Category: What This Really Says About Me (Page 4 of 15)

The Best of Vacation Times, The Worst of Twitter Times

June 30, 2016 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

"Everyone’s a critic today."
– Sonny, Good Times

Vacation

It's an ice cream vacation and Daily Mail is stalking Cher through every spoonful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3649725/Cher-cuts-laid-figure-white-leather-vest-black-yoga-pants-eats-ice-cream-Saint-Tropez.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3654774/Cher-showcases-quirky-fashion-sense-monochrome-ensemble-enjoys-realxing-day-Portofino-pals.html

However, there have been some funny titles about Cher's vacation in light of recent rumors and events:

Cher shows off her fit physique at 70 years old

Cher vacations in Italy amid reports that she’s dying, broke and alone

Cher Broke and Near Death Reports Refuted by Italy Vacation Photos – 70 Year Old Singer Looks Healthy, Happy

Motorcycle Fan

If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, (and I was for like three episodes before I dropped out realizing the thing was a soap opera), you might be surprised to know that Norman Reedus has come out saying his number one choice to ride bikes across America with is Cher: http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Celebrity-Norman-Reedus-Wants-Ride-With-Most-Who-You-Guess-143557.html

In Elephant News

Cher is still working for our elephant friends.

Cher aims to free lonely, chained elephant in Pakistan

Cher aims to free lonely, chained elephant in Pakistan through adoption

Tweet Drama

Drama #1: The Brexit

Cher got flack this week for her tweet about the UK vote to leave the European Union.

Stories:

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/cher-backs-brexit-vote-immediately-regrets/#gs.TGCvH3Q

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/27/cher-forced-to-defend-herself-after-confusing-fans-with-views-on-brexit/

Obviously her initial tweet emoticon was misinterpreted. She never "appeared to back the vote and then regretted it." At least if you can read a tweet. She says literally "Pray it's best decision" but if you ignore the praying hands emojii, (is there such a thing as emoji blindness?), it looks like she's saying "It's the best decision." I guess this is why emoticons aren’t admissible in legal documents. It does surprise me that Twitter Followers can't follow.

Drama #2: Then there was the bomb emoji drama which included the words "Cher slammed" in many online article titles.

The stories:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/cher-slammed-bomb-emoji-tweet-turkey-article-1.2691823

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkey-cher-slammed-after-using-bomb-explosion-emojis-tweet-about-istanbul-airport-attack-1568007

http://www.tv3.ie/xpose/article/entertainment-news/208406/Cher-apologises-for-Turkey-bomb-emoji-tweet

She's literally saying: "We all pray for innocent people in Turkey airport. Bomb explosion." But I get it: (cartoon bomb ≠ real bomb) = insensitive. Terrorism isn’t a loony toon after all. So I guess a few severed limb emojis are not appropriate either. Hey, dark days call for dark-humor emojis.

But this, my Cher friends and Cher Twitter "followers," is what we call a language problem over in literary-theory land; and some kid will soon be doing a college dissertation on it, if we should be so lucky. Emojis are in fact so new, it’s hard to know officially which of them can officially classified as useful or inappropriate. But Cher seems willing to be the leading test case on the issue.

My beef with emojis is that they evolved from emoticons like this :-/ (which, because I’m old-school, I still use), a system of willfully misusing punctuation marks in order to insert some added layer of emotion into the deadpan language of email communications, (“Is he trying to being a dick with that comment?”), where in olden days people found it hard to decipher contextual humor or anger or sarcasms or winks or any other kind of extreme feeling in email missives and misunderstandings consistently arose, friendships ended, wars ensued, and jokes failed.

These days artists are paid (or not) to create little cartoon pictures for us to communicate with instead of us having to use those pesky little Latin letters or instead of getting paid to, say, solve world problems or teach children to communicate better in emails without the aid of stupid little cartoons and then get offended when some celebrity doesn’t use the little pictures right which ironically was a problem the little cartoons (via the misuse of punctuation) was supposed to freaking solve in the first place!

We can all blame Twitter now.

More Than Politics

June 15, 2016 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

The tragedy Sunday morning at Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse has prompted some sad Cher tweets. And there are three somewhat sobering aspects of this monstrosity: the attach was (1) on a gay nightclub, (2) with mostly Hispanic victims, (3) who were killed with an assault riffle. These three facts should underscore the importance of this year's election and the real moral backsliding occurring in major parts of our communities.

This week radio host Norman Goldman invoked the sobering poem "First They Came" by Pastor Martin Niemöller. Read it and think about it.

Cher brought her support behind Hillary Clinton before the recent California primary at a concert event. Read the stories:

We’re beyond fighting over idealism in this election.

I'm also wrapping up a David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest reading group and his amazing commencement address in 2005 was passed around the group yesterday. It's all about how to get to the place where it's not all about you. Highly suggested reading.

Cher for H, Cher or Jaden Smith, 15 Facts, 1975 Tabloid

April 8, 2016 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Agh! I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. And I'm ridiculously exhausted. But I….must….blog.

I’m in an Infinite Jest reading group (we do only 100 pages every two weeks but it’s a challenging novel so that’s not saying much). I’m taking a New Mexican art history class. I’m in the middle of a whole survey of American poetry online courses with HarvardX and the new class starts Friday. I’m in physical therapy for my knee. I'm attending a Google Analytics training workshop next week. I’m still trying to fart out some chapters for a novel. I'm planning trips to help my parents who are moving. And on top of everything else it’s already National Poetry Writing Month challenge again and I'm trying to keep up with the poems! (This year my theme is election angst.)

Speaking of which, Cher threw her support behind Hillz last week in a very interesting logo graphic mashup. I myself will be also throwing in for Hillz (and am enthusiastic about it) but I also like and would vote for Bernie in the general election.

On another Cher note, here is a website that challenges you to guess whether tweets are written by Cher or Jaden Smith: http://www.gq.com/story/cher-jaden-smith-twitter. And here are "15 Interesting Facts You Don’t Know About Cher" from ppcorn.com. But who are they kidding because Cher fans already know all these things.

There's also more news on an upcoming bio-musical, the title announcing that something is confirmed. Is that meaning the rumor is confirmed or the progress of the work has been confirmed? This is a far cry from the theater space at The Ethyl Barrymore being confirmed. Just the plans is all. You wonder how many news stories plans can generate.

My LA friends and I celebrated a late Christmas two weeks ago and one of my gifts from Coolia was a Motion Picture Magazine. The magazine looks like a tabloid and possibly was considered a tabloid back in 1975 but the strange thing about these old rags is that the articles are actually more legit and quoted than you would think. The titles are actually more tabloidy than the features. Gregg Allman was quoted heavily here and the article catalogues the time between Cher’s first divorce announcement from Gregg Allman to her appearance on The Tonight Show with Sonny (Sonny's swath of chest hair never gets old) after rumors Allman had beat her up (there were rumors like this too when she divorced Sonny) to her return to Gregg in New York state and their marriage.

After unwrapping the magazine I kept starting at Gregg's unruly hair and commenting about how young Cher looks on the cover. It was only later when I took the magazine into another room I even noticed the watermark overlay of Sonny & Cher on Allman's head. What a bizarre photo layout. Sonny doesn't even look like Sonny when you see it closeup. How did I even miss it? The magazine is also a bizarre collection of weirdly sexist cigarette ads and vibrator classifieds.

Ah, the nostalgic 70s.

Movies, Musicals and Music, Oh My!

November 4, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Cher, The Musical…Still in Progress

Recently Cher met with Tony Nominee Rick Elice to pen the book for her biographical musical. Read more about it at Broadway.com, Contact Music, Out.com, Yahoo!

Witches of Eastwick

Logo TV just did a series of shorts on Witches of Eastwick for Halloween. (Thank you Cher scholar Tyler!)

Cher Scholarship

If you loved volume 1, Tamara Lorenz Hampton’s book The Fabulous World of Cher Dolls Volume 2 is out just in time for Christmas.

Here's a great discography of Cher discovered by Cher scholar Dishy: http://www.45cat.com/artist/cher

Bob Mackie, Johnson Hartig Discuss Cher, Kim Kardashian at LACMA (Woman’s Wear Daily)

Here's some bad scholarship for you. Two weeks ago, I reported Cher had never been on X Factor. The scholarship gods had a laugh when I was walking on my treadmill and Cher's X Factor appearance from 2013 came up on YouTube. Who could forget that light show? Me apparently.

Because I work at a very cool place, the social media gurus at Central New Mexico Community College posted an alert about the time change this past Sunday with Cher's meme. Pulled through to our website, it looked something like this (see right).

Because I have Cher-radar, I can't help but notice it on there!

Turn Back Time: Don't forget to Cher with your friends. It's a daylight savings time tradition now.

Thanks CNM!

Cher Scholar Has Another Book Out

January 19, 2015 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Over the weekend I posted a small little eBook called Writing in the Age of Narcissism. It's about the narcissism epidemic in our culture and how this affects literary criticism and poets.

Here's the blurb:

If you’re a poet or writer in any other form or genre, you’ve probably witnessed many modern, uncivilized behaviors from fellow students, writers and academic colleagues—their public relations gestures, their catty reviews and essays, and their often uncivil career moves. Like actors, visual artists and politicians, cut-throat pirate maneuverings have become the new normal. It’s what occurs whenever there are more people practicing an art than any particular economy can support.

The difference with writers is their ability to develop highly conceptualized, rationalizations in order to prove their worth and ideals. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has reached a critical mass in meaningless attempts to pull focus in a society obsessed with the show-biz spotlight.

This essay traces how the narcissism epidemic affects writers, including our gestures of post-modernism and irony, and proposes an alternative way to be a more positive writer, critic and reader.

End of blurb.

For any Cher Zombies who also happen to be literary zombies, this might be of interest to you.

Writing in the Age of Narcissism
Mary McCray (2015)
Trementina Books
72 pages
eBook

Kindle $1.99 Buy
PDF, epub, Sony $1.99 Buy

More about the book, including bonus discussion on writing strategies and narcissism.

Cher Christmas

December 29, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 6 Comments

Two Cher scholars have asked me why there was no Cher Christmas tree post this year. Well, the tree stayed in the box out in the garage. There was no Christmas tree this year. No Christmas lights or Christmas cards.

A lot of things conspired at the end of the year to make this so:

– I didn't add a new outfit for the tree this year. That usually inspires me to put up the tree.

– I was bummed out about what a sucky year 2014 was, health wise for everybody.

- ICANN laid me off right before Christmas and hired people in India to do our jobs. In the turmoil of cleaning up ICANN tasks and preparing to start my new job at Central New Mexico College, I was swamped and pooped.

– Mailing Xmas gifts took all my energy this year so there was little left for holiday cheer. Our house was depressingly dark this year compared to our neighbors but I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it and Mr. Cher Scholar is not the festive type. Although he did try to get me interested in Christmas with his sudden, new-found interest in Christmas yard inflatables. Now if there was a Cher Christmas inflatable…

– I’m in the thick of three new writing projects: my New Mexico novel (post scene-layout, starting the first draft), my Buddhist-cowboy poems (finished the final draft, preparing to submit), and a new eBook (finished final draft; getting ready to publish in early 2015), and a long list of end of the year to-dos regarding my writing and websites. I also reformatted my first poetry book (get it on Amazon or Smashwords at a new price of $2.99).

Cher Christmas

Luckily Cher was more festive than me and launched a whole line of Christmas products. I bought the ugly-sweater sweatshirt (and wore it on Christmas to visit my three Aunts) and the White Hat Girls Tee.

My friend Julie wrote to tell me Cher was on the cover of a new magazine called Closer and she saw it at Target. I was a day late and missed it. Here's the article about Cher's cancelled tour.

Andy Cohen, Kids Books, Cher Impersonator for Safety

December 3, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

The December 5 issue of Entertainment Weekly does some name-dropping with Andy Cohen. They break out a face chart for all the famous people he name drops in his new book The Andy Cohen Diaries. Here is the list:

Sarah Jessica Parker – 26 mentions
Kelly Ripa – 22
Anderson Cooper – 18
Jimmy Fallon – 12
Diane Von Furstenberg – 11
Ellen Barkin – 10
Martha Stewart – 9
Matthew Broderick – 9
Cher – 8
John Mayer – 8
Allison Williams – 7
Jim Edmonds – 7
Lady Gaga – 7
Madonna – 7
Raph Fiennes – 7
Seth Meyers – 7

The same issue lists 50 books every kid should read. The list had some of my favorites: Where the Wild Things Are, Charlotte’s Web, The Ramona series, The Borrowers, Island of the Blue Dolphins, James and the Giant Peach, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Outsiders, Bridge to Terabithia, Harry Potter.

However the list also included some of the books I was most disappointed in, the Series of Unfortunate Events. EW says this series resists providing easy answers to its messy mysteries. I say phooey on that. If you're interested, here's my longer essay on the dismal end of that series.

The list also left out many of my favorites: Nancy Drew books, Little House books, The Rats of Nimh books. I have to admit, I've never read A Wrinkle in Time. Should I go back and read it?

I have a reputation among my friends for liking movies the rest of my friends hate, including Dutch and The Kid with Bruce Willis. Another movie in the list was The Ref with Denis Leary. This week's Entertainment Weekly just listed The Ref as an “criminally underrated Christmas movie.” Thank you. I have to send this information to my friends.

Healthy Living Alliance in Springfield, Missouri, has hired a Cher impersonator to make a funny public service announcement about bike safety: http://www.ky3.com/news/local/cher-the-road-funny-ad-drives-home-serious-safety-message/21048998_29807412

Don’t Cry For Me Cherilina

November 24, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

An ironic image for Cher's D2K tour: trapped by a virus.

Last week was a very sad week for me. Indulge me, but I’m thinking to make a list will be a cathartic process.

1. As of Sunday when I stopped in Albertson's to sit at one of those blood pressure machines, I've had to accept that this, my 45th year, I’ve developed high blood pressure. Three out of 5 recent tests over the last 6 months have been too high. Heart issues have felled everyone on my father's side of the family. So this is not happy news.

2. The Bill Cosby story is wearing me down. Not only have 16 women accused him of various sexual crimes, but he’s latest TV appearances (The Colbert Report appearance before the story even broke) and interviews have been eerily self-important and left an unsatisfactory taste in my mouth. It reminds me of the Woody Allen incest saga. I grew up on their work and my esteem has been felled by their tabloid scandals which are both hard to prove or disprove (at this point). But that really doesn’t matter because no outcome escapes a tragedy. In Woody Allen’s case, either he did commit incest with his daughter or Mia Farrow is crazy and has contaminated her daughter’s life. Both scenarios are awful. Likewise, Bill Cosby is a rapist or 16 women are conspiring to ruin his career. Problem is, they have little to gain after the statute of limitations. And if you think it’s impossible to keep such crimes a secret for 40 years within an entertainment organization, let me remind you of Penn State and Jerry Sandusky. There’s no pretty truth here. Just yuckiness. And it reminds me that as a society we place a heartbreaking amount of misspent worship on celebrities (no offence to Cher). From what I've seen, baring a few exceptions, Hollywood does not attract balanced, heroical personalities and heroes don't grow from the seeds of maladaptive narcissists. In any case, as Mr. Cher Scholar says, this story pretty much bankrupts Fat Albert, The Cosby Show, the jello commercials, I Spy, all the standup routines….

3. I found out Thursday my friend has brain cancer. She's been having seizures.This is the fifth calamity to befall her in so many years.

4. That same night the Chiefs lost to the Raiders. This was more depressing to Mr. Cher Scholar than it was to me but it did rub off.

5. Hours later I was online via email helping to talk down another friend from an emotional life-crisis.

6. I started the next day looking at my emails and was assaulted by a Facebook status message made by one of my poetry colleagues. The post, not directed at me, was a rotten spew of hatred regarding last week's political events. It was dumbfoundingly angry, hardly reality-based, and left me disturbed for the rest of the day.

7. The Ferguson story has also depressed me. The grand jury just came out tonight: no indictment on the police officer who fatally shot a black teenager. I grew up in St. Louis where Ferguson is a suburb. I can say many positive things about growing up in St. Louis. I can also say that I know first hand St. Louis has more than its share of racists. I know because many of them used to confide in me their racists thoughts. They did so from high school through my many post-college jobs. I do have friends in St. Louis who are not racists, God bless 'em. But let’s just say I knew more racists there than honest, God-loving people. Stories appeared last week about guns selling out, the governor declaring a state of emergency and bringing in the National Gard. The KKK is asserting itself with great irony and evil. Interestingly, my St. Louis friends used to chide me about living in Los Angeles, with all its gun violence and rioting. There were zero riots or highway shootings the 8 years I lived in Los Angeles. And as it turns out you don’t have to leave St. Louis for those things. I’m so disappointed that city hasn’t evolved in the last 20 years since I left.

8. My depression and anger over these political events led my cousin, who is a psychologist, to diagnose me Friday night as having "Work from Home Syndrome" – a condition that allows you to stew in your own anger until you become irritable all the time. He suggested I stop listening to the news for a while until my brain resets.

9. Cher has cancelled the remaining dates of her tour. And although she says she hopes she can “finish what she started” and resume the tour next year, this does prove the tour has been sadly ill-fated. It’s also a somewhat drastic and alarming gesture that makes you worry about Cher's health. Upsetting for Cher, her fans, and even Pat Benetar fans. It also means we are coming to the close of an era: invincible Cher.

I was working on a new Cher Scholar site page when I found out, an addendum concert page that lists all her concert dates and available online reviews of each show as I find them. It’s a work in progress but if you want to read old reviews, here they are.

Not Busier Than Cher, But…

October 19, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

…I'm out of my mind busy. I had to put that comma in my blog title because without it, the title read like Cher's ass was busier than me. Probably true but still a distracting message.

Over the last few weeks, my brother and sister-in-law came to town and we tried to show them the great state of New Mexico in a week. I've got another guest coming next weekend. And if you know me, you know I only clean the house when people are coming over. So this summer, I've been cleaning a lot! Yesterday, I spent the day covering the front of our house with Halloween decorations. I've also been trying to keep up with the latest in haunted houses in my city. I've been very distracted from the Cher Universe working on my projects, including final drafts of my Goodnight-Loving Trail poems, and notes for a new novel. I've also been preparing an essay to make into an eBook. It's called "Writing in the Age of Narcissism." On top of that, I've recently been drafted by my Dad's side of the family, the Burquenos (which is local for "people from Albuquerque"), to help organize a family reunion next year to celebrate my Aunts 90th birthday. In all this, blogging gets short shrift.

Oh, and we've been busy watching Quick Draw Season 2 which had a lot more stunts, was a lot funnier and had some surprise guests. But the most recent surprise has been the great fan art people have been sending in to the facebook fan page of John Lehr, including this hilarious send up of western statue-art collecting commercial sent in by a fan. The piece is called Vernon Shank Statue Commercial. It's very funny even if you haven't been watching the show.

The strong women characters on the show have been awesome this year, including the hilarious, lusty, toothless Wanda pictured above.

But there's LOTS of Cher stuff to get to:

First, I came accross this image right in the October 10th issue of Entertainment Weekly depicting an Edith Head outfit for Ginger Rogers. You can clearly see a direct line from Edith Head to Ray Aghayan to Bob Mackie and Cher.

Secondly, breaking news!! Cher gets some respect in Entertainment Weekly. More than seeing Cher's new Bob Mackie costumes in the second leg of her current tour, THIS is what required that I get some oxygen stat! My October 24th copy came Friday night and I'm perusing through the issue (which you can do in like 15 minutes), and I see a short news item on the nominees for this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. No, Cher didn't make it. Not expecting that.

The first section describes this year's biggest surprises. I scanned that part and thought, "wouldn't it be an alternate universe if this article called the HOFers out for snubbing Cher?"

AND THEY DO!!! I couldn't believe it. Entertainment Weekly has not been 100% Cher-loving over many years of record reviews. But, clear as day, the middle section is called "BIGGEST SNUBS" and Cher's hole-fit picture is representin' with this paragraph underneath:

"For the second year of eligibility in a row, De La Soul's game-change style was over-looked. The Hall also missed an opportunity to acknowledge Cher–whose impact and longevity far exceed those of many of the men enshrined in Cleveland [my flabbergasted italics]–on the 50th anniversary of her first album. And if Joan Jett, nominated again this year, doesn't make the final cut this time, voters have black hearts indeed."

I ran into the living room and gave a lecture on Cher Snubs throughout the history of time to Poor Beleaguered Mr. Cher Scholar. I want to rip that page out and send it to my brother in Cleveland and ask that he and his wife organize a protest in front of the museum pronto, something he would never in a zillion years do.

Speaking of zillion, Cher is pissed at Zillow. See stories on GeekWire; Twitchy tracking Cher's tweet discussions; and an article on Bloomberg about Chinese buyers getting access to Zillow's U.S. properties.

"Chinese buyers spent more than $11 billion on U.S. real estate last year, with an average $425,000 purchase, Zillow said."

Zillow is saying this is only good for U.S. sellers. I'm not sure. but Cher is probably saying this is bad for U.S. buyers.

This is the satellite picture of the Owlwood house on Zillow.

Zillow has labeled this page: "Sonny Bono and Cher's Former Home – Zillow"

Here are the stories I missed in October:

According to Cher News a new version of the Norman Seeff photograph was for sale for a while (but it's sold-out now): http://cher.shop.bravadousa.com/page/SignedLithograph. What's interesting is how the store calls the photo "THE iconic 70s image of Cher."

So Cher's been sick lately as we all know. I hope it wasn't the ice bucket challenge that gave Cher the ice bucket illness. And although one of the U.S. tabloid rags had a picture of Cher on the cover last week insisting she was, in fact, dying (not the first or last time we'll see that melodramatic headline while waiting to purchase our Scooby Snacks), Cher says herself that she's on mend. Cher News tracks her tweets: she was actually in the hospital for a week; doctors say she's built to last; she's been to the gym recently; and she was humbled by the whole experience. I just hope she got some good classic movie watching in while being laid up.

http://chernews.blogspot.com/2014/10/ill-cher-im-getting-better.html

http://chernews.blogspot.com/2014/10/photos-recovering-fitness-icon-cher-at.html
(Pics of Cher at the gym taken by Paulette, see top photo)

New dates were announced for D2K, partly makeup dates for the shows cancelled: http://tour.cher.com/

Cher News reported that Cher's concert-fits were profiled in the Fall 2014 issue of People Magazine. Is People Magazine now a quarterly? Bummed I missed that.

I finally listened to the Lady Gaga version of "Bang Bang" and I do like that it's not simply a re-working of the Nancy Sinatra version, which all the latest re-makings have been. Granted, the Sinatra version is pretty great and I never do get tired of hearing more incarnations of it, I also appreciate something different now and then. Gaga's version seemed more sincere and less ironic. Which is refreshing. I still don't like that red jumpsuit or the somewhat unnatural demeanor of her performance but what can you do?

By the way, this is one of my least favorite Cher single covers. Yes, chainmail tops were cool, but the acid-washed jean-jacket and jeans, the teenybopper hair flip and the wide-eyed expression all smell too much like 80s-teen-spirit, and worse–popular-girl 80s-teen-spirit. And what's with the unbuttoned button-fly jeans? Did Cher eat too many doughnuts before the shoot? Or is the boob-view, jeans-undone look a come-hither call to Anthony Michael Hall?

My Summer Vacation

August 30, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Wow! I believe this is the longest period I've gone between I Found Some Blog stories. It's truly been a crazy summer. I took Mr. Cher Scholar to Truth or Consequences for a hot springs soak for his birthday in early June. Then my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to visit from Kansas. Then two of our friends came to visit from Los Angeles. Then I went on a poetry field-trip with a group of women from The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (talk about some heavy fans, women who love Georgia O'Keeffe!). Then Mr. Cher Scholar and our two fur-kids went camping. Then I went on an 11-day family reunion at Bandon-by-the-Sea in Oregon. Then I came home and had a colonoscopy. Then I had to spend a week or two catching up on my other projects and thinking about my upcoming job transition and Mr. Cher Scholar's upcoming job transition, as he just found a new job. I'd be more exhausted but I've been working out still (since my Cher Scholar post on working-out) and I've found a few new interesting gurus.

By the way, when I was on my way to Oregon and in a motel, I saw a crazy infomercial for a new skin care line Periccone MD that promotes some pseudo-scientific substance Cold Plasma Sub-D. Preposterousness! But you know I'm itching to try it.

When I was in LA, I taped some fitness programs off of FitTV (a channel I don't get here). I finally watched them this summer and my favorite program was Australian Violet Zaki's kickboxing work out with "cardio blasts" and weights (pictured above).

I've also been enjoying Amy Bento's 10 Minute Solution series with bands. Like the other 10 Minute Solution programs, it's super fast and furious, made, I'm convinced, for type A women: "I need to see results in 10 minutes, people!"

My husband also bought me three yoga DVDs from Desiree Rumbaugh, but her programs are too slow and I don't feel advanced enough to do the neck and shoulder poses.

Here are some pics from the summer:

Poets contemplating the White Place in the Chama Valley of New Mexico.

We wrote Japanese forms called Haibuns.

Mr. Cher Scholar really stepped up the cooking on our camping trip to the Manzano Mountains over the 4th of July. He made brie fondue, chocolate fondue, grilled shrimp, fancy tacos, and home-made egg McMuffins.

One of my favorite things about camping is to see too exhausted dogs snoring away in the tent every night.

We camped near Mountainair, New Mexico, where we found this hilarious ruin of a motel with an old bathroom exposed to the highway.

So inviting: a John with a view.

The Oregon coast where my mom grew up: foggy, windy, rocky, full of a kind of dreary romance. A nice change from the burning hot summer I've been having in Albuquerque.

This is where my parents first lived when they were married in 1958, a little motel in Port Orford, Oregon.

Seals swimming in the port of Bandon.

My best bird pic, from a beautiful boat trip up the Rogue River near Gold Beach, Oregon.

On the way back from Oregon, I drove my parents back to Reno, Nevada. We went to visit the Stewart Indian School, where my father lived when he was in High School. He's standing in the courtyard, in front of his old bedroom.

We also visited Virgina City, Nevada, where I paid five dollars to take a picture of Mark Twain's desk.

My Aunt Jane upgraded me to stay with her in the Star Suite at Harrahs in Reno. Instead of gambling, I stayed up in the suite all night, enjoying a luxury bath, taking pictures out the window (see left), and reading the biography of Carly Simon. I was in bed when I read the real lyrics to her ex-husband's classic suicide song, "Fire and Rain" — "Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you."

I could never figure out that line, even when Cher sings it. "Soose and the plans they made put an end to you???"

The song is about his friend Suzanne. It all makes sense now.