Perfect Days
Perfect Days film review by Ron Wells
In Perfect Days, Director Wim Wenders has made a beautiful, specialized film that will only be appreciated by some audience members. The film follows a man, Hirayama (the brilliant Koji Yakusho) who daily goes to his job which entails driving around Tokyo and cleaning public restrooms and toilets; a job he does extremely well, and seemingly takes great pride in. Check out the trailer below: Read more…
What’s Up This Weekend? 12/1/23 Art Predator Performs and more free fun!
12/1/23 5 x 5 x 5
Now that my 12 week late start hybrid class is over (save for getting in grades!), I’ve got my head above water a bit and I can see there’s lots going on in the 805 this weekend, so for my Ventura County, Ventura College, and LA and SB readers, I wanted to offer a quick round up! And yes I am performing at 5 x 5 x 5 on Friday 12/1/23 at Art City!
Does Practice Make Perfect or Permanent? On Making New Mental Pathways
We hear how “practice makes permanent” but I attended a seminar for teachers about the brain, and two ideas stood out:
- Does it matter WHEN you learn or THAT you learn?
- Practice makes permanent.
The brain works in such a way that if we do something over and over, it gets deep into our brains. Read more…
Everything is a Gift: Pay Attention, Find Blessings, Celebrate Semicolons, Be Grateful
it’s passing
It’s Thanksgiving week in the US and we have much to be grateful for: “Pay attention. Find the blessing. It’s passing. Everything is a gift, and nothing lasts,” writes Erin Geesaman Rabke. While today is not Semicolon Day, held annually on April 16, it is the birthday of someone who changed my life, someone who did not make it to Semicolon Day April 16, 2022, someone I am grateful for, someone who took his life April 12, 2022 when he still had a lot to be grateful for.
So let’s talk about semicolons today. Semicolons have a period on top of a comma; this indicates that the writer might have stopped a sentence with a period, but they want to show the link to what follows so they put a comma underneath the period to indicate a strong connection. To restate this (paraphrasing the image below), a semi-colon means a sentence the writer could have ended, but chose not to; instead the writer chose to continue on writing.
Semi-Colon Day
Happy Sweet Sixteen Bloggoversary to Art Predator!
Torino Train selfie 2022
Who knew 16 years ago when I registered this Art Predator blog and signed up for WordPress that I’d be traveling the world as a wine influencer and blogger? Certainly not me! But here I am, on a train in Torino Read more…
Unite for Water Nov. 4 Patagonia Ventura
Unite for Water Rights
Unite for Water Rights Nov. 4:
Looking for an opportunity to do something for our planet?
Stand With Cuyama Against Corporate Greed
Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms, the world’s largest carrot growers, produce 80% of the U.S. carrot market (an annual crop worth $69 million) and together they pump over 40% of the Cuyama Valley basin’s water supply. Last year they pumped 28,500 acre-feet of water; enough water to supply three cities the size of Santa Barbara with a year’s worth of water. Now they’re suing every Read more…
The Borderlands and Dias de los Muertos
by Ventura’s MB Hanrahan
It’s Dias de los Muertos!
Last year I was in Ensenada at an international wine event as a member of the press, and it was really special to be there.
OIV Ensenada
I was actually staying in a friend’s castle that she is building! Very cold, windy, and spooky for sure but awesome views of the river and the sea! Read more…
Getting Your Nature Fix/d
Muir: everything is hitched to everything else
“When we try to pick out anything by itself,” said John Muir, “we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” And that can make environmental problem solving a problem! How do you untangle and choose what to do to make the situation on our planet better without getting overwhelmed? Are you getting enough NATURE in your life?
A Kaleidoscope of Monarchs and Books To Fall For (With Videos!)
Books for Book Clubs
How do you know it’s fall? For me, the days are shorter, the nights are longer, and a kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies returns to Prince Barranca and Ocean Avenue Park near my home. By late October, the blooming dahlias provide nectar for the orange butterflies, and as they finish, the brilliant crimson poinsettias take over to offer sustenance. Next out my window are flocks of the beautiful cedar waxwings eating berries from native shrubs, and at night various owls move through or establish their nesting territories.
As the days grow colder, and we snuggle in to comfy couches with cozy blankets, or settle in to a hot bubbly bath, fall is time to break out the books– and not just school books, but books for pleasure — or maybe they will be both! Read more…
Coastal Cleanups plus Ventura’s Autumn ArtWalk Returns Sept. 23-24, 2023 with art, music, poetry and more!
Mighty Zenith at Burning Man
This autumnal equinox weekend Sept 23-24 sees the return not only of monarch butterflies, shorter days, cooler nights, and coastal cleanups, but the Ventura Artwork in downtown and the westside for art, poetry, music, and more at numerous locations including City Hall, the Ventura Museum, Mission Park, and in various shops and streets. (See map below). And I will be participating too by reading poetry at City Hall today Read more…
art predator 