The Storyrain Blog

Whew. Well, turning on the oven (which was fine the last time I used it) produced a copious stream of noxious smoke. Open windows, doors, much fanning of chill outside air in later, the place is mostly cleared out. The bread pudding will just have to soak another hour and then I'll beg oven use from neighbor B.

I refuse to use anymore of my mental health day trying to figure out what's wrong with the oven. Some other time. Maybe I'll even get, like, a repair person. I mean the smoke was pouring--and there's nothing in the thing to make that happen.

In other news of the season of death (winter), my friend N's cat, Peri, with whom I've lived a good number of years over the last sixteen, is twenty, and failing. She's always been a very sweet cat. I'm glad I got to spend some time with her last weekend when I sat with the kids for the evening so N&C could go out.  (that, btw, was fun--the kids are now at an age where I really enjoy them--they play superhero scenario games with each other; A's power is to make the boys freeze, then fling them about with gestures of her hands)

And, yesterday evening, walking home from the bus stop I found one of Austin's Monk Parrots dead, in all its feathery green glory, on the sidewalk.

Ah the lingering smell of noxious smoke in the afternoon.

I've talked about the Austin parrot colonies here once or twice. Here's a picture of them. They're actually Monk Parakeets, though also called Quaker Parrots, and there's a bit of lore about them here.

So, Sunday afternoon, after lunching, P and I went to the Enchanted Forest for Art Outside.

The Enchanted Forest is a rambling patch of land in in-town Austin, wooded and hilly with a creekbed running through it. Not sure if it's a collective or owned by one person who's given it over to this use, but it's funky, the scraggly Texas woods filled with large metal-smithed sculptural art, stringed lights, bits and bobs of art, found and recycled object altars (everything and the kitchen sink), and many much-pierced, tatted, leather-wearing, tangle-haired, I'm-anti-extablishment and making a statement about it about peeps.

A lot of the structures--a stage, wooden bridges, sculptures, installations--I think are probably permanent, but for the Art Outside show they have a lot of other artists come in and set up. So you walk through the woods, hey, art! In the woods!

Things chiefly liked:

Kinetic metal sculptures, made of shiny ladles of many sizes, irridescent glass, metal balls and fish tail shapes, very cool.

Sculptures come upon among the trees, of fantastic or science fictional things, a world tree with very Cthulu-esque workings in its hollow earth beneath, solar-powered giant, metal-smithed flower lamps, ceramic creatures straight out of twisted dark fantasy...

...a layered cellophane sculpture of a person emerging, one leg, two arms, face, from a tree trunk.

Spirit bottles in blue, green, amber and clear glass, beaded and wired and hanging from many branches with little plantlings rooting in them.

An altered barbie sculpture of Shiva (roll over the thumbnails to find her), in the midst of a little haven in the trees planted in swirling silk flower patterns.

A chandelier of Victorian-esque glass lanterns wreathed in cast, aged doll faces, hanging from a branch...

...dolls with gold tiki masks worshipping and climbing on a stuffed, human-sized headless figure in striped black, sitting in a lawn in an animated pose, with one oversized, monstrous sculpted hand...(I could have kicked myself several times over, were I more limber, for not remembering my camera)

An unlit fire fountain. (the night shows must be amazing)

Paintings of little birds and bunnies and geishas in a manic, scrawly, yet whimsical and beautifully colored, slightly perturbed idiom.

A towering beached boat.

Large, somber fantasy oil paintings, by this artist, whose website is well worth checking out.

As I said, could have kicked myself for not bringing the camera; you'll have to make do with my word pictures.

it was surreal and full of prickly imagination gone wild; P and I were very glad we went.

Took a walk yesterday eve to the closest grocery store (which is mostly useless to me--of the five things on my list, all I could find was an onion--it's shameful, given that it's the main large grocery store for a whole neighborhood--which happens to be largely working class and poor Hispanic--but that's a different discussion) and in one yard there was an Easter display. A giant (nearly as tall as the house) inflated pink bunny with a basket of eggs that more nearly resembled an alien vessel's control console. There were also several plastic light-up bunnies of varying sizes, with a horde of giant plastic eggs, eggs so large they could only give birth to reptiles of alarming size.

Just now, some vehicle, truck or train, made a hideous noise, very like one of those reptiles of alarming size might make, and now Sula is growling at the window. She's such a brave little brown beast.

Went yesterday afternoon to see Mysterious Skin with Ross, a loft neighbor; good movie, riveting, with awesome performances, and just the kind of small scale but intense indie movie I needed after the overblown depressing miasma that was War of the Worlds the day before. Also, it was very fun to see Michelle Trachtenberg, aka Dawn Summers, as a thoroughly Goth girl. Not that the movie is exactly fun, it's tough stuff, but it's very well done and worth seeing, tough stuff with humor and hope.

After, Ross wanted to stop at Charlie's, a gay bar that's been around for a very long time, to see a band that he likes play. I'd never been to Charlie's; it was the most bizarre cross-section of sub-culture I've ever come across. At first glance when you come in, it looks like a collection of good old boys and bubbas. Older guys with paunch and bald spots around a big, Cheers-style bar, and scattered about in the rest of the dim, heavy wood and aged atmosphere. But off to one side there's a side bar with two mostly naked men on it, dancing. And here and there are some women, with big breasts and country bar-styled hair, who were once men, and a few who are still men, but are definitely better in heels than I've ever been. Add to this that the band which is playing is kind of a country band, though not strictly--lots of strings, including mandolin and fiddle, which made it alright for me--and a man and a woman with beautiful voices singing. And that the place is done up with lots of red, white and blue and flags for the fourth. And the stripper/dancers (apparently Charlie's has amateur strip nights on Tuesdays...hmmm...) occassionally do a two-step together, while, down on the wooden dance floor, an aged white-haired gentleman and a trannie in an elegant red hat dance a graceful waltz when the band plays "Mr. Bojangles," the disco ball above scattering stars around them.