Wondermachine

Traditional Marriage PSA

"Hah! Like you have a choice!" This is so on point.

Photos of Witt Pratt

I'm still processing the news of Witt's death (see my previous posting below).  One way I've done that is to go through old photographs I have of Witt.  I want to share them with those of you who knew him.  They're in a special set among my Flickr photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danvera/sets/72157618560989702/

Witt Pratt - Rest In Peace

I just received word that a good friend, Witt Pratt, a dear deep luscious soul of great beauty and creativity, is no longer alive in this world.  I'm in a state of shock with the news.  He was such a delight in my life and even though I didn't know him long before he moved from the city, he gave of himself with every interaction.  He was the sort of guy who would light up every room he walked into.

I had the chance to interview him for White Crane a few years ago.  I so loved interviewing him for the issue, which was on "Craft."  He was a friend, but he was more importantly, a man who had dedicated his life to making beauty without making any excuses for it:

Well, I think that whether its hobby or salvation or occupation or preoccupation, it depends on how we look at it. I do believe that as difficult as it may be that it is possible for us to decide that we would rather spend our lives expressing ourselves in that way. In my case the expression is with knitting, in somebody else’s case with making really amazing cakes, or whatever. Sometime ago I decided to do that. But it took a conscious decision and it took a lot of conscious effort to bring what had been a hobby or a pastime into a more enriching and focal position in my life.

By its own being, it is creation in motion. Like so many things if we take the time to notice, when you’ve got a ball of yarn, which to many of us represents nothing short of infinite possibility, the world just opens up before you. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have found this for myself. Knitting can be practical, it can be nonsensical, it can be insanely complex or completely simple. There’s beauty in all of it if you take the time to notice it. I’m thankful to be able to notice that and just want for everyone to find something in the world that they can notice that enriches them similarly.

The excerpted interview is here: http://www.whitecranejournal.com/65/art6510.asp

In his memory, whether you knew him or not, I invite you to pay attention to your surroundings, to speak about the beauty you see, to go out of your way to make others happy in their day.  This was what he taught me by his presence and his example. 

My thoughts are with his beloved Gary who I know is deeply missing his fere, his companion, his heart.  I know he was so close to his beloved mother Bobbie, and my heart goes out to her as well.

Update: a friend of his has reported that Witt and Gary had gone out the day before to a cabin in the mountains and that this is where Witt died in his sleep.

Nosing around the Crown Fountain

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Originally uploaded by danveradc.

Monkeys talk Religion

Wow.  I'm more amazed that Priceline foot the bill for this.  I loved it.

Goldman Sachs and Burger King

This is illuminating to say the least.

Metro Releases Inaugural Video

Seems that METRO, (aka Washington Area Mass Transit) has just released a video demonstrating the new protocols they'll be implementing for the expected crowds taking Metro for the inaugural festivities on Tuesday.  Should make for a pleasant trip down to the Mall.

15 states in 15 days

How's that for a hiatus?  Miss me?  Forget me?

We rolled in last night from a pretty stunning fifteen-day circular road trip.  We visited FIFTEEN STATES in FIFTEEN DAYS!!  That's gotta be some kind of record.

We headed South to visit my kinfolk in Texas and instead of doing the two day grueling speedmarch through the South, we took our time, especially on the way back to see some of the country we hadn't seen before. 

It was a relaxing way to go and a fulfilling one courtesy of the good people at Road Food and Roadside America -- two indispensible guides to any road trip.  Hope to post all the pictures to flickr soon but the highlights of the road trip (in no particular order):

- Birmingham, Alabama's amazing art deco downtown -- truly a trove of architecture that has miraculously survived demolition and 1960s and 70s "experiments"

It's like a time capsule and a beautiful one at that. (added points for the discovery of Buffalo Rock ginger ale -- a local throat burning brew since 1901!)

- Also a highlight that day was seeing the world's largest cast iron statue when we visited Birmingham's enormous and incredibly homoerotic Vulcan statue.  It towers over the city on top of a huge limestone column.  He wears a giant apron in front but is "all commando" from behind.

- partying at the family reunion underneath my uncle's Christmas light spectaculaire (which I'm sure can be seen from orbit). 

There was much salsa music and honky tonk rancheros and two-stepping to be had.  Oh and much home-made sangria embibing and cuban pernil eating too.  Roofus approved of the pernil.

I knew I was back in Texas when the police showed up and it wasn't for our party but a domestic dispute across the street.

- the creepy jaw-dropping schlockiness of the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. 

Words simply cannot describe the place.  Having Anne Murray's Christmas warblings piped from the outdoor speakers didn't help any.  It simply has to be seen to be believed.  But I'm sure it's an economic boom to the town of Carthage -- certainly more than their bronze sculpture of Marlon Perkins (which we did not visit in case you're wondering.

- Visiting the giant plaster casts of James Earle Fraser's End of the Trail and Abraham Lincoln sculptures at Oklahoma City's National Cowboy Museum.  These works are amazing and certainly solidify my love of Fraser's work and why I consider him the finest artist to have left his sculptural mark on DC.  It was nice to see works that are in other areas.  We saw his seated Franklin a few days later in Springfield, Illinois.  While here we also fell in love with the work of the artists Charles Russell and James Reynolds.

Samping perhaps the world's best pies at Rolla, Missouri's "A Slice of Pie."  The Dixie pie was perhaps my favorite (think Pecan pie made with walnuts and chocolate chips) and the key lime a close second.  I guess this place deserves credit (?) for giving me one thing called "Dixie" I like.  Wait.  I like Dixie Carter too.  Make that a second thing named Dixie I like.  {UPDATE: Pete reminds me of the Dixie Chicks.  Which I like as well.  So three things.  Feel free to write in with anything else named Dixie I may have forgotten I like}

Befriending the folk artist and sculptor Ralph Doss Lanning in Republic, Missouri was a serious treat.  Hell, it was a fantastic event!  We'd stopped to visit his sculpture garden and he walked out and started talking with me.  He showed me his home and his studio and then gave us a tour of his sculpture garden which was pretty amazing.  He also gave me a great little doll he'd made.  It road on the dashboard for the rest of the trip as a lucky road charm.

We also had a great time on our whirlwind tour of visiting and photographing every Abraham Lincoln Sculpture in Springfield, Illinois.  And I do mean every.  Springfield was pretty dead given that the state government was out on holiday so we had the city and all the historical sites to ourselves.  The Lincoln Tomb outside the city was stunning.  A very elaborate monument that holds Lincoln's body along with the bodies of Mary Todd Lincoln and their sons (excepting Robert Todd Lincoln who's buried here at Arlington Cemetery).

Throwing shoes at The Bush Pinata at our friends' New Year's Eve party in Indianapolis, Indiana (sadly no pictures of that blessedly cathartic event)

You know you've had a great trip when you make a list and know you've left off some good stuff.  Oh the Dolly Parton statue in Pigeon Forge! The Recycling Red Devil statue in Corpus Christi!  The giant chicken outside Gonzales in Texas!  The Snoopy milk gallon jug luminarias!! Oh and all those giant roadside crosses!  So many and all aluminum sided!! And all the muffler men!  Muffler men cowboys and GI's! So much roadside and so little time!!!

Anyway, we're still unpacking (figuratively, emotionally and physically) from being on the road and in a car for so long.  Glad to be home (Roofus most of all -- although he seemed rather taken with the poshness of one La Quinta we stayed at in Missouri) and ready for the new year.

Say hello if you're even still visiting after so long an absence.  Hope you are all well!

Prop 8 the musical

Sorry to have been laying low for so long.  Hope to post some photos from the last few days tomorrow.

For now enjoy Prop 8 the Musical:

Coffee in Space

I was going to title this post "Why Cubans don't go into Space" because the coffee in question looks weak as hell.  Look at it.  It looks like motor oil.  Or thin honey.  That's not coffee!!  Makes me wonder how anything gets accomplished on space missions.  At the end of the video the astronaut even says this is how people in future space colonies will drink their coffee.   Ugh.  They might as well take their caffeine intravenously.

This is still a pretty cool video.  The effect of the liquid slowly making its way up the bag is interesting.  I just wish the brew was a bit more java and less tea colored.