International Day of Peace, Monday Sept. 21
Monday, September 21 is International Day of Peace which is celebrated and honored throughout the world. A few years ago, my students and I put on an event at Ventura College which included European spoken word performer and dj Emil Brikha (who mixed a spoken word piece of mine text, mp3 here “I Want to Be That Man”) plus poet and translator Jen Hofer from Los Angeles. We had copies of a drawing of a dove which students colored, cut out and “flew” while the music and spoken words flowed in the quad, thanks to funding support from Poets and Writers.
Events large and small are going on around the world; you can view a live broadcast of events at cultureofpeace.org or internationaldayofpeace.org! The broadcast was produced through the efforts of Unity Foundation and their partners at PeacePortal.mobi, GetZooks.biz and Pathways to Peace. To add it to your Facebook profile, go here and add the Livestream application, and the Peace Broadcast will play directly on your profile! You can EMBED the broadcast anywhere… on your own website, blog, myspace, etc! By doing so, you will help make this broadcast viral and create more awareness about the International Day of Peace!
Waging Peace Now Available
Here’s another way to commemorate International Peace Day: check out this online book, Waging Peace with poems, narrative and artwork. Go see Waging Peace online or to Lulu.com and purchase a hard copy of the book. As noted in the introduction of Waging Peace, contributors are amateur and professional, young and older, representing multiple religions, ethnicities and geographic origins.
In closing today, a poem: Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things” which I found in Robert Bly’s News of the Universe—
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Decompression: A Little Bit of Burning Man off the Playa
Miss the playa? Missing the playa? Find out where a Burning Man 2009 Decompression Party will be and plan to be there! It works to take the edge off–guaranteed! Better than looking at scores of pictures–even if they’re at good as the ones by Carnivillain, including this one of the Man going off. More info follows.**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**\<>/**!We fully know how hard it is to re-integrate yourself into the real world. One of the best ways to combat the inevitable (and understandable) disorientation is to seek out a local Decompression event and soak up the goodness of your fellow Burners. To find out about other Decoms and Regional Events in cities near you, see: http://regionals.burningman.com/ and http://regionals.burningman.com/regionalevents_09.html.
So break out all that fun playa wear you didn’t get a chance to wear out there and wear it
We’ll be at the LA Regional Burn in the cornfield near downtown LA (actually it’s a state historic park) from noon until midnight Saturday Oct. 3.
Metropolis: Burning Man Theme 2010–what can the world learn from Black Rock City?
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
— Jane Jacobs
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 .
Minutes after the Man met his firey demise, the art theme for 2010 was published on the Burning Man website (we’re crafty like that). The theme for this coming year is “Metropolis: The Life of Cities.” This theme is particularly befitting Burning Man, since we are in the unique position (one could say it’s an urban planner’s wet dream) to be able to create and dismantle a thriving metropolis every year, and to make adjustments that will cultivate community and culture, while supporting essential civic services. Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey writes about it here: http://bit.ly/2cXiOz
And of course what would a Metropolis be without KIDS? Burning Man org assures us that Kids will take a central position in Black Rock City this year. I look forward to see how this manifests itself–whether children and families will be more involved in the planning. I do know that Burning Man org members have been busy spawning a new generation of Burners!
We ought to know how to assemble a human habitat of high quality that … gives children and old people equal access to society’s civic institutions, that produces safe neighborhoods for the well-off and the less well-off, that promotes a sense of belonging to community, that honors what is beautiful, and which does not destroy its rural and agricultural surroundings. This habitat comes down to us from history in the form of villages, towns and cities.
The Age of Stupid: On screens everywhere one night only, Monday Sept. 21
On Monday, September 21, catch the one-night-only premiere of an important new film called The Age of Stupid. Read more…
Wine Blogging Weds. #61: Go to the source & drink the juice–Old Creek Ranch Winery
Thanks to Wine Blogging Wednesday founder and this month’s host Lenn Thompson of the blog Lenndevours: The New York Cork Report who prompts us this month to visit a winery–to taste and blog about a wine after visiting the source with bonus points for actually tasting with the winemaker. Here’s the complete story on his blog.
Where should I go? Well, it wasn’t much of a question as I had limited time available. While I am fortunate to have Sideways wine country practi
cally in my backyard, I simply contacted Michael Meagher, winemaker at Old Creek Ranch Winery, which is about 15 minutes away from my home near the beach and Michael invited me over last Friday for when his first load of grapes arrive–viognier!
To hint at what kind of experience I had: I came home happily covered in grape juice, tasted the delish grenache blanc about to be bottled with the winemaker, and brought home the recently bottled but not yet released and not even labeled yet 2008 viognier!!
A little background: Old Creek Ranch Winery, established in 1981, is up Highway 33 on the Old Creek Ranch between the towns of Ojai and Ventura, California on a historic winery site. On the left is a picture of what remains of that winery; in the foreground is the native food plant, narrow-leaf milkweed, for monarch butterfly larva. 
According to the Old Creek Ranch website:
The Ranch is part of a Spanish 22,000 acre land grant awarded to Don Fernando Tico, dating back to the early history of California. In the late 1800’s Antonio Riva of northern Italy purchased the ranch. He was a chef in Paris, London and later in San Francisco. He built a winery on the ranch at that time.
Wines were made without electricity and utilized gravity as a means to move the wine in the processing. Riva produced wine until about 1942, including the prohibition years. Wine purchasers would leave an order and money on the clothesline and would return later to pickup a jug of red wine left at the base of an oak tree.
My first experience with Old Creek Ranch Winery was with a lovely low RS riesling I brought to a family Thanksgiving many many years ago. Most of my family doesn’t drink much, and I have to admit that when I brought Ridge zins and cabs home, they didn’t really know what to do with them (and they preferred Yuban in a Mr Coffee over the Jamacan Blue Mountain prepared in a French Press that I brought from Peet’s). They enjoyed and appreciated this riesling and were amazed that wine this good was produced practically around the block. The wine was fabulous at holiday meals and I made an effort to bring it when I could.
Until a few years ago, Old Creek Ranch had many acres of vines which they pulled out due to an infestation of Pierce’s disease which the area is prone to and which devastated the wine grape vineyards around. As I liked that riesling, when I tasted their wines in general, I found them enjoyable certainly but a bit thin and not that complex.
I’m really happy to say that that this changed. As Michael Meagher has taken on more responsibilities and vintages as winemaker, and has influenced the winery, the wines being produced just keep getting better; it’s really exciting to think about what he will continue to do at this small (2,000 cases), local winery.
Meagher comes to Old Creek Ranch Winery with excellent credentials. As the story goes, he worked at the local Trader Joes (where he met and fell in love with many wines as well as his wife Anita who is one of the nicest, sincerest parents I’ve met at the school our kids go to!). He has his winemaking degree from UC Davis and he spent eight years at Mt Eden where they worked and lived on the ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains across from Ridge. Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it?
With his own family on the way, Michael and Anita moved back south, and soon he was working with Adam Tolmach at Ojai Vineyards. (If you haven’t tasted Tolmach’s wines, you should. I’ve never tasted a wine of his that didn’t just make me swoon with pleasure.)
As Michael tells it, “I left The Ojai Vineyard at the end of 2004 to start up my own label. I found a home at Old Creek Ranch Winery and began making my wines there. In 2007 their winemaker retired and it was a natural progression to take over Old Creek’s winemaking at that time – the 2007 and on wines are mine.”
Although the grapes are sourced elsewhere in California–from the central coast and on up north–Michael is intimately involved with the vineyards.
It’s a good match–Old Creek Road Winery is very family oriented, with a strong sense of family history and involvement in the current operation as well as the previous one. The photo montage on the right is from their website and shows part of the winemaking Meagher family as well as the Whitman’s who own and operate the winery.
Because our kids were in the same kindergarten class, I got to know the Meagher family last school year, and so we invited to spend a day up at Old Creek Ranch Winery when they were bottling merlot which was really fun, even though I never got to do much in the way of bottling as the volunteers on the line had it under control. I did help some with the lunch–chef made the best meatloaf ever, and there was plenty of Old Creek Ranch Wines to go along with the feast!
That was my first visit–hard to imagine surpassing that, but my second visit did! I had some open bottles of wine from the Wine Blogger’s Conference and I was curious to taste some of it with Michael and get his assessment. In turn, he invited me Read more…
2009 Burning Man Timelapse Video: day & night from atop a rickshaw
Now that WordCamp LA is over, it’s back to posting more about Burning Man 2009! This 2009 Burning Man video montage comes from the on-high vantage points of an airplane and then from atop a rickshaw. It’s edited from a day to night perspective. Check out the dust storms! From the shots of the fireworks and the Rocket, my guess is it’s from Friday’s Black Rock City excitement. What do you think?
Art Predator to Read at the Artists Union Gallery 730pm Tues. 9/15/09
That’s right, the Art Predator is reading LIVE and in PERSON tomorrow night, Tuesday Sept. 15 at the Artists Union Gallery, located in Ventura on the Beach Promenade near the parking garage: 330 So. California St.
An open mic follows my featured reading, so bring your work to share also! I look forward to hearing you read!
(I will probably be wearing more clothes, however–that photo of me reading is from Center Camp at Burning Man!)
I imagine I will read the poem read above which was selected by the on-line video poetry journal Guerilla Reads last year; I will probably read the poem below also Read more…
Ben Huh: guess some lol cats thought my blog post was a cheezburgr & ate it
I really did put up a live blog post about Ben Huh’s hilarious presentation on how to do, among other things, MPH (Mr. Potato Head) at WordCampLA 2009. But now it is nowhere to be found! Very strange. There is no way that I can imagine accidentally deleting it.
While I was liveblogging, I also tweeted some of his words. So, instead of that post, unless it turns up, I offer up an apology and these tweets (complete with typos), and including one directing traffic to the missing blog post! Hmmn, should I be suspicious??:
Ben Huh: your best bet is to google my name #wordcamp
LA11:06 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
Ben Huh: this is what you call a user generated presentaiton #wordcampla
11:06 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
Ben Huh: yeah, we have a business doing this
11:06 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
who is he? Ben Huh is the CEO for the funny cat and FAIL network…
11:07 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
Ben Huh: Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity but reward simplicity
11:19 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
Ben Huh: Complexity has an inverse effect on your business’ ability to scale #wordcampLA
Ben Huh: If a significant component is lost, it’ll be ugly, but no one dies.
Ben Huh: If a significant component is added it’ll be ugly but everyone lives. #wordcampla
Ben Huh: You’ve seen our sites, but no one thinks of us a business. #wordcampLA
Ben Huh: outsource everything you don’t know how to do best #wordcampLA
love @benhuh –his presentation at #wordcamp had us rolling in the aisles!
11:38 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
my live blogging attempt to capture @benhuh? ‘s hilarious presentation at #wordcampla http://bit.ly/4oRIq211:40 AM Sep 12th from TweetDeck
love @benhuh?–his presentation at #wordcamp had us rolling in the aisles! http://bit.ly/4oRIq2
Hmmmn, a mystery. Any ideas? I’d love to hear them. I know that twitter can’t find me and my hashtags don’t show up any more (not since mid-WordCamp SF 2009), but there’s a whole slew of people with that problem.
Here’s a live blog post from Ben Huh’s presentation at WordCampSF 2008: https://artpredator.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/wordcamp-sf-2008-good-will-virality-aka-viral-virility/
And here’s a slide share link for a previous presentation he did on building community:
UPDATE: I contacted WordPress, showed them that it had been published by sending them the link to it on google (which, when clicked was a 404 error), and Anthony at WordPress put it back up. A bunch of it is missing somehow but oh well….
Andrew Warner: Using video instead of relying on text to convey your message
Andrew Warner – “How To Add Video To Your Blog”
In his 20s, he used credit cards and ingenuity to create a $30+ mil / year (in sales) internet business with his younger brother. He created Mixergy to help ambitious people who love business as much as he does learn from a mix of experienced mentors. He does that by inviting speakers to live events and online interviews.
OK I’m going to admit that I’m starting to lose some steam here. Live blogging and tweeting on some coffee and a few muffins is not a great recipe for late afternoon alertness.
Fortunately Andrew Warner is super high energy and using video to supplement his talk.
He argues that anyone can do it. Buy a simple, super cheap camera like a Flip and do what you can quickly. People will put up with poor video quality but not poor audio, so invest in a Blue Snowball which costs about $100, and which has a condenser mic. Or check out a Zoom field recorder for audio which is ideal if you’re on the go, as recommended by someone in the audience.
One benefit of the Flip camera is it has the editing software right in it. You don’t need any fancy editing software–just use what comes with your computer or check out Camtasia for PC or Mac, or try out Screenflow which is $100 for a Mac or try it for free. Camtwist is a free software which lets it seem like you’re doing a 2 camera shoot using skype.
OK my mind is blown here. And he says he’s only showing us 1% of what’s possible.
I’m inspired. Let’s go make some movies!!
Reach out to him: mail (AT) awarner (DOT) com
To videotape yourself and get some distance farther than your arm, buy an X shot, a telescoping device to which you can attach your camera.
$19 Griffin technologies offers a mic or use a separate audio recorder.
Whew! The next session is on how to write a plug-in, so I’m over and out! Thanks for hanging with me at WordCamp LA!
Jim Turner – “Blogging For A Living”
Jim began blogging in early 2004 and soon became very passionate about blogging. His passion grew to the point where he wondered how he could take this passion and turn it into a business or a way to make a living to support his family, or at least supplement his income.
Jim started as a Daddy Blogger, writing about changing diapers and day to day life as a dad, just a guy who loved talking about his kids…who found an audience.
And now he’s paying his mortgage and making a living blogging.
How did he do it? Read more…
art predator 