Again?

Well, the class from this summer will be reading at the Fairbanks Arts Association Literary Reading at the Bear Gallery, Pioneer Park, this coming Saturday evening at 7.

Further, Tanya Mendelowitz, who helped us with the Porchoir and bookbinding, e-mailed out a photo of the class, with each member holding up his or her pages of the book, Feathers, we made together.

Now I have a dirty little secret to confess. I cannot recognize faces very well. It’s one of the reasons I can’t remember names. I can watch a movie and get very confused because if two actors look vaguely alike, say the same color hair and similar clothes, I can’t tell them apart. I still get Merry and Pippen mixed up in Lord of the Rings, and I’ve probably watched it dozens of times and they don’t even look that much alike.

Face recognition is localized in a very specific part of the brain. (I’ve used that in the trilogy, if I ever get that published.) Evidently that part of my brain is not very well developed. As a result, I can look at a photo of people I’ve spent every day with for two weeks, and not be at all sure who’s who.

In fact, when I used to teach dog training, I could get the dogs’ names within the first week. The handlers? Mostly “Rusty’s owner.”

In Tanya’s photo, thank goodness, most of us are holding up our pages of the book we produced—so I can use the illustration each of us put on our own pages to identify people. I’m reasonably sure of those who weren’t holding books where I could see the pages, but I had to have help.

Photo courtesy of Tanya Mendelowitz

First Row:

Kristen Smith: “Within” and “Perfect Execution;” Anita Stelcel: “Cradle;” Frank Soos (faculty) ”Wreckage;” Sue Ann Bowling: ”To the Poet, From His Cat” and “Krakatoa.”

Second Row:

Margo Klass (faculty) “Found Object.” Phyllis Movious: “I Will Come Back” and “Cinquain;” Karen Stomberg: “Running Downhill” and “Smelling Labrador Tea;” Rachel Andrea Elmer: “Becoming Boreal” and “September Birth;” Charley Basham: “Garden Degas” and “Inspiration;” Patty Kastelic: “He Comes Back as a Joke” and “Work in Progress;” Abby Kasarskis: “Outskirts of the Village: and “Fields of Jordan;” Priscilla Delgado: “I am Related to Music.”

Third Row:

Jeanne C. Clark (faculty) “Rescue” and “Finding Miles Homer;” Peggy Shumaker (faculty) “One Piece;” Arvia Glass: “Salt;” joan parker webster:  “Waiting for Saint Cecilia;” Logan Biden: “How a Poem is Born;” Susan Campbell: “Gravity.”

Back Row:

Rob Childers: “From a Steam House;” George Paris: “Prairie Song” and “Meadowlark;” Libby Mullenberg: “Full Circle Flight;” Jonny Gray (faculty) “Kitty Euterpe;” Ron Smith: “I Swiped a Few Hours” and “Heads up;” Jim Babb: “Transitive and Intransitive;” Monte Lynn Jordan: “Second Time Around;” Rebecca D. Morse: “Where Rock Moves;” Bonny Lynn Babb: “I am Related to Water.”