BAG IT: Free showing in Santa Barbara CA Tuesday August 24, 2010
The Ventura Hillsides Conservancy emailed me a reminder about Tuesday night’s FREE showing of Bag It at the Lobero Theatre, 7pm. We’re all invited
for a 6:30pm for beer and wine reception before the movie and to stay for the after reception with more beer and wine with the filmmakers afterwards.
Looks like an interesting and important film to me and a great opportunity to mix it up with the Santa Barbarbarians who have more green than what’s in their pockets so I’m going to try to make it up there on Tuesday Aug 24. Since it’s Santa Barbara, with Los Olivos wine country in the back yard, I’d hope the wine would be good!
To learn more about the film, the filmmaker and see the trailer go to: http://www.bagitmovie.com/ index.html
Are you going to the ‘Bell Arts Birthday Bash – Fandango 2010’ Saturday August 21?
Lots of great art and good times are in store! $20 donation gets you in the door.
Portugal’s Answer to Burning Man: BOOM Festival Aug. 18-25
Portugal’s BOOM Festival lit up the countryside the other day and will continue for a few more! Lots of great music and art in store for those fortunate enough to be there. Wish I was!
Among other acts to be featured: The Do Lab, creators of Lightening in A Bottle.
via Bikergo Gal
The Style Network called and I said yes to an audition tomorrow in LA for “How Do I Look?” which promises to transform this Art Predator into a more sleek sophisticated version!
Now if I could just get someone to help me make over my blog…or at least help me make over my closet!
via The Write Alley
Poetry Video: “How To Be Alone” by Tanya Davis
This is an insightful and inspiring poem, read by the poet and produced into a video by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman.
Since it is August, and 50,000 people are preparing to go to Burning Man, this video reminds me how Burning Man is my favorite place and time to be alone. I drove by myself to Burning Man several times and loved the time alone with my thoughts. While I always camped with others, it is only since I’ve been married that I went “with” someone. I love the freedom at Burning Man to ride around on my bike and explore and meet people and dance and be free to do and be whatever I want when and how I want.
At Burning Man, even in a Metropolis of 50,000 people, you really feel surrounded by your tribe. Maybe not everyone, but most of the people you cross paths with you want to converse with, you want to get to know because they are interesting, engaged, artistic, alive and full of life. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where I felt completely comfortable.
This is why, when you arrive at Burning Man, the greeters say “Welcome Home.”
Because when you at home, you’re not alone.
Burning Man 2010: It’s not going to be very good this year
Yeah, that’s we heard too–that’s why we’re not going.
Who needs all those dust storms when it’s not going to be very good this year. It’s too commercial. It’s not as good as it used to be back in 1992. Or like 1995. That was the real Burning Man, back when you could drive around and over people.
In fact, I heard that even Larry Harvey was having his doubts about going this year because it’s not going to be very good. And Action Girl is only going because she has to.
I mean, really, Metropolis? What kind of theme is that for a city?
But if you really really want to go, you’ll find lots of info on this blog from previous Burns and I’ll be putting up more info as the event approaches.
Poetry from the 3:15 Experiment:
August 13, 2010 Pumice Flat Campground,
Reds Meadow, CA
The rush of the river
comes & goes in my consciousness
comes & goes downstream
uniting the mountains & the sea
We’re sleeping in the pines
beside it & above us
shooting stars unite
heaven & earth.
I wake the small boy.
It is a dark night
the sliver of moon
long ago gone
All the other campers at Pumice Flat
long ago gone to bed too.
It is dark
and it is quiet
from human intrusions
The rivers flow unimpeded
the stars light shines
w/o competition from human sources.
I wake the small boy
help him put on a hat
a jacket, his father’s Ugg boots.
Barelegged, we slide the van door open
and step outside into the
loud glittering darkness.
“Oh wow,” he says. “The sky sparkles.”
Moments earlier, when I was out by myself
a meteor streaked the sky leaving a bright trail
& we pan the heavens for more. He pees
his head craned back.
My headlamp almost falls off.
We lean into each other
balance & warmth, our chins
skyward. We spy small ones
but nothing more spectacular
than the stars & the planets
their every day majesty
gracing our view in a way
we forget about most days & nights.
The snow melts, collects, flows
the bees & beetles pollinate
the hillsides of lupine & penstamons
the pines sway in the breeze
the stars fill the sky
whether we notice it or not
so much better for us
if we do
c. Gwendolyn Alley
For poetry by other poets, check out the Poetry Train. For my poetry, links can be found on the poetry page above.
Tonight’s a Good Night for Shooting Stars
Tonight is a good night to see shooting stars of the Perseid Meteor shower (pictured) because the new moon allows them to be seen.
We’re heading out away from the foggy coast and the city’s lights to some desert dark clear air to catch some shooting stars, to make some wishes, and to talk to the ancestors. My ethnic heritage includes the Native American tribes of Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw. Many Native Americans saw the stars as their ancestors, looking down on them, offering them guidance in the dark.
I hope you too get a chance to do some star gazing; you will probably get to wish on some shooting stars tonight too.
The accompanying image and text comes from APOD which offers an astronomical photo a day.
Raining Perseids
Credit & Copyright: Fred Bruenjes
Explanation: Tonight is a good night to see meteors. Comet dust will rain down on planet Earth, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. While enjoying the anticipated space weather, astronomer Fred Bruenjes recorded a series of many 30 second long exposures spanning about six hours on the night of 2004 August 11/12 using a wide angle lens. Combining those frames which captured meteor flashes, he produced this dramatic view of the Perseids of summer. Although the comet dust particles are traveling parallel to each other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the eponymous constellation Perseus. The radiant effect is due to perspective, as the parallel tracks appear to converge at a distance. Bruenjes notes that there are 51 Perseid meteors in the composite image, including one seen nearly head-on.
Suzanne Paquette Lawrence
A talented writer, charismatic performer, devoted historian, committed volunteer, and dedicated mother to her three children and seven grandchildren, Suzanne Lee Paquette Lawrence inspired her family, friends, colleagues, and community throughout her life with her actions, her intellect, and her quick wit.
Passionate about her research into the history of the Bible and of Ventura County, Suzanne enjoyed sharing what she learned through classes she taught and living history performances she gave.
Suzanne loved art, nasturtiums, and cats, especially her tabby Gracie, and a good heirloom tomato BLT. We will all miss her very much.
Yesterday was my mom Suzanne Lawrence’s Celebration of Life Memorial Service. She liked my 3:15 Experiment poetry so it seemed fitting to read work I composed at 3:15am. I also composed her bio on the program above, worked with the newspaper reporter for this article on Suzanne Lawrence, and wrote her obituary. Below are links to the pieces that I read in the order I read them. I started with something I’d written that night, August 8, 2010 at 3:15, read two older pieces, then read two I wrote this past week.
August 8, 20103:15 Experiment Poetry: for my mom’s memorial
May 12, 2008 3:15am poem for my mother’s birthday
January 1, 2008 If I Died at 55: 315 Experiment Poem 8/12/05
August 2, 2010 3:15 Experiment Poetry: August 1, 2010–a poem for my mother
August 4, 20103:15 Experiment Poetry 2010: She like them
January 28, 2008hands: 315 experiment poem 8/25/06)
3:15 Experiment Poetry: for my mom’s memorial
Poetry from the 3:15 Experiment
August 8, 2010
Today is my mom’s memorial.
It’s been 10 days since she passed away
and each day it’s as unbelievable
as the last that she has died
and that we are celebrating her life
and not her birthday today.
This week has been spent on words for her
finding the right words to describe her life
for the death certificate, newspaper,
obituary, this program.
The words stick in my throat
and the more that I grapple with them
the more it seems I should understand
her life and what to say about it.
But it doesn’t feel that way.
I lost two friends and writing colleagues
in 24 hours–my mother, Suzanne Lawrence
and my friend Paul Squires.
The loss of my readers
two people I regularly turned to
for feedback on my writing
for encouragement & advice
I have felt acutely this week as
I struggled with this greatest writing challenge.
The day she died, I told her about Paul and I wanted to
share his last poem with her, Gene Kelly Tattoo
Last Friday night, when I realized that my mother has passed away
the words of the Irish playwright John Millington Synge
from his classic tragedy “Riders to the Sea”
came to mind:
“No man at all can be living
forever, and we must be satisfied.”
It is hard to be satisfied
when my mom had so much to give
we all want more.
And that is how I realized how well
my mom embodied the late fragment
written by American poet and short story author Ray Carver:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
She truly was beloved on this earth.
This may not have been how she saw herself
but it is how we saw her, how we knew her.
Since 2001, I have been waking up
every night in August at 3:15am
to write as part of an international
conceptual poetry event called the 3:15 Experiment.
I have written often about my mother
and this past week is no exception.
I wrote what I am reading now at 3:15am
in the cold foggy dark of a summer night.
I have shared some of these poems here
& if I can I’d like to read a few now.
art predator 