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Freya West

Burlesque Warrior, Fire Eater, and Headmistress

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What Are You Reading? Anais Nin, Middle Eastern Fantasy, & Teenage Witches

One of my 2012 Goals is to read 30 books this year. So far, I’m at 13 of the 30, right where I need to be. It’s been a while since I checked in on here about my readings, but that’s just because I’ve been devouring books. Here’s a list of my most recent reads:

Little Birds by Anais Nin
I love Anais Nin’s erotica in this short collection of stories. There are some very sexy stories, but also some disconcerting ones. It’s a beautiful examination of female sexuality at the time. Some of her wording is more explicit but more delicate than what I’ve read in modern erotica collections. A must-have for the bedside table.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
This was a recommendation from Keith, a fantasy man himself. Crescent Moon follows three characters fighting evil in the Middle East. I absolutely loved the first half of this book, and couldn’t put it down. Easy to read, suspenseful, exotic while grounded and exactly like a good adventure novel, and then, unfortunately, the plot just stops and you’re left with a history class of the city they live in. It does pick back up, but the middle is rough to get to. That said, I will be picking up whatever the next thing is from Saladin Ahmed.

Wicked: Witch & Curse by Nancy holder and Debbie Vigue
Another Keith read, Nancy Holder was his advisor for a semester of le grad school. The first in the Wicked series, Witch & Curse follows a teenage girl through the harrowing death of her family, dark ancestral secrets, and a hunky love interest. It’s thoroughly enjoyable as a summer read, and dark enough that the YA label shouldn’t warn you off. I would caution that the audio book is read by a horribly bubble-gum voiced actor, which grated on my nerves. Pick up the book instead of the audio.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
I’m a Neil Gaiman fan, but had yet to pick up Good Omens because I’m not a Terry Pratchett fan. I enjoy some of his movie adaptations, but usually his modern references and jokes within a fantasy setting just pull me out of the story. Omens however, does not suffer from that, being in a mostly modern setting anyway, and one fully appropriate to the jokes and silliness that Pratchett fans love. Another fully recommended summer read.

Dinosaur Tales by Ray Bradbury
I picked up a beaten copy of this at our local indie bookstore because there were a few stories I hadn’t read yet. Some of the tales are very much meant for children, but the artwork alone is worth having a copy in your library.

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer
Part of the “new weird” movement, Finch is a post-apoc, hard boiled crime novel. It is long though, so if you’re looking for an easy read, this isn’t it. Covering a society that wants to rebel and succumb at the same time, and a mystery with very weird consequences, it’s also not the type of book where you know who-dunnit, or even what-dunnit. It is well written and weaves an intricate world that is gritty as hell for being so outlandish.

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli
I’ve been meaning to pick up this graphic novel for a long time, and am so glad I did. Following the story of a middle aged architect, the book is philosophical dessert. The drawings, fonts, and everything tactile match up with the dialogue in a brilliant display of just how much graphic novels can do combining images with the written word.

Fox Woman by Kij Johnson
I’m still finishing this beautiful piece of prose, but wow. The only book I can think to compare the idea of the isolation and purely female perspective would be Tender Morsels, which I read last year and is also brilliant and hear-breaking. The story of Fox Woman follows a fox who longs to be human, and a husband and wife, equally as alone together as apart. The book takes place in letters, diaries, and Japanese poems. Beautiful, delicate, harsh, and unflinching, Fox Woman is my favorite book of the year so far.

You can always check out my Goodreads to see what I’m devouring and let me know what you’re reading and what to read next!

Filed Under: books, Uncategorized, Writings Tagged With: books, Challenge, fiction, goodreads, novels, reading, writers June 18, 2012

Creative Challenge – Redux


via suttonhoo

If you’ve been with us for a while (thank you!) then you probably remember our Creative Challenges. Each week I presented a challenge, and posted the responses the next week on the front page here.

I love the weekly challenge and really want to keep it going, but I would like for them to be meaningful and helpful, instead of just one more thing. If you have ideas or a timeframe, please let me know what works for you. This is a communal undertaking, not just my own writings, so any input is more than welcome. I’m considering at the moment doing a challenge every two weeks, or once a month with reminders and little encouragements along the way.

So tell me my loves, is this something you would be excited about and interested in? Or is life too busy for one more challenge?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge June 30, 2009

Creative Challenge – Paper Clothesline


all photos courtesy of Kris D’Amico Photography

I’ve had my own creative challenge this week. I spent all day yesterday printing, cutting and staining the invitations for the wedding.

I’ll have some better photos of the actual design up once we’ve assembled them, but they were masterfully crafted by my sister-in-law, designer Lynn D’Amico. She’s currently accepting freelance assignments and is amazingly flexible as far as ideas and designs go.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge, creativity, photos June 23, 2009

Creative Challenge Reconstruction: Extended

Hey lovely ladies and gents.

I have been asked, and shall oblige, to extend the Reconstruction Challenge for another week.

If you’re done, you’re marvelous and please email me your submission!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge March 15, 2009

Creative Challenge: Reconstruction


via found gallery

When I used to craft more often than I do now, most of what I made were reconstructions of dresses, shirts, and toys. I love taking something old and out of use and making it relevant again. So for these two weeks, I want you to reconstruct something. Maybe it’s those old shoes you never painted polka dots on, that poem you wrote years ago but never finished, or that junk drawer with all those things you might, maybe, someday need. Make them useful now. Especially in an economic crunch, to be able to utilize what we have is essential, and more than that, it gives us a sense of accomplishment and meaning in ourselves, because we have reinvented something. We have given an old, dead, thing life again.

There’s loads of craft suggestions on Instructables and Craftster, including painting and DIY interior decorating. Trashion Nation on Flickr is also great inspiration. If you’ve got other great revivify-ers, leave them in the comments.

Submissions will be due midnight on Sunday, March 15th. You can submit by posting a video on YouTube, photos on Flickr, or simply email me your goods.

As a side quest, I’d love to hear any ideas you have for future challenges. I’ve tried to make them vague enough that any creative mold you’d want to apply you can, but I’m more than willing to try a writing challenge or a photography, or whatever it is you’d like to work on!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge March 4, 2009

Creative Challenge: Dreams Response!


via headexplodie

It is March loves! Can you believe it? I can’t. It seems like it was New Year’s just a week ago. But I’m excited about a new month and the prospect of warmer weather to come.

Well, for the past two weeks I asked you to keep a dream journal and send me one of your dreams or an amalgam of a few. Here is what you sent:

Keith:

Awaking from a extremely strange and surreal dream, I set to your task half-awake. I started typing in an already opened notepad file with my eyes closed:

Is and was and were and shall be again crayon makeup crazed

mall pancake sausage biscuit gravy in a dancing robot but isn’t a robot is only a boy wearing a helmet that spews it out chicken helmet he’s jig dancing everyone live as in the same house

sells pancakes a mirror in front of the hallway she just wants to love me they just want to love me but the crazed crayon makeup which will not let them shoes size 10 saddle weren’t black and white rhinestones bird masks wasn’t wearing socks so he brought footies”

Kris:

I was hosting a conference out west some where, I was speaking to a group of faceless men and women about f-stops and the importance of eating roast beef before you shoot large animals. Using the visual aid to my left I showed them my research and the chance of getting a great shot of a large animal went up 42% after eating a roast beef sandwich. The graph was made up of one large piece of plastic and the pie pieces where little bugs* that were behaving very well and staying in formation pretty well, for little bugs**.

So after the lecture, I simply tell everyone that there is something really special outside and to grab their cameras. In a poof we are no longer in the log cabin, but outside on the edge of a large cliff. One wind blown Joshua tree stands in front of us. Across the ravine more of the same desolate terrain. In a blink there are two huge black robots on the edges of each side of the ravine***. These robots are the last step along a huge conveyor belt that stretched beyond the horizon. As we stand and look at these robots as two huge blocks of black salt† come sliding down the conveyor belt and as the reach the robots they punch them into the canyon below. As these 30 foot tall blocks of salt fall, they melt into a black and blue and green waterfalls† and then evaporate into a brilliant luminescent burst of color††.

I turn and say, well start shooting!!††† So this crowd of people that now stretch as far as I can see‡ all start clicking away at the huge robots and the melting and evaporating salt‡‡.

When I turn to raise my camera, I am looking at my back door and see Holland come running down the hall telling me he wants to go to school. Quinn is crying and I hear the door slam. Then I wake up to Quinn crying and Lynn has just knocked a hardcover off the side table‡‡‡. Funny how dreams work out.

* itty-bitty bugs, really, really little
** Each bug was hand painted yellow, blue, red, and green by the large man in a purple suit that sat on the second row.
*** They resemble the “old rock ‘em sock ‘em” robots from the 80’s, just 80 feet tall and matte black, a sharp contrast against the ice blue desert sky.
† If not salt, perhaps it was a fine grain sand, it just seemed to smell like salt – you know that smell?
†† There were other colors, but I’m not sure that we have the language to describe them – like a reflection of that golden yellow you see when a child smiles – colors like that.
††† Like a rainbow of a thousand colors and just one color, all at once.
‡ Bunch of dummies, how often do you see 80 foot tall robots?
‡‡ a sea of humanity
‡‡‡ I think it’s my turn to get up with the baby anyway.”

And my contribution:

I lay down on the thin mat, covering the old wooden floor so that no ink might spill into the cracks but slight enough for my naked body to feel every curve and warp of the fifty-year-old oak.

The overhead fan blew silently, forbearing as an old man bereft of power. It tickled my sides and kissed my skin. The conductor moved slowly around me, mapping every curve of my hips, the gentle arch of my back between my bum and where my breasts caused my shoulders to curve, the shape of my thighs. He was a master topographer.

Slowly, moving as an old metronome, he began to mark, the pen scratching as a quill on parchment. First, a line above my shoulder, a phrase on my foot. He moved quicker and his pace steadied to the beat of the fan far above us. He circled and swooped, an eagle teasing his prey. The words and lines were important, but they were just building to the crescendo. I barely breathed, but found myself matching his pace, soon expecting the next score. I was his instrument, a cello to play his suite, a part of the symphony.

I noticed as my skin turned into eyes, my arms and legs told stories of philosophers and great men who failed. He left my back blank, a hole in the myriad library. His pace slowed, stopped. I heard the pen drop to the floor, bouncing once, twice, before settling in a groove and his fingers followed suite, his breathing heavy.

After sixty beats of the fan, sixty caresses of wind, he lifted a hand and began to form lines, with only his fingers, stroking his outline. His other hand reached for the pen and, uncapped, he started anew. The scratching was not soft this time, and I grimaced when the nib dug under my skin like a tattoo. My body never moved, only my face, hidden facing the floor, betrayed my surprise.

I felt feathers forming, long strokes that seemed to last forever, from the top of my scapular to somewhere below my buttocks, the tops of my thighs. The primary flight feathers. Then moving to the secondary, working up and inward, to the tertiary, smaller and faster, the beating of wings. I felt something drip down my side, blood or ink. He didn’t stop.

I felt, as the outline formed, that even with the immensity of the scape, the wings were somehow shorter than should’ve been. I used touch to concentrate as he again pulled across my skin down my sides. Yes, they ended short, the wing not arching at the end, sharp, stunted and angular. He seemed to sense my awareness because his hands now concentrated on fleshing out the lesser coverts and scapulars on my upper back.

My wings were clipped, why? The orchestra master, my conductor and artiste, walked away from me, spent. I turned my head to see hands stained in black and long white hair mussed from exertion. He caught my eye, I looked for an answer. He silently turned and closed the door, leaving me alone.”

Thanks for participating! The current challenge will be up in a jiffy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge March 2, 2009

Creative Challenge: Dreams Reminder

Have you been keeping track of the stories your subconscious is telling you?

If you’re having a rough go of it, don’t give up! Make a hasty sketch of a scene or a character and work from there. The more vague it seems, the more dreamlike it probably is.

The deadline is fast approaching, so get yourself some sleep, and submit you work by Sunday, March 1st, by midnight.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge February 28, 2009

Creative Challenge: Dreams Reminder


via artyfishal44

Hallo Monday!

How is your Dreams Challenge going?

Are you remembering your dreams more vividly with more clarity? I find that when I actively tap into my dreamspace in my conscious, I can more easily remember my dreams in their entirety and the colors and experiences can stay with me most of the day.

If it’s not going so well and you’ve tried keeping a dream journal, waking yourself up early to have one last dream and it’s just not doing it for you, maybe a shift on the other end is necessary. Try focusing your mind before you go to sleep on a subject or image. Don’t fuss over it, but mull it over in the back of your mind as you drift off, and your subconscious will recognize it as an issue to be dreamt about.

One last piece of advice is to not stress. If you’re not getting anywhere, start creating dreams in your creative work. Write a dream story of a character, or paint dreamy landscapes. Focusing on the idea of dreams and what they mean to you can be just as or more important than the actual thing.

Ready to submit your response? Lay it on me!

If you have any other special means of remembering or translating your dreams in your creative work, leave them in the comments!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge February 23, 2009

Creative Challenge: Dreams


via Elfleda

I tend to have very vivid and weird dreams. In one recent one, Barack Obama came to a cookout I was at to eat peanut butter and chocolate cookies and tell me he met a gypsy fortune teller who had a cryptic mission for me. In another I had to fly over a desert with a clan of butterflies in order to deliver a package to a dwarf living in a giant tree. Whether or not you believe your dreams inform your daily life, I want to see, touch and feel them.

Don’t worry about your dreams being boring or fragmented, just give us some sort of dreamy picture. If you opened a bank account, was your banker covered from head to toe in tattoos? Or was the bank’s alligator mascot actually a living cartoon? Just go with whatever catches you.

If you don’t remember your dreams, try setting your alarm for 10 to 15 minutes before you need to, turn off the early alarm, and you should fall into a short REM sleep long enough to have a dream. Keep a journal and pen beside your ed and write down every detail you can think of as soon as you get up. Draw me a picture if that’s all you’ve got, or make a mosaic of the imagery.

You can tell us the story of one dream, or make a compilation of several, but keep a good record and see how that influences your creative pursuits. Your subconscious might be trying to help you with a break through and all you need to do is just listen.

As per usual, you will have two weeks to submit your dreams. The deadline is Sunday, March 1st, at midnight. Ready? email me!

Filed Under: Challenge Tagged With: Challenge February 16, 2009

Love Challenge Responses!

Mwah my dears! I had a lovely time in Canada. Thank you for all the birthday well wishes. Our last challenge was simply Love, what and who it means to you. Here are the responses!

Kevin:
The name of this photo really says it all, “my cat’s making out with my boyfriend.” Win.

Birdiee:
I got chills reading this. Ah so good!

all misfits –
transplants.
here because a wind blew,
and our tiny seed-bodies landed;
we took root,
so together we grow.

here, i will lift you up
on my shoulders,
and carry you through high waters;
mumbling under my breath,
how i adore you.

though sometimes, i hardly know you,
and at other times, i’ve known you forever –
hey you, there, girl,
and you, friend, and you, boy…
i’ll take you with me;
hand in hand,
on adventures
we both feel like fighting for.

i am enamored
of your beauty,
of your resolve,
of your likeness to myself,
and your simple reflection
of all i ever wanted myself to be.”

Jayms:

Kris:

You may ask yourself what does an fried egg on a Mickey Mouse Plate have to do with love? Well, it’s 4:45am, the baby has just gone back to sleep and Holland, a few months shy of his 3rd birthday, wanders in to bed room. More asleep than awake he gently touches my face and says, “Daddy, I’m way hungry.” So, naturally I bolt up my first reaction being, “who’s touching my face!” Then to the kitchen we go and munch some animal crackers and drink a little milk. On our way back to bed the baby wakes up and starts to fuss. Now they are both up and it’s doubtful that either will go back to sleep. We try and snuggle on the couch for a bit but one thing leads to another and it’s now 6:30. I make the baby a bottle and Holland is hungry again. “Daddy, please, white egg? Please? Love you.” Now how can you say no to that, even on 4 hours of sleep, so baby slung in my left arm I fired up the stove and started a “white egg” for my boy. You may say big deal, right? He’s doing what has to be done for his kid to eat. But I think that is the “it.” Love is taking care of someone like you are supposed to, love is trying really hard to take care of someone like they want to be taken care of. Anyway, that’s just my 2¢.”

Once again, thank you so much to everyone for participating. I made a video of my lover and I at the Ice Hotel and in Quebec, but I have yet to edit it (eep) so I’ll post that a little later lovers. The new challenge will be up in a tick!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Challenge February 16, 2009

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