Summer Wintersmith

There's a new carousel at Wintersmith Park.

          

There goes $5000

Maria has National Board Teacher Certification.  Until recently, that was worth something in Oklahoma.  Thanks, new State Superintendent Janet Barresi, and all who voted for her!

Dad's Day 2011: Thumbs Up

I got to spend Father's Day with mine and my kids this year. After Dad and I enjoyed an early lunch at Chili's, the whole gang headed north to Seminole and the Jasmine Morane Children's Museum. On our return, Dad and I saw Super 8 (mild thumbs up), while Mari watched the kids. Before leaving, we posed for these photos.

Dad's Day: The Featured Event

At the Jasmine Morane Children's Museum in Seminole.

   

Nina and Pablo put on their own "Kinetic Energy Exhibit."

Photo-therapy

If you want to eat, you need to sing . . .

Happy 4th birthday to Silas!

iGranddady

Best Basketball Game Ever

I watched Game Six of the Mavs-Heat series on a big screen in the dorm lobby.

On New Year's Day, I saw the Frogs-Badgers Rose Bowl. Best college football game ever. Best basketball game ever. That's quite a sports year. (My definition of best? My team wins on the biggest stage.)

The MOMA and Me (and some other people)

On my last afternoon in New York, I took in Jaume Plensa's "Echo" in Madison Square Park (the sculpture on the left in the photo below) and then I hit up the Museum of Modern Art. Half way through my MOMA visit (my first), I realized that it might be fun to take photos of the art juxtaposed with the museum visitors.  It was.

"Figurengruppe" by Katharina Fritsch (2011)  For more by Fritsch, click here.

"The River" (1943) by Aristide Maillol

Most memorable performance ever?

After a day of game play in Shakespeare's London, I sneaked into the back of a sold out screening of The Tree of Life.  I caught the last 105 minutes of Terrence Malick's 139-minute film standing at the back of the room (mild thumbs up).

Then, after a late supper at the Whole Foods Market bar, I witnessed Punch Drunk's "Sleep No More" in its final days in New York City. I had read about the immersive production months earlier in the New Yorker and the New York Times and knew that I would love to see it when I was in the city. Fortunately for me, the run was extended through my stay and I bought a $90 ticket weeks in advance that admitted me into the six-story "McKittrick Hotel" at 11:15 p.m. on Saturday night.  Click here for a clever internet plant about the building's history.

While standing outside in the rain (or under the scaffolding in the photo at right), waiting to go in, I heard the people behind me say, "If you come across the banquet, follow the Asian woman to the Goat Rage." I had no idea what they were talking about, but the clues stayed with me throughout the night.

The show closes in June, and I don't think it's traveling anywhere. But now that I've seen the thing, I can offer some tips on how you can recreate the Sleep No More experience, if you're so moved.

A day in Athens, an Evening in Paris and a Late Night in Chicago

After two days of living in Athens 403 BCE at the Reacting to the Past Conference, I took the subway and a downtown train to the Lower East Side, where I caught Woody Allen's latest: Midnight in Paris (thumbs up), which imagines Owen Wilson wishing he could live in Paris in the 1920s.

After the show, I hoofed it over to the New York branch of the Neo-Futurarium for a late night hit of "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" and memories of life in Chicago, circa 2000.

So to summarize:  I'm imagining what it would be like to live in Athens in the 5th century BCE while I'm in New York, remembering life in Chicago, and imagining myself living here and going to the movies regularly, where I could imagine myself in Paris with Owen Wilson, imagining what it would be like to live there in the 1920s.  That's a lot of layers folks.  Quite the timehole.

Meanwhile, five-year-old Emilio is in Texas, visiting the Fort Worth Zoo and swimming at Eagle Mountain Lake with Mom and Dad, activities that indulged in when I was his age, almost forty years ago.

Summer Camp for Profs

Something I learned while crossing the Robert F. Kennedy bridge into Harlem on my way into Manhattan and the Reacting to the Past Conference at Barnard College: "Bus operators are protected by New York state law. Assaulting a bus operator is a felony."

Ah, city life.


There are few experiences I enjoy more than getting set up in a new hotel room.  In short order, all my shirts are on hangers, all my books and papers are at right angles on my desk, and I'm on my way to the opening plenary and lunch.

Columbia University is across the street from Barnard College.

Tonight the Mavs play a pivotal game five against the Miami Heat.  Coming in, the series is tied at two games a piece. I'll watch the game on the television in the lobby of the dorm where I am staying.