Urban Light

 

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

Title: Urban Light
Artist: Chris Burden (1946 - 2015)
Type: Assemblage
Year: 2008
Dimensions: (320.5in X 686.5in X 704.5in)
Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

photo credit: Experiencing Los Angeles Blog

God, I think, is a son of a bitch. You can call me a heretic, but you can't say I'm not a believer. Two Born Agains ensured the vital roots of my belief with tactics that would probably violate the Geneva Convention. After my father died and my mother grew terminally ill, a question arose that has challenged my faith since college: If God exists, how could God allow so much atrocity to occur in this world? While there are and have been beautiful things in my life, there are and have been deeply tragic and evil things in my life too. Something doesn't add up. I have fallen into a religious bergschrund, somewhere between the church and atheism and I can't seem to find the surface. Id est, if God and I had a Facebook relationship status, it would be: It's Complicated.

The tragedy of the believer, it is deeper than the tragedy of the non-believer.  - Elie Wiesel

God and I may be on the outs, but it doesn't mean you and God can't have a lovely relationship. I think we all know how some relationships are easy and some, well, they repeatedly test every ounce of our sanity, so we ignore their calls and dodge behind objects to avoid them. Art, on the other hand, is easy for me. I regard art with a reverence significant enough to be near spiritual. If you watch me walk into a gallery or museum, my hands automatically clasp behind me. Positively supplicant. So when I found myself at Chris Burden's Urban Light installation on Wilshire Blvd, the fact that 202 historic streetlamps (originally lighting the Southern California streets in the 1920's and 1930's) were arranged in the form of a classical Greek temple was not lost on me. 

And what is a temple? The dictionary calls it a building devoted to the worship of, or regarded as the dwelling place of a god or gods, or other objects of religious reverence. In this temple of salvaged streetlamps, I felt the same awe, safety, and peace a Jewish person might feel when they go to temple. 

October 27, 2018. Eleven temple goers - people seeking community, perhaps some praise songs, and perhaps also an uplifting message from their Rabbi- were gunned down and violently murdered by a hate-filled lunatic in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. It was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack on US soil, ever. The pain of the friends and families of the victims is excruciating. The Jewish community was rocked to its core. Pittsburgh was too. Ditto the world. Suddenly temples no longer feel safe.

When innocent blood has been shed, something doesn't add up. It never does. It is not surprising that I find myself drawn, but uncomforted by the words of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel.

"Some people who read my first book, Night, they were convinced that I broke with the faith and broke with God. Not at all. I never divorced God. It is because I believed in God that I was angry at God, and still am. But my faith is tested, wounded, but it's here. So whatever I say, it's always from inside faith, even when I speak the way occasionally I do about the problems I had, questions I had. Within my traditions, you know, it is permitted to question God, even to take Him to task."

I did not pray to God this week. I had nothing nice to say to him. Instead, when I needed peace, I revisited Urban Light temple in my mind, and when I looked up the artist's statement for the Urban Light installation,"it is a statement about what constitutes a sophisticated society - safe after dark and beautiful to behold." Wait. Did God just slide into my DM's?

Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh have some work ahead. As a people, we cannot be complacent or fall into despair. We need to leave our respective silos and strive for inclusion...nay, we must *active fucking verb* INCLUDE! INCLUDE! INCLUDE! because it is the bedrock of a sophisticated and progressive society and because of it, we will be something beautiful to behold.

May our faith in what our temples stand for, wherever we find them, continue to inspire us to fill the dark corners of this world with goodness and light. And for goodness sake, VOTE.

VOTE ON TUESDAY!!!!

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

In an effort to find my new normal, I'm getting back to some of the things that regularly happen or give me joy, even if it feels a little weird to talk about fashion when there are greater problems looming in the world. Last week my workplace was in pure triage mode, working very hard on the logistics of last week's funerals and shivas for the victims, coordinating with media etc, but we are also working very hard on the security and resiliency needs of the Jewish community into the future. It feels good to be doing boots on the ground work in the wake of this tragedy. If you are able to donate to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh's Victims of Terror fund, that link is here. If you just came here for the pictures and the fashion (outfit details are below) but some how got roped into reading my words, thank you. Thank you for reading my blog this week.

What I Wore: 

Sunnies: Ray-Ban aviators, here!

Faux suede motorcycle jacket: past season Bar III

Stooges t-shirt: here!

Pleated skirt: Mango, here!

Purse: vintage Carlos Falchi

Sneakers: Nike Lunarlon/ Converse Chuck Taylor collaboration, similar here!

Your bosom friend from Pittsburgh, 

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Patron of the Arts

photo: Joshua Franzos

My writer friend, Jessa, of Wavy Alabaster wrote to me. A quick email. Minimal explanation, one question.

You know the kind, where a germ of an idea floats into your head on the wind. It’s nebulous and full of potential, but there’s an inherent question that makes you squirm a little. It’s something you know you ultimately need to grapple with on your own, but in a moment of claustrophobic impulse you cast a line out into the Sargasso sea that is your writer’s block.
No small talk. No foreplay. Quick and dirty, with a hint of desperation.

It’s my most favorite kind of email.

Writing a blog post… when did you start calling yourself a writer?

SEND.

You hope for a message in a bottle to float back to you. Answers and accounts of personal experience would be awesome, but really, at its core, it has more to do with the simple reassurance that you’re not alone.  

photo: Joshua Franzos

So, when had I started calling myself a writer? I self-reflected for a while. Then I answered her question as best I was able and chucked that bottle back as far as I could throw it, hoping that it would reach her and give her the confidence she needed to move forward.

photo: Joshua Franzos

Some weeks later, Jessa posted a lovely piece on her writing journey. You can read her words and some of my "message in a bottle" quotes here.  I think it’s safe to say that journeys are just that, journeys and not destinations. I’m hardly an expert on writing, faaar from it. I haven’t even been published. But I’ve come to understand that the declaration point when writers start calling themselves writers is an important part of the journey. One that isn’t immediately clear. Fortunately there is no flagged island that you have to reach in order to call yourself a writer. The only thing you have to do is write, but speaking from experience, it takes longer for other people to come around and believe you.
 

photo: Joshua Franzos

I’ve been letting my novel cool off in a drawer for three months, so I can attack it with fresh eyes and a red pen. So while I’ve started outlining a fun, new story in the meantime, I’ve also been reflecting on my own genesis as a writer. It is largely an incredibly solitary journey, but I in no way, shape, or form, ever do it alone. 

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

photo: Joshua Franzos

 

photo: Joshua Franzos

In the beginning, I was eager to let everyone know what I was doing. I’d been writing in my notebook everyday for a few months. The cream of the story was rising to the surface and I was emotionally connecting with my characters. I was even looking into getting a word processor for my crappy netbook so I that could start getting serious about it.

It. Was. Exciting. It was also so challenging in ways I’d never challenged my brain before. But on some level, I knew to dance around the term "writer." In my early excitement, I made a post on facebook. I said, “writing is like method acting: intense, exhilarating and confusing.”

A bold statement from a newbie. I suppose if you're dancing around the term writer, this was the equivalent of twerking around it.

Someone saw through my eager hubris and wrote a really malicious response, 
“Oh, go read The Bell Jar, you poseur!”

I was crestfallen and (here's a classy word I learned recently) #butthurt

I really tried to brush it off, but instead I cried. I didn’t want to cry, so I tried to pretend I wasn’t crying or that the harsh words hadn’t pierced right through me. Josh was my boyfriend at the time.
“What is wrong?” he asked.

My face was red and puffy, my head was shaking side to side, and I was saying, “nothing’s wrong. I’m perfectly okay.”

Josh blinked.

I painted a psychotic grin on my tear-swollen face to prove how fine I was.

Josh didn’t buy it. Against my will, I burst into tears again. (the emotional regions of my brain butting grey matter with the logical regions of my brain = hot mess.)

“Okay, so I posted something on facebook about writing and someone said something kind of mean,” I blubbered, trying to snort my teary snot back up into my sinuses, “It’s nothing. I deserve it. I was stupid for posting it and I’m stupid for allowing my feelings to get hurt.”

Josh didn’t buy that either.

He got on facebook and found the post and the awful words beneath it. There was some facebook scuffling. I quickly demanded he stop defending my honor. I’m the alleged writer, after all. I needed to figure out how to do that for myself, or die crying.

I spent the next few hours scratching my head, wondering if I had skin thick enough to write a story and publish it. Maybe I should quit now, so that I would never embarrass myself and never have to face that kind of hatred again, I thought.

Then Josh handed me his 2 year old Macbook pro and said, “Fuck that guy. I mean. Don’t really fu…you know what I mean. Just don’t give up. You are a writer, but it’s time to stop scribbling in notebooks. Throw that crappy netbook away. Use this.This is yours now.”

My lover, my patron of the language arts, my hero. He gave me a two pronged gift that day: unconditional faith and a powerful tool that I never would’ve considered buying for myself. I was stunned and deeply, deeply touched. When the clouds part in the heavens like that, it’s impossible to dwell on hate. Instead, you get to work proving to yourself and your benefactor that the faith entrusted in you was merited. Or die trying.

photo: Joshua Franzos

I stopped writing in notebooks, recycled my crappy netbook, and started typing on Josh’s “old” laptop. But I’ll tell you what I didn’t type. I didn’t type anymore writing posts on facebook. Not for a year or so anyway. Only a small handful of my closest family and friends knew that I was still writing on the DL. I didn’t talk about it for fear that someone would roll their eyes and tell me to put my head in an oven again.

There’s an antagonistic streak in human nature regarding writers. People treat you like you’re a New Year’s Resolutioner at the gym. There are internal bets on when you’ll quit.  And if you don’t quit, bets on if you’ll find a publisher. If you find a publisher, then they’ll sneer at you based on whether you make a best seller list, or if you have a second book in you, and on and on. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The world is a judgmental place and I just didn’t need it. So I put my head down and silently wrote until the story took on a life of its own. I wrote until I started regarding people differently, more kindly and empathetically than ever. I wrote until my elbows poked through my sleeves. I wrote until work lunch hours weren’t cutting it anymore. I wrote until the next four vacations Josh and I would take were for novel research. I wrote during any two minutes I could string together and cried because there was never enough time in the day. I wrote until I gave myself an existential crisis and had to see my therapist again. I wrote until I stopped caring what the world thought about me and writing. I silently wrote until I absolutely had to ask for help. (I should note that I hate asking for help. It might even be my most fatal character flaw.) The moment that I tearfully admitted to my husband and my workplace, that I couldn’t continue and needed help creating more room in my life for writing, was when I died and truly became something else... a writer.

I am so grateful that my workplace granted me this gift in January 2015: unpaid two-hour lunch periods. I am so grateful that Josh continues to encourage me (and doesn’t take it personal whenever I have to vanish for a few hours of literary bloodletting.) I am grateful that my dog patiently curls up on my lap while I type. I am grateful for the gentle encouragement and candid questions I am asked and allowed to ask in return. There are many more miles to go before I sleep with this project, and though I’m eager to get on with it, I’m grateful that I had a moment to reflect on the support it took to get to just this point. I am a changed and humbled person because of the love and generosity and patience that were shown me these many years. Thank you. A million times times infinity plus one. 
Thank you.

 

photo: Joshua Franzos

Since we were going for a gilded-age inspired, patron of the arts look this week, Joshua and I stopped in on our friends at The Frick Fine Art & Historical Center. They were gracious enough to let us take some pictures in the beautiful (and warm!) greenhouse. Afterwards we caught the latest exhibit, The Frick Collects: From Rubens to Monet, and a late lunch at the cafe- the city's best kept culinary secret. If you live in the Pittsburgh area, make sure you break up the winter doldrums by stopping in and patronizing some art, breathing in the warmth and beauty of the greenhouse, and grabbing a steaming cup of the soup du jour, (I had mushroom brandy!)

What I Wore:
Eyelet blouse: fall 2016, Gap
Black bra: Very Sexy push-up by Victoria's Secret
Zippered pencil skirt: past season, Express
Leather obi belt: ASOS, here!
Bag: pre-owned luxury Chanel from Trendlee
Heels: Jimmy Choo
Amethyst cocktail ring: inherited from my mother-in-law.

photo: Joshua Franzos

 Happy New Year from your Bosom Friend in Pittsburgh, 

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#StylishPittsburgh

photo credit: Niki Whittle

Whew! I'm still kind of catching my breath here, but let me catch you up on some exciting bloggy things that have happened during my blogging hiatus. The above picture, was taken in May. (May!) That's when I met Niki Whittle of the style blog, Style, Studs and Lace. (Niki!) She's a British transplant in Pittsburgh (!), she's a professional personal stylist (!), she's a fellow WHIRL Magazine Style File alum (see it here!), and she's one of the most masterful net-workers I know. I've only known this snazzy Brit for three months now, but I can already tell she's a fellow kindred spirit. 

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."    

-  Anne, from the book, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Niki proposed a project that I just couldn't say no to. In spite of all the stuff going on in my life, I made time. She called it #StylishPittsburgh, "a campaign to celebrate and share Pittsburgh's fantastic sense of style" ...and she started out by interviewing and high-lighting little, old me on her blog. Which was an incredible honor. I'd be honored if you read my interview here.

So that was May (May!) but, yesterday, Niki, with the help of Tori Mistick of Wear. Wag. Repeat. Blog, (and serious marketing genius)  got our councilman Dan Gilman to make a proclamation in Pittsburgh. (!) Yesterday, July 28, 2015 was #StylishPittsburgh Day! Read the Post-Gazette article here. 

With councilman Dan Gilman. photo credit: unknown

 I attended the city council meeting to support Niki and Tori, who did all the heavy lifting with the #stylishpittsburgh Day. I was joined by my pal Liz Petoniak and some new friends that I look forward to getting to know better: Belle of the Burgh ,  Yes, Wear That!, and Tribune-Review fashion writer, JoAnne Harrop.

Just us Girls. photo credit: Good Samaritan

Niki and Me from Instagram

#OOTD from instagram

 Pittsburghers, look sassy. (sassy?)  I'm looking for you and if you cut the mustard, (did she say, mustard?)  I'll take a street fashion picture of you and post it on the #StylishPittsburgh facebook page - that's right, I'm an admin now!

Okay, I'm out of breath again, so that's all for now. Look for a post from me soon. I've missed you!

 Your Bosom Friend from Pittsburgh,

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