Dandelion

After our long long long Minnesota winter, the plants are exploding out of the ground.

In all my years of living in California, I was always grateful for the year-round beauty of aromatic plants, and on my last visit to SF, I went crazy taking pictures of succulents that can be left casually outside because nobody has to worry about the frost.

 Since I moved to Minnesota 25 years ago,  I sometimes still suffer pangs of mourning. I can't pinch a twig of rosemary to put in my pocket, all year round.  I miss the a clouds of scent from climbing jasmine that can unexpectedly make me look at what someone has growing on their tiny scrap of San Francisco real estate. But I discovered the powerful beauty of "extreme climate," the wild joy of seeing your first flower after six months, the ritual sequence of flowering plants in the spring, the first exposure of pale flesh to the sun. "We can open windows! It's 40 degrees! let's put on shorts!"

Of course, this year we went from snow to 90 degrees with only a few days in between, so I'm experiencing a little bit of weather whiplash. My body needs more time! I'm thrilled, though, to watch how the rain garden we planted last year is returning, with plants growing inches overnight. It will be interesting to see which plants have flourished (so far, we have returning squill, wild ginger, ferns,  wild geranium, virginia bluebells,  spotted-lungwort, and a few whose names I've forgotten).

 I have also realized that there is a garden freebie; I started harvesting the tender leaves of the dandelions in my yard, picking them before the buds appear. Taraxacum officionale is the Latin name of "dent-de-lion" (or pis-en-lit).  A handful of these leaves in a smoothie gives me LOTS of nutrients, and has had a tonic effect on my digestion (but I've learned to use them in moderation--powerful stuff!)

Next,  I'm going to try sautéeing some of the greens..

I adore the Boutenko family, and this video is a classic in the YouTube smoothie/raw-food/Vitamix sub-culture.



Dandelion pesto!

Saturday bboyiing: headspin edition [updated with 2nd video]

Drilling! slow-mos, like upside down iceskaters! At the end, they incorporating  stuff they found in the garage, LOL. Lawn furniture, hula hoop, basketball...Spinboy Aichi, Lazer and Boom:


Spinboy Aichi is from Japan. He has performed with the Quest Crew on the tour of LMAO.

Quest Crew members show off their styles. I love Hirano's dance expressivity (second dancer) without the tricks, but I love the tricks, too.[Edited to add:*Thanks, Leee, for catching my double post of the same vid*


I THINK the order is: Steve Terada, Brian Hirano, Victor Kim (headstand slide), Hok Konishi (insane tutting), Ryan Conferido (Ryanimay--black tank yellow letters), Dominic (d-trix, purple hoodie).

PBS News Hour reporting from the Genocide trials Guatemala

Miles O'Brien and Xeni Jardin reporting from Guatemala on the ongoing trial of General Ríos Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity after he seized power in a military coup (a power strugge among the military and elites who were all involved in waging war on the populace, especially Mayan-speaking people in the Ixil region. The defense has been trying to derail the process, even as evidence is being presented that directly demonstrates current President Otto Pérez Molina's personal involvement in the brutal crimes of that time, when he was an army officer.
For more background on their coverage, read Xeni's article on the PBS News Hour site, which has plenty of links to other coverage and news. She has previously (in 2007) written about the use of technology in the search for truth and justice in Guatemala here.

Still need a name!

Baby in motion! Still no name, that I know of. Still taking suggestions!

What should his name be?

This sweet baby boy needs a barn name! What should it be? He is not yet one day old. His mother is named Alexis, and he is her fifth baby; she is a sweet and gentle mare.  I wish I had taken a better picture of his fuzzy little face.

 Right now, he mostly sleeps, stands up and nurses, wobbles around, and then sleeps some more.  He is a tall baby, and will grow probably grow up to be taller than his mother because of his sire's height.

New life at the farm!

 

 This little boy was born last night around midnight. He doesn't have a name yet. His mom is a lovely, tranquil, experienced mother.

Look at the triangle on his behind!

ten days in California

Nancy Morejón reads her poem "Mujer negra"

In this brief documentary film, Nancy Morejón reads one of her most famous poems.

Nancy Morejón, (Cuba: 1944--)


Mujer negra Todavía huelo la espuma del mar que me hicieron atravesar.
La noche, no puedo recordarla.
Ni el mismo océano podría recordarla.
Pero no olvido el primer alcatraz que divisé.
Altas, las nubes, como inocentes testigos presenciales.
Acaso no he olvidado ni mi costa perdida, ni mi lengua ancestral
Me dejaron aquí y aquí he vivido.
Y porque trabajé como una bestia,
aquí volví a nacer.
A cuanta epopeya mandinga intenté recurrir.
                        Me rebelé.
Su Merced me compró en una plaza.
Bordé la casaca de su Merced y un hijo macho le parí.
Mi hijo no tuvo nombre.
Y su Merced murió a manos de un impecable lord inglés.
                        Anduve.
Esta es la tierra donde padecí bocabajos y azotes.
Bogué a lo largo de todos sus ríos.
Bajo su sol sembré, recolecté y las cosechas no comí.
Por casa tuve un barracón.
Yo misma traje piedras para edificarlo,
pero canté al natural compás de los pájaros nacionales.
                        Me sublevé.
En esta tierra toqué la sangre húmeda
y los huesos podridos de muchos otros,
traídos a ella, o no, igual que yo.
Ya nunca más imaginé el camin a Guinea.
¿Era a Guinea? ¿A Benín? ¿Era a
Madagascar? ¿O a Cabo Verde?
Trabajé mucho más.
Fundé mejor mi canto milenario y mi esperanza.
Aquí construí mi mundo.
                        Me fui al monte.
Mi real independencia fue el palenque
y cabalgué entre las tropas de Maceo.
Sólo un siglo más tarde,
junto a mis descendientes,
desde una azul montaña.
                        Bajé de la Sierra
Para acabar con capitales y usureros,
con generales y burgueses.
Ahora soy: sólo hoy tenemos y creamos.
Nada nos es ajeno.
Nuestra la tierra.
Nuestros el mar y el cielo.
Nuestras la magia y la quimera.
Iguales míos, aquí los veo bailar
alrededor del árbol que plantamos para el comunismo.
Su pródiga madera ya resuena.

[1979, English translation here]

"I dialetti italiani"

Last night I saw a wonderful film, Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire) by the Taviani brothers. Awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival, this movie presents a staging of Julius Caesar in an Italian maximum security prison, with the prisoners as actors. All the players are "real" prisoners, the location is real, the event is real, but this is not a documentary. It is unclear how much is scripted and how much is improvised. There are many wonderful things about this film, from the amazing score, to the faces and bodies of the men who are putting themselves "on stage" and acting for the film.

One aspect of the film that I really wish I could have understood better  was the fact that all the men are told from the beginning to act using their own way of speaking Italian: whether they are from Rome, Naples, the country or the city, etc, they spoke their lines in their "own language." Some of these might be accents, or dialects, or even distinct regional languages (there is considerable debate about these categories).  I could hear some of the differences, but I know that a native Italian could probably read those accents like a  map of geography and class.


This comedian, Enrico Brignano, gives some exaggerated examples of regional accents and dialects as a kind of tour from north to south. I can understand standard Italian, but I can only catch a word or two in what he's saying. The audience seems to think he's doing a great job!

 Here are some native speaker examples,  of various regions/cities from the media:


This got me thinking also about the many Italian-American accents, some of which are identified with cities or neighborhoods. My mother's family lived in Connecticut, but the extended family lived in New York City. I need to ask her what neighborhood they lived in because I don't remember (I THINK it was somewhere in Brooklyn, but I'm not sure). But I do know that they were from Naples and a small town in Calabria, so their Italian was southern Italian, and their Italian accents in English were probably very specific to the neighborhood where they lived because they were surrounded by people from their region.


Even though I grew up completely separated from the rest of my mother's family and did not grow up with other second-generation Italians, it has been interesting discovering how much of that culture was passed on through my mother without me realizing it, including some gestures and body language.

The body language in the film was also extraordinarily expressive.

The following videos were favorably rated by commenters as accurate:



This is an old favorite. A Neapolitan shows us a complete range of gestures.