Archive for January, 2009

Are Apple users really more hip, I wondered as I took out the G4 Powerbook  this morning. Can I really upgrade into supercoolness by using a Mac?  What if I didn’t get my Apple in the usual way, if it was a hand-me-down? 

Some people must suspect that if I had it together, I’d not be using a machine that was built in 2004. Of course, as long as I don’t open the thing, they can’t see the  six burned-out pixel stripes on the screen which finally drove my friend to release it. With it’s 15″ screen, a size that was soon after discontinued, it’s doubly superannuated, but since most people don’t carry rulers, they probably don’t know.

Another thing people won’t notice if the top is shut is that the “R” key fell off. I meant to ask my techie friend how to reattach it, and actually I went so far as to look on Ebay and found that yes, you can buy replacement keys for the G4 for about 20 cents, but the truth is, it works okay if you just hit the key stub. 

It makes the best impression, really, when it’s closed. With the big, friendly white Apple logo on the hood it does radiate confidence. I’ve put together some decent blog posts on it. But am I really cool just for owning it?

The friend who gave me this machine probably wasn’t actually trying to up my coolitude  by sending it, by insured mail, to Fort Worth from Minnapolis last year. She knew I was constantly scuttling along the edge of insolvency and still didn’t have a laptop, and took pity on me. “You know it is an Apple,” she pointed out. “It’s getting old but I couldn’t just throw it out,  it still works.”

So while gratitude was on my mind when I received it there was humility too. Especially since the burned-out pixel lines mean I can only see 39/40 of the letters I type.  I have to know the context to figure out what some of the words are.  

“The Universe supports me,” I tell myself, an affirmation I learned in college, and it was proven when the Apple arrived.  I had worried: what if my friend suddenly realized she needed it for one of her kids?  But the computer came,  and suddenly I was free to write anywhere.  This freedom is what Apple has come to mean to me. That’s a pretty seriously good thing, as is having a friend who sends you her old hardware.

And perhaps it’s only because this computer is an Apple that it’s survived, otherwise,  she might have just chucked it.  Apple computers’ reputation is not just tech, it’s about feelings, people, and keeping computers long past the day that other, lesser machines are in the dump. Yes, I guess owning a Mac does upgrade your coolness,  even if you have to move back a model year to get one.

Now, if I could just meet the Apple guy from the ads.

 Bull riding is a competition  part atheletic,  part theatric, and part tough-guy lucha libre-type machismo.  No major stock show or state fair these days is complete without a bull riders specialty event, and Fort Worth Stock Show, knowing what’s good for it, gave us  Bulls Night Out Tuesday and Wednesday night. 

The bull rider is a cowboy, yes, but he’s not your everyday puncher, not even your every day rodeo rider. I once read one of the champions of the genre, who was defending the sport against detractors who criticisized the departure from all-around rodeo to focus on bull riding by such tours as BRO (Bull Riders Only). He said:  ”When you love this bull riding it’s all you want to do. You work at riding them all day, you dream about them all night, and then, when you wake up, you just want to ride bulls.”

Here then, are the results of this bull-riding fascination:

Opening ceremony, 40 contestants mounted on horseback. But not for long.

There's a lot of talk these days about "rock stars" who don't play music. If smoke pots and black clothes are part of the rock star gig, bull riders are in.

Not every ride ends this badly. Sometimes the catch rider has a chance to come along side and get you before you hit the ground. But this is far from unusual.

Clowns play "ring around the bullsy" when the rider starts to come off. Usually, they succeed in getting him back to earth safely.

Crowds agree with the riders: accept no substitute. Bullriding is a sellout event on a regular basis, and at Fort Worth Stock Show, the packed stands were typical. 

Thanks for these photos to David Kozlowski at Dallas Photoworks.

“This is still a small school,” said principal Craig Shreckengast at a recent open house for families considering sending thier kids to FWAFA, noting at the same time that the school was recently named National Charter School of the Year by the Center for Education Reform.  After a presentation by the Academy’s  skilled fine arts troups, including a mind-bending West African choir piece produced bythe Texas Boys Choir General in prep school jackets and ties, visitors to the open house were treated to a tour of the facilities. Many were anxious to gain entrance and it’s easy to see why. What’s at stake is private-school type ideas at public school prices.  

FWAFA is a Charter School for grades 3-12, coed,  focussed on the performing arts.

Founded:  2001

Tuition: No regular tuition; $600  materials fee 

Financial Aid Program: for those who need help with materials fee.

Enrollment: about 400 students

Application process:  Students must come to the school’s office to submit an applicaton between now and February 27, 2009. There is a performance audition.  According to the school, “Students are accepted to FWAFA through an auditiion process based solely on artistic talent and/or potential.” 

Philosophy:  A fine arts education offered along with a college-prep curriculum. Mission statement lists the schools goals as “providing a structured environment for the development of world-class artists. Essential elements of this development are artistic training and accredited academic aduction, as well as instilling in each stuetn a sense of self-discipline, self-confidence, etiquette, patroitism, and personal appearance.” 

Accreditation:  Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Location:   On Hulen Boulevard north of I-20, across from the Southwest Regional Library

Academics:   High school students prepare for college and students take honors and AP courses. Classes are smaller than in the general public school, and the school’s GreatSchools academic score is 8/10, which suggests a student body significantly more capable than the average public school.  FWAFA eceived a “recognized” rating from the Texas Education Agency.

Extracurricular Activities:   All students at FWAFA study choir, theater, Dance, instrumental and visual arts starting in 3rd grade. In middle school, students begin to specialize and chose area of artistic discipline in high school.  Features the Texas Boys Choir, the Singing Girls of Texas, and the Academy Dance Company.

Website:  Fort Worth Academy of the Fine Arts

A quick Wednesday wrap-up of what’s going on in the Fort Worth blog neighborhood:

Most topically, West and Clear’s Steve Smith wants an Obama commemorative plate. But he’s got a plan to avoid paying the retail price of $19.95 to get it. Meanwhile Cowtown Chronicles’ Pete Wann finds irony in a Zen moving van.

At Dallas Photoworks, guest blogger and freelance photographer Mark Stites begins his missive on using manual settings on your camera with the memory of being “delirious in my belief I was the reincarnation of Ansel Adams. ” Then he realizes he can’t shoot manually in 6 Funny Steps to Shooting Photos in Manual Mode.

On a less-humorous note, Fort Worth Can Do reports on legal wrangling over natural gas drilling in the city and the recent Carter Avenue Showdown.  For the wrap-up, see the FW Star Telegram article. 

Kevin Buchanan at Fortworthology reveals that the National Federation of Historic Preservation has declared Fort Worth a “Distinctive Destination” for 2009, then goes on to ask that since Eurotazza Coffeehouse ia Closing Its Doors, could they pleanse consider relocating to the Near Southside?

In the city’s food section, Fort Worth Hole in the Wall visits Tres Jose’s for breakfast, then goes on a rampage about some problems with three wayward burritos.

In theater, The Guide to the City tags that Stage West will  present the area premiere of “The Seafarer” by Irish playwright Conor McPherson beginning Janaury 29.

And finally, in technology, Fort Worth Modern Museum Blog talks about a project to digitize masterpiece paintings from the Prado Museum in Spain to 14,000 megapixels, and load them on Google Earth.  The Amon Carter Museum Blog discusses using technology for the study of art  in the classroom, asking readers to comment on their feelings about the practice. Is this technology a good thing, and what does it mean for us?

I thought it might be appropriate to put together a few notes about the public elementary schools here in Fort Worth, Texas. Although the city has a thriving private school community, it would be wrong to broadly assume that is a negative reflection on the public schools.  I’d like to talk a little about what’s right in these schools.

There’s a tradition of discipline in our public schools and although that sometimes seems a bit intimidating, ultimately it means that the schools are able to focus very strongly on skills aquisition, fairness, and safety. Each school has procedures in place to ensure parents are kept in the loop all though grade school. In the younger grades (K-2) , kids get a stamp every day on their calendar sheet: green for “good citizenship,” yellow for “some trouble spots, “red for “they go into real trouble today.” The parent signs the folder and returns it and can correct their child if needed. 

Every public school and every classroom is focused on student performance. Testing accountability is one reason. Texas public schools focus on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills test, or, colloquially the TAKS. Instituted in 2003, the test covers math, reading, writing, science and social studies. Schools are rated on how well their students test and the ratings are public. Although some teachers may complain about having to “teach to the tests,” it also means no one can ignore skills acquisition in this modern environment.

In Fort Worth’s elementary schools, good citizenship is emphasized. All students say the pledge of Allegiance, the Texas pledge of Allegiance, (“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible”) and then have a moment of silence. There is also a school citizenship pledge for each individual elementary school.

Overall, at first it can seem like a great deal of structure, but then structure and discipline is, at least by my observation, the Texas way. And the students do learn well in this environment. A high degree of personal responsibility is expected, and students are rewarded for positive behaviors. The Accelerated Reader program allows students to read books at their grade level, answer reading comprehension questions on a computer, and gain points towards prizes. Despite the perpetual funding struggles of public education, grade school students do still get “specials,” or PE, Music and Art, taught by a specialist, not their classroom teacher. 

It’s true that many use private schools instead of public, but still, most kids who live inside the Fort Worth city limits attend FWISD elementary schools, including the children of many teachers. With their democratic nature, expectation of self-reliance, and discipline these schools can truly be the best choice for many children.

It’s important to me to make a blog post stating that I treasure MLK Day. Whenever people act surprised that the third Monday in January is a holiday, I point out “It’s MLK Day” and if they don’t understand I say “Martin Luther King’s Birthday.”

Of those who don’t understand how important MLK’s birthday is, there are probably two types. The first have hearts  hardened by lingering racist feelings that probably trace back to the society King gave his life to change. The others, many from places like California and New York, lived in progressive parts of the country and quite simply have never been aware of the things that happened in the South before King and his colleagues brought their fight for change. These may not be aware the real degree of economic oppression, not just “paying some people less” but making it impossible for families to educate and care for thier children with dignity. They often are unaware of the long-term existence and potency of the Ku Klux Klan and its lynchings, believing that it was “something that happened right after the Civil War.”

Not quite. The Jim Crow South was a terrorist-occupied country. The actions of the Klan and its supporters are much like those of Muslim terrorists and the Mafia of southern Italy today. In situations like these, without a coup or military overthrow, societal change is usually impossible. How can change occur when to oppose the system is to be marked for murder?

That’s why Martin Luther King and the civil rights leaders who worked with him are remarkable. They were able to topple a terrrorist occupation without resorting to violence. They did it with patience, with words, with reason and with love.

Martin Luther King embraced the nonviolent principles of Mahatma Ghandi to accomplish his task. Reading his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” today is a re-acquaintance with a man of God and a man of letters, of character and of bravery. He knew what he was facing, personally and for America.  

Remembering his sacrifice and that of all the civil rights leaders, last summer, my family and I took a detour on our trip to Washington DC to pass through Birmingham and visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. When we arrived, some were a little worried. We were far from home, the museum is downtown in a neighborhood still predominantly African American and we didn’t see any other white people.  And people who looked just like us were the villains in this story.

“We didn’t come all the way down here to sit in the car,” I said, and we got out.  We paid our admission and went in. For me it was just about the most moving exhibit we would see on the trip.  We learned why when my father was young it was dangerous to be a Yankee travelling in the South — suspected as a “Freedom Rider,” who came to support the black boycotts of public transit, you could be beaten up or worse. We saw detailed descriptions of what Jim Crow really meant, both the violent and the mundane. This included the dirty, half broken drinking fountain marked “colored” next to a new, clean one marked “white.” It doesn’t come across, I fear, as well in print as if you actually see it. 

We were welcomed at the museum, despite being different and despite having a bunch of rambunctious children. What struck me most was how bad things were before the movement, and how much courage the original civil rights leaders had to have to fight the entrenched and as I said terroristic system.  

If wish that anyone who doesn’t understand the MLK holiday could go to a museum like Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. This is an area where seeing is better than reading, watching actual video footage is more compelling than being told. Meanwhile, if anyone admits to not understanding MLK Day around me, they will get an earful. MLK was and is as much a patriot as any American president or leader, and he and the rest of those in the civil rights movement did incredible things for this country. We need his holiday to help us remember.

By guest blogger Dave Kozlowski of Dallas Photoworks

“…I returned home that evening smelling like a cow and having stepped in things I don’t wish to think about.”

Fort Worth's skyline says "Big City."

Fort Worth is growing and changing.  The downtown cityscape is like most other large American cities, complete with steel and glass high-rise buildings.  Construction booms and drilling rigs compete with skyscrapers as part of the ever-changing skyline.

But, most people still think of cowboys when they think of Fort Worth.  The city earned the title of “Cowtown” over a century ago with its stockyards and railhead and there is still a “cattle drive” through the city for tourists. But what about real cattlework? Is any of that going on?

I am happy to report that in 2009, the ‘business’ of being a cowboy still takes place, unseen by the casual observer.  

Rodeo cowboy Chad Eubank invited a photographer to attend his branding.

I found out about this when Cleburne native Chad Eubank, a rodeo star in his own right, invited me to visit his ranch just south of Fort Worth to take photos of a day of cattle branding.  

Being a freelance photographer, and a Yankee transplant to Texas, I jumped at the chance!

This was not the first time I visited Chad, having been introduced to him two years ago at the Johnson County Sheriff’s Posse Rodeo in Cleburne.  Since that time we have become good friends, texting and calling each other to see what is happening in each other’s lives.  A year ago I shot photos of Chad, his fiancé Kim and Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alvord. We moved some longhorns  that bitterly cold, rainy day.  That was an experience I will never forget, watching real cowboys do real work, with them on horseback, and me on a golf cart shadowing.

Chad understands my fascination with all things western, so he remembered me when organizing this week’s cattle branding, and quickly invited me and a photographer buddy to join him on his ranch. Little did we know by day’s end, the photographers would be on horseback, branding cattle, and wrangling calves with our bare hands, while the cowboys would be holding the cameras shooting photos!

The cowboys roping a calf in preparation for immunization and branding

Not knowing what to expect, we arrived early, the cows were quickly gathered together, and the calves were separated from the adults. The adults would be led into a cattle chute which would hold them securely during the branding process. Among other things, each cow received immunizations and a brand of the K2 Ranch. The calves seemed like more work than the adults. Each needed to be roped; skillfully done with style and technique by two of the cowboys, while the third remained on the ground to help tie the front and back legs securely. One-by-one, all 60 head of cattle were routinely immunized and branded. The adults were released into the pasture, while the calves were dragged slowly into a holding pen until the entire herd was completed.

Here, the photographers are checking out the action from behind the fence.

Being a cowboy is hard, physical work. I returned home that evening smelling like a cow and having stepped in things I don’t wish to think about, but just as excited as when I arrived early that morning!

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Chad Eubank is currently competing on “America’s Toughest Cowboy on Spike TV. The season premier is Thursday, January 29th at 10:00pm Central. Chad will also compete at “Bulls Night Out” during the annual Fort Worth Stock Show at the Will Rogers Center on Tuesday, January 20, and Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 7:30pm.

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David Kozlowski is a freelance photographer based in Keller, Texas. He specializes in Commercial Photography and Texas Landscapes. View more of his work on his website/blog, Dallas Photoworks.  You can also follow Dave on Twitter. 

Ingredients for an omelette

This is dedicated to @judywriter on twitter, whose query about how to make an omelette prompted me to create it.

Making omelettes is in danger of becoming a lost art, or perhaps, in the scrambled eggs world of America, an art which never was grasped in the first place, but in fact this French technique is not hard to master. The main criteria of omelette success are:

1. Don’t use too many eggs for the pan you have. If you do, the pan will be too full and the eggs will not cook evenly.

2. Make sure you get the pan nice and hot, so that when you sprinkle water in it, it sizzles. 

3. Saute any ingredients you’re going to put inside first, with the exception of cheese, which you sprinkle in at the end.

4. Cook for the right amount of time. I decided I would make a real-time video of this because it just seemed too hard to explain in words.  I asked my husband to do the actual cooking, because he is acknowledged in our house as the best chef of the omelette, though most of us can cook one if asked to.  He decided not to do the monologue that usually goes with cooking shows, or the head shots either, but I think the actual food skills demonstrated  here are as good as any you’ll find on real TV.

I should note here that you don’t have to include the vegetables. If you don’t want to, skip video one and two, and in the third one, skip the part about adding vegetables, just grate in the cheese. The method is the same.  

Sauteing the vegetables.  Here we see the length of cooking for peppers, onions, and ham.

Finishing up with the vegetables.

Cooking the eggs.  

The finished Denver Omelette

Mid-January is officially here and with it, the planning stage should officially begin for all viable and effective North Texas vegetable gardens. Don’t let the spring planting season bushwack you like a rustler on the Chisolm trail by waiting until it feels like spring to start working. If  you’re anything like me, by the time it feels like gardening season it will be too late for you to get the ground ready, find the plants and seeds, get them in place and set up an effective watering system.

Last year I let the vegetable plot just sort of “happen” and was stuck with a slanting garden with bad watering ditchwork that had the tomatoes getting dry while the peppers sat in a pool that overflowed and drained away under the back fence. Although the garden was a modest success I know I can do better. Therefore, I’m making my 2009 Garden Resolutions:

1. I will build proper, 12-inch tall raised beds. I have known for years that rasied beds are the way to go. However, due to cheapness, late starting-ness, using boards that were available free around the house, not feeling like buying and hauling in the lumber and fertilizer, etc., I have been gardening for about 20 years, on and off, and have never built raised beds. This is my year. Raised beds four feet by four feet,  are planned.  Game on.

2. I will construct a quality irrigation system for which fast set up and cheap cost are not the guiding principles.  That means, I will give up on ditches and go to  drip irrigation with  a timer, so if, as happens every year, during the late spring I get distracted from watering, the plants will not suffer a dangerous brush with death by thirst. I’ve lost more good vegetables to neglected watering than any other gardener’s foible.  

3. I will make a reasonable and well thought-out planting plan. This plan will not engage in pipe dreams about how many plants can grow per in limited space or one on top of the other, or what types of plants can grow in our clay soil. Our top producers in North Texas are tomatoes, peppers, beans and squash. I will not try to grow lettuce, even in the winter months. 

4. I will keep up with the weeding, especially being careful about letting weeds get a hold in the critical first two months of the garden’s life, when weed establishment could lead to them choking out the vegetables. If necessary, I will get the children to help. If necessary, I will pay the children.

5. I will not start any other time consuming major projects or new hobbies  between March and June.  Except baby chicks.

6. We will not go on any two week long vacations during the harvest season this year.

7. I will try to keep well-informed and inspired by reading blogs about gardens. Below, I’ve linked a sampling.

8. I will update this blog with my sucesses and failures.  

My Gardening Reference List:

Grow Rich Slowly Blog:  Oregon couple works on organic garden and computes costs and revenues.

What to do each month for  North Texas Gardeners: From the Dallas Morning News, jobs to do by month.

Gardening tips for Northeast Texas: archive of specific topic  articles about Smith County gardening.

Backyard Gardening Blog — an everyday gardener talks about successes and challenges

Texas Cooperative Extension Best Vegetable Varieties for Tarrant County: this is the best varieties of each vegetable for our neighborhood. 

Texas Cooperative Extension Planting Dates for Tarrant County:  just what you’ve been waiting for, the actual dates you should put your plants or seeds in the ground.

I have to admit that I was afraid, after I wrote my review of Mary Lucier’s video “Plains of Sweet Regret,” to post it. I let it sit there in the drafts que of this website  for several days. I knew that I had said a couple of things in the review that would probably irritate the artist, if she came across it, and I also knew that, the web being what it is, it was likely that she would. After all, I Google myself from time to time, so why would she be any different? Unless she was a total Luddite, which we could knew she was not  from her choice of medium, she was likely to read it.  

Critics rush in, I suppose, where angels fear to tread, and I decided to post the review.  I  forgot about it, and then was surprised a couple of days ago when I came home from work to find a comment on the blog from Mary Lucier herself, telling me not to “take everything so literally,” and that my suggestion that she might be too much a city person to hear the heartbeat of our western land missed out on the fact that she “was born and grew up in a very small Ohio town.”

I know that in the agon between the artist and the critic, the artist is the major player and the critic is the one that is more broadly exposed to being called a fool, because once the artist gets him or herself into the public eye, that person has arrived, while the critic, by the act of questioning the work, is immediately lined up with a host of ignoramuses and philistines such as the French Academy, who opposed the Impressionists, the public, which wouldn’t buy Van Gogh’s art in his lifetime, and the editoral board at Scribner’s which didn’t at first want to publish The Great Gatsby. 

I suspect it would be more noble for me to just let the artists’ critique of my critique rest — and yet there is one part of the matter that I want to take up, and that in is the quibbling about the Big City commenting on the Country and Wilds, and the underlying theme which I did not remark on because I knew it would be even more controversial, the matter of East commenting on West. Part of my discussion of “Plains” was about understanding the reality and the romance of the western expanses, and the question of whether human depopulation is really a problem in a land long known for vast reaches of wild space.

Westerners are the adventurious people who left that eastern seaboard and its established laws and came out to the raw country, the country of dreams, possibilities, and yes, disasters. We were born into population shifts and worries about water and weather. We are tempermentally disposed to take risks; that’s what our parents did when they brought us here. For many years, thinking about  stories of the pioneers, I wondered if I would have been one of them.  Eventually, when I looked at my life trajectory, I realized that my temperment, at least, was a western, independent, definant and individualistic temper. I am the very type of person who would try to start a smallholding on a dry dirt farm in North Dakota and have my work destroyed by the relative inhospitablity of the land. So perhaps I was sensitized by Lucier’s recording of the brokendown and destructed small farm. There are parts of my life like that, and  I don’t really want anyone coming along and documenting that some of our projects failed. 

I am not saying that an Easterner is categorically barred from commentating on the west. For example, Henry Jacob Miller, the painter who travelled to Colorado to document a hunting expedition before the Civil War, and whose word was simultaneously exhibited at the Amon Carter museum when I went to see Lucier’s work, completely surrendered to and promoted a romantic vision of the western wilderness.

Preserving our western myth may seem immature and soft-minded, but it is anything but. A rhetoric for cultural survival spotlights a people’s sucesses, not their failures. 

Yes, we are west, and anywhere on this side of the Mississippi is culturally, economically and ethnically different than the east coast. Ohio and New York are distinct from North Dakota and Texas, as is every part of the country in which Europeans were already settled at the time of the Revolutionary War. 

A commentator, whether writer or video artist, must always be careful when they come from outside a region and pass judgement on events within. I’m not saying it can’t be done — I like to remember St. John de Crevecour and his Letters from an American Farmer — but it’s touchy. It’s not unlike saying something about someone’s mother. Before you try that, you have to be sure that they agree with you. Since I feel that the West remains a land of promise and opportunity, I was bound to take some slight umbrage at this video.  

I also don’t expect anyone to tell me that there was no negative assessment of our situation in “Plains of Sweet Regret.” The  title says it explicitly. Let me be quite clear: our myth includes that the Western person is to have no regrets.  The battle alone should be enough to sustain our art, our culture, and to justify our existence.