Author: hollyfrostgoldportpress

By Holly Frost

Oh hey! Assistant here, and look, I have the keys!

More seriously, Sarah has been having a week of colds and weather and various other unfun and games, and asked last night if I’d throw something up for her.

She suggested how to tell if you are an aardvark, but I figure all the Shifters here already know if they’re aardvarks, and another friend mentioned having Spring Fever, and a music student’s mom said something about Spring Planting, and for a change it is NOT snowing here, which means we’re probably at the annual shift from Blizzard to Wildfire season, and do y’all mind maybe not having so many multiple states spanning tornado producing storms over there in the Midwest? It’s a bit concerning, even though I know you’re used to it.

So I’m going to give you a bit of homework, in honor of the changing seasons and the normally crazy weather. Go check your Get Home Bag and your Bug Out Bag. Whatever you call them at your house. Did the wipes in the car bag dry out? Did the kids outgrow the sweatsuit again? Are the meds in your carry bag out of date? That sort of stuff.

For those new to the concept, are there any? If there are, the Get Home Bag is the stuff you carry with you on a daily basis in case the mandatory evacuation notice or the shelter in place or whatever hits while you’re out on your daily activities. It may be what you take to the Red Cross Shelter (why?) or your friend’s house, or curl up in your car by the river with. The stuff you have to have overnight, until you can Get Home. If you have prescriptions, a couple days worth, clearly labeled, with expiration dates, don’t leave these in your car because temperature will ruin them, your purse or backpack is a good location. Probably a multi-tool or similar fix-it all. Some baby-wipes or similar product. Change of socks. People who wear impractical shoes: change of shoes. (These are good for all, but if you wear three inch heels at work, these are more necessary.) A change of clothes is nice. The right size of diapers if you have diapered kids. Water and a snack are important. Ziploc bag everything: you can never have too many ziplocs and they’re pretty water proof.

The Bug Out Bag is the opposite, it’s the bag you grab when reverse 911 or the sheriff deputy pulls up and says “Get out now!”, when the three story wall of fire is a quarter mile away . . . you probably aren’t coming back and you don’t have time to pack, and if you did, you’d spend it getting further away anyway. It has pretty much the same kinds of things in it, and space to toss the important documents box in, because if you happen to have the Social Security cards and the Birth Certificates and the titles, you’re in better shape than everyone else who got hit.

If you have special circumstances and need to dump ice packs and meds in a small cooler or the like, you know what they are, please go make sure everything’s prepositioned properly for grab, dump, go. Someone probably moved the cooler, or the ice packs froze to the shelf, or . . . you know the drill.

These are not exhaustive lists. There is in fact a fairly exhaustive list on this site somewhere, copied from a dead site via the Way Back Machine, and I think put up as a guest post by Doug.

Okay, time to go enjoy the sun, and . . . how did the lawn grow that tall when it was snowing daily, anyway? Yikes!

by Holly Frost

I am informed that Sarah is running off with Dan for a bit, and would like to challenge you all. First, a reminder: you and your children have about twelve hours and forty minutes or so to submit your stories to the Son of Silvercon writing competitions: https://sonofsilvercon.wordpress.com/writers-award/ and https://sonofsilvercon.wordpress.com/young-writers-award-entry/

Next, for the amusement of our hostess and each other, tell us what’s happening here? What is this? Why is this? Give us a blurb, or a flash fiction, or . . . something?

What is art? by Holly Frost

I was chatting with our lovely hostess the other day, and made a comment informed by having spent my entire life training and working in artistic endeavors, that Art is something that someone enjoys.

“Guest Post” she replied.

Ok, then.

My background: I was enrolled in music lessons at two, dance probably at three, visual arts as soon as my mother could manage it. Music is my first field, and writing my second. I do not remember a time when I could not read music or English, and the oldest dated score in my own hand is from when I was two. (Visual art and dance I lack the talent for, but I’m a fair technician in visual art.)

Is a banana taped to a wall Art? Sure. It’s simply Art for a very few, who enjoy that sort of thing. (My suspicion is that it’s either an in-joke I don’t get or the enjoyment of a sense of self-superiority.) Is Thomas Kinkade Art? Sure. It’s Art for the masses, and you can tell that a lot of folks enjoy it because they put their money there.

Is 4’33” Art? Yes. It’s Art that reflects on what the nature of music is. The audience is small, and it’s not something one adds to a playlist, it’s something that must be experienced live in concert, and if you are not a musician yourself I would hesitate to recommend it. Some of my favorite music, Phillip Glass’ string quartets, George Crumb’s Black Angels, PDQ Bach, is difficult for someone who is not a musician. I explained PDQ Bach thus to a student yesterday: it’s like puns. If someone is not fluent in a language, puns are confusing. Only when one is fluent are the puns amusing. You might appreciate the surface qualities of the speech as a language student, but you cannot get the full meaning with the puns until you are fully fluent. Meanwhile, John Williams’ movie scores require no music education to enjoy.

But a definition does not a guest post make, and I think it worth talking about the distortion of Art in our country. Much public Art, that is, Art which is funded by taxpayer dollars, is not Art which is widely enjoyed. Indeed, most of it seems to me to be the opposite of enjoyed. Someone commented recently that you can tell the Art funded by the government because it is ugly. This is not universally true:

One reason that has been revealed by declassification in the last several years is that the US Government decided to take Art in an anti-Soviet direction by means of public funding. If the Soviet government funded handsome men and pretty women in pastoral landscapes, then the US government would fund whatever was as opposite of that as possible. This reactionism led to a good deal of Art that is very limited in appeal. It is very poor public policy to buy Art that the majority of the public does not enjoy.

Ah, I hear you, “The government should not fund any Art!” Stop a moment and think on that. Should the federal courthouse have a painting in it? Perhaps the iconic blindfolded Justice with her scales would be appropriate? Or John Adams defending the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre? I would argue that there is a limited place for Art funding by our government, very limited, and it ought to be only for Art that appeals to the majority of the population at the time it is funded, as we are a Republic. (Monarchies of course buy Art that appeals to the Monarch, see Versailles.) Surely the Veterans’ Home ought to have music for the residents, and art on the walls, chosen by them and paid for by us.

The problem with current government Art funding is that it is elitist and overreaching. The money goes not to Art that most people enjoy, but to Art that people with a deep education in Art enjoy. This is inappropriate. That the government buys so much Art distorts the market, and makes the main goal of many Artists be to receive government grants, rather than to appeal to the population. There are millions of people who will hang a Thomas Kinkade on the their walls, and a bare handful that will hang a banana.

Then, of course, there’s the Art that serves as money laundering, and we’ll leave that to our friendly Freds to deal with, and hope that they can and do. I guarantee you someone’s enjoying that all the way to the bank, though!

On the bright side, you can probably find someone free of government funding peddling Art that you enjoy at any farmer’s market or Ren Faire these days. Buy a sketch or painting, a quilt or a pot, toss some money in the dancers’ or musicians’ tip bucket, grab a business card. We live in an era when our materials are fairly cheap, so you’re mainly paying for training and labor. You can have all the Art you enjoy exactly as you want it, or at least as much as your household and budget will tolerate.

A word about prices: When you pay for Art, you’re paying for the hours of production that go into it, and a portion of the training the artist went through to be able to produce it. It’s a five by seven painting, or an hour performance–you’re still competing with other places for the artist’s time and labor–if I can make more working fast food why would I play your event? (And actually, for me? it’s teaching music, so you can figure out pretty close how many hours of prep you’re paying for if you ask my hourly lesson rates and my hourly performance rates.) I have an entire lecture on not undercharging because “it’s for a good cause” and admitting you’re donating, and getting the receipts for all my lovely self-employed unwitting philanthropists, but we can cover that one another time if you like.

So Art? Art is what people enjoy. Great Art is what people enjoy and protect for the future to enjoy. The more people enjoy Art, the more likely it is to be considered worthy of protection efforts and preserved for the future. Remember, the works of Johann Sebastian Bach are only known today because of Felix Mendelssohn’s enjoyment of them. Go forth and enjoy Art.

The posts are actually in the porch Sarah is building, with proper assistance, which she missunderestimated how long would take. Therefore, no posts for you for now, unless you install them yourself in the comments. See you later! (I expect all y’all have at least a dozen post memes.)

I Enjoin You to Pause by Holly Frost

Okay, you all know how, when it gets to be winter (yes, I know, you and you don’t have winter, so pay double attention, it’ll be your own rear you save twice), you drive down the icy road, and you stop at a red light. The light turns green, and you pause, and you wait, just to see if the guy with the red who is half a block away can actually stop or if he’s going to come skidding and spinning through the intersection. You know how that is? And the guy behind you is some southern import (the only one in town, like as not) and is laying on his horn because your light is green and he doesn’t know any better? You know how you ignore that guy, and you pause, and you wait, and you see if it’s going to be safe?

You have got to pause. When the (political, cultural, whatever) light turns green, and the ignorant behind you is trying to push you by blaring his horn (media, internet), you have got to pause.

Make sure that eighteen wheeler coming down the cross street, or smart car, or whatever the heck it is (riot? protest? freight train?) is actually going to be able to stop. Let the juggernaut of inevitable disaster pass you by.

My driver’s ed instructor always said “The laws of physics trump the rules of the road.” It doesn’t matter how in the right you are if you get squashed.

So we’re sitting here at current events, looking at a green light, and the media is behind us laying on their horns. Don’t pull out until you’re sure. Don’t let yourself be rushed into something.

Take a deep breath. Look both ways. Look again.

This next year, as we approach the elections, with wars and rumors of wars, plagues and rumors of plagues, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and whatever else comes our way, I enjoin you, pause. Wait until you know that you aren’t going to get squished when you move forward.

Or maybe it’s internet quail. Or even kittens.

There will indeed be a promo post, at some point, but later, after spending time with family.

So! I am to relay a short story from real life:

Once upon a time our hostess’ future-daughter-in-law decided to take up raising quail. Since landlords frown on such inside apartment buildings, these quail reside in our hostess’ back yard. During Son of Silvercon, a minor quail event occurred, the three residents of one cage vanished! The house cameras were not oriented correctly to capture the cause.

Fast forward to this last week, when that cage was again in use for four half-grown young males. As our hostess was at the computer, she heard one of the them crowing very loudly, and got up to investigate. He was on the patio. So of course she did what any responsible animal owner would do: returned him to the cage and went to call her future-daughter-in-law about the problem and the missing trio. While on the phone she spotted another, then the other two. They were all happy to get back to safety and free food (and wound treatment, for one of them).

Our hostess and her husband reviewed the security cameras, and this time, they spotted the quail thief: a raccoon! Like any sensible modern people, they determined that ancient problems require modern solutions and applied zip ties to the cage doors as a temporary fix.

At five am yesterday, there came a rapping at the patio door. No one visible. Checked security cameras: there’s Mr. Raccoon, peeved that the free quail buffet has been closed!

Suburban raccoons. I have a feeling her neighbors probably object to the normal raccoon solution out here where I am. Something about lack of berms between yards. Ah, well, her future-daughter-in-law will handle it.

Our hostess is fine, although bekittened (enkittened? surrounded by and engulfed in kittens): I have begged the blog today for a project we are working on.

We’re putting together a memorial. I’m collecting the names of our departed Huns and Hoydens. Would you please post anyone you know of we have lost in the last three years in the comments of this post? I already have some, but I’m sure I’m missing others. I will be also posting this in the Diners: there is no need to add names to more than one post.

Thank you very much,

Holly

Neener neener I got our hostess! Also her husband!

Ok, actually they tried to steal my son, but he has college classes. But still. (I think they’d give him back after he ate them out of house and home.)

Son of Silvercon is a lovely, friendly little convention, and you all should consider booking yourselves into it next July.

I am to tell you that Dan had surgery this morning, all is fine, and Sarah will post later after they are home, worry not.

As you have probably all noticed, WordPress has broken displayed commenter names. For the time being, please do your fellow readers a favor and sign your comment in the text box.

Thanks very much,

Holly Frost

P.S. We can see names on the Admin end.