selenas

selena

upon doing a bit of image/re - searching today with one of my students, i came across three disparate images after typing in the word 'selena' (to find tejano icon selena quintanilla perez). the first appeared to be her (i admit it's the first time i have seen her image), another must have been jennifer lopez (again, another admission of first time viewing of pop star), but this third image, now it really spoke to me. selena the sheep. more than fame, money, notoriety, that creature. my life collides where the road fork splits urban from rural. i wanted to raise a variety of livestock and be a forester for the parks service. skiing and being close to it. teaching, among other things.

woodcut on fabric

well, i finally have a finished product from my blog entry to woodcut project. the measurements are about 43" x 51". actually, if you are interested and would like to see it in the thread, it will be part of austin community college's student art show at the dougherty arts center, whose opening is on april 6th, from 6-8 p.m.

gaddafi bodyguard

polish poster under communism

tony pritchett's flexipede

discerning the true nature of mud

i looked at a lot of ersatz puddles, lakes, and other bodies of water where they probably shouldn't be today and was wondering how do they stay like that? shouldn't the water drip down somewhere, and if not, won't it kill off the living things it's submerging. or what if something starts to live in there today, and then in a week the water is gone. that's not fair, now is it?

i made another salt-cured salmon slab on friday, and put fresh dill into it. my first encounter with said food was with my friend tara en route to marfa texas. about 30 minutes before arrival (it's about a 6 hour trip from austin), we were pulled over by ken doll state troopers near a surreal land formation aptly named 'squaw teat'. after no less than an hour of one thing turning magically into another in the bendable plastic minds of these peace officers, our salted salmon with dill was inspected at the back of the lovely yet not pristine SUV of tara. 'deal' is how he pronounced this delicious herb, and perhaps as a mixed metaphor, the officer suggested vaguely that there was 'deal' behind one of our seats. i did want to scratch my head in confusion, but i exhibited restraint, remembering that it could cost me a shot-up limb or two. so, at the end of this explanation lies a lightly toasted bagel with butter, cheese, arugula, and thinly sliced salt-cured salmon with dill. i don't have any idea how it doesn't kill me to eat it, but i suppose that's food preservation magic.

Jessica 6 from 'Logan's Run'

after reading a bit from the transparency website, i decided to rent this film that i'd heard only the title of my whole life. i was quite impressed with it both conceptually and stylistically. enough typing - see this 1976 pre-star wars classic if you haven't already.

my most recent quilt

this is the first piece i've worked on where the actual 'quilting' is done by hand. granted, it's all straight lines, but i found the repetition to be simultaneously relaxing and arthritis-inducing. sewing with the machine is a lot more stressful, though it is of course necessary for the majority of the putting together.

it is new sweden!

well, i did make it out this morning, and what a great ride. i can't believe somewhere so close to the city can be so immensely remote. the weather was sunny and quite windy, so much so, that i had a tremendous head wind on the return, slowing me down in a big way. the main difference i noticed between here and scandanavia is the trashy detritus of the roadsides here. i stopped off for a coke at the only place around in cele, a little store/bar/restaurant/whatever, apparently featured in the the texas chainsaw massacre remake. it was dark and the door in looked more like you weren't allowed to open it. the wind was blowing through the building so much that the cloth blinds on the windows were moving, with the windows shut. the air smelled the clean sweet and sour of cow manure and fresh air, and i thought about denmark.

portion of roof from new sweden church

stag nation

i just now finished the spanbauer book (see my sidebar 'read'). i don't read a lot of authors, but this man has to me unprecedented statement of ideas of being. i have got to get to new sweden tomorrow, to the center of forgotten. tickets to copenhagen almost exactly what i thought they'd be. this needs to happen soon before it gets all last minute, roves of humans panicky like. i went by the park today and there were kite katastrophes left and right. all kinds up in trees still naked from winter. they need me to get them down! i'll climb up there and shake them out. detritus of fragility celebration - the weather, the mood, the people, the timing.

i saw balinese wayang - shadow puppet theatre last weekend at UT. small gamelan of three players. one could get quite involved in it, the trips to indonesia, the constuction of puppets, learning language and mastery of new instruments. the screen was lit with a lamp made from clay and fueled with coconut oil - how great is that?

what a little moonlight will do

the olde piney woods in march

and it's likely a good thing we left when we did. it's been a few months since i've been camping, and i wasn't sure how this spontaneous excursion to bastrop state park was going to turn out, but there was really a nice little place to camp on the forest floor, the hiss of cars somewhere in the distance (where is that not present?), and not much to do but sleep once the sun goes down (take pictures of it going down, i suppose). this blog should be called 'argh, i'm tired', but that sounds aptly whiny and even more boring than it presently is. strange thing, exhaustion. one can still manage strenous exercise, unexpected diversions, movies, and several cups of tea without waning until one thinks about how tired they are. i thought i'd go out for a longish ride tomorrow to a place called new sweden, which is the most boring name for a place smack in the middle of central texas. neverthelesss, it looks like a great close by forgotten about little town, like manor, texas without the highway passing through it. anywho, the weather is supposed to be non-conducive for the biking types, so i may extend that plan out another day or so.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Hobbit was 'not a diseased human'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Hobbit was 'not a diseased human'

Zilker Kite Festival

Zilker Kite Festival Home Page

i'll be debuting my new butterfly kite from indonesia (que exotique!)

capoeira group out on a bright sunday