Things I Learned This Week
Jan van Eyck, Doechii, Super Volcanos, and Austin Butler
It’s February, y’all! I know there’s a global shit show going on, but I’m at this stage in life where I am so impressed with everybody. Everything has me fired up. The flame of knowledge powering the young people navigating the world around us. Books! Movies! Art! Old and new. It has been such a privilege to have this time to think and learn. And make ceramics and quilts and talk about ideas. Education is bliss. Everyday feels like Scrooge on Christmas morning! Anyway, let’s get into it.
My art history class has moved into Jan van Eyck who’s always been a favorite of mine. We read this fascinating piece about reflection, remembrance, and his habit of putting himself into his paintings. I knew about the reflection in the mirror in his most famous Arnolfini Portrait, but I had not been aware of the one in the shield of Saint George in Virgin and Child with Joris van der Paele. The piece pointed out that even though the painting had been on public view for centuries, it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that anyone discovered it was there. Art Easter eggs are the best!
My friend Audie terrified me recently with deep knowledge of super volcanos—massive underground volcanos that have the potential to blow in ways that will have catastrophic effects on the global climate. Warning that when the big one erupts (for instance, Yellowstone), Texas will be consumed in a deadly cloud of toxic gases that will kill everyone en masse as it makes its way down to the Gulf of Amerikkka and then turns left to journey back up the Gulf Stream to terrorize the East Coast. This was the same guy who told me that even aeronautic engineers have no idea how planes actually stay in the air. Thanks, friend. ;)
I am so out of touch with mainstream music, but the Grammys this year infused the world with so much female energy; I only just noticed who Chapelle Roan is because I live under a rock. Something about tuning into these young women makes me so proud to be a human being. I know they are not saving the world or curing cancer, but the fact that they are so self-assured and can get in front of the world and be themselves so fully and totally is remarkable. That said, I’ve also recently discovered this year’s winner of Best Rap Album—Doechii—and I’m kinda obsessed. It’s not really the music by itself, it’s her whole vibe. Poetry slam meets performance art. The dancing and the outfits and the energy and people she surrounds herself with. First, I saw her on Colbert. Then on Tiny Desk, and then that performance on the Grammys. AND she’s from Tampa. I’m sold.
As mentioned in my weekly post, I’m knee-deep in Hemingway and still can’t get over his themes on courage. Someone needs to write a Hemingway self-help book advising us all to go out and shoot a bull to gain self-worth. Obviously, I don’t mean that literally because, in the end, it didn’t work out for him, but still. It would be nice to find that illusive courage he wrote so eloquently about. I read a great profile of Hemingway by Dorothy Parker from 1929, where she said, “He has the most profound bravery that it has ever been my privilege to see; and I am not the one who over-readily discerns examples of courage among my opposite sex. He has had pain, ill-health, and the kind of poverty that you don’t believe—the kind of which actual hunger is the attendant; he has had about eight times the normal allotment of responsibilities. And he has never once compromised. He has never turned off on an easier path than the one he staked himself. It takes courage.” Will be channeling this moving forward.
Lastly, who knew The Bikeriders (based on the photography book by Danny Lyons) was going to be so entertaining? And Hundreds of Beavers!?! Where did that come from? Brilliant, but way too long.
Quote of the week?
“I know that there is some Black girl out there, so many Black women out there that are watching me right now and I want to tell you: You can do it. Anything is possible. Anything is possible. Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, that tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark or that you’re not smart enough or that you’re too dramatic or you’re too loud. You are exactly who you need to be, to be right where you are, and I am a testimony.” — Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon (Doechii)
‘Til Tuesday kids.
Burgin
(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)