Charlotte, Karen, Aerin, Marlise, Baba, Jess and I took 2 feathers from the pieces of the Angel of the Apocalypse to the opening of “Arts on Fire”, a show at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica.
We had a blast. It was a kid-friendly event and the Angel proved to be very kid friendly. As we were getting ready, the kids lined up, gazing at the flaming feathers. They screamed every time someone shot it off. After 3 hours, their screams were pretty half-hearted ;-)
I got this compliment about my website recently from a new friend:
I’ve been checking out Lee,org’s site, and it’s quite extensive. That’s one reason it’s taken this long to get this note off. I go to the site, am immediately intrigued/diverted/meander a while, and then run out’a time, or lose focus.
(darn it, I missed a party at my ex-housemate Scott’s house last night. I get tooo much email to sort through it all… [frowny face])
This was part of the party invite and it sounds right-on. That creepy old shack is…. creepy!
“Scott, what’s in that dilapidated wooden shed in the back of our elaborately landscaped but forebodingly overgrown backyard?”
“Oh, ha, that! I’m not sure what’s in there, how about we check it out together and I’ll show you?”
“What are these.. tiny skulls?”
“Looks like, looks like, yeah, I’m not sure what kind of animal would make a skull like that!”
“These look like ISO-standard necromancer candles, and I think someone’s gotten some use out of them.”
“Yeah, I guess those have probably been chilling out here for a while.”
“And what’s in these jars? It’s sort of chunky? Was someone doing some canning?”
“Oh ha ha, hard to say, hard to say.. it does look organic, in fact!”
I posted this to the FLG Lipstick list today :-)
First some good news:
SWARM, an offshoot project of FLG is a funded project for Burning Man 2007. The project is coming along very nicely.
http://orbswarm.com http://blog.orbswarm.com—————-
Terrific news:
The Serpent Mother will be going to the Fire Arts Festival in Oakland in July!
http://www.thecrucible.org/fireartsfestival/index.html—————-
Super amazing terrific news!
The Serpent Mother will be travelling across two oceans to Robodock in September
http://www.robodock.org/ !!!—————-
Read more on our blog http://flaminglotus.wordpress.com/
I’m thinking of volunteering to go to Robodock.
This week is Bay Area Dance Week. Lots of free dancing.
Charlotte and I went contra dancing Saturday (my muscles are still gloriously sore)
(Saturday morning I went to the yearly SF NERT drill)
Intimate Embrace Tango Sunday
Temple of Poi spinning instruction Monday night (I loved it… very centering… with the possibility of dangerous fire after I get good enough :-)
And darn it, we missed the Bohemian Carnival at DNA Lounge. Lost Vegas was postponed due to rain. Missed Nerd Pride night at Instructables (Charlotte has never seen Real Genius! A horror that will soon be remedied)
And I’ve been spending time on SWARM! The SWARM wiki will soon be publicly available.
Just go to Maker Faire. You won’t regret it (unless you are killed by an errant robot… and admit it, even that would be pretty cool in retrospect)
Everybody knows that the AR-15 isn’t legal to own in California because it’s a scary “assault rifle”. Well, California Rifles has a redesign that makes it legal for all us California tree huggers to shoot this beautiful rifle again.
Previously, the only way to get around this problem was to make an AR-15 with a non-removable (10 round) magazine. That’s just stup^H^H^H^Hsilly, opening up the rifle and reloading the magazine from the inside.
Of course, most of the major brands of AR-15 lower receivers are specifically blacklisted. But there are many brands of lower receiver that aren’t on the blacklist.
The upshot is: the only things the “assault weapons ban” has done for California is to
And in any case, the Kel-Tec SU-16CA is a fine gun. It’s California legal right out of the box, fires the same 5.56mm round and has a techy-cool look to it. (though it bothers me that the 2 magazines in the stock are held in with a poor friction-fit; he could have designed something more reliable)
I just set up a blog for the project I’ve been pouring my summer into. Check out the blog.
(yes, that’s a recently finished prototype orb drinking a beer)
Text Message Breakup from Liam
I like it! (thanks for the link Melis)
“Brain and Brain! What is Brain?!”
click to play this informative video
Long version
(keywords: Star Trek ST:TOS, Brains) (video via)
My friend Warren’s movie, Pony Trouble has just made it into the Netflix catalog. Groovy!
Last night I went to the opening of the Ocean Beach Fire Pits. Rbca and Yasi’s fire pit was ready and burning. There was another one there as well. :-) This is a huge thing. Public, utilitarian, (mostly privately) funded art made by my friends :-)
Sorry I don’t have photos but here’s some extra info…
Ocean Beach Fire Pits - Burners without Borders
Last year, the National Park Service almost banned fires on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, due to consistent problems with trash and debris. Since then they have received thousands of letter and are considering designs for permanent fire pits to be installed April 14.
But just making the designs isn’t enough–we need your help! Namely, we need to raise money to pay for this art. Although the Park Service could only offer $3,000 for the project, we’ve already been able to raise $27,000 of the $42,000 needed.
What you can do: check out these designs, and then go to our donate page and make a contribution. You can contribute directly to BWB via PayPal
Leonardo is the Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. It is put out by MIT Press. It isn’t the largest publication, but it is fairly prestigious.
The Serpent Mother is going to be on the cover of Volume 40, Number 4, due out in August, 2007.
If you haven’t used H&R Block before but will be this year, print out and bring following referral code certificate to the office you go to and we’ll both get $15 free money.
If you will be using H&R Block TaxCut Online, use this link and we’ll both get a $5 Starbucks card as a referral https://www.taxcutreferral.com/FriendForm.aspx?id=82452834113384
This in from BMORG. Every one of these projects is worthy of appreciation.
We’ve just completed our biggest and most challenging grant cycle yet, with 240 proposals to review, up from 170 last year - a 35% increase.
The competition was intense, and our community has generated more intriguing projects than ever before.We’ve awarded 30 grants for playa installations. We thank everyone for your interesting ideas, your creativity and your energy - and we look forward to another year of amazing art on the playa. Grant committee members are: Larry Harvey, LadyBee, Crimson Rose, Beth “Bettie June”
Scarborough, and Mark Van Proyen.Please note that additional grants are being given for projects in the Pavilion and the ManGrove that surrounds the Man, and those will be announced in the near future.
The funded projects are:
Acavallo: Quill Hyde of Brooklyn, NY
http://www.acavallo.org
Note: Acavallo is a mobile venue for acoustic music and performance on the playa. If you want to perform, please contact Quill via his website.Ant Mischief by Ben Shearn and Tim Kirwan of Colorado Springs, CO http://shearn.net/ant/ant.html
Apocalypse Stagecoach by the Ren Jinn Bao Puppet Theater of Thailand, Mexico, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Bay Area http://www.apocalypsestagecoach.com/
Big Rig Jig by Mike Ross of Brooklyn, NY http://www.bigrigjig.com
Black Rock Glacier by Ehron Asher of Centennial, Colorado http://www.serendipityarts.com
Burninator X by Bill Codding of San Francisco, CA http://www.4bc.org/burninator/burninator_x.html
Celtic Forest by Laura Kimpton, Bob Hofmann and Jeff Schomberg, Bay Area http://www.celticforest.net
Cone by Hans Sachs and Manuel Kretzer of Karlsruhe,Germany http://www.burning-man.eu
Note: These German architecture students are looking for a few American crew members. Please contact them via their website.Cornucopic Contraptions by Charlie Smith and Jaime Ladet of Atlanta, GA http://www.howhowhow.com/contraptionsburn07.html
Crude Awakening by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito, Black Rock FX, Mark Perez, Pyrokinetics, Nate Smith and MonkeyBoy, Bay Area http://www.headlesspoint.com/crude_awakening/
Cubatron Cone by Mark Lottor of Menlo Park, CA http://nw.com/nw/projects/cone/
Dragon Smelter by Dan Macciarini of San Francisco, CA The Dragon will again turn aluminum cans into art:
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2006/06_art_funded.html#dragonGreen Glass Man by Rodman Miller and Gina Karaba of Seattle, WA http://theamazingmillers.com/greenglassman2007.html
Green Shoes by Dadoc of Oakland, CA
http://www.dr-seano.com/greenshoesGuardian of Eden by Kate Raudenbush of New York, NY http://www.kateraudenbush.com/ click on New: Guardian of Eden
Fata Morgana by Orion Fredericks of Oakland, CA http://www.orionfredericks.net/newsFataMorgana.htm
Homouroboros by Peter Hudson of San Francisco, CA http://www.hudzo.com/homouroboros
(NOTE: link is direct to a PDF download. While he did receive a grant, Peter still seeks help to complete the project - check out the PDF or contact peter isat hudzo.com)Kinetic Steam Works by KSW of Oakland, CA http://www.kineticsteamworks.org/KSWBMGRANT07/
Koilos by Michael Christian of Berkeley, CA http://xianspace.com/bm2007/
Mechabolic: Cyborg Speculations in Machine Metabolism by Jim Mason, Chicken John, Dann Davis and Michael Christian http://www.whatiamupto.com/mechabolic/index.html
Museum de Materiel Retrouve by Trieops Treyfid of Los Angeles, CA
http://treiops.com/bm2007NeverWas Haul by Shannon O’Hare and Kathy Tucker of Orinda, CA http://www.xlounge.com/neverwas/neverwas_proposal.html
Samhein: Into Her Dreaming by Paul Bagley of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma http://web.mac.com/paulbagley/iWeb/site/Welcome.html
Steampunk TreeHouse by Sean Orlando of Oakland, CA
http://www.infinityeight.net/TREEHOUSE07Swarm by Michael Prados of San Francisco, CA http://www.orbswarm.com
Tall Grass by Glenn Easley of Vashon, Washington http://tall.grass.spire.googlepages.com/
Tasseograph: The Trash TeaHouse Temple by Shrine and TukTuk of Pasadena CA and Portland, Oregon http://pdxdiversion.org/tasseograph.html
Temple of Forgiveness by David Best & Tim Dawson, Petaluma and Stinson Beach, CA http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thetemplecrew
U-ME by Rex Norman and Damian Janssen of Carson City and Sparks, Nevada http://www.MutantVehicle.com/u-me.htm
A friend asked me for some career advice lately. Here’s what I wrote:
I’ve been at it for almost 40 years and I still don’t know what to do when I grow up.
Find something you love and do it. Hope it makes you enough money to live. If not, find something you like so you can do the things you love. Or turn it on it’s head and do something you can make a lot of money at that won’t kill you or turn you into a zombie (hard to do) and then do the things you love. If you find a break or a sweet spot, take it. Rinse. Repeat. Die happy.
Be genuine.
Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
Read “Blink” and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Charlotte strongly recommends reading “Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore
Has pretty pictures of what FLG has worked on :-)
