Art – Magpie & Whale

My lovely college friend Hannah Kushnick co-runs this awesome thing every month in Chicago. Pecha Kucha is Japanese for “the sound of conversation,” apparently, and it’s a presentation format in which you make 20 slides that hold for 20 seconds each. She and artist Rachel Herman ask presenters to adapt this any way they see fit, including using theatrical devices and audience participation. This is an unofficial series, held at the amazing Hyde Park Art Center, and Hannah asked me back in April if I wanted to present on the theme of “repair.” The other presenters were so, so great, and we had an awesome discussion (with wine!) after, plus it took place inside a giant sculpture of a bull. You should make it to the next one if you can.

You all know how much I love Cymbeline. A lot of that comes from how frankly wacky it can be. I started thinking about our desire to fix or iron out things we don’t understand, which then led to thoughts about the PowerPoint presentation we’ve all dreaded (and secretly always wanted to sabotage). Here’s my off-road pecha kucha; I hope it makes you smile.

Hello. Hello, welcome. Thank you. To both our esteemed chairs, I appreciate your time. I’m Edeth Garblers, team leader for this action committee, and this is my presentation.

Continue reading “Off-Road Pecha Kucha: Repairing Cymbeline” →

As soon as the news was out, people were tweeting me and sending me links. @MayorEmanuel‘s identity is a secret no more. On the plus side, this Dan Sinker seems like a pretty cool guy. But I’m still left with a sense of melancholy. It took less than a week for the internet’s best and greatest mystery to be torn down. As a friend put it, “The mystery is fucking over and I’m not sure what we really gain by that.”

Of course, it was inevitable. We don’t like secrets much, especially online. But I miss that feeling that anywhere I went, @MayorEmanuel could be right there, and I’d never know. When @MayorEmanuel cursed out Michelle Malkin, it came from on high. This is not to say Dan Sinker is not a man who has communed with Chicago luminaries and the glowing heart of Studs Terkel — his writings clearly demonstrate otherwise — but it was more fun before. I hate to be that person, but I am.

I got really excited when I figured out how I could respond to my @MayorEmanuel article. My supplies are all in place, and I had all sorts of plans. There would be ducks, and bones, and mustaches and even a Honda Civic. Now that there’s a real person out there, I feel a little self-conscious about going forward with the rest. Tributes to fake Twitter accounts are fun; tributes to actual people are a little weird. So, all we have now is a draft. But it gets the point across, I think.

And hey, with Dan Sinker out from behind the curtain, perhaps we can expect what I want most from this post-@MayorEmanuel age: a book.

Category: Art

Off-Road Pecha Kucha: Repairing Cymbeline

Art: Odd number