Who Was Your First Hero, Leah Umansky?

My first hero is actually a heroine. Two heroines, to be exact: Charlotte and Emily Brontë (Sorry, Anne, didn’t read you until college). What struck me the most was the power of the female voice at a time where women were still very much repressed, restricted and, well—unheard of as artists. It was probably the intrigue that surrounded the Brontë Sisters that I enjoyed the most, as it created a life-long dream inside me, of going to the Parsonage. What were these moors they lived on?  How did they write about such passions and desires? How did these women write such compelling fiction, when they hardly left their homes?

With Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, I learned from Jane about confidence and power, but I also learned about independence. Jane was her own woman in the end, despite the fact that she, well, ends up with Rochester.

But with Emily’s Wuthering Heights, I learned from both Catherine and Heathcliff.

Catherine taught me that the heart goes on no matter what. Love, goes on. I was drawn to the fact that despite marrying Linton and making that wrong choice, she knew her heart belonged to Heathcliff and, in her death, she recognized that love.

I think Heathcliff is my hero, despite the fact that he’s a misanthrope, and that some see him as a gothic, psycho-villain. To me, he is a tortured soul. He is heartbroken and alone. No one understands him, and he needs. He wants. He  taught me that everything we do in life is a choice, and we have to be wise.  And though he loses Catherine, he gains her in the end in the afterlife. Yes, I’m a romantic, but the Brontës were, too. Clearly. They both have made me into my own heroine.

Leah Umansky’s first book of poems, Domestic Uncertainties, is out now by BlazeVOX [Books.] Her Mad-Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream is forthcoming from Kattywompus Press in early 2014.  She has been a contributing writer for BOMB Magazine’s BOMBLOG and Tin House, a poetry reviewer for The Rumpus and a live twitterer for the Best American Poetry Blog. She also hosts and curates the COUPLET Reading Series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Thrush Poetry Journal, and The Brooklyn Rail. Read more at: http://iammyownheroine.com

See Leah present her work at The Project Room on February 27th in Transforming Text- free!

Who Was Your First Hero, Jonathan Miles?

My first hero, if we’re sticking to chronology, was probably Ozzie Newsome, the NFL Hall of Fame tight end for the Cleveland Browns in the late-’70s/’80s. A few years ago one of my sisters dug out a copy of a letter I wrote to him, seeking advice on how to deal with schoolyard bullies. A more pertinent early hero, however, was the science-fiction author Isaac Asimov, whose books -- my God, he must’ve written hundreds -– I devoured as a child. I wrote to Asimov, too, this time seeking advice on how a kid might grow up to be a writer. Asimov, unlike Ozzie Newsome, wrote me back, and his terrifically simple counsel -– to read as much as possible, and to practice writing as much as possible -– still stands as the best and most concise advice on writing I’ve ever heard. Read, write, repeat. Everything else is just details.

Jonathan Miles‘s latest book, WANT NOT came out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in November 2013. “Well, I loved this book,” raved Dave Eggers in the New York Times Book Review, “Jonathan Miles can write, and here he’s written a wonderful book, and there’s no one I would not urge to read it.” Jonny’s first novel, DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES, was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. A former columnist for the New York Times, he serves as a contributing editor to magazines as diverse as Field & Stream and Details. A former longtime resident of Oxford, Mississippi, he currently lives with his family in rural New Jersey. Jonathan is reading from his newest book, Want Not, At University Books on MONDAY NOVEMBER 18 at 7:00PM. More info can be found here

Who Was Your First Hero, Sharon Arnold?

My first hero is totally a fictional character. I didn’t have a lot of good role models (who does?) so it’s probably not very surprising. I was born right in the middle of the 1970s, the same year the Runaways were born, and the year Lynda Carter first donned the strapless red, blue, and gold bootyshort costume that is iconically Wonder Woman. I will never forget her.

It’s ridiculous to watch it now. It’s super campy and the plot line is – I don’t even know what it is. She gets the bad guy and looks great doing it. But Lynda Carter is still the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen on television and her disco glam version of Wonder Woman will always be first in my heart. When I was four, I was inseparable from the bracers and crown that I would make out of paper and I would wear everywhere until they fell apart. When they did, I made more. My grandmother (who raised me) would help me carefully wrap the poster board in foil so it would be “metal” and I’d color it with a yellow marker to make it gold. If my grandmother insisted upon the removal of said adornment because of something as mundane as a bath, I’d yell indignantly. Greek goddesses don’t need to remove their armament to bathe – they’re just magically amazing and nice-smelling. They probably don’t even need baths. How silly to even suggest it.

Later, in 2nd grade at a school carnival, I was over the moon about a cardboard Wonder Woman at the photo booth. As I stepped up the ladder to put my head over her body the photographer exclaimed, “You look just like her!!” and I thought I would die. The resulting photo does not make any effort to hide the biggest, shit-eating grin I think I’ve ever worn. 

As I grew up and got into comics, my love for her became deeper. It isn’t just that she’s drop-dead gorgeous, tall, athletic, independent, super strong, and invincible. It’s that she’s complex. Descended from Amazons and Greek mythology, she is expected to endure a world that is not yet ready for her. If she removes her bracers, she will be unfathomably powerful but she will also lose her mind. Once, she gave up her powers to stay here. She  got them back. She’s smart as hell, using her wit and wisdom to solve problems, not using her beauty. She’s been through multiverses and spans a myriad of alternate Earths. She’s in love with Hades. She is presumed to love Superman. She is a warrior, but she is a woman.

The love affair blooms because she, like most Greek heroes, is who we aspire to be. The truth is that Wonder Woman is the ultimate human. She is not infallible. She’s emotionally layered. She has to make tough choices and they may not always be the right ones – there are consequences. We can do it all, but there is always a price. You can’t have everything. We can imagine ourselves in her place, doing the same thing, facing the same choices. It’s a fantasy – of course we could never be her. But, because she is human, we see ourselves in her, and we dream that some part of her exists in us, too.

Sharon is a Seattle-based artist, curator, and writer. She studied at Pratt Institute in New York and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornish College of the Arts, focusing on sculpture, art history, and philosophy. She is Founder of Bridge Productions/LxWxH and writes for her art blog Dimensions Variable and Art Nerd Seattle.

Some notes about the images: The Bather by William Bouguereau 1879 Photoshopped by FlashDaz for an online contest– I included it because it’s my favorite adaptation of Wonder Woman and it merges my art life with my superhero life; Wonder Woman’s New 52 costume. Panel from Justice League Vol. 2 #3 (Nov. 2011). Art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams; Wonder Woman in battle armor: 2003 DC Comics Wonder Woman: The Ultimate Guide to the Amazon Princess. –SA

Who Was Your First Hero, Lowery Stokes Sims?

My father was tallish—6 feet or so– taciturn—said little but communicated much. Ever sartorially elegant he was invariably dressed in one of his Brooks Brothers suits—two of which he purchased each year—and shoes he obsessively cared for—most often polishing them himself.

Originally a school teacher who grew up on a southern farm in Tennessee, he morphed into a northern suburban Dad in New York, commuting by subway everyday from Queens to jobs in Manhattan–at any number of architectural firms where he navigated the politics—having others take credit for his work—and the economics—dealing with finding another job in another firm as soon as the current one laid him off in economically scarce times. The amazing thing is that that he managed this deftly, never skipping a beat so that we never experienced scarcity or want. He eventually found a consistent job at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey where his greatest pleasure was the work he did on the Authority’s flagship structure: the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. He would die two years before 9/11.

For me he was protector, disciplinarian—he could stop me in my tracks with a single look—and patient and willing chauffeur. He would also be my date at a museum opening when my boyfriend punked out—I took out my first membership at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was in high school—and he patiently observed all my creative endeavors including unsuccessful stints as a violinist and a guitarist. As I made my way in the institutional and corporate world I came to know full well what he had weathered and how he survived the lurking exclusions and outright racism that he faced—and refused to be deterred by—to go on to have what by any measure was an amazing career. He was a hands-on mentor guiding me in strategies to swerve away from the usual triggers of race and gender to analyze the situation in a larger societal context. It was that equanimity and toughness that inspired me and made my father my first hero.

Lowery Stokes Sims is a Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design. Sims was on the education and curatorial staff of The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1972-1999 where she curated over 30 exhibitions. Sims then served as executive director, president and adjunct curator for the permanent collection at The Studio Museum in Harlem from 2000-2007.

Photo of Lowery and her father, circa 1975

3 Responses to “Who Was Your First Hero, Lowery Stokes Sims?”

Barbara Earl Thomas says:

1. September 26, 2013 at 5:36 pm  (Edit)

   Wonderful to see Lowery here in “First Hero.” I can attest that her dad did a wonderful job of guiding and mentoring her. While I didn’t know him personally I can say I believe I’ve encounter his good works in his daughter. It’s amazing what we can learn from our parent’s lives and how their lessons continue to teach us long after their time with us is past. It’s how we keep them living with us in the present. When I miss my father I simply speak in his voice and say something I may have heard him say or something I think he might have said. Makes me smile and brings him into my present.

2. Cee Scott Brown says:

   September 26, 2013 at 9:08 pm  (Edit)

   I LOVE this.

3. Linda Earle says:

   September 27, 2013 at 4:16 pm  (Edit)

   Mr.Sims was all that — dashing, funny graceful and so very proud of Lowery.

Who Was Your First Hero, Paul Marioni?

My first awareness of an adult public figure was of Mahatma Ghandi. At about seven years old, I would ask my parents “who is that old man in a diaper appearing in the newsreels.” I would say that my first “hero” was Bertrand Russell and his BAN THE BOMB movement when I was about eleven or twelve years old (1952 or 1953). I had been questioning my parents about the use of the atomic bomb in Japan as a child and our “duck and cover” drills in grade school and it just didn’t make sense to kill people (particularly me and my grade school chums).

Paul Marioni is one of the founding members of the American Studio Glass movement. He will be presenting stories from his life and work– along with a rare film screening– at The Project Room and Northwest Film Forum on October 2nd at 6pm. Read more about this program here.  Photo of Marioni in a friend’s garden by Martin Janecky, 2013. 

Into the Wild… of a Beer Garden

Editor’s Note: in an attempt to work through the implications of having gone half-feral up in Alaska, Tessa is currently using the Seen to explore stories about people who are remembered for disappearing. 

“Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal… I’ve decided that I’m going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up.” –Chris McCandless

You’ve probably heard at least something about Chris McCandless, AKA Alexander Supertramp. Popularized by Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild (and later turned into a movie of the same name), the basic sketch of McCandless’s story is a familiar one: middle class white American male drops out of his mainstream life and, in a blurred amalgamation of spiritual inquiry and mental illness, eschews all material comforts to strike off into the wild. Eventually, he dies alone in the ruins of an abandoned bus in an isolated stretch of Alaskan wilderness, leaving behind an iconic self portrait:

Responses to McCandless’s story vary drastically depending on who you ask. Down here in the Lower 48, there’s a tendency to romanticize what he did: he is usually seen as an intelligent, competent individual whose death was the tragic result of a few turns of bad luck. But up in Alaska, he is mostly viewed as an idiot whose ill-advised pursuit of spiritual union with nature failed to show adequate respect for the land, and whose death perpetuates a dangerous romanticism untempered by the brutal pragmatism necessary for wilderness survival.

For better or for worse, McCandless is remembered as a polarizing archetype of The Man Who Disappeared. Ironically, McCandless’s story has been co-opted to support many of the values that he fought in life: first a successful book, and then a successful movie, his story made a lot of people a lot of money. And “his” bus? Well the original is still out there in the wilderness. But the one from the movie?

Well.

It’s in the beer garden of the 49th State Brewing Company. And you can go visit it (click on the image to view a version large enough to read the text: it’s worth it):

The Possibility of Escape

“We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. I may never in my life go to Alaska, for example, but I am grateful that it is there. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope…” –Edward Abbey

Hello Seen readers. I have returned from Alaska. Sort of. Physically, I’m back. But I’m not entirely convinced that I returned in spirit. I spent the last month bicycling over mountain passes, hiking across the tundra, and drifting on the ocean while thinking about the human need for escapism.

American culture romanticizes the frontier. We fantasize about running away, about striking out for the horizon and sloughing off our layers of tame sophistication as we disappear into the vastness of the unknown. And for most people, it stops there: the siren song, for all its plaintive beseeching, doesn’t claim the physical self, only some echo of the spirit.

And maybe this is why we are so drawn to the stories of the ones that really DO escape, who drop off the map. My time up in Alaska made me want to revisit one of my favorite books from childhood: My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. From the book jacket:

It’s a wonderful little book that is half instructional manual, complete with drawings of native plants, and advice on how to burn a hollow indentation into an oak stump in order to tan a deer hide. My ten year old self yearned to follow Sam’s path, to make my own tree-cave home and fulfill my need for friendship by training my own peregrine falcon. But for all my restlessness and the romance of the book’s feral austerity, I always knew that it was just a fantasy.

For the next few installments of the Seen, I’m going to be writing about people who took the leap and truly disappeared. In keeping with the Alaskan theme, I’ll be starting this series in the relatively near future with thoughts on Chris McCandless of Into the Wild fame. Unless, of course, I disappear before then…