Hospital Food and Bookmarks

This month I spent too much time in hospitals.

I wonder why the food in the cafeteria is NOT healthy. Its because most cafeterias are run as cafeterias and not as health centers. You don't want to scare anyone, and want to make sure there is a comfort food option. Who are we kidding? They are run by the cafeteria paradigm-basic food. Ideally not terrible. Put cheese on everything, this is America, dammit. The sawdust cheese, they won't even notice!

I also sketched out the idea for a children's book, called the Bookmark Lady. It is about performative moments in a hospital, and being able to overcome your own emotions by being kind to others-and handing out bookmarks as gifts. Sometimes people need to be distracted by their own simple humanity-just long enough to get out of their own heads about being scared at a hospital.

MIT Reality Hackathon

Attended the MIT Hackathon about XR, actually called a Reality Hack.  I crafted and scripted the narrative about Desegregation in Miami in 1957-specifically a story about Frank LeGree and how his family had picketers outside his house, threw rocks and eventually erected a cross on his front lawn-all in order to get him out of a neighborhood.

The video of the AR experience we created is here: https://youtu.be/C6w3e4wqwfk

Our team would love to do more with AR and explore this and other stories of America's growing pains further. Desegregation of schools, different neighborhoods in large cities i the 1950's. Life for a growing country and how that time period brought forth change that is still unresolved today. 

Connect that period with When They See Us-and #OscarsStillSoWhite and you will see how America still exists in black and white for so many people. The best part of the Hackathon was the idea that so many different people could come together to build a new reality. One in which the only judgments issued are on a lack of imagination.

Mark Twain in the Azores

I've been doing some research on Twain's visit to the Azores. He stopped in Horta on his way to Palestine-a series of correspondences that would become his book,  Innocents Abroad.

Most of what he wrote about the Azores in that book was not kind, he was trying to create jokes-and also created a cynical sense of the superiority of the American traveler. He made himself the joke of an ugly American-especially viewed from the perspective of today.

In the Book about the Dabneys, there is evidence that he was in their house. Below is a quote from one of the female residents.

“At 10 the parlor was quite full….One young man had his note-book out all the time and remarked as I gave him some verbena,’I am taking notes as I am a correspondent of a paper’. 

‘Horrors;, writes CPD, “how we may appear in print,’

Next adventure!

Having spent Thanksgiving in Provincetown, with all its associated Portuguese heritage, I noticed that there is an Annual Blessing of the Fleet and weekend-long Festival at the end of June (6/25-28/2020) More information can be found here:
https://provincetownportuguesefestival.com/

It's never to early to plan your time in this seaside town, especially bc it fills up so quickly in the summertime. See you then!!

Toronto "Counterculture of the 1960's" Conference: Me and the Monkees

So, there is an amazing event happening in Toronto the first weekend in November.

As part of the 40th Annual Toronto International Festival of Authors, they are having a conference especially dedicated to the 1960's aspects of counterculture.

It's officially called The (re)making of a Movement: New Perspectives on the 1960's Counterculture and I'm presenting at it.  What's more, I'll be presenting a talk about Six Degrees of Monkees and the relationship map I'm creating. <insert fangirl scream of well-earned pride here>

The official description is below. I'm on after Angela Davis. She's a tough act to follow, but I hope to channel all my (nervous) energy into being inspired by her.

Very happy to help represent the Monkees and their importance in the counterculture movement of the 1960's!

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Counterculture on the Radio & TV

Nov 2, 2019 | 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM | Main Loft

Tammy Rose, MBA, MS, User Experience Research Lead

Six Degrees of Monkees in a Relationship Map of CounterCulture

The Monkees phenomenon involved music & a TV show, and an unusual amount of connections that make it the center of American counterculture. Despite being dismissed as bubblegum, from 1965 to 1968, the brand encompassed a wide variety of non-commercial memes from Vietnam protest references to Frank Zappa to their most infamous masterpiece, the movie HEAD. An extensive relationship map visualizes any and all references to people, works and concepts to the Monkees. Almost anyone working in Hollywood prior to 1980 can be connected to the Monkees by a low number of degrees. Sex, drugs and rock and roll as well as cynicism were regularly snuck into America’s living rooms and fed into the minds of children.

Visiting an Artist Studio in Laguardia

I was walking to my flight at the Jetblue Terminal and saw a tiny art studio in the lobby area.

Stopping, I chatted a bit with the woman who was running the space, Anna, but was rushing to my flight and I couldn't linger.  What a funny place for a popup art location, I thought.

And then I came through again, and my plane was delayed. Finally I had the proper time.

This time I stayed for a good while, and spoke to Davi Leventhal, an enchanting man who told me about being raised Brazilian in NYC, something I related to, being raised Azorean in Boston. Anna was there as well.

His art was based on fuxicos-simple circles of fabric, which when combined, make a giant tapestry of color and energy.  Visitors are invited to make one and leave one. I made 3, but one fell apart.  He gifted me one-which I will attach to a blanket my Vovo made me.

His assembly method reminded me of my Mousetrap Project, creating small pieces of beauty which are seen as a strong presence when mounted together. And because there was the interactive element, of getting to sit and sew (especially in what is normally a stressful environment), the was a performance piece that I was happy to have experienced.


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For more info:

https://www.davileventhal.com/about.html

https://www.aviationpros.com/airports/buildings-maintenance/press-release/21076449/the-port-authority-of-new-york-new-jersey-local-artist-residency-program-returns-to-laguardia-airports-marine-air-terminal-for-second-year

https://www.queenscouncilarts.org/2019-artport-artists

I Still Like the Sunrise

I like the sunrise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soyH1RmYi7I
Sinatra

I still remember the little girl I heard singing it.  She hit the word SUNRISE-and it lasted all day.

I wonder about the difference between Art and everyday work, and the painfulness. Walking across times square and seeing the sparkling stars on the sidewalk, crushed glass, but matching the stars above.

The drunk girl peeing in the bushes, walking me, she was so unhappy, and oh so rich. I was hapy to escape into a job I hated, but offered me clear expectations.

I work a few blocks away.  The coffee shop is closed now.  I still think of that block, and of the sunrise.