Last weekend in photographs

On Friday evening, we went to Trina O’Connor’s solo photography show at the The Language and Culture International Gallery. 158 East 14th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202. More on the show here. Trina is part of the “Indy Women in Focus” Photography group that I participate in. She has moved from being a professional photojournalist to art photography and her stuff is really beautiful. It’s very cool that I get to participate in a group with people at a skill level far better than mine; I learn a lot just by hanging around them.

Trina's Solo Gallery Show

Trina's Solo Gallery Show

Trina's Solo Gallery Show

After visiting her show, we popped into the The INDIEana Handicraft Exchange at the Harrison Center, which was a block away. I’ll let them tell you about the craft fair:

The INDIEana Handicraft Exchange is a contemporary craft fair that consciously celebrates modern handmade goods, the relationship between creator and consumer, and local, alternative economies. The IHE began in 2007 as a way to highlight local crafters and artisans as well as to expose Indianapolis to some of the best vendors on the national indie craft fair map.

We had a blast there; tons of fun cool ideas for things we’d like to make, and everything was very reasonably priced – we dropped some bills, but we got a lot in return. It’s a bit different than the craft fairs my parents took me to as a kid; lots of contemporary art and design. And fun, quirky, interesting. I’m afraid I don’t give you a lot of detail in my photos of the goods for sale; I was afraid to walk right up and take photos of people’s goods for fear that they’d be offended. I really need to learn to be more bold in talking to people.

INDIEana Handicraft Exchange

INDIEana Handicraft Exchange

INDIEana Handicraft Exchange

On Saturday, Stephanie’s dad came down from Valparaiso to bring Stephanie her mom’s 1930’s typewriter, which we’re going to be using in an upcoming event to be described later. He’d taken it to be refurbished. Photos of that will be coming soon. While he was in town, he helped us repair our refrigerator door, and we installed a shelf in our laundry room. Dunno why I don’t have photos of that; I need to get Stephanie’s dad in engineering action. He’d be one of those folks that don’t understand why I’m taking pictures though.

Saturday evening we went to the Morris Butler House Museum for a Halloween progressive mystery play called “From Dark Pages” based on gothic, horror, and mystery literature. That was a lot of fun; most of my photos didn’t come out all that great because of the lighting (no flash photography allowed) and my best ones were spoilers that outed the villain. Here are a couple I can safely show you, though.

From Dark Pages Progressive Mystery Play

From Dark Pages Progressive Mystery Play

Throughout the weekend, Stephanie and I puttered around the house getting stuff ready for cold weather and knocking out many October To Do Items. We harvested the last of the vegetables, put flower pots in the garage, unhooked the hoses from the house and generally bustled around getting work done. I spent some time hanging hooks on the porch for Christmas lights. It was way too cold to do that last winter in December, so I thought I’d knock that out while the weather was warm this year. While I was out pursuing that activity, this guy came to visit.

The Visitor

He seemed really cheerful.

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Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing a short story

Cribbed from Kurt Vonnegut’s Wikipedia entry:

In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
  7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.

Also via kottke.org, How to Write With Style by Kurt Vonnegut.

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Conservatives against Women’s Right to Vote

Transcript discussed by Think Progress:

John Derbyshire, a British-American conservative author and columnist for the National Review, has written a new book titled We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. The book contains a section called “The Case Against Female Suffrage.” Yesterday on his radio show, Alan Colmes asked Derbyshire to articulate his argument.

“What is the case against female suffrage?” Colmes asked. “The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left,” Derbyshire responded nonsensically. “They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.”

Colmes then pressed Derbyshire on whether women should have the right to vote. “Ah…” Derbyshire sighed, attempting to dodge the question initially. “I’m not putting forward a political program here,” he said. But then Derbyshire slowly began to open up:

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?

DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?

COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.

DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].

COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.

Derbyshire reasoned that we “got along like that for 130 years.” Colmes countered by asking if he also wants to bring back slavery. No, Derbyshire responded, “I’m in favor of freedom personally.” Colmes noted that freedom didn’t extend to women’s right to vote, however. Derbyshire said, “Well, they didn’t and we got along ok.”

You need more proof that the right wing is delusional?

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