Diane Ravitch on Arts Education

Graffiti, Art or Both

InfoGraphic: A History of BANKSY's Graffiti art

http://ow.ly/mztZG

Gay Day

"By the power vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you married."
Six Feet Under

Win-Nguyen Situation

You say it like it's spelled: "Nguyen." 
The N and the G are silent and combine to form a W sound. 
As for the U, it sounds more like an E. 
Also, ignore the Y and the E. 

"Nguyen." What's the issue?

http://www.itspronouncednguyen.com/

La Musica

• Mary Margaret O'Hara
• Eva Cassidy
• Bjork
• Cowboy Junkies
• Natalie Merchant
• 4 NonBlondes
• Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians
• Mazzy Star
• Lucinda Williams
• Tori Amos
• Garbage w/ Shirley Manson
• The Breeders
• Morcheeba
• Lorde
• tuneyards
• Nouvelle Vague

It's 1984 all over again

 I ❤ the NSA. I heart Big Brother!

FYI: My neighbor's car tag expired. He also cheated on last year's income tax returns.

Stranger Than Fiction

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it."
Henry Ford

I've been thinking today. Yeah, it's been a while since I do that. Haven't written anything in weeks.

Today marks the conclusion of my 11th year teaching art in an elementary school. Eleven!  My previous career lasted for about 11 years. I worked as a sound designer but mostly a theatrical sound technician/ engineer. Also in 11 more years I will be eligible to retire with the rule of 80 (age + years of service.) This is also the 11-year anniversary of this blog. No kidding! I started this thing when I was working part-time at the library. I love the number eleven.  "...These go to 11!"

My first full-time job out of college took me to Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine. Twenty  three years ago right?  I remember walking down the street a week after I got there, and as I was in the crosswalk I saw this girl named Cinnamon (there are not many people in the world with that name) passing by me. She was the director for one of the student shows we did at UC Santa Cruz. I was stunned momentarily so I didn't get to say anything to her. After all, Portland was 3000 miles away from Santa Cruz, the place where we last saw each other. I thought of  the song "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

The thing about working in the "theatre" is you get to move around the country frequently, no matter how good or how nice or how dedicated you are. Especially for actors and designers. My first summer stock theater job was at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin. It's a beautiful rustic charming outdoor theater up the hill in the countryside. One weekend before the season started I ventured down to State Street (equivalent of Santa Cruz's Pacific Garden) on the campus of University of Wisconsin at Madison.  Lovely liberal progressive city with tons of coffee shops (this was before the Starbucks explosion), record stores, used book stores, five big lakes and great parks. I spent hours walking up and down that street just watching people, browsing books and magazines and listening to street musicians and drinking tons of java. Espresso, cappuccino, mocha, latte... I didn't drink alcohol back then. I only started having a beer or a glass of wine after I started teaching in 2002. I think my fellow educators can understand that completely.

Anyway, back to Madison, Wisconsin.  I can still smell that coffee shop's aromatic caffeine fragrance to this day. Grunge just began in Seattle and Nirvana recorded Nevermind at a local studio (Smart Studios) owned by Butch Vitch before his days with the band Garbage. Didn't know who the heck this Butch Vig was and I was sure not a fan of Nirvana at the time because their music was being played on top 40 radio ALL the time. Eventually I subbed for a DJ one late Sunday night (12-3 AM shift) on the community radio station WORT-FM. I dug Madison, this city was kinda like the Santa Cruz/ Berkeley of the MidWest, but not as culturally diverse, if you know what I mean. Then one day I saw another UCSC student on the other side of the street. I never knew his name, I just know that I saw him previously at Porter College and once in a while at the radio station KZSC-FM. Dude with long curly hair, dark clothing and always wearing shades. Could be a generic Goth in any city, USA? Nah, this was definitely him. I was certain.  Oh yes, Madison Wisconsin. Nick names: 77 square miles surrounding by Reality. The People Republic of Madison. A Drinking City with a College problem. Home office of American Family Insurance-that damn catchy jingle I hear on the Tee Vee all the time.

The next theater was Baltimore Center Stage in 1992. I was an electrician/ assistant audio engineer. This was the place where I met my wife. Kathy was a stage management intern.  We're still together 21 years later. Or as I thought about it, three decades (90's, 00's, 10's), two centuries (1900 & 2000) and two millennia. I was there in Baltimore, "the city that reads," for exactly one year. Because the next season I was hired as a sound engineer for the Dallas Theater Center. The production manager who hired me was another UC Santa Cruz alumni, Ben Thoron. We knew each other and had some undergrad classes together at UCSC. Ben went on to get his MFA degree at Yale School of Drama. He is a couple of years younger than me. Ben is now the Technical Director at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, America's finest city. There is my point about a career in the theater.

Me and Kathy in front of Baltimore Center Stage-19 years later

It's true about "everything is big in Texas." I had enough of that state after one short year in Dallas, "the Big D."  Kathy and I got back together in Smyrna, a city just outside of Atlanta, the city too busy to hate. I did odd jobs, quit theater, and went back to college to get my teaching degree. I got my second bachelor's degree. This time it's a B.S. at Kennesaw State. Even graduated summa cum laude. We moved several times after that, more like another ten times. We got married, bought a house, sold it, rented condo, duplex and different houses. Craigslist. Don't judge. Hard to believe but I've been here in the South for 19 years now. The longest I have lived anywhere.

Oh, the UC Santa Cruz connection continues. Around 1998, when I was still working at the Tony award-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta I saw another alumna, Juliette Carillo who was just in town to guest direct a show on the Main Stage. I did remember seeing her in a production of West Side Story about ten years back at our school theater department. Her dad Eduardo was an art professor and did a mural for the set design. I just started the theater program after switching my major from computer science-but that's another topic for another day. I talked to her briefly in the green room during tech one evening. Professor Carillo has just passed away recently so she seemed touched that I remembered him and told her what I thought of his artwork and the groovy times we spent at the University of California Santa Cruz.

These days I work with children. And I mean the students. School is officially out for the year as of today. Here are some ways I say good bye to them:

• See ya later- Alligator
• After a While- Crocodile
• Take Care-Teddy Bear
• So Long- King Kong
• Good-Bye- Butterfly
• Let's Scat- Alley Cat
• Out the Door- Dinosaur
• Chop Chop- Lollipop
• Toot A Loo- Kangaroo
• Adios - Amigos!
• That's the End- My Friend!
  

Juju

Tramps like us, baby we were born to run barefoot.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL BAREFOOT RUNNING DAY

Quatro de Mayo

Breaking News:

Scott Hamilton just came out as the first openly straight Male Figure Skater in the United States.

Guns & The NRA

Dear NRA,

Thank you but no thanks.
I am not a scared, paranoid, insecure, unstable lunatic.
So I just don't need or want your guns.
Save them for your little friends.

Up yours yourself.

Sincerely,

Me

Shame Shame Shame

Shame on You!
These 45 U.S. Senators.

"Nice gun. Sorry about your penis." Someone said on Huffington Post 
I understand the scared white guy mentality, but what's with the 4 women and the lone black dude. C'mon Man!

Saint Patty's Day

Water Drop Dash 5K

Chattahoochee Nature Center, Roswell, GA 

My 70th overall race over the past 4 years. (39th 5K)

Anti-preneur Manifesto

I don’t want to be a designer, a marketer, an illustrator, a brander, a social media consultant, a multi-platform guru, an interface wizard, a writer of copy, a technological assistant, an applicator, an aesthetic king, a notable user, a profit-maximizer, a bottom-line analyzer, a meme generator, a hit tracker, a re-poster, a sponsored blogger, a starred commentator, an online retailer, a viral relayer, a handle, a font or a page. I don’t want to be linked in, tuned in, ‘liked’, incorporated, listed or programmed. I don’t want to be a brand, a representative, an ambassador, a bestseller or a chart-topper. I don’t want to be a human resource or part of your human capital.

I don’t want to be an entrepreneur of myself.

Don’t listen to the founders, the employers, the newspapers, the pundits, the editors, the forecasters, the researchers, the branders, the career counselors, the prime minister, the job market, Michel Foucault or your haughty brother in finance – there’s something else!

I want to be a lover, a teacher, a wanderer, an assembler of words, a sculptor of immaterial, a maker of instruments, a Socratic philosopherπ and an erratic muse. I want to be a community center, a piece of art, a wonky cursive script and an old-growth tree! I want to be a disrupter, a creator, an apocalyptic visionary, a master of reconfiguration, a hypocritical parent, an illegal download and a choose-your-own-adventure! I want to be a renegade agitator! A licker of ice cream! An organizer of mischief! A released charge! A double jump on the trampoline! A wayward youth! A volunteer! A partner.

I want to be a curator of myself, an anti-preneur, a person.

Unlimited availabilities. No followers required. Only friends.

-- Danielle Leduc

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/106/anti-preneur-manifesto.html

Mad World

Thirty years ago today this song came out. "The Hurting" was the album. Pale Shelter was another favorite. I was a junior at Hoover High in San Diego, California. Wow, 30 years...


Hello Teacher tell me what's my lesson...Look right through me...Look right through me.

Altra The One

Focus on what is right

Discarded gun Art

This is the kind of art that I'm interested in doing whenever I can.
Mexican artist transforms confiscated, surrendered guns into musical instruments - DailyFreeman.com

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.-Chuck Palahniuk

Free Thinking Country

Billboard seen on Hwy 94 Eastbound in Lemon Grove/ San Diego
I was there visiting Mom and Dad last weekend.

ATHEISM. A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH REALITY. 

My list of 100 books

“The 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction” by Larry McCaffery

Titles are below; you can read the list, complete with McCaffery’s brief thoughts on each, at LitLine
(excerpting from American Book Review, Volume 20, Issue 6, September/October 1999).

1. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, 1962.
2. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922.
3. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon, 1973.
4. The Public Burning, Robert Coover, 1977.
5. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929.
6. Trilogy (Molloy [1953], Malone Dies [1956], The Unnamable [1957]), Samuel Beckett.
7. The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein, 1925.
8. Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine [1962], Nova Express [1964], The Ticket that Exploded, [1967]), William S. Burroughs.
9. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955.
10. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, 1941.
11. Take It or Leave It, Raymond Federman, 1975.
12. Beloved, Toni Morrison, 1986.
13. Going Native, Stephen Wright, 1994.
14. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry, 1949.
15. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927.
16. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, William H. Gass, 1968.
17. JR, William Gaddis, 1975.
18. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952.
19. Underworld, Don DeLillo, 1997.
20. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 1926.
21. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916.
22. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.
23. The Ambassadors, Henry James, 1903.
24. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence, 1921.
25. 60 Stories, Donald Barthelme, 1981.
26. The Rifles, William T. Vollmann, 1993.
27. The Recognitions, William Gaddis, 1955.
28. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902.
29. Catch 22, Joseph Heller, 1961.
30. 1984, George Orwell, 1949.
31. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston, 1937.
32. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, 1936.
33. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany, 1975.
34. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939.
35. The Four Elements Tetrology (earth: The Stain [1984], fire: Entering Fire [1986], water: The Fountains of Neptune[1992], and air: The Jade Cabinet [1993]), Rikki Ducornet.
36. Cyberspace Trilogy (Neuromancer [1984], Count Zero [1986], Mona Lisa Overdrive [1988]), William Gibson.
37. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934.
38. On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957.
39. Lookout Cartridge, Joseph McElroy, 1974.
40. Crash, J.G. Ballard, 1973.
41. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie, 1981.
42. The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth, 1960.
43. Genoa, Paul Metcalf, 1965.
44. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932.
45. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster, 1924.
46. Double or Nothing, Raymond Federman, 1972.
47. At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien, 1951.
48. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, 1985.
49. The Cannibal, John Hawkes, 1949.
50. Native Son, Richard Wright, 1940.
51. The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West, 1939.
52. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes, 1936.
53. Housekeeping, Marilynn Robinson, 1981.
54. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1969.
55. Libra, Don DeLillo, 1986.
56. Wise Blood, Flannery O’Conner, 1952.
57. Always Coming Home, Ursula K. LeGuin, 1985.
58. USA Trilogy (The 42nd Parallel [1930], 1919 [1932], and The Big Money [1936]), John Dos Passos.
59. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing, 1962.
60. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951.
61. Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett, 1929.
62. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver, 1981.
63. Dubliners, James Joyce, 1915.
64. Cane, Jean Toomer, 1925.
65. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905.
66. Ridley Walker, Russell Hoban, 1982.
67. Checkerboard Trilogy (Go in Beauty [1955], The Bronc People [1958], Portrait of the Artist with 26 Horses [1962]), William Eastlake.
68. The Franchiser, Stanley Elkin, 1976.
69. New York Trilogy (City of Glass [1985], Ghosts [1986], The Locked Room [1986]), Paul Auster.
70. Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins, 1986.
71. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, 1995.
72. The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus, 1996.
73. Tlooth, Harry Mathews, 1966.
74. Pricksongs and Descants, Robert Coover, 1969.
75. The Man in the High Castle, Phillip K. Dick, 1962.
76. American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis, 1988.
77. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles, 1969.
78. The Book of the New Sun Tetrology (The Shadow of the Torturer [1980], The Claw of the Conciliator [1981], The Sword of Lictor [1982], The Citadel of the Autarch [1982]), Gene Wolfe.
79. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962.
80. Albany Trilogy (Legs [1976], Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game [1978], Ironweed [1983]), William Kennedy.
81. The Tunnel, William H. Gass, 1995.
82. Omensetter’s Luck, William H. Gass, 1966.
83. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles, 1948.
84. Darconville’s Cat, Alexander Theroux, 1981.
85. Up, Ronald Sukenick, 1968.
86. Yellow Back Radio Broke Down, Ishamel Reed, 1969.
87. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson, 1919.
88. You Bright and Risen Angels, William T. Vollmann, 1987.
89. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, 1948.
90. The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop., Robert Coover, 1968.
91. Creamy and Delicious, Steve Katz, 1971.
92. Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee, 1980.
93. More than Human, Theodore Sturgeon, 1951.
94. Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino, 1979.
95. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe, 1929.
96. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser, 1925.
97. Easy Travels to Other Planets, Ted Mooney, 1981.
98. Tours of the Black Clock, Steve Erickson, 1989.
99. In Memoriam to Identity, Kathy Acker, 1990.
100. Hogg, Samuel R. Delany, 1996.

Thanks Global Warming!

I Have A Dream...

Barack to the Future, Part 2

Man vs Nature

http://vimeo.com/56093731#

Less IS More

2013 Year of the Snake

2012 was an especially short and quick year even with the extra day. Instead of recapping/ reliving the past I am going to make some New Year goals for 2013.
Year of the Snake - my astrological sign.

• Read every day
• Draw in my sketchbook daily
• Create/ make art/ play music
• Smile more, especially at the end of races while being chicked by the wife.
• Write in this dang blog once in a while.
• Stretch/ Abs/ Core/ Upper body exercise
• Run a minimum mile a day @ ChiRunning
• Relax, Breathe, Slow down.
• Be in the moment.
• Embrace whatever life throws at me.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Happy New Year!

Merry XMas

Guns aren't cool, fools!

The NRA loon, gun nut buffoon blamed the violent video games (which I'm sure none of his 4 million members played), Hollywood movies, absence of armed policemen in schools, pure evil, Glee, the media, mental illness and even Hurricane Sandy.

A few years back this same yahoo called federal agents "jackbooted government thugs."  Apparently now he wants these same "thugs" to guard every school in America. I thought the whole point of owning guns was to protect yourself from the evil big bad government.

I agree with him about keeping a national database of mentally ill people, just as long as Wayne LaPierre is the first one on that list, followed by the names of all those who own semiautomatic assault weapons.

Lack of Common Sense = NRA

"My 6 year-old child's right to not get shot in the face trumps your right to have an assault rifle."

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRA's Executive VP Wayne LaPierre said. So according to his own words, Adam Lanza became a good guy the moment he shot himself. And all of a sudden now the "government" workers AKA the cops just became the "good" guys overnight?

Violence Against School Children

http://www.enigmaterial.com/dateline/vn_1974/AR19740415.html

The above link is an article about a mortar shell bombing at my elementary school in Viet Nam. The date was March 9, 1974. I was 8 years old and in the third grade at the time. Thirty two students were killed, 50 others were wounded and 1 teacher died. Strangely I did not know any of the victims and I can barely remember the event. There were lots of media coverages in the weeks to follow, now that I did recall.

The Newtown, Connecticut school shooting yesterday brought back memories from almost 40 years ago for me. The shock, disbelief, outrage, sadness, anger, and confusion are still there. Read the last sentence of the article. Nothing has changed much in five decades.

I have some observations and thoughts about all this. First, guns and ammunition are too easily and cheaply available in America. Second, young people nowadays have a hard time dealing with anger management issues. Third, self-control, and personal responsibility are concepts most kids and parents do not teach or learn. The combination of these things in addition to the glamorization/ glorification of the violence by weapons in the entertainment industry (music, video games, movies and TV) were the reason for a tragedy like Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Atlanta Track Club Grand Finale

Got this shirt for running all 14 Grand Prix series races
of the Atlanta Track Club 2012 season.  
It starts all over again on New Year's Day (1/1/13)

Housecats heaven

These are some of our professional sunbathers.

Occupy Black Friday

Turkey Day

Shoes. All Minimalist. All the Time.

So here's the current rotation:
Top Left: Brooks Mach 11, Mizuno Wave Ronin2, Green Silence, Brooks T6,
K-Swiss Kruuz, Stems, Altra Instinct, Altra Adam, New Balance 730,
Green Silence (purple) and RunBranca Huaraches.

You better Redneckognize

Yeah...Tell me about it.

Missing

Super Saturday

* A new blog from my favorite person, check it out @ Runin' My Life 

*A quote for the school Administration:
"I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone"-Bill Cosby

The Silver Comet Trail in Smyrna, Georgia

Three Easy Steps

Voila!  Mission Accomplished.

Why not vote for me?

Halloween

Angry Love Birds

ArtoberFest

Eight more days until Four More Years