Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 86

Full heart

Very moved by all the photos and reports I'm seeing from all over the United States and the world, and I'm very, very grateful to family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers who are out there. Thank you, everyone.

Special issue of Not One of Us

Any day that I get to share a table of contents with Sonya Taaffe and Patricia Russo is a good day--and today is one of those days! This is that rare beast, a print-only zine, so you can't read it without buying a copy and waiting for it to come through the mail, but I'm eager to have other people experience the alien, outsiderly goodness, so first three non-subscribers who send me an LJ message, I'll have a copy sent to you!

Here's publisher John Benson's post about the issue:

“People who need...

What I learned this week: wayfinders

wakanomori and I went to see Moana this past week. (I arrived at the theater first and bought the tickets. "Two for Moana," I said, and the ticket seller said, ". . . Two adult tickets?" "Yes," I said. Yes, two adults can go see a Disney film, unaccompanied by a child. IT CAN BE DONE.)

I enjoyed it very much, mainly all sorts of small things that had nothing to do with the overarching story or even the characters, really. One part that really swelled my heart was the song of Moana's wayfinding...

"He can't bite"

You may remember this clip from The Pink Panther:



I had a similar experience a few days ago, and in trying to decide what thing to talk about this morning (other contenders were Moana and Aslan's remark about only telling you your own story, both of which maybe I'll talk about later) this is what won out.

I was running in my neighborhood, and a little dog--very little--came running across its yard toward me. Its owner was calling it, but it charged on into the street and bit me on the calf.

"He...

This painting benefited from assertiveness training

It was among several artworks on display in the Blue House at the College of Our Lady of the Elms (known in brief as Elms College, but the long name is so marvelous), where I was for most of the day yesterday. It tells you exactly what it wants from you.



(Artist appears to be someone called Cavagnac.)

There were others in a similar style:





Cupcake, cog, hammer, nails, plus sign, gravestone--the poetry of things, arranged.

What I learned, week 1

Posting today because I'll be out all day tomorrow.

Well! First, I learned that there's lots of different levels of things that count as learning. There's learning interesting facts--like, courtesy of frigg , that jackals can be found in Denmark. I did not know that and would never have guessed it.

Danish Jackal (source)


Then there's learning that's more like realization. Here's one of those, from this past week:

The tall one and I were talking about perceiving things truly--getting beyond illusi...

paper

I made some paper the other day. In the first photo, you can see flashes from mica that's embedded in it.

I like the second photo though, with the light shining through it, because you can see all the different fragments of original paper that went into it, and where the pulpy mass settled more thickly and more thinly. It's like stained glass, or like a freeze-frame from a kaleidoscope.

signs of beavers

wakanomori and I went on a New Year's walk yesterday, and we saw signs of beavers





And out in the lake was the beaver lodge:



"What do you think it's like on the inside of the beaver lodge?" Wakanomori asked last night, when we were heading to bed.

"Well, I'm sure there's a sewing machine," I said.

More broadly, something like this. Excuse the blurring on the left--I scanned this Pauline Baynes illustration from my copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe



Here, courtesy of the University of Ver...

New Year's Dancers

The photo is by Wada Masahiro, from the photo essay "Northern Dancers: The Red-Crowned Cranes of Hokkaidō"



Breathing fire
into the frozen air
new year's dancers

snow clams

Snow clams burrow into the snow the way other clams burrow in sand, and like other clams, they have air holes.

See them? This would be a good place to dig for snow clams, though they'd probably be tiny.