All posts tagged New London
Observations

Letter to Myself Upon Emerging*

This weekend, I turned 35(!) and we hosted a whirlwind of activity at SOMArts. One of the activities was a writing workshop, led by my Feast of Words co-host Irina Zadov, where people wrote letters to their past and future selves.

The biggest thing about turning 35 for me is that I’m now either teetering on the brink or officially disqualified from  several emerging leader support systems that have been critical to me in recent years. Which is as it should be … time to send the elevator back down.

With the combination of birthday + writing exercise fresh in my mind, I wrote a letter to myself at age 25 when I was just starting out my career. And if I had read this when I was 25 I would have been all like “I am totally doing all this already.” Because I knew everything. Anyway … CONTINUE READING ]

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W Posted Apr 14, 2011     w No Comments
Arts & Ethos, Creative Inspiration, Little Cities

New London’s Only Winter Tourist Attraction

Hygienic Art celebrates the 30th year of its Salon des Independents this weekend with what will surely be a cast of thousands, roaming the snowy streets of New London in search of art that won’t be hard to find. I’ve always loved the Hygienic’s can-do spirit, as in YOU can do—the Hygienic is an arts organization that truly lets everyone in, and the theme of the annual Hygienic Art Show is “No Judge, No Jury, No Fees, No Censorship.”

To that end, I was seriously excited to drop by hygienic.org and see that they have adopted a new ning website! I’ve had a few discussions with emerging arts leaders about whether or not ning is the way to go (requires users to become “members” to use many features–too much commitment?). But now I can see that for the Hygienic, this is perfect. The Hygienic is all about participation, and doesn’t it make sense for an organization to embody its real-life essence online? This is done to brilliant effect with the Hygienic’s new site. AND, as an added bonus, Hygienic expats like me can participate from afar. 

XOXO, Hygienic, and happy XXX!

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W Posted Jan 28, 2009     w No Comments
Friends & Strangers

Friend: Janaka Stucky

Holy LandBack in the year 2000, I was asked to produce an event called the Hygienic Cabaret, an off-shoot of the Hygienic Art Show in New London. A group called the Guerilla Poets wrote me and said they were interested in performing. The Hygienic Cabaret is mostly local, and these guys were from Boston, but they seemed interesting so I offered them free beer and a couch to sleep on.

Many beers, a few broken plates, one drawn-and-quartered babydoll, and two standing ovations later, Janaka (who is an undertaker, in addition to being a poet) told me about his plan to revolutionize the American grieving process. A line from his poem elegy pretty much sums it up:

“The Leopard People of Sierra Leone carry their dead in a bag; whenever they feel sorrow, they cut off a piece and eat it.”

Eight years later, Janaka is still making waves with Black Ocean, a literary/multidisciplinary movement that is hard to define. Black Ocean just released Holy Land, a book of poetry by Rauan Klassnik. If it is half as good as Dear Al Qaeda, it’s worth a look.

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W Posted Mar 21, 2008     w No Comments