Alternative religion has long been a hobby and interest of mine, never growing far beyond the usual breathing exercises and the occasional drawing of the Tarot for friends and acquaintances. But being very low key does not mean I have no interest or compulsion to up my involvement in religion and spirituality.
Ever since the death of my grandfather the question “What happens after?” has kept me in good philosophical and emotional curiosity, and as an avid purchaser of books I can say that my own personal library on religion and the occult can rival a good sized town’s version of same. As a result, I can hold my own in most discussion about the topics of reincarnation, ghosts, and mythical beings.
Because I also believe no subjects lacks connections with all other subjects, it is not strange for me to draw Maslow’s pyramid of personal growth in a discussion about the regenerative propensities of the common, garden variety Hydra, and I can say my bibliophilia has not helped last weekends moving of house.
Luckily, Boyfriend has kindly decided to give (well, rent) me one room for my own personal use, and making it an absolute fire hazard is going to be one of those personal uses.
Also, since I am trying to be rather more active on the blogging part of my life, I will strive to set up what I hope will become a series of short essays on a number of topics pertaining to the subject of alternative religion. They will be labeled “Spirituality” and they will contain my own personal experiences with the subject, but also theories and efforts by a multitude of other researchers in this very wide and interesting field.
For all those uncaring of this particular part of the proceedings, best not to read anything labeled “Spirituality” then, right?
For now, grtz, and stripes at “almost Halloween”
Kevin
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Style: Hats
Aah yes, the hat. The ever present symbol of the extremes of society. Class, elegance, hoodlums, they all have their hatty counterparts, and they all rely heavily on certain assumptions when it comes to head coverage.
Now, being sadly left over when the hat-abilities were handed out, I’ve never become a complete master of the hat. I do not have a good hat-face, and as such don’t wear them. The only thing ever looked remotely ok on my was a very, very bright blue Wallace & Grommet baseball cap, and as I am fast moving away from 25 years of age, this is not the decision I should be sticking with.
I can say this about hats, though, and I need to give Boyfriend his due for inspiring part of the upcoming rant-ette.
Why, in name of all that is good and beautiful in the world, why, when so much can be said and alluded, so much beauty and sophistication can be hinted at with a hat, do some people insist on choosing a hat so badly fitted that it looks at best like a bucket on a pumpkin?
Not a day goes by but that I have to be faced with somebody in a too small baseball cap, fully laced up in the back if possible as well, balanced in such a way that the bill protrudes scant millimeters past their forehead with the bulk and bubble of the cap sticking several inches out from the top of their head. And every time it is all I can do to stop myself from removing said hat, enlarging the head-space several hundred yards, and plonking it back so that it actually touches skin on more than the lower brim of the piece.
If that would fail, maybe to remove some of the skull of the wearer, as they are not quite making good use of it as it is anyways.
Seriously people, do we have no mirrors, or do we just refuse to self-reflect?
A pillbox hat on a woman can look instantly stylish, a wide brim harks of society, and a veil has mystery and distance. Men can go for the classic fedora, or a panama for that swanky feel of colonial times, and both sexes can easily go for the fun sportyness of a baseball cap. Hell, even beanies have their skater-charm.
As said, I can’t quite go on and on about hats, don’t know much about hatstory, but as with all clothing, size matters, and choosing the wrong one will rarely make you look smooth and well put together. It will make you look like a dork.
Now, being sadly left over when the hat-abilities were handed out, I’ve never become a complete master of the hat. I do not have a good hat-face, and as such don’t wear them. The only thing ever looked remotely ok on my was a very, very bright blue Wallace & Grommet baseball cap, and as I am fast moving away from 25 years of age, this is not the decision I should be sticking with.
I can say this about hats, though, and I need to give Boyfriend his due for inspiring part of the upcoming rant-ette.
Why, in name of all that is good and beautiful in the world, why, when so much can be said and alluded, so much beauty and sophistication can be hinted at with a hat, do some people insist on choosing a hat so badly fitted that it looks at best like a bucket on a pumpkin?
Not a day goes by but that I have to be faced with somebody in a too small baseball cap, fully laced up in the back if possible as well, balanced in such a way that the bill protrudes scant millimeters past their forehead with the bulk and bubble of the cap sticking several inches out from the top of their head. And every time it is all I can do to stop myself from removing said hat, enlarging the head-space several hundred yards, and plonking it back so that it actually touches skin on more than the lower brim of the piece.
If that would fail, maybe to remove some of the skull of the wearer, as they are not quite making good use of it as it is anyways.
Seriously people, do we have no mirrors, or do we just refuse to self-reflect?
A pillbox hat on a woman can look instantly stylish, a wide brim harks of society, and a veil has mystery and distance. Men can go for the classic fedora, or a panama for that swanky feel of colonial times, and both sexes can easily go for the fun sportyness of a baseball cap. Hell, even beanies have their skater-charm.
As said, I can’t quite go on and on about hats, don’t know much about hatstory, but as with all clothing, size matters, and choosing the wrong one will rarely make you look smooth and well put together. It will make you look like a dork.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Just Wick It
Well, quite. I do understand that there is a time and a place for horrible puns, and that the time and place might not be anywhere on the Monday morning, but hey, it’s been made, so we are all going to live with it, ok?
This weekend Boyfriend and I have FINALLY gone to London to see Wicked, the musical about the live of the Wicked Witch of the West, before she became such. Well, we’ve been to London before, but never to see this show in particular, and I am happy that we did.
The show, based on the book of the same name, tells of the green-skinned Elphaba, destined to be the enemy of all of the Land of Oz, of Wizard of OZ fame. And it does this well. Events from the well known WoO are seen from a completely different perspective, showing what has always been believed as true and right to maybe not be so very true and decidedly bendy.
There isn’t much I can tell about the show or the book without giving a lot away, so I choose in stead to harp a little bit about the things I didn’t really like. (Some change of the regular norm that will be ey?)
For one, the two main actresses, one of which (pun intended) had a very impressive voice, seemed to never really get into their role. This might seem a bit unfair to say, after all, the original cast of the show was known for their, and had excellently matched voices, and it is hard to take over a role in any way, but these two, though they certainly didn’t just phone it in, seemed to be faxing with a little bit of listlessness.
As an example, there is a famous anecdote about the original Glinda launching herself onto a set piece so violently she bounce doff on the other end, to much joy of the audience. This will never happen here, because, well, the cast seemed to just not care all that much.
That said; we might’ve just caught them at a bad night, as the show is certainly set up well, and they didn’t look the type to bring of lackadaisical performances as a rule.
I did enjoy the show quite a bit, I like the alternative to settled history it provides, I can remember WoO (although Boyfriend couldn’t) and I can enjoy anything with at lest a few snappy tunes. But I did not enjoy it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. I can almost safely say that nobody enjoyed it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. They were holding hands all through the first act, excited and happy to be there (handholding can be a sign of rampant lesbianism or musical enthusiasm, the theatre arts defy gaydar) and they laughed loudly at anything that happened.
And when I say loudly, I mean that when I took the plane back to Holland a day later we had some turbulence from the sound waves of their laughter having been bounced of the Alps and coming back towards England.
That, and they were, quite clearly, stupid. Granted, everybody gets a little stupid when watching a musical, it is the distraction of glitter that does that, but these two were really really stupid. Boyfriend at one point during one of the heavily foreshadowing opening songs nudged me and pointed out the obvious foreshadowing. I did the same thing just after the intermission. The two behind us pointed out EVERYTHING. “Yes, because she is EVIL!!!” “It’s so obvious she is GOOD!!” “There is a tree right THERE!!!!” Everything was a surprise to them, and EVERYTHING was exciting.
And then, just before they moved up in the intermission to cleverly apprehend some empty seats a couple of rows in front, one of them turned to the other and said the one line I will be repeating until the day I die: “I am so excited, my heart is literally beating IN MY CHEST!!!”
Yes, well, quite. So is mine. So is, in fact, the heart of almost everybody I know.
All joking and harping aside, the show is very entertaining, the music is in places absolutely beautiful, and it casts a very well thought through new light on childhood memories. I would advise anyone to go and see this, or at least get the soundtrack.
Stripes at “heart is in chest, all systems normal”
Grtz,
Kevin
This weekend Boyfriend and I have FINALLY gone to London to see Wicked, the musical about the live of the Wicked Witch of the West, before she became such. Well, we’ve been to London before, but never to see this show in particular, and I am happy that we did.
The show, based on the book of the same name, tells of the green-skinned Elphaba, destined to be the enemy of all of the Land of Oz, of Wizard of OZ fame. And it does this well. Events from the well known WoO are seen from a completely different perspective, showing what has always been believed as true and right to maybe not be so very true and decidedly bendy.
There isn’t much I can tell about the show or the book without giving a lot away, so I choose in stead to harp a little bit about the things I didn’t really like. (Some change of the regular norm that will be ey?)
For one, the two main actresses, one of which (pun intended) had a very impressive voice, seemed to never really get into their role. This might seem a bit unfair to say, after all, the original cast of the show was known for their, and had excellently matched voices, and it is hard to take over a role in any way, but these two, though they certainly didn’t just phone it in, seemed to be faxing with a little bit of listlessness.
As an example, there is a famous anecdote about the original Glinda launching herself onto a set piece so violently she bounce doff on the other end, to much joy of the audience. This will never happen here, because, well, the cast seemed to just not care all that much.
That said; we might’ve just caught them at a bad night, as the show is certainly set up well, and they didn’t look the type to bring of lackadaisical performances as a rule.
I did enjoy the show quite a bit, I like the alternative to settled history it provides, I can remember WoO (although Boyfriend couldn’t) and I can enjoy anything with at lest a few snappy tunes. But I did not enjoy it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. I can almost safely say that nobody enjoyed it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. They were holding hands all through the first act, excited and happy to be there (handholding can be a sign of rampant lesbianism or musical enthusiasm, the theatre arts defy gaydar) and they laughed loudly at anything that happened.
And when I say loudly, I mean that when I took the plane back to Holland a day later we had some turbulence from the sound waves of their laughter having been bounced of the Alps and coming back towards England.
That, and they were, quite clearly, stupid. Granted, everybody gets a little stupid when watching a musical, it is the distraction of glitter that does that, but these two were really really stupid. Boyfriend at one point during one of the heavily foreshadowing opening songs nudged me and pointed out the obvious foreshadowing. I did the same thing just after the intermission. The two behind us pointed out EVERYTHING. “Yes, because she is EVIL!!!” “It’s so obvious she is GOOD!!” “There is a tree right THERE!!!!” Everything was a surprise to them, and EVERYTHING was exciting.
And then, just before they moved up in the intermission to cleverly apprehend some empty seats a couple of rows in front, one of them turned to the other and said the one line I will be repeating until the day I die: “I am so excited, my heart is literally beating IN MY CHEST!!!”
Yes, well, quite. So is mine. So is, in fact, the heart of almost everybody I know.
All joking and harping aside, the show is very entertaining, the music is in places absolutely beautiful, and it casts a very well thought through new light on childhood memories. I would advise anyone to go and see this, or at least get the soundtrack.
Stripes at “heart is in chest, all systems normal”
Grtz,
Kevin
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