Re-posted from Karen, who I cannot thank enough for reminding me of these kids:
The PS22 Chorus has turned in many amazing performances, but my favorite may be this one, from their very first rehearsal of a song I love, Björk’s “Jóga.”
Author: foxtongue
One of the Family has fallen on tough times and sincerely needs our support!
Hey everyone, Ink Tea’s in trouble!
Friend-family Cole, who I love very much, has been having a damned hard time surfing the warm industry this year. In spite of desperately trying to find income, job hunting like mad, and generally being as responsible as a human can, she’s reached the point where she has no more unemployment benefits, no job, and very little in the kitchen, an untenable situation, one she’s helped me rise from in the past.
I am an Arts Administrator, photographer, and writer, based in Minneapolis, (or, alternatively, in Starving Artist land), trying very hard to get work. I have been unemployed for over a year now, in spite of lots of office skills, lots of experience, and lots of mailed resumes. I was one of the two Best New Spoken Word Artists of 2009 in Minnesota’s Urban Griots Spoken Word Awards and represented Minneapolis at the 2009 Women of the World poetry slam in Detroit. I also teach poetry to immigrant children.
I will print photos from my flickr account at your discretion, do headshots and portraits, write poems for you, make mixed tapes for you, scrub your kitchen floor, or make you a delicious vegan dinner, if you can help me pay my rent and student loans off.
Here is her Etsy, where my favourite is her Sponsor a Roll of Film program. If you’re feeling more direct, her Paypal address is inktea at gmail.com. Please help if you can!
bring out your dead
This video features Machine With Wishbone, a kinetic sculpture created by American artist Arthur Ganson. (His TED Talk).
my kingdom for a needle and white thread
Elena the Seer, the first update in Brides Of Dracula,
a Secret Knots countdown to Halloween series.
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I was pulled into a conversation recently regarding first impressions, social interaction and all manner of related sundry, and it came out that I was being asked for basic rules of conduct. Oddly, I had some. Here’s what spilled:
Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal. Never agree to be in a relationship kept secret. Never stay for love alone or if the other is in it purely for sport. It might not feel like it, but there are six billion people on this planet and you are compatible with a fair chunk of them, so don’t lose hope if it doesn’t work out. Fib if you must, on the level of secret surprise birthday parties or spending the morning in bed with your lover but telling your boss you’re sick, but nothing more important should ever be anything but truth. In games, in relationships, any time you are responsible for someone else, you had better damned well be responsible for them, and make sure you take care of them as well or better as you care for yourself. Campground rules, ever and always, making sure everyone is better when you leave them then when you found them, always and ever, amen.
There was some other blather, (if you’re showing yourself as other than you are to make a good first impression, then don’t expect people to stick around later when you reveal yourself to be other than you presented, not to worry so much about comparing yourself to other people, because that’s precisely what those other people are doing too), all basics, but new to my friend, which got me thinking again about what other people take for granted that I don’t know yet.
It was years before I discovered the best way to brush my hair is in the shower with conditioner, but as soon as I had the revelation, and explained it, it seemed it was an accidental secret, everyone else just assumed I knew.
So, in the interest of education, amusement, and conversation, what’re yours?
Unbelievable, horrific behaviour. Washington state residents, go and vote Yes for human rights!
via Ellen Datlow:
A court case brought against Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida for denying a dying woman’s same sex partner and their children access to her in the hospital has found for the hospital.
Nicola Griffith urges us all to do something so that this outrage won’t happen again, in her post Trembling with Rage.
finally they get a Trudeau. time to move to the states
aw, my costume arrived and it does not fit, not even a little bit
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I was finding over the weekend that my reflexology socks have begun falling down. Not to the point of continual adjustment, but enough that I decided it’s time to invest in another quaint pair of sock garters, (my last ones having gone to the great fuzzy sock drawer in the sky several years ago). Foolishly, I decided my best course of action would be to hit up SockDreams, the most thorough stockings site on the planet. Did I get in and get out, immediately leaving with what I went in for? No, frankly, I did not. High caliber words like angora, silk, lace, chenille, and shimmer, small fantasies, such words, every one, dismantled my conviction and made me stay.
Charcoal, dirty olive, raspberry and trembling dark plum…
I barely escaped alive.
Every category silently tore at me, promising comfort, confidence, femininity, warmth, cleverness, flirtatiousness or sex, laying out possibilities like tarot cards, a future with the top of my naked thigh slyly being touched under a table, a moment of enjoying someone watch me as I slowly roll them on, or perhaps only random conversation at some unknown bus-stop, “I’ve always liked teal.”, meeting, then, my future best friend. Tabs were being opened, spreading across the screen like bleeding, unrestricted stanzas of flashy curiosity equaling, I’m certain, a similarly outrageous price-tag. I had to take action. Judiciously picking my way through the impossible, I first discarded the duplicates and most banal, anything that could be bought later, that never goes out of stock, then shaving at the edges more carefully, manipulating facts, rationalizing bits and pieces away until I was left with only the most unique, red in tooth and talon, and fun.
In the end, however, I couldn’t manage to cut it down past a final batch of twelve. Some colourful tights for the upcoming winter, a pair of expensive, breathy thigh highs, some knee highs, a set of microfiber arm warmers, a pair of slate gray socks printed with birds on a wire, and a pair of criss-cross button fingerless gloves. I think, though I’m not precisely sure, they should arrive at my home in Seattle tomorrow.
So, as it’s about to be a bit more imperative: Anywhere know an equally good place to get skirts?
purveyor of the prettah
Bethalynne, lucky partner to my clever internet cousin Myke, has updated her website, “All freshened up pretty for Halloween” with a new collection of artwork. Go check it out! Not only is she brave and beautiful, she’s wicked talented too:
Bonus! Her chock-a-block full of wonder Etsy shop where you can admire her art then take it home. Unbelievable, right? Right. Go get some here: Etta Diem
the magic of modern tracking technology tells me my costume is currently in des moines
One of the many, (you’d think unexpected), things we accomplished during Sunday’s epic bed-sit stay in was to finally nail down what we’re going as for Hallowe’en. After hours of hare brained ideas and methodically poring through costume sites, we finally decided that Tony will go as a blindfolded knife-thrower with terrible aim and I’ll be his lovely knife studded assistant! Tah-dah! Fun without slut, a pinch of the circus, (which, if we had a Thing, would likely be our Thing), and due to last year’s costume mix-up, I’ve already got the boots.
an animated description of (mr) maps
Trimpin : What an odd, lovely minded, delightful man. What odd, lovely minded, delightful art! I spoke with him after the film, and I’m going to see what I can do about making him an on-line calendar, so people will know where and when to find his installations and shows.
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We wandered in and out of our weekend, sidling up to previously made plans and usually walking away again, tied only to our smiles, our warm hands bound together better than our hours. Saturday was a day of birthdays, getting up slowly, swimming from bed as if from water, heavy limbed and discarding the charted day we’d made, instead filling it with a late breakfast at Havana’s and a wander down the Drive, searching out the perfect present for my found brother Michael. Indonesia, Bali, black wood and red glass, three hollow faces in a candle-light row, placid, eyes sweetly closed, a puddle of calm light for a time lately troubled. Downtown, then, our treasure tucked in a bag, downtown to Davie and Denman, the purpose seawall and ice-cream, something like a date, something like something we should have done years ago, arm in arm, sharing sugar on a park bench as the sun set into the ocean, orange and sparkle and gold.
Chasing the day with dinner, the present fit as right as expected, a train pour of alcohol down the table, familiar faces, names, periphery friends, lost family, personal history, remembering suddenly I had met Sara on the dance-floor we counted out New Year’s Eve together the same night I saved a life, the first good holiday midnight I’d ever had, as if the memories were only visible under blacklight or her pretty eyes. When the crowd split off for sushi, we dawdled behind over dessert, then walked out on our own, peeling away the city into paths, transit, and routes.
Frank‘s place was crowded, the floor a plane of pillows, inflated mattresses and grinning people lit by the flourish and improbable end of Buckaroo Bonzai. (A great attack of hello from Sam, a surprised, pleased greeting from Daniel.) Shedding our clothes in the storage closet felt like shedding skin, as we borrowed pyjamas to snuggle the night, clothing I haven’t worn since I was a child, and my body, strangely, just as small inside the loaned plaid flannel as it was wearing adult clothing then. Tony preferred the Strawberry Shortcake pants, he was welcome to them. In the velvety dim light of the party, he could have been handsome in almost anything. Finding a vacant beanbag, we settled in for Hooped, then Zombie Strippers, a movie that maybe should never have been made, except that parts of it were so much fun. After that we shifted to a mattress with Claire for Amazon Women On The Moon, then tried to sleep through most of Hell Comes To Frogtown, instead waking horribly to all the shooting and shouty bitz, which involved such complex philosophy as “why does that mutated(?) frog king have three snake penises, anyway?”
Shakes The Clown was next, which I wish I’d seen more of, then apparently Night Of The Creeps, which I completely missed, followed by Airplane!, which was kind enough to wake me for the lovely opening red zone white zone argument, but not keep me that way. Dawn arrived like a ghost, sliding between the cracks of the party, prying the new day out of the cracks of our long, cheerful night. I don’t know when people left, but there were only a few of us by the time morning and breakfast arrived, a small heaven of perfect waffles, strawberries with maple syrup, and bacon.
That day, once we walked home, with matching clouds of impossible hair, we stayed in all day, in bed, until it was Monday.