Pool Construction Observation Station

To say that my nephew, Matt, is fascinated with tractors is like saying typos are mildly irritating to me: both are massive understatements. To Matt's delight, some tractors came to visit Grandma and Granddaddy's house the other day to dig a hole for a pool.

The photo really speaks for itself. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask me. Complete with snack and beverage.

Photo courtesy of Grandma.

Hoax

So, a couple of French kids won a really prestigious award for a visual story they submitted about students and the things they have to go through nowadays to live, go to school, etc. When they accepted their award at the Sorbonne, they admitted to everyone the whole thing was a hoax - they "wanted to enter the contest in order to show the codes used too often in photojournalism and to prove that something real could be translated into something staged." They had basically looked at award submissions for the 2008 prize and found a formula photographers used for success and wanted to make a point.

I have been in conflict with my family since I was 16. Even if I

don't have a scholarship nor parental assistance, I have always

fended for myself. - Amin, 23, Master of Sociology

I don't know about you, but if I were one of the judges, I would totally want to kick these kid's asses. Right there. On stage. Regardless of how funny and/or cool this might be.

Am I glowing?

Yesterday, I enlisted the help of a friend of mine that has access to an x-ray machine in an effort to take some "alternative" self portraits. We took all the necessary precautions with the lead coat and all, but we might have taken more pictures than people normally do in one sitting. Consequently, a couple of hours later at Celtic Crossing's trivia night I found a burn on my arm and realized I was buzzing...as if I was on speed. In fact, I must admit that I still feel that way a little as I write this, the next day.

I am a little concerned, but there's nothing I can do about it now. Except never to do that again. My parents seem to think I'm planning on using the x-ray machine as a tanning bed, though, because I received this email from my dad this morning:

Kate - At my age, sometimes you feel like your children no longer need you, and that is a good thing. Means things are going well.

In your case, I think you need me a bit longer. Now listen good...

DON'T PLAY WITH X-RAY MACHINES

I don't think I need to go any further with this, but I am watching and there will be trouble if you do this again. I hope your arm burn is the only organ affected.

I should probably feel offended but, sigh, I guess I deserve it.

*Update July 6, 2009 - I checked with a friend of mine that is a radiologist, and he assures me that I am JUST FINE.

Yawn.

This is a guy spending the day taking some trees down in my parent's yard (in prep for a pool! woo hoo!).

His buds hit the road at lunch time. This guy? Decided to drop where he was standing and take a nap. In some poison ivy. Yikes.

(Photo taken by Mom. On the sly.)

One Object/365(?) Day Project

Earlier this year I volunteered myself to participate in a Flickr project in which I take a picture of the same object for an entire year. Things went well for awhile, but I got lazy one week...that turned into a month...and then, forget it, no way to catch up without some serious fibbing.

I figured if I didn't do it right I shouldn't do it, so it turned into a One Object/100 Day Project.

That's just fine with me.

Anyways, here's the object. It is a heart made of clay beads created by Billie Beads. Billie and Bob are a fun and funky husband/wife duo out of New York that make all kinds of things out of this medium...skulls, masks, piggy banks, Christmas pins. I've hung onto this for years.

And this represents the 100 day span:

Guerilla Performance Art

I went to a performance at the Nathan Bedford Forrest Park on Saturday morning put on by a professor of mine. I didn't know what to expect going into it, but I was quite impressed at how it turned out. Here's the article about it in the Commercial Appeal Sunday paper and some pictures I snapped.

Wendi C. Thomas: Performance art tells stories to spark dialogue

Piece sparks dialogue at monument

By Wendi C. Thomas (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sunday, June 21, 2009

In a controversial public space that houses the remains of a long-dead Confederate war veteran and sparks strong sentiments among the living, stories that are usually muffled can be heard.

Saturday morning, a group of students and volunteers proved that to be true with an hourlong performance art piece directly in front of the Nathan Bedford Forrest monument in the Downtown park named for the Ku Klux Klan leader. University of Memphis' Richard Lou, the first nonwhite chairman of the art department, sought no permission for this performance, as the "guerilla" nature of the piece was part of the point.

Worries that the police would usher everyone out were unfounded, as the park officers who drove up on the grounds seemed fascinated by the piece; one officer took pictures with a cell phone camera.

Cubes, when arranged in a pyramid formed an 8-foot-high image of fire. They were carefully taken down by university volunteers, and re-stacked again and again -- into a map of the Mississippi River, a Choctaw warrior, a drawing of a slave auction, of Fort Pickering and lastly, what the park would look like if, magically, Forrest disappeared.

During the construction, two students sang spirituals. When each image was whole, a Memphian would stand in front of the pyramid and tell a story.

Robert Bain spoke of completing the park with a monument to anti-lynching activist and Memphis journalist Ida B. Wells.

Elaine Blanchard, a Unitarian minister, told a childhood story of an elderly neighbor who cut through a wire fence to make a gate for her, a single act of kindness and acceptance never forgotten.

Lou's son, Ming, 16, spoke of his grandfather, a Chinese immigrant who worked in the Mississippi Delta.

Immigration activist Francisco Dias spoke of police tearing up his car in search of drugs that weren't there, treatment he suspects was based on his Latino heritage and souped-up ride.

Art professor Earnestine Jenkins told of her grandfather, Garvin Fouse, who fought in World War I, in a rare black fighting division.

And Augustin Diaz danced in full Aztec warrior garb as Raul Venegas drummed for a crowd of about 50.

Sitting in the grass was art buff and local basketball legend Elliot Perry. "Whether it's a monument of pride or humiliation, it just depends on who's looking at it," he said.

"Life is learned through art. I'm looking through different goggles, but I don't see it as a rich and noble heritage."

Lou, of Mexican and Chinese descent, was more direct: The fact that the monument exists is a testament to white supremacy; his piece adds historical accuracy.

The assembling and dissembling of the cubes was designed to repudiate and complicate the space and the story, and do what good art does -- spark dialogue.

Who is allowed to tell what stories in contested public spaces?

Whose stories do we honor?

Whose stories are left out?

It's not about redacting history, as critics might accuse, but fleshing it out and moving away, Lou said, from the binary construction of race and including the stories of the growing Latino community, stories that will become Memphis' heritage.

Framing and reframing the monument each time the cubes shifted to form new images, the movement brought the rapt crowd into the present with stories of times gone by.

And in a space that has been home to just one story -- Forrest's -- it was fitting that on this day, he had no one there to speak for him.

He sat there mute, trapped as if in prison, as the future danced all around him.

Contact Wendi C. Thomas at (901) 529-5896 or e-mail thomasw@commercialappeal.com.

Follow Wendi at twitter.com/wendi_c_thomas.

New Moon

Gaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!