Erika Mikkalo

A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet

gwen — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

“But if the tradition would not admit me, could I change its rules of admission?” Eavan Boland asks in her new book, A Journey with Two Maps. This volume honors the accumulated change wrought by earlier woman poets, the self-claimed permission for women to write identities outside of the feminine, and the female victory of bringing the ordinary into the canon. She also proselytizes for a transcendence of the binary: that the writer can perceive the contradictory aspects of poetry’s history and practice and reconcile them through her work, and then use these two maps to reach a poetic destination.

Boland frames critical reviews of women poets - including Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, and Gwendolyn Brooks – with an opening autobiographical essay on her perception of the creative process as influenced by her painter mother, and closes with a “Letter to a Young Woman Poet.” She presents insights of her youth, such as the realization that the sublime is not some entity storming through the heavens in order to overwhelm those who make art, but rather, their creation. Boland also describes her appreciation of Plath, not as the scribe of self-inflicted internal terrors, but as a champion of the domestic, wisely selecting Plath’s explication of “Nick and the Candlestick”: “A mother nurses her baby son by candlelight, and finds in him a beauty which, while it may not ward off the world’s ill, does redeem her share of it.”

She acknowledges that her appreciation of Brooks grew from perceiving her as an author in the tradition of urban documentarians – like Hughes, Eliot, Sandburg, and Crane – to a “critique of race and nation,” and acknowledges that this understanding was cautiously negotiated through qualified comparison with her experience of Irish colonialism, not through some claim of instant affinity. I was also introduced to Charlotte Mew, a writer who I spontaneously liked due to her wry to response to the mundane social inquiry, “Are you Charlotte Mew?”: “Unfortunately, yes.” She also wrote the lines, “It may be that what Father said is true, If things are so it does not matter why.”

A Journey with Two Maps, Boland illuminates, in prose both fluid and lucid, the reasons why, pertinent to the efforts of woman writers, and the significance of the matter.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, April 28th 2011

Georgic Stories

gwen — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Mariko Nagai

University of Missouri, Kansas City, BkMk Press

Mariko Nagai’s Georgic Stories is a book worthy of its acclaim, but that does not necessarily imply that I want to read it again. When I recounted it to a friend once I finished reading it, I did not feel as if I was describing the stories or engaging in critique as much as I was repeating a terrible testimony. The stories demand retelling: they are compelling views of a world where the pinnacle of joy is a child’s possible, but not guaranteed, escape from starvation.

With its title inspired by Virgil’s work on rural life, the tales contained in the pages manifest his observation, “Shameful work conquers all.” The characters and their predicaments are so fundamental that they aren’t even given names. Well, one protagonist is; the prostitute, Monkey, is referred to by the insult given to her by customers when she started her profession.

Nagai’s ten stories unfold in a torn and barren landscape devoid of any poetry other than that of pain and desperation. Virgil’s didactic hexameters provided detailed descriptions of the plow, the merits of the olive tree over the vine, and the virtues of a simple bucolic life over the corrupt bustle of the city. The tales in this Georgic offer a manual on how to survive the unsurvivable in a world where all are corrupted by need.

The narratives brutally manifest Brecht’s “Food before ethics.” “Grafting” starts with words as meager as the village stores: “Harvest. Another failure. Third year in a row.” After the second failure the villagers sold their daughters, now they attempt to reduce want by carrying their elderly off to a mountain to abandon them.

In “Bitter Fruit,” rare kindness is displayed when a bathhouse proprietor advises a prostitute on how she might induce a miscarriage by standing in a freezing river. The attempt fails, and her child is born into prostitution. A woman in a different story adopts the vocation when a plague-stripped land and town desolated by war leave her with no other means of procuring food for her children, and the sole male in the community to serve as client is the village idiot. Some stories come directly from the trials of history; women in Manchuria at the end of WWII, a woman imprisoned for her role in a town’s execution of a downed American pilot. One is inspired by a folktale and contains vicious whimsy.

I can wholly recommend Georgic Stories. Instead of keeping it to reread, perhaps you can give to a friend. Perhaps she will be inspired to write the georgics of China, Darfur, the Ukraine, Argentina, Chile, and all other lands ravaged by flood, drought, and war, lands too many too name.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, April 25th 2011

Daring Steps: Traversing the Path of the Buddha

alicia — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Ringu Tulku

Snow Lion Publications

In his interview last summer with Jet Mort, Ringu Tulku—teacher, author, and Rinpoche—detailed the necessity of helping, healing, and harmony to grant meaning to otherwise meaningless lives. His book Daring Steps advances all three through its thorough and accessible description of the Buddhist path. The three vehicles—yanas—are described: Shravakayana (Theravada), Mahayana and Vajrayana, or tantra. The author emphasizes that the three are aspects of one entity at different levels, not separate. Many Western Buddhists omit the direction in the Shravakayana system, believing that knowledge of the Vajrayana is sufficient. Ringu Tulku gently disabuses novices of this notion with an amazing array of references to methods and instructions.

The characteristic of Daring Steps that I most appreciate is its consistent relevance to the reader’s life. Ringu Tulku alternates description of the Dharma with the essence of the Buddha’s enlightenment and contemporary anecdote. Shravakayana contains the foundation for all further studies: the Four Noble Truths are in the Theravada. The most simplified Western version of the Four Noble Truths tends to be written as follows:

"To live is to suffer.
Attachment brings suffering.
An end to suffering can be achieved.
There is a path to the cessation of suffering."

Shravakayana focuses on meditation and concentration, the eighth of the Eightfold Path. Its resulting emphasis on a monastic life renders it less attainable to the majority of the population, those who must live and work in the world. In the first century AD, individuals including the philosopher-monk Nagarjuna, Asanga, and Vasubandhu changed Buddhist practice to a more accessible version. This revised practice came to be called Mahayana, or “Greater Vehicle,” due to its capacity to reach a greater number of individuals in varying walks of life.

Vajrayana Buddhism is a more complicated system that formed over centuries of practice and contains many inconsistencies. A distinguishing characteristic of Vajrayana is ritual, which is utilized as a substitute for more challenging meditations. (If I have offended any readers who follow Vajrayana, I humbly beg their pardon and ask them to remember that I am a neophyte.)

Do not take this overview as an indication that Daring Steps is an esoteric history. Far from it—in example, here is a passage from Ringu Tulku’s direction regarding Right Thought: “We have to adopt the habit of being joyful. When we are very depressed and narrow, very sad, we cannot expect to become joyful just by wishfully thinking, ‘Now I am very sad, but something will happen.’ As if joy might fall from the sky.” Don’t wait for this book to fall from the sky: it is a highly recommended addition to the shelf of any library containing texts on meditation or world faiths.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, December 6th 2010

Hibiki (Resonance from Far Way) (10/20/2010)

alicia — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Sankai Juku

Dance Center of Columbia College

The dancing performed by the Japanese butoh company Sankai Juku in Hibiki (Resonance from Far Away) at the Harris Theater in Chicago, Illinois, manages to invoke simultaneously everything and nothing. In choosing the word ‘everything,’ I am attempting to describe the fact that the six dancers and their choreographer execute actions that remind the viewer, possibly, of children, stones, priests, frogs, soldiers, streams, women, the wind, and a flower. By saying ‘nothing,’ I am acknowledging that the gestures and poses themselves are so controlled, so elemental, that the observer must concede that some degree of the perceived meaning or symbolism is projected.

In the beginning, lights slowly rise to reveal a sand-covered stage strewn with twelve symmetrically placed shallow glass saucers approximately a meter in diameter. Above, four glass bulbs shaped like art nouveau separating funnels steadily drip, the soundtrack either amplifying or suggesting the drops. The huddled figures of the dancers could be mistaken for driftwood or rocks, but of course unfold from their embryonic curls to entrance so completely that time itself seems somehow altered. The six tableaux directed by choreographer Ushio Amagatsu explore the very rhythms of existence—origin, end, and resurrection.

Sanjai Juku manifests conventions of butoh with the white rice powder coating, shaven heads, and simple robes of the dancers. While some versions of the school appear darkly anarchic, this dance concert is profoundly poetic and minimalistic. The performers move with such precision that their bodies come across as a series of statues with gradually changing poses placed in one location. The movement of a few can entrance so thoroughly that the remainder evaporate from the stage, unnoticed.

Amagatsu appears in a solo sequence, executing gestures like the movements of the most necessary rite of an undiscovered faith. The dancers can march through one another in crossed ranks so dense that they appear a multitude, and in the final sequence, move with such coordination that they could be mistaken for one organism. In the fourth scene—Outer Limits of Red—the dancers gather around a saucer now filled with red liquid, their lower robes augmented with red-laced bodices and dangling ear ornaments.

The laces mimic the stitches that may follow abdominal surgery, but I had to speculate—due to the corsetry and the predominance of blood-color—that this segment acknowledged something specifically feminine, but by no means consoling. At one point their hands move with cutting synchronization, first scissors, then claws. The predominantly electronic score, composed by Takashi Kako and Yoichiro Yoshikawa, mostly complements the austerity of the performance but occasionally swells with an unnecessary exuberance that might be more suited to a movie version of Hibiki.

The closing sequence resonates magnificently, a broadening aperture of light opening to silhouette the circled dancers. The following standing ovation was the longest that I have witnessed in my life, every echoing slap of palm on palm completely earned.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, November 30th 2010

Detroit (9/18/2010)

brittany — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

Half of the U.S. population lives in suburbs, places where there are no theres there. In the suburb outlying the eponymous city in Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit, all the streets in the Bright Homes subdivision are named after light. If Bill Vaughn’s observation is correct—“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them”—then this particular development is consistent in its dearth of light, literal and figurative.

The lives that unwind on Sunshine Lane and Feather Boulevard portend the end of pretense and dawn of overwhelming futility, as dreams of ex-urban idylls decay along with the plywood of their construction. Director Austin Pendleton leads the sharp and talented cast—Laurie Metcalf, Kevin Anderson, Kate Arrington and Ian Barford—through a labyrinth of sharp and winding dialogue that leaves its characters stranded.

Ben and Mary are two happy homeowners who graciously welcome their neighbors, Rob and Sharon. Mary’s (Metcalf) twisted energy abounds as she offers the newcomers shelter beneath a vicious umbrella. Wired but not manic, her role is a perfect check to Ben’s persistent affability. He speaks a dialect of bonhomie that Rob (Anderson) will eventually emulate—“Let’s throw these puppies on the grill!”—or perhaps deride. Rob’s girlfriend Sharon establishes the standard of impropriety in the first scene, and in each subsequent scene emotional exposure and physical damage increase as drastically as the characters’ futures plummet.

Kevin Depinet’s set is a monumental replication of two tract home halves, thoughtful and precise: the laid-off bank worker Ben (Barford) builds the website for his nascent financial consulting business on an outdated clunking home pc. The obvious question is never addressed: how do you gain clients as a financial manager when no one has any finances to manage?

The new neighbors, Rob and Sharon (Arrington), have occupations typical of the new economy: warehouse worker and call-center service representative. The individuals, the community, the nation—all are going down in a spiral of low wages and lower expectations. Recovering addicts Rob and Sharon fall off the wagon, at first “just for one day.” In the few days of camaraderie between these old and new suburbanites, the veneer of civilization, is degraded unto destruction, but the viewer is not certain why. Were Ben and Mary primed for annihilation by recent events? Was the community’s stability in comparison to explosive cities always tenuous at best? The two couples sling finely crafted banter culminating in a bacchanal, and then Robert Brueler appears in a final scene in order to provide revelatory details and reminisce about the golden age of Bright Homes, of lights and gardens and children rushing to greet fathers emerging from cars as they returned from work at five o’clock. The closing monologue comes across as a somewhat sentimental ramble at the end of a superbly executed farce.

The play entertains, but audience members might depart with the certainty that the theater was aiming for something more. For some there there.

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

Detroit runs through November 7.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, October 2nd 2010

Form, Balance, Joy

mandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

It is an irony of contemporary aesthetics that accessibility is not considered a virtue. A degree of alienation between the general audience and the creator is a given, and a work of universal appeal is suspect. Any creation that is an uninhibited celebration of color, shape, and motion would go begging in a world of minimalist forms or conceptual constructs. Humor as a quality is particularly suspect. Alexander Calder not only produced work based on these elements, he made the first mobiles as a young artist in Paris. However, Calder and other modernist sculptors are undergoing a rehabilitation, more frequently referenced and considered by younger artists as a source of inspiration. In this context, the current exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Form, Balance, Joy, is a delight, assembling a comprehensive collection of Calder’s work combined with an accompanying gallery of contemporary sculptors.

Standing in the middle of the Calder exhibit is an experience akin to suspension in a tank filled with Mondrian’s fish. The wholly organic stabiles are a bank of small reefs. Apparently Calder did credit a visit to Mondrian’s studio as “shocking” him into modernism. Some smaller works contain presentiments of the current importance of repurpose and recycling: a smiling face is contrived from bits of broken glass and wires; the sculpture Bird is an assemblage of unpainted scavenged cans.

Calder did once work as a toymaker and later joked that his fans were all under age six. An element of playfulness appears to be the most common element among the seven contemporary artists in the southern gallery. Kristi Lippire, the only female artist in the group, utilizes everyday objects to create with an overt humorous aspect: her droll balloon-like piece in the sculpture garden is the more successful of her included works.

Jason Middlebrook’s piece, "From the Forest to the Mill to the Home to the Store to the Home to the Street and Back Again," is a departure from the exhibit’s lightness in tone and form. The very stationary mobile is suspended yards over the heads of viewers, a massive conflagration of scrap wood collected from Chicago alleys—flooring, cabinets, drawers, and doors—counterbalanced by the trunk of a tree. As heavy as some of the Calder pieces are light, it provides a fitting contrast in the midst of homage.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, September 6th 2010

A Parallelogram (7/1/2010)

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:57:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

In Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never intersect. In post-Euclidean geometry, all parallel lines under specific conditions—for example, placed on a globe—will converge. In Bruce Norris’ new play, A Parallelogram, parallelogram is the term used to describe a window of sorts in space and time. The protagonist’s future self visits her through such a passage and discloses details of her life and the world to come. The intersecting lives—that of Bee, her boyfriend Jay, and the garden worker J.J.—are sharply critiqued by future Bee (henceforth referred to as “Bee 2”) to comic effect. The relentless quality and sharpness of the playwright’s words counterbalance the poignancy of Bee’s predicament: informed of the future, she rallies her will to intervene, with results that are futile at best.

Marylouise Burke plays Bee 2 and wins the audience over with her depiction of the idealistic young woman transformed into a bespectacled, chain-smoking, oreo-gobbling, sweatsuit clad pile of cynical resignation. The primary benefit of aging, she confidently yet conspiratorially announces, is no longer giving a shit. Younger Bee (Kate Arrington) becomes an increasingly engaging character, moving from annoying to genuinely concerned and of concern as the origin of her conundrum emerges and is further complicated by Bee 2’s interventions. Tom Irwin plays Bee’s boyfriend Jay, a man buffeted by his personal relationships who breaks off the relationship under the weight of Bee’s apparent insanity. J.J.—the sincere and ultimately unassuming lawnboy—is portrayed by Tim Bickel.

Big ideas are bluntly addressed—Is there free will? Is love real? Does life hold any meaning whatsoever?—but the play’s most engaging moments lie in its precise comic timing and repartee. Norris shares explications of men falling in love with folding chairs, or individuals saved by parrot’s bites, and these specific sights brace the sides of this quadrilateral form. Anna D. Shapiro’s direction deftly renders repeated scenes gripping instead of tedious, and keeps baldly comic elements fresh. Todd Rosenthal designed a splendid set, a standard middle class condominium that spins to show a hospital room and back again. The quandary of the play is presented on its programs: "If someone could tell you in advance exactly what was going to happen in your life, and how everything was going to turn out, and if you knew you couldn’t do anything to change it, would you still want to go on with your life?" If my reiterated existence included another outing to the Steppenwolf to see A Parallelogram, I would.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, July 13th 2010

Xenogensesis II: Intergalactic Beings (4/30/2010)

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:02:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

I purchased a copy of Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild at a secondhand bookstore and let it rest on my shelf for years as next-to-read. Fortunately, it was in my bag when I was shuttled from the ER to a hospital for a week-long stay: I possessed a means of transport away from a battered attempt at sterility and the monotony of crisis to an intense, sparse yet beautifully rendered world. I was reading Octavia Butler. Therefore, when Nicole Mitchell’s jazz composition Xenogenesis II: Intergalactic Beings, a tribute to Octavia Butler, appeared on the program notice for Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I jumped at the chance to see it.

Mitchell and the Black Earth Ensemble presented this nine-part composition, the second part of a three-part contemplation of the unexpected result of nuclear conflagration, on a barren stage without sets or elaborate effects. As Mitchell is a noted visionary, it is not surprising that she chose to produce work inspired by the speculative author, nor is it surprising that the aural reverberations transported me just as much as Butler’s description of altered societies and beings. What did make me pause was the complete engagement that evolved between an almost full theater and the extremely innovative and almost alien sounds alternately squeaking, screaming, swelling, and rolling from the stage.

The composer and musicians came on to the stage half-draped in sheets of papery, crumpled chiffon over black clothing. White robes are conventionally associated with angels, but the intergalactic beings of the title have a more ominous mission: they seek to save the human species through abducting subjects for seduction and interbreeding. The themes of conquest and exploitation clearly mirror aspects of American history. However, these topics are presented as evocative echoes, not didactic hammer falls. The nine-movement piece is subtly wrought and ultimately powerful, starting with the stealing of our species and ending with inescapable metamorphosis. Xenogenesis manifests a haunting reminder of Octavia Butler’s verse: “All that you touch/You Change./ All that you Change/Changes you./ The only lasting truth/ is Change./ God/is Change.”

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, June 21st 2010

Endgame (04/13/2010)

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:56:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

The final stage of chess, the endgame, is a stage of the game in which few pieces are left on the board and pawns increase in significance. Endgames often center on trying to promote a pawn by moving it to the eighth rank. The king, typically sheltered from checkmate, changes into a strong piece that can be brought to the center of the board for attacks. In Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, four characters barely move in a box of a stage, rank is fluid, and no clear victory is assigned.

The Steppenwolf’s production of Beckett’s revered theatrical work is effective in its simplicity, with a set both barren and elegant, an accurate replication of the canonical script, and talented actors. More engaging than the previous staging of Endgame that I have seen—at a theater that shall remain unnamed, seeing that I fell asleep—this production benefits from strong performances, although on occasion these same performances might overshadow the deft minimalism of the text. Some of the lines, particularly early on, seem rushed, or perhaps I just require a more studied pace for thorough digestion.

The measured observations of the last half are a closer match to my understanding of Beckett. William Peterson’s Hamm is very active for a paraplegic: the audience is less likely to keep his imminent end in mind. He is regally seated on artfully makeshift throne, meticulously shifted to the center of the stage through his berating of his manservant, Clov. Hamm’s parents emerge from his and her trash cans to deliver nostalgic fugues. Particular kudos go to Martha Lavey for her poignant portrayal of Nell. Ian Barford plays Clov, and it is consistent with political readings of Beckett that a servant moves things forward. Clov’s moments of subversion contribute significantly to the work’s humor—light moments in a relentlessly bleak world. At one point Clov admonishes his master for having caused a woman to die of darkness. Endgame suggests the same end awaits us all.

Endgame plays at the Steppenwolf through June 6. David Sedaris is appearing for eight performances from June 8-13. Bruce Norris’s A Parallelogram premieres July 1 and runs through Sunday, August 29.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 18th 2010

Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction: Fictive Narrative, Primary Texts, and Responsive Writing

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Michael Boylan, Charles Johnson

Westview Press

I was interested in Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction because I so thoroughly enjoyed Steven Church’s Theoretical Killings. Church’s book could appear to be a group of essays on many aspects of philosophy, but actually is as innovative as it is entertaining, ranging from the formally philological to rampant pop-culture rampages. If Theoretical Killings is a fun amusement park ride of the life of the mind, Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction is a more informative museum installation, with relevant interactive exercises at every turn. Muriel Rukeyser stated that, "The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." Applicable to the study of ethics and humanities as well as philosophy, the book utilizes a strong manifestation of ‘fictive narrative philosophy’—a perspective that respects the role of story in philosophical discussion.

Boylan and Johnson’s work innovatively seeks to engage by taking historical figures from dusty pages to serve as protagonists of life’s travails and intrigues. Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hume, Murdoch, and King are included. Short stories are juxtaposed with excerpts from original texts. Students gain comprehension through indirect argument in the stories and via direct, deductive sections. Each group of readings is followed by study questions and essay suggestions as an aid to an understanding and construction of creative arguments.

This is a work of relative diversity for its genre, with the Buddha accompanying Plato and Arendt balancing Aquinas. The attempts to humanize these historical figures can be inadvertently amusing—readers learn of Kant’s dinner menu and Marx’s choice of color in neckties—but the overall quality of the fiction is of the caliber indicated by Johnson’s MacArthur Fellowship and National Book Award. Recommended for both classroom and informal study.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 12th 2010

Joe Frank (03/13/2010)

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Steppenwolf Theater

Chicago, Illinois

To presume to review Joe Frank is somewhat to akin to being a happy floating paramecium—although I do tend to fancy myself more of a sleek euglena, and in reality might more resemble an amorphous and permeable amoeba—to be such a creature, swimming giddily or cluelessly drifting in a little globule of ooze, and to attempt to gaze up through the tensile surface of the liquid from beneath, through the intervening air, up through the lenses of the microscope in their black enamel encasement, although such microscopes may be but a relic of my youth, and then attempt to gaze into the infinite void of the black, empty iris of the scientist that evaluates you.

The Guardian UK has stated without hyperbole that "Joe Frank is by far the most brilliant comic in America... [He] has created a series of dead-pan radio monologues so sharp and intelligent that during the quiet bits you can almost hear God taking notes." On Saturday, March 13, Frank performed the monologue “An Ordinary Man” at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. I feel privileged to have been in the audience, to have experienced evidence that the source of all those hours of amazing interwoven words, ironic and passionate, diffident and incisive—all originated from one individual human being. I have listened to the eponymous one-hour broadcasts on the local public radio station for years. This particular piece is typical. The characters range from one true loves to bar room declaimers, hitchhikers performing sociological research, and drenched ex-wives. Amidst such a dense wave of information, wordplay, and fulsome darkness pierced by the absurd, themes can only be described in such broad terms as ‘meaning,’ ‘alienation,’ and ‘life.’

To listen to Joe Frank is to engage in a sublime existential voyeurism, but even that seems too clichéd, too puerile, too superficial, too glib a description, to be an accurate appraisal of the artiste. The word artiste, is, of course, itself, too odiously pretentious a word to be contained in this review, one that the performer himself would wisely excise or assign only to a pathetic, broken, character, a poseur, a person of lost hope who nonetheless persists, a person that we all have been. Perhaps an ordinary man.

Unfortunately, there are no upcoming performances by Joe Frank to recommend, but his recordings can be heard on public radio stations throughout the United States. Scheduled plays at the Steppenwolf this season include The Brother/Sister Plays, Adore, A Parallelogram, and Endgame, all fitting accompaniments to “Just An Ordinary Man” in a season in which the theater examines the contrasts between the public and private self.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, April 21st 2010

Precision Pro Kitchen Scale

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By EatSmart

I hesitate to endorse a ‘nutrition’ oriented product on a feminist website due to the ongoing tyranny of the emaciated female form in marketing, eating disorders, and fear of accusations of insensitivity, insecurity, close-mindedness, and size-ism. However, here are the facts of my situation: an undiagnosed medical condition made me overweight, and now I want to lose that weight. Half of the pounds evaporated as the result of successful (non-bariatric) surgery, but I would like to lose the entire quantity and return to my healthy size. A recovering bulimic roommate hid my body scale in the mid ‘90s, and I have not owned a scale since but prefer to go by clothes size.

I have always objected to strict dieting as a step on the slippery slope to anorexia. It also feeds an oppressive ideology (see Susan Bordo) and is ultimately ineffective because the metabolism lowers at a rate corresponding to the decrease in calories unless the dieter exercises. (And here is the inevitable) BUT now I seek helpful tools to assist in weight loss and maintenance. While aesthetic and emotional motivations may be suspect, concern regarding heart disease, the number one killer of women in the United States, is entirely legitimate. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provides a site to help create an individualized heart-healthy diet. The EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale is another useful device.

Here’s why I like it: reasonably priced, it is also small, discreet, and multifunctional, as well as simple and thoughtfully including a tare feature (subtracting the weight of a dish or storage container). It works on any continent, or with your recipe of choice, offering four measurement modes: grams, ounces, kilograms, and pounds. In addition to the cross-trainer, free-weights, walking, bicycling, medical supervision, and the uninhibited enjoyment of the food that I do consume, I appreciate the use of this scale on the road to regained health.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, March 21st 2010

Kaija Saariaho and the International Contemporary Ensemble (11/19/2009)

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

In the LeGuin novel The Left Hand of Darkness a character notes the dearth of female composers. Thus, I was delighted to learn of the music of Kaija Saariaho. The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) performed four works by Finn composer Kaija Saariaho—Brad Lubman conducting—at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Chicago MCA’s stage is generally a sure bet for an engaging or entertaining evening. Earlier this year I enjoyed the Hypocrites’ enthusiastic (albeit not entirely coherent) interpretation of Frankenstein, and other events have included Butoh set to Elvis, an Italian woman painting on the side of a live mare, a synchronized British insult troupe, and exquisitely formed performers executing German philosophy as verbal jujitsu.

The opening selection was “Terrestre” (2002), a flute-intensive chamber piece further enlivened by energetic percussive elements characteristic of the composer. Claire Chase’s flute solo garnered sincere and sustained applause. The composition’s inspiration is the poems of Saint-John Perse, a collection entitled Oiseaux (Birds) in particular, and perhaps it is a risk of reading the program notes, but it seemed inevitable that the flute’s song echo some ornithological element, reeds weaving amidst the percussion. “Six Japanese Gardens” followed, a sole percussionist incorporating electronic waves, as well as sampled natural sounds, song, and percussion recorded in Japan.

Saariaho was in attendance and answered questions from the audience mid-show prior to the intermission. One listener inquired on how the various elements were interwoven in the immediately previous piece, speculating that it must have been quite demanding to combine so many technical elements. The conductor immediately diminished such concerns: “He has a foot petal.” Another audience member recollected that a visiting Finnish conductor once reminisced that he and Saariaho gave a concert to an audience of two, one member of which was his mother. The composer conceded that this was indeed the case, and that her zeal to bring experimental music to new audiences once led to a performance in a kindergarten, and that on another occasion an orchestra was engaged for an event that they entirely forgot to publicize. But the arts persist.

“Solar” was the final piece performed, but no less engaging than the three previous. A high volume set of notes quickly bifurcates and then trifurcates and then again. Subsequent layers of sound soothed, but come back to the main theme, departing to return in a way that seemed almost flirtatious, but more vital. I look forward to further discovery of Kaija Saariaho’s music as well as performances by ICE.

ICE appears with the John Jaspere Company in “Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful thinking, and Flat Out Lies” at the Museum of Contemporary Art April 9 – 11, 2010

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, January 30th 2010

YummyEarth Organic Super Sour Pops

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By YummyEarth

I don’t have a sweet tooth; I have sweet teeth. No: I don’t have sweet teeth, I have sweet bones. So the challenge is to get through life with a minimum of caloric catastrophe and dental damage. Thankfully, there are a wide variety of health-conscious treats available from YummyEarth.

Founded by two fathers who wanted to spare their children chemical dyes, fake seasoning, and corn syrup, all YummyEarth candies are USDA and EU certified organic. Admittedly, I’ve heard for years that corn syrup is bad for you, but never investigated the particulars. Apparently high fructose corn syrup not only pumps people full of empty calories, it also interferes with two bodily substances, Leptin and Gherlin.

Leptin and Gherlin may sound like two evil Tolkien characters, but apparently Leptin signals to the brain that you are full, and Gherlin increases appetite. What high fructose corn syrup does is decrease the production to Leptin, and increase the production of Gherlin. So you think you have more room in your stomach and feel hungrier that you actually are. Great.

I had the pleasure of tasting the high fructose corn syrup-free Super Sour Pops, and it was a satisfying experience, indeed. The flavors are Strawberry Smash, Sour Apple Tart, Googly Grape and Very Very Cherry – the apple is my favorite. Each lollipop is only twenty-two calories, so it’s not surprising that I’d slurp through three in rapid succession. Even at sixty-six calories, it’s a reasonable treat.

YummyEarth also offers Fruit Pops, Strawberry Pops, Vitamin C Pops, and Fiesta Pops. The candy drops include Citrus C Grove, Pomegranate Pucker, Very Very Cherry, Cheeky Lemon, Wet Face Watermelon, Wild Peppermint, Cinnamon Stick, Ginger Zest, Roadside Root Beer, and Hopscotch Butterscotch. But it’s the Hot Chili Pops that I’m going to have to track down.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, January 18th 2010

Zebra

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:59:00 +0000

By Karl Blau

K Records

“When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras,” admonishes the medical aphorism. There are some quiet percussive hoof beats in “Goodbye Little Song” and other tracks on Karl Blau's new twelve-song release, Zebra.

“Waiting for the Wind” opens with bells that sound like wind chimes and a relaxing vibe. The tempo picks up on “Dark Sedan Returns,” but returns to a righteous sedateness. These are tunes that I wouldn't mind falling asleep to—but in a good way.

The jazz on Zebra is not paint-peeling experimentalism, but strolls between the strangely soporific and strongly folkish. Masterful, evocative, with a kind baritone, the entire project seems somewhat pop-ambient, folk-ambivalent, and has a global flair; the African influence is evident. Karl Blau is a well-traveled musician. He has toured Japan twice, Europe last spring, and both coasts of the United States. He's currently touring with LAKE, but perhaps Africa is next.

“Black with white stripes or white with black stripes?” asks Blau's MySpace page. The alternating stripes mean that this is not a bad zebra to think of.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, December 18th 2009