$teven Ra$pa at the Spectra Ball © Neil Girling

Once in a while some old friend on the east coast rings me up: “hey, where the hell are ya? You just up and vanished!”

I always get this big, stupid grin on my face. “Yeah, sorry, ran away with the circus.”

It’s true. This golden state has become an epicenter for fringe carnival/vaudeville/cabaret activity in recent years and thanks to a strange series of coincidences and acquaintanceships, I’ve found myself in the thick of it: surrounded nightly by aerialists and clowns, can can girls and contortionists, feral marching bands, burlesque beauties, belly dancers, magicians, inspired costumiers, sword-swallowers, snake veggie oil salesmen, gonzo musicians, stilt-walkers, fire-breathers, and well, the list goes on about as far as the Pacific ocean.

Aaron at Lucid Dream Lounge © Neil Girling

With Crash Worship warehouse roots in San Diego, an enclave of trendsetting troupes in LA, and benefiting from its colorful Bay Area yippie heritage, just about anything goes in this subterranean Cali carny set. Constantly touring, seat-of-the-pants caravans push themselves to the limits of physical and financial endurance, venturing into the fiery realms of SRL, the Crucible, Black Rock City and beyond. War wounds abound. This ain’t no Circe du Soleil. There is no safety net.

Tiffany of Vau de Vire Society at Download Festival © Neil Girling

Increasingly popular mask sweatshirts were recently banned by the administrators of Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District. The concerned officials sent out mass emails warning parents to remember, while doing their holiday shopping, that kids won’t be able to wear such sweatshirts on campus. Tom Ressler, the principal of Capistrano Valley High said “There is no way to identify who kids are. Generally, we don’t think that is a good thing. It gives kids the opportunity to do something bad”.

The goggle jacket is causing a commotion in England – it isn’t illegal, but apparently the look is perturbing anyhow. According to AFP “models with dark colors convey the image of commandos or criminals, while ones with light colors give the impression of a nuclear or biological catastrophe”.

Felt animals! They are so cute! The images above come from Chika Photography, where adorable felt squirrels, doves and elephants await you. You can get your own felt feline and simultaneously help out a person in need over at Kittyaid, and if you want to make one of your own, there’s a great Flickr tutorial that will show you how to make any kind of monster you want. Need more specific instructions? Here are some more little DIY felt projects:

• How to make a Felt Penguin
• How to make a Felt Donut
• How to make a Felt Cupcake
• How to make a Felt ‘Eggie the Chick’

And if text-and-photo instructions aren’t enough, here’s some time-lapse footage from indie/experimental/noise band Deerhoof to help you. Featuring Satomi Matsuzaki, the clip is called “Stuffed” and I love it because she’s just making the weirdest shit. You get to see her create a log, a video cassette, and a nippled jock-wearing bear:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/gcHmv21Ddvk" width="400" height="330" wmode="transparent" /]

Incidentally, Deerhoof is playing tomorrow (Monday) night in LA at the Avalon (details here), with our girl Mer opening for them as part of Faun Fables, the same band that she toured Europe with last month. See you there?