@DailyShoot – #ds585 – Work the angles today. Make a photo that gives us a unique perspective on an otherwise ordinary scene

A tree I see from a distance most days on campus. So I got up close, personal and low to the ground.

Cheryl Colan
District 6 Resident

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Councilman Sal DiCiccio <council.district.6@phoenix.gov> wrote:

What do you get?

Ask yourself this question as you read this: “What do I get?”

A first-year city of Phoenix clerk gets 40 and a half days off, including vacation, holidays and sick time. That’s two months off — and an afternoon — in the first year of employment. And the days off keep going up as the years go by.  (Read an Ahwatukee Foothills News article regarding compensation HERE.)

If employees don’t use all their time off, they get to cash in the remaining days like casino chips, and guess who the bank is? You and your family.

You have heard me talk about Phoenix’s high cost of labor at $100,000 a year per employee. That’s just a part of the picture. It doesn’t account for back-filling all that time off.

To compensate for days when employees are out, you must either hire more people, pay more in overtime or reduce services to the public. You now can see why your taxes have gone up, services for seniors and children get cut and why you are getting less and paying more for the same service.

This can all change. There is hope on the horizon.

As you may know, I have been working with state leaders on Senate Bill 1322, which will change the culture here at City Hall. The bill will require Phoenix (and Tucson) to be more efficient, look for more strategic ways to deliver service and be more competitive. It pulls private sector knowlege and practices into city government. SB1322 passed the Senate on Monday and is headed for the House.  For an updated copy of the bill, click HERE.

I cannot get the city hall reforms needed without your help. I need you to write, email, call or fax the Representatives below and ask for their support on SB1322.

I made a commitment to you that I work for you and only you.  I don’t represent the civilian labor groups that walk our halls, and I don’t represent the management that wants more from your family. I represent you.

At times that puts me in a difficult situation because I enjoy and respect the people I work with.  But, you are not their first interest.  Staff’s first interest is to protect their way of life. Our goal is to build a city government that puts taxpayers first and protects your way of life.

Phoenix is a fantastic city and a place we all love. Help me help you stop this insanity, and let’s get this great city back on the right track and back to work again.

Respectfully,
Sal DiCiccio
Phoenix City Councilman – District 6
council.district.6@phoenix.gov
602-262-7491

 

	e-mail	phone number
Judy Burges	jburges@azleg.gov	602-926-5861
Tom Forese	tforese@azleg.gov	602-926-5168
David M. Gowan Sr.	dgowan@azleg.gov	602-926-3312
Steve Montenegro	smontenegro@azleg.gov	602-926-5955
Michelle Ugenti	mugenti@azleg.gov	602-926-4480
Steve Urie	surie@azleg.gov	602-926-4136

I will be returning to spend a good four or more hours in the Experience Room. I’ll shoot better video then, I promise. But in the meanwhile, Janice’s expression sums it up. Playing music with friends is pure joy.

Bonus points if you can name that tune.

My hubby complains from time to time that the store only has apricot jam, no peach jam. So I decided to lease a peach tree from local Schnepf Farms – they’ve been growing organic peaches for 45 years. The variety of peach tree we got is Earligrande – they ripen early, and, man, are they ever grand!

Our peach tree ripened during the last two weeks of May, and I ended up with 17 boxes of fresh, juicy, sweet and delicious peaches. Probably somewhere between 100 – 120 pounds of peaches. I’d say we consumed or shared 3 boxes worth of them fresh. Plus I went crazy buying jars and canned pints and quarts for just under two weeks. I’ve become a peach peeling and peach pitting expert. I have a peach pit callous on my index finger. And I’m proud of it!

The final tally:

• 5 pints Peach Raspberry Freezer Jam
• 5 pints Peach Cherry Almond Freezer Jam
• 8 8oz jars Peach Butter
• 6 pints Spirited Peaches
• 4 pints Peach BBQ Sauce
• 11 pints Honey Spiced Peaches
• 1 quart Honey Spiced Peaches
• 2 pints Curried Peach Sauce
• 3 quarts Peach Pie Filling
• 10 quarts Peach Halves in Syrup
• 5 pints Peach Pistachio Chutney
• 4 pints Peach Cherry Chutney
• 5 pints Peach Jam
• 2 8oz jars Peach Jam
• 2 10in Peach Pies
• 2 9in Peach Pies
• 2 pounds dehydrated peaches

I have a new nickname. My husband now calls me “Peaches,” and I don’t mind one bit.

What was wrong? What wasn’t?

First, the pub isn’t an acoustically great environment. Sound bounces around off the tile floor and stone fireplace and off walls and ceiling. So if more than one person is talking, you get a cacophony and it’s impossible to isolate and listen to any one particular voice. The only thing you can do is try to talk to the person next to you. And among this group, everyone was talking. Dougherty remained standing while everyone else sat. He tried briefly to engage the group as a whole and then evidently gave up. I got to hear what he had to say when he was at my end of the table. And he had some interesting things to say.

But the conversation, driven by one or two people, kept reverting back to SB1070, which, topical as it may be, is not an appropriate issue to fixate on when you have the opportunity to talk to a US Senate candidate. It’s a state law, not federal. If we were there to learn about Dougherty as a candidate, why weren’t people asking what he would do to reform immigration laws at the federal level? And why keep the whole conversation focused on this one issue, when we could be asking him his views on economic reform aimed at preventing big banks from causing another meltdown, or what he would do to end lobbyist influence in Washington, or his views on Iraq and Afghanistan, or what he wants to do regarding energy policy?

For about twenty minutes, I listened as closely as I could to what others were asking Dougherty, and to his responses. The same guy who bragged about the great turnout talked so loudly that I only made out about half of what was being said. An older gentleman next to me kept looking up information on Google using his Blackberry, since no one heard when he tried to ask clarifying questions. During this time, all but four people at my end of the table were completely ignoring Dougherty, and talking so loudly that those of us right next to him could barely manage to converse with him. So were they hear to support him, find out about him, or what?

When I finally got a chance to ask a question of my own, Dougherty either didn’t hear it correctly or was completely unprepared to discuss the topic, because his answer didn’t directly address the question and more, was a pretty weak answer. I wanted to know more about his views on the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and the issue of corporate money and its effect on our elections and our lawmaking process. Before I could clarify or follow up, someone had routed the talk back to SB1070.

I stayed as long as Dougherty stayed. I shook his hand and thanked him for coming. I signed his petition to get on the ballot, which, by the way, he nearly left behind at the pub when he left. But I don’t feel like I got to know much about his positions on anything he would be able to influence should he gain the Senate seat. And that’s a failure on the part of the group hosting the event, and on Dougherty himself. I mean, honestly, how are you going to lead in the Senate if you can’t lead or inspire a group of 18 people to focus for half an hour and hear you out on your campaign platform?

My husband’s one-line assessment: “No one in this room has any political or monetary clout.”

As for me, I’ll keep an open ear and open mind. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to hear Dougherty, and hopefully he’ll be able to more clearly articulate some sort of vision of himself as a Senator. But for now, I’m not wowed.

I used a teensy snippet of music performed by D-Squared. It’s their cover of Buckeye Jim.

It’s silly but I was really worried about this when I planted my watermelons back in February. I’ve never grown them before. I had no idea how big this variety gets, and no idea how to decide whether the melon was ripe. I was really worried I would waste my first, great big watermelon by either harvesting it while it was unripe, or accidentally letting it rot by not picking it in time. Hurray for the internet!

I learned there are three things to look for:

1. The tendril:  When the tendril closest to the melon dries up and turns brown, you know the plant is no longer sending water to the melon. It’s not going to get any larger from this point on. (Use common sense here: if the leaves are dried up, too, that’s water stress, not ripeness.)
2. The creamy spot:  There should be a creamy white or yellow spot where the watermelon rests against the ground. (This presumes you haven’t disturbed its natural orientation.) My husband says the spot should be yellow, not white, but as he’s never grown watermelon either, and hasn’t cited any source, I have know way of judging the credibility of that statement. (Yes, I fact-check my hubby.)
3. The sound:  The melon should sound hollow when you hold it to your ear and thump it. Personally, this is the most difficult test for me, because I grew up eating watermelon from the grocery store, where they are all presumably ripe. They certainly all sounded the same to me. But growing my own, I was able to thump the young ‘uns and compare that sound to the ripe melon. So now I think I’ve got this part down.

The video was shot with my iPhone on July 20. Unfortunately I never got to share this watermelon with my Mom as intended. We forgot to eat it while she was in town. Fortunately, since I harvested this one, I got four more, so I’ll be taking a couple up to her house this weekend. They are SO good. And I love this one-or-two-serving-size variety – it makes much more sense for a small household.

This will be one of my last garden reports for this growing season, if not the very last. As you’ll see in the video, my poor plants are frying in the intense 115ËšF heat.

Meanwhile, what’s in YOUR nest egg?

Are you mad yet? What are you doing about it?

Join us (150 strong so far) for a Nest Egg Hunt demonstration on the sidewalks in front of the AIG building, Central Ave & Thomas Rd, Phoenix, AZ on April 11 at 11am local time / 2pm PDT. Demonstrate your desire for a new way forward to a more just economy. Showing up will empower our leaders in government to stand up to the banks.

TWITTER — http://twitter.com/phxwayfwd
FACEBOOK — http://bit.ly/I68D
RSVP: twitvite — http://twtvite.com/g9g9o2
RSVP: upcoming — http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2372257/

Want to help me get ready? Leave a comment here or in the demonstration forum and I’ll email you ASAP.

Not in Phoenix? Join a demonstration in your city: A New Way Forward.

Happy Videoblogging Week 2009 everybody!

Just a little tour showing progress so far. Nothing easier than rolling outside with my phone and shooting a little Qik video. I’ve got plants. Most of them I started from seed. Most of them grew. Hurray me! Soundtrack by local birds. Guest appearance by White Kitty.

Now, I don’t remember what date I shot it, or what I wanted to say. Duh.

My favorite thing about buying locally grown produce is that it forces me to be creative in order to use whatever happens to be fresh. I go shopping with a general plan, but instead of knowing I need potatoes, I might know I need “some starchy vegetable” and I get my choice of all kinds of great stuff, but I could end up with jicama or turnips instead of potatoes. That means I have to be flexible and let the food inspire me. In turn that makes me feel very alive, instead of like a cooking robot sticking grimly to the shopping list and the menu plan.

So, the other night at the market there was this cutie little mix of Heirloom tomatoes, cherry size, that came in four colors. When I was washing them at home, I noticed I’d squashed one in my grocery bag, so of course I ate it on the spot. Oh! My! Goodness! It was super delicious, almost like a summer tomato, only less acidic, with a mellow sweet tang. I knew some of these babies would have to be lunch the next day.

In the cabinet I had half a pound of orzo pasta and in the fridge some leftover feta cheese. I remembered a Food Network recipe for Orzo with Feta and Tomatoes and decided to make it. It called for pasta, feta cheese, grape tomatoes and fresh parsley. Had all that stuff. But I also had a couple roasted red peppers left over from when I wrapped them around goat cheese last week, and half a handful of leftover chopped scallions I’d used for a garnish on some Thai noodles. Meanwhile, I had bought fresh dill at the market, and I love, love, love tomatoes with dill. While the pasta boiled, I did the minimal prep work of halving the tomatoes, chopping fresh parsley and dill, and cutting the peppers into bite-sized pieces.

So the improvised recipe turned out to be:

• half a pound of orzo pasta
• a handful of feta cheese crumbles
• fresh parsley
• fresh dill
• half a pint of mixed cherry tomatoes, halved
• two roasted red peppers, chopped
• half a handful of chopped chives
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. olive oil

After draining the pasta, I mixed in the butter and oil and feta, then dropped in everything else and tossed it a bit. It was so good I completely forgot about fresh ground pepper or salt.

This will serve 2-3 people as a meal, or four people as a side dish.

All this local, organically grown produce was $24 at Downtown Phoenix Public Market. I joined Maya’s Farm CSA tonight, too. That means next week I’ll get a dozen fresh eggs and a share of whatever vegetables have just been picked. So I better get cooking! Usually this many veggies last Gary and I a couple of weeks.

I chose Maya’s Farm because Maya herself was selling me the vegetables, and her farm is just ten miles from my house. My CSA membership is for three months – actually a little less, just whatever is left in the season. Maya offered to prorate the amount or just let me beef up my share with some additional selections from her market tables. I took the beef-up option. I also gave her all my saved up egg cartons to fill up with more eggs! Reuse, better than recycling.

Maya’s stand looked so beautiful – everything there was top notch. I’m pretty excited! I think her produce will keep me motivated until I get my own garden in the ground.

Of course I shot some video of the light rail opening myself. But I have deliberately been un-teching during the holidays. My mom stayed with us for nine or ten days, and I wanted to be with her, not pasted in front of the computer. We hung out and made a lot of stuff. Custom covers for my husband’s mill & lathe so they won’t get covered with shop dust. Bags to hold protective eyewear in the shop. A couple crocheted hats and scarves, too. … So, when I get to it, I’ll post it. Honestly I haven’t even looked at it yet! Some vlogger.

I consider the day I changed my major from Engineering to Fine Art to be the day I became an artist. Because I made a conscious decision that I would pursue questions over answers.

Tyson Crosbie

I just realized that Phoenix artist and photographer Tyson Crosbie started a new videoblog about art and being an artist: Lying to Tell the Truth (current popular abbreviation L4T … hmmm, I like L=t⁴).

I met Tyson at the first PHXedit. He showed me a book he was about to publish of his photos of Phoenix, and I was, well, utterly lost in them. I was torn and conflicted, because I wanted to get lost and mesmerized in the images, but I was hosting the event and so I felt like I had to talk to people. Meh. I hate that. I mean, I love talking to people, and I love looking at art. What I hate is when life hits me with a wrenching choice between the two. And Tyson’s work does make it a wrenching choice, rather than a trivial choice.

So I’m now what you might call a raging stalker crazy insta-fan of Tyson’s vlog, because it looks Real (as discussed recently by my friend Heath), and because Tyson’s talking about art, the value of art, what it means to be an artist, and he’s willing to struggle with those questions in front of us all. With his dogs, too.

Check out Tyson’s vlog and his other work. If you’re the kind of person that would read one of my posts to the end, I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t be sorry.

About the actual story

Many people are familiar with the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworker’s Movement in California and around the nation. But because the movement was ultimately not very successful in Arizona, you rarely hear that part of the story. So we wanted to document the local farm labor law dispute, which culminated in an effort to recall then Arizona Governor Jack Williams. As part of this effort, Cesar Chavez conducted a 21-day fast here in Phoenix, and helped inspire the local community to take action to bring about social justice.

This should really be a half hour film. The events documented took place over a ten year period, and the political issues are somewhat complex. But those planning the exhibition relegated it to eight minutes, choosing to feature a film documenting the women’s movement in Arizona more prominently, so we did what we could with the time constraints. Which means there is an awful lot going on in the footage. And unfortunately, the local news reels contained more footage airing the point of view of those in power. Watch for contrasts between the voice you’re hearing and the footage you’re seeing – I had to resort to that kind of storytelling quite a bit. I even ended up narrating the piece, while the other project got professional voiceover talent, though this was partly because I could pronounce the surnames and Spanish words correctly, while the hired talent could not.

How we made this

With the exception of recording some voice over and scanning some old news articles, this piece is created entirely from 16mm film news reels from former Phoenix news station KOOL, which used to broadcast on local channel 10. KOOL donated all their film cans and log sheets to the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. The museum has a big climate controlled room to store this stuff, and a makeshift film chain that channels the projected footage through an ancient but serviceable video camera and out to … any deck you can connect to the camera output.

Jean’s job directing this project was to do all the research, write the narrative and provide me with important dates on which newsworthy things probably happened. And just because I summarized her job in one sentence, don’t think it was light work.

My job was to check the news logs around the relevant dates in hopes of finding related news footage. Then, as part of the Exhibits Dept. agreement with the Archives Dept., I had to clean any reels I wanted to view. After cleaning, I would watch the entire reel and log it as best I could. If I saw anything related to our story, I’d record it to Beta-SP (best quality deck we had) and later transfer that to Mini-DV as well for a digital back-up.

Jean would review the collected footage, make notes, and often revise the script in order to work some of the best footage into the project. She would also do her best to identify people appearing on the reel, especially those on the MOS B-roll shots, sometimes bringing in people she’d interviewed for oral history to see if they recognized anyone.

The script was rewritten several times, and then I’d re-edit the project. We’d still be over budget on time, so we’d tighten it up some more, reorganize, figure out what to leave out – you editors out there know the drill. The look of the subtitles is inspired by Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA.

We were on a treasure hunt together. We were armed with facts. The actual events occurred before we were born to when we were kids (1968 – 1978). Some of the original footage noted in the logs had gone missing. Sometimes we found unlogged material. It was a trip seeing how Phoenix looked back then compared to now.

Even though the end result is imperfect (you’re never finished editing, right? you just stop at some point), I’m proud that this piece is on permanent exhibition as part of Arizona’s history.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer in the comments.

Now, here’s what this is:

In 2002 and 2003 I worked with local historian Jean Reynolds on this project for the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. It’s part of a permanent exhibition called Desert Cities, which chronicles the development of the Phoenix metro area from the end of World War II to the present.

In its final form, the project exists as two separate videos stored on a media server at the museum, and presented on a flat screen built into a section of the museum exhibition. This piece, the intro piece, repeats on a loop to attract museum visitors over, let them know there is a video available, and give them a reason to watch it. If interested, visitors can press a button to make the main video play.

I’ll tell you more about the project in tomorrow’s post, but in case you’re curious about the appearance of the introduction:

• it’s a way to present some facts that had to be left out of the video to bring the running time down
• the colors and fonts match surrounding exhibition graphics
• there is no “old film” effect in use – all the footage is from 16mm news reels

When D-Squared performs, they give you a story to go with every song. Their songs are wonderful stories in their own right, but getting to hear the story of why Don or Deb wrote a particular song makes each one a “two-fer.” Incidentally, if you’re in Arizona on December 6, you’re more than welcome to join me in Mayer to see Don and Deb usher in Winter – I’ve seen them make it snow before!

So here’s the intro, giving the inspiration for the song, and then the song itself. My audio is crappy because I just used the camera mic that night, but I still think you’ll get a sense of the magic of this tune. For whatever reason, the song just chokes me up.

I hope the owls are there for me when it’s my turn to answer the call.

Since that time I’ve notice more and more vehicles come with fog lamps. I have to believe the auto dealerships are ordering them that way because the cars are a few hundred dollars more expensive with them installed. I mean, this is Phoenix we’re talking about. I’ve lived here my whole life, nearly forty years, and I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog in Phoenix on one hand. In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog here on one finger. That’s right. In forty years, there has been fog in Phoenix ONCE. For about two hours.

Yet just about every idiot on the road whose car is equipped with fog lamps turns them on every day. Apparently because they can. Either that or they’re all suffering from some kind of fantasy delusional fog inside their cotton-brained heads. It bothers me on a lot of levels, but mostly because they hurt my eyes. It’s not as bad as having your brights on, but it’s close.

Who’s more mental, them? Or me? Either way, it’s really satisfying to finally get that off my chest.

I love the monsoon season and the wild, crazy storms we get during this time. This particular storm was absolutely breathtaking. First we saw lightning more than 20 miles away, but striking multiple times a second for hours. While we were on the leading edge, the cloud formations looked like long fingers, and we could see the lightning flashes above and between them. It was strange and surreal and stunning.

Then the storm reached us, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in seconds. Suddenly hail was hammering my window, and the rain was coming down in thick sheets. Within minutes the water in the streets started to rise. The bad news is, we’re at the low end of a dead end street.

Maybe you can tell from the video still, which is looking out at our street from our driveway. On the left is a 7-foot block wall separating us from neighboring condos. At the bottom of this wall there are three or four little cutouts, 6 inches high, that supposedly allow water to flow through.

Well, not tonight. We experienced flash flood conditions and high winds. A friend told me large trees were felled not a mile away (good thing we cut down our termite infested trees that leaned toward our house). The streets might have been able to drain properly, except it’s “bulk trash” time in our neighborhood. Our street lacks a sidewalk, and no one wants to kill their grass by leaving a huge pile of trash sitting on it for two weeks, so everyone piles trash just over their property line on the street, and the city picks it up – this happens four times per year. Scheduled pick up was August 25, but here it is August 28 and the trash is still there. Blocking the water in the street from reaching the drain holes. Causing the water to flow into our yard, and up over our porch. At 9:30 pm we were half an inch away from having water come over the threshold of our house, with no end to the storm in sight.

So out into the street we went, to move all our neighbors’ trash piles either further into the street, or up onto their lawns. These are huge piles, generally of tree and shrub trimmings, but with the occasional piece of large wrecked furniture thrown in. Everything should be neatly bagged, but people from outside the neighborhood tend to scavenge these piles for scrap or useful items. I have no problem with that normally – I’m all for recycling and reusing.

But this time they cut open bagged lawn clippings, which were impossible to clear away in the flow of water, and these were mixed in with palm fronds that had large thorns on them. Also, some dog crap.

So it’s dark, I’m soaked, it’s cold, and I’m covered in lawn clippings, when my asthma kicks in big time. By the time I found my inhaler I could barely get air in or out of my lungs. I started to panic, which makes it get worse really quickly.

But the meds worked, and we cleared enough debris out of the path of the water that we were able to prevent the water from entering our house. For the second time this week. I’ve sent yet another letter off to City Street Maintenance before posting this and going to bed. They’ve promised to keep an eye on drainage in our neighborhood, but obviously it’s a roving, a lax, dare I say a lazy eye.

I’m exhausted. Goodnight.

Aside: Before you think we’re heathens, we’re draining our pool because we’ve been unable to de-cloud the water this season even though the pool chemistry numbers were right where they were supposed to be. We think a neighbor may have been throwing stuff into it but we don’t know. In any case it’s been 5 years without a major water change. So this is going to cost us a bunch to replace all that water. Before we do it we’ll power wash the surface, patch it up and repaint it. We’ve watered all our trees and shrubs, plus those of our neighbors, with the water we’ve pumped out. It developed algae during the draining because we stopped chlorinating when we started pumping water out.