Word of the Day

May 3, 2008 (Day 98) Sub rosa: secretly; privately; confidentially Returning a bit to where I began with this project, something a little darker and deeper. I'm including below the roots of the word from Dictionary.com that swayed my mind to something a bit more visually sordid and salacious:"Sub rosa comes from the Latin, literally 'under the rose,' from the ancient association of the rose with confidentiality, the origin of which traces to a famous story in which Cupid gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the confidence of Venus. Hence the ceilings of Roman banquet-rooms were decorated with roses to remind guests that what was spoken sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa."I confess I immediately thought of that scene in American Beauty and saw it in a whole other light. I find the above absolutely fascinating. It makes me think of plots and intrigues, and I wanted to use the word as the title of a novel somehow.I will likely never shoot something like this again because it made such a mess. That's corn syrup with food coloring. Sticky and a pain to clean off, both skin and floors.

May 2, 2008 (Day 97) Halcyon: (adj.) peaceful; undisturbed; happy; (noun) a mythical bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was fabled to nest at sea about the time of the winter solstice and to calm the waves during incubation I think Hillary asked once on a previous shot if I knew origami because I've folded a few things for photos. The crane is the first thing I taught myself to make, back in fifth grade, in order to decorate a small Christmas tree with a bunch of them as ornaments. I love the art very much.In high school, I became a TA for a fantastic math teacher who learned my penchant for folding paper. He asked me to make several very elaborate origami boxes—the kind that take hundreds of pieces of folded paper to piece together in parts—to illustrate some mathematical things. He began pointing out the most complex ones in books to challenge me, the hardest of which was an octagonal box that had a piece that ended up looking like two stars sitting on top of an octagon. It was tough, and I had to make several of them for the box's sides. I still know how to make that little piece and will sometimes do so while sitting in conferences because the result is pretty. And a good consumption of time when bored. :)Edit to add a short "how-to" per Gail's request. The background is a piece of paper I hastily watercolored. I then set the paper crane on a jar in front of it and snapped the picture. The water is courtesy of the Flood filter from Flaming Pear, masked to make the swan look like it's floating in it. I did try it with real water first and wasn't having any luck. :P