When we get back from Spain, here are some things I will do.
learn to contradance at Tapestry Folkdance Center! they have weekly dances, and it will not require much use of my bad arm (still dealing with shoulder pain), but will require lots of smiling.
try new vegetarian recipes, like the stuffed mushroom caps I just learned to make from Loren (pecorino cheese mmm!). We also had a great quinoa salad, and he makes a delicious soup with butternut squash and other veggies. I made them with him the other day, and they are banoodles. I have plenty of cookbooks.
take up beading again, and use those beading supplies I have lying around.I've been getting lots of inspiration from Spanish accessories stores.
knit a scarf with the lovely Malabrigo wool from Argentina that I bought two years ago! It's sitting there, right by the sofa.
Use my Mr. Bento to bring my lunch on the days I teach: here is a Flickr pool for inspiration. This one just involves remembering. I won't go as far as making it a daily thing, but three times a week is a good start. Saves money, more healthy, but also aesthetically pleasing.
Just a few New Year's resolutions that don't involve grim decisions about weight loss, a gym, or work. I want 2012 to be the Year of Creativity. After January, I have some other projects in mind, but these will do for a start.
Just a few blocks from the apartment is an old neighborhood where demolished buildings have left walls exposed. This is the sixth year that the city and graffiti artists have collaborated in an "Asalto" (assault) of urban mural art, with guest artists and local artists leading workshops, creating new murals, and making us look in new ways at urban spaces otherwise seen as "vacant" or "unused."
We are going to spend the holidays with family in Zaragoza, Spain. One of my favorite CDs is by the Orquestina del Fabirol, called "Albada al Nacimiento"--a collection of solstice/Christmas music from Aragón, sung in aragonés. In this video, they play a tango! but they use traditional instruments and arrangements. They are going to be doing a series of concerts this season while we are in town, so I'm hoping to see them perform!
A recipe for the season is "Cardo con almendras"(cardoons with almond sauce).
Cardo (Cynara cardunculus) is a member of the aster family, thistly like the artichoke. In English, it's called the cardoon. Originally from North Africa, it's grown in Sicily, Italy, France and Spain. It's especially prized in Aragón. The plant has elements that can be used to in cheese-making (as a coagulating agent), and some medicinal properties.
Here in the U.S., I have no idea if cardoons can ever be found in Minnesota farmers' markets because it's a very Mediterranean plant, but they are used as a decorative garden plant here, and requires covering and protecting in the winter. You can get them in the San Francisco organic market at the Ferry Building, according to this NPR story with a recipe. In Spain, it's easy to buy the cleaned and cooked stems already prepared in jars or frozen in grocery stores, but in this video you see how you have to peel the prickly part off the fresh stems; the little spines can be very painful. If you're willing to do the prep, though, they are delicious.
For the sauce, you sauté in olive oil onion, garlic, parsley, jamón (like prosciutto). Thicken with a little flour, and some pine nuts and almonds that have been ground. Add broth, salt, and cook it to the desired consistency.
A reel of bgirl stars that highlights powermoves. It's not longer true that only the bboys can do spins and flares, but it's not all about power either.
UPDATED: Leee! suggested I check out Narumi and Shie Chan. They are part of the crew Queen of Queenz from Japan.
*cracks knuckles*
I have to grade the last set of papers before the students turn in their finals next week. So, one last round of procrastination, and then it's ALL WORK!
Procrastination activity the first:
While walking in the Mission in SF, we came across this cool store that was growing succulent plants using a vertical garden arrangement. I dearly would like to put one of these on my back porch, which gets Western sun exposure, to grow herbs and veggies in the summer. The store was using Wooly Pocket planters, but there are other kinds around.
This is an early trailer (a "teaser") for David Fincher's film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Apparently, he is adapting the books and not remaking the Swedish films (that also adapted the books). The cuts in this trailer are (according to an editor) at half-second intervals, or 12 frames each. The song is a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" by Trent Reznor, with vocals by Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah Yeahs.
Everyone and their sister has mashed up the soundtrack and edited their favorite movies to make versions of this (The Lion King, Dark Knight, Inception, The Cable Guy, Harry Potter!)
Fincher's previous film The Social Network gets the treatment:
Mark Mallman has a new song called "Minneapolis" that has been trotting through my head, it's so catchy. I am reconnecting with the winter after our five dreamy days in San Francisco.
Yesterday was relatively mild, and the squirrels were out, going crazy. They knew we were in for our first real snowfall, and I'll bet they are curled up in their little nests this morning. I had my first real shoveling-of-the-walk experience. It'd the fluffy kind you can push away where it hasn't been stepped on, but the tramped-down stuff needed a foot on the shovel to scrape up the plaques. No ice, though, so there's that. There is fluffy snow on the branches, the scrape-scrape sound of the neighbors shoveling their walks, and we are about to clean off the car to go out and about.
We spent five days in San Francisco for the holiday. The ocean air and the view of the bridge from China Beach are a refresher for my soul, before returning to face the next five months of Minnesota winter.
Coyotes have been spotted near the Museum of the Legion of Honor, not surprisingly.
In the Batman stories, the people project a distress signal, the "Bat Signal," when they want their hero to rescue them On Nov. 17, these signals were projected on the facade of the Verizon Building, not to call for a hero, but as a "mic check" of the kinds of things that people have been chanting in their occupations across the nation.
Do Not Be Afraid.
via Boing Boing, this footage of the "bat signal", the projections on the Verizon Building as thousands of people in New York peacefully demonstrated on the Brooklyn Bridge on November 17. The interview tells how the idea came about, how they found a place for their projector, how they created the projections.
Here is a remix with music by Hans Zimmer from the Batman movie. Note the hashtags in the title #N17 #Occupy, and the Anonymous iconography!
All over the UC system, students and faculty have been organizing over the past few years in opposition to tuition hikes but also to the ways that the administration has been making decisions about its priorities in running this educational institution. So the most recent events on UC campuses, in the context of the Occupy movement, should be understood not as something new but as the next stage in this movement. But the acts of police brutality--a cliche, but there are no other words--against non-violent students and faculty, have resulted in serious injuries and shown clearly that the administration thinks that violence is an appropriate response to a non-violent display of opposition.
As could have been expected, these events have galvanized people--workers, teachers, and students--in the entire UC system. This web site, Reclaim UC, provides a useful round-up of news and responses.
As an alumna of the University of California at Berkeley (BA, MA, and PhD) who attended from 1974-1988, I am entirely unsurprised by this thuggery, as I knew of or witnessed similar incidents around other issues, but it is important to remember that not everyone has these memories, and it is still essential that indignation and repulsion be expressed at these illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane uses of force to coerce people into shutting up and going away. University of California campuses are "public" but, as I learned during jury duty on a trespassing case on the UC Berkeley campus, they legally are the "property" of the Regents of the UC system, a legal fiction that is used to justify removal of anyone (including an old man eating his lunch in Evans Hall on a Sunday) that a bored cop wants to push around.
This event, at UC Davis, shows both an act of gratuitous violence on the part of police, and an angry but peaceful and sane response by the crowd, which refuses the provocation and accomplishes their goal of taking back their space.
Students sitting in the quad at UC Davis are pepper-sprayed like bugs by a cop. Watch all the way to the end to see what the crowd does.
This open letter to UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katebi by an untenured professor Nathan Brown explains what the event was about in the first place--protesting tuition hikes and previous examples of police brutality on UC campuses--and describes in more detail what was done to the students who were assaulted with chemical weapons:
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they
could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing
their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face,
holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes
with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed
down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others
are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being
pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
Ydanis Rodríguez is a New York City Council member who was violently assaulted by police, detained for 17 hours, bleeding from the head, without access to his lawyer. He was one of 200 arrested, along with 9 members of the media.
.
Keith Olbermann interviews the 84-year old woman who was pepper-sprayed yesterday. Dorli Rainey from Seattle, originally from Austria. She is a long-time activist, who stopped off to see what was happening. Listen to this smart, brave woman, who grew up under the Nazis, talking about her work of consciousness-raising.
Kabocha squash is a favorite food of the Japanese. It's the kind of squash that turns up in your tempura. We have decided that it is best eaten plain: no need for salt, butter, sweet stuff, anything--it's so good! Of course, it would be great in any dish that calls for pumpkins, squash, or sweet potatoes. You could puree it with broth for a soup, roast slices with salt, pepper and olive oil, but the texture is light and fluffy, with a flavor that is reminiscent of chestnuts. I LOVE love love Kabocha. Here is a recipe for a very simple Japanese dish with Kabocha.
Martha Stewart is all over it with Tadashi Ono's recipe for a hot pot (shabu shabu) with Kabocha, from his book Japanese Hot Pots. You can cook it at the table with an electric skillet.
"And the stocks go up, but the jobs disappear..."
Why is that?
-- MAMA ECONOMY SONG LYRICS -----
Are you confused about the economy? Well have no fear --
I'm going to explain the American economy right now
The dollar just think of it like
a promise from the government
But the value of the dollar
has to be there to be relevant
The value of the dollar comes from
China and Iran
When they put their cash reserves
in a U.S. dollar plan -
They buy treasury bonds from
The Federal Reserve
We say "we owe you extra money
cause you gave us some of yours"
That's a big part
of the National Debt
All the interest that we
haven't paid to China quite yet -
And a hundred other countries
Cause we're such a good investment
The whole world gives us money
We say "Hey we'll pay you interest!"
This is how money is created from air
Bank bailouts, federal budgets
Money isn't really there -
It's an I.O.U., remember dollars are a promise
When you borrow from a bank
It's not from other depositors
The money for your loan
Gets created on the spot
Then they put it in your name
Gamble on your life and body -
But if you lose your job
Then you were a bad bet
If a million lose their jobs
Then we have a recession
Here's the dirty secret
Your labor's too expensive
Wall Street wants you spending money
But they never want to pay you -
In your life cash and credit
They are very different things
But your credit's someone else's cash
Once it leaves your name
This is why money is debt
And your debt is good for
Wall Street prosperity -
And economic growth since the 1970s
Is consumers getting credit
Without wages increasing
So when they talk about the housing crisis
They never say we need to lower housing prices -
We need better devices
To afford high prices
Meaning higher debt lower interest
Cause you're underpaid to begin with
That's the cycle we're in
We don't understand so
All we can do is question
[Chorus]
Mama economy make me understand
All the numbers why Daddy's on a welfare plan
'Turnin thirty forty fifty gotta move in with my parents
And the stocks go up but the jobs disappear
Because wages barely grew for 40 years
When you buy stuff
They delay the cost of ownership
You can't afford it
so they make it to depend
On endless small transactions
Which is more like renting
You pay more for printer ink
Than you do for gold and
More for bottled water
Than you do for oil
Razor blades are made to
Oxidate
So you're forever in debt to them
Just to shave
It's a type of socialism
called market socialism
The best designed product
Meets a need and doesn't last
We subsidize waste
With landfills and holidays like
Earth Day teachin' kids:
Recycle please
Kids won't learn in school
we live one worldview
neoliberal economics
In all of our politics
They don't ask why corporations
are human citizens
Or why grandma pays more taxes
Cause she lacks stock dividends
Or why private bankers
Print the public money
Or why democracy is broken
Cause their leaders won't be cutting
Loopholes or subsidies
For constituent industries
Putting legislative bodies
In a deep freeze
So the Ph.Ds and the G.E.D.s
Cry with Ayn Rand down at the temp agency
Sayin' "we believed in
Meri-tocracy
But there's more to the story--
Someone answer me!
NPR posted a list of "songs best heard extra-loud" ("these go to 11" in honor of Spinal Tap). A lot of the comments on the post were all about heavy metal or guitar rock. I made my own little list, by no means complete, of songs that always make me turn up the radio.
I totally agree with their first choice song, "Roadrunner" by The Modern Lovers, but I much prefer this version to the one they posted; it's the one I had:
The first cut on the Los Angeles album by X also must be cranked:
Which Eno-era Roxy Music song to include? "Love is the Drug", with that great bass line? "Virginia Plain"? or "Do the Strand"? or go directly to Eno's "Baby's On Fire" with the Robert Fripp solo? NPR included Eno's "His Third Uncle" which is more percussive, but I always turned this one way up: "Here Come the Warm Jets" (1974):
How about Glady Knight and the Pips doing this kick-ass live version of Imagination? especially when those horns kick in at the end.
Home-town band Sly and the Family Stone, "Dance to the Music"
and the funk of my youth: "Atomic Dog" (why must I feel like that? why must I chase the cat?)
In this video, you see an excerpt of a much longer dance-performance "Cédric Andrieux by Jérome Bel", an event I attended last night. During an hour and a half, the dancer himself, Andrieux, narrates and performs the history of his relationship to dance, including his years as a member of Merce Cunningham's company. He joined when Cunningham was already 80 years old, but was still pushing the boundaries of dance, as he had throughout his long life as a creator.
What this video shows are Andrieux's performance of two Cunningham solos he shared with us, one that he performed over 110 times (Biped), the other a role danced decades earlier by Cunningham himself. What you don't see in this video is everything else the audience for the Bel-Andrieux piece learned about the dancer himself, how he came to dance with Cunningham, what the daily routine of Cunningham exercises was like, the intensely hard work of learning the choreography, how a rehearsal worked, what it felt like to perfom, the emotional ups and downs of relationships over the years. Our experiencing of watching him perform pieces was transformed by the dancer's knowledge he had shared withus with us, and it was an amazing gift.
Choreographer Jérome Bel explains the process of collaboration that created this particular piece, which is one of a series of such dancer-biographies he has created, in this fascinating "Talk Dance" podcast from The Walker Art (27 minutes).
This excerpt from the piece he created with Véronique Doisneaux gives an idea of what we experienced with Cédric Andrieux.
And in this second excerpt, she dances a Cunningham piece as well as something from Giselle.
I love maps. When I was in fifth grade, our teacher told us all we would get to spend time on a hobby. I had no hobbies (all I did was read, and reading was not going to count as a hobby) so I decided that mine would be maps. This was related to my desire to travel everywhere in the world some day. I didn't quite know what to do with this hobby, so I made a copy of a map of Australia. I think my teacher was disappointed, but I enjoyed it.
I discovered this fascinating interview-portrait of the artist Leonora Carrington while preparing my classes on Frida Kahlo in film for the week. It is an excerpt from the film Gifted Beauty
LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce from Neil Astley on Vimeo.
You can find more about the work of Pamela Robertson-Pearce at her website. Here's the description of the film project from the Vimeo site:
LEONORA CARRINGTON (born 1917) is an English-born surrealist artist and
writer who has lived in Mexico since the Second World War. She is the
last surviving original member of the celebrated group of 20th-century
women Surrealist artists who came together in Paris which included
Leonor Fini, Frida Kahlo (co-opted by André Breton), Lee Miller, Meret
Oppenheim and Remedios Varo. This video is an excerpt from the film
GIFTED BEAUTY (Ragg Film, 2000) which examines the work of all six
artists along with that of the contemporary Norwegian artist Vilde von
Krogh. It features the interviews with Leonora Carrington (in Mexico
City and New York City) used in the film made by filmmaker and assistant
director Pamela Robertson-Pearce, along with her footage of Mexico (the
Day of the Dead and Leonora Carrington's sculptures in the boulevard on
Paseo Reforma, Mexico City). GIFTED BEAUTY was directed by Anne Kjersti
Bjørn, with music by Maia Urstad and animations by Gustav Kvall.
Barbara Ehrenreich brings the class analysis, as usual
This song brings the hope:
Ari Herstand: http://ariherstand.com • http://youtube.com/ariherstand •
Lyrics:
Dear Washington and Wall Street,
We are the 99% and we're here to stop the machine.
Why is that we only come through in times of crisis
Can't recognize the need while we stare at our devices
See, I got the graph and I got the stats
And I got the need to keep people from the rats
More than simply a game of motivation
The idea that together we're better then evolution
Not me against you
But really an us
See, The world is our oyster
Only we can destruct
Democracy seems really cool
The idea that we give voice, even to the fool
But see that's the problem
With our system of learning
The fantastic drips down
And infects the yearning
Are we meant to play the game on even ground
Or is that the fairytale that makes the merry-go-round
Used to be tribes
Then the nation state drew borders
Every revolution comes from disrespecting orders
But I got hope
And I believe in peace
In Korea, South Asia and the Middle East
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love
Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near
He said good morning could you raise your right hand
Step into the jurors box and take a stand
On trial are the quiet dreams of our fathers
See those dreams draw lines between us and others
Built our corporate present on them dotted lines
It's those strange shapes that seem to plague the mind
Mine and yours
An equation outdated
The prosecution suggests it be recalibrated
My patriotic dream is recast as struggle
We the people be building out of this rubble
How many more rotations about the sun
Before my brothers in arms will lay down their guns
"We the people" is beyond a battle cry
A Formula for peace and progress in our time
The current manifesto manifests too small
Promise of living is dwarfed by the wall
My aim is not guilt nor material goods
My sights on inspiration cross all latitudes
My declaration declares one thing
Creation exists in each human being
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love
Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near
Whispers of the revolution are getting louder
on the
Wall Streets and Main Streets
from New York
to Los Angeles
and around the world
See, we need the corruption and greed to end
And we need to learns respect for all of our brothers and sisters
See youth, it's a state of mind
and we preach a future full of
Love
Hope
and progress
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love
Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near
Have you had a flu shot yet? This NPR visualization of the flu virus comes via Open Culture. I"m endlessly fascinated by the intricate dynamics of every cell, acting in concert with every other cell.
Argh, grading can be so tedious! even though my students are doing very well. Here's a cephalopod break for my brain. Science Friday is one of my favorite radio shows, and their web page is full of goodies for when you need to take a break from work.
Some voices are instantly recognizable, whether you hear them on commercials, in animated films, or as voice-over narration for nature documentaries. We were watching an episode of The Simpsons (as usual) when I heard a voice I recognized as Werner Herzog's. I remember vividly first hearing his voice when I saw Les Blank's documentary Burden of Dreams, about the making of Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo (1982). Blank screened the rough cut in the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, and because I didn't own a TV, and the amazing student price made the PFA was like my second home. I was absolutely fascinated and enthralled by this bit toward the end of the film, in which Herzog says Nature is "not erotical." Gracias a YouTube, I can relive that moment.
The band Foster the People has had a huge hit with the incredibly catchy song "Pumped up Kicks.' We've been listening to it on the car radio and singing along, even though we couldn't really decide what they were singing in the chorus. We got the first part:
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
they'd better run, better run,
faster than....
but then what were they singing? faster than my brother? faster than my puppy? faster than my puppet? What does it sound like to you?
Turns out that the song is really a dark little psychodrama. Ann Powers has a brilliant take on it posted in her NPR blog The Record, where she compares it to The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer." (but Talking Heads made paranoia a musical style while this is shiny).
I looked up the lyrics, and it's "faster than my bullet."
Note the discussion of the lyrics' meaning in the comments to the lyrics post.
The first time I tried Facebook, I ended up deleting my account in disgust at the underhanded way the company changed its terms of service. I got back on again because a few dear people communicate that way more than with blogs or Twitter, and I wanted to keep in touch. But, once again, I have deleted ---or "deleted"-- my account because of the untrustworthiness of Facebook. As a Twitter buddy answered instantly when I tweeted that I'd deleted (heh heh), my Facebook account will outlive me. Literally.
In my explorations before I made this decision, I found out about an add-on called Ghostery that can make visible most of the tracking mechanisms you don't even realize are harvesting data from you without your knowledge, and block them if you choose. This review on CNET gives more details, if you're interested. Without all the third-party tracker crap, I wonder if my browser will run faster?
I don't know what it better, the ride or the commentators' hysterical joy. Danny Hart won a world championship in Champéry, Swizterland with this amazing ride.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
[Whoa, Blogger has a new interface, checking it out.]
I have now met my students for the first week, and I'm happy. I'm learning their names, and getting an idea of what the groups will be like. The novelty this semester is teaching at 8AM for the first time in ages, and having classes meet back to back in the same room. I have to flog myself to get up early enough to be lucid by the time I start, and I have to make sure I have something to eat in between so I don't feel faint, but so far, so good.
This semester, it will be Fridamania.
I am also teaching freshman for the first time in a while, and brings its own challenges. But I also know others are teaching five/four/three loads. I would never be up to the physical challenge--my sleep has been poor for the last two weeks, and my pain levels when I wake are daunting; my shoulder problems with rotator cuff impingement are back. I will get into the rhythm.
Tonight, Ms R. begins a drawing class that will meet once a week. Exciting! I have a new notebook from moleskine that folds out Japanese-style, and I have done exactly two sketches in it: one of Ms. R's face, and another of a chair. It has been ages since I tried to draw anything. I'm so used to thinking of everyone else as the artist, and of myself as the critic.
I learned from my daughter (who has spent time in school in Spain) and also from colleaguesm, that Spanish schoolkids are required to memorize the poem "Canción del pirata" by José de Espronceda. I was treated to impromptu recitations, and told that a heavy metal band called Tierra Nueva had turned the poem into a song.
Of course, the mash-up with Pirates of the Caribbean was absolutely necessary.
UMN Art students in a printmaking class bust out of two dimensions with their project "Blood Vengeance 2011."
How did they make these masks? Check out the illustrated step-by-step photo explanation of "relief printmaking" here.
The death of Federico García Lorca was 75 years ago, on August 19. I met him first not as poet but as a musician.
Federico García Lorca did the musical arrangements to a series of popular songs. There is a recording in which he plays the piano with a singer called La Argentinita. But my earliest contact with Lorca, before I read his poetry and plays in high school, was through a record my mother had, of Victoria de los Angeles singing Spanish songs. Among them were these four:
-Anda jaleo.
-Los cuatro muleros.
-Las tres hojas.
Los mozos de moleón.
Victoria de los Angeles, soprano. Miguel Zanetti, piano. Many others have sung these songs, some of them arguably with better technique, but Victoria de los Angeles will always be the voice of the first words in Spanish I think of the first Spanish words I ever heard.
These are a couple of clips I took at the Minnesota Zoo, watching two of the three Brown bears (also called grizzly bears) playing in the water. Earlier, we had seen the three of them napping.
All three were rescued as orphaned cubs in 2006. The two males are named Haines and Kenai, and the female is called Sadie. They all just turned five years old this year. They will reach their full growth in another year, perhaps. Haines, the largest, will probably reach a weight of 1200 lbs and stand 9 feet tall when upright. Because of human encroachment on their habitat, the impact of global warming, and other threats, conservation efforts in zoos are important for increasing knowledge about endangered animals as well as reproduction programs. These bears at the MN Zoo are given lots of new things to react to in their habitat. To see them just hanging out from so close is incredible. Having seen the Herzog documentary film Grizzly Man, based on the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, I don't see the bears as just "cute," but they are fascinatingly attractive.
They have lots more great videos at MN Zoo YouTube Channel. I have lots of questions about what will happen when the bears are old enough to mate (very soon). Will they have to separate them? Will the males compete for Sadie? Of course, they will have a plan for this, but I'd love to learn more.
In a video on the zoo's website, the Zoo's Director and keepers explain some of the "enrichment and training" activities that they use to keep the animals from getting bored, help them engage in their natural behaviors, and also provide opportunities for research. There's a great segment on the bears.
I'm learning how to use the new Picssa for Mac program so I can share and upload photos more easily.
I have way too many photos on the hard drives of my computers, and even though they are backed up to an external hard drive (most of them), I'm reluctant to delete them. This is a holdover from the days when we paid to print every lousy shot--I am a photo hoarder. This lack of organization also means it's hard to find specific images when I want them without spending lots of time since they are mostly unlabeled. I'm going to try to get a handle on this, and especially work on sharing batches with friends and family online.
Question: can I purge my photo files AND my shoe collection this weekend? or is that too much discipline at once? Maybe I should try one or the other first!
Eighteen months ago we packed up our department offices and moved into temporary space while Folwell Hall was being gutted and reconfigured. My department has moved from the grotty, filthy, vermin-infested basement to a clean, quiet second floor. My new office faces south and for the first time in 22 years, I will have an office with natural light, decent climate control, no noise from crowds students sitting on the floor in the halls waiting for class, no noise from chairs being rearranged overhead, no grit and dirt tracked in all winter, a bathroom that is not used by hundreds of other people during that day. It's sinking in that I'll have an office I actually will be able to enjoy working in! What a concept. It feels as if I have received a promotion or a raise. The foundation and exterior had already been redone some years ago. Check out this cool slideshow to see the exterior of the building with some fun architectural details that were preserved or restored.
The quality of my work life has been incredibly improved. The moving process itself, the packing and unpacking, is time-consuming, but stimulating. Once again I am confronted by the sheer volume of STUFF I am dragging around and that is cluttering up my space, and my brain.This time, the purge must be complete and merciless!
One unexpected consequence has hit me this week. I feel, for the first time in ages, excited about writing again. I feel as if I can contemplate making a commitment to writing without dread and panic. Writing on this blog is one step. Writing in my work life, which I have avoided in unhealthy ways for too long, is the next.
There's nothing like moving 22 years worth of papers and books twice in 18 months to make one confront the gap between intentions and action. As I shelved my books, I got excited about the projects some of them represent. More to the point, there is no room in my new, lovely office for more than four drawers of paper files, and no files are allowed to live at home. My goal in the next few weeks is to sort through the contents of all these boxes (15! 15!!!) and recycle what I will never use again or SCAN those I want to keep.
Which pile will include papers I wrote in graduate school? those articles I painstakingly tracked down using the enormous card catalogue, running up and down nine flights of stairs in the UC Berkeley library, paying to photocopy them and carefully placing each page so nothing was cut off? the sheer amount of labor devoted to collecting this material over the years is an obstacle to blithely tossing it in the recycle bin. And I HAVE used a lot of this material, for writing or classes. So now, in this brief interlude before classes begin, it's a good time to open each box, sort things into piles, and work up a righteous buzz of recycling anything that I have not touched in ten years, and will not read or use for a writing project. That will force me to decide which of the many abandoned writing projects are still viable, and which ones need to be released into the wild.
from the last performance episode of So You Think You Can Dance (season 8), my favorite dancer from this year, Sasha, with my favorite dancer of the show, Mark.
Choreography: Sonyah Tayeh
Dancers: Mark Kanemura and Sasha
Music: Deadmaus, "Raise Your Weapon"
Here's Sasha dancing with Twitch to a classic song, "Misty Blue"--gives me goosebumps! Choreography by LXD's Christopher Scott.
I also liked Travis Wall's "vulture stalks boy" piece for Tadd and Jordan. Tadd may be primarily a b-boy, but he brings incredible charisma and musicality to his dances, and this was a number that got him to the finale.
Not as technically challenging, but there are only so many angry angtsy dances one can take. This was Broadway Jazz fun, with Melanie and Tadd. She probably will win tonight, but you never know!
Finally, I also liked Melanie and Sasha together in a Stacey Tookie piece that was billed as "Mad Men"-era frustrated housewives, but that I read as two women who don't realize they should run away together.
It is the end of July, and all month we have lived with suffocating heat and humidity. From time to time, I long for the San Francisco fog. I'd rather wear a sweater than swelter any day.
My Tiger on the Road came home from China after a splendid time, but now she is away again, in Switzerland with her dads, while Blas is at a conference. I wish I could be there with them! Since I can't, I'm watching videos of mother animals with their young. The tigers here are at the Zurich Zoo.
I am absolutely enamored of the site ZooBorns which brings news of new babies in zoos around the world. Inevitably, the joy of their arrival is tinged with the sadness that they should be in zoos because their species are threatened in their natural habitat. It takes a lot for one of these babies to survive:
The gestation period for Indian rhino pregnancies is approximately 16 months. When born, calves normally weigh in the range of 75-100 pounds and will nurse throughout their first two years. They are normally able to stand just hours after being born.
From the YouTube description:
"Journalist and author Doug Saunders, talks to Allan Gregg about his new book "Arrival City", which examines the global trend of urban migration and argues that immigration will be critical to the success of economics in Canada and around the world."
One of the huge changes in human life in the last few hundred years is the shift from rural to urban life. This is occurring everywhere, sometimes at an enormously accelerated pace (as in China today).I'm eager to read this book.
Follow the link above to see a video of Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! interviewing Nick Davies, the journalist whose years of investigative reporting broke open the "phone hacking" situation in London: he explains clearly the characters, the chronology, the motivations. He (and reporters for the New York Times) pursued this story for years, in spite of major intimidation by the Murdoch empire. It really helps give the context for what is going on.
If you have an hour, it's even more fascinating to listen to this podcast of a round-table discussion, led by the Guardian's Media reporter, about the Murdoch hearings, complete with eye-witness accounts of the hearings themselves, and the infamous pie incident.
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie took on Rupert Murdoch as a target of satire on their show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. From Wikipedia:
"The show did not shy away from commenting on issues of the day. A sketch in the second series, in which a Conservative government minister is strangled while Stephen Fry screams at him "What are you doing to the television system? What are you doing to the country?", is an attack on the Broadcasting Act of 1990 and the perceived motivations of those who supported it. The pair would later attack what they saw as the Act's malign aftereffects in the sketch "It's A Soaraway Life", a parody of It's a Wonderful Life evoking a world in which Rupert Murdoch had not existed."
Two guys suit up to ride their longboards down the Claremont Canyon road. I used to live not far from where this road ends at the Oakland/Berkeley border, and I know that road well; it's one of the few ways to get through the Oakland hills from the valley inland if you're going toward the Bay.
Back when I lived there (over 20 years ago now) I'd heard about people doing this ride at night (!) so as not to get caught (and I'll bet they weren't wearing helments!). They must have some seriously pro equipment to get that smooth a ride going that fast. Dang, I say, dang!
Here in Minneapolis we are experiencing a record heat wave combined with unusually high dew points, levels that have made it necessary to issue a heat warning until Wed. I am thankful to have a window A/C unit and a fan to keep things livable in my place for my kitty.
My favorite version of the song "Summertime" by George Gershwin, from Porgy and Bess, sung by Billy Stewart in 1966.
Billy Stewart's songs were popular in the Bay Area when I was growing up,I remember slow-dancing to this song in high school.
We saw the documentary movie "Buck" this weekend. If you can see it, you should. It's amazing. It's about one of the leading practitioners of "Natural Horsemanship" (as it has come to be called), which avoids punishment in favor of communication, or "firm and fair" communication.
Here's an interview with horseman Buck Brannaman and the filmmaker, Cindy Meehl.
At the end of the film, there is this song by Pearl Jam that gives me goosebumps:
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