What are words worth?
For a writer, words are everything: they are the medium with which a writer builds a world. According to the Tom Tom Club Read more…
Dolores Huerta Documentary Film Screens at VC, plus pottery and poetry!
This Friday, Ventura College screens the documentary, Dolores 11/17/17 at 6:00 pm in the Performing Arts Center located on Loma Vista Road in a free event open to the public.
According the the synopsis on the Dolores website, “Dolores Huerta is among the most important, yet least known, activists in American history. An equal partner in co-founding the first farm workers unions with Cesar Chavez, her enormous contributions have gone largely unrecognized. Dolores tirelessly led the fight for racial and labor justice alongside Chavez, becoming one of the most defiant feminists of the twentieth century—and she continues the fight to this day, at 87. With intimate and unprecedented access to this intensely private mother to eleven, the film reveals the raw, personal stakes involved in committing one’s life to social change. Directed by Peter Bratt. ”
Also today Thursday Nov. 16 until 5pm is the final day of the student pottery exhibit and sale! Some great deals for yourself, for your holiday table, for hostess gifts, and more! Support student art!
And tonight at 730pm is former VC adjunct faculty Tree Bernstein’s poetry reading at EP Foster Library in downtown Ventura. Details here.
Tree Bernstein Returns from the Peace Corp With Poetry!
Former Ventura College Adjunct Faculty Member and Ojai resident Tree Bernstein recent;ty returned to the US from a two year stint in the Peace Corp. Well known locally as poet, Tree will be the featured reader on Thursday, November 16 in the EP Foster Library in the Topping Room. Poetry readings are held every Thursday at 7:30pm at the library located at 651 E. Main Street, Ventura. The series is curated and usually hosted by Ventura Country Poet Laureate Phil Taggart but this week Friday Gretchen steps in. An open mic follows the featured reader. The event is free and open to the public, but donations for the poet are accepted.
Here are two poems by Tree Bernstein: Read more…
Debris in the Sea: Problems. Solutions. Actions.
albatross on Midway Island by Chris Jordan
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We know the problem:
Concerned? What to learn more? Here’s a 2012 three part one hour video about a journey from Los Angeles toward Hawaii. During the voyage, they took samples of ocean water and filtered it to see how much plastic was in the ocean in different places.
And by now most of us know that plastic water bottles are a huge part of the problem Read more…
Happy 10th Bloggoversary to Art Predator!
On Saturday November 4, 2007, on the night of the time change, I started this blog.
One year later, in 2008, I was blogging on Wine Predator and attended the first Wine Bloggers Conference which I reported on here.
And two years later, in 2009, I was in Portugal as a wine blogger. Read more…
Getting Wild at Ventura College Fall 2017
Since 2012 I’ve included Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild as a book club option for my students. And each year they create a blog and do a project. One of the project options is to do a book trailer or other video related to the book’s content.
Wild definitely lends itself to the book trailer idea and this semester a group in each class took on that challenge. I am sure you will enjoy the blogs and videos Read more…
“In the field of your imagination are all possible flowers.”
Theodosia Burr Shepherd, the Flower Wizard of California.
Theodosia Burr Shepherd was known as “The Flower Wizard of California” and as the mother of the bulb and seed business of California. Theodosia encouraged women to grow seeds and bulbs. In fact it was said in Ventura County the “making” of new flower varieties was as common as new cake recipes in other places.
“In the love of flowers…[it is] as if the soul of the plant comes in touch with our soul. If the plant possesses the power to around such strong vibrations within us, is it possible the vibrations from us are received by the flower? We and the plant are the manifestations of the same force.” Theodosia Burr Shepherd
Learn about the remarkable life of Theodosia Burr Shepherd when her daughter, Myrtle Shepherd Francis returns from the dead on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2017 to regale us with stories about old Ventura, her mother, and the development of Ventura’s flower seed business. Join us at the site of the famous gardens in Ventura on the corner of Poli and Chestnut Streets during one of two 30 minute living history performances: 1:30 and 4:30pm in a script written by local historian Suzanne P. Lawrence. Read more…
RIP Antoine “Fats” Domino 2/26/20- 10/24/17
A Tribute to Antoine “Fats” Domino Jr.
February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017
by Ron Wells
When I was a little kid and too young to know anything about anything, I heard “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Blueberry Hill,” and the deejay screaming from my little transistor radio, “All the way from New Orleans, here comes Fats Domino.”
Somewhere, deep inside, the songs resonated.
The sadness of “tears fallin’ like rain,” and the joy of how he “found a thrill,” pretty much covered the spectrum of emotions.
The beat was infectious; the voice soulful.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,” writes Allen Ginsberg in the first few lines of Howl.
Ginsberg was talking about heroin. But today he’d be referencing smart phone use and abuse of the internet.
What are the psychological effects on people who touch, swipe or tap their phone 2,617 times a day? (Source of research)
You probably guessed the answer: NOT GOOD.
In a more recent article in the Guardian, Paul Lewis reports on those in Silicon Valley alarmed by a race for human attention who say that ‘Our minds can be hijacked.’ Some of the Google, Twitter and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet.
According to the October 6, 2017 article, our use (or is it abuse?) of technology contributes toward “continuous partial attention” which severely limits people’s ability to focus, and possibly even lowers IQ: One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity – even when the device is turned off.
“Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein says in the article. “All of the time.”
To defend himself from addictive programs, the Guardian article says that tech consultant Nit Eyal “uses a Chrome extension, called DF YouTube, “which scrubs out a lot of those external triggers”” And he recommends “Pocket Points that “rewards you for staying off your phone when you need to focus.”” At home, a timer turns off the internet router at a set time each day.
But can we unplug? Read more…
I, Robot: 2018 Burning Man Theme
Hot on the heels of both LA and SF Decom, with San Diego’s Youtopia this coming weekend, the Burning Man Organization announced the 2018 theme: “I, Robot” and invites participants to “examine[s] how it feels to live in a world that is filled with robots that watch us, track us, hack us, read our tweets and emails, listen to our phone calls, and sell this information to other robots.”
art predator 