Next SANE Meeting 1/9/2007 CORRECTION

SANEsters,

Ahem, earlier today I reported:

The meeting date is Tuesday, 1 January 2007

Astute reader Mary M. from Beantown, MA reports that:

Tuesday is 2 January 2007, just so there's no confusion

Thanks to Mary for pointing out the error (and who am I calling an "astute"?), but recipients who looked only at the Subject would have seen a third date (1/9/2007), which is, in fact, the correct date!

So the first line SHOULD HAVE READ:

The meeting date is Tuesday, 9 January 2007, at Richard's (or if elsewhere, I will renotify).

All the rest of the crap is still the same, as/so far as I know.

Next SANE Meeting 1/9/2007

SANEsters,

The meeting date is Tuesday, 9 January 2007 (corrected), at Richard's (or if elsewhere, I will renotify).

Cripers, 2007 seems 'way in the future. Like there should be moving sidewalks and personal jetpaks and cars that automatically park themselves in a year so futuristic as 2007. Wars will be a thing of the past, as will hunger and actually "growing" food in "dirt" instead of making it in yummy tube and pill forms. "Don't forget your breakfast pill, dear, before you jet over to Eritrea to bring some peace to those savage heathens," I hear 2007-Mom say to her brood of Elvis clones. But golly, I digress.

By near-universal acclaim (over 90% of the known inhabited planets have reported in), we will be making colorful gew-gaws out of thin metal (tin cans being mostly aluminum any more), poking holes in them and making decorative edges and painting them and such. One purpose for these might be jewelry, or Valentine decorations/jewelry, or colorful metal things to hang on other things, and stuff. I may make a metal calendar or tiny tin drums or decorative eyeglass bangles -- I just don't know.

Betsey has some examples she got in Mexico from a burly street vendor known to the street urchins as "Turk," signed by a crafter named Karen O'Neil. They have scalloped edges, as if cut by them scallopy scissors (which, it seems to me, would dull toot-sweet if used on metal), and holes punched through 'em as if by an awl, and then some surface texture was applied with an awl or hammer or corkscrew or small farm implements, and then they were decorated with something like squirt-out-of-a-bottle paint and/or acrylic/enamel paint or glitter glue, then covered with a glossy medium or Modge-Podge. Whew! Strung on a wire that looks like it was born round, then hammered into flatitude, with attitude. All very festive and decorative, and only the wire part would cause nasty rashes. I was kidding about the "Turk" part above - he wasn't really burly.

What do I bring? (I hear you ask plaintively) Any of the following (don't rush out and buy stuff, I suspect between them of us what attends, we'll have plenty of everything):

Some sheet metal: it could be plain, or it could be decorated on one side, like a decorative tin box or soda can or food can, etc. (For easier cutting, something as thin as aluminum soda cans - but for more resilient uses, thicker aluminum, zinc, tin, brass, copper. Rich folk could bring titanium or platinum, and lord it over the rest of us.

Note: A flattened bottle-cap is already pre-cut and is often already decorated (for those wishing to create a decorative "Budweiser" bracelet) - hammer that sucka flat, punch a hole through it, and you're done.

Some wire, heavy enough to support whatever you have in mind. Light enough to wear, if'n somebody's gonna wear it.

Any metal-working tools you might have knocking about. Tin snips, wire cutters, punches/awls, any metal hole-punchey tools (such as a Dick Blick metal hole punch) would be handy. Fine metal files.

Some fine-grained sandpaper, for scraping off any varnish or coatings on the metal.

Alcohol (rubbing) optional.

Gluish stuff would be optional. Hot glue gun? Two-part epoxy? Duco cement? Chewing gum & baling wire? Acetyline torches and welding rods?  Solder wasn't envisioned for this particular project.

Band-aids and Neosporin.

Paint and decorative goo (preferably something that adheres to metal, tho I'm not perzackly sure what that is, since most metal wants to be primed first. It's actually dying to be primed. Listen to a little bit of metal some day, and that's what you'll here - "prime me."). Fast-drying would be a boon.

If the paint isn't in a bottle that helps dispense it (squeeze bottle with nozzle, say), you'll need a brush or three. Serious painters should bring a palette. Artists from the '40s should bring a smock and beret, and perhaps a friend with bongo drums.

Gloss medium, or matte medium. (Not small or extra-large, just medium. That "joke" always cracks me up.)

In the likely possibility that your project won't be dry by the time you leave the meeting, consider bringing a box or other contrivance to rest the gooey mess on whilst you drive home. Then leave it in the car to freeze, or leak through the upholstery, then sit on the next time you get in the car. Quelle surprise!

See you then/there.

---

In doing research for this project I uncovered a few others - take a look and see if you like any of these for future meetings (tho the HGTV site is scarey, in a craft-intense way):

design transfer onto metal: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/crafting/article/0,1789,HGTV_3352_1938899,00.html

soldered photo frames: http://www.volcanoarts.biz/muse/photoframes/index.htm

SANE Meeting Tues Jan 9

Sorry to be so late in following up with a next-meeting date/place/activity. My mailbox was flooded with responses, and it took me some time to appropriately deal with both of them. But here is the concensus:

Next Meeting:

When: Tuesday, 9 January 2007  (it was a tie between Jan 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30, so I threw the dice and drew this date out of a hat, then picked up the dice and put them away before I stepped on them with my barefoots).

Where: ? may depend upon what we're doing

What we doin'?: (see below): Still looking for a concensus:

Portraits:(my interpretation of this) We'd randomly assigned a victim, and must create a portrait of same -- during the meeting? Or use the meeting for prep -- like taking a photo, which could then be manipulated into/used to create a portrait. Since the group has recently rebelled against homework, how can we accomplish this without creating great performance anxiety? Should there be any commonalities -- all the same size (8 ft tall, 2 ft wide), similar pose (as if taken by bank-teller-cam in midst of robbery), similar wardrobe? (togas, nude, covered in mud - or nude beneath a mud-covered toga), who has rights to publishing these once they are done (artist, subject, or SANE's Extortion Vacation Fund)...

Tin-soldered frames: I think you have some delicate flattish object, and two pieces of glass, and some tin and solder: put the object between the pieces of glass, cut and bend the tin into frames around the glass, and use a fine soldering iron to place hot solder near an edge, and the capillary action between the glass and tin creates a seal that keeps it all together. Requires having something you'd like preserved forever in glass and tin (and solder). Meeting room would benefit from good ventilation during soldering portion.

Valentine object d'art: Could also use tin and beads and various & sundry smallish items to create jewelry, decorations, tokens, totems, tchotchkes, and/or kipple. Create them and (later) present them to your loved ones as romantic inducements, ceremonial offerings and/or apologia. Involves a multitude of skills and/or sins. Overuse of "and/or" not required.

Do you have a preferred project? From list above, list below, or from your own fevered branes (or from the fevered brane of someone else)? Or things we've done in the past that you'd like to do again?

WRITE AND GIVE AN OPINION (please). Once we get a concensus, or I just give up tired and ignored, I'll send out the Where and What part of this meeting info...

Have happy holidays, all, and may the gods of travel smile upon us all.

Zam Foo

Lord of spam and small furry things.

----------

For all of you clamoring to know the group's answers to the questions of the day. Well, of THAT day -- I've moved on, frankly:

1) Tuesdays still "the day"? What weekday eves are bad for you? Etc.

Tuesdays are bad: 1

Other days of the week are bad: 1

2) Assuming Tuesdays (until morphed otherwise), which of Januberry's Tuesdays (2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th, 37th, 44th, etc.) suits your particular fancy?

Any of these works for me: 1

All are equally mediocre for me: 1

3) What shall we do with ourselves? A new project aching to be done the very first time? An oldy-but-moldy project whose time has come again?

Drawing? Cartooning? Painting? (art that is fine?): 1

Round-robin portraiture of one another.  Any medium (or large): 1

Tin soldering frames around tiny pieces of glass with stuff squished inside: 1

Valentine's day [objects].  We could cut tin into funky hearts with beads, glitter, acrylic paint and heavy duty wire: 1

4) Where to meet

A bar: 1

5) Why does the porridgebird lay its eggs in the air?

Because it's a mammal: 1 (Ed: I really like this answer)

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

--- Munch Munch, Slurp Slurp

Alla buddies appeared to have had a good time last night, with much food and drink and good cheer. All praise the brave Alpers, who have elevated hosting to a fine art. How pleasant to be at a single table in a quiet space, rather than scattered about the center of a boisterous restaurant somewhere. Some observed that by meeting in a private space, rather than become ruder and rowdier we were actually better-behaved than usual (the praising by faint damns).

In the Swap, a the strong old wind of flatulence is apparently now blowing in the direction of blasphemy - nay, even heresy! With a crossbreeze of ancient or mystical technologies, and a nod of the head to anti-royalist sentiments. Ah, progress.

One sad note, of course, was Duncan's unfortunate absence, but we all wish him good health, and look forward to seeing him at the LobstahChowdah Centenniel, if not before. We hope that the NintendoSonyStation VII that Flip sagely scored for Duncan at the Yankee Swap made it home safely to him, and that he is happily playing all 19 games that came with it. Oh, wait a minute, that last bit was from the minutes of the 2036 SANE Holiday Dinner -- never mind! We still missed him in 2006, tho.

Speaking of "Yankee Swap," this is an event desperately calling out for a new name. Other than the inexpensivitude of the gifts, there is hardly anything Yankee about it. Latvian Double-Cross? Capitalist Market Factor Maximization? Think about it.

Thank you, also, from the heart of the editor's bottom, for the gracious gifts: he will attempt to corral his commas and carefully consider which apostrophes are apropos and which are apostates. More on the novel business at it unfolds. Please note, however, that such reward and/or bribery will be largely ineffective: after a while, the commas will gradually flood back and rest assured that every one of you will appear, warts and all, in whatever weak attempt at fiction (finktion?) pours out of my syrup-fast fingertips. Hmm... I wonder if ES&L has a chapter on mixed metaphors... Or differentiating between slander and libel...

--- New New, Biz Biz

I am currently soliciting suggestions for the next meeting: When, Where and Whaddya Doin? Pls respond with musings on the following:

1) Tuesdays still "the day"? What weekday eves are bad for you? Etc.

2) Assuming Tuesdays (until morphed otherwise), which of Januberry's Tuesdays (2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th, 37th, 44th, etc.) suits your particular fancy?

3) What shall we do with ourselves? A new project aching to be done the very first time? An oldy-but-moldy project whose time has come again?

4) Where to meet, where to meet... Paintballing would likely have to be done outside, or in Betsey's studio; knife-throwing practice at Molly's; but ordinary paper shuffling, carving or beading (forzample) could happen nearly anywhere.

5) Why does the porridgebird lay its eggs in the air?

One of these questions is not like the other. Discuss.

May All Your Holidays be Happy Ones

Rocky Rococo