How's 'molecular history' grab ya?

OK, so the folks who contributed to the discussion about micro-history have earned a collective ‘prize’, because all of them have contributed to a deeper understanding on my part of what ‘micro-history’ has meant, can mean and how it relates to this project (The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani aka "my grandmothers book).  You are all invited to my place for dinner to convene for my famous lentil stew and an ongoing conversation.  Jane, who instigated this conversation by asking the question about ‘micro,’ is also invited as chief provocateur.

First to give credit for a suggestion for a totally new name, ‘granular history” – a real writer's choice from a real writer, Christian - who notes that granular data is that collected at the level of individuals, that granular also implied grain and of course ‘grannies.’  I love the poetry of this, but have not landed here…however, it got me thinking in the direction of evocative terms that are not only about size 'micro' but also substance...I also just thought of course of grainy photographs...like this one...(a personal favorite...)

Dick, Jim & George: 1939 - this picture just haunts me in all the right ways

hmmm...maybe I will go back to this...but for now...

Comments about micro-history from Robin and a historian, referred to the history of the term, which gained traction in the 1970s-80s amongst European academics and implies histories that either included people who were not ‘major actors’ but also not ‘major events.’  Or “asks large questions in small spaces.” 

Robin looked up the definition of micro, which was “conceded with minute detail” (which, she noted, hardly means insignificant) in contrast to small, which was "not great in amount, number, strength or power" (the last one was what struck her).  Therefore micro is not about small but about 'minute detail.'

The historian mentioned a book I know I should read, Nina Gelbert's King's Midwife.  She suggested this because the author discussed how difficult it was to write about a person who can only be discovered in traces.  While I have a lot of stuff about both grandmothers, there are also a lot of gaps I need to fill, so this is valuable to consider.

John, who contributed the most in-depth analysis, saw an analogy to micro and macro-economics, quoting the comedian P.J. O’Rourke who said “microeconomics concerns things that economists are specifically wrong about, while macroeconomics concerns things economists are wrong about generally.”  In other words, one has to do with money on the ground and the other has to do with theories of economic flows, models, etc. 

John goes on to say that "the distinction being made with micro-history is much more complex than the economic model would suggest, because economics looks for necessary relationships that can be mathematically modeled and history is about contingency. Right from the start of your project, the differences between Dick and Jani's lives illustrates that micro-history is not about correlations, nor about differences-in-degree that can be measured: it is about choices and consequences, about the differences-in-kind that compose historical events and times....

"...Macro-histories show how people are caught up in the sweep of history, but micro-histories show how each person makes choices that distinguish them as individuals over and above the general flow of the historical. The "big names" of state sponsored macro-narratives may have changed the course of the historical, but in micro-histories individuals are changing themselves and distinguishing themselves from the dominant narratives of their time...

Further "...micro-histories create an ever larger sense of the historical: far from trivializing history, the micro-historical gives back to history the complexity proper to anything temporal in nature.”

So, given what we have seen in terms of grand narratives, I’m all pro-the micro in this context. 

However, John also drew a parallel between the way micro & macro works here and 'molecular' & 'molar' works in the French philosophers Deleuze & Guattari.  I am not going to summarize their work here, because that would be silly...but...

This led me to consider a phrase I now like ‘molecular history' – because molecular is a level that can only be perceived with a micro-view - but, as we all know, nothing exists without being created by molecules.  If you could see any object at the molecular level, you would see how vital even a seemingly inanimate object is. This ironically, gets us closer to the complexity of the reality on the ground as it were.  Plus, molecules cannot be considered trivial in any way and are bound by strong, yet mutable, bonds...kinda like, well, life...

So...Whaddya think?? 

Only 12 days left!

Hello dear readers,

I'm up in Maine visiting my mother so don't have a lot of time to write a long post, though I will eventually consolidate all the interesting answers about micro-history.

This is simply a plea for help: With only 12 days left (until May 27 when campaign ends), we need to raise $3,900 to reach the goal for the campaign for The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani.  This is possible, but a challenge.  So, I need to ask your help. If you can donate, it'd be great if you could do that now - donations can start at $1 and Any Amount helps!  There are great perks at all levels and I've added one now - if we reach the goal, everyone donating at All levels, will be invited to a draft completion party in NYC!

If you don't have a dollar to spare, and believe me I've been there so I understand, you can still help by spreading the word - through email, facebook, twitter, whathaveyou…Everyone who donates time and/or money becomes a part of this project and this journey.  I'd love to have you along for the ride.

Here's the link: http://lnkd.in/dVGW_Jf

If you want to know more about the book and me, here's a link to a wonderful Q&A done for my alma mater Wesleyan University's newsletter: Wesconnect

We all thank you:

1916: Jani on left with her mother Ida & Dick aka Betty on right at photo studio

Does 'micro-history' imply something small?

Quick update: getting lots of interesting answers to this question: keep 'em coming!

A new question that has come up in a discussion online about this project is about the term "micro-history" and if it somehow diminishes the subject. Does 'micro' imply minor? (Micro-history is a term that was coined to describe biographies of people who are generally not famous but are somehow emblematic of an historical period and that focus more on the social & political realities of the time. You can read my guest blog post about this on Women Writer's online journal.)

I mulled this over for a bit, because I can see the issue there and a possible connotation of 'micro' is small and less than. However, I think 'micro' also has a connotation of the possibility of careful looking to perhaps see something small and invisible to the naked eye (as in micro-scope). However, I am also interested in the 'macro' view as well, so began to wonder if a new word is necessary.

So, I leave this with you to mull over along with me - and I'm happy to hear suggestions - for new words that can describe a project such as this, which closely examine two lives in an historical context, using both research and imagination as guides. If anyone comes up with something I use, I'll come up with a special gift for you. I haven't a clue what that is yet, but I will. Promise (!)

In other news, we are in the middle of the campaign, but now with only 15 days left! So if there is anyone you haven't told about it that you had meant to or if you wanted to donate but haven't, this would be a great time to do that! I've heard these middle period of campaigns tend to be slow, so that's normal, but as get to the 1-2 week range, I'm hoping we can get closer to the goal. The link is here.

Thank you again for your support and for being part of this journey, whether by reading this blog or supporting this book or both. I remain moved by each and every contribution received so far. I promise you that no matter what, I will complete the book, but it would be great to be able to have the whole summer to finish the research and a draft for the agent. I'd love to see the book published in time for my grandmothers' centennial (2016). There's a goal I will work tirelessly to achieve!

Below are twos photo of Dick (right) & Jani (left) in the 1930s, when they were probably about 16. I love these two photos, because they are both beautiful and enjoying their new sense of self...even if that sense would be threatened or hidden away by circumstances over the years...here they are gorgeous and knowing it. Dick in a dress she designed for herself and Jani in a dress I am fairly certain her mother would have made for her (because Jani had no patience for that kind of thing).

early 1930s: Jani on left in Toledo, OH &  Dick on right in Seymour, CT

Micro-history & Lack of Sleep

Some more good 'campaign'-related news!  I was invited to guest blog over at Women Writers online journal.  The piece focuses on the term micro-history, which I first encountered in an article by Jill Lepore from the 1980s "Historians Who Love Too Much."  A micro-history is distinguished from a biography by generally focusing on less well-known individuals, whose lives are in some way emblematic of a period of time socially and politically.  This term helped me frame The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani outside of the personal nature of writing about my grandmothers.

Check it out at Micro-history: Our Grandmothers, Our Selves

The crowd-funding campaign to help me finish this book is now 58% funded at the half-way point, and am continuing to contact folks and find people who are interested in this project who may want to support it financially and/or help spread the word.  To anyone who has already given of time and/or money: thank you, thank you, thank you!

I almost lost it last night when I sent out a newsletter update thing that stopped midway and had to manually send out the last mails.  It was 6a.m., I'd been up all night and the dreaded red notification arrived saying some addresses were deleted.  It was because I had too many old email addresses that weren't working anymore.  Dear Chimp Mail people: NOW I KNOW.

Then, this morning the intercom system starts making a mosquito-like sound that wakes me up.  I call the superintendent who informs me there is a guy fixing it.  Said guy comes up to my place, is confused and then disappears.  The super, Joel is pisstified.  I call the management company.  Someone comes back - many hours later - and Makes The Horrible Sound Go Away.

Result: I've had less than 5 hours sleep and therefore am a bit - well - slaphappy.  Remember that word?  That was a good word.  Let's bring it back: slaphappy.

OK, you get the picture...so I'm going to sign off, but first (in the immortal words of my mother and me: "one more thing" - which is what she thinks will be engraved on her tombstone...mine will say "she tried") I want to add these pictures of Dick & Jani.  They show a time period when their lives began to seriously diverge in the early 1940s...but also, check it out, they would only be in their mid-20s in these pictures.  In other words, the same age as the young women in Girls are today.  They look so much older.  I have to remind myself all the time how young they were.  And wonder about why we now just keep looking younger...are we less mature?  Do we need a longer kidulthood to navigate global late-capitalist weirdness or like what?

But here are Dick & Jani in the early 1940s: before Hiroshima, before most people knew about Concentration Camps - after WWI so there was a knowledge of crazy - but not the knowledge of Deep Dark Absolutely Incomprehensible Crazy aka Pre-Universal Irony aka a world I cannot possibly imagine and yet Must in order to write this book.

Jani in first public divorce battle & Dick, Jim & George at Westpoint 1941

Wish me luck!  I really, really want to give voice to these women.  Jani left behind lots of writing and Dick left behind lots of pictures with handwritten notes on them.  I knew them both, but the further I sink into this, the less I know...and that's a good thing.  The only place to be.  If I thought I knew anything, the book would die on the vine.

Thanks for following the journey.  It means the world to me that you do.

p.s. Jani's hat is the same style as Rosalind Russell's in His Girl Friday with Cary Grant.  1940.  About a female reporter (which she - Jani - was for a bit after Bob - her then husband - left for his training and deployment) and her charming, caddish boss.  Coincidence?  I think not.

p.p.s. The picture on right is when Dick, George & Jim were still the Bukoskis, before George had to clear a security check to be a secretary on the Manhattan Project (the office part that actually was in Manhattan) and became a "Barclay" so his name wouldn't sound "too Red" - NB: for my younger readers - Red meant Communist then, not - like now - Red State as in Tea Party as in - well you know.  The color Red has certainly changed meaning as well...

Good news from the 'campaign trail'!

As you know from my last post, I'm in the middle of a crowd-funding campaign for my book The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani.  The good news there is that in 18 days we've raised $5,560 funded!  Hooray!  The glass is a little more than 1/2 full, but of course there's still that 44% to go, which - if you've ever done this kind of thing - and I haven't until now - you will know is quite scary.  There was a great rush of donations at the beginning, which have leveled out.  So, I suppose this is a bit of a plea to any of you out there who are thinking of supporting this project, to do so soon.  It'd be nice when the clock's winding down in a couple weeks to be close to or over the goal. There are folks contributing now who I don't know, which is fabulous, and there are many of you who read this who I don't know, but you have deeper background into how this book has evolved.  If you want to see it completed - sooner rather than later - this would be great time to show your support!  And if you can't give money, help spreading the word is great, too!If you'd like to hear something about this project from someone else, here's a nice shout out from the Lao American writer Bryan Thao Worra at his blog at On The Other Side of the Eye:
http://thaoworra.blogspot.com/2014/05/indiegogo-project-highlight-amazing.html

I want to give a shout-out of my own to the early-bird contributors to the campaign - without you, I would surely be freaking. As I have told many people, starting this campaign - asking for money to complete a project I think is vitally important but nonetheless is still asking for money - was like walking into high school naked.  Every time someone donates, I feel like I'm getting back a piece of clothing.  So, thank you for making me feel not so exposed.  I am so moved and humbled you have supported telling the tale of Dick and Jani.

In other news, my beloved is in Canada waiting for his Embassy date at the end of the month.  It truly sucks not having him here.  Hard to find a way to relax and let go of the roller coaster ride that is a crowd-funding campaign when living by myself.  I do have ways to do that, including going out to take a walk on a lovely Spring day...so think that's what I'll do...speaking of Spring: here's a photo of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens about a week ago:

Japanese Garden in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

And now I'm asking for your help to tell my grandmothers' stories

Hi intrepid blog readers...as you may notice, the link to my Indiegogo campaign to support my grandmothers' book (The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani) that began today is now on the right hand margin of this blog.  I'm pretty happy with the campaign site.

Here, too, is the link to the Indiegogo site (that includes video and longer description of the project): The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani  If you can donate (for which you can receive perks like the book itself, help shaping a story of your own about your grandmothers, etc.) and/or spread the word, I'd be wildly grateful.  As anyone who has been reading this blog knows, I have indeed been working on this project for three years.  If I reach my goal, that would give me the time I need this summer to finish the final phases of research and write the first major draft.  However, even if you can't donate, I cannot emphasize enough how helpful it would be if you could spread the word.

Here's the video (because one friend loved it so much, I've decided to post it here, too):

And here's the brief project summary:

I have been researching and writing The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani, for the past three years.  This book traces the lives of my grandmothers, both born in 1916 (before women had the right to vote), but who cut two very different paths through their lives.  Dick was on the surface a one-dimensional, frustrated housewife (who was anything but), whereas Jani rebelled loudly against the conventions of marriage and motherhood, yet never stopped trying to find love, even after she crashed out of her third marriage on her way to becoming a feminist teacher in the 1970s. 

Dick and Jani's voices and experience offer a fresh perspective on the 20th Century.  Their lives as women who were neither famous nor infamous were restricted, but their witness is no less valuable for that.  Their choices - as women born into modest circumstances but who had outsized dreams - could not have been more different.  Their story is a study in contrasts, between the soul-crushing cost of conformity paid by Dick and the price of Jani's very flamboyant rebellion against the role she was told she should play. 

In other words, their perspectives offer a micro-history* of the time in which they lived and their experience is valuable as a mirror into our own time.   I have come to realize that without hearing and understanding our grandmothers' stories, we are impoverished for lack of deep knowledge of our own history.  This book is a humble attempt to begin to redress that balance.

*[note for geeks like me who like this kind of thing:] I first heard the term micro-history thanks to the historian Jill Lepore, who wrote about it in an article Historians Who Love Too Much, in which this term is used as distinct from biography in that it signifies writing about people who are usually not so famous or exceptional, but whose lives therefore are more indicative of the social and political landscape of the time in which they lived.  Jill Lepore herself wrote an astonishing micro-history recently about Jane Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's less well-known, but nevertheless extraordinary sister.  From Jane's perspective, as Lepore writes it, we see and experience the American Revolution in a way more interesting and ground-level than any history book I've ever read.  My book is an attempt to pull this off for the 20th Century from the point of view of my grandmothers.

***

I'm rarely self-promotional on this blog, but this kind of funding thing forces such awkward behavior on me.  This is frankly some seriously scary shit asking for money and support, but I am committed to seeing it through.  I am surprised by how good I ended up feeling about the project by the time I'd gotten the campaign pitch done, and because donations are already coming in, I know this much: this project will get done.  Because I promised.  That's really all it takes for me.

Thanks go now to my mother's friend Fran who gave me money spontaneously to help with the writing of this book, before this campaign, and whose generosity made me think it was a good idea to try.  Fran wanted to feel a part of the project and of course she is now.  I hope any of you who donate and/or support it any way feel that way, too.

No writer writes alone.

Thanking you all in advance for helping me make this book happen.  I so dearly want to finish it and get it out into the world.  Our grandmothers' voices do deserve to be heard.

***
And a most exciting update: my beloved Canadian has Finally gotten his date at the Embassy at the end of May, so his visa should be finalized then, and we can finally live together - 11 months - count them: 11 months - after we were married.  Amazing.  He's Canadian!  We're in our 50s!  Oy.  But still and all grateful beyond words that it's finally moving forward and to our fabulous immigration attorney, David Katona.  Seriously, he's great.  If you're in NYC and need an immigration attorney, hire him.

An Homage to Friendship

I'm sorry not to have written anything for a while.  Life has been full on.  John and I are still waiting out the visa process, which is driving me slowly insane.  A process that should have taken 7-8 months (which is already crazy-long for two middle-aged married people from Canada and the US), has now dragged into its 10th month.  This is not because we are unique in any way, but because of a bottleneck in the system, which is hurting many people, keeping families apart and causing a kind of financial and emotional anxiety that is hard to describe.  There is no there there.  No way to begin a life, just limbo and extended visits, in short: purgatory without known end.  There was a moment where it seemed everything was moving ahead swiftly, but then: stalled again.  It's like being stuck on a freeway for 7 months, then suddenly: oh the traffic is moving, then: oh no, never mind, stuck again. I'm not one who is good with unknowns (known or otherwise thank you Donald Rumsfeld).  So, there's that...

BUT, on the positive side of the ledger, there are friends.  I have been reconnecting with college and high school friends this past month, which has been an extraordinary pleasure.  These were people to whom I was very close at various times and for whatever reason lost touch with or haven't seen for ages.

I am happy to say that in all instances, reconnecting was a joy felt mutually by all concerned.  I was also able to introduce John to this my scattered family of friends, which was great, too.

There is something about realizing you haven't lost people who witnessed you when you were a teenager or even a college student, even if - as I was - you were kind of dorky in many ways, scared shitless most of the time (even at college where you learned a little front - but it was so ridiculous that anyone with half a brain could have seen through it).  Fortunately, the good side of dorkiness is that if someone was your friend then, they will probably still be your friend now, when we are all older and frankly too old to care who is dorky and who isn't anymore.  When all you care about is: do I relate to this person, s/he friendly, can we connect over the long chasm of years and still find whatever we shared lo those many years ago?  Can we still have interesting conversations and then make each other laugh uncontrollably? If so, hooray!  You've made it!  You've won the Life Lottery!

Seriously, people, this is what I believe now.  These friendships that have lasted all this time are testament to a kind of thread of humanity that sometimes I forget about...and a thread of my life that runs through it, even when I feel lost, confused or full of anxiety...which I have done recently for many reasons, mostly having to do with career and finances.

There is the sweeter experience still of having John meet all these friends and find a commonality with them, it gives me the sense we've had since meeting each other that our lives, while not shared until now, were somehow parallel.

Below is a picture John took recently of my friend Bennett and me.  We were close friends at Wesleyan, having met - gasp - over 30 years ago.  He was visiting from LA for his 50th birthday.  We both spent time up in Maine over the summers as children, on the same small island, but being shy children we never met, because I was on the back of the island and he was on the front.  Unlike the tanned, athletic kids who jetted around on their bikes and dove into the freezing water, Bennett and I sat in our respective cottages reading, writing, painting and the like.  When we met at university, it was like finding an old friend who you haven't met yet.  (That's how it felt when I met John, too, though in a more romantic context.)

Bennett & me in NYC - both now 50, friends since 1983 (!) - John took the photo

We shared lots of adventures, including going to Europe for the first time - landing in Paris jet lagged, excited and terrified to be seem American (it was 1984 and not a good look - dollar was high, Reagan was president, the French were not amused, nor the Italians - we were headed in the end of art school in Florence).  We stared at Notre Dame realizing that one building was older and more impressive than any we had ever seen.  We couldn't figure out where to eat or how the money worked.  We were 21.  Bennett is gay, and like most of my gay male friends at the time, I had a terrible crush on him.  For someone as totally incapable of having a romantic relationship as I was then, this was the best possible situation and is why we are still friends to this day.

We have been in and out of each other's lives since college, but I think the photo kinda says it all.  There is something so entirely comforting about having people in your life that were there when you were a total idiot and still love you.  That would be Bennett.

Then there is my friend, Julie (who I met in 2000 at a writer's meeting and became fast friends with after she laughed at the fact that when I was drunk in college I puked on the Artaud section of my thesis).  She has seen me through two divorces, two pregnancies that did not go to term, a bi-continental life for 8 years, a PhD and two weddings, including my third at age 50.  She is the kind of person who when I called her back in 2000, raw from the end of my first marriage and seeing no way out of the pain, would listen to my sadness, my craziness, my raw anger and really, really bad ideas about how to handle all of the above, with equanimity, lack of judgment and - at the same time - clarity.  At that time, quite frankly, she was more valuable to me than I could possibly have been to her.  She held a space for me no one else in my life at the time could have done - because of her age, the work she had done on herself and her exquisite ability to love and listen.

Because we stayed close and I started doing some of the work she had done, I was able to be there for her at times when her life went kind of wonky.  I was and am so grateful to redress the balance.  Now, we are there for each other at the extreme end of anything that happens in either of our lives.  Neither has to worry the other thinks she is 'too much' and or about being judged.  What we do for each other: hold space, listen, offer clarity based on our own experience and show humility when we can't help.  But the being there, the witness, the simplicity of presence.  That is the gift.  That gift is priceless.

John also listens and holds space for me, more than any man I've ever been with, and he offers love unconditional, which is priceless.  What Julie offers after 14 years of friendship is 'time served' - a mutuality of witness and an experience of life with 'no windshield' (aka no drugs or alcohol) for many years on this earth.  This is in no way diminishes what John means to me or who he is.  However, without my friendship with Julie, the whole relationship with John would be impossible.  I had to learn intimacy in a friendship before I could allow myself to love and be loved the way John and I do.

So, aside from the vagaries of the Immigration system, I feel exquisitely lucky.  Remind of how lucky I am when I complain next time, which of course I will...

There are many other people I could write about at length on this blog about friendship, but for today, we will stick with these folks, though seeing my friends Ellen and Carol from high school this past month was another joy.  High school is a whole other territory - tundra-like in my emotional memory, so it is with a certain trepidation I ever meet with people from that period of time.  However Ellen and Carol were bright spots in that ice storm and their warmth shown through.  Whenever I see people like them, I remember how I got through that difficult time in my life.  Friends.  It's that simple.

Oh, and directing theater.  There was that, too.  But without the friends, I doubt I would have stumbled into the theater in the first place.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Not sure.  But I do know that without my friends near and far, I would be dead by now and that's no joke.  So thank you, all of you, you all know who you are...