Pacific Dunes

Memory belongs to time; i shall not need to remember
Dunes. I climbed in the sea's thunder, up, up
with aching thighs, and stood on the highest
sand-crest;
Behind, the dusk circle of the mountains;
Before, the burning blue where the earth curves the sea.

But when i turned and slid into the hollow, the sea's voice failed, and time's
Outflung on a floor of sand the color of sun,
in a cup of sand and light, submerged in
light and soundlessness, i forgot you,
Beauty; and all the roads taken and not taken

Ask gulls, if the wastes of the sea, far from
sight or land, where the unheard swell
falls and rises,
Keep this secrecy…
Ask the near-dead, newly returned from the
outposts of silence…
Ask children at their play…

Ellen Margaret Janson, 1949

The interior of Kessler’s house in Weimar

The interior of Count Harry Kessler house in Weimar, designed by Belgian architect Henry van de Velde. Pierre Bonnard’s "The Mirror in the Green Room" hangs on the back wall. 1905

Atlantic

Ellsworth Kelly, Atlantic, 1956. Oil on canvas on two panels, 205.1 × 292.1 × 4.4 cm

Frank Lloyd Wright- What's My Line

Frank Lloyd Wright was a mystery guest on the 03 June 1956 episode of WML.

Ἡ ποδιὰ τῆς Μαριῶς

Πλένει ἡ Μαριὼ στὸν ποταμό, πλένει τὲς φορεσιές της,
κι οἱ ὀμορφιές της λάμπουνε, κι ἀστράφτουν στὸ κορμί της
ἀράδες τ᾿ ἀσημόκουμπα κι ἀράδες τὰ γιουρντάνια,
καὶ στὰ καθάρια τὰ νερὰ τὰ πόδια της ἀσπρίζουν
σὰν νἆταν μὲ τριαντάφυλλα καὶ γάλα ζυμωμένα.
Περνοῦν ἐκεῖθε πιστικοὶ καὶ κυνηγοὶ διαβαίνουν,
κι ἄλλοι τὴν λὲν Λιογέννητη, ἄλλοι τὴν λὲν Νεράιδα.
Πέρασε κ᾿ ἕνας σταυραετός, πέρασε ἀπάνω ἀπάνω,
καὶ σὰν νὰ νοιάστηκε κι αὐτὸς τὴν ὀμορφιὰ τῆς κόρης,
χαμήλωσε ὡς στὸν ποταμὸ κι ἁρπάζει τὴν ποδιά της,
τὴ λαχουριά της τὴν ποδιά, τὴ χρυσοκεντημένη,
ποὖχε ξομπλιάσει ἀπάνω της τὸν οὐρανὸ μὲ τ᾿ ἄστρα,
καὶ σκούζει ἡ ἄμοιρη Μαριὼ καὶ κλαίει τὴν ποδιά της.
Ὁ σταυραετὸς μεσουρανὶς χάθηκε μὲσ᾿ στὰ ἀστέρια.
Σὲ λίγες μέρες ὕστερα ταράχθηκεν ἡ χώρα,
παγάνα πῆραν τὰ χωριὰ τοῦ βασιλιᾶ οἱ ἀνθρῶποι
καὶ δείχνουνε στὲς λυγερὲς ποδιὰ γεμάτη ἀστέρια,
καὶ σ᾿ ὅποιας πιάσει τὸ κορμί, καὶ ὅποια τὴν πεῖ δική της,
ἐκείνη θὰ τὴν πάρουνε μαζί τους στὸ παλάτι.
Πέρασαν, πέρασαν χωριὰ τοῦ βασιλιᾶ οἱ ἀνθρῶποι,
δείχνοντας τὴ χρυσὴ ποδιά, κι οὔτε κι εὑρέθη κόρη
νὰ τῆς ταιριάζει στὸ κορμὶ καὶ τὴν πεῖ δική της.
Καὶ στῆς Μαριῶς πᾶν τὸ χωριὸ καὶ δείχνουνε στὲς κόρες
ἀράδα ἀράδα τὴν ποδιά, καὶ τὴν γνωρίζουν ὅλες.
Μέσα στὲς ἄλλες ἔρχεται καὶ τῆς Μαριῶς ἡ ἀράδα,
καὶ κοκκινίζει ἀπὸ χαρὰ καὶ παίρνει καὶ τὴν ζώνει,
τήνε γνωρίζουνε μὲ μιᾶς τοῦ βασιλιᾶ οἱ ἀνθρῶποι,
καὶ τήνε παίρνουνε μαζί, τὴν φέρνουν στὸ παλάτι.
Παίρνουν αὐτοὶ τὸ τάμα τους, κι ὁ βασιλιὰς τὴν κόρη.

Κώστας Κρυστάλλης, 1891.

Souzy Tros (“Suzy Eats”) Art Canteen

The new Souzy Tros canteen will serve fresh, cheap food—such as Greek trahanas and Middle Eastern hummus—to reflect the ethnic mix of the city’s population today as a seed for cultural exchange and re-constructive creativity. It is a project by Greek artist Maria Papadimitriou, in collaboration with American writer Cathryn Drake. Inspired by a famous scene in the 1969 film La Parisienne, in which a Greek tailor’s chubby client claims to be dieting to fit into a new dress but is only getting bigger: “Souzy eats—and lies” can be seen as a metaphor for the Greek state’s denial in the face of the economic crisis, as well as a general global refusal to reform our unsustainable modern lifestyle.
Activating the void of an abandoned industrial space, Souzy Tros is a re-creation of the communal space in the old Greek courtyard houses, where neighbors shared their everyday lives. A community forum sorely lacking in contemporary society, it promoted collective survival and action, as well as simple information exchange, especially crucial in times of hardship. Crises and other disasters tend to fracture populations into defensive groups defined by tribal common denominators, be it religious or ethnic, and Greece has proven this by becoming increasingly polarized as things have worsened.
The latest platform in Papadimitriou’s T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), Souzy Tros will be a long-term project providing vocational training and creative inspiration for both Greek and non-Greek residents through a time-bank system and forums for the expression of ideas by invited guests from various fields. By hosting creative workshops, film screenings, performances, and music that encourage participation from the community, the canteen will serve as a catalyst for bringing creative people together to share their resources.


Organizational team: Elisavet Antapassi, Eftihis Eftimiou, Catherine Economou, Maria Halkias, Nadia Kalara, Dinos Bakounakis, and filmmaker Constantine Giannaris.

Souzy Tros (“Suzy Eats”) Art Canteen
Markoni 8, Elaionas 10447, Athens (50 meters to the left of Eleonas Metro exit)

Corporation

Corporation, 2012
15 x 5 x 7 cm
Plastic, duct tape, electric circuit and cables

Unanswered Prayers

“Answered prayers cause more tears
than those that remain unanswered.”
Saint Teresa of Avila

Inspired by the last, unfinished novel of Truman Capote entitled Answered Prayers, the exhibition Unanswered Prayers deals with the idea of failure as a creative process.

Success as a concept is a human fabrication. Nonetheless, everything is structured around it, people are expected to achieve certain goals, earn social and professional recognition, etc. The show Unanswered Prayers stands at the opposite end of this notion of producing overachievers and explores how one can actually gain from not achieving given goals, from not fulfilling their desires and how can one possibly grow and learn through failure or through the internal conflicts that are caused by unattainable desires.


You just fail, 2010
Felt, acrylic, wood
197 x 57 x 7 cm

Participating Artists: Em Kei & Nicolaich, Dimitris Foutris, Nikos Kanarelis, Stelios Karamanolis, Maria Lianou, Eva Marathaki, Tula Plumi, Dimitris Tataris, Kostis Velonis, Versaweiss

CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery, Athens
12.07.12 - 15.09.12
www.can-gallery.com

Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun: Hen

A country tries to banish gender.

By most people’s standards, Sweden is a paradise for liberated women. It has the highest proportion of working women in the world, and women earn about two-thirds of all degrees. Standard parental leave runs at 480 days, and 60 of those days are reserved exclusively for dads, causing some to credit the country with forging the way for a new kind of nurturing masculinity. In 2010, the World Economic Forum designated Sweden as the most gender-equal country in the world.
But for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes. This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don't identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.
Activists are lobbying for parents to be able to choose any name for their children (there are currently just 170 legally recognized unisex names in Sweden). The idea is that names should not be at all tied to gender, so it would be acceptable for parents to, say, name a girl Jack or a boy Lisa. A Swedish children's clothes company has removed the "boys" and "girls" sections in its stores, and the idea of dressing children in a gender-neutral manner has been widely discussed on parenting blogs. This Swedish toy catalog recently decided to switch things around, showing a boy in a Spider-Man costume pushing a pink pram, while a girl in denim rides a yellow tractor.



The Swedish Bowling Association has announced plans to merge male and female bowling tournaments in order to make the sport gender-neutral. Social Democrat politicians have proposed installing gender-neutral restrooms so that members of the public will not be compelled to categorize themselves as either ladies or gents. Several preschools have banished references to pupils' genders, instead referring to children by their first names or as "buddies." So, a teacher would say "good morning, buddies" or "good morning, Lisa, Tom, and Jack" rather than, "good morning, boys and girls." They believe this fulfills the national curriculum's guideline that preschools should "counteract traditional gender patterns and gender roles" and give girls and boys "the same opportunities to test and develop abilities and interests without being limited by stereotypical gender roles."
Earlier this month, the movement for gender neutrality reached a milestone: Just days after International Women's Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia. The entry defines hen as a "proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon]."The National Encyclopedia announcement came amid a heated debate about gender neutrality that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites. It was sparked by the publication of Sweden's first ever gender-neutral children's book, Kivi och Monsterhund (Kivi and Monsterdog). It tells the story of Kivi, who wants a dog for "hen's" birthday. The male author, Jesper Lundqvist, introduces several gender-neutral words in the book. For instance the words mammor and pappor (moms and dads) are replaced with mappor and pammor.
The free lifestyle magazine, Nöjesguiden, which is distributed in major Swedish cities and is similar to the Village Voice, recently released an issue using hen throughout. In his column, writer Kawa Zolfagari says, "It can be hard to handle the male ego sometimes. I myself tend to get a stinging feeling when a female friend has had it with sexism or has got hurt because of some guy and desperately blurts out some generalisation about men. Sometimes I think 'Hen knows me, hen knows I am not an idiot, why does hen speak that way of all men?' Nöjesguiden's editor, Margret Atladottir, said hen ought to be included in the dictionary of the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize in literature.
Hen was first mentioned by Swedish linguists in the mid-1960s, and then in 1994 the late linguist Hans Karlgren suggested adding hen as a new personal pronoun, mostly for practical reasons. Karlgren was trying to avoid the awkward he/she that gums up writing, and invent a single word "that enables us to speak of a person without specifying their gender. He argued that it could improve the Swedish language and make it more nuanced.
Today's hen champions, however, have a distinctly political agenda. For instance, Lundqvist's book is published by a house named Olika, which means “different or diverse.” Olika only publishes books that "challenge stereotypes and obsolete norms and traditions in the world of literature." Its titles include 100 möjligheter Istället för 2! (“100 possibilities instead of 2!”), a book for adults who "want to give children more opportunities in gender-stereotyped everyday life"; and Det var en gång … en ritbok! (“Once upon a time there was … a drawing book!”), the first "gender-scrutinizing" drawing book for children that "challenges traditional and diminishing conceptions of girls and boys, men and women."
But not everyone is keen on this political meddling with the Swedish language. In a recent interview for Vice magazine, Jan Guillou, one of Sweden's most well-known authors, referred to proponents of hen as "feminist activists who want to destroy our language." Other critics believe it can be psychologically and socially damaging, especially for children. Elise Claeson, a columnist and a former equality expert at the Swedish Confederation of Professions, has said that young children can become confused by the suggestion that there is a third, "in-between" gender at a time when their brains and bodies are developing. Adults should not interrupt children's discovery of their gender and sexuality, argues Claeson. She told the Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter, that "gender ideologues" have managed to change the curriculum to establish that schools should actively counter gender roles.
Claeson might have a point. The Swedish school system has wholeheartedly, and probably too quickly and eagerly, embraced this new agenda. Last fall, 200 teachers attended a major government-sponsored conference discussing how to avoid "traditional gender patterns" in schools. At Egalia, one model Stockholm preschool, everything from the decoration to the books and toys are carefully selected to promote a gender-equal perspective and to avoid traditional presentations of gender and parenting roles. The teachers try to expose the pupils to as few "gendered expressions" as possible. At Christmastime, the Egalia staff rewrote a traditional song as "hen bakes cakes all day long." When pupils play house, they are encouraged to include "mommy, daddy, child" in their imaginary families, as well as "daddy, daddy, child"; "mommy, mommy, child"; "daddy, daddy, sister, aunty, child"; or any other modern combination.

To those who feel gender equality or gender neutrality ought to be intrinsic to a modern society, it probably makes sense to argue for instilling such values at an early age. The Green Party has even suggested placing "gender pedagogues" in every preschool in Stockholm, the Swedish capital, who can act as watchdogs. But of course toddlers cannot weigh arguments for and against linguistic interventions and they do not conceive of or analyze gender roles in the way that adults do.
Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes regulated, and children's interactions and attitudes are closely observed by teachers. One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely "stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying." And so every detail of children's interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children's lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.

Text by Nathalie Rothschild
Posted April 11, 2012
Source www.slate.com

A Little House of your Own

Ellen Janson at her house during construction, designed by RM Schindler. 1948, Courtesy of R.M. Schindler Archive, University of California Santa Barbara.

An english actor and director Maurice Browne, founder of the "Chicago Little Theatre" was the husband of Ellen Margaret Janson, an american poet whose work has appeared in such magazines as the London Mercury, Carmelite, Harper’s, Vogue, Poetry, Diane Forum and for the most part of her life she was living in the west coast. Maurice Browne also known for his bittersweet autobiography "Too Late to Lament", describes his first impressions with Ellen Janson - Margaret Ellen as he called her.

"Margaret- Ellen..had an excellent thing in women, a soft and low voice . Stillness accompanied her, outer and inner stillness; and when she stood or walked she seemed to rest so lightly on the earth that, though she was tall like her Norwegian forbears, one expected her to float skyward" .

Very soon Ellen gave birth to their son Praxy but Maurice had decided to stay in England. In 1948 -1949 R.M.Schindler has built Ellen Janson's house in Hollywood hills. Between his last period of hospitalization (he was diagnosed with cancer) Schindler was staying at his girlfriend's house . In 1953 R.M.Schindler died "in the Sky ", in a place "made of cobwebs" and 'skyhooks" at Janson's residence site.



A Little House of your Own, 2012
Slide projection with Diascop.

Ellen Janson on the Deck

Ellen Janson on the Deck, 2012
48 x 14 x 18 cm
Wood, plywood, color papers, books

Ιαμβικό μέτρο

Ἔχουσα θαλλὸν μυρσίνης ἐτέρπετο
ῥοδῆς τε καλὸν ἄνθος, ἡ δὲ οἱ κόμη
ὤμους κατεσκίαζε καὶ μετάφρενα.

Κρατοῦσε ἕνα τρυφερὸ κλαδὶ μυρτιᾶς
κι ἕνα ὡραῖο τριαντάφυλλο.
Τῆς ἄρεσε: χαμογελοῦσε. Τὰ μαλλιά της
ἔσταζαν νύχτα πίσω της.

Αρχίλοχος (π. 680 π.Χ. - 630 π.Χ. 30)
[Ed.29]