Earth Day 2024: consume with care
Antonella Manuli practices regenerative organic farming
“Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature,” pointed out Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 ground breaking book Silent Spring. “But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself? [We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”
Earth Day began in 1970 as a teach-in to understand how we are altering and destroying nature– and we are still learning how to live more lightly on our planet. Read more…
Bruce Springsteen tour 2024
A LITTLE CAFE by Ron Wells
There’s a little cafe. Down San Diego way. That cafe plays music all night, and all day. That cafe holds big ideas and small ideas, big dreams and small. That cafe holds human beings drinking and singing, and carrying their burdens into it with them.
Bruce Springsteen has been there. He remembers it vividly.
Wine Predator Gwendolyn Alley with Antonella Manuli in Tuscany, Italy
Big news, friends and fans of Art Predator! I’m super to excited to announce that I’m nominated for one of this year’s Wine Travel Awards, and I need YOUR VOTE by March 31! The popular vote by people like YOU narrow the nominations to FIVE FINALISTS which go to the judges who will decide on the final selection. Right now I’m in a four way tie for fifth place, but if just some of my subscribers like YOU would vote for me, I’d be a finalist for sure! It is super easy to vote– just click this link, Then click on the VOTE button and I will be so grateful!
So why should you vote for me and what are the Wine Travel Awards?
Oscars 2024
“Here’s my yearly list,” says Ron Wells of the films he’s watched in the past year just in time for the Oscars tonight; find all the nominees here. “I thought it was a pretty good year with something worth watching in almost all of the films listed below (key words: almost all).” Continue reading for Ron’s Favorite Films of 2023 in order with his favorite first and working done the list with his comments, links to his reviews, a few trailers, and my thoughts in italics. Read more…
Perfect Days
Perfect Days film review by Ron Wells
In Perfect Days, Director Wim Wenders has made a beautiful, specialized film that will only be appreciated by some audience members. The film follows a man, Hirayama (the brilliant Koji Yakusho) who daily goes to his job which entails driving around Tokyo and cleaning public restrooms and toilets; a job he does extremely well, and seemingly takes great pride in. Check out the trailer below: Read more…
What’s Up This Weekend? 12/1/23 Art Predator Performs and more free fun!
12/1/23 5 x 5 x 5
Now that my 12 week late start hybrid class is over (save for getting in grades!), I’ve got my head above water a bit and I can see there’s lots going on in the 805 this weekend, so for my Ventura County, Ventura College, and LA and SB readers, I wanted to offer a quick round up! And yes I am performing at 5 x 5 x 5 on Friday 12/1/23 at Art City!
Does Practice Make Perfect or Permanent? On Making New Mental Pathways
We hear how “practice makes permanent” but I attended a seminar for teachers about the brain, and two ideas stood out:
- Does it matter WHEN you learn or THAT you learn?
- Practice makes permanent.
The brain works in such a way that if we do something over and over, it gets deep into our brains. Read more…
Everything is a Gift: Pay Attention, Find Blessings, Celebrate Semicolons, Be Grateful
it’s passing
It’s Thanksgiving week in the US and we have much to be grateful for: “Pay attention. Find the blessing. It’s passing. Everything is a gift, and nothing lasts,” writes Erin Geesaman Rabke. While today is not Semicolon Day, held annually on April 16, it is the birthday of someone who changed my life, someone who did not make it to Semicolon Day April 16, 2022, someone I am grateful for, someone who took his life April 12, 2022 when he still had a lot to be grateful for.
So let’s talk about semicolons today. Semicolons have a period on top of a comma; this indicates that the writer might have stopped a sentence with a period, but they want to show the link to what follows so they put a comma underneath the period to indicate a strong connection. To restate this (paraphrasing the image below), a semi-colon means a sentence the writer could have ended, but chose not to; instead the writer chose to continue on writing.
Semi-Colon Day
Happy Sweet Sixteen Bloggoversary to Art Predator!
Torino Train selfie 2022
Who knew 16 years ago when I registered this Art Predator blog and signed up for WordPress that I’d be traveling the world as a wine influencer and blogger? Certainly not me! But here I am, on a train in Torino Read more…
Unite for Water Nov. 4 Patagonia Ventura
Unite for Water Rights
Unite for Water Rights Nov. 4:
Looking for an opportunity to do something for our planet?
Stand With Cuyama Against Corporate Greed
Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms, the world’s largest carrot growers, produce 80% of the U.S. carrot market (an annual crop worth $69 million) and together they pump over 40% of the Cuyama Valley basin’s water supply. Last year they pumped 28,500 acre-feet of water; enough water to supply three cities the size of Santa Barbara with a year’s worth of water. Now they’re suing every Read more…
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