Titles, Inc.

Culture And A Dinner

The invitation to join him for dinner came from Steven Schwartz, Chairman of the Board of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), here in Chicago. I asked Art the purpose of the event. He knew only that it was connected to the Chicago visit by Dr. Anthony Bannon, Director of the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, a major repository of photography. And that the dinner was at the MCA. I asked, “Fundraiser?  Banquet?  Private dinner?  

Men. He didn’t know why it was important. Ladies know it means do we come in sequins and lace, clingy bare clothes (hah!), dressy suit, or anything in between? Luckily, the secretary to our host phoned me for some information about Art, and I asked the important question – what do I wear?  Dressy, but not too formal, certainly not casual. Good.
 
We parked in the garage near the museum, but independent of it. The walls and pillars had wonderful quotes about art that kept me meandering through the floor instead of heading to the exit. I remember only two: “Art doesn’t have to match the couch,” and “Art is art, everything else is everything else.”  A nice introduction to the evening.
 
The museum is fronted with steps that ascend to just short of heaven – as it appeared to me. We found a street level entrance through the revolving doors and the elevator brought us up to the large foyer of the museum. As we mingled, I noticed people arriving through the doors at the top of the outside steps. They weren’t even breathing hard.
 
In the foyer of the museum we were introduced to many people and I surmised the purpose of the event.  The Board of the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, was holding this year’s annual meeting in Chicago. They were guests of the Board of the MCA. This evening’s dinner culminated a week of exploring Chicago’s city-wide culture.
 
The highlight tonight was a guided tour through the many display rooms feeding one into the other (with side exhibit rooms off the main circle.) The museum director described and clarified the intent of the work we were looking at. I couldn’t hear him even as I sidled closer through the 50 people following along. He spoke loudly and with enthusiasm, but hearing aids in echoing chambers don’t work. However, I had the art to contemplate. 
 
I understood none of it. Looking at one sculpture of a fat man with body parts separated by chains and other metal, I said to the man next to me, “That makes me so uncomfortable.” He said, “Then the artist was successful. He aroused your emotions.”

Looking at his next piece, I said, “The emotion he arouses is, I don’t want to know him.”

Another hall had stop-motion videos on many large screens of an artist at work which was compelling.  I was trying to figure it out as the crowd flowed on. 
 
We finally ended back in the large foyer where five tables were set and waiting. Random seating put us among delightful people, several who were guests, also, of the many board members. Delicious salmon, lying surrounded artfully in an orange swirl which when scooped up offered just one forkful of yummy sweet potatoes. The wine glasses were constantly refilled.
 
Art had been invited because he is a Prominent Photographer and the George Eastman House would like to have him in their archives.  I was invited because I’m with him.
 
---- Florence

A Successful Dance Experiment

When a bunch of people get together because they think it might be fun to perform as a dance group on stage, you have to be wary.  Called “Dance Experiment,” it is the brain child of Saya April Hillman who owns a digital media company, Mac ‘n Cheese, and whose video work has been recognized at film festivals internationally.

Saya had encouraged 16 people who liked the challenge of exercise and dance to join her with the scary goal of performing in front of an audience.  

I went to the theater to see the show as a loving grandma who would sit through this amateur hour because that’s what grandmas do.  Natalie, 17, still in high school was younger than the others who were on their way into their very different professions.  Natalie and Saya are cousins, thus her invitation into this disparate group.  

I expected a dance recital but it was a rounded program starting with a video describing the effort, introducing the dancers (two brave young men among the young women) and documenting their progress as they worked with the professional choreographer, Christina Audrey Chen.  Even as amateurs the women moved with natural grace. The young men were wooden stick figures.  As the lessons and exercises progressed, surprising  to me, the men were starting to blend in.  

The video paused, the theater went dark.  Music.  And here on stage were the dancers.  Excitement!  They were good!  The choreography was intriguing.  Even funny.  At one point, there were two rows of bodies on the floor with one person lying across each.  And these logs rolled over and over moving the body to the end.  OK so it wasn’t dancing.  It was entertaining.  It worked with the music.

Back to the video for more exposition.  Intermittently we saw four live dance routines.  The dancers in their black pants and royal blue tee shirts blended into a unit.  Not quite. One young lady tugged her tee shirt down as she bounded up from the floor.  I wasn’t looking at her but the tiny movement was so disruptive it grabbed my attention.   An interesting lesson, there.  Dancers, not one false move!  

Each of the routines was different and delightful.  Truly an accomplishment for 17 raw recruits.

I watched the flow of the bodies as a group.  I watched them individually.  But there was an energy on the floor that kept pulling me back to this one dancer.  The chorographer recognized her electricity and had placed her front and center.  As the routines shifted the bodies to different spaces on the floor, there was still that one dynamic dancer who drew the eye.  She was DANCING.  

OK.  It was our Natalie.

----Florence

The Unhappy State of California

He drifted in, and in reply to my usual query, said, no he was just looking.  He said, “I can’t buy another book because we are moving.”  Then, defiantly, “And I am not selling any, either.” 

Diplomatically, I kept my mouth shut for about a minute.  “How come you’re moving?” He said, “My wife’s firm is relocating her to California.”  “California is nice,” I say consolingly.

“And since she has the job, and I don’t, we are moving to California.”  I sense a little belligerence.  “You’re not working?  Retired?”  He’s angry.  “Retired.  Forced into retirement.  My job disappeared.” 

I couldn’t pat him on the head with a “There, there,” so I tried for a soothing repeat of, “California is very nice.”  He expanded, “North of San Francisco.  Marin County.”  With scorn, “Secluded area, lots of trees and winding roads,” as if he was quoting a real estate promo.

I said, “We lived in Mt. Tamalpais a long time ago.”  He said he knew where that was. 

I said, “We rented this big house with acres.  You had to get out of the car to open the cedar fence to drive through, then get out to close it and drive way up to the house.  We got it after the owner interviewed me to assure himself that I would water his huge expanse of begonias at sundown every day.  And not let my darling 18 month old baby girl touch his begonias or even go near them.” 

Art had just been assigned Bureau Chief at the San Francisco office at Life Magazine.  I supposed that impressed our landlord to some trust, too. 

So there I was, a city person, knowing only apartment living, in this expanse of homestead, isolated on a mountain road.  With no car.  Actually, I couldn’t even drive yet.  My living experience up to then did not require a car.  You needed a loaf of bread, you walked up the block for it.  A tomato?  A lamb chop?  You knew all the tradesmen because you were in every day. 

Here on Mt. Tamalpais, I did not know how to plan for a week’s provisions.  I remember whining to Art, “I’m so hungry.”

The Life staff had social get-togethers, but on a day-to-day basis there was no one to talk to.  I would take Janey for long walks up the road, the only pedestrians in sight, ever.  We would look at the Japanese gardeners, and the gardens they were tending.  Once an elderly man watched me carrying Jane, and called out, “She’s old enough to walk.”

I said, “I’m carrying her because I want to.”  That’s all the conversation I remember in the short time we were there.

I hated it. 

But I couldn’t confirm this unhappy man’s disgust about moving to CA.  I continued the fiction, “You’ll love it.  I bet you adjust quick enough.”  He said, “That’s what my wife says.  She says they have hiking trails and I like to walk.  I tell her we have hiking trails in Chicago too.”

He stomps to the door, and calls back his exit line, “They are called sidewalks.” 

---Florence