Elenamary

I read an article and was subtly offended by it but I didn’t have a way to articulate why. I’ve been thinking about the article since I read it on Thursday. Then today while driving to pick-up a friend of mine who hangs out with a lot of hipsters, it hit me. What would it be like if I picked up a Spanish language newspaper written by some Latinos who wrote of hipsters moving into their neighborhood and what they were like, and how they viewed their new neighbors and asked them what they thought of racism?

The article is about a photographer Alexandra Copley (her Taqueria blog), who currently has a photography exhibit of taco trailers around Columbus, Ohio. I want to make it clear, I am not offended by Alexandra Copley’s work. It is more that I have a sense of my people being displayed as other worldly as entertainment like zoo animals.

It reminds me of a night when I was hanging out with a bunch of international students from Latin America who were attending OSU, when some sorority girls stopped and seemed entertained at watching us play dominoes, share food, and speak in Spanish. One of the girls said excitedly “I feel like it’s Culture awareness night!” She didn’t mean it as offensive and she was a sweet enough person but it made me uncomfortable. This article gives me a similar feeling, as does the idea of the exhibit. What are the true thoughts of hipsters and yuppies who go that gallery? How do they actually view people of color? What do they gain from the exhibit?

I sat with a friend who did his bachelors in electrical engineering and with another friend who is an English professor. Engineering friend was trying to convince English prof friend that solving a challenging math problem can sometimes be as beautiful and fulfilling as reading a wonderful novel. He was right, and she couldn’t see it. Not because she isn’t brilliant (the contrary) but because she had never learned math the way he had.

I was terrible at math. Absolutely horrible. In college I tested into pre-college algebra but I worked my way through the high level math classes required for a BS in economics. There were moments of beauty in math. Moments where I saw things in ways I never had. I saw logic in ways I never knew were possible and it was astounding and satisfying. I cried in an economics course a few years ago, because I was astounded at how differently I was viewing things. On Thursday, in organic chemistry, I had a similar yet completely new moment of awe, where I found myself filled with wonder. I was seeing the molecules, I could picture them, their movements, their arrangements, the natural art of it all something I never knew that existed. It is an overwhelming feeling of bewilderment when you realize that this beauty has always been there and not only could you have never comprehended it before, you didn’t even know it existed.

It brought home my mother’s advice that I often quote, no one can ever take away your education. Even if I were to fail this class, or never go back, or lose everything, I would still have a different perspective because of chemistry. I will look at all problems differently not just chemistry but literature, language, math, art, they are all intertwined. This moment of lucidity also fortified that education needs to be free and accessible to all ages.

Our education shouldn’t be a career training path that is predetermined but one that is flexible and encourages us to grow and view things differently. If our citizens want to take a class on the Bible as literature, or microbiology, it shouldn’t be required that they be grad students in English, or Nursing students. Instead it should be offered because if we have a well rounded, well educated society, we can view things from an interweaved and poetic perspective.

I received The Portable Dorthy Parker, for my birthday yesterday.

I share with you a poem from the book:

A DREAM LIES DEAD

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:



Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree–
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And Proudly waitful of fecundity–
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

Zero (El-Amin Asadi) has created new art work, as he describes it, “Pencil powered mayhem”. It is to me some of his best work. My favorite piece of his is not available for viewing online but, I believe, will be up at the C-Note Art Show.

His pieces are raw and sometimes, painful for me to look at. They are frequently self reflections and the anguish is clearly evident. I find myself with a familiar pain and compassion that is too much to bear and am forced to look away.

C-Note is having both an online on art show, where you can vote for your favorite artists.

PS Remember, Columbus is the Indie Art Capital of the World. Support local artists!

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