I was leaving work the other day and noticed this bright, shiny, and clean Volkswagen reflecting the sky and neighboring buildings.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Skywatch Friday – Mottled
Downtown Tulsa early Monday morning.
Graffiti Wednesday – Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame
A bench on the Boston Avenue Pedestrian Overpass near the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. I don’t think this is an official color scheme for the city. I think somebody, on their own initiative, painted the bench red and stenciled the images on in honor of three performers. I don’t know how long it has been like this but from the worn condition of the red paint I think it has been there for some time. I think that some graffiti is unofficially tolerated in our fair city. I notice that some “bad” graffiti disappears quickly but more artistic graffiti is allowed to stay, at least for a while. I run on the cities Riverparks trails two or three times a week and I’ve noticed that a lot of graffiti in visible areas disappears where more “artistic” works have been allowed to stay. I don’t know who is making the call, the guy or gal with the brush or one of their bosses but I applaud the judgements being made.
Still there, as of last week.
Painted over, for some time.
I like to see a little discretion used by our public officials. When they mouth “we are just following procedures” to justify stupidity it makes me cringe.
Does anybody out there have any idea who the guys on the bench are?
My friend Jen in Oklahoma City started the Graffiti Wednesday meme is posting about graffiti today.
The Pot Thief Who Studied D.H. Lawrence by J. Michael Orenduff
One of my guilty pleasures is reading J. Michael Orenduff’s “Pot Thief” Series of books. It is a about a pot seller (like in ancient southwestern Indian pots, not marijuana) named Hubert Schuze who owns has his shop, and adjoining residence in the Old Town section of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Hubert gets most of stock from two sources, he digs the pots up in total violation of Federal Law, and he makes very good copies of existing pots. He is not greedy but he has lots of expenses. He is helping his nephew get through college and he is helping an elderly couple with their steep medical expenses. Still, when he has enough, he is liable to close the shop and take a nap.
(photo by Yogi, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ, Hopi-Tewa jar)
In this latest adventure, Hubert is induced to give a lecture on old Anasazi pots at the University of New Mexico’s D.H. Lawrence Ranch. He has a second agenda. Somebody has offered him a three for one trade if he can find an old Taos Pueblo pot that somebody wants.
(photo by Yogi, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ, Work by Dorothy Torivio of Acoma Pueblo)
Hubert goes to the ranch, and a bad snowstorm hits. There is no way in or out, the telephone lines are down and there are zero bars on the cell phones. There are about ten guests and some staff people, and guess what. Somebody starts killing the guests!
(Another photo by me from the Heard Museum in Phoenix, a Hopi Tewa jar by Helen Naha)
So we have a classic murder mystery but this one is self conscious. The characters talk about the classic murder mysteries and so the story is kind of inside out.
All I can say is that Mr. Orenduff is a great writer, the books are readable and interesting and full of southwestern culture. I give the book four stars out of five. Which is great.
You can get the book from Mr. Orenduff himself. He’ll mail it postage free and autograph it, or you can order it off Amazon. You can get them very reasonably priced for the Kindle.
He is working on “The Pot Thief who studied Lew Wallace.” I can’t hardly wait.
My reviews of Mr. Orenduff’s other books (totally out of order!!):
The Pot Thief who Studied Pythagoras
The Pot Thief who Studied Escoffier
The Pot Thief who Studied Ptolemy
The Pot Thief who Studied Einstein
Our World – Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden
We got a little break ffrom our 100+ temperatures on Saturday so we loaded up and went to see the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden about ten miles northwest of downtown Tulsa.
It covers about 170 acres located in the Osage hills with a variety of terrain from a small lake to meadowland to lots of woods.
We had never visited the gardens before. I had run a couple of trail races through it but I was more interested in not tripping and falling on my face than looking around and seeing what is going on.
It is a work in progress but they have built nice trails with benches, the lake and a small visitor center overlooking the lake.
The Gardens have been a long time in coming and I think it is already a great asset to Tulsa. As they install the gardens it will become even more valuable.
Meantime, I’ll just poke around way behind Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy taking my pictures and seeing what’s what.
In deep summer the colors are mostly gone, except for the greens, but if you look you can color here and there.
It seems like you are never very far from an oil well in Oklahoma.
Right now it is only open on Saturdays from April to October. They will expand the hours as they expand the facilities.
It’ll be fun to watch this play grow as the years go by.
Truthland – an Answer to Gasland?
The Gas Industry has come out with a movie “Truthland” their answer to GasLand.
Here is the trailer for Truthland
You can go to the Truthland site and watch the entire movie. I haven’t done that yet. (Don’t you think the kissing the baby thing is shameless?)
Here is the trailer for Gasland:
Personally I thought GasLand, which I saw on NetFlix was a good movie. It could have been a great movie if they paid as much attention to the facts as they did the cinematography but hey, that’s the movie business. I can’t vouch for Truthland and I can see why some would view it skeptically because it was funded by the gas industry. But hey you know what? I think that you and I should look at all opinions and presentations skeptically, but not cynically.
(Sweetie’s family is not afraid of fracking. They are here having a picnic on a Chesapeake Energy well site in western Oklahoma. The well was horizontally drilled into and hydraulically fracked in the Colony Wash formation. Sweetie is in the back at the far left standing up trying to sneak some food. So far, no ill effects except that I have gotten somewhat older, fatter, balder, dumber, and uglier since the event.)
Do your research, check the facts, decide for yourself but keep an open mind. Write your Senator, take some action if you feel led. Don’t take everything at face value. Think about what the unstated assumptions are? (Like do you really want all the water quality enforcement everywhere taken over by the Federal Government? Is that good? bad? Why? Or should exploration companies be allowed unchecked access anywhere they want regardless of the environmental impact? Why? Can’t we keep sensitive areas untouched? Why not?) Check and see who has what to gain or lose by presenting a certain viewpoint.
It’s kind of fun actually googling GasLand and TruthLand and seeing how the pro and con fracking trolls are tearing each other up on the internet. Are the various advocates answering questions and providing information that can be checked or are they just bobbing and weaving?
(And they like hot showers in the morning!)
(And your most stubborn oilman likes a to get away from it all to a place with clean air and water.)
I could give you a bunch of links, but I’m not. Just google it. Read the pros and the cons. Make up your own mind. (But keep it open.)
Can I get off my soapbox now?
(Full disclosure: I work for a natural gas pipeline company and I don’t have any problem with properly designed and executed fracking. My opinions are my own and not necessarily that of my employer).
The Amazing Spider-Man with with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone
We loaded up and went to see the “The Amazing Spider-Man” this week.
Guess what it is a pretty good movie. Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker. As you can guess he is a mild mannered shy kid who gets bullied a lot and takes a lot of crap from everybody. It’s so bad that that Emma Stone, playing fellow student Gwen Stacy has to save him.
Just to spoil it for you, Peter Parker gets bit by a spider and it does more than sting him. He gradually turns into a bratty superhero who spends a lot of time bullying the kids who used to bully him. His aunt and uncle, played by Sally Field and Martin Sheen do their best to calm him down but it takes the love of a good woman Gwen Stacy to get him focused.
And he needs to focus because there is a terribly bad guy on the loose, played by Rhys Ifans who decides to some human trials early on a drug he is developing and he doesn’t have the love of a good woman to settle his little butt down so he and Peter Parker have issues and there is a lot of great fighting scenes in the movie. Spider-Man (who the hyphen this time?) pretty much has to destroy the city in order to save it. Other than that everybody, except for a certain bad guy, lives happily ever after.
I give the movie three stars out of five. Great action scenes but Emma Stone doesn’t quite come across as a 17 year old student. I thought she was a teacher when she first appeared in the movie. Sweetie thought Tobey Maguire made a better Spider-Man than Andrew Garfield, and I have to agree. I also think that Kirtsen Dunst made a better girlfriend than Emma Stone. She seemed more “highschoolish” for some reason.
Speaking of Emma Stone I saw her on a rebroadcast of the Jay Leno show that originally aired back in June. She wore a stunning red leather dress. When I googled the subject it turns out that I was not the only one impressed with the dress. Technically it was a frock by Monique Lhuillier;(Check out the link, they make some great dresses. Next time I’m at Kohl’s I’ll see if they carry any of her stuff. I’ll get Sweetie a gift certificate.)
The video is a little irritating because NBC starts a 30 second commercial.
She is only 23 years old and has a great future ahead of her.
And that is it for this report on Movies and Fashion.
Happy Birthday America
Wednesday was July 4th, America’s birthday celebrating the Declaration of Independence. We took it easy during the day and had dinner with the world’s greatest MIL, Nana and then we headed downtown to Veteran’s Park for the fireworks show.
The Veteran’s Park event is always a laid back family affair. Everybody is very chilled. I mean if you can chilll when the temp is still in the upper 90’s.
This year we had an Uncle Sam working the crowd. He was having a good time.
The neighbors in their condos and apartments were having a good time. This one looked party central.
And then the fireworks started.
Fireworks are cool but even the best photographs and television programs are not like being there.
The fireworks are getting better as time goes on. I love the different colors.
I finally read the instruction manual for my camera on how to use the fireworks setting. And it worked!! I don’t generally read instructions. That is one of my strengths.
Anyway a good time was had by all. Then we get home and despite the ban on possession of fireworks in Tulsa people were setting them off left and right. Which we are used to. One of neighbors across the greenbelt was setting off big fireworks from his back yard into the greenbelt and started a fire. They were panicking and running around and finally got their act together and put some water on it so by the time the fire department showed up the fire was out. Stupid People. Don’t be one is my advice.
Skywatch – Sunday Morning Sunrise
I promise, no more Skywatch photos featuring power pylons, at least for a while;)
Early last Sunday morning at the start of a short run.
Happy Birthday America
It’s July 4th and I spent some time looking for an appropriate poem, song, prayer, quote, blessing and all that expressed how I felt about today. I couldn’t find quite the right thing. I’m just hoping that just for this one day all Americans can come together and celebrate our country.
Happy Birthday America.