Cyberflanerie: Greek Music, Ground Flow, Bowie Calls the Internet a Creature, Moda en CDMX, Hablemos Escritoras (Mexican Women Writers)

Rediscovering Ancient Greek Music



30 Minute Practice Ground Flow




Jeremy Paxman interviews David Bowie
(I admit it's not the most fascinating video unless you're a big Bowie fan, and the shots of Paxman listening are kind of strange-- actually, there are a lot of strange things about this interview--however, it quite struck me what Bowie said about the Internet):



La moda en CDMX (a video by my godson):




And for aficionados of Mexican literature, writer and literary scholar Adriana Pacho Roldán is hosting an excellent podcast of interviews with Mexican women writers, Hablemos Escritoras. Listen in! Prepare to be charmed and surprised!

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Virginia Tufte's Syntax as Style

Book Trailers: Some Categories

Roundup by Robot

Jeffrey Mishlove's New Video Series "InPresence"

Highly recommended: Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove's new series of short inspiring talks, "InPresence," on his YouTube channel, New Thinking Allowed. 

InPresence  0001:


InPresence 0002:


InPresence 0003:



To date Mishlove has posted 70 InPresence videos.You can find these and his many interviews on the "playlists" page for his YouTube channel.

(I am honored to say that a couple of years ago, for New Thinking Allowed, Mishlove interviewed me about my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.)

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Notes on Stephen Talbott's The Future Does Not Compute

On Seeing as an Artist

Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe

Top 13 Trailers for Movies with Extra-Astral Texiness

Extra-Astral Texiness: Definitions
First, what do I mean by "astral"? I don't mean "of the stars," but the old-fashioned esoteric concept of the imaginal realm. Yes, I am a mite old-fashioned, and apropos of my most recent book, about the secret book by the leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution, I plowed through a sizable library of antique books on various aspects of the astral. So that's a word I like to sling around! Whether you, dear reader, believe in the astral or not, I think you will agree that (1) everyone has an imagination and (2) the imaginal realm, aka the astral-- or whatever you have a notion to call it-- includes works of fiction and movies. Imagine those works, if you will, floating like little bubbles through the ether. (Well, porquoi pas?)

[>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]

Speaking of Texas-sized astral bubblies, apropos of my book in-progress about Far West Texas, of course my horse (as they say in Mexico) I have a long list of "to dos" that includes grokking Giant, that Rock Hudson-Elizabeth Taylor-James Dean mashup filmed in Marfa and parts thereabouts-- I have watched it and read the Edna Ferber novel it was based on, too. And now I've finished reading Don Graham's Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas, in which I first came across the term "Texiness." Writes Graham:

"The Texas Chic-urban cowboy version of the old Western legend offered a sexier version of Texas. Call it Texiness. Frontier values, however romanticized they might have been in Red River or Giant, were supplanted by fashion value, by hype." (p.6)

I hereby redefine "Texiness": I say all that hyper-appealing high-heeled cowboy boot clickin' movie fah-shun goes back to Giant's Rock Hudson and James Dean, and indeed, decades yonder: the Founding Pope of that Whole Hamburger-Helper Enchilada was John Wayne. And a big tip of the sombrero, along with a shake of the pepper flakes, to Italian director Sergio Leone for corralling Clint Eastwood. (Maestro of the concept, Leone himself was definitely not Texi.)

(Film historians: sorry, Tom Mix looks pasty-faced and nerdy, and antiques including Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers don't count. Nope, movies based on Karl May and Louis L'Amour novels and Buffalo Bill shows neither.)

In The Air-conditioned House of Mirrors
If you're at all familiar with my work on Mexico, dear reader, you know that I like to take cliches, stuff them in a cannon, and light the fuse. That this "Texiness" stuff exemplifies the real world of Texas.... let's just say I am preparing to launch that idea, along with its ostrich-leather Luccheses, into orbit around, say, one of the moons of Neptune.

Says Graham, and rightly: "Texans have two pasts: the one they lived in and the one Hollywood created."

What I'm saying is, Astral Texas isn't Texas, exactly; it's a bunch of fancies about "Texas" concocted by a jostling Chinese puzzle of a crowd of screenwriters, novelists, costume designers, executives, and bean-counters of all stripes, many of them New Yorkers, or Danes or Germans or Italians or whatever, who wanted to put butts in seats from Rome to Tokyo and all parts in between, or, to put it in more elegant terms, sell their product which was international entertainment. The Alice-in-Wonderland thing about it is that Texans watched those movies too, with consequences for their ideas about themselves-- or at least concepts of fashion. 

(Yes, the house of mirrors goes back to Zane Gray dime novels. Who was Zane Grey? Never mind. He's hanging out with Mr Mix & Co. in the astral.)

Ten Tropes in Pictures Drippin' with Astral Texiness
1. The leading character is a man of apparent western European descent who wears dusty boots, a hat, and more often than not a pistol and holster on a second belt slung around the hips;
2. He has a languid gait;
3. He squints a lot and says little;
4. With counted exceptions he and other leading characters are of reproductive age, and any leading female characters are of prime reproductive age;
5. Frequent sudden loud noises (mainly from gunshots but also oil gushers, cars exploding, cannon blasts, dynamite, galloping, train whistles, and miscellaneous ferocious banging);
6. There may be guitar music, preferably languid but with some loud banging;
7. Multitudinous scenes of extreme physical peril (enhanced by frequent and sudden loud noises);
8. Ditto extreme emotional peril;
9. Ditto super fast motion (on horses, in cars, on planes and/or trains);
10. Characters not of apparent western European descent may or may not be played by Jewish or Italian actors and with counted exceptions, said characters are helpless victims, cyphers, comic relief, or else very bad. 

(My actual experience of non-astral Texas is that it involves highways where drivers generally stay within the speed limits and there are lots of exits to lots of shopping malls. On the Texas highways, even in Far West Texas, it is always possible within about an hour to find either a gas station with hot coffee and Snickers bars and/or a Dairy Queen and/or a McDonald's. As for all them guns, I've spent a lot of time in Far West Texas over the past few years and the one and only occasion anyone took out their gun was when, on a private ranch, after touring some rock art, a lawyer and a professor of medieval history commenced popping targets from the back porch. The BBQ expert I interviewed in Pecos carried a pistol in a holster, but that was because he was also the sheriff. Last I checked, among sheriffs that practice is not exclusive to those of the great state of Texas.)

Herewith, in chronological order, my top bakers dozen of trailers for movies with Extra-Astral Texiness. (I'm not necessarily recommending these; just pointing out a characteristic.)

1. Giant (1956)
James Dean steals the show. Based on Edna Ferber's novel, Giant. Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and was a long-time resident of New York City's Park Avenue.



2. The Searchers (1956)
John Wayne versus the Comanches with the magnificent scenery of Arizona, California, Canada, and Utah. Loosely based on a novel by Indiana native Alan LeMay which was in turn loosely based on the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was captured by Comanches in Texas.



3. The Alamo (1960)
John Wayne as Davy Crockett. Do not have a mouthful of popcorn in process when he tells his Mexican sweetheart, "There's right and there's wrong, you got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you're walking around but you're dead as a beaver hat." Filmed in Bracketville, Texas.

4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Another shoot 'em up directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne (very Extra-Astral Texi), James Stewart (not Texi) and Lee Marvin (eww).




5. Hud (1963)
An actor's actor Paul Newman was, though Millennials know him better as that old gent who, though passed away, still lends his name and handsome visage to the Newman's Own brand of salad dressings and dog food. As the bully Adonis Hud, Newman exudes Extra-Astral Texiness in the extreme. Based on Larry McMurtry's novel Horseman, Pass By.

6. The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
"Four brothers who met gunfire with gunfire!" More John Waynerie.



7. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
"The man with no name: Danger fits him like tight black glove." Not lacking for firearms! The first Sergio Leone "spaghetti western" starring Clint Eastwood in that poncho was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai flick Yojimbo.



8. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
The ultimate Spaghetti western. Pow, boom, whack, crack, pow! The ne plus ultra in Extra-Extra-Uber-Astral Texiness! Californian Clint Eastwood does the hat-poncho-gun-cigar thing in Spain. Watch out, the music by Italian composer Ennio Morricone -- a masterpiece--can turn into an earworm. (Listen to the score here.)



9. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
There was a Judge Roy Bean but his biography was more than a bit different from that of the movie character played by Paul Newman. If you can get past Jacqueline Bissette shouting that she is a Bean (oof), you'll hear Anthony Perkins, his hair ablowin' in the wind, assert that "This land abounds in ruffians and varmints."



10. Lone Star (1996)
A deft and complex film by writer-director John Sayles, starring Chris Cooper, Kris Kristofferson, and Matthew McConaughey, the then Prince Imperial of Extra-Astral Texiness.

11. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
This is by far the best of all the films about and filmed in Texas-- a much longer list than this one. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones. Screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga. Filmed in the Big Bend.

12. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Shooting, more shooting, even more shooting and loud crashes plus more shooting with Texan Tommy Lee Jones, and Spanish actor Javier Bardem with creepazoid hair. Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel.



13. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Once again, radiating super human intensity, English actor Daniel Day Lewis nails the accent. Gushers o' the black stuff! And the red stuff!



So where are The Wild Bunch (William Holden, too old) and Urban Cowboy (John Travolta, too silly)? Alas, they lack Extra-Astral Texiness. 

UPDATE: I debated about The Magnificent Seven, which was filmed in Mexico. Steve McQueen, yes.


UPDATE: Texan friends recommend Lonesome Dove. I didn't count it because it was a TV series about taking cattle north and the leads, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, struck me as a couple of very un-astral-Texi granpaws. But my opinion isn't the only one. You can check out the trailer for Lonesome Dove here.

Your comments are always welcome.

CLICK HERE.

On the Trail of the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

The Pecan: A History of America's Native Nut by James McWilliams

Nut Country: Right-wing Dallas the Birth of the Southern Strategy by Edwin H. Miller

Marfa Mondays #2 Charles Angell in the Big Bend

Cyberflanerie: Misc Mexican and Borderlands Documentaries and Trailers Edition

Los rollos perdidos de Pancho Villa by Gregorio Rocha

The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa
Mexican researcher and filmmaker Rocha goes to London, New York, Paris, and El Paso to search for the lost films from 1914 of Pancho Villa in the Battle of Ojinaga, staged under contract for the Mutual Film Corporation.

Part 1 of 4


Part 2 of 4


Part 3 of 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_EdxaIczY

Part 4 of 4


Memorias de un mexicano (Memories of a Mexican)
Classic documentary on the Mexican Revolution

1910 La Revolución espírita
Very highly recommended.

Pancho Villa's Columbus Raid (Texasarchive.org)

Niño Fidencio de Roma a Espinazo

Interview with Dr Antonio Zavaleta on Niño Fidencio

La Piedra Ausente

¿Qué sueñan las cabras?

> Scads more at https://www.filminlatino.mx

Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Marfa Mondays 20: Raymond Caballero on Mexican Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas

Después de la muerte by Léon Denis or, A Super Brief Introduction to the Opportunity Cost of Rare Book Collecting

Cyberflanerie: John Waters Appreciation Edition

Curly Tail Panther

Just back from the Rock Art Foundation's annual Rock Art Rendezvous at the White Shaman Preserve on the US-Mexico border near Comstock, Texas. 

Here is a mini-clip of my visit to Curly Tail Panther, one of the several (yes, several) marvels I visited this past weekend (1 minute 49 seconds):






According to the Rock Art Foundation's website:

"The Curly Tail Panther site is high on the cliffs with a breathtaking view of the Devils River valley but accessible only by a very narrow ledge. Such settings were conducive to the visionary experiences that are the core of shamanistic belief systems. Two large mountain lions flanking an anthropomorphic shaman, typical of the Pecos River style, dominate the scene but Red Linear, Red Monochrome, and geometric designs testify to the enduring appeal of this shallow overhang with its spectacular vistas."

Mosey on over to Mary S. Black's blog for an interview with Dr. Carolyn Boyd on her jaw-dropping research about these sites and in particular, White Shaman. 

More, indeed, waaaaay more, anon.

Gifts of the Ancient Ones: 

An Interview with Greg Williams on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands

Rock Art Adventure in Far West Texas

Mary S. Black interviews Yours Truly 
about the Marfa Mondays Podcasts (and More)

Writing and (or?) Digital Fun

I may be an old-school literary writer and die-hard fan of paper books, but ever since I started my webpage in 1999, I have been enchanted by the empowering and creative possibilities of digital media. 

BLOGGING: I started this blog, Madam Mayo, in 2006, and have kept at it steadily ever since, although the why of it has undergone significant evolution.

[Writers Blogs (And My Blog): Eight Conclusions After 8 Years of Blogging]

PODCASTING: In 2009, I started making podcasts with Apple's GarageBand-- and now host two series, Marfa Mondays and Conversations with Other Writers.

[Listen in to my podcast about how I started podcasting.]

DIGITAL PUBLISHING (KINDLES): Shortly thereafter I wrangled my way through an open-source program called Sigil and made some Kindles. 

[Here is everything I can tell you about that particular odyssey.]

VIDEO: And I took up making videos with iMovie. Apart from a few book trailers and whatnots, I mainly think of my videos as a souped-up GIFs, that is, visual appetizers, meant to enhance a text. 

My two latest videos are Scenes from the West of the Pecos Rodeo (3 minutes) and of Calera, Texas (1 minute 20 seconds), a Trans-Pecos ghost town that, surprisingly, has a nicely kept nondenominational chapel. Both videos are apropos of my book in-progress about Far West Texas.






IN SUM: HUH? Yes, making these pages, posts, podcasts and videos is more fun than playing with Play-Do. Yes, my blog, podcasts and videos bring me a larger audience and more visibility for my books. And yes, these endeavors steal time from writing. 

Instead of making two videos the other evening, I could have worked on my book. But just when I am about to feel crummy about that, I remind myself: if you're going to use GarageBand and iMovie, it really helps to do small projects on a frequent basis, or else you'll get rusty and lose the ability to do any at all. 

Or is that just a pretzel of an excuse?

On the other hand, I really do believe it's crucial for me as a writer to be able to handle digital media. (I've had it on my to do list for over year to make a proper trailer for my latest book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution and its Spanish edition,  Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana. And I really should put my Marfa Mondays podcasts onto YouTube as well. Oh, and... suffice it to say that it's a long to-do list that's just getting longer there in my fat little FiloFax...)

In sum, after more than two decades at this "business" of being writer, I'm still figuring it out. 

OH, AND SOCIAL MEDIA: At least I got off FaceBook. (It's been a few weeks since I deactivated my account and whew, that is still a palpable relief.) 

I still haven't made my mind up about Twitter. Most of it strikes me as drivel. But I don't find it as addictive as FaceBook and once, maybe twice a week something blink-worthy does happen in there.* (Follow me @cmmayo1.)

*For instance, I tweeted that I loved the cover of Cluff Hudder's book, so he sent me a copy! Here are my writing assistants with Pretty Enough for You. (Yep, I tweeted that.)

> Your comments are always welcome.

30 Deadly-Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & 

Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing

Why Aren't There More Readers? 

A Note on Curiosity, Creativity, and Courage

More Resources for Writers

Cybreflanerie: Four Vital Videos of Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Method for Writers (and Other Desk-Bound Dreamers)

New to Feldenkrais? Check out these three videos: Chrish Kresge provides an informative introduction and a bit about frozen shoulders; Gary Waskowsky introduces Feldenkrais in about 7 minutes; and Annie Thoe explains the three principles in 5 minutes.

A few helpful and inspiring videos:

TO LOOSEN UP THE NECK

The 2-Minute Feldenkrais Miracle" to Free Up Your Stiff Neck, 

with James Speer

TO LOOSEN UP THE FINGERS AND HANDS

Gary Waskowsky teaches Feldenkrais hand movement 

TO RELAX THE EYES AND IMPROVE VISION

Feldenkrais Practioner Annie Thoe Demonstates Palming

TO GET MORE VITALITY AND CREATIVITY

"Move into Life" with Anat Baniel. A trailer for her book, also gives an overview of the ideas behind her Feldenkrais-inspired methodology. 

(Baniel was one of Moshe Feldenkrais' early students in Israel).

"If you know what you do,
you can do what you want."
-- Moshe Feldenkrais

Your comments are always welcome.

StandStand: One Highly Recommended Way 

to Remain Standing While Writing

The Arc of Writerly Action

30 Deadly-Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips 

& Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing

Cyberflanerie: Others Did It So I Don't Have To Edition

(But did she ever get to Alaska?)

Live through an Alaskan Winter in an RV

Watch a Famous 4 Hour Interview with Mega-Famous Movie Star María Félix

(via David Lida. David, Did you actually watch this?)

Figure Out in Crunchy Techno-Industrial Detail What Happened to Tom Cruise

P.S. As for things I get to do and that I recommend: I am reading an advance copy of Tom Christensen's River of Ink and it is beyond splendid. Stay tuned.

COMMENTS always welcome

Cyberflanerie: Alain de Botton on Pessimism

Well worth watching…

Doreen Baingana: The Role of Offensive Language in Novels

My fellow Writer's Center faculty member, novelist Doreen Baingana's recently gave this thoughtful talk for TED@Nairobi.

Rather Good, These Peculiar Little Videos

Ham Bikini

Parsley Expansion
(wonder what he smoked before doing this one)

Eggs in Peril

The Internet is Made of Cats
and... drumroll...

Viking Kittens Reveal Lyrics to that Led Zeppelin tune

Anna Dello Russo and The Leopard

Here's an amusing video starring fashion editor & icon Anna Dello Russo in which (look carefully) you'll see her trompe l'oeil of a scene from the movie based on the novel The Leopard.

Where the Buffalo is Marfa? About the Trailer

So, who are all these wacky people in my "Where the Buffalo is Marfa?" trailer for the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project: Exploring Marfa, Texas & Environs in 24 Podcasts? I have no idea. The clips and photos are all "gigs" from www.fiverr.com-- check out their profiles and many other gigs, all @ USD $5 each. All of these fiverr.com sellers were prompt and professional, and I can recommend them warmly. You can check out their gigs, their ratings-- and if you like one (maybe for a holiday greeting --or your own wacky trailer?), just hit the PayPal button.

Herewith, with my thanks, the cast:

Accordion player: squeezeboxhero

(Australian?) dude reading message and then smacking to wall: coreworkouts

American guy yelling "Marfa!" in a rant-like way: mel864

Plastic bag man: robertocarlos

Redneck character in blue sunglasses: johnwright238

Zombie: kristylynn

Psycho Welshman: facebook_poster

British banana: bethan

Peapod dancer: haleylujah

Funky dancer in brown shorts: coreworkouts (again)

Accordion guy (again): squeezeboxhero

Girl in elephant mask and Marfa sign: reticent

Guy in fur hat with Marfa sign: newsfromstreet

Swimmer with Marfa sign: rubikart

OK, what is truly mind-warping is that I don't know their real names and I don't know where they live nor where they filmed any of these. And these previously impossible, even unthinkable, digital juxtapositions interest me as something to explore in the book I'm about to start writing. When I did my last travel book, Miraculous Air, about Mexico's Baja California peninsula, in the late 1990s, almost no one (outside of a very few people in Tijuana, Ensenada and Los Cabos) was on-line and it was quite the novelty that a telephone or two had arrived in some villages. Now, looking at Marfa, Texas and environs (Alpine, Fort Davis, Valentine, Marathon, and the Big Bend), I find restaurants tweeting their breakfast menus and the local lamp shop on Youtube. I've yet to do a podcast-- the project starts in January-- but I'm already following a small community of West Texas tweeters, and you can follow me @marfamondays.

---> Read about the Marfa Mondays Project

At Play in the Fields of Keynote: On Designing Dancing Chiva's E-Book Covers

So what's Dancing Chiva? It's a company I set up a few years ago to do writing workshops, and recently expanded into publishing. Like many writers whose book contracts of yore left them the digital rights, I am bringing some of my already published books into new life as e-books. But with Dancing Chiva I am also publishing some new works as e-books, for example, a collection of blog posts on creative writing and my translation of Francisco I. Madero's Spritist Manual, as well as long out-of-print or, in some cases, never-before-published works of Maximiliana. Check out the Dancing Chiva catalog here.

AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF KEYNOTE:
A note on the covers by C.M. Mayo
As a writer, I've had the sometimes disconcerting (if othertimes also joyous) experience of having someone else—a person I have never met and perhaps never will—design the covers of my books. I am talking about the professional graphic designer. Book cover design is a specialty informed by both graphic design principles and marketing. A publisher wants a book cover that fits with their brand image and— everyone hopes— will fly off the shelves to the cash registers. Alas, though sometimes fortuitously, the author's vision for the cover is not always taken into consideration, and in fact, very few publishers will cede approval to the author in a book contract (believe me, I've tried). . .CONTINUE READING.

Follow Dancing Chiva Literary Arts on Twitter @dancingchiva




P.S. Tuesdays are the day I usually update the Maximilian ~ Carlota research-sharing blog, but, as you can see, I've been otherwise occupied. I still have several file cabinets worth of research to share there, and I'll get back to it, asap.

Book Promotion, Book Trailers, and (shazam!!) Carolyn Parkhurst's Trailer for The Nobodies Album

I've begun work, at last, seriously, on a couple of new books, but the question of book promotion continues to amuse, fascinate, and consternate me. In part this is because I have come to realize, both from my own experience having published several books, and from seeing that of friends and students, that book promotion is a Mt Everest of a hurdle, emotionally, psychologically, and even artistically (see my blog post, "The Arc of Writerly Action"). For each writer the size and particulars of the challenge is unique, but it seems that almost everyone, except the certifiable narcissist, feels well, wierd, about promoting their own work.

One of the new and very powerful tools of promotion is the so-called book trailer, a brief (or maybe not so brief) video. (You can view my most recent trailer here.) It's difficult to make generalizations about book trailers, though I've tried-- see my blog post, "Book Trailers: Some Categories (or, Draft of a Taxonomy)".

All that said, the #1 best book trailer I have ever seen, by five hundred miles, is my amiga (and I am not saying this because she's my amiga) Carolyn Parkhurt's latest, for her novel The Nobodies Album. And it co-stars my amigas, novelists Amy Stolls, in the T-shirt, and Paula Whyman, reading the reviews. Seriously, I have never seen a better book trailer. And for you writers squirming about (gasp) self-promotion, just take a deep breath, a swig of whatever you're drinking, and watch the anecdote now:



Good luck, Carolyn!

México Lindo y Querido, Flashmob in Querétaro

My amiga the writer Araceli Ardón sends me this message about a video, with the volunteer work of some 100 singers and artists, filmed the other day in Chucho el Roto, the famous restaurant in Querétaro, Mexico:

Queridísimos amigos:

Grabamos este video en la Plaza de Armas de Querétaro, con los clientes habituales del restaurante Chucho el Roto (que desconocían el evento) y algunos invitados de los cantantes, que también recibieron la sorpresa, porque pensaban que irían a tomar un café o a una cena ligera.

Con este video, la Fundación DRT tiene el propósito de dar a conocer al mundo que México es un país amable y trabajador. Una nación de personas buenas y alegres que aman a su patria. En medio de las terribles noticias derivadas de la guerra contra el narcotráfico y la delincuencia, es importante dar a conocer el otro lado de la realidad.

Hay en nuestra tierra millones de personas que cada día se levantan para dar lo mejor de sí, pensando en sus hijos, en su familia, en su trabajo, sea éste humilde y modesto, o grande, con éxito económico. Somos un pueblo de estudiantes, científicos, investigadores, artistas, constructores, hacemos negocios con ética y honestidad.

La grabación se logró gracias a la participación honoraria de casi cien artistas.

P.S. She has quite a bit more to say about the fascinating genesis of this project on her blog, here.
More anon.

Alissa Walker, aka "Gelato Baby" on Creative Mornings LA

2010/12 Alissa Walker | Gelatobaby from LosAngeles/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

"Gelato Baby's" talk for Creative Mornings LA
A sweet video, well worth watching. Charming indeed, and inspiring, like, um, yeah, really!

San Francisco, 1905

A mesmerizing short film of a drive down Market Street in San Francisco, in 1905, just before the earthquake.

Book Trailer for Miraculous Air

The book trailer for my travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, is now online here. I find book trailers fascinating, in part because they are so new and wildly heterogeneous. Read about my "draft of a taxonomy" here. (And do click on the Martin Atkinson + amigos trailer.)

Blogs Noted: Nola, Maximilian -Carlota, First Person Plural, Own the Dollar, Charles T. Tart, and more

Nola.com Gulf Oil Spill News Page
Includes links to public blog.

Maximilian - Carlota
I decided to rename my new blog. It was "Second Empire," but that seemed a little Star War-y. It's a blog for researchers (both serious and armchair) of the tumultuous period of Mexican history known as the Second Empire or "French Intervention." I'd love to use a more poetic title taken from a saying of the period (say, "Bed of Roses in a Goldmine"?) but I do have the search engines in mind.

First Person Plural
The Writer's Center's blog now has a new URL.

John Oliver Simon
Poet and translator-- recently blogging about some interesting Costa Rican poets.

Casa del Poeta Ramón López Velarde
In Mexico City. New blog, excellent long-time reading series.

Periódico de Poesía
Editor Pedro Serrano's Defensa de poesía.

Real Delia
On clearing out the inbox. (Holy Smokes, is this really possible?)

Own the Dollar
Includes this fun interview with organizing expert Regina Leeds.(See Regina's guest-blog post for Madam Mayo here.)

Charles T. Tart
Consciousness evolving.

Professional Writing Coach
Excellent new writing blog by Eva Hunter. (See her guest-blog post for Madam Mayo here.)

P.S. World Cup youtuberie with a surprise.