Things you can do during the pandemic
Favorite photo from a family gathering last Sunday
Things you can do during the pandemic
You can watch your friend and colleague give an amazing performance in the new concert hall at Wheaton College.
You can learn from Garnette Cadogan, who kicked off the first of a six-part master class on “Writing the City” for about 30 of our students and faculty.
Session One was “On Possibilities.” That will be followed by “On Trust,” “On Listening,” “On Seeing,” “On Writing the Self,” and “On Writing Others.” I learned quite a bit from Garnette on Tuesday night, and I look forward to these next five sessions.
You can take your First-Year Seminar for socially-distanced engagement with a community art project on place and space.
The community art students had made little cubes, temporary shelters, in a grassy area near the quad, along with some benches, set low to the ground, between them. We were able to experience each space and then discuss our experience and observations, touching on the differences between seeing or experiencing a space from the inside and from the outside, the ways in which we are sometimes more obsessed with how we’re seen than with how we’re seeing, and more.
Quote
From Jacques Ellul, on the personalist movement between 1934 and 1938:
“We were neither Stalinists nor Fascists; nor did we support liberal capitalism. We tried to get beyond this contradiction to surpass it. The movement was an extremely intense, extremely fruitful meeting place.”
Some now would call this “political homelessness.” Political homelessness has real weaknesses, including a tendency toward withdrawal from and negligence of institutions. But it also bears real possibilities and positive characteristics you can see in this quote. Ellul and his friends in the personalist movement found this intense, fruitful meeting place partly because they refused to settle comfortably into their partisan landscape.
What do you think of “political homelessness?”
Links
- Learn how Olympia, Washington, is working to avoid unnecessary escalations of emergency calls by expanding the definition of “first responders.”
- Read about how Oakland responded to critical feedback from vulnerable communities.
- Most interesting story I read this week: How luchadores in Mexico, largely out of regular work during the pandemic, are turning to vending street food.
Recommendations
Listen to these
- Ron Miles’ Rainbow Sign (read more about Miles here).
- “Freeze Tag” Terrace Martin, pianist Robert Glasper, producer 9th Wonder, and saxophonist Kamasi Washington) from the recent collaboration by Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder, and Kamasi Washington.
Cook this
The eggplant Parmesan recipe in Sam Sifton’s See You on Sunday is not only easy and fun, but makes the best eggplant Parmesan I’ve ever had.
Read this
Lots of my former students are beginning to surpass me in their accomplishments, and that’s certainly true of Aaron Griffith. I can’t give Aaron’s new book a stronger endorsement. It’s learned and bold, important and timely. It comes out November 10, but you can pre-order it now.
Thanks…
… to whomever invented drink-holders for mini-golf holes.
