#Harvard Art Studio

[glimmerbugart]

Word of the Year: “Organize”

I’ve decided that my word for 2025 is “organize.” And I’m excited about that because I’m hopeful that it will keep me on track not only professionally but personally as well. Being organized makes me feel much more in control of my life and now that we will be headed into our 3 busiest seasons with the kids, it’s important for me to feel like I’m not forgetting anything!

Over in The Creative Art Village, we’ve got tons of fun projects planned for members, including a whimsical watercolor art journal for the year! And since we will be working in this journal quite a good bit, the very first project is to select our word of the year and then decorate the first page with it.

Do you have a word of the year?

[roadtripnewengland]

Bolton and Harvard Open Studios https://bit.ly/3Dfx3cq

https://bit.ly/3Dfx3cq

[emma-dennehy-presents]

Celebrating Black Queer Icons:

Tourmaline

Tourmaline (formerly known/credited as Reian Gossett)is a trans woman that actively identifies as queer, and is best known for her work in trans activism and economic justice. Tourmaline was born July 20, 1983, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Tourmaline's mother was a feminist and union organizer, her father a self defense instructor and anti-imprisonment advocate. Growing up in this atmosphere allowed Tourmaline to explore her identity and encouraged her to fight in what she believes in. Tourmaline has earned a BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies, from Colombia University. During her time at Colombia U, Tourmaline taught creative writing courses to inmates at Riker's Island Correctional Institute, through a school program known as Island Academy. Tourmaline has worked with many groups and organizations in her pursuit of justice. She served as the Membership Coordinator for Queers For Economic Justice, Director of Membership at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and as a Featured Speaker for GLAAD. Tourmaline also works as a historian and archivist for drag queens and trans people associated with the 1969 Stonewall Inn Uprising. She started doing this after noticing how little trans material was being archived, saying that what little did get archived was done so accidentally. In 2010 Tourmaline began her work in film by gathering oral histories from queer New Yorkers for Kagendo Murungi's Taking Freedom Home. In 2016 Tourmaline directed her first film The Personal Things, which featured trans elder Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. For the film Tourmaline was awarded the 2017 Queer Art Prize. Tourmaline served as the Assistant Director to Dee Rees on the Golden Globe nominated historical drama, Mudbound. Tourmaline has co produced two projects with fellow filmmaker and activist Sasha Wortzel. The first was STAR People Are Beautiful, about the work of Sylvia Rivera and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The second was Happy Birthday, Marsha, about Marsha P Johnson. Happy Birthday, Marsha had all trans roles played by trans actors. Tourmaline's work is featured or archived in several major museums and galleries. In 2017 her work was featured in New Museum's exhibit Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon. In 2020 the Museum of Modern Art acquired Tourmaline's 2019 film Salacia, a project about Mary Jones. In 2021 the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired two of Tourmaline's works for display in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. Tourmaline is also the sibling of:

Che Gossett

Che Gossett is a nonbinary, trans femme writer and archivist. Gossett specializes in queer/trans studies, aesthetic theory, abolitionist thought and black study. Gossett received a Doctorate in Women's and Gender Studies, from Rutgers University, in 2021. They have also received a BA in African American Studies from Morehouse college, a MAT in Social Studios from Brown University, and a MA in History from the University of Pennsylvania. Gossett has held a fellowship at Yale, and currently holds fellowships at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge. Gossett's writing has been published in a number of anthologies and they have lectured and performed at several museums and galleries of note, including the Museum of Modern Art and A.I.R. Gallery. Gossett is currently working on finishing a political biography of queer Japanese-American AIDS activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya.

I originally intended to do separate profiles for Che Gossett Tourmaline, but could not find sufficient information about Che Gossett, beyond their credentials and current academic activity. That means that this will be the last of these write ups for a bit. I plan on picking it back up in October for the US's LGBT History Month and UK's Black History month. With time to plan ahead and research more I hope to diversify my list geographically and improve formatting. I plan on starting to include cis icons as well, like Rustin Bayard. If you come across this or any other of these posts Ive made this month I would love feedback and suggestions for figures you would like to see covered.

[uwmspeccoll]

Decorative Sunday: Paste Paper Edition

In 1942, Harvard University Press printed 250 copies of Decorated Book Papers: Being an Account of the Designs and Fashions by the bookbinder, author, and creator and collector of decorative papers, Rosamond Bowditch Loring. Published by the Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 234 sale copies of the first edition sold out within months, despite the “then considerable price of ten dollars” and the economic stressors of the war. In addition to eight plates reproducing examples of 18th century decorative papers, the first edition includes twenty-five samples tipped in, many of which are from the author’s own extensive collection. 

While Loring collected a variety of a decorative papers, the examples shown here are from the chapter on paste papers, Loring’s area of creative specialization. The sample papers included in this chapter are all Loring’s own work, or that of her student, Veronica Ruzicka, who bound the first edition (it is worthy to note that Ruzicka is the daughter of illustrator, wood engraver, and type designer Rudolph Ruzicka, whose work we have highlighted several times). Ruzicka also contributed an essay when a second edition of the book was finally published by Harvard University Press in 1952, along with Dard Hunter and Walter Muir Whitehall. 

Rosamond Loring (May 2, 1889 – September 17, 1950) studied book binding under Mary Crease Sears at the Sears School of Bookbinding in Boston. Sears, about a decade older than Loring, had had to battle to learn the trade; women were barred from the Bookbinders Union but most commercial binderies were happy to hire women for particular tasks, such as sewing sheets, but maintained a strict separation of roles, preventing employees from learning the whole binding process from start to finish. Eventually, Ms. Sears secured an apprenticeship in France to complete her studies and opened her binding school in Boston shortly after, training several generations of women binders. While studying under Sears, Loring became frustrated with the lack of options for quality endpapers and became determined to make her own, which she sold to other binders at Ms. Sears’s studio. Her first major commercial commission was for the Houghton Mifflin publication of The Antigone of Sophocles, translated by John J. Chapman (Boston, 1930).

Our copy of Decorated Book Papers is a gift of Dick Schoen. 

-Olivia Hickner, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[tearsinthemist]

Want to learn something new

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Jan 2, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

Dec 26, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2024??

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

Yucatec Maya

[film-classics]

Rosalind Russell - The Miracle Woman

Catherine Rosalind Russell (born in Waterbury, Connecticut on June 4, 1907) was an American actress known for playing sassy, wisecracking women in 1930s and '40s comedies. Despite going through postpartum depression, the deaths of her siblings, breast cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, she thrived as a charismatic actress on film and the stage, earning the nickname "The Miracle Woman.”

Raised in a strict Irish-American, Catholic family. She attended  Rosemont College and Marymount College, before graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, unbeknownst to her parents who believed she was studying to be a speech teacher.

Against parental objections, she began her career as a fashion model and took acting jobs in upstate New York, Connecticut, and Boston before eventually appearing in Broadway.

In 1933, Russell went to Los Angeles, where she was hired as a contract player for Universal Studios but did not appear in a movie. Unhappy at Universal, she moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she broke through in the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks.

She took a break after giving birth from her career, but made a comeback with RKO Pictures and then with Columbia Pictures. She continued to appear in critically acclaimed movies and Broadway shows through the mid-1960s, including the title role of the long-running stage comedy Auntie Mame (based on a Patrick Dennis novel) as well as the 1958 film version.

After years of battling breast cancer and even getting a double mastectomy, she died at her home in Beverly Hills, California at 69 years of age. Months after her death, she was honored by her acting colleagues with the “Interlude With Rosalind Russell” at the Shubert Theater in Broadway.

Legacy:

Nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in My Sister Eileen (1942), Sister Kenny (1946), Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and Auntie Mame (1958)

Won all five of her Golden Globe Award for Best Actress nominations: Sister Kenny (1946), Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), Auntie Mame (1958), A Majority of One (1961), and Gypsy (1962)

Won the 1953 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Wonderful Town and was nominated for the 1957 for Best Actress in a Play for Auntie Mame

Nominated for the 1959 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress

Won the Golden Apple Award in 1942 for Most Cooperative Actress

Awarded the Look Magazine Award for Film Achievement Award in 1947

Covered Time magazine in 1953

Was the namesake of the Rosalind Russell State Theater in her hometown in 1955

Wrote the story for the film The Unguarded Moment (1956) and adapted the novel, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, into the screenplay for Mrs. Pollifax-Spy in 1971, under the pen name C.A. McKnight

Won the Golden Laurel for Top Female Comedy Performance for Auntie Mame (1958) and was nominated five more times

Presented with a medallion by the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1962

Honored for her distinguished service by the UCLA in 1964

Named the Woman of the Year by Hasty Pudding Theatricals, a student society at Harvard University, in 1964

Is the recipient of the Floyd B. Odlum Award by the Arthritis Foundation in 1971

Appointed by Congress to serve on the National Commission on Arthritis and Related Musculoskeletal Diseases during the 1970s

Received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1972

Appeared in John Springer's "Legendary Ladies" series at The Town Hall in 1973

Awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973 by the Academy for her extensive charity work

Presented her with the National Artist Award in 1974 by the American National Theater and Academy

Awarded the Life Achievement Award in 1975 by the Screen Actors Guild Awards

Hosted by First Lady Betty Ford at the White House in 1976

Honored with the Rosalind Russell Week in 1977 by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley

Co-authored her autobiography, Life Is a Banquet, in 1977

Is the namesake of the Rosalind Russell Medical Research Center for Arthritis  at the University of California, San Francisco, created by a Congress grant in 1979

Inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 2005

Ranked #28 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006 for His Girl Friday (1940)

Honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month for July 2008

Inducted in the Online Film and Television Association Film Hall of Fame in 2014

Was the subject of a 2016 exhibit at the Mattatuck Museum in her hometown

Honored by the Berlin Film Festival‘s 27-movie tribute in 2022

Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the 1700 block of Vine Street for motion picture

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Modern Lovers - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1974

The end of the Original Modern Lovers? This might've been the band's final official gig — thanks to Jesse J for passing along a recently surfaced tape. Jesse calls the recording's quality "atrocious," and he's not wrong (though it's as much the fault of the venue's cavernous acoustics as it is the tape's). Whatever, atrocious quality audience recordings are what Doom & Gloom is all about, am I right? So adjust your ears and take a trip back to a bitter New England winter just about 50 years ago.

Historic/interesting stuff! The set sees the Modern Lovers attempting to bring together their older, more VU-inspired material with the quieter, more innocent songs that Jonathan Richman was writing. There are tunes that will certainly be familiar — "Roadrunner," "Government Center," "Pablo Picasso," etc. And then there are several strong songs that — as far as I know — don't appear anywhere else in the Modern Lovers' discography (officially or unofficially). And hey, it all works pretty well; in some alternate universe, the band might've been able to reconcile their two sides and finally record a proper debut LP. It was not to be, alas — soon, Jerry Harrison would head back to Harvard to get his master's degree in architecture. And today, he is renowned as one of the world's greatest architects ... right???

Of course, we have to note the truly bonkers lineup — a heretofore unknown alignment with the Velevet (sic) Underground and George Thorogood galaxies. Though if the description below is correct (though the source says the date was Valentine's Day), Moe Tucker didn't even get to play because of George. That's truly b-b-b-b-bad. But, as Jesse pointed out, Jonathan and Moe did make it into the studio a few days later to record their charming rendition of the VU's "I'm Sticking With You." Was Moe's band really called the Bloody Virgins?! Hmmm, further investigation is warranted.

An eyewitness account? Although the Modern Lovers broke up in 1973, they reformed in '74 (maybe late '73) with a different drummer but that didn't last long because the drummer hated Jonathan. They did at least one concert: Valentine's Day 1974. I was there early with Jonathan so I got to see all the sound checks for all three bands. Unfortunately, the idiot promoters let the mediocre opening band, George Thoroughlynogood and the Delaware Destroyers, play for one hour and 45 minutes. They should have had 25 minutes max. Thus, the Modern Lovers could only play one hour. And the second band couldn't play at all, which is very unfortunate, as it was Mo Tucker's excellent (and totally unknown) all-girl band the Bloody Virgins (but me and Jonathan got to watch their excellent 25-minute sound check). Seven or either years ago, an internet music forum was discussing Mo, and I talked about seeing that band. A noted music critic (and friend of Mo) was pissed off and said that Mo never had any such band and that I was a liar. Luckily, I still had the concert ad and uploaded a photo of it to the forum.

Ernie Brooks: At one of the last gigs we did, when we played “Roadrunner,” we still didn’t have a record out, but that was always a catchy song, and we actually got some applause—and then Jonathan said, “People like that song too much; I don’t think we should do it anymore….” I think it was just part of Jonathan’s natural inclination that when things seemed to be going well—to go against it. He was very contrary. He was very difficult. I mean, anybody who is on to something new has some element of being a contrarian, because they’re rejecting the status quo. They’re doing something in the way they’ve figured out how to do it—and they don’t want to hear something different, even if it could make things better. When Jonathan said, “I won’t play 'Roadrunner' anymore,” it was pretty much the classic case—you can’t really get any more contrarian than that.

[bodyalive]

Sarah Neville: Stepping into Rita Charon’s studio, in a Jazz Age-era building in Greenwich Village, I get a quick impression of a white-walled space bathed in the sunshine from two large windows that offer a sweeping view over the Lower Manhattan skyline. Everything in the room seems considered, from the Bach playing in the background to the paintings on the walls. One of them, “The Doctor”, is an idealised Victorian depiction of a devoted medic ministering to a child while anxious parents look on. It used to hang in Charon’s father’s office.

My meeting with Charon, founder of the “narrative medicine” movement that trains health professionals to use the power of storytelling in their work, is one I’ve been contemplating for 20 years. How, I’ve wondered, can such a humane approach fit into the time- and cash-constrained world of 21st-century healthcare? And who is this woman who, sometimes unsung, has done so much to change the way we think about the doctor-patient relationship?

Then, just as we sit down, I realise I’m setting out to tell the story of a practised assimilator of other people’s stories. At the core of her work, she says, is “what happens in the actual [moment of] two humans sitting, contacting one another with language, with the embodied self”. So we begin. Charon graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978 and began practising general medicine. In the late 1980s, she started doctoral studies at Columbia University, focusing on Henry James and the role of literature in medicine. The work of the second half of her life has been to bring these two superficially oppositional realms together. She believes the emotional and imaginative insights contained in literature, art and music can transform the way healthcare workers treat patients and each other. Around 1990, she began teaching narrative medicine at Columbia and in 2009 launched a masters degree in the subject, the first of its kind. Since then, her approach has been deployed by healthcare practitioners across the US and abroad, from Greece to China. Formal evaluations have shown it improves participants’ capacity for reflection, in one study even reducing racial bias.

Charon tells me that for decades doctors were taught to conform to a model of ‘detached concern’ Her father, a doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, was an important influence. At one point, she goes to a filing cabinet containing all his medical records, which she acquired after he died. This part of his life had always been shut off to her; the close community in which they lived meant confidentiality was especially vital. But it turned out that his files combined the usual medical notations with far more personal references. It seemed to reflect a recognition that ailments could not be divorced from the wider context of their sufferers’ lives. Inspired, Charon began making more fulsome and impressionistic notes about her own patients.

The practised narratologist, she says, can pick up a lot in a short period, even at a time when there is pressure on doctors to keep appointments as brief as possible. “As you develop your skills of attention, you will notice things about your patients. You will be listening at a much higher pitch.” As doctors, the human body is, she says, “our material . . . I’m sitting here looking at you, noticing how you sit in the chair.” Emboldened, I ask what else she has picked up about me. She has spotted that my purple outer coat tones with the pink lining of my jacket: “You have taste because you’re not just helter-skelter putting the aqua with the olive green.” She has noticed my eyes: “Mostly the expression is filled with curiosity.” My sense of her, which deepens over the next three-and-a-half hours, is of a woman with a vast well of compassion, lit by a righteous fury about the inequities of US healthcare. “In Yiddish, we call it the Shanda, which is ‘the shame’. The shame of the system,” she says. “More and more clinicians . . . feel they’re being used by their employers. They know they’re doing shoddy work . . . They get tired of saying, ‘I’m sorry, I can only listen to one complaint per session. Bring that up the next time.’”

Truly listening to patients can be transformative, she says. “Patients on the whole really know what they need.” She recalls a young woman with poorly managed diabetes who arrived in her consulting room angry and frustrated. “I did my routine, which is get away from the computer, put my hands in my lap. Don’t write. Just say, ‘I’m going to be your doctor. Tell me what you think I should know.’” The woman looked as if she was going to cry but pulled herself together and glared. “You really want to know what I need? I need a new set of teeth.”

It was only then Charon noticed she’d had her hand covering her mouth as she talked. She had no upper teeth. Instead of fussing with the woman’s insulin levels, Charon arranged for her to be seen in the university’s dental clinic. “She shows up in a couple of months, and she is dazzling. She started a [catering] business in her house. Her [blood] sugars were better than they had been in a while. And she was much more active — she’s going to parties, she’s dancing! It was such a lesson to me. Why on earth would you start anywhere else but ‘Tell me where we should start’?”

I’m intrigued by the extent to which this approach requires an inversion of the traditional power relationship between doctor and patient. She tells me that for decades doctors were taught to conform to a model of “detached concern”. In fact, “engaged concern is going to get you farther than detached concern. Detachment looks an awful lot like coldness.” Instead, Charon believes in making space for the imagination. “The more you exert your own creativity, the better your medicine will be. It’s making leaps . . . I don’t like the word intuition because it sounds like magic. But the ability to see the known from the unknown — that’s what poetry does.”

In the early 2000s, Charon tried something new. After finishing a consultation and making notes like any doctor would, “I would turn the keyboard and the monitor around and say, ‘I know what I saw. But please finish the note.’ I would leave them alone for five minutes, and they wrote the damnedest things!” A college professor wrote “that she knew that she was a good teacher and that this really gave her pride.” The sentiment astonished Charon because it had not surfaced during their conversations, which had been dominated by the woman’s health woes and difficult relationship with her daughter. An idea occurs. As I am drawing our conversation to a close, I ask her to finish this interview. Is there anything else I should know? She confides that after she quit her practice in 2015 to concentrate on running her programme at Columbia, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she could hand over responsibility for her patients. (“Somebody else is going to worry about Lucy.”)

It was several weeks before she identified the gap that had opened up in her life: “I was terribly missing the chance to do random acts of kindness.” As a physician, the scope for moments of generosity is “drastic”, she says, whether ringing a patient’s sister to update her, helping put someone’s socks on after an examination or rubbing the feet of a terminally ill patient. There is something heartbreaking about the disproportionate gratitude these interventions elicit, she says. “I think their expectations for us are so low.”

Narrative medicine can, she suggests, endow clinicians with the ability to see an issue from multiple perspectives, a power she likens to “the compound eye of the fly”. It can help them to understand and value those they care for in all their uniqueness and complexity. “We ought to treat every patient as the deepest mystery,” she says.

Sarah Neville is the FT’s global health editor

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 21

Transgender Day Of Remembrance (since 1999) set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice (transphobia). The event is held on November 20, founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, to honor Rita Hester, whose murder in 1998 kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco, California candlelight vigil in 1999. Since then, the event has grown to encompass memorials in hundreds of cities around the world.

1873 – Daniel Gregory Mason, American composer, born (d.1953); Mason came from a long line of notable American musicians, including his father Henry Mason. He studied under John Knowles Paine at Harvard University from 1891 to 1895, continuing his studies with George Chadwick and Goetschius. In 1894 he published his Opus 1, a set of keyboard waltzes, but soon after began writing on music for his primary career. He became a lecturer at Columbia University in 1905, where he would remain until his retirement in 1942, successively being awarded the positions of assistant professor (1910), MacDowell professor (1929) and head of the music department (1929-1940). He was the lover of composer-pianist John Powell.

1883 – Edwin August (d.1964) was an American actor, director and screenwriter of the silent era. He appeared in 152 films between 1909 and 1947. He also directed 52 films between 1912 and 1919. He co-founded Eaco Films in 1914.

Edwin was born Edwin August Phillip von der Butz in St. Louis, Missouri, to August and Sarah Butz. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College.

He began working with Biograph Studios in New York as early as 1908 and moved to Hollywood with that company in 1910. He starred in several films by D. W. Griffith, who was also with the company, and continued to work well into the 1930s as a writer and director.

In 1916, he entered his name as a candidate for President of the United States, and spoke out against censorship in cinema. The candidate wasn't taken very seriously, and perhaps that wasn't the point. He didn't like the road that his industry was going down, and wanted to voice his opinion in the hope of change.

A co-star, Blanche Sweet, would later bluntly state: "He was a homo." He owned a chicken ranch at 648 South Figueroa in Hollywood and was friends with gay silent film star J. Warren Kerrigan and most likely Kerrigan's long time partner James Vincent.

Edwin passed away from cerebral metastatic disease on March 4, 1964 at the Motion Picture County Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles County, California.

1916 – James Pope-Hennessy (d.1974) was a British biographer and travel writer.

James Pope-Hennessy was born in London on 20 November 1916, the younger son of Ladislaus Pope-Hennessy, a soldier from County Cork, Ireland, and his wife, Una, the daughter of Arthur Birch, Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon. He was the younger of two sons; his elder brother, John Pope-Hennessy, was an English art historian, museum director and writer of note. James came from a close-knit Catholic family and was educated at Downside School and at Balliol College, Oxford, but generally showed a lack of interest in formal education and did not enjoy his time at either Downside or Oxford.

Largely owing to his mother's influence, he decided to become a writer and left Oxford in 1937 without taking a degree. He went to work for the Catholic publishers Sheed and Ward as an editorial assistant. While working at the company's offices, in Paternoster Row in London, he worked on his first book, London Fabric (1939), for which he was awarded the Hawthornden Prize. During this period, he was involved in a circle of notable literary figures including Harold Nicolson, Raymond Mortimer and James Lees-Milne.

He left the publishers in 1938 when his mother found him a job as private secretary to Hubert Young, the Governor of Trinidad. Although his time abroad provided the material for his later West Indian Summer (1943), he disliked both the West Indies and the atmosphere of Government House. The outbreak of the Second World War gave him an excuse to return to Britain, where he enlisted as a private in an anti-aircraft battery under the command of Sir Victor Cazalet. Rising through the ranks, he was transferred to military intelligence, given a commission and spent the latter part of the war as a member of the British army staff at Washington.

Pope-Hennessy enjoyed his time in the United States and made many friends there. After the end of the war he wrote an account of his experiences in America. On his return to London in 1945 he shared a flat with the British intelligence officer Guy Burgess, who later defected to the Soviet Union. He had a brief spell as the literary editor of The Spectator between 1947 and 1949, before he decided to travel to France and write Aspects of Provence, which was published in 1952.

He would eventually establish himself as one of the leading biographers of his time; his first effort in this direction being a two-volume biography of Monckton Milnes that appeared in 1949 under the titles The Years of Promise and The Flight of Youth. This was followed by further biographies of the Earl of Crewe and of Queen Mary, for which he was created Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1960. He also wrote a life of his grandfather, the colonial governor John Pope Hennessy, under the title Verandah (adapted as a documentary for BBC Television under the title "Strange Excellency", 1964), followed by an account of the Atlantic slave traffickers, Sins of the Fathers (1967).

In 1970, he took out Irish citizenship and went to live at Banagher in County Offaly, and during the next few years produced authoritative biographies of both Anthony Trollope and Robert Louis Stevenson. Trollope himself had chosen James' grandfather, John Pope Hennessy, as the basis for the character Phineas Finn in his novel of the same name. Robert Louis Stevenson was published posthumously and without revision in 1974. He became a popular figure in Banagher, evidenced by the fact that he was asked to adjudicate at a local beauty pageant and the horse fair, the oldest in Ireland. On being given a large advance he returned to London in 1974 to begin work on his next subject, Noël Coward.

Despite being a successful professional writer, Pope-Hennessy was careless with money. He suffered a series of financial crises and often relied on the goodwill of friends to get him by. A homosexual, he was a heavy drinker and frequented back-street bars and shady pubs where he mixed with a rough crowd, associations that eventually contributed to his death when he was brutally murdered on 25 January 1974 in his London flat by three young men. He had been sexually acquainted with one of them.

1941 – Oliver Sipple, the man who saved President Gerald Ford's life, was born today.

Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, just seventeen days after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme had also tried to kill the president. Moore was forty feet away from Ford when she fired a single shot at him. The bullet missed the President because bystander Oliver Sipple grabbed Moore's arm and then pulled her to the ground, using his hand to keep the gun from firing a second time. Sipple said at the time: "I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off."��The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel and slightly injured a bystander.

Sipple goes for the gun.

Sipple, a decorated Marine and Vietnam War veteran, was immediately commended by the police and the Secret Service for his action at the scene. The news media portrayed Sipple as a hero but would eventually report on his outing by Harvey Milk and other San-Francisco gay activists. Though he was known to be Gay by various fellow members of the gay community, Sipple had not made this public, and his sexual orientation was a secret from his family. He asked the press to keep his sexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer had knowledge of his orientation; however, his request was not complied with.

The national spotlight was on him immediately, and Milk responded. While discussing whether the truth about Sipple's sexuality should be disclosed, Milk told a friend: "It's too good an opportunity. For once we can show that Gays do heroic things, not just all that ca-ca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms." Milk contacted the newspaper.

Several days later Herb Caen, a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle, exposed Sipple as a Gay man and a friend of Milk. Sipple was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother, a staunch Baptist in Detroit, refused to speak to him. Although he had been involved with the Gay community for years, even participating in Gay Pride events, Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy. President Ford sent Sipple a note of thanks for saving his life. Milk said that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House.

Sipple filed a $15 million invasion of privacy suit against Caen, seven named newspapers, and a number of unnamed publishers, for publishing the disclosures. The Superior Court in San Francisco dismissed the suit, and Sipple continued his legal battle until May 1984, when a state court of appeals held that Sipple had indeed become news, and that his sexual orientation was part of the story.

According to a 2006 article in The Washington Post, Sipple went through a period of estrangement with his parents, but the family later reconciled with his sexual orientation. Sipple's brother, George, told the newspaper, "(Our parents) accepted it. That was all. They didn't like it, but they still accepted. He was welcomed. Only thing was: Don't bring a lot of your friends."

Sipple's mental and physical health sharply declined over the years. He drank heavily, gained weight to 300 lb (140 kg), was fitted with a pacemaker, became paranoid and suicidal. On February 2, 1989, he was found dead in his bed, at the age of forty-seven. Earlier that day, Sipple had visited a friend and said he had been turned away by the Veterans Administration hospital where he went concerning his difficulty in breathing. His $334 per month apartment near San Francisco's Tenderloin District was found with many newspaper clippings of his actions on the fateful September afternoon in 1975. His most prized possession was the framed letter from the White House.

Sipple held no ill will toward Milk, and remained in contact with him. The incident brought him so much attention that, later in life, while drinking, he would regret grabbing Moore's gun. Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic according to the coroner's report.

Sipple's funeral was attended by 30 people, and he was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California. A letter addressed to the friends of Oliver Sipple was on display for a short period after his death at one of his favorite hangouts, the New Belle Saloon:

"Mrs. Ford and I express our deepest sympathy in this time of sorrow involving your friend's passing..." President Gerald Ford, February, 1989

In a 2001 interview with columnist Deb Price, Ford disputed the claim that Sipple was treated differently because of his sexual orientation, saying: "As far as I was concerned, I had done the right thing and the matter was ended. I didn't learn until sometime later — I can't remember when — he was Gay. I don't know where anyone got the crazy idea I was prejudiced and wanted to exclude Gays."

1990 – A London judge convicted 14 gay men of committing criminal assaults upon themselves because of their participation in S&M. All 14 receive prison sentences.

1998 – John Geddes Lawrence and Tyrone Garner of Texas were ordered to pay fines of $125 each after being arrested for having sex in their home. The couple refused to pay and announced they would challenge the Texas sodomy law - initiating what became known as the historic "Lawrence vs Texas" Supreme Court decision which decriminalized homosexual sex.

[cyarsk52-20]

While this might sound like (just) a fandom post for Taylor Swift, it’s not.

It’s a remark about how social media sways public opinion and how the patriarchy is still alive and well in American society today.

If you’re not listening to Taylor, you cannot objectively claim a lack of talent. You cannot objectively claim she’s overrated. And you definitely cannot claim to not like her “genre” (unless you listen solely to like death metal or trap).

Taylor has recorded 10 studio albums in 17 years. She has fluidly moved between country, pop, rock, synth, hip hop, folk, alternative, and indie genres.

She has written or co-written 243 songs, some in collaboration with or even for such names like: Little Big Town, Miley Cyrus, Sugarland, The Civil Wars, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

In her 200 million records sold, Taylor has won 324 awards, including 12 Grammys, 23 MTV Video Music Awards, 40 American Music Awards, 40 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Country Music Awards, and an Emmy.

She is the most-awarded artist of all times at the AMAs and BMAs, and she ties with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon for most Album of the Year Grammys.

Swift was “the most streamed artist of 2023 on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music; the first act to place number one on the year-end Billboard top artists list in three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023); and the first living artist to simultaneously chart five albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.”

Rolling Stone described Taylor as “a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture,” and scholars and critics have compared her to literary figures such as Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and John Keats, as well as to modern songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.

Over 20 universities include a Taylor Swift course in their catalog, including Harvard, Mizzou, Berkeley, Stanford, and Brigham Young.

Taylor has acted in five movies, headlined six tours, and can play guitar and piano. She has developed, written, and directed several of her own music videos.

She has influenced the music business by revitalizing vinyl records, championing artists’ rights on streaming services, and changing the way label contracts are written. Her journey to take back her intellectual property by re-recording her first six albums is one of the best business and personal decisions any artist has made regarding rights.

She’s not just a talented performer and savvy businesswoman. She is also very human and fights for things she believes in. Taylor speaks up for the rights of women, LGBTQ, and artists.

She has donated millions to charitable relief and philanthropic efforts, as well as to the arts. She generously gave millions of her revenue in bonuses to her Eras Tour team.

She was sexually assaulted by a DJ in Colorado and reported it. The DJ was terminated and sued Taylor for $3 million in damages, so she counter-sued for a symbolic $1 and spent over two years in a legal battle that ended in a jury deciding in her favor. Since then, Taylor has been even more active in fighting for the rights for women to be heard.

She genuinely enjoys her fans and has fun leaving clues and hints in her music to keep her fans engaged and like they’re part of the story. She always seems sincerely delighted to be doing what she’s doing.

Her 17 years in the industry have proven her talent. It shows that she’s earned every fan she has and dollar she’s made. (And if you think she’s only country-pop, then you need to spend a day with Folklore or Evermore.)

If you have a negative reaction towards her as a person, it’s because our society still goes after successful women in a way that men avoid. The media turns on celebrities - especially women - who dare to do things like countersue a sexual assault case, speak against corrupt politicians, or not laugh at misogyny.

I will never apologize for being enchanted by this one. She is a poet, and she’s possibly the most self-aware artist I’ve ever heard speak. 🫶🏻

(ETA: I did not pay for this post. I did not anticipate the shares. And I wasn’t out to seek attention. Why strangers feel the need to message me rude things because I posted on my personal page is beyond me. This is why we can’t have nice things.)

Author: Megan K Hall

[genevivesverses]

Edward Gorey: History of an Eccentric Creator

While styles of artists like Tim Burton, Laika Studios, and Neil Gaiman are widely known, it's notable to me that the adoration for Edward Gorey's distinctive style doesn't always receive the same level of recognition.

Gorey began drawing at 18 months (!) and taught himself to read by age three. He skipped several grades and engaged in various school activities and publications, he left Francis Parker School with high scores, earning scholarships both to Harvard and Yale. At 17, with pending WWII draft notices, Gorey briefly studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago before joining the U.S. Army during World War II, serving until after the war's end, mainly at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.

In 1946, Edward Gorey enrolled at Harvard, majoring in French Literature, and delved into various artistic pursuits, including publishing stories, poems, designing sets, and directing for the Poets Theatre. Despite somehow ending up on both the Dean's List and under constant threats of expulsion, he excelled. In 1953, upon being offered a position at Doubleday Anchor in New York City, Gorey became a prominent figure in design, illustrating over fifty covers and gaining recognition as a major commercial illustrator. After stints at other publishing houses, he turned freelance in the early 1960s, illustrating well over five hundred books for others while also crafting his own works. His career began with the 1953 book "The Unstrung Harp," a precursor to graphic novels, praised by Graham Greene and recognized as a "minor masterpiece" by The London Times. Edmund Wilson's acclaim in The New Yorker marked the start of Gorey's exceptional fifty-year career, resulting in 116 written and illustrated works.

From displaying art at the Francis Parker School in 1939 to showcasing at the Mandrake Bookshop during his Harvard years and even as far as California, Edward Gorey's artistic journey was expansive. In 1967, Gotham Book Mart invited Gorey to exhibit at its newly opened second-floor art gallery, a collaboration that spanned thirty-two years. This partnership led to occasional publications of new Gorey works by Gotham Book Mart and collaborations with figures like Samuel Beckett and John Updike. Gorey's love for theater blossomed into involvement in off-Broadway productions, summer Cape Cod plays, and the 1973 design of "Dracula" for a Nantucket theater. The Broadway adaptation, "Edward Gorey’s Dracula," opened in 1977, achieving immense success, earning two Tony Awards, running for nearly three years, and touring globally.

Having frequented Cape Cod for years, Gorey's connection to the region deepened in 1979 when he used royalties from the New York Dracula production to acquire a two-century-old sea captain's home in Yarmouth Port. By 1983, he made the decision to bid farewell to New York City and establish his residence on the Cape. Amidst this shift, Gorey intensified his involvement in small experimental plays, maintained an active presence in publishing, art exhibitions, etching creations, and juggled a demanding workload of commercial projects. In 1980, he was commissioned to design animated introductions for Boston Public Television's Mystery! series, a collaborative effort with animator Derek Lamb that remains an enduring testament to Gorey's artistic legacy, encapsulating the essence of several of his works in a concise half-minute.

Gorey, known for maintaining the mystery and refusing to "explain" his books, revealed a glimpse into his philosophical inclinations during a single interview. When pressed about his beliefs, he identified as a Taoist, leaning towards surrealism. Examining his early teen art unveils evident influences from Di Chirico, Dali, and Ernst

Edward Gorey's multifaceted body of work, encompassing humor, complexity, seriousness, and provocation, has solidified his position as a significant American figure in literature, art, and theater that should always be remembered!

[glimmerbugart]

Small Business Saturday Wrap Up

Whew! I am finally sitting down after a pretty busy weekend and a successful Small Business Saturday. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, made a purchase of something I’ve created and chatted. It was a lovely day catching up with folks and I’m so happy I got to see you!

Some of the popular items that flew out of the doors were paintings, cards, handmade ornaments and a few bookmarks. It really is amazing how just the smallest purchase from a small business makes a difference. Seriously. It truly does make someone like me, who puts their all into their business, a very happy and appreciative purchase.

Have you ever seen those social media posts that say, “When you buy from a small business, there’s someone doing a happy dance.”? Totally true. It makes a huge difference to those of us who do all we a with our talents and passions to make this work against the big companies every single day. Sure, it’s easy to buy something on Amazon or make a quick stop at Walmart. I do it all the time. But I never feel the sense of giving more than when I buy something at my local general store or at one of the craft booths at the holiday bazaar. The feeling of gratitude you receive from the owners and makers is what makes that purchase so worthwhile.

This is another worthwhile reminder when you purchase from a small business:

I’m still in the “team jersey” mode of things with my kiddos and all their activities. I’ve got a special needs English Bulldog that needs some pretty heavy duty veterinarian assistance regularly. Gotta kid getting ready to head to college in the next year. And… my little business money helps to buy a dinner or two for the nights out when we get home so late from practices, still have piles of homework and laundry, to get a little McDonald’s take out to help save time!

You might not think it’s a big deal, but it is. It really is. And I’m so appreciative of you. Of all of you that have purchased online AND in-person. It means so much and I am so thankful for your support!

[tartarusrising-rp]

OOC INFO

Name/Alias: Arrow Pronouns: She/They Age: 31 Timezone: PST

IC INFO

Character Name: Laure Rothschild Stephens Character Age: 47 Character Birthday (with year): April 7, 1977 Gender & Pronouns: Cis Woman; she/her Affiliation: Tartarus Occupation: Underboss (Hemera); Auctioneer Faceclaim: Melanie Lynskey

BIOGRAPHY

The Rothschild name has been connected with the fine arts scene for generations throughout Europe and New England. Her father, several aunts and uncles, and many more cousins hold various roles within the industry, from collectors to curators to restorers. Not joining the family business was never an option for Laure, but she never contemplated the idea to begin with, far too enamored with her cushy lifestyle to ever give it up. The Rothschilds' connections to the MacCabes are innocuous to the public eye, but old loyalties run deep.

While Laure maintains a private studio and collection for her personal art, her professional attention has largely been placed on the business aspect of things. Her family connections open the door to an internship at Grogan, an esteemed auction house in the city. A PhD from Harvard on focusing on 18th and 19th century modern art propels her to new heights, but she soon learns that such connections come with a price. She makes her first sale on behalf of Tartarus at 25, taking over for a deal that one of her cousins botched. The outcome isn't ideal, but better than total failure, and it cements Laure's position as a useful member of the organization.

Her next move is unorthodox, but masterful nonetheless. Orchestrating an 'accidental' meeting is child's play for her, and she simply smiles when Kiri invites her to coffee. She is content to let the other woman believe she is in control. Laure sheds layer after layer of herself, testing her loyalties with every step until she reveals the truth of her connection with Tartarus. By then, they are inextricably linked.

Bringing Kiri into the fold has a secondary effect of boosting Laure's reputation within Tartarus. They become an indomitable pair, between Kiri's product and Laure's access and isn't long before she is elevated to the rank of underboss, taking on the name Hemera. She is loyal to Tartarus, but carves her own domain within the borders of its kingdom. When she learns of a young woman, pulled into the organization because of the mistakes of her father, it strikes a chord in Laure and offers her a place beside her.

It's not life exactly as she envisioned it, but it is markedly hers nonetheless. The years spent climbing to the top have proven to be worth it, and she has no intention of letting any of it go.

[harvardfineartslib]

Since 1978, Bow & Arrow Press has resided in a tiny corner of the Adams House, one of a dozen residential Houses devoted to Harvard undergraduate students. It is located in a building at the intersection of Bow and Arrow Streets, which its name originated. For 45 years, Bow & Arrow Press welcomed everybody in the community--students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the Adams House residents--and taught the art of letterpress to anybody who wanted to learn largely free of charge.

This Monday, the movers came and packed the contents of the studio, including the vintage presses and type cases, for storage while the Adams House renewal project takes place. The renewal plan had included the Bow & Arrow Press until April 16th, when Adams House’s faculty deans informed the community that the studio would not move back into their space after renovations are completed in 2025.

For 45 years, the Bow & Arrow Press has been a true community press. Over the years, thousands came to learn to typeset, get their fingers inky, and joyously run the century old letterpress. The creator of this artist’s book, scholar Johanna Drucker, used the press while she was a Harvard Mellon Faculty Fellow in the Department of Fine Arts. Drucker produced the letterpress edition of “The Word Made Flesh” in the winter of 1988-1989 with the assistance and support of James Barondess and Gino Lee, founders of the Bow & Arrow Press. Last Wednesday, Barondess (A.B.’79, Ph.D. ’93) came to the last Open Press Night and shared the early history of the press with the many younger generation printers who attended the event. 

Poet Seamus Heaney also became familiar with the Bow & Arrow during his Harvard years, and theater director Peter Sellars was among the first students to get their hands on the press.

You can read more about the Bow & Arrow Press in an article, “The Eviction of the Bow & Arrow Press” written by Craig Lambert on Harvard Magazine.

The word made flesh Drucker, Johanna, 1952- New York, NY : Granary Books, c1996. "This is a facsimile reprint of copy #50 of the original letterpress edition"--Colophon. "The Druckwerk edition was produced in winter 1988-89 at the Bow and Arrow Press"-- HOLLIS number: 990072967770203941

[jpbjazz]

LÉGENDES DU JAZZ

WADADA LEO SMITH, UN INNOVATEUR MÉCONNU

Né le 18 décembre 1941 à Leland, au Mississippi, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith avait d’abord joué de la batterie, du mellophone (une sorte de cornet) et du cor français avant de passer à la trompette. Enfant prodige, Smith a composé sa première pièce musicale à l’âge de douze ans. Durant ses études secondaires, Smith avait joué et occupé le poste d’assistant-directeur des ensembles de cors et clairons de son high school sous la direction de Henderson Howard.

Smith avait reçu sa première formation musicale de son beau-père, le compositeur et guitariste Alex “Little Bill” Wallace, un des pionniers de la guitare électrique avec le groupe Delta Blues. À l’âge de treize ans, Smith avait d’ailleurs commencé à jouer avec Delta Blues et d’autres groupes traditionnels locaux. Smith avait poursuivi sa formation musicale lors d’un séjour dans l’armée à Fort Leonard Wood, au Missouri en 1963, puis à la Sherwood School of Music de 1967 à 1969 et à la Wesleyan University de 1975 à 1976 où il avait décroché un diplôme en ethnomusicologie.

DÉBUTS DE CARRIÈRE

Après avoir joué avec différents groupes de rhythm & blues, Smith était devenu membre de l’Association for the Advancements of Creative Musicians (AACM) en 1967 avant de co-fonder la Creative Construction Company, un trio mettant en vedette le violoniste Leroy Jenkins et le saxophoniste Anthony Braxton. Dn 1971, Smith avait fondé Kabell, sa propre maison de disques. Smith avait également formé un autre groupe appelé New Dalta Ahkri avec des musiciens d’avant-garde comme Henry Threadgill, Anthony Davis et Oliver Lake.

Dans les années 1970, Smith, tout en pousuivant ses études en ethnomusicologie à l’Université Wesleyan avait continué de jouer avec Braxton. Il avait aussi enregistré avec la Derek Bailey's Company. 

ÉVOLUTION RÉCENTE

Devenu Rastafarien au milieu des années 1980, Smith avait commencé à utiliser le nom de Wadada. Également professeur, Smith avait enseigné dans de nombreuses institutions scolaires au cours de sa carrière, dont l’Université de New Haven (1975-76), le Creative Music Studio de Woodstock, dans l’État de New York (1975-78) et le Bard College (1987-93). À partir de 1994,  Smith avait enseigné à la Herb Alpert School of Music du California Institute of the Arts, où il avait dirigé le programme d’improvisation afro-américaine jusqu’à sa retraite en 2013.

Malgré sa retraite de l’enseignement, Smith avait continué d’animer des ateliers, des résidences et des classes de maîtres dans des institutions comme l’Université Harvard, le New England Conservatory, la New School of Music, l’Ithaca College et la Georgetown Day School. Smith est également l’auteur de plusieurs traités musicaux, dont Source a New World Music: Creative Music, qui a été publié au Japon en 1976 après avoir été publiée initialement par Kiom Press en 1973. Publiées d’abord en 1981, ses Notes (8 Pieces) ont été rééditées dans une version élargie en Italie en 2015. En 1996, Smith avait également présenté une conférence à Copenhague, au Danemark, sur le concept d’Ankhrasmation devant plusieurs artistes, scientifiques et philosophes. Enregistrée pour la télévision danoise, son entrevue avait été télédiffusée en septembre 1996.

En plus de la trompette et du flugelhorn, Smith jouait de plusieurs instruments non occidentaux comme le koto, le kalimba et l’atenteben, une flûte de banbou originaire du Ghana. Il enseignait également des techniques de fabrication de certains instruments. Très intéressé aux musiques du monde, Smith avait particulièrement étudié les musiques africaines, japonaise, indonésienne, européennes et américaine.

En 1998, Smith et le guitariste Henry Kaiser avaient publié Yo, Miles!, un hommage aux compositions les moins connues de la période électrique de Miles Davis. Dans le cadre de cet album, Smith, Kaiser et les autres membres du groupe avaient enregistré leurs propres versions de classiques de Davis ainsi que des compositions originales inspirées de l’oeuvre du trompettiste.  Si les albums suivants de Smith, Sky Garden (2004) et Upriver (2005) avaient été enregistrés avec un autre groupe de musiciens, Michael Manring était toujours le bassiste de la formation. Smith avait également publié plusieurs albums avec son Golden Quartet composé à l’origine d’Anthony Davis aux claviers, de Malachi Favors à la contrebasse et de Jack DeJohnette à la batterie. Après plusieurs changements de personnel, l’alignement permanent du groupe est maintenant formé de Davis au piano, de John Lindberg à la contrebasse et de Pheeroan akLaff à la batterie.

Dans les années 2000, Smith avait enregistré pour la compagnie de disques Tzadik de John Zorn, ainsi que pour Pi Recordings. En 2008, Smith avait enregistré avec son quartet un DVD intitulé Freedom Now. Résident de New Haven, au Connecticut, durant plusieurs années, Smith a contribué à y développer un environnement propice au développement de la musique créative, un concept basé sur l’harmonie spirituelle et l’unification des cultures à travers le monde.

Dans ses compositions, Smith utilisait souvent un système de notation graphique qu’il appelait "Ankhrasmation" et qu’il avait développé à partir de 1965. Smith avait utilisé ce concept pour la première fois en 1967 dans le cadre de l’album ‘’The Bell: Three Compositions of New Jazz’’ d’Anthony Braxton. Le concept d’Ankhrasmation avait joué un rôle déterminant dans le développement de Smith comme artiste, chef d’orchestre et éducateur.

Les concepts musicaux d’Ankhrasmation ont été exposés dans des musées américains majeurs comme The Renaissance Society de l’Université de Chicago qui avait présenté en octobre 2015 la première exposition de ces langages musicaux. En 2016, le Hammer Museum a présenté une exposition intitulée Made in L.A. mettant en vedette les compositions de Smith et lui avait décerné un Mohn Award for Career Achievement en guise de reconnaissance pour son talent et sa résilience. Les compositions de Smith ont également été présentées au Kalamazoo Institute of Arts au Michigan, à la Kadist Art Foundation de San Francisco, au Museum of Rhythm Łódź, en Pologne, et à la Clemente Gallery de New York.

Lauréat de nombreux prix, Smith a notamment remporté en 2008 un FONT (Festival of New Trumpet) Award of Recognition. Il a aussi été finaliste en 2013 pour un prix Pulitzer pour l’album Ten Freedom Summers, une collection de compositions regroupée dans un coffret de 4 CD inspiré du mouvement des droits civiques. L’album s’était mérité plusieurs honneurs, dont un MAP Fund Award (2011), un Chamber Music America New Works Grant (2010) et un National Endowment for the Arts Recording Grant (2010). L’oeuvre était commanditée par la James Irvine Foundation, la Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation et de la John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2009-2010). 

Élu compositeur de l’année par le magazine Down Beat en 2013, Smith avait remporté trois ans plus tard un Doris Duke Artist Award et un doctorat honorifique de l’Université CalArts. En 2018, l’American Academy of Religion avait aussi décerné à Smith un Religion and The Arts Award. L’année suivante, Smith s’était également mérité la UCLA Medal, le plus important honneur pouvant être décerné par l’Université de Californie à Los Angeles. La Jazz Journalists Association a accordé plusieurs honneurs à Smith, dont celui de musicien de l’année en 2013 et de duo de l’année (pour sa collaboration avec le pianiste Vijay Iyer), de compositeur de l’année en 2015 et de trompettiste de l’année en 2017 et 2022. En 2022, Smith avait également remporté le Vision Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Il avait aussi obtenu trois bourses du National Endowment for the Arts (en 1972, 1974 et 1981).

Smith a également été élu compagnon de plusieurs institutions comme l’Atlantic Center for the Arts (2001), la Civitela Foundation (2003), la Jurassic Foundation (2008), la United States Artists en 2021 et la  Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration (RITM) en 2022. Smith a aussi reçu plusieurs commandes du Los Angeles Philharmonic. L’album de Smith ‘’America’s National Parks’’ avait également été sélectionné comme un des meilleurs albums de 2016 par le New York Times, le NPR Jazz Critics Poll et le magazine The Wire. L’album a aussi été choisi album de l’année dans le cadre du 65e sondage des critiques du magazine Down Beat. Smith avait d’ailleurs fait la couverture du magazine à deux reprises: en novembre 2016 et en août 2017. Smith a également été élu artiste de l’année par le sondage des critiques du magazine Jazz Times en 2016.

En plus d’avoir été interprétées par le groupe de Smith, le Nda-Kulture Ensemble, les compositions du trompettiste ont été interprétées par plusieurs groupes de musique contemporaine dont le RedKoral Quartet, l’Orkiestra Symfoniczna NFM (de Wroclaw, en Pologne), l’AACM-Orchestra, le Kronos Quartet, la Da Capo Chamber Players, le New Century Players, le LA Phil New Music Group, la Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, la San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, la Contemporary Chamber Players de l’Université de Chicago, le S.E.M. Ensemble, le Southwest Chamber Music, le Del Sol String Quartet, le New York New Music Ensemble et le California E.A.R. Unit. 

Durant plus de deux décennies, Smith avait également écrit de la musique pour de nombreux groupes, y compris des oeuvres de longue durée qui prenaient quelques jours pour être interprétées en entier, comme ‘’Ten Freedom Summers’’ (2011, RedCat, Los Angeles), et “Tabligh” pour double ensemble (Golden Quartet and Classical Persian ensemble à Merkin Concert Hall, à New York, en 2006) (Golden Quartet and Suleyman Erguner’s Classical Turkish ensemble (Akbank Music Festival à Istanbul en 2007). La composition la plus imposante de Smith intitulée “Odwira” avait été écrite pour un grand total de douze orchestres et avait été interprétée au California Institute of the Arts en mars 1995. Les oeuvres pour piano solo de Smith ont été interprétées par de nombreux artistes, dont Ursula Opens, Marilyn Crispell, Mr. David Rosenboom and Ms. Vickie Ray. Smith a également composé pour des ensembles de musique classique.

Reconnu à la fois comme trompettiste, multi-instrumentiste, compositeur et improvisateur, Smith a collaboré avec plusieurs sommités du jazz au cours de sa carrière, dont Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Cecil Taylor, Steve McCall, Anthony Davis, Carla Bley, Don Cherry, Jeanne Lee, Tadao Sawai, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ed Blackwell, Kazuko Shiraishi, Han Bennink, Marion Brown, Charlie Haden, Malachi Favors Magoustous, Jack DeJohnette, Vijay Iyer, Ikue Mori, Min Xiao Fen, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Ronald Shannon Jackson et Frank Lowe. Smith a enregistré plus de cent albums comme leader ou co-leader au cours de sa carrière. Parmi ses plus récentes parutions, on remarque Wadada Leo Smith String Quartets Nos. 1-12 (2022) et The Emerald Duets (avec Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille, Han Bennink et Jack DeJohnette également en 2022)

©-2024, tous droits réservés, Les Productions de l’Imaginaire historique

[choosejoyangel]

Not Another Macallan

With love, Vanessa @choosejoyangel. :) Thank you to @whoevrwhatevr for encouraging me to write. I am grateful.

Author's note: Anything SVU-related belongs to their respective owners. The original character, Christmas Grace Lennox, and everything else belong to me. I am on no other platform besides Tumblr, Vimeo, and Google/YouTube at my handle, @choosejoyangel. Enjoy, angels! :)

Just some positive goodness to brighten your day!

Soundtrack: Queen-You're My Best Friend and Dave Matthews Band-Crush <3 :)

I thought it would be more engaging for the reader to follow Rafael and Rita’s banter if it were written as a transcription. Get cozy as you imagine being in the same room as besties for life, Rafael Barba and Rita Calhoun, reflecting on an evening most likely spent alone, just the two of them starting the night at their favorite ice cream parlor over a banana split debating a case and ending the night keeping each other warm like they have always done since their Harvard Law days. Rita realizes it is time to let Rafael know how much he truly means to her, and that includes showing him he deserves to be happy with the woman he does not want to imagine his life without. Who is this woman? Is it her? Or, is Rita helping her best friend allow himself the chance at true love with someone else? 

Rita: Why are you in my kitchen, Rafi? It is your birthday, not mine.

Rafael: You know I hate surprises.

Rita: Then why are you trying to hide your smile?

Rafael: I am not smiling.

Rita: And I am 39.

Rafael: For the sixth year in a row.

Rita: I should have bought you another bottle of Macallan.

Rafael: I liked this gift better, Rita.

Rita: Speak up, babe. Did you lose your speaking voice all of a sudden?

Rafael: I liked this gift better, Rita!

Rita: I heard you the first time, but I wanted everyone still here to know how cuddly you are.

Rafael: You can take the man out of the Bronx.

Rita: But you can’t take the Bronx out of the man. I get it, Rafael. We don’t like letting our guard down. It may work in the courtroom but not in the bedroom. 

Rafael: You never had complaints about either of our bedrooms, sweetheart.

Rita: Never! 

Rafael: I trust you.

Rita: I trust you too, Rafi.

Rafael: Um, are you up to finish tonight with a bang?

Rita: I don’t think that is a good idea.

Rafael: What is wrong? I’m so sorry. I loved my party. Seeing everyone from work…um.

Rita: And home?

Rafael: Yes.

Rita: If not for her, you and I would celebrate your birthday over a banana split.

Rafael: Her?

Rita: Yes, Mistletoe.

Rafael: You mean Christmas?

Rita: Mistletoe, Christmas, who cares?

Rafael: Her name is Christmas, and yes, you do care.

Rita: Who in their right mind names their kid after a holiday? 

Rafael: It’s not important. Leave her alone. She is my friend, Rita.

Rita: Friend, eh?

Rafael: Yes, my friend.

Rita: I have known you for over twenty years, Rafael Barba. 

Rafael: And?

Rita: I have not seen that look on your face since, um, well, you know who I am talking about.

Rafael: Yelina?

Rita: Ugh! I thought I told you never to repeat her name in my presence.

Rafael: Come on! Yelina broke my heart, not yours.

Rita: Don’t say her name!

Rafael: Okay!

Rita: Christmas helped me plan your surprise birthday party. She was a big help, considering my caseload. It’s not like she has much to do besides play in her art studio.

Rafael: She works in her art studio, Rita. That is her job, and she is busy, too.

Rita: I know, Rafael. I love it when you defend her. You start blushing, and your green eyes get brighter in defense of what you call her “your friend”?

Rafael: I hate you.

Rita: I hate you too.

Rafael: She helped you?

Rita: Yes, she did. And the feeling is mutual between you and her. 

Rafael: Are you psychic now?

Rita: No, I am a woman. 

Rafael: Oh, I didn’t know.

Rita: I am trying to tell you that I don’t think it is a good idea for us to have sex anymore, Rafael.

Rafael: You and I can still be friends.

Rita: You will always be my best friend, Rafi.

Rafael: You will always be my best friend, too, Rita.

Rita: Christmas is your best friend now.

Rafael: I am allowed to have two best friends.

Rita: I know. She wants you to be happy, even if it may be you and me. I assured her that you and I are or were what young people like her call “friends with benefits.”

Rafael: She is not that young, Rita. 

Rita: You were in high school when she was born, Rafael.

Rafael: It does not bother us; does it bother you?

Rita: No!

Rafael: Will you be happy?

Rita: I am happy, and I am happy for you too. Besides, I am seeing someone.

Rafael: Really? What’s his name?

Rita: She.

Rafael: Well, okay then. What is her name? 

Rita: She is a lawyer; that is all I will tell you for now.

Rafael: Please tell me her name before you put a ring on her finger. 

Rita: Changing subjects.

Rafael: I was kidding. I do hope to meet her if that is what you want. 

Rita: You will be the first to know. 

Rafael: I think Christmas is still here. 

Rita: Of course she is. I can smell the holly from here.

Rafael: Rita! 

Rita: If you want to help in my kitchen, make some coffee for us, Rafael. 

Rafael: I don’t want to ask her to leave yet.

Rita: The coffee is for her, too, silly. If she leaves, you leave with her. You two live near each other. Oh, you have protection?

Rafael: Rita, I am not discussing my sex life with you.

Rita: She is cute. Ask her to spend the night with you.

Rafael: Rita.

Rita: I don’t want to find out you didn’t at least give her a kiss goodnight. And you know I am not talking about a chaste kiss between friends, Rafael Barba!

Rafael: You won’t, Rita Calhoun.

Rita: She and I are friends now.

Rafael: Hmm.

Rita: Rafael and Christmas sitting in a tree…

Rafael: I will meet you in the sitting room.

Rita: You better hide that blush of yours.

Rafael: Rita.

Rita: What?

Rafael: Thank you.

Rita: You’re welcome. 

Rafael: I love you, Rita.

Rita: I love you too, Rafael.

Rafael: My wish came true.

Rita: Yes, it did. Happy Birthday, Rafael. Now, get out of my kitchen.

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