Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine (Transcript now available on-line for Marfa Mondays #4)

Transcript now available for 
ye olde podcast #4
Avram Dumitrescu, 
an Artist in Alpine

The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project proceeds.... as those of you who follow this blog well know, the most recent of the projected 24 podcasts is #17, an interview with Texas historian Lonn Taylor in Fort Davis. 

Meanwhile, I've been working my way back to the beginning, posting transcripts of 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and now... drumroll.... 4, Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine. About his chicken portraits, Dumitrescu says:

"When we moved to Alpine, our landlords had about 30 chickens. Patty and Cindy, they're on the west edge of town...that's where I had my first experience being around chickens, because until then it was just stuff I'd eat. They're basically mini-dinosaurs. Every time I go in, I'm always worried if I fall, and they start pecking me to death like in some horror movie... because they see red, they run to it and attack it. They're very interesting characters, and I think what really made me laugh was Patty and Cindy had named them after characters from "The Sopranos." 


> Read the complete transcript of this podcast or, better yet, listen in to "Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine" (on either podomatic or iTunes, both free).

> All Marfa Mondays Podcasts (and most transcripts)

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Lonn Taylor's Texas People, Texas Places

Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America by Richard Parker

Q & A with "Listen Well" podcaster Margaret Dulaney

Cyberflanerie: Chicken Edtion

Because I am appalled at what I've learned about the way most commercial eggs are produced (most recently the NYT piece on chickens being dosed with Prozac and caffeine), I've developed an intense interest in keeping chickens, not that I am going to keep chickens. Of course, one can go to the store and pay a little extra for "organic" and/or "free range" eggs, but more than those little labels, what I believe would add the most most value to an egg is, simply, more information and even stories. How about a webcam into the hen house, knowing the names and histories of the individual chickens, videos with the owner, a report on what they ate this week, etc, etc.? I'd love it-- I'd sign up tomorrow, happy to pay the premium-- if someone in my neck of the woods would start a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with farm eggs raised on a small scale with this kind of added information, and a good, frequently updated, customer service-oriented website.

As a writer (of fiction and travel memoir) I've been blogging, and making videos and podcasts for sometime now, and so I know, first hand, that it's not that expensive to do, nor is it rocket science.

Just surfin', I was delighted to come across Terry Golson, chicken keeper (um, is that the word?) who has a webpage.. full of webcams!

Pictures and information about the individual chickens!
Videos!
>How to bathe a chicken
A blog!
Books!
FAQs
>Including an excellent and free Introduction to Chicken Keeping
Cluck cluck cluck!

And here is an interview with Terry Golson on the Soil Sparks blog.

P.S. See also the very informative Mother Earth News "Chicken and Egg Page."

And Gene Logsdon, irreverently wise as ever, now has a new take on keeping chickens. OK, OK, I'm thinking about it. I don't like the coq au vin part.

And artist Kathryn Dunn of Apifera Farm, on her very photogenic chickens, blog starlets all.

Yo Quiero a Chicken Eglu

From www.omlet.co.uk