Love this book...

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber. I recall I was unable to attend her reading when I was in grad school...she also graduated from the place where I went to school, (yay)...this book is extremely funny and varied (not every chapter is totally funny some are more serious)...Its just really GOOD.

Clip...

A youtube subscriber has posted four clips entitled "essence of life"--commentary by the creators of Koyaanisqatsi. This is Part 3. Its interesting to hear how the collaborators brought together their perspectives...I kind of wish they'd shown all of the clip of the guy with the icecream cone! He lifts it up, rather like a glass lifted as a toast, at the end.

I think its really fun to listen to the soundtrack to this when I'm driving through "mountains" (which look more like hills compared to the rockies but are still beautiful) in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

mmmm.

Michigan--I am surprised and very excited because my aunt picked a really good place for to have dinner at tonight. Blue Nile I just realized that for some reason, haven’t tasted Ethiopian food in years, and I LOVED it when I lived in Seattle. My university was on the edge of a neighborhood with a large Ethiopian population. I used to tutor some ESL kids from Ethiopia once a week at a local school. One girl in particular, Halima, was quite strong-willed, mischievious, and preferred talking about other topics, playing with my hair, etc. But she was actually kind of sad when I left (graduated and took a trip to Peru) so I sent her a postcard from Peru. Was happy to hear that the teacher gave it to her; it arrived during summer vacation, so that didn’t happen until the following school year. She must be grown-up by now...But it was an all too infrequent treat for me to eat at one of those four (yes, four!) Ethiopian restaurants within a span of about three blocks proximity of the university. Well that was back in 1999—has it really been so long since I’ve eaten Ethiopian food? I think so! Until tonight...

The "Artist"

When I worked at a Barnes and Noble after college, the regular cashier in the music section greatly admired the musical artist Prince, who at the time was often referred to as “the artist formerly known as...” b/c he wanted to be represented by a symbol. The guy I knew who worked in the music section referred to him as simply “The Artist” (in a tone of reverence and awe). Perhaps, on some days, in certain doses, this one for me is “The Artist”:
Silent All These Years
I just found out about an organization called RAINN after I saw this clip of a benefit concert:
Leather
She really likes pianos! Obviously…
Piano Shopping Interview
Precious Things
Raspberry Swirl
Finally
Yes, Anastasia
is a rather long song which is based on a little piece of recent (or not so recent?)
history, but it is very interesting, (whether it is true or not…)

Ghost cat y musica...

Early this morning I woke up to the feeling of four little feet, on top of the comforter, padding softly over my legs, and then the being which owned these feet settled right at my side, as if laying down. I thought to myself, "I am convinced something is by my side right now, but if I put my hand out and don't feel anything, then I know that there's nothing." So I drew my hand out and patted the space and I felt nothing. Then I couldn't tell what I thought anymore. It was not even my sister's little dog, it was not anything. Was this an early morning delusion? Or could my cat of 19 years (deceased since July) have come to pay me a little visit? It didn't really bother me, I just went right back to sleep.

New Music
Today on the internet, I went to my friend's myspace page and with curiousity I clicked on one of her new "myspace friends" and listening to a techno beat and the lyrics where were you in 92 & discovered this is an artist known as M.I.A. and then watched her "Sun Showers" on video.aol.com where she "frolics in the jungle with animals and friends"!

Old Music
Also reading about M.I.A. lead me to reading about the Roxanne Wars and I found Roxanne's Revenge which for some reason, I never even heard of when I was a kid. Too bad! I remember Bust a Move as a kind of a constant Jr.High-era soundtrack...Also this not so remembered song Ponderous was always playing in gym class on the days when the P.E. teacher would let us listen to the radio. We'd all be doing sit ups or leg lifts and it seemed as if that stereo would always be playing...this is ponderous, man, really ponderous.

Another film clip

Here's a clip from Powaqqatsi with a lot going on in it...

car music...

sometimes I listen to the soundtrack from Koyannisqatsi on a long road trip.

(Here's a little Koyaanisqatsi clip I found)

A recent discovery: as an illustration of the inherently, intrinsically, poignantly sad qualities of FAKE CHEESE, there is:
Nachoqatsi

Oooo...video.

Ah…youtube! Recently, Time magazine reports that "the youtube guys" are second in nomination for "person of the year" (behind the prez of Iran and ahead of the prez of the US). I've been enjoying this during the past few days...I listened these PJ Harvey songs during the “pursuit of higher education” portion of my life:
C'mon Billy
Down By The Water
Send His Love To Me
The Dancer
Here are a couple that were popular, from my younger school days:
Ladies First
Sadeness
And later, in the pre-cell phone era, when one half of all teenagers were walking around with pagers:
Free Your Mind
Shoop
Return To Innocence
This one's more recent, but I swear it seems like it could be from...the 80s?
Hung Up
Maybe it's cheesy, even a little risqué. But a wise sage once told me:
“Hey. Leave Madonna ALONE.” So I really can’t make any apologies ;-)
Ray of Light
And here’s a girl’s thoughts on putting on make-up…
In the nude - ElloSara
Here’s a cute song that people seem to either love or find annoying:
Fidelity
Supongo que eso es todo para ahorita…I wanted to find a better version of
Feed the Tree and Celia Cruz's La Vida Es Un Carnival pero espero un ratito

Ok guess thats it. I hope those all work; if not I'll just have to fix them after another loooong road trip...

The Blue Castle and Goody Hall

Some quotes from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and Goody Hall by Natalie Babbit can be found here.

HAIR!!!

Once there was this new girl who just loved to go to art class and sing songs to her new friends; some of them happened to be from the musical Hair. Its really nice of the youtube people to provide us with endless hours of entertainment, such as this opening clip from...Hair the movie!

Age of Aquarius from lennalee

Hee hee hee hee...giddyup horsies ;-)

Big, Enormous, Gigantic

candles

There was once a mixed tape...

passed between 2 highschool girls. One gave the other knowledge of different kinds of music which she had never listened to before. On this tape were many songs, like:
Waiting Room by Fugazi
Sheela Na Gig by PJ Harvey

And another one that went something like this:

I can remember dark corridors
And I can taste other peoples' grief
I want a split split second of peace
I want this candle lighted for the dear departed

Maybe it was Candle by Red Emma.

Recently re-read an old book and I keep imagining that it could make

a really beautiful film or play...

Tisha the story of Anne Hobbs Purdy as told to Robert Sprecht. I got a copy of this from my mother's boyfriend (in the Seattle area) when I was in gradeschool. His mother's name and address are still written in the front cover.

Other links:

Anne Hobbs Purdy
Chicken, Alaska

Somewhat switching topics/subject matter (geographically), here are some links to a very interesting journalist turned actress from the film Kandahar which I saw recently.

So, here are a few places that I've somewhat recently seen:

The Crooked Little House
Dime Box, Texas

I passed by, and next time I want to get a better look at:

Totem Pole Park

arranging closets

by virtue of where all the clothes in them were made/sewn/manufactured. So far, I've discovered that my favorite gray sweatshirt (it seems to have magical undertones of other colors in it) is from Mexico, a pretty ocean blue undergarment which however is not practical on a long walk in the woods is from the Maldives, and many other items are from Turkey, Guatemala, El Salvador, Pakistan, China. One item of clothing is from Cambodia. (This closet arranging was inspired by a recent NPR broadcast with regard to the garment industry in Cambodia.)

Consumerist plug of the day: The Container Store Today, the saleswomen taught me how to make a gift wrap bow. Maybe in the future I will buy some of their hangers and all the items of clothing from Sri Lanka, etc. will fit on one hanger.

Little House

I first read Little House on the Prairie when I was a second grader, sharing a room with my little sister in an apartment in Latham, NY. Later I read The Long Winter, and then most of the others, when I moved in 3rd grade to Renton, WA (a suburb of Seattle). Despite the fact that my new best friend on the playground (a blond girl named Cheryl) let me know that these books were, well, rather uncool, I read them all!

I read them in my own room, in the basement of "the old woman's house." That was our house in Renton. A shut-in had been the previous occupant. When she died, and when we moved in, a lot of her belongings were still in the garage. Even to this day, my sister and I have not forgotten the old black and white photographs pasted to black cardboard paper, which we found...such as one bodies lying in the streets of a foreign country (China?) with their heads cut off and neatly stacked alongside the bodies. Another one might have been of an emaciated man in some kind of large cardboard box? but I remember the image much less than the chilling white caption Victim of the Huns. Gruesome.

On a more pleasant note, we also found an old brown textbook from the teens or '20s, which was clearly intended for girls, and which interspersed lessons on history and penmanship with drawing, sewing, cooking, and "how to give a party."

Also on a more pleasant note, the backyard was filled with the great Northwest blackberry bushes.

On a less pleasant note, we lived next door to some really mean dogs.

On a more pleasant note, my mother taught us how to make "sun tea" in the backyard.

On a less pleasant note, the basement (where my sister and I slept) flooded anytime there was a hard rain. I will never forget swinging my legs over the bed and placing my feet on a perfectly dry-looking carpet, when...augh!!
(My sister's room, however, never flooded!)

On a more pleasant note, I got my first cat, a calico kitten I named "Cathy." Also, I read all the Little House books there. Inspired by Garth Williams illustrations, I decided it would be a good idea to draw in the white spaces of almost all of my other (non Little House) books, thus negating any future re-sale value of those items.

I never did find another friend who read them, those some had seen the T.V. show. The museum in Mansfield, Missouri is quite out-of-the way, so I expected it would not be crowded, but I was in for a surprise. No, you're not the only fan!!!

There was a large display case in the musuem in Mansfield, Missouri showing that her books have been published in many different languages here is just one example, including Arabic and Bengali.

Also many displays on her fascinating daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, the oldest American Vietnam war correspondent. For years she dreamed of a place which she later discovered in Albania, where she lived for a while, and also refused a marriage proposal from the King of Albania because she found out he could have multiple wives! (so say the tour guides)

Bought 2 books

by some interesting entrepreneurs...

Green how much I want you green

--Carole Maso's Ava

The Funniest Book...

I've read most recently is called Funny in Farsi. It was also funny to read it just before visiting Texas A & M, and walk by the Engineering Bldg and imagine things that had happened in the book happening on that campus.

I came across a review of it.

Next I think I would like to read Lipstick Jihad.

merry-go-rounds...

and old pictures from upstate NY:
Viva La Graduate!
Harry Potter Impersonation
Parking Lot
Parking lots near your residence are important. Or at least this one was. Here you can see my friend's trendy mini-cooper "Mini G" and a little further down my sad old dented gray Taurus with the dying transmission. Drunk people from the local dive bar used to mill around it at night, sketchy things were going on there sometimes. Looks pretty placid in the daytime though, doesn't it? And I really Loved this park That would be Recreation Park on Beethoven Street, with a restored carousel you could ride all day for free in the summer.

Link to Binghamton Carousels