This blog will be closing out next week. I have a new blog which will be very different, and I'll put a link up to it before I delete this one.
I will be deleting these entries soon, so if there are any back entries you've been meaning to read. . .
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
I love looking at this catalog
Got the new Daedalus catalog the other day, and while normally I try to shop online and avoid paper catalogs, the Daedalus one is like a paperback book. I literally read the whole thing the way some people read every word of the Sunday Times. The pictures are wonderful, the layout of the catalog is pleasing -- I love the long narrow shape because they staple it longways -- and there are some great bargain on jazz CDs. A link to the website is below and you can either shop online or ask them to send you a catalog -- sorry, Im not done with mine yet.
www.daedalusbooks.com
www.daedalusbooks.com
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Looking and listening
This video has some lovely, lovely accordion tango music and you will not believe who is playing it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLdqEn8pqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLdqEn8pqis
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Listen to some authentic Cajun singing
The Magnolia Sisters is a great Cajun duo featuring vocals, fiddle, and accordion. You can hear a sample of their new CD at the Arhoolie Records site:
http://www.arhoolie.com/titles/538.shtml
http://www.arhoolie.com/titles/538.shtml
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Watch uplifting movies for free
hey, do you know the work of filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman? She has made movies about real people doing amazing things in the world through love, caring, and insight. Her new one is called Radiance, and is about inner light as a concept in world spirituality.
You can see these films, and buy DVDs of them (at a very reasonable cost!) at the Concentric Media site. They are all good, but I loved the one on the little fix-it shop. And the one about the woman who recovered from her spinal cord injury. And the inner light one. . . Okay, I like them all.
By the way, I found that for a couple of the online videos, my computer liked the second of the two clickable links just below the viewing screen.
www.concentric.org
You can see these films, and buy DVDs of them (at a very reasonable cost!) at the Concentric Media site. They are all good, but I loved the one on the little fix-it shop. And the one about the woman who recovered from her spinal cord injury. And the inner light one. . . Okay, I like them all.
By the way, I found that for a couple of the online videos, my computer liked the second of the two clickable links just below the viewing screen.
www.concentric.org
Friday, July 31, 2009
If you are even a teeny bit creative. . .
...then run, don't walk, to get the Lynda Barry book What It Is.
Why? I know that I can't explain the book. Just take it down from the bookshelf and look at it. You'll see what I mean.
Why? I know that I can't explain the book. Just take it down from the bookshelf and look at it. You'll see what I mean.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Undeterred
Being a person who marches resolutely through the dark tunnel in the belief that the light at the end will show itself eventually, I love tales of people who hung onto their hopes, and I found such a story in the book The Prairie Builders: Reconstructing America's Lost Grasslands by Sneed B. Collard III.
Here's a link to the book, which is nonfiction and meant for readers in Grades 4-7, which means it's perfect for me. Both fourth-graders and I have limited attention spans so we want the basics provided with a few highlights, then we're ready to move on.
http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Builders-Reconstructing-Grasslands-Scientists/dp/061839687X
The book tells the story of the Neal Smith National Wildlife Reserve, and the work of prairie researcher Pauline Drobney, who helped re-create our lost grasslands. We'd lost so much of the original prairie, that if we use a football field to represent the original grasslands in the middle of our country, we had the equivalent of a 7 by 8 foot rectangle left. The main botanist for the project, Dr. Drobney, sent people out and about to look for places where some of the original prairie plants still grew. These people collected seeds from weedy places next to railroad tracks and from overgrown graveyards and abandoned farms. Then in 1993, the prairie team held "Sow Your Wild Oats Day" and lots of people came to plant the wild seeds over the reclaimed land which would turn back into a prairie.
Except that the land didn't turn into a prairie. The weather in Iowa during 1993 and 1994 was unusually wet and cold, and guess what conditions prairie plants prefer? That's right: hot and dry. So a couple dozen plants grew and the rest of the project looked pretty darn bad.
Aha, but the third year, the weather went back to normal and prairie plant seeds are hardy. So the land was covered in green and the prairie-lovin' birds and animals showed up and all was well.
My prairie seed has been wet and cold for a while but I am holding out hope for a big surge of green when the time is right.
By the way, I looked up Sneed B. Collard III on Google Images and I was glad I did. He looks like Mr. Rogers, except gentler and happier, if you can imagine that.
Here's a link to the book, which is nonfiction and meant for readers in Grades 4-7, which means it's perfect for me. Both fourth-graders and I have limited attention spans so we want the basics provided with a few highlights, then we're ready to move on.
http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Builders-Reconstructing-Grasslands-Scientists/dp/061839687X
The book tells the story of the Neal Smith National Wildlife Reserve, and the work of prairie researcher Pauline Drobney, who helped re-create our lost grasslands. We'd lost so much of the original prairie, that if we use a football field to represent the original grasslands in the middle of our country, we had the equivalent of a 7 by 8 foot rectangle left. The main botanist for the project, Dr. Drobney, sent people out and about to look for places where some of the original prairie plants still grew. These people collected seeds from weedy places next to railroad tracks and from overgrown graveyards and abandoned farms. Then in 1993, the prairie team held "Sow Your Wild Oats Day" and lots of people came to plant the wild seeds over the reclaimed land which would turn back into a prairie.
Except that the land didn't turn into a prairie. The weather in Iowa during 1993 and 1994 was unusually wet and cold, and guess what conditions prairie plants prefer? That's right: hot and dry. So a couple dozen plants grew and the rest of the project looked pretty darn bad.
Aha, but the third year, the weather went back to normal and prairie plant seeds are hardy. So the land was covered in green and the prairie-lovin' birds and animals showed up and all was well.
My prairie seed has been wet and cold for a while but I am holding out hope for a big surge of green when the time is right.
By the way, I looked up Sneed B. Collard III on Google Images and I was glad I did. He looks like Mr. Rogers, except gentler and happier, if you can imagine that.
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