Sugarman: Sixto Rodriguez

Sugarman...I first heard of Sixto Rodriguez while I was searching around for stuff having to do with surfing, being a newish fan and all. I came across part of a film called "Lost Atlas" by Kai Neville, about some young cutting-edge blokes surfing remote locations. It was just a snippet of the film, but the soundtrack intrigued me. "Woman, please be gone/ You've stayed here much too long..." It sounded old, like from the 60s, but I had never heard a voice like that, or words that scorched in just that way.

Thanks to the internet, I was able to type those words into Google and voila: it was a song called "Hate Street Dialogue" by Sixto Rodriguez. I discovered that he was from Detroit, that his music was (and still is) awesome, and that if I'd heard of him at that time, I would certainly have bought his records. He only made two that went nowhere in the States. But in South Africa, and Australia, he was huge.

I finally just watched the documentary film about Rodriguez, "Searching for Sugarman". It made me cry. What a humble man. He still lives in Detroit, still plays some of his music, still works hard every day. What little money he's made from his music he's given away to family and friends. Here's a sample of some of his songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_7u06P3ebU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMv9kjFp1gk&feature=endscreen&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLnGdyUN-IU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1GwgzEZcps

For the Love of Cooking

 

In spite of the fact that I love to bake, I have rediscovered (or perhaps discovered really for the first time) my love for cooking. I began in fourth grade, a very long time ago, at the age of nine. I didn't like it all that much, as I recall. It seemed a boring chore. But now my kitchen is MY kitchen, where some sort of magic happens, and where a recipe is just a suggestion. It also helps to have good knives. I have a set of Wusthofs, and hope one day to have some better cookware and a gas cooktop.

Last night I made delicious faux-tatoes with cauliflower, cream cheese, and butter, whirred together in the processor with salt and pepper. Then I roasted bite-sized chunks of butternut squash with garlic in olive oil, all to go with the chicken wings William put into the oven. For dessert was the simple but delicious pear galette I invented.

This morning I made a quiche, for the first time with a pastry crust (I usually leave the crust off because of the carbs, but sometimes I don't care anymore). I think it's probably the best quiche I've ever made. My pastry crusts, I must admit, are pretty good...

 

Since I normally don't take photos of food, here are some nice still lifes with pears...

and not-very-good pictures of the quiche.

 

 

 

 

 

At some point, after retirement, I plan to garden, put up preserves, and experiment with new flavors, especially Italian ones. Viva la cucina!



Memories of Italy: Food for the Soul

Some eye-and-spirit-candy from 2008...memories of the sun in Florence, Italy, and the lovely days full of art, everywhere, and light, and food, and sweetness, and heat...

 

 

 

Skyline: Firenze, from a hilltop

Lion in quatrefoil

Il Duomo, Firenze

Torre Giotto

 

 

That was a trip to remember, and being there was every bit as sweet as the memory of being there. I was awed, humbled, thrilled, to finally be in Italy, in Florence, the ancient city I dreamed of in art history classes. Everything was delicious: tiny streets, hidden squares, the Arno and Ponte Vecchio, churches great and small, trattorie, cobblestones, gold like the sun, sky like a robin's egg, tangy green olive oil, freshly made mozarella, the everything and everywhere. I loved it, and I will go back.

On Recovery

I am finally over being sick; at least I'm well enough to have returned to work on Monday after a week-and-a-half of fever, chills, horrendous coughing, and excruciating lower back pain because of it. Lying on the sofa for the better part of a week, including some nights when the bed was just too flat, I managed to read two books on Tutankhamun, another on archaeology, and began a fourth on Tuscany, which I am savoring in memory of our brief visit there in 2008. Ah, Italia....

And now that I'm back, going into the second half of my final year of teaching, I decided to make the best of things and teach my photography students as much about Photoshop 6.0 as possible for the rest of the year. To that noble end, I have not exempted myself from learning a few things as well, or re-learning them, as the case may be. Here are some interesting results:

Apples, dark

Apples, gradient mapped

Apples, gradient mapped and something else that I forgot because I can't replicate it...

Curve rust

Original birdbath

Iron leaf, gradient mapped

first glimpzse of sunrise, abstracted

Ice crystals...interesting texture

Spider plant with sun and table

Interior, desaturated with steel-bar gradient map

 

Most of these involve gradient mapping and/or curves. Some of them are quite nice...I am having a good time with my new camera.

A Garden In Winter

 

There's something peaceful and magical about a winter garden. I felt temporarily well enough after a shower this morning that I ventured outside to shoot the diamonds hanging from needles and branches in my garden. It had rained earlier, all night in fact, so capturing them was easy.

 

 

We are planning to move one day from this area. My only regret will be leaving this yard and garden we have worked so hard to make beautiful. Over fourteen years we have toiled (or my husband has!), and we still have lots more work to do, but there was literally nothing here when we moved in, not a stick or branch of anything, just bare dirt the consistency of powdered sugar. Now it is not only a haven for we humans, but one for birds, frogs, deer, and other wildlife. We see birds fly by every day and when the osprey return every spring, it's thrilling to see them soar within feet of our windows, often carrying steelhead in their talons. I will miss it, but until then, I will enjoy the quiet and lovliness, and even the hard work, of my ever-changing garden.

 

A Blackbilled Magpie

 

Forest Goddess (or something)

 

 

I haven't blogged for awhile so I thought I'd share something I made. I created this painting years ago (my friend Angie Kile used it when her first child was born as a focus during labor). I recently found it again and have been adding improvements and subtracting mistakes.

 

I happen to be sick right now, having contracted something from school (a rarity for me, as I hardly ever get sick). Anyway, perhaps this portrait will become one of the characters Eilidh meets in the elven realm. She is now sitting on my "altar" of stuff I collect and like: rocks, old antlers, copper pots, feathers, sticks, dried bouquets of roses, weeds, and a mask I bought and repainted so it was much cooler.

 

Tagged: The Next Big Thing Blog-Hop

Thanks to my friend Miriah, who is an an actual writer, not just a wannabee, I was tagged in this blog-hop, not to be confused with a sock-hop (is anyone else out there old enough to remember what one of those was?).

So here goes:

• The working title of my book is "The Solitary" (now at 147 pages)
• The idea for the story came from wherever magical ideas come from. All I remember was having a thought and writing the first sentences in my notebook while on a bus-trip to the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon last April 5th. They languished on that page for a couple of weeks before they made it onto my computer screen, and by the end of May, I had 90 pages (while teaching and finishing up our school's yearbook).
• The genre might be fantasy
• I can think of no actors who might play the major roles if this were ever to be made into a film. I generally loathe movies anyway and scarcely watch TV either, and the usual celebrities wouldn't be good enough. If surfer Owen Wright were an actor...(see earlier blog posts for characters.) 
• In one sentence: Eilidh Runyon, a 30-year-old witch who practices as a solitary and lives alone on an ancient farm in some nebulous place like Wales or France, rescues an elf named Taliesin who is near death from an arrow wound, who has fallen into her world from the other realm, and who has partial amnesia. (Adventures ensue.)
• If I ever finish the story in writing instead of just in my head, I don't know how I'll publish it. Still toying with choices.
• I have yet to finish the first draft, although the story itself is finished. It has a beginning, middle, and end, and in fact, I usually write the end after I've written the beginning...the middle is the slog.
• I hardly ever read fiction anymore because of time constraints. After I retire, perhaps...So I really have  no idea to what other books I might compare my story, although I love Shakespeare.
• Related to question #2, I'm not sure who or what inspired me to write this tale. Most of my stories are inspired by my most vivid dreams, but this one wasn't. It certainly wasn't the bus trip, although I did have a great time and my students enjoyed it.
• If anything might pique my reader's interests...my work is usually somewhat philosophical, with a bit of intertextuality, tragedy, and humor woven in. All of my stories, ultimately, are love stories, and center around the theme of redemption.

So...I hope I've answered the questions adequately. I have asked the story to stay on hold until June, when I retire from teaching. It's my favorite one and I don't want anyone else to write it!

(drawing by me)