South Pacific 50 Years After Film First Came Out

We biked over to the Bear Tooth Monday night for their 50th anniversary of the movie South Pacific. (The picture is getting ready to ride home at about 11:15 pm after the movie. It had an intermission about two hours into the movie.) Not long ago I posted about Out North's production of Hair "forty years later." It's hard to imagine that only ten years separate Hair and South Pacific. Actually a few more, because it was opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949 according to Wikipedia. I grew up listening to Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, but I'd never seen the movie South Pacific.

I was worried it was going to look terribly dated (and the quality of the film - especially when they did special lighting effects - was pretty awful. ) But it was mostly musicals, songs I could sing along with. We have the Broadway album with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza. Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi played the main roles in the movie.

And the underlying theme was interracial marriage - listen to the short clip of "You've got to be taught (to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made, and people whose skin is a different shade, you've got to be carefully taught...) There was even one black man among the mostly bare chested sailors dancing and singing on the beach. This was 1949, pretty amazing. Before Brown v. Board of Education and all civil rights movement in the 1960s. (Spike Lee recently criticized Clint Eastwood for not having any black soldiers in his 2006 film Letters from Iwo Jima. And life has many strange connections. It was in a talk at Cannes where he was discussing his new film about the Buffalo Soldiers whom I just learned about Sunday from a real Buffalo Soldier at the Juneteenth Celebration.)

I don't know how these songs would strike young listeners who'd never heard them before, but since the first Broadway revival just won seven Tony's it must be connecting with somebody. I would note that Oscar Hammerstein, who did the music for this and many other great broadway shows, was like an uncle to Stephen Sondheim who created Sweeny Todd and many other musicals.




The Broadway South Pacific website has some beautiful (great internet quality) videos of the cast in the recording studio. Definitely worth a check.

[I keep mentioning the bikes because if a couple of 60 somethings can ride bikes around town, maybe the rest of you will think about it too. We just ask before we leave, "Can we do this by bike?" and if we aren't running really late or don't need to carry something too big or too heavy and it's not raining, we usually say "Yes."]

David Shurtleff Making a Change

I hear that David Shurtleff is moving from the Alaska Public Radio Network to the [whoops, just got told I have the wrong Be..]Begich Berkowitz campaign. I can hear people saying right now - see I told you the media was liberal. Of course, one reporter doesn't make the media liberal. As if there were no Dan Fagans or Rick Rydells. But it isn't the on air staff that decides the slant of the news. Ultimately it's the owners and they are, by definition, business people. But, it's true APRN is not for profit, but they still have to make their budget.

In any case, David knows how to separate his personal biases from the facts of a story.
He was one of the journalists who was so helpful to me when I started blogging the trials last year. He would share information and notes, just did things to make me feel welcome. The rest of the journalists did the same. Just recently at the Democratic convention, he emailed me his recordings of the speeches of Diane Benson and Ethan Berkowitz so I could post them from the convention. He would be taking bits out for his broadcast, but otherwise didn't need the whole speeches and he thought they should be available right away.

I do have to say that I was constantly amazed at how he could walk out of the courtroom and somehow pull together the key points into a clear, concise, fluid report - no pauses, or filler uhs. Don't know how he does it. I'm going to miss hearing him on the air.

Anchorage Daily News Photo Policy Appears to Be One-Way

[Note: As I was writing this it came to my attention that McClatchy has announced a 10% employee reduction. (McClatchy owns the Anchorage Daily News.) I was already working on a post on a speech McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt gave in Anchorage in April, but it's not quite ready.]

On May 21, Phil Munger posted on Progressive Alaska this comment to a post from the Anchorage Daily News.

Hi Mr. Munger-
My name is Katherine Gill and I work at the Daily News. It was brought to my attention that you posted a photo of Bill Roth's on your blog. We have a copyright fee of $100 to post photos on a website. Please contact me at kgill@adn.com if you would like to proceed with paying the fee, or please remove the photo from your website.

Thank you,
Katherine Gill

Phil went on to mention that Theresa at My Fairbanks Life had gotten a similar order from the ADN about a photo she'd used. Phil did some huffing and puffing about free speech, and a bunch of us told Phil to calm down, that the ADN had copyrights and he had to respect that.

So it is very curious to find that the ADN doesn't seem to respect other people's copyrights. The Alaska Ear published this story in yesterday's paper.


This is also on the ADN Website.

Dennis tells me that he was not asked nor did he give permission for the ADN to use the picture. Furthermore, the ADN has his link wrong - AlaskaReportS.com instead of Alaskareport.com.

Dennis has this posted at the bottom of his blog:

Dennis Zaki Blog - AlaskaReport © 2008 All Rights Reserved.

Now, I understand that people can make mistakes now and then. I mistype often, but Dennis says this is not the first time.

ADN consistantly uses my cartoons yet always manages to foul up the link to my website. And they NEVER put a hotlink up there, unlike to other websites. I've written to them, but it keeps happening... Sean references my site a lot by saying, 'a website'.

So ADN, can you please explain what appears to be a double standard where you feel it's ok for you to use Dennis' copyrighted material, but you don't want other people to use yours? Perhaps there is more to this story that you can share with us.

In the same column, the Ear writes about the Baranof Hotel offering sure reservations and discounted rates in contradiction to what Representatives said in the ADN story about some Representatives sleeping in their offices. Readers of this blog know that I had that story last Monday and on Tuesday I posted the emails the Ear refers to.

I want to make it clear that the Ear got the information independently. When I asked the Baranof manager why he didn't have room for the legislators, he told me about the offer. He hadn't seen the story, but after I brought it to his attention, he called the ADN to fill them in on the other side of the story. They sent him to Sheila Toomey who writes the Ear.

Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 4

I mentioned Ollen Hunt in the previous post. He fought in Italy in WW II as part of the Buffalo Soldiers. He's been an Anchorage resident since three weeks before the 1964 earthquake.





2wenty (John) is another local boy. He was giving away cd's of his rap album Cold Summer, a title most Alaskans can relate to this year. I believe in free speech. I think there is good rap. At its best, rap expresses the frustrations and/or the hopes of the singers. At its worst, it merely copies the themes of misogyny, alcohol, and drugs, and a macho male power trip. I'm afraid this CD falls into that category. The vicious treatment of women as sex objects in the CD disturbs me greatly.

The contrast between John's very polite and respectful way of talking to me and the meanness of the lyrics is striking. I'd guess this Bartlett High school graduate and athlete is simply doing what he thinks he needs to do to make it in the rap world. What a shame. One could say, "hey, he'll grow out of this." Or "He's not like that in his real life." One could say that, except for the damage these types of lyrics do to women. Since I didn't hear the CD until I got home, (and I suspect he wouldn't have been allowed to play this at the celebration) I couldn't ask John about the lyrics and why he felt the need to rap them.


A toast to serendipity. The next person we talked to was dealing with the victims of sexual assault. Barbara Bachmeier who is in charge of Women Serving Women Veterans, an organization for the victims of the worst rap lyrics is the subject of the next video. But, women were being assaulted long before rap came out, so my intent is NOT to blame all sexual violence on rap. Barbara works to get the military and the VA to take women's sexual assault claims seriously and to provide women in the military with the medical care they need following sexual harassment and assault. You can reach her at

WSWV
PO Box 100723
Anchorage, AK 99508
[added August 9, 2008: http://www.wswv.blogspot.com/]

Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 3

Things were still a little quiet when we got back to the Parkstrip about 1pm.




But that gave us lots of opportunity to talk to people. This man fought as a Buffalo Soldier in Italy during WW II and he was out here selling his book about this adventures. Check for the video in the next post.







I guess their sign says it all. But no one to talk to yet.









There was a breeze lifting the flag at the Veteran's Memorial flag pole.












So, this is a Juneteenth Celebration. I'm glad the APD have figured out this is a good place to recruit non-white police officers. But maybe it would be nice to have at least one African-American officer along. Now, I wasn't there long, so maybe there were other officers at other times whom I didn't get to see.











Things were still quiet. At this point the only music came from stereos.












































I found the woman working this booth a little later and I'll post a short video in the next post. She's working to help women veterans to get benefits to assist them with sexual assault related problems. Right now, she said, neither the military nor the VA take these issues seriously - "they don't want to hurt the excellent careers of the men accused" - and thus women aren't getting treatment for the resulting physical and mental problems.

Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 2

There's lots of building going on in Anchorage, and I hope to post on some of the new structures that began or were finished while we were gone. Here are a couple of the old houses still surviving in downtown Anchorage. Some of these still have people living in them. Others have been turned into offices.



It's nice to see the Municipality letting people know they don't have to pay on weekends. I've often noticed meters on the weekend with money in them. It does say except weekends on the signs, but it never said it on the meters before. Probably the businesses downtown pushed for this one.







As we walked around downtown, there were lots of things to notice. Like this shop window.











Since we didn't feel like waiting around at Snow City for breakfast, we ended up having lunch at the Brewpub. As we walked around afterward, we saw some other places we could have breakfast, like Sacks. But my halibut was good.











We poked in at the PAC and found three of this year's artsy salmon. Here's one with a hatbox.












And this silver. (I couldn't find any official names of the fish.)







There were some Thai tourists enjoying Anchorage.










And lots of other tourists getting what they needed, I hope, at the visitor's center.













One suggestion someone made about all the orphan bike locks - people leave them there rather than take them home. Anyone know why these all get left behind?









Then we headed back to the Parkstrip to see if there was more action at the Juneteenth Celebration. Passing Skinny Raven's (can you guess what this store sells?) flower pots.

Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 1

Fortunately, no one bought me one of these. (I took the picture later in the day at Costco) But I did get a card with an Alaska State Parks sticker for the car (yes we do still have two) We didn't get passes earlier because we were gone.


The other pass is a National Parks Golden Pass that they had wanted to get me, but I had to do that in person. We stopped by the Lands Office downtown later and got it there. What a great deal! If your 62 or older, for $10 you get a lifetime pass for all US National Parks, including the people in the car with you. And a call from my daughter. A phone message from J in Singapore was there when we got home. Thanks both of you



I'd been wanting to go to hear Koun Franz again since we'd seen him at the reading of Mark Twain's The War Prayer. I've been seeing notices that the public was welcome to come to the Anchorage Zen Community Sunday mornings. The paper said 10:25 am, so we went. As we walked up, a moose went by in the next door yard - the center is in a house in midtown.

We walked into a room with about a dozen people sitting on cushions on the floor listening to someone - not Koun Franz - talking about the life of a Chinese monk who was an important link to Zen Buddhism. It was quiet, calm, and took me to another place. We learned later that Koun Franz is in Japan for six weeks or so. There are so many worlds in Anchorage!



We drove downtown and parked near the Parkstrip. (I didn't post about J's bike pedal falling off while she was riding and her falling. Lots of people came to see if she was ok. She couldn't get the pedal back on and walked the bike home a couple miles. Then rode it (I got the pedal back in enough, but the threads weren't right) to REI where they fixed it for free (it is just barely a year old) and she rode back home. But the next day she got a pain in her side.



She can walk, she can sit, she can lie. But moving from one of those positions to the other hurts. And the bike is on hold till she feels better.) We were hoping to take in the Juneteenth Celebrations. We passed the Veteran's memorial.



But things weren't really happening yet. It was about 11am.



So we wandered on into downtown past the Martin Luther King Memorial headed for the Snow City Cafe for breakfast. But it was packed with lots of people waiting.

Maybe It Made Sense to Them When They Put it There

Suppose you're visiting Anchorage. People suggested you rent a bike and try the bike trails. But there are side trails here and there, many unmarked. Finally, you get to this map.

Below is a closer look.

The "You Are Here" sign is part of the map. I added the numbers. Suppose you want to go:

to #1 which way do you go? a. Left __ b. Right__ c. Back___ d. Forward____

to #2 which way do you go? a. Left __ b. Right__ c. Back___ d. Forward____

to #3 which way do you go? a. Left __ b. Right__ c. Back___ d. Forward____

to #4 which way do you go? a. Left __ b. Right__ c. Back___ d. Forward____


I've added the big W and big E to the sign. Why can't they put the signs facing north, so when you look at them, the right side is east and the left side is west, like in a normal map? I couldn't find anything that said where north was on the map.

About a year ago, I came across a woman studying another south facing map on the bike trail. She was going totally in the wrong direction because she assumed that left on the map corresponded with left in real life. How foolish of her.




On the other (north) side of the path from where the map is, there is plenty of space to put this sign. There, left would match real left and right would match real right.


For people who work with bike trails I have a few suggestions:

• Maps should be oriented to match the geography they represent. General custom is to put N on top, E to the right, S at the bottom, and W on the left of maps. Thus maps generally should be facing north so that what is left on the map corresponds with what is left of the person reading the map.

• Take a regular bike rider along with you so she can point out problems bikers might have, such as:
• walk buttons on street lights are off the trail and/or facing away from the trail, so a person on the trail (walker, runner, biker) can't reach them from the trail
  
• make signs as carefully as you make them for cars
  
• take down temporary "trail closed" signs when you stop working and generally keep the trails open as much as possible so cyclists can still use the trail.
• Not everyone processes information the same way. Take a couple people with different ways of processing visual cues and ask them to follow the directions, the map, etc. See if they all can. If they can't, ask them why. Try to find another way of showing things that everyone can understand.
  
• Give bicyclists the same attention and respect you give car and truck drivers.
  

Answers:
#1 - You have to go right. (The arrow doesn't really match where you are. It should be where the black trail ends at the red trail. If you look at the first picture, you can see there is NO trail behind the sign.)
#2 - You have to turn around and go back away from the sign.
#3 - You have to go left.
#4 - You have to go right.

Greening Up

Forget-me-nots brighten this chilly summer in the front yard.











And the sweet peas are coming up. Last year only a few bloomed. Maybe we'll have better luck this year.

















I did my run today around Goose Lake. Here the dogwood carpet the ground adding a bright green on an otherwise grey day.









And here I'm approaching the lake.




























Some sort of larvae on one of the reeds. It rained earlier and the reeds still had drops clinging.

Poll's Totally Inconclusive Results

My first online poll has essentially thrown the ball back to me to make my own decision. I asked if I should say yes to the blogger at "Thoughts on Sex" that we exchange links on our blogrolls.

Could the results be more divided?

I think I'm going to tell him "Thanks, but no thanks." I don't need a bunch of horny surfers coming here expecting who knows what and getting pissed off because there are no naked people. Just mentioning sex as I did in the post on Eliot Spitzer gets me hits from strange google searches like "turning wife over to sexual demonic powers" which I got today from someone in Columbus, Georgia.

So, thanks to all of you who took the poll. At least I know my viewers have totally diverse views on this topic (not that I'm sure what the topic was - sex? links? experiments?). And I'll take it down today.

Now I'm going out to enjoy the sunshine and blue sky.