Live Clay
Ceramics & Custom Urns by Laura Bruzzese
TBT Father’s Day Fashion Edition: 32 Ghastly Ads from the 70’s
I came across this collection on newslinq.com and thought it was hilarious and laughing on a Thursday is always a good thing. Most of the captions are theirs but I added a few of my own where I just couldn’t resist. Check out the very last ad — write your answers in the comments and maybe it will turn into a contest! With a prize!
I’m afraid to ask why “horizontal opening” matters.
Someone should profit from my daughter’s childhood, and it’s gonna be me
Just a quickie today to let you know that I’ve decided to clean out my basement and profit from the spoils. Because there’s no better time than during the vacant days of the holiday season to take on a major project that involves lots of dirt and little tangible reward.
This odyssey began on Thanksgiving when I went down there, looked around, and decided I was turning into the hoarder I bought my house from.
My basement was turning into her yard.
Unacceptable.
So, I spent the entire day in a dust mask sorting through hideous piles of junk, giving thanks that there was some valuable stuff mixed in: throw away, give away, ebay. Yes! I have discovered ebay to be a wondrous vehicle of dispersal for Isabella’s most treasured childhood possessions, or at least those with some resale value.
We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
–Winston Churchill
We make a life by what we give. Then repo and sell on ebay. Make life as profitable self-enriching as possible.
–Laura Bruzzese
What am I gonna do for others this holiday season? Yeah, right — what am I gonna do for ME. It’s the thought that counts? Forget it! I want my money back.
I don’t know what’s more fun, recouping a percentage of my birthday, Christmas, and yard sale presents to Isabella, or writing the descriptions (click to enlarge).
This could be yours, but hurry, the auction ends soon!
Who knows, when I run out of doll clothes and plastic toys, maybe I’ll move on to my own collection of useless objects — I still have half a basement to go and the holiday season has only just begun.
A Borrowed Thanksgiving Story, Part I
Recently, I read a story on Facebook that I loved so much I could hardly stand it. I thought it was especially poignant this time of year, so I asked my friend if I could re-print her story here. Maybe you will love it, too. I’ll post it in three bite-sized morsels, nice and symmetrical during this season of our official, government-sanctioned day of Thanks.
Lili & Me
Lili and I were friends way back when, during the era of unfulfilled romantic pursuits and pronounced unpopularity that defined my early high school experience. I was shy, freaky-haired and in possession of few talents save for playing classical piano, a respectable ability that bore no social currency whatsoever.
Weird bangs and pony tails were a must during the time before modern hair products. So was dressing like a boy.
Lili, on the other hand, was confident, funny, smart, and theatrically gifted.
That’s her in the front, relaxed and confident.
Perhaps it was the last of these attributes that initially drew me to Lili, as one of my latent adolescent dreams was to be a thespian, this dream having sprung from an earlier, more noble ambition to be a professional rodeo clown (reluctantly abandoned when we severed our rural roots and moved into town).
Acting would be no easy task for an awkward introvert like me, with no training except for a turn as a giant witch in a middle school play. And, okay, to be honest, even that consisted of me hiding under a 7-foot, black-robed puppet, cackling and speaking anonymously while the papier-mache head assumed all the risk of social rejection.
But back to Lili and the theater.
Almost looks like me if you squint. After a glass of wine.
Freshman year, I convinced Lili to audition with me for a local production of The Wizard of OZ. Forget the high school stage, I thought, one is never too young to strive for community theater gold!
Unfortunately, my blind quest for fame and applause left me sadly ignorant of a few of the more subtle aspects of professional acting. The audition process, for example. What I failed to appreciate in advance, and came to understand only after our parents had dropped us off at the audition, was that if you are auditioning for a musical, you really should know at least one song and be able to sing it well. We did not.
But, what ho! I thought, here we are, young and inept, but driven… let’s improvise! A rose is a rose is a rose, I say, bring on the accompanist!
And with that, we auditioned in tandem, singing a perfectly horrible rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow choreographed with much waggling of eyebrows, shuffling of feet, and a great rippling of arms at key intervals. Guaranteed, it was the most cringe-worthy three minutes of the day for the various directors who sat before us, stifling laughter.
A small part of me died that day. The actress part. She resettled into the landscape of anonymity, the dark recesses of that witch puppet who should be blamed to this very day for anything cackling and snarky that comes out of my mouth. She is gone. But Lili, at least, made that otherwise humiliating audition experience fun. (Surprisingly, she has no memory of it at all.)
Maybe straightening my hair and wearing designer sweatshirts will generate distinction where the theater failed.
You know how some people leave their fingerprint on your life by saying or doing something relatively insignificant, but something that creates a shift — a moment so subtle that it would go unnoticed if not for the fact that you can still remember it 30 or 40 years later? Well, for me, above and beyond our Wizard of Oz debacle, one of those moments belongs to Lili. It went something like this: “Laura, you’re really funny. You shouldn’t let [best friend at the time] push you around.”
Lili and I lost touch after she moved to another high school, but reconnected a few years ago on Facebook. I’ll end my introduction to Lili by thanking her for encouraging the funny, ugly-awkward me to come out from hiding in another girl’s shadow (or at least consider why I was there). A girl who was athletic, extroverted, and more popular than me, and under whose dominant personality I couldn’t have begun to discover my own voice or vision. Thanks, Lili.
![We had curly hair in common. [photo courtesy Lili B]](https://liveclay.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/lili21.jpg)
We have curly hair in common. [photo courtesy Lili B]
June — Aug In Pictures (random order)
June 3, Paris, France: Isabella discovers a hair dryer on a hose, Hotel Nadaud.
June – Aug: Garcia sisters stage a hostile takeover of my entire back yard.
July 21, Taos, NM: Disturbing merry-go-round horses constructed of wood and mops, Taos Fiesta.
May 30: Travel from Paris to the small village of Bons-en-Chablais to stay with the most generous friends on the planet.
August 24: With little hope of reclaiming her lost territory, Velma sits alone in the onion patch.
June 1, medieval village of Yvoire, France: Charlie’s Angels was invented here.
July 20, Santa Fe, NM: Greener Grass, 20″ h x 23″ w, by Robert La Duke, good friend & former studio-mate at art school. (Image courtesy Meyer Gallery East.)
June 1, Yvoire, France: Hotel Restaurant du Port, Lake Geneva.
Petite perch straight from lake, fried & served with lemon sauce, salad, pommes frites.
June 12-July 17: Garcia goes “broody,” devoting herself exclusively to a growing mound of infertile eggs.
June 27, Lenox, MA: Drop off Isabella at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute where she will spend the next six weeks. Without me.
June 2, Lake Annecy, France: The world’s cleanest lake.
June 1, Chamonix, France: Cable car to peak, Mont Blanc (3842 m.).
My idea of hell, 2317 m.
July 20, Santa Fe, NM: Encounter the world’s most hideous ass-faced spider.
August 9, Pittsfield, MA: “Hike” (walk) through Audubon Wilderness Sanctuary with my parents, insisting we stop to take a selfie on a precarious bridge over mosquito-infested stream.
June 15: Rufina, sweet Rufina.
I almost titled this “Head Shot.” Not funny. Not really.
August 22, Tesuque, NM: Don Pasquale, Santa Fe Opera
Late Juneish: Micro toads appear in the yard. For the first time in 8 years. My neighbor will blame me for this.
June 2, Annecy, France.
July 26: The looming threat that Garcia will actually die trying to hatch infertile eggs necessitates the acquisition of two new Garcias. Ridiculous creatures.
June 1, Bons-en-Chablais, France: You say Julie Andrews, I say Lyme’s disease.
Mid-July garden.
July 30: New work, hand-painted cups with skull and original drawing decals; 4 oz-8 oz.
August 9, Lenox, MA: Pick up Isabella from Tanglewood, come to the realization she doesn’t actually need me anymore.
August 24: Visitor in my studio, discovered too late.
The Inadvertent Sausage Smuggler, or Declare Your Meat In Minnesota
Okay, so this travel series is almost done. I’ll finish with some gorgeous pictures from the French/Swiss Alps and Mont Blanc in the next few weeks.
But first, a rant. This one about the Customs racket in Minnesota.
So there we were, freshly off the plane, exhausted and hungry (Air France had “run out of vegetarian meals,” so we were surviving on those little butter patches and chocolate). I was feeling nauseous and high on jet fuel fumes and lack of food–truly like the voms were right around the corner. A travel wreckage. I didn’t even recognize our own suitcase until it had gone around the carrier like, 35 times. That was our first delay. Then, it was off to the Customs line.
I had filled out the declaration form on the plane claiming the tea and chocolate we’d bought, remembering at the last minute the half-eaten apple and bread still in my backpack. As we waited our turn, I watched as about 14 bags of dried things were removed from luggage belonging to a couple who appeared to be from India or Pakistan. I could hear the head Customs agent — a sturdy, elfin man with a Fargo accent and a superior sense of himself — lecturing them, “Honesty is always the best policy…”
Glad it’s not me, I thought.
Our first bag went right through, but the second was pulled off the conveyor for what I thought was a routine inspection. Customs Nazi rooted through my underthings and toiletries, fishing around for what I assumed was the chocolate. But no.
I gasped in wide-eyed horror as he whipped out what you would’ve thought, judging from his triumphant “Wooooooeeeeey!”, was a live goat.
“Ah ha!” he exclaimed, hand raised high in the air, white-knuckled fingers curled around a bag of…
Sausages. Contraband. Undeclared meat.
What?! Holy crap, I’d totally forgotten about the local, organic, herbed and peppered, specialty hand-sausaged sausages I’d bought for my mom. (I thought this would be a nice present since the last sausage she bought for herself in France was eaten by the dog before she got a single bite.)
Sausage. I had wrapped it in three plastic bags, stuck it in a zipper pocket so it wouldn’t touch the rest of our stuff (we’re vegetarian) and promptly erased it from my consciousness.
The most glamorous picture I could find and it still looks gross.
I did my best to explain the situation to Customs Nazi, starting with, “I might throw up on you, but….” and using every wild hand gesticulation I could to convey our tale of good-faith declaration, vegetarianism (“Then who’s the sausage for, huh???!!”), sleep deprivation, feeling like Air France was actually the Hunger Games, etc., etc. No sympathy whatsoever.
Rather, after some shuffling back and forth to his computer, and a grand waggling of his eyebrows, Customs Nazi informed me that I would be receiving a penalty that day. Of 300 — THREE HUN-DRID — dollars!!! For failing to declare the contraband, which he victory-slammed into the trash with a leap and a fist-pump. (Strangely, there was no sound when it landed in the big metal can, leading me to believe there’s a chute that connects directly to the cafeteria, or a black market in the basement.)
My weeping pleas for leniency were met with, “I can’t treat you differently than I did them [the Indian couple], just because you’re a US Citizen, now can I?”. Really? So, a few forgotten sausages in the bag of a tax-paying, law-abiding, sickly US citizen should receive the same penalty as suitcases full of lentils belonging to foreign nationals who were clearly lying on their form??
The guy informed me that I could either pay the $300 there and then, or appeal in Federal court, but that would cost at least $1,000. I stared at him blankly and started speaking my faux French, turning to lunacy as a last resort. He remained unsympathetic and asked if I needed medical assistance.
He asked again for the $300 and I said I had nothing but 20 Euros (true). When he asked for a credit card, I said it was over limit (lie). When he asked if there was someone I could call to “help me out”, I said no. So, he finally gave me a copy of my citation and a paper with the address to mail my $300 within 21 days — strange how this offer didn’t arrive until he’d tried to intimidate the money out of me in every other way.
“Soup-SON!” I grabbed the papers and off we ran to our flight home, where they were waiting for us.
I will use the next 21 days to find out how I might get the penalty waived, or at least reduced, on the grounds that while I am guilty of inadvertent sausage smuggling, 1) it was an honest mistake and 2) Customs Nazi was sneaky and obnoxious.
Opéra national de Paris & Montemarte
Here is the magnificent Opéra national de Paris (Palais Garnier), designed by Charles Garnier. It was the setting for Phantom of the Opera, which has added significantly to its tourism value.
This box for the Phantom was added about five years ago because tourists kept asking where it was.
We went on a paid tour (around 90 min.) and it was well worth it — for the history of the Opéra as well as Pairs. Here are a few interesting things:
- It was built by Napoleon III after someone tried to assassinate him in front of the old, temporary opera house. He decided that the best way to avoid being killed on the way to the theater in the future was to build a brand new one, complete with his own private, more secure entrance.
- The Opéra, with its resplendent glamor and opulence, was the place to see and be seen by the wealthy of Paris. When it opened 1874, there were more gaslights inside the Opera than in the whole city of Pairs.
- Opera and ballet came to France via Italy (teatro and balletto), who stole the ideas from the Greek.
- The French developed ballet as it’s known today, based on geometry: hands held in circles representing the continuity of life, feet positioned in triangles representing stability.
- Italian teatro were stories from Greek mythology set to music. The Opéra is full of statues of Apollo with his lyre, and other gods and goddesses related to music.
- Napoleon III never actually walked through his private entrance to see a performance because he died in England before it was finished.
In the entrance hall.
Foyer
Isabella practiced some of what she’d learned on the tour in front of the mirrors in the foyer.
From the Opéra, it was on to Montemarte, the artsy district of Paris where the famous Impressionist painters and other artists hung out.
Edgar Degas apartment (so says that little unreadable square sign).
We almost made it to the house where Van Gogh lived with his brother Theo for two years, but we got distracted by the cafe where Amélie was filmed (looks nothing like it did in the movie). We were hungry so we stopped there for a puff pastry with vegetables and an accidentally ordered (but delicious) salmon tartare.
Montemarte was a great place to wander, with lots of thrift stores and used clothing shops. We stopped at Lila Paris on rue des Martyrs, a shop of jewelry and hair accessories created exclusively by the owner, Lila.
Isabella’s one souvenir came from Lila, this beautiful headband.
When I asked Lila how she has time to make everything, she said she simply doesn’t have a life — when her family gets together on weekends, she is working. After being so accustomed to shops full of Chinese imports in the US, it was great to pay an artist directly for her work.
The next day we were off to Bons en Chablais, France (near the Swiss border) for some fun with old friends. See you there!
Being in Paris
Ceiling in Napoleon III Residence
Welcome back to Paris! Fortunately for us, our friend James (we’re near Geneva now) had a card reader to get our photos to the computer, so continuing with this travel series will be much more fun.
The Hotel St. Pierre where we stayed in the Latin Quarter was a great location because everything is within walking distance: food, train, and interesting sights. On the day we arrived, I used my five-word French vocabulary to say hello and give my name to the front desk clerk. He found our reservation on the computer, pointed to my name on the screen to confirm who I was, handed me the key and that was it. No credit card swipe, no signing of papers or passports, no telling me about check-out or amenities. It was perfect.
After stashing our things in our tiny, tiny room (organizing a narrow path to the bathroom), we headed out in search of food. After passing approximately 250 patissieries, we ran into Restaurant Indonesia Paris, which looked promising. And it was! We welcomed ourselves to Paris with spicy coconut curry with vegetables, and a warm tofu salad with peanut sauce, both of which were entirely delicious.
The next few days were spent hoofing it all around Paris, on and off the Metro, in and out of museums, gardens, and restaurants. I’ll just include a few of my favorites here to avoid inducing a Someone Else’s Vacation Pictures stupor upon my gracious and indulgent readers.
Sainte-Chapelle (loooong wait to get in) and Notre Dame were pretty stunning. Sainte Chapelle is known for its 50′ stained glass windows, and for being built with steel supports instead of flying buttresses. The windows are undergoing a restoration whereby each panel is painstakingly removed, and each piece of damaged or broken glass within each panel is meticulously cleaned/replaced/repainted before being reassembled.
Only three more years until this little renovation project is completed.
Notre Dame was huge and churchy and beautiful and you could watch other people confessing their sins to priests in glass cubicles. We tried not to stare.
I signed us up for a tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours after reading about it on Suzy Lindau’s Wild Ride. We stopped at ten different places over a course of 6.5 miles (around 3 hrs) and we had a great time, even with the light wind and rain.
Look mom, no eyes!
The tour was fun, but the sights weren’t always easy to find.
On the day we went to the Louvre, we had only about an hour, so I told Isabella she should choose what to see. She picked Napoleon III’s residence, which is located in the north, Richelieu Wing.
Living Room of Napoleon III
Dining Room of Napoleon III
As you can see, Napoleon III preferred a clean, modern style favoring function over form, with little embellishment.
Napoleon III had some really huge, surprised vases.
Napoleon III’s Ceremonial Bed.
Why did Napoleon need a “Ceremonial Bed?” When people say that French “got into bed with Russia,” is this where it happened? Did they sign papers or make eyes at each other here? Did he have ceremonial sex? If anyone has any ideas on this, let me know.
Here’s something else we saw all around train stations and museums, including at the Louvre. We finally figured out what that green running man means.
Bathroom signs!! (White figure = average usage, green figure = diarrhea.) Fortunately, we never needed to follow the running man (or “runs”), not even once!
The Musee d’Orsay was also really good and much less crowded than the Louvre (open late Thurs nights, an ideal time to go). The featured exhibit through July 6 is Van Gogh / Artaud, a beautiful collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings, many of them lesser known. Unfortunately, no pictures.
I’ll continue with Part II of this post tomorrow with Opéra, which was spectacular, and the artsy district of Montmarte. Bonsoire soup-son `until then!
Greetings from Paris!
I know, I’m kind of surprised too! Although I shouldn’t be. This trip has been in the works for quite some time now.
Brief History of Our Trip to Paris
When Isabella was 12, she decided that she wanted to go to Pairs when she was 16 for unknown reasons. I said okay, you’d better start saving up for your plane ticket (imagining this would be a passing fancy in the tradition of Tae Kwon Do and Bratz dolls). But no! The Girl Who Wants Nothing squirreled away more than $1600 which paid for her plane ticket back in November. So, here we are, propelled by the dreams of a 12-year-old to the City of Love for a few days. Then we’re off to a village near Geneva to visit a lovely friend whom I haven’t seen in… I forgot how many years, but lots.
Meet Jackie
Isn’t she pretty? She has a beautiful garden and dogs, too, so this should be fun!
Jackie and I bonded over margaritas many moons ago while working at a New Mexican restaurant in our 20s, my first waitressing job. This experience was notable for my inability to discern one cheese-covered entrée from another for the first two weeks of my employment, an unfortunate dilemma I resolved by simply loading up my cart and asking the customers to pick out what they thought they had ordered, or what looked good. Surprisingly, I was not fired. But back to Paris… you might be wondering what we have planned? Well, in keeping with my commitment to an intuitive, stress-free vacation, we have nothing at all planned. Except for three things, two of which were added today:
Outline of Plans
- Meet my uncle, Cole, who happens to be in Paris for work, for dinner tonite.
- Have no spare change in my pockets, ever, on account of it’s all been spent on good coffee. This task will not be hard to accomplish, as there are cafes and wine bars on, and between, every corner here in the Latin Quarter, where our tiny, tiny hotel room is perched 6 floors up.
- Behave as UnAmericanly Touristy as possible in public
- Do not wear jeans, collegiate sweatshirts, and gym shoes together
- do not speak English in front of French people
No English? How so, you might wonder? Well, as Isabella will testify,* I’ve become proficient at suddenly leaping from English to a foreign-ish diction composed basically of French vowels that I’ve picked up from Isabella’s music, and whatever signage is in front of me (not that I can read French), pronounced in convincingly soft, lilty phrases that always end on a high note. While walking down the street and not pointing at things.
“Jour oui, oui oui oui soup-son, les cloches et vouz parlevouz cafe. Poulet. O! fromage! Rue boulevard san Michel frites et les alters……” etc etc.
*Isabella actually seems mortified by this, I’m not sure why, and refuses to indulge my conversation starters except with a very un-fun, “Mom, you can’t camouflage stupid (incomprehensible).”
I hesitate to call myself brilliant, but really, I am. I employed this same language technique in Haiti, when I utilized a dazzling mixture of Creole and Spanglish to politely request that my personal moto-taxi driver in Jacmel not kill me on the way from the beach to our hotel.
So far, we’re blending right in! And I haven’t even broken out the three striped shirts I brought, which I intend to wear all at the same time.
This, but with my head and four limbs. *Image pilfered from Jackie’s Facebook.
But that’s fun for another day. Ouri vois for tonite, it’s late, I’m tired, and we have a whole day of nothing tomorrow. And by the way, I apologize for the lack of original photos — it seems that our camera USB cable disappeared from one of our suitcases (thanks, TSA). It’s doubtful we’ll be able to find another here, but hopefully, we can use Isabella’s phone for at least a few pictures in the next posts.
Letter to My Neighbor
Thank you, everyone who took the time to make suggestions and give advice about the situation with kooky Neighbor! (And especially Theresa, Lili, Gabe, Jinxy, and mom.)
Between the comments here and on Facebook, I was able to craft a response that I think is pretty good — an appropriate reply to her ferocious late-night texting, that will hopefully neutralize the situation in its infancy. Before it grows legs and tries to swallow me. (And by the way, I searched the pond and found no foreign objects, so I think what Isabella heard was a toad “couple” jumping in cohaerentibus… big splash.) Because I can think of about 3,000 things I’d rather do than invest time and energy into a stressful situation with someone who lives 30 steps (64 hops) to the north, and will probably stay there forever.
I took action quickly, to thwart any chance meetings on the sidewalk with nothing but a lingering discord of sleep-deprived, toad-hating hysteria vs. wildlife affection between us. Awkward.
I decided a gift basket would be most effective. So I found an empty, plastic flower-pot in my yard and collected the following items:
1. A bottle of cheap wine
2. Sleepy Time Extra Herbal Tea
3. Hearos Ear Plugs (Xtreme Protection)
I put the items in the flower-pot (washed) along with this letter and left it on her front porch.
I noticed that the gift pot was gone by evening, but there has been no response so far. Thankfully, the toads were silent last night, so maybe it will seem like I’ve made an extra effort, above and beyond monetary expenditure (less than $15) to restore her sensibilities and serotonin levels.
ADDENDUM
This morning when I left to take Isabella to school, I found this in my mail box:
So, I guess it’s over, yay! The toad drama has climaxed and been resolved!
Well, for now, anyway, until next Spring when she may or may not remain in good humor during toad mating season.
But one thing I can say for sure: she will never again hear that sound and think of toads in the same way.
ADDENDUM #2
The entirely wonderful Orwell essay about toads, Spring, and our relationship to nature (referenced in the letter) can be read here.
31 of the most terrifying Easter Bunnies you’ll ever see.
I came across this on happyplace.com and thought it was hilarious. I took none of the pictures and wrote none of the captions, but I did lovingly choose my favorites for you. Happy Easter.
As hard as shopping malls try to make “going to see the Easter Bunny” a thing, it’s never quite caught on like visiting Santa Claus. Maybe that’s because Christmas is a magical celebration of materialistic greed and gluttony while the closest thing to “fun” about Easter is showing off your new pair of church slacks — or maybe it’s because every Easter Bunny costume is a walking nightmare of soul-scarring horror. Here are some examples of why the image of a bleeding, emaciated guy on a cross rising from the grave is somehow not the most traumatizing thing about this holiday.
Click to see my new website for ceramic & biodegradable cremation urns
Live Clay 