About That Day - The Atlantic

About That Day - The Atlantic

Hey Gals (and Michael)-

This is the Rhett Miller diary about being in New York on 9/11 that I once talked about in rehearsal a while back.

I read this is my paper magazine, but online there are some more interactive bit. The writing is quite visceral. His account is very specific (and pretty intense) but I find it interesting how it ques some of my own memories of that day.

A play in a REAL House!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/garden/elective-affinities-a-play-that-unfolds-in-a-real-town-house.html

Look at this article Lizzie found about a play happening in New York that's in a real house. There is a link to the review as well....very interesting!

my quilt

My mother made this quilt for me when I graduated from high school. She said it was to hang in my very first apartment and would serve as a reminder to always "shoot for the stars." But this quilt, which has been with me through many crazy parties in my college apartment, seen the dysfunctional side of a very bad living situation in my first home in Chicago, and now in the apartment I very nearly shared with my ex-girlfriend, has served more of a reminder that I am loved. In this quilt are my mother's hopes, dreams and love for me; all hanging in my kitchen.

distance

Numbers have never really spoken to me. Math eluded me throughout my youth. I could never see how math fit into my life. Of course, the basics were there. The math we cannot live without day to day. But why all the word problems and graphs and geometry and trigonometry and calculus?

Although, this past year numbers have defined time and place and distance. My car - my gold 4-door Saturn that my family bought new in 1997 and has been the ONLY car I have driven as my own - hit 100,000 miles on a drive home to see my mother just a few weeks before she died. And since then, I have been hyper aware of each number as it rolls back and the miles pile up. Each number is one more mile I drive away from her and that time and that place. Each number is one more mile I drive into a future that is rapidly changing and not what I expected. These numbers have become my life, an almost obsession. They never stop adding up. You can't reverse them. Life and time go on.

But 111, 000. This marked a significant moment for me. While many of numbers have marked particular lows for me, this number marks a different turn. A turn of acceptance. Things are looking up. I am 11,000 miles into my future and I am starting to feel like me again. Like I am back to living my own life. And actually ready for those numbers to keep adding up and moving forward. I have finally gained the distance that I need.

Number One City Data

As I'm winding down this evening on PBS there is Chicago's Loop: A Chicago Tour on PBS WTTW.

It is fascinating!

There is a point (with a plaque!) on a building at LaSalle and Monroe, which is the zero point where all cartographers and surverys measure by in the city. A zero point: I thought I also heard it called number 1 city data.

I'm going to try to find it on my lunch break tomorrow.

You'll love the pictures.

Click the link to find the WSJ article:

In My Home Office: Maira Kalman

art?

My last adapted chapter touched on my love of art and collection of postcards of famous artworks I have seen.

I came across this while finding some historical anecdotes and felt it needed to be shared.

UGLY RENAISSANCE BABIES.

Enjoy!

Home.

This is a traditional German Wine Glass. It lives in a purple hutch that is located in the dining room of my tiny one bedroom Lincoln Square apartment. The Glass, the hutch and the apartment are all older than I am. These are things I've inherited from the people who came before me. Who will inherit them after I am gone? Who has sat in my dining room before me? Who will sit there after I am gone? I think about this a lot. People have fallen in love in my home. People have been sick in my home. People have cried, gotten in fights, gone through rough times. People have lived here, walked here, maybe even died here. Strangers.

The wine glass and the hutch were my parents. They bought them when we lived in Germany right before I was born. Now, at 26, they are mine. Mine. In the apartment I share with no one else. Mine. For now...

Timber Lane

Where did you come from? How were you chosen? My Grandma Elvyn and Papa Frank had you in their home. In their most intimate rooms. Bought to fill their perfectly crafted space. But I saved you from the dust and darkness. Do you wonder where they went? Why you stayed silent for years. No use. No need. Disregarded until I rescued you and plugged you in. Night after night I call upon you. When I need inspiration. When I work late. When I unwind. Delicate and simple. You sat bedside to my Papa through the end of his days. Steady and unwavering in your determination to do your duty. You did not let the sadness and burden of time stop you from shedding light. Death and tragedy and time do not hold you back. You will shine on through my days, witness to all that I make it through and ultimately my end.

Just words.

They remain even though you have gone. Curved and precise. A gift. A piece of you frozen in time. Instructions simple and direct. Passed down through the matriarchs. A secret known by many but now mine to share. I follow each direction, go through every motion and through me the ideas on the page come to life. I create. This secret is ours and now a piece of you remains with me.

I am not sure how old you are… I know you are at least thirty. You have been to family parties and distant counties. I look at your picture from 1984. Held in the hands of mother, my beautiful mother. Is that why I love you so much? Red and worn, smelling of old leather, faintly vintage --you once held her film and now you hold my digital canon. Memories into images--all the tangible moments of our lives captured forever as evidence.

Dishes

This is about closing a chapter and staring a new one.

Before I boxed these up I made sure they were all clean, carefully considering their future while conjuring images of their past.

What I brought with me to Chicago, a mismatched set though they may be – two sets really.

The newer ones are plastic in black and white and they are what I bought for myself when I was in university. Plastic: in case of late night antics. Deep and smooth, square with curved edges.

Funky.

For dining OR serving.

The older ones are more classic, rounded, and were bought while my family lived in a two –bedroom apartment in a complex off Fox Lonas Drive in the school district where I would go to high school. We ate off of them and my mother said they would be mine – that we would pack them away after we moved into a new house and ate off of the Pfaltzgraff again. These provided meals to us while my dad was healing from his brain surgery (I know.) and that Christmas that we were all sick with the flu. I’ve often thought of these as the “Countrywood” tableware, the name of our street those two years.

When I turned 17, my grandparents followed family tradition and gave me a hope chest. These were quickly packed away for the life I would start when I was an adult.

So when I came here, so did the hope chest and these.

And this week, with my boyfriend of 5 years, we decided to buy new as these were a little out-dated and have been chipping for the last year. A few mugs have been broken and are long gone.

So we are eating our meals from these now.

We started with a Thai dinner the day before Thanksgiving.

Urbs in Horto

This is the latin motto of the city. It translates to English as City in a Garden.

Hmm...

I Will

After the great Chicago fire, the city adopted the motto "I will." Below is an image of a semi-centennial poster for the fire. I find this apropos to our project and something that Maira might hook her ideas into if she lived in Chicago.

Image is from: http://greatchicagofire.org/view-item/620

Further information on this adoption can be found on the Chicago Public Library site.

fragments

I was taking a look at the chapter I am going adapt this weekend, CELESTIAL HARMONY, on the original New York Times Blog...and I decided to read the comments. I came across this one, by Joe.

"I don’t know what it’s about–this hat, collar, Kepler thing–but I do know what it is: beautiful. Thanks for entertaining sonambulists who lie awake trying to put the fragments of similar non-sequiturs together."

Sonambulism is the phenomena of sleepwalking.

I think Joe's comment sums up how I often feel about the book when trying to describe it or articulate why I love it so much. I do not what it is, but it is beautiful. And that's enough for me.

From One Cafe to Another

From one cafe to another, both on Milwaukee Avenue. Starbucks off of the Damen stop where I delivered Mr. Waldron's commission to Cafe Sonori in Jefferson Park of the El stop by the same name. There was a little girl on the train in between with her grandparents. With her red hair and long porcelain face, she looked like a doll sitting on her grandma's lap. She very obviously and very verbally bored with the train. She lamented, saying that she wished she could apparate and disapperate like they do in Harry Potter so she wouldn't have to take the train, aka muggle transport.
I giggled inside.
I listened as she implored grandpa to take a seat so she could sit on his lap. I watch as she dug into grandma's bag for miniature candy cane they had picked up along the way as she told both of them about school.
Grandma asked her if they had done everything she wanted to do in a manner that said she was asking, "see how much we love you?"
When the little girl, who by now I had learned was named Alexis sat down in a newly vacant seat, sans grandpa's lap, I surreptitiously took a picture of her and her delicate face.

this feels like maira

-kat

A Sign...

It was more than just a sign. It was more than words. It was her beacon. It was her own personal lighthouse. "Stay Away From Lonely Places," it read, all lit up with white light. She knew this advice had saved her life. The most beautiful advice.

Quiet Crackle

Each piece has it's own identity. A soft blanket that comes together ever so delicately, merging into one large mass. Fragile. Resilient. A beautiful, unachievable perfection that quickly disappears. It is awaited and loathed. It delights and stifles. It creates beauty and obstacle in it's final destination. Cold and wet. Children make you their weapons and hold you sacred in their memories. Adults push you aside and forget the pleasure you once brought with each new winter.






For the first time in my life I saw the city buried beneath your casual heaviness. I awoke at 6.30am and found a calm, quiet place- the only sound was the faint crunch made with each of my heavy, awkward steps. My street was quiet and covered. Everyone I encountered smiled and laughed and waved. The city was under your spell, binding us all together for an hour, a day, a week. But each day you disappeared. Your perfection faded. The good will dwindled. But I knew you would be back, I just could not predict when.

Poppy

Poppy used to listen to the airwaves on the back porch overlooking the meadow behind his house. When Mike tells me this I wonder if Poppy listened and missed Ireland?

This is the same meadow where his grandchildren, Mike and Karen, ran wild during the summer. The same meadow where Mike pelted rocks at bulldozers flattening the land for ensuing condo units. The same condo units that Mike would eventually live in, his driveway looking out at Poppy’s back porch. Except Poppy doesn’t live there any more. How, terribly sad.

Now, I live with Mike. How lovely.

I wish I could have known Poppy. He was born Patrick Kernaghan in 1942. He came to America from Ireland and worked in a factory. The Catholic Church next to his house told him they needed to demolish it for a new church. They gave him a house aside the church and a job as the custodian. Now there is a hall in the church named Kernaghan Hall. Does he know this?

But, Poppy used to listen to the airwaves. And now we listen, channeling Poppy’s spirit, echoes and memories and words and tunes and stories transmitted through to us. In our kitchen! It sits prominently in the very center of our house, occupying the ledge that separates the kitchen and the living room. Gracefully old, weathered and worn, loved. It defines ritual in the Thornton household - Saturday morning , 10 AM. Coffee (made just the way we like it), orange juice, a variation on Mike’s ever-evolving breakfast eggs, and NPR filtering out over the waves circa this 1950’s masterpiece. Amidst the hustle and the bustle, we sit and sip and listen and sigh together. Quiet moments, the moments that make up "us". Heaven on Earth.

Poppy would have liked this ritual.

Warm Winter Object

I can't remember when I got them, or where I was exactly, but it was after I moved to Chicago.
They looked warm.
They still are.
Here they are laying over the radiator of my old apartment at the top of a three floor walk-up.
Radiators.
A completely foreign concept to a southern girl in the windy city winter for the first time.
But,
I washed them and learned the simple pleasure of allowing each one to dry and soak up heat before placing them on my feet underneath thick boots.
I learned to do this with my bath towels too.

Appreciating the text.

As we read through this book - again - I realized something. I had no idea who most of the people Kalman is talking about are. All those Russian names. What is a pogrom? I had loved the idea of this book. The handwritten text. The illustrations. The exploration of how one thing leads to another. The appreciation of ideas that are world changing and details that only she notices. But I had no time to appreciate the richness and depth of the ideads and the people she included. I just read the little bit of information she provided and moved on. I think the only thing I looked up the first time we read was the Dodo and Spinoza and Wittgenstein and Kitty Carlisle Hart. And this lady, she is smart. She is well read. She loves people and time and places and the details that made their lives worth living. Worth noting. It's inspiring.

Thus, I have started to do a little research. Vita Sackville-West is fascinating. I really want to read Virginia's Woolfe's diaries now. Or a biography about her many affairs with women in early 20th century Britain.

I stumbled upon this project that includes a entry from Alex & Lulu Kalman.

Just to name a few...
As I research, I find myself looking up new things completely.
And "one thing leads to another" rings in my ears.

And here is something just for fun: teacup pig

Love Poem Paperweight.

Maira has an excellent and elegant website.

I want her love poem paperweight.

They sell some of them at the MOMA.

And then I found that they were designed by her husband.

One thing leads to another.

And ... just in case ...

Maira Kalman at maira@mairakalman.com

Maira Kalman is represented by the Julie Saul Gallery
http://www.saulgallery.com/
535 West 22nd Street New York, NY 10011
Tel: (212) 627.2410
E-mail: mail@saulgallery.com

Two New York Times Articles On Objects, STUFF & Names

Here are two articles that Annie passed along that in thought you all might enjoy.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/arts/design/history-of-the-world-in-100-objects-from-british-museum.html

Stuff That Defines Us
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: October 28, 2011
“The History of the World in 100 Objects,” from the British Museum, was an intriguing and popular BBC radio series and is now a book that will be available in the United States on Monday.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/arts/design/the-power-or-folly-of-a-products-name.html

The Power, or Folly, of a Product’s Name
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
Published: October 30, 2011
The titles of items like computers, automobiles and apartment complexes are getting more refined and, in some cases, more outlandish as marketers try to impress customers.

Kalman on Colbert

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/363667/october-28-2010/maira-kalman

the characters from Part 4

Courage Flowers - Part 4

Meet your character ... they are fascinating

Helen Levitt - "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Levitt

Saul Steinberg - cartoonist for The New Yorker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Steinberg

Walter Benjamin - German / Jewish intellectual
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin

Richard Deveraux - a friend of Maira's ...

Why do men have nipples?? Answered by Scientific American!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-do-men-have-nipples

Why do men have nipples?

Andrew M. Simons, a professor of biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, explains.

Like all "why" queries, the question of why men have nipples can be addressed on many levels. My four-year-old daughter, always suspicious of a trick when asked such obvious questions, answered: "because they grow them." In search of the trick answer, she quickly added that "chests would also look pretty funny with just hair."

Evolutionary biologists, whose job it is to explain variety in nature, are often expected to provide adaptive explanations for such "why" questions. Some traits may prove—through appropriate tests—to be best explained as adaptations; others have perfectly good evolutionary, but nonadaptive, explanations. This is because evolution is a process constrained by many factors including history, chance, and the mechanisms of heredity, which also explains why particular attributes of organisms are not as they would be had they been "designed" from scratch. Nipples in male mammals illustrate a constrained evolutionary result.

A human baby inherits one copy of every gene from his or her father and one copy of every gene from his or her mother. Inherited traits of a boy should thus be a combination of traits from both his parents. Thus, from a genetic perspective, the question should be turned around: How can males and females ever diverge if genes from both parents are inherited? We know that consistent differences between males and females (so-called sexual dimorphisms) are common--examples include bird plumage coloration and size dimorphism in insects. The only way such differences can evolve is if the same trait (color, for example) in males and females has become "uncoupled" at the genetic level. This happens if a trait is influenced by different genes in males and females, if it is under control of genes located on sex chromosomes, or if gene expression has evolved to be dependent on context (whether genes find themselves within a male or a female genome). The idea of the shared genetic basis of two traits (in this case in males and females) is known as a genetic correlation, and it is a quantity routinely measured by evolutionary geneticists. The evolutionary default is for males and females to share characters through genetic correlations.

The uncoupling of male and female traits occurs if there is selection for it: if the trait is important to the reproductive success of both males and females but the best or "optimal" trait is different for a male and a female. We would not expect such an uncoupling if the attribute is important in both sexes and the "optimal" value is similar in both sexes, nor would we expect uncoupling to evolve if the attribute is important to one sex but unimportant in the other. The latter is the case for nipples. Their advantage in females, in terms of reproductive success, is clear. But because the genetic "default" is for males and females to share characters, the presence of nipples in males is probably best explained as a genetic correlation that persists through lack of selection against them, rather than selection for them. Interestingly, though, it could be argued that the occurrence of problems associated with the male nipple, such as carcinoma, constitutes contemporary selection against them. In a sense, male nipples are analogous to vestigial structures such as the remnants of useless pelvic bones in whales: if they did much harm, they would have disappeared.

In a now-famous paper, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin emphasize that we should not immediately assume that every trait has an adaptive explanation. Just as the spandrels of St. Mark's domed cathedral in Venice are simply an architectural consequence of the meeting of a vaulted ceiling with its supporting pillars, the presence of nipples in male mammals is a genetic architectural by-product of nipples in females. So, why do men have nipples? Because females do.

TCG Stage Matters!

http://www.tcg.org/tools/other/stagematters.cfm

http://vimeo.com/22564317

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” - George Bernard Shaw

Screw mortality. :)

Maira Kalman: The illustrated woman --TED Talk

this song.

The Mountain Goats "This Year" from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

Is It Wrong To Celebrate Bin Laden's Death?

Here is an interesting article pertaining to the discussion that we had at the beginning of rehearsal on Monday:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/03/135927693/is-it-wrong-to-celebrate-bin-ladens-death?sc=tw

research.

like Maira I find myself fascinated with odd topics. and Wikipedia has only fueled this curiosity.

these are a few searches that have occupied seconds, minutes, hours of my time recently. you can also google image search some interesting images of these topics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Webster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin
*also an excellent movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. I highly recommend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer#Female_serial_killers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_landmarks

Enjoy some random new knowledge!

The Hand in Our Process

The Journey Weaves In and Out of Mine

After meeting with Libby yesterday at Lillstreet, I am posting the following story at her request:


Junior year was the year that students were allowed to begin driving cars to school. My father, being the creative and pragmatic accountant that he is, figured it would be more cost effective for the family and he would be able to lend me the car if he rode the bus downtown to work everyday instead of driving, paying for parking, and driving back. In fact, we would probably save money on gas!


An unforeseen byproduct of this was that his commute enabled him to read more. (And please remember that I am talking about a bus ride in Knoxville, TN not Chicago so it was much longer and just getting to the bus stop required a half mile walk every morning and evening.) So at first he read the paper, but then he realized that the paper was not the most suitable reading material and he went through it very quickly. He started checking out library books from the main branch downtown every week. At first he read only nonfiction/history books and then one day...he picked up a poetry book. My father! Reading a Poetry book! Every so often he would point one out to me or read it to me or talk to me about it. It was a new thing we could talk about because he never really liked fiction and still doesn't so Mom had always been and still is the one I talk to about plot lines and character.



But this poetry thing...it was something new.



Fast forward a few years - I'm in college and Dad is still taking the bus even though I left the car at home along with my family. He is still reading poetry.



Fast forward a few more - he's still reading on the bus and after being hit by a car my parents promptly give me a used one so that I can drive myself around to doctors appointments. My dad's silver sedan still sits in the driveway.



Go forward a few months - I'm graduating and moving home, only to work a 9-5 until one day I get my acceptance letter from Columbia. I start planning and packing.



The day before we leave my dad reads to me a new poem that he absolutely loves and thinks applies to my life: The Journey by Mary Oliver. The way he reads it is beautiful, sometimes stumbling over a word here and there and tearing up towards the end. I will never forget this.



I move to Chicago with my family's help. They leave 3 days later. I start classes in 3 weeks.



I walk in to my first Visual Images class with Joan Dickinson and she hands out xeroxed reading packets - one of the first things in the packet is a copy of The Journey. I tear up a little and know I am in the right place.



I go home and inscribe the poem in my bathroom above my toilet, next to my mirror in black sharpie marker. Every time I read it I am reminded of why I live in Chicago and what I am supposed to be doing.



When I move out of my studio to a larger apartment with my boyfriend I have to paint over it so that I will not lose my security deposit. It takes three coats of Klutz white primer to cover it completely. I cry when I can't see it anymore, but am comforted that it will always be there.



I'm sure if some scientists wanted to go all DaVinci Code on my old studio they could use special imaging equipment to read the poem written on the wall in my own hand. Why didn't I take a picture of it before I painted it over?



Recently I went to a bookstore that was going out of business and stumbled over a Mary Oliver book. I bought it as a gift for Dad.



This poem still resonates and has a special relationship between my father and myself. I think it will always resonate. I include it here for you:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save


Mary Oliver

Sunday Funday Blog post.

Sigur Ros - Glosoli

This group inspires the hell out of me. Let's all run with the imagination of children!

Maira Kalman on the Colbert Report

And now for some levity...

work from Marta Carrasco

This is not a performance that I've seen. I find this video QUITE INTENSE. It's not on the subject matter of daily life/personal inspirations and musings but it really shows some of the compelling and unique images and amazing ways to use the body that I love in Marta Carrasco's work.

It's a bit bloody and a bit religious, so be forewarned. But it's pretty amazing.

Cupola Bobber - The Field, The Mantel

My life would be a digitally edited photobook with hand details

More to come later.

I am reminded of William Kentridge

From the videos posted from Amanda and Kat I am very much reminded of William Kentridge, an artist from South Africa. This is "Automatic Writing"

Blog Invite

So everyone should be able to post on this blog following the link sent from the email. Have fun!

Advice to Beginners (or beginnings)

From Ira Glass . . .

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through”

Brought to you by Annie

art that comes and goes

I have loved this artist's videos for years. Not only is the magnitude of this art beautiful but it uses found space. You see the community, the town, the buidlings, the trees, people walking by. But as this artist creates, he must also keep erasing, keep moving forward. BLU is amazing.

-Amanda

Head Full of Doubt/ Road Full of Promise

i am inspired by music.
my world is a mix tape with no end.
this would be the first song on my mix tape.

-kat

Shake the Dust

Shake the Dust


Check out this video of slam poet Anis Mogjani - Shake the Dust.

Love,
Annie