levigator press
April 17, 2013
I’ve decided to keep all of my business and studio news and content over here in a new space: Levigator Press. It’s still a work in progress, and of course studio news will still spill over into here, but I thought there might be some people who would like to follow what’s happening in the LP studio without having to know about what I’m cooking or what’s new in the ongoing rivalry between my cats. There is a page there detailing all of the upcoming bookbinding and printmaking workshops I’ll be teaching, so if you want to get your Levigator Press learning on, go over and check it out!
Posted by jodi on April 17, 2013 at 9.19am
draft update
December 16, 2012
I’m a Hiram Stalker!
Posted by jodi on December 16, 2012 at 2.28pm
tonight
December 15, 2012
Making the transition from Velveteen to Real.
You can follow the BCB home team draft action on the Border City Brawlers’ twitter starting around 8pm EST tonight, if you like. I’m one of 10 new players in the draft pool, finally about to find out which colour of booty shorts to buy.
Thanks to Mike Foster (Paynen D’Arz) for the photo!
Posted by jodi on December 15, 2012 at 1.03pm
meet the kitties
September 20, 2012
This is Skeeter. She is about a year old according to the shelter’s estimate, and she is named after a country singer. This photo was taken on her first day with us, right after I shouted “oy!” to prevent her from scrambling from the window ledge onto the piano keys, Kevin style (yup, she’s a peckerhead). She’s inquisitive and full of energy, and had fully explored the main floor and basement within the first five minutes of arriving in her new home. On just her second day of going outside on her own, I looked out the dining room window just in time to see her come careening across the back patio in hot pursuit of a squirrel, both of them rolling over a few times before crashing into the side of the house together. Yup. She’s a peckerhead.
She does have all four legs, some of them just move quickly.
Skeeter likes: head scritches; running up and down like a wild animal; going outside and wedging herself under the front porch; being picked up and cuddled (for a little while); licking things; playing the bite-me game; scratching furniture. Skeeter dislikes: wet cat food; being touched on her sides; the guitar; the name tag that dangles from her collar; Wanda.
And this is Wanda. She is also around a year old, and she is named after the grandmother of rockabilly. Wanda is a little more cautious, and had found a good hiding spot behind the furnace within her first five minutes in her new home. Here she is on day two, nervous on the basement floor after I’d coaxed her out of her corner:
Wanda has long fur growing out from between her toes, which gave me the wiggins at first (although I’m beginning to get used to it). Although she seems to weigh about half a kilogram, she’s got a rich, deep, resounding growl which she employs pretty much every time Skeeter gets close to her.
Wanda likes: quiet places; pretty much every kind of snuggling; curling up to sleep next to wet, blocking knits; chasing yarn; yogourt. Wanda dislikes: being picked up; loud noises; Skeeter.
Wanda spends much of her free time peeking adorably out from absurdly inadequate hiding places.
Skeeter spends much of her free time blending in with the chesterfield.
Posted by jodi on September 20, 2012 at 7.33pm
the listening project road show: volume III
September 13, 2012
The Listening Project Road Show returns to Phog Lounge this Tuesday, September 18, for Volume 3. This time we’ve got a selection of the most recent releases in the LP collection for you to choose from. The poll is open now, so get your votes in for which records will be played! Right here: CLICK TO VOTE NOW
Then come on down to Phog Lounge, 157 University Avenue West in Windsor at 8:00pm, listen with us and join in the conversation. Don’t forget to bring your laptop, phone or other internet device, as the conversation takes place on the Listening Project website so that it’s archived for posterity.
If you want to be part of the project but can’t make it to Phog on Tuesday night, you can always join in from afar in the usual way: as the needle drops on each record, a post will appear on the main page of the website (http://listeningproject.ca) and you can join us there in the comments. Just keep refreshing the page to follow along. We don’t broadcast the music, but you can always listen along by getting yourself a copy of the records, or searching for songs and videos online. Or you can join in the conversation without listening: it’s only marginally about the music anyway.
Posted by jodi on September 13, 2012 at 8.43pm
new faces
September 7, 2012
We are diving back in right away and inviting two new kitties into our home. Last night we visited the Windsor Humane Society, where we faced the agonizing challenge of evaluating potential new family members based on their looks and how charmingly they greeted us through glass. Although some of my previous cats have been adopted strays (like Kevin), I’ve always received them from family members (my dad’s house in the country is a stray cat hot spot) and had never been to the shelter before. I had my heart broken a little bit about twenty times in there, but in the end we decided to bring these two sweet little girls home with us.
Bachelorette #1*:
and Bachelorette #2**:
Both of them are about a year old***; Bachelorette #1 is an owner surrender because the owner had more animals than they could take care of; this tells us that this girl is going to be okay with having another cat around. She cottoned onto us immediately, and seems like a perfect personality type for us: chill and affectionate but not too clingy (of course, we thought Kevin was pretty chill at first too, but that was before we discovered his low-blood-sugar MUST DESTROY spazz attack alter ego). Bachelorette #2 was a stray and is a bit more nervous with us, so she’s a bit of a wild card and we’re just hoping against hope that the two of them will get along. We are bringing them home later on tonight.
*, ** not their real names. Their shelter names are cutesy and unacceptable, and we have not yet settled on new ones. I have a few ideas, but Peter is VERY resistant to Kenny and Dolly, for some reason.
***it amazes me that at the shelter they consider one year old cats to be “older”. They kept saying how great we were for wanting to adopt “older cats” after we declared our interest in these two. Our last cat before Kevin was 16 when she came to live with us.
Posted by jodi on September 7, 2012 at 4.33pm
the fresh and the furious: gta drift
July 18, 2012
The Border City Brawlers fresh meat team placed fourth out of fourteen teams in The Fresh and the Furious: GTA Drift tournament. We weren’t expected to perform that well; The Derby Nerd, a Toronto-based derby blogger, didn’t predict us making it through the first elimination round, and he wasn’t alone. We were ill prepared, having had barely two hours of dedicated scrimmage practice together as a team. But we came out strong in the morning placement round against Toronto’s D-VAS, who played a tight defensive game but didn’t really pull out a lot of strong offence, so with our own defensive weaknesses still untested we won the round 28 to 18, which put us in a good position going into the elimination round with a lower-ranked opponent, Lindsay, a very young league. BCB beat Lindsay 136 to 28 in what was the biggest goal differential in the tournament.
BCB vs D-VAS
BCB vs Lindsay
We then went on to win our quarter final bout 32-28 against Renegade Derby Dames (from Alliston), and to lose the semi final against Montreal Smash Squad (keeping them to a relatively low scoring game, 64 to 35, which felt like a pretty good result against the best league in the country). This put us up against the D-VAS once more in the battle for third place. After having fought back from their initial loss against BCB, the D-VAS had been shut out of the finals in a controversial reffing decision, so they were angry and had something to prove and they handed us our asses, 117 to 13.
BCB vs Renegade Derby Dames
BCB vs Montreal Smash Squad: this is me getting back blocked to the ground by Montreal’s jammer, which earned her a trip to the penalty box and us a power jam in our first jam against them. And for just a moment, we were up 18 points to zero against Montreal. Swoon!
BCB vs D-VAS, a much faster paced and rougher game than before
As for my playing, I was a bit outclassed and didn’t feel fully engaged in the games a lot of the time due to my still not-that-strong skating abilities (at this tournament, at least I wasn’t the only one). But I did manage to get in the right people’s way at the right time a few times, and to draw a few key back blocking penalties out of the other teams in doing so. And the next night back at practice I was way more on the ball in scrimmage than I’ve ever been before. I just needed to play against some girls I didn’t know to see where I need to do my work to improve.
Here is a nice round up of the tournament, from Derby Nerd.
Posted by jodi on July 18, 2012 at 7.14am
derby update
July 13, 2012
Haven’t had one of these in a while, and here’s why: it’s been a frustrating season, in which I’ve struggled to shake a bad attitude that has me leaving practice feeling miserable more often than leaving happy (and this bad attitude has opened me up to allowing some relatively minor illnesses and injuries to interfere with my practice schedule, creating a dismal spiral, as you can imagine).
When I passed the minimum skills requirements I was the only one tested that night to do so, and it happened two weeks after the house league teams had been drafted for the season, bestowing onto me the dubious honour of being the only skills-tested player in the league NOT on a team. For a while the teams were practicing separately, and while the Hiram Stalkers invited me to practice with them (and were all wonderfully welcoming and supportive and amazing), I often felt on the outside, especially when scrimmages were set up using established bouting lines and I was not on any of those lines. Things got better when the two teams began practicing together again, but being the only one not involved in real game play has meant I’m unable to improve at the same rate as my league mates. I’ve got more physical strength and endurance than some people in the league but those mean nothing when skating skills are weak, and there have been times when I’ve struggled to give a shit. < /self pity>
Tonight we’re traveling to Toronto with a team made up of skaters who haven’t had much game play (I’m the only one of the lot who has had zero) and tomorrow I’ll be bouting for the first time in the Fresh and the Furious:GTA Drift tournament hosted by GTA Rollergirls. We’ve had very little time to work together as a team, and on a more personal level I am woefully ill-prepared, and am pendulum swinging from determination to prove myself all the way to a fervent hope to just not be completely useless, and back again. Please wish me luck, but more than that, wish me courage. I could really use some.
And don’t tell anyone on the other teams that I’m anything less than 100% confident. Because I am NOT GOING TO BE THEIR FUCKING GOAT.
Posted by jodi on July 13, 2012 at 1.26pm
sonja + kela, june 23 2012
June 24, 2012
This is the Lululemon running skirt I extended to calf length with a cascade of new ruffles. Surprise! It was for my beautiful new sister, Sonja, to wear at her wedding to my stepbrother, Kela.
I worried that the 4-way stretch spandex fabric I used, while fitting well with the sporty garment it was being added to, would look silly and terrible in a wedding where the groom was wearing a tuxedo. But I was wrong, it was gorgeous, and Sonja will be one of the few people who will ever be able to comfortably compete in a triathlon in her wedding gown.
And just look how adorable they are. This is a good looking family all right.
Posted by jodi on June 24, 2012 at 5.32pm
a history of monsters
June 12, 2012
If you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Kingsville, Ontario I’d love for you to come to my exhibition at rEvolution gallery + studio. I’ll be showing a series of drawings created specifically for this venue. The reception will be fun and there will be those snacks you like. And if you get bored you can nip into the back and get a tattoo.
Posted by jodi on June 12, 2012 at 2.05pm
