Libra 19° (October 11)

Binging on Emily in Paris, which is really just so so but has a certain something. And of course they are shooting it at all our favorite places, which is at once exciting but also sad because I feel they will become overrun the way places in the West Village did with Darren Starr’s other creation Sex and the City. I just lazed around which was really quite nice and we had another lovely meal of cassava pasta with pesto and sat outside even though it really was quite cold. Anyway I don’t have much to say today as not much is happening in my life and I’m not writing anything today so that’s that really.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 971-975. I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

Drove in to NYC. No real traffic the whole way. Met a client at our hotel and had some psychic insight. We were talking about the Waldorf school with the client and Stella, minutes later, mentioned that shw was going to bring up the fact that the first person she knew who went to Waldorf schools was Juliana Margulies, but didn’t. When, only minutes later, after the client left, we gathered our things from the hotel restaurant and passed through the bar only to see Juliana seated on a stool. We knew her in the late eighties when we used to socialize and play charades with mutual friends—she was good at charades. So I said hi Juliana remember us. Of course she did and we had a quick kiss and hug. She introduced her friend Samantha (who I knew to be Samantha Mathis) about whom I hadn’t heard very much in a number of years. Anyway, a very quick slicke of synchronicity. We said we wanted to grab a quick bite. Juliana said we should go to Otto, which is where we were going to go in any case. “We just closed on an apartment around the corner said J.” In a world where one could so easily be envious, hearing of one closing on an apartment on lower Fifth could put a green lens on things. But I’m so used to being surrounded by rich people that it doesn’t much faze me like it once did.

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Had rehearsal in a part of Brooklyn to which I have never gone before and wouldn’t rush to go ahead I’m afraid. I’m always struck by how ugly certain areas of New York City can be. How grey and depressing and void of trees or any kind of charm. We did have a lovely rehearsal though and it was good to see the band. Stella and I returned to the hotle and had something snacky. She was going to meet an old friend for dinner and decided to have it in the hotel. I had a little wine and then headed over to see Amber Martin’s “Reba’s C*untry Christmas” show at the Stonewall, as Patrick was in it. This person called Xavier who once attacked me and Penny Arcade on social media was there; I tried to be the bigger person and introduced myself and extended my hand which he refused to shake. We the ones who aren’t the perps are often the ones to extend olive branches wrapped around peace pipes. I had already sent my so-called nemesis, who was also in the show, a quick text heads-up to let him know I’d be there. I know what it’s like to perform and to see someone in the audience you might be uncomfortable glaring back, but I didn’t hear back and he probably didn’t care or turned it around on me. It doesn’t much matter. I take responsibility for having rubbed people the wrong way. But we Libras tend to do that because we can be brutally honest and we do tend to have great expectations of (read: become heavily disappointed by) others. Ghandi is a Libra. And he surely rubbed people the wrong way. Nothing wrong with that kind of friction. Anyway saw some people I liked but realized some other in the performance community were also snubbing me and I thought, ah-ha, the poison had really set in. I don’t mind. I needed to make some more room for new friends on FB, for instance, so I returned home to happily block a few of the obvious haters. After having reconnected with Stella and her friend and a client who were all gathered together in the hotel bar having a night cap. Made it an early one since we had to perform the next day.

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The fixed-earth sign of Taurus is vividly portrayed by a garden, Eden. And Taurus people draw on archetypes the of nymphs and flower gods, who personify innocence and invitation—Taurus is ruled by Venus, the planetary principle of attraction. The sign’s signature color is green, signifying both innocence and envy. Taurus girl is the eternal goddess in maiden form. We know what temptation Eve invited. Likewise, the tale of Snow White is a retelling of the myth of Io, a nymph punished by queen Hera for giving into her hubby Zeus’s seduction—Hera turned Io into a snow-white heifer. Silly cow. Hera is famed for taking the form of a crone who hands out poison apples just like Snow White’s wicked queen, who is vainly obsessed with youth and beauty. Venus’ symbol—a circle atop a crossed staff—is called the mirror of Aphrodite; and the planet’s rule, here, on the earth plane of Taurus, makes physical beauty, and green-eyed envy, a preoccupation. Io and Hera are two sides of the same coin, the former representing the naiveté of the latter’s mature womanhood. Really, Hera tries to teach Io a lesson about female power, which Hera deifies. And many a Taurus woman will tell you that this is a central theme for them. Taurus tends to make an impact in her early life, being prized for latent talents and inherent charms. Adult life can be an ongoing catch-up lesson in taking her own assets by the horns, something at which she may ultimately overachieve. Indeed, her biggest challenge is in not being objectified, resisting the urge to let domineering figures steer her stars in exchange for creature Taurean comforts, ease and luxury. Passivity can be her pitfall, as can becoming somebody’s cash cow. Here some earthy Taurus nymphets who peaked young and piqued interest with early promise of potential: Ellie Kemper, Megan Fox, Kristen Dunst, Sandra Dee, Kelly Clarkson, Sofia Coppola, Jessica Alba, Lily Allen, Lily Cole, Jessica Stam, Ann-Margret, Yvonne Craig, Uma Thurman, Janet Jackson, Adele, Barbra Streisand, Shirley Temple, Valerie Bertinelli, Harper Lee and Charlotte Bronte whose heroine Jane Eyre is a namesake of Hera or Eire (Ireland) the emerald green isle where the goddess grew dem apples.

Venus governs Taurus on the earth plane (and Libra on the astral one). The Venus symbol is emblematic of the Feminine Principle. The planet’s namesake goddess of grace and beauty works her charms through Taurus, and on its people, in a physical, tangible, often monetary way. Indeed, Taurus woman is the original material girl. Though she may learn early in life that an urgent, myopic focus on possessions can blind her to more eternal bounty. Still, it’s no bull that Taureans tend to be attractive in a fresh and earthy, if not oomphy, way. The women are natural beauties, barefoot contessas and, sometimes self-professed geishas who fetishize their burgeoning femininity. Consider the luscious delights of Bianca Jagger, Penelope Cruz, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, Bettie Page, Laetitia Casta, Megan Fox, James King, Diana Agron, Christina Hendricks, Audrey Hepburn, Margot Fonteyne and Nancy Kwan. Oh, yes, Taurus enjoys being a girl; and when she inevitably loses her innocent bloom and no longer likes what the two-faced mirror-mirror reflects, she is most prone to see this as a red flag to charge into some cosmetic surgeon’s office. Case in point: Renee Zellwegger, Cher, Kimora Lee Simmons, Tori Spelling, Christine Baranski, Janet Jackson, Donatella Versace, Carol Burnett, Barbra Streisand, Pia Zadora, Michele Pfeifer, Shirley MacLaine, Melissa Gilbert and Bea Arthur, who televised her face lift in on “Maude”. There is also Eva Perone and the aptly named Blossom Dearie.

Taurus women come with a checklist of things they need to achieve and aquire, and they work it till they’ve ticked off each and every item and then some. This modus operandi provides them security, or at least the sense that they I securing it for themselves. They are sensual creatures with a natural innocence, even when batting their cow eyes at you. Think of them like shutters of a camera, taking in and recording, from every angle, what the abundant world of possibility, or you yourself, might have to offer them. They are efficiency experts, loath to waste precious time—to them a true commodity—on people, places and things not worth their salt. They embody the notion that life should be carefree, doing all in their power cultivate a safe enclosure for themselves against the savagery of society. They see people, places and things in terms of value, investing interest, even the loving kind, only when confident of a solid return; the face varieety of value being deceiving, they can be duped by appearances and overemphasis external trappings, which ultimately leave them wanting. Happy is the Taurus who

She is born under the archetype of the naive earth nymphs such as Io, who took the form of a snow-white heifer—fairy tales’ Snow White is innocence incarnate. Their myths center on resiliance, the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt typecast with a Taurus actress.

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In our book Sextrology, Gemini man’s chapter is called The Goodfellow. Gemini and its third astrological house focus on immediate experience. Immediacy being what both closely surrounds us, spatially, and instantaneously, time-wise. The sign is ruled by Mercury, named for the god who can travel hither and thither in a flash, like his Shakespearean prototype Puck, who is messenger to Oberon the way Mercury (Greek: Hermes) is to Jupiter (Zeus). The third house also rules the teenage slice of life, age 14-21, defined as it is by our immediate family and close cronies, siblings and sibling-like relationships, which are the kind we have at that age, and rarely after—Gemini making an exception to that rule. He personifies that experience always, being eternally youthful like Puck (Robin Goodfellow) or Hermes or his fairytale incarnation, Peter Pan—wrestling with one’s shadow portrays eternal struggle with duality that the sign of the Twins expresses. In legend, we have Robin Hood, in comic books, Robin, the boy wonder. Gemini guys retain their teenage rat-pack mentality, “boon companions” coming under third-house rule. Robin of Sherwood was the first hood in his hood, if you will, doing his bit to balance the rich/poor duality—in essence, the world’s first Goodfella. In modern culture we see many Gemini entering the zeitgeist at a tender age, playing at being adults while forever remaining something of a juvenile in his antics. Bring on the boy wonders: Michael Cera, Paul Dano, Neil Patrick Harris, Jamie Oliver, Macklemore, Boy George, Rafael Nadal, Jake Short, Dominic Cooper, Justin Long, Kanye West, Cameron Boyce, Troye Sivan, Mark Walhberg, Dave Franco, Shia LeBeouf, Hugh Dancy, T.J. Miller, Michael J. Fox, Mike Meyers, Noah Wylie, Irving Thalberg, Tupak Shakur, Gene Wilder, Gary Burghoff, Johnny Depp, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Kravitz, John F. Kennedy.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, named for the scrappy god of the crossroads. Literally, or just in their hearts, Gemini guys are street-wise garçcons de la rue: poets, troubadours, urchins, scamps, tricksters and jugglers, if just of the truth, dual by nature, dualistic by design. They are artful dodgers, fast-talking champions of the common man. There is a bit of Robin Hood in every Gemini hood in the hood, just as there is that of Robin Goodfellow, Shakespeare’s Puck, and Peter Pan, all fairy versions of winged Mercury, the magician and messenger god who, like Peter and Puck, never ages past adolescence. Duality in all its forms, but knowledge, especially, of mortality and immortality, is the theme of the Gemini male psyche. The tale of the male “twins” of Gemini, Castor and Pollux (actually quadruplets who hatched from separate eggs with twin sisters, fathered by Zeus in the guise of a Swan) is hinged on their mortal/deific dialectic. Birds and wings symbolize the divine side of the human condition, which we all possess. Gemini man tends to express his own via flights of fancy and the proliferation of ideas, poetry, music, writing, or whatever magical or Machiavellian maneuvers with which he seeks to make an lasting mark on the world. He tends to pack a wallop with his words, Mercury (Logos) being god of communication. And many a Gemini actor has played into his airy, pirate archetype. Think Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow, Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood or Captain Blood, Douglas Fairbank’s Robin Hood or Thief of Bagdad, James Purfoy’s Blackbeard, Jason Isaac’s Captain Hook, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa. And then there are just the roguish, anti-hero stylings of Colin Farrell, Tupac Shakur, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper, Paul Bettany, Peter Dinklage, Hugh Laurie, Malcolm McDowell, Joseph Fiennes, Russell Brand, Rupert Everett, Morrissey, Bob Dylan, Liam Neeson and Ice Cube

Gemini is always striking some kind of bargain, internal negotiating opposing forces, and outwardly exacting the next deal to further his direction. In a way his is a tricky head to be in; and yet there is very little the Gemini doesn’t do mindfully, being less prone than most to unconscious motivations, compulsions, and the like. He’s self-aware, to a fault, putting on dazzle and otherwise aimed at keeping spirits bright—even if knowingly faking it. He is, however, no means instrospective by nature, and must work harder than most in the understanding of an inner life. Instead he keeps himself occupied with to-dos and shiny objects, cutting a path through life like an arful dodger snaking his way through a crowded avenue, reveling in covert action and lendergemain. He is nervy and (he mightn’t admit it) rather fearful of the answers to life’s big questions. Gemini loves the world of the living, gravitating toward social hubs of activities, where a vibrant demonstration of life can distract him from an signature underlying loneliness. He doesn’t like to feel things because he does so too deeply for his delicate nerves.

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Gossip, girl: The Gemini gamine can gab if not babble like a bird on a wire. The mutable air sign of Gemini is concerned with pure, buzzy, etheric, information: what’s in the air. The sign’s ruler Mercury is named for the winged capped and footed god, its symbol recalling a pesky antennae’d insect, pulling info from the ether. Or perhaps they’re not antennae but the wing-tips of an angel, an agent of soaring divinity, such as Mercury, the messenger, is to his chief god, Zeus. So, if Gemini man, like Mercury, is a messenger, then Gemini woman is the message itself; and a mixed one at that. She often is the gossip, controversial, whether innocently or purposefully. Female counterpart to the god Mercury is winged Eris, goddess of discord. Arguably, she is a deity of information, the embodiment of the collective buzz, which is, by its very nature, discordant. Discord supposes, indeed incites duality, the principle energy of Gemini. Eris doesn’t just throw information out there, she plants ideas in others’ heads. So when she tossed an apple scrawled with the words “for the fairest of them all” into a chic party she caused a fracture and factions to form. Gemini can be a scandal; and a scream, a party girl, albeit a light-weight one—like tiny Tinker Bell getting blotto on a thimble of hooch. She’s sensitive, you see. Eris tossed the apple because she wasn’t invited to that party. Slighted, she caused outright Trojan War, the central figure being another prime Gemini archetype, Helen, the actual twin of Pollux, the divine so-called twin to mortal brother Castor—the two boys form the constellation of Gemini. Helen and Pollux hatched from a divine egg. Castor and Clytemnestra from a mortal egg. Their mother Leda must have lain with her husband before Zeus, as swan, had a go. So. Helen and Clytemnestra personify female Geminian duality. One passive, one not so much. Helen? A scandal! She was given to Paris by Aphrodite for choosing her most fair in his judgment—he was bribed—deal-making being endemic to this sign,. It is fromMercury that we get the word merchant. In our book, Sextrology, the Gemini women chapter is called The Gift. Of the gab, yes; but more than that: Gemini women always seem to possess such qualities, attributes or talents that could only be explained by way of divine endowment. They are exciting and challenging, enlivening and provocative, both, always equal parts a mixed bag of Mercury’s tricks; more perhaps, than one bargained for, something of a commotion, possessing a certain talent for winning every argument, sometimes by way of seeming insouciance. The likes of Joan Collins, Wallis Simpson, Angelina Jolie, Lauryn Hill, Kathleen Turner, Anne Heche, Michelle Phillips, Stevie Nicks, Melanie Brown, Joan Rivers, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Naomi Campbell, Heidi Klum, Anna Kournikova. Helena Bonham Carter, Zoe Saldana, Alanis Morissette, Pam Grier, Juliette Lewis, Gina Gershon, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are no strangers to controversy.

Gemini is ruled by winged Mercury, god of the crossroads. Being at a crossroads spells a difficult decision. After winged Eris lobs that apple into the divine party someone must decide who is the fairest. The Judgment of Paris sees that poor boy choosing Aphrodite who promised him Helen for the honor. Helen hooked up with Paris who was from the wrong side of the tracks. Fast forward to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet whose suitor, pre-Romeo, is likewise called Paris. The name Juliet translates to both “child of Jove”, a name for Jupiter, Greek: Zeus, and “downy” another nod to birds. Star-crossed and prone to love at first sight with someone from the wrong side of the crossroads, Juliet is a prime literary archetype of the Gemini woman in keeping with the sign’s rule of the human age of 14-21, a time when one first bites into the apple of temptation. Helen and Paris; Romeo and Juliet are forbidden fruit. This matches the biblical view of the zodiac as well. The first fiery sign Aries is akin to big-bang creation; Taurus to the lush green Eden and temptation; and Gemini, the twins, the Fall, duality, is the consequence of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Helen and Juliet are echoes of the prurient Eve; as is Nabokov’s Lolita who tempts duality incarnate in Humbert Humbert. And you thought it was just all an accident that Gemini women seem a ripe combination of guilelessness and game. This gamine of the Zodiac does tend to be gorgeous enough to launch a thousand cosmetic campaigns. And there is always some personal-fall sprinkled into her mix, often linked to her falling rather suddenly in love. Those Gemini birds just seem to be set on a quicker speed. Innocent as a rose—mind the thorns: Kate Upton, Amy Schumer, Adriana Lima, Isabella Rossellini, Bar Refaeli, Elizabeth Hurley, Brooke Shields, Angelina Jolie, Laverne Cox, Nicole Kidman, Rosalind Russell, Riley Keough, Lana Del Rey, Leah Remini, Molly Sims, Julianna Marguilies, Ginnifer Goodwin, Octavia Spencer, Courteney Cox, Helen Hunt, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Annette Bening, Kristin Scott Thomas, Laurie Metcalf, Lea Delaria, Autumn and Willow Shields, and that two-faced swan herself, Natalie Portman.

Often given a dubious wrap for being flighty, dificult or divisive, the opposite is (also?) true: Gemini woman is the one person in the Zodiac you’d want to have your back. She’s a tough and protective Tinker Bell, a fixer of ailing or broken utility, aimed at mending flailing situations and relationships and problem-solving in general. She is the proverbial mother hen on whom others come to rely and behind whom we must all fall in line. She is the best of the astrolgoical bunch in covering the basics, and all the bases there in, making sure the mechanics of her daily life function smoothly, if not too repetitively. In the end, most of us will admit, it is a most admirable quality. That said, she easily gets lost in causes which, when pressed, even she’d admit she cares little about. Getting stuck on autopilot as ringleader will occupy her with busy work, if not mountainous molehills, while she strives to focus on more long-term achievement.

Having her ducks in a row. And also wanting others to keep in line behind her. They like to organize in the strict sense of putting things together, but they delegate any upkeep. They like a good system.

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.
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