Tag Archives: homemade

Decoupage

Decoupage: (n) the art or technique of decorating something with cut-outs of flat materials over which varnish or lacquer is applied.

I’ve heard it mentioned.

People have threatened to do it.

In the midst of a meeting, it has inspired a whole room, leaving them agog with anticipation.

“We could decoupage.”

The only reason I even knew the definition is that one time, upon leaving such a gathering, feeling ignorant, I looked it up in the dictionary. I also watched a video of what may apparently be the only soul who actually has tackled the process.

Yet it is a favored suggestion. However, when actually placed in the context of the moment, is quickly avoided due to the amount of work it entails.

It’s sticky, it’s messy and after it’s finished, it screams at the top of its lungs:

 “I’m homemade!”

I don’t know how it ever got a reputation for being elegant, cool and “happening.”

But since I feel fairly certain that I will never decoupage anything (and am probably riling up some ardent “decoupagers”) I will stop criticizing the process and declare it an art form—which I hope will make everybody happy.

 

Amp

dictionary with letter A

Amp: (v) short for amplification. To amplify sound electrically.

“It’s all about the equipment.”

That’s what they told me.

My response was always the same. “Actually, it’s all about the money to buy the equipment.”

I was in my early twenties and had a music group which required a sound system. Lacking funds, I attempted to tap into my ingenuity, which honestly had not yet found root, let alone gained blossom.

So using my limited understanding of electronics, I acquired a beat-up guitar amp, went out and purchased speakers at Radio Shack, which I fastened in to some homemade wooden boxes I had constructed myself, but found at the end of the process that I didn’t have enough money left to cover the boxes with cloth to protect the speakers.

To say it looked homemade would be a statement of generosity.

But I hauled it in from place to place, careful not to puncture the cones of the speakers. The guitar amp was so ill-suited to power the system that feedback and buzz became part of the ambience–which I pretended did not exist.

One night after a show, a dear gentleman walked up to me and said, “You need a PA system.”

He was so kind that I decided not to be defensive and merely nodded my head in agreement. Three weeks earlier he had purchased a Shure Vocalmaster unit, complete with two column speakers, which he decided not to use because his dream of becoming a great rock star had fizzled very quickly.

In his mercy and goodness he donated this system to me.

My God, I was so overwhelmed. The Shure Vocalmaster was the top of the line of the day. Of course, compared to the systems available today, it was clunky, sounded muddy and lacked the power to cover any more than a 150-seat auditorium.

But I used that system in one way or another for the next twelve years.

Matter of fact, I wept when it finally gave up the ghost and became a part of my career history.

Amps are nice. They make what we have to offer louder.

That only leaves one responsibility to us–to make sure what is being amplified is worth hearing.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix