Louise Steinman

Just home from Baltimore, where I joined museum director Gary Vikan for a conversation about "The Souvenir" at the Walters Art Museum. The museum brought me out in conjunction with a beautiful Japanese art show, delicate cloisonne vases with koi and egrets, pheasants and wisteria. Gary and I discussed the Occupation of Japan, and he noted how surprised he was to learn that the first museum art show in America of Japanese art was not until 1953. When my father went ashore in Wakayama Harbor, he was entering a country, a culture... about which he knew very little, and against which he was deeply prejudiced.

But my father liked what he saw. He even wrote to my mother that he thought the idea of taking off one's shoes before entering a house was a great idea.

One woman in the audience offered the following insight: "At first, I thought your father must have preserved the letters hoping that you would find them. After listening to you, I think your father kept them as a reminder of who he was."

Last Saturday my husband's sculpture show opened at Cardwell Jimmerson Gallery in Culver City. The work looked wonderful in the gallery... a re-creation of an installation from the 60's called "5 x 9", and two of his new felt sculptures: "Capsize" and "Rigg." I know I'm biased, but this is beautiful work.

It was a joyous evening, seeing this work out in the world, seeing people move through Lloyd's installation. The configuration of the 9 sculptures create a landscape and people have to make choices about how they will move through the pieces. Sometimes this results in a little tango, a graceful folk hop, backing up and around... finding different pathways each time.

Lloyd works out in his studio like a mad scientist (as a kid, he liked to experiment with chemistry and nearly blew up his mother's garage), creating new inventions, wrangling with big rolls of industrial felt, cutting through layers of fabric as if he's channeling his grandfather Louis who was an ace garment cutter. it is a joy and a privilege to watch his process. I admire his perseverence and dedication; it's humbling, inspiring.

You can see more of Lloyd's work here: www.lloydhamrol.com

His show at Cardwell Jimmerson is up until March 20th.

I'd never been to a sign language memorial before. 8th of Jan, an appreciative community-- mainly deaf adults-- gathered to honored the memory of Dr. Virginia McKinney, founder of the Center for Communicative Development. Her great legacy was there, in person, her students and former students. These are deaf adults that were cast away, abandoned by the educational system. Virginia would not take NO for an answer. She didn't give up on people. Thanks to her persistence, her students told us, they were out in the world, working, married, raising kids, earning a living.

One of the speakers, a deaf Russian gentleman named Vladimir, said, that when he'd walked in that day, Viriginia's office was dark, her desk chair empty. "But she was there."

Documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu is finishing a documentary about Virginia (whom, we all agreed, would have been played by Bette Davis in a feature film.) and her son Walter is working hard to ensure that the legacy of CCD continues. "What would Virginia say?" was a common refrain and the answer was clear: "Don't take my school away."

The images are relentless; piles of bodies; the haggard and the weary; the bereaved and the homeless. What can we do what can we do? I send donations to Partners in Health, watch the news and worry. Scenes from Dante's Inferno. Rick Loomis, intrepid L.A. Times photographer is on the scene. Rick has guts-- he's been in all the tough places-- Afghanistan, Iraq. In combat. in disasters. But I can imagine what witnessing these horrors costs him.

President Obama promises support for the Haitian people. You can hear the emotion in his voice.

The sadness overlays the winter beauty of Los Angeles.

I'm in snowy Chatham, a writing retreat at the cozy house of my friend Beth Thielen, a wonderful visual artist. Beth works upstair in her studio while I work downstairs on the edit of CROOKED MIRROR. The woodstove is crackling crackling. Snow is falling falling falling. There's an old cemetery across the road and I've been taking daily walks there, among the Hodels and the Thorpes, the Cosolinos, the McGilvrays and the Mallorys. (My favorite name on a tombstone, d. early 1800's is STORY GOTT). Today the stones are nearly obliterated by the drifts of snow, blanketed with that white weight. In my writing, I'm in Poland, in Radomsko and Sejny, Lublin and Krakow, at Milosz' house at Krasnogruda, walking the Planty in Krakow with Adam Zagajewski. I'm also across the continent from my dear husband Lloyd, working in his studio back at our house in Silver Lake.

to all readers of THE SOUVENIR, to all future readers of CROOKED MIRROR, whoever you are and for whatever reason you've come to this intermittent blog, i offer wishes for a peaceful New Year.

Tonight is the longest night of the year. Mithra will be born in the morning, riding on the chariot of the sun. That I learned from my dear friend Majid Naficy, a poet, who read tonight at the Annenberg Beach Center with his beautiful talented son Azad.

"Azad" means freedom and Azad's father escaped the minions of Khomeini over the mountains of Kurdistan by horseback. His first wife, Ezzat Tabaiyan, was murdered in Evin Prison. In America, to his second wife Esmat, Azad was born. I've seen him over the years, an intense sometimes brooding boy with beautiful dark eyes. I heard him read his first hiphop poem at the memorial for his grandfather, who died in Isfahan. Azad was surrounded by mourning dissidents and he stood and read of his fury: "in sixth grade, my father went blind, and my eyes went grey." His exiled father could not visit the country of his birth, or of his own father's death.

Azad has grown up. He is a beautiful young man with a powerful stage presence. He read his work from memory. He said he was "from a long line of unbelievers,"and that his father was still blind, "but more sighted than me."

The wisdom of the father passing to the son. Mithra arriving by chariot on the longest darkest night of the year.

This morning Lloyd and I saw two crows using the traffic on Silver Lake Blvd. as... nutcrackers! They would hop out into the busy street ahead of the oncoming cars, drop their walnuts, then flapped away and sat on the curb watching as the tires crushed the nuts. Then they dove back in for the meat. I'd heard about this behavior, but never witnessed it.

A bravura performance.

These last weeks, months some very dear and important people have passed away. One of them was Virginia McKinney, a salty intrepid tireless educator of the deaf. I wrote about Virginia and her Center for Communicative Development for the LATimes years ago. Virginia lost her own hearing as an adult, as a reaction to a medication she was taking. She turned her insurance settlement into good works for helping other adult deaf learn to lip read and sign. I hope her son Walter will be able to continue the school.

Last Sunday, after attending a Chanukah party, Sylvan Katz passed away. Sylvan, a WW II vet, was a retired judge. I interviewed Sylvan for "The Souvenir." It was Sylvan who first told me that my father would be "rolling over in his grave" because I wanted to return the flag. We became good friends. He was a true mensch. He helped so many Filipino students go to college, repaying a debt to the hill tribes who assisted his Red Arrow Division during the Pacific War.

And Larry Sultan, a great photographer. Larry died too young, in his sixties. I didn't even know he was sick. We have one of his photos on the wall of our living room, two blind swimmers at ease in the water. Virginia, Sylvan, Larry... may you all be at ease wherever you are.

Here's to the light that these people brought into the world, and the afterglow we can still feel.

Today is my brother Ken's 50th's birthday. my little brother. I remember hearing the news, doing cartwheels on the lawn of our stucco house in Culver City. I was wearing my brownie uniform. He was such a tiny guy, my own baby brother. I'd been the youngest for so long, subject to teases andalso the wisdom of my older siblings. My sister Ruth taught me to write my name and marched me to the Culver City library to obtain my first library card. My brother Larry tried to teach me square roots when I was two. (he failed). (more…)

Many people have sent me links to the NYT article today about the return of an artifact (a drawing and a photo of a girl child) by an Iwo Jima vet (Franklin W. Hobbs III) to the family of a Japanese soldier who died in the conflict. It's a heartening story and a reminder (more…)