Some Old Photos

We haven't uploaded our most recent photos yet, but I wanted to share with you a "greatest hits" of the first couple days. Here we go!

Dave and I atop Carson Pass, 8,574 feet above sea level. Dave was excited to be there.

Here we are posing with the Push America guys on the way up to Carson Pass. It's a very cool organization that raises money for people living with disabilities. This year they have over 60 guys riding and raise $500,000! Just a good group of some really cool guys.

This is in Carmichael, CA. We stayed with the Lilley family and Charlie, our teammate on the crew team, rode with us the next day. Such a great family and a wonderful evening.

This photo is the subject of lots of controversy. As you can probably see, we are on a ferry across the San Francisco Bay with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. The maps we got for the ride told us to do this: it is a great symbolic way (watching at San Francisco fades away into the distance) to kick off the ride! Still some people (ahem, my sister Tess, ahem) have called this "cheating". Well the country is 2,700 miles across and we are biking 4,500 so I don't feel too bad. I think it's a really cool shot.

Here we are at the Oval just before kicking of the ride. We barely knew what we were getting ourselves into.... and we love it!

Welcome to Utah!

The ride from Ely to Baker had its challenges. We encountered three peaks, and while the slope was gradual, 7+ miles of climbing even a medium grade is very tiring. Luckily the road mostly coasted into Baker, our last town in Nevada.

Baker is located five miles from the Utah border, smack in the middle of the Great Basin National Park. Overlooking the town is the massive Wheeler Peak. Standing at over 13,000 feet the mountain was the most impressive peak we've seen so far. Baker rests at 5,000 feet, but we heard there was some great hiking up near the peak. So after hopping off our bikes and into the car, we drove up to around 10,000 feet and went on a 3 mile hike.

The route we chose took us up to a grove of bristlecone pines, the oldest living beings on the planet. These trees can live up to 5,000 years old and are incredibly resilient in adverse conditions. The info tour described them as "grotesquely beautiful" and the description was certainly appropriate; these pines looked like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

We drove back down the mountain to Baker and set up camp. A meal and a couple of card games later, we turned in for the night. The next morning we rose early and broke camp. We had a busy day ahead of us! Before setting out for Milford, UT (and a time zone change!) we went over to the Lehman Caves for the 8:30, hour long tour. The Lehman Caves are a series of massive limestone structures buried in the hillside just outside of Baker. We all agreed that our favorite part of the trip was when the artificial lights were extinguished and the group was left in complete darkness. Then a candle was lit to show how the caves were viewed at the turn of the 19th century. Believe me, it was eerie. I was sad to have the lights turned back on.

The ride to Milford was tough. The part of Utah which our route took us through was barren. Some locals in Milford would later describe it as a "wasteland". A stiff headwind didn't help our efforts. Over the past two weeks I've realized that although a headwind does zap your energy, it is the loss of will that is most difficult to overcome. We broke up the ride into three segments and were happy to finally reach Milford.

Having no place to stay in Milford, we wandered around town looking for a church. We'd heard from other bikers that churches are generally welcoming to cross-country fundraisers, so we hoped to find one that would allow us to curl up in a corner for a night. What we got was even better.

At the entrance to town we spotted a steeple and headed in its direction. The door to the church was open and we filed on into the dark hallways trying to find someone. Eventually we found a group of three or so people, introduced ourselves, and made our request. Turns out we ended up addressing the Bishop Larry Barnes! The bishop was extremely accommodating and directed us to the lone hotel in town. His niece, Janet Russell, was the general manager there and would surely put us up for the evening. Ecstatic, we thanked him repeatedly and headed to the hotel.

Sure enough, Ms. Russell put us up for the evening and even put breakfast on the house for us the next morning! This is another extraordinary example of the generosity that people have shown us on this trip. Our sincere and heart felt thanks go out to both Bishop Barnes and Janet Russell for their kind support of our trip!

In the morning, after our breakfast and thanking Ms. Russell, we started out for Cedar City, UT. This was our last day before getting a rest day and with a distance on 56 miles, it shouldn't be too bad of a ride we thought. How wrong we were. The entire day we were blasted with headwinds of up to 30 mph, some rain, and general fatigue from a long week of biking. Getting a flat tire 25 miles outside of town wasn't a pleasant experience either. Needless to say, we were thrilled to finally reach town.

After a quick tune up and a few purchases at Cedar Cycles we met up with Theresa Reddy, our host for the next day and a half. We contacted Theresa through couchsurfing.com, a very cool site if you aren't familiar with it. Theresa is wonderful and we had a great time hanging out with her lat night. Today we slept in for the first time in a while and then got to doing some errands. Laundry was high on the list and I am pleased to say it is currently in the dryer (this is a major accomplishment for us). The car is also clean and Dave and Lauren are out gathering up supplies for the next couple of weeks. We'll probably grab lunch at some point and see a movie later tonight.

Tomorrow we set out for Panguitch, UT. It's a short ride (58 miles), but we hit a BIG mountain. The highest we've climbed so far was just over 8,500 but tomorrow we get all the way up to 10,500! The climb starts right as we leave Cedar City, but after getting it out of the way we should be able to zoom on down into Panguitch. Should be a fun day! Over the next 10 days we have 2 rests days: four biking days, one rest day, four more biking days, and another rest day. We're going to spend those rest days in some gorgeous national parks and we are all looking forward to some fun hiking, swimming, and kayaking!

As always, thanks for reading and I will keep updating as our access to the Internet allows. Thanks!

Answer to the last Trivia Question: Mama Katele. Mama Katele was the outspoken AIDS activist in a refugee camp inZambia that so influenced the founders of Face AIDS. Just after their return to the US, the three students received word that Mama Katele had passed away.They channelled their grief and outrage into the formation of Face AIDS and we try to continue their work today! (10 points to Matty Pru!)

Today's Trivia Question: What is the state emblem of Utah? (10 points)

BONUS QUESTION: What is the state fossil of Utah? (5 points)

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson passed away yesterday.

I was sitting on my couch with my laptop and saw it on twitter pretty much right when the word was out. I saw Perez Hiltons twitter first, saying he'd gone into cardiac arrest. I spent the next hour or two looking online, where TMZ was first to break the news. Twitter was crazy with everyone reporting what they'd heard, learning the news, etc. Then I started seeing that reports went from "not looking good" to he had passed.

I felt so weird.

So weird. It was surreal. A few hours later I started reading various tweets and status updates where people didn't care, made jokes, said to "get priorities straight and forget the celeb and think of Iran", to stop pretending like you care when you weren't truly a fan.

First of all, whether you loved him or hated him, it's really gross to make a joke of death. The posts telling us to forget him and think of Iran? Way to soon. It had only been a matter of hours. It's not like a week's gone by and since you weren't a fan you're sick of the media coverage. Let his fans fucking grieve and deal with this! And the stop pretending like you care? Would people seriously mention it and feel sad over it if they didn't care?

It seems, of course, people are very divided. That not everyone out there realized that he still has a huge fanbase! I'm not going to play the pretentious game today that his celebrity pales to what really matters in the world and Iran. Somebody who influenced me since I was little is gone. This is a huge impact to me and many people I know.

Family members of mine in their 40's are mourning because they feel he was the icon of their generation, and strangely enough, I feel the same way. He was timeless. I remember first hearing him in my late elementary, early jr. high years, when my dad let me borrow a CD (that I never gave back & still have in my collection.)

In high school, every weekend my group of friends would go disco roller skating and they played plenty of old school MJ. We knew every song, we bought his videos (still have them on VHS), we tried to learn his dance moves...I had both female and male friends that were fantastic at it (Amber, McGarren) and I can't tell you how many times they'd take off skates, get out in the middle of the rink and wow everyone. I remember one of my aunts giving a pair of MJ autographed shoes to my high school best friend, Amber who was his greatest fan. She had an MJ doll and wanted to get an MJ tattoo when we were old enough. :)

I associate his music and his videos so much with high school.

I also remember being 15 years old and kissing a cute blonde boy I had a huge crush on at a dance to "Earth Song". When you're so young, discovering...everything is brand new and exciting.

I still list "Earth Song" as one of my favorite songs of all time.

As I got older and became a professional performer, I borrowed from him as I learned to really appreciate how fucking talented he was. I can't tell you how many times I've watched "Bad", "Beat It" and "Thriller" to steal a move here or there. Yes, I can do the thriller dance. Yes, I did a homage performance to him last August for Voodoo Darlings Burlesque to "Bad" (see above picture).

I can type this right now, today and honestly tell you I am a fan. I love his music, I own it all. I love love love his dancing. Nobody moves like him. He invented something new and different and beyond entertaining.

I learned a lot yesterday. There are so many opinions out there and that's great. I think that's extremely beautiful and interesting. We all take something a very different way. On the same token, let's be kind and respectful to each other with this. It's all hit us a different way. We may not understand why it has effected someone particularly hard. We may not understand what memories or personal experiences are associated to this person and this passing. I read a quote the other day that I think very much comes into play right now...

"Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle".

I hope Michael is remembered for his talent.

He inspired us performers and impacted us very, very much. RIP.

xo Deena

Happy Summer Vacation!

Happy Summer Vacation to all you kids! So what have you got planned for the summer? Sleeping in late, swimming, camping, going to Sea Breeze or Darien Lake? Don't forget about us! We have a lot of free, fun activities planned for kids of all ages; reading clubs, activity days, movie mornings, prizes, etc.

You can find all the details here. Stop in at the library and register for the programs of your choice.

Be sure to join us Monday afternoon at 1pm for our Kick-Off program, "Happy Music for Happy Kids" featuring musician Mike Kornrich.

Hope to see you soon!

May Movies, Or 3½ Seasons of The Wire

I'm calling May my "free" month. I had my second foot surgery, was out of work for weeks, was out of the movie theater for just as long, and upon my return from Milan early in the month, I was glued to DVD after DVD of The Wire. I was tempted to start beating myself up again for not seeing very many movies, but then, sparing myself from the abuse, I remembered: I watched over 35 episodes of The Wire in their place.

The late HBO series is one of my favorites for its slate of engaging characters, for the landscape in and around the city of Baltimore, for its narrative symmetry, sharp visual aesthetic, and of course, its devotion to real social and political issues. There is Frank Sobotka, above, from season two, clinging to that can like it's the last piece of his life as a Baltimore stevedore. He is one of my favorite characters in the whole series, and it should be said, it's hard to pick a favorite of anything in this show: everything is just so good. But the standout characters are the ones that makes us feel the most ambivalence towards them. Frank Sobotka could be downright cruel, was a corrupt leader, but as the story goes on, we see him as a simple pawn in a much larger societal game. For all of his initially perceived power, he is himself powerless, as the climax and denouement so tragically spell out in this season. As season three began Frank Sobotka, the ever-lasting working man, is practically forgotten. Maybe not forgotten so much as laid to rest in one of the many sedimentary layers of Baltimore life.

Funny, by season two I was entrenched beyond escape from The Wire. It was like I had been watching forever, but there were still three whole seasons of stories and character trials to go! I really powered through, faster than I did with any TV show before. The crew from Entourage came along at a good clip, but they bored me with their surface endeavors and base motivations, and I never did venture past season four's finale. Lo and behold, great things happen when a great show falls onto your platter: you forget all about your social life. It's a fair and enjoyable sacrifice, and one I'm tempted to revisit again for old times' sake. Yeah, I got sentimental about it. I didn't cry. I try to save my tears for the stories themselves these days. It's best not to waste them on the fact that a series is over, like some weird modern postpartum affliction or something.

With The Wire, the power of the show lies in the details: the change of the opening credit montage and the new rendition of the theme song with each successive season; multiple lead characters overlapping each other with separate actions or lines of dialogue in a single shot; subtle notes on serious social issues like gentrification, articulated with a simple cut linking two scenes from the interior of a real estate showing (where wealthier prospects scope the home) to the exterior (where a couple of blue collar workers exit in economic defeat); and most exciting of all, the use of real figures from Baltimore--from police department officials to former drug runners. These characters are wonderfully integrated for an added, unspoken layer of verisimilitude, which reaches its spooky apex in seasons four and five with Marlo's sidekick Snoop (Felicia Pearson). Now she's an actress I want to know more about. She gives a simply amazing performance that paralyzes you with fear.

That's where I'll end my talk of The Wire for now. Let's move on the the May movie list!



La Notte - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 8, 2009

Mmm. With this, I almost conclude Antonioni's trilogy of films on modern malaise. La Notte, the second in the series was too academic for me to truly enjoy. I'd be in brighter spirits by the end of the final film, L'eclisse (see below), which is mesmerizing.









Pursued - (1947) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, May 10, 2009

Random movies sometimes fall into my queue and this, Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947), is one of them. It's a little noirish, mostly a western, and all Robert Mitchum as a grown adopted son who marries his own sister. They're not related by blood, of course, but isn't there something odd about these kinds of romantic setups? Anything odd about that because they only seem to happen in the movies? And I am sorry to be so curt, but Pursued was an otherwise unremarkable movie. In times like these I end up pondering how society would react to a woman and her adoptive brother getting hitched rather than the movie itself. In any event, I have a tender place in my heart for Robert Mitchum, and I considered this a warm-up for the next Mitchum flick in my queue...


The Night of the Hunter - (1955) - DVD
Seen: Thursday, May 14, 2009

Now there's my Mitchum! Here's a little write-up I posted on Scarlett Cinema.











Spring in a Small Town - (1948) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, May 16, 2009

There was some talk at GreenCine about Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town awhile back. Figuring I was already overdue to see it, I did. It's a wonderful meditation on love and unrealized emotions, or at least of those emotions that creep up on you later when life makes them too complicated to deal with simply.








L'eclisse - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Alain! Just look at him. Look at him! It is fair to adore Monica Vitti, too, I'll concede, but Alain Delon is breaking my heart these days. Watching him in Antonioni's final film in the L'Avventura/La Notte/L'eclisse series, well, that breaks it. This is bordering on obsession now. I can't take my eyes of him as it is--no matter what the movie--but you place him in this lovely, dreamy Roman landscape filled with floating emotions of love and lust and the sense that they are all so tenuous, brittle really, and could scatter into nothingness with a lazy turn of a street corner? Forget it. I'm mesmerized. Can I call in sick for that? "Hi boss, I'm at home in a dreamy daze about modern Rome and an irrational affection for an actor who is more than forty years my senior. I don't think I can come in today." Think it will work? Damn, me neither.


I Could Never Be Your Woman - (2007) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 22, 2009

Robert Cashill at the Between Productions blog (also at Cineaste mag) tipped me off to this minor piece of Amy Heckerling filmmaking, that perhaps gets that title via self-fulfilling prophecy: is it a minor movie because it doesn't have the wit of a Clueless (1995) or a Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), or because it recieved absolutely no marketing and went straight to DVD? I'll offer it's a bit of both, leaning towards the no-marketing line of thought. It's a cute and clever story in the way Clueless is--lots of throwaway lines, quirky character traits, and um, Paul Rudd's dreamy set of baby-blues. It also features a fantastic soundtrack (80s music fans will swoon. Read: The Psychedelic Furs!), which Heckerling never seems to skrimp on. It's poppy and bright and colorful, and as Cashill points out, Michelle Pfieffer gives a surprisingly rich comic performance. Check it out.


Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story - (2009) - DVD
Seen: Monday, May 25, 2009

Newbie director Louis Lapat made a really good movie. He contacted me out of the blue offering up a screener copy in return for a review. Well, the review is written, but not yet up. I've got plans for it once his movie makes its debut on PBS later this year. Until then, it is safely stowed on my hard drive.

I recommend you contact your local PBS station and request that his film be shown. Programming is tricky, and not always the same from city to city. So if you're ever going to get a chance to see this, give them a ring and say, "Hey, I want to see Louis Lapat's Win or Lose!" It's a neat little documentary feature about a Wisconsin summer camp for boys who duel it out for championship trophies from the (in)famous "Collegiate Week." The 'Week is when teams of very nonathletic boys soldier up for a series of competitive sporting events and brace themselves for a lot of testosterone-fueled yelling from their coaches. It's practically the essence of of "male" movie (you won't find many women lingering in the shots), but it reconciles all of that rough-and-tumble hostility with sweet character profiles, clever animation vignettes, and a tender hearted voice over narration from the filmmaker himself.


The Girlfriend Experience - (2009) - Film
Seen: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I enjoyed this for my time in the theater, but somehow as the days of have passed since, my affection has worn off. Perhaps I'll articulate it better later. Suffice it to say for now that it never really hurts to watch a non-Hollywood Soderbergh film, even if it doesn't pan out as a personal favorite. The shots are so damn beautiful!

Plunging into Praise

This video is not brand-new, but it is certainly brand-new to me. And it celebrates a brand-new start, as a youngster is baptized to mark his faith in Christ.This young man surely jumped into baptism with great gusto. May his zeal last!Now . . . that's what we call "taking the plunge."

Mild and green and squeaky clean

Sorry for not blogging yesterday, but we didn't have an Internet connection so I was grounded. We left the Bob Scott Campground early and headed back into Austin to start the morning. As we were getting ready to shove off a motorcyclist stopped us and warned us to be careful as we climbed out of the town; a cyclist had been hit 4 miles up the road just moments before. Shaken, Dave and I set out and proceeded with caution.

After getting to the top of Austin Summit we slowly rolled down the back side of the mountain. About half way down we came across an ambulance and a man being attended to on the side of the road. We were told that he had been riding, a car clipped him with its mirror, and ran. The sight hit Dave and I both a little too close to home and served as a reminder that we need to be extra careful on roads with blind corners where drivers might not be paying as much attention as they should. Our thoughts go out to the injured cyclist- here's to a speedy recovery.

The rest of the day passed without much fanfare. We narrowly avoided rainfall coming down our second peak and then booked it across the valley. Ten miles to go brought a little bit of "fun". There were lightning strikes off in the distance as we approached Eureka. The clouds seemed to be pushing away from the town, but we still proceeded very carefully. With three miles to go we hit a steep hill, were blasted with a halting headwind, met some pouring rain, and were blinded with hail! Luckily, it lasted only two or three minutes and we cruised into town safely. The Best Western was our home for the evening; no campgrounds were around and with storms in the area we thought it best to find some good shelter.

Eureka is a quaint little town known as "The Friendliest Town on the Loneliest Road". After showering and enjoying the complimentary hot tub at the Best Western (SCORE!), Dave, Lauren, and I strolled around town. Eureka has a famous red brick opera house on its main street which we checked out. It was closed but in the morning we stopped by to check it out. As it was the summer solstice we hiked up to a hill behind the high school and watched the sun set. It was a surreal experience to watch the sun fade behind the mountains we had just left and to think about all the miles we had crossed. We returned to the hotel and fell into a deep, well deserved sleep.

This morning we got a good start on the way to Ely. It was a 77 mile trek with 4 peaks/passes, so it was time to bring back our climbing legs. The first three peaks were in the first 34 miles so our fresh legs managed to carry us pretty far. For those of you who have never been to Nevada, it goes a little something like this: ^_^_^_^_^_ where the carrots are mountains and the underscores are valleys. A crude diagram, I admit, but it sums up the state pretty well. After each climb we were greeted with 5-6 miles of smooth sailing down hill, 10 flat miles across the valley, and then another mountain. The predictability is nice and the scenery is absolutely gorgeous.

We arrived in Ely around 4:30. With a population of 4,000, it is easily the largest town we've seen since Fallon (8,000) and is a nice breath of fresh air. Currently we are (surprise, surprise) sitting at a picnic table at our campground having a meal.

Overall the riding has been great so far. The past couple of days have reminded me of a lyric from the U2 song "Zooropa" which serves as the title for this entry. The miles have been mild since Carson's Pass, Nevada is surprisingly green, and most of the campgrounds have boasted showers! The last verse to the song also speaks to the heart of our ride, so if you will permit to get a little preachy, the lines run:

"She's gonna dream up
The world she wants to live in
She's gonna dream out loud
She's gonna dream out loud"

A lot of people ask us why we've chosen to ride across the country as a way to raise awareness. My answer has been three-fold: 1) it's a personal challenge 2) the seeming insanity of riding across the continent attracts a lot of a attention and opens up people to hearing our message and 3) taking our message out to people reaches more people than if we tried to raise awareness in our own circles.

Part of this goal is to show the people we meet that students can make a difference. All too often students can be overwhelmed the gigantic issues that we face today: global warming, nuclear proliferation, poverty, AIDS, etc. But getting involved in any way makes a significant difference. By working now we can start to form the world we want to see. For Dave, Lauren, and I, this ride is a way of "dreaming out loud" as Bono so elegantly states it. We hope it leaves that impression on others.

Answer to Saturday's trivia: Nevada. Surprise, surprise! Everyone we met in Fallon made sure to let us know this fact. Needless to say, it made me a little bit nervous! Still, it hasn't been that bad so far.

Today's Trivia Question: Face AIDS was founded in 2005 after three students came back from working in a refugee camp in Zambia. There they met a woman who was HIV positive who was one of the few outspoken advocates of HIV testing. She is the inspiration for the Face AIDS movement. What is her name?