Yeah, we on boss talk one-on-one. Yeah, we gonna talk Okay, did Bobby Billions and you ever straighten things out? No, I ain't got nothing to say to him. So you pretty much that's Korma coming back around him right now You don't think he'll ever be able to make another song big as that one Nah Can't see it happen. I can't hear it now. No, I don't see it happen because he not to be honest I ain't know I ain't know him till he actually made that song Yeah, nobody and you know me. I'm always around the city. Yeah, I ain't heard of this a lot But he say he didn't know Mothry he never personally met him Yeah, he I got takes me I got I got I can show you where he was talking to Mothry He was a big Mothry fan like you know when big bro when y'all when y'all out here y'all out here I might her to y'all can you click up and appreciate the big bro and No, you big bro that so you feel like he betrayed betrayed him when he did the song with Trap boy That was just his character You know, I don't I don't see nothing bad about that because I could say he's a fan Just like I said if you like he can't jump in a beef though like that I wouldn't want him to jump in that beef. Let me tell you like I'm not asking nobody to jump in no beef I don't like beef.  I don't like beef.  No, you gotta you gotta know from their heart Like people got a good heart angle see the way you see it people know what they're doing you right People know exactly what you're right. They do. So, you know at the end of the day, it's like this though It's like this, you know exactly what you're doing like, you know That man came to my man came to my partner funeral But what's wrong with that though? He still shows support. You said that said that was his biggest favorite artist He's showing support to be though. It ain't like he crossing him on the end. I didn't have to make him get like that though He's showing support. I understand that but so so like I told him Then you're not a street artist. You're not a street nigga.   So you know the rules of the game But you try to play What you try to do is Conquer the whole game with one with with two or three moves. Well, how many people like that in the industry? I understand that I can't I can't speak about other people because I don't know them Well, it's like And listen, I have no problem with him. I'm not mad at him.  I understand. I see it your way and I also see it another way too I always see both sides of everything. I just don't know looking like that. No, they had a they had a death and they And they can't just recently, right?  You just did a song with the nigga laughing at my partner. Wow Uh, uh, I ain't got nothing to do. I ain't got nothing to do child.  That's cool.  You understand that I look at this I understand why you ain't gonna do something with the other boys How you know he why would you want to feel like put it like that? Why would you want to do why would you want to do a song with him? Yeah Why you want to now? See, yeah, I mean I like I see I see I see Yeah, yeah, you want you wanted to for cloud. Yeah, exactly. You want to say oakland beat What person ain't doing it for cloud? Yeah, but yeah, I don't like the cloud. Ain't nobody around me cloud Like I said, I know right around me cloud. We ain't cloud chase. We ain't doing nothing. We build the foundations


night before Ada Box, and all through the land, all the makers were waiting, soldering irons in hand. With learn guides on standby and pink in her hair, they knew that dear Ada Claus soon would be there. With a good multimeter, some solder and flux, noses pressed against windows for UPS trucks. With quick wit and know-how, and boards made of bread, the makers await with projects in their head. The poem is too long to do the whole thing, but we can't wait to see what the Ada Box brings. With good business practices and all of her smarts, Lady Ada helps us turn electrons to art. So do your thing, and always ask questions. If the component is backwards, you'll sure learn a lesson. But errors can teach, and you have the power. Oh Ada Box, Ada Box, please arrive any hour. Sayonara for now, but do hold on tight. Happy Ada Box to all, and to all a good night. Strap yourself in. We're launching in T minus 10 seconds. Destination? A new Class M planet called Ada Box 19. M here stands for microcontroller, because this Ada Box is the first one to feature the newest technology from the Raspberry Pi sector. Say hello to the RP2040. It's a speedy little microcontroller with lots of GPIO pins, and 64 times more RAM than the Apollo guidance computer. Get ready to upgrade your desk's mission control station with a circuit python powered macro pad. Complete with 12 buttons, OLED display, speaker, and rotary encoder. Customize it for your spacecraft to help guide you through the great reaches of the unknown. Or just have it type out your favorite emojis. On this interstellar journey, you won't be traveling alone. Our long-term Ada Box partner, Digikey, is the co-pilot and booster rocket. Just like a friendly astromechadroid, they're always there to help us keep the ship running tip top with plenty of repair parts and tools. Celebrate their contribution to Ada Box with a custom etched keycap that can be used on your macro pad or on any mechanical keyboard. Ada Box 19. Macro pad. Welcome to the Ada Box 19 unboxing. Thank you so much for joining us on our mission to planet keycap in the diode matrix galaxy. If you're a subscriber, you probably have your box by now and can join in on the unboxing. If you're not a subscriber, be sure to subscribe to Ada Box 20 coming this fall. I believe we've escaped Earth's atmosphere, so let's enjoy the view from outer space as we become accustomed to our new zero gravity environment. And special thanks to Digikey for making this Ada Box possible. Now let's get our Ada Box and have a look inside. Oh, what the heck? Let's just open the box. Sliding open. The Ada Box 19, the first thing we see is the lovely insert sheet with our gang of intrepid Ada Fruit explorers checking out space. They're off on one of their typical space adventures. And on the other side, we list the box contents as well as links to learn guide tutorials and a coupon code that you can use on a future store purchase. Now, diving in all sorts of good goodies. Let's have a little bit of a closer look. Here's what we have in the Ada Box mission control capsule. First of all, the Ada Fruit macro pad. This is a three by four customizable keypad, which is programmable in Circuit Python. It's starring the Raspberry Pi RP2040, which is a powerful chip that can act as both a USB, HID and MIDI device. To plug into it, we have Kale box red switches. These are perhaps the most common switches in the galaxy with a smooth linear feel. Of course, you can replace them with any MX compatible switches you have on hand, thanks to the hot swap sockets. We've also got translucent DSA profile keycaps. These will snap right on top of your MX compatible key switches, and you'll be able to see the neopixels glowing right on up through the keys. Now, we also have the macro pad top and bottom plates. These are custom PCBs that will keep your macro pad stable while looking awesome, thanks to this gorgeous silk screen. Also included, we have a purple USB-C cable, an encoder knob, M3 screws, and little rubber bumper feet. That's not all, however. We've also got this custom Digi-key shine-through etched keycap. If you have an illuminated keyboard, you'll be able to see the color glow right through the top. You can also use it right on your macro pad. And finally, we have this Circuit Python space explorer sticker. It's so shiny and spacey. Slap this on the side of your rocket and let all of your intergalactic traveler friends know that you represent. May not survive re-entry into Earth atmosphere. Now, before we go any further, what even is a macro pad, you may ask? Is it something you can dance with? Yes. Is it something you can juggle? Probably not. Is it something you should caress? Possibly. Is it like a keyboard? Yes. Yes, it is like a keyboard. In fact, it's a USB keyboard which you can program to do what you want. But what you want could be anything.  It can do keyboard shortcuts. It can do music by sending MIDI notes. It can do game pad. It can do joystick locations for such a device, especially one that lets you really customize the look and feel of it with different keycaps, different key switches. And this one has a little display on it so you can read out information or give yourself a hint as to what things mean. It's also got neopixels shining up through the bottom, which means colorful RGB LEDs that can again indicate things blink when you need to pay attention to something. And there's this rotary encoder that's already soldered on there which acts as a button when you click it and acts as an endless knob when you turn it. So what are the possibilities with the macro pad? They're infinite. 28x64 monochrome OLED for a crisp heads-up display that can be used in Arduino or Circuit Python to display key maps, stats, computer performance, and so on. There's also the rotary encoder with push button soldered in for you. You can twist and turn it or push it to change volume or monitor brightness or scroll, whatever you like. A tiny speaker can give audio feedback or play some fun bleepy tunes. If you want to add more hardware, we've got this Stem-a-QT port on the side that lets you connect any iSquared-C add-on peripherals from the massive Stem-a-QT quick family of plug-in boards. Now you can also dress up your macro pad with Paint Your Dragons fabulous decorative silk screen enclosure and hardware kit. You get these two custom PCBs that are cut to act as a protective bottom plate and a mechanically stabilizing key switch plate on top. You can use these included M3 screws to connect those. We'll take a look in a little bit how to do that. And since this is a symmetric design, you can decide which side you want up or down. You can also attach rubber bump-on feet to protect the bottom from skidding. Let's dig into the stats just a little bit here. Macro Pad runs on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 chip with 8 megs of flash memory, a dual core Cortex M0 at 130 MHz with 264K of RAM. It runs circuit Python, Arduino, or MicroPython with ease, with lots of space for development code and files. The USB-C connector is for both power and data. And of course, this can act as a USB-HID device. Also, it can act as USB MIDI, UART, etc. The three by four mechanical key switch sockets accept any Cherry MX compatible switches, and they're individually tied to GPIO pins, not matrix wired. There's one NeoPixel RGB LED per switch on the north side of the switch, which can shine through. The rotary encoder has 20 detents per rotation with a push switch on a GPIO pin. The push switch on the rotary encoder is also used for entering bootloader mode. On power-up you simply hold it, then press and release the reset button, and then release the encoder switch. The 128x64 OLED is a monochrome display that is high-speed and tied to SPI for quick updates. The 8mm speaker slash buzzer has a Class D amplifier and an RC filter, so it can be used to make simple beeps and sound effects. And finally, there are four M3 compatible bosses that you can use for screwing on a backplate or attaching it to a 3D printed enclosure or other case. I think that you'll find that the assembly of the macro pad is actually pretty fun. First of all, we get to peel off the screen protector. Oh yeah. Then we're going to insert a couple of the key switches into the switch plate. So you'll note the orientation here. We have these two pins or legs oriented to match the socket, so down in the south position, and then we'll plug a couple of those into that switch plate, making sure they match orientation. Let me snap in nice and snug. And now what we'll do is very carefully align those little legs with the sockets on the macro pad. This is really important because they're so thin, they're easy to bend, so you want to just make sure to take it slowly and carefully so that you get nice alignment before you try to go and manhandle those into there. And now those are stable and we can start to insert the rest of the switches. Again, just going through carefully and making sure to check the legs orientation before placing those in there. Sometimes you may find that one of those legs is bent just a little bit before you even try inserting it, so just push that down into place a little bit and that should work just fine. I've also found that you can, if you have any question of did a pin actually make it in or not, if you flip it over and look at the little kale sockets here, you'll see the little tip of the pin shows up. If any of those are missing one, then you've got a bent leg. You want to pull it out and fix that and try again. There we have it. All of the key switches are in place. Now what we can do is go ahead and add the back plate and here you've got a decision to make. Which way are you going to go with the beautiful Vera Rubin satellite and golden record image side or the macro pad control module interface side. I think I'm going to go with the control module visible on the back. It's not a permanent choice. You can always switch that later. Oh, one important thing before we do that, check and see the four little captain covers that you may find on the little threaded bosses here.  Okay, now we can go ahead and place that on and screw those in place with the provided M3 screws. Now while you've got this flipped over, you might as well add the little rubber bump on feet which give you some skid protection on the desk. All that high performance macro padding you're planning to do. No more skidding. Okay, what we can do next is put this little D-shaft compatible encoder knob with soft touch right onto the encoder shaft and just press down. That's about as far as that's going to go. Yeah, just like that. I almost forgot, when we get ready to put on our keycaps, you'll want to grab 11 of the clear DSAs and perhaps that one Digi-key cap can go right there. So these DSA ones, there's no proper orientation for them so you can place them any way you like on there and just press them on. And now your macro pad is assembled and ready to get plugged in and start programming. If you want to plug it in, we have this USB-C to USB-A purple fabric cable and you'll see that that just plugs right in like so. And now you are ready to plug this into your computer and get started coding. I'm going to go ahead and plug this in just so we can get a little bit of a demo of how things look. I've just plugged that into power. It's not on a computer but you can see we get these beautiful rainbow colors and the little demo program here tells us the encoder position when the encoder is pressed and we get a little light show there and each key that's pressed changes its color as well as reporting its status on the screen. There's no problem with ghosting and pressing all the keys at once. It's time for a parts wrap up. Inside this Adabox we have of course the Adafruit macro pad, kale box switches, translucent dsa keycaps, the macro pad top plate and bottom plate, a d-shaft soft touch skirted rubber knob for the encoder, for M3 screws, for rubber bump-ons, the pink and purple woven USB-C cable, custom etched digikey keycap, thank you digikey, and our circuit python space explorers sticker. I'm John Park and this has been the Adabox 19 unboxing. Thank you for joining us and next we'll go live to explore some projects that you can build with your macro pad. That should be working a little bit better. Tell me if you hear the audio nice and clear now. It's all static, no audio. Hopefully that'll work better now. We had a crash during our transmission that caused some unusual settings to get set. Better now but low. Ah okay well that is a good sign. Let's turn up this here and this here and now we should be a little bit better. Okay sorry about that and also I apologize because we had technical difficulties that messed around with our transmission but now here we are back in front of you. So what I wanted to do is get back on track and say first of all thank you so much for coming, thank you so much for participating, and for those of you who ordered your Adabox, thank you so much for your patience if those have not come in yet. We know that we're working hard to get those onto trucks and out to people and some people have started to get their shipping notices, some people have not yet, some people have received them, so we run the gamut but hopefully all will be taken care of soon enough and then you'll get to play around with your macro pad which is very exciting because it's an incredibly fun thing to find in your Adabox, at least I think so. And in fact one thing I wanted to do right away is thank DigiKey for helping us in getting this Adabox out and as you noticed we have the very cool DigiKey silkscreen on the back as well as the DigiKey key cap that you can place on top of one of your keys and one thing I wanted to do is ask our good friend Mr. Carl Sagan to tell us a little bit about the macro pad, Mr. Sagan. If you wish to make an Adafruit macro pad from scratch you must first invent the universe, copper, silicon, carbon, elements forged in the hearts of distant exploding suns. It is made of star stuff. Very interesting and thank you for sharing those facts with us. Who knew? Now when you get an Adabox one of the first things that people like to do is head on over to check out the learn guide. It looks like our learn guide is not showing up, let's see where it went off to. This is part of the things that we lost in the, yeah sure enough there's a weird missing screen capture so you get to see behind the scenes a little bit how a star man puts together a show here and I add a screen capture and we're going to go ahead and configure that get ready for it hopefully it'll work hey it's appeared oh I see what's going on all right that's a little better see if I can move that off to the side there we go would you believe this is the 19th one of these we've done incredible okay so when you get your Adabox you may want to go ahead and check out the learn guide and that's just been published and we just put out a blog post letting you know the learn guide for the Adabox will let you know everything from the contents of it if you head to this unboxing Adabox page you can scroll through there pardon me one second I'm going to turn that AC back on because I think the sound didn't care about it and my cameras are going to overheat there you go so that'll take you through the contents of the Adabox there with a little bit more detail and then we have a page on assembling your macro pad that goes through those steps that I showed as well as if you're interested in 3d printing a case for it the Ruiz brothers have posted that a nice little adjustable case we also have a main guide on the macro pad itself from catney and this will take you through again the assembly steps in a little further detail pulled from the Ruiz brothers video there you can see that's the pre-production version of the back plate we have some early ones that went out without some of the silkscreen and etchings but the boxes have them oh wow my AC just stopped that's bad hold on let's get that all right if you've been wondering what life is like on mars it's a lot like this okay so you'll also find the main guide has instructions on using the macro pad inside of circuit python how to load it up how to load circuit python on there and use the libraries and then in the essentials section we have a dedicated library for macro pad library called ater fruit underscore macro pad that helps you use the macro pad with some convenient commands so you don't have to set up the key key matrix reading or the screen a lot of those things happen under the hood with this library using the rotary encoder using the beeper they all happen in sort of nice convenient ways inside of the macro pad library so definitely check that out first here's a little example here of some code for doing a beep doing digital input doing keypad and then okay so those are actually those are vanilla versions sorry there's the macro pad library version so if we click into here now you'll see we have demos on the basics of just reading switches displaying text to the screen we all have sample code here to do things like this read the rotary encoder read the rotary encoder clicks playing little tones and I'm going to show you some demos of these things in a moment and as well as using the macro pad as keyboard and mouse using the macro pad as a midi trigger that was a piece of code that I was able to help cat me with and I have a little demo to show you there as well as the docs on the library and using it inside of Arduino so thanks to the Earl Phil Howard core you can use Arduino on the rp2040 chip that's the basis of this board which is pretty cool uh clicking along we now get into the projects so this is the project you're going to want to check out first this is the macro pad hotkeys product project from phil b and this one has already started to get new templates made by people who want to control different things on the computer using the macro pad so phil provides some shortcuts for using things like photoshop and a web browser like safari illustrator and there are versions of these for windows as well as mac i found some of the windows ones tend to work on linux as well on a raspberry pi uh so this is the the basic uh project you want to put on and then you just mess around with a little config file to change the color the text and the function of each of those buttons so this is a really great guide to get started with if you've just opened up your macro pad you'll see that the uh demo program on there is just a pretty light show but if you want to get this thing working as an hid macro pad this is the project to check out uh the macro pad summer olympics hotkeys is actually one of these variant projects that isaac wellish created using phil's core uh program and then adding a config that gives you a few different pages when you turn the knob of the um different stats on the sports that you can watch at the olympics as well as some shortcuts for launching different browser pages to watch the olympics online through nbc and uh through your local cable provider or however you connect to watch on a browser so that's really cool and i have a demo of that going on as well uh there's a ableton live macro pad launcher that i created this uses midi to launch clips in a DAW a digital audio workstation and it reads back midi coming from the DAW in order to keep lights and text in sync which is uh like a miniature version of an ableton push there's a uh macro pad 2fa authentication friend that was created by carter nelson and this one is as you can you can see it's using some custom key keycaps on there a little clear ones that you can print out your own labels and that uh keeps a uh a functional 2fa to function authentication uh password going with a uh service online the reese brothers put out the macro pad pad braille keycaps project so you can check this out if you want to three print your own braille keycaps so that you can use them to feel your way around this keyboard and then launch whatever you want to launch on a computer uh here is the three printed stand from the reese brothers there's a whole project on that uh and then this is a side uh sort of a deeper look project from dan halber who created the underlying keypad library that we used to scan either the gpio pins directly or through a diode matrix or with a shift register so this will work on a whole slew of different types of keyboards column row ones which i'll be doing in an upcoming project uh the snes game pad which is a shift register and then our macro pad which is directly tied buttons to gpio uh and one last thing we often get this question and catney took care of this i think just today which is where do i get the original firmware the firmware that came in my demo in the adabox i've put something else on there and i want to go back in time to to that happy time when i had that original demo here it is so you can just follow to the last page of the guide for adox 19 and you'll get the the firmware there uh okay well i think it's a good time to uh check out the uh i'm going to check out the chat first of all make sure no one's telling me that we've lost audio or anything scary like that uh looks like no red alerts shoo uh so what i want to do is actually show you some demos so let me head over to the workbench over here and i'm going to give you a little overhead view as well and let me head over there to show you some demos okay so uh first of all one thing i want to mention is this is sort of keyboard mania here so the macro pad it is part of our part of Adafruit's getting really interested in mechanical keyboards some people like Colin Cunningham have been into them forever other people have more recently gotten excited about them but we think that the macro pad is a really nice distillation of this mechanical keyboard madness hobby uh it runs everything from uh 10 keyless which is my main keyboard uh using uh some clicky blue switches and some custom uh or group buy 808 keycaps to a big old battle tank of a ATXT keyboard here this is uh using blue alps switches is a real old beast that i'm still trying to get working to our own little custom uh raspberry pi pico based macro pad type of keyboards there's a couple here i've used mostly for midi projects and uh then we like i mentioned we have some projects coming up that allow us to use uh this snap apart ortho linear setup and uh and you can hot swap different keys in there and one of the big deals about this hot swap thing is that there are a lot of keycaps in the world so uh you can see here i've got a little collection of some of the ones that we sell and some others that i have here's a silver cherry mx here is a very clicky clicky blue here's a jade also super super strong depressing clicky to silent ones to browns tactile much hated on but i love them uh and custom uh or specialized keycaps so we've got the we sell these little cute kitty keycaps here we have the little shine through keycaps that let you see your leds through just a little window uh we have some little smoke keycaps there and we got some nice jewel tone uh color keycaps there um so this is actually a little project i just put together some really simple code that just plays the tone playback so there is that little speaker so i just wanted to set up something sort of like the dual tone multifunction but i just had a single tone for simplicity of a telephone so and then here is that olympics project let's see actually ironically don't have my camera switcher i have a little keyboard camera switcher and i don't have it plugged in right now so if i can keep things from falling apart here it's okay you don't need to see it up too close but what you'll see is that i have the um this is the olympics uh project on here macro pet project if i hit let's say nbc it just fills in and uh launches the nbc website to watch some olympics on there i'm going to cover that so we don't get a copy strike uh close that real quick uh that'll do and this also if you turn the uh the little knob here i can zoom in at least that'll help let's go let's go way and like there we go uh you'll see as i turn this knob we get different pages of keyboard shortcuts so this has some different sports that you can click to go see their schedule and standings uh so if you want to know what's going on in climbing or sailing or karate you can go to this page three move on to page four and check out taekwondo uh triathlon and so on so that's a really cool project using phil b's uh keyboard shortcut main guide here was this little midi one uh that i had set up that that basic uh midi tester i'm running it through this little mini synthesizer here using midi and originally i set this up as usb midi but now i have it working over our little stem of qt cable there using uart so i've set that up just as essentially a transmit pin uh you can see i'm lighting this up as as i press things it's going to send midi if i restart my keyboard over here you should hear it play uh different notes and i'm sending cc messages which is what's giving me that changing um frequency of the cutoff of a filter there so that's another fun project and uh then here's here's the uh the main one right here the one that ships with it which is our beautiful light show and i'm going to just plug that into a uh a power bank and uh speaking of power banks some of these projects previously uh wouldn't work if they weren't plugged into usb h id compatible computer of some kind if we were particularly if you were using the macro pad library well i talked to catney about that today and she's fixed it and is going to pr that pretty soon so you'll be able to do projects without any difficulty such as this one that don't need to be plugged into a computer but use the macro pad convenience library uh so let's see i think that covers all of the demos i wanted to show there are plenty more and we're excited also to see people in the community are starting to post their own projects there's a whack-a-mole game that came out sort of a timed uh light changing and button pressing game that's uh that's great for the macro pad and we're excited to see what else people do other games you've of course got we've got to see some mini pong show up on this little screen sometime a brick out please i'd love to see that uh so let me head back on over to the workstation here and uh i think that does that cover it let me look at what else did i want to mention i think that's all i wanted to mention we've been here a long time thank you for sticking around thanks for putting up with some of my uh technical difficulties that i had again questions about life on mars life on mars can be technically challenging it also gets pretty hot here or maybe that's just los angeles maybe it's both uh all right so i'm going to check out uh anyone with questions in the chat we'll hang around just for a couple more minutes also lady aida and uh mr lady aida are in the chat so if you have questions head on over to our discord it's a great place to see what's going on and talk with a lot of people about uh fun projects unboxings project help circuit python arduino raspberry pi all those good subjects are there uh and uh i think that's gonna do it all right well thank you everyone so much and uh before i go i know that we had some uh some questions for our good friend mr carl sagan again so uh first of all i wanted to ask you um what are our best tips for survival the more you look like a samurai the better your chances of survival interesting and uh i know there was something else someone had asked uh about um some space wisdom perhaps there is a big potato orbiting mars huh all right well i think that's gonna do it for us for today again thank you for aida fruit industries i'm john park thank you to digikey for helping us make this happen and thank you to you all for coming out and with that we sign off dinosaurs conclusion dinosaurs


Hey everybody. I thought I'd try posting a blog, maybe doing a few clips here and there over the next few days. Inspired by my friend Mike Deacon. He does these every week. There's a lot of filming and editing, Mike, but I'm gonna give it a shot. Anyway, I'm out running errands. I'm at the grocery store and I'm leaving right now. I needed a couple things, but I'm trying to get out of the parking lot. Nobody wants to let me back up my car. And now I'm gonna head over to the plastics shop. And I don't know if you all who are not in California or not in the U.S. know what tap plastics is. T.A.P. plastics. We have it here in California. I don't know how far white spread they are, but they are a store that just sells things made out of plastics and acrylic. And you can have things cut to order. It's the best place to get squeezy bottles. Oh yeah, I need some squeezy bottles. It's the cheapest place, short of ordering them from Amazon or something. I like Amazon, but sometimes I just want to go buy stuff. I also want to see if they can create an extension table for my little craft sewing machine so that I can do more free form sewing on it. And I know they can probably create it for me, but I don't know how expensive it's going to be. So we're going to head over there and ask them and find out. Now if I can just get out on the road and get over there in the San Jose traffic, which is terrible. Alrighty, let's give it a try. Stuck in traffic? Doesn't that need all? Of course not. There's road construction. We're starting rush hour here. Let me go in and see what I can find. You hear that? That's the air conditioner. It's really loud because it's really hot. Alright, so I got some 16 ounce bottles. Two of them. These were 90 cents. I got some 8 ounce bottles, 60 cents. And I got a bunch of squeezy bottle tops, 25 cents. And they're going to build me a custom table extender for my little mixed media sewing machine. For a lot cheaper than you can get it online and they're going to custom make it for me. So got a love tap plastic. I'm going to put the link to their site in the description below. They do have stores across the country and you can, I think, order from their website. So yeah, I don't know if they do international orders or anything. They probably do, but check it out. And you might have a store like them near you, so you can see. Alright, let's see if we can get over to the mailbox place to get my mail. Wednesday, September. Wednesday is in September 2017. That's the day it is today. I think it's the 6th. We're out running errands. I had to stop creating today in my art room because everything was wet. The computer was being finicky and the camera was out of power. I needed to be recharged. I think somebody was trying to tell me something. So we're out running errands and getting groceries and, you know, normal stuff. I'll be back. I have to say, I intensely dislike driving in traffic. It's not even three o'clock yet and the freeway going back towards my house to get the mail is bumper to bumper.  It seems like we don't have rush hour in the morning or in the afternoon anymore. It's just a rush hour all day long. I really do dislike it. Okay, we're headed to the PO box now to pick up the mail. I've been doing a little bit more ordering from wish.com, so we'll find out. Hopefully, as my husband says, not too many envelopes with windows, a.k.a. bills. Yeah, you don't like windows. No windows. Alright, let's go ahead over there and go see what's available to me. So I got my new inhaler. I get to start on a new asthma medicine. Yay. An Amazon box. That's all that was there. So that's okay. No windows. Bob will be happy. Those of you that don't know, Bob is my husband. He's the one who handles the bill pane and he does not like windows. Alright, so let's go home and unpack and relax and see what's in that Amazon box and maybe have a bowl of figs or cherries because I feel like having some fruit. Alright, let's see if I can make it past DMV without anybody making me completely insane. Yeah, good luck with that. You really think, I think you're supposed to know how to drive before you go to DMV to be your license, but I really do. At least not over here. I'll find out what it looks clear today. First thing in the morning, I barely had two cups of coffee. My hair looks terrible because we're going to the gym. I'm going to get myself my fat driving in the middle of the road because that's what they do by DMV. Let's get in and let's work out. It's just really, really hot again. Like the whole summer is good. When I'm saying hot, I mean we look forward to the cool days when it's only 90, spending the last few hours filming and creating a bunch of really fun, good things for my dear friend, Jerry Bellini, who has an Etsy shop called Recycled Parts for Art. She sells interesting, unique, salvaged and vintage items for all of us creatives to create with. And so I've been filming some videos for her for her shop that I think you're all going to find some of the projects that I'm doing and some of the other artists she has helping her are creating with her things. I think we've got some really interesting stuff coming out for you for the next few months. I was having so much fun. I even went back out to the garage which for those of you who don't know used to be my own art space.  So I went out in the garage and I found my own old drill and fired that puppy up and I was drilling holes and stuff and I should have probably got some footage for you all but I didn't do that. For those are wondering it's Thursday September 7th. You would never know this is a neighborhood that people live in and that you should only be going 25 miles an hour and not 15. Holy cow! Alright so we're off to get the mail. Then I'm going to eat a late lunch. As usual I've been creating and forgot to eat so I need to do that. See this is why I don't want my hair up too much because you can see like anyway. I started my new medicine today and so far so good I mean I've only taken a couple of doses but this new asthma medicine seems to be working except for the occasional cough and I don't seem to be too dizzy. Well see how I feel as the week goes along and I get more of it in me. It's called Palma Corp I think. So it's a little different so we'll see if it works. I don't mind having to take it but I don't want to feel like a drunk all the time especially when I don't drink. Let's go see what's in the mailbox. My husband's a Freemason and he got his monthly newsletter and I got my package of stencils from Mr. Mike Deacon. So we have more inventory in the shop. Yay! For those of you that don't know Mike in the United Kingdom helps me get my stencils manufactured. He's a really great artist has his own line of stuff and he's got a great YouTube channel. If you don't know who he is you should check him out. I'll try to link these people in the description but if I forget somebody remind me because you know I'm always forgetting the links or at least I feel like I am. Alright let's go home have some lunch because it's like almost 2 o'clock and I still haven't eaten lunch yet. And I need to sit down and have some water too I feel really thirsty because I'm making art all afternoon and I haven't been drinking my water like I'm supposed to. Good morning everybody it is Friday morning September 8th. Excuse me I haven't taken my asthma meds yet today. I am what time is it? It is 8 o'clock in the morning. I've been up for a couple hours and I am having yet another early morning art business crafty discussion with more art friends including Shannon Green and Rosemary Morris and a few others and yeah it's pretty funny it's not YouTube advertiser friendly so we'll not discuss what we're talking about but it's pretty funny. Yeah anyway we're trying to help Shannon with the name of her new business and yeah I think I think we went off on a wrong direction somewhere. Anyway I'm also trying to get the writing done for all the different art Facebook groups I'm in this morning and make sure my video for my year 2017 is live and that that post is pinned and all of that jazz. Today I have to start working on my design team call video and postings for 2018. There will be a design team for my design stamp design and stencil design line for 2018 so if you're interested at all I will try to remember to post a link to the questionnaire you have to fill out you're gonna have to download and answer the questions and then email them to me. I'll post a link down in the video description so check it out you should check out the video descriptions on the videos anyway because they have links to all kinds of fun stuff no matter the artist generally. On mine there is a link to a link tree that has all of the different places you can find me on the internet including my Etsy shop, my website, my email newsletter, all the Facebook groups like everything. I think my LinkedIn page is even on there. I don't know why you need that but I think it's on there. So yeah I also have to work on there was something else oh I have to work on the my year 2017 group that's going to be for next year. We are gonna have it next year it's not gonna be called my year 2018 it's gonna be something different so we're working on ironing all those details out but stay tuned if you're a member of the current my year 2017 group and you're interested in going forward with it we're switching things up a bit still art and user-friendly and still free and still fun and creative I think so I think that you might be interested so stay tuned because we're ironing all those details out we're just about ready to roll it out and yeah I'm gonna go back to my typing so I can get to the gym because yeah obviously yeah gym here gym shirt yeah so we're gonna get going and I'll be back hey guys it is Friday I don't know September 8th and I may have said that already today I've ever had one of those days where just everything you touch nothing seems to go right started out like a pretty good day and yeah so nothing is you know it's just it's been one of those days nothing is horribly wrong but you know a lot of little things that went wrong hmm alright so the husband's gonna be back any minute home from work and we're gonna go out to dinner with some friends I've shut my desktop off for the day and it's a little earlier than I normally do that but I'm just done with that I couldn't even get iMovie was just having issues like I was getting the I have a Mac so the little rainbow wheel of death those of you out there that have max know what I'm talking about it just yeah it was one of those days like I said so anyway tomorrow there's always another day though so we'll see how tomorrow goes alright see you then bye I just give up on my hair lately it just does what it wants to you don't know what to do with it oh yeah yeah anyway it is Saturday September 9th it's just after lunchtime it's almost one o'clock I've been busy this morning trying hard to stay off of social media and Facebook and mess at Facebook Messenger in particular I have a lot of editing to do and stuff to catch up on so the house is quiet I'm home alone and that's a good thing because I have the opportunity to really I'm looking over there because I don't know I have the opportunity really to catch up and get a lot of stuff done so I'm working on that I got some Etsy orders that have to go out and I'm almost out of fluid Matt medium how is that possible again I don't know I must use it a lot and I don't have any backup jars it's all gone so I guess I'm headed over to the art store and a little bit I'm going out to dinner with the kids later so that's going to be a lot of fun they're taking me out to this really great custom burger place that we have here in San Jose called the counter if you have never been there and you're in the area you should go you can order hamburgers I want to say like something crazy like 350 different ways like they have bread options meat options vegetable options sauce and spread options like there's options on options on options like it's unlimited the combinations that you can do anyway it's pretty cool so we're gonna go over there for dinner and that's it just catching up on stuff and you know trying to just make some art and have some fun and enjoy the peace and quiet and yeah life has been kind of crazy this week and there's been some unexpected bumps in the road and I'm handling them I'm good so and I came up with some new I think good stencil designs for 2018 Mr. my friend Mr. Mike Deacon is taking a look at them I'll get his opinion on them next week and if you don't know who Mike Deacon is and you don't know his channel I want to tease you and ask you what are you living under a rock but in all seriousness you should go check him out he's here on YouTube he has uses his own line of products and his own design line which is connected to his Etsy shop so and all of that information on his YouTube channel so I will try to remember to connect it down below all right and I'm filming explorations of me which I do with Cindy Utter and a couple of other people trying to get all of 2017 film and I think I have it so I'm just trying to edit it right now and make sure I didn't make any big mistakes and then we're good to go all right that's it for right now I'll be back hey guys hey guys I am on my way to hey guys I'm on my way to get some more about me out again anyway I'm on my way to Michael's to do that get my gonna pick my mail up on the way back I need a couple of other things just out running here on Saturday you know well video saves and well renders of help anyway all right I'll be back one question today that is our Michael's store nearest to my house like in the worst part members hanging out at the coffee shop somebody was murdered behind the Michaels they found it by the dumpster I just realized I have to deal with the cinnamon which make me we's let's hope the new medicine I've got the radio down the air conditioner off so we're gonna do this quick because it's a dang hot in here but I was just inside of Michaels and I made the mistake of walking by I was trying to walk around the candles and the potpourri and the cinnamon pinecone so I didn't start wheezing I'm the problem with that is I walked by a Halloween mixed media display and scrappy display so I had and it was on sale so I got recollections Halloween eyeballs I actually have a couple projects I think I might want to use these for but they are too cool I couldn't pass them up I got the Tim Holtz what is this Tim Holtz ephemera Halloween ephemera pack again couldn't pass it up most of those images I think I could use for a number of different things not just Halloween Tim Holtz skulls couldn't pass them up people are staring at me because I'm talking myself and Tim Holtz stamp and stencil set which one is this just it says M-I-T-H-M-M-1-1-2 on the back it is a Halloween one it doesn't say but it but it's a Halloween one so how cool is this I'm gonna try to see can you see that so it's got the clear stamp and the stencil and the stamp is cool I love so anyway all right everything with a coupon cuz you know or on sale you know I fixed my hair not that you could tell anyway I finished filming all the things I needed to film this week and editing everything I went and picked up the mail yeah now I have to do put things away because my dear friend Cindy Utter sent me and a big nice fabulous box of stuff and of course the Tim Holtz stuff he saw that I picked up so and I'm gonna create a new meme I took some pictures a second ago in my kitchen and I'm going to while things are editing or things are doing things are uploading on YouTube I'm gonna use my iPad to edit and create a new meme then I think I'm gonna try to upload my website today and package the giveaway stuff for the recycled arts recycled parts for art group and that's it right now all right I'll be back it's Sunday morning and I finished my daily posts for the groups on Facebook I still have my messenger notifications turned off on Facebook I haven't left too many of the chat groups I just right now want to break from the constant and I just I just need a social media break you all feel that way occasionally don't you I know you all do and it is okay to turn stuff off and if the chat includes me I won't take offense we all need a break every now and then so anyway it's Sunday morning September 10th I'm out here in my living room you can see the front window behind me and the weird lighting because the lights coming in the cracks of the blinds just got out of the shower and I'm gonna just sit down and drink a bottle of water and watch some YouTube and just chill for a little bit and then I guess I'll get up and do the laundry because that's got to be done at some point all right I'll be back we've had a lazy day Sunday and I love that I spent some time working on my Shannon Green custom keeper and you'll see more about that and what I do with it in an upcoming video for YouTube so cool so fun and yes my desk is a disaster but that's okay there's Bandit sitting outside the door wondering why he can't come in and have barbecue chicken with us because like really you guys should cook me something that's right but we're not going to he's a dog hey guys it is Monday morning September 11th the anniversary of September 11th the day the Twin Towers went down and anyway I am having so far a decent morning I'm working on my second cup of coffee I have been it's what time is it 741 a.m. I have been up since I want to say 4 o'clock I don't know yeah about 430 and my daughter and her husband not married my daughter and her boyfriend's new puppy I guess lost one of her first puppy teeth last night so so cute and I didn't see the text message about that this morning so I was answering that and I'm gonna head to the gym in a few minutes and get my workout in and I've been kind of semi disconnected from some parts of the internet and social media Facebook Messenger and that sort of thing and the constant dinging the constant dinging of that you know what I love you all but I have to say I don't miss it I need to ask a question or check on things I can go in there and when I don't want to be bothered I can just have the notifications turned off I know that sounds probably mean to some of you but not missing it I'm not really gonna explain why I did it that's yeah I'm gonna keep that to myself but let's just say I needed it and I've gotten some art done I'm gonna do some more filming today I'm just about caught up on stuff so yeah alright that's it I'll check in in a bit and I will see you soon so I keep forgetting that I'm filming a vlog this week and forgetting to turn the camera on and I just spent like 10 minutes talking to the camera and it wasn't on yeah yeah yeah so yesterday I spent some time with my daughter over at the vet with her and her new puppy she asked me if I could come with her to the first puppy visit so I did super cute little puppy at some point we'll show him on her sorry her on camera and so she and Polly is her boyfriend are figuring out how to be new puppy parents and it's a learning experience for them but they'll do it it'll be fine today is Tuesday September 12th and I've already been to the gym I started off my day before I even got to the gym trying to shut the window in a new bathroom shower if you don't know what I'm talking about you should follow me on social media I've been posting pictures of our remodel of our bathroom on Facebook anyway I bumped my elbow into the on and off valve and yeah you can guess what happened next gave myself a cold shower fully clothed so that was an interesting way to start the day my mom has bought an iPad over the last week and she's in her mid 70s and she's going from a windows based system or her Android phone to an Apple product so it's been a little bit of a learning challenge for her so I've spent quite a few days an hour or more at a time going over things with her and trying to show her how to do certain things we've done a couple video chats which is also new for her she just know how to do so that's been interesting and working furiously on things for 2018 the design team call for my product line is out and there'll be a link to that application in the description below if any of you are thinking of that you might be interested in applying please do I would love to hear from you we are also going to be continuing the my year 2017 process that art journaling class into free it's a free class into next year and it will be calling it something new however and it'll also have a brand new Facebook group so we're working on finalizing those deals those details and we'll be announcing that soon if you're interested in joining that watch for that if you have suggestions for that for next year things you would like to see us do differently or do that we aren't doing leave a comment in the description I would love to I mean on this video and I would love to read those also if you have particular products or designs you'd like to see come out in my product line next year if you have something in particular you're looking for that I that nobody's doing or that I haven't done leave something in the just in the comments and I'll take a look at that I think that's it right now I do think there was something else because you know I said I was talking to the phone for like 10 minutes and it was not it's one of those days all right so that's it right now I think and it's just about one o'clock so I'm gonna have some lunch and then go get my mail I'll be back I can't think of anything else right at the moment but I know there'll be something oh I've been working on Shannon Green's custom keeper that was the other thing so I have a custom keeper from Shannon Green and if you don't know what I'm talking about I'll try to link her video about it in the description below I got a lot of things to link you guys if I forget something somebody would say something please and I'll add it in so there'll be a little video about that at some point because I've been decorating it and it's made of repurposed materials for those of you who don't know and I've been sharing pictures of it on social media so like Instagram and Twitter so there is a link in the description already I know we'll I know for sure we'll be there to a site called link tree and it's literally like a list of all the links of every single place you can find me on social media on the internet my Etsy shops on there my websites on there and all of that stuff so click on that you can find me and follow me over there and see the pictures there was something else that just flew right out of my brain anybody else have that problem I don't know I think if it'll be right back so I'm looking for your suggestions and input I have to do a video that will show up here on YouTube for you all but before it does I do a written tutorial for the folks over on the email newsletter I'm I have a couple of ideas of what I might do but if you guys have any suggestions of something that you'd like to not only see me do here on YouTube but get a written tutorial for over on my email newsletter let me know and well I'll see what I can do and if you want to sign up for the newsletter go to that link tree link because the newsletter sign up thing is on there okay that's it I'm gonna go have some lunch I'll be back hey guys I'm out in my backyard this morning I have to paint some paint swatches on the back of my house because we're gonna be repainting and yeah we don't know what color to pick and we usually paint big swatches on the house we kind of look like the clown house for a while last time we did it in the front of the house this time we thought we would like to be less like the clown house on the block and do it in the backyard so less people can see so anyway I'm gonna paint my colors I'll probably be back to see what you all think if I'm not talking very loudly it's because it's like seven o'clock in the morning and yeah I have only had half a cup of coffee so sorry okay so what do you all think from left to right each the center it would be the body of the house one of the long strips would be the trim and the red is going to be the front door the front door is already red this one here is really similar to the current house color which I don't know if I actually like it's a little grayer and I don't know if I like any of those trims with that color I don't know if I like that one I think that one might be out already and then we have this one that's more yellow that actually more yellow than I thought it was so let me know what you all think all right that's it for this week I think go ahead and I want you all to have a great day have a great week do something nice for yourself because you deserve it check out the video description for any links I promise to you and if I forget somebody put a comment and remind me all right that's it everybody I'll talk to you later bye


Hello there. It's Thursday at noon. I know it is. Do you remember our arrangement? Thursdays at noon on CFUV. Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called First Person Plural. You make it sound excessively attractive. That's what I have in mind. A movie titled after my favorite treat was a must-see for me. Of course, a chance to see Johnny Depp on the big screen didn't hurt either. So I went to see Chocolat last year in Winnipeg, mostly for the sheer pleasure. I was pleasantly surprised to find the movie had substance as well as sensuality. I heard she was some kind of radical.  What's that? Don't know. Vien and her daughter Anouk are travelers, descendants of Mayan women who are destined to follow the North Wind from place to place, never settling down. Vien's father married such a woman when he was in Mexico and against all advice brought her back to France. After Vien was born, her mother felt the North Wind and left her husband taking Vien with her. Vien carried on the tradition taking Anouk from town to town opening a Chocolaterie in each town using ancient Mayan ingredients that not only satisfied the sweet tooth but also cured the body and soul. But invariably Vien felt the North Wind again and packed up and left taking Anouk with her. Rue is also a traveler, a river rat who lives with a community of boat people who drift from town to town selling what they can to stay alive. I should probably warn you. You make friends with us and make enemies with others. Like Vien, Rue finds it difficult to stay in one place.  The river rats are gypsy-like in their expressions of freedom and mobility and their love of music and dance. The town where Vien and Rue meet is a small Catholic town under the watchful, controlling eye of Comte-Renault. The presence of strangers, especially non-Catholic strangers during Lent is disturbing to the Comte and what disturbs the Comte disturbs the town. Opening a Chocolaterie just in time for Lent. Oh yes, it does seem inappropriate. The stage is set in this mix for everyone to learn a life lesson and the comedic love story is quite predictable but enjoyable and beautiful to watch nonetheless. There are several other plots entwined with the love story of Vien and Rue and their problems with the Comte but the interactions of these strangers with the town piqued my sociological imagination the most. The advertisements for the movie declare it a comedic fable set in an old-fashioned buttoned-up community in France in 1859. The ads go on to say it might as well be 1859 because of the backward ways in which the town views those different from them. After watching the European elections this spring I thought the fable could be set in 2002. Fear of strangers is back in vogue and the implications of this fear are staggering and tragic. Jörg Hader of Austria, Flemish block of Belgium Pia Jarsgard of Denmark Jean-Marie Le Pen of France Mekus Voridis of Greece Humberto Basi and Giafranco Fini of Italy Carl Hagen of Norway Paul Portas of Portugal Christoph Blocker of Switzerland Nick Griffin of the United Kingdom and three key right-wing parties in Germany have made varying but significant gains in the governments of their respective countries over the past few years and their popularity seems to be growing. One of the reasons for the growth and popularity of these extremists is that more Europeans are expressing fear of immigrants in general and Muslims in particular. Add to the list the recently assassinated Pym Fortun whose pitting of gays against Muslims rocked the usually tolerant Netherlands. Fortun's version of right-wing politics differed from most of the rest of Europe but his party tapped into a fear of strangers with its anti-immigration stance winning 26 parliamentary seats even after Fortun was gunned down apparently by an animal rights extremist angered because of Fortun's stance on furriers. Why bring up the dismal political escape of Europe in a review of Chocolat? The culture of this tranquil French town has an historic context that set up the fear and suspicion in ultimate acts of hatred that drove the storyline. The theme is an old one in Europe and the Catholic Church has been central to this fear. She's laughing at us. Laughing at our traditions. When are you going to do something about it? Long before the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and asserted the supremacy of the Aryan race the so-called quote Jewish question close quote was debated in Europe. The current anti-immigrant debates have much the same flavor. During the Middle Ages the official position of the Holy Roman Empire was that the Jews were to blame for the crucifixion. Jewish refusal to convert to Christianity was not only a sign of their sinfulness but a sign of their antagonism to Christianity and their lack of political allegiance to Catholic rulers. With the advent of the Crusades in 106 which is the first time Europe feared Muslims the position of the Jews became extremely dangerous forcing many Jewish communities into isolation and obscurity in addition mists of Jewish terrorism aimed at Christians abounded creating fear and prejudice and lack of an official position in society carried over into Protestant Europe as well. In the early 19th century things changed. A belief in religious freedom in the separation of church and state an acceptance of Judaism as a religion and not just an ethnic identity and a desire to access Jewish resources into the greater community and greater economy led to their emancipation throughout Europe. After emancipation Jews did begin to assimilate to the greater culture though very slowly and with great debate among themselves and that assimilation created a backlash of prejudice and resentment towards Jews. This tension between the desire to assimilate and the desire to protect ethnic identity led to a Jewish intellectual class in Europe with two faces the assimilated Jew who played down his Jewishness in favor of his education and the Jewish scholar who reclaimed lost understandings of Jewish religious teachings. In addition to an intellectual class a Jewish bourgeoisie emerged including shopkeepers and artisans. Among this class were traveling merchants, traders. European communities in the 19th century were discovering each other most Europeans to that point have been tied to their land in some way industrialization led to the need to open up new markets. Jews were not allowed to own land for the most part in European history and while they had ties to their communities they seemed more willing to travel them many other Europeans. Thus it was Jews who took jobs that sent them from town to town to open up markets for products produced in major industrial centers. They were the classic middlemen who sold manufactured products to retail merchants for distribution to consumers. The study of strangers is a sociological phenomenon stemmed from concepts such as Karl Marx's alienation and Emil Durkheim's social enemy. But the first sociologist to directly discuss the archetypal stranger was Georg Zimmel, a Jew who was never offered a position at university despite his obvious scholarship and his popularity as a salon speaker among the intellectuals in Berlin. Each of these concepts possesses economic roots. Marx's alienation originated in the separation of the worker from the product of his labor. Durkheim describes enemy in terms of dysfunctional methods of dividing labor. Zimmel's stranger moved from town to town working as a trader. While Zimmel did not invent the sociological archetype of the stranger he expressed the meaning of the stranger profoundly. More important, he did not see the stranger is alienated and unsocial in the sense that Marx did. Instead he asserted that the position of the stranger someone who was both distant and near brought an important element to relationships with others by virtue of his unique position. Both Vien and Rue possess this distance and nearness in Chocolat. It is their strangeness that divides the town and creates tensions as the seasons of lint progresses. Lack of respect for the fasting season by selling the wonderful confections and dancing on the riverboats demonstrate to Comte how holy his quest is to rid his town of these pagans. But Vien and Rue were part of what helped the town figure out its own character. The presence of a stranger drew the lines clearly and it is no accident that it is the town's misfits that take to the strangers more easily than those who are vested in the town's culture. Most notably among these misfits is Josephine whose husband's cruelty has led her to kleptomania and mannerisms boarding on Schizophrenic. Her strangeness is accepted as part of the town culture because she stays in her proper place with her husband. Vien's kindness to Josephine frees her to leave her husband and seek refuge from the town's culture and her husband's cruelty. This act is the beginning of change in the whole culture and atmosphere of the town. Josephine's symptoms become gray as the comp realizes that Josephine has suffered right under his nose. The illusion of his control and the town's tranquility begins to break down. At first the comp tries to regain control through reforming Josephine's husband and driving out the strangers Vien and Rue. But these efforts eventually backfire. The position of the strangers offers an objectivity on the true nature of the town and having seen itself through the eyes of others the town changes questioning its very foundations. This is a time of abstinence, reflection above all a time of sincere penitence. This quote objective closed quote position of the stranger and its usefulness in the social system of a culture is one of the positive social aspects of the stranger archetype according to Zimmel. Strangers are defined as strangers because they are different from us. And when we define who a stranger is we define who we are in the process. The stranger is far from antisocial or non-social. It is a necessary concept in order to form a cohesive group. We have to know who we are not in order to know who we are. We can force them to understand they are not welcome. The problem is that these attempts of us and them can lead to a marginalization of strangers. The river people were not only them, but they were regarded as a dangerous them and boycotted and excluded from commerce for being them. Robert E. Park coined the term marginalization in 1928 in his essay Human Migration in the Marginal Man concerned with the question how races and cultures quote evolve Park looked to migration and not biological evolution as the key to quote processes by which new relationships have been established between men quote. Park moved the narrow view of the stranger into a broader context which could include every person at some time in his or her life because we all experience quote periods of the transition and crisis in the lives of most of us that are comparable with those which the immigrant experiences when he leaves home to seek his fortunes in a strange country In the 1970s Everett C.U.'s continued Park's work by expanding the concept through analyzing marginality quote from the angle of status quote. In status we find identity in our culture in a very real way culture and society meet in an individual status quote status is a term of society in that it refers specifically to a system of relationships between people but the definition of status lies in a culture close quote. By looking at marginality through the lens of status use expands the concept beyond the traveler or migrant who intrudes on a social situation In our society the contact of cultures races and religions combines with social mobility to produce an extraordinary number of people who are marginal in some degree who have some conflict of identity in their own minds and who find some parts of the social world which they would like to enter closed to them or open only at the expense of some treason to things and people they hold dear. This sets up a kind of inner conflict for strangers. How far must we go in changing our beliefs and identities in order to be accepted by others way to give it down but with these narrow might to finish this thing. Chocolat ends with both Vien and Rue settling down in the town that they have changed. Not only does the town change by expanding its definition of us to include people who are from different backgrounds but the strangers change as well. Rue leaves the river and his people to return to Vien and Anouk. Vien scatters her mother's ashes in the north wind as a symbol of her decision to no longer listen to her mother's voice or follow her mother's ways. Something she believed was in her hereditary makeup at the beginning of the movie. Both characters for sake a part of themselves in order to belong to each other and to the town. These negotiations between strangers and friends take on great importance in the context of horrors like the holocaust. The extent to which we succumb to the fear of the other we set up despots who would lead us to such horrors. Since most of us have been the stranger as well as belong to a group I am reminded of Martin Niemuller's famous quote about the Nazis which he gave in response to a student's question How could it happen? Quote First they came for the communists but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the socialist and the trade unionists but I was neither so I did not speak out. Then they came for the jews but I was not a jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me there was no one left to speak out for me. Close quote Chocolat offers a wonderful meditation on how strangers affect our lives and how the ways we define ourselves and others needs to be reexamined on a regular basis in order to not descend into xenophobic prejudices and hatred it is a timely fable and one that perhaps should be required viewing for us and our leaders in an increasingly fearful world what better than chocolate to bring the world together You're listening to First Person Plural on CFUV Victoria's Public Radio 101.9 FM 104.3 cable and on the internet CFUV.uvig.ca Giving sociology an edge! 87 year old Victoria resident Amra Allen has told her story in a book she self-published with the help of her son It is a mundane story in many ways As a young girl she enjoys an active social life and the attention of young men She falls in love with a man who turns out not to share her feelings She settles for another suitor and marries him knowing that she does not fully love him They have two children a son and then a daughter What makes Amra's story different is that she is a Canadian living in Hitler's Germany married to an SS soldier In her naivete she doesn't heed the warnings of war and must stay in Germany until 1945 Recently, at her home she graciously read for me Chapter 3 from her book where she relates how she sealed her fate by ignoring the impending war The girl who never listened On March 1938, Bill my brother and his wife Margaret came to Germany with a type of executive club Bill was a geologist and worked for large oil companies finding places to drill oil wells They looked me up and introduced me to several people I was to return to Canada with them but there was a chance for me to study further in Munich so I was allowed to stay on I should have listened to Bill who urged me to go home However, I insisted on staying mainly because of my infatuation for Yonni We had never lived together but we were such good friends and I really loved him and thought he loved me too Soon after my brother left I received an invitation to a musical evening at Professor Claimens-Schmalsz-Tisch's home My brother had introduced me to him I was just about to throw the invitation out when my aunt Paula yelled Don't throw that away! Professor Schmalsz-Tisch is an important person He conducts the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and teaches at the Berlin High School of Music and his wife is a concert singer You really must go So I got all dressed up in a fuchsia-coloured taffeta dress with one shoulder left there I had designed and made the dress at home and was happy to have an opportunity to wear it After the Schmalsz-Tisch home I greeted warmly and introduced all around We sat in the beautiful music room and it was delightful, except that I was sitting on a satin-covered straight back chair My taffeta dress made me constantly slip off and I had to try hard not to fall off Also, that darn dress made loud rustling noises At least I was very conscious of the sounds I was so embarrassed and imagined all the guests heard the sounds too Suddenly the door directly opposite me opened and there stood a tall, handsome man in an SS uniform As this is my first mention of SS, I will explain The title of SS stands for Schutzstaffel Their common name There was also the Waffen SS Guides of Ghettoes and Concentration Camps Nazi stormtroopers were called SA or Brownshirts which was their common name Police were also Nazis They were all Nazis Handsome man in a striking SS uniform was Siegmund Schmalsz-Tisch the Professor's son After the music there were refreshments including champagne I really liked Professor Schmalsz-Tisch best of all the people present He sat beside me and treated me very cordially It was great I felt that it was an honor to be chosen There was lots of champagne Professor Schmalsz-Tisch told me that the famous composer Pavritsky had been his teacher and that Pavritsky had a bathtub with colored lights so that he could see himself in several colors Imagine that, isn't that Absolutely nuts He surely must have liked himself I wonder if he had a favorite color Professor and Mrs. Schmalsz-Tisch had three children Inge, Clemens and Siegmund They were all born five years apart Inge had been married before I met the family Clemens had also been married prior to our meeting and had a terrible case of infantile paralysis Siegmund played the accordion and loved to draw pictures illustrations for books, etc Professor Schmalsz-Tisch was a composing and opera which was later performed in Hamburg to hear it I later learned that Herr Professor Schmalsz-Tisch had a Jewish mistress whom he helped escape from Germany Frau Professor Lisse Schmalsz-Tisch was a concert singer I was very fortunate to hear lots of operas and concerts which I thoroughly enjoyed Frau Professor Schmalsz-Tisch also had cats, simies, purgions, etc They were each confined to their own room in the bathroom That one walked around the tub when someone was using these facilities in her domain Siegmund took a shine to me and we went out quite often He had a car which made it easy to get around I mentioned the car because not many people owned one My uncle Paul owned one Yoni also had one and Siegmund had one There were also strange looking cars with only three wheels or long rides all over Berlin However, he was an SS man and was away a lot with few leaves from the army so I did not get to know him very well At the time I didn't know the SS was associated with the worst of Hitler's regime and to me it just meant that Siegmund was in the army He was a private whose duties included being a sort of messenger He rode a motorcycle while on duty Although his schedule did not allow at any time Siegmund and I would go to dances and parties when he was home One evening we were invited to a party at a diplomat's home in the country That gentleman had visited my family and me in Ottawa Because gas for the car was unavailable due to rationing we took a streetcar to the party I had a wonderful time and was a real flirt making Siegmund jealous I loved to do that Jealousy was called being sofa He always was The schedule for the streetcar changed to shorter routes in the evening but I did not know that but Siegmund did He finally suggested we should leave I didn't want to go but he said again we must go still we remained I was all dressed up and was wearing spike heels When we finally left we had a long, long way to walk I took off my shoes Boy was I mad Siegmund simply said I warned you So if you write I guess I just never listened and should have I must say that at the party we drank wine and someone told a joke I was laughing so hard that when I put the crystal glass down on the table the stem broke I was very embarrassed Later on I was telling someone about this and my goodness I put the wine glass I was using on the table and that stem broke too Now I'm very careful wine glasses must be properly handled Siegmund had leave off and on and when he was in Berlin we went out a lot he was an excellent dancer it was there that I really learned the Viennese waltz dancing with him Gradually Siegmund became very fond of me and eventually asked me to marry him I was not ready for marriage in any way I wanted to go home to Canada one day even feeling the way I felt for Yoni I hadn't said much about Yoni and what and where we went because he had a little free time away from the theater and I had a very busy act of social life Amra you can't walk with Ursula anymore my Aunt Paula said to me one day quite without warning Why? Why can't I walk with her I said astounded that's when Paula told me that Ursula was part of the Jewish I felt really awful especially as our family had been raised not to discriminate against race creed or color one person was as good as another so I had to tell Ursula it was extremely difficult to do but she understood at once and I never saw her again how can I explain my feelings when I had to tell Ursula I couldn't walk with her it was absolutely against my feeling I was so embarrassed later I found out how dangerous and potentially deadly it was to be Jewish or part Jewish even associating with a Jew it spelled disaster it was scary this was the second sign of how the holocaust affected me personally and I was upset and fearful holocaust I did not learn about that word until after I got out of Germany I had to discriminate against Ursula because she was part Jewish and that was not the way I had been brought up being a civilian it was hard to realize or understand that according to Hitler Jews were an inferior race and could not be tolerated in Germany one had to be a perfect Aryan even if people did not know what Hitler's plans were they knew that when a Jew or part Jew was taken away he never came back marriage between Jew and Gentile was forbidden even before the war the generals and SS knew what was taking place so did the aristocrats but not the general public that is the truth I am sure you will find this hard to believe I think I finished my school courses in Berlin soon after the incident with Ursula and was scheduled to begin studying at a school in Munich and was a very expensive school and I had to get certification from home to prove that I had dual citizenship and thus was entitled to reduced fees I also had trouble finding cheaper rooms because my accent gave me away but I solved that by going in with another student when people heard my English accent they would charge me more for rent I guess they thought I was a rich American soon after arriving in Munich and starting my classes my mouth became very sore and I went to a dentist I was told that all my fillings had to be taken out and gold fillings put in well you can imagine how the price of that scared me you see there again the price was exorbitant probably on account of my accent I called my parents and quoted the three quarters of the price mother called me back and said that father was on his way to Berlin oh gee was I ever delighted to learn this and flew back to Berlin to meet him I felt like a lost soul finding home again what a glorious feeling to see my father what a surprise it was I hugged and kissed my wonderful father I was so overjoyed to see him he took me to another dentist and we learned the cause of my discomfort was only a gum infection thank goodness the first dentist didn't get away with what he wanted to do in reality father had come to take me home Paula got on her knees and begged him to leave me there with her she said that at first a young girl was forced on her and she did not want one after all this time however she had gotten used to having me around and to take me away was not fair so again I was allowed to stay I should have listened to my father today I cannot understand why father acquiesced to Paula because he knew better than I did what lay in store in fact before I even left home in Ottawa he took one of those small match boxes lit a match held it under the max box and said this is Germany so it was not entirely my fault that I remained there I did not know what lay in store why did my parents send me to Germany they must have known that war was inevitable war did they what did the rest of the world know upon my return to Canada I did not ask them I guess I felt it would not be right to ask after all the worry and suffering they went through and all they had done for me father was travelling on a diplomatic passport and could not stay long in Germany he was on official business he had to leave all too soon and shortly after his departure there was a hint of war in the Danzig corridor but what young girl reads newspapers besides I was in Berlin and the Danzig corridor was so far away I just felt the war was in Danzig and would remain there with no thought the possibility of a world war how many times have there been wars that could have started world wars people think it won't happen here and that's what I thought however I was definitely wrong and suddenly it did happen soon after dad wrote letters telling me to come home I didn't there was not listening again and he wrote again and again go to Haan go to Switzerland go go go not me get out of there I was in love I did not realize what it meant how was I to know war would last for years I remembered writing dad and telling him about Joni my family was well acquainted with the German ambassador to Canada and when he was recalled to Germany he came and knocked on Paula's door and said get out of Germany but I refused ditto not listening absolutely bemused ambassadors wife wanted to go to Italy and wanted me to go with her and then on to Canada even then after the embassy was recalled how could she think that one could go to Italy as it turned out we couldn't get out of Germany anyway it was too late I was so in love we couldn't bear to leave Joni I had written dad so he would understand and I certainly did not know there would be a world war it was still only in the dancing corridor as far as I was concerned now I know that when an ambassador is recalled it really means war or something very serious I was down to my last chance the Canadian embassy wrote and said this was my final opportunity to leave but I could not escape my love for Joni Hitler-detained war in 1939 the door slam shook and there was no way out you're listening to First Person Plural on CFUV 101.9 FM Victoria I first met Amra Allen at her garage sale it was a bright sunny Saturday morning and she was sitting on her walker she and her neighbors were having a fairly typical Victoria garage sale except that Amra was also selling her book Torn A True Story the next time I met Amra Allen we sat in her home and talked about how life went from young girls dreams of parties and suitors to a young mother's nightmare of escaping the bombing of Berlin with her two children on a displaced persons train and we talked about how life has been since those dark days of war what made you decide to write it down well somewhere in here I had when I got home I guess they all asked me to write about it you see and then I didn't do the first chapter I just did this little bit here but then they said I better let people know who I am you know so I did that first chapter and but see I don't type all do I hand that's right you hand wrote all of those things I wrote things here on another piece of paper and I just quit it was just too damn much was it hard to write about it because it was emotional yes because it was a hard memory to go back to yes and there are still things that I do not remember how I ever did it especially on the D.P. train when I got off it finally because it was so horrible I just got off that train now I had no money I had no way of getting money nobody knew where I was you had your two kids with you two kids and I got off the train and I had to get the kids clean so I had to find a place that would accept me did you tell your kids the story I mean I guess your son might have been old enough to remember some of this I never had very much time to talk over this with him my father took him to someone that checks up the ability of a child at one time he was in grade 3 and he should have been in grade 5 and he never finished grade school but he became an electronics engineer he went to the dockyard and said I want to be an electronics engineer well I mean finished grade 12 what are you talking about I'm going to be an electronics engineer he said well there's three years of study he said well give me the third book and he read it and he got 98% well and he became what he wanted and he's in the states and now he published this book for you does he publish other books or is this something that he just put together just to do your story this is the second printing it's really the third one you were selling them at a yard sale do you do that often that was the first time not before but I used to go to the Salvation Army in Bowell and I had all these friends and so I said hey do you want to read this book I thought some of them right away just sitting there since your son and you didn't talk about the story when he was young at what point did you finally tell him this story and he said let's put it together in a book so somebody you gave this to someone and they typed it up that was the first time that he heard this story and when you sent him the disk was he planning on putting it together in a book at that point you were going to get to sit beside me and listen to this and type it out I mean I just couldn't when did you tell your daughter this story did she just read the book and find out the story that way yeah you see when they were little here in Canada they were going to school they were learning to speak English they were you know Amra had a number of letters and book reviews people have sent her about the book she shared several of them with me including one written by a friend who was in Germany at the same time she was enjoyed your amazing book Marty is reading it too you must have taken notes along the way to help you remember those names I didn't people, towns, homes, etc. you did a great job these are just things that I kept because I think it's important when I got bombed out I lost everything I didn't make my address book with me I didn't take any pictures I didn't take a camera I took what I had to take so that I had no addresses and I imagine after the war it was hard finding especially the Germans that you knew and at one time a friend of ours was going to that area of Germany where my uncle lived and I said will you please try and look up this name Baron von Leerlitz and he did and he had died but all the other people I can't get a hold of them see the only way I could contact my father like when parents when the war started and you couldn't write only in your own zone like there were four zones well I managed to have somebody in Norway that I wrote to and they sent it on so you were able to communicate some with your parents during the war? just for a short while and that was gone too and everything stopped when you got back to Canada finally which was right after the war you were one of the first to get out of Germany but it took ten months in England did you come to Ottawa the book indicates I think you actually made it out to Victoria well first I was in Montreal where the boat landed and I had a brother there and my sister came to Montreal to meet me and my two brothers and my sister my other sister was in the hospital having a baby in Ottawa she probably would have come too so we stayed for three days in Montreal three days in Ottawa and that was September the 22nd and niece was born there on that date and then we went to Victoria on a coach with a suite so I had a bathroom and a toilet and a wash basin and this is with your kids? that was very nice and then we went all across Canada that way they met me at the boat in Victoria did you decide to come to Victoria? because my father had retired he was the first botanist Canada ever had he built all the research stations all across Canada that's why he knew the Russian ambassador he knew the German ambassador he knew the Canadian commissioner he knew everybody he was an important well-known man and because he had that kind of influence that's what helped you get out of Germany definitely without your father's influence you could have just as easily been defined as a German I didn't have a passport anymore I didn't take my passport it was bombed out do you have a new passport with you? not right this minute we're home and it's not there anymore so I had nothing you never remarried? I did remarry here in Canada and then I had one daughter so you have another child living in Vancouver my son is 62 now did you go back did you do any designing or anything like that? I designed for the admiral's wife in the dockyard and you see I had learned pattern drafting so I take your measurement okay I can make and I take my book and I draw out exactly what you want I even chose the material and I just could have made that dress and it would get you right away but I always went in for a fitting so I get down to the dockyard you know and stop the car at the gate where's your pass? I said I don't have one I said just film Mrs. Landymore and tell her that I can't come in and do the fitting and it happened and then after she left she said the only thing she wanted but she said came her name to the next admiral's wife so I did that and I did that for doctor's wife I mean if you would form me up I put an ad in the paper I have not gunwheel travel but I have a portable machine wheel travel and that's how I started if you only wanted to have a hem done dress shortened you'd never see me again I did this on and that's what I did and I became quite famous You were in Victoria all of that time or did you? Yes I had a very big table for my pattern doing some stuff I had everything out of my home Tell me why you called the book torn Well because I was torn between staying there and coming home I was just torn like I wrote in the book but sometimes I felt like jumping off the sidewalk and getting run over you know because it was so horrible it was so horrible and I was torn between the love of the union and he never married me I understand him because when I applied for that job at the munitions at the munitions Well what turned out to be a munitions factor When I applied for that and didn't go the FS called me in and oh it was so scared this high off the table I was so frightened I hadn't done anything wrong he said you applied for this job and I couldn't remember because he said I was doing fashion design and everything else oh yes I do remember and he said well you're a trader in the munitions factor how would you like that to happen I said get married in two weeks because he wanted to marry me he really did love me and I learned to love him but when I went to Yoni and I said I'm going to be interned after getting married he said he wouldn't but you did stay in touch with him he won't be up until I guess when he died about 79 I think but he never said he loved me and he just liked to keep in touch you know I send cards or something like that but I never phoned him were the things that you really loved about Germany was it only him that kept you torn or I had traveled very much in Germany and all the people like I was visiting relatives and I went over and they were all wonderful to me and one last question there's a lot of fear right now after what happened in September in the states and there's a lot of talk of war now are there similar feelings well when you were in Germany and you wanted to get out the same way you're in Canada you wanted to get out or vice versa but you couldn't get them to be that way here but on the other hand somebody says you don't need a passport you need just your driver's license to get to the states but I don't know how true that is I don't quote traveling anymore that is very much like it was and the threat you see it's in the United States it's not going to happen in little old Victoria it's the same feeling it's not going to happen here there's nothing worth blowing up maybe you know compared to the bigger cities in Canada even Vancouver might get it but we would feel safer that's the way I felt that it was not going to be anything like it now it could happen that it's a war but people always when I talk about it they always poo poo it because it's not going to happen but what about now look at it that war was starting in one place look at how it is spread already if it comes to that and you have to go through what we went through in Berlin the first thing is that you had to be off the street mm-hmm you had to go into any place in your home some of these home you had they couldn't keep you out they didn't and another thing was the treatment of the Jewish people mm-hmm they'd come into your home get out and you were allowed to take a bag with you what for? and people knew that like that one time when I was going to school and I saw the stores all broken and Jew written all over them mm-hmm what a feeling to get that but it was frightening and I think back when I was onboard ship and everybody was getting off but me where are you going? I said I'm going to Germany I said well I'm going there so they knew already you know why did my parents send me there I mean why did they I never asked them of course I was only safe for a month they warned me to come my father came to take me home my brother came to take me home you know why didn't they just turn me over and smash me I mean I could have gone home I could have gone home and if we wanted to get married if you only wanted to marry me I could have come back you know or something what was better was hard up did anything else as exciting you know just I've always had a lot of fun fun as I told you I was a flirt and you know even today they say I don't look my age and I don't act it and I could have guys in fact this whole household said well if there's a guy working here he'll talk to Amber the name of the book is Torned a true story to get a copy of Amber Allen's book you can contact her directly in Victoria at area code<PHONE_NUMBER> or call us here at CFUV 721-8700 and we'll give you that information again you have been listening to first person plural because how people get along with each other still matters first person plural is a show created for community radio by Carl Wilkerson and Dr. Patty Thomas to examine social and organizational issues music for first person plural is performed composed and produced by Carl Wilkerson except where noted for more information about first person plural Dr. Patty Thomas or Carl Wilkerson visit our website www.culturalconstructioncompany.com or email us at fpp at culturalconstructioncompany.com