Before the Joanna Newsom concert at the Paramount. It’s so lovely to see her play there, in that big grand place.
This time and the last, I couldn’t help the tears that just popped out of my eyes and kept flowing, unwished for,
unbidden. Last time, it was “Cosmia” that did it, but that’s a given. This time, only three songs in, “Easy” unexpectedly
slew me, and then “Cosmia” kept it going. I’m trying to get better at weeping. I’m a pretty ugly crier, all red faced,
snot-strewn and crumpled. Maybe it goes easier if you don’t fight it like I’ve been doing all my life. When music moves
me, or a sad film, a book, or a painting – I give myself over as wholly as I can manage. I try and just let it come and
wash over me, run down my face and keep going, deeper into what I am being given: this art, this feeling, this moment.

It’s funny, because I never noticed the lyric from the end of “Easy” until that night – “Speak my name, and I appear.”
Perhaps Miss Newsom is some sylph that can be beckoned in this way, because she did just that once – or twice, that I can
think of… It’s a long story, but I had been saving some little treasures to gift her, in return for all the beauty she’s bestowed
on my life with her songs. I grabbed them by impulse one morning on my way out the door, late already, but still I felt the
weird sting of sight that made me run back inside for them, and then forget as soon as I got to work. By the end of the day,
I lingered over a stack of constellation cards like the one with the sea-monster on it above. I had to choose which ones to buy,
and which must be put back into circulation, and it was very hard, because they’re all so wonderful – with little holes poked in
where the stars shine through when you hold them up, aligned with their originals spangling the night sky. I chose the seamonster,
the unicorn, the lynx, and then paused over Ursa Major, thinking “Oh, this one I ought to keep to give to Joanna, for Ursala in
“Monkey and Bear.” At that moment, the bell over the door clattered and in slipped a cute fourteen year old wrapped in an old
red and black flannel, with a brooch-studded tam perched over one ear. I tried not to goggle, with those constellations shivering
in my hand when I realized it was none other! I wrote a quick note of thanks on the back of the bear, and gathered those treasures
I had unthinkingly run back in for – a silver Victorian owl buckle, a little tin of pretty bits, blue morpho butterfly wings, and went to
summon up my guts to give them to her. She was dear and kind, and even teary – but I had to hug her and run away quick before
I fell over. So that’s my story – Miss Melissa Petitchou has another one, that’s similar – it starts and ends with a bell, a thought of her
and then she appeared. Maybe she’ll share it with us if we ask very, very nicely. Oh, won’t you Miss? Oh, do!

On my letter writing desk (where very few letters ever get written, alas! Hopefully that shall change soon.)
Green frog ink bottle, fairy compact that was my Nonnie’s, tintype, Mint Humbugs tin filled with pen nibs,
ink sticks and calligraphy accessories in brocade boxes, embroidery of a wishing well by Holly Bobisuthi.

Discovering a latent love of yellow. Saffron, really. Goldenrod. Especially together with deep teal. Oh my, yes.

I re-hung all the art on the walls, scrubbed and dusted until I was sneezing black! More evidence
to come. (Of the fanciness and sparkle of my fresh studio, not of my sodden tissues or whatever.)

Book altar.

Wooden friends.

Eulalia Chrysanthemum in her winter hat.

Treasures.

My electric stereoscope and a hand-stuffed quail Sarahfina taxidermied for my birthday.

My instruments. I play the ocean harp much better than I manage the ukulele, I’m afraid.

Hey, hey – last light of day.

The Brooklyn-based artist Swoon, who may know from her beautiful wheat-pasted cut-out street art (and the following flotillas:
Miss Rockaway Armada, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, Swimming Cities of Serenissima) is bringing a landmark, permanent
sculpture to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. This “house” also functions as a musical instrument. A growing group of
local and national sound artists are creating interactive instruments that will be built into its walls and floorboards so that visitors
can bring the house to life through their touch. How does a house sing? How does it keep a beat? Can a house be played like a trumpet?
These are the kind of questions will be answering this fall when we launch The Music Box – A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, which is the
first incarnation of what will evolve into Dithyrambalina. Our prototypes will gather together in a musical village of singing shanties!

Swoon’s “Ice Queen”, (currently debuting at MOCA, Los Angeles’ Art in the Streets exhibition).
Screen print on paper, coffee stained and hand painted, 2′x3′, signed in an edition of ten.
Happy to say that all three of these beautiful pieces went to each of our awesome Kickstarter backers who pledged $3000 or more!

We are very excited to be collaborating with Elizabeth Shannon, a hero of the New Orleans art world since the 1970′s on the shanty
that will shelter our piece TINTINNABULATION STATION. This temporary installation will run from October thru early January and will
be built on the future site of the Dithyrambalina in the New Orleans Bywater neighborhood. Over the course of the exhibition we will
welcome visitors, hold children’s workshops, and present a three-part series of performances featuring local and national musicians who
will orchestrate original works on the devices. Check out our fellow artists, also – we’re amongst great company of some dear friends and many future friends! I’d love it if you’d take a moment to go read more about this project – the whys and wherefores, the inspirations, and the spirit behind it. I’m so proud to be a part of this beautiful thing! The Dithrambalina Kickstarter Campaign ends Thursday Jul 28, 8:49am,
and not only did meet our goal, but nearly doubled it! However – any and all additional pledges are appreciated and needed! Additional funding will go towards build costs for the Dithyrambalina house, developing more instrumentation, and paying our artists and musicians
for all their hard work. We would all be so grateful for any donations, and for any help spreading the word about this project!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Swoon and Sound Collaborator Taylor Shepherd Discuss the Project

P.S. Have you been wondering why Swoon calls the musical house Dithyrambalina?
The root of the name comes from the ancient Greek work dithyramb. A dithyramb
was the chant of wild abandon sung by the devotees of Dionysus to call for their God.

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest and wine, and he connotes ritual madness
and ecstasy in Greek mythology. He is generally depicted as an enchantingly beautiful
man attended by a debauched procession of animals, dancers, and music makers.
Suffice it to say that Dionysus has never missed a Mardi Gras in New Orleans!
– from the Dithyrambalina blog, which is chockablock with good stuff – go see!

My look for the evening ended up looking something like if Dark Lily from Legend
had ended up doing it with a cat on the side. Maybe one that had a penchant for KISS?

This scene is definitely at the top of my list of things that made me weird…
Hello! Amazing. This may well have been the birth of my gothness, right here.
If you were a child when this film came out, wasn’t this film just EVERYTHING to you?
I know it was for me. Unicorns, faeries, goblins, Tim Curry as the Devil? I mean!

I was also thinking a lot about the Tarot of the Cat People by Karen Kuykendall
while I was getting ready… I’ve loved this deck since I was a child – it’s so strange and beautiful.

Raven + Monika worked all day on their crazy-amazing cat ensembles!
They were totally mindblowing! I honestly still can’t handle how perfect they were.
I’ve instructed them to both wear these costumes as their everyday clothes, from now on.

Amelia made the perfect mermaid! She was a sequinned sea-treat to tempt all the kitties!
“Do you see that fishy swimming round and round
Maybe we can reaching in and make it drown…
If we sneaking up upon it carefully
There will be head for you a tail for me”

Beware leaping tigers in the jungle!

Gina, Kitty, Devi, and myself gettin’ wild….

Azz everywhere!

Devi!

and with Xander Harris

Casting hexes on my intended! It’s the only way to keep ‘em in line!

Lovely Drew

Rowr!

Summer Lawson

Celeste Chesser

Meow!

Proud parents with their litter.

Oh Norah!

Kittens!

Hairballs!

Lali Ferpecto!

It kind of ended up being that kind of a night…

Exquisite Corpse – Lovecats

To purchase prints go here….

Stray Cats – Stray Cat Strut

Squeeze – Cool For Cats

Everywhere, wood violets congregate prettily, in purple and white flounces,
casting their winking National Velvet gazes dirt-ward, mischievous smiles
playing at the prim corners of their tiny petal faces. They look like my sister.
I saw a pair of little fox kits in the woods, and they looked like us when we
were small, and red-headed. They wore black stockings and curious faces.
I had never seen such a thing, and it moved me beyond words. Kindred.

You are brief and frail and blue-
Little sisters, I am, too.
You are Heaven’s masterpieces-
Little loves, the likeness ceases.
– Dorothy Parker

We stayed in a marvelous wooden lodge on Stone Lake,
and caroused with family, and drank lots of champagne.
Parties of morel-hunters combed the woods, and brought
back a bounty to be fried up. Fresh asparagus, artichokes,
and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Butter on black bread as dark
as turned earth. This is the way we were born to eat – like
wise peasants who know where to find all the best mushrooms.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight:
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
– William Shakespeare

Who hath despised the day of small things?
As violets so be I recluse and sweet,
Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare,
Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat,
Still sweetening wintry air.
While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete,
While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare,
Daisies and violets own remotest heat
And bloom and make them fair.
– Christina Rosetti

This little town once made these majestic woodstoves – modern hearths,
designed to sustain a family throughout a long and bitter Michigan winter.
The factory that made this vessel of iron made to hold fire, so carefully ornate,
is now a buckled ruin. A fascinating, haunted place near the train-station,
where I found this beauty. The train rushed by so fast it stopped my heart.
It only stops here twice a day now, though the station is the handsomest
I have ever seen. I envy the woman who works there, in her immaculately
preserved office with elegant bay windows, old wood, tea and the radio on.
I could hear in her voice a deep contentment with her work. She is framed
behind glass at all times, sacrosanct. Her face is dark and gentle. Kind.

The reason for our journey was to celebrate Colin’s grandfather’s 88th birthday.
Jack + Betty, in love for all these years, the two trees which have borne so much
fruit. We watched old home movies of them, standing in fields, gathered at the
old homestead, kissing deeply when they thought no one was watching, laughing,
flickering there – young and large as life for an instant, and then gone. Play it again.
At the big family dinner (which was a mostly hilarious disaster of epic proportions),
I was coaxed into singing Sweet Violets in front of the massive Biek clan, which I did.
Not well, without considering the complicated lyrics, and without the benefit of any
liquid courage to bolster me, but nonetheless I sang, hands shaking – with Marge
and Paul backing me up on Casio keyboards. I would do anything for Betty, my
beloved soon-to-be grandmother in-law. It made her so happy, she even got up
and sang it with me. It is our song, after all… Have you ever heard it? It’s catchy!

Sweet Violets
Sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet violets

I was a Black Forest Cake!

Cake hat and stray curls at the end of a gorgeous Mardi Gras day.

Pandora was a Dutch still-life painting of the spoils of the hunt. I love the little monkey on her shoulder!

Dana as Diana and Francesca the scarlet sorceress.

Can you even handle Colin’s Amanita muscaria magic? I cannot. He is too amazing.
One night, y’all. Cardboard, glue and fabric. The man is a genius. Perfect toadstool man!

Nina Carolina was a goatherder girl, with a herd of goats that we actually coolers on wheels!

These magic goats were filled with treats! Sandwiches, fancy lemonade, cookies and beer!

Alisan was Fortuna with her wheel, and Frannie was a dainty werewolf.

Epic stained glass ballerina!

Dr. Bob!

Scary clown ladies!

Colin and the Russian Duke and Duchess. They were so gorgeous!

Mark and Dana

Bella Francesca

Jackie Mang down by the river.

Raven was a gorgeous golden dragon!

Alisan

Thomas Little, tigerboy.

Miss Angie was a perfect Russian doll – so lovely she is.

It was hard to not take one million pictures of Colin in his costume.
I kind of wish he would wear it all the time. It really suits him.

Ellery

Drewzilla!

✸ Mardi Gras 2011 – The parades, the routes, the krewes and all the news leading up to Fat Tuesday.

✸ Oh Baby : New Orleans Baby Doll Tradition Thrives

✸ Police shut down a community Mardi Gras costume sale that’s been happening annually for about 20 years. For real, y’all?
NOPD doesn’t have anything better to do than hassle people selling handmade costumes for carnival? So fucked up and absurd.
Our friends Scary Toesies tried to have a lovely little garden party the other night, and perform their puppetshow, Mummy Dust
for everybody, but the cops came and not only nixed the show (which was really rather sedate and not all that noisy) and then
forced everybody to leave the premises. Apparently this is happening a lot to venues and parties in the Bywater. I remember when
I couldn’t even get the police to come when people were being robbed at gunpoint in front of my house. Now if you call on a noise
complaint, they come in force.

✸ Somehow, I never posted pictures from Mardi Gras 2009! How silly!
So, until I get around to a redux, here they are for your perusal!
Mardi Gras 2009
One day I’ll do a full retrospective of my costumes over the years, and
get real organized! Yeah! One of these days!

✸ Mardi Gras, My Love

✸ Parades

✸ Parades II.

✸ Seawitches, Stormsirens, and Horned Beasts

✸ MARDI GRAS APRÈS L’ORAGE

There are no rules! The Strauses + Mlle. Alisan tearing it up on Royal St.

Eris and her golden apple of discord.

Lining up the troops for battle

Guarding the float, and preparing for war.

The seadragon puppet was unbelievably lovely and ethereal.

Love-warriors

My valentine.

Francesca was a very sassy cupid!

All kinds of naughtiness and deviltry took place in the streets and gutters!

Alix Hotpants!

Mizarre

Be mine?

Right before the rain, reveling with the ladies!

Dangerous Frannie!

A wee cupid riding on the float – beware! His darts are tipped in heady poison!

krewe of eris 2010 (1) from k.b. on Vimeo.

krewe of eris 2010 (2) from k.b. on Vimeo.

krewe of eris 2010 (3) from k.b. on Vimeo.

These videos from my beloved Oola give the best idea of what the parade is like (on a bar break!)

You can see some of our cupcake krewe from 2009 at the beginning of the video.

Krewe of Eris 2009 – The Feast of the Appetites!

Krewe of Eris 2008 – Release The Swarm

Me + Randall Buckthorn Chili Frangelico outside the All Ways Lounge on St. Claude.

Drewzilla displaying his characteristic babyface witch-finger beard.

R.I.P. Magnolia Shorty – she was so mighty.

Corinne + Frannie

Monique + Ponyboy – just another night at the Dragon’s Den.

Alisan rockin’ a bit of Prince flair.

Alisan + Fran out in the soft light on North Rampart St.

Big Blessings Poppin’ – The Devil Can’t Stop It!

Joe Power on the steps of the monster-face church.

Bean Dress!

I forgot to include the back of her dress! It sez:
“If you like it then you shoulda put a BEAN on it!”
Genius.

I came upon this marvelous bean krewe one afternoon…

Their ensembles were stunningly bedecked in various varieties of the magical fruit.
(The more you eat, the more you toot – the more you toot, the better you feel!)

I always fall in love with the creole cottages + shotguns of New Orleans.
We carry on illicit affairs, and I whistle at them, and shoot smoldering glances
as I ride by. Oh, if only I could sit on your stoop, baby. I’d be hangin’ half naked
off your balcony every night… You know I’d treat you right, get you insured, get
your shutters greased with butter, your floors waxed and gleaming. You know I would.

I fall hard for paintjobs, bits of gingerbread trim, stained glass – all that.
I’m a sucker for the lonely, quiet looking ones. I think how lively I could make them.

See you soon, baby.

These hairpins are made from kingfisher feathers. They are beyond words.

The store’s motto is: “Find what has disappeared”, and with Gabrielle’s eye
for exotic treasure, you are sure to find it here – whether it be exquisite alabaster
pendant lamps that once hung in grand ballrooms, or ancient carvings from foreign
lands. There is a strong appreciation here for things well-made, and clearly loved.
Any object designed or created with an love of beauty, and a desire to make things
that would last a long time. Between these solid, comforting pieces flits the ephemeral,
taking the form of a faded love letter, or a shattered-silk parasol. I’ve been to hundreds
of antique shops, and there are certain ones that really just get it. The aesthetics, the
passion, the joy of the hunt, the deep browse – it’s not an easy combination to nail,
and very few actually even try. I love a dusty, ramshackle hodge-podge any day,
(especially when the prices fit the atmosphere) but those are a dying breed, and
sadly few and far-between these days. More often than not, you find the neon-lit,
sterile antique mall filled with aisle after aisle of overpriced depression glass and
arrays of offensive saltshakers. Or, it’s the quaint “shoppe” run by a coterie of biddies
on a straggly small town square. I prefer these to the former, but the aroma of potpourri
and desperation can be overwhelming. When I tell people I deal in antiques, I always
wonder if they flash to places like these. I imagine many picture one of those fancier
places, always very quiet and chill, with never a speck of dust on the perfect Edwardian
sideboards or exquisite carpets. I guess there’s Antiques with a capital A, junk, and um-
“junque” (oh yes – I see it all too often in some “shoppes”) which can be identified by
sponge-painted country geese. Thankfully, a new breed of curio shops has emerged
from the detritus that manage to combine the rare and fine with the imperfectly exquisite.
Natural objects like wasp’s nests might find themselves priced alongside woven gold tapestries
with the same reverence for the genius of both their makers. I’ve been lucky to have worked and
sold in one of the best – Uncommon Objects, where I’ve learned so much about all the beautiful
things humans have loved or used long enough to treasure, and the business of dealing in them.

The Tree of Life mural on the back wall was painted by Gabrielle’s mother, if I remember
correctly, (& I may not.) I love the lamia tucked up in the branches on the left-hand side.

Sailing away to a fantasy-land of flapper beads and reliquaries!

Lichen-love.

I want these girls to be my doll-friends. I love picturing them flopped on pillows in elegant boudoirs, clutched to the
feverishly rouged cheeks of sleeping jazz-babies. Stuffed in trunks of rotting satin, awakening here – together.

I would wear this heart on my hip everyday – paying respects to Marguerite Royer rather fabulously.

I like my saints softened with pink ruffles and frills. It suits him, don’t you think?

This guy is my wax boyfriend. He’s very quiet, but I like the way he looks at me.

The perfect setting for a tea party where only absinthe, cockle-shells and silver bells are served.

La belle Gabrielle, lost in thought, more luminous every time I see her. She comes from the moon.

We ladies: myself, Gabrielle, and Mlle. Dana Sherwood.

Oh, and I can’t resist sharing my favorite picture of Miss Ekedal (age what, 16?)
I’m guessing snatched from a high-school yearbook. What a wild elf! Gorgeousness.
Go and see her:
at Gypsy Honeymoon
1266 Valencia St
(between 23rd St & 24th St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 821-1713

“I might be 31 years old, but I’ve just begun.”
She is forever my hero.

★ This incredible interview with Sleazy is prefaced by an almost even more wonderful
introduction about counter-culture in the 80′s and early 90′s. Really, really good stuff:
This Mortal Coil: A Final Report on Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson

★ 2012 The End of the World – from Information Is Beautiful
Curious about what might happen in 2012? This fabulous infographic pits the skeptics
against the believers and analyzes the evidence from both that might save you a lot
of time spent combing through articles about geomagnetic reversal and consciousness shifts.

★ The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook
“…Mr. Selig said there was something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees
that came flying back this summer. ‘When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,’
he said. ‘They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.’”

(Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gold vein Overprinted over Spanish moiré on Turkish pattern
from the University of Washington Decorated and Decorative Paper Collection.)

★ The ever-marvelous BibliOdyssey always has just the thing to float my boat:
Marbled Paper Designs
I’ve been obsessed with marble paper ever since I was a child. I got it from my mother,
who collected anything marbleized. It is totally psychedelic. Making it is basically the
most fun thing in the world (if you’re me, that is.) The first time I visited New York, I was
around seventeen. I was staying with a friend of friends on the Upper West Side and it
was Christmastime. I just happen to be wearing the exact same carrot oil face cream
that I had found during that time to combat the moisture-sucking dryness of the radiators
in Tom Piechowski’s apartment, and I’m having a powerful olfactory memory which I think
I’ll share with you now. Whenever I smell this stuff (it’s Burt’s Bees, and it really does work),
I am instantly transported back to that moment in time. The cold tiles in the bathroom, all
of Tom’s exciting books, the homemade chocolate chip cookies someone had given him,
and my first northern winter. It was so cold, that every exposed inch of skin would shriek
in pain until you got indoors. I had just read Nicolas Christopher’s Veronica and so insisted
on finding Tibetan restaurants that served bocha, hot black tea with yak butter, and smoking
clove cigarettes. Veronica is a good book to read if you happen to be in New York in the winter
(another one is A Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.) This story does actually have to do with marbled
paper – bear with me if you have a minute. I was spending a lot of my time wandering alone around
the alien, snow-muffled city streets, much like the characters in both of those books, and this one day, I had
an epic walking adventure, that began with me “taking a short-cut” through Central Park, where I consumed
most a bottle of very good French wine that Tom had foisted upon me, and tried to sit and write letters on a
log by a frozen pond. My fingers were too cold, and the winos were circling, so I ended up leaving the rest by
a tree, and heading to the Guggenheim to commune with my boyfriends, Mr. Cornell and Mr. Bellmer.
When I left, it was quite dark, but I had it in mind that I needed to try a Lexington Avenue Egg Cream,
which I found at the Lexington Avenue Candyshop. It had by then become exceedingly cold,
and I was a bit lost, wandering around aimlessly until I spied a very interesting-looking bookstore…
The owner was an old man, very intense, animated, and quite rude. He seemed to be playing a game
of chess against himself, which he was none to happy about me interrupting. His store was a wonder,
filled ceiling-high with beautiful first editions and remarkable hand-bound books he had created, with
tooled leather covers and marbled flyleaves. Being a book-binding enthusiast, I began to ply him with
questions, which he seemed happy enough to answer as long as it served to keep my grubby fingers
off of his pretty books. I have this odd talent, it seems, for taming the orneriest and most curmudgeonly
of shopkeepers. The trick is to show them empathy and appreciation while continuing to ask them more
and more questions every time they make motions towards kicking you out and closing up. Eventually,
I had him more or less docile, and I inquired as to whether he might have any marble paper scraps lying
around that I might have. He hemmed and hawed and grumbled and grizzled, all the while leading me
down a rickety little elf staircase to a basement workshop where all the book-magic happened. He flung
his hand towards a vast heap of the most gorgeous examples of marbled paper I had ever seen, and told
me to take as much as I could carry. I stood stunned for a minute before scrambling to gather up big
sheaves and loaded up a garbage bag full. I have no idea how I managed to lug it all across town!
Did I take a taxi? I doubt I had any money for one at the the time. I still have some of that gorgeous
paper – a bit of it survived Hurricane Katrina. The rest was used for countless art projects, gifts,
collages, and eventually my own experiments in bookbinding. All my New York stories are shaggy
dogs, because you can’t just get somewhere there. You have to go through all sorts of adventures
and turnings that make what you find at the end that much more rewarding. I have lots of stories like
that, but this one was brought to you by my acute olfactory-memory triggers, and by the letters N, Y and C.

Full set of marbled paper designs on flickr

★ My new favorite vintage paper ephemera blog: Agence Eureka (mille merci, Cousin E.!)

✷ I adore Forgotten Bookmarks,
a beautifully presented blog from Michael, who lives in Oneonta, NY. He works in a bookstore,
and keeps a record of all of the odd things he finds tucked into the old books. I once asked a
librarian what were the most unusual objects used as bookmark she had every come across:
she told me the best was a hundred dollar bill. The worst – a piece of cooked, greasy bacon.

✷ I recently stumbled back across this piece from Two Four Flinching on photography in New York’s
graffiti-covered subways in the 1980′s, and thought it was too special not to share. What a different era.
Beautiful images from Bruce Davidson, John F. Conn, Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper:
Subway, lifeblood.

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images
that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that
ride it each day.” In “Subway”, passengers of the city’s subterranean world are portrayed in detail,
revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and outer vistas, set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn
background and displayed in tones that Davidson describes as “an iridescence like that I had seen
in photographs of deep-sea fish”.

✷ My Top Ten Favorite Psychedelic Folk Songs
by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
This is a treat, especially as I was raised on some of this stuff!
Definitely worth digging up, as these songs provide an excellent
soundtrack to paisley-wearing psilocybe picnics on the moors.

✷ One of the things on my “must do in this lifetime” list is see the aurora borealis.
In the meantime, these might tide me over:
Breathtaking photos of the aurora borealis by Jónína Óskarsdóttir
(Many thanks to Maria Popova at the ever-awesome Brainpickings for this!)

Tsariwa Mama (The Mother of the Tree) – 2009
30 in. x 40 in. – Oil and egg tempera on panel

✷ My dear friend Madeline von Foerster has a new show up:

RELIQUARIES
Nov. 12 – Dec. 18
Vernissage: Nov. 12, 7pm
Strychnin Gallery
Boxhagenerstrasse 36, 10245 Berlin

There’s a great piece on her work from Coilhouse here: Madeline von Foerster’s Reliquaries

“This new series of artworks grows out of the artist’s fascination with reliquaries:
the jewel-covered statues and treasure chests where remains of sainted persons —
from bones, to scraps of clothing, to vials of blood — are enshrined. Old, beautiful,
and mysterious, reliquaries often become objects of worship themselves. The impulse
to preserve and make precious seems to represent a common human urge, spanning
across many cultures, and not only confined to religion: we create reliquaries for vanquished
cultures in our Natural History Museums, and living reliquaries, in the form of zoos,
for animals all but extinct in the wild.

Whereas a reliquary represents the end of a worshipper’s pilgrimage, von Foerster’s works are
an entryway to contemplation, rather than its terminus, and provoke questions rather than provide
answers. Do we value things more in these contained and decorated settings than in their natural state?
Why do we make such efforts to preserve what is gone, instead of living with respect for what is robust?
Can we venerate the living as well as the dead, the natural rather than the supernatural?”

She is beyond amazing, so if you’re anywhere near Berlin, please go see her work
(so that I can be terribly envious! Oh, if only I could!) Seeing these pieces in person is
a revelation. She has incredible skill, and is also one of the sweetest ladies in the world.

I wasn’t able to figure out the source and artist for this lovely scratched face girly, or for yonder
fancy bird-head, or for the nice mineral collection (I think it’s from a textbook.) Got any leads for me?

Oh yes, and p.s. – I’ve been nominated in two categories for The Austin Blogger Awards!
I’ve never been bothered about having or wanting any kind of award or notoriety for what
I do here, but you know what? I’ve been at it a long time, and I love it immensely, and it
seems that some of you love it too. If that’s true, then I’d be most grateful for your support!
It would tickle me pink to have some recognition for ye olde Gazette! If you have a minute,
please vote for me for Blogger of The Year and/or Best Art/Design Blog – and thank you!
Also, check out all the other rad writers nominated – I am proud to be included in such good
company! My girl Amelia of Vintage Vivant is nominated for best Style Blog, and if you
haven’t yet seen her vintage finery and naughty embroidery, go take a peek –
you’ll agree that she definitely deserves to win! Oh, and – the deadline for this stage
of voting is 5pm, on December 3rd!
Votey-vote-vote please & thanky-danke-gracias-merci!

This house was decorated so wonderfully for Hallowe’en + Dia de los Muertos,
I had to stop and gawp at it for a bit. I wonder who lives there? I like them already.

A view from the back of Rusty Lazer’s trusty minivan, on the morning we left
New Orleans: my bike was secured by ropes, my bed was an amazing vintage
Peter Max quilt, my breakfast – a delicious Hubig’s pie. The factory is a street
over from my old house, and I miss standing on my balcony and breathing in
the sweet aroma of juicy fruit-filled fried pies being baked in the morning. Hu-dat!

This is my new boyfriend, Orestes. He and his sister Electra belong to Pandora,
and they are super high-fashion designer glam movie-star cats. They’re famous.

Miss Pea’s kitchen is a minature ocean, sailing high above the rooftops.

Her red-ribboned leather shoes share space with bottles found in her excavations.

Flying fish made from sequins.

You can sing sea-shanties while you do the dishes and swab the decks.

Rabbit lace! Do you swoon? I swoon.

I was invited to a miniature tea-party hosted by velour-flocked rabbits, but all they
served me were anise pastilles, arsenic and dust. I had a pastille. Wouldn’t you?