And for information on beading, ask an epidemiologist today!
So I go to the bead store in University Village. Every time I go there, I'm reminded of the old king, Kaspar, in Amahl and the Night Visitors, because the place is like Kaspar's box, writ large:
"This is my box, this is my box... I never travel without my box.
In the first drawer I keep my magic stones.
One carnelian against all evil and envy.
One moonstone to make you sleep.
One red coral to heal your wounds.
One lapis lazuli against quartern fever.
One small jasper to help you find water.
One small topaz to soothe your eyes.
One red ruby to protect you from lightning"
"This is my box. this is my box I never travel without my box
In the second drawer, I keep all my beads. Oh! How I love to play with beads ...all kinds of beads!
This is my box... this is my box... I never travel without my box."
Picture jasper, chrysocolla, crazy lace agate, unakite, dragon's-blood jasper, moonstone, adventurine. This is when I start wanting a box like the old king's. And every kind of glass beads. (And also incense and patchouli oil and bead curtains, and crystals and pentacles for fluffy pagans, and kitschy vintage jewelry, and embarrassing art featuring dragons and sorceresses and Native Americans looking fierce and noble and ecological...there's a little bit of everything in the bead shop.)
Talking with the proprietor about the copper findings I want, I mention how a jewelry-making friend has complained to me that all the crimp covers offered by her mail-order supplier contain lead.
She launches into a lecture about how there's no earthly way that the lead content of a tiny little crimp cover could hurt you, especially because the toxicity of lead is hugely exaggerated anyway. Apparently we live in a benign world where the dangers that existed when we evolved the flight-or-fight impulse don't exist anymore, so we convince ourselves that harmless things are dangerous to justify and enchannel our free-floating angst. (Or something.) Plus, she grew up in a house full of lead paint and nommed on lead paint chips all the time when she was a wee tot, and it didn't hurt her one bit. All of which is delivered with an insufferably smug "you don't know the history of lead paint! I do!" look.
Clearly the EPA and the CDC have been talking through their hats for years. My friend the bead-shop keeper should publish a paper and set them all straight.
"This is my box, this is my box... I never travel without my box.
In the first drawer I keep my magic stones.
One carnelian against all evil and envy.
One moonstone to make you sleep.
One red coral to heal your wounds.
One lapis lazuli against quartern fever.
One small jasper to help you find water.
One small topaz to soothe your eyes.
One red ruby to protect you from lightning"
"This is my box. this is my box I never travel without my box
In the second drawer, I keep all my beads. Oh! How I love to play with beads ...all kinds of beads!
This is my box... this is my box... I never travel without my box."
Picture jasper, chrysocolla, crazy lace agate, unakite, dragon's-blood jasper, moonstone, adventurine. This is when I start wanting a box like the old king's. And every kind of glass beads. (And also incense and patchouli oil and bead curtains, and crystals and pentacles for fluffy pagans, and kitschy vintage jewelry, and embarrassing art featuring dragons and sorceresses and Native Americans looking fierce and noble and ecological...there's a little bit of everything in the bead shop.)
Talking with the proprietor about the copper findings I want, I mention how a jewelry-making friend has complained to me that all the crimp covers offered by her mail-order supplier contain lead.
She launches into a lecture about how there's no earthly way that the lead content of a tiny little crimp cover could hurt you, especially because the toxicity of lead is hugely exaggerated anyway. Apparently we live in a benign world where the dangers that existed when we evolved the flight-or-fight impulse don't exist anymore, so we convince ourselves that harmless things are dangerous to justify and enchannel our free-floating angst. (Or something.) Plus, she grew up in a house full of lead paint and nommed on lead paint chips all the time when she was a wee tot, and it didn't hurt her one bit. All of which is delivered with an insufferably smug "you don't know the history of lead paint! I do!" look.
Clearly the EPA and the CDC have been talking through their hats for years. My friend the bead-shop keeper should publish a paper and set them all straight.