Finally

Something good going down in preservation!

Is the Knipe house being restored?  This pic is from the Arizona Preservation Foundation's Facebook, but there's no information there or on the website. The side of that truck says "AZ Shoring Bracing".

See here for a July 2010 post in which I flip out about the house's unstable future.  There seems to have been lots of debate about whether to bother with it as it is so deteriorated, and Leighton G. Knipe is not famous in spite of having left an architectural legacy in Phoenix.  The Downtown Phoenix Journal (link below) lists some of his works, but there are/were lots of private residences on that list, too.

So what's going on!  Why are they fixing it!  What's going to happen??  I can't find any information on the internet.  The last reference is something about La Grande Orange looking for a downtown Phoenix location.  Will I someday buy a latte and a $3 cookie at the spot where I used to hang my fingers through a chain link fence, wondering if it was worth the risk of potential homeless attack to enter?

Architect Bob Graham talks about why he thinks the house should be restored here.  It's obvious that no one has actually researched L.G. Knipe beyond basic information about his Phoenix contributions.  HLAME.

Pat!

For years,
"What's that thing?"
"A rabbit ambulance."
end of conversation.

Today.

Elizabeth I

by Lisa Falzon.  I love it.

I am also enjoying this excellent history (& stuff) blog.  She's very well-written and just my style. 

What was I going to do today?  Oh, right, loll around on a couch at Lux and read all the "Anne Boleyn" tags on this blog.  DONE.

I'm trying to stay focused on being a winner at life, which basically involves staying on task and getting things done.  Results have been "ok" so far.  I feel like a martyr because I made an obnoxiously complex cake for my mother's birthday and helped run the kid's craft thing at the museum in the same day.  Any time I positively interact with strangers, particularly strange children, I expect a medal.  Also, I was hit on by a girl today after I showed her how to weave a rag rug out of strips of t-shirt material using a hula hoop as a loom.

Free tip: just because someone tells you they're into history (or whatever), don't assume that means they hang out at the ren faire, because I don't.  And DON'T LOOK SURPRISED when I say so.  It makes me worried that I'm exuding a vibe. 

A ren faire vibe.

There's always one weird thing that stands out in memory to demonstrate a particular moment in time.  A random thought or night or object.  I have no idea what will ever remind me of right now.  I don't think I'm paying attention to anything except that tiny place in the back of my brain where everything is private and mine and I don't have to deal with complex interactions.  Lots of stuff going on, not too interested in any of it. 

Wish I had a

I'm re-reading The Bell Jar for a class.  I first read this in my second year of high school, and didn't like it very much.  I expected it to be something completely different and couldn't really grasp her subtleties.

I thought it would be some kind of handbook to young adulthood, a mystery map with dotted lines and arrows for the wary and different.  I assumed, like a lot of people dumbly do, that the suicide somehow indicated some kind of hard-edged sophistication and esoteric knowledge that others could find in her words, hidden like little easter eggs.  I assumed something similar about Colette and sex and was equally disappointed.

Well, scratch that, because I love The Bell Jar.  She is so crazily artfully brilliant with words, I am underlining and folding pages of this library copy only to find I'm turning page corners that have already been creased.  Too insanely, understatedly good.

It's been so long since I have been free to read prose of any enjoyable kind that I'm amazed by how good it is, and how fast the reading goes.  I've been blearily hovering over one miserable textbook page after another for a while now, always looking for any excuse to be released, that I was worried that I no longer liked to READ. 

In the book, Esther's first vaguely sexual encounter with her boyfriend is a perfect mirror to my first vague encounter.  Almost identical.  It hadn't yet occurred when I first read the book.

Grandma's House

Geodes, stained glass pyramids, and cats.

Party like it's 1899 Forever

I made the beginnings of a rag rug for an upcoming event at the museum.  The point is to highlight examples of bygone home handicrafts as well as to show kids that there are many ways to recycle.  Scrap fabric from worn out textiles or clothes is braided and then stitched together.  It is, as they say in California, hella easy.  Examples on flickr.

Rag rugs seem to have been the dominion of rural women just trying to make do until the Arts & Crafts movement (1860 - 1910) popularized them as an art form. Old ones are fairly pricey (and awesome) on Ebay. 

I totally love them, but this is going to have to go to the back of my "free time shit to do" pile because I don't have scrap fabric, and I need to embroider pictures of Ray Smuckles saying rude shit first.  Stay tuned for an Anita+Brittany clothing line consisting of silk-screened and embroidered hoodies and shirts with pictures of Ray saying WE DOIN THIS! and Roast Beef saying "I am the guy who sucks. Plus I got depression." 

Questions, see Achewood.  Start in 2005 or prior.

How I feel when

I see there's a job opening at the Poe Museum in Baltimore.

Um, ETA?  It's not in Baltimore!  It's in Richmond!  How do we not notice this information?  Eh so I don't know about all of that.  It's been a while since VA has been in the news for something other than encroaching on women's rights, know what I'm sayin.

It's too bad, because I feel like this museum was made for me, just like 30 Rock and the soundtrack to The Piano.  An early 18th century stone building, an excellent collection, a monthly promotional event called Unhappy Hour?!

So, uh

I hear Anne Rice will be doing a book signing at Changing Hands next Wednesday. 

I had half a mind to take my old 70s printing of Interview with the Vampire and have her sign it.  The below is a later printing and not really approaching the majesty of the dull gold with relief lettering.  Unfortunately, it is located in one of a series of many boxes of books, and it's anyone's guess whether I'll take the time to look.

1998-me would have, but this-me, probably not.

Hello pink daybed.

I'm alternately really interested in and really annoyed by people. Some of them are SO STRANGE to me. It's interesting to think of what passes notice in superficial interactions, and what becomes glaringly obvious to the point where I'm just staring at them with my hand in midair in classic "WTF?" arrangement.

I've written some of them down. These are the ones from today. Surely these will come in handy the next time I'm forced to write some fiction.

Ultra hip Japanese kid named Bruce. Style is Johnny Depp 1990. Very thin, and very smart. Rarely speaks. His second-gen Japanese-American grandparents were put into one of the Japanese internment camps during WWII.

Mouthbreather, audible from 6'. Lots of makeup. Possible slight autism. Loves professor. Says “Yeah!” “Uh huh!” as though they’re the only two in the room. Laughs every time professor laughs, loudly, one beat behind.

Sassy gay kid, Ray Bans, loser in class, never studies, does no homework. Young, hip hair, possible diabetic, carries a needle in a case. SHAKES. Puts his hands on his knees, stares straight ahead, and shakes/trembles violently and fast, mouth vaguely moving. No explanation of this. High pitched, nasal voice. Calls everyone bitch. Iphone all the time, Beyonce ringtone.

1930s mobster guy at Lux. Glossy black hair, slicked back. Tight fitting black sweater, black pants. 50s. Speaks softly, DeNiro mole. Drinks espresso.

Oh, no. There's more. Later.