The Last of the Movies

Well, Sundance is over for another year and the town is now really quiet. It could also be the blizzard that kept a lot of people home yesterday....

We went to the locals screenings called "Best of Fest." 2 movies are chosen on the last night of the festival for this screening. This time it was the Documentary Audience Award winner: "Fields of Fuel" and the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner: "Frozen River."
Here's where the ticket strategy came into play. We had sold our Sunday tickets to this movie when we found out what was going to be in the Best of Fest. Not attending BOF because we'd already seen the film was never an option! And we got to see 2 more movies!

"Frozen River," written and directed by Courtney Hunt, is about a single mother with 2 kids whose husband has taken off just before Christmas. She's trying keep things together for her family and desperately wants a new home, but can't make the payments to have it delivered. (It's a double-wide trailer home.) She meets a young Mohawk Indian woman who uses the frozen river between Canada and New York to smuggle people across the border. The two women work together smuggling people even though they don't like each other at first.
It's a good film and the actors draw you in to their worlds. It is not a downer of a movie and has a hopeful ending. What you'd expect to see on the Sundance Channel or the IFC channel.

The "must see" film of the night was "Fields of Fuel" by Josh Tickell. It's about how to get our country free of foreign oil. It's upbeat and hopeful, and that's probably why it won the audience award. Mr. Tickell has been working on this film for 10 years and his passion is contagious. His main focus is on sustainable energy:using biodiesel fuels. We can grow all the fuel we need. We should be able to have conflict-free energy. We seem to have done that with diamonds...

Years ago he converted a van (the Veggie Van) to run on vegetable oil and has logged over 25,000 miles in it, spreading the word. Now that he has this movie, he's taking it and the van on a 50 city tour and will show the film at both party's political conventions.

He was there for the QandA and stayed after the film in the lobby for over an hour talking to everyone who wanted a word.
We learned many new things: Sweden has pledged to be petroleum-free by 2020; there is algae that can be made into oil, not in millions of years, but in days or weeks; any diesel car, truck, van, ship or bus can run on biodiesel fuel immediately, with no modifications needed.

12 films in 4 days. Whew! It was a great experience and an amazing opportunity to see films of all kinds. We were able to get tickets to everything we wanted to see, and getting around wasn't too much of a hassle. Of course, we weren't invited to any of the big parties and events on Main St....

We have to thank our friends who invited us, housed us and showed us the ropes. Early morning coffee, late night pizza and wings, adventures in souvenir-gathering, celebrity spotting, all good times! Would love to go again!

Photo idea thanks to TFOP

Sundance 4

Need to review the 3 movies from Sunday afternoon and evening.

The World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize winner was:"Man On Wire", directed by James Marsh. It is a fantastic movie that recounts the amazing Philippe Petit's wire walking event between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. The movie is adapted in part from his book, "To Reach The Clouds".

Archival movie footage, photographs, interviews and recreated scenes tell the incredible story of Petit's planning and execution process. We thought it was the best doc we saw. The director was there for the QandA and allowed as how Mr. Petit would have been there but had to return to New York. The footage of the construction of the World Trade Center towers is very nostalgic and almost heartbreaking. One of the producers is Discovery, so I imagine this will end up on TV at some point.

The Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner was "Trouble The Water" directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. This movie shows how one New Orleans family from the 9th Ward lived through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The title comes from a song.

The directors explained that they had planned to film the LA National Guard unit coming home to a devastated New Orleans after being in Iraq. The directors wanted to follow soldiers as they dealt with the destruction from the hurricane, knowing they had not been able to be at home protecting their families. The government forbade filming after only a few days, so the directors went to the convention center and met Kimbery Rivers who told them she had amazing footage of the hurricane and she was looking for a "worldwide" outlet for her family's story. Using her video footage and following up for about a year after the hurricane, we see the family's courage and perseverance as well as their love for their native city. This movie does not yet have a distributor, but it should.

The third movie of the day was the Dramatic Audience Award winner: "The Wackness", written and directed by Jonathan Levine. The director wasn't there for a QandA.

The story takes place during 1994, when Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) graduates from high school with no friends and family problems. He also deals pot and sees a psychiatrist, played by Ben Kingsley. The doctor trades pot for more sessions.

It's a coming of age story with a strong hip-hop beat. The acting is great, and has some funny scenes and lines. The title comes from an exchange Luke has with his almost-girlfriend, Stephanie, played by Olivia Thrilby. She tells him he's too sad all the time because he only looks at 'the wackness" of life. She tries to look at 'the dopeness" which is much better. This might hit a theater near you sometime soon.

After a nice dinner at the Grubsteak Pub, we collapsed back home.

Snacks in the theater? It depends on the venue. Real movie theaters have normal concession stands, but some venues won't allow anything but water in the theater. The large venue at the high school auditorium had a souvenir stand in the lobby, as well as snacks to buy, but they had to be consumed in the lobby. They didn't check purses or pockets, however, so we always had a few granola bars and small water bottles with us.

Sundance 3

Saturday night's movie was "casting a glance." It is an 'art documentary' by James Benning. He made 16 trips to the Robert Smithson's art installation "Spiral Jetty" (in the Great Salt Lake) from the time of its installation in 1970 to 2005. Each time Benning set up a film camera and let it run for several minutes. He also changed the camera position several times on each visit. The movie shows 5 minute segments from each of the visits. We see beautifully photographed shots of the changing landscape-different seasons, different water levels, etc. Ambient sound and some introduced effects create the background. The only problem is that it's hard to watch basically a series of still photos for 90 minutes! We stuck it out, however, and I plan to go visit the Spiral Jetty at my first opportunity....

Sunday: Up at the usual 5:30 am to get to the Gateway Center Box Office early. This time we were #6 in line! Many people selling extra tix and waiting to see what would be shown when. Today most of the award-winning movies are shown. Check out the Sundance site for the list of winners. The schedule was drawn up listing the award for that time slot, but no one knew the movie for that award until Saturday night. So we had to see the final list posted on the box office door before we could plan the day's movies and see what tickets we should sell.

The other wrinkle is that Utah locals have the opportunity to see 2 movies on Monday night(called "Best of Fest") for free, but those aren't announced until today as well. Our hosts had 4 tickets for each Monday night movie, but also had some tickets for Sunday's award winner showings, so we didn't want to have the same tickets for both days. If you are still following this, I'm impressed! We spent our time in line trying to get it all straight.....

It turned out that we had Sunday tickets for one of the Monday night movies, so we were able to sell the Sunday tix to people in line. That turned out to be "Frozen River", which won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize award.
We bought the Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner, which was "Trouble the Water."

We kept the Dramatic Audience Award winner:"The Wackness" for Sunday evening.

We also decided to sell tickets to "World Dramatic Prize winner:" "King of Ping Pong" in favor of "World Documentary Jury Prize winner": "Man On Wire." More on those movies in the next post.


The weather turned very windy and snowy today, with the big storm heading in tonight and tomorrow. My expression in the picture means "Please don't let the camera get wet!"

On to the 3rd movie of the day, so will continue later!

Sundance Day 2

Friday night's movies were: "Savage Grace" directed by Tom Kalin, starring Julianne Moore. It's a true crime story about a severely dysfunctional family. Emphasis on severely. The acting is pretty amazing because there are several very disturbing scenes.....
The last act is searing and violent. We would have liked to stay for the QandA but we couldn't because we had another movie to get to--another wrinkle in the Sundance experience: you have to plan your routes and know how much time it takes to get from one place to another.

The second movie we saw was "Phoebe in Wonderland" directed by Daniel Barnz and starring Elle Fanning as Phoebe, Felicity Huffman as the mother, Bill Pullman as the father, and several other great actors. It's about a girl whose Tourette Syndrome symptoms are beginning to emerge and how she and the people around her deal with this. It's beautifully photographed and all the characters have fleshed-out personalities.

As we got in line for this movie, I turned around and the people in line behind us were friends from Alabama. How "small world" is that????

Saturday morning found us back at the main box office in line with about 20 people ahead of us. There seemed to be fewer tickets available, but we made our selections and again got in and out quickly, even scoring a ticket for a film with only 8 available seats!!!! We even found out that you can exchange tickets for face value minus $2.

The first movie was "CSNY:Deja Vu". This was at 9:15 am! But they filled every seat in a large theater. This movie documents the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 2006 "Freedom of Speech" tour. I thought this was a '2 for 1": a protest movie and a concert movie. For baby boomers, this is really "deja vu." And we seem not to have learned anything much from the Viet Nam War.

We ate lunch in a small pizza/sub shop near the second movie and saw "Puujee." This is about a Mongolian family made by a Japanese film director. I thought it would be something you might see on the Discovery Channel or the Travel Channel: customs and lifestyle, that kind of thing.

But I was wrong. It's about how one girl from a nomadic herding family, Puujee, captures the hearts of the film crew and they keep coming back to spend time with the family and see how she grows up. The ending is extremely sad, as the film crew finds out on a visit to the family in 2004 that Puujee is killed in a car accident when she was 12. The photography is wonderful and you really get insight into how their traditional way of life is quickly disappearing. The director, Kazuya Yamada, was there for the QandA and it was interesting to hear his thoughts on the film.

Last film for the day will be "casting a glance." More on that tomorrow.

Did see Felicity Huffman at the movie last night, and Regina Taylor (from the TV show "The Unit") at the movie this am.

Still low on the star count.

Sundance!

Am lucky enough to be spending a few days in Park City, Utah with friends to take in a few movies. I've seen 2 movies so far, and 2 more movies this afternoon and evening. There are many ins and outs to negotiating this event, and our friends have been extremely helpful. Today in PC alone there are 47 movies showing at 9 different venues between 8:30 am and midnight. 18 other movies are being shown in Salt Lake City and 2 other ski area venues, one of which is the Sundance Resort.
We got in line at 6:15 am at the Main Box Office in order to get tickets for today's movies. A list of all the movies with available seats (and the no. of seats ) is posted on the door of the box office. We had plenty of time to scope out the list and make our decisions. The box office opened at 8 and because we were there early we were about 15th in line and we got in and out quickly. We were back on the street at 8:10 am (BO opened at 8) with all the tickets we were hoping to get for today. Will do the same for tomorrow. I imagine that there were at least 150 people standing in line when we left the box office.




Inside the ticket office




Last night I went to see a documentary called "Dinner With The President:A Nation's Journey". It was made by 2 Pakistani filmmakers who requested to have dinner with President Pervez Musharraf and he agreed. The film explores the contradictions of democracy and seeming dictatorship. I thought it gave a lot of insight to the situation in modern Pakistan and why democracy is such a foreign concept to most of the people there.
The second movie I saw was "An American Soldier: The Recruiter." It follows an Army recruiter (one of the top recruiters in the country) through a year of his life and his recruits as they go into basic training. It really humanizes the soldiers and what they go through. It also points out just how young these soldiers are and what a huge task we are asking of them.
Another interesting facet of the film festival is that the director and sometimes the actors are available after the film for questions and answers (known as the "QandA"). The questions from the audience run the gamut from thoughtful to arcane.

So far, everyone has been extremely helpful, polite and friendly. Haven't seen huge crowds, but we've also managed to steer clear of downtown at peak times. Watch this space for more updates!

Holidays in Colorado

Just got back from a lovely family holiday in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was so cold and snowy this year! There were 16 of us in our extended family group, and that was great to see everyone! We skied in the blizzard and fog, and in the freezing cold! The snow was light and powdery, thanks to the cold temps.

The trees never lost their snowy caps, because the sun wasn't out for very long and it never warmed up. I don't think it got above 20 degrees the whole time we were there.





New Year's Eve is celebrated on the mountain by a torchlight parade and fireworks. The ski instructors hold flares and ski down the front face of the ski area. Fireworks conclude the show. Then we go to dinner at The Butcher Shop for a great meal and back home to watch the ball drop in Times Square.

Our traveling worked well this year-we managed to avoid the terrible storms and delays that plagued other places. Thanks to the family for such a nice trip!

Trip to Albuquerque

Got to go with friends to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta. It was a lot of fun! We left home at night and drove and drove and drove until we got to the Acoma Pueblo the next morning.





We took the tour of the "Sky City" and saw the church and dwellings. It was interesting and a combination of the old and new. After the tour we headed across the highway to the Sky City Casino for some lunch and gambling, not necessarily in that order...
Friday night saw us have dinner with friends at the Kirtland Air Force Base Club and out to the Isleta Casino. Many penny machines, and I learned how to lose money at many of them, such as Xanadu, Seaside Fries, Bedazzled, and Double Diamond Deluxe.

The Balloon Fiesta started early Saturday morning with the Mass Ascension. Due to low winds, many balloons ascended and we saw many up close. The lines to get to the park were looong, and so were the lines to get out of the park.












Saturday afternoon was beautiful, with a hike on Sandia Peak and a trip to the quirky Tinkertown Museum.

This is a wall of bottles at the museum. There are many rooms with miniatures mostly hand made by as a hobby of Ross J. Ward. Check out http://www.tinkertown.com/












Saturday night took us to authentic New Mexican food and the Isleta Casino again. I found a loose Xanadu machine and cashed out $92.00 That put me a little bit ahead for the trip, gambling wise.


Up early Sunday morning for the trip down I-25 to I-10. We saw the second ascension of balloons as we drove south. A fun weekend!

Cell Phone Resolved

I finally receive the cell phone on Sept. 5. That's 10 days being out of touch and disconnected. Very weird feeling. It's funny how I've gotten so used to the instant communication possibility. Not that I spend all the time on the phone, but not being able to when I wanted to was the hard part.

People wondered why I didn't call them back. I had about 10 messages in my voicemail when I was finally reconnected. (Had to spend another 30 min. on the phone with at&t getting the SIM card activated.)


Have spent the last week restoring my address book and have lost several good numbers. The phone has some neat features and some annoyances. Like everything electronic.....And switching numbers from phone memory to SIM card memory has been tedious.

It has a button on the side that activates the spring-loaded flip-up mechanism. That is cool.

It has a picture display on the front and on the inside. If you turn on the camera and keep the phone closed, you can see yourself in the display and take your own picture. Not that I do that kind of thing.....

I don't want to get too attached to it....I haven't had good luck with electronics lately....

Thanks to M.J. for the waterproof cell phone bag. It will come in handy! I'm going to have to try it out, but I'm afraid to do so! Will let you know the results!

Cell Phone Woes- Part 2

Well, Sunday I went to the phone store to see what they could do for me. I told them the phone got a little wet and the battery seemed to be shorted out. A replacement battery was put in, and the phone did turn on! A ray of light! But it didn't really work. I was able to sign up for an insurance plan ($4.99/mo.) which allows a phone to be replaced. I did get some rice and put the phone in the bowl, thinking it couldn't hurt. But I think the new battery also shorted out and the phone didn't turn on again.

Back to the phone store Monday to see about replacing the phone. They don't do insurance replacements at the stores any more (once again, consumers are inconvenienced and receive fewer services while paying higher prices) but I got the phone number to call.

Tuesday morning called the insurance company (which I'm sure is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T) and after keying in many numbers, got a live person who asked me for all those same numbers again. I can get a replacement phone, factory refurbished (not new) but my model is on back order and may take 10 days to get here. And I have to pay a mandatory $50 deductible-automatically added to my phone bill. Today. And I have to mail the damaged phone and battery back. 10 days without a phone? That doesn't sound very convenient....

Did I ask at the store about loaner phones? Hmmmm. Didn't know that was a possibility....

Stay tuned for Part 3.

Cell Phone Woes

I've been trying to get a new cell phone, but the cell phone spirits are against me. I had a great Nokia candy bar phone that was pretty high end when I got it in the dark ages of cell phones. No camera but it had great range and was sturdy. So it finally went dead-bad car charger or what, I don't know but it died mid-call and never revived. That was ok, because I wanted something new with more features.

I took myself to my newly expanded Cingular-oh, sorry, AT&T -store and was pretty disappointed in the selection of phones. They had some in special cases that they didn't even carry any more-"We just haven't bothered to take those out of the cases." I wanted another bar phone, so I ended up taking home a Samsung something-or-other-very thin with a big screen. Flat buttons, similar to a Motorola Razr. It was too thin and too light and I couldn't get used to the buttons.

So the next day I took it all back (and the car charger) and looked around again.
This time I picked up the Nokia 6126 a flip phone (not what I really wanted) but it fit into my hand and had ridges around the buttons and a similar Nokia interface to my old phone. This time I got the bundle: car charger, case, and bluetooth headset. And a rebate form. That was on Wednesday. I was getting used to it and even added a photo of Beans to the front display. I was really getting used to it.

Then came Saturday. We went kayaking. I put the phone in a ziploc bag and got a waterproof bag from DH. "Is this bag waterproof?" I asked. "Yes," he said. I clipped the bag to the back of La Chalupa and we headed down the Medina River. In the first set of rapids I got caught sideways and tipped over. Lost the nalgene water bottle, but knew the waterproof bag was clipped in. After coming to calm water and turning everything right side up, DH said, "That bag should have been inside your boat-it's not waterproof like that." Hmm. Either something is waterproof or not, not only waterproof if it's inside another container.....At least that's what I would have thought.

So, the Nokia was waterlogged. I took out the battery and tried to keep it dry for the rest of the trip. When we got home I put a hair dryer on low and dried it for 4 hours. The water condensation in the screens cleared up. This morning I put it back together and plugged in the charger. After a while it actually beeped and came back on. The outside display was working, although dimly, and the keypad lights were on. Could it be resuscitated? The inside display did not work. After making a few noises-rumbles and beeps, it went off and hasn't come back on. I think I put in the battery too soon. Perhaps if I'd read this article last night, it would have helped!

I guess I'm going back to the phone store today. Perhaps the third time's the charm for cell phones.......On the way I'm going to drop the rebate forms at the post office.

New York, New York

View of Chinatown

Last stop on the summer road trip was New York. It is great to be able to combine a family visit with some culture and fun! Thanks to the 'rents for putting us up, and treating us to dinners out and theater seats! Highlights of the trip included cake tasting with DD as well as a whirlwind trip to Chinatown and the Metropolitan Museum.

There was a rumor afloat that showing one's Docent Badge could get one into museums for free. We tested this out and found it to be TRUE! Plus, the docent's guests can also enter for free, although each museum has different guidelines as to how many guests: MoMA allows one free guest, the Met allows up to 4 free, the Cooper-Hewitt let in 2 guests. This is great news and should be shared with all docents! Quite a cost savings, as MoMA is now up to $20 entrance fee, and most other museums heading into double digits as well.

The best way to see the Metropolitan Museum is in short, targeted strikes. We went on Friday evening, when it stays open until 9pm and there are drinks on the roof. We saw the new Greek and Roman Galleries and the temporary exhibit on the Clark Brothers' Collections. We also ate in the small cafe (which has been moved since the opening of the new galleries). The food and service were quite good, although not cheap. But it is in a nice area near European Decorative Arts with a bank of windows that looks onto green space. The restaurant stays open until 10 pm so you don't feel rushed.

There are weird flowers outside of the Cooper Hewitt Museum and Richard Sera sculptures at the Museum of Modern Art and that pretty much concluded the culture for this trip.


We also were in NY for Harry Potter weekend, and I was able to read
about half of the book before I left for home. Thanks to DM and DD for that!

I have to report the demise of my beloved Casio Exilim camera, as DH took it on his fishing trip and accidentally let it go swimming......Vacation pics will be up on the Flickr site soon. Any suggestions for a new, waterproof camera?

Summer School For Docents

The Road Show is still on the road, and behind in the posts!

From July 9 to July 15 I was part of a group of docents from all over the country that came to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA to learn more about how to talk about art. We were taught primarily by Michael Cassin, the Curator of Education for the Clark, an energetic (to put it mildly!) teacher whose love of the arts drives his passion for teaching. The Clark has a treasure trove of Impressionist art, as well as American, Medieval and European art, and collections of decorative arts and English silver (and a few sculptures!)

We also had other excellent tour guides as we took in contemporary art at MassMoCA, a new exhibit on Gerald and Sara Murphy at the Williams College Museum of Art , and several tours of art on view at the Clark. I loved the area as this view of the hill behind the Clark is typical. Lots of Berkshire Mountains around, too!
We stayed on the Williams College campus in Dodd House, which was adequate, but not heavy on amenities.


We also enjoyed 2 nights of the Williamstown Theater Festival, seeing "The Front Page" and "Villa America", both with recognizable actors from TV and movies, notably Nate Coddry from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Matt Bomer from Traveler, Richard Kind from Spin City.

I worked pretty hard during the docent classes: we looked at a lot of paintings and objects from all genres, and had to do group exercises and presentations. I hope I can practice what I learned and improve my "gallery talks." It was great getting to know some more docents-hopefully we can visit each other's museums and get some wonderful tours from each other!
This is a photo of Michael teaching-we spent almost as much time in the classroom as touring. The Berkshire Eagle did a story about us. I did not get in the photos or the article!

With a day or two on either end of this trip to visit with friends and family in the Northampton area, it was a great week!

Camp Reunion

The Road Show has been on the road!
If you ever went to camp, you will know how nostalgic you can get for those summer days by the lake. If you never went to camp, you will think people are slightly crazy....The radio show This American Life did an episode about camp that was rebroadcast recently. You can check it out here


Anyway, my camp (Camp Northland for Girls) was in northern Minnesota outside of Ely, the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It was on the North Arm of Lake Burntside. It was started in the late '40s by a couple of teachers, and was run by them and their son until 1980. The property was subsequently bought by the YMCA of St. Paul, MN and added to their existing family camp. So, over the years, we Camp Northland girls have returned at various times to relive our childhoods. We have slept in the original cabins, used the outhouses and saunas, swam in the lake and taken out canoes and sailboats.

Thanks to the internet, we have found over 75 people who attended camp as campers and /or counselors and this reunion (6/30/07-7/7/07) proved to draw the most people to date.

The YMCA has expanded their property and built some nice log cabins with amenities about a mile from the original camp. As we are all getting older and need more creature comforts, we opted for the nicer digs. We could still do all our old camp activities and some new ones, too.

I really enjoyed the chance to connect with childhood friends, both from camp and my elementary school years. It was as much fun to find out what these people are doing now as to remember activities and canoe trips with them.

Many people brought their Memory Books and we spent hours looking at all the kids over the years and trying to remember everyone in our cabins. We shared secrets that had never been told (kids who snuck over to the boys' camp down the lake, took food from the kitchens, things like that) and learned lots about the history of the camp and what led to its closing.





Of course, I had great new experiences this trip. I got to go sailing, which I really liked but never did much as a camper. I canoed and hiked and got 2 tours of the bigger part of Lake Burntside. I was in a car that ran out of gas and a boat that almost ran out of gas.













I reconnected with the people and the lake and the woods.



And now for a camp song!

Tall girls, short girls, fat and thin,
Whatcha gonna do when the heat sets in?
Nothin' to do, nothin' to say,
That's the time to pack your bags and go away:
Come to Camp Northland where the breezes blow,
Come to Camp Northland where you swim and row;
Answer the ever luring call:
Camp Northland girls, the best of all!
Boom dadi yada, Some Girls!

Where in the world is Amy Sandiego?: Camp Wood, Texas

Where in the world is Amy Sandiego?: Camp Wood, Texas

Midnight at the Nueces

Had a fun kayak/fishing weekend with friends on the Nueces River near Camp Wood, Texas. I got to try out my new kayak, "La Chalupa", a Wilderness Tarpon 10.





"La Chalupa" is one of the cards in the game of Loteria-usually depicted as a young lady in a canoe full of flowers. DH got me the decal Very cute. The boat is easy to paddle. We did a very nice 3-mile stretch of the Nueces with small rapids and ripples. Just about my speed. The group went back in the afternoon and did the same stretch again, while I watched from the bank. My wrist was tired, although it is coming back well. Of course, I fell into the water getting into my boat right at the beginning, not a good sign, but I stayed in after that.

Of course, we were playing farkle at midnight (and beyond)-a popular dice game. Sunday DH and I did some fly fishing. I caught 0 and lost 2 flies. DH caught a monster bass and tiny perch. A relaxing and fun weekend.

What I'm Reading-Spring 2007

The Last Tuesday Book Club is finishing up its third year! Thanks to all those who have been faithful members and readers! Also thanks to the sometimes-readers and occasional attendees. The more opinions the merrier!~
Beyond the LTBC I've read some interesting books: Beach Road by James Patterson-murder mystery, fairly entertaining, but nothing great. Really enjoyed The Gates of the Alamo by Stephen Harrington. Anyone in Texas and especially South Texas who thinks they know all about it will learn something new about the siege of the Alamo. It's very readable and has great characters. Also liked Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See-a tale of Chinese women and their tribulations. Didn't like White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway as much-it's written as a haunting memoir but it's a downer of a book.
One book we had put on the LTBC list but I think we're removing is Wicked by Gregory Maguire. It's the imagined life of the Wicked Witch of the West-from birth to death. It's all about the politics and religion of Oz and all its weird inhabitants before Dorothy Gale from Kansas arrives. It's not a happy-go-lucky story at all-after all, we all know what happens to the WWW at the end....but if you want to know one person's idea of how the WWW got to that end, this is a richly imagined tale. I have also read his Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and his writing definitely takes you to faraway times and places.
While I was laid up with the broken wrist, I read my first Carl Hiassen book:Skinny Dip. Can't wait to read another one. Why wait? I just bought 2 Donna Leon ppbs that I haven't read before--will report when completed.
Happy reading!

Wrist Revealed

10 weeks after surgery the bones are almost healed. New x-rays taken and this shows the truly gruesome nature of the plate. Is that screw supposed to be sticking out of the bone????
I've really benefited from therapy. I have about all the flexion back and just need to rebuild strength. It won't ever match the right wrist in terms of flexibility, I fear.

The scar is healing nicely, as I've really been working on it every day. Massage with lotion for 10 min. at a time, several times a day. The thin red line.

Still have to be careful with carrying weighty objects. I can lift the big laundry detergent jug but can't carry it.
Thanks for all the cards and letters!
Waving bye with the left hand!

New Museum 2

Here is a photo of some of the docents looking at one of the larger contemporary pieces at the Blanton This was commissioned by the Blanton, but I didn't catch title or artist.

New Museum

The SAMA Docents went on a field trip this week. They took a bus to Austin and saw the new Blanton Museum on the UT campus. It is a great building-stunningly high ceilings and large exhibit spaces. They have a wonderful collection of contemporary art (much of donated by the late James Michener and his wife)-huge pieces and several installations. They also have a huge print collection and European Art. We had a docent-led tour of the museum, and they let us in for free, which was great. If you want to see a lot of modern and contemporary art in one place, this is it. We spent about 2 hrs. there and then got back on the bus to go to lunch.

We were headed for the Capitol Grill, and we drove for about 10 minutes. It turns out the Capitol Grill is in the basement of the Capitol Building-there's no street level entrance. You have to go into the Capitol building and then find the elevators to the basement. We had been driving around looking for the street entrance.... The bus parked across the lawn from the building and we got out and trooped over to the entrance. At that moment, a huge thunderstorm broke right over our heads... We made it safely to the building and walked the rather intimidating halls to the rotunda and found the elevators. Nice cafeteria, with many food stations. Pleasant lunch and good company.

Broken Wrist Heals

Thanks to the ortho surgeon, I now have this wonderful plate in my wrist.
This photo is looking from the back of the hand down onto the plate. I have a nice scar on the inside of the wrist. The screws are holding the broken bits of bone away from the wrist. Therapy starts tomorrow.