Richard and Grace came over last night and brought delicious food from this Mexican restaurant.
https://micasamexicana.net/takeout-menu
Everything was wonderful and we felt very spoiled. Thanks so much! As usual, talking too much and didn't take photos. I must remember to always take photos at the beginning of the evening.
We had a wonderful meal with Donna and Earl last night. We ordered in from Minerva's and even though Jim and I split a roast lamb we still had some leftovers!
Thank you, Donna and Earl, for a lovely evening and lively discussion.
We have certainly had the most amazing food in Madrid. I always had the seafood soup to begin and I recall an amazing main course of suckling pig. Spain was so much cheaper than France when we were doing European travel. Interesting to know if that is still the case...probably not.
Spain’s historic capital has it all. A jigsaw of interlocking neighbourhoods, each with its own identity - from the LGBTQ+ district of Chueca to the aristocratic Chamberi. Madrid is a buzzing 24-hour city.
Once home to the 1970s countercultural movement ‘La Movida’, which saw bands and alternative art explode across the region, Madrid is still a mecca for artists and art dealers alike today.
The city’s food scene is thriving too and outside the centre, lesser-known parks and green spaces are finally getting the recognition they deserve. Previously a destination for ‘long weekend’ tourists, Madrid is keen to present itself as more than a minibreak city.
I'm surprised we didn't come across one in our travels but perhaps they are quite recent.
Good on the UK and brilliant that there will be no admission fee.
"The UK’s first LGBTQ museum is due to open this spring in London, founded by the charity Queer Britain. The museum will be located on the ground floor of 2 Granary Square in Kings Cross in the building owned by the Art Fund charity. The space will house four galleries, a workshop, an education space, gift shop and offices.
The new institution “celebrates the stories, people and places that are so intrinsic to the queer community in the UK, and beyond”, says a statement. The museum’s plans and programming schedules are due to be announced; crucially, there will be no admission fee.
It will be funded through “all the usual channels: donations, retail, partnerships, trusts and foundations. Queer Britain is a fully registered charity,” says a spokesman for Queer Britain. Donors who contribute are sent a message, saying: “We are losing stories and artefacts every day and need a central space to examine, understand and celebrate our stories.”
“[Queer Britain’s] exciting proposal for the first UK museum dedicated to exploring LGBTQ+ histories, people and ideas was warmly supported by our trustees, and we're thrilled that our beautiful building in Granary Square will be home for the first phase of the Queer Britain museum,” says Jenny Waldman, the director of Art Fund, in a statement. The Granary Square tenancy is initially for two years.
The LGBTQ+ museum will be located on the ground floor of 2 Granary Square in Kings Cross, in the building owned by the Art Fund charity Photo: © David Levene
The museum director is Joseph Galliano, the chief executive of Queer Britain and former editor of Gay Times. The museum’s advisory group includes Clare Barlow, curator team lead at the Science Museum Group, and Sandy Nairne, the former director of the National Portrait Gallery in London. Photographer Robert Taylor is among the trustees.
Queer Britain’s archive is currently housed at the Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool Street station, which also holds a vast lesbian and gay news media archive and a library of around 10,000 LGBTQ titles. “Queer Britain’s collection is looked after by the Bishopsgate Institute; they [Bishopsgate] will continue with building their own LGBTQ+ collection as well,” the Queer Britain spokesman adds.
Other UK museums also have significant LGBTQ archives including National Museums Liverpool—encompassing objects such as flyers and literature linked to key gay UK events and clubs—and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which contains a range of objects linked to LGBTQ history."
When we were doing graduate work at the University of Oregon in 1976, I took a course on Journalism in Schools. As a teacher I sponsored the school newspaper so thought this would help in that work. It did end up to be pretty fascinating but I didn't learn much about sponsoring a school newspaper. It was almost exclusively about what constitutes libel. Recently, there had been a big court case in the US that gave school newspapers the right to be free from censorship just like the "real" press but along with that came the possibility of being sued for libel. Hence, it seemed teachers involved in the school newspaper needed to know more about libel than the skills involved in writing news stories or feature articles.
I guess people who know me wouldn't be surprised that I love this simple design:)
The Australian government has bought the Aboriginal flag's copyright in a bid to "free" the symbol of identity from bitter fights over who can use it.
Indigenous artist Harold Thomas created the flag in 1971 as a protest image but it is now the dominant Aboriginal emblem and an official national flag.
Despite this, many Aboriginal people say the flag has been "held hostage" by copyright deals that limit its display.
The flag can now be reproduced by anyone without fear of legal threats.
"Over the last 50 years we made Harold Thomas' artwork our own - we marched under the Aboriginal flag, stood behind it, and flew it high as a point of pride," said Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt.
"Now that the Commonwealth holds the copyright, it belongs to everyone, and no-one can take it away."
The government paid more than A$20m (£11m; $14m) in total to secure the copyright from Mr Thomas and to terminate lease agreements, media reports said.
More here:
It gives me another chance to see this cool sign. It almost looks three dimensional ...guess it's partly the way she is holding it.
"Here is Leslie picking up her Original painting that was bought for her by an anonymous collector. She was invited to meet the family and see the art studio and it truly warmed my soul seeing how happy and excited she was to get this painting that will remind her of her Mother working at 'The Only' Seafood restaurant and all the memories of eating there and being with friends and family. That smile says it all."
It certainly has. The piano I learned on was a big old upright with some of the ivory tops missing and all the white keys were more yellow than white.
I'm sure Cec is going to have a blast with his new piano...look forward to hearing him play on it!
Cec gave his dad's guitar to Lexie as she's been playing an acoustic guitar. A string broke, surprise, we figure it's 80 years old. We took it into Tom Lee Music to get it restrung and found the bridge was ready to explode and it was a danger to play! So we looked at new guitars and then ended up in the piano section.
We bought a new piano! It's an digital piano but has wooden keys with the 52 moving parts on each key. It has Bluetooth so you can attach your iPad and it's way more than a regular upright piano. You can use head phones and it even has a built in metronome! It's on order and will be here in three to six months. It's quite the instrument and if you want to see what it does:
As a kid I always loved this sign...something so cool about seahorses.
"Amazing act of Kindness. I had a new collector over to my art studio on Sunday looking at a few paintings. He saw this painting and really wanted it but I told him it was already reserved. She saw the sneak peak Dec 30th when it was 10% and loved it because her mother worked there for 11 years and had passed away. I usually will only reserve with a deposit but I could sense this painting really meant alot to her. So I said she could do a payment plan and the 1st one was actually due tomorrow. Well this collector paid the painting off in full FOR HER! What an absolute awesome act of kindness from one stranger to another. He wishes to remain anonymous and I'm still a bit shocked but it really proves me to me the that the universe is listening and when you do the right thing amazing things will happen. She picks it up tomorrow."
We had many wonderful times there enjoying the panoramic view of Vancouver.
From Lori H. from Vancouver Island Sketchers
This photo came up on Facebook today and it seems to say a lot about the character of the Queen. It certainly made me smile.
I hope it will keep working. What a day. Jim is teaching online at Royal Military College so he really couldn't be without it and then of course I have my blog readers to think about. I'm glad I said I may not be posting every day:)
"Van Gogh Alive is not an art exhibition in the traditional sense. It is an immersive, multi-sensory multimedia art experience which combines high definition projections of Van Gogh’s paintings with digital surround sound. Imagery and animations are projected at a scale that offers visitors the ability to see the details of the artists work like never before. More than 3,000 images transform each surface. However, there is no physical work by Vincent Van Gogh on display"
I think this is pretty cool but I don't think it would have moved me to tears as did going through rooms 71 and 72.
"The D'Orsay museum owns an impressive twenty-seven Van Gogh paintings , most of them located in the rooms 71 and 72. The Musee D'Orsay is a huge modern art museum, located in the center of Paris. The magnificent building was once the Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900."Aug 1, 2020
Perhaps I should say that I won't be blogging every day. I seem to be a bit addicted to this but don't want to feel I have to blog every day.
It was great to see them and Richard did all sorts of tech stuff for us as usual. Grace and I had a nice chat while it was all going on. Jim is now cleaning up.I took some nice photos but can't seem to find my cable to upload them.
Thanks so much you guys!
Found my cable. Jim cooked his favourite....spaghetti bolognese.
