Malbec Madness!
Today April 17 is Malbec Day and we’re celebrating with Malbec Madness! Read our reviews of the four wines we tasted in anticipation of today’s events!
A Little Levity for Tax Day
May your Tax Day not be too taxing! If you need a different perspective, read this post!
Need some Tax Day relief?
While I can’t lower your tax bill, I can offer up some poetry, some art, some giggles, and some discounted bubbles!
Above is one of my 3:15 Experiment poems that I turned into a broadside that was published in ArtLife Limited Editions; the tape came from the college where I was teaching and I stapled some on to each broadside which makes the actual broadsides easier to read than this jpg! Read the whole poem.
Next up is a cartoon of the Beatles have an adventure with Robin Hood and singing “Tax Man.”
Plus today only Ventura Wine Company will pay your taxes!
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Chris Jordan: Melting the Ice in the Heart
Raise your Voice (2010): Midway – Message from the Gyre (2009) / Chris Jordan (Photo credit: Ars Electronica)
In a talk on April 9, 2013 at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I swiftly took notes while artist Chris Jordan spoke about how to present the magnitude of trash that we produce in such a way that the scale of consumption and refuse has meaning enough to transform our individual and cultural practices. (View videos and art and read Part 1 here.)
The following day in class and then at our EcoDreamers meeting, Ed Casey spoke about how Chris Jordan is practicing phenomenology. (A few days later, I got to thinking how haiku poets are also phenomenological. I’d already been thinking about how wine blogging is phenomenological.)
A lawyer by training and a photographer by passion, Chris Jordan’s work makes visible the unconscious behaviors that lead to unconscious yet conspicuous consumption. By making the unconscious visible, through this visibility, he makes it part of our consciousness.
Once we are conscious, there is the possibility of transformation. For example, in this image “Whale, 2011″ ( 44×82”, based on a photograph by Bryant Austin) Jordan depicts 50,000 plastic bags which is equal to the estimated number of pieces of floating plastic in every square mile in the world’s oceans. In his talk, Jordan told us that if you take a net through most of the world’s oceans, you will collect more plastic than you will biomass. Scroll down for a close-up of the eye–you can see the bags. Or go to his website where you can zoom in or out.) Read more…
Midway: Chris Jordan’s TrashTalk (Part 1)
Did you know that 2.4 million pieces of plastic enter our oceans every hour? That 10% of the world plastic production enters the ocean? That 70% of the plastic in ocean flows from rivers?
Tuesday, April 9, 2013, artist Chris Jordan presented his work at Pacifica Graduate Institute where I am working on a PhD in Depth Psychology with an Emphasis in Community, Liberation, and Ecopsychology. On Wednesday, he joined some of us “EcoDreamers” for a lunchtime conversation about the work, what it means, why it matters, and about how he is bringing it to the world.
Chris Jordan makes meaning from information by turning data, relevant materials, and statistics into art. This image above is made up of 2.4 million pieces of ocean plastic which represents the amount of plastic that enters the ocean every hour. Read more…
A Bicycle Built for Burning Man! This could keep the dust out and with a little dry ice, keep the wine cool! Love the little fold out table and how it keeps your drinks from spilling!
Read more about this bicycle built for a picnic for two!
Related articles
- AkrikaBurn 2013: “Burning Man” regional event (hellscouldron.wordpress.com)
- What Is It That Makes Burners So Good? (ronslog.typepad.com)
- Let the Burning Man Creations Begin… (feathereddharma.wordpress.com)
- Bicycle Built for Wine: What I want for Mom’s Day & Burning Man! (winepredator.wordpress.com)
- Audio Reponsive Demonstration from Burning Man 2012! (saikoled.com)
Happy National Poetry Month!
It’s National Poetry Month! Celebrate with me this Friday, April 12, 2013, when I will be leading a haiku writing workshop at a sushi bar in Ojai–which means I’ll be stopping by Ojai Vineyards while I’m in town!
That’s right, you can get your haiku and eat it too!
Well, maybe not, but that sounds fun, doesn’t it?
Either way, it will be a fun time for 12 on 4/12 at 12 when we gather in Ojai during WordFest’s “Foodie Friday” for a sushi lunch with a side of haiku. Or maybe that’s haiku with a side of sushi?
So if you don’t mind the soy sauce on your writing notebook,
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Want to be a better blogger? Want to know how I end up on “to read” lists of wine bloggers? Check out this video of my Ignite presentation at the 5th Annual Wine Bloggers Conference in Portland OR on the 10 Commandments of Wine Blogging! And learn about Jeff Weissler’s new venture in wine, Portland Pairings!
So, after hearing about my being on Marcy Gordon’s 2013 list of important wine bloggers and Michael Wangbickler’s 2012 list and Jo Diaz’s list in 2011,
you want to know how I achieved my success as a wine blogger?
Today’s your lucky day!
Jeff Weissler aka http://consciouswine.com recorded my 5-minute IGNITE!wine session at the 2012 Wine Blogger’s Conference in Portland:
“The Ten Commandments of Wine Blogging”
What’s an Ignite? For this style of presentation, we each have five minutes to present a story using 20 slides; each slide changes automatically every 15 seconds. Like TEDX, people are organizing Ignite! presentations all over the world; this is the second year of Ignite at the WBC.
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Wine Predator Named One of 5 “Wine Chicks that Click”!
Wine Predator aka Art Predator is a “Wine Chick Who Clicks” –read why and how and check out the other members of the list!
Did you know that there are about 1500 active wine blogs? And that about 1000 of them are written by “citizen bloggers” like me?
Allan Wright and his colleagues who organize the North American Wine Blogger’s Conference keep track of this kind of info; recently, I completed a survey for them for wine bloggers and another one for food bloggers. (Did you know I spoke at a wine and food panel at the International Food Bloggers Conference November 2011? Yep! I also spoke at the 5th WBC in Portland!)
A week ago, Lettie Teague of the Wall Street Journal posted about the State of the Wine Bloggosphere using information from an interview with Allan Wright and after reading 10,000 pages of blogs.
Her results?
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RIP Robert Ebert, 1942-2013
Robert Ebert, who coined and popularized the idea of “two thumbs up” with critic Gene Siskel (who died in 1999) on his show At the Movies with Siskel & Ebert, died today of cancer at 70 years old– the day after his 46 anniversary as film critic for the Chicago Sun Times.
by guest blogger Ron Wells
Roger Ebert, american film critic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sometimes you let art speak for
itself, and sometimes you look to others to guide you to a greater understanding of that art.
It wasn’t just his reviews of films–
which I may or may not have agreed with–but the movies Roger Ebert chose to bring to a wider audience that I will always remember, and his insightfu
l commentary into so many of those films.
I can’t count the number of non-mainstream movies that he and Gene Siskel reviewed on their television show that intrigued me enough to seek them out and explore new writers, directors, and actors, all of whom I might not have otherwise known about.
With that came a new and greater understanding of the the art of film, and all its various facets. It opened me up to so much– not just into films, but the way in which films delved into and reflected upon the meaning of life itself.
For that I’ll be forever grateful.
Rest in Peace, Roger Ebert.
Related articles
- Roger Ebert, RIP (brooklynvegan.com)
- Legendary Film Critic Roger Ebert Dies at 70 (ktla.com)
Chasing Ice: Screening Now Near You
I wish Climate Change and the loss of polar ice was an April Fool’s joke. But it’s not. Climate change is seriously real and the new documentary Chasing Ice shows just how rapidly our planet, especially our polar regions, are changing due to anthropogenic causes.
Currently screening nationwide, Chasing Ice is coming to the Ventura Film Society Tuesday, April 2, 2013 420 East Santa Clara, across the street from the Blue Orchid.
The film starts at 7:15. Regular price for tickets is a $10 Donation. Student ticket price is $5 Donation.
After the movie, there will be three speakers:
Rick Ridgeway Patagonia’s VP of Environmental Initiatives
Patty Ridenour – Geology Professor / Ventura College
Rachel Morris, VCCool
According to the film, “In the spring of 2005, National Geographic photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment: Read more…
art predator 