"I HATE THIS," Michaela hissed, twice, as we watched five scantily clad (if clad at all) dancers weave in and of an enormous crocheted wool installation. I love this, I thought, even though I'm not sure if I loved the performance per se as much as I loved seeing something deliberately weird and nonsensical in a world that increasingly favors the deliberately cruel and senseless. The performance, titled Organismo, was created by Paula Riquelme, a Chilean textile artist and choreographer who is also the artistic director of Maraña, the Berlin-based company who performed the piece. Riquelme crocheted the installation, which comprised several thousand skeins of wool, by herself.

Chad, Michaela, and I talked about the performance afterward, and I said that I liked that there was no one focal point or soloist, and that the entire stage became a living, breathing entity. An organism. Chad agreed with me; Michaela grudgingly accepted that this was true. Before the performance, which was part of the Chicago International Puppet Festival, we went to a related exhibition of puppetry at the Cultural Center. One of the displays has been partially dismantled due to Chicago aldermen protesting that it was antisemitic. The display in question includes two large puppets, one of Uncle Sam, and one of Netanyahu, much in the style of Bread & Puppet Theater. I looked at it carefully and decided that it was antiwar, not antisemitic. There is a petition to restore the display to its original form, since as a result of the alderpeople’s fussing the show's organizers agreed to remove the title, US-Israel War Machine, and a placard stating the number of Palestinians killed since the conflict began last October. The controversy reminded me of other times in the past when politicians have gotten their feathers ruffled over art works, as in 1999 when New York's mayor Rudy Giuliani made a huge fuss about a painting of the Virgin Mary by Chris Ofili at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, going so far as to threaten to evict the museum from its building. That painting is now in MoMA's permanent collection. Or the time in 1988 when Chicago aldermen seized an oil painting in a show of student work at the School of the Art Institute because it depicted the late Mayor Harold Washington wearing lingerie. Or the other time, just one year later, when another student at the School of the Art Institute stirred up a huge (as in, made-it-all-the-way-to-the-Supreme-Court huge) controversy over putting the American flag on the ground and inviting people to step on it. (That artist, Dread Scott, leveraged that experience to become an international success.) What did any of these grandstanding acts achieve? Notoriety for the politicians, vindication for the artists.

Despite her protestations at the time, Michaela came around, somewhat, to Organismo. Not that she liked it, but she was glad she'd seen it. I was glad to be able to expose her to contemporary art while I still can, before some cretinous politician shuts it all down.

In other news, my part-time job ended, so I have started occasionally subbing at the high school. How long will I last? TBD. Note the new vertical format; hat tip to Colin S. for the suggestion.

Three Things That Kept Me Going This Week

1. We watched Conclave and I thought it was excellent. I was skeptical of the entertainment value of a movie about choosing a new pope, because I couldn't make it even halfway through the last pope movie we tried to watch, The Two Popes, but that pope movie didn't have Isabella Rossellini and this pope movie does. (Chad: "I feel vindicated.")
2. The news that Dilla not only got a new job, but his dream job, at the Du Sable Black History Museum. I hope it involves more programming than the title suggests.
3. Anti-Semitism's Medieval Roots. The Oak Park public library offers the Great Courses for free through "bingepasses" on Hoopla, and I've started watching them (or more accurately listening to them) while I'm drawing. I started the class on World War I, which is informative and well organized, but then took a detour to listen to this particular lecture and it blew me away—it is both fascinating and hugely relevant to all the shit we're going through today. If you've ever wondered where pointy witch hats came from, or about the origin of the phrase "hocus pocus," well, Mushroom Heads, this is the Great Course for you. (Or at least one lecture from it.) I'm almost embarrassed to provide a link to the Great Courses' website, since it is a godawful design, but trust me, it's worth it.

That's all for now, Mushroom Heads! I may have to take next week off due to a freelance assignment but will be back the following week. Happy New Year! 🐍

Thank you for reading! If you like Mushroom Head, please consider leaving me a tip, or share this with a friend. And if you're new here, welcome. Mushroom Head is a comic diary about me, Claire, a middle-aged lady who lives in Oak Park. Previous installments recorded the time I thought I'd ODed on THC and my experience parenting a person with ADHD as a person who has ADHD. There are also occasional forays into the surreal. If you'd like to get in touch with me, please feel free to respond directly to this email. I'm always happy to hear from you! (Also, you might want to put the Mushroom Head email address into your contacts to avoid having it go to your junk folder.) And if someone forwarded this email to you, I hope you will subscribe, because you are welcome here! Unless you are a bot. In that case, boo, please go away.