ATL - 10/13/08 Oregon 2

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/OREGON/FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "A Girl Cut in Two" started 10/10 at Landmark and only runs through 10/16. See it! It's French!

10/14, 8:00 PM - Metropolis Club House - "The Happening". What better way to watch a movie in which, by all accounts, nothing really "happens" that with a big, heckling crowd of neighbors?!? Come join the fun (and the pizza!)

10/14, 9:30 PM - The Plaza / Splatter Cinema - "Dead Alive"

10/17, 8:00 PM - High Museum Latin American Film Festival - "Kill Them All"

10/18, 8:00 PM - High Museum LAFF - "A Cuban Family"

ART NEWS -10/16 Avant Garden at The Contemporary. -acac-

It's pledge drive time for WABE, Atlanta's public radio station. For regular listeners used to programming without commercial interruption, the breaks asking for donations this week can seem unbearable. Here's my plan: go to pba to donate and then go to itunes to download mp3s of past programs for free-of-interruptions iPod-listening. (Also, you can get the current week's "This American Life" mp3 for free -here-).

10/16 - 11/1 - Center for Puppetry Arts - "Ghastly Dreadfuls" - Come celebrate the Spooky Season with your favorite band of specters as the Ghastly Dreadfuls present a new Halloween cavalcade of creepy stories, frightful songs and devilish dances from around the world and beyond this mortal plane. Puppets! Songs! Music! Dance! Macabre fun for the living and the dead! -puppet-

LOCAL NEWS - 10/14 - Tuesday Bootcamp nows moves to evening for the Fall. Meet in the Metropolis lobby for a running/conditioning work-out in Piedmont Park (rain location: walk the stairwells of Metropolis!) Tues - 6:45 PM / Thurs - 6:00 AM / Sat - 8:00 AM.

10/18, 4:00 PM - Little Five Points Halloween Parade; gives the Dragon*Con Parade a run for the money for "Best Atlanta Parade". Certainly the most irreverent.

New store in the 'hood - Next to Trader Joe's on Monroe Drive --> Richards Variety Store!!! Go!!! And go with an adventurous spirit and an adjective in mind, not a noun. It would be easy to find, say, a goofy present or a crazy costume, but not something as specific as parchment paper.

OREGON NEWS - STAMPS - Visiting the Post Office, I carefully looked over 1st Class Stamp choices while in line before reaching the counter:

"Can I help you?"
"I need to buy some stamps."
"Excellent; we just got in the Bette Davis ones."

Really? I said exactly 6 words; how did she know I needed "Bette Davis" stamps? (I did).

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ROUND AND ROUND - I'm browsing at Powell's through a book called "The Great American Attraction" by Rich Smith, when I reach page 90 and it's all about the Redneck Games, a silly, counterculture faux Sporting Event started in south Georgia in response to world-wide criticism of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics - The "Bubba Games". I turn to page 91, and it's describing a "young man from Atlanta" taking off his shirt to participate in the fart noise-making contest; a "young man" named Kyle.

I know Kyle.

So here I am, blogging about traveling to Powell's to find cool books like the one written by a Brit who is traveling to silly American festivals so he can write about funny folks like Kyle, my friend who is traveling to silly American festivals so he can blog about them. -kyle.tv-

WHAT NOT TO WEAR - A woman skating naked in Waterfront Park was asked by the police to cover up following complaints by local construction workers. She was later arrested for speeding (in a car). The last line of the news piece stated that in her police mug shot, she wore "an olive green T-shirt".

BOARD GAMES - The 27th Annual Grand National Cribbage Contest was under way. I'm grateful to my great-grandmother for teaching me how to play.

URBAN RENEWAL - 229 tons of lead bullets were removed from an old firing range hillside by former gold miners in an attempt to return the area to its natural state.

ECO 1 - Peet's coffee made cup lids available that appeared to be made from paper, not plastic. Kudos.

ECO 2 - Sign in Powell's: "Be Green; Buy Used Books".

BUMPER STICKER - "Warning: Your Local Police are Armed and Dangerous"

FRENCH NEWS - Nobel Prize for Literature - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. "...the prize committee in Stockholm called him an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

WEB NEWS - Fun Green Yips at -idealbite-

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ATL - 10/06/08 OREGON I

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - "City of Ember" looks like Matrix meets the Golden Compass. "Quarantine" - your typical "help, the government has me trapped in an apartment building with rapidly mutating plague victims" - just looks messy. Blair Witch Zombies.

10/8 - If high gloss Hollywood seems a little...well...recycled, check-out Marlene Dietrich at the Goethe Institute in "Stage Fright (Die rote Lola)". A Hitchcock film in German with English subtitles. -goethe films-

10/8 - ...or if Marlene is too high-brow for you, check out the very low-brow "Christmas on Mars" at the Plaza. I know nothing about it except what I read: "When an oxygen generator and gravity control machine malfunction at a human colony on Mars during the holidays, hallucinations and a visit from a helpful alien make it a Christmas to remember."

ART NEWS - "Sex Right Across the Street" - If you were lucky enough to get a ticket ahead of time to her sold-out appearance, you can see Candice Bushnell present her new book "One Fifth Avenue" at the Margaret Mitchell House, tonight. (handy for Metropolis residents!) -MM House-

HIGH MUSEUM - The third and final presentation of works from the Louvre starts this week. Previews 10/9-11 for members. -high-

10/7...and if that's too high-brow, then you should DEFINITELY see "Pink Flamingos" at the Plaza, in combination with the art of Matthew K Manning. -plaza-

LOCAL NEWS - The Piedmont Park hostage crisis continues, with only the Dogwood Festival being allowed back into the park in 2009. Pride will continue to flounder at the Civic Center, the Peachtree Road Race will be allowed "limited use" of the park, the Jazz Fest will be in Woodruff, and Screen on the Green will continue at Centennial Park. -taps- -dogwood-

Following the Hurricane Ike refinery outage, Atlantans again have more readily available gas (and will invariably continue to use too much of it.)

10/8, 7-8:00 PM, The Laughing Skull Lounge - After visiting the urban jewel that is my hometown of Portland, Oregon, it's a good time to see how I can be involved in making Atlanta a better city. Midtown Neighbors' Association sponsors a Density and Urban Design presentation. -mna-

U.S. NEWS - MONEY, MONEY, MONEY - The market is falling, the market is falling! Wells Fargo and Citi Bank are fighting over my money! So what does Target do? Puts out the Christmas Crap. Animated, electronic Santas next to the Freddy Kruger masks.

...and speaking of Halloween, let's dress up like something really terrifying! Of course, slapping lipstick on a Jason Vorhees hockey mask is the obvious Sarah Palin tribute, but I'd really love to see someone dressed as that other harbinger of doom...Freddy Mac. (Foreclosure notices skewered on finger/blades?)

I'm not a big biofuel fan (at least not using frickin' food as the "bio"!), but an article in a Portland magazine made a good point: Fossil fuel use involves digging up hydrocarbons from the ground and burning them, releasing carbon into the air. As part of the biofuel process, carbon is first removed from the air by growing plants, before being burned and put back into the air and is therefore more carbon neutral. (Unless, of course, you are burning fossil fuels to create the energy needed to grow the corn and process the biofuel...)

$770,000,000,000 - Just wondering...where did all our money go? Why do banks need $770B? Just looking at Manhattan, "Along Central Park West a decade back, co-ops went for an average of $524 a foot; now, $1,548." $1000/ft increase. Now, I can't find a number for the total square feet of residential space in Manhattan, but for office space, it's 520 million square feet. At $1000/sq ft increase, that's $520B more value in the office market.

Don't "borrow" $770B from the "middle class taxpayer"; let's just sell Manhattan. -observer- -article-

FRENCH NEWS - Three French researchers have been granted the Nobel Prize for medicine for their research into the HIV virus. Congratulations to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier. -lemonde-

WEB NEWS - Cool fashion photographers -alek and steph-

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ATL 7/7/08 - Oregon 2

The trail...misty woods...WWII gun emplacement
Above Indian Beach...Falcon Cape...Cannon Beach
Portland Pride!!!

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - Wed, July 9th - Flicks on Fifth starts "Marsden Movie Week" with "Hairspray"!

Friday is the release of "Hellboy II", directed by Guillermo del Toro. With that imaginative director at the helm, hopefully it'll be a touch of "Pan's Labyrinth II" as well.

Sun, July 13th, 2:00 PM - The Fabulous Fox hosts your 2nd chance to see James Marsden during "Marsden Movie Week" in "Enchanted".

ART NEWS -To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, I don't know the definition of art, "but I know it when I see it". Atlantic Station's Millenium Gate? I don't see it -ajc-

LOCAL NEWS - Sometimes I forget, but Taco Mac never does - Thursdays are "Beer of the Month" nights at the Mac...by the B.O.M. and get a brewery glass...while the supply lasts.

...and also on Thursdays, the Atlanta Botanical Garden does "Cocktails in the Garden"...regardless of your opinion about the Garden building the parking deck equivalent of the Deathstar, flowers are pretty...and so are Cosmos.

Hope everyone had a safe 4th of July! I suppose that's a forgone conclusion in Georgia, where our Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine reminds us that fireworks are dangerous and therefore illegal. Answer this, Oxy - Fireworks, when used correctly, don't harm anyone. Handguns, when used correctly, kill people. So which one can you now legally take onto MARTA in Georgia?

U.S. NEWS -Starbucks is closing 600 stores. To me, that seems a huge indicator of a weakening economy - folks are cutting back on non-necessities; especially when - for $4 - the choice is between a latte & a gallon of gas.

Cynthia Rodriguez files for divorce. Looks like her husband couldn't keep A-Rod in his pants.

Madonna files for divorce. Christie Brinkley files for divorce. Bill Murray's wife files for divorce. It doesn't look like homosexual unions are the problem with marriage...marriage is the problem with marriage. Happy Pride!

FRENCH NEWS -At the end of Stage 3 in the Tour de France, Roman Feillu is the first Frenchman to wear the yellow jersey since Cyril Dessel in 2006. The 21st and final stage ends in Paris on July 27th. -lemonde-

WEB NEWS -Food mysteries solved here -chow.com-

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ATL 6/23/08 - Oregon Coast

Mike wonders "when is high tide?"

MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/U.S./FRENCH/WEB NEWS

MOVIE NEWS - Wed - Flicks on Fifth is "The Bourne Ultimatum". We went last week - arrived 8:15 ish w/ full-sized, folding chairs & sat near Moe's (facing the screen erected at the 5th St. bridge).

Thurs - Screen on the Asphalt is "Footloose". "6 Degrees of Separation" is how far I'd like to be from Centennial Park.

Fri - The release of Pixar's "Wall-E". It looks cute...but how am I not supposed to think of "Short Circuit"?

Last Saturday of the month - Plaza Theater has "Silver Scream Spook Show". Can't really vouch for it...except the poster is cool and indie film theaters rock...there...I vouched.

ART NEWS -Fox Theater - “Oklahoma!”: A new production with the original choreography of Agnes De Mille. (June 24-29). -TOTS-

Sat - Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus sings Kanter and Ebb at the Woodruff Arts Center. They had it coming... -agmc-

Sat - Wig-out at Kyle's on Colquitt (for those in the know...)

LOCAL NEWS -Water - Atlanta water & sewer rates are going up. Citizens have been making noise about a proposed rise in property taxes, but that only amounts (on a $200,000 home) to about $24 per year. The City Council approved water increase will average $24 PER MONTH! -ajc-

Piedmont Park - Last week, the PPC received permission from the Georgia EPA to drill for water in the park. They wasted no time - we saw the drilling rig at work last Saturday.

Smog - Pollution levels in ATL were high enough for the news to warn people not to exercise on heavily traveled roads; car emissions can cause health problems. Let me get this right...the cars pollute, so people should stop running? Why not...oh...I dunno...STOP POLLUTING!

Bootcamp - Saturday, June 28th - No Bootcamp or Peachtree run this weekend; instead, we are doing the Pride Run (8:00 AM, Ansley Mall). The official Pride celebration in Atlanta has been moved from this weekend's anniversary of the gay rebellion against societal oppression to the 4th of July weekend (anniversary of another little rebellion), but the Run is still this Saturday!

(And speaking of Pride, I've heard that following the parade on July 6th, many folks are going to ignore the city's relocation of the festival to a parking lot and head to Piedmont Park ... in many ways it is the heart and soul of the gay community in Atlanta.)

U.S. NEWS -America lost a great comedian; George Carlin. So what advice did he have pertaining to today's gas prices?

"Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers." ~George Carlin

And in what I find to be the ultimate irony, Texans - who have long protested the porous US/Mexico border that allows Mexicans to come to the U.S. seeking economic opportunity - are now going to Mexico...seeking cheaper gas. It seems the Mexican government subsidizes gas to make it more affordable for the average citizen...and Texans are crossing the border to buy it...meaning that the Mexican government nows subsidizes Texans. -npr-

FRENCH NEWS -Two news stories about the U.S. - a photo essay on Iowa under water and a report on the thousands of firefighters struggling against wildfires in California. My cousin is one of them! -lemonde-

WEB NEWS -A great entertainment concept that I wish would make its way to ATL - LivingRoomTheater - a place to listen to live music, eat, drink, and watch movies (in couches!)

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ATL 6/16/08 - World Naked Bike Ride

Friends!
Getting ready
The Ride
After The Ride - The Riders
After The Ride - More Riders

OREGON/MOVIE/LOCAL/U.S./WEB NEWS

OREGON - I participated in "World Naked Bike Ride" - an event to bring attention to oil dependency...and bring attention we did! Some estimates put the number of riders at over 2,000! It was just like riding a roller coaster - maybe a little nervous at the start, but once we got going, I didn't want it to end! -bikeportland-

Having an Obama sticker on your car in Portland is like wearing a Star of David in Israel...doesn't everybody already know you're Jewish?

Nike has replaced garbage cans in individual offices with recycle bins. If you bring something into the building that can not be recycled, reused, or composted, you have to make a walk of shame down to the breakroom to the communal garbage can.

Love Stumptown Roasters for coffee. Unlike Starbucks, where you wait in line, give your order to one person, pay, and go to another person to pick-up your latte, at Stumptown, you wait in line until a barrista is available. You tell him your order and he makes it in front of you, hands it to you, and you pay him. It made my latte seem so...personal.

A new traffic/bike lane system is being implemented at select intown intersections. There have been many biking accidents caused when a bike is in the right hand bike lane and a car traveling parallel to it turns right and hits him, especially at a stop light. The PDX solution is the green bike box - at an intersection, cars stop behind the "green box" - about 12 ft back from the crosswalk - and bikes pull up and stop in front of them. Bikes are the first to take off at a green light (and cars also can't turn right on red...they are too far back from the intersection).

"Honored Citizens" - Signage on Trimet buses for "Seniors" and "Disabled" seating.

Sshould not be played for investment purposes" - Warning sign on Oregon Lottery billboards. -the law-

OLCC - Oregon Liquor Control Commission - When throwing a party with alcohol, they are the ones you worry about coming to shut you down...not the police!

Had to change hotels, ending up at the fantastic "Hotel Lucia". I walked in to ask about a rate. "We have a special low rate for Triple-A; are you a member?" Boy, I sure could use a low rate.

"Um...no...but I can spell it!?!" "Good enough!"

I really love that hotel.

MOVIE NEWS -Wednesday, June 18 - Flicks on Fifth, "Horton Hears a Who"

Wednesday, June 18 - Fox Theater, "No Country for Old Men"

Thursday, June 19 - Screen on the Asphalt, "E.T."

LOCAL NEWS -Friday - Decatur Beach Party -events-

Saturday - Coming down the stretch! Only two more Saturdays to practice run the Peachtree; meet in the Metropolis lobby at 7:30 with your Breeze card. MARTA up to Lenox/Buckhead and run back to Midtown. Meet again at Caribou for coffee at 9:00!

U.S. NEWS -The Midwest has too much water and Texas has too little; who's going to grow all that corn we need to produce that energy crisis-solving biofuel? Oh, yeah, and what are we going to eat? How about we start by not feeding food to food...

WEB NEWS -Great photography website at aymeric giraudel.

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ATL 10/1/07 - Oregon, SF

ART/OREGON NEWS

ART NEWS - Looking forward to "Jacques Brel" at the Alliance. "Dark Play..." at Actor's Express was excellent. The last Improv in the Park is this Wednesday in Piedmont Park.

OREGON NEWS - The Oregonian intends to replace 'Peanuts' reruns in its funny pages. Every two weeks, it runs a new cartoon and then has readers vote for either Peanuts or the new 'toon. Peanuts has never lost one of these comic smackdowns. (Charles Schulz died on February 12, 2000).

The hybrid Vietnamese/ American wedding that I attended included the groom's side of the wedding party forming a procession and walking 1/4 mile to the ceremony, bearing gifts of fruit, rice wine, & tea.

Portland's annual Breast Cancer walk drew over 47,000 supporters, raising nearly $3,000,000.

Mt. St. Helens has been continuously erupting for the past 3 years, pushing lava into its crater - it would still take 200 years at that rate to recreate the mountain's former size. (Mt. St. Helens' first big eruption in recent history was May 18, 1980; I was a sophomore in high school and got out of mowing the lawn for a week or two for fear the newly fallen ash would dull the reel mower blades.)

I went to a going away party for Jacob; a funny, engaging high school kid who made me feel welcome at his shindig & who just happens to be in a wheelchair; when most kids his age are heading off to college, he is 'going away' to a clinic of sorts in CA for OT and tendon replacement. He has an amazingly upbeat attitude and makes any reason I might feel sorry for myself for extremely insignificant.

Roslyn Lake Park had a going away party, too. An impending $17 million project to tear down the hydroelectric dam that creates the lake is cheaper than modifying it to meet new salmon protection regulations. No one mentioned how the electricity it 'currently' generates is going to be replaced.

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