Tinasbeen

More Brazil photos

2006-12-21T17:38:00.000-08:00

Since my sister just arrived home from Rio bearing some more photos from my trip to Brazil this summer, I thought I'd post them here as an early Christmas present. Happy Holidays! These are all from Rio Sucuri, a crystal clear river in Bonito where we went snorkeling this June. http://away.com/tripideas/bonito-mato-grosso-do-sul-snorkeling-300171.html

Busy month!

2006-12-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the long delay - things at the Institute have been keeping me very busy.

My documentary project continues to go well - quite a few students have signed up, and we're going to be heading to the New Jersey Historical Society next week for a workshop on primary sources and archives, as well as an introduction to the Society's collection of documents and photos of the riots and of schools and students in Newark. I took a quick preliminary look there this afternoon, and I think our visit should be a lot of fun. It looks like we may also be making connections with an art installation about the riots being planned at Aljira, a contemporary art gallery here in Newark - www.aljira.org - and with Rutgers' Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies: www.cornwall.rutgers.edu .

The planning for the community forum series on education reform is also moving forward. Last week we were invited by the Rutgers - Newark Teacher Education program to co-sponsor a grant application that would expand and fund the project for three years and add a strong focus on teacher education and new teacher induction - very exciting.

And this week we had a fantastic meeting with about a dozen education leaders in Newark, including the president of the Newark Teachers Union- www.ntuaft.com, representatives from the Superintendent's Office and Mayor's Office, a member of the Newark School Advisory Board (which replaced the School Board when the district came under state control about a decade ago), a representative from the Victoria Foundation - www.victoriafoundation.org - which funds lots of education projects in Newark, and a great range of faculty members from campus. Everyone was enthusiastic about the project and had great ideas about what topics we should focus on, what should come out of the project, and how the very diverse constituencies around the table could work together.

What was most exciting for me was the enthusiasm around including historical context in all of the events for the project - it looks like we'll even do at least one session in which the history of education in the city is the primary focus. As a historian of education, it's just great for me to see that school policy-makers, practioners, and others outside of the field think that history can and should be an important part of what they do. I just hope this project can live up to their expectations!

Documentary project

2006-11-14T17:30:00.001-08:00

Just a quick update on the staus of one of my projects at the Institute - a documentary on the experiences of high school students in Newark during the 1967 riots. I'll be collaborating with current high school students and college students here, as well as with high school teachers, faculty members at Rutgers, and the staff of the NJ Historical Society on the project, which is going extraordinarily well. Information about how to sign up for the project can be found here: http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=64

Some of the questions we'll be researching over the next six months are how high school students (and other teenagers) in Newark experienced the 1967 riots, both as observers and as participants in that conflict, how these experiences varied by race, ethnicity, gender, and class, what high schools in Newark were like before the conflict, and how they changed after it, how these changes were connected to the riots, and what young people in Newark today know about the conflict.

Our research will culminate in a panel discussion of young people’s experience of the Newark riots, which will include scholars, those with personal experiences of that era, and the students who participated in the research. This discussion will be videotaped, edited, and combined with the prior research to create a half-hour documentary, which will be screened at a public event hosted by the Institute, offered to high school teachers for classroom use, and submitted to New Jersey Network for broadcast.

In the past two months, I’ve met with Professor Edin Velez of the Visual
and Performing Arts department at Rutgers-Newark (http://www.edinvelez.com/), with staff members of
the New Jersey Historical Society (http://www.jerseyhistory.org/), with Dr. Max Herman (http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/socant/max.htm), a sociology
professor at Rutgers who has done extensive research on the riots (http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/) , and
with numerous local high school teachers and students who are interested
in collaborating on the documentary.

Currently ten students and three history teachers at several high schools
in Newark have expressed interest in working on the documentary, including
students from St. Vincent’s Academy and History High School. Some of the
students signed up as part of Rutgers – Newark’s Saturday Academy program,
while others were recruited by teachers or found out about the project
through friends. Some students are interested in doing research for the
project, some in helping with filming, and some with both of these
activities.

Professor Velez has generously agreed to provide the technical expertise
and post-production resources for the documentary, and will be recruiting
current undergraduate students in the Visual and Performing Arts program
to help shoot and edit the documentary. He has also provided advice on
what type of equipment will be necessary for shooting the documentary
footage; we anticipate that shooting will begin in Spring 2007.

The director and staff of the New Jersey Historical Society and Dr. Herman
have generously offered to collaborate on the research for the
documentary, and are interested in having it become part of their own
exhibit on the riots, scheduled to open in June 2007. I'm in the process
of scheduling an afternoon visit to the Historical Society’s
library to begin the research process. Should be fun!

Hip Hop Culture Events in Newark

2006-11-08T16:29:00.000-08:00

This week I've enjoyed attending a couple events organized by the Office of Student Life and Leadership on campus as part of their series "The Lens," which encourages undergrads to think critically about culture and media.

The Institute helped co-sponsor two panels on campus about hip-hop culture, and I was fortunate enough to have my friend Marc come up to speak at the first one, "The Evolution of Hip-Hop Culture." Marc's another recent Penn graduate, now teaching at Temple, and a rising star in hip-hop studies; he's currently working on books about the concept of "snitching" and the impact of media on youth culture. Check out his excellent website here for a description of the many things he's up to (including frequent interviews by CNN!): http://www.marclamonthill.com/.

Also appearing were Dr. Carmen Kynard from Rutgers-Newark, who works on issues of race, culture, and literacy.

The panel also included well-known hip-hop radio DJ Angie Martinez of Hot 97 in New York City, who had interesting things to say about the changing role of the hip hop industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie_Martinez

Rounding out the panel were Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University (http://www.temple.edu/isrst/Monteiro/) and Vanatta Ford, a spoken word artist and Episcopal minister who uses hip-hop culture to reach out to young people in her church.

The panelists and audience had a spirited and thoughtful discussion about the history and current status of hip-hop music and culture, including much debate over whether wealthy hip-hop artists are a positive force in African American culture.

Other events in the series include "Deconstructing 'Hustle and Flow,'" in which a screening of the movie was followed by a panel discussion about its themes and how they fit into hip hop culture, and performances by local hip hop artists. Rutgers is also collaborating with New Jersey Performing Arts Center's "Planet Hip-Hop 3," a four day extravaganza of performance and discussion being held in downtown Newark this week: http://www.planethiphop.org/

We'll be out of town for most of that, unfortunately - but it was great to be able to check out some campus events!

Ottawa adventures

2006-10-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

I just got back Monday from a conference trip that was supposed to end Sunday. Continental cancelled the last flight out of town and then refused to pay for a hotel, so 3 of my friends and I ended having to split a room - good thing the History of Education is such a congenial field.

But at least I had a chance to take a few photos of the city for posterity; here's a view of the lovely Canadian Parliament (the building on the left) from one of the canals:

Just south of Parliament, I passed this very disturbing sign in the front window of the recruitment center for the Canadian Air Force; any guess as to who the phrase, "Get ready now, they are coming" might refer to? Looks like we're rubbing off on our Northern neighbors - sigh.

The delay also gave us time to go check out a movie - the theater was inside an office building/mall combination that had a series of huge fiberglass whales hanging from the ceiling - very odd:

I also spent some time in Byward Market, a mix of outdoor stalls, indoor shops, and some of the city's best restaurants. I bought some maple syrup (darker than what we can usually find here), maple butter (sounded interesting), and buckwheat honey - much healthier than lighter types, and I think tastier. I was sorry I couldn't bring home any of the gorgeous vegetables, and had fun checking out the halloween decorations - especially "the pumpkin carver's" amazing sculptures:

Happy Halloween!

Whirlwind Weekend

2006-10-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

Bill and I had a busy weekend, with visitors in town every day. It's always nice to have an excuse to check out new things! Though unfortunately we didn't have time to squeeze in visits to the Newark Arts Council's Gallery Crawl on Friday night or Open Studio Tour on sunday - maybe next year: http://www.newark-opendoors.org/.

Friday started for me with the second meeting of the Institute's Heningburg Fellows program, a meeting where civic leaders who work on a broad variety of issues - development, schools, green space, health care - come together to talk about their experiences in and their ideas about Newark. Check out our website here for a list of current fellows and a description of the program: http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=57.

That evening Bill and I met up with friends from Roselle Park for a quick bite at Riviera - a bakery on Ferry that turns out to have pretty tasty grilled sandwiches. They were on their way to the opening night concert of the New Jersey Symphony at NJ Performing Arts Center, where they have a subscription for the season - $95 for 10 shows, not bad: http://www.njsymphony.org/Tickets/Subscriptions/Newark.htm.

We spent the evening at home, though since i had an early appointment at the Institute to talk to students at the Saturday Academy program, which brings high school students from Newark onto campus to take morning courses on topics like Student Movements in the 60s and Slave Narrative and American History: http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=59 .

I was there to see if any of the students were interested in helping work on a documentary about high school students' experiences with the Newark riots that I'm putting together, and had quite a few sign up - should be a great experience all around.

But I had to get back home quickly for a visit from my aunt, after which Bill and I walked down to Riverbank Park to catch the end of a "vintage baseball game," sponsored by the NJ Historical Society, in which the teams wore vintage uniforms and played by 18th century rules: http://www.jerseyhistory.org/news_detail.php?recid=97 For instance, no one but the catcher wore gloves, and the umpire wore formal clothing and stood behind the pitcher - interesting.

That was followed by a (LOOONG) trip into Manhattan to meet Bill's friends for dinner at Cafe Mozart (tasty, but they put a white curly wig on you if it's your birthday - scary): http://www.cafemozart.com/ and some drinks and a few rounds of Connect Four at Dive 75: http://www.divebarnyc.com/dive75.htm - not really a dive bar, but ok anyway.

Somehow we managed to get up the next morning to meet up with friends visiting from Philly, who came up to check out the comics exhibit at the Newark museum. We had a terrific and very reasonably priced lunch at Seabra's Marisqueria: http://www.njdiningguide.net/Seabras/lunch.html. Two of our visitors were from Greece, and said the food and the neighborhood reminded them of being there.

Then we headed over to the Newark Museum, where we checked out the fantastic exhibit on the history of comics: http://www.newarkmuseum.org/comics/, running now through January 28. The Newark Museum has half of the exhibit, and focuses mostly on newspaper comics; the Jewish Museum in NYC has the other half, and focuses more on comic books: http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/

I think we got the sweet end of that deal - my favorite by far were the amazingly detailed and beautiful pieces by Winsor McCay, who's best known for the "Little Nemo in Slumberland" Sunday comics. We also got to see a lecture from the editor of the star Ledger, writer Pete Hamill, and artist Jules Pfeiffer, who had an interesting discussion about the pieces in the exhibit and their own memories of comics.

After some delicious desserts at the reception afterward, my friends headed home and we went back to our apartment to get ready for our next visitors - friends arriving the next day from England on their way to NYC and Boston. Fortunately, we were all in the mood for a quiet day at that point - though they insisted on taking me out to dinner at Boi Na Brasa, a rodizio restaraunt in the neighborhood that's recently been
written up in both the New York Times and the Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0611,sietsema,72498,15.html

We all slept in the next morning, understandably.

Menendez and Chaat in Jersey City

2006-10-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Bill and I just got back from an interesting evening in Jersey City, just a couple stops away from us on the PATH. We had signed up last week for a night of phone-banking for the Menendez Senate campaign. Though we were sorry not to be able to take part in the anti-Santorum activities in Pennsylvania, it looks like the race between Bob Menendez and Tom Kean Jr. is actually going to be a lot more competitive - so much so that the National Republican Senatorial Committee just gave Kean half a million dollars to spend on campaign ads:
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1161008980129380.xml&storylist=politics

So we were glad to be able to help out (as newly registered NJ voters), and spent a fairly productive evening making calls to voters in Jersey City - most people we talked to supported Menendez, but with a couple undecided people I got to have a brief chat about how important it was to vote Democratic this year. If you're interested in learning more about the campaign, volunteering, or donating, check out its website here: http://www.menendez2006.com/home/

After phonebanking we took our newly acquired Menendez poster for a visit to Jersey City's "Little India" neighborhood, where we went out to dinner at one of the many restaurants along Newark Street. After consulting Google and finding this tantalizing article - http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/dining/09chat.html?ex=1161403200&en=66d382c7378d9589&ei=5070

- I had decided we might like to check out one of the chaat restaurants in the neighborhood. Chaat is Indian street/snack food, and tends to be a little harder to find in the U.S. than curries and other types of Indian food. I had tried it once in college, but hadn't really seen it since.

Based on the article's list of places, we ended up at Satkar (806 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, (201) 963-6309), an informal place with a reasonably priced menu and friendly service. I don't remember the exact name of the dishes we tried, but two were what I think of as traditional chaat - mixes of unsweetened cereal (like rice crisps and puffed wafers made of wheat and corn) with spices, potatoes, beans, and, in one of them, delicious yogurt sauce. We also tried a dhosa - a round of flat fried crepe-type bread with vegetables and warm chutney. The one we ordered was about 15 inches diameter, full of lace-like holes about a quarter-inch wide, flavored with spice powder and hot green chilies, and filled with spicy sauteed onions. Yummy, but impossible to finish after our chaat-feast. Anyway, all of that and two bottles of mango juice came to about $22 with tax and tip - not bad. And yet another place we can bring vegetarian visitors!

After popping into a grocery stores for garam masala, lentils, mango jam, and some ready-to-serve Indian meals (who needs Trader Joes?), we headed home - but I think we'll be back to Little India soon!

Walk for the Cure

2006-10-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm finally relatively healthy again - enough to complete the 3 mile Walk for the Cure this morning in downtown Newark, anyway. Bill and I joined our neighbor Linda on her walk, which was not only for a good cause - a cure for breast cancer - but let us see a bit more of the downtown while walking down the middle of Broad Street - usually NOT a good idea.

Linda mentioned to us that Grace Episcopal Church, seen below, was where the melody to America the Beautiful was composed. According to this website: http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200000001/default.html, the current music was written by the church's choirmaster in 1882, and the words often used to be sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" - interesting.

We also saw a few other interesting landmarks on the way down (before our camera's batteries died), though I'm afraid I can't identify them - maybe once I take anouther walk downtown I'll add the names of this other church:

And this war memorial:

In any case, the walk seemed to be a big success. You can't really tell from these pictures, but there were hundreds and hundreds of people out for it - including lots of high school students, which was great to see. And I have to say one of the highlights was getting to see Batman driving slowly along, complete with vanity plate. You never know who you're going to run into here in Newark!

Ironbound restaurant reviews: Mompou, Brasilia Grill, Galicia Spain

2006-10-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well, since I came down with a cold and won't be tasting anything for a while, maybe this is a good time to review some of my recent food adventures in the neighborhood. I'll start with last night's visit to Mompou, a "tapas-wine bar-lounge" at 77 Ferry Street: www.mompoutapas.com . I had noticed it on previous walks down Ferry because of its cool decor (one of the walls is made of cross-sections of logs), its noisy happy hour crowd, and the fact that it seemed newer and trendier than most places in the neighborhood (which can always potentially be good or bad.) Fortunately it was a good thing, especially given that we were out with a vegetarian friend - this is definitely the best place we've found in the Ironbound for non-carnivores.

We got there around 8, got a table right away, and ordered a couple of glasses of wine - the list had lots of selections by the glass, with most around $6-$9. We then ordered five tapas dishes to share between the three of us for dinner, which turned out to be plenty. The salad came with "mescaline" greens (hee hee), pine nuts and macadamia nuts, fresh raspberries, and grated cheese; "black and white" fettucine (the black one had squid ink, I believe) with shrimp, scallops, and clams in a creamy white truffle sauce, eggplant with fresh tomato sauce and cheese, piquillo peppers stuffed with cheese, and a vegetable terrine with toast rounds to spread it on. The terrine was a little bland, but otherwise everything was delicious, and was exactly enough food to leave us sated but still willing to walk down the street for a quick snack at the bakery. With the wine and tip, the bill for the three of us came to about $60 - a just a little too pricey to go to frequently, but certainly a good deal considering the quality.

But for those meat-eaters out there, the options abound. I'll start with a couple places on the pricier side - Brasilia Grill and Galicia Spain - then cover some of the cheaper places in another post.

Brasilia Grill (http://www.brasiliagrill.com/) is a huge, fairly new place at 99 Monroe St (just off of Ferry) with a bright neon sign that you can't miss. We went on a Saturday night and it was packed, but we got a booth right away - good luck, maybe?

Brasilia Grill is best know for its "rodizio" - Brazilian-style "continuous meat," as the menu put it. Waiters bring big skewers of roasted meat to your table and carve off pieces of it, which you take with your own set of tongs. I especially liked the sirloin with garlic and the skirt steak, but there were also skewers of sausages, roasted chicken, pork, lamb - and even chicken hearts, if you're into the organ meat thing. (Which I'm not.) There's also a big buffet in the middle of the room with dozens of hot and cold dishes (I liked the okra and plantains, didn't like the seafood salad - too slimy) - but be sure to save room for the meat!

Going on weekends is a little more expensive - about $25 per person for the rodizio and the buffet instead of about $20 on other nights - but has the added benefit of a live band wandering around playing samba music. The little girl at the next table had a great time getting down to "Happy Birthday" samba-style - very cute. Anyway, the total bill for the three of us, including a small pitcher of very tasty sangria and a tip (included in the bill) came to about $100. Again, too expensive for me and Bill to go to very often, but a fun night out!

For a much more low-key experience than either Mompou or Brasilia Grill, I'd recommend Galicia Spain at 72 Bruen St (which has the added benefit of being right down the street from us.) We went around 9 on a Tuesday, and were one of only two tables of people there, but the service and food were great anyway (always a good sign). We started with a couple of glasses of the house red (generously poured at $5.50 a glass), a salad of greens, manchego, and delicious spanish ham, cheese and crab stuffed piquillo peppers, and a few bowls of soup - Bill and my friend got the very tasty soup of the day with their entrees, which had white beans, greens, and a few other things. I got the garlic soup, which was a highlight of the dinner - light tomato broth with slices of roasted garlic and strands of lightly cooked egg white. If you like garlic (and I do), you will LOVE this soup.

We also ordered a couple of entrees - Bill got the short ribs, which were good but nothing too exciting (especially in a neighborhood filled with so much fantastic meat). My friend, however, got the pork elbow, which was amazing - four inches across, 8 inches long, full of bright pink salty smoked meat - plus two whole boiled potatoes and what looked like half a cabbage. It was very tasty but too much for any mortal to finish - she took most of it home to make soup. Altogether, the bill came to about $85 for the three of us, including the wine and the tip, and we had enough food left over for a couple more meals - not too bad.

Anyway, more on the local food later!

Our mini-tour of Newark

2006-10-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

This Saturday Bill and I decided to take a little driving tour of Newark, and I mapped us out a route that hit some of the highlights from the "Once and Future Newark" documentary. Sadly, we forgot our camera, though - I'll try to make up for it by posting some links to photos of where we went.

We started with a visit to Branch Brook Park, where we picked up some local corn, honey, and tomatoes at the farmer's market and then drove around a bit. Here's a link to a page with some photos and the history of the park - http://www.branchbrookpark.org/about1.htm - turns out it was designed in 1900 by Frederick Law Olmstead, the creator of Central Park. (As was Independence Park, a great little park just a short walk from us in the Ironbound.) Branch Brook's probably best known for its springtime cherry blossoms - check out some photos from a fan of them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drp/10465136/in/set-258501/ Hopefully we'll be able to check them out ourselves next April!

We then enjoyed getting a bit lost in the Forest Hills section of Newark, which borders the park and is filled with huge, gorgeous homes. Check out some photos of them and some more information on the history of the neighborhood here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Hill,_Newark,_New_Jersey

Our next stop was one of the highlights of the day - a visit to the Sacred Heart Basilica (begun in 1899 and finished in 1954!) It's a huge stone cathedral in the middle of a fairly normal neighborhood, next to one of the city's high schools - quite a sight. The Basilica's website has a great virtual tour here: http://www.cathedralbasilica.org/tour/nojava/index.shtml - I highly recommend checking it out.

After leaving the cathedral, we found our way to the Greater Newark Conservancy's new Urban Environmental and Ecological Center - check out the link here for more details: http://newark1.com/conserve/enviro_description.htm . This terrific little community garden, greenhouse, and education center was is in the process of being created on the grounds of a former synagogue, and normally isn't open to the public. But we were lucky enough to stop by during their harvest festival, and had a great time drinking apple cider, judging a scarecrow contest, and picking out a pumpkin to bring home. The volunteers from the Conservancy were interested to hear that we had just moved from Philadelphia - they said that they hoped Newark would eventually have as much of thriving community garden movement as Philly does.

Unfortunately, our trip was cut a little short at this point, since it started raining - we drove through Weequahic Park and Lincoln Park on our way back, but real visits to those are going to have to wait until we get another free day - and that time, hopefully we'll remember our camera!

New Documentary: The Once and Future Newark

2006-09-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I got the chance to attend the premiere of a new documentary, "The Once and Future Newark," at the lovely Newark Museum (down the street from my office). The film is basically a compilation of highlights from the walking tours of Newark that Dr. Clement Price, the director of the Institute, has been giving for years. Check out the website for it here: http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/newark/

There are some amazing images and stories in it - I'm already making plans to check out some of the gorgeous churches Clem talks about, as well as Branch Brook Park (where Bill and I are hoping to check out the farmer's market this weekend). But we also had fun seeing and learning more about some increasingly familiar sites - like Penn Station, which I walk through on my way to work just about every morning, and, of course, the Ironbound - the film has some tasty shots of the bakery that my parents and I went to when they came up over the summer.

Anyway, it's a fanstastic short (26 minutes) film - you can check out a little promo clip of it here: http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/newark/index.php?sId=video, and any of you who get New Jersey Network can check it out Wednesday October 4 at 6:30 or Thursday October 5 at 9. It's also going to be shown on campus here, and those of you who REALLY want to see it can find out how to buy a copy here: http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/newark/index.php?sId=dvd.

But maybe I'll just buy a copy myself and just have a housewarming screening party - never know!

Notebook fall edition now online!

2006-09-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

The Philadelphia Public School Notebook just posted its fall edition online, including my articles on school contracting.

The table of contents for the whole issue can be found here: http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2006/fall/, and my articles can be found in several places:

"Renew or terminate: SRC to decide in spring" - on the EMO renewals - is here: http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2006/fall/renew.htm . That one's also available in Spanish - "Se quedan o se van?: Lo Comision se decideran" - http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2006/fall/se_quedan.htm . (No, I didn't translate it - I wish my Spanish was that good.)

My article on the contracting process, "Informal bidding process: Cause for concern?" is here: http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2006/fall/informal_bidding.htm

And the collection of comments I solicited regarding the EMO renewals, "Do we want managers to stay on?" is here: http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2006/fall/managers_stay.htm , including photos of the respondents.

There are lots of other great articles in the issue as well, and I'll be curious to see whether our reporting has any effect on the district's policies. I'll keep you updated!

Brazil Photos - Part Two

2006-09-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some photos from the second half of my trip to Brazil this summer!

On our way back from Bonito, we spent a very fun evening in Sao Paulo - since we couldn't possibly just hop on a bus back to Rio when one of Brazil's World Cup games was on! Seriously, the buses probably wouldn't be running - the country (including the stock market!) pretty much shuts down during the national team's World Cup games. Anyway, Marisa's "Paulista" friend Gil, who spent a year of high school at the Jersey Shore through the Rotary Club (which is also sponsoring Marisa's trip down there) joined us at a bar, where at halftime of the game everyone disappeared downstairs - to dance! There was a live samba band, costumed dancers, and mass craziness. But when the game started up again, of course that all stopped immediately.

After the game, we took a late-night bus back to Rio - another city that loves to celebrate during the "futbol" games. Even the streets are decorated during the Cup:

Once we got back to Rio, I had a chance to check out a few of the more famous sights and places in the city, including the huge (38 meters, about 160 feet tall) statue of Christ the Redeemer that stands at the top of Corcovado. Check out this link for a very cool aerial view of the statue: http://biblia.com/jesusart/rio.htm

And here's a couple of my own photos - one as we're sneaking up on Christ from behind (check out the people in the lower right corner for a sense of the size of the statue!):

and another of one of the beautiful views from the top of the mountain

Another cool experience in Rio was the chance to check out a "Festa Junina" party being hosted at a crumbling old mansion in Rio's artsy Santa Teresa neighborhood. One of the traditions of this festival is that people dress up as farmers - overalls for the men, pigtails for women, freckles and straw hats for everyone - my favorite was a big guy who had put on a checkered dress and was wandering around hugging everyone. Check out more about Festa Junina here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festa_Junina

We also went to an interesting club - a former bordello, actually - that hosts a weekly party with a buffet of Brazil's national dish, feijoada (made of rice, black beans, pork, dried meat, collard greens, orange, farinha and cachaca) as well as djs and a "samba circle" - a group of musicians who get together with drums, guitars, and a microphone to perform beautiful versions of classic samba songs, with a crowd around them singing and dancing along:

Marisa and I also went out for a caipirinha at "Garota de Ipanema" - the bar where a girl who often walked by inspired the writers of "The Girl from Ipanema" in 1962. There are photos of famous Brazilian musicians hung all over the restaurant, and the owners have even conveniently hung up a big reproduction of the original handwritten lyrics to "Vinicius and Tom's" famous song:

The very friendly owner of the bar even came over to chat - Marisa had met him last time she want there - he gave us each a rose, and filled us in a bit on the background of the bar and the musicians who had stopped by over the years - very cool.

But all trips must come to an end, and the next day I had to catch my flight out - we headed back out to catch the bus at Ipanema beach, took a picture of a dog carrying a coconut, and headed to the aiport.

Photos from Brazil - Part One

2006-09-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

(This post got named "Blog of the Day" in the World category on blogoftheday.org the night I posted it - how cool is that?)

In honor of my parents' current trip down to Brazil to visit my sister, I've decided to post a few photos from my own trip there this June - enjoy!

Marisa and I went to Ipanema beach as soon as I got to Rio - it was "winter," but that just meant it was around 80 degrees F instead of 95 - and not as crowded. This statue is at the south end of the beach - I like to think it's in honor of me finishing my dissertation a few days before I left for this trip ;)

But we left Rio pretty quickly, taking a bus down to Sao Paulo to catch a flight to Campo Grande, in the southwest part of Brazil. From there, we rented a car and headed further west to Bonito - "world capital of ecotourism" (if they do say so themselves). Self-promotion aside, it was amazing - we snorkeled in rivers that are as clear as aquariums and are filled with enormous (2-3 foot long) fish - I even had an otter swim in front of me! Marisa has all the pictures and video footage of that, though.

Another highlight of the trip was a brief visit to Buraca do Araras (which unfortunately translates to "Parrot Hole" in English), a newly reopened refuge for wild parrots and parakeets. Dozens of them live in a deep circular canyon, and we were the only visitors there that day - very cool experience. Here's a photo of some of the parrots in flight:

We even had a good time getting around - we had rented a little car, and somehow managed to get stuck behind two herds of cows in the course of five days. Driving through a herd of a hundred cows (with the cowboys' permission, of course) can be a surprisingly fun experience!

But our favorite part of the trip to Bonito was our visit to Cachoiera do Peixes (I'm pretty sure that's the name - it translates, roughly, to Waterfall of the Fishes). It's a working farm with gorgeous trails through a semi-tropical forest, lots of waterfalls (big and small), including a couple you could swim in, a zip line that you could take across a little lake and jump in, a huge homemade lunch spread (12 different desserts for 7 people - it was crazy), hammocks for napping after the huge lunch spread, and lots of interesting animals - including parrots and monkeys that would take food from your hand and a pack of five pomeranians and one chihuahua that would come along on the hikes and harass the farm animals. if you've never seen a Pomeranian chasing a bull, you haven't lived. ;) Here's a few photos:

OK, photos from the second half of the trip in my next post!

I'm now a published journalist!

2006-09-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I spent the summer as an intern with the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a non-profit newspaper that covers education issues in Philly. It was a great experience - I got to discover what it's like to be on the reporter's side of an interview (quite different than being an interviewee), learned a bit about investigative journalism, and worked with great people on important issues. If you know any undergrads or grads who might be interested in doing something similar, the Notebook is offering a bunch of unpaid internships this fall (see their website here: http://www.thenotebook.org/about/internships.htm , and the paid one that I had will almost definitely be available again next summer through the Fels Foundation's very cool "Internships in Community Service" program in Philadelphia; check out their site here for details: http://www.samfels.org/internships06.html

Anyway, the fall issue of the Notebook came out today, and it features two articles from me on school contracting - one on how the Philadelphia school district uses informal and no-bid processes to choose contractors for educational services (like after-school programs), and the other on how the district is going to decide whether or not to renew its contracts with the six private organizations that have been managing schools in the district for the last five years. I also compiled responses from about a dozen people (elected officials, activists, teachers, etc) about whether or not those contracts should be renewed, helped research an article about how school contracting is affecting unions in the city, and helped edit several other articles.

Responses to the EMO renewal question from some of Philadelphia's mayoral candidates are already up on the Notebook's website - http://www.thenotebook.org - and hopefully the rest of the edition will also be posted online soon. In the meantime, those in Philadelphia can pick up a free copy from the newsracks by the front desk of the School District's headquarters (440 N. Broad), a stack in the NE tower of City Hall, and at Robin's Books on 13th St. If you want a copy mailed to you, you can subscribe to the Notebook here: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=2212 for $20 a year - and only $12 for students!

I'm looking forward to reading the issue myself - if you manage to check it out, let me know what you think!

Where I'm living

2006-09-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

OK, now that you all know I like my job, I want to reassure you that I like my new neighborhood too. Of course, leaving West Philly was hard - it's a pretty amazing place - but Bill and I have really enjoyed settling into the Ironbound.

Check out the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironbound for some details about the history of the neighborhood, past and present. Basically, it's a thriving Portuguese and Brazilian community, with increasing numbers of Ecuadorian, Mexican, and other Central/South American immigrants. I'm practicing my Spanish more than I have in years, and the few Portuguese phrases I managed to pick up while visiting my sister in Brazil have served me well - but I'm hoping to learn more quickly!

It helps that the neighborhood has lots of great food, so we can practice our language skills while ordering - there's a cute little internet cafe with cafe con leche and tasty brazilian snacks for a dollar each (we went there on the day we saw the apartment and have been back often - especially when we were waiting for our internet service to get turned on!), a corner store with its own butcher shop in the back and fresh portuguese bread delivered daily, a fantastic supermarket six blocks away stocked with amazing cheeses and more salt cod than i ever knew existed (see photos here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=87997 ) . There's also a truck out front of the supermarket where you can buy fresh churros - fried cylinders of dough rolled in cinnamon sugar and filled with cream. They're deadly, but irresistable.

Plus there's tons of restaurants - I took my parents out to a huge lunch at Iberia over the summer (it's on Ferry Street, the main commercial strip in the neighborhood) and we've also enjoyed a couple meals from McWhorter's BBQ down the block, where a tray with half a chicken, a quarter rack of ribs, and a couple pounds of rice and black beans will set you back a whole $10. There's a reason it's always filled with cops and EMTs, I guess.

There are also lots of great bakeries around, plus Nasto's, a famous ice cream place that supplies hundreds of restaurants in the area: http://nastoicecream.com/index.html ) We're hoping to get there soon - we tried yesterday but they closed a bit earlier than we expected. ;( Somehow I think we'll survive, though.

Hello from Newark!

2006-09-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone - hopefully this will be an easy way for people to keep up with what I'm up to in Newark (and beyond!) I'll try to write a bit each day, starting today with an update on how things are going with my new job. Basically, it's great. I just started a post-doc with the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers-Newark - check out our website here: http://ethnicity.rutgers.edu. The people here are wonderful, and I already feel very at home - it's just as ideal a job for me as I hoped it would be.

Currently, I'm in the process of designing my own project, which I'll be running over the next couple of years with funding from the Dodge Foundation. It's still a work in progress, but I'm planning on coordinating a series of community discussions around education reform in Newark, all of which will include some background on the history of the issue we're discussing. Right now I'm busy writing up a proposal, putting together a list of people to contact, and compiling a bibliography - it's actually pretty amazing how many resources I was able to find on the history of education in Newark!

I'll also be helping out with the Institute's many other great activities - the big one is the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture, which is the finale to their annual series of events for Black History Month in February. But the Institute also coordinates the Heninburg Civic Fellows program - which brings Newark community leaders together to share ideas and experiences - the Saturday Academy program to bring high school students in for weekend history workshops, and lots of cultural events - the next one is an Indian dance performance on October 11.

Anyway, I'll fill in more details about how things are going in my next post - feel free to respond in the meantime!