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We've decided that if other sites are going down on Wednesday to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills, all of our sites, including AmeriCymru, will go down for twelve hours, too.
This would affect AmeriCymru from midnight PST, January 18 to midnight PST, January 19.
Ceri and I both think that this is an extremely important issue and that it's important to do whatever we can to protest these bills. If they pass, we and countless other sites could get knocked off the internet with no warning. If we're not big enough to afford lawyers to get back on, that would be the end of us. I believe members of the US Congress wouldn't support these bills if they really knew what they were doing.
I've made a splash page which I'm going to apply to all my sites in place of the home page and anyone who wants it is free to copy and use it. I've attached both a plain text document and an html document to this post. Feel free to pass it on if you want. To use it, save your existing home page with a new name and then upload this pageas index.html and don't forget to take it down when you're done with it.
Here's how they look:
[CONTENT UNAVAILABLE]
We've put this splash page up today in lieu of our regular home page to protest SOPA (stop online piracy act bill in the US Senate) and PIPA (protect IP act bill in the US House of Represenatives). Our regular home page will be up again at midnight tonight.
If these bills pass, someday all you may find at our address is what's above the red line on this page, [CONTENT UNAVAILABLE] and the rest might be blocked. This could also happen to Google, Youtube, the Cheezeburger Network, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Netflix, Craigslist, Wikipedia and countless other sites and blogs, many of which wouldn't have the money to fight to get their sites back, no matter how innocent they were.
SOPA and PIPA give big entertainment companies the right to have websites blocked to US users on the basis of their complaint that the site might infringe a copyright. Nothing has to be proven to block the site, it just has to be alleged: guilty until proven innocent. These bills make owners of sites and networks like ours responsible for policing every single word anyone else posts, in fear that someone might post something that would get us blocked.
Intellectual property theft does happen, it is theft and it is harmful but SOPA and PIPA are like trying to prevent shoplifting by removing everyone's hands in advance, just in case they were thinking about it.
Read more about why these bills are harmful and what you can do at http://americancensorship.org/ and http://fightforthefuture.org/ , and please contact your Senators and Representatives and tell them you want them to oppose SOPA and PIPA.
Read these bills for yourself to see what they're really about:
SOPA at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:
Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2012, David Western --
A World of Spoons!
Despite all the forecasts of yet another year of economic doom and gloom, my year got off to an excellent start when renowned spoon collector Norman Stevens sent me a box of spoons from his extensive collection for me to study. I've never been fortunate enough to see a Norwegian wedding spoon or a Swiss creme spoon 'in person' before, so the opportunity to handle some of these remarkable pieces has been very inspiring! Several of the spoons in the above picture date from the early part of the 1900's which makes them even more valuable to me as they are links between the hand-craft world of yesteryear and our more machine based modern era. Their elegant, efficient craftsmanship has given me a bit of a schooling in how things were done in the old days and shows me how beautiful the workmanship of many old pieces really was.
The really good news for me among these spoons is the high quality craftsmanship of some of the most recent pieces. A Romanian spoon dated 1999 and a Russian spoon from the latter half of the 20th Century both display exquisite workmanship and design showing clearly that excellent craft is both possible and desired in our busy, ultra-modern world!!
The bad news was the appallingly poor quality Welsh lovespoon (of the 'gift shop' variety) which I could not force myself to include in the above photo!! For me, as a Welsh-born carver, it was simply too embarrassing to show! Honestly, I could have cried when I saw it beside all these elegant and lovely European spoons. Although I understand the commercial gift industry's desire to crank these horrors out at their impossibly low price point to capture the 'impulse purchase' market AND I agree with the arguement that they keep the lovespoon in the public eye; I can't help but feel they are doing the lovespoon a colossal disservice!
Especially in Wales, but also among tourist visitors, there is a growing perception that the clunky, soulless, style-less, dark-stained monstrosities that are being pumped out of factories from Canton, Cardiff to Canton, China are what lovespoons represent and what they should look like. This notion makes me weep!!!!
The spoons I have shown in the above picture are what it IS about...and many of them aren't even 'lovespoons'!!
These spoons are all made with caring, passion, patience and craftsmanship. They are elegant, beautiful and cry out to be handled!! In short, they are lovely... and THAT is the example I always wish to follow when I carve my own lovespoons!!
For those interested, here is the listing for the spoons shown above:
Top left: Swedish spoon with ball in cage circa 1900
Top right: Swiss cream spoon with fretted bird figure on handle circa mid 20th C (?)
Lower extreme left: double bowl Norwegian wedding spoon circa late 1800's to mid 1900's
Middle left: Russian spoon with double horse head crown and chip carving circa 21st C
Middle: Chip carved Romanian spoon carved in 1999
Middle right: Swiss tourist spoon with high relief foliage carving circa 1900
Extreme right: Painted high relief Norwegian spoon circa 1900 (?)
Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2011, David Western --
As another year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone the very best of the season. Nadolig Llawen (Merry Christmas) to all those who celebrate Christmas and best wishes to all those who don't.
I can't pretend it hasn't been a very tough year to be a lovespoon carver, with economies collapsing left and right, with massive foreclosures, 'rationalization' everywhere and everyone holding on to their pennies, it is as bad as I have ever seen it. Fortunately for me, there are still people out there who value a truly personal, entirely hand-made gift and know the real value of my lovespoons! To all those who commissioned one of my spoons, I send my sincerest thanks. To those who visited my blog and my site but couldn't order a spoon this year, I hope the next year is a better one and I get the chance to show you what I can do!!
To those of you who could care less about lovespoons, I send my deepest sympathies!
But thankfully, it hasn't all been doom and gloom! This year's West Coast Eisteddfod in Los Angeles was a great success and your generous donations to the 'Win the Lovespoon and Support the Eisteddfod' fund helped make the event the grand time it was! This year's design was embellished with artwork selected from Americymru member entries and really did make carving this year's spoon that extra bit special! Lucky prize winner Carey Dietrich went home with a beautiful artwork which I hope will bring her many, many years of pleasure! I think this is a great picture of her, and her most excellent tshirt sets the spoon off perfectly!!I hope that next year's Eisteddfod is even bigger and better than this year's and I look forward to carving the lovespoon for it!
Once again, I wish one and all the very best for the remainder of this year and for the year to come!
West Coast Eisteddfod 2011 Vendors, thank you!
Vendors
Celtic Jackalope , makers of the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod t-shirt, artist "[Maxine Miller's] work is rich with the exquisite detail and symbolism that bring these iconic images to life. Maxine's artwork is applied to sterling silver jewelry, statuary, printed apparel, art prints, wooden gift boxes... Michael MacFarlane has brought Maxine's art to the masses through the manufacturing and distribution of Maxine's Products. By starting with Celtic Fairs and Scottish Highland Games in North America, where he is a highly regarded member of the Scottish/Celtic community... All pieces are created with integrity, working with non-exploitive and fair trade principles. It is both their pride and pleasure to bring these works to you."
San Francisco Celtic artist Jen Delyth is known worldwide for the original and iconic mixture of old and new in her beautiful work. Delyth's paintings, illustrations and design marry new technique and composition concepts with deeply rooted cultural and mythological themes.
About her art, Jen has written, "I am intrigued by the marriage of old and new, ancient and future. This work is a personal journey into the language of Celtic myth and symbol, the beauty of nature, a simple interpretation of Celtic spirituality expressing the Mystery of the inter-connectedness and balance of all things."
Dreamsinger Harps Celtic Harps, Gothic Harps, Doorharps, Dulcimers, Psalteries, Flap-Dragons, Ping Pong CrossBows. Dreamsinger Harps has 25 years making and selling Harps at Renaissance faires, 35 years as a member of the SCA. Besides the SCA, Renn Faires and other events, you can find them in Lakewood, California and their harp kits and door harps on ebay at magicharps and buy their beautiful harps and other instruments and wonderful things on their site .
Three Geese In Flight Celtic Books has been in business selling antiquarian, used, and out-of-print Celtic and Arthurian studies books from our shop and mail order since 1976.
Besides the folklore, mythology and history of Celtic Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, Three Geese in Flight Books specializes in the history, literature, fiction, and scholarly study of the Arthurian legend. We also feature Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, and Megalithic books.
We are also proud to offer books on Iroquois, Woodland Indian, Mound builder History, Archeology, and Legend, American Revolution/French and Indian War, along with the history of Early Dutch New Netherlands Colonial New England, Pre-Columbian voyages, and Cultures, as well as the Folklore of the Americas.
BlackHeart Metals , for the finest in hand-crafted Silver Jewelry and Sculptures - silver jewelry, sculptures, rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pendants and more
Mac Neith Celtic Shoes and Accessories , Handcrafted leather Celtic - Scottish - Irish Shoes, Celtic-Pictish Jewelry, Celtic Pouches & Celtic - Viking RUNES! MacNeith's Celtic Shoes & Accessories
are perfect to wear at any SCA events,
Scottish Games, Irish and Celtic Festivals,
Renaissance Fairs and for everyday wear!
Faire Ladies, Faire Lords was founded in 1996 and is proud to be a retailer of American made artisan quality Renaissance costumes and historical clothing. All clothing items are Made in the USA. The romance of the Renaissance era is here for ladies AND lords! Costume yourself in renaissance bodices and doublets, medieval gowns and tunics; we provide pirate garb, German costuming, English Renaissance costuming and lots of creative fantasy and masquerade attire.
R. Merlin, Ion Drive Publishing Arial and Electra, a Wyrding Lucination in 39 Parts : "Written over an extraordinary twenty-two years, Ariel & Electra draws on R.Merlin's experience as a laser artist, working Druid, and occult initiate with a passion for the Eleusinian Mysteries."
Jewelry from Aileen's Art - she had jewelry at the event, earrings and necklaces and bracelets - but also on her site are some gorgeous little wire and beaded trees and grapevines, really interesting.
Peter Padden, Pendraig Publishing , "Pendraig Publishing is devoted to bringing quality books to the Pagan community, covering subjects like Traditional Witchcraft, Wortcunning, The Art of the Cunning Folk, and Ancient Mystery Traditions."
West Coast Eisteddfod wrap-up report, at last!
I'm months behind when I intended to do this, the week after the West Coast Eisteddfod in Los Angeles, but I've been wrapped up in the wrap up and couldn't finish it! If I've gotten anything wrong, misspelled or incorrectly given someone's personal or business name or forgotten to include anyone, please let me know at gaabib@gmail.com and I'll fix it.
I think this was the best event we've done so far. It came off absolutely fantastically and Ceri and I owe a HUGE thanks to our partner in this year's event, Lorin Morgan Richards , as the guy on the ground and coordinator and creator of the Welsh Mythology and Legend Art Show , a fantastic addition to the event in itself. Lorin has even done a book of the works that artists contributed to the show and, if you weren't able to attend, you can get it here , with an original work by Jen Delyth on the cover.
Loads of people kept telling me it was the best event like this they'd ever been to, comparing it to a good party and there was just a lot of good and happy feeling and it was really nothing but fun. We had a wonderful display of these great panels on Welsh immigration to the US, generously loaned to us by the people at visitwales.com on behalf of the Welsh Assembly and a ton of people went through that, me included.
Ceri and I drove down from Portland, which was a 16-hour+ drive I used to do, way too fast, each way a couple of times a year, flat out without stopping except for fuel and, ahem, freshening up. I couldn't do that this time, getting older and too damned tired, so we stopped at a different cheap hotel each way, which are better not mentioned. This was Ceri's first trip down I-5 and it wasn't what he expected "California" to be, which I found kind of funny. Everyone hears all about Hollywood and maybe San Francisco but they don't know about the hundreds of miles of agricultural land in the middle. We had hours and hours and hours of driving through dusty acres of olives, grapes, citrus and other stuff, the breadbasket of the west coast.
The event was held at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood, the site of an incredible Frank Lloyd Wright home, the Hollyhock House (below), which Wright designed for theater patroness Aline Barnsdall, who donated the house and eleven acres of its grounds on Olive Hill to the city of Los Angeles for use as a public art park, which it remains today:
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The wonderful people from Barnsdall offered children's activities during the festival, including helping people name their houses in Welsh. Barnsdall is really a treasure and the people of LA are very lucky to have it. I hope we'll get to do some more events there in the future, it's a great place.
For the first time, this year our Maes B (the second field, the place at the eisteddfod where other entertainment is happening) was outside and it really had a fun, carnival kind of feel. We had fantastic food supplied by Alex Catering , who came up with a great menu of dishes to serve, which included a very generous but light fish and chips (chips dusted with curry powder, mmm!), Glamorgan sausage, a delicious meat sausage and a leek and cheese pie and more. Their staff were great, very friendly, fast and creative and they were even wonderful enough to show up and do an absolutely awesome breakfast for the vendors and crew sooo early in the morning! I would recommend them for anything and I can't say enough good things about them and our pub, Oberon's Tavern .
It's not much of a West Coast Eisteddfod without plenty of delicious beer and the venue, unfortunately, didn't come with that, so we had a travelling pub. Oberon's Tavern travels around appearing at pirate festivals, fairy and Ren Faires and they set up their bar, tables, etc outside the Barnsdall Theater building. They all appeared in costume and provided constant, fun entertainment along with plenty of beer and wine and even some varieties of mead and a bartender/waitress dressed as a red dragon. The stand-up Comedy portion of the Eisteddfod ended up being in the pub and it was a lot of fun! It was also something else to watch them set up, throwing up walls and the bar and a fence and tables lightning fast and BOOM! Instant pub, manned by a bunch of really fun and lovely people.
Ceri Shaw and Jordan McKay of Oberon's Tavern setting up for the 2011 WCE
Welsh cakes (or bakestones) were supplied by the West Coast makers of those, The Welsh Baker , locally in California. They sold absolutely out by the end and there weren't even samples left! They were delicious.
Friday
The event was started with a performance by the Cr Cymraeg De Califfornia , followed by opening ceremonies lead by members of the California Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids - Peter Freeman and our very own Garan Gwyn and Brian y Tarw Lloyd, inspired by and taken from the language used in the opening of the National Eisteddfod in Wales:
Friday night was the opening night concert with performances by Paul Child , Monica Richards and Michael Aston . I'm a Monica Richards fan, so I loved getting to see her and I thought her show was fantastic, experimental and original, with a great multimedia element behind the band on the stage. Paul Child was our headliner of the evening and he gave a wonderful, very powerful performance. His voice is extremely strong, even more in person than a recording, and hits every note precisely, without hesitation or tremor, and he's a great, fun guy to boot! He'd brought some CD's to sell, including one to raise money for the families of the miners deceased at Gleision Colliery. If anyone would like to contribute to that appeal, it's here . Michael Aston came on last, with just a guitarist, and gave a gorgeous, intimate, acoustic performance that went over very well with the audience and a lot of people who hadn't ever heard him before told me afterward how much they liked it.
This was also the opening of the Welsh Mythology and Legend Art Show , which was exhibited in the main floor lobby gallery of the Gallery Theater. Lorin created, organized and hung this exhibition, assigning a verse each from a poem he wrote to over thirty contributing artists he recruited, who produced works to be exhibited at the WCE and included in a book , which is now for sale. Jen Delyth created the cover and exhibited her piece, in addition to original works she had at her booth.
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| Jen Delyth's cover painting | Other artists' work on display |
Saturday
Saturday was the day of the actual eisteddfod and the first day of the Welsh Market. AmeriCymru had a table there and I confess that that's where I spent most of my time, as Ceri was MC'ing, sandwiched between Welsh-American author Jude Johnson and Celtic Jackalope , who did the official event t-shirt . I have to add that I silkscreen t-shirts and their shirts were pretty impressive to me - they're screen printed, not transfers or machine printed (which is about the same lower quality as a transfer, they peel off after a bit) but there's an amazing amount of fine detail in the Celtic Jackalope shirts and they look perfect enough to have been done by a machine. There were a lot of wonderful people there, selling wonderful things I wanted and I tried very hard to get their cards so I could list them below and if I missed anyone, tell me so I can put you on there! Everything was great and I wanted it all but if anyone wants to get me something for Christmas, there were lace parasols and a glass eye with brass wings.... See links below for the awesome vendors that were there!
There were free performances and lectures out on the grounds throughout the day, just some of them included traditional music by Wake the Bard harpist and soprano Nerys Jones, a lecture and demonstration of the crwth by Dr. Marshall Bevil, magician Joseph Schneider, Welsh author John Gower lectured on 'Discovering Welsh History', and Sam Wenger on Legends of King Arthur and Madog and a Welsh language lesson by the Learn Welsh Podcast .
The Competitions
The Eisteddfod took place in the Gallery Theater, below the art exhibit, on Saturday. This was the second year that we've had live competitions and the first year we've had vocal and stand-up comedy. All the competitors were fantastic, I didn't see anything that I didn't like.
The Vocal competition winner was Timo Standing Buffalo . Also competing were George Angelo, Jr., Mia - Chocolate Princess and Tom Lloyd. Unfortunately, I missed this competition, but heard a little from the top of the stairs so someone else will have to blog about this.. :/
The Storytelling competition winner was Chris Chandler , who also won the Poetry competition. Also competing were John McGee, Laura Wolfe-Bosworth, Michael D McCarty, Anthony Burcher and Elliot Hughes. I also missed this one but other people told me everyone was great so, again, someone else will have to blog about this competition.
Nerys Jones performed in between competitions in the theater and Sex Bomb came on stage before the stand-up comedy competition and gave a great set, with lots of appreciation and participation from the audience.
The Stand Up Comedy competition winner was Peter Freeman. Also competing were Jeanette Rizzi and Carlos Escobar . The stand-up competition ended up happening in the pub, which seemed more appropriate, and turned into a bit of a party, great fun! All three competitors were really funny, I'd especially like to see Jeanette Rizzi perform again, I like a good female comic, and Carlos Escobar was extremely funny.
Sunday
More outdoor events happened on Sunday, more wonderful vendors and the film festival.
Dr. Aparna Sharma, Phd, UCLA World Arts and Cultures, opened the film festival with an excellent and extremely interesting lecture on Welsh film and each film in the festival, which included "Y Chwarelwr"(English title "The Quarryman") , "Eldra" and "Y Mabinogi" (English title "Otherworld") . I might be wrong about this but I think this was the first LA showing of these films, I know this was the first showing of "Y Mabinogi" in California.
Thank you, thank you!
It was great to get to meet other AmeriCymru members and members of the American-Welsh community I'd never got to meet before and it was really, really fantastic, beyond words, to see the performances and activities at the event and all the art people created and performed. I felt so lucky to get to be part of this and to see this. I can't express how grateful I am to everyone who performed, who donated and sponsored the event, who came to vend and to visit and attend every part of the event and to bring some accessible public Welshness to LA. Feedback was wonderful, everyone I saw was smiling almost the whole time and it was amazingly fun! I hope we'll get to come back to do this in LA again soon!
Please see the Vendor's list - continued
Jim Butcher is the author of the very popular "Harry Dresden" fantasy series, about a Chicago private investigator who's also a wizard and the hidden world of wizards, vampires, Fae and other magical creatures barely restrained from falling upon us all, starting in Chicago.
Butcher contributed a short story to a new anthology, published this year, Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy . "Curses" revolves around a well-known Chicago curse and a well-heeled representative of an unnamed client comes to Harry Dresden to hire him to remove it. In the course of tracking the origin of the curse, Dresden finds himself at The Llyn y Fan Fach Tavern and Inn.
Llyn y Fan Fach is a man-made lake near the natural lake Llyn y Fan Fawrin the Brecon Beacons. A legend says that a young man married a woman who rose out of the lake and said she'd be his wife until he hit her three times and then she'd leave and take her cattle. These idiots in mythology can never restrain themselves so, of course, he hit her three times and she left him, but returned occaisionally to see and teach her children, who went on to become the Physicians of Myddfai.
The Llyn y Fan Fach turns out to be run by "Jill," a beautiful woman who's accent "came from somewhere closed to Cardiff than London" and whom Dresden asks for information on the shape-shifting Tylwyth Teg . Of course, "Jill" turns out to be more than she appears and becomes Dresden's guide in seeking the author of the curse.
I saw the name of the tavern, then Butcher's description of it and chortled with glee (I'm a huge Dresden addict): "... located at the lakeside at the northen edge of the city. The place's exterior screamed "PUB" as if it were trying to make itself heard over the roar of brawling football hooligans. It was all white-washed walls and heavy timbers stained dark. the wooden sign hanging from a post above the door bore the tavern's name and a painted picture of a leek and daffodil crossed like swords."
So there you go, any Jim Butcher "Harry Dresden" fans, a Welsh-ish "Dresden" story, and Welsh in Chicago for the Tafia.
Ceri and I are talking about doing a quarterly "print" mag - it would be available online as a pdf and people could subscribe by mail for an actual physical edition of the magazine -
What would people like to see in a magazine on "Welsh America" or Welsh and Welsh culture outside Wales? What would people like to read, to learn, to hear about?
The wonderful people at Celtic Jackalope created two great, original t-shirts for the LA West Coast Eisteddfod and they've agreed to continue offering them online, along with a black version of the AmeriCymru t-shirt! If you're one of the people that contacted me and wanted t-shirts, here they are!
(Graphics below were made by me, not pix of actual t-shirts so check their site for correct info!)
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They've got a full range of sizes, a portion of the proceeds goes to raising money for next year's West Coast Eisteddfod and they're offering free shipping on this on-line special. Get this great deal while you can and help support Welsh-American artists, promoting Welsh-American history, and bringing Welsh artists and art to the USA.
Get one of each and give those fortunate enough to lay eyes upon you the splendor of basking in your Welshness!
