Maggie

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

If you haven't already, please make a donation to my friend Maggie.


Donate here.

Life, the Universe and Everything

Saturday, October 24, 2009

I knew that I hadn't written anything in some time, but it wasn't until a second ago that I realized I had gone a full month without posting.....

I've been overworked and preoccupied lately, by a number of things:
1) Spending 90% of my work day tending to 1 child, to the detriment of the other 15.
2) Spending my weekends grouching about having to go teach music lessons to belligerent students whose parents can't be bothered to schedule a regular time for lessons because of soccer, softball, swimming, and, last week, going to adopt a dog.
3) Getting horribly sick with the worst cold known to humanity, and wishing that it were the flu because then the symptoms and the name would be on the same level of misery
4) The universe crashing down horribly on those I know and love.


1) Yes, there's a child in my class who is so out of control, so toddler (developmentally, not age wise), and so disruptive and violent that if I don't tend to him ALL THE TIME it will mean physical and emotional harm to the other students. Thanks, admissions director. Fuck you too.

2) I'm sick of it and am trying to find a way to fire my students, despite the precipitous drop in income that that will mean for me.

3) It was only a cold. No fever, at any point. And yet, I felt miserable for a good 2 weeks....blech.

4) a. A family friend and well-known Bay Area conductor went in for a scheduled heart surgery. She suffered clotting problems and a stroke on the table, and never regained consciousness. A week later, her partner chose to take her off life support and take her home to die in peace and dignity. Imagine having to make that decision?? Her death was misreported, and I inadvertently passed on news of her demise before it had actually happened. I feel like the biggest shithead on earth for that one. She died the next day.

b. The same day that I misreported K's death, I found out that my dear blog-friend Maggie had been rushed to the hospital after 48 hours of the most intense pain that a human can imagine. She waited that long to call 911 because, of course, she has no health insurance.
Luckily, the public hospital in Austin was on ER diversion, and she was instead rushed to the best hospital around. She was treated by an ace surgical team, and is being given the best care possible.
It's damn lucky that the other ER was on diversion or Maggie would likely be dead right now.
The bad news is that because she's uninsured and poor, there's no way that she can pay for this care. She might get chucked out of the hospital before she has recovered if we dont' come up with funds FAST.
Go to her personal blog, Meta Watershed, or the news blog where she writes, Group News Blog, to read all of the harrowing details and to DONATE. Give till it hurts. Please. This woman has done more for the world so far than I can imagine squeezing into one life and she's not done yet. But she desperately needs everyone's help.

You can do donations through Paypal or by sending a check to Group News Blog with "Maggie Jochild" in the memo. Maggie has such limited mobility that getting the mail and getting to a bank and that sort of thing is nearly impossible.

c. The next day, my mom's ex's mother died. She was elderly, and had been declining fast, and it was "time." Still very sad, though. The ex and mom were together for about 12 years, and in that time, we got to know his family quite well. His parents were such dear people, always welcoming and kind. She'll be truly missed.

d. At some point in all of this, another friend was also rushed to the ER. I don't have permission to write about her situation, but suffice it to say that she's living in a new town, at a new school, without family or close friends yet, and my heart just aches for what she's going through....

e. My mom is having to go in for a surgical procedure this coming week. Besides having to deal with a boyfriend who recently had a stroke, and a mother who is completely dependent on us for transport and such.

f. Boyfriend's father just had a pacemaker installed. At least once the leads have disconnected. He's in Canada, though, and Boyfriend is pretty bummed about living so far away.

So, yeah, life has been really intense lately.

There have been plenty of things that I've read or heard that warrant essays in response. I just haven't been able to deal.

Sorry.

That's Genius

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The list of this year's MacArthur fellowship (aka the "Genius Grant") winners is out, and exactly half of the recipients are women. Woot!

Several are older women, several are women of color. Science, the arts and the humanities are represented all represented.

Glad to know that it's not always bad news for women!

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.5410503/k.11CB/Meet_the_2009_Fellows.htm

(one of Boyfriend's co-advisers is a former MacArthur winner.....yay for women in science and engineering!)

That's Not My Name

Monday, September 21, 2009

Safeway, the grocery store chain, apparently has a policy that states that guests should be thanked by name at the end of each transaction.

After scanning and bagging one's groceries and taking one's money, employees will print out the receipt, look at it, and say something along the lines of "Thank you, Mr. Aggleflaggle, have a nice day!"

They will get the name from either the credit/debit card or "Club Card" info, at the bottom of the receipt. I suppose that if you pay in cash, and don't use a club card, you'll just get a "thank you, have a nice day."

So here's where it gets interesting.

I almost always buy groceries with my debit card, because the cash in my wallet usually only suffices for a coffee or a burrito. This means that my name appears on the receipt along with my card information. I don't have a "Club Card" of my own, so I always plug in either my grandmother's or Boyfriend's phone number, to get the discounts that way.

This means that the checker has a choice of names. And, interestingly enough, the checker seems to always choose to read the "club card" name, not the debit card name.

Which means that on a fairly regular basis, I get addressed as "Ms. Boyfriend'slastname."

Which weirds me out completely.

I usually don't correct them, since that would require me to spend more time in Safeway. I hate supermarkets, you see, and usually try to dash in and out as quickly as possible.

But yeah, their assumption really bugs me. If you see my name (on the credit/debit line) and some dude's name, why would you assume that that's the right last name?????


*****

Semi-, but not completely related:

Why are so many women my age changing their names when they get married? Women who seem otherwise feminist and progressive? Just among friends and coworkers, I can think of at least 6 or 8 people who have gotten married in the last few years and have changed their names. I can only think of 3 who have gotten married and kept their names.

I mean, not even getting into the "why get married?" discussion, why is this trend still so prevalent?

I know I sound horribly judgmental, but I really don't understand.

Especially when the women in question are performers, who rely on publicity and "getting their names out there".....

sigh.

Challenging Art and our Eucations

Saturday, September 12, 2009

This post is kind of an extended commentary on another blog post. Sorry if that's too self-referential!

My friend -m- writes the blog Modest and Witty. It's a pretty phenomenal account of her life and adventures. Like me, -m- tends to rant, but in a far more cohesive and intelligent manner than I usually accomplish.

-m- just moved to New York, to go to an impressive music school. Obviously, it being New York and all, there are so many things to see and do that -m- is having quite an interesting time.

A recent trip, to the Brooklyn Art Museum, sparked a mammoth post, the entirety of which can be read here. -m- and a friend saw Judy Chicago's 1974-79 installation piece The Dinner Party.

The Dinner Party is huge. It's an equilateral triangle measuring 48 feet per side (that's a perimeter of 144 feet or 43.89 metres for all you nerds). The triangle is set up like a table, with places for 39 "Guests of Honor." Each place setting highlights the contributions of a woman, whose name is shown on the place mat/table runner. The space inside the lines of the triangle features the names of 999 other women who have contributed to predated the 39 featured women.

Instead of plates, there are intricate porcelain sculpture inspired by butterflies/vaginal imagery.

I have not seen this instillation in person, so the descriptions are based on -m-'s writing as well as the site throughtheflower.org

-m- reacts this way:

I was utterly unprepared for this installation. How could I have expected it? The catalog itself reports it as consisting of:

39 dinner place settings of porcelain flatware (fork, knife and spoon), porcelain chalice, and decorated porcelain plate. Each setting is laid out on a separate embroidered textile runner. Thirteen place settings are on each side (48 feet long) of a triangular table draped with a white felt cloth, with a triangular millennium runner at each of three corners. Each of the settings represents one of thirty-nine historically significant women. The table sits on a floor of 2304 porcelain triangular tiles (in 129 units) inscribed with the names of 999 significant women.

Ok, so it's a big table set for dinner and there are lots of women's names. Cool. This will be interesting. Right. How can I tell you what it was like walking into that room? Rather, walking into the room was just what I expected. Each setting is quite particular, and placed in a mostly chronological order. First? 'Primordial Goddess'

Ok. That makes sense.

Next? 'Fertile Goddess'

Sure.

Of note, the plates at each setting are decorated in personalized floral/butterfly/vulva patterns. I add floral and butterfly to the description mostly because the plaque at the exhibit did so. My impression of the plates was overwhelmingly linked to feminine power, to clitoral and sexual potency, power, depth, mystery, and strength. There were cunts all over this table, each beautiful and different. Each cunt-plate brought its own sacred history to the table.

Next? 'Ishtar', 'Kali', 'Snake Goddess', 'Sophia', 'Amazon', 'Hatshepsut', 'Judith', 'Sappho', 'Boadaceia', 'Hypatia', 'Marcella', 'Saint Bridget'. . .

By this point, I had finished one third of the table, and I was starting to get worried. The women who earned a place at the table were assumedly at the top of the list, a list that involves more than a thousand names. Only 39 received special settings, and I guess I assumed that of those 39 I would know a vast majority. I was discovering how naïve that assumption had been.

'Theodora', 'Hrosvitha', 'Trotula', 'Eleanor of Aquitaine', 'Hildegarde of Bingen', 'Petronilla de Meath', 'Christine de Pisan', 'Isabella d'Este', 'Elizabeth R.', 'Artemisia Gentileschi'. . .

I recognized two of these names, and I could tell you about one of them. The names continued almost in defiance of my ignorance. A grief I had never experienced began to overwhelm me, and I felt tears begin to well up. I have never before cried because of a piece of art. Art has moved me toward thought, toward debate, toward laughter, toward anger, toward many things- but never tears. Of the more than thousand names celebrated in 'The Dinner Party", I would recognize a perhaps generous figure of 100.

Less than 10%.

'Anna van Schurman', 'Anne Hutchinson', 'Sacajawea', 'Caroline Herschel', 'Mary Wollstonecraft', 'Sojourner Truth', 'Susan B. Anthony', 'Elizabeth Blackwell', 'Emily Dickinson', 'Ethel Smyth'. . .

I realized even more so, that at least 50% of the names I recognized belonged to women about which I knew nothing. For example, I could not have told you yesterday (I am very sorry to admit) who Mary Wollstonecraft was or what contributions she had made. A horrifying thought occurred to me: should a similar celebration of man's historical contributions be constructed in such a manner, I would easily recognize at least 50% of the names. I would probably also be able to explain in depth the contributions of at least 15% of them. Of course, that's just a guess.

I don't remember at what point I began to cry, but I know it was after I had left the table settings and had moved to the Herstory Board section- a chronology/brief description of the contributions of every name on exhibit. I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. Somewhere, deep within, something had been stolen from me. My education had failed me. My culture had failed me. I had failed myself. How could I know so little about the power of the feminine? How had I missed my own history so succinctly? Who was Margaret Sanger? Natalie Barney? Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keefe were names familiar to me, but they provided little comfort after the onslaught of the unfamiliar.

I cried. I cried for myself. For my culture. For the education that I and my sisters and brothers were missing. It was a quiet cry, privately witnessed by an almost unending row of names.
I sat down on a bench and tried to center myself, attempting to pull myself back from the brink of destructive self-pity, searching for the redemptive righteous anger that I knew must be on the other side of such a deep wound. While I waited a man came over to the lady sitting next to me on the bench and commented on the 'fascinating' board of names.
. . .

Fascinating.

Even now I am filled with an anger and a hurt that is beyond my ability to capture.

Fascinating.

I understand how a board filled with the history of influential women one has never heard of could be a fascinating concept. I understand and respect this man's ability to recognize a resource he had not previously encountered. I understand to a certain extent.

But it goes so much deeper than the cognitive whimsy of a 'fascinating' history display. This is personal. It is my mother, my great-grandmother, my as-yet-undreamt-of-daughter. It is me. It is the mantle I inherited by being born into this body, or rather more so by living in it. It is the lie that has been perpetuated by silence. It is the gaping holes in my history. In me. It is the lack of acknowledgment of those holes- my previous inability to even conceptualize how many holes there might be.

I knew, of course, that there was much of the history and contributions of women that I didn't know, but I had never before been confronted so tangibly by the vastness of the unknown of feminine beauty, strength, thought, and power.

I am enraged.

I am crying.

I am crying, and I am enraged by the bleeding hole where my knowledge of my grandmothers should be. I have been robbed. So have you.

We, all of us, have been robbed by patriarchal thieves bent on silencing the brilliance of half our forebears. This cannot stand, but who will stand with me?

Why do we allow such silence? What do we do about it? How can I turn this wounded-ness, this anger, into a vehicle for change?

How can we?

***

In order to get a sense of where -m-'s anger comes from, try this experiment. Look at the list of women whose names appear in The Dinner Party (Wikipedia lists them, showing how they are organized in the work) and start counting. I made 3 categories: Know About, Recognize Name, and Huh??

Go through the list and classify the names. Then tally them up. I'm not interested in a competition of who can tell me about the largest number of these women, but rather the internal reflection. Count them up for yourself, then see what it means to you that this list of women who have contributed tons to western society will no doubt feature people you've never heard of.

Now, I realize that unless one was a history major, womens' studies minor, and possesses the memorisational powers of a super computer, its unlikely that anyone would know all of these women. But if a similar list were compiled of men who have contributed to western society, the number of well-known names would undoubtedly be far larger.

*****

Since I haven't seen this work in person, and since it's not like a painting that can be fully captured in a photograph or print, it's a little weird for me to start analysing the visual impact or aesthetics.

That said, I think that the significance of The Dinner Party for me lies not in what it is, physically, but what it represents. I think that all of the vaginal imagery would likely strike me as very heavy handed and overly literal. In general, though, I HATE when people trot out the idea that women's power comes from their fertility, and when people are reduced to their biology. They are ideas that simply do not interest me.

The picky/judgemental part of me needs to chime in:

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of saints/mythological characters/non-people. I can see how, given that most societies have had strong ties to religion, the people or gods that they venerate become important, but it's still a little weird to me. I don't really know why.

Sophia, though? Uh-uh. We're supposed to be talking about WOMEN here, and just because the word "Σoφíα" is feminine doesn't mean that it refers to a woman. Even in ancient Greece, to my knowledge there was not a female character or representation attached to the concept of wisdom. In Orthodox mystical theology, wisdom is associated with the Virgin Mary (Theotokos), but that's not the same. She's being used as an allegory for wisdom.
Shall we start calling all feminine words (words that are feminine in other languages) women? Table? Window? Library?

Sorry, that's really not the point of the post, and is possibly harmful to the point at hand......I just get picky like that. My incredible obsession with accuracy can get in the way of a lot of things. Apologies!

I think my overall point is The Dinner Party would be even more powerful to me if all of the names were people, and people who actually existed, rather than goddesses and mythological figures. It's easy to discount those non-real people if you don't subscribe to that philosophy or religion, and the goal of the work is exactly the opposite of that. It seems to be about NOT discounting and NOT overlooking.

Small bone to pick.

I realize that I haven't really responded to -m-'s anger and call to arms. I think they stand alone, and don't need reinforcement from me. Think about what you can do, though.

Gearing Up

Monday, August 31, 2009

The first day of school is tomorrow.....think happy thoughts for me! I'm a little scared!

We met our students today....they seem soooooooo young it's unbelievable!

Back Home

Sunday, August 23, 2009

I got back this morning from my second workshop of the summer. I was in Seattle for 2 weeks, attending a baroque opera workshop. We learned and performed a program of scenes from various 17th C operas.

This particular workshop was started by a totally famous and important lutenist, and besides the impeccable musical coaching and teaching, the strengths lie in the areas of drama and movement. The 3 stage directors are all remarkably good at dissecting archaic texts, guiding the students as they discover the nuances of the language, the best ways to express that language verbally and physically, and the movement and gestures that will best accomplish that.

2 of the 3 directors also run a movement class every morning, focusing on de-stressing and ways to kindly use one's body.

I haven't written anything about this yet, mostly because I was processing so much information that it was hard to stop and dissect. Also, the internet filter on the campus blocked anything with the word "bitch".....oops!

One thing I've noticed at past workshops is that some participants manage to get to know the faculty far better than others. I've always been in the "wanting to get to know, and therefore get everything possible out of faculty, but too introverted and shy to actually do it" group. I vowed to change that this year, so I made a point of just hanging around outside the theater after the last rehearsal of the day, and asking to have dinner with the out-of-town directors. The locals seemed to go home to their families in the evenings, but the non-locals were staying on campus, just like the students.

So, it turns out that one can learn loads from just sitting around the dinner table or the bar.

I made a point of asking "what next?" or "who should I sing for" or "do you have ideas about how to carve out a career that synthesizes text, rhetoric, history, drama, movement, dance and singing??" (you know, just the little, inconsequential questions.....not!) It really isn't quite as scary as I thought, this whole being outgoing thing, and I'm soooo glad that I put in that effort.

I've come home with loads of ideas and inspiration. That's the good part. The terrifying part is going to be implementing them. Because it turns out that, according to G, the guy who directed my scene, and who has a fascinating and multi-faceted career in early music, the best way to go about all of that synthesis stuff is to found my own company.

Most "early operas" that get performed are actually 18th C, almost a full century later than the repertoire that most interests me. These earliest operas get performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, and occasionally in student productions, but not usually other places. G suggested that I start with memorized concerts with a continuo team, then move up to memorized concerts with some movement, then work up from there.

yeah, yikes. Not intimidating AT ALL!!!

I think that a certain amount of my terror stems from the little gremlins, which have been awfully active this summer. They've been nagging at me, telling me that I'm not living up to some ill-defined ideal, or something. The feedback that I've gotten from faculty members at all these workshops, however, has been very, very positive. I'm trying to listen to the objective feedback, and trust that these are the foremost experts in early music.

Now, just to torment everyone with knowledge of awful teen gross-out movies from about 10 years ago:

"This one time, at baroque camp..."