arts nouveau

before

after

thistle

I have always liked the lupine

from the international voice of working class humor

Yesterday I was randomly standing in front of the liquor shelves at Safeway, just looking. A scruffy looking guy whizzed past me, took one look, and said "It's not that hard!". One second later he whizzed past me again, now carrying two 1.75 liter bottles (Canadian whiskey, and cheap vodka).

"You drink what you drink!" he said, waving the bottles at me.

my 2 cents

I get sucked into wall to wall media coverage, whatever it is. So for the past few days I have learned a lot of details about the Virginia Tech shootings. And since I teach Intro to Mass Comm right now I have discussed both coverage and the event itself with students.

My students are scared. They are young, and away from home. And all the words of the media stories are familiar to them: dorms, classrooms, halls, boyfriends, girlfriends, plans for the future.

It's hard for me to accept the notion that there should be pure evil in people. I just don't think that is true. I think people are basically good, but that bad things can happen to them to make them angry and vindictive. Obviously we don't know anything about this kid's family background, or what really happened to him earlier in his life. And we don't know anything about his mental health status either. Clearly, it seems, he was very ill.

People have been making connections between the images he created of himself (in the video footage he sent to NBC) and images created in some real movies. Specifically one violent Korean film, but there are others too.

It seems to me, and this is what I teach in class, that today all of us live in a reality created in part by what we learn through mass media. Through all sorts of fiction we think we 'know' people and settings we have never seen in real life. We talk about places and situations, we speculate and draw conclusions, as if the events happened to us and people we know.

We move in and out of these layers of real and imagined without reflecting. But most of us understand the difference between fantasy and real life.

It gets dangerous whenever someone takes their fantasy public. When people act for private reasons in a public setting, or act on private interpretations of the world where others are involved. To some degree I think that's true for all of us; when we make others pay for how we feel. Or impose our world view on others.

email from robyn

do programmers have a sense of humor ...?

1. go to http://maps.google.com.au/
2. type "from New York to London" into the box
3. click on "Search Maps"
4. scroll down to step #24

and the former chapel now turned into a classroom still smelled of incense. (it's the carpets.)

My favorite librarian did a presentation for my class today. When she was finished she showed this.

they asked me to write a column for a newsletter. here it is.

One of my students spoke in class recently about her study abroad experience in London. There, for the first time in her life, she had seen white people doing low-level working class jobs. Talking about it made her nervous and uncomfortable.

Another student talked about when his church, this past Easter, held a multilingual service. Only a fraction of the congregation had shown up. His friends later told him that they didn’t want to waste time listening to languages they don’t understand. My student was disappointed.

We live parallel lives in the US. Parallel, and insulated. From lack of practice we develop insecurities around talking about social and cultural differences.

Today much of race relations are defined by popular culture. That’s the source to which, subconsciously, students take many of their questions. As a society we leave a lot to Carlos Mencia, Don Imus, and the talking heads on CNN. But it’s up to anyone to reclaim the discussion.

I think the recent theme party, and its aftermath, provide beautiful ‘teaching moments’. For myself, what I want my students to take away is the experience of having talked about tough issues with people different from themselves. I want them to be able to reflect on what the world is like for different groups, and I want them to recognize where they themselves fit in. Above all, I want my students to practice talking with, and learning from, other people. So that next time, when I am not there, they can do it for themselves.

I am not saying that it’s easy. But if we want a better world, it's our job to try harder, be braver, and take on issues others shy away from. A university is a place where the future is shaped, right?

jackie robinson, 60 years ago. this, 30 years ago.

1977.

they're nothing but polite

So yeah when the lone bike senses a person ahead it will yield.
It will simply lie down on its side until you have passed.

step 3

plattång flat-nosed pliers pl.

(For pulling out the bones from the side of salmon.)

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and broke the color line in major league baseball.

So yeah that's only 60 years ago.

don't want her to feel out of place

Better wash that car.
(Once I parked down the street.)

2nd step on the road to gravlax:

looked up

filea tr fillet


Just to make sure.

food

Denny's: Pancakes for lunch. Mmm.
Target: Cheapo kitchen scales. First step taken towards the gravlax. Mmmm!

the hoax

The Hoax is a good movie.
I like Lasse Hallström.
And Richard Gere has gotten better as he has gotten older.

actually, it was more like the dill stems... dill is expensive and I am cheap.

So I boiled up some edamame today (no pods). When they were done, and still piping hot, I poured them into a bowl in which I had put olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and chopped up dill. It was seriously good.

it's all about the context

I needed a coffee grinder, so I walked up the street to the upmarket (to the point of silliness) kitchen store. (I live close to one of those 'European' downtowns with stores and restaurants.)

In there I found a German grinder, identical to one I owned 15 years ago.

Bought it.

Then I looked around for a bit. New in the store, at least since my last visit, was a shelf full of thermos pots. The kind your [Swedish] grandma used, but she used to call hers a 'TV-pot', since it allowed her to refill her cup without leaving the room while watching TV.

Anyway. The familiar looking pots were sitting there next to the 'Tuscan' plates, the 'Provencal' yellow ceramic bowls with roosters on them, and the comes in every shade of the rainbow heatproof but clearly overpriced Le Creuset spatulas.

I own 5 of those spatulas myself. But the thermos pots still made me laugh. Not that they are not practical, because they are. But to me they belong at Target.

on today's date

A Friday the 13th years ago I quit smoking.
Just saying.
Could be a good day.

facts

1. I fit into my skinny jeans again (no, not the extreme skinny of spring -03, but skinny enough).
2. I had a quesadilla for breakfast. With Mexican hot sauce to clear the sinuses. Mmmm!

I like this spot

bonusgolv

It's on the other side of the building.
In there.And it's made from purple blocks of glass, and concrete.

for fia, and of course anyone else with an interest in flooring

So if I read those letters there correctly, the building is from 1912. Originally it was the sophomore dormitories. Now it has classrooms, and faculty offices.
This is the floor we are interested in. Walls are marble. Cool and smooth.
It does look like tile, right? Annaa?
And I will have to check this with someone, but it looks like the paint has been filled in at some point.

prettiest part of the university

coastal redwood

no wonder there is war

I just learned on CNNs massive Easter coverage that John Paul II, the previous Pope, was the first Pope to visit a synagogue. That shocked me. The world religions have been around for a really long time. You'd think they would have paid each other visits before.

california wildflowers

pain

Local Pollen Alert: Los Gatos, CA
Tomorrow's forecast levels:
Type Level Tree High Type: Oak Grass Low Weed Very High

wish list

A wide angle lens for my good camera. That would be something.

when the mimosa was at its peak. (I found this in my phone.)

underwater

under the wire

Grattis Karin!

pollen

Spring quarter started. Whether is great, flowers everywhere.

I have been listening to Swedish radio (P1) for a couple of weeks, for the first time since I moved here in 1995. And what strikes me is how amazingly Americanized it is. I am really surprised, and not so amused. I think it's dumb. For instance: when they talk about diabetes, world-wide health concern that it is, they have to interview kids on the streets of New York. First we have to listen to what the kids have to say in English, and then we have to listen to the journalist summarizing what they just said in Swedish. Everything takes twice as long, and the story becomes watered down and boring.

No, I don't think they should skip the translations. I think they should stop being so Anglo-centric, non-Anglos as they are. Hegemony in action, right?

Interview Swedish people already.

read

I have been busy. I have been reading Joan Didion. She is a great writer.

small and purplish

poppies are back

home plates

This is my favorite thing in the local paper, The San Jose Mercury News. It's a weekly column on home cooking. People asking others for help finding recipes they have lost, and me catching up on American cooking knowledge.

It's not fancy food (the rest of the paper's weekly food section is smack full of that). It's the kind of food people made in the 1950's and 1960's, with lots of shortcuts using canned soup, and "cake-baking" in the refrigerator (=layers of crackers and chocolate, I think there is a Swedish version of that too).

I am just saying

My former students have cool jobs.
(You know who you are.)

And anyone who thinks a comm major is useless is so wrong.

if you like pink

11 years, 7 months, 14 days...

... and I bought a scented candle.

how to spot a scandinavian (I and II): they have tans, and they eat fish

Last weekend in Half Moon Bay. I got homesick for Denmark because it smelled of fried fish. Not that Denmark is the only place where you can get fried fish, but they seem to market it awfully well. And it's tasty too.

It was awfully cold there on the beach. And windy. In that regard it was pretty much like Denmark too.

In other news: I will soon be making history in the cured salmon department. I only need to get the actual salmon, and a kitchen scales so I can measure everything properly and not be a health hazard. Cured salmon is the best food ever so there will be many happy times around here.

the japanese maple is coming back to life