living small

Not long ago, as I pondered where I would go or what I would do if I was laid off from my job, and contemplating yet another move (depending on how you count it, I could say that I’ve moved anywhere from 4 to 11 times in the past four years), I began to research RVs. 

I thought perhaps that it could be a solution for my life:  having mobility, paring down my stuff even further (which I’ve written about a few times), yet having a sense of my own home.  If I needed to go to another new place, maybe I could just take an organized, familiar home along with me. 

Six months or so later, I know that I have a job for the coming year and am trying to convince myself to stay put.  But I still think a lot about the nature of housing, my environmental footprint, and how I hope to live in the future. 

After researching RV and trailer living (I now know the difference between A, B, and C Class RVs, travel trailers, fifth wheel trailers, etc), I started looking at all the other alternative types of housing.  Here are some of my favorites.

1.  A modern vardo, or updated gypsy van…some are beautifully crafted.

2.  My favorite wheel-less options are some of the gorgeous pre-fab yurts.  For more than five years now (yes, since moving to CA), I’ve fantasized about building a little compound of yurts.  Don’t laugh.  It could be awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. And finally, check out this ethereal earthsheltered home.   It is environmentally kind, and if anyone has a thing for Hobbit living…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related Gleanings:  Tiny House Blog, which describes a lot of fun designs for living smaller.

 

keeping creative types alive

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more about “Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creati…“, posted with vodpod

 

best gift exchange ever

I love making gifts, and I love finding meaningful gifts.  I have rarely had a lot of money to spend, and have often had little choice but to give “gifts of the heart” – homemade things, handcrafted things, and meaningful or needed things.  Even if I had a lot of money, I wouldn’t want to change this way of giving gifts.

For the past ten to fifteen years, at least, I’ve wandered through stores and been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things to purchase. (I’ll write more about American excess soon, but this quiz is a good introduction to the topic.) During the same period, I moved many, many times, and also helped to clean out both my parents and grandparents long-time homes.  The moral of the story:  It is amazing what we acquire.   The result:  I am really turned off to malls, giant department stores, and buying new things in general, beyond what I need.  And when I can, I prefer to acquire used and re-purposed items (furniture, books, kitchenware, etc.). 

On this Christmas Day in a year fraught with disturbing news of the economy, I find myself thinking about my favorite gift exchange ever.  I worked for an arts council, where, of course, we were all underpaid.  The staff consisted of four women, and we discussed doing a $5 item gift exchange, but someone had the idea to exchange only handcrafted gifts.  Since not all of us were crafty, we began expanding the idea.  We ended up with no dollar limit, but instead had three criteria:  it had to be a found item, a handmade item, or a re-gift.

We had so much fun the first year that we did it the second year.  The range of items was bizarre and often hilarious.  One of my co-workers gave me a gift bag containing crafting projects she had purchased 10 years prior and never begun, along with stationery she’d never used and an ugly candle someone else had given  her – she dared me to pass it on.  Another co-worker gave me a pin that I had admired when she’d worn it; I treasure it to this day.  I also received books that people had read and were passing along, and homemade cookies.  It was so much fun to receive those things because they were all given with much thought and affection, and they were all gleaned from our own possessions. It was a wonderful and fun way to celebrate Christmas.

On this Christmas, I am hoping that everyone has plenty, and if you have abundance, the heart to pass it on.  Blessings to all!

 

Stocking up

The day before Thanksgiving, I stopped at Mike’s Truck Garden (a fruit and vegetable stand in Fulton, CA).  I’d seen low prices advertised on local apples the week before, and wasn’t surprised to see the place mobbed the day before the holiday.  I picked out some apples and a few winter squash, got up to the cashier and he said “the total is $4.44, which means it’s $2.22 for you today.”  And then I understood why the employees were saying “have a good holiday, see you in the spring” to everyone:  it was the last day of the season that they were open, and no matter what you purchased that day, the entire bill was half off.  Score.

I got in my car, drove around the back, and decided to park again.   This time, I brought in my shopping bags and got a cart.  I bought many packages of bulk food (nuts, seeds, trail mix, candy for Christmas stockings, etc), more apples and assorted squash, red peppers, green peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, cilantro, parsley, radishes, cauliflower, kiwi, lemons, limes, oranges, onions, green onions, red cabbage, green cabbage, grapes, spinach, green beans, and swiss chard.  My total was $80.46, so I paid $40.23.

I would have bought more, but I was mindful of what I could use for Thanksgiving and in the immediate future, and what I could preserve.  My  instinct (that I had to suppress) was to “rescue” as much of the food as I could.  (I think I could be an obsessive harvester/gleaner if I ever have a garden.)

When I got home, I called my mother, and asked her the best freezing method for much of the excess.  In my childhood, we had large gardens and numerous fruit trees, and we rarely, if ever, used “store-bought” frozen vegetables or fruit.  Every year, we dried culinary herbs, canned tomato sauce, applesauce, and assorted jams/jellies, and stocked the freezer with large quantities of tomatoes, green beans, peas, peppers, corn, peaches, and blueberries.   My sister and I were always being sent to the basement to retrieve items from the two massive chest freezers.

So I spent all of the afternoon before Thanksgiving (and into Thanksgiving day, as well) washing, cutting, and storing vegetables and herbs.  In the week and a half since then, my roommate and I have used all the fresh things, and I take pleasure in being able to pull a ziploc full of clean, ready-to-use cilantro from the freezer when making guacamole.

It turns out that it was an exceptional way to honor Thanksgiving.  At the most basic level, I am grateful for access to plentiful food and to have the money to purchase it, and for the means to preserve and appreciate it.  It also connected me to my family who I was missing  over the holiday.  My mother sent me the following email late on Thanksgiving eve:

I hope you got all your food “put up”.  I was smiling most of the evening thinking about you doing that and enjoying it.  It always brings back a warm glow of home and gives such pleasure.  Enjoy, enjoy.

Related gleanings:  Last week, a story was circulated about 40,000 people showing up at a farm in Colorado to glean the fields after harvest.  Also, as most of us are aware, a lot of food banks are low this year.  If you have the means, consider donating food, time or money to one near you; a good organization is Feeding America (formerly known as Second Harvest).

 

Hard to top that one…

I don’t attend enough performances of classical choral music.

I’ve been fortunate to witness some amazing concerts; the two most memorable were almost 20 years ago when I was in England as an undergrad.  And probably what made those so memorable was that I was high on the architecture; I am certain that the performance sites deeply influenced my perception of the music.  The first was a boys’ choir festival in King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, which is an icon of Gothic architecture.  The other was a performance of The Messiah in London at St. Bartholomew (c. 1100), which is one of the city’s oldest churches.  Being in a 1000-year-old church and hearing that music performed live is basically like flying.

This past Sunday, I saw Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony (also known as “Symphony of a Thousand”) performed by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.  I had bought tickets to the concert as a birthday present for my friend M., who is a huge Mahler fan.  I’ve never warmed up to Mahler, but, in this instance, was blown away by the beauty of the work and how skillfully it was performed.  It had little to do with its setting – it was just stunning musicianship. 

This particular symphony is a major production; it involves a massive orchestra, a brass section situated in the balcony, seven vocal soloists, the symphony choir, a girls’ choir, and a boys’ choir.  And even with all that vocal and instrumental power, it was the during some of the “quietest” passages that I found there were tears streaming down my face (which is unsual – I don’t cry easily). 

It was an experience of a lifetime.

 

If Oprah or Obama jumped off a bridge…

I just read a New York Times article stating that during his Sunday night 60 Minutes interview, Obama mentioned having read a book on F.D.R. (he did not specify the author or title).   The NYT article, titled For Books, Is Obama New Oprah?, describes the resulting scramble among authors to identify which of the books Obama had actually read and referred to, as well as the spike in sales of similar books on a number of online book sellers.

By the end, the story had nearly brought tears to my eyes:  imagine, a president who reads, who is interested in honoring and learning from history, and who will–hopefully–help spark interest in the flagging cultural literacy of our nation.  This is huge for someone like myself (a museum curator, a theater person, a writer).  The fact that I was so moved is a symptom of how intellectually bereft our country’s administration has been the past few years–and it is internationally embarrassing that intellectualism is now considered extraordinary.

However…

I just wish it didn’t take Oprah starting a book club or Obama just mentioning a book in passing to ignite curiosity–and make it cool to be curious and smart–among my fellow citizens.  Now THAT would be change.

 

a child’s view

I read an article about Roald Dahl today, and was struck by what I prize most in creative people like him:  his ability to find a sense of joy and silliness in even the most bleak times, or even in the mundane.  The same is true for the work of Maurice Sendak (read an excellent New York Times article about him here); these two authors are able to tap into elemental fears and joys that all ages can relate to.  I find this ability even more poignant because both men had difficult, even painful, personal lives.

For years, I worked alongside my father as he wrote, produced, and directed children’s theater shows.  He–akin to authors like Dahl and Sendak–could access a child-like vision of the world, and could see the phenomenal in the ordinary.  We also talked often about his belief that it was important to not “water down” the villains.  It was fascinating to see children thrilled by being scared, but, through those stories, were shown how courage, bravery, and love could be a panacea to those fears.

In a time when news of the economy is worse every day, I think it is a good time to keep in mind the views of authors like Dahl, and to stay in touch with our child-like impulses:  to embrace the silly, to find joy in jell-o (read the Dahl article), to surprise friends and strangers with random acts of kindness and generosity, and yes, to even allow ourselves to believe that a bit of bravery will banish the “monsters” at our door.

 

Girdwood, Alaska

I feel like I’m on another planet, and it is good.  After only one full day in Alaska, I can understand why some people just pull the plug on their lives in the Lower 48 and move here (I’m not quite to that point).

Yes, it is unbelievably beautiful, but it is the fact that human eccentricity is embraced and fostered here that I currently find entertaining.  My mother (my chatty traveling companion) and I were talking to our waitress yesterday at breakfast, who really opened up when she found out that we weren’t with a tour group.  The woman has lived in Alaska for nearly 30 years, and was talking about her love of the local zoos and injured animal refuges (and did a deft impression of an eagle with only one wing trying to fly).  And her love of skiing.  And juggling.  And skiing while juggling.  I, of course, was laughing so hard over my oatmeal that I was crying.  There aren’t many videos out there of this “sport,” but here is one to entertain until my next Alaskan post.

 

uh, good idea? crafting and advice…

In preparation for a move, I’m again culling my book collection (my sister is still swearing about a move she helped with in 2002 due to the abundance of books).  In recent years, I’ve instituted rules for myself before I acquire a book and grant it space on the permanent bookshelves:  it must be more useful than a book I could borrow short-term from a library; it must be a great work of art that I NEED to possess should I require immediate access to it; or it must have fairly high sentimental or aesthetic value (as an object).  Without the rules, I’d likely end up buried alive.

So, on this round, quite a few cookbooks, out-of-date home decorating and crafts manuals, and modern and juvenile novels have not made the cut.  So far I have two boxfuls to go to my local library’s book sale (anyone want some books?).

However, I decided to keep one particular crafting book, just for its sheer kitschiness (and a little bit of childhood crafting nostalgia).  To the right is an illustration from B. Kay Fraser’s “Decorative Tole Painting,” 1972.  Oh, the irony.

The other gem that I will never part with is Arlene Dahl’s “Always Ask a Man” from 1965. It is full of advice to women on beauty, manners, homemaking, and the general art of femininity.  There are literally hundreds of useful tidbits – here is a sampling of my favorite passages and quotes.

NEVER upstage a man.  Don’t top his joke, even if you have to bite your tongue to keep from doing it.  Never launch loudly into your own opinions on a subject–whether it’s petunias or politics.  Instead, draw out his ideas to which you can gracefully add your footnotes from time to time.  You may be well equipped to steal the spotlight, but most females would rather sing a duet than a solo.

Most of us agree that lipstick is an absolute necessity.  I, for one, even wear a touch a lipstick to bed.  I switch to pale peach or pink to match my sheets, blot carefully, and powder over lightly so that just a tinge of becoming natural-looking color remains.

Any girl with a modicum of common sense and tact can control a man’s actions, unless she’s out with a sex maniac.  Don’t accept the frequently proposed male theory that if he spends money taking you to dinner or the theater, you must pay him back by inviting him in for a nightcap.  He doesn’t have to be the man who stays for breakfast.

Give a girl a pair of pants and she sprawls in a chair, crosses her legs like a man, and becomes more aggressive in her speech and manner.  A girl puts a man on guard psychologically when she takes to wearing pants around the house.

There should be nothing that takes precedence in your day’s schedule over making yourself attractive and appealing for the man in your life…nothing, nothing is more important than keeping your husband happy, interested and in love with you.

Male movie stars were also consulted on their ideas of femininity.  George Hamilton said “A woman is often like a strip of film–obliterated, insignificant–until a man puts the light behind her.”  Wow.  And as a brunette, I’m proud to join the company of those who “can look like an angel while operating like the black widow spider,” or is “the vamp on the bearskin rug,” or should wear furs “of black or white mink, fabulous monkey fur, or velvety black Alaskan seal.” Um, yeah, maybe not so much for the furs.

Here is a page on the art of fan seduction, which is still appealing to me on a certain level, I have to admit!  Note one of my other favorite quotes from the book, highlighted in yellow.

Finally, this isn’t from my book collection, but I’m reminded of my favorite kitschy stitching blog, called stitchymcyarnpants.com.  Here’s another good idea regurgitated from another decade….if you haven’t seen these already, check out the link to see more wonderful ski-mask stitching projects, among many others!

 

Micro reviews

Last week, I attended five nights in a row of arts events. Here are some of my impressions and micro-reviews of these events and performances.

Wednesday, August 26 & Thursday, August 27 – Musicals (mostly)

Wednesday night was a benefit and farewell party for an actor friend, A., who has been accepted into a musical theater training program in NYC. The event, the major portion of which consisted of songs performed by A. and guests, along with some scenes, was held at The Rep in Sebastopol (the theater where I’ve stage managed most frequently over the past four years). I have always loved these kinds of events because it is an opportunity to see actors do the songs and scenes that they consider their best (or to perform requested encores). And this did not disappoint – it was highly entertaining, and a wonderful tribute to A.’s work onstage and off at the theater over the past four years.

Thursday, I saw Music Man at 6^th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa. The leads, David Yen and Heather Lane (along with special notice for Gene Abravaya and the barbershop quartet), were very good.  The director and choreographer did an impressive job of staging and choreographing a huge cast including the requisite company of children for this show. And the audience had a great time.

Therefore, I would love to be able to give the show a big thumbs up…but there was a distracting issue that kept me from truly enjoying the production (and this is highly biased, I confess). Unfortunately the costumes, mainly for the women, were not good. The show is to take place in 1912; some women were wearing dresses that were obviously originally constructed to represent eras from the 1860s to the 1880s to 1900, and a modern-day square dance dress made an appearance in Act II. I know that not a lot of people would pay attention to the level of detail that I do for costumes and overall design. But I believe that when a theater goes to the trouble to attract talented actors, and would like to market its shows as quality entertainment, that it is a disservice to both the actors and patrons to present such a glaring inconsistency. In addition, if there had been a unifying design (color scheme, dress length, year, and the uniform presence of petticoats, among other issues), it would have strengthened the choreography, and helped to give focus when the stage was filled with such a large cast.

Friday, August 29 – Visual Arts Break

A friend of mine, Kate Burgess, is one of the exhibiting artists in the current photography exhibit Flash! A Photography Show at Plaza Arts Center in Healdsburg. I attended the show opening on Friday night and was looking forward to seeing her photos “live”; I’d only seen her work via her website prior to this particular show. For Plaza Arts, she chose four pieces of nature photography. My favorite could pass for commercial art, but upon closer inspection, one of the white blooms has a white spider ingeniously “lurking” in plain sight.

On Kate’s website, her portfolio includes sections on West Point (her alma mater) and Arlington Cemetery. Knowing her military background–and the fact that her husband is currently on active duty and headed to Iraq–makes the excellent Arlington photos even more poignant.

Saturday, August 30 & Sunday, August 31 – Two Nights of Shakespeare

On Saturday night, I saw Taming of the Shrew, which was the summer Shakespeare offering from The Rep’s Sebastopol Shakespeare Festival. Director Jennifer King chose to stage a “pirate version” of Shrew, and although the idea sounded like it could work (especially for such a blatantly sexist play), I am always wary of any themed “versions” of Shakespeare. However, this did work well, thanks to a pervading sense of fun from the production staff and cast, and the audience’s embracing of the concept (by the end, the 300-member audience was yelling “yaaar” to express approval and disapproval of plot points in the show). The competent cast, direction, set design, and costuming were all consistent and well done, but as Hortensio, Miyaka Cochrane nearly stole the show due to his superb physical acting abilities (he was all-pirate, all-the-time), and Mary Gannon Graham stood out as Kate, especially in her closing monologue.

Sunday night, I saw North Bay Shakespeare’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed at Hamilton Field Amphitheater in Novato. It was a treat to see a show performed at the historic Amphitheater  (it is the black and white photo that I use for the header of this blog) – and acoustics there are excellent. The show was fairly good, and the actors were generally strong (especially Beth Deitchman as Hermia and Ben Knoll as Bottom). However, director Hector Correa’s decision to portray Titania as a Madonna-like pop star with the fairies as attendant drag queens (with their every entrance made to Madonna songs; they even broke into a “Vogue” number at one point), made me want to bolt. But I have to give the cast credit for committing to it, and I stopped squirming in discomfort by their final appearance.