even more answers
Mar. 13th, 2008 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikI'm going to a gay wedding in Massachusetts! I'm not gay or bi myself, though. I think it'll be fun & interesting, what do you think?
Cool. Yay Massachusetts!
I suspect it will mostly be... a wedding. It's probably more likely than most to have some role your own elements to it, but then that's true of most of the weddings I've attended. (Though I still chuckle at my mother's description of the wedding of one of the members of my mother's circle and her wife. "Oh, it was *beautiful*! But what do you expect? I mean, your wedding was very nice and all, but this was a wedding with two *women* planning it." Oh, mom.)
Did you ever have a personal relatinship (wow, what an awful phrase, but I can't think of a better one) with a specific tree, mountain, or body of water, etc? Do you miss it now that you're in Cleveland?
That's... involved. Not a specific place or feature, not most intensely. (Though there are specific places I would love to be able to visit. Oh, that bridge at Twin Falls. Tonga Ridge.) But of my most intense experiences of place, and of connection to the land took place on Capitol Hill, and involved Lake Washington and the Cascades most specifically. ... though even there, it's not so much that it's not somewhere else (I haven't been anywhere yet where the land felt inaccessible) but it happened there, and maybe it's more there.
I miss the mountains intensely, and the vibrancy of the land and the energy of the people collected amidst the mountains and water. Coming back last winter, the familiarity of the city surprised me by how hard it hit me. I had the sense that the very layout of the streets was practically etched on my body, and I'd realized that I'd missed that. (It's funny - sometimes one of the things that sent me to the mountains was needing to be places for which I did not yet have mental structures - there's always places I haven't been in the Cascades.)
What language would you most like to learn?
Well, there would be a lot to be said for getting better at the ones I somewhat know...
Hindi and Arabic are kind of at the top of the list. Arabic less for the political implications and more because it's gramatically really weird, and I'd like to be able to read the Qoran properly. (Hard to contemplate now, but perhaps in the world where I'd have time to learn Arabic I'd have time to read the Qoran.) Hindi I'd probably enjoy knowing more (I have so many Hindi friends) but... it's indo-european, and indo-european languages are not my favorites. I should just get over that, though.
Is there a martial art you'd like to study but haven't had time for?
*A* martial art? *laughs*
Though that might not be quite the right question, for me. I mean, obviously I've always wanted to study more bagua... and just as obviously I recently dropped my bagua class, and yeah, that was somewhat about time but also somewhat about the instructor. And there's a wudang moutain snake style that I would really like to see more of, and I'd love to learn Zhang Hui's double sword form and a lot of random stuff like that...
But really, it's not about styles for me at this point. There are instructors I'd like to study with. (A number in Seattle, a scattering in Vancouver and Portland... and then mostly in China. The ones I know about so far, anyway.) There are specific things I'd like more experience with - more ground fighting for instance (I was going to say "more qin na" but the more I think about the term I think an awful lot of what I do is qin na). More sparring with weapons... and probably particularly with firearms. Hell, more work with modern weapons in general. I had been very forms centric for years... and now I'm doing a lot more sparring on the one hand, and a lot more internals on the other. (And I should really do more sparring with other people... clearly a bunch of the Shaolin people in Seattle need to move to Cleveland right now! Um. Or something like that.)
Ironically, Ledyard Sensei, K's former Aikido instructor is going to be in Oberlin this weekend. And neither of us is going. (I'd really like to study under him, but I just can't see walking into an Aikido seminar coming from such a different background, even if there is a lot of overlap. And K says "I haven't been practicing!" which I don't entirely agree with, but while his Aikido techniques have been improving, so has his tendency to use non Aikido techniques.)
Describe a carnival/fair/etc that you would really enjoy: what kinds of rides would it have? Food? Performers? Games?
This has grown as I've had a chance to think about it.
So first off - the setting. Mixture of indoor and outdoor spaces, probably with a central building complex in the middle of a fairly built up park area, but surrounded by increasingly "wild" space. And assorted smaller building mixed in. There'd be room in the center for big events, but most of the landscaped area would be set up for a certain degree of separation, both visual and accoustic in particular. (I'm thinking a little of the ruins of Aphrodisias in Turkey, but that probably doesn't mean a lot to most of you.)
Small stages and dance spaces and mixed food booths, and big ampitheatre spaces (small ones there, too, a little like the one at Cottage Lake Park). Wandering musicians and storytellers and jugglers... and puppet theatres and fire spinners and suchlike. And little half covered areas with whiteboards, pens, erasers, and interesting problems. (And free broadband for all, darn it.) And coffeehouses full of pillows and carpets, and a temple to aphrodite somewhere slightly out of the way... And drum grottoes and jam glades and the place where all the body paint stuff is kept... art happens.
Centerish there should be water slides and roller coasters. And paintball bumper cars. And canoe jousting. And those nifty free fall rides. And a bunch of the rides that involve inflatable things you can bounce around in. And a (subdividable) area with lots of wall and stairs and partial barriers and things for playing parkour with weapons. (paint ball type stuff, inked blades, etc - in light padded semi-rigid armor, and pretty much full contact.) Hm. There is a bit of a martial arts theme here. So throw in plenty of room for other kinds of martial games, from tournament type stuff to various fights on unstable surfaces and other silliness. And melees.
Maybe actual programming, too. Seminars on this and that. (I am amused by the possible range.)
More towards the periphery, a ban on louder stuff, book places, woods places, and a lot of room to run and hide (or to go off with smaller groups of people). (And woods fighting, but that would probably be a specific area.) Swimming holes. Heh. I wonder if you could arrange things not only by core and periphery, but also kid appropriateness.
Cool. Yay Massachusetts!
I suspect it will mostly be... a wedding. It's probably more likely than most to have some role your own elements to it, but then that's true of most of the weddings I've attended. (Though I still chuckle at my mother's description of the wedding of one of the members of my mother's circle and her wife. "Oh, it was *beautiful*! But what do you expect? I mean, your wedding was very nice and all, but this was a wedding with two *women* planning it." Oh, mom.)
Did you ever have a personal relatinship (wow, what an awful phrase, but I can't think of a better one) with a specific tree, mountain, or body of water, etc? Do you miss it now that you're in Cleveland?
That's... involved. Not a specific place or feature, not most intensely. (Though there are specific places I would love to be able to visit. Oh, that bridge at Twin Falls. Tonga Ridge.) But of my most intense experiences of place, and of connection to the land took place on Capitol Hill, and involved Lake Washington and the Cascades most specifically. ... though even there, it's not so much that it's not somewhere else (I haven't been anywhere yet where the land felt inaccessible) but it happened there, and maybe it's more there.
I miss the mountains intensely, and the vibrancy of the land and the energy of the people collected amidst the mountains and water. Coming back last winter, the familiarity of the city surprised me by how hard it hit me. I had the sense that the very layout of the streets was practically etched on my body, and I'd realized that I'd missed that. (It's funny - sometimes one of the things that sent me to the mountains was needing to be places for which I did not yet have mental structures - there's always places I haven't been in the Cascades.)
What language would you most like to learn?
Well, there would be a lot to be said for getting better at the ones I somewhat know...
Hindi and Arabic are kind of at the top of the list. Arabic less for the political implications and more because it's gramatically really weird, and I'd like to be able to read the Qoran properly. (Hard to contemplate now, but perhaps in the world where I'd have time to learn Arabic I'd have time to read the Qoran.) Hindi I'd probably enjoy knowing more (I have so many Hindi friends) but... it's indo-european, and indo-european languages are not my favorites. I should just get over that, though.
Is there a martial art you'd like to study but haven't had time for?
*A* martial art? *laughs*
Though that might not be quite the right question, for me. I mean, obviously I've always wanted to study more bagua... and just as obviously I recently dropped my bagua class, and yeah, that was somewhat about time but also somewhat about the instructor. And there's a wudang moutain snake style that I would really like to see more of, and I'd love to learn Zhang Hui's double sword form and a lot of random stuff like that...
But really, it's not about styles for me at this point. There are instructors I'd like to study with. (A number in Seattle, a scattering in Vancouver and Portland... and then mostly in China. The ones I know about so far, anyway.) There are specific things I'd like more experience with - more ground fighting for instance (I was going to say "more qin na" but the more I think about the term I think an awful lot of what I do is qin na). More sparring with weapons... and probably particularly with firearms. Hell, more work with modern weapons in general. I had been very forms centric for years... and now I'm doing a lot more sparring on the one hand, and a lot more internals on the other. (And I should really do more sparring with other people... clearly a bunch of the Shaolin people in Seattle need to move to Cleveland right now! Um. Or something like that.)
Ironically, Ledyard Sensei, K's former Aikido instructor is going to be in Oberlin this weekend. And neither of us is going. (I'd really like to study under him, but I just can't see walking into an Aikido seminar coming from such a different background, even if there is a lot of overlap. And K says "I haven't been practicing!" which I don't entirely agree with, but while his Aikido techniques have been improving, so has his tendency to use non Aikido techniques.)
Describe a carnival/fair/etc that you would really enjoy: what kinds of rides would it have? Food? Performers? Games?
This has grown as I've had a chance to think about it.
So first off - the setting. Mixture of indoor and outdoor spaces, probably with a central building complex in the middle of a fairly built up park area, but surrounded by increasingly "wild" space. And assorted smaller building mixed in. There'd be room in the center for big events, but most of the landscaped area would be set up for a certain degree of separation, both visual and accoustic in particular. (I'm thinking a little of the ruins of Aphrodisias in Turkey, but that probably doesn't mean a lot to most of you.)
Small stages and dance spaces and mixed food booths, and big ampitheatre spaces (small ones there, too, a little like the one at Cottage Lake Park). Wandering musicians and storytellers and jugglers... and puppet theatres and fire spinners and suchlike. And little half covered areas with whiteboards, pens, erasers, and interesting problems. (And free broadband for all, darn it.) And coffeehouses full of pillows and carpets, and a temple to aphrodite somewhere slightly out of the way... And drum grottoes and jam glades and the place where all the body paint stuff is kept... art happens.
Centerish there should be water slides and roller coasters. And paintball bumper cars. And canoe jousting. And those nifty free fall rides. And a bunch of the rides that involve inflatable things you can bounce around in. And a (subdividable) area with lots of wall and stairs and partial barriers and things for playing parkour with weapons. (paint ball type stuff, inked blades, etc - in light padded semi-rigid armor, and pretty much full contact.) Hm. There is a bit of a martial arts theme here. So throw in plenty of room for other kinds of martial games, from tournament type stuff to various fights on unstable surfaces and other silliness. And melees.
Maybe actual programming, too. Seminars on this and that. (I am amused by the possible range.)
More towards the periphery, a ban on louder stuff, book places, woods places, and a lot of room to run and hide (or to go off with smaller groups of people). (And woods fighting, but that would probably be a specific area.) Swimming holes. Heh. I wonder if you could arrange things not only by core and periphery, but also kid appropriateness.
