Costume Designer's Thoughts

Dear plastisexy folks, 1.  I am super pumped about the new show.  Can't wait to check out the space in March(?)--am a bit scattered so don't remember the workshop dates. 2.  I hope there's a way of incorporating the ax that the fire fighters left in my apartment.  It's quite large and heavy.  I can post a photo soon. 3.  Thank you, Dexter, for the phoenix comment a couple of weeks ago.  Rising from the ashes has been a theme lately.  Death, renewal, etc. 4.  Have been thinking about Victorian photo collages (recent exhibit at AIC--exhibit has closed but you can probably check out the catalog for it).  They were quite popular scrapbook creations for the bourgeois set.  The ladies and gents who made them often depicted the heads of their friends and family on animal bodies.  These wry, tongue-in-cheek images were no doubt influenced by Alice in Wonderland and Darwinism.  Who wants to be a half-ass?  Marky? 5.  The photo collages and the Patrons of Husbandry has had me thinking about bestiaries [oh, and bestiality]; catalogs of animal types or half human-half critter types. 6.  National Order of the Grange started a FIRE insurance cooperative in 1893.