gardens, gaps and more

This past Saturday was community garden workday - just for fun, let's call it a garden party. Somewhat unexpectedly, a bad breathing day, so I had to bag but heard back from Dennis Fulfer and Joan Page. Mostly clearing and pick up with more to do, some fencing up - including a line to stash and separate treasured trash the property owner leasing the lots wants to keep.

A community garden in Denton TX -
ours still has a long way to go but on has taken 1st steps

Sunday Kristine Lauritsen and I visit and lunched with Jude Mowris and Roy Kirby. Catch it on Jude's Notes from Straw Mountain blog - complete with pictures and recipe. While you're there, catch the latest house updates and Jude's projects - meet the dolls. Again, all illustrated.

Visiting on the back deck while the pizza was baking:
Kristine, Roy, my feet (& Jude behind the camera)

Have you started your stocking for the Christmas Stocking Project? Dog ate your fabric paint? What Stocking Project? Come on now - who doesn't know about the stocking project, read about here, heard about it at the senior center, picked up a flyer at town hall? Who's called or emailed Wana Beth? No bluffing now. What does it say about our ability / willingness to pull together when so few step up to make & decorate?

More reminding (eg already posted but here's another nudge): October 3, Claunch-Pinto Annual Meeting

Other unreported on/ not yet announced - reports and announcements eagerly awaited:

• MMAC: arts council potluck and general meeting at the Shaffer Hotel, 5 pm this past Sunday. I wonder what they have against link reciprocity.
• Cibola Arts hosts October exhibit for Arts, etc., meet the artists reception October 5;
  
• first rehearsal for Christmas Cantata today.
  

Sometimes I can/will extrapolate sufficient information to cobble up a post here and a calendar listing on the Mountainair Chamber site. Sometimes not. No telling so don't count on it.

Bailout?

from Congress.org, an advocacy site:

Should Congress bailout Wall Street to help Main Street?

The Administration proposes a $700 billion bailout to restore confidence in the economic system so banks start lending again. Without that, many other banks and businesses (and the jobs and mortgages) will fail they say. Critics say we shouldn't reward their bad decisions. Democrats say the plan needs oversight, homeowner protections and caps on executives' salaries. What do you think? Act quickly as the Administration wants a vote within days. Consider a hand delivered letter with Advocacy Xpress. Start by picking your view in our Action Poll.

I Support the $700 Billion Mortgage Bailout
I Oppose the $700 Billion Mortgage Bailout

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A Hole In Henry's Bailout Bucket (Forbes)

Video: Treasury Sec. Paulson at Senate Banking Hearing CSPAN

Indecision in Congress on $700 billion bailout plan spooks creditors. MarketWatch

The Bailout Plan: Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke's Bogus Journey U.S. News & World Report

"How close was the financial system to melting down?" (Megan McArdle, Atlantic Monthly) explains what money markets invest in, how regulated (or not) and what happens when 52 pickup becomes the name of the game. The title "Living on borrowed prosperity" is pretty much self-explanatory. I'm sparing you even gloomier and more critical accounts from the international financial press. Google them up for yourselves if you like.

Saturday gallimaufry, 9/19

gallimaufry (noun)
1. a dish made up of leftovers
2. a miscellaneous jumble or medley

Also, Dr Who's home planet,where Time Lords park their T.A.R.D.I.S.

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Cedarvale 100th Anniversary (notes from Wana Beth's emails). was Friday, Sept 18, 11 to 3, potluck. Everyone brought their own water, chairs, etc. to rough it at the school, which is may even be condemned by now. Gail D`Arcy owns the property and put this together for a ceremony to celebrate the Dedication and Centennial. Wana Beth mentions Dorothy and Beryl Gustin (Larry's Gustin parents) attending too and there are a number of other Cedarvale alums in Mountainair. (please chime in here and let us know who you are)

Christmas Stocking Project: Jude Mowris has joined Wana Beth making Christmas stockings for Bethel House in Moriarty. Bethel's goal is 780 stockings to fill and distribute with their Christmas boxes for families with children. Local fiber artists and crafters are invited to pitch in. Interested? Contact Wana Beth at ArtistWFox@aol.com. Please put "Christmas Stocking Project" on the subject line. Wouldn't it be something if Mountainair could make and embellish 100's of stockings and then put the best on public display before delivering them to Bethel to fill and distribute?

And then there's the annual Quarai Concert, this Sunday September 20, sponsored by Manzano Mountain Arts that nobody sent me the date for so it was not (not until today) on any of my blogs or the Chamber calendar. I guess (noun deleted) were expecting me to KNOW (after all it's annual) and FIND OUT calendar details for myself. Sometimes I do just that, but not always. Osmosis, wishful thinking and long distance mind melding are not reliable ways to disseminate information.

The experience does, however, add to my experiential databse of anecdotal information on how social networks in closed communities function and communicate (not) outside the group. Whole 'nother post incubating on this topic. Suffice it to say, next to complain about local information gaps and communication practices will be reminded about people living in grass houses not stowing thrones.

Our new trash picker upper, New Mexico Waste Services Inc, (Grants) has been sent a notice of violation letter from the New Mexico Environment Department less than two months after beginning services in Torrance County. Violations, characterized as minor, include operation of an unauthorized solid waste collection facility. No major complaints about the company have been reported in Moriarty, Estancia or Mountainair. Privately, despite reassurances to the contrary from City Hall, many think the bins for the new service are smaller than those used by the previous service, e.g. less trash picked up for the monthly charge. My personal pet peeve, trashwise: current town policy and charges do not encourage generating less trash.

Sustainability and self-sufficiency are looking more and more necessary by the day. The SEEDS (bad links for the field trip maps) community garden (sponsored by iCreate) is a move in that direction. Bring tools, wheelbarrow, self - come to the 1st workday Saturday 27, 10 am, 503 W. Roosevelt (other side of Broadway). "Shop local and be a locavore" is as much the clarion call of sustainability. So isn't it time yet - if not past time, ya era la hora - to have a farmer's and flea market here in Mountainair? I wrote "time to think about" but changed it because it's been talked about as long as I can remember - and no doubt longer.

Edison, developed by Verdiem, is an easy-to-use energy-monitoring application, absolutely free that puts you in control of your PC energy usage by letting you set your schedule by tell Edison when you use your computer most. Save a little or a lot: choose the level of energy savings you want to achieve. Download Edison and start saving energy. Review at Download.com.

FYI - Board Members Beware. Briefly, this has to do with the article and discussion on NM Central regarding tax exempt status of the Moriarty Chamber of Commerce and a recent letter in the Albuquerque Journal about a judge’s recent decision renders null and void certain state laws associated with “so-called immunity” for the directors of nonprofit organizations.

Public Libraries in Wyoming: Why Cowboys Read, from The Economist - about the library and reading habits in another small town in the West

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More about ASPIRE starting this week, other local whatnot and personal reflections but they will have to wait because the T.A.R.D.I.S. is now leaving the station for another dimension...

free Friday tomorrow at Alpine Alley

From Jude - apologies for cross posting but, hey, it's short

"Free Friday" is on tap again this week! We have books, some wine glasses, a basket, small sculptures, shoes, handbags, and whatever else finds its way into the back of "Belle". See you all at 10 AM Friday morning at the Alpine Alley Coffeehouse. Bring your stuff to trade and give away! Lets make it a party!

Jude Mowris
artist/owner
www.strawmountainstudio.com
www.strawmountainblog.blogspot.com

community assets

from NM Central... MountainView Telegraph honors "Community Assets" - including one of our own

Red Kingston among seven exceptional individuals recognized by the MountainView Telegraph. Their “Community Assets” program honors East Mountain, Santa Fe County and Estancia Valley residents in our area.

But Red is not our only community asset, maybe a tad higher profile because of the Mountainair Gymkhana Rodeo and his efforts in getting funding to refurbish the rodeo grounds. I am not entirely sure of the nomination process here but know that MountainView Telegraph rep has come to Chamber meeting promoting this and other special inserts. Selling advertising is part of it. Why not? Gotta keep those presses rolling. Not that they "roll" anymore but I don't have a punchy verb at hand for computer assisted publishing. You get the drift.

Others less likely to be affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce or other sources potential advertisers come to mind. I never got enough feedback for the Mountainair Monties (full or otherwise), which ended up falling off even my own radar. Maybe ongoing recognition would work better. No lengthy, exhausting list - one at a time to start. Appearing on ad hoc basis, no set schedule (possibly unwise but it's my blog, my choices & thus my unwisdom). Again, reader nominations, including candidates from among the "affiliated," are welcome - but no Vogons please.

Wana Beth Fox-Schalles: Senior Center Art Classes & a Christmas Stocking Challenge

Wana Beth is teaching fabric painting at the Mountainair Senior Center for her first art class in the renovated Senior Center now that there is space for an arts program. Call the Senior for more information about this and other Senior Center programs. She is also making Christmas stockings for Bethel House in Moriarty and invited her class to join in for a Mountainair Christmas Stocking Challenge to see how many they could make. Bethel House needs 780 stockings and supplies the fabric. As of last week, Wana Beth had made 22 in just a few evenings. No telling how many by now! She is hoping her fabric painting class will join her. You can help too - you don't even have to be a senior to volunteer. Just email her at ArtistWFox@aol.com

There are assets and then there are assets. People are one kind; infrastructure another - and there is funding. I can't be the only one hearing sad songs about the state of local infrastructure. It's not just about paving streets either. According to New Mexico Central, the 13th Annual New Mexico Infrastructure Finance Conference (Albuquerque, October 28th-30th, 2008) should be of particular interest to elected municipal officials and staff members. The United State Department of Agriculture is supposed to have sent conference information to appropriate. Certainly looks like Mountainair fits their categories, doesn't it? The town is should be working on infrastructure upgrades (i.e, sewer, library, town center, police facility, etc). Sounds like attending would be money well spent. Even if we end up having to send a few Vogons.....

Other people assets... yes plenty... and community based organized full of people assets but needing the money kind too. Three (2 people, 1 relevant conference - and not all conferences are) should suffice for the nonce, even for dandiprats. I intended to include Shannon DeRemer and Tanisha Star here but focus suffers when I'm tired. My 1st ASPIRE (another community asset) after school classes were this afternoon and here I am traveling by mare's shanks, huffing and puffing. So make that later. Beside their effort is worth a post all to itself.

Treasures of the Gypsy

(copy removed at subject's request)

adobe wall and patio, corner of Broadway & Limit

decorative doorway

fabrics

"Journey of the Gypsy"

International Quilt Market and Festival

Art Doll Quarterly

Image Gallery: IQF 2006

2007 Challenge: "Gypsies of the Sea"

Enchanted Doll Artist Conference's Gypsy Challenge Page

¡Globalquerque! September 19-20

Albuquerque International Festival ¡Globalquerque! celebrates world music and culture at the National Hispanic Cultural Center

World music and culture converge in Albuquerque with events including concerts, dance classes, films and food and craft stalls, all celebrating cultures from around the globe. Workshops and free afternoon activities for younger visitors.

Schedule

2008 LINEUP:
17 Hippies (Germany)
Cuarenta y Cinco (New Mexico, USA)
Lila Downs (Mexico)
Forro in the Dark (Brazil/USA)
Genticorum (Quebec, Canada)
HAPA (Hawaii)
Mor Karbasi (Israel)
Lo Còr de la Plana (France)
Los Matachines de Bernalillo (New Mexico)
Thomas Mapfumo (Zimbabwe)
Mexican Institute of Sound (Mexico)
Orchid Ensemble (China/Canada)
Reelroadъ (Russian Federation)
Clark Tenakhongva (Hopi)
Vieux Farka Touré (Mali)
Savina Yannatou (Greece)
Mary Youngblood (Seminole/Aleut)

Alibi article

ERDA Field Trip, September 13

Cross-posted on Mountainair Announcements - but I'll add a tad to minimize redundancy factor...

Did you miss the field trip to the East Mountain Organics? SEEDS visits another community garden, ERDA in Albuquerque, Saturday September 13.

Some history about the East Mountain Organics garden. Only two years old, it's Land Grant land. Also, they sell to two of the four Whole Foods stores in Albuquerque as well as La Montañita Coop. On only 5 acres... which gives us some idea how productive scattered lots about town.

ERDA Field Trip: Sept 13th, carpool leaves from the St. Vincent de Paul at 7:30 am

1305 Blake St. SW
Albuquerque, NM
87105 505-610-1538

More about ERDA: 2006 article (with pictures) in The Ethicurean (chew the right thing): erda gardens: basil, bees, and bagged bounty

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More iCreate & SEEDS dates
iCreate board meeting, September 18
Community Garden Workday, September 27

Contact Dennis (webaab@aol.com) or call Kay at 847-2301 for more information

Get gardening motivated and on you way down the garden path with ... New Mexico Central's "Grow your own" series of gardening articles (most recent)

This town - in words & pictures

This Town is the poem, mostly about Mountainair, written at Sunflower Writing Workshop. Please see Dale's introduction, "Mountainair in the company of poets." She writes, "the poem that we wrote together...is a love letter to Mountainair and to all the other little towns we've ever lived in or wanted to." Today I added another post "This Town - in pictures"

The workshop theme was poetry of plance. Before writing, Dale sent workshop participants out on a "poet's tour" of Mountainair with instructions about observing and taking notes on what they saw. Next, they wrote initial drafts incorporating these. The resulting poem was performed at the Poets & Writers Picnic in four parts with successive stanzas or "rounds" read by the poets who wrote them. The text layout duplicates this arrangement.

Many voices speak of Mountainair and small town life. Not all write about Mountainair. Some write about their own towns: not every specific reference is to Mountainair. Yet, these rounds tie their towns to this town (Mountainair) while connecting "this town" to other small towns everywhere. I hope you will recognize both familiar locations and resemblances between Mountainair and other towns in other places.

And now a brief sampler from "This town" (by Maureen Hightower, Karin Bradberry, Dale Harris, Sylvia Ramos, Shirley Blackwell, Susan Paquet, Terry Sedal, Nadine Lockhart). So please don't anyone hand me that line about PWP and Writing Workshop "not supporting" or contributing...

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This town –

Between missions
Containing crossroads
Eccentric hotel –
“Pueblo Art Deco” –
I love it!

This town –
Small shops
Funky houses
No golden arches –
Pre-generica America

This is my town

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This town celebrates its history on walls
Trains run through buildings on Broadway
Puffing between red rocks, mountains
and the Enchantment Salon.
An eagle swoops to pounce on its prey
Peeling paint and sly trompe l’oeil,
This is my town

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More Mountainair in the blogosphere: Seven Days On The Road In Colorado & New Mexico
Mostly about Mountainair, where they apparently stopped a few days. Wonderful pictures. Stayed at the Rock Motel, lunched at & looked around Shaffer, admired train mural & Treasure of the Gypsy but wanted to know more about both. Pictures of train station and tracks. She thought the Greyhound station storefront and and "Tomahawk garage" across from the Shaffer were for real.

The Generator Blog

Already today three "announcement" posts to Mountainair Announcements and one to Poets & Writers Picnic Yes, the picnic is over but its plog lives on. On the bright side, its very existence may serve to reduce the amount of poetry I willfully inflict on you - just as Announcements spares me feeling obliged to render public service announcements into sprightly prose. But do remember, I wrote "reduce" not "eliminate."

None, alas, to this the first born blog. I could write up local artists or establishments, review past events, something. No, not in the mood. No today. The time has come to turn to generators. No, not the electric kind we always kept handy during hurricane season on the bayou. These generators are software that creates software. Software to play around and have fun with. Some, ie Rubric and Web Page Template generators, are marginally useful if less entertaining Bar Drink Name or Bizarre Rumor generators. I've been considering generating a rubric for evaluating meeting uselessness. But who need a rubric to calculate that one?

Welcome then to The Generator Blogspot, compendium of generators. Surely, you've seen and played with some of them - Job Title, Jedi Name, Alien Limerick, Insult generators.

There's the Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator that creates a content-free posting (of the sort one sees more frequently on MySpace) with a minimum of effort, freeing me to going back to doing nothing in particular - or writing sprightly but locally unbloggable prose. Then there is Blog-o-Matic, "dynamically" generating, completely random and copyright-free blog posts. Not to mention the Aussie Lazy Bloggers Post Generator. No this post was not generated by either. Perhaps a Blog Comment generator would be more useful. The Automatic Inanity Idiom Extruder could fill the bill nicely...

Film Program: New Visions/New Mexico

Call for Proposals

The New Visions/New Mexico film program is designed to help New Mexico producers and directors create narrative films, documentaries, animated and experimental works. Winners also give back to the state by offering training to other New Mexicans new to the field, providing screenings and seminars or like programs.

Award: Up to $20,000 toward the completion of existing projects or the launching of new ones ($160,000 total).

Deadline: September 5. Awardees announced in November
More Info and Applications: Go to www.nmfilm.com

Generational Mindset List

The 2008 Mindset List," that looks at today's college freshman / 2007 high school graduates and what they have and have not experienced in their short lifetimes. The results are illuminating and sobering for anyone over 30.

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college or the workforce and reminds us how rapidly frames of reference can change.

This group has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm. They live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. They are used to checking and being checked on MySpace and Facebook where they share their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact. For them, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce "tax revenue increases."
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to "whatever," they have recognized that some people "just don't get it."
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
17. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
18. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents
19. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
20. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
21. We have always known that "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"
22. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache
23. IBM has never made typewriters.
24. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
25. McDonald's and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
26. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
27. There has always been Pearl Jam.
28. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
29. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
30. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
31. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
32. Lenin's name has never been on a major city in Russia.
33. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
34. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
35. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
36. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
37. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
38. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
39. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
40. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
41. They never heard an attendant ask "Want me to check under the hood?"
42. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
43. Soft drink refills have always been free.
44. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about "nothing."
45. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
46. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
47. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
48. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
49. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
50. Michael Millken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
51. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
52. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
53. There have always been charter schools.
54. Students always had Goosebumps.
    

Free Friday

"Free Friday" is on the schedule this week! Be at the Alpine Alley coffeehouse at 10 AM to pick up whatever you must have, and its all free! In addition to an assortment of books, we will have a large stack of Buddhist magazines and some odds and ends to make your heart happy. We also have an almost complete set of DIY encyclopedia books. For the handyman this would be great! Between now and then we will be searching for more things needing a new home.

Got something that needs a home? Bring it.

See you there!

Jude Mowris
artist/owner
www.strawmountainstudio.com
www.strawmountainblog.blogspot.com

Where y'at?

Where y'at? Nola patois - "how are you?" - "watcha been up to?" - "where you comin' from?" - is koine throughout south Louisiana.

Hurricane watching & worrying is where I've been. Hailing (more that less so) from south Louisiana, I still have the longstanding habit.

If that's what it is, maybe a nostalgia attack. Too may friends in Gustav's wake not to pay attention. They've been checking in though. Definitely a change of pace from fires and drought. I go through this every hurricane season, especially since Katrina & Rita. There's something deeply disruptive to one's sense of self when places in your memory completely disappearing, no longer existing. It's like losing a part of who you are.

Back to the present - bits and pieces. Noticed layout changes? Bye-bye sunflowers. Back to Mountainair scenes and artists - if you keep 'em coming and I'm not otherwise torqued. But I liked the look of an image behind the header so will be running different images there, sometimes with background color adjusted. More LATER after the rest of my hurricane tossed friends check in and let me know they're OK.

• More free stuff in front of Alpine Alley coffeehouse this week. I'm guessing Friday but will update with more information. Btw Thursday is vegetarian soup day.
  
• Community Garden dates - September 18, iCreate board meeting to vote on SEEDS garden budget; September 13, field trip to ERDA Community Garden; 10 am, September 27, workday. Somewhere in there is the next garden meeting. Keep your eyes open for flyers presently under construction. If sent, I'll post. If not, then not.

Erda Garden

• FYI - from NM Central's Grow Your Own series - Vegzilla
• Overall positive reports on Sunflower 2008 coming in from all quarters - financially and in terms of event satisfaction
  
• Edgewood's same weekend as Sunflower event - Harvest Festival, Run Rally & Rock A Success
• Next event (barring miscellaneous meetings and other hithertofore unannounced arts council concerts) Holiday Craft Fair, Saturday November 8, put on by the Town of Mountainair and managed by Joan Page: vendor space is already going fast - so call Joan now to get your word in. If the arts council folk have not contacted Joan to share resources/ contacts and coordinate efforts, ya era la hora
• More about new Cibola Arts members - Dee (see Mountainair Artist on sidebar) & Tomas (see clay workshop announcement)