David Bowie, Craig Fergusson and a night out!

The other day some things happened. I'll tell them in the order they happened, not in the order I learned of them.

Holly, in the U.K., at James and Julie Daniel's house (more often thought of as "Adam's house") was looking through their CDs and discovered several David Bowie recordings she wanted to put on her iPod; planned to ask them later. Later that day she was in a tube station in London, with Julie and Adam, and saw a big poster of David Bowie, I forget for what cause. I woke up in New Mexico to find an e-mail entitled "**Press Request** David Bowie letter press images" from Dean Murray at Rex Features. He wanted to know about getting a picture (and more) of the letter David Bowie wrote me in 1967.

I had no idea Holly was off having a David Bowie day. She had no idea I was about to have one.

Cool, huh?

The David Bowie letter has been on my site for years. Someone found it and put it on a blog called "Letters of Note: Correspondence deserving of a wider audience". They said I was 14-year-old Sandra Dodd, but I was Sandra Adams in those days.

Here's a scan of one of the photostatic copies of photos he sent me. Photostat was a pre-xerox thing. They worked with heat, and rolls of paper, and they were never very clean and beautiful, but they were nice images. I don't know who the photographer was.

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Just figured out I'm behind on these "good bye 2009" posts, an "assignment" I'm following.

What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies? That was the theme yesterday, for the blog post challenge. I just finished American on Purpose, by Craig Fergusson, and really liked it. I had bought it for Holly, and when she came back from Oregon (where she received the gift) she left it with me. I've bought two copies for others since then and have intended to write something about it with a couple of quotes for the Always Learning list. I still hope to do that. Seeing this note might help others to remind me.


December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

These questions are composed with much drama, or perhaps I'm too old to have my world rocked or my mind blown at this point, which is actually very comforting. I don't expect younger readers to understand that. Rock on, ya'll, but I'll tell you some calm stories over here in the corner.

Saturday, September 12, was the talent show evening of the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference which Flo Gascon hosted in San Diego. Our family coordinate the talent show. I was keeping the cards, Holly was going back and forth and helping coordinate upcoming acts. Kirby did most of the announcing. Marty was helping with the sound board (photo at left; Marty in red, photo by Holly), and after a while when the guy figured he could handle it, he left him to it, so Marty learned some cool things that night. It was fun to see my kids do the kinds of things I always liked Keith for being able to do, and maybe that Keith liked in me, too. To do that as a family, all in one place, was memorable. "All in one place" becomes more rare. Kirby has been in Texas for over two years, and Holly's in England and will be in Quebec much of 2010. We'll only know in retrospect what was the last time we were all in once place. The next scheduled one is Sandra's Unschooling Symposium in Santa Fe, January 7-9, 2010. Come on down! (Maybe; see webpage for particulars, but there are condos still available at a stunningly low rate.)