Immortal Beloved....

Ever hanker to see a VW Beetle completely covered with Huichol beadwork?

Glorious Bug!

This is an eagle, but when we first saw it, we thought it might have been a phoenix--isn't that a fire just below the eagle?  Wrong us, wrong legend....

This one's a little blurry, but you can see the snakes, various kinds of deer, and some little yellow scorpions just under the vents at the top of the picture.

This is the view of the top, taken from the second floor.  I love the four blue double-headed eagles in the corners and also the woman with offerings on the bottom edge. 

Friends Judy (seated), Sue (right), and Meredith (back).  Judy, who is Native American, and wife Sue have six pieces of Huichol art, though nothing as big as the Vochol.

Poster with clues to the images

(To get a gorgeous view, click the full screen icon!)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NAMI) has a Vochol on display right now--until May 6, 2012. Vochol combines the Mexican name for VW Beetle (vocho) with Huichol, the name of a west-central Mexican people noted for their beadwork. (The Huichol also are called Wixáritari in their own language.)

Eight artists from two Wixáritari families took seven months to create this gorgeous beaded Bug. They used 200 pounds of beads and needed more than 9,000 hours to paste them all on. Except for the tires and running boards, almost every inch of the Beetle's exterior is beaded--even the back of the mirror on the driver's side. Even the interior has colorful Wixáritari embroidery designs, although only the steering wheel and the dashboard are completely beaded.

My photos don't begin to compare with those in the video above, but due to some mysterious intervention by my camera, the photo just before the ones I took of the Vochol was of the gate on 7th and H Streets NW in DC's Chinatown. I was floored by the similarity: bits of bright color, indigenous (though continents apart) design.

Another bonus: This flower was blooming by the waterfall between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery. Again, the Huichol beadwork in the NMAI display suggest the bright colors, the delicate shapes in nature's fine art.

A flower by the waterfall in the walkway between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery.

Au revoir, Robert!!

It is with great sadness that I impart the news of the passing of an amazing human being, a pillar in the collective community and incredible Leathersmith.
Bob DeJardine, owner of Tuff Stuff Leather in Central Phoenix, passed at 6 pm today.
He leaves his legacy in Leather to all who were fortunate to know him.
He will be missed by many, but will live on in the hearts of friends and family.
A new star in the heavens tonight flies the Leather Pride flag.

--from YELP in Phoenix AZ, March 15, 2012

Well, when I first spotted Bob as he walked into the 7th grade classroom at St. Mary's, I thought: "That's who I'm going to marry!!" He was tall and handsome and had curly brown hair!

Life, of course, had other plans (per usual). Bob and I dated often in high school (though not exclusively--he went out with Pookie for a while, and as a senior, I went out with Bill, a football player from Detroit Lakes). What I remember most is how he walked me home in the bitter cold on many Friday nights after the dance at St. Mary's or St. Anthony's. But even more than that, I remember how we loved to fly kites together after school at El Zagal golf course in Fargo. El Zagal was just two blocks from my house, and we had a swell time!

After high school, I entered the convent, and he went to college and then started a branch of his family business in Minnesota.

After I left the convent, he came to St. Ben's for the prom (or whatever it was in the spring), and we went tobogganing together. I more or less wrecked my ankle on that excursion, but he came back to Minnesota several times, and we always had fun. No sex, but that was understood in good, Catholic practice.

His parents sent him to, maybe, Africa one summer, and by the time he came back, I had met Don and gotten engaged in very short order.

He got engaged to another girl, but they broke it off....and that's the last I heard of him until maybe 30 years later, when another of my good classmates told me he owned a leather shop in AZ--(NOT suitcases). He did a lot of the sewing himself, and he was something of an authority on PIERCING in the leather/SM community. He had great stature in that community, and his creations won numerous prizes.

Anyway, I'm thinking of you, Bob....So grateful for your friendship at that excruciating teenage time. It was fun being in drama club together, too. (And no, I was never into leather or S&M or any of that. Can't figure it out.) But I love that you developed your own life! Rest in peace, dear Bob!

March 29, 2012

Nothing much going on, except I have to figure out how to link a TOC with text, no page #s. So what am I doing about that? Cooking a big pot of greens. I went to the farmers market in Penn Quarter this aft, got a big bag of delicious, tender, new Russian kale (saved for later) and about twice as much "Asian" greens, whatever they are. I'm cooking them "southern style." It's based on Alton Brown's "Mess of Greens" recipe. You add the greens to 2 quarts of water and boil them. I also added a whole chopped onion and a good tablespoon or so of sea salt to what must be a good two pounds of greens (chopped, with the stems removed). As an afterthought, I poured in the rest of a quart of organic chicken broth that I had left in the fridge from something I made last week. Smells quite good, actually, and it's been cooking about an hour with 22 minutes left to go. I have never cooked greens that long before, but that's how they do it in the South. This neck of the woods is the South, being as it's below the Mason-Dixon line, which is just above Baltimore somewhere. Cathy grew up here, and this is how her mother and aunts and grandmothers cooked their greens--boiled the heck out of them for a long time. The great bonus is the "pot likker," which is jam packed with calcium and other goodies. It's too late to help my own teeth, which are falling out at an alarming pace. But what the hey. I've lost FOUR of my grade school classmates and my youngest brother this winter/spring. Their teeth were in much better shape than mine, but what good did that do them in the end? I guess the best thing to eat these greens & pot likker with is corn bread, according to Southerners I know. I do have some biscuits I made this morning. Not corn, but regular flour. That'll do.

A visit to the Hirshhorn, March 20-22, 2012

I had so much fun in the backyard of the Smithsonian Castle last weekend, that I went back and visited my favorite Smithsonian museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.  The cherry blossoms are still out, including these just behind the Sculpture Garden.  These are not weeping cherries, just regular ones.  I walked around outside for a bit, then went in.  My friend Linda had told me about the "color and form" exhibit, and I wanted to know if it was still on--and it is!  Until May 13!  Its name is "Suprasensorial:  Experiments in light, color, and space."

The Hirshhorn never disappoints.  It has a very active schedule, bringing in new artists in all media, not just sculpture.  I'm also going as someone who is quite familiar with the riches inside. I'm just scoping out what I haven't seen before.

OUTSIDE:

Cherry blossoms are incredible in their delicacy and richness.

Hiding behind the blossoms and trees in the Sculpture Garden are pieces by Joan Miro (center)
and Jacques Lipchitz (right).

West side of the museum, next to the Arts & Industry buildings (under renovation).  The big
sculpture at the left edge, Tony Cragg's "Subcommittee," represents one of those old-fashioned desk accessories that hold rubber stamps
for verifying particular transations: "Sold," "First Class," "Expedite." Just the thing for a subcommittee and their rubber-stamping function.

North side of the museum...the six cast bronze balls (Lucio Fontana's "Spatial Concept: Nature") fit wonderfully
next to the giant Southern Magnolia, which must be close to 30' tall.

"Brushstroke" by Roy Liechtenstein, north side the museum, facing the Mall.

DARK MATTERS (Exhibit, ground floor):

Dark matters can be simply absence of light or of spirituality or of everyday perceptions.

I laughed when I entered this gallery and found a naked man, twice as big as life, sitting

in the corner just inside the doorway.  "Big Man" is a favorite of Hirshhorn visitors, and he

hasn't been around for a couple of years.  Traveling, you know.

"Untitled" (Big Man) by Robert Mueck

Allan McCollum's "40 Plaster Surrogates"

All black/blank inside...just surrogates, not pictures

CHROMOSATURATION - Carlos Cruz-Diez

This is one of the stars of the Suprasensorial exhibit, in which Latin American artists "abandoned traditional art in favor of ephemeral and subjective forms based on light, color, motion, and space.....The viewers' changing perceptions as they navigate under, around, and inside the works
are essential to fulfill the artists' intentions."

All visitors don special unwoven fabric slippers to keep the floors
pristine so as not to diminish the astonishing colors.

Earworm for the post-St Patrick's Day celebration....

Once you've tasted Colcannon--floury mashed potatoes with cabbage, bacon, scallions, & a big knob of butter--your St. Patrick's Day menu will never be the same again. I used the leftover corned beef from March 17 instead of bacon, but I think the bacon would be better!!

Sunday afternoon in the Smithsonian's back garden....

Glorious Weeping Cherry

"The Moongate Garden draws design inspiration from the Temple of Heaven, a 15th-century religious complex in Beijing. Circles within squares—symbolizing heaven and earth, respectively—appear throughout this meditative setting adjacent to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art and their unparalleled collections of Asian art." Smithsonian Gardens website

Paper Bush and Spirea

Paper Bush with Magnolias peeping through behind

Spirea, but which kind?  Japonica?

Seating area in the Moongate garden

Butterfly bush? behind the Castle

River Birch!!

"If you're homophobic--you're probably GAY"

Wonderful song by Katie Goodman!

Cheers for the Apostrophe Protection Society!!

Thanks to Riggin Waugh for sending me this link:  www.apostrophe.org.uk

John Richards, a longtime working reporter and editor, founded The Apostrophe Protection Society

with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.

 

If you are as dismayed as Xtreme English by the recent rash of apostrophe faults committed by people, organizations, and publications she thinks should know better, you will welcome this simple, elegant explanation of where an apostrophe should go--and why.  

An example:

The rules concerning the use of apostrophes in written English are very simple:

1. They are used to denote a missing letter or letters, for example:

	I can't instead of I cannot
	I don't instead of I do not
	it's instead of it is

2. They are used to denote possession, for example:

	the dog's bone
	the company's logo
	Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

... but please note that its, which is usually used as a possessive adjective (like our, his etc), does not take an apostrophe:

the dog ate its bone and we ate our dinner

Please click on the link and read the whole thing.  Richards clarifies other common mishaps of English usage and has a message board and a raft of links to other grammar sites.  He also adds this observation:

We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made the mistakes above.  We are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.

Logic Refresher....:)

In the current political atmosphere, we all, not just kids, could use a brush-up on LOGIC and critical thinking.  Thanks to Kevin Cole for the tip!