Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Classes!!! Boo!!!!

Unlike Eikon, I'm not excited about getting back to school. I suppose it will keep me busy, I'll make some new friends - I've just been a little lathargic. I felt this way about my summer class, and I ended up quite happy with the experience. . .
oh well. . .
:-(

Monday, August 28, 2006

Classes !!!! Yaayyyy!!!

Today my University of Scranton course began. This eight week block on the agenda is
"Literacy and Diversity" or "Why Minorities and Poor Folk don't Read as Well." Being the race theory whore that I am looking forward to it.


~Eikon

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Class begins soon Thank God

I find myself looking forward to the start of classes with more fervor then I ever mustered in DC. Ithink this is because in Dc I fit classes into a schedule tha t revolved foremost around my man and then my friends. Truth be told there is only so much time you can get away with bothering your partner and when that is exausted it is neccesary to find alternate means of occupying ones time. I tend to be a dork and go downtown to the game store. Unfortnately this is my ony form of entertainment and hs long since been exhausted of any novelty and is fast approaching the limits of it entertainment value as a whole.

It was easy to be impovershed in DC. By impoverished I mean living off 20,000 a year which is I know not reallyimpoverished but when was te last time you worked on a 500 dollar a month budget after rent? Hopefully not since college. There was plenty to do in DC and getting to do it was cheap. Here everything costs money, be it for gas or simply to go do something. And it is not yet winter. My onsolation at ths point is the sheer number of courses I am taking will keep me occupied until I depart Saint Cloud.

~Eikon

Decadence

I wandered into the bathroom this morning and found Flopper flopped out in the bath tub eating half a watermelon. Can you think of anything more decadent involving watermelon?

~Eikon

Friday, August 25, 2006

Cortagiani from Rigoletto



I was digging around on U-Tube and found this fantastic setting of one of the most beautifully depressing scenes ever written in the opera world. Here, Rigoletto begs for his daughter back - his fatherly love mixed with his craziness and confusion makes for a heart-wrenching scene. Almost as depressing as when he kills the daughter for whom he begged.

Monday, August 21, 2006

In Front of a Strange Silver Jelly Bean

We got to spend a little bit of time in Chicago when we went to Aurora for a family wedding this weekend. Millenium Park is incredible!
The ampitheatre is incredible, even more incredible is the web of speakers that makes up the sound system. We were lucky enough to be able to hear the symphony rehearse Beethoven's Imperial Piano Concerto. It was fabulous.
It's a gigantic silver jelly bean that reflect the skyline of Chi-town.
A better view of the stage.
Us in front of the jelly bean.
This water feature was so cool. There are two pillars of glass bricks. Ocasionally they light up with faces of people and spit water on the children who play between the two pillars.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Coffee so fresh, it should be slapped. . .

I haven't given a "shout out" yet to our local coffee place. Eikon and I love the Mississippi Bean and Tea Co. It can be found in downtown St. Cloud. St. Cloud is a scary case of suburban sprawl, so whenever possible we try to support buisnesses that are not chain that actually bothered to locate in the original downtown, which has theatres, restaurants, bars, and our lovely coffee shop. The shop has a lot of work by local artists for sale, including a second floor art gallery. The building is old, and the walls are scraped for the classic vintage brick look. Their baristas are all adorable too. Anyway, we love it and spend too much time and money there. I'm sure the owners aren't complaining.

And the best part is the t-shirt they're selling:


Kicking ass in the name of Jesus!

On our trip to Aurora we stopped for lunch in Eau Claire, WI. We were amused by the christian martial arts studio. . .

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

A Two Hat Day



So today after interviewing at McDonald's ( leave me alone it is a job) I wandered over to Bonnie's spinning wheel and bought some angora which was titled "Billly Blue". I then returned home and spent the rest of the day , maybe 10 hours, Knitting these hats. I think I may have to rework the solid one's reductions as I don't like how it tapers. Both were 56 stitches on 11's for 7" then the reduction. The solid one is for Flopper and consists of Angora and a merino I have had forever while the striped hat is comprised of the aformentioned yarns and an Icelandic wool. The striped hat will be gifted to Peatmoss who departs on friday for a semester in Sweden and so will need it. I'll drop it off on the way to Chicago tommorow morning.

~Eikon

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Eikon Blow Hard


Well she mispelled my name but the drag queen in residence at Lavendar Magazine who just so happened to be at the gathering , Wanda Wisdom, titled this picture of me blowing out eggs "Icon Blows Hard" .


Also this picture of me in my plowed shirt on the dock at Kawashaway as we waited for the Northern Lights.

Making Assumptions

Happy Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven! I did two Masses today and they were both lovely. I love Mary, christianity's replacement for the goddess (and how appropriate!) I know the Theotokos isn't popular in a lot of protestant culture, and we occasionally get accused of being Mary-worshipers, but she's such a great spiritual role model for us. She reminds us how important women are.
Here's a Daddi icon of the Assumption:

what I love about this is the "ora", basically Maria is sitting on her throne within a huge vagina/womb. I just think that's really cool. I actually used this as my assumption clipart in my music projection at Mass tonight.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Ritual Rock





These are the pictures of the ritual rock I took at Kawashaway and a lovely scene from the Temperance river where the Faeries go swimming. Periodically stories of naked cross dressers being sighted at the temperace surface in the local newspaper.

Faeries











Of course the best thing about the gathering is all the silly faeries.

Kawashaway



For those of you who are somehow unaware of my loose affiliation with the Radical Faeries I would suggest looking them up online as they are a funny little queer subculture. Think earth cruchy faggots in dresses in the woods and you get the idea. The thursday before last Nathan (now known as Peach much to his chagrin) and Drew (Cheddar) , both pictured above, went off to Kawashaway for a week of merriment. Kawashaway is the Farie Sanctuary maintained by the Northwoods Tribe of Radcal Faeries and hosts two major gatherings a year.

Kawahaway is a small piece of land that is in the middle of nowhere. Roughly it is located about twenty miles or so north of Finland Minnesota which is in turn located an hour or so north on Duluth. The roads are unpaved and there are probably a dozen year round residents within a 15 mile radius of the sanctuary. There are two main buildings on the land.


The cabin and the screen house which each reside in their own clearinggs but to even get to anything you must first walk over the bog walk. A lovely if now somewhaat in need of repair structure. The truly impressive thing about Kawashaway is that everything built on the land has to be carted in by hand over the bog walk.

The bog walk is about 80 feet long , 4 feet wide and rest on a series of submerged cedar logs that were taken from the land.

The land is off the grid so hot water comes from Lola and Trixie, two oil drums, and is combined in Blanche , the frigid bitch, in order to make shower water.

All of the water is pumped by hand and the full body workout that ensues is delightful. This is of course

The toilet is an outhouse , this gathering reading materials in the outhouse consisted of about a dozen bambi books, positioned off the main glade so as to avoid the smell that results from thirty men doing their business.

Everyone camps at one of the campsites along the princess path and we were luck enough to get a location that was relatively close to the glades though there are faeries that prefer a more isolated area.

There is drumming almost everynight around the fire circle.


And an absoloutly beautiful little clearing with a large rock for rituals; I installed a small shrine to Gabriel there and will hopefully add something else my next visit.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Pride Dog

I can't stop visiting this website. The merchandise isn't that great, but the product descriptions are hillarious enough for me to buy something.


See details

Blue Check Party Collar

SKU: 4001820

Toto always thought Dorothy was a real bitch because she wouldn't buy him a matching outfit.

Don't make the same mistake. The tell-all celebrity biography will be merciless.

Our price: $7.95

Friday, August 11, 2006

Hungry Bears

apparently because of the dry summer in Minnesota, we're all at risk of being mauled by bears. Eikon is returning from the wilderness just in time!

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Eikon come home tomorrow!

I was excited that Eikon was supposed to come home tonight, and quite sad when I found out that his ride wanted to stay another night. It's interesting, for me to see what life would have been like, had he not decided to come to Minnesota with me. I have developed a routine in these few days, that includes abou 5 miles of walking a day, work at church, and 30-60 minutes at the dog park.

I can't say that I hate the alone time, but there comes a point, when living in solitude, that I crave communication. I go to church (work) and spend half of my time talking to the faith formation director, who's crazier and more liberal than I am. I spend more time at the dog park so I can chit-chat with people.

I guess, overall, I've had time to think - to contemplate. Of course, I haven't come to any conclusions, I find more comfort in uncertainty and ambiguity. That's why I can't handle the fire and brimstone conservatives, and even the people to the oposite extreme, with whom I identify more.

I'm discovering more about myself in my new job as the music director a suburban parish, here in St. Cloud. I'm finding out how much I thrive on control. I'm finding out how far I have to go in my musical studies. I'm finding out how much I like to create, brainstorm, and discover. In every other possition I had, there was so much red-tape that I couldn't achieve anything. Here, I can go to my pastor and say, "lets try this" and a heft percentage of the time, he says "yes."

A greater being has blessed me. He put me in the right place at the right time. I don't think I can even apreciate it fully now that I'm in the middle of it. Living cheaply, reading ,studying. I think when I'm 40, I'll look back and say "wow I really pulled that off."

I never got good grades in high school - i was uninterested or untaught. I needed to be nurtured, and I don't think that I was. In college, all that sudden I was learning, and it mattered what I thought about what I was learning. Four quick years later, I graduated Magna Cum Laude. I'm still not sure how that happened. I wish that I had gone to college about two years earlier. . .

I listened to a majority of Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten tonight while I was on my walk. I love it - it's so hectic. Listen to it if you ever get a chance. It is about prudish Brits who think they've got virtue down to an art. It turns out they're all jerks, and the kid they chose to be "may king" is really just a confused boy. Great music. I'm in love with 20th Century Opera. I wish I could hear more of it.

unedited, unspell checked, raw-hardcore blogging.
Flopper

Friday, August 04, 2006

My Stary Night in Iowa

My Starry Night In Iowa

Velveeta melts and twinkles
with miracle whip slathered
across the black-cherry kool-aid sky.

Condom street lamps and
rubber glove cars light the
gently watered grass.

Sanitary people
walk.
Their hands in
their pockets,

Night cap - Neosporin and
crawl under napkin
sheets and fall to sleep.

My beast pulls me
past the great river
under the moon
and back home
too soon.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Red State Tour

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been down south. First I drove to Iowa, and mom and I then departed for Beautiful Arkansas. Mom is trying to convince dad to retire to Bella Vista, a quasi-retirement village in the northwest corner of Arkansas. A family friend showed us around and we did enjoy the scenery, although I really hope they don't move there. We then went to Branson, Missouri. It's sort of a back up for people who can't make it to Nashville.
Here's my branson Haiku:

Branson: a white trash
Manhattan with much parking
and country music.

Anyway, I'm proud to report that I wasn't lynched, despite my costumes:

Day 1 - Cute Country - Pink Wrinkled Shirt, Jeans
Day 2 - Lazy liberal - "George Bush Your Fired" t-shirt from HRC
Day 3 - Euro Trash - ITALIA Shirt, Low-ride Jeans, Jersey Girl Sunglasses


-Flopper