Praise for the new Sibley Guide to Trees

"Trees," he said, "are things that everyone sees every day."

David Sibley, author of the well loved and easy to use Sibley guides to birds and birding, now offers us a way to easily identify the trees in our very own habitat.

..."he thought he could produce something more user-friendly than the existing guides whose methodology for tree identification involves a lengthy, frustrating sorting process... " "If you're out in the park and you notice from 100 feet away a tree with unusual flowers or an odd leaf shape or interesting bark, these books require you to walk up to the tree, take a twig in your hand and go through a series of steps," said Mr. Sibley. "It's at least five minutes until you come up with an answer. And immediately you lose sight of the whole tree and you lose sight of what attracted your attention in the first place. Taking a step back and looking at the whole tree, then looking at a few more trees and flipping through the pages of my book, you quickly start to see that all the maples have similarly shaped leaves and fruit and that all the oaks have acorns."

All the time Mr. Sibley was focused on trees, he kept his core constituency—birdwatchers—in mind. "I wanted to produce a guide you could use if you were looking through binoculars to a bird at the top of a tree, and you wanted to turn your attention to the tree without moving your binoculars."

From a review of the new The Sibley Guide to Trees. Article titled David Sibley's Habitat by Joanne Kaufman writing for the Wall Street Journal.

It goes on my wish list.

Sia

Art: Green Oak Leaf (Arts and Crafts style) tile by Carreaux Du Nord. You can see more of their work or buy their tiles at their website.

Suryia the Orangutan and Roscoe the Dog

Today I would like to share a video about a friendship between Suryia the Orangutan and Roscoe the Dog.

Enjoy,

Sia

P.S. Congratulations to the folks at the North American Discworld Convention who raised over $24,000 for the Orangutan Foundation International during their Discworld Charity Auctions at NADWCon.

Ancient Church Transformed Into A Bookstore

Very nice. Very nice indeed.

Sia

Related Articles:

The 10 Best Bookstores Around the World

Photo: found at the Inhabitat website. Their motto: Design will save the world.

Betti and the Discworld Belly Dancers at NADWCon

Here are 3 brief amateur videos taken of the belly dancers at the Discworld Convention banquet. You can see the wonderful green screen photos taken of the some of the 300 guests at that event at the Avalon Arts website.

I had worked with Avalon Arts over the years at our Full Circle Witches' Balls (1) and I was able to recommend them for the Seamstress Guild party, where they did fantastic work. When Margaret Grady, the banquet's decorator and director asked me if they had a green screen, the happy answer was "yes", and you can see how well it all turned out. They also had a booth in the NADWCon dealer's room where they took photos of attendees in costume, including one of the better photos of Terry Pratchett I've seen. If I can get my hands on it, I will post a link to it here.

Sia

Dancers with flames



Here is a short clip with a close up of the flame work:



The infamous "Betti" (AKA Nobby Nobbs), the husband of one of the dancers, joins in ala Terry's book Jingo (wherein Nobby Nobbs, a guardsman behind enemy lines has to dress as a dancing girl and while working "undercover" discovers his feminine side.)



The video taker missed "Betti's" work on at the high table and his clowning around with Terry, which is a shame. Perhaps someone else caught it. I will keep my eye out for more videos.

Sia

Links:

Avalon Arts Studio

Related Articles:

The Witches Ball: When A Party Stands for Pagan Values

The Wiccan Dance Meets Bollywood

Endnotes:

(1) I understand that they took photos for another Witches' Ball in Benecia last March. This is no relation to our Full Circle yearly charity ball and costume event (which ceased production when I moved out of California) but I wish the organizers and the good folks at Avalon Arts all the best.

NADWCon Photos Are Up (North American Discworld Convention)

For those of you who are interested, there is now a link to North American Discworld Convention photos up on the NADWCon website. Look under "con photos, videos and links".

There is some talk of doing this all again in 2011 in a different city. If a well organized, decently funded group steps forward, it could happen. Many of the senior NADWCon volunteer staff have said that they would advise and help any new convention group as much as they can. Terry Pratchett has said that he'll be there "if I am spared" and we hope that he is.

As of this writing, he is working on the new Tiffany Aching novel to be called I Shall Wear Midnight. (1) After that he intends to start work on his autobiography and, possibly, another adult Discworld novel.

While in Arizona he visited the city of Tombstone and seemed much taken with the story of the OK Corral and Wiatt Earp. He also went to the Kitt Peak National Observatory, where he was given a tour by the Observatory's Director.

Sia

Photo: This way to the egress. Photo by Hereatwitsend. Discworld sign by Margaret Grady, Decorating Chair, Logistics Manager and Banquet Director, NADWCon.

Link:

Terry Pratchett News - Paul Kidby's website

Endnotes:

(1) ...which he discussed late at one night in the hotel bar with a small group of Witches and Pagans, myself among them. I am not allowed to say any more except that I look forward to this next Tiffany book with great anticipation.

He also met Pagan author and former Canadian police detective Kerr Cuhulain and his wife at that same convention. I understand that Kerr has since sent him several of his books.

Gratitude from a Green Witch at Mabon

For those who are interested, my article titled Gratitude from a Green Witch at Mabon is up at Vox.

Sia






Art: Hecate by Susan Sedden Boulet. You can buy her prints and books at the Turning Point Gallery.

Terry Pratchett and Nanny Ogg - NADWCon Seamstress Guild Stealth Costume Awards

Someone else captured another part of the Seamstress Guild Party Stealth Costume Awards and put it up on Youtube. What you can't hear Mrs. Palm saying as she works to pin the ribbon on Young Greebo is "I don't normally have so much trouble getting it in". Nanny Ogg replies, "I get to take it off".

With those two women on either side of him, you can see why Terry needed the Bursar's frog pills.

The gal who came as Cherry Littlebottom in the outrageous red dwarf costume won for Best NonHuman. Her award gave Terry a chance to tell us all some of the plot from his new book Unseen Academicals. (1)

It was a lovely, funny and enchanted evening. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Towards the end of the convention, at the banquet on Sunday night, Terry announced that this was "The best Discworld convention ever". Wow.

My regards to all who worked so hard (quite literally for years) to make the first North American Discworld Covention a wonderful event. 2) It was a honor to be your colleague and to share in your wonderful company at the con.

NADWCon Maskerade videos can be found here.

Sia

P.S. Two Flower won for Best Prop. His luggage was on a motor and moved about the room all evening. The lovely young people who won the Best Couple Award as Moist and Spike were at the convention on their honeymoon.

Endnotes:

(1) His next book, which he is writing now, is a Tiffany Aching book and is titled I Shall Wear Midnight.

(2) Talk now turns to the second, which would take place two years from now. (...oh, gods...can I get some sleep, first? I just want to live on my happy cloud for a while).

Seamstress Guild Party: Discworld Costume Contest Awards: NADWCon 2009

Well, that was quite a party...

The winners of the Seamstress Guild Party Stealth Costume Contest were wonderful and talented folks. Here is a Youtube video showing Terry giving out some of the awards (one to a Feegle and one to the Death of Rats AKA the Grim Squeaker). Terry himself gets an award from the guild.

Thank you all for a great evening,

Sia

Gone to the Discworld: The North American Discworld Convention

GONE TO DISCWORLD

For the Seamstress Guild this has been a year's worth of planning and organizing behind the scenes. For others on the Con Committee it has been four years of hard effort and cat herding. Now it all comes to fruition. I'm off to the first North American Discworld Convention.

Geek Fun:

NADWCon Twitter Group: Many people will be tweeting about the convention in real time. Should make for an interesting read.

Flickr: You can see photos as they appear on the group flickr page.

Facebook: There is also a Facebook page. (1)

Who's Who's

I will be meeting a number of old friends there, including Xcentricities Corsets who were so often in the dealer's room at our Witches' Balls and the good people of Avalon Arts Photography (also old friends from the ball). (2)

I will finally meet Rowan in person, she who organizes the Fairyworlds Festival in Arizona along with several Pagan events, and who is the con's Volunteer Coordinator. (Brave woman)

There are three women in particular, who, if you meet them, should be offered a huge "Thank You", a hug and a good stiff drink, chocolate and/or help. They are Anna (Guest Liaison and Con Muse), Emily (Vice Chair, and Web Mistress) and Margie (Decorating Chair). Emily and Anna also did the lion's share of work when it came to Programming.

Honors and praise also go to Jeff (Con Banker who has done so much else, as well) and Randall (Maskarade Director, Official Con Punster) and Jon (Con Artist) along with Artemesia and her daughter who made some of our convention art especially for Terry.

A full list of Who's Who at the Con, along with bios, is up on the Committee Page at the site. If you are going to the con, please give these folks your support.


Seamstress Guild Party: If you enjoy the party put on by the guild (of which I am a proud member) you can thank "Mrs Palm", the Party's Director and Organizer, who has also done hundreds of hours of quiet work for NADWCon behind the scenes to support other nadwcon staff and their events.

I would also like to give a shout out to the women and men of the Seamstress Guild who are not only organizing and working the party but volunteering all over the convention. (Look for those purple (women's) and blue (men's) ribbons with the unique rosettes, you can't miss 'em). I am proud to be a member of such a lovely, talented, hardworking group of people.

Thanks, also, to my good friend Chaos, (who is back in L.A. making sure her home doesn't burn). Chaos, I would not have made it through this year without you.

Finally, to Terry Pratchett: Thanks for all the books.

Sia Vogel

P.S. Don't go looking for Sia once you're there. I'm going incognito and using a con name which you won't recognize. If we meet, t'was meant to be.

Endnotes:

(1) There is also a NADWCon2009 Live Journal page which has announcements by the Vice Chair, and an general Discworld group at LJ.

(2) If you live in the Phoenix area of Arizona, the Dealer Room will be open to the public. Have fun.