Vietnam Veterans' Memorial

When we think of memorials, we usually think of something carved in white stone, rising up above the ground. We think of the over-sized Lincoln sitting in the shadows behind the pillars of the Lincoln memorial. We think of the Washington Monument, the great phallus rising from the National Mall. We think of a man on a horse, a battle scene, towering pillars, a tank! We think of grandeur.

It stands to reason, then, that the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, designed in 1981, elicited controversy. Designed by Maya Lin, a then 21-year-old Yale architecture student who won a national competition, the monument looked unlike any before it.* It was a simply a shiny retaining wall, some said. It's practically below ground.

For me, as I walked along the wall, I thought that there couldn't be a better way to memorialize a war--especially a largely unpopular war. This was not a glorification of the fighting, or the dying. There were no men on horseback, no large marble pillars, no soldiers toting guns looking nobly into the distance. There was simply a long, low wall and a list of names. No distractions, no sublimations: these people died, it proclaims. People die when we go to war. But the wall does not pass judgment or tell us how to interpret this fact, it merely states it. This wall gives them a space--each individual--in which to be remembered. What's more is that it makes space for viewers to take part in the experience, to see the reflection of their own face in the black granite as they walk along the wall, running their hand across the carved-out names, forcing them to consider their own relationship to what the wall represents.


*if you ever have the chance, watch the excellent documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision, that chronicles Lin's journey in the design and finally construction of the memorial

Artists I like: David Lance Goines

I stumbled upon David Lance Goines because of the amazing posters her produces every year to celebrate the birthday of Chez Panisse. What I found is that he's produced hundreds of posters over the years for organizations around the Bay Area.

He works in letterpress and lithography through Saint Hieronymus Press in Berkeley, a press he started in 1968 after being expelled from school for participating in the Free Speech Movement.

Many of the posters are for sale on his website, but many more are out of print and are available through the poster exchange section of his site. The poster exchange allows people to sell, trade, or acquire out-of-print posters. Goines has an immense catologue of prints to peruse, but be careful: finding the poster you most adore (that is likely out of print) can lead to long hours perusing the poster exchange, hoping that someone is willing to part with the print you want.

Sins Invalid

I don't often go to the theater. It's not that I don't want to: it's that I can't afford it. So, on Friday night when I found myself invited to a performance at the Brava Theater priced at $10-$15 (and, in typical San Francisco fashion, promised that no one would be turned away due to lack of funds), I went.

The performance was called Sins Invalid, the third-year effort of a group committed to embracing "an unshamed claim to beauty in the face of invisibility." In short, it was a performance that sought to bring light to the relationship between disability and sexuality: namely, that the able-bodied public pretends such a relationship doesn't exist.

That afternoon, a friend brought up reservations about attending the show. You'll see a lot of images that you wouldn't normally see, she warned. It will be intense. I understood what she was saying, but wasn't that the point?

The show consisted of a series of short performances, never longer than ten minutes each, many taking monologue form, but some setting up interactions between the performers. An able-bodied guide, as she called herself, served as the MC and framed the performances with explanation, theory, and well-worded requests for the audience to go on a journey or unraveling along with the performers. It was all very touchy-feely.

But in a good way. The performance reminded me of the reason we go to the theater (even when we can't afford it): to be made to think. Yes, sometimes we go to be entertained, to escape from the stress-filled world we live in, to laugh, but we also go to challenge the way we look at the world and to be forced to reevaluate our position.

Slow down, food!

Labor Day weekend in San Francisco brought not only sunshine and weather one could reasonably associate with summer, but Slow Foods Nation, a four-day celebration of the slow foods movement.

Slow food is an international movement, one started in Italy and fostered in the United States by Slow Food USA. On their website, they claim to support "good, clean, and fair food," an idea that, in practice, means eating food that at once nourishes our bodies but also nourishes the earth (think biodiversity and healthy ecosystems). The last piece of this is that food should be cared for by laborers paid a fair wage, given excellent working conditions, and be available to all, not matter their economic status. In a nutshell, the slow food movement is everything that fast food isn't. In a nation where we rarely simply sit and eat (eating is most often accompanied by television, the internet, or a car ride, to name a few), slow food is a refreshing change. And it is, arguably, a food movement that more closely aligns eating with art.

Slow Food Nation, the first gathering of its kind in this country, brought together over 50,000 people to celebrate and relish this idea of slow food. Events ranged from local farmers' markets to tastings, performances, restaurant specials, and music. I attended two events in the celebration: the Saturday Slow Food Rocks concert as well as Sunday's farmers' market.

Both events were enjoyable ventures for me, the hand-pulled noodles I ate at the farmers' market being quite possibly my favorite experience of the weekend (if ever there is an art to food preparation, these hand-pulled noodles would be at the top of the list. They were reportedly from the Imperial Tea Court, although I find no mention of them on the tea house's website). I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of tasting raw milk and hearing about the health benefits of ghee, prepared while mantras are chanted, or sampling local honey that cost $10 per bottle. But one thing stuck with me all weekend.

Ozomatli, one of my favorite bands, performed at the festival on Saturday. They're a band that not only performs exceptional music, but they're committed to social justice and to using their fame and music as a platform for social change. In my mind, what could be a better mission for artists? During a break between songs, Raul, the guitarist, spoke about the slow foods festival of which we were all a part. He encouraged listeners to sample some of the food sold at booths around the stage once their set was over. He praised the slow food movement. But then he said: We have to figure out a way to bring some of this good food into the neighborhood. Give people a choice other than McDonald's.

And isn't that the truth? It was all well and good for us to out in San Francisco on a sunny day listening to good music and eating delicious foods, but it was, of course, a great priviledge to be there and to have the means to do so. Slow food is a movement I support and enjoy, but for those people (myself included in this category) who can't afford a meal at ChezPanisse or even a bag of local, organic spinach, what's the point? What's the point of the revolution if only certain groups are permitted, economically, to take part?

The good news is that the celebration attempted to answer these question. In the plaza outside the civic center, an organic garden had been planted, all the harvest going to local food banks. World leaders on the global food crisis spoke to sold-out crowds. Sessions convened on farm worker and meatpacking worker advocacy. What I come away from this weekend with is an admiration for the cause, an honest look at the act that many argue is the universal tie that binds us: eating.