Miss Universe and the Middle East

Tonight...(ding! ding!) Miss Israel and Miss Lebanon will face off in the Miss Universe Pageant on NBC.




Read more on The Journal

note from the US gov't

Regarding getting US citizens out of Lebanon....

"We will help you get out, but you are responsible for reimbursing us for expenses."

Crushin' at TICTOC --Manifest Urban Arts Festival

Lauren and I found out yesterday that "Crush" was accepted into TICTOC.


More on TICTOC:






TICTOC is an ongoing performance art and installation project created by [C]Spaces. Focused on presenting international, national and local artists working in the live arts, TICTOC provides ongoing performance and workshop opportunities to Columbia College Chicago students interested in exploring this discipline.

The provocative, insightful and whimsical performance works fill the streets and buildings of Columbia’s South Loop campus.
This year’s TICTOC artists challenge our notions of contemporary rituals, vice, stamina; asks what the ideal man, relationship or race may be; makes political paper portraits, shreds, threads and strings up the patterns of our day. Enter the crush confessional, be seated at the electrified picnic, belly up to the edible paper bar, listen to erotic stories and join the unusual knitting network. TICTOC artists fill the streets and buildings of Columbia College Chicago. Join in anywhere and everywhere!

http://manifest.colum.edu


This will take place May 12th all over the Columbia College parts of the South Loop as a part of the school's Manifest Urban Arts Festival. If in Chi-town, you should come down. There are way too many events to see, but at 7pm there is a Mardi Gras-style parade called Spectacle Fortuna which involves big puppets and is completely based on street spectacle. We end up in Grant Park listening to Buddy Guy.

Fortune Telling

Can someone read my palm for me?

Gordon Parks (1912-2006)

“Nothing came easy...I was just born with a need to explore every tool shop of my mind, and with long searching and hard work. I became devoted to my restlessness.”

--Gordon Parks

Mrs. Ella Watson

(also referred to as American Gothic)

Crushin' in the Soundbooth

Last Saturday Lauren and I began working on our "Crush" installation. Audio comes first...because stories come first. We had a parade of women coming in and out of the recording booth telling stories of unrequited love. We actually have some men scheduled for the upcoming weeks. I read a great article in the Trib about crushes-gone-wild with the tween generation.

Jackson(ville)

Yes. The Sufjan Stevens song sounds like Jacksonville.
I went to do a show and lecture at MacMurray College and to see my long-lost-lovely-rediscovered friend, Khara Koffel. She's one of those friends who you see years later and you carry-on like its only been a few weeks.



Yes, J'Ville has it all...art galleries and fantastic artists, fun nursing-professors, history just as spooky as the South, wonderful old trees, a 2-screen theater playing Brokeback Mountain and Munich, and best of all...Khara Koffel and Marc Benner!!

Sama and Sherry return to Palestine

My wondeful friends, and fellow 6+'ers returned to Palestine this week. They are installing an exhibition and meeting artists for us to collaborate with in late September. The nuns in Bethlehem prepared them coffee, cheese, and falafel for breakfast this morning. I had coffee and oatmeal. Sama made it through security at the airport in record time, 2 hours. For Sherry it was only a few minutes.

They are currently staying in Bethlehem with our friends at The International Center.

Sama keeps a travel-log (with photos!) here:

http://halfpalestinian.blogspot.com

Excerpts from Sherry's a "good morning" email:
"People at the International Center are very kind, a bit frazzled - too much work and too much constant confrontation with the oppression of Palestine. They are trying to interject this in the world and help the Palestinians through cultural interaction, education.

I have not felt fear here among the Palestinians, the taxi driver, the people in the falafel stands, the shops are kind and good humored. After dinner of day 2 Sama and I stopped to buy a bottle of wine and chocalate in a small shop. I commented on the good wines available. He said "yes, we have many things here in our prison."

"Cultural interaction"....hmmmmm....that is good. Even we could use some of that over here....

We bring our own strawberries to Dairy Queen

Grandma Mary is on the cover of Ellipses with an interview with Stacy Elaine tucked inside. Other contributers: Brian Evenson, Daniel Wallace, Laird Hunt, Pirooz Kalayeh, and Tara Blaine.
For more info: http://www.waywardcouch.com

Our Eyebrows

She comes at me with a Sharpie.


"Do you think this will work on my eyebrows? Will you do them for me? Here..."

"No Grandma. You don't want to use that. What happened to all those eyebrow pencils we bought you last time?"

"Hmmmmm....I don't think I have any make-up"

(Grandpa from the living room) "They're all over the house...who knows where they are."

I put the Sharpie back on the desk and start rummaging through her dresser. I come across a bag of cosmetics.

"See Grandma...you still have make-up. Do you want to get ready?"

"Oh yes...just my eyebrows."

There are two eyebrow pencils inside. They are light brown. I've never used an eyebrow pencil. Grandma Mary has all her life. I remember my mother saying Grandma did her eyebrows everyday.


My mother used it on me for Halloween and and an occasional dance recital. I was a Topsy Turvy Flower. I wore a lime green swim-suit type outfit and a matching flower made out of netting on my head. I am awkwardly posed forever in this picture against a rainbow background with one hand on my shoulder and the other stiffly jutting out of my thigh. Several years later I think I'm mimicking a teapot. But my legs are situated perfectly, one slightly craned behind the other. Poise training from Miss Ginny. A lime-green explosion of fabric coming out of my head.


On my mother's side, their eyebrows are thin and manageable. Mine are full and unruly arched. Without tweezers I know they would grow together. But there are hints of "the arch" in their eyebrows. I would like to think that came from them...from someone at least. A feeling of shame creeps in over the fact that I don't even know how to use the pencil. If Grandma Mary truly made the effort to do them daily, while running after five kids, at least I could try every once in awhile.

"I tell you what Grandma, you do my eyebrows and I'll do yours."

She takes my face in her hands and studies it.

"Yes....they could use it here....and here. A little thin." She points to the inside parts...where they begin by my nose.

Intuitively I grab my camera. If something important is happening, it ends up in my left hand and I participate with my right. Its an odd habit.

She starts coloring them in. I hold the camera away from me, trying to get us both...but it never fires off.

Her turn. I take the pencil in my right hand, camera in the left and start coloring in the thin parts. I remind myself this is just like doing a drawing. A little bit at a time, snap.....light, conservative strokes....snap.
I don't want them to look fake.

"Click Art" at Woman Made Gallery

The show will be up till February 23rd. Other Columbia College folk besides myself include: Whitney Bradshaw (juror), Mary Farmilant, Colleen Plumb, and Christine DiThomas.