I attended Berkshire School from 1992 - 1995. My formidable years.
I recently read the first part of a Boston Globe article that almost captures how I felt the first day that I arrived in New England, fresh out of East LA, and trying to piece my emotions into an orderly train of thoughts. The remaining part of the article is relevant, but for this purpose, it would be nothing more than a distraction. The Mountain comes first, and deserves its day under the sun, unobstructed.
The article is by Judith Gaines.
"At the foot of Mount Everett, on a serene stretch of woods and fields in an isolated corner of southwestern Massachusetts, sits the Berkshire School. Drive along Undermountain Road in Sheffield, turn up a maple-lined lane and over a little rocky bridge, and there it is: the heart of what must be one of the prettiest campuses in Massachusetts, or anywhere.
"Tastefully proportioned ivy-covered buildings flank manicured lawns. Rustic gray buildings tucked behind leafy copses house almost all of the 64 faculty members. Acres of pristine forest laced with trails rise behind the school.
"A private preparatory school since 1907, embracing female students since 1969, the Berkshire School radiates prosperity and success. The campus has a newly renovated ice-hockey rink, two girls' dormitories under construction, an alumni center slated for completion next year, a new greenhouse and a sugar shack, and an expansive dining hall with skylights and huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on piney woods.
"Its 385 students, in grades 9 through 12, come from 36 states and 22 countries. Boys sport blazers and ties; girls wear skirts or slacks. The look of the place is preppy, but with an appealing touch of mountain in it. In this wild and woodsy domain, its 680 compact, well-maintained acres convey a sense of integrity, unity, fortitude, and charm.
"The image is more than superficial. School officials say that in the past five years, applications for admission have shot up, athletic teams are winning more games, alumni involvement has increased, college placement has improved, fund-raising efforts have grossed nearly $50 million. Drug use, once an embarrassment, has declined dramatically. So has alcohol consumption. Seniors come two weeks early every year for a leadership program that helps them take responsibility for enforcing rules of behavior.
"Instructors offer a mix of traditional classes and more unusual fare, including the school's own maple sugaring operation (whose syrup provides a sweet thank you to generous donors), a boat-building program led by a beloved poet, and one of the best observatories in New England. The resolution of its telescope is so fine that students can spot an astronaut outside a space station in orbit.
"Equally compelling are the criteria for selecting the student body. You don't have to be a scholar to come here. You don't even have to be athletically inclined, although that helps. But what the Berkshire School wants most, its admissions officers make plain, are good citizens. It gives the nod to nice, clean-cut kids who do their homework, don't skip class, cause few discipline problems.
In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the watchword for the whole place is character."
Learning, not for school, but for life.
Ahhhh, the days of Buck Valley, the Spring Carnival, and running around Giligan's Island. There's nothing like cool autumn days, cold winter nights, and warm spring afternoons under the Mountain in southwest Mass!
martes, enero 30, 2007
jueves, enero 25, 2007
Papalotes en la Playa de Copacabana
Muchos chicos de las favelas de Brasil les gusta utilizar papalotes para distraerse de la vida urbana. 
In terms of culture, Rio boasts everything from ornate palaces, landscaped parks and fine museums, to football in the Maracanã stadium and a thriving live music scene. In short, Rio is everything its image suggests, and much more - a city quite unlike any other.
lunes, enero 22, 2007
Provecho Brasileiro
La comida de Brasil ofrece mucho para cualquier persona con un poco de apetito. Esta delicia fue consumida en la Academia de Cachaca en Rio de Janeiro. Estas albondigas de carne seca es el entremes ideal mientras esperas por tu comida en una plaza llena de brasileiros. Provecho.
Para leer mas sobre la Academia de Cachaca por favor visiten esta fantastica pagina de red que cubre todo desde su historia hasta el menu de la semana pasada. http://www.academiadacachaca.com.br/espanhol/historia/index.htm
Por ejemplo, esta pagina de red nos confirma lo siguiente:
"Menos de un año después, la Academia ya era señalada como uno de los mejores restaurantes de Río. Como resultado de un trabajo de equipo, que siempre desea ofrecerle al cliente un producto original, de calidad, en un ambiente acogedor y contando con un servicio ágil, atento y amable. Seguimos adelante. En septiembre de 1989, inauguramos la sucursal de Barra da Tijuca, en un local más amplio, concebido con la finalidad de acoger la colección del periodista Ulisses Vasconcelos, del estado de Minas Gerais, compuesta de más de 2.000 botellas de caña. Esa colección, que fue ordenada en estantes abiertas, en las cuáles las botellas están reunidas según los temas. Cuentan 130 años de historia del aguardiente. Desde entonces, la marca Academia da Cachaça se solidificó como referencia en la gastronomía de Río de Janeiro. Algunos de sus productos, como la caipirinha, la feijoada, el escondidinho – son considerados en Brasil y en el exterior, como los mejores de la ciudad."
viernes, enero 19, 2007
The Only Living Boy in NY
Tom, get your plane ride on time.
I know your part will go fine.
Fly down to Mexico.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in New York.
I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New York.
Half of the time were gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know where...
[Chorus] Here I Am...
Half of the time were gone, but we don't know where,...
And we don't know where.
Tom, get your plane ride on time.
I know that you've been eager to fly now.
Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine...now go...
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da...
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York,
The only living boy in New York...
[Chorus]...Here I am...here I am.
"The Only Living Boy In New York" is a timeless song written by Paul Simon about Garfunkel when he took off to Mexico to make his film "Catch-22."
If you have not heard the live version, do yourself a favor and track it down. For "Garden State" fans, you know that this song is included in the film's Grammy-award winning soundtrack.
For more info, see http://www.gardenstatesoundtrack.com/.
Gracias.
I know your part will go fine.
Fly down to Mexico.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in New York.
I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New York.
Half of the time were gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know where...
[Chorus] Here I Am...
Half of the time were gone, but we don't know where,...
And we don't know where.
Tom, get your plane ride on time.
I know that you've been eager to fly now.
Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine...now go...
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da...
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York,
The only living boy in New York...
[Chorus]...Here I am...here I am.
"The Only Living Boy In New York" is a timeless song written by Paul Simon about Garfunkel when he took off to Mexico to make his film "Catch-22."
If you have not heard the live version, do yourself a favor and track it down. For "Garden State" fans, you know that this song is included in the film's Grammy-award winning soundtrack.
For more info, see http://www.gardenstatesoundtrack.com/.
Gracias.
jueves, enero 18, 2007
LA v. Chicago - What Olympic Rivalry?
Courtesy of LA Times Columnist: Pat Morrison
Who wants a deep-dish Olympics?
The L.A.-Chicago rivalry goes athletic as the two cities compete for the U.S. bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
January 18, 2007
THE LAST TIME L.A. landed the Olympics, it was because nobody else wanted them. In 1977, when bids were due to host the 1984 Summer Games, the International Olympic Committee was still waiting by its mailbox in Switzerland for an application from some city somewhere in the world besides Los Angeles. Anyone? Anywhere? When the mailman didn't stop, the IOC gave it to L.A.
Tehran had been in the running, but the shah of Iran — who could have filled a hundred Olympic swimming pools with light sweet crude — decided that the Games were too expensive. Everyone was spooked by Montreal in 1976, when the Games ran a billion dollars in the red. After that, a chastened IOC agreed to a budget Olympics — "spartan and businesslike," as Mayor Tom Bradley put it, and, as it turned out, the first Olympics to make money.Monday is the deadline for the last two U.S. cities in the running for the 2016 Olympics to file detailed bids to the U.S. Olympic Committee: Chicago and L.A., City of the Big Shoulders versus City of the Big Breasts. The USOC will choose one to forward to the IOC. I thought I didn't want another L.A. Olympics. I loved the no-traffic fortnight of the '84 Games; it was so pleasant, like living in L.A. after a neutron bomb blast. But I couldn't bear seeing "festive federalism" again, the 1984 Olympics' color theme that was so anxious to offend no one that it inspired no one: magenta, vermilion, aqua and the color of French's mustard when it dries on Levi's.
Plus, I am still sitting on a closetful of 1984 Olympic souvenirs worth jack-all on EBay. But now I truly do want Los Angeles to land the 2016 Games. It has nothing to do with this little spat you may have heard about between the L.A. Times and its Tribune Co. overlords in Chicago. Nothing. Why L.A. and not Chicago? Where to start? L.A. jogs. Chicago, as the song says, merely toddles. L.A.'s BMI, at least in westerly ZIP Codes, is awesome; Chicago was Men's Fitness magazine's fattest burg of 2006. Give us the Summer Games; Chicago can have the Olympic pie-eating contest. I consulted my Chicago Trib sports columnist pal Mike Downey for more analysis of our dueling cities.
Downey: President Obama could proclaim, "Let the Games begin," and Vice President Winfrey could host closing ceremonies.
Morrison: Nix. President Villaraigosa will do the honors, and Gov. Beckham will kick the first ball.
Downey: Chicago is a much safer city. When we throw an Olympic Games, our guests will be able to buy extra protection from some of our top mobsters.
Morrison: Have you ever seen the paparazzi in action? I'll put the Academy Awards security guys up against the Midwestern mob any time.
Downey: L.A.'s stadium is too old. I think Hercules threw the discus there.
Morrison: The Coliseum is only as old as Henry Kissinger, but Soldier Field? The soldier it was named after is Ulysses S. Grant. Old Soldier Fields don't die — they just get hideously made over by crashing flying saucers.
It's sweet that Chicago has been trying so hard to copy us. Like California, it banned foie gras on the grounds of animal cruelty.
Chicago's mayor believes in bikes. Chicago might even ban smoking at the beach. (Beach? I guess I slept through "Baywatch: Lake Michigan.") Flattering. But why go with a copy when you can have the real thing?
By 2016, as we all know, L.A.'s fabulous transit system will zip visitors from Riverside to Santa Monica, from San Clemente to Santa Clarita. The freshwater, free-flowing Los Angeles River will host every waterborne competition. Palmdale International Airport will welcome tourists with jet-lag aromatherapy booths. Every venue will be more or less in L.A. — unlike Chicago, which proposes preliminary soccer games at the University of Minnesota.
And whatever we have to build — Frank Gehry lives here. None of this will wind up in the actual Olympics bid, which reads like a college admission form, asking such questions as, "Describe your motivation behind the choice of location of key Olympic infrastructure."
Dump the essay questions. There is one supreme and salient reason why L.A. should welcome the world: We are not America.
At least we are not the Beltway-think America that people have come to distrust and protest and fear the world over. California has already been culled from the American herd by public figures who seize on every cultural earthquake as proof of the Left Coast's depravity. Pat Robertson wrote a novel about a meteor hitting the coast and putting L.A. a mile under water, and don't think he didn't enjoy it.
Of course they hate us.
We're the high-risk, high-payoff destination where Nobel laureates and migrants, the Silicon Valley and the Central Valley, Disneyland and Hollywood arise and flourish, create and heal, connect and feed and entertain everyone else. Come to think of it, is anything more American than that?
Not even Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Thank you Pat. We love you and your hats.
Who wants a deep-dish Olympics?
The L.A.-Chicago rivalry goes athletic as the two cities compete for the U.S. bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
January 18, 2007
THE LAST TIME L.A. landed the Olympics, it was because nobody else wanted them. In 1977, when bids were due to host the 1984 Summer Games, the International Olympic Committee was still waiting by its mailbox in Switzerland for an application from some city somewhere in the world besides Los Angeles. Anyone? Anywhere? When the mailman didn't stop, the IOC gave it to L.A.
Tehran had been in the running, but the shah of Iran — who could have filled a hundred Olympic swimming pools with light sweet crude — decided that the Games were too expensive. Everyone was spooked by Montreal in 1976, when the Games ran a billion dollars in the red. After that, a chastened IOC agreed to a budget Olympics — "spartan and businesslike," as Mayor Tom Bradley put it, and, as it turned out, the first Olympics to make money.Monday is the deadline for the last two U.S. cities in the running for the 2016 Olympics to file detailed bids to the U.S. Olympic Committee: Chicago and L.A., City of the Big Shoulders versus City of the Big Breasts. The USOC will choose one to forward to the IOC. I thought I didn't want another L.A. Olympics. I loved the no-traffic fortnight of the '84 Games; it was so pleasant, like living in L.A. after a neutron bomb blast. But I couldn't bear seeing "festive federalism" again, the 1984 Olympics' color theme that was so anxious to offend no one that it inspired no one: magenta, vermilion, aqua and the color of French's mustard when it dries on Levi's.
Plus, I am still sitting on a closetful of 1984 Olympic souvenirs worth jack-all on EBay. But now I truly do want Los Angeles to land the 2016 Games. It has nothing to do with this little spat you may have heard about between the L.A. Times and its Tribune Co. overlords in Chicago. Nothing. Why L.A. and not Chicago? Where to start? L.A. jogs. Chicago, as the song says, merely toddles. L.A.'s BMI, at least in westerly ZIP Codes, is awesome; Chicago was Men's Fitness magazine's fattest burg of 2006. Give us the Summer Games; Chicago can have the Olympic pie-eating contest. I consulted my Chicago Trib sports columnist pal Mike Downey for more analysis of our dueling cities.
Downey: President Obama could proclaim, "Let the Games begin," and Vice President Winfrey could host closing ceremonies.
Morrison: Nix. President Villaraigosa will do the honors, and Gov. Beckham will kick the first ball.
Downey: Chicago is a much safer city. When we throw an Olympic Games, our guests will be able to buy extra protection from some of our top mobsters.
Morrison: Have you ever seen the paparazzi in action? I'll put the Academy Awards security guys up against the Midwestern mob any time.
Downey: L.A.'s stadium is too old. I think Hercules threw the discus there.
Morrison: The Coliseum is only as old as Henry Kissinger, but Soldier Field? The soldier it was named after is Ulysses S. Grant. Old Soldier Fields don't die — they just get hideously made over by crashing flying saucers.
It's sweet that Chicago has been trying so hard to copy us. Like California, it banned foie gras on the grounds of animal cruelty.
Chicago's mayor believes in bikes. Chicago might even ban smoking at the beach. (Beach? I guess I slept through "Baywatch: Lake Michigan.") Flattering. But why go with a copy when you can have the real thing?
By 2016, as we all know, L.A.'s fabulous transit system will zip visitors from Riverside to Santa Monica, from San Clemente to Santa Clarita. The freshwater, free-flowing Los Angeles River will host every waterborne competition. Palmdale International Airport will welcome tourists with jet-lag aromatherapy booths. Every venue will be more or less in L.A. — unlike Chicago, which proposes preliminary soccer games at the University of Minnesota.
And whatever we have to build — Frank Gehry lives here. None of this will wind up in the actual Olympics bid, which reads like a college admission form, asking such questions as, "Describe your motivation behind the choice of location of key Olympic infrastructure."
Dump the essay questions. There is one supreme and salient reason why L.A. should welcome the world: We are not America.
At least we are not the Beltway-think America that people have come to distrust and protest and fear the world over. California has already been culled from the American herd by public figures who seize on every cultural earthquake as proof of the Left Coast's depravity. Pat Robertson wrote a novel about a meteor hitting the coast and putting L.A. a mile under water, and don't think he didn't enjoy it.
Of course they hate us.
We're the high-risk, high-payoff destination where Nobel laureates and migrants, the Silicon Valley and the Central Valley, Disneyland and Hollywood arise and flourish, create and heal, connect and feed and entertain everyone else. Come to think of it, is anything more American than that?
Not even Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Thank you Pat. We love you and your hats.
Save Elephant Hill - El Sereno
We interrupt this blog to bring you some relevant information regarding Elephant Hill in El Sereno. Will developers ever stop and smell the open space?
Elephant Hill El SerenoSee Location(32 acres)
Elephant Hill is comprised of 110-acres of privately owned, undeveloped hillside open space in predominately Latino, working-class El Sereno.
It is the largest remaining open space in Northeast Los Angeles and is located north of Huntington Drive and east of Collis Avenue, on the border with South Pasadena.
According to Audubon California, Elephant Hill has several distinct habitats and high local biological importance. It is home to owls, hawks, coyotes, cottontail rabbits and many other types of wildlife, as well as rare Oak and California Walnut trees.
Residents of Northeast Los Angeles recently waged a campaign to prevent the development of 24 luxury homes on 15 acres of Elephant Hill. Under threat of a lawsuit by the developer, the Los Angeles City Council granted final approval of the development, including the construction of growth-inducing access roads.
The remaining 95 acres of Elephant Hill are now at imminent risk for development. For more information, please visit the Northeast LA Open Space Coalition: http://www.nelaopenspace.org/threat/threat.html
Elephant Hill El SerenoSee Location(32 acres)
Elephant Hill is comprised of 110-acres of privately owned, undeveloped hillside open space in predominately Latino, working-class El Sereno.
It is the largest remaining open space in Northeast Los Angeles and is located north of Huntington Drive and east of Collis Avenue, on the border with South Pasadena.
According to Audubon California, Elephant Hill has several distinct habitats and high local biological importance. It is home to owls, hawks, coyotes, cottontail rabbits and many other types of wildlife, as well as rare Oak and California Walnut trees.
Residents of Northeast Los Angeles recently waged a campaign to prevent the development of 24 luxury homes on 15 acres of Elephant Hill. Under threat of a lawsuit by the developer, the Los Angeles City Council granted final approval of the development, including the construction of growth-inducing access roads.
The remaining 95 acres of Elephant Hill are now at imminent risk for development. For more information, please visit the Northeast LA Open Space Coalition: http://www.nelaopenspace.org/threat/threat.html
viernes, enero 12, 2007
Calles de Copacabana
Aqui estoy observando la arquitectura de los brasileiros en Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Playa de Ipanema en Janeiro
Happy New Year from Rio de Janeiro - una ciudad maravillosa. Esta es una foto de la playa de Ipanema, en la ciudad de Rio de Janeiro en Brasil.
sábado, enero 06, 2007
el hemisferio sur
Saludos a todos desde el hemisferio del sur. Mucha gente pasa toda su vida en un hemisferio, y es importante reconocer y apreciar todos los paises del mundo. En estos momentos estoy en una playa de Salvador Bahia en Brazil, y el clima esta muy calido. Pero la gente de Brazil es mas que amable, tienen un espiritu salvaje y noble a la vez, una mezcla de la jungla amazonica con la esperanza portugues, que desde Lisboa hasta el nuevo mundo sigue alimentando una poblacion entera de espiritus nuevos. Feliz Nativ!
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