Literary Chicago - Joan Didion "The White Album"

I wrote this post a few months ago. Not sure why I never uploaded it. I was planning on originally trying to find somewhere else to publish this, but I never really expanded on it in any meaningful way. I still think it's worth posting based upon the connection between the writer, the artist, this city, and my experience.

(via the Art Institute)

I recall an August afternoon in Chicago in 1973 when I took my daughter, then seven, to see what Georgie O'Keefe had done with where she had been. One of the vast O'Keefe "Sky Above Clouds" canvases floated over the back stairs in the Chicago Art Institute that day, dominating what seemed to be several stories of empty light, and my daughter looked at it once, ran to the landing, and kept on looking. "Who drew it," she whispered after a while. I told her. "I need to talk to her," she said finally.

Joan Didion wrote this in 1976 in an essay titled "Georgie O'Keefe". It was released in her collection called The White Album, chronicling the death of the sixties and the uncertainties of the seventies, covering everything from the Doors to dams to horticulture to Hawaii, Bogota to bureaucrats, to the women's movement and how an artist creates.

I've gotten into the habit of marking whenever Chicago is mentioned in fiction. This year however, I've been a bit out of character. I've read less fiction, and more non-fiction and, especially recently, poetry. I've read Didion in the past, and as I began reading this collection, I'd wondered if she would mention Chicago.

This essay was a pleasant surprise. It got me to rethink my previous notions of O'Keefe. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of her work (nothing against her personally, the works of European artists and authors have always appealed to me more). I've probably walked by these clouds dozens of times.

But last Thursday was different. I wanted to see what Didion saw and what her daughter saw in these clouds.

Judge a Book by Its Cover

Dragged kicked and screaming into the digital age (ie, born in 1987), I am forced to admit when some technological advancements are absolutely necessary. The most recent case came from when I was looking at book previews for new releases for the coming year. The Millions massive book preview is always a great resource, and Flavorwire's list wasn't so bad itself. Obviously going straight to a favorite publisher (like Curbside Splendor or Other Press) is the most comprehensive way to find out what new releases are coming out.

You know what's sadly the most helpful out of this whole process though? Book covers. That adage, that cliche, that lie. It may have held weight in the past, but this is the age of design that is inherent in everything. The copies of my books that I inherited from my grandparents, leatherbound copies of Longfellow and Keats and Shakespeare that are too fragile to turn the pages, are absolutely beautiful in their minimal classicism. But they are literature from another era.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2015

The following is a bit of notes I took on Saturday afternoon. An existential/Wallace Shawn style exploration on identity and creation. 

Attention. That's what's on my mind right now, sitting in the grass in Union Park at the Pitchfork Music Festival. What am I here to devote my attention to? How do I decide how to use my attention? Is attention the most important thing at an environment like this? Or is it best to have divided attention?

Are we here for art or diversion? Or other? (commerce)

Bully from Nashville starts. I'm still sitting. There's a decent crowd for the early side of the day on the smaller stage. Various forms of attention are around me. People totally focused, me with divided attention, as my attention is primarily on my thoughts. But I'm also processing the music.

If what and how we consume is dictated by marketing, is what and how we create also a product of that same marketing? Does the "I" ever have a say in creation? Is creation just an expression of consumption?, ie, what am I doing here? Is there an "I" here? Or is my "I" just someone else's creations that I've consumed? And if I've never decided what I've consumed, then how can I say I've created anything? And what have I consumed to have made me think these thoughts?

So why am I here? What's the difference between habit and ritual? There's supposed to be something sacred about ritual, right? (I may just be thinking that because a church is looking down at me) But what if you hold nothing sacred? Can that be true though, literature, the Clash, the simple act of helping someone up off the ground.

Random notes from a trip to NYC / DC, February 2015

...except in a legible format. Words are unedited [save for clarity] but I did rearrange the order of things: 

Traveling alone. What a trip. Not literally. From everyone to no one to everyone again. 
I'm lost and not lost.

The parks here advertise wifi. Parks.

Everyone is talking. To each other. On the phone. To themselves. On the phone but looks like talking to themselves.

Seagulls dine on the garbage on 3rd avenue / sparrows dine on a fell pizza slice

Gay ketchup marriage.

I noticed your lipstick. You don't need lipstick.
 
I do feel less self-conscious here. Is it the city doing that? Is it me being a tourist anywhere? Is it a growing personality trait in general? Sorta sick of being alone and left to my own thoughts. At the same time, sick of talking about myself. I've never asked myself what am I doing here as much as when I'm in NYC.

Has being sarcastic fucked my life over? No, not being sarcastic has fucked other people over.

I'm way too aware of how I look for not caring how I look.

Whatever this state of mind is, I feel the opposite of present. I have to remind myself to exist. To be.

Ran Dumb Lean Kiss

So having a day off and a slight hangover meant I scoured the Internet, reading interesting shit, which I pass on to you. Also some stuff book marked from the past few days. Check it out:

The Atlantic says I can have as much coffee as I want. No take backs.

Bookstores aren't dead. Neither is vinyl.

Speaking of vinyl, We Listen For You made me feel guilty for not physically purchasing my favorite album of the year.

Surprise, surprise, the mainstream art world sucks.

Fiction on Twitter. It's possible, but rather silly unless you happen to catch it in real time. Elliott Holt did her best though.

Camus, 100 years later.

Vice interviewed Syrian poet Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula as an Arab Henry Miller.

The Great Spanx Sex Experiment. Julieanne Smolinski is "ha-ha funny."

Last but not least, this makes me nostalgic for Shanghai. Enjoy:


SHANGHIGHSPEED | 上海延时摄影 from Tiny Carousel on Vimeo.