bookshelves and the wonders within April 8, 2008

I’ll be taking the slightly bigger one on the right, but not the one on the left.  I just gotta have -some- books.  Shelves for my journals.  I’ll also be taking those little drawers, which contain craft supplies and my stationery.

Forgive me if this post isn’t exactly sparkly.  I’m just writing to fill the time in a state of mind just before sleep.

Some of the titles I’ll be taking with me:

- Lichens of North America & Moss Gardening; it’ll be the most wonderful climate for it all.

- McSweeney’s back issues – It’s a good vault of short stories for occasional reading and inspiration.  I stopped subscribing a while ago, but there are still plenty of new ones to read.

- MY COMMMMICCCCS  Pretty much all of them.  Because I love them and am scared something bad will happen to them if they’re not in my direct care.  They’re just so much more fragile than books, and it’s not like you can find many of them at your local library.

- Tad Williams; Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn & Otherland series.  Whether he qualifies as literature or not, Tad Williams will always occupy a soft spot in my heart, as well as a place on my list of influences.  For better or worse.

- Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, along with Cryptonomicon.  You kind of either love him or hate him; I love him, in a way not unlike Tad Williams.  I like it and I don’t care what you think!  It’s a thick-ass, long-ass series.  None of the people I’ve recommended it to could quite finish the first book T_T

Some of the things I’ll be leaving:

- Most textbooks and school notebooks.  I like having them around for reference, but I’ll put them in storage with my mom or something, and if I need to know something, I’ll call her, or just pick one up on a visit home.

- Harry Potter series.  Cause they’re everywhere, and I’m not attached to my particular copies.

Okay, totally ready to go to sleep now.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being):6 (average of the contents of my bookshelves)

Take It or Leave It? both!

soap dispenser April 6, 2008

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

hahahaha…  See, it’s sticking its tongue out at you.

I can’t count the number of friends that have fallen victim to my soap dispenser, even the ones that know better.  People who come out of the bathroom with soap on their shirts and smelling like Dr. Bronner’s.  It’s not a bad soap dispenser, and I didn’t intend it to be this way.  It’s just the way that Dr. Bronner’s soap is really liquidy and forms blockages easily that causes the soap to squirt in odd directions at high velocity if you aren’t really gentle.

When I realized that, I was thinking to put a little label on it that said “Be Gentle,” but I never got around to it, and it was kind of amusing to see who never really learned how to deal with it.  Call it a stupid tax (no offense Bakari, Aaron), and my own harmless practical joke.  Hey, it’s soap, how bad can that be?

I won’t miss it, but I will remember it.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being): 1

Take It or Leave It? Leave It

unfinished icosahedron lamp April 4, 2008

made of molten fucking lavaaaaa

I started this about five years ago, when I was working at the Art Store. Five years, dude, and I haven’t finished it.

What was the concept behind it? Well… I guess I just wanted to make a cool lampshade. I had recently read a small book on sacred geometry, and thought maybe I could make it in one of the elemental shapes. The art store also had these rolls of fine metal mesh, and I badly wanted to make something out of copper wire. It also had this reeeally hot-lookin paper with copper-colored flakes in it, so that all came together into an idea for a shape that, when lit, would look like a ball of molten lava, like the primordial earth.

You know, I didn’t even think about the 20-sided die when I chose an icosahedron, haha.

But yeah, the process of making has been very… slow… I probably haven’t done anything on it in a couple years I don’t even know how much I value it anymore, but it would be such a shame not to finish, because it’s almost done but for applying a couple more sides of paper and wiring it to stick on a hanging-cord lamp. And I know it will be so cool once it’s lit…

Oh, fine, I’ll finish it and take it with me.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being):5

Take It or Leave It? Take It, as long as it’s finished

teaware April 3, 2008

Are you fricking kidding me? Of course I’m bringing my teaware. Oh, I’ll MAKE room.

The house I’m moving to doesn’t have any teaware to save its life. And even if it did, well, these are MY cups and pots, carefully selected and tested over time. They each have their own origins.

(Not all are pictured)

- Little blue and white china pot – I actually used this as a toy teaset throughout my childhood. I’m leaving the cups that came with because they’re useless and tiny, but the pot is a good size.

- Yixing with white glaze decanter – I don’t use this very often. In the past, I’ve used it as an open-steep pot, but I learned that it’s a decanter for gongfu serving style, and using it for such will step up the quality of some of my teas. So I’m still taking it with me.

- pair of green and brown porcelain cups – I ganked these from my mom, who had gotten them as a gift from a houseguest. She doesn’t use little teacups anyways, she uses mugs. They’re made by a women’s cooperative in the Philippines, and they really are especially beautiful pieces of teaware. The glaze on the bottom 2/3rds of the cup is actually made with ash from Mt. Pinatubo (remember that massive eruption in the early 90′s? We looked at ash in the sky from my school window in California). The clay underneath is a pleasing white porcelain.

- blue-green ceramic mug with strainer & lid, japanese character – I have no idea what that japanese character means. Maybe someday someone will tell me. This was one of my sister’s Christmas gifts to me a few years ago. It’s one of my most practical pieces of teaware, and I use it a lot.

- small nubbly dark iron pot – given to me by the guy who introduced me to how great tea really is. Simran was his name, and I don’t know him anymore. I dated him briefly; he was older, used to be Sikh. Did some avant-garde vocal music, installation art and painting. How did I meet him? Oh goodness, now I remember!

I met him in the city at a Tim Barsky show (a Jewish storyteller who also beatboxes and plays flute). I was wearing my Crucible volunteer shirt, and was volunteering at Epic Arts at the time. He asked me about the Crucible, we started talking, and I went over to his house and we had tea.

He told me that at the last Burning Man, he’d carried a mobile tea unit – a big suitcase that held a propane stove, pots, cups, and myriad varieties of tea. There was a really bitter tea he had me try that was almost as bad as bitter melon; he said one woman there actually asked for it by name, and for her, the bitterer the better.

The store he bought the pot from informed him that it was actually an inkpot. He said, “Not anymore!” I use this pot for blacks and puers exclusively; it brews one little cup at a time.

- borosilicate glass owl pot – IMO, borosilicate glass is the supreme queen of all teapot materials, practically speaking. For all-around qualities and everyday use, the best. Heat retention and transmission; durability; and you can see the tea! I think every tea lover should have at least one borosilicate pot. The beauty of a glass pot is all in the form. Christianna has one of these too, we both bought ours at Far Leaves. We used to meet there to study, when she was in Berkeley and I was at Mills.

Uhhh… maybe I’ll continue this later. There are a few more pieces that deserve to be named, but I’m tired of writing about teacups, and I’m sure you’ve stopped reading by now.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being): 9

Take It or Leave It? Take It

silverware April 3, 2008

Washing my dishes was what got me to thinking about how accustomed I am to the objects I’ve lived with. I’ll be using different silverware in Portland. Washing different silverware. hm.

My forks, spoons, and knives are from my parents, one of the old sets of party silverware. It’s a bit heftier than what I think of as “flatware,” though it’s certainly not silver. Dinnerware? Whatever, this isn’t a catalogue.

I actually didn’t like this set when I was a kid. There were three sets, and this was the plainest, heavy and square. At that age, the more ornate, the better–these utensils were clearly made for peasants.

But by the time I needed silverware for my own apartment, my sensibilities had changed. I wanted this set because it was strong and simple. An amateur spoon-bender would not want to try bending these spoons. Even an expert spoon-bender might fail. In fact, these spoons are my makeshift household crowbars (which makes me think I should take one or two with me).

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being): 4

Take It or Leave It? Leave it (except for one or two spoons)