First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

A Peek into Robert Frank’s America

Opening last week at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, is an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Robert Frank’s seminal book of photography, The Americans. After emigrating from Switzerland in 1947, Frank achieved considerable success as a commercial photographer, particularly in fashion, working for Harper’s Bazaar. With a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, in 1955, he spent three years traveling by car across America to document a post-World War II society.

This photo, “Elevator, Miami Beach, ” is one of 83 in the SF MOMA exhibition, “Looking In: Robert Frank’s: The Americans,” which runs through August 23.

Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?

Girl beds and virginal young woman beds,
matronal expansively expressed beds
from the poem, Beds by Charlie Smith

I started sleeping around when I was young and in the process, I’ve accumulated a catalogue of men, to whom I give bouncy names, so that my friends can easily identify them. Like “Gimme Two” for Greg, the editor, who is missing three fingers from his left hand. “Eighties man” was the name for Jeff, because in 2001, he sported a mustache and a jacket from the disco era, before the style became cool again.

When I was 25, flying east for Passover, I met Garry, the “Jew from Topeka,” on the airplane. (He was filed as such, because with my NYC-centric roots I thought it noteworthy to be a Semite from the Midwest.) We made eye contact across the aisle. He gave me his phone number, and within days after returning to California, I drove down dusty roads to his pot farm in Aromas, near the “artichoke capital of the world.”       Continue reading »

Kuwaiti Women Rock the Vote

In an election over the weekend, Kuwaitis voted four women into Parliament for the first time. The winners are Rola Dashti an economist and women’s rights activist, education professor Salwa al-Jassar, philosophy professor Aseel al-Awadhi and Massouma al-Mubarak, who was also the country’s first female Cabinet minister. All of them have Ph.D’s from the United States. Kuwaiti women got the right to vote in 2005.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be very proud.

The Fabulous Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

These last few days, I’ve had my head stuck in a book, “The Peabody Sisters,” by Megan Marshall, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. It profiles Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia Peabody, three extraordinary women born into a prominent, yet impoverished New England family in the 19th century.

I’m fascinated by the eldest sister, Elizabeth, who was the intellectual dynamo of the clan and the most ambitious. She had a remarkable impact on the cultural landscape, carving out a luminous career as a writer, publisher, translator and educator, and established the first American kindergarten. Elizabeth was an impresario of sorts, and owned a bookstore, which served as a nightly “salon,” and hub for the great reformers and literary figures of the day. 

None of the Peabody sisters viewed marriage as their primary goal, although Sophia and Mary ended up with famous husbands (Sophia wed Nathanial Hawthorne, and Mary married Horace Mann, considered the father of public education). Elizabeth had her share of suitors and romantic longings (Nathaniel and Horace among them, and that’s a story for another day), but she vowed to “be myself and act”  and stayed single during her long and productive life.

I Love Richard Avedon (and who doesn’t)

Starting tomorrow, May 15  through September 9, 2009, the International Center of Photography in New York is featuring an exhibition of the great fashion photography of Richard Avedon, spanning his career at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker et al. I might just have to plan a trip. Check out Roberta Smith’s rave review in the Times.

(Photo: “Dovima with Sacha, Cloche and Suit by Balenciaga, Café  des Deux Magots, Paris, August, 1955″)

What NOT to Wear When Looking for a Date

Fern Magonet Schad was leading a very full life, divided between her homes in Manhattan and Southampton, N.Y. “I wasn’t looking for romance,” said Ms. Schad, a slender and fit former photo editor. But when she met Alfred H. Moses of McLean, VA one night at a dinner party, the sparks flew. Her daughter began worrying that her mother was staying out too late. “She started getting date clothing,” said Katie Schad.
–From New York Times, Weddings & Celebrations

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Why Henry James Got it Wrong

There are women who are unmarried by accident, and others who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry.  
                                 from The Bostonians, by Henry James, 1886

In San Francisco, where I lived for 24 years, August is NOT a sultry month. It is brisk when the fog rolls in, and I was as likely to wear a turtleneck sweater for an evening out in August, as I was in January. Which illustrates a point I’ve been wanting to make; just because people say things with great authority, doesn’t make them right, even when it’s one of the great writers, and a favorite of mine, like Henry James.

Fantasy Chicken Salad by Debby Maugans (author of Small Batch Baking)

Each year in May, I am overwhelmed with river kayaking (including new boat) lust.  My longing to get my (new) boat into whitewater is particularly strong this year.  During a trek to and from Asheville, NC, this past weekend, my daughter and I took the scenic route home through Tennessee along the Nantahala and Ocoee rivers.  Fifteen years ago, I drove this distance at least bi-monthly to paddle one or the other.  Alas, the demands of life wedged between me and my paddle.  Now my spray skirt, dry suit, and dry bag have dry rotted.  (Not to mention my boat’s design is archaic, judging by the sportier models on the river.)

(“Fantasy Chicken Salad” recipe follows)

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Mothers of America, let your kids go to the movies

Thanks to my wonderful Mom, who always encouraged me to get out of the house –

AVE MARIA, by Frank O’Hara, 1960

Mothers of America
              let your kids go to the movies
get them out of the house so they won’t
   know what you’re up to
it’s true that fresh air is good for the body
             but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by
   silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you
   must
             they won’t hate you
they won’t criticize you they won’t know
             they’ll be in some glamorous
               country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or
   playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
             for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
             and didn’t upset the peaceful
               home
they will know where candy bars come
   from
             and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before
   it’s over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment
   is in the Heaven on
             Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
             oh mothers you will have made
                 the little
                            tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick
   them up in the movies
they won’t know the difference
             and if somebody does it’ll be
                 sheer gravy
and they’ll have been truly entertained
   either way
instead of hanging around the yard
             or up in their room hating you
prematurely since you won’t have done
   anything horribly mean
                  yet
except keeping them from life’s darker joys
             it’s unforgivable the latter
so don’t blame me if you won’t take this
   advice
             and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in
   front of a TV set
             seeing
movies you wouldn’t let them see when
   they were young

On Mother’s Day: Why You Can Never Do Enough

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