Corin Mama Mania

a.k.a., The more things change…

Guest post by Lisa. We’ll get back to Margot’s museum blogging soon. Promise.

What’s the difference between these two pictures?

Most of the people who know me know that I love Corin Tucker. I love Sleater-Kinney so much, and don’t get me started on Heavens to Betsy. I see my life as somehow inextricably wound up with Sleater-Kinney: it was Karey who handed me that h2b cassette, and around the time the first S-K album came out, we were a new couple. We followed them with a passion, awaiting each album release and going to as many shows as we could (somewhere around 30 of them, by our count). When their hiatus and final tour were announced, I was pregnant. Their final NYC show was scheduled for one week after my due date. We bought our tickets and I counted on that 41+3 first-time-mother statistic, just so I could make it to that show. As it turns out, when that hot, hot day in August came, I was recovering from a c-section, ecstatically tired, and holding and nursing our 15-day-old daughter. Karey went to the show alone–it was the first time I missed an S-K show in a city where I lived, and the first time one of us went to an S-K show without the other. I listened to the show over the phone as I rocked our little baby. The movement into the next phase of our life felt punctuated by that final tour.

So it’s been with great anticipation that I have waited for this Corin Tucker album. As I have casually leafed through the coverage, I have been unsurprised by disappointed by the obsessive focus on Corin’s mom-ness in all of it. Not so much that it has been noted and talked about–this is a good thing, and she does it herself–but the tone and dismissiveness of it all. It feels like nothing so much as the coverage of Riot Grrrl. Riot Grrrl was so much about age and gender; it was front and center of the content and the emotion, and yet so many who tried to observe and analyze it from the outside seemed somehow blinded by the very phenomenon they were witnessing, such that the commentary ran along the lines of: “They are girls! And so young! And so angry! And a little bit cute!” It was dismissive of that which we were insisting was no longer dismissible.

So now we’ve got Corin, the mom, who talks about being a mom, talks about making a mom album, and gets coverage as a mom: “Tucker appropriately looked more motherrrly than riot grrrly…” (Spin). And it feels so RG–both in strategy and in the observational obliviousness to that seems to be accompanying it. If you’re going to call us sluts and dykes, we’re going to beat you to the punch and have it written on ourselves already. If you are going to blather some triteness about what being a mom-rocker means, I am going to be surrounded by babies and talk about my family. As some who were involved in RG choose motherhood, that’s going to become part of our politics and experience. We’re not going to leave that out. (I want to be careful to point out that none of this is to say that being a mom is a more special or precious sort of experience of being a girl or a woman; it’s not. Being a mother and being child-free need to be equally valid choices.)

We’re so used to this trope that motherhood sucks out our energy, creativity, intelligence; mothers don’t rock, mother’s aren’t political. And if they are, they keep politely quiet about being mothers. Don’t expect much; she’s a mom. This is pretty good, you know, for a mom. Whatever spark we had passes through and leaves us like a placenta. And we know that like the pack of lies we were once told about what being a girl means, that none of it is true. We asked for the world to rethink what being a girl is, and to let girls control their own means of production. Isn’t it time to rethink what a mom album is?

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Haunted

Posted in museums, performance by lisabrundage on July 30, 2010

We went to see Haunted:  Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance at the Guggenheim on 24 July 2010.

Sharon Hayes was spinning a set of vintage political speeches and spoken-word pieces in the Rotunda.  If anyone knows the actual title of her piece, please tell us.

***

We’re going to the museum and I keep on pulling lisa because I said “keep on going now mom.”	Margot pulling Lisa into the Gugg
The museum looked like a spaceship. It was white. You go in a circle. The floor was like this [sloping hands]. I was sitting on a circle.
There was a girl playing records. People weren’t dancing. She had more behind her. That is her table. She had a lot of space for the records. I was singing a song like “yo ee yo ee yo ee.”	Sharon Hayes

What we saw:

A movie and he was chewing on his nails [Anthony Goicolea, Nail Biter, 2004]. There were all kinds of nails and he was eating them. It was little bit scary because he was all left alone without his mommy. And he didn’t have a sister.
K: “was there another movie with a man sitting in a chair?” M: “yeah, hm”
there was a sword. [Nate Lowman, How to Redeem Your Towed Vehicle #1, 2009]
oh yeah, four legs. She has an owee on her toe.	Joan Jonas, Mirror Piece I, 1969
Miranda Lichtenstein, Floater. 2004. Borrowed from the Guggenheim	A mermaid and she’s swimming. You don’t see her tail because it’s in the water.
Marina Abromovic, Cleaning the Mirror #1, 1995	Another one was cleaning the skeleton. Her name is Marina.
You can’t cut your body. Not on your legs or on your foot or on your arm. She was putting needles in and she was cutting herself. I think she was trying to make herself bleed because maybe that was her job but I don’t think that was really her job. She wanted to make herself bleed… but it doesn’t really feel good when you bleed.	Gina Pane, Action: Laure, 1977
I know about tummies, you have muscles and you have bones, you have everything in your body. Those are her intestines. It’s a pretend dolly, and she’s pretending she got her tummy open.	Zoe Leonard, Wax Anatomical Model with Pearls, 1990

chronotopes & dioramas

chronotopes & dioramas by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Dia at the Hispanic Society
Transcribed by Karey

Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

Karey: Where did we see this, at a store or somebody’s house…

Margot: At a museum. We took the subway there.

Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

That kinda looks like Allison. What that says? You can’t touch that wall. You can only touch it on the computer.

The desert

Why the animals are not there? I guess they let them go. They switched the books. The books are there because the animals are gone. They are gone into the forest. They thought that was a nice home.	Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation
The animals ripped the pages. The books belonged to somebody, but they didn’t want them anymore. Reindeers live in the forest.	Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

The tropics

Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation	K: Is this the forest or the jungle? M: It’s called the jungle. The reindeers can jump over the stream. K: Do other animals live in the jungle? M: Other scary animals. And also witches. There is a witch behind there. The tree. That’s her home [in the back].
Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation	M: The books are just hanging out. Nobody reads them. K: How did they get there then? M: They blew.

The atlantic

Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

Ok. It’s scary. There’s no animals around there. No sharks around right now. And no people around there right now. It’s scary around there. Now say “guy go”. Guy Go has sharp teeth and claws. Guy Go is in the water. Swimming.

K: Is there really water in there?
No. I think that book is hanging from a wall.

The Artist is Still Absent

More from The Artist is Absent, 29 May 2010

Imponderabilia
I think their clothes are in the washer. You have to squish in and say “Excuse me!” Don’t stand on their toes! They would say “Ouch, ouch.”

Freeing the Voice

I really liked the yelling.
She was lying on a mat. People were taking pictures, but I didn’t want a coat [official documentarians were wearing lab coats--Margot was offered one but declined].
Why did you have to wear a coat to take a picture?
Karey: You have to ask Ariel.
Margot: Who is Ariel?
Karey: She was in charge.
Margot: Hi Ariel!
Karey: How loud were they yelling?

Margot: AARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH She was yelling because she wanted to yell. I think she was getting tired. I think she was getting tired because she was yelling very hard. Do you think she was sleeping or awake?
Karey: Do you yell while you are sleeping?
Margot: Actually, if someone yells, it hurts my ears. You know what? I like to draw pictures of ice skating. Someone was ice skating on a mat.

This is a guy who is yelling. He’s saying, “What’s on my head?” It’s a rabbit. Then he yells, “There’s a rabbit on my head!” And the rabbit yells, “I’m on your head!”

Nude with Skeleton
The skeleton is not on my list. Do you know what’s on my list? Playing tag. I think the skeleton is packed up. The person with the skeleton had painted fingernails. They were blue. The skeleton’s were red. No, I’m just joking. Skeletons have eye holes. I got to put my fingers in.

Relation in Space
If you bump into somebody, you say “Excuse me!”

Other Performances
There was also a scary one coming because you have to be careful with knives. We didn’t see that one. When mom is using the big knife, I can’t sit on the counter with her.

I really liked the yelling.  I also liked seeing the skeleton.

All pictures created on site by Margot. One with a little help from Karey.

The Artist is Absent: Freeing the Voice

We went to The Artist is Absent, an alternative reperformance of selected works by Marina Abramovic.

Margot did this drawing as she observed Freeing the Voice.

LIVEBLOGGING! Walk the Walk

Walk the Walk

Originally uploaded by margotmac

We’re here in Bryant Park RIGHT NOW bringing you live coverage of Walk the Walk!

From Margot:
Those are ladies. They are in yellow. They have high heels.
I threw a penny in the fountain and I want to ride the horses.

More TBDC

Margot is in a blogging mood again! Here’s more on Trisha Brown Dance Company. Transcription by Lisa and Karey.

Photo Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

I love them dancing by the holes. This is when they looked like a star. The boys were not laying on the floor. They were moving the dancers. The boys didn’t want to dance.

Photo Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation

This looks like they are stretching.

In one dance, she said, “Oh no! Oh no!” and fell down. But she didn’t get hurt because she had a pillow.

This is me taking a picture. I like taking pictures. These are buttons. I got a button when I went to the museum, but they didn’t give me a pink one. It was blue. I wanted pink instead. Gator had a blue one. Mommy had a pink one. No, [laughing] she had a blue one. Let’s pretend she had a pink one. You get a button because you need a button if you want to go inside. You don’t need a button to go outside.

en route to beacon: greenscape

en route to beacon: greenscape

Originally uploaded by margotmac

Trisha Brown Dance Company at Dia:Beacon

We went to Dia:Beacon on May 1 to see Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Margot’s review [as told to Lisa]:

We took a big train and a little train.  We took the little train because it takes us places.  It takes us to the big train. DiaDiaDia MoMA Dia.  I was sleeping in a wrap [she took a nap on Lisa's back on the subway].  Dia is a museum.  Don’t touch anything.

Dia is Gator’s [Karey's] museum.  We saw a spider [Louise Bourgeois].  It was cool.

We saw some dancers but I can’t tell you what they do.  I’m eating my lunch.

What Margot Saw

Here are some of the pictures Margot took at MoMA.