Bernstein Documentary

Dr. Cecilia Thompson

2012-01-17T03:53:00.001-08:00

Dr. Cecilia Thompson was born in Jeff Davis County, died in Brewster County, lived and expertly wrote about Presidio County. She called her youngish friends like me new pioneers for West Texas. If that is the case, Cecilia blazed a beautiful trail for us all. Thank you, Cecilia, for sharing with me an ounce of your courage to write about the Chinati Mountains and all those who live beneath their grace.

Handmade vs Machine Made

2012-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

I am in awe of Mike Daisy's piece on This American Life about Shen Jian, China: the birth of all our plastic junk (including the I Phone). The entire piece is worth the 20 minute listen but especially the very end, the demi monde. We all wish for a simpler life with hand made products. Well, everything at those insufferable sweat shops in China, is put together by thousands of HANDS. Human hands, not machines, some working 34 hour shift. Think about that the next time you proudly chose handmade over machinery production.

This is the most important bit of radio you'll hear this year:

www.thisamericanlife.org

Dead on arrival: Christmas, 2011

2011-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Peggy Orenstein writes a brilliant Op Ed piece for the New York Times on gender neutral toys. Hamley's Department store in London (the FAO Schwartz of England) has recently remodeled their children's toy department in to a red and white decor separating inside/ soft toys from outdoor ones. No pink and purple for girls, gray or camo color for boys. I am thrilled. After days of present opening, dozens of batteries and the realization that nearly ALL the presents were made in China, I revel in the small advancement towards toy sanity. Here's hoping that next Christmas/ Hannukah, no one will buy Mateo a cheap, plastic remote anything, or a Disney product that talks, just because he's a boy. By the way, toy industry, both remote cars were dead on arrival. No amount of batteries could revive either one. Happy New Year!

Mr. XXX at the IRS

2011-12-26T06:36:00.000-08:00

On the 23rd of December, 9PM central time, I received a phone call from the IRS. Wow, I said to this stammering guy who identified himself as my examiner, this seems awfully late to be calling us citizens. I work until 1 in the morning. Where are you, I asked, thinking, India? Holtsville, NY.

In what seems like a never ending circle dance to file my taxes since adopting Mateo, Mr. XXX at the IRS, questioned everything about my expenses. Meanwhile, Mateo is in the car backseat, overtired and insistent on hearing Frog Story one more time. Mr. XXX has to listen to me implore Mateo to be quiet for 5 more minutes while I speak on the phone. It doesn't work. Mateo doesn't understand what the heck the IRS could possibly be and why I am looking panicked.

3 minutes into this insane phone conversation while driving through holiday traffic at night, I realize that there's nothing I can intelligently say without my accountant's advice. In a moment of uncharacteristic IRS sympathy, Mr. XXX tells me that's probably a good idea. If you get me a copy of the boy's VISA faxed, I will see what I can do to stall proceedings. And then, I adopted a child in 2008, too. Wow, what candor from a bureaucrat, I thought. Is this the true meaning of a religious holiday?

Etsy.com short video on Marfa, Texas

2011-12-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

To watch a funny piece for Etsy.com, created over one of the most chilly weeks in Marfa history, double click on this link:

http://www.etsy.com/storque/read/no-place-like-here-marfa-texas-12655/

why I may vote for a Republican Senator

2011-01-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

After close to two years of wrangling with the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), one wonderfully helpful soul at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's district office in Dallas is breaking through the bureaucratic entanglement for Mateo. I can't tell you how difficult it has been for us and we speak English! I can't even imagine how difficult it must be for those with less command of the English language.

Carolyn Kobe is my heroine of the day. I've all new respect for Sen. Hutchison. The most aggravating part of this process has been the refusal on behalf of USCIS to accept that there's NO door-to-door postal delivery in Marfa. That pretty much constitutes the extent of our conflict.

Working Hard In Poverty (WHIP) July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

Mateo emptied out the entire mud and branch contents of his Crocs sandal in the fragile bathroom sink. I swear that this sink is designed for prissy 6 year old girls. I've already used an organic drain cleaning made from sage and rosemary which cost way too much money but appealed to my sense of environmental responsibility. Then, when it made not one iota of difference, I tried my best to drain the water myself. What is a pea trap anyway? It is clean now, whatever it is. In desperation yesterday I went out and bought generic Dollar Store drain cleaner which must be what they make abortificients in 3rd world countries. Still not working. If I had skipped the drain cleaners completely and just hired Barmore plumbing to come from Alpine, it would have been about the same amount of money. Sigh.

The only other interesting aspect of this experience is its parallel to the mud cap procedure in the Gulf. They filled that hole with mud and it seems to be working. Perhaps they should have hired Mateo.

Working Hard In Poverty (WHIP) July 18, 2010

2010-07-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to admit how poverty stricken I am. At age 49, I've about $600 in my bank, a 3 year old son, a ton of freelance jobs that don't pay very well and not enough skills to warrant a full time post with benefits. I find myself wondering if this little town of Marfa will ever afford me something more than what I pay Mateo's caregiver per hour. Living here, or even in NYC, will mean a life of freelance options and bills above and beyond what a desk job would afford.

When we were in NYC we stayed at a friend's loft in Union Square. I shot a few camera movies of Mateo at a playground primarily because the equipment fascinated me. It encouraged a flow of young people from one piece of equipment to the other with a controlled abandon. I wanted to preserve Mateo in that swirl, to archive some aspect of his discovery but perhaps provide an analogy to my current condition. I am, with son, in a controlled drift at sea; waiting for the next job and trying to complete the ones I have committed to. I have maybe 10 more years of an ability to keep this up without collapsing in a heap.

These WHIP posts will not be lighthearted but they'll be honest. Maybe through my honesty and documentation of life on this strange front line, others will find some solace. Maybe I'll improve my own situation through this brand of honesty.

Every post will end with my grim financial situation:

$600 in the bank
$30,000 in credit card debt
$50,000 in family debt
$91,000 in mortgage debt

I must sell the house or resign myself to living with boarded up windows, sealed in to lesson heating costs. I feel as if I am a survivalist, dealing with debt and bills each month. Here's the cliff hanger: how long can I keep this up?

Cibolo web video 3/1/10

2010-03-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

edited video, summer through christmas, 2009

2010-02-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

More Mateo video but at least it's edited!

Important article from Marketing Week

2010-02-02T04:53:00.000-08:00

Case in point! Serious, or even not so serious, documentaries can help your business market itself in this economy.

http://www.bernsteindocumentary.com/MarketingWeek.pdf

Livestock

2010-02-01T17:32:00.001-08:00

Karen and Mateo go to the Presidio County Livestock show for dinner.

Occasional Video Series #2 - Fiona, Wyatt and Mateo scoot

2010-01-31T15:52:00.000-08:00

Occasional Video Series #1 - Coke Bottle in Redford

2010-01-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

My best accidental video to date:

Coke Bottle in Redford with music by Philip Glass

Mrs. Springfield's Pinyon tree and Fall in West Texas

2009-11-16T05:12:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Springfield’s Pinyon is 91 years old and we know that because she was born the day they planted it’s original cut. It’s trunk is 48 inches wide and she stands by it like a bright white weed in the shade of something magnificent. They say it takes 3 to 400 years for Juniper Pinyon to get that size but for Mrs. Springfield, just 91 years. She swears its only ever gotten water but plenty of it.

The creeks are noticeable only by the bright yellow cottonwood trees. Cibolo Creek through Shafter is a long string of yellow.

Halloween Hay Ride in Marfa

2009-11-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

This town of 1,500 is small by any one's estimates, but it has a powerful spirit, and seems to increase ten fold at times. The generosity of spirit on Halloween was such good example. Daniel Browning borrowed an antique farm tractor and hitched up two trailers. Mercer Black got the hay bales and we supplied trick a treaters. By night fall, the streets were packed. Third Street and Columbia more so. I was dressed inappropriately and even Mateo wasn't wearing much of an outfit but we were so happy. Full moon light and in it I caught a huge smear of chocolate on his face.

Headed to a home

2009-09-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

First we were lost in New Jersey, a slap in the face of this east coast year with Mateo. His last anxious look at New York was from the other side of the Holland Tunnel, lost in a series of awful communities that I never visited and for good reason. Deven, the trusty god son, made this wonderful audio recording just before we drifted out of town:

Then we were off to Charlottesville to visit my good friend Jane Barnes, from there we made our way due south through Alabama to visit Charlie Harmon in Birmingham, and through all makes of boudin and cracklin in Louisiana, to Houston, to Austin and, days later, to West Texas...and home.

I stink

2009-08-22T03:17:00.001-07:00

On the way back from steamy Tompkins Sq play ground yesterday evening my son, Mateo, said, "no, stop it, you stink" and kicked his Croc sandals off in to the street. Being 2.5 years old and willful, I should not have been surprised or even that upset, but yesterday felt different. For what feels like the 4th time in my life I am making a major move and it does not feel slight. Yes, I have done this shift between NYC and Texas before, but there have been just a few times when those treasured possessions have been disbursed. Yesterday, I saw my beloved books being rifled through, tossed around in delivery boxes and commented upon. My library is wiped clean. A young woman asked if I had any poetry books and I nodded enthusiastically, happy to unload some weight in the 100 degree heat of the late afternoon. With those give aways goes a certain part of my life's dreams, my aspirations, my hope. The focus has been just to get there, to find work and survive, and I had forgotten to pay homage to the history here on 4th street. Sometimes history can haunt but yesterday it said a teary good bye. I may stink now for not letting Mateo go down that slide one or two or three more times, but I hope some day he'll know how much it took to get to that play ground, and how hard it is to leave.

A little West Texas in Tompkins Square

2009-08-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of the many aspects of living in the East Village which will be missed is Tompkins Square Park. Years ago I found myself studying the Ruth Orkin photo series of Tompkins Square from the Christadora (A World Through My Window) and hardly thought I could be traversing those same pathways. It is a gem of a park especially since they've done such stunning work renovating and beautifying and putting in those great playgrounds (three!)

My dog Scout loves the dog park there, for obvious reasons. He was a bit setback this Summer by some nasty virus that was going around that sandbox of germs but now we use the hose on our paws and that helps.

I found myself chatting with a guy named Ignacio about our dogs, both mutts, and why all the dogs seemed to be sniffing in the exact same spot. He mentioned the Boy Scouts I gave a very brief explanation of why mine is named Scout and Austin came up. Ignacio said better to be found in Austin than West Texas. This opened up a well of things to discuss. He asked where I lived -- Marfa -- and he had lived in Alpine. For close to a year he worked on the horrible PBS series, Ranch House, but for years he's been writing about Black Cowboys and the Buffalo Soldiers. Small world, indeed.

Terrible twos and a resultant vocabulary

2009-08-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

The sentences are replacing tantrums and whining for Mateo, I am proud to report. He is well known for what I believe to be the first sentence, "ouch, that hurts". This morning he made a concerted effort to put the following words together in a report on Sesame Street:

Super Grover opened the door.

re-discovering NYC

2009-08-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

Mateo and I set out to walk Scout yesterday morning on a stunningly beautiful morning and re-discovered our neighborhood just by walking down 6th street. First we went to the newly re-designed East River promenade and could actually smell the sea. Unlike the Hudson, there were no plane crashes to report, and just a lot of pleasure boats and barges. Scout loved the waves. Then we walked back west on 6th street and Mateo coaxed me in to the 6th Street garden off of Avenue B. I hadn't been there for years and had it not been for Mateo's persistence would have skipped it entirely. It's magical there -- wow -- and worth every donation, large and small or even compost. Mateo loved the goldfish pond with turtles. The Barak street art is part of my continuing series on LES art. Another fabulous billboard from Chico, famous airbrush artist of the lower east side. I love that Cheney looks like such a putz and that Barak looks Puerto Rican.

NYC as pea soup

2009-07-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

It was bound to come, this hot and humid morning. All the usual metaphors apply, well worn. The sky seemed pregnant, waiting to burst in rain. We walked through what felt like pea soup on our way to the park. Our shirts were soaked in sweat. Scout and I took a brief stroll around Tompkins square as the morning started lazily. Many of the homeless people sat on benches, dirty and just waking up, waiting for the free breakfast truck to park at the edge of Avenue A. Garbage cans overflow. One of the lawn gates is open so Scout and I take a short stroll through the forbidden lawn. A number of men are still asleep in make shift tents and on found blankets throughout the lawn. Young and old. Some look mentally ill and others seem to be runaways or punkers passed out for the night. In that early morning light all the sleeping men look like toddlers to me. They were all someone's son; they all took naps once upon a time.

link to Julie Speed video

2009-07-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Bernstein Documentary edited a short video on Julie Speed's work with music by Shawn Colvin. I am proud to link the You Tube site here. Please tell other artists that I will do an inexpensive by cool video for them too. Julie has a book of her latest work coming out through University of Texas press and I will announce that here as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maehkmNqkYo

maiden voyage for Bernstein Documentary's blog

2009-07-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I always feel as if I will be the only person, aside from a best friend or two, to read this meandering blog but here goes.

Test, test, test. You can also find me on Face Book.

Boy do I need a more recent photo of Mateo and me. He's now 27 months and looking like a teenager by comparison.