Burning Man 2013: Coming Right Up!
Burning Man 2013 is coming right up! In fact, six weeks from today, on Sunday August 25 the gates open and the people will flood in claiming real estate and creating camps from 2am-10pm–the streets, that is!
And once again, I will be there–but this year, I will be conducting some research for my doctorate.
In fact, instead of dreaming and posting about Burning Man, I should be writing my paper that’s due tomorrow about how to do phenomenological research at Burning Man and preparing for a meeting with my field work advisor!
What’s phenomenological you ask? Phenomenology is “the descriptive science of consciousness” or as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, “the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view.”
Huh? How about this from Maurice Meleau-Ponty: “Phenomenology is the study of essences” or the shape, the sensual description.
“Everything that I know about the world, even through science,” wrote Merleau-Ponty, “I know from the perspective that is my own or from an experience of the world” (p. xxii). Merleau-Ponty suggests we’re doing phenomenology all the time—that is, if we’re seeking to experience the “deep shape” of our experiences. Sound like any Burners YOU know?
As we gear up for this year’s playa adventure, stay tuned for more Burning Man posts with videos, stories, tips, and tricks from this long-time Burner! But to get us in the mood and to inspire us to get our gear on, here’s a 2012 video from a Burgin (Burning Man virgin).
Getting Around: Fun Wine Map of California
With 2014’s Wine Blogger’s Conference in Santa Barbara, this map can help you find your way around California’s wine regions!
Don’t you just love this wine map of California by DeLongWine.Com? This is one in a series of Wine Maps with these regions available currently:
They’re $25 unframed or $100 framed; I think they should turn them into boxed note cards or postcards! In fact, I’m going to suggest to them to do postcards of California for the Wine Bloggers Conference in 2014 in Santa Barbara for the gift bags.
They also offer a number of free resources including Wine Tasting Note Forms.
This map is part of a series of fun posts using infographics, tables, charts, and maps. Here’s an infographic about the evolution of PR. Coming up: a pie chart about how to pair wine and cheese, and an inforgraphic about reisling. And then I hope to have my series of posts about Tinhorn Creek…
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Art Predator Reaches 500,000 Page Views: Thank You!
“The most important step in developing skillful speech is to think before speaking (or writing).
This is called mindfulness of speech. Few things can improve the nature of our relationships as much as the development of skillful speech.
Silence offers us, and those around us, the spaciousness we need to speak more skillfully.
When we speak with greater skill, our true self–our compassionate, loving self–emerges with gentle ease.
So before you speak, stop, breathe, and consider if what you are about to say will improve upon the silence.”
–Allan Lokos, from “Skillfull Speech” Tricycle, Winter 2008
Sometime in the night, I will reach a major blogging milestone–500,000 page views here on Art Predator! I’m at 499,990`since I began in November of 2007 of 1410 posts; I would never have imagined attaining 500,00 views so I thought I’d take a few minutes to reflect, to note what people have been reading, to share a few of my favorite posts, and to thank Danika Dinsmore and Sophia Kidd who got me going, and Paul Squires aka GingaTao who encouraged me as a poet, as a writer, and as a blogger.
I know! Wow! 1410 posts! 50
0,000 views! That’s a lot! That’s half a million! Thank you, readers and subscribers!
I’d like to think that I have been “improving upon the silence”– Read more…
Karma & London Calling
reflections on wine and life as Art Predator nears 500,000 page views…
As I’m moving into my 10th year of marriage, my son is heading into 5th grade, I’m in my 15 year of teaching writing at the community college level, I’m 12 years into a 30 year mortgage, and I’m almost done with my second year of my PhD (about to earn a second Masters, this one in Depth Psychology), I sometimes see opportunities and say, hmmn, I wonder, I wish. What if.
Shoulda coulda woulda.
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Happy Summer! Happy Kitty! Happy Huge Moon! Happy Lambrusco Day! Cheers!
Will Lambrusco, that delightful bubbly red wine from Italy, be the next Prosecco, that delightful white bubbly wine from Italy that took the US by storm nearly 10 years ago?
We’ll see!
In the meantime, the perfect time to check out Lambrusco is today Friday June 21, 2013–the first day of summer and Lambrusco Day!
I was sent a sample of the IL Mionetto Lambrusco so Annie and I opened it up yesterday in anticipation of Lambrusco Day. Annie said,
“This is a lot of fun for 10 Bucks!”
And I agree!
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So being the Wine Predator that I am, I acquired numerous bottles of open and closed wine during and after the Wine Bloggers Conference that I either tasted before I left (nothing like a 3am taste and dump session to break your heart!) or I snaked across the border.
Somehow, I was blessed to bring home three bottles of Okanagan merlot (pictured). One bottle of these bottles that made it home open was
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Some OK Falls & A Spectacular Painted Rock
What an adventure I am on here in the Okanagan, British Columbia!
amazing afternoon hiking @paintedrockwine to rock art then rambling construction site & vines then tasting! #WBC13twitter.com/ArtPredator/st…
— Gwendolyn Alley, MA (@ArtPredator) June 10, 2013
For the first time, the Wine Bloggers Conference ended on Saturday night instead of Sunday (after announcing that 2014’s gathering will be in Santa Barbara which is practically in my backyard! So excited about that!!)
This left bloggers up to their own devices, and while many of them headed to flights from Kelowna or drives West to Vancouver or South and West toward Seattle and Portland, others stuck around for a day or two to learn more about wine in BC.
Personally, I knew I wanted to spend time at Tinhorn Creek. I’d met winemaker/CEO Sandra Oldfield in 2011 through Twitter where I also connected with her husband Kenn. I wanted to learn more about what it’s been like for her as a…
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#WBC13 Penticton, BC Gets Going: A Few Highlights
What a great trip! I’m loving British Columbia! The landscape is beautiful and the wines are too!
So after a great adventure from Seattle via Lake Chelan that included a flight on a seaplane (where poor 1000 Corks got sick!) and lots of delicious wine (a blog post is brewing on that!), I made it to Penticton, British Columbia to the 6th annual Wine Bloggers Conference!
Because our bus was several hours late and delayed at the border for an hour, we missed the first event featuring the sponsors and so the conference proper kicked off for me last night at scenic See Ya Later Ranch high above the north end of Lake Chelan for the Constellations tasting of wines of Okanagan.
No, this isn’t my suitcase and I didn’t pack radishes! But isn’t this salad cute? The dirt was a ground nuts, herbs, and spices with a feta yoghurt dressing! Catered by Okanagan culinary darlings, Cam Smith and Dana Ewart from renowned Joy Road Catering…
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From SeaTac to Lake Chelan: it’s time for WBC13!
I’m leaving on a seaplane!
And then I’m going to taste Lake Chelan wine again!
(I’m very excited about today’s events on my Wine Blogger’s pre- Conference Excursion from Seattle to the Lake Chelan AVA! Read on to read why!)
On the bus, there will be box lunches and beverages for everyone from Blueacre Seafood in Seattle…
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art predator 