The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Well another month has come and almost gone. It's scary how they seem to get faster and faster.
It's also amusing to think that back in the bad old days with no laptop and certainly no Portkey in the Lair I was posting online snippets far more frequently than now. It's not like there's even an excuse for more posting and less lurking. No evil toxic toads to drain the serpent soul, no 30 hours per week devoted to a job and another 20 devoted to 3 units studying. But maybe it's simply old age. Cyberia is no longer the bright and shiny place full of tempting treats and toys that it used to be. I guess when you hit the half century it gets harder and harder to deny the inevitability of mortality and the ancient real world begins to look rather more interesting.


But in some strange ways it has been the adventures in Cyberia that added to the appreciation of the other world.
I finally seem to have under control a past addiction to online courses.
It was like being a kid in a candy store or a glutton at the buffet. Just pile the plates higher and higher and never ask if it is even possible to gobble so much stuff let alone take time to enjoy each tasty morsel. I have rationed myself to just one at a time and actually kept to it this month.
Like with most things, the first experiences are the most formative. One of the first courses I took and still one of the best was called "Introduction to mathematical thinking". As well as learning fascinating stuff like formal logic and the art of deciphering much of the arcane mathematical symbols of "Godel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid" (a definite desert island book for this serpent) the other really important thing I learned was that persistence, practice and constant vigilance usually win in the long run over innate talent without such grit. That a lot of what looks like natural ability is so often simply the result of years and years of practice.

The relevance of this to reality is rather simple. I no longer expect to pick something up quickly or give up when it becomes a struggle because that surely is a sign of total unsuitability. If it is difficult then it means that the old grey cells are getting a good workout. Of course the stuff has to be interesting in the first place or else there would be no incentive to overcome the frustration of making such slow progress.

So this meant that the last four Monday evenings spent learning the dark art of book binding could be enjoyed as a learning experience and a useful chance to learn something practical rather than a never ending exercise in frustration because everything is going so slowly and my efforts are not looking as magnificent as the folks at the next table.
But it did become increasingly obvious that even with following the maxim of "Measure 5 times and cut once" was still producing some definitely dodgy edges. A millimeter or two out here or there does not sound like much but it all adds up and looks ever so wonky.

It turns out that the man teaching the course used to be a carpenter and had to give it up for IT when his eyes were no longer up to the perfection in measurements required. Ha added that if he had been doing roofs and not furniture he could have gotten away with it for a whole lot longer.

So it's no longer possible to pretend that the beady serpent eyes are perfectly fine thank you very much.

So in spite of some incredible wonkiness, it was still fun and I have already signed up for the intermediate class. Most of the enjoyment came in no small part to just going with the flow and not expecting perfection. Of course anything to do with books is always a very big plus.
Meanwhile will need to get some glasses and a whole pile of practice measuring and cutting so that it will almost be on autopilot by the time the next course comes around.

In the meantime, the weeds are thriving and there's garlic, sweet potatoes and nasturtiums growing like crazy. Been making the most of the gorgeous mild winter weather to experiment with seeds and to see what pops up.


Still searching for some grand project to ignite the long dormant serpent spark plugs. Here's hoping to find something suitable before the solstice.

The Izzie has been busy and not been lurking lately in Cyberia.
Decided to escape the romantic slushiness that was that wedding by attending a local Scrapathon. Booked in a good six weeks ago but it then began to get a bit iffy. Most scrappers are sentimental kitsch loving slush pots by definition and once they realized just what date it was, most of them started cancelling. So just after Easter it looked like the evening would get called off. Only at the very last minute did three people book so the numbers did add up


While all the others were busily cutting and pasting up slushy family snaps, the serpent stash of pretty pictures was notable by its absence. The only concession to happy family snaps was a sticker book with framed glow in the dark portraits of Bellatrix Lestrange, Lucius and Draco Malfoy and a certain Tom Riddle in various incarnations.

They did not end up getting used as the theme ended up being "Advanced Potions Making"
Had acquired two big fat purple photograph albums from second hand stores. One was an old fashioned wedding album with black pages and thin lacy tracing paper separating them. The other was a typical 30cm square scrapbook album with a lovie dovie baby theme with blank plastic sleeves, pages of pastel papers and lots of slushy gooey baby stickers.

Decided that this book would be better saved for grander and more complicated projects. The blank sleeves has the advantage of being able to change the order of pages and to easily abandon ugly efforts with no trace of their existence

So due to the lack of planning, instead of churning out endless pages, just played around and took advantage of the very large collection of art stamps and the die cutting machines.
It's worth turning up for the evening just to play with these and to see what the others are up to.

Did manage to produce four or five half finished pages - the first with just a collection of keys, the second being the contents page had a background of brown parchment paper with mysterious handwriting, a long line on the left of brown 8 pointed seals made using a rubber stamp with a picture of a potions bottle next to each one as well as a steaming cauldron in the moonlight on another
What good is a potions book without any recipes? And what more suitable for that evening than a slushy overdose of Amortensia? No ingrdients list or preparations just a suitable background page.
Lots of love hearts cut out from paper printed with red roses, pale pink butterflies and some fluffy pink flowers. The only item missing was a picture of a Franklin Mint plate with a fluffy frolicking kitten

It was sick and disgusting and just the sort of thing that everyone else was doing. It was also quite amusing to let loose the inner pink and fluffy beast.
Needless to say while there was no television in the scrap booking workshop room, plenty of the people there had brought their mobile phones so they could watch snippets of the proceedings and drool over that dress as well as show it to all their friends

Also signed up for a five week felting class which starts next Friday at the arts centre which was once a lunatic asylum. So the serpent will be kept busy doing all kinds of crafty things
Must go online to get a list of required materials and tools for the class
For that reason will not be going to the next scrapathon but will definitely attend the one after and will be rather more organized next time.

Now it seems that Obama's birth certificate was Osama's last horcrux, will be no lack of ideas for evil inspiration for another few pages.

But that's a story for another day. But it looks like Pakistan has now been confirmed beyond all doubt as absolute Slime Central. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
While dumping of the body into the sea serves the purpose of preventing the fans setting up an earthly shrine, it does conveniently remove the main source of evidence
The serpent smells a dozen rats. But the only thing that makes the story appear kosher and not some Hollywood CGI adventure movie is that you would expect the Hollywood version to be set in some cave on the border of Afghanistan. Right next to the Pakistani version of the Pentagon is just too strange to be fiction and of enormous embarrassment to everyone

Revenge is understandable but the problem is that it works both ways. While one can admire the tenacity of the USA to go to the ends of the earth to find and destroy Bin Laden, there's a whole bunch of Iraqis and Afghanis out there who have had their lives and their countries destroyed by the USA under the pretext of a 'war on terror' and they might be just as persistent and relentless in their search for payback.

But what the serpent wants to know, did Bin Laden need that stash of cola potions - the drink of the enemy so that he wouldn't die of thirst while glued to the big screen last Friday watching a certain wedding?

For many moons now and especially since reading a certain novel by one Walter Moers about one amazing town called Buchheim, the serpent has had a notion in her little green cells that actually making a book from scratch would be an interesting adventure
Drooled over handmade books at various market and craft stalls, visited Biblio Folio as part of a heritage festival and borrowed various books on the subject from assorted libraries. Even accumulated lots of pretty papers and bits of ribbon and leather as ingredients for this grand project
But as usual, without external motivation, the inner procrastinating python ruled supreme and this bookish stash just gathered dust along with all those other "one of these days' projects



That was until a day in January when picking up the latest edition of a certain arts centre courses and classes. They had a four week bookbinding course starting on Thursday 10th February. Three hours a week for four weeks and a price tag of 115 silver sickles.
Seemed expensive at first but doing the sums - just under $10 per hour is very reasonable indeed. So we had the money and the time. There was no excuse not to sign up

( a serpent's bookish tale )

Will save the saga of the Book of Blood for next week. In the meantime, got a pretty piece of red leather for next week to make a folded wrap around book. The leather shop had large pieces of sheep leather treated to look like green scaly serpent skins but they were decadently expensive and certainly not for sale by the metre. It was all or nothing
A bit scary this vegetarian serpent's obsession with leather bound books ;)

Got two weeks now to make up for all that ridiculous misery of the last four.

The serpent is already planning the darkest of Dark Grimoires. And that gorgeous tarot deck is full of beautiful spooky tomes well worth imitating

Izzie's got her paws on a new toy. As part of our plans for world dominion, the serpent is starting small. First it's itsie teenie weenie bits of crazy coral with an evil serpent twist
Got to get in a bit of practice before venturing in the den of DNA adulteration


Scoured the second hand shops and got the serpent paws on a pair of crochet hooks - one normal and one itsie bitsie weenie one
So far managed to make a chain but the rest of the ancient art of the happy hooker eludes this serpent. The motor memory is not what it used to be. Thirty years of rusted crafty paws have taken their toll
(A visit to the Oracle of Google should be of some assistance)

Been playing around with hooks and wool and still not quite got the hang of it yet. Once the results become consistent, it will then be time to start tweeking and venturing into the wierd world of hyperbolic crocheting


There was another story about it on the radio this morning. The coral reef is on display in the Powerhouse Museum at Sydney. It will be touring but coming nowhere near dreary old Dursleyville

Back in 1997, a US mathematician named Daina Taimina was trying to explain 'hyperbolic space' to a university class. It's one of the more difficult geometric concepts, so Daina Taimina tried to create a model to explain it. She used paper but the models didn't work. She tried knitting, but that didn't work either. Finally, she picked up a crochet hook. Hyperbolic space is crucial in science and geometry because it provides a possible explanation for the shape of the universe—and hyperbolic crochet became a hit.

The Sydney Hyperbolic Reef is currently on display at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. Later this year it will also be on display at Wollongong's Viva la Gong Festival and Newcastle's This is not art Festival.


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