Blatherskite

Foolish gibberish

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I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.

  • Photography Friday: a day in Portland

    On Monday I met my friend Preita in Portland at a coffee shop called Coava. It is located, I guess, in South East Portland? I’m not super familiar with all of the neighborhoods yet. Preita has a list of places she wants to check out and I’m pretty open for anything so we met there. it was kind of an interesting place. Not your typical cafe. There were only 4 choices as far as coffee drinks go. I chose some sort of Costa Rican coffee drink and it was pretty good. Preita has a funny little write up about the place on her blog. You should go read it. It made me giggle.

    We sat and knitted and chatted and had a great time! After awhile we got hungry and wandered down the street to a sandwich shop that was connected to a really interesting shop that sold salvaged stuff. Both of us also being photographers, we wandered through there with our cameras and had a fantastic time taking pictures of all of the old crap that they had. It was all very cool old crap though! eventually the shop turned very modern and hip (and kind of spendy). But still very cool. I bought some overpriced glasses. They are old pop bottles re-molded into juice glasses. Super adorable. Another thing that they had that was awesome (that I didn’t take a picture of) were old door lock casings turned into bracelets. The shop is called Rejuvenation and totally worth the look if you are in the area.

    Here are some more pictures from the day:

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  • the answer

    After a few days of staying away from the news and getting some distance from the horrible news story on Saturday, I’ve realized the answer to my question. It came as a result of watching this video:

    Keith Olberman pretty much sums up everything I’ve been thinking about the situation very eloquently and succinctly. He says it much better than I ever could. Granted, it’s a little over the top, but still. The point is made.

    There is a ubiquitous quote by Gandhi has almost become cliche, it’s quoted so often.

    Be the change you want to see in the world.

    It is a very profound statement.

    I can only control what I do. I can’t control others. I can’t expect anything from others. All I can do is be the change. So I will.

    However, am not a media personality. So my behavior isn’t going to have much of an impact on the media, really. But I am so happy to hear people like Keith Olberman, who is a media personality, come out and say that he isn’t going to participate in this violent rhetoric. That is a good step in the right direction.

  • On the assassination attempt of Congresswoman Giffords

    Gabrielle Giffords, Democratic nominee and gen...
    Image via Wikipedia

    I haven’t written anything political on this blog for a very long time but today I’m very upset. Yesterday the Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head at close range, along with several other people, six of them killed. One of them being a 9 year old child.

    Am I jumping the gun by saying this was an assassination attempt? Maybe I am. I’m sure people could accuse me of that since “the facts aren’t in yet.” But there are facts that are in. And some of those facts are that the person who committed this terrible act posted anti-government ramblings on a website (according to the New York Times).

    Just a little observation here: I do wonder why the media isn’t immediately calling this an assassination attempt. If this were a male congressman would it be different?

    These events have shed some light on something that has been in the shadows of our culture for a few years now. This culture of hate that has been lingering underneath the surface. It was brought to light yesterday in the form of an image that appeared on Sarah Palin‘s website earlier this year. It is the image of the United States of America with cross-hairs over those districts that Palin wants to “take back.” This image was accompanied by tweets that used violent rhetoric to make her point. Example:

    It is interesting to note that Congresswoman Giffords, herself, commented on Palin’s crosshair graphic in an interview, and was concerned with what it implied.

    “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” Ms. Giffords said last March. “But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.”

    Palin was caught in the beam of the light-shedding yesterday, and was the focus of it. But it’s not just Palin. It’s our media culture. It’s bigger than just Palin, though Palin should be held responsible for her actions. It is this idea that it is o.k. to incite the pubic in this way. It is this idea that it is o.k. to use violent rhetoric to make a point. Sure, most people can read Palin’s tweets and not go out and commit murder. But, obviously, there are people who take this language to heart and will go out and literally point the crosshairs at the target, aim, and fire. This is not acceptable. A fucking 9 year old child was killed yesterday.

    So what is the answer? I don’t know. I’m angry and I’m not sure how to direct this anger. Obviously, spewing more hate is not the answer. You can’t get rid of hate with more hate. But the good thing about anger is that it does spur action. The question is, what action needs to be taken? How can we move away from this culture of hate that seems to be getting worse?

  • Photography Friday: Powell Butte

    Photography Friday: Powell Butte

    One thing I wanted to do in the new year is blog more. I like doing it. Writing helps keep me sane. I like that other people read this (when they do) but, honestly, I’ve come to the realization that I’m doing this more for myself than anyone else.

    So, if you do read my blog, thank you. Expect more blog posts in the future.

    I took the above photo last weekend at Powell Butte in Portland. Raf and I were really wanting to get out and go for a good walk where there wasn’t snow and ice on the ground. It snowed last week in Sandy and hadn’t melted. And, frankly, I was sick of it (it was fun for about an hour when it was coming down but got old really fast). So I thought it would be fun to go back to Powell Butte since it was in Portland and Portland hadn’t had any snow. I was also hoping it would be a little bit warmer. So, off we went to Powell Butte. I almost didn’t bring my hat and gloves but grabbed them at the last minute as I was walking out the door.

    I’m really glad I did. Because, holy mother of god, it was fucking cold. Yes. It was expletive inducing cold. You see, the wind was blowing up there. And it was a cold wind. A very, very cold wind. An ice-cream headache inducing kind of cold wind. So we tried to make the best of it. I took a couple of shots of the Mountain because it’s not often that one gets such a clear view but we couldn’t take much of the freezing weather and turned around and walked back to the car.

    On the way home we stopped by the Shoe Mill in Gresham and I bought myself a pair of Vibram Five Fingers (which I will blog about in another post).

  • Welcome, 2011!

    Welcome, 2011!


    It’s 2011! There have been a few years on this blog where I’ve posted my goals and thoughts about the upcoming year. I thought I’d do it this year. It’s kind of an interesting exercise.

    This year, though, I’m going to throw out resolutions. Totally throw them out completely. Because I usually set a resolution on New Years Day and feel really excited about it for about a month and then I totally lose interest and then feel like a failure. Instead, I’m going to think in terms of Practice.

    I’ll continue this being healthy thing that I’ve been doing (which I’ve sort of fallen off the wagon on the past couple of weeks). But I want to approach it as a practice. I came across this interpretation of the Five Precepts by Thich Nhat Hanh that I really like. He approaches them as Mindfulness Trainings. The Fifth Mindfulness Training is:

    Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

    I love this! So I am going to approach my healthy lifestyle with this mindfulness practice in mind. Granted, it might not be easy all the time, but I’ll do my best.

    With this in mind, I had kind of a crazy idea yesterday on my way to work. I thought to myself, “What if, for an entire year, I didn’t buy anything for myself?” Really. What would that be like? Obviously I would have to buy food and things like that. But I’m thinking about purchases like books and, basically, stuff. Stuff that takes up space that I don’t really, really need.

    Obviously, today is the first day of the year and I’m not sure I’m going to jump right into this today. But I’m going to think about it a little bit. It’s an interesting idea, I think.

    As far as other goals, I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing these past few months. Learning the ukulele, continuing with my zazen, etc. Just basically going with the flow.

    I’m excited to see what 2011 has in store.

    Happy New Year!