norajean.com

In the end, Makers feels like a personal, cultural, and literary milestone: an employment of the full literary toolbox of SF, in the service of a portrait of how the world actually works. If only every genre author set out with the same high ambitions, there would be no talk of SF’s failures, only triumphs.

Paul Di Filippo, Barnes and Noble

http://craphound.com/

If you’ve never read any of Cory Doctorow’s books then you’ve missed out on something faboo. Check out his site. Buy his books. Change the way you see the world.

Short Bio: Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of the bestselling Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novel LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London. http://craphound.com/bio.php

The first Tuesday of the month is free admission for a handful of museums in San Francisco. I usually go to SFMOMA and I did today.

In January it was their 75th anniversary and I had to laugh to myself because, as Bushyaib says, after 75 years is it still modern art?

There were works there of artists I discovered in Art21 : Doris Salcedo and Kara Walker. Seeing their work in person was very exciting.

Gerhard Richter’s painting: Lesende (reading) was wonderful to see in person. His painting is almost photographic. I’ve only seen this picture in books on on the web. In person you can see the brush strokes, you can see that the newspaper is just suggested but not exact. As I was marveling at it a man came by and I mentioned to him that it was a painting. “You mean it’s not a photograph?” he says. “Look at the brush strokes on her neck.” I pointed out. He then was amazed at how it looked like a photograph.

To see a painting that looks like a photograph only in print or on the web does not do it justice. So that was a special moment for me.

Diego Revera: Flower Carrier

I saw a bunch of old favorites like, Diego Revera’s “Flower Carrier”. It is delicious to look closely at his paintings. I could get lost in the basket weave.

There were special exhibits of when the Museum was first opened; how it had to be moved so the United Nations could meet and draft their mission statement.

Four Men With Frames

SFMOMA has tables with books chained to the table, looped through a hole drilled through the whole book, you can see but you can’t walk off with them, a good practice actually. There was a book on Tintype photos that went from 1864 to 1931. That was fascinating because since Tintype was immediate and cheap, ordinary people could get their pictures taken. The formality of Victorian society could be turned up on its head as regular folks realized they could have fun while having their pictures taken.

“Four Men With Frames” was so playful and reminded me of the Beatles, especially the fellow in the lower right. Doesn’t he remind you of John Lennon?  It was my favorite tintype photo in the whole book.

I talked with a lady named Barbara who teaches art and I gave her my card, told her that there are Word docs and PDF files she can print out to use as tutorials for polymer clay on my website. I chatted with a lady who was having her 60th birthday, “So you survived your second Saturn Return?” and after a few minutes of chatting she asked for my card. I got two compliments on the lace blouse I wore, which I found in recycling. I got to play with the cutest 5 month old baby who laughed at my silly noises and leaned forward and reached out for me. In another three months my silly noises will make her cry for her mother. I got to chat with a couple of young ladies sharing with them some of the information I knew about various artists. I spent more money than I had planned because I couldn’t resist buying a book and some food and drink. All and all it was good day and I’m bushed. I wanted to post a mention of just some of the things I saw today before I fell out.

I finally got some new content up on my website. The NJ cane effort.  I also finished archiving December 2009. Plus I archived all of 2009 Highlights.

As I was in the middle of doing that and rearranging my astrology books I was introduced to a friend of my son. The gentleman is named John Van Dinther, who came over to learn Kung Fu. When new people come over I ask “What do you do?” and he said he helps small businesses.

I thought “Whoa”. Then I asked him if he’d like to barter some of his expertise in exchange for my doing something for him. I won’t go into what that something is, but it’s legal, and private. Suffice it to say he agreed to the barter.

His blog is http://2hats.blogspot.com/ and he has some good advice. What is really wonderful is he offers advice that is also metaphysical, like advising small business owners to meditate.  The “two hats” refer to the two roles small business people often find themselves juggling: one of producer of the product or providing the service, and the other is of the business manager of their small business.

Lord knows I have a difficult time getting a handle on the business side of the equation.

I wrote a business plan with the help of the Women’s Initiative so I know I don’t need an infusion of any one else’s money. I just need to get my ducks in a row with regards to running a legit business.

I also find myself at a fork in the road with regards to what business I am going to persue. You all know me as a polymer clay artist. Some of you know me as an astrologer. I’ve been studying astrology since 1966 and working with polymer clay since 1999. Recently, during our financial crisis in December, I picked up a couple of astrology readings and I found that I really missed doing readings.

StarGazers: Pluto is conjunct my ascendant so a change in my persona seems to be what is going on with me.

I don’t think I need to abandon my art production in exchange for doing astrology readings. I think I can do both. I am doing both at this time. So it’s nice to know that John is open to the type of small business person such as myself, the metaphysician who is making effort not only to make money but also to do some good in the community.

It feels good to add new content to my website, which, thank God, I am going to be able to renew. Whew and double Whew. It feels good to get back to blogging. It was not prudent to put energy into my blogs when I was in a struggle to save my apartment. Now I feel very positive having met John, because I feel I am back on the path of setting up my business. So a good start for 2010, all in all.

Back in April Debbie, Kathy and I came up with the idea of opening a Yahoo Group called “The Trading Post” where creative people could trade supplies.

“The Trading Post” was closed down today.  The time and energy needed to start up a new group just wasn’t there.

Art:21

artists & episodes – To date, 86 featured artists in the series demonstrate the breadth of artistic practice in the United States today. Each one-hour program is loosely organized around a theme helps audiences analyze, compare and juxtapose the artists profiled.

I watched all 16 one hour episodes of Art:21, an examination of art in the 21st Century.

I feel like that kid in the Gary Larson cartoon, holding up his hand in class: “Teacher may I be excused? My brain is full.”

I don’t know how I feel about contemporary art. Some of it speaks to me and some of it is right strange and hurts my brain. When some of the artists speak about their “process” I feel like I’ve been beamed in from another planet, with a working knowledge of English and no idea of what some of these artists are talking about.

It’s the artists that “went to school” that confound me the most. The “self taught” artists I can relate to. They are just disturbed individuals who “had to” create, just like me. There is no high brow goal to express some juxtaposition between this obscure abstract concept and a pork chop.

Hells bells, I went to college, got a BA in English Literature, and I don’t talk about writing or reading literature with obtuse references like some of these artists.

This is not to say that the Art:21 series is not brain food, it is, it’s just sometimes some things one ingests gives one indigestion, a bit of under cooked potato, or some over cooked baloney.

On the whole I do recommend artists to go check out the free streaming videos of this series. Bushyaib walked by while I’m working on beads and watching these videos on my computer and he said it looked like I was inspired. I said it was like two mirrors facing each other making the endless hallway of reflection. An artists watching a program about artists talking about their art, doing their art, arty farty poo poo give me a break.

All that art talk made me have to take a break, for a couple of days, doing house hold chores, to settle my brain a bit. I wondered if I was supposed to have some high brow abstract notion about what I do or is the sensual appeal of polymer clay and the delight the colors give to my eyes enough?

Enough for whom? Who am I trying to impress? Am I not the 900 lb gorilla at my own work table? Am I not the only one I need to please when it is all said and done at the end of the day? By golly by gum I realized that I had confused myself for no good reason.

If these other artists have their own philosophy and high minded concepts about why they do what they do, then fine, bless their hearts.

I don’t. There’s no blue book on how to be an artist. I feel more grounded in the physical world. Does it feel good to the touch? Does it make me feel good looking at the designs? Did it turn out as I had hoped? If not, then why not? What did I learn while I was making a thing.

More important than what I am getting out of the process is can I share what I’ve experienced with others? Can I take what I just did and make it into a tutorial? Am I keeping my promise to the ClayMates who visit my website to have new content for them to look at on a regular basis?

Then it dawned on me that I’m not an artists just for my own self alone. My being an artist is not an end, but a means to an end, and that is to be able to teach. Most specifically to teach for free online. That’s more important than any of the ideas or concepts I’ve been rolling about in my brain pan while watching Art:21.

Some people say, “Those who can’t DO teach.” and that’s bullshit.

I say, “Those who can’t TEACH can only do for themselves.”

Desiree once told me that she admires how I can slow down a process to steps, take the pictures, put them up on web pages, add captions and then finish a thing. This was a long time ago and she’s gone on to create some glorious tutorials on her website. But why I mention this is because it is a different sort of process to be creating something and to be thinking of the ClayMates who might also want to make something like this.

So, watch Art:21 and come to your own conclusions. I was going to grab a picture online of a brain and do some PhotoShop fancy dance to it for this post but I think I’ll hold off for now. Maybe I’ll add one later. But for now… this is my story and I’m sticking to it.

I started this on October 22, 2009, the day after starting the new accounts at FaceBook and MySpace. It’s been a week now and I have over 60 “friends”. I’ll admit to about 40 and the rest are new to me or I’m part of a fan group.  So here is the post I couldn’t get on my blog because my webhost’s firewall is just so hair trigger, blocked my IP. Let’s hope it is fixed now.

MySpace, FaceBook, Voila!

I bit the bullet and created pages on three social networking sites. My main motivation for setting up accounts with MySpace and FaceBook was to prevent anyone else from setting up an account in my name and writing untoward things on it. I worked for years to get name recognition in the polymer clay world. For 10 years I’ve been teaching for free online, sharing my polymer clay journey with the group members and the general public, creating a following and building a brand. I wanted to lock down NoraJean and AuntyAlias on the social networking sites to protect my brand.

I had resisted MySpace and FaceBook for a long time. I pay for a domain and a website, web building and computer graphics software, digital camera and wacom tablet. I figured that these social networking sites are for people who didn’t have the resources to create and maintain a web presence. Since 1999 the dozens of volunteers and I have hosted the clay art Yahoo Group and that was my social network where those who wanted to learn how to get a grip on their clay could join and hang out.

I didn’t think I needed to be on those social networking sites. But I have been getting invitations and nudges from friends and family, some of whom do all their social networking on the two major networking sites of MySpace and FaceBook. I saw other artists, people I know had their own websites, had their own blog space, join those sites, and I wondered why.

It was to gather the folks on those sites and pull them to the main websites. Oh, slap me on my forehead. I hadn’t thought of that. If I have an account there I could link that account to my main website. Call me slow, maybe I’ve been so busy creating new content for my site, keeping up with the ClayMates on the Yahoo Group, that angle hadn’t occurred to me. 

So I bit the bullet and set up three accounts today. Here are my one day observations:

I like that I could customize the page for MySpace but didn’t like that I couldn’t state that my relationship was “complicated”. The interface with MySpace is easier to learn. You get an actual url with your name or nick name on it. You also get a MySpace email address that filters to the email you signed on with. If you want you can let MySpace search your address book for people to invite. I skipped that. I have a gazillion addresses in my address book from hosting CITY-o-Clay, work and other non-art contacts. That wholesale “invite” is intrusive and not a little lame. You can start a blog. All in all it’s comfortable. Plus you can delete the account when you’re done with it.

FaceBook has always had a problem with not deleting your account but you “deactivate” it. That’s dicey.  FaceBook lets you state that your relationship is “complicated” but everyone is stuck with the generic blue and white look. You do not get a recognizable url with your name or nick name for FaceBook, you get a number. Take a number and stand in line. I didn’t get to explore as much as I needed to.

As soon as I verified my FaceBook account my girlfriend, Angela, hits me up with an instant message and we ended up chatting through FaceBook. So that was an interesting blast from the past. Not Angela being a blast from the past, IMing someone. I’ve not chatted with anyone on IM in a long time. There were some bugs. Like I wanted to change the FaceBook page and I ended losing the IM with Angela. I didn’t know where it was although I could hear the “bing bing” of her posting new comments. We tossed message back and forth with one another until, for reasons I have no idea, the IM function came back. I don’t like that I could not keep a record of the IM chat. Doing a “select all” selects the whole page, not just the IM thread. Highlighting and scrolling up or down was spotty and ineffective.

There’s a lot of family and friends on FaceBook. My first reaction wasn’t as good as MySpace. It looks institutional, everyone having the same page colors. What’s with this “wall” business? Everything people write to you gets put on the wall? I still need to poke about and see what is going on with sending messages that are private. There seems to be a lot of games, online computer games, that people can play on FaceBook. I can see how it can become a time sink.

Voila is a EU polymer clay social networking site that I found through one of my polymer clay newsletters. It looked so fresh and new I thought, why not? My website is linked to a lot of overseas sites, I can tell by looking at the incoming traffic stats, so it’s not like I’m totally unknown over there. It’s a nice interface, easy to get around, but different from what I’m used to here in the States. I was able to load up 10 pictures that change on the profile page like a over active slide show. I alternated between sculpted figures and mini food, then some beads. But where did the captions go? There is also a photo gallery, a different space to load up pictures. I loaded up AbaFold Lady and she showed up on the front page of the site.

So that’s the dish from the Left Coast. Everyone who has been nudging me to join MySpace and FaceBook can now add me to their “friends” list, give me a “poke”, write things on my wall.  If nothing else I’ve locked down Nora Jean and Aunty Alias at the two behemoths and that was my intent for today. 

Second Day:

By the second day I have nearly 30 “friends” on Facebook and only one contact on MySpace. It’s puzzling because I think that MySpace has a nicer look and feel to it. I did a search for news “FaceBook vs MySpace statistics”. The articles I found say that FaceBook is growing in leaps and bounds. That MySpace isn’t growing as much. FaceBook is privately owned in Palo Alto and MySpace is in Beverly Hills. MySpace is owned by Fox, which could piss some folks off who have a beef with Glen Beck.

It is still puzzling how MySpace is getting owned by FaceBook. The FaceBook updates use the belt and suspender approach. You get an email notification and you get a virtual notification when you go to your home page.

What I’m seeing is the way the social network grows. I’m connected to Alice Stroppel through Art-Insights. She’s on FaceBook too. She accepted my request as a friend. Her friends have people who are professional polymer clay people. So I requested a link to Donna Kato and got accepted. Now that brings a bit of status to my list of friends. The more professional clayers accept my request for friendship the higher my status becomes, or so it would seem.

Through a former BossLady, my darling Mz EdyMay, I did find where Allie moved to with her sons, so I sent a request for being a friend to Allie and am waiting for a reply.

Two out of four of my sons are on FaceBook and three of my former husbands. LOL I did join the fan club for Yassir Chadly, Said’s father, because no matter what happened between us I am still a fan of his music. If the father of my older two sons kept on painting I’d have joined him as a fan, but he’s into holistic health and I’m not feeling motivated to contact him for that reason.  I found one of my son’s ex-wives. I asked for a link to her and that should be interesting to have contact with my only grand daughter for the first time in three or more years.

I always wondered how websites got those little icons to show up when I bookmarked the url.

You know the ones I’m talking about. Yahoo, Google, Bablefish all have those little icons by their url when you bookmark them, as well as before their url in the browser.

Well I found out how to make one and put it on my website.

http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/

It says you can make one for your Twitter account. I don’t know. I don’t tweet.

How I made mine was with PhotoShop. I opened a new file 16 x 16 pixels. Now that’s really small so you have to enlarge it as much as you can. Use the smallest brush size. I stuck with two colors: a yellow that has a bit of brown for a simulated gold color, and black. I did the NJ cattle brand. Saved it as favicon and uploaded it that website. That generated a zip file which I saved.

My Favicon

What was in the zip file was an animated gif and a static jpg of the favicon I made, plus a text file with instructions.

The instructions were simple. Put two lines of code on my home page between <head> and </head>. Upload the two icons to my root directory.

I tested it by book marking my home page and it showed up. \(*o*)/ Yeah!

But it wasn’t showing up on the browser.  ( :-/ )   hmmmm

So I went and poked about and found that if I emptied my cache it would show up. I did and it did.

Now every page of my website will have that goofy favicon before the url and when it is bookmarked.

I’m so stoked.

But then again, I am an easy date.

There are other favicon generators, but I found this one recommended on some geek forum. No one followed up on that forum post with “You Loozer, You Sux, that was a phat hack.” So I figured it was ok.

So I thought I’d share my little geek moment. I got a Favicon and no one is going to see it until they empty their cache and go to my website again. Oh but then they do they’ll say…

That NJ has too much time on her hands.

Update: I had to remove the flash application of the carp and the hamster for this blog to be seen correctly in FireFox. What a bummer. I did so love feeding my fake fish and faux hamster. But their presence on my side bar was making this blog all crazy looking in FireFox.    too bad for that.

I was pretty happy with myself having added the carp and hamster in my side bar, that you can feed by tapping them with your cursor. I thought I’d add some text under them to tell folks, “tap to feed”.  So I added some text to the side bar page in my theme folder on my site and went to see how they look in IE and FireFox.

IE was fine, no problemo. FireFox was WHACKED, the side bar is all screwed up, the calendar morphed into some monster. I did a search “WordPress display problem FireFox” it seems to be a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) problem and I am hunting down the solution.

In the meanwhile, this blog and my other WordPress blog is best seen in IE.

When Steven handed me his card I squinted, because I didn’t have my bifocals on and then squinted some more…

“Illustrations and Luxography”

“What is Luxography?” I asked. I come from a blue collar automatic offset printing background. I am a geek. I’ve never heard of Luxography.

Evidently… after I checked out his gallery website

http://paroxysm.com/steven-m-scotten

I found the explanation:

Literally “drawing with light,” the luxograph is a photographic print exposed not by the light passing through a film negative, but by a microproccessor-driven laser. Luxography is a photo-printmaking process that borrows elements from lithography and drawing to make a photographic image built with hand-drawn lines.

Well shut my mouth wide open, as they were wont to say in the hood, back in the day. I didn’t know that.

So after poking about the Paroxysm website I did some more searches and found his blog. I just love the internet. It used to be more difficult to find out stuff about people and near impossible to discover what opinions they held on various topics.

Bushyaib said, “Mom, Steve’s a SciFi buff, big time.” raising his eyebrows for emphasis.

“Know for LEXX?” I asked

“Lexx?” he repeats hesitantly as he’s putting on his motor cycle gear. “No I don’t think so.”

“Oh then you are in for a treat. ” I chortled, “One day you’re going to come over and we’re going to have a LEXX marathon. I’ll make pop corn and lemonade. The first series is made of 4 movies. The rest are TV episodes.” I rattled on.

I told him about how I went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the last LexxUnCon, to get permission from Lex Gigeroff to use the characters, Kai, Xev, and Stanley, to teach sculpting. I showed him the LEXX figure.

Lexx hanging out at the Vermont Farmhouse Jr.

He noticed the National Geographic map of the Universe on the wall. Good call. I notice what people notice on my wall, it tells me stuff about them. I told him I have it there to remind me of my place in the universe when I think I have problems.  He said that it’s amazing that there’s as much “territory” going in the other direction.  Oh Joy, he’s a brainiac. Wonderful.

He told me what Luxography was and I told him that I know how to break down an automated offset printer and clean it of ink, a skill not a lot of women have. We talked about the rise of computers but “Printers still need to be cleaned.” He observed.

“Oh you’re such an interesting person. I’m so glad I met you. You will come visit again and we’ll watch LEXX movies.” I gushed as I shook his hand.

It’s not often that you get to meet people who are interested in similar things you are. I mean, printing, computers, he has a blog for goodness sake, art, the cosmos, and SciFi. That’s right exciting really.

Oh, he’s having an open house, studio thing, October 9-11th. He says he’ll give Bushyaib a post card about it with the information. I’m SO going because I’ve never seen Luxography up close. I didn’t know what it was at all until this evening.

When I get the information I’ll post about it here, help expand Steven’s electronic footprint. I’m even going to set up a new tag, “Interesting New People”. I’m looking forward to meeting new people, artists, locals, it’s all part of the big plan for my new life. That’s the ticket.

Late night update: I have to be more careful when blogging late at night. I’m so used to spelling Luxor because of my interest in Egypt, that I originally spelled “Luxography” as “Luxorgaphy”.  I caught it AFTER I sent Steven an email about this blog post.

Subhanallah: Only Allah is free from imperfections. And at least I cop to it.

Astrol-CITY Chart

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astrol-CITY/

I had started a PHP Nuke section that was focused on astrology and it got hosed with my old web host.

I have been blogging a bit about astrology here in NJ-Designs because reading charts has been a way I’ve made money in the past.

But I wanted more than a blog post now and then. I didn’t want to do a blog dedicated to astrology because that doesn’t allow easily shared dialogue with the readers.

So for the New Moon, and all those oppositions to Uranus from Virgo, the end of Ramadan and the start of Rosh Hashanah, I created a new Yahoo Group under the CITY-Lists umbrella. The new Yahoo Group is called Astrol-CITY.

Now on the home page it does state that membership will be limited to CITYzens, people who are already members of one of the CITY-Lists groups. But I’ve already broke that policy by inviting a girlfriend of mine who is not part of any CITY-Lists groups. I’ve known her for years and exchange email with her just
about every day.

What I wanted to avoid was a rash of “strangers” joining who didn’t know how to comport themselves in a civil manner. I wanted to avoid anti-astrology religious fanatics who would aim to disrupt the peace of our group.

I have two volunteers who have offered their assistance. One is a Christian and another is a Jew. I am a back sliding Muslim, truth be known. We all have put aside our religious differences to join together in this astrology group because we are dedicated to helping ourselves and others in any way we can.

Astrology is a tool and I believe that it is God’s mercy that we have systems like astrology to help us day to day. Only a merciful God would give us lines in our hands, stars in the sky, that will yield insight to our nature.

I don’t think that a system like astrology is in conflict with religious belief when it is used as a tool and not worshiped. One doesn’t worship a hammer or saw, one uses it to get to building something. So too with astrology, one doesn’t worship it, but use it as a tool to help us understand ourselves and others a little better.

I also don’t think that one’s natal chart is written in stone. It’s not an excuse for inexcusable behavior. “Oh I’m a hippo with a penis rising, and my moon is in a pizza pie. I can’t change who I am. It’s fated.” That’s all crap that kind of talk.

I see one’s natal chart as default switches. Those influences will be in play if you don’t do anything about changing yourself. If you have something in your chart that is a challenge, then rise to the occasion and face that challenge, like squared aspects for example. If you have opposition aspects then that’s not bad luck, it’s an opportunity to find balance.

There are a lot of “difficult” aspects in my natal chart and by knowing them I know myself, I know what opportunities and challenges I have. By knowing my natal chart I was privy to hidden talents, like writing, which isn’t something that was thrown in my lap with a trine aspect, but it was something I had to work toward with a sextile aspect.

This new Yahoo Group was created with the intent that people might need some help in teaching themselves astrology, like I taught myself.

Sometimes in life you don’t have the nurturing you wished you had when learning a new skill. That’s an opportunity to provide that nurturing to others. Just like if you feel you missed out in having an older brother or sister, you can volunteer to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization and give that energy to a younger person.

I’m not an expert with astrology, but I know a bit more than most and still have a lot to learn going forward. The new astrology group was created for peaceful folks who are interested good fellowship while learning to use astrology as a self help tool.

If you’ve found out about this through my blog and want to join, then put that in your subscription note: Read this on NoraJean’s blog. It’s like saying “Groucho sent me”.  I’ll approve your membership but keep you on Moderated status until you show that you’re peaceful and not there just to flame folks and be uncivil.

The Saturn opposed Uranus transit has made enough people uncivil and it is not appropriate for any of the CITY-Lists groups, not just Astrol-CITY.