First, it dropped through the mail slot in the form of India, a new CD from Putumayo. Admittedly, when I cued it up I found it a little too easy listening for my taste. But I let it play, and like so many things that evoke India, I was totally roped in. I drove across downtown with Satish Vyas’ Homeward Journey playing and I completely forgot where I was. I’m not sure that critics are going to find anything new or groundbreaking on this disk, but if, like me, you’re a sucker for the seductive ambiance of an imaginary, quiet India, there’s nothing not to like about this disk.… continued…
It’s not like I set out to read a book about poop. I’m on the reviewer’s list for Holt – I LOVE being on their list! – and they send me stuff to read. Jason, the guy at Holt who lets me know when new, travel related things are coming out suggested that I might be interested in The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
I hook the gate behind me, looping a rusting length of wire back over a splintery post and we drive a few hundred yards up the hard packed dirt road towards the cattle station. The house is a green, ramshackle place with a corrugated tin roof and a big front porch on the shady side of the house. It’s lifted off the ground on stilts, almost a full floor. There’s a dusty little blond haired girl in the yard playing.… continued…
I am a Sesame Street kid. I grew up watching Big Bird stop to chat outside Mr. Hooper’s store and listening to Maria and Luis and Gordon and Bob and the whole crew of multicultural human and not so human beings sing to me about the alphabet and colors and simple math and being nice and a bunch of other topics. And when I started to travel abroad, after Sesame Street had gone global, I loved to watch in different languages because I could understand.… continued…
Lucy is 3.2 million years old. She’s tiny, a little over 3 feet tall. She’s spent most of her modern life in a secure vault in Ethiopia but she’s been let out to see the world – or to let the world see her. Which is what we did on Sunday on the first ever Nerd’s Eye View field trip.
You don’t get to meet Lucy right away. First, you wander through a gorgeous collection of Ethiopian artifacts that give you some sense of context for Lucy’s homeland.… continued…
