Mango Tea

This is Julia Berbling.


She is mi amiga. Who happens to not have a left hand in this photo...



We talk a lot about a lot quite a lot. It's nice to see her because we always tend to simply migrate around town, yet do the same thing in every location...which is talk-about random but important also unimportant topics of everything and anything.



This was at the Lakefront. Do you see the really long Dinosaur monster fellow????

This blog, despite the fact that I have given allusion to being about a one, Julia Berbling, is not. Infact, it is simply about Julia's shit.
She collects a lot of it...and how wonderfully fascinating and random and beautiful it all is.

BUT FIRST!

As Julia and I walked into her garage after we left the lakefront I spotted this little bugger on the ground upside down.



A CICADA!!!!!!!!!! I had never seen one in real life before. Some also call them Locusts... specially after they shed their skin and grow wings. They make that beautiful noise that fills the Louisiana evening. Most I think find them to be aggravating and are said to be the noisiest of all insects. I got a book a while back off of that "take this book because no one apparently likes it anymore" shelf at the library on North American Bugs and there is a section on the cicada. It says that their sound-producing mechanism is probably the most complex in the animal kingdom and that the female, in most species, is mute. But what's most interesting to me about this insect is its life cycle. With the different species it kind of varies but because this little guy was found in the South he's more likely to have the more interesting version. They have either seventeen year cycle or thirteen year cycle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The females lay their eggs in paired slits which they make in the twigs of forest and orchard trees. Nymphs emerge in about six weeks, drop to the ground and , aided by their strong fossorial front legs, dig into the soil at or near the base of the tree. Here they remain for the thirteen or seventeen year period, feeding upon the roots of the tree. They then emerge, plump and amber in color, sometimes as many as 40 or 50 per square foot of soil..................................................climb up the bark of the tree or onto pilings, and transform to adults. In four tho six weeks, having feasted on tender twigs and leaves, they mate and disappear.
It also says that they are safe to be eaten by man...if need be.

anyway. We saw him struggling so after the photo op we brought him to a near by tree so that he may transform.
The next morning we went out to find this:



ahhhh!! How wonderful is that?????!!!

And since we are on the subject of cicadas in the middle of suppose to be talking about all of Julia's great collections...
Here is what a cicada adult looks like:








That's his butt.

She also has a Dung Beetle :D that looks like a rhino and a triceratops!



And a Click Beetle. Atleast, I'm pretty sure its a Click Beetle. Some type. possibly.




There was once a great fascination of wasp nests...



Then it moved to moths.



and butterflies





and seedpods and fungi and birds and owls and the moon and tree bark and shadows and OF COURSE ceramics everything else that's wonderful and great of course, fascinating.




Julia.



and I drew this on my leg one night.



and THIS is the amazing Mr. Owl in all his glory in a very blurry, but I think cool looking, picture.



Betty Davis - F.U.N.K.

we love to funk you Funkenstien

Today at work a lovely lady came talk to me while she put the satin rope back into the back of a southern bell corset dress. I met her a while before this. From what I know, she's the type of person who knows how to do a little of everything.. from fixing a car to face painting to knitting and sewing. I was just embarking on slightly frustrating mission to tackle and understand a muslin mock up of a Morpheus (yes the Matrix) jacket when she we started talking. She was telling me about the dreams she had and how she has decided to go back to her initial plan which was to become a rock star. It's never too late. She can't sing she said. Then she realized that her initial plan was to marry a rock star, which she then realized that she just wasn't the type of girl to hang with that life style. She's dated rock stars.. but they weren't for her, she's not the 18 year old model and she doesn't want a man who wants an 18 year old model. A friend of her's said she couldn't get a rock star even if she wanted because of the model factor. Then she realized that if Courtney Love could do it........ Then she mentioned that no handsome successful rock star would want a woman with some immune disorder she had. But just the other day on the radio she heard Rob Thomas talking about his new song and how it was about his wife who has some immune disorder and how he still loves her yadda yadda. Rob Thomas is a handsome successful rock star....... The final point of all of this partly caffeine induced jumble of interesting stories and tidbits was... not to sell yourself short.
Which reminded me of that incredibly chick-flicky chick flick "He's Not That Into You" which is all about "the exception"
Assuming makes an ASS out of you and me people.



This is Hamlet. He use to love me... now he hates me.. my feelings use to parallel his.. but now I'm just amused by this.....hateful creature. I take joy in teasing him. ....okay and when he lets me fluff the back of his neck. He's still hateful though.




Joy pretty much fills my being when I see one of these little fellows in my yard.




Bell Pepper pit. It has come to my knowledge in some random way inwhich i cannot remember but.... does everyone NOT call them Bell Peppers? Do people call them Green Peppers? I don't understand you people. (okay so they ARE green but... so..)



So I was fortunate enough to see this wonderful creature outside my house on a power line. He stayed there for a while ...not long enough for me to figure out how to get a clear picture. I don't think he liked being a model because he hoo'd at me a little then flew away. I felt kinda bad after, like I invaded his privacy too much. Next time I think I'll just sit and watch him instead of being the paparazzi.
Is that word Italian?




The sky reminded me of some grand Kingdome. As if it were some other universe that I could only get this little peak of.




This is a decaying crawfish getting eaten by a bunch of tiny snails at the bottom of a failed fish tank. Interesting.



This is my birthday. Thank you Halie!!!




This is my eye on my birthday.
Nick and I were laying down one day and I saw his pupil move... and move and move. So I watched. And that's what I was doing before I took this picture. It's pretty crazy.



This is me and Tronie Ronie Baloney Patroney on mah bday. And Flee and Aubree :D



This is funny and was getting on the interstate infront of me one day. You should click it and check out that hard core face busting out of the bricks on the back window.




This is a bugs most unfortunate demise.




It's pretty though.

Yin-Yang

I'm kinda reading this book that I got off of the "these books are old and apparently no one wants them because they haven't been checked out in decades so take one. please.now.thankyou." table at the front of our library. It's called Maps of the Mind. I just really started it today.. Soooo we'll see how long I stick with it.. specially because I'm also reading two other books besides this one and have more lined up. yeah
anyway.

It's seems to basically be a compilation of different theories and myths about the mind or psyche mentioned by various cultures and people throughout time. Speaking of the word psyche. I learned that it actually means "soul"
INTERESTINGGGG.

Theres a section in here that talks about the Yin-Yang.
and that's the point of this entry.

I mean.. you can't really tell me that as a younger you you didn't use to scribble the Yin-Yang in your note book or doodled it once or twice somewhere on something. can you?

And..who really knew what it meant?
Wellll here it goes.

"Yin and Yang literally mean "the dark and sunny side of the hill" but in their profound influence on Chinese philosophy, religion, government, art, medicine, nutrituon, sexuality and social custom they have come to stand for two complementary principles, alterinating in space and time, throughout the myriad forms of nature.

Yin/
the dark side, is taken to represent femals, earth, valley, stream, night, yielding, absorbing rest, autumn- winter and is represented by even numbers and broken lines in colors such as green and by fungi, cows, turtles, snakes, peaches, blossoms, waves and clouds.

Yang/
the light side, has been taken to sybolize male, heaven, mountains, rock, day forcing, penetrating, movement, spring-summer and is represented by odd numbers, in solid lines and in colors such as azure, and by dragons, stallions, feng-birds, rams cocks, horned beasts, jade, and mountians.

They are said to have originated from on primordial breath, CHI, which divided into a lighter mountian mist, and a darker earth vapour.

The symbolizm is less polarized than unified. LIFE IS A RYTHMIC MOVEMENT AMONG OOPPOSITES, A TIMELESS EBB AND FLOW IN VIBRATING WAVE PATTERNS."

interestinnngggggg.

opposites. opposites. opposites. .setisoppo. setisoppo. setisoppo

a little bit of summer

Soooooooo I've not been keeping up with this little bugger. at all. this summer. Even though I keep learning really neat things and seeing great things and experiencing awesome ..things...
So heres where I display an array of pictures that I've taken so far. Not totally in chronological order.


Seafood Gumbo In the Summer. YUM



Apparently my yard has become a haven for fungi. I'm not complaining though... I love taking pictures of all the mushrooomies.





So a professor of Gabby told her that when taking a beautiful photo always turn around because there's bound to possibly be an even better shot behind you. andddd he was right...


Yellow powdery mushroomies.


I intern at this talent agency/costume rental/boutique ..and while there these guys from Microsoft UK came by to get some costumes for a party they were having at Mardi Gras world. I happened to be on the computer working on some illustrations I had done and the guy asked me if I would go to the party and paint something while I was there. I did this in 5 hours. (drew it before hand though)


SURPRISE!




I went eat out with my family at this place that had this.....wonderful bear cat.
oh Louisiana.


Who says that digital cameras dont make beautiful accidents as well as film cameras!!! they lie!


again my little obsession with the plants here. I would have straightened and touched up this picture.. If I weren't lazy.


yeaaaaaah mushrooomiiieee


COLORADOOOOOO. I went visit wonderful Kris in Colorado and spent the week. We did a bunch of awesome stuff AND got to go to an AMAZING music festival which had an AWESOME lineup. oh yeah...

So TOOL played. and... I some how managed to squeeze my way to the centerish frontish because i'm stealthy and i have a vagina and guys aren't apt to fighting girls for front row. Actually I take that back. This one guy got pissed but then got un pissed.

One thing I'd like to mention before I go on with this story is that... I've met a good few people who talk about how shitty Tool fans are...and the funny thing about that is... I actually talked to and made friends with a number of Tool fans while awaiting this glorious show...where as at all of the other bands I watched.. I conversed with no one. so BAM!

back to the story. So all the anticipation in the crowd was all hot and ready for some live greatness that had been dormant for 7 years.... and I didn't quite grasp that... until as the music began to play I found myself in the frontish centerish right smack dab in the MIDDLE of a raging death mosh pit. My body was in a diagonal and not touching the ground very easily sooo thats when I decided it was time to skooch on out to the frontish sideish and NOT die by trample. and I unfortunately had to sacrafice my shoes. The end...of my shoes because I could only find one of them when it was all over. but... it was well worth it.

Adam Jones.


TOOL


This was the second day after Thievery Corporation played. Colorado has the stranges storms.. although believe it or not it didn't storm at all there that day.




Because concert fever has not yet let go it's grasp on me... I went to see ZoSo at the Varsity with some really awesome people and had a great night.







This little fellow is named Amigo. Says so on the handle area. He lives at Walmart. I wonder if he has a cousin in South America called Friend.


His name is also Amigo and he lives in my car. Yes he is a real blowfish.



Ta Da!!!!!!