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South America 2015, Part 3.

September 12th, 2015

Ollantaytambo! A place! With terraces. And stairs. Omigod, stairs. Pre-Columbian stairs can SUCK IT. I, for one, am thrilled the Spanish came and conquered and destroyed an ancient culture because you know what they brought with them? Stairs with uniform height and depth. And railings. Magical magical railings. Hooray for European oppressors! (I seriously hated the stairs.)

But before the nightmare stairs we shall visit a local village. Unlike most cities, the major cities we visited were nowhere near a major water source. What they did have was very fertile land and melting icecaps on mountains that made rivers. A neat thing is sometimes they would build the town so the water could flow through the town in channels on the sides of the streets.

That’s not for trash or waste, that’s fresh water that one could dip one’s pot into and use for cooking or cleaning. And remember I said there was old ruins all over place and I was not kidding, they are seriously everywhere. And wisely everyone decided ” Waste not want not” and built new village components on top of the old ruins. That’s why the bottom part is stone and the top part is stucco.

We went into a typical home interior. It was amazing. I loved it. I was the only one. We’ll get into why in a moment. It had a cement floor and the walls were leftover Inca ruins. The roof was corrugated iron sheets with panels cut out for skylights. If I had to sum up my trip to Peru it would be: A new appreciation for skylights. They are in 80% of the buildings and it immediately improves everything. Places that would be glum and dark are bright and spacious. I am now firmly on the skylight camp. Anyway, back to this house. It was just one big room with no windows, only stone niches for storage, about 50 feet by 50 feet and about 12 feet high. And everything a family could ever need was inside. One one side of the room was two beds:

On the other side was an oven-stove thing built into the wall (so far, fine, totally normal):

Hanging from the ceiling is dried fish, dried alpaca meat and corn (it didn’t smell therefore still okay):

Here’s where it takes the turn and only Jessica is happy about it: Under the antique sewing machine is where the guinea pigs hang out eating alfalfa, no cages or anything, free-range (remember, this is a one-room house):

Next to that is the family’s religious shrine with the skulls of Great-Grampa, Great-Great-Grampa and Great-Gramma sitting in the niche above the table of religious accoutrements. Yep. This is directly across from the beds so while you go to sleep you’re staring at your dead ancestors’ empty eye sockets. Sleep tight.

See those white-ish things off to the side? I thought they were giant radishes. Nope! Dried stillborn llama babies. Always a good choice in home decoration. Beautifully paired with Granny’s skull. I think this is in the Crate & Barrel collection this season.

You’ll notice that the religious elements on the table are not Christian. That’s an interesting thing. 85% of Peru’s population is Catholic, but most of them consider themselves really fluid in that regard. They will go to mass on Sunday, but they will also go to a faith healer and worship the ancient gods. Ergo the pre-Columbian religious elements. In the pumas and llamas there there are holes in the top that look like they should be for candles, but they are filled with llama fat. The belief is that if you put the fat of an animal in these figures, they come to life and can help you communicate with the gods.

Okay, off to Ollantaytambo. Big ole terraced ruin. I don’t think people lived there, they farmed there and there was a sun temple but no homes.

Beautiful, huh? LOOK AT THE SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAIN. Look at it. I climbed that. At 9,000 feet. If I could breathe I would have been non-stop moaning.

Oh God whyyyyyyy stairrrrrrrrrrrs so many so uneven so lumpy ehhhhhhhhhh

This was my first foray into Inca architecture. I learned so much. Let me see if I can recall all the things I was taught.

All the stones were brought from somewhere else. That means that people dragged these monsters from whatever valley they originated up this steep mountainside. And in the picture below you’ll notice that the quality of the stones show the importance of the building. The terraces have meh rocks, the higher levels have large hand-cut stones that have been fitted and the top level where the temple was has giant, beautifully hewn and fitted stones. THAT means that the big beautiful stones had to be dragged up even higher. Wow.

Double doorways delineate building entrances. So when you see a doorway nestled in a doorway that means building entrance, not just room entrance. When you’re walking around ruins with no roof or any furniture it helps you figure out how the floor plan was laid out.

No mortar was used in the buildings because of earthquakes. It allowed the stones to shift a little bit. That’s the same reason the niches and windows are trapezoidal and smaller on top. Smart, those Inca people. You think, being so smart, they would BUILD A DECENT SET OF STAIRS okay I’m done.

Those nubbles sticking out is how archaeologists think they stones were moved. The builders would wrap ropes around those and pull. Then, when the stones were in place the nubbles were buffed away using other pieces of granite.

In order to match the stone shapes exactly they would lay out the entire bottom layer, then put clay on top of that. That made a mold they could follow exactly while carving. They also made tongue-and-groove joints inside the wall for added structural integrity.

If stones fell off the walls (or were pushed off by the Spaniards, let’s be real here) the archaeologists didn’t try to put them back, they simply lined them up in neat rows on the terraces below. Cool bit of info about the terraces – there is no drainage on them. That’s because the bottom layer is rock chunks, then there’s ash and on top is soil brought up from the Sacred Valley. The water on the top terraces drain down to that rock-chunk layer and that feeds the terrace below and so on and so forth. That means no flooding or stagnant water pools.

The wind up in the mountains is pretty intense. I think this picture really shows how non-stop it is, with the tree and the sitting area. And there are government-owned alpacas! Most of the ruins we went to had government-owned alpacas or llamas on them. The government thinks they enhance the places and Lord knows I ain’t complainin’.

These are examples of that Incan cross I spoke of earlier with the three steps. It references the three planes of existence. It’s a common theme and we saw it all the time.

This is the view from Ollantaytambo to the storehouses across the way.

Since it rains so infrequently there buildings can be built out of mud. I would be concerned all the time about every cloud but another reason I found to not be on Team Adobe was when I saw all these holes and asked our guide Henry what they were. “Bee holes,” he said.

After Ollantaytambo we had an opportunity to actually see how the adobe bricks are made. A team of men were adding water to the dirt and incorporating straw into the mix, then smooshing it into a mold with their feet, gently removing the mold and letting it dry for about four days. The Moomins was delighted about the chance to assist with the smooshing. That shoe came off so fast and her foot was in there.

I’m still not feeling the “building the house out of mud” thing, but if it works for them, more power to them.

Next entry: Pre-Machu Picchu. With maybe a sprinkling of Machu Picchu, we’ll see.

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South America 2015, Part 2.

September 6th, 2015

Cusco! It’s 11,000 above sea level! It was bizarre. I felt fine as long as I walked on flat ground. Then I would step up one step and I would be winded and have to lie down because the blackness would fill my eyes. It took me a long long time to acclimate, even a little. I suffer from sleep apnea here on ground level and the apnea was far worse at high elevations. I think my body thought I wasn’t breathing so I woke up violently every 30 minutes or so. I would be sleeping peacefully, then “NKAH!!!” and I would sit up straight in bed. But not everything is ever all bad. It was so dry and crisp at that height I didn’t have any allergies and my skin stayed really clear. Silver linings, y’all.

First, a few unrelated-to-Cusco pictures. This is the Chakana, the Inca Cross. It is going to be referenced over and over. You can see the condor, puma, snake thing I mentioned in the previous blog entry.

Something you need to be prepared for in South America – you can’t flush your toilet paper in the toilet. You put it in the wastepaper basket off to the side. It takes some getting used to.

Okay, so, Cusco. This was the photo I took from the bus as soon as I landed. I think it’s pretty evocative. Love the hat seller. Hats are big there being that you’re six inches from the sun.

Another fun thing was Drea’s bag of Doritos that she brought from the U.S. It did not care for the altitude, no it did not.

Cusco had my dream setup. Don’t like the church on the left? We conveniently have the church on the right. Right next to the super-old little church there all the way on the far right.

There was also those Spanish-style wooden balconies all along the main square.

But our guide Henry didn’t want us staying in Cusco our first night. We went down into the Sacred Valley which was only 9,000 feet up so we didn’t all die immediately. It also gave us a chance to appreciate the stark beauty of the Andes.

The Incas and pre-Incas built storehouses all over the countryside. Their society never experienced a famine because they had mountain facilities filled with corn and potatoes and seeds and cured meat and because it’s so dry and the winds blew through the windows nothing would rot. We drove past tons of these storehouses.

We stopped at a roadside truck stop to take a bathroom break where I saw a kid playing with a kite made of garbage. The mountains are very windy so kite-flying is a natural activity. With the mountains in the background, it was a stunning photo.

Since this is a common truck stop there were people there selling Peruvian goods. That’s where I ended up buying the hat that I insist on wearing much to my mother’s chagrin. Sorry Moomins, it’s an awesome hat and you must accept that. Our guide Henry informed us that the reason the woman is wearing that particular chapeau with the very tall head-space is to mimic the skull elongation we saw in the museum skulls. I thought that was a really cool fact.

After this brief, extremely scenic tinkle-break we went to a women’s collective that uses the old ways of spinning, weaving and dying wool and camelid fiber. Clarification time – wool comes from goaties and sheepies and some really fluffy bunnies. The camelids (the two domestic breeds, the llama and the alpaca, and the two wild breeds, the vicuña and the guanaco) are considered to have hair, not fur or wool. Therefore their stuff is called fiber. People get real cranky-like if you call it wool; I learned that the hard way at the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival. FIBER. Get it right or get rebuked.

Anyway these women saw an opportunity to keep their original techniques alive while supporting themselves so they have this place where visitors can go and see the whole process. I found it fascinating. First they take the fiber and spin it using a spindle and gravity (a good system, it’s slow but it never breaks and if gravity fails and then we have bigger problems than wool-spinning).

Then they dye the yarn if they want to be exciting jaunty colors. If they don’t dye the camelid fibers they have lots of grays and browns to work with. This is an undyed finished piece.

If they do dye the yarn they use all kinds of natural stuff. Peru has all these herbs and plants and stones and metals which they grind up and mix with each other and then brew and then dunk this yarn in, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, to get the colors they want.

My favorite color was the red, not because of the red itself but because of how it’s made. It’s made from powdered beetle. Yep. See that cactus? See that white stuff on it? Those are dried beetle corpses. They scrape those off and pulverize it and it makes a terrific red dye called cochineal. It’s really common for it to be in many of our red foods. You’ve eaten this beetle.

The yarn on the right is plain cochineal dye. The yarn on the left is cochineal dye mixed with a scoop of copper sulfate. Someone figured out that if you do that the yarn turns more orange and less bordeaux. I thought that was cool as hell.

The next steps is to dry the yarn in the sun and then roll it up in a ball. It needs to be in a ball because it needs to be thrown. Two posts are driven into the ground about 12 feet apart and a person sits at each end, wrapping the yarn around the pole and then throwing the yarn ball to the opposite pole. This is done until the pole is laden with yarn to the top.

Honestly, I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know if they take it off the posts and clip it together somehow or transfer it to a loom with hooks on it, something happens now that this becomes the warp. The weft (the threads going in the opposite direction of the warp, thereby making it fabric) is woven in by hand using wooden sticks with pointy ends to drive the yarn apart and allow the warp threads to pass through. Back and forth and back and forth. That’s it. That’s how you make fabric. There are, of course, a million and one variations on that simple theme. For example this woman was making a belt. She had driven a small peg into the ground and was using her waist as resistance to keep the tension tight. You can clearly see the wooden pointy-ended sticks she uses to separate the warp and allow the weft to pass through.

The other interesting demonstration we saw was how they cleaned the wool. Sheep wool is notoriously dirty because of the lanolin which is the natural oil the sheep makes that causes dirt to really hang out and settle in. The woman in charge scraped some yucca into a bowl with some water and swirled a piece of wool around in it. Yucca is a natural detergent. It even froths up a little bit. About thirty seconds later she pulled the wool out and it was white! And clean! From some yucca shavings and water! How cool is that? Look, look at that awesomeness.

After we had explored the weaving collective we went to our hotel. Our hotels were all family-owned as well as all the restaurants we went to. The company we used is extremely adamant on using local people for everything, supporting the communities that we visited. I loved it. Yeah, it wasn’t five-star fanciness but check out where we stayed in the Sacred Valley.

See? Yeah. Fantastic. Who needs five stars when you sit on a lawn chair and look at this? Gorgeous.

Next post: Ollantaytambo, my first climbing experience.

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South American 2015, Part 1.

September 1st, 2015

I made it through 4,000 photos. They are now sorted and ‘shopped and heeeeeeere we go!

Day 1: We went to a museum on the pre-Christian, pre-Spanish societies of Peru. I, sadly, knew pretty much nothing about any of the societies but the benefit of being woefully ignunt was I learned so much! Knowledge raining down like… rain! (I am not a poet.) Here’s a whole pile of cool things I learned:

The Inca and similar cultures did not have a written language (more on that later). Therefore there’s a lot of conjecture about what items symbolize. The guide said, “Well, we THINK they MAY have used this…” over and over because no one really knows. Luckily a great deal of pottery survived and because of that we have a clue on what they ate and what was important to them. For example, you will see in this picture that they grew corn and fished for crab.

And here are different squashes they ate. Off to the side is a guinea pig, they also ate those. Helpful clues, thank you Incas.

They had royalty and the way they distinguished the royalty was by skull elongation. Like foot-binding or neck-stretching but with a head. Babies’ heads are squishy. If you wrap wooden paddles around them, the head will adjust to that shape. At about six months it is done. You will be pointy-headed for the rest of your life.

And they performed brain surgery. Where people survived. See the second skull? That’s a plate of gold and the skull has healed around the plate. Good job, pre-Colombian people.

Other things in the museum that tickled my fancy:

It’s very dry in the Andes so mummies can form. The people would place the deceased in the fetal position, wrap them in loads of fabric with snacks and treats for the afterlife and put them in a cave. I called them mumlettes. Like omelettes. Because they look like eggs when they’re entombed.

One of the sacred creatures is a the puma. The are three levels to the Inca world – The sky world, what we might call “heaven,” land of the condor, the earth world, the one we inhabit right now, home of the puma, and the underworld, where the snake lives. These three levels are used over and over again in the art and architecture as well as representations of those animals. Often it is dignified and majestic. Occasionally it is not. Like with this puma.

And what is this? A chihuahua? I’m thinking chihuahua.

This piece of pottery reminded me of Gru from Despicable Me in a vintage television set. Which seems like an odd thing for the pre-Incas to make but okay. I’m in no position to judge anyone’s artistic choices.

Finally, one of the coolest items in the museum was something that looked fairly innocuous, but is actually incredibly important. This splayed-out belt with strings hanging from it is thought to be a language. The placement of the knots, how many times they wind around and the direction that they are facing are all possibly different letters or nouns or verbs. No one knows. There was one man left who understood the language and the Spanish killed him so the non-Spanish heritage would die out, which it did. 🙁

After the museum we headed into the city of Lima. The Spanish influence in the main area, it is intense.

Yeah. If ever there should be a hashtag “EuropeanInfluence”, it would be here. I got a cute picture of two young people in love in front of one of the buildings. We waved at each other a bunch. They were nice.

A distinctly Spanish architectural detail is an ornate wooden balcony. Because it’s overcast so much but it never rains the original wooden balconies are well-preserved.

It really doesn’t rain there. I couldn’t believe it, but then our guide Sandra pointed out that there were no gutters or drains on the street and most of the roofs were flat. Then I looked it up online and sure enough they get about an inch a year maybe.

Some of the beautiful government buildings that are no longer suited for their original task have been re-purposed in wonderful ways. The library used to be a train station.

And the telegraph office is now a school of Peruvian Gastronomy. Peruvian cuisine has been voted one of the best in the world (They have the potatoes, people! All the potatoes!) and sometimes tourists come only to eat the food and learn how to prepare it.

My first meal there, oh my gosh. I had warm fried mashed potato balls topped with fresh avocado and shrimp in a sort of picante mayonnaise with fresh greens. Just about every meal was that good. I found myself getting really excited about quinoa soup. And corn. I got real excited about corn. My joy for potatoes has always been high, so that just maintained.

At my first meal I also sampled my very first cup of coca tea. Are you familiar with cocaine? This is the leaf that gives cocaine it’s “zip.” I’m not addicted to nose candy, don’t worry. Coca leaves contain 1.02% of the active ingredient. That means about 99% is just leaf. And then you dilute it in water which weakens the punch even more. No one is getting hooked on that. It tastes like a chamomile tea with a hint of spinach. Not unpleasant. Kind of plant-y. And you do feel slightly more awake after drinking it, so it’s not recommended at bedtime.

After lunch I got to see my first church in South America. If you know anything about me, you know I love me some CHARCH! So I was delighted. It was banana-colored and it had vultures nesting in it.

I was not allowed to take pictures inside the church because it is a functioning monastery but that didn’t stop other people so I will use their pictures. I found all of these on the internet, I did not take any of these. The interior is clearly Moorish style with geometric patterns throughout. Lovely but not mind-altering (like the church I visited in Quito, get ready for that craziness later). In the basement was crypts and I was delighted by them. There are about 25,000 people’s remains either in boxes or laid out in patterns in a well.

Remember, this was all on Day One. No one knew me and the weirdness that I bring so they all saw me getting excited about piles of dead people and church vultures and potatoes. They were all very nice normal American folk. Several of them looked concerned, both for me and for themselves. We were all friends by the end though. It just took a little time for them to see the joy in dead people/vultures/potatoes.

Next blog entry: Cusco and the countryside.

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The Earth’s bounty. Of stuff and things.

August 21st, 2015

While I’m editing my 4,000 South America photos (more than halfway done! Hooray for me!) let’s look at some things.

1. That’s a pretty dope tattoo.

2. Were we all aware there is a Halloween-themed bat? It’s called the Painted Bat and it’s awesome.

3. And there’s that Sea Bunny. Can’t get enough of him either. “Hey Jess, what did you do today?” “I watched sea slug videos on YouTube. All day.”

https://youtu.be/7n0t0iD6ae8

4. I don’t know why this girl making s’mores in the most epic way ever causes me to laugh so much, but it does and here it is.

http://hartbigshipper.tumblr.com/post/125722858139/aellagirl-how-to-make-smores-i-was-going

5. Recently there was a marvelous exchange on Facebook that I loved. A guy named Jonathan Aslay posted what makes a woman irresistible to a man (or at least what he thinks makes a woman irresistible to a man). It said:

Fine. That’s an okay list. Whatever. Lots of people agreed with Jonathan.

Some people, however, had different views. They listed what they look for in a woman. And, not surprisingly, it got weird fast. Real fast.

Some people had questions as you might imagine.

People then expressed love for the conversation thread itself.

And it wrapped up neatly with this final statement.

So what we can glean from this is:
What makes a woman irresistible to a man is if she is Neil Gaiman, or possibly Terry Pratchett. With massive knockers.

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I’m back from The America Below.

August 18th, 2015

I have returned from Peru and Ecuador! It was a fascinating trip. Aside from bringing home a case of the Travel Snots (common when you get into an enclosed metal tube with a lot of strangers for seven hours) I am unharmed. There were so many amazing experiences! I climbed Machu Picchu. I ate a guinea pig. I almost fell off a boat. I saw Blue-Footed Boobies mating. I watched the President of Ecuador speak from 100 feet away. I learned to make ceviche. I walked on lava. I rode in a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi. I swam with fur sea lions. And sharks. And sea turtles. I met some of the nicest people ever. I now have to sort through 4,000 photos (that is not an exaggeration – I took 1,900, my niece Drea took 2,200) but it will be worth it because, hey, Inca structures and utterly unique fauna. Get ready for awesomeness. In the meantime it is probably in your best interest to see Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove and Pixar’s Finding Nemo. They will be referenced.

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Matchoo Peetchoo and the G’lahpigoes.

July 31st, 2015

I am going to Peru and Equador for seventeen days at the end of this week so there will be no blogging while I am seeing ancient ruins and bonding with tiny crablets. Please make good choices in my absence and I will blog again when I return, probably with a thousand amazeballs pictures. Get excited now.

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Things I got myself for my birthday.

July 30th, 2015

1. A molecule bedspread. Specifically the theobromide molecule, the one in chocolate that makes everything feel sunshiny. I don’t have a nice bedspread so I figured this was a good way to go and I supported an artist in the process! Bonus. Thanks for bringing this guy to my attention, Bex.

http://home.theodoregray.com/moleculequilts

2. This vitally important t-shirt because I’m down to only seventy or eighty black t-shirts and I feel like I’m running out.

http://www.lookhuman.com/

3. Things-could-be-worse mugs. There’s a kickstarter to produce them. I don’t need another damn mug but how can you resist this tagline?

Lost your keys? Lost your job? Look at the bright side. At least you’re not plagued by pterodactyls, pursued by giant robots, or pestered by zombie poodles. Life is good!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159974695/things-could-be-worse-mugs

4. A ticket to see Weird Al Yankovic at The Capitol Theater in Port Chester. When I was twelve my friend Jem introduced me to Weird Al’s work (she’s still my friend, hi Jem!) and I’ve loved him ever since. This polka mix in particular has made it impossible to hear these songs correctly ever ever again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0g_LYOFJ1I

A masterpiece. He also writes his own music that is oft overlooked for his parodies but his original stuff is great. Have you heard “Hardware Store”? It’s a pipe dream of mine to be able to do the fast part in the middle, at about 2:30 on the video below. Never gonna happen but a girl can dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m7SldTq8CY

His live show is supposed to be a hoot with multiple costume changes and special effects and I’ve wanted to see him for so many years now, this is a real dream come true.

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New Orleans Part 5 and done.

July 29th, 2015

I saved my favorite tourist activity from New Orleans for last, and that was Mardi Gras World. Mardi Gras World is a studio that builds and designs all the floats for the parades. I figured they would have a few on display but happily I was incorrect. You could actually tour the workstations where pieces were being created and I totally freaked out. Cricket stopped me from quitting my N.Y. job and applying right then and there. I know all the techniques Mardi Gras World is using! I could have started working immediately! Gimme a tub of glue and I’ll paper-mache that giant raccoon! Cricket, stop dragging me away, it is my destineeeeeeeeeee!

We walked to the studio from the hotel which was not the best decision because we misread the map and it was a million miles away (about three miles really, but it was very hot so it felt longer). As we approached (on foot, in the heat, did I mention that?) you could see the size of the warehouse and appreciate the scale of it. When we walked around the interior the tour guide told us that elsewhere in the state there have fourteen more warehouses full of float-parts and scenery.

This was the permanent installment of the jester pointing to the door. As you can sew, the threat level is Marsec 1. Since this building is on the banks of the Mississippi I assume the threat is the water level rising and not an imminent alien attack or spores that take over your brain and make you punch your neighbor.

You then walk in the front door and are greeted by a cavalcade of nuttiness. Can you think of a thing? Chances are it’s there, next to another random thing. Some of my top collections – the Hieronymus Bosch fish chillin’ behind the vino bottle:

The chili pepper hangin’ with The Cat in the Hat and an ornate column:

Two wee demons looking in a mirror, a big fluorescent fish and a snow monster with stars in its fur:

Really angry anglerfish (an anglyfish), a clock with jewels and a sparkly poison-dart frog on a sparkly mushroom:

Napoleon, a carp bench and a pelican:

And a nightmare spider from a 1950s movie.

In the gift shop there was a scary chef with the ingredients of gumbo bursting forth from his cooking pot. A bit macabre for my taste, the food items popping out and smiling but to each their own.

Off to one side was a costume that would be worn at Mardi Gras of a Crayfish Queen. I tried to convince Börkke to wear it as a wedding dress (she was getting married in Maine, I tried to convince her that they were lobsters) but she declined. Sigh.

I went on the tour to get a better idea of the work they do at Mardi Gras World. I found out they also make props for places like Universal as shown by this dinosaur we passed. On a related note, has everyone seen the latest Jurassic World? I saw it in 3D and I would recommend that. The raptors come snappy-snappy right at your face. The new big bad dinosaur is creepy and awesome. It’s a jaunty summer film, all fluff but a good time. I’m a bit obsessed with with the giant water demon shown in the trailer, Bitey McChompersons. The one that eats the shark. I would watch a movie with only that guy in it.

Anyway, back to awesome props. Since it was a Sunday no one was at the workstations but they had left the pieces they were constructing out so I could behave creepily and gently caress them like a lunatic. Here’s the general way this works – there are krewes, like clubs, that decide they’re going to have a Mardi Gras parade. A parade must have a theme and consist of no less than fourteen floats. The krewe then collects money throughout the year from various krewe members and then they decide on the theme. “Characters from Books.” “Important Americans Through History.” “Oceans of the World.” That kind of theme. Then they meet with a designer who lays out how the floats will look. They can reuse the substructure of previous floats which is why they are kept in giant warehouses. Did you know there’s no entrance onto the float? You need to climb on or in via a platform and you stay there all day. Therefore many floats have a restroom built into it. When the work by the designer is approved, construction begins. These float items need to be large but also very lightweight so they are made a few different ways. Mostly a welder makes the skeleton which is covered with industrial styrofoam and carved with a hot knife into the rough shape. Then it is sanded and covered with brown kraft paper paper-mache which makes the surface even and receptive to painting (exactly how I made my crab for my ocean costume!). There were some structures that were welded together and only covered with thick pieces of cardboard to give them a light, airy feel. It appears that one of next year’s themes is Chinese in nature.

They will also pull older pieces, cut them up, remodel them, paint them and send them back out. For example, this hourglass.

In the back area they have the full floats parked. They’re really big. None of these parades go through the French Quarter because the streets aren’t wide enough and the wires would get in the way. These all go down the main thoroughfares.

And here’s a finished piece sitting in a workstation. I started drooling when I saw all those paints and brushes.

And here are some photos that were left behind but are no less important.

Crab escargot. Look, it resembles a demon emerging from the bowels of hell! Dig in, kids! (It was actually delicious.)

Cricket and my boat trip down the Ole Mississip. It was RAINING. Not raining, RAINING. All the rains. I insisted that we sit outside so we got soaked. It was cool nonetheless.

On the boat there was a women’s restroom and it reinforced my comments on how important typeface choices are. I swore it said “Loadies” which is a terrible name for a women’s restroom. Bad. Bad designer. No biscuit.

I would totally go back. I would like to go for Mardi Gras and watch all the parades. Maybe someday I will have that opportunity.

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New Orleans, Part 4.

July 20th, 2015

Sorry for the super-long delay between posts – much has been happening here at Casa Rothmanpants and I was forced to take my first break ever from blogging in seven years. All good things occurring, but extremely time-consuming. Work is being extra-worky, I’m attempting to finish my backsplash by Thanksgiving and Børrke got married so I went up to Maine for five days. I found Maine to be delightful. I went down to the beach and swam in the Atlantic Ocean which Canada had graciously made a crisp 43 degrees. In addition there was no breaker of rocks so the water came in, slapped you on the rump with extreme vigor and then attempted to suck you out to the briny deep with the same vigor. As I said to many people, I felt like I was getting a rectal scouring from Neptune himself, trident and all*. I might have yelled at the moon at one point for all the gravity. But it ended up being wonderful because when you returned to the beach you were tingly all over. It was like a marvelous massage. I then attempted to be a normal person and sit on the beach quietly and sunbathe but I failed at that. This is an actual photo Cricket took of me “tanning”:

Yep. That’s the real deal right there. The benefit of this technique is you can eavesdrop on everyone else’s conversation all around you. This area is a primo destination for Bostonians so I felt like I was plopped in the middle of The Town and The Fighter. Everyone was named Sean, or Brian, or Doug. The two kids behind me were Margaret and Quinn. The “a”s were flat as pancakes and there were no “r”s to be had. It was great. I ended up having a much-needed relaxing experience in Maine, the fireworks on the 4th were some of the best I’ve ever seen and the wedding was a dream. Only two complaints:

1. Why no pizza slices? Why only whole pies? I feel like this is a weird thing that only New York has. Do people not want to eat pizza the way that they eat hot dogs? And wouldn’t one end up making more money selling per-slice than the whole pie? Maine, get it together (pizza-wise).

2. Okay, those sea roses are beautiful but they are wall-to-wall thorns. They’re not like the roses you can purchase in the store. These are, like, specially bred for maximum thornitude. Stabby stabby stabby. Taking this flaw into account, is it necessary to plant them RIGHT next to walkways that lead to the beach so they curl over the handrail and plunge their owchies right into my palm? Or tug at my pants and shred my calf? Please look into this for the future. Thanks, Maine. Aside from that, great job. Very proud.

Okay back to New Orleans (remember when I went to New Orleans a thousand years ago in May?). Before we get into The French Quarter here are some unrelated images that fit into no category. Wild cards, if you will

Beads in trees left over from Mardi Gras. I took it through a bus window but you still get the idea. It’s festive all year ’round.

The cornstalk fence. Apparently the woman who lived in that house was from Iowa and when she married and moved there, she missed home. So her husband commissioned an ironworks factory in Philadelphia to make a fence with a cornstalk theme. One of her friends liked the pattern so much she had the same fence made for herself and it is somewhere on the other side of town. But this is the famous first fence.

Our hotel was in the French Quarter which is most likely the most famous of the areas. It about four streets by four streets, so not very big. And because the whole area is comprised of original old buildings, living there is a hassle. There’s a homeowner’s group that tells you what you can and cannot alter on the front of your house, what flowers you can display, what color you may paint your door, etc. The benefit of all that is the houses are delicious.

It’s not all peaches and cream. Due to the economy lots of houses have been uninhabited for a long time and it shows.

But I feel like even in its decrepitude it adds character. One of the things I found so charming about New Orleans is how it embraces its flaws, its cracks and wrinkles. Most places would not advertise spirits taking up residence in an apartment, but N’Awlins does. It’s a selling point.

And even though the governor said that gays were not welcome in Louisiana, New Orleans has a great gay community. This is one of the houses in that area. Not surprisingly, it is awesome. According to our tour guide, the gentlemen that live there changes their decorations seasonally. I reiterate: awesome.

On one end of the French Quarter is the St. Louis Cathedral (named after the King of France that was ruling at the time – the state is named after him too). It’s the oldest cathedral in America, originally built as a church in 1718 and made a cathedral in 1793. The building that stands there now is predominantly from the 1850s. It’s big and white and pointy and very elegant.

The inside was also beautiful and white and also painted with bible characters. I figured out who Moses was quickly from his halo which looked like horns. That’s actually how the whole “Jews have horns” story began: Someone mistranslated Moses’ “halo” into “horns” when taking the Old Testament from one language to another and there you have it.

There were also beautiful stained glass windows using an old technique which is really really hard. This woman makes it look crazy easy. Trust me, it is not. You’re basically painting with dust and if you screw up you have to start all over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweJkugpLE4&feature=share

The windows feature bible scenes but I of course was fascinated by the frames around the scenes.

Next entry: my favorite thing in New Orleans, Mardi Gras World.

* You like that mental image? That is my gift to you.

Posted in Nature, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

TV I’ve been watching lately.

June 29th, 2015

As most people who have met me know I consume an excessive – nay, I would say upsetting – amount of television. I invested in the best super king beds with entertainment for extreme comfort. I am often surprised that my bones and muscles still work and I haven’t atrophied into a dried-out husk with a functional mouth (for snacks ‘n’ chats). The truth is I make things a great deal and it’s nice to have something on in the background. I’ve recently seen a lot of fake-y old-y-time-y historical television, not out any particularly conscious choice but because that is how the good-television cookie crumbled. First show is Peaky Blinders. Have you seen Peaky Blinders? Oh, you should. You really should. I’m watching it again for the second time. The story is compelling, based on a real gang from Birmingham England in the 1920s. The gang is lead by three brothers, the Shelbys, and their gang is called the Peaky Blinders because they have sewn razors into the brims of their caps so if they’re fighting they can quickly slash their opponents across the face (which doesn’t happen often but it’s an effective deterrent to know it’s there). It’s been highly fictionalized but still so interesting. Heck, watch it with the sound off and look at the amazing set it’s filmed on, with the belching coal and the horses and the extras. Sadly, if you watch it with the sound off you’ll miss all of Aunt Polly’s lines. Aunt Pol is the three brothers’ aunt and she is so great. The actress is amazing. All the Emmys to Aunt Pol.

Anyway, it’s streaming on Netflix. I believe it’s twelve one-hour episodes right now (the British tend to structure their stuff like miniseries more often than we Yankees). If you need more info, Buzzfeed had a good article on Peaky Blinders.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/danmartin/15-reasons-you-should-be-watching-peaky-blinders#.cf691Op3kZ

While I was making Nessa’s parasol for her wedding I got sucked into the first two seasons of Vikings. That is such a perfect crafting show. You needn’t pay all that much attention, just an occasional glance up every now and again. I don’t really have all that much to say about it because it’s a soap opera where everyone wears dead beastie furs and there’s a disproportionate amount of Aryans, but that’s no surprise. Good show. Gained some slight actual knowledge about Vikings (it’s on the History Channel, so I imagine they felt guilty and needed to throw some actual, you know. history in there).

Outlander! If you had asked me two months ago what this show is about I would have said the sweeping Scottish highlands and romance and beautiful people in plaid having crazy-hot sex and swashbuckling adventures but now I say it’s about RAPE. RAAAAAAAAAAAA =pause for breath= AAAAAAAAAAPE. They made a hard-right turn out of time-travel vaguely-historical drama directly into NightmareTown. In the final two hour-long episodes one of the lead characters gets violated. Repeatedly. And the rest of those episodes are the other characters dealing with the aforementioned atrocity. Including flashbacks. There’s no escaping it. I mean don’t get me wrong, there’s some gross unpleasantness that occurs in the earlier episodes (a flogging scene that I had to look away from comes to mind, blarf), but in the first fourteen episodes it’s predominantly about romance and smooching and secret-keeping and horse-riding and healing with herbs and really kick-butt knitted shawls. Seriously, look at the lead’s shawls. There are several Pinterest boards devoted only to the knitwear.

Okay, lemme start over. I’m still hurtin’ from those final episodes and I’m not doing this show right. Outlander is cool show based on a romance/time-travel/historical series of novels by Diane Gabaldon and fourteen of the sixteen episodes are a jolly fun ride with the delightful characteristic of being really feminist which is great. Awesome. Awesome stuff. If you, armed with the knowledge I have just provided, choose to watch the last two episodes of Season 1, good for you but don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you like inhumanly attractive people with accents gettin’ it on in drafty stone castles then this is the show for you. It’s on Starz but maybe in the near future it will be streaming on Netflix.

In addition to the above shows I also watched the first season of Turn which is a show about spies during the Revolutionary War here in ‘Merka and that’s a good show, I’d recommend it. I’m also done with the fifth season of Game of Thrones but ain’t nuthin’ new on that show. Same old. I’ll let this video do all the work for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQyJny1A-_I

Posted in The Telly | No Comments »

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South America 2015, Part 3.

South America 2015, Part 2.

South American 2015, Part 1.

The Earth’s bounty. Of stuff and things.

I’m back from The America Below.

Matchoo Peetchoo and the G’lahpigoes.

Things I got myself for my birthday.

New Orleans Part 5 and done.

New Orleans, Part 4.

TV I’ve been watching lately.

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