Muffet in Tubular Crin

I give you a picture of the Demon Cat Muffet, sometimes known as Catzalcoatl, in a rare moment of rest.

The Saga of the Bathroom

The previous owners of The Barracks had interesting taste in colour and style. The kitchen -- in stuart gold (HC-10) -- almost smells of sunflowers, planted on the great plains (CC-334) of the prairie dustbowl. Meanwhile some of the walls are a depressing mocha brown (2107-20) and the master bedroom is a downright murderous terra cotta tile (2090-30).

The bathroom, however, is in beautiful smoked oyster (2109-40), and while the rest of my furniture whizzes hither in trucks and trains (except for my living room chairs, which apparently are being upholstered by narcoleptic turtles), the bathroom remains the most finished part of the house.


And look at that bathroom light! They previously had a beautiful fixture in there that perfectly matched the decor...but only took sixty watt "chandelier bulbs," within nearly-opaque frosted glass, mounted high on pedestals which cast shadows on...well, everything.

Getting "into face" is difficult enough in the best of lighting, but if you can't even see yourself without a flashlight...well, you'll end up looking great in the bathroom, but you'd better STAY in the bathroom for the rest of the night. No, it was definitely time for a brand new super-bright light.

So my mom and I (you'll read that a lot in this blog) went hunting for a bathroom light, and while the plain-jane horizontal vanity fixture seemed the most practical...well, it looked CHEAP. Second-best was a mirrored light which dangled up to 200 watts of pure brilliant glare.

But how to install it? I had vague plans about getting a more knowledgeable friend to do it, but on Saturday morning I decided not to allow myself to be victimized by simple home renovation, even if it meant getting electrified and killed during my first week here.

Fortunately the light came with (vague) instructions, and after shutting off the power and sticking a flashlight between my shoulder and chin, I undertook the nontrivial task of removing the old fixture and then wiring, placing, and screwing in the new fixture all by myself. Without drinking any coffee first.

And as you can see from the picture...I did it! It's so bright in there that you can't look above the mirror without suffering temporary blindness! And now I can find all the crusty shampoo-bottle rings that the previous owners left behind!

I'll post more pictures as other rooms approach some level of completeness, but here's a picture of what Zsa Zsa did during the first week.


That's right, she sat on the back of that chair and hugged it for dear life. It was the only piece of comfy furniture I retained during the move, and even though she'd never cared for it in the old place...well, suddenly it became her bestest friend.

"Caboodle"

Those of you with iPhoto know the way that it "scrubs" your picture thumbnails when you move your mouse over them. When I accidentally scrubbed the 106 pictures from the "Jewel Thief" photoshoot I thought...hey! That looks sort of fun! I'll make a movie!

So here you go: an entire photoshoot in twenty seconds.



The Making Of

This was surprisingly hard to create music for. Since "Koyaanisqatsi" taught us that all fast-moving imagery must be accompanied by Philip Glass-style music, I decided that a quick arpeggio was required, one note for every picture.

In addition, VanillaJ said to me a few weeks ago, "Have you ever noticed that all the arty/experimental videos are depressing?" So I wanted to make a HAPPY song.

The problem was the part near the end, when each picture lasts twice as long for a very brief period. That happened because there were two versions of each picture in that section: one with the hole in my fishnets, and the other with the hole Photoshopped by Jenn (look at my left thigh for the subtle evidence).

It was a happy accident but it made no musical sense; it threw the time signature right out the window. I had to learn how to use Logic Pro's signature editor to fudge it so that -- at the end of the double-picture portion -- we'd land at the beginning of another 4/4 bar.

I spent a week on that, simply so I could get the drum pattern to match up. Then I decided it sounded better if the drum pattern didn't return anyway.

Anyway, this was just a fun experiment and it turned out pretty nicely.

The Jewel Thief Returns!

This past weekend I did a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of Bombay Dost. They wanted shots of me wearing my "Jewel Thief" outfit, preferably in front of a white background, in the highest quality possible.

I welcomed this opportunity because I don't really HAVE any good pictures of that outfit; you can't just roll out of bed and slip it on, you've got to WORK it. For that reason I enlisted the help of Melissa Baumunk of Brown Salon to give me a grand hairstyle -- at 9:00 in the morning! -- and the wonderful Jenn Wilson (here's her site for all your photographic needs) rolled out the white backdrop in her garage and took to the pictures for a really spectacular set.



This was an odd shoot because the roll of paper is quite narrow, so all gestures needed to be slightly contracted and the tailfeathers always kept under control. I was afraid that would make for boring pictures, but actually it gave us a good framework to work within. And thanks to some post-production adjustments (not to mention Jenn's skillful removal of the run in my fishnets) it looks like I'm floating in Bollywood happy-space. Joy!

The happiest thing about all of this is that the outfit -- built by Lydia Bellenie of Delirium Clothing back in 2002 -- fits me perfectly. For a while it was too big and I put it in the back of the closet, but either it has shrunk or I have inflated. Now it's perfect! This is nice not just because I can finally wear it again, but also because it's a simply amazing piece of work, right down to the springy "pocket feathers" in the back and the faux zebra sequins of the bodice.

Where did Lydia find a sequinned zebra to skin? Only she knows...

Guelph-Squared

Now that my shoulder pain has momentarily ebbed to a dull throb (more on that in a bit), here's an overview of "Ten Days of Fear," also known as "Two Days In Guelph."

March 20th was the Guelph Queer Equality Drag Show. Performing at this event meant driving to the University of Guelph Campus Centre, in the dark, in the co-op car which I have only previously driven in once. Besides being a well-attended and well-promoted show during which I dare not screw up, it was also an experiment in car operation AND my first drag show since my shoulder injury...a "test" of my recovery so far.

There are so many wonderful -- WONDERFUL! -- things about the car co-op, but you do pay a small price. Besides the money you expend for actually taking the car out, you also need to go through a "ritual" before and after using it, which involves a complex series of key-and-passcode stuff, and a bit of paperwork, and then figuring out the state that the LAST person left the car in.

Whoever used the car before me had left the parking brake on, and I was delayed for ten minutes pulling various levers trying to find it, until realizing it was exactly where it was when I used to drive in the early '90s: between the front seats. By the time I'd disengaged it and closed all the hatches that had opened during my exploration, I then needed to back the car out onto busy Park Street, and I've never been particularly good at backing up.

So needless to say I was already frazzled by the time I left the city...and then I realized that, contrary to co-op protocol, the car DIDN'T have at least half a tank of gas in it, so I'd need to stop at a gas station on the way home.

All this was on my mind when I arrived -- mostly uneventfully -- in freezing cold Guelph. Fortunately the hospitality was top-notch and there was even a paid bar, so I got through my numbers quite well, thank-you-very-much. Here's a picture from "They Don't Know," taken by M.S.:


The show in general was AMAZING. Somehow, whenever Guelph organizers put together a show, they always manage to find top-notch performers in a wide variety of idioms. So we saw a fantastic (and spunky) drag juggler, and a full-on performance by Green Go, and Alberta folk singer Amy Bronson -- who you should DEFINITELY see next time she performs -- and...

The Nigel Gough dance troupe. Just about every time a do a drag show in Guelph, Gough has prepared a hilarious routine that sends the crowd absolutely wild. I have managed through the years to avoid needing to follow him -- NOBODY wants to go on after Nigel -- but more on that soon.

Anyway, the GQE drag show was a huge success, and I even got a little mention in the campus newspaper:

Popular drag queen Muffy St. Bernard graced the audience with her presence, travelling from Kitchener to perform at the show. Muffy put on a fun and sexy performance, teasing the crowd with her playful yet classically conservative antics.

"Classically conservative?" I'm still wondering what that means -- it sounds euphemistic -- but it may mean that my "antics" aren't of the over-the-top-sexy type, but they still have a playful "coyness" that evokes '40s musicals. Or maybe that's just what I WANT it to mean.

Anyway, as much fun as I was having, I was unable to forget that I needed to drive back to Kitchener...and I was absolutely white-knuckled all the way. Besides pumping gas in a crinoline at 1am -- YOU try to make sure the gasoline doesn't drip on you in such a situation -- I spent the whole time thinking "I'm a terrible driver, I'm going to get in an accident, I suck." By the time I'd reached Kitchener I was a nervous wreck, and actually pulled into TWO DIFFERENT DRIVEWAYS before discovering the one I was supposed to use.

In short, my show was good but my driving was awful.

So I spent all week flirting with driving schools, and grilling co-workers about their driving techniques. Workmate Dave -- who put up with the worst of my whining -- walked me through the typical back-up steps, and in doing so he put his arm across the imaginary passenger seat and turned his head around.

"Why are you doing that?" I asked.

"Because that's the only way to back up," he said...and it was a REVELATION. I don't think I was ever taught to actually LOOK BEHIND ME while backing up...I've always just looked in the rearview mirrors. Dave revealed that if he was driving behind me he'd probably want to shoot me in the head.

In the meantime I was getting ready for the NEXT show: the Gender Martini on March 25th, ALSO in Guelph. I would be ending both sets...and in the second set I was FOLLOWING NIGEL GOUGH.

First off, you can't end a set with a whimper; the song must bring people to some sort of closure. It cannot communicate that somebody is coming up next, it must say "That's it, you're satisfied, now go get a drink!"

What's more, if you're following a fantastic slam-bang performance like Nigel Gough and his troupe, you should not try to "one-up" them by doing anything even remotely like they did. If you don't think you can BEAT the previous performer, your best bet is to do a complete 180 and subvert their expectations.

I was still mulling over these things when the night finally arrived, warm but rainy. I got into the co-op car and did the paperwork without feeling any stress whatsoever. I immediately located the parking brake and disengaged it. I put my arm across the back of the passenger seat, shifted into Reverse...

...and backed effortlessly out onto Park Street! It was perfect! Now that I had discovered the secret of backing up, nothing could stop me!

To further allay my driving fears I was also taking drag stand-up artist D. to the show (I'm not protecting her identity, that's actually "D.," as in "D. Licious"), and she served as my navigator and company. We arrived at the eBar and were once again enveloped in sweet hospitality, and I found myself back in the same "green room" that I'd been in the last time I perfromed at the eBar.

This was me at the eBar in 2004:


...and me in exactly the same place five years later:


In other words, if you've got a good joke, keep using it.

The show was PACKED. We actually needed to be escorted onto the stage to get around the clustered crowd of event-hungry people. Again, Amy Bronson was amazing, and so were the other performers I managed to see (but whose names I've forgotten): the hula-hooping burlesque queen, the trio of dancers from Toronto, Mr. Gough and his dancers on a significantly smaller stage, Victoria Park triumphant as always.

Since it was a "Gender Martini" I decided to end the first set with "Love is the Darndest Thing," a bizarre reflection of love and resentment by Betty Hutton ("...what every young girl wants is wedded bliss.") This number requires Schnapps the Seal, and it always either succeeds brilliantly or flops terribly.

Thanks to a professional puppeteer who coached me after the last time I did this song (at Zelda's), I tried holding Schnapps as though he were a real animal -- as opposed to "a thing on the end of my arm" -- and I took her advice to let him behave independently of my own actions...and it worked! It was gratifying to hear the crowd laugh not just at the absurd lyrics, but also at the upstaging antics of Schnapps.

In order to shift gears and try to "blow out" after Nigel Gough in the second set, I resurrected Dalbello's "Gonna Get Close To You," which I think worked passably well as a way of closing things down.

Unfortunately both of these numbers require shoulder-destroying outfits. I was lucky to have lots of help in the back room getting them on and off, but by the time it came to drive home my shoulder was already aching in a "now you've done it" sort of way. When D. and I found ourselves totally lost on the way home -- due to an attempt to be clever about our route -- I learned what workmate Dave has subsequently said so wisely: "You cannot fight Guelph."

So for the last few days my shoulder has been in agony, keeping me awake all night and requiring constant icing; getting in and out of those outfits, plus waving my arms around on stage, plus driving 60km, have set my rehabilitation back a bit. Fortunately my MRI has finally been scheduled for May, and guess where I have to go to get it? GUELPH.

But there's fun stuff to look forward to. The entire Gender Martini show was recorded and eventually I'll be able to relive it...the best way to evaluate and improve your performance is to watch yourself on stage (so said Miss Drew eight years ago, and it's true). I was also mysteriously interviewed outside the eBar's theatre by a man who promises to post it to YouTube...one of the benefits of driving a car is the inability to drink more than a token amount, so I expect my conduct was better than usual (perhaps "classically conservative" even)?

In summary, the shows in Guelph were even better than expected -- and the bar is really high for these shows to begin with -- and I had a wonderful time, and I met wonderful people. But judging by my shoulder's outrage I don't think I'll be doing any drag shows at Club Renaissance any time soon...

Joy For the Very, Very Specific

There was a time when people with very specific interests might spend their entire lives looking for stimulation.

But those days are over! Thanks to the quick and widespread content-sharing capabilities of the internet, you can immediately find an extensive group which caters to your every whim and need.

It is my personal mission in life to fulfill as many of these needs as possible, while still maintaining a shred of decency. For instance, this picture has lead to a flurry of hits from a group devoted to "yellow clothes":



Their mandate is simple: "Yellow clothing. No nudity." And that's exactly what its 71 members get.

Far more popular (and predictably so) is this picture of me wearing cheap plastic handcuffs, which is frequently added to "women being handcuffed" pools like this one (work-safe last I checked, but I guarantee nothing for the future).



Otherwise, besides a terrible picture of me posing with a teacup dog, it's little surprise that pictures of me wearing boots often turn up in searches. Those whose photo collections contain a suspicious number of boot-shots (again, think before you click) seem particularly happy about this "broken boot" picture.



My point? I guess I think that human sexuality is a wonderfully diverse thing, and it's lots of fun that I can pull a "double-fetish" now and then without ever even trying (though when Vanilla set up the handcuff shot she wisely predicted it would be popular).

Muffy Does New Hamburg...AGAIN!

During the semi-regular hibernation of The Daily Muffy I'll be resurrecting a few older episodes, now presented for full Flickr posterity. Starting today is 2006's "Muffy Does New Hamburg."



It includes some updated commentary, since several awful things have happened to New Hamburg since Vanilla and I were there. Enjoy!

How to Find a Muffy

I love my web stats. They tell me exactly how people find out about me, and compile for me all those words that I should use more often in order to increase my web traffic: "boobs," "muff," "stockings," "thick ankles," and -- I kid you not -- "jumper pants."

But other than telling me how to attract attention with word-porn, my stats tell me what my most popular posts have been. My scary movie list is forever popular (and increasingly so as Hallowe'en approaches) and the list of breast-euphemisms in my Benny Hill evaluation makes it a perennial favourite. People frequently visit my Sgt. Pepper's movie review as well, for reasons that I'll never understand.

Enough about my blog...how do people find my now (mostly) static website? Usually through Indian blogs which reference my reviews (or ebay auctioneers and forum posters who steal my screenshots). By looking at my site stats I see that most people find the website AFTER they've discovered the blog, and not the reverse.

Here's a selection of the some of the most popular Google searches that bring people to my site (edited for interest and respectability): "muff," "crotch," "Wumpus," "skin disease," "Return of the Living Dead Workprint," "little pre teenagers," "girl crotch," "crotch girl," "leopard disease," and "weird skin disease."

If I can find a way to work a "crotch disease" into my web repertoire, my traffic will go through the roof!

Then there's my Flickr site, which inspired this post to begin with. For two years my traffic has remained at a steady average of 150 hits per day. But look at my hits during the past month:

My Flickr views have jumped tremendously during the last two days! The somewhat gradual rise indicates that word-of-mouth or web-propagation is involved, but the more detailed Flickr statistics provide no clues; just that 10% of my two-year traffic has occurred during this week alone, and that these viewers arrive directly at my Flickr profile instead of at a specific picture.

I assume that a Flickr user has featured me in some capacity, and that he or she (or more likely "he-she" given the people who tend to feature me) has a lot of visitors who have followed the lead. These people are FLOCKING to the "Daily Muffy" adventures, which is really cool because I wish more people would see them.

All that considered, what are the most popular Flickr pictures? Anything that involves "boots" apparently (like these two), or plastic handcuffs, and for some reason this picture has always gotten lots of views.

So what can we take from all of this? Mainly that internet traffic is a fickle and unpredictable thing, and that people who do web searches are usually looking for kink. Hmmm.

Daily Muffy: "Maid of the Mist"

Season six, episode three of The Daily Muffy -- "Maid of the Mist"-- begins tomorrow! A new picture in the journey will appear every day...click here to watch the drama unfold!

Special thanks to Jenn Wilson, not just for taking the pictures but also for driving hours through a torrential downpour. A trouper!

PS: Ever since I started using a new computer -- and a new version of iPhoto -- my Flickr pictures have appeared strangely pixellated. Fortunately, by adding an extra step to the uploading process, this issue appears to be licked. Whew!

New Flickr Pics!

For those who want a "taster" of my last two months, some new pictures are up on Flickr. Most importantly you'll see my tribute to both ringworms and my flaming car, as well as some shots of Schnapps and I warming up before the debut of our duet last week.

Incidentally, when I was leaving Club Renaissance after the show I asked a woman what she thought of the human/seal duet. "I hated it," she said bluntly, which introduced a shocked silence into her group of friends.

The only rational response to that sort of criticism is to do MORE duets with Schnapps!

"The Ruins" Exclusive Reenactment (And Other Photos Too!)

Due to this year's constant rain, the foliage in front of my apartment has grown so huge as to completely cover my living room window. In the process my view has changed; I don't see cars or people anymore, instead I see insects eating each other.

Inspired by this monstrous plant I decided to stage a reenactment of "The Ruins," as performed by The Little Lemuria Players (that's me and my cat). Here it is on Flickr.

In addition, I put up some miscellaneous pictures from the last few months. I haven't been in much of a picture-taking mood but I have a feeling that's going to change...

PS: See that spot on my leg? It's the scar from that car that hit me in July. Just an example of the reconfiguration of human biology by technology...

Maid of the Mist

I have just received the pictures from our Niagara Falls photoshoot, and holy cow they're fun. I really do need to learn to stop kvetching about my "dewy shine" and just let loose.

I can't reveal the really stellar money shots until the Daily Muffy episode actually begins -- about a month from now -- but here's a candid teaser with the sucky American falls in the background:


As for me being upstaged by the majestic Canadian falls...hold your horses!

The Daily Muffy: "PROTEST!"

"PROTEST!" -- season 6, episode 2 of The Daily Muffy -- begins on Monday, so be sure to check here every weekday for a new picture!

It's the story of my noble attempt to get off my tush and change the world, and also to keep my foundation from stippling in the intense sunlight. All pictures were taken by VanillaJ -- Queen of Composition -- who drove me to various protest hotspots and provided invaluable thematic advice. Thanks, VJ!

PS: I apologize for letting the previous Daily Muffy languish for a week...I think I wore myself out editing the "Hot Lips" video, and I wasn't quite up to the task of wading through the quirks of iPhoto '08.

Now that I've figured everything out I'm back in the Daily Muffy swing, I promise!

More Pictures from Guelph Pride 2008

The MC at the Guelph Pride dance was the always wonderful Emily Szabo, and she put some pictures of the event on the Magic 106.1 website. I won't steal them because they're available for all to see!

Pictures from Guelph Pride

I try not to steal photos -- unless they're worth millions of dollars -- but here are some that non-Facebook blog-readers will otherwise not see. And since I don't generally get pictures of myself "on stage," these ones reveal the Muffyshow in action.

Plus I think they're especially good. I'm not sure if Tamarra Vivian was selective in what she put online, or if she simply avoided those moments when I was gurning like a drowning fish.

First picture: taking advantage of one of the many instrumental breaks in Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy."



Second picture: interacting with the crowd without -- you know -- REALLY interacting with them, which would be scary.

I learned this sort of interaction from dogs and cats.

May Photojourney!

There are lots of new pictures in The Flickr Photojourney, which you should go look at AFTER reading the three posts below...they explain the context.

In the meantime, though, here's a picture which needs NO context...it's "Frenzy," the Angry Wig!

Ooh-La-La: Paris in the Spring!

The aforementioned all-new Daily Muffy is online now!



Just in case you're new to this concept, the idea is to present a new picture every day, meanwhile telling a more-or-less coherent story. This one is the story of how Tim and I went to Paris...and you can view it here. The pictures will be unlocked every weekday morning and you can view them at different sizes, comment on them, see them on a map, check out the growing archives...it's all so gosh-darned interactive!

Special thanks to Jenn Wilson for suggesting a way of doing this using Flickr. Hopefully it all works! Please let me know if you have any problems or suggestions.

Pictures, Some of Which Feature Feet!

I've put up a few more pictures on Flickr. Click here to look at the most recent ones. Amongst other things you will see the "hair squid" that I bought from Exoskeleton Cabaret...



...and, by popular demand, a few shots of me with glasses looking oh-so-brainy.



Enjoy!

The Photojourney Continues

Over on my Flickr page I've just added some new photos. Besides a few devoted to getting my feet in the shot -- because my feet are an important part of my body -- you'll also see part of Zsa Zsa that you've never seen before:



In addition, I forgot to mention when I updated the photos a few weeks ago, so you can also catch Madison Hart and I doing our lame "Mod" impressions (among other odds and ends):

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

Originally I thought it would be fun to reenact my "fixing the furnace" experience to the tune of Meat Beat Manifesto's "Plexus." I spent my sacred "Saturday Breakfast Time" coming up with an elaborate shooting schedule. It was to have been a monumental experimental video to rival Luis Buñuel's "L'Âge d'Or."

Then I came to my senses. Screw that, I wanted to have FUN on Saturday, not to hop around shooting some crazy video with barely a moment's notice.

So instead I took a bunch of pictures.



These encompass tonight, mostly, but also go back to New Year's Eve. Enjoy!