A message from my friend Amin and his cronies in Toronto, particularly for those with December birthdays:
>>chuckle<< Fun to have a production studio, eh? He obviously has time on his hands now that Flashpoint has wrapped… 😉 This is quite the step up from the cassette tapes he used to make us for birthdays!
Here’s a passage from Sylvia Taylor’s The Fisher Queen that particularly struck me:
Everything was bare and spare and hard. Couple that with almost constant lurching, bouncing and bangs , and enormous amounts of water and slime, and you had a perfect studio for hematoma art with you as the canvas. Each technicolour lump was brushed with colours from hell’s sunsets: obsidian, aubergine, vermilion, puce. They were war wounds and medals to display and tell stories about on harbour days. One thing for certain, fishing was not a good vocation for a hemophiliac or people with bird bones. (p. 100)
Bird allusions aside, I frequently sport technicolour skin just from walking through my house, let alone bouncing on a rocking boat.
The remark about haemophilia reminded me of a photo I found quite amusing back when I was an exchange student. It’s of Czar Alexander fishing at his country house in Langinkoski, which was a few blocks from my 4th host family’s house. Alexander’s grandson, the famous haemophiliac Alexsi who was under the care of Rasputin, probably could have handled fishing this way. (Alexander is busily fishing there on the left of the photo… 😉 )
Damn. I just found out that today is International “Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day” and I’m feeling quite irritated that I didn’t know in time to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to prove that I’m a nut case or to send my Acting class out on assignment. 😉
I love books about time travelling. I think the first one I read was Lynne Ellison’s The Green Bronze Mirror. She was fourteen when she wrote it. I had just turned thirteen when I read it, and I was desperately impressed (and more than envious) that she had been published at such a young age. It has recently come back into print as an ebook, and while it definitely reads like something written by a 14 year old author, I see what I enjoyed about it.
I love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series with a slightly obsessive passion. I ws tortured reading Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveller’s Wife. A Hallmark movie with Christopher Reeves (swoon) and Jane Seymour called Somewhere in Time (based on the book Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson) is terribly romantic. Another great Young Adult book is Your Time, My Time by Ann Walsh. That one is set in BC’s Cariboo town of Barkerville. I could never walk past the graveyard without a sigh after reading it.
Here’s a good website listing all sorts of books on the theme, though only one of my favourite is listed. Go visit Charlotte’s Library. If you can’t get out to do your own time travelling today, there are lots of options to stay home.
If you can get out today, don some ‘out of time’ clothing and head into town, making poor attempts to blend in. Be sure to come back and tell me how people respond!
One of my students was telling me today about how when his mom went through chemo, she made herself amazing wigs from multicoloured yarns. I was enchanted with the concept, and was just looking online to see if there are patterns or pictures of yarn wigs.
I was delighted to come across Hair Flair for Hope, an organization that makes and provides exactly this kind of fun hair alternative for children or adventurous souls undergoing chemotherapy. They have workshops if you want to make some to donate. I think it’s quite brilliant! 🙂
Check it out!
lol . AH HA!!
Have a chuckle care of Monty Python and the gang.
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So what was it for you? Aliens? or Outlander? 😉
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NaNoWriMo Day 21: 184 words (November total 32,246)
I discovered Vancouver’s Fluevog shoes just in the last year or so, and ever since I have been developing a collection of gorgeous shoes. Fluevogs are very well made, beautifully designed, unique and interesting shoes. I’m discovering that there is definitely a Fluevogian attitude that celebrates creativity. People who wear ‘Vogs are people I enjoy meeting.
I have purchased all my ‘Vogs online, either through www.fluevog.com or eBay, but I dreamed of the day that I would be able to make a pilgrimage to the flagship, original store in Gastown.
When I went to Surrey for SIWC2012, I took the opportunity. I parked Sheila the Bug at the hotel, and took the bus and Skytrain into Gastown. 55 minutes X 2 trips in order to spend a few minutes in a store that had originally been a car park. It’s all glass front and roof, and log slices artfully display the most brilliant shoes on the planet in the abundant natural light.
Red and purple Fluevog K2s
I had two shoe styles that I wanted to try on. The first was the new Elizabeths with the ball and claw heel that mimics Chippendale style furniture. So cool! Unfortunately, the Elizabeths rubbed in a bad place, so I will have to wait for future shoes coming out with this amazing heel.
The second shoes were the K2s. I have worn similar shoes (in boring black) and had them until they fell apart. I know Oxfords are a great, every day style shoe for me. The K2s were a perfect fit, soft leather, fun vibrant colour combination, great heel height, and eye-catching, as well. My kind of shoe! They were an easy, “Yes!” and into the lovely paper bag they went.
After my shoe purchase, I headed across the road to The Coffee Bar to have dinner with Citieguy Paul Schellenberg who is a local impresario. Paul and I were Rotary Exchange students together years ago. He went to Belgium when I went to Finland. It’s been quite a few years, and it’s fun to see where we’ve taken the skills we developed as exchange students! It turns out that The Coffee Bar is a favourite haunt of my son, who works for 49th Parallel Roasteries, which supplies the coffee that is served there. The cashier raved about how wonderful my son is, and I told them to tell him that they’d met his mother. <g> Nothing like embarrassing your kid, right?
The visit with Paul was all too short, because I had a big night ahead of me! The lovely Fluevog paper bag dissolved on the way back to the hotel, in the humidity of the miserable rain, but nothing could wash away my enthusiasm! I put my new shoes onto my feet and headed off to Chapters at Strawberry Hill to meet authors JJ Lee, Michael Slade, CC Humphreys, Mary Balogh, Jack Whyte, and Diana Gabaldon.
Like the finance minister wearing new shoes to present a new budget, my new Fluevogs set the tone for a weekend of creativity, exhuberance, and promise. I was introduced to a lot of wonderful people who had to stop to ask me about my various shoes. I wore Fluevog Bellevue Pearl Harts to the 1920s dinner for perfect vintage style. My Fluevog Ice Blue Macchiatos made the SIWC Facebook page, and at dinner one evening, I was asked to come meet a table of ladies all wearing unique Fluevog shoes. Author CC Humphreys complimented my shoes, and pointed out that he, too, was weaving ‘Vogs! The people at SIWC are clearly MY PEOPLE! <g>
Of course, besides helping to meet amazing new people, the best thing about having distinctive shoes, is that whenever I wear these awesome K2s, I will remember that I was wearing them when I met my favourite author, Diana Gabaldon! <g> It will remind me of her writing advice and generous spirit.
Creative shoes. Creative people. Creative spirit. Creative life.
These men are an inspiration! I love the whacky sense of humour and commitment it takes to wear facial art like this.
At the fair a couple weeks ago, I noticed a man with an impressive growth of beard, suffering somewhat, as the nest on his face appeared to be full of melted ice cream. He looked a trifle sheepish. Such dramatic hair plainly offers hazards to everyday life!
Though the character looks like he might be an evil henchman, I’m quite intrigued by this clever use of colour:
Worried about bats in your hair? How about a stork in your beard? 🙂 Check out those mischievous blue eyes!
Check out more over at: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-best-pictures-from-the-2012-world-beard-and-mu
The high school where I teach English and Drama this year, is famous for its amazing dance program. Here’s a Youtube video of the Pleasant Valley Secondary Adrenaline Dance Team in action:
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The camera was really close in ^^^^ that version ^^^^ though the energy is particularly high because it’s a competition. Here is a performance of the same number, with a wider perspective:
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Shawn L. Bird 
dancing September 23, 2012
Tags: belly, bellydancing, dance, Get Bent, Penticton, workshop
I’ve been off the blog because I’ve been attending dance workshops the last couple of days. Get Bent Yoga and Bellydance came up from Penticton to do some classes with us.
If you are in Penticton, you need to check them out, they have drop in classes! If you’re in a town where they tour, you won’t be disappointed with their show!
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When I’ve recovered from the exhausting hours of exercise and mental effort, I’ll write you a fascinating blog post, I promise. Well. I’ll write a blog post, at least! 🙂
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