Announcement, apologies, explanations, a quiz, and a promise

Did you already get a chance to order your copy of the holiday Pasticcio - Issue 8? The pages above are sneak peeks from Palais d'Art, the gallery section. Aren't they beauts? I'm positive you'll love this issue, highlighting everything from Pets to Plaid. While you're at it, you might want to consider giving yourself the gift of any back issues you may have missed!

Sorry I had to turn on word verification and comment moderation - I HATE both, but I keep getting spammed. ERGH! Just can't deal with it anymore...sigh...At the moment it feels like maybe spammers are the only people reading my blog. I realize I have been neglectful of it, along with most everything else in my life. The year swept by so quickly and my best intentions were left behind.

Also, I still intend to draw a name however belatedly for my October giveaway to get people to sign up in droves for my canceled class at KC's - clearly a marketing technique which did not do the trick - I will do it later this week - have a LOT of catching up to do -

Here's a quick quiz for fun. Identify this photo - where or what it is -
and I will do another drawing for an additional prize:

It's gonna snow tonight...

Firelight, the movie

The Great Depression

Sorry to say my workshop at KC's will be postponed. The economy is apparently NOT currently working in my favor. I guess not enough of you felt you could sign up for a class that would have been well worth it...of course I have no empirical evidence, just my word...

By the way, no matter how well read you are, don't waste your time applying for a literacy para position in the schools - as a matter of fact, you can have written several books and produce a regular arts publication, but that is clearly not evidence of literacy. You might not even like kids, but with just that little degree, you're golden. A side note for your edification, a piece of trivia from the world of retail: Barnes & Noble will also NOT consider hiring you for their minimum wage jobs without a college degree. So I'm SOL if I thought I could work there. Let that BE A LESSON to you, kids. Even if you hate it with all your heart and think you're throwing good money after bad to pay tuition, and would rather just work at a paying job, go to college or you'll be screwed sometime in the future. TOTALLY. Even if you're perfectly capable and intelligent, NO ONE IS GOING TO WANT YOU TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT THE MOST MENIAL WORK if you are self- or otherwise alternatively educated. Oh except if you happen to be one for whom Daddy's money paves the way. It's The Man's world; you better follow his rules. OR ELSE. Bitter much? Maybe.

On a lighter note, if you missed me on Inspired at Home last week, here are addys - just cut and paste...but ignore everything I said about upcoming workshop since it's no longer on the sched.
http://inspiredathome.com/radio/podcasts.htm
http://inspiredathome.com/radio/11-01-09.htm
http://inspiredathome.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/inspired-at-home-radio-november-1-2009/

Toys R (not always) Us

Two of the super cute & put-together Shaddock cousins on the right.

Me, looking like a dirty & blurry ragamuffin as usual, on the left.

Angela and I have been trying to get the Holiday Pasticcio "put to bed". But no, don't get excited yet, we aren't that close...

One of the upcoming Pasticcio "articles" called for snapshots of us with our moms - in mine, at the tender age of three, I'm already scooching as far away from her as I can on the davenport (now, in my sophistication, I call it a "couch" but back then it was definitely a davenport) to schmooze with her girlfriend. That snapshot was rather miserably faded, as many from the era are now. And I feel sad that I wasn't sitting right next to my own mother.

For the letters to the editor page, Angela has a fabulous promo photo of herself holding an Angela doll - she looks just darling, so does the doll. The analogous photo I found, after much searching? Well, in it I AM totally clutching a dollie, but when I think back, I'm pretty sure that doll wasn't actually mine - it was a doll I was allowed to play with when I visited my Grandad and Magy (maternal grandmother). I loved it, but only every few months. As for the image of me? I look like nothing more than a messy little 1950's street urchin, precursor to the adult ragamuffin I remain. I have never been able to achieve a polished, put-together look, even when I thought I wanted to. So much for dreams of being Julie Christie...

Earlier today I was thinking about a little felt mitten bookmark one of my grandmothers made for me way back in the 1960's, with a spring mechanism hair clip. It was white, and she stitched a little lace cuff onto it, and embroidered pink flowers with french knots. I looked online and found some current patterns but they are so FAT! She must have drawn the design herself as it was such a beautiful, delicate little mitten shape...

Why don't I have ANYthing left from my childhood except for a half dozen books? Hardly any photos even. The thing is, we were so poor and moved so often when I was younger that when I left my parents house at 17 for good and all, there wasn't that much I ever actually had, and what I did have, I know I callously said, "Oh, that's just material stuff...I don't care about any of it..." and it WAS just material stuff...and yet. I wish I had a little bit of it still - that little felt bookmark, my ice skater Betsy McCall doll, the kinda weird yet cool pose dolls my mother occasionally got for me ---

Confidential to September - those paragraph breaks are for YOU!

"I felt it wasn't of use to society..."

Or chocolate chips...or or or...

NEWSFLASH! Polaroid transfer alternative

Are y'all familiar with the site alternativephotograhy.com? It's swell and comprehensive and about as packed as an unopened jam jar with interest and info. There's a current article on the site on the efficacy of using Fuji film to create both emulsion and image transfers.

WATER

me, tonight ---

Don't forget to tune in and listen for ME, here tonight...