Endless Knots

Roz Zinn, 85: A death in the neighborhood

A beautiful tribute by Bryan Marquard this morning in the Boston Globe to Roz Zinn, who died May 14 here in Newton, where she lived with her husband, Howard. Painter (click for one of her paintings), activist, native of Brooklyn, social worker, actor, mother/wife/grandmother/sister, and first reader of her husband's books, I knew her from the grocery store. One of those unfathomable things: more often than not when I shopped, they were there too, the very tall husband and the very short wife, both darting around the store. Always made me happy to see them - and probably everyone else in the market too. Occasionally we talked, more often we smiled back-and-forth. Tiny gifts of pleasure. Heart aching for Howard, the whole family, and especially Myla and Jonny. Here are the opening paragraphs of the Globe piece:

The dunes overlooking Wellfleet's shore, a terrain Roslyn Zinn revered during summer visits, glow in one of her paintings with a singular warmth, as if she perceived the landscape more deeply than any seasonal pilgrim.

"After years as a teacher and social worker, I turned seriously to painting, which throughout my life had sparked and enlivened my spirit," Ms. Zinn wrote in a brief introduction to "Painting Life," a collection of her work that was published last year, a few months after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. "What I see in the world, so burdened and troubled, and yet beautiful in nature and in the human form, impels me to seek to create images that give the possibility of hope."

A glorious spray of tulips, the gentle curve of an unclothed hip, the deep smile lines etched around her husband's mouth - Ms. Zinn's brush found in each of her subjects a sense of serenity and promise. And those same qualities, present in her along with a radiant delight in life, impressed those she met her during her long marriage to historian Howard Zinn as they walked arm in arm in marches protesting wars from Vietnam to Iraq.

Continue reading Globe piece, "Roslyn Zinn, 85; blended social activisim with the arts."

Margaret Fullerenes - The Film - Friday, May 23

Delighted to share this good news: filmmakers Ron Mortara and Kim Romano will join our Margaret Fuller birthday gathering at Mount Auburn Cemetery this coming Friday, May 23 (meet inside front gates at 8 AM, then proceed to the Fuller lot on Pyrola Path).

Ron will film, Kim (check out the trailer for her film Muriel) will do sound. "We" [she smiles toward Ron] plan to make a very short film about this gathering. The "script" goes something like this: We'll take a quick tour of the Fuller graves, I'll read from Fuller's work, anyone moved to speak will do so, and we'll end with John Halamka playing a mourning song on his Shakuhachi (Japanese flute).

I had the chance to work with Ron three years ago on his film, The Beat. Ron used his knowledge as an ex-neurosurgeon for this imaginative piece in which a scientist discovers that the same part of the brain that recognizes rhythm is responsible for violence. In the film, I played the scientist's artist-wife. We filmed in my friend Emily's painting studio. Here's Ron on the set of The Beat.

For those who love water, whales, sailboats, and beautiful essays, you must see Ron's short, HUNGER ANGER LOVE PLAY, his meditation on what a whale might be thinking.

Local readers and those in Boston this Friday, please, all welcome to join.

Eliza Stamps for NY designers

The Cultivated Home (the NY Designer's Indispensable Resource) likes Eliza's work, recommends it for interior designers. Eliza's show, where Cultivated Home saw her work, remains up until May 17 at Mehr Gallery, 436 W 18th Streeet, NY, NY:

We are currently obsessing over the work by Eliza Stamps. Her show, Being and Nothingness is on exhibit at the Mehr gallery by Petra Projects. Eliza’s work is based on geometry, repetition and design, yet all of the final products created are part of a plan to map out an idea, express a period of time, or to tell a story entirely imagined. Each piece, whether textile or drawing comprises thousands of miniscule seed forms — either created by the stitch of a needle or by the renderings of pen. These seeds then form a cohesive whole, reminding us of the basis of all existence.

...There is an incredible balance between art and design, which is why they are wonderful for not only art collectors but for decorators.

Featuring Eliza...

Eliza's April 17th opening is featured at ChelseaArtGalleries.com. Please tell all your New York friends.

Dorothy

Dorothy Hershkowitz

dancer, choreographer, teacher
mother, wife, sister, aunt and friend

one year today since she died. loved and missed.

The art of the elephant

Maybe you've already seen this.  incredible hardly says it.

And if you haven't had enough, look at the Elephant Art Gallery.

Eliza Stamps: Being and Nothingness

From the invitation:

Petra Projects is pleased to present new drawings and textiles in a second exhibition by Eliza Stamps at Mehr Gallery.  Entitled Being and Nothingness, this body of work features an expansion on Stamps' earlier designs in detailed ink drawings, which mimic complex and elaborately embroidered linen and thread textiles floating in thick walnut frames.  Through both mediums, Stamps employs her signature seed form to become one entity among thousands, together making up the cohesive whole.

Referencing Jean Paul Sartre's treatise in the exhibition's title, Stamps' ink drawings on paper visually exemplify the writer's viewpoint by using a single outline to counter this 'nothingness' and choosing to hearken a particular allusion, whether it be art historical, scientific, representational, or entirely imagined.  Stamps aims to remind the viewer that 'each whole entity, no matter how complex, comprises much smaller entities, whole in themselves, which is the basis of all existence.'

Stamps' textiles represent the 'multiplicities of form and definition within both organic structures and the art practice itself.'  Akin to the principle of existence preceding essence, these textiles demonstrate a highly developed technical process in which a resulting sculptural element is meticulously created by intricately overlapping and weaving the fabric, forming, and installation.

Observing the aim of ens causa sui, or completion, Stamps' drawings and textiles both demonstrate her technique in allowing an image to reveal itself as the first marks move across the paper or linen.  'When working with the sewing machine, the ebb and flow of the needle create the rhythm of the piece.  In drawing, both with the sewing machine and with the pen, I am dancing with the mark I make, sometimes leading, sometimes following. Ultimately, I am creating work that has multiple forms and references, while being, at its core, an artistic exercise in shape and composition.'

Stamps spent her formative years in Newton, Massachusetts, and pursued a Bachelors Degree in Visual Art and Art History at Bates College.  From there, she went on to receive a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Pratt Institute in 2006.  Stamps also works as an art educator in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan middle schools integrating visual arts into curricula ranging from ESL to Social Studies.  She most recently exhibited in group shows at Sam Quinn Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, and NurtureArt in Brooklyn, NY.

For additional information or images please contact Anastasia Rogers at 1.917.679.5496 or Anastasia@PetraProjects.com.

 

One woman show - Eliza Stamps, April, 2008

Being and Nothingness
Eliza Stamps

New drawings and textiles
Opening Reception: April 17, 6-8 PM

Enmeshed, ink on paper, 15" x 22", 2008

Exhibition on view: April 17-May 17, 2008
Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6

Petra Projects
Mehr Gallery
436 W. 18th Street, New York, NY
1.212.255.0009

Join me there.

 

Knitting Antioch back together

My college friend, Pat Edwards, reunited of course via Facebook, has alerted me to this positive development in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where our dear, long-suffering Antioch College is situated. On the main street in town, knitters (and passersby) are stitching artful patches around "the knitknot tree." It's a trend, apparently. See "Knitters dress up trees for public art." As this blog is Endless Knots and I've been known to knit a thing or two, look for some developments here in West Newton (says she, eying the old maple in the back yard). Reminds me of "the note tree" on our beloved Bear Island in New Hampshire, where children (and their grandparents, principally) write messages on pieces of birch bark and tuck them in a particular tree near the island's famed Sunset Rock.

(AP Photo/Skip Peterson - thanks)

Tibet, March, 2008

The terrible events in Tibet of the past few days have me thinking about our Tibetan friends and reflecting on the times we've spent at lectures with the Dalai Lama (HHDL, to his people). I think I've said before here (and certainly in my writing and to my friends) that when it comes to matters of spiritual practice, I tend, like my eating habits, toward omnivorism. If a body of belief espouses peace and justice and taking care of others, I'm in. And, if it is sound psychology, I'm not only in but climbing the stairs. Having spent two weeks in sessions with the Dalai Lama over the past 25 years, I feel confident saying that he is a profound psychologist. His attention to empathy and his call to work toward the happiness of "all sentient beings" resonates.

Like many others who've been concerned about the future of Tibet, my heart is breaking: two friends have received first-hand reports, which are excruciating to read, and the news this morning that the Dalai Lama, an unwavering believer in nonviolence, is willing to step down as the political leader of Tibet if that would contribute to the violence coming to an end, make me want to...you know, I don't know what it makes me want to do but it's a lot more than sit here and post to my blog.

Some years ago, my husband and I noticed a banner outside an art gallery in Meredith, New Hampshire: "Tibetan Children's Art Exhibit." There we found the most amazing collection of paintings by children who had fled Tibet without their parents (they send them out in hopes of a better life) and resettled in the north of India at Tibetan Children's Village. We looked at the many paintings on the walls and in the many drawers and listened to the story of how these paintings came about. To deal with the trauma they experience during their dangerous journeys across the Himalayas, these kids are offered art lessons once they arrive in India. Art as therapy. We decided almost without discussion to purchase two pieces, this one, "Life is a Dream," and the one at the end of this post.

We chose "Life is a Dream" because we liked it and because it was painted by a young boy, T. Lobsang, who is completely deaf. My hubby was born on this very date 64 years ago with a 60% hearing loss in both ears. Enough said. Beneath the painting, which hangs in our living room, is the small plaque that was on the gallery wall, explaining more about this talented young man.

 

We also chose a second painting, White Tara, the female Buddha associated with compassion and long life, because it was painted by the children's art teacher, Sonam Choephel. The original, which this photo can't possibly reflect due to my limited photographic skill, is exquisite and hangs in our dining room. It's especially meaningful because some years ago, Sonam Tsering, the father of our friend Phuni Meston, came to our house for dinner and said prayers in front of it. Sonam, a Tibetan nomad who fled his country after the Chinese occupation and lived for many years in India before joining his daughter and son-in-law here in Boston, passed on in 2005. I think of him every time I walk through the dining room.

White Tara by Sonam Choephel

Even newer work by Eliza Stamps

In honor of her opening Friday, February 15, at Sam Quinn Gallery in Philadelphia, new work by Eliza Stamps. Drawings here and textiles here.

Inside Out, silk thread and linen on walnut, 6" x 6" x  4", 2008

Intertwine opening Feb 15 in Philadelphia

For those in/around the City of Brotherly Love, please join us for the opening of Intertwine, featuring the work of artist Eliza Stamps, at Sam Quinn Gallery, 4501 Spruce Street, Phila.

Reception, 6:00-8:00 PM, Friday, February 15, 2008. The show, featuring four artists around the theme of connections, runs until April 11.

This is the first of three consecutive shows for Ms. Stamps, the next two taking place in New York, where she has her studio. This show includes both her textiles and drawings.

And now for the grand disclosure for those not in the know: Eliza is our daughter.

Returning to Copenhagen

Photo from A.R.T. site (thanks)

Except for listening to the same music obsessively - I fear I've posted about my fixation on a certain Sting song and how that led to my meeting him - I'm not given to watching the same movie over and over or returning to the theatre to see a play again.

Last night, my hubby and I returned to Copenhagen, Michael Frayn's masterpiece. As per my previous post on this play at Boston's A.R.T., I was again astonished at the depth of this work. We also had much better seats this time, center, six rows up, and I mean center. Absolutely perfect for engagement with the actors without feeling as if they're looking at you personally (disturbing) yet close enough to detect the small nuances of their performances.

The play is very intellectual with its many references to physics and very moral with its central dilemma. Did out of the heads of these two men - Nils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg - the whole of existence rest, as Margrethe Bohr says near the end of the play? Bohr advised the physicists at Los Alamos who successfully, if that word can be used in regard to the atom bomb, created this horrific weapon; Heisenberg tried and failed with the Germans.

As I've covered the play once before, and Patti Anklam has extended one core concept of the play - Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - to the domain of social networks, I'll leave it here for now except to say this: Karen MacDonald's performance in the second act last night was astonishing. There's a moment when she erupts at Heisenberg, calling him to account for his complicity and his narcissism, that is so chilling that I can still feel it writing this. The play only runs for one more week. Go.

PS: I still want Margrethe's dress. This picture doesn't do it justice; the drape in the back, women readers is just gorgeous. And the peek-toe shoes aren't bad either.

"Heisenberg and social networks"

Patti Anklam went to see Copenhagen at Boston's American Repertory Theatre (technically, it's in Cambridge, Mass.) the other night and, as a result, extends the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to the social domain. In her post, "Heisenberg and Social Networks," she wonders whether the very observance of a social interaction, what she calls its "visibility," influences the interaction itself.

Given last night's immersion in thinking about what we can see and not see and the impact of observation on interactions, it was impossible to not beg the question of uncertainty. Certainly, people expect to meet and connect with others when they go to conferences or symposia, but to what extent and in what ways does the visibility of the connecting process impact the experience? Are ties made during the excitement of the moment any less or more durable than the ties that are not observed?

It's making me think about writing. If I send you an email, I say one kind of thing. If I send it to you and copy a bunch of other people, I say something different. Others are watching. Not certain that this is precisely what Patti is talking about...but what do you think about what she's saying?

By request

Ravel-detail, ink on paper, 22” x 30”,  2007 As per the request below, more work by Eliza Stamps.</p>

BostonNow publishes Endless Knots

A couple of days ago, I joined BostonNow,  "a free Boston daily newspaper and website that incorporates both traditional and citizen journalism. [It] is built for rich multimedia experiences and for community-created content, whether it’s blogs, slideshows, videos, music files, or comments on shared items."

How do you "join" a newspaper? You sign up, submit your blog, and once your content is validated, you're in. Thus I started posting to it and to my delight, I received this email earlier today:

Greetings Jessica!

Your blog entry titled "Endless Knots blog: Copenhagen by Michael Frayn" [first posted here] has been selected for publication in today's paper.

If you didn't have a chance to pick up the paper around Boston to see yourself in print you can also download the PDF at BostonNOW.com/print_edition.

You're also noted in the blog roundup at bostonnow.com/blogroundup.

Thank you for sharing your views with the newspaper readers and being a part of the community at BostonNOW.com!

Best regards,

BostonNOW

And my thanks to Nick Peterson, the force behind the American Repertory Theatre blog, who told me about BostonNow. I'm curious whether anyone reading here knows whether BostonNow-type sites are in other cities as well.

Buroeast features Eliza Stamps

Container, silk thread on linen
8 by 8 inches, 2007

Buroeast, a monthly magazine featuring sculptors, illustrators, designers, painters, poets, and musicians, this month features daughter Eliza Stamps.

Eliza's next three shows:

Intertwine, Sam Quinn Gallery, Philadelphia, Penna., February 2008

Serial Meditations, NurtureArt, Brooklyn, NY, March 2008

Title Pending, Mehr Gallery, New York City, April 2008

Collaborating at O-scale

Fourteen artists and four O-scale model trains (1/48th size) a Trainscape do make. Catch this "Installation Art for Model Railroads" at DeCordova Museum near Boston before January 13, 2008. Go mid-afternoon on a Friday and you'll have the art collaboration nearly to yourself.

Or if you're on the other side of the planet, experience it in a way you can't do in person. Watch the movie and ride the trains through the twelve worlds that make up the exhibit: a caricature of the original railroad robber baron (Vanderbilt), an homage to nursing (Land O'Lactation),  a small world of reflections, through the lighthead of Buddha, rustling a skyful of pink clouds...and seven more imaginative installations, including my predictable favorite: "Fourteenth Way "by sculptor Ralph Helmick.

Turns out "Ghostwriter," Helmick's piece to the right here, is not in this show but for quick blogging purposes, it's the only graphic I can find online that resembles his Fourteenth Way, the delicate shower of letters that he hangs in Trainscape. "The work references Wallace Stevens' poem 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,'" says the brochure. Helmick adds a line to the first three of the poem mentioning trains, thereby creating the landscape Stevens describes--simply by suspending individual letters (t, z, k e, a, etc) at varying distance from the ceiling. When the train runs through it, as it does all pieces in the show, the letter landscape moves.

And, though I don't know him, turns out that this artist lives just a mile from me and I've walked past his studio many times without realizing what was behind the door.

Glass, light, beauty

Ostensibly, we went to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts last night to see the Napolean exhibit. For those interested in the symbology of that particular empire or the accoutrements of imperial life, this show is for you. Much as I love our gorgeous museum, I was quickly bored by the show, as was the rest of our party. Artist Emily soon found a more engaging exhibit and by the end of the evening all six of us had dropped jaws.

Contemporary craft lovers with a fascination for conceptual approaches, make your way to the MFA before the strangely named show, Shy Boy, She Devil, and Isis, which to my mind bears no connection with this extraordinary collection of work lent by a California couple, closes. Wood work so fine it makes you gasp, ceramics unlike any you've ever seen, and the glasswork of Christopher Ries kept us there til near closing time.

We spent our final moments with our friends David and Judy--and a French museum visitor just as spellbound as we were--bending, craning our necks, and moving around Ries's work one more time, trying to figure out how a nicely shaped piece of glass (I think it was the one to the left, called After Glow) could cast so many internal designs, flowers, arcs, rays, mandalas, even, without encasing those very objects. I can't stop thinking about Ries's work and I'm guessing you won't be able to either.

The art of networks

If there was one persistent image that threaded through the presentations at the 7th International Conference on Complex Systems, it was the network. Whether the presenter was a biologist, physicist, mathematician, or some other specialist whose field I couldn't quite comprehend, he or she showed a graph of a network. Even Nicholas Christakis, the internist and social scientist, who presented the latest findings of the famous Framingham Heart Study, had network graphs illustrating where smokers in the study have ended up (on the periphery) and how obesity patterns observed different patterns (linked to norms rather than behaviors).

These are gorgeous images, these networks. Bill Ives, whose presentation on blogs at KM Cluster's Inside Social Networks two years ago was instrumental in my becoming a blogger, points to an astonishing collection of links to network images at Trust Art, including those at visualcomplexity. Serious major wow.

Bill's work on blogs deserves greater mention. I've had the chance to talk to Bill a number of times over the past two years. Each time I do, I learn something else about blogging. In our most recent conversation, he pointed out how important it is to use meaningful words when you link, meaning that it's better to call out Trust Art for its collection of links on "trust metrics" than it is to say that they're here. Why? Because the search engines can't do much with the word here but they will pick up on Trust Art or trust metrics.

Over time, Bill has developed a method for blogging with which he advises businesses. Following his approach, hits, that all-important measure, rise, making for happier bloggers. I admire Bill's work and have benefited greatly from his generous sharing of knowledge. His description of his Business Blog Coaching and Consulting Services is worth clicking through to.

New work by Eliza Stamps

Here. Enough said.

If you haven't...[heard the Boston Philharmonic]

I am guessing that other bloggers find this introductory phrase running through their minds when they encounter something interesting, powerful, or otherwise worthy of blogging. It's happened to me several times in the past week where I witness something, want everyone reading here to experience it too, and then find myself mentally composing a post that begins..."If you haven't see/heard/been to..."

But when you find yourself coming up with the same intro, you know you're getting a little lazy. So, let me try this:

If you're lucky, you've been to the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and seen Ben Zander explaining the music that the orchestra is about to play in rather artful language and then conducting what turns out to be quite an enveloping performance. Such was the case last night at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre, a gorgeous old building and a small and intimate place to absorb music. I've been there a number of times but never like last night when...

The BPO presented the American premiere of Shirish Korde's Svara-Yantra, the Indian inspired concerto with Joanna Kurkowicz on violin and Samir Chatterjee on tabla that brought waves of bravos and encores. Catch it if you can: they repeat Saturday, October 20, 2007, and Sunday, October 21, 2007.

NB: Thanks to Liam Fahey and Knowledge Leadership Forum, which invited all those attending this fall's session to the concert. (We were there as speakers.)

"The studio of my mind"

She lived for thirteen years after tests confirmed ovarian cancer, which she intuited long before that.  She opened her sealed orders early, knew she was meant to dance, which she did until two days before she died on April 6, 2007.

Last night, two hundred members of Dorothy Hershkowitz's family celebrated her life. Sweet nibbles to welcome guests and then the curtain.

A forty-minute film that Dorothy narrates, a dance biography, with Dorothy looking to the filmmaker, Lynn Bikofsky, and talking to us. Dance has been her "best friend," she says (at her funeral last April, the cantor recalled her saying that dance was her "conversation with God"). When things have been difficult, which they often were (we remember), she goes to her studio or at least "the studio of my mind." Dance is where she works out life, realizes emotion, travels through space. We see clips of her as a very young dancer, and, remarkably, pieces of her major early works, Kaddish, which she choreographed and performed shortly after her father's death (I made seafood lasagna for the cast party), and Monday Morning Quarterback, inspired by an incident where she had to step over a drunk in a subway turnstile. She is still dancing at the end of the film: she had to repeat a take 30 times, 30, when she performs in the halls, not the auditorium, of Dana Farber Cancer Institute, because people keep walking into frame, the background narration a lab technician saying "some people enjoy this test, find it relaxing," as Dorothy throws her body, just a few months before her death, from wall to wall with the knocks of the MRI. And then her teaching one of her last classes, frail, close to the end, her arms floating like no others, and the camera rests on her smile, her very beautiful smile.

People speak, beginning with the cantor, Lorel Zar-Kessler, and then many others. Poems, anecdotes, quotes from letters, a cello concert, cards, and emails Dorothy wrote, Dorothy-aware of death coming soon, her son, Alexander Bohn, recalling that she danced when she put away groceries, her students, her best friend in junior high, her cousin, all recalling a Dorothy the others recognized, and the brave tall man who said Dorothy was his icon of hope after his wife's ovarian cancer diagnosis because D had already lived seven years, (and, as it turned out, did live four years more after his wife died). Surely, as her husband, Dave Evans, has said, her incredibly strong body, all those years of movement, extended her life.

And then they danced, 15 of her students, in a piece choreographed by Joanie Block to "Smile."

Dave said the last words. Gratitude to all, composed and dignified, and very lovingly he tells of two things Dorothy said, the first a few moments after they met: "She poured out her love, meaning Alexander and Jonathan, her sons;" and her last, to the effect of: "No one should go hungry - there is no reason for that."

And then we all sang "You gotta have heart," words on the jump page here.

Repeating what I wrote when she died: Dance on, Dorothy.

A nice article in the Newton, Mass, newspaper where Dorothy lived.

Reading with Roland

In the mysterious world of book reviewing, the highest honor is not like that of a restaurant, where three stars bring home the gold. With books, authors covet "a starred review." Not two, not three, simply "a" star. Roland Merullo (various posts here, search on Writing) has one for his new book, Breakfast with Buddha. No surprise to this reader.

From Library Journal: 

...Especially well written, Merullo's second visionary novel (after Golfing with God) captures the spiritual struggle for true belief and inner peace with wit, clarity, and subtle reality. Warmly recommended for popular fiction collections.

Photo by Amanda S. Merullo

So...those of us in Eastern Massachusetts are in luck. Roland will read from and sign Breakfast with Buddha at 7 PM at these bookstores along the coast. Join me in Cambridge:

October 3: Toad Hall, Rockport
October 4, Andover Bookshop, Andover
October 23: Porter Square Books, Cambridge
October 24: Baker's Books, South Dartmouth
November 7: Duxbury Library, Duxbury.

And, writers, you'll enjoy the interview by Matthew Quick in Quay Journal, which includes Roland's writing resume. He doesn't believe in rules for writing, including the supposedly unbreakable one: write every day. Roland's writing bio is on the jump page (from Quay).

Disclosure as per below: Roland is my fiction writing teacher.

 

Liam Rector's death

Liam Rector, the highly honored poet and founder and director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, which includes its low-residency MFA program, shot himself to death last Wednesday at his home in Greenwich Village. He was 57 (New York Times obit here by Margalit Fox, same woman who wrote Carolyn Goodman's obit).

Several of my friends teach in the Bennington program; others have been Liam's students; still others knew and respected him professionally. I only met him once and not in a situation where we had the chance to talk. He was on an accreditation visit for a prospective writing program; the executive director of the program, a dear friend, asked me to speak with Liam and a few other accreditors about why I thought the program would serve students well. I enjoyed the hour or so that I spent with him--and he made enough of an impression for me to gasp when I opened The Times last week.

Suicide is destabilizing to survivors in ways that no other type of death is. In my efforts to understand why people I have loved have ended their own lives, including my cousin, Gretchen Older, my aunt, Isabel Shoket Grossner, and our friend, Frank Aller, among others, I have written about suicide over the years. Here, I offer this 700-word excerpt about a suicide that takes place in my novel, The Persuasion.

In the afterbirth

Two young women in our extended family of friends have given birth in the past few weeks. In honor of these new children's arrival, I've sent this short piece from The Persuasion, Chapter 18, to the new mothers (photos by Priscilla Harmel, left of Benjamin Israel, right of Ava Lester):

Perhaps the world of the newborn, in my case, newborns, was familiar terrain to the billions of women who’d come before, but the two six-pound bundles of body, mind, and spirit that I was shuffling from breast to bath to back were portals to a universe unknown, never even considered, with its own rivers and storms, its own unsolvable mysteries.

Holding the pose

About a month ago, a young friend with whom I've practiced yoga many times, told me she'd just done "breakthrough yoga." I wondered what she meant specifically but understood from experience without her answering. A yoga session where you feel "back," where you're limber, aligned, in balance, at peace with your body. How had she gotten there this time, I asked?

"Holding the pose," she said. "Things happen when you hold the pose." She went on to say that she'd been holding headstand and shoulder-stand for five minutes each, forward bend for ten, twenty minutes of Sun Salutation. If you've done any of these postures, you can appreciate what these lengths of time mean. If you've never done yoga, try this: Lean forward, trying to touch your finger tips to your toes. Now stay there for ten minutes. That's what forward bend is (also done seated and with infinite variations).

So the next time I did yoga, I got out a digital clock, moved it to various spots so that I could see it (just try looking at a clock in headstand), and held and held and held. Things do happen when you hold the pose. Awareness of tight muscles that soften, gripping that loosens, leaning more to one side than the other that rights itself. Things happen and suddenly you're considerably more straight, palpably more relaxed, stronger, more centered. This is why I love yoga.

Yoga postures -- asanas in the lexicon -- are challenging. Even "corpse" pose -- where all you do is lie in a relaxed state on the floor -- is a challenge when done properly. Same is true for most challenges. The longer you stay with them, the more you learn, the more resistance gives way.

I offer this to all who are trying things that seem impossible or just plain difficult. Hold the pose and things happen.

Benjamin - Two weeks

With mother, Samara Shapiro, and father, Matt Israel

Photo by Priscilla Harmel

Benjamin Day 12

Benjamin Eitan Israel, 12 days old, with mother, Samara Shapiro

Photo by Priscilla Harmel

Benjamin Eitan Israel, 7'11, 1:02 PM EDT July 28, 2007

Samara Shapiro and Matt Israel's first son, born an hour ago!

Benjamin Eitan Israel

Photo by Priscilla Harmel

Grandparents on the mother's side: Priscilla Harmel and Alan Shapiro
Grandparents on the father's side:  Stephen and Beth Israel

Aunts on the mother's side: Michal and Ava
Uncle and aunt on the father's side: Jesse and Karen

Cross-posting for the sake of art

The kind and knowledgeable blogger, Bill Ives, whose expertise in web-ish type things, especially blogs, is nicely balanced with his love of art and jazz, has done a very nice thing. Today, he writes about the work of Eliza Stamps, whose work I've featured before and before and will, no doubt, again and again. Gave her her first set of crayons - you figure it out.

Empress, ink on  paper, 22 by 30 inches, 2007, on display until July 25, 2007 at Mehr Gallery in Manhattan, was purchased by collectors at the show's preview.

Bono's Africa, Part II

Wait, there's more. A bit stunned that I'm flogging Vanity Fair's July '07 issue again, I read on and have to relay this: There are also worthy reads on Jeffrey Sach's approach to economic development in Uganda, the effective use of anti-retrovirals, and a music festival in the Sahara, snapshots of 20-some inspiring leaders a la Mandela and the Ivory Coast Soccer Team, and ... because it is, in the end, Vanity Fair, Tina Brown on Princess Diana's "love that got away."

Bono edits Africa, July '07 Vanity Fair

I was going to wait to blog this great primer on Africa until I finished the whole issue but that would be selfish.

Oprah's on the cover whispering to George Clooney: “The children of mothers who have a primary education are 40 percent more likely to reach the age of five.”

Annie Leibovitz’s photo essay of celebs having “a conversation about Africa” is superb: Don Cheadle to Barack Obama to Muhammad Ali to Queen Rania of Jordan to Bono to Condoleeza Rice to George Bush to Desmond Tutu to Brad Pitt to … Madonna…Warren Buffet to the Gates to Oprah…and finally back to Don Cheadle. I’d like to see these photos in person; slide show is here.

There’s a short essay on science (we’re all out of Africa), “Generation Kenya,” on the confusions of a young nation, by Bingyavanga Wainana, writer-in-residence at Union College in upstate New York, Sebastian Junger (A Perfect Storm, etc) on oil, China, and Darfur, and “The Continental Shelf,” a superb roundup on Africa’s premier writers by Elissa Schappell and Rob Spillman. Among the superstars is Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who just won the Orange Prize for Half of a Yellow Sun.

Zoetropers remember her: she workshopped there too.

Bucky Fuller: July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983

Twenty four years ago today, Bucky Fuller died, 36 hours before his wife, Anne, passed away. Bucky had a heart attack while Anne was in a coma and neither ever had to suffer knowing of the other's death. I took this photo of the marker on their graves at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 23 of this year, the birthday of Bucky's great-aunt, Margaret Fuller, about whom I will write much here in the time to come.

Geodesic-dome man, dozens of books, marathon speaking jags, perpetual travel, nearly blind, a penguin's gait, inventor of a thousand things conceptual and manual. "Grandfather of the Future" in John Denver's "What One Man Can Do."

Bucky had dinner at our house on February 10, 1977. On his lap in this picture is The Boston Globe folded to a feature story, "Bucky Fuller Has His Day." I wrote it.  Buckminster Fuller Institute has a great online archive of his  work. And we remain greatly honored that Bucky wrote the Foreword to our second book, The Networking Book.  Click the link, then choose Foreword and you're all set to read his prophetic words.

Genetic New Yorker

New York, NY (June 29, 2007)—Love it, hate it, everyone has an opinion of New York. I was reminded of this in early March in the middle of nowhere. Sorta literally. I was on a bus travelling a private road over a pass to Doubtful Sound off the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand when I heard this: “Times Square is my favorite place in the world!” It was the shriek of a passenger with the very-long “i” accent, a Kiwi for sure.

Times Square is not my fave place in the world but I heart NY. By geography, I cannot claim NY as my hometown; by genetics, I can. All four of my grandparents passed through Ellis Island and settled in NY; my parents and all their brothers and sisters were born there; my brother was born there as were all my cousins. I alone was born outside the fold—in a small, rural Pennsylvania town--where the idea was to get back to NY as often as possible.

So I do. I just spent several packed days here again, this particular visit loaded, as usual, with family, friends, and near always art.

Here are my top picks (and indeed all my art stops) on this trip:

New Yorkers: "orderline" opening June 28, 2007

From time to time, art, here. I'm particularly interested in this two-person show. Keen readers know why :).

Eliza Stamps, Blighted, 2006,
ink on graph paper, 19 x 24 inches 

orderline, a two-person show with drawings and textiles of Eliza Stamps and paintings of Matt Phillips, opens 6 PM, Thurs, June 28, 2007, at Mehr Gallery. The show is curated by Anastasia Rogers of Petra Projects. Through July 25, 2007 at 436 18th Street (at 9th Ave), NY, NY.

"Introducing..." Eliza Stamps at Clark Gallery

Eliza Stamps is one of nine artists featured at Clark Gallery's new show, "Introducing," which opened on June 9, 2007, and runs through July 31, 2007. The Clark show features ten of her drawings, ink and colored pencil on paper, and one of her textiles, silk thread on linen. Jeff Stamps and I "introduced" Eliza some 27 years ago.