Initials BB

2012-02-12T22:47:00.005-07:00

Babe magnet.

2012-02-10T18:28:00.006-07:00

I went exploring in the gardens around Tovrea Castle today, viewing the propagation beds where baby cacti are born, and a dump site of indeterminate (to me) age where I found an interesting button, which I took home. The first rule of historic sites is that you don't remove things from historic sites, but shit, I'll put it back. When I'm done with it. The dump sites mostly consist of old metal cans, broken glass and, ironically, pottery shards.

Saguaros generally don't like living very close to each other. In the garden, they can be up to twice as close as the ones above. In spite of this, many of the original saguaros have survived from the late 1920s, making the gardens a curious example of a semi-successful bad move.

This thing was originally built in 1928 or 29 as living quarters for the man who built the castle. It's been unoccupied for...a while. Probably 1968.

Scraps of some highly questionable wallpaper. This is the first time I had no desire to enter an abandoned, derelict building.

oh and

2012-02-08T23:32:00.002-07:00

Peter Murphy

2012-02-08T22:45:00.009-07:00

This photo was on my...folder...in high school. stfu.

Time to go to the Nile?

2012-02-08T19:19:00.006-07:00

Little did I know that my childhood past time of making cards and pictures out of doilies would pay off so...literally.

One of my museums hosts a free craft event for kids once a month. The events generally have to do with something vaguely historical. This month they're making Victorian-inspired Valentine cards. See here for examples. Almost too much to handle, no?

I named the red one Jennifer

2012-02-04T11:44:00.005-07:00

My friend Zach keeps chickens in his backyard. I love the chickens so much and am pissed that I can't have any.

Checking in is boring

2012-02-03T09:04:00.010-07:00

I've had no desire to write for myself lately. I normally have an internal monologue running at all times in the back of my brain. When I listen to it, I have to write it. Other times I just let it go and it continually records over the old tape. Well, it's off. Off enough that I can't even write this. I'm always busy and always sick. I haven't even THOUGHT about Anne Boleyn in months.

(lie: I thought about her yesterday)

I'm in a creative writing class, and it's bad enough that I'm just recycling things I wrote in the past and turning them in. I even used a blog entry from here. Interestingly, it was the worst grade I've received overall.

So what have I been doing?

Reading fun books.

Failing at arm wrestling. I lost count how many times I lost this night, but it was somewhere around "all".

Criticizing others.

Watching birds fly south.

Noticing how crumbly adobe is.

Training docents. I should make a post about the castle, but that requires me to upload photos from my cameraaaaanoooo

But, some brief observations: it's not fancy at all in there. In fact, it's tiny and far less than I had expected. The grounds are more impressive, with all manner of Sonoran flora, and rabbits and quail and falling down wood buildings and historic dump sites (from construction and later rehabs) full of god only knows, but the bomb squad was there about a moldering can of black powder.

2012-02-01T08:07:00.002-07:00

By the door of a legended tomb

2012-01-19T06:31:00.008-07:00

Happy birthday to a special guy!

Unfortunately, it sounds like the Poe Toaster has died or retired and not named a successor, as this is the third year without an appearance. This is disappointing, as the world is in need of charming mysteries.

Image by me. Did you know I was such an artist?

Free dog

2012-01-13T20:05:00.008-07:00

Bear #2

My grandmother's asshole neighbor has a new dog. Guess who doesn't approve. His old dog disappeared after getting injured in the fence last year. This is, of course, after months of watching the dog's previously sociable nature recede into skittishness and fear. So, now he has a new rottweiler puppy who looks like a baby bear. Full disclosure - the puppy is weird and really spacey. He likes to fling himself on the ground and roll around, but sometimes that means he hits his head on the concrete walkway pretty hard, and cries. He seems like a purebred to me. I'm literally asking everyone I know if they want him, because this neighbor guy is a world class bastard, and I'm convinced that he's already beating the puppy. I don't know any puppies who act frightened and hesitant, do you?

Getting the dog involves going to this guy's house during any of the 20 hours a day in which he's gone and the dog is in the yard, and swinging open the 3' pink gate. So, if anyone needs a sweet, dummy of a dog with shark teeth and gigantic feet, let me know! Seriously. I want to re-home this dog.

Lux and I are back together.

2011-12-29T21:50:00.004-07:00

2011-12-19T23:59:00.002-07:00

hello metaphor.

the ocean at night is so enthralling and terrifying. i can barely understand what i'm seeing when i stand on a beach anyway, but at night, it's like anything you think you know is not only suddenly missing, but meaningless. there is only this eternal black maw, occasionally shining, and roaring dully, slapping at your feet. like a dare. the only thing i've felt certain of while standing on a wet black beach is that it's not just water out there.

2011-12-19T13:36:00.005-07:00

My brother just finished another master's degree. Here we are looking super happy about it:

I'm excited to see what he'll do with it. Library science! I had considered it for myself once, but no.

Speaking of happy face photos...Thanks, Mom. Not sure if this is brat-pouting or existential angst, probably both. What's the difference?

SERIOUSLY?

Truer Words

2011-12-18T15:26:00.005-07:00

The Better Book Titles tumblr generally fails with me because I think most of the submissions are lazy and lame. This one killed me, however:

(Inherit the Wind) CMAN. That's good.

Next Elizabeth Gilbert

2011-12-14T21:15:00.005-07:00

The best writing reviews namedrop Oscar Wilde in some way. Why do I know this? Because I got one!

On...Yelp. In response to an angry review of a horrible Tempe landlord that I rented from three years ago.

Whatever! That shit is going on the back or inside flap of my first book, a hard-hitting, poignant biography of Stonewall Jackson's favorite Civil War horse, Little Sorrel.*

Or I'll probably just use it as the tagline for anything I may do in the future:

"Oscar Wilde once said, 'Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.' You my friend, are this (wo)man."

Thanks, anonymous person with a picture of a cat for an icon!

--
* Nah, I'm sure Little Sorrel has too many biographies already. He's too famous. He even has his own episode on Dr. James Robertson's Civil War Podcast.

ETA: Yeah, I'm definitely not writing about a hero war horse. This guy already did, and he has it handled. "120 years ago today, at 6 o'clock in the morning, a great warrior passed to his reward."

The Internet: Still Weird

2011-12-14T15:14:00.006-07:00

Every so often, I check out the search terms that bring people to this blog. They're often strange and hilarious, sometimes creepy, and there are a ton of people out there who want to know all about Evan Michelson.

I had to laugh at this one. Someone searched "conservative woman" and got a picture of Jane Seymour Tudor. Too true, mon! Someone using the network at a Catholic boarding school in Canada found my blog (and a picture of Jonathan Rhys Meyers) while googling "transvestites". Also very correct.

I've also learned that people are very interested in taxidermied Italian Greyhounds, and that they think Bette Davis was in Beetlejuice. Fools. That was Sylvia Sidney. Oh, and Bob from La Bamba. Everybody loves Bob, but mostly me.

Other favorites:

"ghost great grandmother died childbirth" - came to the right place, buddy.
"my grandma - how did she look like"
"the initials bb as message from god in a dream?"
"tudor grammar" - wow, we should meet.
"gay construction workers tumblr"
"where them girls at blyth barrymore was buried" the fuck
"mid-century unicorn"

I have heard you, internet. I will continue to provide content about gay construction workers, creepy death stories, and 1950s unicorns. Also the Tudors. You're welcome.

Godfrey!

2011-12-09T09:00:00.008-07:00

Oh shaith! December is Bill Powell month on TCM.

You can probably tell a lot about what old actors people prefer. In fact, I'm sure there is a personality test about it online. Example: I hate Clark Gable. He was an excellent actor, but was only able to play a charming alpha rake. He was a douchebag loser in real life and it shows in every frame - you can't trust him, even when he's the good guy. It's in his face and fake teeth. You just know.

Conversely, there is William Powell, who seems to inspire the truest love in everyone, not excluding me. I am often surprised by how many people know who he is, but people really love The Thin Man.

He is urbane and charming, yet the best at understated wry comedy.

He was briefly married to Carole Lombard, my other favorite. She went on to marry Gable - not advised. I believe I've already covered this twice. Powell & Lombard remained best friends for the rest of her life, and she (charmingly, in her way) would later refer to him as "That son of a bitch," who "Never stopped acting, even in bed."

What, you don't keep a framed publicity shot of Bill Powell on your desk? That's too bad.

2011-12-03T17:33:00.008-07:00

I'm taking a creative writing class that is forcing me to write scenes, dialogue, settings. It feels so difficult and annoying. Or it was, until I found my muse. I had only to do one thing to unlock endless layers of inspiration:

Plagiarize my friends' lives. One in particular.

Pages written in minutes. No shortage of dialogue. I can hear her voice in my head. Should I tell her about it? I've written her exactly as she is: crazy, vulnerable, swaggering, cursing, laughing, rudely honest, half drunk and truly motivated by love as though trapped in a Disney princess story. Did I miss anything?

It makes me wonder if she would be flattered or insulted by the portrayal or my stark review of her behavior and style. Will it be like receiving your 5 year old niece's crude study portrait, and thinking, "Fuck you, kid. I don't look like Boris Karloff." ?

This is a fascinating development for me as I have never been able to write this kind of thing before, and never wanted to. I don't think I will tell her about it for now. It's interesting to realize the perceptions of another. Translation of a loved one's familiar flaws feels like a bit of a tender act.

2011-12-01T14:27:00.003-07:00

Kevin O'Hare: Last year at this time, you injured yourself when you fell from the tree house on your property that you like to sleep in sometimes. Have you been back up there since the injury?

Joan Baez: Of course I have.

2011-11-20T22:13:00.005-07:00

goodbye, t.

it's sad that only with something like this do we appreciate the fragility of life. but what do you do with that knowledge?

Urban Archaeology!

2011-11-19T23:41:00.009-07:00

While putting some textiles away after an exhibit, I noticed what appeared to be child graffiti on the bare plaster walls of a small closet underneath the stairs. I pushed the dozens of dusty tablecloths back to find signatures, a crude drawing of the British flag, the alphabet in a wobbly cursive, and other apparently random scribbles. One of the signatures, in a child's pencil scrawl, was "Selma".

Selma Goldberg lived in the house from 1897 to 1904. I was VERY excited to see this name after having spent my summer researching her family. She was a little girl when she lived in this house, prime age to be hiding under the stairs and tagging up secret places.

What was more exciting, and strange, was that none of the museum staff knew about the writings. Oooh discovery! Although I felt like - really, guys? You've never skulked around inside of the closets...? Because that was basically my first move after taking this position. Phone flashlight in the closets, and open all the books. That closet is the only place in the house that wouldn't have been refinished or painted or stripped in some way over the years or during the renovation. The place has been a museum for 35 years, so the director checked the archives for any mention of the scribbles during the renovation or after - nothing. People had to have noticed them, but the "Selma" inscription is very hard to see in the dark, and that's what gives the scribblings a little more relevance and gravity or age.

I might not have thought to look for anything in an understairs closet if we didn't have one in my childhood home, and if I hadn't written in a few closets myself. Secret inscriptions are apparently a big historic homes "thing," but no one knows about that sort of thing here because we have so few of them.

Top says Hattie, with Selma below. I need to figure out who Hattie was.

This says Annie. There was a young girl by the name of Annie living in the house beginning in the nine-teens.

The alphabet in a childlike but stylized cursive scrawl.

Fat, rat, cat, carved into the inside of the doorframe. This kind of reminds me of that period after kids become comfortable forming letters into words, and start writing on everything.

Another interesting detail, noticed after emptying the closet and crawling inside with a lantern, was that all of the undersides of the stairs are numbered. The staircase came in three pieces from somewhere on the east coast, and each step was apparently numbered for ease of assembly. The lettering is so period and fancy, an amusing secret construction detail.

It is interesting to think of simple workaday details being around for GENERATIONS after you are dead. The guy who wrote his fancy "N" on each plank - did he think someone would ever be interested in that? Or that those letters would ever be seen? Of course not! And now it's on the internet. It's something living people rarely think about, or I assume. I used to frame pictures in little galleries around town, and it kind of weirds me out to think that things that I put together and possibly designed will be in someone else's family for god knows how long. We used to sign everything we did. Sometimes people were rude. Will some kid one day turn a frame over and wonder, was my great-grandfather a dick, or were the initials of the person who assembled this really "FU"?

I'm not sure why I think it's weird that our belongings will outlive not only us but the memory of us, particularly since half of my shit used to belong to other people I have never met. How fucking strange is that? Anyone who loves antique things has to deal with this. The hand mirror I use every day to check if the back of my hair is a rat's nest is a 100+ year old stray from an ebony vanity set. I passed on the bristle brush. Can't help but wonder about whatever girl may have had this thing first.

Fragments

2011-11-16T21:25:00.005-07:00

Great article about self-control/determination vs. talent when it comes to success. I've learned a lot about myself in this last year, but I have to say that most of it I seem to have already known, but ignored. Bad sentence, see if I care. I think I have below-average self control (I can justify anything as necessary mental health concessions), but enough dogged fixation on my goals to compensate for it somehow. It also helps when goals = pleasures. What I am doing now is what I would do if money wasn't a question. In fact, money has nothing to do with me, and that's the way I like it. Yeah, there's a footnote, it's called STUDENT LOANS and ask me about it in ten years if you want to but I'll probably slap your face.

Rupert Everett is my new favorite person, ever. He's so cheeky and funny and sassy and charming and funny! This is an insightful, unusual documentary about the travails of Byron.

An article about the fluctuating dress sizes of Marilyn Monroe. I have a few comments about this. One, from whence comes this desire to call her fat? Are people trying to dislodge the pedestal she's on? Get over it, hypocrites. Of course Elizabeth Hurley thinks she's fat. Elizabeth Hurley is also shaped like Jarvis Cocker. Next, the comments. The inability of women to find suitably flattering clothing in the mass-production market is no surprise to me, but it is both heartening and irritating to see how prevalent the problem really is. Women are expected to fit into one of five generic sizes, which are all basically the same size, but larger, with no consideration for proportion. The hourglass figure, so prized (once), is actually a fucking nightmare to dress.

Conclusion! I am going to become a tailor in my free time. Once I master this, I will make my own fitted clothing. I took my great-grandmother's sewing box out today and hemmed a pair of pants (with instructions from the internet) by hand. Not fucking around! This is one of those things that I will end up doing instead of reading books for expensive classes.

The Wilde

2011-11-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

I cried at the gym last week. It surprised me so much that I laughed immediately after, adding an essential tinge of "crazy" to the spectacle (not to worry, no one saw), and why all the fuss?
Because Oscar Wilde died!

I listen to stories, interviews and programs at the gym because it's the only way I can distract my brain long enough to allow me to stay there longer than 20 minutes. This time I was listening to the excellent Omnibus Wilde biography, but suddenly lost my shit at the end when the lonely and bitter hotel death is being discussed, and it's pointed out that Michael Bracewell is sitting on the bed in which Wilde died. That was too much for my Tuesday elliptical session and I found myself sniffling and blinking furiously. It's too pure proof of sadness and brutal loss in the world that the bed that he died in still exists! Can be touched and seen and slept in like any other bed even though it's some sort of horrible portal. Also raw to see old toothless and wavering Shane McGowan quote him and comment on his life like an old friend.

WAUGH!

I'm like this all the time now, brimming over about any pet interest. I think it's a byproduct of getting rid of my horrible prior occupations and being surrounded only by that which I want to be near. Like emerging from a dark room into noonday sun, it's almost too much, and I find myself feeling intensely sympathetic, sentimental and moved by the things that I love. I remain cooly ambivalent about everything else.

Like I said, really excellent biography. And yes, Stephen Fry is in it.

Asylum Suitcases

2011-11-11T18:56:00.005-07:00

So amazing. A New York asylum catalogued and stored the suitcases new patients brought with them from 1910 to the 1960s, and there they remained until having been recently discovered.

They were stored with all of their contents and it sounds like the patients never had access to their things again. They are the amazingly preserved, intact time capsules of people who were removed from society to rot away in unknowable circumstances. A photographer has started a project to document the cases and all of their contents.

I can't believe how new some of these items still look! I guess it's a product of being shut away from light and air forever. This is interesting on a lot of levels. I love old forgotten things that haven't been touched in ages. The connection between "then" and "now" seems much stronger with those secret little things locked away for decades or more.

It's also interesting to see the things these people chose to bring with them. As the photographer says, the asylum was for people with chronic mental illness; they probably never left the facility once they went in. These are days when mental illness was poorly understood and poorly treated. Rosemary Kennedy, shock treatment, the freakish regularity of lobotomies! This asylum was probably a really unfortunate place to be.

I have a few favorite suitcases.

But!

This one held a zither! Remember the crazy music from The Third Man? Zither music. Weird, carnivally. Rad.

NPR article on the project

Jon Crispin's blog

La Llorona

2011-11-11T11:48:00.004-07:00

La Llorona! My cousin told me she would rise in a mist from the canals in Phoenix looking for children to steal away into the water. ay dios mio.

This song isn't about the same weeping woman, though. I love love JB singing in Spanish.

Homecrafts

2011-11-07T22:20:00.008-07:00

Hey, these are easy to make!

I took this from an old etching I saw somewhere on the internet. I wanted to do something monochromatic. Now I want to learn to embroider Mexican dresses but it'll take me a year to finish one.

Not pictured: I learned to make flowers out of tissue paper! Finally! All these years. I had to learn so I could show some kids, who already knew how. whatever.

I heard this song on 8tracks the other day for the first time in years. It was somehow familiar and sweet even though I decided I didn't like him before. He has a song called "Sylvia Plath" and the lyrics are so retarded that I guess I just stopped liking him then and there. DON'T MESS.

Wallace & Ladmo

2011-11-06T09:15:00.009-07:00

I didn't realize how ridiculous and adult the bits on Wallace and Ladmo were. I caught the tail end of this show's run and my remembrances on it are as such:

-I hated/was afraid of Gerald
-I preferred the cartoons
-My cousin went on the show with her brownie troop and won a Ladmo bag. She was slightly older and bratty and mean to me. She used to make me let her open my presents! Anyway, I considered her getting a Ladmo bag to be proof of the end of all reason and fairness in the world. Turns out - maybe right.

Wallace and Ladmo was a famous local children's show that ran for over 30 years, ending in 1989. Children were obsessed with the Ladmo bag prizes. Some of the first-person narratives I've read about them are still filled with exhilaration or deep bitterness re: who did and didn't get a bag. I'm sure you can ask any Arizona native between the ages of 30 and 50 only for them to smash their fist into their palm and complain about not getting this brown paper bag full of posters and candy. My re-interest was piqued by an exhibit at the Mesa Historical Society. It was pretty all right, but the Lehi School building that MHS is in is a lot more interesting than the museum itself.

drunk?

"Aunt Maude's stories never turn out the way you expect."

Dia de los Muertos

2011-11-01T22:26:00.008-07:00

Poor sweet brilliant OFOFWW. Crushed utterly by life but resurrected just like someone else we know. Except Oscar's story is real. ZOW!

-

And if you're so clever, then why are you on your own tonight?

2011-10-31T00:02:00.003-07:00

My grandma grew up here. It was built in 1894 by my great-great grandfather.

After looking at my museum every day, it seems plain as hell. But it is rather fancy for the area, which is still a tiny farming community in Iowa.

I stayed there twice. The first time was fine, because I had to share a double bed with my cousin Emily and stayed up all night scaring her with ghost stories and asking was that a branch on the outside of that window, or...a hand? Too easy, until I later woke with the bathroom light on and no blanket as Emily had co-opted it for protection. The second time I was on my own, and slept in a tiny upstairs back bedroom with shag carpeting. There was an electrical storm that night and I had nightmare after nightmare. Like a scene in a bad horror movie, I woke at one point from a nightmare right as a thunderbolt clapped and the room lit with lightning, and screamed. I think the scream is what really woke me. I lay back down with eyes as big as saucers and wondered if I HAD actually screamed. I've never done anything like it before or since.

There is a sad mystery that I will probably never unravel about my grandma's aunt Julia, who I think died in the house very early. She and my great-grandmother were sisters and best friends. My grandma told me about her just once, and apparently never told my dad because he knows nothing, which is unusual. She said Julia was pale and small, with black hair and big dark eyes and died in childbirth in the house. She (my grandma) was a rather morbid storyteller (hmm) and I recall she said there was so much blood that it was running across the floors.

I've always thought about Julia and this story, and later researched her to no result. All I found was a record of birth as "Julia Angelia" and a claim staked in her name in S. Dakota which I knew about. No record of a marriage and no stories of a husband. Did she really die in childbirth and if so, where was he? It's a rather sad story and I would imagine my great-grandmother was much affected by the experience. A distant cousin sent me a childhood family photo of her, and she is innocent and sweet in a white dress, with loose hair around her face and her mother's hand rested protectively at her collar. She seems to be about five years old.

Everyone on this side of the family looks the same, with thick dark hair and dark heavily lashed eyes that look black. Maybe that's partly why she stays with me. She looks like, as my uncle puts it, "us". There's a photo of my grandma at this age that affected me deeply when I first found it. She looks like the picture of Julia in it. She had died about six months before I first saw this yellowing photo showing a little girl in a sack dress leaning against a split rail fence. Her hair is cut into a shiny black bob and she is barefoot and dirty, sticking her tongue out at her brother. I wanted to pick her up and stroke her hair and her child's face and it was a strange feeling to have about a grandmother that you last saw in a coffin.

Wait a second.

2011-10-28T21:12:00.012-07:00

I think Theo Kogan had a nose job. Sometime in the past 20 years.

I just watched an interview with the Lunachicks from 1988 or something, very old, after they recorded their first album. I couldn't help but notice that Theo's face was not the same face as her current face! WTF MON? When I was a barely-teen, Theo taught me that doing what everyone else does IS LAME. And that unfair societal expectations of people, particularly young women, are BULLSHIT. And that whatever the fuck you look like via nature IS OK.

This is of course all totally true, with or without her old nose, but I'm still a little surprised. Maybe it should have occurred to me that there could be some incongruity when this message is coming from someone who is an actual working model, but.

I don't actually care because, you know? Whatever. They still convey an excellent message to young females and everyone else, as long as you can stick around after all of the fart jokes.

But still - really?

There are better quality versions of this song but they don't have this awesome video.

It's an interesting talk, I guess. Does the authenticity of a message suffer a little damage when the individual does something antithetical to it? Is it antithetical? Women love to say that cosmetic surgery is worth it (and no longer shallow or false) if it makes them feel better about themselves every day. But what part feels improved? Being viewed as "better" than old-you because your nose is 10% more narrow? That really feels better? Paying thousands of dollars to look more attractive to people with idiotic sensibilities? If that's where your head is at, then it shouldn't be very hard to toss out a fishing line for an equally fucked up male companion, without the surgery. But I can't really fight girls who say a little heinous bone-sanding brought them some peace of mind, because it probably did, but only because EVERYTHING IS RETARDED.

The Lunachicks are still painful-offensive-amazing authentic. If you don't like it, you can, yanno. Suck it.

These usually work out well

2011-10-26T22:01:00.006-07:00

New moon in scorpius! I have pared my life back almost extremely. Like a fingernail cut short enough to protest, but not pain.

Usually I do this because I'm pissed off, but this time it's because I'm all business. For the first time in my life, I spend more time working than playing. And I recall Stephen Fry quoting Noel Coward when he says that, sometimes, "Work is more fun than fun."

Check it out, jerk. It's the newest new moon that the world has ever had. You can't see it because it's black on black, but it's still there.

Favorite piece

2011-10-22T12:45:00.009-07:00

at PAM.

Ghostly Josephine Jessup. Or, The White Rose by Chase.

I visited with my Gram, who pulled me over to a 16th century jewel-encrusted altar, the kind the very religious would have traveled with. There was a small engraving of The Last Supper in the middle of it, and she stabbed at it with her index finger.

Her: Whose head is rested on Jesus' shoulder?!
Me: (quiet)
Her: Mary Magdalene!!! See! (stab) They were married!
Me: HAVE YOU BEEN READING DAN BROWN

HI KITTLE

2011-10-19T17:26:00.006-07:00

Don't you claw that thing! Don't you do it.

Good God.

2011-10-14T22:29:00.005-07:00

I never paid attention to her. I've always thought of her as interchangeable with Garbo. No fairs? I know. I'm sorry, MD. I had no idea you were amazing.

Mind blower: Dietrich and Garbo, lovers. Don't ask me, I just read it on the internet. How could they tell who was who? By the accents? My god.

She aged amazingly well. This is her at 70 years old. Kidding me? She looks like Faye Dunaway with a hangover!

GIANT SIGH

2011-10-13T20:49:00.009-07:00

"In the mid 1960s, the city of Westbrook, Maine had listed this house as one of the next houses to be condemned and demolished. My folks bought it for very little money, mostly the back-taxes owed to the city. By the time we moved in, our entire neighborhood were already terrified of the place, adults included. The place was seriously creepy. It had no insulation, broken pipes everywhere, thousands of bats residing in the3rd floor attic, scary bad wiring and it had weathered to a dull slate-gray color and hadn't seen a speck of paint in well over 40 years."

by flickr user SurrendrDorothy. There's more info.

I would have done anything to have had that experience as a child. I love moldering old houses. I am kind of annoyed by restoration, in fact, though I realize it's often necessary. Things (and people - other story) should show their age. It's what makes them interesting.

The museum I intern with is an 1895 Victorian dollhouse. It is a perfect showpiece, fully restored and staged in high Victorian frilliness. When the city bought it in 1970, it was a dirty disaster of a rooming house filled with drug addicts, hippies and fleas. There are tons of poster sized photos from before the renovation, and I can't get enough of them. I wish the museum would try to get in contact with people who lived there before they all die off. I need some first person accounts. The house is pretty magnificent, but I feel blah about all the glossy grandeur. It looks a little fake.

Victorian Houses tumblr.

My museum in the 30s or 40s. Peeling paint & screened upper porch.

19th Century Medical Crap

2011-10-13T14:46:00.003-07:00

Force! The Master Rebuilder tonic.

"This preparation consists of a highly scientific combination of properties whose splendid reconstructive and restorative values are thoroughly recognized by all standard medical authorities." O RLY

Whatever it was is still in there, sliding thickly around. Grode. If you can make out the image, it's an Adonis type...forcing open the mouth of a struggling grizzly bear. Force!

Glass eye. It's like a hollow shell. I always imagined them to be solid glass balls, but I guess that would create a weight such that your fake eye could pop out any time! No bending over without closing your eyes first.

Dolly

2011-10-11T22:07:00.004-07:00

70s Dolly kind of reminds me of my grandma. Something about being a little plump and decisively stuffed into something polyester.

You know what I mean.

Oh,

2011-10-09T23:35:00.003-07:00

Another perfect analogy for life

Two interesting things: Fry and genealogy

2011-10-09T11:06:00.002-07:00

Firstly I have to state that, as he touches on in the program, genealogy is kind of bullshit.

Due to limitations of time and records, we can only focus on certain of the innumerable ancestors we have. Also, we pick and choose which ones are the "best" and just focus on them, forgetting that we have all the DNA from the uninteresting and unknown ones too. Also, how far back does it cease to matter? How related ARE you to that 14th century King of England, and, if you're prepared to count that, then you have just gained a million distant cousins who are also "heirs". Great. More family to dislike and ignore.

My grandfather's surname has been in the states for ever. Someone did a tremendous amount of research on them and I came across most of the findings a couple of years ago. The oldest record is in the 1680s, I think. I keep meaning to check if anyone came on any boats of note (Mayflower power) but something always distracts me, and I have to question that even that recently in history, does it matter? Following one surname through endless branches disqualifies thousands of other relatives. I still occasionally dabble partly because it's a great way to sharpen researching skills and partly because it does put a human face on history: yours.

Have I mentioned that I love Stephen Fry? I adore him. I love every second of him. I listen to him speaking when I'm at the gym, instead of music.

Stupid movies encourage literacy?

2011-10-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

No, I'm asking. Do they?

The Raven, with John Cusak as E. A. Poe.

The plot is super fucked up ridic. I think it's about a serial killer who starts using Poe stories as inspiration. The authorities become suspicious that it is Poe, who then becomes...a gun-waving vigilante on the trail of the killer? Normally, I frown on movies using this much license with history, especially with someone like Poe who is already very misunderstood to begin with (ilu eap). I frown because people are very stupid, and they believe what they see actually happened. People really believe that Pocahontas looked like a sexy Filipino Bratz doll and sang like Vanessa Williams, you know?

But then I thought, welllllll...Maybe some ~~idiots~~ people will go to the bookstore after this (Amazon) and pick up a collected works of EAP instead of watching another round of 16 and Pregnant. It could happen. In this case I am going to side with "all attention is good attention" within reason.

Next! Anonymous, a fiction about the ~intrigue~ behind who really penned the works of Shakespeare.

I just found out about this. Again, maybe people will be interested and will want to research and read for themselves about the mystery of Wilhelm Von Shakespeare.

This strangely optimistic pragmatic approach to awful media is the result of my toilings with museum education, and from trying to figure out how to make people care about things they aren't aware of. It's kind of fascinating. It seems to be making me less of a dick! Interesting.

Because normally this blog post would just go like

FUCK THIS MOVIE
FUCK THAT MOVIE
LEAVE IT ALONE
THE TRUTH IS INTERESTING ENOUGHH
ILU EAPPPPP

etc.

2011-10-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Pinterest is sort of like a highly sophisticated Tumblr. You can categorize and remark upon all of the little pictures you save. At first, I thought the site was just going to be twenty thousand postings of Japanese teen street fashion and the latest crap from West Elm, but it's actually turned out to be quite useful.

I'm obsessed with DIY CRAFTS and MAKING THINGS. Result, I have a million fucking bookmarked sites with ideas I meant to remember and then never return to. Pinterest allows me to categorize and comment upon all of the little ideas. The unfortunate side effect is I keep sort of veering over to the site while trying to WORK. One minute I'm writing a paper and the next I'm wondering about how to get a lamp fitting into a mason jar. WTF. I already have internet-induced ADD in which I pretend to be able to successfully multi-task but then just end up doing one useless thing for 45 minutes.

MY PINTEREST SITE!!

If you are interested in DIY ideas, different ways to braid your hair, and pictures of horses, then this is the place.

HIS NAME IS CESARE

why don't you have wings to fly with?

2011-10-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Lah'

2011-10-02T09:45:00.001-07:00

MTE.

First, I was going to say that I love when widely accepted or celebrated people suddenly bust with something like this. It's not that he's debunked anything, he simply calls attention to the flagrant absurdity of it all. I feel a bit smug when I see these things, like, Yeah. Now what, Seinfeld fans*? Your dad just dissed Jesus! But then I realized that most people probably can't stand Larry David. They just have no choice.

___
* this is a trick reference, because EVERYONE IS A SEINFELD FAN.

Desi?

2011-09-30T09:21:00.001-07:00

People often ask me if I am a Latina. This usually just ends up pissing me off for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because they often don't seem to believe me when I say I'm not, as if I would lie about it. Secondly, I don't actually look Hispanic, and the only people who insist that I do are just white midwesterners who can't tell brown people apart anyway.

THAT SAID,

Look at this Ricky Ricardo looking guy! He DOES look a little espanish, no? My grandfather. A 2nd generation American of German heritage only. I guess I have to add, Allegedly.

BREAKING NEWS

2011-09-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

I just made the connection that Sylvia Sidney, adorable babyface from City Streets (1931):

= Juno in Beetlejuice.

The 20s and 30s are exploding with cute-baby bee-stung-lipped actresses in finger waves, but Sylvia Sidney was the preciousest of them all.

Feeling bloodthirsty this morning, grandmother?

2011-09-28T08:35:00.001-07:00

-- Not any more than usual, dear!

Thieves Fall Out - 1941

I love this movie! It's not available for purchase anywhere - I might never see it again!

Jane Darwell is an incredible comedic actress. She's hilarious. I'm not sure why this is such an unknown movie because the writing is perfect and the acting is such high quality. WTF mate?

Jane Darwell is most famous (to me) for playing bitch neighbor Mrs. Merriwether in Gone with the Wind. I guess she was in The Grapes of Wrath also. She serves the purpose in a dramatic role, but she belongs there about as much as Alec Baldwin does.

FAK!

Activities

2011-09-27T20:54:00.001-07:00

I learned to play hoop & stick today. "Research" re: partying like it's 1899 (and you're underage). I quickly gave up in favor of not chasing the hoop into traffic. This game is like, totally hard.

2011-09-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Actually,

2011-09-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

Kate Beaton on Historical Accuracy:

"You do sacrifice some facts for the sake of a joke. I find myself trying to circumvent any objections. One comic I did recently was about Danton and Robespierre. I drew Robespierre at Danton's trial -- which he was not. He was sick, so he wasn't there. But the comic was about their relationship, and he was responsible, so I drew him in there. I had to put at the top, "He wasn't there, I know, but anyway ..." Otherwise, inevitably, an email titled "Actually" will appear in my inbox."

from this Salon interview. I love how much play she's getting! Maybe everyone isn't retarded? Not sure.

I have to come to terms with a finer accuracy, or find an official position. I waffle based on what I want to get out of something. I find it amusing to slightly manipulate things once in a while to suit a joke or my own impression of things, but I can't knowingly perpetuate falsehoods. Because next thing you know, you're just writing historical fiction about what would happen if Mary Shelley married Lestat de Lioncourt (yoooou know!), and I can't be havin with that shit.

Historical fiction is for when you're 15 in detention (Andrei Codrescu - The Blood Countess) but then it's time to move on. If you're me. No judgement!

Hey.

2011-09-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Get off that.

Oscar Wilde as paraphrased by Stephen Fry

2011-09-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Oscar Wilde composed this parable at a dinner party in response to a catty and back-biting conversation that had arisen.

"The devil was walking one day in the Libyan desert when he saw a couple of young demons who were tormenting a monk. He went up and asked, 'What goes on here?' They turned and bowed to their master, and they said, 'Well, thirty nine days and thirty nine nights we have tried to bring this man away from his God and his Church.'
'We've tried to make him turn towards you, Lord.'
'We've offered him powers and principalities.'
'We've given him delights of the flesh.'
'We have offered him wisdom and knowledge.'
'In all these he has steadfastly refused, staying firm to his God and his Christ.'
And Satan said, 'Out of the way.' He lent forward and whispered in the ear of the monk, who immediately filled the air with the most terrible curses, snapped his wooden cross in twain, and shrieked implications against his God and his Church and Christ and his Heavenly Father.
And the demons bowed down before Satan and said, 'Truly, you are the Lord. How can you have done this so quickly when we took thirty nine days and thirty nine nights and made no impression? What did you say to him?'

The Devil said, 'But it was very simple; I told him his brother had been made Bishop of Alexandria.'"
--

*** if i wrote this, this is the part where i'd add "ZING!" all caps, small font.

Pet Peeve

2011-09-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

When cover artists change the gender of the subject of a song to suit their own sexuality.

Example: the Bat for Lashes cover of "I'm on Fire" in which "hey little girl" becomes "hey little boy".

Don't worry young fool, it's not exactly going to start a big LESBIAN RUMOR if you leave the song as it is! For chrissake. It's annoying that people need to frantically organize everything so it all looks on the up & up re: social norms, and it's also frankly a little off-putting to hear a grown woman coo to a "little boy" in a song. Women don't tend to fetishize their male quarries as little boys, or didn't anyone notice? To me, it becomes a completely different animal when you swap the gender.

In fact! why don't we leave the covers to Tori. Yes, let's. Anyone who can make you shed a tear while covering a Kylie Minogue dance classic pretty much has it handled.

god, AND

2011-09-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

Major sidebar. I need to write more about how really personally involved people (women) get in the lives of certain historical personages. I have noticed this most with:

Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Abigail Adams***

People are talking about these women like they were their next door neighbors.

I once stumbled upon a website that was serving as a weird memorial/shrine to Abigail Adams. There was an animated gif "eternal flame" followed by THOUSANDS OF comments and notes which were all personally addressed to her in a very familiar way. Like a patron saint. It's weird, completely unexpected, but at least they're idolizing someone who warranted it instead of an actual saint of made-up virtue.

This is just a personal memo for later. Major thesis forthcoming about the people out there who refer to Catherine of Aragon as "my girl Cat."

In case you were wondering

2011-09-20T21:01:00.001-07:00

...Where I stand on the Elizabeth I locket ring. I think it might NOT be Anne. The girl in the portrait looks fair, and Anne was unequivocally famous for her dark hair and darker eyes. Her olive skin was much noted in a day when the standard of beauty was firmly in favor of ultra white skin and other Aryan features. There's no reason to believe she would ever have been portrayed otherwise, even after death.

Is it too strange to think that Elizabeth could have been honoring someone else? Even her bitch sister Mary seems to resemble the portrait (as a girl) more than AB. Not that I would expect Elizabeth to feel emotionally beholden to Mary, but she had far more of a relationship with her.

Anyway, just muddying the waters, it could very well be Anne. I'm sure Elizabeth had issues.

Close-up of the portrait thought to be Anne.

The ring was removed from Elizabeth's finger when she died. She apparently wore it faithfully for about 25 or 30 years after its commission in the 1570s. I believe the locket aspect of the ring was generally unknown until she died, but I'm not digging sources up PERSONAL BLOG = secondhand information is a go. This isn't the news!

One thing I love about situations in which crucial details are lost forever is that you are absolutely unable to not wager your own hilarious opinions about what happened.

Usually the hypotheses of other people just piss me off, but I love to see people interested in convoluted historical interpersonal drama. And translating it in their own retarded vernacular. Kind of like I do. While casually reading as you do about Catherine of Aragon and her claim that she was the rightful queen to Henry VIII because she had never consummated her prior marriage with his brother Arthur, who died, I read this comment:

"i dont understand this queen. her and arthur, didnt a queen and king consumate there marriage the night after there married. unless something was up."

Excellent sleuthing! Surely something indeed WAS UP! Can't fault the girl, she quickly arrived at a 500 year old debate that still roils among Tudor biographers. But wait, how does she know what "consummate" means when she still doesn't have their/there in order?

****
ETA: I take it back. Looking at the ring again, it does totally look like Anne Boleyn. It's still an awesome ring/story.

2011-09-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

My new favorite tumblr

2011-09-18T13:13:00.001-07:00

The daily travails of a lesbian construction worker in New York. Or as she puts it, "The deranged experiences of a queer woman in a male-dominated industry."

Male readers may be put off by her generally sharpened and critical view of the men she encounters, but get real, buddies: a woman (a gay one!) living that far off the grid of accepted female behavior/careers is going to receive the most asinine, outrageous, pathetic commentary from the men she has to work with. Shit they wouldn't have the courage to say to each other, yet they feel emboldened and entitled to with her.

The types discussed aren't salt-of-the-earth workaday dudes. They're assholes who actually quit jobs to evade their five child support garnishments, falsely claim "exempt" on their federal taxes for 10 years, and draw dicks on their female coworker's gear. And those are just the things they brag about! I'd hate to hear the stories they're ashamed of. You hear a lot of interesting tales working at a staffing agency with a huge construction division.

I love her writing style. Casual as speaking, hilarious and full of inviolable reason. She writes the way I that I feel when words fail me, and sometimes they do. These are the times when I can only close my eyes and put my arms in the air in a sort of primitive gesture of distress.

"Hoochie Beach" is my favorite.

Creepy Laura

2011-09-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Another Oddities referral.

I love Laura, the mortician/clothing designer/model. Unabashedly, delightfully weird.

Can't find one without the ad.

Relaxing on her cooling table in a dress of her own design.

www.lauraflook.net

2011-09-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

Weird Arizona Highways commemorative video, I guess very early 80s. Ever-fantastical, magical!

Interesting for the Goldwater photography stories. Although Dolan Ellis really, really makes me want to kill myself. I had a weird flashback of 80s/90s Nickelodeon and that Fred Penner show. Terrible!

Stay a while

2011-09-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

I found myself trapped alone in here for a while today. It's a lovely 1901 bungalow with apparent Amityville tendencies. Right now it contains an exhibit about the restoration of a nearby Victorian and is full of strange and random items found in and under the house, like books and letters and bottles under the porch and 100 year old broken kitchen implements from under the ground floor.

The very average key lock turns smoothly from the outside, but once you are in, you are in. I spent about five long minutes jiggling, turning, and struggling before moving to the back door which was even more immobile than the front. So I just stood in the hall for a while, wondering what to do, my fingers sore from the repetition of trying to turn a key in a lock that had somehow been re-keyed in the last 20 minutes. After trying the front door again, getting nothing, and stamping and screaming REALLY?!?!?, the lock clicked over.

George Harrison HBO film

2011-09-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

The trailer is a little too "...In a WORLD" - Does GH really require a Hollywood intro? Well, you know what I say. It'll be on 10/5 and 10/6.

Pulp got back together.

2011-09-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

For a minute, a few months ago.

Not sure if I've mentioned how I love Jarvis, but I do. In fact, I like him more the older and rougher he gets. The voice somehow gets sexier*, the appearance is no longer that of a very tall, very young girl, so I guess he is still peaking. Seems like he can't hit certain high notes anymore. That's ok, JVC. ilu.

His weekly radio show: Jarvis' Sunday Service

* i just need to point out that i hate the word "sexy" - one of my least favorite adjectives and oh hell no is it ever a noun. but i'm beat! i got nothing! there's no other word for it. aiight get out of here, this never happened.

2011-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

Camping this weekend was fun, and ridiculous. I need to make a note to not wander aimlessly in the woods by myself (this time the phone could not have helped me) but I survived yet again.

I lost my fucking mind staring at the stars in a clearing at midnight. I can't remember having seen them so clearly ever in my life, and it was the most amazing thing. I couldn't even take it all in. There were too many places to look. Lost my fucking MIND.

Being "in nature" is always very thrilling for me and I turn into a very excited child, perhaps one at Disneyland. Screaming and carrying on when I see animals. etc.

One day I'll use one of the cameras collecting dust in drawers and on shelves instead of my phone.

Tell it

2011-09-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

Shattering historical misunderstandings one comic at a time. Hark, a Vagrant. Damn it Kate Beaton! I want to draw comics, too. But I fear I'd just end up accidentally ripping HAV. Maybe I'll just draw alternately mean and flattering caricatures of my favorite characters. Then embroider them onto linen. NEW LIFE CALLING, toss that in with the 15 others.

Poor NPBP.

I saw a bald eagle!

2011-09-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

(not pictured)

2011-08-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

So in addition to books about self-actualization, chakras and meditational techniques, I found a new old photo album on my grandmother's shelves. I can't believe there are photos I've never seen because rifling through closets was my #1 childhood past time.

Great-great grandparents. I know less about them than any of my family. They were Scottish-Irish and farmed in northern Montana.

My poor sweet mother.

I never thought I resembled my gram but now I think I do.

blonder dayz

Edgar

2011-08-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

& now I am fixated with Edgar Oliver.

I found him off-putting at first but now find his fluid gesticulations and strange slurring Transylvanian/transatlantic accent to be fascinating, and his word choices succinct and masterful. I'm very interested in the way artful people express themselves and I love plain speech where only plainness will do. To first hear him, you wouldn't call it plain, but it is; plain like a child's speech when monosyllabic words contain many layered meanings. His voice is sort of vibrational and honeyed in a way that would make a good portrayal of some Count Dracula type, a venus flytrap thing.

The story of growing up with his sister and mother in Savannah reminds me of some of Truman Capote's short stories about his childhood in New Orleans. I love Southern Gothic and dark tales of the past and secrets growing like moss in rotting old houses. Those things. Any short Capote story, or A Rose for Emily, even Sunset Boulevard all have that creepy moldering among vibrant life thing. Even To Kill a Mockingbird contains the elements.

I love a character. He is himself with abandon.

Happy Birthday Miguel

2011-08-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

You're still a young man!

2011-08-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

Don't tell me you don't have a kitchen unicorn.

I am animal-sitting at my grandmother's house while she's out of town. It's like a weird, very quiet adventure. Though I have been there a million times and consistently through the years, I haven't stayed there since I was small, and am experiencing strange little memories, opening themselves unexpectedly after decades of dormancy.

Memories so everyday that I'm not sure why I remember them. In the shower this morning, I suddenly remembered "swimming" in the bathtub as a tiny child, holding my breath under the water and pretending to breast stroke. Last night I remembered screaming in her bedroom from the pain of an ear infection, and crying so uncontrollably and loudly that a neighbor came over to see what the fuck. Jarring still, I see my great-grandmother's things intermingled in the house. Last night I was rifling through her incomprehensible organization looking for something when I found a green and gold ceramic jar, filled with antique hairpins. I was suddenly transported to a giant yellow velvet couch where I sat, very small, watching my great-grandmother pin her hair up in curls before covering it with a hairnet while watching Mystery! on PBS.

How is there room for these things in my mind? This is interesting for several reasons. It makes me wonder what else I remember but won't know about until it is jogged. Recalling items as dusty as that, things that I literally haven't thought about since they happened, is an almost physical sensation. I almost clutch my head. It also seems that once I pull the seal on these memories and experience them, they begin to fade. The next time I think about it and try to remember more, I can't even see the image anymore.

Her absence is also a good time to take inventory. My mother and I dig shamelessly through her things. My mother because she is an animal, and me because I am looking for artifacts. My grandmother is the most irreverent person in the world and she doesn't give a fuck about heirlooms or history. Once I pulled a late Victorian photo out of a cabinet and said, "Who's this?" She squinted, shrugged her shoulders and said, "Dump it."

DUMP IT!

Hissing, I tucked it under my arm. Haven't trusted her since. I can't steal the things that matter to me because somehow she'll know. So I just check on them when she's not around. Most of it I already know about, but sometimes I find something charming, like a little silver bracelet engraved with the names of my grandmother's best friends from high school, made at the time. Or a poem someone had written in pencil about them, each girl with her own paragraph. The poem was about drinking and smoking on the sly at a lake, but described my grandma as sweet and reserved, content to drink Coke. An idyllic small town upbringing in rural Montana as far as I'm concerned. I know this because my great-grandmother told me. If I asked my grandma, she would say, "Eh? How was it? Cold."

This time I found a ration book from WWII. That I might actually take, lest she write a shopping list on the back of it and later ditch it in a Trader Joe's parking lot.

VB 1950

2011-08-18T20:36:00.001-07:00

Oh, there's my dad.

He used to take me shooting when I was a kid. I never found the pleasure in it. It was boring. I preferred exploring the nearby desert.

Once, I came home to find a child-sized rifle leaning against the wall in my bedroom. "For you!" *nudge* "Eh? Eh??" Big smile.

There was no room in my life for a tiny rifle. I lived and played (did I mention? I was 9) around it until it finally disappeared.

Sorry, dad.

cool it, sister

2011-08-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Crazy life rearrangings afoot! I hate waiting. When I make a decision, I want it to happen immediately.

2011-08-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

Who told you a calf to be?

2011-08-09T22:31:00.001-07:00

What the fuck with life.

I still don't have the faintest clue, although I realize now that most of the time, I haven't really wanted to know. Oddly my last burst of wonder and questioning has been out of another Sylvia Plath biography. Sometimes I lower my voice to talk about her based on a curiously half-healed wound inflicted by some snide critic (some day I'll write that) years ago about my apparent general triteness. I'm over it now, but I still think about it sullenly when I talk about her, like remembering a schoolyard bully.

But something about her furious cycling between shining productivity, stunningly ambitious goals and a withering, self-hating cesspool seems relevant and something to be explored. I don't know why the Plath/Hughes story so fascinates me. I just guess that she was the same type of person I am, or in some ways, and all of her visions and views make perfect sense to me, and I also acknowledge the disconcerting magnetism of Ted Hughes, which seems perfectly real even now. I resist even thinking about it. Few people appeal to me in the truest way and when they do, I have a consistent sense of panic, knowing how dangerous that fission passion is, very much burning. Certain of his characteristics are like sudden sharp reminders of a past lover. Not all together unpleasant but still eliciting an initial huff of protest.

I hardly ever write now. Maybe it's the hour but I can't even spell write much less do it. Right? Wright? Who knows. It is sickly ironic to me that I don't have the heart to do it because this is definitely one of those points in life when writing is the best thing, and it is at its best. I've noticed my letter writing has improved but I don't try anything else. Is life artful if it is not painful? I think this is the part where I stop pretending to be a stockbroker and just face the fucking facts. No matter what I do to satisfy some strange level of propriety in my mind, I am still the same person inside all the time. Why do we repeatedly garnish our lives with things we assume we need, leaving little time for the things that we know we want, which were readily available all the time. Books, words, reflections, and visceral interactions, guts everywhere, and a total stripping away of needless cares.

This is a breaking down and re-forming period. Right off I thought of the way Navajos used to build their homes out of sod and clay; when the construction became brittle and cracks began to grow, they let them be. One day the house would collapse into piles of rubble and dust. It was no calamity. The family would rebuild the house using the same materials, and in the same place. A thing was allowed to die in order to be reborn, even an apparently inanimate structure. Nothing should have to stay the same, living out the same incarnation forever.

2011-08-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

desert storms are the best, the flux from still dry air to a crashing cool wind and then thick hovering humidity pierced only by straggler drops. dry and crumbling desert dusty soil when dampened emits an indescribable otherworldly smell, it is knotted so deep in my brain and senses that i can't say anything about it at all. it's like remembering a past life in a frantic burst of familiarity, sentimentality and futility for getting back there. but all i can really think of are sharp variegated rocks washed perfectly clean.

2011-08-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

A perfect analogy for everything.

Oaklandish

2011-08-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

I refuse to deal with blogger's idiotic photo uploading manner.

So these photos are out of order, and tell a refracted story.

In the Amphitheater of Roses. The scent of them is everywhere. There are thick stands of redwoods in the back. I was beside myself.

1917 freight elevator? Exciiiitiiiiing!

2011-07-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

fuckin Vanian!

Severance

2011-07-28T21:30:00.001-07:00

2011-07-24T17:24:00.001-07:00

What ever will it be?!

2011-07-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Hmm...!

Arroyo

2011-07-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Failures

2011-07-23T14:40:00.001-07:00

Amy Winehouse dies and everyone has something sassy, weary or shrewd to say. A theatrical expression of addiction is celebrated, taunted and voraciously consumed until the death at which point she is dismissed as having been too weak to embrace her gifts, too corrupted and stupid to even live.

People love the overdose death the same way they love a really fucked up accident on the freeway. Disappointment/relief at the absence of detail, no blood or hand dramatically flung out from some folded metal. They have to love it because I can't otherwise explain the flood of expert commentary.

Expert commentary about a failure at life, coming from those salt of the earth average Americans. People who avoid disaster by the grace of their reason and foresight...that is, disasters other than their home foreclosures, strings of epically failed relationships, colossal debts, obese children, and life expectancies hovering somewhere between 56 and heart attack, not to mention the addicts in their own lives that they doubtless enable as it suits their own personal needs and expectations. Yes, life is just one first prize after the next when you're not as stupid as Amy Winehouse.

Call me dramatic, but I think I might prefer to choke on my own fluids at age 27 than to live that confused, filmy life full of coincidences, "fate," unknown aggressors, completely unanalyzed, feeling like a victim to outside influences always, never quite able to figure out why things never work out, not quite self-aware enough to ever implicate my own behaviors. Too stupid to know that I am stupid.

The self-satisfaction people must feel when they say something like "good riddance" must be like a salve to their own wounds. If I say it first, then you can't say it about me - right?

ETA: It was alcohol poisoning, not drugs. Now how foreign are her problems?

2011-07-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

My grandfather and his brother, mid 80s.

My grandpa's belt buckle says "BOB". He still wears it. He probably still wears that shirt. I had to laugh out loud a while back when looking at old photos with my mom. There was a photo of he and I at Christmas when I was a small child. I stabbed the photo with my finger - he had just worn the very same shirt in the picture at a family party. Twenty years, still looks new.

This basically applies to everything about his life. He doesn't change anything until it physically breaks down. He is the most pragmatic, frugal, basic human being I have ever met.

2011-07-21T21:27:00.001-07:00

The weirdest thing is meeting someone you are closely related to, as an adult. Like, a sibling.

Weirder still is when you are raised as an only child*, and go through life feeling fairly convinced that there is no one around similar enough to even get you, and allow this to be some sort of weird self-fulfilling identity.

I am really happy to see the particularly distinctive parts of my personality mirrored right back at me. Especially in the tantrums and rages department. I've received a lot of (attempted) chastisement throughout my life about having too much er, passion, about everything. And I do. This can be used for good or evil and people don't get it. Most people are neutral about everything. Not being neutral about a single thing ever in my life, I find over-neutrality to be incomprehensible, and I am delighted! to see my sister's crazy fury for life jumping out of the things that she writes to me.

At least I can say that I am not the only one, or, my favorite, that there is someone out there who is "worse".

* have you ever heard "only child" used as an insult, as in, "tom is such a freak, he must be an only child"? well i have! recently.

2011-07-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

Oh,

Would that it weren't so deathful hot in the lowlying deserts. I should like to take a road-trip in my carre.

God I really need to stop even paying attention to the 16th century.

Anyway, I am currently enrolled in a totally lovely class about Arizona history in which I have learned all manner of fascinating things that I did not know. It made me dig out photos of yore as we discuss various monuments and sites, and these photos made me sigh for multiple reasons, firstly that I haven't gone anywhere in a while and secondly, that I never did fix that Olympus.

Montezuma's Castle, patched in like an ancient wasp's nest. Oh I hope that doesn't set the curse on me. I'm pretty sure there's a curse, not unlike the mummy's curse, in the general spirit of "seriously fuck off you guys!" Anyway, it is a large multiple dwelling built by the Sinaguas. This is as close as anyone gets. There is no rear entrance!

Arizona Sequoias looking like a paint-by-number scene.

Oak Creek Canyon, full of slippery rocks and blackberry brambles. Well not full of, but if you're clever, you can find them, and if you're cleverer, you can make blackberry vanilla vodka with them.

Apple trees at Oak Creek, and a downpour.

Achewood

2011-07-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

Changed my mind.

2011-07-16T15:32:00.001-07:00

Totally love Instagram.

Totally washed out, they remind me of old old snapshots, treated poorly, kept tucked in the side of a mirror, exposed to the light and their own age. Disappearing very slowly.

Also, Instagram enables me to keep up on the status of Anita's yard frog on a day by day or hour by hour basis if necessary. I wish I had a yard frog!

My neighbor saw a sidewinder here last week. Rather have a frog. Especially now that I have googled sidewinders. WTF MATE

I don't know why I thought they were harmless before.

Wuthering Heights

2011-07-15T23:47:00.000-07:00

White dress version,

...or red?

I prefer red.

Off to find a scarf to wear around my waist.

2011-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Printer bunny, animal totem of the HP Laserjet 3600.

I like this app.

2011-07-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

Instagram

Another app I will never use,
except on the days when my work pc gets infected by spyware and I spend 45 minutes scanning and quarantining the shit with absolutely nothing else to do! God I hate Windows.

My coffee cup. It's very "me". My other signature cup has a picture of Barack Obama with MADE IN AMERICA emblazoned over him in a huge font with a picture of his birth certificate on the back. Subtle statements.

Last week my crazy conservative (but still surprisingly lovable, kind of) co-worker snarled, "Oh, GOD!" at the cup just as I was taking a sip. I burst out laughing and had to clamp my hand over my face to avoid spitting all over a bunch of TPS reports.

Dog.

2011-07-12T22:00:00.001-07:00

2011-07-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

River rock shade at Saguaro Branch library.

Oh, Baby Jags

2011-07-10T01:43:00.001-07:00

Just look at that shit. Baby infant child Jagger.

Some fancy family portraits.

2011-07-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

My grandma, my dad, my great-grandmother, and I think me.

A remarkably bad photo of my dad and brother. I love this picture of James so much. I should print it out and bring it when I see him next. MAIDEN. This is incongruous with my idea of his tastes but look at me CATEGORIZING PEOPLE. I guess I was about seven, and we had just met for the first time, but didn't have much to say to each other. He was visiting from college.

In the background please note rocking horse collection, valentines made of doilies taped to side of tv stand. It's hard to say when the photo was taken due to the clashing of holidays (also pictured: christmas stocking). It could have been June.

Around this time, James had been included in a poetry collection, maybe with other people from school. All of the pieces were very edgy and his had to do with some sort of Stand By Me type childhood awakening with plenty of cursing and sex. I was still pretty young, probably 10, and I found the book hidden in my mom's closet after hearing her talking on the phone about it, all hushed and scandalized. I read it. It didn't seem so crazy to me but it bothered me when I wondered if the poem was true; it made him seem very untouchable in my mind, intimidating and troubled, but in a Hollywood sort of way. I really hope she still has the book.

Don't mess with Braintree

2011-07-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

Abigail Adams on Ben Franklin:

"...A false, insinuating, dissembling wretch, who could best serve the American cause by dropping dead at the first opportunity."

Well, he was kind of a c.

Henry VIII is 520 years old on this day

2011-06-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

Which I hath commemorated by stealing this fine photo of the Tudor Rose, taken by Flickr user miltonmic.

The Arizona Republican, Apr 19, 1901

2011-06-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

"Miscellaneous Items"

- In very clear water, sunlight penetrates to a depth of over 1500 ft.

- At banquets during Elizabeth's time, every guest came with his spoon in his pocket.

- There is no truth whatever in the belief that anyone falling into the sea necessarily rises and sinks three times before drowning.

- An extremely useful clock has been invented by Thomas W. Hunt, of Macon, GA. At any moment at which the alarm is set - say at 5 am - it arouses the sleeper, lights a candle and kindles a fire in the range.

- A society for the education of cats has been organized in Pittsburgh. The president of this society declares: "We feel assured that under our process of culture, many hidden and unsuspected good qualities in the nature of the cat will be brought to the surface."

- Two athletic young men in Passaic, NJ fought a duel with pillows. It lasted 37 minutes, when a vigorous swing across the neck with the five pound pillow floored one of the contestants, and for five minutes he lay senseless.

Just some useful facts printed for the edification of the Victorian Phoenix forebears. I like that they refer to Elizabeth I by first name only. She needs no introduction or explanation, even in a dusty arm of the Sonoran desert.

Speaking of the Arizona Territory, my research ( = reading the one page biography provided by the Rosson) has revealed that Aaron Goldberg, the man whose family I am interpreting through 1915, was greatly responsible for and wrote the bill that moved the capital from Prescott to Phoenix.

To that I say, thanks guy. No, thanks. No thanks. Wouldn't our lives be so much easier if the sprawl was located two hours north? There would have been sacrifices, and I can just imagine Prescott Valley turning into Paradise Valley, but we would be able to step outdoors between the hours of 11 am and 7 pm without immediately being plagued by dehydration and death, and wouldn't that be nice?

Good job, Aaron.

AG circa 1900, from the Phoenix Public Library's Arizona Collection.

Not to be too much of a bitch, though, as he was rather philanthropic and dedicated his time and efforts to make this city more habitable to the miserable bastards who saw fit to stay year round in the days before swamp coolers, such as providing the first unemployment service for men finding themselves unable to work the mines or whatever was the greatest employer here at the time.

www.chroniclingamerica.com has provided decent scans of newspapers across the country from the 1860s to 1920s. They have lots of Arizona papers.

Pentangle

2011-06-26T23:27:00.001-07:00

Contestant #5

2011-06-25T15:55:00.004-07:00

Catherine Howard, the fifth and and second saddest wife of Henry VIII.

A small biography, by me. Someday I will publish a six-volume series entitled "Lives of the Wives" in which I pass modern judgment upon but ultimately feel sorry for all of the women who had the misfortune to know Henry Tudor no. 8.

Poor Catherine had not planned on being Queen of England and to say she was unprepared for life at Court would be an understatement. Raised in negligence by an absentee step-grandmother, she was generally uneducated and undisciplined. She did know how to read and write, putting her head and shoulders above most 16th century women, but she did not appear to utilize these skills and her her studies progressed no farther than becoming literate. By all accounts, she was a silly, over-emotional and utterly frivolous person, whose hobbies included dancing, and flirting. Owing to a total lack of supervision and the generally licentious nature of the large household (step-gran was a duchess), she had several affairs at an early age before going to court to wait on Anne of Cleves, Henry's Queen #4.

Things weren't working out between Henry and Anne (whole other story) and he had their marriage annulled soon after meeting Catherine. Once again, stupid Henry falls for a wound-up, vivacious woman (or in this case, girl) who would prove an exciting flirtation and a disappointing life partner. They were married soon after the annulment was finalized.

Things went well until Catherine became tired of her gross old husband. She began an affair with Henry's personal groom, Thomas Culpeper. Imagine that, a teenaged girl chooses a lover of her own age (Henry is 50, there is an age disparity of approx 33 years) and station instead of someone who not only acts but is interpreted as a living god, and who is nearly the size of one at 300 pounds. And there is the small issue of the ginormous festering stinking open wound on his leg. Hopefully he sent her away before his daily appointment to have it lanced and drained. Sexy? Eh, not so much. Poor Henry can't get a break; people are so SHALLOW, and how fickle is woman!

Catherine was too airy and ridiculous to live long in the dangerous and predatory Tudor court. Being young, stupid and invincible, she was capricious and wanton about her affair, and it was a very sloppily kept secret. Still, Henry was unaware, and so enamored of his giggling girlish wife that, at the same time that she was totally fucking someone he spent time with every day, Henry was picking out presents for her and telling everyone that she was his "rose without a thorn". Finally a wife who is all fun and no trouble!

Obviously, despite coming from a powerful and aristocratic Catholic family, Catherine was not interested in the politics of religion. That's why it's somewhat ironic that her passionate affair was outed by a concerned Protestant faction who did not want her family anywhere near Henry, lest they entice him back to Rome somehow. Or that's my interpretation of why. I highly doubt he would have. I think the Protestants simply didn't like seeing the Howards that high up the royal chain of command. As he had done with his other wives, Henry handed out positions of power and influence to Queen Catherine's family members.

So, a letter was passed to Henry telling of Catherine's slutty past, and, though he thought it was only jealous rumor-mongering, he had it investigated. After it was uncovered that she had been sleeping around before coming to Court and meeting Henry, he had guards posted at her rooms. After he found out she was sleeping with Culpeper, she went to the Tower. Culpeper and a former lover from the Duchess' household were already there, where they received interrogation and torture. The teen lover was hanged, drawn and quartered, and Culpeper (because he had a fancier pedigree) was merely beheaded. (Sidenote - the sentences should have been swapped. Culpeper was a world class piece of shit who had on his record the brutal rape of a rural farmwife, and the murder of a townsman who tried to come to her aid. Somehow, likely because of his status, the crimes went unpunished.) The heads were placed on pikes, where they remained displayed for 5 years. Henry was one to carry a grudge. He was very bitter, though; only recently, he had publicly given solemn thanks to god for the good fortune of his happiness with Catherine. So Catherine was beheaded shortly thereafter and tossed in an unmarked grave at St. Peter ad Vincula, near her cousins, Anne and George Boleyn. Yep; she and AB were cousins.

The Howard/Tudor marriage had lasted a year and a half.

Catherine had no idea what kind of trouble she was going to get herself into when she met Henry. Although her family name was an aristocratic one, her father was a second son and had no money. After her anonymous and uncelebrated early days as a charity case, she was beyond dazzled by the spectacle, riches and decorum that came with her new station in life as the highest lady in the land. She was so young and dizzy, and had not been cultivated for the politics of life at court. Even though Anne Boleyn was her cousin, and had only been executed 5 years ago, she was still so dumbly confident that no one would find out about her trifles. She is a tragic portrait of a naive girl who frolicked into a bear trap. Even Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and unlucky sucker dispatched to wrangle Henry's errant girl, said that it was pitiful. At the time, given Henry's black rage at finding himself a cuckolded husband, Cranmer could not help but share the possibly treasonous remark (everything was treason then if H8 was pissed off) that he found the imprisoned Catherine "In such lamentation and heaviness, as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart in the world to have looked upon her."

Pardon his double negatives, but grammar didn't begin to achieve standardization until the 17th century. Prior to that, the only standard was "whatev."

Weirdly, the night before she was to be executed, Catherine asked to have the chopping block brought to her. She wanted to orientate herself to it so she would know how to place her neck when the time came. A strange and morbid concern, to worry about being awkward on the scaffold, but who can venture to know what it feels like in the hours before a scheduled death.

Sidebar, Tudor melodrama seems to have become a thing with me, as I keep returning to them. I didn't think I cared about them that much, I mean I don't have personal feelings the way I might for other eminent figures. Or perhaps I'm beginning to develop them. Here is a post in which I review the Tudors series, and I talk about Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour here (and recycle my story about Anne's death).

Since Catherine Howard's death, some alleged ghostly activity at Hampton Court and at the Tower has been attributed to her. The most tragic "sighting" is supposed to be a re-enactment of a particularly desperate moment after her first confinement to her rooms at Hampton Court. Desperate to plead her case with Henry, she bolted through the posted guards at her room and ran shrieking to the chapel where Henry was at prayer. She banged on the doors, screaming hysterically, and was then dragged writhing and crying back to her rooms. This passage is now called "the Haunted Gallery," and "it is said" that screams are heard to emanate from there. Also, according to some sourceless website about England's ghosts, women pass out in that corridor a lot. I'm sure it's the hand of dead Catherine, and not the heat or blood sugar or something akin to whatever affects those fainting goats. I mean, surely.

Then again, after reading the ghostly legends also told about Anne Boleyn, I began to feel faintly suspicious of the veracity of these accounts. Take this story, for example: Annually upon Anne's death date, she is said to arrive at several past residences (avoid Blickling Hall and Hever Castle on 19 May) in a carriage pulled at a furious pace by...four headless horses! Anne sits inside the carriage, dressed in white with her head in the crook of her arm. The headless spirit then descends from the carriage, which disappears (invisible carriage house. duh.) as she enters the structures and commences upon a night of wandering from room to room, head still tucked in her arm, still dripping with blood. I'm glad I didn't read about this as a kid; it has all the distinctions of a tale that would freak me out (female ghosts, bloody heads, fast-running horses). I was hardly able to pass a darkened bathroom for fear of Bloody Mary, so the Anne thing would definitely have been haunting as well.

And this is a shitty 19th century "ghost photo" alleged to be the much grieved Catherine wailing out her bad fortune, which is sold as a postcard in the Hampton Court gift shop. Well that's not tacky. Maybe the surviving Howard family should yell at them.

FTSIGS!

2011-06-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

Today I got in trouble at work for having this as my aim avatar.

I can't decide what's more strange.

1. That I feel comfortable using this image on the service I use to chat with the entire company

2. That the other owner - the same one who dialed our hr admin on speakerphone and called her a "cunt whore" (c'mon guy, pick one and go with it. you can't have both) while 15 pathetic bootlicking bastards laughed behind him - said that it was offensive, or

3. That I actually felt a little outraged about having to take it down.

This place is not normal. I don't tell people about what goes down there anymore (harassment, theft, litigation, more harassment) partly because it's exhausting, and partly because it sounds so exaggerated. But it's real.

What in the.

2011-06-21T20:44:00.001-07:00

Well! I was reading through an old journal I kept and found a quiz I took for fun regarding what kind of housewife I would have made in the 30s.

Three years ago, I was called a failure. My old score:

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

I took the test again, SURE that I would improve on my prior score. I can cook many dishes now - successfully! I sew - kind of! I keep plants around - and many of them survive! I actually can't think of anything else at the moment, but surely there are things. Can I put them to use? Let's see the new score.

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

APPARENTLY NOT.

Worse?! A score so low it has almost skidded off the bottom of the chart. Like I said last time - I thought it was going so well. I can't decide where I went wrong. I was just trying to be honest. I said that, yes, I do fix healthy meals, but I also sulk and complain sometimes. Full disclosure up in here! Yes, I do have interests and personal activities, but I do sometimes wear red nail polish (this is a flag). I, apparently, don't have sense enough to wipe off the cap of a milk jug before opening it. Evidently, this was a thing. Does it matter that I don't drink milk? No. I would probably lose my last three points for that anyway.

I think these rules are rather stringent for a depression-era woman. Weren't there better things to bitch about than crooked seams or mealy cornbread? According to my grandma, who was of marriageable age in the 30s (but only if you lived in Alabama), wearing clean clothes and bathing daily was essentially all you had to do to keep up your part of the bargain as a respectable woman and member of society. Anything beyond that just amounted to personal preference. I can proudly say that I measure up to her strict guidelines of ladyhood, almost all of the time.