Autumn in New England...

Sterling Library

My new University has some amazing facilities... this is one of the libraries.

It has cloisters, the check out desk is an altar and all of the windows feature authors and characters from books.

Not so shabby, eh?

Point Lobos 2012

I just opened a show in Carmel... I'm still busy... but before I left I went walking at Point Lobos Nature Preserve... It is one of my favorite places on the planet. The first time I went here it was because on my day off I couldn't afford the $35 ticket to go to the Monterey Aquarium... but this is so much better! Yes Better than walking under sharks and through glowing jellyfish.

Everywhere you look there is just more beauty...

I mean just look at this and BAM there's a freakin' sea lion right in the middle of it!

Hello!

Got to keep this short due to the need to wake up sooner than I care to admit, but there you go some pretty pictures, hopefully they will tide you over for a bit. Ta!

Half Moon Bay

 I went to Half Moon Bay for the first time ever... we found a hiking trail by Highway 1 that took us over the shore, through groves of trees and up a rather steep grade.

 Curls of grass, splashes of color, succulents and evergreens all graced the path.

Eric flew and Shaggy posed for his 80's band album cover.

By the time we descended it was only 3pm, but the marine layer had set in.

Frosty Garner Valley...

Ice that dusts the trees can make you stop

in the middle of the road

and gasp.

Photos are rather insufficient.

Balloon!

I saw this at the San Diego Wild Animal Park... sometimes the light is just perfect for random photos...

Old Windows

Artifacts find a life of their own as time takes its toll,

layers of paint, wear from light, and wear from use

make that which was once mundane beautiful and unique.

ArcAtack

Have you ever seen electricity dance, or play music? At the Maker Faire was a group called ArcAttack that plays music through Tesla coils. They also place a volunteer into a metal box in the middle of the coils to amp (nuck nuck) up the excitement...



I hear that sometimes one of them puts on a full chain-mail suit and dances in the middle.
So Cool!

Ah the beautiful rain....

The rain distracts me from my work...

This is a lull... but all day it's been raining so hard that sometimes it's raining sideways...

... ooh tree crash!

So lovely....

A bleary sunset in the East Bay...

For the most part I've been driving Way too much this past month. One day last week I found I was too tired to drive and didn't have a truckload of costumes to haul, so I took BART.

The whole ride looked like an Edward Hopper painting...



... double rainbow...

Ooh ahh.

Sol

A great grey haze hovers about San Francisco throughout May. A June gloom that I am always in denial of waits around the corner. For some reason the morning fog seems to last all day until just before the sun sets during early summer. When you work in the bowels of the theater even small glimpses of light count for a lot. I ride to outdoor train stations to wait for the right train to come along. Look... how pretty.

I met a real fungi today...

Hidden on the forest floor I saw a celebrity of sorts today;
Amanita Muscaria

The first I've seen in real life... these are the iconic mushroom...

...known for their psychotropic properties, and deadly if taken in excess (however much "excess" is was not specified in my reading)... these are Alice's caterpillar's mushroom, these are the mushrooms on hippie patches and stoner black light posters... these are the mushrooms fairies have their portraits painted on...

I suppose I was a bit of a science nerd when I found them and squeaked "ooh! Amanatia"
But gosh darn they are pretty poison...

ooh pretty

This sparkely display caught my eye on the way home tonight. I loaded these pictures in full resolution so that you can enlarge them and see what the store sells...

If you need a hint, the store name is GDill

The picture doesn't give justice as to how pretty the display actually is. Makes me want some for Christmas decor... if only it wasn't quite so awkward.

Da Fashion Show...

... that was over a week ago now... and that I haven't downloaded most of my pictures from...
Macy's has a Passport show every year where they have a big fund raiser for various charities they support. Every year they wind up hiring Cass' shop to do alterations and create specialty pieces for the auctions, the dancers, whatever... some years the shop hires me to help out. This year I worked on the Keith Herring dresses in the Spring and then a few Sunday's ago I came in and put in 8 hours of fast alterations.

Most of the alterations this year were for the pretty dancer boys seen in the last post.
The clothes purchased for the dancers weren't designed to fit dancer's bodies so we wound up putting all sorts of ugly (up close) alterations to make them actually fit someone with a tiny waist, broad shoulders, and a high round butt you can bounce quarters off of... oh excuse me I got carried away for a minute... super-human physique doesn't fit "slim cut" suits and Levi's 501's.
The 501's were something special because they had a special denim printed so that the Levi's people could make genuine Levi's jeans with a Keith Herring print. However, the Keith Herring estate made the Macy's people promise to destroy all of the fabric and the pants after the shows were all over because the art is all copywritten and they can't have just anybody wearing around radient babies.

Even though the alterations were what we call "meatball surgery" they looked fine when moving in stage light to with fast paced choreography...

The Passport show involved a pre-show expo full of delicious tiny food, free vodka, sponsor's goodies and entertainment...





Then we were shuffled off to the other building on the pier to see the rich people bid lots of money for vacation packages and a print of Silence=Death ($17,000). The mayor of San Francisco was there with his perfect hair and new wife and Dame Edna was there to give him a good ribbing...

Then there was the fashion show split up with dance numbers. Some of the designers had live music played with their shows. Designers featured included Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Ben Sherman, Ed Hardy (designed by Christian Audigier) and some others...





After the fashion show was of corse the post-show party full of desserts, more give-aways and more vodka.

I think that about brings you all up to date. It was a lot of fun and a welcome break from the unending sewing/shopping/driving/hauling that I've been doing for the theaters I'm working for.