Man on Wire raises interesting questions

I saw Man on Wire listed as a movie in town and it triggered something in my brain, but I couldn't remember what it was about. Then I noticed someone googled to here with "Each day is like a work of art to him." When I checked to see what that post was about, I got this post on an NPR piece about Man on Wire.

So, my mom and I drove to the Beverly Center to see it last night. It's a quirky little film about a Frenchman who's goal is to walk a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It's all about his preparations for this feat and carrying it off.



Two big issues (of many possibilities) arose for me:

1. The inability of [in this case] police to just do nothing. They are programmed to take action even if the action is likely to cause more harm. In the clip, they threaten to use a helicopter to get the wire walker down. Our need for action gets us into a lot of trouble. There are lots of situations where doing nothing - at least for a while - is the wisest action. Look at the clip, and then think about the 'do nothing' option as you watch people in daily life and on the screen.

2. The general questions that get raised when people do high risk activities and society's response to them. The movie tracks Philippe Petit's preparation to walk between the twin towers. Earlier feats included walking between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. While Philippe's main motivation is simply the challenge of walking across that space and the sheer beauty of that act of human defiance of the impossible, it is also made clear in the movie that the illegality of the act is also a draw. As one person interviewed said, it wasn't wicked or mean, just illegal.

US Americans clearly love daredevils. We have a history of stunts like riding barrels over Niagara Falls and making heroes out of people like Evel Knievil. Yet there is also an element that wants to save people from killing themselves. So, we congratulate the heroes who successfully get to the top of Denali and Everest, but shake our heads at the foolishness of those who die trying. As the film shows, Philippe's act is breathtakingly beautiful - it's a spiritual triumph to do something so seemingly dangerous and outrageous. Yet what if he had fallen to his death? What would we say then? What if he had killed several spectators as he landed?

We continue, as I think we should, to allow people to jump out of airplanes, climb difficult peaks, sail across oceans. But what is society's obligation to rescue such people if they run into trouble? Should public resources be diverted to saving daredevils? Should they be required to buy insurance? Could we NOT rescue them if they didn't? Summitpost.org writes about climbing Denali (McKinley):

If you have to be rescued off the mountain, you will likely be billed for the costs which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Rescue insurance or health insurance (if your rescue is a medical emergency) should cover the costs of the rescue. The park service monitors Channel 19 on CB radios. Cell phones also work well above 14,200 feet.

How do we distinguish between the 'experts' and the 'crazies' and should we? Clearly there is something highly inspirational when someone accomplishes a feat that seems impossible.
We've collectively decided it is worth the risk. The government even support this in programs like the space shuttle.

And I couldn't help wonder, given that this act was done at the World Trade Center, how 9/11 has affected adventures such as this. A group of men smuggling the equipment they needed into a building like the WTC today would immediately raise suspicions of terrorism. Would they got shot first and questioned later?

My mother didn't like this movie. But I thought it was fascinating watching the complexity of the preparations. How do you connect the wire between the two buildings? (They used a bow and arrow to shoot mono filament across. This was tied to a bigger rope which was dragged across, and this connected to the wire.) How do they attach it to the building? Besides the technical problems of getting the wire up, they had to solve the socio-political problems of getting past the guards and doing this illegal act. (In the movie, it appears no one considered asking permission, I assume they thought it would be turned down, and that the element of surprise would be lost.)

I can't say that I remember any news stories about this event. But I have an excuse. The walk was done on August 7, 1974. My son was born on August 6 that year and Richard Nixon resigned on August 8.

Sarah Barracuda

Local Anchorage artist, Mariano Gonzales, shared his latest creation with me. Part of me wants to enjoy this privately and not add this to the political free for all going on. But Sarah has been proud of her barracuda nickname and I suspect that she'll want to frame this one.

Disclosure time: Mariano is teaching the computer art class I'm taking and I asked him if I could post the fish.

As You Like It Sheds Light on Sarah Palin

We went to see As You Like It this afternoon. Basically, I wanted to hear Philip Munger's songs. You can listen here. And you really should have this playing while you read the rest of this.

Sitting through a Shakespeare play, even a relatively light one like this, I was reminded of why we still put on his plays 400 years after he wrote them. If only more Americans would know the characters of Shakespeare the way they know the Desperate Housewives, perhaps this election season would be less contentious. While I would particularly like the people flocking to cheer our governor to have been schooled in Shakespeare, it would also be good for those who are Obama supporters, so that their expectations for his possible Presidency will be realistic.

In any case, I was struck by this early conversation between Oliver - hero Orlando's older brother who has kept Orlando from gaining his inheritance - and a wrestler Orlando has challenged.

As You Like it By William Shakespeare, George Lyman Kittredge:

Oliver: "... I tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother: therefore use thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta 'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one so young and so villainous this day living."

The wrestler Charles agrees to take care of Orlando should he show up for the match.

Oliver: Farewell good Charles. [Exit CHARLES] Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never school'd, and yet learned; full of noble device of all sorts; enchantingly beloved; and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all; nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about. [Exit]"

I dare say we know of those who knowingly lie about their rivals in hopes that their 'wrestler' friends will dispatch them. And, sad to say, were the wrestler to know the truth, I suspect he'd dispatch him anyway.

Oliver lies to Charles, totally misrepresents Orlando's character, knowingly. Why? Because Orlando's goodness blocks Oliver's ambitions. Of course, we know no one like this. No one who speaks untruths about rivals who block their path to power.

But in As You Like It, this sort of jealousy of another who makes oneself look bad in comparison comes up again. Soon after the scene above, Duke Frederick, who, has housed Rosalind after he expelled her father years ago, has decided Rosalind too must go.

[Enter Duke FREDERICK with Lords]
Duke F: Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste, And get you from our Court.
Ros: Me? uncle?
Duke F: You, cousin:
Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
So near our public Court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

Rosalind, appealing to logic and reason, asks what she has done to cause this.

Ros: I do beseech your Grace,
Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me;
If with myself I hold intelligence,
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;
If that I do not dream, or be not frantic, --
As I do trust I am not, -- then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn,
Did I offend your Highness.

The Duke then basically says, I don't have to answer your questions, I'll just start another line of attack. Oh, my, this starts sounding so familiar. You are a traitor he tells her. Your words are pretty, but no one can trust your words.

Duke F: Thus do all traitors:
If their purgation did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself;
Let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not.

Rosalind, still using reason, responds:

Ros: Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Duke F: Thou art thy father's daughter there's enough.

Does this not sound terribly familiar? How is it that Obama is a Muslim if not because "he art his father's son"? How do Reverend Wright's words make Obama a traitor?

Ros: So was I when your Highness took his dukedom:
So was I when your Highness banish d him:
Treason is not inherited my lord;
Or if we did derive it from our friends,
What's that to me? my father was no traitor.
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.

Oh dear, poverty is very near community organizing. Now Duke Frederick's daughter, Celia, pleads on behalf of her dearest friend.

Cel: Dear sovereign hear me speak.

Duke F: Ay Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.

Basically, we kept this traitor because of you, her father tells her. But she disputes this lie.

Cel: I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse;
I was too young that time to value her;
But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
Why, so am I; we still have slept together;
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And, wheresoe'er we went like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.

Every lie the Duke constructs is torn down, and finally, he tells her the truth. It is similar to Oliver's truth about Orlando: Stupid Celia, Rosalind is so good, she makes you look terrible in comparison. That's why she must go.

Duke F: She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
Her very silence, and her patience,
Speak to the people, and they pity her.
Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass'd upon her: she is banish'd.

Fortunately, Palin and her right wing spewers of hate (I got another email pointing me to another racist anti-Obama YouTube video today) cannot decree McCain's election as easily as the Duke can banish Rosalind. They can only hope that they can con enough Americans to feel the same fears about Obama, that they willingly buy into their lies and vote for McCain.

A lot of Kings, Dukes, Emperors, etc. (no Presidents in those days) are murdered in Shakespeare's plays and Sarah Palin's speeches have been getting people to say those sorts of things out loud. If Obama were harmed by anyone, this country's future would be grimmer than grim. The only people who would 'win' are those who would rather be dead than see a Black man President.

So, go see or read Shakespeare. Yes, it takes a bit to get used to the old words. If you don't read an annotated version, you won't recognize all the references that Shakespeare's contemporary audience would have understood. But he is much more understandable than Jon Stewart will be in 400 years, and has lots to teach us about human beings.

Well, maybe someone more familiar than I with the characters in Desperate Housewives or some other relevant TV show can figure out which characters would help get the undecideds to understand what is going on.



The pictures: The poster. (You can buy tickets before the performance in the Theater and Arts Building at UAA. Free parking on Fridays nights and weekends. There's a discount for 15 or more people. How about a bloggers' night at the theater to hear Phil's music?)

Some of the cast after the performance.

Walking home.

Computer Art and Design

I've mentioned obliquely that I'm taking a class at UAA this semester. It's a computer art class taught by Mariano Gonzales. Actually, I've taken this class ten or 11 years ago, but the technology was somewhat different then. The shock then after the first day was that, "Oh dear, all the other students are artists." But I managed to survive.

So far, we're slowly playing (literally, we are supposed to be playing and experimenting) with basic tools in Photoshop and Painter. So, midterm time is next week and Prof. G talked about the exam on Monday. We will have a set of steps in which we will do certain things and play with certain tools. Prof. G gave us a demonstration, though he didn't precisely tell us the steps - he'll do that today. Basically, he started with one square. Duplicated the square and made it a different color. Then through grouping and copying and pasting, developed a checker board. Then distorted it, used the perspective tool. Added a sky. Then used the oval tool to make an egg, and then on and on. Here are some pictures of the transformation.









I didn't have much time Monday after this demonstration, because I was going to the funeral. But I did start my own version of what I thought were the steps. I, of course, have to be different so I made ovals instead of squares. Then stacked them up. I realized as I was shutting down the computer that I should have made two different colored ovals. Oh well, we'll get the precise steps today and see what students did with this in the past today.

Lisa Kron's Well - Interesting Play Totally Pulled Me In

We went to a local theater performance recently that got great reviews, but didn't really excite me all that much. It was good, but not THAT good. Which raised questions about what my purpose is here. Basically the purpose is to explore things that expand how I know the world and maybe expand readers' understanding of how they know. But how to apply that isn't always clear. I also consider how what I write might affect others. I'd rather cheer on something good than rag on something that didn't work.

So, if I see a local event - a performance, exhibit etc. - that is good - particularly if it explores how people know things in some way, which good art should do - I clearly want to let others know about it. I want people to go to local venues, give them appreciative audiences, keep them alive financially, so we continue to have access to them.

But what if I don't like it? Should I say so or should I just not write about it? If I think something is damaging I'll take it up if I have time and energy. But what if it is innocuously not very good? Their intent was good, but they just didn't excite me at all? At this point I think I'll just not deal with it. I'm not completely comfortable with that decision, so I'm open to other opinions on this.


Now, the Well. I like to come into a performance with no knowledge of what I'm going to see. Of course, this isn't easy, but my ideal is just to be told by someone I trust, that I should go. I want to discover it as it unfolds, be surprised by having my expectations ambushed.

I basically knew nothing about this play, except that we'd seen Lisa Kron here a couple years ago and that her piece and performance were stunning. That was enough to know.

The Well, which opened last night, experiments with the whole idea of a play - the roles of the actors, the audience, the story. It examines itself, and examines itself examining itself. I suspect that sort of thing could be too cerebral for some people, but I loved it.

The lead character seemed a little stiff at times, but I'm not sure that wasn't the role itself. The audience wasn't totally sure of its role either and that may have affected her opening night performance. Overall, it was a great experience and left us all talking about it. I thought it was much better than the highly praised performance we saw but were not so excited about. The other cast members totally inhabited their roles. So much so that even when they played different characters there was no confusion at all. When it was over I thought it was the intermission, but my watch showed that two hours had passed.

It's at Out North and will be here for a couple of weeks more. You can get tickets for slightly less on line.

About the picture. I normally wouldn't a take picture during live performances unless I have permission. This was at the very beginning. I thought it was before things had started, but now I'm not totally sure.

It Goes Without Saying - Mime Bill Bowers at Out North

Out North is a small theater. It holds, maybe, 100 people and we were sitting in the front row. So, I put away my camera before the show started. This is the stage. A flip chart with the names of the stories he's telling. And the stool. The rest of the space a blank slate for Bowers to paint with mime.

The title - It Goes Without Saying - is a little misleading - the mime actually talks. He tells stories of his life and why he mimes for a living starting with growing up in Missoula through gigs at trade shows, through studying with Marcel Marceau, through caring for his dying partner.

I got drawn into the stories and the mimed illustrations. A key theme was silence. His family, his community, as he tells it, didn't talk about the important aspects of life around them. This theme seemed to climax when he told us about meeting a mime in Romania, who he said was the most famous man in Romania, dubbed "The Voice of Romania." (I'm not sure I've got the title right and the "Voice of Romania" hits I got on google didn't give me any mimes, but the image of a mime being the voice of a country where repression ruled for so long is a delicious conceit.)

This was an interesting evening, delving into places I've never been. Yet I went home with a feeling of incompleteness. A one person, autobiographical show, only works if I feel I'm hearing directly from the performer's heart. After a night's sleep, I have the feeling that Bower's voice wasn't completely authentic. Maybe because he's really a mime, not a talker. Maybe he's done the show too often. My sense is that perhaps he hasn't yet found his own true voice and he's still trying too hard to get our approval instead of just his own.

Trip Leftovers - Leaving Seattle, Juneau, Home

Ken is one of my daughter's house mates. He just had a show of his photographs at the University of Washington. Unfortunately, my photo of him isn't nearly as good as his. You can see his pictures here.

We flew over Bremerton on the way out of Seattle.

In Juneau, J picked us up in his new Prius.

A couple hours later, we were back at the airport where we bumped into another good friend, Joe Senungetuk, who was hanging in the stairway.

Juneau's airport, like Anchorage's has free wifi. Seattle is ATT and if you aren't with them already you have to pay.

This sign at the Anchorage Airport took on new significance seeing how it was signed by the Republican Nominee for VP.

A Day in Portland

We had lunch with Masami and Shpresha and Sharon, people I knew when I was a guest faculty member at Portland State University for six months in 2003-4.




After lunch they put me in my old seminar room to work on a few things and catch up with all the hits coming in about Palin. Like other Alaska blogs, apparently, this was my second highest hit day - 563 right now.








Later we walked around downtown before meeting friends for dinner. The sky was very blue, temps in the low 70s, as we passed the Art Museum.































In a little park area between streets the Oregon Ballet Theatre was practicing in a tent.













A costume store.


























One of the great book shops in the United States. Powell's is room after room after room on several floors or used and new books. A favorite place of our when we lived here.








































































We had dinner here with Gary and Roxanne who we knew from Anchorage and from when we lived here. It was great to see them again.







We checked the tram station near Marty's yesterday. It's about a 20 minute walk home from the end of the line. But both ticket machines at the stop were broken. We turned down Gary and Roxanne's offer of a ride home (way out of their way) and decided to board without tickets. The guy with the beard told us to push the emergency button and tell the driver who said we could ride free then. Then the two Obama canvassers got on. As we were pulling into one station we heard screaming at the other end of the train (about four cars away.) The driver came onto the loudspeaker calling for police. Who boarded immediately as we entered into the station. A young black woman and a young white woman slipped quickly off the train. The police - Wackenhut Security guys - stayed on the train to the end of the line where we got off. At the end we heard the driver reporting the incident - a white guy had been yelling racial epithets at a white girl and black girl sitting together.

School Starts Tomorrow

Since it looks like I'll be here the whole Fall semester, I've decided to put some structure into my life and take a couple of classes this fall at UAA.

And I'm taking Mariano Gonzales' Digital Art and Design. I took a similar class from him years ago - I think it was just called computer art back then. I'd seen some murals he'd made with video and digital and thought I should learn. Well, it wasn't a class to touch up photos. It was an art class and on the first day when we got our assignment to take three of the tools in the program we were using (Corel Draw?) and make a picture, I quickly discovered that everyone else in class was an accomplished artist.

My simple flower pot with a daisy looked like 2nd grade compared to the detailed cowboy boots on one side of me and the portrait on the other side. But I worked hard and did reasonably well, and learned a lot.

So this will give me a chance to get my photoshop skills back up and do some more creative work with my pictures and from scratch. [Posted with permission of the artist]

Mariano is a UAA professor and wicked artist whose work is technically precise and often political as this picture of St. Ted demonstrates. You can see more of his poster work here. He's doing more sculpture now.

I'm signing up for a weight training class just so I'll get in on a regular basis. I've been reasonably good about running (or biking), but I haven't done weights for a while. Class gets me in twice a week and I get pushed more than I would push myself.

Unfortunately, we head out tonight for Seattle to see the kids and then Portland to visit friends there. I have to get word to the weight training teacher, but there's no name listed.

So Where's this?

Nobody identified where I snapped the muskoxen picture.

Here's a really easy one. Where is this?

Jack Dalton and Raven's Radio Hour - Starts Sunday August 17

I got this message forwarded to me today. Jack Dalton is a terrific actor/story teller. He has a great natural presence and is a truly nice guy besides. I'm going to try to catch at least one of the performances:

Sundays through Wednesdays, August 17 to September 16, at 7pm. (more specifics below)

I saw two different performances of My Heart Runs in Two Directions at Once
and they were both good, but not exactly alike.

And you can eat real Alaska Native food! Something you can't do easily in Anchorage if you don't have family or good friends who invite you to have real stuff.

Here's the email:


Dear Friends! Exciting news!
Starting this Sunday, August 17, at 7pm, an Alaska Native theatre company at
the Alaska Native Heritage Center truly becomes a public event. The
ANHC proudly presents "Raven's Radio Hour: 90 minutes of fun, fun, fun, fun
. . . a two hours show," a gleeful romp through the Alaska Native world in
the style of a 40s variety radio show. Starring Raven, played by Alaska
Native storyteller Jack Dalton, and featuring the Alaska Native Heritage
Players: Christina Gagnon, Ethan Petticrew and Allison Warden.

And there's more! It's also a dinner theatre, well, perhaps "cafe" or "deli"
theatre is a better description. Truly entertaining light fare and Native
favorites, like caribou stew, salmon spread with Sailorboy Pilotbread, and a
variety of desserts, including Marge's World Famous Agutaq.
Showtimes are Sundays through Wednesdays, August 17 to September 16, at 7pm.
Tickets are $20 per person. Seating is cabaret-style and limited, so
advanced reservations required. The show is about 120 minutes with a
15-minute intermission, and not recommended for childen under the age of
16.
Please share with all your friends, relatives and colleagues! And I look
forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.
Thank you again for all of your support.
Jack.

Raven Feathers & the Wind
storytelling, writing, teaching and spirituality
2207 Spenard Road, Ste 102, Anchorage, Alaska 99503
phone 907-227-4428, fax 907-272-0757
booking and schedule info 907-227-4428
info@ravenfeathers.com
www.ravenfeathers.com

Anchorage Musk Oxen - Blogspot v. Word Press

BB who set up the Women Serving Women Veterans website and I met today because she had a number of questions about how to make things happen on the blog. We'd met at the Juneteenth Celebration when I video taped her and a couple of other folks with exhibits there. She also confirmed my earlier conclusions that Blogspot was a lot easier than Word Press as a platform for a blog, though you can probably do more with Word Press if you have better computing skills. Someone had told her to use Word Press. (I had suggested Blogspot.) She said she spent 2 1/2 days trying to set things up in Word Press, and had gotten a lot more done in 2 1/2 hours on Blogspot. Probably some of what she did for Word Press helped get her ready for Blogspot.

So one thing we did was go into the Word Press site she'd set up and put up a post to redirect visitors to the Blogspot site. That was the first time I'd actually been in a Word Press blog and it certainly has a cleaner look than Blogspot and with what I've done on Blogspot, I could figure things out fairly easily in Word Press. At least for the simple things we did.

Anyway, so, can anyone figure out, from the musk oxen picture, where we met?






The way home we had an interesting layer of clouds over Anchorage.

"Each day is like a work of art to him."

This was in a Fresh Air piece this morning. The girlfriend of Philippe Petit was quoted as saying this about the man who tight rope walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The piece was about a new movie - Man on Wire - that is coming out about Petit.

Think about it. Each day is like a work of art. What if we all approached each day thinking of time as a canvas? Each day is ours to make into a work of art. Living as a work of art. Communications with others as a work of art. Walking as a work of art. Simply making creative use of the time, place,and energy we have each day. Changes in weather, health , and the world around us are simply different media with which to experiment and gain new insights about life.

What would your life be like if each morning you lived artistically in whatever you did - cleaning the house, attending a meeting, biking to work, shopping, visiting the dentist, relaxing, talking to friends? How can you do these things in ways that are beautiful, create new meaning, cause others to see or feel things they didn't see or feel before?

I think children do this naturally. Why do we lose this?

[See my review and clip from the film.]

Makers and the Owner's Manifesto

My family didn't buy a lot of stuff, but they saved to buy good stuff, then kept things forever. Long time readers of this blog know that we finally bought a new washing machine last year when our 32 year old Maytag gave out and that I was pretty excited to find automaticwasher.org, a site dedicated to keeping old washers and driers alive.
Our first VW van lasted almost 25 years. Our Sony Triniton television is going on 33 years now - though it's having problems now which means we hardly watch any tv. I still have my Pentax camera that I bought in 1971, though it's been mostly sitting on the shelf since I finally went digital two years ago.












So when I caught this short piece from Day to Day on NPR about Mr. Jalopy my ears pricked up. [Once you get past all the intro stuff (about 1:15) you hear the story.] Everything about the story twitched some critical part of my being.

For example, one of the most visited posts on this blog was inspired by the Victor Lebow quote on how we had to be changed culturally, from humans to consumers. I like things that work, that are made well, that last. So everything about this show felt right.

My time in Thailand over the years has shown me how the rest of the world takes our discards and makes them live again. We've become so disconnected from the source of the things we depend on, that most of us couldn't function if we suddenly had to make our own environments. That's not good. There's nothing wrong with having fantastic technology. But there is something wrong when we have no idea how the things we depend on - food, clothing, shelter, music, transportation, etc. - are created and get to us and where they go afterward.

For all those reasons, I liked this interview. One part of the interviewe covered The Owner's Manifesto which I'm quoting below.

From Makezine.com:

If you can't open it, you don't own it: a Maker's Bill of Rights to accessible, extensive, and repairable hardware.

By Mister Jalopy

The Maker's Bill of Rights

• Meaningful and specific parts lists shall be included.

• Cases shall be easy to open.

• Batteries should be replaceable.

• Special tools are allowed only for darn good reasons.

• Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong and not making special tools available is even worse.

• Torx is OK; tamperproof is rarely OK.

• Components, not entire sub-assemblies, shall be replaceable.

• Consumables, like fuses and filters, shall be easy to access.

• Circuit boards shall be commented.

• Power from USB is good; power from proprietary power adapters is bad.

• Standard connecters shall have pinouts defined.

• If it snaps shut, it shall snap open.

• Screws better than glues.

• Docs and drivers shall have permalinks and shall reside for all perpetuity at archive.org.

• Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.

• Metric or standard, not both.

• Schematics shall be included.

Lots Happening at UAA - Ron Carlson Sunday, Second City Monday

Author Ron Carlson read his short story "Blazo" on Sunday night at the Theater and Arts Building at UAA. The story was disturbing - a father flies to Kotzebue from the East to see the where his son died in a mysterious fire. The father has issues as do the people he meets in Kotzebue. But having a noted author read you his short story for free and being able to talk to him about it afterward is one of those great treats we get in Anchorage. And there will be speakers all week. This ADN article has the list. All free.

For a taste, here's the beginning of one of Carlson's stories I found on line

The N

The head nurse blocked my way and asked what exactly didn’t I understand about the word no, and I told her: the N. It is exactly what I do not understand about what she said. I’ve never understood it very well, and now it has tried to kill us, and I know that I will never ever understand that. It stands there at the beginning of a word, like what?—some guard or a wall. I mean, I think about it now, the N, the shape: up, down, up. Who can get over it? Listen: I never will. I have seen it up close, and I do not understand.

The rest is at NarrativeMagazine.



Monday night it was Chicago's Second City in Wendy Williamson Auditorium. They said no flash photography and no videotaping. This is a key Saturday Night Life farm club and the skits were well polished - even the improvised ones.

Wednesday's writer/speakers will be:

• ZACK ROGOW has published five collections of poetry, three anthologies, four volumes of translation, a children's book and two plays. He teaches at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and has a sixth book of poems due out soon, "The Number Before Infinity."

• VALERIE MINER has written 13 novels and collections of short fiction and nonfiction, including memoir and essays. Her latest novel is "After Eden." She is a professor and artist in residence at Stanford University in California.

These two descriptions and all the rest of the program descriptions are at the ADN link.

Glass Maker John Vincent and Summer Palace

We went with friends to see the Chinese movie at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art yesterday evening. It wasn't totally clear why it was called Summer Palace - though there were some scenes in a boat on a lake that could well have been at the Summer Palace in Beijing. This was an interesting movie because the year we spent in Hong Kong began a couple months after Tiananmen, a key event in this movie. Plus, much of the movie takes place at Beijing University and I've taught at nearby People's University and visited the Beijing University campus. But it was long (almost 2 1/2 hours) and I had trouble keeping track of who was who.

But before the movie, we talked to some of the artists in the atrium, including this glass maker, John Vincent.

Black White + Gray, Museum, Bernie's Bungalow

We biked down to the museum to see Black White + Gray, a movie about Sam Wagstaff, Robert Maplethorpe's patron. It gave a lot insight into how a photographer whose best known images were homo erotic photos became such a celebrated artist in a homophobic nation. Essentially, Wagstaff an extremely handsome, wealthy gay man who had become the major collector of photographs, took Maplethorpe in. According to the film, Wagstaff made photography a recognized art form. Maplethorpe, over 20 years Wagstaff's junior, showed Wagstaff some of the wilder sides of gay New York. Both died of AIDS, Maplethorpe in 1989, Wagstaff in 1987.

This April 2007 NY Times review gives more details of the film.











We walked out of the movie past one more of the new buildings in Anchorage - the still very much under construction addition to the museum.






We wandered down the street to Bernie's Bungalow. We hadn't been to Bernie's since it was in the Sears Mall. Bernie talked to us about Thailand a while - he'd been in Chiang Mai for a week while we had been there - and he said it was 11 years since he'd been at the Sears Mall. He's ready for warmer climes and is looking for a buyer.