HEAT:05

Performance Documentation: September 2005

Friday, September 30 Erica's birthday party mini Haiku slam: Katherine and I had each decided to write 5 Haiku poems for/about Erica, but when I got to the party someone tried to show me up by having 20! We went back and forth, reading and enjoying the way they played off each other.

bark poem writing / candlelight naked dancing / collaborator.

Thursday, September 29 Chicago Sewer. Another word one can make from the letters on the phone numbers 739: PEZ. Recently some pez arrived in the mail from Seattle, appropriately with a witch dispenser. One dozen candies were marked with the number 739 and installed on the sewer cover in the intersection of Morse & Ashland. I think this cop pulled over to investigate me but someone else got his attention first.

Wednesday, September 28 Lonely Boat. Judging by the number of people who did a double take at the sight of someone standing on the sidewalk and staring at a muddy puddle in an empty planter, that was performance enough. It took me a while, studying this site, before I had an idea for an intervention. It was a windy night, and this little paper boat traveled multiple circles around the perimeter of water.

Tuesday, September 27 Spilled Salt. A good research project, for anyone who cares to take it on: studying the salt-spilling superstitions around the world. In my family, if salt was spilled, one would ward off evil by throwing a pinch over one's right shoulder. Tonight my Russian teacher knocked over the salt shaker and used her finger to draw three crosses in the salt as a precaution against arguments. I wonder how long my three crosses among the roots of this tree at Morse & Ashland will prevent neighborhood fights.

Monday, September 26 Honey and Salt #6. I love that my red ribbon is still in place on that chain link fence in the parking lot of the market. What if I just kept adding things? Today it was two drawstring bags in which I had rolled up tiny printouts of Carl Sandburg's poem.

Sunday, September 25 Honey and Salt #5. The sight of a likely eviction always hurts my heart. I was on my way to add to my ribbon installation at the Morse Fruit and Meat Market when I saw this child's bedframe lying on the grass next to a couch and a dumpster of other stuff, and decided to tie my second ribbon to the bedframe.

Saturday, September 24 Harvest Moon Cabaret at Links Hall. There was clowning, cheering, puppetry, masks and, because I had been included, three Russian songs. But the miraculous thing was that I had decided to prepare Russian songs before I knew that my Russian teacher, her friend Marina, and their two daughters would also be attending the performance. It was extra pressure but also a bonus: Sonia Dekhtyar joined me for "Moscow Nights" and "Oy, da ne Vecher." There was audience singalong for "Dorogoi Dlinnoyu." Marina's daughter Dania joined Matthew, Brian, and Devin for "The Power of Cheer."

Friday, September 23 Updated documentation! Photos by Jerry Barmore. I shook my stuff on that trampoline on Friday in front of over 300 people in two Girlie-Q Variety Shows--one at 8:00 at the Hothouse, and one at midnight at Circuit nightclub.

Thursday, September 22 6:00pm. Honey and Salt #4. Glass bootles, magnets, honey, sea salt, installed in a broken-window sanctuary in an alley near Belmont & Racine. It's amazing what you notice when you become one of the people skulking around alleyways--cutting our eyes, listening for footsteps, searching for a safe place to do whatever it is that we are doing, waiting to be busted.

Wednesday, September 21 10:00pm. Honey and Salt #3. I told Red and Gwen to hold out their hands. Into each right palm I poured a little honey and into each left I sprinkled a little sea salt. Red immediately mixed them, Gwen kept his deposits separate. I read them Sandburg's poem, licked their palms, and encouraged them to have a taste as well. There was no discernable end: we just morphed into analysis of the text, trying to figure out how long love does last.

How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable welding—
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow
or the oaths between hydrogen and oxygen
in one cup of spring water
or the eyes of bucks and does
or two wishes riding on the back of a
morning wind in winter
or one corner of an ancient tabernacle
held sacred for personal devotions
or dust yes dust in a little solemn heap
played on by changing winds.

There are sanctuaries
holding honey and salt.
There are those who
spill and spend.
There are those who
search and save.
And love may be a quest
with silence and content.

-Carl Sandburg

Tuesday, September 20 9:00pm. Honey and Salt #2. I am intrigued by the idea of sanctuary that Sandburg writes about in the poem. I took two glass bottles & attached magnets to the tops of each. I put a little honey in one, and a little salt in the other, and enjoyed their performance of tipping and coming together. I wrote the poem on parchment paper, tied it around the bottles, and installed it on the bench of the #155 Devon bus, where a lot of things have taken place in my life in the last year: drop offs, pick ups, informal board meetings, conversations with Russian neighbors, kisses goodbye.

Monday, September 19 9:00pm, the parking lot of Morse Avenue Fruit and Meat Market. Honey and Salt #1. Thank god for Leah Mayers, who reads my web site and sends me things that often seem like exactly what I need. Today I received an e-mail from her containing Carl Sandburg's Honey and Salt. So I wrote the last stanza out on a red ribbon and installed it on a beautifully illuminated white chain link fence in the parking lot of my local grocer. This action happened to coincide with the closing of the store, and attracted the attention of the 2 guys I see in there all the time--owners? managers? they watched me from a distance, and when I was done I walked toward them to go back home. One asked if I was painting. I said no, it's a poem on a ribbon. That seemed okay with him.

Sunday, September 18 8:00pm, Links Hall, Poonie's Cabaret. I performed a new piece I have been prepearing for the Girlie-Q Variety Shows this Friday. I wonder what this piece is called. Maybe Exercise Tramp. It combines my love of pushing my own body, pushing the comfort levels of others, and my new fascination with the kiddie fitness movement. Tonight I wore my first pair of pasties.

Saturday, September 17 9:00pm, the Spareroom. When I first started talking about doing this project, and people were trying to ask me how I would accomplish making a performance every day, one of the examples I would use was: maybe I'll call up my friend and offer to carry a block of salt across the stage for her while she does butoh. Well, tonight I finally got to carry blocks of salt across the stage. The butoh had already concluded, but it was still satisfying.

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods

Friday, September 16 evening, Jackson Park Lagoon. Three groups of grad students from the Arts in Youth and Community Development Program gathered for a site visit and celebration. As part of the sendoff of Group #1, I read Mary Oliver's In Blackwater Woods while the full moon rose over the lagoon.

Thursday, September 15 Rain, Tree, Thunder and Lightning. The weather report insisted the night would clear up, so I headed out on my bike for dinner with Lisa. Instead, it stormed, poured, thundered. I fought the Cubs fans to put my bike on the train at Addison but felt compelled to get off at Berwyn, snag an anti-war poster, and copy a Mary Oliver poem on the back of it. This year when I feel lost, Mary Oliver helps me find something. Tonight I wrapped the poem in plastic twine and rode through the rain to Craig's apartment, where I installed it in the iron bars protecting the windows to his building. It's Craig's birthday.

Wednesday, September 14 Columbia College Chicago. The September project was described as a constitution read-out commemorating September 11, 2001--focusining on protecting civil liberties. But then I later heard a news story that said that the federal government was now mandating constitutional curriculum for this week in September. At any rate, at Columbia College a group of people read the U.S. Constitution aloud, over and over, in 15 minute shifts. I went at 12noon and was pleased to be able to read the part about impeaching the president.

Tuesday, September 13 Pew, Pez, Sex, Rex at Pratt Beach. These are all words you can spell if you choose from the letters that correspond to the numbers 739 on the telephone. Installed on a painting of the Picasso sculpture that stands in Daley Plaza.

Monday, September 12 Spareroom: dress rehearsal for Girlie-Q Variety Hour. Doing a trampoline act without a trampoline is a tad more jarring on the old joints, but good times. After we had all presented our pieces to each other there was time for feedback. There was a lively debate about pasties for me. On the way out, an accomplished burlesque performer stopped to tell me she thought my piece was hilarious. So funny. And then she caught herself, as if she might be insulting me: "Oh yeah, and it was hot."

Sunday, September 11 Preserving Erica in Salt: a collaboration with Katherine Klein. Want to attract the attention of the neighbors? Spread out a tarp in your courtyard and lay a tall woman out on it in her underwear. Then paint her with a thick layer of Elmer's glue and rock salt. Wait for people to come talk to you.

Saturday, September 10 Politically Charged Performance: a workshop at Links Hall. Workshop participants and I co-created a piece that we performed at 4:30 pm under the El tracks at the corner of Roscoe and Clark.

Friday, September 9 Vespine Gallery: Memory, Loss, Redux opening of installation by Leah Mayers. I can't stop thinking about the waters that have submerged all of the earthly possessions of my friends Ru and Geryll in New Orleans, along with all of the other thousands of people who have lost loved ones, homes, history. I brought cups and sugar cubes to the opening and asked people to write on the sugar cube the thing they have in their house that would hurt most if they lost everything. We dropped the cubes in cups of water and watched flakes of ink rise to the top as the sugar dissolved. I drank all of the cups, but found that bit of sweetness to be no antidote to tears and the bitter taste left by a government gone so wrong.

Thursday, September 8 Stargaze, 9pm. The group assembled for drinks, veggie burgers, and fried plantains. I passed out cups of water and a little container into which I had cut a bunch of alphabet letters. The book I'm currently keeping in the bathroom is Games for All Occasions, from like 1936. It describes an alphabet game in which one can drop letters into a cup of water to divine the name of, or information about, one's future husband or wife. I suspected this crowd might be interested in asking other questions, so each one did. Courtney called Nora out on Nora's hostility toward Christians. They asked if Nora should repent. Nora saw the word "God" in the cup. For Mimi (left), the bar was her final stop in a long day of driving straight from Austin, TX to Chicago after fleeing New Orleans. She saw the word "bird" in her cup, and took it as a sign that it was time to fly.

Wednesday, September 7 something I heard at a Labor Day barbecue stuck with me. There were some people there who had adopted children from the former Soviet Union. They are therefore interested in the fact that I speak Russian. We had various conversations about whether or not the adoptive parents had learned any Russian pre-adoption and whether or not their children speak Russian after coming here. The general consensus was that once thrust into an all-English speaking context, the children stop speaking Russian remarkably quickly. But their parents did note that there are always a few words that hang on--the words that continue to pop out from a child's mouth before she has time to remember what language she is speaking. One of the most tenacious is Pochemu, the Russian word for Why?

In my current state of grief over the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and what our national response communicates about whose lives are valuable, it felt only natural to spend my day with a pink Sharpie in hand, asking Why? Why? Why?

Tuesday, September 6 Tonight I met some colleagues on the street who filled in some more details around the shadow box of September 1. A number of my acquaintances encountered someone on the street on September 2 trying to sell them a piece of art that he had found on the campus of Columbia College. When he offered it to my friend Sadira, she recognized it as my work. So he asked her to call me and see if I'd give him some money to get it back. When I said I didn't want it back, Sadira told the man that it must have been intended for him. The work was also labeled with the date of the man's birth. Sadira told him it must be his gift, which he seemed to accept. This story excited me so much that I wanted to install other things on Columbia's campus. So I filled a notebook with words on natural disasters and hooked it to a low-lying branch across the street from the Pacific Garden Mission.

Monday, September 5 Peggy's BBQ. A great big outdoor fire really begs for more burnt offerings. To honor Leo's fire, we sent up prayers to be carried away as ashes on the breeze.

Sunday, September 4 Numbers 7:39: one young bull, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering. Yes, that was me out on Ashland Avenue with a flaming cauldron.

Saturday, September 3 1:15pm, Audition for the Girlie-Q Variety Hour, Spareroom. Today I tried out a new act on JT Newman: part kiddie fitness campaign, part experiment in half-naked jiggling. It's work in progress; it'll be interesting to see how it develops. I'm excited to announce I will be part of JT's Girlie-Q "ensemble," performing several times this fall. First shows: Friday September 23 at Hothouse, then late night for Estrojam.

Friday, September 2 I found someone else's project on the El: a xeroxed pamphlet promising "MIRACLES" SUPERNATURAL Intervention...From GOD September 2005. The pamphlet encouraged me to send $7 for myself to have Minister Joseph Pierce send me Prosperity & Success Insurance. I figure, I asked people to send me stuff, so perhaps I should return the favor. I put the piece of purple gauze that I found inside the pamphlet in a shadow box that I installed in Andersonville. And the following letter accompanied the cashier's check for $7.39 that I sent.

Dear Minister Jacob Pierce, Thank you for offering to sell us prosperity and success insurance. It seems like we need it now more than ever. But seeing accounts of people trapped in a flooded city, I think about the fact that I am still young and strong and have social and material resources. So please give the prosperity and success insurance to someone in Chicago who needs it more than I do. Sincerely, Nicole Garneau.

Thursday, September 1 Shadow box with water cup #2 installed outside the parking lot at the base of a tree around which no one can bother to plant grass. I felt like this little memorial really improved the empty lot surrounding this little tree.

The next day I got a call at work. A colleague of mine was calling me on her cell to say that she had come to get her car and she and the parking lot attendant had noticed the box, which she recognized as my art (it was not signed) and had I lost some of my art?

I like the idea of losing my art.