"Crowberry Tales" has migrated to Ireland

For you "Crowberry Tales" fans (the blog with all the great bird and scenery photos from Alaska), Bob and Jen have now migrated from one cold place to another. And they've migrated to a new blog as well.

They will be in Ireland for the next few months and the wonderful photos have started up again on their new blog, "Sceil Lus na Feannaig." There are birds and scenery and all kinds of good stuff.



Bob and Jen have also posted updates on the original CT blog about their respective activities in Alaska for the past few months since they left False Pass. (And yes, Bob's post has bird pics. But Jen's is not to be missed either--she's got musk ox!)

Bob Keller, the photographer, is Benito's cousin's son. So that would make him....what? Second cousin? Anyway, we're happy to claim him, and I hope you continue to enjoy his photos.

Bacchus, Sanctus, and Ferragamo(?)

I always remember hearing . . . No, not hearing, knowing that Silvia Pinal was a very famous Mexican actor and was also very cute.

I don't quite remember, however, seeing her as young as she is in Viridiana (1961). Directed by Luis Buñuel, Pinal plays the novice Viridiana who is about to take her vows and become a cloistered nun. Her uncle (Fernando Rey) and financial supporter requests that she visit him before taking the habit. Viridiana, pushed by her Mother Superior, reluctantly agrees to go.

She spends a few days at his home, during which the sexual and religious tension between them is furthered by the camera's almost obsessive focus on feet, shoes, and religious icons.

Oh, did I mention that this is avant-garde cinema, by the way?

But don't get weirded out. This is no Un chien andalou eyeball-slashing, ant-crawling cinema. Buñuel manages to compose Viridiana's sanctity and sensuality and her uncle's desire for her (she resembles his late wife) in provocative ways without the obscurity typical of other avant-garde pieces.

At the same time, the simplicity of the framing and the dialogue belie the depth of the religious themes and criticism. Buñuel managed to get this past Franco era Spanish censors while he was making it, but after its debut at Cannes (where it won the Palme d'Or) it was banned all the way to the seventies.

The extras on the Criterion Collection Series DVD we got from Netflix are definitely worth watching. The interview with Silvia Pinal is quite informative about the history of the film (Is it a Spanish or a Mexican film?), a long special in French helps to understand Buñuel as a person (Did he or did he not punch Salvador Dali?), and a modern, if a bit nerdy, critic who manages to miss-pronounce Viridiana several different ways also helps to fill in some of the gaps (Did Buñuel have a fetish for shoes?).

Good film. Put it in your queue. Watch it. (If you dare....mwah ah ah ah..)

Movie review: Iron Giant

I somehow missed hearing anything about Iron Giant, an animated film directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), when it first came out in 1999. (Oh wait, I was in grad school in '99, so that explains how I missed it.) But in the years since, I had heard references to it in Bird interviews and also from film critics (as in, "well, this is no Iron Giant, but it's a reasonably entertaining animated film"). So into the queue it went.

The basic story is that a 100-foot, metal-eating robot lands on earth from outer space (specific origin unknown) that lands off the coast of Maine during a storm and is found and befriended by a nine-year-old boy.It's unclear what the robot's purpose for being here is -- and the robot himself doesn't seem to know, his apparent amnesia perhaps a result of the dent on his head. Forgive me for not telling you more, but I don't want to introduce any plot spoilers here because I definitely think that this is worth discovering for yourself. It's an interesting observation of a period of American history (post-Sputnik paranoia), but it's also a funny, sweet story with a pretty typical Disney-esque message ("you are what you want to be") delivered with charm and nuance.

The movie is loosely based on a book, The Iron Man, by British writer Ted Hughes (1930-1998). Hughes is listed as a consultant on the film, but he did pass away before it was finished.

If you want a complete review, you might check out the New York Times review, "The Attack of the Human Paranoids."

Is (screen) real estate that tight?

The addition of a one-letter word (gets a shot) would make this so much less disturbing when you read the first line of this headline from MSNBC.com this afternoon.

Politics aside, this was unpleasant news.

I rarely critique headlines, it being outside my area of expertise, but it seems like one character more might have been worth the space.

The importance of clarity in written communication...

eagle eye

Someone at work suggested we ask another coworker to use her 'eagle eye' and look for errors in a flier. This brought to my mind the image of someone looking down from really high up, spotting things from very far away.

Figuring that it was quite likely that I, not for the first time, was going a little too literal with an idiom, I looked it up:

eagle eye
Unusually keen sight; also, keen intellectual vision. For example, Antiques dealers have an eagle eye for valuable objects, or A good manager has an eagle eye for employee errors. [Late 1500s]
Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Houghton Mifflin Company. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eagle eye (accessed: September 18, 2008).

Of course, it's too late for me now. I just keep picturing my coworker floating in the air while she proofreads something on the ground...

* Photo by M Kuhn. Used under Creative Commons license.

Oh that's what Wii is...

My 'Mii' (my Wii avatar), waiting to bowl.


Sister's Mii hula hooping. (And that's my Mii on the left holding a hoop.)

At Sister and Tomster's house last week, I was introduced to the Wii (and Wii Fit). I could, I believe, have played this thing all day, every day. (Although a serious butt strain did eventually curtail my bowling.) I rocked the ski jump, didn't do too badly at golf, laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants trying to do the slalom, hit one out of every fifty serves in tennis, and generally found this all highly entertaining. And so, I must add, did my mom. I've never seen her so excited about a toy. That, alone, may have been worth the price of my plane ticket.

Bonsai and andagi

This past weekend B and I went to the Okinawan Festival at Kapiolani Park. We'd gone last year and watched some of the performances and shared some Okinawan soba. In the blazing heat of a late August midday. We couldn't believe how many people were there -- and truly of all ages.

This year, we poked around more and did a little shopping and checked out some of the cultural/historical stuff. I can see why they say that Okinawa is much like Hawaii -- very much a product of many influences (including Portuguese).

Half of the culture tent was dedicated to a bonsai show by the Hawaii Bonsai Association. Outside, there was a demo -- it was really fascinating. (Incidentally, the fellow doing the demo and answering questions is one of the regulars B sees when he goes boogie boarding in the morning.) It was interesting to see the special tools and wires they use (they mostly have to come from Japan, but we got a tip that you can now get cheaper wire from Vietnam). I was surprised at how very un-delicate some of the work was. Our demonstrator was really twisting and torquing his little tree, binding it with heavy, malleable wire that requires some real wrestling. (Hence the helper holding the pot.) His plan is to make the tree look like it grows where there is snow in the winter, so he is training the branches to all turn down. He has been working on this tree -- the one on the photo's right -- since 2002.

We would have stayed with the bonsai demo longer, but all that learning was making us hungry. It was, again, a blazing hot day (it's starting to look like this is typical for this time of year), but we managed to rise to the occasion and eat andagi (in the photo), which is basically the Okinawan doughnut. It's hard to go wrong with fried dough and andagi is no exception! Then we picked up some plates of food (and took it to join some friends in Manoa for a potluck lunch). We got champuru, which I'd never had (although I'd heard the word because a local Twitterer's handle is @champuru.)

Honolulu Advertiser photos from the festival here.

More of our (very amateurish) bonsai photos after the jump. These aren't great quality photos -- I think B got one just as good using his phone! -- but they do show a variety of plantings.


All of these plants are done by members of the Hawaii Bonsai Association.

Not drinking coffee can be bad for you...

I was viewing a video of Kermit and Harry the Hipster talking about 'visual thinking' (part of a post on Presentation Zen). On the 'you might also enjoy' line that pops up after you view a video, there was something called 'Wilkins Coffee.' These are ads done by Jim Henson in the 1950s for Wilkins Coffee. The characters are 'Wilkins' and 'Wontkins.' I bet you can guess which is which.

I had to share these. They're hilarious and disturbing all at once.

Not to mention brilliantly short and to the point.

Visiting the Garden Island

We were recently "off island," as they say. We spent a lovely week on Kauai with Tips & Burp. We ate at a couple of great restaurants -- Lighthouse Bistro and Bar Acuda (I didn't get that until I said it out loud...and saw the fish on their sign...). And we went on a lovely boat ride around the Na Pali Coast (viewing many famous movie backdrops including the entrance to Jurassic Park) on Holo Holo Charters on their teeny, tiny sailing catamaran.

This may be my favorite picture of the trip. (Ok, my second favorite. See below the jump.) This is at the taro fields overlook near Princeville, Kauai.
We're looking forward to seeing T and B's photos as well. (Hey guys, I am so going to burn ours and mail them. Really, really soon.)



And this is my favorite photo from our trip.
Doesn't B look...I don't know...salty?

Separated at birth?

...or secret love child?



It might just be us, but we can't shake this feeling that there must be some genetic link between Frank Schleck and Michael Palin...

The fuzz ball

This is Coco.
She has a pool.

We've been house and dog sitting for the last week or so. Of course, it's been raining almost every day since we've been here, so we haven't gotten much use out of the pool.

We have, however, enjoyed the granite and stainless steel counter tops and the Wolf stove.

Cutest. Robot. Ever.

We finally made it to see Wall-E (2008). I'd heard reviews raving about it, but frankly this was even more enjoyable than I had anticipated.

Wall-E is a sweet and totally unexpected love story between Wall-E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class who is the last robot functioning on Earth, and EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Examiner), a probe sent to see if the Earth is recovering from its complete and total environmental collapse. (The movie is set a few hundred years after humans have had to abandon Earth to live on a big star cruiser.)

Despite the quietly persistent environmental doomsday message, this isn't a completely dystopian take on the future. Rather, it is chock full of love, hope, and dreams. Sure, some of these dreams are totally unrealistic -- Wall-E's notion of romantic love comes from a Hello, Dolly video tape and the starship captain's idea of Earth that he has gleaned from the ship's computer includes the notion that you can grow such things as pizza plants -- but they are heart-warming, nonetheless. There is an undercurrent and backstory that is horrifying, yet in the foreground there is so much fun and optimism, its quite digestable without being diluted.

Pixar fans, we are, and Wall-E did not disappoint. And I say without reservation that this is a notch up from Ratatouille.

While of course there are all kinds of great gadgets in this, I was particularly charmed by little M-O (Microbe Obliterator), who rolls around following foreign contaminant Wall-E, cleaning his tracks up with his "mono-rotational scrubbing roller." I've got to find me one of those...

And then the teeny, tiny camels went across the desert...

Last week we watched the Academy award winning epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). And yes, it took us a few days. This bugger is like, 3 1/2 hours long!

We thought we'd try a different format for our review this time, and we sent each other questions about the movie. We'll give you our Q&A here (with minimal rebuttals).

LK's questions to B:

LK: Did you know anything about this movie or the historical events referred to before you watched it? How did that affect your viewing experience?
B: I did not have the foggiest idea about anything.
LK: Me either.

LK: Did you used to think your tv was plenty large?
B: Yup. Boy, those epic desert scenes make the camels look puny.

LK: What did you enjoy the most? What was the most moving?
B: The movie as a whole was good, but I don't think I have any particular scene that was most enjoyable or moving. More like a flat feeling throughout.

LK: What were the Oscar-earning qualities of the movie, at least from your first impression?
B: It won an Oscar? [apparently it did].

LK: There were no individual female characters in the movie.Did it seem like an omission?
B: Nope. This is a movie about a guy in a war lead by other men, almost all takes place in the desert in a culture that shelters women from the eyes of other males (with whatever implications you might want to read into it with your Western XXI century sensitivities) so women are sheltered thus.
LK: In fact, women appear three times: the Harith women -- no faces -- watching a dinner behind a curtain, and also seeing their men off to war (with uluations), and some women in a ransacked village (dead), but there are dead men too. In context, significant female characters would have been way too Hollywood. Plus, there's much discussion that women weren't terribly important in Lawrence's life... (See Hidalgo)

LK: What did this make you want to know more about?
B: What was really going on in WWI in Arabia. How instrumental was he really in the war? As an aside, it is a great perspective on how Europe and the U.S. have had such political and economic interest in controlling the region to this day and how disgusting it is that the politics of the hegemonic countries have been unable to leave other cultures alone (and made me want to re-read E. Said's Orientalism).

LK: If your wife hadn't cheated and looked at IMDB, do you think you would have ever placed Alec Guinness?
B: Nope.

LK: This disk had no extras, but if there were any extras, what would you want to watch?
B: Was it shot on location? How hot was it really? Things of that nature.

LK: And most important: Sharif or O'Toole?
B: Sharif, for sure. O'Toole is just a bit bland and over-dramatic about his own personal importance in the world (which might reflect the real Lawrence, hmm...)

B's questions to LK:

B: Who was your favorite character in the film?
LK: Sharif Ali. He seemed the most...rational. (And he was the biggest babe.)

B: Is there a particular scene that you found particularly appealing (or unnecessary)?
LK: In general -- any scene with camels running across desert landscapes was really, really cool. Maybe if I saw it more than once, I would notice things that seemed unnecessary, but despite the fact that it was 3 1/2 hours long, nothing struck me as unnecessary (of course I hated the attack on the Turk troops and I covered my eyes, but the point seems to be the ugliness of war, etc., so I get that.)

B: After watching this film, would you like to know about the real T. E. Lawrence?
LK: Hell, yes. And more than just the Wikipedia entry. There is a 2008 book out on him, but I haven't found a review of it. You can get most of his own writings online, but I think I'd prefer more of a biography and historical context. I don't know a lot about the Arab Revolt. I think it would be really, really interesting and I'm sure it has a lot to do with contemporary issues in the region.

B: What did you think of the music? Will you buy the sound track?
LK: Maybe I already have...
B: What!?
LK: Kidding. But yes, I was into it. It was so interesting that on the DVD there is this explanation at the beginning that you aren't supposed to be seeing anything while the overture plays. It's a blank screen so that you are just listening to the music. It gives it a much higher level of importance as a result -- and when the same themes occur later in the movie, they have more power.

B: What prompted you to see this film in the first place anyway?
LK: Because it's famous. And epic. (I thought you put it in the queue.)
B: No. No. YOU put it in the queue.
LK: I'm pretty sure it was you...

'Going viral' and spreading joie de vivre

If you haven't already seen this, I recommend it. And read the NYT article if you want to know more about the video and Matt.



TIP: If you double click on the video here, you'll go straight to YouTube where you can chose "watch in high quality" OR go to Matt's page with a vimeo version for higher quality.

SFO eatin' & drinkin'

Had a great time in SFO on my trip a couple of months ago (it took me a while to finish up this post, obviously). Learned a lot of relevant professional stuff at the conference I was attending (the International Studies Association annual meeting), but also had a lovely time eating and drinking with friends (some old, some new) at all kinds of establishments.

Alembic Bar - Went with a bunch of folks to this funky bar on Haight St. The food we had was fabulous -- I had bavette steak with chimichurri sauce (photo left). I had a couple of Belgian beers. Mmm. 1725 Haight St.

Cafe Prague - I had Hungarian Szeged Goulash with dumplings (great), the beers were great, and we thought our Czech waiter was adorable. Not a great vegetarian selection so my friend got fried cheese. Yelpers give it mixed reviews, but I'd probably go again. (We had intended to go back for the accordion party on Friday, but ended up doing something else.) 584 Pacific Ave.

Colibrí - a lovely Mexican restaurant. I had green mole and duck. And the guacamole we had with our margarita course was amazing. 438 Geary St.

Cafe Mason - Chosen for its proximity to my hotel because I needed to check out right after breakfast. As I picked it over other more popular options, I was relieved that it ended up being a pretty great little breakfast spot. I got some sort of crepe and fruit thing and it was fabulous. Coffee was good too. I think all of the waitresses were from the same Eastern European or former Soviet country. It was great.

Cafe Trieste (North Beach) - Very cool coffee shop with very good coffee and excellent pastries. 609 Vellejo Ave.

Hana Zen - We were very hungry and cold and the udon noodle soup with vegetable tempura hit the spot. So did the sake.

Hidden Vine - A real hole in the wall kind of place, but great. My friend and I learned not to assume we won't like a wine if it's from California (although I'll still say it'd be an exception if I really like it). If I'm remembering correctly, our eye-opening red wine was from Bighorn Cellars, but I no longer remember the varietal...

John's Grill - a meat-and-potatoes kind of place, touristy, but it seemed like it would be fun to go. It is a setting in The Maltese Falcon and is -- or, rather, was -- the home of one of signed publicity copies of the movie's falcon statue.

King of Thai - looking for a quick-ish lunch on a break and stumbled into this place. It was packed when we arrived, so we'd ordered 'to go,' but by the time our food was ready, there were plenty of seats so we ate in. (Which was good, as we really didn't have any place to go to eat our take-away!) We were quite happy with our meals and it was very reasonable. And I loved the green plates.

5 minutes on craigslist

Sometimes a classified ad tells you much more than what is for sale. (Which reminds me, I should check where 24 Hours on Craigslist is in our queue. I'd heard good things about it.)

Anyway, I hesitate to imagine the story behind this recent entry that appeared on Honolulu Craiglist:

Great Deal For Anyone Getting Married - $1000

Brand new wedding dress. I only ever tried it on at the store and then again at home for these pictures. It needs a new home where it can make it down the aisle. My loss is your gain! $1200 dress. ...

I have a full wedding ring set for sale. The full set is worth $1875 and in excellent condition. The mens ring is 14kt yellow gold with a comfort fit band. Size 9. Purchased for $175. The womans wedding ring is very unique and one of a kind. It is a mix of yellow and white gold to form a "lovers knot". Diamonds are set all across the knot to total 5/8 of a karat. It is a size 7. Purchased for $1000

The engagement ring is also yellow gold with a 1/4 karat diamond set in the middle. This ring is also a size 7. Purchased for $700.

Food and the people who write about it

The 2008 James Beard Foundation award winners were announced this past weekend, and as always, JBF has the results updated on the website super fast. (A side note: They've done a complete redesign of their site since I had last visited. My recollection is that the navigation has improved, but even more striking is that the appearance has dramatically changed. A bold look without too much Flash.)

Greg Patent's latest book, A Baker's Odyssey (which I wrote about here), was a finalist in the 'Baking and Dessert' category, although the winner in that category went to Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor (which I know nothing about, but it sounds like good idea).

Heidi Swanson, the author of one of the food blogs I follow, '101 Cookbooks', was a finalist in the 'Healthy Focus' category for her cookbook Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways To Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking. It's not just the site's recipes that entice -- her food photos are gorgeous.

No Hawaiians were nominated for Best Chef in the Pacific region (all finalists were in California), but the Best Chef for the Southwest region (I'd be interested in hearing how they decided on their regions) is Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson at Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder. This note-worthy chef is not in Aspen, or even Denver, but in little ol' Boulder. I love it. I haven't dined there, myself, but we've heard good things about it. Maybe I'll get there on one of my future visits. (Question to The Folks: Have you eaten there?)

And the ever-reliable Epicurious.com -- a site I couldn't cook without -- won for 'Website Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurant, or Nutrition.' (Nice concise description for that category, eh?)

And a personal recommendation:
Another of my own favorite recipe blogs is 'Simply Recipes.' I diligently forward any ice cream recipes to Sister (who has a machine) and have promised to send all of this summer's zucchini recipes to The Folks in anticipation of their annual squashy bounty. (Sister reports that the Strawberry Frozen Yogurt -- made with fresh berries from their local farmers' market -- was a big success at a recent gathering.)

P.S. Upon further exploration, I see that the JBF site is still under construction, so not all functions are up yet. A work in progress.

P.P.S. Sorry about the double post (those of you who get this via feed). Stupid Ctrl key so close to the Shift key....!

Pro bono work

I'm doing ad and program layout for our upcoming choral festival. We lost our manager mid-season so we're all scrambling. Here's the online version of the ad.

Luckily, I got the director to agree to black and white -- it's hard enough to fit this in this week without complicating things with picking colors!

An upside to me doing the program is that I will also be able to copyedit it so it doesn't drive me nuts when I see the published product.

Notes from the shop

Last night, my resident bike mechanic worked on my single speed.

My single speed was this, but is evolving all the time. The first modification was to chop the handle bars. B had to take it to the shop for that. They are straight bars and they are now no wider than my shoulders (the better to fit through small spaces, my dear.)

Next, I wanted better pedals. Bigger, flatter, pedals mean you can wear more different kinds of shoes without sacrificing efficiency or comfort (Yay, we can wear flip-flops and ride our bikes! 'Safety first!').

And this is when things got tricky.

B found these pancake-sized pedals that will be awesome. (You feel like Alice in Wonderland when you pick them up, they are so large.) Unfortunately, when he went to put them on, it quickly became clear that I also needed new crank arms (the things the pedals attach to) and a bottom bracket (where the crank arms attach) because the style that came with the bike was incompatible with any upgrade. My no-frills bike was too frill-less as it came with one-piece, or "Ashtabula-style," crank arms. And it would seem that the conversion is no simple thing. B has been trying new combinations of parts (including swapping some with his current fixed-gear bike). Some of this requires special ordering from local shops of odd-sized parts. And much calculating, a bit of guessing, and a little bit of luck.

Last night he removed the stock crank arm set-up. Intermittently, as he worked, he'd pop up and go to the white board and write down numbers. He was recording the weight of the various parts. Once all the numbers had been crunched, he gleefully announced that the new bottom bracket/crank arms/pedals weighed half of what the previous set-up weighed. In other words, nearly a pound and a half less than what came on the bike.

Even I might notice that. (Although once I get the fenders and rack, on down the road, I'll be adding more than that back on!)

So the bike is not quite ready to go. Needs further tweaking -- including a smaller chain ring on the front so my knees won't explode when I go uphill -- but we are very close now. Soon, I'll be tooling around the neighborhood on my new pancake pedals.

The bike does not yet have a name. I probably need to go on a vision quest or something to learn its name. You can't force these things.

And where was I while B labored to perfect my ride? I was nearby, keeping him company, working on my own household project: making new throw pillow covers. (The rosa mexicano pair are finished.)