Gratitude!

Thanksgiving Day, I’m sitting on an airplane and never fail to marvel at the miracle of flight.  I understand how flight works but never quite trust the Science.  Of course, just because I don’t trust this miracle means absolutely nothing as I fly quite a bit…I take that leap of faith in the higher power that is aerodynamics.

I guess it gives me just the tiniest bit of understanding into the psyche of our climate change deniers.   

We are seeing the wildly erratic weather patterns across our nation and in the greater world due to climate changes and especially here in California. November has been fraught with difficulties for California…despite a blue wave during the elections, the elation was short lived as the California wildfires have decimated many of our forests and towns.  My hope is that the fires are at an end and the air in the greater bay area remains at an acceptable levels.  The recent rain has helped our firefighters
.  

Despite the massively sobering realities in the world around us, the theme for today is not depressing news, rather this day is devoted to gratitude.   

As I fly back to California after visiting family, I am grateful that my 88 year old mother, despite every physical ailment possible, is still able to watch the Hallmark Channel Christmas Specials with relative gusto.  She is on the verge of having cataract laser surgery to get the full effect of her high definition television set.  Every time I visit I am reminded what a tough lady is packaged in Ms. Anna Elizabeth Lewis.  

Almost 88 and still going strong. A hell of a matriarch.  

My brother and his family are doing well.  I was happy to spend time with all for a few days before returning to my fast paced California lifestyle.  

A little back porchgoofiness.  Haven took many of these photos practicing with my camera! 

 A chip off the old Uncle block!

Nothing beats a tire swing! 

Alyssa, my niece, looking so incredibly mature.  Oh how they grow up!

A beautiful day roaming the UNC, Chapel Hill campus.  My brother and his wonderful hubby! 

Hopefully this handsome kid also one day be "Well" educated! 

Highlights to this trip included a few hours with a group of loved ones that truly bring laughter and joy into my life.  We enjoyed a relatively quiet night at the Flying Saucer, sitting just below Di and Rusty’s plates.  Both were spoken of often, and mostly with love, during the course of the evening.  

We sat under the watchful eye our party goddess..  

Rusty's plate also looked upon us...he was missed in this gathering.  

Three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  

Ahhhh, Julia's keeping the other horseman company.  

Young, bubbly miss Becca. 

Is there any more nurturing site than these two? 

There's a whole lotta love! 

Brandi and Scott dropped in as well.  So happy to see this soon to be wed couple.  

Another highlight was a quick trip to Wilson, NC to see Whirligig Park.  (https://www.wilsonwhirligigpark.org) These amazing wind-powered kinetic sculptures really bring a sense of whimsy and a lightness of being at one’s core.  The park has only recently opened, not even long enough to have a snackbar and/or gift shop installed (have no fear Disneyesque America, those things will come).  

Whirligigs!  Who doesn't love them.  I defy anyone to be in a bad mood after looking at these massive kinetic sculptures! 

Whirligig pandemonium.  

Family enjoying a day in the park.  

And what blogpost would be complete without pano trick photography.  

Odds and Ends Adventures

Gentle Readers, I have many skills…one skill that I have never possessed is a technical photographic expertise nor an eye for photos.  Next summer we will be going to New Zealand and Australia for a few weeks, and in preparation I’ve purchased a refurbished Nikon DSLR camera.  

My hope is that I can photograph the sweeping Lord of the Rings/Hobbiton vistas with a small degree of skill.  In order to practice my woefully inadequate skills and because we were really craving fall, we took a weekend trip to Placerville to view some apple farms.

This hill country area (Apple Hill) has a significant number of Apple Farms, both big and small.  We were looking forward to leisurely drives from one small farm to another, but it turns out we weren’t the only one’s searching for autumn.  The farms we found were pretty big and really crowded.  Despite the crowds and the limited amounts of fall foliage, we did manage to enjoy apple cider, apple donuts, and every other apple product available. 

Yosiell enjoying a hard cider to dull the pain of being around thousands of fall revelers.  

Monique and Lance joined us for our excursion, and recommended a small winery with beautiful views and few people, Lava Cap winery.  

Randomly, we ran across Kaitlyn and Rick, artist friends that live in Sacramento.  

My Birthday Scavenger Hunt (last August) in downtown Oakland.  Good times people.  

The idea was to bike to different landmarks in Oakland based on obscure clues and post a photo on instagram  (#oakscav if you want to see all of the photos).  

What a wacky group - and somewhat competitive...people really wanted the crappy plastic medals!!! 

...and finally, Thomas Lester’s 40^th Birthday Masquerade Party.  

A wonderful time at the Belle Vue club, next to lake Merritt,  Yes, that is a T-rex making an appearance! 

Since last we met on this blog, Gentle Readers, I started my newest gig as a principal.  This time, in a Title 1 Junior High.  So challenging... but very rewarding.  After three years in a district office job, my last few months have been mentally, physically, and emotionally challenging. This school is presenting a list of challenges but slowly and surely we are trying to change the culture.  In a few years, we will be going from 980 students to about 1600 and will be rebranded as a middle school (with 6^thgrade as well).  

Thanksgiving this year was spent at a restaurant. Flying in from RDU on the day and trying to have a Turkey feast at home just didn’t seem “doable”.  Dinner was at the Terrace room, around Lake Merritt in Oakland.  A great evening of food and drink without the mess was certainly a plus.  

As North Carolina fades in this Boeing 737’s rearview mirror, I’m reflecting on how filled with gratitude I truly am to have wonderfully quirky and exceptionally incredible people in my life.  My life-story is filled with adventures both near and far but none of it is worth a nickel without the people with whom it is shared. I hope everyone enjoys a Thanksgiving filled with love.  

"What is it that makes us human?"

Walking into my first high school Humanities class, Ms. Cornelius started the year with what I know now is a teaching strategy known as an essential question, "What is it that makes us human?"  Students began contributing answers about being mammals, about developing civilizations, working in groups and so on.  Her simple answer was, "That which makes us human is our ability to create beauty."  She continued to say that the Humanities are the study of all that is beautiful humans have created.  The study of the enduring literature, art, philosophy, and music that elevates the human spirit.

So began my love affair with the humanities.  I've been trying to answer that essential question ever since.  As an undergrad. student at CSU Chico, I continued this exploration.  Although a liberal studies major, humanities was my area of emphasis.  My favorite classes were centered on religion, art history, philosophy and even music appreciation.    

My youth was a time of exploration, grand ideas, optimism, and ever expanding idealism.  Every time I go into a museum now, at the ripe age of fifty plus, those ideals rise to the surface.  I know when it seems that people are at their worst, sauntering through works of art reminds me that people are capable of creating incredible beauty, of rising above the trivial, of going beyond the pettiness and avarice.

Recently, I watched a Netflix show entitled "Nannette", a stand-up show by Tasmanian Hannah Gadsby.  Among her many excellent and thought provoking points, she lambastes the art world for it's continuously misogynistic focus on straight white dead guys and nude women.  She brings up Picasso and his misogyny as an example of the art world turning a blind eye to the deplorable treatment of women in the art world.  "Picasso is sold to us as this passionate, virile, tormented genius man ballsack, right?  But he did suffer a mental illness….the mental illness of misogyny."  This is in reference to Picasso as a 45 year old married man seducing a 17 year old girl and the art world looking the other way as it was a different time and he was a tortured genius.  Hannah Gadsby does not let him off the hook, nor should she!  

She also points out the staggering number of female nudes painted by men in museums even compared to the number of female artists represented.  She goes on to point out, although Picasso is one of the artists credited as introducing cubism, in her view cubism was meant to provide the viewer multiple perspectives of the same thing.  This does not succeed because the artist Picasso can only provides his view, his perspective.  He cannot represent the lens of those under represented in the art world.  When continuously forced to revere the 'mastery' of straight white men, even when the work or the artist is not only dismissive but violent and abusive to women, this reverence rarely leaves room for the alternative voice.  (As an aside, if you have not seen this special, do so ASAP!)  

Why bring this up now, when clearly my post is to exalt the beauty of life.  Mainly to remind our gentle readers that although we can agree on some universal standards of what makes a piece of art beautiful, there is a high degree of subjectivity and historically we have only elevated a small portion of the cannon of work in the humanities.  

I define beauty by works that move me emotionally, that stimulate my senses and elevates my soul.  With this in mind, gentle reader, let us stroll through some of my more memorable moments from these past few months fulfilling my addiction for the humanities, helping in my search for what makes us human.    

April at the SFMOMA (my favorite museum):

A rainy day at the SFMOMA - absolutely love the living wall and the sculptures on every deck. 

Awesome, creepy and beautiful.  

Totally feeling like a 1950's creature feature.  

Sol LeWitt is always a crowd pleaser at the SFMOMA.  

Kara Holthe, a colleague that always brings me joy, joined me for one of my many trips through the MOMA.  

An interesting disorienting few minutes in this darkened room. 

Twins in a photo display, although photographed long before, this photo reminds me of the twins in the  Shining.  

This photo does not really convey the size of this painting.  

Last Friday (7/6), my good friend Eyan and I wandered the new exhibit at the SFMOMA, the Renee Magritte show.  Over 70 works of art.  Exhausting to say the least, but a wonderful retrospective of his post World War II works.

Hannah Gadsby (yes, gentle reader, again with the Tasmanian lesbian), speaks about comedy being the creation of tension by the comedian leading up to the punch line.  She discusses it in terms of why it is a destructive and abusive relationship between comedian and audience (see the show if you want more on that one).

In the art world, Magritte does a similar thing.  He juxtaposes incongruent items to create tension for the on-looker.  Sometimes innocuous items are oversized or placed next to very different seemingly mismatched items.  The on-looker experiences tension, and yet she/he seems almost to be in on the joke, as if anticipating a punchline.

Many of his paintings explore this interplay of scenic landscape and a canvas,  almost as if the canvas were a window.  In this one the canvas is at once a window and yet reflecting the light from the fire...tricky Renee, very tricky.  

This image was very disturbing to me.  Although this was  painted many years ago, in light of our current American climate, I found this to unsettle me.  

Surrealism at its best.  

Can anyone look at a bowler hat and not think of Magritte.?  I believe this was intended to be a self portrait.  

This is a great example of this pairing of objects to create tension for the on-looker.   

This is difficult to see in the screen shot, but I love the colors of the mountain, somewhat reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish.   I also love the morphing of the mountains with the eagle.

My love of museums is almost eclipsed by my love of gallery shows.  I've got way too much art to display properly in our tiny house, and yet I still attend gallery shows and buy pieces.  In Oakland, finding art by our communities often under represented in the art world is not a hard task.  

I often attend gallery shows at Faultline Art Space, the artist collective of which Yosiell is once again a part.  

"Pandora's Box" by Raul D'Mauries.  The details of the evils released into the world are amazing. 

Felicia Ann from Faultline.

A chalk drawing on Felicia's chalkboard at the studio- the pastel colors are intriguing to me.  

One of Bud Snow's masks from her solo show in march.   This piece brings me a sense of nostalgia as she used a shit ton of pipe cleaners for this, and my early years as a camp counselor were spent creating many pipe cleaner crafts.

The size of this piece is lost in the photo.  An awesome piece.  

Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that my tastes run purely to the high brow, the thought provoking, and the sophisticated.  It takes all of my will power to pass the world's largest ball of string or a good alien museum when traveling anywhere.  I will pay the five dollars to enter odd and off the beaten track museums and attractions.  These are definitely not on the Ms. Cornelius Humanities 101 syllabus but every chef will tell you nothing beats a good hot dog on occasion.  

I've been to the Museum of Death, several Museums of Oddities, Foster's Bighorn taxidermy bar/restaurant (largest private collection of taxidermied animals in the world right in Rio Vista, California - interesting side note, Rusty's cousin is or has been the Sherriff in Rio Vista), and countless others.  

My most recent foray into the strange and unusual was at the Bearded Lady's Mystic Museum in Los Angeles.  The store part of their shop carries Yosiell's products so we had to stop by and of course tour the museum, especially for the historical talking boards displayed (commonly known as Ouija Boards).  

Hello Lady Leona...I'm not sure what a radio mind is but I must have this poster one day! 

In front of some beautiful historical talking boards, many of them Ouija, but other brands as well.  

This one is my favorite, it's from 1940, and the illustrations are just amazing. 

A Victorian ghost hunting kit!  Yes please!

The spirits were kind to me on this day! 

Well, gentle readers, I've enjoyed reliving some of the reasons that I enjoy the humanities.  If ever you find yourself doubting that there is beauty in the world, the way I have lately in our United States climate, try traipsing through a museum, or better yet, pop into a gallery and linger as the concert violinist in the subway station plays a concerto.  It will remind you that there is something more grand than our concerns at play, we can find beauty everywhere, things that will touch our souls, cause us to think, or just to laugh.  Very refreshing.  

ALC - Why I Ride!

Imagine, gentle readers, me as a young skinny just barely post teen, recently enlisted in the army.  Army fatigues, pencil thin mustache, and the waistline of a teenage girl!  The setting is a hot and stuffy auditorium with thousands of other new hormone driven recruits listening to a troop medical clinic doctor speak about the terrible symptoms of STD's.  At this age, we all had the shield of invincibility that our young horny minds had a way of instilling in us.  The lecture could just as easily had been on the ills of forgetting to brush your teeth for all the good it did us!

And yet, the one part of the lecture that stood out was actually when the clinician describe transmission of the AIDS virus, HIV.  The disease was so new and was, essentially at the time, a death sentence, everyone actually took note of this part.  The army, for all of its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" homophobia, took a very non-judgmental stance on the issue during this lecture.  Facts were presented, using condoms was highly encouraged, and sleeping with prostitutes was highly discouraged.  The refrain at the time was that a diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence.  That was pretty much the end of it.

Let's get this straight though, the army was by no means a tolerant and inclusive place.  Men that were diagnosed with HIV were medically discharged and sent home almost immediately.  In fact one of the food service privates that I had a crush on was diagnosed and sent home fairly unceremoniously amidst a flurry of rumors and innuendos.

For me, the death sentence scare tactics worked well enough to force me into the closet even deeper but not strong enough to overcome my horny young adult sex drive.  Soon after basic and my military training, I was shipped off to Germany for two years.  While in Germany I came out, and had my very first boyfriend.

A few months after getting out of the army, the case of Ryan White was in the news.  For those of you old enough to remember, he was the young boy from Indiana infected from a blood transfusion.   I remember being grateful for the story only because the public was finally beginning to see HIV and AIDS as affecting everyone.  As more and more famous people were diagnosed, all came to realize that this wasn't just a "gay disease".

The point is as an adult, I haven't known a time that AIDS wasn't part of my lexicon.   From my earliest adult years this has been a disease that has not only affected those in the media but friends and close family members.  I've seen those closest to me suffer medical problems, lose their entire savings because of medical costs, lose their partners, and in some cases close friends and loved ones have lost their lives.

I've also seen incredible acts of bravery in the face of prejudice and hate.  People have come together to create support groups, to lobby for care, and to mobilize in many different ways.  My personal contributions have included providing peer education in college, contributing to multiple AIDS research and support organizations, and volunteering for STOP AIDS.

I'm riding for many of the same reasons that others ride.  I don't have HIV/AIDS but I have experienced the devastation, pain, and loss, this disease has caused.   I have seen good people suffer in hospital beds and die from this disease.

Through it all I have seen progress and I have seen hope.  Organizations like San Francisco AIDS Foundation not only foster hope but provide support when and where it is needed.  I ride for those that are living with HIV/AIDS and for those that have passed away. I ride because it is one way I can contribute.

If you would like to contribute, please got to the following website:  www.tofighthiv.org/goto/papabadgerwalt