Saturday is Record Store Day! Lotsa loot!
Jack White says, “I think it’s high time the mentors, big brothers, big sisters, parents, Guardians, and neighborhood ne’er do wells, start taking younger people that look up to them to a real record store and show them what an important part of life music really is. I trust no one who hasn’t time for music. What a shame to leave a child, or worse, a generation orphaned from one of life’s great beauties. And to the record stores, artists, labels, dj’s, and journalists; we’re all in this together. Show respect for the tangible music that you’ve dedicated your careers and lives to, and help It from becoming nothing more than disposable digital data.”
Neko Case says, “I love the smell of them. I love that people actually care for and know about the music they are selling.” Read more…
Meet My New Steampunk Laptop!
According to the article “What is Steampunk,”
Steampunk parties like it’s 1899, literally. Steampunk, as a subgenre of speculative fiction, may use alternate worlds, a dystopian future, alternate history, and so on, but always has at least one thing in common—the technology. In steampunk, the level of technology, regardless of how advanced it might seem, is always based on spring-propelled or steam propelled gadgetry, ergo the word “steampunk”.
I have really been getting into the whole Steampunk scene–so much so that I’m trading in my MacBook Pro for this Steampunk Laptop by DataMancer that I read about in this 2007 Wired Article about Steampunk gadgetry.
Not really. Unless it came with one of the cool Steampunk flying contraptions!
And as much as I love some of the Steampunk bikes I’ve seen, I’m sticking with my bikergo.
But we are having fun with the clothes! The children in the Bell Arts workshops during the past few weeks have come up with some fantastic creations! And just wait until you see my grommeted deconstructed reconstructed corset and skirt!
Please join us on Sunday, April 18! Dress up yourself and meet us at the Artists Union Gallery at 130pm for the ArtRide or join us at Bell Arts at 4pm for a talk from a Time Traveler from Ventura circa 1910 and for the Steampunk Couture Fashion Show!
Bring Your Mug To Starbucks: Free Coffee!
Nope, it’s not because we Americans need some caffeine to get our taxes done and in the mail before midnight tonight!
To encourage Starbucks customers to use their own mugs to help reduce environmental impacts during Earth Month and every month,
Customers Who Bring a Reusable Tumbler into Starbucks Stores on Thursday April 15 Receive a Complimentary Brewed Coffee!
Since 1985, Starbucks has offered a small discount if you bring your own cup. They’ll even rinse it out for you and be nice about it; I know because I’ve done it plenty of times.
But the company recognizes the HUGE problem its cups create and wants more people to bring their own, even though it cuts down on all those advertising moments when you and I see our friends and neighbors toting that familiar logo around.
Ben Packard, Starbucks vice president of Global Responsibility, says “We’ve set aggressive goals to minimize cup waste through recycling and reusable options, and are collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders to drive meaningful change. In addition to working with cup manufacturers, municipalities and recyclers to make our cups more broadly recyclable, we’re encouraging customers to think about reusable cups the way they think about reusable grocery bags.”
Julie Blackwell, Director of Conservation International’s Team Earth, points out that
“People can make positive choices without making sacrifices – they can still enjoy their coffee ritual, but by using a reusable cup, they reduce energy, water and CO2 from the cup production process as well as keep waste out of landfills.”
For more about Starbuck’s movement to cut down on wasteful disposable cups, visit www.starbucks.com/thebigpicture
AP Up for Wine Blogger Scholarship!
And I’m not one of those wine bloggers swimming in samples either!
So without further ado, here’s my application about why I want to go to Walla Walla Washington and why the committee should select me for a Wine Bloggers Scholarship:
- Full Name:
Gwendolyn Alley - Contact information:
gwendolynalley AT yahoo DOT com - Blog addresses and what you’re all about: Read more…
Immortal Beloved & An Ode to Joy
In Immortal Beloved, the film about Ludwig van Beethoven, there is one scene of such power that it has haunted me since the day I saw it in 1994.
Now, many scholars dispute much, if not all, of the film’s contents, but that has nothing to do with the scene I’m about to relate. For in this one part of the film, there is such an artistic melding of music and film that it takes your breath away.
You never know what you’ll find around the internet…this quote arrived along with an email from one of the Burning Moms and I love it:
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. – E. B. White
I don’t know where this quote by master writer E.B. White came from but this site has it too. If I get a chance, I’ll track it down because I want to include it on the syllabus for the summer school classes I’m scheduled to teach!
Yuri’s Night April 9 & 10, 2010
We’ve achieved escape velocity!
It’s spring break and so the small boy and I are going to Yuri’s Night in Mountain View CA on Friday and maybe Saturday too.
We’ve never been before but we hear it’s fabulous. The small boy is beside himself with excitement about all the cool stuff going on. Now we just need to find a place to stay tonight!
What’s Yuri’s Night? Basically NASA in Mountain View is partnering up with a bunch of Burners to produce a really cool event combining NASA stuff with Burner stuff!
Friday is for school kids and Saturday is for everyone with music and exhibits and lectures and more from noon until midnight!
Here’s the official spiel:
Taking place each year in over 120 cities world-wide, Yuri’s Night commemorates mankind’s first venture into space, by Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and the launch of the first Space Shuttle by NASA exactly twenty years later. It is the largest annual celebration of space exploration – and of mankind’s curiosity, scientific and technical achievements.
Yuri’s Night was founded by members of the United Nations’ Space Generation Forum in September 2000. After seven months of planning, ultimately sixty Yuri’s Night events were held on April 12th, 2001. Every year, dozens of new Yuri’s Night events are added to the global space celebration.
Yuri’s Night Bay Area began in 2007 at NASA’s Ames Research Center and has grown into the world’s largest annual Yuri’s Night event – a diverse interactive celebration of science, sound and art.
For last year’s April ArtRide, we had a “Bunny Hop” from gallery to gallery. It was a simple outfit to execute: all people needed were a pair of Bunny Ears and I’d ordered a couple dozen of LED blinking ones to give out to people for a small donation to cover costs.
This was a our third ArtRide and I think we had about 20 people on it riding along Ventura Avenue and Main Street in our Bu
nny Ears. As you can see, we even figured out ways to attach them to bike helmets!
(Thanks to Jenessa Nye for the photos–that’s Jenessa in the pink satin headband! And thanks Jenessa for always getting so fabulously decked out for the ArtRides!)
Steampunk Bicyclists Swarm Main Street!
That’s right, last night nearly 50 bicyclists, many in Steampunk attire, swarmed the Westside and downtown Ventura!
Steampunk swarm started in midtown near the City of Ventura Maintenance yard, rolled down San Jon to the Artists Union Gallery near California Street and the Beach Promenade.
There, the Steampunk swarm doubled in size, and moved along the Beach Promenade startling pedestrians and astonishing surfers. 
The swarm gained speed up the bike path along the Ventura River and veered onto Main Street before traveling up Ventura Avenue, generally taking the lane as no bicycle path is provided and cars have a generous left turn lane which doubles as a passing lane.
The Steampunk swarm entertained Bell Arts patrons and more FFArtRiders joined the swarm there while others peeled off. Highlights at Bell Arts included Imre Juhasz’s digitized photographs printed on canvas and at Vita, Dianne Bennett’s paintings and Borbala Arvai’s fairy habitats.
Next, the Steampunk swarm took a surprising jog around a Westside neighborhood, and came out again on Ventura Avenue to pause at the closed 643 Project before taking over Main Street for a long cruise up to Bernadette’s at Fir and back down to check out the WAV, home to next month’s ArtRide afterparty May 7.
The Steampunk swarm cruised Main one more time before taking Kalorama over to the galleries on Laurel. Then
the Steampunk swarm dispersed until April 18 when it will swarm again at the Artists Union Gallery at 1:30pm. Join the Steampunk swarm for a fun ride to participating ArtWalk galleries and studios or meet us at Bell Arts Factory at 4pm for a S
teampunk Fashion Show and ArtWalk afterparty!
Need help getting you Steampunk on? Head over to Bell Arts Factory, 432 N. Ventura Avenue. For the next two weeks, from 3-5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Bell Arts is offering FREE workshops. Bring possible outfits to wear on the bicycle ride or in the fashion show and the talented artists there will assist you in styling. Sessions in over-dying and screen printing Steampunk motifs are in the works.
PS Thanks to Gary Stevens for taking so many great pictures last night and for getting them so quickly on his site, Gary’s World. Thanks, to Gary also, for permission to post them here. All but the very top photo and the one on Main at night are by Gary; Jenessa Nye provided those two. Please don’t copy (steal) these images or others (or text either)–ask first.
Getting Our Steampunk On!
That’s what we’re doing around here: getting our Steampunk on for the April ArtRides! I’ve got outifts together for my nephew, and my son, and now to figure out MINE! I just wish I had this FABULOUS necklace to wear!
Want to get YOUR Steampunk on? As usual, we’ll start at the Artists Union Gallery, ride along the beach promenade to Main, roll up Ventura Avenue to Bell Arts Factory and beyond if we have time, cruise Main Street a time or two, then stop by the WAV Project to scope it out for next month’s afterparty, and finally, stop by Laurel Street Galleries to see what’s up! We should be done before it gets dark at 8:10pm.
Check back tomorrow for photos and a complete report!
art predator 