Where I want to go

Hi kids.

This is where I want to go, really badly: Charleston, where the Bloomsbury Group used to go to chill out... (Virginia Woolf was one of the most famous members of the group). Unfortunately Charleston is in Sussex, England. So yeah the cool thing about this house is that Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted the furniture and walls... I have a small pamphlet with a few photos and it does look really nice.

If you want to live in the trees, this article at Supernaturale could help.

There was one more thing but it's gone. Flew out of my head.

Till later then.

The Locusts

Okay. December 15, the one you've all been eagerly anticipating, (no not "the Egyptian Woodstock" aka SOS again) but the 2nd Open Independent Art Exhibition in which you can participate by submitting your artistic pieces in any medium. You can contact me directly at ninethprotostar@yahoo.com if you need more information.

Further: I recently re-read this list to boost your creativity at getcrafty.com.

Finally: the following is an excerpt from an old nano that I did that is pretty unrelated to the rest of the story (i.e. should be enjoyed as a standalone piece).

I was in Cairo when the locusts came.

I went to the roof of the library, not that high, but still, you could see them up close there. They were so confused, you could tell. What had brought them here? They crawled around on the floor, seeking something familiar. Something to eat I guess. I knew there were the same locusts who brought famine to African villages. But here they were, and they seemed vulnerable, confused, lost.

They were large, exotic-looking. They weren’t’ your regular garden-variety brand locusts. They were reddish. Flying, you’d think them to be dragon flies.

I wondered, could they attack me? It seemed so classically Us versus Them, yet here they were, fi halhom. Ignoring me pretty much.

A man came by, crushing a locust with his foot on purpose, then took it with him into the building, carrying it in his hand. Is this when, how the enmity would begin? Would the other locusts see and vow revenge on that man, his family, his kind?

I wanted to tell him not to do it, it seemed so mean, but even though I flinched when he did it, I said nothing. I chose to remain silent, and so what did that mean?

A girl came on the roof, not really wanting to be there, you could tell.

They were quietly, silently threatening. I thought of something my boyfriend had told me about the other day: the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I was sure in fact that very soon I would hear people talking about how this was a sign of the end of days.

They were little aliens. Maybe they weren’t lost and confused. Maybe they were surveying the landscape, playing out their next move in their heads. Maybe they understood FOL. If x then y. If and only if z, q.

It walked towards me, its face incapable of ever expressing any emotions I would be able to interpret. Its antennas were poised; did it need them to fight, to attack, to charge?

What were they doing, what did they want?

Could a sudden movement on my part trigger a response? A sneeze, perhaps?

The walking are, walking in circles on the tiled floor. It tried to flap its wings, presumably in order to fly, but it remained on the ground. Maybe it didn’t want to fly though. Maybe it was testing, it had an elaborate complex formula in its head, computing how wind resistance would impact its flying speed.

Individually, they looked almost pretty, fluttering around endearingly, like an innocuous butterfly.

In the sky, they could be mistaken for a new manifestation of pollution enveloping the Caironese atmosphere. Little black moving specks. But no, closer observation revealed the specks to be alive, enabled me to observe they were in fact a swarm of locusts.

The same man, an impromptu, perhaps self-appointed groundskeeper came back, still bent on eradaicating every locust wandering about in the vicinity of the roof. Now he was armed with a broom, using it to attack locusts with the brush side then sweeping them into a corner.

It raised so many questions.

Of course, I wanted a relevant expert to explain this phenomenon. My driver said he estimated it’d been approximately twenty or so years since they’d last graced the skies of Egypt with their presence. So it had happened before.

A chill came over, a cold wind, could this too be attributed to them?

And maybe there was nothing sinister. They had their ends, we ours. Was I supposed to side with “my kind,” the farmers and fellahin who would most likely come to great harm as a result of the locusts eating their crops?

The man had succeeded in eliminating the locusts accessible to him for the time being.

I returned to my plebian task of reading Heidegger, wondering slightly what he would make of such a situation.

Long Distance Tripping

Hey kids.

So. Now, yes, this is a common long-distance traveling sight. But don't treat it as such. Think what it might be, instead of just another communication tower. Look at it aesthetically, like someone created it with artistic intent. I kept tripping out on them on my long-distance ride back yesterday.

New interesting links courtesy of 52 Projects:

• AEzine/Life Artist Newsletter. I skimmed through the first issue and it looks promising.
  
• JPG Magazine: Upload your photos, send them in under certain titles like "Intimacy" or "Loneliness" and possibly get them published. Plus vote on other people's pictures (and maybe help them get published).

Still Nanoing but that's not going too great.

Souk el Gom3a Treasure

High Speed Car Chase

I forgot to add yesterday that I found the knuckle tattoos website featured at 52 projects. You can read more about the project here. Nathan Black, who created the project, explains why he started it.

And this is old news, but this article at BBC finally gave me a proper explanation of what happened downtown in Eid.

Reading: I am actually reading again. The reading fast is over, thank God. It was very beneficial (and so recommended) but also highly irritating. So I'm reading officially now The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (a novel). Pretty nice so far but haven't gotten very far.

I was going to say I wish I had more exciting things to say, but I realize I do: I witnessed briefly a real high speed car chase while driving home tonight that looked really really dangerous. Very don't try this at home, kids. Who knows what was going on, but this guy was driving like a maniac (not stopping at all while driving at a very high speed through an intersection), followed by another car backing up quickly, stopping to pick up a passenger, then driving back down super fast. It sounds boring but it was exciting I swear! Oh well you had to be there; I was in awe.

f(x)=1/x

Check it out: A site that collects photos of knuckle tattoos with accompanying stories. I love it. This is my favorite tattoo so far.

keri smith asks: Who would you be if you stopped trying so hard? I think there's a lot of fear associated with both trying and not trying.

Nano is going well (well it is going, which is my intention for it, not necessarily for it to go well. So in that it is going it is going well).

Oh and if anyone is keeping track (or not) I did eventually find both my glasses and the dog. Both were fine.

Art Journaling Pix

Hey. It's day 3 of Nano if you are keeping track and/or participating.

I am participating like I said I would and so far it is going not bad at all.

Ok kids. Please note the first one with the pencil features embroidered red thread, the second is my altered journal cover (crocheted circles), and then finally just stamps flowers and rope. Easy.

Take care kids. Tell your mother you love them if you feel so inclined. Just thought I should tell you that. In case you needed me to tell you which would be kind of odd.