A Grenache Toast for Peace!
A toast on Grenache Day to the last day of summer, International Peace Day, and World Gratitude Day!
Guess what I’m grateful for today? Guess what brings me peace, too? That’s right–a glass of grenache! Cheers!
Have a wonderful weekend full of surprises and celebrations of all kinds, great and small!
Please join me in celebrating Grenache Day, today, Friday September 21, 2012 by enjoying a glass of this delightful varietal! You can share what you’re drinking on twitter by using the hashtag #grenacheday.
What is there to say about Grenache?
How about it’s one of the most widely grown varietals on the planet! However, since grenache is used primarily in blends, many people don’t know they’ve had it or that they like it!
I am one of those people who definitely enjoys grenache –with or without its traditional Rhone blending partners, mourvedre and syrah. In case you’ve heard the term GSM –the g is for grenache, the m is mourvedre and the s is syrah. I prefer my GSMs to be heavier on the grenache and light on the syrah.
On its own, Grenache can be a bit light for some people, and too fruity. Personally, I like its fruit…
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In Celebration of “Talk Like A Pirate Day”
In honor of September 19 being “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” here’s an “I Am” poem from a workshop I did with four kindergarten and first grade boys, including my four year old son. After we wrote the poem, my son wanted to make a video, so we did. He found and selected the images and the music, then we did the poem as a “call and response” where I did a line and he repeated it.
Just recently, his fourth grade class was doing “I Am” poems so I went in and shared the poem and video with them. They loved it! And we all got a kick out of how young my son’s voice was–and how creatively he “talks like a pirate.”
Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day! Enjoy!
I Am A Scary Smelly Skeleton PIRATE!
I am a scary, smelly skeleton PIRATE!
I wonder where the treasure is.
I hear black rusty shooting fire cannonballs and swords slapping. Read more…
Bikes & brews! New Belgium’s Tour de Fat hits LA; Beer Festival comes to Ventura! Go for a ride, go to the beach, head for the mountains! Enjoy the Indian Summer!
What is it about bikes and brew?
While the kid was at a birthday party, we 
grabbed the tandem out of the garage and rode to Barrelhouse 101 on Thompson at California in Ventura for Happy Hour beers and burgers.
Lucky for everyone, happy hour lasted all night in celebration of the Drakes Dry Hopped IPA and the Beer Fest in downtown across the street from the Mission. If you go during Happy Hour (usually M-F 4-7pm), you MUST get the $2.5o house made chips!
Also this weekend,according to the New Belgium Website,
“New Belgium Brewing’s cycling circus, Tour de Fat, is coming back to L.A. for one day on Saturday, September 15 at L.A. State Historic Park. Tour de Fat rookies and veterans alike are encouraged to grab a bike and join us for a whimsical day of entertainment and two-wheeled revelry, all while raising…
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“Say Hey I Love You”–2 more Burning Man 2012 Videos (can you say Hula Cam?)
In 2010, KJ and Stefan made a soulful music video at Burning Man to Al Green‘s “Full of Fire.”
In 2011, KJ and Stefan created a Burning Man music video to the joyous whistling “Home” using the song from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.
This year, KJ and Stefan’s gift from the Playa uses, with permission, Michael Franti‘s upbeat, playful “Say Hey, I Love You” with Burning Man 2012 as the backdrop for the music video. Once again, it’s a winner. Check it out.
And then, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the Burning Man Hula Cam video…I say if you haven’t seen it yet because, in just two hours, the Burning Man Hula Cam video went from 70,000 views to 270,000 views. The #BurningMan hashtag has been full of tweets and retweets for this video! So I’m guessing by the time you see this post, you already know about the Hula Cam Burning Man video…but you’ll enjoy c it again!
Hula Cam video filmed by attaching a GoPro to a Hula Hoop at District during Burning Man 2012 where it was picked up and hooped by an assortment of attractive and talented women, then edited by Rob Volkel with music by Porter Robinson – http://btprt.dj/IpdA7X
Yes it has its own Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hulafantastica
Related articles
- Heading Home? Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
- Oh, The Places You’ll Go: Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
- Fly Me Home to BRC: 2 Amazing Aerial Tour Videos from Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
- Relics from Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
Fly Me Home to BRC: 2 Amazing Aerial Tour Videos from Burning Man 2012
This first aerial tour of Burning Man is a bit on the somber side, in keeping with the tone of yesterday’s post about 9/11. It turned up yesterday on the Burning Man pilots list. You can see the airport at 4:28. To get this aerial video footage of Black Rock City, the camera is mounted to a drone. The night shots at the end are amazing; I understand this short 5 minute vid is a teaser for a project in the works.
Why am I on a Burning Man pilots list? In 2011, I joined the Burning Man pilots list in hopes of finding a flight so my husband could join us; my son and I left
the previous Saturday. I stayed on the list because it is an interesting and different Burning Man community. I am definitely a lurker there! This year, 2012, I hoped to catch a flight for myself but I ended up staying home and doing a backyard burn. I dream about having that experience of seeing the city from the air myself. One day I’ll fly in or out or at least get up in the air! Many pilots gift flights–hundreds of Burners get up in the air every year.
In the meantime, video is as good as it gets, and it’s a great way to get a sense of the scale of the city. These two videos were posted on the pilots list yesterday and between now and then, they’ve gone from 1000 views to 10,000!
There are a multitude of sources and lists to find out all that’s going on Burning-Wise which you can check out and subscribe to. The website, of course, is jam-packed with official information and so is Jack Rabbit Speaks, which lands regularly in your email box. Then there are other less – or unofficial lists for various interest groups from pilots to Burning Moms to Burning Scouts to Kidsville–all of which I am on, and you could join too if you are interested.
Suffice to say, I hear about more galleries, videos and news than I could ever get around to reading, watching, and posting here. But I do make an effort, when something stands out as special, to post it for my readers and subscribers (yes, you can subscribe and get me in your inbox every time I post something new!)
The second video is much more upbeat and energetic. The music “Ready To Fly” by Clayton Joseph Scott is by a Burner, who gifted the videographer “Flyer” a cd in Black Rock City this year. Flyer realized it was the perfect soundtrack and the musician agreed to its use.
One of the reasons I really like this video is because the filmmaker points out the various sites. As a long time Burner, these sights and more familiar to me. But for people who have never been, or only a few times, of not for a few years, the guidance is helpful. Click for more to see the next video and to read more about how they filmed it using drones. Read more…
Obama: Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor
“We were united, and the outpouring of generosity and compassion reminded us that in times of challenge, we Americans move forward together, as one people,” said President Obama in 2011 during his August weekly address.
“Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11,” President Obama said.
Because the first anniversary is after the first year, today, eleven years later, marks the 1oth anniversary of the Twin Towers getting hit and going down. Read the whole speech that President Obama gave last year:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/08/presidents-weekly-address-mark-9-11-by-serving/1#.UE9bbhj5nCk
Read my Sonnet for September 11 here.
Related articles
- Pause and Reflect ~ 9/11 Memorial, NYC (marinachetner.com)
- Sonnet for September 11: written 9/13/01 (whisperdownthewritealley.wordpress.com)
- Obama marks 9/11 in weekly address (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
Sasquatch Visits: 3:15 Experiment Poetry
Last night Sasquatch woke me up.
He was just leaving, rushing off.
If you’ve never seen him
he doesn’t look much like his pictures.
Sure he’s tall & apelike & hairy
but he doesn’t look like a brown version
of the yeti on the Bobsled ride at Disneyland.
No he’s not furry—more hairy.
Once he realized he woke me
he hurried off, glancing back once
like Lot’s wife.
But he didn’t turn to salt–
like she did which would have
left me with more proof to share
than this image
burned into my retinas.
In case you’re wondering, he didn’t
talk but I did know
that he was big & threatening & hungry–
but not hungry like
he was going to eat us.
Yes that’s a good thing to know–
that even though I was terrified–
and for good reason–
he’s not cannibalistic–
he wanted to kill us but not eat us
Instead he was hungry for something else
but what I couldn’t say for sure.
Peace perhaps? Solitude?
Be left alone? Not chased?
Those seem natural
but not exactly
the message I got.
No he was hungry for more space
for more imagination
for less limitation
There was something that he needed
more out there
like he was mad we were
taking more than our share
leaving him hungry
I guess he’s an endangered species
hungry for green in our world
Tues. August 21, 2012 3:15am Ventura CA
words c. gwendolyn alley aka art predator
images c. Susan Grelock
Photographer Susan Grelock is interested in the places where humans and animals meet. This summer her fieldwork focused on minding the gap between ecology and depth psychology, especially through education for children. You can connect with her via Facebook http://www.facebook.com/susan.grelock.56?sk=wall or Pinterest http://pinterest.com/susanmichellegr/animals-humans/
Susan says the foggy trail is from Marin Headlands, where she slept alone to cross paths with wild cats. The taxidermy is from WildCare, where she is learning to be a nature guide for kids.ttp://www.wildcarebayarea.org/site/PageServer )
Susan and I are both in our second year of our PhD in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in the Community/Liberation/Ecopsychology program which includes a field work element. While Susan’s fieldwork explores the relationship between animals and humans, mine examines altered states of knowing and writing, particularly hypnopompic/hypnogogic states used in the 3:15 experiment where participants wake to write at 3:15am every night during the month of August; I am co-editing a 20th anniversary collection of 3:15 experiment poems from participants in every time zone, to be released on 3/15 2013 from en theos press, by reviewing poems submitted to the website. I am also looking for convergences and divergences in the 3:15 writings from our collective consciousness.
During the next few months, I will be posting my 3:15 experiment poems here as well as on the 3:15 Experiment website. Keeping with the guidelines of the experiment, these poems will be published as they were written. I am also working on another 3:15 experiment collection, a follow-up to middle of the night poems.
Knowing Susan’s research interests include Sasquatch, I asked her for images with which to illustrate this poem. I wonder how our consciousness connected so that the one she was searching for visited and spoke with me…as I work on my field work paper (which is due in two weeks), I might find some insights…
Related articles
- Sasquatch Hoax Ends in Tragedy (dreadcentral.com)
- 3 Snackin’ with Sasquatch Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Ads (great-ads.blogspot.com)
- Idaho State professor publishes research on Sasquatch (oregonlive.com)
- 3:15 Experiment Celebrates 20 years of writing in altered states of consciousness (artpredator.wordpress.com)
Art Predator on the Prowl for Wine Wonders of the World!
Art Predator has been invited to go on the prowl on the slopes of Mt Etna in search of wonderful wine!
September 19, 2012 I will definitely be doing wine related activities. And lots of wine tasting. And yes, a lot of spitting too.
First, I was invited to join the September 19 Thirsty Girl Twitter Tasting of Handcraft Wines. Then I was invited to join the next Cafe 140 Twitter Tasting. Then I received an invitation to an industry tasting of the San Francisco International Wine Competition award-winning wines. All on the same day.
Fortunately, September 19 is a day that I can devote to wine tasting.
Then, on Wednesday morning, as I was preparing to run some errands and then post about #CabernetDay and #PinotSmackdown, I checked my email and saw one from Elisabetta Tosi, a wine blogger and the Italian Ambassador to Palate Press.
She was writing to invite me to join a wine blogging tour of the Mt Etna wine region in Sicily. In two…
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Relics from Burning Man 2012
The photos and video have begun surfacing from the playa, and the myth that is Burning Man 2012 is being constructed through memory and image, story and revery.
While I didn’t make it out to Burning Man in 2012, many of my friends did, and they are posting their experiences on Facebook, twitter and blogs. One of my friends posted the video above by Reuters photographer Jim Urquhart; here he shares his images and personal reflections and I now share it with you.
Like me, many of my friends didn’t get to Black Rock City this year for various reasons. Some of us gathered at my house the night of the Temple Burn and we made a Burning Bush which we decorated with inscribed egg crates for fertility and in which we stuck sparklers. We gave the kids sparklers too and put them on the large mound that we stuck our bush in, then we lit the sparklers. We had a beautiful, surreal, and moving Burning Man at Home. 
I was busy creating the burn so I didn’t get any photos. Thanks to Vincent for these; I hope to post more from other people one day soon.
Related articles
- Oh, The Places You’ll Go: Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
- How To Do Burning Man At Home: Watch LIVE on ustream & listen to BMIR (artpredator.wordpress.com)
- Burning Man 2012 Videos by Mark Day (laughingsquid.com)
- Heading Home? Burning Man 2012 (artpredator.wordpress.com)
art predator 