November 11, 2003

• So much to say…

  
  

  I must have had twenty or more thoughts since I blogged yesterday that would have made good blogs.  Most of them have floated away into the ozone, and so I’ll just post a wee wrapup of my recent activities, and a little news story that got a few laughs around here this morning when Greyfox read it off his online edition of the New York Times.

  
  

  After a long dry spell, I’m back at work on KaiOaty.  My services seem to be in demand once more.  Go figure.  For several weeks, the requests for readings were sparse and when one came in it always had some issue or question that needed to be resolved before I would proceed, such as whether it was to be posted publicly or emailed privately, or whether the person asking for the reading had bothered reading my FAQs and disclaimers first.  The upshot of all that was that nothing new got posted over there for a while

  
  

  Having my potential clients read the FAQs and disclaimers is an issue for me, and I don’t think many people understand that, to judge by the way they drop their requests in “comments” on other people’s readings instead of following the clear injunction in KaiOaty’s header:  “If you want a reading, click on this coyote.”  Anyhow, I’d gone on something that was about half vacation and half sit-down strike, I guess. 

  
  

  Now I’m back in the saddle or something.  I’ve resolved to do a reading a day until the backlog is cleared up.  As it says in the FAQ, it’s not first-come-first-served.  It’s at the capricious discretion of the KaiOaty herself, but if you asked for a reading in the past and never got one, especially if I emailed you for clarification or feedback and you didn’t get back to me, now is a good time to follow up on your original request if you still want a reading.

  
  

  After having missed one of the Monday meetings at the rehab center, my very favorite 12-step venue, Greyfox and I braved the snow last night and didn’t miss another.  This one was a pip!    The Old Fart had waffled and tried to wimp out because of the slick roads, but after I consulted the runes and they said there was no great risk but the likelihood of both short-term and long-term benefits, he finally consented to go.  I would have gone by myself, and was ever so glad that he decided to take his car.  My tires are better and Streak’s low center of gravity is a bit more stable than in Greyfox’s van Roger (that’s Roger Dodge and Streak Subaru), but in my car there would probably have been frequent roadside stops, again.

  
  

  Last week, the problem had been heavy fog and roads clogged with emergency vehicles, a downed moose, etc.  We drove about halfway to Wasilla where the meeting is, then gassed up my car in Willow and limped back home, stopping about eight times to allow the air intake on my carburetor to warm up from the engine heat and de-ice itself.  It gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure each time I mention that my carb ices up in damp, near-freezing weather and some man asks me if I have Heet in my gas tank. 

  
  

  Silly, know-it-all chauvinists.  It’s especially pleasing if they pose their question (and I’ve heard that same question at least a dozen times in the past month or so) with the usual condescending tone that says, “silly know-nothing woman.”  Then I go ahead and explain with my own tone that the icing of the carb is not from the gasoline, but is the air intake that fills with ice crystals and chokes off the oxygen supply due to the venturi effect in that tiny tube.  What I love best is watching their eyes closely to see whether I get the rueful ”oh, yeah, that’s right!” response when my words trigger some vague recollection, or the blank look that wordlessly says, “huh?  venturi?? wazzat?”

  
  

  And now the news (dateline Rio de Janeiro):

  
  

  
  

  Those in the opening-night audience at the Teatro Municipal here hated the director Gerald Thomas’s radical reworking of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” and they were eager to let him know it.

  
  

  Though cast members were spared when they came out to take their bows, the moment Mr. Thomas appeared he was greeted with a fusillade of boos, jeers and insults.

  
  

  

  
  

  So Mr. Thomas responded in a way that many artists who feel misunderstood or unappreciated have undoubtedly dreamed of. As his leading lady looked on with a horrified expression, he turned his back, dropped his pants and green drawers and mooned the audience.

  
  

  Now Mr. Thomas, the eternal enfant terrible of Brazilian theater, is paying the price. Acting on a complaint filed by the local chief of police, prosecutors have charged him with public indecency, and on Nov. 11 he is scheduled to appear before a judge who will decide whether there are grounds to proceed with the case.

  
  

  The indictment has startled artists and civil libertarians here. This is, after all, the notoriously permissive and even licentious city in which thousands of people parade virtually naked on the streets and over television during the annual Carnival celebrations — with the full approval of the same authorities who have now gone after Mr. Thomas.

  
  

  I wonder if Pidney’s lost love Raoul was in the audience there.  She says he’s no longer in Krakow, but now resides in Rio, the dirty dog… but that’s another story.  There’s lots more about enfant terrible Thomas, his parentage and career, in the story linked below:

  
  

  
  

  The Case of the Operatic Moon

  • 9:23 pm
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