artwords

a new place to find me.

i'm going to try something out.  in the name of simple living, i've decided to try out a freeby.

for the next month (and perhaps indefinitely) check out what i'm up to at

http://bechiri.wordpress.com

and give your opinion.  please.

we are a very healthy couple

i definitely achieved my weekend goal of getting a picture or two of us together, in the same frame.

several were taken at the wedding we went to on saturday, of a wonderful couple named eric and heather.  you can go to my flickr account to see all the photos.

but here's a teaser:

we are a healthy couple.

me these days.

taken just yesterday.

i realized that i rarely ever get a picture of me taken, and if i do i do not like them.  this one is sans makeup and serious lens glare, but i like it.  i like the lens glare too because it means i am out in the sun.  i also like that the lens glare gives away that i am lying under a tree.  this is towards the top of my list of favorite things:  staring up at trees.  so this is a fitting portrait of me.

i skimmed some silly article the other day on signs of a healthy couple.  one was recent photos of the couple together.  i don't have any too recent.  other people do, but i do not possess any copies of these.  so, my goal this weekend is to get some photos of us.  together.

and to ask y'all that if you have any photos of the two of us together, please send me a copy.  i want to be a healthy couple too.    thanks.

have a beautiful weekend.  go walk barefoot in some thick long grass.

do you want us to film you?

we just got back from class #2, Producers Toolbox, at the Community Media Center.  in a week and a half we will take our editing class and have someone show us how to use iMovie (as opposed to my floundering attempts to figure it out on my own when i had a beloved iBook).  we are quite excited, can i just say.  CMC is amazing and makes it completely affordable for low income people to learn to make-and then actually make-videos or television productions. 

driving back, we started discussing what our project would be:  what's our first film?  massi suggested making a movie of Tom Luebke's book, which is not in print yet but would make a fabulous movie.  it's Made to be a film.  but, that would take actors and we learned in our class that you have to feed your actors.  it's a long book.  i don't think we can afford that much food.

then we talked about doing some documentary stuff of our neighbours.  i love our neighbours.  some of them would make very interesting documentary subjects.  like Dok, d-o-k.  he's 94 and sits on his  porch next door to our building all the time.  all the time.  he's very friendly and is missing all but 2 teeth that i can see and he keeps Both eyes firmly on what's goin on around here.  or Cat, who seems to have all the connections with the city officials.  today when i went by to visit her and ask more advice about home buying in the neighbourhood, someone else was there having her explain SSI and they were concerned about SSI taking their money for their kids.  so she frankly explained that a)if you are on SSI that means you don't have any money so how they gonna take money you don't have, and b)the money you get from SSI comes from people "like me and holly here, we got jobs, and they're taking our money to give to you because you ain't got one."  ha!  love her.

so....we also learned today in our class to not do a "talking head" show.  as much fun as it is to sit with Cat and chat with her, filming her talking evidently does not make a good film.   however, she was talking about some new construction the other day that the neighbourhood is all up in arms about.  i mean, she was telling me things that you just do not see on the news around here.  like that property tax went up because of this new development but Property VALUE did not.  so you have to pay more but your home isn't worth more.  and how they tore down the old buildings without proper procedure.  etc.  now, Cat is known to have her stories confused ("what the people 'round here think is that there's two couples living upstairs in your apartment.  i'm just telling you what i heard").  but it gives us a good lead to an interesting documentary:  it's all about community development and how that can turn into gentrification in all its nastiness.  and how when people outside the neighborhood decide what we need and then just Do it, without asking the actual neighbours, they're asking for trouble.

you see, the neighbours want the whole thing torn down.

so that's a possible first documentary, for sure.  but right now, we are still learning and we'd love to have some practice.

so if you have a story in the grand rapids area that you'd like us to tell, let me know.  we just might take you up on it.  i'm not promising anything beautiful, it's  a practice run you know.  but we'll get it on grtv for you when it's done.  so you let me know.  we'll talk.  or rather.... i'll have my people call your people.

isn't that the way they do it in the film industry?

i need a detox

why the environment and the way i eat and social justice are all intertwined.

i was just talking to my husband last night about how we need to eat less meat. there was a horrific article about the amount of POOP that cows produce daily and how this is becoming a problem for the environment....it got me thinking. then the last sunday of a teaching series at our church called God is green got me thinking too.  so we're sitting on the back porch, enjoying the warm summer evening.  it's kind of quiet.

then all of a sudden:

me: i've been thinking we should eat more beans.

husband: (insert blank stare because he knows i don't like beans)

me: i mean, like, maybe we could do a bean meal once a week.

husband: don't start thinking i'm going to give up meat.

me: no, and i don't want to give it up either.

(pause)

me: but, we could eat less. i mean we don't need meat at every meal.

(pause)

me: do we?

(pause)

husband: no, we don't at all.

me: and we could do more beans and other proteins with Smaller portions of meat. especially cow meat: remember all that poop?

husband: (understandably bewildered look on face) that's true.

it's a journey. my poor boy.

loving.

movies:

click (with adam sandler, i know right?  how did that happen?)

infamous (it put me in a really crabby mood.  i think that's a sign of its genius)

sweet land (great cinematography, beautiful story, wholesome enough to watch with your eight year old.  just really good)

books:

a million tiny little pieces

freedom of simplicity

my sneak peek at tom luebke's story.  sorry, not on amazon.  yet.

summertimeness:

the giant tomato plants on our front porch and the joy of that first ripe tomato.

learning to make hearty meals like morrocan lamb in the crockpot so our kitchen stays cool(er).

kombucha making and experimenting and sharing.

camping:

(the proud builder of the fire, and then, the amazing destruction of the fire)

walks in the neighborhood:

(this is my absolute favorite yard in my 'hood.  yes, i took it recently.  july.  christmas greetings!)

finally spending time with old friends.

and being too busy soaking up the goodness of summertime life to write about it.  well, i'm writing about it, and taking pictures of it.  i've just not felt that computer urge.  so all you get is snippets for now.

what if we treated driving like we treat the arts?

"we'd assume that people were either born to drive or not.  we'd wait and see if, as children, they started driving on their own, if they had talent and a calling.  if they did, we would be careful not to interfere with their talent and possibly suppress it.  we would make sure to encourage only those who seemed they'd be able to drive professionally.  we'd pay some of them millions of dollars to drive and lavish them with fame; others we would refuse to support, encouraging them to do something more useful for society.  everyone else would assume that they would never be able to drive and would just stand on the sidewalks and watch the traffic. 

at least the ozone layer would be in better shape."

-danny gregory, the creative license

found in vanity fair, of all places

peace installation in a park in Nicaragua.

"i wish i was a pacifist.  i am not a pacifist.  i'm a peace-lover." 

-archbishop desmond tutu, as interviewed by brad pitt in July 2007 Vanity Fair