So, I haven't really blogged much in the last few weeks, just highlighting a few things.
I've been busy with work and fandom, and that's pretty much been it. Also reading - I did a lot of reading recently.
Soulless by Gail Carriger -- awesome and funny and really enjoyable.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman -- intriguing and painful and extraordinary and terribly sad.
I'm in the middle of Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, which is so far excellent.

Also on Friday Mom and Dad and I watched Neverwhere. I'd never seen it, although I sort of remember reading it, maybe. It was quite awesome, and also had a lot of really amazing guest stars.

I'm eating Mom's Thanksgiving leftovers and they're full of yumminess. But now thanks to Rose Tyler and my Doctor Who marathon, I really crave french fries.  Rose and her chips.  Geez.

Today I'm in the middle of Season Two of Doctor Who and have seen the latest episode of Merlin, plus Merlin: Secrets & Magic  (why isn't it a half hour like DW:Confidential, I ask you?), and The Real Merlin and Arthur special, which was hilarious. I want more of the footage from the driving, because that was where they spent most of their days. Also, I have now seen 3 out of 6 members of the Merlin cast guesting on Doctor Who. And I know that Midnight is coming up later.

I'm working on lots of art for holiday exchanges, but once those are turned in (mid-December), I'll be done for now. That means I'll be able to concentrate on my own projects again, yay.
I'm in a short course at Rice Continuing Studies as well, which has two more sessions, and for that I'm working on graphite pieces based on Merlin and the Knights of the Tarot. Hopefully soon I'll be re-doing them in color as well.

OK, back to drawing.

It's me, doing things and having culture and stuff!
that is the entrance to Jones Hall from the underground parking garage that spans the underbelly of the entire Theater District. Cool art, for an underground lair. :D

Brahms was excellent. Mahler was odd. It was a great night.

Tonight I went to one of the many Amazing Faiths Dinner Dialogues around Houston, and it was actually pretty awesome. I was kind of conflicted about actually going, but it ended up being really powerful and lovely.

Perhaps this will be a catalyst to get me to be more active in spiritual life here.

Despite the patronizing headline, I did find this article helpful.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Veterans (And How You Can Support Them)

Veteran's Day only happens once a year, but our nation's veterans need our support year-round. We've pulled together five facts about U.S. veterans, the great organizations that are supporting them and how you can help any time of the year.

On this Day of Remembrance, two songs by Eric Bogle about the First World War, lest we forget...

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (YouTube)

The Green Fields of France (YouTube) (performed by the Dropkick Murphys; video is historic photos)

And now some concerns for the servicemembers and veterans alive today, from Democracy Now! Because a 'thank you' means more when it's backed up by decent support and care:

Study: Over 2,200 US Veterans Died in 2008 Due to Lack of Health Insurance

Sexual Assaults, Inadequate Healthcare Among Spate of Issues Facing Women Servicemembers

And my usual barrage of quotes for the day:

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official...
~Theodore Roosevelt

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
~John F. Kennedy

It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate.
~George McGovern

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I visited Tim and Lisa when they were vacationing in Austin, and while I was there, I gave them the wedding quilt I'd been working on (and trying to keep a surprise) for the last year.
I think they liked it. ;)
More photos at Flickr, plus soon I'll post the "making of" photos that I've been holding on to until the surprise part was over. Yay!

I also had a fantastic time in Austin, with Tim's cousins and their friends. Lovely family-style dinner, games, talk, music, friendly dogs, tea, and much fun.

This evening the lovely alisanne was in town, so we met up for dinner and tea and much chatter of fandom and other topics.  It was quite a nice time. 
Now I must prepare for my weekend adventure in Austin, plus try to make some progress on my art coming due.

Long day at the polls, but relatively easy, too. It was a lovely space this time, and fabulous weather, and I got to do some writing planning, plus watched some Merlin.

This is the piece I did in the studio art class that just finished up today. She's a new incarnation of Sofia the Clockwork Engineer, and I think that this version of her is a character in the story I'm writing.


This is the 2009 Heritage Society Quilt Committee offering, called "The View from My Hammock". My mom did five, count 'em, five of the squares. Mom is awesome. I got a credit because I did some drafting and designing. I did not sew any of this quilt, though!

Ok, I'm leaving for the polling place where I will be spending all day Election Clerking. With no internet.  Woe.
See you all late tonight.

It was a perfect day for an air show - cool, sunny, not a cloud in the sky. There were some great performances, some fun airplanes to ogle, and it was an opportunity to hang out with my dad and my brother.
Despite the increasing jingoism inherent in the relentless drumming of the military recruitment message, it was a very nice day. The flying was awesome, breeze was refreshing, and we had a pretty great place to sit.





Flickr Set - this year starts here.

I ran away to the circus.. er, Renaissance Festival today!
It was pirate weekend, so I got into a pseudo-costume (I wore jeans), and met Donna, Jon, Lando and some friends.
It was a long drive, by the way. Geez. It seems so much shorter when there is another person in the car.
This is us in front of the waterwheel by the carousel, which was the designated "let's all meet here" location.

Wow, I haven't even had the chance to read my gift and the reveals are already up for Founders Gifts.

I drew The Duellist (PG), and will take the time to post it properly on the art comm and IJ shortly.

More from the Quilt Show:


Special highlights of interest to vermilionsun and shogunsquirrel under the cut. Hee. :)

( photos )

International Quilt Festival, Day 1:

Totally awesome!
I blew half my festival budget on amber jewelry, but the highlight of the show was still the quilts.

This one is pieced, not painted - I swear.  It's huge, taller than I am, and gorgeous in person. "Medea Escaping". 
My flickr set for the show includes the card for this one, and some detail shots.

Been working on this since 2x03 aired, but there are no spoilers unless you want to see them.

Title: Chasing a Dream
Artist:zephre
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: BBC's Merlin
Characters: Morgana/Merlin
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Medium: photoshop


(image at art journal)

Title: Embrace
Artist: zephre
Rating: PG
Fandom: BBC's Merlin
Characters: Merlin/Arthur
Notes: For the Merlin/Arthur Hug Meme


(image at the drawing comm)

Mom and Dad and I went to this tonight:
The Jung Center of Houston: The Soul of Houston -- Blues Stories:

The Soul of Houston: Blues Stories

Following our successful spring conference, this free lecture series, hosted by Houston author Roger Wood, continues to explore the hidden, unexplored soul of our community by focusing on the music and fascinating life stories of three Houston blues legends.

... and it was awesome. 
Texas Johnny Brown was born in 1928 and is still going strong, playing blues and telling stories about his life inside the music. It was amazing.
And then afterwards Mom talked to him over coffee while he was signing CDs, and Dad regaled some of the Blues Society folks with a tale of the Beatles' visit to Houston, when they were mobbed by crazy fans. They never came back to Texas after that.  ;)
Anyway, it was a really nice time, and I just fell in love with the Jung Center. Why have I not been taking crazy amounts of classes there and hitting their lecture circuit since I moved back?  It makes me want to go back and re-examine Pacifica's graduate programs in Depth Psychology and Mythology, too. Mmm, myth.

There are two more Wednesdays of Blues programs, we're planning to go to those, too.

illogicalvulcan:  How did an @ wind up in my logs?
me:  it hatched from three brackets and a tilde.
illogicalvulcan:  whoa! kinky
me:  this is why typography is so popular
illogicalvulcan:  wow...vermilionsun never said
illogicalvulcan: top
illogicalvulcan: that was not for you
me:: :D I thought we were back to kinky typography
illogicalvulcan: no, now we're back to me sending you unix commands
me:: hee
illogicalvulcan: would you like to tell me your most resource intensive processes?
me:: paying my cable bill.
illogicalvulcan: I just LOLed

This evening Mom and I attended the Progressive Forum again. 
Tonight the speaker was Karen Armstrong, and she was amazing. Brilliant. Incredibly well-spoken, fun to listen to, grounded in her knowledge, and beautifully eloquent. Plus bonus British accent.
But seriously, I was so moved at times during her lecture, and her answer to one of the questions during the Q&A portion had me choked up.
It reminded me with deep, loving nostalgia of the best of my class in Seminary.

Her talk was about god, in a very early sense of the word. She spoke of traditions having a special language and breathing to discuss god, the concept beyond realization. About finding the moment when one's word become too much and one is reduced to silence and awe. (Like the moment, the beat at the end of a symphony, the breath before the applause begins.)  The goal of the practice is to breathe in the silence, in the presence of that awe.
She spoke of creation stories or cosmologies as therapeutic exercises, guides for personal creativity with an emphasis on personal sacrifice. Never does something come from nothing; something always from something.
She spoke of revelation as an ongoing process. Scripture, in the Rabbinic tradition, as something to be re-interpreted for and by each generation.
She spoke of the complementary relationship in pre-16th century society between logos and mythos. Logos as knowledge, science, the physical reality. Myth as a way to deal with inner issues, emotion, pain, despair, psyche. Myth as a program for action. Religion, she said, is like dancing - a skill requiring practice.  A belief is not enough. And belief as a word did not mean then what it did now, but represented a commitment, love, dedication, a doing.
She spoke of dialogue as a spiritual exercise in the Socratic tradition, its goal to realize the profundity of human ignorance, and from there begin to seek wisdom. She said that one difficulty we have now is that instead of proceeding in the dialogue with gentleness, as Socrates said, these days we feel the need not only to win, to prove our knowledge, but also to humiliate our opponents.
And of course, she spoke of compassion. She is developing a Charter for Compassion online. (See the page at the TED prize about her wish.)

One of the most intriguing and resonant things she said, to me, was about the need for silence.  Specifically inner silence as a place of spiritual revelation and knowing. This reminded me so much of one of the books that was formative to my young spirituality, Sati by Christopher Pike. We are all god, and this can be discovered in silence.

When asked to describe her idea of god:
"I try not to have any ideas of god at all." She does not wish to 'domesticate the transcendence', but to keep it in the realm of music, poetry, etc. She feels intimations of awe and wonder during the day: "I do feel touched within, but what that is I don't know - and it's better not to ask."

At the very end she spoke about hope for the future in the face of so much misunderstanding and upheaval.

In short, it was an awesome evening.

Also, happy happy birthday to my awesome Dad. :)

Friday night the parental units and I descended upon one of Houston's dens of indie rock, Fitzgerald's, to see the debut of Peter's new band, CommieHilfiger. Yes, it's satire. They were hilarious and loud and awesome. And they did a synchronized dance number. Win!