"Savages" - Husbands - "Ex Machina"

Went to see "Ex Machina" tonight. After two weekends of the exceeding subtleties of "Clouds of Sils Maria", this movie was almost too obvious. Still, pretty cool!

I really liked the exit music too. Great song!

Jamaican Dancehall Classes With Blacka di Danca

Catherine Chiemelu (left) and LaToya Bufford (right) hosted two sessions of Jamaican Dancehall at Step One Friday evening with Blacka di Danca (center) from New York City.

During a break. Great time dancing under the guidance of Blacka di Danca!

Yours truly, and Blacka di Danca.

Moscow is a hotbed of Jamaican Dancehall. Great energy, as Blacka di Danca leads class. I really like "Do Sumn" by Konshens too - a great message there!:

Nani In Davis

I ask the occasional portentous question "What is Nani doing now?" She recently posted a video of a performance at Pamela Trokanski Dance in Davis in 2014. Pretty amazing!

"Santa Fe" - "Rent" - AIM

It's fascinating, watching as various idiosyncratic New Mexican themes go mainstream. There is the modern cult of Santa Fe, for example (also known as Fanta Se), which really accelerated in the 1960's. Here, Australians sing from the musical "Rent":

Slaves?

Ever since I read Pekka Hamalainen's book 'Comanche Empire' and learned just how robust the trade was in Native American slaves in 19th Century New Mexico, I've been approaching genealogy with the idea that I'd eventually find dead ends, where family lines would disappear, because these were the kidnapped children themselves. Instead, I'm beginning to find evidence that related family was adopting kidnapped Navajo children, precisely as Hamalainen described. And it makes a sick kind of sense too. Military defeat in the 1860's meant a one-time-only fire sale of Navajo children throughout the Southwest. Piecing this story together should be interesting.

Lilly Wood and the Prick - Prayer In C

We've been using this song for warmup in Zumba class. Really like it!

According to Wikipedia: "Lilly Wood and the Prick is a French alternative, pop and folk duo composed of Nili Hadida and Benjamin Cotto."

In this live performance they continue the Dia del Muerto theme of their music video.

Prudent Animals

Prudent animals seem to be in the area. Last week, a raccoon started crossing the street, and changed its mind as my car approached. Tonight, a skunk started crossing the parking lot towards my house, and abruptly reversed direction when it saw Bella and I returning from our nightly constitutional.

Closer Than I Realized To The Founding of Corrales

Pursuing the Breaking Bad location grail in 2010, I stopped in at the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center (HGRC: the old Albuquerque Public Library at Edith and Central, near the houses of Mike Ehrmantraut and Duane Chow in the Huning Highlands neighborhood) and struck up a conversation with a fellow named Jose Trujillo. He had been doing genealogy for years and years, and he realized we had to be distantly related, so he provided me with some information. I'm only now starting to look at it closely.

I grew up in Corrales, NM, but I'm surprised to find I'm distantly related to Juan Gonzalez Bas, one of the principal founders of Corrales (born there in 1668), and also an Alcalde of Alburquerque (as it was known then) for a long time. As an online history of Corrales relates:

"In 1710 the king of Spain awarded the Alameda land grant to Francisco Montes Vigil, a soldier in the Spanish army, stipulating that he must settle the land. Within two years he had sold a large portion of the grant to Captain Juan Gonzales BAS. Juan Gonzales was the Alcalde Mayor of Albuquerque. He had married Maria Lopez del Castillo and had many children, seven daughters and at least two sons. ....

The Gonzales family would dominate Corrales for the next two centuries and members of the family still live in the area. Historic Gonzales homes now house the Casa San Ysidro museum and Casa Vieja restaurant."

Regarding Ivy Ziedrich's Encounter With Jeb Bush

It's also important to remember that Jeb Bush is a founding member of Project For A New American Century (PNAC), the organization that first promoted plans for the invasion of Iraq in the 1990's, long before 9/11, so if George Dubya invaded Iraq after 9/11 and inadvertently created ISIS, he did so at Jeb's enthusiastic urging.

Pigeons Perplexed By The Food God

On Thursday, I was trying to create new piles of bird seed down the alley, in an effort to persuade the pigeons to shift their roosting location to the end of the alley, so they would stop pooping on my neighbor's vehicle. They looked and looked at me, like I was out of my mind. Still, they made tentative efforts to comply with my new directive. The neighbors down the alley witnessed my efforts to encourage the pigeons and were so impressed they gave me ten dollars for bird seed.

The Warning

A fellow in a white sweatshirt with eyeglass frames in the manner of fanned playing cards, reminiscent of a downmarket Elton John, was stepping into traffic at 19th & J, shouting and waving his arms at passing cars with a most dire warning that we all had to leave right away. "Why?" I asked. He bounded across the street through traffic to tell me.

He explained that he was homeless, had no money, and that another penniless homeless man at the McDonald's up the street had been shot by someone from whom he had asked change. He had seen the whole thing. They didn't get the shooter, who likely came down J Street, and thus we all might be in danger, and so we should all leave right away! As he told the story, he confused 'they' and 'them', so it was very unclear exactly who the shooter was: a cop, or some anti-social loner, another homeless guy, or someone else. I shook my head and said, "That doesn't make any sense." He said, "I know! That's why it's important that you leave right now!"

Not surprisingly, there's nothing in the media about anyone getting shot. Things right now are about as somnolent as a large city can get. Still, I'm going to leave this neighborhood RIGHT NOW! 'Cause reasons!

"Snow White And The Seven Dwarves" (Steampunk Version) - DMTC YPT

"Dogfight" - Green Valley Theater Company

Excellent show at Green Valley!

Back On The Genealogy Horse Again

Pursuing the Breaking Bad location grail in 2010, I stopped in at the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center (HGRC: the old Albuquerque Public Library at Edith and Central, near the houses of Mike Ehrmantraut and Duane Chow in the Huning Highlands neighborhood) and struck up a conversation with a fellow named Jose Trujillo. He had been doing genealogy for years and years, and he realized we had to be distantly related, so he provided me with some information. I'm only now starting to look at it closely.

I grew up in Corrales, NM, but I'm surprised to find I'm distantly related to Juan Gonzalez Bas, one of the principal founders of Corrales (born there in 1668), and also an Alcalde of Alburquerque (as it was known then) for an amazingly-long half century (1680 to 1735). As an online history of Corrales relates:

"In 1710 the king of Spain awarded the Alameda land grant to Francisco Montes Vigil, a soldier in the Spanish army, stipulating that he must settle the land. Within two years he had sold a large portion of the grant to Captain Juan Gonzales BAS. Juan Gonzales was the Alcalde Mayor of Albuquerque. He had married Maria Lopez del Castillo and had many children, seven daughters and at least two sons. ....

The Gonzales family would dominate Corrales for the next two centuries and members of the family still live in the area. Historic Gonzales homes now house the Casa San Ysidro museum and Casa Vieja restaurant."

Let's see, he would be my 7th great-grandfather. Alternatively, my grandfather's grandmother's great-great-great grandfather. Deep time! He lived almost forever and had 17 kids, so for all I know, by now, he may be related to almost everyone in northern New Mexico.

Another curious detail. Juan Gonzales Bas I would have become Alcalde of Alburquerque at age twelve, in the portentous year of the Great Pueblo Revolt, 1680, when all Spanish subjects were forced to flee NM, and linger through a depressing decade as refugees at El Paso. I imagine the demoralized populace indulging a kid's fantasy by naming him Alcalde. Alternatively, maybe there was no other choice. It made for a great tale, I'm sure, with which he bored everyone as a crusty old Alcalde many years later.

[UPDATE 05/20/15: And to no surprise, Juan Gonzales became the Alcalde Mayor of Albuquerque much later than 1680: 1712, according to ‘Origins of New Mexico Families’ by Fray Angélico Chávez.]

Pop Music Evolution

Interesting:

Another biologically inspired question the team asked was whether music styles evolved slowly or in large leaps. By calculating rates of change between songs over time, the researchers pinpointed three periods of rapid evolution: 1964, 1982 and 1991.

By far, the largest and most important of the three was the explosion of hip-hop in 1991.

“That surprised me,” Leroi said. “Being a victim of boomer ideology, I would have guessed it was 1964,” the year of the British invasion.

Looking more closely at the works of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the researchers discovered that those pivotal bands didn’t initiate the widespread changes associated with the music of their era. Rather, they accelerated those musical changes by popularizing new trends.

Leroi said it was exciting to get a glimpse of music history that didn’t depend on subjective recollections and storytelling.

Duck Dynasty Musical Cancelled

Now, what was the problem here?:

Cancel your plans, the Duck Dynasty musical is leaving Las Vegas. After just a month at the Crown Theatre inside The Rio hotel, the unpopular act will be shutting down on May 17th. The Duck Commander Musical, as it is titled, was based on the book Duck Commander Family by Willie and Korie Robertson. The dead-on-arrival act opened on April 15th – yet the musical failed to sell more than a hundred tickets once during its run, leaving a 680 seat theatre looking embarrassingly empty each night.

1.) Caught in the Culture War crossfire - basically not gay enough?;
2.) Vegas is brutal on all musicals not named "Mamma Mia"?;
3.) Duck Dynasty has a regional appeal only, and Vegas isn't in that region?;
4.) Musical was too long?;
5.) It wasn't a very good musical, and was killed by word-of-mouth?;
6.) Relied too much on special effects?;
7.) Didn't rely enough on special effects (could do cool things with alligators)?;
8.) All of the above?;
9.) None of the above?

Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.

Need to bring this to San Francisco, and revamp it a bit.

Gaia Bin

[From May 4th] Strange, walking the dog at 2 a.m. I saw a long-haired, blonde person vanish in the shadows of the local market. Came upon the individual, perhaps female, trying to pick the lock on the 'Gaia' used clothing and old toys donation bin. I looked at her; she looked at me; I mean, we had a moment.

No Good Deed

[From April 14th]
No good deed goes unpunished. I was kneeling down to lay out the bird seed to feed the pigeons this morning when one of my feathered children pooped on my head.

Trying To Persuade The Pigeons To Eat Further Down The Alley

As the drought drags on and the number of pigeons I'm feeding have proliferated and multiplied, so the impacts have multiplied too. I'm embarrassed by what my neighbors are enduring - all without complaint. So, to save myself the embarrassment, I'm now trying to persuade them to eat further down the alley.

The pigeons - not my neighbors.

And I don't think they are quite getting the message yet. They stare stupidly as I head down the alley with my bag of bird food.

The neighbors - not my pigeons.

"Snow White And The Seven Dwarves" On "Good Day, Sacramento"