Jennifer Taylor, MFA

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve moved numerous times over the years, from city to city and within the cities themselves. No one writes my address in pen (if they carry those old fashioned contraptions known as address books). One time my mother showed me her book with two pages of addresses for me. I don’t want to write about my moveable lifestyle however. I’m more interested in thinking about favorite city haunts.

This was inspired by the closing of Florent, a 23-year old restaurant in the meat-packing district of Manhattan, where patrons said something will be missing for them when the place closes this month. Everyone has a place where they tend to gravitate wherever they live, either to a coffee shop, bar, restaurant, or book store.  So I decided to list my favorite places, and am so glad to find they are still around.

I’ll begin with New York. I lived in the West Village in a tiny apartment with three roommates. To get away, I mostly hung out in Washington Square Park, which now has a website dedicated to the beauty and culture of the park:  http://www.washingtonsquarepark.org/wsppp.  When I lived there, it was the place to go and people watch while pretending to read a book. It’s where a man in a black beret asked me who Sylvia Plath was, and where I tried to figure out who I was and where I wanted to be.

After I left New York, I moved to Pittsburgh, and spent most of my time on the south side of the city at Dee’s Cafe, a dive bar that catered to the early 20’s angsty crowd. Surprisingly, the place has a website which is http://www.deescafe.com. I also hung around The Beehive, a coffee place http://www.beehivebuzz.com/index1.html where I spent played pinball and tried to find ways to quit my boring job at AT&T and find a more interesting one.

I moved to Chicago, and even though I moved multiple times, I stayed within the same area. My favorite places include Earwax Cafe, a vegeterian restaurant and film store, which has been written up numerous times in the city, but doesn’t have it’s own site. Down the street, my other haunt was Myopic Books, http://myopicbookstore.com a used book store where I spent many hours and money. I took classes at The Second City http://www.secondcity.com and really enjoyed them, especially writing for the stage.

Then we moved to Saint Simons Island, Georgia. I was overtaken by the beauty of coastal Georgia, yet taken aback by the lack of coffee shops and well, things to do. One of the formative places for me during that time was Hattie’s Books, a once wonderful independent book store owned by my friend Wendy Beeker. I worked there for a couple of months and met a variety of people on vacation, people who had just docked at the wharf down the street, and those who lived in the area and enjoyed a small town bookstore where the number of classics and electic books outweighed the number of Nicholas Sparks offerings.  The store now has a new owner who has taken it in another direction.

The next move was back to Pittsburgh for graduate school. I spent my time attending classes and in the Shadyside area with friends. Places we spent many hours include Coffee Tree Roasters for the daily caffeine fix, and Pamela’s Restaurant, where you can get strawberry pancakes with a cup of coffee for under six dollars. There are many other places and more cities as well, but I’m getting nostalgic now.

Listening to NPR this morning on the way to work, I heard a conversation with photojournalist Bill Eppridge talking about his time with Bobby Kennedy. Of course the interview focused on THE picture he had taken as Kennedy lay dying with a frantic young restaurant worker kneeling next to him.

Eppridge talked about that night 40 years ago when he was transformed from  photographer into historian. But I am curious about his first instinct. I understand the motivation behind taking the initial photos, but what about afterwards?

Why did he feel compelled to keep taking pictures, even after Ethel asked the photographers to leave and stop photographing her husband as he lay bleeding? Eppridge said taking pictures was the right thing to do, because he held the rest of the crowd back (sounds like an attempt at justification), and didn’t hold the camera up to his face to take photos. Instead, he held the camera aloft and took pictures without being able to see what he was taking.

And yet isn’t that the very type of thing that paparazzi are accused of today? They don’t respect boundaries and take photos in the face of tragedy? Maybe it’s just that Eppridge’s most famous photograph was taken right after Kennedy had been shot, and not in the minutes following the shooting when he had been asked to stop out of respect. Maybe that’s history’s way of telling him that wasn’t the right thing to do.

As some of my friends will recall, I sent a defeated e-mail the night it was announced that Bush had been re-appointed. I have been disappointed in our country ever since from our domestic policies to how we are perceived throughout the world.

After it was clear that Obama is finally the nominee, I felt a surge of hope that has been missing for the past eight years. Last week, Micah and I attended a fundraiser for Obama, something I hadn’t thought of doing in the past for a candidate. I was inspired by the age and cultural ranges that he has brought together.

As for Hillary, I do hope that she will halt her campaign instead of suspending it, as the pundits have reported. If she is going to endorse Obama, it only seems fitting that she would recognize that she isn’t the candidate for president. That would make me regain some of the respect for her that I have lost over the campaign. 

I don’t fancy myself as an art critic. I feel that art is subjective. Yet when I read about photographer Gregory Crewdson’s artwork something bothered me and spurred on my inner critic. If you aren’t familiar with his work, Crewdson scouts out places that feel unique around the Pittsfield, NY area and moves in a crew to work with him. Instead of being a single artist behind the lens, he relies upon a team of about 40 people including lighting, production, set people and a director. Talk about a collaborative mood.

His work typically focuses on loneliness, which I find odd because of the sheer number of people working together to create that feeling. A recent piece depicts a woman framed by the picture window of a splintery rental cabin staring at a tiny child huddled on the bed. It’s winter which adds to the hopeless feeling. When I looked at the photograph, I felt something different instead being moved by a solitary figure. I felt manipulated. I thought about how many people worked to arrange the layers of snow and to imbue the photo with the feeling the woman has left her life behind and is trying to figure out what to do with the child.

The interior of the cabin is desolate with just the right touches: faded drapes, old lamps, motel telephone, yellowed wallpaper, and the ubiquitous mountain print above the bed. I can imagine the crew searching for just the right accessories to make the rented cabin feel even more dingy and hopeless. This is where the mother has brought her child after all. It’s probably at some fading campsite, maybe where she had come as a child when her life had more promise.

She left the key in the door and hasn’t bothered to close it. That part bothers me. The mother is wearing a sleeveless nightgown, so she has presumably been there for a while. Hours or days at least. So why would she leave the door open? What does that prove? The viewer can see into the bathroom which to be honest looks a little too updated to me. The point of the artwork is to tell a story which is open to interpretation. Yet it seems to me that with all of those crew members, the vision for the piece might become blurred with each person trying to add something. Just the right something of course.

I’ve been reading an interesting article in New York Magazine about memoirist Augusten Burroughs and his seemingly perfect memory. He has written five memoirs in an amazing six years, and describes his process as a sort of trance which allows him to unearth past traumas and hold them up to the light for examination. As you may remember, I’m obsessed with memory and the way we remember events both pleasant and painful. I wonder which type of event stands out more in our memories and surmise it’s the painful details that stand out for me.

For instance, I don’t recall what my father-in-law wore to my wedding, but I remember what my grandmother was wearing the day she was dying. Naturally I can look at a photo to see what he was wearing, but there isn’t one with Nana’s clothing for me to pore over. And yet I know what she had on, the pair of pajamas that I had given her for her 99th. The top is blue with a coffee mug on it and reads time for coffee. There are tiny cups of coffee on the pants.

Burroughs claims that he can remember minute details from his past because the writing allows him to relive those memories. It has been said that his writing is the therapy that has saved him from his numerous addictions. Perhaps the only way he is able to continue writing successful books is that his concrete details stem from his pain. Could you imagine if he tried to write something upbeat? It would be positively depressing.

We’re at Folly Beach this weekend in South Carolina where my husband grew up visiting. The motto of Folly is “the edge of the earth,” which might have been true years ago, but now with the line of cars snaking onto the island yesterday, we knew that was no longer the case. Instead of the miles of salt marsh Micah remembers, there are rows of identical condos. Downtown Folly used to have one or two restaurants and a dilapidated shack that sold tourist items. Now there are multiple businesses with t-shirts, beer holders, flip flips, and purses.

A group of us tried to have dinner at a restaurant in an out of the way place, but it was closed for a private party. The streets were clogged with tourists, some of them who were either drunk or nearly there. One woman ran after me for some reason and tried to jump on my back, but I was able to sidestep her in time. We had to go to three restaurants before we were able to be seated. I had to wonder what the price for progress is, for people who used to enjoy being here. Is it better for the people who live here now with the hordes of crowds? What about those like Micah who remember what the place used to be like, when there were quirky locals and quiet beauty?

Have you ever noticed how some people celebrate more than others? Take my friend’s birthday today. She let everyone in her workplace know that it was her birthday, which created not only a deluge of unexpected gifts, but also a more fun atmosphere in the office. I think most people can be divided into those who celebrate and those who refrain. Instead of the Myers-Briggs personality tests, you could save time on answering one question- do you celebrate occasions such as your birthday or holidays? That’s all you need to know about people, really.

I prefer to take my birthday off from the office, but do actively participate in birthday week (as my friends and family know). My husband is still getting used to the idea, so we’ll test it out this year. I’ll let you know what happens.

Ever since I began a full time job, I have neglected my personal journal writing and obviously my blog. Trying to strike that balance between working and living and writing and the other stuff has been eluding me in recent weeks. For instance, there was a story in the news a couple of weeks ago that fascinated me about a woman who wrote a memoir about growing up in the mean streets of LA and her “memories” of being in a gang. The memoir landed her a book deal and enviable tour. She was on her way to being a full fledged author.

Yet what led to Margaret B. Jones aka Peggy Seltzer’s unraveling was an article about her in the New York Times that her sister read who was surprised to learn that Seltzer had created a book filled with lies and false memories. Her sister notified the paper that Seltzer actually grew up surrounded by privilege (attending the same school as the Olsen twins), instead of being a drug mule for a foster parent as she had claimed.

As a writer of both genres, I’m intrigued by this tale and it raises questions: what made Seltzer think the book would only sell if it was peddled as non fiction - the current public’s interest in addition/hard luck stories? How was she able to do the research to fake it? Where is the fact checking department at the Penguin imprint? How did she think she could keep it a secret from her real life and actual family? And shouldn’t she be held accountable for this?

The Ides of March came upon Atlanta a day early and have continued into today. Micah and I were out last evening with friends at a restaurant six blocks from our homes, and began walking back when the storm hit. We sought shelter at a building with an overhang and huddled together as lightening illuminated the sky, street lights went out, hail hit the streets, and then the downpour changed from a normal, steady rain into one that slanted in one direction and then abruptly changed to the other.

There was a moment of silence and the rain stopped. We began to hear sirens that at first we thought belonged to the local fire station, but then realized they were tornado sirens. The thunder and lightening faded and we ran through the drenched streets. Back home we found out the silence was when the Georgia Dome and Omni Hotel were damaged, as well as multiple homes in Cabbagetown about three miles away. We saw a man on the news who said he hadn’t been worried because tornadoes never hit Atlanta and then his roof was taken off.

Today the skies have been alternately dark and then light, hail has fallen and the newscasters are predicting more storms. I have always been afraid of storms, a hold over from childhood. My family and I were living in Louisville at the time, and tornado warnings were plastered across the news. I remember watching the darkening sky and my father was fascinated by the weather and stood with the door open, watching the storm. He stayed there while Mom, Jon, our dog Sasha and I headed to the basement. Sasha whimpered from the wind and rain noise. Dad joined us some time later and casually told Mom the tornado hit a house down the street. So from that young age I feared the anger and brutality of nature. That fear has been confirmed over the years with Hurricane Katrina and the storms from yesterday that continue until today.

I heard a story on NPR about a drowning city as I drove through an infrequent rainstorm in Atlanta. The piece was about the water company in New Orleans, and how the city remains seeped in water. Residents are encouraged to use as much water as they need and then some. I was in New Orleans a year after Katrina and the Army Corps failed to protect the city with worn down levees. I stood outside of houses that had been destroyed by killer water and failed to understand how that could happen in the United States.

There’s another story in the news that seems unreal and in all likelihood should be. Sonny Perdue, the governor of Georgia, is plotting how to extend the GA state line into Tennessee and poach water from the Tennessee River. It appears that the GA senate is trying to re-write history and claim that a survey from 1818 was incorrect. In response, Ron Littlefield, mayor of Chattanooga, sent over a truckload of water and set aside Feb 28th as “Give our Georgia Friends a Drink Day.” I think that gesture was entirely appropriate.