Cayman Islands vs. Hurricane Paloma

After seeing Ike do his business I’ve been wondering if we could do without hurricanes ruining our everyday news. But no, Paloma has come off the ropes and is rushing right for Florida, by way of the Cayman Islands. I think it’s probably a tourist.

The best news that I’ve seen on this so far is from the Associated Press, Hurricane Paloma Heads for the Cayman Islands (is it just me or is Google just awesome for things like this? I wonder how the newspapers feel.) Is it just me, or didn't Cuba get a hammering two months ago already?

Ah yes, the Spanish Main—the northern part at least—it used to be a haven for the Golden Age of Piracy, but then as pirates began to vanish from the seas, the Flying Spaghetti Monster began to warm our planet. And now that area, once the great demesne of pirate folk, swallows the brunt of that wrath.

(I just had to sneak a Helljammer reference in.)

Mill Avenue Vexations Volume 9 cover design released

Volume 9: All the Night's a Stage cover design has been released.

Be sure to keep an eye out for it on Mill Ave this upcoming weekend and weeks. The booklets, of course, print in black and white—but with enough input from fans color versions can be printed.

Perhaps special editions of this will be available soon. They cost about $10 to help pay for press and artwork costs.

Of Presidents and dogs

Hm. I'm just over here, this beautiful Friday when I accidentally forgot the power cable to my laptop when I went to work; thus cutting short my entire day... I've been thinking about something that came out of the recent election, which was part of Obama's acceptance speech he spoke about getting a puppy.

Also, taking into account that one of his daughters, like me, is asthmatic, I threw up a post to this effect over at the brand new PETS 911 Animal Crossroads blog.

First Dogs go so far back that there is a museum for them! Now that's some weird obsession. I wonder what kind of archivists they employ. Think about it, do they keep letters to the dogs? Vet records? Pictures, x-rays, press clippings?

Well. If the Presidents get a museum, why not their dogs.

Link to Obamas to choose First Dog, hopefully shelter adoption.

Recipe for a lovely cassoulet

Yes, thou read that right. I am talking about a word that for some reason has become the nom de guerre meme of the election of our next President, Barak Obama. A stew.

According to a blog in the Dallas Morning News it was seen in Times Square on a sign. Some seem to be positing that it is, in all essence, a hearken to the great Melting Pot of America—although it’s a reference to a French ban stew—and others want to suggest that it is “elitist.”

Elitism, the so-called language of war used against the new controlling party instead of the word “liberal” has become a poorly chosen rallying cry over the past few weeks. Whispered, as if people are trying to give the word some significance beyond the quotidian meaning of “expert of a field.”

It’s beef stew. The stuff that the everyday person eats. Obama took to the field with the words, “I need your help. I will listen to you—especially, most especially when we disagree.” He may be so far above the everyman. No politician is the everyman, they are in essence a person who has walked out of the everyman and become something else; but something that they can be is an ear for the people.

Sir, I expect thee to keep to these promises. Listen to the people and be our representative to the world at large.

Good luck.

Twittering VoteReport

Advances to the Internet have brought on new and interesting technologies. One in particular that I find interesting is the Twitter VoteReport among others. I will be following on #votereport.

I hope to see thee as well!

Also, for a fun visualization that scrolls around a map to pop up messages, check out Twittervison's Election section. Oh that rhymes.

Mill Avenue the Beautiful #2: Of Condominiums and Culture

The next Mill Avenue the Beautiful article is up on Mill Avenue Vexations. This one outlines the current salvos of gentrification and community in the ongoing culture transition along the Ave.

The Vision of St. Bruno

There’s an interesting Internet story running around right now about a beautiful painting by Italian master painter Sebastiano Ricci, “The Vision of St. Bruno.” Presumed lost, but no more. Of all the places to rediscover fine art: Dallas Texas.

An Associated Press article on the subject says that it’s estimated worth could fetch it more than $600,000 dollars! The vision is quite impressive, to say the least. A depiction of angels and a man staring skyward. And quite a find too.

His work is well-known in European circles from the early 18^th century when he worked for most of the major courtly affairs between both London and Venice. His resume includes such establishments as the Royal French Academy of Painting and Sculpture.

This one struck a chord with me when I read about it because I have a friend named Bruno.

Mill Avenue Nights – Saturday November 1st 2008

Tonight the crowds were spare. Only the staunch outers came to ply their time on the streets. Pretty much every venue from sidewalk to preachers to the drum circle. Some bare few people have come out to our Ave tonight.

Perhaps everyone tuckered out from the bulging crowds of Halloween. Perhaps the Ave just needed a rest.

I met a few new street rats who just got into town a few days ago. As other more veteran players along our streets have noted before: “Every time we come out here, there’s new faces.” A great deal of the street rats are migrant in nature, they move around, by train, hitchhiking, or just buses from here and there. This increases somewhat in winter as those from the northern states make their way around California.

The gallow’s pall on the unfinished condominiums and the now-dead movie theater that gateways Mill is even more telling when there’s few people. There’s so few things to distract the eyes from glancing up at that dark shadow, with the red lights blinking atop.

The drum circle ended far early when the police arrived and arrested a young woman and a young man for drinking alcohol. The young woman apparently took a sip of the alcohol from his cup, didn’t know it was until she did, but she put up resistance to the police officers and thus they decided to take her in for whatever disrespect she showed. Tonight, police were out in strange force—packs of them, five to six together, would prowl around individuals in ones and twos as they arrested them at the sides of the street.

I watched one vehicle being searched by an officer near the Post Office while taking notes while the occupants were held on the side of the road. The car strangely off-kilter, open and in the way of traffic as they searched it, sticking out of the right-hand turn lane.

With very little to do, and none to interview, I took a long circuitous constitutional with my friends around the loop of the Mill Ave from one side to the other in order to get the lay of the land. Even walked past the adobe walls of La Casa Vieja as I often do. The newly repaired sign is unfailingly visible. The old one took storm damage in the violent monsoon that struck two months ago.

Drawing to the end of the night, only one member who visits the drum circle with any regularity remained—aside from Remy, who drunkenly staggered about with us in his jocular spirits. She parked out in front of the Post Office as is traditional for the Drum Circle in Exile. But, only one exile tonight.

Copies of Spoofing the Ave—which are humor shorts for Mill Avenue Vexations—got handed out. One went to Lawrence at Graffiti Shop, who made his adoration of the new story well known. Hopefully further copies will garner equal approval. There are still many to come.

Not much else to tell about the night.

Perhaps things will pick up somewhat next weekend.

Until then.

Mill Avenue Nights, Friday, Halloween (October 31st) 2008

Friday again, and we’re out on the Ave. Since I get a ride down there with the ASU Secular Free Thought Society I am getting a lot more of a view of their activity on Mill and less of other areas that have been hotspots. Of course, Halloween isn’t exactly the hype of local culture—but it is a good place to find various clashes.

Tonight’s episode involves a local extremely vocal group who come from The Door—a highly insular Christian outcrop who appear to use cultish and brute behavior to silence and bully critics and detractors who are attracted to their extremely prominent and disruptive demonstrations. I will be documenting some of their bad behavior here while attempting to reflect the activity that they brought to Mill Avenue tonight.

Is it just me or is this starting to feel a lot like Discovery Channel’s Meercat Manor?

Preachers: The Door

Around 7pm there wasn’t much in the way of crowds to see. Just the odd scattering of costumes amidst the normal Mill Ave bounce-about types. A band whose music wasn’t half bad set up in front of Urban Outfitters and would play for the rest of the night. They come up obliquely because the Door demonstrators set up in front of Coffee Plantation—a location normally off-limits to noisy and disruptive people—which is directly kitty-corner from Urban Outfitters. We discovered them as they had laid down wooden crosses in front of Coffee Plant early on to stake out their territory.

The SFTS decided that they would set up in front of the Post Office. The purpose of which I would later learn was to direct their efforts to provide a counterpoint to the Door’s operations that night. Apparently anticipating the antics of that group ahead of time. When everyone arrived there a trumpeter already had a small boosted set up and was playing there. He eventually turned out to be a preacher from the Door who’s purpose was to act as a forward scout. The Door apparently also anticipated the intersession of the SFTS and have modified their tactics accordingly.

I received a pamphlet from them espousing some Christian mythology. For the most part it was a mundane recital of their less-interesting elemental prose from their mythos book; most of these pamphlets are creative and clever in their presentation but generally unimaginative in their delivery or choice of how to frame their lore. However, an odd linguistic quirk in the text did catch my eye.

Buried in the prose there was the ubiquitous mention of people being sent to Hell (part of the Christian mythos afterworld) except that it didn’t have a capital “H.” A mistake by a copy editor? Over the years Hell has lost its capital “h” when written in ordinary text, but generally only when it is used as an explicative or injective, like “The hell if I know!” or “The hell with it!” But I think that if Hell is being used to refer to a place it is therefore a proper noun, and there are no proper nouns that we don’t capitalize the first letter. It’s weirdly telling that this word so breaks English conventions for these people.

At around 8:50pm we had a visitation by an obvious demonstration from the Door. Along came an effigy of Jesus, dragging a cross, and two apparently Roman Centurions with whips. The costume was pretty grotesque, which is a good thing for Halloween, and the multiple actors did make the demonstration pretty interesting. I wonder if we can get other individuals to put together performance art pieces like the Door does; but to more educational end. There were at least three effigies wandering down Mill, the Centurions had whips—and even assaulted Rocco from the SFTS with a whip, but I have not substantiated the when/how/why.

Around 9:45pm an altercation happened at the Door demonstration site that summoned the police. I had been warned by members of the SFTS that the Door demonstrators had a tendency to physically assault people and then call the police—so I came with the expectation of seeing something. The Halloween crowds were likely to have at least one drunken individual who would fall for this sort of bait.

A man with really blue hair and a nicely done retro-affect decided to shout and yell along with their demonstration. The tactics used to control him mostly involved standing in his face, getting in his way, pressing up against behind him to corral him. One more than one occasion elbows were used to strike him in the sides or stomach—a behavior which he shouted out as he would charge them with assault for. Several extremely barrel chested individuals would deliberately block the view of video cameras while others harassed the blue-haired man.

Eventually the police were summoned by the Door after they shoved the blue-haired man and then manhandled him around their demonstration. It was really hard to tell who was inciting whom in the mess, but watching the behavior of the people from the Door it is very difficult to give them any doubt to benefit from; for the most part they’d riled their blood to the point that they were culpable in what happened. Deliberately blocking video cameras filming also puts a black mark on them—these are not the acts of civil people.

According to Jordan from the SFTS allegations were made, and then proven to be outright lies by film evidence from three different sources that were variously blocked and unblocked during times of the scuffle. After the police arrived and spoke with them man he went on his merry way—but it certainly didn’t raise my opinion of the Door demonstrators that they made false statements to the police about the blue-haired man, attempted to cover up their own bad acts by occluding cameras, and general bellicosity.

This sort of behavior is dangerous to the health of the Ave.

They had quite a show involving reciting elements of various stories from the Bible. Three crosses with three people who hung on them, the Jesus effigy wept and shouted quotes. The Centurions called out asking what to do with him… Standard fare. Hecklers were inserted in the crowds readily enough from the some forty people present.

In closing, I didn’t get a chance to talk to many of the Door individuals from the demonstration; when they behave in this manner they rile themselves up and aren’t interested in actual dialogue. For the most part, I discovered them belligerent, presenting themselves with a spume of disrespectful questions and then when they didn’t get answers they liked from me attempted to batter me with religious rhetoric from their mythology. Those whom I asked questions of to determine the affiliation or why they were on Mill (my standard fare) quickly gave up under interview or refused to answer me after I tried to honestly answer their questions.

One individual in particular (who after attempting to ask me a series of personal questions) then went on to refuse a copy of my newest Mill Avenue Vexations story because he “Didn’t want to have to read it.” It strikes me as grossly disrespectful of other people to approach them with pretences of shouting them down, asking them questions, and then offering nothing in return—for the most part this individual behaved was entitled to abuse my time but not respect me for it.

The words he used reminded me of another individual from Extremely Prophetic who said the exact same thing when I tried to give him one of my books! Surely, people are welcome to refuse my offerings, I have no problem with them; but this is a very odd response.

Preachers Halloween

A great deal of the time I find them out making anti-Halloween messages. This time: Nothing. Only the Centurions abusing the effigies and that’s about it.

Costumes

The crowds disoriented me a lot more than I expected but there were quite a few out. The vast majority of popular costume happened to be, as expected, The Joker from the new Batman movies. I spotted at least three Benders, from the cartoon Futurama. The rest were a scattering of more standard archetypes from zombies, dark hooded, and various applications of profession uniforms.

One highlight, which amused me, was at least two Doctor Horrible costumes. And at least one person had a girl with him dressed as Penny.

Fin

Pfew. Okay that’s enough for now. I have many more notes from last night, but this is the limit of my energy at the moment. If anyone else has thoughts on what happened please feel free to speak up.

And I’m sorry that the Door stuff dominates this discussion, it actually received very little time in my notes; but it was an event that really needs to be handed to the public because, really, this sort of behavior is uncivil and unhealthy.

Have a good night everyone. Anthropologist out.

Mill Avenue Vexations Hallowe'en

‘Tis our bless’d even and Samhain upon us—also, there’s the wonderful story of the Legend of Sleepy Phoenix by Kyt Dotson from Mill Avenue Vexations to read!

Written to play around with the strange annals of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with a more modern bent, see away with horses and replace them with motorcycles. I think that it went down pretty well. Don’t forget to check it out if thou haven’t read it before, and if you have drop in and leave a note on Vexations that thou came by!

We’ll be out on the Ave tonight, so there might be a Mill Avenue Nights to post tonight about how that entire escapade goes. It’ll be interesting to see what type of world this all brings.

Concost has been going on for a day now, I’m hallucinating slightly—but it’s mostly white semi-opaque figures that started in my peripheral vision, but have crept into the center of my gaze time to time. I see them walking in the halls, sitting at tables as if drinking coffee, but never up close. I suppose if there’s any day that I’m going to actually see the dead, it’s going to be today.

I have some friends that I need to catch up with. Although, I have a strange feeling that I’m going to see the Morrigan this time around as well; her portents have been in the air, and in my A&W root beer. Like the first time I drank the ergot tea, the carbonated fizzle whispering eldritch nothings as it gabs idly with itself.

Ah, the secret life of root beer.

Tattoos and Religion

Tattoos appear in a great deal of cultures as ornamentation of the body. Unlike clothing, tattoos are semi-permanent and they don’t get in our way when we try to do things. These markings have been used for a variety of purposes from assigning tribe/clan affiliation, affluence, marking criminals, marking military ranks, distinguishing heroic deeds… In this era of fast food and fast computers, though, tattoos have become entirely a social ornamentation a lot like wearing a pinky ring.

Recently, I came across a blog post by a Myspacer who just opened up a tattoo and piercing parlour out in Chandler, the Blue Clover. This post caught my attention because he went off into a long yarn about Christianity and tattoos—I believe the title said something like, “The Truth About Christianity and Tatoos?”[1]

It made me ponder a little bit about religiosity and tattooing.

For the most part, a lot of cultures have their taboos and their affectations. Insofar, few tribal cultures—if none—have any taboo about tattoos; in fact, most happen to see tattoos as important social ornamentation and the primary taboo might connect instead with misrepresentation rather than the tattoos themselves. Rather like our own American taboo (or should I say legal forbiddance) against wearing a police badge. When a tattoo can have a cultural significance, suddenly a fraud of character becomes a problem.

Religions, on the other hand, tend to attempt to control their populations through taboo—and often they do so by enforcing normative behaviors that distinguish a difference between them and their neighbors (this is true also of cultures, but is therefore more localized.) As a result one wonders if there’s a taboo present in Christianity against tattoos that this individual wants to do away with, or perhaps shed light there.

Looking at some Jewish Law—the inceptive parent of Christianity—there seems to be some direct prohibitions against tattoos. Primarily in the concepts of taking care of the body and for purposes of establishing a distinction between them and neighboring cultures who often tattooed themselves with images of their own gods. As I mentioned above, it was a common practice to avoid the traditions of others to avoid dilution. What I found most amusing is the prohibition does not follow to women piercing themselves for purposes of beauty; but it does forbade them from doing so due to a fad.[2]

I have heard discussions from schisms of Christian mythology which possess that the body is sacred and therefore anything intruding is therefore verboten, but this is obviously the outlier and not the mainstream. Taking a look a Chicano culture which has a strong Catholic tradition (another schism of the Christian mythos) there are numerous examples of the Virgin Mary tattooed on the arms of muscle-bound hombres, gigantic suffering-on-the-crucifix images emblazoned across their backs.

Old Ireland, it wasn’t uncommon to have tattoos depicting glorioles, the trinity, or even parts of psalms engraved forever into the skin—a tradition brought by Galway merchant sailors and modified to the new mythos. The sailor tradition believed that beseeching the various gods could bring fortune, although generally that fortune was to avoid wrecks. Often saints names and busts became the staple of their imagery.

Among my own people there is no such taboo. In fact, there is a deafening ambivalence. Tattoos are another ornamentation like piercings, jewelry, clothing, and other things. Although, tattoos are the cheapest of all those put together since they’re extremely long term, cannot easily be lost, and pretty much just stay put. We see Celtic knots, various depictions of goddesses, the trifold symbol, the moon.

Possible prohibitions against tattoos in the practical senses only fit into social memes and don’t need to rely on some sort of supernatural prohibition (unless one has a geasa, I suppose.)

Still, there are some possible objections to modern tattooing.

Getting a tattoo can lead to embarrassment later in life. I suppose, this is a reason to avoid them, but it’s not a good reason to forbid them to other people. It has never been a good idea to disallow people to make embarrassing mistakes—lethal mistakes maybe, but not simple embarrassment. Especially now that we can remove them easily.

Getting a tattoo can lead to life threatening infection (hepatitis, gangrene, MRSA.) But this is only a high likelihood in unsafe conditions. As a result in the US we regulate tattoo and piercing parlours to a particular safety standard in accordance to disease control—to put this in perspective: we do the same thing with our food.

For the most part, modern medicine and regulation have taken away needs to control people in these manners. Knowledge of the subject is readily available, bodily injury is minimal and risk is extremely low. All that remains is the old traditions and prohibitions by the gods of the religious should they choose to approach these subjects.

Even with the gods in place, of course, a person does get their moral decision about tattooing and piercing from their society. If their people are highly religious and hold a prohibition it will be easy for them to find out and decide on that, in some cases making the decision for them; if their people are equally religious but there is no prohibition it certainly makes the decision less burdensome; and, finally, there are traditions who naturally tattoo as a matter of social discourse.

I for one look forward to the rabbits on ankles, vines with thorns wrapping around wrists, cabbits on thighs. Tattoos have a vibrant and bold tradition that crops up everywhere. The art is not risky, later embarrassment really is nothing, and everyone gets their very own personal canvas to work with.

To tattoo or not to tattoo.

In the mainstay of at least North American culture the practice crosses religious boundaries from Chicano culture where it occurs considerably, even into the staunch corporate monoculture (hidden under shirts, on thighs…), and has had uses both sacred and secular across a multitude of cultures.

That’s a cute orca whale—got it in the ‘60s? Wow, that tattoo is older than I am.

Tell me the story.

---

[1] http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=171646679&blogID=307747400

[2] http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/224,120/What-does-Judaism-say-about-tattoos.html

Mill Avenue Nights – Saturday October 25, 2008

It starts on Friday.

On the feathers of a bird—or more like an Airbus A320—I returned to the Phoenix genus loci with a wing and a prayer. Doped up on numerous painkillers to handle my myriad pains from the flight I rested a while with Omnicynic and waited for the day to unfurl around us. The sights and smells of my old home city kept me company while rubber muttered sweet nothings to asphalt and Omni laid out the events of the summer that I had missed.

There are no deep secrets to Phoenix. She’s a creature of geometries of glass and steel, blacktop and desert; just barely a juvenile as it comes to cities, leaning, gawky and tall in her teenager rawboned, all elbows and knees—clumsy on her feet, flirting with everyone and never quite going home. That’s her skyline, filled with jagged blue and hopeful horizons; clothed in the forgetting perfume of mesquite, dust, and the halitosis of exhaust fumes.

In spite of myself I feel almost as if I’m home, but everywhere is my home.

“If home is where your heart is then your real home is in your chest!” Captain Hammer.

Omni and I hit the Ave briefly to see the various sights and possible people, but there wasn’t much to it so early in the day. Just the trickling remnants of the crowd filtering from ASU classes and preparing for the nightlife after their day’s work. But, it is the Ave, and I enjoy all of her states—even her quiet slumber.

Saturday rolled around to deliver unto me my first experience of Mill for the winter.

Drum Circle

Like a ragged army we still descent around the dusty feet of our bronze lord, the statue of Mitchell that cuts a flat figure over the drum circle and her inhabitants. I saw a few familiar faces scattered in the crowd, but few that I speak to on a regular basis. It may take me some time to find the usuals teeming up between the newcomers, like sentimental ghosts visiting their old haunts.

After exile (the exodus that happens at midnight from the drum circle’s proper spot to out in front of the post office) I discovered a few people to speak with who remember me from the old days of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I smiled in amazement as an old timer regaled me with his memories of how the Ave’s drum circle Saturday

Cindy and Corky

She is an extremely lovely elderly lady with a proud carriage and narrow-eyed comportment. For the most part I liked her hat and her conversation—which I quickly learned she was a mathematician who works at ASU. Reminds me with some interest of my friend Rapunzel’s mother to whom I ascribe mathematical genius as well. I think I like the fact that we have such an erudite woman keeping up on the Ave.

Kazz tells me that she and her partner, Corky, are regulars with the preacher’s now. I will have to find a way to split some extra time away to accompany them in conversation and interviews sometime.

Talking to Cindy led me into some thoughts about how I could use Vex’s voice at Mill Avenue Vexations to provide some constructive observations to the growth and changes that are happening on the Ave. We have too many people in the city and the merchants guilds going in obviously bad directions. For the most part it’s easy to tell that they’re vastly ignorant of how the street works on a demographic and social level; but as much as I want to blame them, if I don’t offer the tools of understanding I doubt they will harvest them themselves.

See the first segment of Mill Avenue the Beautiful here.

Corky appears to be a writer and ad editor. I am not sure what he’s written yet, but he wears a bearded and bespectacled professor-face and also looks like an excellent element to the culture of the Ave.

The Preachers

With the advent of the ASU Secular Society stepping up their immune response to the preachers on Mill Avenue, so has increased the presence of the preachers. I haven’t studied fully their changes in tactics but here’s a run down of my observations.

There were at least twenty-five people in total making up the full group of the Way of the Master crew. This doesn’t count children under the age of 13, of whom I believe there were at least three—I did have a brief chance to meet one of them, but we didn’t really speak. Being on too many opiates makes me a bad conversation partner.

They have broken themselves into independent groups across three different corners. The more traditional spot in front of Urban Outfitter is still defended as proper, but they also put a microphone and speaker immediately across the street (manned by Al) and they’re also persistent in front of Borders now (where the larger crowd of them gathered.)

The ASU Secular Society appear to have fielded about eight people between Kazz, Sam, Jordan, Brian, Rocco, and several others. They have brought with them further signs, petitions, handouts, and even their own speaker on a tripod from which rebuttals are spoken directly to the emanations of the preachers on their own microphone. Static bursts of sharp cadence to break up the rhythm of the preachers as they try to get going, only to have their rails kicked out from under them.

In front of Urban Outfitters I listened briefly to a woman trying to do the Good Person Test (a dishonest bait-and-switch heartstrings used-car-salesman pitch to religion) but it didn’t last and eventually she dissolved into arguing with the rampant drunks who decided to surround and confront her speech. Drunk people are certainly a hazard of the Ave, but I definitely do not wish them on anyone. She finished up her spiel with some commentary on the Titanic, but nothing that I really caught onto. Shortly after I came to listen they packed up and moved elsewhere.

To Borders.

At Borders the time had reached about 10pm—it was only at about 9pm that I’d arrived on the Ave, having come down late—and they spoke for less than ten minutes and said nothing of much import or affect. A soon as the ASU Secular Society had their speaker and microphone set up it seemed like the preachers were once again breaking down to leave.

I did have a chance to see some of the preachers that I knew as well while I took my notes. Edwin I stopped and cheered on about his usual way, wishing him luck—he doesn’t believe in luck, only the Lord, I’d forgotten his wit.

However, Saturday was interesting for those that I didn’t see: neither Richard, nor David, nor Jeremiah seemed present. Their absence did spur me into inquiring as to their health, and perhaps I shall see them the upcoming weekend. Hallowse’en is going to certainly bring out as many people who want to speak about it as shall come.

In spite of being a wholly commercialized holiday people still like to hearken back to its pagan origins and paint it with all of its strange plumage however misunderstood. It should be fun with my hopeful words and smile telling people that it’s my people’s holiday and we’d like it back.

Flying - "The Business of Miracles", Life NBC

For anyone else who watched NBC's Life, episode 203 on NBC Rewind, "The Business of Miracles," then wondered what amazing song was playing while Crews hallucinates.

http://www.sonicquiver.com/#/library/

It's a track called Flying on the albumn "This is Indlie" compiled by Terence Fontaine, Sonic Quiver Music.

Come and take my hand my darling
Take my hand and walk with me
There is nothing we can't fight now
If we close our eyes and see
Together we are flying
...
So you know that life is hard dear
And the world can bring you down
But if we hold on to each other
...
(Yeah) Together we are flying
Together we are so complete

Vexations Art Acquisitions: Xin

We originally commissioned this artist to do the cover for the upcoming volume named The Shattered Violin; but after another artist became available who we had originally wanted for it we decided to have her do the work instead. Xin, of course, has been paid but as this won't be the cover for that volume we are going to release it for our fans to see.

Be sure to visit Xin's Love an Artist thread on Mill Avenue Vexations.

PETS 911, PetPoint, Houston SPCA Responding to Hurricane Ike

In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the areas around Galveston and Austin, Texas have suffered notable damage—and with that families have been separated from their pets. The Houston SPCA has set up a Disaster Hotline in response to this sudden crisis:

The Houston SPCA has activated its Animal Response Hotline. Operators will be accepting lost and found animal reports, rescue reports and offering other animal related information. The hotline will be staffed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call notes are available so those who call in after hours may leave a message which will be returned first thing in the morning.

The number is 713-435-2990.

In addition, PETS 911 and PetPoint have banded together to take information from the Hotline to create the Disaster Response Pet Portal. PetPoint software is being used by Houston SPCA to input information about pet intakes from the disaster areas and that information is synchronized with PETS 911 lost & found listings.

PETS 911 & PetPoint Present

the Disaster Response Pet Portal

This project represents an amazing synergy of programming and data sharing between multiple sectors of the animal welfare community. And, I have to say, I’m rather proud of how well it has come together. I have spent the last two days working on this project trying to get it to work as it should and now we have something people can use.

The database is still in the initial stages, but reports are already flowing in. Last check there were 340 reports—a number rising by almost 40 reports an hour.

If you know anyone who has lost a pet in that region they might want to go check out the database to see if their pet has been picked up. The Hotline (713-435-2990) can also be used to report a pet lost in the region. All reports can be searched on PETS 911 Lost & Found.

More as this develops.

Fanboys: An unfortunate take on Star Wars

I'm blogging it. Believe it. Oh, my face hurts from smiling. Coming out sometime in November 2008. Fanboys IMDB page.

Two more rejections

Ah well, this is the way it happens. Sotto Voce finally got back to me after a weekend of tense anticipation that both of my submissions have been rejected for their upcoming issue. C'est la vie. This is the way that a lot of my stories go (I have over 300 rejection letters although they used to mostly be paper, the e-mail rejections are slowly tipping the scales.)

It isn't uncommon for me to get a message that my work is being seriously considered for the final cut. Then my story enters the Thunderdome and doesn't return.

If nothing else it means that I have two stories freed up for submissions to other venues.

Now if only they'd stay open!

Project Updates

This is just a rambling update.

Mill Avenue Vexations editing and preparation continues apace. The comic should be coming out next year as it’s 1/3^rd lettered and completed and more panels are coming in weekly. All five next volumes are 95% done and artwork is 90% completed. We are in the middle of the editing phase. Should be pretty exciting. Especially with the favorable reviews in Web Fiction Guide.

Helljammer has the teaser site and a few short stories and series are being written up for hype. It will depend largely on funding and advertising to hopefully support a web comic and a novel. People who would like to be part of the launch of Helljammer are welcomed to provide suggestions and contact information.

People eager to see more about Helljammer can visit the Non-theist Nexus Webzine and see a short story from the series published there: Red Cross’d Bones.

Even beyond these there are still more projects I am working on including a suburban fairy tale novel.

Magick is in the air. Wait and see!

Kingdoms of Grace

If you are into total Internet cheese, then you’ll be with me on this one. I found this awesome little animated, live-action, comic-book Internet miniseries: Kingdoms of Grace.

It’s totally cheese, do not get me wrong on this, in fact you’ll know it really quickly once you watch the first episode—but, it’s also become my dirty little secret. Apparently I really like cheese when it’s presented in Internet miniseries form.

My heart was stolen by the amazingly effective animation methodology but really what brought the smirk that makes me a viewer happened to be right at the live action sequence. I had to pick myself up off the floor after laughing; then I had to rewind a little so that I could re-watch what I missed.

I found this wonderful work via ALT: Rock Culture and Lifestyle Magazine.

You should really check it out, come back and let me know if you agree. Good cheese?

Link to Kingdoms of Grace.

Vexations Art Acquisitions: Kesiah M Gaffney

Have some lovely artwork to show off from Kesiah M Gaffney, displayed also on the Mill Avenue Vexations site right now.