among friends

Jane’s entry about the chef doll/Roman lares in the kitchen reminds me of the kind of paganism (or more appropriately, animism) that used to characterize many cultures of the world.  This is admittedly a half-formed thought, but maybe some aspect of freedom and independence was lost not only with the spread of certain monotheistic traditions, but also in their progeny; the secular scientific culture that evolved in the wake of religion, but that still held on to a sense that things must either be wrong or right.  What about those times long ago, when every household, village, occupation, etc. had its own set of deities?  It speaks to a sanctioning of not just religious freedom, but more importantly, belief freedom.  Who was to say that your neighbor Bob was wrong in worshipping Cardea, the goddess of door handles?  In fact, nobody probably cared to ask which gods anyone worshipped; it was a matter where variety was the rule, idiosyncrasy was allowed, and heated argument probably absent.  Anyway, this is just me idealizing about pagan times, and wondering why people can’t chill out a bit when it comes to controversy and idiosyncratic beliefs.  The ubiquitous spirit houses of Thailand that one finds outside of every home, office building, and roadside rest-stop gave me an idea for an art display where people made “belief totems” for display outside their homes, giving a fun material depiction of something they believe in, like “Love,” or “Steak.”

In the spirit of Harrell Fletcher‘s and Miranda July‘s website/book/ongoing interactive project Learning To Love You More, I present three different responses to assignment number two of a list of eight possible assignments given to the among friends interns by James Weissinger, the Associate Director of Haverford’s John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center:

2. Give a brief description of a previous work by one of the artists; then try to re-imagine how it would look/would have looked if it had been undertaken at Haverford. Where on campus would it have been staged? Who would have participated? What changes would have had to have been made?

1. In 1998, Harrell collaborated with Jon Rubin and Anthony Powers on an exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute‘s McBean Project Space called “Anthony.” The exhibition featured drawings, photographs, videos, sculptures, etc., about Powers, who was a student at the Art Institute, and his interests, which included heavy metal, wrestling, and dogs.

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amy sedaris is coming to haverford.

can we figure out how to make this woman an honorary friend or something? she’s rude and she’s crude but she’s also awesome and apparently bakes great cupcakes. she’s coming to school the friday of the week we get back – january 23rd. next week, guys.
she kind of makes sense with nao. i’m thinking of nao’s character “rosa” that she performed on the joan rivers show in 1992:

www.naobustamante.com/rosadoesjoan.html

also maybe nao’s “hero” performance fits in here somewhere? :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu4ptXbWLsg

they both have this special affect thing going on. amy goes on david letterman all the time and she’s not totally serious with it but i always wonder if she is herself or not. i think that’s nao’s gig too in some ways. i guess there’s a little sasha fierce in all of us. anyway, have a look:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/OYzRlPlJ09U" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]