Dreampepper

decamping after a decade plus

porphyre — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 03:03:52 GMT

I'm pulling up stakes and moving over to Dreampepper. Let me know if you're still here, I'll put you on my RSS feed, and feel free to try to talk me into following the crowd to somewhere like Dreamwidth or Ello, because I still believe blogging brings us closer together than short form walled-garden posting every will.

I'm not sure how I could improve on it, so here's the Metafilter post that inspired my move:

"LiveJournal represents social media without borders."
December 30, 2016 10:48 AM
As of a few days ago, the IP addresses for blogging service LiveJournal have moved to 81.19.74.*, a block that lookup services locate in Moscow, Russia. Now users -- especially those who do not trust the Russian government -- are leaving the platform and advising others to leave.

For years, the online blogging community LiveJournal -- popular in Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine -- has served as a key communications platform for Russian dissidents (the Committee to Protect Journalists earlier this month called on Russian authorities to release a LiveJournal user who has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for a critical blog post). Even after Russian company SUP bought it from California-based Six Apart in 2007 (previously), the fact that SUP continued to run the servers in the US meant that users felt relatively safe; a 2009 press releasespecifically said that LiveJournal, Inc.* would continue to run technical operations and servers in the United States (and claimed that 5.7 million LiveJournal users were Russia-based).

December 22 support request, following a multi-hour service outage: "Since yesterday's upgrade, our work firewall is blocking you because you appear to it to be based in the Russian Federation. Have you got a Western mirror I can use?"

Tracerouting livejournal.com now points to a Moscow location and an ISP operated by Rambler Internet Holding LLC, the company that also owns SUP. (Former LiveJournal user Gary McGath says that a few days ago, he checked the IP location of livejournal.com, and it was in San Francisco.) LiveJournal's official news posts do not mention the change; users have begun to ask questions there and on their own journals.

"The servers are in Russia, political purge of accounts alleged"

"Why Now"

"Dirty deeds afoot on LJ"

"LJ server move confirmed"

"Deleting Your Livejournal: You Don't Have To Set Yourself On Fire On Your Way Out Of The Building"

Rumors have it that LiveJournal has also begun to delete the LiveJournal accounts of some Russian-language bloggers, especially pro-Ukraine bloggers. (Twitter search, anonymous comment.) Also, users can no longer browse and read LiveJournal over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection; going to https://www.livejournal.com redirects the user to the insecure site.

Some users are switching to the competing Dreamwidth service (which is based in the US and which can import LiveJournal entries and communities); new user statistics show newbyday new user numbers spiking up from a baseline rate of hundreds of daily signups to over 87,000 new users in the last week. The Internet Archive's ArchiveTeam was already on the case, given LJ's size, historical importance, and history of controversy and apparent state of decline -- they started archiving LJ's public posts in March of this year.

* The LiveJournal, Inc. website stopped updating in 2011 and started redirecting to LiveJournal.com in 2014 (though the LiveJournal.com contact page, privacy policy in Russianand English (last updated 2014), terms of service in Russian and English (last updated 2010), and abuse policy still say that LiveJournal operates out of California and is subject to US and California law.

greeting the longest night

porphyre — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 23:18:43 GMT

Last week I took part in casual posse developed around the Solstice Lantern Festival held at the Roundhouse Community Center in Vancouver. I arrived after dinner, the small shows already started, and entered a hallway full of people, crowns of leaves and branches scattered through a crowd full of familiar faces. It's a small city, so we who volunteer all nodded to each other as we passed, knowing each other from other festivals, even if not by name.

Further inside the building, past the line-ups for tickets into the labyrinth, families with small children were congregating with handmade lanterns, ready to step into the cold for a walk around the block. We decided to venture inward, rather than follow them, and found a square stage dominating the center of the main room, where taiko drummers entertained the crowd.

Watching #taiko at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival.

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 8:13pm PST

David, a friend who arrived earlier, eventually pulled us past the drummers to a door in the corner marked with a sign: Lantern Tree Grotto. Inside was dark, a chill room, a theater space, black floors and walls, lit only by a glowing paper tree in the middle of the room, "branches" thick with clusters of papier-mâché covered balloons, each one lit from the inside.

The #lantern tree grotto at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival. #didgeridoo #performance #chill #art #sculpture #community #concert

A photo posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 8:33pm PST

At the far end, musicians in white sat in a row, playing foreign instruments, while the rest of the floor was covered in people lying on the ground, soaking in the music. Occasionally the musicians would take their instruments into the crowd, picking their way through the prone bodies on the ground.

The #lantern tree grotto at the Solstice Lantern #Festival. #didgeridoo #performance #chill #art

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 8:17pm PST

Curious about what else was available, we eventually left and joined one of the random line-ups in the hallway. We could see the shadow of a simple, one person circus act falling on the doors where our line began, so it seemed the most promising. Twenty minutes later, we were let into the room and discovered it had been set up for a puppet show. A small box stage was flanked by a woman in pale face paint, playing an accordion, and a regular floor lamp with cloth flowers pinned all over the shade. A man started the show with a marionette of a bird, fluttering its wings as it explored the front row of the audience, dipping its beak into offered hands.

The beginning of the marionette show at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival.

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 9:17pm PST

Next, the man brought out the marionette of a man with fluffy white hair and magnetic hands, the head of a guitar his handle, carrying a metal bucket of paper flowers. Each flower had a twist tie stalk, so the marionette could pick them up as well as the bucket and hand them to members of the audience. When I was handed a flower, the first, I took it from his magnet with mine and tucked it into my hat, a jolly splash of yellow against the dark fuchsia felt.

The second #marionette has the head of a guitar for his handle. his hands are magnetic, so he can pick up flowers made of paper and bread ties. #theater #puppets & performance

A photo posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 9:19pm PST

Once the show was done, the puppets put away, a small girl approached the puppeteer, wondering how it had managed to interact with all of the props. He knelt down and began to say it was magic, but I interrupted, pushing my hand forward with a paper rose attached. "He's right. It's a lovely sort of magic, something that happens with puberty. It's not all bad." The puppeteer looked up at me, his face opening with warmth and surprise. I gestured with the flower attached to my finger. "I'm like your puppet," I said, then walked away, the little girl still standing there, pressing her flower against each of her fingers in turn, a look of deep concentration on her face.

Then came the festival's fire finale. Radiant Heat, dressed as foxes and raccoons, took to the sunken stage outside where the train roundhouse used to be and lit up the night.

Radiant Heat perform the #fire #dance finale of the #Solstice Lantern #Festival. #celebration #radiantheat #community #yule #video #flame

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 9:44pm PST

The fire show finale of the #Solstice Lantern #Festival.

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 9:45pm PST

The crowds dispersed after the fire show ended. Tear down began, rooms were shut down. We did not leave, though. We had bought tickets to the main event, the heart of the festival: the labyrinth, an experience best left to the end of the night.

Every year at winter solstice, one or two groups will lay out a large labyrinth, usually inside of a large, darkened gym, lined with beeswax candles in paper bags. Soothing music is played and people are let in, a handful at a time, to walk the path. It is a gentle experience, warm and inviting. The one we attended did not allow recording or speech while inside the labyrinth and had a young man urgently whisper these instructions to each participant before they were allowed to walk. It was an awkward way to begin, but amusing. ("Here are the rules to this particular incarnation of a semi-spiritual experience that you are meant to interpret as you will." Sure, kid. Thank you for embodying so much about what I dislike about the wet coast.)

Waiting to walk the #lantern #labyrinth at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival. #crystalbowls #candlelight #ceremony #performance

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 10:06pm PST

Visitors walking the candlelight #labyrinth at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival. This is a yearly tradition in #Vancouver going back as long as I can remember. Each paper bag contains #beeswax #candles, so the air of the room is thick, overwhelming, and sweet. #ritual #meditation #chanting #crystalbowls #pagan #hippies #pnw #pacificnorthleft #yule

A video posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 10:32pm PST

The #crystalbowls being played for the visitors who are walking the #candlelight #labyrinth at the #Solstice Lantern #Festival. #meditation #pnw #pacificnorthleft #hippies #chill

A photo posted by Jhayne Faust (@foxtongue) on Dec 21, 2016 at 10:40pm PST

AS TRADITION DICTATES

porphyre — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 22:10:36 GMT

The annual viewing of RARE EXPORTS, INC and RARE EXPORTS: THE SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS.

For bonus points, I hosted a massive orphan's christmas dinner on the 25th and subjected an entire room of fresh eyes to these and the full length feature of the same name.

Rare Exports Inc. (2003) from Woodpecker Film.

Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions (2005) from Woodpecker Film.

Do you need a portrait? Reaching out the the relief efforts in Syria.

porphyre — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 23:21:58 GMT

I'm donating half of the proceeds from Lensflower, my photography business, to the relief efforts in Aleppo for the next month.

White Helmets: Volunteer group saves Syrian bomb survivors

A list of trustworthy local and international NGOs working on the ground in Syria has been compiled by the Center for International Disaster Information and can be found here: ORGANIZATIONS WORKING IN SYRIA AND ASSISTING SYRIAN REFUGEES.
How Can I Help People In Aleppo? 10 Charities Working To Provide Food, Shelter, Medicine And Education To Syrians

People are posting their last goodbyes to Twitter as they die in in Syria.

“This may be my last call.” VIDEO: The people of Aleppo are sending out their last messages.

Reports of children burned alive and mass executions in the street as Aleppo falls to Syrian Army

Children trapped in building under attack in Aleppo, doctor tells UN

my worst chanukkah

porphyre — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:29:37 GMT

A memory. A holiday dinner. A Jewish thing on the edge of the country with a family I can't seem to like. I am here with the eldest son, my employer, a shallow, suburban creature who, when he speaks in glowing colours about his ex-girlfriend, repeats how she stayed a size zero, because she knew he likes girls small. He is certain that everyone loves him, that he can read anyone. "Just part of being a businessman," he says. He makes me increasingly uncomfortable. The more I learn about the relationship, the more it sounds toxic and mutually abusive. She left him right before they were to be married, cheated then fled, leaving behind the only life she'd ever known. Even though I am new to this group, still tentative, and her actions seem extreme, it never occurs to me to think she made the wrong decision. I know, rather, at the edge of my own understanding, deep and dark, that I should follow her. Distance myself from these people and this place.

The younger brother works for a large American multinational. Clever, he works on their kernel team, a job for life, specialized in a way that feels nearly impossible for a human to endure. On the surface, he seems fine, but he, too, is unkind to his partner, a woman who seems to love him very deeply. I don't know her well, but it seems she might do well to step away, much like the aforementioned ex-girlfriend. They fight often behind closed doors, voices rising. He doesn't know how to connect, so he tries tricks from the dog training manual. Coldness, harshness, attempts at alpha supremacy.

The dinner is awkward, with coils of tension wrapped tight like springs, ready to suddenly unwind and blind someone. I learn that the brothers may have inherited their uncomfortable emotional outbursts from their parents, who humble-brag about volunteer hours spent working to "save" battered women, but then damn my mother for being one when I bring up my childhood while thanking them for their hard work. "How dare she keep children in that situation! I'm so sorry for you, she must be a horrible person." I am shocked and say so. I am told that they will accept my apology for being a rude guest, as it must not be my fault, given that I was raised by such a contemptible mother. I do not apologize. The subject is changed.

The only person there I feel I can speak to is his grandmother, as her prejudices are expected and I know how to deflect them. She is an antique, however, and detached from her era. Her conversation meanders, jumping from year to year, as her focus wavers. I've never met anyone quite like her, but his grandmother still feels like she's been standardized, traits pulled from a pamphlet about age and fading bodies. "The slightly racist old lady: Option III". Her make-up is a billboard advertising her deteriorating motor skills, eye-liner applied as if with a crayon, lipstick approaching an event horizon, and her wig, a klaxon blaring, crooked and slightly terrifying. I wonder what she was like before, as she seems nice, as if what I was looking at wasn't representative, but sunlight filtered through too many years.

During dessert, when an aunt and uncle started singing and I start bringing dishes into the kitchen, someone decides to tease me for being "such a good little woman". It is made very clear that the man who brought me told his family that he was bringing his girlfriend to dinner. Shock again, but this time I stay quiet, lacking a script. There is a chance that I will be fired if I contradict this.

My own relatives don't keep close, but nor do they pretend to. There are no public facades, flawless or otherwise, no pretense to an external whole. Perhaps I am missing out, not having a family structure, but this, I think, surely must be worse.

I want to leave so badly, be anywhere else. Shrinking into myself, I look around the table, quiet and concerned. No one else seems to think the bickering is abnormal or the shouting downstairs is out of place. They are acclimated to their fractured, strange reflections of familial bonds, unhealthy though they are, and blind to their own internal misfires. How do they manage to be so stubbornly insular in such an interconnected world? I do not ask. It does not seem the place.

Later, as I am driven home, I am admonished for upsetting his parents.

muscles & glitter

porphyre — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 01:16:21 GMT

I just updated Lensflower.com with a new post: Muscles & Glitter. My friend Chrystalene started hitting the gym this year and part of her program asks that participants take Before and After pictures, preferably by a professional photographer, in order, I suspect, to encourage participants to take it more seriously.

There’s a lot of social pressure for women to stay weak, myths about bulking up and being less feminine, as if having strong muscles cancels out beauty, rather than enhances it. She and I are more modern and believe, quite strongly, that type of thinking is rubbish. So, rather than take the usual sort of fitness photos, where the focus of the portraits are hard, oiled muscles, back-lit and knife edged, she wanted something fiercer, more feminine. Nevermind smiling, sweaty looking jogging shots or virtue signalling like mad with work-out clothes (yet without a hair out of place), it was going to be full of glitter and pizzazz.

So here she is, glamourous and gorgeous, flexing her muscles for feminism.

And, as most of the time lately when I take a picture, I'm pleased with the result. I haven't been creating much lately, so it's reassuring when I like what I do.

Also, this shoot may have produced my new favourite review, "It's a rare photographer who will get half naked just to make you feel comfortable being half naked."

Saw a great slide recently, "Privilege: The human version of "works on my machine"."

porphyre — Thu, 19 May 2016 20:30:24 GMT

Learning, by Sarawut Intarob

The American elections continue, with reactionaries on the left and right, worse on the right. Everyone has fallen on the right, except for Trump, who runs on a campaign of divisiveness and scapegoating. The educated, the ones with options, don't seem to understand why he's still around, still a force. The language he uses in "debates" consistently register at the fourth grade level, the "solutions" he offers are the equivalent of trying to fix a broken garburator by hitting it with a hammer. How can this man, who seems like a parody of himself, like a satirical rendition of a concept too awful to look straight in the face, be relevant? But that seems the crux of it; options. It's easy, when you have them, to be blind to the desperation of those who don't.

You can convince yourself anything is fine if you don't think you have any other options.

And America's narrative of money and power? It's fading, and failing, and sad. Even the tech bubble seems to be slowly deflating. Meanwhile, headlines are painting a larger, bleaker picture. "World's carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return; future in which global concentration of CO2 is permanently above 400 parts per million looms."

Yet this is the same world in which Google’s AI is writing post-modern poetry, there is less crime than ever known, and extraordinary art is being created everywhere people go. The world which provided the above photo, which I find tirelessly inspiring. It displays a glimpse of the world I want, a mix of contrasts, varied and rich in experience, with education and tools for all and everyone, no matter their circumstances. Education, tools, and options.

So, wild ones, when you try to talk with those who hold opposing viewpoints, especially those who accept the scapegoat as truth, maybe point them over here: It's Okay To Be Gray, by GlitchedPuppet and Siderea's three part explanation and take-down of what's going on with Trump's campaign, which I consider essential and file unequivocally under REQUIRED READING - The Two Moral Modes: Part One, The Two Moral Modes: Part Two, The Two Moral Modes: Part Three.

affirmations ("for your trials and tribulations") -::- I am looking forward to it with some relief.

porphyre — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 07:27:33 GMT

The Life of Death from Marsha Onderstijn.

More travel approaches. Nevada. California. Festivals of thought and music. The desert. The rich. The coast. More of the rich, though a slightly different kind. Lights. Action. Arduino. An experience in a large dark room underground, the entry the same as the cost of a plane ticket.

Tomorrow I'm going on an in-depth, insiders tour of the TRIUMF Accelerator Laboratory, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and accelerator-based science, to learn how to use the world's largest cyclotron.

Later, by a week, I'll be at Future Forward, a Burning Man spin-off for the one percent run by Robot Heart. A double-date just outside one the most artificial city in North America. Google's Eric Schmidt is the keynote speaker. Darren Aronofsky will be wandering around with a camera. I will recognize no one, both a weakness and a strength.

I write this while streaming Coachella live, a private concert projected onto a wall, Underworld and M83 and LCD Soundsystem, five feet tall and eight and a half feet wide. I write this while the man on screen singing is the same man who held the door for me at Michael's funeral. How small, the world.

Later in May, I'm going to San Francisco for my birthday again, bracketed by Maker Faire. (I have never been.) There are secret plans afoot and a place to stay for ten days. The secret society is gone, but there will still be a party. I will still find my way.

Joining the world of missing persons and she was.

porphyre — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 05:16:56 GMT

The Darker Sooner
by Catherine Wing

Then came the darker sooner,
came the later lower.
We were no longer a sweeter-here
happily-ever-after. We were after ever.
We were farther and further.
More was the word we used for harder.
Lost was our standard-bearer.
Our gods were fallen faster,
and fallen larger.
The day was duller, duller
was disaster. Our charge was error.
Instead of leader we had louder,
instead of lover, never. And over this river
broke the winter’s black weather.

-::-
Work pulls me onto trains, lately. Seat upon seat, row upon row, the windows looking out onto the same dark green trees and slate gray ocean that I've grown to associate with my own failure to find colour and light. These trips, short and small as they are, would have been special, would have been seen as stepping stones, but there has been little, since Michael died, that inspires, that cradles me or helps me feel alive. I am thankful that the places I've been going have community; cleverness and kindness meshed together, a basket to land within that protects me from hitting the ground.

I made a new friend through work, one of my on-going contracts as a copy-editor for a group of Information Security professionals. He lives far away and we don't talk often, but when we do, we have the sort of personal, political, and philosophical discussions that I always imagined friends must converse about deep into the night, sitting on hypothetical porches with bottles of wine or in imaginary living rooms flickering with candlelight, post dinner-party or house-party. Maybe there's a cat, the furniture is well loved, and discoveries are being made, bridges are being raised, and beliefs and opinions are being forged, tested, and reforged.

I use "hypothetical" and "imaginary" because I don't know how to find myself in such cozy situations, (though I crave them more than most things). Like many things, I only know they're real because I've been told about them and seen them at a distance or through the lens of media. That said, I still like it when I find its echo on-line and it's been good to have again, as it's something I've been missing for a number of years, since defeat took me and my capacity to reach out diminished (as is easily mapped by the decline of this journal).

He has me reading books I would have skimmed over, summaries of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. They haven't pulled at me yet, there's been no internal tug of recognition, but I appreciate the gentle push into new directions. I haven't had the focus for entire books lately, so I spend my reading time on-line now, following the news instead, like the Panama Paper leaks or the horror show that's passing for the Republican primaries. Topics: Science, privacy, human rights, politics.

I miss art and design, but I've misplaced those impulses too. They're somewhere in my history, but not my present, along with my languishing photography backlog, my lost animation reels, finding new music and singing along, dancing, movement, creation. Agency, desire, grace. The spark.

pass the popcorn

porphyre — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 21:42:22 GMT

Hominid from Brian Andrews.

Hominid is an animated teaser based on the Hominid series of photo composites by Brian Andrews, described as "photo composites made from human and veterinary images".

-::-

A weekly movie night has sprung up in the homeless-yet-have-a-place dichotomy I've been inhabiting. Challenging films, insistent and smart, things I haven't seen before, but have dearly wanted to. An exquisite corpse of connections from week to week.

It started with Fassbinder's Macbeth, a faithful and brutal retelling of Shakespeare drenched in colour, shouting, and death, then moved to Far Side of the Moon, written, directed, produced, designed, and starring Robert LePage. Based on his visually striking theater production of the same name, he plays two Quebecois brothers awash in tides of their mother's recent death, set in the context of the USSR-United States Space Race of the 1960s.

The loss of a parent, the small kingdom of the stage, brothers, strife. Small threads, alike in dignity.

LePage is known in Canada as a national treasure, the intellectual French-Canadian prince of visual delights. The transitions in his films are especially beautiful, as the round door of a coin laundry becomes the port of a space capsule or the green screen background of a weather channel becomes the wall of someone's apartment. They are playful and unexpected, much like the films of Michel Gondry, the French-Parisian master of surprise and whimsy, who directed the next choice, Mood Indigo.

Based on a book written in 1947 and set in a blur between an imaginative retro-future of when the book was written and the modern day, it concerns a joyful couple who meet, fall in love, and marry, but the wife, played by Audrey Tatou, falls ill with a flower in her lung. What was bright, grows dark.

Next, pivoting on the love story, the toxic flower, the here and now, we showed Upstream Color, written, directed, produced, edited, composed, designed, cast by and starring Shane Carruth, the man responsible for Primer, which details the path of a man and a woman who fall in love after being poisoned by a parasite from a specific flower. From darkness, comes light.

It ends with an unconventional family, isolated in the country, like the subjects of Dogtooth, a Greek film by Yorgos Lanthimos we're showing this week.

artpost: Monochromatic (the precious unconscious). Did each get a name when finally born?

porphyre — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:28:26 GMT

Excerpted photos from 1931-1955, Doll Factories

via Mashable, via Retronaut.

Jan. 28, 1949. A worker trims the eyelashes on a pair of doll's eyes.

Dec. 15, 1951. Freshly cast doll legs dry at a factory in England.

c. 1950

1947. Freshly cast doll heads wait to dry.

artpost: flight, the way they move together

porphyre — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 05:47:10 GMT

Ascension, by Jacob Sutton, featuring ballet dancers Hannah O’Neill and Germain Louvet

"This September marks the launch of the Paris National Opera’s Third Stage. While the Palais Garnier and the Opéra Bastille are, of course, world renowned sites of cultural and architectural interest, this particular 'scène' is not a stage in the physical sense, but exists in the rather less tangible online realm.

Launching from the Opera’s website, which has recently been treated to a slick overhaul, the digital platform will feature a mix of mediums including the work of film makers, choreographers, visual artists, directors and writers. Third Stage will also allow ballet and opera aficionados from all over the world to delve into an exceptional set of archives, created in partnership with the INA (French National Audiovisual Institute).

One of the original films currently being featured on the site, and exclusively on Telegraph Luxury, is Jacob Sutton’s Ascension, which showcases the spectacular architecture of the Opera Bastille and the Palais Garnier, as well as the breath-taking skills of ballet dancers Hannah O’Neill and Germain Louvet. A contrast of behind-the-scenes and front of house, the film flits back and forth between shots of the dancers below stage at the Opera Bastille, dressed in black to match their sombre, industrial surroundings, and in the glittering golden foyer clothed in softer pastel shades and bathed in light."

Posted from an intercity train in Britain

porphyre — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 15:34:22 GMT

A Life Of Break-Ups
by Ioana Cristina Casapu

I have gotten used to saying goodbye
But to travel light
Can be heavier than it seems
You always sell your stuff
Free your stuff
Give away that pair of shoes
Pass over this set of plates
And voila,
Your life fits again in only three boxes.
I have gotten used to saying farewell
I will see you again
Someday
Kiss all the bridges and gates for me
Forget me not;
Gotten used to keeping my mind alert
My baggage easy
And my memories inside my iPhone
To telling myself
The eye has to travel
So that my stories can unravel
But sometimes distance kills the best of intentions
Sometimes the home you find
Is different than the home you dreamt of
I like airports when it’s sunny
They remind me of summer
Serendipity
A life looked from afar
The promise that the Earth is round
And the hope that distance
Is only jet lag
Before coming back.

Selenium is sick

porphyre — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 14:36:19 GMT

TV On The Radio - Trouble

"All of this borrowed time, it's running out. It's the ending of the show."

Selenium, our beautiful one-eyed pirate ferret who had the dreadful kind of exciting year, has just been diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma. This is, unfortunately, a death sentence. There is no cure or reasonable treatment. We are uncertain how much longer she has, the prognosis for aggressive lymphoma in young ferrets is dire, but as it is rare, there is less information on it. It might be that she will not survive until January, though David has been giving her the very best possible care and inventing new recipes for soft food that have been successfully coaxing her into eating, or she might survive it until spring. We just don't know. But please, if you have a moment, if you can reach out to David and offer any kind of help or support, it would be dearly appreciated. There is only so much I can do from England.

This has all been very entertaining to the people around me

porphyre — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 20:11:20 GMT

What Marie Antoinette really wore.

According to Duolingo, the language learning site, I am now at 18% of French fluency and learning at Level 5. This means I have successfully tested through two sets of basic lessons, a set of phrases, ("D'accord, à plus tard!"), and some vocabulary words that name types of animals and food. I have also learned the word "elision" and the word "enchaînement", both of which are ostensibly English, as a side effect of puzzling my way through French's seemingly illogical rules.

This is, very possibly, more French than I have consciously ever known in my life.

Canadians are supposed to be taught French in school, but I emerged from the education system with almost none. Until my first year of high-school French, (which I promptly flunked, as I lacked the foundation of kindergarten through seven that Grade 8 French expected to build upon), my only experience with French was when I was briefly put into preschool in Quebec, with teachers who refused to believe I only knew English because "she seems to understand The Smurfs just fine."

Though it always chafed that I only learned one language as a child, I have never had cause to try to learn French before. (Spanish has been my second language of choice. See: Growing up next to the United States.) Why would I? French fights me every step. The genders seem arbitrary, the conjugations absurd, and the pronunciation and the elisions downright hostile. Learning to roll the "r" in the back of the throat was as easy as coughing up blood. That French seemed impossible had the strength of prophecy. Even when I lived in Montreal, I got by on what I have dubbed "restaurant French": a musical pidgin of borrowed phrases, body language, and snatches of pop songs that can be used to successfully order food, maneuver from point A to point B, and request assistance when I inevitably smack against the language barrier.

My upbringing has given me one slight advantage, however, as French is printed on absolutely everything in Canada. It didn't occur to me before, but I have been learning by osmosis, unconsciously absorbing vocabulary from my surroundings for thirty years. The result of which is that — though my spelling is atrocious and half of the mangled words erupting painfully from my mouth are misgendered — even if I murder the language when I attempt to speak it, I can mostly read it.

Not that it makes much sense, anyway. Shark, for example, is requin. Aside from being an absolute bitch to pronounce, it doesn't even sound right. The word shark chops the air. It ends abruptly. It carries the speed and sleek movement of the animal. Requin rolls across the tongue, smooth, it is not sharp and fast as shark, ending as it does on that spiky K, reminiscent of a knife-like tail. I don't understand it at all. Requin sounds like it should be part of a dish, something to eat. Cassolette de homard et poireaux avec requin maybe. Something with cheese. Sorry, avec fromage.

And oiseau for bird? Was it behind a post when consonants were being handed out? Is this the French onomatopoetic for the liquid tone of a whistle? (Not that "tweet" particularly sounds accurate, either, but at least it has a good balance of vowels.) Either way, it's also worth noting that this majestic cluster of vowel-a-riffic phonemes is apparently pronounced not entirely unlike wazoo. A language chosen for beauty, indeed!

My flight from Heathrow to Montreal leaves Friday at noon, arrives in DC at 3:30 PM, leaves again around 5:00 PM, and then lands, finally, in Montreal at 7:00 PM, half an hour before Alexandre arrives.

artpost: autumn

porphyre — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 09:46:10 GMT

"Sad Tea Time" by Michelle Wiktoria (digital, 2015)

something new to learn on piano [bravery takes many shapes]

porphyre — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:45:21 GMT

the bird and the bee - polite dance song, directed by Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric.

[...] Since I'm asking so nice
Would you just entertain
There's nothing left to hide you away
Just show a little bit of brain

Yes that is what I mean
That's the nail that I hit
I try to be as coy as I can
But I wanna see your naughty bit [...]

-::-

We fall asleep facing our laptops; two beds, eight hours away. I have practice at this, at living far away, at being untouchable, unreachable, lonely yet loved.

The first person I had such a thing with lives here in England. He's the reason I have the eight hour time difference from Vancouver to London permanently memorized. Our correspondence set the foundation for this place. Years of it, years of talking late at night, of mornings together, of chats and distance. There are hundreds of letters from him in my folders. Hundreds of pictures. He kept me writing, coaxed me into taking pictures. In many ways, he changed me from writing to being a writer, kicked it off, back when this journal was almost new. Back when I believed people who said nice things to me.

I was only a few years older when he hurt me, sliced his way through my center, sliced until I bled, and worse, then put me in a book full of sex that opened yet another crooked little vein. (This starts the part that's never successfully spread in public). Perhaps it was meant as a surprise? A surprise like the awful things I found out about him, how he used people; a surprise that sent everything sour.

With the open eyes of an adult, I can see that I was prey, but it took many emotional years, and many, many others to come forward with similar admissions. Women in pain have reached out to me from New York, London, San Francisco, Berlin, Toronto... We're in so many places! There's so many of us we might need a name. I collect them, now, his talented discarded. We are a small network, but we've started keeping track of the others and making friends. He has excellent taste.

He never asked if I would have a starring role in his first book, our relationship was already critically wounded and we had almost bled out by the time it was published. Was I the first? It seems too unlikely to be true, even though it's what he said at the time. I've also never asked the other woman named in the novel if she had been consulted or what her place in the mess might be. Her name was easier to spot, the public attention must have been massive. (I don't know how to reach her. I've filed her under "One Of Us (potential)" and crossed my fingers that she's been okay.)

But I have been considering it lately. Now that I'm living just outside London, I'm only an hour's drive away from his house. Two if I take transit, not even as long as a film. (Closure is such a pretty word. Sound it out! It's beautiful.) Maybe I should reach out to her, the way the others have reached out to me. Break the silence, try not to fumble, and then, perhaps, ask him for tea.

It has been a long time, but I'll bet his phone number is the same.

artpost: the incredible lightness of being anthropomorphized

porphyre — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 02:45:29 GMT

EXIT AT UNION SQUARE, by Matthew Grabelsky. Oil on Panel, 16 x 20 in., 41 x 51 cm.

tripping the wire fantastic

porphyre — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 23:12:19 GMT

Flight Facilities - Clair De Lune feat. Christine Hoberg

I haven't any culture shock yet, though 7,547.76 km lay between my last home and this one (as the crow flies); the only thing I haven't effortlessly taken in stride is the quality of the light. Namely, the unanticipated lack of it.

I sat in a pub, plate full of lamb and vegetable mash on the table, one of my longest friendships across the table, the city outside drained of colour, all neon and reflected halogen, the shine of artificial lights on wet pavement, sky suddenly black, and felt we were a peculiar form of vampire. (No wonder this place is so thick with myths.)

England is North. Very North. More North than I had weighed in my mind. On some level, I understood London (51°30′N) to be around the latitudinal level of Edmonton (53°32′N), but I did not truly internalize what that would do to the sun. When it shines, appearing as it does around 7 am or so, it is weak and watery and near the horizon and glares in your eyes when you face South with a peculiar orange gold. The blaze of noon does not exist, even on the most crisp of blue sky autumn days, and it is full dark by 4 pm, despite the solstice being a month away.

-::-

The only other thing I speculate that I will have to consciously adapt to is the level of current that runs through the local wires. Don't mistake me, I've already bought the appropriate cord for my laptop and have adapters for the rest of my electronics. It is a matter of transhumanism, purely.

The voltage here is so much higher than I find myself fighting the desire to flinch every time I need to interact with a power outlet.

For the uninitiated, the sensation electricity creates to those with implanted neodymium magnets is that of a danger reflex, which I have been finding unexpected, but seem to share with others. For example, the magnet in my hand vibrates when I reach for my electric toothbrush, sitting as it does next to an active socket, and loudly signals risk, peril, stop, don't! And Divide told me of something similar, that he found himself reflexively curling his hand behind his back in a protective gesture when he was in the power room at ALTspace in Seattle. (For bonus points: My generation of neodymium implant is several orders of magnitude more powerful than his, too). It's uncomfortable and profoundly provokes a very physical sense of unease. None of us flinch away from other magnets, though, even those of the opposite polarity. In my experience, only high voltage stimulates the warning. Has anyone found an explanation? Why are some of the signals interpreted as dangerous, while some are not? I haven't reached out to others about it yet.

While the incision has been mending very nicely, I remain inquisitive about the process as my body continues to adapt and naturalize the embedded magnet. It doesn't appear to be rejecting, the area isn't sore, and it's unlikely it will scar, but there is one last thing I'm finding very curious. My magnet has moved a significant distance since it was implanted. It is not in the tip of my finger anymore, but halfway down the first joint, an entire centimeter from where it had been placed.

It's conceivable this happened when I foolishly caught the handle of a falling basket full of groceries with that finger a few weeks ago, back in Canada. (Other stupid things I have caught from the air without thinking: knives, scissors, sewing needles, a red hot piece of nearly molten metal, broken glass, a wild mouse. I am not a clever ninja.) The pain of it, though not sharp, brought me literally to my knees. At the time, I chalked it up to the freshness of the surgery, but presumably the impact shoved the magnet underneath the fat pad, along the surface of the muscles of my finger, to where it is today.

I can't think of why else it would have migrated. The soft impacts of typing, though daily, are mostly absorbed by my long fingernails and I've never heard of anyone else having their magnet move, except when the earlier generation (and flatter) ones would flip or were rejected from the body and migrated to the surface like a metal splinter. The technology is relatively recent, (my friend Todd was the first to be implanted in 2004), and still very gray-market/DIY, so I don't know if there's an exact science to the fingertip placement yet, which creates the question: Should I move it back or leave it?

Either way, whether this is an ordinary thing for an implanted object to do in a finger or if the movement is due to banging it, I'm paying more attention to it than I otherwise would have, not because I'm worried, but because I don't want reason to be. And, seriously, the voltage here. Sheesh.

Landing in London

porphyre — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 23:15:12 GMT

Zombie Flowers from ANTSANROM, as inspired by Charles Darwin´s first impressions when he first saw a carnivorous plant in 1875.

I had zero leg room on the flight from Seattle to Reykjavik, my bag of camera lenses and hard-drives took up all the space instead, so I spent the whole time curled up in the chair, feet up, reading book after book until we landed in the cold. (Mr. Penumbra's Bookstore made a special impression, as it had been a gift from Alexandre that we picked up at the Amazon brick & mortar in Seattle the week we took together there before I left. There's a girl in it I somewhat identified with, though we're not of a type.)

From the outside, landing in Iceland at night is like landing on the Canadian prairies. It is dark, flat, empty, and cold. Walking across the field into the building, I felt the bite of Edmonton's winter. The inside, however, looks precisely what I might imagine a minimalist airport manufactured by IKEA might be like, all pale wood floors and sketches of metal furniture. The gift shop sold furs, the cafeteria had an entire refrigerator shelf for greasy fish products, but otherwise what I managed to explore (with my dreadfully heavy bags) struck me as being similar to any other small airport. Mostly I simply sat, curled up with my phone, surfing the wifi, chatting with Alexandre.

The hours were wrong for the Northern Lights, unfortunately, and the airport, also unfortunately, is an hour out of town, so I did not get a chance to see the aurora borealis or visit Reykjavik or stelpa, who lives there. No regrets, though, as I have been assured there will be other chances.

Heathrow, however, was a sprawling place. It reminded me of nothing more than a level of an old James Bond video game that I remember playing a handful of times as a teenager. Low-rez, blocky, big open spaces, lots of windows without any view, and the illusion of multiple paths that resolve only into one when you try to move forward. I would love a map of the place, a 3D rendered duplicate that I could wander at will in virtual reality. The illusion of choice was especially interesting, as if the corridors could be reformed like a labyrinth and somewhere there might be a beast, perhaps some metaphor for finance, with gold dipped bull's horns and diamond tipped claws.

The border questions were nothing after having to handle the US/Canadian border so many times over the years. The guard dismissed me as soon as they gleaned that I own a credit card, all flags dropped and I was through. Waiting for me were Arnand and Dee, my suitcases, a little red car, and a whole new life. "Hello."

"Baby I got your number, oh, and I know that you got mine."

porphyre — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 22:07:01 GMT

"From a very early time, I understood that I only learn from things I don't like. If you do things you like, you just do the same shit. You always fall in love with the wrong guy. Because there's no change. It's so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it, go for it. You become a better human being."

What's the cost?

"Ah, a big one. Lots of loneliness, my dear. If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave. So, lots of lonely hotel rooms, my dear."

- Performance artist Marina Abramović: 'I was ready to die'

-::-

Last Sunday was flawless. I attended Pauline's birthday, went to Pancakes & Jam with Alex, made new friends, saw old friends, explored a new place, danced for over ten hours, finally visited the new Duello, and found resolution with a particularly pernicious ex from several lifetimes ago. (‪#‎healing‬ ‪#‎grateful‬ ‪#‎morelikethatplease‬ ‪#‎feetlikeblisters‬).

Several lifetimes ago we used to be A Thing. Not so long ago that he wouldn't be in here somewhere if I went looking, but long enough ago that I do not want to try. If I am going to cut this long story short, I shall only say that he placed the stars in the sky, then killed every one. To say it didn't end well would be an understatement.

But, before that, oh! Before that, when things were good, we used to dance together.

We had a sword fighting school at our disposal, the second floor of an old brick building without any late night neighbors, all gleaming weapons and massive mirrors and beautiful wooden floors. So, of course, we used it as our living room. And when we danced, it was absolutely beautiful. We moved without parallel. We moved and it would take your breath away.

When we danced, we did it with naked blades.

The game was one of trust, the dance was one of acceptance and risk. We would light a thousand candles, until the salle was filled with glittering constellations of fire, lift our swords, and throw ourselves at each other's weapons to the loud and salacious beat of whatever seemed sexiest. (He was very good at sexy).

The game was dangerous, but we never erred. The dance was trust incarnate. And we would always manage not to cut each other, though the blades were naked and sharp and the tips were bare. I started it one night when we had some people over, tossing him a sword as we danced, a dare, then a second one, but no matter how much I tried to impale myself, he would move it out of the way of my body every single time, often at the last second, as I would in turn. And we loved it. It became something we would do regularly, romance, a way to make-out in company, a way to break ourselves open, a way to dance ourselves clean.

It could have gone all sorts of wrong, but we never once had a mistake. It wasn't a fight, understand, but a hard line practice of grace. The point was to throw ourselves at risk and let the other keep us safe. And we did. It worked. We never argued. We danced and we loved each other and we kept each other unmarked by our knives.

It was the sort of thing you might see in a film, but it was real. It was our life. If there is a narrative equivalent for being photogenic, we were that. We were ridiculously that. Swords, knives, the school. We lived part-time on a reproduction Chinese junk in False Creek. There were always flowers and books, back and forth. We were so lucky! He was tall and handsome and graceful, lissome and delicious with long blond hair to his shoulders, a clever mind, and two shining lengths of steel, we loved each other, we were brave, and I was utterly confident that he would not hurt me.

-::-

Idiot self, I think now, given what happened after, which I will say only was devastating and involved a stay in a hospital, some long distance phone calls, another woman, and eventually their child. (Though these days I hear he has two.) Let's just say that, unlike his swords, his extrication was something he did not handle with grace. Did I say it was devastating? Perhaps I should say it again. Devastating. It was an absolute fumble.

This, however, nine years later, is the story of how we finally recovered.

-::-

The new salle is on the same city block, but better located. He's done well. Ground floor, now, and much bigger, two shops smushed together with the walls torn down, with a large rotating sign stuck to the front of the building. ACADEMIE, it says as it spins, on a picture of a sword. There is a gift shop these days, ten foot by ten near the door.

The mirrors inside are similar, the floor the same, the walls are still brick, but the scale is impressive. The business moved several years ago, but this is the first time I have stepped inside. I have arrived because it is a partner dance night, something some friends of mine started years ago that I have neglected to attend, in part because of the location. My ex and I did not part well and this is his domain. I even gave up sword fighting when we split, the better to not cross paths.

But here I am and it is beautiful, the lights are dim and the space is filled with whirling bodies, dancing instead of fighting. Couples spinning to compelling music, electronica and remixes of old standards, the sort you might know all the words to while still enjoying something new.

I take off my bag, my hat, and my long coat and fold them together, leaving them with my shoes as a bundle on top of a hobby horse next to a small model of a medieval battle. I step past a pile of large pillows and scan the floor. And there he is. Hand extended, living proof of another life. The romance book cover hair is gone, but he is otherwise the same, cat-like and beautiful. "May I have the first dance?"

Something hangs in the balance until I say yes, but then it is as if a pane of glass has shattered. The moment breaks. I know what is about to happen. I take his hand, we step into the crowd, and time falls away. His body is both infinitely familiar and that of a stranger, but we can still dance.

He is still very good at being sexy. He talks about how beautiful it was when we used to dance, how he loved when we used to sit in the windows of the old salle, feet hanging out over the street. He's missed me, he says. I've missed him, too. He is so, so sorry for the hurt he caused. I couldn't be more relieved. The years drop away. The thorn is removed, the wound repaired. I am made better. We sing along to the music, eyes blurry from emotion, but never lose the step. He apologizes, we spin, and I am finally free. His hands on mine, our feet matching the beat, his words kiss my heart, and I am finally free.

I can't help but laugh. This is absolute absurdity, but so perfect it might as well have been scripted. How else would we ever do this, unless we used literal knives? We move through the song and start into another. He lifts me in the air, my feet up, it's not unlike flying. We talk, we sing. Our bodies glued to each other and the music. We dance ourselves clean.

a year and a day

porphyre — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 09:36:54 GMT

Sometimes it is barely possible to believe how hurtful other people can be.

I did a terrifying thing. It was scary and hard, but I thought, well, perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time I will find kindness. I doubted, but I put aside my doubt. I thought myself broken for doubting. To stop trusting is to let them win, the people who hurt, the people who value selfishness over compassion, the cowards and killers of small mercies. So I put aside my doubt, I did the hardest thing I know to do, and I reached out to a friend and stepped forward into the darkness. And, for a moment, the world was gentle; they took my outstretched hand. It was going to be okay. This, the worst, the scariest, was going to be okay. It was both wonderful and astonishing. Where one fails, two can create light.

Then, as if it the most casual thing, they recanted. So now I'm not even back to how badly I was before, but worse, because I dared to step forward, I dared trust, and there is no redemption in this solitary darkness. And there are no bread crumbs, no small pebbles left for me to follow back out, no kindness in it. Betrayal contains no sympathy or compassion. They left me with the most cruel of possible stories. Worse, they knew, going in, that they would abandon me, but they walked me there anyway, stringing me along as far in as they could manage before having to tell me they were already gone.

The honey in the lion is a lie.

EDIT: And then, plot twist! It worked out, actually. They stepped up. Just last night. Three in the morning, they showed up at my door. My writing made something better. They came back for me. Their care for my well-being finally trumped their fear. I am.. absolutely floored. I can't remember the last time I felt so much relief. I feel better today than I have in a very, very long time. And because it was such a success, today I ended up sending one of the scariest letters I've ever sent, asking for similar redemption for the worst of my hurt, from the only person who could make it better, belly bared to his teeth. Fingers crossed, dear ones. Fingers and toes.

never make someone a priority who treats you like an option

porphyre — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 01:48:52 GMT

Set-brooches: “MEMORY” 2006 by Mila Kalnitskaya & Micha Maslennikov.

We walk together, arms linked against the night and rain. My scarlet headscarf complements his gray woolen army coat and transforms us into a cliché of immigrants from a different era. We look to the world like married refugees, all Eastern Europe and the memory of cinema, an accident of scathing metaphor made manifest. We both notice and remark upon it, though we name-check different countries.

He plucks memories from the air like ripe fruit, free hand in the air sketching shapes from his childhood, handing each one to me as a gift to eat, placing his history into mine, his time-distant innocence shaped into a protective amulet against the world we are taking part of this evening to hide from. "And that hill there," he says - up, a sweep down - gesturing like a conductor counting, "there used to be more bushes there. It was great, foliage full of tunnels the adults knew nothing about. I had my first rumble on that hill."

We are traversing the grounds of his elementary school, thirty years distant, though the architecture remains unchanged. Low buildings. Brown walls. He tells me stories. Story after story. This is where the bus used to drop him off. This is where it used to pick him up. The porch of this portable is where he broke another boy's nose.

"I used to have a temper. I was a small kid and it made me fight harder."

"I could tell, " I say, tying the broken nose and scrapping to my knowledge of his punk days. Dayton boots and liberty spikes, so young that he would have to drive to Canada to drink. Vancouver of the nineties, when the Lamplighter was a grungy punk bar, back when I was little. A city as dead as my care for it.

He seems perturbed, regretful. "Really? I got over it, though. I've recovered."

I wonder if we ever passed in the street. I would have been just as young as he was in the memories he is describing. Absolutely invisible. Under four feet and also the smallest kid in class. Scrappy, too, though for different reasons.

I want to kiss him for this. Wrap his heart in warmth in thanks. It hurts that I can't. I am going away, perhaps forever, and this is our swan song. He is an odd man for choosing this farewell, as it is an odd gift, though it would be a very good one if our relationship were different. I try to explain this, but fail. He begins to doubt he's doing the right thing. In some ways, perhaps he isn't, (we are self made exiles this hour, trespassing in the chilly rain), but I press on and ask for more. He doesn't know the gravity he possesses. He feeds me, but doesn't quite understand how hungry I am or how to make me hale.

"And this is where we caught bees. They would sit on flowers and you could sneak up on them," he gestures again, displaying methods of boyhood bee capture, both hands making a curious shape then coming suddenly together like the materials inside a fission bomb. "We trapped them in our hands with a clap that stunned them. They wouldn't sting us, that way. They would just sit."

He opens his hands again, showing me the treasure of his imaginary insect prize. He doesn't only talk with his hands, he communicates with his entire body, curling around his stories like a cat around a leg, a modern pantomime.

I shiver from the cold, bite my jaw closed against my betrayal-chattering teeth. One chance to memorize this. One. It could be that this might be the very last time these memories will come to light. Every memory in the world, no matter how poignant, always has a final time, and this gift is too full of grace to let any slip through my clumsy fingers.

He gives me the name of the boy he would catch bees with and descriptions of the open layout inside the buildings and which windows he looked out of during kindergarten. He gives me his enthusiasm, wrapped up in string. He gives me his life, parceled into small, lovely, and bite-sized pieces, the better to slip down my throat and into the furnace that heats my soul. Pound for pound, he shines brighter than our sun.

This is where he used to get on the roof by scaling the brick wall with his fingers and toes, like I used to do until my accident. He demonstrates the action, back to me, and I am startled by a memory from when we first met, when we walked downtown and he dropped behind me to hook my ankle with his hand, explaining how he caught calves as a boy on a summer ranch, a pun I appreciated on the spot. We began our history then, and here, much later, in this dark and damp playground goodbye, the two moments, alpha and omega, come together and merge forever.

"I spent six years here. Every single day. So strange to think about, now."

"Because it's the longest you've ever been anywhere?"

He blinks, gazes into the distance. "I guess so. I didn't even spend that much time in college."

I am cracking. This is marvelous, but also impossibly difficult. I do not want to be a refugee. But this is what I am given, so it is what I have, and I'll take what I can get.. I can't help but think about his choices, about where his life led after, how it doesn't contain space for me. My life will be less without him, but it could be argued that his will be better.

I speculate about what he might have looked like a a child, even as I know I will get it wrong. I wish for a picture. Something else promised then rescinded.

He frowns, remembering, considering mortality and fate.

I wish he would turn to me. I wish this wasn't our goodbye. I wish he would turn and smile, give me that instead. Smile with what brought us together, smile with what pulled us apart, smile with the warmth that opens a lily to the heat.

goodbye pacific north left

porphyre — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:13:53 GMT

I've been offered a ticket to London.

It leaves halfway through November. The last pieces required for my Irish passport are coming together. The utilities are now in David's name. An ad for my room is going up on Craigslist this week. I don't know where I'm going to live. I don't have reliable work. There is no safety net. And, if I get this right, I'll never be back again.

Goodbye Stephen Elliott: best cook, best smile, best father.

porphyre — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 17:28:41 GMT

Stephen Elliott, the closest thing I ever had to an adopted father, passed away on the morning of September 1st.

I was at Burning Man, so could not be bedside. I also missed his memorial. Yesterday would have been his 67th birthday. I do not feel guilt or regret, only grief.

It was a privilege to know him and to receive a small part of his generosity, cleverness, and joy. Somewhere there is a video of him playing Spanish guitar at one of my birthday parties, as pictured above, but that doesn't capture his vivaciousness or his overwhelming wonderful everything. They don't make them like they used to. He was quality and charm and grace personified, as well as the best sort of sly English wit. I don't know what else to say, except that he was loved, and is loved, and will always be so in my heart. My sympathies and condolences to everyone else currently grieving. He was prolific with his care, there are so many of us who will forever miss him, and we are all worse off for the loss.