Barb's Play in the Northwoods

My cousin Barb was in a play this weekend. Funny thing it was in a small town way up north. We went up there friday and stayed the whole weekend. The play was great, very funny. It was titled Same Time Next Year. We stayed with Barb and the other actor in the play (there were only two actors) and the director in a pretty old farmhouse. It was very peaceful. We fished in the lake nearby.

While up there Marco and I also visited the headwaters of the Mississippi at Itasca State Park. The mighty river begins as a narrow stream and we walked right across it. We also visited the Paul Bunyan statue in Akeley, MN. There are a lot of Paul Bunyan cynics, but he's one of our few folk legends and I remain a fan.

I'll have to put up photos of this too.

Thunder! Lightning!

Call me bizarre, but I love thunderstorms. Storms are one of the things I missed most in the years that I was away from the midwest. There have been some good storms since I've been back -- lightning, thunder, torrential rain and sweet calm air that follows after. Mmmmm...

There was a dark and moody storm here last thursday. I was at my studio in St. Paul when suddenly out my fourth floor window I saw one of the darkest skies descending from the north that I have ever seen in my life -- tar-black rolling clouds. I'd already heard thunderstorm warnings and even tornado warnings for the south of Minnesota on the radio for an hour and I took these dark clouds as a sign to hightail it towards home. Even though I love this weather, those clouds looked menacing. I took the south road home through Woodbury ( damn Woodbury! >:-( and got blasted with horizontal winds and rain and could barely see anything. I felt like the car would blow off the road. Aaahhh, scary but great!

In the meantime in southern Minnesota there were actual tornadoes. On one hand tornados aren't great since they ruin homes and injure people. But on the other hand they are such a spectacular weather phenomenon. They're fascinating. I have never seen one firsthand but I've always had recurring dreams about suddenly seeing one in the sky. I think all midwest kids have dreams at one time or another where they look up in the sky and see torndadoes coming after them. Britt has. My mom has. Do kids in non-tordado regions ever dream this?

Anyway, here are some impressive pictures of last week's tornadoes. They are taken by "tornado chasers", daring people who drive after tornadoes to photograph them and to report on them to local weather centers:


*nope, this blog program doesn't want to upload any photos right now. RRRrrgggggghh. I'll try again later.*

Results of My 1st Gallery Visit

Last friday I had my first visit with a gallery, hoping to interest them in my glass work.

Well..... I'm quite pleased to say that the visit was just about the best-case scenario that I could have hoped for. It was rather astonishing even.

As soon as I got out my stuff the woman from the gallery didn't even hesitate and said "you're look is EXACTLY what we're looking for". She took two of my panels right away (the smaller two) because they had immediate space for them in two small windows on either side of the entrance. Then she began a discussion with me about long-term selling in the gallery. In specific she wants me to create a line of glass items to sell during the Christmas season. She wants me to bring a trendy, modern edge to some things that sell well like Christmas tree ornaments, night lights and tabletop panels that can be illuminated from the back with candles or small lights.

I like this challenge actually. Such little "trinket" type things have long been the domain of cheesy kitchy angels and such. I like the idea of trying to find a way to make these items cool.

So I've been working on that in the days since. I've already designed two lines of Christmas ornaments and now I'm building prototypes. The woman from the gallery with meet with me on the 15th of September to see what I've come up with.

Then, in about a year she proposed that they could have my own show in their gallery with my stained glass panels. Great, eh?

So very good results all around!

Crap Cars

Good day for humor. In addition to the Men of Mortuaries below, I just came across this:

Jason McCluskey, 31, a chef from Portsmouth on the southern English coast, had listed his 1985 Volkswagen Polo on eBay starting at 12 cents for "a bit of light-hearted humor." His take on the car's atrocious condition led the vehicle to become a hit, generating 34,000 hits and selling for about $550. He will donate profits to a children's intensive care unit. Some excerpts from his enticing sales pitch:

YOU ARE BIDDING ON PROBABLY THE BIGGEST PILE OF CRAP ON EBAY.

HERE WE HAVE A 1985 VOLKSWAGEN POLO THAT IS ON ITS LAST LEGS AND NOT WORTH THE £20.00 THAT THE SCRAP YARD WANT TO CHARGE ME FOR TAKING IT WAY, SO I AM HOPING TO SELL IT.

THE INTERIOR OF THE CAR IS TATTY AND THE SEATS ARE TORN AND STAINED (no not those sorts of stains)

IT HAS NO GLOVE BOX AS IT DECIDED TO FALL OFF LAST MONTH BUT I FOUND THAT THE FLOOR PROVIDED A GOOD ALTERNATIVE TO STORAGE SPACE.

THE STEREO IS NOT ''STATE OF THE ART'' AND THE ONLY STATION YOU CAN GET IS ''STATIC FM''

THE EXTERIOR OF THE CAR IS NOT MUCH BETTER (in fact worse)

ALL THE BODY PANELS ARE PRESENT BUT MOST ARE DENTED AND SCRATCHED.

THE FRONT TYRES HAVE SOME TREAD LEFT WHILE THE REARS ARE LIKE F1 SLICKS, THE SPARE IS BRAND NEW BUT HAS A PUNCTURE.

THE EXHAUST IS RUSTIER THAT THE TITANIC AND HAS MORE HOLES THAN A SIEVE.

THE BUTTON TO OPEN THE BOOT IS NOT SECURED BUT IF POSITIONED CORRECTLY IT WILL ACTUALLY OPEN , BUT MIND YOU DON'T CRACK YOUR HEAD WHEN IT FALLS ON YOU DUE TO THE WEAK STRUTS.

THE ENGINE WAS RUNNING GREAT UP UNTIL A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO...NOW IT RUNS LIKE A BAG OF SHITE. IN THE MORNING IT WILL OVER REV AND IN THE EVENING IT WILL NEED THE CHOKE OUT OR IT STALLS.

EVEN IF YOU MANAGE TO GET IT RUNNING OK IT WILL OVERHEAT.

THE ENGINE AND UNDERNEATH OF THE CAR IS CAKED IN OIL AND SOMEHOW IT HAS MANAGED TO WORK ITS WAY TO THE REAR OF THE CAR AND COME OUT ABOVE THE REAR BUMPER.

I AM QUITE KEEN TO GET SHOT OF THIS PILE OF CRAP AS I HAVE DUMPED IT ON MY PARENTS FRONT GARDEN AND THEY ARE STRESSING AT ME SAYING IT IS LOWERING THE THE TONE OF THE STREET.

Putting the Fun Back in Funeral

Ladies....

Apparently, funerals aren't just for burying grandma anymore: The 2007 Men of Mortuaries Calendar is scheduled to be available in October 2006.

Check this link: www.menofmortuaries.com

As usual this blog program won't create a %&*!!# link, but do cut and paste - it's worth it!

My First Gallery !?!?!

Well I've kept this quiet all week...but...tomorrow I'm going to go show my works to my first gallery...EVER!

I'm not so nervous actually, even though it's my favorite of all the galleries I've visited in the Twin Cities so far. It's called Gallery 360 and they have lots of very cool modern design-y things that I would buy myself if I had the money. Last time I was there I particularly liked their jewelery made out of vintage typewriter keys and their handbags made out of Nancy Drew books.

Anyway, tomorrow at high noon I'm going to be there with my four newest, coolest stained glass panels, ready to give them my artist's pitch and convince them to sell my work. I think my style fits with their style. Strangely I feel relatively at ease about it all. Good feedback or bad feedback -- either one is fine with me. It's just fun to put my work in front of some people finally. It's a learning experience and it's my first public contact. Yay!

Putting the French Back in Fries

There was a quiet little change on capitol hill this week in case you didn't catch it -- all the Congressional cafeterias changed their menu. Yes, "freedom fries" are back to "french fries" once again. The same goes for the former "freedom toast".

The funniest comment to come out of this was from my friend Emily, who asked, "if French fries are "freedom fries", does that mean that France is actually FreedomLand?" How would Bush answer that?

Some say the past several years have been atrocious. I say they've never been funnier.


PS -- It's a few minutes later and I just found this quote on the internet. Aren't they a witty punny lot on capitol hill? This one's a knee-slapper:

“Considering the Republican Party has based its foreign policy and homeland security strategy on the naming of fast-food items, it is shocking that they would waffle on one of their most pressing agenda points.” Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi

Yo Momma Jokes

How about some lowbrow humor kids? I haven't seen a list of "Yo momma" jokes in a long time now but these just came my way. Dang, back in 2000 when I was in Indonesia, my fellow classmates and I sat around making up our own yo momma jokes for HOURS. I guess that's what comes out when you have no access to tv, movies, alcohol, parties, almost no guys for six months...you end up on a ten-hour bus ride telling yo momma jokes. Heh heh. Anyway...

Yo momma's so fat she can't even jump to a conclusion.

Yo momma's so fat, I have to take a bus a train and a cab just to get on her good side

Yo momma's so fat, she needs a watch on both arms because she covers two time zones.

Yo momma's so fat, when she goes to a restaurant she looks at the menu and says, "OK"!

Yo momma's so fat, she went to the movies and sat next to everyone.

Yo momma's so fat, she left the house with high-heels and came back with flip-flops.

Yo momma's so fat, every time someone say "Kool Aid" she bust through the wall. (whoa - old commercial reference...)

Yo mama so fat, she eats Wheat Thicks.

Yo momma's is so fat she's on both sides of the family.

sign of the day

Wierd week or two

It's been a wierd time the last week or two. Lots of ups and downs. Was it because of that heat wave?

Marco and I succeeded in getting ourselves a little (let me emphasize, little) place in st. paul. Only catch is we can't move in until September 1st. I'm looking forward to it. The St. Croix valley is lovely but it's also really out of the loop. And finally I can do all the things one wants to do in their own place -- decorate, put my stuff anywhere I want, have people over.

My dear partner in crime Britt came into town for a brief visit of around 12 hours. She was en route from Hawaii, where she lives, to Ireland, where she's attending a conference on isotopes. It's funny to not see someone for many months, have them only stay for a few hours, but feel completely natural and at ease with them while they're there. I guess that's the mark of good friends. Anyway on the return trip we should see her around these parts again, maybe for more than 24 hours this time? She gave me a kick-ass funny postcard. I'll have to find a good place to stick it on the wall.

the fawn returns

Two days ago I was really bummed out after seeing a fawn dead by the side of the road. I thought it was the little fawn that we had seen over the past couple months from time to time near the pond and in the forest next to my house.

But there's good news. Marco went for a walk, saw it too, and also thought it was our little neighbor fawn. But just as we were sitting talking about it with teary eyes, a deer walks up into the clearing next to the house.....and also her baby fawn!! So either he was miraculously ressurected or there was just more than one fawn around.

So it turns out that although a fawn was killed by a car, it wasn't the one that we "knew". Funny, isn't it, how we personalize something like that, call it "our fawn" and feel proud of it growing up sturdy and strong because it's been around a lot. Yet we barely reflect on the death of an unknown deer.

Hmmm, that's human nature I guess. This makes me think back to Stephane, who may have had something philosophical to say about "domestication" in response to this. Or the fox's monologue in the Little Prince, for anyone who's ever read that.

goodbye to a little fawn

There's a deer and her fawn that have been hanging around our house in the forest the past couple months. We saw the mother alone throughout the winter, then in about march or april she suddenly had a tiny fawn about as tall as your knee that we saw bounding and leaping around by the pond like a little kid does. And we've seen them in our neighbor's garden, and one time the fawn even came up on our porch steps in a wobbly bouncy curious way. By now he's more of a teenage fawn, about 2/3 his full size and starting to lose his spots.

But this morning I was out for a walk. Out by the busy road on the other side of our pond I saw a dead deer that had been hit by a car. Then I looked closer and realized it had spots. Then I realized it was probably the fawn from our forest, because this spot was a frequent deer path from our forest to the one on the other side of the busy road.

There's something really heartbreaking about seeing a fawn be born and die. Some kind of loss of innocence in a Bambi-esque way.

The New Website

Well, I've spent the past two weeks chained to the computer. Let me tell you, that's no treat. But the results are pretty good -- I've more or less finished my new website. You can see it at greenlanternglassworks.com. Sorry this shoddy blog program doesn't create links that work so you have to cut and paste. Anyway, there are still a few kinks to work on my site, but the bulk of it works and looks decent now.

Because of the website I've barely spent any time at the studio. My plants there are suffering because I haven't been wiping off the aphids or whatever microscopic bugs they have on them every day. And the mosaic table I started has been sitting unfinished. In addition there are still loads of people to whom I owe a phonecall / email / evening swim. So I'm REALLY happy to be done with this blasted website and get back to some of that. Goes to show that sooner or later I'm going to have to subcontract things like websites and brochures and marketing materials to someone else, because if I do them myself that's means I lose the time at the studio. Too bad because I kinda like doing it.

Also Marco and I are actively looking for apartments now in the Grand Avenue area of St. Paul. You meet a lot of funny people when apartment hunting -- last night I was shown an apartment by a hippie dude with long white hair and a Key West Jimmy Buffet t-shirt. He reminded me of some kind of character from the Muppets rock band. He was funny though, and cracked jokes. Then there was Garofalia, the elderly Greek woman with the cross necklace who made me wonder if she was a nun at the Greek Orthodox church up the street. She took us to her tiny office in the boiler room and told Marco about her days as a schoolgirl in Greece when she had to study French language lessons. She only remebers dirty tongue twisters that she was taught, no useful conversational vocabulary. Isn't that how it always goes. The most memorable foreign words are swear words!