Learning at the Library » News Displays

The Chicago Picasso

Jennifer Govan — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:14:28 +0000

I catch a glimpse from the corner of my dad’s office window high up in the glass skyscraper. Sitting cross-legged, dizzy looking down, I try to replicate the puzzling sculpture on paper with pencil. Is it a bird, dog, an aardvark, baboon head, or possible profile of a woman? I have not heard yet of Cubism and find the shape, despite the clean lines, difficult to draw. What emerges one dimensionally is even more abstract than the 50 foot steel, 160 ton, three dimensional piece in the Civic Center. I shake my head, tempted to crumple the paper, but instead, fold it up and pop it in my pocket.

On level ground I study the newly unveiled sculpture, sensing that Picasso’s untitled work celebrates art, rather than the rights and duties of citizens… but then I watch kids my age climb on and slide down its base, and am not so sure. His untitled sculpture looks different from all angles.

Picasso never visited our city, but he set the stage for placing monumental modern art in the Loop. Prophesy foretold by Mayor Daley, what was so strange then is so familiar now. The Chicago Picasso celebrates events, birthdays, holidays, sports, and home openers. It dons a Blackhawks cap, Chicago Bears helmet, or party hat, weathering the extreme winters and baking hot summers – an icon and landmarked symbol of civic pride.

Referencing our news display, Picasso Exhibited in Paris, Friday, 6/24

Patent in Play

Jennifer Govan — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:56:47 +0000

Her favorite blue jeans sport a gaping hole across the right knee, seam to seam. Hand-me-down from her brother and previously her neighbor, the Polos are faded comfortably to a soft speckled gray in some places, reminding us of tiny eggs in a bird’s nest. Together we ponder the first real bike ride, seeing her taut white knuckles on the handlebars, her back as straight as lightning, as she loops around the green — and doesn’t fall off. And the magical way she transforms gnarled trees into hefty snow forts or secret pirate ships. She tackles red pines and blossoming magnolias along the river’s promenade, blue denim protecting her sturdy legs.

We leave the hole alone through weekend rounds of hide-and-seek, soccer, and crazy golf, and at last decide on a patch, the first she ever sews. We select samples from spare fabrics used in a classroom diorama project. Red hibiscus and purple petrea sprawl over dark green foliage, and a wisp of yellow canary adds flare. We trim or tuck the frayed white threads and choose red for sewing. The needle is hard to push through the fabric, but the stitches are perfect, pleasing to the eye. Play and learning join, fasten, mend, decorate.

She steps into her jeans, pulling them quickly up to her hips. Copper rivets reinforcing the pockets, felt and cotton reinforcing the knee, the bright, now less air-conditioned Polos feel just that little bit different… She worries if patched jeans can be worn to school on dress-down days, temporarily opts for dresses and skirts, and soon asks her teacher for advice. The answer is yes, especially for the upcoming trip to the county farm.

Referencing our recent café news display, Strauss & Jacob Patent Blue Jeans

Sugarplum Visions

Jennifer Govan — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:08:28 +0000

My father smiles gently and bends down, whispering that I will see the Sugarplum Fairy. During the next few weeks at Mrs. Klaus’ class, I anticipate through all five ballet positions how the eponymous candy translates into Joffrey at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater — a sweet piece of dried plum becoming a perfect twirl of pale lavender — layers of ballerina tulle sparkling with sugar crystals like sunbeams on snow. My mother has given navy fishnets for my blue leotard, an outfit that is noticed by others dressed in shell pink and white.

The small nutcracker doll on my sill guards the window, though I barely sleep the night before. Driving along the quiet, icy lake front in our old blue Buick feels like an almost other worldly passage to a frozen magical moment. We slowly make our way across East Congress Street, whose white-laced tree branches capture a red cardinal heralding in the Christmas season. We wait with baited breadth for Act II of The Nutcracker Suite.

Tchaikovsky is heavenly, like the Land of Sweets. I see an enchanted Russia in the glass mirror of the distant lake, blue peppermint icicles in the backdrop. Clara and her Prince are welcomed by the Sovereign of Sweets who elegantly ushers in a colorful celebration of foreign dances. We savor chocolate, coffee, and tea in the air, hungry for something more. Ethereal and delicate, the Sugar Plum Fairy, in glimmering, white satin and silk, pirouettes exquisitely across the stage and circles toe-to-toe around her cavalier. Her layered netting recalls a fairy’s wings, light, almost transparent. She is far sweeter than dragee — an unearthly vision of grace and beauty, far surpassing a school girl’s quiet dream.

Referencing Our News Display: The Nutcracker Suite Premiers in Russia, Monday, 12/20

Charting Columbus

Jennifer Govan — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:23:24 +0000

The dock is our compass, our legs, the arrows facing west. Staring up into the inky blackness, we draw a path from star to star resembling the hull of a ship, as little waves lap the salty posts like a cat licking a bowl of cream. The harbor is quiet, but for the soft purr of an old Whaler guided in from a day’s fishing by the beam of the red and white, peppermint striped light house, fueled still to this day by kerosene. At a different point, we are in Hopetown, Abaco, which was settled by the British loyalists who sought refuge after the American Revolution.

Barefoot, with our backs flat against the hard wood, we think of Columbus five centuries before, as we connect the celestial diamonds. That one over there is Palos, the other one Guanahani, or San Salvador. We follow the points in his journey, sailing due west and back again to Europe– the Canary Islands, Santo Domingo, Cuba, the Bahamas, the Azure Islands, and Lisbon – all twinkling as the scents of bitter breadfruit and sweet guava mingle with the rustling of coconut palms around us. It is a long voyage, fraught with uncertainty, exhaustion, and disease– near mutiny on board. Fighting summer tempests, sailors fear falling off the edge of the world into the mouths of deep sea serpents. The North Star studs the tip of the Santa Maria’s fore-mast, as the spars of the Pinta and Nina join in a hopeful procession of wooden crosses. After ten weeks the big dipper scoops Madeira onto the sandy beaches bordered by purple prickly pear bushes – the weary explorers soon to alight in the dawn of a rich, new land. Christopher Columbus keeps a secret log charting his travels, and we write the open Bahamian sky.

Referencing Our News Display: Columbus Lands in the Bahamas, Tuesday, 10/12 in the Everett Café

Home Fortitude

Jennifer Govan — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:30:52 +0000

Built in 1870, our house survived the Great Chicago Fire. She witnessed from her large bay windows the greedy flames devouring our town after Bessie, the cow, kicked over the lantern in the O’Leary’s barn. Just how close she was in her infancy, I could never be sure, but the sight and smell must have been terrible from any distance as the firemen fought to control the inferno that lasted two full days and raged over four miles — one of the worst American disasters of the nineteenth century.

My plain desk was made of an old piece of wood that stretched cozily over the radiator and pleasantly under the windows overlooking the leafy oak trees on Orrington Avenue. I imagined the move north, the sheer feat of our home’s safe transport many moons later to the corner of Library Place. I pictured a skit large and strong enough to carry a double story, several-bedroom dwelling, as I wrestled plane geometry into the wee high school hours. I thought about shape, size, the relative position of figures, and the properties of space – using my mind’s eye to draw parallels.

Our house was the only one I’ve ever lived in — a great rambler with uncountable nooks and crannies, an eternally creaky staircase and thickly carpeted floorboards, slightly askew walls and ceilings, and a basement that sported cave crickets, or popping spiders, as we called them. They sounded like bubble gum when we accidentally stepped on them on our way down to the laundry. My room luckily was tucked above and behind the front door entrance, and from my sill under the second set of windows, I could practically reach out and climb the trees– and delight in the chirping of real crickets from the branches.

She’s still there – intact and perhaps too easily found through Google. It’s strange to see the change in color from honeydew green to dull amber on her siding, as I note the absence of our white picket fence and grape vines that trailed the trellis over the gate. There’s a ladies’ three speed bicycle propped against a maple on the sidewalk, waiting for the twenty-mile journey along the lakefront down to Chicago – a path I frequently took.

It’s said that a house has a distinctive character, marked by design, time, and its inhabitants. Ours lasted, and Chicago was rebuilt, quickly becoming a populous and economically important city. I am not too convinced about the popping spiders, but I did ace that geometry exam — finally seeing the genius of Euclid in front of the fireplace as Beethoven’s Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, or Recollections of Country Life filled our suburban living room.

Referencing Our News Display: The Great Chicago Fire , Friday, 10/8, in the Everett Café

Cave Visit

Jennifer Govan — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:22:02 +0000

The long, jagged crystals look like light blue icicles, hanging there from the roof of the cave as they reflect the watery depth of 55 feet. It is beautiful, delicate, and eerie at the same time – a subterranean palace of precious mineral nestled beneath the warm, pink sands of Bermuda. Though they were visited by Mark Twain, you won’t necessarily know the Crystal Caves exist unless you read about them, or somehow stumble upon a local conversation. If you take a deep breath you’ll smell the strange, dank mustiness of the salt and rock, zip-locked cool between the sharp points and smooth surface which occasionally reveals a slight ripple from the tiny movement of colorful fins.

As I flick on my flashlight I fancy pictures of tropical life hidden within the crystals — fashioning gulls and sandpipers, ghost and hermit crabs, yellow tang and angelfish, seahorses and sea cucumbers in the glowing shadows of the rock – perhaps seeing a simple line and pole; ancient, rustic boat; and some unusual human form with webbed hands and feet, to form a marine collage which will be preserved by the simple salt air and sea. Our guide explains the history of the cave – how, in 1884 Percy Wilkinson lowered his 14-year old son, Bernard, down with a strong rope and bicycle lamp — and he advises us to walk carefully to avoid damage to the ecosystem.

The Lascaux cave paintings were discovered more than half century earlier by a group of teenage boys in the French Dordogne, but I know about them and draw imaginative parallels from a distance of 3,000 miles. Upper Paleolithic animal drawings yield valuable information about human life, while stunning natural formations, 30 million years old, tell us about the earth on which we tread, and the water in which we swim. Art is fragile, treasured like crystal, and so is our human place in the sands of time – an opportunity to visit that crown jewel in the Atlantic – gentile Bermuda, with her pretty, pastel houses; trim, green lawns; and clusters of coconut trees. I can make an etching from the salt of the traveler’s experience.

Referencing our news display: Lascaux Cave Paintings Are Discovered, on Friday, 9/10 in the Everett Cafe

Of Metal Boxes and Money Trees

Jennifer Govan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:25:49 +0000

Intent on depositing a week’s worth of waitressing wages and tips, I was directed by the suited teller to a metal box in the entrance to my local bank. I was working that summer in an ice cream parlor, saving my hard-earned dollars for college, and I worried whether automation would prove a reliable substitute for the warmer human interaction to which I was accustomed. The line for deposit was long, but moving steadily. I followed the directions on the screen and fed my envelope to the famished machine which burped back a printed receipt in less than thirty seconds – proof of a highly satisfying greenback meal in much less time than it took to pay courtesy to the bankers. It was 1979, and I knew that ATM’s had been around for at least a decade, but I never had occasion, or inclination, to use one – so fine had bank tellers been in my town.

It became hard to imagine not having access to the 24/7 services provided through automated teller machines. In fact, it became even harder to imagine ever needing to bother a human teller for the full services that technology provided. ATM’s revolutionized business’ capacity to deliver services efficiently, sending a clever invitation to libraries, pharmacies, home improvement stores, and many other places to promote self service and greater consumer independence.

Somewhere along the line, service began to feel less good, particularly in the economic downturn of the 1980s and then again in the first decade of the 2000s. Banks became smarter and hungrier, charging customers to use ATM’s and hard-selling at every opportunity a new kind of service, often impossible to understand in the finer print. They needed to recoup security expenses due to increasing crime, and they began finding other ways to make profits – effectively eating more and more oysters, like the Walrus and Carpenter.

At The Moment it’s more fun to speculate, as my children tend to do, that we live in world where dollars, free for the taking, really do grow on trees in the park right across from us– better yet, a place where everything is free, and we don’t need money, metal boxes, or human tellers lecturing on how to balance our check books. I ask who tends the garden to keep them watered and healthy, and I’m told that trees just look after themselves, relying, as they do, on the rain and sun.

Referencing Our News Display: The First ATM Opens, Thursday, 9/2 in the Everett Cafe

Beyond the Eclipse

Jennifer Govan — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:39:13 +0000

Our family telescope sits in a silver tripod close to the early red geraniums, their green leaves fuzzy against my kneecaps. I am barely tall enough to look through the lens, hoping to examine the fine details of the Moon as she passes between the Earth and the Sun which will look like a dark ring. My father gives me a little boost, and in just a few minutes the sky is shrouded in darkness as though someone has dropped a black veil over her face. The Earth, I know, is still moving, tilted on her axis and spinning like a top around the Sun. We are smaller than grains of sand, minuscule in the cosmos, and I’m thinking of how I can stand straight when the planet beneath me is upside down.

I am hesitant, speculating if anything else is moving up there — my lens resting as lightly as a Blue Morpho on the shaded glass, my eyes then blinking like butterfly wings to focus. The darkness passes in but a few short seconds, and it is bright again that Spring day. In my hand is a small, milky-white moonstone carved in the shape of a rabbit, a pendant from The Rock Shop – purchased on our long drive back home from last summer’s Maine vacation. Its pearly translucence reminds me of the glow of the Moon when the Sun reflects his light on her – when the other part of Earth is right side up – and I am careful to keep it safe in my rose-painted, Chinese jewelry box for all the years ahead.

The Moon, our natural satellite, is pulling the oceans and lakes in streams of white froth and foam — myriads of creatures in the tide. If magicians can pull rabbits out of hats, can the moon draw life from the magic of the Sun and the mysterious water buried beneath her surface? I am too young to know, but not to wonder.

Be sure to see our news exhibit: The Great Moon Hoax, in the Everett Café, Wednesday, 8/25

Henry Ford at Old Farm Road

Jennifer Govan — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:34:46 +0000

My grandfather Felix owned a vintage collection of car prints, a prized possession that featured all the early Fords, many of which are physically on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The colorful prints included the 1896 Quadracycle, Ford’s first car; the 1905 Model B; 1909 Model T Touring;1916 Apperson Jack Rabbit; 1919 Model T Sedan; 1926 Wills Sainte Claire Roadster; 1962 Mustang; and others. Some two dozen works were matted in asparagus green, matching the painting on the walls, as well as his 1976 Cadillac Sedan Deville. They were framed in antique gold, decorating the back hall and stairwell in his Northfield home on Old Farm Road.

Never an opportunity did my grandfather miss to share the Ford prints with visiting family members, especially the boys, his grandsons. From the landing near the maid’s room, I eavesdropped on timeless stories about the birth of the automobile and revolutionization of industry. They discussed Ford’s business philosophy, racing hobbies, stance against labor unions, and promotion of early aviation technology – drawing a vivid portrait of the man enhanced by the art around them.

At other quieter times I enjoyed hearing how my grandmother as a young girl learned to drive the family jalopy on her family farm in Nebraska. The concept somewhat revolutionary at the time, I could not equate her gentle, ladylike demeanor to her tomboy tendencies — or fully comprehend how much trouble “Jimmy” got into by borrowing a Ford for occasional trips to town.

My grandparents lived through the period of rapid advancement in transportation: first the automobile, then the airplane. They lived in places where cars were indispensable and public transportation was less convenient – where the idea of not having a car of some sort — Ford, American Motor, or Chrysler — reigned inconceivable, from both a practical and social angle. It’s too easy to forget, living in a big city where buses carry passengers to their doorsteps, here in the superfast heyday of the computer and the golden age of information.

Referencing Our News Display, Remembering Henry Ford, Friday, July 30, in the Everett Cafe

NYC Black Out

Jennifer Govan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:06:50 +0000

The message I’m composing disappears like a genie in a bottle. Words vaporize into the monitor, the unfinished sentence tilted in the air like an italicized question mark. I look up and see the fluorescent lights flickering, punctuated by the sighs of nearby librarians. The mustard brown air conditioners rattle like arthritic snakes, then drone to a dull stop. Co-workers are standing around the fourth floor in the dim light of a hazy mid August afternoon, breathing in the dust of old library books and the fumes of construction, wondering what’s next. We learn of a major power outage affecting the whole of the Northeast, parts of the Midwest, and even Canada. The news spreads fast and we are released, free, but uncertain, to the urban elements.

Subways aren’t running, as overcrowded buses heave their weight to avoid cars in the absence of traffic signals. Police officers waive their arms and direct pedestrians to the curb. With little or no breeze, the heat and humidity are intense — the concrete baked like rock cakes. Everyone is in a rush, but everything has come to a standstill this day, August 14, 2003.

It’s a long hot walk four miles across town, and I’m thankful to have a reliable form of transportation. My feet hurt in high heeled sandals, but as long as I can get home it doesn’t much matter. I am remembering my aunt’s vivid accounts of 1977 – the looting, destruction, and violence; the stories of smashed windows and muggings in Greenwich Village, not to mention Brooklyn. How long will this one last and will it be dangerous? Will glass be broken and people hurt? I fear the worst a quarter of a century later.

I reach East End Avenue and borrow a flashlight to climb four flights, feeling my way up the railing, counting fifteen steps to each landing. The hallways are pitch black, though it’s late afternoon. I gather water and candles in preparation and cook using gaslight. The ice in the cooler is melting fast – the ice cream now a sweet soup of vanilla swiss almond. Our baby is crying, and we can’t sleep, another on the way. With herculean effort, my husband carries the stroller down the stairwell. I am hugely relieved when he returns, telling tales of Second Avenue parties, tables of free food on the sidewalks, and people lounging on front door steps.

The lights click on the living room, and the ac’s start humming again. Sixteen hours later we are the last restored neighborhood in New York City. I marvel at modern science, thinking of Benjamin Franklin’s kite string and dangling metal key, as well as Thomas Edison’s carbon filament bulb. I catch a glimpse of the lanterns on the balcony terrace — their etched glass suffused with candle smoke –and contemplate the mischievous genie dancing in the air around us.

Referencing Our News Display: Major New York City Blackout, Tuesday, 7/13

Learning at the Library » News Displays

The Chicago Picasso

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