“There is a compelling and immediate need for this legislation,” said Feingold, in introducing his bill on Friday. “Travelers have been forced to wait for hours while customs agents reviewed and sometimes copied the contents of the electronic devices. In some cases, the laptops or cell phones were confiscated, and returned weeks or even months later, with no explanation.”

The bill would require all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents to have reasonable suspicion before searching the contents of laptops or other electronic equipment carried by U.S. citizens. It would also ban profiling based on travelers’ race or ethnicity, allow people detained to witness the process of their laptop being examined, limit the time officials can hold a traveler’s hardware and provide compensation for damage to a traveler’s computer.

And the DHS seems unlikely to cooperate. When Feingold chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue in June, the DHS refused to send a witness for the hearing and did not comply with the committee’s request to produce answers to the questions previously submitted to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff before the hearing.

The bill is cosponsored by three Democratic Senators, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Ron Wyden or Oregon and Washington’s Maria Cantwell. — read the whole article on Huffington Post

You can track this bill on govtrack.us.

The other day I was at my storage unit - I’m cleaning it out and giving a lot of useless stuff away. Painters and artists in general are such packrats. Keep everything for the sake of making art out of it - someday. But I came across a box that had been carefully packed before being placed in storage. It contained a number of things - mostly things that I had received as gifts.

Within that big box was another smaller box marked Art Postcards From Travels. I slowly opened it up. Inside were all of my favorite souvenirs.

Most people visit museums because they think they are supposed to. How could someone go to Paris and not see the Impressionist works at the Musee d’Orsay? As an art student, and then now as an artist, I visit museums frequently not to tick the museum or the art work off of a to-do list, but to study. I’ve always gone to museums to see and explore the masterworks of artists, to study the layers of Van Gogh’s paintings, or to study the physical dynamics of Michelangelo’s sculpture. And then, after visiting the works of art, I would go to the museum store to purchase postcards of the work I had seen.

I randomly pull a few out of the stack.

Five Turners from the first time I went to the Tate Gallery in 1986.

The Veiled Lady by Raphael, from a trip to Florence that same year, is one of my favorite portraits in The Uffizi, not because of the face, but because of the painterly way the fabric of her dress was recorded. I went there on a hot September day, no waiting in line in those days.

Le Lit (The Bed) by Toulouse-Lautrec is one of my favorite paintings in the Musee d’Orsay along with Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Planers) by Gustave Caillebotte. Although I have to admit that finding an absolute favorite in the Musee d’Orsay is really difficult as my stack of postcards from that museum is really large. I found those on my trip to Paris in 2000.

There are even a few from the old Dali museum in Cleveland, many from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh where I went to art school, some from a trip I took to Washington DC in 1976, and not as many as I thought from Rome.

I flip through the cards and remember the days, the travels, the weather, the experience and even what I ate for lunch - which is kind of funny because I couldn’t tell you what I had for lunch yesterday!

One other random thing I found in the box marked Art Postcards From Travels was my first passport. The only mark in the book is a Radiant Baby drawn and signed by my art school buddy K. Haring. I remember the night I asked him to draw in it - he was kind of taken aback, he didn’t want to deface a government document! But I assured him the passport was set to expire soon so it would be ok. There are two dates on it because he transposed the numbers and then corrected himself.

Tell me about your favorite souvenir and the memory it brings back to you. Or go look in the various regions on the site, like the Yucatan, Paris, San Francisco, or Prague for a With Eyes Open Survey Question about souvenirs!

I say, when given hard times, get a positive attitude and make them fun. The above photo is a picture of The Escape Pod, my beloved 1971 VW bus. It was taken at Point Lobos, on the California coast just below Carmel and just above Big Sur. I love my car. Currently she has seen some better days and could use some work, and a bit of scrubbing. I’ve had her since 1996 and I’m her second owner. The story of how I got her is kind of magical but too long for this blog post, maybe I will tell it another time.

I love to car camp. When I bought her, back in the days when I had steady work, I took the passenger seats out of my VW and put in a bed platform that has a nice five inch foam mattress on it. I have all of my blankies, a bunch of pillows and also a sleeping bag for really cold nights.

Underneath the platform I store all of my necessities, like my Coleman stove, a thermos, a cook pot, a cast iron skillet, my tea kettle, some utensils, a decent knife, a bowl or two, and some minimal food stuffs. I also carry a small med kit, extra toilet paper, and a few kitchen towels. There is always at least one sketchbook in the car. And I always have at least one novel to read - I usually take one for every two days I’ll be out. I have a camping hammock that stretches the length of the inside of the van to hold my clothes and other belongings.

When out on the road I like to camp in campgrounds. I like the amenities, like a hot shower, sometimes a camp store and laundry, a place to make a campfire, and my own designated space. But I have also been known to pull over to the side of the road, or into a parking lot, for the a night.

When I go for a hike, I make sure the car is locked tight.

One difference about car camping in a campground and RV camping in a campground is needing to find a level camping spot. RVs can adjust their height so they don’t have to be on a level spot. With car camping it’s a little more sensitive. I’ve never had a problem finding a level spot, although in some campgrounds, the ones that are geared more towards tent camping, I have had to search.

After losing my live/work painting studio in the dot.com bust of 2001, I threw everything I owned in storage and moved into the car. I have been living in or out of her ever since.

I figured that there might be a lot of people in the US that have come into my situation, if not recently, then soon, so I thought I’d give some tips on how to live in a car.

In many parts of California, and particularly in San Francisco and along the Big Sur coast, it is illegal to live or camp in your car. That doesn’t stop a lot of us from doing it though. To keep the police from rousing you in the middle of the night here are a few ideas:

Keep you and your car as clean, neat and tidy as possible, both inside and out.

Make sure, if you have a van, that you have curtains all the way around. Very plain ones are best.

Keep your car tuned-up.

Don’t keep a lot of stuff in your car. The car or van has limited space. Take only what you need.

Don’t hang out in your vehicle. Hang out in a cafe, or a bookstore, the library, at a friend’s house, or wherever until it’s time to go to sleep. Then go to your vehicle, be quiet about getting into it, and then go to sleep until morning. In the morning get dressed and be off for the day.

I’ve had full time jobs while living in my van. Which actually makes it easier with the concept of what to do with myself and the car all day.

Don’t park around other car campers. It may seem to be safer, but the police can recognize a gaggle of you.

Pick safe neighborhoods to camp in.

I like to park under, or close to, street lights.

I will also choose to park in front of the empty space between two houses rather than directly in front of a house.

If you can’t get out of bed without coffee or tea in the morning, that’s what the thermos is for. My thermos is good for keeping things warm for about 8 hours, so I if I need to, I fill it up at a cafe right before going to bed.

Join a gym for a good morning workout and a shower.

I think these tips might be helpful to someone. If you find yourself in this situation, just make an adventure out of it. Adjust your picture of reality and have a good time until the picture readjusts. Be a car camper, a traveler!

Want more tips? Just ask in the comments area!

I had a revelation last weekend on my short road trip to Nevada. At home I eat well. I don’t have an unlimited income but I do tend to spend my money on good food rather than things. So I try and eat lots of yummy organic veggies and low-or no-fat foods.

Imagine my surprise when I gleefully found a Dairy Queen during my weekend in Reno! A chocolate shake and french fries. Lordy was that heaven. Yeah, yeah, I had the organic grapes and tortilla chips, soy milk and a bag of cashews, along with bottled water in the car. But holy cow I went ape over that shake and fries combo. And as any junk food junkie knows, the whole idea is to dip the fries into that shake!

There are words in English that are really hard for non-native English speakers to keep track of. Two that come to mind are kitchen and chicken. For an English speaker this is a no-brainer because, well a kitchen is a place where we cook, or sit around the table with cups of coffee and chat, and a chicken is well, an animal that lays eggs and tastes like everything. How can those two words be confused? Easy. Pretend you don’t know their meaning and say them one after the other …

Another pair is hungry and angry. Both are usually preceded by the phrase I am or Are you. My friend K., a native French speaker, always confuses these two. I always have to ask her if she wants to eat or is she mad. She is usually hungry.

My big twist is making up my own words. My brain uses its twisted logic to complete sentences when my dictionary isn’t handy. Like in French. For twenty odd years I used the word assiette for seat. Like a seat on a train or plane. Assiette is the French word for plate, but it made sense that it could also mean seat because the command to sit down is assier-toi. The word in French for seat is siege (two syllables not one).

The wonderful thing about this is that it can lead to great and confusing conversations and bouts of belly laughter. There’s nothing more fun, and more ice-breaking, than making an ass out myself in a place I know nothing about. Or even in places that I’ve known intimately for twenty years - a place so polite that the folks don’t even correct me.

We did a Lake Tahoe drive by. Very hard to take photos on a clear sunny day. None of mine turned out - between the light, the glare, and my polarized sun glasses, I couldn’t really see a thing through the lens.

Somehow the conversation between us riders, two of us locals and a German traveler, veered towards genetic engineering. I don’t quite know what led up to this bit of conversation as I was sitting in the back seat looking at the rocks and trees as they passed by.

But this part of the conversation began with the question “What do you Californians think of genetic engineering?”

“Of vegetables or animals?”

“Well, nothing like Dolly … ”

“Well, we aren’t as against it as the Europeans, but we aren’t all for it …”

“The Americans are always trying to sell us genetically engineered mice …”

“Mice?”

“Yes, of course mice. You Americans are always trying to make us buy them.”

“Why would we want to sell you genetically engineered mice?”

“We don’t want to buy them, they’re genetically engineered and we don’t like that …”

“They must be doing some research …”

“But how many mice could they possibly need for research?”

“No it’s not for research …”

“How many mice do we try to sell to Germany?”

“Oh, maybe 40 tons a year …”

“40 tons? Of mice?”

“Yes you know, the mice in the field”

“40 tons of field mice? Huh.”

“Oh yes, enough mice for everyone …”

“What would a single German want to do with genetically engineered American field mice?”

“Oh we eat them!”

“Eat them?!”

“Yes, you know, like this …” and he raises his hands and makes a nibbling motion between them.

“You mean corn?? We try and sell you genetically engineered corn? What does corn have to do with mice? …”

“Yes! Mice! (Maize said in English but pronounced with a German accent!)”

Laughing that hard was not good for the driver, but we finally settled down. Every now and then for the rest of the four hour trip, when there was a lull in the conversation, one of us would start to giggle and then mutter the word mice …

]]> http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/09/16/of-mice-and-maize/feed/ http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/09/15/nevada-heat/ http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/09/15/nevada-heat/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:44:26 +0000 kimba http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/?p=95

Nevada is hot. Well, at least it was hot this past weekend. It felt like the water was being sucked out of my eyeballs.

While I was visiting Reno I learned some things.

The name of the state is pronounced Ne-vad-a, like I had a bad time in Nevada. I didn’t know there was another way to pronounce it. There are a lot of pitbulls in Reno. I met a lot of them. The capital of Nevada is Carson City. And the state nickname is The Silver State. Nevadans are really into the Second Amendment. They also don’t care for Californians much. But like all stereotypes the last two items are just that. Sunscreen is a must for those who are used to living in the fog at sea level.

Other than that it was just really hot. Really, really hot.

It’s been a long time since I’ve left town. I’ve been getting wrapped up with personal projects and web sites, and people pulling me this way and that. So today, with a goal in mind, one that somebody else has pulled me to do, I hopped into a stranger’s car and drove for about six hours from the Bay Area to Reno Nevada. I have to say that we are no longer strangers and there is a lot of work to do here in Reno this weekend. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, but there you have it.

On the way here, I tried out my new earplanes while going over the hill (The Sierras). I’ve been having altitude problems with my ears and was actually just a little terrified of making this trip. But the earplanes worked fine and now my next experiment will be with an airplane.

I love the ruggedness of the Sierra Mountains. Even while driving in a modern car, the landscape feels prehistoric, ancient, and it’s only the few lanes of highway that cut through it. I watched the altitude markers pass 1000, 2000, 3000, feet. The almost full moon rode side by side with us, over the top of the pine trees, all the way to Reno.

]]> http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/09/12/on-the-road-to-reno/feed/ http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/08/29/photo-of-the-day-my-homeland/ http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/2008/08/29/photo-of-the-day-my-homeland/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:15:00 +0000 kimba http://www.artist-at-large.com/kimba/?p=93

At this time of year I sometimes pine for home. It’s August. It’s hot. It’s the end of summer. Where I live now I can wear turtleneck sweaters all year around. Sometimes I just crave the heat of the summers of my childhood.

My cousin David sent me this photograph to use as my Photo of the Day. His old oak tree, the corn fields and the setting sun on his farm in Western Pennsylvania, just north of Pittsburgh.

As I look out the window here and out to the Pacific ocean, I can watch the fog roll back in after a nice sunny morning. I think I need to put on my sweater.

Hey, even the most enthusiastic of Democrats need a break from politics on occasion. So why not check out some of The Mile High City’s cultural events?

The Denver Art Museum:

Clyfford Still Unveiled: Selections From The Estate features 13 paintings created by this leader among first-generation abstract expressionists. Clyfford Still is considered to be one of the most important painters of the twentieth century. This exhibition features a 1940 self-portrait, several never-before-seen works on paper, and five 1940s and 1950s masterworks that show the evolution of Still’s mature, purely abstract style.

The Age of Impressionism is running through September 7th. The exhibition features 40 works of art from 19th and 20th century European and American artists including Claude Monet, Eugene Boudin, Frederick Childe Hassam, and John Singer Sargent.

Varied Voices is a works on paper exhibition that includes works by 18 contemporary American artists and runs through December 31.

Vote is an exhibition in honor of the convention and is a collaborative project put on by the museum and the AIGA. Get Out the Vote, AIGA’s Design for Democracy initiative, invited designers from across the country to create posters to inspire Americans to participate in the political process. 50 of these digital posters will be displayed on the atrium’s screen through August 31.

Museum of Contemporary Art Denver:

THe MCA Denver has a number of exhibitions this week that look interesting. Artists included in individual shows include Jane Hammond, Adam Helms, Omar Fast, Suzanne Kuhn, Brad Kahlhamer, and Jack Balas.

Dialog:City:

What Dialog:City has to offer this week looks to be some really interesting work by some very contemporary artists. They have invited internationally renowned artists and designers to create participatory, interactive, and dialogical site-specific works in neighborhoods across the city of Denver. From Political Karaoke, digital projections of Veteran stories from a Humvee, and a technology hip-hop opera on the climate impact on Antarctica - this event will be a cutting-edge convergence of art and public life. Participating artists are Charlie Cannon, Minsuk Cho, Luke DuBois, Ann Hamilton, Sharon Hayes, Lyn Hershman, Daniel Peltz, DJ Spooky, spurse, and Krzysztof Wodiczko.

Unconventional Women:

An historic symposium uniting 3,000 women, advancing their political leadership and participation. This is happening on August 25th from 8am til 2pm at the Buell Theatre. Check web site for a list of speakers.

Cinemocracy Rocks

Democracy in film out at the Red Rocks amphitheatre.

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Extreme Ice is the work of award-winning photographer James Balog. This photographic exhibition features some of the most beautiful and remote environments on Earth.

Also on exhibit at the museum are the science of mummies, gems and minerals, an exhibit of Native American everyday objects, tracing evolution, discovering the universe, and wildlife exhibits. There is also a Discovery Zone for the kids.

It looks like it might be an interesting week in Denver even if you aren’t going to the convention. If you know of an event that I missed, please leave it in the comments area!