Endless Knots

Baby, it's cold outside

My friend, the fine artist Neelon Crawford, snapped this photo at 3AM on December 9 outside his home in Wyoming. Posted here with his permission. His caption, "Come on, global warming..."

And getting shot in Brooklyn...

 

...in the best possible way. New York City has been offering free weekend H1N1 vaccinations at public clinics. Two family members went to get theirs this past weekend at a public school in Lefferts Garden.

Astonishingly well organized, multiple languages spoken, friendly folks providing the service -- and as previously mentioned, absolutely free. This one took place at George Wingate Educational Campus. Photos to convey what public health POD (Point of Distribution) clinics look like. Although not that many people were there when we went this past Sunday, 3000 showed up on another day in Manhattan.

Pregnant and nursing mothers, by the way, are able to receive thimerasol-free (no mercury - it's used as a preservative) shots.

Wingate School where clinic took place

Posters on outside doors

First you check in

Many languages spoken

Sign telling you where to go next

Offers of free medicine if needed

Or more medical advice

Green disks indicate that nurse is available to shoot you

 

Ouch!

A doctor is available at all times

In this case, Dr. Diana Berger

Adios!

A little bit of Japan in Brooklyn

We know a tree or two grows in Brooklyn but who knew that Brooklyn was the home of the first Japanese garden planted in a public garden in the U.S? My hubby snapped this shot of the pavilion in the Japanese Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a cold December day, perhaps accounting for the sharpness of the photo. 

Bark! Bark! Bark!

It's Wednesday so The NY Times runs its best section - Dining. Today it features Bark, a hot dog restaurant in Brooklyn that is so good that I've gone there twice recently.

Photo from Bark site

Atmosphere is perfect for a place like this - very informal, high tables and stools, open kitchen where you can see the fries being, uh, fried...and, um-um-good: onion rings. I've had the Kraut Dog and, you heard it here, you don't even feel guilty eating it. For those who don't indulge is such terrible fare, go directly to the Veggie Dog (if you have no shame).

As has become the custom in such au courant places, the provenance of every item is printed on a card that stands on the tables - along with a sign not to steal the lovely salt and pepper mills.

474 Bergen, just off Flatbush, on Park Slope (not Prospect Heights side of street).

Virtual Team Intelligence - I'll try my best at this webcast

Busy at 3 PM ET (GMT-5) on Wed, December 9? If not, please join me for "90% People, 10% Technology - Virtual Team Intelligence," a webcast sponsored by International Association of Team Facilitators.

Tom Heck, president and founder of IATF, is producing "Virtual Team Leader Virtual Conference," a four-session audio webcast using a new conference call facility that I've never tried before - always fun to test-drive this stuff.

I'm the guest speaker for this session, focusing on the practices that allow virtual teams to excel.

The particulars:

TIME: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 3 pm ET for 60 minutes

WHAT TO EXPECT: "Come to the call ready to participate in small group discussions, share ideas and resources, ask questions, answer quick polls, and be fully engaged"

COST: Free for all subscribers of the IATF free e-newsletter.

CLICK HERE to register.

Recorded and posted in the IATF members only area.

Inspire your inner writer -- audit at Solstice!

I've posted about the value of the Solstice programs many times before and recommend this generous offer without reservation. Read this notice from them and take advantage!

Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Mass, is making a select number of its graduate-level creative writing courses open to the public for auditing during the January Residency of its Solstice MFA Program, scheduled from January 1–10, 2010.

One local writer, a post-graduate student, said: “…I think Solstice MFA classes can fill an unmet need for Boston’s writing community —to provide bursts of momentum to working writers who may not want the intensity of instruction found in either an MFA Program or a long-term advanced level workshop, but can benefit immensely from individual master classes.”

Classes are open to serious writers working at all levels; auditors are encouraged to complete the advance preparation requirements for any MFA class they wish to attend.

January 2010 MFA classes that are open to the public include:

Cross-genre courses:
An Eye for an I: Lyrical Elements in Poetry — A Gift for the Prose Writer
Narrative Arrival: A Craft Class for All Genres

A course on film adaptations of the novel:
Is the Book Always Better?•

Two classes on creative nonfiction:
Every Word Counts: Crafting Nonfiction That Sings
Maxine Hong Kingston: A Trans-Genre Memoirist•

Two fiction courses:
Place in Fiction: Larry McMurtry and Thalia, Texas
Action that Shakes the Page

An in-depth look at poetic structure:
Structure & Artistic Memory

A class on how writers can engage with their communities:
Higher Ground: How to Enrich Your Community and Make a Difference Through Your Art

January 2010 Classes are now available for registration; the deadline for enrolling as an auditor for the Winter 2009 Residency is December 28, 2009. For course descriptions, our audit policy, and a downloadable registration form, go to: www.pmc.edu/mfa

The Leafy Green by Wild Feasties at Verge

Friends, Miamians, art lovers, lend me your palates.

Take a walk over to the Verge Art Fair until Dec 6 and enjoy the artistic interpretation of food - both visually and digestively - in this food-as-performance-art presented by Wild Feasties, "a collective of artists and naturalists...who[se] ... installation projects focus on creating and consuming delicious, local foods."

The Feasties themselves as photographed by Emily Bolevice

An interview with Wild Feastie (and daughter #2) Eliza Stamps (the other Feasties are Carissa Carman and Emily Bolevice) appears in full at Mango&Lime blog. A taste, so to speak:

How did Wild Feasties come about?
We are a collective that began hosting food events from a summer at Chashama North, a residency in Pine Plains, New York. We are all artists and naturalists, invested in the excitement of collaborating and resourcing innovatively.

What can people expect during Art Basel?
We will be presenting The Leafy Green, a tasting of delectable, innovative, yet incredibly simple local food.

In the context of Art Basel, we hope to delight the senses of a fresh market, with curiosity, generosity, play, community and nourishment, to offset the hyper-consumerism of art fair culture.

Collaboration with Confidence Across Companies--Live BusinessWeek TV Video Webcast

Once again, delighted to  appear on a BusinessWeek TV/Cisco live video webcast, "Collaboration with Confidence Across Companies," tomorrow, Thurs, December 3, 2009 at 11am PT, 2pm ET, 7pm GMT.

Our panel, moderated again by Jim Ellis of BusinessWeek, includes Bill Hills, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Collaboration Age Associates and me (both live), and Jeff Stamps, Chief Scientist at NetAge, who will provide expert advice online.

Register here. And please ask lots of questions.

Here's the promo material from BusinessWeek:

Benefit from rich, reliable and secure collaboration across town or across the globe.

This webcast will provide best practices to help your company realize the full potential of collaborative technologies:

• Communicate efficiently and effectively in real-time.
• Exchange information securely across borders and time zones.
• Operate seamlessly with distant partners, suppliers and customers.

In this live discussion you will be able to participate in an interactive question and answer session with our industry experts - all from the comfort of your desktop.

Margaret Fuller in Cambridge, Mass, Thursday morning!

Incredible! The bicentennarian will make an appearance as part of the speakers series at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education at the Blacksmith House, 57 Brattle Street, in Harvard Square, on Thursday, Dec 3rd at 10:30 am.  The program is free & open to the public.

Oh. Jessa Piaia will be there too.

Shop at home, change a life

My college roommate, Sylvia, a font of wisdom, has a great saying for her kids: "If you need something, shop at home first." Well, even for those who hate shopping -- or who need something more than Bandaids, we are all bound to do some in the weeks to come.

Here's a way to do it with a kick - an auction (they're running once a month, this one from today through Dec 7) to benefit the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center (see below for details).

Bling! Brownies! Brady! Babble! (er, the chance to have me speak to your organization)

All good and here's what you're helping:

Located at 130 Boylston St, across from the Boston Common, the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center opened in 1994 to serve the health care needs of homeless youth and young adults, many of whom engage in unsafe sex with adults in exchange for money, food or a place to sleep. 

The Borum provides primary medical care as well as mental health and substance abuse counseling, HIV counseling, testing and risk reduction reinforcement, as well as other clinical and social services.  Its primary focus is on young people who have been unable to gain acceptance in more traditional health care settings for a variety of reasons, including homelessness and involvement in street life and the sex industry. 

The Borum provides care to HIV positive adolescents and young adults and those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender and, therefore, at risk of not receiving culturally and clinically appropriate services. 

Thanksgiving 2009 leftovers

I've made a practice of posting our Thanksgiving menu each year but somehow I didn't quite manage to get this up in advance. So regard this post as a memento similar to the crumpled aluminum foil covering the turkey carcass in the fridge - a reminder of something delicious that perhaps you've lost most interest in.

Our Thanksgiving had the added pleasure of Dutch guests, fitting as this is the 400th anniversary of the Dutch coming to New York, where our meal took place.

One thing of note this year. Discovered that Fine Cooking had a wonderful feature allowing you to choose a dish, get the menu, AND create a shopping list with all your chosen items on it, amounts calculated to include everything. So instead of your sitting around thinking, gee, this calls for 3 carrots and that calls for 5 carrots, the Fine Cooking site automatically adds everything up for you. Great service. Thanks. Suggestion, Fine Cooking: create a little script that allows users to export the list to their favorite online grocery site, Fresh Direct, for instance, thus saving a lot of time picking the list again.

Thanksgiving Menu 2009:

Brined Turkey with ParsleySageRosemary&Thyme Butter
--Excellent but Empire Turkeys come with many pin feathers requiring too much prep time
--also molded some of the butter to serve with rolls

Mushroom Stuffing
--cooked in muffin tins so each person had a little stuffing muffin (my recipe)

Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon Brown Butter and Sage Salt
--superb recipe from NY Times

Sweet Potato and Grits Spoon Bread
--this was the hit of the meal - many steps but worth the trouble

Smashed Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives
--excellent and just like it sounds, very easy, finished in the KitchenAid

Cranberry Sauce with Orange and Rosemary
--really good, even if you don't like cranberry sauce

Roasted Kale
--similar to this recipe; can't beat it for nutritional value and taste, plus someone in our family is addicted to kale, which, as addictions go...

Assorted rolls

Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

Engaging with Grace - encore performance

Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented “blog rally” to promote Engage With Grace – a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes. It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations – our closest friends and family.

Our original mission – to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes – hasn’t changed. But it’s been quite a year – so we thought this holiday, we’d try something different. 

A bit of levity.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We’ve included them at the end of this post.  They’re not easy questions, but they are important.

To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we’d start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:

 

Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like this – just five questions in plain, simple language – can deflate some of the complexity, formality, and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion. 

So with that, we’ve included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them.

Over the past year there’s been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we’ve been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation.

One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife’s preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.

Wishing you and yours a holiday that’s fulfilling in all the right ways.

(To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. )

 

 

What to ask your doc about MS

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to meet Jen Laskey, who writes for Everyday Health (among other places), part of a network of health-related sites with good, practical information. Jen referred me on to this excellent post of hers with questions MS patients can bring to their doctors. Comprehensive, well-organized, nicely written - the whole shebang. Really helpful, Jen.

Another list for virtual teams

Good post on virtual team communication here.

Apple: "Do right" company, at least for this devoted fan, er, customer

I've never been good at hiding my enthusiasms. Thus more than one post here about Apple and the geniuses behind the bar. I've been addicted since the first Apple machine made its way into our house when our kids were little and, save a few years when incompatibility with client systems made its use secondary (those days are long in the past), I've been a happy collector of a long stream of machines.

Almost problem free until that dreaded night in September when my hard drive crashed. Crashed is not sufficiently descriptive. Obliterated three years of work, email, addresses, articles, essays, books, photos...shall I continue?

Did I panic? No, not exactly. I had Time Machine, the "infallible" backup utility that works with Apple's newest operating system, Snow Leopard. It had been running for over a year, the little clock spinning counterclockwise (not sure this makes sense, ultimately, but never mind that). All I had to do was reunite with my backup drive (which I was separated from due to wonderful circumstances).

My drive and I got back together shortly thereafter...and then the horrible reality emerged. Time Machine had not worked, not recorded anything, zippo, zero. I explained the glitch in detail in this post. Briefly, and horrifyingly, Time Machine doesn't** work when one's machine name has non-ASCII characters in it. Huh? Every machine has a name; in my case, the Apple salesperson assigned it when I bought this machine, calling it, brilliantly, "Jessica Lipnack's MacBook Pro 15-inch." That would have two such offending characters in it - the ' and the -. Unfortunately, and contrary to what one would think about Apple's good user support, Time Machine does not issue a warning for this situation; in fact, it appears that the backup system is working, clock spinning and all.

I won't review the many hassles since - except to say that two months and counting, I'm still trying to obtain fully usable files from the disk recovery company, Kroll OnTrack. They're trying, which I appreciate, but we're not there yet.

Apple, meanwhile, has done something quite remarkable. After many calls, escalations, hours on the help line, conversations with very senior technical people and people in customer service, I received a reimbursement from the company a couple of weeks ago. They've asked me not to reveal the precise amount, which I, as a business person, am honoring. Every customer situation is different and I have to agree with them. From my perspective, mine is particularly awful: A 25-year customer and unpaid evangelist for the company experiences horrendous consequences from a malfunctioning product, incalculable, really, in terms of what has slipped away.

Where does this leave me? Convinced that Apple listens, that it, in this case, has honestly owned up to a mistake, and heard that there ultimately is no way to completely fix what happened to me and my files.

What to do going forward? Time Machine is up and running now that I've changed my machine name; the little clock is spinning; I've checked that the files are there (my bad, Apple, for not double checking instead of taking it for granted that spinning meant working); and I'm waiting for the release of a Snow Leopard-compatible version of Carbonite, redundancy being the only remedy in the digital world.

Thanks, Apple. You done right by this woman.

**According to this note on the Apple site, the problem was fixed in the 10.5.2 OSX update.

Apple: "Do right" company, at least for this devoted fan, er, customer

I've never been good at hiding my enthusiasms. Thus more than one post here about Apple and the geniuses behind the bar. I've been addicted since the first Apple machine made its way into our house when our kids were little and, save a few years when incompatibility with client systems made its use secondary (those days are long in the past), I've been a happy collector of a long stream of machines.

Almost problem free until that dreaded night in September when my hard drive crashed. Crashed is not sufficiently descriptive. Obliterated three years of work, email, addresses, articles, essays, books, photos...shall I continue?

Did I panic? No, not exactly. I had Time Machine, the "infallible" backup utility that works with Apple's newest operating system, Snow Leopard. It had been running for over a year, the little clock spinning counterclockwise (not sure this makes sense, ultimately, but never mind that). All I had to do was reunite with my backup drive (which I was separated from due to wonderful circumstances).

My drive and I got back together shortly thereafter...and then the horrible reality emerged. Time Machine had not worked, not recorded anything, zippo, zero. I explained the glitch in detail in this post. Briefly, and horrifyingly, Time Machine doesn't** work when one's machine name has non-ASCII characters in it. Huh? Every machine has a name; in my case, the Apple salesperson assigned it when I bought this machine, calling it, brilliantly, "Jessica Lipnack's MacBook Pro 15-inch." That would have two such offending characters in it - the ' and the -. Unfortunately, and contrary to what one would think about Apple's good user support, Time Machine does not issue a warning for this situation; in fact, it appears that the backup system is working, clock spinning and all.

I won't review the many hassles since - except to say that two months and counting, I'm still trying to obtain fully usable files from the disk recovery company, Kroll OnTrack. They're trying, which I appreciate, but we're not there yet.

Apple, meanwhile, has done something quite remarkable. After many calls, escalations, hours on the help line, conversations with very senior technical people and people in customer service, I received a reimbursement from the company a couple of weeks ago. They've asked me not to reveal the precise amount, which I, as a business person, am honoring. Every customer situation is different and I have to agree with them. From my perspective, mine is particularly awful: A 25-year customer and unpaid evangelist for the company experiences horrendous consequences from a malfunctioning product, incalculable, really, in terms of what has slipped away.

Where does this leave me? Convinced that Apple listens, that it, in this case, has honestly owned up to a mistake, and heard that there ultimately is no way to completely fix what happened to me and my files.

What to do going forward? Time Machine is up and running now that I've changed my machine name; the little clock is spinning; I've checked that the files are there (my bad, Apple, for not double checking instead of taking it for granted that spinning meant working); and I'm waiting for the release of a Snow Leopard-compatible version of Carbonite, redundancy being the only remedy in the digital world.

Thanks, Apple. You done right by this woman.

**According to this note on the Apple site, the problem was fixed in the 10.5.2 OSX update.

Listening to their words

The talented writers who read--and teach--in the Solstice MFA program will warm up the winter nights of January. Plan ahead. I always publish the press release from the program (the only program for which this is so) because I love this series and have been going since it started.

THE SOLSTICE MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM OF PINE MANOR COLLEGE
ANNOUNCES ITS JANUARY READING SERIES

[Chestnut Hill, MA, November, 2009]  The Solstice MFA Program announces its Winter Reading Series, taking place January 1–8 in the Founder’s Room of Pine Manor College, located at 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill. *All readings are at 7:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Authors’ books will be available after all readings; cash-bar receptions will follow the readings on January 3 & 7. Plenty of free parking!
 
Friday, January 1 

Tanya Whiton & Dzvinia Orlowsky
MFA Assistant Director and fiction writer Tanya Whiton & Dzvinia Orlowsky (author of four poetry collections, most recently Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones).
 
*Saturday, January 2 at 8:00

Venise Berry, Meg Kearney, & Laban Carrick Hill
Venise Berry (author of four novels, including the forthcoming Pockets of Sanity);
MFA Director and poet Meg Kearney (author of An Unkindness of Ravens & Home By Now); & Laban Carrick Hill (author of America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s).
 
Sunday, January 3

Anne-Marie Oomen & Special Guest M.L. Liebler
Memoirist and poet Anne-Marie Oomen (author of the forthcoming An American Map) & special guest poet (with musical accompaniment by Anthony Kaczynski) M.L. Liebler (author of 13 books, including Wide Awake in Someone Else’s Dream).
 

Tuesday, January 5

Special Guest Melissa Stewart & Steven Huff
Melissa Stewart (author of numerous children’s books, including Under the Snow) & Steven Huff (author of two poetry collections and the short fiction collection A Pig in Paris).
 
Wednesday, January 6

Laura W. McCaffrey, Ray Gonzalez, & Sandra Scofield
Speculative fiction writer Laura Williams McCaffrey (author of the forthcoming Lyla’s Flight); Ray Gonzalez (author of Faith Run and Cool Auditor: Prose Poems); and Sandra Scofield (National Book Award Finalist for Beyond Deserving; author of seven novels, a memoir, and a craft book).
 
Thursday, January 7

Randall Kenan & Special Guest Dorothy Allison
Multi-genre writer Randall Kenan (author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Let the Dead Bury Their Dead and The Fire This Time) & special guest Dorothy Allison (author of National Book Award finalist Bastard Out of Carolina; Cavedweller; and the forthcoming She Who.
 
Friday, January 8

An Na, Amy Hoffman, & Special Guest Ira Sadoff
An Na (author of The Fold; Wait For Me; and A Step From Heaven); Amy Hoffman (author of the memoirs Hospital Time and An Army of Ex-Lovers); & special guest Ira Sadoff (author of seven collections of poetry, including the recent Barter and Grazing).
 
Directions to Pine Manor College, complete bios of authors, and more information about the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program can be found here.

Wild Feasties: Where food IS art

Heading to Miami for Art Basel and its associated fairs in early December? There, at Verge Art Fair, you can enjoy the aesthetic of consumption (and say hello to one of its creators, Daughter #2):

Wild Feasties is a loose collective of artists and naturalists who all engage with food within their creative endeavors. These endeavors may take place in the studio, in the kitchen, or out in the world. Through our events, we aim for our guests to have an artful food experience; one that stirs the senses, both literally and figuratively. Our cuisine is typically simple, with an emphasis on celebrating the incredible taste of farm fresh vegetables. Wild Feasties events emerge from the location upon which they are set. The menu is determined entirely by what the harvest brings.

At Verge, Miami the Wild Feasties presents a dining experience in an unusual location, using whole food ingredients, where participants are asked to engage and follow a series of instructions and ritual to share a delectable vegetarian meal. Wild Feasties uses the routine of eating as a way of inserting instruction, interactivity, natural foods education, wild food concocting, tasting, experimenting with taste, seasoning with potions, and bringing a sense of true nourishment in a moment of chaotic artistic social affairs.

 

"Talk" about riveting prose

Don't know if you can view this article if you're not a New Yorker subscriber but do whatever you need to in order to read it. "Talk This Way," Alec Wilkinson's portrait of a man who clearly stumbled upon his natural talent then found a way to pick himself up and run is an original. I, for one, knew nothing about how actors learn accents, even as I've marveled at the flawlessness of many. Tim Monich, profiled in depth here, may be the answer. Matt Damon, Hilary Swank, Brad Pitt, Shia LeBeouff and no doubt a much longer list have Monich to thank for sounding variously South African, Amelia Earhartian, German, and as if they're from LungEyeland. One of those couldn't-put-it-down pieces.

Is it really "a great question?"

Another one of those common parlance things that's fun to keep track of - maybe for one meeting's worth... How many times in one day do you hear this? "That's a great question." Is it? Really?