On the Island of Emotion!

The Wikepedia entry on pain says
"This article is about physical pain. For pain in a broader sense, see Suffering." For some reason, this makes me laugh.


Sally Cruikshank animated this bit for Sesame Street--I love it!

Years ago, I noticed that when a big weather front came through, I'd stop sleeping. Later, I paid attention and recognized that when there was a dramatic change in the weather, such as the one we're having now--when the first wintery cold front and rain moves in-- I'd have an increase in fatigue, pain, and other fibromyalgia symptoms. Poking around, I've found that there is research that shows that many people with arthritic conditions, depression or migraine also feel these changes. It's not clear if it is a specific weather factor, such as the drop in barometric pressure, or the change itself, as some who study migraines believe, that triggers the increase in pain, but the correlations are unmistakable. Over the years, I've come to recognize those times of the year and weather conditions that trigger the worst flares, and the beginning of the heating season in MN, my body goes kablooie.

For the last several days, I've been a hurting individual: to the usual stiffness, joint aches, tight muscle bands, the flare has added stabbing pains: it feels as if someone stabbed me with an ice-pick behind my eye, another in front of my ear, and another at the base of my skull, burning pains down my back to under my shoulder-blade, to that the spot I named H.A.L.; throbbing pains --pressure behind my eye and ear on the right side. My right ear feels itchy and hot, there are knots of pain where my lymph nodes lie under my jaw. The back pain is almost unnoticeable through the intensity, the electric shooting pains in my hands and feet feel 'normal.'

Monday it got so I had to focus just to speak clearly. Grading papers, writing for a deadline, and peering at the computer all made it worse. I am so used to sucking it up that I plow on until I feel as if I'm going to collapse. I can do things like let the dishes pile up, stay in bed later or slow down at work (I even canceled classes one day) but when the weather is moving through, I just have to hunker down and wait it out.

Watching Roller Derby

Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore are in the new film Whip It (sort of like Bend It Like Beckham, but with hitting). I used to watch Roller Derby on TV back in high school when the Bay City Bombers were our home team. Charlie O'Connell and Joanie Weston were two of the star players at the time. Roller Derby back then wasn't cute, sexy or grrrl power; it was brutal and mesmerizing. This post by Pat Griffin reminds me of why I was fascinated by it; it was one of the few places you could see strong, tough women competing in sports on TV, back before Title IX.

Auto-tune not just for parody

I'm working too much to write at length these days, but I couldn't resist sharing this:

Public option?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Dr. Horrible Interrupts the Emmy Awards!

*buffering* LOL! or, why the internet will not replace your TV yet.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which won an Emmy although it was produced for the internet and not broadcast TV, can be viewed on hulu.com or on the Tubes in three parts: part one, part two and part three.
The show was written by Joss Whedon and his brothers during the writers' strike (remember that?) and has won a ton of other awards already. Whedon and co. more or less gave it away online, but also released it in iTunes and for purchase as DVD with commentary extras; despite making it available worldwide for free, the project has managed to recoup the $200,000 cost and pay the cast and crew. A lovely example of working alongside the corporate media structure.

Mary Travers, my first love

Mary Travers' voice and spirit nourished me as a child. Oh, how I loved her then! Her voice singing "The Sparrow" enchanted me:


"The Rising of the Moon"

"The First Time" by Euan McColl

They sang with Martin Luther King, Jr, and against the Viet Nam War in 1971:

And they could be funny, too!

Health care bills making my head explode

So I will just not think about them today. Instead, for your amusement I offer you:

Kottke.org give us "Barack Obama, Jedi Knight"

Obama asked them to "cut the president some slack" but NO, his off-the-cuff comments about the VMA award show are all over.

Barely Political imagines the rest of "hot mic" conversation after Obama called Kanye a jackass.

Yet another "Downfall" parody with the Kanye meme.

Anna Marie Cox and Jason have fun annotating the White House Flickr feed.

But Ta-Nahesi Coates explains the difference between getting a laugh out of internet memes and the self-righteous huffing and puffing about civility that whitewashes (yes, meaning pretends to be blind to racism) our discourse on who gets to interrupt in public. I'm too lazy to do more than link and say "what he said!"

Pink and Muse perform at the MTV VMA award show

Don't get cable, so didn't see the MTV awards show last night, but the fuss blew up on Twitter about Kanye's hissy fit, overshadowing both the Michael Jackson tribute (with Janet Jackson dancing with the most amazing set of choreographer dancers EVER) and Lady Gaga's performance-art costumes and number (with Mark Kanemura!). Kanye needs to get to rehab.


(via Rickey.org) I love Pink!
They did not broadcast this clip, but Muse played their latest single at the VMA show as well.

Remember: 11 de septiembre de 1973 AND 9/11/2001

Chile: The Other 9/11 is the title of a program made by the BBC last year. But maybe it should be the other way around?

This short film by Ken Loach (made in 2002) is narrated by a Chilean refugee who addresses family members of those killed on 9/11/2001, on another Tuesday, Sept 11. Maybe you know that this date also has grim meaning for Chile and all of Latin America because it was Tuesday, Sept 11, 1973 that Gen Pinochet and the armed forces of Chile, with the active support of U.S. president Nixon, Sec. of State Henry Kissinger, and the CIA and the School of the Americas, seized power by bombing the presidential palace, assassinating the democratically elected head-of-state Salvador Allende, and rounding up and torturing, killing, and disappearing thousands of people, Chileans and others. At least 30,000 were killed by the regime-and many, many more were tortured, exiled, or lived in fear for decades. The fact that Pinochet is now dead has not ended the divisions in Chile.

The impact of this event on all of Latin America was as devastating as 9/11 has been to us in the U.S.A. and to the world. As Pres. Bush says in the film, "On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country, and night fell on a different world, a world in which freedom itself is under attack." Those words have a terrible resonance for those of us who remember the responsibility the U.S. had in supporting the dictatorships and savage repression in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and the countries of Central America in the 80s. So while I remember and mourn with everyone the events of 8 years ago in 2001, I cannot forget, I must not forget, the legacy of suffering of that first "martes 11 de septiembre."

11 de septiembre

Visual Inspriration: special effects in film

No, it can't be comprehensive, as the comments reveal, but it is intriguing and inspiring: a chronological compilation of special effects in film from early days of cinema through the 20th century.

This one is for Loren

How could we have missed this? The 4H Llama costume show at the MN State Fair is now 2 years old. What do you think?

SYTYCD season 5 Top 10 on Ellen

Ellen DeGeneres invited the SYTYCD Top 10 dancers to the premiere of her show. Watch Ellen dance with them! There's someone who loves her job!

Dance injury

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I need to buy my daughter a trampoline. Or sign her up for dance classes. She likes to dance with her iPod in our tiny kitchen, but she keeps injuring herself. First a sprained ankle, now a toenail that has been semi-detached (OW! Ew! Ick!). she'll be OK, but I have prohibited kitchen dancing, and decreed that she must find a subsitute for getting her yayas out.

Doing the latest dance craze!

Do you love me/now that I can dance?

On America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC) the next challenge is to incorporate some of the latest urban dance crazes that are propagated by YouTube (AND use a trampoline, but that's another story) When I looked at the list, I realized I would need to do my research before Sunday nights show. Have you seen/heard of/danced any of these dances? Probably not.

"For their challenge this week, the crews will be incorporating the latest dance crazes (think updated Cabbage Patch) into their routines. And in addition to mastering their moves -- and giving 'em their own personal spin -- they'll also need to incorporate that big ol' trampoline ... without falling flat on their faces. Take a look at the songs and challenges assigned to each ABDCrew, and let us know which dance crazes are taking over your hometown!

AFROBORIKE "Swag Surfin'" Fast Life Yungstaz
MASSIVE MONKEES "Do The Ricky Bobby" B-Hamp
WE ARE HEROES "Stanky Legg" GS Boys
VOGUE EVOLUTION "Halle Berry" Hurricane Chris

RHYTHM CITY "The Jerk" New Boyz--this one is the most complicated!

A civil conversation about health care reform

Senator Franken talking to folks at the State Fair, in a calm and rational way, and people respond in a calm and rational way. Intense? yes. But this is a model of how we can do it right.

Pickpocket strikes in a cafe.

Today I went to the ATM, then went to the cafe to work on class prep. While I was engrossed with my work, a professional pickpocket lifted my wallet, with all those nice crispy 20s, out of the front pocket of my backpack which was sitting on the floor between us right next to my leg. I remember vaguely noticing a man sit down at the table next to me, but the next time I looked up it was because of the coughing of the woman another table down and he was gone.

When I went to leave, I discovered my wallet was missing. I searched desperately through my backpack, looked everywhere, asked the baristas, and flashed back to that odd feeling I'd had earlier. I realized what had happened, and then had to cancel checks, ATM card, credit cards, and make a police report in case I have to contest any charges or bad checks. Also lost my AAA card, my library card, and all those coffee discount cards. Oh, and my faculty ID, much good that will do anybody. I have a duplicate drivers license, but I will have to report that as well.

The thing is, when I lived in Berkeley, something like this happened to me because I had my purse sitting next to me on a bench at an outdoor cafe and someone reached over the back of the bench and lifted my wallet, so I am usually so super careful. I'm just dismayed that I was so oblivious. But this has happened to other people I know; pros are slick.

An hour later, after being all calm about it initially, I find myself shaking and anxious. No, it's not the end of the world; I don't think anyone can do anything bad to me, but I hate the idea that a thief now has my address, my child's pictures, my really nice wallet that I just bought two months ago and that was the perfect wallet. I hate feeling like a chump. Losing $200 is pretty crappy, too.

Urban gardening dreams

Sunday morning is for lazy reading and coffee, and adding ideas to the "Maybe/Someday" project list, like "start a vegetable garden....next year."

This morning I read all the posts in "The Starter Garden", a blog in the NYTimes Gardening section by Minnesota novice gardner (and professional writer whose work I've enjoyed in City Pages) Michael Tortorello, in which he has been chronicling his adventures this summer creating a vegetable garden in the city. I've always enjoyed his writing, and he started some great conversations among newbie and experienced gardeners all over the country with his posts about about how to get started, germinate seeds indoors, get rid of the lawn, use manure or not, deal with rabbits and deer, face the triumphs and disappointments of gardening. It looks as if there are many other stories in that section that I'll enjoy ("Peter Rabbit Must Die" sounds like the response of many a gardener who has discovered how fast rabbits can raze your garden to the ground.)

I had given some thought to doing something like that this summer, but remembered how back-breaking the work to start a garden is (I've done it with others twice; once in Berkeley and once in Minneapolis), and I ended up buying a share with a CSA instead for my veggies, and trying to grow some herbs on my back porch (with mixed success--I am a lousy gardener by myself, but an enthusiastic helper with others).

I'm going to take it in small steps. First step is to read other people's stories! I thoroughly enjoyed this book: Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. And she has a blog! and it's just as awesome as her book, which I loved, loved, loved and am willing to lend to anyone who promises to give it back eventually.

Mustard greens

In my CSA box from Featherstone Farms today, there were four kinds of tomatoes (little yellow ones shaped like pears, orange sweeties, a greenish-red heirloom, and several roma style cooking tomatoes), summer squash, bell peppers, basil, red onions, green beans, salad greens, cucumbers, and a bunch of mustard greens. I love my CSA deliveries! Opening the box is like opening a gift every week.
I often crave greens, any and all of them, especially bitter greens. I washed and ripped the leaves off the coarse stems, and cooked them down in the water left over from steaming the beans. I ate some with my salad, and put the rest in a container for later. There was almost a cup of broth left over, and I'm drinking it now. I like the flavor, and mustard greens have a huge amount of vitamins A and C, as well as other nutrients.
Nutrition has always fascinated me, and I just discovered asite called Nutrition Data, a good source of basic information presesented in the familiar USDA label format. An even better site is World's Healthiest Foods because it gives detailed explanations of the health benefits associated with the nutrients in specific foods. The entry on mustard greens explains why mustard greens might be particularly good for the lungs, the liver, and the joints, but not so great for people who have kidney or gall-bladder problems (because of the presence of oxalates). It reminds me of the kind of information that fascinated me when I started using Laurel's Kitchen to cook with, many years ago. The New Laurel's Kitchen is practically a textbook of nutrition as well as a cookbook.

Here is their list of the "worlds healthiest foods," (129) of them, according to these criteria: nutrient dense, whole foods, that are familiar, available, affordable and taste good.

Tutting (updated)

LOVE THESE GUYS!



Di Zhang (Moon), Phillip Chbeeb (Pacman) and Hokuto Konishi (Hok) here integrate waving and hand tutting into a dance they apparently created and filmed in just three days. Moon and Chbeeb teach and dance with a group called MarvelousMotion. Chbeeb was a very popular contestant on Season 5 of So You Think You Can Dance (sytycd), while Hok competed in Season 4 (and his crew auditioned together earlier). Hok and his buddies are now the Qwest Crew which won America's Best Dance Crew (abdc) last season.

Tutting (as in King Tut) is a type of hip-hop dance movement that emerged in the early days of hip hop dance, along with popping and locking. The group of dancers called The Electric Boogaloos had a huge influence on young kids who saw them on Soul Train (omg, awesome!).

Tut movements were inspired by Egyptian images and meant making right angles with the arms; these movements have been refined into various types, including hand tutting, which you can see here. Click on some of the links below for some more You Tube videos:

pacman chbeeb hok hokuto konishi di zhang moon tutting waving popping sytycd abdc
The masters break it down for us:

Grizzly Bear song, fan video by Gabe Askew

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Everyone's passing this around, for good reason. Charming and lovely!

Spamblog? moi?

I was away for a week, a whole week! and kind of off the grid, but while I was on the road, I casually deleted a terse email purporting to be from Blogger, claiming that my blog was acting like a spamblog and it would be frozen until I contacted them. And that if I didn't contact them in 20 days my blog would be deleted! I always assume this type of email is phishing, so I hit delete and thought no more about it. But when I went to write a post, it turned out that for some reason, which I have yet to discover, this blog had indeed been locked down. After requesting a review, I can now have access to my blog, but this is the message I see:

Your blog is marked as spam

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on August 25, 2009. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

According to their description, my blog does NOT have the characteristics their algorithm is supposed to detect, and I am not a spammer or a bot, but what a curious incident. In the first moment, I felt guilty, the way I used to feel decades ago when they first installed those anti-theft gates in bookstores and libraries; even though I wasn't stealing, I was sure the alarm would sound and I would be hauled off and searched. As with the annoyance of car alarms and malfunctioning security systems in stores, that initial guilty reaction long ago gave way to exasperation, then resentful acceptance. And as with the security protocols in the airports, where I have been searched and questioned and some folks I know have wrongfully been placed on watch lists, the seemingly random nature of being singled out makes me mistrust the security efforts themselves.

Two seconds later, I didn't feel guilty, I felt annoyed, especially as the notice on my dashboard said my blog would be deleted if I had not responded in 20 days, and I can't remember how long ago I deleted that email! Of course, I haven't backed up the blog; I'm not a business, this isn't work, and I'm lazy. Now, I feel a slight panic: Why was Blogger messing with me when I was so obviously NOT a spammer? What automated detection system had they set up to catch spammers that would catch innocents like me in its trawl? How often will I have to mail in proof of my non-spammer intentions in the future? Is it time to move from Blogger to WordPress?

Poking around, I see I am not alone and that many others have commented, ranted, or analyzed this situation already. Google, which owns Blogger, is trying to control the proliferation of spam and malware, but its response has triggered many of the kinds of reactions I've had: why me? One site, which is politically paranoid in nature, assumed this was part and parcel of an ongoing campaign of political censorship, and who knows? How can we tell? I don't make that assumption in my case because I'm a little nothing in the big blogoverse, but an automated bot can scoop up krill like me along with larger fish, and with our greater reliance on cloud computing, we are also exposed both to malicious spam and the sledgehammer response.

Off to San Francisco!

I go home to San Francisco as often as possible, at least once a year, so that I can live happily in the upper Midwest the rest of the time. Here are some SF nostalgia songs I haven't already posted to this blog as I pack for my trip.

Jesse Fuller performs 'San Francisco Bay Blues,' a song that has been covered by lots of others. Later, Eric Burden and the Animals advertised going to San Francisco in 1967 with "Warm San Franciscan Night" (probably not performing it live in this clip, but that's how they did music on TV in those days).

One of my favorite travel songs, although it's not about SF I heard it when we first moved there in 1968, is "Going Up The Country" by Canned Heat (who are clearly "lip syncing" in this video as well, but not taking it too seriously!).

If you like your nostalgia sweet, try this song "San Francisco" by
Maxime Le Forestier, French singer-songwriter, a huge hit from his first album Mon Frère (1973). I love this song--I listened to it over and over when I was in lived in France in the 70s.


Here are the words in French:

San Francisco

by Maxime Le Forestier

C'est une maison bleue
Adossée à la colline
On y vient à pied, on ne frappe pas
Ceux qui vivent là, ont jeté la clé
On se retrouve ensemble
Après des années de route
Et l'on vient s'asseoir autour du repas
Tout le monde est là, à cinq heures du soir
San Francisco s'embrume
San Francisco s'allume
San Francisco, où êtes vous
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi

Nageant dans le brouillard
Enlacés, roulant dans l'herbe
On écoutera Tom à la guitare
Phil à la kena, jusqu'à la nuit noire
Un autre arrivera
Pour nous dire des nouvelles
D'un qui reviendra dans un an ou deux
Puisqu'il est heureux, on s'endormira
San Francisco se lève
San Francisco se lève
San Francisco ! où êtes vous
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi

C'est une maison bleue
Accrochée à ma mémoire
On y vient à pied, on ne frappe pas
Ceux qui vivent là, ont jeté la clef
Peuplée de cheveux longs
De grands lits et de musique
Peuplée de lumière, et peuplée de fous
Elle sera dernière à rester debout
Si San Francisco s'effondre
Si San Francisco s'effondre
San Francisco ! Où êtes vous
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi

"I dreamed my whole house was clean"

Ann Tainter's use of vintage ads with sly captions is highly entertaining. On the company website, they have a section called "Meet the models" with the stories of the women who posed for the original ads. The all-time customer favorite image is apparently one I have on a postcard in my bedroom:

"I dreamed my whole house was clean."

For a long time, this was not even in the category of aspirational, but now I'm approaching a moment when it may actually come true!

TV Party Tonight!

My nephew is off to continue his college education at Berkeley. I know that he will not be partying like this (he doesn't drink) but this song is the quintessential frat boy party song from back when I was at Berkeley (it came out in '81 and was recorded in 2-3 versions). Pre-gaming, pre-internet, DVDs, back in the stone age, man! we were still listening to vinyl and I still had a reel-to-reel tape recorder!

A very young Henry Rollins is singing with hardcore band Black Flag "TV Party Tonight" more fun than some of their hardcore ragers, but just as testosterone fueled. It's been trotting around my head lately, so I wanted to remember all the names of the shows they shout out:


Lyrics
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!

We're gonna have a T.V. party tonight!

Alright!

We're gonna have a T.V. party alright!

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

All our friends are gonna hang out here tonight

Alright!

We're gonna pass out on the couch alright

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!

(That's incredible! Hill Street Blues! Dallas! Quincy!)

We sit glued to the T.V. set all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all?
It's such a fright!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

T.V. news shows what it's really like out there
It's a scare!

You can go out if you want
We wouldn't dare!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!
(Saturday Night Live! Monday Night Football! Dynasty! Fridays!)

I wouldn't be without my T.V. for a day
Or even a minute!

Don't even bother to use my brain anymore
There's nothing left in it!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Wait a minute! My T.V. set doesn't work!
It's broken!
What are we gonna do tonight? This isn't fair!
We're hurtin'

We've got nothing left to do
With no T.V. and just a couple of brews

What are we gonna talk about?
I don't know!
We're gonna miss our favorite shows!
NO T.V. PARTY TONIGHT!

Cleaning house and finishing the job

In 20 years of living here, starting with 36 boxes of books and not much else, I've accumulated too much stuff. Much of it was from garage sales, Savers or Good Will, donations from friends or family. My living room furniture is from my mother's house, a piano I bought from a friend, several large items like bookcases and chairs were given to me by people who were moving. And then there are the things my child has hoarded, because there were years when we had to save everything. That phase seems to have passed, and this year we determined to repaint her bedroom and get rid of a very large, dark piece of furniture that was not really serving its purpose and which made her very small room feel even smaller. But that job was not one I could tackle by myself.

Over the last few years, I've been making steady progress in reducing the mountains of clutter in my small apartment: I've sold, recycled or given away baby toys, books and clothing; several carloads of stuff have been taken to Good Will or Savers--odds and ends, furniture, clothing, books; I've cleared out cupboards, closets, drawers, and shelves. But there was still a lot sitting around, waiting to be disposed of in one way or another, and between work, travel and laying around on the couch reading the New Yorker, my tendency toward inertia meant there were piles of stuff accumulating cat hair. Some of the piles had become invisible as such, but they were just clutter.

When Fresca took care of Leo and my place while I was away, she kindly cleared some junk off the porch to turn it back into the lovely bower it can be when it is clean and has a few plants. This was both kind and inspiring. We all stood and looked at it, and since the guys had promised their help with painting R's room, we put our heads together and came up with a plan of operations for transforming the rest of the place in the same way.

First step, I finally gathered 20 years of old electronic gear and brought it to one of the Hennepin County "problem waste" disposal sites, where I could leave it without paying a fee and knowing it would not be put into the landfill or burned with toxic parts still in it. There was my first and only TV set, the VCR, several phones I'd inherited or bought but which are now obsolete or interfere with my broadband signal, an ancient camera, batteries, Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs, and assorted parts of computers past.

Now, with the guys, we are undertaking a massive project that involves a domino-like transfer of stuff: we've removed everything from my daughter's bedroom and we'll rip out the old carpet and paint it today. She has sorted out all the old clothes she's outgrown, and the stuff she no longer needs or uses, and we've packed up the nostalgia items suchs as Halloween costumes and some dress-up items. The rest is bagged and off to Good Will or will be turned into a sewing project (t-shirt pillows!). We also pulled all the stuff off the porch, including an old desk that went to the basement, and a bookcase that will go into her bedroom, and did the same sort-and-purge. A lot fo what needed to be sorted were odds and ends of recycling abandoned there during the winter.

We moved a very large bookcase/drawer thingie from her bedroom onto the porch, where it looks splendid and holds my sewing project materials, and other boxes of stuff like holiday ornaments. We removed another bookcase that was holding the computer and are doing the same sort-and-purge in the living room office space. All the loose CDs, DVDs, magazines, and electronic gear and peripherals (iPod cables, rechargers, etc) have been coralled and given a garage of some kinds, many with boxes I got from Ikea. Being from Ikea, they all had to be assembled, so I have punched out little cardboard holes and put together a zillion boxes with little screws in the last two days.

The guys repaired one file cabinet whose drawers had lost their front panels, and I got another one at Ikea so my files can move out of the milk crates in the dining room. I tell you, it's a delicate operation! In order to move one set of things, another set has to be displaced. Every piece of paper, book, envelope, paper clip, pen, coin, battery, old toy or art project has be to sorted and given its new home: recycle? donate? move? discard?

But the results, although we are still in the middle of the process and my dining room is the temporary holding area, are already making me extremely happy. I've been meaning to do these things for literally years, and to have two strong and handy guys to help me muscle things around, and to have my daughter's complete cooperation in sorting her stuff (which I am not allowed to touch and rightly so) means this is happening!

Thanks, Fresca, for inspiration, and thanks to Blas and Loren for patiently assembling something from Ikea, moving big cabinets, helping me bring things to the basement and being willing to paint and grub up the carpet. By the end of the day, we will be done painting. It finally looks as if it will be possible for me to finish the job I started about three years ago of divesting m myself of the things I don't want or need anymore.

So you think you can dance on Youtube?

Have you seen the famous Jill and Kevin Wedding entrance dance?

It became an internet sensation, and inspired this equally awesome Divorce dance parody:

Love how she throws the flowers at the end!

Happy Birthday, President Obama!

How are those beer summits going?


I'm happy my president thinks that talking things out is a good idea.

"Paco Paco Paco que mi Paco"

It´s summer, and time for the fiestas en los pueblos de Espana! But what will be this year´s hit song, that will get all the kids up and dancing in every village? This year´s song may actually be a case of musical recycling, a mash-up of flamenco pop and Beyonce´s "Single Ladies" known as "Paco Paco Paco."

¿El fenómeno que arrasó en España y que igual se convierte en la canción más bailada de las fiestas de verano es la remezcla del baile de Beyonce con una canción de "flamenco pop" de Encarnita Polo, de hace 30 años

El video de Beyonce, "Single Ladies,"  fue sincronizado con "Paco Paco Paco" con resultados sorprendentes. 

Claro, las imitaciones caseras empezaron a llover, y el "Paco Paco Paco" pasó a ser un fenómeno televiso. Unos humoristas de un programa de televisión lanzaron un concurso nacional de imitadores.

.


Como dijo alguien en los comentarios al videoclip: "Ahora todo el mundo se sube al carro del paco paco jaja. Lo k hace la crisis, madre mia k mal vamos a acabar jaja." 

No han tardado la versión política, y la de los Teletubbies. 

William Shatner reciting some of Sarah Palin´s speech

with bongo drums.

I'm away from my digital desk

AAAAH! I am struck by irrational exuberance! Because I have finished grading papers and I'm leaving town for a few weeks, off the grid. No phone, no laptop, only intermittent access to email. I'm going to power down.
So I leave you with these links to playlists of great group danceshere, and hip-hop hits , and ballroom highlights. Here are some contemporary routines and assorted other fun things as well.
All bow down before MightyGodKing!

I won't be able to watch my favorite show, live, for a few weeks. I'll have to make do with the recaps, gossip and spoilers posted by my viewing buddies.

Back in August, ciao!

LOLSotomayor

Excellent caption for this picture over on the PunditKitchen site.
UPDATE: oh, Jon Stewart, how I love you!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
White Men Can't Judge - Sotomayor: Judgment Days
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

SYTYCD 5: top ten dance

Jason and Jeanine dance to Travis Wall choreography.

So You Think You Can Grandstand?

I've been glued to the "Sotoshow" or the third day of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. How I wish we could judge the Senators for their performance the way we judge the dancers on our favorite reality show! Some of these "Bitter Old White Guys" don't get it (or just don't care) that they are showing their true colors in front of the nation.

Here, I'm recycling one of my very favorite SYTYCD remixes, in which the judges and fans watch the performances of Obama and McCain in the presidential debate. It's all footage from last season's show, but used to great effect. How I wish there were a similar remix for the Senate hearings of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court: but of the Senators, not her!



It's disgusting but fascinating, the way all those angry white men are trying to prove that the Puerto Rican woman who worked her way out of the projects to the top of her class, the top of her profession, is a RACIST! who is keeping the white man down! Because we all know that white men are the most oppressed! And that Latina women have their boots on the throats of DA WHITEMAN! Poor white men, they have no power and status in our world today.

Last night, I issued a plea, via Twitter, that the Senators end this asshattery, with this song:
"Dear Senators Graham, Kyl, and Sessions, this song is for you. #sotomayor ("Please Stop the Asshattery" by Josh Millard, from MeFi)

"Warning Sign" Talking Heads 1978 Lower Sproul Plaza

I was there. Still a great song.

The Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Yesterday I had to work and couldn't follow the live coverage of the "Sotoshow"--the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor-- but I did get to check out Anne Marie Cox's live-blogging (a hilarious antidote to the pontificating and posturing by most of the Senators). After all the snark and laughing though, I get back to the fact that it's still OK for the mainstream media to make outrageously sexist and racist remarks with impunity. And some of the Senators, especially Sessions, were appealing to that hateful rhetoric.

The Women's Media Project documents the relentless smears against Sonia Sotomayor since her nomination. Listen to all these white men--all the usual suspects--rant and rave, attempting to accuse Sotomayor of what they themselves promote: malice and hate. Bullies who are afraid of mommy and teacher.


Thank goodness that there are a few people of common sense who can offer a different perspective. Like Rachel Maddow!



And Amy Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator, for showing us what it's like when a grown-up talks.


And what about Judge Sotomayor herself? Here she answers a question from Diane Feinstein on the limits of executive power. (For the Constitutional law wonk take on this process, try The SCOTUS blog. For the analysis of the political theater, try HuffPo's live coverage)

Comedy and the news, or laugh so you don't cry

Minnesota has sent a comedian to Washington DC. Yes, I'm talking about Michelle Bachmann, whose name too often is closely followed by the words "loony tunes." MPR reporter and blogger Bob Collins did some fact-checking at his blog News Cut about some recent inflammatory statements Bachmann made about the U.S. Census., and found this great clip from The Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Noncensus
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Now Bob is much too professional a reporter to turn to the Dump Michelle Bachmann website for more examples of her crazy talk, but like him, I can supplement my fact-checking with the work of professional comedians: Here's Bachmann on Autotune the News!"

Zoning out on the couch, yes I am!

Churning through stuff at work in a very satisfactory way, but now I'm zonked, eating leftovers and zoning out on the couch. Zoning out is good for you, yes it is! (OMG, Mary Murphy has infected me with her verbal tics!)

This was the most exciting week of So You Think You Can Dance this season, with three or four performances that were among the best ever (Mia's piece for Kayla and Kupono, Brandon and Janette's Argentine Tango AND their number for Wade) and a solo by Ade that tore the roof off. Wade Robson made this wonderful piece for Brandon and Janette, to Roisin Murphy's song "Ruby Blue." "You are two thieves" he told them, and they ran with it.

@ Yahoo! Video

Several of us had fun trying to guess which 80s song Mandy Moore would use in her choreography, because she almost always uses 80s music. We didn't guess right, but one of the bands that got mentioned was Adam and the Ants. Wow, that brought back some memories!



Adam and the Ants "Stand and Deliver" sure as heck must have been one of the inspirations for Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow!

Another song that came us was New Order's "True Faith" and it turns out that the video (1987) is wild!

Musicians and fans create together.

Sometimes you come across something so lovely, so creative, it just makes you smile all day.

The band is Sour. Here is their website. They created this video with the participationn of their fans. Here's an interview in which they talk about how they made this video with no money.
I've found the English translation of the lyrics here, but I haven't found a transcription of the Japanese yet.

Buh-bye! Sarah Palin

OK, after my earnest sentimental post about democracy (all those 4th of July fireworks!) here is my razz on the other political news of the week: "Sarah Palin's Iquitarod" (joke first told on @pourmecoffee's Twitter and then turned into Huffpo headline by Geoffrey Dunn).

Well, we won't have Sarah Palin to kick around any more. At least not while she is in elected office. I wish this meant we wouldn't be hearing from her or about her at all, but I fear she will continue to puzzle us with her amazing feats of syntax, and provide the pundits with fodder for punditry. LOL, even the otherwise horrid the Fox media critic Liz Trotta who laughed about Obama getting assassinated ("Osama..Obama... well both would be really good") goes off on her! Hmmmm.


But, for now, I say "Play her off, keyboard cat."

Al Franken interview on The UpTake

Senator Al Franken answers questions from The UpTake, some serious, some frivolous.
Some highlights: on health care: private insurance needs competition from "a public option" (we know he is a strong advocate for accessible and affordable health care for all).He repeats that he favors gay marriage and thinks DOMA will be history soon. Specifically, he emarks that we just observed the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, and 42nd anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia, saying that 40 years from now, people will find it just as incredible that there was a ban on gay marriage as we do now that there was a ban on interracial marriage. Franken quotes his friend Paul Wellstone: "Politics is not about winning, it's not about power; it's about improving other people's lives."

Progress is too slow, but it is real, and we can't drop the ball because we are impatient with the pace. We need that 60th Senator. We needed those seven months of proving that the election was absolutely clean. We need to make sure that every vote is counted.

The swearing-in is tomorrow (see this Minnesota Independent story). He says it is surreal, after seven months, after watching the coverage on the UpTake; he's pinching himself. I'm elated that he will be in office and ready to work for us; it's about time we had our full representation in the Senate. Looking at the events in Iran and in Honduras makes me grateful, even when I'm feeling cynical about politics in the U.S., because it does make a difference that we have elections, that they can be legal and demonstrably free of corruption, that people can have trust that their voices will be heard by someone whose job it is to represent them.

With Sarah Palin's resignation in Alaska, we see that she and the people who support her are not interested in the actual work of governing, of the hard work of leadership; they are more interested in demagoguery and whipping up fear and resentment to frighten people. I hope that we keep our eye on the incremental changes that are slowly happening in Washington, and keep up the pressure to make those changes bigger and better. When I read the news from Iran and Honduras, I am reminded of a more shameful side of our government's history, when it does not obey its own laws. All the more reason to persist in the often tedious but absolutely necessary work of creating the infrastructure of civial society, such as citizen-journalism of the caliber of the UpTake. I'm going to be making a donation to them, because they need the money. Since our major news outlets can't do the job, we need to make sure it gets done.

Rap around the world video

I am absolutely fascinated by this video: it's a sampler of rap in 30 languages from all around the world. A testament to the power of hip hop culture as a world-wide phenomenon, it also shows--ever so briefly--how languages with different sounds, rhythms, and tone systems have taken what young people identify as some of the basic elements of rap, and made them fit their own circumstances. I would so love to have an idea of WHAT they are singing about!


The YouTube info lists the 30 languages and identifies most (but not all) of the artists. Two notes: the language identified as simply Chinese is, I believe, Mandarin Chinese (because Cantonese is a Chinese languge too). And there is no language called "Swiss" so I suspect it is Swiss-German but I have to listen again.

Congratulations, Senator Al Franken!

I wrote a very serious post about how proud I was of the clean democracy in Minnesota, the excellent work by the press and citizen journalists, but right now what I want to say is Up Yours, Republicans!

SHAKE IT, AL!


What can a comedian do in the Senate?


He can draw a map of the United States!

More Autotune the News, with Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow!

Autotune the news

For my sister

Powerful memories are tied to songs in our lives. To me, Michael Jackson will always be that kid that my little sister adored. I'm only 1 year older than Michael Jackson. My sister is only a year and a half younger. When we were girls, we loved the Jackson 5: ABC, Never Can Say Goodbye, I'll Be There, Got To Be There (1972) but she especially loved Michael. She had his poster on her wall, while her best friend was a Donny Osmond fan.

I lost my taste for his music with "Ben" and never really got it back. Sure, Thriller entertained me-- I met my boyfriend Bill at benefit for a dance magazine at a lesbian bar in San Francisco when we danced to Billie Jean; he won a dance contest for being the wackiest dancer out there. I loved meeting a guy who could let go on the dance floor, and I remember thinking that I didn't care how stupid the lyrics to the song were because it was so much fun to dance to it. I recognize his genius, but his music as an adult was not important to me.
I despised the way he mutilated himself, I loathed what he became later in his life. But every time I hear one of those early songs, it brings my little sister back to me.

Ritmo de pasodoble

Last week, Jean-Marc Genereaux, that savvy showman, choreographed a paso doble for Jason and Caitlin that was... a hot mess. Sorry, but I hated it. The costumes have been compared elsewhere to Disney's Aladdin (or I Dream of Genie meets Princess Leia) while the music (the same overblown music from Carmina Burana that Brandon used for his audition) was a crime against the paso doble because it simply was not the right rhythm. The poor dancers were told that they were supposed to hate each other and were given a lot of stomping and flailing to do, but whatever tenuous grasp of the character of the dance the non-ballroom public might have picked up over the last few years of watching SYTYCD (or even DWTS) was stamped out. I got so annoyed I couldn't enjoy a thing about it, even how ridiculous it was. I don't expect dance purity from SYTYCD, or even an attempt to educate us about the origins of various dances. But if they weren't going to even gesture toward the Spanish popular origins of the pasodoble at least they could respect more stylized conventions the ballroom paso! The dancers can't be faulted for their performance; Jean-Marc is a generally a crowd pleaser, but in this case I think he went too far trying to sell a spectacle to a non-ballroom audience instead helping his dancers understand something about the character of the dance that would make their posture, arm gestures, head position, promenades, poses convey something about the paso doble and look like something better than a kind of pompous hustle. I think that's why they ended up in the bottom 3 last week.

So, to rinse out my brain, I went looking for some REAL pasodoble, both Spanish and ballroom. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert, but enjoy dancing ballroom as an amateur, and I have spent a lot of time in Spain in the last fifteen years because my daughter's dad is Spanish. I thought I'd share some of my ideas about the paso doble, not as prescriptions for the show, but just to take us beyond what the show is able to show us about the dance.

Start with the rhythm. This 1902 composition "Suspiros de España" (presented on Spanish TV with reverence by opera tenor Plácido Domingo) is a Spanish example of the song genre called the pasodoble, Listen to the rhythm: this is the essence of the pasodoble whose very name tells us what is basic to this genre of music; translated as "two step" or "double step", the music that gives origin to the dance has the 1-2 1-2 rhythm of a quick march, but it's not a stomp stomp stomp.


The singer here, Rosa, doesn't camp it up like some of the copla singers of the past (Isabel Pantoja , Rocio Jurado are wonderful examples of great popular singers of the pasodoble) but gives it to us simply and from the heart. Spaniards are incredibly fond of this kind of song and see it as a part of their cultural heritage. This particular song is so iconic in Spain that it has been used in the soundtrack of two films about the Spanish Civil War to convey something about the conflict: in Soldados de Salamanca the song was reinterpreted in a slowed-down style that brings out the North African/gypsy elements of Spanish heritage, while in Ay! Carmela, Carmen Maura sings it when forced to perform for the Germans and Italians who were the allies of Franco. In both cases, the words and rhythm of this pasodoble are supposed to communicate something important about what it means to be Spanish, however complicated that might turn out to be.

The pasodoble is also a rhythm associated with the promenatde of the bullfighters, the entrance of toreros, because it's often played by brass bands (its probable origin in the 19th century is as a military march, later played by bands for popular entertaiment). This march was made internationally famous by Bizet in his opera Carmen, and even today famous pasodoble songs are performed on TV by some of the most iconic diva singers of Spanish pop culture. The social dance called the pasodoble (which, of course, looks almost nothing like they highly stylized and athletic dance of International Dancesport competitive ballroom dance) is danced socially in Spain (and in some other countries like Colombia) at events like weddings where families get together. I have dance the pasodoble at weddings in Spain--it's a hoot.

What is the "character of the dance?" In this clip from Carlos Saura's film of García Lorca's play Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), you can see the wedding band playing (and singing) a pasodoble as the wedding party poses for a photo, drinks a toast and begins the first dance. The bride (the splendid Cristina Hoyos) dances first with her groom, but then with the man she really loves (Antonio Gades, he of the wolfish eyes). The entire film tells the story using flamenco-based dance, but what I love about this scene is that is conveys the intensity that ballroom paso doble wants to convey, but using entirely Spanish cultural, musical and dance idioms.

The character of the dance is not just its basic rhythm, but also the posture, the gestures, the emotions: here the love that is a mix of lust and resentment, the danger of dancing with a former lover at your own wedding in front of everyone, the pride of both the man and the woman, is not just danced by the couple but by the entire group.

To convey the character of the dance, the choreography and performance of woman's part in the pasodoble should give us the FEELING of Lola Flores singing "Pena penita pena."

When ballroom instructors who don't know much about Spanish culture try to explain to students what the paso should look like they often fall back on the analogy of the bullfighter: the man is the bullfighter the woman is the cape (NOT the bull, please!) but what does that really mean? Here's an example of the movement of a bullfighter who is a master of the cape, the current idol of Spain's bullfight aficionados, Morantes de la Puebla (WARNING: don't watch this if you will feel sorry for the bull!). Look at his posture, the quality of his movements, the incredible stylization of this bloody ritual that survives in spite of the protests of those against animal cruelty because of its amazing artistry and danger.

This of the best ballroom paso doble as an extremely stylized set of moves, always set to a few basic Spanish paso doble songs. Although it no longer has much direct connection to its Spanish roots, it is almost always danced in competition to the pasodoble song "España Cani" (aka the "bullfight song") which preserve the musical rhythm of the popular genre, and attempts to capture some of the spirit of the Spanish attitude and movements that come from the bullfight, flamenco, and Spanish popular culturel. Here's a fairly straightforward example, danced as a showcase by international champions Michael Malitowski and Joanne Leunis:


Our SYTYCD dancers aren't going to be able to do this, but the judges need to have a talk with Jean-Marc.
crossposted at SYTYCD 5 Social

X, then and now

I saw the band X perform in Berkeley right when they were getting started... '78 or '79? ("Sheeeeeee had to leeeeeave...). They weren't yet as famous as they would become, but I WAS caught up in the excitement of this new music that was happening in LA and SF, the punk scene. The show was in some kind of co-op house, in a rec room or living room; there was room for about 3-5 rows of people in front of the band. Needless to say, we were all dancing like crazy. It was one of the most amazing show experiences I ever had. How fierce was Exene to my shy, 22-yr old self? She wrote these ferocious songs, she had a unique look (then, before everyone else copied the underground scene), she planted herself on stage and wailed in these amazing harmonies with John Doe. I didn't pay attention then to what amazing musicians they all were; I just knew they were tight, fast, and blew me away.
From an interview a few years ago:

“It was very inspiring,” Exene says of those days. “I remember that feeling of creating something completely out-there and new, and that’s fucking amazing as an artist. That’s what you’re supposed to do. We didn’t have any radio or music industry interest, so here’s a bunch of kids just screwing around with art and music, doing whatever comes into their mind, being totally left alone. By the time popularity happened, we’d been left alone for so long that we created this thing totally without influence. People asked, ‘How do you know to do that?’ Well, because I put those two things together and it sounded good to me.”

Exene created her iconic thrift-store vamp look the same way, working with whatever she found in dollar bins that caught her fancy. She would accent a dress from the ‘20s or ‘40s with diaper pins and flashy rhinestones, and pair the look with ankle socks and frumpy shoes. Her dark, bleach-streaked hair was the West Coast flipside of Debbie Harry’s black-tipped, platinum-blond ‘do. Ironically, for a girl whose fashion philosophy boiled down to “cover up as much as you can, because if you don’t, men will look at you,” Exene was also something of a punk pinup. “Yeah, but what was I wearing?” She smiles and laughs. “Good for me. That’s what I say to that.”

For women who found nothing to identify with in the soft-rockin’ ‘70s, punk opened up a new world. “It was the first time women were really in a position like that, to be onstage and be themselves,” says Exene. “You had girl groups and the Runaways and the girls from Fleetwood Mac, but you didn’t really have scary, upfront women like that, so I think people were real fascinated by that.”

I loved this band passionately then, and I still do. I went to the show they did last night at The Cabooze (a bar with a stage, best place to see them). 30 years later, they have lost none of their speed, none of their intensity, and their maturity makes them even better performers and musicians. The crowd was madly in love with their performance, and so was I. I managed to get a good place to stand and see them without getting crushed in the mosh pit, although there were lots of tall people in front of me. I could see Billy Zoom doing that ridiculous posing smiling thing he does while he's playing the hottest guitar around. John Doe plays the bass like few others and he and Exene still are able to give me goosebumps with what they can do when they put their voices together. The drummer, JD Bonebrake, who often gets ignored was as strong and rock solid as ever on their super fast, super tight songs. The set list had been decided by fan vote online before the show, and included a ton of favorites as well as some songs I didn't know. This was their last show on the tour, and they were generous with their encores.

Here they are in 1984 on the David Letterman show (before he got so damn lazy). Neither song rocks as hard as their earlier stuff, but you get the idea.

Check out the little interview Letterman does with the band between their 2 performances here.