Dear reader let us turn the page. Enough with the raving. Summer we now leave behind. On to autumn with a new roof, some rain, a lot of leaves to rake, soup and bread, and the perennial signal that winter is imminent- the crazed teenage squirrel, fresh from the drey, filled with bravado and an urgency to do all the teenage squirrel related activities possible directly under my truck tires. The streets of Portland are a mosh pit for headbanging juvenile sciuridae.
Dang little friend! Slow down and accept your amatuer status. I careen all over the road trying to avoid you as first you hop directly in front of me, then freeze, then skeedaddle back the way you came only to zip back at me with a hearty bonzai and whoa. I have managed to avoid you so far but really, calm the hell down and read a book or talk to your mama about what it means to be a grown squirrel. Cause you are gonna wreck yourself if you don't checkit ok? Really.
Off to Lost Wages next week. Why Nevada? Why? I don't want to go to the desert in August. That's where the clothes are. Wish me luck and be good while I'm gone.
What a delightful euphemism! Actually, this is a dear john letter to you my beloved. We met just a few short years ago. It's been pretty passionate between us ever since. There is almost nothing I'd rather do, no where I'd rather be, no one I'd rather, well, "have coffee" with than you.You've really been there for me. Except for that time when you wouldn't take my check, which was awkward.
So, this will come as a surprise my dear. We are through you and me. It's just not working. And increasingly, after our time together I feel used and old and blah...I need something new and fresh. Perhaps we will meet again for a quick nibble or a walk in the park with a hot cuppa on a winter's day. But for now, we must part. I'll miss you but we were never really any good for each other. Buh bye!
I am starting to find my mojo. It began with organizing and it is blossoming into something fun. Meanwhile, the delightful Blah, Blah, Blahg lets you download the image above in a multitude of lovely colors. You can visit the original art from moleitau by clicking on the pic.
I love creative people who share. Recently, thanks to my dear reader Red Tara (herself a fine example of sharing and inspiration) I was turned on to the lovely Sita Sings the Blues. Sita's creator Nina Paley feels the same way I do about Digital Rights Management. I adore her "I am the Content Industry" tee. You really should check out her blog and watch the lovely and tuneful Sita Sings the Blues- a film she created and freely shares with all of us.
When it comes to art and craft I believe it has all been done before and we riff on the tunes of previous makers. Naturally, we develop new materials and refine techniques all the time. But the creative spirit that is in all of us predates each of us to be sure.
There are artists I admire as much for their interest in spreading skill and knowledge and love of art and making as for their own personal artistic expression. Commoditizing everything is so fucking depressing. Believe me, corporate tyrants want to put a price tag on all of it.
“Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”-Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
Shall we sleep through the sale of our souls? Comcrap wants to buy a piece of them at a bargain price. And that is but one example.
I was freaking out the other day ( as I am won't to do on occasion) saying really weird stuff about corporate/government conspiracies to control and ration/re or mis-direct the innertubes, denial of access, censorship etc. etc. etc. At one point I wailed something incoherent about "what will we do when they take over the internet?!?" And my gorgeous child told me with infinite patience, "Mama we will just make a new one." And then he proceeded to tell me all about BBS and the kinds of technical evolution he could imagine and I was blown away by the beauty of that mind. He made me feel hopeful.
Perhaps it is just this decrepit collection of baby boomer decision-makers that has me freaked and when we pass on the young will have a better way forward. At least among my child and his pals there is a sense of creative collaboration and problem solving that is inspiring. They have somewhere along their way learned the fine art of sharing.
As usual, an incoherent but nonetheless heartfelt post.
On the way to deliver candles to a church, the virginal daughter (Birgitta Pettersson) of feudal landowner Töre (Max von Sydow) is savagely raped and murdered. But fate takes a vengeful hand when the killers unknowingly seek food and shelter at the girl's home. Will the grief-stricken Töre learn the truth about his visitors? Set in medieval Sweden, this disturbing tale directed by Ingmar Bergman earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Recommended based on your interest in Arrested Development, Season Two
Which is described as follows:
Arrested Development: Season 2
2004NR3 discs / 18 episodes
With George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) busting out of prison and never-nude "analrapist" Tobias (David Cross) running into the arms of the Blue Man Group, things have never been so bad for the put-upon Michael (Jason Bateman). But isn't that why we watch? The second hilarious season of this Emmy-winning series (narrated by Ron Howard) brings back all your favorite characters plus a few more, including rival magician Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller).
Really?
Hmmm...no. I still don't get it.
Are you saying that
is like
?
Now Netflix, I know you like to tell me you understand me. Pandora likes to mess with me like this too. Lull me into a false sense of belonging. Make me feel that I am deeply understood and completely accepted. And then, like any mad-hot relationship, one day I discover you don't know me at all.
Recently Pandora compared the musical genome of Husker Du with that of Peter Frampton. And now you pull this.
It is safe to say you are bugging me out. To further the creepiness you choose to characterize my viewing as "emotional and cerebral" (which sounds like you are suggesting I need therapy) and use this as a basis for recommending films. How does this "emotional, cerebral" tag fit in with my ardor for Shameless and my endless passion for SouthPark?
Matt and Trey are so pretty!
What was I talking about? Oh yes. Srsly Netflix you are making my head throb.
I have seen both the Bergman and the tv show and I can't find any common ground.
It's sort of like recommending Carl Rove based on my interest in Justice or British Petroleum (RAT BASTARTDS!!!) based on my interest in clean energy or Miley Cyrus based on my interest in Paul Robeson.
...seriously odd. I feel completely misunderstood. Or perhaps you know me so intimately that I have yet to discover parts of myself that would recognize such a meaningful yet exquisitely subtle correlation between Virgin Spring and Arrested Development. Ouch and Whoa...spooky.
Did you know you can buy an entire gulf for 20 billion american dollars? Then you can trash it beyond redemption and say "What?" like an arrogant dumbass when asked 'wtf?' Sweet Deal!
I'm speechless.
Almost.
Oh lawd dog! Speaking of dumbasses:
Give me strength.
Edited 6/19/2010 to add this picture of a rat bastard hypocrite. Click the preceding link for the CBS news story about how the rich like to relax on their yachts while the ocean dies. I guess it's a power thing. Don't ever doubt they are wishing with all their black hearts that it was you they were defiling.They don't really get off unless their victims scream audibly.
This is not about Johnny Depp or John Waters despite my undying devotion to both
Hello Dear Reader. Let me set the scene for you. Just past 6PM on a Saturday night in PDX. Everyone else is downtown getting ready for the Starlight Parade. Yours truly is obsessed with stitching Natalie Chanin's rosebud stitch and decides, after a long day's work at her own retail job, to head to Fabric Depot -hereafter (and occasionally prior to) known as Fabric Creepo.
My beloved Mill End is already closed for the day and it is a sewing emergency. I need buttonhole thread.
As usual, Fabric Creepo, you do not have what I need, but I find a few things I want. It is me, about 4 other customers and 15 staff members in the gigantic store. I pick out some stretch denim for a skirt I want to make and embroider. I just need a yard or two.
There is one customer at the huge 4 sided cutting station. Normally there is a line at each corner with 2 employees on each side cutting for 8 customers. Tonight, praise the Rose Festival Princesses, it's just little old me waiting for the sole employee who is assisting the customer ahead of me.
As I wait calmly for a few minutes I am approached by two different employees. Do these employees want to offer to cut my fabric? Hell no! Each of them has decided I need to be herded like the stupid sheep I am.
The first says, "You need to stand at the corner of the cutting tables." She then walks away. O.K. I move to the corner. Then moments later another employee sees me standing with the bolt of fabric in my arms by myself, still the sole customer waiting at the cutting station. She also decides I need to be moved and tells me " Please move closer to the sign with the arrow." Oh, the sign a foot to my left? That one? O.K.
A minute or so later the employee who has been helping the other customer wanders my way to tell me, "You need to be standing behind the sign."
O.K. ladies, throughout each of these encounters I have moved exactly where I have been directed. I have not made a single sound or strange facial expression. I have merely complied with your need to assert your dominance over me your obviously highly annoying customer.
However, I feel at this juncture that its my turn to give some directions. So I say, "I have now been asked to move 3 times by 3 different employees and still no one will cut my fabric." That's all. Said in a friendly, if somewhat ironic way.
The employee looks at me ( in a rather self-satisfied manner imho but I am trying to spare embellishment for the sake of absolute clarity here) and says, "Well, if you won't stand whereyou are TOLD to, we will think you are being helped and we will ignore you." Then she smiles nastily, walks away, and does just that.
Bitch please! Have I mentioned that I also work retail? It is a tough gig. I know. There is no glory, only guts and not always your own. I give tremendous latitude to retail workers because we see some pretty atrocious human behavior on a regular basis. I have been at no time during this visit unkind or, up until my first exchange with the 3rd clerk, verbal at all. Now I am rendered speechless.
I stood there for a few moments just stunned and heart sick that someone felt so small they need to wound a stranger. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. I was immobilized by such a sense of grief.
She wandered back, took my bolt, and said "How much?" Still in a state of disbelief I simply said, "Two yards please." She cut it and I moved quickly to the bank of cashiers. No waiting there. No directions for location changes either.
However, as I tried to pay with my credit card, the cashier kept scrutinizing my signature and then looking up at me with a very puzzled expression (which probably matched my own). Then she said, "I'm going to need to see some ID please." " Going to need to" not "please may I."
O.K. no big deal. It is good to be careful about credit cards. And admittedly, a $9 dollar fabric purchase is probably the perfect crime. So, I hand her my license.
She takes a good long look at it and then, apparently horrified, a good long look at me. She does this not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. THREE DOUBLE TAKES AT ME!!!
O.K. yes, my license picture could be better. I look a bit like a serial killer in the photo and at the time it was snapped I had long hair which was today curled up in two buns on either side of the back of my head. But lets take a moment to return to reality. A $9 dollar charge that has been authorized by the credit issuing bank. A woman wearing a blue linen jumper and birkenstocks (for the love of dog!) with a wallet full of id splayed before you, and your thoughts turn to what? Robbery?
Finally, I snapped.
I said, "Now I remember why I always vow never to shop here again." And she looked at me like I'd asked for the cash in her register. I asked if she need more forms of ID, a DNA sample, or if she and her fellow clerks would like to take a moment to see if they could possibly cook up any other ways to make me feel more uncomfortable. I started to flash on Jack in 5 Easy Pieces (you know the diner scene) and yet I was barely making any noise at all-still in shock.
The cashier just next to us asked if there was any trouble and the clerk said, "No. She doesn't want me to check her ID."
My head exploded.
Then I detailed calmly and concisely (with, I am certain, an embarrassing crimson red face of mortification) my experience of Fabric Creepo's customer service during my 10 minute visit for this newly interested employee.
She apologized multiple times for my "being made to feel uncomfortable" which was nice of her as she was blameless and yet took one for her ridiculously rude team. She gave me a comment form to send in to the company and a card with the address. So, I am grateful for her attempts to be kind when all around her a sea of retail workers seemed hell bent on making me cry.
I love textiles of all sorts. I think I have mentioned that I am a die-hard Mill End girl. They may not offer 35% off sales often, but they are near my hood and have everything I need when I need it. Their staff is made up of fellow artists who are professional, helpful, and kind.
They close shop before I am finished with my work day. This is an O.K. thing. Apparently, assisting fabric store customers is equivalent to hand to hand combat or bomb disposal. I believe stores should keep human hours and workers should have time to be home for dinner. When forced to work past 6PM on Saturdays, they can not be held accountable for their rage.
I can only visit The Mill End on my days off. I will bear that in mind whenever I am jonesing for buttonhole thread, denim, embroidery floss, or in fact, anything textile related. Mill End and Etsy only from here on out.
I promise you Fabric Creepo I will never darken your door again.
Now I'm gonna go have a good cry and maybe tell Johnny all about it.
I make things, read things, write things, want to travel more, am a mother, a daughter, a sister, an auntie, a terrible girlfriend, and a feminist. I am fortunate and grateful.
