My thoughts as I research

(My thoughts as I research - with the flu.)

"Grrmph-mmmmmm aaaah, uh, okay, so, what was that again? Wye Allenbrook on 'topoi.' Is that a native American tribe? A food? Oh - a synonym for the word 'topics.' 

"OH, it's AllAnbrook... A-L-L-A, not E... nothing... nothing... stuff by other people... let's nab that article from... somebody... that looks like it says something about Wye Allenbrook and topoi...

"OH, so it needs to be Wye ***J.*** Allanbrook because I guess Wye is such a common name, just like Allanbrook...

"What a wicked thing to do to your kid... 'what's your name?' 'Wye?' And isn't that the way you write the name of the letter Y?

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere... there it is, the book that's supposed to be the greatest contribution to musicology in the past 30 years that I've never heard of... grrrmph...

"WHAT? No full-text version I can read online???

"Eisenhower stacks, yuck -- oh, WAIT, yes, there's an Amazon button - it'll be here in a couple of days. I mean, it came out in 1983, then paperback, so it's probably dirt-cheap, and everyone seems to think it's so great, so, okay, it's -- $183.03. Used. When I feel better I'll hike over to the Eisenhower stacks...."

You didn't make it to MoMA on March 2?

The emf department of Towson University is hosting a free screening of Catherine Pancake's Black Diamonds at WAMMfest (Women and Minorities Media festival) at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 12. There will even be a Q&A session with director and creative dynamo Catherine Pancake.

Surface mining is poisoning water supplies, annihilating forests and leaving vast gouges in the Appalachian mountain range. Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice is a compelling portrait of an American region fighting for its life, caught between our appetite for cheap energy and enduring values of local culture and natural beauty.

Black Diamonds is the winner of the 2007 Spadaro Documentary Award and one of the selections for Documentary Fortnight 2008 at MoMA. If you didn't make it to MoMA last month, see Black Diamonds for free this weekend in Towson, Maryland.

As if free tickets to an award-winning documentary film and a conversation with the film maker were not enough, a select group of student works will be presented at 5:30, and there will be a reception from 7 p.m. until 8.

• 5:30 p.m. -- Student works
  
• 7:00 p.m. -- reception
  
• 8:00 p.m. -- Black Diamonds and discussion with Catherine Pancake
  

WAMMfest promises to be an interesting annual festival of new works in electronic media.

-ML