Last night, just before my show, I stumbled on a timelapse video of Rabbit, from Steam Powered Giraffe, doing her show makeup from 2016. Of course, the F/X artist in me is analyzing her technique, breaking down what she's doing and what she's using.

I forgot how much I enjoyed this kind of thinking and work.

It turns out there's another angle of the video on her YouTube channel I'll need to check out later.

I'll be honest here, this is hella inspiring as I've been working on an update to my Windup Doll act.

I have long loved horror movies and horror comic books and the 1982 film CREEPSHOW was the perfect melding of the two. Last night was the WEIRD TALES VIRTUAL ANTHOLOGY #6, in which I had the joy of sharing my CREEPSHOW inspired act, The Lonesome Death of Jody Verrill is free to watch. 

The show is free to watch and airs every Tuesday and Thursday night through Halloween at 7:00 pm ET/4:00 pm PT.

Last night's show featured the following  performances:

• "The Garden" by Lola La Colombe
• "Amazing Grace" by London St. Juniper
• "The Lonesome Death of Jody Verrill" by Miss Violet DeVille
• "Rattlin' Bones" by Taras Nadtochii
• "A Racial History of Spooking" by Harley Honey

WEIRD TALES #6 is sponsored by Scarlet Envelope, Escape Room style games for playing at home.

Please tip the performers. We work hard to bring you this entertainment.

Won't you come and watch?

Holy shit. That was way more re-traumatizing than I thought it would be.

"Space Shuttle Discovery by yeahbouyee.
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 I'm watching the docu-series Challenger: The Final Flight on Netflix. Episode 3 just finished with the explosion of the orbiter.

All of sudden, I was in the 7th grade again and 11 years old. I working on a video project for my English class in the media center with a friend. We were crudely splicing video clips together using a pair of VCRs. We had a stack of video cassettes full of stuff we had recorded off of cable television at home. I was that kid who was obsessed with space travel and science-fiction, we both were, and we had planned on breaking for the launch. We just took a break from shooting video we had just captured.

I remember many of the adults I knew were passe about the launches, they had become commonplace. To us, we were excited. We were the generation that grew up on all 3 Star Wars movies. We watched the lift-off. I could only imagine how loud the engines were and the heat from the engines. We let our imaginations run.

We had lift-off.

We held our breath for what felt like forever. Once we thought it was free, we cheered. We were excited again. We were excited about every launch. The last time we watched a shuttle launch in the Media Center, we were scolded for being too loud.

73 seconds into launch, everything changed. The orbiter had come apart and exploded. We stood there with our mouths open.

"The silence is deafening." - Tom Brokaw, reporting on the accident

At the time, I was devastated but in that abstract way. There was a teacher on that flight and she could've been one of my teachers. 

I don't remember anything of the rest of that day. But I remember that moment. 

I am not okay at the moment but I'll be fine in the end, I've processed this shock before but with all of the interviews and archival footage, this way more personal.

I need something lighter. I think continuing my binge-watching of Lucifer should do the trick.

The show poster from Life, The Universe and Pasties from 2014, when I celebrated for my 42nd birthday.

Next Tuesday, my fourth decade gets closer to a close as I turn 48. So far, this has been my favorite decade. This weekend, I am doing things I love. Like spending the weekend with my family, including my eldest step-daughter from my first marriage. I feel so blessed to have reconnected with her after all these years.

Madame DeVille plotting my cake and dinner for Saturday, but also a mystery dinner. I have I can eat it! Even if I can't, the thought is still extremely sweet and I appreciate it. 

The first thing that I love doing is photographing a show, Behind The Garage Door: A Burlesque Show on Friday night at 7:30 pm at Bad Jimmy's Brewing Co. I love capturing artists in the middle of their performances, whether a behind the scenes photo or a photo captured in the middle of passion realized on stage. Let's be clear, the line up for this show is amazing and will knock your stripy socks off. Performances from Whisper De Corvo, Mx Pucks A Plenty, Carson St Clair, Lavish Leone, Coco Lopez, Vena Kahlo, Emerald Rain, Amara Strutt, Pat Smear, and your host, Moxie Blue. Tickets are limited, so get yours today for some live burlesque for the first time since March.

Saturday night, I'm performing in Royal T's Queen's Night 5: Birthday Bash! Not only am I celebrating my birthday that night, Royal T, Montreal's premiere multi-disciplinarian troupe bringing burlesque, circus, and variety performances. And they are celebrating 5 years of performance goodness. The very hot line up for the evening includes Royal T, Sis Void, Evora Night, Soly Luna, Ozalee Phoenix, Dark Felina, Symbiosis, Rasa Vitalia, Noéline La Bouche, me, and Shyama! This international lineup is going to be AMAZEBALLS! The show will stream live from Facebook Live and Zoom!

 It's one week and I am stoked!

"It's a really hard time for applause junkies right now." - A fellow troupe member

Chronically Fabulous, January 25th, 2020Oh. My. Goddess. It felt so damn good having an actual audience to play off of. Even if I was under a bunch of personal protective equipment and keeping 6 feet apart. Like you do.

Wait, let me give a little more content. It was a solo show for the improv troupe, being the entertainment for the client's 40th birthday party. We create an immersive murder mystery dinner theater in public venues and for private clients.

Sure, there's a script that contains the skeleton of the mystery and the framework of the clues, prop lists, and a collection of suspects to create a reproducible mystery framework. Our improv is built around this script and because the show is immersive, the audience is an integral part of the productions. It should go without saying, the audience doesn't have a copy of the script. That makes every show unique and magical. Everything is a gift, including the curve balls that come out of nowhere.

Last night was no exception. They were such a great audience, make no mistake about that. The client, who received the Killer Birthday award, her boss who took home the Best Actor award, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. My favorite team out of the bunch--and it was really hard to pick a favorite--had to be the team named Threesome. Their energy was fantastic, they were so into it. Even if they didn't solve the mystery and had the most wrong answer of the evening, they owned it celebrating that wrong answer in all its glory.

It wouldn't be live theater without some technical glitch. In this case, that glitch was the face shield kept running up against my lavalier microphone. That made the mic practically useless for the evening. Fortunately, I'm a mouthy broad and I can project with the best of them.

This is was the first show I've done since early March, right before I had my surgery and it was the first time I've done this particular show since last December. I even mixed up a murderer from a different show with this one during one of my run-throughs. Whoops! It was a good thing I didn't do that during the live show. "I'm sorry," I can hear a confused hypothetical audience member say, "but who is REDACTED?" Yeah, that's a different show.

It was good to be back.

Me and my favorite gas mask. It's handy given that the west coast on fire at the moment.The last time I was on a stage that wasn't in my home was in February. Then I had surgery and COVID-19 lockdown went into effect the very next day. Every performance since then has been in my home studio. I've been making slow, incremental upgrades to it for live-streamed shows, recording acts for video, and so on. It's been an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I miss the feedback that only the stage and the audience can give. Tonight, I get to see an audience once more.

Tonight I have my first performance with the improv troupe before a live audience. I would be foolish if I wasn't nervous, and I was very nervous about this in the leadup to the client call for the show.

It turns out that the audience for this birthday show all work in the same medical center. That's a huge relief as there is not a COVID denyer in the bunch. This party had been planned since before the outbreak and they have rolled with the punches. For example, they shifted from a buffet meal to a 4 course meal because of COVID and I suspect that hand sanitizer will be abundant this evening. While it may be odd to perform under PPE, I am not complaining about it. Hopefully, the new lavalierr mic I bought for my wireless pack will does the trick tonight.

I cannot wait to get back on the proverbial stage. I mean, it'll be a careful and thoughtful approach but I am grateful none the less.

From Midnight Mystery Theater's 2019 show
The Case of the Missing Beagle
at the Palace Theater and Art Bar

This is exciting! Tomorrow night I'm doing a radio play over Zoom! I'll be in the Midnight Mystery Theater's Annual Women's show, The Case of the Missing Scarlett!! For your entertainment, I will be playing not just one character but four!

It’s another madcap mystery, this time in Hollywood with Hollywood Private Eye Helena Handbasket, and a cast of zany characters, all played by the talented ladies of MMT and beyond!

Joining me in this screwball comedy is Gail Wamba Flynn-Kibbey as Helena Handbasket, Lindsey Dabek, Maureen Hawkins, Melissa Henderson, Bonnie Hillman, and Jane Martin! Bob Blumenthal is mixing our music and Josh Flynn-Kibbey is providing the sound effects!!

The house opens at 8:25 PM and the last guests will be admitted at 8:35 PM – please be there by that time so we can let you into our show.

Here's the Zoom link so you can see then show! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88527622387?pwd=T3dSTGNyNU5rR1VCODEwQzN0UGRWQT09

I hope you'll join us. These shows are always a lot of fun! 

Working on a new piece of organizational furniture, I had the realization that the first crosscut sled I made wasn't cutting it anymore. My table saw is built from a Ryobi job site table saw bolted to a custom-built wheeled stand with locking casters. It makes it easy to move it around my small workspace. Being a job site table saw, the table surface is not a big surface. 

Sleddy, my first crosscut sled had a few design issues that made it less than useful for me. First was the screw heads. This was was before I invested in some countersink bits and the screw heads would catch in the table saw's track if I wasn't careful. This sucked by itself, but it wasn't a deal-breaker. Perhaps the biggest flaw is the combination of how short it was combined with having a back fence too.

Working on this new organizational project for my workout space, I realized I need to make a new crosscut sled. It had to have a bigger area and with only one fence, so it accommodates even larger payloads. Add in two rails, rather than a single rail, and made from MDF for a much smoother finish. Finish with some sanding and paint job with a directional arrow.

Already, I've seen improvements in the ease of use, the slide action. In the above photos you can see the stop block I use with my miter saw that I had positioned for making drawer faces, which all had to be the same length.

Some improvements I've been thinking about include adding a ruler or gauge to the top of the fence for easy reference and installing a T-track the fence so I can add other clamping accessories.

What have you been working on?

I know this is a late addition to the performance schedule, but it's going to be a lot of fun!

The fun begins at 7:00 PM eastern time, or 4:00 PM pacific time, streaming live from Facebook!

You can watch the stream via the Facebook event page. 

Now for a word from my producer.

“It's time for our weekly We Are Trans Live Stream show. this will be our last one before we go on a pre festival hiatus so you don't want to miss this one. Tune in to see another amazing line up of trans performers from around the world. Hosted by Sammie James and Christian Luu. We include artist venmo or other tipping options so you can support the acts.”

Hello, lovelies!

Last week we had a massive computer failure here at the House of DeVille. We're still in the process of getting everything back in order. Please stick with us as I work through it.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

XOXOX

Violet