Does My Heart Good

I love Halloween. Its a blatant celebration of all things spooky, scary, and otherwise not appropriate for most audiences. I can be as Goth as I want and no one even frakkin' blinks an eye. "Oh great costume" ...if they only knew what darkness lurkes beneath the surface...mwahhaaa! I have some of the coolest decorations this year for the annual phreaquez party. This is so much cooler than a reunion party...its a gathering of like minded psycopaths who are really good at dodging the psych ward...oh oops except that guy who just got a job as an outpatient councler at Wabash...doh...oh well, we will just get him so liquored up that he won't be able to tattle on us.

Oh yeah and then there's me who is finally getting the money to pay off the bastards at Purdue so I can go back. Gonna check out the Psych dept to see if I can finagle an undergrad degree. Been checking out career options and a psych degree is going to get me closer to my goals than the wildlife degree. I can work towards Animal Behavior in grad school at IU...gasp...would love to write my graduate thesis on The effects of domestication of exotic felines on the preservation of the endangered cats in the wild. Are we really conserving the endangered tiger species if we completely alter it's social dynamic by domesticating it or are we just preserving it's genetic material?

Actual conversation:
"So why do you want to go into psychology?"
(my answer) "Cause I like to watch crazy people do fucked up things and I think it would be great if someone paid me big bucks for it."
(response) Blink Blink..."You'll fit in great around here!"

Been drooling over wild life photography lately. Gonna have to break down and learn how to use the new fangled technology. My digital camera is pissing me off...can't just click and shoot...gotta get all complicated and shit before the image is actually shot so the subject is half way out the door before I get my picture. This is good if you are photographing narcaleptics, but not if you want to photograph animals. I'm getting better shots with the el cheepo disposable camera...so sad. I want to go on photographer's safari or work for "Big Cats" and spend weeks in the wild capturing cats on film...I can dream can't I?

Buddha Belly Wisdom Seeking

Okay--to copy from my friend Djenn:

I want whoever reads this to post to me here and ask me three questions--any three questions. I'll answer them--whatever they may be--with complete honesty (I promise!). Then I want you to go back to your LJ and copy this entry into *your* Journal so that anyone, including me, can ask *you* three questions...whether you choose to lie or not is your business!

;)Ready...SET.....---->**GO!!!!!*

Worth a thousand words...

Pictures from the Fishers Renn Faire

Janusz the Dashing Drummer, Errol the Cabin Boy (Jen in boy drag), Capiton Izmara, and Svenki ("svunki, svanki, spanky, spunky...I'll get it right one of these shows")

Alien belly rolls again!

Gabriella and Svenki ... Raks Assaya meets Tatib

Capiton Izmara will dance for you!

Can you tell I'm from the East Coast...if you tied my hands I wouldn't be able to speak.

And the Crowd Goes Wild!

The Fishers Renn faire was a blast!

We did 3 half hour shows on Saturday and Sunday. Thats six shows in one weekend. Include all the walking and random participation in other people's shows and that equals a very long weekend. I'm still sore, but it was worth it.

We started the show with drumming...malfuf I believe...and Gaby danced and zilled. This always brings in the crowd. After about 2 minutes, we stopped drumming and I got up to welcome the audience in my crazy blended french/spanish/russian gypsy accent. Hey...ya go with vat verks. Ve Vere pirates who had come to ze faire from ze Mediteranian Sea to bring dem beautiful dancing and amazing acts...anyway, after introducing the group, Gaby pretended to be distracted when I was introducing her, so it was up to me to dance for the crowd while she got ready. "I Capitan Izmara will dance for you!" So I did my best folk groove thing to a kalegy rhythm. When I was done, I introduced the great Gabriella who did her "alien" belly dance to her combo...walking balady and masmoody. I lost my rhythm more than once watching the little kids in the front row freak out when Gaby did her famous belly rolls up and down and side to side. Then we transitioned into a chiftitelli as she picked up her sword. She ended her piece by plunging the tip of her sword into the ground. Very dramatic. Of course I had to get up and chide her for leaving her sword in the ground. Then I introduced Svenki who was dancing the tatib (Egyptian male stick dance) to a slow saidi rhythm. After a few minutes, Gaby came out and they danced together. They cross hit their sticks and she chased him off the stage...but not before he wacked her on the butt with his tatib stick. Gaby finished her raks assaya number and we transitioned into masmoody kabir and she got down on the rug flat on her back and did her famous belly tricks with the dance stick. She got up and ended by dropping the stick from her head to her lower back. I got up and retrieved her stick and shooed her off the stage once more. We invited the audience to dance with us for the last rhythm felahin and we passed out the tip basket so we could buy wind to get us all home.

We had standing room only for all of the shows and the tip basket seemed to be quite full. I don't know how much we made yet, but I saw more than one ten dollar bill in the basket. We also drummed for the queen as some of the other dancers at the faire danced. The queen was very under dressed in my opinion...her courtiers were better dressed...bad form. The Black Rose Caravan used a boom box and had problems on more than one occasion. We stepped in and helped drum a couple of times. That's what happens when you rely soley on tech at a renn faire. Plus the music was so quiet that you had to be in the fron row just to hear it. Kinda sucky for them, but as usual their beautiful dancing made up for all their technical difficulties.

I think we had a great mix of schtick and a variety of dancing and props. People's attention span for anyone thing is about two minutes...especially in an overstimulated environment like a renn faire. Nobody wants to the same old thing drawn out over an over again. Oh look...belly dancers...zzzzzzz. We had oh check it out...drummers, crazy gypsy pirates with bad accents, dancing men, swords, really hot chicks doing amazing belly work, drummers who could play something other than beledy rhythms and who could transition from one rhythm to another and change tempo and volume in the same song...holy swingin tassles batman...ok ok getting a nose bleed from being on my soap box too long... he he he...

It was a great success...and I got to spend way too much money on some fantastic food!