Presenting the Excellently overly-dramatic trailer for Reflections in a Golden Eye, a dated yet still shockingly relevant Technicolor ode to lustful homosexual repression and voluptuous heterosexual conformity (based on the Excellent 1941 novel by Carson McCullers), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando (due o the death of tragically Excellent Montgomery Clift).

Yesterday was a perfect lazy Sunday.

Arwen woke us up fairly early, but we lazed around for quite awhile before making brunch. I offered to contribute some roasted potatoes, but otherwise Adam did the cookin’ while I blogged, relaxed and downed a couple o’ cups of coffee. On Saturday we went for a run outside with Arwen and then enjoyed the vineyard experience, but yesterday was all chillaxin’. Reading in bed, going on a (leisurely) mission for hummus/pita chips, concluding our LOTR journey with Return of the King, sippin’ drinks from my-personal-bartender-Adam.

Truth: I miss him already. Yay for an amazing weekend, boooo to long distance.

Another win of a weekend.

It’s Monday evening and I finished all my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving this afternoon.  Tomorrow I’ll prepare the Braunschweiger Paté and Roquefort Cheese Ball for Thursday. Wednesday, I’ll brine the turkey and make all the desserts. Thanksgiving morning, I’ll be up at 5:00 am, prepping the turkey, side dishes and putting the finishing touches on the day’s festivities.  All the groceries are put away and I’m relaxing with a glass of white wine, some of THAT cheese and a few crackers.

Someone asked me earlier this week here on my blog, if I’d be willing to share my favorite Thanksgiving traditions.  I don’t know where to start.  There have been so many over the years, but they’ve changed…with beloved family members passing away and others, growing up and moving away.

Years ago, when I was a little girl, we spent our Thanksgivings with my mom’s side of the family.  Her family and all her extended family, moved here to Southern California from Arkansas in the 50s.  They spread out, throughout the southland to Los Angeles, San Diego, with a large percent of them setting up digs in Yucaipa, CA.

Each year, the families took turns hosting Thanksgiving, so we were usually driving somewhere early that morning.  I remember being so excited each year, to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles, who we hadn’t seen throughout the year.  All my cousins were my age and we looked forward to proving to each other, how much we had grown the past year!  When we became teenagers, it became even more important to prove how many street smarts we had acquired and how “cool” we had become.

My dad, brother, all my uncles, second uncles, and pretty much all the males of the family used to participate in the annual “Turkey Bowl,” a “touch football” game (that inevitably ended in “tackle football”) played at the local high school football field.   The women and all the girls, used to stay home and cook, gossip and worry about which man would get hurt – Every year there were injuries and trips to the E.R.!

My mom and her three brothers adapted to the California lifestyle easily, as they were young when they came here. By the time they were adults they had all but lost their southern accents, but the older family members never lost sight of their southern roots.  Some bought farms in Yucaipa (when it was mostly farmland), raised pigs (for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners), had fruit orchards AND secretly made “moonshine” behind the back barn!  I remember many a Thanksgiving in Yucaipa, when moonshine got the better of one or more of my great uncles. Once, a fistfight broke out between them and my mom and dad swooped me up and into the car… making a mad dash home.  Once, my great uncle, Johnny, imbibed a bit too much and drove his car into the screened-in porch of my Granny’s house! Again, mom and dad swooped me up in their arms, into the car…and made a mad dash home!

Years later, after many of those family members had passed, my mom took over Thanksgiving hosting duties.  These were some of my favorite memories.  I had a young family of my own by then and we would load up the kids and make the drive to her house early Thursday morning.  There was always a store-bought cheese ball on the table upon our arrival and the smell of Thanksgiving was everywhere!  My mom was remarried by then and her husband, Paul, made the most divine dressing ever!  He would come around the corner and signal for us to come into the kitchen to sample a taste. He would always ask, “does it need anything?” KNOWING already it was perfection…. he knew how good it was, he just wanted to show off – a tradition AND recipe I stole from him and use every year!

After an amazing dinner, we’d settle in for “game time” – usually Poker or Trivial Pursuit, my mom at the head of the table, Paul at the other head, both of them a little toasted from all the wine, ecstatic to have all their family surrounding them….”conducting” music to the soundtrack of “Amadeus.“  Those were the happiest days of their lives, I suspect.

Now it’s Thanksgiving 2009 – I have no idea where the time went, because it was just yesterday that I was running through the orchards in Yucaipa, with my cousins, stopping every so often to play a game of “Truth or Dare.”

I’ve had the honor of hosting Thanksgiving for about 20 years now. Both my parents and my husband’s have passed to the other side, many other family members, as well – including some amazing and beloved dogs!  I don’t dwell on those losses very much throughout the year, but on Thanksgiving they are all here with me….I feel my Mom’s approval, as I’m cleaning the bird at 5:00 in the morning, my Dad winking at me for a job well done, my stepfather guiding me as I chop chicken livers for “his” dressing recipe, my father-in-law, who used to sneak in and eat all the dressing, before it ever made it to the Thanksgiving table; and my precious dog, Calvin, who once jumped on the table, stole a turkey leg, hid in the laundry room to eat it, then turned into “Cujo”, when I tried to get it back!

The hours from 5:00 am to 7:00 am on Thanksgiving morning are the most precious of my whole year, every year.  It’s still and dark outside and my kitchen is filled with the spirits of my ALL my departed loved ones.  I reflect on all my treasured memories of an era that will never be again – at the same time, anticipating the sheer joy when my kids will walk through the door!

We’ll eat cheese balls and patés; I’ll lure everyone into the kitchen to tease them with a “sample” of Paul’s famous dressing; we’ll recite lines from our favorite Thanksgiving movie, “Avalon” (which isn’t technically a Thanksgiving movie – just a beautiful film about the importance of family). My son will “Cut the Toykey” (a line from Avalon), we’ll eat way too much; clear the dishes and make room for the most important part of the day – “game time.”  I’ll be a little toasted, sitting at the head of the table, “conducting” to whatever music is on my iPod playlist – happier than I’ve been all year, surrounded by my family and all the people I love!  That’s why Thanksgiving IS ~ and ALWAYS will be, my favorite holiday.

I’ll start this post off by openly declaring “Yes, I am a packrat!”

In digging through boxes in storage, I came across a bit of an antique from childhood, my TI-99/4A.  I remember the excitement when we got this back in the early 1980s. I can’t believe I still have it!  To my horror, I also found the cartridge for Laws of Arithmetic. (Loads of fun, that one.  Thanks Mom, Dad.)

I suddenly remembered the first video game I ever played at home, and continued digging for it. Sadly, no Hunt the Wumpus. If you’ve never heard of this game, basically you’re hunting down a monster in caves, in the dark of course, armed with only arrows.  You narrow down its location based on how bloody each cavern is.  Once you think you’ve narrowed down its location, you shoot an arrow to kill the beast.  If you’re wrong, its jaws come crashing down on screen and it’s game over.  How I hated seeing that image…

Apparently, there are some online versions of it available.  I might check them out, but first hints at “geezer” and I’m outta there!  I need to spare my mid-30s self from that indignity. I must say I enjoyed the unexpected blast from the past. Maybe I’ll get back to my original treasure hunting goal – digging up and possibly tweeting from my PowerBook Duo 210 from college.

What was your first video game? Bonus point if you still have it!  (I may post pics later once I’ve clean up the chaos in the storage…)

Recycled petals

This fine art print is available for purchase at bbrunophotography

Cerca 19 anos atrás, o Super Nintendo foi finalmente lançado no Japão. Com apenas F-zero e Super Mario World o incrivel console tornou-se uma febre. Mas o mundo ainda esperava, porque a plataforma ainda era chamada de Super Famicon e não tinha chegado a lugar nenhum fora da pequena ilha do continenete asiático, onde o brilhante videogame só seria descontinuado há 5 anos atrás.

Depois de um ano de espectativa, o SNES chega aos EUA, onde é distribuído para todas as partes do mundo. Em 1993, vem para o Brasil oficialmente, por meio de uma parceria entre a Gradiente (WTF) e a Estrela (WTF?). É nesse momento (não quando ele chega ao Brasil) em que o mercado de videogames se populariza. Foi comercializado com o intuito de concorrer com o Mega Drive, da Sega, mas tornou-se uma plataforma que realmente revolucionou, independente da merda da concorrencia.

Infelizmente, nunca tive o SNES. Mesmo com a minha insistencia, meus pais inssistiram que o Preysteichu era melhor, e eu acabei cedendo. Anyway, o PC de 4 GB de HD (óóóó) chegou a minha casa. E  com ele um CD comprado na feira com 500 joguinhos de SNES. Ah, queridos amiguinhos nerds, aquilo adoçou minhas tardes.

Cresci jogando Prince of Persia, Super Mario World e Alladin. Foram dias fatidicos, aqueles. Isso fez com que nascesse em mim um amor sobrenatural por musiquinhas 8-bit. É com minha humilde palavra de blogueiro fudido que eu parabenizo a Nintendo e a Shigueru Myiamoto, meu salvador, por um console que nunca deveria ter sido descontinuado. Felizmente, hoje existe o Virtual Console, meu refúgio feliz (discurso mela calcinha, puta que pariu)

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Sabe aquela caixinha de brinquedo que você roda a manivela e quando menos espera pula um palhaço lá de dentro?
Em 2009, acho que a grande caixinha de surpresas do circo da Fórmula-1 foi a Brawn, que não aprontou palhaçada e saiu dando muita risada com o campeonato de construtores e de piloto nas mãos.
Agora em 2010, a extinta scuderia que virou Mercedes pode repetir a “brincadeira”. Se depender dos rumores, será mais uma vez a caixinha de surpresas, podendo substituir o palhaço por ninguém mais ninguém menos do que o heptacampeão Michael Schumacher. É mole?

“É, eu sou foda…”

Apesar de parecer que a presença do alemão na equipe não agrada a muita gente e que os rumores têm na verdade irritado Ross Brawn, o diretor-esportivo da equipe inglesa, Norbert Haug, afirmou que não descarta a contratação do heptacampeão mundial como companheiro de Nico Rosberg.
Fica parecendo é que o pessoal não quer ofuscar a recente contratação do jovem piloto alemão. Ou se eles estão em dúvida entre o Schummy ou Kimi, que está no vai e vêm e ninguém sabe o que que o cara decide, já que ninguém sabe pra onde que ele vai… se voltar mesmo, tomei no Haikkonen.

Enfim, vamos aguardar. Ver o Schumacher correr de novo ia ser realmente um prazer. Não dá pra negar que o cara é um mestre. Junto ao Rubinho, queiram ou não é um dos últimos pilotos de verdade da Fórmula-1. As diferenças são grandes, mas o fato é que o Rubinho samba e o Schumacher não (confira o vídeo).

Fruto de competência e não de especulações marketeiras (ou familiares, não é Nelson, seu Júnior???), Schummy voltaria pra dar aula e surpreender muito piloto de carrinho de rolimã. Que rufem os motores e abram a caixinha.

Qualifying em SPA Francs em 2004… Alguém vê ele sambar?

You know the drill. Cursive will be playing Cine El Rey in McAllen next Sunday November 29th and I am extremely excited. I believe that the past is what makes us who we are in the present so I’ve decided to post one track from their back catalog each day leading up to the show.

Today’s track comes from my personal favorite album of the band, Domestica, which tells tales of deceit and sorrow fueled by a deteriorating relationship resulting in a divorce.

The band had just reformed with newly-added guitarist Ted Stevens. (Note: not this Ted Stevens)
Here is “The Martyr”.

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oh sweet thing, sweet thing
my my my my my sweet thing
and i shall drive my chariot
down your streets and cry
‘hey, it’s me, i’m dynamite
and i don’t know why’
and you shall take me strongly
into your loving arms again
and i will not remember
that i even felt the pain.
we shall walk and talk
in gardens all misty and wet with rain
and i will never never never
grow so old again.

-van morrison

For those of you who know what this is… enjoy.

If you don’t know, this is a house in Kentucky my family used to live in. It has since run down and no longer looks like this.

It’s me in the picture. Mmmm.. the stupid things we used to do: smoking on the roof, vandalizing the abandoned house behind us, breaking into the school up the road, spying on the Christmas presents through the vent upstairs, etc. I’m sure my brother and sisters can think of more.

Here are a couple pictures from an $$V writing session this past Sunday. I love all of them.

Day 6 in “Santa’s 12 Tips for Celebrating an Ideal Christmas” is, “Sing Holiday Songs” (see image below for a visual on this tip). This whimsical sculpture features Santa, head thrown back, warbling a favorite Christmas carol. 

This series is about “ideally living” during the holidays. Nostalgia is an element of ideally living. Regardless of whether your childhood was a happy one, there were those moments of excited anticipation as you counted down the days until Santa’s arrival. You can recapture some of those sweet memories by singing familiar favorites like “Jingle Bells” or “Joy to the World”. Go ahead, lose the grown up in you, with all those pesky responsibilities, throw your head back, and with all that childhood gusto, sing “Oh Christmas Tree” at the top of your lungs. (It will make you feel much better about the season.) Go to http://tinyurl.com/ydjde88 to see more of Santa’s 12 tips for an Ideal Christmas.

 

I’m back from Texas, where I saw a lot of friends, had a lot of fun and sold a not-insignificant number of books. Pictures and such will have to wait; today, I’m back to work. But some quick hits from the long weekend:

• The highlight, easily, was Saturday night’s open house. Over the course of the night, we saw more than 100 people stream in, stick around for conversation and food and enjoy 600 Hours of Edward. Big ups to Mom’s Catering (that is, my mom and her stellar party-making skills) for making the evening a big hit. I saw former classmates, former teachers, friends’ parents, people I didn’t know (but now do). It was a great time.
• After Friday morning, I had a greater appreciation for the difficulty teachers face in trying to deliver a lesson, knowing full well they aren’t reaching everybody. I spent four hours with English classes (three at a time) at my alma mater, and I really appreciated being invited in by Richland High School and all the good questions about writing and life beyond high school.
• Thursday morning, I spent time with English classes at Harwood Junior High in Bedford, Texas. The organizing teacher, Donna Baumgartner, was my third-grade teacher back in 1978-79. Wonderful to see her, and wonderful to see so many kids who clearly love reading.
• After Harwood, I dashed out to the North Richland Hills Public Library for a reading and a Q&A. A lot of nice folks — many of whom I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years — came out for that. I’m looking forward to the next event at that beautiful new building.
• Off-topic but near and dear to my heart: My wife, Angie, surprised me with a tour of Cowboys Stadium on Friday evening. The Cowboys’ opulent new home is absolutely stunning and far more impressive than the actual team.

I’ve been gone from North Richland Hills long enough and have lived long enough that visits tend to hit me in squarely in my nostalgia. On this trip, it seemed there was a memory around every corner. I had a lot of fun showing Angie the places I wandered when I was a kid, pointing out houses where my friends lived, plots of ground that used to be open space, etc. The Dallas/Fort Worth area has grown with such vigor in the past couple of decades that much of the background of my childhood has been left behind. I suppose that’s progress, in its own way. To me, though, it often just seemed like the erosion of the place I knew.

At any rate, we stumbled home to Billings on Sunday night. As is always the case after some time away, it’s good to be here.

AND ONE MORE THING …

600 Hours of Edward received a lovely — and long-awaited — review from the LL Book Review. The site originally planned to review the self-published version of the book several months back and graciously agreed to delay the review until the book re-emerged.

A snippet:

I could go on and on about all of the really fine points of this book, to the point where I might rival the 80,000 words of the novel itself. The bottom line is this is a book which should be experienced.

Thank you, LK Gardner-Griffie.

Tecnostalgia ou notícias do mundo de lá

Belo Horizonte, 12 de abril de 2006

 À alguém, à algum, ao século passado

 “Caríssimos amigos os, fatos que vou narrar compreendem minha rotina diária e a saudade que sinto dos anos dourados, da infância alegre e do mundo menos tecnológico . “

“Assento-me numa cadeira de frente a um laptop e não há mais escrivaninha, caneta ou bloquinho de anotações. Esqueçam os cadernos de caligrafia, agora tenho um editor de textos que tem sempre a mesma letra, porque a moda agora é ser virtual. Um mundo evoluído em que a inteligência biológica se confunde com a artificial, o proibido com o permitido, a ética com a estética. O mundo se rendeu à cibernética. O processo de criação se distanciou do Criador. Qualquer um pode ser dadaísta. É tudo um jogo de dados. A inspiração já não vem dos Céus, vem do Acaso. As musas do Olimpo foram globalizadas e agora tem sobrenome ponto com. Temos sites, programas, plágio e dicionário eletrônico. As bibliotecas agora são virtuais, mas seus livros não têm cheiro. O bit é inodoro, insalubre. O Joyce e o Pessoa, as tragédias e as comédias que outro dia impressionavam nas estantes, hoje cabem todos num disquinho de plástico. Plástico também não tem gosto. A evolução é pertinente, o que incomoda é a impessoalidade. Não há mais tantos saraus literários, criaram os blogs. Para que ler se a Rede me dá tudo resumido? Enciclopédia para que? Como no sexo, só preciso de uma conexão. E a conexão também oferece prazer. Porque o apelo sexual agora é mais visual, voyer. Uma imagem vale mais que mil carinhos. O telegrama agora pesa mais de uma tonelada, é mais leve mandar um e-mail. Precisamos nos atualizar porque as janelas foram lançadas em nova versão e esta não é mais compatível com serenatas! A reciclagem agora é também de conhecimento e o bit matou a letra cursiva. As teclas tomaram o lugar que sempre foi das canetas, do lápis. Tudo é digital, inclusive as digitais, livro, foto, diário, música e saudade. Todo mundo tem um fotolog e posso fazer e selecionar os membros da minha própria comunidade. Até Da Vinci virou código. Entretanto, o conhecimento é nulo se não há inspiração. Rendi-me e transformei a letra em bit e à luz da literatura crio um hipertexto, não uso mais caneta e papel. Não saberia dizer se as relações pessoais evoluíram ou involuíram. O que sei é escrevi meu último texto num plano curvo de modelo variável dentro de um livro de luz! Encontro a solução táctil quando digito uma palavra que já não é mais palavra, é comando. Aperto teclas e mordo o lábio porque a caneta é inútil. Minha opinião nem é tão importante porque minha pátria é minha Rede, e essa Rede é minha Língua. Meu cérebro agora é um periférico (hardware) ! Minha memória é fruto de uma compilação de dados extraídos de vários sites. Antes eu sabia falar, hoje minha voz são meus dedos e minhas palavras são Words. Tenho convulsões e minha mente medula pelo lóbulo da minha orelha. Sou uma antena móvel acessível ao mundo digital.Download, upload. Envio, recebo. Se fujo disso, fico marginal. Minha letra é um signo, um símbolo matemático. Lançaram mais um jogo, eletrônico, porque pôquer é coisa do passado, futebol com os amigos só se for online! Não moro mais. Agora me hospedo em um provedor. Na minha antiga casa havia uma sala que se cansou de estar, queria ser, e hoje é sala de bate papo. Talvez esteja me tornando um homem-máquina alienado por um Sistema que não aceita aquele menino do interior. Mas apesar disso ainda sou capaz de chorar porque lágrima é água em estado sentimental (dígito não pode molhar). Se escrever ainda é arte, a minha escrita é uma oração pela volta ao paraíso.”

Texto publicado em http://favelacultural.blogspot.com/

Tonight I walked in front of this old school I used to go to many years ago. It’s still the same but with minor differences. The swing sets are gone. Some bricks are mildly undone.

I wasn’t the cool guy at school. I was the silent type. I was shy. During recess, I had some funny jokes to tell, and I was sure that they were funny, but I wouldn’t dare to tell them. At some point some cool guy would walk in and say something funny. I remember I wanted to be like them. I didn’t want to be bullied. I wanted to laugh and yell and act like a little man.

I remember this very cute and cool girl at school. I was so much in love with her. I think she was too. But there was this thing. This limit. She had cool friends and I didn’t. Sometimes she would reach to me. Sometimes she would come to me and talk to me but every time she would do this, some cool friend of her’s would jump in ” Hey, why are you hanging out with this weirdo? ” and she would leave with that person.

So I ended up watching her evolve as a young woman through the years. During high school she stopped coming towards me. We now were in separate classes. Sometimes I would sit in the cafeteria and watch her. Her boyfriends would never treat her right. I wanted to beat the hell out of them and save her. I knew I was able to treat her right. But I never had the strength. I didn’t have it in my arms, I didn’t have it in my heart and I didn’t have it in my soul.

Then I became very sick. I stopped going to school. I stopped going everywhere. I stayed at home. I read. I wrote. I listened. I watched. I began to think. By myself. I began to talk. I became stronger. Maybe not in my arms, but in my heart and soul. And that’s 2 out of 3.

As the years flew by, she went away like the others. I stayed here in my little hometown. I was alone, but I was also with myself. I found myself through these difficult years. I built myself. And now, here I am.

And there she is.

Al zoekende naar een document wat (ik vrees) inmiddels toch echt verdwenen is, kwam ik dit schrijfsel tegen, wat ik blijkbaar nooit heb gepost.

Beter te laat dan nooit, denk ik dan. “Hindsight is a beautiful thing”, n’est pas?

Jetzt im Kino! (omdat Duits zo lekker klinkt.)

Ik heb vanmiddag ook alle pictogrammen op mijn bureaublad naar het Duits vertaald. Firefox is Feurfuchs geworden en de Prullenbak gaat vanaf nu gebukt onder de naam Sortierfach.

Alle vooroordelen zijn waar, ik ben bezig met een scriptie. De Scriptie. Hierin moet blijken hoe uitzonderlijk vernieuwend mijn denken is en dat het OGC niet twee jaar lang tijd, geld, energie en kostbare mankracht aan mij verspild heeft.

Vanuit dat oogpunt wordt Duitse troetelnamen voor je desktop verzinnen ineens een bijzonder aantrekkelijke bezigheid.

Maar, toch ben ik best goed bezig. Redelijk dan. Traag doch gestaag vormt zich nu een eilandje aan boeken op mijn kamer. Mooi gesorteerd op onderwerp en variërend van gelezen/ moet nog lezen/ kan eventueel interessant zijn/ taaie kost maar staat goed op de ‘works cited’ lijst/ volstrekt niet relevant maar wel leuk/ deze is vaak genoemd door mijn scriptie-begeleider en heb geen idee wat de functie ervan is.

En nu komt dan het echte werk. Lezen, onderstrepen, opschrijven, verder lezen, terugbladeren, voetnoten opzoeken, betreffende artikelen opschrijven, die weer lezen, je best doen om niet in slaap te vallen, nog meer tekst markeren (met een potlood natuurlijk, ik wil geen vijanden maken onder het personeel in de letterenbibliotheek), de verleiding weerstaan om op Facebook te gaan rondhangen, jezelf dan wel een kop muntthee gunnen, terug naar de artikelen, bij welke was je ook alweer gebleven, opnieuw beginnen met lezen, na vijftien minuten tot de ontdekking komen dat dit artikel in de categorie ‘leuk maar totaal onbruikbaar’ valt, sms op je mobiel negeren, laptop erbij pakken om de aantekeningen op te schrijven en je dan beseffen dat het alweer avond is.

Alleen daarom al wil ik niet langer dan twee blokken bezig zijn met de scriptie. Langer dan vijf maanden in dit ritme leven wordt mij funest, weet ik. Dus, schouders eronder, leesbril op, sla een bulk verse theeblaadjes in, bedreig desnoods de huisgenoot die het nodig vindt om overdag Led Zeppelin te hard- en op repeat te zetten en spui die genialiteit.

Laat ons een scriptie maken.

Inmiddels ben ik heel veel theeblaadjes, tony chocolonely repen, rsi-klachten en acht maanden verder, en kan ik meedelen dat ik de trotse eigenaar ben van de titel Master of Arts.

Leuk en spannend, maar ik heb nog steeds geen flauw benul wat ik de komende vijf jaar met mijn leven gaan doen. Suggesties zijn meer dan welkom.