Wines for Winter: WBW #65 asks what to drink with a side of snow?
What would you drink with a side of snow? That was this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday prompt from Wine Girl who suggests that no matter where we live, we “imagine Snow. Snowmen, snow balls, igloos, snow trucks, snow … cold, cold snow. Then I want you to imagine what [wine] that makes you want to drink.” She continues, “With a valid story behind you, there’s no reason you can’t pop open a cognac, a brandy, or even bourbon.”
So as my hometown in southern California is getting battered by a week of wet and wild storms, with snow levels dropping fast and Interstate 5 closing periodically, and after a few days of filling some 30 sand bags and shoveling way too much mud during breaks in the weather, I am hiding out inside my house to face the monthly Wine Blogging Wednesday question: what to taste and what to drink? And this time complicated by the option of fortified wines and more!
Since I don’t want to leave the house to go find something for the occasion, my first thought was my go to evening wintry drink, port, maybe tasting one each from three continents–Portugal (naturally!), Australia (probably Jonesy), and a Kachina port that was in the gift bag at the Wine Bloggers Conference last summer (here’s a review of the Kachina port to indicate why I’m looking for a tasting occasion!)
But then I thought about the lovely madeira and the sherries I tasted with Esteban Calabezas in Portugal at the European Wine Bloggers Conference and realized I would have the perfect excuse to open the Gonzalez Byass Solera 1847 Oloroso Dulce I picked up from a tasting by the distributor, Henry Wine Group. I think I paid around $20 for it; online you can find it from $16-$30.
Then I was given a birthday present, a very special birthday present, and I knew that given a choice, this beverage would be NUMBER ONE on any snow day. I was ACHING to pour it over fresh powder! Read more…
Wild Ocean Press Announces the Release of Sharon Doubiago’s Memoir My Father’s Love: Portrait of the Poet as a Young GirlThe prize winning author Sharon Doubiago is like my glamourous and successful older sister, both mentor and friend, role model and teacher. I admire her greatly–her prose and poetry and fiction as well as her lifestyle, her commitment to her family and to her writing. When I met her in Taos many years ago, we both knew we had a special connection. I decided then and there to stop being afraid to write, and when the well paying grant funded job ran out, to follow her lead to hit the road and do it, not matter what friends and family thought. (Of course my life took on another adventure–I had a child and I am very grateful for the direction my life took instead.)
And so I am super excited that Sharon Doubiago’s memoir, My Father’s Love: Portrait of the Poet as a Young Girl, is finally out! She’s been working on it for the 10 years that I’ve known her, and longer than that, I’m sure. She’s celebrating with a book tour first in the Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, then in the fall she plans to be in Southern California, and she’s looking for more readings and places to give workshops while she’s on the road. She is absolutely fabulous as a reader and as a workshop facilitator–I know form experience, and I would jump at any chance to hear her read or to workshop with her.
I will keep you up to date with her tour and will review the new book as soon as I get a copy in my eager hands!
According to her publisher, Wild Oceans Press, “In this first volume of her two-volume memoir, prize-winning poet Sharon Doubiago writes an extraordinary story of growing up in the 1940s and 50s in South Central LA and the desert mountain town of Ramona in San Diego County. My Father’s Love addresses the current controversies of memory and memoir and sets new standards for the genre by adhering to historical records, letters, diaries, interviews, and a drive to know the unfabricated truth, while weaving these, in stunning language and imagery, with remembering and reliving. This book attempts to understand her family rooted deep in the history of America, in both its Southern aristocracy and its victims. It looks at the world through the eyes of a child who knows what love is, a girl labeled beautiful, a victim of rape, incest and psychological terrorism, depicting the genesis of an American epic poet. It will change your perspective of the world forever.” Read more…
2010 Coachella April 16-18: Thom Yorke, Gorrilaz, LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend & 125 more acts!
2010 Coachella Line UP is here!
Over 130 acts are scheduled for this year’s 11th Annual Coachella Art And Music Festival Friday, April 16, Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA
Pavement, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Vampire Weekend, Them Crooked Vultures, LCD Soundsystem, Phoenix, Tiësto, Faith No More, Deadmau5, David Guetta, MGMT and Public Image Limited headline. Some of my must see acts, including many of those listed above, include The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Dead Weather, Little Dragon, Spoon, and Sly and the Family Stone. Wow.
For the first time, 2010 Coachella will expand camping options from tents only to allow cars to camp next to tents. Folks like us with VW campers and other kinds of vans will be able to park and sleep in a 10 x 30 space in the tent camping area (away from the RVs and their noisy generators!) Coachella will allow, also for the first time, in-and-out privileges.
In 2002 and 2003, we attended Coachella and stayed in Desert Hot Springs–2003 was our honeymoon! We loved soaking our tired bodies in the soothing hot water after a long day and night of dancing under the desert sky. And we loved the quiet there after a day of so much stimulus–in addition to music, Coachella celebrates art and the Do Lab usually has something going on on-site. Read more…
When you apply for a grant–and I’ve applied for MANY (and received them too!), they always want to know what your goals are and how your goals fit into the granting agency’s goals.
Just in case you’re interested, here are some goals (according to me!) for the ArtRides which we hold on the First Friday of every month from 5:30 or so until 8pm or so; we also hold a weekend ride. The next First Friday ArtRide is the Tweed Ride February 5 and we’re doing one February 6 also. Join our facebook group “San Buenaventura ArtRiders Bicycle & Social Club” to know when those are held and to be kept up to date about rides.
I think most of us will ArtRiders will agree the fundamental purpose of th
e ArtRides, our Mission Statement if you will, first and foremost, is to increase the social fabric of our community.
Of course, each ArtRider has or her own ideas about what we’re doing and why. So come on a ride and ask!
We desire to create an artistic, engaged community because our community
is fragmented by forces which encourage us to be spectators instead of participants, to blend in instead of standing out, to be quiet rather than to speak.
On our ArtRides, as we ride around town in our costumes, we change that dynamic: we become a participatory art action that also encourages people to ride and be engaged. Each month, we create a performance art piece with a changing cast of people which is inclusive in every way we can imagine. We stand out. We create goodwill. We generate acceptance.
By riding our bikes together, we meet, get to know each other, and show our community ways to participate in life and have fun creatively in a way that is also sustainable.
We are bicycling advocates. But it is hard to get people to support the needs of cyclists if they themselves don’t ride, so we want to get people onto their feet and their bikes. The ArtRides call attention to cyclists on the streets in a playful way. Being out on an ArtRide, being part of a
public interactive art piece, give us an opportunity to talk about the needs of cyclists with cyclists and non-cyclists alike.
As change-agents in our community, we’re trying to create a bike culture as well as a culture that allows for more creative expression. Through our ArtRides, we seek to create a community of creativity that supports living lightly on the Earth.
Here are some of our specific goals which I cribbed from the Ventura Bicycle Union:
1. Encourage & increase bike riding; decrease auto dependency.
2. Lessen our overall impact on the environment.
3. Create safe, direct intra-city bike routes.
4. Increase bike safety.
5. Involve under-served communities.
6. Improve relationships between drivers and bikers through education.
7. Integrate bicycles with public transportation efforts.
8. Provide convenient bicycle facilities that support bike culture.
9. Find funding to implement goals.
10. Advocate the enforcement and development of bike regulations.
11. Make our community attractive & competitive as a bicycle-friendly place to live.
12. Increase the social fabric of our communities.
Interactivity: Our ArtRides prompt people to act. They remind people of the joy in riding alone and with a group of friends, just like when we were kids and that reminder encourages them to act–to get their bikes on the road again! Being part of the rides brings joy as does watching them. Without bicycling participants, there would be no ArtRide; this will be even more true on the Aeolian Rides! For the night ride, we hope that the cycling action itself will help light the ride. The ArtRides requires human interaction to complete the piece, prompts people to interact with one another, and responds to participants and to its environment.
Education: The ArtRides educate Riders and the public. Riders learn how to ride in a group and at night; they learn about safety and what’s required by law. Many of our ArtRiders have school age children. On the Rides, we meet the artists, and in talking with them, learn more about the art. Many people on the Rides know little about the local art scene and this has exposed them to it as well as brought greater exposure to the artists. We agree that art is a powerful tool to educate youth about the pressing concerns of their times, including issues around the environment, renewable energy, and climate change.
Activism: The ArtRides grew out of twin desires–to promote and support the local arts scene and to promote cycling, particularly among families. Our ArtRides, as a performance art piece, causes participants as well as observers to reflect on the larger community and their behaviors and actions. ArtRiders connects as individuals, forming alliances and friendships, and they call the community to a variety of actions. The ArtRides challenges individuals to reexamine their everyday lives and they ways they rely on personal vehicles for transportation. By encouraging people to ride, we support alternatives to traditional consumerism and transportation choices, and provide models to ways to reduce environmental impact. Through the ArtRides, we seek to promote the use of renewable resources, environmental justice and social responsibility.
So why am I posting this here and now? Because I wrote a grant the other day to the Black Rock Arts Foundation asking for funds to help us hold the rides and to sponsor Jessica Findley to come to Ventura to do an Aeolian Ride at night for the August First Friday ArtRide and during the day for the Ventura County Fair Parade. I asked for funds for her and to light the costumes. Unfortunately, a glitch in my brain meant I majorly underestimated how much it will cost to light up the costumes for the night ride! Oh well. Let’s get funded first then worry about it!
Rosa Sat So That Martin Could Walk, Martin Walked So That Barack Could Run, Barack Ran So That Our Children Could Fly
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, whem we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Happy Birthday, Dr. King! and thank you again!
PS The headline is from a church service last year attended by Barack Obama and in honor of Dr. King. For more poetry, take a ride on the Train.
The mission of the Black Rock Arts Foundation is to support and promote community-based interactive art and civic participation. For our pur
poses, interactive art means art that generates social participation. The process whereby this art is created, the means by which it is displayed and the character of the work itself should inspire immediate actions that connect people to one another in a larger communal context.
And that’s why I applied for a Black Rock Arts Foundation grant to fund the 2010 ArtRides, and especially the Aeolian Ride (LA’s 2005 Night Ride is pictured)–because I think we meet the BRAF mission.
What are the ArtRides? What’s an Aeolian
Ride?
On the First Friday of each month from 5:30pm-8pm, 25-50 of us travel on bikes to various art galleries and studios during First Friday Gallery Night sponsored by local galleries and studios. A typical ArtRide meets at 5:30pm at the Artists Union Gallery, located at 330 S. California Street on the Ventura Beach Promenade. About 6pm, we ride along the beach bike path and through the downtown, midtown, and westside areas of Ventura stopping at various galleries and studios. Here’s Harmony, my small boy, and many bikes outside a gallery during the prom ride last May.
Each ride has a different artistic theme for ArtRiders to participate in with costumes and bike décor. Some of us make music as we ride; we wave and smile and interact with those we pass. We lead a monthly weekend daytime as well which follows the same theme. Here’s a list of 2009’s ArtRide themes. If you have suggestions for 2010, bring ’em on! Especially if you’re into helping out with making flyers etc!
ArtRides range in size from 25-50 people; with ArtRiders joining us along the way and falling off when they n
eed to. ArtRiders range in age from infants to teens to college grads to seniors. Many families ride with us; we encourage family participation and we anticipate and support the needs of families as best we can. Children under 8 must ride with a parent in a bike seat, in a trailer, or on a trailabike.
In October 2009, my then 5 year old son and I went on an Aeolian Ride in Santa Barbara; I knew right then and there that we had to do one in Ventura! In 2010, we plan to hold two Aeolian Rides under the leadership of Jessica Findley, who received a BRAF grant in 2004 to construct the original costumes and lead the original Aeolian Ride in NYC. We intend to hold one ride at night (like in LA in 2005 pictured) and one during the day (see photo
s of the Santa Barbara ride–yep, that’s me, AP in the hot pink hair riding the Tiger bike!) For the one at night, we plan to rig the costumes (and bikes) with lights. In order to figure this out in advance of the ride and Jessica’s arrival, we will also construct additional costumes using Jessica’s patterns. She has a grant to make children’s costumes and so we will make children’s sized ones as well as adult sized ones.
We hope to hold the Aeolian Rides August 6 and 7 because August 7 is the Ventura County Fair Parade. Last year, we were in the Parade as animals on bikes playing kazoos and singing the song “We went to the Animal Fair.” Yes, that’s me, Art Predator again in that wild hot pink wig! 
Several people said we were their favorite entry because we were so interactive with the crowd and could move around the street and get closer. I am sure an Aeolian Ride would be a HUGE hit with the crowds which line the fair parade route. We might even be able to ride right into the fair grounds and ride there as an attraction!
As other communities are also getting on the “First Friday” Bandwagon, we will seek them out and encourage the development of s
imilar rides. Already, a Santa Barbara ride has changed its timing to correspond with their art communities “First Thursday” event and friends in Flagstaff are interested in getting a ride going during their First Friday event.
Anyone can join the ArtRide who has a bike and the safety features required by law. We strongly encourage people to dress up according to the theme. We help them figure out what to wear and we hold bike workshops too. We’d like to do more to help get people and bikes together. Read more…
So I spent most of Friday working on a grant application for funds from the Black Rock Arts Foundation. BRAF, an arm or an outgrowth of the Burning Man organization. The BRAF seeks: to support and promote community-based interactive art and civic participation. For our purposes, interactive art means art that generates social participation. The process whereby this art is created, the means by which it is displayed and the character of the work itself should inspire immediate actions that connect people to one another in a larger communal context.
And what did I propose to do that would fit into the BRAF mission and values? Lead more ArtRides like the Tweed Ride scheduled for First Friday February 5–and for one of the rides to be an Aeolian Ride in 2010!
What’s an ArtRide? What’s an Aeolian Ride? And why should BRAF fund us? Come back soon for more on this topic!
Bike Art & Arches: Black Rock City & Beyond
What do these imaginative bicycle inspired temporary public artworks have in common–besides being near where I live–Black Rock City, Nevada and Ventura, California?
The same artist behind the wheel: Mark Grieve.
I wish the Wheel Arch in Ventura was still up so we could do one of First Friday ArtRides through it! But that’s the nature of temporary public art installations–enjoy them while you can.
In the meantime, I can go to Bici Centro in nearby Santa Barbara to see this beauty of a doorway arch on display.
See a slideshow of Mark Grieve’s sculptures.
| CAPTION: Double Rainbow over Bike Arch 2007 PHOTOGRAPHER: Tristan “Loupiote” Savatier URL: http://www.loupiote.com/burningman/ NOTES: Bike Rack (aka Bike Arch) by Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector
CAPTION: Bike Arch at night 2007 PHOTOGRAPHER: Tristan “Loupiote” Savatier
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Burning Man Tickets 2010: The Cost to Build The Metropolis
2010 Art Theme: Metropolis
Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock Desert outside Reno, Nevada over the Labor Day weekend. For many years, the theme was simply “Burning Man” but now a theme is carefully crafted; many art projects, camps, and crafts seek to reflect on the theme. Last year, the theme was “Evolution.”
In 2010, the theme is “The Metropolis” which they describe as “Tumult and change, churning cycles of invention and destruction – these forces generate the pulse of urban life. Great cities are organic, spontaneous, heterogeneous, and untidy hubs of social interaction. In 2010, we will inspect the daily course of city life and the future prospect of civilization.”
In the first two hours of 2010 Burning Man ticket sales yesterday January 13, Burning Man sold out the First Tier of ticket prices (9,000 tickets at $210 each) and moved onto the Second Tier (9,000 tickets at $240) selling about nearly $2 million worth of tickets by noon with another 6,000 people still in the queue. Assuming each person in line buys 1.5 tickets on average, that’s another $2mil. So, in just around five hours $4mil worth of tickets will have sold!
That’s about $18,000 in sales per minute.
People are shocked all the time when I tell them how much it costs to go to Burning Man. Most of them think ticket prices are too high: even at the lower tier prices of $210 and $240, they doubt that it could be worth it for even $200, and they wonder where all the money goes–50,000 x $300 per, they figure, is a lot of money going into someone’s pocket.
Others are shocked by how much you get for how little–a week long festival of art and music and camping and fun for only $300? In comparison, look how much Coachella costs for only one weekend. (And then you spend another fortune on food and drink! And you have to wear clothing, whereas at Burning Man you can wear costumes and as little or as much as you want! And you get to ride around night and day on bikes)
So here are some more figures: according to the 2008 Afterburn report at BurningMan.com, it costs over $14 million to make Burning Man happen for about 50,000 people. That cost breaks down to $282 per person.
For the 18,000 people who bought the lower tier tickets as soon as ticket sales went on-line yesterday, their tickets are subsidized Read more…
art predator 