some California(ish) things...

Found out that a friend from college who now lives in CA does some video editing at http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/preps#

And I just found out that an acquaintance from the Amnesty International group I was part of in highschool moved to CA and, among other things, wrote this interesting article:
An open letter to other men...

03/22/07

Today is my mother's birthday.
Today I was driving down to North Carolina, watching sunlight hitting long golden grasses, listening to DATURA

I was thinking about films, like maybe making a film of a road trip and long golden grasses, or else maybe one about snowboarders, like female snowboarders (I have never been snow boarding) or it could be mixed gender, but just not all just guys please, so, people snowboarding, and also, not just people, please, but lots of views of mountains and sky and sunlight. Washington State or Colorado or California could be good places to see again soon...

O Beauty Beauty Beauty...

Here's a discussion of "the exotic." It almost takes me back to my college/university English major days but...with an extra dose of chatty indulgent celebrity gossip!

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003897.html

And...just see how the right product works magic in other countries?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxHu54IgKHg&mode=related&search=

And to round things out:

http://www.sawf.org/mezines/sunny/sunny.asp?sec=health&art=Liberalization&title=Liberalization

This is interesting. I was looking for a video of "iiee" and I found the music set to scenes from a movie I meant to check out from the library before I left but never got to...
Devdas/Tori Amos

cool

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you what you think of the dean of West Point, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, together with a military interrogator named Tony Lagouranis and the group Human Rights First, going to the heads of the program 24, very popular hit show on FOX, to tell them that what they're doing on this program, glorifying torture, is inspiring young men and women to go to Iraq and torture soldiers there, and to stop it?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: And not only that, but it doesn't work. Yeah, Pat Finnegan is one of my heroes.
AMY GOODMAN: So what do you think about that?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I think it's great.
AMY GOODMAN: And have you been involved in the conversation internally at FOX, which runs 24, to stop it?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, as far as I know, they actually put out a call to all the writers in Hollywood. My son's a writer, and he was one of them who got a call. They were all told: stop talking about torture. It doesn't work. So I think it was an effective move by Pat Finnegan.
AMY GOODMAN: So you support it?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/02/1440234

I’m all for lightening up on a lot of the glorified violence on the evening television shows, and I have been for a long time, ever since, in fact, at the age of three, when son of the pastor of a church in NY (older & bigger than I was, very spoiled, not well-disciplined and a real brat) found it great fun to run around chasing after me and pretending to be “The Incredible Hulk.” >:-P

Song

for my sister, and for me, and maybe even for my car, which took me twice to Texas!
Black Dove (Desert Animals version)
Black Dove (Live Tori Footage version)
To do in this life: learn video editing.

Some cool places...

I visited when I was living in Illinois:
World Bird Sanctuary
Cahokia Mounds
Lizzardo Museum
Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary & Farm (most visited park.)
Schaumburg Township District Library (most visited of all and very much missed. Esp. for their foriegn and travel films/video/dvds.)

Dance

Consider...and view...

Some quotes from Chapter 4 of Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance by Iris J. Stewart.

"It is easy to see that if the bodily movements associated with the birth ritual were transposed to the king's palace or a nightclub for the entertainment of men, those same movements would be viewed in an entirely different way. The belly dance in the context of the birth ritual, however, was done not to project eroticism or present woman as a lure but to display a conciousness of the wonder of birth..." (page 83)

"Let me be clear that the text in this chapter, however, that the text in this chapter is not meant to add to the societal programming of women to the maternal mode...this dance has power in all aspects of life" (page 96).

"By moving her body in a way that is at once sensual and at the same time very energetic and strong, without coquetry or seductiveness, the dancer and her dance return us to the very depth of the power of the feminine" (page 95).

This book came to me from a nice used bookstore in Illinois. Which I have now left behind, having recently relocated to Northern Virginia (again...)

And, oh well, I see to my disappointment that half the posts to youtube are no longer available (though sometimes they can be found anyway if one just searches for them) but....if these work...
Bellydance Superstars Performance
and
Sa'diyya Ethnic Fusion / Veil Dar Fusion

Sidenote: I once had a boss who told me that when he was young, his hockey coach made all his players take belly dance and ballet lessons in secret...because it made them better at playing hockey!

Soon I will be living in a house of boys. Or youngish men technically. There is a lot of communality in this house. For example, there is a communal TV. Yay, communal TV. Maybe I will have to expose them to the phenomenon of...

Tito, Egypt's male belly dancer!

I wonder if they would like that? Today I got asked if I would share any food I cooked with the housemates. Apparently the last housemate had an alcohol problem and didn't pay rent and was (perhaps the last straw) also a gourmet chef who made these tempting creations and wouldn't share. Well I told them, yes I would share. But no one sounded very excited about green blender smoothies for some reason. I wonder why? Would they harbor the same lack of enthusiasm about Tito? Sigh. I guess we'll see! Well I bet it would be nice if I cooked or did some baking ;-)HAH!!!

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.