Einat Investigates, Writes.

[einatwrites-blog]

To Whom It May Concern:

I was raised in a godless Soviet household where the closest thing to faith was the firmly held belief that anything chopped up and mixed with mayonnaise was a salad. We didn’t keep kosher, and we certainly didn’t go to synagogue regularly. (Still, I won a totally sweet seder plate because I got through the Four Questions at the age of three, with grace and charm, looking like a pink cupcake in an all too frilly dress. We still use it.)

  Having bypassed Brooklyn—even though it seems to be on the itinerary of every immigrant Russian-Jewish family —we landed in New Jersey (I don’t know why) and I didn’t have much of a Jewish community growing up. Well, that’s not true. I had the option of having one, I suppose. But I always felt at odds with the one available to me. The big Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and the keratin straightening treatment scene made me feel uncomfortable. I like my hair big. I like my parties small. And anyway, Jewishness was something for the home, my parents told me, not something you flaunted in public — that was asking for trouble. This is coming from people who grew up with Jewish quotas and matzah being paraphernalia and grounds to be sent to a labor camp. But they also named me Einat.

  So my relationship with Judaism and Jewishness can be characterized by an ambivalent yearning for and a hesitancy. But after four years of studying illustration, which taught me than anything can be talked about as long as you can make it interesting, and of studying history, which taught me that most things Jewish are interesting, I’m over the hesitancy now.  I am eager and willing to learn and share and explore Jewish life, in America, everywhere. For my illustration thesis, I’m exploring food as memories and places for Jews in the diaspora (I’ve been compiling research, inspiration, and my own process here: http://challahbackeinat.tumblr.com/.) Because of my history degree, I have extensive experience with research. And because of an amazing array of electives at The New School, I have some experience with information mapping, data-driven projects, and data visualization.

  And because I did both in four years, you know I’m a smart, multitalented, dedicated hard-worker, fast-learner, great multitasker, time-manager, and never-sleeper. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely,

Einat

[einatwrites-blog]

Neo Rauch, At the Wall

David Zwirner

533 West 19th Street, New York

November 6 - December 20, 2014

  This exhibit is a collection of recent works from Neo Rauch, all of which have been completed within the last year. The space is large and bright enough to house the large format paintings and let them breathe. However, the small scale paintings seem lost and out of place among the rest of the work. They do not detract from the rest of the experience, but they certainly don’t add anything either. The small scale paintings seem disappointing among the exquisite and immersive large scale works and overall, an arbitrary choice.

  Rauch’s collage approach to painting, combining different landscapes using bits and pieces of recognizable elements interspersed with the bizarre. The results are shallow and heavily filled picture planes that seem to reference early Renaissance compositions by artists like Giotto. that are uncanny. There is the feeling that we’ve seen this before somewhere, but something is different.

The photographic style of painting helps this a great deal. This results in a tension in the paintings between appearing to be documentative, but being filled with impossible. The synthetic light that exists only in photographs and memories, makes it appear as though the images have already been metabolized in the viewer’s memory, and here the viewer is seeing them again. The tension is particularly delightful in the paintings that are mostly monochrome with pops of cyan or magenta. (Also translations from the German titles could have helped this German-illiterate guy. For someone who prides himself on not including titling anything Untitled, Rauch should realize that anything not instantly understood in our post-Twitter age means that it might as well be untitled.)

[einatwrites-blog]

'Nervous' NYPD rookie fatally shoots unarmed man in Brooklyn

A “nervous” rookie cop, in a tragic misfire, fatally shot an unarmed man without a word of warning in a housing project stairwell, say cops.

[growhousegrow]

"A NYCHA home investigator takes notes on the tenement building of a tenant applicant, circa February 1951. Investigators thoroughly checked applicants for public housing on such criteria as income and neatness of their slum apartments."

The LaGuardia and Wagner Archives are an amazing resource.  During the 40s and 50s, new public housing was being built to accommodate NY’s growing population.  Families living in the slums could apply to be placed in one of these new public houses, which for many must have felt like a dream come true.  The NYCHA took photos of each family that applied, many of which can be found in this archive. 

Though leaving the tenements for a spankin’ new place back in the 50s was a life changer, many of those “new” public houses are considered slums today.  My how time flies…

[klg19]

1930s-era NYC Housing Authority, promoting planned housing to replace the tenement slums.

Another good one:

More posters at the Atlantic website (click the top image to get there).

[elbarriotours]

East Harlem has doormen too @Copwatch the lobby at Jefferson Houses in #Spanish Harlem #Gentrification #NYCHA #NYC

[einatwrites-blog]

Rabbi stabbed in the throat in Antwerp

[einatwrites-blog]

[einatwrites-blog]

Some are more equal than others

  A history of American wealth inequality Source: E. Saez & G. Zucman Source: E. Saez & G. Zucman Source: E. Saez & G. Zucman Source: E. Saez & G. Zucman...

[nevver]

Idioms of the World, Matt Lindley

[einatwrites-blog]

The Prynt Case Turns Your Smartphone Into A Polaroid Camera

Hot off of their Haxlr8r demo day presentation last week, hardware startup Prynt was nice enough to drop by TechCrunch HQ to show off the latest prototypes of..

[einatwrites-blog]

ESA seems to have landed on a large space cat. Discovered in 1969 by Soviet astronomers Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko, it is was the destination of an ESA space probe. Launched on March 2, 2004, it landed on 67P November 12, 2014.

[einatwrites-blog]

Corey Kilgannon started with construction, and other hard per diem manual labor jobs, where the only perk was the end of the work day and the gleaned knowledge that he wanted to do something “more mentally stimulating, less physically taxing, and more financially rewarding.” He dresses comfortably, the way a middle school boy might before concepts such as cool or girls set in. He seems either not married, or married far too long. He photographs well, but is slighter in person, with more salt than pepper hair, and a voice that belies old cigarette habits, he looks weary, but becomes more alert, engaged when discussing his work. His speech is quick, but cool and quotidien, confident, and in a way that hides his Ivy League education (Columbia), but reveals his upbringing (working class Long Island). Not thoughtless, but he speaks from his gut, but not necessarily with any claim to authority.

Kilgannon’s advice comes with some irreverence. He tells you to avoid editors and to “look busy.” Adding that burgeoning journalists should stay away from the the boring or uninteresting stories because they will define you.

Not ashamed to admit that he fell into journalism, Kilgannon did not think to connect his BA in English to a writing career. He claims that academic writing habits hinders the style of journalism he finds most authentic. He distances himself from the office and the watchful eye of editors. Kilgannon feels the bulk of the work of journalism is finding the story, which for him, by necessity means being out in the city and finding interesting characters. The only work left thereafter is assembling.

[einatwrites-blog]