Leo 9° (July 31)

So last night was a costume thing and we all received togas on (and wigs) to wear on our beds in the afternoon. It wasn’t a murder mystery or anything so there was no role play this time around which was fine by me. It actually took the guess work out of wondering what to wear at dinner so that was also kind of a boonful byproduct. Canapés were the best: caviar with blinis. Honestly I could live on caviar, I really could. I wasn’t shy and made sure i had a goodly amount in my gullet. I took one night off from my signature negroni (how horrible would that be with caviar?) and followed J.T.’s lead and had a vodka martini up (very dry). They were in tiny glasses so I really couldn’t overdo it. We then were ushered upstairs to dine al fresco, perfect; dinner was bison tenderloin with a wine sauce on top of a sun-choke gratin with broccolini and some kind of exotic mushroom. The dessert was meringue with passion fruit. We drank a delicious Rioja with it. First we had that who’s-who game where we had to wear our names on our head for others to see. I had a hard one; and it didn’t help that J.T., on the other end of the table, red mine wrong. I was Constantine the Great and he thought I was Alexander the Great. I almost guessed Alexander except S. asked if she was Alexander so I knew that was wrong. Anyway I wasn’t the last guy to guess-out but nearly. In the end it was N. who was Medusa. Then we had to write a poem for some reason. Anyway I was already losing the plot. And then it was showtime.

I grabbed my computer and used some lens cleaner to spruce up my screen. I did a quick look at E. (with C.) and I did J.T.’s chart on my own and then S. and I looked at Sally and Jessica. So we kind of gave at the office a little which is great and part of what we can bring to the table and, really, nobody had ever seen us in action like this before so why not. We stayed up the latest. Well I did with C. and E. and it was good fun and formative. This morning people were saying how we should have a podcast and they would be right. Breakfast today was all about giving prezzies to J. and J. and then they and Sally and S. and N. and “the boys” and I went into Ponza. J.T. forgot shoes of all things so we got him som flipflops and I got this cool beanie. I’m in love with Ponza and have to learn all about it. I might even like it better than Ischia. I keep forgetting to tell S. what N. said about Ischia being this spa place with hot springs. That is going to be researched as well. I told Sally last night that we might go see an artist friend but S. and I might want to be alone. So I will negotiate that when the time comes.

After our little side trip into Ponza we came back and I went for a little swim. I still get this weird feeling that my left leg is going to cramp as a result of that freaking car accident in 2015. But I did my back dive for K. as she hadn’t seen it and it actually wowed her a little. I just had a little mid morning Americano and I’m getting to catch up on some work which is a good thing. S. and J. and Jess are on the lower deck chatting away and I suspect it’s about relationships but I could be wrong (I often am). We had thought we might have a small lunch given plans for dinner tonight but that was not the case. There was this kind of vegetable pizza slash lasagne thing, chicken meatballs, some kind of white fish of bass variety, maybe, plus rice and tsaziki and a puffy bread and garlicky sunchoke or hummus thing and a wee bit of green salad, followed by fig ice cream, washed down with fizzy water and rosé. J.T. told the funniest story that wove together Anna Wintour, Madonna, Baz Lerman, the Pope and Roger Federer (yes you hear this all right). I’m in absolute love with J.T. he is hysterical. In fact, I’m pretty much in love with everyone on this boat. It has felt so very much like family.

S. and Jess and Sally and J.T. all were sleeping on the top deck when I went up there; I found myself a sliver of banquette and really didn’t think I’d nap but I just wanted to be in the air as the boat steamed on toward Rome. I think I did fall for a few minutes then suddenly N. was hovering over me saying it was time for birthday cake. Cake! We are leaving in two and a half hours for La Pergola for a ten-course meal. We tried to watch the Madonna Eurovision but it wouldn’t download. We started packing our bags and then got showered and ready to go. Two vans took us to the hotel which was fabulously beyond anything I had ever seen in my life; like Chateau Marmont on steroids. We took pictures of each other and the view; a man playing an electric piano far down below at the poolside restaurant serenaded us. We had champagne and nibblies and then sat down to an amazing meal which I have record of thank god, in the form of the menu “momento” they had placed at our plates. We all signed J.’s and Jess’s for their birthday. I have no idea what I wrote so don’t ask me. It was around one-thirty when we left the restaurant which means it was two-thirty when we arrived back at the boat. I actually slept in the car. Don’t know if I was the only one.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 8° (July 30)

I am not sleeping. I fall asleep and I fall asleep hard but, once again, I awake at around 4 o’clock. It’s now seven-thirty and I have gotten a great deal of writing done. I am actually surprised how I’ve been able to keep up with that. I pulled on a pair of shorts and headed down for a coffee. My lungs hurt. I’m not sure if it’s poor Italian air quality or boat exhaust or what but I’ve been fighting something respiratory related ever since I left London. Oh, well—there are worse things. I’m going to do a little editing on the ebooks now and see how far I can get on that. We are meant to go into Ischia this morning around ten so perhaps I can sneak in a nap before that happens. Or, a couple of Americanos in, I might find I can get through lunch and then have a little nappy nap in the afternoon, post a swim.

Well it is now six thirty in the evening and I’ve not had any form of nap at all and I’m not going to. We went into Ischia and got met by two vans which took us to the gardens which were absolutely amazing. They belonged to a famed British composer and his wife and just two weeks ago J.T.’s nephew performed in the concert hall located inside the gardens which boast other little buildings. But mainly it’s just hte most beautiful flora you have ever seen in your life. We had a little refreshment—me an orzata made with barley water. I really need to look up barley water later today. That was that Ischia trip in this morning—we returned to the boat basically in time for lunch which was absolutely delicious. It started with delicious foccacia bread with oninion, then we had two pastas—one was that kind of spaghetti with the crunchy fishy bits on it (I forget the name of what it’s called) and another was a kind of creamy mushroomy rigatoni. I should have written it down or taken a picture of the menu. Then there were grilled veggies with a pesto sauce. For pudding we had a lime avocado ice cream. And there was rosé again—we are drinking at every meal since the fellows arrived—J. had a wee champagne.

I don’t much remember the conversation but we are talking a lot about theater and film which is great. Oh I have to make David a list of musicals to see. I will try to do that after breakfast tomorrow as part of this Blague, even maybe. I have been keeping up as best I can on work but it hasn’t been the easiest process. I really can’t bug anybody any more at this juncture but must wait to see what checks will have arrived in my mailbox by Monday next. I saw it was Ari’s birthday so I told her I was here with J.T.; I also have Finley Christine’s address so that we might go visit her in her studio in the Travestere on Thursday. If that were to work out I’d be really thrilled actually.

After lunch Jessica and her friend Sally arrived. They are both adorable. We had a little chat then all went back into Ischia. Well not all of us. When we got to town J. and N. and Jessica went off to walk the dog and find J. some food. J.T., D. Sally, S and I went to find a place to swim, which we did, right in the harbor which was kind of slippery. This morning at the garden a woman asked to have her picture taken with S. who told her she wasn’t famous but she insisted. Today a boy who looked just like the kid from Call Me By My Name asked S: “are you TK More. This is very very weird I think. Obviously word has gotten out that she is floating around somewhere but why would S. be her? It makes no sense. I may have mentioned that one of the drivers in Taormina thought he met S. before (meaning he thought she was J.). So really this makes the third time that people have assumed S. is J. I’m so confused. The town harbor was filled with adolescents in their swimsuits, with the odd adult scattered in. Everybody knows everybody and there seem to be few tourists. N. just told me a few minutes ago that they have spas and hot springs and expensive hotels here and that’s the real draw. Maybe one day we will return to do something splurge-y like that. You never know.

We met the tender to find that the other party had already returned and, as I suspected, it was because they couldn’t find a restaurant open where Jessica could get a bite. We came back to find folks at tea and Sally and Jessica munching on BLTs. I went upstairs to do a bit of work. S. was scheduled for a little pedicure action. I heard people in the water off the boat so I decided to join and did my second back dive off the stern. Apparently it looked to be pretty good form. The water is super warm, but the current is still alarmingly swift, and I am always sort of on the bring of having a cramp in my left leg due to that damned accident. We will go for a deposition upon my return but I really don’t even what to think about that now. We are told we have to wear togas tonight and the staff is going nuts readying themselves for what looks like quite the soirée. Again I have only had three hours of sleep last night so I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen to me but we shall see. We are eating outside tonight which is fantastic. The crew seem really, truly excited. I will let you know tomorrow how it goes slash went.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 7° (July 29)

I expect the dynamic will change today as we have “the boys” arriving. I also suspect that we will be a little bit more anonymous as a result but who knows. I awoke very early this morning and have already gotten a good deal done. I am going to do my usual ablutions then go downstairs and have a little brekkie and then come back up and edit the first of the HA books and focus on promoting one of our artists this year. At breakfast we discover that the boat that is lilting in the harbor next to us belongs to Sheldon Adelstein. I will take photos of it and post on its horribleness, maybe. Around noonish everyone did assemble on the lower deck in anticipation of J.T. and D’s arrival. Though not the full crew action just we lot, for the most part. I was really happy to re-meet them; I don’t think they remember us even though we have shared a table together at, at least one, event. I do not recall writing a sentence that included at, at; first time for everything. They were indeed affable and we pulled out of the harbor away from that evil Mr. Burns’ yacht which is ugly as sin by the way; and we headed upstairs for lunch which was so delicious. Homemade bagels and a sort of chivey cream sauce, smoked fresh salmon, if you can imagine just putting some newly caught salmon in a smoker, duck carpaccio, salad and strawberry ice cream for dessert. And more rosé than usual—an Aperol spritz for some. S. guessed D.’s sign but mainly we kept ourselves under wraps; I did anyway as it takes me a little bit (not of lot) of time to warm. The plan was then to go into Procida, which I think means “the approach” if I had to translate. My Italian is proving to be somewhat passable this trip—who knew.

The town is really quite beautiful and, I dare say, one of my favorite places so far on the trip. It seems barely touristed if at all. “The approach” by tender to the town is visually stunning with varied colored houses stacked one on another on a hill. One climbs a good deal of steps from the port to the top, where there is a little square. E. said he was going to stop there and meet up with us on our return. For a moment I thought he was stopping for a drink but then realized that’s simply not possible. There was a little square where a man was setting up a stage for some kind of performance with lighting and sound equipment, and a little church which of course we entered into. It was bright inside but dripping with crucifix energy and there was a nave (I think that’s the word) through the confessional area where I could see the priests’ mantles hanging on a coat rack. The room was panelled and somber and quite beautiful. We continued up and up the hill, passing what looked to be cool restaurants with happy hours that went from six to ten o’clock in the evening, so said the sign. we came to a fork in the road and chose one that continued at a slight incline and came upon a sort of antique shop bordering on the junk variety. I was eyeballing the seventies or eighties watches but was discouraged­—they would be impossible to fix when broken I was told. And I did try on a pair of old Ray Ban aviators but they ate my entire face the lenses were so big and round. Moving toward the back of the shop there were china sets. One was super over the top gold coffee set with rhinestone rubies set in the cups. I said to S. “in tacky world these are really beautiful.” E. and C. were in another shop buying presents for children and nieces at home.

There was a road descending down from there where boats were visible and I was of the mind that we could go down that way and circle back round to where the tender came in to meet up with it in the next forty minutes. We went down. “The boys” had an ice cream each. E. and C. caught us up; and I directed us along this bigger port, where cars were being loaded onto boats heading to Napoli and there were arcades for kids and commercial fishing vessels and shops to process the catches and what looked like a ferry port and it felt like we were heading for a cul de sac. So C. whipped out her phone with a location detector and I had screwed up. We were actually on the opposite side of what is apparently a very small island and we had to go all the way back up, over, and down to get to where we arrived. I felt bad but not too. We had passed a poster for Steve Zizou and realized this must have been one of the locations for that Wes Anderson film. Then another poster with a picture of Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow suggest that they filmed Ripley here; on the same poster it was clear that Il Postino was also shot here. I can understand all of this as it does seem quite a remarkable place with which I’m fasting falling in love. We made the journey back and I think I took some cool pictures of S. in the process. Back in the correct port it was suggested we stop for something cool.

To me that meant a Negroni. To everyone else it meant water and granita, but for J.T. who joined me. On shore in Italy the predominant flavor in a Negroni is red vermouth; on the boat they are way more bitter and heavier on the Campari. I prefer the bitter way to be honest but after walking over hill and back again the cool drink settled just right. I paid the tab and we hopped back on the tender and were greeted with still more requisite cool drinks and cold towels. We quickly changed into swimsuits and hit the water which was very warm with a brisk current that necessitated hanging onto the life-line cast out by the crew. J.T. and I picked up the brief tidbits of conversation we had been having earlier in the day in instant shots of collage and we strung it all together. We know all the same people, although he really knows them; I’m forever the outsider when it comes to the theater and performance world. Even those who were once close friends seem to keep me at arm’s length. It all comes down to certain relationships with certain sychophants whom I would not tolerate. It’s fine. And I learned in conversation that people (including Alan) have been struggling with Lance. I need to reach out to someone he messed with this year to communicate the fact that it isn’t personal. He’s just a huge pain in the ass.

We had lovely drinks. N. tried a Negroni but thought it too bitter (the boat version again). We had these sort of pakoras as canapés and then sole (I passed) and quail for dinner with lovely baby carrots and parsnips and crispy leaks and the hagglewhatever potatoes. The boys drank rosé, the rest of us had a lovely New Zealand red. We had a strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. J. talked about how she almost bought this set of gold cups with the rubies! How weird is that—that poor shopkeeper really wanted to make a sale, which made me sad. Then we had coffees and played cards against humanity after putting the kaibosh on a “muggles” version of the game. Someone was definitely not up for that. She asked if we can do a quick and dirty for Jess when she arrives tomorrow–but of course. I accompanies N. on a trip back into Procida to empty the doggie. The place was filled with music. We climbed the stairs to find a band playing in the square with people of all ages assembled and dancing; like in Greece, children are wide awake and roaming around here at midnight. We had a lovely stroll and a loving chat about feeling like family which is so nice (as I don’t have any, inlaws excepted).

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 6° (July 28)

Very rough seas and I don’t think my snoring helped S. sleep. She headed into the salon but I felt uncomfortable about that so I just joined her. Two crew members checked on us over a half an hour period, the second suggesting that the downstairs salon is more stable feeling during rough seas. S. headed down and I did a bit of work on the festival. It’s all around four in the morning. I was sending her texts to make sure she was okay and in the end just threw on some clothes and came down and ordered a giant Americano. N., apparently sporting a breathe-right strip and a bathrobe, had been up with the doggie, who was also a bit nervy. It’s now about six and both S., on the sofa opposite me, and doggie, on my same sofa, curled next to me, are blissfully alseep as the violent rocking part of the journey seems to have subsided. Though as I say this we are nearly tipping perpendicular to the desired position in which we should be sailing.

In conversation with my college friend and fellow English department dweller I just realized/ariculated that I have been wanting to come to Greece since becoming obsessed with mythology in the sixth grade. Then it struck me that this “memory” on FB from 2 years ago popped up yesterday and for some reason I felt compelled to share the photo again. This is my sixth grade photo! This is the original myth head who, the summer before seventh grade, made “robes” out of old curtains in the summer house we then rented and did incantations to Dionysus which just so happend to be the cabin we inhabit on this boat we are currently sailing on! I think this happy, happy guy, here, nigh on having his life altered by some abuse of a certain kind that summer before seventh grade (in that next year student photo I look totally different, sad, depressed, like all light has gone out of me), is smiling his toothy grin all the more knowing that he finally got the gift of this trip of his lifetime. The weird thing is: I came clean about this occurance on my first night on the boat to my hostess. Such a weird cosmic full circle thing involving the passage of time which is anything but linear in any case.

We are docked in a place called Castellmare di Stabia about twenty miles south of Naples. I tried to get a little more sleep but to no avail. We got off the boat and into another Mercedes bus driven by this guy who could be a funny hitman from central casting. He was actually quite striking, great physique, bald with a white goatee. Could have been forty-five or sixty-five impossible to tell. I thought it was just me then when we got there S. similarly remarked citing his hands and forearms specifically. He drove us through the little town onto a highway into Naples. There is trash everywhere which says a lot about the mindset of the people. It is even worse here than in Sicily. It is Sunday so the shops are all boarded or gated up. There is graffiti scrawled on every building. I’m feeling emotionally thin. I am digging down to my resources as best I can. We are driven to a sort of Ocean Avenue along the sea and get out of the van as does the driver who is giving us directions. He is wearing no socks with sturday gray nearly jazz-style shoes and suddenly looks more cool and hipster-like with a few bracelets on his right hand and a wedding band on the left. He is smiling at us and now looks like a reformed hit-man who plays in a band and does floral arrangement to relax.

We stroll along the sea which is very rough and still stop to ask directions at another restaurant—we are looking for i Re di Napoli which translates to “the Kings of Napoli” we find it and are seated outside under giant umbrellas. The wind is very strong. We order our drinks and pizza and then there is a huge crashing sound. One of the giant sturdy metal umbrellas that is shading half of the entire outdoor seating has its fabric ripped completely off by the stormy wind; and though it sounded worse than it was, because the wind lifted the giant metal structure into the air before crashing it back down, there really was no panic but the people under the umbrella began to flee as did our entire table which wasn’t under it. I stood there waiting for everyone to return and N. agreed we were in no danger. But too late: Everyone else had had our party relocated to the inner dining room. I tried to smile at what seemed to be a bartender or a shucker of raw things wearing a sort of hat that designated him as such but he just glared at me stoically. People in service industries here seem to all be something else that might involve wacking people and not in the good way.

But we are here for the pizza and everybody gets something different. Margerita, Cappricioso, Diavolo, Marinara, Buffita, I am basically making up words now. Girls are drinking cocktails. S. had wine. I had ordered wine too but switched to Negroni which was listed under “appetizers” and here was (too) heavy on the red vermouth. But the pizza was delicious. I said before the meal that this one was on me. We had a fun time and I had a pistachio cake for dessert and coffee and J. and I each had a Sambuca. I signalled for “il conto per favore” which came and S. took out the card and we waited while E. and C. went for “a vape.” The waiter came back to say the check was already paid. Now, I should be like whatever or thankful but I’m a bit pissed off because I made it clear up front this was my treat and it was determined that’s what I’m doing. Anyway I have to let it go for all the obvious reasons. We meet the driver outside and head to the archaelogical museum. It is very hot. There are remnants of homeless people everywhere in cluding human feces just outside the museum. Naples should be able to do better than this. I saw what I could see. I skipped the erotic room. I basically sat downstairs for most of it and waited. We went for a little walk before meeting at designated time outside but it isn’t a very walkable city where the museum is anyway. So we get back into car and drive the forty five minutes back to the boat. It looks like people are hovering outside and taking pictures. Someone has perhaps tipped them off. We wonder who. Anyway I come back to cabin and get some more work done on the festival and also promote the tee-shirts a bit. I am working on my schedule and already readying to leave in a certain way. Canapes were seared tuna with soy and cucumber. Dinner was delicious sushi. The conversation was interesting about astrology and metaphysics and witchcraft and we are decided we all three will go to the Atlantis book shop together. I have to show J. Damon’s pages and so forth. But I probably won’t get to. The movie we watch all together is called the Other Guys and it is very funny but I am too tired to watch it all and slip away to bed where I am now. Good night.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 5° (July 27)

Things are a bit mish-mashed these past couple of days. Last night felt a bit somber with those guys leaving and then we had this sort of heart-to-heart talk about what went down. I think everybody really needed to regroup and so I spent much of the day getting some work done as we had that long journey from Albania to Sicily. I fell asleep on the top deck for a few minutes. We had canapés of chicken briouats and mango in phyllo dough and were talking about the best way to negotiate the rest of the trip. The weather will have a lot to do with it. We decided for sure to skip Capri because this time of year it will be a mob scene; as it is we might not even get to Ischia because of some rough seas ahead and also the arrival times of the next two sets of guests. Dinner was a tagine of rabbit which I quite liked—they did a fishy  version for la S.  The table was decorated in such a way that there were symbols drawn in balsamic vinegar in our olive oil with little cards and sayings. Mine was the seed and all about fertility. S’s was about fish bones which is funny since they made her that special fish. E’s was about something but he didn’t stop to look and just plowed his bread through his olive oil frame of the balsamic drawing. Endowed with the gift of the gab, he keeps conversation going, which can be kind of a relief when you yourself are feeling quiet. There are never any awkward silences when he is around. After dinner we all played a video game that was more like a board game. Still the Mario Bros. and it was fun but I find these sorts of things challenging to my mind which is unused to things that other adults who have kids are naturally more accustomed to. Also I was feeling very sleepy. And nobody was really drinking but more in decompression mode.

Awoke today coming into Sicility, Aetna, Riposto, I think, to be exact. I got dressed for the day and went up top with binoculars. We were waiting to clear customs and it felt like a scorcher. Something about the docks recalled old memories of growing up in Jersey City, which was later born out by the overall dinge and smoginess of this part of the island, and the swampy looking vegetation, that reminded me of summers spent in the city in my earliest days on the planet. There were two Mercedes vans waiting for us la famille hopped into the first one and we two remaining couples took the second along with our chef who was coming for a ride and would return to the boat with the doggie once she was empty. E. engaged the chef on her origins, which were Canadian, ultimately segueing into his knowledg of Toronto based bands. We learned the wedding was to be in Aberfeldy. We found out later that the first van was driven by the wife and the second by the husband in a married couple themselves. We were heading to Taormino and were given some vague history about Phoenicians and Corinthians and Greeks which didn’t remain clear in my mind. The basic gist being that the Greeks drove the original inhabitants from Naxos to seek refuge in the hills above the coastal town, wiping it out. The hills are distinguished by two major peaks which were like Bulls horns, thus, Taormino, in a nod to Taurus if not the Minotaur.

The driver thought he had met S. before which of course he hadn’t and it was decided that he was confusing her with J. as everyone in the car, including the chef, thought they had similar looks, if not sisterly than that of cousins, “similar bone structure” was the arrived consensus. People on motorbikes were passing us on hairpin turns in narrow roads; at one point a guy on a motorcycle was texting while climbing a steep hill, going really slow, such that a bunch of cars and vans had to pass him. We ended up going through Naxos as a short cut, which was fine, as it slowly rose from there into Taurmino, the bottom bit of which are the gardens which was the desired destination for N. and the doggie, specifically. We stopped and spilled out from the couple’s vans and were immediately directed that we had a choice between the gardens and going straight up to the town to tool around which is what J wanted to do, just as we did. So the three of us jumped into the lady’s van and at the last instant so did E.

We headed up to a good stop in the center of the little town and stopped to pee and grab some water and coffee. Three of us were quiet, happy to let the narrator continue to fill any empty spaces, which, again, was just perfect. I am feeling all talked out right now given the full on events of the previous week, and some more serious moments, of which, D. especially, has been making light. That said, if it weren’t for E. I might feel compelled to dredge up topics for conversation as my duty as a polite and affable guest. So truly grateful he has so much to say and keeps the verbal action going. It feels like a gift today. E. paid the check and se set off, first, alighting on a pretty cool fragrance shop with one line made right here in the shadow of Aetna which, said our driver, is showing signs of activity, blowing brown smoke (from fire) as opposed to white smoke (steam). Within moments, though I wasn’t sure if it was because they fell behind or speeded ahead, J. and E. were no longer in sight, So S. and I loped our way down the rue pieton in the scorching heat, stopping rarely into shops. A print shop caught my eye, and I took a picture of a centuries old map of Sicily, when J. popped out of the shop signalling she was on the phone to N. whom she was directing from the gardens to meet her. We heard some music and there were two men, one with guitar, one with mandolin, playing and singing in the nearby square which overlooked the gardens and the bay at Naxos below.

We still had an hour before lunch so we continued on to the further end of the town which is book marked by ancient stone arched gates. Then slowly worked our way back and decided we would look for our lunch spot, in the Grand Hotel Timeo, so that we could continue to meander from there. (The word meander I recently learned comes from the river of the same name that goes this way and that through part of Greece, I forget which.) As we were climbing the last bit of hill toward the hotel we spotted N. and K., under the shade of an olive tree, in what seemed like serious conversation—it occurs to me know she might have been “working him” for the purchase of a dress she fancied—and N. said that the others were already at the hotel so we headed up. It was of course beautiful, and situated right next to the ancient Greek ampitheater there.

Folks were sitting on the terrace and ordering elaborate mocktails—we had glasses of cold, crisp local Aetna white. I over indulged on the snacks—black pepper potato chips that tasted like caccio e pepe (sans caccio), almonds, hazelnuts and giant green olives. I was starving and definitely overdid it pre lunch. It was J.M.’s birthday so they Facetimed with her, all taking turns, then we were moved to the shady bit of the terrace for lunch. They brought some burrata and zucchini flowers and some tuna tartare as starters, and pretty much everyone had pasta—mine was a dense, large, tube past called Parrechi or something like that, with mussels, squid and shrimp. Small but definitely filling. A couple more whites for me, and a cannoli to top it off. After lunch la famille wanted to shop and E. and C. went along with them. S. and I decided to brave the amphitheater even though the sun was beating down upon us in this vast open space. I’m glad we did. They were obviously using the theater for a current production in the evenings. There were lights set up. We went backstage and entered onto the stage from there, applauding and imagining our entrances. We strolled a bit more. The plan was to meet the vans outside the hotel. We waited an extra ten minutes before one van, containing E. and C., appeared. La famille had intercepted the husband’s van and were heading down to Naxos to where the boat had conveniently moved, and the lady’s van was taking us down. Only she didn’t know the boat had moved; she claimed either had her husband; yet the other van got to the right place. It was confusing. She spoke English very well and we came to find out she was born in Australia, as was her mother. But her father, and her mother’s parents, were from Sicily and her father and her reluctant mother moved (back) to the Island when driver lady was seven.

We got to the port. Got back on the boat. People had near heat stroke I think. We had the option to swim before going. Nobody opted to do so. The bay looked a bit not so clean to me in any case. So we set off. The plan: to travel from tea time till about seven or eight in the morning. I took a shower and put on a robe and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and did some work in the cabin. S. went to the upper deck to read but ended up sleeping. My stomach is feeling so bloated from flour and other things I don’t normally eat that it almost has a geometry to it. I skipped tea but could here people laughing. And then they came up to play video games. I put the Talking Heads on and continued to work and before I knew it it was time for drinks and canapés once again. Negronis and venison scotch eggs and what they called faux-gras (a lentil mushroom dip) with crackers. Along with flour and sugar I had removed legumes from my diet too, but I ate all the hummus in Greece and have been eating all sorts of legumes ever since. The head stew came around to ask if I wanted beef or vegetarian stew for dinner—I opted for the beef which, turned out, all the men were served. The women were served the vegetarian version although they hadn’t been asked which they wanted. The kitchen is becoming super intuitive as everyone had just what they wanted. There were more beans but I am not saying no to a single deliciousness. I did however decline the bacon and olive bread with acute sadness.

The plan was to cruise by Stromboli in the dark to see what we might se in terms of volcanic activity; and suddenly it was upon us; and nothing could have prepared us for what we witnessed. La famille had just passed the island in the dark just a week or so ago and it had some activity and one lava stream. Tonight one side of the island was completely on fire, with some flames so intense the were totally red, and in no way orange. Lava was flowing down from numerous points. It was extraordinary and will never come out on film no matter what. We have to consign it all to our memory banks. We went around to the dark side of the island, to circle round and get a second look; but on the dark side is where we could see the actual eruption, this great dark mountain suddenly shooting molten spew into the air. I have never seen anything like it and I doubt I will do for some time to come. After the natural fireworks we all went to bed but we were not going to be asleep for long.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 4° (July 26)

After our moring coffee in Ithaca yesterday morning, we returned to the boat where I managed to get some writing done and to email S. the plan for the sample chapter work, which can totally wait until we get back. I am weirded out to think that R. (of R. and R.) might have rifled through her stuff and took a book from her office to the beach as he posted an Instagram story in which the same book was featured. I’ve always said that the mutable-water sign of Pisces can translate to a “gas”, and sometimes a poisonous one, that can get through any cracks in walls and under doors. They are big snoopers me thinks. Yesterday I had written to all the Advisors and Alumni but haven’t as yet had an encouraging word back. Today I need to post all the artists posters with the link for the Art House and start going after Sparklers and Sponsors in a major way. We cleared customs in Ithaca yesterday as well so we need not go any place else to do so; thus we can drop A. and L. in Albania in the morning. I did manage to get a great deal of work done, contacting all would-be Sparklers and starting the process on hitting up Missionary Sponsors as well. My left eye has been very blurry which is weird. We had a lovely lunch of tuna in oil, kangaroo bresciole (if you can believe it) a squash carbonara, a warm salad of beet leaves or was it kale itself and beets. The pudding was a soy pistachio ice cream.

After lunch, which was gratefully dry, we all went for a swim. I took a noodle to float on thinking maybe I could swim with it all the way to shore but it was too slow going to follow through on that plan; and good thing because I could feel that I was on the verge of a leg cramp. I went to my cabin then did a bit more work. We had had so little sleep that I really thought I would nap but it wasn’t to be, so I ended up going back into the water for a bit. We were eating dinner out and I had decided that all three guest couples should pick up the tab together. Most everyone took a nap. I headed down to meet up for the tender and people were drinking cocktails so I ordered myself a negroni. We hopped the tender with the doggy and went back into Ithaca which felt like a different place, like night for day, right. The restaurant that was chosen was right on the water. Well the tables were right on the water. The restaurant which was actually a couple of buildings was across the street. We ordered a whole bunch of appetizers which somehow ended up all being cheese but for a plate of anchovies and some tarama and tziziki. Predictably some people had chicken souvlaki, some people had salads, and the kids had burgers. I, too, very predictably, had lamb chops, what else? It came with lemon which I squeezed on resulting in something quite delicious. We had three bottles of rosé between five of us. Two of the three other guys had Mythos beer which I tasted and didn’t love that much to be honest.

After dinner la famille went for a little shoppage. I wanted to stroll and have something cool. It was extremely warm out still. E. said that there was a place to go at the total other end of the harbor which turned out to be a children’s store. Never mind. We passed a pharmacy which had a Greek version of Biofine called Biofin. The pharamcist lady was beautiful and S. asked if she could take a picture of her. We found a place, basically where we had breakfast, to sit and wait for the reunification and have that something cool. Something happened and we all headed back to the boat where we went upstairs to play a video game. I am so tense while playing video games that my left thumb is now numb from pressing a button that is meant to deploy weaponry of sorts. It was a relatively early night. I feel the air quality isn’t that great and I need to spend some time hydrating if I’m going to stay healthy on this trip. I did manage to cycle through the coldy sore throat I brought onto the boat without comprising any decadence which is a good thing. The boat headed to Albania from Ithaca overnight. And today we bid farewell to L. and A.. Lunch was venison burritos, cod tacos, guacamole, a roasted tomato salsa, a salad of roasted corn and snap peas and cherry tomatoes, followed by some chocalate banana sorbet.

We now will cruise from Albania to Sicily for the next twenty hours. We only really go about thirty miles. Which means we will go six hundred miles. If there were ever a time to focus on work this would be the time. I have managed to get a very good jump on things and I’m going to keep that up. I have money to raise, shows to promote, press releases to write. And I think tomorrow morning I will get up super early and dig into spending the weekend focusing now on the book proposal. This is something I would really like to do at this point. When I get back there will be five weeks to festival, enough time to promote and get money in and come up with a really good sample draft.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 3° (July 25)

We awake yesterday and headed down for coffee just as we arrived at Monenvasia, the old part of town being a Byzantine era fortress that was built into what basically looks like a giant rock jutting out of the sea. It was truly beautiful. We strolled the streets and took pictures. The kids stayed ont he boat. We then had Greek coffee and water in this really delicious smelling restaurant with very clean loos. We then did a little shopping, mainly, in a shop that sold local wines and beauty products. I don’t remember the name of the woman who ran it but we have her card and will defintely Instagram at some point. My word program seems to be running a little slow as I write this. We bought three bottles of wine for the lunch table and a couple of these vin-santo, pinot-de-charente after dinner tasting sweet wines. S. posted on Insta and moments later our friend Pete beam in to say that this is where is family is from. So he’ll be getting one of those bottles as a gift for sure. We came back on the boat and I did a little bit of work on the proposal notes and before we knew it it was time for lunch which was great and probably my favorite meal so far, as it was simple and Mediterranean as is fitting: Sea bream, simple, ungarnished, though there was tsiziki with it to enhance; then there was chicken in a kind of tomato sauce and a salad of tomato and olive; and grilled feta and probably something else I can’t remember and then strawberry sorbet for dessert. Plus coffee. We played a bit of Mario Cart after D. and I tried our new ear popping devices. A. showed us a slide show of all the amazing photos he’s taken. I really look heavy in the pictures I must say but it’s not about me and my vanity is it? Or is it.

Al brought the boat then near the island of Elafonissi where there was a sandy beach, which was something we were all longing to go to. We pulled up to this gray pontoon thing that had a ladder nearby which two women, mother and daughter I think, were swimming. As we arrived the younger woman swam back to the pontoon. I half thought she was going to stop us, but she was mainly concerned with her items of clothing and bag and glasses she left on the gray pontoon thingy. I asked if this was theirs (eaning the beach and the pontoon and the whole area, really) and she was clear that they had just put the pontoon into the water recently but it was okay for us to go ashore onto it; she went on to explain that they were in a family house which was set just up from the beach but that the beach itself wasn’t private and to havve at it. There were umbrellas wedged into the sand all along and intervals of a few hundred yards—the beach was long and the other end of the strand was heavily peopled but not where we were. We swam for a good long time and L. and others snorkled, L. for the first time and she was pretty well hooked. I put some goggles on and saw a reef and some small fish, but mainly I was there for the exercise. It was very hot outside the water and we returned before too long to tea which was yesterday’s raspberry squares (we didn’t eat to the boozy, champagne engagement lunch). I excused myself to write the following:

Dear Advisory Board and Alumni of the Afterglow Festival

Hello! We are so excited that in under seven weeks, the Ninth Annual Afterglow Festival will take stage at the Art House in Provincetown. We will be bringing six new artists to festival and four returning artists, two of whom have only performed with us once before.

So many artists who are now household names in Provincetown (and everywhere) first appeared in Provincetown under our auspice. Most of the talent we shall present this year, some veteran performers, some emerging, all respected artists from New York and other cities, still fly under the radar with Provincetown and New England audiences. Chances are you have seen some of these artists perform and are already champions of their work!

Our hope is that this year’s artists will ultimately achieve the kind of ubiquitious recognition that their predecessors now enjoy. But there is a learning curve for audiences who must put their trust Afterglow’s curation. That said, we don’t expect huge ticket sales this year and must rely all the more on our supporters at various levels not only to donate to the non-profit, but in doing so, to make up a good chunk of our invited audience.

What we are asking, if you are so inclined, is to spread the word via your various powerful social media presences and to help us to continue Afterglow’s multi-pronged mission that includes preserving Provincetown’s progressive heritage as an incubator for new, experimenting and emerging talent; and for helping artists reach ever-widening audiences and to develop their works at other festivals and venues. (Many artists will perform in our Afterglow-at Oberon series at the American Repertory Theater, which fosters a broader New England audiences, allowing for wider reach and media coverage).

So above is our logo, below is our 2019 Poster and some quotes that some of you have written for us over the years. (Maybe you’d like to contribute a quote of your own as an additional vote of confidence.) Please mention us if, when, and as often as you can in these coming weeks. Along with awareness of the Afterglow Festival and its works, we still have a good deal of funds to raise. The links for Sponsors and Sparklers are also below. (Sparklers donate $100 and get pairs of half-price tickets to any and all shows.)

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your continued generosity of spirit!

Tickets are now on sale from the Art House online: www.provincetownarthouse.com

Glowingly,

Q.

To Sponsor: www.afterglowfestival.org/sponsorships

To Sparkler: www.afterglowfestival.org/donations

“Afterglow is like a performance subway bringing the best and most original of NYC downtown cabaret, comedy and music to Ptown. It’s a class act!”—John Cameron Mitchell

“In this trickle-up culture, the Afterglow Festival is helping Provincetown reestablish itself as a community seadbed for artistic revolution.”—Taylor Mac

“The Afterglow Festival presents NYC’s most beloved and innovative downtown performersr at a magical time of year in P-Town. These emerging and upcoming artists are gathered in one place, at one time, for an embarrassment of riches you won’t want to miss.”—Bridget Everett

“It’s a very rare thing for a group of artists to be able to come together, share their work and ideas. But for that to happen in Provincetown, with its rich creative history, natural beauty and diverse artistic heritage, is truly a gift both for artsts and audiences alike.”—Justin Vivian Bond

“The Afterglow Festival does more than just present a tribe of the most innovative artists to hit Provincetown once a year. It re-establishes the town as the epicenter of the cutting edge in the Arts and introduces us all to what the 21st century can be”—James Lecesne

Canapés were these vegetable squares, heavy on the potato and some kind of bourbon drink called a dark twist which nobody had. I had a few negronis and then we had a lamb curry with palak paneer and basmati rice paired with an Artemis cabarent from Napa. I drank red wine all night long while others stopped, having no shut off valve as of late, and we finally had our sing-a-long which was quite good in the end because we just stopped being fussy about it. We may very well have another one next week I suspect. I think the best part was that both kids sang. D. is a crooner and did My Way and That’s Life. And K.J. sang rather birdlike while accompanying herself on the piano. She just might have a singing voice for real. Both children should give themselves some fostering on this front. People had five or six cocktails. I just continued with the red(s). Then We played cards against humanity and I might have lost the plot just a little before going to bed well after 2AM. I was snorking quite a bit so I moved out to the salon to sleep for awhile. We had to get up quite early to go over to Ithaca where we have arrived, so I had some turkey bacon on buttered bread and we went into town where we strolled a bit—it was almost too hot–the town looked more like Italy to my eye than Greece. There was a statue of Odysseus of course. We sat down and I had a honey-ginger-lemon drink that was super acidic, and a Greek coffee because I seem to want to tempt indigestion. So far so good. We are back ont he boat. The plan is for we three couples to take the M’s out for dindin tonight. My idea. I will make sure the maitre d’ brings me the check and will collect the others’ credit cards. The town felt a little hostile to be honest but maybe it will be better later when its not completely roasting. We are now back on the boat and traveling to find another sandy beach or just a place to swim. It’s about an hour to lunch so I don’t know if that will happen before or after but I have lots of work to do so it’s all the same to me.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 2° (July 24)

Woke up this morning having kept S. awake with my blocked breathing (read: snoring) last evening which makes me feel bad. Any kind of cold can make it challenging and people have been smoking around me constantly while I’ve been fighting this infection and it has been a bit tough on the old system. Old being the operative word. I left off yesterday with Santorini where S. and I were winding our way through the streets, looking at the various shops, some of which were quite cool in terms of their goods, some of which seemed to be more tourist trappy, while nearly all were some ratio of both. We saw L. and A. seated at a two-top in a restaurant called Character on the edge of the cliff; we passed and waved and motioned that we would continue to explore and then circle back. Within moments we had come to the end of the line, back at the cable car, so we decided to return to them. Had I realized that the rest of Santorini was situated on the other side of the cable car marker I would have ventured into the more residential bit instead as we still had an hour before lunch but it was nice to sit with them; they were ordering their second round of beers, I joined with a white wine and S. had water, but of course. We decided to head over to the restaurant early and found the core already there eating hummous and that fishy thing and babaganoush (sp?)—I don’t know why I said (sp?) since I never spell check this Blague anyway, filled as it is with innumerable typos (see disclaimer copy below). And then E. and C. made an announcement and everyone started wooping and hollering and freaking out and of course, quick on the uptake that I am, I was like what, what, what, I missed it. Then C. held out her hand to reveal her engagement ring that E. just bought in the hours between to pop the question.

I hardly know them but I got quite teary I must say, as others did, and suddenly a bottle of Cristal appeared and it became very clear what kind of lunch this was going to be. Ooh, la la. Killing that in seconds, apparently that was the only Cristal, it was followed by some Dom Perignon and I don’t mean one. I ordered taglietelle with sardine and achovies. We didn’t need to order dessert because the owner, Mr. Lucas, brought us two giant bowl/platters of ice cream and sorbet chocolate and creamy sauces and candied fruits and crunchy nuts, each with a different combinations of goodies. Oh, and a gratis Dom Perignon. Our server Maria was the real star and as Mr. Lucas was telling us the story of hiring her, she was mugging in the background. She was equal parts gorgeous girly and tough pitbull. I’m assuming she is a Gemini (I didn’t ask) and I hope she has a wonderful life. After lunch la famille went to buy D. a watch and also returned with an engagement prezzie for the newlyweds. We hopped the cable car back down, met the tender which was driven by Lucy through the surplus of cruise ships. She was told of the engagement and gave E a warm embrace and then must have alerted the boat as it suddenly blew its loud deep fog horn as we approached it. And they move fast this crew: They were ready with even more champagne which was so nice; and the crew was likely happy that we never dug into the tea that was awaiting us which means they got to gobble it up.

We took a little swim off the boat and I learned that I can still do a backdive despite my advancing years. I tooled around on the seabob but it kept threatening to pull my bathing suit right off me so that didn’t last long. I grabbed my notebook and wrote a bit long hand and put that into my laptop. I got dressed for the evening and worked on one side of the upper deck while Stella walked the treadmill and most others took a hot tub on the bow side. I had a solo negroni and enjoyed the air, grateful to be away from the cigar smoke. The bowside was then decorated for canapés time as the engineer and male crew set up the movie projector and screen and so forth. We had lovely dumpling-y type things and the girls drank lychee martinis. We had a lively chat and then went to the other side to lie on lounge chairs and cushions and watched The Man With Two Brains being served bowls of fusiony something with tofu followed by a lemony cheesecake in ramikens. And then nighty nighty.

I was going to spend the next nine days really focussed on the book proposal and then kill it with the festival on return; but I must have worked something out in my sleep because I’m actually going to do the exact opposite. I’m going to go in for the jugular with the festival these next nine-to-twelve days, while putting a general structure of the proposal together without overthinking it, just putting the fodder into place really, so that is first on my list today. That means the things I will be writing in this Blague will still be a combination of an account of what I’m doing here on holiday and wording some of the things needing saying to the festival donors I need to lassoo. First I’m going to write to all our great advisory board and tell them the story of what’s what. Saying that many artists who are now household names in Provincetown (and indeed everywhere) first performed here under the Afterglow auspice. The talent that we are presenting this year, some of whom are veteran performers and most well known in NYC and other cities, are still under the radar in terms of Provincetown and New England audiences. Like the former group, we hope the latter will also ahieve more ubiquitious recognition. But there is a learning curve for audiences who need to trust Afterglow’s curation. That said, we don’t expect huge ticket sales this year (though we will exhaust ourselves in those efforts) and must extra rely on the support of Sponsors and Sparklers to not only donate to the non-profit, but in doing so, make up a good chunk of our audience. What we are asking of you is to spread the word via your various powerful social media presences and to help us to continue Afterglow’s multi-pronged mission that includes preserving Provincetown’s progressive heritage as an incubator for new and experimenting and emerging talent and for helping artists reach ever-widening audiences with Provincetown as a springboard (along with our separate efforts, with the American Repertory Theater, which involves just a little separate fundraising, to specifically foster audience for artists in New England, allowing for bigger media coverage and outlets). And then go on to talk about the roster. This is also good fodder for the press release which I will write.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 1° (July 23)

I was pretty much caught up with myself yesterday when E., well actually L. suggested going to a beach to swim. I said why not after lunch and she said I was thinking of now—which was just under an hour from lunch. As S. was on the treadmill just behind us and knowing she’d like to go to a beach to swim instead of doing so off the boat in strong currents, we mentioned it to her, E. ushering me through where she was and then out to the bow deck to point out the exact beach. Okay. S. would cut her treadmill short and we’d all go. I went to my cabin to change and was in the loo when I heard a knock. It was E saying he had the crew ready the tender and “you” would be leaving in ten minutes. Aren’t you coming, I asked. Nah. Too hot and crowded. Right then. A. decided to join, so we two married couples set off to the tiny bit of harbor beach next to you’d surely have to pay dearly for a beach lounge chair. It was a bit of a scene and a tacky one—Club Med adjacent types with only select body parts worked out, mostly otherwise fat folk (I”m not a phobe—that would make me self-loathing). The water was very nice but it being a harbor I definitely didn’t put my head under; my respiratory system is now stressed enough as it is. Anyway we had fifteen minutes in the water so it was kind of silly in the end.

The one item tht maybe hans’t made it from London to here is my green pouch of talismans—I might have P. post it as I believe I left it at her house.

Lunch was chicken burgers and salmon burgers with this yummy salad of grapes, apple, celery and fennel (I think maybe). There were mustardy baby potatotes too which were yummy. I didn’t need the bun but I ate it. I did some festial work just after, signing off on more posters, etc.; then I was going to get a jump on the sample chapter once I regrouped back in the cabin. S. came back to say that E. was looking for me to rehearse with N. I keep having to feel from where he is which is typically outdoors smoking cigars because they are wreaking havoc on my throat and lungs; but I figured and indoor rehearsal would be cool enough and even though my throat is very sore and my voice is cracking a lot, especially on the high notes, I managed to get through a rounds of a very up-there-in-key Helpless. E. is definitely a producer as he barked directive orders at N. and told me I “sounded good once [I] let go.” I’ll take it. He’s a trip and I really like him, he’s funny as hell; but not the super dry mild-mannered sort that A. is. Everyone though, as I said, is nicer, smarter and funnier than the next; and it is making for a really fun group. I had lubed my throat with ginger infusion all throughout rehearsal and now everyone was assembling in the salon for spot of tea and lavendar short bread and juicy, chewy almond cookies, the round ones, before heading back to the island where two vans met us to take us to the northern side of the actual town of Mykonos.

A Greek Provincetown on steroids, funneled through narrow winding streets and lanes, it is literally a-maze-ing. Even I who have a great sense of direction was perpetually lost for the near two hours leading up to our dinner rendezvous at Avra. We broe into separate groups that merged and broke again at various points. I needed the pharmacy thinking I would find a cough syrup that would be loaded with codeine or some other illicit drug you can’t buy over the counter at home. We found what looked like the spot. The male model—I kid you not—asked if it was for a dry cour or one with phlegms. Dry, please. Okay take a tablespoon of this three times a day. Whatever you say. Love me? S. was similarly smitten, immediately stopping at a sandal store next door for a nice leather pair;  and we bumped back into folks and said we’d meet them at the Sunset Bar, where L. & A. were already perched, facing the water, behind protective plastic as waves were crashing against the sea wall that did double duty as the banquette; as the sun, net yet low enough in the sky, slowly baked us to death. I wanted to move to the shade but suddenly four fifths of our party was assembled and settling into this hotspot with splashing waves that the plastic did not protect against. I had a Sol and lemon. The girls had bellinis. The kids had exotic mocktails. I checked the ingredients in my cough syrup and they were all natural—honey, fennel, and other stuff. No drugs—bummer. Then in tiny groups we left and got lost again, winding our way to Avra to eat.

It was a great place situated in a courtyard festooned with bougainvillea and cactus and other flowers and flowering vines. The waiters, who were all straight, despite this being a pretty gay town,were all in black and AXE body spray. We had cocktails and tsaziki and olives and pita and tapenade and hummous and then dinner—most folks had chicken souvlaki—I of course had lamb and S. had fish, and I advocated for some wine: an ambrosial  white from Macedonia that tasted of honey and flowers and crisp light and bright fruit, pure nectar. Coffees and gratis limoncello after a conversation consisting of “sense of houmous” jokes—I like my humous on bread with carraway seeds because I have a rye/wry sense of hummous. Like that. After dinner we strolled and people did more shopping and then we had ice cream and got back in vans that took us back across the island to the tender and the boat. I went straight to our cabin put on To Catch A Thief and fell asleep. Day done.

I woke up today at five and couldn’t fall back. So I showered grabbed my work and ordered an Americano from Shay and went up top to do some work. We arrived at Santorini earlier than expected and entered the volcanic crater. We got a mooring which is good as, being an actual volcanic crater covered in seawater it is a thousand meters deep and there is no way to put down anchor—you moor your boat to giant rusted drums that are attached that far down. We headed over around 11 and took the cable car up the steep hill. Not everyone was thrilled with that though it didn’t bother me a tick. We had some water then walked around and window shopped and folks got separated and I will stop there and save the rest for tomorrow.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Leo 1° (July 22)

I needed to break up what would typically be yesterday’s post into two parts, for starters, only because so much activity is being packed into such a short amount of time. So dinner last night was langoustines with three delicious tortellini in some kind of creamy sauce, paired with a rosé from Bandol which many were drinking at cocktail hour. Divine. We had a sort of apricot pancake for dessert and then all (minus D.) hopped in the tender for Hydra the main port of which was a good fifteen minute ride through choppy water with lots of spray. The town was bustling and a combo platter of rich Athenians, French, and Americans as the main thrusts. I heard the word photo shoot. There was a Brooks Brothers. Three Getty looking American women dressed in similar looking frocks were eating in one of the many restaurants set side by side in the port which reminded me of San Tropez in the olden days. We decided to meet back at one of these places and all set off in different directions, K. remaining with us as we climed the steepish hilltown from the port. Just like the walks up to the acropolis the streets here are made of marble and all I can think about is how people aspire to have these as countertops and backplashes and here marble is like large cobblestone and, again, polished by countless footsteps and very slippery. There are cats everywhere. And though they are feral they are not fearful nor aggressive, presumably living off scraps people constantly feed them; and K. was making sure to touch each and every one of them despite her allergies.

Though it was ten o’clock, people were just sitting down to eat in the squares; and as we climbed further, making more residential forays, we could hear the clink and scrape of people just finishing their meals and doing the washing up. As in our climb we saw no “side streets” to zig-zag through, we decided to descend and veer off down when we can, stumbling upon some cozy bars and restaurants and shops, back down to the port. Though we were half an hour early for our rendezvous time we noticed everyone else was already at the meeting place and so we sat down and had some bottled water and I had a ginger beer, which I allowed to linger in and pleasantly burn my now very sore, scratchy throat. S. looked down and noticed that one of our party had a bag with the name of that jewelry designer on it—he had bought a mug depicting a cat, a Hydra theme, for his mother. And he pointed out where to go and N., J., K., S. and the dog and I headed to the shop to find the owner there along with a dashing metrosexual colleague still open and making sales. S. introduced herself. There were astrological pieces in the collection, nothing too elaborate, just discs with signs on some simple colored rope bracelets, and then some more worked charm bracelets on theme. The rest recalled all the themes we had seen in our two days at Delphi and in Athens, with our cultural guides. The designer was born and raised in Hydra and thus was very entitled to these particular motifs that had emerged in our tours of sites and museums—the one-eyed pieces, the violin shaped (female) figures), certain tear drop shapes and those that recalled the omphalos and so on. S. ended up being gifted with something while N. and I took one more short stroll to “empty the dog.” Then back on the tender apparently it was so clear some of us saw the Milky Way which I missed but I’ll be looking for that and other bright lights in the coming days.

Back on the boat the hosts went to bed and the guests stayed up. I had some cognac which I thought would ease the pain in my throat and also help me digest and sleep. Others continued on with wine. We had a few more laughs then set off to sleep, which was fitful for me. Obviously I’m fighting some infection and I now can’t take more than a few breaths without coughing. And the horizontal crossing, with a prevailingly strong north wind, made for a very bumpy ride in the night to Mykonos where we this morning arrived. After bouncing around the cabin for several hours from around five to eight, I went down to fetch myself some paracetamol and some throat losenges, then returned to bed to, well, I won’t say sleep but rather serial-doze which gave rise to a chain of dreamy vignettes of the fevery kind. I wasn’t so much snoring or wheezing apparently but more like whimpering in my sleep as a result of whatever this is that ails me. Feeling better in the day when I’m vertical and in the sunshine I was anxious to arise. I had a little breakfast of fruit, a chocolate crepe and one piece of bread with cashew butter. And now I’m sitting, again, on the top deck and it is extremely windy. J. came up to read then departed ere long. I have a bit of work to do—final checks of posters and post cards for the festival—and I will begin to piece together some ideas on the sample chapter today. Including today there are eleven days of absolute holiday bliss to be had and I’m certainly not going to let work get in the way. That said I do what to leave here with an idea in my head about what needs doing; then I will spend the next five weeks dividing my time between polishing the sample and getting in cash for festival. I have to keep hitting these goals quite hard but I have to say I am far less interested in my American life and am worlds more focused on making the next twenty years and lovely and fruitful (in equal measure) as they can be.

I approved the web and print versions of the smaller posters for the festival and await the large ones, along with the post card to give final approval. Then I will be able to send them to all the artists and give them links for their on sale tickets and all of that. I will just send the larger tickets page for Afterglow and the Art House, respectively. Next thing I need do is….woops I’m being whisked off, more later….

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox