Beauty In The World

Because of my choice in friends - people who are open to alternatives to the gender and sexuality binary, people who don't buy in to all the stuff that I write and complain about - I tend to be friends with a lot of people who could very easily be described as hippies. Which means that as a result of this, I am exposed to a great amount of stuff that could also very easily be described as "hippie dippie" or "woo woo" stuff.
Now, I am going to save us all a lot of time and reading by summing up my opinion on this stuff: do not believe. I believe the woo woo to be on the same level as the invisible creation man in the sky who punishes and rewards one species on one planet in one solar system of the entire universe that he created.


In case you are unclear about what I mean by the woo woo, I shall clarify, because there is some hippie dippie stuff that happens to not fall under the woo woo category (y'know, because there is scientific evidence for it). Things that do (and of course, this is opinion, not fact, as I am not an expert): astrology, homeopathy, energy work done through simple touch (massage is not this), praying to your God or Goddess of choice, and many other things that I would need to be reminded of, but you'll see the pattern here soon enough.


The pattern here is simple, and is in fact the exact same reason I have a problem with sports stars thanking God when they win the game. It is the same reason I have a problem with people going to confession to get forgiveness for their sins. All of these remove the humanity from a choice.


From a christian perspective: when you do well, it is God's work, when you do poorly, it is your fault (yay guilt!).
From a non-christian perspective: when you get better, it is because someone touched you in just the right way, or because the onion juice you diluted into oblivion cured you, and if you get sick, it is because your diet is full of pollutants and you havn't cleared your body of the nasties that wander in through your food.
When someone is strong and independent and knows what they want, and you ask them their birthday and you respond, "oh, it all makes sense now - you are Scoprio!" and or maybe it's "oh, you are Leo!" or maybe "oh you are Taurus"
Go look at all of the signs at the same time, and you will see an absurd amount of overlap.


"I know why you did it. You were afraid, who wouldn't be?" These beliefs granted you safety. That there was something up there watching us, be it a God or the idea of all creatures being connected, or that the stars and their gravitational pull on each other somehow has any effect on my personal characteristics. It makes sense to see patterns in humanity, but the criterion for the patterns is way too loose, and as science has shown, humans are fantastic at forgetting things that hurt us and/or don't fit with the way we want to be.


And if that is all it is, to make yourselves feel better, I can completely understand why you did it. But please, consider what it is doing to you when you are not looking - it is removing the humanity from Choice. I value choice above all else - it is what defines me personally as alive - my ability to choose. A plant lives, a plankton lives, but there are only select creatures on this planet who are truly alive. Most if not all of them fall in the animal kingdom.


These beliefs do not remove choice from people, but they at least partially remove the idea that the things that follow from your choices are directly following from those choices. Credit is not being given where credit is due. If you pray for your God to help you out, and then you finally confront your drunken father who has been abusing you and you get him arrested and into rehab and your family doesn't fall apart - it is not because of God. It is because you were an impossibly strong human being who was able to step up and take responsibility for your own life and make things better. If you are sick and someone poked you a couple times and you go around being nice and feeling better, it is not because someone shifted your energy pathways, it is because you decided that you were tired of wearing the grumpypants and that you wanted to make a change in your life.


But the problem with people, is that we generally do not believe ourselves to be impossibly strong. We are told our whole lives that we are weak, that we need help. We know that change is hard, we know that it is sometimes impossible. So we invent things to serve as catalysts for change, when in reality they are not catalysts, they are excuses to get things rolling.


So when something happens to me like the things that have happened recently - one after the other, events seem to be happening around me that are exactly what I need. Huge potential for things to blow up in my face and ruin a lot of things for me are not  blowing up - and random acts of kindness from people are. Stuff in my life has just been working recently. And from a woo woo or God perspective, the stars are aligned in some way, or I did something to deserve this.


I believe none of that. I believe in coincidence. I believe that a lot of stuff has been going well for me, and I am so incredibly grateful for that. And when things start to go poorly, because they will, because nothing good ever lasts (because life is imperfect), I will realize that it is a coincidence, and that I need to work hard to turn things around. I will not blame it on Venus or Mercury going retrograde. I will not blame it on the gays. I will not blame it on the thetans inhabiting my body. I will blame it on life being what it is and then take responsibility for fixing it.


Try this for a week: when things go well, be happy about them and when things go wrong, be sad about them. Do not ascribe any meaning to the events beyond the events themselves - see the beauty in the good, and the ugly in the bad. Enjoy the beauty, and eschew the bad.


When people say that atheists see no joy or beauty in the world, they are off base - we see just as much beauty, because we look at the world and we see the world in all of its glory and power, and to a lot of atheists, there is nothing more beautiful than that.

Earthdance Northwest

Alright, so I am finally getting around to doing this post, because I finally have some freetime! Yay freetime!
So, Earthdance is a festival that goes on around the world, and the idea is to have many people stomping the earth at the same exact time as possible, and dance we did.

Main (Earth) Stage on the left, lighting guru hut in the middle, I was sitting next to the fire when I took this

I was hired to come and perform my Fyrieth routine, as well as perform with some Fire Fans and do some Aerial Rope work. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of Fyrieth, no pictures of rope, and only two really crappy pictures of the fans - but we'll get to those later.

So I went to this thing by myself and decided that if I was gonna do this by myself, I was gonna be by myself - so I camped in the most secluded spot I could fine. I know it was secluded, because nobody in their right mind would ever climb the hill you had to get to to find me.

The view from inside my tent, opens up into the most beautiful little clearing - very much my sanctuary

I loved my little campsite, but only slept there once, because it rained the second night, and my friends took pity on me and let me sleep in their tent so I didn't have to climb my hill in the rain.

So Friday afternoon, we went to set up the aerial rope - but did we have a portable rig? No. Did we have a lift and really secure rig points? Kinda. We had a ladder and a badass geodome.

You can see my rope hanging from one of the intersections

You may notice in this picture that the intersection looks a little warped - that is because when we hooked it up, it was kinda shaky, so we inverted that little hexagon so it wouldn't invert while I was performing Saturday night. Freaky? Oh yeah. Worth it? You bet your buttons it was.

Ended up making some really awesome friends too, including one woman who I met randomly while we were setting up, and she was kinda my buddy all weekend.

She is also one of the strangest human beings I have ever met, and I hope I get to see her again someday.

Ms. Adrienne Mountain

The Human Peacock

We spent a solid 20 minutes trying to get those feathers in place, there are about 40 of them, and they wouldn't stay put. Eventually we gave up, but we got this fantastic photo out of it.

The other cool thing about this lady - we did a trade and I ended up with some new clothes.

My new garter belt with acid washed jean leggings.

I got these friday afternoon and pretty much wore them all weekend. I slept in them friday night I loved them so much. I even performed fire fans in them (we'll get to those pictures in a bit).

So that shirt is the other piece of clothing I wore all weekend, because it was absurdly comfy, and just a little bit sexy.

And of course, the leather jacket that I wore all weekend - warmth and waterproofing!

So friday night I performed Fyrieth, which we have no pictures of, so you will just have to use your imagination. Saturday night however was the big night. There were about a dozen fire performers, with everything from fans, hoops and staves (note: staves - three of them - at the same time. I KNOW!) to poi and weird tonfa-esque things, but with several wicks pointing off of it. Oh, and there was a dude with a Fire Wand as well. Anyway, we burned for a bit, and someone snapped these two terrible pictures of me doing my fans.

Me in my leggings rocking fans the way I like it - shirtless

I think that is a hooper next to me

I did most of my burning in my giant leather coat because I wasn't getting paid, so I was going to protect myself, and it lets me do more stuff with the fire close to my body, but hey - it ya got it, flaunt it right? So I had to do a shirtless set too.

Anyway, then we got to the aerial performance. Note to aerialists: if someone wants you to perform at night in a geodome with strobe lights 10 feet from the speakers that are blasting dubstep at an earsplitting (insert large number here) decibles... DO IT. Don't get me wrong, it was loud and I couldn't see a damned thing, but if you are good enough to do your aerial work blind, you will never have a better chance to put on an amazing show. Anyway, I busted out tons of strength based work (the other aerialist was a flexible silks artist, so I figured I'd contrast that with what I do best) and did a really complicated routine, but I did it at the speed of a snail. In most things, that would be boring, but when every move you make in the air looks like it is in slow motion, it catches attention.

I just about threw up from dizziness (not being able to tell which way is up will do that to you) and exhaustion afterwords, but I had a blast performing.

Anyway, that was it for the performance for me - after you lay pretty much naked in the wet grass at midnight in 40 degree weather and you are still too hot, you know it is time to hang it up and call it quits. So I danced some more, and then the rain came and we slept. Then I got up and danced some more and then we went home.

And then I slept like a friggen rock for the rest of the day - oh, and school started the next morning at 9am - I was really tempted to wear the leggings and just mess with everyone I met. But I didn't.

So that was earthdance. I wish I hadn't gone alone, it would have been much more fun with a companion, but it was a great experience, and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Acrobalance is ROCKING

So about two months ago I started an acrobalance group in the park, just as a place for us to play around, and it really picked up. If you don't know what acrobalance is, I really don't want to explain it, so I'm just going to send you to the Acro Wiki so you can go do your own research (or, in terms of my new motto, which I'm fairly certain I partially stole from my father: Go. Read. Become Educated).
Anyway, the group really picked up and we kept gaining members, and then someone pointed out something which I was avoiding thinking about - it rains in Eugene. I am not worried about the rain, actually, we can always go to a park under an overpass and work there, but it gets cold, and it gets wet, and that is just not fun. So, we moved ourselves into a brand new space called Core Star Cultural Center where they teach martial arts and yoga, basically, nice sound system, and slightly bouncy floors. Oh - and most importantly, a roof and heating.
So this was our third week in the space, and we had TWO people there who were not there by any of our invitations, they found out about us through Core Star. YAY ADVERTISING!

So this week the theme was mounts and dismounts, and we went crazy figuring out really creative and outlandish ways of getting into the simplest of positions (in fact, we did the three simplest tricks I could come up with). Anyway, the video that inspired that lesson contained within it an amazing combination that I wanted to try with my main acro man, Eli. I love this guy, he loves acro, he is really strong, and will do just about anything I can think of. So we did the combination and nailed it on the first try (almost, he tried to do a little extra, which is why you'll see him stutter a little bit on a transition) and it was amazing.

Anyway, it is just a little short 30 second video, and I wanted to share it with you, partially because I don't really have any acro videos (but we will, we have something like 20 members, and a lot of them are getting really good, so we'll start rehearsing soon), and partially because I want to brag on how awesome this is.

Many more videos and updates to come!
Oh, and how do you guys like the new blog format? I think it is kinda boring compared to my oh so colorful design I had before, but it just means I have to post more pictures and videos to keep things interesting!

First Week Of Senior Year

So this is my third year of college at the University of Oregon, and it is also my final year. I am a senior. And as I told Janessa last night "I know right? It feels like I just f**king got here!"
So I'm going to tell you about my first week, and what I expect from this year.
I started this term out with 18 credits, now I have 15, and those credits lost turned this term from one I dreaded to one I am actually looking forward to. One class gone and everything is fixed. That class is math 307.
Math 307 is part of the mathematics department's new bridge requirement for all majors and minors. The problem was that I already took classes that this was a prereq for, so of course I hadn't taken it before. But now it was a prerequisite for almost every upper division class there is. And it is a proof class.
For those of you who don't remember, I took a proof class last year, Math 315, and I got out of it with a D, the only D my major allows. I was in a study group with 3 other people, two of them failed the course, and the other one got a C. We are all brilliant, this class is just outrageously hard. In effect, I was terrified to take another proof class that was a required class. Terrified and pissed off that they added this new requirement and that I had to restructure my major because of it, as well as take two more math classes than I was expecting to. So I show up on the first day, and I sit down next to a girl who dropped out of 315 after the first week because she just said "pft, not this term I am not going to do this" and I never saw her again. Anyway, she was asking me why I was in the class, since I took 315 already (307 is now a prereq for 315 as well) and since I had taken 315 already, why was I in the class. I responded that I didn't get a C or higher, so I cannot use my 315 credit as a prereq, and then I bitched about the addition of the bridge requirement - she responded that it wasn't retroactive - since I had declared my major before the addition of the bridge, it didn't apply to me. To make a very long a tense story very short and relaxing, she was right. I dropped 307 that afternoon, put the notebook in my box of notebooks completely empty except the back which reads "Math 307 - NOT!"

So once I dropped that class, I was free to look at what else I was taking and enjoy it. So here is the traditional first week of term class rundown where I give my opinions about them.
Lets go in order of the week

1. Linguistics 411, Phonetics.
In this class we will be taking a closer look at how sounds are made with our vocal tracts, and how to analyze the sounds with computer equpiment - we are going to read spectrographs of soundwaves. I will be able to record you saying something and look at the waveform and figure out what you said (ish) by the end of this term. The teacher seems very direct, but she is really nice and enjoys input from the class - it isn't a lecture. She asks a lot of questions of us and tries to get us to figure stuff out. Much respect for her. I think the class is going to be very informative and maybe even a little fun - which is good, because it is one of the three more classes I have to take for my linguistics minor (the other two being phonology, the study of the theory of sounds as they exist in language, but not in actual speech - much more problem solving and puzzles there, and functional syntax I, which I suppose studys functional syntax in english, but I can't really be sure).

2. Math 420: Ordinary Differential Equations
This is the first class in a three part series (420, 421, 422) on DiffEq. The second one is Partial Differential Equations and Fourier Analysis, which is going to be cool for me, because PDEs are what stumped my dad in college. I think that is cool because the only way the human race will advance is if each generation is smarter than the last, so surpassing my ancestors in terms of my chosen field is very exciting as an idea - like the whole point of education is becoming very close to being fulfilled, think about that for a minute.
Anyway, the first three weeks will be a review of Math 256 (the blog on that class can be found at the link) so that'll be nice, and the rest will be new stuff that I can't tell you about yet, because I don't know it yet. But the class should be intersting and engaging. The professor is named Yattselev, and I'm not sure where he is from, but he has a sense of humor, he really knows his shit and he is very clear about what he expects from us, which is great. Also, he is completely gorgeous, which is a total plus.

3. Philosophy 110, Human Nature
This class looks very interesting at face value, but I think I'm going to hate it. I am going to hate it for one reason - the professor is teaching philosophy history of human nature, starting with the greeks, and he is teaching it as if they were right. I assume he will do this for every single one. It is usually presented as "hey, this is what the greeks thought - what do you guys make of that?" but there was no room for discussion or argument or presenting different views. Even in a 300 person class, you can take a couple hands every few minutes to present some viewpoints. As Peter said, we are going to spend a lot of time in our heads saying "that's wrong, that's wrong..."
The prof is great at explaining things though, and I think the writing assignments will be thought provoking. Basically, the main part of the learning in this class will be done in my mind, rather than in the class - oh well.

4. African Dance I
I took african I last term as well, and you have to take at least two terms of it before you can go on to african II, so this will be same level of difficulty, with some different dances (because it is a different teacher). The cool part of this class is going to be the people. Some of my best dancer friends are in this class (I'd say my two favorite dancer friends actually) and the other kids who I don't know seem very energetic and open and very into having a good time. Lots of people there to experiment with something new, and those are the best kids to have in a level I dance class. We learned Babaye and some of Lamba (Lamba is one of the big three dances we are learning the term, the other two being Kou Kou and Nzobi) which were great, Babayo I call it that because that is the first line of the song we sing while we dance
Babayo (bah-bah-yoh)
Baba aye (bah-bah ah-yey)
Baba lorisha (bah-bah loreesha)
Baba ok (bah-bah oh-kay)
Very simple dance, but a good way to get people going.
Lamba is much more complicated, requires a lot o coordination and has a lot of capacity for improvisation within the structure, and LOTS of capacity for booty shakin', which I am a fan of.

5. African Drumming
After I took african dance last year, and started drumming this summer again (I was jamming out on a djembe, a west african hardwood drum, with my friend on a guitar and we had a blast) I decided I wanted to take a class to learn how to read music for a hand drum. I can read for drum set, but hand drumming is done by oral tradition mainly, but there is a notation, but it isn't on a staff. Class is a bit large for my taste for something like drumming, but there it is. It is going to be a fantastic time, and it is right after african, which is great.

6. Tap III
Because I could drop Math 307 (1pm, MTWF) I would then be able to take this class (1pm TR) and that makes me happier than a... than a... umm... *insert awesome analogy here*. Anyway, big class for tap III, 8 people, varied levels, but much of the same stuff. Going to be a fantastic time! The cool thing about this year is that I have been in tap III for 3 terms, so I'll take it non credit the next two terms most likely, and I am getting a piece of board to I can tap at home and drive my room mates insane. This is not official, but I am gonna say it is likely, that at the end of the year for Spring Loft, I will be able to tap in Jean's tap piece! Small group, highly complicated and well choreographed, and very very fun.

So, I have a lot of stuff to look forward to this year, a lot of fun, and a lot of work. Last year, lets go kick some butt. Allons-y! Also, I have been a total Doctor Who fan...

The other September entries:
Faerieworlds Harvest 2011
Earthdance Northwest

Faerieworlds Harvest 2011

SO FAERIEWORLDS AGAIN! Yeah, as if you guys thought that we had enough fae to keep us happy for a year, we come back and have ANOTHER FESTIVAL! This was in the middle of September and the weather was much different... ish. Ok, it was similar, as was the level of awesome fun we had, so I'm going to give you the run down on why harvest festival kicked serious faerie butt.
1. It didn't rain on saturday. Right off the bat, I call this one a hardcore success, because the rain in the summer totally ruined my saturday. Also made packing up sunday morning really not fun at all. But this time we got sun and clouds, but no water!
2. The music was incredible. We got to play host to Faun, Delhi 2 Dublin, Tricky Pixie (minus Alec, very sad), and a band who played and blew my little fishy mind named OKA from Australia. There was didj, there were drums, and a whole lot of other awesomeness going on there. And if their music wasn't cool enough, they closed the set with their didj player doing a traditional Australian aboriginal dance, which he can do, because he is actually an Australian aboriginal. It was way cool to watch.

I also decided to do FW this time without a tent. I was homeless, and planning on crashing with my friends each night. The plan was to sleep in someone different's tent each night so as to keep myself sheltered, but not impede on anyone too bad. Tons of my friends had tents and extra space, I was counting on their kindness. Turns out I didn't need it. Emily Fae who we met at faerieworlds in the summer came back to us from North Carolina (actually, Connecticut I think, she was in school) for the weekend, and it just happened that is got REALLY cold at night and we were quite good at keeping warm, so I had a place to stay almost the whole weekend.

During this weekend, we danced, we sang, and I was sung to - because my 21st birthday was on sunday night! That's right, I got to drink beer and mead at Oberon's Tavern on sunday night of FW, and all my older than me friends were gathered and we sang and drank and, because I really want to say it, were merry.

But the coolest single part of faerieworlds by a significant margin was friday night. Friday night Delhi 2 Dublin performed, and they were great as usual and I shook myself silly dancing to them. It was great. But before they went on, a band that is basically Woodland and friends called Treguenda performed, and we got to do the fire ceremony during their set. There were six of us, including Lulu the belly dancer, Erika the star belly dancer, Lyra the poi spinner, and some other people to help with the more ritual aspects of it. It was decided that I was to do fire breathing again, which was no surprise, but that I would also finally get the chance to perform with fire fans! I've been working my ass off to learn how to use them for the last several months based on my mission for fans. I think that is another post, and I don't think that I've written about my mission for fans as well as several other toys. But suffice it to say that getting to perform with fire fans at a major festival was a huge step and an amazing thing to do.

But here's the thing - fire fans are a two handed tool, no room for taking fuel into my mouth, and I didn't want to take fuel in the middle of Lyra's set, not when I am holding a giant flaming steel staff and standing powerfully in the middle of the stage. So I decided a few days before that I would hold the fire breathing fuel in my mouth. It was a 12 minute show, and I help that fuel in my mouth the entire time. I had to keep my lips closed but my jaw open and breathe only through my nose for about 12 minutes, and then I let out a glorious fireball at the end. And people got it too - there were people talking to each other after, I was told, saying "I know that was the same guy as at the summer festival, did you see him drink any fuel? Because I didn't see it at all" and everyone was equally confused an impressed, yay me.
The other thing that happened was I proved that my fans worked.

I have been working on the alternative style of fans as part of my mission, and I had the opportunity to perform with them in a duet with the style I deliberately rebel against, and I got to show people a different way - it was a very rare opportunity. And the reaction was great, I got so many compliments about the style and how much they liked it. It made me feel that my hard work and on this mission is not being wasted, people are learning that there is more to fans than they had been led to believe.


Edit:
I just remembered that WE HAVE A VIDEO! A good friend of mine whipped out the ol' iPhone and captured this glorious night for me to look back on.
Oh, and you can find that if you click on THIS.


So that's my faerieworlds post.
Here are the other two September posts
Earthdance Northwest
First Week Of Senior Year

A Few Facts From The Fire Front

So I have had a good summer of fire performance and it isn't over.
I had the chance to perform at Faerieworlds in June, and I have done a lot of work with friends. Upcoming I have Faerieworlds Harvest, which we are still deciding what to do, and the big one for me Earthdance Northwest.
EDNW is not bigger than FW nor is it better in any way, but this is the big one for me for several reasons.
1. I am using a character that has been under development for 6 months
2. It is the first festival gig I got without my friend's connections - I got this one on my own
3. I am doing it by myself. I am carpooling up there with strangers, and camping solo. Additionally, there will be way more people there than normal who I don't know (unlike FW where I can't go 20 feet without seeing someone I know)
I am really excited for it, and for everything coming in the near future.

I also had the chance recently to record some of my fire stuff, including my new character, who I will talk about in a bit.
I have videos for the character, fans, and poi. They were all improvised and done without any planning other than "I wanna spin fire tonight." The ones I still have left to film are contact juggling and eating (fire of course).
Anyway, as I am writing this, I am editing the videos for sound so they sound nice, but I am not doing any video editing whatsoever (ok, maybe a little bit) so hopefully by the time I post it, they will be ready to post links.
That was the plan. I still might go through with the plan because it is a good plan.

However, something kinda crazy happened last night. I was working on fire eating/breathing with my friend Braedon, who has been working so hard on all of this, and I am really proud of him. Having an apprentice is fun (we did a fans/breathing duet that I choreographed in like 30 minutes last week, I still remember it, and I hope to get it on film once I do some repair work on my equipment).
I got my lip burned last night. And my stomach. And my arm. Minor burns, just annoyances really - nothing more than I'm used to. They hurt a lot more than I am used to, but I blame that on the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in over 12 hours, so I just wasn't operating on full.
Anyway, I had a thought when I was nursing my burns with some ice: God I am tired of it.

I love fire eating and breathing because they are way cool, and they demonstrate a control that few have. And crowds love it. The reason I work so hard on them is because nobody else will do them. I don't like competition, and working in that field reduces it. I can't compete with the best when it comes to poi, I don't see fans and me becoming best friends and spending hours working together, and I sure as hell don't want to make a habit of doing fire contact juggling a lot. So it was my only option, but now I have this new thing that I do. Nobody does this. Seriously - I've been watching youtube videos of fire performance for years, and I have never seen something like this.
I want this to become my thing. This character will become more sleek, more well oiled, use more props, all in his own unique fashion (which will make sense when you see the video).
I am tired of nursing burns on my chest and arms. I am tired of shaving my arms and chest before every show. I am tired of burns inside my mouth that make me chew on my own lip for a week.
And now I finally have a way to not do that anymore.

So, here's the new plan. I am gonna rip out the best fire eating routine I have ever done in my life. I am gonna do it once. I am going to record it, and then I am gonna put it in the demo video. I want to show that I can, and unless SPECIFICALLY ASKED I will not perform it. Fire eating no longer has a place in the fire jams I go to. It is a purely professional art for me. And I mean that literally. If I am going to burn myself for your entertainment, I am going to get paid.

Alright, video time.
#3 Fire Poi: I did this to "The Voice" by Celtic Woman, which I have actually done before, and have a video of it (on my youtube, and you can see how much I have improved in that time). Anyway, I want to clarify that poi is just something I do for fun. I don't practice more than once a week, and this was completely improvised with next to no warm up. Translation: just for fun, not to be taken seriously as a representation of what I do - poi is just a hobby (but you can be sure the highlights are going in the demo). Oh, and also, I did this blindfolded - just so that is clear.

#2 Fire Fans: I need to explain the music. It is not what I would have chosen, but just before I did this, I gave my friend a challenge and had him use fans to Enya's "Oronico Flow" which, if you've ever heard it, does not lend itself to my style of fans (which is what I have been teaching him). I just wanted to see what he would do. Then I told him he could choose anything he wanted for my set, and he gave me "Cannibal" by Ke$ha, which I actually like as a song, but not my first choice. Anyway, the moment I knew what the music was is the start of the video - true improv this one was (except that I know that song really well)

#1 Fyrieth: So I finally came up with a name for this guy - Fyrieth (FEAR-ee-eth). It is a word taken from Old English, and is actually a third person conjugation of fyrian (Chronicles of Riddick anyone?) which translates to "to supply fire." So this guy's name roughly translates to "supplier of fire" in a very inexact way. I wanted him to be in complete control of fire without reaching into pockets for lighters or flasks - if I couldn't keep it (1) on my body and (2) hidden, I didn't do it. This was the result. Music is "August" by UNK Remix. Enjoy!

So, I have these three videos, and once I record my badass fire eating and contact juggling videos, I will mix them altogether into a fire demo for myself, should be pretty fun. Look for that entry in a week or so.
That's all the facts from the fire front for today, burn it up.
Today's blog has been sponsored by the letter F.

On Attractiveness of Skill

A preface on the subject. Part of being attracted to someone is their physical attractiveness. This is not all that composes how attracted I am to someone, but it would be foolish to say it didn't matter in the least. This post is STRICTLY about physical attractiveness. If you want to call me shallow for my standards of physical attractiveness, you are full of tautology, because that is just what physical attractiveness standards are: shallow. The important part to remember is that there is more to attraction than this, I am merely not talking about them, because that isn't what I want to spend the next week of my time doing.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I want to make clear what I mean by attractive in the physical sense (as every time I use the word attractive will mean from here on out unless otherwise stated). Actually, scratch that, that is bloody hard to do. Put simply, if I am attracted to a person, it means that I think that sex with them is something I would not be opposed to. This is not to say that I am going to take efforts to make sexual activity happen between us. But this is to say that if for some insane reason we ended up in bed together, I would be physically enjoying myself. It's a pretty simple concept, try not to make such a big thing out of it.

One of my goals here is to describe my "type" without using any clichés, which I know is going to be impossible, so just bear with me. No, you know what, that is going to be to hard, so lets try something else.
Lets make a list of possibles, like in the DSM - they don't say "if you have these symptoms, you have the following condition" no, they say if you have a certain number of these traits, it is likely you have the following condition and it would be a wise plan to consult a professional who knows what they are doing to get a better idea - but you never confirm it. Which is why we still have doctors and not computers with statistical analysis engines being the psychiatric diagnosticians. Point being: there is no formula for a type, but there are patterns and generally identifiable characteristics.

I want you all thinking about your own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Sexual Attraction. It is a worthwhile exercise I have found.

There is a long list, and I have it in my head, and since this is a public blog, I think I'm going to keep it that way. But there is one that I think I can confidently say without offending anyone terribly - it is my personal attraction, and if you look at the people I date, you will see it is true.

I generally like slender people. I don't really know why, but something about slender people is attractive to me. But wait, that isn't really true is it - I might know why. Let's think about this. Thought experiment time! Why is it (for me personally, not for everyone) a trend to be attracted to slender people?

Sexually have I found slender people to be better in bed (meaning that are they a fit for me - nobody is universally good in bed. Sex between people is a relationship just as any other activity between people, and some people are a good fit and some are not) as a general rule? Now that I think about it, no. That isn't true at all, and I can think of a couple counterexamples.
So I am not attracted to them because they are generally better in my experience in bed with me.

Could it be.... actually, that's all I got. Why else could I be more physically attracted to a certain type almost definitely if it has nothing to do with any correlation with sexual ability?

And what do you do when you come to a nonconclusion about a question and don't know what to do? Start doubting your assumptions - perhaps I have defined this question incorrectly?
Yes, I answer myself (since I am recapping my own thought experiment, I already know where this is heading), I made an incorrect assumption. It was actually the first one I made - physical appearance and personality are actually not unrelated. Didn't think about it at first, the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing and all, but think about it - if someone has a lot of piercings, there is a pretty good chance their ambition is not to be come a state senator. Not that we could never have a senator with piercings, it's just that people that tend towards political activity and the public forum and being a part of our political system and people who tend towards many many piercings don't have a lot of overlap. And of course there is some as with all categories, but it would not be unreasonable to make this assumption.

So what can we reasonably say about thin people? Erm. They are thin. Shit. dead end.
Welcome to my thought experiment, I ask a lot of questions, and don't answer a lot of them.
What is it not reasonable to say about thin people? Ah ha! What can you reasonably not assume about thin people? What do thin people not do? Nope, still nothin

Ok, maybe I was questioning the wrong assumption - maybe I am not attracted to thin people at all, but possibly a quality that is really highly correlated with thin people. But obviously since I have been with people who I am highly attracted to but who would not be considered as thin as others, this quality is not perfectly correlated with thinness.

Right around this point in my thought experiment, I went off on a huge tangent about qualities that the people I surround myself with have, and things that correlate with thinness, and even went out to questioning that physical attractedness has anything to do with sexual desire whatsoever. I will save us a buttload of time by letting you know that all of these tangents got me absolutely nowhere, so we'll get to the stuff where I actually figured things about myself out. And where did I find it? The same place I always do - back at the beginning. But not my beginning, the first idea about how a species operates on a large scale. Darwin - yeah.

What makes a certain portion of its species go on? Fitness. Reproductive fitness primarily, but other kinds as well. Back long ago, people who couldn't fight off the occasional animal got dead really fast and couldn't go on. Makes sense to me. But obviously, ability to fight off animals isn't important today (there is still a standard attractiveness standard related to this, which is why the rugged mountain man with a gun and an elk head on his wall is still the hottest thing out there to some people - and that's cool, to each his or her own) so there are going to be those who find something else as a marker of reproductive fitness. Reproductive fitness sounds weird - like soley the function of your genitalia determines your fitness. Which we know not to be true. Women who smoke and drink frequently are less capable of carrying healthy offspring. Men who smoke (I don't know about drink) are less likely to be able to impregnate a woman. Obviously, there is more to it than the function of your genitalia. Let's just use the word fitness from now on - just a general fitness in life. To be able to do well in life, whatever that means to you, is your definition of fitness. If it means running a company is doing well, then that is fit for you. And if having children and raising them in the country is to do well, then someone who is very capable of doing that with you is going to be very fit to you. This is how I account for different tastes in people - I think it stems (in part) from your version of what it is to succeed in life.

So what is fitness for me? What do I consider success in my life? Well, I want to join a circus company and spend my life in the air and playing with fire and spreading creativity around and making beautiful art with my body. I also want to write that book about the philosophy of movement, specifically movement as language and means of communication. I want to leave the place I am in constantly and connect with as many people as I can and share with them the creative vision of whoever I am working for. And since we are all kind of narcissistic, we want someone with similar views as us as form of self love, but also that you want someone to fit with you, so it only makes sense that we would want people in our lives who support us in one way or another. So what kind of person fits with that lifestyle of circus and writing?

I don't need someone who can do the exact same thing, but I need someone who can help me, I think.
I think what I need is someone who can keep up with me (and obviously this goes both ways - if (s)he can keep up with my stuff, but (s)he is a religious leader in charge of persecuting the gays, I am not going to be able to keep up, i.e. that we won't be able to connect - when I say that I need, I mean that it is half of what would define a relationship, the other half needs to be there too) and connect with me on those levels.

So I'm kinda lazy, and stereotyping is easy, and we all do it every day, and there is no point denying it. We're all a rittle bit lacist (if you havn't seen Avenue Q you are not allowed to get upset about that). What kind of person can connect with me on that highly physical existence that I have? Oh man... in physically minded people. Oh man... in-shape people.
All in shape people? Psh, no - tons of in shape people whom I don't feel the slightest desire to sleep with.
Frustrating topic for me, you see.
If not just in-shape people, then what? Ok, I've got it - people who do stuff. That's what it is - people who do stuff. It doesn't matter what you do, so matter as you do it. If you swim, you swim your heart out. If you rock climb, you go out and rock climb and kick ass at it. If you climb a rope and do tricks on it, you come train with me and my friends. If you want to kick a ball around a field, you commit yourself to it. Have you ever met a person who was really intensely into honing their body who wasn't thin?
Finally got it.

I am not attracted to a nice body alone, I am attracted to nice bodies that were gained from years of work and perseverance at perfecting the physical discipline intended.
"I don't care what you believe in, just believe it"
~Shepherd Derrial Book, Firefly
I don't know about that, but I do agree when it comes to physicality. I think that in this society of laziness and apathy and technology and way too many ways to fail to take care of yourself mentally and physically it is of the utmost importance, in order to survive, to keep yourself sharp. I think that is success - to keep your mind and body working effectively for a long time, and to do that, you have to work them out.

So swim, do circus, tricks, play soccer, do triathlons, speed skate or whatever. Just do it and kick ass at it. Then in your downtime, do puzzles or crosswords or debate or play scrabble. Or do really lengthy thought experiments and see where you get to. And whatever you decide to do, kick ass at it.

I guess that is really what I am attracted to - people who kick ass in their respective areas of life.
Psh, and I thought I liked thinness...

*Edit* Because I feel like an example is deserved, I am going to use one, and hopefully it won't offend anyone. I was at this party last week in Tucson, just a friend's party, old high school friends and whatnot. Anyone, some non-high school peeps show up, and we get to know each other. We are talking, and the girl in question is pretty cute (there were three people I didn't know, all of them pretty good looking), there is no doubt about it. Also noticed she looked like my friend Madeline, but that is irrelevant. Any way, we finally get to (this is in no way even close to the conversation that happened)
"Gerardo, how do you know these lovely people?"
"Oh, Fenix - I didn't mention that? I play men's roller derby now! This one plays for Jr. Derby, that one on the men's team with me, and she plays for Tucson Roller Derby"
"Oh, I had no idea. Hey She, which team do you play for?"
"Oh, Fenix, how pleasant of you to ask - I play for vice squad, but I also play for the saddletramps [all star team]"
"How interesting, I happened to be at the Saddletramps vs. Tex Pistols [all star team from somewhere in Texas], I don't remember you - who were you"
"Oh, I'm Lindsey Loblow"
"Really? You mean Lindsey Loblow the roller derby skater who was the fastest, most agile jammer on the track that continually confounded the other team's defense and generally kicked ass"
"Yes Fenix, the very same - I am she: Lindsey Lowblo"
"Wow, Lindsey, somewhere in the last 8 sets of quotation marks you just got a lot hotter!"

Just for reference

In case you were wondering, this fake conversation but entirely true story (at least as it occured in my head) is actually the reason I did this whole thought experiment in the first place.