Category Archives: true life 2006

hooray for samer

Alas, I’ll be missing the opening at the Warehouse tonight, but I’ve had this in my drafts file since January 30th so now seems like a good time to post it: dcist exposed. One of my oldest and dearest, the excellent Samer Farha, has a great photograph in the show. Someone already snapped it up, but I’m nagging him to show at artomatic so the rest of the world has a chance to collect his great work. Tim Tate’s opening is tonight at the Fraser Gallery and tonight is also an interesting sounding Hirshhorn After Hours. When it rains, it pours. I put them all in my calender, but I’m too tired to attend any of them. Someone will have to report back to me.

We're on a quest for fun

You have your family rituals, we have ours. Ours include watching the first three Vacation movies because, let’s be frank, we are the Griswolds. It’s the primary reason we no longer travel in a pack.

I’d forgotten until we reached the apex of the series, Christmas Vacation, that it’s a squirrel that ultimately destroys the house. Oh how appropriate, since, in other news, I’m being stalked by a squirrel.

It was shockingly easy (for trained professionals) to solve our attic squirrel issues. In a few short minutes the hole was repaired, the nest was removed, and the squirrels had been evicted. Sadly, we didn’t have the squirrels trapped and relocated and now one of the squirrels is stalking me.

She climbs around the exterior of the house, going from window to window, staring in at me. Rationally, I know it’s just a fluke of squirrel physiology, but I swear sometimes it looks like she’s giving me the finger. I figured she’d lose interest, but it’s been 13 days now and she won’t leave me alone. It’s seriously creepy.

I suggested to Husband that this might be like the ending of a horror movie, and in the sequel we’re going to discover that we didn’t get the real nest and that she’s laid eggs somewhere else in the house. Husband pointed out that squirrels don’t lay eggs. Husband may well suffer from a lack of imagination, but we all know it’s pronouncements like “squirrels don’t lay eggs” that are the prelude to your crappier horror sequels, so when you never hear from us again, you’ll know what got us.

war on christmas (shopping)

I hate shopping during the run-up to Christmas so very much. And it seems to start now on Halloween, but it doesn’t get truly horrific until The Friday.

I will go to great lengths to avoid stores, especially Target, between Thanksgiving and the new year. That means making a pre-thanksgiving toiletries strike on Target. This year’s mission actually needed some sort of codename, for it was a military operation that would have made my brother proud. Or, horrified and embarrassed and praying that he’s adopted and not genetically related to me in any way. One or the other. Possibly both.

I had Operational Command of the mission. Husband drove the Armored Personnel (products) Carrier.

I shouldn’t even admit to how fastidiously I planned the whole venture, and I almost dumped the draft of this post (which has been languishing since, oh, the week before Thanksgiving). But, it seemed wrong to post my rambling dissertation of the film Bloodrayne right after a post about World Aids Day, so I’m going to fess up to the lengths I’ll go to avoid the holiday crowds at Target instead.

It’s either this, or telling you about the squirrel invasion in our attic. There are squirrels, and possibly an elk up there. The noise is absurd. It’s like some sort of divine punishment for all of those posts about squirrels. It’s best not to dwell on the wildlife situation until we get it resolved, or my head might actually explode. (And yes, we put ammonia up there. I think the bastards are using it to make cocktails or something).

So back to the shopping excursion…

I checked the inventory of personal care products in our closet and made lists. And then I redrew them as what amounted to an image map, to correlate with the actual product locations in the store. It’s bizarre. It’s obsessive. It leads to alleged grown-ups such as Husband and myself having conversations that include phrases like, “Did you assess the mouthwash situation?” and “The strategic stockpile of cotton facial cleansing pads will hold through February.” Because “Do we need mouthwash?” just doesn’t sound prepared enough, I guess.

It’s probably more work than it should be, and I could just order stuff online or pay the exorbitant prices at the local drugstores, but that’s just silly. On the other hand, hopefully won’t have to venture into Target for routine shopping again until January. And if we run out of something, well, I have the keys to most of the neighbor’s houses, so I don’t foresee any dire emergencies.

And to me, all of the planning was totally worth it. I’m telling you, there are few things I can tolerate less than crazed holiday shoppers. Venture out amongst insane frenzied consumerist cattle all hopped up on seasonal lattes from Starbucks and looking to rumble over the new Elmo? On purpose? No. No, thank you.

Not to mention that there’s something about The Holiday Season that seems to make them all wear too much perfume. Add that to all of the Seasonal Stinkiness in the stores and it all adds up to crankiness and a headache. (Sidenote: who is the maniac who decided that is what Christmas smells like? Go to the Seasonal aisle where all of the candles and potpouri is displayed and take a big whiff. What is that supposed to be? Since when does Christmas smell like the back of a yellow cab?)

The perfume and bad smells headache just leads to more crankiness. It’s not pretty, let’s just leave it at that.

*Dear neighbors: I am soooo only kidding. Pretty much.

World AIDS day

This year I have nothing profound to say about World AIDS Day, other than that it’s profoundly sad that we continue to need to have a World AIDS Day.

I was, nevertheless, going to have a wack at it, because, well, it seemed like the thing to do. But because everything is connected to everything else, I immediately got distracted, although you’ll have to admit that this isn’t actually a tangent at all. One of the first links that popped up when I surfing about trying to decide what to post was Vanderbilt University’s calender of events. A lovely school, but several states away so it didn’t seem relevant. I clicked on it anyway. Halfway down the page this exhibit announcement caught my eye:

Instruments of Healing, Glass Art by Tim Tate All Day
Open to the Public
Vanderbilt University Hospital Mezzanine Gallery
Tim Tate, nationally known artist has a small and stunning display of glass art in the Vanderbilt University Hospital. Tate uses images of hearts, hands and figures in his fused glass sculptures to create personal and symbolic narratives of healing and hope. In the 1980’s Tate was diagnosed with HIV and it was then he made the conscious decision to use his craft as to give voice to his emotions regarding his illness. Some works of healing imagery are embedded and fused in colored glass of opaque tones and encased in steel. Others works are stand alone icons of hearts with fire shooting out of the top from his Flaming Hearts Series. Tim Tate is the founder and director of the Washington Glass School, which is located in the Washington D. C. His glass sculptures can be found in are in the collections of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, The National Institutes of Health, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Recently Tate was included in the book, 50 Distinguished Contemporary Artists in Glass. Tim Tate’s art will be on display in the mezzanine gallery in the main lobby of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Hospital and free to the public. The show will be exhibited until December 31, 2006. For more information, please call the office of Cultural Enrichment at 615-936-1234.

They don’t have any pictures of the show posted. Here are some images of Tim’s work from his Washington Glass School Website. Three dimensional glass sculptures lose much in the image-capturing process (although these are very nice images), but I hope that the pictures and that little bio up there encourage you to check out Tim’s work or catch one of his talks.

I’m a bit (a lot) biased, I must admit, since we are friends and Husband and I also have two of Tim’s reliquary pieces in our collection. But even if I’d never set foot in a room with him, I’d find his statements on art and healing and his imagery and motifs every bit as compelling.

Really.

I swear!

I noticed that google started out the day linking the Red campaign as the World AIDS day link on the main page, but this afternoon the link changed to a general google search for the phrase world AIDS day.” I wonder if that was planned, or if there was some discussion behind it. It’s also possible that rather than an anti-consumerist backlash, it was changed because the Project Red website couldn’t handle the traffic. I could surf around and try to find out, but aimless conjecture is an acceptable form of “journalism” in the blogosphere, so there you have it.

I honestly haven’t read much about the Red campaign (beyond the PR and the hype). It seems solid and focused. Perhaps they can avoid the diffussion and compassion fatigue that the proliferation of pink products that allege to support breast cancer seems to be causing. Nothing wrong with products for a cause, but without oversight, how can you know if your money is well spent, or if you should have just given the money right to a charity. It’s consumerism for a cause, but if it’s all endorsed by the cause, it’s (hopefully) honest and accountable. The Global Fund, which the Red campaign supports appears to be a pretty amazing thing, so at least on the surface it all seems quite brilliant.

It strikes me, in retrospect, as beyond silly to bother to link to the google home page. As if I think you have no other way to ever find your way to google. Why do that? I can’t tell you, beyond “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

*everybody sing* Martha loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so

Husband tells me this isn’t in the Bible. I tell Husband he clearly has the wrong translation. If he doesn’t want to sing along, well, that’s just his problem.

Martha loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Excellent recipes to her belong
We are weak, but she is strong.
Yes, Martha loves me.
Yes, Martha loves me.

I do have a small problem, though. It’s hasn’t been as easy as just accepting Martha in my heart as The One True Savior Who Shall Lead Us Out of Darkness Along the Path of Righteousness. I need to acquire something. Specifically, a baby. I need a baby. By tomorrow. You see, tomorrow they’re re-running the episode where one of Martha’s guests is this fantastically insane woman Isabelle Ortley, who makes costumes for babies. Turkey costumes. And lobsters costumes. Even an apple pie costume.

Image: Isabelle Ortley's turkey-baby costume, as seen in MakeZine.

Image: Isabelle Ortley’s turkey-baby costume, as seen in MakeZine.

These aren’t your standard onesie zip-up type baby costumes that your little pooper rolls around the floor in while everyone oohs and ahhs and snaps photos. These bad boys are on platters. With garnishes. You can put them in the middle of your dining room table as a centerpiece, we’re told!

Really.

Video: Martha Stewart Show – Adorable Infant Food Costumes, Part 1.

Is this a great country or what?

Seriously. Here’s the Baby as Roast Turkey pattern so you can make your own at home. Oh, awesome, here’s the website with pictures of all of the other costumes, too. [2011 update: dead links]

Maybe instead of finding a baby and making a costume, I’ll just tivo the episode instead and periodically marvel at it’s nuttiness. That’s a whole lot easier.

What led me out of the wilderness and enabled me to find The One True Religion? One word: contrariness. There’s no sport in hating Martha, so you might as well get a bottle of Old Crow and learn to love her.

I was going to say more but I got distracted reading this EW.com interview with Joss Whedon about the upcoming Buffy season 8 comic books and totally lost my train of thought.

Update: Here’s a youtube clip of the Martha episode in question, in case the other link doesn’t work for you:

Here’s a 2011 post at MakeZine about Isabelle Ortley’s baby costuming: Baby Food: The Halloween Genius. I’ve posted the photo from the article, which appears to be one of the original publicity shots Ortley was using in 2006, in case these links also disappear in the future.