11/30/09
Brad Pitt’s Gifts to New Orleans
Cultured Traveler
By FRED A. BERNSTEIN
AL ANDREWS, who lives on Tennessee Street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, said he didn’t mind the tour buses coming through his neighborhood, but he wished the visitors “would give some of what they pay to the community.” Mr. Andrews lives in one of the brightly colored, modernist houses rising on a small patch of the Lower Ninth, four years after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
In 2007, frustrated by the slow pace of rebuilding in the Lower Ninth, Brad Pitt set up a foundation called Make It Right; the foundation then commissioned 13 architecture firms to design affordable, green houses. The organization plans to build 150 homes, all for returning Lower Ninth residents. So far, just 15 of them are occupied, but those 15 make a big impression.
Indeed, from the main route into the Lower Ninth, the Claiborne Avenue Bridge, it’s impossible to miss the Brad Pitt Houses, as everyone here calls them. They are sprawling, angular buildings in bold hues not usually seen outside a gelateria. Monuments to the city’s resilience, and to Hollywood’s big heart, they are also New Orleans’s newest tourist attraction.
Tour buses, including those of Cajun Encounters (504-834-1770; www.cajunencounters.com) and Gray Line (504-587-0709; www.graylineneworleans.com), pass by the houses but don’t stop to let passengers walk around. You can also take a taxi the five miles or so from the city’s center to the Lower Ninth; the round-trip fare is under $30. (Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for Make It Right, said the organization may eventually offer tours, but “right now the priority is getting residents settled.”)
I drove a rental car, following MapQuest directions, to the intersection of Tennessee and North Galvez Streets, near the heart of the new enclave. I found that residents like Mr. Andrews and his neighbor, Gertrude LeBlanc, were happy to converse. “If we don’t talk,” Ms. LeBlanc, a cheerful septuagenarian, said, “how will people know what happened to us?”
During my previous trip to the Lower Ninth four years ago, I mainly saw devastation. Wrecked houses were everywhere. Now much of the debris has been cleared, and acre after acre has gone back to nature, with grass almost as high as the reconstructed levees. The main effect in much of the district is an eerie stillness.
But “Brad Pitt’s neighborhood” is a beehive of activity, with builders and landscapers vastly outnumbering residents. A sign in front of each of the houses gives the name and city of its architect. One, called the Float House, was designed by the Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne of Los Angeles. The main part of the house is built to rise with surging flood waters, on pylons that keep it from coming loose. It’s difficult to see the innovative foundation, but unusual external features are easy to spot, such as a kind of trellis cut into intricate patterns and painted turquoise, set against the raspberry-hued building.
Nearby, an angular house by GRAFT, a multinational architecture firm, features a porch enclosure that looks as though it had been cracked open by a storm, an unfortunate visual resonance. A house by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has a private courtyard space between the living room and bedrooms, but none of the detailing that would make it feel like a part of New Orleans.
Indeed, the houses seem better suited to an exhibition of avant-garde architecture than to a neighborhood struggling to recover. A number of designers I talked to, some of whom had visited the neighborhood, lamented the absence of familiar forms that would have comforted returning residents.
James Dart, a Manhattan-based architect who was born and raised in New Orleans, described the houses as “alien, sometimes even insulting,” adding, “the biggest problem is that they are not grounded in the history of New Orleans architecture.” But, like other architects I spoke to, he expressed admiration for Mr. Pitt. “He deserves a great deal of credit,” Mr. Dart said, adding that Mr. Pitt had “done more for New Orleans” than any government agency.
Jennifer Pearl, a broker who has several houses for sale in the Lower Ninth, has a practical view. “Brad has the very best intentions,” she said. “However, had he come here with houses that looked like what had been here before, he probably could have had four times, five times as many houses up by now.”
Another issue with the houses (except for Mr. Mayne’s) is their elevation: to protect them from future floods, they have been built on stilts that turn their front porches into catwalks. The goal of porches is to create a sense of community, and that’s hard to do when neighbors and passersby are literally overshadowed.
“It’s like New York — you know, the skyscrapers,” said Ms. LeBlanc, who lives in a single-story house next to one of the much larger Make It Right creations, like a Mini Cooper boxed in by SUVs. “And there are going to be more,” she added.
To most residents, the construction is simply good news. “It’s hard living here now, but it’s going to be worth it,” said Melba Leggett-Barnes, a cafeteria worker, who is concerned about crime in the neighborhood. The lack of commercial activity is also disappointing. “We used to be able to go to the corner store,” she said. “Now we don’t have a grocery; we don’t have a laundry.”
Ms. Leggett-Barnes, whose house was designed by the Philadelphia firm KieranTimberlake, is — literally — the poster child for Make It Right; her image, plastered on bus-shelter signs around the city, urges former residents to return to the neighborhood.
“There may be people who want to move back,” she said, “but don’t know that it’s possible.”
Some visitors also make a stop at the other end of the Lower Ninth, on Andry Street, where three houses built by Global Green (another Brad Pitt-supported charity) stand bright and inviting — and unoccupied. The houses, by Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of Workshop/APD in New York, are listed for $175,000. (One of them is open to visitors; Monday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; or call 504-525-2121 for an appointment.)
Unlike the Make It Right houses, which are reserved for returning residents of the Lower Ninth, the Global Greens are available to anyone. “We’d love it if you’d buy one,” Ms. Pearl said, a hopeful lilt in her voice.
Kassel, Germany Museum Fridericianum Carlos Amorales: Nuevos Ricos
Museum Fridericianum
Dates: 5 Dec 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present) Latin American
Address: Friedrichsplatz 18 Kassel d-34117
Tel: +49 (0)561 70 72 720 Website
This large-scale exhibition presents an overview of Mexican-born artist Carlos Amorales’ “Nuevos Ricos” project, which refers to the rapid profits made in the 1970s Mexican music and art businesses. Nuevos Ricos is the name of the record label Amorales founded in 2003 with Mexican musician Julian Léde. The label combines art and music performances that critically address issues of franchising and piracy. “This elaborate oeuvre is completed now, giving way for a rich retrospective,” says curator Rein Wolfs. Throughout five rooms, photographs, videos, performances and installations illustrate the artist’s “concern with the relation of art and commerce, the proliferation in art, and the underlying economic factors,” adds Wolfs. The first room documents concert performances by Amorales, displaying photographs, videos and texts. A second space will be covered with motifs and extracts from the artist’s “Liquid Archive”, a creative source of images and texts, which he began collecting in 1999. The archive forms a central part of Amorales’ work, containing his red and black letters as well as templates often depicting frightening nocturnal scenes. A specially built concert room will stage live performances by Amorales and Léde on the show’s opening night as “his main focus is to establish a link to the real world in his art”, says the curator. This is especially the case with the two “shops” on display, which occupy the final two rooms of the exhibition. While Amorales presents a Nuevo Ricos Franchise shop, two Colombian artists will show a “copied” shop, called the Nuevos Ricos Franchise Pirate. “Amorales critically deals with the notion of copying and piracy but also points out the positive and continuative aspects of the proliferation of art,” notes Wolfs. The highlight of the show is Amorales’s site-specific installation for the museum’s rotunda. A 20-metre wide mural contemplates the process of duplication, depicting silhouettes of hundreds of black wolves running on a red and white background (example pictured). Josi von Perfall
Taking the war in Iraq to the American people
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Monday 30 Nov 09
Taking the war in Iraq to the American people
A British conceptual artist, an Iraqi artist and a US soldier who served in Iraq travelled from New York to Los Angeles with the remains of a car destroyed in a Baghdad bomb attack in tow
By Esam Pasha | Web only
Published online 17 Jun 09 (Features)
Jeremy Deller on a farm in Summertown, Tennessee
In March British artist Jeremy Deller took the shell of a burnt-out car to the New Museum in New York. The vehicle had been hit by a bomb attack in central Baghdad in which 35 people died. Members of the public were invited to ask veterans, journalists, scholars and Iraqi nationals about the situation in Iraq for a project entitled: “It Is What It Is”. Deller then took the remains of the vehicle on a three-week road trip from New York to Los Angeles in a project co-sponsored by the public art group Creative Time. He was joined by Jonathan Harvey, a US soldier who served in Iraq; an Iraqi artist, Esam Pasha, who worked as a translator for the US army and now lives in the US; a curator from New York; a writer and a road manager. The Iraqi artist, Esam Pasha, sent us his account of the journey.
From the first day until the last day of the trip three weeks later, people had conversations and arguments with us about the whole Iraqi issue. Many ranted at us. There were a lot of good conversations on all levels. People asked me about everything big and small. Like how Iraqis spend their days and how they let their children go to school through streets full of shooting and car bombs. And even what kind of tea they drink. I was happy to talk about the things that people don’t hear about in the news.
One of the best and longest conversations we had was in Washington, DC. We met an Iraqi activist who was enthusiastic about the project but upset by the fact that we didn’t have a political agenda. It is this that made the journey successful: having no slogans for or against the war, just real conversations about what happened and is happening on the ground in the war zone.
This man said: “You have to put your cards on the table. Are you for the war or against it? I will put my cards on the table and tell you I am against the war.” Both Harvey and I explained that our project is not about making this kind of statement. It is just talking about Iraq through the experience of an Iraqi artist who lived his life there and an American solider who served there. That’s why the exhibition is called “It Is What It Is”. “There is more to Iraq than just war—the history, the culture and life in all its details,” I told him. Again he said: “The war in Iraq is immoral and has to stop. You have to stand against the war, it doesn’t make sense to talk about other issues in Iraq at this time.” It took more than 40 minutes until he said: “I understand the importance of what you are doing and I think it is good”.
That was the first of many other encounters with activists. They usually wanted to turn our project into a demonstration against the war. Of course each of us on the trip had his own opinion about the war. None of us kept it secret. But protest was not the point of the exhibition. If we had had a slogan like that, people that agreed with us wouldn’t have had a reason to stop and talk to us. And those who disagreed, wouldn’t want to waste their time either.
After Washington, DC, we went to Richmond, Virginia. At night we slept in hotels and in the morning we would set up our tent and talk to people. Then, in the evenings we would leave for another city. From Virginia we went to Philadelphia, where we met with Harvey’s parents, and then to Cincinnati, Ohio.
There were a lot of wonderful places along the way that I had never been to in the few years that I have spent in this country. And more people on the streets that have interesting points of view and are eager to discuss them with someone who has experience of the war in Iraq. In this they were unlike most of the crowds inside conference rooms and museums who usually have preset opinions and just want to argue their case.
The six of us on the trip had different reasons for being there. Mine was to promote Iraqi culture and history. To bring it closer to people so they would know that Iraqis are not a hateful enemy. They are people who love freedom just as much as the countries that justify putting tanks and barbed wire in Iraq to liberate it. It was in Iraq that the first law in history was written. The first word before that. I was trying to represent my country as best I could.
In Richmond we spoke to Cory, a US soldier who had served in Iraq. He approached us with his girlfriend. It’s not unusual for soldiers not to talk to their families about their experiences in a war zone. With us they feel free to relate their stories and experiences and even make dark jokes that civilians don’t really understand. They feel more understood. It seemed to Harvey and me that Cory’s girlfriend was hearing his stories for the first time. Then the three of us talked about the technicalities of war. I felt like I was standing in a US army base in Baghdad.
Cory explained how, on one occasion, there were snipers shooting at him and his fellow soldiers and one of them kept trying to shoot him over and over again with no luck: “He was good at hiding himself where we couldn’t find him.” Eventually the US soldiers dropped a bomb on three buildings and there were no more shots. It turns out this is how the US army dealt with snipers in Sadr City in 2007. They simply dropped bombs on the buildings that had shots coming out of them. “You bomb a whole building to get a sniper?” I asked him. “It’s self defence, we were defending ourselves,” he said, leaving me wondering if he was trying to convince me or himself. “Yes, it’s like if I broke into your home and when you try to kick me out I shoot you in self defence,” I said. “Yes,” replied Cory.
Finally we made it to Los Angeles and the car was put on display in the Hammer Museum.
On this trip we met all kinds of people. The car made a big impact and everyone was curious, so they would ask questions and get involved in conversation. Ironically people out in the streets seemed to get the idea more than people in museums. They understood the meaning of the project, whereas in a museum people tried to speculate in an artistic manner. Some would think the bombed car is the work of art. Jeremy kept telling them the car is not the work, it is just an exhibit. It was so exiting when people in the streets talked to us and disagreed with us and even sometimes ranted at us. Much more interesting than those people who just stated the obvious and tried to be understanding without caring enough to have questions.
So was this journey a work of art? I believe art is all about reaching out to people. And this is exactly what we did for three weeks. Connecting America from east to west with a distant country with wounds as deep as its history goes.
Jeff Koons on his Serpentine show, his inspirations and how his studio system works
Monday 30 Nov 09
Jeff Koons on his Serpentine show, his inspirations and how his studio system works
The US artist reveals what he hopes to communicate to the public through his work
By Adrian Dannatt | From issue 204, July/August 2009
Published online 5 Aug 09 (Features)
Jeff Koons in his New York studio, where he employs more than 120 assistants
Touring Jeff Koons's gigantic Chelsea studio in anticipation of his big summer solo show at the Serpentine in London (until 13 September) is rich in discombobulation. This is partly because the place is just so large: endless cavernous rooms, one after the other, teeming with workers and assistants, more than 120 of them, all hard at work in intense silence producing paintings and sculptures, maquettes and studies, a high-tech laboratory somewhere between a James Bond set and a Warholian super-studio. But it is also because Koons himself, always unfailingly polite, gracious and soft-spoken, is a genius not so much at self-promotion as self-deflection, seemingly ignoring some questions only to later reveal that he has been pondering them secretly. Koons likes to concentrate on technical descriptions of the work at hand mixed with sudden bursts of cryptic oratory, a sort of self-help conceptualism minted from Andy’s deadpan American optimism. Just as Koons’s work remains ever-ambiguous about just how dumb or smart it really is, likewise the man can seem like a New Age huckster repeating banal platitudes only to surprise one with the sheer smartness of some observation. If Koons and his steady ascension to wealth and fame might seem reminiscent of “Chance the Gardener”, as played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 film Being There, a simpleton whose simplicity is confused with sagacity, there is no denying his current status. Indeed it is when Koons runs one briefly through a selection of his art collection on his computer—from the Poussin on loan to the Metropolitan which he keeps as his screensaver, to the Manet, the Courbet, the medieval wooden sculpture, the Pharaonic head, the Magritte and Dalà paintings, the major Picassos—that one realises not only just how rich he must be but how deep his interest is in art history and how obsessively he can talk about one image in intricate detail. This large and impressive collection may be cunningly intended to make one see his own work in the very grandest historical context, to make even the toughest sceptic grant him the benefit of the doubt. And it works.
The Art Newspaper: Your show at the Serpentine is of the “Popeye” series of paintings and sculptures, which you began in 2002, but a lot of the works are being made here, right now.
Jeff Koons: Some works have been here since 1994, it can take a very long time to complete a series. The “Popeye” series began in 2002 but most of the pieces are only just being completed and shipped directly to the show. Here’s a Triple Popeye painting sprayed completely with a reflective surface, with what looks like a brushstroke, to give that sense of gesture to it, to give a sense of movement, a sort of abstraction.
TAN: All your work has this very long incubation period?
JK: My newest work, that comes after Popeye, is all in production and will take a couple of years to be completed, there’s always this long development time. Basically if I have an idea today I have to wait at least two years [until the work is finished].
TAN: The “Popeye” paintings are hand-painted images of what look like mechanical reproductions of hand-painted images. It’s like Roy Lichtenstein painting artificial looking brush strokes.
JK: I don’t feel they’re so like Roy’s fake-gestures, each of these broad sweeps is hand-painted with very small brushes, we never use sponges or anything larger. The whole art work is a gesture and all these gestures are about doing something with your life, about what you really want to do. This is very fluid, at a distance you can see the imagery, but up close it is very abstract. They’re about [the] history of European art. I love it when there’s a revelation in art, when you see things you have not seen before, connections that you make yourself, not that you’re supposed to make, when those things are there for you. There are French 19th-century brushstrokes we’re painting alongside the Magic Marker lines…they really work together. I like the sense of warmth that comes from an actual painting and that’s why I returned to making paintings. I like a certain power of image, but it’s not that it has to look artificially made, I would like a greater warmth than that.
TAN: Can one judge the success of these paintings in old-fashioned terms of skill?
JK: We’ve really captured the richness of these gestures, I made these gestures, some my children made, they’re very well painted, some of the best painting we’ve done. Different people have different skills, but it’s about continuing to show people how to look at things. That’s why the paintings have continued to develop, when people realise they can create anything, to be able to see it, look at these sources and to understand, I don’t have to paint it wet-into-wet, I can capture that more as a printed-type image.
TAN: You own great work by Lichtenstein and Courbet, do you see your work as a sort of synthesis?
JK: Absolutely, this line drawing could refer to Courbet but you could also see it as a young man walking his dog in the Swiss alps, the dot pattern starts to almost create its own brushstrokes, to gather up and create its own fake gesture.
TAN: As a teenage student you called up Dalà to meet him.
JK: I own the wash study of the painting of tigers that Dalà stood against when I met him. I saw this other Dalà painting at a recent auction, [Untitled (Nature morte au drapé blanc), 1969], and there was something very familiar about it. The last painting Dalà made, The Swallow’s Tail, if you look at it and then the movement inside the shroud [in the painting I just bought] you can see the connection. So I was absolutely thrilled to be able to have this. I can see the same shapes that he has used repeatedly over the decades.
TAN: Dalà is an artist you always acknowledge.
JK: Dalà is very important to me. I think Dalà had moments of real genius, and he had moments of great generosity—being generous to me, a young artist from Pennsylvania who called him up and said: “I’m an artist; I’d like to meet you” and he just said: “Sure, come and meet me.” That was really generous, likewise Roy Lichtenstein. I think that sense of generosity is so important in art. I love having a sense of a connection with these artists, with those who have made art history. A connection in the sense of really being open to their vocabulary—trying to articulate and incorporate the vocabularies they spent a lifetime developing.
TAN: Your art collection is mainly of old masters and 19th-century European painting. You also have works by Jenny Holzer, Hirst and Prince, but you seem less interested in collecting your contemporaries.
JK: I used to have Kippenberger’s self-portrait that’s on the cover of the Taschen book, the one with the hammer and sickle, and also work by Albert Oehlen. I’ve always lived with Struth and with Lichtenstein. Roy was great, a tremendous man, and very supportive, I have his easel right here, which he designed himself, with the colours of the paint of the landscape Roy was working on [when he died]. But I’m so involved in contemporary art myself that I’m much more interested in art from a different time. I have a little bit of a sense what it’s like to be alive today, to try and make work today, so contemporary art isn’t so important to me. I’m more interested in what it meant to be alive, to be trying to make art, in other times, in a very different culture.
TAN: It may not be obvious to all viewers but you have this very precise sense of your own relation to art history.
JK: This sculpture is from a tiny wax gorilla from [the shop at] the Los Angeles Zoo, we have scanned it and are building it out of hand-polished black granite to an extreme finish so it will look like wax. This is a take on a 19th-century French sculpture, Gorilla Carrying Off a Woman, 1887, by Emmanuel Frémiet, really the origin of King Kong. Here’s a pink granite ballerina with live flowers planted within the stone, so the narrative really just jumps back to Pagan art, back to Venus. There’s a modern narrative in Popeye, but where the spinach normally is, there will be begonias.
TAN: A lot of artists now outsource the production of their work to Asia and you could get this work done at half the price in China.
JK: The studio for me is a sense of family, of community. One of the wonderful things about art is that you don’t have to be so conscious of the bottom line, though you have to be somewhat aware of budget, you’re dealing with the impractical, the impossible, you’re pushing things to the edge. It’s always been important to me to feel self-reliant but at the same time I like the sense of providing for a community.
TAN: It must be daunting running an operation of this scale. Are you ever tempted to go back to making work by yourself?
JK: I used to make all my own sculpture, my paintings, but if I did that it would severely limit the range of projects that I could be involved with. I follow my interests in some way that feels profound to me, those that seem to have a deeper meaning. I feel completely free to do whatever I want to do. But I have to edit my work a lot, because of the process, the amount of time it takes to actually make things, you really have to make the things you want to make, otherwise you’re wasting a lot of energy.
TAN: How important is the assumed innocence of childhood to your aesthetic?
JK: I remember my own childhood, it was just like enjoying green, green grass, breathing in and feeling its moisture and loving it. As a child, there is just an acceptance, you don’t feel that something is expected of you. Some people don’t accept themselves, their own histories, they debase themselves by external forces which want to fill them with insecurities, people end up feeling their own cultural history is insufficient or incorrect. None of that operates in childhood, it is just acceptance, you know you love pink because pink is pink.
TAN: Is there a notion of art as deception, for example, with your inflatables that should be light but are actually heavy—the opposite of Richard Serra’s notion of the integrity of weight, that sculpture must weigh what it looks?
JK: I don’t think of it as deception but as “either/or” or “Ying & Yang”, I think of the inflatables as anthropomorphic, we are ourselves inflatables, we take a breath, we expand, we contract, our last breath in life, our deflation. By contrast these objects have a permanence to them, they maintain a non-divisible sense of life, of continuity. Maybe it’s also almost like learning to swim, that extraordinary experience almost like birthing, the independence of when you can finally swim yourself. The viewer feels their own possibilities and whatever their interests are, they feel more excited to meet their own potential, that’s what I hope the viewer experiences.
TAN: Was your own sense of potential directly unlocked by coming into contact with art?
JK: When I was younger I remember that I started to draw and my parents would make me feel as though I had a gift. For some reason I could make a beautiful drawing, do something that was special. I had an older sister and because she was three years older I always thought she could do everything better than me, but with art I felt I could do something better. Art always created a certain amount of anxiety, because: What is it? What’s art? As a kid taking art lessons I enjoyed sitting round with the others making art, that sense of community, but I was never really sure what art was. It wasn’t until I got to art school that I realised how art continues throughout human history, everything opened up. For me it’s always been this journey about the removal of anxiety. Then you learn to trust in the self, developing a sense of personal iconography that gives you the ability to work in a biological way, getting people to feel certain sensations. Then eventually you just become so bored with the self you want to start looking outside yourself which leads to the ultimate, which is trusting in others…
“Jeff Koons: Popeye Series” is at the Serpentine Gallery in London until 13 September. The artist’s work will also be included in “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” at Tate Modern, London (1 October-17 January 2010)
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America is changing—but are its art museums?
Most major institutions are still run by white people, are supported by them, and tailor their exhibitions to suit them
By Martha Lufkin | From issue 204, July/August 2009
Published online 12 Aug 09 (Features)
The Brooklyn Museum has increased its percentage of non-white visitors from 17% to 45% in the last 12 years. Above, Yinka Shonibare's Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 11.00 Hours, 1998, is on view in an exhibition of the artist's work until 20 September
Nobody seems to have any meaningful statistics. But you do not have to look at major US art museums for long to realise that most of the senior management is white, unlike staff at comparable levels in corporations, universities and government offices. When is this going to change? Those leading efforts to diversify museums say the economic reality of who pays to support institutions has not evolved sufficiently to require any lasting push for change. But American demographics are shifting swiftly. US minority groups will become the majority in a few decades. And art museums will have to diversify to survive.
The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) raised the issue back in the 1990s, but “sufficient progress” has not been made, says Johnnetta Cole, director of the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) at the Smithsonian Institution. Before joining the NMAfA, as chairman of the board of an institute on diversity in Greensboro, North Carolina which she founded, Dr Cole advised major US corporations on improving diversity of employees. “There is a moral imperative for making a workforce diverse,” she says, “but major corporations also now see that it is the smart thing to do. You cannot compete well in a highly diverse, global market if your workforce represents only a thin slice of those who live in the world.” Museums need more people of colour throughout the ranks, including “in the top positions” and not just at the level of security guards, she says. Major resources should be put into “attracting young people of colour away from more lucrative competitive fields” into museum leadership positions, she adds. Museums should also diversify what they present to the public, she says, to change the focus from “white, western” content which is often produced by male artists. “If museums are to be vibrant and sustainable,” she says, “they cannot present the work of only a select group of people.”
Ford Bell, President of the American Association of Museums, agrees. “The big challenge is going to be how museums deal with the increasingly diverse American public, which could be 30% or more Hispanic by 2050. If you go to a museum, and don’t see anybody else who looks like you, from visitors to staff, and the boards are not reflecting the community, you may be less likely to come back, or even to go in the first place.” School programmes have fostered museum-going beginning at a young age, he says, but he notes that programmes have been cut because of tight budgets and fuel prices.
Anthony Hirschel, director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, has led an AAMD membership committee task force charged with considering how the group might diversify its membership, but also to ask what the organisation can do “so that in the future, some of the largest art museums in the country would be led by people of colour—and it would not be considered remarkable,” Hirschel says. “Few museums would say that their staffs are as diverse as they should be. How can we create a new stream of professionals that is more diverse?”
Some museums have made big efforts, and seen the results. Arnold Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, considers diversity “a critical issue” and says “the most important book any museum director should read is the US Census.” Lehman encourages affirmative action in employment, because in his experience at Brooklyn, “no matter how widely a position was advertised, there were always more white applicants than applicants of colour.” Lehman says he is “proud that so many departments at Brooklyn are run by people of colour”. In a diverse urban setting, he says, “the people of your community want to know there is a diverse staff in significant positions” throughout the museum.
Lehman also urges a sustained, pro-active effort in exhibitions, which a diverse staff can help develop. But exhibitions should not be presented to attract diverse audiences “only every few years. The notion, for instance, of presenting African-American programming only in February, which is Black History Month, is ridiculous, and perhaps even counterproductive.” The Brooklyn Museum has developed “one show after another” featuring artists of colour—both “smaller and blockbuster shows. It is that kind of commitment and continuity that our audience comes to rely upon.” In his 12-year tenure, the Brooklyn Museum’s visitor make-up, not counting school children, has risen from about 17% people of colour to about 45%, a percentage which Lehman says probably “has few or no peers in the United States. But that’s not enough. We want to get our audience to fully represent the diversity of Brooklyn and that of New York City.” The Brooklyn’s monthly free “First Saturdays” are “jam-packed” with events to appeal to the area’s African-American, Latino and Asian-American communities.
Similar initiatives have been introduced by Graham Beal, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) since 1999. As well as regular exhibitions and programming, Beal has encouraged first-time visitors to DIA from specific groups to “use it as a place to meet and gather” as part of a programme entitled “Community Connections”. Publicised mainly through word-of-mouth with the help of employees and board members, the initiative targets African-American, Latino, and Arab-American communities and has been a “huge success” says Beal. “At the last opening, we had hundreds of people attending and the museum actually looked like Detroit looks,” he says.
But Beal acknowledges that his efforts to engage local communities are “moving much more slowly than I had ever anticipated.” One challenge is the suspicion with which community leaders can view new initiatives. “I had a conversation very early on with someone from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I gave him my pitch and he said: ‘Why are you doing this?’ They felt like we’d ignored them for over 100 years, so there was a deep suspicion about our motives—they assumed we wanted something from them.”
Beal has presided over the opening of five galleries dedicated to African-American art, four in the modern and contemporary section and one, of 19th-century art, in the American Wing. “The community wants to see itself distinctly defined” within the museum, he says, but one problem is that the artists themselves often do not wish to be “segregated” in this way.
In Houston, Peter Marzio of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFAH) has just added the third in a series of five permanent Asian art galleries, drawing on strong local support. From the 1980s, beginning with grants from the Wallace Foundation, the museum has tried to become “a place for all people,” including Houston’s growing Asian-American population. The museum’s Asian-American collection “was weak,” Marzio says. “We went to anyone who would listen, in events at hotels and restaurants, and told them our museum is the product of the people who live in Houston. If they wanted to see more Indian, Korean or Chinese art, we told them they had the chance.” The public responded phenomenally, Marzio says; the Korean community raised over $2 million through broad donations to acquire Korean art and help build a permanent gallery. The Indian community held a polo match, and significant donors came forward. “What makes it all happen is that nobody’s been ‘given’ anything” without their input, which avoids creating programmes which the audience might not want, Marzio says. The biggest success has been in Latin American art, Marzio says; Houston’s schools are now 50% Latino. The museum started a Latin American department, hired a curator, and created the International Center for the Arts of the Americas. The project seeks to make primary source material on Latin American art available in translation online, with funding from Latin American supporters and foundations.
Another museum with a Latino community, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), has joined forces with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) to launch a Latino Arts Initiative. Lacma wanted to develop “home-grown exhibitions” of US Latino and Chicano artists, and programming, publications and community relations, says Chon Noriega, the research centre’s director. Lacma appointed a Latina curator of contemporary art (Rita Gonzalez), appointed Noriega as an adjunct curator of Chicano-Latino art, and both contributed to an exhibition of Chicano art in 2008. “It’s important that we are developing the same kind of deeply researched shows that Lacma regularly produces,” Noriega says. Half the population of LA is Latino, Noriega says, but “the last time the museum had organised a large show representing Latino art was in 1975.”
As museums look for a more diverse range of objects to display, the status of single-ethnicity art museums may grow. Eli Aramburo, chair of the advisory board of the Mexican Museum, in San Francisco, says the museum has “served as a catalyst for successful exhibitions of Latin American art at mainstream museums, featuring many of the same artists as are in our permanent collection and specialists from our previous exhibitions.”
Back in Brooklyn Lehman says that if US population changes continue at the current rate then the survival of American museums will depend on their ability to embrace this diversity. If they don’t, “they will be either figuratively or literally out of business.”
Comments
Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights
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Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights
Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights
11/29/09
11/26/09
Burgers and a Giant Shark at Shipwreck Tavern in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands Posted by BurgerConquest,
[Photographs: Rev. Dave Ciancio]
Shipwreck TavernNovember 25, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Havensight Mall, Building 18, Route 30, St Thomas, VI 00803 (map); shipwreckvi.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: Ahoy, sports fans and 'actioners, Aye, this burger be delicious. Yarrr!
Want Fries with That? I ordered mine with cheese, but you should order without...fries..
Price: $12-15
It's standard practice. I go somewhere new; I search out a burger to eat while I'm there. That is exactly what happened while I was in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands for my brother Matt's wedding. The trick was finding a time to fit it in and convincing his new bride-to-be, Gina, to let us go. When I found out that the Michigan State University football game (Matt is obsessed) was on at the same time that Gina needed to get ready for the ceremony, I seized the opportunity.
The Shipwreck is located just off downtown Charlotte Amalie, the major city in St. Thomas, in the Havensight Mall. With the gigantic Great White Shark, massive hamburger, and Coors Lite bottle outside, there is no way you can miss it. The décor? Imagine if a college sports bar was inside a pirate's ship. Everything is made out of a dark wood and there are lots of crazy things on the walls, funny paintings and signs, mannequins, flat-screen TVs, and video poker games.
The Shipwreck has a selection of burgers on the menu but I just went with their signature item, the Shipwreck Burger—bacon, cheddar and fried onions—prepared medium rare. Besides the standard toppings, you can also get salsa, guacamole, jalapenos, a selection of cheeses and mushrooms. The ground beef patty comes served on a sesame seed bun and with a side of fries, which I chose to have covered in cheese.
Tagged: AHT reviews, reviews, Shipwreck Tavern, U.S. Virgin Islands
An Urban Legend of a Burger at Farmstand in El Segundo, California Posted by Damon Gambuto,
[Photographs: Damon Gambuto]
Farm Stand
422 Main Street El Segundo, CA 90245 (map); 310-640-FARM; farmstand.us
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: The high quality (and massive) patty isn't matched by bun and toppings.
Want Fries with That? Yes, if they hold the Parmesan.
Prices: Ground Chuck Burger, $9.95 (lunch), $11.25 (dinner); served with Parmesan fries and choice of toppings.
Notes: Lunch, Monday - Friday, 11:00 a.m - 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Monday - Thursday, 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., Friday - Sunday, 5:00 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Farmstand describes its cuisine as "urban country food," which is puzzling not only because of the slippery nature of an oxymoron (intentional, or otherwise), but also because it's located in a neighborhood that is neither. El Segundo is a tiny city (we're talking 16,000 or so residents) that sits just south of Los Angeles city limit. To the east is the Pacific and our ridiculous airport looms just to its north, but other than the occasional jet being rerouted overhead there is little to let you know that you are minutes (10 to 45 depending on traffic) from the heart of a metropolis.
The Main Street of "downtown" El Segundo is the "Main Street" of our imaginings; that Post-War strip of Pax Americana dotted with the independent shops and eateries that served all of a town's needs. (Before malls and big boxes retailers showed us how much more valuable discounted sweat socks are than a sense of community.) This is all to say, the "urban country" Farm Stand is located smack dab in the middle of suburbia.
A friend works in the area and invited me over the border to this for lunch with promises of a delicious, gargantuan burger. One out of two may not be bad, but when it comes to burgers, it's less than good.
Trying to Explain a Drop in Infant Mortality
November 27, 2009
Trying to Explain a Drop in Infant Mortality
By ERIK ECKHOLM
MADISON, Wis. — Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely.
Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy.
As she cradled her 2-month-old daughter recently, she described the fear and isolation she had experienced during her first two pregnancies, and the more embracing help she found 100 miles away with her third. In Madison, county nurses made frequent home visits, and she got more help from her new church.
The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence among blacks of very premature births.
Here in Dane County, Wis., which includes Madison, the implausible has happened: the rate of infant deaths among blacks plummeted between the 1990s and the current decade, from an average of 19 deaths per thousand births to, in recent years, fewer than 5.
The steep decline, reaching parity with whites, is particularly intriguing, experts say, because obstetrical services for low-income women in the county have not changed that much.
Finding out what went right in Dane County has become an urgent quest — one that might guide similar progress in other cities. In other parts of the state, including Milwaukee, Racine and two other counties, black infant death rates remain among the nation’s highest, surpassing 20 deaths per thousand in some areas.
Nationwide for 2007, according to the latest federal data, infant mortality was 6 per 1,000 for whites and 13 for blacks.
“This kind of dramatic elimination of the black-white gap in a short period has never been seen,” Dr. Philip M. Farrell, professor of pediatrics and former dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said of the progress in Dane County.
“We don’t have a medical model to explain it,” Dr. Farrell added, explaining that no significant changes had occurred in the extent of prenatal care or in medical technology.
Without a simple medical explanation, health officials say, the decline appears to support the theory that links infant mortality to the well-being of mothers from the time they were in the womb themselves, including physical and mental health; personal behaviors; exposure to stresses, like racism; and their social ties.
Those factors could in turn affect how well young women take care of themselves and their pregnancies.
Karen Timberlake, the Wisconsin secretary of health services, said that in Dane County, the likely explanation lay in “the interaction among a variety of interrelated factors.”
“Our challenge is,” Ms. Timberlake said, “how can we distill this and take it to other counties?”
Only about 5 percent of Dane County’s population is black, and the sharp drop in the mortality rate also tracked larger declines in the numbers of very premature and underweight births for blacks, said Dr. Thomas L. Schlenker, the county director of public health.
A three-year study, led by Dr. Gloria E. Sarto of the University of Wisconsin, is using tools including focus groups and research on pollution to compare the experiences of black mothers here with those in Racine County, which has the highest black infant mortality in the state.
It is not hard to imagine why death rates would be lower in Dane County than in Racine, which is more segregated and violent, or in Milwaukee, a larger city. Dane County has a greater array of public and private services, but pinpointing how they may have changed over the decade in ways that made a difference is the challenge.
Dr. Schlenker, the county health director, credits heightened outreach to young women by health workers and private groups. “I think it’s a community effect,” he said. “Pregnant women need to feel safe, cared for and valued. I believe that when they don’t, that contributes to premature birth and fetal loss in the sixth or seventh month.”
He pointed to services that started in the mid-90s and have gathered steam. For instance, a law center, ABC for Health, has increasingly connected poor women with insurance and medical services. He said local health maintenance organizations were now acting far more assertively to promote the health of prospective mothers.
And a federally supported clinic, Access Community Health Center, which serves the uninsured and others, has cared for a growing number of women using nurse-midwives, who tend to bond with pregnant women, spending more time on appointments and staying with them through childbirth.
County nurses visit low-income women at high risk of premature birth, providing transportation to appointments and referrals to antismoking programs or antidepression therapies. Another program sends social workers into some homes. The programs exist statewide, but in Milwaukee, Racine and other areas they do not appear to have achieved the same broad coverage, said Ms. Timberlake, the state health leader.
And community leaders in Dane County, shocked by high mortality rates, started keeping closer watch on young pregnant women.
“The African-American community in Madison is close-knit,” said Carola Gaines, a black leader and coordinator of Medicaid services for a private insurance plan.
Similar community efforts are now being promoted in other struggling cities.
Brandice Hatcher, 26, who recently moved into a new, subsidized apartment in Madison, spent her first 18 years in foster care in Chicago before moving two years ago.
When she learned last June that she was pregnant, Ms. Hatcher said, “I didn’t know how to be a parent and I didn’t know what services could help me.”
Over the summer she started receiving monthly visits from Laura Berger, a county nurse, who put her in touch with a dentist. That was not just a matter of comfort; periodontal disease elevates the risk of premature birth, increasing the levels of a labor-inducing chemical.
Ms. Hatcher had been living in a rooming house, but she was able to get help from a program that provided a security deposit for her apartment. She attained certification as a nursing assistant while awaiting childbirth.
Under a state program, a social worker visits weekly and helps her look for jobs. And she receives her prenatal care from the community center’s nurse-midwives. A church gave her baby clothes and a changing table.
Ms. Hatcher said she would not do anything to jeopardize her unborn baby’s prospects. She has named her Zaria and is collecting coins and bills in a glass jar, the start, she said, of Zaria’s personal savings account.
My Fathers home town, Lena Baker exeuted electic chair, Cuthbert Georgia
Lena Baker
Birth:
Jun. 8, 1900
Death:
Mar. 5, 1945
Folk Figure. She was the only woman to be executed in Georgia's electric chair. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia, Baker was an African-American mother of three who worked as a maid for Ernest B
. Knight, a local white mill owner. On May 1, 1944, Baker was arrested for the fatal shooting of Knight at his home. She told police that for months Knight had kept her as a virtual sex slave, and that she shot him with his own pistol while trying to escape. Her one-day trial was typical of the "justice" blacks received in the segregation-era South. She was not allowed to testify, no witnesses were called to her defense, and the all-white, all-male jury delivered its guilty verdict in 20 minutes. Her appeal never made it beyond the county court because her court-appointed attorney immediately resigned from the case, leaving her without counsel. Baker defended herself to the end. Her last words were, "What I done, I did in self-defense. I have nothing against anyone. I'm ready to meet my God". She was electrocuted at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville on March 5, 1945. The Cuthbert Times reported the execution with the headline, "Baker Burns". In 1996, author Lela Bond Phillips began investigating the all but forgotten story. She tracked down surviving witnesses, who confirmed Baker's allegations of Knight's abuse, and determined that the evidence against her supported a manslaughter conviction at best. Historians now say that the total lack of due process in her case amounted to a "legal lynching". In August 2005 the Georgia courts agreed to grant Baker a posthumous pardon, only the second in the state's history. (The first was in 1986 for Leo Frank, lynched in 1915). "The Lena Baker Story" was made into a film in 2008. (bio by: Robert Edwards)
Cuthbert, Georgia
Image by jimmywayne via Flickr
Cuthbert is a city in and the county seat of Randolph County, Georgia, United States.[3] The population was 3,731 at the 2000 census.
Contents
[hide]Geography
Cuthbert is located at 31º46'15" North, 84º47'37" West (31.770726, -84.793517)[4].
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.0 square miles (7.9 km²), all of it land.
Demographics
As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 3,731 people, 1,360 households, and 870 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,223.5 people per square mile (472.3/km²). There were 1,549 housing units at an average density of 507.9/sq mi (196.1/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 23.69% White, 74.22% African American, 0.32% Native American, 0.32% Asian, 0.11% Pacific Islander, 0.88% from other races, and 0.46% from two or more races. 1.96% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 1,360 households out of which 29.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.7% were married couples living together, 29.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.0% were non-families. 33.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.24.
In the city the population was spread out with 26.7% under the age of 18, 14.8% from 18 to 24, 23.2% from 25 to 44, 19.2% from 45 to 64, and 16.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 80.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 71.6 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $16,400, and the median income for a family was $25,000. Males had a median income of $26,696 versus $16,976 for females. The per capita income for the city was $10,166. 33.5% of the population and 29.2% of families were below the poverty line, including 39.8% of those under the age of 18 and 38.5% of those 65 and older.
Culture
The Fletcher Henderson Museum is being established on Peachtree Street in the town. (Fletcher Henderson was a jazz band orchestra and arranger.)[5]
Education
Andrew College, founded 1854, is located in Cuthbert.
Noted Citizens
- Larry Holmes - former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
- Roosevelt Grier - former NFL player
- Fletcher Henderson - jazz musician
- Lena Baker - 1st woman executed in the electric chair in Georgia; she was later pardoned by the state.
- Thomas "Pokie" Davis - NFL player, former UGA football player
- Michael "Young Jay" Hart - Local Musician/Entertainer
- Marcellous "King Cello" Nundra- H.B.E. President /Musician
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Two Stories written by Kevin
"Robert Lewis Stevenson Sampson
Image via Wikipedia
My people on my father’s side were from down south
Cuthbert Georgia
I remember when I was about 8 years old, my family went south, to see our
Cousins and grand parents.
The Deep South it was about 1962 we drove down in our Chryslers station wagon.
My cousin Willie bee, williby, bee I can’t even spell it
He was my father’s nephew, and he talked quicker than any one I ever heard before
I couldn’t understand a thing he would say, and he was always talking.
My father always brought along a cousin or some one else when we went down south
Looking back, I used think that it was because my father didn’t like to drive long distances
I now realized that it was the south.
We stopped at a gas station and
Yes I saw white only signs
And my father to his credit
Went right into one and used the bathroom
Right on power to the people
My father was some thing else, Stephen Sampson didn’t play
And he had a temper, one in which he controlled
But if you really pissed him off
Run………………….He was one of those quiet men………….
Un like his son…..quiet
Quiet is scary……………..
Anyway
This was before the voting rights act, their were still lynching’s in the south
Justice did not rule in those days
Anyway
I will cut this short and maybe ad much more lately
Anyway
We get to the center of town and some of my cousins greet ed us
They lean up close
To my father and whisper in his ear
Now this little town at first glance looks like Mayberry
I expect to see Andy opie and Aunt Bea
Instead I see a whole lot of black folks, looking uncomfortable
And a whole lot of white looking just as weird
Anyway I was a nosy child
I listened,
Bat man ears on………….
All those years of being nosy paid off
These strange dark men in coveralls, and staw hats
Whisper in his ear that
The sheriff is locking up people that want to vote
Some folks have been killed
Oh lord lord
My cousin Willie gets angry right away
And starts talking in that strange tongue of his
What the hell is it gechie
It’s like a machine gun
He is distracting me
He is stopping me from obtaining my prize
My father stills him with a glance
And my mother and Aunt Allie who was also in the car
Looked alarmed
My father looked angry but calm
He was outwardly calm
And later I would find out inwardly
Like a raging sea
That’s where I get it from
I get it honest
All of this energy
All of this drives
Ok where was I
I got what I asked for
Yup the man was telling my father horrible stories
About injustice
Images of the clan and lynching’s
Abounded in my head
Lions and tigers and bears oh my
I don’t know if my brother Ronny, Sister Donna even heard
And I don’t think my brother Robbie was even born yet
We went to my grandparent’s farm
A bleached house some thing out of little house on the prairie
Meets roots
Tin roof, corn fields on the side
Out house
With spiders
I will hold my due for ever before I go in that thing
Out house…yuck
Anyway
My uncle boy
His real name was press
But he was called boy
Was the tallest blackest man I have ever seen?
He looked like my father
But tall and reed thin
About six feet 6 inches tall
Why the hell am I so short and fat?
Ok enough about me
Anyway he had the nicest smile
My father didn’t get a cavity until he was
Well into his seventies
He could open bottle caps
With his teeth they were so strong
Uncle Boy
I loved him right away
And I wouldn’t stop following him
He just picked me up and tickled me
And made me feel loved right away
I felt like I knew him forever
Even though I only saw
Him about five times in my life
He was so tall and high up
That when he put me up on his shoulders
I swear I was close to heaven
He wanted to give my father some thing
I told you I was nosey
And I wouldn’t leave,
Now normally my father
Did the deacon look
And I would be deterred
The look that he was giving me now
Would have normally made me
Run like hell
But Uncle Boy said
Bob Leave that boy be
Let him come
I loved the way these southern folks talked
Boy was the oldest
And my father was the youngest of nine children
I was always safe around my father’s side of the family
Because I was a bad child
And they loved my badness
Laughed at my antics
And protected me from a father,
Who didn’t play
My father liked kids being kids
But his sisters, who were all at least six feet tall,
Except for Aunt Suzie
Were just as firm with him
They all raised him and treated him like the baby
Aunt Suzie had a deep deep voice
She was the oldest girl
And when she told my father to do some thing he did it
I could tell immediately that she was the one who was in charge of him as a child
And like his other mother
I loved to hear her laugh
I loved the way she laughed at me and with me
Aunt Inell was 6 feet tall at least
Red brown like an Indian
I loved her so
God I can still taste her cooking
Her lemon cake
Anyway Uncle Boy
Takes my father
With me on his shoulders
Around the back of the house
Near a shed
He reaches under neath it
And brings out a gun
An old but beautiful gun
He hands it to my father
And stuff is said
My uncle boy
Takes a bottle out and places it
On a stump
My father aims the gun
And shoots it
Hitting the bottle
Oh god here I go
Let me shoot it
Let me shoot the gun please
Kevin, no………
Uncle boy looks at my father
And says let him shoot the gun
Bob how old were you when you first shot a gun
Bob
Did I tell you that for years
When they called my father bob
I was to dumb to ask why they called
My father whose name I thought
Was Stephen
Bob
Because he was born
Robert Louis Stevenson Sampson
When he came up north
He changed his name to Stephen
And family legend has it
That my Aunt Vernell
My mother’s sister
Told him that if he was to be Steve
Make it Stephen
It’s more sophisticated
Where was I
Oh so……………
Uncle boy took that gun
\and kneeled down behind me
Grabbing the gun with me
He told me ready
Aim and he squeezed the trigger
Along with me
It was so loud
It was so scary
It was so wonderful
I’m in heaven
Bad boy heaven
Good boy heaven
Heaven
We went back to the house and I was quiet
Watching my grandmother bertha
Snap green beans into a pot
I walked around the kitchen
Of this large used to be sharecroppers shack
I don’t know they might still have been share croppers
Anyway
Dorothy knew she was not in Oz
Any more
I was home but not home
The south scared the hell out of me
I could always feel the south in unnatural ways
I still can
I could feel it in the air
And in the trees……………..
And in my blood
My father got that gun
Because he was a northern boy
He was a leader
And Uncle Boy knew my father
Was a northern agitator
Knew he wouldn’t take any guff
And knew he would go down with a fight
Knew that the sheriff would find out that he was here
And who knows…………….
Anyway
No one was taking my father any where
That he didn’t want to go with out a fight
My father was so cool
I knew that no one could hurt me with him around
No one could touch us
I climbed up in my grandfather’s lap
Press,
Black as coal with white white hair and light eyes
I think………..
And ate the peanuts that he fed me
I loved them
He looked at me;
I was so little so skinny with a big head
And said here peanut
And they called me peanut the whole time I was there
Yea peanut head
So what
I still love peanuts
And shooting a gun
The clock
Snippets
I couldn’t sit still as a child. I was always running around climbing things
And generally being a pain in the ass. My poor mother, who had the patience of a saint.
Was at wits end with me, I could ask a hundred questions an hour.
Was often told to go and look it up……………I did. But some times my mother just had enough.
Then I would be punished. The most horrible of punishments, was …………..
My mother was always in the kitchen and I was always hovering about. I loved my mother
She would finally say, enough. Look at the clock.
We had a clock right above the stove. I hated and loved that clock. It meant bed time, or food time
Or punishment time
Punishment, sit and look at the clock for five minutes. No talking no moving, no nothing.
Oh my God this was the worst punishment of all, to sit still was nearly impossible for me.
I would fidget and twitch and invent games in my head. Any thing to make this five minute punishment
Which seemed like a two hour one……..pass faster?
Help I am losing it, my mother isn’t paying attention, until I try to move
2 more minutes
Oh my god I can’t take it they will get me, if I stay still for this long
Who them
The things that come to me at night
My night mares
Oh god
One more minutes
I think I can
I think I can
I did it
I am nearly insane, out of breath
My heart is beating loudly
I tell my mother I am going out side
And run like hell
I turn around and see her Mona Lisa smile
Run run
Freedom
Technorati Tags: Stephen Sampson,Elizabeth new jersey,Kevin blythe Sampson,newark new jersey. Dolores Sampson,Mccarroll,stories
11/25/09
11/24/09
Modern Flourishes as Obamas Host State Dinner
WASHINGTON — It is an old tradition, a White House dinner governed by ritual and protocol that happens to be this city’s hottest social event. But at their first state dinner on Tuesday night, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, made sure to infuse the glittering gala with distinctive touches.
They hired a new florist, Laura Dowling, who bedecked the tented outdoor dining room with locally grown, sustainably harvested magnolia branches and ivy. They selected a guest chef, Marcus Samuelsson of Aquavit in New York, an American citizen who was born in Ethiopia, reared in Sweden and cooks up melting pots of flavors and cuisines.
They invited local students to witness the arrival of the guests of honor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, and presented a mélange of musical entertainment, including the National Symphony Orchestra; Jennifer Hudson, the singer and actress; Kurt Elling, the jazz musician from Chicago; and A. R. Rahman, the Indian composer who wrote the score to the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.”
And at the tables, the meatless menu included a mix of Indian and American favorites, including some African-American standards. Collard greens and curried prawns, chickpeas and okra, nan and cornbread were served to the 320 guests — including some well-known Republicans and prominent Indian-Americans — who started off with arugula from the White House garden and finished up with pumpkin pie tart. (After a tasting at the White House on Sunday, the Obamas gave the dishes their stamp of approval, Mr. Samuelsson said.)
And don’t forget the dinner plates. For an administration that publicly prizes bipartisanship, what could be finer than an eclectic mix of Clinton and Bush china?
“He wants to set a tone that’s different,” Vishakha N. Desai, a dinner guest and the Indian-born president of the Asia Society, said of the president. “Obama’s celebrating not just his African-American heritage, but the cultural diversity of America. And that’s a powerful message to send to the world.”
Mr. Obama greeted his guests in Hindi and hailed the contributions of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., saying that such “giants” are “the reason why both of us can stand here tonight.”
Mr. Singh responded, “Your journey to the White House has captured the imaginations of millions and millions of Indians.”
The evening was a potent mix of politics, diplomacy and glamour, with the administration’s favored donors mingling with lawmakers from Congress, cabinet secretaries, Indian dignitaries and Hollywood celebrities decked out in tuxedos and designer dresses. The first lady wore a golden sleeveless gown created by Naeem Khan, an Indian-American designer.
For Mr. Obama, it was also a rare break from the bruising business of governance, allowing him to showcase his role as a world leader (and a gracious host) at a time when he is managing battles over health care legislation and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — all while watching his standing falling in the polls.
The guest list included the actors Alfre Woodard and Blair Underwood, the directors Steven Spielberg and M. Night Shyamalan, the writer Jhumpa Lahiri, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican, and Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo.
“It does allow him to stand above the current squabbles in politics, to assume that role of head and state and remind people of the stature of the presidency,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian, who noted that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most famous state dinner — for the king and queen of England — occurred during the Depression.
“It’s a break from the daily concerns,” Ms. Goodwin said. “This is our moment for that kind of ceremony, for that pomp and circumstance, and that’s nonpartisan.”
President Ulysses S. Grant held the first White House state dinner when he hosted King David Kalakaua of Hawaii in 1874. Through the decades, leaders have used the occasions to reward prominent allies and to nurture diplomatic relationships with more or less regularity, depending on the president. (President George W. Bush held only six state dinners, while President Bill Clinton hosted more than 20.)
So as Washington buzzed in recent days about who was invited and who was not, many wondered how the country’s first African-American president and first lady would put their personal stamp on the occasion.
The Obamas promptly distinguished themselves from their immediate predecessors by holding their dinner under a grand tent on the South Lawn to allow for a more expansive guest list. (President Bush held his dinners indoors, which sharply limited the numbers of guests.) And they emphasized some of their favorite themes, including bipartisanship, diversity and a focus on healthy meals.
The president invited several prominent Republicans, though Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Representative John A. Boehner, the House minority leader, sent their regrets. (The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, also could not make it.)
Mrs. Obama made a splash by showcasing deep, rich colors — apple green for the tablecloths and varying shades of plum, purple and fuchsia in the hydrangea, roses and sweet peas in the centerpieces.
There was White House honey and sage from the garden and a menu that gave vegetables and beans — including eggplants and lentils — top billing. (For a White House keen on promoting fresh fruits and vegetables, what could be more serendipitous than a guest of honor who happens to be a vegetarian?) And the Obamas shook things up by serving, among other dishes, Indian food to an Indian delegation, typically a no-no.
“You wouldn’t try to outdo the Indians; that would not be typical,” said Anita McBride, who served as Laura Bush’s chief of staff and took pains to praise Mrs. Obama as moving in a new direction. “It’s the perfect combination of American food with a nod to the visiting country.”
As for the dozens of schoolchildren invited to participate in the day’s events, many savored the chance to see the White House up close. One group of young women spent time with Mrs. Obama in the State Dining Room and learned about the history of American state dinners and sampled some pumpkin pie.
“These events probably seem like they’re miles and miles away, like they’re just untouchable,” said Mrs. Obama to the young women, some wearing sneakers and short sleeves.
She said she hoped this would inspire them to think harder about their place in the world around them.
“Who knows, maybe one of you all sitting at this table, one of our little mentees, will be living and studying somewhere in India — maybe New Delhi or Mumbai or Bangalore,” the first lady said. “Just imagine that. Start thinking about your future in that way. This visit at this table is the beginning of that for all of you.”
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
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