success' is a term one can apply to such a pursuit. This last year saw three losses of people whose impact on the community they left behind was much greater than they likely ever knew in life. One was simply a Good Person, a spirit everyone liked and no one thought could leave so soon. One was that and an artist/activist/focalizer besides, whose impact here echoed tho she moved from the area two decades before. The third - its triangles, triangles, triangles all the way down - all i can say is, whether he's got a tin shack in the mountains of Bulgaria or spends most of his days in crow form winging about the piney woods above Mabon, he came back to town this weekend. And he sent me an email to say hello.
i've noted before that preparing a piece of artwork is like preparing to entheogenically journey is like preparing to cast a spell. There's no difference, is there, Mr. BBC? In fact there is so little that i'm not entirely sure i could even disentangle by referencing the final outcome. With the first, there is assuredly something tangible, but the other two may produce tangible results as well. The second is the least likely, but then again what one brings back from journeys beyond thee Veil might well feed inspiration for the first; the creation of which involves the third.
i walk a razor's edge between the three, always have. Is this the line i walk?
i see no difference between that and a journey into Faerie; my Otherworld is equally at home and likely to appear under blacklights and strobes as by firelight 'gainst the trees. Most of my favourite bands would transport you straight into another realm, a shamanic, participatory event that Boujeloud himself would recognize.
These are the rituals of thee Kali yuga, mad Shaivites smearing themselves with cremation ashes - all is one, all is one, all is one.
And so if i write that i received email sent from beyond the grave last night, it is only of a piece, yes? i've known precious few shamen who were Conscious enou that i'd credit them the ability to work such a piece of majik. One, i believe, spent himself in a last final effect of simply staying alive - those who know me know that story. Another - well, might once have had that power, but chose to forego it, at least from my perspective. The third - must there be three for such things? - the third has pulled it off i do so solemnly swear. Here, have an example of art becoming majik in his hands:
Now, before anyone texts this in to the National Enquirer.. the email is 'only' from an autoresponder. That it bears a crowbird's stamp as apparent sender is merely a fluke of how he set it up. That it comes from a message board that was never, ever active, long months after i might have thought it shut down is explainable, if unusual. That the very next message in my inbox queue *has his name as subject line* - well, an accident of fate, innit? Particularly if the message notification was just a pointer to the same poem the second email carried.
It isn't. The friend who sent the poem doesn't even know the dreamland board exists.
Each year i seem to lose several friends. A drawback to aging i suppose; moreso because walking a razor's edge is a path few can navigate well. i was going to say, successfully, but i'm far from certain 'success' is a term one can apply to such a pursuit. This last year saw three losses of people whose impact on the community they left behind was much greater than they likely ever knew in life. One was simply a Good Person, a spirit everyone liked and no one thought could leave so soon. One was that and an artist/activist/focalizer besides, whose impact here echoed tho she moved from the area two decades before. The third - its triangles, triangles, triangles all the way down - all i can say is, whether he's got a tin shack in the mountains of Bulgaria or spends most of his days in crow form winging about the piney woods above Mabon, he came back to town this weekend. And he sent me an email to say hello.
02 February 2010
Gifts and Gratuituous Gnomes
Hokay. Well. i established this blog a while back to be my For Public Consumption one - yes, there are others. No, i am not going to tell you where. Having gotten that far, i've proceeded to flounder. Whatinole do i write about, if it *isn't* teh Excruciating Personal, eh? This is an ongoing challenge, and scrolling back will give you different answers for different days. (Also, as of this writing, it will give you different answers all on the SAME day, today. As i've yet to figure out how to fix that particular java error).
Well, today's installment shall be about ~me~, i guess, minus the waahngst. Which is rather silly, given all six of you who read this :::checks follower list::: - nine! Whoa welcome new people! - i think most of you know me one way or another anyway. But for the sheer fuggovit..
Pleased to meet you, i don't believe we've met. My name's Ian, and.. oh wait no. My name, well that's a variable thing too. i've had a lot of them over the years. a LOT. sade has been the most constant, and that's not 'shar-day', that's like the Manson chick if you were wonderin'. Some days i am also the Fabulous Sascha Peppercorn, which is a play within a play if all the world's a stage. And yes, theatre - acting - thank you - is a major part of my life.
No wait, back up - *performance* is my life. Sometimes that happens in a theater. Most times it does not. i am but an actor chappie who often plays the role of Judith (hopefully never Quaisoir) playing the role of sade playing Sascha. Got me? i am a living ongoing work of performance art. Not to the point of pointing a camera at myself 24/7, tho i guess i might now be capable of just that. Consider everything you see me do in that frame, tho, and we'll get on fine.
Camera. Ah. Yes. That was where i started. Despite having spent part of my college years in broadcasting classes, i am not a camera person. Photography is ~ok~, but i've never been immersed or fascinated by it the way so many are. In a sense, i don't *get it* - to me, a camera is, and has always been, a tool for two purposes and two only: record a snapshot of a moment or event; record a visual impression for later use in making Real Art. (There - that should piss off any photog friends who accidentally stumble across this ;-) i even dropped photography in college because the Process of it was just needless BS complication to me. i don't care about chemicals and exposures and silver papers and all that; i just want a PICTURE, for use as a later tool.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Over this past Yule, i happened to be gifted with two fabulously swell new tools: my little, as-yet-unnamed netbook, and a sweet Nikon CoolPix camera. It was much easier for me to begin using the first; i KNOW what to do with a computer. The second, tho, i had to poke and prod and sniff at a while. i am still finding out things about it (oh shit! that's recording video!! no no stopstopstop) - like, say, how to get pictures off of it and onto the laptop.
i has solved that problem. Behold:
That one's purely gratuitous. There was no reason to take it, except maybe when i don't live here anymore i can look back and Remember. But now that i have Little Toy One and Little Toy Two, i'm thinking that i can put them together here. Not so much in this post, tho that was my first intention (see previous post for Teh Art). But as a way of documenting this whatever-it-is i do, the things my muse demands of me.
i am, my life is, an ongoing experiment in art and magick. "We set out to change the world and only wound up changing ourselves". People who know me as the Celestial Mother or some goofy old hippie lady don't know that i am a *very* determined and driven fishie. My persistence is subtle.. i've been known to say i'm too dumb to know when i'm beaten and should fall down, so i just keep on pressing forward. i think this is the major reason i'm still standing, still somehow not dead, somehow not permanently screwed. Tho i go with Daevid Allen on that one: You Never Blow Your Trip Forever. Or to use a completely unrelated quote, Nothing is *very* bad.
This blog, then, careens wildly in all directions. It may be about art, it may be about magick, it may be about the hedgebear as winter king having a shadow because he is still mortal and must battle winter another six weeks. It may be about the vortex tribe or my gnome collection
(except for the little one holding a pole that used to be a rake, those aren't the GOOD gnomes. They're stuck in storage limbo) or the little guys in my china cabinet who aren't gnomes but are certainly their friends
or how it is i can be a big fan of Charles DeLint but am finding War For The Oaks rather twee. All of which are about the *same* thing, really, but its a game of Spot Your Lucky Warts to figure out what it is.
And if you do, would you please tell me? I'd kinda really like to know..
Well, today's installment shall be about ~me~, i guess, minus the waahngst. Which is rather silly, given all six of you who read this :::checks follower list::: - nine! Whoa welcome new people! - i think most of you know me one way or another anyway. But for the sheer fuggovit..
Pleased to meet you, i don't believe we've met. My name's Ian, and.. oh wait no. My name, well that's a variable thing too. i've had a lot of them over the years. a LOT. sade has been the most constant, and that's not 'shar-day', that's like the Manson chick if you were wonderin'. Some days i am also the Fabulous Sascha Peppercorn, which is a play within a play if all the world's a stage. And yes, theatre - acting - thank you - is a major part of my life.
No wait, back up - *performance* is my life. Sometimes that happens in a theater. Most times it does not. i am but an actor chappie who often plays the role of Judith (hopefully never Quaisoir) playing the role of sade playing Sascha. Got me? i am a living ongoing work of performance art. Not to the point of pointing a camera at myself 24/7, tho i guess i might now be capable of just that. Consider everything you see me do in that frame, tho, and we'll get on fine.
Camera. Ah. Yes. That was where i started. Despite having spent part of my college years in broadcasting classes, i am not a camera person. Photography is ~ok~, but i've never been immersed or fascinated by it the way so many are. In a sense, i don't *get it* - to me, a camera is, and has always been, a tool for two purposes and two only: record a snapshot of a moment or event; record a visual impression for later use in making Real Art. (There - that should piss off any photog friends who accidentally stumble across this ;-) i even dropped photography in college because the Process of it was just needless BS complication to me. i don't care about chemicals and exposures and silver papers and all that; i just want a PICTURE, for use as a later tool.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Over this past Yule, i happened to be gifted with two fabulously swell new tools: my little, as-yet-unnamed netbook, and a sweet Nikon CoolPix camera. It was much easier for me to begin using the first; i KNOW what to do with a computer. The second, tho, i had to poke and prod and sniff at a while. i am still finding out things about it (oh shit! that's recording video!! no no stopstopstop) - like, say, how to get pictures off of it and onto the laptop.
i has solved that problem. Behold:
That one's purely gratuitous. There was no reason to take it, except maybe when i don't live here anymore i can look back and Remember. But now that i have Little Toy One and Little Toy Two, i'm thinking that i can put them together here. Not so much in this post, tho that was my first intention (see previous post for Teh Art). But as a way of documenting this whatever-it-is i do, the things my muse demands of me.
i am, my life is, an ongoing experiment in art and magick. "We set out to change the world and only wound up changing ourselves". People who know me as the Celestial Mother or some goofy old hippie lady don't know that i am a *very* determined and driven fishie. My persistence is subtle.. i've been known to say i'm too dumb to know when i'm beaten and should fall down, so i just keep on pressing forward. i think this is the major reason i'm still standing, still somehow not dead, somehow not permanently screwed. Tho i go with Daevid Allen on that one: You Never Blow Your Trip Forever. Or to use a completely unrelated quote, Nothing is *very* bad.
This blog, then, careens wildly in all directions. It may be about art, it may be about magick, it may be about the hedgebear as winter king having a shadow because he is still mortal and must battle winter another six weeks. It may be about the vortex tribe or my gnome collection
(except for the little one holding a pole that used to be a rake, those aren't the GOOD gnomes. They're stuck in storage limbo) or the little guys in my china cabinet who aren't gnomes but are certainly their friends
or how it is i can be a big fan of Charles DeLint but am finding War For The Oaks rather twee. All of which are about the *same* thing, really, but its a game of Spot Your Lucky Warts to figure out what it is.
And if you do, would you please tell me? I'd kinda really like to know..
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