Sense Of Something Coming

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DReadingWired

Here is a sketch, from a few years ago, of my son at leisure. He is now leading a busy life teaching, writing, and painting, and is gifted for all three, yet restlessly wondering what lies around the next corner. For his birthday today I post this poem. Happy Birthday, dear Devin, and take heart.

I am like a flag in the center of open space.
I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live
it through.
while the things of the world still do not move:
the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full
of silence,
the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down.

I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.
I leap out, and fall back,
and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone
in the great storm.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

CakeTRexDevin


Magic Hands

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SusanKnitting

Here is friend and neighbor Susan, whose birthday it is today, and who, in all the years I have known her, rarely appears anywhere (except perhaps the theater) without a bag containing at least one current knitting project. Over the years I’ve watched beautiful pieces flow from her talented hands, destined for family, friends, or strangers in need: scarves, hats, sweaters for all ages, socks, and blankets—including a beautiful off-to-college afghan for her daughter Sara made of leftover scraps from years of Sara’s knitted garments. Each square carried distinct memories. At a recent gathering, we discovered that most of us happened to be wearing scarves Susan had made for us.

Her knitting alone might be a sufficient lifetime achievement, but Susan is also a rich literary and artistic resource, an endlessly interested and enthusiastic traveler through the world and through life, a doting mother, a fabulous cook, and a fun, funny and generous friend and human being. Happy, happy birthday, Susan, and many more to come!

CakeRedRosesSusan

 

SetsuBunny

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SetsuBunnyTwo celebrations fall on February 3rd in 2011: Setsubun, the Japanese demon-expelling festival; and Chinese New Year, the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. Today’s title was suggested by my brilliant husband.

The Rabbit is supposed to be the luckiest of all the signs. If you were born in the Year of the Rabbit, you are gentle, sensitive, modest, sincere, and affectionate yet shy. Rabbits enjoy being at home, surrounded by family and friends. They seek peace throughout their lives, and are sometimes seen as pushovers because they like to avoid conflict. Although the Rabbit above looks like a pretty tough character, he is, after all, defending his peaceful home from demons.

We have decided to celebrate the two events simultaneously, which will be a challenge. Setsubun involves eating as many beans as you are years old for luck, and hanging garlic or a fish head on your door and throwing beans while chanting the verse above (“Demons Out! Happiness In!”)—both useful practices for repelling demons. Chinese New Year means plenty of red decorations, writing good-fortune verses, and shooting off fireworks. For both events there is special clothing (kimonos, or anything red, or a bunny hat are all acceptable in our house) and of course special foods (like friend Mary’s world-famous Bunny Cake). And, although it’s not traditional, we are including Chinese horoscopes, fortune cookies, origami bunny-folding, and an impressive gathering in the dining room of all our children’s stuffed rabbits.

BTW, for our door we are choosing garlic instead of a fish head.

For another sketch of Setsubun, please see Demons Out! Happiness In!

For another sketch of Chinese New Year, please see Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright.

Groundhog Candlemas

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GroundhogCandlemas

This is the day on which, according to tradition, the groundhog makes all his candles for the coming year. (When he has finished, he will stick his nose outside the burrow to check the weather.)

For another picture of the groundhog at home, please see Light Those Fires.

CakeSnowmanRoshan (“Bright Light”)

CakePolkaDotsMarius—born today!


Action Jackson Part 1

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Pollock1

Throughout the 19th century, Europe remained indisputably the center of the Western art world. By the early 20th century, however, a conjunction of circumstances led to a significant non-European artistic development.

A devastating world war, followed only a decade later by widespread economic depression, the rapid decay and displacement of antique regimes, the alarming ascent of megalomaniacs to power, the ominous signs of another imminent war—all resulted in immense disruption and the repudiation of conventions and belief systems in every facet of society, including the arts, on both sides of the Atlantic. Another result of this disturbance was the arrival on U.S. shores of emigrating European intellectuals, scientists, writers, musicians—and artists.

American artists were already actively familiar with what was happening on European easels. Some had spent time studying and working abroad. Others had attempted a departure from Old World movements to pursue more locally relevant directions based on indigenous traditions and subject matter. In the 1930s this was encouraged by WPA funding of new, large-scale public art.

If you like to think of the United States as a giant compost heap (I do), you can see that this blend of rich organic matter and seed varieties would result in some interesting hybrids. Modern American painting experiments reflected diverse influences: the flattening abstraction of Cubism, the fluid intensity of Expressionism, the subconscious/dream imagery of Surrealism, the spontaneity and iconoclasm of Dada, the scale and power of Mexican mural-painting.

But someone came along whose work simultaneously drew upon, melded, and broke the boundaries of all these, with the birth of Abstract Expressionism—a purely materialist expressive form that seems somehow appropriate for the United States, the ultimate “materialist” nation. This was Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), whose birthday it is today. (Please see Action Jackson Part 2.)

For the story of another artist born on this day, please see It’s an Oldenburg.

CakeBalloons2Alexander

March On

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DonkeyJourney

Hmm, you may be saying. Isn’t this a DECEMBER post?

But no, today is a January double anniversary. On this day in 1870, caricaturist Thomas Nast first used the donkey as a symbol for the Democratic party.

A donkey had been used decades earlier in the 1830s during the campaign of Andrew Jackson. When his political opponents labeled him a “jackass” for his stubbornness, Jackson took advantage of the insult and used the animal on his campaign posters to represent instead his unyielding tenacity of purpose.

Nast, however, in his cartoon, “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” intended his depiction to rebuke the Democratic party for its disrespectful treatment of the recently deceased Edwin M. Stanton, Abraham Lincoln’s controversial Secretary of War. Nast went on to use the Democratic donkey in later, similarly admonishing cartoons, and the association eventually became permanent. The donkey symbol has the advantage of interpretation by the viewer as representing either 1. (if you are anti-Democratic) foolish obstinacy, or 2. (if you are pro-Democratic) humble determination.

Both the names and the respective goals of American political parties have evolved over the years. It was, after all, Republican Abraham Lincoln who authored the Emancipation Proclamation, after the newly formed Republican party split off from the slavery-supporting Whigs. But, over the last century, the Democratic donkey has become a symbol, both respected and derided, of progressive values. At times it seems the Democratic party is mired in confusion, lacking direction, and anything but resolute. But if we take the veeerry looong view, we can see, beyond party affiliation, the ultimate triumph of progressive goals.

Which brings us to our second anniversary, the birthday on January 15th of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), whose dedication, passion, eloquence and non-violent means effected tremendous change in attitudes and legislation. King is now such a heroic cultural icon that it might even surprise some of today’s schoolchildren to learn of the bitterness and vile tactics of his enemies, the assaults and death threats directed against him and his followers, the fierce opposition to what strikes us today as self-evident fairness and justice.

With his lifelong struggle for desegregation and civil rights, his goal to end poverty and compensate descendants of slaves, his protest against United States support of Latin American dictators, his encouragement to redirect government funds from the Vietnam War toward healing of social ills, he was clearly a man way ahead of many of his small-minded fellow citizens. And in this he seemed, sadly, destined for martyrdom.

Today the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March On Washington, and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act are the stuff of history textbooks. And, thanks to the Internet and YouTube, we can celebrate Martin Luther King Day by listening to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in recognition of the progress we have made. So far.