Save the Boobies!

Apparently 2012 is my year for helping to save boobies (not just appreciate and promote them ;) ).

LUPEC Denver will be participating in the awesome breast cancer fundraiser/lady bartender speed competition "Speed Rack" February 12, 2012. Plus this week I'll be talking to Miss Jo "Boobs" Weldon about bringing her Pink Light Burlesque, providing free burlesque lessons to breast cancer patients and survivors.

I was immediately interested in Pink Light when Jo mentioned it to me earlier this year, but my feelings about the project have strengthened recently with the passing of my friend Jules Vogt who, after winning her first battle with cancer, produced a burlesque and variety show called Team Survivor Kabaret with fellow cancer survivors.

Check out picts from the first Pink Light Burlesque show earlier this month on the Pink Light Facebook page.

I'll have more updates on these events soon!

Non-Dairy Nog

Thehairpin.com writers tried out a few internet recipes for eggless eggnog, to mixed results.

 I think the only one I'll actually try (if I don't take their lazy way out and stick to Silk Nog, which I love) will be the avocado based one- mostly because I also like those weird avocado boba drinks they serve at my favorite local Vietnamese bowl place. And maybe the carrot one- mostly because they said it was good with rum.

Favorite moment in the blog (besides the end where they mix all the experiments together and drink it- and give it an A-) was this quote, "We like tofu. But tofu as eggnog? More like no tofucking way."


Yeah. No tofucking way.

Today's obsession- Thai Jewel-Scarabs

In general, I've got a thing for insects- the little aliens of our world. They're weird- they move like creatures from another planet even though they were some of the first creatures on this planet.

I've tortured them (so sorry to any grasshoppers I encountered as a child, when I did things to you to see how you worked...or didn't work), I ate them at a Denver Museum of Nature and Science lecture (tomato worms, when fried up, taste a lot like fried mushrooms) and thought this article on insect infused cocktails was fascinating (though you won't see me anywhere near that tarantula tea punch- spiders are not insects- they are monsters), I made a lot of art in art school referencing insects and I have a nice collection mounted above my fireplace, but I am especially enchanted by Thai Jewel-Scarabs.

I bought earrings and a pin made from their shells at Soho's Evolution,  then a friend sent me an article about Jan Fabre, an artist that covers dress forms, skulls, and a room in the palace in Brussels with the iridescent shells. 

Royal Palace in Brussels,
Jan Fabre's Heaven of Delight

Detail of Heaven of Delight

Then, today I read about this- a dress created in 1888 for Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry, captured on canvas by John Singer Sargent- still exists and was recently restored. 

Plus it turns out much of the world has been making beautiful objects out of the pretty beetle shells for a long, long time. Just tapping in to the history of mankind's love of shiny things.