well, I've gone and done it now - I've signed up at NaNoWriMo to scrive a novel in the month of November this year -- that means, 50,000 words, starting tomorrow...!!
a near-gloss fictionalization of the past year from Spring to Spring in SF will do it for me; exorcise some o those demons, tell all the juicy dirt about Baaaaad management decision over at GF's workplace, follow a few personal effects of the dot-bomb going down, write in our dear friend and neighbor, a vet who lives in his van and goes to pieces over certain hard knocks but rolls like a serene buddha with the Big calamities and small indignities of his life.
Vignettes of the City, snarls and setbacks, a protagonist reaching for hope in the face of slow disabling functions and looking for the great What's Next? in the face of a wobbly economy.
Hope springs green - of course it's gonna have a happy ending! I'm the one writing it!

Back from a weekend enjoying the Dead Ringers in San Francisco. Friends who've been morris dancing for years gather from the corners of the continent where they've spread out, and dance several sets near the Cannery and Hyde Pier in SF on Saturday, retiring to the Steelhead brewery for dinner; then continue on Sunday with a beach picnic, bocce 'tournament' and pub session (singing, dancing of jigs, consumption of goodies) until we're ready to wander off and call it a great time until next year.

Note to self: must find and learn the words to The Pro Musica Antiqua. no one could perform it *quite* so 'comme il faut' as Lynn, perhaps, but it Must be Known...

some highlights: Alex and Time came over to J&P's on Saturday night after the day of dance, and we played a set of Cliffs of Moher alternating with it jig self in 7/8 for the sheer fun and games of it.

Most religious moment of the day: playing for Jane, Liz & Patti, the tune Over the Hills and Far Away for the 3-person jig Barrow's House. Strangers reading this should know that morris dancing in general takes a long while to learn and coordinate with one's team, and is thus performance dance; a jig is a solo or small group ensemble-with-solos dance for showing the youngun's How It's Done. or something like that.
Jay came up with a credible new jig to the Webley Twizzle and Peterff leapt and twirled his 'Whirled Service" jig in the tradition of Minneapolis on Mississippi, a regional morris form created for the Bells of the North by Jim Brickwedde, when they were a New team lo these few decades ago. Further fascinated new readers may peruse the following locations for edification and amusement:
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/jcb/morris-teams.html
http://www.thedonkey.org/index2.html
http://web.syr.edu/~hytelnet/mddl/

I'm dubious today about continuing with LASFAPA, a print based zine apa I've been involved with desultorily for a year-plus, more seriously this fall. The folks are mostly well-intentioned and kind, and different from me, and not really of huge passing interest or connection with the folks involved therein, except as a furtherance of prior and outside connections with a handful of same. So....do I need to commit to paper these ramblings and musings, when I could blog online, save myriad trees, and let those who might wish to know, these whereabouts?
Perhaps for the best.
As to zining in print, I'm getting more excitement out of the yahoo group botmzines and the ten- for ten artzine swap every other month - the commentary to one another is more to the point and swift, being as it happens online, and the zines themselves remain expressions of personal vision and artistry.

Vanessa wrote to the ECD list:
While strolling through weblogs I found this link to a recent LA Times article
on the subject.

"The first case of Stuck Tune Syndrome is lost to history. If ancient Romans had
'Parvus Orbis Est' (Latin for 'It's a Small World') chirping incessantly in
their heads, they were kind enough not to mention it."

(mind my artificial line break in the URL)

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000080020oct07.story?coll=la-news-science

------------------------
Of course, it has been scientifically proven that the tune "Liliburlero" will drive out any offending tune stuck-in-endless-repeat-loop in a brain, and then will calmly leave of its own accord when the good deed is accomplished.
Verified in the kitchens of Pinewoods Dance Camp and the on the shores of the Monterey Bay, it's True, true, true.

onward,
-Ruth

I am also celebrating the drive from SF to LA and back with Lise, for the
weekend - we took Friday, and dawdled down 101; a hashmark for every shopping
center of that same generic could-be-anywhere in CA, could be Nowwhere, that we
passed; also noted with delight the regional sights: garlic stands/barns in
Gilroy, the decor of the Madonna Inn in SLO as well as the gift shop and an
apple dumpling from the Apple Farm restaurant, reading from natural history &
roadside geology books as we go...
She'd never been to Solvang before!! so we stayed there, and prowled the
historical Danish village...ate at Pea Soup Anderson's in Buellton on Friday
night, our picnic on the beach in Santa Barbara on Saturday included lefse from
the bakery in Solvang, but that lefse (Mrs. Olson's) was from Minnesota! haw...
the little carousel in Solvang, a Denzel reproduction with someone's
meticulous care and love and incredible hand-painted detail, is gone, having
been sold to a Japanese collector. We imagine it is well loved in its new home,
wherever that is. (*snif!* I miss it!) The seocnd-generation proprietor of the
Viking Motor Lodge on the main drag, Mission Street in Solvang, is Chinese, and
has a huge painting showing the Yellow Mountains and misty valleys, that his
father brought over from China. Lovely...we admired, and drew map sketches on a
scrap of paper to see where the Yellow Mountains are...some of the incredible
landscapes/waterfall scenes in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which
you must see if you have not yet) were shot there.

I celebrate landscapes, and the myriad of micro-climates we drove through this
weekend. Chapparal on the west and south sides of hills and oak forest on the
north sides in that valley rolling down through San Luis Obispo (or SLO; one
pronounces the 's' in Luis), and those 'Golden rolling hills' Kate Wolf sang
of, with a red-tailed hawk circling above, well if not every one as the song
goes, then many several of them.

We stayed with a delightful couple, folks who play SCA as well as being active
in the English and Scottish dance communities. We made them stuffcakes for
Sunday breakfast before heading home...an easy road - there are still groves of
Meyer Lemons along the Simi Valley, there are no public mailboxes for posting
letters or postcards to be found in a walk around downtown SLO (the handy
half-way point stretch stop), and Carl's Jr. has decent salads and fresh
greeneries on burgers (that'd be Hardee's to those of you East of the
Mississippi).

from Monday, October 1, in response to a query reaching for some good news from mon pere on our family yahoo: in spite of the current political situation, what are you celebrating?
Just today I'm celebrating the fact that dancers in LA have thrown their first annual Playford Ball, a fancy-dress party version of social English Country Dancing, named for a fellow who started publishing heaps of dance instructions and their tunes in 1651. It's a living dance tradition, with dances in the 'style' being written and taught to the current moment (often Playford Balls will center on a theme or period within this continuous history - someone is putting together a Louisiana Purchase Ball in the South, and choosing dances that were popular in that era and that part of the world.) Saturday's dance in LA didn't really have a period theme, but was named St. Michael's Madness and featured the dance Michael and All Angels - which were chosen last spring by the dance coordinators for the date the dance was held (St. Michael's Day on the liturgical calendar) -- but which turned out to be deeply and richly significant in the light of the last few weeks, as the dance was written by Fried de Metz Herman and set to a tune by Purcell, just as the Gulf War was heating up, as a prayer "please God don't let this be the start of world war three" (having come of age and survived WWII), and English Country dancers have been gathering together in their regular dance series and classes worldwide and doing this dance and the dance, Peace be With You, in the past few weeks, as a prayer for peace.
It felt Appropriate.

Lise has been out & down with an inner ear (viral the doc thinks) the past few days, we bopped into ER Monday night and got her poked, prodded & medicated and sent home for Rest a few days, and she staggered not only into work today (she's the library director for the California Institute of Integral Studies) but also called a dance this evening over in Berzerkeley - we have just arrived to home, and should be tipping over asleeeep, but are both sitting down elbow to elbow at the desk in the kitchen (our Main room of Cosiness) and checking emails for relaxation and comfort at the tail end of the day.