New York and Washington D.C.:
Here for the Jewish holidays so blogging will probably be light. L’Shana Tova, beeyacthes.
One Sentence Movie Reviews: “American Dream” (1991):
American Dream (1991): “Nothing is so sad as committed people crushed under the heel of time.”
Notes: First seen at a packed Michigan Theatre my senior year in high school. Back then I was completely on the side of P-9, the meatpacker’s union striking to keep their wages from being cut. Now, 15 years wiser, I see that this is a documentary about misplaced intentions and the terrible position of powerlessness working people found themselves in during the Regan era and continue to today.
It’s hard to watch this film and not believe that labor unions have about 2 decades of catching up to do. And to ask how did they let this happen in the first place.
Thought of the Day: “Two Kinds of People”
“The world is divided into two kinds of people. The people who divide the world into two kinds of people and the people who don’t.”
—Gloria Steinem (who at 72, still looks and sounds incredible).
A Thousand Hammers…
So on the recommendation of my friend Liane, I went to see world famous DJ Paul Van Dyk do his thing at 1015 Folsom this Saturday. I danced for 4 solid hours and left feeling like I had witnessed the entirety of human history presented as a collage of sound. In a word, epic.
My friend Nina was in town so spent the better part of Sunday with her and many of our mutual friends. Got up early this morning to have breakfast with her.
Now I feel like my body’s been hit with a thousand hammers. I need sleep, a massage, a decent meal and to spend a day unpacking from Alberta, paying bills and getting caught up on my nothing.
I don’t regret for a moment the life I’m leading now but I do still get reminded that I am not 21 anymore and need to pace.
Austin 2007:
Pass has been purchased. I will be back this year for round #8. Just an attendee this time, which is fine.
You going?
Banff:
So I’m at the breathtakingly beautiful Banff Centre today in the mountains of Alberta, Canada. I’m speaking at Annual General Meeting of the Alberta Book Publishers Association which I wanted to come to last year but was in the middle of book touring. I’m glad I could make it this time.
The Banff Centre is an arts and cultural center about 90 minutes north of Calgary. World famous musicians, writers, arts study, teach and present here. I’ve heard it called the Tanglewood of Canada. The hotel on the campus I’m staying at looks from the outside like a college dorm but my room is more comfortable than many 4 star 39 floor monstrosities I’ve stayed at in the past.
And the setting? Daaaaaaayyymmm. Mountains so tall and majestic they look in danger of toppling over. Rod-straight pine trees that remind me of my childhood in Michigan. Today it snowed (the Executive Director of the program told me Canada has two seasons, “July. And winter) cold and heavy. I’m no longer accustomed to winter after 6 years in Northern California. But, ah, the snow weighing down the Aspens, sliding off the hills like a version of the glaciers that carved out this valley. It looks like something Jack London would have dreamed about.
I’m not staying at this hotel but they just don’t make ’em that way anymore.
Did I mention elk? I was warned not to feed the elk because they can be aggressive this time of year.
I gotta come back here.
Thought of the Day: “Poets and Breakfast”
“The poet is not the bundle of contradictions and insecurities that sat down at the breakfast table that morning” —W.B. Yeats
Thought of the Day: “Dazzled, Reflective”
“Every day I walk out into the world to be dazzled, then to be reflective.”
—Mary Oliver (via The Writer’s Almanac)