Cocoposts

Bold Berlusconi

The Italian PM says he won't resign even if convicted of any of the multiple charges of crookedness against him.  Of course he doesn't really say it, he lets a new book say it for him.  From the New York Times:

The book containing the full interview, "Donne di Cuori" (Queens of Heart), was written by one of Italy's best-known television journalists, Bruno Vespa, and will be published on November 6.

His counter-attack against "communist" judges is classic.  So is this snippit of rationale: 

"If there were a conviction in trials like these, we would be facing such a big subversion of the truth that I would feel even more duty bound to stay in my post to defend democracy and the rule of law," he said.

Udall Nukes

Colorado's US Senator Mark Udall says we really need nukes, the natural gas industry says natural gas is really clean, and the radio says martians have really landed in New Jersey.  From the Durango Herald:

  "For some, news that a Udall is speaking favorably about nuclear power will come as a stark - and perhaps unpleasant - surprise," Udall said.

Or a Halloween joke where Mark Udall is dressed as John McCain and other Udalls spin in their graves.

Udall had hinted at his new thinking in recent statements, including at a congressional hearing in Estes Park with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the effects of climate change on national parks.  McCain ran for president last year on an "all of the above" energy policy, language Udall borrowed Thursday to highlight the economic boost from building plants.

"As we face perhaps our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, we also need an 'all of the above' solution to jump-start our economy," Udall said. "And that means that nuclear energy - and new nuclear power plants - must be part of the mix." Udall restated his strong support for more renewable energy, like wind and solar. ...

"Uncertainty about a long-term and permanent solution to waste storage is not a reason to halt nuclear power," he said.

That problem will just have take care of itself. 

After Chanel

Loved Devin O'Leary's Alibi review of the new Coco movie, Coco Before Chanel, especially the subtitle:

Fashion icon biopic looks fabulous but hangs kinda funny

Here's a bit:

Eventually trading her French sugar daddy for a handsome young Englishman (Alessandro Nivola from Face/Off and Junebug), Coco explores her matrimonial options but keeps running up against the age-old Jane Austen dilemma: Stinking-rich Europeans only marry other stinking-rich Europeans.

Coco and fashion were obsessions with my mother and her sisters.  They sewed a lot, like many other women of their day and  would create tailored originals by customizing McCall or Butterick patterns.  I can still hear rustling onion skin-thin brown pattern paper pinned to fabric for cutting.  I was always spooked by the dress form at night - my headless mother in the latest fashion. 

She sewed until the last years of her life and left closets full of dresses, coats, shoes, belts, scarves and hats.  Apparently sewing is not hereditary but playing dress-up, or fashion, is.

I'll be seeing the film whenever it gets here.  I think it is tomorrow but that would have been helpful info for Devin to add.

Ernie Pyle's View

Descriptions of the Pyle's Albuquerque home include how Ernie got building fever when he was there in 1941 and converted the garage and constructed a 280' long picket fence.  The home had been built the previous year while he was away so he missed out on the major construction. 

He reported that his fence had taken two and a half weeks and required 30 post holes, 1000 pickets and 400 nails.  Photos show Pyle in his yard with the white pickets and a huge expanse of mesa in the background.

You can see the fence today at the Albuquerque library branch that was his home. The view from that little yard sure has changed.

Great Grace

California Pianist Grace Fong performed Sunday in a solo recital for Chamber Music Albuquerque at the Simms Center.  

She spoke to the appreciative audience frequently, telling us about herself and describing each of the pieces she played: Prokofiev's first piano sonata, five pieces by Chopin, Liszt's second Ballade, Mozart's "twinkle twinkle little star" variations and a stunning sonata by modern Australian composer Carl Vine. 

After a standing ovation with boisterous bravos she played an encore so elegant I wept. You can hear it on her website "Schedule" page and I'm listening to it over and over.   Not crying.  Update:  It is Schumann's Träumerei.  

Grace hadn't been to Albuquerque before.  As she was introduced it was noted that her first actual performance in town was at Presbyterian Hospital where she played for patients and families immediately after her flight arrival. 

She is modest, personable and a true virtuoso not to be missed.  Best of all, she'll be coming back December 6th to play with the Santa Fe Symphony at the Lensic.

Old Stockyard Driveway

At lunch I pretend to listen to foodie stories about the restaurant business then, trapped in my car after lunch, my friend pretends to listen to my placey stories about this or that subdivision, what was there before and what old-timers said about it.

After lunch downtown we drive down the valley, exploring  the city's south valley sacrifice area - home to the first and subsequent wastewater treatment plants, superfund sites, scrap yards and "tank farms" that replaced alfalfa fields and stockyards.  

The Sunport Railrunner train stop and parking lot is down that way at Rio Bravo.  The lonely site surrounded my vacant industrial zoned land is envisioned by MRCOG planners to one day be a mixed use transit oriented development - a walkable village-like place with housing and shops.  You don't have to be high to picture this, but it helps.  

In the early aerial photos from the 1930's you can see a wide stock driveway leading down from the mesa where the UNM golf course is now to a rail yard and packing plant just south of Woodward Road.  There is still a little segment of road there called Stock Drive.  Remains of a small plant and an old house are visible at the end of a sad row of cottonwoods on an old ditch.  With a little imagination you can still hear and smell hundreds of cattle. 

Now you can reach up and touch the belly of a Southwest jet.

The Unforeseen

I walked alone in that desert of unremitting purpose,
feeling the despair of one who could no longer remember
another valley where bodies and events took place and form
not always foreseen by human, and the humans themselves followed
ways not altogether in the light, where all the land had not yet
been consumed by intention, or the people by their understanding,
where still there was forgiveness in time, so that whatever
had been destroyed might yet return. Around me
as I walked were dogs barking in resentment
against the coming of the unforeseen.
From Wendell Berry, Santa Clara Valley, featured in the 2007 documentary by Laura Dunn entitled, The Unforeseen.  Image also from the film which features Austin's suburban sprawl impacts on Barton Springs.  Here's the trailer.

Amelia Grounded

I was going to see the movie Amelia today until I read this review in the New York Times:

The actors don’t make a persuasive fit, despite all their long stares and infernal smiling. (The movie is a more effective testament to the triumphs of American dentistry than to Earhart or aviation.) It’s hard to imagine anyone, other than satirists, doing anything with the puerile, sometimes risible dialogue. The screenwriters, Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, give Earhart a voice-over even as they forget her voice.

“Amelia” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested).   She smokes, she flies and most likely dies.

Silence of the River

Whitelodge water releases from Vallecito lake are shown on this Bureau of Reclamation website.  Releases were 500 cfs in August then, inexplicably,  47 cfs October 20th.  The silence woke me from a sound sleep.  

The Pine River has many thirsty users and the irrigation district was recently denied approval for construction of another reservoir at the site of beautiful Emerald Lake in the Weminuche Wilderness, north of Vallecito.  Emerald Lake was built and stocked with cut throat in the 19th century and remains a fishing destination, as remote as it is desireable.   

Commemorative Overload

Tour of the New Mexico State Fairgrounds* last week with Albuquerque's Historical Society.  I wasn't leading the tour officially, of course, but who could shut me up?   I should have my name on that tack room!

That wouldn't be out of place.  I'm ordering a plaque.  They'll never notice.  The fairgrounds may have the greatest concentration of memorial bronze plaques in the world - or the State at least.  

The early choice WPA buildings, like the Bolack Building, don't stand out in the quirky hodgepodge of paint colors, building signage and additions.  And that building has multiple names.  The place is a demonstration museum for overuse of commemorative architecture.  Every governor,  every fair commissioner and every legislator that has any little thing to do with any little thing that gets built, remodeled or renamed gets their name slapped on it. 

The fairgrounds were a magical place - transformed for horse shows into a horse world.  The choice stalls assigned by the steward were those old adobe barns - now mostly gone.  They were built in about 1938 with the original construction of the fair.  A remnant is called the Palomino Barn.  There were barns named for other breeds - blocks of white stuccoed adobe box stalls with vigas and portals, trimmed in turquoise and arranged in artful courtyards protected from wind.      

As we walked the Avenue of the Governors toward the horse barns, my running commentary intensified and the group dwindled.   I've spent more time at the fairgrounds than any Governor.  Maybe all of them combined!  They promised to be there for my plaque dedication. 

* Yes I know it is now New Mexico Expo but I hate that name and am hopeful the next governor changes it back.