Because It Defies Gravity

After much planning and anticipation it all went off without a hitch, excepting Princess Beatrice of York's unfortunate hat choice.  I hate to devote more cyberspace to this topic, but seriously, how can I not?  The hat defies gravity, both physical and emotional.  In fact, I've changed my original idea for this post to focus only on the hat.  The hat heard 'round the world. 

(Princess E and Princess B and a man with a far less silly hat.)

 

(To quote my witty friend, Lane B. "Flesh colored bows are always in fashion.  NO.")

I watched the wedding LIVE this morning on BBC America.  It was all going well... crowds waving the Union Jack, multiple handsome princes and the ultra-modern royal BMW bus coaches.

I thought that the transportation of the royal family was a nice touch; they all arrived together so you knew they were important while indicating that the really important people were right behind, i.e. HRM Queen Elizabeth II and Miss Glossy Chestnut Curls, the soon-to-be Mrs. Prince.  However, they didn't arrive in gilded carriages or limos.  The the royal uncles, aunts and cousins and their consorts (hehe) arrived by Volkswagen motor coach minibuses.  I thought it was both practical and reasonably modest.  It was exciting when the Queen's children and their children began to unload.  I had this feeling that they were actually real people, albeit with incredible clothes and the ability to look bored in the face of exceptional pageantry.

That's what I thought.  

And then there was the hat.     The hat shattered any notion I had of "grounded" royals.

(I love how this photo really emphasizes the roundness of hat and face set against the Lady-Gaga-Gothic eyeliner.)

I honestly don't know how anyone goes out to a church wedding with that on their head and maintains composure.  Actually, I don't know how anyone in the Abbey was able to "keep their countenance" as she passed them on the way to her seat.  Kudos to all.  Really.  Kudos.

Did I mention that she was seated immediately behind the Queen?  Yes, that's right.  Nearly every time there was shot of the Queen in her buttercup yellow suit (leading the "I'm bored" charge for all the royals except for William and Harry) there was THE HAT.  On my second viewing, watched with my family members that didn't want to get up at 3 AM, I turned the more sedate parts of the ceremony into a game of "find crazy Bea's hat."  I began to wonder if the camera men were playing their own game: how much of the Queen can we shoot without capturing the flesh-bow hat?  

In retrospect I'm left wondering just one thing: in the royal reception line at Buckingham Palace, how did the newest addition to the royal family (Mrs. Glossy Chestnut Curls) react to the hat?  Did she loose her much heralded composure?

I kinda hope so.  I really do.  Then we would know, for sure, that William married a great gal.

("Pardon me, Cousin Bea, but I cannot contain my mirth.")

("Cheers, Cousin Kate. Smashing nuptials.")

America's Bedlam

If you are like me, you are tired of Charlie Sheen.  And the last thing that you want to do is read another blog or more commentary about "Charlie Sheen" and/or "winning."  But I can't get this particular response to the Sheen phenomenon out of my head and so I am going to blog it despite the fact that far to much cyber-ink has already been dedicated to the subject.

I teach art history (you know that because the only people who read my blog are my friends and family, but I like to pretend that I'm sharing bits about myself with a larger audience.)  So I was particularly interested in late-night host, Craig Ferguson's discussion of the London prison for the mentally ill, Bedlam, which has been documented (along with similar institutions) in paintings of the late 18th and early 19th century.  Masters such as Hogarth and Goya painted works of art that document the horrors of early mental asylums. 

When I teach these paintings in my art classes my students are always disconcerted by them.  How could people:
#1- find the sufferings of others so entertaining,
#2- have kept people with mental illness in such deplorable conditions
and
#3- have paid money to see people suffer as a form of entertainment?
It seems inconceivable to us today.  We look back in time and feel good about where we are today in our care for others and our forms of entertainment.

But are we really any more sensitive?  Are we really making better choices about how we spend our time and our money?  Is the way that we deal with those battling addiction or mental illness any more compassionate?  Probably, yes, when we are talking about the average American.  But if we are talking about those in the spotlight, then I think this week of all-Sheen, all the time indicates, no. 

So when Ferguson refused to tell a series of Charlie Sheen jokes on his late night show, citing Bedlam prison, I had to get behind him.  Not only because it's a refreshing break from Sheen-mania, but because it really does feel like someone in the media is standing on the moral high ground.  Throughout the media people are arguing that celebrities and public figures don't count.  They have put themselves into the spotlight and part of being a free society is the right to publicly ridicule, castigate, parody those in the public eye.  We don't have to back off Charlie Sheen because HE is the one calling the radio shows, agreeing to interviews, tweeting his every thought and producing his own web-streaming show entitled, "Sheen's Korner."  Perhaps.  But guess who's buying it? 

We are.

I am concerned about Charlie Sheen.  I do hope that his family is able to reach out to him and help him in whatever way he needs.  But I'm more concerned about Americans.  We put our support and our money behind the least compassionate and often depraved forms of entertainment.  We are gobbling up the drama of Charlie Sheen while North Africa and the Middle East are experiencing some of the most important and violent revolutions in their recent history; while the global economy is in serious recession; while North Koreans remain under the thumb of one of modern history's most oppressive regimes; while battles rage right here at home over unions, wages, healthcare and education. 

The point of "entertainment" is to take our minds off of the problems of the world for a short time;  release some of the heaviness of everyday cares and concerns and just BE for awhile.  Libya is not entertainment.  I get that.  But neither is Charlie Sheen.  And when we throw all our bandwidth and television-producing energy into consuming the troubled ravings of a single man, I worry that we are no better than those who paid a penny to spend the afternoon at Bedlam.

-With thanks to Craig Ferguson of CBS for the Bedlam reference.  To watch Ferguson's stand:
http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/03/03/charlie-sheen-video-craig-ferguson-jimmy-fallon/

The Art of Busking

Come June I'm going to be in need of a new job.  I'm considering busking.  For those of you who don't know the definition of a busker is, "a person who entertains in a public place for donations."  Evidently it comes from the Italian buscare meaning "to guilt pedestrians into giving money to your 'art' because you aren't headlining your own gig at the Showbox."   I'm not a musician but I could stand around and spontaneously lecture about art and architecture.  It would be unique and, I feel, offer a valuable service to the art starved American public. 

I'm currently a teacher.  For those of you who don't know the definition of a teacher is, "one who willingly enters into a classroom to face a group of young people who are actively resisting everything one is trying to do for them."  When you are a college professor, as I am, the strangeness of the student resistance is compounded because your students are actually paying the university for the privilege to be annoyed by their education.  Add to this the fact that I teach art history, which most American students consider entirely superfluous.  Thus, every time I step into the classroom it is as if I am a street performer.  I'm sharing something with a group of people who can't get away from it, aren't sure they want it, but cough up the money to support it anyway.  

The way that I see it my skills as a college professor will translate well into street performance.  After another job hunt on monster.com I'm going to write Pike Place Market for an annual busker permit.  
http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/applications_permits/become_a_busker

Middle Name Limbo

Tonight I went to the baby shower of my college friend, V.  We were college roommates more than once and office-mates in our early years out of college when we lived and worked in Boston.  As us party-goers sat around talking and holding the week old little boy of our friend, B, the subject of names came up.  B was sharing that she and her husband had had boy and girl names picked out each of their children, but that none of those names were recycled when they were expecting a new baby.  Another of our friends confirmed this.  Each mother had felt that each child was clearly distinct; a different name came with thinking about each new family member.

The mommies then started talking about experiencing a moment when they realized that they had given a child a name and that child would have that name for the rest of their lives.  The great responsibility had impressed upon each of them.  However some people will change their names, either because their "given" name doesn't seem to fit or, as I will soon do, because of marriage.  A week after getting engaged, I starting thinking deeply about the meaning of names.

For the last 10 years or so, I have been sure that when I got married I would drop my middle name and take my maiden name as my middle name.  I have never really loved the sound of my last name, but I have had it for too many years now to let it go.  And my last name connects me to my family in a way that my middle name doesn't.  My new name will tie me to my husband and to his family and it will be the name of our children. 

Names are meaningful.  They identify us to others but I think they also help define us to ourselves.


I had thought about the significance of my name before marriage was on the horizon.  I call myself different names at different times.  When I'm mad at myself I use my full name.  When giving myself a little pep talk, I usually use the abbreviated version that only my closest friends use.  I never refer to myself by my last name.  More often than not, my name appears in my mind as a kind of picture.  It isn't an image of my face and I don't see it as Courier New or Times New Roman font.  Rather it is a kind of feeling or color (blue) that I recognize as "Me." 


After getting engaged I started to have anxieties about loosing my middle name.  This didn't happen until I was talking to my brother.  He was upset by the fact that I am planning to drop my middle name.  Wrapped up in my middle name were some of his most distinctive memories of our childhood together.  We have never been very close and I was touched.  And then I began to reconsider my decision.


What kept worrying me was, where would my discarded name go?  If it ceased to be on any government ID card or as an initial on my credit card, did that mean that my name was gone?  It would always be on my birth certificate and I would always know that it was mine.  If it wasn't documented or my initial changed, did that mean that it was gone, floating around in name limbo with my own mother's former middle name (and my future mother-in-law's as well?)  If names are what we use to identify ourselves to ourselves, does our identity change if our name does? 


Intellectually I think that names don't make us who we are; they are just one of many imposed labels that help distinguish us within a community and assist the government in taxing us.  But emotionally I think they are something more.  They are a little bit like clothes; certain titles, names or labels make us more comfortable than others and no matter how hard we keep trying to feel like ourselves in that pair of white jeans, they will never really be us.  My middle name may disappear from forms and my initials will change, but my middle name will always be a piece of who I am.  My new name, like our wedding, is a testament to the new family we are becoming.  And that feels like a good fit.

Free Milkshake!

I enjoy pockets.  One of the only disappointments of summer is the dearth of pockets between the months of June and September.  And a great thing about the arrival of fall is anticipating the use of pockets again.  Not the tiny tight pockets that women's jeans and shorts have, but the deep comforting pockets of a cozy sweater or your favorite down jacket or peacoat. 

I have gone to bed every night for the past two weeks hoping that the tight muggy weather of the midwest will blow away and I will wake up to a cool fall morning.  It hasn't happened yet but I know it is coming any day now.  When this finally happens the jackets, sweaters and wool pants come out and with them, the pocket time capsules.  If I'm really lucky, I will find something older than a year in a pocket that I didn't visit last season.

Granted, sometimes these things are icky.  The tissues that never made it into the trash can.  A small bit of paper with some gum waded up in it.  (On the up side, these do often make my pockets smell minty, which beats moth balls!)  From time to time, I rejoice because I tucked some loose bills or change into a pocket and then forgot about it.... free milkshake!  However, the pocket treasure that I love best is a movie ticket stub, a Mariner's ticket, a friendly note or fortune cookie promise.  These little scraps of life can transport me to another place.  It is a kind of time travel, similar to looking at a photo album or scrapbook, but better because I didn't consciously decide to ramble down memory lane.  Instead it came upon me suddenly without premeditation.

Best of all, these are not necessarily items that I treasured when I put them into my pockets.  They were things to be stored but not to be consciously kept.

The things that you want to keep, you make an effort to put somewhere safe.  I have a whole set of boxes in my newly cleaned pantry with old letters and cards, ticket stubs and dried flowers that were important enough to make an effort preserving.  Pocket treasures, however, really are scraps.  They only move from scrap to treasure because they are reminders of something that had been totally forgotten.  The ATM receipt from my cash withdrawal in Paris, a ticket stub from Transformers 2 that was a major disappointment.  The handkerchief that I inherited from a dear family friend, a T token from the years I lived in Boston.

There are moments in life when we make an effort to remember certain details and emotions.  I imagine that my wedding day will be one of them.  The little details sometimes get lost in our efforts to remember the "important" things.  Pockets have a seemingly magical power to help remind us of those insignificant days; the days that make up most of our lives and seem to just seep in and around the pivotal ones, filling in the space.  Pockets are for the days that we didn't feel the need to take a picture, send a postcard or write a journal entry.

I hope the weather turns tonight.

Bathtubs and Feminists

I feel accomplished.  Today I went to work, ran a bunch of errands, had coffee "out" (I live in the country, like WAY out in the country), swept my kitchen, cleaned my pantry and most impressive of all I unclogged my bathtub drain and then scrubbed the tub.

Uh ya, the title of my blog is "Quotidian Art."  You shouldn't be surprised that the bathtub is making an appearance.

On days like this, when I unclog the tub or change a particularly tricky light bulb at an awkward height or place, set up my own wireless network or figure out how to release the garage door when the power is out, I feel a sense of pride.  If I was telling my dad about this he would chuckle and call me a "feminist."  Not that he thinks that I shouldn't do these things; he taught me to do most of them, in fact.  It is just that he gets a kick out of me bragging about my independent "accomplishments."  Over the weekend the concept of a "feminist" came up with my parents.  We were talking about a young woman that they know and my mom said, "I don't know if she is a feminist or not."  And that made me wonder, are there still feminists?  Or are women of my generation what women of my mom's generation would call "feminists" but really we were just raised with the equality and privilege that my grandmother's generation fought for?  (I've tried to make that more clear, but it isn't happening, sorry.)

So thanks to the efforts of past generations of great women, I can unclog a bathtub.  Real feminists probably would ask me to stop bragging about my success.

Soon I'll be moving out of the world of independent Miss and into (hopefully) independent Mrs.  Sometimes I worry, however, that being married will give me permission not do the hard things anymore.  In the future will I just ask MarinerMagic to unclog the drain?  If the car breaks down on the road will I call him to call the tow company instead of calling them myself?  Will I scream when I find the spider on my pillow and demand that he find it and kill it instead of just cooly brushing it off myself?  (Not likely; he hastes spiders more than I do.)

But now that he knows that I can do all those things myself, my married life is sure to be less cushy.  Shoot.

Addendum:  This afternoon my friend T sent me this article from The Guardian.  Check it out!
"Your not a feminist, but.....what?"  Chloe Angyal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/07/feminist-f-word-young-women

Kicking rocks

On a walk this afternoon with two fellow faculty members we found ourselves talking about the importance of demanding time for our own lives, recharging our batteries and finding the time to play.  Pretty quickly we were talking about the books that we had read theorizing the importance of play, discussing the NPR reports we had heard about the links between creativity and play all while nodding thoughtfully.  I was giggling as I pointed out the irony, which wasn't lost on any of us.  But sometimes I wonder if I have been over trained to think.

I don't like that I can turn something like "play" into an intellectual exercise.  But breaking large concepts down into smaller pieces and analyzing them, sometimes putting them together in new ways, is my job.  I get paid to think this way; and truthfully I'm damn lucky that I do.  At the same time, I hope that my ability to play isn't slowly leaching out of me.

One of my favorite things about my relationship with MarinerMagic is that we play together.  He is silly and I am silly and together we encourage one another's silliness.  I had had good relationships before he came into my life, but no one had ever played with me the way that he does while still holding me accountable for the important things.  He keeps my play alive.

My fellow faculty friend was sharing that the NPR report had talked about how little we play in American culture.  We are all about outcomes and productivity but we very rarely do something just for the sake of doing it; just because we enjoy it or we want to get lost in something that has no destination.  As she was talking I had vivid memories of childhood with my younger brother.  When we visited our grandparents in Florida we had some of the most fun together.  Every morning my grandmother would prepare breakfast.  Usually it was cereal but she always had blueberries, which seemed so decadent to us.  The blueberries would be life rafts for the sailors (read: cereal bits) that were floating in an ocean of milk.  The goal was to make sure that we always had a blueberry on each spoonful.  It was a game.  Not a game to get us to eat our food, just a game.  She just wanted to play with us.

She passed away this summer and I think about her almost everyday.  We played with our parents and we played with our friends, but playing with our grandmother was a different kind of play.  She was an adult who understood that play was fun.  And that was it.  That was its purpose.  When I was about 12 or 13 we spent the whole summer in Florida with our grandparents.  We rescued many cereal sailors and grandpa would wear a cowboy hat and call himself "Tex" while cooking things like "rattlesnake burgers" (read: hamburgers with some peppers.)  When I returned home after the summer I missed my grandmother so much that I taped her photo onto my the headboard of my twin bed.

We might lose the urge to play and we might even forget that play is, in fact, fun.  It has no purpose that we can measure, tabulate or put on a resume.  Going on vacation once or twice a year cannot replace some daily frivolity such as kicking a rock down the lane on your way to the office or pushing your hand against the wind as you drive down the road.  The good days are the days when I remember to play.