2013 in Review

Greetings, everyone! What a year it has been. Our Christmas postcards (mailed today) invite you to read more about our travels on this site, so that means I need to post something more exhaustive than the snippets I've been throwing out every few weeks. This has not been a good year for blogging. But traveling, yes: six countries, dozens of cities and hundreds of photos. Let me explain -- no, there is too much -- let me sum up:

Early in the spring, we spent a day in New Orleans before driving out to St. Francisville for a weekend of fun with our dear friends Rod and Julie, their endlessly entertaining children and their picturesque backdrop of a town:

Yes, it's actually that beautiful there. Don't you read Rod's blog?!

Back home, we planted our annual garden that would later be the victim of our annual neglect. Hey, we were busy. My parents, on the other hand, were far more industrious and took locavorism one step further with the acquisition of eight hens. They started out teeny-tiny, like this,

Rob named her McNugget. The others have more dignified appellations.

And grew to healthy hen sizes by summer's end, when they were filling several cartons of eggs a week.

Not pictured: the hilarious noises chickens make when you get close enough for a photo.

We enjoyed two snowstorms, both on feasts of the Theotokos. Here's Annunciation Day's haul, which gave us a nice long weekend in March.

One of the most rewarding things in our lives is our participation in the community of Holy Cross parish, where Rob helps with the gardens, I lead the chanters and we have many wonderful friends. I've also continued to perform with Boston Byzantine Choir this year, including a concert in Montreal in April, where we saw the stunning Notre Dame cathedral and an equally stunning variety pack of weather (rain, snow, hail, wind and sunshine in under 48 hours!)

I don't think I've ever paid money to enter a church before, but this was worth it!

A couple of weeks later, we celebrated the Resurrection in our own parish, far more humble but just as lovely to us. Here we are gathered outside the doors, where we sing the first joyful "Christ is Risen!" of the year.

Despite the fact that we both grew up in Baltimore, neither of us had ever been to Pimlico Racetrack until this spring, when we enjoyed watching and placing bets on several minor races. Rob was the big winner, pocketing $12.50.

And, a big fan of classic rock, he knows when every concert is happening, so we attend more than I'd like to admit. Here's the Rolling Stones show in Philadelphia, to which he took his father as a birthday present.

Our first big trip of the summer was to Colorado, where Rob had an architecture convention to attend. Afterwards, we spent some long-awaited time with our adopted family, the O'dells, who took us on a grand tour of their home state. Here we are in Estes Park, shivering in the sunshine:

We drove southwest through some incredible mountain passes, winding up in Durango, where we took a day trip to Mesa Verde National Park to see cliff dwellings that were over a thousand years old.

Then, on what became the highlight of our trip, we boarded an old-fashioned narrow-gauge train that took us over rivers, through woods and to the tiny mining town of Silverton. We had coal dust in our hair and wind burns on our faces, but it was the most fun I've had in a long time!

We were home for just a week when I had to dash off to the Sacred Music Institute at Antiochian Village, where I gave a few classes, including this talk about the experience of Orthodox Holy Week. Meanwhile, Rob was off to Paris, leading another study tour of chateaus and museums with a group of young architectural hopefuls.

This was a very different trip in a number of ways: I missed the first few days because of my conference, but met up in time to help the group navigate out of the city to half a dozen different chateaux of the Loire Valley. Unfortunately, I also picked up a nasty bug somewhere in our travels, but I rested when I could and still managed to have a good time in and out of the city. One highlight was the discovery of the Promenade Plantee, an abandoned rail line that's been repurposed as an elevated greenway.

And when we got home, I finally finished my Paris Top 10 series, so you can read lots more there about what we've seen and done on our various trips there. But we didn't stay home for long -- just a few days, in fact, before flying the opposite direction to visit my grandmother on the West Coast, along with my family. Though we have visited this part of the country many times, we enjoyed several new experiences, including the canals at Venice Beach (freakish bodybuilders not pictured:)

And we carefully staged this photo in the Joshua Tree park, which may be the peak of this year's accomplishments.

Bonus points if you can name the first three tracks in order!

Once home, we took a vacation from our vacations for a couple of weeks. We celebrated ten years of marriage in late August, but an overnight trip downtown was the furthest we wanted to go for awhile. These house numbers were Rob's gift (look, you try finding an interesting present made from iron!)

This bush is way out of control, but it makes a nice accent.

In September our parish celebrated twenty years of worshipping, serving and witnessing together. It was a glorious weekend, during which we sang more than we had thought possible: here we are during Vigil, which lasted nearly three hours. You can also see some of the incredible iconography that's been finished over the last year, as well as the iconographer's son, the sweetest little altar-boy-in-training I've ever seen. Less than a month after this photo was taken, two of our chanters left to join monasteries, so it's a bittersweet memory. Glory to God for all of our time together and the music of our voices and hearts.

In everyday life, we both continue to enjoy the fruits of my labor at Yelp, an online ratings service where I am an Elite member and occasionally get perks like this one, a catered reception at the Museum of Science & Industry overlooking the Baltimore Harbor.

He took a well-deserved break this semester, earning a sabbatical to research and teach at Morgan State University, where they're looking to develop a mobile app for site analysis. He also spent plenty of time with his two furry daughters, as well as with his new business venture, Appitecture, where he posts frequently. They are launching an extensive website on New Year's Day, so stay tuned for more interesting photos in his upcoming "Places and Perspectives" blog.

Rob's more relaxed schedule this fall brought us yet more opportunities to travel, including a quick trip to New York, where I had a writing seminar to attend and he enjoyed photographing the beautiful fall colors.

Reflecting Pool, Bard College — Reflecting Pool, Bard College

We visited some friends in the city on the way home. They were wonderful hosts and we had a great time eating and catching up with them. As a bonus, their apartment is walking distance from the Cloisters, my favorite Manhattan museum. It's nestled in Fort Tryon Park where, it would seem, the spirit of Terrence Malick is lurking:

And just when it looked like the year was winding down, we took our most ambitious and exotic trip to date. For two weeks in November and December, we traveled with our best friends through Turkey, Georgia and Armenia on a pilgrimage to visit holy sites in a part of the world that has known Christianity from its earliest days.

Our time in Istanbul was basically a series of mini-catastrophes, but once we landed in Georgia, we felt truly welcomed and at home, thanks to the bend-over-backwards hospitality of our lovely friends David and Margo and their intrepid son Dietrich. For ten days they drove, fed, translated and guided us through some of the most incredible sights and stories we'd ever experienced. Having only returned a couple of weeks ago, I need more time to process everything before I can really write about it, but here are some snippets from the trip.

Much of Georgia's spiritual history is connected with Nino, a Cappadocian nun who evangelized the country in the fourth century. We visited several sites connected with her, including the monastery where she is buried. On the grounds there is a sacred spring that appeared, miraculously, when the nuns needed water (and then, just as miraculously, disappeared and reappeared in a hidden spot when the convent was under persecution by an invading army.)

It was nearly freezing the day we visited, but we went for a dip in the chilly water and prayed -- quickly! -- for a blessing before toweling off in the little stone house and putting all of our layers back on. When the boys were in the water, we heard Matt's voice through the tiny window: "Well, Rob, what do you think of this Orthodox thing now?"

Probably what we all thought, which was: the culture there is so steeped in faith, it is truly a marvel. It has endured centuries of persecution, first by the pagan Persians, then by the Muslims and most recently at the hands of the Communists. Its churches and monasteries have been burned, demolished, and demoted to hospitals and museums, but in the short period since its independence, the nation has already begun to transform itself.

As if that weren't enough of a trip, we also took a couple of days to drive south to Armenia, the land of my ancestors on my father's father's side. There we found another nation that has endured cruel and horrendous persecution, bordering on complete extermination, but that has emerged with a plucky and inspiring resolve to rebuild and transcend its own grief.

From high in the capital of Yerevan, you can see the outline of Mount Ararat, the national symbol of the country where Noah landed thousands of years ago. (Their patriarchate in Etchmiadzin contains a staggering number of relics, including wood from the ark -- given to a monk by a pitying angel after the poor man had tried and failed three times to climb the mountain in search of the holy site.) It's also a good spot for a photo, if you can get one without too much windblown hair:

On our way out of the city, we received the gift of an early-morning snowstorm, meaning that by the time we reached the monastery on the banks of Lake Sevan, the roads were clear but the landscape was still a series of pristine, white undulations. In the chapel they were celebrating Divine Liturgy, and outside the world was holding its own celebration: "All the earth is Thy promised bride awaiting her spotless husband!"

The entire trip felt like one enormous gasp, and in the weeks since returning home we have been slowly exhaling, hoping that the exhaustion will wear off but leave the spirituality behind. Please know that we did remember you, our family and friends, in prayer in those holy places, just as we do here in the quiet and comfort of our home.

Snuggled up with a cat. As we are happiest.

We miss you, we love you and we hope to see you very soon!

Rob and Emily

Our Christmas Card: The Extended Version

The first couple of days of Christmas break are always wasted in a flurry of movie-watching, cookie-baking and snuggling with furry things on the couch (blankets, animals, unshaven husbands.) Suddenly, on Christmas eve, I realized we hadn't done Christmas cards. I half thought of scrapping it, since we'd been good about it for our first ten Christmases, but I realized what I said last year is still true: I like the whole process, the hassle of changing addresses and names and the fun of scribbling little notes by hand and the nice finished product at the end -- a pile of pretty stamped envelopes waiting to join our friends all over the country.

So, those are on their way to you, and meanwhile, for those of you who really want a play-by-play, here's what we've been up to this year:

First, we had a lot more work to do with our two new end-of-2011 projects: dog and kitchen. It took me a very, very long time to get used to having Mishka in the house, but I do enjoy her company, as well as the protection she offers me from burglars, the UPS man and umbrellas. (Bubble wrap, however, is a different story. If bubble wrap ever broke into the house, she would hide in the corner while it made off with all the valuables.)

She also forces us to get outside more, which is definitely a good thing, as she has an endless capacity for running, sniffing and chasing. On one recent foray in the woods near our house, I enjoyed calling her back with a whistle: I would hear nothing, then a very faint rustle growing louder as she trampled through the fallen leaves coming toward me. The last time I called her back, however, the rustling grew louder and louder until I saw, with much alarm, half a dozen deer charge over the crest of the hill in front of me, on high alert with tails up. A hundred yards behind them was Mishka, having the time of her life.

Snow is like crack for dogs, apparently.

She loves the snow, but unfortunately, this little dusting was it for the year until this week. Thankfully, we got in a visit to our dear friends in Colorado and saw some real snow, along with real mountains, trees and blue skies (you think we have these things on the East Coast, but you're so wrong!)

Spring brought more raised beds and another attempt at filling them with our favorite heirloom varieties. Unfortunately, our summer traveling always interferes with the crucial work of watering and harvesting, but we still got quite a few tomatoes, beans, berries, carrots, beets and greens, plus all the fresh herbs we could handle!

Some pretty flowers, too, especially in the spring -- and yes, we still have the cat, and yes, she tolerates the dog who wants so badly to be friends with her.

Church is a constant source of peace and healing for us amid the stresses and trials of everyday life. I am grateful for my job as protopsalti, training and leading the other chanters; it keeps me connected to the community of Holy Cross, and to the Cross itself, eliminating the possibility of intruding busy-ness. We had a beautiful Lent, Holy Week and Pascha this year, including this lovely flower-covered bier with which we processed around the church on Holy Friday, commemorating the Lord's death and looking ahead to the promise of His Resurrection.

In the late spring, Rob and his dad, along with some friends, rode in Bike New York -- a a 42-mile ride that spanned all five boroughs and gave them some great views and an even greater workout. My mother-in-law and I happily tagged along for shopping, dining and a beautiful visit to the new Ground Zero park.

Giant waterfalls outline the footprints of the original Twin Towers, surrounded by a peaceful tree-lined arcade. The names of the fallen inspire personal tributes like this one.

Then we turned right around and went the opposite direction, to beautiful New Orleans for a weekend filled with sunny weather, beautiful music and way too much good food. We also enjoyed a visit to nearby St. Francisville to spend time with some dear friends who took us out for crawfish and stopped for cracklins on the way home (that comment about too much good food? I really meant it.)

New Orleans may be Party Central for most, but to me it's more a place of peace than anything else. The people we meet, the cocktails we toast with, and the streets we walk are all infused with a quiet, refined grace that trickles down into the days and weeks following our return. I couldn't ever get enough of the place.

Almost as soon as we returned from these trips, and as we were wrapping up the school year, I ended my 21-year academic career by walking the stage at Loyola University to receive a Master of Arts in Teaching along with a Secondary English teaching certification. In other words, after ten years of private instruction and seven in the classroom, I am finally, officially, a teacher.

As the school year ended, I signed a contract making the leap to full-time employment; I would have my own classroom for the first time, as well as increased administrative and supervisory duties. I was a little nervous about this, but Rob assured me it was not all that different from what I had already been doing as a part-time instructor. He's still full-time at the college level, teaching design courses to diverse classes that include both starry-eyed teenagers and professionals older than he is. One of the biggest perks of his job is that every other year or so, he gets to run a travel study program in Paris!

Like any good husband (and he is the very best) he brings along his French-speaking wife so she can enjoy herself and help him out of Metro limbo when necessary. This year we ventured further south of the city on our days off, seeing some incredible chateaus in the Loire valley.

(For more about our travels in Paris, I invite you to read my Top Ten series. Loyal readers (all four of you) will notice that not all of the ten pieces are published yet, but please enjoy what's there and I promise to finish soon!

Upon returning, we hosted a huge, fancy dinner in honor of Bastille Day, featuring five French courses paired with hand-selected American wines. The most prestigious Louisianan journalists all covered the story.

We spent time at the ocean as the summer ended, and also attended three beautiful weddings -- a longtime friend of mine in a three-part French-Indian extravaganza, a longtime friend of Rob's in a sweet homegrown ceremony on a farm, and a cousin's eclectic celebration in some local ruins:

School began again this fall, and with my increased class load, I made the difficult decision to stop teaching private piano lessons. My students were an important part of my life for nearly ten years, and it was hard to say goodbye, but I know they will be successful elsewhere: several have transferred to my mom's studio and are already making great progress. Meanwhile, I've enjoyed teaching a French class in addition to the English that makes up the bulk of my workload. I credit Rosetta Stone with my quick recall of vocabulary I learned when I was my students' age!

We've made time for lots of fun weekend trips this semester, too: besides the weddings, we also took in a couple of concerts and enjoyed the stately beauty of Williamsburg with our family. And a friendship that began at the summer Sacred Music Institutes took me to Boston for two weekends in a row, to rehearse and record as part of Charlie Marge's Boston Byzantine Choir. I was so honored and humbled to be a part of the incredible musicianship and camaraderie of this group, and we enjoyed quality time with our Boston friends in my free time. They call this the "Hahbuh."

We were out of town so much this fall that I'm afraid I was a bad mother to this blog. I hope this New Year will bring some more stability, but I also have to blame social networks for some of that: although Facebook's time-sucking capabilities have kept me away so far, I have enjoyed the simple beauty of sharing photos via Instagram (in fact, many from this letter were originally published there; it's a nice backup in case, say, your hard drive crashes when your laptop falls off the couch and your last month or so of data is unrecoverable.) I've also enjoyed reviewing restaurants on Yelp, and as one of their Elite members I get to attend fun events around town. You can check out the content on the left-hand sidebars, and if you share either hobby, please look me up!

And now, having celebrated the glorious Nativity of Christ with a late-night festal Liturgy, and having feasted and clinked glasses and given gifts and sung and laughed, we prepare for an end-of-year gathering with family and friends to do more of the same -- and we wish you as much peace and joy as can fit into your hearts.

Merry Christmas from Baltimore!

Love, Emily and Rob

Paris Top 10: Museums

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who enjoy museums and people who don't.

Maybe this sounds pompous. Maybe it is. But if you don't see a reason for taking the time to look at works of art created dozens, scores, even hundreds of years ago, and beloved by other artists and critics and commoners for generations afterward, I don't think I can convince you to change your mind. Which is probably just as well: it means there will be less of a line for the rest of us!

Paris' museums are superb, so much so that it's worth planning your trip around their opening hours: there's nothing worse than paying 15 Euros for admission at 3 PM, only to learn that the doors close at 4! In most cases I wouldn't recommend more than one per day, unless they're small ones; you need time to process everything you've seen in order to benefit fully from the experience. Some of my favorites follow.

*One of these forms just doesn't belong here . . .*

The Louvre: Perhaps the most famous museum in the world, it deserves all the notoriety it can rake in, the atrociously modern lobby notwithstanding. Stop here to see Nike on the prow of a ship, all the more regal for her headlessness; the ideal of the female form in the Venus de Milo; and Leonardo's La Giaconde.

*I've seen her four times, and with each visit the security and crowds were more outrageous. The last time we visited the Louvre, I didn't even bother trying to elbow my way into the room.*

Then ditch the crowds and explore some of the other collections: the Dutch Masters, especially its two Vermeers; the medieval foundations of the building, visible on the basement level; and the wealth of additional Greco-Roman sculpture that spills out into several light-filled atria. You could spend a whole week here, without sleeping, and still not see everything!

Afterwards, wander through the Tuilerie gardens, stopping to feed the birds (and yourself if you've been there long enough; there's a pleasant outdoor cafe about halfway through) and enter L'Orangerie, a small sun-filled outbuilding where you can stand in a room surrounded by dreamy, dwarfing Monets in murky pastel flavors.

Musee d'Orsay: Widely famed for its extensive collection of Impressionists, who were long banned from the artistic establishment, this former train station also houses Old Masters and architectural drawings. It's absolutely mandatory for fans of Van Gogh, Seurat and Degas; you could easily spend a whole day here.

Musee Cluny: This is my personal favorite. Housed in an ancient Roman bath, it is devoted to the art of the Middle Ages. It is home to the world-famous Unicorn Tapestries, beautiful stained glass, and countless illuminated manuscripts, which I think are the most fascinating pieces ever created. If it's a hot day, you'll be especially happy to visit the old frigidarium, which is buried to keep the temperature cool and consistent.

Musee Rodin: What I love the most about this place is its scale. You could see the whole thing, including the lovely gardens, in an hour, but you'll want to linger longer over each intimate piece, marveling at the softness of stone and bronze.

Centre Pompidou: I don't have much tolerance for modern art -- about an hour is the most I can take -- but this building is worth seeing just for its novelty: the idea was to put all the systems (circulation, water, heating and cooling) outside in order to leave the gallery space pristine and unencumbered. The plaza outside is also worth seeing: in the summer there are often impromptu concerts and skateboard performances, and the area is known for good shopping and restaurants.

Cite de la Musique was so wonderful I wrote a post about it several years ago, but this last trip introduced me to another wonderful gem: the Cinematheque Francaise, which houses hundreds of clips, props and costumes from the first films through the present day.

There are others, of course, but the last one I have to recommend is the Musee des Plans-Reliefs, an amazing find composed of immense relief maps created during the Napoleonic Era (all the better to conquer you with, mes amis.) It's only one long room, but it's worth the trip to Les Invalides even if you don't get to see the Little Man himself.

And sometimes you just get lucky, as we did the only time we ever got to the top of La Defense: there was an incredible exhibit at the Musee d'Informatique that covered the history of the Macintosh computer, complete with prototypes and projections of its most famous advertisements. Rob and I were in geek heaven, but we've never been able to go back since: high winds and technical difficulties keep preventing their elevators from ferrying tourists to the top.

Ah, well. It's Paris: there's plenty more to see.

Paris Top 10: Churches

“O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house, the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”

Little else compares to the feeling of walking into an ancient, beautiful temple, consecrated by hundreds of years of prayer. Though modern Parisians have largely rejected the faith of their fathers, churches abound still.

The first time I visited the city, with my high-school French class, we didn’t get to see the inside of Notre-Dame because the lines were too long. I remember telling my parents, “It’s okay; I got to see the outside.” When I returned seven years later, I realized how woefully short this experience had been. In hushed reverence, I wandered the aisles and drank in the stained-glass windows, the statue-filled niches, and most of all the pilgrims — people who had come from all over the world to light a candle and say a prayer in this sacred place.

Paris Top 10: Chateaus

So, after waxing eloquent about the charmingly elegant ambience of Paris, the next item on my list will send you away from the cosmopolitan center to the far reaches of the countryside. But trust me: you want to see these.

The chateaus of the Loire Valley were built as countryside homes for the kings of the pre-Republic nation, and while touring one is fascinating, visiting a whole string of them (as we did on this trip) changes the French experience completely.

Cooper Chronicles: III.1

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing. Introduction here.)

Between yesterday’s post and today’s lies a whole year of time and countless experiences, most of which are lost to the cold indifference of Microsoft (who knew I’d be looking for those e-mails over a decade later?!) Below is something I did think to save: the very last letter to this list, the one sent after I had returned home.

When I began to tell people I was leaving Cooper Union, possibly never to return, the most common reaction was “What happened? I thought your story about the [insert reference to quirky personal anecdote of choice] was so funny. I thought you loved it there.”

Well, I did love it there. But in answer to the “What happened?” I can offer some brief (ha!) insights.

Here’s what happened: John Hejduk got cancer. Five years ago, before I was even admitted to the school or had heard of it, the disease was crippling him. His huge, brontosaurus-like figure grew wasted and thin, and he spoke haltingly; each word was an effort. He simply couldn’t carry the weight of the school on his shoulders any longer. He retired in June and passed away a month later. Hejduk was a beautiful person, a talented architect and a dedicated Catholic, and he made Cooper Union what it was: a highly respected institution of architecture. In one of his last public acts, he inspired me to stay there last year when I was just about fed up.

Here’s what happened: the underlings were given too much authority. When the cat gets cancer, the mice will play – and there’s been a lot of that in the last few years. In this case, there was a catalyst: Peter Eisenman took a semester’s sabbatical to work on a series of lectures, and he left his class in the authority of three junior professors. They simply could not control the class. In later months, Guido lapsed into desk crits where he discussed the X-files instead of architecture, and he said things like, “Do whatever you want; it doesn’t matter.” Then he failed a whole bunch of us, including me, and left the country.

On a sunny June morning, the day before I was scheduled to leave for a two-week full-scholarship art seminar at the University of Notre Dame, I opened my report card to find it marked with an F in Design and an invitation to defend myself before the Academic Standards Committee, pending possible expulsion from the School of Architecture. It’s funny, how God never gives us more than we can handle; I remember my first C (first year, first semester) when I grudgingly accepted it, and my first D (first year, second semester) when I cried for months. This time I calmly picked up the phone and called the architecture office. “This is Emily Oren,” I said. “Has there been a mistake, or have I really failed Design class?” The secretary got out the grade sheet and checked. “That was the grade that Professor Zuliani wrote down for you,” she said. “All right,” I said. “Give me his home and work phone numbers.”

I called both and left messages. When he called me back the next morning, as I was about to leave for the airport, I spared no words in communicating my disgust and frustration for his actions. If I deserved to fail – accepting that ridiculous premise, when my hours and effort were at least on par with the rest of the class – why had I not been warned? Why had he let me go on thinking I was doing fine, given such positive reviews, been completely encouraging (almost complimentary) about my work over the semester? His response was, “I didn’t want you to get depressed.” I’ll spare you further details about that conversation; if you want to duplicate it in terms of coherency, try to get Raymond to fly to LA on United.

The Academic Standards Committee had to pick up the pieces of this disaster, and they were none too thrilled about it. I was in frequent contact with the Dean of Students over the summer, who was largely sympathetic to my problems. This is perhaps the only reason I didn’t quit and move to a sanitarium in the South of France. But the bottom line was, they couldn’t second-guess his decision as a professor. They could only advise me to take the bone he had thrown my way and work all summer on my project in hopes of a grade change in the fall.

I did. I didn’t get a job; I didn’t have a vacation. I spent some time with my family. But mostly I holed up in my apartment on Forsyth Street and worked. Though I worked hard, it was by the prayers of my family and friends that I got a grade change; I’d given up all hope of being graded fairly with Guido. On the fateful day, he was pleased and said that – congratulations! – I had passed the “test.” He had wanted to see whether I was really dedicated to architecture; that was why he had failed me and made me work all summer.

Here’s what happened: I grew tired of thinking I was crazy. While this story sounds preposterous, it is but one of many. My final project last year was never returned to me; my professors lost it, and then gave me a D because they thought I hadn’t turned anything in. In the crazy flip-flopping of professorships in the last few years, one class managed to miss all the big-name luminaries and got stuck, year after year, with second- and third-rate teachers. Last spring, a third of them were not allowed to graduate because their work was found to be “sub-par.” Well, duh. There is the famous story about Raimund Abraham asking a student to leave the room after a particularly decimating crit and get him a glass of water; when she returned, she had to use it to put out the flames that were tearing through her model. There are so many stories like this. Everyone has one of his own – not just rumors, personal experiences of being treated badly. Maybe this is common to art-related programs everywhere; maybe it’s mainly because of the de facto absence of an academic dean in the last five years. That doesn’t make it right.

Here’s what happened: my health was slowly deteriorating. When you stay up all night frequently, when you have a lack of sunshine and exercise and home cooking, and your emotions and the weather are highly volatile, your body doesn’t have a chance. In the month and a half since I’ve been home, I feel a thousand times better. The effects of stress on the body are real, severe and debilitating.

Here’s what happened: I was reminded that there was life elsewhere. The most devastating thing about a program like this is that it sucks you in – it makes you believe that you are the one that needs fixing. You are the one who can’t “get” it; you are the one whose priorities aren’t in order. If you don’t want to spend all of your time in the studio, then get out of the class, get out of the school, get out of architecture. We don’t want you here. It’s scary how real everything feels. In the movie “the Cell” (which I don’t recommend seeing, although it’s lush and intriguing visually) the main character is endangered by the possibility that she will believe what she is experiencing [through some kind of mind-portal telepathy] is real, and therefore become trapped within the fantasy. It’s a very real possibility, and chilling, and sad. And, had I not had the family that I do, I might have tried to stick it out for another year.

The possibility of a leave of absence first surfaced during one of my conversations with the Dean of Students. She agreed with me that the school was in a very precarious position – its future depended on what kind of a person would replace Hejduk. The associate dean, who was instantly promoted, was also very sick and on the verge of retiring. The Board was going to have to think fairly fast and hire someone that could turn the school around, back into the kind of place it was when Hejduk was in his prime – a sanctuary for ideas, a place of learning and [good] hard work. She all but ordered me to take some time off, if for no other reason than to wait them out and see if I should put in another year. I could apply to other schools and have other options ready if Cooper was still limping along in a year, and if not, I could return well-rested and ready to serve my time. As I talked to my parents, it began to look very appealing; I could get a job in an architecture firm and further investigate the profession ( I still maintain that the possibility of my *being* an architect is dim; I love learning about it, but can’t see myself in the field – maybe just for lack of experience there.)

Penley practically packed my bags for me, he was so concerned. My mom and brother actually did: as I sat through that most final of final crits, they loaded up a rented SUV with my worldly possessions. That one giant favor was exactly what I needed. I sat in the car, balancing models on my lap, and stared numbly out the window as I tried to comprehend the great gift I had been given – the gift of one year of time that would be all my own.

One reason I waited so long to write this was that I wanted to make sure I was in a stable and optimistic frame of mind. With God’s grace, I have survived all that has happened to me, and can even give it a positive spin: every experience that we go through shapes us into who we are, and I have certainly learned a great deal in my two years at Cooper. I’m not bitter or resentful; with a program like that, the only option is to go in and glean everything possible from the knowledge there, while remaining grounded elsewhere. There’s a philosophy about being “In Cooper Union but not of Cooper Union.” That’s what I’ve tried to do, and that’s what I’ll continue doing if I go back.

I’m very sad about having left the city, but content in the knowledge that I will return – if not next year, sometime – and in the weekend visits I’ve been taking. It’s much more enjoyable to visit than to live there as an architecture student; I can plan my trip full of things I want to do, and really soak in each minute of the experience.

I plan to write more frequently and share everything that happens to me there – and here. Life in the Oren home is never lacking in entertainment value, and Baltimore has a charm and color all its own.

Cooper Chronicles: II.1

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing. Introduction here.)

I first came to knowledge of my metamorphosis as I stepped from the train to the platform in Penn Station. I was dressed head to toe in black, carrying a small handbag and wearing sunglasses. My cell phone started to ring, and I tucked my much shorter hair behind my ear to answer it. Suddenly I looked up to see ten other people doing the exact same things, wearing the same things, saying the same things. Hailing cabs and directing the route the driver should take, so they won’t be gypped. Walking briskly to their tiny apartments, checking voicemail and taking off their black shoes to stretch out on their black couches and leaf through the latest issue of Black Book or Wallpaper or Metropolis and see what’s new in the world of style and design.

Maybe it was my summer job working at Tristan & America, a high-end retail chain of slightly overpriced men and women’s clothing that briefs its employees biweekly on the latest fashion trends. I got a 40-percent discount there, and on the last day of my employment was shocked to find myself buying a charcoal gray business suit, something I had needed on many occasions but had never considered actually purchasing before. When I modeled it for Penley later, I found myself spouting off terms like “double vent,” “Chinese collar,” and “raw edged blazer”, all the while wondering vaguely where this knowledge had come from. I actually liked learning about fashion; though it will never be high on my priority list, I found it an interesting exercise to monitor the highly capricious trends and see how quickly each one rose and fell. I learned how easily influenced a certain class of shoppers are by salespeople; if I confided to a well dressed twenty-something that V necks were “fading out” this season, she would replace the three-quarter-sleeve sweater as if it were already dead and smelling up the room. Many of them wanted my opinion. I didn’t see why they would trust it (sometimes above their own!) when my position required me to have another goal besides making them look their best. I was always honest, though, and many times tactfully suggested another style, color or size when it was dreadfully needed.

It could have been the area in which I now live and work: the Lower East Side, right on the border of SoHo with its designer shops, boutiques, galleries and foreign cafes. Every night around nine, I would leave the store and walk home up Broadway, across Prince Street, past the strip of pricey French restaurants and Mulberry Street, which turns into Little Italy in the next few blocks. Most of the shops I passed didn’t even need to be visited; the window displays were enough. One store, which sold designer facial products, was introducing a new cream that contained Vitamin C. In their large, spacious window they placed clear glass tables strewn with small white jars of the cream, and you could see through the tables to the store behind — about thirty times larger than it needed to be, it looked decadent with the wasted space everywhere. Everything glistened chrome, white and transparent in the track lighting. The crowning touch: in the window they hung scores of hollow plastic oranges. There were so many of them, and they set off the rest of the store so strikingly, that I found myself walking in, chatting with the employees and actually thinking about buying the stuff. When I went in for my first interview at Tristan, the assistant manager described the market of New York, more specifically Soho and lower Manhattan, as one of the most competitive in the world. Companies like the Gap give their normally vigorous ad campaigns an extra boost: the Old Navy Stores in Soho and Penn Station are like miniature amusement parks, with drawings, prizes, games and more visual display than can be taken in during one visit. Everywhere are messages to spend, buy, consume. It can get a little tiring, but it’s exciting to watch if you can avoid participating.

Not all aspects of the change have been bad. I find myself more and more interested in the world around me I read the Times almost every day and listen to the news in the mornings when I’m crunching on my granola. I no longer avoid a movie because I think it will be boring; in fact, I go just for that reason, because I know it means it contains something I probably haven’t thought about enough. No, I only avoid movies that are Hollywood. They don’t really interest me, and even a good laugh isn’t worth 10 bucks.

I can’t tell if my initial wonder and awe of this great city is gone; some tell me it is, that I’ve become a bona-fide street-smart New Yorker. If so, my amazement has only given way to a deeper appreciation of the culture that is throbbing and breathing and living all around me.

It’s been a whole year. A year since I moved to New York. I’m writing from the same computer, but a different apartment; instead of Third Avenue, I look out onto Forsyth Street and Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, with its usual cluster of vagabonds sleeping on benches and sidewalks. It’s so nice to be back into the old rhythm of Sunday: church, come home, lunch, and sitting down to tell you, my beloved readers, about my week.

It was good, and bad, to have spent the summer here; it was much more expensive, and I missed being with my family. But the extra time in the city gave me a chance to do things I had been wanting to do since last year when school kicked into high gear: visiting restaurants and museums, catching up on unfinished work from last semester, and watching lots of foreign art films. And I was rid of one more class: Physics, which I flew through with an easy A (something I had previously found impossible at Cooper.) My dad brought up a bike, which makes the trip to school about half as long and enables me to feel safer about coming home late at night. I couldn’t believe that, after six or seven years of absence, my feet remembered exactly what to do when I sat down on the seat. As Penley says, “it’s something you couldn’t forget how to do, even if you wanted to.”

We took a couple of trips to upper Manhattan in the last few weeks, visiting areas we had never been to. Though Penley worked as a guard for the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over a year, he had never visited the other branch of their museum, the Cloisters, located waaaaaaaay up on 190th Street in the middle of Fort Tryon Park. It’s a beautiful area, one in which I would love to live; quiet, safe, and very neighborhoody, with plenty of greenery. Fort Byron is completely open to the public; unlike Central Park, there are no fences or roped-off areas, only carefully-tended herb gardens and flowering plants. The Cloisters, which is dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe, was built with Rockefeller dollars to resemble a Spanish castle. It’s full of sacred statues, stained-glass windows and countless carved objects of wood and ivory, inlaid with gold and precious stone. I’m not sure I approve of the way the statues and crucifixes were taken from their home churches; they look cheap and estranged in a museum case, and since no effort was made to unite the themes within a certain room, each display is a conglomerate of styles and cultures. Still, the setting is a beautiful place for a museum: stone walls, wooden doors, and gardens that would make Brother Cadfael proud.

Coming home, we took the M4 bus from one end of its route to the other; beginning at 190^th Street, it drove through Harlem, across the Park and ended up at Penn Station. The second time there, we got out at 125th and walked through the upper end of the Park, which is delightfully uncultivated. Harlem is much safer now than in pre-Giuliani tines, especially in the area around Columbia University.

On Wednesday, at 7 o’clock in the morning, we once again stood outside the Foundation Building for the annual Desk Run. This time, I was prepared; despite the fact that the members of the Student Council had fixed the competition (handing out “random” numbers to assigned people and allowing some to draw again until they were happy with their numbers) I ended up with a good spot. I had to defend it with ferocity, though, and figured that as long as this barbaric tradition was allowed to continue, the only thing I could do was play along and stake out my territory as if it were the Oklahoma Land Rush.

A couple of days later, Penley and I stopped into the studio just to drop something off; we were shocked to discover a bevy of fourth year students pushing our desks and others’ back so they could have more room. We argued and refused to move, but in the end took pity; apparently, some six or seven upperclassmen had decided not to show up for the desk run, and their classmates were faced with the prospect of sitting on each others’ laps. So we reorganized the whole studio, beginning with the first-year students and ending up all the way at the back, where the inconsiderate no-shows had conspicuously smaller spaces, but spaces nonetheless. In the end, everybody ended up with more space. Surprise: a team of *architecture* students working together can organize space with quite a bit of skill. So why, I wonder, do they pit us as deadly enemies every year, fighting for the same worktables and stools? It was laughable, the way we organized ourselves in a frenzy last year and then, all year long, dealt with the inconveniences of tight space and crowded aisles. Something tells me, though, that no one else took this lesson to heart (at least, no one with power to change anything!) So next year, a whole new crop of first-year students will be trembling outside, fearful of the evil upperclassmen whom they think are out to get them. Sigh.

Classes are barely underway. This year I have calculus, which I was forced to take against my wishes but is looking to be painfully easy. For you math whizzes who are shaking your heads in dismay, this isn’t real calculus but Calculus For Architects, a watered-down version that teaches you just enough to get through the next year of Structures. In addition, it seems I was the only one in my class who didn’t take it in high school by choice; everyone else seems to have stopped at Algebra I., and my teacher has to do problems three, four times before the looks of confusion start to fade. I’m ending up with a lot of reading time on my hands.

My other classes haven’t met yet: Structures I, which is not based on math calculation but on very basic principles of physics and materials; History of Architecture II, which I understand is about three times as boring as last year’s history class; and of course, the monster: Design II. My big-shot professor, Peter Eisenman, is off gallivanting in Europe somewhere, and so the class will not meet until Tuesday, and will not be assigned a problem until the following Monday when he arrives. Along with his design class is a weekly lecture series called Modern Architectural Concepts, which is more philosophy than architecture and requires readings of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and other key thinkers of the modern age.

I’m actually impatient for the crunch to begin; though I know I will have no sleep, no nutrition and no strength by Christmas, I can’t wait to learn the things that this man knows. Behind his arrogant demeanor lies a true intelligence clearly visible through his writings and work. Eisenman is a philosophical architect, an intellectual. It will be a refreshing change from Abraham’s cursing and volatile personality. Penley put it well: “I know that I will not understand what I learned from Eisenman until years later,” he said. “Right now, all I can do is try to get through it and pick up as much as I can.”

Today I’m going to see Once Upon A Time in the West: I saw it long ago and wasn’t impressed, but I’m giving it another shot. Then we’re going to the Jewish Museum to see an exhibit on Freud (we tried to go yesterday, and were embarrassed when we remembered it was the Sabbath – duh!) and will probably conclude with an evening run in the park, if it stops raining. I know now to take advantage of these free days.

(Those of you who pay careful attention to detail will notice that along with my maturation process has come a reluctant peace treaty with capital letters. With all the papers I’m going to be writing for Eisenman this year, I think I should get in the habit of writing as the rest of the world does. )

Cooper Chronicles: I.28

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing. Introduction here.)

the brass-colored key slid into the keyhole, making that satisfying sound that keys make when they’re in the right lock. i reached into my aluminum cubby and collected the various pieces of mail that had been delivered — mostly bills or promotional items for former tenants of our apartment, and one letter for sara. something for me, too: a printed postcard advertising “ABSOLUTELY FREE emily oren — VACATION to the CARIBBEAN! i smiled and started to drop it into the trashcan, when something stopped me and i looked at it again, more closely. there was my address: “emily oren, 150 forsyth st., apt. 4a.” it hadn’t been forwarded from the post office — there was no yellow forwarding sticker. whoever had mailed out this card, had known my new address!

i hadn’t been living here ten days, and *someone* already knew how to pester me. the only people who had my new address were my family and potential employers, and i didn’t think either of them were angry enough with me to give my address to snail-mail spammers. strange, and mysterious, that they had found me so quickly. i wonder why these people don’t work for the FBI? maybe this pays more…

yes, we’ve moved in. the room that seemed *unbearably* small at first now just seems cozy; sara and i have maximized our space using my dad’s favorite word: CONSOLIDATION. the rest of the apartment is much nicer, too; my plants enliven the balcony, sara’s computer hums happily from the IKEA desk, and herbie’s TV and couch make our “living area” seem truly livable. our friends who live at home or in the dorms gaze wistfully at our gleaming tile bathroom, wood floors, spacious windows and pretty dishes and say, “i wish *i* had my own apartment.”

it hasn’t all been fun and games, though; one night, raul sat sara down and had a “talk” that turned into a shouting match. he slammed doors, accused her of lying and deceiving him about the living space, and threatened to leave instantly without finding a replacement. sara cried a little and even yelled back, which impressed me when i heard the story later (she’s generally too nice to yell, even when people deserve it.) the next night, the four of us sat down, with sara’s mom as mediator, and had it all out. it felt good to get some stuff off our chests and clear the tense air a little. all decided that raul (who hadn’t been misled, but was a victim of several misunderstandings with different parties) would stay through the summer and help to find a replacement for himself, and then move out.

living with boys is an adjustment in itself. sara and i exchange That Look quite frequently, and speak in low whispers in our room about the unwashed dishes, the toilet seat that was left up AGAIN, and the constantly blaring TV and stereo that plays salsa music and Jerry Springer. we’ve learned that some issues need to be taken up immediately, and some “swallowed” and dealt with.

the neighborhood, although sketchy at night, is very much a neighborhood. unlike the dorms, which were right in the middle of a commercial area, our apartment is near several housing developments and across the street from a family park. (our balcony overlooks trees and a community garden, satisfying my daily requirements of greenery). to the west is Soho, with all its designer galleries and shops and cafés, too cute for words. i nearly had a fit when we were walking one day and spotted a “boulangerie,” a real French bakery with a restaurant attached, where the signs were in French and the waiters spoke with Parisian accents. the summer heat has brought about increased slowness of life, and even when busy we can take time to enjoy the luxury of stopping somewhere we’ve never visited before.

life has settled into a pretty comfortable pattern. i don’t have a job yet, and have spent most of the time i *would* have spent working, looking for work. my luck with retail stores has been mostly bad; Banana Republic gave me a nerve-wracking lie detector test that i probably flunked, since they never called me back. the Pottery Barn interviewed me twice and practically gave me a locker in the changing room, and then strung me out for a week before dropping me altogether. then, a week and a half after giving that end up entirely, another establishment seemed to take interest. ironically enough, it was the one store that i hadn’t even filled out an application for — just casually left my resumé at the desk — and didn’t know a *thing* about. it’s called Tristan & America; they’re Canadian-based and trying *very* hard to make a good impression on New York. (one thing i discovered about retailers — they’re very often obsessed with their stores. this particular interviewer said, over and over again, “this store is just the GREATEST thing i have EVER seen in my entire LIFE.” i guess i came across as intense enough for him, because he kept shaking his head — “i am SO impressed.” but i’m not counting my chickens this time.

the other end of my employment search has been through a slew of temp agencies, which run from *extremely* ghetto to reputable. i’ve been to many interviews around the business districts of Wall Street and Midtown. i love the feeling of stepping out, dressed to kill, and striding purposefully into a ritzy hi-rise office building. the turbo-elevators in those buildings are incredible. three seconds (no joke!) and you’re twenty-five floors higher. i try not to look too wide-eyed, as if i do this every day. the interviews have been good for me, too; i’m no longer the least bit nervous before one, and i’m getting near-perfect scores on the MS Word and Excel tests. (yes, they have tests for computer programs; the questions start with “save the current document” and end with “create a template called Sandal, protect it as an Shoe File, and merge it with the databases Sock and Hosiery.”) and surprise — i can type 80 words per minute! who knew? actually, i’ve practically memorized *that* test, too: “keeping customers happy is the key to our business. in the end, service is all we really have to sell, and service means good customer relations. it starts with the first contact and is a never ending daily job …”

of course, what complicates my search for work is my summer physics class, which runs three hours in the middle of the day, four days a week. it’s almost exactly the same as the physics class i took in high school, with the added disadvantage of a not-too-bright teacher who prefers doing exercises from his book of “puzzles” to explaining the guts of physics to us. also frustrating are the art students, who — i try not to be judgmental — raise their hands and say, “wait, why did you add v-squared to *both* sides of the equation?” despite these few stumbling blocks, i’m sailing through with a solid A by reading the book and doing my homework every night. (it’s so easy to stay caught up when you only have one class … )

random funny story: the other day on the train, i overheard a man talking to his friend about how ungrateful his girlfriend’s kids were. “i take ‘em to the Gap and they like, ‘we’re bored, can we go now?’” his friend grunted menacingly. encouraged, he continued: “i told ‘em, ‘we’ll go to K-mart — we’ll keep it real simple. i’ll buy you clothes. you gimme a problem, im’a bust you over the head wi’ some Martha Stewart.’”

mommy would be proud.

the weather is generally sunny and hot, making us terribly appreciative of my father’s efforts in installing an air-conditioning unit. in the evenings, though, it turns breezy and cool, encouraging exercise — penley and i have been running in Central Park a few times — and long walks. the sunsets are unbelievable — the high concentration of chemicals and pollution in the air heightens the color to deep, intense oranges and firey reds, and the clouds all around turn incredible shades of bright pink.

on one such evening, penley and i were on top of the “castle” in Central Park (i don’t know what its function is, but it’s an old stone building with turrets that overlooks a rocky valley — hence, “the castle.”), blowing bubbles. i almost always carry a little bottle of them in my backpack, especially when it’s such nice weather — it’s a lazy activity that provides maximum amusement with minimum effort. we were having races to see who could get more in the air at once, watching the air currents carry the bubbles higher and further, and trying in vain to get some of the other park patrons to enjoy this pleasurable pastime. (who in their right minds would refuse an offer of bubble-blowing, you ask? well, you’d be surprised.) later, as we walked past the Egyptian Wing of the Met, we saw a dozen or so figures silhouetted against the glass wall, sitting cross-legged in a row. in front of them paced a young man, small and wiry, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and screaming at the top of his lungs. i was a little wary, but my curiosity won out and we crept closer and closer until we could see what was going on. presently another man came around the corner and said something we couldn’t hear, and the first guy screamed, “WELL, THAT’S STUPID!” and began putting on his clothes again. a dialogue followed, but it wasn’t until about ten minutes later that i realized it was a memorized script. this was a group of actors putting on a performance for anyone who cared to come by! we watched until the “end,” when the last two characters left. then there was some scattered applause from the crowd, which had grown to about 20, and we stood up uncertainly. “i guess it’s over,” penley said. they play itself was mediocre; the idea of a spontaneous theater production in the park at night was very, very cool.

with a new season comes change, and for me that meant a new haircut. it’s been long for years and years, but i decided to spring for a salon and tell them to chop it all off — something the stylist was reluctant to do. “are you ready for this?” she kept asking. i was nervous, but i liked the end result so much i didn’t care — it’s above my shoulders now, cool and summery. i can’t really explain why i went to a salon, except that i’ve never been to one before and just felt like being a little extravagant. not too extravagant, though — i called vidal sassoon and hung up in a HURRY when told that a woman’s haircut ranged from 85 to 115 dollars. eventually, i settled for “hoshi coupe,” a salon that’s based in paris. crystal, my stylist, did a great job. she was one of those people who look really fashionable and stylish in things that would make the rest of us look ridiculous. *her* hair looked a little too new-york for me. (bleached blond spikes; sort of like your prom date, abby.) well, it went with her thick, glittery eyeshadow.

one of the neatest features of our new abode is our balcony; it’s small enough to be cute, but large enough for two or three people to sit comfortably out there. about a week ago sara was out there when she heard a voice above her say, “hey!” she leeeaned out and looked up and saw a guy about 25 years old, holding out a small business-sized card. “wanna come to a soirée on the roof? it’s next friday.” she showed me the card later — it was very designed-looking, blue-grey with minimal information printed on it, and laminated. woooowwww. she, herbie and i went to it; the crowd was mostly older, but they were fun people and we had a good time. the roof makes its own party; i had never been up there and didn’t know how easy it was to go, but it was amazing. we could see *everything*. there were a lot of architects there — in fact, one of the party-throwers was practicing in the city — and i got to hang out with a few of them. all offered sympathy for me in my plight; and one said of the profession, “if you don’t love it, get the hell out of there NOW.” he was in it for the money, and sorely disappointed. thankfully, i do love it — i’m going back for more.

Cooper Chronicles: I.27

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing. Introduction here.)

EISENMAN, comma, P. the words stared defiantly from the page, exuding a very New York attitude: “here we are, whatcha gonna do about it?” i must have looked a little taken aback, because the secretary glanced up at me: “is that the wrong one?”

“no, this is mine.” i recovered quickly and made for the elevator.

the words wouldn’t leave me alone. for the rest of that day, and the next few weeks, they came back every so often, making me put down my drafting brush or vine charcoal or photo paper and think for a few seconds. (at that point, a few seconds was a tremendous amount of time.)

mentally, i was packing my bags onto the baltimore‑bound greyhound. my first semester at cooper had been good; the first half of this one had been highly stressful, and the second half was terrible. i had already written letters to a few schools, telling them i wanted to transfer for my second year. i was going to stick it out until the end of the semester — and then get *out* of there as fast as the NY transit could carry me. i felt so strongly about this that i didn’t even want to register for next year, but there i was, at the last possible minute, knocking on the door of Student Services with my yellow registration card. i had filled in only the basic second‑year classes, since they rarely have time for electives, but there was plenty there to keep me busy. the killer, of course, is their design course, which fills 99 percent of their time, along with its accompanying Modern Architectural Concepts, consisting of only a weekly lecture and some reading. then there was calculus, physics, structures 1 (a combination of the two), and architectural history 2. i hadn’t even thought about it, just watched as my hand mechanically wrote down the information.

the secretary tapped in the course numbers, and a few minutes later the sheet popped out. at the top was listed “DESIGN II.” and under the instructor’s name: “EISENMAN, comma, P.

if i left cooper, i would be throwing away the chance to study under this man — this man who is more enigmatic, more demanding, and even more arrogant than abraham (my design professor this year). his approach to teaching is also a world apart. abraham is primarily concerned with the aesthetic; he wants to see something beautiful. even if a project lacks an idea, he may go for it. “it has a certain … quality … ” he will say, rubbing his thumb, index and middle fingers together in a favorite gesture. “there is … something there, no?” and he will trash the craftsmanship, or the crude way in which it was executed, but if it appeals to his sense of beauty all can be forgiven.

peter eisenman is an intellectual. his thinking is highly academic, but he does not use unnecessarily long words to communicate it. consequently, anyone can understand his speech. (what he is *saying,* however, is often beyond me.) he doesn’t speak on a whim, or change his mind suddenly, the way abraham and most three‑year‑olds do; every sentence that comes out of his mouth is the product of carefully thought‑out logic.

this year, my class produced drawings done on Stonehenge or Arches, or some other high‑quality paper. we used three or four kinds of lead, which varied in softness, so that the drawings had a sensitive, transparent quality that translated into depth when viewed from a greater distance. shading, line weight, and composition were all tools that we used to communicate our ideas. In theory, that’s how it works; in actuality, we spent most of the year looking for something that he’d like. we learned the art of what my engineer‑friend pete calls “architectural bullshit”; draw something with a lot of lines and make up an explanation later.

i do not deny that some people understood exactly what they were doing. i think that i even understood, some of the time. but when all hinges on abraham’s aesthetic, it’s easy to be misjudged. he would tell me a drawing was “sensitive” when it was dashed off in two hours; and one that i had worked on for days would be dismissed as “diagrammatic.” diagrams were distateful to abraham. but for the second‑year class, that was their whole focus. during the first semester, when they concentrate on analysis, they create diagrams of buildings ‑‑ highly complex drawings done in ink on clear mylar, with no room for a sensitive touch. they were logical drawings, intellectual drawings ‑‑ not easily understood, like Eisenman’s speech, but easily digestible. when you look at a nuclear physics equation that takes up the entire chalkboard, you may not have even a trace of understanding of the subject, but you can appreciate the beauty of the logical order and the simplicity with which it was executed. (as abraham reminds us constantly, a thing can be complex without being complicated; often the simplest concepts are much too complex for us to understand.) this was how i felt whenever i sat in on one of eisenman’s critiques. fascinated; intrigued; completely in the dark. when he and one of the other professors got into a debate about some obtuse architectural concept, i was amazed at how much of it i was able to follow, but as soon as they were done it left me, and i couldn’t find words to voice it to someone else when they asked me what it was about.

eisenman is approachable. on the first day of class last year, he told the students: “if i’m wrong, just tell me: ‘peter, you’re wrong.’” of course, no one took the opportunity, and no one really called him “peter” (to his face.) but they had been given the freedom to do so, and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash if someone had. the problem is, he’s not wrong very often, and it’s hard to catch him at it. approachable, but not approachable. (dialectics?)

i don’t know what, if anything, i’ve learned this year. it would be nice to be able to point to something definitive and say, “i learned *this.*” like a calculus formula, or a set of dates in history, or a poem recited from memory. but what i learned this year, i think, is a different approach to learning altogether. it was a different way of thinking.

i learned how to be a critic. formerly, i was much too intimidated by the institution of Architecture‑with‑a‑capital A. i would venture, “well, i like this, but i’m not really one to say,” and so devalue my own judgment until i was afraid to voice my own opinion. abraham taught me that my instinct was important. the best crit i ever received was the only one in which i followed my convictions and did what i wanted to do. of course, he ended up hating the project, but that didn’t change how i felt about it. though he was a world‑famous architect, i learned that it was okay to point out flaws in his teaching methods, his logic, and even (gasp!) his buildings.

i learned that it isn’t possible to get an A in a class just by trying hard, and that sometimes a C has to be an acceptable grade. in fact, i’m learning to kind of forget about grades altogether. all i can do is put forth my best effort, combine it with the tools i have been given ‑‑ some from God, some from Cooper Union ‑‑ and learn all i can from the process. learning doesn’t necessarily mean succeeding; in fact, sometimes it means failing, over and over again.

i learned how to struggle with something until it makes you want to give up, but remain angry enough at it to keep struggling. i came into my drawing class with zero experience; my first few weeks’ work was laughable, but i improved a lot, very quickly, under one of the best teachers i’ve ever had. but i wasn’t happy; i’m *still* not happy with my work. i can acknowledge that i’ve come a long way without being satisfied with my current state. at my final critique, Gussow raved about my progress. “oh my GOD, emily!” she said, over and over again. i had to laugh as she held up my first self‑portrait, from the first week of school, next to the one i had just completed a few days ago. “Arnea,” she said to the TA next to her, “LOOK what this girl did.” there was a huge difference, i thought ‑‑ but something in me was still unsatisfied, and will always be, I suppose. i know i am capable of more.

i learned how to appreciate the beauty of geometry, even the despised cube. it’s invaded my life; even the other day when i was buying Q‑tips, i picked the container that was shaped like a cube. penley laughed at me for having the Abraham aesthetic. and i’ve noticed words like “dialectics,” “opposition,” and “tectonic” begin to creep into my everyday speech. if my conversation partner is an architect, she leans forward and nod eagerly; if not, he begins to get that glazed‑over look. i’m also learning to cope with a little bit of alienation.

i learned that i have an insatiable desire to study architecture, regardless of my ability.

i learned that sometimes you just have to skip class.

i learned that first impressions are often correct ‑‑ descriptive geometry never got interesting.

and, thanks to the dean, i learned that architecture isn’t the wrong field for a Christian – in fact, it could be the exact right one.

so, to make a short story long, those two little words and a comma made me think hard for a week, and i quit the ambivalence that had characterized my speech for the last month (“i’m leaving cooper ‑‑ i’m staying at cooper ‑‑ i’m leaving cooper ‑‑ i’m staying at cooper”) and decided to stay. in the midst of the Very Worst Week Ever, i decided to commit myself to another year at Cooper, and all the joys and sorrows (more sorrows than joys, perhaps) that it entails.

i think next year will be easier in a few ways. i won’t have abraham’s moods ‑‑ which are dependent on the status of his dating relationship and the Yankees’ latest streak ‑‑ to deal with. i have a year of sketchy Cooper experiences to go on. i have yet to learn real discipline, but i think having eisenman will help.

i owe you all an apology for my extended absence. as i said, it’s been a pretty bad semester; i got very depressed towards the end, and i couldn’t think of anything uplifting or witty to write. in hindsight, it was all worth it; at the time, i just wanted to give up. i missed these letters as much as you did, and probably more. they’re good for me; unless i collect my thoughts and form them into a cohesive body, they remain scattered and fragmented and i don’t really learn anything from them.

and, since a good author never leaves her audience hanging, i’ll try to catch you up.

my final crit went very badly. abraham tore down everything about my project; especially what he loved last time, which was that it was so intensely personal. “i can’t understand it. no one understands it but you. it’s too personal,” he complained. oddly enough, i didn’t mind so much; i was very happy with my project. what upset me was that he was giving everyone another week to improve their projects; this wasn’t really a “final” crit. so, i had a week to totally redo my project, which had taken me more than a semester to complete. plus, i had all of my other classes ‑‑ the ones i had ignored all semester long ‑‑ to catch up on. the daunting thought that i still had to work on this project, after i had built up May 4 as the day i could stop thinking about it, was too much; i totally came apart. just as i needed to be strong and finish the year, i cried every day for a week, usually about something very trivial (not being able to find my socks, for instance.) i worked on my project, developing ideas, trying to come up with something that responded to his critique; by tuesday, when the professors had started to look at the improved projects, my model was still not completed. i approached abraham almost in tears: “i don’t know how to say this,” i said, “but my project isn’t finished. i worked all week on it, but i need at least another few hours in the shop …” i waited for the inevitable verbal barrage, but abraham responded, as usual, unpredictably. “well, keep working on it!” he patted my shoulder. “we are not time monsters. If you need more time, take more time!” i looked at him in disbelief. “go ahead!” he said. “show it to me on thursday.”

i had any number of obstacles. the shop closed for the summer on wednesday; i had to kowtow abjectly to the “shop boss” for permission to come in early thursday morning, and was almost refused. then someone threw my half‑finished model away, and i had to start from scratch. finally, as i soldered the steel together, i attached the wrong pieces and had to melt the solder, sand down and re‑solder them. the blowtorch wouldn’t work; the solder wouldn’t stick; the feet on my mannequins kept falling off, and one ‑‑ whom i had sawed in half ‑‑ kept losing his head and right arm.

somehow, i finished the project ‑‑ it wasn’t anything i was proud of, but it was what abraham wanted to see. i had responded to his critique and changed my project accordingly. Its integrity was lost, but i was too tired to care. i had to turn my attention to my other classes; my photo teacher was angry with me for missing lectures (i had gone home two weekends in a row to attend a church service and a wedding), my lit teacher assigned two 5‑page papers in a week and a half, and i had four long (2‑hour) drawings and a portfolio to put together for Gussow. It sounds like a nightmare; actually, it was worse. i don’t know how i finished it all. i had to take an incomplete in Descriptive Geometry, but it will give me the chance to complete all the work and end up with a better grade. the one class i totally bombed was architectural history; i completely stopped attending classes, and i think i knew three out of the ten buildings on the exam. hopefully, my project will save me.

i’m going to stay in new york for the summer. i’m taking physics at cooper (it’s free; they won’t accept any other schools’ credits, and i need to get at least one class out of the way) and working ‑‑ probably a combination of a retail job and temp office work. i found a place to stay ‑‑ with sara, my roommate from last year. raquel isn’t coming back to cooper next year, but she may stay in the city; i’m renting her spot in the apartment until school starts, and may get to keep it if she decides to live somewhere else. the other occupants of the apartment are boys; one whom i know, one whom i’ve never met. i’m not planning to be in the apartment much next year, though; most nights i will probably spend in the studio.

i hear it’s a cute little place; i haven’t seen it, but here i am in the car zooming up to Soho to move in. i can’t believe this is going to be my summer. it’s definitely not what i would have expected. but then, cooper has been very different from what i expected. i didn’t know what i was doing when i went there, or i might not have taken the chance. i’m glad i did.

Cooper Chronicles: I.26

(An ongoing series for the month of January, these are letters written to my family and friends during my college years in New York, when I discovered my love of writing. Introduction here.)

“Forgive me my frustration!” Professor abraham shouted at me. (He didn’t sound very sorry.) “But in thirty-five years of teaching, this is the worst semester I have ever had!”

I had thought he was going to say, “this is the worst project I have ever seen!” so this was much preferable. Still, it was a pretty harsh statement to make. The *worst* semester out of seventy of them. He had been teaching for roughly twice as long as I’d been alive.

Although prone to making broad, sweeping statements and using superlatives out of context, abraham generally has a point. He certainly did here. The semester had been really, really tough in more ways than one — the project was difficult, our creative senses were worn down, and it seemed that the lower we sank, the less our professors tried to help pull us out. There was no practical instruction or advice given during the critiques — just general ranting and picking on one or two specifics that annoyed them. They were grossly disappointed with our performance; no one seemed to be on the right track.

There is one, and only one, consistent piece of advice that I’ve been given by every cooper affiliate I’ve come into contact with at one time or another: full speed ahead, and damn the professors. If you’re here for them, they say, you’ll learn nothing. If you’re here for you, you can’t go wrong; failure is not the end of the world if you’re exploring something of interest to you. At first, I thought this sounded pretty arrogant; later, pretty cool. But it wasn’t until I had left the studio in the middle of class, disgusted with the abraham’s arrogance and the obsequiousness of his underlings, that I realized I was *doing* it. As I sat in the library, surrounded by books on the construction of shadows, completely disobeying their orders to “stop researching and draw,” it occurred to me that I no longer cared what they thought; I was pursuing something because it interested me, and because I felt it was important to my project. Their opinions were of tertiary interest.

This both scared and thrilled me. I called my house at midnight the night before my crit to tell my sleepy parents the good news: “if abraham tears me apart tomorrow, I won’t care, because I’ll know he’s wrong. I think my idea is pretty cool!” I thought that even if crit wasn’t the next day, I would be pulling an all-nighter anyway — out of sheer interest in my project.

My first idea for an intervention, the one they had praised only for its spirit, had been on the right track: I had constructed and built the shadows of the cube during different hours of the day, and turned these structures into supporting interventions. After their critique that it was “too literal,” I had tried and tried to find something that was more conceptual, and each time I fell flat on my face and killed the idea with too much planning. Now I went back to my instincts. I abstracted the three bodies into lines and points; with descriptive geometry and the books I had been reading, I constructed the shadows of each body and built them. And, as a final flaunt to the parameters of the project, I placed each of the bodies *outside* the cube, so that they didn’t intervene at all. Instead, they intervened through the shadows, which were projected up from the ground into the void of the cube.

The central idea here is the presence of absence. There are three autonomous elements — cube, bodies, intervention — which, when left alone, retain the memory of the other two. A shadow is both a presence and an absence; the absence of a body, but the presence of something entirely different and mysterious, which doesn’t even exist until it’s trapped on a surface somewhere. I love talking about my ideas, but building them always presents a problem. I didn’t feel that this project was “it,” but it was a lot closer than I’d ever come. And I liked my idea — I really believed in it.

So, when crit time rolled around on thursday, I was much less nervous. I knew they’d probably be mad because of all the rules I had broken. The bodies’ positions were not tectonic ideas, but narrative, theatrical expressions. The interventions did not support the bodies; they didn’t even touch them. I was prepared for the worst, but unconcerned. The worst they could do had been done already. I was used to the rippings-apart.

I was unprepared, then, for what happened. They loved my project. My drawings were “beautiful” and “magic”; my idea was “poetic” and “philosophical.” At first, they were a bit critical of the narrative bodies, but when I agreed with them, abraham shook his head sharply. “Now that I think about it,” he frowned, “i don’t think we can tell her to change it. This project is so personal — she’s created her own world, a magical world. I want to protect the intimacy of her idea — to force her into a more academic position would be to ruin the poetics of her project.” He looked at me. “I want to see more production. More of these magical drawings. Explore your idea, your world.” One of the other professors moved to comment, and abraham shook her off. “We have set rules, yes. But sometimes they need to be broken.”

Waltemath told me I had found what I had just barely discovered in my first project, and carried it out to fruition. Gersten told me my drawings were “wild,” which coming from him is a compliment. Wines commented on the project as I was pinning it up. “Whew!” she said in amazement. But none of these really matter in comparison to what abraham said.

Of course, I feel gratified, but I’m still going to do what I want. They told me not to change anything, but I think I need to make some adjustments — I’m going to do it my way. If they change their mind at the next critique, which is the final critique for the year, I’ll take it in stride. Abraham has given me enough fuel to ride out these next five weeks.

Suddenly, it’s spring in the city! We’ve rejoiced in the sunshine, warm rain and free, happily sandaled feet of the season. The words “light jacket” are very seductive after a winter of three or four layers per body part. And with the nice weather came a visit from a dear friend, anna deal, who brought her sweetheart shawn for a day and a half. They toured the city, taking in the sights on the itinerary I made up for them, while I stayed in the studio aaaaaaallllll day … ahh, the life of a martyr … that night, though, penley and I took them to our favorite indian restaurant, the one that reminds me of the skit from “how to irritate people” — the staff are so accommodating, one almost expects them to carry out the chairs and burn them when they discover a fleck of dust. Whenever penley and I order takeout there, they seat us at a table, give us menus to look at, and bring us complimentary cups of spiced tea (although penley grumbles that they never give him that kind of treatment when he comes by himself.) the head waiter greets us as his best friends every time we come in, no matter how busy it is.

the unthinkable happened during a lecture on melevitch last thursday — my cell phone rang, loudly, in the middle of professor waltemath’s rhapsodizing. I was mortified, but quickly turned it off before very many people knew it was me. These lectures are pretty cyclical — we go through interesting and boring spells. Now I’m really enjoying them. Melevitch’s work is ambiguous enough to generate a discussion, but straightforward enough to impose some order on the pandemonium. (Formerly, we were discussing robert smithson, which was a disaster.) i’ve been to the met several times too — I think I’m finally getting it. You have to pick one or two and work on them for awhile, or you’ll fry your brain trying to take everything in at once. I’m always amazed at how long one can study a painting and still not really understand it. Gussow sent us last week to look at the five vermeers and handful of cezannes in their collection, and they’re so complex that you could easily lose an hour or two trying to figure it out. Of course, the beauty there is that they will never be figure-out-able.

This morning was Orthodox palm sunday, since we go by the old calendar — also, unfortunately for yours truly, it was daylight savings. I had no idea this was the case, and by the time I realized it, I was an hour and a half late for church. As I hurried over, feeling guilty for being uninformed, I passed the ukranian byzantine-rite catholic church right across from the studio, and upon seeing the doors opened (i had never seen this before) I ventured in. With my gypsy attire, I was worried I would attract some foreign friends, but no such luck — they left me alone to gaze up at the domed ceiling and golden mosaics that adorn every inch of the walls, and listen to the choir sing in melancholy harmony, the music drifting high up into the worship space. Their liturgy was exactly the same as ours, but in another language — church slovanic, I think, because I recognized some of the hymns from my russian parish. At the end of the service, they dispensed pussy willow branches (no palm trees in kiev!!) and the congregation spilled out into the street, talking loudly and gesturing wildly, the pussy willows creating a strange sort of forest above their heads. It was, as my photo teacher would have said, a very “photographic” moment, but I think it will live better in my memory.

I must apologize for my prolonged absence in your in-boxes, dear readers — I had a pretty bad week, and it took all of spring break to recover. You are never far from my thoughts, even when I’m not writing.

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