I love Paul Klee's angels, all 29 of them. He created them in 1939 at the thrumming of Nazi boots across Europe and the onslaught of scleroderma, an incurable skin disease.  Left to right,  "angel applicant" resembles "the offspring of a bulldog and a Halloween mask who might never reach heaven" (The Met).  "Still female" is a heart-breast-wing creature in metamorphosis. The third "Angelus Novus," is most famous. This angel was purchased by Walter Benjamin and inspired a much-quoted reference in On the Concept of History.    (Benjamin escaped occupied France to fascist Spain and committed suicide when he was denied passage.) 

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. It shows an angel who seems about to move away from something he stares at. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look. His face is turned toward the past. Where a chain of events appears before us, he sees on single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm.

Benjamin's arrow flies straight to the heart. Klee's angels aren't ethereal; they are able to meet our human conundrum. 

What a clutch of  "forgetful," "ugly," "incomplete," and "poor"  hybrids. Far less exuberant than Klee's other paintings, these are intimate companions one might want for the suffering and irritation of an incurable illness and the terror of the Third Reich. 

More angel sketches below.

And where do we go after Klee?

To Rilke, who asks,
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic Orders? 
And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear, 
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.

Not Christian but Islamic angels appear in Duino Elegies.  As the house guest of Princess Marie von Thurn ind Taxis at her castle in Duino near the Adriatic sea, Rilke has an epiphany.  Von Thurn allows us this illumination in her memoirs:

Rilke climbed down to the bastions which, jutting to the east and west, were connected to the foot of the castle by a narrow path along the cliffs. These cliffs fall steeply, for about two hundred feet, into the sea. Rilke paced back and forth, deep in thought, since the reply to the letter so concerned him. Then, all at once, in the midst of his brooding, he halted suddenly, for it seemed to him that in the raging of the storm a voice bad called to him: “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?” (Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?)… He took out his notebook, which he always carried with him, and wrote down these words, together with a few lines that formed themselves without his intervention … Very calmly he climbed back up to his room, set his notebook aside, and replied to the difficult letter. By that evening the entire elegy had been written down.

These poems are strange, disturbing, and beautiful. Read this Harper's article for insight. 

From Rilke, we follow  French Catholic mystic, Olivier Messiaen, whose music is speckled with the angelic drawn by Rilke's imagination. Messian's angels, like Rilke's, are formidable, terrifying creatures who communicate without language and are unmoored from space and time. 

When I first heard Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time,  the fusion of sound and color had an eschatalogical musicality. It emerged from his years prison camp and was performed in January 1941 a night as cold as this one. Inspired by Revelations, Messiaen wrote it “in homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who raises a hand toward heaven saying: 'There shall be time no longer..'” Messiaen's synaesthesia, a condition where sound resounds in color, gives the Quartet a palette that is bold and ethereal with light.  While Rebecca Rischin tells us that sections of the Quartet were composed before his incarceration, I am sure he was not wrong to say that "colored dreams" during captivity "gave birth to the chords and rhythms of my quartet."  They are alive in the music, in the angelic judgement, and rainbow garments, and the inexplicably haunting clarinet depicting the abyss of the birds. Birdsong and angels, Messiaen's angelology was deeply influenced by Thomas Aquinas as well as Rainier Maria Rilke. Indeed, Messiaen invented Langage communicable,  a musical alphabet that translated assigned  phrases from St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae into sound, pitch and duration (Sheldon 2008). Shenton also notes that at least seven compositions have movements named for angels including St. Francis, and the Meditations on the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity.  The Meditations in particular intend to invoke the ceaseless praise of the angels. Sometimes, the music, I can't bear it. 
 
And oh, imagist poet H.D. also writes about angels from London during WWII.  (Hilda Doolittle's Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall / Tribute to the Angels/Flowering of the Rod. )

 “Tribute to Angels,” is a gorgeous anthem to the angels, and then...

I had been thinking of Gabriel,
of the moon-cycle, of the moon-shell,

of the moon-crescent
and the moon at full:

I had been thinking of Gabriel,
and the moon-regent, the Angel,

and I had intended to recall him
in the sequence of candle and fire

and the law of the seven;
I had not forgotten

his special attribute
of annunciator: I had thought

to address him as I had the others,
Uriel, Annael;

how could I imagine
the Lady herself would come instead?

----

“The Flowering of the Rod" is a paean to female-centric restoration/resurrection

Yet resurrection is a sense of direction,
resurrection is a bee-line,

straight to the horde and plunder,
the treasure, the store-room,

the honeycomb;
resurrection is remuneration,

food, shelter, fragrance
of myrrh and balm...

From this to French philosopher Michel Serres' Angels: A Modern Myth. Serres sets a conversation between Pia, a doctor at the medical center in the Charles de Gaulle Airport, and Pantope, a traveling inspector for Air France.  (Marc Auge calls airports the non-place of super modernity.) Angels, Serres-as-Pantope tells us, are now all forms of communication: fiber optics, switchers and routers, postmen, translators, climatologists, quasi-objects. 

I wondered when reading his text, is there nothing angels are not?

Fortunately, Pia anticipates my frustration.  She sums up Pantope at the end of a long excursus: 
So your angels are individual and multiple; messengers that both appear and disappear; visible and invisible; constructive of messages and message-bearing systems; spirit and body; spiritual and physical; of two sexes and of none; natural and manufactured; collective and social; both orderly and disorderly; produces of noise, music and language; intermediaries and interchangers; intelligence that can be found in the world's objects and artifacts….You must admit that your angels are elusive. What's more, sometimes they can be very evil!" 

He replies
Their form is generally adaptable. That form is the skeleton key which enables them to open the blackest boxes, and this wealth of different forms extends to embrace all the different aspects that you have just listed and thus enables us to read our present era like an open book: our sciences, both abstract and practical, our hardware and soft technologies -- all our activists both concrete and volatile. (1993, p  296)

Michel Serres, Angels: A Modern Myth, 1993
Andrew Shenton Olivier Messiaen's System of Signs, Ashgate, 2008
Rebecca Rischin For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet 
Siglind Bruhn, Messiaen's Contemplations of Covenant and Incarnation, Pendragon Press, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donald Swearer refers to this quote in Becoming the Buddha,  his study of Buddha statue consecration rituals in Northern Thailand, though these rites are shared in the Theravada countries of Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia. Swearer's exploration the consecration ceremony is ethnographically rich and textually fascinating. 

Constructing a Buddha statue is a sacred endeavor. I think of painstaking process of painting Eastern Orthodox icons or  inscribing a Torah scroll  where distinctive materials and ritual processes honor the sacred object.  These processes connect the present to the past in what Hervieu-Legér calls a "chain of memory."  The statues are modeled on earlier versions, as this continues the   "chain of memory" to the original statue which is suffused with divine power because of its contact with the Buddha.  This is the logic behind medieval Christian reliquaries or  the Catholic notion of "apostolic succession" in which Bishops ordain a priest by a "laying of hands" to pass on the Holy Spirit that carries back in unbroken succession to Jesus laying his hands on Peter.  That first lightning bolt.

How to create a Buddha statue? One must follow Theravada or Mahayana directions. The Pali Lakkhana Sutta  The Marks of a Great Man  lists 32 major characteristics, including  legs like antelopes with heels that jut out,  long fingers, soft and tender hands and feet, marked with wheels with a thousand spokes, smooth golden flawless skin, and a tight circle curl between the eyebrows. The statue is also filled with relics, texts and precious materials and possibly gems. These relics already endow the statue with a secret vibrancy, like holy organs.  All these dimensions must be met, but if you have seen (and been seen) by enough Buddhas, you know that there are a multitude of various positions and mudras,  and historical and regional aesthetics, such as the  Sukothai, or my favorite, the Angkor era Khmer.  

The Buddha's sculpting begins on an auspicious day and hour.  On a final auspicious day, the sangha consecrates the statue by chanting sutras intended for the ordination of a monk.  At the mundane yet remarkable moment when his eyes receive a pupil, the Buddha statue changes from inert to present. That painterly dot brings him to life.  This consecration is considered an "installation of the breaths" (pranapratistha), so when the eyes are opened, breath is also endowed through the relics and sutras as a reminder to the statue of who he is.

This process, according to Bernard Faure, bestows the statue with an aura, those whirly-gigging lights or the halos around Jesus and the saints.  Faure takes Walter Benjamin's notion of the aura of art objects  from "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."  Benjamin's notion of aura is different from this; it's about uniqueness. He argues that an original work of art is endowed with indivisibility that cannot be reproduced. Faure applies this aura to Buddhist icons that are reproduced over and over.  Faure argues that the aura of religious objects set up a kind paradox of both intimacy and unapproachability, since that is the nature of a cultic object (1998).  Faure considers Buddhist icons particularly in Chan Buddhism of Japan and China.  I quote in length:

This latter model of the proto-icon is based on the notion of original buddhahood. The Agama Sutra gives us the story of first Buddha statue.  It's a fabulous tale that never make it into the formal philosophy we in the North attribute to Buddhism, First, the Buddha's disciples realize their "the Blessed One" has disappeared. Distressed, they consult the psychic Aniruddha who tells them that their teacher has flown off to the Trayastrimsas Heaven to teach the dharma to his dead mother, Queen Maya, perhaps so she could be relieved of samsara. There is meant as an admonishment. Since the disciples had been bickering so much,  who really knows why the Buddha took off.  In any case, King Udayana of Kausambi so longs for the Buddha that he falls ill. Ultimately, his family decides to have a likeness of the Buddha created to relieve the king of his longing.  Maudgalyayana, another supernaturally gifted person, sends the sculptor up to the Trayastrimsas Heaven to catch a glimpse of his "Blessed" subject.  The sculptor's five foot sandlewood statue is so marvelous that the king is immediately healed.  When the Buddha finally returns, the statue gets up to greet his human counterpart.  They talk, and the Buddha agrees that it's good to have this visual consolation as a reminder.  And to think,  the statue was already in place before the Buddha entered parinirvana,  So "When we see statues of the Buddha, we are in essence seeing the Buddha." 

 Of course, the non-phenomenal Buddha nature, the Dharmakaya, is everywhere. But stories like this are quite specific about the longing for the presence of the guy , not just his idea. Like wanting to hold a photograph of the person you love.  Sometimes just the aura is not enough.

Henny’s magic 
See Background on Ernest and Henrietta Poethig

My sister Margaret is wasting her talents on the feds. She is a photographer, costume designer, script writer, and culinary adept.  She adorns barbies with elaborate, imaginative outfits and photographs them with backdrops. Then she gives the dolls to her friends’ daughters, nieces, grandchildren since she has no kids of her own.

Sometimes she outdoes herself.  My partner Victoria is a Roman Catholic Woman Priest. Margaret decides to create Pope Vicky, inspired by the fashionista inclinations of Pope Benedict. Half a year later, she astonishes us with an intricately robed Pope Vicky,  a costume box set out with vestments (33 buttons), and the means to “confect the eucharist”.  Go to Pope Vicky’s People,  an active FB site.  Margaret also published a Pope Vicky booklet.  We host the Pontifical barbie in an honored place. 

In 2011, before Margaret and her partner Dick embark on a California vacation, she creates Henrietta Poethig, my father’s mother.

Henrietta-- Henny--died in 1946 of TB when she was 45 years old.  We had two photos of Henrietta. In the first, she stands with dad’s father, Ernest, on the roof of their tenement in New York city where my father as Richie and his sister Erna grew up.  In the second picture, Henny poses cross-legged in a hula skirt, holding a ukulele. She grins into the camera.  No party without Henny.

For dad, the story is thick with guilt.  He was planning to attend College of Wooster, a dream come true for the tenement boy from Germantown who met the Presbyterian God at Madison Avenue Church's Goodwill Sunday School.  Henrietta, in the last years of her illness, counsels him from her hospital bed. Go, she says.  Soon after, she dies. Erna turns 12 the day after her mother dies.  Aunt Helen takes her in.  Ernest is on disability and expects Richie to support the family. It’s a terrible, terrible time.  But Richie doesn't stay. He leaves New York for rural Ohio. He changes his name to Dick.  Somewhere not far below the skin, he is still dealing with that abandonment.  

So, Margaret gathers old pictures of Henny and fashions her from cloth, wood, and paper mache, an astonishing likeness. Henny is still 45 and joins her granddaughter on a holiday, posting emails to us, picture perfect.   

Something unusual happens.  Henny incarnates. 

We shift from the imagined to possible.  A lapse of time, a parallel world in which other futures occur.  It’s not a surprise that Henny comes alive.  Puppets, statues, ritual objects do it all the time.  We'd  just never been so close to the magic.  Later,  Margaret also creates Ernest and together they visit the Occupy encampment at Zuccoti Park.  Margaret collects the photographs and creates a short book, Henny’s Big Western Adventure.  We are still caught in their spell.

What follows are the email posts from their trip, the pictures of Henny, and our exchanges.

Henny's Western Adventure Day 1
Margaret Poethig
Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:03 AM 

Hi all,
Henny sends her greetings from Death Valley:

"Hi Kids! I'm off on my Big Western Adventure with Dick and Margaret. First stop Death Valley. Looks just like it sounds. Did you know this is where Borax used to come from? Hard to imagine anything useful coming out of a place like this. I had boxes of that stuff at home.

We went down into the valley below sea level and didn't drown. Still, at a 115 degrees on that salt flat I thought I was about to die. I think my varnish started melting. Good thing I brought my umbrella. And look, I made a new friend!

There are some rocks down there called "Artist's Palette." We drove around them twice waiting for the light to be just right. You can't really tell in the photo, but there was blue and magenta and pink and green--all the colors like they were painted on the rock. Margaret will send some of Dick's photos later--he ought to be a professional photographer.

We stayed in the valley overnight--I think the temperature got down to a balmy 90 degrees.

More later,
Henny"

P.S. Margaret put my glasses away in a safe place and then couldn't find them. Sounds like something I would do! That's okay, I see just as well without them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henny's Western Adventure Day 1
Johanna Poethig Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:09 AM 
To: Margaret Poethig

Thanks for the report Henny!  How's Margaret handling the heat?
xox, johanna
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henny's Western Adventure Day 1
Margaret Poethig  Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:21 AM 
To: Johanna Poethig 

Margaret wasn't sure she was going to make it back to the car from the salt flat. She had the hair-brained idea that we would also go see Devil's Golf Course, Devil's Cornfield, and the Race Track, but she thought better of it after Badwater Basin stop.

Day 2 of Henny's Western Adventure
Margaret Poethig 
Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:22 PM

Hi all,

I have had a very long day! The kids got me up before dawn so Dick could photograph the sunrise at Zabriskie's Point. This was our third trip to Z's Point--the first time to scout it out for the photo shoot and the second time to search the parking lot for my glasses. This was the best visit--a gorgeous way to start the day.

When we were at Z's Point yesterday, there was a film crew scouting the location too. They were already there when we arrived this morning, filming a gal in a scant pink dress, waiving her arms around with a man in a turban at her feet throwing feathers into the air. Margaret said they must be filming for Bollywood. Speaking of people from India, I think the entire Indian subcontinent is taking a vacation here too.

On our way out of the Valley we stopped at the dunes. If you ask me, this is what the desert is supposed to look like. Margaret and I had some fun while Dick wandered off looking for sand where no one had made a footprint yet. (As soon as Dick sends me some of his photos, I promise to share them with you.)

After the Valley we stopped at Mono Lake to look at the tufas. I can't wait to use that word in a sentence when I get back to New York.

Finally we made it to Lake Tahoe--what a beaut! Being Labor day weekend the place was packed...with people from India, of course!

How do you like my new blue dress?

Love,
Henny

P.S. Margaret finally found the safe place where she had put my glasses.

Day 4 of Henny's Western Adventure
Margaret Poethig 
Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:07 AM 

Today I felt the blood coursing through my veins. I was "on the edge" in more ways than one. All day strangers kept coming up and snatching pictures of me without us even being aware. But that's not what really got me going.

First we strolled over to Yosemite Falls--the tallest in the United States of America. Margaret and I teetered and tottered on the rocks like everyone else to get a closer look. I couldn't wear my glasses because we were sure they would fall into the drink and be lost forever.
(Afterwards we stopped at Bridalveil Falls--Dick captured the lacy spray at the top with his good camera work.)

The day was hotter than expected so I changed into my shorts and off we went to Glacier Point for a spectacular view of the High Sierras--Half Dome, Bridalveil Falls, and other icons of Yosemite Valley in the landscape behind me. The high winds swept me off a rock, but Margaret rescued me and I was no worse for wear.

Margaret wanted to go to Taft Point to see the fissures in the granite. My heart was in my throat as I sat on the edge looking into the dark crevasse. As I was sitting blissfully taking in the whole Valley scene, I almost got picked off by a great bird--that was a little too close to call for even thrill-seeking me!

We raced back down the mountain to catch the golden rays of the setting sun on the Valley peaks. With Dick's great big camera he managed to capture the craters of the moon! Great going, Dick, I said. Such things I could never have imagined in my day.

Henny

Day 6 of Henny's Western Adventure
Margaret Poethig 
Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 11:28 AM 

Hi kids,

We made it through the Central Valley of California to Watsonville for a short visit with the lovely gals Kerry and Victoria. Kerry cooked us a delicious chicken dinner, and in the morning we took it easy, mostly checking emails and surfing the internet.

Later I put on my fanciest outfit and visited my dear old friend Barbie, now Her Holiness Pope Victoria I. Pope Vicky has just returned from China, where she visited Aunt Harriet, who was a Christian missionary in the 20th century. On the way back she stopped in Bali, where she received a beautiful new tiara from a local village temple.

We talked about what a gift time travel is, and then Vicky wanted to hear all about my Big Western Adventure. She said she envied my normal life and at times wished she had one too. I guess being an iconic figure isn't always a bed of roses. Still, she looked stunning and I told her so.

We posed for an official portrait. I can't wait to frame it and hang it where everyone back home can admire it. Now, off to Palo Alto for a visit with Dick's and Margaret's friends Jim and Nancy.

Henny

Day 6 of Henny's Western Adventure
Kathryn Poethig Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:25 PM
To: Margaret Poethig 
Oh I love her travels!
K
-- Day 6 of Henny's Western Adventure
Eunice Poethig (dad)   Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 1:33 PM
To: Margaret Poethig
Cc: Erna, Kerry, Victoria Rue
 
 Marg:
Good going.  I'm glad Henny had a chance to meet her granddaughter Kathryn and granddaughter-in-law Victoria.  Also she was hob-nobbing with her holiness Pope Victoria I.  Time travel is a wonderful thing, especially when you can manage it in the spiritual realm.  Knowing the kind of spirit good ol' Henny possessed, she is really revelling in all these places and people she meeting.  Keep on rolling, Mom.
  Dad

Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?
Margaret Poethig 
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:08 AM 

Hi kids,

Today Jim and Nancy took us over to the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University Campus. One painting took me right back to Yosemite Valley!

This lovely museum boasts an extensive collection of Rodin sculptures. I felt oddly at home there. One museum staff member even asked if I would be donated to the museum! I was flattered, but I told them I didn't want to give up my wardrobe.

Henny

Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?
Kathryn Poethig  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:20 AM
To: Margaret Poethig 

Really REALLY you should make this a Henny Blog. Its so clever and we're all in love with Henny -- in a different way than Pope Vicky, maybe because she's also our grandmother.
It's just too good for only us.

On a headier note:
I'm also reading about the vital materialism - and this is really it. Jane Bennett''s Vibrant Matter (which I lent to mom) refers to this. Appadurai's older book The Social Life of Things (we would never call Henny a thing and that's already the point). But you are clearly a vital materialist, Margaret who assumes her creations have an inner life.  I'm thinking back to Sam's baby bear story too. 
xoxoxo
Kerry

PS Henny actually was solicited!?
Kathryn (Kerry) Poethig, Ph.D.

Kathryn Poethig  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:24 AM
To: Margaret Poethig 

Hey, I think I'll write about this myself, maybe even start my own blog about it  - baby bear (who is already live to Sam), Pope Vicky, Henny, and Maceda projects and how they have affected the family.  Keep all those emails I may need them (with permission).  It starts with your barbies, but these we love.
sos
K
---------
Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?Johanna Poethig Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:29 AM
To: Margaret Poethig 

It's a "heady"  "Henny " concept  to be considered as a work of art.  We are all works of art?  The museum staff was pinoy/pinay I assume?
xoxox,
Johanna
-----------
Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?
Margaret Poethig Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:48 AM
To: Johanna Poethig 

Pinoy, of course.
------------
Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?
Nancy McClenny Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 11:42 AM
To: Kathryn Poethig 
Cc: Margaret Poethig 

Go Margaret,
Nancy
------------
Day 7 (part 2): Henny Contemplates What Is Art?
Margaret Poethig  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 11:56 AM
To: Kathryn Poethig 
I'm definitely going to have to stop making dolls and start reading some books!
Too many vital materials to work with, too little time...

Day 7 (part 3): No party without Henny
5 messages Margaret Poethig
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 12:26 PM

Hi kids,

As soon as we arrived in Oakland, California, we were whisked off to Chris's 58th birthday party. We all had salty-sweet-and-sour drinks called Margaritas. I'm going to have to tell brother-in-law Bill about these drinks (he was the bartender at the Donist Restaurant on East 86th Street). I think Margaritas would have been a big hit with the Yorkville crowd.

I enjoyed gossiping and posing for pictures with the girls. As Cousin Carlie Rehling used to say, "There is no party without Henny." And so it goes.

A cute Filipino man, Jose Maceda, arrived a little later. He brought a sweater for the chilly Bay Area weather, which he graciously let me borrow when the sun went down. In case you are wondering why I'm wearing my hiking boots, it's because I left one of my dress shoes at Kerry's and Victoria's. Anyway, Johanna said the boots were high fashion on the West Coast and after seeing the party crowd, I didn't doubt her!

We had dinner on the patio--fortunately they had lamps that gave off heat and warmed all of us around the table. After dinner, Jose played his Filipino bamboo instrument for us. Such a sound I have never heard! It was marvelous.

The party went on and Johanna and I compared noses. I was surprised to hear the girls refer to it as "the Poethig nose." But I told them my side of the family should get credit for something. The girls promised me they will call it "the Schoelzel nose" from now on.

I'm so sad my Big Western Adventure is too soon coming to an end.

Henny

Day 7 (part 3): No party without Henny
Margaret Poethig 
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 12:28 PM 
Oops, I forgot to attach the nose picture.

----------Day 7 (part 3): No party without Henny
Chris Brown  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 1:06 PM
To: Margaret Poethig

Hi Henny, 

Thanks for celebrating with me, and inspiring my pal Jose to also show up!  
Seems like you two really hit it off!  What a reunion!

Chris

Chris Brown
Music Department Head
Mills College
---------------
Day 7 (part 3): No party without Henny
Kathryn Poethig  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 1:53 PM
To: Chris Brown, Margaret Poethig 

Well, Henny you once again were the life of the party. And what a time you've had -- we're only glad you decided to bring Margaret and Dick along, they're such good photographers -- and you're so photogenic. You've made new friends (Maceda) and reunited with the old (Pope Vicky) - 'one is silver and the other gold' is right for their hair coloring.  

Thanks to you, we've viturally hiked the high trails, posed with Rodin, sipped with birthday boy Chris...

 Surely they need you back in Washington for a little pick-me-up as we all remember 9/11 with a kind of "chronomania".

Happy trails,
Kerry
-------------
Day 7 (part 3): No party without Henny
Johanna Poethig Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 2:05 PM
To: Kathryn Poethig 
Cc: Chris Brown , Margaret Poethig 

I would like to know what Henny thinks about "Chronomania" since she flew back home on 9/11?
JP

Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure

6 messages Margaret Poethig
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 5:03 PM
To: Johanna Poethig 
Cc:  to all 

Johanna,

Here I am poolside at Mills College in Oakland, contemplating chronomania. In particularly, I am considering how "time’s messianic cessation [does not] necessarily constitute the hallmark of revolutionary praxis; instead, in the proleptic and analeptic constellations of September 11, technocapital and state power have subsumed ... the kairotic time of the religious imaginary."




As of this writing, I have arrived safe and sound, having traveled the red-eye, cozily in Baggage Class, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a fitting end to my Big Western Adventure.

Love to all,
Henny
--------------Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Erika Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 5:08 PM 
To: Margaret Poethig  Johanna Poethig 
She looks very relaxed!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
---------------
Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Kathryn Poethig  Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 5:40 PM
To: Erika
Cc: Margaret Poethig 

Well, it's pretty clear that Henny is not a chonomaniac.
-----------------
Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Subject: Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Eunice Poethig  (dad) Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 7:46 AM
To: Kathryn Poethig  
   Kathryn:
     Kindly explain to your ancient father what "chronomania" is.  I'm I glad or not that my dear mother Henny is not a chronomaniac.
   Dad
------------------
Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Erna   Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 8:23 AM
To: Erika,, Margaret,  Johanna
Cc:  All 

Erika- Yes, my  mother  did  look relaxed in  this shot- I have  loved her adventures and I am sure she would  have been  whooping  it up, were she  alive  to be a party to them. Margaret is extremely talented and  she  has  touched my heart deeply with Henny and  her adventure ( and  her " nose" was not  too far off- it was long and thin-  like  mine)  Your  father's  obviously was  from someone  in our  past! She was  quite  conservative, but not afraid to speak her  piece- I was only 12 when I  lost her - which was a shame  , but as your  father will attest - she  spoke her  conservative  mind  out  and  I believe  she would have  been "ticked" at  all the liberalism in the world  today ( That is  why your Dad and I are so different - I stayed with the conservative- he  chose  liberalism- To each his own - that is what  keeps the  world  going.  We  do not love or respect  each  other  any  less though  our  views are miles apart. ) I  thank you Margaret  for taking  " Henny' on  her adventures- something  she would not have been able to do  in her  life. I agree with your sister- Henny should have her  own  blog  to  keep  us all abreast of her adventures. Thank you for bringing this  bit  of joy into my life. Keep Well , Be  Happy and  just as a parting  dig.. Vote  Republican!  
Love you- Aunt erna

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Day 8: The End of Henny's Western Adventure
Johanna Poethig  Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:41 AM
To:  Erna
cc: all
Dear Erna,
  I spoke to Henny and she actually believes in Science and is so distressed about the state of the economy brought on by Republican policies. After talking with her about my job working for a State University she agrees that our students deserve an education and she would like to see the US go more in the direction of today's Germany which has one of the strongest economies because they tax fairly, they support Unions, they educate their people, they make things with expertise and they take climate change very seriously and invest in  alternative energy etc.  I guess times have changed her!
love,
Johanna
 

Visit to Zuccotti Park
11 messages Margaret Poethig <[email protected]> Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 9:46 PM


Dick and I and some friends went to Wall Street's Zuccotti Park today, where at first glance the police seemed to outnumber the protestors. It was rainy and very crowded, and everyone had a camera. Many of the cameras were pointed at us!

Margaret proposed a movie featuring Henny and Ernest.