La Casa de las Conchas - Manhattan Shorts in Salamanca

Tomás sent me this picture of "the house of the shells" in Salamanca, Spain where he's going to see the Manhattan Short Film Festival Wednesday.  He's a  serious film buff as well as a wickedly good artist/cartoonist.  His blog is listed on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  He's also put up a new website. 

This an idea of a world wide film festival, where everyone sees the same ten films at the same time around the world, along with internet technology, means that Tomás and I will be able to discuss these films even though I live in Alaska and he lives in Spain. I'm interested in finding out which film he votes for as the best and what he thinks about them all.

If anyone else has a photo of your local Manhattan Short Film Festival venue - send it in and let me know which films you liked.

The website doesn't show the different cities well.  When you find the country - or state - the cities are listed on the top.  The brochure we got shows some Alaska locations and dates.  The website shows venues but not dates.  So here are the Alaska ones:

• Matsu folks - it says Strange Bird (venue) online and in the brochure in Palmer on  October 1 and 2 
• Petersburg  is on the brochure for September 29 and online  at the Arts Council at 12 Nordic Drive at 7pm.
• Juneau isn't in the brochure, but online it says it's at the Gold Town Theater Sept. 29, Oct. 1 and 2. 
• Talkeetna and Anchorage - it's already over in these places.  

Then let's chat here about which films you liked and why.

Coho Bar - Cordova

I've got lots of pictures of  Cordova, so I'll just get them up as fast as I can, but not in any particular order.  This is from Sunday.  After a walk at the old Cannery, Joe picked the Coho Bar for lunch because it reminded him of what things used to be like in Nome.  This is NOT a place J and I would have otherwise walked into on our own, so it was good we were with Joe and Martha.

Here it is from outside.

And below, what it looks like inside.

click to enlarge all the photos

The cafe is in the back, but open to the bar.  People kept coming up to Martha to say hi and congratulations.  We got to meet lots of people and hear lots of stories.  Unfortunately, I like to keep my friends, so all the stories are off the record.  We did hear about housing, fishing, work, people's kids, people who have moved away, people moving away, and lots of other stories.  

I took this picture for the sign.  You'll probably have to click on the photo to enlarge it and see it clearly. I was surprised to see people smoking inside.  But this is out in rural Alaska where people are still free.  To some extent.  (Not endorsing, just documenting.)

And here are the newlyweds, surrounded by the Coho's cookie jar collection.  The menu is mainly burgers - all with real meat - with fries or onion rings.  I had a bowl of chili.  

No One Cares About Your Blog

We met a number of people from the Hoover family that Joe has married into.  When picking up his new mother-in-law for dinner, we got to see the collection of art on her walls - her own work, her adult children's work, and pieces from other artists.  I also perused a couple of copies of ArtNews.  [The magazine version is a lot more appealing than the website.]  Interesting.  A nice way for someone living in Alaska to keep track of what's happening in the larger art world.

And then I saw this picture and thought, I need one of those T shirts!

I love it.

Cordova Sampler - Bear, Bridge, Ice, Wedding

This is just a sneak preview.  We spent a spectacular two days at the Child's Glacier then got back into town today for the wedding of Joe Senungetuk and Martha Hoover.  More on all this later, but here's an appetizer.

Child's Glacier

Million Dollar Bridge

Moni, Ropi, and Alex - Happy Birthday

This is a great day for a birthday.  May the year be interesting, fun, and fulfilling for you all.

Last Minute Salmon BBQ With Friends

At the last minute we ended up with friends enjoying the lovely evening eating salmon on their deck.  Pretty simple.  Just good talk, good food, good friends. 

As we were eating dessert a young woman, barefoot, in wet shorts and T-shirt asked the direction of the Peanut Farm.  She'd been kayaking Campbell Creek and overturned and told the others she'd meet them at the Peanut Farm where the car was.  As the temperature was cooling (it was about 10pm by then) our host drove her to her destination.

With sweepers here and there, the creek is not as benign as it looks. 

Mini adventures.

Then we biked home.

Abacus #1

[UPDATE Jan 2014 - I learned that Abacus has been closed for a while now.]

From The Abacus:

The standard abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division and multiplication; the abacus can also be used to extract square-roots and cubic roots.
The abacus is typically constructed of various types of hardwoods and comes in varying sizes. The frame of the abacus has a series of vertical rods on which a number of wooden beads are allowed to slide freely. A horizontal beam separates the frame into two sections, known as the upper deck and the lower deck.

When I taught in Thailand 40 years ago, a number of the shopkeepers did their calculations on the abacus.  Their fingers flicked beads up and down with lightening speed.

A quick check at Mandarin tools shows us that the characters on the menu are in fact abacus in simplified characters. 

Trad.	Simp.	Pinyin	English
算盤	算盘	suàn pán	abacus

A history page at Abacus tells us:

The abacus as we know it today, appeared (was chronicled) circa 1200 A.D. in China; in Chinese, it is called suan-pan. On each rod, this classic Chinese abacus has 2 beads on the upper deck and 5 on the lower deck; such an abacus is also referred to as a 2/5 abacus. The 2/5 style survived unchanged until about 1850 at which time the 1/5 (one bead on the top deck and five beads on the bottom deck) abacus appeared.
Circa 1600 A.D., use and evolution of the Chinese 1/5 abacus was begun by the Japanese via Korea. In Japanese, the abacus is called soroban. The 1/4 abacus, a style preferred and still manufactured in Japan today, appeared circa 1930. The 1/5 models are rare today and 2/5 models are rare outside of China (excepting Chinese communities in North America and elsewhere).
It is thought that early Christians brought the abacus to the East (note that both the suan-pan and the Roman hand-abacus have a vertical orientation). Aspects of Roman culture could have been introduced to China as early as 166 A.D, during the Han Dynasty, as Roman emperor Antoninus Pius' embassies to China spread along the Silk Road.

Where's this all going?  I ate at Abacus #1 in Chicago on Thursday night.  The restaurant is owned by Luci and Rachel.  They reflect, in my mind, what is great about American possibilities.  I've known Rachel's father since summer 1966 when we were roommates in Peace Corps training in DeKalb, Illinois.  Rachel is now married to Luci who is from Romania.  He's busy driving a cab and managing this new restaurant on Fullerton and Ashland.

So what's a Romanian doing running a Chinese restaurant in Chicago.  Well, they have a chef from Hong Kong - Jackie - and the food was very good - lots of flavor but not at all heavy.   I wouldn't call myself an expert on Chinese food, but we did live in Hong Kong for a year and in Beijing for maybe a total of five or six months and we had Chinese hosts who  made sure we sampled very good Chinese food.  We've eaten great Chinese food.

Abacus is not American-Chinese food.  It's Chinese, but with a modern twist.  We had vegetarian dishes and we thought we'd have plenty of leftovers to take home for Rachel's dad who couldn't make it.  But we had to order him another dish because the food was so good we ate it all.

I do occasionally write about restaurants so this isn't too unusual for me, but I want to be clear that  I wouldn't recommend even a friend's place if I didn't really like it.  We did eat with the owners so I'm sure the chef wasn't being careless.  But I got to talk to Jackie and I think he knows what he's doing.

If you like real Chinese food without the gooey sauces, but light and tasty, this is a great place.  And the prices are really inexpensive.   Chicken dishes $7 for the small and $9.50 for the large.  Beef, $7.25 and $9.75.  Vegetable $5.95 and $8.50.  And the rice comes as part of the order. 

 

And, as you can see, the decor is simple and tasteful.  The restaurant business is pretty hard, so let's see how well Luci does.  Will nearby DePaul students discover it and like it? 

BTW, you can use a digital abacus at Mandarintools.

Tomás Gets Third Place in World Press Cartoon Humor Award

On the English language page of the World Press Cartoon website, it says 'gag' cartoons, but in the Portuguese it says "Humor."  I think they should have used the same word in English.  These are humorous, but they aren't 'gags.'  Here's his third prize winning cartoon. Tomás gave me permission to post it here when it was officially announced.   It's called HARD CHILDHOOD/Infancia difícil

The Grand Prize Winner was Australian Rowe and his cartoon entitled "WikiLeaks and Uncle Sam."  You can see all the award winners and their cartoons here.

Tomás' Book Now in Online Edition

Last summer I met Spanish blogger, architect, artist, and amazing children's book author,  Tomás Serrano.  We connected after he left a comment on a post on Exit Glacier.  We spent a morning with him and his family before they headed to Chicago and back to Spain.  And he left a copy of Salfón el limpiador de tejados. 

Now, his most recent blog post at Waldo Walkiria World - under Blogs of Friends or Acqauintences on the right - announces that Salfón can be read online.

It's at a website called Magic Blox - Your Kid's Digital Book Library. The site has that bursting plastic blocks exclamation point and stars look, and you can only read a few pages without buying a library card. But each of his pages is a work of art worth looking at. And, if you have kids, the library card sounds pretty reasonable - much less than buying just one of the books.

The book is in Spanish, but the illustrations are in human.

By the way, Tomás hinted that one of his cartoons has won a major prize, but he doesn't know for sure until the winners are announced in April.  I'll let you know, or you can go directly to his blog.   Maybe we can get him back to Alaska - his family seemed to be having a great time last summer and realizing how little they got to see.

"Each Day I Compliment Someone"

I don't make New Years resolutions, but it's interesting to see what other people want to change.  Yesterday, in Amy Dickinson's column I saw one of the best resolutions ever:

Dear Amy: I made this resolution last year and am doing it again this year.
Each day I compliment someone. The lady in front of me in line with a pretty scarf, the family in a restaurant with well-behaved children, the person who holds a door for me, the person who assists me on the phone, etc.
It forces me to look for the good in people and makes someone's day pleasant. — Cecelia Lovas

It's so simple.  So easy to do.  And so powerful.  Imagine, someone is tired, feeling unappreciated, and there you are saying, "Wow, you really helped me.  I truly appreciate the extra effort you made."  And suddenly some sort of chemical reaction happens and the person lights up.  As long as it's genuine.   This is such an painless way to make the world a better place by raising the feel good quotient of someone each day.  And once you get used to looking someone in the eye and giving a sincere thank you for some small favor or service, you can do more than one a day.   I'm sure the drug companies don't want us to know how easily we can replace their happy pills just by being nice to each other.  And no bad side effects either.  And it's free.  And each of us has this power if we only use it. 

It doesn't have to be a New Year's resolution.  You can just put "Compliment someone" on your todo list each day. 

Cecelia Lovas - you have a great idea there.  Thanks!

Girls Play Here and Other Bike Ride Shots

As you can see, the sky's blue again and the sun's back.  And it was T-shirt and shorts weather on the bike.  When I pass this sign I think of my friend Thomás in Spain.

I stopped at the Venice skate plaza briefly to watch the skaters.  Yes, it's one at a time now, and just one loop.

Here's the Gehry house in sunshine.  The placement of the light pole is unfortunate.

I wandered down to the breakwater again and through the Ballona Lagoon area.

And when I was almost home, I saw this poster at Penmar - a playground built when I was a kid here.

It's nice the poster is here, it's sad that it needs to be.









UPDATE:  Anon asked what this "Girls Play Here" sign meant.  My response was too long for the comment so I'll put it here:


Anon, reasonable question. I'm guessing it has to do with social and other barriers to girls participating in sports.

I found a sociology article about an LA program called Girls Play Los Angeles, that resulted from a discrimination lawsuit. Here's a bit from “GIRLS JUST AREN’T INTERESTED”: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTEREST IN GIRLS’ SPORT by CHERYL COOKY, Purdue University

BACA V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES: CAN GIRLS PLAY IN L.A.?

In 1998, five years prior to the start of my fieldwork, the California Women’s Law Center worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent the West Valley Girls’ Softball League in a case against the City of Los Angeles, Baca v. City of Los Angeles. The plaintiffs sued the City of Los Angeles contending the city did not comply with California’s Equal Protection Clause and had violated the civil rights of girls by denying the team equal access to the city-owned ball fields, which were dominated by male teams. Baca v. City of Los Angeles was set- tled out of court in 1999. As part of this settlement, the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks was required to implement a girls-only sports league. This league was called “Girls Play Los Angeles” (GPLA), a year-round, gender- specific sports league program for “at-risk” girls, ages thirteen to fifteen. Accord- ing to the Director of Gender Equity for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (a position also required as part of the settlement), the department defined “at-risk” girls as those from low-income families who live in particular

“Girls Just aren’t Interested”: The Social Construction of Interest in Girls’ Sport 265
residential communities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Although it was never explicitly stated what girls were “at-risk” for, based on conversations with staff, coaches, and participants, girls were understood to be “at-risk” for teen sex, pregnancy, and gang involvement. Another factor girls were “at-risk” for was early drop-out from sport. While boys’ and girls’ sport and physical activity par- ticipation decreases once they reach adolescence (Dwyer et al. 2006), the drop-out rate for girls is almost six times that of boys (Garrett 2004). Girls in this age group (thirteen to fifteen), particularly Latina girls (Denner and Dunbar 2004; Jamieson 2005), struggle with the pressure to conform to dominant notions of femininity that often conflict with sport participation (Malcolm 2003). The GPLA program addressed these risk factors by targeting the program to girls transitioning into adolescence.

Sport and physical activity have been, and continue to be, viewed as a pana- cea for girls’ physical and psychosocial problems. Research has found positive correlations between (some) girls’ sport participation and academic performance (Miller et al. 2005; Videon 2002), self-esteem (Tracy and Erkut 2002), and body image (Crissey and Honea 2006). Research has also found a negative correlation between sport participation and the risk of teen pregnancy (Miller et al. 1999). This body of research provided empirical support for women’s sport advocates, who vociferously fought for Title IX and for continued support of girls’ sport programs. During the 1990s, many school and recreation sport programs were developed to increase opportunities for girls to play sport, given the correlation between sport participation and pro-social outcomes.

From a 2004 women's sports foundation web article:

A bill prohibiting gender discrimination in youth athletics programs run by cities and counties passed the state legislature in late August, and Schwarzenegger has until September 30 to sign it. He has not taken a position on the bill, his spokesperson said.

Advocates for youth sports and fitness programs say that most local parks departments don't provide girls nearly as many activities as boys, and that boys are more likely to get better equipment and playing fields. .  .

I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know.

Catherine Doss Senungetuk's Retrospective Exhibit

[Update Wed Dec. 15:  Catherine is back in the hospital.  It's not looking very good.  The exhibit is scheduled to open Friday.]

We visited our friends Catherine and Joe Senungetuk the other day.  Catherine's been pretty ill, but is now up and about, though still recovering.  She has a retrospective show - 35 years of her work - opening December 17 at Out North 5:00 - 7:00pm. 

Here's the original painting that the exhibition cards will be made from.






 

                                Joe's been working on this mask to be sent to Nome.  Catherine painted it.










Finally, here's Joe in his living room

How Exit Glacier Connected Me to El Limpiador de Tejados

I got a comment about a week ago on a post last year about Exit Glacier.  Tomás Serrano left a comment, "I was there today. It´s a wonderful place, but ask your knees... It worths!!!!"  (I don't look at old posts for comments, they come to me by email.)  I linked on his profile and checked out his blogs.  He's from Spain and wrote a children's book called Salfón:  El limpiador de tejados.  His blog also mentioned that he was leaving copies of the book for Alaskans to find.  So I emailed him about clues where we might find the book.  (If you're in Valdez, he left one in the library there.)  He seemed like an interesting guy. 








 



It turned out he would be in Anchorage on Saturday and Sunday so I invited him over for breakfast.  Sunday he came over with his wife and two children and we had a great time together - including a trip to the botanical garden and Glen Alps.  










We had a great time Sunday, thanks to the blog and Exit Glacier.  They should all be back in Spain now.  They stopped in Chicago for six or seven hours and I just got an email from our friends there who picked them up and showed them around on their stopover.  


There are so many interesting people in the world and it's fun to have this sort of opportunity to show Anchorage off to people who so enjoyed seeing it. 


Oh yes, he left an autographed copy of Salfón with us.  And if you want to know what

El limpiador de tejados

means, you can copy it here, then paste it into the window at translate.reference.com (make sure it is set to Spanish to English) and you can find out. 

I should add a note about another blogger friend, Ropi, who studied Spanish as well as English.  He's been accepted to study applied economics at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.  He did mention that he is going to drop Spanish and study Russian.  But wait Ropi, and first read Tomás' book. 

Happy Birthday Monica, Alex, and Ropi

I know three others who have birthdays today and I want to wish them a great day.

Does this last birthday card translate across cultures?  In the US we can make a wish on a dandelion and then if you blow all the seeds off, the wish is supposed to come true.

Freshly Baked Bread

I finally baked the first loaves of breads since we got back. The bakeries in Germany were incredible. Beautiful loaves of wonderful fresh breads.


  Many had lots of seeds on the crusts. In Juneau we didn't have our bread maker so I made breads from scratch. I like that and I learned I could leave dough in the fridge overnight. A useful trick to know.




But here I can do the first round of kneading and rising in the bread maker, set it so it will be ready when I get up in the morning, and then do the second round of kneading by hand. That also let me add seeds to the crust. Mine tend to fall off. But this time I wet the dough and pressed the seeds into the dough before sticking it into the oven.


A friend is coming over for lunch today and to help me set up a new website.  It's good to have incentives to get me to do something like bake the bread.  And now I have to clean up a bit. 

In the Shadows of Lives Lived

We only learned after we got back that two special friends had died while we were gone.  Yakov and Lisa (as we knew her) came to Alaska from Moscow in 1994.  Both were doctors there and ended up in Anchorage near Yakov's sister.  They loved Anchorage's wilderness, frequently walking and biking the bike trails.  Although their English was much better than my non-existent Russian, there was much left uncommunicated in words.  Instead they used their eyes and smiles and love of life to make us appreciate how special they were and made us feel.  Yakov invited me several times to come play pool with him at the senior center where he would tell me how good I was playing as he pocketed his balls.  They taught us the joys of king boleta mushrooms - showing us how to choose good ones and various ways to cook them.  And don't forget vodka.  Lisa. Lisa. Lisa.  I felt like I'd known Lisa all my life.  She had such a warm smile and lively eyes.  There was a special connection.  I just felt completely comfortable around her.  We could talk seriously and playfully; there were no facades, just real human to human connection.  Unfortunately we weren't together often enough.   They'd had health problems on and off, but I didn't realize I would never see them again.  They were both 80.

My aunt Bert died last weekend in Los Angeles.  She is someone who has been on the periphery of my life since I was born.  She was my mother's brother's wife.  I did connect meaningfully with my uncle as an adult, but never really had any serious conversations with my aunt, except maybe about her paintings.  They were married for over 60 years.  The pictures I've taken in our last visits were mostly of my uncle who was always the more outgoing of the two.  But here's my aunt (in the turquoise shirt) with my mom and uncle.  She's about 90 in this picture. 

And Johnny Wooden died too.  I started UCLA in 1963.  So I had student season tickets for the 1963-64 basketball games.  I still remember vividly the LA Classic game at the Sports Arena near Exposition Park in December 1963 when UCLA, having won a few games, went up against Michigan, which may have been number 1 at the time.  It was the game sports writers said UCLA would face a real team.  In the first few minutes it was 16-0 UCLA.  That was the first big game of that initial undefeated season.  Each game that year was fantastic since UCLA, up to that point, had been a mediocre team and each win was like a surprise gift.  In later years, while the basketball got better, every game was also the one in which the winning streak might end.  The danger of losing replaced the excitement of winning.  But that first year, despite their winning streak, UCLA was often seen as the underdog just waiting for their luck to run out.

I got to see the team and Coach Wooden close up at many of the games as the dynasty began.  I attended the preseason game when the freshman team - which included Lew Alcindor - defeated the national champion varsity team.  I'm not among those who deify Wooden.  There were things that have been rumored to go on with gifts to players that may have been ok then, but aren't today.  Wealthy patrons of UCLA looking after the team members on the side.  So I suspect things were not all as squeaky clean as they are portrayed.  But it was fantastic basketball and I was at the right place at the right time to experience it.  Wooden was 99 when he died the other day.  He lived a good, fulfilled life.



Mary died last week too.  Mary was our friend Lynn's guide dog.  Cancer.  She was a working dog whose life wasn't carefree and who made Lynn's life much easier.   There's Mary on the floor at work at Cyrano's.

Finally I want to mention "three Afghan civilians" who were mentioned in the news this weekend too.  From what I can tell, they died in separate incidents between January and May.  I didn't know them.  Their names weren't even in the newspaper.  They were just three anonymous people.  All the attention was on an Alaskan, from Wasilla, who has been accused of shooting them. The Alaska link is my excuse for mentioning them here.  People die every day and we can't interrupt our lives for everyone who dies in the world.  We need to keep on with our own lives.  But we should take time to remember the the people (and in this case also a dog) we knew as well as those whose lives we are through strange twists of fate linked to, such as the three Afghan civilians.  I've emailed the reporter and the base public affairs officer Lt. Col. Tamara Parker to see if they know the names of the civilians.  If they respond I'll let you know. 

Meanwhile, spend a moment in the shadows of these lives lived.  Then reflect on what's truly important to you and stop worrying about the unimportant stuff and get out into the sunshine and live your lives boldly and lovingly.  Do things that make the world better.  Make other people's lives happier, not harder.  You don't have much time to waste. 

For those interested, you can double click the images below to enlarge them.

Small World DC Style

We got to DC on Monday evening and while changing Metro lines the daughter of good friends in Anchorage came up to us to say hello.  I expect that sort of thing to happen in Anchorage, but not in DC.

Tonight, while walking J2's dog Kona, a man came up to me, looked at me closely, then said my name.  I haven't seen Joe Reum for many, many years.  We both worked at the Municipality of Anchorage in the early 80s and then he took a class from me at UAA.  And now he has his PhD and is Interim Dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at the George Washington University.  He lives a short block from where my son lives.

Joe is someone I always enjoyed talking with and it was a real delight to see him again, albeit briefly.  

Being with Good Old Friends

When I was a student in Göttingen as a student in 1964-65 I lived in an independent student housing building.  There were about 30 private rooms on three floors with bathrooms and little kitchens down the halls.  It was a bit of a strange situation.  Residents had to be approved by the people already there and there were occasional get-togethers, but it wasn't anything like a fraternity and not as restrictive as a dormitory. 

Upstairs in a small apartment lived a married couple and before long I found myself invited for Abendbrot ("evening bread") several times a week.  HG would get his doctorate in Chemistry that year and we would become very good friends.  I have visited them maybe five or six times since then.  Over that time HG took an interest in monitor lizards and has since become one of the world's experts on the giant reptiles.  He and his growing family moved out of the town where he was teaching into an old farmhouse so they could keep the monitors in the basement.

Last time we were here I think he had about 30.  In fact, I was able to find his email before this trip through a Monitor Lizard journal.  We have been here a little over 24 hours and so far we haven't gone down to the basement.  I'm saving that.  Maybe this evening.  I think he said he was down to about ten animals now, but there are other creatures that populate the house. 

HG is retired from his chemistry professorship at the university, but he continues to write and research on monitors.  The life he leads would be impossible without his wife I who with incredibly good humor does all the administrative work necessary to run a household - especially one in a 100 year plus old farmhouse - and keep connected with the rest of the world.  Here's a still life she prepared last night. 

It was after nine when we took the dogs out of a walk.  The family is truly lucky to live in crowded Germany in such a beautiful little pocket of green open space. 

This house just feels so comfortable to me. 

Part of the household includes this hedgehog their daughter rescued last winter.  It should be release out into the wild already, but the spring has been so cold that they are waiting a little longer for the insects the hedgehog eats come out. 

Here's HG in his office with these great windows looking out into the woods.  And the view, with the birch trees, reminds me of home. 


We've been discussing everything under the sun from Yiddish folk songs to Muslims in Europe to raising children and, of course, monitor lizards. 

Another member of the household, who keeps checking on me now that I've connected to the internet in the computer room. 

Back in the kitchen for lunch where I has prepared a sort of quiche/pizza combination.