The Week that Flew By

This week, in a long-delayed response to an email from my advisor, I wrote to her, "Now that I am teaching, each day seems to last a year but each week seems to last a minute." It's fulfilling work, but it is intense; because I teach one morning class and one evening class each Monday and Wednesday, those days feel like two. I've caught myself saying "yesterday" when referring to that morning...

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: Student papers. They're solid, but I still do not recommend them. 

I'm listening to: On Friday night, I attended a concert organized by our friends' teenage daughter to raise funds for Hungry for Music. She performed "No One Else" from the show Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812--beautifully, I might add--and the song captivated me. 

I'm watching: Last night I saw Murder on the Orient Express. It was exactly what I was in the mood for: a campy caper. The performances were excellent, and it was suspenseful enough to be interesting without ever being tense. I won't lie--it's not a great movie. It is a fine one, though, and I left the theater in a good mood. 

What are you reading, listening to, or watching this week? 

The Week of 110%

I attended a conference in Cleveland last weekend, which is why I missed posting my regular Sunday morning update. Although the conference was fulfilling--an opportunity to learn and make connections with generous, passionate, and activist colleagues--the result was that I had no time for relaxation and recovery and went straight into this week feeling behind on my work. It has been twelve straight days of cranking it out, particularly now that I'm teaching on Mondays and Wednesdays. I did go see a movie with a friend last night, and I've given myself a few hours this morning to drink my coffee, listen to jazz, and read the paper. So I feel restored and ready to dive into teaching tomorrow. 

Former Anshe Chesed shul and #CLE Jewish Center that became Cory United Methodist Church, Malcolm X Ballot or Bullet speech given here pic.twitter.com/kWmHNIfb9k

— Avigail Oren (@HistorianOren) October 29, 2017

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I've been immersed in the two texts I assigned to my students: Tyler Anbinder's City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York and Mitchell Duneier's Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea. I also dipped into a book that I'm embarrassed to admit I should have read years ago, Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. I am incorporating sections into an in-class activity my students will do to learn about the creation of segregated black neighborhoods in northern cities in the early twentieth century. 

I'm listening to: I'm still listening to a lot of Tom Petty these days. I enjoyed an episode that Slate's Hit Parade podcast did on Petty and Prince, punnily entitled Le Petty Prince. I was unaware of how the two artists' careers intersected throughout the years, and host Chris Molanphy helpfully contextualizes their decades of hits within the context of rock n' roll history.  

I'm watching: Last night I saw Frederick Wiseman's new film, Ex Libris, on the New York Public Library. Beyond being a fan of cinéma vérité generally and of Wiseman specifically, I adore libraries, particularly the NYPL. I actually began graduate school with the intention of writing about how the institution historically provided health information and wellness services to immigrant New Yorkers! At three hours and 17 minutes, Ex Libris is a bit too long and drags at the end, but for the first two and a half hours it is a joy to go behind the scenes in several branch libraries and in the research rooms at the Schwartzman building in Bryant Park. Wiseman shows how the library provides education and access to knowledge to voracious learners all across New York, be they children building robots in the Bronx or adults listening to a lecture about Karl Marx in Greenwich Village. 

What are you reading, listening to, or watching this week? 

The Last Week Before Teaching

Tomorrow I begin teaching two half-semester courses at CMU--one on the history of the term and concept of the ghetto since 1516, when the Venice Ghetto was established, and one on the history of US immigration through the lens of New York City. I've spent the past few weeks preparing syllabi, writing lectures, and designing assessments, but at 10:30 am tomorrow the students will come into class and the show will really get on the road. I'm really looking forward to sharing two historical topics that I care about so passionately with CMU students. 

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I'm still working my way through Thomas Vinciguerra's Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of the New Yorker. I've also been dipping into Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews, which was a wonderful 30th birthday gift from my aunt + uncle + cousins. It has been enormously helpful in contextualizing Jewish life before the establishment of the Venice Ghetto in 1516. 

I'm listening to: I can no longer recall where I heard about this album, but I've been enjoying listening to Kelela's Take Me Apart while preparing lectures.

I'm looking forward to watching: I'm about to head off to the premiere of the new episode of Anthony Bourdain's show Parts Unknown that was filmed in Pittsburgh!

What are you reading, listening to, or watching this week? 

The Week of Virality

On Wednesday, I had the joy of watching a piece I helped edit for The Metropole go viral--well, viral by academic blog standards. The post, a history of integration efforts in Shaker Heights, Ohio, was shared on Facebook by Black Lives Matter: Cleveland and on Twitter by Celeste Ng! It brings me so much satisfaction to see the post reaching beyond academic historians, because segregation in the housing market is still a critical problem in American society. Although the piece focuses on efforts made in the 1950s and 1960s to integrate this Cleveland suburb, the author argues that American cities and suburbs could benefit from some of the strategies used in mid-century Shaker Heights. 

A view inside the Lego grocery store I built with a friend this week. He's two years old.

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I confess that I abandoned a book half-way through this week, the first time in a long while that I've done so--there's just too much good stuff out there, and not enough time to read. In search of something different, I picked up Thomas Vinciguerra's Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of the New Yorker. The book was a graduation gift from a beloved friend, and part of the joy in reading it is that I think of her and her husband every time I pick it up.

This morning, I also read this dynamo article in The New York Times: "Becoming a Steelworker Liberated Her. Then Her Job Moved to Mexico." The piece is laudatory for presenting Shannon Mulcahy, its subject, as a three-dimensional, contradictory, and compassionate woman. In doing so, author Farah Stockman helps the reader understand that the American working class is equally dynamic and complicated. What I think will go overlooked in the conversation about the piece (and shouldn't) is how the movement of manufacturing to Mexico and elsewhere also affects middle class Americans. Stockman writes that The Rexnord Corporation, Mulcahy's employer, decided to move the plant to Monterrey, Mexico in order to generate bigger returns for the company's shareholders--the majority of which are the mutual funds that many Americans have invested in to save for their retirement. The problem, which Stockman never explicitly addresses but which is implied in the piece, is that quality goes down when manufacturing shifts abroad to poorly trained, less experienced workers; as a result, Americans' retirement funds are now invested in companies whose products are less dependable and may decline in value. So it may not be only steelworkers who are losing when corporations send manufacturing abroad.

I'm listening to: Beck released a new album on Friday, and I've been listening to its uptempo tunes on repeat all weekend. 

I'm looking forward to watching: Yesterday I started watching GLOW on Netflix, about the 1980s show of the same name. I'm captivated by the scenes of petite Alison Brie learning how to wrestle, and I've found the ensemble cast delightfully weird. So I'm looking forward to finishing the first season this evening. 

What are you reading, listening to, or watching this week? 

The Week that was Hard Fought

Looking back over what I've accomplished this week, I'm quite shocked. I completed two major projects for clients, volunteered with two different organizations, and taught two classes--one Living Room Learning session, and one class for teenagers at the JCC. I also networked, socialized, practiced yoga, and got my annual flu shot. 

Yesterday, then, was a well-deserved break. I spent it outside in the unseasonably warm, bright sunshine, first at a friend's sporting event and later at a neighborhood block party; it was an opportunity to soak up some precious vitamin D before the onset of the grey Pittsburgh winter and a chance to meet interesting new people, expanding my world ever wider. 

Flagstaff Hill, Schenley Park

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I finished The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne--my Book of the Month selection for August, read only a bit behind schedule--and although I devoured almost 600 pages in five short days, I don't know that I loved it. It's the story of a man coming to terms with his sexual identity in mid-twentieth century Ireland, a time and place that was unfriendly to gay men (to say the least). The Heart's Invisible Furies reminded me of Hanya Yanagihara's  A Little Life, because both books tell the story of a character's life from birth to death in order to show how trauma and violence are passed from generation to generation. The suffering the characters endure was shared with them by adults in their lives, and in turn the characters pass it along to those who love them, replicating the cycle. Boyne's novel follows Cyril Avery, whose love for his best friend Julian causes him to flee Ireland in exile. Although Cyril eventually finds true love with another man, he continues to experience pain and loss as a result of being gay. The Heart's Invisible Furies ends on a lighter, more optimistic note than A Little Life, but by the time I reached the end I felt that Cyril had been reduced to his identity as a gay man. 

I'm listening to: Tom Petty's Wildflowers on an endless loop. I cried for the first time in months upon learning of his death, and I'm not one to get emotional about the loss of famous people. The Slate Culture Gabfest also had a nice segment about Petty's legacy this week, which made me feel less alone in my melodramatic response to his loss.

I'm looking forward to watching: the new season of the Kardashians, of kourse!

What are you reading, listening to, or watching this week?