There hangs a tale

The other night I went to my square dancing class. It’s held at a local church, and I was waiting outside for the person with the keys to arrive. This gave me time to check out the odd grocery bag that was swaying from the metal railing on the steps which lead to the door. The bag contained two tall cans of malt liquor. These cans were full, and they were ice cold. I wonder—did someone have a conversion on the church doorstep, and resolve to give up drinking then and there? Was it an offering of some sorts, or were they simply stashing the liquor while they went to services or even an AA meeting?

I’ll probably never know the answer, but that’s okay. I am more entertained by the question. Two and a half hours later, when I emerged from class, the cans were still there. I love these little stories, and you can see them all over the place if you’re paying attention. I found prom photos a while back that look like they were from the 1960s. The women had giant beehives, hairdos so thick you could almost smell the Aqua Net coming off the pictures. The men had buzz cuts. What were these photos doing in the street? Had the cute brunette’s high school sweetheart just left her, causing her to toss all memories of him into traffic to ease the betrayal? Perhaps these were treasured mementos which had escaped an overfull box as the happy couple moved onwards towards a new stage in their lives together. Maybe they even came from a closed photography studio, and, having been used as a theater backdrop, they had now drifted into the street while the stage was being struck.

I see these tiny little story seeds everywhere I go. There was the little plastic baby, only about an inch long, wedged into the concrete steps of a former relative’s house. There was the chain attached to a post in a neighbor’s backyard. I’d see it every time I passed, and never heard or saw a dog. Last week I found six matching cowboy hats in the donation area of my apartment building. Sometimes writers tell me that they have no ideas, nothing to write about. I tell them to look around. The universe wants us to tell its story.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

92.  Make up a story or poem about one of the items I’ve mentioned above, or go out and collect some of your own story seeds.

The Tease in the dark

This weekend I attended the first-ever Emerald City Hoedown. I can’t wait until next year! There were over twenty hours of dancing and instruction, as well as some wonderful social hours. I refined my two-step, practiced my waltz, tried West Coast swing, and learned seven line dances. I met tons of people from out of town, and got to know some of the locals better. My fellow dancers are such nice people.

The Hoedown had some amazing performances—a 40s-style production number in drag was particularly memorable. I don’t think anyone will ever forget the VisQueens. I loved the Golden Gate Clogging Company, who could have appeared on Broadway. Our local Rain City Rhythm Riders showed how elegant country dancing can look, and the newly-formed Swing-amajig impressed with their Lindy Hop. I was inspired by the skill and dedication of all of the performers. It was a blast.

I was also inspired by the skill and dedication of the teachers. The teachers were all very good, and I learned something from each one of them. We’re very lucky here in Seattle, because a lot of these brilliant instructors are local. We get to benefit from their teaching all the time, and we even get to dance with them. We had some lovely visiting faculty, too. It was nice to get to know them. I hope they come back here soon to dance with us again.

There was a big ball on Saturday night, and it was very festive. The hall was decorated with shiny red cowboy boots, and the stage had painted clouds and twinkle lights dusted across an azure sky. The Polish hall has an enormous dance floor, perfect for spreading out and practicing spins. I got a lot of practice, and met my goal of asking more people to dance.

We ended the evening with a tradition that Rain Country Dance hopes to continue at each Hoedown. The organizers handed out green glow sticks in honor of Seattle’s nickname, the Emerald City. Once everyone was adorned with their plastic neon tubes, the lights were lowered, and we did line dances and partner dances by the glow from our outfits. It was magical. Need I say more?

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

91. Is there a big event that you’ve been wanting to attend or perhaps a class that you want to take? What’s stopping you?

Links, should you desire them:

The Golden Gate Clogging Company: goldengateclogging.com

Swing-amajig: www.swing-amajig.com

The Rain City Rhythm Riders (and Rain Country Dance): www.raincountrydance.org/rhythmriders.html

The VisQueens are on YouTube, but I haven’t watched any videos yet, so I don’t know which to recommend.

This blog, Maya Photography, has a couple of nice Hoedown photos, and some lovely photos in general. I paged down and saw some great architecture shots, and there’s even a picture of one of the “Free Hugs” people I talked about a while back. Check it out at:   http://mayaphotography.blogspot.com/

Que bella!

Special Note: My blog is veering from its usual format for a few days as I take time to attend the Emerald City Hoedown, a three day celebration of country music and dancing. I’m going to be really busy dancing and socializing—it’s like a mini-vacation right here in Seattle. Yay! Pigeons will return to its usual format on Tuesday, April 29^th. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

Today is the final installment in my vacation format. I’m sure that while you’re reading this I’m recovering from a very joyful and energetic weekend. Yee Haw! I’ll be back to my usual tricks tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ll share another online pleasure. I’ve told you before that I love design and the glories of our manufactured world. My brother, who feels as I do, shared these sites with me, warning that I might become addicted. Indeed I have. NOTCOT provides two sites that I love, NOTCOT.com, a blog; and NOTCOT.org  which is more like a visual compendium of links. Here you’ll find the latest in design trends of all kinds–the sleek and the silly, the practical and the inspired. The site’s name stands for Not Couture, implying that good design is both practical and for everyone, not just those with fat wallets. It’s a mission I stand by. Since the site is so visually oriented, I’ll excerpt a bit of their About page, and let them explain themselves.

* WHAT IS NOTCOT? (From Notcot.COM, by various authors)

Design Network of sites reaching over 2.5 million pageviews monthly.

NOTCOT Inc is a growing network of design sites currently including NOTCOT.com and innovative community contributed sites NOTCOT.org + TasteSpotting.com + NotCouture.com.

NOTCOT is a visual filtration of ideas + aesthetics + amusements. NOTCOT’s two sites have become the daily sources of inspiration for creatives everywhere, fighting the good fight against “creative block” since 2005 with visually stunning imagery, the latest in international trends, and a passion for all things well designed.

NOTCOT.ORG is a community of creatives, design lovers, and trendsetters – where .org serves as the studio bulletin board gone digital – Continued at http://www.notcot.com/about/story/

Tomorrow I’ll be back to my usual format. Who knows what I’ll get up to? Come back and see!

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

90.  Find an object in your house that strikes you as particularly beautiful. What about the design makes it that way?

Don’t mess with his dad

Special Note: My blog is veering from its usual format for a few days as I take time to attend the Emerald City Hoedown, a three day celebration of country music and dancing. I’m going to be really busy dancing and socializing—it’s like a mini-vacation right here in Seattle. Yay! Pigeons will return to its usual format on Tuesday, April 29^th. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

As I told you yesterday, I’m going to recommend a few blogs I particularly love while I’m off doing the Boot Scoot Boogie. Today’s installment makes me laugh. I originally found this blog because it was recommended in our local alternative weekly, The Stranger. That paper has a feature called New Column, which advertises a new column that is starting by excerpting the one and only instance of that column that will ever exist. This blog was featured there, and I thought they were kidding.

They weren’t. I got hooked on Jesus Christ’s Really Cool Blog. I respect all religions, but this thing is just hilarious. Although I’m now a Buddhist, I grew up Catholic, so I find it particularly entertaining. Unfortunately Jesus decided to retire his pen, but not before he posted many months of his own personal soap opera. It’s best to read this one in order, so go back to the earliest post and read forward from there. You may be just as disappointed at the end as I was.

Here is an excerpt for you:

Easter Weekend: Whoop-eee. (from Jesus Christ’s Really Cool Blog, by Jesus Christ)

So Easter is this Sunday, and I’m pretty bummed. People are always telling me, “This is your day, dude! Cheer up! You’re all ‘resurrected’ and shit.” That’s easy for them to say. It’s like telling someone who was physically assaulted, “Are you still upset about that? It’s been THREE DAYS.”
Anyway, that’s why I started the whole Easter bunny thing. To get the focus off ME. Of course that didn’t work all that great either, because people always say, “Dude! Why is a rabbit delivering eggs? It doesn’t make any sense!” I know it doesn’t make any sense — that’s why it’s funny!  Continued at http://jesuschristscoolblog.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

 

Tomorrow, in the last day of my vacation format, I’ll send you into a fabulously-appointed deep dark hole of design. How amazing it is! Get ready!

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

89. What do you think of Jesus Christ’s blog? Is it funny to you or not? Why?

Mixing it up

Special Note: My blog is veering from its usual format for a few days as I take time to attend the Emerald City Hoedown, a three day celebration of country music and dancing. I’m going to be really busy dancing and socializing—it’s like a mini-vacation right here in Seattle. Yay! Pigeons will return to its usual format on Tuesday, April 29^th. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

I don’t read very many blogs, although I am busily at work creating my own. There are many reasons for this, chief among them that I’m too busy doing other things. The world is too marvelous a place to spend all one’s time staring at a computer screen. While I’m off dancing, I thought I’d share with you some of the blogs I do find particularly wonderful.

Today I’d like to recommend Winter in Asheville. It’s written by my best friend, Laurel Winter, who is an excellent writer and artist. Her blog features some of her lovely artwork and photos as well as joyful essays on what she’s doing with her time. It’s a fun and uplifting read. Best of all, Laurie includes an ongoing list of things to do instead of reading blogs. Enjoy this excerpt here, and follow the link to the rest!

How the cello acquired me  (from Winter in Asheville by Laurel Winter)

What a week it has been since last I posted. Humming & sparkly & chocolaty good. GeeWhizBang & all that. I’d take it apart & give you all the details, but then it might stop working. (Who am I kidding? That’s just an excuse to give you the highlights & get on to the rest of the beauty of the here & now.)  Continued at  http://laurelwinter.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-cello-acquired-me.html

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about Quizno’s, dentists and sheep. Stay tuned!

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

88. Read the rest of the blog post above, and maybe enjoy some others. Did you ever play a musical instrument? Tell someone that story.

I love the zeebas

I spend a little bit of time each morning with a sarcastic rat, a bazooka-wielding duck, and a bunch of incompetent crocodiles. I know there are others like me, fellow fans of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, drawn by Stephan Pastis. It always makes me laugh.

I love comic strips, and I admire the artists who create them. They can tell a whole story in a few panels, or sometimes in just one.  Gary Larson’s Far Side had many such memorable stories, and I like to study them for clues on better writing. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but many of these strips can be described briefly with the caption and be just as effective. The best ones use a synergistic mix of artwork and story to maximize the giggles.

I also love graphic novels and comic books, longer works in a similar format. The artwork can be breathtaking, as in Frank Miller’s Sin City. I hope someday to be able to depict whole scenes in sharp-edged black and white the way that he does. His artwork screams noir, and I love to listen to it howling in the night. Cue the saxophones. A longer format also allows for creative uses of the panels themselves—Spiderman can explode out over the page, or characters can walk between the boxes. Graphic novels are a rapidly developing form of literature with its own visual vernacular. I hope to someday be able to create one.

While graphic novels are short stories or books, some comic strips are serial adventures. If you read through a few collections of Peanuts strips you’ll see relationships evolving. Certain pranks arise again and again, and it deepens the laugh when Snoopy ambushes Lucy, as he often does. Pearls Before Swine often continues with the same storyline for a week or two. It’s nice to see how an artist keeps the strip fresh over time. This also has lessons for writers to study. In the meantime, I need to see what the pig is doing with the duck. They’re both sideways in the strip. This should be fun!

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

87. Read a few comic strips. If you’re feeling more ambitious, check out a graphic novel. Libraries are starting to collect them, and your local bookstore probably has them available, too. There are themes and styles to appeal to all. I particularly recommend the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, available online and hopefully, in your local paper.

Link, should you desire it:

http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/index.html

The play may please

I was back in the Forest of Arden again last night, sharing a hearty laugh with Touchstone and the fair Rosalind. The evening’s entertainment was courtesy of William Shakespeare and director Kenneth Branagh, a pair of gentlemen whom I adore. I finally rented the new version of As You Like It (2006).

This is a fresh adaptation of Shakespeare. Branagh sets the play in nineteenth-century Japan, and the nobility within it are European residents of that island. Shakespeare is an amazing writer that way—you can set his plays in many different time periods and settings. I’ve seen Twelfth Night placed during the 1920s, and I’ve heard about the Othello played by Patrick Stewart where Othello is the only white in a cast of blacks. The one change makes a big difference in the play. I love Sir Ian McKellan’s role in Richard III (1995, Richard Loncraine). That version is firmly placed in the fascist era.

I wasn’t particularly fond of the Japanese setting here, but that’s a personal preference. I found the sumo wrestling to be an odd touch, but the reminders of Zen fit the reflective mood of the play very well. Many of the older shepherd’s lines are very much like Buddhist teaching stories. The forest settings were gorgeous, and reminded me once again of how drawn I am to all things sylvan. 

Branagh picks talented actors and this time was no exception. The cast was very well-chosen. Kevin Kline was particularly notable as a melancholy Jacques—he played the part with a less monotone character than many I’ve seen. Alfred Molina was a charming Touchstone, his wispy-high hairdo making him look very much the fool without any asses’ ears or motley.

One of the joys about modern Shakespeare movies is that they are no longer filmed stage plays. This adaptation makes great use of the medium. The epilogue was particularly delightful, but I’m going to leave you to discover it for yourself. If nothing else, you should watch the movie for the original play’s language and sense of fun. I am going to end today the way that Shakespeare does—when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. (Exeunt)

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

86. Go rent As You Like It and see what you think. Alternatively, tell a friend about a movie that you love. Why should they see it?

It’s worth the work

Last night I found out that I’m losing my home. My housemates and I are being forced out in two months so that the building can be converted into luxury apartments. All this is happening while my job situation is unstable. The new owners are already tearing things down around us, leaving piles of plaster on my doorstep so that things will be nicer for the wealthy renters who replace us. Why am I talking about this in a blog about joy?

Sometimes being joyful requires a little work. Things don’t flow smoothly for anyone all the time, no matter who you are. I do get upset—I was frustrated and furious when I heard the news. This awful situation is like any other. After the initial shock of bad news is over, I get to choose how I proceed. I could be miserable and angry for weeks, yelling at people and giving nasty stares to the workmen. Would that make the situation any different? Are the laborers at fault for the company that is displacing me from my home? Not really, and continuing to wallow in misery would only make me more miserable.

I can focus on what I can do and try to look at the positives of the situation. Every move is a chance to declutter and bring some fresh energy into the home. Change can be rough, but it’s also stimulating. I get to think again about which neighborhood will serve me best, about what I really want in a place to live. Who knows what serendipitous discoveries I’ll make during my apartment search?

I’m going to be very busy looking for a place to live, but I don’t intend to spend every waking moment focusing on this issue. I plan to keep dancing during the next two months. I’m going to need my energy to be strong for everything that I have to get done, and dancing makes me very happy. That strength will help me as I go up against our tough rental market. I’m going to need it.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

85. Are you going through some difficulties right now? What is the most joyful path you can find through the middle of the chaos? Choose to be positive, if even for a few moments, and see how that feels. Did it help?

Have a cupcake

Today is my best friend’s birthday, and I wish I could be in North Carolina to celebrate with her. I know she’ll be having a great time, though. She usually does. That’s one of the many things I love about her.

Friends are one of the greatest joys in life, and friendships are one of the best learning experiences. My friendships have taught me that I’m a far better and more interesting person than I thought I was. They’ve also taught me how annoying I can be. Friends can more easily point out behaviors that might not suit a person to her best advantage without hurting feelings.

My friends have taught me how to maintain relationships, how to negotiate conflicts and how to celebrate milestones. They’ve introduced me to new music, new writers and new ideas. They’ve challenged my opinions. We’ve debated issues so that I understand where I stand more clearly. They are my advice and my support, and I am theirs. My friends help me to take risks and to grow as a person.

I look to my friends as role models. It’s great to know that there are companions to help you as you travel your path in this life. I can turn to my pals when I have a sticky situation, and often someone will have been through the very same thing. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and I can benefit from each person’s strengths and weaknesses. I have friends who are more assertive than I am, and I’m learning their ways. I’ve learned how to be more graceful from others. I’ve also learned about the ways I’m perceived in the world. One friend recently told me he likes me because I have a very hearty personality. Who knew? I guess he did.

I’ve learned more from Laurie than I could put in a blog entry, but we’ll be friends to the end, and I consider myself a very lucky person. We’ve both come so far since we met, and I know that our association has a lot to do with that. As she celebrates today, I want to send her a wish for many more joyful years. That’ll help everyone else, too, as she shares her positive energy wherever she goes. Happy birthday, Laurie! and Happy Earth Day to all!

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

84. Spend some time with a friend today, whether in person or on the phone. Isn’t your friend amazing? Take a little time to appreciate the joys you share as people.

Listening to leather tongues

My universe is expanding again. I learned a lot this past week, and all from a new pair of cowboy boots and the dancing I did in them. I wore them for the first time on Wednesday for square dancing. One of my fellow dancers knows a lot about boots, and he told me that the kind I bought are real cowgirl boots, the kind you’d wear for roping a steer and driving it down into the dirt. They have greater ankle support than other types of boots because you need stability to do that, and the little flaps which I thought were merely decorative are to keep the dirt out when you are doing the roping. They’re called kilties. One pair of boots with two very different purposes—the possibilities of the world are endless.

The boots got their second outing on Friday. I danced for about six hours that night on and off, and by the end of the evening my feet still did not hurt. No throbs were issuing from my usually unstable ankles. Not only did the boots help me to glide more smoothly and stomp my heels with greater authority, they also helped to protect my feet. I always blame my body when I get all stiff and sore, and I realized that part of the problem was not wearing the correct shoes. I’ll try not to blame myself in the future.

Dancing taught me a third lesson that night. Several people told me I need to ask more people to dance so that I’ll get more practice. I have trouble asking—people tend to dance with the people they came with, and I never ask the really good people because I figure they want to dance only with others who know all the fancy steps. That seems to be mainly in my head—I make too many assumptions. I think too much. Next week I’m going to ask people without doing so much analysis first. This coming weekend is the hoedown, and if I’m a little bit more assertive I should get tons of practice. The boots have been great teachers so far, and I their humble student. I can’t wait to see what further lessons they will bring.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

83. What are some lessons you’ve learned from the world around you this week? Share them with someone else.