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Hard Candy & Lollipops
Thursday, March 17, 2016
See's Strawberry Cream Lollypops
See's is on trend this year with their new seasonal Lollypop variety, Strawberry Cream Lollypops.
The pop smells mostly of butter, but vaguely like strawberry as well.
The blocky shape isn't the best for comfort, but it's certainly a generous amount for a lollipop. For the most part the dissolve of the See's pops is smooth. It's more like a hard caramel consistency than a hard candy. The candy isn't aerated, so there are fewer voids which makes for a creamy experience and a little slower melt.
The strawberry flavor here is very mild. I was expecting something similar to a strawberry ice cream flavor, mostly the sweetness mixed with milk and maybe a little jammy note. There's no hint of either a fruity tartness or yogurt tang. It's all sweetness, though not cloying or throat searing. The strawberry has a very slight boiled berry note but mostly it's the floral scent.
The lollypop is merely pleasant. It didn't think it's vivid enough or, if that's not its intent, creamy enough. I ate all three that I bought, but I'll switch back to the standards or wait for the exceptional Root Beer to return.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:13 pm Candy • Review • Easter • See's • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Limited Edition • 5-Pleasant • United States •
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Dum-Dums Holiday Pops (Limited Edition)
Dum-Dums are pretty basic, kind of small lollipops. They've always come in a wide variety of flavors that have changed based on popularity. Only recently has Spangler, who makes Dum-Dums, come out with holiday themed product packages of the pops.
The Dum-Dums Limited Edition Holiday Pops is a bag of eight different flavors of individually wrapped lollipops. I believe they were available in 2014, but I just picked them up this year.
Green Apple Grinch - there's nothing grinchy about this flavor, it's straight up fake green apple. The pop is bright green, the flavor is rather thin but definitely sour apple flavor and not actual apple.
Apple Cider is one of the amber colored pops. The flavor is similar to the Green Apple, but less bright, more muted and it has a more apple sauce or honey note to it.
Sugar Cookie is an opaque cream color. It's pleasant but bland, as are sugar cookies. The flavor is creamy without a heavy dose of butter flavor. It's a little vanilla, a little marshmallow. Pretty much a good lollipop. If they added a little nutmeg, I'd call it Egg Nog (and I'd be pretty happy).
Sugar Plum is purple and very pretty, like a little gem. I don't actually know what a real sugar plum is but I can tell you that this one is vaguely grape.
Hot Cocoa looks like the Gingerbread or Apple Cider pop, but it's a little more milky or opaque. I was expecting this to be horrible, but it's actually a passable chocolate marshmallow flavor. The cocoa smells a little musty and thin, but the flavor has a creamy vanilla note, like a marshmallow that holds it together.
Gingerbread is one of the beige ones. It's sweet and has a light note of spice that features a little ginger, a little cinnamon. One of the things about gingerbread-the-baked-good that I like is the molasses, and there's no note of that here.
Polar Punch is very blue. It's a tropical punch flavor with a distinct raspberry note to it. There's a long-lingering aftertaste of the berry flavor that isn't necessarily unpleasant, but I also had a blue tongue for a while.
Merry Cherry is red. I haven't had a cherry Dum-Dums for a while, so I can't say if this is any different. It's sweet and don't really have a tangy fruit note to it. It wasn't like a wild cherry Life Saver, it was more like a cough drop. I find cherry to be rather medicinal, and this was especially so. But I know some folks like the flavor.
I love this idea, and I'd like to see it with a few more specialty flavors, like an Egg Nog, maybe something Cranberry, Peppermint Stick, Rum Raisin. If they're making things that are bacon flavor, they can absolutely go way out there with Speculoos and Bailey's Irish Creme.
Each pop is about 25 calories, so they're a petite treat that should fit into most regular diets. They last a little longer than a traditional hard candy because it's on a stick and is a bit more interactive. Dum-Dums are made in the USA in a facility free from major allergens: peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, wheat and gluten.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:55 pm Candy • Review • Christmas • Spangler Candy • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Limited Edition • 6-Tempting • United States • Walgreen's •
Monday, December 1, 2014
Soda Pop Candy Canes
Early in the Christmas season, it seems that the first candy to hit the shelves are candy canes. Partly, I think, because they were made months ago because hard candy keeps very well.
There are so many kinds of candy canes these days, usually branded with other candies names and flavor varieties. There are: Starburst, Red Hots, Lemonheads, SweeTarts, Warheads, DumDums ... Bacon. They all pretty much look the same, They're five or six inches long and have a little hook at the end.
In the case of Frankford's Soda Pop Candy Canes, each candy cane is 1/2 ounce, which is a very generous size for a piece of sugar candy. There are 12 canes in the box, which is a bit of overpackaging ... but did protect my canes and is at least recyclable cardboard. There are three flavors: Orange Crush, Dr Pepper and A&W Root Beer. Yes, they're soda pop flavors, but there's no cola in there. This is where I went down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole…. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group also owns Squirt and Wink (both grapefruit sodas), IBC Root Beer and Hires Root Beer in addition to A&W Root Beer. Finally, they have RC Cola, which seems like the flavor they definitely left out here.
I've been warming up to the flavor of cherry in candies, so I'm wondering if I can also learn to love the flavor of Dr Pepper as well. The red candy candy certainly looks attractive, and just slightly different from a peppermint candy cane ... so that I didn't expect mint. I didn't photograph it, but the center of this candy cane is also red. The flavor is rather like Dr Pepper. It's sort of black cherry and amaretto, though I've heard that it's also supposed to be plum flavored. There's no acidic bite, which you get a little with the soda version. Overall, it's pleasant, it's not very intense or vibrant, more of a soft flavor like vanilla. I didn't care for how red it made my tongue, but that's a personal preference.
Orange Crush is tangy and much more intense that I would have suspected, with a sort of sherbet creamy note. It's a solid orange flavor, artificial but still well rounded.
A&W Root Beer smells nice right away. The flavor is sweet and soft, not too intense. It doesn't have the peppery kick that some root beers sometimes show, instead it's more on the mild and creamy spice side of things. Though there are lots of artificial colors in there, I didn't notice them giving a bitter taste.
I think the flavor array is interesting, a little off the beaten path without alienating older folks with things that are too sour. There are a lot of other great soda flavors that Dr Pepper owns that would go great ... especially 7 Up and Vernors Ginger Ale. The colors are also a bit atypical, but I enjoy a little change from the standard green and red.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:10 pm Candy • Review • Christmas • Frankford Candy • Hard Candy & Lollipops • 6-Tempting • United States • Target •
Friday, October 10, 2014
Trader Joe's Pumpkin Seed Brittle
There probably isn't a store as pumpkinfused as Trader Joe's around this time of year. They have a mix of actual pumpkin items and some that are just utilizing the pumpkin spice array. Happily here's a new candy from Trader Joe's that has a little of both: Trader Joe's Pumpkin Seed Brittle Dusted with Sugar and Pumpkin Pie Spice. See, it's not pumpkin flesh that's in there, it's the pumpkin seeds.
The quaint box holds a simple plastic bag filled with a stack of roughly broken brittle pieces. The picture on the box does represent the contents well.
What I found most alluring was that this list of ingredients actually said which pumpkin pie spices they were using: cinnamon, ginger, lemon peel, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom. (I find it interesting that cloves is plural.)
The smell of the brittle is dominated by cinnamon, but there's a sugary, buttery component as well. The pieces vary in size, some as big as three inches long, others are just little shards. They're coated in mostly-sugar dusting of spices. There are pumpkin seeds embedded in there, but not as many as I would have liked, it's mostly candy.
The bite is easy, as the pieces are pretty thin. The sugar gets everywhere, though it does a good job of sticking to the brittle as well. The effect of the whole thing, probably because of the easy crunch and sanding is more like a cookie. It's crunchy and sweet, with a nice balance of textures between the smooth toffee-like brittle (which contains dairy ingredients) and the chewy seeds and grainy sugar. The pumpkin spices are balanced, though it smells like cinnamon, the more nutty and woodsy flavors of the nutmeg and cardamom come through along with a light warmth from the ginger and cinnamon. The lemon keeps it all bright.
It's simple to enjoy a piece, and it goes well with some nice strong coffee or a cup of tea, just like a cookie would. I would still like more pepitas in there.
The candy contains dairy, corn and wheat ingredients and may also contain traces of peanuts, pecans, almonds, cashews and coconut.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:58 am Candy • Review • Halloween • Trader Joe's • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Nuts • 7-Worth It • United States •
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Crunch 'n Chew
Last year Jolly Rancher introduced Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Lollipops for Halloween. They're back again, along with a version of the more recent Crunch 'n Chew in the same flavor.
The Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Crunch 'n Chew is available in large lay down bags and even this little individual portion size. The individually wrapped candies are quite different from the traditional Jolly Rancher hard candies.
In this case the candy features a hard candy shell in two flavors, caramel and apple. Then there's a soft chewy filling in a caramel flavor.
Crunch 'n Chew were introduced in 2012 and come in the standard Jolly Rancher flavors (green apple, blue raspberry, watermelon and cherry). As I noted in my original review, they're interesting but lack some of the great features I love about Jolly Rancher hard candies, which is the smooth dissolve without any voids and the light pliability of the candy as it melts. All that Jolly Rancher brings to the table here is the name recognition that basically invented the green apple flavor.
The image on the front of the package isn't quite accurate (it's also enlarged to show detail). It shows that the candy filling is a large portion of the mass of the candy, and that the caramel and apple portions are equal. Cleaving a piece in half showed that the caramel is actually a thin layer on top of the apple (which is fine, really, because that's the way actual caramel apples are), but it's the relatively small amount of chewy filling that's revealed here.
The brown layer is polite and has a sweet brown sugar flavor. The green part is green apple, which is tart and artificial and mostly tasty. The crunch takes a little while. I don't feel confident crunching right away, I usually let the candy dissolve for about 30 seconds. The filling is quite stiff and hard to chew, though the work is worth it. The center isn't really much, it's sweet and has a note of butter flavor to it. But the combination of all the elements chewed together is, well, impressively original.
It's probably not a candy I would buy in the large 10 ounce bag, but this little 1.55 ounces was fun and I'll probably finish the bag. Of the three candies I've tried now: the classic flavor Crunch 'n Chew, the Caramel Apple Lollipop and these Caramel Apple Crunch 'n Chew, I think these are by far the most successful.
Like the Caramel Apple Lollipops, these contain no dairy ingredients, so they may be a good option for someone who wants a caramel experience but is lactose intolerant. (There's no actual allergen statement though, so check with Hershey's if you have any allergy issues.) The candy also contains soy and gelatin (so it's not vegetarian). They're made in Brazil.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:36 am Candy • Review • Halloween • Hershey's • Chews • Hard Candy & Lollipops • 7-Worth It • Brazil • Target •
Monday, September 22, 2014
See's Caramel Apple Lollypops
See's Candies is a classic American confectionery company that makes good quality chocolates. They're sold almost exclusively at See's Candies stores, which are mostly found in malls, and mostly in the Western US but they're also available online and from the occasional educational fundraiser.
Though See's is known for their chocolates they also make a unique line of lollipops that are like a hard caramel on a stick. Over the past five years they've created seasonal varieties with more trendy flavors like Pumpkin Spice and Orange Creme. I wasn't at all surprised to see the announcement that in additional to their Pumpkin Spice and Orange Chocolate this fall, they were also bringing out See's Caramel Apple Lollypops.
Their pops are available singly at the stores or in bags of 8 online. If you've never had a See's lollypop, they're about 3/4 of an ounce block of hard caramel with a stick. The shape is blocky, about 1 inch wide and 1.5 inches tall.
It smells like apples, not the green apples of Jolly Rancher, but more like apple cider.
The flavor is immediately caramel and a little dash of salt with a note of apple peels. There's no tartness, no tang; the apple flavor is less of a caramel covered apple and more like an apple pie with caramel sauce. The wonderful part of these lollies is that the dissolve is so smooth and it feels a lot more filling that its 70 calories might have you believe.
I enjoyed them quite bit. The items that detracted are the same problems I always have. The paper stick gets soggy and more often than not, the caramel block comes off the stick while the piece is really too big to hold comfortably in my mouth. Often there is a series of holes within the candy running its length which makes sucking on the pop problematic because it's more like a straw where you suck in air than speed up the dissolve of the candy. See's makes mini versions of their classic flavors, but not of the seasonal, limited edition ones.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:44 pm Candy • Review • Halloween • See's • Caramel • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Kosher • 7-Worth It • United States •
Friday, September 19, 2014
Smarties Double Lollies and Mega Lollies
Smarties are little tart wafer candies that have been made for 65 years. They're a little bland but pretty much irresistible and ubiquitous starting around Halloween each year.
To backtrack a little bit, this category of candy is called Compressed Dextrose. Dextrose is just a fancy way of saying sugar, but not the regular table sugar we're used to, which is sucrose. Dextrose is the dry form of glucose, the same stuff in corn syrup. Dextrose is the basis of a lot of compressed tablet candies, like SweeTarts, Spree and Runts as well as Smarties.
Glucose so bio-available that you can absorb it into your bloodstream sublingually. Many parents use Smarties as emergency glucose tablets because they're readily available, easy to portion, inexpensive and not hard to get a child to eat. I'm quite fond of Smarties, but that straight glucose often goes straight to my bloodstream and the subsequent crash means I rarely buy a whole bag. The Double Lollies are preferable conceptually, then, because they're only 8 grams each. Since they're usually sold by the piece and more expensive than the rolls, this naturally limits my indulgence.
The regular sized lolly has been around for years, though I can't say for sure that I was always eating the Smarties brand. The Smarties Double Lolly is two flavors. Though they're probably in several flavors, I could only find orange and yellow.
They're chalky and dry, but have a pleasant citrus flavor overall. They're tangy and grainy, dissolve quickly but leave a powdery mess if biting the small pop doesn't go well. I don't find sucking on it goes very well. The chalk is absorbent, and while that's fine for hard candies, I don't like seeing my lollipop now darkened and cooled by my spit. (Hence my biting usually.)
Interestingly the website for Smarties says that the Double Lolly is free of gluten (from wheat, barley, oats and rye), milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts or soybeans. However, it does not say that for the Mega Lolly.
I bought two of the Mega Lollies, one was lemon and orange and the other was orange and grape. The grape smelled floral and soapy. The pop itself is too big to comfortably fit in the mouth, so even if I were the type who liked to suck my regular Smarties lollies, the Mega just wasn't going to work. It's too dry, too awkward. Biting produced a mess of powder.
The odd part about the ingredients is the Calcium Stearate. It's a flow agent and keeps the powder from caking. But the side benefit to this ingredient is that it contains large amounts calcium - a single Mega Lolly has 6% of your RDA.
Too big, too dry, not a good value and not enough control. The classic size doesn't have most of those challenges, but I'll stick to the rolls of Smarties tablets.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:11 pm Candy • Review • Ce De Candies • Compressed Dextrose • Hard Candy & Lollipops • 5-Pleasant • United States •
Friday, April 18, 2014
Pelino Confetti Flowers
A classic item for wedding favors are little parcels of confetti. Confetti is a generic Italian term for panned candies such as Jordan almonds, coated nuts, mints and of course chocolate. Tradition is a little sachet of five pieces, symbolizing health, wealth, fertility, happiness and longevity for the couple and their guests.
Another style of presenting the panned sweets is to wrap the little pieces up and form them into flowers and other shapes. I've seen these for years, I remember seeing a display of them in New York City's Little Italy in a deli by the counter. They were so pretty, I'm not sure I even understood that the petals were edible. This photos shows them made with Jordan almonds and tucked into crepe paper. I've seen them made with cellophane which can be clear or tinted as well as tule mesh, which can also be uncolored or tinted (but probably isn't sanitary).
I picked up this little bouquet in London at Harrod's in their Easter display. It was expensive for so little actual candy, £3.50 for about 15 little pieces (about $5.85 USD). It's made by Confetti Pelino of Sulmona, Italy. They were established in 1783, in a region of Italy that's well known for this traditional and painstaking method of confectionery.
This isn't as much a review of the candy as it is a deconstruction of the assembly of the five stems of flowers.
The bouquet is held together by green floral tape and decorated with green crepe paper leaves of the same color. It's pretty top heavy, as the candy petals are thick and will tip over the little bouquet when placed in a water glass or wine glass (so be careful if you're playing with these at a wedding reception). Each little flower is on a stem of wire, held together with tape and string. Floral tape isn't exactly sticky, so there's no issue of excessive adhesive with these. It unravels quite easily.
Each little piece of candy is a small, circular disk covered in cellophane. The cellophane is twisted together, the pointed, twisted ends are then tied together with a bit of string, and then taped onto the wire stem.
The candy at the center of these isn't a Jordan almond, just a little sugar disk. It's kind of bland, and as far as I can tell, unflavored. It dissolves and tastes like, well, sugar.
As candy, it's expensive and darned difficult to eat because of all the string and wire and tape and wrappers. As a favor or decoration is classically charming. There are a lot of different ways to achieve these with different colors of candy, different sizes, different tape and leaves or flower shapes. Harrod's is a fine place to buy one bunch if you're curious, but if you're interested in using them as favors or centerpieces, do some research on which will suit you best.
Though chocolate candies could be used, I would advise folks to stick to centers that are more weather-tolerant. It'd be fun to make them with M&Ms or Reese's Pieces, but I can't imagine anything with a lot of oil in it would do well with the heat of being handled a lot or possibly sitting in the sun or a hot car. I looked around to find a tutorial for making these but didn't have much luck (if you know of one, please leave a link in the comments). I can imagine that the same techniques could also be used to make candy wreaths, garlands and other styles of centerpieces.
Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:08 pm Candy • Review • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Novelty/Toy • 6-Tempting • Italy •
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.


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Thursday, May 16, 2013
June 18th Release for New Neil Gaiman Novel
As proof of just how much I enjoy Neil Gaiman's work, today I pre-ordered his new novel "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" on CD from Amazon. I don't remember ever pre-ordering any book by any author, but Gaiman's first novel written for adults in nearly ten years seemed to warrant it. From the sound of things, the novel leans more toward horror than some of his work and, after doing a little internet surfing, I found that it is already planned for a movie adaptation as well. With "American Gods" slated to be an HBO series soon, I have a lot of Neil Gaiman to look forward to.
at 8:08 AM

subset: commoncrawl


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It's time again to answer questions from you, my vigilant fans! Got a question for the Governor? Sound off at Ora.tv/OffTheGrid.
Yousef Alvi From Illinois: My question is what is your opinion on the human rights violations against Palestinians by the Israelis.
Jesse Says:
It's a mess over there that I don't think will ever be solved. It's a fight over religion, so it's going to last forever. And you don't see religions changing their policy or beliefs too often.
-Jesse Ventura
Marco Carlson From Ohio: My 10th grade English class is required to read the book, Killing Kennedy, written by Bill O' Reilly. What do you think of this atrocity?
Jesse Says:
If they make you read Bill O' Reilly's book, then it should be mandatory to also read Harold Weisberg's book "Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report". When you read it, you wont believe a thing that that was written in the Warren Report.
-Jesse Ventura
Sam Liam From Chicago asks: Did you always want to be a governor?
Jesse Says:
I never thought about being a governor or even a politician, but like Yogi Berra always said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
I've always lived my life that way. I've gone the direction that I've gone and when an opportunity presented itself I would either accept it or ignore it. Politics just happened to present itself over a local neighborhood issue. And that's what set me on the path to becoming a governor.
-Jesse Ventura
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC its affiliates, or its employees.
More from Jesse Ventura's Off The Grid
Jesse Ventura: How Bernie Sanders Sold Out
Jesse Ventura remembers his hero, Muhammad Ali
Jesse Ventura: Snowden performed public service & is a hero
Jesse Ventura: Why voters should listen to Gov. Gary Johnson
Jesse Ventura: Clinton will do anything to win, even pick Sanders as VP
Jesse Ventura: Here's one reason why I can't be president
Is there hope for our economy? Most Americans don't think so.
Jesse Ventura: I am not running for president


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Realy b ded.
Ed Bradley was never played in a game.
Pick some famous people you think are going to die soon. Whoever gets the most right wins.
© 2019 Stiffs.com
The Mother of All Politicians, she was poppin' 'em out like larvae for decades. She had to, apparently, to keep up with the mortality rate.
(d) January 22nd, 1995


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Now Playing;
Walk off the Earth
I haven't had such a funny out in such a long time, and waking up without a headache is always a bonus! So I got up early and walked to our local garden centre. I find it so relaxing, checking out the aquarium, rabbits, guinea pigs and of course the food and home section!
I'm not sure if I have mentioned already that I am saving to buy a house, and ever since I have decided that I want to buy rather than rent, I am getting more and more into interior design. I already know what colours I want my walls and what kind of sofa i'd buy. I am so far away from buying at the moment but there is no harm in dreaming is there?


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rhizomes.03 fall 2001
Practicing What They Teach
Reviews by Carol Siegel
Joanna Frueh. Monster / Beauty: Building the Body of Love. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. pp xi-339. ISBN 0-520-22114-1.
Ladelle McWhorter. Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999. pp vii-260. ISBN 0-253-21325-8.
[1] Once upon a time the life of the mind was supposed to be sweet, deviant fun. It was the defiant alternative to "being come to sense" and so electing to "fumble in a greasy till." It was the choice of those who could not endure that "Getting and spending: we lay waste our powers," and preferred to spend their days and nights "getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time." Many of us still teach the texts from Yeats, Wordsworth, and Pater containing these passages, but when one looks at the solemn, joyless business that now dominates most of academe, it is hard to maintain that these texts are still, as we used to say in the 60's, relevant to our lives.
[2] Americans inhabit a divisive culture, one of whose greatest divides has traditionally been between those who choose to invest in creating a more secure financial future and those who choose to spend their time and money on pleasurable experiences. Historically, few have been affluent enough to achieve a satisfactory degree of both. The current shrinking of the middle class and increasing national opposition to support for fine arts and education, at least in the form of paying professional-level salaries to the people who make the art and those who teach in the Humanities, has pushed many such intellectuals to live prudently bourgeois lives. This is most noticeably manifested in the tendency of the majority of academics to prioritize property ownership above more directly pleasurable aspects of life, including our traditional indulgence in books and the visual arts. And for evidence that this is so, one need look no further than the current practice of academic search committees who arrange for meetings between prospective hires and local realtors as a matter of course, but rarely even suggest showing the job seeker local libraries, museums, galleries, or theaters. Is it any wonder then that the so-called theory revolution has so far resulted mainly in a lot of abstract talk and very little revolutionary change in theorist's daily practices? Or that Foucault, who frequently tried to remind us that "one is not radical because one pronounces a few words; no, the essence of being radical is physical," is remembered primarily as a theorist of discourse, which is conceived by many as if it had no concrete, real world sources? No, but help for the would-be radical academic is here in the form of two autobiographical, philosophical guides to transforming one's life through pleasure.
[3] In his preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, Foucault sets out as an "essential principle" for everyday life: "Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality (and not its retreat into the forms of representation) that possesses revolutionary force." This could serve as well as an epigraph for both Bodies and Pleasures and Monster / Beauty. Above all else these are books about joyful revolution through physically connecting with the real world around us.
[4] Although Joanna Frueh mentions Foucault's ideas from time to time, her book centers on her own experiences as a performance artist, a professor, and a lover, and explores the luscious overlap between these roles. Ladelle McWhorter's book is more conventionally academic in that its ostensible purpose is to defend Foucault from the much repeated accusation that his theories cannot lead to effective political action. Therefore, I will start with McWhorter, for she lays the theoretical groundwork for understanding radical self-transformation not as a possible activity we might engage in if we have some spare time, but as an essential element of the life of any politically-engaged academic. Once one sees how logically and unavoidably her conclusions derive from post-structuralist philosophy, one can see that a life like Frueh's should not be considered a curiosity but a model for anyone who professes to be an intellectual today.
[5] Above all else, McWhorter's book is a detailed description of how Foucauldian askesis remade her sense of bodily presence. Through "intense and reflective self-cultivation" she trained her body so that it was no longer one of "the normalized natural bodies" formed in relation to the "functional norms" of our culture, but instead a site of resistance to the discourses of homophobia that had previously filled her with impotent rage (189, 157). Her "psycho-physical development" through pleasures like learning to line dance and creating an organic garden reconstructs her as a free being, not because she has escaped oppressive forces but because she feels confident, in her flesh as well as her mind, that she can stand up to them and assert her own perspective (172).
[6] This hard-won confidence is movingly illustrated by her tale of a confrontation with the Virginia General Assembly, when tradition demands that the Assembly members stand and applaud all visitors, including the pink triangle-wearing group of gay rights activists to which she belongs, Virginians for Justice. Before facing these notoriously conservative politicians, she "takes several long, deep breaths" and then goes on because she knows that only through physically standing before them and demanding her rights can she "ever learn to feel, all the way down to [her] gallbladder and deep into [her] bones, that their support and civic respect are something [she] deserve[s]" (220). She describes the forced recognition she received that day as "thrilling beyond description." However, her vivid account does conjure up much of the exhilaration she felt at "causing a room full of homophobic good old boys to look into our queer faces, to share space with our queer bodies, and to greet us like fellow citizens" (222).
[7] One of the most charming things about McWhorter's persona in this tale of the development of her body and mind is how ordinary she represents herself as being. The child of a white, rural Southern family without much money, McWhorter initially resists being defined as "different." Three paragraphs in her account of her early life begin, "I did not want to be a homosexual." This is no defiant rebel, seeking an identity in opposition to the mundane world around her. Even after accepting being labeled a lesbian, McWhorter retains a strong identification with the people she came from. Here's how she confronts her own uneasy recognition that the line dancing she enjoys "more than anything else" is quintessentially a "redneck" thing:
"I could give in to the vast majority who equate rednecks with ignorant, violent bigots and who devalue all aspects of rural Southern culture, including its music and art forms. In order to fit the mold of the well-educated, sophisticated, enlightened and unprejudiced college professor, I could distance myself from my heritage. I could act as if I didn't come from there. I could stop dancing and put the boots away. But I love them far too much. . . . I just have to accept and live with the reality of race as part of the practice of overcoming dualism."
Then she adds, "it makes me very angry that there is so little room in our society for the notion of a well-educated, decent, peace-loving redneck" (174). The profound joy she experiences in a dance so well-suited to her sense of self inspires her to fight for that sense of self as something valuable, rather than shameful. As with her appearance before the General Assembly, McWhorter emphasizes that these are political acts that have as their essence the pursuit of physically pleasurable sensations.
[8] Letting us in on the process of this sort of self-examination is not the only way that McWhorter keeps it real. The examples she uses to explain complex philosophical concepts and to illustrate her arguments have the freshness of reference to a world immediately, recognizably similar to that which the majority of people inhabit. For instance, in order to show us why Foucault's much criticized belief that discourses of resistance cannot exist outside the dominant discourses they oppose "does not necessarily lead to either relativism or nihilism," McWhorter tells us a little story about what happened when her "second cousin Rory decided to close out his checking account and buy his family a new refrigerator" (43). Such passages succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in making a whole seminar full of students I was trying to introduce to theory comfortable with contemporary philosophy. If you are looking for a book to help your upper-division and beginning graduate students understand central debates over Foucault's usefulness to feminism, queer studies, and radical political thought, this is it.
[9] But, despite how ideal an introductory philosophy textbook this is, Bodies and Pleasures is much more. It reads like an exciting novel about a timid and in many ways unexceptional woman who has the good sense to be terrified of the dominant powers that have worked all her life to impose degrading labels on her and to rob her of self-respect and happiness but who one day decides that she is "tired of being demoralized." After describing the State of Virginia's "lack of civil rights and protections for gay people," she tells us, "If I lose my job, I thought, let it be because I stood up and challenged the law rather than because some sneak outted me to the authorities" (218-19). Without a single touch of self-aggrandizement, McWhorter makes us understand the courage it takes to be a Foucauldian philosopher in the true spirit of queer "Saint Foucault." Perhaps her most important lesson is this, "We can't just say no to sexual regimes; if we want to undermine the regimes of power and knowledge that oppress and threaten to dominate us, we have to cultivate a new way of life that stands counter to them and eventually that is just other to them" (190).
[10] I certainly would not want to claim that this sort of resistance is easier for McWhorter than it would be for a heterosexual or to imply that she is fortunate that she belongs to a group so despised and persecuted that she is forced to choose either the living death of compliance or else the revolutionary "self-overcoming through aesthetic pleasures" (a chapter title) that her book promotes. However, as McWhorter herself points out, heterosexuals face different challenges because heterosexual desire's only defense in our sex-phobic culture is that it "contribute[s] to the perpetuation and strengthening of the species" (129). In other words heterosex is tolerated because it is seen as useful to the group in the largest sense. Thus the heterosexual would-be sex-radical must find, and make public, a relationship to the body and its pleasures that does not treat sexual experience as a means to a putatively greater end than pleasure. Art historian and performance artist Joanna Frueh's Monster / Beauty is a testament to just how equal she is to this challenge.
[11] Filled with exquisite photographs of herself and other women whose beauty exceeds the narrow categories of mainstream aesthetics, this is a book to savor. Like McWhorter's, it can be read as if it were a novel, for enjoyment alone, because it tells highly entertaining stories about the author's uninhibited, pleasure-seeking. Unlike McWhorter, Frueh shows herself fully aware of how unusual she is, and revels in that difference. The worst horror for her seems to be feeling ordinary:
"I look at people marked by fear and fragility and glutted with information, which has become false lifeblood. Their skin is lackluster. This is bloodcurdling for sometimes I can't tell if I am any different." (315)
Luckily such moods are of very short duration.
[12] What makes Frueh different from the "lackluster" people she often sees milling around her is that she has the beauty that comes from a profound appreciation of her own fleshly, bodily life and the erotic enjoyment it can provide. In addition, she glories in a feminism characterized predominately by delighted perception of the beauty of other free-spirited women. As she says, "Pleasure is an ultimate antidote that detoxifies women's bodies both of intimate's criticisms and of the medical and beauty industries' poisons" (27). And although she takes pleasure in recognizing how different she is from those around her who are stunned into dullness by the processes of normalization, she generously praises notable women -- and men -- who pursue sensual pleasures as a means of radical self-fashioning.
[13] She recounts how one day, as a young woman in therapy, she realized that "pleasure is the point of living" and she afterward "never doubted the truth of my statement" (208). She finds fidelity to this credo in diverse places. The book discusses female body builders, women who take pleasure in their own aging, s/m practitioners, artists of transgression, and various other self-made "Icons of Pleasure," including even "Vampiric Strategies." She even takes the risk of defending academic sexual outlaws. In resistance to administrative/cultural demands that professors present themselves as asexual, she asserts, "the parent-child model denies that everyone is more or less erotically embodied and potentially extremely so and that such embodiment provokes amorous feelings" (225). Her text does look into the negative repercussions of such denial, but mainly it explores the territory with which she is more familiar, "the delight one experiences in being a relatively unashamed body" (291).
[14] A surface description of most of the personal practices Frueh discloses here would not sound particularly radical. She does not think professors should have sex with their students. She seems to enjoy committed, long term relationships. She obviously cares about her attractive home, and she puts considerable energy into maintaining its beauty and that of her garden. She enjoys weight training and talking with friends in outdoor cafés. And she loves to sit at her desk and write. But she does all these things with a distinctive difference. Activities that I never imagined could have any erotic component, such as shopping for furniture, are revealed to be sources of delicious experimentation with new ways of feeling and of being. Frueh's radicalism inheres in the ways her practices refresh the everyday and inextricably link feminism with ecstasy:
"Without pleasure one dies aesthetically and erotically -- poisoned by thinking that the prosaic is boring, by existing in amusement rather than in erotics. Assenting to pleasure and thereby activating it is a key to women's taking themselves seriously, to their becoming erotically large -- elegant and thinking bodies" (186).
Beauty, pleasure, intellectualism, feminism. Frueh insists that they are not in opposition to each other and, indeed, when they are fully physically realized, belong together. Just as McWhorter, and Foucault, and Wordsworth, and Pater, and Yeats do.
[15] But the very act of placing these authors among those more famous names could raise questions about their radicalism. One may ask whether a radical agenda can really be advanced by the texts of canonical authors or by books like these which come to us with the endorsement of major academic presses. Can the academic bourgeois status quo really be troubled from within? Foucault, of course, would answer that it is only from within the discourses of power that resistance can speak, but let us leave him aside for the moment and compare these books some others in what seems to be rapidly developing into a genre, feminist autobiographical criticism/theory.
[16] Historically feminism has often relied on personal testimony and the authority of experience. But the modes in which experience is employed to authorize opinions vary. The most apparent difference is between authors who generalize their own experience as representative of women as a group and authors who present us with their experience as exemplary of differences between women and within feminism. The much discussed problem with first group of writings is best represented for me by Jane Thompkins's famous 1987 essay, "Me and My Shadow" in which she assumes women find the language of Foucault and Deleuze "incredibly alienating," a poor fit to our lived physicality, "like wearing men's jeans" (1110, 1105). Since my initial experience of Deleuze's prose made me understand Keats's reaction to Chapman's Homer and my body shape is such that men's jeans are the only comfortable pants I have ever known, Thompkins loses me, as do Elaine Showalter and Marjorie Garber, among many others, who try to tell me how (all) women feel, by presenting themselves as emblematic.
[17] Women of color have always been leaders in the other mode of autobiography-based theorizing. Sister/outsiders from Audre Lorde on, position their lives as extraordinary to effect, among other goals, a deliberate problematizing of bourgeois feminism's totalizing vision of Woman. Sex radical theorists like Eve Sedgewick and Amber Hollibaugh insist on queering the norms of female identity in the name of feminism. And then there is Gloria Anzaldùa, whose position between races and genders, has been the basis for a re-envisioning of feminist identity as inescapably and transformatively mixed.
[18] Frueh's and McWhorter's books stand out in that they resist this dichotomy. They are feminist theoretical autobiographers whose self-presentation neither essentializes nor aims to combats essentialization. They each recognize that some of their experiences have been typical of most women and that many others have been extraordinary in the extreme. But this is never their main point. The main point is always their insistence on the value of pleasure as a force that deconstructs the social and cultural identities forced upon us, that takes us beyond the binary oppositions so useful to political structures that must literally divide and conquer not just groups of women, but the body and the mind.
[19] Post-structuralism was supposed to take us beyond binarity, to deconstruct the either/or thinking that makes most people's lives such hell that, as Freud observed, their the only pleasure they can know is the reduction of unpleasure. The system in which we now live is built on a binary opposition between mind and body, as both McWhorter and Frueh discuss, and also on an opposition between erotic pleasure and bourgeois respectability, especially as the latter is manifested in the pursuit of material security. We are told that, as thinking, intelligent people, we should want to comply with mainstream values. For only thus will we deserve the material comforts allowed by the salaries that we are so begrudgingly given. Our allegiance should be to the bourgeoisie whose offspring we teach and not to the often radical and disruptive works of art and philosophy that constitute the actual subject matter of our teaching. Our bodies should be valued because we devote them to serving the forces of normalization. They and all the practices in which they publicly engage should stand as the living signs of our compliance to mainstream standards of propriety. These two wonderful books show us what it might be like to live otherwise. And exactly how Foucault's promise is fulfilled because when one lives otherwise, one can think that way, too.


text: We installed some knitting out in front of Dharma Trading last week and they very cleverly called the Marin IJ and reported it. The nice reporter called me, interviewed me and had the story on the web in 4 hours. Read it here. I think this yarnbombing has been fun for the people who work at Dharma and those who visit. I have had years of pleasure visiting the delicious yarn at Dharma. This yarnbombing art is definitely about the happiness and comfort of touching and knitting yarn.


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Managing your IT environment can be complex, time-consuming and costly. Moreover, a constantly evolving business landscape means that your IT needs to be more responsive, deliver better performance, and be flexible enough to support innovation…all in the face of tightening budgets and limited resources.
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Sunday, 8 August 2010
Word Watch
New phrases and buzzwords seem to leap in and out of fashion at an alarming rate so I've decided to pin down the ones I've noticed lately, before they vanish back into thin air:
man crush
girl crush
brain snap
Any other suggestions gratefully accepted
man crush
girl crush
brain snap
Any other suggestions gratefully accepted
6 comments:
nanna chic (it means op shop finds I think)ReplyDelete
M-H: Damn, I was hoping it meant that, after a lifetime of dishevelment, you finally achieved chic in your twilight years. I'd been looking forward to that.ReplyDelete
man crush has moved on. It's now a 'Bromance'ReplyDelete
You are so cutting edge, Worm. I suppose you know who Justin Bieber is as wellReplyDelete
- Anonymous13 August 2010 at 18:19
From my observations round the Uni I think its true meaning is "really old clothes that your chic nanna wouldn't be seen dead in but young women can wear in layers of clashing colours over black tights".ReplyDelete
M-H - what I especially like about your comment is the acknowledgment within it that a 'chic nanna' can exist.ReplyDelete
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Roque Nublo
"Worshiped moonrock, in your shadow I have born, in your shadow I want to live" – those words, dedicated to Roque Nublo in a anthem of the island.
A huge 80 metres high rock, is a pride of Gran Canaria. In the height of 1,803 metres this volcanic monolith captures the attention from far away. For the hiking lovers it is a nice place to have a good walk, as well as for any kind of visitors.
The access is very easy – only 30 minute walk up from the nearest parking place to see the peak and all its surroundings. A breathtaking view – you can see the island from above, the city, the ocean. If you are lucky, in a sunny day you might see the highest peak in the Canary islands, and third highest volcano in the world – Teide in Tenerife.
It is one of the biggest rocks in the world! The name means The Rock in The Clouds, meaning that it is so high that reaches the clouds!
In a map you can see two ways of going to Roque Nublo.
From north – Las Palmas to Roque Nublo, or from south – Maspalomas to Roque Nublo.
View Roque Nublo in a larger map
GuayadequeJune 1st, 2016
Roque NubloNovember 20th, 2012
Jardín CanarioNovember 20th, 2012
Caldera de BandamaNovember 15th, 2012
Magical DamsNovember 15th, 2012


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This statement was originally published on pakistanpressfoundation.org on 26 November 2015.
The office of the Christian web television channel, Gawahi, was destroyed in a fire that erupted in the early hours of November 23, 2015 in Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan.
The office of the web television channel was set up in a residential building. According to the police, the equipment worth two million rupees
(approximately US$20,000) was destroyed in the fire. Fortunately, no casualty was recorded as the fire brigade was able to rescue the building residents in time.
According to Sarfraz William, director of the web office, local media alleged the fire was set by some miscreants who wanted to destroy the office. He further stated that chemicals were used to damage computers and other equipment. However, police claim that the incident was caused by an electrical short circuit.
The management of the web television channel submitted an application to the police urging them to conduct an inquiry into the incident.
The police are examining CCTV footage from cameras installed in a nearby church to confirm the cause of the incident.
William claimed that they had received threats from suspected militants in the past warning them to close the channel.
The web television channel was a Sindh province based television channel running religious programs for Christians since February 10, 2010.
Christian web TV channel destroyed in a fire in Karachi, Pakistan
This statement was originally published on pakistanpressfoundation.org on 26 November 2015.


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Starting a business takes blood, sweat and tears. And let's not forget, funds.
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In this way, one donation can be used over and over again! The default rate at Kiva is exceptionally low. Check out Kiva.org for more info on how you too can make a difference.
We also participate in various fundraising events.
There was one in particular that changed our perception of homelessness in Australia: The CEO Sleepout organised by St Vincent de Paul Society and held at Luna Park.
On a chilly and wet winter's night, 220 CEOs spent a night roughing it in the open air with only a sleeping bag and a sliver of cardboard. You could feel the CEOs' mindsets changing as we listened to homeless people sharing their stories. Knowing we were all about to experience one night of "homelessness" ourselves made the stories that much more real. It was an exceptionally effective way to create change.
We recently discovered a cause in Bali that really pulled at our heartstrings. https://johnfawcett.org/ (The John Fawcett Foundation) is a humanitarian foundation that raises money to give free cataract surgery to those who can't afford it. We make a donation on behalf of our clients and are ecstatic to announce that we have made it possible for six people to undergo free cataract surgery and regain their site.
If you're a registered charity, we also do some pro bono online marketing strategy work. Please make an online enquiry.


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Good morning! I thought I would kick off this beautiful Sunday with some organization! I don't know about you guys but it makes me pretty darn happy to spend some quality time with my label maker in the craft room. So yesterday I was getting ready to put away some Neat & Tangled sequins that I had arrived a week or so ago and it occurred to me that you all might be interested in how I store my sequins. So I paused, dug the label for my container out of the trash, and set up my camera!
I prefer the Craft Mates Lockables (all supplies are linked below) for keeping my sequins organized. I love the size of the compartments and the nice, easy storage of the unit as a whole. They are also affordable and easy to find. I buy mine either on Amazon or at Hobby Lobby.
Personally, I love to label things. There's a little thrill every time I use my Brother P-Touch label maker, mostly because I got super lucky and found mine at Goodwill!! I also have a Dymo label maker that is a little more affordable is a great beginner labeler if you're not quite up to the P-Touch or if you just want a more basic tool. Check out the video for all the info on the things I use to store my sequins!
I also recommend this video by Amy R over at Prairie Paper & Ink for sequin storage. Amy uses a different storage system than I do so maybe that one will work better for you! Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know how you liked this How I Stay Organized feature so I can continue to do more in the future if you enjoy this type of info! Have a fabulous weekend and I'll see you soon! Bye!
*Affiliate links used at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.


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In Issue 05 of our Magazine, I share a story about reactions to a Runwell at Schooner Exact and listening in on Shinola's President Jacques Panis pitch at Interbike. Here's video, shot with Glass, of the Detroit pitch and Sky Yeager explaining the bike build. Shinola is about Detroit and identifying with an American brand. If you meet the owners, you know it's what they're living and believe in. It's also their initial bike run in a magazine issue about firsts. Note the reactions to Jacques in the video, maybe his story will fire up more bike companies to make bikes in the States.
Issue 05 is available to download now from iTunes and costs $1.99 a month. You can find Runwells online or at a shop near you, in the Seattle area Cascade Bike Studio carries them.


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from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A young woman or girl; a maiden.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A young woman (of noble birth).
- n. A girl; a maiden (without sexual experience).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A young person, either male or female, of noble or gentle extraction
- n. A young unmarried woman; a girl; a maiden.
- n. An attachment to a millstone spindle for shaking the hopper.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A young unmarried woman; especially, in former use, a maiden of gentle birth.
- n. A contrivance put into a bed to warm the feet of old or sick persons. Bailey.
- n. A projection on a millstone-spindle for shaking the shoe.
- n. A titular designation of a young gentleman; a young man of gentle or noble birth: as, damsel Pepin; damsel Richard, Prince of Wales.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a young unmarried woman
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
There said the Kazis, O King, of a truth this damsel is the wonder of the world, and of our age the unique pearl!
Replied the old woman, O my lady, this damsel is a liar.
He shut himself up in his palace for a while, mourning and afflicted; but at last his Wazirs came in to him and applied themselves to comfort him, saying, "Verily, he who took the damsel is an enchanter, and praised be Allah who hath delivered thee from his craft and sorcery!"
Yon damsel, is patiently trying to save my protag from his own worst natures, as an equal if not superior.
The while she smiled in their faces so as to win their hearts; and she promised them all manner of good and seated them in their proper stations, as if she had been brought up with them; so all wondered at her beauty and loveliness and said to one another, "This damsel is none other than a Queen, the daughter of a King."
Then he said to him, O my son, thou art but young in years and the damsel is fair, so belike thy heart will be taken with her and it will be grievous to thee to vend her.
They replied, "Say thou, 'This damsel is not my wife and the monies are her monies, and I have transgressed against her and brought her far from her country.'"
"Verily this damsel is lovely as the Venus-star363 and all who see her love her and bow before her beauty and loveliness."
Commander of the Faithful, bear witness against me that this damsel is more learned than I in medicine and what else, and that I cannot cope with her.
"I call Allah to witness, O Commander of the Faithful, that this damsel is more learned than I in theology and what pertaineth to the Law."


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Media Contacts
anne-marie wagener, minneapolis institute of arts, firstname.lastname@example.com; (612) 870-3280
lynette nyman, minneapolis institute of arts, email@example.com, (612) 870-3173
Print Quality Images Available Online: http://www.artsmia.org/press
Mary Griggs Burke and the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation intends to give MIA significant portion of renowned collection of Japanese Art
Minneapolis, MN, June 9, 2006—Mary Griggs Burke and the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation have stated their intention to give a significant portion of their renowned collection of Japanese art to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). The Burke collection is recognized as the world's most important and comprehensive private collection of Japanese art outside Japan. With objects spanning 4,000 years of Japanese art history, the collection is noted for its great depth and breadth.
"This is the kind of gift of which most museums can only dream. We are enormously grateful to Mrs. Burke and the Foundation for their vision, commitment and generosity. The Minneapolis Institute of Art will become one of the principal repositories of Japanese art in this country," said William Griswold, director and president of the MIA.
The MIA is now celebrating the opening of a new, 113,000-square-foot wing designed by renowned architect Michael Graves. The relocation of the museum's library to the new wing opened up nearly 4,400 square feet of space contiguous to the present Japanese galleries. The decision to expand the display of Japanese art into this space comes closely on the heels of the 1998 museum-wide expansion when Japan gained some 6,000 square feet. The present galleries now encompass nearly 12,400 square feet, making it one of the largest displays of Japanese art in the United States. In addition to sheer square footage, the museum commissioned a traditional Japanese architectural firm to build a formal audience hall and a teahouse in 2001. These rooms provide a sympathetic setting for important objects from the permanent collection. The commissioning of these rooms, and the present expansion, resoundingly communicates the museum's strong commitment to Japanese art.
"Our expanded permanent installation for Japanese Art—from nine to fifteen galleries—provides visitors with an extremely strong overview of Japan's aesthetic achievements. A significant gift of objects from the Burke collection will greatly enhance our display, and will provide for the possibility of frequent rotations and specialized exhibitions. Mrs. Burke is a collector's collector, blessed with her own discriminating eyes, but also wisely advised in amassing her remarkable collection. Since our 1998 expansion we have depended on Mrs. Burke's generosity through frequent loans. The importance of this gift cannot be overstated, and in recognition of Mrs. Burke's intention, all fifteen rooms have been designated as the Mary Griggs Burke Galleries of Japanese Art," said Dr. Matthew Welch, curator of Japanese and Korean art at the MIA.
Included in the MIA's grand opening installation are fifty-five objects on loan from the Burke Collection. The objects will be on view, on a rotational basis, through December 3, 2006.
The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art is a comprehensive collection that includes the ancient arts of Japan, Buddhist and Shinto sculpture and painting, Yamato-e, calligraphy, Muromachi ink painting, tea wares, historic and contemporary ceramics and lacquerware, and impressive examples from nearly every painting movement since the fifteenth century including Rimpa, Tosa, Ukiyo-e, Kano, Shijo-Maruyama and Nanga schools. Mrs. Burke's first important purchase of Japanese art occurred in 1956 when she purchased Edo period screen at auction that was once owned by Frank Lloyd Wright, illustrating scenes from the 11th century "Tales of Genji. " The Burke collection now has holdings of more than 900 works of art, making it one of the largest privately held collections outside Japan. To date, the Burke collection is the only foreign collection of Japanese art to be featured at the Tokyo National Museum (1985). Among others, the Burke collection's exhibition history includes shows at the MIA in 1977 and 1994, and shows in 1975 and 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a recent tour (2005-06) of selections from the collection to four Japanese museums, including the prestigious Miho Museum in Shigaraki.
Mary Griggs Burke, a Saint Paul native, is the granddaughter of Crawford Livingston and Colonel Chauncy Griggs, two St. Paul civic leaders who made fortunes in lumber, railroads, and utilities. Mrs. Burke's mother, Mary Livingston Griggs, visited Japan on a world tour in 1902. The trip inspired Mrs. Burke, who visited Japan for the first time in 1954 and has made more than thirty subsequent trips. Mrs. Burke is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has taken courses in art at Columbia University in New York. Burke lives in New York City, where a portion of her apartment has been remodeled in Japanese style to provide an appropriate place to display her collection. In 1987 the Japanese government awarded her the Order of the Sacred Treasure with Gold and Silver Star for her efforts to promote better understanding and appreciation of Japanese art and culture in the United States. Mrs. Burke, a noted philanthropist, has served on the board of directors of many non-profit organizations and has received many honorary doctorate degrees. She is an honorary trustee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asia Society, and Sarah Lawrence College.
Also notable
In addition to loans from Mary Burke, objects borrowed from other New York collections are also enhancing the museum's Japanese display. John C. Weber, who has become a significant presence on the Japanese art scene during the last decade, has lent twenty-one objects from his collection, including several spectacular ukiyo-e paintings and a stunning group of Japanese textiles. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has sent their famous gilded set of sliding doors illustrating a massive blossoming plum branch by the 17th century master Kano Sansetsu. These screens were originally the reverse side of a set of doors owned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In a quid pro quo exchange, the MIA lent their set to the Metropolitan last year, and the Met has reciprocated by sending their screens to Minnesota in time for the museum's grand reopening. They will be on view in the Japanese galleries until October.
MIA Grand Opening Highlights on Loan from the Burke Collection
Ox and Herdsman
Sekkyakushi, fl. 1st half 15th century
Japan, Muromachi period (1392-1573)
Ink on paper
Flock of Cranes
Ishida Yutei, 1721-86
Japan, Edo period (1615-1868)
Pair of folding screens; ink, gold and colors on gilded paper
Platter with Pine Tree Motif, early 17th century
Momoyama period (1573-1615)
Karatsu ware; glazed stoneware with iron oxide painting
About the Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art, home to one of the finest encyclopedic art collections in the country, houses nearly 100,000 works of art representing more than 5,000 years of world history. Highlights of the permanent collection include European masterworks by Rembrandt van Rijn, Nicolas Poussin, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as internationally significant collections of Asian art, decorative arts, Modernism, photographs, and African and Native American art.
General admission is always free. Some special exhibitions have a nominal admission fee. Museum hours: Sunday, 11 a.m–5 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.; Closed Monday. For additional information, call (612) 870-3131 or visit www.artsmia.org.
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Safety Resources
We can't say enough about our commitment to safety for our employees, our customers and our neighbors. At CHS Midwest Cooperative, health and safety is a top priority in our operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We implement measures such as meetings, employee health programs, comprehensive disaster plans, and ongoing training and development opportunities that help employees do their jobs better. Our goal is to make personal health and occupational safety an essential part of our culture.
Safety Director:
CHS Safety and Compliance Policies
Each CHS business unit employs a safety program that satisfies regulatory requirements and ensures compliance. It is the policy of CHS to comply with all applicable environmental laws and regulations.
For more information on CHS safety and compliance in this area, contact us.
SDS (Safety Data Sheets) Links:
Safety Director:
Chad Wrightson
Cell: 605-280-5225


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OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN…and it was good
by admin
I was lucky enough to see Olympus has Fallen a couple of weeks ago and my six word review is….holy shit stuff blew up everywhere.
The more detailed review is below.
Let me start by saying that I am not a Gerard Butler fan, I have nothing against the guy, I'm just not a fan and before you go freaking out, yes I liked 300 but he hasn't done ANYTHING good since then. That is until now, holy shit Olympus has Fallen was a kick ass movie, expect reviews like "Die Hard in the White House" or "Butler is back and kicking ass!" The movie starts by letting you know that Mike Banning (played by Butler) will do anything to protect the President of the United States,anything. That is the most I can say without spoiling the whole beginning of this movie, flash forward a couple years to present time and this movie,just like in the headlines today, makes the North Koreans the bad guys hell bent on showing America that they are a force to be reckoned with and man did they come armed to the teeth. Banning is working a desk job when spoiler alert the North Koreans blow everything up in and around the White House. I swear the producers are having North Korea threaten America in real life just to viral advertise this flick. If so, well played Hollywood.
This movie did what I wanted the last Die Hard to do, have a shit ton of action and some witty dialogue and do it in a smart, fun way, unlike Die Hard, this movie delivered. The action is non-stop and it doesn't hold back on the blood, bullets and one liners. Butler throws some one-liners and punches while trying his best to stop the terrorists that have taken over the White House and taken the President hostage. His John Mclane like , stuck in a bad situation just trying to get by attitude serves him well through the whole movie with very little "I call Bull shit that he could do that!" thrown in. This entire movie is one big explosion with a pretty intense story thrown in the middle of it. The guy sitting next to me jumped more than once and a few of the one-liners had the audience howling with laughter.
If you had bet me 3 years ago that I would be giving a Gerard Butler flick a great review, I would have laughed and asked if you had seen The Ugly Truth but nonetheless I am telling you to go see this movie. Aaron Eckhart is great as the President and Morgan Freeman is great at everything in life. This is the perfect popcorn flick, guys will see it for the action and girls will see it for Butler so win/win.
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William F. Buckley, Jr. has died.
Bill Buckley was a true conservative, eschewing right-wing orthodoxy on issues like marijuana decriminalization and the Iraq War when his principles (themselves strongly libertarian, though grounded by deep Catholic faith) demanded dissent. He is most known, of course, for dissenting against the liberal establishment and had been performing that service for over fifty years. I cannot express here what his life meant to this country.
Requiescat in pace.


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Music launch of Jaya's latest film Sawal was organized at Prasad labs on the night of 19 December. This function was attended by D Rama Naidu, Krishna, B Gopal, Tammareddy, Rajamouli, Seenu Vytla, R Narayana Murthy, Muppalaneni Siva, M Shyam Prasad Reddy, MS Raju, Arjuna Raju, Kuchipudi Venkat etc.
Guest Krishna said, "Lots of my films were titled with Sawal and all those films were good hits. I wish that Jaya's Sawal too will become a big hit. Jaya did class films so far and attempted a mass flick this time."
D Rama Naidu said, "Jaya is a sincere director. Any producer feels comfortable with Jaya."
R Narayana Murthy said, "Jaya and BA Raju got expertise in making movies and marketing them in an excellent way. I am sure that B Jaya would become a good director like Bhanumati, Savitri, Vijaya Nirmala and Jeevitha."
Jaya said, "I got a good team for this film. Producer is very cooperative. We could complete the film in the budget we expected. I am confident of the success."
Sawaal links:
Photo Gallery
Press Meet


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YOGAFIT RELEASES DVD THAT TEACHES VIEWERS HOW TO ATTAIN ROCK HARD ABS AND UNPARALLELED SELF-CONFIDENCEFriday, January 10, 2014
Media Contact:
Stephen email@example.com/917.704.1038
For Immediate Release
March 3, 2014
LOS ANGELES –YogaFit® Training Systems Worldwide is proud to announce the YogaFit® Abs DVD, which teaches viewers how to get rock hard abs by improving core center strength and strengthening existing yoga practices.
Tighten, tone and firm up your core from every angle. Trim your waistline, hips and mid-torso. YogaFit® founder Beth Shaw creates a super-effective, efficient and fun strategy with core class that keeps you moving with encouragement. Enhance your personal practice with this intense abdominal-inspired practice or share these unique moves with your YogaFit classes.
All new and revitalized YogaFit® Abs workout featuring: the YogaFit® Three Mountain Format, Seven Principles of Alignment and the YogaFit® Essence. This DVD gives you the tools and guidance to sculpt those abs.
The use of the revolutionary YogaCore® ball throughout the practice ensures optimal strength and focus in every pose. Enhance your personal practice with this intense abdominal-inspired practice and share these unique moves with your classes.
By practicing the techniques demonstrated on this DVD every day, you can attain the abs of your dreams. Other benefits include:
- Create a stronger midsection
- Improve Self-esteem and confidence
- Better posture
- Reduce back pain and stabilize the spine
- Develop a solid yoga foundation
- Improve powers of concentration and focus
The new DVD is exclusively distributed by YogaFit® and is available through the YogaFit® store. For further information visit YogaFit.com or connect at Facebook.com/YogaFit or on Twitter: @YogaFit.
YogaFit® Training Systems Worldwide was established in 1994 and has since trained more than 250,000 yoga and fitness professionals worldwide. The leader in mind body fitness education, YogaFit® is the largest training school for yoga instructors in North America with further expansion ongoing internationally. YogaFit® is the American Council on Exercise's (ACE) premier and only yoga partner. Founder and President Beth Shaw is internationally recognized as the foremost authority on yoga and fitness and has been profiled in print publications and television programs including Oprah's O Magazine, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur, SELF and is currently a New Business Group Member of the New York Times. YogaFit® is committed to community service as well as supporting animals and humanitarian causes.
For more information on YogaFit®, please visit www.YogaFit.com.comments powered by Disqus


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Most Recent Messages
The Seven Bodies
1. Physical Body: The physical body is the anchoring point for your Higher Self to explore the mystery of your being within physicality. It is highly susceptible to programming transmitted through touch for several minutes after birth. It holds the memories of this and other lives.
2. Etheric or Astral Body: The majority of karma, which is a constriction in the universal flow of energy formed by incorrect perception, is held in the astral body (only a small portion is in the physical body). It consists of bluish lines of light. It produces the acupuncture points and the major and minor chakras by the energy lines crossing each other. Where they cross seven times, there is an acupuncture point. Where they cross 13 times, there is a minor chakra point. Where they cross 20 times, there is a major chakra point. This body is linear and is located an inch out from the physical body.
3. Emotional Body: It is the auric field. Past trauma is held in the first three bodies (the physical, astral and emotional bodies). Therefore, as we overcome our past and balance our sub-personalities, this body becomes clearer. It is a flowing field extending out about 14 inches from the physical body.
4. Mental Body: As we balance the three minds, including the left and right brains, the mental body ceases to block access to the higher bodies. This body is linear and is located about 14 inches out from the physical body.
5. Spiritual Emotional Body: When able to access this body, we begin living in eternal time, which aligns us with the intent of the Infinite. This body is a flowing field that extends about 19 inches out from the physical body
6. Spiritual Mental Body: The information within this body contains the specifics regarding the blueprint for this lifetime. When access to this body is achieved, we start seeing from a cosmic perspective. We begin to see the innocence and value of each life as it mirrors to the Infinite either that which it is, or that which it is not. We see that there is no guilt so all judgment effortlessly dissolves. This body is linear and is located about 19 inches out from the physical body.
7. Spirit Body: It is trillions of little fibers of light radiating out in all directions from the life force center. This is a ball of white light about the size of a grapefruit. In May 2007 it was moved from behind the belly button to the heart center in all humanity. Every living creature within the cosmos has a band of awareness among these light fibers within our spirit body. That is why we are the microcosm. This is the body shamans use to be able to shapeshift into animals or other forms; plus they use this body to access parallel realities. They move a point of illumination called the assemblage point. It is located an arm's length behind the heart, and a little bit to the right. This body is a linear field radiating out from the center to an arm's length from the physical body.
The assemblage point is on the outer rim of the seventh lightbody (spirit body) and is an illuminated spot that determines which reality we are in. If that point moves, this universe, which seems solid, disappears and another reality assembles. It is as though we have accessed different holographic experiences. A slight movement of the assemblage point puts us in an altered state, such as in meditation. With practice, we can go into a temporary meditative state, even if we are just going to the end of the garden to get the mail. It is a temporary disconnecting of the clamor of left-brain that allows pure information from higher realms to shed light on the situation and give us accurate information about the unknown.
Much of our energy comes from bodies five, six and seven. Consequently, if our innermost bodies have constrictions, we become tired easily because the flow of energy from the higher bodies is blocked. The emotional body is particularly important in allowing the flow of energy.
Beyond the Seven Bodies, we have five larger bodies, with the 12th body being the one as vast as the cosmos overlaying everything. As we move through the various stages of ascension, we fully activate all 12 lightbodies. At this point we function from 12 chakras instead of seven.
When all 12 bodies are accessed in this lifetime, we enlighten everything in all our lifetimes since they are all connected. Every past act and thought becomes perfected. This is an important factor because if we die we may leave ripples of discordance from sowing seeds that were less than loving. When we change the past, the present changes; and when the present changes, the past changes.
Grids Surrounding the Earth A grid is a geometric array of light, and light is information. These grids surround the planet in geometric patterns. Each species has one and it is the 'instinctual' information for that plant or animal. There are two grids around the earth that tell us how to be human. One is the old, third-dimensional fear-based grid. The other is the grid of Higher Consciousness, which is a fourth-dimensional, group-minded grid. It is the one that ascension is moving toward.
We are connected with all humans on the planet through the grids. The grids are connected to our hearts. That is how our thoughts, feelingsand actions affect all of humanity.
One person's life lived gloriously can affect the grid around the planet and it becomes accessible to all beings. The formation of the Higher Consciousness grid was necessary to give humans an option other than functioning solely from the fear-based grid that contains a lot of negativity due to the age of dark materialism the earth has been in for approximately 13,000 years. For the past 2,000 years everyone has had the option to live from the higher consciousness grid. Further more, all that have ascended have strengthened it.
That is why focusing within is the most important work we can do. When we understand that the decisions we make affect everyone, we realize it is important for us to be whole.
There is no Destination We are on a path that has no point of arrival because there is no destination. There is only the journey. Our journey through eternity offers us experiences so we may remember who we are--and that is God. To remember who we are, we must push beyond our comfort zone and break the barriers that lock us into the familiar, leaving us with a sense of false security. If we remain in our comfort zone, we become stagnant.
The only thing worth striving for is clarity. We don't search for meaning because we understand that the majority of the universe is unknowable. Clarity pertains to our next step only as we seek to gather insights from our experiences.
We gain the pearls of wisdom from our uncomfortable human experiences, until we are able to pull free from the fear that causes the discomfort. We continue this inner cleansing until we have removed layer after layer of fear. In doing this, we push our perception until it moves beyond mortal boundaries. This desire to push the perimeter of the known is what is called living a path with heart or living on the crest of the wave.
When there is no destination, it follows that there is also no preferable point along the journey. Therefore, one in separation consciousness is as important in the big picture as one who has realized he is all things. Both are equally perfect.
Humility is crucial as we walk the spiritual path. If we imagine the path as an unending ladder that spirals upward, any belief system only takes us up one rung. If we choose to remain in the role of master on a particular rung, then we become stuck. When we have mastered one rung, that is the signal for the universe to bump us up to the next rung, where we are a student again.
The realization that our purpose is "to be" and that Spirit will reveal to us when we need to act, is liberating. It frees us from striving for a specific outcome. We can relax with the confidence that we will be guided to act when appropriate and that we can truly focus on the moment, the place of all power.
The present moment is the position in the center of the figure eight of time where the loop of the past and the loop of the future meet. The Mayans called it the zuvuya. In relation to the physical body, the two loops meet in the life force center, which for most people is located behind the bellybutton. Since time travels in loops, where we have been we will be again, and where we are going, we have already been. The loops are spiraling upward so each time we travel the loop, it is a little higher in awareness.
The life force center is the power point within the physical body. During the ascension process it will rise to the heart center.
When we resist the moment, a thought forms. Thoughts place us either in the future or the past, which throws us off balance and into a weakened state. We cannot become a master as long as we resist life. To concern ourselves about yesterday, tomorrow or the next three steps on our path is a waste of energy. If we feel anxious or pressured, we are missing the fact that everything is perfect and we have forgotten that we all have what we need to fulfill our life's blueprint.
Living in the moment initially brings with it some disconcerting side effects. The biggest one is loss of memory. We may have difficulty remembering yesterday. Even recalling what happened hours ago could be taxing. I may say, "Last week I went to the beach," and my son will correct me, "but Mother, that was yesterday!" It may as well have been last week, for I have experienced a thousand present moments since yesterday.
Another factor contributing to the loss of memory is the fact that linear time is collapsing because it is connected with the earth's electromagnetic fields, and those fields are deteriorating.
Exploring Sleep Problems
Several people have experienced problems relative to getting a full night's sleep. Remember, the human body is undergoing changes from its original carbon base to a crystalline base. This is occurring to be compatible with the increasing vibrations, both on the planet and with ones individual physical form.
Many talk of waking up in the very early morning hours, most between 3:00 and 4:30 AM. However, there is important learning going on earlier. Test results strongly suggest that REM sleep is involved with the efficient memory processing of cognitive procedural material and that material is beneficial knowledge we will need in the process of our transcension to the 5th dimension.
If you are one of the many who awakens in the very early hours on a frequent basis, you most often will be in the mental Alpha state. Being in this level provides a wonderful opportunity to receive messages from a number of Light sources. If, in this time, your mind is having random thoughts, pull in the reigns, be still, and ask a meaningful question addressed to your guides or even the Source Him/Herself for God has made clear he communicates to all beings. Remember what the good book said, "Be still and know that I am God." (to know is to connect with). In your stillness open your mind to the thoughts that enter therein. You may be surprised what comes through. If you receive a profound message, be sure to document it before it passes your memory like a passing dream. A digital voice recorder works very well for this. Many of the messages in my book were received in this manner. The more you do this the better you will become at receiving.
Please know that you are surrounded by many Light Beings of the highest order, especially during this time of transformation to a higher plane of life. While there will be difficult times we will go through as the old gives way to the new, boldness, patience and understanding will help us get through it all and it will be more beauteous than you can imagine when darkness is no more and the Light of Love reigns supreme.
May you receive the highest of blessings,


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Stacking The Shelves & Sunday Post #383:12 PM
The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.
Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Both are a chance to share what books you got this week, what happened on your blog last week, and what is to come next week.
Review: Wild Awake
Event: Armchair BEA
Wrap Up: May 2013
Interview: Harley's Hall of Fame Maren Dille
This week was very uneventful. If Armchair BEA hadn't been going on I probably would have died of boredom. I did get a lot of reading done though! Who's excited for another month of #bsmphotoaday? If you're participating let me know and I'll come follow you on instagram.
*All I Need
*Breaking Point
*Book BFF's Introduction/bookshelf tour vlog
*Top Ten Travel Books
*Discussion post
*Pashion For Bookish Fashion
*Top Ten Travel Books
*Discussion post
*Pashion For Bookish Fashion
What did you get this week?
Don't forget to vote on June's poll (right side bar)


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Musicians talk about doing things all the time, but it's usually hard to make it happen," said Justin Townes Earle in a recent phone conversation about the upcoming "Big Surprise Tour," happening at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on Aug. 4.
Musicians talk about doing things all the time, but it's usually hard to make it happen," said Justin Townes Earle in a recent phone conversation about the upcoming "Big Surprise Tour," happening at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on Aug. 4.
"You think, 'that would be great,' you voice, 'yeah, right...;' and then you move on to the next thing. But this time, it worked out. I got a phone call from my management and told 'em, 'I'll be there.'"
All of the acts on "the Big Surprise tour" — Headliners Old Crow Medicine Show, Dave Rawlings Machine (featuring Gillian Welch), Earle, and the Felice Brothers are connected in some mutual way and are reveling in the fact that they'll be able to take the stage together in somewhat of an impromptu performance of artists and friends, where collaboration and the celebration of roots music will be the name of the game. Said artists will play a smattering of their own original material, as well as covers of each other's tunes, and beyond.
"We wanted to start a big rocking band with a bunch of good friends, and play all summer long," said Ketch Secor of Old Crow. "A lot of summer packages (concert bills) are way over the top and range widely and wildly stylistically, so we wanted to keep it somewhat simple, in that we could all climb on stage as one ...; all 15 (or whatever it is) of us, and in a fury of spontaneity, get the place rollicking! I can tell you one thing, we'll all be grinning. It's going to be a blast."
Secor and his bandmates are the "linchpin" behind all of the connections on the tour. They've played many a night at dive bars with Earle, traveling around with him a few years back on what they dubbed "the Dirt-bag tour." Which, according to Earle was "a long, long raucous tour that lasted nine straight weeks. Was a great time...;"
Old Crow have also spent some time with the Felice Brothers on tour, partying into the wee hours of the new day, throwing dice and gambling their money away in a game that the Brothers adopted called "3's."
"Heck, I think I'm doing it more for the dice throwing than anything," joked James Felice of the Felice Brothers. "It's gonna be a real fun time (musically), and I got to build on the $50 I pulled away from the guys in Old Crow the last time we got together."
Earle met Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch while on tour with his Dad (Steve Earle) in the Northeast years ago. While Secor (who has about a four-year window in his life where he was a part of our own Seacoast, N.H. community and played a gig or two at the Friendly Toast ...; Claims he learned how to play banjo here as well) states that he first met Rawlings and Welch when they played the "Town Hall" in Portsmouth.
"Heck I can't even remember who they were opening for, they were so good," Secor said. (He would later admit that they were opening for David Grisman).
Earle and the fellas in Old Crow became friends when the band moved "down to Nashville about 10 years ago," said Earle, who was residing in Nashville at the time.
The music that all of these bands are creating in their young careers is steeped in the American roots tradition.
"We all share a fascination with older music," said Earle. "And we're all the best practitioners out there right now."
Old Crow Medicine Show have been on the scene since 1998 and have released five full-length albums, as well as a handful of EPs and live recordings, achieving critical acclaim and mass appeal with their self-titled effort, released in 2004. "Wagon Wheel," is the big hit on that record, which most of us have heard covered countless times by bluegrass and folk acts throughout the land. Secor heard a 38-second clip of Bob Dylan singing the opening verse on an old bootleg he had picked up. He took it, and finished it (he owns co-authorship with Dylan on the tune) during his time in New Hampshire. When prompted Secor replies, "I've never met Bob Dylan, and the fortune teller told me I never would ...; so I've stopped trying." Old Crow are touring in support of their current album "Tennessee Pusher," and the upcoming DVD "Live at the Orange Peel and Tennessee Theatre," due out Aug. 18.
Dave Rawlings Machine has yet to release their debut album, but both Rawlings and Gillian Welch are very well revered in the scene, and have been around for quite some time. Welch earned a Grammy nomination for her debut album "Time (The Revelator)," which Rawlings produced, back in 2003.
The Felice Brothers have three brilliant full-length releases to their credit. Although they have not quite reached the mass appeal they deserve, it seems they'll achieve it very soon. Their current release "Yonder is the Clock," happens to be where the name of the tour comes from as the first track on the album is titled "The Big Surprise." "Yonder," was recorded in an "updated" chicken coop where the Brothers have built their studio from the money they made after the release of their self-titled album.
"The roof was rotting and the rain was dripping on our gear," said Felice. "There were tarps everywhere, so we took all our money, and renovated the place, complete with a new roof."
Earle has two records to his credit including the release he's currently touring behind "Midnight at the Movies." Earle's song writing cuts deep. The song-craft he's developed aids in helping his introspective lyrics stick with you long after you listen to them for the first time.
"This is not my music," Earle said when asked how he'd describe his work. "I'm a student of southern American roots music — anything south of the Mason Dixon, and east of the Mississippi."
All of these acts have poured their heart and souls into the music they create and all of them will undoubtedly leave you astonished and most likely winded from all the dancing you're bound to do when you catch the show at the Casino Ballroom.
For the bands, it's the tour of a lifetime. They can't wait to get together and "make the magic happen." The Hampton Beach gig is the first show of the tour, so they'll be fresh and anxious to get things cookin' quickly.
James Felice claims he doesn't know what's going to happen for sure —"hopefully the music we present will lean more towards 'harmonious,' than 'a cacophony,' he jokes.
For him, it's all about the dice, and he invites anyone who's willing to come and throw down after all is said and done.
"You gotta have a lot of one dollar bills to hang with the Felice Brothers, man," warns Secor with a laugh.
At the end of our conversation, Secor exclaims, "Hey, whatever happened to Fly Spinach Fly?" So he has been here before ...; And he'll be back with friends in tow on Aug. 4. Seriously, don't miss it. It's the event of the summer.


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