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.