THE NAVAJO NATION: NIZHÓNÍGO AŁHÉÉHOSIILZĮĮD

The Grandma driving across Navajo Nation

The Beans are in New Mexico. They're visiting the Navajo Nation and they're going to visit Arizona and Utah, too. 

They arrived last night after they had flown from San Diego. The family is excited because they're going to discover on of the most ancient and incredible cultures: the Native American. They arrived to Alburquerque with a lot of luggage because they had bought lots of souvenirs in San Diego. The Grandma was a little sad because she had said goodbye to Maverick, her handsome friend and the family decided to go to the hotel quickly because they had had a tired flight and they wanted to rest a little and review some English grammar, especially, the Past Simple Passive and the Past Perfect. 

The Grandma was also talking about earthquakes and volcanoes, two things that she adores and admires like incredible natural forces. She has also talked about classic films which she also loves.

More information: Passive Voice (Past Simple)

Today, The Beans are travelling to the Navajo Nation across the Route 40 by their Harley-Davidson, the last presents that The Grandma has bought for her lovely family. They are going to sleep in Navajo tents because the Navajo Community has invited them to share and know its incredible culture. 

More information: Past Perfect

Tomorrow, the family is going to discover the importance of this community during the WWII and one of their most amazing ceremonies: The Blessing Way.

More information: Past Perfect vs. Past Simple

We must not forget the Navajo customs and traditions which are unwritten.  Long before the Europeans arrived as newcomers, the Navajo people were living according to the laws, the rules, and the prayers taught to them by the Holy People, laws that brought order, beauty, peace, and harmony to the People and their world.

Nelson Gorman, Jr., Preface of the Navajo Code

The Blessing Way or hozhooji is a ceremony to awaken one to natural order, hozho; choosing constructive and life-affirming choices; healing from intentions and decisions that destroy oneself and others. 

Cristina Bean arriving to a Navajo home

To explain the blessing way, spiritual-cultural concepts are translated from the Dineh language into appropriate English descriptions to convey universal health and healing concepts from Dineh oral tradition.  

Navajo ceremonies do not require a conversion process of taking away the precious child within the natural order, and replacing this spiritual SELF-identity with a deficient self-image that has to be re-mediated to some desired end state of progress. Once awakened to the natural order, we begin living the loving way, hozhooji: literal translation of the blessing way ceremony as translated by my paternal aunt. It is a way of living in reverent revolution, of making decisions that are constructive and life affirming.

The four phases of the blessing way ceremony is a healing process that leads to curing. These two main ceremonies offer protection from contaminants like the maladaptive emotions of hate, jealousy, anger, guilt, fear and toxins from the environment.

More information:  Navajo Nation Government

Five major ceremonies: As five-fingered people, this corresponds to five major ceremonies that every child in the world could benefit by.

-Blessing Way: the blessing way honors the divine feminine as a nurturer.

-Protection Way: divine masculine as a protector-provider.

-Purification and cleansing: numerous with specific names for specific purposes.
 

-Spiritual renewal: a nine-day ceremony for spiritual renewal.

-Journey to spirit world: the ceremony for a person on their journey to the spirit world.

The Beans visiting the Navajo Nation

A blessings way Ceremonial Change Process teaches why and how to make life-affirming choices, rather than death-producing choices.   

We can understand a Dineh ceremonial change process within the context of Indigenous Science.  The strategy is to set up the optimal conditions for remembering and awakening to the oneness of creator. In healing ceremonies we affirm our holiness and wholeness. Dineh spirituality is the science of light-love-life-nature in one integrated concept.  The will-to-love, peace, beauty and joy within our Affirmative thinking system and within the universe is called hozho.

More information: Discover Navajo

The Navajo creation story speaks about the people traveling through four worlds into the current world from the place of emergence within the four sacred mountains.  This represents the concept that there is one mother of us all because our body is composed of earth.

The word for mountain is the same word for spiritual strength.  Every child is born through the water and through the birth canal.  The element of fire is our temperature and we inhale and exhale with the creator’s holy breath.  This air originates from the physical sun and radiates to the trees where we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

The miracle of life that we call photosynthesis is what Navajos call the creator’s holy breath.  We are instructed to use this holy breath for speaking living words that heal.  This is why our medicine people are called singers.  They sing a person back to balance, harmony with creator, themselves and others within the natural order.

The journey through the four worlds was required to restore balance and harmony from misusing life energy for destructive and death-producing choices.  There is a consequence in violating the natural order.  This is not punishment, condemnation or judgment, just consequence and a message to correct the out-of-balance life condition.

More information: History

I grew up knowing it's wrong to have more than you need. 
It means you're not taking care of your people.

Native American Navajo Proverb

THE BEANS: LIFE IS AN ODYSSEY ONLY FOR REAL HEROES

Capitán Trueno and his Superheroes friends

Yesterday, The Beans visited the Comic-Con and enjoyed a lot with all the merchandising and the performances that they could watch there. They were the soul of the event and today they appear in all the local and national press. It was a fantastic experience that they recommend to everyone and they want to thank the organization to invite them to this unforgettable event that is a must for comic and entertainment fans.

The Beans are still in San Diego. Today, they have decided to visit the city by Hop-on, Hop-off Trolley Tour, an exciting way to visit the most interesting places in the quickest way. 

After this visit, the family has returned to the hotel where they have been revising some English grammar with the Present Passive before going to the airport to take another plane to Albuquerque in New Mexico where they're going to drive across Route 40 to arrive to Navajo lands.

More information: Passive Voice (Present Simple)

The family is enjoying their last moments in this beautiful city before starting their last trip across American lands.

Explore some of the top highlights of San Diego with this one or two-day pass for the city’s Hop-on, Hop-off Trolley Tour.

Choose your own adventure as you get on and off the trolley at any of the 10 included stops, covering famous sights including the Gaslamp Quarter, the San Diego Zoo, USS Midway and the Cruise Ship Terminal, Little Italy, and many more. This San Diego trolley tour also features live commentary from on-board guide during your ride.

-Ride the San Diego Trolley.
-Hop on and off at any of the 10 stops as often as you like.
-Stops are conveniently located close to all popular attractions, shops and restaurants.
-Create your own itinerary to see the most popular sights of San Diego.

The Beans ready to enjoy the Trolley Tour

Get around the easy way with this trolley tour of San Diego, enjoying convenient access to 10 of the city’s top tourist sights with this one- or two-day pass. This vintage transport method, offering comprehensive access to some of San Diego’s best attractions, is a convenient way to get around without breaking the bank. 

Climb aboard the trolley at any of its 10 convenient stopping points any time during its normal operating hours. Trolleys come to each stop every 30 minutes. One of the many sights you can visit during the course of your ride is Old Town State Historic Park, often called the Jamestown of the Pacific, where you can discover the history of California’s founding amidst the area’s range of 19th-century buildings. There are also stops along the way for the world-famous San Diego Zoo, which houses a virtual Noah’s Ark of wildlife, the USS Midway and the historic Gaslamp Quarter. It's the perfect way to get around during your next visit to San Diego.

More information: San Diego

The Hop-on, Hop-off Trolley Tour includes stops at the following locations: 

-Old Town State Park.
-Cruise Ship Terminal/USS Midway.
-Seaport Village.
-Marriott Marina/Convention Center.
-Horton Plaza.
-Gaslamp Quarter.
-Hilton Bayfront.
-Coronado/Mc P's Irish Pub and Grill.
-Balboa Park (El Prado)/San Diego Zoo.
-Little Italy.

I don't believe in superheroes. I think heroes are all those people who work very hard everyday to live better and who defend their beliefs strongly and fight for reaching them. These are the real heroes.

Ana Bean

MIRAMAR, SAN DIEGO, 1986: THE HEAVEN IN YOUR EYES

Top Gun cover, 1986

The Beans have just arrived this morning to San Diego where they're going to participate in the Comic Con. Before going to this event, the family has wanted to review some English grammar. They have been talking about some clues for the Present Perfect like Just, Already and Yet and about how to use Past Simple or Present Perfect.

More information: Already-Just-Yet

After doing some exercises counting the time to be prepared for the exam, the family has been playing to Scattergories and Paqui Bean has won again and again. 

The Beans have taken profit of their time writing some postcards to MJ and they have been talking about fair tales and their main characters before The Grandma had explained a private story with an old friend, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who was one of the best F14 pilots in Miramar, San Diego in the last decade of the 80's. She remembers him like a handsome man with the reflex of the heaven in his eyes. He took her breath away.

More information: Present Perfect vs. Past Simple

Meanwhile The Beans have visited the most important places of San Diego included the Sea World where they have seen another old friend, Ulisses, an orca which was living in Barcelona some years ago and was moved to San Diego to live in better conditions, The Grandma has visited her old friend Maverick, who is a retired pilot now, and they have been remembering old memories in front of the Pacific.

The Grandma & Maverick together again in 2018

SeaWorld San Diego is an animal theme park, oceanarium, outside aquarium, and marine mammal park, located in San Diego, California inside the city's Mission Bay Park. The park is owned by the City of San Diego and operated by SeaWorld Entertainment.

SeaWorld San Diego is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Adjacent to the property is the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, which conducts research on marine biology and provides education and outreach on marine issues to the general public, including information in park exhibits.

More information: The Wrap

San Diego is a major city in California. It is in San Diego County, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, approximately 190 km south of Los Angeles and immediately adjacent to the border with Mexico.

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest in California. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center.

Tania Bean and Ulisses in the SeaWorld San Diego

San Diego has been called the birthplace of California. Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, it was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcalá, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. 

In 1821, San Diego became part of the newly independent Mexico, which reformed as the First Mexican Republic two years later. California became part of the United States in 1848 following the Mexican–American War and was admitted to the union as a state in 1850.

More information: SeaWorld San Diego

The city is the seat of San Diego County and is the economic center of the region as well as the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. San Diego's main economic engines are military and defense-related activities, tourism, international trade, and manufacturing. The presence of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), with the affiliated UCSD Medical Center, has helped make the area a center of research in biotechnology.

Finally, this evening, The Beans have gone to the Comic-Con as special guests stars and they have enjoyed with the wonderful and fantastic world of illustrations.

The Beans arriving to the San Diego Comic-Con

San Diego Comic-Con International is a multi-genre entertainment and comic convention held annually in San Diego, California. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is commonly known simply as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con or SDCC.

Comic-Con International also produces two other conventions, WonderCon, held in Anaheim, and the Alternative Press Expo (APE), held in San Francisco. Since 1974, Comic-Con has bestowed its annual Inkpot Award on guests and persons of interest in the popular arts industries, as well as on members of Comic-Con's board of directors and the Convention committee. It is also the home of the Will Eisner Awards.

More information: San Diego Comic-Con

Beans, you are the top 1 percent of all English students. The elite. The best of the best. We’ll make you better… 

You might say we’ll make you the best of the best of the best. Those of you who can’t cut it to graduation will still be the best of the best. But you will simply be the rest of the best of the best, not the best of the best of the best, like the best of you will be.

I don’t imagine you have any questions, so I won’t even ask. 
Good luck, Beans. I’ll see you in the hotel. Class dismissed.

CDR Mike Viper Metcalf, Top Gun

LEAVING SAN FRANCISCO: EVERYBODY, GET TOGETHER!

The Grandma preparing TV in her private jet

The Beans are ready to leave San Francisco. The family has spent some unforgettable days in this wonderful city. 

The Grandma has closed some new business in Silicon Valley before leaving the city. They're going to flight to San Diego in a private flight of almost two hours. She has bought some films to watch in the plane like Erin Brockovich, the film which explains the case alleged contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium, in the southern California town of Hinkley because of the construction in 1952 of a natural-gas pipeline to be connected with the San Francisco Bay Area. 

She have also bought the five seasons of The Streets of San Francisco the 70's TV Series performanced by Karl Maden and Michael Douglas; The Presidio an interesting film from 1988 with Sean Connery, Mark Hamon and Meg Ryan as the main characters and What's up doctor, from 1972, a masterclass of comedy with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.  

More information: Thrillist

Estefanía, Eli & Paqui Bean in the tram

In a few days, they're going to travel to visit the Navajo community and return to Europe to participate in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, Portugal. Because of the long duration of the transatlantic flights, The Grandma has decided to obtain all these films.

Before leaving the city, the family has walked across its streets and have taken the tram, the most famous transport of the city, and something that it has in common qith Lisbon, a future destination.

The Beans has visited the Coit Tower to take the last photographs and to say goodbye to the city and its inhabitants.

More information: Street Car 

Money lives in New York. Power sits in Washington. 

Freedom sips cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe in San Francisco.

Joe Flower

Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is 64 m tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco; at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification. 

Edgar Bean seeing the views from Coit Tower

The tower was proposed in 1931 as an appropriate use of Coit's gift. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008.

The art deco tower, built of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard, with fresco murals by 27 different on-site artists and their numerous assistants, plus two additional paintings installed after creation off-site. Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental.

More information: The Culture Trip

Coit Tower was paid for with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy socialite who loved to chase fires in the early days of the city's history. Before December 1866, there was no city fire department, and fires in the city, which broke out regularly in the wooden buildings, were extinguished by several volunteer fire companies.  

The Beans inside the Coit Tower

Lillie Coit was one of the more eccentric characters in the history of North Beach and Telegraph Hill, smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so. She was an avid gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the males-only establishments that dotted North Beach.

Lillie's fortune funded the monument four years following her death in 1929. She had a special relationship with the city's firefighters. At the age of fifteen she witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 in response to a fire call up on Telegraph Hill when they were shorthanded, and threw her school books to the ground and pitched in to help, calling out to other bystanders to help get the engine up the hill to the fire, to get the first water onto the blaze. After that Lillie became the Engine Co. mascot and could barely be constrained by her parents from jumping into action at the sound of every fire bell. 

More information: Found San Francisco

After this she was frequently riding with the Knickerbocker Engine Co. 5, especially so in street parades and celebrations in which the Engine Co. participated. Through her youth and adulthood Lillie was recognized as an honorary firefighter.

Some may come and some may go.
He will surely pass
when the one that left us here
returns for us at last.
 

The Youngbloods

BRUCE LEE & JACK BURTON: THE DRAGON IN CHINATOWN

Old photogram from The Grandma & The Dragon

The Beans are visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.They have just arrived to honor Bruce Lee, an old Grandma's friend who was a specialist in martial arts, in her opinion, the best one ever.

Lee Jun-fan (1940-1973), known professionally as Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong and American actor, film director, martial artist, martial arts instructor, philosopher, and founder of the martial art Jeet Kune Do, one of the wushu or kungfu styles. 

Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen. He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media, and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.

More information: Bruce Lee

Lee was born in Chinatown, San Francisco and was raised in Kowloon, Hong Kong, with his family, until his late teens. He was introduced to the film industry by his father, and appeared in several films as a child actor.

Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education at the University of Washington, in Seattle, and it was during this time that he began teaching martial arts.

Old Grandma's memories in Chinatown, 1940

His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s and influencing martial arts and martial arts films in the US, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world.

He is noted for his roles in five feature-length films: Lo Wei's The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972); Golden Harvest's Way of the Dragon (1972); Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1978). Lee became an iconic figure known throughout the world, particularly among the Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese nationalism in his films. He trained in the art of Wing Chun and later combined his other influences from various sources into the spirit of his personal martial arts philosophy, which he dubbed Jeet Kune Do.

Lee held dual nationality in Hong Kong and the US. He died in Kowloon Tong at the age of 32.

More information: Bruce Lee Foundation

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, 

do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. 

Bruce Lee

 

The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese enclave outside Asia. 

It is the oldest of the four notable Chinatowns in the city. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity.

The Beans arriving to Chinatown in San Francisco

Within Chinatown there are two major thoroughfares. One is Grant Avenue with the Dragon Gate at the intersection of Bush Street and Grant Avenue and Stockton Street.

Working-class Hong Kong Chinese immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the 1960s. Despite their status and professional qualifications in Hong Kong, many took low-paying employment in restaurants and garment factories in Chinatown because of limited English. An increase in Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Mainland China has gradually led to the replacement in Chinatown of the Taishanese dialect by the standard Cantonese dialect.

More information: San Francisco by The Grandma

San Francisco's Chinatown was the port of entry for early Hoisanese and Zhongshanese Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong province of southern China from the 1850s to the 1900s. 

The Grandma seeing a Chinatown painting

Many Chinese found jobs working for large companies seeking a source of labor, most famously as part of the Central Pacific on the Transcontinental Railroad. Other early immigrants worked as mine workers or independent prospectors hoping to strike it rich during the 1849 Gold Rush.

From the mid-1870s, Tong wars sprang up over turf battles concerning criminal enterprises. At the height of the criminal tongs during the 1880s and 1890s, twenty to thirty tongs ran highly profitable gambling houses, brothels, opium dens, and slave trade enterprises in Chinatown. 

More information: History

Overcrowding, segregation, graft, and the lack of governmental control contributed to conditions that sustained the criminal tongs until the early 1920s. Chinatown's isolation and compact geography intensified the criminal behavior that terrorized the community for decades despite efforts by the police city officials to stem the tide.

Three Storms vs. Three Best Beans Speakers

In March 1900, a Chinese-born man who was a long-time resident of Chinatown was found dead of bubonic plague. The next morning, all of Chinatown was quarantined, with policemen preventing Asiatics from either entering or leaving. The quarantine was lifted but the burning and fumigating continued. 

The Chinatown neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake that leveled most of the city.

Newer Chinese groups often came from areas outside of the Tongs' control, so the influence of the Tongs and criminal groups associated with them, such as the Triads, grew weaker in Chinatown and the Chinese community.

Nowadays,  the place is also a major tourist attraction in San Francisco, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge. The Beans are very interested in visiting Chinatown, too, especially because they want to meet Jack Burton, the hero in Big trouble in Little China, and fight against The Three Storms (Thunder, Rain, and Lightning) with their best candidates: The Three Best Beans Speakers.
 

More information: Gizmodo

Like I told my last wife, I says, Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it’s all in the reflexes.

Jack Burton

OH HAPPY BEANS! FILL US WITH THE LIGHT OF DAY...

The Grandma tasting Natalia Bean's pizzas

This morning, The Beans have visited Deloris Van Cartier, aka Sister Mary Clarence, and Miriam Bond in San Francisco. Before visiting them, the family has revised a new theme of English grammar: the Present Perfect and its clues For & Since.

Natalia Bean and Paqui Bean have surprised all the family with some delicatessen and the family has participated in a contest to choose its best speakers: Antonio, Edgar and Óscar Bean have won the little contest although it hasn't been easy because of the great competence of the rest of the family.

More information: Present Perfect

After a personal reading of Christmas Carol, the family has continued talking about interesting and deep themes that affect everyone and about how to confront them. Without any kind of doubt, a good aptitude and a strong trust in us are good options to overcome these difficult moments that one day or another are going to appear but meanwhile enjoy every day with your loved people like if it was the last of your life.

Antonio Bean's old selfie in Saint Paul Church

Antonio Bean has contacted with Deloris Van Cartier, an old friend, whom he hasn't seen since 1993 and whom has worked with him for many years helping people who needed another chance in Saint Paul Church, in San Francisco.

Deloris Van Cartier has offered her help to The Beans. She's going to be their musical director in the new song that the family is going to compose to introduce it in the next Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.

More information: Since-For

Ok, Beans! Relax. Ok?

Take a deep breath. Be fine.

Don't worry. You're ready?

Sister Mary Clarens / Deloris Van Cartier

In 1968, Deloris Williams was a young girl who attended a Catholic school. Her wisecracking and disobedience exasperated the nun, who warned her that people like her tended not to do so well.

By the early 90s, Deloris Van Cartier was divorced and working as a lounge singer in Reno. She was carrying on an affair with casino owner Vince LaRocca. When Vince gave her his wife's fur coat she decided that she had enough of Vince and went to break up with him. 

Deloris, her chorus, Antonio Bean and The Grandma

In Vince's suite Vince was interrogating his young driver and confirmed that he had spoken to the police. Vince had the young driver executed right as Deloris came in to the suite.  

Deloris managed to get out a few words of apology for an earlier argument before exiting the suite. Vince decided he couldn't have her as a witness and had his soldiers chase after her. Deloris managed to escape and took a taxi to police headquarters where she told the police what she had seen. Lt. Eddie Souther revealed that Vince was a major mob figure. 

He asked Deloris if she would testify against Vince, but she was too frightened to do so. Souther told her that if she agreed to testify he would hide her in the last place on Earth Vince would ever look for her.

The next day the pair arrived in San Francisco. To Deloris's considerble horror, she realized that she was going to be staying in the convent attached to St. Katherine's Parish. The Reverend Mother was none too thrilled about the prospect, but the pastor Msgr. O'Hara said that the convent would have law enforcement protection, and that the Reno police department was giving them a considerable donation.

Reverend Mother took Deloris in. After telling her not to smoke and having her dress in a habit, Reverend Mother informed Deloris that while she was in the convent she would be known as Mary Clarence.

More information: Sant Paul Catholic Church

At first Deloris had a rough time adjusting to the structure of convent life, of having to get up before dawn, of small and plain meals, and of working in the church and convent. She found the convent closed off from the neighborhood. The choir at St. Katherine's was in sad shape. Despite the difficulties of having to conform to Catholic communal living she did make friends with many of the nuns there, especially the shy Mary Robert and the boisterous Mary Patrick.  

Antonio Bean with Saint Paul's Choir

Deloris snuck out to a bar one night followed by Mary Robert and Mary Patrick. Coming back they were caught by the Reverend Mother. She nearly called Souther to ask him to make alternative arrangements for Deloris, but decided instead that for the remainder of her time there she would sleep and sing. Within minutes of arriving in the choir room everyone realized that Deloris had an excellent grasp of music theory, and former leader Mary Lazarus agreed to step aside. The following Sunday the choir sung Hail Holy Queen in the traditional manner followed by a fast paced rock and roll performance of the hymn. People in the street overheard the choir and came in to see what was going on. 

The Reverend Mother was quite unhappy and was going to have Mary Lazarus resume her leadership of the choir. However Msgr. O'Hara stepped in and said that the music was heavenly, and it was bringing people in to church. Deloris convinced him to let the nuns go out in to the neighborhood, helping to clean up the area and make it much more liveable. On Sundays a church that had only had a dozen or so attendees at Mass was filled to capacity. Deloris was nearly exposed when a TV crew visited, but Vince had been distracted when she appeared on TV for a few seconds.

More information: People

Meanwhile Pope John Paul II was visiting the states and heard about St. Katherine's choir. He decided to make the time to visit the parish. Upon the decision of the choir to let Deloris select the music instead of a traditional program for his visit, Reverend Mother decided she had enough and was going to hand in her resignation. Deloris offered to go in her place but Reverend Mother still was planning to resign.

Tate, a corrupt officer on Vince's payroll discovered where Deloris was hiding. Vince sent his men Joey and Willie to bring her back to Reno. After Deloris was kidnapped, Reverend Mother revealed the truth to the convent that Mary Clarence was not a nun, but a singer named Delores Van Cartier. The nuns of the convent all flew to Reno to rescue Deloris.

Antonio Bean with Deloris Van Cartier

Vince confronted Deloris, who faced her former lover calmly and without any outward signs of fear. The Deloris they faced now was nothing like the woman who fled a few motnhs ago. Vince tried to have Joey and Willie murder Deloris, but they found they couldn't do it, fearing their souls in jeopardy for killing someone who might have actually become a nun. Deloris managed to knock over both Willie and Joey and escaped through the casino. Vince chased Deloris through the casino as the other nuns of the convent arrived. As a group they tried to escape but Vince cornered them. Before Vince could shoot Deloris Lt. Souther shot him in the arm. Vince cursed her as he was being dragged away by cops, Deloris simply responded with, Bless you.

More information: Charactour

The Reverend Mother found a renewed sense of purpose and since Deloris would soon be leaving decided she needed to stay. Deloris returned with the nuns to St. Katherine's where in front of a packed house they performed for the Pope, who was quite pleased with what he saw. Deloris directed the choir at several concert engagements in the coming months. 

Nowadays, Deloris is going to direct The Beans in their next goal: be the winners in the 2018 European Song Contest. 

Let's go Beans! We can do it!

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,

drive the dark of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness.
Fill us with the light of day.

Henry Jackson van Dyke Jr.

CARI VS. CARI WITH W: "WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN"

Cristina Bean participating in Password

The Beans are living their last days in San Francisco before travelling to San Diego where they're going to participate in a new edition of the ComicCon as special guest stars. This morning, they have been revising some English grammar like Past Simple vs. Past Continuous and constructions with Let's.

More information: Let's

They have also talked about objective and subjective points of view, something very important if you like enjoying modern art.

The family has participated in a new programme of ABC7-KGO TV. Manuel and Cristina Bean have been chosen by their family to representate it in a TV Contest named Password. Both of them have done a fantastic participation and they have won the total amount valorated in free entrances to visit the SFMOMA in San Francisco. 

More information: SFMOMA

 

Manuel Bean participating in Password

The family has decided to talk about art with one of the genius of the last century, Salvador Dalí, and they have been preparing their visit to the SFMOMA, a wonderful and interesting museum where you can enjoy the last modern works without any kind of censorship, because, as everybody must know, art is a free expression and we are in the city where was born the Free Speech movement and where was signed The Charter of the United Nations in 1945.

Then, this afternoon, the family has visited the SFMOMA. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. 

More information: MOMA

The museum’s current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. They are displayed in 16,000 metres square of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.

The Beans, the SFMOMA and Salvador Dalí

SFMOMA reopened on May 14, 2016, following a major three-year-long expansion project.The expansion more than doubles the museum’s gallery spaces and provides almost six times as much public space as the previous building, allowing SFMOMA to showcase an expanded collection along with the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection of contemporary art.

SFMOMA was founded in 1935 under director Grace L. McCann Morley as the San Francisco Museum of Art. For its first sixty years, the museum occupied the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center. 

More information: The Art Story

A gift of 36 artworks from Albert M. Bender, including The Flower Carrier (1935) by Diego Rivera, established the basis of the permanent collection. Bender donated more than 1,100 objects to SFMOMA during his lifetime and endowed the museum's first purchase fund. The museum began its second year with an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse. In this same year the museum established its photography collection, becoming one of the first museums to recognize photography as a fine art. 

SFMOMA was obliged to move to a temporary facility on Post Street in March 1945 to make way for the United Nations Conference on International Organization. 

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, 

if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself. 

Milan Kundera