Taurus 29° (May 18)

Where to start: I’ll skip the sentence about this being extraordinary times and get right to it, and as I write this I’m thinking I will read this back and bold important sentences so you can skim. I hope you’ll forgive the group BCC—this is going out to artists as well as sponsors—as I have a few marks to hit here. Needless to say, I haven’t yet reached out to fundraise for this year’s festival because it felt inappropriate and tacky to do so. Though our Afterglow-at-Oberon series at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge was cut short this season, and shows that were scheduled for March, April and May have been postponed (gods willing) until the Fall, the Afterglow Festival proper, planned for September, as per our hosting venue, the Art House Provincetown, has been all systems go. Personally, I’ve been skeptical; but, regularly urged forward by direction of the venue with which we’ve been contracted, I pushed forward on all other fronts, including casting the festival with verbal agreements in place. Then, this past weekend, the venue contacted me to say that they were being ordered to stay shut this season by the town’s board of health, which I think is the right move. And despite having put the wheels in motion, I was nonetheless ready to pivot.

If you’ve ever received correspondence from Afterglow, you’ll know our primary mission is to preserve Provincetown’s birthright as the birth place of modern American theater and performance, and, via our non-profit, to remain a welcoming bastion for stage artists to explore, experiment and expand their craft, paying performers a fee plus covering their travel, hotel, even picking up food tabs and taxi cabs; putting no pressure on the artist to amass an audience in a place that has become prohibitive to a community of non-commercial artists who have culturally defined Provincetown for over a century. In this way Afterglow is more than a festival. It is a “Save Provincetown” organization in regard to a large chunk of its cultural and artistic heritage. And these past several weeks, reading the headlines from our local papers lamenting the hits and losses to Provincetown’s performance scene, it occurred to me that Afterglow is uniquely positioned to lead the charge to help not only the artists we usually bring to town but also those who live and work here, all season, who depend on these crucial months for their very livelihood.

It’s a shame that Broadway and TV stars won’t play P-town this summer, and that for-profit venues will lose pricey tickets from tourists, summer folk and residents who afford them; but our concern is for our more financially challenged artists. So, what Afterglow can do is pivot, as I say, and use its non-profit status to funnel money nowto our more so-called fringe performers, commissioning them to create or develop new works, which they can present in festival at a later date; and perhaps in the meantime stream or film. (I am putting feelers out to our historic Drive-In theater on Outer Cape Cod to see if we might be able to present festival shows on screen for enthusiastic audiences safe and comfy in their own cars.) There are a number of ideas percolating to the surface right now, and we will do anything we can do to help artists remain afloat and engaged in their work. If you are an artist in receipt of this email, whether or not we discussed your performing in September, or if you are a Provincetown-based artist whose usual summer livelihood is in jeopardy, please contact us (concierge@afterglowfestival.org) and let us know if you’d like to apply for assistance.We will start a list and help those we can, in effect, pre-paying-out performance fees, based on the funds we raise between now and the end of the year.

Since the weekend I have run this idea by some loyal sponsors and have been so cheered by their encouragement in our activating Afterglow in this way through direct commissions to artists. Supporters are in agreement that we are uniquely poised as a non-profit dedicated to performers who are otherwise priced out of Provincetown, even in the best of times, to be of service to our ever-growing family of artists, championing their artistic creation, providing them funds to do so. Though we won’t make any money from ticket sales this September, Afterglow doesn’t have to pay out for travel or lodging or for the venue rental this year, so on that score it’s pretty much a wash. In fact, we hope to be able to support a goodly number of artists beyond those we had on the festival roster this year. Some of our sponsors might have us on an automatic annual payment schedule and perhaps some checks are already in the mail; others might be used to my putting constant bugs in their ears, which, in the circumstance, is something I’m simply not comfortable doing this year. I’m going to rely on sponsors who want to give to Afterglow this year to do so without my usual prodding, and we will funnel funds to as many artists as your generosity allows. So, if you would like to sponsor Afterglow this year and help us help performing artists keep their heads above water and create and develop new works, let us know—we will be most grateful. You can mail your gift to the Afterglow Festival to P.O. Box 129, Provincetown, MA 02657; or you can sponsor online by clicking any of the PayPal buttons on our website at www.afterglowfestival.org/sponsorships.

Okay, that’s going to be it for me today. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this today. If you want to reach out to just chat please do. Trust that whether you and I spoke yesterday, or we haven’t done so in an age, that you are in my heart and on my mind. It is genuinely sad that we can’t all gather together in a theater or at our favorite nightclub never mind around a table or piano, but we shall do so again. In the meantime stay well and treat yourself as you deserve, like your greatest love of all!

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 291-295  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

And yet again: There was nothing worth posting from the five older Blagues I read today. It has been really helpful to get an idea of what the content has been over the last five years. The first year was very much about the Sabian Symbols (see below), the bulk of that material I don’t want to post in this slot. And I’m nearly through that year so, once I get into the Blagues from 2016, there will be a lot more to post here (which is a good thing because I won’t have time to write a lot à la minute as we just got a new book deal and that is where my effort and attention is going!

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 28° (May 17)

Okay so today needs to be a real Sunday. I clearly overdid it yesterday and I now must spend the day licking some of these wounds. There is so much to process and so much to accomplish and my ability to fudge my schedule has begun to wear very thin. This will be the last day I can do this and tomorrow must function as a complete catch all. My skin, she crawls. I’m being more nostalgic than is comfortable. I feel that I have to now really embrace the age I’m at and stop acting like some kind of child starving for attention. It is a chance to start over. All is opportunity. My get up and go got up and went. It’s okay I will catch up to myself. It won’t be that hard really I will work eight hours a day just like any normal human. I have the best diet on the planet. I have the beach at my disposal. I just need to stay well and not freak out. I will for sure fix the website and get information out to our sponsors and also to the artist community. I will put pleas out on social media. Meanwhile I am going to cut and paste things I’ve written to people lover the course of the last several days because I do have limited time-energy and need to make this as focused as I possibility can. I have word from the VSB and to them I say:

Why is this meeting not happening in advance of July 1 as was previously mandated?We have been working steadily on the upcoming season only to find out that we will have to postpone the event (but our usual hires have already done the bulk of their usual work).At this point we are pivoting and commissioning works by artists and otherwise helping Provincetown artists make ends meet. We typically pay for our marketing, web, graphic, pr and the like in just a months time after submitting our invoices on July 1 of each year. How can there be less budget and not surplus budget? That is my main question. The grant money you allot for FY21, which begins July 2020, was raised with tax money from hotels this past year. You know how much budget you have which is how you determine the amounts you allot.The money you do or don’t get from (hotel) taxes this summer would be for FY22. If an event is schedule for July, August, September 2020 the work would already be underway for months now.  When we find out from your office what we were alotted, as you did March 25, we will have made our plans accordingly. 

 MC alerted me this weekend to the fact the Art House will be closed this summer. Meanwhile, despite my cautions to the contrary, he had been telling me week on week for months that Art House was full steam ahead. Having a contract in place with the venue we had no choice but to prepare for the festival happening, which meant having people work. And those people will need to get paid, whether or not there is a festival in September. Your policy for FY21 should reflect what you said in your group email about FY20. My organization and others will expect to collect the VSB funds that were designated to us as this money is already in your coffers and earmarked for us. Events happening later in FY21 who have yet to do any work might be able to forgo the grant money. We cannot. 

Those were just some of the things I was getting of my virtual chest. I cannot take myself out of the game. I must stay vigilant and fight the good fight. That will be the spirit in which I approach things today. It’s going to be a wonderful afternoon of getting this information out there.

I realize that nothing is “official” until the Town votes. The town should be voting BEFORE the start of FY21. I am sure mine is not the only organization to have already done work that was planned to be covered by the VSB grant. Perhaps you should change the schedule moving forward to remove the hedging of bets aspect for non-profits functioning on shoe strings. Maybe we should be applying in November for the summer after the next, not the one immediately, so we know in plenty of time whether or not we have funds before we pull the trigger on all the many hours of work and materials without a guarantee of this being covered. It’s already a hedge to find out in the spring of any given year. Those of us working non-profit do not have the luxury of covering all the necessary costs of our endeavors without guarantees. It’s one thing to lose time and energy in a Force Majeure situation, it is quite another to then owe money out to people who work in good faith. So yes it isn’t “official” until the Town approves, but that has never been used as an argument in the past and approval of FY21 should be happening BEFORE FY21 itself begins not after three months of FY21 have already blown by.

Someone at the Tennessee Williams Festival has established an email group dating back a few weeks. It is my understanding that they were attempting to create some kind of inter-organizational support system, feeling a need for some kind of solidarity. I suspect I will be hearing from leaders of these other groups as the news reaches them. I do know that mine is not the only organziation to have already done all their planning, graphic, press releases, posters, brochures, programs and the like. We do not present in a town-run or public place so we don’t get permits from the town in any case. It is the Board of Health who has contacted the venue who then contacted us. The Afterglow Festival is the only non-profit programming on the Art House schedule each season.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about this. I urge you and Anthony to make the case to the Board of Selectman that people are already out of pocket for FY21 even though they don’t feel the need to meet and approve the budget until the year is already a quarter of the way over.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 286-290  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

Once again: There was nothing worth posting from the five older Blagues I read today. It has been really helpful to get an idea of what the content has been over the last five years. The first year was very much about the Sabian Symbols (see below), the bulk of that material I don’t want to post in this slot. And I’m nearly through that year so, once I get into the Blagues from 2016, there will be a lot more to post here (which is a good thing because I won’t have time to write a lot à la minute as we just got a new book deal and that is where my effort and attention is going!

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 27° (May 16)

Last night was Faggy Friday and we watched all things queer on the television. I love We’re Here, really quite hardhitting. Okay where to begin today. I woke up at one o’clock from a nightmare about my mother. I went by the house where she was living alone (she always lives alone, my father lives elsewhere, having abandoned her on some level). The house was very much like the first house in Provincetown on Law Street. Those were the days in so many ways. I see lights on in the main room and as I walk around the far side of the house there is a screened porch of sorts with lights on there too, overhead, and the table is filled with cakes of various kinds, and there is a plate with a slice of cake or pie. There is nobody there. I walk around back and my mother’s cat is outside. (In real life, when the cat was little over a year old, I did find the cat out back behind our rented summer house in Belmar.) Mother either was dead inside or had wandered off, the thought of it swirling me back to the surface of consciousness.

Ultimately I fell back asleep and then awoke with another nightmare: I was flying my 1985 Mercedes 300D slash a plane and it was just the two of us on it; and I found I could let it ride and we could fall asleep which we did; I think I dozed off in any case; and when I awoke the carplane was flying super low and (how?) directly over a highway, specifically on one side of the Hudson, I want to say Newark or the swirling ribbons of highway that make up the entire construct in and around getting in and out of that airport and all of that region, where I grew up, but where, I know, now would terrify me. And probably it is due to the trauma of my driving instructor, George. Back to the dream: We are coming in low and I have to pull up but before I can do that I have to get into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes (which might only become the Mercedes at this point in the dream—it might’ve been something more resembling a plane before that). Anyway we are touching down and onto the very left side of a multi lane highway but there is a large car or small truck already in the lane into which we are coming down so we have to pull over onto the half shoulder while the cartruck stops short, in fact, as I write this it triggers more memory, I come down alongside him but first I find myself running alongside the obviously not to fast moving car and jumping into the driver’s seat and then looking over at the person in hisher car I almost landed upon and sort of giving each other what for knowing these were extenuating circumstances and we didn’t either of us actually feel the hostility we were displaying one for the other and there might even have been the curling of the corners of our lips in smiles we refused and turned away.

I’m impressed with myself for doing as much as I did. I’m actually in the mood to take a shower. It’s actually all okay. We are initiating a heritage foundation. I don’t think I took that shower. We sat outside with blankets once the sun was setting and had some wine. As S. had a Zoom chat with her Eurogirls, she had an early wine cocktail and I took that as my cue to follow suit soon after. Surely, I’m not being as functional as I can be but I am attempting to offer whatever I can to the community and so forth. I got tired of reaching out to the phony baloneys of the world. We sat outside and I made a lovely cod with minted green beans and sweet potato fries. I was telling S. about the end of the plans for the festival and how I plan to pivot. Still no word back on the branding project I completed. I’m looking to get some cash through the account. It doesn’t feel that comfortable that things are going to reopen to be honest. We live in one of the hardest hit states, number four on the list. I only have a few days to get into this new project that is now on my plate and in that time will begin our own private thirty-three days of lententime. And so it goes. I’m proud of the work I’m doing and I look forward to getting everything moving today. I’ve all but chucked the people from my life who contribute nothing, or those who are pretending behind their frosty natures. If this time teaches us anything it is not to give a fuck.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 281-285  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

Once again: There was nothing worth posting from the five older Blagues I read today. It has been really helpful to get an idea of what the content has been over the last five years. The first year was very much about the Sabian Symbols (see below), the bulk of that material I don’t want to post in this slot. And I’m nearly through that year so, once I get into the Blagues from 2016, there will be a lot more to post here (which is a good thing because I won’t have time to write a lot à la minute as we just got a new book deal and that is where my effort and attention is going!

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 26° (May 15)

Okay, bitch (that’s me) it’s time to get serious. First thing I need you to do is take full stock of what it is you’ve already written. So I actually accomplished ninety percent, I think, of the lingering project—it just needed some time to ferment and, in fact, I now realize that it wasn’t a process that could have been rushed, the result being something very warm and narrative and personal and easy and inviting and not slick, at all, the way off-putting promotional copy can be; we just told a story and let the truth come through and, if anything, we would seek to get even less in the way, in the edit. What is there, though, is something real and honest and really confident in that we frontloaded the designer, never in a braggy way, but we didn’t feign some kind of self-effacism, instead we took our space, place and then we backed off. There was nothing sell-sell-sell about the narrative; rather it focused on the philosophy and all the ins and outs in takes. I’m quite proud of the work, actually, and it has set me right in terms of where I need to go next. I also got a bit managerial about the whole thing, with picture placement—I love writing captions, they are fun and a chance to be even warmer and more sparky about it. Anyway, the whole experience now feels like a gift, being on the other side of it; and now the rest is like sliding into home.

I wish I knew someone exactly like me. I would truly embrace that. Oh, wait I do. I love me.

So I found this folder yesterday which is like a time capsule for where I was in my life about eight or nine years ago. It was fascinating how every single scrap or item in the folder resonated with where I am now in my life. It was like a magical object telling me that all was write with my process and the timeline and everything, really. Of all the things that have happened to me in my life, and in the course of writing this Cosmic Blague, few things have been so on theme as this: Synchronicity, and the Universe otherwise sending messages or, playing jokes (blague is French for joke) being the primary one. All that said I woke up feeling really weird and nervy. I decided to take the day off. I had a bad neck ache. I fell back to sleep after watching most of the season of The Great on Hulu. I didn’t do fuck all. It felt fantastic. I awoke refreshed. I had a baked sweet potato with chive for lunch and salmon and tomato and avocado for dinner. I need to rejig the menu today. I need to take it easy. I’m upset at the fact that friends I introduced to other friends cut us out of the equation. The sychophantic fucks deserve each other. I learn that the festival is cancelled. I don’t really care all that much. I will channel energy and money to the artists. I will enlist my friends to help me. The loyal ones that is. The rest can go fuck off. I’m sticking to my plan and I am remembering the time capsule that I found. I am looking forward to the delivery of lounge chairs, so that I might work and lie outside in the air. The traffic is starting up. People don’t care who they hurt. There will be a reckoning.

Felt good to let everything go for a day, but already tetchy in a way. I think the only way I’m going to get on with this is to go into superwitch mode. It has worked before and it shall work again. There has to be some kind of path through all this crap and I’m happy to be the one to blaze it. I cannot believe that there is going to be a total breakdown of stuff happening. I wonder what greedy hypocrites will have to sell off pieces of themselves to survive. I do not like to be undervalued but that is something which is always up to me, not others. Do you ever have the experience of not remembering things that happened in the night? But you know something dark occurred? I feel that way every time I’m in Cambridge, my tenure there having not endured. There will be another place. This virus will have been to blame. I sent off letters to sponsors and I need to write something definitive, something like Hello. Needless to say anything about anything. I was waiting until today, when the governor of Massachusetts, where our non-profit is incorporated, is to make a declaration on openings and so forth, to reach out to you with news of our plans. Until two days ago, the Art House Provincetown where Afterglow is staged was still all-systems-go with their own summer’s season’s program, the last of which, is always Afterglow. I’ve cautiously put the minimal of wheels in motion, casting and otherwise preparing for whatever inevitable, as I felt gut-sure that performance venues would be shut down and, on Saturday, I heard from friend Mark Cortale, who runs the Art House, that the venue was indeed being closed for the season, by order of the town’s Board of Health. So, no surprise there. And I had already begun brewing ideas on how to pivot and, in effect, turn Afterglow into a source of funds not only for the artists slated to perform, but perhaps a dozen more, including Provincetown artists who, given the closures, find their annual, and often main source of income having gone poof this year. So the idea is to commission work from as many artists as we can, to be performed live at a later date and, perhaps, in the meantime, via other media. If artists were to film their work, we might be able to present the work, virtually, in festival, or semi-so, say, projected onto the screen at Wellfleet’s Drive-In Cinema or in some other safe outdoor setting that allowed for social distancing.  That was certainly a good start. I love good starts.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 276-280  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

Wow, okay. There was nothing worth posting from the five older Blagues I read today. It has been really helpful to get an idea of what the content has been over the last five years. The first year was very much about the Sabian Symbols (see below), the bulk of that material I don’t want to post in this slot. And I’m nearly through that year so, once I get into the Blagues from 2016, there will be a lot more to post here (which is a good thing because I won’t have time to write a lot à la minute as we just got a new book deal and that is where my effort and attention is going!

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 25° (May 14)

You in trouble Girl. Funny that the blue book idea seems to be the last thing written down in this book I’m using as a journal. I’m wondering if it doesn’t make sense to put that book into the ether sooner than later. I have a lot on my mind and on my plate today as I hand in final copy; and then the second I sit down to relate to you slash remind myself of what it is I want to say, it magically goes poof, black magically perhaps. In no certain order: I will finish this longsuffering project. And I am of the mind that I will also today go back through the Aries chapters before moving onto the Taureans, well, back through Aries man quickly and then apply a more thoughtful approach to all the rest. I am making things up regarding time. The fact is that three hours is a lot of time not a little time; and also I am very sad and lonely suddenly about family who are gone and friends too, even the one whose actions so impacted my life. He who committed suicide: would that I had ever had the chance to confront him about it all. What would I have said I don’t know. I suppose I could find out by writing into that portion of my work. He wasn’t the only one who tugged at me that way. There was also the great dane. I could always pick them, couldn’t I? Like my relationship with Alnor was no different, in the end then my relationship with Dreger. They really are one in the same. And not dissimilar to that of Remo. I think that when it comes to writing this next year; well let me start that sentence again. I think the trick in writing this this year is to come up with an idea for a personal story. There are a very man I probably shouldn’t tell anyone. I can always go back and insert them, or don’t do anything of the sort. Again, I got lost looking up certain past fellows with whom I shared all my key childhood experiences. It really isn’t the greatest way to function but wow, wow, wow, am I feeling the need for connection. It’s all fine.

So have the awful, let’s just call them people in power already vaccinated? Otherwise how do you explain this all? I cannot remember the last time I was this creatively blocked. And suddenly the daytime is over and I have once again failed to accomplish what I set out to do. What is wrong with me? ‘Tis a very good question. Anyway, as these things go, I don’t know anybody who is really doing anything. I don’t understand why it is people are so mean and crazy. Mean and crazy. This world is feeling so unsafe and way too connected if you ask me. I remember a time when I didn’t know what was going on with thousands of people. I don’t want to know what is going on with thousands of individuals. This is not the life I signed up for. I lived in the most densely populated state in this thing once called a union; and yet my upbringing was so anonymous that on any given day, as a child, preteen, whatever, I was nowhere to be found by the adults in my life for hours on end. Today parents would be sending out search parties for sure. Speaking of a search party, the TV show of the same name has been featuring folks that have performed here at Afterglow, which has been a joy for me, for the most part, I must say. I like to work with words don’t get me wrong. And I’m definitely making some headway. It’s just important to recognize the negative aspect of things, as well, to be sure. I can always take the edge of if I really need to, but I am not feeling the urge as of yet, so I will continue on my path. Hopefully, I won’t go mad in the process. And there are a great many ways to relieve stresses. I very easily convince myself, you see that enough is not enough. But it most certainly is, and the feeling that completion will impart is of the utmost importance at this juncture. I am ahead of the proverbial game.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 271-275  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

I think of my very niche generation as being caught in something of a balance. Stella is convinced we are a kind of lost generation. We grew up changing television channels manually without so much as an answering machine, going out to play for three hours after school without parents having a clue of your whereabouts or shenanigans; we typed papers on electric typewriters, using white-out or corecto-cartridges to fix our mistakes. I studied abroad and would send my parents postcards or, every once in a while, wait for a telephone booth at a post office. In summer, from the time I was seven, I would just be out somewhere in our tiny New Jersey beach town; it’s like our parents had inherited their ancestors insouciance about child mortality or something. Point is, it was a very anonymous time. The millennials know nothing of this. They grew up pressing buttons and going on scheduled playdates. They have helicopter parents and obsessive gaming addictions, cellphones, earphones, headphones, iphones. How do you unplug from consumerist mass conciousness if you’re part Borg? I guess you become a steampunk, opening a donut or honey or vinegar shop and dressing like you just walked out of the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Luckily I still remember what it was like not being a reliant on quantitative values. Nonconformity was the norm, especially for a happy social self-impelled outcast such as myself.

Of course there is a meaning closer to home than the one I’m attaching to this symbol. The original Greek cupbearer is Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera (Jupiter and Juno); and she basically kept all the gods dosed with nectar that was the source of the eternal youth, if not life. She is, indeed, goddess of youth. Like other Aquarian female archetypes, like Iris, goddess of the rainbow (how Aquarian?) and Eos, goddess of the dawn (likewise), Hebe is romantically linked with a human or, in her case, a demi-god, Heracles (meaning glory of Hera)—it’s best to remember that Hebe, though a goddess in her own right, is also Hera in her maiden aspect. All this high-minded mythological mumbo jumbo to say that this degree of the zodiac is about recuperation and getting in touch with the mortal, bodily aspect of self. The soul (or anima, animus) is wedded to the physical body for better or for worse. And your (overactive) mind is not your friend. It will wear you down to the point of exhaustian and even cellular death. As someone who has been burning the menora from both ends, I’m here to tell you that this symbol couldn’t come at a better time for me personally. And it serves as a reminder to all of us. Depending on what planet you might have at this degree of Sagittarius, and how it is aspected by other planets and so forth, your penchant for recuperation might be great or compromised. I for one am ready to get out of my head and into my body. I have afforded myself that luxury for the next five days especially. With our upcoming show at Joe’s Pub written, now is about embodying the words and getting my voice into some semblance of tunefulness. I spend much of my year producing and promoting other people and their shows. My hope is that our friends and fans will turn out for us this December 20 at Joe’s Pub. We are working hard and presenting an entertaining and enlightening program. My only job is to be rested and to do my best and for that I am thankful for today’s oracular reminder of what is at the core of all happiness and success. Chillability.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 24° (May 13)

So this is day two of personal lent and I am solidly, still, at that round number. I’m excited about this process because last night my sleep was already ridiculous and I am becoming addicted. I was thinking about Circadian Rhythms and wondering if it relates to Circe. Let me check. Well, no. Circe apparently means bird, which Circadian comes from latin meaning “about” (circa) and dies meaning day. So about the day. The natural rhythm (of someone) during a twenty-four-hour period. It is nine a.m. and I am officially an hour late in starting my day. But do I care? I should say not. I am well on my way and that is all I need say about that. I want to write this Blague today separate from other influences, so that means separating time into units, something which I am very happy to do. It’s only time after all, a construct, which hardly exists at all. I could likely do all I need to do in the course of one day. But I shouldn’t kid myself because there is real work at hand, and real work requires coffee, and I definitely need to get some in my system—stat. I don’t have to make lunch (turkey franks and beans) today; and dinner is leftovers (roast chicken and bok choy) so I have a very clean shot, you might say; and anyway once I get over this last hurdle to being solely in this new book deal the better all will feel. Meanwhile, I gotta tell you, I have never needed a coffee more.

So the plan is this: work on the book for the next fifteen months, by which time there should also be something of a product collection. The gist of the book is really personal development, so this will be the main direction. I would love an office and a shop by 2022. I think it would be so brilliant to have the ability to put all these pieces together. It would also be nice not to have to immediately sit down and write another book, which I think is very much doable. In the meantime, over the course of the next two years, the podcast and social media and all that kind of stuff is going to sufficiently come to bear. Oh well, I really thought today might be different, but here I still am. It is clear to me that there are certain things in life I just don’t want to do. That’s the long and the short of it. And I have to steer clear of things that will throw me into cul-de-sacs. It is my own damn fault, well partly. The fact is I’m traumatized. The work I’ve taken on was supposed to happen while I was in my little lockdown in my little appartement in little ol’ Paris. But the shock of being ripped away from there and landed back here in this nightmare reality where the person in charge of the country is a madman, a bully, and a child is just too much emotional fuckery to stomach. At least in Paris, even the tiniest convenience store has food that is miles better than what one would find here in a so-called gourmet shop. You can buy better wine at Monoprix than at some overpriced wine shop on Cape Cod. I don’t know kids. The whole thing seems completely upside down to me now, it truly does. And that aint just whistling dixie. The trick will be to outline everything today and get it out of my hair.

 Some things bear repeating:One of which would be Filling In. That is to say getting things done that might have been done long ago, that fills in empty spaces in our plan. Like beefing up the mailing list and followers. Like our Wikipedia page. Like getting a good voice activated program going. Like going over the collection. Going over the biz plan. Filling in the gaps, girl. Then there is the setting up: Conceptualizing sidebars along the way, definitely putting a festival together falls into this category. Then, third category would be clearing out. And for me that dovetails with creating a sacred art and performance space, you guessed it, on premises. If those kinds of things could swirl around my main task at hand, added to which will be clients and exercise and the making of meals, I think it might be possible to make this shizz sizzle. I would be working remotely at some point later in the year. And yes, I am aware that you have no idea what I’m talking about. The good news is that, moving forward, you are going to get a glimpse of some new thoughts on the subject of astrology and our own personal evolutions. Won’t that be fun. And I do maintain that the absolute best part is going to be what I can do toward getting rid of a whole lotta junk in the basement and attic, and those aren’t metaphors. I mean that for real. For, in this process of creativity, I am going to try and create a more artistic environment in keeping with the creative output. If Marc Maron, my nursery friend, can do it, then so can I. And by that I mean operate a podcast out of my garage. Marc and I have parallel lives. My life is definitely happening elsewhere, that much I can tell you; and it is now up to me to bridge the gap, in time and space, between me and me. There is no boon to this present circumstance, but I will admit that the global shutdown only makes me feel less alone. As someone who feels in a perpetually state of shutdown, whether self-imposed, or via the ostracization by others.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 266-270  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

There is nothing to post from the five previous Blagues I read today from the past. I am reading five Blagues a day this (my sixth) year of writing this, so that I will have read through all five previous years.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 23° (May 12)

My dreams are crazy and kind of drunky. Mainly I’m hanging out with famous people at a bar in a town I know well, a coastal city, like Miami or somewhere in California. I am standing outside the bar with many well-known actors and other creatives. There is a theater, a cinema I think, that is permanently shut. There was meant to be a film festival, or there was a film festival. I am with Ben Stiller, which makes sense given the fact that Jerry died yesterday. I am not feeling great today. Sneezing. Took my temperature and that is normal. So I’m going to assume that this is allergies. I need to work on the branding project for a good four hours today, and then start my day tomorrow at 5 a.m., which is my normal waking time when I’m in a flow state of circadian rhythms. I have an hour now before needing to make lunch and then I will have time to eat and throw some clothes on so I can write all afternoon and then have our client. I have to do something similar to what I did yesterday, which is to power through here. I am watching these senate hearings and I don’t understand why it is that people cannot be honest in the face of something as dire as this. I have learned my lesson when it comes to taking on projects that are not aligned with my thinking, in any case. But in light of what the world is going through, some things seem that much sillier than they would normally. I did reach out to the town to see if our event will go on or be cancelled. I need to write like the wind for the next fifteen minutes. I don’t have the energy to do much else today I’m afraid. I think I might spend the day reading and then try to get at my computer by five tomorrow, when there is nothing else on the books but what is on the books, if you know what I mean by that. I need to get this act in gear and I can only really do so by sheer will, and in resisting the urge to keep repeating the same delay tactics.

Okay so I didn’t write like the wind and it is likely that I won’t. I just need to tell you how I’m feeling. Scared and stressed and very much alone. I have come to realize how it is I am top of mind for nobody. That’s just the reality. And so I will need to front load myself and my own needs and feelings in the coming days. I rejigged my days a bit and did get in to projects that are slated for this date. I’m doing my damnest so that tomorrow is just about finishing up all things related to branding, and then I am fully on my way as planned. I want to be as super thorough as possible. I know if I weave magic into all I’m doing everything will be alright with the world the trick is to get the most out of every day and that is just what I plan to do, in every sense of the word. There are very few people in my life who have posed a problem and currently there are none. We had some outdoor furniture delivered which is nice, some chairs and tables; and next week hopefully lounge chairs will arrive and that will really make a difference in that I can wake up and head directly outside and read and think and enjoy the sunshine. It is still so cold here in New England and this crazy virus thing is going nowhere. Part of me wants to watch the news this evening and catch up on some headlines, although it is never a good recipe for getting a good’s night’s sleep. It looks very unlikely, now, that I will be able to move forward with our festival this year, but I’m not giving up total hope. I can’t. I must push through. I’ll have to write to my staff (of one other, lol) tomorrow and let them know the score.

I watched a documentary on psychedelics which was interesting, of course Ben Stiller was in it because that’s the way my experience works. I am already in the book process, just as tomorrow will be the absolute day working on the branding project which has now entered the long-suffering phase. And it really shouldn’t. Today is day one of our personal lent; and I am at a round number weight-wise (too round maybe); but that is an okay thing too. I have been home now for nearly two months. Well, later this week it will be two months since we had to flee Paris which is still tugging at my soul. All the ducks will soon be in a row, that’s just the way it goes. I will put all the necessary words out there starting tomorrow. Today I must do way less than more and take this child home. First thing I’d like to do when I get out of lockdown is punch Father John Misty. I play a game of posting things on social media and then waiting for some kind of validation, at which point I can go on with my work. Today is about pacing myself and hitting all the myriad marks. It isn’t too much to ask really. In fact, it’s quite achievable and, well, if things don’t work out then they don’t work out. I can’t be bothered with the pain and worry of what might come our way. I can bring in what I can bring in and pay out what I can pay out. Also I’m really turned on by this Afterglow Underground idea. It seems to me to be something meaningful. Maybe we can do something like the Meanwhile Cabaret. I’m just spitballing here Bad turn of phrase perhaps. I am trying to stay energetic and sanguine. One thing I know is that we are having franks for lunch. Oh how I wish I had some sauerkraut to go with. Maybe I should learn to make sauerkraut. I do love it so much. Makes my mouth water to even just think of it.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 261-265  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

Before I knew I was something of a metaphysician, denying all psychic ability in the process, I used to alight on spontaneous meditations, one of which entailed (embracing science!) getting into the head that I was made of matter which was made up of energy. And so I would just get my consciousness set on the purely energetic level of myself. There is no better way to tap into what physically ails you , and exactly where, than this meditation—if I felt a pain or a tear or something amiss in my physicality I would “sew it up” with golden threads. Having been in innumerable car accidents dating back to youth, there is always some point where a bone broke or a ligament tore or where I sustained a wound, requiring gads of stitches. And it’s usually that place that requires some alchemical treatment with my magical gold thread. Then I started taking it a step further. I began “bathing” my entire being in liquid golden light, imagining (as best I could) every single solitary cell in my body being washed with this liquid gold. There is no better spa treatment I can tell you. Try it.

Anyway, all this to talk about how real alchemy can be achieved, through the power of the (Sadge-ruled) higher mind that think-imagines or creatively visualizes or whatever turn of phrase you care to use. Then we can go a step further and make an intention with, say, that golden liquid light, suffusing it with (must be a noble!) purpose that is for the benefit of all beings. In other words if I suffuse the liquid gold with goodness or forgiveness or compassion or even confidence or health or resilience or fortitude, so long as these singular intentions are in the service of all…and the All…then one might find themselves transforming. There are other fun things one can do as well. One can suffuse this creative visualization with beauty; not for vanity sake, but so to be your most beautiful, perfect, spiritual in-and-out Self. Dang if people won’t ask you if you’ve had any work done. For reals.

Sagittarius is the mutable-fire sign, lest we forget. And it is an alchemical fire which purifies and transforms the very substance of man’s inner life. Being conditioned by influences in our youth already did create an alchemical transformation. If a child is left in a crib with no interaction there is no postive transformative, fire for instance. And, as a good deal of our conditioning might have been considered less-than positive, there comes a time when we have to purify ourselves in the fire of our own being. We must rise above the circumstances of our conditioning as we did down to root out those impurities in our alchemy. I believe this is one meaning of the mudra, one had extending up, one hand down, as above so below, even within our own chemistry. Above can mean our own higher mind which is leading the charge in changing our alchemy, and so, with that vision (mine is golden liquid and threads) we meditatively enter our own microcosmic world of swirling energy and see what we can find, loosen, eradicate and free! Love, that Cupid knocking in the previous symbol, will, in one fell swoop, inspire spontaenous alchemical change. When we feel love, we have love to give. Aint nothing wrong with that. It leads to compassion. We are spiritually mutating and indeed speciating along an upward spiral when our alchemy is purified. Sometimes it is purified in the humbling fires of our trials and tribulations. Suffering is inevitable, as Stella (or someone) says, whilst pain is a choice. The point is that our nature can change and we can be the main instrument for that change—it doesn’t have to happen to us via accident of falling madly in love. We can recognize the baser elements within ourselves, can we not, and make those changes accordingly. I know this sounds a bit nuts to some but I find it hard to accept cigarette smokers as being spiritual. We all do a lot of things that aren’t good for us; but somehow that one really takes the cake because there really is nothing about a cigarette that we can argue for positively. There may be benefits to good wine or a good bud. But I am seriously digressing. I should have stopped a few sentences ago. The point is we can be reborn of our own selves. We are self-gestating!

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 22° (May 11)

Today will be a little painful. Woke to news that Jerry Stiller died, which brought up some happy and painful memories. I will spend a good deal of time today in the kitchen, roasting chicken, making bokchoy, and a roasted red pepper soup for tomorrow. I don’t want to just write about the boring stuff that’s happening. I want to write about my feelings but I don’t know how to express anything different than what occurred the day before. I am very much aware of the fact that my creativity is feeling drained. One way to know that is to write a Blague like this everyday and feel the changes. But write I must. So I have various tricks for doing just that. One of them involves waiting until five o’clock and having some wine and seeing if that unleashes anything. Well, it’s early morning so that won’t work today; and also I am taking a break from all substances including sugar in any form (so that means my beloved Chinon and other organic reds). It is too easy right now just to down a bottle of wine and watch a new show on one of the channels or apps that we are all succumbing to right now. I just got a book deal and I have to power through on that. First things first, is driving through writer’s block. If you don’t feel inspired to write you just write until inspiration comes. That is what I’m doing here. I know it’s really meta, isn’t it. But that’s not the point. The point is to beat the block at its own game, to force ones way through frustration. I don’t want to talk about pandemics or politics because I am living them, and who cares what I have to say anyway.

I wrote to Amy even though she has treated me abominably in the past. It is the least I can do out of respect for her father’s passing. I won’t hear back. I spent two decades listening to her complain about all the lemons life has handed her, chief among the treatment at the hands of her brother Ben. I advocated for her to do things on her own because I do think she is talented. And then when I began my festival I asked her to perform year on year; and when she finally did she was a nightmare of the most extraordinary scale. Still I made up with her. But then she brought it all to bear again and we had to end our relationship of a quarter of a decade. That’s how it goes I suppose. She will be fine. She has lived off her family all her life and never had to work a single day of it. She had a waitress job once which I think was to train her how to function in some semblance of a normal environment. She worked brunches at the Universal Grill and her mother would come in as a customer for most of her shifts. We were encouraged to be her friend because she made enemies at every turn due to her negative and erratic behavior. There is a famous story of our visiting her family hous in Nantucket. Thank god for Anne Meara who was a wonderful person. Amy really was so difficult and still is I imagine. I have hundreds of emails from her dressing her brother down. I could probably make money handing them to some kind of tabloid. Something I would never dream of doing of course. Her brother knows how difficult she is. He knows more than we do. But we know pretty well as do many of her so-called friends. One put up with Amy because her parents really were such lovely people. She would say that people used her to get to them but I don’t think that was ever true of anybody.

First of all there was nothing Anne and Jerry could have done for anyone Amy would have brought home to the fold, except provide them joy and advice and fun company. Jerry was a real closer talker and seemed to carry a briefcase (I think with his memoirs) with him wherever he went. One tolerated Amy in the end because she tested everyone. I think she really thought that people were using her; so she would (subconsciously) be as awful as she could be. All I know is that she sicked a lawyer on me, assuming I wanted to steal her creative ideas (did I mention she is certifiable?) and then she let me spend on her travel and lodging but then didn’t use any of it. She flew on a jet with two assistants to do what was basically meant to be a workshop of a show she was asked not to perform anywhere else first, as we wanted to premier it. Well guess what she did and how many times before showing to do it as contracted. Exactly. Her father was in a home, basically; her mother had just died; and now she had money to spend as if she were some famous starlet, most of whom wouldn’t act like the entitled brat she acted like.

That’s enough of that. I really don’t want to bash her. And I actually wish that there was some kind of smoothing over to happen with her. I always had compash and love for her all those years leading up to her, once and for all, showing her true colors. Suddenly, everything she ever said that Ben said about or did to her rang completely real and true. I grew up with a crazy, effed up sister and so did he. I remember when I was hanging out with Jeanne Trippelhorn, doing an interview with her for Detour magazine, when she and Ben were still a couple. She had a snootful to say about Amy, too, how she was relentless with Ben and how it really wore him and them down. He is no picnic either I imagine (but I don’t know). I do know he is a fat phobe and that his poor ex wife seemed to disappear into anorexia. Also the times I have been with him he was really snotty and unfriendly and acted like he wanted to be anywhere than where he was (which was probably around Amy). Ugh. Anyway, I’m supposed to be finishing this branding project and my brain just doesn’t want to bring it on home for some reason, which makes no sense. It truly shouldn’t be a big deal at this point and I just need to get my slick-copy brainset on. I don’t know people. I think what has happened is that the feeling of just getting through this time, or waiting it out

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 256-260  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

There are no postings from the five older Blagues I read through today.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 21° (May 10)

Okay so tomorrow at five a.m. I will begin here because this is where it needs happen. It is Mother’s Day and we have decided to have a distanced family gathering. We drive up and I haven’t driven in a while and I’m not really used to it, oddly. The movement feels unnatural and unnerving at certain times, through tunnels and over bridges. The gathering is just as suspected, something taken seriously, but not too too too. We stay for two hours and then drive back. I needed to take care of the visitors once and for all, and we decided to have an enjoyable spot of wine. I managed to eat a piece of chicken, a burger and a hot dog, along with salad and potatoes, cake and ice cream. Oh, and chips and guacamole. Had a lovely note back from Parker. Watched a portion of I Remember Mama, then that was pretty much it. I realize that I need to shift things around ever so slightly over the next couple of days, only because I did get a bit side swiped by the visitors and also I didn’t expect to have to travel to visit the family this weekend. So I just need to do some minor shifting, nothing that drastic. I need to look at what is still scribbled here and there. Turns out nothing worth sharing. I do want to get my head on straight. I have such a big week this week. Wardrobe elements that at once perform a function, provide freedom, functional purpose and impeccable fashionability. Need: Solutions, in the form of essential wardrobe elements that serve a functional purpose, provide freedom and are perennially fashionable. Something like that. Anyway, by five o’clock on Tuesday, this will be complete. In the meantime, I find I am still resistant and sorting through not so much things on my desk as obstacles in my brain.

A corner need be turned, once and for all. The patterns of behavior that stem from earliest mistreatment must be eradicated. These things must go. We try as we can to help everyone in this. We do have a number of clients this week for which I am grateful. The rest is careful reading that is all, with notebook handy but of course. The weaving of positivity starts now. This week it should get warm enough to hit a beach and that should mean air and exercise and rejuvenation. In the process of going back over these Blagues, five at a time from the very beginning, which means I will have read the first five years as I complete the sixth by March of 2021. I don’t even remember where that sentence was going. I had guy friends once. I don’t have them now because I don’t play golf or something. I have close male friends I see like, if I’m lucky, every two years, but they’re English because it means they can be straight and still express affection in a way that I recognize. Anyway, I feel that the lockdown is now really happening. It has been two months and now it’s like okay this shit is real and I’m only fine with it because I generally lead this lifestyle anyway and I could use a break from people otherwise. Okay let me amend that. I mean to say I could use a break from other people seeing other people and making me feel FOMO which is no longer a thing. Dude, I’m still on effing yesterday’s post. I’m telling you I’m moving backwards I think. Anywig, still trying to do the best I can to contribute, to create. I get some pretty good ideas, but it’s kinda not enough. I wonder why we were invited on holiday in this sort of we-never-invite-anyone-but-family-you-were-the-only-ones way. Do people fear me now in social settings or something. I can’t even begin to deconstruct it. All I know is that I’m the pretty one.I am about to work through some major mojo issues and get this all kind of sorted. I have this secret that is so burning and I’ll never tell it. Well, you will find out only because it will be made manifest but not for another two years really so hold your horses and cool your jets.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 251-255  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

I portrayed Oberon at our last show at Joe’s Pub and I am also producing a series of performances at the famed venue, Oberon, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge this winter. Of course these might just be “coincidences”; however, since today’s symbol isn’t about being part of a spiritual tribe of guardians, or a spiritual nation of conquerers, but being one with one’s individual spiritual (Self) dominion, it’s not just metaphorical or metaphysical, it’s downright meta, period.

For some people there has been little disconnect between who they are and they spiritual dominion. I have a friend who has been a cartoonist since grad school and has worked in his same job now for nigh on thirty years—he and his Self dominion are one. I have a friend who is the most famous children’s book author of all time who found her dominion in her 30s. Success has nothing to do with it, although those first two examples bely that fact. Some of you may love music and pursue your music and have not had worldly (fame) or material (money) success with it; but you are still convinced it is your dominion. Others of you, regardless of age, might feel you have yet to even alight on your dominion. But even the king of the fairies here is just approaching his. We are the bold kings and queens of our own dominion and our fairies are waiting to back us up. Be bold and mighty forces shall come to your aid. We must follow our bliss in this. There is no room for ego. That means our desire to enter into our dominion mustn’t be thwarted by any second guessing on “how good” we are or “what others will think” because that is not humility it is hubris. We needn’t care. We should do it anyway without fear. And if we are thwarted we must take that not as a halting but as a redirection.

Needless to say, the fairy domain also speaks to the realm of pure imagination. Cue Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka. It is your own space. Even if you’re in a band, or working on a creative team, you have total dominion over your own imaginative happy place. Creativity is the doorway to our Spirituality. Only the ego-less capital-S Self may enter in. Nobody else. So go there. And if you don’t know where there is then start going anywhere on hunch or instinct or inkling. Throw a pot, knit a scarf, write a song, draw with pastels, decorate a room, buy a yukelele or kazoo, ride a horse, fly a kite, catch a wave, sing a ditty, start a Blague. You are being asked to show your Inner Allegiance today. You have your own personal god—your own genie—genius—so pledge yourself to him/her.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 20° (May 9)

Hey kids, hope all is great in your world. Today is my friend Justin Vivian’s birthday and also that of my friend Devon, whose eponymous Provincetown restaurant, which is no more, brings back such good memories. Last night was fun. Some guacamole and chips and fun TV, followed by a simple dinner of salmon and salad. We go to visit the inlaws for Mother’s Day tomorrow and, having just completed a huge project, I’m using today to take it easy and regroup and reset my mind and body. I am interested in entering into a period where my circadian rhythms do the decision making in my life. Some things coming to mind today are the establishment of my Wheel Atelier “house” to see how we might, first, go about printing anything out of print. Likewise that could go on some kind of site. I’m not sure how to approach it. I also have the Itsa idea. I went online and someone beat me to it. I also have the Good King idea. I’m just reminding myself of all this. The wind is howling like crazy. I have a million and one things to do, and I feel like doing exactly none of them. I spent the morning cleaning and I don’t need to cook too much today. Just a little cod with asparagus and potatoes, having had leftover carrot ginger soup for lunch. I am feeling subdued. I switched my closets over from fall/winter to spring/summer. There are the productive ways I procrastinate. I have named it productinating. I have a book deal. There may be a TV one. Nothing external really affects me. Only my own moods, which are more determined by my sense of self than anything else. I was saying how both sides of the spectrum have been annihilated, that is to say vanity on one side, that which keeps me from becoming too self-destructive, and some kind of social pressure which does the opposite. Now it’s just me and I want to remove all the obstacles I can to my own happiness.

So, you may have heard me say it before but: I have been writing this daily Blague now for over five years. I started it with the astrological new year, Spring Equinox, 2015, and I’ve written every day. The first year I focused the Blague posts on the Sabian Symbols (which is an energetic astrological system with a different rather esoteric assignation for each of the thirty degrees/days of each sign, adding up to the 360° of the circle (close enough to 365 or six days of the year). The next four years the Blague took on many personalities, just like its writer. The word blague means joke in French. So the Cosmic Blague is a double-entendre. The main just is to illustrate just how much a sense of humor (often at our expense) the Universe can have. Or the weird “strange phenomena” that happens without explanation, all of it. And I was hoping it would get the creative juices flowing. Well it surely has. There was a spate though where I got derailed for like five months, so I had to spend another period of time, as long, to catch up to myself. That’s when things got Dada, atonal and just downright primal and transcendent, even. It got weird, in other words. And so when I started this year on the Equinox, I decided that I would read five of my previous Blagues per day and publish excerpts that seemed worth a second look (while still linking to the first year of the Sabian Symbol posts) so I would get a good idea of what I wrote, in the first place—I have never in all these years, read back; also I wanted to take inventory of ideas in case something was good for a play or a performance or a poem or a song or for future astrology or other kinds of books. All of it.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 246-250  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

I portrayed Oberon at our last show at Joe’s Pub and I am also producing a series of performances at the famed venue, Oberon, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge this winter. Of course these might just be “coincidences”; however, since today’s symbol isn’t about being part of a spiritual tribe of guardians, or a spiritual nation of conquerers, but being one with one’s individual spiritual (Self) dominion, it’s not just metaphorical or metaphysical, it’s downright meta, period.

For some people there has been little disconnect between who they are and they spiritual dominion. I have a friend who has been a cartoonist since grad school and has worked in his same job now for nigh on thirty years—he and his Self dominion are one. I have a friend who is the most famous children’s book author of all time who found her dominion in her 30s. Success has nothing to do with it, although those first two examples bely that fact. Some of you may love music and pursue your music and have not had worldly (fame) or material (money) success with it; but you are still convinced it is your dominion. Others of you, regardless of age, might feel you have yet to even alight on your dominion. But even the king of the fairies here is just approaching his. We are the bold kings and queens of our own dominion and our fairies are waiting to back us up. Be bold and mighty forces shall come to your aid. We must follow our bliss in this. There is no room for ego. That means our desire to enter into our dominion mustn’t be thwarted by any second guessing on “how good” we are or “what others will think” because that is not humility it is hubris. We needn’t care. We should do it anyway without fear. And if we are thwarted we must take that not as a halting but as a redirection.

Needless to say, the fairy domain also speaks to the realm of pure imagination. Cue Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka. It is your own space. Even if you’re in a band, or working on a creative team, you have total dominion over your own imaginative happy place. Creativity is the doorway to our Spirituality. Only the ego-less capital-S Self may enter in. Nobody else. So go there. And if you don’t know where there is then start going anywhere on hunch or instinct or inkling. Throw a pot, knit a scarf, write a song, draw with pastels, decorate a room, buy a yukelele or kazoo, ride a horse, fly a kite, catch a wave, sing a ditty, start a Blague. You are being asked to show your Inner Allegiance today. You have your own personal god—your own genie—genius—so pledge yourself to him/her.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox