L u n a t a l k

This little quiz will test your art-divining skills. Your personal fabulous taste will not help you. Art is apparently in the eye of the curator and the definition of art used here is something that has been exhibited as such by an artist.

To me it’s art if it intentionally created as art and if it evokes emotion or alters perception. I have to admit to a personal weakness for installation art. Sometimes the unexpected and brilliant placement of the most ordinary objects can completely modify your perception of a space and meaning. There was an exhibit last year at the Seattle Art Museum that featured an entire wall covered with a grid of old snapshots pinned facing the wall. Some had a word or two scrawled on the back. A few had tantalizingly creased corners that almost let you peek. The power of not seeing the images was incredible.

I was left with only my imagination to fill in all the human lives they touched. I learned something about the temptation of voyeurism. The backs of those photos created a tension and energy that a representational image could not have approached. Was it a gimmick? Perhaps. Did it require exceptional skill or craftsmanship? Perhaps not. Did it communicate a profound and creative artistic vision? Absolutely.

Popularity: 5% [?]

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I hate downtown Seattle. Well, I don’t really hate it. There’s quite a bit of cool stuff to see and do. But what I hate is trying to leave downtown Seattle. It’s a fairly simple matter to get in. An aggravating or expensive matter to park. But when you’re ready to head home, it’s like the Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. I know there are freeway onramps. Every so often, one stumbles across one like a delightful and unexpected portal to another world at the back of a wardrobe. Our exodus from our gig at Caffe Bella last night finally ended in such a discovery, but it was sheer dumb luck. I think the exits move around with the untimely randomness of Hogwarts staircases and my obscenity-free description of events is in no way indicative of the actual situation IN the car.

My husband and I navigate the world differently. And the differences are classically gender-biased to the point of cliche: He’s got a mental grid in his head and destinations are pinned to it as firmly as specimens in a bug collection. Maps in my head are more like macrame. Destinations and landmarks are knots with rope roads linking them in various configurations. The actual physical location of any knot is more or less irrelevant - as long as I can find a known knot, I can recall the ropes to the next one. This article in Discover Magazine suggests the differences are biological.

I don’t know which is “better.” On the surface it would seem like knowing the grid is on more solid ground. Mike can’t imagine how I ever get anywhere. And certainly, I don’t always end up taking the most direct route, though I generally reach my destination without too much groping about. But I’m frequently amazed at how he doesn’t even see obvious landmarks (and in the category of “landmarks”, I include road signs) because “we need to go north, not east” or even taking the wrong exit because it “felt like we’d gone far enough.” Our mistake last night was not following our usual strategy for marital harmony: I drive, he looks at the map. It’s much easier if I just turn where he says turn than if I scream directions while he doggedly dead-reckons.

How do you get where you’re going?

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Busy weekend coming up! If you’re in the Seattle area, you have three chances to see us:

FRIDAY: A perfect night and a perfect spot for My Perfect Life… And Other Delusions. Caffe Bella serves up beer, wine, coffee, food and us. We’re adding our lunatic lineup of terrorist cats, Nigerian bankers, deranged Mary Kay ladies, shopaholics, chocoholics, sexaholics and nighttime frolics to the menu. Come join the fun!

Caffe Bella
Friday, July 27, 9-11 pm, $5
2621 Fifth Ave (Near Denny)
PG-13

It’s jazz and funk and stand-up comedy. It’s party time for grown-up girls and the boys who love them. It’s true confessions and dirty lies. If you’ve EVER said to yourself “If I could just fix this ONE THING then my life would be perfect” this show is for you because you already KNOW it ain’t so. You just need an excuse to laugh about it. And that’s what we’re here for, hon. If you’ve NEVER said it, you know someone who has and isn’t it time for an intervention?

My Perfect Life …and Other Delusions is a new collaboration with stand-up comics Robin Fairbanks and JeanAnn O’Brien - both major talents on the Seattle comedy scene.

SATURDAY: The first ever Redmond Arts Jam by Redmond City Hall. Musicians and spoken word artists are invited to take the stage for the first Redmond Arts Jam. We’ll combine an open mic for soloists followed with an open jam with a terrific band, including the famous Jay Roberts of Roberts Music Institute. There will also be a live poetry event on the site, chalk art for the kids and a wonderful henna artist. Musicians, singers and poets, comedians and spoken word artists are all welcome to take part. We provide PA, mics, backline amps and kit. Musicians bring own other instrument, drummers bring sticks, vocalists bring your voice, everyone bring inspiration, audience bring, ummm, ears… You must be at least 16 to take the stage and all material must be family friendly. Sign up at 6 pm. Open Mic at 7, Jam at 8. Directions (PDF)

SUNDAY: Balkanarama will perform a free 90-minute outdoor concert of songs from southern Europe next Sunday, July 29, at Forest Park in Everett. The concert will feature Rom songs from Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Kosovo and Spain, with additional songs from Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Russia. Some of the songs were heard in the recent movies “Gypsy Caravan” and “Borat.” The performance is part of the City of Everett’s Music in the Parks International Series, presented by KSER 90.7 FM.

1:30 - 3:00 PM Sunday, July 29
Forest Park outdoor stage
802 E. Mukilteo Blvd., Everett, WA 98203
Free, suitable for all ages, with plenty of room for dancing

To get to Forest Park from I-5 north:

- Take the 41st St. exit in Everett (watch closely for it amid the I-5 roadwork)
- Drive west on 41st St. past Broadway
- Follow 41st St. up the hill — it turns into E. Mukilteo Blvd.
- Turn left at the entrance the Forest Park, just past the pedestrian overpass

If it rains, the concert will be postponed.

More about the International Series:
http://www.everettwa.org/default.aspx?ID=1154

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Twenty-three years ago today Los Angeles was in the final pink and turquoise frenzy of Olympic madness. The horror of unending, basin-wide gridlock, as well as the millions we could make renting our house to rich tourists, had failed to materialize. Twenty-three years ago today, the opening ceremonies were only a day away and I was dancing on the sunny roof of the Bonaventure hotel, while my husband played clarinet with the Balkan band, Nama, as part of a pre-Olympics Festival of World Music lunchtime concert series. I led the line on a Greek syrto. But none of that is as memorable to me as what happened a few hours later: I gave birth to my first baby, Eric.

Happy birthday, honey. It was a special day.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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I belly dance. Mostly for fun and exercise, but once or twice a year I put on the beads and bangles and shake it in front of a live audience. This year, a little extra shaking went on when the back hook on my lovely beaded bra snapped. Twice. The first time, I dashed offstage where friendly hands pinned it back on. That lasted until the first time I raised my arms. I just managed to avoid pulling a full Janet Jackson, but it was still quite a show. Ah well.

UPDATE: It turns out the moment was caught on camera:

If you’re not familiar with the recreational belly dance scene, it’s one of the friendliest and most accepting scenes around. It’s easy to sneer at the fat and wrinkles, but deep down inside every fat wrinkly woman there’s a fabulous, sexy goddess just dying to wear something beautiful every now and then. And the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival, held in a park in West Seattle every July is the place to indulge one’s inner Princess Jasmine. It’s a day-long parade from the sublime to the ridiculous. From sinuous pros showing off mind-boggling body control to dread-locked, cat-eared, tattooed ragamuffins with hula hoops to middle-aged ladies in fishnet stockings jiggling to an Arabic remix of “If I were a Rich Man.”

It’s not something I need to experience often. Once a year is plenty and even then, it seems like almost too much. But what the hell. Where else can I lose my top on stage and shrug it off without embarrassment?

Popularity: 10% [?]

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• HEY LOOK - Shouts and Murmurs brilliantly captures the white-hot spotlight of teenage angst.
• PRECIOUS CONDOM ART - When Japan takes over the world, everything will be cute.
• MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER? - the absolute drop-dead funniest translation job ever. How could anyone resist the cowboy leg beautiful pole?
• INCREDIBLE FLOATING APPLE - I am so going to try this.
• PHONE CALLS FROM LONELY HOUSEPLANTS - Between kids, clients, pets and telemarketers, I’ve got enough sources of nagging in my life. I don’t need to be receiving phone calls from my plants, thank you very much.
• LOLCAT BIBLE - Someone had to do it.
• PEANUTS ANIME - Weirdly cool.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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After my bumpy flight the other day, an NPR story about the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights by a frequent business traveler caught my ear. Especially the bit about flying all day to attend an unproductive one-hour meeting. I have a piece of advice: Cut it out. Now.

Here I am unplugging Mr. Coffee between pots to downsize my carbon footprint while thousands of suits are burning up acres of jet fuel for nothing they couldn’t do in a chat window. For shame! Maybe you deserve to pee in your air sickness bag.

But it got me thinking. There’s another group just as deserving of a bill of rights - a group that suffers indignities at least as humiliating and outrageous. So I’ve taken up the flag to petition for a bill of rights that I think is long overdue.

THE MIDLIFE PASSAGES BILL OF RIGHTS

• Establish procedures to respond to all midlife partner complaints within 24 seconds and with appropriate resolution within 2 hours.
• Notify partner within ten minutes of diversions, delays and cancellations. Is it really to much to ask you to pick up the damn phone? You know how we get when you’re late.
• Provide for the essential needs of partner during delays of longer than 3 hours, including chocolate, coffee, foot rubs, and access to a decent shopping.
• Provide for the needs of PMSing, menopausal and just plain crotchety partners by establishing procedures for assisting with the pretense of retrieving lost youth, and the feeding of unrealistic expectations at all times.
• Publish, update and complete monthly a comprehensive list of chores, “honey-dos” and other household repairs and enhancements, including those that have been chronically delayed thirty years or more.
• Compensate “bummed” partners or partners fed up with “this whole fucking age thing” by refund of 150% of kids’ college tuition.
• The formal implementation of a Satisfaction Review Committee, made up actual consumers of pills that supposedly “revitalize your sex life”, diets that “let you eat whatever you want” and exercise equipment that “only takes four minutes a day” - that would have the formal ability to review, investigate, draw and quarter the manufacturers.
• Make children’s information, schedules and orthodontist appointments, cancellations and frequent “ride the mall” program requirements available in an easily accessed location and updated in real-time.
• Ensure that “excess baggage” be handled without harassment or insult; Refrain from notifying us of baggage status even if we explicitly ask if “these pants make me look fat.” Neglect of this provision requires compensation equal to current market value of a week at a spa.
• Require that these rights apply equally to all partners, including intramarital, extramarital, dating and booty call partners but especially to the partner who can make your life a living hell.

Popularity: 5% [?]

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If Lunatalk has seemed less talky the past few days it’s because I’ve been out of town - visiting rels in CA.

This time I chose to fly through San Jose for the first (and last) time. Perhaps it’s uncharitable to judge. The bones of a brand new airport are beginning to rise and much of the blame lies squarely in the humorless lap of the TSA. Blah blah blah. Waiting for a flight at SJC has a major bug that is thankfully absent at other airports I’ve traversed recently and I reserve the right to bitch and moan: that is the ban on liquid in consumable quantities combined with the total absence of such liquids on the far side of the security Rubicon.

The desolate landscape beyond the scanners is a waterless, vinyl wasteland with no oasis in sight. But no worry: our flight would be boarding soon. Right? Wrong. Departure was delayed by the mysterious whims of flight pixies and there we were, marooned and beverageless. Had we wanted to chance leaving and returning for a second pass through the TSA gauntlet it still would have availed us not, since the only source of refreshment was a single, closed snackbar. So we languisheed, parched, through an interminable delay, then enisled on the tarmac, could only gaze feverishly at the glacial creep of the beverage cart down the aisle after takeoff.

Hrmmph.

But I stuck it to the man. I have the satisfaction of having waltzed a FIVE OUNCE bottle of hand lotion past the humorless noses of security. If only it had been gin.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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1. Isn’t it ironic. The parents of a woman accused of murdering her father and sister apparently declined psychiatric treatment for her last year because of their Scientology beliefs.

2. Light tagging. Lights. Camera. Action.

3. The strangest sights in Google Earth.

4. Tampon Crafts! For any time of the month. Are you ready for Ode to Joy on tampon panpipes?

5. Not my kids and not my kids either. Thank god! I can’t believe any parent would have the presence of mind to grab the camera first and freak out after.

6. Parting shot: Some seriously heavy lifting:

Popularity: 8% [?]

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This is an entirely fictional account of a supposedly true story from Portland, Oregon. Even if it didn’t happen, it should have. If you know the actual facts, please let me know. I may write a song.

A group of renegade knitters started hanging out at a local dive bar and turned it into something of a clubhouse for yarnaholics. Fuzzy coasters and beer cozies started cropping up all over the place. A pattern was emerging. The old regulars found themselves blocked by the “angora gauntlet.” Finally a group of bikers gauged the situation and decided to rip out these needle addicts before the woolly infestation completely took over. What followed was an epic Battle of the Bikers vs. the Knitters. Skeins and needles flew. Who would win? When the tangled strands finally settled, the answer was clear: The bikers had whipped the knitters asses but good.

What? Did you think this was going to have some sappy Hollywood ending?

Here are a few favorite extreme knitting projects:

Knitted ferrari - Art graduate Lauren Porter knitted a Ferrari sportscar for her honours degree at Bath Spa University.

Knitted iPhone - Step-by-step instructions included!

Knitted digestive system (Also from the same site: knitted penis cozy)

Knitted murder victims (This site has some problems but it’s worth it just to see all the adorable pink knitted bondage gear)

Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art - There’s a much larger version on the site - see every anatomically correct detail!

Popularity: 7% [?]

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