Inspiration: People looking to make the world a better place

Things that came to my attention this past year (or before but still hold some interest) These are people and organizations that are working to make the world a better place in what ways they can. I am inspired by them.

Recently, the Lakota People have seceded from the US. They will be making their own passports and drivers' licenses. They've been engaged in some diplomacy with other nations around the world. I'm not sure what any of this means or how it will play out, but I find it an amazing exercise of the people.

ImaginePeace: Every new bit of footage I see of John Lennon, I am amazed by the omni-timeliness. The video up on the site is very powerful in the rip your heart out at the ugliness of war, sort of way. The video for the song itself (in the last third of the clip) comes from the same school as the idea that vietnam war images mobilized the people to stop it. This is truth not Hollywood. That being said, watch with care. The first section of John speaking is worth a look. "Everyone knows that the people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people." - John Lennon

This is a great short film made to educate about 'stuff' and consumption. It's clear and concise. The info about the creation of consumerism post World War II was pretty mind-blowing. I'd love to know more about this victor labeau chap.

The movement toward a pro bicycle culture is fantastic. Hilarious that Chanel is making designer bikes and everyone in fashion is talking about ms. dyne showing up to runway shows on bikes. The folks at Bikes Not Bombs have been not only pro bike for years but also finding ways to interest as well as train local youth in the art of bicycle maintenance. Recycling old bikes, even. The remaining concern is safety in urban planning. I'm glad people are starting to be interested.

David Byrne is making life better by not only keeping an intelligent blog on issues like bicycles and new artists and politics, but also curated an online radio station that always has music that is new to me. I am personally inspired by his life choices and view point. A role-model for how to live life as an artist.

My initial attraction to the archbishop of cantebury was through the planet earth bbc series. He has fantastic diction, and also is a voice for environmental stewardship in the christian realm. His christmas sermon addressed the issue of global warming. I find that encouraging.

Banksy was pretty awesome to begin with, using the public realm to get people thinking through art (I feel like I've heard people talk about trying to do that but this is the first take I've felt has begun to work. maybe it has something to do with the twinkle of illegalness.) His graphic realist style of stenciling is effective in that the figures are clear so that the surreal qualities and juxtapositions are even more potent. Then there's the christmas graffiti on the walls of Bethlehem.

Whiskerino's message of beard-growing is not so earth shattering on the surface. There may be the slightest healthy encouragement of men to be men, but the major impact is the community is creates, both by participants and fans. It also utilizes the contemporary impulse to self-document and makes a group of it. A competition that is won by community building. beautiful.

Learning to Love You More has been around for a few years. It was started by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher and a book has been made from it. Here we have another take on online community building, by storytelling, making activities and exploration and sharing of the human condition.

Vinegar is an all-purpose wonder fluid. It can handle oodles of your cleaning needs, many more than you can imagine. This book says there are 400 uses.



Baking Soda is another excellent overlooked cleaning agent. This one I've known a thing a or two about from my mom. But, here,
another book to teach up all the crap we don't need that we're told we do.



unlike the deadly mixture of bleach and ammonia,
these two ingredients together: table top volcano
so long mr. yuck


My mother Z. Zsido has been working on issues surrounding the Muddy River Restoration Project scheduled for Olmstead's Emerald Necklace in Boston Massachusetts. The concern being the impact of such a proposed dredging and laying down of herbicides may have far more consequences than expected. She has put her paper on the subject as well as further info online.

My sister Sarah Lyon Ph.D. is using her education in anthropology to investigate the effects of coffee economics on guatamalan women. She has taken a number of trips down to study and meet the people over the years and is publishing papers and soon books on the subject.

My friend BriAnna Olson has taken on a project of trying to create a human and artistic exchange between two nations who have some antagonism in the interest to spreading love and understanding rather than the alternative. She has built her own online presence and begun to generate motions toward that goal.

My housemate Brian Viglione (sadly no more as I've vacated Boston) wrote an essay for the Matthew Shepard foundation in connection with the the True Colors Tour the Dresden Dolls did this past year. He shares parts of himself and offers words of encouragement in hopes of easing the difficulties of growing up queer.



If you have anyone to add to the list, please comment and share. Let's get each other juiced to change things to how we'd like them to be.

Sallying

So, some forward progress. I've been wanting to design a bony lil bandana forever and I am finally getting somewhere. It needs some work, but the design is over half-way there.
Also, new monkey suits. This may not mean a lot to many people but alejandro + harriet were thrilled and alejandro insists up having a mustache to go with it. I'm working on it.


Also did started some photoshoots with lil in different costumes. Good so far, I think. I'm using a traditional film camera, so we'll see.
Good times.

Ze posted that thing on his blog. yay.

S'no Fun

In the Snow: keeping you company from Zea on Vimeo.
This is how I spent my yesterday. I made it as part of the Ze Frank 'keeping you company' series. Since I tend to insist on a complete lack of dialogue, it seems I will have to continue to tackle this 'original music' thing. Probably need to invest in a mic better than what's onboard my 'puter. That and some basic arms-making-rhythms classes. Or start playing stuff with my feet...
Video posted on Ze's blog: here

The other thing I'd like to say is that snow is awesome. For many reasons, but today because the sun going down at 4:30 is a bummer, but if there's snow, it kicks up every last scrap of light in the sky, making it seem lighter at twilight. Sometimes, it seems like the snow is a shade brighter than the sky. this place rocks.
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empty........................................................................full

Frost on the Pumpkin: + other new friends

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Also, I organized a new youtube channel devoted to the collaborative extra-curricular video projects of current and former blue man group employees (how's that for a niche market). So far there's been a deafening response (meaning no response whatever) But it's something I believe in. Lots of those folks have craploads of talent and, in my view, shouldn't be funneling every last drop into a somewhat pre-fab show. Anyway, I've done my bit and I hope folks will be encouraged to make stuff. Mr. Costner said that whole, 'if you build it.." blahblahblah. Take a look. Also, that horror movie we didn't quite make is posted {warning: NSFW. It's funny but it's also pretty gross and disturbing}. There's also a bunch of pre-existing stuff favorited. {so many. so many verbed nouns. fuf (I had a surreal experience the other day, I was writing by hand, iffy on spelling, but just barreled ahead, sure that a little dashed red line would let me know if it was wrong [must have been spelled right])}

I totally just went boyfriend shopping on whiskerino. Does that make me hipster scum? I plead two and a half weeks of isolation.

New Bony Lil Merch

Bony Lil is headed to school soon. Tuition's a bitch. So I'm having a virtual bake sale of sorts to help with the costsiz. So there are fabulous, charming new items to choose from, organic cotton t-shirts, canvas tote bags for saving the planet, buttons, mugs, and aprons. So, here goes... here's to Bony Lil 2.0.

www.cafepress.com/bonylil_school


shanksh

Fine Day for a Fly

Featured on Yahoo video again, at the moment. {24 hits yesterday, 4834 and counting today} wee!

or go see on the site, here, and do that comment thing.

The whole deal with this one is that is was very early on. It was shot out in the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain one wintry day nearly five years ago. We see all the breadth of 'capabilities' of super 8. I then snapped up a co-worker/berklee student to score it and another to help record it in his apartment. I love the led zepplin flavor of the music towards the end. The young man claims to not have heard say Bron-y-aur Stomp or anything. The flapping bird noises were made by flapping slightly crinkles pieces of paper. Anyway, it was a hoot to make. It stayed in hiding for this long onaccounta it didn't meet production standards, but I think it's still fun.

or perhaps you'd rather see it on youtube, or say myspace, or maybe, heck, crackle. go to.

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Also...


And!
Be Kind Rewind!
go now! Lookit!! I am so frickin excited about this movie. Mos Def is my new heartthrob of the moment. I'm so beefed, it's coming out when I'm in Toronto. At least Sundance had the decency not to interrupt my plans. ...jerks.

some fun

so, this came, indirectly, from mr. ze frank. I'd never heard of the guy before. If you are NOT prancing around a spiffy house resplendent in your slippers, I would recommend #1, #2, #3, #6 and #8, rather than the whole shabang. dylan moran.

here's some scary chocolate cake I made:

glazed like donut. (not enough confectioner's sugar for a proper icing, I learned too late). anyway, it's fairly horrid. It has proved, through the years, that I have a propensity for baking experimentation with hideous outcomes. A tricky science not to be meddled with. Although the gingerbread I made was pretty good...

and aside from all this distraction, I am, in fact, making headway on ideas. pages of brainstorming. a full length bony lil live theatre piece in the works. Street stuff too. a quadrillion odds and ends. nearly to the point of needing to narrow some focus down.
I want to do everything of them.

In the meantime, here is a totally unauthorized sneak peak of a thing for the precious few. Please send along your fourth-grade-book-report style feedback.

Sticks & Boonies

Reporting to you live from the wilderness (sort of). I have a wonderful, small village of a house to pad around in and scheme on my next projects. As of today I've three or four I REALLY wanna do NOW.

I'm weighing my options on a new cheapie mini dv video camera to record my theatrical ruminations. Let me know if y'all have any suggestions.

Below you will find some stills from the video I made for Neptune's 'Grey Shallows' off their forthcoming album. The song is called 'Grey Shallows', I like to call this piece 'Some Crazy Bitch in a Tub'.

Animation and Apples on the Ground

I no longer have steady work as a laundress. Unemployment lasted about 5 days. I'm currently working on an animation project for some folks at Emerson. It's fun to figure out how to make things still look really good within the time that the money allows.

I'm gearing up for my sabbatical {snork}; Where I'll be focusing on some new live pieces and whatever else grabs my fancy. Just got word today I'll be having an interlude during the winter to go up to canada and study clowning. Absolutely Marvelous, I tell you.

I completed the secret project. It was a music video for a song off the yet-to-be-released Neptune album. I will post it as soon as I can but I Do know the album doesn't get released until february.

Also, the horror movie project has been somewhat truncated. We completed two out of about 5-6 days of shooting. So I cut together what we Do have and will be posting that soon as well.

I am composing a song.
Apples on the Ground.
I think it'll probably go platinum.

How to Create Your Own "Zombie Miss South Carolina": Make-up tutorial (sort of)

First: gather costume bits of a fancy gown and long blond wig. Make a sash by painting on 2"+ white ribbon. I made a choker with bits of ribbon and sequins as the neckline (or lack thereof) on my dress was so different from hers.

Then: paint on a base of black and purple. I use this groovy water-based makeup that comes in cakes and has lots of colors. Once all the eyesocket shadows and veins are in place, use a white cake makeup of a different brand and sponge over the dark bits using a round sponge.

After That: Draw on the cheat-sheet info on forearms using black liquid liner or lip liner

And touch up and bring out the eyes and lips with some green twinkly loveliness. Then powder down with a loose translucent powder so you won't rub off all your hardwork on the lining of your coat.

Ultimately: put all the bits together and practice your snarl.
If you need a refresher on your lines go here

Secrety Project

I'm gambling that the person who this is for doesn't read this blog, otherwise we got a gato-afuera-del-balso before it's meant to be.

But it's a video project I'm putting together. I'm editing now. (I dislike editing so I'm starting by just throwing different bits into the timeline and hoping it makes-some-pretty without too much brainstrain from me.) It's somewhat of a gifty-type labor of love. it'll be done soon (hopes). It feels appropriate season-wise.

more soon.

Bony Lil's CREATION screening in Chicago

The folks over at the Chicago Short Film Brigade were kind enough to grant us a spot in their lineup:
October 25th
8:30pm @ the Hideout
Chicago IL

I'm super psyched about this and if you're in the area please do drop by and check it out.

{I mean, like, ten minutes of hand crafted animation in some kooky style you've totally never seen before ever, er whatever}

More informations

Blog Action Day- late....

So I just heard today about the environmental blogging thing that was yesterday. I guess those of us with two or three readers are a bit out of the loop. Coincidentally, I was thinking about posting this idea anyway. So, bully for me.

I've noticed a new tendency in myself which I think may have some basis for other folks as well. I spend periods of time reading magazines, renting movies, reading books, watching videos online (see recommendations below); this is my leisure intake time. Everyone has different ways of passive intake; tv and the ninternets, mostly, I imagine. But, after an amount of time, (all of us have different capacities), we want to DO something. Not just passively intake but express ourselves, somehow. Back in the days of cowboys and indians and hippies and renaissance bards and lonely shepherds, someone might pick up a guitar and sing a song, dance, draw, tell a story. Cool. When I get restless, lately, I've been noticing a new impulse that I have generally not enjoyed in the past; go shopping. Buy something to express yourself, a new piece of clothing, a new something to decorate your home, something to exhibit your taste and stylistic leanings. This from a person who fancies herself someone who has come to terms with her own self-confidence issues, at least in knowing that they will not be altered by buying items. Yet, there is still this idea that consuming is expression. Well, I'm here to rip the curtain aside and tell the world: "Consuming is just more intake". Small shards of self-expression exist in which shade of sweater you pull from the shelf, but that's it. Consumption is not Self-Expression. I think Doing and Making are very important ingredients in good mental health. You will never get that special feeling of accomplishment and connection from buying things.

Put down your wallets! Find another outlet. Remember anything you used to enjoy DOING? MAKING? BUILDING? Take a moment and turn off the tv, the computer, the cellphone, and just think about it. Remember? Great. Now look around and see what you have on hand. Look in the closet. Look in the recycling bin. Limitations are the mother of invention. You could build your very own monster in your basement with just what you have in the house right now. You can make an orchestra out of what you have in the kitchen. You can hatch great new ideas on the back of that junkmail envelope. Fix up your bike and go for a ride. You can put something together and walk outside of your house and meet people eye to eye and share. Remember?


{and if you must buy, go to second hand stores. Was that a nose wrinkle? I found a brand new pair of velveteen gucci pants at a second hand store for ten bucks. so...}

Recommended Movies

ONES I'VE SEEN LATELY...


Bathing Beauty: Esther Williams:
great blistering technicolor, synchronized swimming, incomparable ethel smith cameos, red skelton. I mean, come on furfucksake, yes.

Tekkonkinkreet:
beautifully rendered animation, there are some jaw-dropping moments where certain aspects of life are captured in animated form that you may not have seen before, and some you definitely haven't.

Heima: Sigur Ros:
and I've only seen the trailer, even, and it's so moving, so gorgeous.

Taste of Tea:
By one of the directors of Funky Forest: First Contact. I fucking adore it.

L'Iceberg:
a brilliant film wherein there is not so much dialog but moreso melancholy physical comedy. Fiona Gordon is my new inspiration.

Crappy Phontos & Fashion Week(s) Mop-Up

twilight................................................found in havid squeeah
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why I adore galliano......................................new favorite color

aNOTHEr site

new site up now for drawings, now. All the pieces from the show, plus one that was not quite as passably family oriented, are up for perusal and purchase. The show is up for another week.
The store's open 7am-9pm daily, 8-8 sundays. I'll be taking it down on the 7th. Come see.

Thanks to all my peeps who did make it out. You make me feel happy inside.

All the Doings

Come to Jamaica Plain Open Studios this weekend (the 29th & 30th: 11-6pm). Come see all my stuff in the flesh. I'll be hanging around chatting people up about the pieces and showing them the secrets. This here is the one that's sold, so far.




We did our first shoot for the horror movie last weekend. It went splendidly. I didn't get a phonto of it but it was kind of like this.