trans::lucent/parent/

1.  materials which do not allow for the absorption of light are called opaque.

2.  In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without being scattered. 

3. 

Herr Stimmung on Transparency

BY KEITH WALDROP

To those of a certain temperament, there is nothing worse than the

thought of something hidden, secret, withheld from their knowing—

especially if they suspect that another knows about it and has even,

perhaps, connived at keeping it concealed.

    D. H. Lawrence seems to have been irritated no end by the thought

that people were having sex and not telling him.

    Freud too.

   —Ah but then Freud arranged it so that everyone had to tell.

    His psychoanalysis lights up the depths, makes our tangled web

transparent, to the point where I can see all the way down to It.

    And the process moves outward in increasing rings:

    The Master analyses his disciples. Who thereby—transparent

now—become masters and, in turn, take on others, patients or

disciples, to analyse.

    So that eventually there are no secrets.

    Except, of course, those of the first Master, the Self-Analysed.

    Which is to say, the only private One, sole Unrevealed. Opaque

center of His universal panopticon.

    While we see only His words, His daughter, His cigar.

    Poor Lawrence.

4.  on the sunday after prom, it's traditional for mormon boys and girls to wear their formals to church, complete with boutonnieres, corsages, and wrist flowers.  bedraggled updo's.  last sunday a plethora of modest prom dresses rustled into church--the cap sleeve is the sign of orthodoxy in our most orthodox (or, perhaps more aptly named orthopractic) of neighborhoods and congregations. down the hall i spotted a girl in a peachy-pink gown, sleeveless, a mini-dress ensconced in a sheer maxi overlay.

elizabeth smart

it's been a week of discussing the perils of emphasizing the mandate for young women to be modest, to avoid tempting (not temptation, so much) to sometimes hammer at and punish young mormon women for dressing "immodestly", which could lead to becoming an already chewed stick of gum.

i was thrilled at this young woman.  her dress was beautiful, she was beautiful, and i applauded her unwillingness to bow to the dominant culture.  it gave me hope that some of the damaging, unexamined orthodoxies of our sometimes utopic culture might drop away.

5.  one last thought:  as the months of struggling through darkness have dragged on, with small pricks of light helping me to hang on through yet another depression, i'm starting to wonder how much truth, honesty, transparency has to do with the darkness i'm living in.  what would it be like if it were easier, more common to speak the truth, to think about the actual rather than the ideal?

if light could pass through me without scatter.

the kairotic moment, or, the preface to the preface

i've been teaching my students about "the kairotic moment"  (and based on the quizzes i just graded, almost half didn't get it. my bad.) this is the moment of kairos--something like the opportune moment-- that a person senses is the right time to act.

as i said in yesterday's post, reading the judith dusku interview was my kairotic moment.  i was compelled to act on something i had thought about doing for a while, but hadn't yet found the courage or the right moment to speak.

i'm slow to act, usually.

this is the quote that compelled, or maybe propelled, me to act:  "as a feminist, i'm telling other people:  don't be afraid to tell your story."  so i started, just barely, to tell mine.  though i left out a lot of the why's and wheretofore's in yesterday's post.  & my kairotic moment came at bad time, practically speaking, when i had such a small window of writing time that i had to keep it brief.

(maybe that was lucky for you!)

the other thing i've been doing at school lately is reading wordsworth's "preface to the lyrical ballads" as well as his "essay supplementary to the preface to the lyrical ballads."  dear wordsworth.  i can so well understand his desire and frustration!  to be heard! to be loved! to be popular!  to be understood! to continue prefacing and supplementing! so many explanations of his poems, and why they are great, and should live forever in our hearts!

and can't we all understand dear wordsworth, at least a little?

so here is my preface.  in response to some questions and thoughts from readers on my mitt romney post.

& if necessary,

maybe another day,

an essay supplementary as well.

1) do i speak for mormons or for myself?  for myself.  i was careful to use the pronouns "my" and "i" when making a claim of belief.

2) do i believe that what i said was merely my own subjective interpretation of mormon scripture and teachings?  yes and no.  i recognize that my stances are not mainstream within the mormon church, but i also know that i am not alone in believing many of the statements i made on my blog yesterday.  i also believe, as text interpretation is what i am trained to do, and what i spend most of my work life doing, i have strong textual evidence from all of the bodies of mormon scripture as well as teachings from the mormon temple for the beliefs i espouse.  this is where i have taken my understandings from. perhaps another day we can talk specifics.

3) am i judging romney for being a bad mormon?  i am not judging romney, or anyone, for being a bad mormon.  by anyone's standard, i myself am probably a "bad" mormon.  by the standards i set out in the "my kind of mormon" statements, i am not even my own "my kind of mormon."  my ideals are high.  mormon ideals are high, and exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to fully live up to (a whole other post!)

i think one thing almost all mormons feel right now is the excitement about getting to "set the record straight".  (dear mormons!  we want so desperately to set the record straight!   to be loved!  to be popular!  to be successful!)  so i'm only adding my own version of "setting the record straight." i just want to put it out there, to add my voice to a few others, that not all mormons are super thrilled with capitalism, trickle down economics, anti-feminist rhetoric, rhetoric that maligns or blames the poor for their circumstances, or public policy that does not put the well-being of the weakest and meekest of society first and foremost.

i know the economic theories that explain why capitalism, trickle-down economics, and laissez-faire policies are ultimately, some day, better for poor people (yes, i took honors american heritage at byu with noel reynolds!) i don't believe these theories, though i have studied them fairly extensively (thank you, noel reynolds!), and i have never seen evidence that convinces me of their validity.  i know there are sincere believers who think the poor are better off under this type of regime.  i don't judge these sincere believers.  many of them are my mormon brothers and sisters, my family members, and people i know to be of good heart and sincere intent.  i don't hate these people or think they are immoral, or bad mormons.  i simply think they are wrong.

4) speaking of feminists, why do i think that feminism has a place in mormonism, and why do i think mormon women, in particular, need a stronger voice in the lds church? this is a bit of a roundabout answer.  it starts with an idea that i learned from political scientist valerie hudson, that when women are not at the table, the entire world suffers drastically.  hudson is a professor at texas a&m,  and was recently one of people magazine's 100 most influential people.  she is moderate, even maybe a little conservative, politically.  she is a mormon, a mother, a feminist, and a was a byu professor for 24 years, and she has gathered a large amount of empirical data backing up her premise that the amount of freedom, education, liberty, and power women have in a society are proportional to the well-being of that society in terms of economics, national security, health, etc.

i do not know how far hudson would take this premise in first world scenarios (much of her work is in the third world), but i do know, in a presentation i attended with her on this very topic, that she feels strongly that women's voices are needed at the highest levels of decision making in the most powerful institutions in the world.

what does this have to do with mormonism and romney?  in terms of mormonism, i belive, like dushku, that mormonism can be a powerful force for good in the world.  how much more powerful if women were encouraged greater and more equal participation in the organization?  i'm pretty confident that we're going to find that out in my lifetime.  in terms of romney, i believe he has discouraged women from full participation, perhaps unwittingly, as a pastoral figure in the church, and politically, he does not espouse progressive policies for american women.  this has been damaging to the mormon church and will, i believe, also be damaging to the american public if he is elected.

again, i know mormon women who feel strongly that mothers should be mostly at home when they have small children.  i don't think these women are dumb, wrong, or doing unimportant work, but i do hope that all women will expand their voices to wider spheres, whether or not they have children.  this will be good for all of us.

5) do i believe that a presidential candidate's religion is relevant? i do not.  i know many people from various faith traditions, and from humanistic and aetheistic traditions, who share my vision of a moral society.  i believe that only the morality and efficacy of the policies a president will enact are relevant, and that's how i decide who to vote for.  i bring up mitt's mormonism more as a comment on how i arrived at my particular vision of a moral society than as a condemnation of the way he practices mormonism.  that is not relevant to my voting choice.

but, since mormonism was so central to the development of my values, i think it's interesting that two people who grew up listening to the same sermons, reading the same scriptures, going to services each and every week, raising families in a traditional nuclear family structure, and engaging in so many of the same cultural, social and religious activities could arrive at such radically different positions politically, could have such polarized world views.

i think that i was trying to explore this curiosity in my post, though that was not my explicitly stated purpose.  and again, to distance myself from a version of mormonism that i find distasteful and not representative of my beliefs.

thanks for your comments and feedback, readers, and thanks for listening to my long-winded explanations.  i hope i've done the job this time, and won't have to start in on my "essay supplementary".

ms. behaving--ode to guerrilla grrls

who are they?  only the raddest ladies around.

super-heroines the guerrilla girls have been around for 25 years.  they have presented the facts, like vida and woman stats, that no one wanted to believe:  namely,  the fact that female artists and artists of color are facing gross discrimination.  


still.

it's 25 years later.  and maybe some stuff has gotten better.  like the fact that there's a major retrospective at the moma by a female artist.  (see julie's post about the cindy sherman show and some other female artists at the moma.)  but there's still a long way to go.  i've posted a portion of a speech from the chicago art institute's 2010 commencement, delivered by an anonymous artist in a gorilla mask.  some of the problems that still exist are outlined below.

guerrilla girls are so good at making the tight place of women in the art world (and their movement has had implications for women writers, filmmakers, etc.) into a totally rad place.  i'm inspired by some of their ideas for taking little daily actions (see ideas below)  to raise awareness, as they say with "facts, humor, and a little fake fur."

let me quickly point out my favorite of their bigger ideas:  make cheaper art, make art that is more inclusive, collaborative, and less about winners and losers.  i think this is the thing women need to bring to the table in art, culture, politics, religion, business, etc.  collaboration and inclusion. 

i hate the notion that we need competition to make the world better, and that it's just human nature to have rich and poor, powerful and weak, success and failure.  it's probably partly because of my religious upbringing, but on this point, you won't move me. 

we can have a more just, inclusive world with less killing, sickness, hunger, violence, rape, and oppression.  and as an artist, that's where i'll start with my little idealistic manifesto.

so go to the g.g. website.  buy some posters and bumperstickers and books.  or make your own.  spread the facts, make are support artists in collaboration & your on your way to utopia.

xo

amen

The Guerrilla Girls’ Guide to Behaving Badly (Which You Have to Do Most
of the Time in the World as We Know It)

Be a loser. The world of art and design doesn’t have to be an Olympics where a
few win and everyone else is forgotten. Even though the art market and celebrity
culture is set up to support the idea of hyper-competition and to make everyone
but the stars feel like failures, there’s also a world out there of artistic cooperation
and collaboration that’s not about raging egos. That’s the one we joined, and the
one you can join, too. Get beyond the outdated assumption that only a handful of
you will "make it." Don’t all waste your time running after the same few carrots.
Be impatient. Don't wait for a stamp of approval from the system. Don’t wait
around to be asked to dance. Claim your place. Put on your own shows, create
your own companies, develop your own projects. To steal a phrase from the Dali
Lama, “Be the change you want to see in the world." In other words, Be the
artworld you want to take part in.

Be crazy. Political art that just points to something and says “this is bad” is like
preaching to the choir. Try to change people's minds about issues. Do it in an
outrageous, unforgettable way. A lot of people in the art and film world didn’t
believe things were as bad as we said they were and we brought them
around....with facts, humor and a little fake fur. Here’s a trick we learned: If you
can get someone who disagrees with you to you to laugh at an issue, you have a
hook into their brain. Once inside you have a better chance of changing their
minds.

Be anonymous. You’d be surprised what comes out of your mouth when you’re
wearing a gorilla mask. We started wearing them to protect our careers, but soon
realized it was one of the secrets of our success. Anonymous free speech is
protected by the First Amendment. So join that long line of anonymous masked
avengers, like Robin Hood, Batman, and of course, Wonder Woman.

Be an outsider. Maybe having a secret identity isn’t for you. But even if you end
up working inside the system, act like an outsider. Look for the understory, the
subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair, then expose it. We’ve
empowered lots of people inside museums, universities and film studios to jam
their culture and dis their institutions.

Lead a double life. Be a split personality. Be two, three, four, five artists in one
body, like me. I’m an artist / activist / writer / graphic designer. Be a hybrid.
Hybrids are so green.

Just do one thing. If it works, do another. If it doesn’t, try it another way. Over
time, we promise you it will all add up to something effective and great. Don't be
paralyzed because you can't do it all right away. Just keep on chipping away.
Don't make only FINE art. Make some cheap art that can be owned by
everyone, like books and movies can.

Sell out. If people start paying attention to you, don’t waste time wondering if
you’ve lost your edge. Take your critique right inside the galleries and institutions
to a larger audience. When our work appears at venerable venues like the
Venice Biennale, the Tate Modern, or The National Gallery in DC, we get
hundreds of letters from people saying they were blown away by our analysis of
art and culture.

Give collectors, curators, and museum directors tough love: (Bear with me,
this is a long rant.) It’s a pity that public art museums have to compete with
billionaire art investors to own significant artworks. And then depend on those
investors to donate the works! It's outrageous that art by women and artists of
color sold at auction bring 10-20% of the price of art by white males. It's unethical
that wealthy art collectors who put lots of money in the art market can then
become museum trustees, overseeing museums that in turn validate their
investments. What a lousy way to write and preserve our history! If things
continue like they’re going, a hundred years from now, many museums will be
showing only the white male version of art history, with a few tokens thrown in.
You need to keep that from happening. Make sure that museums cast a wider
net and collect the real story of our culture.

How can you deliver tough love to the art world? Demand ethical standards
inside museums. No more insider trading. No more conflicts of interest! No more
cookie cutter collections of Art That Costs The Most (Eli Broad, do you hear us?)
While you’re at it, give some tough love to design and architecture, where women
and people of color face a crushing glass ceiling. And finally, educators out there,
don't teach a history constructed by corrupt institutions. Write your own!
Complain, complain, complain. But be creative about it. Sure we've done 45
feet high banners and billboards all over the world. But here's some simpler
things we've done: Put anti-film industry stickers in movie theatre bathrooms,
insert fliers with facts about art world discrimination into books in museum stores,
send anonymous postcards to museum directors. Want more ideas? How about
attaching political hangtags to items in clothing stores, putting up street art or
billboards across from your office, slapping stickers on fashion magazine covers.
You can probably think up a million better ideas than we can.

Use the F word. Be a feminist. For decades the majority of art school graduates
have been women. Your class is no exception. But after school, when you find a
too-small number of women and people of color in your field, especially at the
top, then you know there's got to be discrimination, conscious or unconscious,
going on. Don't just put up with it, say something. We think its ridiculous that so
many people who believe in the tenets of feminism have been brainwashed by
negative stereotypes in the media and society and refuse to call themselves
feminists. And guys, that means you, too. Time to man up, whether you're
female, male, trans, etc. and speak up for women. Women's rights, civil rights,
and gay, lesbian and trans rights are the great human rights movements of our
time. There's still a long way to go.

And last, but not least, be a great ape.
In 1917, Franz Kafka wrote a short story titled A Report to An Academy, in which
an ape spoke about what it was like to be taken into captivity by a bunch of
educated, intellectual types. The published story ends with the ape tamed and
broken by the stultified academics. But in an earlier draft, Kafka tells a different
story. The ape ends his report by instructing other apes NOT to allow themselves
to be tamed. He says instead: "break the bars of your cages, bite a hole through
them, squeeze through an opening…and ask yourself where do YOU want to
go?”

Make that YOUR ending, not the tamed and broken one.
Oh...And don't forget to have some serious fun along the way!!!!

legwear:  ripped jeans under a nightgown (yikes. it's a day to do s.o.l.e.)


inspiration:  facts, humor and a little fake fur


looking forward:  bookclub tonight