Will Rogers was a South Valley regular
By sheer coincidence, the presidential election next year will
New homes are back
Almost everywhere you look, formally littered lots as well as vacant parcels are being developed into new homes. As we drive around Morgan Hill there is everything from low-income senior apartments to luxury homes and everything in between.
Seeing nature through photography
If you enjoy the outdoors, it is likely you are a photographer. You are on the trail and come around a bend. Suddenly, the world drops away and a vast landscape stretches to an incomprehensibly distant horizon. When nature shows off like this, it is natural to want to preserve it in pixels.The grand landscape will always be the top priority to a hiker with a camera, but with practice, photography can also be a window to natural beauty that we routinely pass by unnoticed.Over the years, I have been to a handful of photographic seminars, always in a place of special natural beauty. But I am not sure that Yosemite or Point Reyes is the best place to learn to see beyond the usual wide angle landscape. If you gave a camera to a monkey in Yosemite Valley, he would likely return with some nice photographs. How could he miss? But could he take a good photograph in a vacant lot?I believe that the measure of a good photographer is one who makes extraordinary images in ordinary surroundings. Cultivating the heightened visual acuity necessary to create images like this is an excellent way to bring us closer to the natural world. Getting out into nature is important, but when we go, we should strive to walk into it and not just through it.I am better at preaching it than doing it, but photography has helped me open my eyes to natural beauty that I would have otherwise passed without notice. It has awakened me to the beauty of nature at my feet or close at hand that I never saw before. It has challenged me to see with a child’s eyes and discover extraordinary sights in ordinary places.With this in mind, photography becomes as much a practice in expanded seeing as the pursuit of a picture. You don’t need a hoochy-coochy Nikon SLR to do this. Next time you hit the trail, grab your pocket camera. Use your hike as an opportunity to really look at the “ordinary” sights you pass. Is there a spider web bejeweled with morning dew? Are some fallen maple leaves resting on autumn’s tawny grasses just so? How about the brightly colored lichen on that rock? I wonder if a photo of the sycamore trees reflected in that creek pool will look like one of Monet’s impressionist paintings.It is a bit surprising, but I have learned that images of simple scenes like this wear far better on a viewer’s eyes than the photo of the alpine peaks bathed in alpenglow. Mark my words, you will take that image off the wall while the picture of the maples leaves on the grass continues to please.The possibilities are endless. As we look more carefully, we begin to see more deeply. In the process, we learn that the ordinary things we pass without notice are indeed extraordinary.
‘Cyrano’ — a new look at an old hero
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley does it again with its regional premiere of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano, translated by Michael Hollinger and adapted by Hollinger and Aaron Posner. There are a number of versions about this character since 1897 and this offering by TheatreWorks brings a fresh look at this romantic, swirling, swashbuckling, poignant character.
New commission member jumps in with gusto
One of the things I love about Gilroy is the weather. I have a brother-in-law who lives in upstate New York (where I once lived) and we often compare the weather. While he describes extreme cold in winter or extreme heat and humidity in the summer – to say nothing of devastating rain and storms – I smugly describe mostly sunny days and pleasant evenings year round.
Isaac Mizrahi Defends his Brash Red-Carpet Behavior as Oscars Near
Get over it, says Isaac Mizrahi. The fashion designer turned
Sister Robert Anne is in the Limelight with cabaret class
Ruth E. Stein takes over the Limelight Actors Theater stage as Sister Robert Anne and doesn’t release it until she has entertained, enthralled and captivated her audience as a hip nun, giving a class on how to successfully create a cabaret act. “Sister Robert Anne’s Cabaret Class” offers well-done, original material and a good voice (which is probably great when she is not working with an aggravating allergy.)
Travel agencies still offer personalized service
They’re still out there, waving at us from the peripheries of our Google searches as we hunt for the cheapest and most efficient ways to book a dream vacation.
