Potholder Of The Buena Vista Social Club

Here's a cheery unique potholder from hand-dyed cotton and lined with heat-resistant batting, for your next meeting of the Buena Vista Social Club.  But you do not have to play salsa in order to enjoy it. 

Making Do

Plaster and Glaze Wall Treatment

Since 2005, we've lived in this small country cottage in rural Adair County, Oklahoma just outside town from the county seat of Stilwell.  Stilwell has under 5,000 residents.  Our bedroom walls were done in 1970s wood veneer panelling of fine quality.  But there is something about those panelling stripes that made us feel like we were sleeping in pinstriped pajamas.

Last week with the help of a friend, Dave Holbrook, we plastered over the panelling with plaster-looking texture, and primed it with a pinkish terra cotta colored paint.  We added a dark green glaze to knock down the starkness.

This photo shows one of the finished walls.  It was taken under incandescent light, and has an amber tint to the photo which is actually more salmon or peach in color.

I was happy to 'make do' with new texture and color rather than moving to a bigger newer house.  We paid off our mortgage this Spring and do not have a hefty mortgage payment burdening us during these uncertain times.  Sometimes little pleasures are the best.



STIR Illinois River Fest

Saturday October 16, 2010, from 12 noon to 6 p.m., don't miss the Illinois River Fest taking place at War Eagle Camp off of SH10 on the Illinois River near Tahlequah Oklahoma.  Our band, usually Tibbits & McCracken, will be there playing at 3... minus the McCracken I do believe.  However, we'll make up for it by possibly inviting along Dan Garber and Wes Combs to fill in, for some rollicking Bluegrass tunes as well as our usual more diverse reportoire.

Two songs we're sure to do are Chicken Poop and Tale of the Big Chicken.  The former is a well-known and beloved local sing-along which we've performed at least a hundred times live, and which is memorialized on a single song CD and an album called Songs For The Illinois River.

Tale of the Big Chicken is a newer one, performed at the STIR 2010 Annual Membership Meeting in June before the song's subject and hero, Marshall Drew Edmondson.  The ballad takes a Marty Robbins flair as it describes a cute little farm creature that grew bigger than a man, with a beak of gold and a smug attitude-- and if you tried to cross him, he'd crush you like a bug.  The ballad tells how the local townspeople to the west called on Drew to help save them from a smelly mess, thence a showdown takes place on the streets of Tulsa with the lawman and Big Chicken both trying to outdraw the other.  It is a song with a moral, and a punchline. 

NSU and STIR sponsors the Illinois River Fest-- an event which is great for children because it will feature just a boucoups of kid-friendly interesting activities.  20 booths will be packed with fun acitivities, educational stuff, and yummy food.  There will be field trips, and live animals from Sequoyah State Park and Wildlife Sanctuary.   And there is more--- Rock climbing and river walks, Blue Thumb programs and free tee shirts to the first 200 children attending.

For the parents, there will be live music all day so bring lawn chairs or a blanket to stretch out on the ground.   Visit http://www.oklahomascenicrivers.net/

Tibbits & McCracken

2/3 of Tibbits & McCracken

I'm making a serious effort to post 2 pics of me.  You've hearrd, "The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes."  Well, in my family I'm the picture-taker and so I rarely make it into the pics.  Perhaps one would think that I don't exist!  Or wasn't there.  So, here's two thirds of the music trio, Tibbits & McCracken.  Me on the left and our good friend Leonard McCracken on the right.  Its me he's fondly referring to when he sings Stuck In The Middle With You. 

Leonard is a musician of exceptional talent.  Some musicians, you tolerate their musical laziness just because they're nice.  Some folks have Uber-Skills, but not much musical personality.  Leonard's just a fun, amazingly versatile musician and he loves to play. No drama, all fun.  Now that's what I like!

Tibbits & McCracken is available for parties, events and weddings.  Call 918 797 5016.

The Art of Cherokee Living

The Art of Cherokee Living

I didn't ask his name.  As we played a gig on the Cherokee Courthouse Square last Saturday, this Stickball Stick maker unloaded his table and set up to demonstrate the art of taking a wooden branch and turning it into stickball sticks.  You can see from his powerful forearms that making sticks is not something one can do without physical conditioning.  It must also take learning, and listening to the wood-- the nature of the grain and its features.  As we sat and listened to Barbara McAllister and to the Cherokee Childrens' Choir, we watched him work.  With his bare hands, he bent and shaped the wooden frame to curve.  He used his thumbs and the strength of his fingers to teach the wood to fold over all the way against itself.  He used a baseball bat to formulate a uniform shape on the racket.  And that is why all stick ball sticks are about the size of a bat on the racket. 

Art of Living Festival

This year marks the second Art of Living Festival in downtown Tahlequah.  Our Trio, Tibbits & McCracken plays at 11 a.m. at the Cherokee Courthouse Square.  Events and activities are planned for both the Square and Norris Park throughout the day, so plan to come for an extended festival. 

I've heard that several vineyards will have booths.  I'm sort of a fan of regional wines, because I have found that they have a brighter flavor than wines shipped from afar.   My fave is Post Familie Red Muscadine.  It makes a nice base for wine gravies and sauces, as well as for sipping.  The White Muscadine is nice also. 

Oklahoma's vineyard near Vinita, maybe Route 66, has a lovely raspberry wine.  These tasting booths are a great way to compare several wines and learn your own preferences.  Others are Stone Bluff near Broken Arrow and Nuyaka down around Okmulgee or thereabouts.

I make wine, or used to.  Recently, I donated my winemaking supplies and brew supplies to my son-in-law so that someone young and strong could keep the family tradition.  Last year at Strawberry time, I cleaned a couple of flats and made nice strawberry wine.  Hey.  Think about tossing gold coins into a fountain as a less-expensive hobby.    The work and toil, lifting and monitoring, washing and sterilizing, stirring and bottling, driving and shopping are downsides.  But nothing is more delicious than nice home-made strawberry wine.  And here's a tip I learned the expensive way:  Catch the end of berry season.  You'll find overripe flats at a discount at the side of the road, from desperate strawberry growers who overproduced more than they could sell to passersby.  You will have to work a little harder at making sure you don't introduce any mold into your batch, but will save $2 to $10 per flat. 

I always wash my berries in a clean sink, then lay them out on towels to dry thoroughly... ideally just as soon as I get them home.  Ideally, you could dehydrate clean berries overnight before sending them to the mashup, and you'd get an even richer and sweeter intense flavor.

Here's a secret:  If you are lazy or caught off-season, you can use frozen Stilwell Strawberries from the store.  They're packed in sugar, which sort of takes away the vintner's ability to get a quick dry wine.  But it will give you  a richly flavorful wine far exceeding any that you can buy. 

I'm sort of clever at making wine from whatever's at hand.  For Murder Mystery Weekend, we took some nice cranberry strawberry wine made from a bottle of juice from the store.  Just look for juice without added citric acid and other preservatives--- they are present to prevent wine from becoming so.  Uncap the bottle for an hour.  Then recap it and let it set for a week before you decide whether to add yeast.  A word of advice from experience:  Don't leave active sparkling wine in the car for a few days or you'll get a jar explosion and wine will seep into the rug.  That can be very stinky.

Look us up Saturday, May 15 at 11 a.m. on the Square.  Bring a lawn chair, I bet.  And don't miss the Squeeze-Inn Reunion in Norris Park where the Squeeze-Inn once was.

Thank You, Musicians for STIR

I'm posting this word of thanks in my own absence while I'm still at the Fun-Raiser Earth Day event.  Every year we have given out buttons to the performing musicians at the Jam, and always before these were colorful tiedyes in the background.  This year the background is a February pic of the slime in the bar ditch on Scenic Highway Ten between Tahlequah and Jay.  Thanks musicians for your River-saving songs.

Earth Day 2010

Its a Good Friday

Easter this year is a bit of an anomaly.  I always like Good Friday because it is an extra day off of work, and a play day.  I often spend it cooking for Easter or dyeing eggs or tee shirts.

This year, Easter will be different without my mother's touch as family matriarch.  She was a gracious hostess and a good cook.  Most of all, she had boundless energy and never was there a holiday where the cake was not themed, or any such thing.  I, on the other hand, somehow inherited the 'guy' genes in my family consisting of two girls, and usually I'm asked to bring the soda pop.  For years there, relatives told ME that the get-together was an hour earlier than 'real time' because I was habitually late... being the type of partygoer who just starts preparing for the party when it is time to be there.

Maybe I exaggerate.  I've been reputed to bring brilliantly delicious dishes from time to time.  And scarcely mediocre ones at other times.

My best Easter was when my sister lived down the street from my parents on Victor Street, and had 3 girls just of the age to wear wonderful Beatrix Potter empire waist chintz floral dresses with fantastic large sashes.  Back then, we had lots of children of the age to race across the yard in competitive Easter Egg Hunting.  Oh the pink velvet and lace tights!  One niece wore a shirt from her grandfather, "Just Say No To Hollow Bunnies."  We were a large extended family of 5 aunts and uncles, their children and grandchildren.  Every person on Earth should have the delight of such a large, fun, funny, handsome, competent, and loving family.

Nieces and nephews now have grown up and there is an equally charming age cluster of Oklahoma University cohorts consisting of not less than five of them this semester.  Now the darling dresses are replaced by crimson and cream jerseys with the number 14 on them.  (For those who may not know, that is Sam Bradford, OU's former great quarterback and Heisman Award winner, who happens to be Cherokee like all of our OU students in the family).

Invitation - Tibbits & McCracken

Each First Saturday night of the month, Dennis Tibbits and I along with Leonard McCracken are the 3-person band playing at KTK Steakhouse in Tahlequah.  You are invited to mark your calendar for Saturday April 3rd.  KTK Steakhouse has delicious gourmet food, and local steaks.  Try the horseradish maple sauce and the creme brulee!  We're there playing from about 5:30 to about 9:00 so come any time it suits you.

Got Plans?

On Sunday March 7th, join us for a fundraiser for Dave Holbrook.  For years at Kooter Brown's Music Tavern at Caney Ridge (Barber), Dave hosted fundraisers for every cause and every person in need.  When Granny Sowers needed a truck, Kooters hosted a bikers' event.  When STIR needed a place to host a 3-day Songwriters' Earth Day Weekend Jam, Dave kindly offered Kooters--- and organized a Poker Run too.

A week ago, Kooter's new location in Tahlequah caught fire and much of the restaurant and bar were destroyed.  This fire also took the life of Jewely Herrington next door who owned Jewely's Pet Grooming.  Dave claims he had some hand in naming Jewely's business.  (She had intended to call it Jewely's Doggy Styles but Dave pointed out the ambiguity in that business brand.)   Jewely was a sweet and beautiful woman, and she will be missed very much.

So tomorrow, we're going to try and balance the scale of Karma just a little bit, by raising some money to help Dave with whatever is next for him in his life-- whether it be to start over or just walk away from his business and his baby that he had just opened on New Years' Eve or thereabouts.

Sometimes in life we seem to have our path in front of us in a clear way, only to discover that fate has moved the foot path.  But when it happens we can find the best in everything and not let fear of changes be an added obstacle. Our ability to cope is directly related to our ability to cope.  In other words, the sooner that we accept facts and look to the future, the sooner we can move on and adapt.

Sunday, come to Scooter Music Tavern at SH51 and the Bypass for great music, free food and some of the best folks you could ever call friends.  There, you can get a sense of  the kind of friendship that pulls people thru tragedies.  Dave and I both lost a parent within the last 5 weeks, and   we know first-hand how much we're loved by the people we love too.  There will be some good musical jam.  Hours are 3 pm to 1 am Sunday at Scooters.  Bring an auction item, or bring money to buy some cool stuff from the auction table.  Dennis Tibbits will be the auctioneer.

Invitation

We're debuting a new 3-man combo on Saturday March 6th at KTK Steakhouse in Tahlequah, about 6:30 to 9:30.  The food is excellent there.  I recommend the filet mignon and cream brulee, sweet potatoes and french onion soup.

Dennis Tibbits, Leonard McCracken and me, Fluffy, will be playing.  Leonard jams with us often at Scooters and elsewhere, so we think we'll have a wide reportoire of songs that listeners request as well as some local originals that are pretty popular.

When we play, someone always requests, "Chicken Poop."  I hesitate to even put those words in a blog because internet filters may hide my blogs.  But last week a bus driver told us that all 30 of his bus kids sing that song as they toodle down the dirt roads.  I have this wonderful mental picture of kids growing up to help clean up water pollution to the river because they've heard the simple compelling story in a song.

Eric Clapton & Roger Daltry

No nice photo this time.  Friedrick and I attended the Eric Clapton Tour concert in Tulsa this week.  I'd consider it a lifetime achievement to finally listen to this music in a concert hall.  The acoustics were superb.  And there were a few small embellishments and changes but basically these songs were just as recorded in the past.

Eric Clapton is a contemplative stage musician.  I expected showmanship, but actually he looked just like every former stage appearance I've seen on TV or video.  Very auditory.  Connected to the music.

From early about high school and definitely when I was out on my own for the first time in 1974 Eric Clapton has been an emotional connection to music--- songs like Layla are just visceral to everyone who has ever listened to music uninterrupted and focused, with its crescendos and pianissimos and fortes.  Clapton's compositions/executions seem easy but are quite complex.  Dennis says the notes are sometimes hard, ie in Tears in Heaven.

I was sort of afraid he'd play Tears in Heaven, because my mother passed away a month ago, and that's probably the very song that would send me into grief.  But, he only played a measure and then performed Beautiful Tonight.  Fine with me!

I'd be remiss not to credit Roger Daltry.  Quadrophenia is the first art movie I ever saw, in Boulder in Summer 1980 after a week of backpacking in the San Juan Mountains.  I wished to hear Reign On Me but he didn't play that.  Then in law school about 1982 I saw Kids Are Alright, The Who movie and loved all the music. The Who's best stuff, I think, was before Tommy.  Although, most people know those later songs the best.  Won't Get Fooled Again stands out as just one of the paradigmatic Youth Movement songs of my generation, like My Generation also.

My friend Sean predicted that Roger Daltry would kick Eric Clapton's, um, stardom, but I have to say that I found myself tearing up a couple of times during Clapton... not because of the lyrics but because of the acoustical rendition.  Yes, the music was THAT good!  Roger Daltry was a fiery entertainer with a lot of punk still to spend.  Overall, it was an enchanting evening that I'll never forget.

Because tickets were pricey, Friedrick and I gave each other this adventure as our 5th Anniversary gift.  We couldn't get away to go to the Carribean this year.  It was a wonderful concert.  I recommend it if you are near any part of the country where this tour will be going.

Steampunk Fiddle

 

Here's a steampunk fiddle I created into a collage.  It started out as a fiddle that had been last mended by Sam Mouse (how Cherokee is that surname?)   in 1982, but which would not hold tuning.  It had been just hanging on Friedrick's wall five years ago when I moved here.  People would take it down and try to play it.  The sprockets are sort of a nonverbal sign saying, "Um, I don't think this fiddle is a serious musical instrument any longer." 

Anyway, it is featured among the 1,000 in an art book about 1,000 ways to recycle.  Some day I will post a a link and review of that book.  It is chock full of great art.

Urban Trends

In Europe, more people live on every square mile of land than here in America.  In Jamaica, there are vast unoccupied areas of beautiful lush jungle habitat, and yet people there also surround themselves with an intentional urban landscape.  It is a beautiful and functional landscape. 

Not too long ago, I stayed at a little cluster of cottages in Jamaica.  The owner’s dad was sitting on the step one morning as I went for a walk to find a vendor selling nice local Blue Mountain coffee.  “124 mangoes ripe,” this elder gentleman (in his late 80s) informed me.  He gestured toward the big fruit tree which shadowed overhead like an umbrella, and to the ripe fruit all around on the ground.   He was inviting me to breakfast, in a Jamaican casual way.  There was something verdant and abundant about a tree lavishing big ripe mangoes for as many as 124 passers by.  Fruit trees are like that.  

(My daughter, sitting outside Mikey's at Green Leaf Cabins in Negril, Jamaica.  Local men sit around and play dominoes there, faster than I can do the math.  If you visit Seven Mile Beach at Sun Beach, stop by and see my tiedye fashions for sale in Jennifer's Gift Shop there at Green Leaf Cabins, on Norman Manley Boulevard.  And don't miss one of the best roadside jerk chicken grills called "Best of the West." ) 

By urban landscape, I’m not talking about skyscrapers and utility lines, and parking lots.  Outside of America, most of the people living in fertile regions with a moderate climate, surround their homes with an edible, or otherwise useful, landscape.

Driving down Mexico’s Emerald Coast on a road trip, you can still see people living in modest little homes who use horses or mules to press sorghum in their front yard.  The animals, strapped to something like the horse exercise carousels in Oklahoma, go round and round.  This cinches and presses the canes, which are like bamboo, to crush out the juice.  A family member or neighbor with a big paddle stirs and cooks the sap over an open fire in the yard, making the sweet and iron-rich molasses which will be used for cooking or as a table condiment.

Further South, visit the Mexican village (now a city) of Papantla and you will find a culture of vanilla there.  It is grown by many.  Seller after seller features their vanilla beans in the local farmers market.  Some grow extra, and trade it for other needed things such as tools and labor.

Other places yet, one may find an informal guild of  weavers or potters, silversmiths or luthiers.  In families and among neighbors they hand down the technology of their craft. 

In America, we have some analogies.  SPIN farming is small-plot intensive gardening.  It is a new trend in Oklahoma.  People share learning so they can grow food on small patios or in a small but rich deep garden plot.  Even smaller, one can  buy a little kitchen nanogarden taking up less than 2 square feet of space and capable of yielding fresh herbs year round.  And in rural places dotting the Oklahoma roadsides and backroads, the landscape still has vestiges of subsistence farming from the past— some farmhouse amidst fruit trees often with the signs of a past garden plot.  These are landmarks, whispering a bit of the history of the past or future. 

Revitalizing urban homesteads, I predict, will grow more popular as more and more people  reach a point of change and authenticate their consumer consciousness.  We seem to be ‘regionalizing and localizing’ in our preferences.  Local food.  Regional music.  Shopping as an adventure to find unique and individual things instead of things mass-produced machine-made disposables.

 

Maker Fairs are springing up as a weekend happening in large urban areas.  People go to see Indie artisans and gadgety inventor geeks at work and play.  Visitors can sometimes pay to make their own stuff there onsite at some of the booths.  What girlie girl would not love to make herself a purse which illuminates inside with LED lights when opened?  At a Maker Fair, Guys can punch leather, rig a little robot for the coffee table, or make a bookshelf that appears to have no visible means of support.  There, you might find  a floating MP3 speaker inside of a mylar balloon.    

Sooner or later, we have a hankering to live in a world with our imprints.  Learning to do cool stuff is a dividend in customizing an intentional lifestyle.  

Resources:  Read about the pole diving religion of Cempoala Totonacs at http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totonac ;   Yardify your food at okspinfarmcoop, a yahoo group.  Make stuff:  www.instructables.com .  Get bits here:  http://store.makezine.com/  See that speaker:  http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/554