Month: January 2009

Year of the Ox and Ox Blood Doc Martens

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Do you like Chinese food?

If you don’t, chances are because you aren’t actually eating Chinese food.

Check out this talk from Jennifer 8:

My favorite things about this Chinese New Year:

1.  My friend Rach ran up and whispered “Happy New Year” to me today and flashed me her red shirt.  I flashed my own red shirt back.
2.  My friend Ed Lin was sporting some good lookin’ Ox Blood Dr. Martens (I swear that’s what they call them)  at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop’s Lunar New Year Countdown last night.  And he read the funniest work ever about his memories of childhood Chinese new years, drinking Shop Rite orange soda, having his mom pocket his red envelopes and having to play Fur Elise for all the old people.
3.  It’s the year of the Ox.  That’s my year.  Oxen are steadfast,  hard working, slow to change–basically, beasts of burden.  I suppose now is as good a time as any for us to be in the year of the Ox.  Because guess what?  Obama is a fellow Oxen.

Ah, yes, we did…

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We kept The Magic open.

And Barack Obama took office today.

The 2nd and 4th graders I taught today were so happy they almost leapt out of their skin.

He has asked us to do more.  I am dreaming about how to do my bit, in my corner of the world.  How to keep art in schools.  How to inspire young people to engage their imaginations and creativity and commitment to a better world to investigate curiously and problem-solve the problems of our time.

I’m starting to teach playwriting to young people at Pace tomorrow.  I think I’m going to bring in Anne Bogart’s, “And Then, You Act.”  She says that she asked Chuck Mee if she should be discouraged about the global environment.  She asked, “How are we supposed to function in these difficult times?  How can we contribute anything useful in this climate?”  He answered, “You have a choice of two possible directions.  Either you convince yourself that these are terrible times and things will never get better and so you decide to give up, or, you choose to believe that there will be a better time in the future.  If that is the case, your job in these dark political and social times is to gather together everything you value and become a transport bridge.  Pack up what you cherish and carry it on your back.”

What are you packing?

Teaching Artist Life

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Wow.  Somebody is doing a large scale documentation of what we do.

I’m glad.  Many times, when I try to describe what I do, I get a glazed donut look.  Then, if I manage to explain properly, I hear, “That’s cool.  I wanna do that.”  

From what I hear from Dale Davis and Carole Fineberg in my TA 101 class, the Teaching Artist field is expanding and changing at a rapid rate, so articulating what we do, studying the effects of the work and capturing a portrait of where the profession is going nationally is really key.  I also think we need to share best practices and build TA capacity.  And this is a good way of keeping the conversation going.  

I am interested in what this will yield.