Valentine the doll

I made a new gallery on my website, and it is a DOLL gallery, showing pictures (some fuzzy, unfortunatley) of the dolls I have made recently/semi-recently. I'm such an Aunt, I know. Please look here:
DOLLS
Sometimes I wonder if all of the crafts I do are just procrastination for building a portfolio. I don't know. Dude, I have so much art. I need to get rid of it, in a way. Start new and afresh. I need to clean up the pantry (aka: my studio) and make it comfortable to sit in.
Last night I bowed out of a swampy blues goth-rock show at a warehouse in order to stay home and make pitch-black-faced marionettes. It is true work, so I didn't feel bad, and I'm getting too old to drink as much as I do.

NO Cheating

The first person who can recognize the child below in the black-and-white pictures gets a special present sent right to their house. A handmade wallet perhaps? I am about to embark upon some more wallets (this time using some cloth as opposed to just old calendars, contact paper and a sewing machine) so if you want one let me know.
Here's a bright picture of two bright people for you. Note how our clothes match what we are sitting on.

Brits and me and Eccentricity

I am currently entranced with these pictures of *someone famous* as a eccentric young english child:








These photos remind me of the glorious Jaroslava Schallerova from "Valerie and her Week of Wonders", a hallucinatory swirling Czech 70's masterpeice of fairy tale purity and horror. I must say, I loved this movie and it's innocence and experience, which were expressed side by side. The pictures and this movie express this sort of bohemian eccentric childhood which is very familiar to me. It's the only movie that i could say is truly a dream, rather than just dream-like. You have to surrender all your ideas of plot direction and let it take you where it will with it's disturbing and misty and sun-splashed and erotic and perverse and very 60's imagery. Remided me alot of skinny diipping as a young girl in the summer and thinking the world will never end and the moment will last forever...aka Bliss.

I often talk about the history of the British eccentric (and how they aren't like American eccentrics who usually own used car dealerships and get horrendous plastic surgery) and the acceptance the Brits seem to have for their wierdos, and I add these other folks to the fold, whether or not they are native Brits:

The Incredible String Band: first music I ever heard, first songs I ever knew. My dad used to sing the animal songs to me in my little bed: Cousin Caterpillar, The Hedgehog Song, Big Ted (a pig), and Log Cabin Home In The Sky.

Tori Amos: nuff said. Not a Brit by birth, but she has resided there since the early 90's. Gloriously goofy and weird and HERSELF (against all criticism)!




Vashti Bunyan: who lived in a gypsy wagon with her lover and their child. Sang whisper-soft folk songs about glo-worms and pups long before I was born. Dissapeared to the Outer Hebrides.

AND NOT TO FORGET The Doctor! WOW. Dum dada dumdada Dum dada Dum.........

mouse mish

musica del mar

Gosh I hope this works. I have a new song by Sin In Space for your listening pleasure entitled "A Plague on They". Hey! It's about the breakup of my marriage. Hey! The "You" in the song means me! Good thing I don't care cause the song is so damn good. WOW it's good:
THE SONG
More about Sin In Space: The Website also a funny article in The Guardian says (under the title of "Santa Cruz Coulda-beens"):

Sin in Space (1999-2002) Another Santa Cruz-area star that may have burned too brightly to have a long life was Sin in Space. Their lyrical storytelling and raw talent were more than out of this world – they could have soared to another galaxy had they been given time. On their lone CD release, Asteroid Band (Pandacide), the foursome melded the sound of post-punk and alternative rock into sonic vignettes that perfectly encapsulated what was happening around them at the time: "The whole world is fast asleep / Let's sneak in through their radios" ("Fortune Teller"). For more information go to www.pandacide.com.

Also...I am doing a cover for the new CD by the also incredibly talented Garrett Pierce. He sings like an angel. His songs are very "sad bastard" which is my secret favorite kind of music. They are engrossing and deep and make shivers run down my spine. Here is the first track off the album:Left Side of Space!

I promise you won't be disapointed.

The Things that make us Happy make us Wise

"She pulled the chain, and when the loud crash of contrary waters was done she unbelted and stepped from her gown, shuddered, and climbed carefully into the tub. The gothic bathroom had filled with steam. It's sort of gothic was really more woodland than church; the vaulting of it arched above Daily Alice's head and interlaced like meeting branches, and everywhere carven ivy, leaves, tendrils, and vines were in restless biomorphic motion. On the surface of the narrow stained-glass windows, dew formed in drops on cartoon-bright trees, and on the distant hunters and vague fields which the trees framed; and when the sun on its lazy way had lit up all twelve of these, bejewelling the fog that rose from her bath, Daily Alice lay in a pool in a medival forest. Her great-grandfather had designed the room, but another had made the glass. His middle name was comfort and that's what Daily Alice felt. She even sang."
Ever have one of those moments were you begin a book and suddenly feel this sense of magical recognition like: "This book was made for ME. This book is written by one of MY PEOPLE!" That's what I felt as I have dived into "Little, Big" by John Crowley. Also it's 600 pages long...so I have many more delicous pages to go. Thrill! Nice covers too. The one I have is on the bottom.

Bookseller HO!

Books that I've recently read and would like to talk about:

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan: totally riveting and disturbing. I started and finished it in one sitting (it's only 153 pages long). A twisted memoir of children left on their own one long hot summer after the parents' death. Sexually charged and apocalyptic in a small, airless, British way.

Whores: The oral History of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction by Brendan Mullen: I like oral histories. They give immediacy and movement to a narrative, and the conflicting viewpoints are constantly humourous and remind you of how subjective everything is. Another book on the roots of Punk called "Kill Me Tomorrow" is my favorite written in this style. This book on my favorite band from my teen era; Jane's, is interesting and only a little dismaying. I really have got to not ever read books on my musical idols because I will most often be dissapointed. Money corrupts. That's all there is to it. Who new that Farrell was on tons of crack?! I sort of wanted a "where are they today" section at the end. The book did make me dig out ritual and listen to it while I cleaned this morning.

The Scar by China Mieville: The second I've read by my new literary heart-throb China Mieville (he's a red--can you tell?). His books are baroque and grotesque and have heart-stopping action and riveting turns of language and image and plot. They all take place in the imaginary world of Bas Lag. Highly original and intelligent. AND there are horrible monsters! Yikes!

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter: I recently discovered Angela Carter through the blog of ANOTHER Carter. (Roxanne Carter the captivating blogger/photographer/writer who's livejournal is here. She has extremely good taste in just about everything. We share some asthetic sensibilities (and we both work with books) and so I take her reccomendations on things)Angela Carter writes her own versions of folf-tales, myths and fairy stories with scintillating results. They are visceral and incredible. She can WRITE, folks, like all get out and is witty and perverse and can turn out some incredible descriptions--red poppies like "bubbles of blood" for instance. People always refer to Angela Carter as a feminist writer, but I am so much a feminist just naturally that I don't notice when someone else is. It's like the normal state of being for me.

That's my abreviated list so far, just books that I've read in the last two weeks. Want more book talk? How about Orion Reads!

in a quiet world of my own

I highly reccomend that if you have any chance to see "gypsy punks" Gogol Bordello, you put on your steel-toed boots and your choli and go experience them. I saw them last night and ended the show covered in other people's sweat and beaming (without smashed toes even though I was in the pit! Thank you Gripfast!). The lead singer has the most amazing mustache and jumps around like part of him is on fire (and it IS).
Only problem is that I'm totally residually deaf. Darn.

Back in The City

Back in San Francisco where everything is BIG and there is moisture in the air. Home seems very different and the subtle changes fascinate me. This is where I live.