Category: Life

Oh, you know, the usual…

3 Old Men: the staff (day 1)

Posted on by Dale

In an alternate universe, I would be nervously packing and repacking for to leave for Burning Man next weekend.  In this one, I’m just now getting started on a couple of items for Alchemy, the north Georgia Burn in October.

Each officiant in 3 Old Men is responsible for creating his own staff.  (Quick recap: the bare-chested officiant wears a long ceremonial skirt of monks cloth and carries an 8-foot staff.)

The staff must be eight feet long with specific markings:

The markings are specific because we use them to lay out the labyrinth.  The center of the labyrinth is an octagon eight feet across, so we lay out four staves in a square.  The 22-1/8” markings are the corners of the octagon, and from there we can stake out the center.  We’ll be laying out the center of each axis, and from the center mark on the staff, the 3′ and 5′ markings give the edges of the path.

Within this framework, though, it is up to each man to create whatever staff he wants to hold.

So with that background, here’s the first installment of the making of my staff.

My base is nothing more than a 2-inch round from Home Depot.  I’m going to be staining it, and so my first step was to build some stands to hold it off the tarp when I do that.

It was great fun dragging out my radial arm saw and my drill press.  As my friend Craig says, having the right tools is a joy forever.  Of course, he has this sizable quonset hut on his property with a real shop, so his joy is even greater than mine.

Still, it took no time at all to cut up a 1×6 into pieces, drill a 3-inch hole in some of them, split them, and then nail them to the bases.  I ended up with eight of them, so we could actually gussy them up a bit to serve as actual ceremonial pieces to hold our staves.

In action:

You can see the markings on my staff.  Close up:

I went out to Craig’s nifty workshop, and he rabbeted out those grooves for me.  I shan’t explain them.  I think I’m just going to show you each step of the process and let the staff grow for you as I work on it.
I sanded the staff, and thus endeth Day 1 of the making of the staff.

A new drink

Posted on by Dale

I have a spiral bound recipe journal, one of those cutesie retro things. The only thing in it is cocktail recipes, a mix of favorites and my own concoctions.  Go figure.

One of the earlier entries is a drink called the Burnt Orange.  I forget where I found it.

Burnt Orange

8 pt. vodka
1 pt. bourbon
1 pt. triple sec

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass.

I’ve made it with varying proportions depending on my mood.

The other night, I had all this fresh lemon juice that I had squeezed and, not wanting it to go to waste—naturally—I explored cocktails using lemon juice.  There was one, kind of a sidecar, but it was overwhelmingly citrusy.  My lovely first wife suggested adding a little bourbon, which I did, and it worked.  It reminded me of the Burnt Orange, so here is the Burnt Lemon:

Burnt Lemon

5 pt. cognac
3 pt. Cointreau
2 pt. lemon juice
1 pt. bourbon

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass.

It’s still pretty tart, but the bourbon mellows it out quite some.

There’s also a drink I worked on earlier in the week, but I will have to report back later after I’ve had time to make another one and get some taste tests around here.

The man with the pearl earring

Posted on by Dale

A couple of years ago I decided that what I would give myself for my 60th birthday was a baroque pearl earring. Something to do with Shakespeare, maybe, although he wore a simple gold hoop.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Ray DuBose (of R. DuBose Jewelers here in downtown Newnan) in scouring the world for a suitable pearl—I rejected about eight before we found one that matched my mental image—I have been successful.

Here is my latest folie:

I’ll post another one after I get a haircut and Ray finishes adjusting the setting—but I was too excited not to share.

The firepit

Posted on by Dale

Well, that turned out nice:

There are a couple of interstices that I have to plug—naturally, chair legs ended up going right where the stone ends—but otherwise it’s done.

When such things come back on the market, I want to plant creeping thyme or some such in the joints.

Have I said recently how much I love my back yard?  All of this—the labyrinth, the fire pit, the stone walls, the compass point sculptures, the patio, the hammock, the work tables—has come about since September 1, 2008.  Before, it was just weeds and scrub grass.  (The Child was not an outdoors kind of kid, at least not at 24 College St.) Then, for some reason, I decided to build the labyrinth.  It really was a Close Encounters kind of moment.  All the rest has followed from that.

I’ve learned some things—or at least had them confirmed—through my experience in transforming that space.  Grand plans can be awfully fun, but slow organic growth is usually a better way to go.  Nothing is permanent: if something doesn’t work, change it. Rip it out. Discard it.  Improve it.  Whatever it is, it will grow back.  Unless it doesn’t.  Make the space conform to your needs, not to some Platonic ideal of what the space “should” look like.  Be alert to what is missing and fill the gap with meaning.

At this point, there’s only one more major project to achieve, and that’s replacing the old bamboo fencing with something more permanent—and taller, for privacy issues.  (For kicks, click on that link—the difference in the firepit area is wonderful!)  Ideas for said fencing are already bubbling up in my head…

Fireside additions

Posted on by Dale

I think it’s absolutely insane to compose in the morning and then get out to work in the labyrinth after lunch when the day is at its hottest.  Don’t know why I do it.

At any rate, I’ve been slogging away at putting down flagstone around the fire pit.  I’m about 80% finished:

It’s going to be a nice touch.  Going barefoot won’t meant stepping on unexpected gravel any more, if by “barefoot” you mean “with no clothes on” and OF COURSE I DON’T MEAN THAT WHY WOULD YOU SAY SUCH A THING EVEN?

Those who visit on a regular basis will be relieved to see that I am leveling out the area on the right, where it’s still a pile of dirt.  No more feeling as if you’re falling over backwards.  Well, not from the horizontality of the chair, anyway.

It looks as if it’s going to be one more trip to the flagstone store, and then I will be done with that project.

Still struggling with the orchestration of Ariadne’s big outburst. It’s getting better. I’ve added a snare drum, a tam-tam, and the xylophone to the big moment.  Probably too much, but I’m going to let it sit there and annoy me for a while.  I keep avoiding brass for the simple reason that we’ve just heard the brass underscore Icarus’s big moment, and I hesitate to repeat the motif.

In general, I feel as if I really need to start exploring percussion more—it is a 21st century opera, after all.  I can kind of hear all kinds of wild rhythms on the quad toms, but I have no idea how to do that.  (Spoiler: just start slapping notes up there, idiot, just like you do with everything else…)

Random thoughts while walking

Posted on by Dale

On my morning doctor-mandated walks, I cover basically the same path every day.  Almost every morning I listen to whatever I’ve accomplished vis-à-vis Seven Dreams; it’s the only way I can smooth out all the rough edges.

But I also find myself returning to the same ideas about my surroundings, mostly ideas about how others can improve my surroundings.  Here are some of them.

This is in the park down at the end of College Street.  For one thing, there’s this line of shrubbery stretching right across one of the only level areas in the park.  I would hate to think this was a deliberate design to keep people from picnicking and playing chase there.

The more immediate problem, obviously, is that no one in Parks & Rec has maintained these shrubberies.  Sure, they’ve come in every spring—too late for pruning—and reshaped them, but slowly and surely those shrubberies are eating the sidewalk whole.  My vote is to rip them all out and make it all lawn.

This is at the back end of the erstwhile Scott’s Bookstore.  I’ve lived here for more than 50 years and I don’t know that I’ve ever really noticed that little garage building.  I’m almost positive I’ve never seen it open.  What is it??  Can we tear it down and install a little garden cafe in the alley?

Here’s a thought I’ve had for years:

This is the AT&T complex, which stretches nearly the entire block between Jackson Street and First Avenue.  I was always told that it had been city property and AT&T snagged it through some kind of deal, which would have been before my time.  Outside the frame of the photo, City Hall is to the left, and you can just see the C Building of the theatre peeking up in the distance.  Goodyear fronts the property on Jackson Street.

So I’m thinking, what would it take to convince AT&T to move out of downtown and reclaim that property?  They’ve got to be hurting for space, and the facility has got to be so outdated as to be held together with duct tape and twist ties.  Surely they’re ready to move.  Perhaps they could build on the old EMC building site at the Bypass.

Best use would be of course a new building for the theatre, but I could also see another park there. Or how about a facility for all the nonprofits in town?  Meeting spaces, storage, etc.  It would be best if we could convince Goodyear to  move as well so we could have the whole block front to back.

See?  I’m just full of helpful ideas like this.  I need to start charging consultant fees.

Body paint

Posted on by Dale

Those of you who have been reading along can skip this post.  This is for those who, like me, were looking for a cheap white body paint they could make at home for whatever reason.  I’ve tagged the post so that perhaps it will show up in searches.

Brief history: I and my compadres in the 3 Old Men ritual troupe needed a cheap white body paint.  There is no such thing as cheap commercial body paint, and so I had hoped that the intertubes would provide me with a recipe to make it myself.

Alas, all internet recipes I found were completely ineffective.  They were based on cold cream, which would have been problematic in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert anyway, but worse, they weren’t actually white.  I regard the accompanying photos of happy, whitefaced children as fraudulent.

Luckily, here in Georgia we mine kaolin, a white clay used for various industrial purposes such as making paper white and shiny and for Kaopectate.

Knowing that some people eat it for whatever reason—you can go do that research yourself if you like—I figured it would be available somewhere around here.  I asked the Facebook and got more than a couple of kaolin resources, the best of which is a nearby grocery store, where it sits in the produce section:

You thought I was kidding, didn’t you?  Yes, the price is $1.49 for about a pound of kaolin.

So here are the instructions to make an incredibly cheap white body paint based on my experimentation.

Dump your kaolin into a bowl and add 1-1/2 to 2 cups of water to it.

Just let it sit for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.  You will want to use a little larger bowl than I have here, and my advice is do this outside.  It can get very messy very quickly, and as you will discover, a little bit of this stuff can go a very long way.

Add water if necessary:

It should be the consistency of sour cream.

Buy yourself a bowl large enough to hold your final mixture; a strainer that will hook over the bowl; and a spatula, one that is completely flat on its face (unlike mine).  It is possible to use your household utensils, but if you’re going to be making a lot you will want dedicated equipment so that you don’t have to completely clean the kaolin off of every nook and cranny.

Scoop the goop into the strainer, and force it through with the spatula.  The finer mesh your strainer had, the finer your body paint will be.

As you moosh it through, you may need to add water for any clumpy bits.  Also, of course, it doesn’t fall straight into the bowl.  A lot of it will cling to the other side of the strainer, so be prepared to scrape the bottom:

Finally, you will have a bowl of white, yummy kaolin.  Stir, add water, etc.

I was smart to buy a stainless steel bowl with a rubberized bottom, but I wish it had come with a lid.  You will want to keep it covered to keep it wet, although if it dries, it’s not difficult to reconstitute it.

How well does it cover?  Here’s about a teaspoon smeared on my arm, still wet:

And here it is dry:

Used in a fairly liquid state, it dries smooth and does not come off.  If you don’t use as much water, it may cake and crack—that’s a definite look as well.

It’s comfortable on the skin, and best of all it just rinses right off.  Pretty much perfect: cheap kaolin, water, comfortable, and removable.

Unanswered questions: how much does it take?  I started with a pound of the stuff, and I covered my entire body with maybe a fifth of it.  However, that was the first formulation, which was thicker and cakier, so it ought to go even further if you use a runnier consistency on fewer body parts.

Also, I don’t know whether this could be tinted or not.  I’m sure you could use food coloring, but you would risk dyeing your skin.  Perhaps sidewalk chalk or tempera paint?  I may or may not play with that; we just needed white.

Could you add cold cream to it?  I don’t see why not, but why go greasy when it’s perfectly comfortable the way it is?

Finally, there are online sources for kaolin, but it’s not cheap like that.  My advice would be to start checking around convenience stores and groceries that cater to the African-American community; it is mostly older black ladies who eat “white dirt.”

Bottom line: you can spend $12.95 for 4 oz. of body paint, or you can spend $3.00 for a pint.  You’re welcome, internet.

Some feels

Posted on by Dale

So these:

::sigh::

Quick recap for those just joining us: to celebrate turning 60 this year, a friend and I decided we would go to Burning Man.  You can read all about it if you like.  Against all odds, I snagged two tickets and vehicle passes, and then Craig ended up not being able to go.  Since the trip was going to be a buddy movie, I decided to postpone the experience until 2015.

Fortunately, there’s no such thing as being “stuck” with Burning Man tickets.  I already have sold them to a friend of a GA Burner acquaintance.  But I had to open the package yesterday and at least take them out and hold them once.

::sigh::

(This is not as sad as it might sound, since we’re heading off to Alchemy Burn in October as a simpler intro to the Burning Man world.)

And then today is the first anniversary of losing my job with GHP.  I’ve done a lot of grieving in this one year—and I suspect I’m not done—but I am grateful to all of my friends who have grieved with me and supported me with their kind thoughts through the entire cycle of this year’s program (which just ended last Saturday).  Thank you all, and thank you, GHP, for all the wonderful years—this would have been my 30th year.  I am who I am today because of GHP, from attending as a student in 1970, to starting there as an instructor in 1984, becoming assistant director in 1997, and finally becoming the director in 2011.  It was a good run.

Random thoughts

Posted on by Dale

This little poster has been showing up on Facebook:

::sigh::

Here’s my issue with this: it exemplifies the execrable egocentrism of many religious folk in our society.  As my favorite liberal evangelical blogger Slacktivist would say, it’s a moral trap to want to believe that your virtue is enhanced and sustained by the unvirtue of others.

These believers look at this poster and identify with Noah and his family—”Yes, Lord, you are mighty we just bless your name for all your mercies to me etc etc etc”—without ever thinking that God also brought all the other people in this painting “to it.”  What other people, you ask?  The people under that water.  Those people.  The doomed, the drowned.

Ah, but those were bad people, wicked people, says the believer of this poster.  And that’s the moral trap.  Whatever the values of the cautionary tale of the Bible, our believers transfer that to their relationship to actual people here and now.  Those people are bad, not like me.  God will bring me through “it,” because I am Godly.  Those others?  They deserve to be under the black, cold sea.

So this morning, as I was doing my doctor-mandated walk and listening to Dream One… again… I lost interest in the music qua music and began thinking about staging, specifically the opening scene.

When I got home, here are the stage directions I typed into the libretto:

Icarus is in the sky again. The Event is on. Observers (CHORUS) attend the moment in amazement and delight.

[In the rear, projected sky.  Two vomitoria flank the central playing area.
Large overhead screens flicker to life: corporate sponsor logos, Icarus 2014 splashscreens, on-location reporters, tweets, selfies, etc.
Beneath, we hear control room sounds, commercials, reporters, etc.]

CHORUS I
[emerging from the SR vomitorium]
[Among them are a handful of Old Believers, who still worship in the old ways.  Their dress may be a bit more ceremonial, and they would not be carrying electronic devices, which the rest of the CHORUS most certainly are.]

I think that would be one kick-ass opening.  The idea of Old Believers would not be central to the plot, but I think it would reinforce the idea that the Event is actually an ancient ritual, one that became laden with meaning for some and that has now achieved the status of religion, while for the majority of us it’s just another entertainment.  Think Christmas.  Or Independence Day.  (I also am amused by the idea of not explaining these people or even referring to them; they’re just there.)

I suppose I should get back to orchestrating “I am alone”…

Reality television show #2

Posted on by Dale

The other day we were retrieving an old family recipe from one of those old church cookbooks that proliferate in one’s cabinet like so many cockroaches, and we made the mistake of actually flipping through the thing.

Oh my.

You have never seen such a collection of canned foods, American cheese, Italian seasoning, and A-1 Sauce in your life.  Most of the items were absolutely repellent—we could not imagine anyone preparing, serving, or eating any of them.  (“Coney Island Quickie,” anyone?  It’s split wieners with cheese covered with cans of something…)

We had a kind of socioarchaeological discussion about the artifact, reconstructing the why of these recipes.  The easy answer is that it was the 1970s.  These were our mothers, and these recipes were by and for women like them: cooking for a large family without a lot of time or money to do so.  Throwing cans of stuff into a casserole dish and heating it for 20 minutes at 375° was the way it was done.

As for the ingredients—canned everything, you guys—it helps to remember that there were not a lot of options.  Kroger didn’t carry kale and leeks and sea bass and tilapia and cilantro.  Julia Child was just beginning to have an impact on American kitchens, while Madison Avenue was very solicitous in providing time-saving and delicious recipes on nearly every page of every magazine.  It was a completely different world.

So our reality TV show is called Mimeograph Kitchen, and it will feature besides its host three couples: 1) someone our parents’ age, 70-80, i.e., the generation that produced these things; 2) someone our age, 50-60, the generation that grew up eating this stuff; 3) someone our kids’ age, 20-30, who have never known what it’s like not to have fresh salmon with dill cream sauce and a side of roasted broccoli.  The recipe is presented and discussed by all three couples (reminiscences, reactions, etc.) , and a sample is provided for a tasting.

Then, each couple updates the recipe so that it is more in line with the 21st century and brings the results back to the table for everyone’s comments.  (It’s not a high pressure competition show; they just go do their thing and then come back.)

It’s got nostalgia—along with the implied “good god can you believe people used to cook like this?”—intergenerational mocking, and creative cooking.  You could take the show on the road, doing a repeat in varying communities across the country.  Or you could just sit in Newnan and have nine seasons of the show in the can in no time.

—————

In other news, it came as a shock to me this morning that I haven’t blogged in a couple of days.  Must have been busy.  Or lazy.  But I am orchestrating “I am alone,” so I’ll have a report on that soon enough—and the materials for the 3 Old Men labyrinth were delivered yesterday, so that will be a fun report as well.