Dedication to Silence

When I was nine years old, I presented my parents with an index card on which I had written my first work of critical theory: "Never talk to the artist." This was my way of expressing the idea of the critical fallacy, i.e. that if you want to know what a work of art means, you should just ask the artist to explain it to you. This is not an effective strategy, because a) artists are damn liars, b) they are most eloquent when engaged in art-making, not when talking about it, and c) this strategy ignores the role of the reader in the creation of meaning, and the transformations of meaning over historical time. I was reassured in my views when I first saw Fellini's masterpiece, 8 1/2, as a character declares that "All artists should swear an oath: Dedication to silence!" Nowhere was this more true than at the Lubbock Arts Festival. I attended the opening night gala with some friends, and it was the social event of the season. The main attraction was a display of Lego art - sculptures and portraits made of Lego pieces. The work was quite good, but the difficulty was that each piece was accompanied by interpretive signage written by the artist. For example, the sculpture you see above, entitled "Solar System" is really quite witty, until you read the label, where the artist clarifies that he knows that in reality, the planets in the solar system are not stacked on top of each other in this manner. This made me sigh. I'm sure this label is in response to people making dumb comments about his Lego art, but even in the face of the literal-minded, I wish he had remained dedicated to silence.

Lawn Care

I often write of my neighbours Ginger and Norman, who watch my house while I'm away (and, frankly, while I'm there), bake me pies, and serve as my airport taxi service. Yesterday they really outdid themselves. I stopped to chat with them after Mollie's morning walk, and Ginger asked if my landlord takes care of lawn mowing. This was her nice way of telling me that the dandelion garden I'm cultivating is cramping her style (Ginger is a precise and constant gardener). I said no, and that as she could see, I'd been very lazy about addressing the issue.

Then I went to work, leaving Mollie in the back yard.

When I returned, I let Mollie inside to have her dinner, and noticed that she was covered in grass clippings. It seems Ginger and Norman had come over and mowed both my front and back yards (the back was verging on jungle). I told them that they were gold-star neighbours, and Ginger said "Well, if we were in wheelchairs you'd do the same for us." That's true. I also suspect that being an academic is kind of like wearing a sign that says "I require assistance."

Birthday Bash

For my birthday, I had considered making a visit to "Ladies' Night" at the local gun range, but soon realized that I would need to take their gun safety workshop, which requires an investment of time and money that effectively ruins the joke. So, my friend suggested we attend the season-opening bout at the "West Texas Roller Dollz" Roller Derby. It was held at the Civic Center, an all-purpose facility that accommodates the Lubbock Symphony and professional wrestling alike. It was flat-track roller derby, which comes with the added excitement of dangerous seating options - one can elect to sit in places where a woman in body armor, roller skates and a purple tutu could end up in your lap. We didn't arrive early enough to grab the prime real estate, but we know better for next time.

The bouts were exciting, the music was loud, and the crowd was intriguing. Lots of families, college kids, and a considerable number of senior citizens. We speculated that the older ladies had roller derby (or perhaps barrel racing) careers in the past, and were reliving the old days. At one point the MC, who wore thigh-high leather boots and a top hat while being substantially pregnant, asked if it was anyone's birthday. I scurried down to the front, where the various birthday boys and girls had a dance contest. When it was my turn, I busted out some belly-dancing moves that I learned back in Chicago. (I have taken lessons in many styles of dance, but I have found the belly-dancing to be particularly useful.) Unfortunately for me, the other contestants included a woman with a wheelchair, who impressed the crowd with wheelies, and a lady celebrating her 83rd birthday, who garnered the most applause. She ended up winning a sparkly birthday hat. As I was walking back to my seat, it occurred to me that I might have students in the audience - students who now know about my belly-dancing career. I wonder how they are handling that.

A week later I ran into one of my friends, a history professor, who had been with me at roller derby. She said "Allison, thanks to you I've earned coolness points with my students. Before class, I heard one of them say that they saw me at roller derby, and had no idea I was that awesome." Stick with me and you'll go far.

Santa Monica

Here I am running, Baywatch-style, on the beach in Santa Monica. The photographer, my friend Brigitta, suggested the pose. While walking on the beach, I had the good fortune to overhear a young woman's cell phone conversation, presumably with a man. She complained "But you never think about me when you're in New York - just when you come to LA." Oh, the trials of the bi-coastals.

Starball

This delightful object is the decommissioned star projector from the planetarium in San Diego. To give you sense of scale, its diameter is about five feet. It now lives in the basement, where it is, sadly, collecting dust. This projector was innovative in that it could represent the cosmos in a more dynamic way than the traditional "dumbell" projectors because it has three axes of rotation, as opposed to the regular two. Thus, you could feel like you were flying through the sky, and not just looking up at it. They showed me the new projector, which is digital and can of course do lots of fancy things, but it has none of the romance of this terrifying spiky sphere.

San Diego

I'm in California for Spring Break, which for me means archival research, a conference, and hanging out with other film nerds. I went down to San Diego a couple of times to do some research on the world's first OMNIMAX theatre, a combination planetarium/IMAX dome that was built in 1973. I interviewed one of the theatre's founders, who showed me his old photographs of the architectural plans. I established my credibility by identifying Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 astronaut, examining a theatre model in one of the photos. Collins is known to be an IMAX fan, which causes me no end of delight. I was offered a tour of the projection room - I always find IMAX projectors charming, almost as charming as the projectionist, who got very chatty once I revealed the depth of my technical knowledge. We had a swell time talking about 3D formats, and he showed me the welding device they use for splicing IMAX film together.

Just before I left, I was introduced to the museum's director, who invited me to that evening's premiere of the new Hubble Telescope movie. The very jolly (and German) administrator put me on the list and promised there would be food, so I was there with bells on. They put on a great spread, and one could eat fancy cheese while playing with the museum's tornado simulator, the optical illusion machines, and the interactive display explaining the properties of transverse waves. I spotted the jolly German walking around in an authentic NASA spacesuit (circa 1980s). She was very excited about this part of her job, and I happily accepted her offer of astronaut ice cream. I had never tasted this delicacy, and to be honest, it's not very good, but it probably tastes better in space.

Just before the screening, I overheard a woman who was telling her friends that she has donated her body to the UC San Diego medical school, so on the event of her death, they will come to retrieve her, and she is not to have an autopsy. She then joked that this means her husband could poison her, and nobody would ever know. Everyone laughed. I wish her well, but I am waiting for the lurid made-for-tv movie about her case.

Dallas

I visited Dallas a couple of weekends ago to attend a festival of horror films by women directors. It was good fun and I won a t-shirt, but the highlight of my journey was the trip to South Fork Ranch, site of the original location shooting for the epic soap opera, Dallas. Here I am with JR's portrait, and he appears to be making a rude gesture behind my head.

To my surprise, only the exteriors were shot at the ranch, and yet, one can tour the interior of the house. The interior has been lavishly decorated, but not to look like the sets of the show. Rather, they have just designed it with Dallas in mind. It's really more of a Dallas-based art installation than anything else. It was an excellent example of a simulacrum - a copy without an original - which was one of the "big ideas" in my science fiction class last semester. I suspect I was the only person on the tour thinking about it in this particular way.

I particularly enjoyed JR's bedroom, what with the chandelier over the bed.

Stranger still was JR's master bath, with the telephone installed beside the toilet. This seems a questionable design choice.

As the tour guide was telling us about the history of the house, he mentioned that the original owner's name was JR Duncan. I asked if that was the origin of the character's name, but it turns out it wasn't - the script had already been written before the location was chosen. I was pleased to hear this because I have a pet theory about the origin of JR Ewing's name. In the movie Giant, which is the master narrative of West Texas, James Dean plays a character named Jett Rink who gets rich when he strikes oil. There's a wonderful scene where he's sitting at a banquet table, and his initials, "JR" are plastered in huge letters on the wall behind him. When I saw this, I thought, "that must be where they got the name for Dallas." I haven't made the effort to actually find out, but I floated this theory to the tour guide, and he found it intriguing. Then a lady on the tour jumped in to explain that JR Ewing is called that because his father's name is John Ross and he's named after him. I restrained myself from telling her that they are fictional characters, so that's not actually an explanation. Instead, I went back to thinking about simulacra.