WBC 09: The Real CIA is in Napa
The real CIA, the CIA that I really appreciate, operates undercover and without weapons around the world making it a better place, a safer place–for our palates.
That’s where I am right now–sitting in the third floor of this wonderfully appointed old stone building, enjoying fresh warm stratas (a crustless quiche kind of thing) and fresh warm delightfully crisp flaky croissants.
We came over the mountains from Santa Rosa on the windy, scenic road in a series of large shuttle buses. Even though it is still mid-summer, the drought in California is bring fall color early to the hillsides, mixing in gold with the green, with poison oak flashing red here and there.
Then winding up the stairs three floors and into this hall at the CIA. Lots and lots of winding. Too much for my sensitive stomach!
This CIA is the Culinary Institute of America, a non-profit culinary school which if not the best school, aspires to be the best. Among other classes they offer a $750 tasting of french wines with Robert M. Parker, Jr. At that price, you can expect some impressive wine and company–and $500 goes to the CIA.
15% preferred pricing for attendees at the WBC 09.
4% malbec 4% petit verdot 92% cab
feel the bottle!! heavy duty rub your fingers on it it’s engraved!
200-700 hillside south sw facing
the punt is bigger than my thumb
100% of the proceeds go back to the HS for college scholarships and equipment, other school needs.
Each year a celebrity winemaker 2007 Lee Martinelli JR a graduate of the El Molino program “what comes around goes around”
Merry Edwards first year.
Cloudy? Unfiltered? typical of the Martinelli winery to be unfiltered
14.8 technically dry but there’s some RS in there; very sweet
Benovia 07 Pinot Noir has lots of body for a pinot, silky on the tongue, a bit warm 14.5 but not too hot. Yummy, not much in the nose, lots in the mouth.
Never heard of it? No surprise–this is their second vintage only but watch them–expect something great…if you can afford it go for it!
THEY SAY: Expresses the terroir of the region, suggests to match with mushrooms. Retails at $55 sold through mailing list primarily. 37o cases. Mostly a pinot winery some chardonnay and a little zin because they have a zin vineyard.
It’s the San Francisco International Poetry Festival
Weds. July 22-Sun July 26
Wednesday, July 22
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Words with a View
In celebration of the San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the SFPL is hosting an exhibition featuring art and broadsides from participating poets. Exhibition runs from July 11 – August 2, 2009
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Red Poet Film Screening
Join us for a documentary film about Poet-in-Residence for Friends of the SFPL, Jack Hirschman, directed by Matthew Furey.
Jack Hirschman will be present.
6:00 pm at Koret Auditorium, Main Library
Thursday, July 23: Look for me at this one!!
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Jack Kerouac Alley Kick Off Party
Join musician Jonathan Richman to celebrate the kick-off of the 2nd Biennial San Francisco International Poetry Festival with an outdoor party featuring poetry and music.
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm at Jack Kerouac Alley
Friday, July 24
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Main Stage Poetry Reading
Join us for a wide variety of international poetry readings, hosted by devorah major, with a special reading by San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima.
with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Zhai Yongming, Ignatius Mabasa, Maram al-Massri, Diane di Prima, Alexander Skidan, Nguyen Qui Duc, Roy “Chicky” Arad, Daisy Zamora, Cletus Nelson Nwadike, Anna Lombardo, Menna Elfyn, Paul Flores
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Palace of Fine Arts Read more…
Well, Hardy Wallace may be the goode guy who got that high profile blogging job in Sonoma County, but in a day or two, I’ll be there too, congratulating him and wishing him the best as we both attend the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, in the heart of the Sonoma County Wine country, right next door to Napa.
Honestly, I was so consumed with my application for the Murphy-Goode wine blogging job that the conference filled up and, like last year, I joined the waiting list.
I’m not a passive waiting list person. I’m a proactive waiting type person, and thus, last year, at the last minute, I was able to squeeze myself in to the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference even though there wasn’t room or food for me at the Friday night dinner. The rest of the conference was well worth missing most of the first day.
So this year, when I received an email that said I probably wouldn’t get in this year, I took action and wrote the following to the organizers Reno Walsh and Allan Wright of Zephyr Travel and Joel Vincent of Open Wine Consortium:
Hey Reno and Allan and Joel,
Not to bug you or anything, but I’m wondering if we can work something out so that I can attend at least some of the sessions and/or some of the tastings at this year’s WBC.
I learned so much at last year’s conference, both about wine and social media, and I met so many awesome people, that I have really been looking forward to attending this year, and even planned my summer, my summer school class syllabus, and my child care needs around it. (I know, so why didn’t I get myself registered? sigh).
I imagine all the Murphy-Goode madness (yes, I was caught up in it too and even made a video which you can see on https://artpredator.wordpress.com or http://winepredator.wordpress.com) has made the conference attendance even more desirable by everyone in the industry. Not to mention pressure to allow the MG finalists who are already up there to be able to attend.
Since I’d really like to make the move INTO the industry, attending the conference, even in some small odd way, just to connect with folks, is really important to me. Much of the networking goes on at the after parties and beside the pool I know, but if I go up there, I’d like to be able to have at least “some” legitimacy–I’d like to attend some if not all of the sessions so I can learn learn learn!
So I’m wondering:
Can I help out with the conference at all? I can be there early Friday or even Thurs to help set up. I have LOTS of event experience–stage manager, house manager, event manager, poetry host 6 years, etc, etc as well as lots of experience working at and organizing conferences.
Can I skip some of the sessions that are going to be too full? Scouts honor I won’t try to sneak on the bus or sit at a banquet table if there’s no room…and I swear I won’t say anything either!
Or maybe one of the wineries or presenters needs a hand and that would get me in a few of the doors?
I’m easy going, flexible, and a good problem solver. Let me know soonest if something can be worked out.
best, gwendolyn aka art predator aka the woman who blogged from the bus…
A few hours later, I got a call from Reno. Yes, my letter convinced them I really wanted to be there and I belonged there, and yes, they could use my help at the conference, and yes, they thought they could make space for me for most of the events–except of course the Friday night dinner!
YAY! Off I go! Next stop, SF to stay with Burning Mom Toni Moran and then on to the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa where you’l be hearing a lot more from me–both about all the wonderful wine and social media!
And who knows what other exciting developments might occur in the next few days!!
Hardy Wallace aka Dirty South Gets A Really Goode Job
So his wasn’t the prettiest face on the page, I am sure he’d be the first to admit.
But anybody who knows Hardy, or gets to know Hardy, knows he’s a really Goode guy.
No surprise that Murphy-Goode snapped up the guy who flew across the country to be first in line in San Francisco to sign up to compete for a really goode job as Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent–someone who’s seriously been big into wine for awhile–when we met at the Wine Blogger’s Conference, it seemed everybody already knew him!–and someone who certainly doesn’t take himself too seriously.
According to the winery’s press release,
“This is Murphy good!” Wallace said after he was named the winner at a ceremony on the Healdsburg Town Square. “Seriously, this was my dream job before the job ever came along. My dream has come true!”
The good-humored Wallace is founder of the popular “Dirty South Wine” blog, is a musician, and a Sommelier Guild level I and II.
“This was an extremely difficult decision given the talent of all the candidates, but Hardy really knocked us over in the interviews with his passion and enthusiasm,” said Murphy-Goode winemaker, David Ready, Jr. “He’s like us: he’s a people-person who loves wine.”
Wallace will live for free in a charming, two-bedroom home near downtown
Healdsburg. He starts “work” on August 15, 2009.
Congrats, Hardy! You ran a great campaign for the job and you deserve the $10,000 a month for the next six months, the accolades, and all the Liar’s Dice you can stand.
But the real congratulations goes out to all the people (myself included!) who went for it, who said, “hey, I’m in!” People who took a risk, made a video, submitted it, promoted it. People who gave it a go.
Because you never know where something might take you!
(Hey something? I’m ready when you are!)
One more time, because I know you want to see it again, here’s my video:
Let me know if you’ve got a social media job for me! My adventurous soul is up for just about anything–especially in the area of wine, and particularly, wines along the biodynamic/sustainable spectrum which would capitalize on my background in environmental studies!
According to this article in The Arizona Republic last October 2008,
Tucked inside a controversial $700 billion federal bailout bill is a tiny fringe benefit for bike commuters that has been pushed by the cycling community for the past seven years.
The $240 annual benefit per person, or $20 per month, will reimburse bike commuters for things like bikes, tires, lights, locks, helmets, padded shorts and CamelBak hydration backpacks.
That would mean to me that you could spend your money on a way cool flashing monkey lectric light OR one of these “Bike Glow” lights pictured above.
The article also states that “commuters who use mass transit such as light rail and city bus systems can receive up to $115 per month to offset their transit passes, plus an additional $220 per month to reimburse them for parking fees. The bike incentive is part of the renewable-energy-alternatives portion of the 451-page “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.”
Under the new program, commuters who ride bicycles to work will get their own, albeit smaller, fringe benefits. And like the program for mass-transit users, the new benefit is expected to come from employers to employees who submit receipts. Employers, in turn, get tax benefits for reimbursing their employees.
How exactly do you get your money? Submit receipts to your employer?? That I haven’t figured out yet. Be easier if you can write it off on your 2009 tax return. If you know how this is working out, please pass it on!
In the meantime, you may still have time to order your monkey lectric light more here (https://artpredator.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/yogathon-228-electric-light-bike-parade-36/) and/or Bike Glow lights in time for the First Friday ArtRide August 8 (the Animal Fair Ride) and for this year’s Burning Man Festival in Nevada or Labor Day Weekend! And it sure looks to me like you’ll get that money back! Yay!
Me and the Man in the Moon
“There’s two lonely people
in the wholewide world
that’s me and the
man in the moon
Just before I’m counting sheep
Through my window
He comes to peep
and with each other we’re
sympathizing”
Trust Charles Phoenix to find and share the perfect picture for today’s anniversary of the first walk on the moon. (What, you don’t know Charles Phoenix? Quick, run right over and sign up for his slide of the week on his website and have delivered to your in box a photo like this along with commentary!)
Yes indeed, it’s an image of President Nixon speaking from the White House to the moon on an old black and white TV, much like the one many people watched the moon walk on. My parents had sold ours a few years before, so I missed seeing it live; instead I listened to it on the radio, imagining it, picturing the man on the moon, and the man in the moon.
“Mr. Moon, Mr Moon
You’re out too soon
While the sun is still in the sky
Go back to your bed and
Cover up your head and wait
’til the day goes bye.”
My grandmother, my father’s mother, watched it, watched the moon landing, the moon walk. She grew up during the Depression of the 1930s, and she thought walking on the moon was possibly the most amazing and exciting event of her entire life. She saved all the clippings about the moonwalk in a shoe box for my brother, who didn’t really seem to care, one way or the other, and didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Maybe he was too young.
He was the one presented with the shoe box. He was the oldest boy grandchild.
But I was the one who always yearned for the moon. And I always will be the one with the moon on my mind, and in my soul, the one singing “Me and the Man in the Moon.”
In the video, Fred Sokolow with Junior Brown and Ian Whitcomb play and sing “Me and the Man in the Moon” (available through aixrecords.com).
When I was growing up, we had a player piano and this was one of my favorite songs to play and to sing along. I know a bunch of songs like this one from the 20s and 30s, many of them very obscure to most people alive today.
One day, no one will be around who was alive for the moonwalk either.
Here are the lyrics to ME AND THE MAN IN THE MOON: James V Monaco (melody) Edgar Leslie (lyrics) 1928: Read more…
Some Zen Haiku by Santoka Taneda from “Mountain Tasting”
Some works of zen haiku by Santoka Taneda from the collection Mountain Tasting translated from the Japanese and introduced by John Stevens:
If there are mountains, I look at the mountains.:
On rainy days, I listen to the rain.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Tomorrow too will be good.
Tonight too is good.
(And yes, I did some “mountain tasting” of my own this past weekend. We had a lovely time camping in the mountains of the southern Sierra over the weekend with Baby Beluga, our new 90 Westy with the 16″ GOWESTY rims and wheels! More details and photos to follow!)
During the Japanese-Chinese war, no protests were allowed, and poets were expected to support the war effort. In response, Taneda wrote a series of powerful poems. Here are three of them:
The moon’s brightness–
Does it know
Where the bombing will be?
Winter rain clouds–
Thinking: Going to China
To be torn to pieces.
We move silently
in the cold rain
Carrying the white boxes in front.
Santoka Taneda (1882-1940)
art predator 