I’m trying to remember how it became the “Sudden” Yurt Commune. I think something someone said in one of the early posts about it? While it was still just a twinkle in my eye? I don’t remember, but I know that phrase is out there.

I hit on an idea in the comments of the post below:

We need theme yurts in the SYC. I don’t like the word “theme,” really, because it sounds like Disneyland or something and the SYC is WAY cooler than Disneyland, but I can’t think of another word here. “Theme” also makes me think of “A Christmas Story” and Ralphie’s teacher: I want you to compose ……… a theme! I will think of a better name. I will!

Anyhoo. (I stole that word from Sheila. I totally did. I’m sorry, Sheila.)

The idea would be this: Each member of the SYC — and our membership requirements are very rigorous; you’re a member if you WANT to be a member — can choose for himself or herself a yurt that they host. It’s that person’s baby. Yes, it’s true that in the comments of the post below, I became all despotic, as is my nature, and ASSIGNED a rock ‘n’ roll yurt to Cullen and NF, which they do not have to do. Not at all. Just an idea.

BUT …. I think it would be cool for people to host a yurt that features something they’re passionate about and we can all come and “hang out” in there. Maybe Sheila would do a movie yurt. Jayne would do a cooking yurt. Sarahk would do the gun-toting yurt. Kate P would do a YA yurt. Brian would do the Photoshop yurt, because he has mad skillz. See? Something like that. Something that you’re passionate about, something that you can teach or just share with others. For instance, mine would be the Liam Neeson yurt or the Sweeney Todd yurt or the pouring water on the movie theater seat yurt, for instance, since these are the consuming passions of my life. (The ideas above are NOT demands, just ideas.)

Honestly, I’m hoping for a crochet yurt. I started learning several years ago, stopped doing it, but I really liked it and I need me some instruction, pippa!

These “theme” (argh) yurts — “specialty” yurts?? (ARGH )– can be of your own choosing. Both the theme and the look of it. Yes, I’m the benevolent dictator of the SYC, but these would be yours to do with whatever you wish and we’d all reap the benefits of your expertise and talent! Hurrah!!

It would be so cool if we could add to our gallery of photos in the SYC category. There’s some neat stuff at the SYC. Going through all those photos makes me happy.

So if you’d like to create your own theme/specialty/better word to come yurt, announce it in the comments, please oh please. If you have time to do some Googling and find a picture of a yurt you fancied for your specialty yurt, I would LOVE it if you posted a link to it in the comments so I could upload it to the SYC category in the sidebar with your description of it. Or draw one. Or Photoshop one. Whatever. It’s your wizard master crackerjack passion hotshot something yurt.

Can’t wait to hear what your yurts will be. Describe in as much detail as you wish. I need this happy place right now.

So let’s do some work on the SYC.

And pictures, crackie! Picturrrres!!

For the Sudden Yurt Commune, yo.

I mean, good hippies need a good bus and I’ve found us this one.

It’s knitted and crocheted, pippa. Knitted and crocheted.

Well, one assumes not the actual mechanisms that make the thing run — because which one of us knows how to drive a crocheted bus, I sure don’t — but the outside, the outside sports a nice psychedelic sweater.

I think it fits in nicely to our SYC world, don’t you?

So, yes, tonight, I’m window shopping for additions to our Sudden Yurt Commune and I cannot believe what I just found. So so gorgeous.

Now, I know we’re all about yurts. I still LOVES me the yurt: I want a yurt, I need a yurt, and I even recently considered a missions trip to Mongolia — I kid you not — until I realized I was thinking more of all the beautiful yurts I would stay in than how I might, you know, serve our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, yeah, that didn’t work out. Jesus was none too pleased, I guess, which is weird. I mean, you’d think he’d like yurts.

So I’m here, stateside — not in Mongolia, flopped in a yurt, throwing up yak’s milk. Fine. Whatever. You adjust. You deal with disappointment. You move on. (I said you do; I myself do not.)

Oh, and you also shop for additions to your Sudden Yurt Commune and stumble upon a new type of shelter for your little piece of collective heaven. Not a replacement of the yurt, no, never, but a supplement to the bliss, an enhancement to the joy.

Oh, look. Just look.

Gorgeous, refurbished gypsy caravans.

Morning caravans

Moonlight caravans ….. ablaze and magical

Some interiors

(All caravans from designer Jeane Bayol.)

Can you see it? A few of these for our commune? Along with our yurts.

And our hippie motorhome.

And our flagship.

You know, actually, they seem like they could be conjugal visit caravans.

I’m sorry. I didn’t just say that. No, really, I didn’t. Go have your conjugal visits out in the woods, you naughty little beatniks.

Because these would be for reading books from our book swap! Or having tea and nibbling blueberry scones baked by Jayne, our beloved chef and slave! Or extra space for sleeping off our mulberry wine hangovers!

Or, well, whatever suggestions you might have, you shiftless vagrants.

But aren’t they fabulous?

Gypsy caravans for The Sudden Yurt Commune!!

It may or may not surprise you to learn that I regularly scour the web for additions to The Sudden Yurt Commune.

And today, I found exactly the kind of vessel I would want for our flagship. I’m jonesing bad for these:

It’s a handmade boat, part of a floating art project called The Swimming Cities of Serenissima.

Description: The Swimming Cities of Serenissima is a fleet of three intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the Adriatic Sea from the Litoral region of Slovenia to Venice, Italy in May of 2009. Designed by the visual artist SWOON, the floating sculptures are descendants of the Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea (Hudson River, 2008) and the Miss Rockaway Armada (Mississippi River, 2006 and 2007).

(all photos Tod Seelie)

Aren’t they amazing? So magical and whimsical.

Further info on the project here.

And, please, you must go here for more photos — they’re gorgeous, breathtaking, every last one — and to follow the tale of their journey.

The SYC needs one of these, don’t you think?

So we can all float down a river, out to sea, to the end of the world, wherever …..

Oooh, drooling. Look, look, look, pippa. I could see this as the beginnings of our Sudden Yurt Commune.

My Amish hippie self is all a’twitter.

Yamahama.

See how this would work? One of us — oh, let’s just say me — could be in the one yurt, waking up, hungry, wander out onto the deck and yell down to the other yurt maybe something like, oh, “Hey, Jayne! Come on, Peaches, wake up! Them five dozen eggs ain’t gonna scramble theirselves! And bring Julia fer me to gobble! Uhm, stat, etc. No, I am not a despot, thank you very much!”

You know, as a small example of the daily JOY you will all find living with me at The Sudden Yurt Commune.

Also note that my grammar will take a steep and sudden nosedive.

But we’ll be livin’ in them yurts! Who keers??

I love the signs in my neighborhood. They’re cool, retro, you always know where you are and isn’t that considerate? Oh, and they light up neon at night.

A few of them ……

See the red umbrellas on the left? That’s Lestat’s, a cool independent coffeehouse, serving the coffee of The Beanhouse and Boheme — delicious Diedrich’s. I inherited some of those red umbrellas myself for little Boheme. (Little Boheme ….. sighhhh …) Of course, kitty-corner to that — basically right where this photo was taken — there’s a Starbucks. Oh, and the marquee? Not a theater anymore, but a huge eclectic discount fabric store. Always makes me wish I could sew when I go in there. I buy fabrics just because they’re purdy and then stash them neatly in the closet. Then, whenever I open said closet, I try not to look at them because I feel guilty that they aren’t living up to their fabric potential. I should give them up for adoption, take them to the Fabric Shelter. I mean, clearly, I can’t care for them. Shhh. Don’t talk about it, okay? Shhhh …. hh …..shhh. Oh, and Normal Heights is one of the least normal places you could possibly live, believe you me. The name has nothing to do with normal/abnormal. Long ago, there was a school or something with that name in the area. Although, also not so good: “I go to the Normal School; uhm, where do YOU go?”

Yes! Declare it! Testify! You are “the B O U L E V A R D”! Indeed!

Why the trolley motif, you ask? Well, because years ago, there was a trolley line that ran in and around my quirky little neighborhood. Notice the ostriches on top of those blue poles? Apparently, in the early 1900s, there was a fellow who had a huge ostrich farm and garden. For a small fee, people could visit his farm and ride the ostriches. Anyone who didn’t want to ride could stroll the gardens or watch handlers race the ostriches. Ostrich races, pippa. Ostrich races.

I tell you true: I was born too late.

Hey! Let’s add that to The Sudden Yurt Commune, okay?

Ostrich races!

(I previously posted this on Friday, reworked it, lost half of it, got distracted, and now here it is again.)

First, pippa, The Sudden Yurt Commune is now its own category. Mainly, because these days, I take the whole fantasy, the whole imagining of our little world very seriously. And also because I expect to be adding to it, creating it more fully as time goes along because I think it’s fun. No. More than that. It gives me joy and I think the whole notion actually de-stresses me these days.

So. On to my question for today.

Imagine that we’ve arrived at our sudden yurt commune. It’s evening. We’ve gathered ’round the fire, gorged on S’mores, sung some campfire songs, become delirious in a Rocky-Mountain-High kind of way from said campfire songs, but we must try to regain ourselves because now — it is time for the Sudden Yurt Commune Book Swap!

You each have brought three special books, with covers you’ve wrapped in plain brown paper to conceal the titles, and placed them on the patchwork quilt in the middle of our circle of happiness and songs and S’mores. On the inside cover of each book, you have written a message to any potential reader, extolling the virtues of the book, sharing what it meant to you, etc. Your goal is to be brief but enthusiastic; you want the reader to be excited to read this book you love. Without giving away the title. You can drop hints, clues, throw in a giveaway word if you like, but don’t name the whole title!

For instance, if I’m Sheila, maybe I write in one of my books (forgive me, Sheila):

“This book may seem like a monster, but no book has ever expressed my own worldview, my own beliefs, so perfectly. It’s a deep and challenging book about …. everything.”

And maybe the book is Hopeful Monsters.

(See the awesome little clue Sheila gave? Good job, Sheila. Except, well, can I be honest? I don’t really feel all that excited about reading the book. Hm. Downer, Sheila. Okay. How’s this: “This book may seem like a monster, but on random pages, I’ve penciled in clues to a buried treasure of GOLD.” Okay, Sheila!! I am now totally excited to read Hopeful Monsters!! Uhm, yesss, so hopefully you all get the idea here and will write much better messages than my faux-Sheilas. And feel free to promise whatever golden treasures you wish.)

Back to our campfire …..

We pass around, oh, an antique humidor that contains numbered strips of paper. When your turn comes, you close your eyes and select three strips from the box. For a brief moment, perhaps, you breathe in the old sweet smell of pipe tobacco wafting from your strips of paper and, overcome with joy, whisper a spontaneous “kum by yah, Lord.” Such is the serenity of The Sudden Yurt Commune.

The swap then begins according to number. When your numbers come up, you pick a book from the pile. You don’t know what book it is. You cannot see the title; it’s covered. Once the rotation is over and everyone has three books, the books are opened to the inside cover only. Do not venture any further into your books! Everyone eagerly reads the messages and tries to guess — based on their memory of what will be revealed in this comment thread — who wrote the messages and, therefore, what books are now in their hot little hands. Each correct guess allows you to unwrap the cover of your book for everyone to bear witness to your rightness — ta daa!

With that as your set-up:

Which three books would you bring to the SYC Book Swap and what would be the message you write on the inside cover of each of your books?

This scenario involves some time-traveling in your head to an imaginary future. You ARE revealing your books and messages now, yes, because some day in our imaginary future, ’round the campfire, people will pick your books and have to remember the identifiers left here, in the comments of this post.

Hope it makes more sense this time.

Really, mystery and mental time-traveling aside, it’s just this: What 3 books would you bring to the SYC Book Swap and what messages would you write in them for any potential reader?

(Although, I like the mystery, but maybe it complicates things for some.)

Ready?

Go.

(Oh, and blog or no blog, long-time reader or short-time reader, anyone can answer this question. The Sudden Yurt Commune welcomes all. You know, until it doesn’t.)

She has created little masterpieces in honor of The Sudden Yurt Commune.

You have GOT to see these. Basically, these would be The Official Cookies of The Sudden Yurt Commune.

I am blown away. They are gorgeous and hilarious both. I can’t stop smiling over these, over the sheer whimsy of Jayne’s heart.

Thank you again, Jayne! I never knew virtual cookies could make me SO happy. Weeeeee!

The perfect psychedelic creature for our psychedelic caravan.

This is for real, pippa! Wonders never cease. Seriously. I love stuff like this.

(I think I see a future member of “The Club of Curious Friends.”)

Read the whole story about Pinky, the albino dolphin, found in a lake in Louisiana.

Oooh. Lisa lives closest; she can kidnap it for us. (Didn’t I read this in a Pat Conroy novel?)

Anyhoo. Our mascot. It’s a beauty, ain’t it?

Oh, I just love my new life in our sudden yurt commune with the sleep-it-off trailer and the Joycean charades and the albino dolphin mascot.

A hippie motorhome, natch. So we can take our sudden yurt commune on the road.

Look at this floor. I am in love. In love, yes, with a floor. Also, the seat fabric. I want to wrap myself in fabric like this and roll around on this floor.

“Hey, you guys. Where’s Tracey? It’s time for Joycean charades!”

“Uh, she’s in the motorhome. Rolling on the floor. MB’s trying to get her to stop.”

“Poor MB.”

“I know.”

The commune kitchen. Check it out, chef-aroos! Jayne. Nightfly. This is where you’ll be lovingly chained to the counter, ‘mkay?

The psychedelic loft. Where all the hungover alcoholics can sleep it off. Me first!