...I tried packing for Paris week after next in a large purse. And I can do it. Everything suitable for days of photographing and museums, to excursions to Hermès and the opera, and everything that could happen in between. I am kind of an expert on packing light after all the trips I took to Europe in 2008. And I don't have any eBay purchases to haul along now for one who wanted to save on postage on his end, which makes it really easy to travel light. As is my way.
But I will use a real carry-on bag. Because, God knows, I am likely to succumb to the irresistable impulse to buy one really, really impractical pair of shoes while I'm in Paris and I'll need to be able to haul them home. Really, in Paris as long as one has planned for foot comfort it's perfectly easy to bring a few pieces in black or dark colors and be done with it. But I made it a challenge on myself: grey, inky purple, lilac, dusty pink. A tone poem.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Granny Panty burlesque project continues
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Seriously, it's like a machine, between costume making, photo shoots, two dance classes a week and trying to do the strength training I'm going to need to perform live on the walker in a few months. Plus musical research about what to set the numbers on, etc., etc. But I'm loving every minute of it! You can read Granny's blog by following the link in the sidebar of this blog if you're interested.The semester is a killer. Some days I hardly have time to sit at my desk and read and answer e-mail because of all the meetings.
And I'm off to Paris, on my long-delayed "summer" vacation, in a couple of weeks. Whee!
Monday, September 21, 2009
I've been a poor blogger lately, haven't I?
The semester has been off to a hectic start, fraught with student-related dramas, some tragic. And I've been using what little time and energy I have left over for my own projects -- specifically, on Granny P -- which is going very, very well. I really enjoy being in a regular dance class again.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Uncharacteristically depressed today.
Perhaps it's the non-stop rain that meant no long walk for Buster and me this morning. Perhaps it's because I've still been feeling punk all week and not sleeping well, waking myself up coughing. In any case, I am blue tonight.
I've been sewing for over twenty-four hours and have lots to show for it: costumes for next weekend's photo shoot on my new project, costumes to perform in, various bits and pieces. I'm working on the final piece tonight, a virginal white batiste apron, like the nuns would sew. I should feel good about all this productivity and a whole new performance wardrobe.
I should feel happy because I love burlesque dance class, and because I have my first pole dance class tomorrow to look forward to.
But the iTunes plays French music, and Brazilian music, and it all seems to speak to me of melancholy. When it rains, I always long to be in bed with someone I'm madly in love with, making sweet, sweet love. Last night the rain was driving, melodious, so romantic. And I lay in bed and thought, "I'm not in love with anyone. I'm alone."
It will pass. Vivre sans vivre.
And, anyway, I go to Paris in a month. Once there, I can always run off with the Gypsies.
I've been sewing for over twenty-four hours and have lots to show for it: costumes for next weekend's photo shoot on my new project, costumes to perform in, various bits and pieces. I'm working on the final piece tonight, a virginal white batiste apron, like the nuns would sew. I should feel good about all this productivity and a whole new performance wardrobe.
I should feel happy because I love burlesque dance class, and because I have my first pole dance class tomorrow to look forward to.
But the iTunes plays French music, and Brazilian music, and it all seems to speak to me of melancholy. When it rains, I always long to be in bed with someone I'm madly in love with, making sweet, sweet love. Last night the rain was driving, melodious, so romantic. And I lay in bed and thought, "I'm not in love with anyone. I'm alone."
It will pass. Vivre sans vivre.
And, anyway, I go to Paris in a month. Once there, I can always run off with the Gypsies.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
September 2009 Vogue: Inspirations
Ever trying to save you time and money, here's my research on the September "big book" --
RED, black and white houndstooth and tweeds, wide belt waist emphasis, Forties look, purple (but not with brown like last season), purple and near fuscia with leopard print, booties, over the knee boots, crazy gladiator-type shoes, socks with heels (yay!), boots with suits.
Yep, I think that's about it on the trends that caught my eye.
RED, black and white houndstooth and tweeds, wide belt waist emphasis, Forties look, purple (but not with brown like last season), purple and near fuscia with leopard print, booties, over the knee boots, crazy gladiator-type shoes, socks with heels (yay!), boots with suits.
Yep, I think that's about it on the trends that caught my eye.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Long time, no write.
You know how I am when I get obsessed with an art project. And my new granny burlesque project has taken over my life in the course of just three short weeks. Photo shoots, wig wrangling, wardrobe designing, burlesque dance classes, pole dancing class...
Every walker I pass I have to stop and look at, thinking, "Hmmm. Would this one be a better one for my act? Wonder what other colors it comes in? Is it more stable than mine?"
And I was a little sick last week, although I just tried to keep on working through it. I'm feeling nearly 100% again today, and will use what's left of my three-day weekend to clean up my living room-turned-photography studio. It looks like a stripper store blew up downstairs in my house these days!
Every walker I pass I have to stop and look at, thinking, "Hmmm. Would this one be a better one for my act? Wonder what other colors it comes in? Is it more stable than mine?"
And I was a little sick last week, although I just tried to keep on working through it. I'm feeling nearly 100% again today, and will use what's left of my three-day weekend to clean up my living room-turned-photography studio. It looks like a stripper store blew up downstairs in my house these days!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
On to the next thing. Granny burlesque.
I am not joking. The walker is incredibly stable, and, as they sang in Gypsy, "You gotta have a gimmick!"
http://grannypthegreypanther.blogspot.com/
Friday, August 21, 2009
Poor, once-beautiful gardenia.
A little over a year ago he said, "I thought I detected a hint of fear in your voice, as if you'd realized our complicated logistics have the potential to do you much harm." And I answered him, "No, not fear! Only joy!"
Unhanging the show. Argh. I'm dehydrated.
It's no fun taking it down.
Why does it seem it takes longer to take a show down than install it?
But the video is up of my "vows" dance. It's a re-performance because there were too many people in the space when I originally performed it to video it. But that's what I was wearing. Except my hair was down.
Or here, if you prefer. I have more recent performances and archive videos up both places. The short ones are on youtube, the long ones on exposureroom.
Why does it seem it takes longer to take a show down than install it?
But the video is up of my "vows" dance. It's a re-performance because there were too many people in the space when I originally performed it to video it. But that's what I was wearing. Except my hair was down.
Or here, if you prefer. I have more recent performances and archive videos up both places. The short ones are on youtube, the long ones on exposureroom.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Laughing: Ali and I evidently made the society page of the Sunday newspaper.
(A week later: here's another one taken that night by Jimmie)
http://www.austin360.com/calendar/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=175084
If you consider Gadjo Disko at a bar called the Cockpit as something A-list in the first place. We're photo 15, me in the dirndl and Heidi hair. Photo 34 is one of Cindy's creations and models, 41 is Jimmie in one of Cindy's creations, 47 is one of Cindy's creations and models.
Fun times. Next time I go there I'm wearing a goth dirndl and a garlic-and-crucifix-necklace, and dirt on my face.
Just back home from Gadjo Disko
...and a fashion show including four outfits my daughter-in-law made that were fantastic. However, it was so hot in the gay bar it all took place in that Ali and I had to leave after Cindy's pieces. I thought I was going to puke. So no Balkan dancing for me tonight, although I was rocking the dirndl and Heidi hair and have been dying to gypsy dance for days.
I am pretty exhausted now, after my own show last night. But tomorrow's Sunday, and I'm gonna chill.
But, folks: I see 1,000 hits on this blog as of this evening. I have no idea who most of you are, but thanks for reading!
I am pretty exhausted now, after my own show last night. But tomorrow's Sunday, and I'm gonna chill.
But, folks: I see 1,000 hits on this blog as of this evening. I have no idea who most of you are, but thanks for reading!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Anti(Dote)Wedding
...was fantastic!
I'll put up a portfolio on flickr now that it's over and I can fully document the show. I had a blast afterward with everyone who came and the work was very well received. I flubbed my own dance a little because I was incredibly nervous, but I think the performance was really wonderful -- and Jimmie and Suze and Jack and Frankie and the little girls were all fantastic.
I do have the best friends in the whole world, since they actually helped clean up before departing in the wee hours. I'm a little worse for the pro secco this morning, but I'll drink a lot of water and should be feeling chipper in just a bit. My house is full of flowers and it smells wonderful. And I have an in-home massage at 3. Yay!
Wow. It's over. I really feel as if I've accomplished something meaningful with this show. And I know without a doubt the work in this show is the very best work of my entire life. And, hopefully, all of it, making the work, mounting the show, creating the performances, conveys the meaning to those who witnessed it that it is critical to use the events of one's own life, the really "stripped bare" stuff, as art supplies. No matter how painful.
I'll put up a portfolio on flickr now that it's over and I can fully document the show. I had a blast afterward with everyone who came and the work was very well received. I flubbed my own dance a little because I was incredibly nervous, but I think the performance was really wonderful -- and Jimmie and Suze and Jack and Frankie and the little girls were all fantastic.
I do have the best friends in the whole world, since they actually helped clean up before departing in the wee hours. I'm a little worse for the pro secco this morning, but I'll drink a lot of water and should be feeling chipper in just a bit. My house is full of flowers and it smells wonderful. And I have an in-home massage at 3. Yay!
Wow. It's over. I really feel as if I've accomplished something meaningful with this show. And I know without a doubt the work in this show is the very best work of my entire life. And, hopefully, all of it, making the work, mounting the show, creating the performances, conveys the meaning to those who witnessed it that it is critical to use the events of one's own life, the really "stripped bare" stuff, as art supplies. No matter how painful.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Anti(dote)Wedding
Antidote Wedding Vows, August 14, 2009
It all seems like a movie to me, this crazy romance of mine that was to have culminated in a wedding this evening. Its seeds must have been planted five years ago in Vienna; we even went to Hotel Sacher, like in The Third Man. Then, as in David Lean’s Summertime, our love affair began in earnest in Italy, and, as in An American in Paris, it continued during a few romantic days there. During the next six months our romance often felt alternately like a Hitchcock movie and a Fellini film. For some reason, tonight the final scene of The Philadelphia Story keeps playing in my head. I feel like Katharine Hepburn’s character, Tracy Lord, apologizing to her family and friends who’d gathered for a wedding that wasn’t going to take place.
Instead of a wedding, tonight I just want to tell all of you how sincerely grateful I am. I want to thank you, my co-workers, family and dearest friends, for your support during those seven months I was madly in love. Thank you for taking care of things at school. Thank you for looking after Buster for me when I was away. Thanks for the rides to and from the airport, laden with luggage full of e-bay purchases and gifts. Thank you for keeping the doubts -- which you surely must have had -- to yourself as I embarked upon what must have seemed like a mad adventure destined to end in heartbreak. As you all recall, I was deliriously happy during the seven months I was in love, and I want to thank you for being happy for me when it seemed I had finally found the soul-mate for whom I have long searched. Thank you, too, for your support in January when the love affair ended miserably in the course of just one day. And thank you for reading the fictionalized account of the romance in my book and for viewing the nearly one hundred drawings that also tell the story of this past year. Perhaps now you have more insight into what was going on in my heart and mind those months of my grand amour fou.
I also want to thank he who was once my love, he who would have become my third and final husband tonight. Louis, I sincerely thank you for your affection and for the tenderness and intimacy we once shared. I am deeply grateful not only for your love, but also for your belief in me as an artist and a writer, which propelled me into one of the most intense periods of creative activity I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s not often that I produce a hundred drawings, much less a 350-page novel, in the course of one short year. Thank you so much for the energy and inspiration you sparked in me. I hope, in this, at least, that you were not wrong – that my work is important. Thank you for believing that I’ve earned my rightful place alongside Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabeth Vignée-Lebrun, Camille Claudel, the Louises Bourgeois and Nevelson, Pina Bausch, Frida Kahlo, Simone de Beauvoir, the Brontës, Anne Frank and Anaïs Nin.
I’m grateful to you for proving to me that my heart is still alive, still capable of loving and, evidently, still hopeful. I would not have believed it possible at my age, and with my past romantic failures, that I could once again love so deeply and with such passion as I loved you. I would be lying to you now if I did not admit I miss your intellectual companionship, the quirky, esoteric interests we alone shared, your hands and your kisses. I miss playing Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller with you. Even though we have no future together, tonight I promise to treasure the beautiful, rich memories of our time together. I realize we are like the movies: at the end, I still know so little about you that you remain a mystery, a shadowy character like one written by Patricia Highsmith for Hitchcock – like the talented Mr. Ripley. And I, probably, will remain in your mind your Madelyn from Vertigo: an ideal, an anima projection. When I became uncomfortably “real,” our time together had to come to its inevitable ending and I had to disappear. I am a photograph, removed from your wallet and thrown away. Still, I have no regrets. Everything has turned out exactly the way Fate meant it to for both of us, my old love. Louis, I wish you well. I’ll quote Rick in Casablanca: “We’ll always have Paris.” And to Paris I will return alone to reclaim my city, as an antidote honeymoon.
I had originally planned to perform this piece as part of my wedding vows to Louis. So, in the words of Tracy Lord, “as originally and beautifully planned” I will now do just that to “Face the Music,” sung by Fred Astaire, from his movie Follow the Fleet. As I recall, Astaire sang it to a suicidal Ginger Rogers on the deck of a ship as she contemplated jumping overboard.
It all seems like a movie to me, this crazy romance of mine that was to have culminated in a wedding this evening. Its seeds must have been planted five years ago in Vienna; we even went to Hotel Sacher, like in The Third Man. Then, as in David Lean’s Summertime, our love affair began in earnest in Italy, and, as in An American in Paris, it continued during a few romantic days there. During the next six months our romance often felt alternately like a Hitchcock movie and a Fellini film. For some reason, tonight the final scene of The Philadelphia Story keeps playing in my head. I feel like Katharine Hepburn’s character, Tracy Lord, apologizing to her family and friends who’d gathered for a wedding that wasn’t going to take place.
Instead of a wedding, tonight I just want to tell all of you how sincerely grateful I am. I want to thank you, my co-workers, family and dearest friends, for your support during those seven months I was madly in love. Thank you for taking care of things at school. Thank you for looking after Buster for me when I was away. Thanks for the rides to and from the airport, laden with luggage full of e-bay purchases and gifts. Thank you for keeping the doubts -- which you surely must have had -- to yourself as I embarked upon what must have seemed like a mad adventure destined to end in heartbreak. As you all recall, I was deliriously happy during the seven months I was in love, and I want to thank you for being happy for me when it seemed I had finally found the soul-mate for whom I have long searched. Thank you, too, for your support in January when the love affair ended miserably in the course of just one day. And thank you for reading the fictionalized account of the romance in my book and for viewing the nearly one hundred drawings that also tell the story of this past year. Perhaps now you have more insight into what was going on in my heart and mind those months of my grand amour fou.
I also want to thank he who was once my love, he who would have become my third and final husband tonight. Louis, I sincerely thank you for your affection and for the tenderness and intimacy we once shared. I am deeply grateful not only for your love, but also for your belief in me as an artist and a writer, which propelled me into one of the most intense periods of creative activity I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s not often that I produce a hundred drawings, much less a 350-page novel, in the course of one short year. Thank you so much for the energy and inspiration you sparked in me. I hope, in this, at least, that you were not wrong – that my work is important. Thank you for believing that I’ve earned my rightful place alongside Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabeth Vignée-Lebrun, Camille Claudel, the Louises Bourgeois and Nevelson, Pina Bausch, Frida Kahlo, Simone de Beauvoir, the Brontës, Anne Frank and Anaïs Nin.
I’m grateful to you for proving to me that my heart is still alive, still capable of loving and, evidently, still hopeful. I would not have believed it possible at my age, and with my past romantic failures, that I could once again love so deeply and with such passion as I loved you. I would be lying to you now if I did not admit I miss your intellectual companionship, the quirky, esoteric interests we alone shared, your hands and your kisses. I miss playing Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller with you. Even though we have no future together, tonight I promise to treasure the beautiful, rich memories of our time together. I realize we are like the movies: at the end, I still know so little about you that you remain a mystery, a shadowy character like one written by Patricia Highsmith for Hitchcock – like the talented Mr. Ripley. And I, probably, will remain in your mind your Madelyn from Vertigo: an ideal, an anima projection. When I became uncomfortably “real,” our time together had to come to its inevitable ending and I had to disappear. I am a photograph, removed from your wallet and thrown away. Still, I have no regrets. Everything has turned out exactly the way Fate meant it to for both of us, my old love. Louis, I wish you well. I’ll quote Rick in Casablanca: “We’ll always have Paris.” And to Paris I will return alone to reclaim my city, as an antidote honeymoon.
I had originally planned to perform this piece as part of my wedding vows to Louis. So, in the words of Tracy Lord, “as originally and beautifully planned” I will now do just that to “Face the Music,” sung by Fred Astaire, from his movie Follow the Fleet. As I recall, Astaire sang it to a suicidal Ginger Rogers on the deck of a ship as she contemplated jumping overboard.
12:36 a.m. That means it's my not-wedding day!
House is pristine. Floors are done and taped off for the performances. I'm totally rehearsed. Exhibit and installation have been totally installed for days. I think I'm going to bed early tonight, so I can get up and walk Buster tomorrow morning early before I have to go pick up the cake, flowers and do the food. There's a notice the hot water is off from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., so I guess I better get up and get a bath and shave my legs before then, in case it doesn't come back on by late afternoon. I was planning to take a disco nap about 4 before the performers arrive at 7.
Yes: I am excited. And a little nervous. But I feel really, really good about the work and I'm proud of the show. And I'm looking forward to spending a festive evening with my nearest and dearest. Although this place is going to be as packed as Holly Golightly's apartment during her cocktail party in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I hope no one's hair catches on fire, as in the movie. :)
And I'm looking forward to loads of barefoot dancing and drinking after 10 p.m.! And if I get really crazy, I may go for a moonlight swim to cap it all off. And I have an in-home massage to look forward to Saturday!
Someone said, in essence, "I think it's cool that you're marrying your art, not a man." And I thought: Wait. I may have divorced several men, but two things I've never divorced. My art, and an animal.
Yes: I am excited. And a little nervous. But I feel really, really good about the work and I'm proud of the show. And I'm looking forward to spending a festive evening with my nearest and dearest. Although this place is going to be as packed as Holly Golightly's apartment during her cocktail party in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I hope no one's hair catches on fire, as in the movie. :)
And I'm looking forward to loads of barefoot dancing and drinking after 10 p.m.! And if I get really crazy, I may go for a moonlight swim to cap it all off. And I have an in-home massage to look forward to Saturday!
Someone said, in essence, "I think it's cool that you're marrying your art, not a man." And I thought: Wait. I may have divorced several men, but two things I've never divorced. My art, and an animal.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
One of my friends can't go to her twentieth high school reunion
...because of current work projects. I'm so sorry, since she was looking forward to it.
Then I was thinking: me going to my high school reunion (if it weren't just the sub-set of art and drama people) would be pretty much like asking Carrie to go to her high school reunion. Bad idea.
Then I was thinking: me going to my high school reunion (if it weren't just the sub-set of art and drama people) would be pretty much like asking Carrie to go to her high school reunion. Bad idea.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
ROFLMAO
Ali has done it again: resurrected a 1993 or 1994 "commercial" for Hard Women by Linda Montano.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Unbelievable.
The documentation of one of my most ambitious and largest scale performances, which I have for over a decade believed to be lost, has been, like Lazarus, resurrected by Ali White and all the digital gods and is available for viewing at the link below. "The Death of Orpheus," from Metamorpheus, 1990.
These have something to do with the next project I propose.
More news as it develops.
Hm. La joueuse/les joyeux. Les joueuses joyeux?
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