Sharing
Posted on | July 2, 2009 | No Comments
I like to share my food. I got stuck in an airport with some friends last year when we were on our way to the Smithsonian. My brother had made food for the plane trip and packed it into plastic dishes. I shared the lunch pack with my friends, saving us from eating airport food.
Sharing media also comes naturally. I went on a 9 day sabbatical from fb and Twitter, and took a month-long break from blogging. When I started tweeting again, I felt human. A feeling of serenity came over me. Why? Because when I’m sharing ideas, reading feeds, finding out what friends are doing, I learn more. And learning makes me happy.
Sharing is powerful. It’s a way to help end poverty according to Share The World’s Resources”.
I like to share my car (when I have one), metro/muni card, and piled up thoughts & ideas. Sharing helps me sort things out.
I don’t like to share my toothbrush or my computer (unless I don’t need it).
Is sharing gratifying to you?
Tapologo by Gabriela & Sally Gutiérrez Dewar at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York City
Posted on | June 20, 2009 | 1 Comment
Tapologo is a subtle and hard-hitting film. Without being belligerent or preachy, the film reveals the extreme challenges of being female in South Africa, where 50% of the women are living with HIV.
Sally Gutiérrez Dewar and I co-taught Gender and the Politics of Culture at the New School. She and her sister Gabriela continue exploring gender issues in a global context in Tapologo. The women and girls in the film are dignified, despite being sexually terrorized and having limited choices. Tapologo could have been a diatribe against men, but men are represented as being kind as well as threatening.
TAPOLOGO
US Premiere at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
6:30 PM Tuesday, June 23, 2009
9:00 PM Wednesday, June 24, 2009
$11.00
Alternatives to high heels (museum shoes)
Posted on | May 18, 2009 | 2 Comments
Sometimes, you or a loved one may be tempted to wear heels to a museum. I spotted these intrepid museum-goers at the De Young on a Friday night. It was full of people dancing to live music, checking out art, watching films, and making art. Perhaps the high-heeled were wearing the shoes because it was museum party time. But, high heels can make you sick. The reproductive organs, feet, and spine pay for what seems to look cute. Usually, high-heeled feet feel like they’ve been walking like this at the end of the day/night:
Aaron Kramer’s Shoes Were Made for Walking
Museum shoes should be comfortable, allowing for half an hour to three hours of standing on your feet. If you need to run out of the museum, supposing an exhibit disappointed you, your shoes should help you get you out, fast. And if you like an exhibit, your comfy shoes will help you enjoy it longer.
If you wear heels, what makes you wear them? And if you’re trying to break the high-heel habit, what shoes would you recommend for wearing to a museum and/or escaping?
How to use facebook & twitter as career tools + business cards before the big B (blogging)
Posted on | May 3, 2009 | 5 Comments
Facebook (fb) and twitter can be used as no-cost virtual calling cards. Twitter goes hand-in-hand with fb, since you can sync your twitter updates with fb, and reach multiple audiences by using both tools. Twitter and fb can also be used to find a job.
Blogging is “essential for your career” says brazen careerist Penelope Trunk. One of the reasons employers know bloggers with quality content are good hires is because bloggers are usually motivated people who go the extra mile to learn something, write about it, and then share it, free of cost. Bloggers are resource people. And blogging benefits you and your employer because you have more knowledge to contribute. Plus, employers can see a sample of your writing, editing, and design style pronto.
If blogging seems overwhelming, tweeting and fbing are baby steps towards the big B. How do you turn your fb page and tweets into something more than a diary? Start posting about an area that interests you and/or about your business. Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, founder of Compassionate Cooks, uses fb as a tool to gain a bigger audience by sharing her dinner menus, events, and educational information on food. On her website she prompts people to view her fb profile and follow her on twitter. Who doesn’t want free information on how to eat healthier? It’s an easy sell.
When I first moved to the Bay Area, I had an informational interview with a woman who turned out to be a friend at the Oakland Museum of California. She told me that I needed two things to be successful in the Bay Area-a blog and a business card. That was in 2008. But now trees need saving and it’s more efficient to be green. The new business card is adding contacts on smart phones, fb and twitter networks, and blog subscriptions.
Crying over Susan Boyle
Posted on | April 21, 2009 | 3 Comments
Susan Boyle is making people cry. Could it be her frumpiness combined with unexpected talent that gets people? Her bushy eyebrows, dry, frizzy, gray hair, white pumps and tan colored pantyhose are endearing. She’s tapping into the feeling of success against the odds-no matter what your age or what you look like, recognition can and does happen.
Imperfect and unashamed, she’s admirable. Her lack of attention to her appearance draws her to the audience even more. And the producers know this. Her image is manufactured sentiment, deliberately left “as is.”
Does knowing that sentiment is being provoked take away from people’s experience of crying or emoting? It’s more fun to think of Susan Boyle as pure Susan Boyle, with no interference by media handlers or stylists. Her image is used to evoke emotion, a contemporary ugly duckling story, tapping into tears and hope.
Hip Hop Grandma by filmmaker Cristina Ibarra
Posted on | April 14, 2009 | 2 Comments
Eating Salad: Thank a Mexican
Posted on | April 11, 2009 | 4 Comments
Where is 80% of our lettuce grown? In Salinas, California, known as the “salad bowl of the world.” The growers of the veggies? Mostly Mexican and of Mexican descent. Many Oaxacans these days. Off of highway 101, there are a couple of eerie larger than life size drawings of farmers, seemingly Anglo-American farmers. These figures aren’t waving or anything, just staring at drivers. In the meantime, farm laborers are moving through crops tending to our food as we drive by, a stark contrast to the stationary cut-outs. The unsmiling paper board cut-outs convey one image, the Farmer, and the actual workers communicate another, the Worker. They seem separate and isolated, but of course, they work in tandem. It’s tempting to forget where food is grown, what fuels us everyday, but we are eating with a lot of people from Mexico (and the world), if we consider where our food comes from.
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