Textual Relationships

Most days I consider myself pretty lucky to live when and where I do. I've had access to the internet since I was in high school and the electronic web has shaped much of my world view, including how I communicate. I have friends who literally live all over the world and I can talk to them almost instantly. This is a big step up from the penpal I had in second grade who lived in Czechoslovakia and took 2 months to send a letter. The Czechs had cool stamps, but bad mail service.

One of the things that fascinates me about our modern plethora of ways to communicate is how different people are when they use diverse mediums. I have a very good friend who happens to be female. When we are together in a room you won't be able to hear yourself think. We talk, laugh, and provide constant feed-back to each other verbally. We rehash old jokes and stories and tell lies about the size of our craft piles. If you saw us together, you'd know we were friends.

On-line correspondence with her is totally different for me. She moved across the country and the easiest way for us to see each other is on-line but we generally fall to the level of cliches and comments about the weather. Monosyllabic answers to terse questions eventually just fade away to silence. Although I know she's an expert communicator we just don't have much to say to each other. If you looked at just our chat logs you'd think we were estranged relatives forced to sit at the table together on Thanksgiving.

I have another good friend who happens to be male. Our communication pattern is exactly the opposite. When we're in the same room together he may go hours without saying anything. He's very quiet, unless he's drinking, but that only brings him up to the level of smiling and small amounts of chit-chat. Even I sometimes wonder if he's mad at me because he speaks so infrequently, although he's always confused as to why I ask.

On-line he is a completely different person. He interacts both through text and email, and we can spend hours telling stories and creating characters for our role-playing game. While he'll never be mistaken for verbose, it's obvious that he's much more comfortable typing then actually talking to me.

I'm curious about the reasons behind this pair of communication splits. Why is she so much easier to talk to in person? Is it body language? Years of habit because I used to hang out at her house? My own stilted texting skill? Why do I have so much trouble getting him to say three words together to me in person but sometimes have to turn my phone off to get him to stop texting me? Is this a gender-related issue, a social class issue, or just these two different humans I happen to know?

As time goes on I anticipate seeing more electronic interaction in our education and in our businesses. While I'm enjoying the speed of the contact, I do think that we're losing the depth that human contact requires. Most people have heard that " multiple studies show that as much as 50-90% of communication is nonverbal." but I'm not sure we ever bother to see how that impacts the people on the other end of our writing. Possibly video conferencing and similar services will allow clear business accounting, but personal contacts may still be limited to whatever is cheapest and fastest. It's impossible to convey Shakespeare in l33t so I worry that much of the poetry and grace of English is already considered too old fashioned for public use. Sure, you can sort of translate the words, but part of the reason to use those specific terms was the sweep and grandeur of the sound. Grandeur isn't easy to get on a cell phone.

I'm going to continue my informal survey. I'll take little notes in my head when I talk to the same people both on-line and in-person and I'll try to answer my questions for myself. If I find anything earth shattering I'll let you know, but for now I'm going to work on improving all of my textual relationships. There are real people out there on the other end of those internets after all.

Making Music

Back when I was short (before the legs grew in), I wanted more then anything to be able to make music. I knew a guy who could play anything you could name on a guitar and he was pretty good on drums too. I begged my mother for a guitar and lessons. Instead, she figured that piano lessons would be just as good and signed me up to work with the church choir leader every Thursday. It's very hard to play piano in a rock band, but I was informed that all the great musicians started with piano, so I was resigned.

Sadly for my budding rock career, the choir leader hated children and caused enough problems that I never went back after the first four lessons. No piano for me. In later years I picked up the basics of guitar, handbells, recorder, saxophone, and middle eastern drum. None of them stuck for very long.

I've even tried to join multiple choirs. I've had voice lessons and worked in musical theatre for a bit, although the sinus surgeries I've had since then make the voice very unstable. I tend to wander about in the song until I strike up a likely note but it generally ends soon. It's like mining for music in my throat. "Keep digging! We're bound to hit something!"

Because I wanted to *make* music so much, I never really got around to appreciating popular music. I missed out on most of the 80's because I lived in Germany and it was all several months old by the time it got to me anyway, but I never paid much attention to the radio. That changed as I got older, but I've still noticed large blank spots in my musical education. If you're passionate about a particular band, please don't tell me the name of the band, song, or singers. Just sing it or hum it to me. It's the only way I can recognize things.

When I was offered the chance to work for The CAPE radio I was slightly stunned. I mean, here was a crew of talent that successfully created a volunteer group that brought new music and strange people into my headphones every night of the week for years. I had a total fan girl crush on all of the DJs and tuned in every chance I got. I was positive when they heard my high-pitched nasally whine on the air and saw how little music I actually own I'd be given a polite reassignment to the paperwork department, but I had to try.

So far, it's been 7 months and they haven't caught on yet. No one from the station has ever said "Perhaps you could try to talk less on the air?" or commented that the music was too odd. Instead, I've been offered a chance to do voicework, develop blending skills, and actually been called a DJ in public by people I figure should know better. I'm learning new software and spending large sums of money on new music every week. I'm learning to keep an ear out for music give-aways and fresh new bands while budgeting for music downloads. I'm falling in love with music all over again and now I have a chance to share the things I love with other people.

Maybe I'm not making it myself. I certainly am not crafting these notes with my own hands. But I am being allowed to give a gift to all the people I love through basic podcasting pizazz and that's something precious to me.

Here, you can have the words to the song currently stuck in my head. I'll be playing it this weekend at the CAPE Radio Fantasy Faire. I'll be on the air from 7-9pm (CST I think) and the show will be rather bawdy. Enjoy!

Bedlam Boys!

For to see my Tom of Bedlam, 10,000 miles I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes, to save her shoes from gravel.

Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,
Bedlam boys are bonnie
For they all go bare and they live by the air,
And they want no drink nor money.

I went down to Satin's kitchen, for to beg me food one morning
There I got souls piping hot, all on the spit a turning.

There I picked up a cauldron, Where boiled 10,000 harlots
Though full of flame I drank the same, to the health of all such varlets.

My staff has murdered giants, my bag a long knife carries
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs, with which to feed the fairies.

Spirits white as lightning, shall on my travels guide me
The moon would quake and the stars would shake, when' ere they espied me.

No gypsy slut nor doxy, shall win my Mad Tom from me
I'll weep all night, the stars I'll fight, the fray will well become me.

It's when next I have murdered, the Man-In-The-Moon to powder
His staff I'll break, his dog I'll bake, they'll howl no demon louder.

So drink to Tom of Bedlam, he'll fill the seas in barrels
I'll drink it all, all brewed with gall, with Mad Maudlin I will travel.

Chicago-Bound!

In just a few days I'm planning to head up to Chicago. Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

A few years ago my best friend and her husband moved to Chicago. We packed them into a couple of trucks and a car and drove from Houston to Chicago nice and slow, taking about two days. We still got there before the moving van, but it was a nice trip. We spent the waiting time playing Munchkin-fu. It's a fun game but a day or so of it and it starts to pall. I found out later a friend of mine works for the company.

I adore my Stacy-girl and I'd go up there just to yarn-stalk and drink coffee with her if I had the money. Her husband spins a mean pun and we've all got stories and gossip and knitting to share. But wait, there's more!

Last year in December I auditioned and was accepted to work for an on-line radio station. Basically, a group of players for the video game City of Heros pooled talent and money to create a player-run streaming audio server called The CAPE radio. The "DJ" of the hour logs into the server to provide music and snappy patter during their regular show time and there is a stream-hold of music all night long. We have fan-created ads that make fun of bugs in the game ( El Supernatural Mexicano), praise the developers (Sexy Jay Station ID), and spoof on gamers in general (Dock Workers Need Love Too). We run in-game parties, weddings and events with music picked by the hosts or tailored for the event. We create ads for Super Groups or Villain Groups, the COH universe version of a guild. We've even been known to host and run fairly massive charity drives that have Real World impact and raised a lot of money for several different charities.

Two years ago, the CAPE started to hold meet-ups for DJs and listeners, and anyone else who wanted to join us in Chicago. It's right in the middle of the country and a major hub for a few airlines which makes it fairly cheap to get to. We get everyone together on a Friday night and do Rock Band until our eyes fall out. Then Saturday we go do karaoke at a tiny little bar in a Polish neighborhood. The owner is a sweet woman named Alice who indulges us shamelessly. She brings in food (the bar only serves drinks) and she often will keep the bar open late for us. We hardly disturb the regulars and we all tend to drink quite a bit.The later in the evening it gets the more languages are spoken and even sung in. Then, at 4 am when Alice will no longer indulge us, we tumble out into the wild streets of Chicago to hunt down pancakes and other breakfast foods, stalking the frisky bacon and bringing the coffee pot to its knees drained dry. This is the time that makes for the worst pictures generally. Sunday, we sleep and take in the lazy sights and the fabulous Chicago foods and Monday we all go home.

So Thursday I'll be up at a horribly early time of day to get on a plane and fly to Chicago. For four days I will pretend that nothing actually bad exists in the world. There will be inconvenience, possibly some car stuffing. I might snore in front of people who didn't know I could make a noise like that (or that any human being could). But for a tiny slice of my life I'll be allowed to just be me enjoying myself. It's called vacation and I hear it's good for you.

The Care and Feeding of an Immune System

When I was younger my little sister spent a lot of time in the hospital. She was born with a rare bone disease that caused her to not have a fully formed inner ear or an upper jaw until she was a few years old. She was in a lot of pain and she always had an ear infection. Since I was only a normal (if slightly clumsy) kid, my parents didn't spend very much time worrying about my health until we moved to Germany. Something about that country caused me to get strep throat that developed into pneumonia almost every 3 months like clockwork.

After many years of living on amoxicillian and Cloroseptic, I came back to the States with a nasty strep habit. If it's winter, I'm likely to be in bed, hacking up a lung. I've held amazing conversions with modern art in doctor's waiting rooms due to extremely high fevers. Once, when I was in basic training and had pneumonia again, I escorted 4 other soldiers and marines to the hospital for a check-in. My eyesight kept blurring the people in uniform and the plastic plants in the hallways together, but I got us all there. Never salute a ficus by the way, people look at you funny.

With my history of illness, you'd think I'd be the last person to take health advice from. Actually though I'm a survivor. While I have every reasonable expectation that someday it'll be a strain of pneumonia that takes me out, it's going to have to be a darned unusual one. I've had all those common strains and moved on. So I thought I'd offer some advice on being sick gracefully

• Drink clear liquids - If you can handle it, hot lemon tea with honey is great for a sore throat, but no matter what you need to be attached to a full cup of something the whole time. The faster you flush your system the faster you wash the crud out. Stay away from the caffeine right now, it won't help.
• SLEEP! - You may feel like a heel for not doing the 800 different daily tasks that no one else but you ever does, but you will not get better if you don't let your body do its job. You have to recharge the batteries more often then you might think.
• Eat lightly but as often as you need. - Stay away from dairy products if your illness has lots of mucus. Milk makes snot thicker most of the time. Have a little toast or other bread, enough to settle your stomach for your meds, but not more then you need.
• Take all the Medication you are given. - I know it seems like a waste, particularly if you're on an antibiotic strong enough to lay waste to your internal bacteria, but most modern illnesses are clever. They will back off before they give up and if you stop taking your meds then they come back stronger and drug-resistant. It won't hurt to take a multi-vitamin too.
• Check with your doctor about *all* your meds, even the over-the-counter stuff. - Always make sure that you're not taking a pill that reacts badly to citric acid with your morning orange juice. If you regularly drink a glass of wine, take insulin, take a decongestant, or spend lots of time in the sun, those very different things can effect some medications. Tell your doctor if you think there's *any* possible chance of interaction. Better to look a little silly and learn, then be dead.
• Have some yogurt handy - If you're pumping in massive amounts of antibiotics, you are going to get a stomach ache. You need most of the bacteria in your gut, so have some yogurt to help rebuild it. I use this excuse to get lots of tzatziki sauce when I'm sick.
• Be polite to the people around you - Some of us (me) get really nasty and sarcastic when we don't feel well. If you get mean, take yourself away from other humans until you feel better. This will result in people being more willing to bring you cold drinks and gyros when you ask.
• Bathe - Wash yourself, clean your hands before you touch your face, don't breathe on other people, don't lick the doorknobs, you know what I mean. And finally,

Take the time to slow down. Often we get sick because we over-work ourselves. Physically or mentally, we're overdoing it. Calm down, relax, and recuperate completely before throwing yourself back into the daily grind. Our bodies are wonderful self-repairing machines and if we give them a little room to work they can take care of us just fine for years.

None of this is new to you I'm sure. It's all information we've heard over and over again for years. The trick is doing it. I hope that the next time there's a flu scare or a case of strep in your area you'll remember to deal with it properly. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to bed.

Ninja Star Fish!

I know, I've been missing. I was caught up in a good book actually. And trapped in a yarn-avalanche.

I went to the library on my weekly indulgence and found Amigurumi Knits: patterns For 20 Cute Mini Knits by Hansi Singh. I've never indulged in the "cute knits" habit previously and I figured I'd just look over the patterns and take the book back the next day.

As I'm reading through the book I discovered that there were patterns for veggies, sea creatures, insects, and mythological animals. The thing that did me in was the adorable Kraken and Octopus patterns. When I showed the book to other people they liked the Jackalope, Hermit Crab and Nessie. The patterns all can use cheap acrylic yarn which I have in bucketloads since my grandmother died and left me her craft supplies. They also all call for the same size needles which makes them very easy to get into.

I thought I'd start by knitting the tomato. It looked simple and I figured I could take it with me to the theatre and toss it at people when I felt the need. Unfortunately, the tomato pattern has a major issue. At the top of the tomato are a set of leaves. The directions tell you to cast yarn on to the needles for the leaves and then bind off. No mention of anything else though. The pictures look like it's probably some sort of I-cord and I might give that a try. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any mention of this on her web site either, although I didn't look very hard. So no stuffed tomato for me yet.

Instead I started by working on the starfish pattern. I didn't have the correct needle size, a size 5, so I tried to use the closest size I had, an 8. I knew this meant that I couldn't stuff the thing with the regular fiberfill, but I'm used to stuffing with scraps of fabric so I wasn't worried. I grabbed some of the most horrid yarn in the collection, a mottled orange-yellow-brown that I've always avoided, and got to work.

I completed the first starfish in about 4 hours of work. There was a little fiddling with the stitch count because of the different needle size, but on the whole it came out really well. I learned how to do short rows, which is new for me and I was delighted with them. I kept running up to people and going "Look, I made a little ramp!" This caused many non-knitting friends to back away slowly and look for the fire extinguisher, but I was amused. After I was done chortling at the short rows and cussing at the final tiny rounds, I stuffed my star fish with some nasty red poly fabric I'd been using for patterns and took a look at it.

I was staring at this thing I had made when my daughter came into the room and grabbed it. She looked it over and tossed it like a ninja star at the cat. I was immediately consumed with a need to make lots more of these little things and embroider ninja face masks and eyes onto them. So far I haven't found exactly the right pattern for the face but I've got a few other color schemes in mind and another candy-corn colored star on the needles, which are now the right size. It will be smaller and should be easier to sneak into office buildings to pelt my friends with.

MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!

Erm... yeah...ninja star fish

Singh, Hansi. Amigurumi Knits: Patterns For 20 Cute Mini Knits

Minneapolis, MN. Creative Publishing International, 2009

Possible Lead

At the Dutch Royal Institute For Cultural Heritage they have a set of tapestries that include pictures of period Rom interacting with the locals from about 1500. Down at the very bottom left of the tapestry called "The Fair" there is a female figure who I think might be a dancer. She's wearing the ever popular white turban and a v-necked kirtle, similar in shape to the Spanish vertigale gowns you can see on the ladies in waiting here. This picture is by a Spanish painter Pedro Garcia de Benabarre and is dated between 1470 and 1480.

It is possible that the small female Rom is actually supposed to be a child. I've read a few commentaries on how the locals in an area often despised the Rom for the tatters they dressed their children in and the figure is smaller then the nobles. However, if the figure is only smaller because they were still working out perspective for use in tapestry, this may be one of the links I've been looking for.

It's exceptionally hard to document information on a physical art form such as dance or acting. We normally have to rely on written records from the past or clues in the play we perform to get our cues. However, even today the Rom are not known for writing things down. Most of the historical records I've found for them come from an outside source documenting their arrival or passage. That's why this tapestry may be so important to me. I'm looking for the earliest documentable "Gypsy Dancer" and this is the first one I've seen a picture of so far.

Why do I think she's a dancer? The belt around her waist is very hard to make out, but I suspect it's a set of the large acorn-shaped folly bells like the ones Cynthia du Pré Argent talks about for her

houppelande. The other forward lady, down right of the tapestry, looks like she's holding one in her hand as well. Then, around her left wrist, there's a length of ribbon floating out from her body. Her arms appear to be moving, spread out away from her body and her leg is pretty easy to see as well. In fact, I don't see a long chemise to cover that leg, just a shirt under the gown. Maybe the chemise had a slit in it? Maybe I can't see a detail on-line that's visible in a different picture? I need more evidence!

I'd like to try and find a few more pictures of dancers from about 1500 and compare them. If I can find them I may be able to start reconstructing actual dance steps as well as period-correct costuming. This could be really cool.

Kings College went well.

The Rom clothing was a success! While it wasn't exactly visually stunning, it was comfortable, light weight, and easy to get into and out of in the back seat of a car. Those of you with access to fancy dressing rooms may sniff but I've gotten used to speed dressing at events in the weirdest places.

The outfit was visually period which was very important to me. The next version of it will be even better. I have some coral colored linen for the drape and enough black linen for the re-enforcing stripe. I think I may be able to make some nice ribbon ties out of the scraps as well.

For this drape I scavenged an old poly-cotton striped skirt from an unwanted dress. The stripe of black cotton sheeting was sewn down on the top, then I ran out of thread and time. Also, I couldn't figure out why the pattern I was using wanted the stripe 18 inches from the edge. That would have put my little bit of material almost in half making it very bulky, so I only put it 6 inches in. After everything was put together did the penny drop. That extra fold of material becomes a pocket! I was able to carry a small bag with my notes, phone, and wallet in the little pocket I had made. Next time I think I'll make it a 12 inch fold since I rarely need to carry much more then that. The drape itself didn't come down past my knee which is a little bit short looking at the pictures. The next one will be wider. I also am very tempted to start carrying documentation for the outfit in the pocket as well. A few people did ask about it and were totally shocked that it was a "Gypsy" outfit.

The white linen chemise held up fine and the silk turban worked well, particularly since I made my hair into a bun before putting the turban on. That's not normally how I do it, but it kept the thing balanced better. I'm really looking at all the bizarre and interesting hats that keep showing up in these pictures and thinking I'm going to need to sit down and play with some lengths of fabric for awhile. There's this huge almost Chinese coolie looking hat that's seen fairly often. I usually see it more on males then females, but I've got a Bruegel painting that *may* have a female telling fortunes wearing one of these whoppers.

Bruegel was known for putting daily details, common things that his audience would have already known, into his paintings to add verisimilitude. His painting of The Sermon of St. John is dated roughly 1566 which is about 66 years later then I wanted, but includes lots of costumy goodness. Many costumers of my acquaintance use Bruegel as a reliable source so I hope I can do the same.

I'll keep looking around to see what I can find and build. While the outfits themselves seem pretty straight forward, the hats are going to be a little more complicated if I do them right.