Winter Vacay

University of Wisconsin geographer Chris Limburg does a yogic headstand on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Maine with our friend Dave Seluski. This December Chris was my first visitor in L.A. We had a blast and he helped raise my confidence that I made the right decision to move here. Among other events we went to a Lakers game (see photo below) and drove up the pacific coast highway. At the Lakers game we witnessed 20,000 people boo Brittney Spears when they showed her face on the big screen, then the same 20,000 people gave Jack Nicholson a standing-o. I felt bad for Brittney. We were in Maine because after Chris' visit to L.A. we both went to Boston to visit my sister Julie and other friends, including the pictured Dave S. I mainly wanted to go to Boston to keep Julie company since, as a new nurse, she had to work over the holidays.



Another UW geographer who happens to be from Boston, Abby Neely, was nice enough to take me in on Christmas eve and Christmas day while Julie was working. She's pictured below with her brother John. Abby studies AIDS in South Africa, and was living there for most of the summer. She is in a "Princeton" family, so I got to don some taunting apparel on Christmas morning.

Dream Job

Last weekend I went to the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Culver City to attend a symposium spondored by bldgblog, an architectural interest group. The CLUI, as it's known, greatly impressed me if for no other reason than it showed me a type of job that an academic human geographer might be able to do besides become a professor at a university. It's essentially a non-profit, private sector, professional geography group that tries to understand and represent visible artifacts on the earth's surface. The photo above is an example taken from their website that shows the very early stages of road production - the piles of asphalt precede even the clearing of the roadway. The lectures at the event covered a wide range of topics from the southern tip of the Mississippi River to hyperbolic spatial patterns crocheted by a mathematically informed artist working for the Institute for Figuring. Hyperbolic forms are the kind you might recognize in coral reefs - like the plants that are curved. After the event fellow geographer Rick Miller, others, and I went to a Cuban restaurant where I had a mango milkshake and pork sandwich - Cuban classics.

Must See Movies

One of the courses I recently completed at UCLA is called Documentary Video Production. I wanted to take the course because I have an interest in using the medium of film to express ideas in academic geography. There are so many interesting and relevant research projects in the discipline, yet most people aren't sure what professional geographers do. I believe this is in large part because the medium of text hides geographers' ideas in obscure journals. Many would take the magazine National Geographic to be a notable exception, yet it is roundly frowned on by academic geographers because it lacks complexity, theory, and a critical stance about why human processes work the way they do. Bringing together a medium found in the "fine arts" with an "academic" discipline such as geography is difficult if only because those institutional barriers exist and are strong. A successful documentary film will first and foremost evoke an emotional response from its viewers, while a successful work in geography will seek to explain reality in a convincing manner. These two goals often conflict in the methodology of producing the end result. In my expereience this quarter, for example, I was struck by the power given to narrative, even at the expense of "the truth." Even documentary film makers seem to be far less concerned with research ethics and more concerned with the final product, not caring how one arrived there. It was an incredible class if for no other reason than it made me aware of these disciplinary walls, and I feel that I am now more aware of the challenges an "academic film maker" faces. We watched one or two superb documentary films per week in this class, so I wanted to make public the filmography. I suggest you watch any or all of these films - they are all worth the time and are sure to enlighten and evoke an emotional response. My personal top three are "Sherman's March," "Nobody's Business," and "Birthplace." Enjoy!

"A Married Couple"
by Allan King
1969, Canada; 94 min.

"The Prince is Back"
by Marina Goldovskaya (my professor for the course)
1999, France/Russia; 60 min.

"Sherman's March"
by Ross McElwee
1987, USA; 157 min.

"Darwin's Nightmare"
by Hubert Sauper
2004, France; 90 min.

"The Wonderful and Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"
by Roy Muller
1989, Germany; 180 min.

"Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple"
by Stanley Nelson
2006, USA; 85 min.

"Nobody's Business"
by Allan Berliner
1996, USA

"Iraq in Fragments"
by James Longley
2006, USA

"49 Up"
by Michael Apted
2005, U.K.; 180 min.

"This Film is not yet Rated"
by Kirby Dick
2006, USA; 97 min.

"A Woman Under the Influence"
by John Cassavetes
1974, USA; 146 min.

"Citizen Ruth"
by Alexander Payne
1996, USA; 102 min.

"Deliver Us From Evil"
by Amy Berg
2006, USA; 101 min.

"Birthplace"
by Pawel Lozinski
1992, Poland; 47 min.

Jack Attack

Super congrats to John and Laurie, my friends from Madison who just had a baby boy. His name is Jack, and he was born one day after I returned to Los Angeles after visiting them for the holiday. A new Armadillian is born!