Seumas Gagne

Project 22: Black Wool Vest with Welt Pockets

2012-01-15T19:35:00.000-08:00

This project is somewhat embarrassing. I'll explain why as I go along. My wonderful pre-husband (or phusband, as I call him) wanted me to make him a vest out of the leftovers from The Hidden Dragon Pants.

I decided to make it as one of his Winter Solstice presents. I quickly realized that it needed to have welt pockets if it was going to look polished and sophisticated. Mens' clothing typically has intricate, detailed pockets and you might not know why, but if you saw menswear with out them, it would look wrong to you. The problem was I had never made a welt pocket.

I found a great tutorial on YouTube, and watched it a at least ten times. I still wasn't confident enough to try it on this delicate brocaded silk, though. I decided to use some of the beautiful black wool left over from this project to make myself a vest first to practice.

My vest came out pretty nicely, so I proceeded to start on my phusband's one. Foolishly, I decided to line this delicate silk vest with sturdy green broadcloth. Why foolish? Well, I never clued in to the fact that if you cut your lining pieces out with the same pattern as your fashion fabric, then you have to trim 1/8" off the lining pieces where they are joined to the shell of the garment. If you don't (and I didn't) the lining is too big and distorts the shell.

I realized what I had done far, far too late in the process and I was out of time. What could have been a beautiful moment of gift-giving was instead an apology. So I have a spiffy new vest to wear with my kilt when I go to play out for Robert Burns suppers in a couple of weeks and my love has a nothing.

I feel like a bad phusband.

Project 18: Blue Linen Shirt with Inset Silk Basket Weave Panels

2012-01-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

AKA The Missing Link.

This project started with a simple idea. Weave panels of silk ribbons, inset them into panels of linen and use those panels to make the front of a dress shirt. While you're at it, why not make the collar from the same silk? With that kind of a lead up, you're probably thinking that it was a stressful disaster, but it actually worked. I washed it by hand after it was done and the silk basket weave got a little funky, but it's as strong as heck.

On my weaving cork board I made a muslin frame, and glued the ends of each of the ribbons to it first. The frame and all the excess was trimmed away when I serged the linen to the panel on each side. With a row of top stitching to secure it, these panels were ready to use.

Here is the finished product. I also made the white (blindingly white) jersey shirt underneath.

The two-piece look was originally for the first guy who was going to play cello on my CD to wear in the concert. The young fellow who wound up doing that recording and will be in the upcoming concert is about the same height as the first guy, but significantly more athletic of build. Undaunted, I was able to take in the side seams from the under arm to the hem and make it fit really well. I was proud of myself for figuring out how to take out the hem, make the new vents and put the hem back together.

The only thing I would do differently is pre-wash the silk. I know that silk isn't washable, but shirts have to be washable.

Project 21: Clerical Robes

2011-12-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

My best friend and business partner Lance Davey learned several months ago that his younger sister was going to be joined in heterosexual matrimony to her second husband and was in need of someone to perform the ceremony. I was unavailable for many reasons which I won't go into here, so my buddy decided to volunteer to tie their knot for them. He signed up for a Universal Life Church ministerial credential and started practicing the solemn-but-joyous look.

When his birthday rolled around, I asked him what me might like as a gift. He said that he could use something to wear when performing his sister's wedding ceremony. I thought it sounded like an excellent challenge, so I accepted eagerly.

What I wanted to do was create a set of clerical garments that made the necessary references to the medieval silhouette, but stayed firmly grounded in modern materials and construction techniques. What would a business suit look like if the fashion trajectory of the 13th century had continued uninterrupted to the present day?

1) Knit fabric would be still have been invented.
2) Jackets would still be lined.
3) Pants would have stayed as casual wear.

The design I came up with was a two-piece look. The inner robe is made of thick cotton jersey. The neckline is wide and finished with a band of the same fabric, as are the sleeves and hem. The sleeves are moderately wide and straight. It is belted with a black twisted rope belt.

The outer robe is made of black wool and is lined with rayon. It is open in the front to reveal the inner robe, has a mandarin collar and flared sleeves.

The stole is made of red silk dupioni, which is both interfaced and lined, so it has substantial weight and drape. Attached to the ends are Celtic knotwork patches purchased from StickerGiant.com.

The Inner Robe

Off The Rack Clerical

Mandarin Collar

Ready for the Runway
At least as soon as he's finished casting whichever spell is making his head glow like that

Project 20: Hidden Dragon Pants

2011-10-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Recently, one of my friends and co-workers greeted me in the morning with a large piece of beautiful silk with Chinese dragons. He had purchased it on a whim many years ago intending to use it in some project that never came to be. I asked him what he wanted made from it, but he said he just wanted me to have it.

"Lounge pants!" I said.

"What?" he replied.

"You need some fabulous lounge pants to wear on weekend mornings when you've had a sleepover date with one of the nice ladies you meet on the Internet."

"If I say yes to the pants will you stop talking?" he asked.

"Now let's discuss your inseam!" I continued.

He was turning three shades of red, so I relented.

Working with silk is a trip and a half. It's extremely strong, but also comes unraveled at the slightest provocation. It took about a half hour to cut out the pieces and start serging them together. Frankly, I don't know how people work with this kind of fabric without a serger. Oh wait. I used to. It sucked. Total of about three hours start to finish.

Project 19: Jack of the Lantern Shirt

2011-10-30T19:14:00.001-07:00

What happened to Project 18, you must be wondering. It's a two-piece look and not quite finished, but I leapt forward when this idea for a stealth Halloween costume came to me. I made an orange broadcloth dress shirt and sewed two big black triangles on the front. With one of my own silk ties on, it looks a little like a jack-o-lantern. When I put my jacket on, it just looks like a brightly-coloured shirt.

This is what I did wrong this time:

Put the placket on the wrong side AGAIN!!
used my serger to put a rolled hem on the bottom and missed a couple curves! Yikes!

After Halloween, I've offered it to my friend Carmen, who is fond of the colour orange. I'll put princess seams in the front, re-do the rolled hem and cut off the cuffs to three-quarter length and put a rolled hem there also. Oh. And I'll take the triangles off! I think it will look really cute on her.

Someone Like Me

2011-06-15T19:25:00.001-07:00

How many times have I broken down sobbing in the last 24 hours over events in Hazard, Kentucky? I've lost count. Rather than just quoting the facts and then spiraling off in an invective-laced tirade I'm going to write down what I imagine the backstory might be as I think about what happened. What follows is a work of speculative fiction until our protagonist goes to his community pool. From there onward it is all too real.

Imagine you were born a boy in rural Kentucky to an ordinary family. You grow up just like the other kids in your neighborhood, but by the time you are three or four years old, your parents notice that you aren't learning things as quickly as the other kids. By the time you're ten you know it too. Everyone else can understand things that you struggle with. Their knowledge and ability rockets off beyond yours and you realize that you'll never be smart. Your parents explain to you patiently that your brain is different and that it's not your fault. They cry sometimes, but you know that they love you even though you're slow.

Time goes on and you make the best of the life that's been given to you. Good days, bad days. Your family creates a protective environment and makes it possible to forget sometimes that you're different. You mature into your teenage years. Your brain may be slow, but your body surges ahead just like the other boys. Other boys. You start to notice some of them. You wonder if someday you might find one that notices you. At some point, because you are an honest person and don't know any reason not to, you share these thoughts with someone. Maybe it's your sister, or Mom or Dad. You know something is wrong, but don't understand why people are so upset.

Maybe your parents tell you that your natural impulses are sinful and you must never speak of them again. Maybe they take the deepest breath of their lives and accept that they must help you bear another burden; you're gay. Let's play out the second scenario - I'm almost out of tissues.

Your family helps you make it through your teen years and with assistance from community services you manage to live a semi-independent life. You earn some money. You live in an adult group home with other people whose minds are like yours, but they aren't really like you and you have to keep quiet about your loneliness and desire for intimacy and romantic love.

And then it happens. A miracle. The greatest evidence imaginable for divine grace. You meet another developmentally disabled man who is like you. Someone who can truly understand what it's like to be you. And he's cute. And he's funny and he thinks the same about you. You have to be considerate of your housemates, but you two manage to have some tiny portion of the experiences that everyone else takes for granted. Dates. Flowers. The awkwardness of a first kiss. Even the pinnacle of human intimacy: sex.

And you think to yourself that maybe you get to have a some small measure of happily-ever-after. Maybe just once the brave knight gets to marry the handsome prince.

One day you decide to go swimming together at your community pool. You pay the $3 for you and the $3 for him because you want to be a good boyfriend and that's what they do. You're having a great time in the pool; being goofy as always. Maybe you hold hands for a little while. Maybe he leans over and kisses your forehead. You both smile.

A few minutes later a man in a maintenance uniform comes over and tells you that you have to leave because gay people aren't allowed in the pool. You understand enough to know that this is wrong and you argue that it is discrimination and you have rights even though you are not smart. The man becomes angrier and tells you that they have the right to kick you out because it says so in the Bible.

You're both confused and embarrassed. People are staring at you and you think maybe you've made a mistake. You both leave in tears. Ashamed. Alone except for each other.

Story time is over. I have to go get some more tissues.

If you would like to contact the manager of the Pavilion community pool in Hazard, Kentucky, here is her contact information:

Pavilion
Deaton Street
Hazard, KY 41701
(606) 436-4200
E-mail: pavilion@cityofhazard.com

Director: Charlotte Sizemore

Be Nice

And if you would like to read the account of what happened in the media, here is one version:

Bible cited as reason for kicking gay men out of public pool

Update:The 83-year-old mayor of the town has apologized and the city is investigating. http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/15/6868590-group-disabled-gays-forced-to-leave-public-pool

Project 17: Black Linen Dress Shirt

2011-05-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, that was fun! I just made my first dress shirt and it came together easily. I drafted myself a new pattern, taking all my favorite features from my current crop of dress shirts and combining them with some ideas of my own. The base material is black linen, which I purchased in bulk online from FashionFabricsClub.com. If you can buy the whole bolt, you save a great deal of money. This material would probably be about $18 a yard in a fabric store, but I got it for about $9 a yard by buying a 12 yard bolt.

I made the placket and collar band out of black silk dupioni. I hoped to add a touch of pizzaz, but it's too subtle, I think. My humble mistakes this time were:

Not turning under the seam allowance on the inside of the collar band before constructing it. That would have made the topstitching on the inside of the band come out much better.
After serging the side seams closed, I stitched them to the body of the shirt, but went a little quickly on one of them and made a swerve.
I put the button holes on the cuffs on the wrong sides again!!!!

I'm really looking forward to making the next dress shirt. If I've learned my lesson from the mistakes listed above then the next one is going to be hard to tell from a professionally made shirt. So. Excited.

Project 16: Neckties

2011-05-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I love ties. They are one of the only pieces in menswear in which you can use shiny, colorful fabric. They are also such an icon of masculinity, which to a gay man is very inspiring.

The most difficult aspect of this project was pattern and construction method selection. I watched videos on YouTube, looked for patterns online and from the big pattern manufacturers. Nothing was quite right. I wanted a traditional lining (also called 'tipping') that folded over the bottom edge, but I didn't want to do the hand stitched seam up the back. I finally gave up and drafted my own pattern, which after quite a few botched attempts works well.

Just for fun, I purchased some labels for my creations that read "Taigh Sheumais Fashions." They make good keepers for the backs of neckties, I've found.

I've gotten all the usual questions. "Why make a tie when you can buy one for $10 at Macy's?" Because, darling, the $10 tie you buy at Macy's is made out of polyester. It looks cheap. Look at the silk ties for $60 and up. I can make one of those for about $12 now.

I love sewing. I love ties. I love men wearing ties. I love men absentmindedly stroking their ties. Oops - was that my outside voice?

Project 15: Silk Basket Weave Vest

2011-03-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

So I was in one of my local fabric stores late last year, cruising for bargains at the remnant table when I spied a stack of beige silk dupioni pieces at 50% off the normal price. They weren't big enough to do much with, but out of the blue a vision came to me. If I cut the silk into strips and made bias-tape ribbons I could weave them into larger panels and use the panels to make parts of garments.

Making the bias-tape ribbons was pretty easy. I cut the strips with a rotary cutter and a straight edge, then got a magic folder thing that I just ran the strips of silk through on an ironing board and followed with the iron. I wove the strips on a cork bulletin board and used fabric glue to secure the outer border squares. When I had a piece big enough, I placed the pattern pieces for the front of a vest on them and drew around the outside with a sharpie. (don't faint)

The real trick was figuring out how I could cut the garment pieces out without the whole thing falling apart. The answer came in a flash. I had to stitch around the outline of the pattern piece to fix the upper and lower ribbon squares together at the edge before cutting. It worked like a charm.

I had plenty of silk left, so I made myself a matching necktie. Some critics have said that the look is too matchy-matchy, so I've since purchased some more silk in other colors to make contrasting ties. See! I can take criticism!

Project 14: Long Sleeve Osnaburg Shirt

2011-03-09T00:50:00.000-08:00

When I was making our Halloween Jedi Knight costumes in 2010, I discovered this incredible textile, of which I had never heard. Osnaburg is named for the city that invented it in Germany, and was historically associated with the slave culture of pre Civil War America. The material is woven from the left-over bits of cotton after making finer weaves. It's thick and fluffy and strong and is usually unbleached and un-dyed. I think it's beautiful, and so did Lingoman. He dropped several hints in November that he would like any article of clothing made with osnaburg.

I decided to try something new to stretch my skills, so I made him a long sleeve version of my standard Seumas Shirt. I had no serious issues, I'm pleased to report! The little placket on each sleeve where the opening is was a little tricky, but both of us were pleased with the result.

Project 13: Collared Shawl

2010-11-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the big Halloween event was over, one of my co-Workers, a woman in her 30s, approached my desk carrying a piece of clothing. It was a black knit shawl-like something. A rectangle with an opening up the middle and fringe at both ends. She asked me if I would make her something like it.

"Does it have to have fringe?" I asked, being a snot.

"No" she replied.

"Does it have to be black?" I asked, pushing it further.

"No" she replied. "I trust your judgement."

I told her to go to a fabric store and find some medium weight wool coat material that she loved and I would do my best. She brought back several swatches and we discussed them. She picked out her favorite and I got busy making a muslin. I actually made two because I had two different design ideas. One had a kimono-style neck / closure treatment and the other had a collar. She went for that one, which made my quite happy since it was a little more challenging.

The wool that she picked was on the cool end of the spectrum, so for the collar and facing I picked brown silk dupioni on the warm end for contrast. I made a long silk ribbon to bind the hem of the wool and used a blind hem stitch to secure the facing to the body of the garment for a fully finished, secure feeling. Nothing worse than trying to put on a garment and finding your facing flopping out for the world to see.

Once it was done, I realized that she was going to need some kind of a purse since there weren't any pockets in the design. In less than an hour I whipped up a little bag to go with it.

I gave it to her yesterday and she loved it. This morning she told me that her husband loved it too and slipped me a few bills. I can't believe that I've designed and sold a garment. Tim Gunn, if someday you read this, I want you to know that I made it work!

Project 12: Halloween Costumes

2010-11-16T18:18:00.001-08:00

You've got to be kidding. I didn't sew a single garment between Halloween 2009 and Halloween 2010? My goodness it was a crazy year. Even if I didn't sew anything during most of the year, I certainly made up for it at the end.

I sent out an invitation volunteering to make a Jedi knight costume for the first six people who responded and wanted to come party with us in Vancouver. Four full-time Vancouverites, me and LCD Seattle wound up being the six. A very nice mix, I have to say. I had to be pretty creative, since there is not a licensed pattern, but by studying the movies and reading a lot of Star Wars costuming forum posts I got a fairly solid muslin together in August.

I made two really important fabric sourcing discoveries that month also. First, that there is a very inexpensive kind of fabric called Osnaburg which is made from rejected cotton fibres. It's thick, fluffy, textured and sturdy and dirt cheap. I bought a 15 yard bolt online for about $2 per yard. Second, I found that the retail mark-up on wool is criminal. I bought a three 12 yard bolts of absolutely exquisite dark brown 100% wool online for about $7 a yard. It would have been at least $25 a yard in a fabric store.

I spent just about every free moment in September and October sewing frantically, but I was having a great time doing it anyway. I think my sewing skill level jumped significantly and I know that I got a lot faster at cutting, pinning and pressing! The thing that really made the costumes work, though, were the Hasbro Force FX lightsabers. The have very high quality sound and light effects and were movie-ready replicas of the props used in the movie, as you can see here:

We got a hotel suite in downtown Vancouver so that no one would have to do any driving during the evening and also so that we would have a nice, central costuming location! I've never packed up my sewing equipment for international travel before, so that was an adventure in planning ahead as well.

I also booked us a limo so that we could first attend the Parade of Lost Souls put on by Public Dreams Society in the Commercial Drive area of Vancouver. It's a wonderful performance-art parade and community celebration which is alone well worth the trip to the city. We stopped at Vancouver City Hall on the way to the parade and took a few photos. Here's one of the better group shots:

When we arrived in the area and stepped out onto the sidewalks of Commercial Drive people went nuts. We had dozens and dozens of people take their photos with us, shout "May the Force be with you!" at us across the street, or just exclaim "COOL!" as we came into view. It was absolutely like being a rock star. When the rain started to fall we were glad our costumes had lovely big hoods as we made a beeline for a nearby Italian restaurant. After dinner it was back downtown to visit bars and clubs in the gay village where we were received with great enthusiasm.

Exhausting? yes. Expensive? yes. Worth it? beyond super-yes.

What To Do

2010-07-30T16:25:00.001-07:00

The last post is not fair without this one. These are things you can do to help fight for a better future for people like me:

Do you have a teenager? Have you told them that it's OK if they turn out not to be straight? That you will love them no matter what?
Have you asked any High Schoolers in your life if they think that their gay classmates face harassment at school? If so, does the administration do anything about it?
Join PFLAG and volunteer. Tell them I sent you.
Find your local LGBT at-risk youth center and volunteer or donate.
Contact the Trevor Project to donate or volunteer.
Schedule a meeting with your church's minister to discuss LGBT inclusion in their ministry. Tell them that I want to hear back about what they are doing to help.

There's a start. Go.

Do Something

2010-07-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

"If he turns out to be gay, we should cut his legs off so he can't leave the house and bring shame on the family." said my mother, slurring her words after a considerable amount of cheap blended whiskey. I don't remember what my dad said in response. My seven-year-old mind couldn't take any more in at that point.

Yes, seven. Yes, my mother.

I crouched in the dark living room listening to them shouting in the kitchen. Were they going to do it tomorrow? Tonight? Would that be how I woke up tomorrow? Would they kill me instead if it got too messy as they sawed through my leg bones? I had to go through the kitchen to get out of the house if I decided to run. Could I make it past them?

When I try to explain to straight people what it's like to grow up gay in America I try the metaphor that we are raised in 'enemy territory.' Most gay people are born and raised in straight families and we learn to hate gay people before we know we're gay. I don't think most of them realize how severe the physical and emotional violence we face is.

Why is this coming up now? The debate over the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA), marriage equality and the effort to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell is forcing people like my late parents to say what they really think of people like me out loud. Into microphones. When I hear them, or read transcripts of their ignorant, hateful, twisted little words I get angry. I remember what it was like being crouched in the dark living room wondering if I was going to wake up to my parents amputating my legs.

My parents never committed that act of violence against me. The next morning they were just hung over and I had to act like everything was OK and go on with life, but the damage was done. A moment in the making and decades in the repairing.

Now polls say that people think gays have too much influence on society. That we're too powerful, too rich, too successful. Is that why we can't get married? Is that why welfare mothers and absentee fathers vote our existing marriages away? Why ignorant hicks vote to ban us adopting children?

Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry at every preacher of every religion that teaches people that we're sinful. I'm angry at every person who sits quietly and listens to them. Somewhere out in America another little boy or girl is going through what I went though. One of you knows that child and if you do nothing to help, you're the one who is sinful.

Independence Day

2010-07-05T13:06:00.001-07:00

I didn't post this yesterday because I was deep in a project, but July 4th is my independence day also. In 1994, my bandmates Stan and Marisa bought a house in the University District which had a partially finished studio apartment in the basement. They were looking for someone to rent it, and I was more than ready to get out of Poulsbo, so at the tender age of 27 I left my parent's home.

That first night was pretty intense. Stan and Marisa and I went looking for fireworks on the spur of the moment. Probably doesn't seem like a big deal to a normal person, but to me the freedom to do that was like something out of a dream. No guilt trips. No ferry hassles. Just climb in the car with good friends and go. Later, as I was laying in bed in the dark in a basement the fear started to settle in. Would I be able to afford this life? Will my parents be OK? Is Mom laying in bed crying because I'm not there?

I lived in Stan and Marisa's basement for several very important years. I had some catching up to do in terms of learning to be a good housemate, but it worked out in the end. I started learning Gaelic while I lived there, got my Yule harp, and lived through the joy and heartbreak of the heyday of Wicked Celts.

When Stan and Marisa sold that house in April of 1998, things moved rapidly and I wound up settling for a dingy studio apartment in Northgate. At the time, I thought life had taken a terrible turn for the worse, but the gods had a plan. Slightly over a year later, in June of 1999 I moved from Northgate into my little rental house in Baile Ard. If I had been living somewhere less depressing, I might have hesitated to move and missed out on some of the happiest years of my life.

Thanks for helping me get out on my own, Stan and Marisa, and for taking me out in the Ford Explorer to celebrate my independence day all those years ago.

The New Normal

2010-06-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

March 13th. Really? I haven't written anything since then? I've got a couple essays in mind, so wish me luck in putting fingers to keyboard.

In my own defense I will note the following events since March:

Lingoman and I took a semi-last minute trip to Scotland for our ninth anniversary in April. Documentary to be released on YouTube soon and linked from here.
The Deepwater Horizon incident happened (and is still happening). I contract with NOAA you see, so I have had a total of six days without some kind of work since April 20th.
Féis Shiàtail 2010 happened. I was a co-chair so in addition to the oil spill work, I helped run this 100+ person residential Gaelic festival.

But I still can't believe I haven't written anything. Yes, the recording project is about to take a leap forward. Yes I'm thinking about Halloween costumes already. No, I didn't go to Pride in Seattle, but will be going to Pride in Vancouver. OK. That about covers it.

Here's a teaser to keep you interested: The upcoming essay is about the difference between freedom of religion and freedom to force your religion on others.

Holiday Greetings and Bad Feelings

2010-03-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Now that we're safely months after the stress and excitement of the holidays, I want to share a thought that occurred to me during this last year's seemingly inevitable conflict between people who wish others well broadly with Happy Holidays and those who wish narrowly with Merry Christmas.

I'm confident there are many layers to this strangely divisive conflict. When I was a child, I heard both greetings, and it was understood that Happy Holidays meant Christmas and New Year, not holidays from other religions or cultures. It seems to me that a portion of both Christians and people I refer to as "culturally Christian" feel very threatened by our increasingly diverse society. Even though they are and likely will remain an enormous majority of the US population, they make claims of being 'oppressed' by anyone who doesn't say Merry Christmas. It has always seemed childish to me.

This year I had an experience of conflict with a Christian friend, however, that gave me an insight. In the midst of the usual go-round of "I say 'Merry Christmas' to you because you're Christian - why do you say it to me, knowing that I'm not? It's rude!" it occurred to me that when I offer a holiday greeting to someone, it's about their identity because I'm offering it to them. Maybe there's another perspective in which I offer my religion's blessing because it is mine to offer. I'm not sure what guidance that gives me about how to manage religious diversity in my circle of friends, but it's interesting to me anyway.

One of the arguments that my Christian friend put forward this year, however, feels wrong to me. Something along the lines of Christmas having become a secular holiday. What? No! Keep the Christ in Christmas! It's important to you guys! Besides, all the trappings of trees and gifts and lights feasts are from my religion. If you're going to steal all our beautiful practices to dress up your Middle Eastern desert religion, at least have the courtesy of making good use of them!!!!

Project 11: Halloween Costumes

2009-11-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

Last Halloween, when I had just received my sewing machine two months earlier and was still slightly puzzled by thread tension knobs and bias tape, Lingoman made a trip down to Seattle. After picking him up from the bus station, we went out for a meal in Baile Ard and saw a young woman in the most exquisite Wonder Woman costume I had ever seen.

That gave me the idea of making costumes for us this year. I shopped online and found a pattern for costumes that looked like something out of World of Warcraft (which we both play). They were pretty challenging. Using heavy weight interfacing covered with lame to simulate armor was quite an adventure in sculptural sewing!

We planned to attend the Parade of Lost Souls in Vancouver, and LCD Seattle decided to join in the fun at the last minute, so I made him an Evil Monk costume. Unfortunately, the parade was not held this year so we just did a photo shoot at the Vancouver City Hall and went out to a gay dance bar.

Many Thanks to Xena Warrior Princess (not pictured for privacy reasons) for helping me out of my funk and giving new, exuberant life to my 10-year-old custom made leather battle dress.

I lost count of how many people stopped us on the street to get their picture taken with us. It was a truly fun time, and I succeeded in convincing Lingoman and LCD Seattle that going out in costume can be great if your costume is high quality.

Now... for next year...

A Dozen Days

2009-10-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

On Friday, October 9th I became very ill with the flu. I don't know which kind, and I don't much care. I had a high fever and violent coughing through Sunday morning and I managed to give it to Lingoman. Happy Birthday, Honey! (don't know how that could have happened) Anyway, the upshot is that I was so sick that I didn't smoke after dinner on Friday, nor on Saturday at all, and neither did I do so on Sunday.

At that point, I thought that maybe I should give quitting a try, since I was already part way through the process. For the last ten years I had been a half-pack-a-day smoker, which in the greater scheme of things isn't that bad. You have to smoke a whole pack a day for 20 years before they can measure a statistical increase to the likelihood of getting lung cancer. Even so, I did theoretically want to quit for all the usual reasons.

So there I was on Sunday, October 11th, having not smoked for a couple days. At that point I was still coughing from the flu. It's now been 12 days since I accidentally quit and I'm still coughing a lot. The Intertubes reassure me that it is because my lungs are repairing themselves and are very sensitive. It sucks anyway. I can't practice singing and I'm getting horrible cold sweats every afternoon. Apparently this is normal for quitters. I just hope I don't gain too much weight.

Ding! Level 43!

2009-09-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

For many years, my circle of friends has had the habit of asking what we refer to as The Birthday Questions at birthday parties. They are:

What was the best thing that happened to you at [insert age]?
What was the most difficult thing that happened to you at [insert age]?
What are your goals for [insert next year age]?

Since I won't be having a birthday party this year, I'm going to answer the questions here on the blog.

The best thing that happened while I was 42 was the trip to teach at Big Sky Folk Harp Festival in Montana. Lingoman went with me, which made it very enjoyable. While I was there, I attended a workshop by Debra Henson-Conant that clarified my need to sing on my CD. I've started voice lessons for the first time since college and have been lucky enough to make huge strides in my vocal skills.
The most difficult thing was my first bout of depression since I was in my twenties. It might have been brought on by too many years of breakneck activity. I'm going to hope so, since I just don't have time left to be depressed.
My goals (unfortunately) remain the same as last year. I've only lost 18 pounds instead of 40 and my CD is far from done. Progress not perfection, right?

Recording Project Update

2009-07-28T00:29:00.000-07:00

There's a guy who can fix that

I haven't written about the recording project in a while, but I have been working on it fairly steadily. It's been a twisty road, though. Recording yourself is a great learning tool, as long as what you want to learn is how far you are from where you want to be.

I've spent the last several months practicing harp, fiddle and voice intensely. My initial vocal recordings were shaky at best, which was a blow to my confidence. I did a lot of singing in college, but haven't done much since and my old skills were very rusty. I was not making much progress, and I was starting to wonder if I should give up on the effort and make a straight-forward harp recording, leaving the rest of my creative work behind.

Then something wonderful happened.

I taught at the Big Sky Folk Harp Festival, and while I was there I attended a workshop by a Blues / Jazz harp player called Deborah Henson-Conant. Blues and Jazz aren't my thing, but I was interested in learning more about this woman who had risen to such prominence in the harp world. I was expecting her to be witty and entertaining, but what I got went much deeper.

She told the story of her own journey of singing with the harp, which she didn't do at the start of her career. When she decided to, however, she was discouraged by friends, audience members and critics. She was told that she should not sing; that her voice was terrible and that she was holding her career back by insisting on doing it anyway.

At this point I was on the edge of my seat because what she was describing was my own inner dialogue on the subject.

She then shared a story about something that had happened to her years earlier. She was teaching at the Edinburgh Harp Festival and met the members of Síleas, Patsy Seddon and Mary Macmaster. Patsy and Mary are a singing harp duo, and Deborah asked Patsy why they sang on their CD, since in her opinion, the singing wasn't as strong as the harping. Patsy answered "It's what we do."

Punch in the gut. Tears. It's what I do too.

Side note

I've always enjoyed Patsy and Mary's singing, but I do agree that it has gotten stronger over time.

Deborah went on to say that Patsy and Mary's singing got better and better over time and now rivals their excellent harping. The theme that Deborah came back to several times was "There's a guy who can fix that", referring to getting help when you need to do something better than you are currently able.

Message received.

As if to confirm that receipt, a few hours later at dinner, I was sitting at a table with another harp presenter (the fabulous Verlene Schermer) and several other friends and the subject of playing the fiddle came up. I remarked that as a self-taught fiddler, I wished that a friendly violinist would put together a program of just the parts of classical violin technique that fiddlers need. Verlene turned to me and said, "I don't usually teach violin, but maybe I can help you with that."

Verlene spent an hour with me correcting the worst problems in my technique and the results were astounding. Intonation problems vanished. My tone warmed up. Fast bowing passages that had always sounded sloppy started to resolve like an image on a web page slowly going from a blur to clarity. I had found the 'guy' that could fix that.

That evening it was Deborah's turn to entertain. Again, I'm not into Jazz or Blues music, but the woman is a jaw-dropping performer. And the voice. The voice on her! That was the part I couldn't believe. This was the person that was told not to sing? Madness!

And so, in a couple days I'm starting voice lessons for the first time since college. I have to sing on my CD. It's what I do.

Thank you, Deborah.

Happy 10th Ballardiversary!

2009-06-18T22:38:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago today, I moved from a dark, oddly-shaped studio apartment in Northgate to an adorable duplex in Ballard. The place had just been vacated by a co-worker, who tipped me off to its availability. It was perfectly laid out for me, with a bedroom (yippee!) kitchen, dining area, living room, front yard, back patio and parking place and the rent was unbeatable. $650 a month!

After I moved in and got settled a little, I had a series of housewarming events over a weekend. Friday night was the house blessing and spellcasting party. I made up little spell kits with complete instructions and folks had a great time sprinkling saltwater, reciting charms and stringing up rowan berries. Saturday was a drop-in buffet for those with evening commitments and Saturday night was a grand céilidh with somewhere around sixty people singing, playing tunes and drinking gallons of scotch. Sunday was a "survivor's brunch" complete with a reenactment of the assault on the Death Star from Star Wars using primarily French cheese for all the actors and ships.

Over the next seven years, countless wonderful and moving things happened in that house. I threw at least twenty huge céilidhs for the Slighe nan Gaidheal community. There were times when every room, including the tiny bathroom, was packed with happy, laughing, singing people enjoying the little home I had made for myself.

My friend Pandora and I started the Winter Solstice Banquet, which usually entailed a full day of decorating, a day and a half of cooking and a full day of washing dishes and cleaning afterward. The traditions of heartfelt reflection and honest sharing that evolved around the Winter Solstice table will stay with me for as long as I live.

One year I held a birthday céilidh for my dear friend Kat which her evangelical parents attended. I was pretty nervous about not offending them and with controlling my reactions if they inadvertently offended me. I kept myself in an icy grip of self-control, but despite my fears we had a truly wonderful evening and found common ground despite our differences.

That house was also the last of my homes that my mother ever saw. The year that I moved there, I decided that I wanted to host the family Christmas celebration. It was a very big deal to me and it came off really well. I took the last photo of my Mom that I ever would that day. We blew it up and framed it for her memorial service.

Lingoman and I met while I was still living there in 2001. In the early years of our romance, he would come down to Seattle fairly often so we spent a lot of time in that house getting better acquainted. One weekend, we were getting ready to go out of town when I discovered an enormous dragonfly perched over my dining room table. I mean enormous and it had apparently decided to settle down and start a family with my Ikea light fixture. Being the son of a biologist, Lingoman had no problems capturing the guy unharmed and releasing him outside to rejoin the dragonfly dating pool. That next Solstice, he gave me a beautiful cast aluminum tray decorated with dragonflies. Every time I see it I think "he will help me deal with my fears."

In January 2006, I received notice from the landlords that they had sold the place to a developer, who would be tearing it down to build townhouses. After crying for a week, I picked my self up and started looking into buying a place, since I never wanted to get that kind of letter again. With help and guidance from my wonderful realtor, Sara, I found the condo in which I now live. I moved at the beginning of August, 2006. It's a nice place; comfortable and convenient, but not set up for entertaining. Life has become rather solitary as a result and I struggle with that.

The developer didn't get around to demolishing the place until January 2nd, 2007. I got a call from my former neighbors while I was driving Lingoman to the airport to fly home. By the time I got there, it was all over. You can see my stove on which seven Winter Solstice Banquets were prepared in the pile of rubble if you look closely.

I often ask myself if I would trade the more upscale conveniences of this place to have my little duplex back. The answer is still 'yes.' I would go back if I could.

What Pride Means to Me

2009-06-05T13:12:00.001-07:00

This story, like so many others, begins with my mom. In the extremely long, tortured process of coming out to her, I never had to convince her that being gay is innate. I think she knew about me by the time I was 5 years old. It took some effort, though, to open her eyes to the number of people who are not heterosexual. Every year the Seattle media would cover the Pride parade and Mom would assert that "all those people aren't gay." Sometimes she would follow up with "they just want the special benefits" or "I don't see what there is to be proud about. It's not something they had to earn."

I had my work cut out for me.

Trying to explain what Pride is about to my mother, though, prompted me to dig deeper into my own thoughts about it. Here are some of the things I came up with:

Gay Pride is the name of a movement, and movements have to come up with tags, handles and titles for themselves. In my mind, a slightly more accurate title would be Gay non-Shame, but that doesn't have quite the ring to it that we need.
Gay Pride also comes from my sense of connection with the gay men, lesbians and other sexually non-conforming people throughout recorded history who have achieved great things. Alexander the Great conquered the world. Sapho's poetry is still studied. Leonardo da Vinci's genius continues to inspire people throughout the world. I reminded my mother that she felt pride for my accomplishments, even though she never took a music lesson in her life.
Gay Pride is not just about being gay, but also about having survived being gay in this society. It's something that most straight people never think about since they are surrounded by a world that is slanted toward them. Most gay people are raised by straight people and learn to hate gay people before they know that they're gay. I remember the moment I realized that I was one of those people vividly. I think I was about eight years old. I had already been exposed to plenty of negative stereotypes of gay people both from my family and on TV, and absolutely no positive images.
Gay Pride is our chance to be visible for one day a year. Even in today's more progressive society, a child growing up gay even in a city like Seattle, will almost never see affirmative images of gay people. It feels like we're not real; that our lives and experiences are not worthy of inclusion in society. Benign neglect is the term, I believe.
Gay Pride is a chance to feel safe for a few hours. Long before I moved to Seattle I would come to the Pride parade just for the sake of having a day without worrying if someone was going to think I was gay and be hostile to me. For gay people living in enemy territory, those few hours are precious and irreplaceable.
Gay Pride is the best place to celebrate our progress with our straight allies.

If anyone is interested in coming to Pride this year, you can get all the information here:

Seattle Out & Proud

Homemade Music

2009-05-27T13:17:00.001-07:00

It might seem funny to hear this from someone working on a recording project, but I think we're too reliant on recorded music. In my parent's day, it was normal for there to be a piano in a well set-up house. If a family had no one that played an instrument, it generally meant they were very poor and often a quiet effort would be made among neighbors to make sure the kids in the family had some access to musical instruments and instruction.

It remains to be seen if the US consumer's changed habits of thrift and frugality will last, or if like that Atkins diet fad, we will grow bored with homemade dinners and low-cost vacations. I hope that if it is a fad, that it lasts long enough for a good swath of our generation and the next to rediscover the satisfaction of making the things we want and need for ourselves; including music.

Just in case you're thinking what I'm afraid you're thinking

Playing "Guitar Hero" doesn't fill the bill. All you're doing there is learning a different computer keyboard and hand-eye coordination. Playing an instrument gives you hand-ear coordination which accesses a different and neglected part of your brain.

My Dad was an amateur musician in his youth, and when I was growing up he would still occasionally play a tune on the piano or guitar. It wasn't perfect or brilliant or spectacular, but it was wonderful. It was real and it showed me that real people make music. I think I relate to music very differently because of those early experiences. If all you've ever heard are the artificially perfected sounds of a studio recording, how are you ever going to have the courage to make imperfect real music yourself?

Science is finally catching up with what my parent's generation knew. People need to hear live music and I think everyone needs to at least try to make some music themselves. Take a singing class. Pick up a cheap tinwhistle. Take a beginning guitar class at your local community college. If not for your own sake, do it for your kids or your sibling's kids so that if one of them is born with an undiscovered musical talent that he or she will have the courage to give music a try. That's what my Dad playing "Stardust" on the piano imperfectly, and with great love, did for me.

Nine Element Scramtata

2009-05-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

The Nine Element Scramtata has been a weekend brunch staple for Lingoman and I for quite a while. It took years of careful research and experimentation (urp) and now it's time to share the results with the world.

Ingredients

Quantities are per person to be served! An opportunity to use your fractional math skills!

2 strips thick-cut bacon
1/4 of a medium-sized onion
1/4 of a small potato
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 cup shredded cheese (of some type that makes you say "oooh!")
1/2 of a Roma tomato
2 broccoli florets
1 mushroom

Slice the bacon strips into small pieces. Fry over medium heat until they are about half-way done.
While the bacon is frying, chop the onion and potato into small pieces. Note: This morning I used a new potato, so the pieces are rounds instead of small chunks. When the bacon is half done, lift it into a small bowl (don't put it on papertowels; you need the rest of the fat!) and discard the fat in the pan. Return the bacon, onion and potato to the pan and sauté.
While the bacon, onion and potato are cooking, beat the eggs and milk and fold in half of the shredded cheese. Chop the tomato, mushroom and broccoli. Note: I had some spinach on hand this time so I used that instead of broccoli.
Add the tomato, mushroom and broccoli to the egg and cheese mixture. When the savories in the pan are well and goodly sautéed, remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Fold them into the egg, cheese and vegetable mixture and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the pan. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, scrape through the ingredients as the egg begins to cook. After a few minutes, start to scoot the mixture in toward the center until edges start to form. Continue round and round the pan as the sides of the scramtata form up.
Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the scramtata and place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes until the cheese is melted and the vegetables poking up are golden brown.
Serve with crusty bread toast and Ta-da! Packed with nutrition, your scramtata will fuel a great weekend! Leave a comment if you try the recipe and love it!

Project 10: Tarot Card Bag

2009-04-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

True confessions time. I haven't used my Tarot cards in a few years. I guess I've come to rely on my own intuition more than I did when I was younger. Anyway, I had occasion to use them last week and found that the black velvet bag I made for them thirty years ago was in a deplorable state.

I used left-over linen from my shirt projects. Black for the outside, red for the lining and added some of my Celtic knot work trim. I've never made a lined bad before, but it came together fairly easily. I just thought through how each piece should relate to the others. Now my Aquarian Tarot card deck purchased from Shotwell's Bookstore in Poulsbo in 1979 has a new home.

Eight Years and Counting

2009-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago today, Doug and I had our first date. We met a week earlier at a Vancouver Gaelic Society céilidh when I had come up to meet a visiting Gaelic singer, the fabulous Cathy Ann MacPhee. A mutual friend, Bruce Power of the Vancouver Gaelic choir, introduced us. I think that Doug and I hit it off because I knew I didn't stand a chance with this adorable blonde guy so I just kind of acted like my normal, sarcastic self. Turns out that was the right answer all along.

When he said he would like to come down for a visit the following weekend, I thought he just wanted to see some of his Seattle friends, or come to a house céilidh, or do some shopping. About eight hours into it, though, I came to the conclusion that I was on an actual date! I was quite surprised.

Since then we've each moved house, changed jobs, and helped each other through tough times. I've put 115,000 miles on my car driving back and forth to Vancouver and he's spent countless hours on Quick Shuttle buses. With all that we've been through, the good and the bad, I'd do it all over again if I had the chance.

Happy Date-a-versary, Sweetie.

Project 9: Red Shirt

2009-04-06T00:38:00.001-07:00

Not in the Star Trek sense, of course. This time through my trusty McCalls 4399 I didn't need to look at the directions. Bright colors for Spring!

Glimpsing the Other Life

2009-03-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

I remember vividly the moment when I accepted the fact that I would likely not make my living with music. My family had a major financial reversal during the summer after my first year attending Cornish College of the Arts and so when my Mom and I went to register for the second year, we realized that I would be borrowing as much money for the second year as the first but only be attending half time. We sat on together on the front steps of the school and I said to her "How can I keep borrowing this money if I don't know that I'll ever make a living at music?" She replied "Can you not do this and still be who you are?"

No. Decision made.

I graduated from Cornish and got a full-time job where I had been temping during summer breaks in the student loan industry. That was a stable career for over a decade. When it came to an end I briefly considered trying to make the leap into music, but quickly realized that my need for income made that a bad idea. So instead I went into government contracting where I still am today. It's provided me with the opportunity to retire all my credit card debts, buy a condo and start saving for retirement.

This weekend, though, I'm getting the chance to have a taste of what life might have been like if I had made different choices. My Vancouver harp buddy Alys and I are the opening act for a fundraising concert in Everett on Saturday night and on Sunday we zip up to Vancouver to play at CelticFest. We've been rehearsing and practicing a lot and I made all the travel arrangements so it feels a bit like a concert tour. At the end of all this work and excitement (read: stress) I'll take a look at how much money is left after expenses and I imagine that I'll still be happy with the choices I made back in the 80s.

Project 8: Black & Brown Shirts

2009-02-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

These are now my favorite shirts ever. They're made from thick, thick linen which I would have never splurged on for myself. Lingoman's mother, however, provided the means as a Solstice gift (gods bless her) so I had to do it! Did that sound convincing?

I intended to try an experiment in mass production by doing all the cutting for both shirts, then all the sewing but I just couldn't. By the time I finished cutting out the pieces for one shirt I was done with that activity. So, I made them sequentially.

The silver-colored Celtic knotwork buttons on the black shirt actually came from my local fabric store, not from a specialty source. Pacific Fabrics rocks.

Lessons learned this time out:

Linen is loosely woven and moves but you don't have to panic. If it moves while you're cutting and it's a little off shape it will move just as well while you're pinning and you can fix small errors
Sew buttons on by hand. You don't save much time by using the machine and they're never quite as solid.
Spend a few extra bucks for the nicer fabric. If you're going to spend all those hours cutting and sewing it's worth it.
My six-year-old 1 megapixel digital camera sucks.

Là Feille Brìde: Bridget's Feast Day

2009-02-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

Today is the second of February, which in the old calendar was the day that fell halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Among Gaelic-speaking peoples prior to their adoption of Christianity, this day was holy to the Goddess Brìd. As Gaeldom began to accept the new religion it did so at first on its own terms. The new relationship between the people and a new set of Gods had to be cemented in the proper way; with fosterage. Brìd shifted from being the triple Goddess of smith craft, poetry and healing to being the foster mother of Jesus. This was a very prestigious role in Gaelic society, which denoted the importance of Brìd to her own people.

Although I honor all the Gods, there is a special place in my heart and on my altar for Brìd. Having a special role in the transformative and restorative arts, I call on her when I need change in myself or the world around me. From tonight through the day that is the actual halfway point through Winter in the modern calendar I will make special offerings to Her in hopes that this world gets the changes it needs, and also that it wants most of them.

This is the kind of thing I meant

2009-01-31T16:59:00.000-08:00

One of my earliest posts was a set of recommendations for helping straight people get past the Eww! Ick! response when they see same-sex couples express affection. In it I recommended going out of their way to see same-sex themed movies or TV shows and I emphasized the fact that I didn't mean pornography.

I was recently hipped by Joe. My. God. to a new music video by openly gay singer-songwriter Matt Alber. It's a great song and a very beautiful video. As a gay person in North America, I've spent my whole life switching pronouns in my head and reframing stories in movies and TV shows so that I could relate to the characters. Give it a try! It will help you appreciate the ease of being in the majority.

Dad's Fiddle Reborn

2009-01-21T00:06:00.000-08:00

The story of me becoming a fiddler starts when I was a very young kid. There were large cupboards above my parent's clothes closet where seldom-used things were kept, and those storage spaces were the most magical destination in my young world. When I could get away with it I would find a way to get up into those cupboards and peek into the boxes that held Christmas decorations, old keepsakes and my Dad's violin. Dad studied with the first chair of the Minneapolis Symphony until the Great Depression hit in 1929 when he was 10 years old. Music fell by the wayside as he looked for ways to make money to help support his family.

The violin sat in its case for 64 years until his death in 1993, when Mom gave it to me. Becoming a fiddler had never been in my plan for life, but when I held that poor, decrepit instrument in my hands it felt like a door opened in my heart and the fiddle moved in beside the harp. I had the initial restoration done by a violin company south of Seattle, and not knowing any better, thought they had done a good job. I marveled at how incredibly difficult it was to get a good sound out of a violin and being who I am, I blamed my lack of talent.

After 14 years of dabbling at playing it I finally got to a place in my career and life where I could afford to spend a couple grand on a better violin. As it turns out, the poor set-up and repair work was at least partly to blame for my lack of progress. My new violin was a revelation. It was so much easier to play that I practiced for hours every day and my skills took a quantum leap forward.

Which brings me back to my Dad's violin. After getting my new one, I moved Dad's up to Lingoman's apartment for weekend use, but I never played it; I had been spoiled. A couple of weeks ago the radical weather fluctuations caused all the tuning pegs to let go and the bridge fell down. Non-players might not know, but the precise placement of the bridge, which is held in place by string tension, is a critical element in how an instrument sounds.

So I decided to bring Dad's violin into Lasley and Russ in Ballard to see what could be done. To my surprise, Duane Lasley thought that he could overhaul it and make it into a decent instrument. He took the top off, carved down some of the surfaces, sanded the fingerboard smooth, replaced the tail piece and tuning pegs and now it's almost as nice as my new violin. Duane tells me that it will continue to adjust and improve over time.

Well, Dad, the instrument you had to abandon at the beginning of the Great Depression has been reborn in your son's hands at the beginning of the Second Great Depression. I think I'm going to have to write a tune about that.

Almost Canadian

2009-01-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend at the Fort Worden Folk Harp Festival and had a terrific time as usual. There were about 45 harpers there who came to learn techniques and repertoire from the five presenters and also to visit with each other. There's a core group of about 30 that come every year, and as you can imagine, we're pretty good friends after 25 years. We've seen each other through divorces, job losses, deaths, diseases and suffering of every kind. We've also celebrated each other's triumphs and joys, all in the context of our shared love of music and the harp specifically.

Most of the people who come every year are from Western Washington, but there is a contingent from British Columbia as well. I make sure they get a special shout out at the Saturday night céilidh since they have to face a US Customs agent to get there. I figure they deserve at least that.

As we were packing up to leave on Sunday morning, one of the Canadians, a dear woman about my age, pulled me aside because she wanted to tell me that she thought of me as "almost Canadian." I thanked her, and told her that my Dad was from Ontario and she responded with "O, then you are Canadian!"

Over the last seven and a half years of being in love with a Canadian man, I've been exposed to lots and lots of anti-Americanism from his friends and family. Usually when this happens, at some point the ranters will say "Oh, but we don't mean you, Seumas, you're not like other Americans!"

There's a part of me, naturally, that stiffens at that moment. I am like other Americans. Lots and lots and lots of other Americans. I've learned, however, to hear comments like that in a different way. If I take a step back I can hear something more like "you're nice and I like you."

Being accepted by people from other nations as "not like other Americans" is an opportunity to change that stereotype.

So, to all my Canadian friends, I want to say thanks for giving me the chance to show you what other Americans are like. Thanks for letting me learn a little about what it means to be Canadian. I hope I continue to earn your friendship and understanding.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2009-01-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

My main client is the U.S. Federal Government. It's been a great gig, which has provided me with loads of great experience and opportunities. You may not know this, but many of the people who do the work of the Government are actually contractors like me. In some ways this is good, but it also creates some strange situations. Federal managers supervise staff who are not their employees, and their actual employers are usually off-site. When there are performance management issues a complex ballet ensues. I got to see one of those today in all its glory.

An employee of a contractor who was in her probationary period wasn't working out as hoped. The Federal manager responsible for her work, who happens to also be my client, let us know this since I and my team are partially responsible for computer network management and security. Today was supposed to be her last day, though she didn't know it yet.

12:30pm

The Federal manager (I'll call him Teddy Bear) tells the young woman (Crazy Eyes) that she must attend her company's staff meeting off-site. She argues with him, but eventually agrees to go. Her employer was supposed to meet with her afterward and tell her that she was fired.

3:00pm

Teddy Bear walks into my team's work area and asks us if we've seen Crazy Eyes. We haven't. Apparently she never showed up to the staff meeting at her employer's office. We are informed that her network login has been disabled, as well as her government e-mail account.

3:05pm

Teddy Bear pokes his head out of the door to our area and sees Crazy Eyes headed down the hall. He leaves.

3:12pm

Crazy Eyes comes into our work area and tells us that she can't log in to her computer. We tell her "Go talk to Teddy Bear." She leaves.

3:22pm

Teddy Bear comes back into our office and we ask him if he has talked to Crazy Eyes. He hasn't. He tells us that he has phoned her employer, who is on his way into our offices to inform her that she isn't employed there anymore. In the mean time, Teddy Bear tells us to re-enable her network login.

3:24pm

I and two of my team mates step outside for a refreshing cigarette. As we are finishing, who comes barreling out of the building but Crazy Eyes. She doesn't say anything, but give us a head-held-high-crazy-eye grin as she walks by.

3:27pm

We send a representative to give the news to Teddy Bear that Elvis has Left the Building, but he's not in his office. On his chair, however, is a key with post-it note attached "office key - email to explain - Crazy Eyes."

Someday we're going to write a situation comedy called "Dot Gov." This is going to be in the pilot.

Project 7: Charming Hat

2008-12-31T10:29:00.000-08:00

My McCall's 4002 caftan pattern includes a hat, which I've wanted to try for a while, and since there was a little fabric left over from the Princely Caftan, I gave it a whirl last night. It was hard to keep things on an even keel going round the top of the crown! I'll give it to Lingoman next time I go up to Vancouver - at least he can use it to keep his long luxurious hairs out of his face while bouncing about the apartment.

Project 6: Princely Caftan

2008-12-29T00:52:00.000-08:00

Another present for Lingoman! I took another step forward in terms of not following the pattern this time. It (McCall's 4002) called for the facing to be on the inside, but I thought it would be better to have it on the outside. I've made this caftan before and even though when following the directions the facing is tacked down in three places on the inside, it still flops out of the neckline and is a general pain.

Off to the fabric store! I bought some nice medium-weight muslin for the body. It's smooth and strong and when you get close to it it shines a little. For the facing I bought a yard and a half of Waterford Irish linen. Jet black and as thick as canvas.

Reversing the facing necessitated having the two halves of the front reversed so that the open seams would still match up between the front and facing, so I had to come up with a way to finish that seam. I considered doing a flat-felled seam down the front, but that would have been off-center (ick). After thinking through other options I settled on making a strip of the black linen and encasing the raw edges.

Since I had gone that far with adding decorative bits, I went just a little further and instead of hemming the sleeves and bottom, I made linen cuffs. It looked pretty darn spiffy at the end!

Lessons Learned

I tried and tried to get the thread tension right so that the black and cream threads locked in the middle and weren't visible from either side, but I never got it right. On the inside of the garment the locks with the black thread are right there.
Attaching the side-seam pockets went better, but they are still slightly too low. I also somehow got one of the side flat-felled seams the wrong way around.
Found the right method of cutting out fabric pieces for me.

Following the advice of Paula Pay-la-Renta, I bought a roll of thick transparent plastic sheeting and laid it down over my paper pattern pieces. I held it flat with a piece of glass (borrowed from one of my end tables) and traced around the pieces with a sharpie. Next I cut the plastic pattern piece out, and punched holes in the plastic where my match-up marks go.

Now I can just spread the fabric out on my project table, lay the plastic pattern piece out and then hold it all flat with my glass fabric weight. I trace the plastic piece with a fabric pencil as I pull the glass away and when I'm done, I have a perfect result. Next I put the fabric on the cutting mat and use my rotary cutter to zip around the lines.

Thank Ye Gods and Peeps

2008-11-26T22:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow it's off to Smallsbo to spend the day with the family. My task this year was to make desert, so being desperate for people's approval and praise, I'm making two. A cranberry pomegranate upside down cake and a trifle. Come to think of it, I really should be baking right now.

Anyway, before I get to it I'm going to make this year's list of things for which I thank the Gods and my beloved peeps.

Contract Funding I'm thankful that in January when the Great Budget Scare (GBS) of 2008 hit that I and my team were spared and we've been working all this year.
Lingoman He was key to me not losing my mind during the GBS.
Lingoman's Mother She offered to help me stay afloat if I lost my contract and needed cash.
LCD Seattle and the Viking Getting through the day at the office would be so dreary without them.
Music I've gotten some really cool performance opportunities this year and I feel like my performing career is on the way back. Getting started on my solo album has also been exciting and rewarding.
Sewing Duh. Like I haven't written enough about that!
Seirm I'm very happy that our Gaelic community band and choir is coming back strong and that K has come back and C has joined.
Revels I know - I already said Music - but being in Revels this year is something that my soul really, really needed.
You I've loved writing these little posts and am very grateful for the time you're taking to read and comment. Makes me feel good.

OK. There's some egg whites that are begging me to whip them into a frenzy.

Hearts Break Open

2008-11-18T12:55:00.001-08:00

In the midst of all the swirling hope and despair of the last couple weeks a poem I wrote the last time I fell for a straight guy kept coming to mind.

I think we're born so our hearts will break
because when hearts break they break open.
We rarely see without that cracking
what we have and what we're lacking.

In other gay-themed blogs I read the subject of marriage equality over the last few years has provoked an array of opinions from Hell yes - nothing else will do! to gays who want to marry are denying their true gayness and trying to be straight. We're a conflicted generation to say the least. The gays in their twenties and early thirties, however, have no such conflicts. They stand united for marriage equality.

Let's let them lead and back them up. They see the issue more clearly than we do.

Project 5: Blue Shirt

2008-11-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

I finished this project a week ago on Veterans (Remembrance) Day but all the drama of the election and the subsequent Prop H8 marches and protests have dominated all my thoughts.

So here is the same shirt pattern I've done twice before. It went really smoothly. The seams turned out better and straighter and the collar came out a little nicer too. There was a slip-up, though. When I finished the shirt and put it on I realized that I had put the buttons on the wrong side. If any of my neighbors were awake when I started shrieking with laughter I'm sure they wondered if a mad scientist was living in the building.

I plan on making three more of these shirts, but my paper pattern pieces are getting a little battered at this point. Luckily for me, I have several seamstress gurus to consult. The incomparable Paula Pay-la-Renta told me to make myself pattern pieces out of thick transparent plastic sheeting. There's something so delightfully Kitsap County about making patterns out of visqueen!

Thank you, Seattle!

2008-11-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

Today's march for equality in Seattle was part of an Internet-coordinated effort across the country and around the world. Supporters of same-sex marriage were out in numbers never before seen. It's going to take me a little while to pull my thoughts together for a longer post, but you can see the photos I took now.

Equality March 11-15-08 Seattle

Update: After due consideration, I've decided that everything that needs to be said about our struggle for equality and the Seattle march specifically has already been written out on various blogs. I'm going to turn my face to the rising sun of hope and move forward.

Vikings Rule, Bigots Drool!

2008-11-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

The class of students that graduated from North Kitsap High School in 1984 have turned into some fabulous adults. At the 20th reunion I was amazed at how many of us were doctors, news directors, music producers, Scottish harp champions, etc. Through the magic of Facebook I now have a little glimpse into some of their daily lives and share little bits of my own.

When Proposition 8 passed in California last week I was initially devastated. I did a lot of crying and thinking and talking with my closest friends and I'm feeling better about things now. A part of that was seeing how my Facebook friends took up the issue and chimed in with messages of support. Lots of them were from my high school.

It brought to mind an incident during my senior year. I was in a class called Diversified Occupations which was a bit of a misnomer. It really should have been called Life Skills for White Trash. We learned how to file our taxes, balance a checkbook, find an apartment and apply for a job; things that most kids learn from their parents.

One day our teacher Mrs. Morgan brought in a guest speaker whose topic, contrary to custom, wasn't announced in advance. The woman was well dressed and well spoken, but something about her made me uncomfortable. Turns out I wasn't the only one. Within a few minutes danders were up and tempers were flaring. She was there to teach us how to force our opinions on our children. Being children ourselves, we didn't take kindly to the idea. When questioned as to why children shouldn't be encouraged to explore and develop their own critical thinking, she responded "well don't you want to make sure your children don't turn out gay?"

Seriously. She said that. At which point, my classmates and I exploded in anger and asserted that we would love our children regardless of their sexual orientation. Seriously. Eighteen year-olds in Poulsbo Washington in 1984 did that. The woman became flustered and left. It was an amazing moment when I think back on it, though it didn't occur to me at the time.

If anyone who was there in Mrs. Morgan's Diversified Occupations class is reading this, I want to say thanks. You rocked then, and you rock now. Go Vikings!

Project 4: Rustic Caftan

2008-11-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

As regular readers will know, I made a Celtified kurta for Lingoman for his birthday which went over pretty well! In fact, as I was packing up that weekend he went into the hall closet (not in the metaphorical sense) and pulled out a length of gorgeous unbleached muslin and said "can you make me a caftan out of this?"

"Sure!" I said. He had used the generous length of fabric (about five yards) to wrap a sari at at least one Pagan festival and warned me that there were a few ahem scorch marks on it.

When I got it home and opened it up I found that in addition to the scorched areas, there were holes spaced along its length as if it had been stabbed twice while folded up. That made fitting the pattern pieces a bit of a challenge! Eventually I had to give up and buy a couple yards of very similar muslin to finish the piece. I can still tell the difference, but I don't think many would notice unless it was pointed out.

I started with my same basic caftan / tunic pattern from McCalls. This time I added side-seam pockets, buttonholes up both sides of the front opening for a lace closure, made an optional belt and used the decorative stitches from my sewing machine.

Lessons learned this time out were:

do your decorative stitching before you start assembling the garment
even if your pattern calls for leaving raw edges on the inside find a way to finish them
make double-extra sure that your pockets are in the right place for your hands

Even with the decorative stitch issues that give the caftan the rustic quality I still think it's really cool. I hope Lingoman agrees!

Not Going to the Chapel

2008-11-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

My thoughts and feelings about the election results in California, Arizona and Florida continue to evolve. I'm still mad as hell, although I've resolved firmly not to let my pain turn into racism against African Americans or Latinos who want their equality while trampling on mine. Neither am I going to be filled with bitterness when I think of the Californians who prioritized to improve the living conditions for the livestock they eat while worsening the lives of their neighbors. Nope. Not going to go there.

What I am going to do is resume my self-imposed ban on attending mixed-sex weddings for a year. A woman originally from Scotland contacted me because she wants to say her wedding vows in Gaelic. This is what I wrote back to her:

First of all, congratulations on getting married. Secondly, thank you for your interest in Gaelic and for your ambition to say some of the most powerful words possible in a human life in your ancestral language. I truly hope you succeed and that your wedding day is as special as you hope it will be.

I made a decision this morning however that prevents me from helping you. On November 4th three more of these United States passed amendments to their state constitutions to make sure that people like me will never be treated equally under the law. I won't be attending or accepting work related to weddings in 2009, since I am excluded from that institution.

This one hurts because I would love to help this woman and I honestly applaud her ambition, but there's no progress without sacrifice.

So, no wedding work for me in 2009 and no attending mixed-sex weddings in the US.

Hope and Change? As long as you're not gay

2008-11-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, I voted for Barack Obama and I sobbed uncontrollably when MSNBC called the election for him. By the time I went to bed at 3:00am however, I was sobbing for a different reason.

As news rolled in that Florida and Arizona had voted to amend their state constitution to ban marriage equality my heart started to sink. Any victory by bigots is a reason to mourn, but then the news from California defied belief. Californians were voting to eliminate an existing right for their fellow citizens. They were voting to undermine the very concept of equal protection under the law.

After a short sleep I went into the office and checked the news while getting settled in. As it turns out, exit polls revealed that seven out of every ten African American voters supported Proposition 8. Nearly six out of ten Latino voters did as well.

So while President-elect Obama talks about healing and humility I feel like I have discovered two new enemies who want me trampled down. I have African American friends whom I love and respect and who I know would stand up for me in a fight. I'm holding on to that tonight while I struggle to let go of hope that I'll live to see equality for gay Americans.

Lucky for me I'm engaged to a Canadian who can actually marry me and I'm sure we'll get around to it someday. Maybe sooner now that I've given up on the USA.

Hope? No, I can't.

Back to the Golden Calf

2008-10-29T15:56:00.001-07:00

Well I'll be. The Christian right has drilled so far down into the old testament that they've popped out the bottom.

Cindy Jacobs of the 700 club is calling for a prayer intervention to put the global economy under Yahweh's control (apparently he can't do this for himself) centered on the bull statue on Wall Street in New York.

No kidding. They're praying to a statue of a bovine for wealth. LCD Seattle thinks it would be fun to show up in Moses costumes and rebuke them.

Read more if you can stomach it. Prayer Needed for Global Economies

What's in it for Mother Nature? Why I think there are gays

2008-10-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

I've been pondering this question for a long time, and I think I've developed a reasonable hypothesis.

Assumption: All aspects of human behaviour are the result of evolutionary process, including social conventions, abstract concepts, and social structures. Nature doesn't keep things around unless they are somehow useful in an evolutionary framework.

Hypothesis: Gays (inclusive) are socially advantageous because they supply a small population of adults who are typically unencumbered by the work of child rearing. At times there are sudden increases to the necessary workload of a social group due to environmental pressures. If all adults were encumbered by child rearing then there would be no additional people to deal with these periodic increases to necessary work without sacrificing the well being of children.

During times of normal activity levels, the population of unencumbered adults are freer to pursue optional activities which advance technology, liberal arts, and other fields of endeavour which are not strictly required for survival and species propagation.

Discuss!

Project 3: Kurta Celtique!

2008-10-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to write about my current sewing project, but since it's a birthday present for Lingoman, I have had to wait until today! After two times through the same shirt pattern I felt like I was ready for something new. Lingoman has wanted a kurta that was cut and sized for a North American person for a long time, and his birthday was coming up, and he just gave me a sewing machine: all indicators were pointing in the same direction! Get stitching a Sheumais!

Lingoman, Icon Watcher and I made a trip to Little India to buy cloth. I can't tell you why it didn't set off alarm bells in my head when Auntie Store Clerk didn't want to cut us a length in half-yards. Turns out, when you spend a whopping $2 a yard you get what you pay for.

I started out with the McCalls 4002 caftan pattern because it had the right basic elements and construction method for something like a kurta. I shortened it to knee length by folding the front and back pattern pieces half way between tunic and caftan length. For a more finished look, I borrowed a tab collar piece from a different shirt pattern and added it.

And for that authentic Celtic touch, I added sparkly silver Celtic knotwork trim. Hee hee. The fabric was pretty challenging to work with, and I don't plan on buying that materials quite that delicate in the future, but I'm still reasonably happy with the end product.

Update Lingoman loves it. Yay! Memories!

Happy Birthday Honey! Or Reasons I Love Lingoman

2008-10-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

In honor of my fiancé's birthday today, I thought I would take a few minutes to write down some of the reasons why I love him so much. So, in no particular order:

He cares deeply about issues beyond our daily lives He gets really angry when people are mistreated. It doesn't matter whether or not he knows any of them personally. He cares about the direction human society is going in, even though we don't have any kids. He's keenly interested in minority language revival and all the social justice issues surrounding it. He just cares.
He's not scared of the things that scare me I fear adversity. I doubt my own ability to deal with crises in my own life. I'm fearful in new social situations and he helps me with all of those things.
My family and friends love him too and he loves them.
We share many, but not all interests We can talk about so many things that we are both passionate about, but also share things the other doesn't know and broaden both of our perspectives.
He's Canadian which means that we can really get married!
He's sexy and a super cuddle bug.
He's deeply honest which inspires an abiding trust in me. I know that he would tell me the truth in a crisis. He's already had to more than once.
He loves me and that's never happened before. At least not that I could believe.
He thinks about his life and changes direction when his inner compass tells him to.
He has an inner compass Not everyone does, you know!
He's a Gaelic speaker Let's be honest - that should probably be nearer the top of the list! Of course there are the other dozen or so languages, but I'm trying to be concise here.
He loves to eat Something we share, much to my cardiologists dismay.
We're not threatened by each others religions When we met he self-identified as a Druid, and I as a Wiccan. He's now a Buddhist and I've drifted in a more firmly polytheistic direction. Some people might have tension about that, but we don't

Most importantly, he awakens an ever-deepening love and respect for him in me that is like a campfire, a rose, a waterfall, a sunset and a steaming dish of butter chicken all in one.

I love you, Honey. Happy Birthday.

Project 2: Black Shirt

2008-10-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

I finished project number two last Thursday. Having been all the way through this pattern on Big Yella made the second time much easier. I can't believe how primitive pattern instructions are. Hand-drawn diagrams? Why not just make a video of each step and include a DVD? At least they could have color photos.

Anyway, now that I've got this shirt pretty much under control I'm going to make a couple more to round out the winter wardrobe. Yay. (yes, I wear short-sleeved shirts all year round)

The Automatic Screw-Up Button

2008-09-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

After about four hours of intense practice on Friday and Saturday I was able to play Fairy Dance cleanly up to tempo. It had even started to sound good. Then I got the recording equipment set up and spent three and a half hours today trying to re-record it. As soon as I pressed the record button, it was back to square one. I'm sure I'm about to make some great breakthrough with this but it doesn't feel like it. Arrrrgh!

Update: I actually did make a huge breakthrough.

Project 1: Big Yellow Shirt

2008-09-16T01:45:00.001-07:00

I just finished my first ever garment! It's a McCall's pattern that was rated "easy" so I shudder to think what a difficult one would entail! There are lots of little problems, but I'm still very happy with it. I might even wear it tomorrow!

The Dashing Pink Sergeant

2008-09-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

This track presents a new challenge: it's not straight out of a Féis Shiàtail songbook! The previous two tune sets were all pre-packaged with complete instructions by the fine folks at Slighe nan Gaidheal so it was just up to me to bring them to life with plenty of cowbell.

This new tune set is from the Féis Shiàtail 2006 songbook, however it has an issue. The third of the four reels in the group doesn't belong there. It's really a march, and when attempting to play it at reel speed it became an ungainly mess.

So I omitted it. That left me with a different problem: the set was too short! These groups of tunes are carefully crafted to have the right number of measures for the figures in the dance, so I had to find a substitute.

The one I picked was Fairy Dance. It's a great tune, and the name sealed the deal. It also doesn't hurt that my favorite gay fiddler from Cape Breton, Ashley MacIsaac, has an awesomeness-filled recording of it!

Willow the Stripper

2008-09-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Another good recording session last night. This time, a set of four jigs using my first-ever downloaded drum loop collection! GarageBand doesn't include any percussion in 6/8 (apparently not cool enough a time signature for Dear Leader) but I found some good ones.

Fiddling went OK. I'll probably do some clean up later, but it's good enough for the dance class I'm leading on Saturday. Next up: The Dashing Pink Sergeant.

I'm In Stitches!

2008-09-09T12:11:00.001-07:00

I know this is über-gay, but I have always wanted a sewing machine. I love making things, and Mom would never let me use hers for fear of my breaking it, and neither would she teach me how to use it properly for fear of my becoming even more gay (I'm guessing on that last one).

So, imagine my joy when LCDSeattle and I walked into Lingoman's apartment last weekend and he had purchased one for my birthday. It's a good one too! A Pfaff Hobby 1142, which will meet all my needs for a really long time, if not permanently. I probably won't start making all my own clothes, but I can't describe how excited I am about making things like ritual wear, casual clothes, Celtic-themed stuff, curtains, etc.

I'm thinking of signing up for a basic sewing class being offered tomorrow evening on my way home. Yeah, I know it will be me and a bunch of middle-aged women but I don't care. Thank you, Love! A childhood dream is going to come true!

More Information

Pfaff Hobby 1142

Message In A Bottle

2008-09-09T12:01:00.001-07:00

I got this fun idea before I left for my birthday weekend which included a trip to the top of Grouse Mountain with Lingoman and LCDSeattle. I picked up a balsa wood glider and took it up the mountain with me. While having refreshments in one of the restaurants at the top I borrowed a pen from the server and wrote on the underside of the wings:

You are blessed, Honor the Gods

After lunch, the three of us walked down to a spot that overlooked the side of the mountain and I launched the glider, hoping that it would make it down into the populated areas nearby to be found by the person whom the Gods most need help from. Themselves, however, had a different idea. The plane made it a short way away from the lookout point, took a sharp left and landed almost within sight of where we were standing. On some level it was a disappointment, but I trust there was a reason. Maybe a park ranger will find it this week and change the world.

Highest Birthday Ever

2008-09-09T11:49:00.001-07:00

My birthday weekend was over-the-top fabulous. Spending three days with one of my best friends and my fiancé in beautiful Vancouver with perfect weather was as good as it sounds. Highlights included a visit to the Richmond Summer Night Market, Saturday afternoon on top of Grouse Mountain and dinner at Mirchi Cuisine of India.

Grouse Mountain was especially important to me in the birthday department. Several times in the past I've marked my birthday by going someplace very high up and very beautiful to encourage myself to take an overview of my life and where it's going. Taking the gondola ride up the side of the mountain was very frightening for me and facing that fear supported by Lingoman and LCDSeattle was really awesome. One of the mountaintop activities on offer was a tandem paraglide back down. All three of us wanted to do it, but didn't think we could afford the multi-hundred dollar fee. We also later learned that we're too ahem heavy. We're going to do it next summer, though! Save up a special fund and lose our non-aerodynamic poundage.

So the take-away lesson for me was that I need to face my fears and put myself in scary situations. I'm not getting any younger, and there are things I want to do. One of the most valuable things I learned from the High Priestess who trained me was that if you need more power than you have, you can get it by doing something that scares you. I'll leave you all to ponder the deeper implications of that, but I can tell you that it is 100% true.

More Information

Happy Birthday to Me

2008-09-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

For many years, my circle of friends has had the habit of asking what we refer to as The Birthday Questions at birthday parties. They are:

1) What was the best thing that happened to you at ?

2) What was the most difficult thing that happened to you at ?

3) What are your goals for ?

Since I won't be having a birthday party this year, I'm going to answer the questions here on the blog.

1) The best thing that happened while I was 41 was starting to work on my solo CD. I'm enjoying the process, feeling hugely enthusiastic and energetic about it and improving as a musician.

2) The most difficult thing that happened while I was 41 was by a country mile the 10 days I spent under the threat of having my federal contract slashed to the point that I wouldn't be able to support myself. I have spent the last 8 months recovering from that week. I developed central serous retinopathy, heart arythmia, and degraded pulmonary function. My doctors assure me that I can recover from all these conditions, by the way.

This experience, however, has had a couple of positive out comes. My future mother-in-law spontaneously reassured me that if I were in desperate straights that she would help. That offer of help was a game-changing event in our relationship.

I also got super-motivated to pay off my second mortage (the kind you get when you don't have enough for a down payment) which I did last week.

3) While I'm 42 I intend to:

a) lose 42 pounds
b) release my solo CD

Wish me luck, everyone! Thanks in advance for your birthday wishes. If you forget my birthday, however, you are on my list; Watch your backs.

Greek Pagans Defend Their Heritage

2008-09-02T12:15:00.001-07:00

So, you might not have heard, but some slimy real estate dude wants to build a gods-awful museum (read: elaborate gift shop) on the fraking Acropolis.

Ellinais, however, isn't going to let that happen without making a fuss. See the story on CNN for full details.

Irish pagans are defending Tara, Greek pagans are defending the Acropolis, and what are North American pagans doing? I shudder to think what the answer to that might be.

More Information

Greek Acropolis plan draws religious backlash The story on CNN that caught my eye this weekend
Dodekatheism "a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past." — Father Eustathios Kollas
Are Greeks Closet Polytheists? Some earlier musings on Greek pagan stuff

Punch In, Punch Out, Clean Up

2008-09-02T12:10:00.001-07:00

Much of the weekend was spent behind the Tweed Curtain, taking counsel with Lingoman's Aged Maternal Fossil (a pseudonym she coined for herself). It was lovely. For the first time she and I acknowledged that our first impressions of each other were dubious, in the context of having firmly changed our minds on the subject. Very nice.

Monday was spent back with my friend GarageBand. I found out how to do a "punch in" on a previously recorded track. In standard Apple fashion, it was easy and elegant.

I cleaned up all the fiddle flubs in Hella Gay Gordons and got a first draft down of a tuneset for Baile Ard, Mo Rún. Both of the tunes in the new set (Hut on Staffin Island and The Clumsy Lover) are copyrighted, so I'll have to do some research on how to deal with that before getting too attached.

I can't believe how much fun I'm having working on this.

Hella Gay Gordons

2008-08-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

Living in 21st century North America our ears are insanely narrow. If there's a 4/4 drum beat behind something we like it, if not it's weird.

Turns out it works with Scottish dance music as well. Just a couple drum loops and my cheesy fiddle and harp rendition of a set of dance tunes for Gay Gordons sounds all cool.

Crazy

Update OK. Maybe "cool" was an exaggeration. "More accessible to modern pop-music sensibilities." Yeah, I guess that's closer.

Half Way Back

2008-08-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

Well. Almost half way anyway! Recording went well last night. I re-did all the instrumental tracks for Is Truagh Leam ar Scàradh and they came out so well I popped a vocal mic on the line and gave it a shot.

I'm not yet back to my respectable-but-not-amazing vocal chops, but I'm on the way!

Vandalism and Prejudice

2008-08-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Among the interesting things that happened last weekend in Vancouver, was the apparent vandalism of my car. The passender-side mirror was busted off and left dangling by its wire.

There's no way to know what the person's motivation was. They might just hate red cars. It was parked on the correct side of the street, with the passenger side toward the curb, so this was done by a pedestrian. None of the other cars on the block were disturbed, just the one with Washington plates.

Over the last seven plus years I've dealt with only a small amount of anti-American prejudice pointed directly at me. I have, however, listened to many hours of it from Lingoman's friends and relations pointed more generally at Americans.

It was such a shock after having been raised with a very positive attitude toward Canada to find out that our 'friends' up North take every opportunity they can to slag us off. I try to warn people who plan to vacation in Vancouver not to expect anything but their money to receive a warm welcome.

I guess being the child of immigrants with relatives in three countries, I have always felt able to separate my opinions governments and people; to acknowledge national stereotypes but not use them to evaluate actual human beings. I find it ironic that the Canadians I frequently hear lumping all Americans together under very ugly names are themselves indulging in stereotyping and prejudice.

It reminds me of 9/11 when a Canadian said to me "Well, that's awful, but America deserves it." I replied, "So, that young married couple who chose between being burned alive and jumping to their deaths holding hands deserved it because they stupidly allowed themselves to be born in America?"

OK. I need to stop writing about this for a while; I'm getting too mad. I've also met lots of Canadians who aren't like that at all.

Destroying the Evidence

2008-08-22T10:19:00.001-07:00

After a day of listening to the CD of my disappointing vocal track I've decided to delete the track from Garage Band and destroy the disk. I've learned what I can from it and now I'm just torturing myself.

I know I can do better than that, and I will do in the near future.

The Diva Has an Off Night

2008-08-21T11:33:00.001-07:00

Setting up and tearing down the recording equipment is getting quicker and easier, but re-building my faded vocal technique isn't quick or easy.

The plan last night was to record the 'final' vocal track on Is Truadh Leam ar Scaradh but unfortunately the pipes weren't cooperating. I was getting progresively more discouraged, so I decided to stop fairly early. Listening to the track this morning in the car, it wasn't terrible, but also wasn't something I would play for someone with pride.

In the WTF category was the fact that there are two places in the melody of the song where it goes up to the D above middle C (not impossibly high for a baritone like me). The first one I nail every single time. The second sounds like someone is jabbing a fork in my thigh. Grrr

Cut back on the smoking, walk around Greenlake more frequently and keep trying.

Dance, Cracker! Dance!

2008-08-20T11:39:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, while getting ready for my gig as fear an taighe for some nice people's summer ceilidh, I realized that I had no appropriate recorded music for social dances. I thought I had a ready-made solution in the Féis Shiàtail songbook teaching CDs, but quickly realized that they were (for very good reason) limited to just the melody being played by an electronic piano.

Ooops.

Being pretty good at last-minute inspiration, though, I came up with the idea to rip MP3 files from the teaching tracks on the Féis songbooks and import them into Garage Band and then use them as guides. It worked really well! I recorded myself playing the tune sets on the fiddle multiple times (for that forgiving chorus effect) then added harp and bòdhran parts.

Sin agad e! My own self-produced CD of tune sets that I know inside and out designed for the specific versions of the dances that I know and teach. And the name? Dance, Cracker! Dance!

I know; I'm bad.

Weekend Recording

2008-08-18T10:22:00.001-07:00

Boy, it's hard to add a post after the one below. How do I put a chatty, about me one above my announcement of the Grand Plan to unite polytheistic religions in an urban framework?

Oh well. Maybe doing this will inspire me to write another First Restored-themed post afterward.

Anyway, I stayed in Seattle last weekend to do a gig as fear-an-taighe. I decided that since I was going to be here anyway, that I should make some progress on scrach tracks for my solo CD. I really want to get all my creative decisions on solid ground before paying a recording engineer.

It went pretty well! I'm realizing that each track is going to have its own unique issues around sequencing and I just have to jump in and get started in order to figure that out. For example, in a big epic song I would normally want the vocals recorded first so that as accompaniest I could respond to the singers treatment of the melody. But, if I'm the singer, then I need some kind of a reference track to keep myself on pitch. Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.

So, I got a decent rough-draft of Is Truagh Leam ar Scaradh done. I was hoping to have more than that to show for the weekend, but there was a complicating factor; I spent three hours on Saturday recording dance music for the gig that night. More on that later!

First Restored Temple of the Gods

2008-08-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

What do you think? Snappy, eh? Just to get this out of the way, the 'short' version will be "First Restored" not "FRTG." Acronyms are nasty. The name took a lot of thinking. I want it to be explicit that this is a new chapter in polytheistic religion, not an attempt to recreate a bygone era. However, I also want to be explicit about the fact that it won't be a Wiccan temple, neither Druid nor Dodekatheist. Everyone who honors the multiplicity of divinity is welcome.

So, the general idea is to create a framework which will allow polytheists of many flavors to meet and honor all the old gods with rituals old and new. I'm calling it "Big Tent Polytheism." Unlike many neo-Pagan efforts, I want to start with the building! I was discussing this with my friend x-Father X and after describing the temple of my dreams, he pointed out that I had just described the Pantheon in Rome.

Inside the temple there would be niches in the walls for statues of gods. I think it would be cool to group them together, but some kind of an organizing principle would have to be created.

A crazy dream? Maybe. Even if it doesn't happen in my life time, thinking about it and imagining it makes me happy.

A Line in the Sand

2008-07-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

I think that in the previous post I may have answered the underlying question that has been bugging me for so long. If Abrahamic monotheism is so poisonous, why has it been so successful for so long? I think the answer is the same as the one to the question social workers, families and friends have so long asked about the victims of parental and spousal abuse; why does she (or he) stay with him?

Undermine their self-esteem through the doctrine of original sin and convince them they have no other options through monotheism.

If that's really the answer, then it's time for me to move on from diagnosing the problem to envisioning a future that I would like to live in. Maybe it will never come to pass, but one might as well try.

Now... for a really catchy name....

No One Will Ever Love You But Me; Yahweh as the abusive parent

2008-07-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Did it ever strike you as strange that the Christian right wing (not to mention Islam) are always flipping out about single parents and gay adoption when they themselves condemn the entire universe to being from a single-parent family for all time?

We know from the Ugarit texts that Yahweh once had a consort and was part of the Caananite pantheon headed by his father, El. Current Abrahamic monotheism, however, makes out that there is no Mrs. God. So, not only did Yahweh ditch his spouse, but he tells us that we never had a mommy. Nice.

So let's look for a second at some of the typical patterns in the relationship between an abusive parent or a spouse and their victim and how they are paralleled in the ways that monotheists want us to see their god.

No one will ever love you but me

Central to the abuser's success in controlling their victim is convincing her or him that she or he has no other options. If she or he were to run away, or divorce that she or he would be alone and helpless and most likely die. Because the victim believes this, he or she follows the logic that accepting the abuse is her or his only option.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me [to which I can be compared unfavorably]" — Yahweh (paraphrased)

But he's really a good person when he isn't burning me with an iron

Abuse victims who are caught in the cycle of low self-esteem will sometimes defend their abusers because there is a component of caring in the relationship. The abuser wants the victim to continue to accept them, and that is a kind of caring even if a very twisted one. For someone who has been convinced by an abusive parent or spouse that they are unlikely to get love anywhere else, even that poisoned kind of caring is preferable to the utterly bleak landscape that has been painted around them.

Abrahamic apologists (Hi Pete!) will respond with variations on "Well, we can't prove that God isn't there, so we should all worship him just in case he's real.". Which, of course, assumes that the only choices are to worship Yahweh or be an atheist. I hope it's clear, dear readers, how strenuously I disagree with that view.

I'm the only one who really understands him; you don't know what you're talking about

Right.

Alexandria Library. Witch burnings. Inquisition. Crusade. Extermination of native peoples around the world. Women subjugated.

If he acts like an abusive parent and the institutions inspired by his stories commit atrocities for centuries without any effective resistance guess what? Yahweh is an abusive god and he belongs in rehab. Asclepius might be able to help, but better not let Brìd anywhere near the guy or he'll wind up getting a Bobbet.

We're All Experiments

2008-07-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

One of the subtitles that's been given to the United States is "The Great Experiment." I think that all efforts at organizing society are experiments, and that if we viewed them that way there would be less motivation for armed conflicts.

It seems to me that we mostly view nations as organisms competing for resources and dominance, and I think that is true to a certain extent. (that's my social darwinism peeking out) On a larger scale, though, I think humanity is carrying out multiple concurrent experiments which are intended to answer the question: "What would society be like if it were organized this way?"

If we view nations that way, then it is in everyone's best interest that all the experiments continue uninterrupted until all useful data has been collected. Then we will assess the results and start the next experiment based on what we have learned. After lots and lots of tries, we'll eventually arrive at the conclusion that if society is organized this way, then almost everyone is OK almost all of the time. Check! Done!

The only way an experiment can really fail is if it produces no new data. The Soviet Union, for example, was not a failed experiment in my opinion. We learned that when enough power is concentrated in a central government to erase most economic inequality, that it is too vulnerable to manipulation and corruption. Good to know!!

So, perhaps we can hold these this paradigm in balance against the social darwinist one and reach our ultimate goal in less time with less suffering along the way. What do you all say, shall we try?

We Made the Seattle Times Pride Coverage!

2008-06-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Whew-hew! Watch this video from the Seattle Times; right at the end there is a show of myself and LCD Seattle judging pride parade participants!

My Gods, I'm Seumas X!

2008-05-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

Picked up my new glasses today. Realized I'm the reincarnation of Malcom X. We do have a few attitudes in common; just substitute the word "gay" for the N-word he used. I'm definitely more of a field gay than a house gay. My Gods.

A New Old Era

2008-05-17T16:08:00.001-07:00

Yes, this blog is mostly about monotheism's effects on culture, but I am a person as well as a polytheist.

And I broke my glasses last Friday. They were a dozen years old, and getting a bit wonky, so that's not so much of a tragedy, really. I had an eye exam in February after my vision felt different at the end of the Great Budget Crisis of 2008 (trust me, if you don't know what I mean, you don't want to). Turns out my vision had not changed substantially since my last exam ten years ago, so I didn't bother getting new glasses.

But I had to yesterday. Right now my old glasses are taped together and I'm feeling waaaaay too ghetto for my own comfort. So, I'm just going to hide at home this weekend and wait for the call that my new ones are ready. Picking out new frames I decided to go in a new direction.... backwards! I found some frames that look just like my Dad's did. I'm also considering giving up my Caesar haircut and going for a 50s Dad-style one. What have I got to lose at this point?

Update

The hair didn't come out the way I hoped....

A Catholic Priest and a Wiccan Priest Walk Into A Restaurant

2008-05-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sounds like the start of a mildly funny joke, doesn't it? It's true, though. One evening last week I had a fantastic re-acquaintance dinner with a former Catholic priest I knew over a decade ago when I was a volunteer chaplain at an AIDS hospice in Seattle. To protect his anonymity, I'll call him x-Father X.

Meeting x-Father X was a real turning point for me. It gave me a tremendous sense of validation to be invited to volunteer as a Wiccan chaplain. I guess that the fact that I was raised as a Catholic contributed to buzz I got when a man in a clerical collar asked for my opinion on a ceremony he was planning. x-Father X treated me as an equal, despite the fact that his own priestly training included all kinds of things that were absent from mine. He also helped me understand why smart, educated, reasonable people maintain self-identification with an institution like the Catholic church; it's the people, art, music, buildings, bells, and smells. In my secret, uncompromising heart I know that those are the tricks that the thought system uses to keep its hosts distracted, but I also have compassion for those hosts.

The chaplaincy work turned out to be too much for me to handle in my late 20s, and after a couple years I had to stop. I felt myself slipping further and further away from life. How I got back out of that place with help of a Siberian shaman will be the subject of another post at some point in the future.

Off I went into the Gaelic and Celtic music scene, leaving my life as a public Wiccan behind me. Fast forward over ten years. I'm still deeply involved in Gaelic, but a part of my mind and heart is turning back toward religion and spirituality. I develop this wacky idea that it's having just one god that makes people so easy to manipulate. I start digging into the roots of Islam and Christianity. I start writing this blog. My compassion for Abrahamic religionists is a distant memory.

Then, because the Gods love me and want us to succeed in restoring their worship, the phone rings. It's x-Father X, wondering if I want to represent Wicca in an interfaith dialogue on children's welfare. I decline, since I don't have children and am so completely out of touch with the local Wiccan community that I don't know who to send him to. However, we do set up a dinner appointment to get re-acquainted.

So, over a fantastic chicken Marsala, I remember my compassion, and my admiration for this man who gave up his position in the Catholic Church to keep his integrity. He loves Jesus. He believes there's only one god. He sings for the parish he belongs to. They have a PFLAG chapter that invited him to come and speak. His integrity and clarity makes me ashamed of the pettiness that still clings to my reasoning sometimes.

OK Gods, I get the message. I need to be as evolved as x-Father X. I'll get right on that. Thanks for the guidance.

Are Greeks Closet Polytheists?

2008-04-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have a dear friend and folk-harp colleague, Patrice Haan, who shared a vacation story with me once at a folk harp weekend that I found very interesting.

How do you describe a goddess? Patrice, in addition to being a very talented harper, singer, and performer, is a woman of striking beauty. I am about 5' 11'' tall, and the top of my head comes up to her chin. I'll let the photo cover the 1,000 words of florid description that I could have written about her, and stick to the things that the photo can't show you. She moves with precision and a reserved grace that makes everyone around her seem a little schlumpy in comparison. No one minds, though, because within minutes of meeting Patrice, they all know that they're in the presence of a great spirit. She elevates you just by being herself.

Υποδοχή στην Ελλάδα! Welcome to Greece! Patrice was vacationing in Greece, and had just arrived in an out-of-the-way village. A man picked her out of the crowd, approached her and knelt before her in reverence, exclaiming "Athene! Athene! We knew you would come back to us! We never stopped worshipping you!" Apparently, he thought that the dark age of horrors Christian Era had passed and the Olympians were coming back to set things right. Anyone could be excused for mistaking Patrice for an avatar of the Goddess of Wisdom, but it went a bit beyond that for this guy. He seemed convinced that her denials were a kind of test of his devotion. For the duration of her visit, he continued to worship her.

Patrice and I have never discussed her own religious leanings explicitly, but I get the strong feeling that she herself wouldn't be opposed to throwing a pinch of incense on the brazier at the altar of Hera. I might be speaking out of turn there; wouldn't be the first time.

More Information

Patrice Haan Learn more about The Avatar of Athene and buy her CDs
Dodekatheism "a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past." — Father Eustathios Kollas
Religious freedom in modern Greece Give it a read. Doesn't sound too free to me.

So here's my question: given the choice, would Greeks (some? a bunch? a majority?) return to their native religion? Rebuild the Acropolis? Spark up a few doobies at Delphi and finally get some good advice? There are some folks, notably in Greece itself, who are working to re-establish the worship of their own Gods. The Greek Orthodox Church has noticed, but doesn't seem too threatened just yet. What do you think, Corps of Discovery?

My Favorite Rant Ever: Thank you, Matt from Oklahoma!

2008-04-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

I got this from a newspaper comment stream. The poster was called Matt from Oklahoma. I don't know if he wrote it, but I'm super happy that I have it, no matter who the author.

You guys make a lot of great points about the radical homosexual agenda of wanting to be equal. It got me thinking of the biggest threat of all, gay marriage. Here are the reasons why we must never allow such an un-American act to be recognized.

First, Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

Second, Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

Third, Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Fourth, Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

Fifth, Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

Sixth, Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

Seventh, Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

Eight, Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

Ninth, Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

And Finally, Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

As Above, So Below: King-solidation

2008-04-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever, in reading Arthurian stories or the like, encountered the term "High King?" Ever wonder why the qualification was necessary? Well, I find the story interesting.

Back in the day, when Nordic people honored Odin and Thor and Freya, and Celts prayed to Lugh and Brìd and their peeps, (the Tuatha Dé Danann) there wasn't just one king in a country. And also, countries weren't quite so firmly defined. Really more like territories; strongly held in the center filtering out to disputed areas on the periphery. By the way, we're really only talking about a few hundred years into the Common Era here - not back in the Bronze Age.

As Europe was gradually infected with converted to Christianity, things began to change. Instead of one king for something like a bioregion in federation with other similarly-powerful monarchs, we start to see a vertical relationship. Bioregional kings start to report to a national (sort-of) high king.

The squeeze is starting to happen.

In the monotheistic cosmology, there is a finite amount of power available, and the more people who are sharing it it, the less powerful each is. Just like Yahweh demanding supremacy among the Semetic gods, we start to see high kings demanding supreme power over their formerly sovereign sub-sovereigns.

Note to Self

I need to get some good citations going for this particular point, since I don't expect anyone to just believe me. I'll get right on that.

Pretty soon after that, none of the local thugs nobility are called kings anymore. They've all been demoted to lower ranks, just like when Yahweh handed the entire Cananite pantheon its collective hat in one swell foop.

So, how did this thirst for absolute power find its way so far West? Is it just a natural step in the evolution of society? Not in my opinion. It's the thick edge of the monotheistic wedge. If your whole cosmology is based around the idea that there's just one sovereign power in the whole universe, which direction to you think society is going to go in? Pluralism? Democracy? Ummm. No.

As Above, So Below: The Rise of Yahweh

2008-04-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'd like to take some time to explore what I think are parallels between the emergence and evolution of monotheism from the pre-Mosaic period through the destruction of the second temple and the rise and consolidation of monarchy in medieval Europe. The changes are separated by a good couple thousand years, with that whole Roman period in the middle, but there is a similar shape that has struck me as significant.

E Pluribus Unum Let's take a page from our Christian friends and start off with the Book of Genesis. The first words of the Bible in Hebrew are breshit bara elohim. That word, elohim, is an ancient one and has had plenty of time to accrete irregularities. On the surface, it looks like a plural derived from its root, eloah, meaning "god." So, you might jump ahead and say that elohim means "gods" and not be completely wrong. The verb bara, however, is singular. A superficially plural word being used as a singular sounds to me like a remnant of an older tradition poking its head through, and in fact most Biblical scholars (actual scholars, not religious zealots) think the same. The late Bronze Age texts of Canaanite Ugarit use the word to denote the entire pantheon of the father god, El.

What did that burning bush say again? Next little clue. When Yahweh delivers his commandments to Moses, he orders that the children of Israel shall have "no other gods before me." In Hebrew, the word elohim is used in that sentence for "gods." Hmmm. Pretty clear indication to me that Yahweh is recognizing that people have other gods while asserting his supremacy.

You're All Fired! In a fresh, bold translation of the Book of Psalms by Robert Alter (see link below), we are shown a mythological, poetic vision of the moment at which Yahweh succeeds in vanquishing all the other gods of his pantheon:

God takes his stand in the divine assembly
in the midst of the gods he renders judgement
"How long will you judge dishonestly
and show favor to the wicked?
Do justice to the poor and the orphan.
Vindicate the lowly and the wretched.
Free the poor and the needy
from the hand of the wicked; save them!
They do not know and do not grasp,
in darkness they walk about.
All the Earth's foundations totter.
As for me, I had thought you were gods,
and the sons of the Most High were you all.
Yet indeed like humans you shall die,
and like one of the princes, fall.

More Information

Elohim
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (Hardcover) by Robert Alter (Author)

Whoa! Did Yahweh just have a total Donald Trump moment, strip all the other gods of their divinity and make them mortal? Harsh!

In the next segment, I'll go into the ways that feudal Europe paralleled this change in its concept of what a king is.

Democracy and Monotheism: A Match Made in Tartarus

2008-03-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

For most of human history, we've been polytheistic, or at least animistic. Many archaeologists believe that monotheism makes its first appearance in Egypt in the 18th dynasty under Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (who changed his name to Akhenaten in deference to his exclusive worship of Aten). Sigmund Freud even argued in his book Moses and Monotheism that the exposure to the cult of Aten was what inspired the worshipers of Yahweh in Mosaic ancient Israel to struggle to elevate their tribal god to the same stature. They were successful at it a bit later, but Akhenaten was not. Egypt reverted to its polytheistic ways and Akhenaten got all of his cartouches chipped off his monuments for his trouble.

Monarchy, in one form or another, is a method of social organization that far predates our emergence into sentience. Any random pack of dogs thrown together will select an alpha dog and proceed about their canine business quite happily. Given that, we can safely assume that as world-organizing concepts go, polytheism and monarchy were the norm for many thousands of years. They probably jostled each others shoulders from time to time, but that was likely about it.

Long about 500 BCE, the lovely city of Athens in Greece came up with a new idea for organizing society called democracy. Athenian democrats (yes, I decided to phrase it that way to poke any Republicans reading this blog) were fairly extreme in their application of the concept. They didn't elect representatives to vote for them, all eligible voters voted on everything! One of my favorite things to point out to patriotic Christian Americans is that their beloved democracy was invented by people who worshipped Zeus, Athena, Apollo, etc. I'm just mean that way.

Anyhoo. While all this was going on in Attica, over in ancient Israel, the followers of Yahweh were doing a pretty fair job of elevating their deity to a supreme position. I suppose I ought to mention that there is extensive documentation of the fact that the pre-Mosaic (and some post) Israelites were polytheistic. That's where most of the exotic-sounding demon names in the Bible come from. Ba'al was the deity of the Yahwist's chief political rivals, so a special place in demonology is reserved for his name.

More Information

So now in a human society that was comfortably used to being organized by polytheism and monarchy, we now have competing models. Polytheism versus monotheism, and monarchy versus democracy.

I smell trouble

And Now, In The Center Ring! Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxis!

2008-03-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

Comparative religion has been an interest of mine for a long time, so when my partner explained this basic division of types of religions it seemed completely intuitive to me. What do you know? There's a word for the kind of religion I practice: orthopraxic! We don't really care so much about what you believe, as long as you do the rituals (properly).

I had an experience a few months ago, however, that showed me how non-intuitive the concepts are to some. A discussion broke out in my workplace which was vaguely concerned with changes in language usage. I happened to bring up how disturbing I find it that the words faith and religion are becoming synonymous. Where does that leave religions that are not primarily concerned with belief?

The guys in my office never heard of orthopraxis (not surprising, I hadn't either until recently) and it was such an alien concept to them that they accused me of making it up. Lying. They said I, a devout ENFJ, was lying.

Creepy Sidebar

Adding to my paranoia, the Blogger spell checker apparently doesn't know the word either. It's underlining it as if it doesn't exist. At least Wikipedia is on my side.

Their reaction to the idea that a religion based on action rather than faith was explosive. They shouted over each other; insisting that it couldn't be true. Seriously, it was bizarre. Despite carefully trying to explain the terms orthodoxy and orthopraxis as they are used in cultural anthropology, both of them continued to insist that it was impossible that a religion could exist that was not faith-centered.

In all honesty, part of the reaction could have been to my manner. It never occurred to me that the concept of orthopraxis needed careful presentation. I just stated the facts as I was aware of them. In my opinion, though, the more emotional component arose from a kind of memetic immune response. In simple terms, they flipped out because the orthodoxy meme in their heads perceived an incoming threatening idea and was defending itself.

The scarier thing to me is that I don't think either of them would consider himself religious. That's how deep a hold the monotheism meme has on our collective psyche. It's like we're possessed.

What I'm Not Saying About Monotheism

2008-03-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to write about monotheism and its effects on culture often, so it's best if I get a few things out on the table right away. Might prevent some unnecessary angry comments. I should probably link back to this post from each one critical of the effects of monotheism. Yup. Think I'm going to do that. OK.

Things That Are Definitely Not My Opinion:

Monotheists Are All Bad People That would be daft. There are millions of people following any number of monotheistic religions who are good, kind, smart people. I just don't think that their religion made them good. I think in some cases, it helps them stay good despite the battering that life gives all of us.

Nothing Good Has Happened Since The Advent of Abrahamic Monotheism Another daft idea. Lots of good things have happened, and are happening right now. Women voting, the end of state-sanctioned slavery, the invention of the weekend, the birth of Steve Jobs just to name a few. Oh yeah, and the Internet! Yay! None of these things, however, were the doing of Abrahamic monotheism in my opinion.

Every Aspect of Monotheism Is Bad You guessed it; daft. I think that it will take some time, and some conversations with my Corps of Discovery, and some writing, but sorting out what is good about monotheism is a necessary step for my criticisms to be worth considering.

A Law Must Be Passed Banning Monotheism Daft. I believe that society is on an evolutionary path. Human discourse is one of the forces shaping that path. So is biological evolution and every environmental factor you can name. After forty-odd years of kicking around the place, I'm ready to enter the fray officially on the side of polytheism, but I want the universe and the meta process of social evolution to decide if I'm right or wrong - not a legislative body.

I guess that's about it for now. Gotta go make some offerings to my ancestors.

How To Get Over The Ewww! Ick! Response

2008-03-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

In a recent post on my friend Michael's blog Pop Culture Institute about Queen Latifah, he made reference to having had a boyfriend with whom he had sex. (gasp!) This, seemingly innocuous fact provoked a "too much information" comment from a regular reader.

It was clear to me that the reader in question didn't mean any harm. I've seen lots of good-natured, supportive comments from that individual on Michael's blog so rather than getting my manly boxers in a bunch, I decided to write a little about the subject of Ewww! Ick! I don't care if you're gay but for Gods sakes, don't talk about it!!! statements by otherwise friendly hetero folks.

First, the straight-forward analysis (pardon the pun)

When you talk about some part of your life, especially a very personal part, and someone else's reaction is visceral disgust, it hurts. It hurts a lot. It can make you feel ashamed of yourself, whether or not your intellect agrees that a shame reaction is reasonable. That's the kind of shame that Gay Pride was invented to heal. That's why we still need our parades. We need a vacation every once in a while from the fear that if we talk about our love lives, even in the most innocuous terms, that we'll get a shame-provoking Ewww! Ick! response.

Now, the shoe-on-the-other-foot analysis (this is where the help getting over it happens)

Gay people, by and large, are raised in hetero households by heteros. Most of us over 35 and a good portion of those younger were taught that gay people are gross, icky, other otherwise unwanted by society many years before we realized we are gay. When that realization did dawn, can you imagine the shock we felt at discovering that we were part of a socially unacceptable group?

Imagination is both the source of the Ewww! Ick! response and the secret to getting over it. Nature is like that: problem and solution tied up in one tidy package.

As we gay people move through our daily lives, we have to listen to, watch on TV, see in movies, ads and countless other sources graphic, explicit descriptions and images of heterosexual erotic activity. Believe me, we have the same Ewww! Ick! response when we see boys and girls rubbing their pink bits together.

What triggers that feeling? Imagination, of course. All people naturally identify to some degree with people they see in the media. That's how entertainment and advertising works; we imagine ourselves in the same situation. If they're doing something we think we would like, we have a positive response; if not, well, then Ewww! Ick!

When I was a young person, seeing hetero erotic activity produced a strong negative response in me. Over time, however, that response started to get weaker, and I could start to relate to the common human experience of love and desire without my imagination putting me into the role role of the guy on screen and getting grossed out.

So, what does it take to get yourself past the response? Exposure and time. With just a little effort, your subconscious will get tired of producing the negative response and learn that you aren't in any danger of being man-loved. At that point, like I did from my side, you'll be able to see two people kissing. Someday you might even be able to say Awww! and really mean it.

And no, I'm not saying that you should rent gay pornography and watch it over and over with a bucket under your chin. There are actually a fair number of decent gay-themed movies out there that you could occasionally choose (maybe one in ten times, just to be fair?) to rent and watch; Brokeback Mountain being the best, of course.

So, how do I know that choosing to not hide from tasteful expressions of same-gender affection will help you get past the Ewww! Ick! response? Partly my own experience, but party because that's what the social conservatives desperately, desperately don't want you to do! Their work to keep neutral or positive images of same-gender affection out of the public eye is calculated to keep the maximum number of otherwise reasonable people locked into the negative response cycle. Don't let them block your advancement as an enlightened human being!

I mentioned viewing gay-themed movies (not pornography - start breathing again). If you have trouble feeling comfortable browsing in the "gay and lesbian" section of your local video store, you can:

take your girl friend
subscribe to Netflix
Wear a Nixon mask
Ask a gay friend to go for you

So, there you have it. I know that "too much information" comments for simply putting in print the fact that gay people actually love members of their own gender aren't meant to hurt us, but they do. So stop it, OK?