This year when the Moms came to craft, we decided we’d better make the ornaments before eating. We were so engrossed in crafting that we didn’t take photos during and so hungry after that we didn’t line then up for a group photo.
I wish we had because as usual it was interesting to see how different everyone’s turned out. I made four:
I love them all and can’t wait to make more!
Whenever I walk back up the stairs after waiting on line at the ladies room at the Academy of Music, I glance at the framed photograph of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli that hangs at the top. I don’t know why it is there, I just love to look at it and imagine that they appeared in a play together at the Academy.
The Academy has been renovated recently and when I went to the Signature Sounds 20th anniversary shows, I got to see the beautiful new seats and the refurbished salmon walls and gold trim (apparently the original colors). I worried though that Judy and Liza would be gone. In the lobby, there is a plaque describing a picture that is no longer there. But Judy and Liza remain (as does the life size Bogie in the outer lobby).
Not sure what the wallpaper is meant to be – Fall leaves? Flowers?
While this close up has misleading reflections (Liza isn’t really holding anything) I think you can see why I think it is such a great photo.
We took the Fall branch down yesterday as we are heading to Chicago for Thanksgiving. No ornaments fell off while we were in Austin but since we’ve been back a few have. I’m glad we left it up another week though so we could admire the new Day of the Dead skull we bought at a street fair within minutes of arriving in Austin.
Laser cut ornament by GemJunkie.
This half of our Fall tree features the new wooden maple leaf we bought in Shelburne Falls a few weeks ago. Our newest owl is visible too just below the witch silhouette. We bought the owl at a 75% reuse sale – everything for sale had to be made of at least 75% recycled or reused materials. The owl looks like he was made from a sock.
This year’s treat was a misfortune cookie.
Turns out there is an actual name for what I call Red Volkswagens, it is actually called the Baader- Meinhof phenomenon. Baader Meinhof was the name of a German urban guerrilla group and I guess they were someone else’s red Volkswagens. The characters on a new situation comedy “A to Z” mentioned the phenomenon by name in the first episode. Of course I looked it right up and found an entry on a site called “Damn Interesting” . The author, Alan Bellows, begins; “You may have heard about Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon before. In fact, you probably learned about it for the first time very recently. If not, then you just might hear about it again very soon”. While I haven’t heard the phrase again, I have experienced the phenomenon again. An important plot point of that “A to Z” episode concerned the hovercraft in Back to the Future Part 2. Only a few days later, I was watching the Big Bang Theory and there it was again – mention of the Back to the Future hovercraft!
I have been fascinated by the phenomena of cities inviting artists to decorate a certain item and at some point I began texting my older daughter pictures of them whenever I came across them. Here are a few:
Large Adirondack chairs – Wilmington, VT
Guitars – Austin, Texas
Sneakers – Springfield, MA
Dolphins – Atlanta, Georgia – you have to look closely!
It is always a treat to stop at the Wagon Wheel restaurant in Turners Falls MA. In addition to the best bean burgers I’ve ever had, they win the prize for restaurant with the most collections. Their collections include:
Wagon Wheel Quilt Squares
Cow Creamers
Embroidered Flower Pictures (in one bathroom)
Old photos (in the other bathroom):
My favorite is this picture of two older men playing with trains:
The front room features paint by number pictures:
And the back dining room features souvenir plates and clocks on shapes (watering cans, football helmets, etc.)
A treat for the eyes as well as the stomach!
Wherever I go I pick up free newspapers and magazines and when we were in Memphis recently I picked up a magazine called “The Downtowner” which featured a column called “So It Goes”. In the June/July issue column “Her Stuff, My Junk”, Raymond L. Atkins writes that while he and his wife agree that they need to get rid of some of their stuff they don’t agree on what stays and what goes. He notes that his wife calls her stuff stuff but calls his stuff junk. For example he collects shot glasses and old bricks. He relates the following conversation:
Wife:You’re collecting bricks now?
Atkins: Look at this one! It’s stamped Ohio.
Wife: Will we be using them to break the shot glasses?
Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSN Inc., is quoted in the latest issue of Traditional Home: “I believe that one of the greatest human connections is the power of storytelling. Collecting and curating are what I love, whether they be family rituals, design, artifacts, or customs. I love the tradition of sharing stories.”
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people’s connections to stories as I read people’s reactions to the death of Will on The Good Wife and the ending of How I Met Your Mother. Sometimes I don’t like plot twists and endings but I’ve always thought it is the author’s (or in case of a TV show I guess it’s the creator or the runner) prerogative to write and end their story any way they want. Now thanks to the internet I find that others seem to feel that they own the stories. It seems that they think they have a right to dictate plot lines and demand endings that meet their expectations.
I first came across this phenomena when the Sookie Stackhouse book series ended. Although author Charlaine Harris said she ended with the romantic pairing she had envisioned from the beginning, people said she had gotten it wrong. That seems to be the feeling with the How I Met Your Mother ending too. The stories that people are sharing now are their stories of disappointment and disgust. And I’ve been thinking maybe I have a new phenomena to collect.
Well not really new, I guess. I have been rereading the original Sherlock Holmes stories and am reminded that after killing his hero off, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle bowed to public opinion and brought Holmes back. He went on to write many more stories featuring Holmes. That’s the power of storytelling!
An owl chair
Owl pajamas
An owl pillow pet
A dancing solar owl
An owl storage bag
and owl cookies and an owl cake!
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 