Brain Flotsam

having a life

2009-11-21T22:18:06Z

IMG_3845
Originally uploaded by zephrene.

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.

Amazing Faiths

2009-11-13T04:32:18Z

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.

practicalities

2009-11-11T18:18:28Z

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.

it all happened again and again and again and again and again

2009-11-11T16:16:56Z

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

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

There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.
~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Godzilla Quilt Delivery

2009-11-10T15:22:26Z

Giving the Godzilla Quilt 3
Originally uploaded by zephrene.

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.

evening out

2009-11-07T03:52:56Z

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.

some cool things

2009-11-04T03:22:09Z

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!

off I go

2009-11-03T11:24:26Z

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.

25th Wings Over Houston Air Show

2009-11-02T03:08:57Z

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.

At the Faire

2009-10-26T01:02:47Z

Keri and Donna
Originally uploaded by zephrene.

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.

founders gifts reveal

2009-10-22T16:24:32Z

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.

Quilt Show Day 2 + politics

2009-10-18T19:26:05Z

More from the Quilt Show:

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

This one made me think of shogunsquirrel:

And these two made me think of vermilionsun:
Tolkein tribute: (I took a lot of this one - the details are just amazing)

Painted whole cloth:

And last night was the annual Johnson Rayburn Richards Dinner for the Harris County Democratic Party. Mom and I dolled up with lovely fancy scarves from a weaver selling at the Quilt Show.
The dinner was huge this time - they had to get a bigger ballroom to hold us all.

Quilt Festival Day 1

2009-10-17T00:55:21Z

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.

ART: Chasing a Dream (Merlin/Morgana, PG-13)

2009-10-16T15:45:29Z

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)

ART: Embrace (Merlin/Arthur, PG)

2009-10-16T01:39:44Z

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)

an evening of Blues

2009-10-15T03:04:51Z

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.

secrets of typography...

2009-10-13T16:19:14Z

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

a spiritual experience

2009-10-09T03:50:19Z

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. :)

punk hilarity from Friday night

2009-10-05T16:28:41Z

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!

it's banned books week

2009-10-01T13:33:33Z

Have a really awesome letter from a librarian:

myliblog: Uncle Bobby's Wedding:

Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life.

recovered, and immunized

2009-09-26T18:58:41Z

I got a clean bill of health yesterday, and got a shot in each arm (flu, tetanus).

Ran by Spec's to get cookies and cheese and found a few other things to try. My food experiments have been kind of eh lately. Sometimes they work out, more often they leave me feeling gross for the rest of the day.

Also, been watching Avatar: the Last Airbender Book 2, which tends to make me very emotional. Between Appa and Aang I just cry at the drop of a hat in this book (In the next book, it's Zuko and Hiro that make me cry the most), but luckily Sokka is there to bring me back with a smile.

Time to go run some more errands, and hopefully reclaim my Firefly DVDs. By the time I get home, I should be able to find Merlin's latest episode, too.

sick day

2009-09-22T01:12:54Z

As some folks already know, I spent today being sick. Ugh. I still have a low-grade fever, and the persistance of that will determine whether or not I go to work tomorrow.
I spent this morning at the emergency clinic with Awesome!Chauffeur!Dad, and then the rest of the day in varying stages of sleep or eating under Mom's eye.
Now I'm taking advantage of brief moments of concentration and hoping that I can sleep through the night. Or at least large chunks of it.

it was a fun weekend!

2009-09-14T18:12:31Z

Lunch with Donna, ApolloCon meeting followed by dinner and coffee with fun peeps, and a trip to Hermann Park / the science museum with my parents.

We saw the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit (no photos allowed inside, where the actual stuff was - this photo is a replica from the gift shop).
I also got some supplies for my art class that starts tomorrow, and brainstormed some fun alternative fairy tale illustration ideas. (Steampunk Snow White and Cyberpunk Sleeping Beauty were suggested.)

At the park the Houston Garden Center was having a cactus and low-water plant sale, so I picked up a couple green friends and put them on the TV table where they can get plenty of indirect sunlight. They're very cute.

friday of a long week

2009-09-12T03:47:54Z

Had a lot of stuff going on this week. It's just been terribly busy, and I haven't slept well.
Thought about going to the memorial concert tonight, but wasn't up for it. Spent the whole day reading various bizarre social networking posts about where people were in 2001. There was a hashtag for it, for goodness sakes. Bizarre, and yet I suppose completely human.
I doubt I'll ever forget, but the memory seems to change with each telling. And more than the day itself, the days and weeks immediately after stay in my mind. It was a hard time, but one that has faded with the passing of years so that its immediacy is lessened but certain indelible images and feelings remain, worn into the psyche beside all the rest of a life's traumas.

Hm, I seem to have gone a bit introspective despite my effort to avoid same this year.

I've finished two actual novels this week, though, which was great. And they were both awesome in totally different ways. Lavinia by Ursula K LeGuin, and The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop.

Now I'm really tired and looking forward to a fun weekend, so I'd best get to bed and try to actually sleep.

some things are finished

2009-09-10T12:32:03Z

Had a lovely crafty evening with Kim last night. Found some fantastic Halloween accessories at Michael's that will make wonderful not-quite-so-tiny shrines, and achieved a significant amount on the quilt.
The quilting portion of the project is finished. Now I have only the binding and final touches before it is ready to send. Yay!

I am so busy, in all aspects of my life, and it's funny the way that everything just gets more complicated. Luckily I have a really great workplace and a lot of resources for keeping my head above water.
There's a small list of urgent tasks I need to do in the next few days, but things have been made much easier by canceling some of my almost-scheduled out-of-town plans for this month and next. Except for the RenFaire, there is now nothing on my plate requiring a large travel investment until the holiday season.

And plenty of time for crafty decompression.
(I hope!)