Bowie knows my pain...

art matters

Sometimes it's easy to think that art doesn't matter. Although it's what drives me on and what I seek all around me. Although without art our lives would be lived in plain boxes with blank walls listening to talk radio. Without art there are no picture books for children, and nothing but non-fiction books for adults, there is no reaching for that which can only be reached through imagination. Without art we live lives with text-book context. No video games, no quilts, no painting... it's everywhere and somehow even I sometimes think it's not 'useful'...

 but then I see something like this;

and I think again.

(it says "a revolution without art is like wanting to change the system with money, power, violence and greed")

How Berkeley Can You Be?

Berkeley has an annual "How Berkeley Can You Be?" Parade. If it wasn't always on a day that I'm prepping for tech (and clogging up my means of hauling heavy costumes and whatnot in and out of my theater downtown ) I might enjoy it better... the other week I walked through the post-parade festival on my way to the dank dark dungeon that is my costume shop. There were people in crazy costumes, others holding out petitions to sign, belly dancers... Berkeley really is a big mish mosh of eccentricities, which I like, except that when they all pile together it's just irritating and creepy.

As it is I  just figure the parade is an excuse to get a second use out of Burning Man costumes. I didn't get a picture because they were too fast, but I did love the giant cupcake bike... and this snail was impressive.
There were a lot of art cars on display
and other people taking pictures of the art cars; this guy looks too normal to be from around here.
I suppose the furry bunny slipper bikes were pretty cool too...

at least my city has a whimsical sense of civic pride.  Ok that's it; now back to being a curmudgeon. 

Blog Action Day 2008 (Poverty)

Alternate Title (Slacker!)
I swear, yesterday I went to work in San Francisco.  Usually on the way to work I see people begging in the BART, sleeping on the sidewalks, selling Street Spirit papers from all different walks of poverty.  You do see the fakers; people who have nice bags, clean nails, fake injuries and fresh haircuts, they rely on you handing over your money while looking away.  You see the ones that are struggling to improve their lot by selling papers& looking for work, often this variety of homeless have been staying in shelters and have managed to get clean clothes.  There are also the hopeless who are like walking ghosts covered in grime, sleeping on door stoops having given up... and yet I did not see more than two homeless people yesterday, neither of whom I felt I could get a photo of without looking like a jerk... I'm heading to downtown Berkeley now... we'll see what kind of a postcard I can get down there for this year's "Poverty" theme on Blogger Action Day.  In the mean time, I'm including the link below by the vlogbrothers (specifically Young Adult Author John Green) explaining kiva.org, which is an organization that I've left a link for on the sidebar.  On one hand it's easier to give money to people in far away countries than to the poor people right here.  It's sad that we don't seem to have better programs here that give people a hand-up, but I do respect the ones that are in place for international aid.  Part of why we can give money to this organization and still have it go so far is because our dollar (weak as it is) is still strong in places of extreme poverty.  Perhaps we need to set up a donation organization for the British to help out our empoverished... anyway, link for now, possible postcard to come, and I must head out to work.

Upcoming Blogger Event

You may recall last year there was an event called "Blogger action day" where the entire blogosphere was invited to discuss the same topic at once-- a topic dear to my heart, the Environment.  This year the topic is "Poverty", I intend to post (I hope I can come up with something insightful and interesting) and anyone out there with a blog, I invite you to visit the blog action day site, register your blog and join the conversation on October 15th. 

--Alexae

Ha Ha

I'll load this in it's large format so that you can read it...

I noticed this because it's one of the ugliest men's shirts I've seen in a long time.
Then I saw the tag in the back "a luxurious fabric of %100 polyester". I assure you it was vintage 70's polyester... mmm what the cockroaches will be wearing after the nuclear holocaust.

Point Lobos pt 1.

Point Lobos national park has a small museum dedicated to the whalers who used to troll the coast to supply lamps and cars and provide us all with energy. If we hadn't discovered crude oil we would have possibly killed off all of the whales and been completely out of oil all together, searching for a different source of energy... hummm

Point Lobos pt.2

At the edge of the cliff is an ocean that calls

in a voice made of rocks and pebbles,

pelicans and gulls,
The trees there lean over to see how the edge of the world might be...
but the sea does not tell, she only hisses through the rocks...
still the trees stand guard gazing out to the horizon, overlooking the kelp beds, 

and calling the sea otters to tell them the secret of the edge of the earth...
The otters laugh, because they've never been and are too busy playing in the current.

nut shell post

Opened my show last night...
Got a day off (eep!)
I spent a good portion of the day climbing around the coast...

Life's pretty good sometimes...
more to come :)

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.

No time to blog... (quick! Post something anyway)!

Hi! In a nut shell;
Spring; worked on Keith Herring couture for Macy's
Sunday; spent 8 hours altering men's shirts...
Yesterday; got to go to the fashion show/benefit...
it was awesome.
Now I need to catch up for lost time...
but here's what all those shirts were used on.


... proper post to come.

Comedy of Errors is underway...

So tomorrow I begin pulling for the next show (very rapidly approaching). I posted a few of my research photos on the Biz of Show... enjoy.