Aureantes Talks....

you are darkviolet #9400D3

Your dominant hues are blue and magenta. You're the one who goes to all the parties but doesn't quite fit in at every one... you know what you want, but are afraid of what the world might think of it. You're a little different and that's okay with them, and if you're smart it's okay with you too. Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

_

Born in Chicago, raised in the suburbs with WFMT classical radio and PBS...yep, the old Inland North would be it. I say "Shihcawgo" as opposed to "Shihcagga," which is a pretty major distinction.

_

Blame beow11 for this.....and my hyperactive and trivia-gleeful mind for the running commentary...


( Results under cut, for they are numerous and quick to referential humour... )


At any rate, an irreverent way to start out the new year's recreational postings -- in the absence of my usual "Happy Hogmanay" ecard.  More serious matter (with more art) to come as I get materials prepared for my Winter installment of ye olde art class.

_

Winter Quarter for my portraiture/life drawing class starts January 12 at the La Grange Art League Gallery & Studio, and is open to teens (8th grade+) and adults of all experience levels with an interest in naturalistic (i.e., non-cartoon) human depiction and characterization.

==============================================

REAL PEOPLE HAVE CURVES
(& Bulk, & Tension, & Shading)
Level I & II


( Class Details..... )
http://aurey-the-art-teacher.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aureantesrealm

One of the finest seasonal incantations ever written, from the pen of Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
 

With greetings and good will for a year ahead that will be better than the one just past - for peace, courage, harmony and happiness; for good health and prosperity in every needful way - with harm to none, with fairness and true benefit to all. May the brightness strive boldly and undermine and overthrow the darkness that we see.

....and a bit of batting about to tenderize...

( Much venting of ginsu-sharpness -- first conversational prose, then tending into a more poetic vein. The language most frequently used is not exactly polite, but then again, some people have really been asking for it from me and not yet received their due. Chances are they won't choose to read beneath this cut, either... )

I suppose it's rather kathartic, moving from merciless bloodsport-railing to rhapsody....serves a good purpose anyhow, as I've not had the time nor particular energy to mount specific and direct rejoinders to the irritants that have bugged me, let alone much of a mood for constructive poetry. I did write a rather interesting one just the other night, but it must be posted both vaguely and confidentially -- or so openly as fiction as to give no sign that it warrants real pretense.

__

Just in this early-morn via headline-sampler in my Yahell Mail...

Conservatives shop sex ops ban to GOP

The federal government would be banned from funding sex change operations and other services for transgender individuals if social conservative activists get their way.

 There’s no sponsor yet for an amendment to the health care overhaul – and it may remain in the dustbin of unrealized wedge issues – but culture warriors are shopping the proposal to Republican senators.  (Full article at Politico.com)


Obviously, it can't just be assumed that healthcare reform is going to be automatically inclusive of everyone who's heretofore been marginalized by the system -- political/rhetorical pressure needs to be applied in support of trans rights to relevant medical coverage, because it's imminently being applied against them, on the same "social values" grounds as the pressure already being exerted to ban any governmental funding of abortions via public healthcare option (the issues are naturally lumped together as moral bugaboos by social conservatives, if you haven't noticed...).  

So, basically....politicians need a good kick in the arse from their trans constituents and everyone else who cares about actual social equality, before this evasion has any chance to get slipped in and undermine real healthcare reform for some of the people who need it most and have the largest obstacles in getting appropriate healthcare in the first place.  

The entire point of any publically-funded and publically-accountable system, be it healthcare, judiciary or otherwise, is that it must not be allowed to discriminate against any citizen merely on account of the social/religious prejudices of other citizens -- even if the biased are actually in the majority (even Hammurabi understood that might does not make right, as he affirmed the primary purpose of law as protecting the powerless against the powerful).  

Trans people are not criminals nor sexual offenders for being as they are, yet are consistently attacked, demonized and/or trivialized by social conservatives, and marginalized in employment, everyday interactions, and most of all in access to gender-affirming healthcare.  So anyone who endorses this legislative exclusion or merely condones it, regardless what other good they may have done for humanity, is a bigot of the most insidious and damnable type, who's essentially missed the point of the last half-century and more of U.S. progress in civil human rights.  Do feel free to borrow my invective.

_

 

( Has someone been filling Rob Breszny in on my personal life.....? )

________

( Someone has irritated me by being a bloody self-absorbed wanker.... )


Ginsus emerging......there's some aging and rather cowardly business that needs attending to, just to give it an answer, in that same line of invalid privilege and overweening prerogatives.  Think anyone'll see it coming?

_______

....I'm thirty-three years old, believe it or not, and have been so for one hour and forty-four minutes. Hell ought to be freezing over shortly, but it'd be hard to tell given the usually-intemperate Chicago weather report, which promises freezing nights within a week anyhow.

( Personality quizzes say I'm a glam rock omelette.... )

Been stressed to the hilt lately, but that should be relieved now, or at least shift into all the other stresses due to crawl up my back with deadlines and such. I have a play to copyedit and gank audition sides from, and the auditions themselves to attend and evaluate next week. This time, I'm co-directing. >:) Plus -- oh bugger, I just remembered this -- I have to email a half-size audition flier out before I can go to bed. No rest quite yet for this wicked polymathematical johannes factotum.....

I'll be back online tonight, and less frazzled, one hopes...
_

....I'm turning 33 next Tuesday (at 1:29 am, befitting my night-owl habits).  Make of that what you will...some might think that it warrants a certain degree of paranoia, or at least (as per Mel Brooks) a mental chorus of "Destiny, destiny -- no escaping that for me!"

I suppose we shall see.  I shall mention, bye the bye, that 2012, when I shall turn 36, is the Year of the Dragon -- and a very fiery Dragon I am indeed.


Oh crap.  I just thought up a horribly witty pun for an ornamental pencil-cup.  Feel free to respond with a virtual groan if you happen to land on it -- and then you can expect to see the objets themselves amongst my holiday giftwares.  Because yes, I am just that obnoxious and irreverent. 


_

Is there a big difference between your current job and your beloved career? Do you suffer from the unsettling feeling that your calling hasn't called you yet? Are you under the impression that your main reason for being here on Earth may reveal itself at some unknown time in the future, but not anytime soon? If you answered no to all those questions, congrats! You are more than halfway toward living a victorious life. But if you answered yes to at least one question, it's high time to take action. Start by formulating an intention to find out what you need to know in order to deal with the problem more aggressively. The cosmic forces are arrayed in such a way as to reward you for doing so.

http://freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/allsigns.html


Not that my calling hasn't been at least partially revealed already, or been calling and nudging me along for awhile now.  Could use some practical triage and clarification, though.

_

Just one week left to register......

 

( How to Draw Real Live People - Fall Session starts September 15, Tuesday evenings 6:30-9:00 pm )


Of course, this will be thoroughly crossposted everywhere online that I have IRL contacts or audience....and yes, I'm working on the logistics of online instruction too -- just keep nudging me there.

_

If/when someone (who somehow found their way onto your flist though you can't remember exactly how) continually posts things that you take issue with, which makes the stronger and more lasting impression? -- to argue it out with them every time so that it at least gets cogently challenged, or to unfriend them so that they can tell that your tolerance has run out with them?

Personally, I tend to prefer arguing to just walking off and cutting people out, and I only shake the dust off my feet with people when I'm fairly certain that nothing is to be gained or bettered by continued interaction -- because, to me, deliberately stopping talking to someone implies that they are personally not worth the effort or bother of talking to, and it's hard for me to give up hope in communication having some persuasive effect. 

( Pointedly-oblique rhetorical wanderings -- caveat lector... )
Regardless, there's the ramble of my thoughts as framed obliquely.....hope there's something to be found in it. 

_

[* Aristotle, for one...though I've been known to say a few things myself in the ethical/moral realm.]

I think it's still James Spader, both visually and in general tone.

( Courtroom manner, anyone? )
But yeah....that legalistic, case-presenting, logic-employing, rarely-very-'emotional' (though encompassing "passionate," "mischievous" and "pissed") way of going about things in the way of disagreement.....if you have watched Boston Legal, I think you'll see where that resemblances lies.  And it's a bit of a disconcerting thing too, when I think about it, that I could argue opposite to myself with equal facility, even though not truly believing it -- just that amount of circumspection and rhetoric to make for insinuation and propaganda the likes of which I despise.  I could.....but I prefer not to. 

Unless it's for the sake of satire...or perhaps sneaking in under the radar of extremely religious-conservative people who want to believe I'm on their side and/or always was.



I could say more about that last....but not right now.  Right now I had better be getting my insufferable smartass into bed already. 

_

I've been rather....miffed lately, to see the self-certainty with which some people state their beliefs, principles, personal opinions, assumed facts, etc., as if they were infallible pronouncements -- as well as that they seem to expect everyone who reads their words to accept them without argument, and they don't even bother to anticipate argument, which in itself indicates a serious lack of perspective.

And then there's the fact that self-righteous wankers and their wankerous pronouncements piss me off by their continued existence in a world that rightfully should have evolved past that mental stage by now.  They're like cockroaches (or sharks, depending on the level of actual malice...hmm, sharkroaches, anyone?) --  primeval and singleminded organisms which "should" be outmoded in favour of higher orders of organization and consciousness but still maintain their tenacious hold in whatever squalor remains to sustain them, feeding on neglected patches of prejudice and ignorance like a scavenging roach feeds upon a patch of grease missed by the cleaning sponge.  

( So, you want to know what I -really- think.....? )
If there's anything that I've left out and remember later, I'll toss it in somewhere.   Just figured it might be useful to spell out exactly where I stand and don't stand on a few things.  And if you don't like my views, you're welcome to take it up with me...and I'm free to respond however I see fit. 


[Oh, and there will be a following post to address certain "fringe" issues.....as the antiquated saying goes, don't touch that dial....]
_

Aureantes - Has a flaming sword of cutting the crap, and ain't afraid to use it.

So, then......anyone care to draw me in and get me involved in any of their narrowminded and hyper-defensive ongoing debates or self-satisfied mentally masturbatory manifesti?


I guess we'll just see about that, won't we?  Though of course, we wouldn't want me saying things openly that might be regretted, let alone elaborating in detail upon my own current-and-persistent existence (best to save that subject for private chambers). 

It's quite interesting how bold and absolutist people get about their philosophies when they don't really have any actual proof, truths or understandings to build them on or test them against.  And few individuals, so far as I've seen, are more situational and accepting and modest in their views and pronouncements than those who have seen the most with their own eyes and souls.

Just saying, ya know......

_

...by which I mean that my RPG members have not deserted me for being totally-and-distractedly preoccupied with everything but managing my roleplay for the past year-plus.

( Past RP history snark... )[On that note: it's not necessarily something that's talked about much, but my girlfriend and I have both found it so in our different gaming experiences, that the firsthand experience of situations in RPing can be every bit as significant (and traumatic) as the firsthand experience of real life. Which is a topic I'd like to bring up in Scholomance Dramatica, seeing as we have a variety of lifestyle roleplayers in our membership.]

Apart from that, though, the main issue at hand -- and the only one that critically concerns everyone, as it is going to hold the game up a mite longer -- is that we need a new Rick O'Connell in Secrets of the Past. We need him before we move further in action, so that I (in autoing him as I've had to lately) don't monopolize his character choices and free range of action, and so that we can get back into freeplay and spontaneous interreaction instead of having to choreograph myself (not to mention anyone else in scenage) like a puppeteer with six hands.

Please note, though -- we need a player of considerable wit and solid writing skill (quick reading ain't a bad skill either, ftm), with a good taste/tolerance for having hris char get into tight spots and interesting situations, especially considering all the shite that's already involved in this plot. Also -- and some dedicated roleplayers and Mummy fans may well rejoice at this -- we are set in 1935 and are thus ignoring the whole Mummy Episode III: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor premise. We aren't even providing for it to happen later, 'cause we likes our Mummyverse quite well enough without it. Just like we likes our Indiana Jones without shoehorning in a teenage sidekick and relegating Indy to grizzled codger status.

[Note to any interested players submitting original characters: NO SHIA LABOEUF CLONES!!! He's a bloody boring tabula rasa cast for the mere convenience of his being an audience-identifiable teenage male!!]

( The joys of realistic and unbowdlerized playing - or, to put it in current idiom,  )
If you're interested in joining the ensemble as Rick, please read this game description from back when we started the current rewrite and then PM me a brief summary of your RPing and/or fictionwriting experience, together with an in-character scene sample of at least half a page (can be as Rick or another character, but relevance to the Mummyverse and its time setting is appreciated).

Needless to say, I'm not planning to just issue casting-calls via LJ, but it's worth a shot at the moment, besides being worth flistsharing anyhow.

...afterall, I am a singer myself and have a solid grounding in music overall...musical family, classical voice training, a bit of musical theatre and a lot of concerts, plus rather eclectic listening and singing/composing tastes... 

Actually, I was considering auditioning for the show myself about four seasons back, but I didn't feel like dealing with their stupid guys-'n'-girls-categorical crap (which they were still doing up to last season in the starting eliminations, I think, and which still shows in the group numbers and the crappy Ford music videos) and having to controversially blaze a trail on even somewhat shaky-ground.  

 Anyhow, that said, I was gratified last season to see David Cook win over David Archuleta, because it was refreshing to see the scruffy-looking guy with the experienced musicianship and raw vocal/emotional power win out over the pandering bubble-gum-pop teen prodigy.  (This was second only to my elation at the presidential election results, by the way.)  And so this year, I want to see Adam Lambert win. 

( You wanna know why? Let me count the ways... )But yeah....even without that added edge of cultural division, he'd still be getting my endorsement -- because he's the best, dammit, and I believe in voting for the best.  So deal.


_
    

   

I already did the whole OpenID thing using this URL....and hopefully they'll consider that sufficient for sending me an invite code to set up a real account, as I was given to believe would be the case. 

If, however, the 30th comes and goes and I don't get one for being a good sport.....well, I'd like one.  Seeing as I'm so bloody near-broke and all that, and also because the world really deserves to have as much of my scintillating wit as possible.

Oh yeah....example, right here: 

I was commenting to my mother tonight that the can of Trader Joe's medium-roast blended coffee we had sitting on counter said right there on the label that they had "married" estate-grown beans from Guatemala with estate-grown beans from Papua New Guinea...and that you'd think someone was bound to have an issue with that.   (*wink-wink, nudge-nudge*)

She agreed emphatically.  (" ")

But afterall, they're both still beans, regardless of their origin....

"...and aren't we, all of us, just human beans...?"


Yeah, yeah, I know........*snickers*   Works though, doesn't it?

_

Well, it looks as if my Saturdays are going to be free for the summer (and I'm going to have to find some creative ways to fill them, but I'm looking forward to it...). 

My signature art class, "How to Draw Real Live People," is moving up both in age level and lateness of hour -- the new timeslot is Monday nights from 6:30 to 9:00, at least for the Summer quarter (June 15 - August 3), and it's no longer listed as a children's class, either.  This is going to be just teens through adults, as well as being down in the gallery where we have more visibility to draw people's attention to the Gallery on those balmy-to-steamy summer evenings.

So...the brochure's going out to the printer's soon, and I just sent in my miniscule editing requests and comments (okay, not so miniscule on that front).  And I'm going to get my promos out and online as soon as possible, so that ther's plenty of time for people to sign up....and this time I won't have to worry quite so much about the chronic overscheduling of suburban schoolchildren.

So....further bulletins soon. 


*And also....yes, I am still interested in teaching art classes online -- actually, I've been thinking a lot about exactly how to make it work, and I think that it'd probably be easiest to do at this point (for the realtime part) in an IM chat/conference format, with a private online group to hold notes, links, resources and shared work that aren't realtime-dependant.  Tell me what you think of that, and maybe I can figure out the rest of the logistics before June and start structuring the enterprise.