As you may have noticed, the posting has been a little sporadic here. Not that I don’t have a bajillion things I (think I) want to write about, or maybe that’s part of it… Anyway, we’ll see how things go for being a bit more regular this year (I’m not really a NY resolutions kinda person), but in the meantime, and/or in addition, you can also check out what I’m up to over on Substack.
Thank you for your time, and all the best for 2024!
Yep, somehow it’s gotten to be December! Today (Friday, 12/01/23) is also First Friday, special holiday editions, both in the SOFA Arts District in Santa Rosa and at Chimera Makerspace in Sebastopol.
Saturday and Sunday, 12/02-03/23, are the 48th Annual Handmade Holiday Crafts Fair and the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens Holiday Open House, both in Santa Rosa. Rosie the Trolley will provide free transportation between the two events. Special this year at the Burbank Open House are wood pieces turned by local artisans affiliated with the Wine Country Woodturners, from a Burbank Chestnut tree bred by Luther Burbank himself. The tree was transplanted from the Experimental Farm in Sebastopol to the Santa Rosa location in 1931, but recently had to be removed due to oak root fungus.
Also on Saturday, 12/02/23 is the Sebastopol Art Center Makers’ Market, in Sebastopol. And Sunday, 12/03/23 is the Holiday Collective Gift Pop-Up in Healdsburg.
The following Saturday and Sunday, 12/09-10/23, is the Occidental Community Center Crafts Faire, and Sunday, 12/10/23 is the Holiday Open House at NBLA in Sebastopol. Make it a West County Weekend!
Nashville, Tennessee, a center of the music industry, particularly for country music, is a fitting location for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Chartered in 1964, the Museum opened in 1967 on Music Row, then in 2001 moved to the current downtown location. A 2014 expansion doubled the Museum’s size to 350,000 square feet.
It’s a striking building, with a swooping facade suggesting a piano. The main entrance opens into a light-filled, spacious atrium that spans the length and height of the building. Elevators take you to the top of two floors of exhibit space, which includes fixed displays on the history of country music, as well as special exhibits featuring particular musicians or eras. Besides the exhibit spaces, the building houses archival storage for collection items not on display, the Taylor Swift Education Center, and two performance spaces. Ohand of course there’s a gift shop.
I was impressed by the quality of the exhibits, and for some reason particularly enjoyed the personal items on display. Perhaps just the reminder that, at the end of the day, all these folks you might have heard on the radio or seen on TV are also just people. Another thing I noticed, although I didn’t keep count to see what the percentages were, was that women seemed to be pretty well represented. I don’t know if that was a conscious effort by the Museum or if there actually is a representative gender balance in country music.
Even though I’m not particularly a country music fan, I thought this was a great museum. Definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in Nashville. I could have spent more time there than the two hours I did, but I’d also booked a tour at Hatch Show Print, which is in the same building, and I had to get to that!
Looking for a Banned Book to read? Here are some ideas to look for at your library, or if you’re a book buying type, Bookshop.org is offering 15% off their suggestions through the end of October.
Titles for Adults, Children and YA.
I was reluctant to join Facebook, but got sucked in as folks who I’d taken an amazing trip to Japan with were posting their photos there. That was, hmn…. 2008. Whoa, 15 years ago. And yes, it was great to see pictures, and it’s fun when ‘memories’ of that trip pop up, and neat to ‘keep in touch’ with those folks over the years.
There was also the initial flush of high school acquaintances that hey we haven’t really cared enough to ACTUALLY stay in contact, but now that it’s so easy why not send/accept a friend request and yeah what have you been up to for almost twenty years since we last saw each other in person? OK, that was kinda fun too, to see what sorts of lives folks had grown into. Of course there’s the ‘curation’ factor of what people choose to post, but still, I was glad to see people seeming happy and doing well.
But it definitely can be a time suck, and these days it’s just SO. MANY. ADS. and posts by people that I don’t even know, rather than the updates from friends that I actually do want to see. I haven’t completely left, but I do try to limit my time there.
Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Oh! because I do also occasionally learn about something cool by way of Facebook. In this case it’s the PUYA! More specifically, Puya alpestris, “Sapphire Tower” that the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens posted about theirs being in bloom. The pictures showed turquoise petals and intense orange anthers that seemed hard to believe – that is, they aren’t colors one sees often in nature. So I had to go check it out in person. It was definitely worth seeing it forreals! So amazing!
And I did a little more internetting – because learning – and found out it’s a member of the Bromeliaceae family, which also includes pineapples and air plants, among other things. The Puya raimondii, native to the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru, is the largest bromeliad, and can reach 13 feet tall in vegetative growth with a flower spike up to 33 ft tall!!! THAT would be something to see in real life!
Then after all that, we were out for a walk, and turns out that A NEIGHBOR TWO HOUSES AWAY ALSO HAS THESE PUYA, and hers were blooming too!!! So amazing, this thing I’ve never heard of, then it’s not just in my city but right there in my neighborhood. Who knew?! hmn… what else is going on close by???
‘Tis the season to get all excited about growing stuff! If you aren’t one of those folks who had it all together and already has things started from seeds (or maybe even if you are – one can never have enough plants, right?) – here are some of the sales benefitting local organizations.
Harvest for the Hungry Garden, Saturday, April 22, Santa Rosa
Food for Thought, Saturday and Sunday, April 22 and 23, Forestville
Petaluma Bounty, Saturday and Sunday, April 22 and 23, Petaluma. Sign-ups for shopping time slots begin April 14.
Santa Rosa Junior College Shone Farm, Saturday, April 29, Forestville
Luther Burbank Home and Garden, Saturday, May 6, Santa Rosa
For some folks, a project isn’t really a project unless you come out of it with a new tool, or tools, and I can certainly appreciate that. I love good tools, and the right tool for the job, but I only have so much space, and, although you might not be able to tell at the moment when looking at said space, I’m getting to the point in my life of trying to de-stuffify. Or at least be somewhat mindful about what things I add.
For a recent project I needed a post-hole digger and digging bar, but those weren’t items I felt like I’d need again in the future (wishful thinking?) or at least didn’t feel like storing. Hmn. Oh! There’s the Santa Rosa Tool Library! I forget now how I heard of them, I feel like it was a while ago, but I hadn’t signed up and borrowed anything before. They have an easy online form for registering, then I emailed what tools I was interested in borrowing and which of their open days I was planning to come pick them up. You can also (shudder) call.
After finding the Library’s location – they share space with a business, so it wasn’t super obvious to me on my first pass by – and a couple administrative details, I was on my way. The tools were in good condition, and – bonus? – wanting to get them back before I left town, and the Library only having certain days they are open – got me to finish the project quicker than I might have otherwise!
The Tool Library is an amazing community resource, providing tools for folks to use without having to buy them. They have an extensive list of available tools!
Side note: in searching for the Santa Rosa Tool Library, thegoogles also came up with a County of Sonoma Tool Lending Library! From their website: The Energy and Sustainability Division (ESD) Tool Lending Library (TLL) is a unique program that loans building measurement and diagnostic equipment free of charge to qualified Sonoma County professionals working on short term energy efficiency and demand reduction projects. Which doesn’t sound like it’s geared to homeowners, but still cool to have another library of shared resources.
Not necessarily released in 2022, but, of the books I read or listened to during the year, these are the ones I particularly enjoyed.
Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout
Lauren Redniss
WOW! Amazing story and presentation. Science history and biography of Marie Curie. Well told and love love LOVE her use of words and images and color.
Draw Your Weapons
Sarah Sentilles
Interwoven strands of memoir, history, literature, theology – examining the personal and political, responses to violence, and how art might re/make the world.
Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now
Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, Philip Wang
Essays, interviews, graphic essays from a wide variety of contributors, organized by decade. Great tour – in some cases reminders of things, in others an introduction/jumping off point to things I missed the first time around.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
T. Kingfisher
Being able to make bread rise and gingerbread men dance is seen as “minor” magic, but it’s still enough to get 14-year old Mona targeted for extermination along with the other wizards and magic folk in her city. An adventure story that also explores topics of prejudice and scapegoating, believing in yourself and making the best of your abilities, but not in a preachy way. And don’t mess with the sourdough starter!
this is not a book about benedict cumberbatch
tabitha carvan
It is, as the subtitle sums up: The Joy of Loving Something–Anything–Like Your Life Depends On It. Both an exploration of a specific fandom, and allowing oneself (particularly as a woman of a certain age) to feel passionate about something.
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
Lindy West
Listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author, which was great! Memoir of her experiences with misogyny – particularly in comedy – and fat shaming. Very real, and raw, no BS.
Erosion: Essays of Undoing
Terry Tempest Williams
Another one I listened to that was read by the author! Great writing, and very passionate about her subjects – it’s a collection of essays about various undoings/changes – the death of their dog, her brother’s suicide, climate change, loss of public lands – which sounds pretty depressing, and, yes, it’s not light subject matter, but the essays are about bearing witness, and being with the terrible things that happen in the world, and how that is also somehow hopeful.
Let Me Be Frank: A Book About Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren’t Supposed to Do
Tracy Dawson
The subtitle pretty much sums it up here too. Some of the women profiled I had heard of, but many were new to me. Yay to learn new things, but also how am I only hearing these stories now?!
Activities of Daily Living
Lisa Hsiao Chen
Interwoven stories about creativity/working on projects, the life of the narrator, the life of Tehching Hsieh and his 1980s performance art pieces, being an immigrant, the passage of time, the narrator’s (step)father’s aging/dementia, and death. A lot of perhaps totally unrelated seeming subjects, but somehow it all fits together – I suppose something like life…
On Tyranny Graphic Edition: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Timothy Snyder, illustrated by Nora Krug
A guide for resisting the authoritarian trends in the USA in the Twenty-First Century, based on the rise of fascism, Nazism and communism in the Twentieth Century.
Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights
Karen Blumenthal
History of birth control and abortion, and then the Roe v. Wade case itself, as well as post Roe decisions. Lots of information I did not know. Very clear/well-written, interesting sidebars, glossary, timeline (geez, wasn’t that long ago..), list of Supreme Court cases on Abortion and Reproductive Rights. Also extensive Bibliography and notes. Unfortunately we’re now into the post Roe world.
Secret to Superhuman Strength
Alison Bechdel
Another fantastic graphic memoir from Alison Bechdel, this one about her lifelong fascination with exercise. It explores not just the fitness fads that have ebbed and flowed over the past sixty years, but other approaches to and struggles with self-improvement.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Sherman Alexie
Short stories about reservation life/being an American Indian. Somewhat interlocked, as far as having a recurring characters and locations. A new prologue for the 20th anniversary edition, plus family pictures at the back. Really engaging writing, and the stories – the importance of stories… what we tell ourselves and how we do it.
Wonder Woman Electric to the Rescue: Memoir, Essays and Short Stories by a Trailblazing Tradeswoman
Molly Martin
Again, what the subtitle says! Her personal experiences of working in the trades, being a feminist and labor activist, coming out/being lesbian. In some ways not that long ago, and in some ways very different, but/and/also in some ways things haven’t really changed.
The documentary film portion of the HERbeat project has finally come to fruition, with the world premeire at the Mill Valley Film Festival!!! In-person screenings on Sunday, October 9 – followed by a taiko performance in Depot Plaza – and Tuesday, October 11, also an online option. The film will also be shown at a number of other festivals – 13 and growing! My sister and I went to see the concert in person, over two years ago now, so I am really looking forward to seeing the film – learning more about the behind the scenes that went in to the amazing production, and revisiting the concert.
Banned Books Week has been held the last full week of September – so it was actually September 18-24 this year, I’m a little late. It was begun in 1982 to bring attention to attempts to challenge and ban books, a disturbing trend in a s0-called democracy.
According to the American Library Association (ALA), Santa Rosa author (and Iota Press printshop alum!!!) Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir, continues to top the Most Challenged list. The graphic novel tells a personal journey of self-identity, exploring what it means to be nonbinary and asexual. A special deluxe hardcover edition of Gender Queer features a brand-new cover, exclusive art and sketches, a foreword from ND Stevenson, Lumberjanes writer and creator of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and an afterword from Maia Kobabe.
To observe – somehow celebrate doesn’t quite seem like the right word here – this year I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the story of a dystopian future USA as a totalitarian regime with rigid social rules, including the enslavement of the few remaining fertile women. Although I’d seen the movie when it came out in 1990 (!) I’d never read the book. It seemed sadly relevant for the current times, given the rise of proponents of theocracy and curtailment of women’s reproductive rights.
I also finally read The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman. It is a powerful graphic novel that relates both the author’s father’s story of surviving the Holocaust, as well as the author’s difficult relationship with his father, exploring both survival and the legacy of trauma.
So yes, not easy subjects, any of them, but not talking about them doesn’t make them go away. Even if you don’t fully subscribe to Isaac Asimov’s “Any book worth banning is a book worth reading,” it’s worth a few minutes to look at the challenged books lists to see what is being challenged and why. And then there’s Ray Bradbury’s observation, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” When was the last time you read a book?
2m2t 