first efforts

Cautiously optimistic

  London, 1934, courtesy BoingBoing

I greet the New Year feeling a little bit like this baby. Pretty cool to be out here in the open air. And so high up! Lots to see, too. What a view! But I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty exposed right now. And also? It's a hell of a long way down. Perhaps it's best just to hold on tight and see what develops...

Well now, here's something you don't see every day!

 Found this little gem today while doing research for my Obama/White House art project:  

First Lady Betty Ford dancing on the table in the Cabinet Room at the White House

image credit: Jan. 19, 1977; WhiteHouseMuseum.org via Ford Library

My name is Cara, and I read books about writing.

I've always thought of the week between Christmas and New Year's as a freebie week. We take a day to get back home after Christmas, then another half day at least to open mail, do laundry, grocery shop, and spring the pets from the "spa." Toss in some college basketball, maybe a bowl game or a Christmas movie and bang, it's New Year's Eve and you've hardly done any real work. But, judging from the lack of email accumulating in your in-box, nobody else seems to be doing much either. Anything you actually get done is extra credit, right? Right? Please say yes...

This is also the week of the year where I start thinking about all the things I love to do when I'm not bogged down in midsemester hell. I start dreaming of how I must begin anew. I call this The Intervention. This is not the same as a New Year's resolution, though it may on the surface appear to be similar.The Intervention actually happens three times a year - in late December/early January, then again in May when the semester is over, and in August before school begins again. The process involves much angst and gnashing of teeth, wondering where things went so horribly wrong with my ability to keep up a suitable writing schedule. After passing through several stages of grief, during which I lament the words that never got written, the unfinished projects not completed, the creative visions never visualized, I emerge recommitted to once again finding THE PERFECT SCHEDULE which will result in the satisfaction of my wildest creative dreams.

I'm not just talking about writing for my job, by the way, but all of my various creative projects. Despite the fact that work for pay increasingly dominates my life to the exclusion of much else, I remain committed to the idea that there is more I want and need to do. So, in addition to thinking carefully about how I will make time to write during any given semester's hectic schedule, I also draw upon and revisit other sources to spur my creativity. Yes, I'll finally admit it here: I'm addicted to books about writing. This blog's title, in fact, is clear evidence of my addiction. I buy these books by the bucketful. In fact, I bought a new one just last week up at Common Good Books in St. Paul - the new book by Julia Cameron, even though it's exactly, criminally the same as every single book about creativity that she has ever written. She makes a living because of addicts like me. What's worse, I often read these books about writing in lieu of actually writing.

All of which is why I laughed out loud at this 43folders post about "National Read Endless Superficial Advice About Writing Month." In addition to offering the most embarrassingly accurate description of my addiction I've ever seen, it also offers the "Top 1 Habit of Amazing Writers":

"They write."

Ahem.

Of course, one could look on the bright side and argue that I just did.

Merry Christmas Eve

 

 

  St. Paul

 

Merry Christmas, Madison and Cecil!

You lookin' at me?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

    I would also like to call your attention to the painting to the left of DeNiro. It's President John Tyler, painted by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1859. According to research I've been doing on White House art, it was one of President Clinton's favorite paintings because, according to Hillary Clinton, "it shows him tearing up the newspapers."

image credit: Pete Souza, Dec. 6, 2009. White House Flickr Photostream

Wait for it..."Abraham Obama" in the White House

Ron English's Abraham Obama made it all the way to the White House, as seen on Oprah's White House Christmas tour with the First Lady. You'll need to wait for it; it appears at the very end. Tip: Banksy Art Forum.

The Grading Chamber

Blue pen? Check.

Comfy couch? Check.

iTunes playing "A Charlie Brown Christmas"? Check.               

Tiny canine companion? Check.

'Tis the season.

Know your histories of appropriation!

This morning brought an email from a former student , who passed along a news story from her local paper in Springfield, IL. The full story's here, but here's the short version: apparently an AP art student at Chatham Glenwood High School designed a mural for the school which is an appropriation of Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. The mural replaces the American flag of the original photograph with a wind turbine, to signal the role this generation of students will need to play in taking care of the environment. 

After the mural was approved by the school, some faculty and community members objected. The chair of the social studies department objects to the mural because, as he puts it, "You’re taking history and a known historic image and basically distorting it." There is also concern that this appropriation of the Iwo Jima image may offend some World War II veterans who are sometimes invited to the school to speak about their experiences in the war. Ultimately, the decision was made to keep the mural but to put it in an upstairs hallway, away from the first floor social studies classrooms.

For students of visual politics, this controversy is puzzling to say the least. While some veterans suggest they are offended by the image, the claim (from a social studies teacher, no less) that the mural inappropriately distorts a "known historic image" shows real ignorance of visual history. There is perhaps no more appropriated image than the Iwo Jima photograph. It's been turned into a memorial. It's been used by the U.S. government to sell war bonds. Its form was famously echoed to commemorate heroism after 9/11. And, it's the go-to visual topos for editorial cartoonists. To suggest that its iconicity makes it somehow inviolable is to fail to understand its iconicity. Instead of excoriating the appropriation, it might be useful instead for the social studies teachers to consider, as some communication scholars have, the resources within the image that lead folks to associate it with the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship.

Timing is everything

White House photographer Pete Souza captures the president right before he goes onstage to deliver his Afghanistan speech on Tuesday night. Given all the conversation about the timing of the troop escalation, the timetable for withdrawal, etc., I find the digital display of military time especially apt.

image credit: Pete Souza, West Point, NY, 12.1.09; White House Flickr photostream