I'm Feelin' a Little Peculiar...Week 4

LV Hull, 4 Non Blondes & Louise Erdrich

The song What’s Up from the 4 Non Blondes has been stuck in my head for a week!

25 years and my life is still
Tryin' to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

Earworm aside— or, as scientists call it, “stuck tune syndrome” — I REALLY want to talk about assemblage artist LV Hull today.

Bear with me… I was reading Los Angeles Times metro editor Hector Beccera’s bio on MuckRack and he mentioned Roosevelt High School, which captured my interest. I looked up L.A.’s Roosevelt High and found out it was one of the sites of the 1969 Blowouts, a walkout in support of equal educational opportunities for Latino students. Then I noticed that Roosevelt High was on the National Trust for Historic Preservation “11 most endangered historical places for 2023” list. So I went to the list just to read about it and for whatever reason assemblage artist LV Hull’s Mississippi house also caught my eye. I really think you need to know how I came upon this, because I’m getting to something about me (this newsletter is supposed to be about me after all).

I grew up in a house that was not so unlike LV’s house, yet I always thought of it as just shabby or maybe shabby-garage sale (rather than shabby-chic, of course). My mother Shirley constantly painted things and rearranged and collected random thrift store/garage sale finds like ceramic elephants, dogs or cows, etc. And she crammed all this into a tiny, ramshackle house. I had several other relatives who were even more ardent acquirers and really did it up like LV. This is LV:

My family home was more assemblage than art, and it was also a source of deep embarrassment for me as a kid — why couldn’t we just be normal!? But I like the idea now of reconsidering it as assemblage and as art. And it gets better. LV died in 2008. I found a short bio that LV wrote many years ago. Within the first few sentences she mentions my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa!! I kid you not. Last week I mentioned this happens to me often. So here’s proof from LV:

“I was born in a little small town, McAdams, Mississippi, a few miles from Kosciusko, on August 6, 1942. I live in Kosciusko now. My mama was a midwife. My daddy was a cotton farmer. Me and my sister didn’t get names, just initials; she was Q.T. and I was L.V. My auntie in Waterloo, Iowa, is named A.D., and I got an uncle in Chicago, be named Reverend V.B. Wingard.”

Notice that she was also a leo. I like that. I’ll also go on record as saying that for many years I was affectionately referred to as LVC (“little” plus my initials) by my childhood friend’s grandfather Harry Springer because I was a small kid. But, as my kids say, who really cares? I do. I love that the world works this way — random bits, assemblage at its best, providing meaning and context even if it’s just for me. And I will admit that my own house these days is also an assemblage. The Shirley Clayton apple does not fall so far from the tree.

I haven’t always liked that phrase about apples and trees and families because I didn’t want it to be true. My family was problematic. My oldest brother was schizophrenic. My dad was a drinker. Several of my siblings had drug problems. My mother was eccentric. I didn’t want to be judged for what they were. But now I also recognize that they are all a part of me no matter what and I’m grateful for it. I owe them, in fact. I see the world the way I do because of them.

Books

I promised Leilani yesterday that I’d do some book recommendations. Right now I’m listening to Louise Erdrich’s extraordinary book The Sentence. Erdrich is a Pulitzer Prize winning Midwest author who often writes indigenous characters. She’s a combo of German, French and Ojibwa. I first got this recommendation from Francesa Royster, also a superb writer. I thank her so much for it! Bringing it back to me, Royster and I were born in the same year and she’s also a Midwesterner (Chicago). Please check out my interview with Royster for Literary Mama. I’m also reading a book about the Schwenkfelders, but that’s info for another day.

Also, because I’ve been speaking about being alike or different from family, this is a great time to mention Andrew Solomon’s Far From The Tree. Solomon, who is dyslexic (I keep track of dyslexics so I can tell my son), writes beautifully about parents raising various exceptional kids (deaf, Down Syndrome, disabled, schizophrenic, prodigies, transgender and much more). He’s also written in the New Yorker recently about the shocking rise of childhood suicide. I’ll read anything Solomon writes.

So I have one kid gone —moved across the country — and I just received 12 emails — literally! - of forms and waivers I need to fill out for the other son to start his brand-new school that fingers crossed will work out. This time of the year always has a topsy-turvy feel. One of my meditation people said there are also a bunch of retrogrades happening. I guess things are supposed to be wacky for the next few weeks? Again, 4 Non Blondes:

And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

LASTLY: I’m moderating a conversation between science writers Stephani Sutherland and Kate Gammon for Southern California Science Writing on August 30 at noon pacific via Zoom. Join us!