life in mokievision

What better way to celebrate Secondhand Clothes Day than sharing the wonders of Katwise?

Kat O'Sullivan has built a glorious technicolor empire on recycled thrift store sweaters, transforming them into one-of-a-kind works of wearable art for bodies of all sizes. Her work is so popular that she can't keep it in stock: once a month she adds new sweaters to her shop, and they sell out within minutes. Her name is frequently used as a tag or description by the many copy-Kats, but rather than call the lawyers to go full-Disney on anyone who steps foot on her turf, she embraces the sweater love with grace and affordable tutorial PDFs so everybody can hop on the upcycling wagon.

And then there's her house - a 100+ year old farmhouse turned into a glorious riot of color, pattern and material, full of found and created art.

And her life...

"In no particular order: she’s worked for Mother Teresa, trained as a baker, been contracted by an exiled princess of Burma to teach refugees how to make Kentucky Fried Chicken, bought a burnt out school bus for $500 and painted it six thousand colours, learned how to poke thieves in the eye in Ecuador where she lived under an active volcano, perfected her Spanish as a translator in the Amazonian jungle, resided in a trailer on Broadway, hitchhiked across the Sahara and spent time in Mongolia where she came to the conclusion that she now wants a yurt." (Messynessychic.com)

It's a life of firsthand adventures, built on secondhand sweaters! I'd take the secondhand version, though - how do I be her when I grow up?

After watching George Romero's Land of the Dead a few days ago and Rob Zombie's Halloween tonight, I feel like starting a movie review series entitled, "I see what you were trying to do, and here's why it didn't work."

I see the earnest effort. I see the love. But I also see where they fucked up (yes, including making the film at all) and damn, it hurts.

While drawing up proposals for Camp Feral Child, I noticed that Missouri is one of several states racing to do away with child labor laws. And that's when it hit me: SUMMER LABOR CAMP!

It only makes sense. Why pay money to send them to camp when you can MAKE money sending them to camp? And they'll still be making arts & crafts, but now for a profit! It's WIN-WIN!

Education is your child's job, but who gets a three month vacation from work in this economy? Nobody! Tell your rugrat to get busy bringing home the bacon at Camp Make-a-Buck this summer!

Nephew is bored. And annoying.

I'm going to found a summer camp--30 city kids taken to Forest Park for three months, to learn to live off the land. I'll call it Camp Feral Child.*

"Tonight we eat gazelle! Quick, everyone over the fence before Zoo Security circles back!"

* By which I mean, I'm dropping him off at the park and coming back in August.**
** This was the original entry title. Thank desertwolf for the new title!