{"id":1339,"date":"2017-01-11T19:15:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T19:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1339"},"modified":"2017-01-13T13:23:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T13:23:50","slug":"the-strange-way-history-stares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1339","title":{"rendered":"The Strange Way History Stares"},"content":{"rendered":"

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History has a sly way of looking at us. \u00a0It inhabits another body – a work of art, ancient walls and cobblestones, even a person – and stares, hoping that we’ll notice.\u00a0 It’s not that history is jealous of the magnetic present and doesn’t want to be forgotten.\u00a0 It worries for us, so flush with the “now” and wants to desperately remind us of what we\u2019re forgetting.<\/p>\n

I saw these drawings by Whitfield Lovell at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., months ago, and have been staring at me since then, with their heaviness and heartache.\u00a0 They\u2019ve stayed with me throughout the political explosions of 2016, as we trudge forward into 2017.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>More than how they speak to me, history is speaking through them, pleading ardently for recognition. \u00a0These are\u00a0drawings the artist based on photographs he recovered from forgotten places.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t relatives; they are anonymous. \u00a0They are full of distinguishing particularity yet they stare out at us with preternatural strangeness. \u00a0 The warning wind of the past is flowing through them, the ache of foresight and foreknowledge. \u00a0They’ve been there and they see the tragedies ahead.<\/p>\n

Within their frame, they collide with a “foreign” object, a bunch of dried flowers, a beaded stream of tears, a brooch, a knife.\u00a0 Like a burning bush, objects communicate, correspond, are part of the often unrealized yet to be deciphered conversation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Martin Luther King Day approaches next Monday; Trump’s inauguration the following Friday. History is staring, challenging us to recognize old tragedies and how we are courting them again. \u00a0It speaks from its depths to ours, challenging us to recognize our own profound and intimate human values. \u00a0From there life springs. \u00a0Its challenge is no small feat, simply: continuity.<\/p>\n

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History has a sly way of looking at us. \u00a0It inhabits another body – a work of art, ancient walls and cobblestones, even a person – and stares, hoping that we’ll notice.\u00a0 It’s not that history is jealous of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[530,529,533,532,531],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-inauguration","tag-trump","tag-history","tag-martin-luther-king-day","tag-mlk-day"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-lB","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1345,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}