SETI

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence#

Just like my physics professor predicted, a lot of students quit his class after a brief introduction to the upcoming semester's coursework, an experience that was duplicated for me at RISD, too, without the intentional bait-and-switch routine necessary for a savvier New York student body that uses English as a first language. I had signed up for a class I thought was "Science Fiction Illustration" that was a catalog misprint of the actual class called "Scientific Illustration". A bunch of us (mostly guys) groaned, got up from the studio tables, and immediately asked for a signature to drop the class. 

The teacher was not pleased; profs lived and died at schools based on class attendance and their lectures, and as much as I liked botanical art, I really didn't need a class in it. I had a mom for a botanist. I grew up drawing plants, trees, and flowers in vast pictorial landscapes. This was no place for me to draw the big beautiful trees of my native Hudson River valley. I could do that at home, on my own. She gave me a nasty look as I opted out of her class, a feeling I felt she might have carried over into the next class of hers that I took, which is every high-achieving student's greatest fear: retaliation and blacklisting based on their agenda as a working artist and not mine as a paid-in-full student.

Both of those fears came to fruition, and by the time I had sussed out the art school game, neither retaliatory actions counted against my post-graduation successes. In fact, that particular prof asked for one of my pieces I had made based on organic forms for the RISD Museum's permanent student collection, which bolstered me enough to tolerate her scathing criticisms of any work of mine that she found derivative, which was accurate for me. I can achieve stunning originality, but with an entire course load devoted solely to labor-intensive studio-work, occasionally I had to phone in a piece between my three part-time jobs.

Our physics professor knew better flagging spirits and intellectual tiredness. He looked haunted by his experience and subsequent failures at the famed S.E.T.I. project that proposed highly intelligent beings would respond to something as trite as a radio signal blasted into space. So what? I'm not channeling anything or anyone alien to earth right now as I sit writing to this to you while listening to my playlist (Dizzy Gillespie's live version of "Swing Low" set in Paris). It was kind of a dubious quest to begin with, and I think that's what did it in for him: the absence of faith in his original artificial construct. 

But, he should have quickly recovered. After all, that's what science and experimentation is about: a series of failures that eliminate choices through an inquiry process, leading you to the correct solution that will hold up under scrutiny for its tried-and-true testing. After a class that found me and my boys sitting closer to him in the classroom, we decided to pull back to the higher seats in the lecture hall. Something about his haggard expression and deep-set undereye bags disturbed us up close, like it was unnatural. You have to be pretty bad off to screw up star-filled nights shining brightly in the crisp, clear, cold mountain air we lived in, as a place very close to nature.

He seemed to be pleading at us, as students sitting in the second row of the classroom, with his foot propped up on a pull-down seat's armrest, looking down at us like we didn't know what was up. "I mean, there's nothing out there!" He said to us, in exasperation. "NOTHING!" He acted blown away by it, like a space alien or lifeform that can traverse time and space through wormholes would give a fuck about his petty ego problems, which is what my man DutchBoy basically said to him. "Yeah, but didn't you know that when you set up the experiment? That it could fail? I mean, science isn't about foregone conclusions." Right! Like, adapt and problem-solve, dude. Let's build a spaceship instead! It should've closed down one avenue for him to explore another, but he was stuck on it as a theory, which is a bad place for any scientist (or student) to be. Time to move on, bro. 

It revealed to me just how limiting my education could be at Oneonta, which helped motivate me to undergo one of the hardest experiences of my life that is the Rhode Island School of Design's admittance process. If I remained on "Easy Street", I risked limiting myself to the intellectual capabilities of someone who mistakenly thought that the key to enlightenment with an eternal deity was to simply blast his BabyBoomer songs into the galaxy like some kind of intergalactic space jam. Someone tapped the "red hair bud" going around campus too hard this winter, bro. Word. And like that, I was ready to tackle the bigger questions of the universe, like: how do I get my snow dog with lots of fur into a spacesuit and decompression stasis chamber? Still need help on that one, NASA. Any day now, right?

Singing in the Key of Ella

"Annndddd....I only have eyes...I only have eyes...yes, I only have eyes...forrrororrr youuuuuu....." I've always loved jazz and the blues, and luckily my beatnik city parents did, too. In addition to rock n' roll and my dad's occasional country album, they had tons of vinyl from the greats, like Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. They met at a dance club, and they often visited jazz clubs in "The Village" when they first dated, seeing legendary artists like Bob Dylan when he was just another broke Jewish kid tryin' to make it in "The Big Apple". It was something they could understand, being second-generation immigrant kids themselves. Everyone's ethnic in the 'hood, knowwhatimean?

I took to the big rock acts of the 60s, 70s, and 80s first, but after that pop cultural introduction, I found myself hungry to know more about the American roots of our music, as yet another example of a cultural heritage that'd been co-opted from us (without paying fees for creative copying, and without permission) by white Europeans, no offense. Thanks for all the money! In a big classroom in upstate New York, I took a class so fucking hard that I still have anxiety dreams about it (http://www.oneonta.edu/academics/music/biographies.asp#).

They had this blind cat in class who was an idiot savant with tunes, even DJ'ing overnight at our infamous college radio station (held in very high acclaim), to come into class with an escort on one arm, like any true rock star would, sitting in the front row, or, even better, he pulled a chair right before the instructor's podium on the auditorium floor. And he was vicious. If the prof pulled just the horn section from a track, his hand always shot up first. Man! How does he know it from just a small two-second sample? It did nothing to dispel our notions about handicapped people and their "Spidey" senses that went tingling in the absence of sight (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Spidey-sense).

After that, I always worked in design studios that had music playing (or Howard Stern, haha, Carol!) in the background while we worked (or much louder after hours, when the 9-5 staff ran out the door ahead of us, always ahead of us and the end of our real work), to the amazement of the office cows wandering through our studio spaces, aghast at this break from a typically uptight protocol that they mistook for a laxity in our disciplines, but such was not the case. Almost all of my art degreed friends are also professional or semi-professional working musicians, given credence to our supposition that the arts blend together in both the practicing and well-practiced artist alike.

And so it went. I allowed the people in my life to think that they had a big "one-up" on me when they strummed their guitars slightly, or tapped a silly tambourine for attention like a trained seal at the circus, while I declined to explore yet another avenue for my already prolific output that often scared the amateurs around me. Then I scored a recording studio gig. Of course, I didn't have the time to devote to audio sessions, though my man Randy pulled me into the studio for a few vocals on commercials and promo pieces for our business clients who needed a smooth, silky, pleasantly female voice.

But, it hadn't started there. When I worked at a pizza joint in Providence, Rhode Island, my friend Greg used to encourage me to call the guys working at the liquor store down the hill for a trade. "Do the voice!", he'd say to me. "You know, that sexy one you use when you talk on the phone." So I would, and, lo and behold, with a little bit of giggling, we'd happily traded a pie with the works for a six-pack of beer, to make both of our work gigs go a little easier. That's how it went for me. My physical presence coupled with my artistic and intellectual prowess was already way more than the average Joe or Jane. I'm half-harassed to death as it is!

It wasn't until I was laid off from my last long-term office gig that I finally let the tiger out of its cage. They had requisite "art fag" kids who wrote shitty plays and bland music that I stayed very fucking far from. Pretentiousness freaks me out, besides, if this mama don't earn, ain't none of you playin' jack shit, right? So, I did the trade I was apprenticed to, and I did it famously well. End scene. Or so I thought. After I began working from home in earnest, transitioning to being a publisher with my own voice, I realized I didn't have to hide anymore.

This stupid white dude living beneath me in Park Slope felt "bad" enough for me (yeah, right) to let me piggyback off his WiFi for awhile—until he blew that up, like a typically arrogant WASPy douche with an overblown ego and sense of entitlement to go along with his easy life and generically "exotic" Asian girlfriend built like a prepubescent girl. He told me he was a "Sound Designer" like he was proud of it, which means he holds the fuzzy boom mic on set, and then goes home to fiddle around with his ProTools all night long like a raging manic-depressive, on a pricey computer that you and I can't afford without going into debt. I know: its a "dick" title to go with his bad attitude. He hated me, but he also wanted me, too, and ain't that like every otha boy on tha block? So, I let my music play loud enough to be heard (rare as that was back then) because he earned his money from sound, so what could a bitch like him really do about it? 

To go with his flabby life, I dubbed him "BitchTits" behind his tall, pompous back. He also drove a suburban SUV in fucking Brooklyn, and then complained like a whiny out-of-towner about a lack of parking on some of the most difficult streets to do so in the city. No shit, white boy! But, in the heat of my anger simmered another tiger in the tank. I finally let myself sing, after never really trying to do so in front of average folks, and it worked. I let myself find the right pitch and tone for my classic mezzo soprano (http://www.harmonyangels.com/Verse-Voice.html), a key I had avoided like the colored plague it was marked for my life, and do you know what I found out? I fucking sang in the key of Ella fucking Fitzgerald. 

That was it. That was all it ever was. I just needed to find the right notes to go with my voice, much like my beautiful grandmother's pitch, who was so modest about the strength of all of her gifts from G-d that shone like a brightly-filled chalice of light, that she only allowed herself free reign to pour it out while she was in church, where it was safe from the kind of scrutiny that sought to rip away gifts as freely as they'd been given to us. We knew that the disordered and dysfunctional swirling around our smaller healthier group circled us like hyenas, eager for the leftovers of our greater gifts that dropped from us like leftover crumbs, smacking and licking their lips in hideous gluttony.

And just like that, the evil spell surrounding and suppressing me was finally broken. The hangers-on and wanna-be's dropped away as I fell down hard financially because I had nothing left to give, in a shedding process that marks the life of any real acolyte who seeks to walk with G-d and be in the presence of His Almighty Grace. I was finally free, free to be me, free to be you and me. Ain't life grand?

The Physics of Faith

Back in the 80s, we still found it fun to believe (somewhat) in aliens, spaceships, far-away galaxies, and groovy shows about star-trekking explorers from famous 60s-era t.v. shows. In fact, it was still so popular, one enterprising professor at Oneonta State decided to capitalize on the infamy behind such grand delusions by advertising a physics class with "Star Trek" placed cleverly in the class title. Aha!

Me, my friend "Weeg" (Hi, Kirk!), and my boy "DutchBoy" (Esse!) decided to take the class together, and we swore before the semester started that we would attend every class "high", meeting before each class to smoke a joint. As far as stoner's plans go, you can imagine that we did not adhere to a strict schedule of attendance or party planning, but we were there for the very first class sitting together, wasted and ready for our next alien encounter to begin. Beam us up!

Our professor was a rather modest, drab-looking older man in his late 50s, bald, with a droopy pocket-protector full of pens to go with his plain white button-down shirt and saggy black pants. Here we go! Game on, friend. He introduced himself to us with a bit about his background: he used to work for S.E.T.I. (right on right on, we gave each other encouraging smiles), now defunct as an organization, which he laughingly explained as to his presence at our small upstate New York college in the Catskill Mountains (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains). Okay, that explained why he was here. But, like, how many times has he been probed on-board "The Mothership"? You know? Some key data was missing, here.

We met after class to talk it over, using our childish fantasies to explain away his bland demeanor about our starry-eyed dreams of space exploration. Okay, like, maybe he's just burnt-out from teaching all year (yeah, yeah) or getting kicked out of the space program? Nah! He's probably just scared that they'll come back for him and take him away for more testing because he talked to us about it. Yeah! That's it! That's totally it! You could imagine his hesitance about having more invasive anal procedures done by unfeeling mutant aliens. I mean, that would freak out anyone, right?

Yeah, I don't know...our whole pot-smoking-in-space vibe was quickly coming apart at the seams, confronted by the real science of scanning the skies in a vast universe too big for our calculations. This wasn't the sexy "Barberella" movie version my boys were looking for. As the semester progressed, we tenuously clung to our rapidly evaporating faith in all things alien, but we continued to bolster each other up in rather a adolescent fashion that belied our need for supportive theories. Maybe he's, like, an alien come here to gradually introduce his culture to us, and, like, he's gonna rip off his human face mask to reveal his gnarly reptilian face to us at the last class! No way! That's totally it.

We grooved on the belief that our teacher was really a visiting alien in disguise—but, like, totally friendly and stuff, 'cause he's teachin' us about his ways and all at this school, so he's cool, he won't eat us at the end of class, right?—but it was becoming rapidly apparent that we were actually taking a real physics class, with tests and equations and stuff. Oh, shit...my boys tapped out of future classes a bit more on the regular, as I did, though DutchBoy stayed true to the faith, because he wanted to believe, man. So did we all, but after awhile, the coursework replaced our past delusions, to create a real interest in working with the stars, which was the whole point behind the class.

It's easy to make up a fictionalized account of the world then it is to accept the truth sometimes, and as young adults, we were clearly moving towards reality faster and faster. We were leaving behind our childhood forever, and that was scary at times. What will we be like as adults? Will we suck like most people? That was more horrifying to us than a people-eating alien reptile; losing the core of our identities to the workaday world of office drones and typical assholes who cared more about their cars than life itself. We never wanted to be like that, and with one very special class taught to us at just the right time in our lives, we saw a way out, to a life of the mind that was more fascinating than some cheesy fantasy concocted by Hollywood. I mean, who the fuck were they anyway? Actor-types! No, thanks.

I wanted to in "the real" with them during class, and I found that the abstract quality of our calculations were just as silly as some of the early paintings and psychedelic scribblings that I did to entertain myself back then, as a teenager attending college. Instead of dressing up in stupid space costumes, I wanted to become more like the scientist leading the class. That's where the real entertainment was for us, as scholars. Besides, I wouldn't be working with fantasists after graduation. I'd be working with real people right here on Planet Earth, and it was that very down-to-earth quality that marks excellent teaching that drew me into the class and kept me there for an entire semester, when other kids dropped out in the face of math and science and the vastness of the stars.

I loved it, and I was surprised at how easily this language spoke to me. Maybe I'd already been to the stars and back as a time-traveler? Who knows? Suddenly, it seemed more plausible than anything I'd ever seen before. I replaced the fuzzy visions in my head based on t.v. show toys with wormholes hidden into the very fabric of space, vaulting through Horsehead Nebulas and planets that rained bright red rubies, because all of that seemed more possible to me than tentacled purple space aliens with ray-guns. Outer space became tangible and real to me, much closer than the obstructing view of popular culture, and way more plausible, even practical, given the right math.

For our very last class of the year, our Prof gave us our final assignment, based on the formula they used (and discarded) at S.E.T.I. to calculate that amount of possible Earth-like planets in the universe. We were suckers for it immediately, as we put it off for its daunting task. He really asked us to solve the question of all life in the universe, and is that even possible? We looked at the math with downcast eyes. I'd always found most everyday math problematic for me, but this was different. I needed to keep my grades up for my last semester at Oneonta, locking in my transfer to RISD to keep that process going smoothly. What if I sucked at this? I'd get a bad grade that'd put my entire future in jeopardy, like an astronaut quickly calculating his re-entry on the fly, with all instruments down.

As we turned in our paperwork for that last class, I nervously sat forward in my seat. As our teacher took the last paper from a rather Lawngisland-looking girl with huge 80s hair, my heart pounded. Uh, oh. This is it. We'd talked with enough students to know that, as a class, we were totally fucking lost as to what the "right" numbers could be. It was anyone's guess, and that's exactly what our teacher said next. As he leaned on the last stair of the front row, next to the girl's desk, he told us the truth that they discovered at SETI, when they finally closed the program due to a lack of finding and findings: there is no way to calculate how many Earth-like planets may exist in the universe.

We breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't going to grade our papers. Cool! Maybe this is his "big reveal", Dutchboy wondered to me. Nah...but, what is it? He told us the truth about all of his work in the field of astrophysics thus far, and that's what the real bombshell of his class was about: there is no math to explain our universe that's provable, just as there is no equation that disproves the existence of G-d, and with one last look downward, he finally gave it up to us in that classroom. He believed that our life on Earth was miraculous and unexplainable in the extreme. There was no other way to put it. He'd found faith.

We felt kinda bad for him. They must have ostracized the poor guy at Trekkie conventions after that particular admission. Boy...some class, huh? We  looked at each other for awhile, outside of the lecture hall. And that was it. The was the end of my college career at Oneonta. There were absolutely no little green people floating in a spinning space disk, so improbable that it was laughable to a real scientist. There wasn't any weirdly surreal space dust that grabbed you and flung you inter-dimensionally. No, we had something far greater. We had each other. We had us, right here on Earth, and that turned out to be the best alien scenario, yet. Tough act to follow, right? I finally walked away from the carelessness of my young mind towards a much sharper, brighter future. I had everything to look forward to back then. Still do. 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence

Apple and Oranges

Even though I knew that "The Fates" held a destiny for me much bigger than a small-sized classroom, I've always loved teachers and education, so much so, I followed my best friend and her older brother to one of the best teaching schools in the country for working class New York kids on a strict budget, which is the exact niche my friends and I fit into. Why pay out interest rates on jacked-up student loans designed to suck from our meager incomes for years, when the starting salary for a teacher in New York State was $26,000 in the 90s (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d99/d99t080.asp)?

Suffice to say, I learned a lot about my friends and their curriculum by listening and talking with them. It served me well during my apprenticeship in publishing, which has the strongest industry ties to education, by necessity and design. Textbooks, anyone? Who do we serve more than schools? Libraries! That's why I'm typing to you from one today. Makes for an eerie kind of logic, doesn't it? And so we discussed our avid interest in changing the system from within, by shoving out the bored burned-out drones who labored in classrooms like they were slaves from "the bad man" himself, when really they were just bottom-level civil servants made for a life filled with repetition.

But, that's not the actual job of teaching. Running a classroom means you have enough juice and life-force running through your veins that you can actually transmit your passion for learning to other much smaller humans who need you to guide them through your excellently-designed curriculum. We had enough of the ennui that bad teachers hide behind. Get out, if you hate kids that much! It's like dealing with the bitch who runs your doctor's office. Oh, so you hate people? I guess tending to the sick would be at the top of your list, then.

And it wasn't because they were broke or in financial straits like we were. I've worked with plenty of people in publishing who worked because they didn't know what else to do, so they hoped to hide within low-paying jobs alongside some of the most educated people on the planet because....oh, wait. That doesn't work either. Claiming disability became some sort of signal that we "won", because crazy people think that the world is all about some intergalactic pissing contest in lieu of actually living life, like my wonderfully cool grandpapa taught me to do: have fun! Learning is like that.

So, we became focused on accurately transmitting that joyful feeling; not through some dull drama class we did by rote, but the real thing, which unfortunately requires you love what you do for a living, and that can't be faked, no matter the brand of wacky sauce poured on top for seasoning bland personalities. My friends and I felt alive. Are you? We became adept at reading children's real intellectual levels, and that's somehow another layer of threatening for the demented at heart. Here in town, we watched a sick woman smack her ADD son cringing on the floor at our community center in the middle of the day, in front of many witnesses. It was a shockingly familiar sight to anyone from this area: a stick-thin young woman with challenged kids, greasy hair, and a shitty attitude (she has a Down Syndrome girl, too) freaks out whenever she feels stress, which is all-day every day.

The gossip that circulated through us followed suit in a typically dysfunctional pattern we grew up with, too. She was in the middle of a ferocious battle with the teachers at the elementary school next door to our library/community center, because she refused to acknowledge what any two-year-old already knew: she's sick, and so are her kids. Duh. Of course he's "Special Needs"! But just like every rabid bitch we hated as kids, here she was again, haunting the very places we hold dear, like some nightmare merry-go-round in Hell. Hadn't we killed, er, pushed out all these bitches already? Birth control is practically free!

Much like a pseudo-debate over healthcare, it's not really about her kid and his needs, because we've already designed circles around it as an issue, when she finally decides to pull her head out of her own stick-figure ass. Who can tell? She pretended to almost run me over when I crossed at a corner near town, to give me the creeps (just in case I failed at her five million other warning signs that are as obvious as daylight at noontime), by pretending to search for something in her car. We have that on satellite photo, BTW. Look for it! Anywho, like any self-loathing drama queen, her weirdo displays are more about her strange lesbo displays someone has to actually notice, like when she comes into the library in her anorexic day-wear, to bend over until one of the gay women working here notices her bending over to put books into the return slot that should normally take a few seconds. Ugh...great. That's motherhood?!

Body fat is also a no-no among many "sports dykes" and the women who love/hate them. Also, you shouldn't date a closeted women who tricked some poor guy (perhaps deeply closeted, as well) into mating with her poorly, but you should know that from our lessons already, kid. It happens to us everywhere. When I moved into my new residence, I knew within minutes which neighbor was sick with what, and their children, too. It's rather easy to discern, like a physician with a tiny hammer timing your reactions from knocking your knee. The Hispanics upstairs did everything they possibly could, as backwards as possible. They made a kid without marriage, broke up, then he moved in his little girlfriend who preferred shopping to mothering (because they're barely out of their teens! Yay!), which she then telegraphed to everyone in the neighborhood by making his little girl into a pedophiles' sick delight, with outfits cut just a bit too short, so that her boyfriend's ex would suffer from her daughters' molestation that would certainly affect her throughout her life, and that was BEFORE I noticed her obvious developmental issues.

First, it was the girls obvious short attention span (easy: blame los Americanos with their sugar and fast food diet), then blame our high price of living telegraphed by obvious parental neglect (so they could leave their girl vulnerable to the house drunks downstairs by pleading poverty for their cheapo babysitting services, having the large man paw the young girl right in front of me on the houses porch, which I clearly documented), and then finally, I met the girl herself, desperate for a real adult to teach her something about life. She picked me out as a safe person quickly, ringing my bell for healthy food and drinks, which I readily had, like home-popped popcorn and seltzer water with fresh lemon slices. She loved my treats, even asking me for more, which I happily gave her in a plastic container that I never got back, in case I didn't get all the other messages transmitted to me that they could care less about me and her, what with their sulking, pouting, drinking, and active chain-smoking social lives to live.

The poor girl was also a shut-in, not leaving the house except for school, and that attendance seemed tepid and short-lived, too. As soon as the young couple could, they farmed out her daycare to babysitters and a series of shifty-looking "nannies", because that's what junior mechanics and their desk-jockey girlfriends do in this century, besides nursing a serious shoe fetish widely telegraphed in the house garbage cans (because they don't recycle, duh. They're "too busy" for that!), but one call to their friend and a Spanish woman will pick up your bottle returns, because the house drunk told me that. "Oh, yeah! We recycle here! Just let so-and-so upstairs know, and he'll call his friend. She picks through the garbage for bottles. You ain't gotta worry 'bout nuthin'. Put 'em in the two pails in the back with no lids, and they'll see it." Huh. I see. Hiding beer bottles and alcoholism, eh? Neat trick!

Their daughter also never played outside, or went to the little playground with picnic tables that are right here in the center of town, or got ice cream nearby like every kid here does in the summer with their parents, nor did she ride her bike openly in the driveway, or play in the yard like any other girl her age would do. She didn't have friends come over, either. She told me she had a sibling who didn't go out, because he "didn't feel good", so he stay inside a lot. Right! I could tell. As she sat at my kitchen table, I asked her to draw me anything she wanted. She couldn't. I asked her to spell her name for me. Nope! Did she know the letters A, B, or C? No! She fidgeted and bounced around my apartment, flitting from object to object, finally swiping them from my coffee table in anger, and then putting them back when my back was turned for a few seconds, which was the one practiced trick she had up her sleeves. When I asked her age, she told me she was six, but she didn't really know. Ah...

After new neighbors moved in, we had two families in our household with small children, and they couldn't be more different. The first time I met little Eli, he played happily in the yard while I became acquainted with his father, cheerfully picking up different stones and rocks to show me. I kept his little gifts in my hands, until his father noticed and asked him to put them down. As a symbol of recognition about their vast differences intellectually and developmentally (because everything is a big fucking secret, I guess), I lined up little Eli's rocks underneath the railing on "my side" of the porch (I don't actually own the house, which makes territorial markings doubly weird!), the same side of the house his parents kept their car parked that they drove everyday, so they would at least know that I knew. He'd sorted rocks by their size, shape, type, and color. At two. Yeah. Different. That's it, right?

 http://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/edpicks.jhtml

Gold Leaf

Gold Leaf (nature's walk home) - Pearl River, N.Y. (April 2015)

Many years ago, when I was an apprenticed hopeful seeking enlightenment at the real-life "Hogwart's" that is the Rhode Island School of Design, I remember taking an art history class for relief. Why, you ask? Well, long before there were things like dual Liberal Arts/Illustration majors existing concurrently between Brown and RISD, this young Illuminator took a full major of liberal arts classes at a SUNY school cheaply before specializing at one of the hardest schools on the planet, in the studio classes needed to enter our hallowed halls of publishing. 

I got a lot of ribbing for being on the "5 year" plan because I lost all of my SUNY studio art credits (RISD does not accept other school's ideas about "studio" and "art"), though I could have earned two degrees in four years if I remained in the 2:1 program that Oneonta had back then with F.I.T., but it was far too late for that: I saw the Chi Ro* page in a darkened SUNY art history class and I was done, especially after me and my college boyfriend took a trip to Dublin in the 90's. Gutenberg bibles in the real at Trinity? Done! I knew it, so I took the snide comments in stride, just like I always have and I always will.

Detail from the Book of Kells "Chi Ro" page.

And so, I found myself with three part-time jobs and a fully loaded studio curriculum (with the odd house painting job or two me and my fellow Yankee housemate Riddell put into the mix during one summer session in Providence), something which I think remains untouched as a feat, or at least I hope so. It was insane. You see, during the school's calendar year, studio classes are full 3-4 hour long labs that do not include the required out of class homework assignments. Oh. It was rad and intense and sometimes I had night sweats with baby freak outs (I'm still convinced the historic house we rented back then is totally haunted, stressful breakouts aside), but I regret it not one bit. 

Anywho, when I wanted an easy "A" coupled with the blissful ease of a simple mutiple-choice exam and an essay composed of my thoughts, I sometimes took a liberal arts class just for the relief of it, and like everything else in my good life, I am so glad that I did. It was there in another dark classroom filled with the bright slides of art that I learned about the concept of "intrinsic value" attached the the highly valued pigments from illuminators of yore, and why a leaf so golden it looks unreal stopped me cold on one of my walks home from this small public library in New York that I now write to you from. Because it's all connected, dudes, and that totally blows my mind. Time travel is a real thing, man! Join me in my quest, the quest for truth and knowledge.  
Seekers, welcome: http://www.risd.edu/academics/havc/courses/.

http://www.museumsassociation.org/collections/16022015-research-and-conservation-of-illuminated-manuscripts

*https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Chi+Ro

Acts of Creation

When I was in 7th grade biology lab at Felix V. Festa Junior High in West Nyack, New York (and, yes, I really DID walk 2.6 miles as a child uphill, every day for two years in the rain, sleet, or snow, like an unpaid postal worker carrying a load of heavy school books: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/3+Stegmeyer+Ln,+New+City,+NY+10956/Felix+Festa+Middle+School+Campus,+Parrott+Road,+West+Nyack,+NY/@41.1217371,-74.0001876,3203m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c2c29992dab085:0xbcdd2ab48bbf66e3!2m2!1d-74.0015367!2d41.1213911!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c2c288479eb5b9:0xfe59e4b7c9903e94!2m2!1d-73.982099!2d41.123044), my excellent science teacher instructed us to debate Creationism vs. Evolution.

I chose to debate the scientific principle that we know to be true. So, as we sat down on opposing sides, I knew I had it in the bag, but I was shocked to see kids who were considered rather good students choosing the other side, like the head cheerleader and the teacher's pet with the really good grades. What the....wait a minute....I know this kind of situation. It's called being a "Show Pony", and it's how ass-kissing students work the academic system instead of learning from it, for grades and appearances. Good! It means I can outthink the opposition.

And I did, but thinking wasn't really the challenge for me. My main obstacle was keeping myself cool in the the heat of battle. When the spoiled, self-obsessed cheerleader, formerly of the big metal braces, thick glasses, and quick Spring Break nose job (Hi, Lauren!) shouted back to my carbon-dating rebuttal that "Scientists can do anything!", I knew it was a setup. There are days when my microbiologist mom can barely drag herself out of bed (then and now), let alone remake the world on a totally cellular level to be whatever she wants it to be like a magician pulling a hat trick, but this kid didn't seem to understand that. She didn't seem to actually KNOW anything. She was just yelling words back at me without any evidence to support her wild claims about the world we live in. A willfully protected ignorance like hers had eluded me. What was I supposed to do now?!

I colored, shocked and adrift for a moment in her fiercely childish anger at being outsmarted by me so easily, as I looked to my science teacher for help in controlling her student's temper tantrum. She stood behind the row of chairs on the Creationist side and nodded slowly at me, then gave me a silent, "cool it down" gesture. That was it. I took a deep breath, in reply: "But, why? Why would someone do that?" She sputtered, stalled, then failed the debate entirely. "Well, www-welll....I don't know!" You don't know. And she knew it, too. It was a profound victory for me that I never forgot, or that class. Thank you, "Mrs. Science Teacher", from the bottom of my heart, because this Rockland County girl was at least 2-4 years younger than all of her classmates in junior high school, as it was for me throughout my early academic life. I was only 12 years old the first time I tackled that particular fear. You'd be wise to remember that about me, readers. It will serve you well.

“I would say that all our sciences are the material that has to be mythologized. A mythology gives spiritual import - what one might call rather the psychological, inward import, of the world of nature round about us, as understood today. There's no real conflict between science and religion ... What is in conflict is the science of 2000 BC ... and the science of the 20th century AD.”
― Joseph Campbell

Flew the Coop

Yep, you read it right: "Backyard Chickens for Beginners" bitches!

I believe in the great educational institutions and huge agriculture of New York state like its' yesterday's news, and it totally is. We've been doin' this a very long time. Every once in awhile, I get a whiff of "Big Agra" out west trying to co-opt our rep as the so-called American Heartland, and here's the problem with that kind of thinking: a semi-arid desert does not a fertile river valley make. It really just doesn't make it. Oh sure, you can artificially prop it up as a competition with the use of freely given government hand-outs, but the thing is, we have all of human history on our side, like the way water flows downhill. It's a part of our nature, and I'd love to have you on board with me.

Special thanks to my peeps at Cornell (my oldest bro's Alma Mater for grad school) for keeping our history alive through these small, local satellite programs that serve as outreach to the community. We need you! And I will be in touch with you in the future about growing chickens for their fresh eggs in my backyard. Can't get more organic than that! Future neighbors, please take note now: hens do not "cock-a-doodle-do" at dawn like a male rooster, so know your stuff beforehand. Thanks friends, and please keep reading.  
You are my audience.

http://rocklandcce.org/ 

http://rocklandcce.org/events/2015/04/07/-backyard-chickens-for-beginners

I have the mug!

I wonder what I'll be when I grow up? So hard to know....

People love all sorts of folksy shit that I don't necessarily have time 
for, because it's excessively repetitive to someone like me. I know coaches who base their entire careers on delivering these neat little quips in the form of cutesy quotations (usually ripped off from
someone way more famous), and I don't specifically have a problem with sayings, except that I've heard them all my life. Why, you say? 
I'm so glad you asked! 

Oh, that's right! I have the fucking mug! Every damn day, people.

My dad programmed us (some would use the nicer word "trained"), like we were an elite military unit, and, look at that! Fast forward some 40 years, and here we are: leaders, all. So it's not that I personally find you distasteful, though if you try to cram too much of your crap down my throat, I will get angry (trust on that), it's just that I really don't need your fucking input at this particular point in time, because if I do, I will ask the questions I want to to get the answers I need. How do I know? I have the mug. 

Look! Here's a plaque my dad sent me with a quote on it.

p.s. - Yes, that's me in the morning, and yes, I am aware that shot is a bit overexposed (but that's not the point of that picture), and no, I am not wearing any makeup, because that's me having my morning cup of coffee (and no, I don't need makeup to drinking a fucking cup of coffee at home, alone), and yes, I am 44, and no, I have never had plastic surgery or used Botox, because (and this is important), I am a fucking working class New York girl. Get it together, ho. You're pissing me right the fuck off, and if you don't like it, then wear sunblock, bitch.

Children's Books: This Girl Isn't Just a Girl

A girl, but not just any girl.

I often find interesting things on the street, mostly because I'm always looking at the world around me, and so I make great finds. I passed by a church that has an elementary school, and I noticed that one young student must have had one heck of a good time with this book. 

BOO! Did I scare you?

Well-loved books, like beloved children's toys, come apart with heavy use, and this darling book about a little girl witch was no exception. As much as I make books to last (as part of my job), I also recognize them for what they are; precious objects that are also made for human use, especially by our littlest ones, who need them the most to learn. Besides, this girl loved finding it among the autumn leaves. 

It just seemed right.

No problem! I got it covered.

Mad about books?

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/reading-writing-books/

Fall, and school reading.

Street Art: Poetry

Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

I found a piece of paper on the sidewalk, grammar lessons from a child's notebook, and I thought it formed a poetry of its' own. 
Everyday magic is all around you.  Stop for a second look.

To Be And To Have

I watched a wonderful documentary, Être et Avoir, about a teacher in rural France assigned to an all ages, one-room schoolhouse. It captured the spirit of education, but I was disappointed to learn that the director fed the teacher lines to get the kids to talk about certain subjects (found in the DVD extras) and looking back, you can see those scenes are forced.

The best parts of the movie are the teachers' impromptu interactions with his students that are centered around small classes, focused attention, and lots of interpersonal contact. This is the model we should be striving for, with or without the bucolic French countryside as a backdrop, and there are no good reasons why we can't have it.

Teachers already sacrifice their financial security for their vocation, as do those of us who work in fields closely related to education, like publishing. We have the drive and the dedication needed to provide excellent resources for our children. What we don't have is the support and exposure for our collective causes, backed by the popular vote to provide the appropriate funding.

Make it happen. Get out there and speak to your educators, go to your schools, attend meetings, have facts, figures, and research on hand to make the changes needed, so we can all benefit from the types of schools our children deserve. BE LOUD about it, if you aren't heard the first time. Then, do it again.