text:
Does language hover between my nerve endings and the world, or is language my skin itself?
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Starfire in the Night
A little painting, still wet, that I quickly painted
to accompany the poem...
(posted with the 'accented edges' photoshop filter)
sliding around the world
through many crowds
Mumbai, New York, Rio
like an image from a billboard
flat like film
a projection of light
these burning neurons
their shadow prism shifts
no separation
a market in Madrid
harsh sleet of Himalaya
blade of grass in the prairies
I could be dying
or in a spacesuit on the moon
no separation between me
and the world,
which is my dreaming paradise
nothing was lost
release the inner hold
there is no tight control
write by cell-light
dark hours of running
on this side of living
in the bright world
of the lion's mouth
flying into outer space
where the universe
contains such combustion
stars burn for billions of years
keeping galaxies alive
I searched for you
and found you
if you could set all your dissolves
to a fifth of a second
the mathematical regularity
would be bliss
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
A gadget-type
Speed test of my Internet provider, Bell. I think it looks good, but I'm not a techie! The site says it's faster than 81% of connections. Now what this means I'm not sure...
I admit I'm a freeware/open source gadget-type (who leaves thank-you notes for the developers). Recently downloaded Camouflage, a terrific little utility that 'hides' the icons on your desktop for instant de-clutter! And I just found a great little application, a Timer Utility for the Mac. Then I opened Audacity (another free program - I've not yet gotten the hang of how to do these little things in Apple's Garage Band, not like Apple's old Sound Studio, which was easy to use), grabbed some Tibetan Bells music, cut a small clip out, fiddled with it a bit (increased volume, a few mini cuts), saved it as an .mp3, and viola! I have the perfect "alarm" of delicately ringing Tibetan Bells for when I'm finished a yoga mediation! It's so beautiful!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Fragments towards a meditation on the body...
A recording that's bobbing back on the SoundClick charts, unexpectedly, momentarily.
If the embedded player doesn't appear (it's mysteriously absent on RSS feeds), click on these links to listen: DSL or Cable;
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
"Mujeres," by Juan Gelman
"Debía tener unas 12397 mujeres en su mujer"
"Mujeres", un hermoso poema de Juan Gelman, recitado en su voz.Tags: juan gelman, mujeres, mujer, poema, poesía, audio, brenda clews
"Mujeres en verano". (Brenda Clews)
decir que esa mujer era dos mujeres es decir poquito
debía tener unas 12397 mujeres en su mujer
era difícil saber con quién trataba uno
en ese pueblo de mujeres
yacíamos en un lecho de amor
ella era un alba de algas fosforescentes
cuando la fui a abrazar
se convirtió en singapur llena de perros que aullaban
cuando se apareció envuelta en rosas de agadir
parecía una constelación en la tierra
parecía que la cruz del sur había bajado a la tierra
esa mujer brillaba como la luna de su voz derecha
como el sol que se ponía en su voz
en las rosas estaban escritos todos los nombres de esa mujer menos uno
y cuando se dio vuelta
su nuca era el plan económico
tenía miles de cifras y la balanza de muertes favorables a la dictadura militar
nunca sabía uno adónde iba a parar esa mujer
yo estaba ligeramente desconcertado
una noche le golpeé el hombro para ver con quién era
y vi en sus ojos desiertos un camello
a veces
esa mujer era la banda municipal de mi pueblo
tocaba dulces valses hasta que el trombón empezaba a desafinar
y los demás desafinaban con él
esa mujer tenía la memoria desafinada
usté podía amarla hasta el delirio
hacerle crecer días del sexo tembloroso
hacerla volar como pajarito de sábana
al día siguiente se despertaba hablando de malevich
la memoria le andaba como un reloj con rabia
a las tres de la tarde se acordaba del mulo
que le pateó la infancia una noche del ser
ellaba mucho esa mujer y era una banda municipal
una noche como ésta que
nos empapan los rostros que a lo mejor morimos
monté en el camellito que esperaba en sus ojos
y me fui de las costas tibias de esa mujer
callado como un niño bajo los gordos buitres
que me comen de todo
menos el pensamiento
de cuando ella se unía como un ramo
de dulzura y lo tiraba en la tarde
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Link to the original page.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Why do we write? Or create?
Click here, if the embedded video doesn't appear.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Figurative No.1
for my son
It may or may not be finished, but feels as if it is. I'll call it a figurative abstract.
(click to enlarge)
First Wash of a new painting...
This drawing sat on my desk, it's 55mm x 74mm, 300lb archive watercolour paper, on that piece of plywood, under tissue paper, since last Summer. Many things have rested on it, papers, purses, gloves, hat, scarf, sweaters, until I cleaned it all up a week ago. Yesterday afternoon I threw water all over it, which ran everywhere, on the floor, all over my class notes (requiring a 'drying out' on a towel in the living room) but never mind that, and started rubbing paint in.
The painting wasn't too bad, really it wasn't. But for no reason that I can think of I found a Waterman fountain pen that still had ink in it (oh, rue the day for pens with ink when you shouldn't!) and inked in the figures, after they'd had their first wash of paint. I only looked at the lines, was comforted in the process of outlining and ignored the whole painting in my act.
What a mess! Why'd I do that? Inking by rote, rather than with a sensitivity to the image?
Now I have to try to clean up- the inked lines far too dark and insensitive. Because I drew them after the first wash of colour, the colour doesn't adhere to them, nor did they bleed into that first wash as would normally happen (since I used to ink first, then paint).
Oooh, la!
Is this why it sat like an accuser on my desk for over 6 months saying, paint, paint, when I would choose the 'by rote' path rather than the 'in the moment' shifting and changing as light and colour asked, and be forced to confront my own predilections, my own habitual patterns, all the immovable grids in my perception?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Playing with an Animoto slideshow...
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy Cupid's Day!
(¸.♥´ (¸.♥´ .? *¨* ¯¨*´¸
`*.¸.*´* .• *¨* ´¸ .`¯¨*•´
¨*• .*¨¸ ¤.¸ ´•.¸ * ´¤.¸ ¸.
.¸.*´¤ ¨.*• ¤.¸
¨* *.¸.*´*¸ .• *¨* ´¸ .`¯¨*•´
¨*• .´ *¸ .• •**"˜˜"*°•. ˜"*°•♥•°*"˜ .•°*"˜˜"*°•.
(¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯)
★ º ♥ `•.¸.•´ ♥ º♥.•*¨`*•♥.•´*.¸.•´♥
(gotta thank Carmen Colmenarez for an extraordinary explosion of happy punctuations!)
Friday, February 13, 2009
DVE Course trailer assignment
Looks innocent. Yet this little 2 minute 'trailer' for my Digital Video Editing course took, well, an all-nighter and then some. First I spent many hours cutting it up into tiny 'best shots' sub-clips, 35 in all. Then I took some still photos of backgrounds to try. Then I started to put it all together. I think I got into bed at 6am for about 2 hours. And it wasn't finished.
In class last Monday, where we got an extension of 2 weeks, whew, I realized that what I was doing was a 'mini' version of the story, and that's not what's required in the 'trailer' assignment.
So, begin again... (or finish this and begin again)
Final Cut Pro (in class) and Express (what I work in at home) is drag and drop, and ooh la! I think trying to line up a snippet of a scene with the layers I like to work with and with dissolves in and out would take minutes rather than an hour if it were all done with a time line, with numbers. But I am told once I get used to the drag & drop interface that I'll find it very easy to work with. I haven't crossed that threshold yet, still being stuck somewhere on the learning curve like Sisyphus.
Music in the Morning
coral breakers in the sky this morning,
waves of luminous red
Jamendo blog, playlist: Valentines 2009 (quite listenable, enjoyable, especially since it's a list put together by someone else, just sit back)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Octaves
The octaves. I am a child on a swing, flung out past the boundaries. My long-silenced throat clears, a tiny AUM. Louder. A simple scale, up and down.
I hope the others in the room, for we all move with our eyes shut, dancing our internal dramas, aren't irritated by my sudden child-like joy, the octaves.
I release the table, roll on the floor, light laugh,
Graceful and majestic, lyric and epic, intimate and panoramic. Very beautiful.
Ai!R, Waxworks.
Comment I left: This music uplifts and takes me to places I haven't been before. It mirrors my experience. Gentle and majestic. The intimate and the massive vision of the panorama. Very Russian! Heaven in a grain of sand, or eternity in a wildflower [Blake]. You can feel your own pulse in Ai!R's music, and the expansion and contraction, the heartbeat of the galaxies. In this flowing jungle of orchestral electronic ambient alternative music. Beauty. Longing. Gracious love. Strong bonds of the heart, warmth.
Highly recommended! Kudos! You honour us, Ai!R, with your music! Thank you....
(I posted a link to this site last month, but it had only two tracks then, the entire album has since been added.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Flying Earth
Gennie was wonderful, witnessing, giving us her responses, the woman is a seer, a poet, she is. We got into some pretty deep stuff, some of us. Yeah - I sorta was rumbling by the last set! Authentic Movement is a beautiful process. I'm always amazed at how deep everyone can go with it.
It felt strange, for me, who is so private, to cry before others, and yet I did, and I was grateful for the 'river of life,' healing, survival, continuance, profoundly so for love, loving, and then out to torrential rains, wet-through by the time I reached home, and a fresh umbrella and a 2km dog walk, she in her leaking red nylon dogcoat, my boots leaking near the end when we came to the park, both of us waterlogged, the rivers pouring from the sky...
Post the little pastel I did after the middle set, which I won't get into, but, ahh. Well. I literally had to force myself to go to the workshop, held in my area, so close by, I've been cloistered and very withdrawn of late as I come to terms with everything that's happened.
The nearly four hours we spent together, the small group gathered, the facilitator, her perceptions, compassionate, non-judgmental, helped.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls - link to flickr slideshow
Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
Bowl After Singing Bowl of Horizons, a prose poem of my life in sections, part scrapbook, part travelogue, an immigrant poem of the always arriving with its tracings of memories of the singing bowls of horizons traversed, maps a journey across continents...and is embedded in the following nineteen photomontages. The full poem is appended here.
flickr seems to do a better job of posting a slideshow of photos, it's just got limitations (of 200 photos max) on its free service that Yahoo introduced when it took over the company (flickr originally created by a small Vancouver company of 5 people, one of whom I met at a blogging conference there & talked with for about an hour). Picasa, while a great service with far more 'free' space (1GB), seems to muddle the appended text, in this case poems, by removing the formatting, whereas flickr leaves it in. And the flickr slideshow is definitely better- just image, sized to your screen, no finding what to click to render the text invisible and that you should only see if you want to look at the images individually.
I've added a link to the flickr slideshow of this autobiographical photopoem to my blogger sidebar.
Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls - link to Picasa slideshow
Bowl After Singing Bowl of Horizons, a prose poem of my life in sections, part scrapbook, part travelogue, an immigrant poem of the always arriving with its tracings of memories of the singing bowls of horizons traversed, maps a journey across continents...and is embedded in the following nineteen photomontages. The full poem is appended at the end.
For years I have been meaning to re-size and upload this to a better site than where it was. I composed it in 2004 while living in Vancouver, Canada, from family photographs, mostly, and sometimes other images from travel or government sites (which are documented in the file info). I moved with my children to Vancouver in 2003 and returned home in 2005, coming back to Toronto, to the familial and the familiar. I've created a slideshow at Picasa, as well as posted each photo montage poem here (click on them for a larger size). It's long, but I hope you enjoy!
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
|From Horizon After Horizon of Singing Bowls
for my father, D. Richard Clews, 1922-1984
An autobiographic prose poem in 19 sections
My father is pulling me
over the ever-changing horizon,
moving from one country to the next.
I am an immigrant,
I am the landed and the converted.
I am one of the millions from elsewhere.
I arrived when I was ten,
and I am still arriving.
I crawl over the globe,
composed of bowl
after singing bowl of horizons,
I am a trajectory;
I have no roots;
only the tracings of memories
of the continents I have lived on.
Deft sweep
between earth and sky,
dividing one from the other,
the horizon holds us in place,
the horizon keeps us here.
It surrounds us like a bowl,
an arc, a place of vanishing...
What is on this side
is now, the actual, the real;
what is on the other side is sky,
the unfathomable, mist,
what is disappearing into the beyond.
I am from elsewhere,
over and past the horizon,
from the place of vanishing.
The horizon opens before me
and closes behind me.
He is striding
over the landscape
khaki pockets full with stone shards
dust in his hair, on his clothes
hundreds of sample bags in canvas carriers
reading the land, its composition
the way I read a recipe.
My father, the geologist,
when I was two, emptying
our tiny apartment onto a truck,
packing my mother and I into his jeep
journeying deep into the bush in Zambia,
dirt roads bumpy with potholes
untouched raw land, Savannah, grasslands, forest
the jungle closing over us, like vines, tall winding grasses
like branches of baobab trees grown thick as roots in the sky,
pushing the petrol pedal with his snake boots
our surrounding thick with insects
alive with the fauna of jungle animals.
Two hundred miles from the nearest town
our encampment in Kafue National Park
half a century ago, without fridges or stoves or bathrooms
or the TV that didn't come to Africa for another decade,
joining a team of white explorers,
an American mining company prospecting for copper.
Our house, stamped dirt walkways
between mud huts:
living room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom, outhouse.
We travel from hut to hut the way you walk from room to room.
My playground, all of the outdoors.
Singing bowl of life, the Kafue River flowing clear,
fresh, pure, under a deep, pure sky.
We live among the animals:
slow and awkward giraffes, lazy belching hippos,
crocodiles as sly as water-logged logs,
long slithery pythons, blinding spitting snakes,
deadly black mambas, panoplies of birds,
herds of lumbering African elephants,
buck nimbly dancing over thSavannahah,
ants as huge as the paperclip holding these pages,
and once a lion who was blond and noisy.
My father, the prospectors
digging trenches, taking samples
following the flow of the river,
its sediments.
My nanny, who I climb all over,
welcomes me into her brood of children,
and Neddy, my first best friend...
though forbidden, I go often to their village,
sit in dark huts, roofs of thick dried grass
and bright sarongs for doors, eat meals
of mealie-meal, a young white guest...
the Nedembu people, their hospitality
their stories of the many spirits their
rituals appease in the beyond for the here.
On weekends we hear drumming,
and the gigantic ones used to send messages
from village to village, and there is dancing
and singing, this drumbeat in my heart.
I am the only white child.
I am blonde, blue-eyed, pale-skinned.
I am an English transplant.
I am worshipped, honoured, adored.
I am shy and frightened, and always
ride away on my tricycle as soon as I can.
In meditation, I imagine those ebony people,
their dark eyes, so shiny they reflect you back to yourself,
huge baobab trees, cerulean skies, flies and mosquitoes,
spectral warmth of sun, their hair, curly and fuzzy, soft,
bushy, that I love to touch, their language, its short
fast syllables that I speak better than English,
the vivid patterns of their wrap around clothes,
and elegance, carrying huge baskets of fruit on their heads,
their sensual movement, the way they speak
like a music of rivers flowing into the Falls,
and try to understand why,
why not a black child?
Lorries come and go
carrying supplies, medicine in
samples of rock and soil out.
Before the rainy season
a convoy of trucks appear,
sacks of flour, rice, potatoes,
cans of condensed milk, powdered milk,
fruit, vegetables, corned beef,
crates of beer, wine, coffee, tea
a truckload of toilet paper,
everything a civilized group needs.
Then the land closes in, and the rains come,
and flood our dirt roads, and everybody stays in,
waiting, playing cards, arguing, writing reports,
struggling with mosquitoes and isolation.
For four years, collecting samples
waiting out the rainy seasons,
flying into town and back
in the small bush plane,
then the mining company
looking for copper shuts camp
and we journey out of the jungle.
Out of the back of the jeep,
the horizon like a green snake
holding the earth on this side.
The dome of the jungle sky
unfolds from the earth
clear blue in daytime,
dense black in night-time,
clustered with billions of stars,
the great lights of the sky,
calling us beyond
our imaginings.
For the last time
that dome of night sky
unfathomably rich with stars.
The lights ahead spread like stars,
each town we come to,
streetlights, cars, movement, energy,
the rectangular glow of office buildings,
lights emanating from windows
of rows of warm houses
kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms,
places to eat, relax, sleep,
everywhere this light
twinkling if you are ascending or descending
in an airplane,
meaning, always, inhabitation.
Everywhere in the world.
The world of the jungle vanishes
behind the horizon as we journey on
now a family of five, to Lusaka,
capital of Zambia.
No soft earth underfoot here,
concrete and tarmac,
stiff school desks, whites only,
our house in the suburbs,
the tiny concrete box out back
with a mattress and shower
for the black servants,
my playmates, my friends, my teachers,
my soul mates, this apartheid.
in the shadows
of my bedroom
in our brick house
where only the angels
offer comfort.
Angels whose wings
are like iridescent
rainbows in the spray
over Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya,
the smoke that
My father pulls us through the southern tip
of the continent,
leaving Lusaka, a year later,
on our way to England,
whirling through the eyehole of Capetown,
birth place of my parents,
here, grandparents, aunts and uncles,
and dozens of cousins, all strangers.
I am seven years old, the merry-go-round
in the park my favourite place,
spinning around and around,
as I thread the horizons of my life.
I am learning to make friends
and to leave them.
Curl of ocean foam, white sand beach, mountain flat on top
this picturesque picture remains.
Boarding a huge ocean liner,
relatives like mirages, people I am connected to but do not know,
waving, waving goodbye.
I am leaving something I have never known,
extended family, a brood of belonging, an understanding of heritage.
I am an immigrant, always from elsewhere, always under my
eyelids another vision plays its scenes.
The ship, like a village on the ocean, massive, luxurious.
From the porthole in my cabin
the slosh of ocean blue against blue sky.
Only this stark horizon of the leaving of Africa.
A man dresses as Neptune as we cross the equator.
Long flowing white scraggly hair, stamping his trident on the deck,
a sack wrapped around his torso, judging.
Beautiful women are captured by crew,
their hair scrubbed with flour and water,
thrown into the pool.
People are drinking and cheering.
The whole ship parties.
I hide while I watch,
not wanting to be dowsed with flour and water,
not wanting my hair turned into solid snake strands.
My brothers and I are twirled in streamers
as we race from Neptune's helpers.
Tropical heat, its comfort radiating
everywhere, the freedom of sundresses and shorts
drifts into the haze beyond the horizon as the air cools,
cooler, approaching the English shore,
grey, dismal, raining landscape.
Damp and wet and cold, I shiver for months.
When I discover the snow one morning
I cry, the cold, my feet burn, my hands, red and frosted.
We live in Frinton-by-the-Sea for a year,
then move to Barnet for two years.
My accent is strange,
my skin, sun-browned.
I am shy, an outsider
who doesn't fit in
until my Zambian accent
submerges under an English one
and my skin becomes as pale as cream.
I look and sound like any English school girl.
Africa is not a very romantic continent to come from.
My father is always away working,
in Zimbabwe prospecting in the fields,
now Uganda researching his PhD thesis,
then home to write in the tiny room we share,
by day, his study, by night, my bedroom,
then offered two positions, in Australia, in Canada,
deciding that Canada is better for raising children
he leaves half a year early to find and furnish a home.
My father, the geochemist, running a lab in Toronto
by the airport, hundreds of bags of soil samples arriving daily.
Later he runs the company, travels, publishes, speaks
at conferences, becomes a world authority in his field,
always bringing gifts, charms for my bracelets,
from every continent, country, state, province,
Indian elephant, English teapot, Mexican sombrero,
Egyptian cobra, Polynesian fish, tiny silver clogs from Holland,
a French Eiffel Tower, Chinese pagoda, Norwegian reindeer,
memories of his travels, tiny chinking bells wherever I go.
The journey across the Atlantic, stormy, cold,
the ocean a heave of blue and black depth, icebergs float
nearby near Canada, land of extremes we are coming to.
My father prepares us, shows us pictures
of the hot, steam-filled Summers and the cold, snowy Winters.
He says Canada is like America, but less violent, safer.
Canada, an answer to the apartheid he chose to withdraw from
to protect his family and his family's family. Without us,
he would have stayed to fight the system from within.
The P.O.W. who did not want his sons conscripted
in a battle he did not believe in: Give Africa to its rightful peoples.
The man who struggled with Apartheid in his bones,
the food he was raised on, the way it built his culture,
and the clash of a contradictory belief in democracy,
education for all, a fair and just society for all.
South Africa, what he escaped from, returning once,
twenty-two years later, a memory of pain.
He did not live to see liberation.
They are shouting, Canada! Canada!
I run to the top deck and hold the railing
looking at the land that is drawing us in.
My first sighting, the evergreen forests on the St. Lawrence.
Tall, straight, fern-straight trees, imposing, not letting you in,
this grandeur, these trees that survive heat and cold and high winds,
not like the overflowing chaos of a tropical jungle.
We land in Montreal at night, car lights, street lights, train lights,
throwing bags from one vehicle to another, as if in a dream
and catch a train to Toronto...
Toronto, where I live for 40 years of the four seasons,
school, university, falling in love, marrying, having children, becoming
a single mother, this not uncommon story.
Yet the child who arrived here is always drawing another landscape
behind the horizon of this city.
I look Canadian, I sound Canadian, I know the history
of this country and who the prime minister is.
But I am a counterfeit Canadian.
I have traversed continents, my accent replaced three times.
In the back of my consciousness
the two great continents have not drifted apart but remain fused,
under the layer of the North American continent
the African subcontinent.
These lands, different as they are, interlace,
svelte pine forests and the tangle of jungle,
crowds of shoppers on Queen Street and the amassing
of villagers before a dance and feast,
cars, trucks, trolleys, noise of the city, ambulance sirens screaming
and the jungle at night, roar of animals, prey and predator, sounds of death.
Two transparent layers vying for authenticity.
I carry dual citizenship.
My overlay, Canadian; my underlay, other.
I am not a woman of colour, my accent, not foreign,
my ethnicity not carried like a passport, I'm not from
romantic Europe, or the lush Greek Islands,
or the exotic Middle East, nor the Russian expanse,
no cradle of Western art and thought,
nor South America, its pre-Columbian heritage,
or the panorama of Oriental countries, their
early writing and ornate art, and architecture,
nor sensual and spiritual India, rich with culture,
and even Egypt�s wonders classified Ancient Near East
as if to distance it from the peoples without a holy book
of their own, the strange black shadow, the land
of warring tribes, of wooden stone art, where
starvation and AIDS kills millions, an orphaned land,
the primitive continent.
I carry Africa like a proud heritage.
I was born in a country in the lower end of Africa
with perfect weather, not too hot, or cold, or humid,
lush, rich, flowing, abundant.
Now that country is ravaged by disease, poverty, a despotic government.
Now it is the saddest country in Africa.
That is where I am from.
I did not grow on Canadian soil,
my mother was not nourished by these skies,
she didn't carry me through three starkly different seasons
and deliver me into a fourth season
as different from the other three as ice from snow.
I am an African transplant.
I was born under a canopy of stars in a small mining town,
Sinoia, in Southern Rhodiesia, an English colony.
My mother says my head was covered in blonde wet curls.
A white child in the black country of Zimbabwe.
I am a colonial transplant.
Do I belong anywhere?
Lured by warmer winters, the lush green
rainforest that bathes the city in one long season
most like Spring, a horizon of ocean and mountain,
I leave Toronto for Vancouver.
Outside my window the twinkling of lights of houses
like stars nestled against the mountain.
How many of us are from elsewhere,
carrying our memories?
As I write, I see many belongings,
glossy-haired Native Indians, the original beholders,
and English and French colonial settlers
and their descendants, stars, spreading,
inhabiting this expanse of northern land.
And peoples from every country on the globe,
arriving, living their lives from this moment, here,
other horizons, translucent memories, but here, their families,
a dance of many-hued races, colours, a multi-ethnicity.
These charms singing, these horizons of singing bowls.
Copyright 2004 by Brenda Clews
Saturday, February 07, 2009
My son is working through massive issues and I want to support him in that process in any and all ways I can.
The 'ex' or 'father' is being inexplicably, oh, can I say it, cruel, refusing to speak, even hanging up on me, not paying child support for our daughter who lives with me and is returning at last to school to take a night course that may help her get back on course.
I have employment worries as my employment insurance is coming to an end, and while I have a good independent business idea have not been able to afford the courses I need to prepare myself for marketing my services.
I continue to look for work while feeling caught in a nethersphere of possibilities all of which are indistinct like balloons you can't quite catch and which you're not sure if you could whether they could carry you to a place of security.
Of course I worry continually about my son in the midst of his bifurcated family that is warring with itself continually, if that metaphor is apt.
One of the main reasons I moved to Vancouver, a move that only lasted two years, was to remove my children from this situation in the hopes that they might regain their inner strength and happiness and energy to forge their lives. It didn't happen - I wasn't able to find full-time work and so we returned to Ontario. Where the worst things happened. Everything I feared with the 'other' household came to pass. The effects have been disastrous. In retrospect, I wonder if we should have remained on the other side of the country because we would have become used to West Coast life eventually and it might have been much healthier for all of us. My kids would never agree to this vision of what life 'could have been like' of mine, but I wonder if I'd just 'stuck it out' in Vancouver if somehow we could have bypassed the breakdowns both of my children have experienced since returning and once again spending all or a large part of their time in the other household (and I would include the total and irrational rejection of my son for an entire year by his father/the other household as part of the 'problems' generated by that household).
With no answers, but many ruminations, I drift humbly through the days, spending most of my time alone in intense meditation.
Perhaps it is life that is the poetic itself: the 'messiness of reality,' the chaotic undercurrents.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The Great Bliss Queen's Mansion of Flaming Bliss
It's also a celebration of finally being able to copy everything from my old 2003 iMac - OSX 10.2.8 - (which still runs like a charm) onto a storage hard drive successfully. I found the poem and its image among the documents from the old iMac and was able to post it along with an embedded link to a reading of the poem (my first poetry recording).
Which feels good.
While I should have sent "Bliss Queen" out to literary journals (I have read it at a few university conferences, and at various poetry readings and received postitive feedback from the academic crowd -being taken aside for private commendations afterwards), my blog is my journal and having it here starting this writerly enterprise seems right.
Direct url: http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2004/10/great-bliss-queens-mansion-of-flaming.html
Sunday, February 01, 2009
bruised tailbone is sore, but it's okay and the point is not to focus on it, not on such an afternoon of thick blue presided over by a winter sun
spoke to my son by phone and he seems to be recuperating, says he feels physically alright although perhaps not quite so emotionally but things are fine
I'll see him during the week, when we can talk more
The patterns are like deep ocean currents and not what the current weather is.
'Pull Down the Northern Lights for Chandeliers,' Zoom video August 20, 2020
"I'd dance to death to evoke it." "Who in me writes?" It was a rich, varied poetry evening where we read, talked ...
Because I'm working through some personal challenges, and chose a very difficult meditation to do every day (that I'll post that ano...
The Buddha says: " You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself ." The path is uncertain. Uncertainty is the guiding for...
Yogi Bhajan said of this set when he taught it: This set is especially recommended for women as a regular practice. It wards off menstrual...


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- Soft, diffused light keeps dining pleasant
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Summer (Catholic) Reading
Saturday Book Pick: the Ratzingers at home, faith at the office, Bible basics.
A Tale of 2 Brothers
By Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, as told to Michael Hesemann
Ignatius, 2011
270 pages, $24.95
To order: ignatius.com
(800) 651-1531
The vital importance of holy, Catholic family life in helping a young man to discern the call to priesthood and all that may follow from that call, including even becoming the Pope, is at the heart of this book-length interview with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger. Midway through the sympathetic interview, conducted by German journalist Michael Hesemann, Pope Benedict XVI's elder brother cites the Ratzinger family itself as the key ingredient that influenced his and his brother's decisions to become priests.
"It was clear to me from the beginning — although serving at the altar and, of course, perhaps more than anything else, the spirituality of our family had something to do with it — that I would go into ministry." Young Joseph Ratzinger later followed his brother into the diocesan seminary, and the two have been intimate blood brothers and brothers in the Lord ever since.
Authenticity is at the heart of their lives and spirituality. "As brothers, Joseph and I were one heart and one soul; naturally we also quarreled and fought, that is part of it, but by and large we were inseparable, and that remained so our whole life long," Msgr. Ratzinger told Hesemann. The reader quickly comes to believe that Pope Benedict would only reinforce and echo the memories of his brother, so close are the two even up to the present day, with Georg living in Germany and his brother at the Vatican, where regular brotherly reunions take place throughout the year.
The spirituality of the Ratzinger family was marked by love, prayer, liturgical worship, Marian piety, pilgrimages, convivial parish life, love for sacred music and a deep concern for the welfare of others. It also took place within — and to a large degree in opposition to — the Nazi takeover of their beloved homeland. The Ratzingers, like many serious Catholic families in Germany, suffered at the hands of the pagan disciples of Hitler, but this suffering only served to make them even more dedicated to Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church. The Ratzinger brothers, along with their sister, Maria, and their parents, Joseph and Maria, lived in a variety of small Bavarian towns where the elder Joseph served as a policeman. The senior Ratzinger's opposition to the Nazi leadership did not make for a stellar career in the police force, and the family was forced to move a number of times. But throughout their trials, the family only grew closer.
Msgr. Ratzinger, who became a famous choir director in Regensburg, Germany, is known to have an extraordinarily accurate and detailed memory, which shows itself in various colorful descriptions of the homes, towns, churches and schools where the family lived out their Catholic spirituality. The monsignor displays in his depictions just how Bavarian spirituality, like all solid Catholic spirituality, is earthy, grounded in reality, sacramental, beautiful and joyful. He usually embellishes his recollections with descriptions of delicious German foods that were served on various occasions and which make for mouth-watering reading. He told Hesemann, who does a masterful job of keeping the story moving forward, about a meal that was served upon the Pope's return to the brothers' hometown after the Pope's election: "Eventually there was breznsuppe (pretzel soup), roast beef smothered in onions, spätzle, and finally a pineapple custard; everything tasted wonderful."
There are dozens of rarely seen color and black-and-white photos interspersed throughout the book. Especially interesting are the ordination photos of the Pope and Msgr. Ratzinger, who were ordained together in 1951. The Ratzinger family's spirituality has produced an abundance of priestly spirituality that has benefitted the world greatly. This book helps to explain the source of so many graces that have come from so faithful a Catholic family.
Father Matthew Gamber writes from Chicago.
Faith at Work
Tools for Integrating Faith and Work
By Randy Hain
Liguori Publications, 2011
137 pages, $16.99
To order: liguori.org
(800) 325-9521
Written with the zeal of a convert and the concision of a businessman with a knack for marketing, The Catholic Briefcase, as the title implies, might be geared toward executive types struggling to grow in faith, discover spiritual balance amid the flux of corporate life and be leaven to their colleagues. Then again, this book could just as easily fit into the lunch box of a construction worker eager to deepen and share his faith. In either case, the book offers a valuable return on investment.
Randy Hain, managing partner of an Atlanta-based executive search firm and co-founder of the e-magazine Integrated Catholic Life, has written a practical and powerful book suitable for any Catholic, whether or not he wears a suit to work, let alone carries a briefcase. This book is for any reader who wants to wholesomely incorporate his faith into the workday world rather than relegating it to Sundays. Ours is an apostolic faith, meaning we're sent out to spread the Good News, not read it at home, praise it at church and keep mum at all other times. It is also for those who don't share the Gospel out of honest confusion and misplaced fear: How can I share the faith without sounding like a buffoon, either Elmer Gantry or Ned Flanders but wearing a crucifix? Then again, isn't it against company policy to proselytize, anyway?
This book answers questions along these lines for men and women of good will who want to fully live their Catholicism rather than leaving their faith at the door when they go to work. And as for that last question about proselytizing, Hain gives a clear and compelling answer typical of the style and content of this practical primer for fusing faith and work:
"I have heard many times that expressing faith in the workplace is 'against company policy.' Have you actually seen a written policy addressing making the Sign of the Cross and praying at meals, praying quietly at your desk, going to Mass at lunch, or wearing ashes on your forehead on Ash Wednesday? Let me challenge all of us to consider the possibility that much of our fear may be based on a false perception of possible persecution and not reality. Therefore, use your right to live your life as faithfully as you possibly can. In doing so, you will not only find work more enjoyable, but you will inspire others to do the same."
Making the faith part of our comfort zone, Hain implies, is key to becoming comfortable sharing it with others. For the faith should be worn as naturally and comfortably as a well-tailored suit whose top quality but modest appearance pleases an onlooker's eye without his even noticing exactly why — versus, say, a garish outfit that's the sartorial equivalent of a street-corner evangelist repelling passersby with an un-Christlike invitation to hell sans repentance. Hain does not recommend that style of proselytizing, of course, which gives the word a negative connotation, besides being ineffective and, if not against company policy per se, certainly worth a dressing-down in personnel. Being on fire with a pure and luminous faith, however, presents a welcoming light, not hellfire to burn nonbelievers that could be grounds for getting fired or at least being shunned at the company "holiday" party.
Before we can become comfortable sharing the faith, however, we must, to borrow from St. Paul, put on our spiritual power suits. To this end, Hain stresses the importance of developing a disciplined prayer life with set times ("If it's not on the calendar [traditional or smartphone version], it rarely happens") that taps into the Church's wellspring of prayer practices and devotions. (He finds the Rosary and the Jesuits' Daily Examen particularly powerful through practice, making it second nature.) And as for daily Mass, the Eucharist is the ultimate power lunch to nourish the heart, mind and soul of the believer, empowering him to present the faith with knowledge, compassion and grace. Presented right, the faith is lovely to behold and a treasure to share. And Randy Hain is an able guide in helping Christians do that higher work we all are called to perform, however we earn our daily bread. In writing The Catholic Briefcase, Hain deserves some well-earned bread, too, so do buy his book, and you will count yourself blessed.
Matthew A. Rarey writes from Chicago.
Don't Know Much About the Bible?
A New Picture of Salvation History
By John Bergsma
Ave Maria Press, 2012
192 pages, 14.95
To order: avemariapress.com
"You ought to know the Bible better than you do, and you probably feel vaguely guilty that you don't."
This opening sentence to Bible Basics for Catholics: A New Picture of Salvation History by John Bergsma, associate professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, is the author's motivation for writing this concise but rich book in which he hopes to make "the Bible's big picture […] begin to make more sense" for the reader. He fulfills this goal admirably.
Bergsma's approach is to give an overview of salvation history as presented in the Bible as a series of covenants between God and man, or what he calls "mountaintop experiences." One chapter is devoted to each of the six covenants (with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus), with an additional chapter exploring the prophets' role in anticipating the New Covenant, that is: Jesus Christ.
In the introduction, three key terms (covenant, mediator and mountain) integral to the entire approach of the book are explained. Each chapter has suggested Scripture readings. In addition, the reader will be given many, sometimes extended, quotes from the Bible in the text itself. Simple line drawings in the author's own hand may provide a chuckle or two, but they serve to reinforce and make memorable what is learned. Each chapter ends with a pictorial recap of all covenants explored to that point. Particularly powerful is the last chapter, which shows how Jesus fulfills the expectations of each covenant and establishes the New Covenant promised by the prophets, neatly tying together everything presented to that point. An afterword provides encouragement to the reader to respond to the message of Scripture with a deeper appreciation and enthusiasm for the sacraments, the Catholic faith, Scripture and evangelization.
Even though this is a basic, non-intimidating overview of the Bible, the author is not afraid to deepen our appreciation of Scripture by occasionally introducing some important technical terms and Hebrew and Greek words, always explaining them thoroughly and understandably. He also regularly brings out profound and interesting points, like the meaning of the word "manna" or the importance of the seemingly obscure figure Melchizedek. Humor is interspersed occasionally, lightening things up, but always serving to make a point.
The book would have benefited from discussion and reflection questions after each chapter for those who wish to use it for more formal Bible study or meditation. Also, for those who have been away from the Scriptures for a while and are wondering about the best translation to use, a recommendation for a Bible version does not appear until well into the second chapter. The suggested reading section is not very extensive, but the concluding "Notes" section (be sure to keep a finger in this section while you're reading) makes up for it, with references to many scholarly resources for those wanting to take deeper dives into certain areas of interest.
This book is based on the very popular "Principles of Biblical Study" courses that Bergsma teaches, one of which I had the pleasure of being enrolled in a few years ago. While nothing beats his engaging live presentation of the material, this volume is the next best thing to being there.
Richard Grebenc writes from Chicago.


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So this afternoon on rounds I found the following note in one of my hospital patient's charts. (NOTE- for my non-medical readers, PRN means "when needed")
Hmmm. That depends, Nurse. What are you planning on doing with him?
A Blog detailing the insanity of my medical practice and the stupidity of everyday life.
Was he admitted with chest pain? I would hate to guess how many times that gets checked on med rec forms to continue without anyone paying attention to what they are checking. I can't believe someone would leave a hand written note to try to get you to order it!!
Maybe she's the HEAD Nurse.
Now that's a full service hospital.
Can I get admitted?
Bwahahahahaha. I hope he's a good looking patient at least.
No seriously, why would he need that med in a hospital bed????
Please take this very seriously:
http://www.innerself.com/Sex_Talk/Sexual_Surrogate.htm .
The service provided by nurses is often taken for granted and not properly appreciated.
this isn't the same guy from a few weeks ago that had to make sure his "equipment" was still working after his stroke?
Maybe she was just trying to reconcile the meds... (one can hope). Or perhaps he has a tremor and can help himself?
Damn, what kind of hospital are YOU working at?
When I worked at the hospital pharmacy, we had a bet going as to when we would see our first Viagra ordered on admission after it was approved. I said 2 weeks after it came to market. I won. My prize was to go and verbally bitch-slap the nurse that wrote out the "continue all meds as at home" order. I also got to verbally abuse the doc who approved the order, though I was much nicer to him. Doctors are delicate creatures, present company excluded.
With my tongue firmly in my cheek, I ask whether or not you are sure that this wasn't for the off label use of a PDE5 inhibitor for anal fissure Rx?
Maybe the he (the patient) was expecting visitors?
This reminds me of a visit I had to my sister's house. Her 8 year old son was outside shooting hoops and singing Viva Viagra at the top of his lungs..
Keeps them from rolling out of bed.
Hmmmm... must have been the same nurse that called a doctor in the middle of the night to ask if they could change an order from rectal tylenol to oral tylenol.
Some of that stuff is 'marketed' to be taken every day, not just 'when'. Maybe the patient (or nurse) was confused about the dosing frequency issue.
(Probably not--just not thinking.)
Guess she was trying to keep his "spirits" up
Maybe his girlfriend is planning a conjugal visit?
Maybe he was ad-dick-ted to it.
What is the joke behind this? I don't get it...
Moppie- Cialis is used for Erectile Dysfunction, same as Viagra.
So why would he be taking it in the hospital?...
Thank you Grumpy :)
I'm not in the medical field.
I am not in the medical field, either. So just watch what I say and don't say it, and you will be safer.
Dr. Chipper said,
"For all you know I'm really a Mongolian yak herder and have no medical training at all except in issues regarding the care and feeding of Mongolian yaks"
He is entirely unqualified to speak about yaks. For example,
Pure-breeding is the predominant practice with yak. Apart from a scheme involving selection in crossbreds of wild yak with domestic yak in a process of breed development (see Chapter 2), no information has become available on rigorous selection programmes consistently applied for the improvement of the performance of yak in China. However, some selection schemes appear to be under consideration both in China and other countries. The dearth of organized selection schemes is not surprising with an absence of written records of performance and pedigrees and because of the location of yak in harsh environments and remote regions. Herdsmen in some areas, such as those of the Jiulong yak, have a traditional system of selection for replacement bulls. The Jiulong scheme considers the performances of the sires and maternal performance, as well as the physical appearance of the individual. It has to be remembered that the capacity to survive must be one of the chief attributes in the genetic makeup of the yak. This characteristic is likely to be under constant pressure from natural selection.
Dr. Cheerful's failure to inform you of this important information proves you should not trust him for information on the care and breeding of your yak.
You never know when the the hospital visit is going to get exciting!
Well, did you write the order??
Bet that nurse reads this blog. >.<
There is reason to believe there is no labeled indication for the use of Cialis, Viagra, or Levitra in the domesticated yak population based on studies submitted to the FDA. I'm pretty sure about that. Whether any of these drugs affect hair growth, pediatric, nursing, and other special populations, or are even passed into breast milk usually doesn't impact those for whom the drug is indicated is another matter.
"keeps them from rolling out of bed."
Little Calf Creamery. Delicious homemade ice cream and food in Thousand Oaks!


text:
At first flicker, the Turner Classic Movies documentary "And the Oscar Goes To ..." appears to be little more than a promotional film for the Academy Awards.
It is, after all, an inside job: co-directed by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members Jeffrey Friedman and Robert Epstein, who is also a two-time Oscar winner and an Academy governor.
And the work, which debuts Saturday at 8 p.m. EST on TCM, was produced with cooperation from its subject, the Academy itself.
But just when the film starts to be too reverential or overly celebratory, along comes a chapter about the academy's sometimes embarrassing past, followed by additional scattered criticism to offset the cheers.
While the academy and TCM were partners on the Oscar documentary, "We had final cut on the film," explained Epstein ("The Times of Harvey Milk") in a recent interview. "We wanted to tell the history as truthfully as we saw it."
Epstein and Friedman got the idea for the film when they came across film footage of actress Jane Fonda backstage talking with media after winning her best-actress Oscar for the 1971 drama "Klute." Many had expected Fonda, an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, to say something about the conflict in her acceptance speech. But she did not. After her win, she told reporters that she didn't need to mention the "murders being committed in our name in Indochina. And I think everyone out there is as aware of it as I am," she explained.
"That was really the moment that really crystalized this whole project for us," said Epstein, who explained the clip inspired how he and Friedman would tell Oscar's story. "We thought, `We have to find a way to tell this bigger story from the perspective of the people who are living out this experience,' and there are so many layers to that experience."
Fonda, Helen Mirren, Cher, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are among those who granted the documentarians interviews, and reflected on the magic and mayhem of being an Oscar nominee, and winner.
Gold was also mined from the motion picture academy's vaults, with the academy giving the filmmakers "carte blanche," including footage not seen, or not seen in extended versions, since the original showing.
There's an 86-year-old clip of an Oscar presentation to the first best-actress winner, Janet Gaynor. There's a hilarious speech by actress Hermoine Gingold, accepting on behalf of the screenwriters of the 1956 epic "Around the World in 80 Days."
And there's a soundbite from a young Angelina Jolie, on the red carpet with father Jon Voight. A reporter asks her, "Actress?" Jolie, wearing braces, smiles nervously and says, "Not really."
The serious stuff includes a mention of the academy's earliest days, which included a brief period where it supported studios' efforts against workers' unions. There's a more extensive section about the Academy's denial of Oscars, even credits, to screenwriters on Sen. Joseph McCarthy's so-called "blacklist."
Whoopi Goldberg makes a powerful statement about the 24-year gap between Oscar wins for black actors, the first going to actress Hattie McDaniel in "Gone with the Wind" (1939), and next to actor Sidney Poitier for "Lillies of the Field" (1963).
"There's a lot of white people in between," Goldberg noted, with a chuckle of disbelief. "That's a long time."
"And the Oscar Goes To ..." also acknowledges what could be the most consistent criticism of the Academy Awards: How they've turned artistic achievement into a competition.
"I could feel this hunger and grasping I didn't like," actress Ellen Burstyn says in the film, which shows her sitting in the audience as her category is being presented the year she won for the 1974 dramedy "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
Burstyn goes on to say of fellow nominee Gena Rowlands' performance in "A Woman Under the Influence":
"That's an Academy Award-winning part. (Just) not my award."
Since the Oscars were created 86 years ago, countless critics, guild and other shows have emerged to create an entire awards season in Hollywood and throughout the world.
And yet the film's directors said the Academy Awards remains The Big Show of the movie-award statuettes.
"Well, the Oscars were first." Friedman noted. "They were the ones that set the tone (86) years ago, and it's retained that glow over time."
Added Epstein, "I think the Academy has done a good job of keeping the yin and yang of the glam factor and the real, and the fact that both of those things really do co-exist as part of the Oscar experience. I think that that's part of the magic of it."


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Venue: Iron Horse Music Hall
Date: Saturday, November 16, 2019 ~ 7:00 PM
Online sales for this show closed at 3PM. You can get tickets until 4PM in person at NBO or by phone at 586-8686, or at the door tonight.
The New York Times called Buffalo, NY born Willie Nile "one of the most gifted singer-songwriters to emerge from the New York scene in years." Uncut Magazine called him "A one-man Clash." His album Streets Of New York was hailed as "a platter for the ages" by UNCUT magazine. Rolling Stone listed "The Innocent Ones" as one of the "Top Ten Best Under-The-Radar Albums of 2011" and BBC Radio called it "THE rock 'n' roll album of the year." Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Jim Jarmusch, and Little Steven are among those who have sung his praises. His 2013 album, "American Ride," won "Best Rock Album of the Year" at the Independent Music Awards. It appeared on dozens of year-end Top Ten lists for 2013 and was voted "Album Of The Year" at Twangville Magazine. Bono called it, "One of the great guides to unraveling the mystery that is the troubled beauty of America." Willie has toured across the U.S. with The Who and has sung with Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. His latest album is "Children of Paradise."
Performer Lineup: Willie Nile, Brad Ray


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Woman struck by Metro train at Cleveland Park | News
WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- Crews are working to remove a woman who was struck by a train at the Cleveland Park Metro station on Tuesday afternoon.
A Metro spokesperson says that at approximately 1:20 p.m. the woman intentionally placed herself on the tracks in front of an incoming Red Line train.
We are told the woman is conscious and breathing.
Metro officials say there are delays in both directions on the Red Line.


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Rumor has it Adele will release new music soon...finally...after more than four years.
The 27-year-old notoriously private "Rolling in the Deep" singer last released an album in 2011, the Grammy-winning "21," which had followed her debut major record, "19." Billboard is reporting that her record label, XL Recordings, plans to release her third album this November. Her rep had no comment.
In May 2014, before her 26th birthday, Adele posted a makeup-free selfie, saying, "Bye bye 25 ... See you again later in the year x," prompting fans to speculate that she planned to release a new album during the next few months titled "25," continuing the tradition of naming her records after years of her life.
U.S. & World
In a October 2014, an annual financial report by her record label stated there would be no new release by Adele that year.
NEWS: Adele makes rare appearance at FKA Twigs concert--see photos, plus check out a music update!
In 2012, more than a year after the release of 21, which dealt with heartbreak, Adele and longtime boyfriend Simon Konecki welcomed their first child together, son Angelo, who is now 2 and a half.
Pharrell Williams, OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder, Danger Mouse and Max Martin are among the artists and songwriters who have worked with the singer on her new album, Billboard reported.
Tedder, who co-wrote Adele's 2011 hit "Rumour Has It," told the Australia newspaper The Herald Sun in 2013 that the singer "sounds even better than before."
"I've seen her recently," Williams told Ryan Seacrest at Cannes Lions this past June, according to MTV U.K. "She's kinda like, 'OK guys, I'm gonna open my diary for 20 minutes'. So it's like, OK, you have 20 minutes, or 32 minutes really...Then she gives it to you and closes it up and disappears, and she's off with her beautiful boy–and that's what it's all about."
What will Adele's new album sound like? While there is no confirmation from the singer's rep or record company, pop star Kelly Clarkson told The Wall Street Journal in May that she heard the singer "is doing something more country influenced."
Pop crooner Ed Sheeran also offered a tiny hint about Adele's new music, although it's kind of expected: "I haven't heard [the record], but everyone I know who've worked on it is just like, 'Dude... that record!'" he told the U.K.'s Capital FM Radio recently. "Apparently it's really good!"


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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) A person familiar with the negotiations says first baseman James Loney and the Tampa Bay Rays have agreed to a $2 million, one-year contract.
The agreement is pending a physical, the person said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the deal has not yet been announced. Loney can make an additional $1 million in performance bonuses.
The 28-year-old, dealt to Boston in July as part of the trade that brought Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett to Los Angeles, hit .249 last season with six homers and 41 RBIs. He had 90 RBIs in each of the 2008 and 2009 seasons but his production has steadily declined.


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Nick graduated in Spring 2012 and within a couple of days, we'll hand over the reins to our new student bloggers for the Fall 2012 semester. Until then, here's one of the top posts from last semester. This is Part 3 of 6 of the "Getting Involved" series of posts. Whether you've read this particular post or not, we hope you will find it helpful and useful. We're excited to share it with you again! And be on the look out for a flurry of new posts from our new bloggers!
Getting Involved
This is post three of a six part series about involvement on campus. Part one discussed why I got involved, part two explained why I didn't get involved sooner, part three touches on the opportunities available through being involved, part four talks about leadership experience, part five explains how to go about getting involved and briefly what it takes up front and part six are my thoughts going forward for post graduation involvement.
Getting Involved; Part 3: New Opportunities
The context in which I'm drawing on my experience is in reference to business organizations, versus overall general involvement. Although the principles I'm going to touch upon can be applicable to things such as athletics or fraternities in some instances and not just limited to academic organizations.
Through joining AMA and CSAB it provided me with great opportunities to easily make new friends built on a foundation of common interest. Some of the friendships I've developed in these organizations carry on even though lots of my friends graduated in May 2011. I still keep in contact, still see these people in a social setting, and see them in professional settings as well. The connections I've developed extend beyond the walls of this college or any graduation date.
Another essential opportunity is one for professional networking. Anyone in business will tell you that networking is extremely important to anyone at any point in their career, especially college students. Aside from networking with your peers you have the opportunity to meet professionals from various industries. You can learn about marketing in the social media realm, the retail sector, the insurance world, etc. With today's technology it makes it even easier to keep these people as contacts through platforms like LinkedIn. Because of my involvement with these organizations there are recruiters, sales managers, or sales representatives from various companies that now know my face and name. They don't hesitate to stop me and chat if they see me at College of Business or marketing department functions.
This wouldn't be possible had I not been involved and networked to the best of my ability with whom I've had access to. Down the line you never know if you'll end up working for this individual, using the people you've met as referrals or doing business with them in the future. I've learned that people hire or do business with someone they know and like. It sort of pays homage to the saying "It's not what you know it's who you know." Pair great networking abilities/opportunities with the tools and skills learned at the NIU College of Business and you have two huge components in setting yourself up for success down the road.
To conclude this section I'd like to share a story that perfectly illustrates everything I've discussed so far. As President of the Collegiate Sales Advisory Board it is one of my responsibilities to meet once a semester with the sales faculty, marketing department chair, occasionally the Dean of the College of Business and anywhere from 20 – 30 representatives from different national and worldwide companies that make up the Sales Advisory Board. The purpose of the Sales Advisory Board is for companies and faculty to collaborate on improving the sales program and making sure the curriculum being taught and certifications earned, are directly applicable in the real world.
I interviewed during the fall with a company that sits on the Sales Advisory Board. Going a step further, I interviewed with the actual representative himself, not of the companies recruiters. Somewhere along the line whether it was my interview or my online personality test results, they decided not to invite me in for a second interview. Nearly a month later, this individual and I are at the Sales Advisory Board meeting and I'm on the agenda to discuss CSAB's activities as well as providing insight on discussion of where our sales program is headed for the future. After a couple of hours we break for lunch and the individual I previously interviewed with asked me to step outside with him. He then told me that he was extremely impressed with how I handled myself in front of a room full of sales executives and faculty from my school. He then told me that they have people going to final interviews a week or two later and he'd like me to be there. He even arranged (minutes after talking to me) the second interview for me to complete which was clearly just a formality. I interviewed well at their final interview event and a day later he called me himself with my job offer. I can firmly say that had I not been president with the responsibility to represent the students of my program, I would have been just another person viewed as not being a good fit for that company. My involvement directly correlated to me getting a job six months prior to my graduation date.
What opportunities have come your way through being involved?? Share below!
In my next post, part 4, I talk about the leadership experience gained through being involved. Stay tuned!


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Packed in a 100% fully recyclable carton, made from renewable resources.


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All News Releases By Date
EPA Settles Case Alleging Chemical Reporting Violations at St. Marys, Pa. Plant
Release Date: 10/23/2012
Contact Information: Donna Heron, 215-814-5113, firstname.lastname@example.com
PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 23, 2012) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that Mersen USA St. Marys-PA Corp. (Mersen) will pay a $79,000 penalty to settle alleged violations of toxic chemical reporting requirements. According to EPA, the company failed to timely submit required reports on toxic chemicals at its manufacturing plant in St. Marys, Pa.
EPA cited the company for violating the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).This federal law requires companies that process, manufacture or use more than a threshold amount of regulated toxic chemicals to report annually their releases and transfers of these chemicals. The reports are filed with the EPA and state, and the data are made available to the public through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data system. The TRI includes information on disposal and releases of more than 650 toxic chemicals at thousands of U.S. facilities. The TRI also provides information on how facilities manage those chemicals through recycling, energy recovery, and treatment.
The EPCRA law also requires facilities to report on their hazardous chemicals to state and local emergency response agencies. This information helps communities and first responders to prepare for chemical emergencies.
According to EPA, Mersen did not submit timely annual reports for four EPCRA-regulated chemicals (lead compounds, polycyclic aromatic compounds, copper, and benzo(g,h,i)perylene). This case involved alleged reporting violations, and not unlawful releases of these chemicals.
The settlement penalty reflects the company's cooperation with EPA in resolving the alleged violations.
For more information on EPCRA, visit https://www.epa.gov/osweroe1/content/epcra/ EPA's Toxic Release Inventory - a public, searchable database of toxic chemicals at thousands of facilities nationwide - is available at https://www.epa.gov/tri/.
Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases
View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.


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As we consider the likelihood of long-term economic contraction, what can we do about it?
Like anything in the Transition movement, we need to consider the appropriate scale. In Part II of this series we examined what several thinkers had to say about our Big Picture economy, yet most of us have little-to-no ability to make an impact at that scale. Most of us are working within the Transition movement or other local groups because we understand that at the grassroots scale, we do have considerable ability to make a difference.
Rob Hopkins might have a unique opportunity to work at a much larger scale because he is in a smaller country where there are lots more Transition initiatives and his Transition efforts have already gained the attention of several Members of Parliament. But most of us, particularly here in the U.S., are not in those shoes.
Thus in this section we will leave the macro-econ transformation to those who have ability to teach and influence at that level, and we will turn to the grassroots level, where most of us are working. What can we do, at the grassroots scale, to address economics, and to build local resilience?
But as I contemplated it, I realized that what Ehrenfeld was talking about was creating the safety net -- creating highly resilient structures which will enable our local communities to survive, hopefully with a relative level of peace and security.
It's perhaps easier to see how this safety net approach applies in the case of our food systems: By building up local, organic urban agriculture, we are better prepared for the point at which peak oil and climate change choke our massive-scale agribusiness and cause it to crumble and fail.
In our economic systems, too, we must create the safety net that will be ready in place as the existing system coughs, sputters, or fails. As all of this economic contraction unfolds – as globalized corporations struggle and panic, as today's power elite are tumbled and replaced, as we all ride the wild rollercoaster – we, the little guys, will still need to feed our children, maintain a roof over our heads, and maintain a relative degree of order within our local hometowns.
If you freeze and worry at the thought of the economy, it's no wonder, because we've made a horrible mess of it in recent years. We've made it hideously complex, to all of our detriment, plus most of us have become dependent consumers.
It might help to remind you of the simplicity, that what economics really boils down to is the sum total of transactions between people. Think of a simple barter transaction: You know your neighbor and he knows you. You swap some homegrown zucchini for a few backyard chicken eggs. That's an economic transaction.
At this most basic scale, we feel secure: there will be food on the table. When we become producers -- particularly, producers of the basic stuff of everyday living -- we will always have something to exchange.
- Read more on safety nets, and more thoughts on government and this Transition journey
Do the Dance
A friend once showed me that everyone is doing a Financial Dance. Some people are quite aware that they are doing it: they live rather "on the edge," managing to pull in just enough to pay the bills, just in time. They do a perpetual Dance to assure that income will cover expenses. Many of them view money as a flow. They acknowledge the Dance, and some even regard it as a type of a game.
Other people have a very different view of finances. They plan years into the future and expect economics to be rock-solid. As my friend showed me, these people don't realize they are doing the Dance, but they are participating in it nonetheless. When circumstances change, and people in this latter category are forced to live much closer to the edge, it represents major upheaval of expectations, since they never acknowledged to themselves that they were participating in the Dance.
Particularly in these times of great uncertainty, we are ALL doing the Dance. If we adjust our expectations to accept this, we'll all feel a lot happier.
"If you are expecting something, then it doesn't come as much of a shock and you don't feel as much as if the rug has been pulled out from under your feet. You're less likely to run around like a headless chicken. ... Traumatized people are likely to join movements of anger. I tell people, do not join movements of anger. It sucks all the energy out of you. Then you will not be in a position to help your friends, neighbors and family. It is better to say to oneself this has happened; get over it; and move on. Join something positive and constructive instead. That will matter more." - Nicole Foss aka Stoneleigh (http://transitionvoice.com/2010/12/nicole-foss-extended-interview/)
Resilience is like being a kid on a trampoline with the surface ever-changing beneath you. We have to remain lightly on our toes, and cultivate the ability to flex and adapt to whatever comes along.
Inner Resilience
As an individual, that means developing inner resilience -- the character and spiritual base to remain flexible and feel good about it. It means developing a supportive community circle around you to fall back on emotionally or more tangibly. It also means developing practical life skills and practices which will get you through challenges.
With regards to economics in particular, we have been trained to go it alone. But suddenly local neighbors are becoming an essential part of our survival network. This can bring up psychological and social questions for which we haven't yet developed coping mechanisms.
Transition times will mean stretching and growing in ways you never have had to before. For one, it will mean working with others in ways you never had to before, because solo survivalism (particularly within our cities) simply won't work. It takes a village, and since Americans are no longer familiar with what it takes to maintain village relationships, we each have a lot of learning to do.
Personal resilience:
- Fortify yourself – psychologically, spiritually – in order to weather the massive changes ahead
- Redefining ourselves – We aren't our possessions. We aren't our jobs. Who are we, within the context of all life upon the planet?
- Connect with a community group where people understand the issues of peak oil + climate change + economic contraction
- Locate a counselor or spiritual advisor who is prepared to deal with the inevitable disappointment, life goal reorientation, and introspection inherent in these issues
- Explore new "inner" ideas such as redefining the concept of success
- Regardless of our spiritual tradition, we can each benefit by studying the Buddhist concept of impermanence. Humans attempt to set things up to be permanent and lasting, yet the nature of life itself is ongoing change. The works of Thich Nhat Hanh offer a nice introduction.
- Join with others who understand these ideas.
- Volunteer. Get in action, helping to build local resilience. ... www.TransitionUS.org
- Living Simply with Children, by Marie Sherlock
- Live Simply in the City, by Jonathan Allan and Lynne Cantwell
- a Transition-oriented booklist for kids from Transition Los Angeles
- Kids and Transition: How do we juggle parenting our children with the work we know we must do to facilitate a livable world for them when they are grown? Part I, Part II
- Sharon Astyk, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
Community resilience
For communities, developing economic resilience will involve all the things we're putting in place through the Transition movement – cultivating local food sources/urban agriculture, developing the local skill base/reskilling, building up community resources such as water cisterns/rainwater harvesting, etc. Within the Transition movement we go at this building-up-of-the-local with great excitement (as well we should).
But there is a little-talked-about aspect within Relocalization which I have called decoupling. Think of it like unhooking the links of a chain. Or releasing the little escape pod from the Mother Ship.
As far as resilience goes, the deeper reason we're building up all these local things is to enable our local communities to decouple -- to make it possible to disconnect. We're setting our local affairs in order such that our community is able to go it independently in the event of shocks to the larger system.
Decoupling doesn't mean there will never be trade. As one writer put it, it's not a matter of New Englanders never having oranges. But it is to say that a daily glass of Florida OJ in New England is ecologically inappropriate and that oranges in New England should rightly be rare and special.
Decoupling does however mean that the basics are handled locally. That if push came to shove and the ability to trade with other geographies became – however temporarily – unavailable, our local community would have the local framework in place; it would have local resources in sufficient quantity to survive. As we build the community gardens and install the rain barrels, we must set structures in place for economic decoupling as well.
- Raise awareness within your circle of friends, your neighborhood, and your local community. Tell them about all these issues, and help them do these things too.
- Discuss what localizing and decoupling will mean for your specific neighborhood. Consider the suggestions elsewhere in this document.
- Set in motion community preparedness. Inventory community resources. (see "Working Groups") Food production, water harvesting, basic clothing manufacture -- begin building what your community is missing.
- Read the materials of the Breaking The Chains project of the Organic Consumers Association and the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. These projects are not without their flaws (of the type that Hopkins has pointed out here) but they do offer some useful ideas.
- Join with others who understand these ideas, and help spread the word
This post is an excerpt from a longer paper, "Economic Resilience," which is being posted online in serial form. Part I explains the problems, because we have to understand what we are working with in order to begin to solve it. Part II critiques what several economic theorists see as possible routes forward for the "big picture" economy. But the central question of this document is what we can do at the grassroots level. Part III (approximately 70% of the document) offers a panorama of ideas for building local economic resilience. Links to the full document can be found here. .


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Last October (Yeah, four months ago!) I posted a link to a Dodgers survey where if you complete the survey, the Dodgers will send you two tickets for the 2013 season. {linked here}
I totally forgot about it until I received this in the mail from the Dodgers last week.
Monday, February 25, 2013
2013 Survey Vouchers
Posted by Roberto Baly at 6:00 PM
5 comments:
- Unknown said...
Thanks to you Roberto me and my wife each got a pair in the mail, thanks for posting these great free offers, and keep up the great work
- February 25, 2013 at 6:56 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ Chris - You're welcome! :)
- February 25, 2013 at 7:08 PM
- Ernie said...
I redeemed mine today...very limited to the games we could attend.
- February 25, 2013 at 7:14 PM
- Orrin said...
I got them too thanks to your link. We should have a meet up at a game for VSIMH readers!
- February 25, 2013 at 8:41 PM
- perumike said...
Yeah, got mine too! I had forgotten!!
- February 26, 2013 at 12:50 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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OPTIMISM about a recovery in the global economy has seen the Australian sharemarket close higher for the ninth-straight day, despite insurers losing ground in the wake of storms and floods on the east coast.
The ASX 200 finished on Tuesday 1.1 per cent higher at 4889 points. It was its highest close since April 2011, with the big four banks all registering strong gains while defensive stocks such as Telstra hit multi-year highs.
The market is up more than 20 per cent since early June, entering what has traditionally been defined as "bull market" territory. The leading S&P 500 index on Wall Street was around 17 per cent higher for the same period. Positive sentiment about improving economic data from the US and China, as well as the lifting of black clouds over Europe, also spread to business confidence, with the National Australia Bank's monthly business survey released on Tuesday showing a sharp increase in the index for December.
At the same time, expectations of a Reserve Bank interest rate cut in February fell to 26 per cent, Credit Suisse data showed. Markets priced in a cut in the cash rate by 25 basis points for the year, and a 60 per cent chance of a second rate cut.
"Relative to six months ago, there has been quite a significant drop in the risks facing the global economy," said UBS's chief economist for Australia, Scott Haslem, adding that the
moderate economic outlook for 2013 had benefited for the removal of some "tail risks".
"We'll never be without risk, but some of those tail risks around the longevity of the European project and the potential for the US to go over the fiscal cliff have certainly been diminished."
Last week, the International Monetary Fund expressed cautious optimism in its outlook for the global economy this year, trimming its projected gross domestic product annual growth to 3.5 per cent amid continued weakness in the eurozone.
A greater appetite for risk has seen also bond prices fall globally, as news emerged that European banks were set to repay more than €130 billion of long-term loans to the European Central Bank. Some strategists have forecast a move out of bonds into stocks this year.
Westpac senior market strategist Damien McColough said within a "risk on" theme where global growth was expected to be stronger, bonds would be very expensive. He said the global market rallies were a reflection of the reduction in risks rather than confidence in growth.
"It's really a removal about the real catastrophe or disaster premium that has been in market rates for some time. As opposed to confidence that the [global economies] are growing strongly, it's more a confident belief that the worst-case scenario has been averted," Mr McColough said. "So that causes equities to remove some of the negatives and bonds to lose some of their expensive pricing."
The director of research at Bell Potter Securities, Peter Quinton, said while stocks were trading in bull market territory, applying such a definition at this time was "a little bit aggressive" for the Australian market.
"But having said that, I think there are very solid fundamental underpinnings to those 20 per cent risings," Mr Quinton said. "The brutal reality is … there's still risks out there. But anybody who has been bearish about the stockmarket for the past six months has been proved dramatically wrong."
Among the major banks on Tuesday, Westpac rose 67¢ to $28.22, Commonwealth Bank lifted $1.14 to $64.73, National Australia Bank found 48¢ at $27.72, and ANZ advanced 44¢ to $26.51.
Some insurance stocks fell as they began to feel the pain from ex-tropical cyclone Oswald, with more than 10,000 claims lodged and the damage bill set to rise above $100 million. Suncorp lost 21¢ to $10.70 as it said it had so far received about 4500 claims and expects more to come. Insurance Australia Group nudged up 1¢ to $4.93, and QBE dropped 31¢ to $11.28.
In the resources sector, BHP Billiton improved 7¢ to $37.17, and Rio Tinto firmed 9¢ to $66.15.
With AGENCIES
The original release of this article first appeared on the website of Hangzhou Night Net.