Metagrrrl

‘It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sunsets sterner… November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.’

— Emily Dickinson to E.H, 1865

I didn’t have much of a beauty regime before the lockdown and it’s also the case that I’ve not increased my attention to my appearance since. My disregard for my appearance has always irritated some of the people around me, who believed I could advance myself further in the world if I would just comb my hair. But I’ve always felt that, like men who are not interested in televised sports, women who are not interested in beauty regimes have more time to do interesting things, right?

It is such a relief, my friend told me on the phone, as neither of us had been leaving the house during the lockdown, to not have to wash your hair, or put on makeup. I agreed. To not have an appearance is so relaxing! To appear is mostly to be conscious of appearing. And oftentimes you aren’t even aware that you are appearing at all, until someone interrupts your peaceful and pleasant obliviousness by making you appear, just to point out that you appear differently, or badly, or not how they would prefer you to appear.

This is what many of us experience as Americans (though I am sure it is near universal), and, reading Jaswinder Bolina’s collection of essays, Of Color, it is this rude jolt into another’s conception of us, their questioning of you, and their implicit judgement that is so exhausting, debilitating and wrong. The endless justifications required. The endless appearing. Why are the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? indeed. Sometimes you just want to relieve yourself of the burden of thinking about your race, and eat your Salisbury steak with those people. As delineated in Bolina’s essay, “Writing like a White Guy.”

I’m guessing more white people are reading books like this, given where we are as a culture, how 2020 went, George Floyd. Most books about race should be read by white people, more so than those who are designated red, yellow, brown and black, who live it and can only nod in recognition. But the white folks? They–we!– might be surprised, learn something new. Like, I wish every book on feminism was read by men. Even ONLY men. How will change happen if men are not on board? So this is one of those books, that I often suspect are read mostly by the POC, nodding.

Bolina is mostly known as a poet, and it was in this context he was accused of “writing like a white guy”, that is, not adding any “Indian” color to his poems. Not representing. Not appearing, as it were, as he was being subtly or not so subtly pressured to appear. You don’t know how relaxing it is to not appear, like white people don’t appear, until you’ve had a chance to be seen-with-expectations.

And here it is. A lovely glance into the history of Nopa and a day in the life of Laurence courtesy of The Bold Italic and the Werehaus. 

The post Hard to Connect With appeared first on Mighty Girl.

Elizabeth Broman Décors éphémères: les expositions jeux d'eau et de lumière. by André Granet . Paris: 1948. Smithsonian Libraries.  fTK4148.F8G73 1948.  In 1909, Granet initiated the 1st exhibition of aerial locomotion at the Grand Palais des Champs –Élysées, which was built for the Exposition Universelle of 1900, and became a venue for future exhibitions and fairs.  (l:) Balloons, planes and blimps in the 1909 Grand Palais Aeronautical exhibition, 1909.   (r:) The 1938 Grand Palais Automotive exhibition.  

Between 1909 and 1948, the Grand Palais near the Champs-Elysées in Paris featured  remarkable decorative interiors which housed automotive, aeronautical and many other types of trade shows. For the buildings and other structures of the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931, decorative lighting helped create a unity among the diverse architectures. The splendor of these temporary sets was a direct expression of a gloriously progressive Paris married with the work of the French architect André Granet (1881-1974).The mastermind behind many of these temporary installations was the French architect André Granét (1881-1974). In 1948, Granet's work was documented in a large-format book, which has long been out of print and is now available again here as a stunning facsimile reprint. In 1948, he documented this work in Decors, part of the Special Collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Library.

The preface states that “Thanks to the advent of modern technology, new mediums have replaced [them} in the creation of quest for beauty and artistic expression. There is no better example of this than the recent innovation of Art de la Lumière, inspired by scientific discoveries in the field of technical lighting…. the development of incandescent lamps, electric arcs, mercury vapor arcs, tubes illuminated by neon and other rare gasses.”

(l:) The Pont d'Eau,  a bridge composed entirely of water –was made by jets of water from water from a lake. This was the first fountain made entirely of water. (r:)  The illuminated fountain Totem, Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931.

 The Colonial Exposition was one of the most extraordinary spectacles ever conceived.  Built in the Bois de Vincennes, it brought  together the wonders of the unique architecture of very  diverse civilizations.  Lighting devices were placed throughout the Exhibition to harmonize with the surrounding architecture. Granet designed many  illuminated fountains for the Exhibition, which were mirrored in the lakes they were built on. The exhibition opened in the spring of 1931, among the trees and flowers for a most surreal assemblage of palaces.

In the foreword to Decors, Granet explains that “What follows are reproductions of lighting, fountains and fireworks (designs involving the interplay  of light and water) … It goes without saying that no matter how much care was put into choosing the photographs, these (2-dimensional ) reproductions could never really accurately capture works which depend on movement, color and all kinds of reflections. I can only hope that the reader will be able to use his imagination to complete the picture. “-A.G.

The transient nature of these spectacles for temporary exhibitions lends to the excitement and a sense of enjoying art and light in the here and now, but at the same time, it the experience of these fantastic sigths can only live in the memories of those who were there to see it.  Luckily, we have the photographs in this book to show what no one will ever see again. Wow! I wish I could have been there! Elizabeth Broman

 

 

Tags:  lighting André Granet Smithsonian Libraries Décors Éphémères fountains fireworks lighting exhibitions Grand Palais lumière Colonial Exposition of 1931 Collection Record:  http://siris-libraries.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?index=BC&term=39088011251717