PickledCherub

So, I figured out how to make the videos work. How? I found an OSX version of Windows media player called VideoLan, for free. Get it here. Was it worth staying up all night? Probably not, but it was satisfying.

Here's some exciting news: I'm going to play my first show in forever at Shauna and Katy and Emily's housewarming party, this Saturday. I don't know what time yet. I also don't know how or what I'm going to play. It'll be an adventure, for sure.

Marian is back in town. She woke me up at ten a.m. yesterday, as a big surprise. She's always surpising us with her arrivals.

Lindsay's photo exhibit opens tonight at Vollum Lounge at Reed at 7:30. The art faculty decided that one of her series is too controversial to be up at Reed. Um, omigod. Too controversial to be up? At Reed College? Where Black Masses are accepted and even embraced as part of our heritage? The photographs are exquisitely beautiful, luminous and ethereal. Lindsay took photographs of the fetus exhibit at OMSI (a dude from the Mercury wrote about the exhibit: read it now )

The deal, according to Lindsay's ART PROFESSORS is that the content of her photographs might be objectionable to women who have had abortions, or miscarried, or might one day become pregnant, or might one day not become pregnant. "Lindsay, that is a totally paternalistic attitude towards women," I said. "But, it's a woman who wants to protect other women," said Lindsay. "It doesn't matter who does it, it's still paternalistic."

I've always thought that the Reed College Art Department sought to defend an artist's right to display her work. The department's argument is that Vollum Lounge is a public space, and as such should not have objectionable content. First of all, Lindsay was not informed about this before hanging her exhibit. Secondly, the photographs are not objectionable. When Greg, Sonia, Chris, and I were helping to hang Lindsay's work, we spent a long time discussing which series of photographs she should put up in addition to her Barn Photographs. The reasons we lobbied for the Fetus Photos were that they are representative of her interest in making art out of science (and the Prenatal exhibit at OMSI is certainly scientific), and that they are some of the most beautiful photographs she has ever taken. Never did we think that the photographs would be objectionable. We certainly never considered that a member of the Studio Arts faculty would request that the photographs be taken down.

All of our friends who know about this censorship have been debating the best way to deal with it. Should the photographs be draped? Should the photographs be flipped in their frames? Lindsay has spent a good deal of her time consulting with various Reed officials, from the Dean of Faculty to the Campus Curator to the Art Department Professors. They have displayed more flip-flopping than our venerable "President" has accused John Kerry of. The compromise: Lindsay can display the "objectionable content" only during the opening. Before and after, the photographs must be taken down.

I think that the Reed Community, and the community in general, has every right to know about this, whether or not they consider it to be censorship. So, I'm sending this text to the Reed College Quest.

Well, that sucks, but you should come to the opening, anyway!