Little Bang Theory

Ruby Tuesday – Summer Solstice Edition! June 22, 2010

Spent Saturday evening/night at the Three Sisters Sanctuary and Good Time Stove Company in Goshen, MA:

…where there was a (slightly early) Solstice party.

This place is amazing, from its thirty foot tin tinsmith (on the far left, above)  to its twenty foot welded bicycle arch:

…painted in primary colors ( including Ruby, you know) and looked down on by flaming clouds and a waxing past-half moon.

There are great mosaiced amphitheatres and fanciful stonescapes:

…and of course, the Great Dragon fireplace was fired up, and as the light waned the Great Thing’s mouth belched smoke and sparks:

This shot was a bit early for that, but shows a little of the sixty-foot-long stone dragon, its spine protected by plates of orange and blue and Ruby and green sea glass:

…and chunks of crystal and amber and coral:

…and plastic Super Heroes and ceramic figures and bronze miniatures:

…this one taken as the light faded to black and the ambient illumination transitioned to torches.

And at every turn of each stone pathway, a surprise, like this four-foot Buddha, shrouded in shells and buried in beads:

…and the occasional stray griffin, with its distinctly Ruby eyes.  This place is not at all shy about mixing its metaphors.

That last shot and these next two were taken in near total darkness, illuminated only by distant torches.  There was insufficient light to employ my camera’s auto-focus, not even enough to see if I was manually focused, but measurements were taken and a ten second timer was used, with adjustments made by the camera’s blinking light as it counted down to zero.

The Details –

A beaded face:

And a shelly belly:

…both distinctly Ruboid, thanks to the faraway firelight and the miracle of thirty second exposures.

And as the house rock band ended it’s final set (to my great relief; I assumed their hearts were in the right place, though it was painfully obvious that their fingers were not,) the fire dancers mesmerized on a Stonehenge lawn, twirling flaming batons and impossibly seductive hoops:

…and making me seriously consider shaving my arm pits.

I guess you had to be there.

I was there, and documented my presence with this artsy-fartsy shot in which I hoped the arbor vitaes in the background would lend a Van Gaugh-ish aire:

Susan says I look more like Pablo Picasso (ughh!)

I know, it’s a bit blurry.  But it’s at ISO 3200, and you try standing still for a twenty-second exposure!

And above it all, a Ruby Moon, disguising its rubiliciousness in a veil of white, as per The Moody Blues:

“Cold-hearted orb which rules the night,

Robs the colours from our sight.

Red is grey, and yellow, white

And WE decide which is right

And which is an illusion!”

– The Moody Blues

Thanks to Mary over at Work of the Poet for this fun meme, with apologies for the Shots Less Ruby.

😉