ICE’s arrest of landscaper on 1999 deportation order devastates family, employer

/ Martha Keim

Please read these words.

Jim McKeever

MelissaVixthaGirls Justino Vixtha’s May 22 detainment by ICE has been rough on his wife, Melissa Vixtha, and the couple’s three daughters. Melissa poses for a portrait with Rubi, 14, left, and Priscilla, 10. Korrina, 15, wasn’t available. “I just want him home,” Melissa said. “I want our family back, our life back. My kids were happy. We were happy. This has put us straight through hell.” Photo (c) Michelle Gabel.

It was bad enough, Carol Watson said, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the head of her landscaping crew in May, the busiest time of year at her greenhouse near Syracuse, New York.

But what two ICE officers said when they told her they had arrested Justino Vixtha made it worse.

“They told me they didn’t have to arrest him,” Watson said. “He has legitimate documentation. They said it was just ‘their call.’ ”

Vixtha, 44, has been in the

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So Fuddy Me No Duddies; I’m Going Back to Read My Book

/ Martha Keim

Wordsmith

Catching My Drift

When people care enough to recommend a book, I find, it always pays to read that book. Then I get the benefit of the writing, the knowledge, and the imagination or the exploration, of the author. And I learn something about the recommender and what she cares about, or what he finds fascinating.

So just now, I am reading a wonderful book, A Gentleman in Moscow, at the suggestion of a wonderful friend.

Amor Towles wrote A Gentleman in Moscow; it follows his debut novel, Rules of Civility, which was a New York Times bestseller. That was a great read, too, but A Gentleman in Moscow is very different. It’s set, of course, in Moscow—in one hotel in Moscow,—and it spans the time from 1922 until 1964 or so. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I believe that, within its pages, our hero, Alexander Ilyich Rostov, former poet and…

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Many Latinx voices, one amazing bundle of stories

/ Martha Keim

Woo

Sabrina Vourvoulias

All Covers Large

Award-winning author and editor Silvia Moreno-García has put together a remarkable StoryBundle full of speculative fiction by Latinx authors in the U.S.

You decide what price you want to pay — for $5 (or more), you receive four books in any ebook format:

If you pay at…

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It’s Christmas Day

/ Martha Keim / 1 Comment

And here’s my Christmas offering. I started out to paint a colorful Christmas tree, but my brush got away from me and the tree turned into a gator. So, here is my third Florida Christmas Day painting. Watercolor and inktense pencils on Fabriano cold press.

What Does Your Wife Think?

/ Martha Keim

Just read it

Nobody HitchHikes Anymore

EllenThat is the most commonly asked question. There is an alternate phrasing, usually posed to Ellen – how can you let him do this?

Her answer – do you think I could stop him?

And then there are those people who ask straight up if my wife thinks I am crazy, to which I reply, as does she, that this has been known for quite some  time.

I’ve been talking about this trip forever. Any time Joe comes to visit or we see him for any reason references to the summer of ’78 come up. It was an opening up to the world for both of us.  And as I’ve watched the world change in these many years, I’ve always wondered if it was still possible to take such a journey. This I know for sure – I couldn’t do it without such a supportive partner.

Ellen and I have…

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REVIEW: “La Gorda and the City of Silver” by Sabrina Vourvoulias

/ Martha Keim

SFF Reviews

Review of Sabrina Vourvoulias, “La Gorda and the City of Silver”, Podcastle: 506 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

I participated in a discussion on facebook recently about defining subgenres of speculative fiction, and the question of comic book superheroes came up. In practice, superheroes can draw from fantasy (X-men, Dr. Strange), science fiction (Iron Man), mythology (Thor, Wonder Woman), “realistic” (Batman–at least for the Batman character himself), or any number of other subgenres, but what they have in common is a fantasy of agency and justice, even when justice sometimes fails. This multi-focal genre has been adopted as speculative fiction by popular acclaim, regardless of the specific mechanism of the hero’s powers.

“La Gorda and the City of Silver” is clearly a superhero story. The world of masked and costumed luchadores is deeply rooted in the genre regardless of the apparent lack of overtly fantastic…

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Yesterday

/ Martha Keim

I poured all of my cobalts blue , as well as phthalo turquoise, the only two-pigment mix in my pallet. There was a starters wash underneath. It’s a half sheet watercolor, with a few crayons, high flow acrylics and tears thrown in. This is dedicated to my late husband, James Michael Pensinger.

The shells are just weights.

Here are the dead paint tubes.

Thought for the day: migraine

/ Martha Keim / 1 Comment

A start in need of a middle and an end.

/ Martha Keim

A few weeks and one spell of exhaustion ago I took a color clinic workshop with Nita Leland. Boy did I need the reminders. So here's the first watercolor start since then. All comments, ideas and critiques welcome.

And thanks.
Martha who still wants to be a painter if she grows up.

Tell me, what would they see in your eyes?

/ Martha Keim

The eyes have it, from my friend Jim MsKeever

Jim McKeever

On a downtown street in Lansing, Mich., a woman asked for our help. She was with her daughter, about 7 years old.

We could see in the woman’s eyes several things: warmth, strength, wariness. In the young girl’s, shyness. Perhaps fear.

The woman, about 30, wore a hijab. Her daughter had long, dark hair, uncovered.

There was a significant language barrier, but we managed to learn that they are from Syria and have been in the U.S. for seven months. They had walked from a nearby Catholic church, the woman said, to find Bus #5 to get to her appointment at a job-training agency.

She carried a folder with her. We walked, and I asked if there might be any information in it that could help us get them there.

As she pulled out a couple of forms from the job-training agency, I noticed a packet of penmanship worksheets, with…

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