Birds of a feather



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Maskerade

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I’ve barely noticed the lockdown, so busy have I been sublimating any anxiety into frenzied and probably pointless activity. In the past month, I’ve made 250-odd (and I do mean odd) fabric masks. Initially they were commissioned by medical personnel to protect and prolong the use of N95 masks, and later they were requested by everyone from Native American groups to food banks to homeless shelters. No one knows whether cloth masks shield the breather or the breathed-upon from COVID-19, but nearly everyone is required to wear one now. The utility of the masks I make, in particular, cannot be known since I work on donated fabrics—different ones on different days, none bearing any mystery as to why they were donated. The conundrum of the masks is that the more impervious they are, the more impervious they are. In other words, a mask that allows you to breathe is not preventing disease transmission. I know more than the average person now about masks, and that means I know nothing, sinc...
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Hooting at OWLs

A couple years ago, I audited an African-American literature class, taught by a virtuosic professor who wove music and art and American history into a syllabus that was symphonic in its complexity and power. His performance as the conductor of this score was life-changing, for me at least.  Among the homework assignments was to attend a retrospective of the African-American painter Kerry James Marshall. In the following class, he asked students for their response to the exhibit. One young woman said her experience was spoiled by the presence of “old white ladies.” The scorn with which she uttered this epithet took my breath away. For one thing, I was the only old white lady in the class—most of the other students were young people of color—so I felt like an intruder under a spotlight. Which in a sense I was.  I wasn’t offended. In fact, I almost savored this little taste of being the object of racial, ageist, sexist hatred. It was experiential education. I told a friend ...
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