we had to cut down this silver maple today. it broke my heart. some of its branches were already dead and the trunk was highly compromised, so i was told it was a safety issue. still, when the tree climber began to cut it down this morning, i had the strong urge to run outside and stop him. i wish i knew of some ceremony, to thank the tree for 100s of years of beauty and shade. it feels momentous. so much history disappeared in a few hours. what a huge, gaping loss. for us but also for its companion silver maples.
“nothing does it justice. at approximately 60 feet high and 222 inches in circumference, measured at 4.5 feet off the ground, the enormous silver maple in setauket is one of the few of its kind that remembers a time potentially up to the revolutionary period or even further back.”
[see the white car in the bottom corner for some perspective on the tremendous height of this beautiful tree]
an unforgettable evening in brooklyn last night, celebrating the launch of “documentary cinema in israel-palestine – performance, the body, the home” by my brilliant friend shirly bahar. delicious palestinian food by ayat, music by laura elkeslassy, ira khonen temple, zafer tawil and dan kurfist, poetry by mariam bazeed, qais kamran, and halah abdelhadi, and a wonderful reading from the book by shirly.
“bahar offers a nuanced reading of the cinematic documentary corpus emerging from israel-palestine, as well palestinians’ and mizrahim’s different and unequal yet interrelated forms of oppression and racialization under israeli rule. while pain sets them apart, the documentary representations of pain of palestinians and mizrahim invite us to consider reconnection by focusing on the very relational nature of pain.” outdoors, in a cozy backyard in williamsburg, filled with friends and powerful energy – one day soon palestine will be free.
west meadow beach, famous for its sunsets. walkable from our house (just a mile away). our first potluck in setauket w many of our neighbors. we won a bridal wreath in the raffle. and then there was the beach.
i know it’s blasphemous to say so, but home baked pies by pantaleon’s farm are better than monica’s pies in naples, ny. there i said it. the crust is buttery and crumbly and tastes almost as good as the filling. my favorite is ‘fruits of the forest’ because it has a sharp, sweet taste (apples, berries and rhubarb). juan pantaleon and his family took over the farm in 2011 and made it shine. they have flowers, a nursery, jams and baked goods, and of course, the famous fruit stand with fresh produce from the farm. at an intersection in east setauket. 5 min drive from our house.
there’s an expression in urdu: shakkar khoray ko shakkar, meaning those who have a sweet tooth, are always blessed w sugar (notice how urdu can say so much, in such few words). so today we found this lovely little park just a 5 min drive from our house: the frank melville memorial park, in setauket. the weather was perfect and after days of non-stop, grueling work, this was just what we needed ?
dinner with these brilliant friends at @mercato_trattoria_bar in nyc last night (the ratatouille and ravioli were to die for). we’ve worked together long distance through the pandemic. sooo good to finally meet in real life. next get together on long island inshallah <3
back in montauk after some 20 years. it’s the eastern most tip of long island (a very long island indeed). a beautiful, beachy town with an iconic lighthouse, clam shacks, and ice cream parlors. we chose to eat at la fin, a wonderful french restaurant on the harbor. downtown east hampton has a manolo blahnik store btw, for those who are into that kinda thing, and lots of tanned people in spiffy clothes. with its grist mills, gorgeous beaches, and wind mills, this area is a lot like cape cod, but a notch fancier. remember the great gatsby? it was more than 80 F in the afternoon so decided to skip the hike in shadmoor state park. maybe next time. although the bottlenecks and slow traffic around east hampton did not appeal to the husband.
With the brilliant (and lovely) Max Ajl whose work is critically engaging and analysis always measured. Read his new book, A People’s Green New Deal, and learn more about his important work. Thx for coming to Manhattan Max!
so much fun hanging out with my brother and his wonderful fam today! being close to my brother and our kids is one of the blessings of living on long island <3
my friend Cat Ashworth retired yesterday, after teaching film at RIT for 32 years. that RIT didn’t have the grace to thank her for her stellar work over three long decades is appallingly egregious. it speaks to the larger issue of how work performed by women is systematically diminished and erased. how women themselves are routinely invisibilized, ignored, or minimized.
i took a class with cat many years ago. it was a hands-on documentary workshop during the course of which i edited my first doc, ‘the muslims i know’ – the film that made me a filmmaker. how lucky to have landed in cat’s class at such a crucial juncture in my life.
filmmaking was a second career for me so i was much older than the other students. i came to the class with a decisive goal in mind – to edit a feature length film in just a few weeks. there was an urgency to my task which cat understood instinctively. she supported me every way she could, even asking her assistant to teach me how to use keyframes and create motion paths in final cut pro.
not having formally studied filmmaking, i came at it from a different angle. sometimes i wouldn’t know the technical jargon or my ideas would be too unconventional or politically heavy and uncool. cat always sided with me. she never made me feel like i didn’t belong. she wasn’t annoyed by my drive. that set the tone for the way the other students responded to me. although they could be ruthless in their critique, cat made them believe i was doing something worthwhile and meaningful.
initially, i was thinking of hiring someone to do the film’s voiceover, but cat urged me to do it myself – not to hide but rather to embrace the personal nature of the project. the muslims i had interviewed were my people. islamophobia touched them just as it impacted me and my family. it was ok to own that and speak from that vulnerable position. and she was right. one of the most common reactions to the doc is the feedback i get about the voiceover – its warmth and ability to pull audiences in. only because of cat.
at the end of the class, when i screened the rough cut for RIT’s film faculty, the responses i got from some of the most prominent male professors in positions of power were disappointing. one particularly important one told me i shouldn’t use western classical music in the film because it didn’t fit all this talk about islam and muslims. i guess he was expecting some sitar and tabla. talk about orientalism. once again, cat pushed back publicly and also in private, encouraging me to stay with my ideas and in fact commit to them even more. it’s like she could predict the effect the film would have.
i’ve made two other films after it, but 15 years later, ‘the muslims i know’ continues to generate abundant viewership. it’s been integrated into college curriculums and i hear from professors who tell me how they use it in their class.
how many stories like this there must be from cat’s students and colleagues who have benefited from her generosity, attention and brilliance for 32 years. i am not even listing the outstanding work she has produced as an astute filmmaker and artist or her behind-the-scenes efforts to diversify RIT faculty.
thank u cat. we love u. enjoy ur retirement and know that u helped shape many lives and careers.
hey rochester, follow frederick douglass’s lead and vote for rajesh barnabas. he speaks truth to power and has solid ideas about how to implement much needed change. vote for rajesh, vote for the people’s slate.
for the first time since we moved here, a little over a year ago, we met with a group of people. went on a ‘healing hike’ with the long island progressive coalition to uplands preserve, cold spring harbor, new york. so incredibly beautiful! spent 3 hours discovering how milkweed attracts monarch butterflies, what poison ivy looks like, how the white flowered mountain laurel is difficult to move or transplant on account of its sensitivity to soil chemistry, the subtle perfume of the multiflora rose (a climbing, rambling shrub), how woodpeckers communicate with one another, how the tulip poplar (also called tulip tree) is neither tulip nor poplar but closely related to magnolia trees, and how the american chestnut is super susceptible to chestnut blight, a fungus introduced to north america in the early 1900s which reduced the great american chestnut forests to a simple sucker sprout population that rarely produces any chestnuts. v cool to meet other activists as well – especially nia adams who traveled to rochester during the daniel prude uprising and knew all the brilliant women involved with free the people rochester. it was 81 F but we spent most of our time in fragrant shaded woods so didn’t really feel the heat.
