Haggis Tacos

the color of...

2011-07-20T04:46:00.002+01:00

"She wore a gown the colour of

and

and a necklace of broken promises and regrets."

— Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

http://www.thecolorof.com/

heartache

2011-07-20T04:13:00.004+01:00

"A little box...to be more precise it was the colour of heartache."
— Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

calligra-not.

2010-02-16T15:51:00.003Z

Compared to the Rotterdam calligraphy we just saw, modern script-crafting education looks embarrassingly juvenile.

And my own attempts at inked script look conspicuously devoid of adornment.

These were some experiments at studio for a Valentine's promotion. I love finding any excuse to play with messy media and play with lettering by hand. But perhaps it's time to work more on my loops and swirls and swooshes and curly-cues.

calligra-whaaaat?

2010-02-16T15:25:00.006Z

A selection of inspiring works of artistic hand-lettering, from Jan Tschichold's book Treasury of Calligraphy. Watch out, these kids are craaaaazy!

It looks like lace.

Strangely modern in its three-dimensionality.

Swooping! Just look at that dynamic composition!

Whaaaaaaat is this?????

My absolute favourites are these pieces coming out of Rotterdam. Those Dutch are craaaazy with the quill!

Very stylistically different. Look at those dramatic diagonals!

A zoo! Someone was getting creative. Or bored.

hey ho hey hey! dancing thistles.

2010-02-11T19:53:00.004Z

Aaaaaw, just look at them! You can't help but want to snuggle these be-jiggering flowers, prickles and all!

Prickles

2010-02-11T19:33:00.007Z

A selection of sketches playing with the iconography of the Scottish thistle. I saw many fantastic renditions of the thistle while living in Scotland, but also many many horrendous ones.

((One of the sketches above may or may not have been slightly inspired by Disney's Fantasia's dancing Russian flowers...))

real greenbacks

2010-01-20T05:01:00.004Z

Confession: I will never love the new American currency designs as I do the old ones from my childhood, the real greenbacks, without all these fancy colors and odd embellishments, this "Monopoly money" as Grandmother would have said.

knots

2010-01-20T04:50:00.003Z

Double Carrick Bend knot, created with ties.

Yes, I was a Girl Scout. No, I never did get that knot-tying badge.

And this one is just beautiful.

Study: Handshakes

2010-01-20T04:32:00.005Z

Question: How abstract can one made a handshake?

And my own freckle-decorated hands as primary research.

FRECKLES.

?-?-?

2010-01-20T04:21:00.004Z

Gentle Reader,

Please accept my humble apology for leaving you alone for such an inexcusably long time, and take a moment to peruse this, my short Interrogation Marks: Studies and Sketches.

2009-11-05T04:39:00.000Z

Casting Shadow

Absolutely adorable video. Very clever.

three mario, two max the kids, and a rainbow brite with colorful socks

2009-11-04T19:58:00.004Z

Today's Colorburn was too cute not to share.

Which reminds me! Halloween costume tallies! The costumes I saw repeated the most this year:

Mario (and other Mario characters)
Max (from Where the Wild Things Are) --it seems as if our generation is having a collective nostalgia with those first two, it brings a tear to my eyes... ah, childhood!
Policemen (confuuuuusing)
Insane asylum patients
Flappers (probably because we went to a Speakeasy party)

there was another I keep forgetting.

AND favorite one-off appearance...

a Rainbow Brite!!
With the leg-length socks and funny blue dress with white trim and everything!

Bookbinding: Sherlock Holmes

2009-10-25T19:34:00.004Z

Finally! One and a half years after beginning what was to be my next sketchbook at the time, I have finally completed The Sherlock Holmes Sketchbook.

This was during my Sherlock Holmes phase senior year. I designed a biography on Dr. Joseph Bell, the medical professor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at University of Edinburgh and the alleged inspiration behind our famous sleuth, at the beginning of the year. Then wandering through this fantastic used book shop in St. Louis, I found this fantastic old copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for something like 50 cents (definitely one of my best purchases). Amy, our fantastic bookbinding professor, had just shown us days before examples of books assembled with the covers of old classics and children's books from the turn of the century and I was in love, this was my first chance to try it myself.

This was the year after I had first discovered Edinburgh on my summer trip with Allison, and before I had decided for certain to return to the Athens of the North to live this past year. So let's call this Sherlock trend all part of my Edinburgh processing. Or obsession. You might say.

Linen tape and coptic binding. It's really rough and already falling apart, with some of the illustration pages inside crumbling from old age. But I love it. I was completely self-indulgent with this one, and didn't have to make it pretty.

The spine is significantly thicker than the edge, as I had to tape all the pages from the book together after having cut them out of the original book. So I added lots of my old Lisa Frank bookmarks from elementary school along the edge to balance it out. You know you love the LF.

Aaah, it even smells like an old book! Very sweet. Look at those lovely pages, darkening with age.

And the illustrations are great. What in the world is he doing to this goose, and what did the poor bird ever do to him?

WEBSITE: Grand Opening!!

2009-10-22T01:45:00.002+01:00

My website is now officially open!!

Take a look at my graphic design portfolio at www.thisisandrea.com
(and watch out for secret links in the "About" page, I'll give you that tip for free *wink*).

Ta-da, finally!

"taxonomy of graffiti"

2009-10-20T06:45:00.004+01:00

A visual study at its finest: typography and letterforms in graffiti, broken down and compared for you. Absolutely beautiful. I've been flipping through the different letters for the past hour.

http://fondation.cartier.com/

Go explore!

Found via reference on Goodesign studio's website, http://www.goodesignny.com, which is a fantastic design studio.

moving to New York, woooo!

2009-09-30T13:15:00.003+01:00

The time has finally come!! I am moving to New York today and my plane leaves in four hours.

Wish me luck! I will give ya'll the low-down once I am settled and have started stalking design studios.

;)

2009-09-24T09:20:00.000+01:00

I love the sound of hot water pouring over tea bags.

zebra mummies

2009-09-23T09:57:00.002+01:00

Remember the colorful zebra gum, the Fruit Stripes, with the promise of all those different flavors and beautiful colors, and the disappointment when those flavors lasted a grand total of 27 seconds? We used to measure and compare the length of the flavors of all the gum varieties we could get our hands on, and Fruit Stripes lost hands down, the worst compared to Bubblicious (all 35 flavours), BubbleYum, Double Mint, Big Red, Winterfresh, Wintergreen, Juicy Fruit, and later on, all those dental gums.

I thought it died out years ago.

But there, in my local supermarket checkout, it was: a blast from the past.

I was so excited to see this colorful relic from my childhood, that I decided to give it another chance. Surely in the past decade, their technology has improved to keep up with the rising demand of long-lasting gum. These are the 2000s, after all. Not the early 90s. We have high standards for our gum.

But it hasn't changed, and the flavor still lasts only 27 seconds. Fruit Stripes zebra, why do you let me down? Even now? Oh well, at least now the wrappers come with lick-on tattoos.

My cookie fortune last week. Strangely appropriate.

And the reverse side. Interpret this.

One of our tourist attraction tickets from Egypt. In the Valley of the Kings, we were allowed to choose three tombs, out of around twenty. But we were told by a friend who had visited before us that if we held our thumb over one of the holes when we held it out to the guard to snip, we could sneak into a fourth.

I tried. It didn't work. All I got was a "can you really not count to three, stupid?" look when he pulled the ticket out of my unwilling hands and the deception was revealed. But at least it wasn't a "you thought you could deceive me, but I am the one with the machine gun, watch me demonstrate" look.

raaaawrrr

2009-09-23T09:33:00.004+01:00

I'm helping a friend draw up some possibilities for her first tattoo. She wants Scotland's lion rampant. Here are a few of the early drafts.

hollow line

thick single line

silhouette, cut-out eye

This is not my work. This is an illustration from Every Woman's Encyclopaedia (1910), which has an absolutely beautiful selection of illustrations throughout, comparing the lion's form in Scottish heraldry with other famous national lions. I adore this depiction, and am using it as inspiration, whether or not it is quite the sort of form we are looking for as a tattoo.

raspberry frog

2009-09-22T23:12:00.002+01:00

I love playing with color swatches. I gathered an entire collection at Lowe's for my group to experiment with during a letterpress project senior year, and we just never stopped playing.

aliens are investing in real estate

2009-09-22T06:58:00.004+01:00

While rummaging around my parents' office, my eye was caught by the spine of a particularly colorful photo album.

And the odd collection of contents inside was almost as fascinating as the R-E-T-R-O of the satin -textured exterior.

The typography that seems to read PHOTO SELF---ALBUMS ADHESIVE is sliding around worse than the photos that are not being held in place by the Cure-All-Magic-Self-Adhesive pages.

Starcraft in its earliest form. Build those colonies, build, you fool!

I found out as a result of this investigation that my father was, unbeknownst to me for the first 23 years of my existence , a realtor in a past life. Before moving on to computer programming B.H.C. (Before Home Computing), silversmithing, performance-kite competing, and math teaching. It is true, your parents can always still surprise you.

$167.26 tax for an entire house.

And lollipops were 1/7 of a cent each, back in the day, and we thought that was Outlandishly Expensive.

Now, I know I haven't been around much of the real estate world. But I have a hunch, a vague inkling, that the paperwork is a bit more complicated and formally written now. These are such curious cheat sheets. If you haven't explored the house yourself, just study up on your Home Info sheets and you will be able to answer any question that could possibly come your way.

Like the difference between baths and tubs.

And the fact that that ther' house needs some fixin' up, alright.

Some answered simply can't be summed up with a check mark. Does the home have a fireplace? check mark = "yep."
"yes" = "Why Of Course this beautiful home has a fireplace, with bricks that are beautifully rick in hue and hold in the heat. And it makes fire. Which is hot."

Make sure to keep that Cul-D-Sac-Storm-Door nice and clean, or else it won't work.

who did?

2009-09-22T04:06:00.006+01:00

A birthday card for my cousin Katy.

This is rather how I always imagined a katydid should look like. A real katydid is a very curious insect in its own right, but my entire childhood whenever I heard the name, I always pictured a small, more geometrically-simple version of a grasshopper. What a baby grasshopper would look like if it weren't already a white, slimy larva.

And then as an older child when I saw what they really look like, I was very disappointed. A bug with a name as silly as a katydid deserves to be cute and bouncy, not like an arthritic humpback bird.

Then, the other night as I was sketching lions rampant and watching Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, I felt a small thumping near where my elbow met the carpet, and there, bouncing impatiently against my arm, was a real katydid. MY katydid. A wee green wedge-shaped creature with beady black eyes, I had never seen something quite like it, but it was exactly right.

It was an challenge to sketch, as my katydid was in constant motion.

I was very intrigued by insects and spiders as a child, and am still quite fond of them. Most of them.

patriotism

2009-09-21T23:46:00.005+01:00

I was working part-time in a library while studying at university, and my favorite days of the month were when new shipments of books arrived. The other shelving minions and I would take off all the book covers before sorting the books, and we got first pick of the covers before sending the rest to the Discard box for the other library employees to rummage through. Book covers adorned the walls of all the tight cubicles in the front offices, but we claimed the cream of the crop, and frequent scuffles broke out amongst us over the prize covers.

This is one of my treasures.

Look at those beautiful cut paper lines.

This book is straight out of 1959, and does it ever look it.

homemade cards and recycling woes

2009-09-13T00:51:00.003+01:00

From my brother Topher for my birthday last month, out of cardboard, as you can read. This came after I went on a recycling rampage through our house, especially my room, in which I have hoarded a ridiculous amount of old school papers, newspaper clippings, and various "keepsake" junk. Then Topher started sorting through his room to get ready to move out for uni, and I am ashamed to say he did so much more efficiently and mercilessly than I did.

I have a very large soft spot, the oozing bruise to my yellow-green pear, for all things paper, all things school, and all things collected for nostalgia's sake, even though I have finally mostly overcome actually collecting them anymore. I just still have trouble with getting rid of the old things that I have already collected.

I insisted often that he add said casualties to my recycling stash.

Clarification and vent: The reason this is such a big deal and that few families in our area recycle, including mine, or myself when I am here, is that recycling in North Texas is NIGH IMPOSSIBLE. The old drop-off point, the "most convenient" one that I used to frequent 20 miles north of us, that was open 4 days a week for about 6 hours at a time and was right on the higway, has closed.

Now, we have to trek out to a tiny airport 35 miles from home, along small suburban roads that make the trip closer to 45 minutes one way and, I discovered firsthand, is only open Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to noon. Your choice: sleep in on the weekend, or recycle.

It's hard to encourage and incorporate good habits when the cities actively seek to make it as difficult as they possibly can while still insisting that there are "options available."

After about four tries (two involving sleeping in just barely too late, one involving an attempt during the week), we finally made it to the recycle plant in time.

But after all this, you have to wonder: does the amount of gas wasted in driving back and forth outweigh the trunk-full of papers recycled? (Only hypothetical, as we had other errands to run in the area each time anyway. But still.)

My aunt's favorite hobby is stamping, and she handmakes all her cards. She has a lovely eye for paper. She got me into stamping when I was a young, scrapbooking middle schooler, which I used as an excuse to set up my own Craft Area (a creaking fold-open card table) in the last available corner of the kitchen, and keep it as perpetually messy and overflowing as I desired, in contrast to the room that I was forced to grudgingly make presentable every fortnight or minutes before any visitors were due to arrive. It was my little protest against the evil cleaning dictatorship of my mother.

But I cruelly abandoned my craft table upon discovering Design, or what I called design back in my sophomore high school Desktop Publishing class.

However, my aunt has carried on, and I adore her little textured nods to whatever holiday--big or small--approaches next, without missing one, from year to year.

This is by far my favorite card out of all my 22 Valentine's Days, from my friend | Viscomm-mate | studio-neighbor Sarah. We were in a letterpress class, and had a fantastic free-day for experimenting Valentine-style. There were many other classics, so ridiculous. I'll try to find some others I collected.

It was like being back in elementary school, with shoeboxes and little shiny Toy Story and Barbie cards. Only instead with catchphrases like "player player" "lust muffin" and "you sexy thing, you" that would look a bit out of place in a third-grade classroom.

Samsung Eve

2009-09-12T08:51:00.003+01:00

One reason I love my simple, lovely little phone is that it reminds me of Eve, Wall-E's sleek little lover.

Too cute.

Eve: Wall-E, it can't be both of us. Me or the phone! What do you mean, you don't know?

Which would come out sounding more like **whiiirrrr whiiirrr hummmm buzzz METAL SCRAPING OVER METAL ANGRY METAL ANGRY SCREECH**

click languages

2009-08-28T22:17:00.002+01:00

Miriam Makeba sings in Xhosa

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Silence, you critical fools! I love me some clicks.

Where's Austin? He would appreciate this.

HEY little kitty

2009-08-28T22:09:00.000+01:00

soooooooo

what was that?

subtitle/description change

2009-08-17T04:40:00.002+01:00

The original text ran

The Ghost Files: An Audacious Explorer from the New World Takes on the Spectral Enemies of the Old World
......
In which our desperate North American makes a failed attempt to introduce Tex-Mex cuisine to the tragic denizens who populate the not-so-delicious city of Edinburgh, and finds herself the unfortunate victim of a pub hostage situation having only her haggis tacos for company.

She willingly shares her recipes here.

Seeing as I passed an entire year in Edinburgh writing a grand total of thirteen logs in the first two months, and have now returned to Little Mexico, a whole ocean away from my beloved Edinburgh... this is no longer a travel blog. Let's describe it as something like

Collections of a Visual Klepto. Some things I find, some things I make, but none of it can I force myself to throw away.

retro patterns

2009-08-17T03:27:00.012+01:00

A small perfect-bound book I found in the staff room of our hostel, which I subsequently claimed and is now my planner.

Along the inside edge, the pattern looks like that of a boa constrictor.

Beautiful, aren't they?

Wrapping paper I found four years ago. Definitely the most versatile wrapping paper I own. We'll call it "Bubbles".

owned by Eikon Graphia

Soap bubbles. Surprisingly angular, no? Interesting fact about bubbles: if you can view one close enough to observe the surface, note the rainbow hues and their movement as they swirl and spin across the surface, even if the bubble isn't moving. The bubble is about to pop when the color swirls suddenly fade and turn to shades of dull grey. This is something to do with the surface thinning and no longer being thick enough to create a prism effect, and the tension nearing its breaking point.

In my elementary school, a few of us were allowed to leave class a few hours every week to participate in Project Think, something like a pre-AP for children. Or a playtime for future nerds. We got to make models of medieval castles, with working moats and all. We spent several days experimenting with bubbles, using different shapes and sizes of bubble blowers, different types of soaps, and magnifying glasses to study the surfaces. And one day we even made fairy bread, a strange Australian kid snack made of white bread covered in margarine and colored sprinkles; probably an experiment to see how many bland processed foods can a kid combine together themselves and still be willing to eat. I thought it was great in second grade.

photo found on redbubble.net

It's fairly disgusting now. Yes, Han, it is! But the Aussies apparently never grow out of it. Don't ask. Just never insult this childhood staple in front of them, or you will face the Wrath of Oz.

This is my dress. It reminds me of peacock feathers.

belongs to romanhistorybooks

Or eyes.

I suppose those two go together, since peacock feathers look like eyes as well in the first place, right?

courtesy of eyemakeart

Especially fish eyes.

It also reminds me of the black plague.

We had a Hospital Party a few weeks ago. Using this dress as part of my costume, I was Bubonic Plague. Bwahaha! Appropriate for Edinburgh, no?

reimagined romance novel covers

2009-08-17T02:18:00.003+01:00

Megan and I have a running joke about romance novels. I rediscovered this site, which my friend Amy had shown to me several years ago, and now I will share with Megan and you, dear reader, the true potential that is hiding inside every romance paperback cover.

I dedicate this one to my adopted motherland.

The creator is World of Longmire. These are just a few of my favorites. There are plenty, plenty more.

bleep bloop bleep bleep

2009-08-16T23:13:00.002+01:00

Dirty Shirty Vintage T-shirts wins today's Best 80's Memory.

you have to admire the stoicism

2009-08-16T21:57:00.003+01:00

the deceased (pictured below), or their next of kin, was either

a. very cynical
b. a person of little words
c. someone with a solid sense of humor

credit goes to the Design Observer blog.

and you can't hate the night if you've lived your whole life without light

2009-08-12T02:20:00.004+01:00

My turn. This is my pet.

Now just switch back and forth between the two very quickly. Oooh look, it blinks!

I feel...happy...

some more obsessions with angler fish

2009-08-12T02:09:00.001+01:00

return to the maps!

2009-08-11T07:22:00.003+01:00

I'm currently working on a set of maps illustrating the growth of power of the Augustinian church, the most powerful church in Scotland during the middle ages. When this project comes to completion, there will be around a dozen localized maps, in addition to a larger map showing the whole of Scotland and displaying the spread of the church from kingdom to kingdom.

This set will feature in my friend's dissertation to help visually clarify a rather complex set of research. The number of levels of information we are having to maneuver in these maps is fairly large, and quite exciting in its challenge.

2009-08-11T06:44:00.002+01:00

I just moved back to Texas a week ago after living in Scotland for almost a year, and right now I'm homesick.

terrestrial aliens

2009-08-11T00:35:00.015+01:00

Let us take a moment to admire the work of a man that has been an inspiration for me in all of my work over the past three years.

Richard Ellis, author and illustrator of Deep Atlantic, has never failed to capture the heartbreaking beauty of blind, teeth-wielding fish with abnormal protrusions. I grow teary-eyed just to ponder his genius.

Deep Atlantic is a thorough study of the earliest explorations and, as far as currently known, the ecosystem of the ocean's deepest and darkest level. Tucked neatly into the back is a collection of Ellis's own ink drawings, the prints reversed to expertly highlight the bioluminescent features of deep-ocean life.

How grotesquely brilliant! What need have we of fictional extraterrestrial monsters, when our own waters contain horrors beyond our own invention?

I discovered this beautiful book hidden in the decaying stacks of my university's biology library while researching for my design studio. It became the source and heart of my project at the time, a series of two zoo exhibition posters explaining the mechanics of bioluminescence.

Of course, I really just wanted to make pictures of monsters.

Just look at them, aren't they beautiful?

If only I could maintain a highly pressurized deep-ocean salt water tank, then I could have one of these beauties to look at whenever I feel down and need a friendly, cuddly face. But those tanks are always so hard to keep clean.

This is the most commonly-known anglerfish. Probably the only creature you have recognized in this series.

Here are a couple more of the most notable.

Winner in the Most Intimidating Name category: "vampire squid from hell." The blood-sucking, self-propelling cephalopod pet of Satan that can spine you and suck you to death at the same time is technically called the Vampyroteuthis infernalis. If you ever wanted to know what a vampire-squid-from-hell looks like, ta da! Your questions are answered. I don't know about you, but that's definitely kept me awake many a night.

Most Likely to Be Underestimated in Hand-to-Hand Combat: sea cucumber Scotoplanes globosa.

But don't be fooled, it's a ninja.

Many of these creatures were discovered and described by deep-sea pioneer William Beebe in the early 1930s, who would travel down to the depths in the bathysphere, a giant iron ball with three tiny windows on one side.

Magic.

What an epic. Ellis, we salute you.

La Isla de Skye, parte #1

2008-09-30T16:10:00.004+01:00

Going back to the end of August:

After Festival ended, and we enjoyed a few blissfully calm days after the storm of August, several of us took a nighttime jaunt up to the Non-Arthur's Seat (a smaller hill right next to the Real Arthur's Seat that tricks you if you are on the north side, and looks like AS until you get to the top of it and see that you have to go down and back up again to get to the real top of AS. It tricks me every time) and watched the city lights. Then for the End-of-Festival fireworks, we went up Calton Hill to see the castle and the lights display from far away, with a view of the city at night underneath all the colors.

Calton Hill is a small hill topped with some obscure ruins. They could be Roman, they could be an old governor's mansion, anyone can guess. You can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city center, peeking over the buildings from the northeast end of town. It was a fantastic way to see the fireworks.

ISLE of SKYE part 1

I then went on a five day tour of the Highlands and the Isle of Skye on the west side of Scotland, and this is where another adventure begins!

We went wading in Loch Ness. It wasn't as cold as I was expecting. The two California boys on our tour swam in it for a few minutes. I didn't think about taking anything to swim in, but I really want to go swimming in it once, to say I went swimming with the monster.

We also saw the Nessie Watcher (forgot his real name), the man who has lived for twenty or more years in a trailer on the beach of Loch Ness and who makes and sells Nessie figurines to make his living (remember seeing signs for them, Allison?). They were much more well-made than I was expecting, very cute. But I still don't know how he lives on just that. I have a feeling they aren't selling out by the dozen.

We went through and around and over and under a ton of castles, ruins, and monuments. They were all very cool, but didn't particularly stand out, especially when surrounded by that landscape. I have a feeling very few man-made things could steal the spotlight when surrounded by those mountains. I did get to see Eilean Donan, which my mom had asked me to go see for her.

My best and worst from the 2008 Edinburgh Festival.

2008-09-09T03:37:00.000+01:00

1. The Man Who Planted Trees
The most beautiful experience you will ever have in a performance. The sounds, the smells, their voices, the delicately simple set, the expressive performers and their puppets, the sweet simplicity of it all, and the beautiful honesty of the story.
A puppet performance of the short story by Jean Giono, and don't by any means let the idea of puppets shape your expectations of this incredible performance.
I started to cry the first time I saw it, it overwhelmed me so much. Then we went to see it again, and brought more people with us, and it gave me goosebumps all over again.
I bought the DVD so that I can see it over and over again, and although it will never be the same as that performance, and I won't get the smells again, and the sprinkling water, and the way the voices surrounded me in that small theatre, I know those voices and that story will be so comforting to me for many years to come.
So beautiful.

2. The Great American Trailer Park Musical
The name says it all. And yet, after all the expected stereotypes, the actresses were pitch perfect and rolicking, hilarious, so talented. This was the funniest show I saw all Festival. I won't spoil it, because if you can see it you absolutely must (it travels quite a bit), but this one scene in the middle, with the costumes and the dance and everything, Dan (my Canadian friend, who also knows what trailer park trash in a North American sense is like) and I were crying we were laughing so much.

3. Plested and Brown present "Health and Stacey"
This one wins for dry humor, audience integration, and improvisational integration of technical difficulties and verbal slips. Also, the set was ingenuous. I wasn't expecting much, the flyers were cheesy, but those two are GENIUS. So quick on their feet, tongue-in-cheek, straight faced, adorably clever, and play off each other perfectly.

Other notable shows:

Ginger and Black
A musical comedic duo. Very dry humor. They never, ever cracked a smile. They were funny, and cute, in an angry kind of way. The song about S&M was hilarious.

Tim Minchin
An Australian musical comedian with very controversial songs. He put on an excellent show, starting at the very beginning when the spotlight was awkwardly off of where he was sitting and he couldn't see his music, so he got up and moved the piano over on the stage, and said "That wasn't part of the show. Bonus!" But even under all the harsh accusations/commentary of his songs and the crude humor and language, he seems really passionate about these ideas the way he understands the world, and I think not at all as callous as he tries to sound.

Camille O'Sullivan
Irish, her stage a Cabaret-esque setup. She was so comfortable, and interacted hilariously with the audience. She was so random and beautifully honest. She made about ten costume changes on stage, in front of our eyes, and just incorporated it into her music around the space. She poured herself glasses of wine as she went, told us to say "meow" at random times, at least once a day. The entire performance was so seamless. Smooth, well done, spontaneous and yet so well thought out. And she's enchanting; her voice, her words, her face, her person.

The Scandalous Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
This is such a historically literary city. And everything that has been written about Edinburgh, or by authors who are from here, it all makes sense. The darkness, the mystery, the black humor.
Jekyll and Hyde was performed in this small, scary venue, in the basement of a building, and you have to go through this back alleyway that leads under a bridge to a poorly lit, empty dead end. We're all standing there out in the street, waiting to hear about where to go, and Hyde comes out of a warehouse door with a loud bang, stumbles across the street to the opposite corner, and stands there peeing on the wall. It was a bit unsettling, because it seems excellent, to put us in the mood, but then there's this very small suspicion that it might not be acting, and that we'll get into the theatre to find out the final show has been canceled because of inappropriate behavior by the star performer. It ends up he was in character. Very well done, only three actors, each one playing a dual role and doing so very clearly, sometimes not even changing the position in which they stood, but they very clearly became another person. I was impressed. That was the last night of the festival, and it was an excellent way to end.

"Folk Rock Hopera"
An Irish man improvised these hilarious raps to the beat/background of simple folk rhythms. The songs came from questions he would ask people in the audience, and turn them into stories on the spot, and he was excellent at rapping. I went twice, and they were quite clearly improvised, because the shows, minus the introduction, were completely different. Very impressive, and hilarious. The first time we went, he kept picking on people from our group, and thus got the impression that over half the audience was from Castle Rock. We had some excellent laughs and cheers, and it was a free show! That was my first show, and it was an excellent way to begin.

Hearing about Han, Phil, Luis, and Paul meeting Neil Patrick Harris. He was in the front of the line; Phil asked him if this was the line for Office Party; he was very polite and said "Yes, it is"; Phil turns away, then does a double-take and asks "Are you by any chance Neil Patrick Harris?" to which he just as politely replies "Why yes, I am"; Phil goes "Oh. Cool." and gives him a thumbs-up. I wish I could have been there to see it. (Both NPH and Phil's very Phil reaction to it.) And Han passing Orlando Bloom on the street, less than an arm's length away. Both of these happened in the first few days of the festival, before I got there. Apparently that is absolutely the best time to go, when almost every show is giving out free tickets, because they're trying to encourage word-of-mouth early on for when the tourists start to arrive. And that is when all the stars show up, probably because the tourists haven't started arriving yet. If I ever get to come back for the Festival, I will aim for the very beginning.

The flame juggler from San Francisco
The most talented out of dozens that I saw; very funny, well-spoken, performing outside in the rain on the grass during Sunday in the Meadows.

Drumming women from Taiwan (?)
(I never caught the name of their group or where they were from, but they looked vaguely Taiwanese. It's likely I'm wrong)
Eight women drumming, switching drums, dancing at the same time. The music was fantastic, the performance was spotless, and they were so graceful. Very well composed. All of them beautiful, and seemed so powerful at the same time. I was entranced, it was very impressive.

And the Not So Notables:

Attack of the Soccer Moms
The name was so promising, and one of the two soccer moms had the facial expressions and voice quite perfectly (and reminds me quite a bit of Sarah Palin, come to think of it) but the rest was shite. Oh man, I can picture it right now.

Missing Terry Pratchett
But then, the chances of us getting to see him were very low to begin with.

Mort
We went to see this at the same time Terry Pratchett was talking, to console ourselves. And we all proceeded to fall asleep at the beginning. It was that. bad. Then we kept seeing the lead performer, Mort, at the Globe karaoke pub, then out on the street, almost every day afterward. He was a jerk when we asked him to take a picture of our group at the Globe. We weren't surprised. We just didn't want to see him over and over again. The first time, the performance, was bad enough.

And the Devil May Drag You Under
Biggest disappointment. I saw one song performed by their main man, which was hilarious and clever and done on a banjo. I was looking forward to seeing the entire show for over two weeks. I get tickets, sit in a small room with only eight other audience members, and the only parts worth seeing in the show were the song I'd already seen and another called "Cheap Shite White Wine" which was funny. But the rest was horribly, awkwardly embarrassing.

What an amazing three weeks. We saw so many fantastic performances, and the city was overwhelming with all the people. But it's also very exhausting, and I'm relieved to have the city back to ourselves. It's much more quiet and Home like this.

TERRY PRATCHETT in Edinburgh!!

2008-08-16T19:18:00.001+01:00

He spoke at the Book Festival today at 1:30. The event probably sold out on the first day of booking, but we went to check yesterday, just in case, and no luck.

So we went to see a theatre production of Mort instead. And it was a flop. More like a high school performance with inexperienced actors than a quality production in a good venue that we were expecting.

We should have gone to the Book Festival during his talk and tried to sneak into the book signing afterward.
I really really wish we had done that instead.

Aaaaah, stop thinking about it.

But he was in my city! Today! Only across the castle from where I am right now, so maybe 1/10 across the city, or less.

And he's probably still in the same city as me, right now!

Things I love about Scotland #1

2008-08-13T17:27:00.000+01:00

The typography you see around on the street is infinitely better than what you see walking around in the US, even in NYC. It's beautiful!

Their signs are so helpful--every street staircase going up to another level of streets tells you exactly where it's taking you, there is no guess-and-miss.

The Scottish are so helpful--the bartenders have no idea how to make mixed drinks, but they try so hard and will even call up their friends to get recommendations for ones you should try.

The windows are always open; you can hear the outside, you can get fresh whiffs of outdoor air.

The sound of rain--even if walking in it gets a little old.

In which we meet much architectural controversy. Oh, the scandal!

2008-08-11T15:14:00.005+01:00

After leaving Hollyroodhouse, I wandered through the controversial new Parliament building. It's beautiful and elegant and strange, modern without being cold and steel and white. It's actually a very warm, wood-based, comfortable building. But I have to agree with its haters, it doesn't fit the city at all.

But I was very impressed by the art exhibits they show and rotate, and that visitors can just wander through the main floors at their leisure.

The main debating room looks like the inside of a cathedral almost. Everything was bright (unfluorescent, thank goodness) light and warm tones of wood.

And the pattern of cut wood on the back wall looks like whisky bottles.

Appropriate, yes?

I sat in that debating hall for a really long time, just reading through all the flyers and handouts I'd collected throughout the day. It was a relief to sit down, and to be in a warm, dry room. I was very comfortable in there, and felt wonderfully inconspicuous. All the other tourists that came into the room with me or after me would sit down for a long time, as well, and new ones were constantly cycling in. I wanted to stay there all afternoon, but eventually forced myself to stand up and continue on my way.

Our lounge/common area in the hostel is very bright and cozy, as well, with large windows and soft couches. Maybe it's too comfortable/unadventurous/lazy of me, but I love to sit there for hours in the early afternoon--it's where I'm sitting now--with the friends I've made here and just read or write or talk or nap.

Saturday night, we had a birthday party for Dan / going-away party for three long-termers who are leaving this week.

I apologize for not being chronological with my posts right now, I'm writing them down as I remember them.

Visiting the home (or prison) of my ancestor.

2008-08-11T14:47:00.006+01:00

Friday morning, I went to Holyroodhouse Palace to explore by myself. I knew Carolyn would give me her scathing disappointment if she heard that I got any further than the weekend without seeing her palace.

Beautiful!! The crest on the front of the palace has two unicorns. I love it. :) There were tapestries completely covering the walls, like wallpaper. But so much classier. Wallpaper is really disappointing compared to detailed woven depictions of epic mythology.

Seeing the Unicorn Tapestries last summer was so unbelievable, it still blows me away.

I couldn't take any pictures inside, unfortunately.

Quick note: My aunt did some family tree/ancestor research and found out that we are descended from the Stewarts, from a cousin of Queen Mary of Scots. That was my little claim-to-fame in elementary school ancestor projects, that yes, the crazy Scottish Mary shared some of the same blood that I do now. I was so proud of that.

The last attraction of Holyroodhouse was the apartments of Mary, which was quite exciting, going back to my roots...in a prison-like tower in rainy Scotland.

BUT the gardens and abbey were closed for the rain! It was a nasty day, but I was completely willing to walk in the water with my umbrella, as I was most excited about the gardens. Luckily, I could fill out a form to get free entrance for the rest of the year as long as I only showed my ticket from the first time. What a deal! So on a sunny day... whenever it comes... I'll go back and take a look around the beautiful gardens and abbey and climb Arthur's Seat.

Not all free comedy is created equal.

2008-08-11T14:07:00.000+01:00

Friday night, I went to the Espionage with Glen to see a free comedy, but the one that was supposed to go on was replaced with one that he had warned me about the day before, a veeeery very awkward man that doesn't seem comfortable in the limelight. He twitched a lot, and had this frustrating nervous tick of picking up his beer glass, and hold it, then set it down. Then pick it up, and put it back down. I started watching the glass instead of him, and waiting with anticipation to see if he ever took a sip from it. Several times, he even got so far as to put it all the way up to his mouth, but would get sidetracked by another thought and just put it down again, without ever having sipped anything from it!

During the entire show, he only succeeded in taking one --count it-- One sip. I was trying so hard not to laugh at his mannerisms, because his jokes most certainly weren't worth it.

All Australian men that I have met have names like Glen, Paul, Mark. I've met maybe five aussie Marks. Short, clipped names, but then they draw out the vowels very long. Maaaaaak (no "r"), Pauuuul.

On Saturday, an Australian girl, Claire, and I saw some free afternoon comedy (at the same place as the horrible act the night before--this was a big improvement) based on Ferris Bueller, and it was reeeaally funny. It was refreshing how much more confident, quick, and to-the-point he was compared to Drinkless Man.

Then I took her back to the Argyle to see the Folk Hop-era guy again, since I'd talked him up so much to her, and it was even funnier the second time. The rough skeleton was the same, of course, but all the content was completely improv and very different from what he had used with us, and imagine--making up funny stories, remembering all the info that the audience members had told you, keeping it in rhythm, singing, and rhyming (roughly), all at the same time. It's incredibly impressive, but light and looks easy at the same time.

There were two old, burly Scottish men sitting right in front of us in the back, and they made the show even funnier. They were rolling laughing the whole time, so he kept picking on them and referring to them and they loved it!! They had really thick brogues, and they would say something, and Claire and I would look at each other like "I know they just spoke in English. But I don't have a clue of what they said!" But Rob (the comedian) would repeat it back every time, like it was perfectly understandable. Such skill, he has.

One of them supplied Coalmining as a subject for the final skit/song, and they had all sorts of coalmining pride and kept cheering during the song. Then Rob made fun of other members of the audience who had left during different points of the show and come back, and he gave them names and just inserted them into the song.

Very funny.

The free shows are very hit-or-miss, but if you keep going to lots of them, you increase your odds of hitting up some really classic ones.

In which we learn what makes a Folk Hop-era.

2008-08-11T14:02:00.001+01:00

In the hostel, there are "short-termers" that stay for a few days at a time, like at any hostel, and there are us "long-termers," and the territorial ways of the long-termers is really funny. "Those short-termers wouldn't get off the couch. I almost screamed at them 'Get off the couch! This is our HOME! Get off my Chesterfield, I live here!!!'"

Friday, six of us from the hostel went on a walk down to the Meadows, this lovely open park area. Right now there is a carnival set up in the Meadows. We were walking around the carnival comparing carnival foods, but then left because the rides were so expensive. I really want to try curry chips, though, they sound fantastic.

As we walked down the main walkway, an Irish comedian came by and was handing out flyers for his show starting in twenty minutes at the Argyle, a pub nearby. He seemed friendly, advertised it as Hip Hop comedy, and lived not too far away from our two Irish girls. The show was really odd, but a bit clever and very funny. We were crammed into this little basement, maybe twenty people total could fit there, and he picked random people in the audience and put them in the spotlight. Then he asked several questions, and made up a "Folk Hopera" that was a weird combination between simple folk guitar chords in the background, a story made on the spot about the two members of the audience, and spoken like a rap.

He chose one of our guys Luis, and asked where he was from, and when he said our hostel, we all cheered, and the comedian was like "Whoooa, weird cult..."

Then at the end he told a random story about how he went with 11 friends to work at SeaWorld SanDiego one summer (!!! Remember all the Irish??) and during the first day of training, he was instructed that if anyone came up and told him "A seagull..." and I finished it with "stole my churro!", then he would have to give them whatever food they had lost. Because the seagulls there are vicious. But of course, if you are staff, you learn the trick, and on your days off you come into the park for free and go up to all of the vendors and say "A seagull stole my churro" and hey! Free food. They'll give you this look like "I know you know the trick, and you did not get attacked by a seagull" but, as it is company policy, they have to give you the food for free.

I told him I had worked at SeaWorld as well, we had a bond.

"A seagull stole my churro!" Oh, the memories.

I do love improv comedy.

I'm receiving conflicting opinions on the availability of jobs during Festival. It seems that if the city population doubles during the month of August with all the international visitors, twice as many jobs would be open, as well. The lady at the office that I've talked to seems to be under the impression that this is the worst possible time in the world to find work, though. But my hostelmates are all reassuring me that "yeah, you'll find loads of jobs. Dan got two offers yesterday."

I'm voting on their side.

Scotland triumphant!

2008-08-07T00:37:00.000+01:00

Haha, and you suckers are all 5-7 hours behind me and this mighty time zone.

I am in...the future!

One uneventful transAtlantic flight later...

2008-08-07T00:33:00.000+01:00

I am here in Edinburgh! And have figured out my plug converter (after it fried my battery recharger last year when I had the wrong plug chosen... it looks like a little puzzle, and I'm not so good with puzzles) and made myself at home in the coziness of the Posh Lounge with about twelve other quiet-nighters who are spending the evening in out of the rain and away from the Festival festivities.

I'm a bit exhausted and not up to braving the rain and the people tonight, not yet. Tomorrow I will explore, but tonight I sleep.

And I made my first grocery run for 22 GBP. Amazing? Yes? I definitely have enough for a week of breakfast cereals, lunch sandwiches, and real cooked meat (chicken breast and spaghetti meat) for dinner dishes. I will get a bit of repetition at first, but who doesn't love sandwiches? No matter where in the world you are? And look at that, if I average 6 GBP for each meal if I were to eat out, even just at small sandwich shops or cafes, that's 6 x 3 x 7 = 126 GBP.

126 - 22 = 104 GBP saved, which with an estimated 2x conversion to USD, is $208 I saved my first week.

One of my roommates, who is from France, asked where I was from in the US. When I said Texas she exclaimed "Oh!! Really! Cowboys!" :) It was funny and cute. I love my state.

In which our explorer will not be stalking J.K.Rowling. She solemnly promises.

2008-08-04T22:39:00.006+01:00

Old-Favorite Location #2 The Elephant House

We visited this tea and coffee house for the first time because of its literary significance--this is the coffee shop in which J.K.Rowling wrote most of the first Harry Potter volume.

But now I plan to go back more than once because they brew the most heavenly vanilla tea I have ever tasted.

Rowling also happens to still live in Edinburgh... Chance sightings, anyone? *wink*

In which only TWENTY-TWO HOURS AND THIRTY MINUTES remain until departure time!!

2008-08-04T21:34:00.008+01:00

In celebration of the fact that I am now less than an entire day way from being in-flight over the Atlantic, here are some of the Edinburgh spots that we visited, or didn't get to explore nearly enough, last summer with which I want to become reacquainted.

Old-Favorite Location #1 Winner of the Wittiest Gift Shop.

This one is for Allison. And you never though gift shops could be clever, did you? (Note to the ignorant: Thistles are Scotland's national emblem.)

The Wikipedia "Scottish thistle/Cotton thistle" article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_thistle explains:

According to legend, an invading Norse army was attempting to sneak up at night upon a Scots army encampment. During this operation one barefoot Norseman had the misfortune to step upon a Scots Thistle, causing him to cry out in pain, thus alerting Scots to the presence of the Norse invaders.

photo: Scottish thistle along the bank of the River Ness outside the city of Inverness in the Scottish highlands.

But please, explain to me how I found a suspiciously familiar character growing in the arid desert of far West Texas?

This variety of thistle grows in innocent little patches in the spreads of dirt around my camp. I just noticed them for the first time this summer, and noted how oddly similar they are to the thistles we found around Scotland last summer.

How can the same thistle, or first-thistle-cousins, be equally compatible in the green, lush, cloudy, rainy trails of the Scottish hills and the brown, dry, murderous-sun, desert plains of Texas's Big Bend region?

photo: Texas thistle (Cirsium texanum) http://picasaweb.google.com/NativePrairiesTexas/SilveusDropseed
PrairiesOfNortheastTexas/photo#4974648642115403794

Let's compare:

Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness, Scotland Hwy 10, middle of Jeff-Davis-Nowhere, Texas

Suspicious? So am I.
Once again, we turn to the Source of all Sources, the Wikipedia of Knowledge. Oh Knowledgeable One, what is the secret to the Purple Thistle's dual-personality?

In the late 19th century, it was introduced to North America and temperate Australia as an ornamental plant, and is now considered a major agricultural and wildland noxious weed. It is difficult to eradicate because of its drought resistance. It can spread rapidly and eventually dense stands prohibit foraging by livestock. Infestations of Cotton Thistle often start in disturbed areas such as roadways, campsites, burned areas, and ditch banks. The weed adapts best to areas along rivers and streams, but can be a serious problem in pastures, grain fields and range areas.

So, this post has evolved from "The Edinburgh to Revisit" to my new series WORMHOLES: the otherworldly parallels between Texas and Scotland. (The name is in progress; new suggestions are always welcome!)

Scotex Wormhole #1: Desert river Texas Scottish thistles.

In which our heroine decides her first purchase in the Old World shall be a cookbook.

2008-08-04T08:31:00.003+01:00

My inability to convert measurements is comically embarrassing. How many bushels are in a ton? How many miles are in a liter? What did the pound say to the gram cracker? "Why, oh why" lamented the third-grade scrawl on my first failed math test "did we ever think we could outsmart the metric system?"