Opuntia

Opuntia, also known as nopales or paddle cactus, is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae.

Currently, only prickly pears are included in this genus of about 200 species distributed throughout most of the Americas. 

The most commonly culinary species is the Indian Fig Opuntia (O. ficus-indica). Most culinary uses of the term "prickly pear" refer to this species. Prickly pears are also known as "tuna", "nopal" or nopales, from the Nahuatl word nōpalli for the pads, or nostle, from the Nahuatl word nōchtli for the fruit; or paddle cactus.

The genus is named for the Ancient Greek city of Opus where, according to Theophrastus, an edible plant grew which could be propagated by rooting its leaves. [Wiki]

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Sphinx

Isn’t life more than that? Doesn’t existence itself rise above all the things that

happen—the goods, the bads, the rights, the wrongs, the judgments? Isn’t it a

kindness to be here? Isn’t this a special moment—this moment called being alive?

How aware am I of it? How much do I recognize it?

What am I concerned about today? Am I the least bit concerned about something

that is finer than the finest hair—something that cannot be measured in width,

height, or weight and that is the only difference between me and that headstone?

Do you know what it is? It’s the breath that comes in and out of me.

You cannot take a picture of it. You cannot paint it. You cannot make a statue of it.

You cannot give it, buy it, trade it, or sell it. And it makes all the difference between

you and your headstone. Because breath comes, you’re intelligent. Because it comes,

you are Mr. So-and-So, Mrs. So-and-So, Miss So-and-So, Dr. So-and-So, Captain

So-and-So, Professor So-and-So. And thanks to this gift of breath, you have the

capability to understand, to question, to reason, to observe, and to learn.

—Prem Rawat

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Placid Sands

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."
- Henry Miller

THE CURRENT CHALLENGE

Fri Jan 18, 2012

This week's challenge:
'Serene'.

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Woodstock III

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.
John Burroughs 

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Woodstock II

The Film

The documentary film Woodstock, directed by  and edited by Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, was released in 1970. Artie Kornfeld (one of the promoters of the festival) came to Fred Weintraub, an executive at Warner Bros., and asked for money to film the festival. Previously, Artie had been turned down everywhere else, but Fred Weintraub became his hero and, against the express wishes of other Warner Bros. executives, Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld $100,000 to make the film. Woodstock helped to save Warner Bros at a time when the company was on the verge of going out of business. The book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls details the making of the film.

Wadleigh rounded up a crew of about 100 from the New York film scene. With no money to pay the crew, he agreed to a double-or-nothing scheme, in which the crew would receive double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. Wadleigh strove to make the film as much about the hippies as the music, listening to their feelings about compelling events contemporaneous with the festival (such as the Vietnam War), as well as the views of the townspeople.

Woodstock received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The film has been deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress. In 1994, Woodstock: The Director's Cut was released and expanded to include Janis Joplin as well as additional performances by Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Canned Heat not seen in the original version of the film. In 2009, the film was re-released on DVD. This release marks the film's first availability on Blu-ray disc.

Another film on Woodstock named Taking Woodstock was produced in 2009 by Taiwanese American filmmaker Ang Lee.  [Wiki]

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