I didn't get to make any costumes for Burning Man this year because my ex-boyfriend and his brother didn't go. I sewed two huge banners for their camp last year, along with various other acoutrement befitting the occasion.


Carl (my ex's brother, and my first roommate when I moved out here) wanted a fake fur vest with flashing buttons, matching hat and thong. I couldn't get him to model the thong for the picture so you'll just have to use your imagination. Final fitting on left, ensemble variation on right. I wish I could take credit for the pink vinyl pants, but I had nothing to do with that.

I have a weird habit of making abstract costumes inspired by some material. One time before my ex was my ex, I had carte blanche designing the Halloween costumes because he had a last minute trip to Germany. So I find these blue glow sticks in bulk and, well, the result is below.


Anyway, despite his jet lag or perhaps because of it, Mark went along with this. Although he did make an interesting point I hadn't thought of. He said he doesn't like wearing costumes where people have to ask you what you are. Hmm. I never thought about it like that. I guess I like to leave some room for interpretation. But that's just me.

My nephew wants to be a volcano for Halloween this year. Last year he wanted to be a tornado (he's got a thing for meterorology). I put my money on hurricane for this year, but volcano won out. I'm sure it was a tough choice.

We're trying to schedule a netmeeting to discuss his vision for the costume. It's amazing how booked a 7-year-old's schedule can get.

I felt pretty good about the tornado last year, but in the end it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I hope to do better with the volcano. I might need an FX budget to really pull it off.




As you can see, it kind've looked more like an inverted Can-Can costume, which wasn't what I was going for at all. You really have to be close enough to see the props caught in the tornado (cow, kite, umbrella, car), and controlled lighting would help. To compensate, I added the infographic below. He was fascinated by how I made that. Go figure.



The year before, he and his sister wanted to be secondary characters from Clifford. You can buy a Cllifford costume at any KMart, but they wanted to be T-Bone and Cleo. So back to the cutting board.




I keep thinking maybe this year I'll start early enough so I'll have more time for my own costume. I've been envisoning some kind of dramatic cape that could also double for goth shows. Even when being mysterious I'm still practical.

Northern California.

This site rocks! I've never seen anything that even comes close.

Now, what was I going to say? Oh yeah, in response to e:stephenjames -- it's no Hollywood (good news/bad news), but there's a lot going on in the SF Bay area film community. Do you know about Zoetrope.com? You might want to check it out. Here's a description.

The Zoetrope Virtual Studio is a submission destination and collaborative tool for filmmakers, writers and other artists. Each workshop is a community where artists view, review and discuss one another's work, and where producers can make movies using built-in production tools. Whether you're looking for feedback on your new novella, or just want to discuss screenwriting, click on a workshop on the menu at left to begin participating in our creative communities.

And here's an article about zoetrope and the SF film editing scene iin general --

"Francis Coppola's dream to make the Bay Area a center for film editing has come close to reality with dozens of memorable movies getting their final polish here."

More to say later. A rare call from real life is coming in on the other line. I'd better take it.

There's really no good lead-in to this. I discovered the answer to the age-old question, "where do homeless people poop?" while walking to my car yesterday. You do not want to know the answer.

In other news, I picked up my wall murals from the now-defunct "Don't Call It Frisco" laundromat this morning. They're a lot bigger than I thought. Five of them are 4'x8' and the other two are 4'x6'. That's like 200+sf of murals! I may have to put in an addition to house them all, haha. Oh well, I'll worry about that later.

I ended up carrying them one at a time back to the house. They were surprisingly light for their size (painted on plywood). But when the wind picked up, I thought I was going to go airborne a couple of times.

What else? Oh yeah! I have walls now!






Unfortunately my kitchen cabinets are still inconveniently located in the living room.


And now no toilet in the bathroom. That's what the big bucket is for.


Ironic that I started out just wanting to do the kitchen and bath, and they're the last to get done.


I bought these great ceiling medallions for the living room and bedroom. Can't wait to see how they look when they're put up.