TedX Tucson

I went. I learned. I ate

. I laughed.

I'd never seen Lucha Libre before.  Masked Mexican wrestling is an art form best appreciated if you are a 13 year old boy, I think, or, perhaps, if you love the Three Stooges.

According to the program, , Chris Hack, aka The Prophet, has been a living legend in the world of Lucha Libre for 20 years.  He and his opponent invited boos and ooohs and gasps as they flung one another around the ring. 

They didn't stay within its confines, either.  This was a interactive experience, with high fives and snarky attitude on all sides. 

It's not something I need to see again, but I'm glad I got to experience it once.

And that's what TEDX is all about, really.  Snippets of life in another person's universe.  Here are some of them:

Kevin Justus, PHD, an independent scholar of Louis XV (how's that for an occupation?) challenged the audience to make your favorite room a portrait of yourself.  I went home and started looking around.

Erika Hamen, PHD, an astrophysicist and Assistant Professor of Astronomy who came out in a snakeskin suit and depressed us all by telling us that there are fewer stars being created now.   We sighed.  In unison.

Janelle Briggs, the co-founder of Stackhouse, added to the gloom by announcing that Capitalism has made even the basics unattainable before describing her 320 square foot container living space that can be stacked then removed and moved, for $2 a mile, to another location.  It costs about the price of a middle sized SUV.  Home ownership without the foundation or the picket fence; it's a new world, denizens.

James Wiseman, M.D., at 6'7" probably the tallest Jew you've ever seen, had a happier take on the darker side of life.  Assume good will.  Each life is valuable - consider that daily.  Everyone has a story.  Words to live by.

Ryanhood, a folk/rock duo, wondered How is it that that which we don't want to happen makes us who we are? before suggesting a solution to the hole that's left behind: Don't fill the space.  Sit with the emptiness.  I did that, for 14 weeks, on the couch, alone with myself and the hole in my life.  They sang as if they were on the other edge of the couch the whole time.

But best of all was Linda Chorney, the first completely independent artist nominated for a Grammy (2012), said it best.  Walking with her beer to the door of a Tucson cantina, she was thwarted by a sign warning her of arrest if she took her beverage on to the public thoroughfare.  W. T. F.!  You can carry a gun but I can't carry a beer?

Ah, Tucson.