Pisces 0° (February 19)

Working on some materials for the lawyers today and continuing to promote our Desiree Burch show tomorrow. Life is good and I cannot complain. I have been enjoying even the bleakness of this winter. I am happy to be staying put and to be preserving as much resource as I may, gearing up for the Spring ahead, which I intend to enter with clear vision. Speaking of which I need to make a bunch of doctor’s appointments. Not very interesting information for you but you don’t really exist. I am a Blaguer without readers and I really don’t mind the fact. I want freedom most via this medium; and it has become something of a motor for me. I don’t always have brilliant or interesting things to say but I do my best and that’s all I can do really. I’ll admit I feel rather lonely today. I am happy to have gone higher in my aspiration regarding friendships, having set the bar too low for many years (as a result of my upbringing) always ending up with subtle or outright narcissists and, ultimately, abusers who have a need to make others (all others, not just me) feel less than. And then you wake up one day and realize you’re not being served in these relationships but where does one go to foster male relationships in particular at this age. It isn’t easy. I have thousands of acquaintances meanwhile and clients whom I love like children (weird to say? but true). Still I’ll admit that I’ve lost my confidence on the subject of friends; and for someone like myself for whom it is easy to isolate, that’s not always a good thing. Although it can feel like it—blessed solitude.

Everything in the positive: There really is no other option. I must lead with optimism on all fronts with nary a whiff of selling myself short. The books especially have got to be easy and accessible for all their high-mindedness. And I really must come down. Today I shall pave the way toward doing just that. First I have to get over some certain physical discomfort. I’ve been doing nothing but typing and driving and I’m feeling a bit worse for wear in the arms and shoulders department. I’m looking so forward to putting all the pieces together. It will soon be March and that will be the last of three months of prioritizing all the scaffolding work I hate to do most in my year. But it will allow me to get things primed. Still we must listen to Chanel about not banging on walls expecting them to be doors. Come Spring we will focus on the starting of things and begin to map out other projects that seem most promising. It will be around that time, in April, when we can do a good deal of local travel. We will have some understanding of where book projects might go and we will officially be approaching.

I really was in love with the Christmas show we put on this year. Everything seemed to click, but I dare say I was still feeling my holiday oats, which originated that week, for a month at least after. And my solace has been writing. I’ve had to fling myself around hither and thither, mainly lots of Boston and back, and writing too here has served and soothed me. It has become my salvation in so many ways where it has more often been my albatross. It has still been feeling very Februarylike, pale and stretched thin, soul exposed, transparent. The unbearable lightness of being. There is something about this time of year turning the corner, the new evolutionary generation of a year. That’s so Aquarius, which we leave today for Pisces. And not ungratefully so as in Pisces I can focus on the melting, dissolution being the energy associated with it’s ruler sign of Neptune.

Here I am talking about Pisces, while I should focus my mind on Scorpio. Some more notes I need to flesho out:Desire bring obtainment. Aspiration achievement. Someone said something like that. psychic possession. Miners for meaning. hearts of gold.Their brand of spirituality embraces mystery. Comfortable with uncertainty. They keep us guessing this is the whole Persephone on her thrown bit not.

Dragons of lust, obsession, fear, shame, repressed power to be released—which is akin to the regeneration energy akin with it’s sign. Eighth house of sex death regeneration where we merge most deeply with other the other motto we have “something together” an abstract possession. Joint banking.  There is often intrigue? Is there? I think I might be ready to transition to the next sign now. ‘Tis a long time coming trust me.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 29° (February 18)

Could not get up and out fast enough. It being President’s Day, were weren’t hitting much traffic. I had replaced the wiper fluid and yet, as we got past Boston, it wasn’t working, and the windshield was turning from streaky to a complete white out. I barely got us off the highway where we regrouped and I opened the hood and it seemed we were already out of fluid which meant there was a leak. We got on highway, cranking the defrost, and doing all we could but we were in a complete white out once again and I couldn’t see where I was driving but for through a tiny unstreaked spot at the top of the window. We pulled off again, some exit in Quincy, and saw a gas station mini mart. I went in to ask for some kind of help and as it turned out the mechanics attached to the building were actually working and just opening and a young middle eastern looking worker said we could pull in after he shoveled. I didn’t mention it had been snowing like made all night and we had left in an accumulation of about four or five inches. I was praying that it was a hose that was broken and not the resevoir itself. It was the hose and it was cut in two places which seems impossible because one would have to remove the entire casing in order to get at it. It might have just frozen then cracked. Either way. We went to pay and they wouldn’t let us pay. I show of human kindness from strangers after days of shade from so-called family. A little cosmic blague from the universe to reaffirm our faith in humanity. We were only going to be home for three nights during which time there would be a number of marks to hit. I for one will get much of my finances in order. And make sure I’m up to speed on that score. It is essential to know my finances before I begin to fundraise and cast the next year’s festivals and series. And I have a show to promote for Thursday sales of which are starting to pick up thankfully. Now I will resume my thoughts and feels on the signs. I’ve taken a long enough break, me thinks, on that score.

TV shows:

Russian Doll

Call My Agent(the french show so good!)

Killing Eve

The Keepers  (about Sister Cathy)

Atypical(Jennifer Jason Leigh mother of high schooler with autism)

Films and Docs from recent years to see:

Ideal Home with Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd

The Trip(The Trip to Italy, The Trip to Spain) the last one has the Mick Jagger bit—hysterical

Rough Nightwith Scarlett Johannson and Kate McKinnon (suprisingly funny and shocking!)

Orson Wellesdocumentary (only cuz Rich Little’s in it and it includes Peter Bogdanovich…drum roll…)

The Day After Yesterday(is the Bogdanovich doc about making the movieThey All Laughedwhich we’ve yet to see as you can only order on DVD which we did but haven’t watched it yet)

She’s Funny That Way(a newish Bogdanovich which is meant to feel like They All Laughed…we saw She’s Funny before any of the other Bogdonovich stuff) with Jennifer Aniston in funny part.

Scotty, about the Hollywood gay scene and his role in it

Wild Wild Countrydoc about cult and guru

Holy Hellanother more recent doc about a guru and cult

Girl’s Trip  with Queen Latifah

Life of the Partywith Melissa McCarthy

The Spy Who Dumped Me with Mina Kunis and Kate McKinnon

Life Without Gorky   doc about the artist

Cutie and the Boxer another doc about an artist couple…loved.

The Miracle of Morgan Creekan old Preston Sturges (and really anything Preston Sturges like Palm Beach Storyor The Lady Eve)

My Favorite Yearwith Peter O’Toole

Roninwith Jean Reno

All Time Faves you’ve probably scene:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The Women

Stage Door

Top Hat (with Fred and Ginger and, if you blink you might miss Lucille Ball who is Ginger’s real cousin)

Night Must Fallwith Robert Montgomery and Roslind Russell

The Lion in Winter

Casablanca(duh. I could watch it every day)

Lawrence of Arabia

Manchurian Candidate

Dr. Strangelove

A Streetcar Named Desire

The Philadelphia Story

The Searchers

Papillon

The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine

Nashville

Network

China Syndrome

North by Northwest

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 28° (February 17)

Since I wrote about the last two days in one post, yesterday, I want to use today’s post to catch up on some points about Scorpio.

Fixed-water translates to ice, minerals, crystals and, by extension, gems wrought by subterranean heat and pressure. Macrocosmically, gems, jewels are a metaphor for the as yet hidden meanings and wisdom and other such discoveries which effect us all, collectively, as well as repressed bits of ourselves awaiting to be mined. Scorpio people tend to be probling of others but rather sphynxlike themselves, guarded. The sign has many totems—the scorpion, the spider, the serpent, the lizard, the dragon, all of which lie in wait—the phoenix too which rises and falls, like the eliptical path of planet Pluto. Rising from the ashes is a metaphor for regeneration, which is the partcular power associated with this sign and it’s transformative planet. The eight house rules sex, death, sleep, all mechanisms of rejection; yes astrology includes death in this, creation/destruction being part of the same ceaseless cycle of rebirth. The symbol 8 is the lemniscate, the symbol of infinity.

Pluto and Persphone are chtonian deities, inhabiting the underworld; as archetypes for those born under the sign, it speaks to Scorpio people’s severe penchant for privacy, default suspicious demeanor, their relatively goth perspective that sees them recoil from scenesters, showoffs, socialites or the like who seek outside approval, something Scorpio people rarely do, and sometimes to a fault. Pluto is also god or riches (why rule by the rich is called Plutocracy). Pluto’s jeweled palace is heavily guarded. IN medieval myth, this theme carries through: Precious gems are guarded most fiercely by the dragon, just as our own demons of fear, shame and repression might surround those of our own wisdom and desire and which must ultimately be slayed. Scorpio people are the most in touch with their secrets, even as they keep them guarded, and they can seem wrapped up in themselves for the very reason that they are dealing with their interior world, first and foremost. Externals are all secondary. They are also more aware of what their personal demons might be—whether or not they succeed at eridcating them, they certainly don’t avoid them; that said, they are loath to share their private struggles with others. Sometimes they revel in their hidden truths, leading secret lives invisible to would-be prying eyes. The god Pluto wore the original cloak of invisibility, and, metaphorically speaking, Scorpio people tend to rock that article of concealment.

There is always a metaphorical link, too, regarding the body parts, in this case the genatalia, ruled by astrological signs. The fact that these are private parts of ourselves that we keep hidden, secret, fits the overall cosmic energy of the sign of Scorpio, the family jewels if you will. And yet these are the parts of ourselves powered with the ability to create life; just as they are one and the same with any desires we possess despite our perhaps being in conflict with them. Sexual desire specifically is something that is not only sociologically repressed, but they may give rise to individual repression if said desires don’t fit the external personality and appearances (so vividly snap-shot by the bright-light sign of Libra).

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 27° (February 16)

Woke up this morning at 4 o’clock because one has no choice when someone gets up and bangs around and uses a loud coffee grinder. This sort of behavior is nothing new but this present exhibition started hours even earlier than usual.  The whining took the form of wondering if the inlaws should be delivered an apology. Of course they should be (they never were by the way). And I got an apology to which I said: I didn’t take it personally (which was really only half true). I did say that I found it strange because, by rights, yesterday should have been a day of celebration given the news from the hospital. But, you see, as I said yesterday, good news wasn’t necessarily what this character was after. I know it’s sick to say that but what other conclusion could one draw? The dog was still acting weird. I strongly suggested she be taken to the vet. This suggestion was met with a soliloquy about how her behavior signalled that she was dying—that she was “leaving the pack” by hiding under benches and in closets and that, as the person delivering this monologue was the “alpha”, she was especially detaching from him. Okay. So all the more reason then to take her to the vet, no? No. She had been given pain killers and she was zonked out was part of the non-reason why not. He set off. S., G. and mother inlaw were going to hang out together and have lunch. The land phone rang and it was S’s cousin saying her mother, sister of mother-in-law, was in hospice (and would die just two days later). Another tragic blow in the midst of a drama that should have been all good news. Then the cell phone rang. It was guess who.

Now he’s saying that, on the urging of his ailing wife, the dog does need to go to vet after all and that she actually had an appointment made by phone from the hospital. And guess who had to take her. Not me. But S. and G. with mother inlaw joining in solidarity. That fucker. Now my eyes were coal black. But S. being the kind trooper that she is rose to the occasion and after that went to the hospital, all three, themselves. They didn’t take our car because it was out of wiper fluid and the windshield was streaked. I would go get fluid and some wine and dinner fixins. The inlaws were not going to join because my feeling is they still felt burnt and abused by he who sucks all the kind air out of the room. I made homemade chicken stock and added it to a pasta sauce with onion and pre-made pesto and it was super yummy. It was just S. and G. and me and it was really fun. I said i wanted a dessert that was chewy, crunchy, cold and creamy—that was the challenge—and so I was brought a concoction of nuts and marshmallows and kefir and some frozen fruit bits. I named it the Uncle Lynnie. Upon his return it was more of the same as last evening only in a more silent and seething form before he took G. up to bed with him which, these many years on, is getting super weird. But that’s not my business. The next morning, TCM had on some great musicals in a row that we were enjoying watching—it was something of a cinema class, with Meet Me in St. Louis, Top Hat, and Annie Get Your Gun. We only saw the last bit of the first one. The second one was thrilling for its dancing and G. loves dancing. And the last one, during which she drew and through which we talked, she found inspiring in  that her description of it was that “it was about a woman who did everything better than men which made them angry but she did what she did anyway.” I’m paraphrasing. The we got a text: Have G. call me. Apparently we were not only ratted out there for apparently ruining the child by letting her watch old great musicals on a Sunday morning while we waited for her parents return but also to the parent’s parents who, when she was taken down to visit them, made comment about television that telegraphed the fact that they had news of our supposed bad influence. That was all brother.

Happily we had dinner down at the inlaws and escaped the crazy for awhile. But only after it became clear that the world had been let known about this brief hospitalization and that it was being used as a test to see “who your real friends really are” and apparently a whole bunch of people who should have been there (for him—this is him speaking) weren’t. And, as we learned, even those of us who were there were doing everything wrong despite the fact that we were shopping and cooking and cleaning and babysitting and chauffering and dog sitting and taking said dog to the doggy doctors. Even we were the problem. No words of thanks. Only side-eye derision. And folks, when I’m done I’m done and let me tell you I am done.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 26° (February 15)

Today we are going to talk about all of it…and doing so might spill over into tomorrow. I will be writing the equivalent of three Blagues a day to “catch up” by March 3 when I see John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask (and Amber!) in their Boston appearance of the Origin of Love show. But what has happened to me between today, somewhere between February 15 and March 3? Good question. Well last you saw us we arrived to help out someone who was undergoing a procedure. We learned in the days after that some existing pardigms had shifted very far in one direction due in large part to one individual. That individual doesn’t read so I’m in no danger of giving anything away—I learned that lesson when I accidentally put the name Erin Markey into my Blague, once, instead of initials or some petname as I typically do (I’m assuming, Erin, that you Google yourself or how else would you have found this Blague in the first place lol! Love you. Mean it!).  Remember when you had to hit the space bar twice to signal the end of a sentence?  Well here I am both doing the best I can and also fucking up more than I ever have. I have notables in my midst and sometimes it’s a challenge not to fall into beta mode. Thing is, I might very well be a beta. I would tend to be in same-gender situations as I’m only attracted to those who are more alpha than I. Otherwise what’s the point? I think females make the best femmes, not to say that a slew of males who are so inclined don’t individually debunk that generality. I actually wouldn’t know. There are so many things now as an adult, so many “guy things” that I wish I had been taught. The irony being that my own father shunned me because I wasn’t interested in his particular macho things when I was three years old and thereafter—boxing, American football, base/soft-ball—but he was an asshole. And I can say that because: I tried my whole life with him to find a common ground and he was, despite very good qualites, a terrorist eighty-five percent of the time. The bad qualities of my father were further embodied, one-hundred and fifty per cent by his daughter.

(Actual) today I noticed someone had tagged me on social media with a portrait of The Fallen Angel by some artist from 1898 or 1868  ( I don’t have the information in front of me and I’m not in the habit of going to look for things as such). Anyway I expalined that Lucifer (light bringer) is akin, archetypally to Apollo who challenged Zeus and also got “cast down” Zeus. We have not fully gotten into any of the myths pertaining to anybody but we all know (we all know) that the messages are there and ready to be said. And that we are the queen/queans to do it. Don’t you think? So anyway, I’m here to fill in since I got derailed on Valentine’s Day. There is a certain brand of narcissism that makes even other’s challenges about them; coupled with that, there are those for whom certain challenges aren’t actually dramatic or tragic enough so they embellish, bringing would-be tragedy into the plot even though it is entirely made up. Then, on a day when would-be scenarios should be happily avoided, it’s almost as if they wanted bad news. So they invent more problems. And you get away with murder when nobody is looking. But sometimes these sick people, who also tend to be quite stupid, pick on the wrong people. And they won’t know it  until they wake up at some point some morning weeks or maybe months from now to realize, hey, where’d Quinn go? Another good question. I hope the answer is: in Paris or Venice or some such. (Actual) today is a real turning point, the details of which I can’t yet get into.

We consoled G. this morning at 5am; and it took exactly two seconds to snap her out of crying. Then we played for a few hours and S. took her to school. I stayed in to write but the dog was acting really weird. It was hiding under my feet, tail between leg, shaking, eyes imploring balls of coal blackness. The walker had taken her out earlier; by the time she came again we chatted about how weird she was acting, the dog that is. And the walker agreed but took her out anyway for a short spell. The dog was still shaking and hiding under the hallway bench where all the shoes were. I mentioned to S and G when they returned. But soon the inlaws arrived. They had had a hard day as they attended, with S., a dear friend’s funeral. But I think they were so happy that they had good news that day from the hospital—we all were. Except, seemingly for one person, who arrived home after eight in a mood, a bad one, which he took out mainly on my beleagured inlaws which was not only mean and wrong it was so ungrateful and unspiritual it took every fiber of my being not to read the riot act. But I held my tongue. Until now when I choose to vent albeit masquedly. I’ve decided that’s a word.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 25° (February 14)

A client at eight and one at ten and then I speak with the folks at American Rep. (I wrote this entire entry already once, mainly yesterday, but my word documents quit on me and I lost everything. So here I am again doing it all over again. So right we had two clients this morning. And then we squiggled our way out of town, after S’s appointment in Cambridge where I sort of hovered and waited. Our car tire pressure light went on as we headed to the home town and when we arrived others were in quite a state and you could cut the tension with a knife. We headed back out and got tires checked and picked up some snacks and some extra wine for the weekend. We ended up going back out to get some pad thai and spring rolls (i had had spring rolls the day before too and I would have them again the next day, along with somebody else’s leftover pad thai. So much for my no carb diet. Who cares. We were going to get up early as they were heading off at five a.m. I woke around four and got dressed and it was solemn and still tense, but nothing as weird as it would get once this day got underway. I decided to write some dramaturgical stuff I had to do; and it went something like this:

I know you waited a long time for me to read this and I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say. And much of what I’ll lay out here will sound negative to your ears—and I jotted notes down as I read before I knew exactly where it was going so it might seem nit picky en route to my realizing this needs a total re-do. However I do not think all hope is lost on this but it would require that total re-write from a completely different perspective in order for this to work. Please note I haven’t listened yet to any of the music but I will do that next….so here in gut reactions as I read, sometimes scrolling back up to add comments (like anachronisms) to various sections:

I think the story has no tension and no reveal. There are no surprises or any kinds of twists and turns. The use of the therapist seems an easy device for getting the story about this man with supposed social anxiety not being able to show his face for 30 years. And it’s the same day the therapist dumps him but he suddenly can interact with people given the shock?

I’m getting a modern day My Man Godfried vibe from this; and I see you are basing this on a book from 1908s—seems it will be a Morality Tale— but with Henry having been himself a very outgoing character who goes clubbing and knows a ton of people, how do we justify Peter taking on his identity in others eyes? Surely there are many many people in the world who know Peter is not Henry.By same token: Why does the waiter say “your usual table?” if Peter is not really Henry?

How to we justify Peter/Henry being a shy character to Alice when Henry himself has already been bold and naughty via text, email, online etc?

I get the sense this piece was originally written twenty years ago? References like The Honeymooners might very well go over the head of anybody younger than Gen X. Same with Howdy Doody and to a certain extent Pat Benatar. But most of all…if Peter painted Nixon why did he do so in the 80s (even the Dylan reference is older than that) and why would that have made an impact. If he had painted him during Watergate it might have resonated but that would make him in his twenties in the seventies meaning he’d now be 70 something. But even if he painted it in the eighties he’d be 60s or nigh on. Is this meant to be a show where the protagonists are 60 years old?

Also, with the speed of gentrification over the last 15 years, the notion of living in Queens is no longer quaint as opposed to living in Manhattan because literally nobody can truly afford to live in Manhattan unless they are a millionaire like Peter. Moving to Queens barely worked when they made film Julie/Julia. So maybe be more specific about some area of Queens which is still yet to be gentrified….like literally at the airport or something.Other clues that this is outdated. The kale joke has been done for the last decade—everybody eats kale now and happily, so moot point.

The most important thing is that with with DNA testing it would prove whether or not he was Farrell. So the nipples thing doesn’t work at all. In order to fix all anachronisms, you’d have to set the play in the 80s or maybe 90s. Before DNA.

The defense attorney seems not to have met Peter before the trial?

Small thing: the word segue alone IS pronounced seg-way. It isn’t segue way.

Also the fact is that everyone now meets their future partners online. So the conceit of it being weird or suggestive of poor character on Alice’s part is very outdated.

It’s also not enough explanation to say he was “high or drunk or something” to justify Henry sending Alice Peter’s picture.

The court scene borders on bad sit-com (sorry).

Okay so that was everything bad/wrong I had to say about the piece. Now I have a suggestion as to how to re-write and make this story possibly work:

What if the story were written from a different perspective. That it opens in Queens with this married couple who have been living or even just subsisting on the selling of these amazing paintings to neighborhood folk and the whole neighborhood in which they live is filled with joy and color created by everyone everywhere in the hood happily buying paintings from “Henry” for years and years, turning the neighborhood into something of a fantasy world of his own design (would make for gorgeous sets as well).

Then there is a sort of mysterious “spy” that shows up taking notes like the guy in Willy Wonka spying on all the kids with their golden tickets….or the company spy noticing all the changes that Lily, Jane and Dolly are making in the montage of Nine to Five.  And then you have the Mr. Oxford character (who sent the spy) who has for years suspected that Peter isn’t really dead making a play for exposing this guy out in some remote corner of Queens doing what he’s doing.

You could still explore all the themes (which I sense are near and dear to your heart) about social anxiety and what is art and what is it worth and all that but the audience doesn’t really know whether or not it is Peter or Henry. Maybe you won’t even know if it’s Peter or Henry. And maybe it is never quite revealed or the audience can leave the theater split-opinioned. As in Sweeney Todd some the story can be told in large part in Flashback. And again if there is a court scene or some other setting where reckoning occurs you still have the DNA problem. So why not set it in the 90s (or before whenever DNA was conclusive). The point is that I think you should work from the middle out, going back to the past and forward to the future. I think finding this couple living a sort of idyllic life (or in a fools paradise) making beauty and affecting their world in this positive way, proliferating art…a paradise that is then invaded by the snakey Mr. Oxford would make for a more magical (and real-magical) piece. The linear thing is not working. The audience is never suprised because they know. And then it just unfolds and so what’s the point. I just think that starting from the innocent place (with some kind of past subterfuge lurking as well as some kind of boom threatening to be lowered) makes for a more tense and twisty plot line. You might end up writing a few endings and then deciding…is this Henry? is this Peter? does it matter? I don’t know but I think more existential questions can be posed that may or may not have answers. And that’s a good thing because you want audience to leave thinking and especially feeling.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 24° (February 13)

We check in after lunch at Beantown, pick up shoes and (they didn’t have La Stoppa); we freshen up and meet G. at the Harvard museum. We have a great chat about Truscott’s show at M.I.T. the week prior, and all the synchronicities thereof. G. is the bomb. She’s so lively and creative. She takes us to see her exhibition and then to dinner at Celeste, a Peruvian restaurant whose proprietors are friends. Cars are easy breezy to take here and there. It’s a wonderful city that way. One really doesn’t need a car. It would make sense to garage one I suppose. But then again. Everything is up in the air right now. What I haven’t mentioned is that N. is going in for a surgery and everyone is shook up about it. I am not stressed in the least as I am utterly convinced there is nothing seriously wrong that the surgery wouldn’t swiftly cure. Sometime when you go looking for answers you get more questions. So we will head there tomorrow after clients.

So it turned out that the guy who put on the show at MIT is the ex-husband of an actress friend of someone we know. Which is funny. This actress came up in conversaton, too, on the subject of publishing. Apparently she has this great represenation and G. thinks we should have it too. Meanwhile today and tomorrow someone else is meeting in NYC on an idea for which he had me write this little pitch yesterday. There is also a thirty page draft of a proposal. Anyway, I will learn tomorrow that the idea wasn’t pitched but instead one I had already said should be on back burner was; which is fine; I’m all for spontaneity. I just think we’ve been around the block longer and have learned to take with a ginormous grain of salt even the slightest show of interest, or, actually even the most effusive on the part of a publisher who can promptly urge the inexperienced author to jump through a series of challenging but unnecessary hoops. And anyway, first things first. I really like this fellow who is interested in perhaps helping but still keeping options open—one has to—in this business until both parties, writer and representation, are in a complete meld. It is best to expect the best in any case and to go from there.

I was on a bit of a run with some thoughts on Scorpio and the dragon protecting the jewels and gems. And it will turn out that more on the theme will unfold in the coming days. I feel as if I am taking stock of indulgences and sliding back into a very healthful routine; also in the face of any new bounty, I always find my most ascetic self. Speaking or which I cannot wait to go through all papers and so forth and to either throw things away, give things away, keep things in archive boxes or make art out of said items. I think it would be fun and funny to have a private art showing open house of sorts. Maybe this is the party I need to have this spring for fundraising. I would like to activate the home cabaret space. I’m going to get up the nerve too to write and say with all our travels we didn’t think to get tickets early is there a number to call for house seats? If you”re up for it would love to see you after for drinks and nibblies? I’m easing my way into it.

I do need to sit in my beautifully chic office which will get a nice red coat of paint this year; and I will begin my vaudeville circuit, and I will book FOOL shows; I will also get new grant for BOTAB going; and I’ll write a beautiful thing about what we’re doing with our Provincetown festival and our collaboration with the American Repertory Theater and our plans to go beyond. And I’ll turn that into something of a presentation; and I will raise money for what I’m doing; and I’ll reach out to Endicott and see if they’d like to collaborate as well with us this year, in terms of our new grantee, or just in general. That will be my general office and my creative work will start up again via the Blagues and the remerchandising of my writing every which way. We had a comprehensive chat about the podcast direction for the brand: We have two non mutually exclusive ideas on that score.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 23° (February 12)

We see overnight that our event is postponed as there is meant to be a storm. I feel a yearning inside me to write fiction. Scoring some press in the Globe for Desiree is great. I have to write an elevator pitch for a new book. Wearing so many different hats, I always have interesting, but disparate things to do. But it’s like I tell a Libra: Everything eventually begins to work in concert. I don’t know what to tell the Scorpios, except that they should specialize. Funny that P.S. will end up doing something similar to J.D. I’ve been writing intros to next year’s books; but with travel I really think I will need a break. It never works to drag things with like that. Anyway, I will need to travel some hotel reservations and be in touch with my lawyer and read over some legal documents that have been sent and to catch up fully on book keeping and otherwise putting things to rights or into motion. I have sent things along to our graphic genie; I need to remove J.P. from one board and B.C. from another. I need to add a new board member, in fact. And I’m happy to let that take a good long while. It will be smart to pull out the outline of how cash is all meant to flow and to get up to speed on some budget projections. Anway that’s what I’ll focus on since I can’t get to Boston today due to the weather.

I’ve decided to go with some muted mid-century Pollock as my Afterglow Festival logo insiration this year. And it’s taking a little doing to get would-be collaborators to not put carts before horses. Though I’m not sure they ever learn. And we do have to stay open and not put all our eggs in one basket. It is relaxing to think of what can be achieved now and in short order. There is a pile of work to plow through but so long as we do it in bite sized nuggets, all will be right with the world. It is imperative to get a hold on any excesses, whether in the form of finances or other such earthly delights. I do feel already more streamlined and proud of myself given the breadth and proliferation of my accomplishments. I need to raise my game, now, even more; and by April to be out and about gathering interest (and money). There should be something relieving about what we’re doing here. I do have every day planner I’ve ever owned. And I do feel these sentences are adding up to something, if not building up to. Perhaps it makes sense to push even a little bit more. Anyway, what needs doing is really the same things that always need doing. Right now it’s more a matter of maintenance than anything else.

Back in the earliest time we lived in the West Village and I met that lovely fellow Marcus who was from Michigan or something. This was way before the internet. I think I might already have been working at the Bell Caffe. Wow what a time that was. My day consisted of going to the piers to lay out in the sun and happening by Mrs. Hudson’s video. I remember that feeling of a Spring chill off the water hitting a slight sunburn and reading The Sheltering Sky. I only worked a few days a week really at that time. Or perhaps I hadn’t even started at the Bell. Anyway, I was writing a lot, poetry mainly. And then all my many books I had gathered to anotate one sweltering day, all day, at Florent, were later that day stolen from the trunk of our car we parked near the Angelika Film Center. Everything was gone. I don’t think I’ve written poetry since then to be honest. Sometimes I’d like to create a timeline of thoughts and images and snippets of self in some virtual scrapbook. Though one is never sure if that would bear any fruit, it certainlly does sound reassuringly reorganizing. I don’t know why today doesn’t feel so terribly stressful; and then again I do now remember. I might have taken half a something. I’ve forgotten just how relaxing that can be. Though surely nothing I could get used to.

Today is my maternal grandmother’s birthday. I want to say she will have been 113 or something like that it is absolutely extraordinary to think of, isn’t it? She was a very kind person but not someone who left a very deep mark, excepting we her grandchildren, and maybe her own children whom I feel largely dismissed her. She only had a sixth-grade education so that was a thing. My horrible father used to make shanty Irish jokes at her. She would respond by saying: shit in your hat. She used the word dear to mean expensive. It’s akin go the French, a celtic connection maybe. This reminds me of my own “French family” the Gastaldos with whom I lived for eight or so months over the fall to spring, 1983 and 1984. I do fall back nostalgically into the arms of those years. I saw the family in 2015 I believe it was, in the fall, and soon after the head of the family who was likely not even ten years older than me died in a hole in his own backyard.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 22° (February 11)

After a few days’ break from gods know what. Let’s see this is Monday. I just got back two days ago. And that was one kinda blow-outy night and one mellow one. Not sure why I was so forgetful of shows. I mean I see them and forget them. I need reminding. I watched two fabulous art docs and I did manage to move the spoon on next week’s Desiree show—tickets are moving, we hopefully have a bit of press—and I have to make my peace with the Thrion situation. That’s my name for it. I do need to be kind. I’ve been treated so shabbily; but one can never dwell on that sort of thing, not for a moment. This is a lesson you learn over time. Some people (S) were probably evolved in this arena very early on. But people are different you see. Everyone’s path is different and we might as well just accept it.

I had a funny thought about the Universe and of god and the devil. I was watching a film called Young Messiah or some thing about Jesus as a seven-year-old (I kind of liked it) and there is a devil in it whom only seven-year-Jesus can see or hear; and they have some pretty cool (verbal) battles. Anyway, the blond haired Lucifer calls himself the Prince of Chaos and I got to thinking about quantum physics and how as we move more macrocosmically (let’s call that heavenward) the universe is divinely ordered but as we travel microcosmically, it becomes increasingly chaotic. So what if the dichotomy of god and devil was a personification thereof. Lends new meaning to the phrase the devil is in the details.

Mostly metaphorically, Scorpio’s I desire energy is linked to the sign’s rule over the genitalia of the body. I know there i more to say about that. There is more to say about everything. There is outspoken want for this book. Though it is a stand-alone volume that doesn’t presume you’ve read Sextrology or even need to, we hope it will increase that book’s sales as well. I meant to add that all kinds of conjuring could be going on. As I get into this myself it should inform the work. I’m happy to publish this when I’m sixty and to have thirty years with it. That would be a lovely thing, but I need to make changes and start pacing myself now don’t you reckon.

We were meant to do an event but it was postponed until March which is probably just as well really. I started writing this just after a recent trip and then I ended up getting swept up in more travel and potential drama, the former of which fueled a mini weight gain, and the latter of which didn’t take hold in the least. Although the would be fomentor did try his level best. There are good people in the world and there is lots of fun to be had and there are people to help and there is plenty of time to do everything. I also feel inspired not to spend any money that needn’t be spent and to make sure that all i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. There is the story about the mechanic and the one about uncle lynnies.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aquarius 21° (February 10)

Today I’d like to write about Paris. The first time I saw Paris was in September of 1983. I spent a week there en route to Grenoble for my university year abroad. A treasure trove of stories, most of which I’ve written about elsewhere, in various forms, abound from this trip beginning that very week alone. But I’m not here now to tell stories. My impression of Paris was immediate wonder. We stayed in the 7th arrondissement on the rue Saint-Dominique, which it self stayed the same for another twenty years; so we would go back to our same restaurants and hotels, mainly Thoumieux, which was both. Then one day it all went away—the same owner, decade after decade, timeless in his leather vest, the men and women servers in uniform, the sublime same sameyness in dark red leather and shiny wood, the sexually suggestive vegetable mural-size painting on the wall, the secret upstairs hotel rooms with their 1960s swizzle-swagger. In 1983 we launched this expression—life is just a series of beds—which became a verbal meme, anachronistic though that may be. I’m finding that as I get older life is just a series of pangs for the unrecoverable past, and particular episodes thereof which were set in Paris. In 1985 we moved to Paris and lived in the 17th, the 15th and ultimately the 1st on rue des Halles. This was as banner a year if not more than the one two years previous. I was fresh out of school and faffing about before landing a magazine position, at Passion, and a restaurant job, as le barman, in an American restaurant owned by Jewish brothers-in-law in the Marais, which was then just becoming a place where things were. There were no designer shops. Our haunt was called The Swing, where we’d meet and drink cheap beer and wine. Always on our own it seemed Stella and I would go to Castel where, for some reason, they always let us right in. That reason was probably Stella. I wouldn’t have a chance on my own. I will continue these Paris reveries, but I should get a few pages down on the Scorpio experience, just to leave myself open to new insights on that score.

The move from Libra to Scorpio is like a long day’s journey into night. Just as the first uber masculine energized first sign Aries is followed by its opposite uber feminine powered Taurus, here, on the other side of the Zodiac, Libra, the sign of high consciousness, is followed by Scorpio, the deep dark recesses of the subconscious. The only sign with co-rule planets, Pluto and Mars, the former being very much the underworld version of the latter: Pluto, or the Greek Hades, with his eponymous subterranean abode is the embodiment, as is his female counter part, Persephone, of not only our own subconscious but that which is still universally so: as yet unearthed truths, mysteries, discoveries, cures and clues as to the nature of our universe.  And whether in their own mysterious interior, or in that of those in their lives, or people, society, in general Scorpio people are determined to get to the bottom of what’s making everyone and everything tick. Thus, they are the first to tune into theticks of people, places and things, seeing their way into that which others might be (consciously or subconsciously) hiding and that which is kept hidden, secret, taboo culturally and sociologically.

Oh god that was some kind of start. Oh well I’m doing the best I can. I’m not sure why I resist using past things I’ve written as a jumping off point. I suppose I feel better making the first inroads trying to invent the wheel as best as I can. I don’t know why I often pose a sentence in question form. I suppose it’s to force me to answer. Anyway it’s a good writing mechanism when you need to flush out you brain along the way.

Scorpio is the fixed-water signs–fixed signs being the second in a trio of signs—cardinal, fixed, mutable—that make up each of the astrological quadrants. Scorpio is the middle sign in the third quadrant, that which correlates to the intellectual and experiential realm of life, how one relates to other individuals and groups. One of Libra, which kicks off this quandrant, is We are (opposing the sign of Aries, I am); while Scorpio’s mottos are We have (opposing the sign of Taurus, I have) and I desire. Fixed-signs, fortify, intensify, concentrate and distill. Fixed-water translates to ice, crystals and, by extension, gems wrought by subterranean heat and pressure. Macrocosmically, gems, jewels are a metaphor for the as yet hidden meanings and wisdom and other such discoveries which effect us all, collectively, as well as repressed bits of our individual selves, awaiting to be mined. Scorpio people tend to be probling of others but rather sphynxlike themselves.

Pluto and Persphone are chtonian deities, inhabiting the underworld; as archetypes for those born under the sign, it speaks to Scorpio people’s severe penchant for privacy, default suspicious demeanor, their relatively goth perspective that sees them recoil from scenesters, showoffs, socialites or the like who seek outside approval, something Scorpio people rarely do, and sometimes to a fault.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree of the Sabian Symbol may be higher than the one listed here  as the symbols cluminate in the next degree. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 days. 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox