For Halloween

Here are the rules:

Don't go into the Basement

Don't split up the party

Don't go into the attic.

I told you not to go into the attic!

You'll wake Him up . . . .

Now Cthulu is going to want another bedtime story .. . . .

Scary Random Thoughts

When I say to someone "I am scared" or "This is scary", I am not looking to be reassured that "no it's not really that scary."

Maybe it's not for someone else, but the scary is waiting there for me. It's mine.

I am not saying it to attract attention in a dramatic way (Quick! We must come to her rescue for she is scared!) I would simply ask for help.

I am not proud that way.

I am saying it to give it voice. The scariness. Because if I bother to say it out loud, you know that I am going to do the scary thing, or be in the scary place anyway.

If you know me, you know that I would never say anything if I weren't going to do it.

So when I say "I'm scared."

I mean "Please cover my back, I'm going in anyway"

And if what I'm scared of doesn't seem that scary to you, well that's OK, but I want you to know that it's not effortless, this going in, even if you think it looks easy for me. Even if you think it would be easy for you.

That's the danger of the scariness really, it's mostly invisible.

So when I say "I'm scared." I'm really just trying to make sure that the invisibility doesn't swallow me whole and have me disappear too.

And if I do disappear, I will at least have announced that it was not my intention to do so.

I'm going in.

Witching Hour is coming . . . Fear My Attic

When I started the House collaboration with Lisa I wasn't sure that I would be able to pull off one specific thing I wanted to do. I REALLY wanted and arcane workroom in the attic. All of the best stuff happens in attics. I wasn't sure that I could get the right vibe between my childhood attic workshop fantasies and poppets but I'm pretty happy with this. It's 85% done - Lisa is making a wallpaper for it.

There are two attic spaces in the house and they both represent things about Time.

But I did it! And I'm pretty happy with it.

I only have 5 days left to my original 40 day project plan. I'm going to make it on the stuff that is house oriented by I'm probably not going to finish the box by the 19th.

I'll be making a box that goes under the house that can hold all of the loose pieces so the house can be displayed closed and empty ( it's easier to lift that way) with landscaping. It would be like one of those Thomas the tank engine sets where all the train pieces are in the inside.

I'm really torn though - I'd love to use an real wooden box for the base but that would add about another 70% of the original cost to the materials budget, and possibly about an additional 3 days of work.

The other solution stays well within the "Play" sensibility of the piece and would be handled with a lot of decoupage but it would be a cardboard base.

Torn, torn, torn, torn, torn . . . . . . .

Chat at the Cafe - Subject Aliens

Do you wonder what would happen if SF writers thought about the fact that Alien intelligences might exist and NOT CARE about us at all?

Like, no invasions, no improvements, no "save mankind" no "wow those earthling sure are entertaining". No "aliens make good pets" or aliens want to have sex wif our wimmens, use us as an ingredient. They would be there, maybe know about us already and not care, not because they were superior or inferior, just because they wouldn't care.

And then the story would be about the inability of humanity or at least some humans to accept that fact and keep trying to get the aliens attention in order to fulfill their preconceived notions and what would happen to us because of our inability to grasp the fact that their apathy and disinterest was real.

I think that we would rather be hated or oppressed than ignored, but we'd rather be liked and admired than hated or oppressed. I imagine that we would start thinking of ourselves as "human" and have a better tribal identity as one group of people, but the complete lack of recognition would be more than we could handle.

It's like only having one person on a island to talk to but they never talk to you. We'd fill in all the missing dialogue, unable to accept that the other person truly and for no personal reason doesn't care to engage.

Oh and they shouldn't look like anything on our planet either.

I doubt I'm the first person to think of it. I'm sure someone must have already written this. I'd be interested in if they managed to do it well. How hard would it be for a silly human to even conceive of something not interested in us, without being more powerful than us. I think we crave hierarchy.

Maybe this is a better conversation for the bar

Work is continuing- Let the Music Play!

This week I've been working on the Music Room for the house I'm working on with Lisa.

I'm really quite happy with what I've got going so far. There are approximately 83 seperate peices for the House so far and I'm at that point of the project where it looks so close to finished that other people think it's mostly done, and I know that there are miles to go before I sleep - or declare it done.

I take photos with the Poppets that live in the House to make sure that everything still makes sense when Poppets are in it, after all it's for them.

Here is the more finished version of one area of the music room:

A lot more work has been done in the room since the picture with the Poppets in it - I've painted the piano, and the phonograph, made a vase instead of the red bottle, figured out a way to make the piano bigger on the inside than the out and I'm going to use my own fireplace to do the finish work on the Poppet Fireplace.

But I think it's coming along nicely. My deadline date is Oct 19th and after todays's work on the Arcane Attic Workroom, I'm pretty comfortable we're going to make it.

I did have one bit of weirdness this week though, I posted this picture on the Flickr slide show:

And it got a couple of dozen hits more than any of my other pictures on Flickr. Very odd! I wonder if someone used it to illustrate some blog post about the anniversary of Poe.

I mean - I'm quite proud of it and all - I made the table from scratch but it's a minature living room that's completely out of context and it seemed to have been running around the internet all on it's own, building up it's own fanbase.

It doesn't even have a clever name. The picture is labeled "living room with bookshelf facing".

Oh well, more power to it. It's meant to have a life of it's own in someone else's home anyway, it might as well get a head start.

Here's a picture of the music room with a full sized Poppet in it.

Enough chit-chat, back to work for me!

The Secret is OUT

I've been working with Lisa, we are collaborating on a House Where Poppets Live.

When this is done we will also be making smaller houses, they will be for sharing. This house is meant to leave and go out into the world too.

I've never built anything that intentionally was going to be outside my house for the Poppets so I'm being very careful to make sure that the materials can withstand being played with by grown ups.

I've wondered why I keep building little Rooms of Their Own. Poppets are observers and visitors and adventurers, it's their very nature to be in new spaces and where Poppets live is probably very different than the spaces I make for them, but then I realized that deep down it's about something very important.

It's about the Poppets and Lisa and me, things we know we might have in common and things that we probably don't know at all.

Lisa's writing about it on her blog.

I'm not sure how much to explain, it's all in there. Nothing in the house is by accident, it's all thought out, including the materials we're using to make things.

I'm not sure what to do about the "behind the scenes of it all." I share a bunch of "how to's" on the Embarrassed Embassy forums for Poppetropolis but I haven't been as methodical with recording the step-by-steps on this - because it's a Very Ambitious Project which we're trying to complete in 40 days.

I'm 26 days in.

So if you have questions I think you can ask me here. I check every day. I'll post any really new techniques or discoveries on the Poppetplanet Embarrassed Embassy Forum, and Lisa linked to the Flickr album we're using to collaborate over the two coasts.

So I'll answer questions where ever you want to ask them.

There's lots of other interesting things and people all over the Poppet Planet Forums, so it's worth checking out if you've got some downtime. Lisa and others share all sorts of information about photography and mulitmedia and inspiration and such.

Not everyone who wanders is lost, but they still might like a comfy chair of their own and a nice cup of hot cocoa.

If I were on Fark I would submit this with a Hero Tag

Best Librarian Response to a request to remove a book:

http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

I discovered it by way of Neil Gaiman's blog, but please read this post by an actual Librarian, handling things with grace, intelligence and respect.

I miss those things so much . . . .

Then find a way to help support this librarian.

And I will try something that belongs to a different side - I will pray for the parent. My religion doesn't really do things like that, and I'm not sure I buy into a responsive deity but hey, maybe sending out positive vibes hoping that she at least realizes that she has the freedom to teach her child her way is better than my initial cynical reaction.

My first reaction doesn't help anything either, it just furthers the divide. So I'll learn from the Librarian and borrow from the parent and experiment to see what happens.

My religion does pray for peace. We long for it, like a teenager in unrequited lust, like a miser for gold, like an historian for primary source documents, like a librarian for books.