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conversation with kara walker

I was procrastinating at work and found this audio and transcript produced by MoMA of a conversation with the artist Kara Walker.

MoMA | online projects | Conversations | Kara Walker:

I knew that if I was going to make work that had to deal with race issues, they were going to be full of contradictions. Because I always felt that it’s really a love affair that we’ve got going in this country, a love affair with the idea of it [race issues], with the notion of major conflict that needs to be overcome and maybe a fear of what happens when that thing is overcome– And, of course, these issues also translate into [the] very personal: Who am I beyond this skin I’m in?

Pandoro

Delicious and definitely not vegan, I tasted some yesterday and it was crazy.  Like many delicious things, it seems pretty labor intensive.

ItalianMade.com – RECIPES: PANDORO:

This cake is a Christmas specialty from Verona and is as famous as panettone.

2 cups flour
3 oz. baker’s yeast
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
5 egg yolks
1 whole egg
6 oz. butter
1 pinch vanilla
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
3 tbs. cream
4 tbs. butter
5 tbs. sugar
vanilla-flavored powdered sugar

Knead together 4 tbs. flour, yeast, 1/2 tbs. sugar, and 1 egg yolk, adding some warm water if necessary. Let rise, covered, in a warm draft-free place for a couple of hours, or until doubled in size. Knead the risen dough with 2 cups flour, 1 oz. softened butter, 2 oz. sugar and 2 yolks. Knead energetically for 15 mins. Let rise for another two hours or until it has doubled in size again.

Place the remaining flour, 2 tbs. butter, 4 tbs. sugar, 2 yolks, the whole egg and the fermented dough on the pastry board. Knead again for 20 mins. Let rise 2 hours for the third time. Take the dough again and knead in a pinch of vanilla, the grated lemon rind and 2 or 3 tsp. cream. When the dough is well mixed, roll into a 12×8-in. rectangle. Cut the butter into chunks, let it soften and place in the center of the dough.

Fold the dough back onto itself from both directions to make 3 layers and roll it out again. Let the dough rest for half an hour, fold again and roll out two more times, letting the dough rest in a warm place in between.

Butter and dust with sugar a deep mold, preferably a deep, star-shaped mold. Place the dough in the mold (it should fill it only halfway) and let rise until the dough reaches the upper rim of the pan. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 375°F. After 20 mins. reduce the temperature to 325°F and bake for another 20 mins.

I found another recipe as well.

media coverage of ladyman’s closing

I guess I’m still trying to figure out my feelings about all of this. I’m collecting a list of articles about Ladyman’s to make it easier for people like me, fairly recent Bloomington transplants who have only a recent history with the diner, understand the history of the place and what its closing represents as part of the changes happening in Bloomington. I think the media coverage is also useful for helping to identify the people in our community responsible for those changes, or at least those who can make decisions about what gets closed, what gets built, how it’s funded, and how much community input is taken into account in the decisions made.

So far, I’m thinking that if there’s one thing that’s good about Ladyman’s closing at its long-time location and not reopening, it’s that the closing drives home the point that things that take a long time to build, that are really, truly, important to a community, are not so resilient and easily replaced. It’s incredibly sad, that something that took nearly 50 years to build into what it was will be replaced by something that will take only a few months. It’s also sad that something that brought people together across lines of generations, race, and class will be replaced by something that is used by and relevent to only a small group of people. Ladyman’s as a convergence of Bloomingtonians from all walks of life is an idea that I’ve been talking about for a long time to friends, but when I looked around the restaurant this past Sunday, I saw how true that really was. With the diner gone, I find it very difficult to think of many other spaces that offer such a meeting point for the community at large.

I was talking to my friend Chris the other night and he was mentioning the keynote speech at this past year’s bioneers conference and how it discussed the idea of designating and protecting places of importance to a community. I asked my friend Will, who recently studied historic restoration of houses, what gave places some kind of protection as historic places. He said that it usually had to do with some historic event happening there, some famous person living there, or the structure being architecturally relevent. It’s so frustrating that there is some precedence to protecting places around these criteria, but not protecting places that bring a community together and that are part of so many people’s personal histories.

I really like the idea of making new development take as long as the things it replaces.  I would feel much better about Finelight having it’s corporate headquarters and a supporting parking garage if it took 49 years to achieve those things.  I look at all the new businesses that have gone in around Smallwood Plaza and 10th and College and other things in the downtown area, and even in the 3 years that I’ve lived in Bloomington, I’ve seen so many things come and go.  Do we really want the physical and commercial reality of our community to be so fleeting and unsubstantial?
Good-bye Ladyman’s
by Steven Higgs
Bloomington Alternative December 3, 2006

Cafe’s closing brings end to cook’s 49-year career
By Kasey Hawrysz
Indiana Daily Student Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Update: J.J. Perry, news editor at the Herald Times sent me the following links to the HT’s coverage of the Ladyman’s closing. He also has authored a blog post, Covering Ladyman’s final weekend, that contains additional links to information about Ladyman’s closing.

Ladyman Family Gathers to Say Farewell
Herald Times December 11, 2006

Last Meal at Ladymans
Herald Times December 11, 2006

Ladyman’s menus: 1957 vs. 2006
Herald Times December 12, 2006

VIDEO: Cook Jack Covert: A Ladyman’s Legend
Herald Times December 8, 2006

SLIDESHOW: Five decades of Ladyman’s
Herald Times

Read our readers’ memories of Ladyman’s
Herald Times December 4, 2006

Ladyman’s guestbook
Herald Times December 8, 2006

SUBMIT: Share your favorite Ladyman’s memories and well wishes here
Herald Times

big media list

Books and other writing

  • Going Under by Kojo Ya
  • No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.- Mexico Border
  • Kindred by Octavia Butler
  • Crystal Cities
  • All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated by Nell Bernstein
  • Discourse on Colonialism or The Wretched of the Earth or Black Skin, White Masks
  • ravilution column in MRR
  • “Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World’s Poor?” – Scientific American 4/2006.

Music

  • contrepetera (or is it contrapatera ?)
  • eskorbuto
  • lost world
  • ekkaia
  • Comet Gain – ‘City Fallen Leaves’
  • Huggy Bear
  • Jazz Album by members of Outkast
  • lespotagersnatures.free.fr (recording collective run by members of Api Uiz who toured with The Good Good in 2006.05. Dave Penn says that they put all their releases on the Internet as an MP3).

Film/Video

  • “On a Note of Triumph: Norman Corwin’s Golden Years”
  • The Human Condition
  • The Take
  • Troop 1500
  • Beef with Brocolliby Puck Lo & Handle KungThis film follows a delegation of Asian Pacific Islanders from North America, Hong Kong organizers, garment workers, Korean farmers, trade
    unionists and others through a turbulent week of mass mobilization in Hong Kong against the World Trade Organization 6th Ministerial meeting last December.As neoliberal globalization replaces traditional livelihoods with low-wage factory and service work, farmers and craftspeople are forced into doing
    migrant work in urban areas and foreign countries. From China to the US, as exploitation and repression intensifies, migrants are organizing and
    fighting back.

    API dialogues explore the contradictions of globalization as neoliberalism intensifies in Asia and all around the world. Personal tales reveal the
    complexities of transnational identities, culture, class, and gender in “finding home”– focusing on our histories of migration and displacement.

    API activists grapple with “international solidarity” and building meaningful,
    accountable relationships with movements overseas, looking for tangible ways to link our local organizing to global movements that will topple
    neoliberalism and imperialism.

    contact: dragonbreathmedia@riseup.net

The Prison Industrial Complex | A Guide to Beginning Research

Corrinna created The Prison Industrial Complex | A Guide to Beginning Research to help people research the Prison Industrial Complex using resources around Bloomington:

This research guide lists information sources found in the IUB library system as well as the Monroe County Public Library and shall serve as a guide for Monroe County residents and IU students in general inquiry or beginning research into the Prison Industrial Complex. It shall help provide a basic understanding of the term as well as a jumping off point for further research into different areas of the PIC.

New York Times: Prisons Push California to Seek New Approach

This was a pretty interesting article.  I guess I’ve been noticing a heightened media attention to the prison system and the social situations that lead to the huge rates of incarceration.  It seems like there is starting to be some government response as well.  The article mentions sentencing comissions as one potential solution, which is something I was unfamiliar with.

From Prisons Push California to Seek New Approach – New York Times:

By nearly every measure, the California prison system is the most troubled in the nation. Overcrowding, inmate violence, recidivism, parole absconders and the prison medical system are among its many festering problems.

Now, with the November election behind them, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers from both parties say the time is ripe for the first major overhaul of the system since the 1970s.

…

Sentencing commissions, made up of a diverse group of experts including former judges and crime victim advocates, essentially treat prison beds as scarce resources that need to be properly allocated.

Used in many states, the commissions, armed with empirical data, establish sentencing grids, with the offense on one axis and the offender’s history on another, forming a narrow range of possible sentences.

These grids are presented to judges, who have discretion to go outside the range in light of extenuating circumstances. One of the system’s greatest advantages, its proponents suggest, is that it depoliticizes sentencing by taking it out of the hands of elected officials.

office party

Since Abbey and I have birthdays within a few days of each other we had an office holiday party themed birthday celebration.  It was pretty surreal.  I don’t know how many folks had ever actually had office jobs, but everyone fell into their persona really amazingly.  Even people who didn’t dress up adopted hyper-realistic office personalities.  By the middle of the party, it was a little akward, because I think everyone was ready to stop acting and just hang out with people that they liked, but the weight and momentum of the characters was so strong that it was like people had forgotten how to interact with each other as real people.  Still, it made me appreciate how creative my friends are and made me imagine what a bizarro reality would be like if we had all gotten office jobs instead of our current lives.

More photos from the event are up on the terrorware gallery.

Chris Soghoian Interview

My started a blog which comments on a recent local radio interview with computer researcher Chris Soghoian.

WFHB describes the interview this way:

Does the government’s “no-fly” list make air travel any safer? Do other supposed “security measures” really protect us from terrorists? Host Chad Carrothers spends an hour with Chris Soghoian, the Bloomington grad student who drew national attention when he set up a website that allowed visitors to print fake Northwest Airlines boarding passes in an effort to expose flaws in national security policy. The federal Transportation Security Administration forced him to take down the page and the FBI raided his Bloomington home and “borrowed” his computers and passport. Find out why Chris did what he did, his views on the role that researchers, academics, and common citizens take in studying, criticizing and pointing out the flaws in our security systems, and why he thinks the federal government hasn’t learned the intended lesson in this WFHB local radio exclusive.

I thought the WFHB interview was a disappointing though, becuase even if the way the U.S. views security is fundamentally flawed, and we aren’t made more safe, Chris still invests himself, both in terms of the time and energy of his research, and in terms of belief in the narrative of security. Fundamentally, this narrative of security suggests that there is an amorphous human threat set on harming and amorphous sense of “us”, and that we can do something to protect “ourselves” from it.  The thing that is troubling about this narrative of security is that it never fully aknowledges that the threats we perceive are from other humans, nor does it seek to understand those who we perceive as threatening in a way that is more complex (or even compassionate) than stereotypes or prejudices.  Stepping outside of that narrative, I find that the prospect of violence is still troubling, but that the motivations for violence can be quite rational and mirror motivations or violence that follows from my life, or its cultural context.  So, trying to protect myself from harm seems pretty futile, either personally, in belief in the idea of security, or through the proxy of goverment in waging wars or making policy decisions about airline regulations.  It seems far more likely that some kind of harm, either physical or psychological, will follow from these actions than some kind of harm will befall me as a result of a terrorist attack.  I hope that we can live our lives in a way that seeks to understand others, and seeks to change the relationship between people, or nation-states, or cultures that make violence and retaliation seem almost rational.

Tor, which is discussed at the end of the interview, is pretty awesome, however, at least from a technological standpoint.  It’s software that is fairly easy to use that allows you to anonymize your web (and other Internet) traffic. Still, I don’t want to get caught up in thinking of this cat and mouse game between government and individuals, repression and privacy.  I’d like to think that I’m accountable for the communication that I make and consume and that if I’m targetted for that, I can address it headlong and get support from my friends and community rather than having to hide things that are totally reasonable.

prison blog posts

Through volunteering with the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, I met a man named Shannon Clark who is incarcerated in a state prison in Arizona.  I found out that he kept a blog about his life and eventually came to post his writing on the internet for him.  He sends me the handwritten posts and I put them on the Internet. 

I really enjoy his writing and I feel like it’s made me rethink my idea of prisoners and prison life a lot.  I guess reading his posts made me realize that even something as extreme as being incarcerated in this country doesn’t mean that you lose your sense of self, perspective of the world, capacity for compassion or humanity entirely.  It also reminds me that even with the violence and brutality that comes to mind when we think of prisons, there also exist narratives of community or friendship or just people interacting with each other as people. 

I just posted these two new posts tonight.  You can read more at Shannon’s blog, Persevering Prison Pages:

The War on Terror

terrorist n. person who uses violent methods of coercing a government or community. (THE OXFORD AMERICAN DESK DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS, 2ND ED.)

Hmmm…. I’d love to comment further but Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is too far from Arizona. You never truly know what’ll happen in this indefinite “state of war” we’re in. Maybe Bush should assert his “Executive Powers” in wiretapping and spying on his own family.

Possibly then he’d be able to gain control over that foreign nation. Yeah, I know it was a cheap shot, but it was oh-so easy … lol.

Breakfast with Bill: A Sinister Plan

“Mornin’, Bill.” I greeted a soft spoken, friendly prisoner I’ve been eating meals with the past month. “Mornin'” He responded, with a warm smile on his country-boy face. “How’s the pancakes?” I asked. “Not too bad. I’ve had better though.” He answered.

“Where are you from, Bill?” I curiously asked. “Oklahoma, but I’ve lived in Arizona and California mainly.” “36 years locked-up here in Arizona.” He continued. “Damn, 36 years!” I was shocked and a bit disbelieving, after all, Bill doesn’t look much older than 45 or 50. “How old are you, Bill?” “I’ll be 61 February 12, 2006.” Coincidently, I’ll be 32 February 11, 20006. – Look out, two Aquarius prisoners …

“What were you convicted of?” I asked. “First Degree Murder. I got a Life Sentence. I’ve been locked up since January 1970.” “That’s a long time, Bill. I bet you’ve seen so much change in the prison system over the years.” “Yeah, but not all for the better. Sure, it’s less violent in here and a little safer, but we’ve lost nearly all of our privileges and creature comforts and the system has become more of a business.” “I still hope that I will be paroled some day. With a place to go, work and a plan, I can be paroled still.” “Do you have family out there?” I asked him. “No, They are all gone now. I had a lady friend who would write and visit but that was a long time ago.”

A sinister though entered my head. “What are your likes?” “Well, let me think… I like sports… reading… learning new things… That’s all I can think of at the moment. Why?” He responded. “You’ll see.” I answered with a smile.

If anybody out there reading this wants a pen pal, a friend or would like to send Bill an encouraging word or holiday card please write: Bill Sturgis #34395 ASPC-Tucson-Santa Rita, P.O. Box 24406, 10012 S. Wilmot Rd., Tucson Arizona 85734-4406.

columbus shooting

Teen Pranksters Find Out The Joke Is On Them – News – WHIOTV.com | WHIO:

Three Columbus teenagers playing pranks find out what they were doing is no laughing matter. Police say the three were throwing eggs at passing cars. One car they hit followed the teens and the driver began shooting at the teens. A 14 year old was hit and killed. The boy’s body was found in an alley. The other two teens were not injured. Police have the car, and are looking for a “person of interest.”