Category: Life

Oh, you know, the usual…

Confession

Posted on by Dale

I have a confession. I have egregiously sinned against my resolution not to buy anything. Well, in my defense, it is June, not that I have been perfect since January, far from it, actually, but this purchase today was the kind of egregious purchase I had sworn off.

Actually, the table easel-cum-paint-storage was also of the egregious variety. And all the boards to paint on, which I haven’t done yet because I’ve successfully distracted myself with the 24 hour challenge, those fit into that category as well.

But the downloads of Zoe Keating‘s two albums I will defend against all comers, and those who have heard this sorceress, entheogenically or otherwise, will agree.

Anyway. Today we all went to the Renaissance Festival and you can snicker if you like. The people-watching alone was worth it. Should have worn the Utilikilt for real. There was a booth of handmade journals, and we all know how much a sucker I am for journals. I’m not at all convinced these were handmade by the guy in the booth. He had a workstation all set up, and there was leather strewn about and all the tools of the trade, but I am not such a fool as to believe these were the real deal, especially since I have bought identical journals in other locales.

So, I bought this:

I included my hand in the photo for scale, because my first photo of it gave no sense of how large it is.

And it’s large. It’s a whacking great thing. Its size was part of its allure for me, as was the paper, which seemed less fibrous than the other, slightly less expensive journal I was also drawn to. I like writing in these with my fountain pen(s), but the really fibrous paper just sucks up the ink and bleeds.

I also liked this one because the paper is bound in a single signature rather than the four or five in the other one.

You can imagine what this cost. It’s not something I’m proud of, spending that kind of money on something so completely unnecessary in my life at this point, but something told me to buy it. I have learned not to ignore these somethings.

What will I do with it? I don’t know. I already have a journal in which I recorded all my Marriage of Figaro stuff, and another for the continuing adventures of William Blake’s Inn (which I need to drag out and update). I even had one that I started for generic creative endeavors, which does not include a lot.

Those are all of the handmade variety. I have a couple of commercial ones for other purposes, including one for all my Lacuna Group work and one for my sketches for the Epic Licthenbergian Portrait.

But this one? I don’t really know.

That’s a lie. I know what I want to do with it. I want to write a book called A Perfect Life. I want to document my life in general and in particular. I have a phenomenal life, one that by any standard on this planet is enviable. I am materially comfortable, my environment is great, my family and friends are wonderful, and I am intellectually and creatively alive. That’s what I want to do. Whether I will cast it as a journal, or essay, or fiction, I don’t know.

But I do feel compelled to start telling what it was like to live in this time, in this place.

Hey, if nothing else, it will serve as a distraction to both my music and my art.

Labyrinth, 5/20/09

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After nearly two weeks, the seed for the Irish moss had produced nothing, so I broke down and got more actual plants. These didn’t look exactly like the plants I had already planted. It will be interesting to see whether they blend or not.

I got a whole flat of 10 plants and used five of them in the center of the labyrinth:

I actually split the plants and spread them out in the channels of the vesica. I have five more and may plant them over at the entrance to the gentlemen’s loo.

Labyrinth, 5/19/09

Posted on by Dale

I finished the new look for the southpoint lighting fixture:

It turned out very nice.

I have been nonplussed by how fast the grass grows in the labyrinth. I have to mow it every four days or so:

And it has rained so incessantly that it’s hard to keep up. The current forecast calls for one more day of sun today, then a week and a half of rain!

I also dug up as many daffodil bulbs as I could find yesterday, awfully hard to do through ivy, especially when the leaves have all but died off, and planted the remaining ferns, ghost painted ferns. I neglected to take a photo.

Random musings

Posted on by Dale

Nothing of import to discuss, just lots of little meandering ideas.

Yesterday was my birthday, yes, thank you for all the well wishes, and I received several nice things. Those of you who know my penchant for wooden boxes (and clearly my wife knows it) will understand the thrill I got from this:

It’s a pencil box, not an antique, but a very neat replica of one. Here you can see the inkwell on the left, and the upper “drawer” swung out to the side. The joint between the inkwell and the drawer is not distorted: it actually slants so that the drawer can swing out. When it’s swung in, the lid slides all the way in and holds it all together.

I’m thinking about making it my pen & ink case for all those many times I’m sketching with pen & ink. Well, you know, all those times I’m going to be sketching with pen & ink.

My dear wife also gave me, as a semi-serious gag gift, three little art kits: watercolor, sketching, and oil pastel. Each “artist’s kit” is about 12×14 and opens up to reveal a nice pad of paper, a tray of supplies, and a book by the series author, one Philip Berrill, the “Flying Artist.”

In what is surely a stunning example of the Newnan Vortex™ at work, Mr. Berrill died exactly two weeks ago. It almost makes me feel bad about what I have to say about his kits.

Here’s the cover to the watercolor kit:

This is it, guys. It doesn’t get any better in any of the illustrations in any of his guides. It’s awful. It’s so awful that it doesn’t even make me feel better about myself as an artist. I mean, this guy was famous and apparently rich from the sales of his books and kits. He flew to Dubai to teach ex-pats how to paint. Mercy.

Plus, the pad converts into an adjustable easel. At least there’s that.

I do think that such a kit would have been a godsend to me as a child. The quality of the materials is not the best, but it’s all there in a nifty little book/box, and there are some cheesy examples in the book to copy that wouldn’t strain the abilities of the rankest beginner, and I have to believe that these things will give the gift of art to more than a couple of people who would not have had it otherwise.

In other news, the sequel to Shubian’s Rift has begun shooting. Oh yes.

Did you know I’m in the Internet Movie Database? Oh yes I am. And in Amazon, where I am top billed.

The sequel, the title of which I am yet unaware, will be webcast in three episodes. I will not spoil it for you by revealing the dread secret of Sid Shubian and Tuka D’Nuul. Not to mention Dr. Ploo.

Today a box arrived from Cottage Garden, and it sorely puzzled me. I had not ordered anything, yet it was addressed to me. When I opened it, it was seven little plants, cunningly packed, a gift from Marc and Mary Frances Honea. They’re a little flowering shrub, Cuphea ilavea, and they’re in memory of our little dog Winnie, who passed away last month. This variety is called “Tiny Winnie,” which is why the Honeas gave them to us.

Here’s what they will look like:

For the moment I will plant them in planters, but eventually they’ll go in the planting area beside our “dance floor” patio overlooking the labyrinth.

I have a lot to get done between now and the gathering of the Lichtenbergians by the labyrinth on Saturday, and the amount of rain we’ve been having has not helped. Still, this afternoon I was able to drag some stuff together and start creating a new look for one of the lighting fixtures:

This is on the advice of my trusted shamanic advisor, who said that these lights, situated as they are by the southpoint of the labyrinth, needed metal, preferably copper. You can sort of see what it looks like in this photo. My puny camera cannot capture the glow and interplay of light in the night. You’ll just have to drop by and see it for yourself.

What else do I want to get done before Saturday? I have to finish the new lighting look at the southpoint. I need to plant the remaining ferns (Japanese painted) where the daffodils have finally died down, digging up the bulbs and transferring them, eventually, to the dance patio planting area. I have to clean off my work tables, no easy task. I’d love to get the stone circle made for the westpoint. I have to clean all the votives and replace the candles. I want to trim and sweep the stones. Etc., etc. I wonder how much I’ll get done.

Drag redux

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Those who have been following my drag career will be especially pleased that I once again took home the trophy for the Misster Relay contest at last night’s Relay for Life. Last year I was Lucille Ball (complete with Vitametavegamin). This year, I was Cleopatra. I prowled the track, accompanied by minions and eunuchs: “My minions will pass among you and collect your donations. Or if you prefer, I have a eunuch. He’s the one with the smaller basket.” Which mostly went right over people’s heads.

Stylewise, I had some competition this year. Dale Edwards, chorus teacher at ECMS and fellow baritone in Masterworks, showed up as Madea and very funny he was, too. We took photos to send to Bizarth to let her know what her baritone section was up to on Friday night.

Fun times, and I raised $1700.

updated: photos (more as they arrive)!


Hm.

Posted on by Dale

You may recall that I had ordered Irish moss seed to plant on the vesica piscis in the middle of the labyrinth. They came today.

Here you go. I’ve included the penny for scale.

This is 5,000 Irish moss seeds. Five zero zero zero. It is enough to produce 300 square feet of Irish moss.

Since the vesica piscis is 10 sq. ft. at the most, I can do a lot of planting otherwise.

But mercy, how does one approach these things? They came with a planting guide, but even mixed with fine sand, it’s going to be a nightmare of distribution.

Perhaps I should calculate 300 tablespoons, get that much sand, mix the seed, and then I can just scoop up a number of tablespoons equivalent to the square feet I’m trying to seed. That would make it easier to calculate coverage visually. (My handy-dandy converter widget tells me that’s essentially a gallon of sand.)

Plus, it’s about to rain all week. That means I need to wait. But I wanted it at least to be germinated by the Lichtenbergian gathering on 5/16. That may not happen.

Next week’s rain is a pain in many respects, although it will allow me to work inside without fretting about missing an evening by the labyrinth. I have the orchestral version of “Milky Way” to knock out, and I can always paint.

Labyrinth, 4/29/09

Posted on by Dale

Isn’t that pretty? Ginny gave me the bowl last year, and I’ve been using it as a general basin around the place, but last night I thought I’d try this. It’s a good harbinger of what the center will look like when I make the actual bowl this summer.

Another shot:

Labyrinth, 4/26/09, at the end of the day

Posted on by Dale

What a glorious day! I spent the whole of it at the edge of the laybrinth, soaking up the sun, sketching in my ELP sketchbook, and working on the small improvements listed in the last post.

First of all, the easy changes I made:

Here you can see the planting of the ferns and the new position of the planter/lighting fixture.

And here, without any prologue, is the new vesica piscis of the labyrinth. Just remember, you asked for it:

Imagine this covered with Irish moss.

A different view:

And finally, the long view:

Well, it’s not a mound any more. Whether it’s any less distracting is up to the participant, I suppose.

Labyrinth, 4/26/09

Posted on by Dale

I’m off to a) sketch my brains out, and b) do a little work on the labyrinth.

Some of it’s just easy stuff: planting the ferns over at the little earth dam, and moving the planter lights on the wall from just behind the north point to a more symmetrical position further east. Craig noticed that the other night, that now everything is in place, the very first lighting fixture I put up should be somewhere else. Also, a thank you is in order to Dawn and Terry: I had found a nice little hurricane lamp thing on a stand out at Target, and I thought two would be nice. Target had only one, and the intertubes said Carrollton had one. I emailed Dawn, and they brought it down last Monday. Terry claims it’s his Lichtenbergian Assignment L.08.9; I’m willing to accept that.

But there is one hard thing:

::sigh:: The mound in the conjunction of the paths. The little vesica piscis-like left-over shape. What to do? On Friday night, the general consensus was that I should get rid of it, i.e., flatten it out. As it stands, it kind of dominates the landscape. The whole thing would be prettier if it were flat.

In its defense, I meant for it to be an interruption, a barrier. When you stand at the entrance, it blocks your path to the center (even if the Path were not buried and inaccessible), a Holy Mountain, perhaps? There are reasons to leave it in place and just coax the Irish moss along to cover it quickly. Indeed, part of its problem is that it’s so ugly. I’ll try weeding the grass out first. The bits of pottery were for visual interest, but without heaping mounds of moss, they just look trashy.

At any rate, I won’t get to that until later this afternoon. If you have any interest in saving it, leave a comment. Or come by and throw your body athwart its holy summit.

Of course, if I had stayed with the old geometric style layout, I wouldn’t have this problem. There is still something very strong about this version that appeals to me. Alternate universes are a bitch, aren’t they?

Labyrinth, 4/23/09

Posted on by Dale

This is not so much about the labyrinth as it is a new app I got for the iPhone called Pano. It allows you to create panoramic photos on the spot, to wit:

I like it.

In other news, last night was fabulous out there. I got back from Atlanta around 2:30 and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just sitting and soaking up the considerable ambience. I will probably do the same thing this afternoon and night. I’ll do an update on the landscaping progress I’m making and still hope to make.