How much fun are you having with your house?

Stephanie Farago’s legendary artist house in West Hollywood has vanished (she sold it and moved to the tropics), but I was lucky enough to visit while she was still living in the midst of her ongoing creation. She painted the elaborate wall decor herself, collected the abstruse and mysterious furnishings during her travels, upholstered some of the furniture, and arranged everything like a set designer. Stephanie paints wonderful oil paintings, created two coffee table books, one on collecting pre-World War II boudoir dolls, and an upcoming book on the life and work of artist Steven Arnold, and once made a video of Carnivale in Venice.

Here is a mini-tour of Stephanie’s creation:

Stephanie Farago in the Bali-Tibet room:

The Rudolph Valentino room:

The Carmen Miranda breakfast nook:

The Chinese salon:

A side room of the Chinese salon:

Stephanie’s livable art was her creative mind projected in 3-D. I wonder what her new place is like?

January 8, 2005, Phoenix, Arizona. Six of us women artists gathered to craft visionary altars at Tracy Dove’s house. Tracy Dove and Kathy Cano-Murillo provided boxes of printed images, old greeting cards, glitter, beads, glass jewels, tile, scrabble letters, miscellaneous small objects and glue. One of Tracy’s friends brought over a stack of cigar boxes to decorate. Shari Elf and I drove in from California for the festivities.

My altar is about a transformation into high gear art manifestation. Summer 2005 I spontaneously began making my blues/jazz CD What Living’s All About, my most exciting project to date.

Shari Elf made a mosaic of a man’s face with scrabble letters saying Nice Man. Last summer she met and began dating her favorite man so far.

Kathy Cano-Murillo’s altar says “Frisky Love” and contains images from Mexican pornographic comic books (“you get them at the carneceria, but you have to ask the butcher” she told us.) No report on the enlivening of her love life, but Tracy says Kathy has been inundated with book and TV deals lately, and looking especially beautiful. She’s been happily married for many years.

Tracy’s choice of image was a mermaid, and her year has been an intense voyage into the oceanic realm of the subconscious, totally transforming her life in ways she never dreamed possible. (That’s one of her paintings behind her.)

Tracy’s niece April’s beautiful altar features a three dimensional snake. Her life, in the past year, has taken many twists and turns through subterranean spaces.

Other visonary art parties I’ve attended: making crowns or tiaras, creating “treasure maps” (flat montages of visionary images), and decorating masks or blown eggs with paint and decoupage. I’ve saved most of what I’ve made at these events; they feel powerful to me.

No fees, uniforms or equipment required.
Any time of day, and almost any location is suitable.
It can be done alone or in any size group.
One can walk to portable music or the local soundscape.
It lends itself to observing nature, people, and architecture.
It can be part of making a living or protesting injustice.
One can walk and focus on breathing at the same time.
Walking is a great time to stretch and align one’s body.
The rhythmic crosscrawl movement soothes the nerves.
Saves on gasoline.
Walking alone inspires creativity.
Fine time for a cell phone call, too.
I’ve even attended 12 step meetings by cell phone while walking.
To think outside the box, I get out of the house.
Doesn’t jar my joints or my breasts like jogging does.
Happy muscles, happy lungs, happy heart.

Today I joined tens of thousands of other Los Angeles residents marching in protest of the US invasion of Iraq and against the numerous incursions against the planet and her children by bloodthirsty corporate greedheads.

The march and rally, organized by International ANSWER, began at noon at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. The police were present, but not intrusive. I saw marchers of all ages and genders, and of varied viewpoints, but united in serious intent.

Of the speakers at the rally following the march in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Representative Maxine Waters drew the greatest applause when she said, “A member of the press just asked me if I had really said that the president had lied. I am saying it again so that everyone can hear. The president of the United States, George W. Bush, has lied to us. He should be impeached.”

One group wrapped US flags over a dozen coffin-shaped cardboard boxes to create a flotilla of perished military, and carried them the length of the march.

Signs I hadn’t seen before:
Dear US Taxpayers, thanks for all the money. Sorry about your children. Love, Halliburton.
The only Bush I trust is my own.
Jail to the chief.
(Photo of a hand flipping the bird) Wiretap this!
Support Our Troops—Drive a Hybrid
Mission Failed
South Central Farmers—Feeding Families (a community gardening and food distribution project in the poorest section of Los Angeles endangered by a real estate development project)
Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight
Fire the Liar
Money for Education, not for Occupation
What Noble Cause?

Back from the 1960’s, and carried by women not even born then, was the sign with the daisy and handlettering that says “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

The vast, unecologically monocropped fields of the midwest USA are filling with genetically modified grains and soybeans that enrich Monsanto (now Bayer) at the expense of the health of people and animals who eat these harvests. Small scale diversified agriculture that refreshes soil, plant and animal bio-diversity (permaculture) creates a greater yield in less space. However, there are some large scale crops that are environmentally enthralling.

Oil-bearing crops including hemp, soy, sunflower, peanuts and canola provide a sustainable alternative to petroleum. The earliest diesel engine, displayed at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1900, ran on peanut oil. Today’s biodiesel is often made from spent frying oil from restaurants, giving it the environmental beauty of recycling, the political beauty of being readily available without import, the aesthetic beauty of smelling like popcorn, and the sustainable beauty of being significantly less polluting and greenhouse gas-producing than petroleum.

My friend Ano Tarletz runs his farm truck on homemade bio-diesel. He says it takes one restaurant to support one truck. Since the restaurant pays Ano to take away their spent frying oil, his diesel fuel costs him “minus twenty cents per gallon.” Artist Shari Elf does not make her own bio-diesel—a neighbor who does delivers a 55 gallon drum to her house, from which she gasses up her new diesel Volkswagen Jetta. She pays $3.50 per gallon for it, but says it’s worth it.

Another large scale crop that makes my heart sing is kenaf, a relative of cotton and okra, grown as a tree-free paper, fabric and industrial fiber. It grows up to eighteen feet in five months, uses no harmful chemicals in processing, and is fully recyclable. Kenaf paper saves forests. We need to support this industry! I look for kenaf products when I buy cards and stationery.

Which plastics pose health hazards as containers for food or drink?

This information is from the Green Guide:

Look on the bottom of the plastic container for the recycling logo (a triangle of three arrows) with a number inside it. Sometimes, on very small containers, the number appears without a logo.

The plastics that pose no known health hazards:

1. Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE)

2. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

4. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE)

5. Polypropylene (PP)

Plastics with potential health hazards:

3. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC or vinyl)
Some research has shown that the phthalates in PVC food wraps and vinyl flooring are endocrine disruptors linked to various health problems. Water and vegetable oils sometimes are bottled in PVC, and many toys and baby teethers contain PVC.

6. Polystyrene (PS or Styrofoam)
Styrene is a possible carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Avoid consuming hot liquids, fatty foods or alcoholic drinks from styrofoam containers, as these leach out styrene. Some opaque plastic cutlery is PS as well.

7. Other resins, including polycarbonate (PC):
Bisphenol-A (BPA), a main building block for PC products, is an endocrine disruptor. Most clear baby bottles and five gallon water bottles, as well as Lexan (Nalgene) water bottles and plastic-lined food cans, are made of PC.

The looming third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq prompts me to think again about how this massive tragedy occured.

Howard Zinn says all wars of aggression are sold to the public with lies:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031406D.shtml

Noam Chomsky says the “Bush Doctrine” is nothing new, just worse:

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20040519.htm

If you want to march in protest, here’s where to find actions and events:

http://www.internationalanswer.org/

I took my mother, Verna Lebow Norman, to our cousin John Huggins’ photography show opening at Bergamot Station Arts Center yesterday. Mom sculpts ferociously figurative pieces, mostly in clay, but she has welded, carved wood, made wax pieces that were cast in bronze, painted in oils, tempera and watercolor, drawn with charcoals, pastel, pens and pencils, taken perfectly lit photographs of her work, and tends to create assemblages surrounding her pieces—her favorite trick is to add eyeglasses or hats to her glazed busts of people. Of course she wants to go to the art opening.

Photographer John Huggins and his son Noah

John Huggins’s show is called “Once.” He is showing photos of children, animals, and nature scenes, all blurry, the way they look when tears well up. Tears of joy, or of grief, as these beloved people, places and things are about to disappear? I didn’t ask.

A wall at the show

At the art opening, Mom ran into a friend and fellow artist, Harriet Zeitlin, who had preceded her as president of Artists for Economic Action back in the 1970’s.

Harriet Zeitlin and my mom, Verna Lebow Norman

John’s wife Erica Huggins, a big time movie producer (last year she produced the Jodie Foster film Flight Plan), arrived with their two young sons, Sam and Jonah. We are all delighted to see one another again, especially on this celebratory occasion.

John and Erica’s sons Sam and Jonah, and beautiful Erica, greeting my mom

I just read the history of Public Citizen, the largest of the many public interest organizations Ralph Nader started, written in celebration of 35 years since its inception in 1971. Click here, then click on “35th anniversary of Public Citizen”, which will open their latest issue of their magazine as a PDF file, and read pages 4 through 8. I don’t know about you, but for me, it was an eyeopener. These people have been speaking truth to power not so much with a vengeance, but with legal finesse, for decades. Many of the consumer safety laws we have taken for granted (and are seeing undone by the current administration) were hard won by the efforts by Public Citizen attorneys.

Who else has been out there organizing legal actions and speaking to elected officials to stand firm against corporate and government abuse of people and the environment for that long?

Well, certainly Common Cause (founded in 1970 by John Gardner). And the American Civil Liberties Union, founded by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver and others in 1920. Amnesty International was launched in 1961 by an article written by British lawyer Peter Benenson about two Portuguese men imprisoned for raising their glasses in a toast to freedom.

While maintaining our awareness of today’s political scene through news websites including truthout.org and commondreams.org, we need to support those who are out on the barricades, fighting legal battles and promoting better laws in Washington. This is just part of housekeeping.

For a week now I’ve been living in a house with someone who has a cold and I haven’t caught it yet. I’m grateful that I have a few herbal cures in my remedy bag that seem to be keeping the bugs at bay.

Even fairly square types are starting to admit that antibiotics are inappropriate medicine for cold and flu. Antibiotics don’t kill viruses.

Lots of people know about Airborne. It’s an effervescent tablet dissolved in water to make a sweet, fizzy, citrus flavored drink “invented by a teacher who was sick of catching colds at school.” It’s been easier to find in big chain stores like Trader Joe’s than it is in health food stores. You take it at the first sign of a cold, or before you go somewhere dicey, like the passenger compartment of an airplane.

I have three other cold prevention remedies on hand: Oscillococcinum (a homeopathic flu remedy), Gan Mao Ling (a Chinese herbal combo pill), and NatureWorks Flu & Cold Times (a boozy herb and homeopathic tincture). With all of these, it’s about timing—the first tickle of a sore throat, or runny nose, or sneeze. Right then. Pow!

In the rare instance that a bug gets past this first defense, I go into fasting mode: Nothing but raw and cooked fruits and non-starchy vegetables, broth, herbal tea and water until the virus goes away. For me, this is a short cut.

I also take very hot baths because viruses die by the millions if your body temperature goes up even one degree above normal (and vice-versa: they multiply if you get chilled.) That’s why your body gets a fever when you have a viral infection-it’s trying to fight back! After the hot bath, I get into bed, and rest/sweat well-covered, to continue the heat attack. A great excuse to get into a good novel or movie!