Thoughts of today

I am a gigantic believer in the idea that our past experiences, our past lives, and the things we have learned along the way have made what we are as people today.  I think some people may disagree with me on this, but I really in the depths of my soul know beyond a doubt that without our pasts we are nothing.

I am not talking about living in the past, or not accepting ad embracing what we have currently.  What I am saying is we can not forget where we come from, and what we are made of.  It can be a wonderful experience, it can be happiness and rainbows but it also be very painful and be a real big stinking bitch as well.

Today would have been my 18th wedding anniversary to Ron, and I know many of you would say "Charlie, you have Jim, embrace what you have" and I can accept that and I understand where you are coming from but my thought today is without that meeting, and without that 10 year relationship I would not even be here today.

When I met Ron, my doctor said I had a year or less to live.  I was very ill, I weighed a mere 128 pounds and kids a size 27 inch waist on me was scary as hell.  I changed my diet almost the minute I moved in with Ron.  I added alternative therapies to my life.  I changed doctors, changed my medications and for the second time in my life went into rehab.  My drug of choice up until that point was painkillers and vodka.  I was a mess, and I frankly if I have to be honest didn't give a shit.

We lived together a year before we had our commitment ceremony. Even though it was over 100 degrees that day and I was in the hospital emergency room with kidney stones that week, that day all these years later is still as vivid in my mind as if it were yesterday.  It wasn't easy trying to find who I was living with AIDS then.  Frankly it wasn't so much about living with AIDS as it was in my mind, "I am dying from AIDS".  I literally thought it would or could happen at any moment.  Emotionally I think I was worse than I was physically and somehow, someway Ron saw past all that and saw the person I could be.

We had our share of problems, he was a workaholic and I, well I was and in many ways still am co-dependant.  I wasn't happy if he wasn't happy.  I was a "stay at home wife" and was happy doing nothing more than that.  We entertained quiet a bit all those years and we could have those long, meaningful talks that lasted for hours that frankly I miss the most.  I have been hard pressed to find that kind of openness since then.

He was so handsome at the end of the aisle that day, his smile so big as he stomped on the wine glass as our friends cheered Mazel Tov.  We laughed so much that day, its the big thing I remember all these years later.  Unfortunately a lot of those friendships didn't last, some moved away, some moved one, some even died-- I don't think other than my family there is anyone in my life right now that was there that day.  That hurts beyond words and it makes my heart heavy.

It was 7 months short of our 10th anniversary when he died, and it wasn't just losing a partner it was literally losing my very best friend.  He knew me inside and out, he knew things no one else has ever known about me since.  When he died we were the type of couple that could and often did complete each others sentences.  The bottom fell out and watching him literally wither away before my eyes.  I can not begin to describe the kind of pain that leaves on your soul.  The man you share a life with dying weighing only 95 pounds and not being able to communicate in any way the last 6 days of his life.

Somehow life goes on, how I am still trying to figure out.  I never want to forget where I have been, what it has made out of me and how very much I cherish what I have now.  Jim thinks I cling to much to this kind of thinking as wellas to the past and that I miss what is right in front of me.  I tend to think it enriches it.

Would I do it all over again knowing exactly what I know now---without a doubt yes!  People cross our lives and they leave if we are lucky their imprints in our lives and I was and am deeply blessed for those who have touched my life.  Happy Anniversary---------------

Tony Awards：La Cage Aux Folles " We Are What We Are " I am What I Am "

First Lady Prasies Fashion Designers

From a gay news website I read-----

WASHINGTON (AP) - Michelle Obama used this year’s luncheon for the National Design Award winners to sing the praises of those who push boundaries - or outright ignore them.
With cool jazz playing in the White House foyer and lobster carpaccio on the East Room tables, the first lady celebrated the award winners Wednesday as "folks whose work has literally changed the way we look at the world and how we live our daily lives."
Mrs. Obama got a big laugh when she told the luncheon guests: "All of you have spent your lives pushing boundaries - we know a little bit about pushing boundaries - or just outright ignoring them altogether."
And she got a special kick out of being seated for lunch next to Tim Gunn from "Project Runway."  "How cool!" she declared.
The award winners included Rodarte, a sister-team of fashion designers whose creations the first lady has worn on several occasions in recent years. But for Wednesday’s luncheon, the first lady chose a hot pink outfit by Isabel Toledo with a V-neck top, drapes of fabric at the waist and loose flowing pants.
The awards are presented by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.
Mrs. Obama called the winners "some of our country’s most talented, most visionary, most public-minded designers."
The winners have been honored at the White House each year since 2000, but Mrs. Obama has changed the dynamic by trying to involve the next generation of creators and innovators. Before the luncheon, design winners and finalists met with more than 400 local high school students at a "Teen Design Fair," where the young people could find out how the design superstars - and Gunn - got their start.
"You guys did something amazing," Mrs. Obama said of the teen event. "You really raised the bar."
"Far too few young people in this country have access to programs and opportunities like the one we did today," she said. "Even those who live just minutes from our great museums and cultural centers may feel like these resources are beyond their reach."
Guests dined on farm stand green salad, gazpacho filled with bounty from the first lady’s kitchen garden, Maine lobster carpaccio and chocolate sphere cake. Each guest found a plastic ViewMaster at their seat loaded with slides of the design winners’ creations.

Comedienne Christine Pedi goes Gaga

One of the blogs I read had this incredible Youtube video and we all know how much I love Lady Gaga, but this version is just to hysterical.  You're gonna need a pair of gayer glasses than those to see this correctly. We'll wait..

According to her website, Christine Pedi is a woman of "a thousand vices. Or voices. Or something." That pretty much sums up the delight that is Christine Pedi--a master-of-impressions, musical-theater-geek, and one can assume, fag hag (slang for best friend to gay boys everywhere) extraordinaire. Check out her latest video, a version Lady Gaga's "Telephone" if Gaga was Liza Minnelli, Beyonce was Carol Channing, and Joan Rivers was in there on set for no good reason, other than the BEST reason, which is that she's Joan Rivers. Also, nice Don't Tell Mama plug--the piano bar of all piano bars!

Edge Interview with Gregory Maguire

One of the gay websites I read had this incredible interview with Gregory Maguireand I had to share with all of you, my faithful readers.  Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Grimm, Company One’s latest production, brings to life seven stories from the early 19th century fairy tales collections by the famous German brothers and does so with a difference. Instead of being literal renderings these stories are re-imagined by some of Boston’s best-known playwrights: Melinda Lopez (Sonia Flew), Lydia R. Diamond (Stick Fly, Voyeurs De Venus), Kirsten Greenidge (The Luck Of The Irish), Marcus Gardley (Dance Of The Holy Ghosts), John Kuntz (Salt Girl), and John Adekoje (6 Rounds/6 Lessons).
But by far the contributor with the biggest marquee value isn’t a playwright at all: novelist Gregory Maguire is best-known as the author of Wicked and a number of other fictional works in which he re-imagines classic children’s stories. Wicked is, of course, a reworking of The Wizard of Oz, offering the Wicked Witch of the West’s side of the story. As popular as the novel was, what has made the property a household name is its musical version, which is already one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. In its seventh year on Broadway, it is still one of the highest weekly grosser, and has repeated that success in London, as well as in major American cities where sit-down and touring productions continue to break house records. (The musical returns to Boston’s Opera House on September 1, 2010 for a six-week run.)
For Grimm, Maguire took Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and imagines what happened after the story’s heroine left with Prince Charming. Called The Seven Stage a Comeback, it follows their quest to be reunited with her. What makes Maguire’s contribution different from the other plays in Grimm is that it is used as a framing device with scenes dispersed between the others. Another difference is that unlike the other contributors, Maguire hasn’t written a play since he was 8 years old when he provided Sunday night entertainments for his eight brothers and sisters. EDGE spoke with Maguire recently (just as he was to depart to Paris on a vacation) about writing for the stage, his fascination with fairy stories and if Wicked influenced his writing for the stage.


Guilty pleasures:

EDGE: Did fairy tales capture your imagination as a child and if so which one(s) in particular?
Gregory Maguire: Since my mother died in childbirth and I was raised by a stepmother (who was anything but wicked) the tropes of fairy tales, which almost always begin that way, had special fascination for me from childhood. I still read them in middle school, though when I took the books from the library I sandwiched them between searing problem novels from the YA section so no one would see my guilty appetite for stories that had both magic and moral consequence in their bones.
EDGE: You impressed me with your sensitivity when you came to The Park School in Brookline to talk to 7th and 8th graders about writing and brought a sample of your writing from that age (rather than something you were currently working on). How do encounters with children inform your writing?
Gregory Maguire: Well, I don’t do the school visits anymore, and frankly I talked so much and so fast (as you may remember) that I rarely gave the children time to land a comment. However yours is a good question and one of the reasons I did it was to witness the light that emanates from children as they listen, as they believe and consider or even doubt what they are being told. That light is nutritious and life-repairing. Even if you’re not old and jaded and struggling with that pin in your hip, you can enjoy and even cherish the fresh appreciation for life that children come to naturally, and be restored in your own appreciation by their example. So what I took from them was not anything related to story particularly but related to life itself. And some would argue you can only care about story if you care about life, deeply. Though it sounds rather banal to put it down on the computer screen like that. (I specialize in early morning banality.)

A shy boy:
EDGE: How did you get involved with Company One which is staging The Seven Stage a Comeback?
Gregory Maguire: Liana Thompson, literary director, got hold of me somehow and invited me to contribute. I am deep in deadlines and ought to have said no, and did say no, but then I remembered I had written a short story about 10 years ago in sort of 18th century high classical verse style, a la Alexander Pope. I dug it up and rendered it more colloquial, in some places, and they thought it would do.
EDGE: Did your experience with the dramatization of Wicked influence you to write for the stage?
Gregory Maguire: Well, I am a shy boy who never dances unless he is asked. So although I had wanted to write for the stage ever since Wicked hit Broadway, I hadn’t found the time or inclination. But once asked, I couldn’t have been happier to try my hand at it. I would like to try it again, too.
EDGE: Why of all the Grimm fairy tale characters did you choose Snow White or is the Disney movie your take off point?
Gregory Maguire: While I loved the Disney movie as a kid, the various versions of Snow White that predate even the famous Grimm version, which is the one we know best, are darker and more mysterious. There is an Italian version, perhaps from Il Pentamarone (I’m not sure that’s the correct spelling but I can’t find it on a quick search in my library and can’t keep hunting) in which the seven helpers aren’t dwarves but seven robbers. Outlaws, outcasts, not much difference, eh? So I tried to concentrate on the ways in which the seven dwarves would have to be alike, and united (unlike in Disney, where they have names) and the ways in which they might be differentiated--really, morally, developmentally differentiated, not just with a single attribute, like a tendency to sneeze, but a deeper identity that might keep them from working in concert for--or against--the ambitions of Snow White herself.
EDGE: Revisiting fairy tales, what surprised you the most about them?
Gregory Maguire: Well, my dear, I have never left them, so I can’t say I have been revisiting them.
EDGE: Writing plays you write in real time. Was this a difficult transition for your from novels?
Gregory Maguire: I just finished a novel that has 220,000 words--that is about half the length of Gone With The Wind. So writing a play is truly an exercise in verbal dieting--and it is an exercise that is very good for me to do. I do tend to go on (and I like to read long books too). But one should be able to be brief when required, and playwriting is a necessary corrective to prolixity.
EDGE: What was it like for you seeing "The Seven Stage a Comeback?"
Gregory Maguire: I saw it yesterday for the first and only time, as we leave for vacation today. I confess I had tears in my eyes at the end--good tears, not "oh my gosh it’s so @(&*’ed up" tears. The players lent a kind of vigor to the story arc by their physicality, which was just as important to the story (I saw to my astonishment) as anything that they said or did. The staging made use of every inch of a modest space; it was nothing short of magnificent. I have never felt the story of a journey told more convincingly in a theater, ever.
EDGE: Were you surprised by the phenomenal success of Wicked?"
Gregory Maguire: Well, duh. No, let me rewrite that--I don’t mean to be impolite. What I mean to say is that no one goes into the arts expecting to make money or to be noticed. I mean, one dreams of it, of course (like the Elaine character in Seinfeld dreaming of meeting John Kennedy Jr.) but one can dream a lot of things that are not going to put mustard on the meat loaf. What has happened with Wicked, in its essence, is that my own rather old-fashioned preoccupation with the childhood question: "can I be good--can I do good--and does it matter if I do or not?" was somehow a deeper question that resonated, once I put it in narrative terms, with a whole subset of the culture. I can’t be happier--and yes, I was completely surprised. Previously my readership had been confined exclusively to a small set of cousins from the upper Hudson River valley.
EDGE: Are you involved in the planned for film version?
Gregory Maguire: I have elected to take a distant seat in those proceedings, which is good for my inflatable ego, good for my family, and good for the work that I really need to do--which is write. But I will be involved courteously, I imagine, and no doubt will visit the set and perhaps be allowed to have a walk-on role as a disagreeable Munchkin dentist or someone.
EDGE: Do you have a favorite Grimm fairy tale and why?
Gregory Maguire: My favorite is always the next one I want to think about, and that next one may be Rapunzel. I’m not sure. The story called "The Juniper Tree" is both classic Greek tragedy and Bergman Nordic psychodrama and, depending on how I am feeling, reading it again can make me either want to go back to writing with a new vengeance or ring the Suicide Hotline for help.
EDGE: Is your play suitable for children?
Gregory Maguire: Yes, though I think one or two of the other plays in GRIMM are a bit raw for children.
Grimm continues through August 14 in the Roberts Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont st., Boston’s South End. For more info go to www.companyone.org

Finally a break in the heat

Well for us last night we had a rather nice rainfall, and this morning we had over cast skies and rain off and on. Over all it caused part if the day to be only in the mid 70's area. A very nice break from mid 90's. As I have said before the heat has made it hard on me the last 2 weeks or so and very little "work" has gotten done which has me somewhat depressed and really overwhelmed.

I don't like being behind and right now I am in my "work" schedule and with the start off school only least than a month away, like I said I am a little overwhelmed. My ultimate goal, to get all my back work done including this drawing I have had on my drawing table now for almost a year.

Either way I think this next week, heat or no heat I am just going to have to do it as Nike advertises. A lot of the work I will get paid for and the extra money would be nice. Like I said I am just going to have to dive in.

Been very seriously thinking about a minor in my education and I am really leaning towards a minor in writing. Like I said a year ago now, I really feel like I have something major to say I just have to figure out what. Wonder what all of you think about a minor in writing? Well until next time, I am so glad we had this time together.

Two movie day

Well I know I didn't post yesterday but the heat really had me down.  Thursday nights if you are in the Massillion area you need to do there free concert's they have during the summer. This last Thursday was our very first one and it won't be our last.  They had an Elvis impersonator who happened to be very good, who performed for two and half hours.  Next week is this Frank Sinatra impersonator.  Show starts at 7:30

Today my brother and nephew were out and we did a double feature at the movies today.  First we saw "Despicable Me", which I have to say I now know what my problem is I don't have minions.  My very own throng of cheering, adoring masses who worship me .  I need to fix that and soon.

After that we saw "Toy Story 3" and we saw it in 3D, which for me was my very first time seeing a 3D movie.  Oh my gosh I just loved it the whole 3D thing and the storyline had me in tears most of the time, I guess I am a sucker for sappy stories.  I do have to say I loved the whole Ken character though and my favorite scene was when he was tied up to the paddle part of a paddle ball. Barbie, who knew you were so kinky.  Besides with it near 100 today it was nice being in an air conditioned theatre, although I never want to see a tub of popcorn again.

There is this new feature with blogger that lets you know exactly a slew of details about where people are reading from and what not and I was surprised literally as far away as Chile, reading little ole me.  Hopefully readership picks up and right now my most hits was about FormSpring, but very few have asked questions.

Right now it seems an even mix of people reading about Oz and fashion so I will keep it that way.  I would really love hearing what you would like to read, what you would like to see here, what makes you come back.  Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.

Just because of the heat

It's been rather hard on me here the last few days with the heat.  For some reason this year I have been more affected by the high heat/humidty than ever before....so with that in mind maybe this will make me and you a little cooler for a while.

Until next time, I am so glad we had this time together.

Givenchy transgender ads and stories

I try very hard to try not to be  "to gay" for my readers, that there is more to me and my thinking and my life than my sexual prefernce.  With that said there are times that I feel when the right story comes along, that story needs to be told.  G-d bless Givenchy for what they are doing with the transgender/sexually ambigious ads, in my opinion its about time somebody does!  I love the ads and love Givenchy and Riccardo Tisci for doing it.

Fashion is so very often criticized for its non-inclusive nature, especially when it comes to models who walk the runway. They are so often one type: white and impossibly skinny. So much so that the modeling arena is bashed and very often for promoting unattainable ideals to women.  Though plus-size and non-white models may be getting more exposure lately, Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci calls attention to another group of society oft overlooked by fashion with his current fall campaign, in which he cast his longtime transgender personal assistant Lea T. Lea T. used to be "Leo" and is transitioning careers into veterinary medicine.
She appears alongside nine other models in the ad campaign.  WWD reports:
“She’s always been very feminine: superfragile, very aristocratic,” Tisci enthused of the former Mr. T. “She’s part of the family,” he said... Tisci explained that including a transgender person exemplifies the masculine-feminine dichotomy that has become one of his design signatures and follows co-ed casting for his Paris runway last March.

Progress that the masses weren't even clamoring for! Progress I am sure that many will have much to say something about, including but not limited to radicals on both sides of the fence. However, Tisci is not the first person to embrace transgender models. Tyra Banks made a public show of it for a brief period, casting a transgender model for America's Next Top Model and then gifting gender-reassignment surgery on her talk show. If only that stuff had seemed more organic.

 The very current Fall's Givenchy campaign was made all the more buzzworthy when designer Riccardo Tisci cast his transgender personal assistant, Lea T., to appear in the ads alongside nine other models, and of all ten faces, French Vogue chose to highlight her with a nude portrait that appears in next month's issue (August Issue).
 
Prior to this shot breaking, Lea T. modeled in Givenchy's haute couture show this month and posed, privates covered, for last month's (June Issue) Italian Vanity Fair.  By the way if one of my readers has the Italian Vanity Fair Issue I am speaking of I would love to have it and would be MORE than willing to pay for it!
 
Below for those interested in seeing the story, be forewarned there is female upper nudity (exposed breasts) and her "lower" is partially covered with her hand.  So the photograph is not for everyone.

The Gnome King of Oz

I bought "THE GNOME KING OF OZ" as part of my three book buy at Hartville Flea Market a few weeks ago, and my edition is a First Edition copy with all of the original color plates in it.  I finally read through it with a huge amount of joy at reading a whole new Oz story.   Which is almost as good as a new season of "Project Runway .

Besides it gave me something to do in the only air conditioned room in the house the bedroom during the day as the heat has been making me very queazy to my stomach most of the time.  The bedroom has a window air conditioner in it

It is in my personal opinion a VERY worthy addition to the Oz canon, THE GNOME KING OF OZ is a little for me a HUGE hit. The basic story revolves around Scraps, the Patchwork Girl---who by the way I adore, the Gnome King, and another of Thompson's very generic boy heroes, this one from her own Philadelphia named Peter Brown. who is not one of my favorite American visitors to Oz, but does have a well-developed personality.

The story picks up as a sort of sequel to KABUMPO IN OZ, at the end of which the Gnome King is banished to the Lonely Isle/Runaway Island as it is referred to both during the book. Ruggedo is back, with yet another attempt to conquer the Land of Oz. As usual, Thompson does a good job with this character, making him a threatening yet childish and humorous villain.

Scraps has been kidnapped by the Quilties of Patch, in the  Winkie Country and made their Queen as the old one (get ready for the bad pun)---fell to pieces.  Scraps who is than forced to slave away in the castle of Patch for fear of the Scissorbird, which is a new character in the book.. This is because in a reverse role on royalty by Thompson, the Queen has to do all the work. Which I thought was very clever and Scraps crown is a sewing basket on her head. 

Peter, the boy from Philadelphia, buys a balloon which turns out to be a balloon bird and flies off over the Nonestic Ocean, ending up on Ruggedo's island much to Peter's later horror. The two of them get across the Deadly Desert in a Sunken pirate ship when the ocean literally turns over--- bottom becomes top.  Along the way Peter realizes the Gnome King is not the greatest guy and just wants to get to Oz so he can go home much like Dorothy did..  Soon they meet the Oztrich and his little egg and go to Tune Town where Queen Jazzma is very kind.

The story is for me very interesting, and some great new characters are introducted, such as Wumbo the Wonder Worker, Kuma Party, and Ozwold the oztrich. But other elements fall a bit flat. The undeveloped  bear Grumpy only bumbles along with Scraps on her adventures, and Peter doesn't grow very much as a character at all until near the very end.

The Patchwork Girl and Peter eventually escape from Patch, another one of the tiny kingdoms scattered throughout Oz (and the second to emphasize sewing).

After the escape from Patch, the timing suffers somewhat, with Peter and Scraps, along with the less interesting Grumpy the bear and Ozwold the oztrich, visiting the irrelevant villages that appear in most Oz books.  I want to leave you wondering if Peter makes it to Oz? Does he or some else stop the Gnome King?  Does Peter make it back to Philadelphia?  Well go borrow the book or find it in newer printings I believe at Hungry Tiger Press.

For me the story as a whole was thrilling, the cleverness witht he whole Patch "town" had me glued to my book maybe its the fashion designer in me.  Well until next time, I am so glad we had this time together.

NEW SEASON Project Runway!

If you read this blog regularly, and if you know me real well, You know three things I LOVE Judy Garland, I adore the Wizard of Oz and I am just crazy when it comes to Project Runway.  It maybe the clothes, it maybe the deisgners or those creative challenges, it maybe cutie patootie, make my knees weak and cause me to swoon Tim Gunn, it maybe the glamorous and ever chic uber FIERCE Heidi Klum but golly I love this show.  One of two thing I never miss on TV.

I guess I let the cat of the bag, that I have a secret crush on Gunn but golly is he adorable or what!?  I mean handsome, smart, educated, well versed, well dressed, into fashion in an enormous way--what wouldn't you love   OK I know enough gushing, after all I have Jim.

It is a New Season. New Time.

The Emmy Award-nominated series "Project Runway" kicks off its eighth season with 17 talented designers - the most in the series' history - beginning Thursday, July 29, at 9 pm et/pt. Supersized to a new 90-minute format, "Runway" will follow the designers as they compete to make the cut to show at New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center. Get to know the newest designers now with exclusive video tours of their homes, a peek into their closets, casting tapes and much more. Flip through their personal photos and Designer Portfolios for a look at the past work that earned them a spot on the show over hundreds of other hopefuls across the country. Meet the 17 new designers right away.

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/project-runway

What makes this season right now extra nice is that there is a contestant from Cleveland, Ohio!  To bad it ain't yours truely but hey there is always next year.  Anyway it should prove to be a great season and who knows I may even do show recap posts with my point of view thrown in.

More 19th Anniversary thougths.......

I guess I am just a thinking mood here the last few days, maybe it is the not being in school that has prompted all this thinking in the first place. I don't feel much different today 19 years later and I guess I expected to. Somehow older, wiser, more focused, more in tune to myself. G-d did I get that all wrong.

I have gotten over the fact that nobody remembers this day but me, after all this day nineteen years only changed everything for me. No one else was changed forever. Its true. Maybe its time for today to become just another day, no more milestones although 20 years livig with AIDS for some reason sounds much better than 19 years . I know goofy as all hell.

I was 25 years old then and I am still all this time later trying to find myself. I read this book quite sometime ago and I find the quotes still relevant today---

"Were AIDS a disease which one contracted, brought death within forty-eight hours of exposure, it would be a far more easily avoided illness-but because it is not, because it is invisible, unknown, for such a long period of time, because it is something people got before they even knew it existed (with each passing year, the time gets longer), the Fear of AIDS is limitless....There's a memory--of an evening, an incident--to justify every fear. And nothing exists that will guarantee the fearful that even if they are functioning now they will not get caught in the future".
 "Looking at some of the guests I can tell which ones are celibate; which ones are having less, more cautious sex; and which ones are going right on with the old ways. It has nothing to do with one's degree of personal exposure to the dying; it has to do with temperament, with the way different minds respond to the same facts. We face each other, after all, over freshly dug graves. There are ghosts among us. We are the actresses who meet in the ruined theater in Follies. We're the tourists who have been admited to an exhibit of our own former lives".

These quotes are from "Chronicle Of A Plague Revisted: AIDS and It's Aftermath" by Andrew Holleran and for me this year I guess I am more aware than ever of the ghosts among us.  Those that we loved who are no longer gone.  I may have said this before but when Ron died now almost eight years ago I stopped counting those who died of AIDS.  Ron was number 600, unbelieveable isn't it.  Today all those years ago changed everything I ever knew and changed forever who I am.  Many ways I am grateful, in some ways I am not.  It just is.  Better or worse for the time being AIDS is going no where and by G-d neither am I.  I have fought this long what the hell is another twenty years?

Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together. Ok fair warning this Lady Gaga spoof is a little much with the "blue language", some erotic themes, near nudity and someover all offensive themes THIS VIDEO IS NOT FOR EVERYONE! But I thought it clever, funny as all get out, So if its your cup of tea enjoy!

19 years later.............

Sorry for not posting yesterday but it was what I call my Fibro crash day where all I wanted to do and did was sleep.  Not so good for keeping my boysih figure, that I am deperately trying to regain but hey I guess if you need to sleep, you need to sleep.  The way I view myself since the hospital has been a really huge issue for me, and frankly I am not crazy about everything I see in the mirror.

Well as of tomorrow at 9:45 a.m.I will be celebrating 19 years living with AIDS.  In my minds eye, quite the milestone, somehow.  So much has changed in those long years, so many more medications, so much more acceptance and understanding of the disease, much longer life spans to name just a few.

With pneumonia just almost two weeks ago, I guess I am in a place where I have been giving a lot of thought to what the last nineteen years have been. Where I am trying to go now and what things are like this very moment.  There is some sadness to this thinking. I think one of the biggest was that while on my way home from the doctors office for my post-hospital follow up. I noticed that the only North East Ohio AIDS Hospice was closed and the building is for sale. I was one of the early volunteers, one of the original donators to help get it moving and now it is all over.  Where now does someone with no where to go, go?  Those memories are still alive and very real but the place is gone.

My health is recovering and I am left wondering exactly what am I going to be able to accomplish, even finishing school with a degree?  Somehow it doesn't seem like a possible goal, somehow I can not see that far ahead, somehow I don't see is it going to make huge changes in my life.  I know depressing but it is the truth.  Do I want to stay in school of course I do, do I want a degree, more than life itself.  Do I want to be more than what I am now, well yeah I do it is why I am in school in the first place.  But is it really going to happen?

I don't want anything in my way, including me.  I just want to somehow secure a future that is in all reality is mine and that in itself is the biggerst change in nineteen years.  Plain and simple, HOPE!  All those years ago the only hope was two years at the most and here I am with the real hope of twenty more years.  I have never had that kind of hope, but with hope comes planning.  Or at least for me it does, how am I going to live and on what?  Where does that what come from?  I actually opened a savings account to try to plan more for the future.  Thrive, and do I want to do what I am doing right now?  The answer to that is mixed. Some of what I am doing now yes, some absolutely not!

Nineteen years later and I am still trying to find out who I really am, what I really want, where do I really want to be and is any of who I was all those years ago still relevant?  Well until next time I am glad we had this time together.

Christian Dior - Haute Couture Fall Winter 2010/2011 Full Show Part 2

Christian Dior - Haute Couture Fall Winter 2010/2011 Full Show Part 1

Sorry about the lack of posts

I know three days and no posts but this last weekend was the Canton Light Opera's production of the  1902 Wizard Of Oz musical.  It also meant all of these Oz friends in from all over the country including the state of Washingotn and Toronto to name just a few.  Some of the faces were new to me, meeting them for the very first time which was so exciting and some people I have met before.  It was dinners out, Putt Putt Golf, the play, the pre-talk and pre-concert concert.  So much to do and thank heavens it was this weekend and not last week.  If it had I am not sure I would have up to all of it.

Throw in that this weekend was Canal Days this big carnival just 2 blocks from the house that screws traffic up something horrible.  By Sunday night I was exhausted, but I had so much fun and so many new friends.

As far as the pre-concert it was songs originally in the 1900's preformances that at some point were cut from the show.  In total that night was like 9- 10 songs which were accompained by piano and violin.  This troupe is all volunteers, evertbody including the musicians.  The one problem I had was the sound, it just wasn' quiet up to snuff so it was hard at times to actually hear the words that were being sung, which was unfortunate.

The actual night of the whole production it was some of the same problem with the sound but in honesty I LOVED it--every second of it!  So thank you Joe Rubin (Executive Director) and the performers of the production for such a wonderful evening.  I want to thank Joe Shipbaugh for the photograph of the cast on the stage as stupid me forgot my camera.

3 Days of over 90 DEGREES!!!

Yellow Knight of Oz

Well over the 4th of July weekend we went to the Hartville Flea Market and while I was only able to walk 4 aisles I found one of the best finds ever!  Three Old Oz books, one of which is a FIRST Edition!  Rarer still was all 3 books for $50!!! Unthinkable!  So the first of the three that I have finished was "The Yellow Knight of Oz" by Ruth Plumly Thompson and my editionis a later "White Edition" with no color plates.  I found the following review onlineabou the book, hoping it would encourage to read it as well.

“I must have mud and you must have adventure. Oh why,” wailed Ploppa, with a smothered sob, “cannot people who like each other like the same things?”
In The Yellow Knight of Oz, Ruth Plumly Thompson produced one of her most jumbled, yet most delightful, books, a mix of mud, Arthurian knights, irritated underground dwellers, trees melting into people, and science fiction. The result should not make any sense, and yet it does, creating an often moving tale of how, even in the best and most magical of fairylands, you may not always get the life you wished for.

The story begins in the Emerald City, where the gentle Sir Hokus is troubled. Not because, as you might be thinking, he has finally realized that no matter how many times her country is threatened or outright invaded, Ozma will never set up a security system or even the simplest of defense plans, but because he has never, in his entire and near endless life, completed a quest. He decides to go on one, despite not knowing what he might be questing for. The girls of the Emerald City are delighted at the thought—they regard it as sort of a picnic—and scoff at any suggestion that they should be working on embroidery instead:
“How stuffy!” sniffed Bettsy Bobbin, sliding carefully into his lap, which his armor made rather hard and uncomfortable. “How old-fashioned. Now don’t be quaint! What fun is it watching from a tower? And this embroidery and so on that you talk about ruins the eyes, and you know it!

Despite this speech, Sir Hokus evades his friends, striking out across Oz on his own. Meanwhile, a young boy from Long Island, called Speedy, is heading to Oz—via rocket. Rocket!
If this seems like transportation overkill, I should note that the rocket was originally heading to Mars. Oz, Mars—it’s an understandable mistake. I draw attention to this minor plot point because a) in a long line of horrific storms, shipwrecks, whirlpools, strange balloons, chants and wishes, this is the first time, as far as I know, that anyone has taken a rocket to Oz, and b) this may be the ultimate coolest way to get to Oz, ever, and c) this was, hands down, my favorite scene from the Thompson books ever when I was a kid, not so much because of any literary qualities or humor or anything but just because, rockets! Oz! Geekdoms united at last. And even now I confess to a fondness for the idea of reaching worlds of pure fantasy by rocketship.
I think I need a moment. There.
It’s not at all clear how the rocket was expected to reach Mars, much less in the suggested day and a half. Thompson speeds past any physics and probability issues right into the real—well, ok, fantastic problems faced by the Subterraneans, who have just had Speedy’s rocket crash into them. They are not too happy about this, and Speedy barely manages to escape to the surface with part of the rocket and a lovely maiden named Marygolden. Marygolden is quite happy to have an adventure, and quite unaware of any gender problems that might hold her back—although Speedy thinks of a few.
Soon enough the two of them meet up with Sir Hokus and the Comfortable Camel, in a lovely Arthurian setting complete with enchanted knights, towers, quests and a jester named Peter Pan apparently on leave from a Howard Pyle book. Or I should say, a mostly Arthurian setting. Several knights adamantly—and quite sensibly—refuse to be brave, in a scene that could easily squeeze into a Monty Python sketch. And Thompson does not quite give the expected ending here. For although Speedy saves two kingdoms, rescues a princess, taught her about the world and gained her friendship, and even learned to rethink his thoughts about girls, in the end, and against all expectations, he does not get the girl. Instead, Speedy watches Marygolden walk away with Sir Hokus, now transformed into the handsome young prince Corum—a transformation and marriage that will take the knight away from his expected, and delightful, life in the Emerald City. (If you ignore the nearly endless invasions, that is.)

I should note that not all of the later Royal Historians of Oz approved of this change: John R. Neill, Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren McGraw all chose to ignore it. But in the context of this book, it works beautifully—not merely because the knight who began with disapproving of the very idea of girls having adventures ends up professing his love for a girl who likes them very much. But also because Marygolden’s marriage works within the book’s themes of friendship, desire, and shared interests. She and Speedy may like each other, but they do not like the same things. Speedy belongs with Long Island and rockets; Marygolden belongs with Arthurian knights. (See, the rocket makes a bit more sense now.) It echoes a scene earlier in the book, when Ploppa, a turtle with a decided lust for mud, mourns that he cannot join Sir Hokus, who does not have any lust for mud.
I don’t know that I entirely agree that love, much less friendship, cannot survive when people do not like the same things, but I will certainly agree with Ploppa that sometimes people who like each other will not like the same things. And I can agree with Thompson that life, even in a fairyland, is not always fair, and not all relationships will go the way people hope they might. I had not expected to find this much realism in a book with rockets and knights and melting trees, but Thompson once again finds the unexpected in Oz.
In some justice to Ozma, my sense is that this last may be less of an Ozma fail, and more a reflection of Thompson’s own careless attitudes towards slavery, which I’ll be discussing in more depth later. Regardless, Ozma fails to end slavery in a kingdom she technically overrules.
Ozma does, I must admit, manage to recognize Prince Corum as the transformed Sir Hokus. And this time, when she needs guidance on the whole how to punish people again, it comes across more as a queen wishing to consult the injured parties, and less as a queen at a loss for what to do.

Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.

John Galliano Spring 2011

Ok it has been a few days posting anything fashion wise so here we go the best of the best (in my opinion) John Galliano who by the way also designs the Dior line.  There is not one single piece here that I am showing that I personally would not wear, this is how much I LOVE the stuff.  John hit the nail on the head with this one!  I especially love the Buster Keaton inspired straw hats and the one with the "veil" OH MY G-D can we talk abot adoring this!

On a personal note things have been really slow recovering wise.  The pains in my chest are about the same and between that and some painful breathing it has really screwed with my balance so for the time beingI am with a can, I guess my own fashion statement.  Two years ago it screwed with my balanceso bad I fell 13 times in 11 days.  Don't necessarily want to repeat that.

Ohio the last few days has had an unbearable heatwave with horrid humidity which of course makes my chest hurt even worse so my dad to day put in the bed room air conditioner which is where I sit tonight and blog from.  I have a ladies suit idea in my head I want to start in a few days and will post here once it is done.

In the mean time I am wondering if I should go back to more about talking about Oz?  Any thoughts any body?  Or should I try and run 2 blogs ?  Well until next time I am so glad we had this time together.

HAPPY 4th of July!

Kate Smith--Happy 4th of July Weekend

Racism in Fairyland: The Silver Princess in Oz

This is a review that I found online of a book I just finished reading.  Many of you who are familiar with this site know I use to talk only Oz all the time.  What I was reading, what I was collecting and what I had in my collection.  This was purchased right before I got ill on E-bay and was in my stack of books to read.  Well when sick, open a book. Personally I loved the book.

I tend to agree with the use of racism in this book and some unneeded horrors but this book was one of my more favorite ones, because it introduced new charactors, another whole new world that Ruth Thompson could have wrote about and a somewhat screwed up funny language that Plannety speaks.  If it had no racism in this book it would have

I wanted to fall in love with this book. Halfway through, I almost did fall in love with this book it would have been one of my top favorites so far and I have to agree the illustrations of "the slaves" was just to over the top.

I wanted to like this book.And then I read the rest of it.

The Silver Princess in Oz brings back some familiar characters—Randy, now king of Regalia, and Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant. Both are experiencing just a mild touch of cabin fever. Okay, perhaps more than a mild touch—Randy is about to go berserk from various court rituals and duties. The two decide to sneak out of the country to do a bit of traveling, forgetting just how uncomfortable this can be in Oz. Indeed, one of their first encounters, with people that really know how to take sleep and food seriously, almost buries them alive, although they are almost polite about it. Almost:

“No, no, certainly not. I don’t know when I’ve spent a more delightful evening,” Kabumpo said. “Being stuck full of arrows and then buried alive is such splendid entertainment.”

A convenient, if painful, storm takes them out of Oz and into the countries of Ix and Ev, where they meet up with Planetty and her silent, smoky, horse. Both of them, as they explain, are from Anuther Planet. (You may all take a moment to groan at the pun.)

The meeting with the metallic but lovely Planetty shows that Ruth Plumly Thompson probably could have done quite well with writing science fiction. Following L. Frank Baum’s example, she had introduced certain science fiction elements in her Oz books before, but she goes considerably further here, creating an entirely new and alien world. Anuther Planet, sketched in a few brief sentences, has a truly alien culture: its people are birthed full grown from springs of molten Vanadium, and, as Planetty explains, they have no parents, no families, no houses and no castles. In a further nice touch, Planetty’s culture uses very different words and concepts, so although she (somewhat inexplicably) speaks Ozish (i.e., English) it takes Randy and Kabumpo some time to understand her. And it takes Planetty some time to understand them and the world she has fallen into, although she finds it fascinating.

Despite voicing some more than dubious thoughts about marriage earlier in the book, Randy falls in love with Planetty almost instantly. But Planetty turns out to be Thompson’s one romantic heroine in no need of protection. Planetty is even more self-sufficient, and considerably more effective in a fight than Randy or Kabumpo (or, frankly, now that I think about it, the vast majority of Oz characters), able to stand on the back of a running, flaming horse while turning her enemies into statues. (She’s also, in an odd touch, called a born housewife, even though she’s never actually seen a house before, and I have no idea when she had the time to pick up that skill, but whatever.) Planetty’s warrior abilities and self-reliance only increase Randy’s love, and the result is one of the best, most realistic, yet sweetest romances in the Oz books.
All of it completely ruined by a gratuitous and, even for that era, inexcusably racist scene where the silvery white Planetty, mounted on her dark and flaming horse, mows down a group of screaming, terrified black slaves brandishing her silver staff. She merrily explains that doing this is no problem, since this is how bad beasts are treated in her home planet, so she is accustomed to this. (Her metaphor, not mine.) By the time she is finished, Planetty has transformed sixty slaves into unmoving metal statues. The rest of the slaves flee, crying in terror. Kabumpo makes a quiet vow to never offend Planetty, ever

Making the scene all the more appalling: the plot does not require these characters to be either black or slaves in the first place. True, keeping slaves might make the villain, Gludwig, seem more evil, but since Jinnicky, depicted as a good guy, also keeps black slaves, I don’t think Thompson intended the implication that slaveholders are evil. The transformed characters could easily be called “soldiers,” and be of any race whatsoever—literally of any race whatsoever, given that they are in the land of Ev, which is filled with non-human people. I’m not sure that the scene would be much better with that change, but it would at least be less racist.

But I don’t think the racism is particularly accidental here. As we learn, this is a slave revolt, with a black leader, one firmly quelled by white leaders. (Not helping: the black leader, Gludwig, wears a red wig.) After the revolt, the white leaders do respond to some of the labor issues that sparked the revolt by arranging for short hours, high wages and a little house and a garden for the untransformed slaves; the narrative claims that, with this, the white leaders provide better working conditions. But it is equally telling that the supposedly kindly (and white) Jinnicky faced any kind of revolt in the first place. (The narrative suggests, rather repellently, that Gludwig easily tricked the slaves, with the suggestion that the slaves are just too unintelligent to see through him.) Even worse, Jinnicky—a supposed good guy—decides to leave the rebel slaves transformed by Planetty as statues, using them as a warning to rest of his workers about the fate that awaits any rebels. That decision takes all of one sentence; Jinnicky’s next task, bringing Planetty back to life (she has had difficulties surviving away from the Vanadium springs of her planet), takes a few pages to accomplish and explain.

It is, by far, the worst example of racism in the Oz books; it may even rank among the worst example of racism in children’s books, period, even following an era of not particularly politically correct 19th and early 20th century children’s literature.  The casual decision—and it is casual, making it worse—to leave the black slaves as statues would be disturbing even without the racial implications.

(Fair warning: the illustrations here, showing the slaves with racially exaggerated facial features, really do not help. These are the only illustrations by John Neill I actively disliked. If you do choose to read this book, and I have warned you, and you continue on to the end instead of stopping in the middle, you may be better off with an unillustrated version.)

Even aside from this, Silver Princess is a surprisingly cruel book for Thompson, filled with various scenes of unnecessary nastiness: the aforementioned arrows, a group of box-obsessed people attacking the heroes, a fisherman attacking a cat, and so on. (And we probably shouldn’t talk about what I think about Ozma allowing Planetty to walk around Oz with a staff that can turn anyone into a statue, except to say, Ozma, having one set of rules for your friends and another set of rules for everyone else is called favoritism, and it’s usually not associated with an effective management style).

But in the end, what lingers in the memory are the scenes of white leaders crushing a black slave revolt, leaving the slaves as statues, all in one of the otherwise most lighthearted, wittiest books that Thompson ever wrote.

This matters, because so many later fantasy writers grew up reading and being influenced by the Oz series, and not just the Baum books. It matters, because even in the 1980s, as the fantasy market expanded, it could be difficult to find children’s fantasy books outside of the Oz series. It matters, because children and grownups hooked on the very good Baum books and some of the Thompson books may, like me, want and need to read further.

It matters, because I like to think that the Oz books, especially those written by Baum (and the McGraws), with their messages of tolerance and acceptance and friendship despite superficial appearances, had a significant, positive effect on me while I was growing up. To realize that someone else could spend even more time in Oz, spend so much time writing about Oz, and even write a couple of definitely good books about Oz, know it well enough to complain that MGM was messing up its forthcoming movie by getting Dorothy’s hair color wrong, and yet still be able to write something like this, missing much of Baum’s entire point, is painful.