Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: October 2019

• The Party’s Over

  Posted at 1:44 am by kayewer, on October 27, 2019

  I scored Star Wars tickets. It wasn’t the same thrill I got when they were hard to get many years ago, but then opening night was Friday, not Thursday. Now everybody goes to new movies on Thursday night, crowding the auditoriums and causing emotional uproars, sharing the cheers and tears. I easily obtained two good tier reserved seats for the official opening evening on December 20th. Now that millions will see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on December 19th, the Friday night crowd is an afterthought.

  And there will be no afterglow for this one.

  Too many movie franchises have seen their last installment, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s climactic Avengers: Endgame and the Twilight saga, not to mention series such as Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which were kept true to their book inspirations movie-wise and were satisfying by themselves.

  We have had an adventure spanning nine movies, several spin-offs, immeasurable fan feedback, product tie-ins and all that goes with such a huge endeavor, and now it comes to an end, for good or bad (or good side and dark side), and I don’t know how to feel about that.

  Why put myself through such a downer? I would be missing something by not doing it.

  No matter how we welcome or say goodbye to something we cherish, no matter how big or trivial it is, it’s part of the adventure of life. Seeing anything through to its conclusion draws a well rounded circle defining your humanity, letting your tenacity shine and your commitment emanate like the Force.

  Whichever night a fan will attend, it’s an early holiday present. I plan to take along lots of tissues, and I’ll have a friend along for emotional support. Since I never go looking for spoilers or advance knowledge, I expect to be thoroughly entertained. There will probably be laughter and tears and feelings that something happening onscreen is unfair or improper, but it is, after all, somebody’s idea of how a scenario might play out. It’s not real, nor should it be mistaken for anything other than what it is: entertainment designed to stroke your emotions and dazzle your senses.

  Everything after Star Wars seems short of the benchmark, even if deserving of praise. There will never be anything like what started back in 1977 when George Lucas decided to film a “space opera.”

  Prepare the curtain: it’s the last aria.

   

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• Spock Was Right

  Posted at 10:51 pm by kayewer, on October 20, 2019

  Creating something is more exciting than destroying. I reinforced that knowledge yesterday when I attended a needle felting workshop in Maryland for the day. A project that challenges you to create a 3D sculpture from wool does take about six hours or longer. We had six and fit in lunch, and it was a ball.

  So what is needle felting? Crafters and school children are familiar with flat squares of wooly fabric which can be cut into projects, and this technique takes the act of making felt to a fuller and denser level. Commercial artists of collectible felt art such as AnnaLee Thorndike use felt to sculpt flat pieces into dimensional objects, but at our workshop inside Sarafina Fiber Art we used wool from the inside out to create a variety of shapes and bring objects to life.

  Our workshop attendees came from western Pennsylvania and North Carolina, so my journey from New Jersey seemed small (about a 90 minute drive). We shared large tables filled with all the materials we would need to create a ram from wool, complete with horns and hooves. It isn’t a beginner project, but some of us were well versed in the video tutorials if not in actual practice, and we were able to keep up with the slightly more challenging parts of the project, such as how to turn a circle of wool similar to a Pac Man ghost into part of a face.

  How do we make part of a face out of wool? We stab. The key to needle felting is to use a sharply barbed needle to tangle fibers into a definitive shape, as well as not stabbing too much (making a wooly hard ball with no bounce) or too little (a wool squishy).  I quickly found that I am a too loose stabber and have to poke more to get my shapes. . . .well, in shape. That’s probably the preferred choice of the two, as once you’ve got it too solid, you can’t take it back, but you can always stop stabbing whenever you want, review and then stab some more if necessary.

  There is something therapeutic about shop and felt guru Sara’s concept of “stabbing to life” an object. We found ourselves happily poking and angling (and sometimes getting an ouchie on a thumb) as our shapeless blobs of wool began to show signs of looking like something recognizable. Our project involved an added internal feature: an armature, which like in drawing is a base on which to build, using two wires and pipe cleaners. Small, but effective.

  By lunchtime we had actual bodies sitting on our tables, and by the end of the day we were looking into the eyes of our rams with adoration. Of course, with all of us learning as fast as we could process the steps, our completion levels were varied, but we each left with a project that looked 99 percent like what we intended to do, and that’s fine with me. The commitment of the people who participated in the workshop with me was such that we learned enough to finish tweaking our sculptures at home. My plan is to build up the horns on my ram, whom I’ve named Bram (yup, Bram the ram), and do a little cosmetic surgery on the face and neck. We had extra wool to take home with us, and I think I’m in love with this new hobby, especially since I now have Bram staring at me from the coffee table at home. I created him, and I’m responsible for him.

  I have worked with crocheting for ages and am finishing up my thirtieth afghan, so trying something new is good at this point. I promise to post a photo of the completed Bram the ram when he looks ready for his closeup. Meanwhile hand me some wool and a needle and a bandage for my thumb. I’m into stabbing now.

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• Inclusive Enclosure

  Posted at 1:34 am by kayewer, on October 13, 2019

  I was in New York City last weekend and had the opportunity to shop and explore and see a great production at the Met. I also had my first exposure to inclusion which directly affected me, and it took place in a restroom.

  My favorite secret public restroom in the city is always clean, never has a queue, and features those incredibly strange but effective Dyson hand dryers on the wall. When I made my routine rest stop there, however, a sign was on the door, saying in so many words that the facility was open to anybody regardless of gender identity.

  I stopped for a minute, and then I went in as always.

  Nothing happened, but it’s a new grey area in this world, and I wonder how it will play out in the future. I don’t know how I will feel if a man who is obviously a man externally but feels like a woman internally decides to enter that restroom while I am there. Bathroom cubicles are not exactly peek proof, and our method of building out relief stations in public places has not changed much in a century, except to add diaper changing tables and vending machines appropriate to the location (tampons or condoms, usually).  How will we accommodate inclusion?

  Non-gender restrooms are probably a step in the right direction, but we probably will continue to need ladies’ and gentlemen’s facilities forever. If one is one hundred percent one gender, one sometimes has to have a place in which to behave as one’s gender must. I’m not sure if I am ready to stand at a sink while a man adjusts his pelvic accoutrements at the next sink (if that is even a thing, which would hopefully be before washing his hands). There is also the issue of nursing mothers and fathers on diaper duty, and though family parameters are being met more at public bathrooms, the rest of us are still dealing with fewer stalls and a longer queue (particularly for women). We have more restaurants than restrooms, and people have to go more than they may eat.

  We might want to look to Europe, where restrooms are much more private and seem to be just as user friendly. I have seen videos online in which visitors to the US complain about how open and uninviting our restrooms are. They should be the greatest equalizer in our world, rather than a divisive issue.

  So the next time I visit my favorite hidden secret restroom, there may be somebody in there I might not be used to seeing.

  I’ll let you know if I still go in as usual.

   

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