Today I bicycled at breakneck speed over to 31st and Glisan (Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church) to see what I could of the Annual Greek festival there. Quite an event! I have never been, and would like to have stayed longer: I had only fifteen minutes or so! But I felt that any "vibe" and experiences I picked up would be enriching for my book, in which I want to honor the culture as much as possible (it is very easy with fantasy to ignore real culture completely, and stray into all that Greek-mythology stereotype stuff!)
I got to watch several dozen beautiful youth in traditional costumes do folk dances to Grecian music. No time to eat any of the wonderful foods, but the smells were almost as nourishing! Then back downtown and to work. Sometimes I utterly loathe working weekends!
An Orthodox St. Nicholas icon I painted for a customer somewhere on the other side of the U.S., an almost direct copy of its predecessor. Icon folks like it when you stick to the Tradition --- very important. An icon is a story told in a picture, so if you change the icon, the story changes...
7th Annual IPRC Text Ball was a success!
I made some new friends, handed out flyer-cards, and so on. So many wordy entertainments in that room. My word-dress was more of an actual garment than a temporary costume, so there were wittier entries that won prizes yet took mere minutes to create with paper signs, compared to my hours of work --- but what did I know? First time there! It was still a pretty good hit with everybody. I loved seeing other people's costumes, too.
The food was interesting and delicious! Cookies, deviled eggs with smoked tea leaves, miniature "dirty" onions with juniper, burnt blackberry chutney, spiced beef cutlets, and several creatively accented cream-cheeses, one of which was topped with tiny crunchy black spheres: A Japanese food that must've been a kind of cavier(?).
Thank you all for a great time. Wordstock coming up!
One lament: That is an extremely "live" space, lots of echoes, not good for sensitive ears.... and not helpful for those of us trying to pick out the words of that awesome hip-hop artist they had! Keep up the word, girl! Saturday night in that part of town also makes my skin crawl, but that might just be me.
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