speed city

Today I got a grand tour of the Speed City exhibit in San Jose with the curator. I am definitely going to write something about it. The more I listen to people of color talking about race and racism in America the more I realize how much work there is to be done still. Nothing ended with the sixties, as some of my white students think. When people say that we have "come far" they usually fail to mention where the US started. We may have moved away from slavery, but that doesn't mean we have equality, or even a basic understanding of differences.

light

fold

edge

and don't put your cat on a leash either and bring them

I hate it when people wear perfume on the trail. It's wrong on so many different levels.

the re-departed

Martin Scorsese's The Departed has been nominated for five Oscars so it's playing again. And we went to see it again. It's a really great movie.

el automóvil gris

Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes, based in Mexico City, came to the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose this week.
Following a Japanese tradition they act out a narration for the classic Mexican silent movie The Grey Automobil using a pianist (in traditional silent movie mode), multilingual actors and dancers, and multilingual subtitles. The end result is completely unpredictable, and fabulous.

1 februari 2007

squeek squeek

Yep. It's tulip season again.
This is the best time of year.

30 januari 2007

italianetz/the italian

This movie is wonderful. Possibly a tad slow for the average action movie fan, but I loved it. It's only playing in one theater in San Jose, and when we went on Sunday afternoon pretty much everybody else was in their 60's, at least. So now we know who has the patience for subtitles.
The film tells the story of a small orphaned Russian boy, who decides to go find his birthmother instead of getting to be adopted by an Italian family.

The film opens with a surprising amount of time spent showing life in the orphanage. We get a lot of the ins and outs of both kids' and grown ups' corruption, kids thin pale sholders, neglect, and lack of appropriate clothing. There is snow and sleet, tea and boiled potatos, and truck drivers picking up underaged girls.

Northern European poverty is not attractive. Women selling food at train stations are cold, their noses red, and they wear uninspiring and dirty jackets, hats, and mittens.

Women doing the same thing in Mexico could be put on posters. They would smile, their clothes would be colorful, and their images would attract tourists. The Russian women you want to forget you ever saw.

And that's why this movie upsets me so. It tells a compelling story about the lives and exploitation of unwanted children. But besides the human warmth that seeps through once in a rare while nothing will make people want to watch this movie. And that's too bad.

watch this everybody

Sad, sad, sad.

just don't go there on sundays at 11am

It was raining in Los Gatos today.

We had lunch/dinner at Denny's. But of course you have to travel out of Los Gatos to find a Denny's. This is a highbrow little town.

I like Denny's. As much as I dislike many of the themed chain restaurants, I think Denny's is good and solid. Pancakes are fluffy and coffee is hot. What more can you want.

I read this article the other day, that I use for class. It talks about the trend of ethnification (that's a word I just made up) of food in film and popular culture in the US. How food becomes this link to a more authentic life, even if it only comes in the shape of an Olive Garden, or an Outback Steakhouse, and you yourself have no link whatsoever to Italy, or Australia.

In this context, authentic equals ethnic. The image of a grandma with an accent and a pile of secret recipes makes people feel good, even though them themselves may not have had such a grandma.

Denny's, on the other hand, is considered cheap and low class. No iconic grandmas anywhere in sight, just hungry people eating bacon. That's why I like it. Denny's doesn't pretend. And I think that's where grandma goes when she wants to put her feet up too.

exercises

So this was cool: My teacher liked the three little scenes I wrote (because that was the assignment) from the field trip last week to downtown San Jose.

This was my first creative writing exercise ever. Or at least since 7th grade, or whenever it was our ordinary teacher was out sick and we had a hip young substitute who told us to go outside and write down what we saw.

I remember writing about the concrete rooster that was our school's only outdoor art object. I remember that the art teacher hated the rooster. He also hated other things. I think he had a temper problem, and maybe a drinking problem. He's dead now.

every day

Every day I take a walk and every day I photograph the mimosa. One day I'll get it.

color of fear

I use a film called The Color of Fear for class almost every quarter. Everybody who teaches ethnic studies classes uses it almost every quarter. It's that good. It shows eight middle aged American men talking honestly about race and racism, and about their experiences growing up and as adults.

The film is powerful because of the men's honesty. But also because that honesty is so rare. Almost never do you hear people talk about how they feel, or what they experience.

Only yesterday on the local news there was a story about a black San Francisco store owner who had had racist words graffitied on the wall outside his shop. "You don't think things like this would happen still", commented the reporter.

Obviously it happens. And we know it, we just don't talk about it. The news story last night minimized it too, focusing instead on the "outpouring of support" from neighbors that the store owner had enjoyed.

Focusing on the positive isn't wrong. But sometimes doing so really obstructs the view.

winter food

Oven roasted cauliflower is really really good:

Cut cauliflower into pieces.
Grind salt, black pepper, a few pepper flakes, and cumin using a mortal and pestle.
Mix in a big bowl with a (largish) drizzle of olive oil.
Pour into a pan and put in a 400F/200C oven.
Stir once in a while.
Take out when brown around the edges. (The brown parts are the best.)
Brussel sprouts are really good this way too, I realized yesterday. Cut them in half if they are large.

Squeeze of lime when they come out is good too.

hope

I have never met Kathleen Davey, but I know her sister-in-law, and I have met her husband and daughters a few times. There isn't much anyone can do. I cannot imagine.

pan's labyrinth

This is a lovely, scary movie.

... and of course the beer and the hard liquor

Yesterday in the San Jose museum of art gift store I came across a designer I hadn't heard of before. For obvious reasons I had to buy a notebook designed by Lotta Jansdotter. (I am addicted to notebooks.) I also got to instruct the store workers on how to pronounce her name.

Interesting to me is how, according to the website, she is very popular in Japan. Design- and foodwise, there are distinct similarities between Japan and Scandinavia. We sure like our salmon and our mackerel, and our faint lines against solid color backgrounds.