Archive for August, 2009

you’re always near

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Someone pointed me at this video of a Ukrainian sand artist. She tells a haunting story in a bit over eight minutes, with sand and stunning talent and sensitivity.

The radio broadcast near the beginning is a famous one; it was Moscow’s announcement to the Soviet people that Nazi Germany’s armed forces had attacked our borders, and that we were at war. The song that follows was a mobilizing anthem that still stops me in my tracks. It’s not all about military anthems, though; the soundtrack is beautiful, including even a bit by Apocalyptica.

Kseniya Simonova tells it like it was.

Posted in art, taking it personally | 2 Comments »

tesher

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

I’ve got two long post drafts that aren’t getting any closer to publishing, and a good blog post is a published blog post, so:

My nine-year-old nephew Tesher was here for a few days. We did all kinds of stuff. We went to the MIT Museum with Mark and Eleanor. We played Fluxx. We welcomed Martin home from a month away with a huge pasta dinner the two of us cooked. We made a rainbow cake for Back Yard Burning Man, and generally hung out a lot.

He’s a storyteller, a kind and considerate kid, a tae kwon do practitioner, and he did a hell of a lot to help out, both around the house and at BYBM. Afterwards I heard from several people how much they’d enjoyed his company, and so help me, I was proud.

Not to mention, it was a fantastic amount of fun. And at the end of each day, he put himself to sleep. I mean, I know he’s nine and all, but… when did that happen? Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that I lived with him (and my brother, and my sister in law) and Tesher was a toddler?

We should totally do this more.

Posted in family | 1 Comment »

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