Tell me more good stuff about me.

Kaylee ,'The Message'


Natter 45: Smooth as Billy Dee Williams.  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Lee - Jun 11, 2006 5:21:19 am PDT #1637 of 10002
The feeling you get when your brain finally lets your heart get in its pants.

Robin, that sounds great!

Are you thinking of something in the Mexican Riveria area? I think Ixtapa isn't as built up as Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlan, and there should smaller towns/destinations that would be more secluded/less touristy.


Jesse - Jun 11, 2006 5:50:00 am PDT #1638 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Ooh, Robin reminds me of the little kid in one of my favorite commercials: "We're too excited to sleep!"

I am jealous, but am trying to use this as inspiration for my goal of becoming the kind of person who takes great vacations. This is the first job I've ever had where I've gotten enough time off to do it and there's actually a culture of taking vacations.


Scrappy - Jun 11, 2006 5:58:21 am PDT #1639 of 10002
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Yes indeed, Perkins, the Mexican Riviera. We've ruled out Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco. Ixtapa looks good, and we are considering Mazatlan, because they have some interesting historical stuff there--also my dad had his first heart attack there and they literally saved his life at the hospital and treated my mother wondefully while he was recovering, so I have a sentimental attachment to the place.


Lee - Jun 11, 2006 6:20:49 am PDT #1640 of 10002
The feeling you get when your brain finally lets your heart get in its pants.

Both of those sound fabulous, Robin.


Nutty - Jun 11, 2006 6:46:05 am PDT #1641 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

Shelley argued that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

I would be much more willing to agree with the Hec/Suela axis of this discussion if that didn't put me on Shelley's side. Shelley aws kind of a melodramatic twerp, and I prefer not to be on the side of twerps.

For extremely broad values of art -- which, really, should be called "culture" if we're getting into things like singing rounds -- yeah, sure, it's useful, as the currency of social and emotional exchange. (Although, culture and $3.25 will get you a box of Oreos.) We're in a weird situation where culture is considered a vocation, and you can get paid for it, and if you don't get paid for it people wonder whether you're doing it wrong. But I think even now, and certainly for a lot of human history, making culture is something that comes during or after making food and shelter, not before. Historically speaking, it's a rare situation of concentrated/excess wealth where you really can sing for your supper.


Jesse - Jun 11, 2006 7:40:39 am PDT #1642 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I am already way more productive today than I was all day yesterday. I have showered, gotten a pedicure, grocery shopped, AND figured out what was smelly in my fridge. I think I'll even get laundry done today.


Sue - Jun 11, 2006 8:20:18 am PDT #1643 of 10002
hip deep in pie

I am having a total rainy Sunday laze.


sarameg - Jun 11, 2006 8:29:37 am PDT #1644 of 10002

A friend is, er, I guess rehabbing is the proper term (she calls it making it liveable and not insane) her 100+ year old house. She's discovered that parts of the walls are insulated with quilted eelgrass. Er. It's circa the 20s or 30s. Weird.

I spent yesterday at honfest. Wee little girls in garish makeup, cats eye glasses, enormous beehives and lots of animal print. It was amusing.

Gotta clean and do some shopping. First I need to finish dyeing my hair.


Volans - Jun 11, 2006 8:34:37 am PDT #1645 of 10002
move out and draw fire

Random thoughts about art/culture and society, with no particular thesis:

Culture is considered a vocation in our society, so doing something creative/cultural/artistic that doesn't net you money is often seen as a waste of time, at worst, or a hobby, at best, rather than a necessary survival element. And that's if you are lucky enough to have the time and the means to have a hobby. When we lived in the States I barely even cooked, spending all my waking hours in a cube farm.

Not to be all Rousseau, but societies at the basic food/shelter level without First World influences seem to always include art. The bowls to store food, the walls of the houses, the skin or clothing decorations. There's an impetus, a la Georgia O'Keeffe, to "fill the space beautifully." Even really poor cultures (I'm thinking Yemen and Bolivia here, so I'm generalizing) with lots of unfortunate external FW influences manage to occasionally work art into the life of the society.

What I don't get is the hatred and fear of art. When the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues, one of my cow-orkers said, "What's the big deal? It was just art." Years later, and I still haven't thought of a good response...that point of view is just too foreign to me. Our own culture (which my cow-orker is a product of) has some of this element also, with spasms of censoring books, black-balling actors, etc.


Jars - Jun 11, 2006 8:50:57 am PDT #1646 of 10002

but societies at the basic food/shelter level without First World influences seem to always include art.

Often what we see as 'art' in these societies though, would be an utterly alien concept to those creating it. The decoration often serves a purpose - whether religious, or social.

I remember one example of an African tribe where the gourds were decorated by women. Women were nearly always married in from another tribe and were seen as lower status because of it. They had to adopt their husband's style of decoration and jewellery on everything but the gourds, which they decorated in their own family's style. However, because the husbands didn't recongnise the decoration, they would often paint them with the tribal markings of the young men of the tribe that they'd been having dalliances with.