Jitterbug Perfume, on the essence of beets

I just finished reading Jitterbug Perfume, a delightful novel by Tom Robins, which deals with immortality and (you guessed it) perfume! 


In this novel, Robins intertwines four separate stories, set in the 8th century Bohemia and 1980s New Orleans, Seattle and Paris. Each story has a common theme about aging, the sense of smell, individualism, independence, love, and religion. I found the plot to be intricate, constructed masterfully with descriptive metaphors that are uniquely “Robins”.

The book also deals with other things, but one that is most worth mentioning is the beet. That’s right, a vegetable that is very uniquely bold and often under appreciated. People who are not familiar with the magic qualities of the beet most likely did not grow up eating beets in the quantities Russians do and may, therefore, lack proper understanding of the value this vegetable adds to one’s life. Robins, however, gets the beet and saturates his entire novel with the essence of beets:

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious."

I agree with Robins - the beet is worth contemplation. 

Understanding Poverty - a Diverse Work Exhibition

"We think sometimes that poverty is being hungry, naked and homeless.  The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty." 

--Mother Theresa

After many years of documenting life on the streets of Houston, photographer Ben Tecumseh DeSoto tells the stories of the homeless and working poor, the “broke and the broken,” with his exhibit Understanding Poverty, curated by Clint Willour, and words by Ann Walton Sieber. 

The Understanding Poverty is an ongoing collaboration of DeSoto with writer/editor Ann Walton Sieber in the role of Project Editor. Sieber’s contributions include field reporting, writing and conception of not only the exhibition text, but also the developing book and documentary film with DeSoto as first camera. DeSoto's work on poverty and homelessness dates back to 1980.  From 1981 to 2006 he was a staff photographer for the Houston Chronicle, working as "a journalist, an artist and humanist."

Two of the main subjects of this exhibition are Ben White and Judy Pruitt, whom DeSoto encountered in 1988 while on assignment for the newspaper.

White is in prison, where he feels safer that on the street because that is the only place where he can get any assistance from the government as a convicted felon. For him, it is easier to live in prison and be cared for than having to fend for himself on the streets.
 
The Houston Chronicle has published stories on both White and Pruitt, but DeSoto's ongoing relationship with each of them  gave him an opportunity to document their lives over a long period of time. 

His photographs show Ben and Judy on and off the streets, prison, court system, and halfway houses. 

Judy Pruitt started as a prostitute, working the streets 

She had more than one child and here she is pictured siting in the courthouse, waiting for a hearing during which they take away her parental rights to one of her children



Judy, also known as Snow eventually became a pastor, ministering to prison populations while struggling with liver cancer. She came up to me at the exhibition opening and shared her story of naïveté, helplessness, hope, faith, and starting anew. She was taken advantage of many times and continues to suffer and fall victim due to lack of education and lower than average intelligence. She is street smart, hard working, but too trusting for this world. Today, she is back on the street, doing any kind of work she can find. Despite her many failures, she is a fighter, who remains full of hope and will never give up on living.



“The streets of Houston have been a regular “beat” I worked with my camera,” says DeSoto, “and I want others to see what I’ve seen, and understand what I’ve come to understand, the role of the trauma in magnifying the drama of poverty.” 

With this exhibition DeSoto explains the causes of homelessness: 
"To really understand poverty, (people need) an understanding of the role of post-traumatic stress disorder — the trauma of living with an overwhelming and out-of-your-control experience," he said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.

According to DeSoto, homelessness is "not the problem in itself but a symptom of the problem. The photographs ... I hope, bring that information together."

Meal Ticket



The Understanding Poverty project has become a joint effort between DiverseWorks, the Houston Endowment, Que Imaging, and other collaborators, including the photography subjects.  It is supported by the efforts of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission to End Chronic Homelessness, and the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, among others. 

(c) Pictures by Vika!

Everything is Illuminated

 "Everything is Illuminated" is a Liev Schreiber's film based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer under the same title.  The title of the film refers to the way the past emits light onto the present.  True to the book, the film reshapes the dark history of the past with acceptance and forgiveness in the present.

Elijah Wood plays Jonathan Safran Foer, a young American writer preoccupied with his family past. Intrigued by the keepsakes left behind by his grandfather, who managed to escape the Nazis as a young man, Jonathan embarks on a trip in search of the village where his grandfather lived.

Jonathan's guide is a young man from Odessa named Alex.  He is played by Eugene Hutz, a singer and composer of the critically-acclaimed New York Gypsy Punk rock band Gogol Bordello, who left Ukraine at the age of 14.  A seven-year exit through East European refugee camps provided Hütz with experience that is well reflected in Alex’s character as a Ukranian smitten by everything American. 

Jonathan is the exact opposite of Alex – a vegetarian boy, reserved, with neatly parted hair, black suit and white button-down shirt, he looks like he came from the 1960s and could star in the Mad Men episodes.  In contrast, Ukrainian Alex is a confident break dancer, decked out in gold chains and Adidas tracksuit, who spews English in broken translations of slang and proclaims: "Many girls want to be carnal with me because I'm such a premium dancer."

Accompanied by Alex's grandfather, a grumpy old man who works as a chauffeur for Americans on tours of their ancestral villages, and a dog named Sammy Davis Jr., Jr., Jonathan and Alex engage in a search for the vanished Ukrainian town, which reveals hidden sides to every one's character. 

Narrated through reminiscent shots of Ukrainian landscapes (filmed in Czeck Republic), this journey evokes a deep emotional response to historical references of the destruction of Ukraine's Jews. The film chooses to intersperse the devastation of the Holocaust with whimsical humor of the present that is comparable to comedic outbreaks used in the Italian film “Life is Beautiful”.  Exposing, but brushing over survivor's guilt, the film does not linger on the hard topics, turning rediscovered past crimes into forgiveness, to be further forgotten with time.

Although not critically acclaimed as an creative achievement, this film is moving, humorous and thought provoking.  It made me a little nostalgic as I recalled driving around Ukraine with my parents, down a road with no name, looking for a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere, tracing family’s roots.  


It also reminded me of another road less traveled. 


From a memory came this poem:

The day is lived through
But it's not too late
Come in - I say;
And you believe me

You shed a coat
Through narrow doorway
Like naked moon
Squeezes through window

A night is quiet in the background
A lonely voyage, far away
Sings song of love you never found
I listen as you smile and sway

The road is long, it is unknown
It calls to me - I hear it weep
I wait intently and I wonder
How long until my wings are clipped?