Charity: Water - Ethiopian Fundraiser Dinner

Clean water! We all need it, but many people in developing nations don't get enough of it. Unclean water causes numerous diseases and malnutrition. But we can help!

A friend, Emily, and I recently formed 'Chicago 4 Water,' a campaign to raise money through the well-established fundraising organization, Charity: Water. Charity: Water has build thousands of clean water projects (such as pipe systems and water wells) in 17 developing countries internationally.

Chicago 4 Water's plan is to hold informal fundraising events that give people chances to hang out, enjoy themselves and learn about the importance of clean water for good health. Wednesday marked the night of 'Dine for Water,' our modest first effort at fundraising.

Emily and I'd been talking together about holding a simple fundraising dinner in cooperation with a local Ethiopian restaurant – for a while. But when we finally decided to make it happen, we had to set everything up very quickly.

Just three nights before the dinner, I wrote out our campaign objective for our website, created a dinner invitation and started mentioning it to everyone I saw; and with just 24 hours before we planned the event to happen, Emily's contact at the restaurant finally got in touch with her to confirm that they could work with us so that we would earn a percentage of every diner's food and drink bill. [Phew.]

Happily, after that initial logistical flurry, the dinner was all aromatic coffee, honey wine, pungent bread and delicious savory Ethiopian meats and salads. Sweet and easy. Our event drew a cool 15–17 jovial people. Folks complimented the foods, mingled and smiled, asked us more about Charity: Water. Thanks to Emily working with the restaurant, we earned the cause about $170. For a modest first effort at raising money for clean water, this went down 'well.'


***

What's next? Through Charity: Water's website, we have about three more weeks to raise as much money as we can before our funds will be combined with other campaign funds to build a clean water project somewhere in the developing world.

A few direct website donations by private individuals brought our total funds raised to above our initial $500 goal in just four days. Now, we're raising our goal! With the help of some passionate folks at this first dinner, we hope our next fundraising event is an even greater success.

To read more about our cause, or to donate, visit:
http://mycharitywater.org/Chicago4Water


{Thanks for reading!}

Week of Soup

This is the week of homemade soup. Butternut Squash, Curry, French Onion, Roasted Red Pepper...Check back for more photos of soup bowls – and a few recipes – through Sunday.

Ballet Hispanico!

Bright, glossy red wigs and leather stocking-socks, suggestive caressing and thrusts of all kinds, feather-boas and piled, flashy headdresses.

That's what modern ballet is made of.

Ballet Hispanico gave a one-night performance in Chicago on Friday, and my fine-art-critic-aficionado friend got us two prime seats at the event.

The performance was comprised of three parts: a dramatic, barefooted story of tribal war and mourning; a montage of sultry modern-burlesque-styled numbers; and a more traditional showcase of hispanic club dancing.

The second part, 'Mad'moiselle' – with its campy red-headed night-doll costumes, provocative male-female interaction and eclectic modern-hip-hop-influenced style – was most surprising. Indeed, it turned out that this performance was the debut showing of the number. Chicago got a preview of the show, before it premieres in New York in the coming weeks. Que bueno!

Aside: these dancers' bodies, true to 'forma,' were delights to watch. Throughout the ballet, the company gracefully extended gorgeous legs, twisted trim torsos and flaunted knotty, pliable backs. And I was just as occupied by pondering the strength one should have to assume such controlled, attractive movements, and the wherewithal – constant wherewithal – to keep up a grin. Pretty self-possession. Y que gracioso estaba todo!


{Thanks for reading!}

Back of House at The Weepies

Have you heard The Weepies? http://www.theweepies.com/

Last week, a very cool friend was invited to attend a Weepies show by a music-biz friend of hers, and she asked me to go along. Apparently, the band was coming to Chicago on Halloween weekend for one night of two sold-out shows. We'd be special guests.

Before I saw the indie-pop-folk Weepies play live last weekend, I'd barely listened to their music at all. Honestly, my first impression had the group pegged as whiny, overly pop-ish and somehow melancholy. The mood a person needs to blue-out to that kind of music hadn't yet hit me.

But, the company at the concert would be great, in any case. There was a rumor that Billy Corgan might make an audience cameo. Plus, I'm generally curious. I hoped to observe whatever musically-genius phenomenon in the Weepies sold out these shows.

And, gosh – there's such an appeal to live music. At the very least, music shows offer great energy, fantastic people-watching, often a very proper atmosphere for thinking. I haven't yet had a bad time watching live music. Have you?

***

Turns out the show was a treat. As we arrived, my friend's music biz connection led us to the back rooms, a cavernous, cozy loft-apartment-like setup where the stage manager observed the boards and the band readied for showtime. Each warmly-lit, hardwood-paneled room was bedecked in plush oriental rugs and velvet noise-buffering curtains, livened by rock-n-roll leather couches and zebra-patterned pillows.

In the adjacent green room, members of the Weepies chatted, chuckled and sponged on white makeup, black lipstick and long, streaky wigs in honor of Halloween. On the counter next to their half-moon leather couch were untouched platters of sandwich meats, semi-dry cheeses, wilting veggies and crackly dips.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed gourmet cupcakes my friend had brought, decadent treats ornamented with shards of gummy 'glass' and injected with vampire 'blood' in honor of Halloween. When the venue in the next room filled and the show was about to start, we were offered drinks and food on the house. We were led past hoards of standers to a reserved table with a clear view of the stage. All my senses were on highs. I felt a bit spoiled, I told my friend. She agreed.

The room went dark, but the Weepies came to the stage and received boisterous applause, and as they started to play, the whole venue lit up with energy.

After spending four years off tour so the lead duo could raise their first child, The Weepies' six-person band sounded palpably cheerful, fresh and cohesive. They crooned, told stories, joked and teased each other – all to the packed venue audience's eager delight.

The lead couple switched their folkie wooden guitars nearly every song and gave blood to their music with charming background anecdotes, the bassists amused each other with skillful riffs and string experimentation. The whole group came to the stage in Halloween costumes, and only discarded them when their long-haired wigs made it difficult to see their instruments.

The Weepies' appeal quickly became apparent. Even more impressive than their unique voices, interesting soulful twanging and impressive vocal ranges was the band's collective charisma. They had a good time, and so we had a good time. Contagious amusement, and another positive experience for this spontaneous concert-goer. Woohoo!



What's the last concert you saw? Why'd you go?

Freelance Chalkboarding

Before:

After:


My knees and neck tingle a bit. My arms are heavy. And my jeans are covered in yellow chalk-dust, but that last one is more of a coincidence.

I worked on my first freelance chalkboarding gig for hours today. Two boards for a small music venue: one drink menu, one informational header. This wasn't at all like the writing or design jobs I've done before, but a very cool opportunity. I was commissioned by a music venue, and to do wall-art! Call me Leah-nardo.

Fonts, colors, layout, vibe. It took an hour to computer-design the menu, and about 20 minutes to lay out the second. Setting up a workspace and supplies took 20 minutes. Applying the design by hand took about 4.5 hours.

The whole process put me in good spirits, but there were challenges: technical details like using carbon paper and working with chalk markers, which I've been used to on smaller projects in my regular work, turned into more complicated maneuvers on the much larger boards. Giving the design some hand-drawn warmth, while making it sharp and polished, took close attention.

Overall, the work was enjoyable, hitch-free, instructive. I charged a lot. I worked diligently. Probably, I could have charged more.

It was empowering.

So I look forward to taking on more artistic freelance work. Any ideas?


{Thank you for reading!}

Week of Sunrises

I've been biking to different spots along the lake every morning this week to watch the sun rise. Tune in until Sunday for new photo each day...

Fitzmaurice Voicework

Body tremors.

Pardon?

In a Fitzmaurice Voicework class on Sunday, I participated in voluntarily-induced body tremors.

What?!

Right, and I'm not sure if I can explain. But I'll try.

My friend Sam and I decided to take a class together at Piven Theatre Workshop, a decades-old, somewhat well-known training program for all ages. Sam had taken a Piven class before and quite enjoyed it; she thought I would, too. Interested in something unique, I suggested Fitzmaurice Voicework, a special voice-developing workshop that's on the program just for this Fall session.

This class is certainly unlike any other I've joined.

But we'll get to that; it didn't start out so unexpected. The class lasts six weeks, and the first meeting was spent in socked feet, sitting in a circle and sharing, then playing trust games and moving dramatically with our eyes closed. All that's part of what I imagine when I hear the words 'acting class.' Predictable, amusing!

Of course, the Voicework class was sure to be a bit different, and appeared more and more dynamic as our compact, gray-haired, eloquent-and-cheeky British instructor, Roger Smart, let on to his background in Eastern philosophy and movement, facets of the brain and movement of energy. Still, Roger gave no discernible indication of what was to come later – at least, not what would come physically.


***

Sam and I both missed the second class, so when we arrived at class 3 on a brilliantly sunny fall morning, mats and pillows under arms, we'd not a clue what to expect.

After a slow start (literally, we warmed up with a mindful space-feeling 10-minute walk across a 22-foot room), Roger directed the class to stretch in a few comfortable positions. Then we broke into work. In the middle of a classic dorsal stretch, on our backs, right knee up and torso twisted to allow the left leg over – we were told to look for our 'tremor.'

Perhaps you expected this, even if I didn't: a tremor is a shake in your body. It names what happens to your muscles when they're not quite stretched out completely in an exercise, at an active point just before flexing on the bend/flex scale. Your muscles can't quite hold their place, and they shake a bit (or sometimes a lot).

All my exercising life, I'd been under the impression that such shakes were signs of weakness in body movement, clues to what muscles should or could be strengthened. In gymnastics practice years ago, we young gymnasts sometimes shook while deeply stretching, but really only at the beginning of the season. By the end, we were strong and very flexible.

So, it was not intuitive for me that finding and holding this tremor in a series of positions was our goal for the last two hours of our three-hour class. We got into a series of fairly difficult positions, each suspended somewhere between relaxation and exercise, looked for the tremor and attempted to draw the shake up from each muscle to our chest and breath. We were to relax, allow for chaotic breathing and 'soft and fuzzy sounds' or loud vowel sounds to escape our mouths, and feel free to...feel free.

Eventually, tremoring this way is supposed to allow deep, strained emotions out of your depths, so you feel free to speak with a full voice and to emote sincerely. We were told that signs of breakthrough include, but aren't limited to, sudden sobs, intense laughter, near-involuntary speaking, simple realizations.

Early on, one woman started to wail, then laugh out loud. She did this multiple times during the class, and after the meeting, exclaimed that she'd been looking for this release for some time. Another student burst out into sobs during one exercise.

The rest of the class shook it out, and will continue working, with open minds, toward our own versions of breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, if you happen to look in on our classroom, we might be a practicing crew of closed-eyed 'spazzes,' most shaking without form, some breathing as if in rapture, a few letting out wailed 'O's.

O, my. Three classes, three weeks left. We'll see what happens.