New GhostCake Unbodied Episode: My robo roommate

Yes, here is the place for you to put questions or comments about the show. If you haven't listened to it yet, go here and download it. You can find the show on iTunes too by searching for ghost cake. 

This episode is another story from The Unbodied, which is the radio theater incarnation of the show. I really enjoy doing these episodes because it's so much fun to get everyone together to record. It does, however, take a very long time to edit the show as well. I was spending an hour or two to edit about ten minutes. Most of that time was taken up by trying to find the right sounds from freesound.org. I'm trying to figure out a quicker way to edit everything so I can get more episodes out. 

I've been trying to decide if I should split the show into two shows, one for my adventures around town and the other for the stories. It really depends on whether some people would only listen to one kind of show or the other. Speaking of which, I'm going to try to record another episode for next week. There's supposedly a really cool place in the Great Salt Lake that has all these random things in the water, so I need to check it out. I also need to explore the African Market and the Indoor Swap Meet. 

Does anybody really care if I base most of the shows in Salt Lake City? I don't usually mention exactly where things take place, but when I do I like to say they are going on here. I guess if I lived in New York I'd probably set the stories there mostly. 

I've realized too that most of the downloads are from people I don't know. I'd like to get a feel for what everyone thinks about the show, so if you want to give me feedback, please do. 

Anchor-chief Handkerchief

I recently completed a set of handkerchiefs for some friends of mine who had birthdays. I had originally wanted to do a maze motif, but I liked the idea of doing an Anchor-chief: a handkerchief with an anchor on it. I wanted to try a project from a book I got for Christmas, Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin. I had a fiasco with printing before, but I was sure this time would be better. Some of the pictures are a little blurry, my apologies.


I had to make a design that would allow me to paint the negative space of the image. If you've ever made stencils, you know that the final design has to connect so that the pieces don't fall out. Not so with this design! I drew and cut out a design on freezer paper, which sticks to the cloth when ironed on.


I used acrylic fabric ink. I had to blot the brush so that the ink wouldn't bleed through to the other side. It took many coats to get the color saturation that I wanted.

Once the ink dried, I carefully peeled off the stencil.



Then I added initials in the left and right sides of the anchor.


Here's a close-up of the anchor.


I was very satisfied with my final result. I think next time I make a handkerchief I will do an even more complex design. It is harsh on the eyes to cut out minute details, but it looks good. My next printing project will be some cloth napkins. I'll be printing jellyfish on them with a handmade stamp. I also hope to print onto fabrics for curtains and sheets. Working with my hands is relaxing and so I'm going to do more of it!

Films

During my visit to my mom over Christmas I decided to go through a couple of boxes in her garage. Even though she moved into her house several years ago, she hasn't gone through all the stuff we initially piled in during the move. I thought I would help her out by taking a box or two and organizing it. 

I mostly focused on boxes from my grandparent's house because they were the most interesting. They contained things I had never seen before. I never met my grandparents before they passed away (I met my grandmother, who married my grandfather after my maternal grandmother passed away) and so what they left is really all I have to know them by. In the box I found that day there were several smaller boxes of jewelry. They were my grandmother's. I had a friend who collects antique and costume jewelry look them over and she was surprised to find so many pieces in good condition. 

Another box contained my grandpa's pins from WWII. He was a medic stationed in the Aleutian Islands for a while and the brass pins had images of the snake and staff as well as two flags my friend thought might be Masonic symbols. 

The most intriguing item was a white roll of 8mm film. My mom's name was written on it, but that was it. A year or so ago I had bought a projector that could play the film, but when I had turned it on the light bulb hadn't worked. Last night I decided to play around with the projector just to see how the film would fit. To my surprise, when I pushed the switch to turn the bulb on, it actually turned on. I needed to have it in a certain position. It took Joey and me a while to figure out how to put the film in. It's funny to think that this procedure would have been commonplace at one time but is so rare now that few people can do it. We finally threaded the film through the projector and turned the machine on. We dimmed the lights and focused the image on a white piece of paper. 

The film showed my mom running around with a chihuahua at the house she grew up in in Sugarhouse. I could see the small trees in the front lawn that would be tall by the time I visited my grandmother. There were also scenes of my grandfather and the grandmother I knew. He looked exactly like his pictures. He had on a suit and tie and she had on a white dress with buttons. They were walking around the front lawn. The projector would only work in slow motion so their movements were slow and gradual. This was the first time I had seen my grandfather actually moving. Because I had only seen him in photographs I thought of him as being quite static. When I saw him on the film for the first time moving and smiling, it seemed really natural to me. Even though I never met him in person I know I would recognize him in anything. 

I really enjoyed watching it. I hope I can find more films of my grandparents because I feel like I know them better just by watching the films. 

New Ghost Cake episode: Grocery Field Recording

Another amazing ghostcake episode. I've decided to take out the space between those two words, but I'll probably regret it later. In this episode I make a field recording of my trip to the grocery store. I'd like to do more field recordings in the future, ones in stranger places. 

Leave any questions or comments here. 

In other news, my apartment is warm again after being bitterly cold for several days. The boiler was on the fritz. The cold immobilized me. I'd like to get out more, but with work being so crazy for the end of the year and the cold, short days I haven't had much luck. 

I'm also thinking that I should write more in here. With any luck I'll have more time to.

Ghost Cake on Wikipedia

I want to create a page for Ghost Cake on Wikipedia. Does anybody know how to do that? It looks easy but I want the page to look awesome. 

Thank you!

Thanks George Putnam!

I fully support this video.

This is Where the Blah Sets In

I think I'm getting a little depressed. I don't feel like doing much when I have the free time. I have no ambition. I feel like lying around, staring at the walls. It might be because I've been so busy these last few months. School has been doubly hard because of my final Anthropology class. It is interesting but I have twice as much reading for that class as my others and it is all scientific papers about evolutionary ecology. I enjoy the material but it still takes so much of my time to get through. I'm probably feeling gloomy about having to work crazy hours in December too. I might have to work 60+ hours every week. I'm going to try to get two days off per week, but they might get bitchy and deny it. Even though it's only for a few weeks it feels like it's so much worse. My only substantial break between the semesters and I have to work my ass off during it. 

I'm really getting tired of my daily routine. I need to break free somehow. The trouble is, I have to  work to survive and I don't want to leave school when I've got so little left before graduation. I keep looking toward spring for hope but the time until then seems so vast. Maybe I'll shake up my schedule as much as I can. I'll try to find a time machine or something. 

I know this feeling will pass, but in the mean time it is god awful.