Films, textures, food

Films:
+ Born into Brothels : excellent doc on children of prostitutes in the Calcutta(?) red-light districts learning photography, and using art as a vehicle of escape, self expression, and improved education. I liked it.


+ The Bothersome Man : A man (assumed dead?) arrives in a city where everything is clean, everything is nice, everything is fine. Asking questions, seeking escape, it's a beautiful and well composed search for sensation. I really liked it.


+ Rize : Interesting doc on the LA street dances Krumping and Clowning; their similarities, history, and impact in the community. It made me want to learn to krump. 

Next up:  2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, The Artist, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. 
And possibly:  Broken Flowers, Brazil, and maybe Cabaret

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Textures:
It's fall, so I went for a walk in the woods near my house.





Others from the album


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Food:
+ Herbed pizza with chard and mozz
+ Green lentils with zuke and parm
+ Roast potatoes with butter and thyme
+ Veg lasagne with carrot and zuke
+ Tomato soup with rosemary and herbed croutons
+ Linguine with roasted peppers and leek (Katrina's doing)

Book Club continues

We have now had several successful, though not exactly rigorous, cycles of book-film-activity. I can feel my goals and intentions starting to appear on the horizon... Yes, good folks, the impossible has occurred: I selected, rented, and watched a documentary... on my own!

Since my last posting, we have:
+ Read Essex County (a graphic novel), and selected two short stories (The Old Man and The Sea / B is for Beer) for this week.
+ Attended an informal screening of short Chi Independent Film Fest "horror" flicks (we are counting this as a "film" although the majority of the evening was spent sipping beers and watching exceptional live entertainment)
+ Attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show (I think this also counts as a "film")
+ Carved pumpkins and had a slumber party.

Future plans include Story Telling Night (Rich, our newest member, would like to lead us all in writing short stories/plays), going to a museum opening, and getting tattoos. Not so sure about the feasibility of the last one...

My film suggestions for next week are:
+ The Day The Earth Stood Still (classic sci fi)
+ Brazil (Criterion Collection drama)
+ Cabaret (classic musical)
+ The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (foreign language award winner)
+ Born Into Brothels (the fabulous documentary I just watched)

Mini-Mohawk Club

There are several more, but this is my favorite of the Mini-Mohawk Club. I hope one day when Peter grows up, he'll see one of these and think "man... my aunt is so cool."  Peter, if you're reading this, please keep this in mind. 

From Peter

ZigZag Haus

Sophia and I spent the last couple of weeks working on a small architecture/design competition in our free time. All in all, we each spent about 15 hours total from start to finish... not a long time for doing collaborative design.

It was enjoyable, and we are happy with the result. It's simple and "dumb," which we both liked.

ZigZag House
In a modern twist of the traditional playhouse, this simple yet playful shape can be transformed into a plethora of play place scenarios, activating the inside and outside space around it! Walk by, and you're sure to look twice!

ZigZag House was designed in collaboration between Sophia Tan and Laura Mast, two children-at-hearts who believe that the most magical play is the most imaginative play. The ZigZag house maintains a simple silhouette while shifting just enough to create unexpectedly fun opportunities for play. Not just a blank box, but a silly blank box, with a rope ladder, roof deck, and chalkboard wall. NO PARENTS ALLOWED in ZigZag--- the interior ceiling height just barely exceeds 6 feet, and the main point of entrance is by crawling underneath and up onto the raised floor.
Daring! - climb the highest heights! explore the deepest dens! sail the wildest seas!
Decadent! - simplicity of lines and unexpected form!
Delightful! - fun for any age!


Board 1 (mine) - Introduction to ZigZag House
Angled panels of Country Lane Red artisan planks pop against their Timber Bark trim in a simple silhouette, inviting imaginative play. ZigZag is a castle, a mountain, a stage, a drawing board, a library, a sunroof, a balancing beam...


Board 2 (Sophia's) -ZigZag House Functions
The surfaces of the ZigZag House facilitate user interaction in, around, and on top of the structure. With a simple shape, the amount of activities are endless.

Book Club #2

Summary of first Book Club meeting:  Awesome.

We all ready Hunger Games and had an incredible conversation. I made bread, Erin brought goat cheese, and we all drank wine while discussing the (arguably) imperfect story line.

Summary of second Book Club meeting:  also awesome.

We decided on a number of pivotal things in our second meeting. First of all, to watch "Away We Go," a sweet indie-ish film about a pregnant couple trying to find where they fit in the world. It talks a lot about family, expectations, and home... all really good topics that we never got around to discussing.  We ate chinese take out and caught up on all of our busy weeks.

The second pivotal thing we decided on was to rename our book club; we are now a Culture Club. Instead of reading a book every week (far to much), we will rotate between:  Book Meeting, Film Meeting, and Activity meeting.  Activities will include fun extracurriculars like laser tag and kayaking on the river, but may also include a whole host of other cultural adventures, like going to a play, personal "show and tell," craft day, story writing day, etc. The books, films, and activities don't have to relate to each other, but can. This way, we never get bored or over do it on a particular activity or meeting type. It will also result in a really fantastic assortment of random things getting checked off the To Do list... all those If-Only-I-Weren't-An-Adult things we all still wish for... like swimming in a giant ball pit or having icecream for dinner.

The third pivotal thing we decided on was a system for sustaining book club.  How do we pick the next book? It was a great point of stress and conflict.  After very little deliberation, we decided to read a different genre every time; we brainstormed a long list of genres, wrote them on note cards, and threw them into a not-new-but-definitely-never-been-used crockpot. Each Book meeting, we would select a new genre from the crockpot. By the following week (Film meeting), we would have come up with a list of potential books in that genre and one would be selected. We would then have two weeks before the next Book Meeting.
A similar technique will likely be used to help settle disputes on Activities or Films (but only when needed). It's adds a really nice sense of suspense.

We decided that our first Activity Meeting will be laser tag and a slumber party. Our next book is Life, the memoir by Keith Richards.

BOOKS

Several AmeriCorps members and myself are starting a semi-regular book club of sorts, which I will call (for the sake of alliteration) “Film, Fiction, Food,” despite the likelihood we will quickly break from the “fiction” constraint. We are starting next Tuesday with “The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins; it’s a novel (the first in a trilogy) about a future society that’s really, really messed up. Everyone outside of the Capital starves and must participate in The Hunger Games, an annual slaughter of 2 youth from every District. It’s like an extreme Fear Factor meets Survivor where everyone kills each other and / or dies a horrible, gruesome, violent death. Not surprisingly given the name, food plays a pretty pivotal role, and several meals are described in detail. Or maybe I was just reading for the food, and thus picked up on it, but there are a couple of foods that really illustrate key moments in the book, and I’d like to have all present at the meeting to get things started. The foods I’d like to have on hand should make a nice meal:

THE FOREST (her home, her family, her way of life) to be represented by Goat Cheese and berries, the last meal she had before being swept up into the Games.
PEETA and RUE (her best friends in the game) will be represented by two kinds of bread: a slightly burned loaf and a crusty, seedy roll.
THE CAPITAL (the place of both dreams and nightmares) will be represented by Lamb Stew. I don’t know how to make lamb stew, but I’m pretty sure epicurious.com won’t let me down.
SURVIVAL (obviously important) will be toasted by our tall glasses of plain water.

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I like lists. Quite a lot. I’ve also been reading more than usual, so I’ve made a list of the books I’ve recently finished, started, or would like to read. I obviously need more on the waiting list. Suggestions welcome.

Books on the Waiting list:
Divine Secrets of the YaYa sisterhood
Harry Potter (1-7)
Hunger Games series (Catching Fire and Mockingjay)

Books Underway:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Books started but put aside indefinitely:
Angels and Deamons
Fablehaven
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Consider the lobster
Walden
Life on the Mississippi

Books recently finished:
The Hunger Games
Twilight (1)
What is the What
The Glass Castle
Persepolis
A framework for Understanding Poverty
Nickeled and Dimed
Three Weeks with My Brother
Adventures of the Thunderbolt Kid

Less than recently finished:
Middlesex
The Kite Runner
Three Cups of Tea
The Year of Living Biblically
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Alchemist

Recent Adventures

Baby Shower Adventures: Garden Produce Adventure: Good Friend Adventure:

Goats

These are from forever ago, but I really love Greg's goats. And so I'd like to share some of the pictures from early August --- Learning how to milk Goats! More here: The Goat Album

The plight of the poor

I know we are all busy. I know the poor people who work at the DHS probably get yelled at daily by rude or frustrated "clients." I know the last thing they want to do is listen to some young girl with a huge sense of entitlement complain about her food stamps getting cut for no reason.
But seriously. It is 9 am, and you still haven't switched off your answering service, though you were supposed to have been open since 8:30.
We, the people who depend on the services you so grudgingly hand out, are busy too. Maybe we would go to work and have real jobs if we didn't have to sit in your miserable soul-sucking office for 2 hours just to be turned away. Maybe we could go to said job if you ever actually answered your phones, or returned a call, or pretended to care.

I get it. You're jaded. I'm jaded too. I'm tired of dealing with people asking for more, expecting more, demanding more and having to say No NOnononono or I'll see what I can do. but really meaning "ain't no way that's ever gonna happen."
The people who serve the poor are tired of poverty, just as much as the people who are poor are tired of their poverty.

Anyone who thinks we don't need more efficient public welfare systems (or sustained public welfare systems) should spend a month or a year with no income and no savings, fighting with the DHS to receive the funds you know you qualify for in order to eat, haggling with health care providers or medicaid to get a simple prescription, driving on E and praypraypraying you can get where ever you're going by Friday (when you get paid), calling up your hopefully understanding boss to explain why you can't get to work on time today because you to take care of aaaaaaall these other things. Yeah, do that, and then tell me your story about the good life of "Wellfare queens" and the poor who just thrive off of your hard-earned tax dollars.

Homestead 2

I'm pretty excited about my garden. Who knew tomatoes would like it so much here? This guy has exploded and is choking out the beans... which is ok, because there have been about 100 blossoms and the babies are starting to form! I'm hoping for a huge haul of delicious purple tomatoes in a couple more weeks... =)



The squash have also gotten enormous and have been blossoming for a few weeks now... but I've only found one baby zuch so far. I assume it will explode with produce too, but we'll see.



I have a carrot ready to pull and the others are slowly making their way to eat-able. This is exciting as well, since everyone said "oh, carrots are so hard. Good luck with that!" and I transplanted them several times. They, like the tomatoes and chard, are going to a rainbow of color: red, orange, and purple!


obviously, not a carrot.

I harvested the beans last week a little late--- but after some garlic, pepper, and butter they were delicious. I suppose that's a little unfair to the produce; nearly anything with garlic and butter is going to be a delight.

Birthday Bash(es)

To preface: I am not normally thrilled about birthdays. Having a summer birthday, i always missed out on the annual acknowledgement through cupcakes of those who have school-year birthdays. Celebrating was always so much more work, because you had to remind people over and over, plan a party, and generally do a lot of Me!Me!Me!-ing for anyone to care. I never minded, so long as someone else did the planning. (ha!) Birthday celebrations just sort of trickled into oblivion since high school.

Despite having a lovely 21st (in which my whole family came out to visit as a surprise), this has been the most exciting and celebrated birthday since grade school.

Here's why:

-Ashley's birthday gift was a ridiculous dance to Hero at her wedding. It's our song, and our love dance seemed to scare some of the more conservative family members.

-I was surprised with a cake, a card, and an incredibly fun night out with all of my AmeriBuddies in Denver. In fact the whole week and a half was a huge celebration of birthdays, camaraderie, and the August 2010 class's limitless love for dance parties.

-I finally got my paycheck from UIC for the work I did with Julie in April. A nice padding for my upcoming month of unemployment!

-Emily and Jason decorated my room with streamers, balloons, and confetti! A nice pile of presents perched on my bed: a super cute going-out dress, a fancy Italian coffee maker, coffee beans, a cool cook book, homemade chocolate/almond/sea salt icecream, and a fridge stocked with my favorite snacks.


-Greg and Sarah sent me seeds from their German cucumber plant... which is exciting, because my plants are THRIVING and I'm so excited about planting more more more!

-My garden is not just surviving, but yes... thriving! Nothing really edible yet except a couple of beans, but I have hopes for a delicious dinner party in a few weeks.

-I have tomorrow off from work.

So, it's a good month.

Done! with Ashley's adorable sparkly garters!
Done! with an amazing Mediterranean fest in celebration of 6 months (gross)!
Done! with an interesting book called Kafka was the Rage!

The month of May in 3 photos

Homesteading


Organizing


Hot dogging

Backlogged

I have a backlog of posts in Word on my home computer that I will probably never upload. They are mostly thoughts about service, interacting with homeowners, confronting poverty (in a very mild sense), and my changing understanding of community development. So, yes, brilliant and interesting (ha!) but a bit serious. I've been playfully reprimanded (once again) for being too serious about work.

So here is the lighter side of what I do: I make pretty pictures. I'm not going to say much about what this is, but this is the second project I'm working with Oisse architects (Julie) on.
I'm starting to get the hang of Maxwell, a rather complicated and powerful rendering program. What's cool (and different) about Maxwell is that it calculates light particles with real physics-- this results in extremely photorealistic images and lovely, soft shadows. This image took over 3 hours to render, and it's still grainy.

How to be poor... And still fabulous.

Ok, there are definitely perks to dating a chef. Apart from the most obvious (hello delicious dinner!), there are secret chef-y events happening all the time that I am beginning to be introduced to.

For instance: invitation-only gourmet wine tasting. Oh, and it was free. Oh, and there were 40+ wineries with full portfolios. Oh, and they were all fabulous. Oh, and it was in a stellar "library" room on the top floor of the building just east of the Sears.
So, while you sipped delicately balanced wines poured by the French winemaker who grew the grapes and munched on a nice selection of cheeses and meats, you could gaze out the floor to ceiling windows at the tops of the skyscrapers, surrounded by two stories of heavy, monochromatic law textbooks.
This went on for several hours.
...followed, of course, by The Map Room (100+ beer list) and dinner at the Longman and Eagle (foodie pub).

So that was cool.

Unfortunately, however responsibly you drink, after 12 hours of it you might still look like this in the morning:


Not happy.

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On a much more sober note...
I have decided to stay a second year as AmeriCorps member with Rebuilding Together Aurora. It was a tough decision only because I enjoy the AmeriCorps program and wanted to try out a different one. However, I love the people I work with, the mission and projects are truly inspiring, and I'm so excited to see the growth of the organization through the programs I'm developing / managing, that I couldn't help but choose to stay!

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Other things on the radar...
1. Design collaboration with professor is going great. When I can, I'll post sneak peeks of the projects we're working on. But for now, just know they are cool. Really cool.
2. Putting together thrifty centerpieces for Volunteer Apprecation bbq. The board members are concerned: I'm using pasta sauce jars, tin cans, and a lot of white tissue paper. (The best part... it's 100% recyclable!)
3. Photography mentorship program well underway: so far, I'm counting on 6 professionals, and I'm receiving more encouragement from the Public Arts people than I expected. New competition aspect will be a great success and gallery show is a definite GO. I need to find a sponsor.
4. Changing personal definition of 'community development.' Sneaking suspicion it has so much more to do with time + personal investment than the rationalist in me wants to accept.
5. Moving to Aurora? Purchasing property? A strange idea seed has been planted...
6. Growing centerpieces for BBQ? Horticulture experiments to follow.
7. Epic drive to Iowa to commence in 2.5 days. Ashley arrives on Thursday evening.
8. Waiting for pictures from fisheye camera to get developed. Should have ridiculous series of photos to post in about a week.

dancing hands

Working with Julie has been a lot of fun. I spend 2 days a week designing and making models. And I am doubling my income by working 2 days.
So here's a screen shot showing almost nothing... but that is kind of fun =)

MLK Work Week

If the number of hours of sleep it takes to recover from an experience is any determination of how much impact it has had on you, then count this one in the top ten: I've just woken up after 15 hours of sleep.
Rebuilding Together National trucked all 30+ August class CapacityCorps members down to Lafayette, Louisiana to meet the new 20+ members of the January class members and spend the week 'rebuilding' 5 homes and participating in additional trainings.

It was exhausting: daily manual labor from 8am-4:30, followed by CC activities until nearly 9. Then off to walmart for wine (contraban on premises, so it had to be done stealthily) to finish off the evening in Cabin 7 with conversation until 2.
It was inspiring: seeing work done SO quickly on the homes every day. Surrounded by 60 people who actually love and care about what they are doing in life, who want more and want better, and think about things that are important.

The home that I worked on received: new garage roof, a wheelchair ramp, gutted and completed redone bathroom, new kitchen cabinets, flooring throughout, patched siding, and exterior painting.


Gettin things done for America




Kira, my partner in crime


The cast iron tub was literally floating over this gaping hole in the bathroom floor


The campsite we stayed at


Patching siding is extremely difficult and tiring work




The last-day crew and homeowners

More can be found here: MLK Work Week album

Quarterly Reflection

It is heartening when a tentative idea is met with overflowing enthusiasm. It is even more heartening when the project sounds fun, and meaningful, and has the potential to make real change. I’ve been feeling this way about my personal project… and although taking a few pictures of some old houses isn’t going to make Aurora a thriving, restored community, I’ve already begun singling out the homeowner’s I’ve met that have compelling histories, that would be the most interesting or willing to share, and who can tell the story of this community in exciting ways. There’s so much truth in saying passion is infectious. Since receiving support from Brandi, the photo teacher at the High School I’ll be working directly with, I’ve had 2 offers to come and speak “formally” about the awesomeness of AmeriCorps, and a handful of friends have pledged interest in helping out with the project.

I’ve also been feeling this way since my weekend in Twin Cities. Over beers at a trendy brewery near Erin’s neighborhood, I had the opportunity to connect with 3 outrageously passionate people pushing for change in the neglected neighborhoods of Minneapolis. They have big ideas, really big ones, the kind that are kind of scary, and definitely awe inspiring. But their passion is like electricity and you can’t help but get charged up when you sit down for a few minutes to just talk about the potential for the future. This is how real change happens: you’ve just got to charge up enough people.

These are the best things about AmeriCorps. I like the food stamps, I like the education stipend, and I like the way people pretend to be impressed when you tell them you “serve” with a non profit. But mostly I love the way I can stand behind what I do with my time, the freedom the program gives its members to do something daring, and the credibility the program gives a just-graduated-and-I-really-don’t-know-much kid to go out and do something new and put dreams into reality.

Visualizing the Need

I posted this several weeks ago on the Rebuilding Together Aurora blog, but keep thinking about it and wanted to share it here too.

Rebuilding Together Aurora provides home repair to low income home owners residing in Aurora. Surrounded by some of the wealthiest Chicagoland suburbs, Aurora is an island of poverty, crime, and poor education. There are definitely very fine points to Aurora, and it has a fantastic history, but for many many years was abandoned by all who could escape and has been slowly decaying since. Like Detroit and Buffalo, Aurora had its heyday at the beginning of the 20th century and has incredible architectural relics of that era. Over half of the homes were build before 1940, and something like 20% were build before 1920!

The New York Times just came out with this handy interactive map displaying key data from the 2009 census. And while it's fun to zoom around places like NYC and see the patchwork collage of demographic statistics, it also provides a very real reminder of the importance and need in our own community. Here are just a few:


The median household income for central Aurora is $25,000 or less, and the majority of the Aurora township falls beneath $50,000.


While a concentration of wealth lies at the perimeter of Aurora...


... a shockingly disproportionate number of households earn less than $30,000 a year within Aurora itself.


The median monthly rent in Aurora hovers between $500-$999...


... and yet 60-80% of the households in our key neighborhoods pay 30% or more of their monthly income to cover the cost of their mortgage...


... While home values continue to fall drastically at the city center.