Archive for December, 2011
2011 [a year like no other] and its place in history
I have read two articles in the last week whose arguments have begun with Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay The End of History, which argued that as we reached the final demise of the U.S.S.R., “liberal democracy had triumphed and become the undisputed evolutionary end point toward which every national system was inexorably moving: fundamental political ferment was over [...]
December 27th, 2011Ai Weiwei: A game of chess and China’s elemental flaw
Ai Weiwei’s self portrait for the Time Person of the Year issue I have been fascinated by Ai Weiwei, the 54-year-old provocative artist and voice of dissidence in China, since May, when I heard an interview with his English translator on one of the my favorite podcasts. He was detained and questioned and kept by the government for 81 [...]
December 26th, 2011Christmas is where we are, now
Paul and I made real, bourbon and cognac infused egg nog this year, as hosts for the holiday. This year we celebrated some new family traditions, since our lives have shifted greatly from this time last year. My parents have sold their home, and now live in a one-bedroom condo-style apartment on Main Street in [...]
December 25th, 2011“In Small Things Forgotten”
The "aesthetic of the ugly" has persisted with the folk culture of making ugly-face pottery. Man, archeologists love them some old pottery, too. “Some things in our lives are so pervasive, that we give them little thought. A ballpoint pen, for example, or a rubberband. The coffee filter gets little consideration too.” It is a [...]
December 22nd, 2011Single Girl quilt face, done
Me excited to see the quilt in baby-size, 4 complete circles. At this point I had 12 left to combine. This fall I took my first quilt class, at Whipstitch Fabrics in Atlanta, because I wanted to tackle a quilt design based in circular design. In particular, I had long coveted Denyse Schmidt’s Single Girl [...]
December 11th, 2011On Christmas and material memory
1950s holiday cheer, and kitsch old & new 1954 sampling of Christmas decorations, which were one way that people made use of electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and the reason someone was paid by the TVA to document and photograph these things. One day last week, I spent the morning compiling and digitizing documents to [...]
December 11th, 2011Weekend in Pictures
Friday Completed Christmas-themed exhibit case we composed at the Archives, using 1950s photographs of Christmas decorations (TVA-documented) and old newspaper clippings, photos, and WWI draft cards featuring the names of reindeer (Blitzen, Rudolph, etc.) and other holiday-themed names (Chris Kringle, Santy Claus, Partridge and Peartree). Single Girl quilt: Home from work, I needed to see [...]
December 5th, 2011The craft and character of oral history
Final presentations of our oral history projects, in this last week of fall semester My oral history class ended today, with the last batch of final presentations by my classmates. I want to remember this class forever. It was inspirational to listen to my classmates over the semester, to hear their tales from the field [...]
December 1st, 2011