Hungarian Dinner Birthday Party

Went to my other Mom's for her 86th birthday dinner. Unfortunately, she doesn't cook any more. But they have C who speaks Hungarian and cooks almost as well. Here are a couple pictures of dinner last night.

SeaTac Art - High Wire - Michael Fajans

The art at SeaTac International Airport (Seattle-Tacoma) has always been fun. Since so many flights out of Anchorage stop at SeaTac on the way to somewhere else, I’ve gotten to see it often. The video shows one I’ve always enjoyed, though I’m not sure why it’s titled High Wire. It’s in Terminal B.




[Update: June 29, 2009 - From a 2004 paper on Michael Fajans:

Similarly, Fajans most well-known mural, High Wire, uses a repeated image to evoke a core concept embodied by the space it inhabits. Displayed along Concourse D of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, High Wire is a one-hundred-eighty foot long explication of a vaudeville magic act that uses multiple appearances and manipulations of a large, decorated box by a magician and his assistant to celebrate our disappearances and reappearances during plane flight. Fajans could very easily use his mastery of representational technique to churn out pop visual quips or variations on the surrealistic still life, but he has never shown any interest in manipulating objective reality in this way. His career-long preoccupation has been with humanity and human character made accessible through carefully painted facial expressions and gestures with complementary extensions and backgrounds, sometimes involving very carefully
and realistically painted objects, other times employing the techniques of minimalist abstraction.

Though he does not paint portraits per se, he almost always paints people, and the figural paintings he has created over the years involving one, two or more figures record a remarkable collection of objects as well: a crushed and smoldering cigarette, a zebra-striped vinyl purse strap, a map laid out on the hood of a car, sunglasses, a bathing suit, an inflatable plastic headrest or, quite richly, an extensive catalogue of beautifully realized and recognizable fabrics and hair style.

And here's more from a Seattle Post Intelligencer 2006 article about High Wire.

He died in a motorcycle accident at age 58 in 2006 in Seattle.]


There was another great little exhibit - about 15 pictures of Ranier Valley immigrants. The photos were compelling as were the short biographies. Here are a couple. The exhibit shows how immigrants add so much richness to our culture and why it's a good thing the Assembly voted Tuesday against having the police intimidating people who might possibly be illegal immigrants

































But, Anchorage’s airport has free wifi, but in SeaTac if you aren’t already part of ATT you have to pay. So this will wait til I get to LA.

Good Discussion on Immigration - Justice Talking

Justice Talking had a pretty extensive discussion of laws requiring that police check immigration status of people who might be illegal immigrants when making routine traffic stops.

Overview (from the site)

The issue of immigration has been a flashpoint in the Presidential debates. Border fences, identification for illegal immigrants, and other reforms have all been debated. And Mitt Romney has been in the hot seat because some say he didn't act fast enough when he found out illegal persons were cutting his grass. All of these issues raise important questions about U.S. immigration policies, particularly the current crack-down on hiring illegal workers. What happens to workers caught working without papers? Join us for this edition of Justice Talking for a look at our nation's work rules and what they mean for illegal immigrants.

The link shows you who all was in the discussions and there's a link to the show. Given that Assemblyperson Bauer is trying to get this back on the agenda, I'd suggest Anchorage folks listen to this.

I really don't understand what drives people on an issue like this. An interesting point made - that is relevant to Anchorage - is that the purpose is overcome laws that prevent police from checking. At the hearing the Assembly had, the police chief, as I recall, said there was nothing to prevent police from checking, but they should be forced to check.

Listen for yourself. There's a Windows Player link and an MP3 download link.

To L.A.

Sitting at the Anchorage Airport on my way to visit my mom before we head off to Thailand. After waiting longer than we expected, I've been matched with an NGO in Northern Thailand- we spoke on the phone Sunday evening (AK Time). So, to catch my other mom's 80something birthday tomorrow, I'm headed down in an hour or so. Security was empty, the TSA folks were friendly and there's not too many people here at 11:30 pm on a Monday night. Will stop in Seattle on the way back for several hours to have dinner with my daughter at the end of the week.

Spent much of the day getting my tickets, getting J's ticket to Thailand, and digitizing old slides so I can leave a DVD of late 60's pictures with my old school in Thailand. Got a little exercise biking over to the University library.

So Brock, if you read this, email me and maybe we can get together.

Can't believe I'm posting such a lame post. Oh well, better add a picture.

Savoy Family Cajun Band - Anchorage Folk Festival

We got to catch the end of the Anchorage Folk Festival and hear the Savoy Family Cajun Band. This free, two weekend festival of music, held at the Wendy Williamson - the same venue as Revelation Now a couple weeks ago, and the Sierra Leone Allstar Refugee Band last year - has been happening close to 20 years now. Lots of great music.

Here's a peek.

"Resisting ~ it's the thing I'm absolutely worst at."

One of the blogs I visit is run by a heroin addict whose subtitle reads:

HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

I think it's good to get as many view points as possible. Gledwood takes me into a world I otherwise never see. He shares favorite videos, there's lots on his hamsters, food, the book he's writing that he hopes will pay for rehab, and now and then we hear about his habit. Today's post had a mini lecture on heroin:

RESISTING. Resisting ~ it's the thing I'm absolutely worst at. Every decision, pledge and scheme; every about-turn I've made or promised to make: nothing has worked.
And it's all been down to "brown" ~ that Afghan brown crap (illustrated) that's swilling about the streets of Britain like pigs' diarrhoea.

Heroin... what is this stuff that's captured me, impaled my heart?

There are three types of street heroin in the world, from four places: Columbia, Mexico, Afghanistan and the Union of Myanmar (Burma)...

The rest, it gets more informative, is at Gledwood Vol. 2.

Polar Bear Rehap and Training

[Photo from fogonazos.blogspot.com.]

The Anchorage Daily News had a feature story today by Tom Kizzia on the Palin administration's opposition to having polar bears put on the endangered species list. Maybe we need some creative thinking here.

It appears that in Ontario, Canada they are already relocating polar bears and training them how to live off the polar ice. You can check it out here.

Let Erin and Hig Stir Your Adventure Juices

There are still people who do more than just talk about wild adventures they want to take. Phil has been reporting on the progress of Erin and Hig who also have their own blog.

They've been using non-motorized transportation (rafts, feet, skis, etc.) to get from Seattle to Anchorage. They're on their way to Umimak Island via the proposed Pebble Mine site.

Tuesday they will be at UAA to talk about their trip so far.



UAA Fine Arts Building Recital Hall

7:30 p.m. Tuesday January 29, 2008

FREE EVENT --- FREE PARKING

Join Erin and Hig as they share their experiences pack rafting, hiking and skiing from Seattle to Anchorage.

They started at Seattle?s University District in June, negotiated the BC and Alaska Inside Passages, walked and rafted the Wild Coast from Gustavus to Cordova, traversed Prince William Sound to Valdez, and hiked
and skiied from there to Palmer, packrafted down the lower Mat, Knik and Knik Arm - all without using any motorized transport!

Hear how they intend to finish their trek past Pebble Mine?s proposed site, on their way to Unimak Island.

It's always good to see people who do what everyone says is impossible.

Border Cafe

We don't know much about Iran. TV gives us the images that quickly convey "Iran" in our minds - women covered head to toe in black, people demonstrating, etc.

Movies made by local nationals is one of the best ways to get past those kinds of images. Even if they are making propaganda movies, they unconsciously show us bits and pieces of everyday life that tell us more than a year's worth of tv stories.

So getting to see Border Cafe - it also shows up as Transit Cafe - at the museum tonight was a double treat. We saw a good movie and got a bit of a vaccine against American media Iran stereotyping.

Yes, there were women with just their faces showing, there was family pressure for the widow to move into her brother-in-law's place to protect the family's reputation. But here the brother-in-law explained, cajoled, begged his foreign sister-in-law to move into the new apartment he built for her in his family compound. Meanwhile she reopens her husband's cafe near the Turkish border and creates a community of her own.

OK, eventually the restaurant gets shut down, but partly because it is so successful that it is badly hurting the other restuarants in town. The traditional male hierarchy that reinforces the brother-in-law's power isn't a good thing. Yet it wasn't that long ago that husbands had the legal right to make the decisions in the US, and women here still face a lot of discrimination. Seeing the movie puts a whole different face on life in Iran. It's not THAT different from ours - different in degree, yes, but the movie protrays an Iran that is a lot more decent and humane than are shown usually.

I also never thought about all the foreign truck drivers who carry goods into Iran everyday - Russians, Turks, Greeks, and who knows where else. Watching people who had no common language communicate was also a pleasure.

So how many of you even knew that Iran had a border with Turkey?



Louise Kennedy of the Boston Globe has a thoughtful review.


The winter twilight sky is staggeringly beautiful as it flows from a deep velvet indigo to pastel blue. This evening we had one of those great skies. You can just see a touch of it in the picture above as we were going into the museum for the movie.

To Thailand Soon ไป เมือง ไทย ใน ไม่ นาน

Working this out has taken a while. The American Jewish World Service (AJWS) had a spot for me at one NGO, but political issues ruled that out. So they worked out another one. I'm not sure how much I can blog about specifics, but I will keep blogging in general. If all works out I'll be in Chieng Mai for about 2 1/2 months. Will be helping with management activities. English level is low to non-existent I'm told, so I have to get my Thai back up to speed. Actually it was pretty serviceable last spring when we were there and I have been listening to the audio for "Thai for Advanced Readers." I need to start practicing writing again. My spelling's terrible.

Here's a page from the reader. This story is about Thais in the US.



Here's the title with a little help.



Two of the words in the title are in the title of this post. (The 'h' after the K and the T means you blow air out of your mouth when you say them. So Th is like a T sound, but T alone is the same sound but without the air coming out. A little like a D, but Thais have two different sounds. KH is like a K, K without the h is a K without the puff of air, or like the G in 'go'. So, that's why Thai, has an h, but isn't pronounced thigh.)

I was trying to find a website with the Thai alphabet. But then I found this one which looks like a great source for studying Thai.

As I keep looking for a simple Thai alphabet page with the English sounds I'm finding a lot of neat resources for learning Thai. Here's a page that shows how to write the first few consonants in the Thai alphabet.

OK, after much time exploring Thai sites, many with interesting stuff, I finally found a reasonably simple Thai alphabet with English phonetics. It has more than you need, but it's good.