A Few of My Favorite Things

Every image I've ever put at the top of my blog over the last five years:

Food For Thought Friday

“People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics [or feminists, or whoever] to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.” -Carl Sagan

From a post on Empowering LDS Women. Here is her main argument, which I love and try to live:

Juanita Brooks was a historian who covered some of the more painful aspects of Mormon history, including the Mountain Meadows Massacre. My Dad shared this quote with me from Juanita Brooks’ father, and I later heard Greg Prince share it again on a podcast interviewh:


"One day Dad said to me, “My girl, if you follow this tendency to criticize, I’m afraid you will talk yourself out of the Church. I’d hate to see you do that. I’m a cowboy and I've learned that if I ride in the herd, I am lost. … One who rides counter to it is trampled and killed. One who only trails behind means little because he leaves all responsibility to others. It is the cowboy who rides the edge of the herd, who sings and calls and makes himself heard, who helps direct the course. So don’t lose yourself, and don’t ride away and desert the outfit. Ride the edge of the herd and be alert, and know your directions and call out loud and clear. Chances are you won’t make any difference, but on the other hand, you just might.”


The edge of the herd is certainly not a comfortable place. Those of us on the edge are often misunderstood both by those in the middle of the herd as well as by those who have left the herd. If we’re careful, though, we are in the best position to make a positive difference, and to change the course of the herd for the better. We are the game-changers and the bridge-builders.

I hope that's what I'm doing. I sent an email to Deseret Book this week, suggesting a small change in how they fit newly endowed members for clothes, in the hopes of saving girls money and stress. I got a positive response back. No need to protest, cry, or get angry. I have just a little voice, and I will continue to use it.

27 and Basquiat

 I found out today that Basquiat was 27 when he OD'd on heroin (1988) and deprived the rest of us of an artistic cannon that could have, should have, spanned a full lifetime.

I'm 27, too.

A friend of mine took the time to go to Basquiat's grave in Brooklyn. I thought that was a compelling sojourn for January 21st, 2013, the date of President Obama's second inauguration and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Jean-Michel Basquiat lived one of those lives that puts us normal 27-year-olds to shame. A gifted artist--really, one of those rare people who merit the title of genius-- he was adept at drawing by age 4, trilingual by age 11. He grew up in a tumultuous Brooklyn household to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, who was committed to a mental institution when he was 11. He spent his teenage years running away from and then being brought back home, on and off the streets. He drew postcards and sold t-shirts to support himself and began a notorious graffiti art track. "SAMO" was he and his tagging partner Al Diaz's calling card, which stood for "Same Old Shit." They tagged high and low profile buildings alike. I loved this quote regarding Basquiat's graffiti moving beyond mere public defacement:

"SAMO marked the witty sayings of a precocious and worldly teenage mind that, even at that early juncture, saw the world in shades of gray, fearlessly juxtaposing corporate commodity structures with the social milieu he wished to enter: the predominately white art world. ”
— Franklin Sirmans, In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip Hop Culture

I've never really dug into Basquiat's story, just casually noted his raucous canvases on the walls at my favorite art museums. He is held up as a black James Dean, a shooting-star-like presence in the irreverent 1980s art scene: the first black American man to break into the pristine white high art world (and many will argue, the first AND the best to date).

J-M B., Leeches, Daros Collection, Switzerland, 1983

If you know me, you know I am attracted to printed words and text in art. What a fantastic mind! You can feel the energy, the frantic evaluation of his world and its ills, leaching through the canvas.

"Basquiat's canon revolves around single heroic figures: athletes, prophets, warriors, cops, musicians, kings and the artist himself. In these images the head is often a central focus, topped by crowns, hats, and halos. In this way the intellect is emphasized, lifted up to notice, privileged over the body and the physicality of these figures (i.e. black men) commonly represent in the world."
— Kellie Jones, Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix

Fascinating how Basquiat the man mirrored those things, those idols, that inspired and tantalized him. I wonder if that's one of the reasons he's so beloved by pop culture today; not only is he a tragic figure, his art reveals the types of concentrated musings and the frustrated, angry, fruitful rages we each encounter within ourselves while passing struggling through modern life.

Basquiat had a musical career, too, rapping with friends and designing album covers (now highly coveted objects in the art world). He counted Andy Warhol as a good friend and collaborator. Their spin on the Olympic rings still intrigues me; they totally take away the vaunted symbolic capacity of the rings and make them into something more grounded, more gritty. The painting, to me, must be how many athletes think of the games when they're still 2 years out: an elusive mistress, a demanding, demeaning boss, and a haunting dream.

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Olympic Rings, 1985, Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, Gagaosian Gallery

Basquiat's boisterous artistic jaunts around town brought him to the attention of Artforum magazine in 1981, which ran a story calling him "The Radiant Child." Larry Gagosian, infamous New York art dealer/ art king-maker, allotted Basquiat several solo shows in his prestigious galleries and gave him the run of the studio space in his own private home in Venice.

I used the word irreverent already and that's the best way to describe him. You hear scraps of information, whispers of urban legends about all of Basquiat's crazy stunts: painting in Armani suits, scribbling weed-inspired cartoons on magazine covers that later sold for thousands of dollars, painting on women's skirts, etc. The comparison between he and Jackson Pollock is striking (especially late JP when he's angst-y and starts putting human faces back in his paintings). Both lived fast, died young, one was responsible for the machismo Abstract-Expressionist movement, the second made waves as a Neo-Expressionist who also boldly addressed race issues and tensions with his jarring, colorific, wildly composed pieces.

Jackson Pollock, Portrait and a Dream, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1953

J-M B., Untitled Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas, 1984 

Sensational, haunting, challenging, uncomfortable, unforgettable, intellectual, enterprising, inspiring, vivid, violent. It's late now, Obama may have even finally gone to bed. What a world we live in. Freedoms are hard won, it's good to remember that, thanks Basquiat. Freedom of expression, of life, of passion.

Nerd Rap Sheet

My friend B is a magnificent girl. Today she confessed her ubernerd origins to me: in high school she was the type who could carry on an entire conversation in Elvish and always threatened to don a cloak to school. I smiled at her after this revelation and admitted dryly, "I went through a phase where I collected Noah's ark figurines. I have to have at least twelve or so stashed in a closet at my parents' house."

+ 

    

=  Friend MFEO's, am I right??

Tonight I wanted to let all the inner nerds out there have a communal moment in the sun. Here is a recap of my more special adolescent fancies, so that some of you can feel not-so-nerdy and some of you who think you're too cool for school can feel even MORE cool than ever (though I bet you know more about the Kardashians than B or I ever will- LAME.):

My American girl doll (Samantha) occupied a prominent place in my room til probably... ninth grade.

I played the flute in middle school. I think I only made it as high as 3rd chair.

I never went to detention once in my entire 13 years of public school.

During a cross-country road trip with my cousins I prepared and presented an oral report on Adam-Ondi-Ahman. They threatened to maroon me.

For several tween years my favorite movie was The Net with Sandra Bullock, and I cherished the dream of being a computer hacker who spent her days chatting with friends whom she knew only by their edgy screen names and avatars.

Thanks to the brothers, I am fully versed in the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings universes. I held my own in a group of boys last night who were discussing lore, out-factoiding and out-quoting them all! Owning it.

And, the nerdishness continues into the present day. For example,

I have a blog.

I have a Master's degree in Art History.

The end.

Oh hey. I finished grad school 6 days ago. Would you like to know how I feel about it?

Now you know. It feels Pretty. Dang. Good.

Also, on Friday I got nailed with a nasty flu bug that took full advantage of the fact that I didn't sleep, eat, exercise, or do anything else proper or kind to my body since before Thanksgiving, so right about now I look more like this:

Also, whoever hacked into my computer a month ago and aided "me" as "I" sent the following message to myself, thanks :) It entered my inbox at just the right low point!

A Problem Smiling Me in the Face

Visual Scripture Reprint and Thoughts After a Baptism.

Last night was so special, seeing my friend Kristin get baptized. There is an incredible, unique spirit at a baptism. I felt it powerfully when she was baptized, and again at confirmation. It's just about her and Christ (or, to put it more generally, it's about you and Christ). Baptism is a signal that you're willing to go the distance. Then it becomes more- you fuse to the road the Lord wants you on when you are baptized. And it's up to you to stay on it. And hopefully you will always keep in mind the fact that the savior wants you on that path, and that he has given you a precious gift: the holy ghost, received that same day you got baptized, to get through it all.

The bishop gave remarks that started with the seeming randomness of being assigned to a ward by something as arbitrary as zipcode. Then he advised- there will be people in your ward who are so strong in some principle, whom you will need to rely on and learn from. And there will be people in your ward that are struggling with something who will need your guidance and example. You can't know, just by looking at them, who is on top of their testimony, and who hasn't read their scriptures in months. You only find out as you throw yourself into your ward!!!

I sent Kristin a letter containing a reprint of one of my blog posts on faith from several years ago, I just wanted to reprint it for the Christmas season:

How often do scriptures cause us to visualize something in our minds? Stories, people, places, things... all the time, right?? In fact, once you take out the ubiquitous "And it came to pass"'s, you'll see that our holy writ is pretty much stuffed full of amazing visual ideas and symbols. This is one of my favorite features of the scriptures. Somewhere, (you are about to see how much of a scriptorian I am NOT) it says that God speaks to his children at their level of understanding, wherever that is. I feel like he also speaks to us through all of our senses! In addition to the heart and mind, God speaks to our ears, our sense of touch (baptism by immersion, the warm hug you offer to friends in their trials), our sense of taste (sacrament emblems and visiting teaching cookies :), smell (cookies again :) and last but not least, our sight! There are a few vivid "visuals" that I count as my favorite in the scriptures. These visuals, some symbolic and some literal, I imagine again and again, and they never fail to affect me. I'm going to set a couple of them before you, and not offer any art historical dissections. Scriptures sure can stand on their own. That's one of the many reasons why I know they are not a construct of man alone. (I can't resist, however, including a few select illustrations of these scriptures' ideas. The following scattered images are the nearest that reality and the internet come to resembling the truths of these verses, at least as I imagine them. :)

D and C 84: 82-84 For, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin; and the kingdoms of the world, in all their glory, are not arrayed like one of these.

For your Father, who is in heaven, knoweth that you have need of all these things. Therefore, let the morrow take thought for the things of itself.

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet,they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Isaiah 49: 15-16 Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.

1st Nephi 11: 8, 33 (Lehi and Nephi's Vision) I looked and beheld a tree... and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.

I beheld that the rod of iron,which my father had seen, was the word of God.

This scripture is perhaps my favorite of all these; it comes into my mind all the time when I'm studying the stories and images of the Savior. I'm on an eternal hunt for images that really strike me as looking like Him. It was told to me once that I would recognize the Savior if I saw him before me, which was a sweet thing to be told. It's kind of cool to me to think that somewhere in the back of my subconscious mind I know what Jesus Christ looks like. BYO Illustration to this one :)

Isaiah 53: 2-3, 5 He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

The Bechdel Movie Test

Have you read this article from the New York Times Magazine proclaiming 2012 a "Year for Movie Heroines"? Having been involved in the conversation about women's roles in society, and the reflection (or obfuscation) of these roles in art for six years (since my 2007 art history study abroad under the marvelous tutelage of Professor Martha Peacock), I blasted through all four pages of the article, totally engrossed! I was really moved by the following paragraph, a moment of contemplation tucked into the center of a rolling, energetic analysis of past and present film heroines and the motives they are ascribed:

"The rush to celebrate movies about women has a way of feeling both belated and disproportionate. Pieces of entertainment become public causes and punditical talking points, burdened with absurdly heavy expectations and outsize significance. It should not, after all, be a big deal that movies like “Bridesmaids” or “The Hunger Games” exist, perhaps because it should have been a bigger deal when such movies didn’t. In 1985, the comic-strip artist and memoirist Alison Bechdel first formulated what has since become known as the Bechdel test, which assesses movies according to a three-step formula. To pass the test, a film “1. has to have at least two [named] women in it 2. Who talk to each other 3. About something besides a man.” It is a stunningly simple criterion, and stunning how few movies manage to fulfill it. (Though a visit to bechdeltest.com suggests that things have been improving recently.)"

What a fantastic formula. I thought about the movies I have been most excited about this year. Brothers, I'm sorry to tell you that all three Lord of the Rings movies failed in a big way (two women in each, but they don't converse), and something tells me the Hobbit will follow its siblings' patterns. (Maybe it's the promo poster of a bajillion male dwarves, I don't know):

Les Mis will be saved, but only by dint of the abusive conversations held by Cosette and Madame Thenardier.

Skyfall- fail.

Lincoln- fail.

It really gets you thinking! The isolation of female characters, the removal of the bond of female friendship, and writers' disdain to create conversations that don't link the females verbally to their male counterparts; all are intuited by us, female watchers, but often elided as we follow the injunction, "Just identify with the male characters!"

Thank heavens for Catniss. That's all I have to say.

PS. Don't forget to click on the photo stream of 2012's movie heroines. You'll find more stunning photographic portraits like these:

Emmanuelle Riva of Amour

Amy Adams of The Master and The Trouble with the Curve

Quvenzhané Wallis of “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

Elle Fanning

On Keyboard Landmines: A Note from the Art Historian's Lair

You know what I loathe/find hilarious? That awkward movement with your keyboard when, months after you've picked a research topic, you realize there's one landmine of a word, which is imperative to your argument, that does NOT roll off your fingers easily as you type.

Like that time I wrote about Edouard Manet's The Railway. Try typing "Edouard" three times a page for twenty-five pages, see how long it takes you to get used to that letter combination. I was still going all, "E D U A bcksp bcksp E D O U A R D"  20 pages in. To this day, I recite the letters under my breath whenever I jot down his name.

In my thesis, the word was Menelik. Although that was kind of a fun combo, like a mini roller-coaster for my fingies. Didn't take TOO long to get used to, M E N E L I K.

In this week's final paper, the word is "Reliquary." You want to write Relicary, but you can't. At least my poor little "Q" button is getting some attention. Next week's final paper has two keyboard landmines: KEHINDE and FEMININITY.

I comfort myself at every snafu with the knowledge that my nail polish this week is bomb:

Matte blue polish and a meta blog. I'm all style.

A list for my next boyfriend

Written in the style of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, the early 20th century wit who mailed a hilarious reckoning of his "equipment for starting on a journey to fairyland" to his fiancee, Frances Blogg, in 1896, I tally the following items, which encumber--nay!-- embolden me as I set out to win the heart of you, Next Boyfriend.

1st. A Washington Nats hat, faded red, accidentally purloined from the bossman. It witnessed Bryce Harper's first major league home run from a vantage point about 2 inches above my own one absurdly pleasant evening this spring. Should you hail from the West, without the necessary appreciation for the Capitol's magnificent underdog team, I preemptively assert to you, No, it does NOT resemble the Walgreens W.
2nd. An Ikea desk, which unfolds from the corner of my room and will probably be bigger and more beautiful than your desk. I like to sit at it and look cute and hey, you knew I was bookish before our first date, so don't blame me for having the more magnificent study furniture. When my computer swallows up my entire final paper or internship cover letter 30 minutes before the due date, as it is wont to do, I feverishly hope you will manfully assume the task my roommate Kathryn has hitherto performed of hugging me when I bang my head down on the desk, sobbing, before a Blue Screen of Death.
3rd.  A copy of Love Letters of Great Men, from which the inspiration for this list sprang. You may not be the type to wish to read it and write in the style of those immortalized inside of it, but good things will happen to you if you dare, I promise you.

Can't bear to be parted from it.

4th. A number of museum postcards and art reproductions once nearly mailed to friends but decidedly, selfishly, retained.
5th. A number of post-it notes reciting my favorite scriptures arranged around my mirror, containing everything good and generous and holy and wise that isn't located on those postcards.
6th. A pair of screwdrivers, Phillips head and the other kind, which are fitted to girl's hands, and will seem quite unwieldy to you. There was something so comforting, empowering even, to request a women's tool kit for my 21st birthday. What a beautiful sense of security it gives one to reflect that, if one should ever buy a painting, or poster, or shelf, and it should happen to need screwing, one is ready; one stands prepared, with a defiant smile! (One will still need your help should one desire to pound nails into our brick-infused wall, though).

7th. At last count, a collection of 39 pairs of shoes, the remains of one Miss Christensen's bursts of spontaneous love for self, which, such is the perfect order and harmony of that mind, occur at startlingly exact intervals of time. Every 4 weeks. You may rear your head up in disbelief at that number, but trust me when I assert that every pair is your friend. The hiking boots render me excited to hike Old Rag with you. The Chuck Taylors put me in the bouncy, playful, sarcastic mood you find hilarious. The blue heels, well... no man has ever yet had any objection of any kind to the blue heels.
8th. A series of papers, most still in manuscript form, upon which my entire graduate GPA rests. Though written in the suffocatingly dry style of art historical research, they act as windows to my passions, and shall point you in the direction of 30 minutes of happy Lindsey speeches (complete with those ecstatic hand gestures, which everyone who has learned to teach about paintings unconsciously adopts).
9th. A Chosen Marathon finishers medal. It is part of my new regime, and the only new and neat-looking thing in this entire Museum. My friend Kathleen and I are teaching each other secrets of endurance swimming and running in order to pair it with a 70.3 medal this summer.
10th. A soul, hitherto anxious and silly but now happy enough to be confident in itself.
11th. A body, equally happy when absorbing cookies, butternut squash, gummi worms, and oxygen to its own perfect satisfaction. It is happiest swimming, I think, the pool under the Pentagon being the most convenient size.
12th. A Heart- mislaid somewhere. Have you located it yet?

And that is about all the property of which an inventory can be made presently. My tastes are stoically simple. A book, some passions, scant vestments, and my own self. What more does a woman need?

Flat head. Oh yea. The simplicity of the name caused its escape.

The six senses (Yes. I said six). And a story about slippers.

Blog idea stolen from this fabulous writer.

Today I wished I could fill my senses with this place again.

Hearing. Kathryn the Great cooking some super healthy, super tasty dish in the kitchen (quinoa pumpkin something?). The conference talk playing while she cooks (guys, I'm gonna be obnoxious for a sec: Elder Bednar's voice reminds me of nothing so much as the sound I imagine cardboard would make if it were ennervated). Also, I still have Zac Brown Band in my head.

Seeing. A very imposing stack of books on either side of me. It's research season!!! My very last round!

Tasting. The lingering flavor of a delicious baked veggie ziti from dinner group (cilantro in salad- who knew??)

Smelling. My freshly laundered sheets.

Touching. I'm wearing way too many layers of clothing on right now. Our house is FREEZING!

Feeling. Forlorn but determined in the wake of last night's election.

Also, feeling introspective.

In Cutting For Stone (the novel I'm slightly obsessed with. PS Camille if you're reading- we still on for lunch Saturday??), the author retells an Indian legend about a man who had a cursed pair of slippers. They were hideous and horrible, but every time he tried to get rid of them, something awful would happen. He threw them out the window, they landed on someone and killed them. He threw them in the river, there was a drought (I'm botching the author's majestic prose here, but you get the gist). Annoyingly, the shoes always came back to him. Eventually, the man realized that his only way forward was to build a home for the shoes, which he did. A cozy little nook where they could stay near him but not trouble him. And so, he and his shoes found peace.

Officially the ugliest slippers I could find on Google.

This myth is meant to teach us to face and accept our demons. Wait, Abraham Verghese said it better: "Own your own slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't." All those parts of yourself or your life that you would rather not have? The things that wreak havoc on your mind and even break your heart from month to month?

We've got to learn to own them. I'm taking bitty steps towards that now. This is me, building a tiny space for one such ugly slipper:

Confession and a Resolution: I'm afraid to move forward in my career. An entry-level position, particularly when jobs in my field are scare, is not fun to find. But it's ok. Yea, it's really, REALLY hard to find jobs and be motivated to apply for them, especially with beautiful Cobb making me laugh daily, but I will do it. It's time I get moving. I choose to believe Heavenly Father has a plan for me, starting today, the day, according to my despondent GOP Facebook friends, after the end of the world.

Joyface

Finishing my marathon strong was maybe- MAYBE one of if not THE best feeling I've ever experienced. I'm still overjoyed by the great experience of running the Chosen New Braunfels Marathon, even a week later. I'm so thankful to run (mostly) injury-free, and so thankful to my friends who ran with me/chased me down in a minivan to give me hi-fives at mile 14/paced me through my knee pain and scouted out slowpokes I could-should-DID chase down/gave me giant bear hugs at the finish.

Texas State Capitol. Taller than the US Capitol. But of course.

Some guys let us drive their Segue's around the capitol. My first time on a Segue. "Yeehaw!" is all I have to say. 

The crew, running around San Antonio the night before. Genevieve, Me, Rich, Kathleen (my running muse) and Michael, alias "WhattheHelg"

Post race. SOOOO happy to have my peeps there. And so happy we got a shot of "Black Stallion" the minivan in the background. 

Bless my friend Cobb who paced me the last 10 miles and did a superb job of livening me up and cheering me forward through the pain. 

That, my friends, is my face of pure and untouchable joy. Notice the bunch of kids who ran along behind me like I won the thing.

Again. STOKED!

Cobb was really good at pointing out people in front of me and encouraging me to pass them (which I did, SHOVE IT, old man!)

And I had DJ Kelly's ipod tunes to keep me going as well. It was cool, the trick of using someone else's ipod. I was always surprised by her random 90s hip-hop and rock selections.

The medal and the bracelet were hard-won.

For the post race meal, we hit up Texas' most famous Pit BBQ joint, The Salt Lick. I ate like half a cow. 

My boys Jeff and Rich ran a Half Ironman the next day, here's Rich finishing...

Here's Jeff in action, smiling after swim/biking 57 miles...

And here they are looking like champions.

 I may or may not be eyeing a Half-Ironman myself as my next challenge...