I had an amazing time, I saw an astonishing variety of animals and it was generally fantastic. I’m going to start blogging about it tomorrow once I’ve sifted through the over 1,000 photos that were tookened. In the meantime, please enjoy this video of a hartebeest plowing into a bicyclist while he rides around in the bush:
It’s time for my bi-annual trip to someplace other than here, and so I’m headed off to Africa in two days for two weeks of fun and sun and large herbivores that can stomp me to death. I can’t wait. My goal is to see a bushbaby. I’ve never seen one in person and I think this time is my lucky trip. For your edification, this is what a bushbaby looks like:
Now that I’ve decided to go to Burning Man, I want to have a super-rad costume for it. And since I’m going to invest an insane amount of time and energy into it, and not a meager amount of funds, I want to get as much use out of it as possible. So I’m making a sea creature costume. That way I can use it for Burning Man, two Halloweens and the Mermaid Parade. That’s me, always thinkin’. I’ve been thinking of a design that will allow LEDs to be placed all over the costume, and then I have to take battery packs that run the LEDs and their hiding areas into account, so I’ve been contemplating this for a solid week now. I did a bunch of research on sea flora and fauna and came up with a look. Lotta browns, lotta greens, a bunch of tomato red, some purples and almost no blue. Look at this collage I made. The only blue is because the jellies are in an aquarium. Otherwise, almost no blue at all.
And I made myself a drawing so I had some reference point.
There’s headdress/facscinator with a crab and some tube worms, then there’s the beaded necklace that looks like kelp, followed by the two sea slug bracelets, the corset covered in scales, and the hoop skirt with starfish. This drawing doesn’t include the snail shells on the shoes or the jellyfish umbrella. CRAZY amounts of work. I’ve already started beading the necklace. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to yell, “Hey, pipe down! Can’t you see I’m working on my kelp necklace?!”
I commute into Manhattan every day and in the process I have learned the art of riding Metro-North. The morning and evening commutes are peachy – everyone is very quiet and absorbed in their Kindle/Nook/iPad/archaic dead-tree reading material. However, one day this week I was coming in late and I took the 12:05 train. These people are not regular travelers. They are tourists, or people with children taking them to a museum or a zoo, or unemployed people. I usually cut them some slack because they aren’t regulars and don’t know the proper protocol (summary: “Sit down and shut up”), but this particular trip was fraught with emotions. There were a bunch of nondescript white people scattered around the car, and in front of me was two Hispanic ladies. They were chatting about whatever and didn’t hear the conductor say that this was an express, so they couldn’t get off at Fordham. He told them that they would have to go to 125th Street and hitch a train back to get to Fordham. Fine. At this point, Primary Hispanic Lady gets on her cell phone (don’t do that) and starts having The World’s Loudest Conversation Ever (definitely don’t do that). She sounded like this (start at the 30-second mark):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6OhjpyveNw
But we were all trapped in this metal tube that reflects sound like nobody’s business, so even though I had my headphones on she was slicing through my podcast and my skull like one of those boats in the Arctic that punch through the ice and leaves crunchy piles all around it. This is my podcast experience:
“So, Chris, tell me about the latest book you’ve read –”
“I TOLD HER THAT SHE SHOULDN’T LET HIM TREAT HER LIKE THAT!”
“– excellent novel that really evokes –”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT! YOU KNOW, I SAID THAT WOULD HAPPEN! YOU REMEMBER!”
“– that last one I read that made me feel –”
“HAHAHAHAAHAA!!”
This went on for a good five minutes. All the white people were looking around, silently trying to figure out who would get up and talk to her. Finally, this gray-haired fella walked over, got her attention and made the “quieter, please” gesture. Primary Hispanic Lady apparently misconstrued this to mean stop talking in English, so she continued to have her insanely loud cell chat, but now in Spanish. I wanted to explain to her that even though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, it was still, shall we say, dampening my travel experience. It now sounded like this:
“I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys –”
“ME GUSTA EL QUESO CARPINCHO VAGON AXILA MUCHO TORPEDO QUE LO COMPARTAS CONMINGO!”
At some point the super-trendy late-teens Scarsdale lass sitting across from me looked at me and shrugged her shoulders as if saying, “Eh, ethnic people, what are you gonna do? Am I right, Fellow White Person?” And I wanted to say, “No, no no, I am not in your camp just because I share your honkitude. I have traveled on the train with a large quantity of splendidly rude white people. Please do not try to commiserate with me.” By then the train trip was over (hooray!) and the Primary Hispanic Lady turned to Secondary Hispanic Lady and said, “Did we miss 125th Street?” The Scarsdale Trendy Girl leans over and, in the most passive-aggressive way imaginable, smiled and said, “Well, if you had been listening to the conductor…” then flipped her hair like they did in teen 80s movies and stalked off. I’m surprised her feather extensions didn’t fly out, she flounced so hard. At that point I became torn because I couldn’t decide if I hated Primary Hispanic Lady or Scarsdale Trendy Girl more. I decided that I hated everyone everywhere and I wanted to live on a mountaintop where I could just watch all the internet’s cat videos until the end of my time here on earth.
Moral of story: I’m thinking of getting the word “misanthrope” tattooed as a tramp stamp on my back.
Cricket and I went to Queens to the New York Hall of SCIENCE! (emphasis mine, not theirs) to go to Maker Faire. Maker Faire, from what I understand, is kind of a positive backlash to how industrialized our world has become. People make stuff. It’s that simple. Now, unfortunately for me, people predominantly make things that do something (math, science, computers. engineering, etc.), and I only make things that already exist look better. I had no idea what was going on most of the time. For example, I saw signs like this:
What the huh? And this one:
But what I read was this:
I was truly out of my milieu. But I had a jolly good time anyway. First of all, as you come in there is a giant dinosaur made from car and truck parts with a couch in it that children were sitting on. And fire was coming out of its nose. I want one for my living room.
Then there are a variety of white tents set up all over the grounds. The first one I hit was the Craftacular sponsored by Bust Magazine (motto: “getting it off our chests”). I was familiar with everything going on there. In fact, I bought myself some steampunk items from a lovely woman who came all the way from Columbus, Ohio. I got a necklace made for a watch exterior with a morpho butterfly wing in it, and I also got a pendant made from the watch’s interior components.
Then Cricket and I headed over to the Maker Pavilion:
Where the big thing this year is 3D printers. What is a 3D printer, you ask? Good question. You make an object in a 3D program, then you send the file to the nice printing machine. On top of the printer is a spool of plastic, and what happens is the plastic string is drawn down to a heated little element which lays it out in rows over and over itself, not unlike how one makes a coiled clay pot. It can make just about any shape. It totally blew my mind. Here’s what the big industrial machine looks like (note the spool of plastic):
They were also selling an Ikea version that came flat-packed that you assembled yourself, which was adorable:
And here are some the crazy-awesome things the 3D printer could make:
Apparently it can also do it in metal and glass, but I couldn’t figure out how.
Anyway, instead of buying one of these machines, you can also just send some of the companies your designs and they will print it for you (which is what I would do if I was making something). Here’s one company’s information:
Another big tent that was there was the Arduino Pavilion.
When I asked Cricket what an Arduino was, he sighed heavily and told me it was a small computer. I waited outside this pavilion while Cricket pottered around inside looking at…Arduinos.
There were a variety of littler tents scattered all around the grounds showing other people’s cool ideas. For example, there was the lock picker tent.
Another tent had a rather genius idea in it based on Archimedes’ mirror death ray.
You, a doctor in a rural area without an effective way to keep your tools disease-free, receive this box with angled bits of wood in it and a pile of 3″ x 3″ mirrors. You place the mirrors on the angled bits of wood and when the sun hits it, it focuses the sun’s rays on one very hot spot. You put your surgical knives or clampers or whatever in that beam, and it’s so hot it burns away all the evil bacteria and/or viruses. It never goes bad or loses its potency and is relatively easy to transport and/or repair. I think it’s brilliant.
Outside the tents was a solar carousel.
And a fish bike which I believe I saw at the Mermaid Parade.
And this guy eating chinese food.
By then, Cricket and I were peckish, so we stood in line for paella, which was cooked in giant paella pans. And the paella was mad good too.
I felt bad for the fresh fruit vendor next door because he had a bit of a honeybee situation. The honeybees were lovin’ it, though.
But my favorite thing was definitely the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. I heard about it a few years ago, but I never thought I would see it in person. And lemme tell you, it is magical. I’m not even being obnoxious. It’s magical. Cricket and I stood in front of this thing for at least three songs.
Here’s a video someone took of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir performing Bohemian Rhapsody. I don’t know what’s up the the filmer’s camera, but the clicking noise is NOWHERE that loud in real life. You can totally hear the music all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-ikHb7mJA&
And this video’s pretty great too. Note the conducting lobster near the top.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV-kPlqEzAg&
And this one. Because I love this car.
I have never had an interest in going to Burning Man. If you don’t know what Burning Man is, it’s a big group of people who congregate in the desert outside of Reno, Nevada and form a community for a week. There’s a lot of dancing and art and no money exchanges of any kind, it’s all done with bartering. I never had any desire to go because I hate hippies. Especially artsy hippies. I turn into Conservative Grandpa when I’m around them. “Get a job! Put on pants! Shave your pits, you stink! You cannot substitute patchouli for a shower! Dreadlocks have no place on a white person! Here’s a hard candy!” etc. I think spending several days trapped in the hot desert with those incense-funk-encrusted rainbow flowers would make me want to build a time machine and go back to the Haight-Ashbury in its heyday to punch everyone there. These pictures pretty much sums it up.
CARROTS ARE NOT PEOPLE TOO. YOU ARE NOT A SPARKLE PONY. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T DO TAI CHI NAKED. What is wrong with you people? Do you not have families who love you? Get a job! Put on pants! Shave your pits! (see above for the rest).
And then, just like that, I saw a picture that changed everything. And I want to go now.
FLAMING SNAIL CAR. Oh my God, how freakin’ fantastic is that? I must go and be with my flaming snail car. I want to cuddle its shell and tell it secrets.
By the way, are these pictures not awesome? They were taken by a man named Scott London. Go, look at his site and rejoice:
http://www.scottlondon.com/photo/index.html
Addendum: Also this and this and this.
Seriously, I have a great many charts. I feel the need to share them with you now.
Cricket and I went against everyone’s better judgement and toddled off to the West Indian Day Parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. And guess what? Nothing happened. I didn’t get shot. Cricket didn’t get shot. Frankly, it was a little boring. I imagine it’s more exciting if you feel some attachment to the islands represented. But I captured a few cool moments on my camera which I will share with you now.
The most important thing there, in my opinion, was this chihuahua who was sitting on this woman’s shoulder right in front of me. Totally underwhelmed by the proceedings going on around him.
There didn’t seem to be much structure to the parade. There were giant trucks with massive generators on them that would roll on by and music would be blasting out of the speakers. People were standing on or around the trucks, but they didn’t do specific choreographed moves or anything. They just walked alongside it. The weirdest one were these two people on the first truck to pass us by. The guy was yelling into a microphone, but the woman was in this backwards crouched pose. She wasn’t dancing or even moving. She looked like she thought the truck was excessively dirty and she didn’t want her pristine white costumed butt touching it. Or perhaps someone told her they would kill her whole family if she didn’t stay in that position for the whole parade. It looked uncomfortable, being frozen like that.
The one thing that was amazing was the costumes. There were all kinds, but the uniting thread between all of them was bright colors and feathers. Many birds are now bald and have to wear sweaters because of this parade. Sometimes feathers were all the ladies were wearing. This was probably the smallest costume I saw. Ribbons, feathers and glitter. That’s it.
It seemed like there could be any theme to the costumes. There was Mardi Gras (or Venice, depending on who you’re talking to):
Native Americans:
Greek motifs like the helmets and shields from “300”:
This woman’s headdress has an Thai feel to it:
And there were a bunch of people dressed like British colonists, with the white wigs and the triangle hats, but I was eating curried chicken and rice at that time and was unable to get a shot.
There were also quite a few people who looked like they made their own costumes, and some of them were fantastic. I can’t imagine how much time and work went into those. The best was the man with the gold carousel-type costume with the life-size dolls hanging off the four corners. That costume had wheels, it was so big (and probably heavy).
There was the one that looked like an African shield with peacock feathers around the perimeter:
There was the unfortunate person dressed as a giant red flower who needed someone to walk in front of them and guide them down the street:
But my favorite was this guy. I cannot for the life of me figure out what’s going on here. I feel like he’s going to rob me with the bandanna over his face, but then he looks like a bat…with hearts all over his wings? Is this a thug homage to Alice in Wonderland? Cricket had no idea either.
A group of men walked by celebrating what I can only construe is the Ripped Ab and Pectoral Society of Gentlemen.
Chihuahua is unimpressed.
Oh, and there were stilt kids.
The one thing at the parade that really took me by surprise was the dancing. I’ve seen a lot of dancing in my day, but nothing like this. Women would stand in the middle of the street, bend over at the waist until their fingertips were touching the ground, and any random guy would come up behind them and grind up on them something fierce. Maybe he would call his friend in and his friend would start humping on her facial area, thereby creating a “train”. In the middle of the street, people. In full view of everybody. At one point I turned to Cricket, and without a shred of humor said, “Is no one thinking of the children?!?!!” And then I clutched my pearls and fainted. Here’s a picture of the “dancing” happening on the sidelines.
Now that I’ve gone, I don’t think I need to go again. It was hella-crowded and it took forever to get there from the suburbs where I’m at, so perhaps if it was broadcast on TV I would watch it, but otherwise I’ll just stay home and craft like I normally do.
I have a window display case here at work and it had been up for two years with the same art. I got tired of staring at it every day, and the elements were getting dusty, etc. So starting in January, I began making all new stuff for the case. I pulled some pre-existing work from my past, but I incorporated new pieces as well. I made that mirror last time, this one:
And everyone was so excited!!! because they could check their hair and/or makeup in the hallway, so I felt obligated to make another mirror for them this time as well. This time I went with a sunburst using Diet Coke cans, Stop-n-Shop Diet Orange Soda cans (they have a great pattern on them), and Fanta cans. It’s a big hit. Here’s what the window looks like in its entirety:
And here’s the mirror.
You can’t appreciate it because it’s being lit by frosted fluorescent tubes, but in sunlight or incandescent light the cans shine in the most charming way.
This last week SUUUUUUUUUUUUU…*pause for breath*…UUUUUUUUUUcked. Work just happened all up in my grill. Lotta fires to put out. I had to translate two ads into Hindi. Hey, guess what language I don’t know? If you guessed “Hindi” (or, frankly, “anything other than English, a bit of French and a smattering of Hebrew”), you would be correct. So a co-worker of mine who is Indian wrote it out for me and I built it letter by letter. Then, right before the meeting, they cut the Hindi ads because the people in the ads were Caucasian and OOPS no one had cared about the ads they provided me so all my work was for naught. And that was only one of a myriad – nay, a plethora of craptasks I was to accomplish. It’s been that kind of week.
Anyway, previous to this work hoohah, I went to visit Neenernator in New Jersey. I had bought her birthday and Christmas presents (I swear) but I couldn’t find them for the life of me, so when I arrived at Chateau Neenernator, I immediately took her out fish-shopping. I’ve talked about Neenernator’s fishtank before. To recap, Neenernator has a 110-gallon fish tank with a lovely collection of freshwater fishies, but lately it was a little bit sparce, being that the wee vibrant fish tend to die after a year or so and it had been a year or so, and I aimed to rectify the situation. I bought a whole bunch of neat fishies. I shall introduce them to you now.
There’s the two angelfish. They are clearly not the smartest fish, but they are very shiny so whenever I narrate their activities, I do it with a California-girl voice. “Omigosh, hiiii, yeah, we’re new here, I’m Caelyn, this is Alyssa…sorry, I didn’t hear you, I saw my own reflection in the glass…I’m sooooo pretty!” etc. Here’s a picture of one.
There’s the stripey fish. I call him Mr. Kissyface. I have no idea what breed of fish he is, but he is brownish and he has iridescent stripes on his very flat sides. And smootchy lips, hence the name choice. (By the way, I have no idea what Neenernator has named these guys. These are just the names I came up with that I call them.)
Now we get to the more-gooder fish. This guy has the best breed name ever. He is a short body flowerhorn. I am convinced that is a name from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when they’re picking the names of the dragon they were going to do battle with. He’s a grumpy grumplepuss and would normally start drama with the other fish (the aquarium guy referred to him as “aggressive”) but he’s on the smaller side, and I think he is smart enough to realize that if he brings the ruckus, one of the fish that is double his size with bite off his already diminutive snoot.
Neenernator has blue lights in the tank that highlight the iridescent qualities of the fish, but this is what a short body flowerhorn looks like in regular light.
And finally, the piece de resistance, the teacup stingray. Yeah, you heard right, a teeny tiny stingray. There are ones that can live in freshwater, which I did not know. This guy is crazy precious, like a little doily that goes under your coffee cup, but also who likes to eat algae build-up off the walls of the tank.
And here’s a bunch of her fish hanging out in the same spot at the same time, which Neenernator managed to capture. That’s exciting, because normally they don’t do that.
