After watching the Tony Awards show, it seemed to me as if every novel or movie has been made into a musical--Shrek, Wicked, Billy Elliot. The show "Glee" on Fox has already got me hooked with its group of singing, dancing kids who come alive with their love of musical theater. And of course, I'm a complete sucker for SYTYCD. So I was delighted to find these videos, courtesy of Margaret Lyons of EW Online of HARRY POTTER: THE MUSICAL!
StarKidPotter has posted the complete show on YouTube with this introduction:
"Get ready for a musical adventure as Harry Potter and his pals go back to Hogwarts for another year of learning shenanigans! Only this year their wizarding world gets turned on its head when the Dark Lord, Voldemort, comes back from the dead to take his revenge on The Boy Who Lived. Filled with magical fun and original songs by Darren Criss and AJ Holmes, this is a Potter-spectacular that no fan should miss. So take a ride on Voldemort's flying machine and get ready to back to Hogwarts!"
To watch all the clips in order, you can either click here (there are 2 Act and 23 clips in all) or watch them below:
Highlight: Lord Voldemort's tap number "To Dance Again!" Probably a lot of musical theater gags are going right over my head, but I hung around the drama kids in high school, so there are plenty of laughs, as well as a great use of the original HP material (and the fan fic ending is priceless!)
Here's the background of the show itself and the video:
HP the Musical was written and produced in early 2009 by a bunch of college kids/recent grads through a non-profit student-run theatre company. It was a free show that ran for three nights (five performances) and will never be done again... but luckily we taped it so everyone can get a chance to enjoy its magical silliness. The songs were written by Darren Criss (who plays Harry Potter) and AJ Holmes (who plays piano in the band). The script was written by Matt Lang (who also directed the show), Nick Lang (who assistant directed and made the dragon puppet) and Brian Holden (who was busy working at a real job while the rest of us were making a goofy play). The full credits (including actor and tech credits) are at the end of the last video.
HP the Musical was a completely non-for-profit parody show made by Potter-fans for Potter-fans. All of us involved love the books immensely (and strongly encourage everyone to read them if you haven't) and it is with the utmost admiration that we celebrate and poke fun at them with this musical adaptation.
What a bunch of talented people! Talent scouts, agents, where are you?
I was sorry to miss Rock The Garden last year, with our local favorites Cloud Cult, so this year I made sure to get my tickets before it sold out. Co-sponsored by MPR's radio station The Current (here is their Flickr set from the event) and held outdoors at the Walker Art Center, it happens on the Summer Solstice. The weather this year was perfect for an outdoor concert.
I was a little hesitant about taking my daughter with me: on the one hand, she would probably like at least some of the music, the outdoor setting, and the crowd-watching. On the other, she has a low tolerance for high decibels, she's 14 and if she got bored that might put a damper on my good time. I remember how fried I used to get at outdoor concerts back when I was in college, and I wasn't sure if either of us could last until The Decemberists went on last.
We had a great time. First, lunch at Moto-i, on Lyndale where we were treated like royalty and had excellent food. We got a good spot to sit, and kicked back for great people-watching and a well-run event. I enjoyed the sets local band Solid Gold, the very trippy Brooklyn-based band Yeasayer, Calexico and then by mutual agreement (she tired, me keeping in mind I had to get up at 4AM to drive the gang to the airport the next morning and we still had an hour's drive to Northfield after the show) missing The Decemberists. Oh, well, we are big fans and will eventually own all their CDs, so too bad. But I didn't want either of us to burn out, and she will be in Yellowstone for a week with her dads, so it wouldn't be fair to wear her out!
Lathering up with SPF 70 meant neither of us got broiled. We brought our own water bottles, but happily indulged in shaved ice, lemonade, french fries, and souvenir t-shirts (I let her choose).
Two friends even found us in the crowd! It was a "No waste event" co-sponsored by Eureka recycling, which made sure all cups, untensils, etc, were compostible, and set up compost bins with volunteers to help us get our stuff in the right bin. Apparently, after 8-9000 people ate and drank their way through several hours of music, there was only have a dumpster worth of garbage; all the rest was recycled to be composted. Hats off!
I tweeted a few #rtg09 haiku (didn't realize there was an official @RockTheGarden on Twitter!) Masses of white meat Gently broiling on the grass Aztec monkey skull #RTG09 haiku
Hands down, best tattoo we saw: complete arm sleeve with Digimon characters. The gentleman agreed to pose so we could get this close-up. A good time was had by all.
Couldn't sleep until 2AM, but I'm awake with the birds. So it's back to bed with a pot of coffee, my laptop, and Twitter. I follow some fun and interesting people! Here's a sample of some tweets that gave me stories from my "everything but SYTYCD" Twitter account: Update on GLBT reaction to Obama's shitty pro-DOMA brief: Pam_Spaulding- NBJC''s Bartlett on gay DNC fundraiser: "I don't know of any board members that are intending on going."
(via @AlterNet) My take on Tapscott piece? he's obviously never read Paolo Freire! nor does he have a real sense of how his suggestions have already been implemented in numerous faculty development initiative or by individuals with the same critique, and in my experience, he wildly overestimates the ability of "Net-X" students themselves to function in a truly interactive and inquiry-driven model of learning: the biggest resistance I've found so far to more engaged and interactive pedagogy is not "the universities" but (some) students who want me to be a lecture-delivering TV set so they don't have to work as hard! yoanisanchez#cuba Generation Y (en): San Lázaro
I've read King Rat. Must now read Perdido Station and China Mieville's other books! JasonBarnettRT @theuptake: Video: Behind The Scenes Of Stephen Colbert's Hair Cut Gag With Obama At The White House.
It continues to be difficult but not impossible to get news from Iran. My heart goes out to the people of Iran for whom this latest crisis contains the vivid memories of earlier struggles. Payvand Iran publishes Payvand Iran News, whose recent post shows the faces of peaceful protest on June 18, and the signs held by the protesters. Ayatollah Ali Khameinei's speech in response is being characterized as hardline, and threatening violence against further protests, and calling out Rafsanjani by name, a powerful leader who is supporting Mousavi (both of them previously held high office within the current political structure). You can see a video from The NewsHour on PBS on the same events here, at PBS Engage, with Abbas Milani again, and reporter Joe Klein who has just returned from ten days in Tehran. I can't embed the video, but it is well worth clicking here to watch it. Klein also reminds us that the U.S. helped overthrow democracy in Iran in the 50s to install the shah, and sided with Saddam Hussein in the dreadful Iran-Iraq war, that claimed millions of lives. Obama must avoid playing into the regime's hands by replaying the role of meddling, and Scott Rosenberg reminds us of this history and new evidence of how the U.S. helped put the Shah in power in the coup of 1953, an event that Obama acknowledged in his speech in Cairo. Obama knows that if he is too public in his denunciation of the regime, this will create backlash.
It's well worth listening to the talk explaining who's who and how things work in Iran, as a background to events going on now. (via Bob Collins' blog NewsCut at MPR). Don't forget that Nico Pitney is continuing his live-blogging round-up of information at HuffPo
Here's the YouTube description of this talk Prof. Abbas Milani gave as part of the Google series:
Abbas Milani's talk will be "Nuke, Kooks and Democracy in Iran: a discussion of Iran's current political situation, and the prospects of democracy, and a resolution of the country's nuclear program." His most recent book is Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir.
Raised in Iran, Abbas Milani was sent to be educated in California in the 1960s. He became politically active and in 1974 received a PhD in Political Science. He returned to Tehran and taught at the National University but was imprisoned by the Pahlavi regime in 1977. After the revolution he became a professor at Tehran University, but by 1986 his utopian illusions had been shattered and he emigrated to the United States. Dr. Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian studies at Stanford University and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. Abbas Milani is also the author of the bestselling The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, as well as the prize-winning Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran.
This event took place on August 13, 2008, as a part of the Authors@Google series.
I'm checking regularly in with Nico Pitney who is live-blogging (acting as a clearing-house for information) at Huffington Post. He is posting photos, videos, and news gathered from mainstream media but much of it from Twitter, which has turned out to be one of the few ways people can get news about of Iran in the face of the state's crackdown on protest against the results of the election. This gives us a sense of what is happening now.
The BBC has posted a very thorough description of Iran's political institutions, and an analysis of why these protests might be different from those of earlier years. It also discusses the many Internet sources of information, including various blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Picassa and Twitter, that are being monitored, aggregated and amplified.
Global Voices Online, an international blog aggregator and news service, is collecting the voices of bloggers around the world who are writing about the events in Iran: "Storm of protest."
While we might emotionally want the Obama administration to leap to the microphone to take sides, the perception that the U.S.(under Bush) was siding with one group over another was one of the factors in the past that led to a increase in power by the fundamentalists. In addition, it may appear to outsiders that there is a clear division between the regime and the people, but the current political struggle is as much between two factions of the regime struggling for power as it is representative of the hopes of people for a less repressive state. The arguments in the comments of this post and also this one should remind us that the situation is extremely complex. I frankly don't know whom to believe about the voting, but I do know that the forces of state repression are hard at work.
It's summer,and I have booked two trips to visit family. I'll join my daughter and her Spanish family in Zaragoza in mid-July, and spend five days in London on my own, where i plan to go on long hikes through the parks and neighborhoods. Then she and I will visit my family in San Francisco in August. Each of those trips gives me license to make virtual excursions in anticipation of my in-person stays. I like the Spanish word that is used in opposition to virtual: "presencial."
So I've been looking for websites that give me good stories, pictures, ideas for my travels. Here is "The Big Smoke" from TimeOut London, which recommends these 50 websites from and about London. This time, I absolutely will not miss a day trip to Kew Gardens, one of their "Seven Wonders of London." I don't know if I'll have time for their "101 things to do before you leave London" but I can have fun browsing. I will certainly return to the Chelsea Physic Garden where I had a lovely tea.
I just canceled my subscription to emusic. I still totally love what they do, and have enjoyed exploring their site and choosing music every month for my subscription. But it's time for me to cancel. They have announced that they are acquiring Sony's back catalog (meaning stuff that's over two years old) but they are also changing everyone's subscription by cutting the number of downloads in half. In my case, that means cutting the number of songs I get each month for my $20 from 75 to 37, from 30 cents/song to 60 cents/song. Not a huge raise, when compared to iTunes at 99 cents/song. And totally understandable if we thought the money was going to the artists. But not if the money is going to SONY! I also don't like the weaselly way they did it: no survey of customers about preferences, just an announcement that "by the way, we're doubling the price for your downloads." Neither, apparently, does a vocal segment of their customer base who, like me, want to find good legal deals on music that may not be on the top 40 charts. It's another case of customers being perhaps more outraged by the shoddy communications than by the actual price. emusic distinguished itself from Amazon or iTunes because it catered to the discriminating music hound, and folks like that don't take kindly to be treated like mere customers. Paradoxes of the tension between sharing and marketing: I want to purchase music legally, not steal it, but I also used to spend hours in Tower Records in Berkeley, flipping through the used album bins, and I don't ever pay full price. OK, almost never: Lucinda Williams is an artist whose work I have purchased new. That's probably about it.
And another fact is that I have downloaded enough music from them over the last two years that I have hardly had time to listen to it all! My iPod is full (and I've only ever bought 4 songs from iTunes: all the rest is my CD collection + emusic) and I want to explore what I have. So I'm going to catch up on my listening, save some money, and see how the whole things shakes down. Here are the artists whose albums I have downloaded (legally!) from emusic over the last couple of years. Some are artists I've loved for a long time while others are new to me, but they each came recommended by other music fans whose reviews helped me discover new music.
Adele
Al Green
Allison Moorer
Amalia Rodrigues
Andrew Bird
Angelo Stefanato, Camerata Strumentale Di Santa Cecilia
Antony and the Johnsons
Arcade Fire
Aterciopelados
Baaba Maal
Bebel Gilberto
Bebo Valdes
Belle and Sebastian
Bettye Lavette
Björk
Bon Iver
Bosque Brown
Bossacucanova
Calexico
Camera Obscura
Carlinhos Brown
Carmen McRae
Cat Power
Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco
Charlie Parker
Chris Letcher
Cloud Cult
Cocteau Twins
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
Copeland
Count Basie
CéU
Dar Williams
Dashboard Confessional
Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer
David Byrne & Brian Eno
Day For Night
Dead Kennedys
Devotchka
Edith Piaf
Eliza Carthy
Famous L. Renfroe
Forellen Quintet
Franco
Frank Sinatra
Franz Joseph Haydn
Fred Astaire
Funkadelic
Gary Numan
Gil Scott-Heron
Gillian Welch
Glass Candy
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
godspeed you! black emperor
Gogol Bordello
Gotan Project
Heartless Bastards
Henry Kaiser And David Lindley
Hoagy Carmichael
Iggy Pop
Ike And Tina Turner
Jacques Brel
James Taylor
Jennifer Warnes
John Coltrane
Johnny Mercer
Juana Molina
Judy Garland
Le Concert des Nations
Los Amigos Invisibles
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Los Munequitos De Matanzas
Lura
M. Ward
M.I.A. (XL)
Mahmoud Ahmed
Manu Chao
Maria Muldaur
Mbilia Bel & Seigneur Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International
Mirah
Mos Def
My Brightest Diamond
Neutral Milk Hotel
Nick Lowe
Nortec Collective
Otis Redding
Pau Casals
Peggy Seeger
Plain White T's
Question Mark and the Mysterians
Radiohead
Ray Charles
Reverend Charlie Jackson
Ruth Brown
Santana
Santogold
Sarah Vaughan
Schola Cantorum
Seu Jorge
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Simone Dinnerstein
Ska Cubano
Soweto Gospel Choir
St. Vincent
The Decemberists
The Kinks
The Pixies
The Raconteurs
The Rolling Stones
The Stylistics
The White Stripes
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk And John Coltrane
Thomas Mapfumo
Tinariwen
Tony Bennett And Bill Evans
Tracy Grammer
Various
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists - Concord Jazz
Various Artists - Doghouse Records
Various Artists - Frochot Music
Various Artists - Hybrid Recordings
Various Artists - Luaka Bop
Various Artists - Maison De Soul Records
Various Artists - Music Resource Group
Various Artists - Nacional Records
Various Artists - Razor & Tie
Various Artists - Shanachie Records Celtic/British Isles
Krista has requested the Platonic Brownie recipe. Now I cannot rest until I have found it. Scanning my cookbook shelf, which holds many volumes without brownie recipes, I fall back on the new edition of the Joy of Cooking. It has its original recipe for Brownies Cockaigne, a recipe for Cheesecake Brownies, and a lower-fat recipe for Chewey Brownies. I happen to like chewier brownies, but I don't have time to try them both. Another possible source is the Marion Cunningham book The Supper Book; Marion Cunningham edited and then rewrote the classic Fannie Farmer cookbook, among many other notable accomplishments in the food world before the rise of celebrity chef TV. She was someone my mother knew well. I met her a few times when I was living in the East Bay, and was impressed by her vivid presence and her passionate nature. Her recipe is called Parker Brownies.
Comparing the two recipes, I see that they are virtually identical in terms of ingredients, but JofC's calls for double the quantities of MC's, with one exception: JoC's recipe uses 4 eggs but Marion Cunningham's uses only egg. What would be the difference with half the amount of egg? The pan size is also larger and the heat is 350 instead of 300, but that could be because of the quantity. and the need to avoid the overcooked edges/not-done-in-the-center problem. Oh, and there is no salt and unsalted butter in JoC, but MC's calls for salt. Hmmm. Chemistry.
Time to look at Cooks Illustrated tutorials for the anal-retentive chef! What? recipes are for members only? How anal-retentive! (But yes, their test kitchen articles ARE the best when you are a nerd like me. I used to subscribe and read them like mystery novels: what IS the secret to perfect brownies?)
The classic SNL sketch of Eugene the Anal Retentive Chef (Phil Hartmann, RIP) is a family joke because my sister and her husband bonded when they discovered that each possessed an industrial kitchen-sized box of plastic wrap.
Marion Cunningham's Parker Brownies: (makes sixteen brownies) 2 ozs (2 squares) unsweetened chocolate 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 chopped walnuts 1 teaspoon vanilla
Optional: confectioners sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter an 8" square baking pan. Line the bottom of the pan with waxed paper, the butter and flour the paper.
In a saucepan over very low heat, melt the chocolate with the butter, stirring to blend. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, egg, salt, flour, walnuts and vanilla. Spread in the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and peel the waxed paper from the bottom. Transfer to a cutting board, and cut into squares. Dust brownies with confectioners sugar, if desired. Discovered while writing this post: David Lebowitz's blog Living the Sweet Life in Paris, which combines gorgeous photos, pro foodie info, life-in-Paris stories (I lived on and off in Paris for probably a total of two years, but many years ago) and great writing. I shall enjoy reading it and fantasizing about my return.
Cross-posted at SYTYCD 5 Social. Well the auditions are over, the Vegas bootcamp has whittled the dancers down from 178 to the Top 20, and next week, So You Think You Can Dance, Season 5, starts showing us the dancing.
These audition rounds serve a purpose: they get us to invest ourselves emotionally in the show, even when those dancers that thrill us have been cut or have had to leave too early. We have been suckered into rooting for people with talent and charisma who then leave in tears or anger, but there are also "stealth contestants" who have suddenly appeared in the top 20 even though we have hardly seen them at all. Mark Kanemura, one of my all-time favorites, was kept up the producers' sleeve until the competition began. Sabra was invisible in the auditions, but went on to win. So I enjoyed the glimpses of the dancer's life, but the hard reality is that most dancers audition and get cut, even the great ones. If you are not what they want for the show, the company, the piece, you will not be cast, no matter how nice you are, or even how talented you are. SYTYCD is a great way for us to fantasize about dance, but it also has a lot of lessons to teach about the dance world: it's harsh; it's not always fair; your body betrays you; your desire may be bigger than your talent; your talent may not be enough without charisma; your life timing may interfere with your opportunities; it's a gypsy life that makes having a family next to impossible; you have to be at once convinced you can do it and humble enough to learn.
In twitterville and bloglandia there is already controversy over the elimination of Natalie, the Meanness! of the MEAN judges! and about poor Alex Wong not getting to be on the show this time even though he is clearly such a brilliant dancer. Oh, and let's not forget about the brothers! Ryan or Evan? so heartbreaking! Why only one?
So what do I think of the top 20? I think we'll see what they're like starting next week. It's too soon to call a favorite or predict who is going to win, especially since we hardly saw half the dancers before last night. But that doesn't stop the fans from working themselves up into a lather over all kinds of things, all of which translate into good TV, good ratings, and lots of publicity for the show. Settle back and make some popcorn. Here's STEALTH CONTESTANT Ade Obayomi:
I tend to assume that the judges know dance better than I do, that they know what will work on the show better than I do, and that there is a lot of footage that got left on the floor after editing the show. The show is cast with dance talent, but it is also cast for characters, story-line, narrative arc, and maximum fan investment "so we will pick up the phone." If the pure dance fans had there way, there'd be none of this "personality crap" but if the show just gave us performance, the folks who "don't know much about dance but know what they like" would have tuned in to Obama's Day in the White House, part II.
Some reflections after this week's episode from this contrarian cultural critic: Natalie was cut. Big deal. Why is she so special? Because we knew her name and she had a backstory going in. Yes, she was very good, and Sonyah loved her. But how do we know if she was better than all the other dancers we never even got to see? Just because she was Katee's roommate and they staged a drama with the two of them last last year, does that mean she would be a better contestant than any number of other dancers that remained anonymous? I thought that in her performance of Sonyah's dance, she did not bring it the way she had in rehearsal. We didn't see her in the ballroom round or the hip-hop round. We did get to see another charismatic contestant, Gabi Rojas, do an insanely good audition, but then flub two of the choreo tests, and then show us her amazing talent again in a "dance for your life!" moment. And guess what? She got cut, too. Should Natalie have been given another chance to dance on TV? Maybe, but she still would have been cut. Should we have seen which rounds she flubbed? The fact is that we didn't; we got to see some other dancers instead. This was not the Natalie show. But many viewers decided that she was unfairly treated. It's called editing, people. You are being told a story, and you are playing your role perfectly. You are supposed to get riled up at the judges. Go ahead, if that makes you happy.
Same with the Brandon Bryant story. He almost made it last year, so he came in (like Natalie) with a backstory. And his audition was riveting, although I hated the music he chose and thought the sequence of moves he did was designed to showcase his technique rather than convey feelings or a story; to me it was incoherent. Tony Bellisimo is the exact opposite; he was all about the story, entertaining, communicating with the audience and the judges; he made people laugh, and he has enough dance skills to get a shot, although his audition did not showcase them. Technique-wise, Brandon has it all over Tony, but as an entertainer, Tony has it all over Brandon. Let's face it, folks, ef SYTYCD was only a dance talent show, Danny Tidwell would have won. So was Mia being mean and unfair when she said she doesn't like what he brings into the room? I suppose so, but Mia is what she is with no apologies. And apparently the dancers who work with her find her inspiring and generous, not cruel, in her classes and workshops. This is what separates TV land from the real world of dance. Your teacher/coach/choreographer/artistic director is not there to make you feel good, but to push you harder and harder and harder so you can break through your limitations, or hit the wall. Brandon is a brilliant dancer, but she was not talking about his technical abilities; she was talking about a quality that I think she'd call emotional honesty or connection. Is a dancer sitting in his or her head and watching himself? or is he or she completely in the dance? From my own limited experience as a dancer, I know the difference between those two states. My inexperience and lack of talent meant that often I was inhibited, holding back, not confident, and I sabotaged my movement, or communicated my inhibition. When Nigel spoke to Ryan (the older, balder brother) about how he was putting his self-image in the way of his dancing, he was putting his finger on Ryan's own self-doubt. Ryan said he'd talk off his hat now. He will have grown as a dancer because of that. (by the way, Nigel's tweet this morning points out that if Ryan choreographs for the show this season, as a lot of viewers have requested, then he becomes a Fox employee and cannot compete later). When I social dance, I don't feel the need to perform because I'm focused on connecting with my partner, and as a result my dancing is freer, more grounded, more communicative, and I then also look so much better. Brandon may not be inhibited, but he may be keeping an emotional distance, and Mia is calling him on it. Do you like the way she did it? No. But in the dance world, this quality of emotional commitment may be what separates a technically competent dancer from a dancer who moves you, and the "best" dancers may be the hardest to get to open up. I thought Brandon's Carmina Burana audition music was pompous and distracting. Yes, he is spectacular, but will he open himself up to work with other kinds of emotions, other kinds of movement? or will he resist?
With Alex Wong, oh, my, we had the combination of technical brilliance and absolute hunger. He not only showed us his control and his freedom, he communicated with the judges and with us, immediately and powerfully. But Alex got caught in a dilemma of his own making. We don't have the details, but he is under contract to a company that has its season planned, its performances booked, its publicity materials out, its brochures printed, its season tickets sold: how could he imagine that the enormous investment the company has made in him could be simply thrown away? He's finding his position limiting, he wishes he could be free to go to "dance camp" for this wonderful opportunity, but he is a professional with obligations. He will have to do what so many other dancers have had to do, and come back when he is able to compete. Hok didn't have his visa. Chbeeb had pneumonia. Benji Schwimmer almost didn't make the top 20. Twitch had to come back another year. Alex Wong will have to get out of his contract and come back, and he will be a grand competitor. It's not the show's fault he can't compete this time. He got a hard lesson in the work world. I hope he takes Nigel's advice, gets the most out of his wonderful opportunity with Miami, and then comes back when he is done with his contract.
If season 5 is like all the other seasons, we will be surprised, thrilled, and ride the emotional rollercoaster with our discoveries of these dancers. Let's give them a chance to show us what they can do, without dragging in grudges over who isn't there. Here's one of the sleeper contestants, Jonathan Platero, who was a finalist with his partner Sophia Luna in the World Salsa Championships in 2007:
I haven't watched the new Conan O'Brian show yet, but this bit on Twitter had me laughing hard, thinking of a blog buddy who recently went off on Twitter as inane and annoying. This is for you, ProfaZero!
Governor Pawlenty, "Governor of Brigadoon"--a portrait by Michael Tortorello, posted on The Uptake, courtesy of Noah Kunin. It's a fascinating portrait of the governor who has just announced he will not run for a third term. What are his further political ambitions, given that he was supposed to be John McCain's running mate until he was unceremoniously bumped by Palin? I have always regarded him as a smiling villain, an ogre with a smile, in thrall to the Grover Norquist "no new taxes" line. He's governed to the hard right, without flinching. He's led us to a deficit of Bush proportions. He says that being a "lame duck" will allow him to be more agressive with the unallotment process of defunding social services and education. We're in a heap of trouble.
My poor sweet baby took a tumble yesterday and hurt her ankle (she may be taller than I am now, but she'll always be my baby girl). When I saw how swollen it was, I flashed on when I broke a bone in my foot a few years ago and was afraid she might have done the same, but it's a painful, nasty sprain (a Grade II eversion sprain, if you want to get technical) nothing more. I'm glad nothing is broken, but it will be a few weeks wearing an ankle brace and an ace bandage, probably a week at least of evil crutches, and a month for full recovery. What a bummer. We are so fortunate that we have good medical care. Every single person who helped us at urgent care was wonderful to her. She even got to ride in a wheelchair for a little, which is sometimes the only highlight of the tedium of waiting around in a clinic on a beautiful Saturday afternoon instead of going for a walk. It was very cool that the doctor let me look at the X-rays on the computer with him (being the physiology geek that I am). They can see so much more know because they can zoom in. My daughter has lovely bones!
When I was six, I had my first of what would be four ankle sprains, and two twisted knees. The treatment then was a plaster cast for six weeks (and apparently there continue to be arguments about the best form of treatment for sprains!) prolonged immobility is no longer the fashion, but there are arguments to be made for "giving the foot a holiday" for the first phase of treatment. I spent so much time in those freakin' casts. A plaster cast is still the best for a complete ligament rupture (Grade III) but I'm sure mine weren't that bad, and I know that at least two of the sprains were re-injuries because of atrophied muscles and no rehab. I got very good on crutches and also enjoyed a lot of plaster cast artwork. But now, the emphasis is on evaluating each injury and beginning to strengthen the ankle and leg muscles (without pain) as soon as possible so as to prevent further injury. For now, she is doing homework, drawing, reading, and listening to music while I dose her with smoothies!
Coincidentally, my daughter also just found an amazing T-shirt that has a drawing of internal organs on it (yep, she's my daughter). And I just found this great blog Street Anatomy, where artists combine medical illustration with all the ways people (not just artists) are using anatomical drawings, for art, fashion, furniture and more.
Today I'm feeling the shadows of my brain chemistry's particular quirks with a heavy heart. Some rhythm helps me lose the fear of those shadows. David Byrne. I'm so glad I got to see him perform three times with the Talking Heads in their various incarnations. Lyrics here, but I have to admit that I heard "The TV's in repair" as "the TV's in the bed." I'm fascinated by his descriptions of the process of creating these songs, collaborations with other musicians and arrangers, photographers and artists. He ends with this:
When I first started to make music sketches for what would turn out to be this record, I imagined the result would be something a little different. I imagined longer instrumental pieces, which would evolve into songs. But as I kept writing (although a few of them ended up that way), most of the demos asked to be shorter and more and more concise. At times I felt like I needed to apologize for how accessible the songs were sounding. But then I realized that this is what they wanted to be. Like the song "The Revolution" implies, I somehow imagine that a real revolution is won by seduction, by winning over not just the mind, but the body and the senses as well. And that the sadness of some of these melodies are countered by the vigor and persistence of the groove.
Sonia Sotomayor talks about her path as a Latina (Nuyorican!) and a judge in this speech from 2002 (printed in the New York Times)
Listen to her talk about her mother's example "I am who I am because of my mother, and I am only half the woman that she was." Listen to her talk about the influence of Spanish on her writing in English, and how she worked on it. So self-aware, so intelligent.
Here are some pictures. And, I am informed, she saved baseball! All right, then.
"California voters legally outlawed same-sex marriage when they approved Proposition 8 in November, but the constitutional amendment did not dissolve the unions of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before the measure took effect, the state Supreme Court ruled today."
This may make some kind of legal sense, but it makes no sense to me that the Supreme Court of California has just created a separate class of GLBT people who can be legally married in California but nobody else can join that class.
Map from here. I finished creating a course site for the class I'm teaching this summer: our department's Senior Seminar. I'll have fifteen students who will each be writing a 2o-page research paper in Spanish on a topic of his or her choice. We meet together for the kinds of general things we need to do, and I meet individually with each student 3 times during the class to talk about their projects in progress. Because it's the summer, they have 8 weeks instead of 15 to finish, but one hopes that they will not have any other classes or too much work at the same time.
I enjoy teaching this class because there is a great sense of satisfaction for the students in having finished their projects, their majors and their University degrees. I learn a lot from the projects as well. It can be a combination of boot-camp and hand-holding, but after so many years of doing this, I have tried to build in as much structure as possible so there are no surprises.
Despite the fact that so many things are going well right now (grades turned in, having fun planting flowers and kitchen herbs, thoroughly enjoying my new media set-up and connecting with people online), I've been having a very hard time with my health recently. I ran out of one of my medications and had to manage without it for about a week, I saw an immediate increase in my overall pain levels and fatigue, my hay fever symptoms are dragging me down, and menopause has meant some minor but really annoying digestive changes. Worst of all was the inability to focus, a loss of short-term memory, dizziness and confusion. I kept dropping things, saying the wrong words, forgetting important appointments. It was scary. I had to ask someone to get something heavy down off a high place in a store, something I would have been able to do without a second thought just a week earlier. I was afraid I would drop it as I have been fumbling and dropping everything else.
I continue to struggle with the idea that I am dependent on medications, even as I know that I need them. It's weird how much I've internalized the stigmas around addiction. I'm taking a medication that has legitimate uses for specific symptoms, (although I'm not self-medicating and exceeding my dosage!), but that is seen by many only through the lens of habituation and abuse. So in some ways I guess it's good that these last few days have been a sharp reminder of how miserable and uncomfortable my life can be if I don't manage my fibromyalgia symptoms aggressively, and that includes refilling my prescriptions with plenty of time to acomodate unexpected delays.
The incessant wind and dryness doesn't help--I get a static jolt every time I get out of the car, and I feel a kind of positive ion malaise. But summer means a slower pace. Life is good.
Ha! If I tried this with my 20-lb cat, I would get shredded. My cat yodels every night between 3-5AM, so I have no need to apply any of these techniques.
I have kept company with more than one engineer, so this makes me laugh.
For the last year, I've been pricing digital TVs, thinking about how much I'd resent paying for cable or Direct TV every month (which I did once 20 years ago), and trying to decide how to get a better computer set up for the various things we do at home: my work, her homework, our social activities, watching DVDs because our 1988 TV is crummy. So when the hand-me-down Mac laptop (a G4) that my daughter has been using for the last year finally gave up the ghost, I finally needed to make some decisions. The wifi antenna hadn't worked for a while; then we discovered the DVD drive wasn't working and we couldn't install new software (Adobe CS4, because she's taking graphic arts, learning how to use Illustrator, Photoshop and iMovie at school). The last gasp was when the hinge of the lid broke, the lid flopped over ("it's neck is broken!") and the monitor would only work if the lid was almost closed. I found her hunched over and craning to peek into the partially opened computer while she backed up all her files to her thumb drive. Luckily, we are able to save all her stuff, but she has a big paper due, and I really do need to use my laptop for working at home and also to teach since I bring it to the classroom and use it with the projector.
Solution that ends up saving me some money: I got a deeply discounted iMac that was last year's model (and apparently has a better video drive than the new one, but shhhh!) a digital TV tuner and an HD antenna. Now we can use it for all our home computing needs, but with the larger monitor we can have lovely DVD viewing, AND we turned it into a digital TV with DVR as well! The antenna needs to be pointed at Shorview where the TV towers are, and now we get 20 channels, including ones we could not get before: all the regular broadcast channels plus the HD public TV channels, weather, etc. I've installed Firefox with Adblocker, Zotero, Download helper, and the Adobe CS4 software that was her Christmas present (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc). It cost me a lot less than full price because of my educator's discount. I also got an external hard drive for back up. We can share the laptop at home if she needs to do homework or wants to look at her email privately. The key to the set-up is a marvelous device called Elgato EyeTV Plus: with the antenna, it delivers the digital TV signal to the Mac, comes with a remote, software for recording, getting a TV schedule, burning DVDs. We can watch anything on hulu, but also broadcast, and record it while we are away, just like Tivo, and after the initial investment in the hardware, it is free, free, free. I don't have to deal with Comcast, chose a plan, read the fine print, let people in to muck around with my wiring, or be tempted by the hundreds of channels with nothing on. Best of all, I can finally watch SYTYCD in high quality, record it and watch it again without trying to find fuzzy YouTube videos. Whoopie! I can't wait to tranfer all my photos from the laptop to the iMac and learn to use iMovie finally. I have a set of summer plans, and they include plowing through the Adobe tutorials.
I now have a pile of ancient electronic gear: a perfectly working 1988 TV, an ancient VCR, a cheapo DVD player, all the cables, antennae, power sources, an ancient portable CD player, a cheesy portable DVD player someone gave us that works but makes as much noise as an air conditioner...I need to take a load to an electronic recycler, or put up an ad on Freecycle. So much stuff to keep out of the landfill.
I first saw Robert Muraine when he auditioned for SYTYCD. He made the top 20, but decided not to continue, recognizing that he'd be like Cedric: an amazing dancer in his own style, but not ready to branch out. He and Philip Chbeeb did a dance-off that was awesome. Chbeeb also had made the top 20, but got pneumonia and had to drop out. Muraine went on to be a protogé of Nigel Lythgoe who had him on another dance show (that I did not care for) where he got to show his talents to a wider audience. Anyone who makes a living as an artist knows that residuals from commercials pay the bills, so I hope this ad from Ikea is paying Robert so he can keep on dancing.
And where did Shugamai Johnson come from? Yeah, baby!She's a "liquid" dancer rather than a popper like Robert. Here's a video about the making of the commercial:
Here's Mr. Fantastic vs Phillip Chbeeb (aka Pacman). Who do you like better?
Will Chbeeb be back this season? here he is against D-Rock with a great song by The Gap I think Chbeeb has great musicality as well as popping skills. I'd love to see what he could do in other dance styles. I hope he auditioned again this year. (cross-posted at SYTYCD 5 Social)
UPDATED: Can't wait for the two-and-a-half hour season premiere on Thursday, May 21 at 7PM central time. We'll see the preliminary auditions from around the country, and there will be another audition episode to follow, before they do the boot-camp eliminations in Las Vegasand introduce the top 20 dancers. If the show does what it did last season, we'll see a lot of bad auditions, some good ones of people who will not make it through to the final, and some of the top possibilities will be kept a careful secret so as to build anticipation. Because this is reality TV, folks!
The top 20 have already been chosen, but apparently a couple of them may have contractual obligations that conflict with the show, Hey, I notice that American Idol is the lead-in for the new show Glee, and the AI finale is Wed, so we will all be couch potato TV junkies that week; andn when I say "we" I mean those of us who are song-and-dance lovers, theater geeks, and people who own TVs.
I'll be joining folks over at SYTYCD 5 Social to blog, and tweeting SYTYCD news on www.twitter.com/sytycmomo (so I don't spam up my other Twitter account!
Today I participated in a PhD prelim exam in which one of the topics was the way that the literary establishment (critics, writers themselves, publishers) thinks about quality and the way fans think about quality. The goal of the discussion was not to decide who was right, but to talk about how we are and are not aware of how these dynamics interact.
I think it's safe to say that fandom is about pleasure and fun. At times the pleasure is in the deeper thinking, and at times it's just about itself. Fresca feeds my reawakened Trekkie jones by revealing the existence of the blog "Look At His Butt" (that would be William Shatner's butt!), a compendium of all things Star Trek, hosted by bloggers LT and JK, who "talk Trek" on their podcasts (their inaugural podcast from 2005 is here). I think it's safe to say that this is a site that celebrates fun, but also engages in conversation about the funness of the fun.
Then there's the testiness of the critics who are worried that popular tastes are dumbing us down. TaNahesi Coates responds to a great essay by Alyssa Rosenberg called "The Fanboys of Summer" about the summer blockbuster sci-fi/comic hero movies. His essay "The Deeper Meaning of Star Trek/Wolverine/Terminator" contrasts what the critics think to what the fans want. What is it that we want from so-called "genre" books or movies? Whatever it was when we were teenagers, it might be different for us now as older adults.
My morning coffee, and a scan of the tweets of people I follow on Twitter brings me a harvest of stories, music, poetry, and news about things I want to know more about. @MNStories sends us a video on MNStories of a heron on the lake in Loring Park:
Want to know what it's like to paddle on a canoe through the tunnel from lake Calhoun to Lake of the Isles? Here you go. Chuck and Lorika take us along on their canoe adventure. At 4:20, there is some marvelous footage of a black-crowned night heron, a heron with a short neck and a long plume trailing from the top of his head.
Tomorrow, we will go to see the new Star Trek movie. For some of us, it will be shot through with memories, while for my daughter, it will be completely unrelated to anything she has seen before. She knows nothing about Star Trek: not the original series, the spinoffs, the movies. Nada. It's so wrong to start her out with the prequel, but them's the breaks. Before we go see the pumped up, slick, CGI explosion-filled testosterone fest that this is bound to be, let us delight in all things DIY + Star Trek:
The weather today is absolutely ideal for the 35th May Day Festival!I have tried to go every year since I moved to the Twin Cities 20 years ago, only missing it when I was out of town. Every Year there is a theme, and this year's is Our Common Treasure: Dig It. Each year's theme is chosen as the artists of The Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater meet with neighbors and members of the community to talk, brainstorm, make art. Then, once the theme is chosen, they all go to work to make the story that is each year the same and each year different. Here's how they explain it:
Our Common Treasury— Dig It
HOBT’s MayDay Parade, Ceremony, and Festival has always been rooted in two important traditional celebrations—the celebration of the Green Root of Earth’s green energy rising in Spring, and the Red Root of human work energy rising from mind, heart and hand.
Our theme this year celebrates the merging of the red and green energies of the world.
We cheer on the great merging of the human social justice movements with the environmental movements to remember humans as responsible relatives of the earth.
As we experience the failure of our economic systems built on debt, consumer waste, the theft and sickening of earth resources, we gather to rebuild an economic system that protects and sustains our Earth as a “Common Treasury for All.”
The first May Day I attended with my daughter was when she was seven months old. This year she is 14, and we'll both bring our cameras! I'm not a great photographer, but I have great memories of each year's festival: of the kids and families, the costumes, the music, the joyous energy, the birds and flowers and water and sun of Powderhorn Park, the affirmation of life and the renewal of commitment to solidarity, change, and beauty. We will watch the giant puppets, the musicians and dancers, and then the performance of the festival story: the May tree and the Sun are reunited. The Morris dancers and pagans will be there, the lefties and hippies and artists will be there, the anarchist kids on bikes will be there, and we will be there. We will sing "Down By the Riverside" and "You Are My Sunshine" and I will probably cry.
Yesterday was the birthday of a very dear friend, Maria. We celebrated on Wed with a meal together. Happy birthday, my dear! It was also the birthday of a wonderful artist and performer, Amanda Palmer . Here's a video she made in Harvard Square with some friends. (yes, she's lip-syncing)
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