consider the lilies

shanghai arts community (SHAC), the arts movement that a group of friends and i formed a couple of years ago, is tackling an exciting and ambitious endeavor entitled "the urbanity project". the basic premise is to produce a publication that compiles work from artists of various disciplines and nationalities, all centered around the theme of "seeing the city in its people." we will also hold a series of events connected to the publication in the art studio that some of us are collectively renting - exhibitions, possibly a film showing or reading, etc. the push is to emphasis the value and dignity of each individual in urban centers such as shanghai - to not forsake humanity for the sake of modernity and progress. we want to push past the question of "are humans valuable?" to wrestle with "WHY are humans valuable?"

for more details, you can check out our website: www.shanghaiartscommunity.com

you can also follow SHAC on twitter: http://twitter.com/ShanghaiArtsCom

i'm also happy to announce that SHAC is now officially "friends of International Arts Movement", and we are now included on their website:
http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/shanghai

woo hoo! very nice.

i'm really excited about this project on so many levels, and i'm looking forward to thinking through and working out what my own submission will be. i love what we're doing in SHAC because i think it resonates with a simple, profound truth: art is essential to who we are as humans. there is intrinsic value in the arts, and art enables us to process, understand, experience, express and enjoy the world around us in ways that otherwise would be impossible.

frederick buechner sums it up nicely here:

"literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. in a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things." (buechner, listening to your life)

in the same passage, buechner also references a letter poet emily dickinson wrote to a friend, in which she mentions that "consider the lilies of the field" was the only commandment she never broke.

"consider the lilies of the field"...such a simple thing, really. yet so easily lost and forgotten in the whirl and buzz, the constant rush and incessant noise of daily city life.

cups of coffee: 1 + 2 cups of green tea

mood: thinking ahead

psalm

a lovely modern psalm from luci shaw. quite appropriate for ushering in the new lunar year and feeling the gradual warming of winter to spring...

Psalm for the January Thaw

Luci Shaw

Blessed be God for thaw, for the clear drops
that fall, one by one, like clocks ticking, from
the icicles along the eaves. For shift and shrinkage,
including the soggy gray mess on the deck
like an abandoned mattress that has
lost its inner spring. For the gurgle
of gutters, for snow melting underfoot when I
step off the porch. For slush. For the glisten
on the sidewalk that only wets the foot sole
and doesn’t send me slithering. Everything
is alert to this melting, the slow flow of it,
the declaration of intent, the liquidation.

Glory be to God for changes. For bulbs
breaking the darkness with their green beaks.
For moles and moths and velvet green moss
waiting to fill the driveway cracks. For the way
the sun pierces the window minutes earlier each day.
For earthquakes and tectonic plates—earth’s bump
and grind—and new mountains pushing up
like teeth in a one-year-old. For melodrama—
lightning on the sky stage, and the burst of applause
that follows. Praise him for day and night, and light
switches by the door. For seasons, for cycles
and bicycles, for whales and waterspouts,
for watersheds and waterfalls and waking
and the letter W, for the waxing and waning
of weather so that we never get complacent. For all
the world, and for the way it twirls on its axis
like an exotic dancer. For the north pole and the
south pole and the equator and everything between.

cups of coffee: 1

mood: happy

happy valentiger's day!

celebrating chinese new year in shanghai will never get old for me. i love the flurry of activity right before the holiday commences: the mobs of people preparing for their mass exodus out of the city, migrant workers with a bright smile on their faces and extra spring in their step as they look forward to long-awaited time with their families, flashy red and yellow signs promoting this or that sale amid supermarket aisles overflowing with bags of nuts and candy, the crackle and pop of the occasional early firecrackers set off by eager party people.

but the eve--oh, the actual eve of chinese new year!

for the past few years, some good friends have kindly offered their apartment and roof-top access to hold the new year festivities. cleverly combining chinese new year with valentine's day (the moon and stars somehow lined up in such a way this year), we celebrated "valentiger's day" with yummy treats and fun games. the climax was definitely trekking up to the roof, some of us with wine and cigars in hand, only to be surprised by big soft snowflakes! it rarely snows in shanghai, especially flakes as large as these.


watching fireworks explode in bouquets of light around the city, catching snowflakes on our tongues....it was all very magical.

in honor of valentine's day, here's one of my recent favorite blogs: missed connections. whimsical drawings accompany real-life ads placed in the 'missed connections' of the personals sections on craigslist. this artist captures the flight-of-fancy that colors these ads: serendipitous encounters that last only a few heartbeats, lengthened in memory by the coulda-woulda-shoulda's.

here's a great example of one that i love:


cups of coffee: 2

mood: warm