‘I Am What I Am,’ Hobby Lobby-style
Hearing that Hobby Lobby has recently opened a big store in Dublin, Mike Lano stopped by. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s having decided that the religious beliefs of the company’s owners could be reflected in employees’ health benefits, Lano wanted to see if there was any visual evidence of this “corporation as religious-sensitive entity” theory. He had in mind especially recent speculation that the ruling would extend to allowing employers whose religions disapprove of homosexuality to exempt themselves from antidiscrimination legislation.
What he was surprised to find in the store was “an entire wall of ‘I Am What I Am’ magnets, buttons, stickers, scrapbook things … the famous phrase emblazoned on all that stuff they were selling.” Lano’s wondering if they donated any of these materials to Pride celebrations. Others may wonder if selling them is just another way to make a buck.
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Thursday’s long workday started in Santa Clara in the morning, included a stretch at the office, and then, as was scheduled, two events at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. And there, happily, two electrifying moments:
At the YBCA Theater, Anna Deavere Smith’s performance of her work in progress, “Notes From the Field: Doing Time in Education — The California Chapter,” included a town-hall-type discussion that followed the solo show. (Not quite solo, actually; she was joined by musicians Andres Soto and Marcus Shelby.)
The theatrical work, which incorporates word-for-word excerpts from recorded interviews, focuses on the “school to prison pipeline” that fills correctional institutions.
In one segment, she performs as Philadelphia Judge Daniel Anders, who showed her a series of pictures of a boy; the first at kindergarten age, the last as a young man. The first photo, taken when he was 5 years old and had his first brush with the law, shows him as sweet-looking, even angelic. In the last photo, many years and many arrests later, there are large numbers tattooed all over his face, digits that might as well spell out “anger” and “alienation.”
“Society failed him,” said the judge, speculating on how that little boy became the young man. “There’s a human being in there.”
In the town hall part of the event, Smith said little. Audience members were urged to ask questions, but they were questions directed at the issue rather than to the performer. Most hoped that finding money to support the arts in schools would help close off the pipeline. I’m in favor of that, of course, but I think it’s a small part of an answer. I went home with that young man’s picture still before my eyes.
Earlier, in the YBCA lobby, I watched Qinmin Liu and her troupe perform a dance about water. Perhaps fittingly in this time of drought, it was extremely solemn, observed by an intent crowd of folks. To one side of the dance area were cups of blue-tinted liquid arranged on the floor; the dancers’ costumes were “splashed” with blue dye, and the dancers descended the grand staircase carrying beakers full of bluedyed water.
Their precise movements made these beakers seem like ceremonial objects, as though used in a religious ceremony. And then, one dancer raised high her beaker … and drank the stuff.
Bottoms up, I thought, with gulp-inspired shock and amusement. And the serious spectators gazed on.
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If you’re in need of some summertime pampering:
Gary Tobin was reading Beach, a luxury magazine for the Hamptons crowd, and came across a full-page ad for Dr. Suzanne Levine, “Celebrity Podiatrist.”
She says her practice is particularly fascinating because her patients are “women who are into fashion, interested in wearing attractive heels and have the same challenges as everyone else. I give them the opportunity to wear high heels with my cutting-edge futuristic treatments. … I can tell a patient who comes in with Louboutins that she might really need Prada for a better fit.”
The doc also offers an iPhone app for exercising one’s feet.