Snow Flakes 101

The next time someone tells you that snowflakes have six sides, you can reply, "Not all of them." This one is called a "Hollow Column."

This one forms a Hollow Column and then like wheels, spins off two hexagon plates on either end. It's rather like those large wooden spools that power lines and other cables are spun around before being attached to the poles.
Of course, many snow flakes do come with six sides, but even here they also form with distinct qualities that give them several separate names. This one is a "Fernlike Stellar Dendrite."

This one is a regular "Stellar Dendrite."










This on is a "Stellar Plate."













Here's a really interesting one. It forms open cups some of which continue to form lips. They're called "Bullet Rosettes."

And where there are six, there are also twelve sided snowflakes.











And there are triangular crystals, too. Infact, there are well over 30 different categories of snowflakes. Who knew?

You can check out dozens and dozens of these beautiful images and learn more about snowflakes at: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/class.htm

Haiti Moment #1

As the images continue to flood in to our news sources, we are all left wanting to do something for the people of Haiti. It's a tragedy of nearly unimaginable proportions. Hurricane Katrina is our closest benchmark, and yet the death tole in Haiti threatens to easily surpass Katrina by 10, 20, 50, EVEN 100 times.

Today, when I visited my local Giant Supermarket, there was a table set up outside of the door where two women in Caribbean dress and speaking with crisp accents were asking shoppers for food donations for Haiti. I avoided them, because I thought, how are they planning to get this food to Haiti? There is no mechanism for individuals to send this sort of aid to Haiti. I was being truly cynical in my heart. There is such a need. And I feared there are people willing and eager to exploit that need. But why did I think that these women were any part of such a wicked plot? Why weren't they just two people who had to do something to express their desire to help?

I remember when I lived in Costa Rica back in 1984. After school, I would typically go into the heart of San José to retrieve the mail for the other teachers from the United States working at my school. Afterwards, I would often drop into the only McDonald's in the country at the time and grab an hamburgesa con queso, papas fritas, y una coca lite. Eating my lunch while sitting in the store front, I'd watch this pair of filthy little children beg for money and offer to sell us rich people pictures that they had torn from discarded magazines. It broke my heart. Then one day I saw those kids turn to the beaconing of a man in a suit. They responded by running over to a shiny black limosine and jumping into the back seat. It was not a solicitation, but clearly and obviously a call to end their "work" day--an "Oliver Twist" moment, if you will.

Ever since, I've been unwilling to simply accept things like this at their face value. It's hasn't stopped me from being generous. If anything, I'm more generous year in and year out (It grows with my financial capacity and my belief in the need to give to others (I'm not a Republican)--but that's not my point. The point is just exactly how I'm generous, and how I look with such suspicion on supporting random individuals, no matter how worthy the cause.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want, But....You Get What You Need"

Like some blast from the past I happened upon these photo- graphs tonight. The man in the white shirt and I had a lovely fling back in the Spring of 2005 when he was living in D.C. and studying English.

The spoken language may have been a challenge, but the ability to communi- cate was not an issue. He's a little bunny, and I know that, which is why I was so content to simply connect, even if for only a little while. Every encounter is a gift, and his gifts to me were so generous.

Here he's leading a symposium on body painting--his art form--in Singapore. Seeing him again reminds me just how good life is.

In fact, the photo of me on this blog was taken by him during that affair.

What I'm Listening to #75

You know I have a thing for the divas. Ernestine Anderson, born in Houston in 1928 is my current obsession. This generous collection of standards and ballads recorded in Sweden in 1956 is an excellent introduction. Every song is a sing-along. She still performs at age 82, but hear you'll experience her supple younger voice. Like all things worth knowing, begin at the beginning.

What I'm Watching #227

Just finally watched "Milk". Sean Penn is an amazing actor. He deserved the Oscar, no doubt about it. And what a wonderful supporting cast: Like a reunion of "Law & Order" guest actor's alumni (Alison Pill, Victor Garber, Denis O'Hare, Joseph Cross, Stephen Spinella)! And it was great to see Diego Luna again and imagine that his star is still rising from "Y Tu Mama Tambien". As to James Franco...oh to be Sean Penn's lips! Yadda, yadda!

Finally, kudus to the writers for taking us through such an amazing and historic time with the very icon of gay rights in America without twisting our emotions into a shredded knot. Well, played.

Haiti

One hardly knows where to begin, and that's largely why I haven't even tried until now.

Today someone finally had the courage to estimate the death tole at 50,000. Frankly, I find that so optimistic as to be pitiful. 2 to 3 million people had their homes, stores, schools, churches, hospitals, hotels, office buildings--WORLD--come crashing down upon them. If only 250,000 were killed, that would be a miracle. And like all natural disasters, the dying has only just begun. Examples in our own nation's history as desperately different as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and hurricane Katrina have taught us this.

They are two moments in history that are actually very applicable to Haiti. The scope of the devastation is Katrina-esque; while the quality of the infrastructure in that nation aligns with San Francisco's from a century ago.

As an American, I am very proud of our president and his administration for stepping up with words of support and promises of aid within hours of the initial tragedy. As a citizen, I intend to both thank him and hold his feet to the fire to make certain that in my name and with my tax dollars, the United States follows through on those commitments.

Furthermore, I will encourage President Obama to extend to the illegal immigrants of Haiti currently residing in the United States the right of "Temporary Protected Status". I have no doubt that if this would have happened, say, in Ireland, that the illegal Irish amongst us would have been granted this status even as I type. No nationality of illegal immigrants from any other country in this hemisphere has faced more consistent, vehement, or racist persecution by our government than the people of Haiti. That even in a moment of such humanitarian need, this discrimination should be allowed to continue is simply without any justification, and only demonstrates how enormous the hatred of black people still is in this nation. In the past half century alone we've welcomed and justified the influx of significant populations of persecuted and disenfranchised people from Cuba, Colombia, and even El Salvador, which demonstrates that the motives are not based on socio-economic demographics, but the color of a person's skin.

If Minneapolis/St. Paul can become a new home to the impoverished persecuted Hmong people of Cambodia/Kampuchea. If Atlanta can welcome record amounts of refugees from Somalia and the conflicts throughout Africa's Maghreb region. If New Orleans and other Louisiana coastal communities can integrate vast numbers of the Vietnamese boat people to such an extent as to actually elect one as a congress person to the United States House of Representatives. Then we as a nation, can not only help to rebuild what remains of Haiti's urban metropolis, but we can welcome those who are already living here now as vital and contributing members of our United States of America, and remove from them any fear of deportation during this tragic catastrophe in their nation of origin.

And in a final thought, I need to respond to the ignorant, truly evil, racist bigots amongst us like Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, may I simply offer this blessing? "May what you wish unto others happen to you"--my version of the "Fools Golden Rule". People like these only trivialize the life that we all should see as miraculous.

The French Revolution

The older I get, the more I appreciate history....

Miep Geis RIP

From time to time we've all learned of someone's death and thought, "I didn't know they were still alive." And that happened again for me this morning when I learned of the passing into ancestry of the Dutch woman, Miep Geis. And it would not surprise me in the least if you didn't have any idea who she is.

I think, in fact, that she would like it that way. Born in 1909 in Vienna, she immigrated to Amsterdam and established for herself a life there. By the time of World War II, she found herself in the employment of Otto Frank as his secretary. When the Nazi's invaded Holland and began persecuting Jews, she gave safe shelter to the Franks for nearly two years. And after they were discovered and sent to concentration camps, she discovered the tattered remains of the diary that Otto Frank's youngest daughter had kept during her concealment.

As Miep tells it, she was too gracious to even read it, but tenderly saved it. And after the war and liberation when only Otto Frank survived the Nazi tyranny, she gave Ann's diary to her father. In 1947, he first published "The Diary of Ann Frank" which has become one of the most translated and published books in the history of the human race.

When asked about her status as a hero, she was always quick to deny it. She said, "I don't want to be considered a hero. Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."

She is a hero to me, because she inspires me to be just as committed to do the right thing.

Today's Sermon #21

Imagine there's no Heaven.
It's easy if you try.
No Hell below us,
Above us, only sky.

Imagine all the people
living for today.

Imagine there's no country;
It isn't hard to do--
Nothing to kill or die for;
No religion, too.

Imagine all the people
living life in peace.

You may say that I'm dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join me
And the world will live as one.

The New Kid In Town

The local Safeway called it quits back in October. The store was an anchor of a shopping complex on the corner of University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue. Granted within a mile radius there are lots of grocery stores: Red Apple Farm, Aldi, Atlantic, Maxim, Shoppers Food Warehouse. Don't be alarmed if you don't recognize most of these chains. Aldi is German. Maxim is Filipino. Red Apple Farm is, well, just really odd. Atlantic is Canadian. And now enter ExpoEmart (an Indian based food chain) in the former Safeway store.

I visited it today and purchased some really fresh green beans, some of the best oyster mushrooms I've seen in a long time and a few more atypical items: Kimchi, Coconut soda, and baby boc choi. The things that impressed me? The Meat: Cheep and very fresh; more seafood than I've seen anywhere outside of the Korean Market on Viers Mill and Randolph Road. The Produce: sketchy, but abundant and varied reminding me of open markets I've been to in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe; Managua, Nicaragua or Tai'chung, Republic of China. The carrots were other worldly...if only I knew that they were also organic.

At any rate. I'm totally planning on returning. The musak was Latino. The chance to live in another country in my own backyard? Priceless.

Sunday Funnies #27

Okay, so I went to this absolutely wonderful little Evangelical Christian college for my undergraduate degrees--yeah, I got TWO of them...and TWO minors! Anyways, I was surfing recently when I happened upon this photo of some underclassmen posing at some homecoming event. And well, I'm just ownry enough to turn it into something else (something Funny, I hope). My inspiration? The New Yorker cartoon contest, of course! Bon Appetit~

Sam Tsui

Friends, Here's a hyper achiever named Sam Tsui. He's capitalizing on "Glee," but darn it. He's very talented.

Judge for yourselves and ENJOY! (Full-Disclosure: I was born just south of Detroit)
"Don't Stop Believing"

Lady Gaga Medley

Check out his YouTube series titled: "College Musical" and posted to YouTube.

YEEE HAW!----Ride 'em Cowboys!

And now for something completely different! There's a new web-based reality dance show in town. D.C. Cowboys and partner it's a horse worth saddling, and a trail worth scouting.
Episode #1

Episode #2

Racism 101

I work for the Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools. And I have to say, it's one of the most rigorous, diverse, and cutting edge school systems in the United States. Witness the very fact of my job. I am the Staff Development Teacher in my building. A position that all schools have. A non-classroom based position given to a master educator in which we become the mentor/catalyst/bringer of innovation and initiative disseminator in the building.

On Thursday I attended a half-day training part of which was dedicated to creating racial awareness. Something we are charged to do at our buildings sites in order to foster a deeper awareness of the pervasive ways race effects student achievement and instructional practices. The multi-year goal of MCPS is to eliminate the racial gap between student achievement. And, perhaps, to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind the data scrutiny of student performance includes differences in gender, socio-economic status, English language proficiency, and Differently-abled/Mentally-challenged students. But most of our work vis a vis our trainings concern race. At one point, the 120 participants were encouraged to share from our personal stories; our counter story, i.e. a story which could be seen from other perspectives, but which we saw with a meaning that came from our cultural perspective uniquely. Most of the participants were white, a few were black, a few hispanic, a couple bi-racial, there were 4 men in the house.

After a couple people shared, I offered the story of a trip that I took with one of my students back in 1980 when I was teaching at an English Academy in Taiwan (I was 19 at the time....for the record!) We drove to a very rural area where the children in the village ended up surrounding us as we sat perched upon his Vespa. They were pointing and calling out something. When I asked Ho what they were saying, he replied, "They are children. They are calling you "Big Nose". They don't mean anything by it...all Americans have big noses."

Racism isn't an American invention. It isn't even a European (read white) invention. It is one of the ways that the world's people have come to see themselves against the backdrop of others. It can be as silly and innocent as those beautiful children's raucous chant or it can be endemic and poisonous to the very core of our humanity, a bringer of enslavement, a justifier of genocide. In all of it's dimensions it must be recognized. We must see it as clearly within ourselves as we see it in others. There are no clean hands, and whether innocent or incidious we must choose to be better than those who went before us.

I am so glad that I am working for a school system that recognizes the need to shift the paradigm that pervades our social network.

What I'm Watching #226

Just started to watch "Glee." Bought the first season and have watched the first two episodes. OMG~This is some really good shit from FOX; I mean, besides "The Simpsons" it's shows don't rank on my must see list. Quirky, compelling; over-the-top performances and all full of angst and innocent fun. It's genius.

Ken Noland RIP

Kenneth Noland 1924-2010

In a nutshell from an article in the New York Times: Kenneth Noland was "Born in Asheville, N.C., in 1924, he studied art at the adventurous, short-lived Black Mountain College (conveniently located just outside his hometown) from 1946 to 1948, was inspired by the stain-painting technique that Helen Frankenthaler deducted from Jackson Pollock’s drips, and had his first exhibition in New York in 1957, at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery.

Mr. Noland’s signature motif was a radiant target made of rings of pure color strained directly on raw canvas, with that canvas contributing a wonderful sense of breathing room between each band of color. The power of the colors, their often discordant interaction and the expanding and contracting rhythms of the bands of paint and the raw canvas, could be stunningly direct and vibrant. Mr. Noland’s work was championed by Clement Greenberg and other formalist art critics, but in the beginning it was also greatly admired by more wide-ranging critics, including Donald Judd."
Mandarin, 1961
acrylic on canvas
209.9 x 209.6 cm (82 5/8 x 82 1/2 in.)

And as I recently saw this, the most amazing of his works at the Meyerhoff Collection exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, I am particularly sad about his passing. Perhaps there will be a period of reflection and renaissance of his ouvre as a tribute.

Say, "Cheese"

A completely Lego polaroid camera. Sent to me by my friend T. Leave it to a librarian to discover such a cool thing!

Monday Funnies

A couple of funnies to get the week started.

Precious Things

I spent the bulk of today on a trip to visit, Marie. It began when I met my ex- after he attended church, and then we drove to Columbia, Maryland to meet our friend, L., after she attended her church, for lunch. From there the three of us drove up to Towson for our visit with Marie. Marie is my ex-'s grandmother, and though he ended our relationship in 2003, the end of that unofficial marriage did not end my friendship with Marie. Marie is a gem. Come spring, she'll enter her 91st year of life. (I know, she barely looks 70!) And every visit with her is a gift.

She once described me as her 4th grandson--and she already has 4!--I dare not imagine which one of them I replaced in her mind at that moment. Born in the same year as my father, and a year younger than my mother; I think of her more as a second mother than a grandmother. And such connections are so superfluous to the essence of our friendship.

Today's Sermon #20

QUESTION

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

May Swenson, 1913 - 1989

I Did It!

Kind of like Giancando in the movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" when he summoned up the courage to insult the Holy Roman Emperor as he entered the town of Perugia is for me the summoning up of the courage to once again start from scratch with a new computer. Today I bit the bullet and bought an iMac 27-inch 3.06GHz with 6GB memory. It's kind of like going from the "Wizard of Oz" to "Avatar" to keep the movie references going.

The guys at the little Mac Store in the woods in Gaithersburg out by NIH were practically beside themselves with enthusiasm as I neared the moment of the actual purchase. It was almost creepy how they looked at me when they shook my hand--like a kid brother who'd only beat off until now, and now he was going into the tent of the hottest madame in the oasis. Having spent 30 minutes working with it...I get where they were coming from!

Art I'm Seeing #41

As I mentioned yesterday, I'd been down to the Mall to see highlights from the Meyerhoff Collection show at the National Gallery of Art. First off a word about the Meyerhoff's. They are legendary philanthropists whose money has been channeled into the arts (Their art collection rivals any other of its kind in the world and is valued at over $300 million dollars, their namesake Meyerhoff Symphony Hall is home to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) and education (They have an endowed chair in Biochemistry at the University of Maryland, a visiting professorship at Goucher College, and a scholarship program targeted at underserved minority communities for students seeking degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering and math) to touch but the tip of their iceberg of giving. The art they collected was a labor of love that began in 1950's and ended in 2004 when Jane passed into Ancestry. Their entire collection has been gifted to the National Gallery of Art (a gift that includes their amazing home, as well).

While seeing fewer than half of the total works they collected in this exhibition, I was struck by the desire to build an entirely new dedicated wing to house art from the collection on a permanent basis. I sincerely hope that someone has arrived at this conclusion before me. The Meyerhoff's are contemporary versions of the Frick's, Phillip's, Barnes' and Carnegie's from the turn of the last century. I would love to see something like the Lehman wing at the Met in New York City become part of the National Gallery of Art here in D.C. ... but I digress.

For any fan of Modern Art post World War II, this exhibit will provide you with one thrill after another. Arranged along ten themes and featuring the works of 6 of the masters of the era: Johns, Kelly, Lichtenstein, Marden, Rauschenberg, and Stella, it none-the-less includes dozens of works by their contemporaries, too. One of the first large canvases you will encounter is one of the sweet whimsical paintings that Wilhelm de Kooning did at the end of his life (one of the controversial Alzheimers works); and an absolutely stunning Kenneth Noland painting of concentric circles called "Mandarin" from 1961.
This Jasper Johns from 1993 is entitled "Mirror's Edge," and really spoke to me...then several works later and on another floor I encountered a trio of works from the late '80's by Johns on the theme of "Spring" which celebrate ideas only hinted at this work. A lover of metaphor could OD on the works of this artist alone. Other highlights for me included the stunning pencil drawing by Ellsworth Kelly entitled "Beanstalk," the series of wall-sculptures by Frank Stella on the "Play-skool" themes, and the amazing portrait of "Josephine" by Grace Hartigan.

And here's the best part of all. The exhibition will be open to the public through the 2nd day of May, 2010! Friends in the D.C. area, you have no excuse not to go.

In Context: Lego City

I've shown several of my Lego Factory Series inspired buildings on this blog, but never shown the structures in the context of my "Lego City". So here for some perspective are four images of the buildings together. Still don't know where all of this is going....

Art I'm Seeing #40

One of the shows that I went to the NGA to see was a collection of portrait photography by Robert Bergman. For nearly two decades, he's taken photos of the people he's encountered in the cities and forgotten places of America. They are all anonymous. They are all printed from his digital camera on an inkjet printer. And they are all utterly amazing.

There is a catalogue that can be purchased, but it's not just from this exhibition, although it seems to include all of the images found in this two-room show. Housed as all photography shows are at the National Gallery of Art in the basement of the West Building--like some dungeon or set of dark rooms. Yet this venue feels very appropriate. While none of the images is the least bit lurid, they are all so fucking intimate that you find yourself trapped by competing emotions. One is to avert your uninvited gaze and the other more powerful feeling is to move closer and to allow yourself to be absorbed into the soul of the person before you. Observing my fellow gallery mates I witnessed both extremes. I watched people giggle nervously and move quickly from image to image, skipping some completely, and I saw one young man sit and stare at the photo of little boy with such steely conviction as to create between them a space separate and wholly there own in our midst.

The catalogue contains no writing from the artist. His voice remains as anonymous as his images. It does, however, come with an introduction by Toni Morrison and an afterward by Meyer Shapiro. The introduction is worth the price of the catalogue as Ms. Morrison paints the image of an encounter with an anonymous woman that is as deep and rich and demanding of your engagement in the ideas that it births as are Mr. Bergman's images. And there is also a quote from Isabella Stewart Gardner, a turn of the 20th century Bostonian philanthropist and art collector who died in 1924 and who left that city a museum with her name upon it to house her amazing art collection. The name made me intensely curious as to the relevance of her thoughts in connection with these portraits. Here's her quote:

"If there is a theme with which I am particularly concerned, it is the contemporary failure of love. I don't mean romantic love or sexual passion, but the love which is the specific and particular recognition of one human being by another--the response by eye and voice and touch of two solitudes. The democracy of universal vulnerability." ~ Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1840-1924

So why did I choose this particular image to sum up the whole?--because no one image can or does. Two reasons: 1) The eyes. The eyes are so endemic of way the artist captures the soul of the subject. He time and again shows you the way our eyes are like galaxies of light spinning within the mystery of a dark universe. And 2), I thought he looked like Abraham Lincoln.

Washington In December

Some images from my visit to the Capitol end of the Mall today.I went specifically to tour a couple of the shows at the National Gallery of Art and more about them in separate posts. It was a cold day here 27˚F, and I wish I'd remembered to wear a hat. Still there were crowds of people. The line outside the National Conservatory and Botanical Gardens turned me away from there. Thankfully, the National Gallery of Art was not the main destination of most of the people.
If you've never been and you find yourself in the Capitol of the free world, you really need to make the time to visit. The open beauty of I. M. Pei's East Building is really cathedral-like. The iconic Calder mobile is the pinnacle of his ouvre. In this photo you can also see the whimsical array of Ellsworth Kelly paintings across the rear right wall. Few other venues could even display such a work.
The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial is a series of bronze sculptures found on the edge of the reflecting pool at the base of the U.S. Capitol Building. It's probably the most anonymous presidential memorial in Washington D.C. The reason being, that the majority of people who see it, don't even know what the hell it is!

The Washington monument rising out of some post-apocolyptic forest, the eerie reminder of the once great city? Naw....
It's just what it looks like from the mini-wetland/woodland garden outside of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Art I'm Owning #7

This postcard arrived on Saturday with a holiday greeting from my friend and photographer, Todd Boebel. It's entitled "Loew's Kings Theatre" Flatbush Ave Brooklyn New York © 2007 by the artist. Who knows? It may be the inspiration for an upcoming Lego creation? And in any event, it made me cry. The continuity of friends in a world given to fleeting moments, I guess, but then I tend to cry easily...

Lego Factory Series #15

As Rocky Squirrel was famous for saying..."And now, for something completely different!" Clearly I'm in a manicly creative mood with both the time and means to make something of my energies! And here I've built a modernist office building for my Lego City.
It's five stories of minimalist wonder. The street level features a clothing store complete with a set of four window displays. To enter the lobby you need pass under the two story tall portico past the sculpture. The elevator shaft is real and opens to all five floors.
I was inspired by two buildings. The first is an office building on the corner of Georgia and Wayne Avenues in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the second is an apartment complex on North Charles Street just north of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The latter was designed by the noted German architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who famously coined the line, "Less is More." (And, who less well known, was also responsible for the ubiquitous aphorism, "God is in the Details," but I digress.) Still an empty shell, I look forward to renting out the interior and outfitting it to meet the needs of the clientel? Who knows, an architect? an ambulatory care facility? an ad agency? an insurance company? Interested parties should contact me directly for square footage rates and design specs....

What I'm Watching #225

Spent the last two days watching the first season of The Wire. Set in Baltimore (My favorite American City) it's a very highly acclaimed police drama. I can see why. I've already started the second season.....

Lego Factory Series #14

My final bricks to complete this structure arrived on Saturday. And here is my latest addition to the Lego City "The Magic Dragon Chinese Restaurant" and the "Ruby Scimitar Flower Mart". Designed to fit behind the Fire Station/Museum (Legos Factory Series #12 11 OCT 09) I imagined this building as having another purpose when first it was new.
And that's why I designed it with the arched pass through that leads up to the back entrance of the old Fire Station. Perhaps it was even a stable for horses in the late 19th century. But now the opening and the former stables have been transformed into a florist shop and flower mart with one of the building's two appartment units above.
Here is photo showing the detail in the back side of the pagoda tower. Like all factory series wannabe's this structure is designed modularly and can be separated into various units to allow access to all interior spaces. This building was designed with 8 separate units.

What I'm Listening To #73 & 74

Recently bought two more of Rosie Thomas' CD's She is one of the most amazing vocalists you'll ever have the chance to hear. Her pixie speaking voice transforms into a vehicle for the communication of emotion and ideas that is iconic in its power and uniqueness.
No matter what she sings, you'll be transported to a place of transcendence. I tend to like "These Friends Of Mine" more because she includes studio banter before a couple of the songs. It's a device that increases the sense of intimacy even more. I love her! I'm sure you will, too!

(PS added 27 DEC) And OMG, I just realized that I know the guy who's singing the duet with her on "All The Way To New York CIty". Denison Witmer's voice is like the perfect companion to Rosie's. 6 degrees of separation, chah!? One more reason why you will love this CD!

What I'm Watching #224

(500) Days of Summer is a quirky, sort of bold, film about a relationship. I bought it because of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I'm glad that I did because of Zooey Deschanel. She clearly stole the show. And I don't know how I feel about the movie in general....I find myself in agreement with the underlying premise, yet I feel how painful life is when lived like that -- and yet it's magical, too. Another movie in the chain of modern relationship films that includes "Juno," "Garden State," and "Benny and June" among others.

Christmas Gift From The Great Unknown

My ex- introduced me to orchids, and over the years I've succumbed to their allure and purchased them only to watch them die off after their amazing blooms have faded. That is until now. This simple and beautiful Cymbidium Orchid has just begun to bloom for the second time! I bought it last December at a local Home Depot. It bloomed then most magnificently. I kept it inside until the weather permitted and then set it upon my deck for the duration of the warm weather. In October, it sprouted blossom stems from two of its bulbs. And now they are opening with all of the miraculous beauty of Orchids everywhere.

Xmas Cheer 09 #2

Based on Norman Rock- well's iconic world war II painting, "Free- dom from Want" out of his series of "The 4 Freedoms" may my brother's (and sister's--and yes, everyone in between) have a fabulous holiday surrounded by those they love.

What I'm Listening To #72

When you dare to comment on an artist like Sting, you need tackle so many things. But no matter how you call it, Sting is Sting. You can't expect him to be something other. And for those of us who love him, he has yet again struck a true north on the compass rose of our hearts. This album, like George Winston's "December" and Mel Torme's "Christmas Song" sung by Nat King Cole will be a part of my ChismaChanaKwanza/Winter Soltice tradition from this year on. It's just that beautiful.

History Is Made

With all of the hullabaloo about snow, another event has nearly slipped by unnoticed. On Friday, December 19th, Washington D. C. mayor Adrian Fenty signed the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 at the All Souls Unitarian Church. With the bill's Republican author, and D.C. council member-at-large, David Catania standing nearby (2nd on the left with fist raised), D.C. enters the ever expanding pantheon of civilized society in the 21st century by recognizing that marriage is a civil right and not simply a religious commitment. By permitting individual churches and denominations the freedom to opt out of conducting ceremonies, this law really sets the standard for marriage as a civil act, and therefore a right. And that's exactly where it belongs. As long as the government "of, by, and for the people" chooses to confer special privileges and responsibilities upon people who choose to unite in matrimony, there is no place for denying this right of contract based on religious dogma. If you are a citizen, you have full and free right to exercise all aspects of civil commerce and polity. Period.

The Catholic church was particularly vociferous in opposing this moment stating that it would no longer provide services in the District of Columbia if forced to treat all people with equal dignity in matters of civil law. They thought that their bullying would once again force the majority to knuckle under to their minority, archaic world view. When it became clear that they would not prevail, they began singing a different tune: "Oh, we'll work to find common ground. We are all about playing nice...." Bull Shit! They are all about loosing financial advantages that underwrite their bigotry. Hypocracy knows no limits....and in a rare moment in history, neither does justice.