Archive for November, 2012
“Elles: Pompidou”
Detail from “Barbed Hula” video, by Sigalet Landau
“Jeune Fille en Vert,” by Tamara de Lempicka
Detail from “Mes Poupees,” a video by Marie-Ange Guilleminot
The “Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists” exhibition at the Seattle Art Gallery mentioned below is an astonishment, with works by Jenny Holzer, Cindy Sherman, Georgia O’Keefe, Adrian Piper, and Kusama. The exhibit on the fourth floor, “Elles: Pompidou – Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris,” is even more enthralling. It turned me into jelly. The images above link to some particularly breath-taking parts of the exhibit. I was more moved than I could ever convey by a slideshow of Nan Goldin’s photography of the intimacy between loving couples, with Bjork’s very dear “Prayer of the Heart” as the soundtrack. (You can get a taste of it here, in this surreptitiously taken YouTube video uploaded a couple of months ago.)
Jenny Holzer at The Paper Hammer
It was a serendipitous little visit. The Paper Hammer is a delightful paper-product store on 2nd Avenue in Seattle. Jenny Holzer’s exhibition on the walls outside (see some of the work above) is striking. I’m off to see more of Holzer’s work tomorrow, at an show called “Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists” – “seminal” is an odd word to have chosen, I think – at the Seattle Art Museum. I’ll let you know what it’s like.
Outlook TV’s November Show
Longtime basil.CA friend Jack Fox interviews Vancouver’s Bif Naked (above) on this month’s edition of Outlook TV. Visit the show’s Facebook site and website for updates and behind-the-scenes news from this fine magazine program, devoted to British Columbia’s Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans Two Spirit Queer Question Intersex community.
Academic Tweeting
I’m a fan of it. This semester my third-year marketing class students are tweeting their ongoing, outside reading (hashtag: #MRKT3311) on the on the topic of digital media platforms as a complement to their blogging analyses and traditional textbook reading and report assignments.
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thanks-giving day
Americans in motion
Shortly after I started basil.CA in 2002, I wrote, “Much as I love my Canadian land, I do miss being in the United States for American Thanksgiving. If you put aside the historical ironies of the original Thanksgiving, you’re left with a day to meditate on the world’s generosity to you: My son, for instance, and my siblings, and my parents, and most of my favourite friends are still alive. Boats go by my apartment’s balcony. I’m reading Cookie Mueller for the first time. And I have a new favourite colour (light violet), a fact that delights me to no end, God knows why.”
This year has been filled with many new as well as recurrent blessings. Today I’ve been writing my students and colleagues at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I am so lucky to have a gig as an educator there. And tomorrow I’m taking a train to the United States, where, the day after, I will be cooking a turkey with some cherished friends.
Happy thanks-giving … to everyone.
Another Olympia, Washington scene
Kat in transit …
Kat writing
My friend Kat Kosiancic is hanging out at my place getting her notes together in advance of her flight to Thailand tomorrow. I hope she does a ton of writing, on the streets and on the beaches, and in the retreats, caves and hot springs there. I know she has several writing projects in the works, from fairy tales to pilgrimage memoirs. Years ago I called her “a polymath beat chick.” She still is.
Here’s a recent, really worthwhile Kat project: The C-free list. Kat writes: “The C-free list consists of things that I have personally found helpful on my quest for well-being after I was diagnosed with breast cancer over two years ago (see my story). The website [describes] alternative approaches that I feel help the body, mind, and spirit in recovering and maintaining good health and balance throughout life. The C-free List includes recommendations for alternative therapies, books, documentaries, diets, super foods and supplements, and also touches on how friends and forgiveness, love and laughter, mother nature, yoga, music, mantras and meditation, passion and purpose, power songs, the sisterhood, support, surrender, and words and thoughts help with the healing process.”
Here’s the Facebook Page for her project.
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