walking in a straight line

This looks like some kind of sobriety test: if so, I promise I had no difficulty in walking straight down this path alongside the golf course in Griffith Park - the one that's bifurcated by Crystal Springs Drive.  I'd say it was good to get away from campus, only the amount of emails and Instagram posts and, well, everything that have been flying around means that I've been living there in virtual reality.  These were enlivened by a message from the President - yes, she's woken up, or located her speech writer - too little, too late, too absurd.  "The current pressures and polarization have taken a toll in ways that break my heart."  Maybe.  Maybe that's written from the very core of her being. But ... it's missing rather a lot that it might be helpful to address.  And when it comes to Commencement, "We are working around the clock to infuse this special day with new activities, surprises, and celebrations, while upholding traditions that are uniquely USC."  What might they be?  Egg and spoon races in academic robes?  Traveler galloping across campus, scattering families in all directions (they probably won't have been allowed to bring chairs and blankets, in any case, since these surely count as camping equipment).  Caleb Williams parachuting in?  Doubtless the "surprises" will amount to an appearance from Will Farrell, who always, mysteriously, gets wheeled out as entertainment - so frequently, indeed, that his presence wouldn't be a surprise ...

 

campus today

... had, in the morning, an eerie and rather depressed quiet hanging over it.  The parking structure was half empty, which made me suspect that more than a few of my colleagues had taken the soft option and were teaching via Zoom.  We, in AHIS 366, "Picturing Democracy: American Art 1750-1900" rounded off the semester by discussing the Statue of Liberty - or rather, all the liberties that at the time were fully recognized as not being present in the figure; considered the gender implications of Woman on a Pedestal; and tried to tie up the semester while munching the chocolate chip cookies.  One students complained, or at least noted, that there hadn't been enough about strikes and the growth of the union movement, which is quite possibly true, though the Delacroix-style liberty-woman of the Haymarket Martyrs memorial did creep into today.  

Of course, with 93 students and colleagues having been arrested yesterday at what was essentially a very peaceful protest on campus, this was all horribly timely.  Those radio reporters who claimed that there was no activity on campus today - not the case: there was a substantial group of students and faculty (including my colleague in Sociology, Nina Eliasoph, who'd made the placard she's holding here) on the lawn outside THH when I left this afternoon.  Where there was very little visible activity was in the central administration, apart from (quite a big "apart from") a letter from the Provost saying that the main Commencement ceremony had been cancelled (so not only no valedictorian's speech, and no honorary degrees, but no speech from the President - just lots of satellite ceremonies for each of the schools).  But where is the President?  Carol Folt has been missing in action for 10 days - at least, that was the date of her last post to Twitter.  She's usually such an infuriatingly chirpy cheerleader, but after announcing the "USC-Capital One Center for Responsible AI and Decision Making in Finance" (I kid you not) on April 15th, not a peep from her, or her office - not even a congratulatory chirp that our star quarterback, Caleb Williams, was #1 in the NFL draft.  This is, for her, weird.  

Then I turn the corner on the way back to that half-empty parking structure, and find a ferris wheel.  There's some symbolism here, I'm sure, but I'm expending so much energy in anger at the inept administration that I can't muster the energy to work it out.

 

USC - on campus and back home

I made two brief visits to the protest on campus day - brief, because of graduate exam, and aching (and bandaged) head.  What I saw was peaceful, good tempered, and conducted in the spirit of wanting peace - with Muslims, Jews, and people who most likely identify as neither, but know murderous wrong-doing when they see it.  They had a program for the day, pinned to a tree - including yoga and meditation, poetry reading, reporting on Palestine, an Israelism discussion, a Kaddish reading and a sunset vigil.  What did the University end up doing?  There was an escalating number of Trojan Alerts; and of closures on campus; a half-hearted and mealy-mouthed letter from the Provost (probably written by McKinsey & Co) which made a limp attempt to say oh yes, we do support free speech - and then, by the time I was home, the LAPD were there in force, rubber bullets and riot batons at the ready.  Although I don't think I knew any of the protestors who remained in the center of Alumni Park calmly waiting to be arrested (after being told to vacate for trespassing.  Trespassing? Really? In the center of campus?) I was proud how they calmly and, yes, peacefully, one by one, gave themselves up to be arrested.

Moth's expression shows how horrified she was by the turn of events.

We're told that we can teach on-line tomorrow, if we like.  NO WAY am I missing teaching my last undergrad class of the semester in person!  I have just taken a fine batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

 

classroom cover-up

It seemed the only possible way to teach without looking like a Hallowe'en zombie: I was delighted when a student told me that I Rocked That Hat.  In turn, I told the class that my work with them would be done if they all made sure that their parents and grandparents and of course themselves had their skin checked regularly ... then we slid back into normal gear and discussed the function/destruction/preservation of monuments (and I showed them the first ten minutes of the Met's video about the making of the Seneca Village Afro-Futurist installation, too).

Yes - it still hurts, especially where they had to press into the side of my head to stop veins from bleeding - that feels as though I've been thumped with a small mallet.  But better today than yesterday ... and thank you, everyone, for your concern!

 

the abstraction of waiting rooms

 

Not that I myself was lost in abstract thought - plenty of teaching prep for the week - the last week of teaching! - to get me through ... Reader: wear sunscreen.  Admittedly, the damage done to my skin - which needed two small skin cancers removed from it today - was probably done on French and Greek beaches in the 1970s, but all the same.  And think yourself lucky I'm not posting images of my huge stitched flaps (there's not a lot of skin round one's hairline) not of my bandaged, Bride of Dracula self (the bandages will shrink a bit in a day or two).  Of course I took documentary selfies of such things as I was being patched up. I may try and conceal myself on campus under a floppy hat.  Also, it hurts (that's to be expected, apparently). Also I will probably have a black eye tomorrow or the next day.  Better off/out than on, but youch.

it's spring! let me out!

I don't believe that I've ever fully noticed before that among the galloping horses on the Bryant Park carousel that there's a galloping orange cat - still shrouded in winter protected plastic.  Presumably he'll be liberated soon.

I'm now back in LA, and it's the last week of the teaching semester coming up ...

 

spring in NYC (and some painting details)

When spring arrives in New York, it can be absolutely stunning - and I was lucky today ... Largely I was in the Met, visiting the Harlem Renaissance show, which is every bit as good as everyone says (go, if you haven't already, and you can ...).  This is from one of my very favorite pictures there, Palmer Hayden's The Janitor Who Paints, from c. 1937 - indeed, Hayden was something of a revelation to me.

Five rooms, maybe, later, a woman turned to another behind me - but ever so much so that I could hear - "This lady's only taking fotos of cats."  (this is from William Johnson's Mom and Dad).  Well .... er ... not quite guilty as charged: 

... there was a wonderful flash photographer in Jacob Lawrence's The Photographer (1942) - how have I missed that before? unlike so many of the paintings here, it's actually owned by the Met.

So very many good things - I'll just add Horace Pippin's The Artist's Wife (1936).

Then downstairs, this collaboratively constructed and curated Afro-Futurist room, Before Yesterday We Could Fly, building on the history, excavations, and imagined futurity of Seneca Village [that largely Black (with some Irish) community that was "cleared" when Central Park was constructed...this opened just after my last visit to the Met, and I can't wait to share this with my students next week, since we discussed Seneca Village earlier in the semester in the context of Central Park.

And of course, having been talking about Jerome Thompson's painting, I went to say hello to it (and photographed a few details so that I have some even clear images than I currently do of details), 

and - this is real research! 😀 - found a dandelion that was new to me, in Bierstadt's Lander's Peak - since that's an invented mountain, it's almost certainly an imagined plant, too ...