Click here for Obama sushi rolls

Click here

Then you will have the magic permission to click here…

The Wizardress of Ensorcellment

Anaïs Nin, inadvertent hilarioutess and ensorcellress both; “sensuality is a secret power in my body,” she once said. But since she said it, it’s not such a secret anymore, now is it? One critic called her “A major minor writer”. That critic was obviously wearing anti-ensorcellment venom.

Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller

And don’t get Gore Vidal started on the topic of the word ensorcellment. Because of their seemingly love-hate relationship they sniped at each other in later years and, much to her chagrin, he modeled the character Marietta after her in his novel Two Sisters, whose “favorite word is ‘ensorcelled.’ She cannot write a book without it. Unfortunately I cannot read a book that contains it.”

By the way, Gore made for some pretty great quotes. Did you know… he was once engaged to Joanne Woodward and she broke up with him to date Paul Newman? but they remained good friends all three forever after so it’s all good.

There is not one human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise. - Gore Vidal

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes. - Gore Vidal

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. - Gore Vidal

Anyway, back to Anaïs..

Life is a scary Costume Farm. Boo!

India Fashion Week - Manish Arora Spring/Summer 2008 - catwalk New Delhi, india (10/20/08). Love the dress in the middle, but not just because it is in the middle.

The heroine (?@!) of the tale, Gem Irony – a possibly self-negating, anagramatic, and typically foolish moniker with too many descriptive comma-ish annotations (with each annotation requiring its own sub-annotation) – is pondering Halloweens past and present, but never the future. Such  self-negations make her wonder if she even exists, and, as such, if things are in fact, negative, or, negated. She rarely ponders the future, finding it to be a seemingly insurmountable and progress-hampering task, preferring a Scarlet O’Hara-ish avoidance approach. She is thinking about poseury, plumery, costumery and

Putin Stole My Jamoka

I swear I did not photoshop this. Click it to see the real article on HuffPo.

Remember when I used to photoshop Jamoka into all sorts of things for my art newsletter? Well, he’s not gone. It was a ruse. He was stolen and Putin is now making my Jamoka carry around whole satellites. Shit. This looks so photoshopped. it looks exactly like I photoshopped it. Proof below the caption.

“Wearing a collar containing satellite-guided positioning equipment Putin’s dog Koni walks ahead of his owner, now Russia’s Prime Minister, right, in Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on Friday, Oct. 17, 2008. Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system isn’t fully operational yet, but it seemed to function Friday at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence when he tried the equipment on his black labrador. The government had promised to make GLONASS fully operational by the beginning of this year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems. GLONASS was developed during the Soviet times as a response to the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS, but it has been slow to take shape amid the post-Soviet economic meltdown.(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)”

A walk down memory lane below. See!? People don’t die. They go somewhere else. I have always refused to believe otherwise. Jamoka is the dog who miraculously appeared in a huge ice and snow and water sculpture in the canal outside my window almost 2 months after he died. For that. I believe in miracles. Hell, I now believe the Virgin Mary did appear in the window at Mercy Hospital recently. She appeared on what would have been my Grammie’s birthday so of course it is absolutely real. I now believe in everything.That I want to.

A letter from John Cleese about the election

Me and You and Evryone We Know

Holy MOly. My internet has mercury-retrograde-ically been down for a full week (and 5 hours and 28 minutes) and it’s nice to be back up again because after working at the wireless cafe/deli, my clothes all smell like…. well, like I worked at the deli.

So, catching up. Carrying on then. Here I post a letter supposedly from John Cleese to me and you and everyone we know. ;-)

And since wordpress, who I LOVE, has added a poll, see the poll at the bottom and vote and be counted, after the post. And the jump… I ENABLED MULTIPLE VOTES PER PERSON TO REFLECT VOTING FRAUD AS A NOD TO CERTAIN ELECTIONS. AND TO MAKE VOTING MORE FUN. I THINK I ENABLED WRITE-IN VOTING AS WELL. THIS IS MY FIRST WORDPRESS POLL. I’M ALL GROWN UP NOW.

______________________

Subject: important message from John Cleese to all US citizens.

(teaser – “15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.”)

‘Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A.’

A message adapted and updated from Mr. John Cleese:

To the Citizens of the United States of America:

In light of the strong possibility you are about to elect an elderly gentleman with a bad temper and a lady who thinks she can run foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house, as President and President-In-Waiting of the USA and thus to risk Life As We Know It for everyone else on the Planet, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). She won’t actually be in charge, but she’ll greet foreign leaders as necessary and not put her foot in it or vomit on anyone at dinner.

Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. He will choose someone who does not have his or her hand in the till and has significant experience in running Big Things. You have not had one of them for almost a decade and trust me

Life is a Carnival

WITH CIRCULARLY OCCURRING MIDWAYS AND RECURRING METAPHORS

More rust spots to go. I hope I don't dent the hood getting to those.

I was working in the alley again yesterday. I have all this rust on my car; I have little spots here and there and threatening to grow. One of them is on my door so, fearing losing my door and having no budget for taking my car to an auto body shop or to buy a new door, I decided to do it myself. I felt qualified, in a half-assed way, since last summer I had use fiberglass and resin and bondo to create the vacuum cleaner project, in that same alley, and it was fun working in the alley with all the visitors, human and otherwise.

There was this loud BOOM! As I was dragging out a 100 ft extension cord and I ducked and then looked around to see if anyone saw that embarrassing bit. People opened their windows and leaned out and seeing me, asked what was that. I told them my new project is a mosaiced canon and I was trying it out. No, really I told them I didn’t know and then of course told them about my embarrassing duck which I’d just a moment ago hoped no one would notice. I am like that. It can be embarrassing to be me.

Not so bad for a first auto body project.

So I was using my disk sander and grinding off the rust when 3 huge HG&E trucks came by. Guess what!? It was my same pals from that whole saving the birds by cutting the Bird-killing wire thing. It was nice to see their smiley faces. One said hey! You guys were in the paper yesterday and gave me a copy of the Republican with an article about Holyoke artists quoting the city’s “goal to create and establish a network for artists” and also saying, “I think they’re going to play a very important part in revitalizing downtown”. Gosh. That’s sweet.

We do have quite the existing network and we all mostly know each other and have meetings and such (like the one with the Mayor last week) and it’s nice that the city wants to know us as well. It’s funny how a group of people with limited resources and peculiar skills can be credited with a revitalization. The article was right next to an article titled. “Two men rob audio shop”; that wasn’t us though. So HG&E likes us (and they like the wildlife), and the Mayor likes us and now the City likes us. That’s a lot of like.

Anyway – I was wearing my respirator and gloves and my favorite ratty old red hoodie sweatshirt for this momentous first-time auto body project. That sweatshirt is like a security blanket. And it was fresh from the wash because I had inadvertently make it smell by using elderberry hand cream the other day, which made it smell not like elderberry but like something else, like a person from my past who caused me insecurity. My security blanket had thus become an insecurity blanket, but after the wash it was all security-ish again.

Apropos of nothing really: My friend Jim, visiting from Brooklyn, ponders the "dness" in The Kindness Coolerator.

I had gotten all the rust off and more guys came by from my building and asked when I was going to spray the primer. I said in a bit. NONONO!, they said. You have to do it now; the metal starts oxidizing immediately and so you cannot wait. Shit!, I replied, I have therapy at 2! So I rushed and got the primer done in time. Phew. Then halfway through therapy, and the recounting of the latest crisis, my therapist said, “that’s a fire drill, I have to leave the building.” And she hung up with a promise to call back.

Sometimes I feel like a cartoon.

But my auto body work came out pretty good for a novice. In this life.

Main Entry:
Pronunciation: \pi-ˈkyül-yər\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English peculier, from Latin peculiaris of private property, special, from peculium private property, from pecu cattle; akin to Latin pecus cattle – more at fee
Date: 15th century

1: characteristic of only one person, group, or thing : distinctive

2: different from the usual or normal: a: special , particular b: odd , curious c: eccentric , queer
synonyms see characteristic, strange
- pe·cu·liar·ly adverb

This is getting ridiculous…

This blog is turning into a pest control rant. First mice, and then skunkings outside my window and now.. Brown Recluse spiders. I am turning into a spa of sorts for various pests of escalating danger. DANGER, I tell you.

BTW, I am trying peppermint spray for the mice. I brewed peppermint tea and added drops of peppermint oil and I obsessively-compulsively spray every few minutes around my whole space. It smells, and this is shocking, like peppermint. A lot. Chokingly. Knocking on wood… no mice. No mice in the luxury mice hotel traps I set with huge chunks of Gouda.

The spider in my tub this morning; asshole poisonous killer malicious dangerous hunting spider from hell.

Anyway, this morning I killed a Brown Recluse. It wasn’t easy. it was a battle. I found him (surely it was a him, his name tag said “Mr. Spider”) in my tub. The fruit flies like to go into my tub every day and die.  I have fruit fly hotels scattered everywhere and they are full of dozens of dead fruit flies. Fruit fly hotels are merely recycled plastic hummus containers with vinegar in them and a few tiny holes in the lid. They climb in and can’t get out and die of obesity and entrapment.Brown Recluse spiders are not web spinners; they are hunters and they are lazy. They hunt insects and such and are happiest when they find dead ones, like prepared foodstuffs.

So, I sprayed scalding water and Mr. Brown Recluse Spider dropped and rolled. He kept springing back to life. I had to try to crush him with the soap dish. Even down to one last leg he still ran, dropped and rolled. I recognized his kind; I was bitten by one back in a day – somewhere about 1992. It was after my broken leg and before my snapped neck episode. I measure time in calamities. I was often called Calamity Jane as a child.

So back in that day I woke up to find a bite. I scratched it, as I am wont to do, and it got bigger. And bigger. Soon it was a mass, about which I will spare you the details. Finally I went to the ER at Beth Israel Hospital. They said it looked like a Brown Recluse bite. I had seen him then – monochromatic brown, violin shaped, markings on the back, 8 legs, smirky face of evil intent. I forget what they gave me. Antivenom perhaps. And valium. They cleaned up the nasty mess on my ankle and bandaged it and informed me that I’d have to have my apartment exterminated specifically for the Brown Recluse. I’d also have to sleep somewhere else till it was fully and professionally exterminated.

So I called Mrs. Brown, my landlord. Mrs. Brown always wore a navy blue suit. It looked like the same suit but surely it could not be. Mrs. Brown owned 12 apartment buildings in Boston. Mrs. Brown laughed – she had a jolly laugh – when I explained my situation and need of utmost urgence for brave people in tyvek suits with poison to make a house call. But she called, and the exterminator came, and I lived. I had to wear a suit to work back in that day and slacks were frowned upon for the women in this office (men could wear slacks) so I skipped off to work each day with a little suit and a big bandage around my ankle. I still remember picking shoes to match my bandage and then choosing an outfit to go with the shoes. Fortunately it was summer, for how ridiculous would it look to have stockings on over a bulky bandage?

My internet research about getting rid of this particular spider does not turn up peppermint oil variety remedies. It seems I’ll have to either call an exterminator, leave, spread powdered poison, or set glue traps. “Be careful when removing the traps for the spider may still be alive, wear gloves” they warn. Sigh. “Many times during those months the brown recluse will go without any food or water. It is nearly impossible to fully get rid of brown recluse spiders once they have become established in these areas of the home. The brown recluse does not spin a web either to catch their food; instead they hunt their prey which usually consists of insects, either dead or alive.”

Super Sigh.

Years later and after many moves I called up Mrs. Brown to see if she had any apartments available and when I said my name she laughed jollily and said, “Oh! The Brown Recluse lady!”

What’s in a name? And the spelling thereof?

TV screencap from Sweetie, a delightful Australian film

In my last post (below) about a wonderful book that I am enjoying in a very special way, Dawns and Dusks – compiled by Diana MacKown from a series of taped conversations with Louise Nevelson – I spelled Diana MacKown’s name wrong. It was a typo. My typing style is hilarious and it’s a wonder that I type anything at all. It was a finger-o. I wish I hadn’t given up on typing class but it just would not come to me and so I regularly skipped it for I was not a dedicated student in high school. I had issues. I wrote a lot of notes excusing myself for driving lessons never taken and doctor’s appointments never scheduled. As a teen I was not entirely well-adjusted, but it was all hilarious nonetheless.

TV screencap from Sweetie, a delightful Australian film

Anyway–I got a comment from Diana MacKown correcting my spelling and I felt horrible. I try really hard to spell names correctly because for my entire life people have misspelled my last name, adding an “L” to it and thus making it even more ridiculable.

I found a Facebook group the other day called, “There is no “L” in Ringey” which I did not join because I don’t know those fellow Ringey people.

I have a cousin who has two email addresses at his job. One is first initial then ringey@ whatever it is, and the other is first intial ringley@ blah-di-blah. It’s a workaround, so that he’ll not miss important emails. I’d say 99% of the population adds that “L”.

TV screencap from Sweetie, a delightful Australian film

As a child I dreaded the first day of school because the teacher would call out, “Laura Ringley?” and everyone would laugh. I grew up during the Laugh-In era and loved that show but hated that Lily Tomlin bit where she played a telephone operator who woud say, “One ringey dingey, two ringey dingies”. Kids would chant that at me. I dreamed of changing my name one day to the original spelling, “Regnier”, which got mangled at the border when my ancestors came here from Canada. Lily, you owe me, but I loved you in that movie, I Heart Huckabees. Lilly, email me so we can discuss this. I am still in therapy but it’s not all your fault. It’s not my only issue.

But if I was named Laura why would I call myself Mo?

TV screencap from Sweetie, a delightful Australian film

Glad you asked. When I was brought home from that baby place, my older brother Matt pointed at me and said something that sounded like Mo-ra. So from that moment on I was Mo. My father called me Mosely Josely and my mother called me Mosey Josey. It was confusing. But I was embarrassed to be named after a stooge and so I begged my parents not to call me Mo in front of friends. But years later that Mo thing slipped out in conversation at an old job and from then on I was Mo and I guess I feel more like a Mo and it stuck so I succumbed to it.

How is this relevant to all this other blah-di-blah? Well, twice now I have found mentions about me on websites (due to google alerts) asserting that I call myself Mo because I do mosaic art. Yikes. I think if I were of the mind to create a moniker for myself it might be something stooge-less. And sometimes I get notes addressed to me as Moe, so I feel the pain of misspelling in that respect as well. But… no. I did not name myself. And actually I call myself a sculptor because that’s how I see what I do. And the name Mo is precious to me because my brother Matt was my idol and I adored him and followed him around and tried to emulate him. Matt is gone now after 22 years as a beautiful soul, but somewhere he is happy that I have let the name Mo take precedence over Laura which sounds so glamorous as to not describe me at all. I’m just a Mo. So, Diana, my sincerest apologies. I love that book and hope others will find it and get as much as I have from it. And please email me if you’d ever consent to being a call-in guest on my radio show and share some more of that loveliness.

Being ‘The Grandiose Self in Everyday Life’ means never having to say you’re sorry

The below-this post about the cancellation of our fundraising event had me thinking about apologizing.

Yesterday a friend named Tobey sent me a fascinating article on Narcissism and mirrors from The New York Times which is relevant to everything, of course. Then I had a scintillating conversation with another friend about much of the same and so I obsessively ponder and google. It seems we have very distorted senses of self and will pick our own faces out of an array faster and with higher familiarity when they are airbrushed or photoshopped, yet when picking out our friend’s faces we choose the realistic and untouched ones. This would explain a lot about narcissistic tendencies, the perception of self and grandiose notions.

Fabulous Photo by Vivienne Flesher, lifted without permission from the NYT.

This made me think about how I am currently apologizing to already contacted media people about the postponement of our VFR fundraiser, and about apologizing in general. Apologizing is not so bad – I find it freeing. I think I actually feel more confident for offered apologies because there is perhaps a confidence in not owning a delusion that I cannot be wrong (which no one is buying anyway) and presenting a humble, and thus realistic front. I admire humility and realistic self-perceptions in people. I think about this a lot, and had a conversation yesterday with a friend in Canada about it, which I wish was in person but those gas prices…. Oh my. I have even been siphoned. This shit is dire.

Narcissivision, by me. Property of Veronika Travis and Molly O'Brien

Anyway-my aforementioned friend tends to always end up in relationships with non-apologists and thus she is always apologizing to them for even looking for an apology or for expressing that she is hurt, thus threatening their rightness. She calls them Narcissists. In my work and in my travels in life I am fascinated with Narcissism. I made a piece called Narcissivision in which my modern take on the myth of Narcissus involves a television with a mirrored backing inside and a neon ring reflecting endlessly to suggest the eddying effects of self-perception and mimics the ripples in his gazing pond, to which he was psychologically adhered. You have to look closely into Narcissivision to see yourself but the image of yourself is not real, it is fragmented and distorted; it is delusional.

So I googled and I found the Dr. X Free Association blog and he writes:

The Narcissist’s Inability To Apologize Or Express Thanks In Everyday Life

I just stumbled on an excellent, brief article by Nancy McWilliams and Stanley Leppendorf on everyday manifestations of narcissism. I read it a number of years ago and misplaced the only hard copy I had, so I was pleased to run across it online today. The authors examine the everyday implications of the narcissist’s need to protect an internal sense of grandiosity. They explain why the narcissist finds it difficult to apologize, show gratitude, admit error and experience or show need. They also comment on the experience of the person who is chronically subject to the defensive maneuvers of the narcissist. As one patient describes it, the narcissist leaves you feeling ‘mind-fucked.”

We have put particular emphasis on the psychological encumbrance borne by the objects of essentially narcissistic transactions, whose usual response to the prolonged substitution of other behaviors for expressions of sorrow and thanks includes confusion, self-criticism, loneliness, and diffuse irritation – an overall sense of having been, as one of our patients put it. “mind-fucked.” The state of confusion induced by narcissistic defenses may say something about why it took so many years for psychoanalysts to develop a rich and specific literature about narcissism, comparable to that on the more “classical” psychopathologies.

So I sent this to my now twice-aforementioned friend and she wrote back, “Having been raised by Narcissists who were never wrong, I have spent my life seeking out the company of other Narcissists because they are familiar to me. My childhood was a mind-fuck, as are my relationships with other Narcissists (they are everywhere) and I have perpetuated that. Yes, I have those confusion, self-criticism, and diffuse irritation issues as a result – good to know it’s not only me that suffers low self-esteem as the result of overexposure to narcissists. Thanks for sending me this. I am canceling therapy this week and will send you the $100 dollars instead. Buy yourself some decent shoes, for god’s sake.”

So I am waiting for my check, although I think I’ll buy sushi instead. Or get a membership in AAA because my car is sort of mind-fucked and otherwise compromised by narcissistic curbs. And I found this article Dr. X sent me to so fascinating that I am posting another excerpt here:

The Grandiose Self in Everyday Life

The earliest psychoanalytic depiction of a grandiose self-representation is probably Ernest Jones’ 1913 paper on “The God Complex,” describing what would now be considered a narcissistic disorder.

Holiday in Dubai Gone Awry

ON AN ARRESTING VACATION WITH THE LONG AND HILARIOUS TALE OF MY OWN ARREST AFTER THE “MORE” JUMP AT THE END

I read a news item, tantalizingly brief, about a holiday in Dubai gone way awry. It seems a British businesswoman went on holiday to Dubai, one of the seven states that form the United Arab Emirates, with some friends. It seems she was with friends and they were having drinks when one thing led to another and now she has achieved international fame and is possibly being made an example of; “Michelle Palmer, manager of a publishing firm, was arrested after a police officer reportedly found her and a British holidaymaker in a compromising position on Jumeirah Beach in the Arab state.”

It appears there was drinking of champagne during a brunch with fellow holidaymakers and then said businesswoman agreed to go for a walk on the beach with a friend of a colleague. Funny choices of words those – ‘agreeing to go for a walk’, which might suggest a level of innocence and which also suggests that the walk was not her idea. Clearly the reporter is sympathetic to her plight. ‘Friend of a colleague’ might suggest a distance from her partner in crime. I can’t help but analyze choices of words, all day, every day. Anyway, brunch is often in the morningish time of day, so this 5 July day was off to a merry start. I imagine the sun was out in sunny Dubai.

The walk turned into sex on the beach. Ok-this means she’s a daring and impulsive sort as now she is having sex in broad daylight (why is it called ‘broad’, I wonder?). So anyway they are having sex/making hay on the beach while the sun shines. A police comes along but lets them off with a caution. Phew, right? But then it all goes terribly wrong when later they are discovered in the same position (it’s not clear if it is the same police at this point), and they are arrested. At this point businesswoman Palmer is said to have become aggressive.

She is now charged with being drunk in public which is bad in the UAE because while alcohol is available to non-Muslims in hotel bars, it is not legal to drink or be drunk in public. So she’s kinda screwed. She is further charged with indecent behavior in public, another pretty weighty offense in the UAE. So she has some charges for which to answer. But it gets worser and worser!; she is charged with assaulting a police officer. Oh dear. I guess he wrecked the moment for the couple. Yikes. For all of her sins she is facing a possible 6 years in a moral Dubai prison. That’s got to be terrifying. And here’s the worst of it-she is further charged with having sex outside of marriage. Whoa! Businesswoman UK Lady is married! Imagine the call home. And, Adultery is not cool, so there’s that. But prison?

Remember in Jaws when they try to hold off alerting the public about the killer bikinicladgirl-eating shark because the politician guy doesn’t want to lose holiday tourists and their detachable disposable income? Maybe that’s what the first caution was about. I bet she is consumed by a myriad of shoulda, coulda, wouldas; those are the killers in life. Shoulda stopped when the first police came, shoulda gone to the south of France, shoulda gone back to the room, etc. I’d not like to find myself in a foreign prison (New Hampshire is a foreign country, by the way).

And isn’t Dubai where Michael Jackson went for an extended stay as guest of some incomprehensibly rich royal at his insanely opulent palace to escape the investigations and insinuations of various moral and financial indecencies? Oh–the hypocrisies. I think Michael Jackson should call his royal pal and help this poor fellow morally turpitundinal woman out. She looks so nice.

Back to Dubai; I have heard it is really expensive and is home to the world’s only 7 star hotel. I will ask my editor to send me there to investigate, and will report back.

“Among the Jumeirah Hotels you find the world famous Burj Al Arab, the only 7 star hotel in the world.”

A King suite at this architecturally intriguing hotel is 4,000 AED (United Arab Emirates Dirhams) which equals $1089.18 USD. That’s not so expensive really. There are hotels in Boston similarly priced. I must be getting misinformation from the hotel booking engine.

“Offering the highest levels of personalised service in the most luxurious surroundings imaginable, your butler will ensure that every little need is met. Designed to provide maximum comfort, our unique service levels mean that even your check in will be in the privacy of your suite.

Burj Al Arab does not have rooms; it has 202 suites, each one arranged over two floors. Ranging from a spacious 170 sq. mts to an astonishing 780 sq. mts in size, the floor to ceiling glass windows offer simply breathtaking views of the Arabian Gulf.

Decorated with lavish textures and exuberant colours, each suite features a sumptuous living and dining area, state of the art entertainment system and office facilities. Their sheer opulence in every tiny detail is underpinned with technology that does everything from controlling the 42 inch Plasma screen TV to closing the curtains.” <–That description aptly describes my life and its surrounds.

So we’ll see what pans out for poor Michelle Palmer, who looks so nice. Seriously, Michael Jackson needs to give back – he needs to come to the aid of Michelle Palmer. She is a fellow human being and has a humble and endearing smile.

Sometimes one thing just leads to another and then lines get crossed, egos and issues get involved, things escalate, tempers arise and pointless retributions are cavalierly meted out, depending on who has the power or the connections. I know. I was unfairly arrested once in a far geographical cry from Dubai…