Witch Azle

The Rest of the Voice Story

2009-02-26T07:49:00.000-08:00

I was a lucky baby: My grandfather read aloud to me from the time I could sit up straight on his lap without falling off. He had a great voice and he read with tremendous expression. I guess you could say that's where I got my start: My parents put my reading-aloud skills on display whenever they had guests. My first, second and third grade teachers all put me to work reading aloud to younger or slower kids, so I got lots of practice.

When I was 12 or so I read a Reader's Digest article about how your voice can make or break you and followed the tips and advice they gave to train my voice and keep from getting a Texas accent. (To be fair, I had inherited my father's, two grandfathers' and a great-grandmother's velvet-steel singing voice.)

My first job, obtained for me by my mother, who worked in the lobby taking classifieds, was telephone soliciting newspaper subscriptions for the San Antonio Express-News. It made me an unaccustomed amount of money, but lord it was boring! I must have done OK at it, because they didn't fire me; I quit to go get married and have babies. I did telephone sales again, but the company was ahead of its time and went bust. And another such job, selling display ads for a "Jewish American News," followed but lasted only a few months. At length I joined the USAF so I could afford to get a divorce and still meet my kids' medical needs.

My voice "career" really started when I was in the Air Force, stationed on Guam. I answered the phone and called folks as part of my job, and all the guys just raved about my voice. So I went to the Armed Forces Remote Entertainment Services (I think that's what AFRES stands for) radio station on base and asked if I could do any voice work for them. They put me to work reading — and doing my own recording — on some 93 two-minute scripts describing different jobs that airmen could cross-train into, a program called PALACE CHASE. Only when I had finished did they inform me that you could make money doing this, and that there was a guy downtown who was always looking for voice talent.

Rather flattered to hear myself called that, I called "the guy", Joe Couch. A refugee from the rat race of, ironically, the Dallas advertising scene, Joe co-owned Glimpses of Guam, the only advertising agency in Micronesia; he worked for all the big brands. I went and auditioned in a closet-size room, reading a 60-second Borden ice cream radio commercial; he promptly said, "I'm gonna use that. Send me an invoice for $45 (TV, I discovered, paid $60!), and see what you can do with this spot" — for Chevrolet.

For the next two-and-a-half years I worked nearly every week, often with Joe Cunningham; a real character and a real voice talent, besides doing commercials he made his living, I think, as a musician and guru in four or five languages including Tagalog, Chamorro and some Samoan. And maybe buying and selling just enough pakalolo to get his own for free. I was the only female voice on the air, and local radio station KUAM, the only 50,000-watt station in the Pacific, came looking for me, flattered me, offered me incredible money ($10 an hour) and hired me. I got my Class IV license (paid money and filled out a form, learned to read gauges and monitors and do all the legal paperwork), and I became a weekend broadcast announcer and newsreader. The program (and on-air talent) manager, though, was an ex-Navy weenie who reminds me now of William Macy. He ran far too military a ship for my liking, so I jumped ship and went to work for KSTO ("Kay-steree-ohhhhhh!"), still part-time but now on nights. That was the only FM station in Micronesia, way off in the boonies on a mountainside. It was fun.

At my next assignment, Rapid City, I worked briefly at KOTA but quit to do commercials. Radio is actually boring to me, and I find I do much better with a script than spontaneously. When I got out of the service and moved here to Fort Worth in 1982, I was too absorbed in trying to help my landlord and lover manage several careers — farming, excavating and hauling, truck brokering and running a front-end loader on the sand and gravel pit we had somehow acquired — to think about voice work.

But in 1986, fresh from owning a Jacksboro Highway bar we similarly somehow had acquired and only too happily sold, we ran straight into the Recession. In desperate need of money to pay notes or lose land, I looked up "Recording Studios" in the YP and asked the guy who answered at one of the few in Fort Worth whether they needed any non-union voice talent.

Eagle Audio was a brand-new studio destined for big things, even though it's smack in the middle of what the founders laughingly called "Fort Worth's wine-tasting district." I went there and auditioned for them, reading scripts they supplied with lots of different voices and accents, and they put me on their demo reel. I've worked mainly for them — and often, to my delight, with fellow quick study Art Jones — ever since, though I've also worked for other studios on industrial and private gigs. And I never did join the union, so I never went super-national or got into cartoons: I've not been great at auditions, but now that my voice is older (and so am I!), I feel more comfortable about the way I look, so maybe that will change.

I don't really see that I did anything different or extraordinary, @BronxLens, but if any of this helps, I'm glad. It's been interesting!

Have No Fear, the Talent's Here!

2009-02-26T07:31:00.000-08:00

That was the t-shirt my friend and producer, Art Jones, and I decided we would have made after leaving our second consecutive ADDY awards banquet clutching trophies. We never did, but he wrote such great spots for us that we could have, and no one would have thought it odd. In the same way some screen and stage actors are always "on," Art and I always fell into giddy persiflage, enjoying verbal sparring matches while our spouses enjoyed each other's company and sympathy more quietly. Art's whole approach to life involves spontaneous and witty shtick; our timing in commercials was something we could count on, as was the funny and punny banter between takes or between spots. It still is, though we more often work separately these days.

So I joined Fluther, and someone asked about the "voice acting" credential in my profile. Or something. I just said "Wanted to." And as best I can figure — aside from being blessed with good voice genes — that's all I did: Wanted to. Bad enough to do it.

Well, he wrote back privately and begged me to explain in more depth. I wrote so long I wouldn't want the time to be wasted, so what's above is "the rest of the story." (Bless you, Paul Harvey.)

An Update

2009-01-09T17:23:00.001-08:00

Selling Sorcery: How do you price it?

2008-09-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

So there I was, talking to Linda over a kitchen table loaded down with the nine oils, the Dragonsblood tincture and Hyssop extract, and the live dill ( a sprig for each little bottle) needed for my new Protection Oil, which I'm bottling for sale at PPD along with the Wellness Oil previously mentioned. See the small plastic box in the photo? That's full of bottles of Protection Oil.

None of the bottles are new; all are found or bought old and recycled. Many of the corks are new, and some of the old corks had to be drilled and sanded out. The largest one is two ounces, the smallest about 9 ml. I was looking at a tube about midway between the two sizes and thinking I'd sell it for $7 or $8 — and Linda said that was too cheap. "How do you price it, then?" I asked. Her phone rang. The discussion ended. I still don't know for sure, but maybe a DIY cost comparison is in order.

If you wanted to make two ounces of this oil you'd have to buy (or already have) each of the nine essential oils — Petitgrain and Black Pepper (both nowhere on local niche stores' shelves, so I ordered them online); Jasmine absolute, which is $24 for a 10ml bottle; and Sandalwood, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Juniper Berry, Cypress, and Geranium, at an average of $11 a bottle. You'd have to have or make some Dragonsblood tincture; it's sold only in solid chunks, and you have to smash it up and figure out the solvents. You'd have to have some Hyssop extract on hand; it's not uncommon, but what are you going to use the rest of the bottle for? And you'd need a sprig of fresh dill and a nifty antique bottle; fresh live organic dill is sold in $6.49 packages with about a hundred sprigs (I made 20 bottles total), and cool old bottles run around $3 to $9 — more, if they're really pretty or rare.

Then there's the labor: I bathed ritually, dressed up in my casual witchy robe, put on makeup and did my hair, brushed my teeth with tea tree oil toothpaste and mouthwash, even did my eyes before beginning the ritual to make this oil. I won't count that, because the labor being prepared for was for love.

When I woke up this morning and smelled the result of adding enough olive oil to fill my pottery oils chalice, I doubled the ingredients — did the spell again — then carefully placed dill sprigs in each bottle before filling them (using a clean hypodermic syringe, no needle). And I still have to print and attach the ingredient cards with gold cord!

So here's my price, which I will be happy to justify to the incredulous: the smallest bottle will be priced at $7, the largest at $40. Of course, anyone who needs two ounces of protection oil — which is used pretty much solely to anoint windowsills and thresholds — will probably be a professional home cleanser and thus well able to make his or her own oils, so I'll probably be bringing that one back home to keep as stock. Then again, maybe he or she will appreciate the convenience!

What would you think to pay for the ingredients of sympathetic magick? How much would you think feathers (for a wind-calming spell), empty wasp nests (for getting rid of harassing pests and nuisances), big bird bones (for fast flight away from troubling persons and situations), or powdered cow horn (so someone will "blow your own horn" appropriately) would cost? I'm telling you, this business of selling sorcery and sorcery accessories isn't nearly as easy as giving them away!

I haven't even started trying to price the staff lengths or the wonderful matched antler sheds (for Stag King crowns) or the marvelous twisty Barbados sheep horns. Miserere!

North Texas Pagan Pride Day 2008

2008-09-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! PPD is only 11 days away. (See http://ntxppd.org ) I am going to be a vendor there — first time anywhere, and first pagan fair!

The universe has provided me with a marvelous, experienced pagan mentor for vending, Linda Hall — who is also the person responsible for getting us two "pop-up" tents, which I understand are a vendor's dream. She's bringing some gorgeous batik hangings and sarongs. (The sarongs have another name in the Caribbean; thanks to my friend, Margaret, I remember now that it's called a pareu or pareo.)

I'm bringing my famous herbal oils — "Wellness" oil, excellent for massage and for rubbing on owwies, bull-nettle and insect stings and spider bites, and the skin over unwell body parts, and for a wonderfully renewing bath. (I call it healing oil when I give it away, but I have a feeling the FDA or the FCC would get upset and make me put disclaimers on the labels of any bottles for sale.) This oil is presented in highly ornamental big bottles with a story/ingredient card attached.

I'll also be offering some Pagan Security Devices: Protection Oil, for windowsills and thresholds, in pretty corked, antique and unusual small bottles; freshly made organic sage smudge sticks; sticks of fresh organic rosemary; pentacles and maybe baguas for the porch and front door; and some big huge (sterilized) bones with big teeth marks to place on doorsteps and porches as thief deterrents — that is, if Bubba and Khan don't chew through the steel cables tying them to the porch and take them away for burial. (Mo suggested making a huge, heavy paw imprinter for the yard ... maybe next year!)

I'll be bringing some handmade witchy ornaments and accessories, some staff lengths, reclaimed and recycled antlers and horns (NOTE: no animals were harmed so I could offer them) for do-it-yourselfers, bundles of feathers, and a few wonderful Feng Shui remedies. If I can convince Mo to gather and work them, I may be bringing long willow and grapevine braids, suitable for wands and staves or wreaths, respectively. (I'll put up a photo of my own staff as soon as I finish attaching the willow braid and crystal to it.)

I will be proudly offering a polymer clay product that Mo invented, Patriotic Pagan pins: They feature the sacred spiral in red, white and blue, and some feature tiny Swarovski crystals. And if my buddy Leslie obliges with the design in time, I'll even be offering "Goddess Bless Our Troops" vehicle "ribbon" stickers!

I will also, in accordance with the Bright * Green * Light theme of this year's PPD, be offering an extremely "green", sun-charged lighting product, Lunabrite. (See www.lunabrite.com ) It comes in blue and green and I'll be offering it by the foot, cut to the desired length, or in precut necklace/collar/bracelet lengths. The company is sending me several coils, and I will also be taking orders for bulk quantities.

BEST of all, though, I'll be bringing high-quality prints of three Thick Air(C) images and of the "Tranquil Cats" photo seen earlier in this blog. If you want to be sure you get one, please let me know which images you want, whether you want them mounted or rolled, and about what size you want them. I'll let you know the price by return e-mail. If it's not too windy, I'll be offering smoke divination — and you can take your reading/image home.

Look for the beautiful double tent with the gorgeous tall young pagans (Mo's oldest grandson, Rusty, and one of my granddaughters, Angel), probably in costume, somewhere near it. I'm so excited!

Pagan copyeditor ("Will edit for Dragonsblood," maybe?)

2008-06-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

Tricia Ferguson, whose Pragmatic Existentialist blog link I have attached, challenged me to write about the common practice of using a fish symbol or the word "Christian" on your business card, your business sign, or your advertising. So far I've only seen Christians flaunting their religious leanings, which was also her observation; and this makes it seem that advertising your Christianity is meant as reassurance that you will both follow the Golden Rule and charge humble-carpenter-like fees.

But let's turn it around a moment: Would the word "Catholic" or "Muslim" or "Jewish" in a business's marketing make you more or less apt to choose that advertiser? How about "Pagan"? How about "Mormon"? How about "Atheist"?

I submit that religion is properly marketed only in a religion-oriented context. On the Churches page of your local weekly paper, for example — though I wouldn't expect most said weeklies to respond with anything but civil thanks when you pay for the ad, at least here in Christian Church-heavy Azle. In an ad offering pulpit supply, or ritual robes, or hymnals or religious instruction: in those places it's necessary and indeed, desired information. But where else is it appropriate?

And is it really any kind of guarantee of goodness? Of course not. Think of Bob Jones, and then think of all the religious right-wing figures who've wound up sobbing apologies and promising repentance on prime-time news.

From a strictly business standpoint, I think it's best to keep religion private; you never know who will see your marketing, and not everyone thinks like you do about your religion. Personally, unless the person using religion in marketing is a minister or runs a religious educational entity, I take the inclusion of symbols of Christianity as an indication that I should avoid that business. For one thing, that person is unlikely (based on a lifetime of experience) to embrace my paganism. For another, I don't want to be "saved," which Christians are obligated to do to nonbelievers and heathens if they want to get to heaven. And finally, I've done business with such people, and every single time I've been disappointed or disgusted. I see the symbols and the word as a warning that some kind of con or misrepresentation is likely.

Freedom of religion is also freedom from religion. Thank Goodness!

Blessed be!

Real Racism: The Mediavore's Knee-jerk Outrage

2008-06-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Talking Head With Brain, to caller: Don Imus has been charged with racism so often he's almost as tied to the word as Al Sharpton. Why do you think that's happened?

Caller: Well, what color is he?

FTHWB: Well, duh, Imus is white and wears a cowboy hat.

Caller: Well, there you go. Now we know.

FTHWB: Res ipsa loquitur, huh?

Caller: Boy, howdy ...

***

If Al Sharpton hates racism so much, why isn't he stamping it out where it's deepest? He could start with himself, if he weren't too busy setting himself up to be The Great Equalizer or maybe Vice Miracle.

The talking heads on CNN have once again loaned America's news-watching time to the Rev. Al Sharpton, enabling the attention-hungry racist icon's insatiable limelight addiction. Once again CNN and, to a lesser extent, other networks, in their insatiable greed for bloodthirsty, even incendiary and therefore loyal viewers, unleash Al Sharpton to fulminate and shake his fist. And once again, Sharpton is being allowed and even encouraged to sully Don Imus' name and endanger his livelihood — by attacking Imus' right to the freedom of speech.

This is so sick. Honestly, it looks like a strikebreaking B movie writer thought it up, just to resettle Sharpton more deeply into his homemade Holy White PC Vigilante frame (gold, poster size, adorned with signed wallet photos of Don King, Rosa Parks and Marjoe Gortner).

I think the reason more Americans haven't figured this out is that most of us don't listen to gangsta rap. We hear Sharpton and what Imus said (and didn't say), but the networks can't play what the black rap stars are saying about white people. Consequently, we don't know what a new rap slang word means until it gets into street circulation, like "nappy-headed" and "ho". And if we use it, all of a sudden it's an insult. We are not allowed to say something because only blacks can use that word — like only whites used to be able to use certain water fountains: as if letting "whitey's" lips touch it would befoul it, somehow make it unusable.

The way Sharpton acts, he's operating on some false assumptions. One of them is that only white people can be charged with racism: I wonder how he would react if a class action civil rights discrimination suit were brought against him and/or the CNN producer that keeps him on the air? Or just "Theft of valuable enjoyment and broadcast time"? Come to think of it, CNN is culpable. Cable subscribers pay for journalism, but we are not getting it: For balance the story should present an equally well-known white person speaking against Sharpton's endless, unhelpful consumption of the networks' news time — and reminding us that every American has both the right to Free Speech and the right to change the channel!

It used to be Jesse Jackson, remember? But he didn't get nearly this picky, and I don't recall his being so quick to get into the media. He basically just snapped to the Clintons' side as if spring-loaded anytime there was a catastrophe they could blame on Republicans, and then he said whatever and whenever the Clintons decided he should. In his own inimitable style, of course. Sharpton is different.

Sharpton appears to think that he is defending all African-Americans' inviolable right to not be offended by other people's free speech. For one thing, of course, he's not the spokesman, and for another that's a nonexistent, impossible right; but the image is solidifying. But he goes further: since the First Amendment is still in force, he can only wail loudly that whatever the offender said should be punished — and he can only do that because, ironically, the very people who should be most alert to encroachments on our freedom of speech and of the press pay him to.

Their currency is what he loves most: His name and image in millions of Americans' living rooms, many white. The attention — and the invaluable assistance — of the world's media. Free publicity. The ability to climb a ladder in a valley and call that the moral high ground because it's on CNN. And the positioning to use his credentials to incite race rioting and call it preaching.

Reverend Sharpton, minister to thyself: WWJD? RTFM*.

I think Sharpton and CNN both need to be called sharply to task. They are acting racist, but in such a blatant way that the fact is ignored — and they never bring his assault on the First Amendment up as the chilling news it is. I think it is racist that he is given my time to cast such stones at broadcasting professional whites while black rappers are becoming multimillionaires by spewing out hatred and threats that are far more racist than anything Don Imus ever dreamed. And I think that it is blatant racism, not to mention illegal discrimination, to attack only whites for using the exact words that blacks themselves first used. Apparently, you can only be called a racist if you're white, but you can only practice racism openly if you're black.

What America needs is for Don Imus to sue Al Sharpton for harassment and stalking and win big. And maybe that class action suit would be great backup — and an excellent reason for the networks to reinvest in journalists.

*Phrase (C) 1998 elan communications (T-shirt design)

Dan Jenkins' Lists

2008-05-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Mankind's 10 Stages of Drunkenness, one of the most essential lists I've ever come across. Here it is, copyrighted by Mr. Jenkins, of course:

Witty and Charming
Rich and Powerful
Benevolent
Clairvoyant
Fuck Dinner
Patriotic
Crank up the Enola Gay
Witty and Charming, Part II
Invisible
Bulletproof

If I didn't keep liking people and lending them Baja, Oklahoma, I could quote the lovely story in which this list is related. http://fareastcynic.blogspot.com/2005/06/10-stages-of-drunkenness.html lists them a bit differently but in a style that calls Dan Jenkins to mind.

But there's another list that three Jenkins characters — Billy Clyde Puckett, Shake Tiller and Barbara Jane Bookman, in Semi-Tough — came up with. I couldn't find it to link to, so I had to hand-copy it out of the Google book. This is, to say the least, an interesting look into some Southern men's minds. Once again, quoting from Semi-Tough, (C) Dan Jenkins, American:

"A long time ago, way back in college at TCU, me and Shake and Barbara Jane to a certain extent had worked up this rating system for girls, or wool.

"Mostly, it was Shake’s terminology and we had never forgotten it.

"Anything below ten was a Running Sore. That was something that only a Bubba Littleton or a T.J. Lambert would fool around with, but of course either one of them would diddle an alligator if somebody drained the pond.

"From the bottom up, our rating system went like this:

"A Ten was a Healing Scab. Had a bad complexion, maybe, but was hung and could turn into some kind of barracuda in the rack.

"A Nine was a Head Cold. Good-looking but sort of proper and didn’t know anything at all about what a man liked.

"An Eight was a Young Dose of the Clap, but pretty in a dimestore kind of way, and not bad for an hour.

"A Seven was just rich.

"A Six was a Stove or a Stovette. A Stove was over thirty and preferably married. A Stovette was just under thirty, divorced, talked filthy, and tried to make up for all the studs she never got to eat because she got married so young.

"A Five was a Dirty Leg. She wore lots of cheap wigs, waited tables or hopped cars, was truly hung, might chew gum, posed for pictures, and got most of her fun in groups.

"A Four was a Homecoming Queen or a Sophomore Favorite and a hard-hitting dumbass. Fours married insurance salesmen and got fat and later in life stayed sick a lot.

"A Three was a Semi, which a Texan pronounces sem-eye. You had to beware of Semis because you might marry them in a weak minute. Threes had it all put together in looks and style and sophistication. They could drink a lot and dance good and hang out and make conversation.

"A Two was a Her. With a capital. If a Semi was tough, a Her was tougher. You might marry the same Her twice. Or three times. Barbara Jane was a Her, or a Two.

"And there just had never been a One. Ever."

Your share of genius

2008-05-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

This piece I wrote in 2004 was originally published by MIND Bets, the newsletter of Suthern Nevada Mensa:
http://www.southernnevada.us.mensa.org/0304_mindbets/archive_012004/how.php3

“Redneck” is not an adjective most people associate with Mensans. On the contrary, most non-Mensans, no matter how smart they allegedly are, think of Mensans as sherry-sipping, opera-going, bridge-playing, erudite, refined (if occasionally snotty about it), lightning quick and only ill-mannered when they win Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit games, at which time they are indecently smug. (I know better, but I don't want Mensa's Advocate [think Homeland Security] on my tail about Acts Inimical to Mensa.)

On the other hand, most people think of what I call the “yellowhammer” when they hear the word “redneck.” And the yellowhammer — the banjo-picker on Deliverance, whose parents probably shared the same parents — isn't who comes to mind when I call someone a redneck. See, I've met yellowhammers. They're about useless, unless you need a fence corner stretcher, while a redneck invariably has all manner of handy talents. I used to think “redneck” = “yellowhammer,” I admit it: Now I know better.

I would never have called Mo a redneck, but he calls himself one — and he could pass the Mensa test but refuses to take it. (I already think he's the smartest, and he's too smart to mess up that situation.) He earned an A. A. degree in aerospace engineering, he can drive or fix anything that runs, and he designed and built our home without a mortgage. But he comes of humble, hardworking stock: “Aw, shucks, ma' am,” he grins. “Ah'm just an old West Texas redneck.” Yeah, right. And I'm Momma Theresa, tennis shoes and all.

What I really am, besides Mrs. Mo, is a writer and copyeditor. And before I tested positive for Mensan-ness a few years ago, I wrote a short piece for my local weekly newspaper, called “You Might Be A Redneck's Wife If .” It was full of the kinds of habits and skills you pick up when you're married to a triple Leo (Type A++) excavating company owner/operator with a strong sense of command. (Of course, it hasn't hurt that he has also wrangled, fixed and fenced cows, driven and mechanicked trucks and equipment, demolished and built buildings, and troubleshot and crewchiefed just about everything the USAF flies.) I got what I thought were amazingly few chuckles (or come-ons) in response to the article. I speculated that this paucity of feedback indicated how few cowboys (or real rednecks) remained in traditionally rural but growing Azle, Texas. Then I met Mensa, the High IQ Society(SM) and figured it out.

There were plenty of rednecks, plenty of good ol' boys left in Azle. They just felt threatened that some girl had the gall to tell them that, if a woman appreciated what they think of as their best qualities, she'd clean the engine grime out from under her fingernails by building something with mortar. Their wives weren't too tickled about it, either. That's when being Mensa material came in handy: Shortly after I wrote that article, I found my car full of dirty shop rags and a worn-out tire one day when I came out of the Kwik Shop. Realizing that I'd been patterned by a pro tracker, I changed gas stations, banks and grocery stores immediately.

What scared them was just a list of the things I'd never have figured out in a scholar's ivory tower, but have learned from watching and helping my beloved redneck do what he's a genius at. It has since dawned on me, however, that every very smart person, certified genius or not, probably has been curious enough to fill a whole new portfolio with skills and accomplishments that originally belonged to every person he or she ever loved and every job we ever had. Those knowledges would frequently astonish even close acquaintances, not to mention strangers.

For example, I find troubleshooting an interesting challenge and am always tickled to be asked to help. But who would think to ask the slightly plump, graying Grandmama ahead of him at Auto Zone what might cause that clicky squealing 10 days after installing a new CV joint, much less what bodily fluids can take the place of brake fluid in a pinch?

Conversely, no one looking at Mo's boots, boot-cut jeans, western shirt and crumpled Resistol straw would suspect it, but he recognizes all the Carmen music. He also knows that certain rare Georgette Heyer romances cost $75 and up — and that they're worth it. He can tell a genuine Webster dictionary from a pseudo-Webster, and he has developed a very good eye for the value of genuine Regency furniture and certain nautical watercolorists' work. He built the house, so I know how to straighten real old finish nails; I continually redecorate it, so he knows faux effects. We owned a bar, so I can tap a keg, stop fights and do inventory; I did the promotion work, so he knows advertising language.

What's more, such secondarily acquired knowledge can come in handy first-hand. Finding myself substitute teaching one day, I stunned a real teacher by quelling a class of high-school students with command voice and The Look (to my relief). I had successfully used the same high-handed attitude on waiters and watched Mo use it on a certain half-Brahma bull. Turn about, I have seen Mo use a familiar eyebrow lift on high-handed bureaucrats, then turn and grin so that only I could see.

More practically speaking, troubleshooting and preventive maintenance became second nature early in the mission. I would rather run back into freeway traffic than call Mo and tell him the engine seized up because I forgot to check the oil. So that's not going to happen — that's at least one of my used cars saved, not to mention two of my daughter's. He's never going to hang a shelf or a picture without my final okay, if he can help it; I won't store the antique plane on its blade, and he won't store the unabridged dictionaries closed, on the shelf. That's close to a thousand not spent on repairs to unlock a silent spouse's mouth. And we decided, close to our first anniversary, that we would never be or threaten to be “spring-loaded to the 'I'm outta here!' position.” That's one marriage saved. (I'm sending the recyclable anniversary card idea to Hallmark. Mo loved it.)

So what if diesel fuel has sometimes been essential to doing the laundry or cleaning the floor? So what if some of my pans have been used to test a thermostat? The counter people at parts and hardware stores treat me respectfully, and even Mr. GoodPliers doesn't try to sell me anything I don't need: This twinkly-eyed Grandmama can reload, troubleshoot and drive a grease gun. Not only that, but learning all these skills has taught me where to find the answer to just about any mechanical problem you can name. See, I've learned the most essential skill of all: Inside every genius lives a mensch with one fine practical ability. Speak to this king (or queen) appreciatively, and he will help: If he doesn't know the answer, he will even tell you; and you both will enjoy looking it up.

Spring Things

2008-04-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

Some things I love to hear in spring:
Pulsating sprinklers. The DoD schools I went to on Puerto Rico (and the Golf Club near where we lived on Lighthouse Drive) and in Washington state (at Moses Lake) had humongous, movable sprinkler heads on miles of metal conduit, and they made the most wonderful sound in summer as I swung on the giant swingsets.
Hummingbirds fighting each other off the feeders. Three days ago, having seen a tiny hummer inspecting our empty feeders, Mo filled two of them more than half full, and the mob descended on us. I need two more feeders at least, and I'm thinking of using my credit balance at a certain mail-order greenhouse to plant more Salvia Ostfreilandii.
Hawks hunting. At least two adult redtailed hawks and perhaps a broad-winged pair have nested in the three giant stone pines on our north property line. The hawk calls you hear in movies are generally single, drawn-out imitations of the repetitive, raucous short real calls, meant to scare some small thing into moving so the hawk can stoop on it and feast.
My wind chimes. I collect James W. Stannard tuned wind chimes. On a windy spring day, our porch sounds like the middle of a fairy spell, all tinkling major arpeggios in the high range ... which Mo can't hear, thanks to 20 years of jet engines and heavy equipment, pre-hearing protection. He can hear the bamboo chimes I bought, which hang from the Fresno handle at the southeast corner of the garden; he says they sound like a beer-can alarm on a fence.

Something I hate to hear in spring:
Tax attorneys and the TV talking heads browbeating Americans with threats and implied threats about what can happen if you don't pay taxes.
I'd be willing to bet that the IRS pays co-op for the tax attorneys' ads; and of course, being the hidden arm of the U.S. enforcement triad, it's never going away unless we follow Boutros Boutros-Ghali's advice about dealing with bureaucracies. The IRS cannot be attacked with any of the redress avenues by which any other government agency is assailable: People who have not paid taxes for years as a protest against what the government is doing with their hard-earned stolen funds are no longer dignified by the title "protestors;" they're now going to be termed (ready, media talking heads?) "tax defiers." Protesting what your government is doing by withholding the money that allows them to do it is no longer a First Amendment option, folks.

Even if you're really, really smart, deciding that you will not pay for idiocy is now illegal. You can't even say, "Look -- I'm really, really smart; if I can't make sense of the tax code, how can the average person?" That must just make too much sense to be allowed; if one person did it, everybody might.

Another small conservation action

2007-12-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

I had an idea for conserving money and other resources that I thought I'd share.

I print my own Yule wrapping paper, using the 75-sq.-ft. Reynolds Freezer Paper.

It takes about half an hour or 45 minutes to print a whole roll of freezer paper with a stamp, but look what you get:

75 square feet as opposed to the 15 sq. ft. in a roll of wrapping paper — at $3.25 for 75 sq. ft., as opposed to $3.99 for the 15 sq. ft.
Plastic on the non-decorated side, which helps anchor the gift to be wrapped
No caustic dyes or inks, no clear plastic tube wrapping to throw away
Beautiful stiff creamy white paper that you make special with very cheap ribbon or just curling ribbon bows
A small but thick, sturdy cardboard tube in the center of the roll that begs to be reused by children in Candlemas crafts

If you have help, you can also just rubber-band a red and green marker together and hold it on the paper while pulling the roll under it, jigging and jogging your markers creatively as you go. (Red and green are goddess colors too!)

The hardest part is finding it at this time of year; but, though Wal-Mart did a no-hab, Albertson’s obliged. I bought three rolls for less than $10, the woodcut pinecone stamp 10 years ago for 12.98 and the pigment ink pad for $8.99 at the same time.

Merry Yule wishes!
Angie

A small rant about CNN

2007-11-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

I have almost entirely ceased watching CNN; now I go into the library and work or play while I listen to it off and on. The problem is that when I watch it, I get so upset that I talk (or shout) back, and this disturbs my husband's enjoyment and understanding of the news.

Part of my reasoning is below, in an e-mail I just sent CNN/a.m. What do you think of how the news is reported today?

[Dear CNN:] Re Kiran Chetry, et al.

True journalists don't comment on the news, they simply report it.

I don't want to know how your gorgeous Iranian reporter or your excitable but dignified-looking black male feel about the news items on their show; this isn't about them, it's about the news. And when your reporters do go, "What's that about?" it's always with some childish, Liberal, PC or Socialist slant. America needs Edward R. Murrow or the equivalent in times like these, not the Mickey Mouse Club and Annette Funicello.

They may be fashionable, but it's not reporting. If they want to be stars, send them to the soaps. Please: I don't watch the soaps, but I bet they could use all that acting and makeup talent.

When I turn on CNN, I want to see serious news, not a local coffee club (check out that dress! that Botox! That dental work —the glare from those teeth!) show. These days only the BBC and one local channel are getting it right.

Please go back to being the enviable Cable News Network, and quit with the Comedy, New Dealers and Nitwits.

###
All that said, I happened to overhear their "Quick Vote of the Day" — viewers were asked whether the guy with the GETOSAMA license plate (which might be offensive to some) should be forced to give it back. I went and voted No, but then I wrote to am@cnn.com with the subject: The Right Not to be Offended

The body text read, "Does not exist. The right to Freedom of Speech does. What doesn't the State or the DMV understand?"

And then I pointed out, "Speaking of Free Speech, check out how S 1959 and HB 1955, "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," eviscerates it.

If you ever decide to return from infotainment to journalism, and should you do so before these bills are passed and it's too late, you might warn the American public that the First Amendment is about to be repealed. Maybe you could even help stop these bills' passage; doing so could very possibly save your own industry, if not your job. What will the Administration need with perky infotainers when it controls everything said?"

And I'll be damned if Kiran Chetry didn't read the quip first graf aloud and quote me by name, not 10 minutes after I hit "send." She called my e-mail "interesting." (Wow. So that's what 15 seconds of fame feels like. Sumbitch.)

By pouncing on and repeating only the sound bite and ignoring the serious news in it, the perky infotainer proved my point using my e-mail. I'd lay you odds the director realized it right after she did it.

"In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

18 Ways to Piss off a Pagan

2007-11-13T05:57:00.001-08:00

Got this from the Fort Worth Witches' Meetup list, and the poster said she'd gotten it (uncredited) from a friend's blog. If you know the author, please tell me.

18 Ways To Piss Off A Pagan!

1. Be considerate: Rearrange their altar so it looks neat.
2. Blow out their altar candle if it is daylight. (No need to waste a good candle!)
3. Sweep up the salt they carelessly left at the doorway.
4. Sharpen their Athame.
5. Untie the knot in their cords.
6. Try on their jewelry for fashion sense.
7. Pick up their crystals for a closer look.
8. See how far their crystal ball will roll (dogs love this).
9. Use their runes as extra Dominoes.
10. Play "Old Maid" with their Tarot cards.
11. Toss holy water on them "just to see what happens."
12. Ask them if they are a good witch or a bad witch.
13. Debate with them about "True Religion."
14. Ask them if they are Satan worshippers.
15. Tell them how the Bible says they are going to hell, then ask if they can make you a love potion.
16. Point to their pentacle necklace, almost touching it, and ask, "Isn't that supposed to be point down?"
17. Refer to a business meeting as "a come-to-Jesus" meeting.
18. Leave Chick Publication tracts lying about the break rooms and on their desks.

Today's image is "Angie's Tranquil Cats." It was taken very near the summer solstice, which is why the sun is coming almost straight down through the stained glass dining room window. Mo spotted the cats — the big one of which is Stevie the neutered Turkish Van and the little one a tailless female stray, not his spawn — and bade me take a picture. Good eye, Mo; this was the best of 13 images taken. I sent it to my mentor, Meredy Amyx, and she took the green out of it, reduced its size, and sent it back to me for desktop use. Since then an artist has asked if she might paint from it. Nancy's website is www.nancyparkart.com .

I ran an ad in June when a gray tabby female brought her four kittens to our home and basically pointed the finger at Stevie. They certainly all looked like him, and at least three if not all four were Turkish Van kitties. Well, those kittens were gone inside a week, but by then we had also found three strays abandoned up on the frontage lot. This was "Bobbi," the tailless one and the only one to survive — and someone who cannot have children adopted even her!

"Do witches even celebrate Halloween?"

2007-11-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Samhain and Halloween from Star Ranch!

Man, a FOXNews female bobble-head pissed me off the morning of Samhain, making "topical" news out of a for-profit "Witch School" someone has started up North so people can learn to worship the Goddess "properly." (That's a whole different subject, on which more anon.) With a perfectly straight face, this nitwit blonde anchor asked, "Do witches even celebrate Halloween?"

That's like asking, "Do Christians even celebrate Christmas?" Pagans (which broad label includes but is not imited to Witches) invented Samhain, long before the Chrstians co-opted the sun-god's and Mithras' birthday celebrations to divert everyone's attention by celebrating Jesus the Christ's birth three whole months early!

I wish just one of the infotainer talking heads on news stations these days would pretend to be a journalist and actually do a story instead of just reading the TelePrompTer -- do some research instead of striving for the easy laugh and the memorable sound bite.

We are accepting a lot of crap as actual factual news, and it is warping the way we think about life. More on this later, but for now ask yourself: Isn't most of the stuff hidden down in the crawl these days more important than whatever the anchor is laughing about?

(Today's artwork is a jack-o-lantern that Mo drew and I cut. Hope your New Year is a wonderful one!)

Lessons from the Orchard

2007-10-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Back in 1992 or so, after we got our house dried in and we had plumbing and interior walls and a real door on the bathroom, Mo and I started a papershell pecan/fruit orchard. His mom, Louise, and her sister Rose both brought lawn chairs up the hill and blessed the first few trees we planted, watching as we dug the holes and drinking iced tea and chatting in the way of loving old sisters everywhere. And over the years trees have died (the winter of 92/93 was a cruel one) and come back from the roots as natives — or maybe, as Mo suspects, we were just sold native pecan trees for the price of papershells. We planted three peach trees in it, too, and Parker County peaches are famous all over the state. Back in 2004 the Loring peach tree produced heavenly tasting, gorgeous peaches that weighed a good pound apiece and probably held a cup of juice, but since then the plum curculio and some kind of little boring asshole insect have ravaged them.

Unlike the past two years, this one is a good year for pecans. I have learned some nifty things this year, from trees that (all of a sudden, it seems!) are now anywhere from 7 to 35 feet tall. I've converted my looseleaf notebook to a computer file with a drawing and photo, even though I'm sure there are orchard tracking programs out there. It’s a small orchard, only maybe an acre wide; we only have some 40 tree positions, and some of those trees have died permanently and will not be replaced.

➺ Ten pounds of mixed pecans, unshelled, fills a #10 bucket to the brim.
➺ Bad pecans feel lighter, may have a piece of hull that won't come off, and float high in the water.
➺ Shelled papershell pecans sell for about $12 a pound in the store; the farmer's market in Weatherford buys unshelled pecans for from 60 cents up to $2.50 a pound, if they like the taste, and sells them for up to $7 per package (no mention of how much a package weighs).
➺ If you drain the gray water from the washer on a papershell pecan (and don't use bleach), that sumbitch will grow fast and tall and produce 3-inch-long pecan husks. The nuts themselves, shelled, are very nearly 2 inches long, and they're delicious. That's important because papershells usually are bigger than natives but they're almost always blander tasting; it's as if the flavor of a small native nut has been spread throughout a nut two or three times its size.
➺ Pecan trees need 50 feet between them, not 30.
➺ Peach trees give up after about 15 years, no matter how good they were.
➺ Even if you plant a native nut tree over the septic system, it will not turn into a papershell. Any seedling you find is going to be native, because papershells are all grafts.

Mo was harvesting pecans the other day and something fell on him: a four-inch-long green cutworm-looking critter with brown spots all down his sides. A similar-looking bug family ate my whole fuschia plant this year, but no tomato worms attacked my tomato plants (they both died of fusarium or verticillium wilt instead). Mo brought this one in the house and put it in a brandy snifter with some pecan leaves and a small twig, and it promptly turned a darker red-brown, made itself a leaf cocoon and went to sleep within one day. It never hatched.

But: The image at top is what a similar critter turned into: a gorgeous Luna moth, the first I had ever seen.

Will the Irish Al Sharpton please nail Arby's?

2007-10-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

The Arby's commercial with the jigging chimps is sad and insulting to persons of Irish heritage: If you think step-dancing is so easy that a line of chimps could accidentally (or purposely) break into it spontaneously, try it.

Incidentally, PETA should be gigging Arby's for making chimps look like a line of grinning blackface mummers -- so the real Al Sharpton could show up on the news any second now, explaining that blackface, unlike the noose, is REALLY racist symbolism.

Today's Thick Air(C) is "Hard Thought," (C) 2007 by me.

Inventables(TM), a lifelong frisson

2007-09-17T19:20:00.001-07:00

It's hard for others to believe my luck, but not for me. I am the luckiest person I know, not least because I tell my ears nothing but the things I want my brain to help accomplish — ergo, "I am the luckiest person I know."

One piece of such luck happened when a new editor I had copyedited for in hunting and fishing (Predator Xtreme magazine, formerly Varmint Masters) recommended me to a new publisher in a whole nother field — new technology. I can't tell you how excited I was when I realized that www.inventables.com was where new materials and processes met new applications, and they seemed to want ideas!

Somehow this new job led to my obtaining an invitation for all Mensans to view each quarter's new Inventables(TM) technologies package and contribute ideas via the Inventables online database, without having to pay the horrendously high (to someone whose royalties don't pay for a small DQ Chocolate Chip Blizzard per month) subscription fee. What a great benefit for Mensa members, huh? And at no cost to the organization!

Sorry, no can do.

Apparently this organization of smart people has an even smarter Executive Director, and she had already signed the organization to an exclusive contract: The Mensa Process, a marketing consultant company that pays a middle-class-salary licensing fee annually to market the fact that it uses Mensa members' off-the-wall creativity in its customers' behalf, objected to letting Inventables offer such a nifty free benefit to Mensa members if Inventables was going to gather the resulting ideas and, like, do something good with them. Oh, well.

As I understand it, the offer is still open to all members of Mensa's M-Inventors special interest group. Now if we could just find a way to get those 50-some people access online, I feel sure they'd soon be burning up Oz's inbox.

2007-08-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

A Pagan's ABCs

2007-08-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

(Above: "Dream Visages," (C) 2006, Angela H. Richardson)

A is for Altar, simple or bold;
B is for Bolline, a white-handled knife;
C is for Candle, flaming in gold;
D is for Deosil, direction of life.

E is for Everything, all part of One;
F is for Fire, for the will-flame we need;
G is for Gaeia, Earth under the Sun;
H is for Harm None, our crucial Rede.

I for Invoking, call Deity nigh;
J is for Joking, for Jubilant glee —
K is our Kin, and our Kith till we die;
L is for Light — and Love sets it free.

M is for Mother, and Manners and Me;
N stands for Naiad, for Nox and for Night;
O is for Outdoors, the best place to be.
P is for Pagan, and Power and Pride.

Q is for Quiet, and Quickness of mind;
R is for Ritual, Raise and Restraint;
S is for Spells that the Deity find;
T is the Thought sent out pure, free of Taint.

U is for Universe, listening now;
V is the Vowel it is waiting to hear;
W is Will, strong as your heart allows;
X is the witch-sign, made without fear.
Y is Ye, harming none — do as thou wilt;
And Z is for Zen, when the tumult is stilled.

-- (C) 2007 Angela H. Richardson, Witch Azle

Moonbeams

2007-08-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

Through the Eldertree Pagan Homeschooling yahoogroup I met a nice lady, who has just published the first issue of Moonbeams, her pagan homeschooling weekly reader-style newsletter. I visited it and promptly volunteered to copyedit it. Well, after some visiting, it looks like we may have a biweekly reader; two issues a month, six pages, should give us room to touch lightly on many pagan topics.

And we can have fun with it! The symbols, colors and foods of sabbats can form an "I Spy"-type picture or a word-search puzzle. A cryptogram might be two bars from "We All Come From the Goddess" or the Rede. Intro to tools; basic witchly etiquette ... and of course lots of solid info about herbs, aroma, wood and crystal correspondences and readers' favorite crafts or rituals.

I'm looking forward to it!

UPDATE: I never even got to finish the first issue, because the person who originated the idea is a person who can't spell or parse but refuses to admit it -- though she chose to characterize the split as taking place "because she couldn't work with Word newsletter templates." Religious differences actually formed the grounds. She's a Druid, and I never knew they were so prim, so uptight or so body-conscious until this experience. Consider a few topics she thought were unsuitable for a pagan homeschooling newsletter: "Skyclad -- do all pagans run around naked?" "Why does so much secrecy surround non-Christian traditions?" "Pantheons around the year," "Pagan Pride" -- ad nauseam.

Instead, "Moonbeams" now routinely makes pagans look like illiterate barbarians and basically tells homeschooled pagan kids that "spelling doesn't count and sentences don't have to be complete." Pfaugh. This is lifted directly from the Aug. o8 issue:

August, 2008

Staff Notes
A little note to the readers’ from our small staff.
Writers’ then editors listed in hiring order

TristA
Writer, Admin, Webmaster since: Aug. 07
In a year full of bright colors be sure to take notice and
show the bare earth spots attention; Give offering, or energy;
so it can be fruitful in spring. Remember it has made
the ultimate sacrifice to assure nature’s cycle continues.

(Yuck. Thanks a bunch, y'all. -- ahr)

UPDATE ENDS.

Today's Thick Air(C) is titled Imps of Lament, and it is (C) 2006 Angela Hunter Richardson, all rights reserved. Enjoy!

Think Small

2007-08-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

Why is it so much easier to think aloud on paper, virtual or no, if the writing area is small?

For the same reason, partly, that a doodle is easier to execute than a full-size portrait: anyone can dash off just one little old line, right? (True, but only a witty person can make you glad he did.) No, that’s not the reason: When I started this blog and the post box appeared, its ~ 2x6” visual open area seemed to say, “You don’t have to write the Great American Novel, just a decent paragraph.” Takes all the pressure off: "Oh, OK! I don't have to be a great writer; I can just say what I mean."

Now that I recognize that, I also see the danger of verbosity. So en garde, self — but en avant.

But speaking of “witty” reminded me of a quote I snatched — probably from my A.Word.A.Day e-mail, but it could have been from a GunIssues (pro-2nd Amendment), Witches’ MeetUp, Mullings, Circle of Crones, PatriotPost, Pagan Pride Day planning group or Mensa e-list post or James Taranto's column — for my random sig quote collection the other day that is pertinent: Saith Aristotle, “Wit is educated insolence.”

And brevity is its soul.

Enjoy the little devil at top. His name is "Horned One," and I created and copyrighted him in 2006. If you were going to colorize him, what color(s) would you choose?

Thick Air(C)

2007-08-01T05:11:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked about the Thick Air(C) series. The way I make them is proprietary information (and just plain magick), but anyone who's ever done candle scrying or a smoke reading knows the basic technique.

I like them because what you see is different from what anyone else sees. You see what the goddess shows you, in effect — and later she may show you something completely different in the same picture!

Cyndi is taking off in her own direction with something she calls CAPTURED Air, but these are mine. We did a smoke reading, then she went away on a trip and while she was gone I more or less accidentally did the first one ... and it was so cool I did more. When Cyn got home she loved it, scanned some, and digitally manipulated them by adding color, reversing the background, etc., and that is excessively cool -- but the originals, just smoke on great paper, still hold immense mystery and a power that's nothing short of awesome in the right format. I plan to make them available in large format (4'x5'), signed and numbered, and offer prints in poster size at craft fairs and art sales. Want one?

These are the same print, but one has been Cyndi-ized. The original on white is "God of the Wind & Word," and with Cyndi's womanhandling it became "Lord of Moonfire."

The Eel in the Ocean Galaxy

2007-07-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

This was the original Thick Air(C) -- the first one I did, back in March of 2006. Cyndi took and scanned it, then made it a negative and jacked around with color to produce this version of the image. The different color versions have different names and sometimes are spatially manipulated too; this one's title is "The Eel in the Ocean Galaxy."

Miss Miss Cyndi Lou Who

2007-07-31T06:03:00.001-07:00

I don't know why, given all the ways we have of instantly reaching someone, distance should make such a huge difference. But it does. My middle sister, Cynthia Lynn Hunter Castor Hartwell Hunter, has been out of Fort Worth for eight days now, and her absence is like the hole where a filling has fallen out — your tongue can't help revisiting it, hurting itself on the jagged margins, marveling at this new empty space.

And she doesn't even live here at Star Ranch when she's home!

We were Air Force brats, and we had never lived anywhere longer than 3.5 years. She and I lived together in the mid-70s, when I first joined the USAF and was stationed in Tucson; Mom & Dad had moved to Peoria (near Phoenix) when he retired, so I guess they thought if things got too bad she could get a ride "home" (to them). But since then we haven't lived near enough to visit often; she stayed near Mom & Dad in Indiana (which really does suck your brains), while I separated from the service (because Mo retired and it was boring) and settled in the only municipality on earth named Azle. (There's a good reason for that: it's German for "jackass," I understand, and it was poor Dr. James Steward's middle name — and he donated much of the land for the town.)

She had a great life, two of the most incredible kids you'd ever want to meet (in any lifetime) and a cool little witchy property in Crothersville, Indiana — until May 3 of 2005, when they all vanished in a fire of unknown origin. She moved here less than a year later and has spent the time since then trying to heal — and healing folks around her in the process. And in that time we have gotten to know each other better and discovered that we have a lot more in common than parents and a third sibling. She has a vampirefreaks.com account; her username is Cynergee.

She was "my" baby when she arrived; I was three and a half, and I read to her and played with her every chance I got. She has gone to Missouri to visit the parents and sister, to see her remaining child, and to jaunt over to Indiana and maybe Alabama; she may be gone for a month! I miss my Cyndi.

Let's bless each other

2007-07-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

I've entered the third pase of my life, Cronehood, and I'm finally not afraid to say what I believe. Actually, I've never been afraid to do that, but now I'm not afraid I'll be wrong.

I helped Fire the Grid this past Tuesday (July 17th, 2007). Did you?

I want to create an annual gathering of pagans in my little town, northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, and call it Witch Azle; the tentative start date is Samhain of 2008. Want to help?

I initiate this blog by sharing a copyrighted work of original art. I call it "Astral Journey, Thursday."