Haida people speak out against the latest form of colonialism

(via Margaret Atwood, tweeter extraordinaire!) Two ways of talking back. It's not just the Gateway Tar Sands Pipeline project that they resist; that's just the latest manifestation of colonialism. "The land of Haida Gwaii is threatened by the building of a giant pipeline and the arrival of oil tankers. Two brothers take matters into their own hands to find a solution, and end up getting some supernatural help from Raven." haidagwaiicoast.ca A Haida Councilor tells the stories and speaks about the impact of the pipeline on the Haida land and people, and all people. The story she tells is the story of colonialism, of occupation, of despoiling of the land and displacement of the peoples.

Dad dances (Jimmy Fallon)

I love Jimmy Fallon!

Bob Welch is gone

Bob Welch killed himself at 66, apparently after suffering health problems. (Heroin will do that to you.) His singing and guitar work were my constant companions in the early to mid-seventies, when I was in college, because I loved Fleetwood Mac before the Stevie Nicks era._ That's Bob Weston in the white. Welch and Christine McVie share vocals.
"Sentimental Lady" from Bare Trees, with Bob Welch on lead vocal. This 1972 record was one of my favorites. A lot of Bare Trees was Danny Kirwin, but Bob Welch was an integral part of the band's sound.

"Emerald Eyes" from Mystery to Me

"Why" with Christine McVie's vocal.
Here's a live version, after Buckingham/Nicks joined the band:

Commencement speech: Neil Gaiman

This has gone viral because it has great advice for artists and writers, but also because Neil has such a wonderful voice. I think this advice is as good for me as it is for my daughter, the artist.

The complete transcript, thanks to the University of Pennsylvania

134th Commencement
May 17, 2012I never really expected to find myself giving advice to people graduating from an establishment of higher education.  I never graduated from any such establishment. I never even started at one. I escaped from school as soon as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I'd become the writer I wanted to be was stifling.
I got out into the world, I wrote, and I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I wrote some more, and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it up as I went along, they just read what I wrote and they paid for it, or they didn't, and often they commissioned me to write something else for them.
Which has left me with a healthy respect and fondness for higher education that those of my friends and family, who attended Universities, were cured of long ago.
Looking back, I've had a remarkable ride. I'm not sure I can call it a career, because a career implies that I had some kind of career plan, and I never did. The nearest thing I had was a list I made when I was 15 of everything I wanted to do: to write an adult novel, a children's book, a comic, a movie, record an audiobook, write an episode of Doctor Who... and so on. I didn't have a career. I just did the next thing on the list.
So I thought I'd tell you everything I wish I'd known starting out, and a few things that, looking back on it, I suppose that I did know. And that I would also give you the best piece of advice I'd ever got, which I completely failed to follow.
First of all: When you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing.
This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and know what is possible and impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can.
If you don't know it's impossible it's easier to do. And because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.
Secondly, If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that.
And that's much harder than it sounds and, sometimes in the end, so much easier than you might imagine. Because normally, there are things you have to do before you can get to the place you want to be. I wanted to write comics and novels and stories and films, so I became a journalist, because journalists are allowed to ask questions, and to simply go and find out how the world works, and besides, to do those things I needed to write and to write well, and I was being paid to learn how to write economically,  crisply, sometimes under adverse conditions, and on time.
Sometimes the way to do what you hope to do will be clear cut, and sometimes  it will be almost impossible to decide whether or not you are doing the correct thing, because you'll have to balance your goals and hopes with feeding yourself, paying debts, finding work, settling for what you can get.
Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.
And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time.
I learned to write by writing. I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like work.
Thirdly, When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.
The problems of failure are problems of discouragement, of hopelessness, of hunger. You want everything to happen and you want it now, and things go wrong. My first book – a piece of journalism I had done for the money, and which had already bought me an electric typewriter  from the advance – should have been a bestseller. It should have paid me a lot of money. If the publisher hadn't gone into involuntary liquidation between the first print run selling out and the second printing, and before any royalties could be paid, it would have done.
And I shrugged, and I still had my electric typewriter and enough money to pay the rent for a couple of months, and I decided that I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you didn't get the money, then you didn't have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work.
Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me. I don't know that it's an issue for anybody but me, but it's true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn't wind up getting the money, either.  The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them.
The problems of failure are hard.
The problems of success can be harder, because nobody warns you about them.
The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the Fraud Police.
In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don't know why he carried a clipboard, in my head, but he did) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn't consist of making things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read. And then I would go away quietly and get the kind of job where you don't have to make things up any more.
The problems of success. They're real, and with luck you'll experience them. The point where you stop saying yes to everything, because now the bottles you threw in the ocean are all coming back, and have to learn to say no.
I watched my peers, and my friends, and the ones who were older than me and watch how miserable some of them were: I'd listen to them telling me that they couldn't envisage a world where they did what they had always wanted to do any more, because now they had to earn a certain amount every month just to keep where they were. They couldn't go and do the things that mattered, and that they had really wanted to do; and that seemed as a big a tragedy as any problem of failure.
And after that, the biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful. There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby.  I started answering fewer emails, and was relieved to find I was writing much more.
Fourthly, I hope you'll make mistakes. If you're making mistakes, it means you're out there doing something. And the mistakes in themselves can be useful. I once misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the A and the O, and I thought, “Coraline looks like a real name...”
And remember that whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer, whatever you do you have one thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art.
And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that's been a lifesaver. The ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times and it gets you through the other ones.
Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.
I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.
Make it on the good days too.
And Fifthly, while you are at it, make your art. Do the stuff that only you can do.
The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.
The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.
The things I've done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain about, the stories where I was sure they would either work, or more likely be the kinds of embarrassing failures people would gather together and talk about  until the end of time. They always had that in common: looking back at them, people explain why they were inevitable successes. While I was doing them, I had no idea.
I still don't. And where would be the fun in making something you knew was going to work?
And sometimes the things I did really didn't work. There are stories of mine that have never been reprinted. Some of them never even left the house. But I learned as much from them as I did from the things that worked.
Sixthly. I will pass on some secret freelancer knowledge. Secret knowledge is always good. And it is useful for anyone who ever plans to create art for other people, to enter a freelance world of any kind. I learned it in comics, but it applies to other fields too. And it's this:
People get hired because, somehow, they get hired. In my case I did something which these days would be easy to check, and would get me into trouble, and when I started out, in those pre-internet days, seemed like a sensible career strategy: when I was asked by editors who I'd worked for, I lied. I listed a handful of magazines that sounded likely, and I sounded confident, and I got jobs. I then made it a point of honour to have written something for each of the magazines I'd listed to get that first job, so that I hadn't actually lied, I'd just been chronologically challenged... You get work however you get work.
People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today's world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three. Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. They'll forgive the lateness of the work if it's good, and if they like you. And you don't have to be as good as the others if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.
When I agreed to give this address, I started trying to think what the best advice I'd been given over the years was.
And it came from Stephen King twenty years ago, at the height of the success of Sandman. I was writing a comic that people loved and were taking seriously. King had liked Sandman and my novel with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and he saw the madness, the long signing lines, all that, and his advice was this:
“This is really great. You should enjoy it.”
And I didn't. Best advice I got that I ignored.Instead I worried about it. I worried about the next deadline, the next idea, the next story. There wasn't a moment for the next fourteen or fifteen years that I wasn't writing something in my head, or wondering about it. And I didn't stop and look around and go, this is really fun. I wish I'd enjoyed it more. It's been an amazing ride. But there were parts of the ride I missed, because I was too worried about things going wrong, about what came next, to enjoy the bit I was on.
That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.
And here, on this platform, today, is one of those places. (I am enjoying myself immensely.)
To all today's graduates: I wish you luck. Luck is useful. Often you will discover that the harder you work, and the more wisely you work, the luckier you get. But there is luck, and it helps.
We're in a transitional world right now, if you're in any kind of artistic field, because the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches while they did that, are all changing. I've talked to people at the top of the food chain in publishing, in bookselling, in all those areas, and nobody knows what the landscape will look like two years from now, let alone a decade away. The distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are in flux for print, for visual artists, for musicians, for creative people of all kinds.
Which is, on the one hand, intimidating, and on the other, immensely liberating. The rules, the assumptions, the now-we're supposed to's of how you get your work seen, and what you do then, are breaking down. The gatekeepers are leaving their gates. You can be as creative as you need to be to get your work seen. YouTube and the web (and whatever comes after YouTube and the web) can give you more people watching than television ever did. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are.
So make up your own rules.
Someone asked me recently how to do something she thought was going to be difficult, in this case recording an audio book, and I suggested she pretend that she was someone who could do it. Not pretend to do it, but pretend she was someone who could. She put up a notice to this effect on the studio wall, and she said it helped.
So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.
And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.

Commencement speech: Laurie Anderson

School of Visual Arts alum Laurie Anderson gives the commencement address for 2012. I was lucky enough to see her perform at the Walker Art Center some years ago, and the performance was everything I could have wanted it to be.

(many thanks to Fresca for this!)

Tomorrow my girl graduates from high school!

Frequently asked question at the Decorah Eagle Cam about when the young birds will leave the next:

1. Question of the Week When will they fly?

Learning to fly is a process. They are currently wingercizing. This entails flapping their wings and hopping. Late in the wingercizing phase, a gust of wind will lift them accidentally, and they will hover over the nest because their muscles are strong enough to hold their wings in the correct position and their flight feathers are long enough to sustain the lift. Branching comes after that. Branching is defined as a small hop and lift onto the closest branch. Unless there is a panner present at the time, we will not see this first very small journey away from the nest to the branch. Fledge or first self-propelled flight away from and back to the nest tree comes last. The whole process last 10-13 weeks.

My baby is "wingercizing" now, but she will fledge soon. Meanwhile, I remember with fondness those moments when she was my little baby, my special girl, my sweetie pea!

All the feels!

And...we're back! So You Think You Can Dance auditions

I can't believe I forgot to watch the premieres of my once-favorite show, SYTYCD. This audition is promising. No matter how much they muck around with the show, no matter how cheesy the introductions (kids, moms, sob stories) the dancers will always win me over. They showed at least three guys with really solid ballet training, but we have yet to see the ballroom competitors. B-Boy Mighty Mouse is another contender.

Argument

The other day I found myself on the emotional verge of engaging someone in an argument, but it was so clear that it would have been inappropriate or offensive to even do so that I actually had to get up and leave, so great was my rage and frustration. I was at a party, sitting with some colleagues/friends. In the group was a co-worker's husband. Someone mentioned a vacation in Glaciar Park, and the husband thought it would be a good idea to launch into a discussion of why global warming was a conspiracy by venal scientists who were just chasing grant money. After about ten minutes of this, my mind blew a BS fuse, and I experienced shut-down. To avoid shouting the equivalent of "OVER THE LINE!" I left rather abruptly because I didn't trust myself not to violate the social norms of Minnesota, which as we know, determine that if one replies to inane and insulting discourse with logic or facts, one is likely to be perceived as channeling Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski: as a rage monster who wants to win an argument at any cost, even to the point of pulling out a gun. It took me several hours to figure out why this particular incident pushed my buttons so hard; it's not as if I don't interact with ignorance on a regular basis. I guess it was a healthy thing that I removed myself from the scene rather than give in to the impulse to launch into an argument. Validity and soundness are better criteria for an argument than husbandhood (it was clear that this particular man thought that his dudeliness trumped all the PhDs earned by the women sitting at the table). Had we been in Spain, the opportunity to challenge, insult, joke, or engage in an argument would not have been ignored, and even if nobody's mind had been changed, everyone would have felt free to express disagreement without being considered a rage monster. I needed to go home, mediate, think about my own drive to have the last word, and the way that my family upbringing involved a particular culture of argument that is not necessarily always that healthy. There is a part that is mine, and there is a part of this experience that reminds me that I am a person of Mediterranean heritage living in a Northern European culture of conformity. As an antidote, I found it useful to review these useful lessons on argument, which also end with displays of force:

"Che, Asiri"

Siri "con acento" por los Pichy.

Mother's day songs that make me cry every single time

Barbara Streisand "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods.

 "In my Daughter's Eyes" Martina McBride

"Coat of Many Colors" Dolly Parton

 "Child of Mine" Carole King

 "Good Night" The Roches (from Will You Be My Friend)

 Bernadette Peters "No One is Alone" also from Into the Woods

Lyrics: No One Is Alone

No one here to guide you
Now you're on your own
Only me beside you
Still you're not alone
No one is alone
Truly
No one is alone
Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may deceive you
You decide what's good
You decide alone
But no one is alone
People make mistakes
Fathers,
Mothers
People make mistakes
Holding to their own
Thinking they're alone
Honor their mistakes
Everybody makes
One another's terrible mistakes
Witches can be right
Giants can be good
You decide what's right
You decide what's good
Just remember
Someone is on your side
Someone else is not
Well, we're seeing our side
Maybe we forgot
They are not alone
'Cause no one is alone
Hard to see the light now
Just don't let it go
Things will come out right now
We can make it so
Someone is on your side
No one is alone

Maurice Sendak left us today.

Dear Maurice Sendak.
We used to sing along with Carole King's songs based on Sendak's books, like "Chicken Soup with Rice"

NPR has posted some interviews with Sendak here. What a fascinating man.

“You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson — she’s probably the top — Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.” 

Lake Superior Whitefish

Today we went to the Saint Paul Farmers' Market, where we bought fresh,fresh scallions, pea shoots, a huge bunch of spinach, some honey, two dozen eggs and apple-cinnamon bacon from Prairie Pride Farm. We also stopped by Lenny Russo's Heartland Farm Direct Market, and bought a whole Lake Superior whitefish, at an incredibly reasonable price. Russo has been a finalist three times for the James Beard award, and we'll find out tomorrow if he will win this time for Midwest chef.
I plan to cook it Chinese style, and I'll use Mark Bittman's recipe:

With Ginger and Soy
Put a large, deep skillet over medium heat; add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon minced ginger; cook until sizzling. Add fish, ½ cup soy sauce, 1½ cups water, ½ cup chopped scallions, ½ cup chopped cilantro and a teaspoon rice vinegar. Boil, cover and turn off heat. Fish will be done in about 10 minutes. Garnish: Chopped scallions.

One could also prepare it this way:

Bless you, Joe Biden

May 4, 1970 Kent State, and Reagan's words

The events May 4, when National Guard soldiers fired on student protesters and killed four people at Kent State in Ohio were in 1970, in the context of the 1969 My Lai Massacre and the invasion of Cambodia.

They also had a domestic precedent. On May 15, !969 ("Bloody Thursday") then-governor Reagan and former-Alameda County DA Edwin Meese, his chief-of-staff, overrode the University's statement that they would not try to remove occupiers from People's Park.

 Police fired shotguns into the crowd, killing James Rector, a bystander, and wounding at least 128 people with "OO" calibre buckshot.

 This was followed by National Guard deployment (with tanks!) and weeks during which Berkeley citizens were beaten and detained, regardless of their involvement or not in the protests. I grew up in this area, and have vivid memories of the state of fear in the community.
The irony of this video, shot by a student during police occupation of campus, is that he has scored it with the CAl fight songs and marching band.

 On April 7, 1970, not quite a year after the death of James Rector, Reagan said, in an address to the California Growers Association, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." The events of Kent State happened a few weeks later, when Gov Rhodes made similar statements.
I note the militarized approach to crowd control in cities across the United States when people are engaged in political speech, but not when Hockey fans turn over cars. Sadly, this is not new.

Duo Guardabarranco

Katia and Salvador Cardenal, brother and sister, were the Duo Guardabarranco from Nicaragua. I saw them perform twice, and loved their earnest lyricism and lovely voices. Salvador died 2 years ago of a very rare blood disease. He spent much of his life advocating for environmental conservation.

Tomás Borge has died

"Mi venganza personal" a song probably by Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy, based on the words of Tomás Borge.

Mi venganza personal

(Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy)

Canción basada en frase del Comandante
Tomás Borge: “Mi venganza personal, será
el derecho de tus hijos a la escuela y a las flores...”

Mi venganza personal será el derecho

De tus hijos a la escuela y las flores

Mi venganza personal será entregarte

Este canto florecido sin temores

Mi venganza personal será mostrarte

La bondad que hay en los ojos de mi pueblo

Implacable en el combate siempre ha sido

Y el más firme y generoso en la victoria

Mi venganza personal será decirte

Buenos días, sin mendigos en las calles

Cuando en vez de encarcelarte te proponga

Te sacudas la tristeza de los ojos

Cuando vos, aplicador de la tortura

Ya no puedas levantar ni la mirada

Mi venganza personal será mostrarte

Estas manos que una vez vos maltrataste

Sin longrar que abandonaran la ternura

Y es que el pueblo fue él que más te odio

Cuando el canto fue lenguaje de violencia

Pero el pueblo hoy, bajo de su piel

Rojinegro tiene erguido el corazón!

and his brother Carlos sings "Nicaragua, Nicaragüita"

"Una furtiva lagrima" Csruso,Bjorling,Schipa

from Donizzeti's "L'elisir d'amore"
Caruso, remastered. What an interpretation. He created the role of Nemorino.

"O Sole Mio" also sung by Caruso

Jussi Bjorling, such a gorgeous voice.


But my sentimental favorite will always be Tito Schipa.


In my mother's family, Beniamino Gigla was beloved:

need some good music to grade by

Grading, grading, grading... need some positive vibrations!

"Batida" from Angola via NPR's Alt.Latino music show.

Pulmonaria officinalis, or spotted lungwort.

 Georg Dionysius Ehret was one of the great botanical illustrators. He worked with Carl Linna German artist (1708-1770). This image is from the Fitzwilliam Museum collection. More images.

Vertical Gardens

In honor of Earth Day, an ambitious and beautiful project to help clean the polluted air of Mexico City with "vertical gardens."
VERDMX

Here's a hanging garden project in Detroit, using Wooly Pockets, a system I saw in San Francisco.

a rain garden!

It has been my desire for a few years now to put a raingarden in the space in front of my home, where the runoff has been causing erosion. A few years ago, I attended a workshop by Metro Blooms, and dutifully called the gas company to make sure that we didn't blow up the place by digging. We found out that the gas line ran diagonally through the space where the garden would be, under the silver maple where we have almost full shade for part of the summer.  These two obstacles combined were enough to stop me in my tracks for about two years. But with our early spring, my neighbor and I determined that we would do it now. We hired a friend of hers who is a gardener, and I'm thrilled that we now have a plan, and that the first stage of digging, percolation testing, and mulching is complete!


Now we just have to wait for it really to be warm enough to get the plants without worrying about them freezing; I'll go to Out Back Nursery in a few weeks for the perennial wildflowers. The concept for this shade garden is "forest floor" and here are the plants we are going to have.

For the shadiest spot, squill (Siberian scilla) are very hardy and are usually the first flowers I see bloom here in Minneapolis.  Periwinkle is also hardy, grows well as a ground cover in the shade and has lovely flowers. Although some people complain that it can be invasive, from what I have read, we probably won't have to worry about it too much in this spot. We'll have a variety of low-growing plants with beautiful leaves: Wild geranium also has light purple blooms; Canadian Wild Ginger is another hardy low plant with glossy leaves.

 Pasqueflower is called "prairie crocus" and is state flower of South Dakota.

 Jack-in-the-Pulpit grows well in the woods, and is a fascinating plant because what looks like the flower is actually a structure that protects the flower inside.



 I know that Maidenhair Fern will grow well here because there used to be some out in back in a similarly shady spot before they got removed in a building project. We'll also have Sensitive Fern.
Some of the taller plants are Virginia Bluebells with its pink to blue flowers. Jacob's Ladder  has medicinal properties,  Solomon's Seal is supposed to have many healing properties. Another medicinal plant is Lungwort, or pulmonaria; it comes in a variety of colors. Snakeroot, or black cohosh of the variety known as "hillside black beauty," has dark foliage.

I have admitted a single "Krossa Regal" Hosta (leaf texture described as "Glaucous Bloom") because it is one of the few hostas I like: big, big leaves and large, late-blooming flowers. I don't like the piddly little hostas that bloom early and leave dried out stalks all summer.

Adrienne Rich

 Adrienne Rich was 82 when she died this week of complications of rheumatoid arthritis. Her partner of decades, Michelle Cliff, and her children and grandchildren will miss her terribly, and so will many, many of her reader who, like me, were influenced tremendously by her words and ideas. Reading her essays when I was in college and graduate school shaped the person I have become. I was fortunate enough to see her read years ago, and I treasure her poems.


This video remixes a reading  by Adrienne Rich of her poem with music and images. Created by vlogger Syd the Skeptic.

Diving Into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers

the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
abroad the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it's a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or week

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
and I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
Obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to the scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Ways I use Twitter #1

This morning I am in a cafe where I will begin to work after reading the paper (the physical paper paper that I picked up by the dirty dishes bin) and browsing my Twitter feed for stories that interest me.

Here's the harvest of about five minutes of scrolling back in my Timeline, in the order  I clicked on links to open these stories up to read later, after I've been good and brought my Inbox to zero. The mix is both trivial and serious.

I read Alan Sepinwall's reviews of TV shows because he is a big Community fan, and a good TV writer; he is reviewing a new show called Bent. Should I watch it?.

One of my favorite dancers, Harry Shum Jr, is on the cover of Bello magazine (he's also on Glee, but I like him for his work with the online series, Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. He's too young for me, but my high-school self would have been madly in love with his fine self.

DanceSpirit magazine has an article on Bob Fosse's choreography:
"It’s crucial that you develop an ability to control your movement while still maintaining a strong sense of intention." LOL at these captions on his "Mexican Breakfast", the dance that inspired Beyonce's choreo for "Single Ladies." She has always acknowledged this influence, by the way.
Fosse dancing with Gwen Verdon:

RuPaul's Drag Race is one of our new favorite shows! we watched Season 2 on Netflix, and are breathlessly awaiting an explanation of WHY Willam was unexpectedly kick off the show this week for "breaking the rules." DRAMS! Our S2 favorite Pandora Boxx is doing show recaps, yay!

For more serious visual culture blogging, I usual find something interesting on The Sociological Cinema blog: today it's a story on the gender policing of young boys.

I want to watch this documentary on indigneous people in Argentina, Runa Kuti. The filmmakers have generously made it available to watch online, and I'm going to order a copy for our library.

The President of the University of Minnesota drew my attention to the existence of SERU, the Student Experience at the Research University survey, which he is promoting on Twitter (and of course through other means) to get of all undergraduate students to provide insights for both administrators and reseachers. I had never heard of it before; now I plan to check out some of the data from past surveys.

PBS announces its line-up of documentaries in its POV series. There are quite a few of interest from or about Latin America, that might end up in my teaching portfolio. I've already seen the mGraniagnificent film Nostalgia por la luz, and I'm excited to see Granito, a film I missed in a recent film festival, about bringing the Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt to justice.

In Digital Humanities news, the WSJ has story about how the Folger Shakespeare Library is becoming a model of how to combined the traditional archive with digital access and outreach in an article about "Shakespeare in the digital Age.

Why has the Pentagon tried to scrub the web of information about the man accused of massacring Afghan civilians in their beds? His family has had to be relocated for their protection. They are also his victims.

Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates digs deeper into how the Florida "Stand Your Ground law," already a bad idea in and of itself,  has been further perverted in its application by the courts  to mean "the last man standing is right:"Your side is irrelevant if you are dead." Following up, opponents of the law predicted how it could be used to justify racially-motivated killings like that of Trayvon Martin when it was passed.

OK, to work!

PBS Online Film Festival

I'm really excited about this short film showcase that PBS is sponsoring. The playlist on YouTube is one way to watch these films. Watch them, and then vote for your favorite in each category. The other way is to go to PBS's page where you can also watch the films, and vote for your favorite in each category. Today, I watched the "Girl Power!" category.

Cardinal songs

The trees are still bare, so when I hear one of the cardinals singing, I can often spot it at the highest point. In this video, you get to hear four different calls: the "water sprinkler" song, the "squeaky toy" song, the "pew! pew! pew! pew!" song, and the "bu bu bu chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip" song.
In this next clip, you can see both the male and the female as they sing together.

S-L-U-T slut

"I went to school,
I speak my mind,
I'm responsible for my behind!"

Music and Neuroscience

Bobby McFerrin is magical. This video is the first of ten parts, which you can find on YouTube.
Here is the description of part 1:
"Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus"

Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment? Join host John Schaefer, scientist Daniel Levitin and musical artist Bobby McFerrin for live performances and cross cultural demonstrations to illustrate musics note-worthy interaction with the brain and our emotions.

This segment features an impressive display of improvisational harmony from Bobby McFerrin.

This event took place on June 12, 2009 in the Gerald Lynch Theater at the City University of New York. This is the first of ten segments.

Please visit us at worldsciencefestival.com!

canzone

Frederice von Stade sings "Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming"


"I wonder as I wander" and Kathleen Battle "Mary Had a Baby"

Watch "8: The Play"

The homepage is  "8" The Play.
The actual words from the Prop 8 case transcripts are used in this play by Dustin Lance Black.   Here's a response to the reading.

Christine Lahti Jamie Lee Curtis and the two actors that play Eliot and Spencer have a wonderful scene at about the 1'30" mark. At the end of the performance, the actual plaintifs, their lawyers, and the real-life Spencer and Elliot are acknowledged on stage.

"onomatopoeia, every time I see ya"

"Onomatopoeia" by Todd Rundgren 1978.

Onomatopoeia every time I see ya
My senses tell me hubba
And I just can't disagree
I get a feeling in my heart that I can't describe
It's sort of lub, dub, lub, dub
A sound in my head that I can't describe
It's sort of zoom, zip, hiccup, drip
Ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack

Onomatopoeia in proximity ya
Rearrange my brain in a strange cacophony
I get a feeling somewhere that I can't describe
It's sort of uh, uh, uh, uh
A sound in my head that I can't describe
It's sort of whack, whir, wheeze, whine
Sputter, splat, squirt, scrape
Clink, clank, clunk, clatter
Crash, bang, beep, buzz
Ring, rip, roar, retch
Twang, toot, tinkle, thud
Pop, plop, plunk, pow
Snort, snuk, sniff, smack
Screech, splash, squish, squeek
Jingle, rattle, squeel, boing
Honk, hoot, hack, belch

Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros

Flight of the Conchords

Crows! in south minneapolis

We see something like this on our way home many days. One of my favorite things about the winter in Minneapolis.

What I learned from listening to the radio

I learned so much about relationships from my favorite songs when I was a girl.

"Don't Play That Song For Me," Aretha Franklin
I know that he lied, yes he did. Hey baby, you lied!


"Gonna put it in the want ads!" Lipstick on your collar, perfume on it, too. Tells me you been lying', Tell you what I"m gonna do..."



"Mr. Big Stuff" Who do you think you are? You never gonna get my love.


"It's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate." Chandra sang this song every day on the bus to high school until I had it memorized:
"Sweetest woman in the world can be the meanest woman in the world...if you make her that way." Annie Lennox did a great cover of this long in 1995 on Medusa.


"Respect Yourself," The Staples Singers
"You cuss around women folk, you don't even know their name,
Then you dumb enough to think that make you a big old man"

Lucinda Williams, Doug Pettibone on the guitar;

You took my joy, I want it back.

Judy and Liza

Women who sing

Today's program of A Prairie Home Companion has three women singing, each of them wonderful in her own way.

The first is Shara Worden, aka My Brightest Diamond,  a singer I adore. Her voice is a supple instrument, with an otherwordly fierceness at times. I love her collaboration with The Decemberists on their album The Hazards of Love.  I will not be able to see her show tonight at the Cedar, because I'm going to a dance concert, but I'm so glad to have heard her this morning.

She performs "There A Rat" and "high low middle." You can listen to her performances on this weekend's  show here.
The video for high low middle features her neighbors from Detroit:

My Brightest Diamond - ALL THINGS WILL UNWIND: High Low Middle from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.


Ann Reed was on the same episode. Like Shara Worden, she has a unique voice, a strong heart, a shining presence.  I LOVE her. She sang a song from her latest album,  "Where The Earth Is Round," and I fell in love all over again with the lovely timbre of her alto.

We also love her songs about the MN State Fair, of which this is one. She may not want to perform this song over and over, but I used to sing it to my daughter when she was a little one:

I learned from the description of this video that she wrote the song during an MPR show!

"Ann wrote "The Fair" in 1991, on MPR's the Morning Show, a live broadcast from the Minnesota State Fair. At 6:15 am, Ann began to take suggestions for the song from listeners, checking back every 20 minutes to sing what she had written thus far and to take more suggestions until, at 8:50, she performed the completed song."

I don't wanna be your cheerleader no more

Seeing St Vincent tear it up at the Walker was one of the musical highlights of last year. What an amazing guitar player! What strange, compelling lyrics! How beautiful she is! This new video goes to one of our latest favorite songs off her new album.

"Cheerleader"
I've had good times
With some bad guys
I've told whole lies
With a half smile
Held your bare bones
With my clothes on
I've thrown rocks
That hit both my arms
I don't know what good it serves
Pouring my purse in the dirt
But I-I-I-I-I don't wanna be your cheerleader no more
But I-I-I-I-I don't wanna be your cheerleader no more

I've played dumb
When I knew better
Tried so hard
Just to be clever
I know honest thieves
I call family
I've seen America
With no clothes on
But I-I-I-I-I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more
But I-I-I-I-I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more
I don't know what I deserve
But for you I could work
Cause I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more
I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more
I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more
I don't wanna be a dirt eater no more
I don't wanna be a dirt eater no more
I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more

I aspire to Advanced Style

I can't wait for this film to come out! (via TheStyleRookie). With age comes freedom. Just ask any of the women featured on the blog Advanced Style.

Growing up with Soul Train and Don Cornelius's voice: "Love, Peace and Soul!"

 Don Cornelius took his own life today. We don't yet know why. Was he ill? depressed? he had been arrested a few years ago and accused of domestic assault. He got a divorce. Was he a bad man, or was he entering confused and ill? did he no longer want to live in his body? had he suffered from depression during his life? was he an alcoholic?  I really don't know anything more about what his life was like off the show, or why he would kill himself.  But for many people of my generation (a junior baby boomer),  his voice and the Soul Train show were a significant part of our world. 

When Soul Train began to broadcast, back in 1970, it figured in my Saturday routine, along with cartoons. I was 11-12, but when we had just moved back to the United States from Japan in 1968,  we three kids could finally watch TV in English, and we LOVED those Saturday morning cartoons. I didn't watch Soul Train every single Saturday, but I looked forward to it, and I adored the dancing. Don Cornelius's voice, his snappy outfits, and the music he brought us --because it was HIS show--- were a presence in my life,  along with his shout-out at the end, "Love! Peace! and Soul!" Nobody else in my family really cared about the show, and I didn't have friends to watch it with, but it gave me a lot of joy.

In high school in the early seventies, at our dances or parties, there was always a Soul Train moment, when we'd dance down the line. Looking at this Stevie Wonder video, this WAS how we danced then, and how I still dance now. Soul Train was where we saw the latest dance moves, and the latest urban fashions. Jeans and sneakers were not yet a uniform for kids, let alone for people of all ages. We dressed up every day. We wore outfits. (Actually, we wore pretty ridiculous outfits, but that's another post.)



Don Cornelius had the most amazing voice. He always treated the musicians with respect. Toward the 9' mark in this video, Stevie sings a little impromptu song he made up for the event. So sweet! "Soul Train, with Don Cornelius/Where all the brothers and sisters get together."I'm so fortunate to have seen Stevie Wonder perform in concert when he was still this young, and  I wouldn't have known about him just from my radio. Look at how thin everyone looks here, in 1971!


Some of the music was lip-synced, sure, but so much of it was played live as well. Sly and the Family Stone perform "Thank You" live:


What a kick-ass, funky performance of this song!

Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio is one of my intellectual heroes.

In another life, I would have pursued studies of physiology and neurology; in this life, I just fumble to grasp the concepts he explains here, in this TED talk about the elegant complexities of "self."

Doggy joy

Beautiful Day at the Dog Park from Kelsey Wynns on Vimeo.

"De donde vengo yo"

Story on NPR's blog "AltLatino" on the group ChocQuibTown from Chocó in Colombia.

Glad there are other folks watching the GOP Clown Car circus so I don't have to

I have a little crush on Jay Smooth, host of illdoctrine.

Exploring the downtown skyways: next fitness project

The Star Tribune did a story this morning about how the skyway system in downtown Minneapolis figures into long-range urban planning. Many people see the skyways as an obstacle to a vibrant street life, but they form their own eco-system. Travel blogger Leif Pettersen, who has been around the world in rugged conditions and who deliberately lives a frugalista lifestyle (no car!), has made an adventure out of getting to know the secrets of the skyway. This video shows some highlights of his excursions:
Videotect: Leif in the Skyway from Architecture Minnesota on Vimeo.

confused about SOPA? PIPA? Clay Shirky explains it to us

From the TED site: "What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume. (Recorded at the TED offices, January 2012, in New York. Duration: 13:59"

Fitness progress!

When I got back from Spain, I felt saturated, bloated, tired. I had decided it was time to lower the dosage of my antidepressants because I suspected that some of my fog and appetite issues might be related. i did it slowly, without skipping, and, although I did feel a little light-headed for a few days, I didn't get any brain zaps or mood swings, so I'm holding steady. After making sure I wasn't experiencing and major mood swings, it felt safe to start making diet changes.

After a couple of weeks with my fitness plan, I'm seeing measurable changes, and I have not been feeling tired, weak, or dizzy--no blood sugar fluctuations.  By keeping a food log with the MyFitnessPal app (which makes my home site accessible from both my iPod and my phone), I've been tracking my calories and nutrients, keeping within the 1200/day range. I'm only 5'3", and my weight range for many years was 118-125, but I still felt healthy if I was a little heavier. Since I didn't have a scale, I entered my starting  weight as what I was told at my  my last doctor's visit: 150 llbs. I might have been a little under or over that, but that was close enough. My goal has been to lose slowly and steadily over the next three months.

Changes I made: no more beer at home; no pastries for breakfast in cafes, in fact, no cafes;  no ice cream or chocolate; brown carbs instead of white; at least 3 pieces of fruit and 2 vegetables a day; portion control (keep a serving to a cup or fist size, and don't take seconds); a good breakfast; some kind of protein at every meal; non-fat yoghurt and 2% milk; beans, legumes, greens, all the good stuff; count servings of liquids and water intake. It's not rocket science, but I have found that entering the foods I eat in my log with this tool makes it really easy to see how I'm doing during the day, and I don't have to work at it. I also started adding up my minutes of cardio (mostly brisk walking), not for the calories, but just to observe what I was doing.
After a week, I could feel a shift, and I could tell I was shedding some water weight. The new scale I bought says I am down to 144--the quick initial loss being typical of resetting one's metabolism. I treated myself to a Surly Bender at a bar the other day (200 calories!) and still stayed in my daily range without being hungry or deprived.

I feel good! Now I need to see if I can make a dent in the menopot! I'm doing lots of brisk walking, and I have good energy. One day at a time.

Rice Pudding/arroz con leche

"What is the matter with Mary Jane?.... And it's lovely
english rice pudding for dinner again!

Before we left Spain, Rosemary's tío Florencio gave us his recipe for rice pudding. It involves eggs and cream (and is rich and delicious).  But there are many different versions, and the one I made this morning just involved reheating 2 cups of leftover rice from our Chinese takeout with 2 cups of of milk, adding a little sugar, cinnamon, orange peel, and stirring until the milk was absorbed. It was delicious, and nowhere near as fattening as the other versions I've seen served in various Spanish-speaking countries.

Here are some variation on preparing arroz con leche: two mom-style, two cooking show style.

Here's someone's mother making arroz con leche Mexican style, very creamy, with condensed milk and butter!

Recipe:
Wash two cups of rice, then cook it in water to cover.
1/2 can of condensed milk (to taste for sweetness)
a can of evaporated milk,
a cup of whole milk,
cinammon stick,
zest of two limes (or other citrus), o a strip of peel
4 T. butter
vanilla
can decorate with raisins and cinammon

Cook the rice until it's not quite totally soft, add the cinammon stick.Add first half of the  cup of milk, and stir in all the other ingredients, finishing with the second half of the cup of milk. stirring. Bring to a boil, stirring, and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Can be served warm or cold (will thicken even more when cooled. It makes soupier rice pudding.
Top with slivered almonds, or raisins.

Here's a Spanish version, made by someone's dear mother, very traditional.

Add to 1/2 liter of whole milk:
2 cinnamon sticks,
lemon peel
3 T sugar and bring to a boil.
Cool the rice. If you want it to be creamier, leave it, but if she rinses off the starch.
Add rice to milk when it comes to a boil, cook it for about 19 minutes. Remove the cinnamon sticks and lemon peel.  You can use the cinnamon sticks to decorate the rice pudding when you serve it and sprinkle it with cinnamon if you desire. Serve it cold

Adorable Peruvian style, with music and flirting:


From southern Spain, (arroz=arró), this time with two egg yolks!

Easy meal with farro

I bought a package of farro with mushrooms at The Wedge (my co-op) from an organic farm in Siena, Italy. This was the first time I had seen farro packaged like a lot of other grains, as a meal base, instead of solo.  Fattoria Pieve a Salti is the name of the farm, which is part of an operation that also involves a restaurant and country hotel ("agriturismo"). I cooked the farro mix (which had a recipe for cooking it like a risotto) in my rice cooker (so I didn't need to stir in the broth for 20  minutes), with some tomato sauce left over from cooking chicken, so it had a rich flavor. It was delicious!

I had always been told that farro was the same as spelt, but it turns out that farro in English is "emmer wheat"--another ancient grain.

Changing eating habits, or, remembering what I know

The temptation of turrón

One of my favorite Wellness resources starts off with the step "Remember what you know."  So much of making positive changes is not about learning something new, but remembering and applying knowledge you already have, often by overcoming the inertia or other obstacles that have arisen around patterns of behavior. Until I had a child, I never had to diet to keep to a sensible weight, nor did I own a car until I was 34 so I was in reasonable shape just form walking and biking, even after I stopped playing sports like volleyball or softball in college.

After last two weeks of truly heroic holiday feasting (Spanish food is so good!) I was--am-- more than ready to make some changes. I crave salads, greens, vegetables, and feel no appetite for sweets. My new year's resolve to try new recipes and start dancing again are a good start to getting back into my previous good eating habits. From experience, I know that I have to find a new set of habits to latch on to so I don't drift back into bad habits.

The U is on a big Wellness campaign, and has provided some serious incentives this year: if you accumulate 300 points by carrying out a set of wellness activities from their offerings, you can get $300 of your health care plan costs next year.
Comparing my responses to the annual Wellness survey, from over the past few years, I see I have done better at managing the symptoms of my depression AND my back pain.  But I have gained weight and become more sedentary, and I don't like having a menopot. I'm also having a recurrence of the frozen shoulder on the left side, so I need to do some active pain management: this was an incentive to sign up for the phone health coach, and I know that exercise (the right kind) will be key.

My two downfalls, ever since I started taking anti-depressants, have been nervous impulse eating, especially right before bed, and portion control.  I also eat too fast. So, remember what I know: don't skip breakfast; protein with every meal; no refined carbs or empty sugar (no pastries or alcohol); five small meals a day works better for me than three big ones.  In fact, I know that if I plan my food buying, prepare food on Sunday, pack my Mr. Bento, and record my eating for a month or two, I'll be back on track. I also know that returning to my former level of physical activity is possible, but I'll have to take is slowly to not go into a fibro flare.

The "MyFitnessPal" app gives me a way to record what I'm eating and get fairly quick calorie/nutritional information because it draws on a huge database of both commercial products and home-made recipes entered by users. I set a weight goal, get a calorie threshold that will allow me to lose weight slowly and steadily, and then record what I eat and my exercise; it shows me the calorie readouts combining calories eaten and calories burned, and makes predictions as to what I will weigh if keep up with a given day's pattern. So far, it has not been hard to use, either on my phone or on my laptop, and it was free. I want to see how well I can do with this for the Spring semester.

It also warned me on the first day that I was eating too few calories, which might prompt my body to go into "starvation"mode and defeat the slow weight loss purpose. I want to become more fit, not lose weight fast. So I could have had that second piece of 12-grain toast with peanut butter for breakfast, and still kept to my calorie goal.

Paying attention to health eating goes very well with saving money (don't eat out or sit around in coffee shops), so I get to pat myself on the back.

Leo welcomes us home

Epic trip back from Spain. First, the plane in Madrid was delayed for two hours, while they check out why that pesky systems alert light was on. After revising all the moving parts, they had to turn the whole airplane off and then on, to reboot the system. It reminded me of this sketch from The IT Crowd: "Hello, IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?"
Then we could go. Atlanta was the usual transition hell, until we emerged and found we'd been rebooked to the next flight out, just one hour later. Then we could relax. Taxi to where I left the car, in my work parking ramp, to discover a dead battery. But, as the Gopher hockey game was letting out, all I had to do was pop the hood, get out the jumper cables and stand next to my car for 30 whole seconds before a wonderful Minnesota handy guy with wife in tow leaped forward with an offer to help. Before he could even pull his car around, another such offer had been made. I love MN winter car help!

So we are home again, with our beloved pal, Leo. You know him as Mr. Kitty.

Movies in 2011 (here be spoilers)

I began last year, intending to blog about all the movies I watched. I think I got up to #6 before I stopped the blogging, but I watched a lot of movies: on Netflix, I had a mini-Korean fest; at the Film Society, I saw quite a few Spanish-language films in their "Latin" film fest (I'll save the rant about the label). The documentary The Mexican Suitcase was outstanding. I joined the Talk Cinema group, so I can see previews on Saturday mornings through the Landmark Cinema chain, and stay on for a conversation after the film. I like not knowing until the last minute what they are going to show us. In that series, I was able to see Melancholia, The Artist, and Carnage. I still hate Roman Polanski, and think he framed the play with the exterior shots the way he did as a kind of special pleading, but I enjoyed the hell out of the acting.

I also saw The Ides of March, Drive, Shame (yes, I knew someone who was as fucked-up as that character, absolutely)  Young Adult, and The Descendants. Stuck Between Stations, a film shot in Minneapolis, was really terrific. It won't get the distribution it deserves.

On my list to see when we get home from Spain:
Fincher's Girl w/Dragon Tattoo,  Cronenburg's A Dangerous Method, Tinker Tailor, Hugo (if it's still around).

Near Canfranc in the Pyrenees.

We drove from Zaragoza up to Jaca in the foothills of the Pyrenees so Blas could have a work meeting. We strolled around town, enjoying the unusually mild weather. For lunch, we drove to the Hotel Santa Cristina,  near Canfranc, close to the ski resorts near the French border. The building itself used to be a customs house. They have an excellent restaurant, El Boj, where we had an amazing meal.
Here are some of the views from the terrace behind the hotel.
Looking north toward France and the puerto de Somport:

Southeast, across the deep gorge to the peaks, the only place where there is snow right now:

South, toward Jaca, and the Camino de Santiago:

Looking down into the gorge at the river (el río Aragón).

Castillo de Peracense 3/3

 Rosemary on the battlements, next to the little holes you shoot the arrows through.

 Near the top.

 You can see for ages.

The sun was setting, casting our shadows across the top of the castle, looking out over Aragón.