Wednesday, September 25, 2002

The MacArthur Genius Grants were announced today. I always enjoy reading the news about these grants, because I like to imagine the disbelief and excitement of the recipients at hearing they have won a big prize just for being extra-clever. I also love reading the descriptions of the type of work these people are doing. There is such little media focus on people like this, like the engineer who figured out how to have more efficient refrigerators and the artist who put little glass beads on everything in her kitchen. I think what makes them "geniuses" is not the fact that they are smart or brainy or particularly extra creative. What makes them notable is that they have taken the skills and talents they have and DISPLAYED them. They take their passion and put it on the public stage. They spread around the ideas, through art, science and technology - they show it to the world. The energy and love each one has for the work they do is palpable.
Leah Brooks at 3:46 PM

Monday, September 16, 2002

What if I approached this blog as I once did letter writing? What if I wrote this blog as if I were describing a foreign country to someone I love who is far far away? Would every mundane activity take on a more exotic feel? And isn't everyone else really in a foreign country, when you think about it? What do I know about living in Connecticut? taking care of grandma? being in someone else's skin?


I guess that's what's called creative writing or journalism. I am inspired to try to make my everyday life more compelling to me by at least IMAGINING that I'm going to write about it, even if I don't find the time or words to actually do so. Do you suppose that will make a difference?


Did you ever read "Life among the Nacirema" in an anthropology class? It's a jargon filled essay much like many anthropologists wrote, describing a foreign tribe in great detail. It turns out that the writer simply had spelled the tribe's name backwards to fool us.


Here are some of the summer's photos for your enjoyment.

John and the wild Morgani at the Cotati Accordian Festival


This photo was inspired by Bob's "photos of many like objects" series.


Here's a wild accordian player.


Here I join the world's largest squeezebox band, playing Lady of Spain.



Aidan & Jeremy, the boys of summer, at the end of summer 2002.
Leah Brooks at 5:23 PM

Friday, September 13, 2002

Meredith has been cleaning out her house, packing for her move to Austin, and has sent me a couple of packages of interesting things (thanks, Meredith!). One package was a bunch of letters that I wrote to mom and dad while I was in Japan. I read some of them the other night, and was struck by several things... 1, that I used to have legible handwriting (a thing of the past now that I type all the time) 2, that I used to write really good and long letters (a thing of the past now that emails are so short and things are much more busy and condensed than they once were) and 3, that I never really told them much about what was "really" going on in my life.

The tone of the letters is newsy and breezy. I remember being sort of mad that I had to seem so upbeat about jobs (so they wouldn't worry) and so vague about who my friends were (so they wouldn't know I was gay - even though they already knew). It's humorous now to read about my life in San Francisco right after I moved here and imagine how much they must have worried while reading those letters - even though I thought I was smoothing everything over. I sound like I was in some kind of cult, asking them to send money for the nuclear weapons freeze, talking about my multitude of roommates and how we fixed up the guest room (it even has a real bed!) if they wanted to come visit.

Looking back 25 years provides you a really different kind of vision.

The Haight

Leah Brooks at 2:22 PM

Saturday, September 07, 2002

I would like to give you a welcome also, Nance. Maybe I needed a new element in the blogsphere, since I have been dragging a little. I like the way we are using the blog space, though, not as a diary, but a place for ideas to burst out (enhanced by graphics, of course).

When I hear the name Nancy, I hate to say it, but the first thing that comes to mind is Rocky Raccoon. My mind just starts spontaneously singing. " And everyone knew her as Nancy". There are a lot of those types of things in my brain that sometimes I wish I could erase. Like: Who was the dummy in grade school or whatever who taught me the fake words, "Be kind to your web footed friends, 'cause a duck could be somebody's mother . . ." I just can't help singing those stupid lyrics along with the Stars & Stripes Forever, as many times as I have heard, sung and played it in band. Help! I've been attacked by aliens.

There are certain puns and jokes that I also would love to delete from the creases of my cranium. One example is that when people mentioned Pittsburgh for some reason, I always used to say, "Oh, I was born in Pittsburgh ( then a dramatic pause ) . . . at a very early age". Very funny. I liked to do this, because it was a kind of gauge to see if people got it. It would go right over the heads of people who had no sense of humor, or weren't listening or were too dumb to catch it. However, it has become another robotic demon for me, because there is no way that I can EVER hear the word Pittsburgh without my pavlovian desire to tell that stinking joke. I'm sitting alone reading a book somewhere and these things get triggered, for crying out loud.

PS It is true, I WAS born in Pittsburgh.


(at an early age.)

R.G. Brooks at 8:19 AM