Katya Reimann, Writer & Artist
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--Katya Reimann, 2022--

Katya has been telling stories, building worlds, and creating the art to go with them for most of her life.  
 
The content of these pages reflect her diverse interests over time

Learning Ukrainian

9/21/2021

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PictureSoloveyko ©Birdguides.com
I started this project two years or so before my mother passed away. It's a quixotic enterprise for sure; all the important people I could share this language with in the way I am hearing it in my mind have passed away. Some friends have commented that it was an excellent undertaking for Covid-19 days. It was. With all the disruptions of the past two years, it's been a good project because it can be picked at with something that resembles diligence and consistency.

Ukrainian is a tough language, not least because of the past two centuries of the land's history, torn between Austro-Hungarians and Poles and Russians and Soviets, mean that its current form (and how best to teach it!) is still a matter of some debate. Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), whose literary heritage is regarded as the foundation of Ukrainian literature--and, to a large extent, the legitimization of Ukrainian as an independent language--was jailed and exiled as a revolutionary for daring to honor his own language as a worthy medium of expression. Most late-life learners of Ukrainian quickly become aware of this political resonance in their learning choice.

All that said, it's a beautiful language, Slavic but sometimes described as "the sixth Romance language," with beautiful rolled Rs and many, many vowel sounds. The nightingale is a prized national symbol. What kind of a lunatic nation takes a tiny brown-feathered songbird as their national emblem?

In today's world, there are multiple resources online for learning Ukrainian. These are ones I've personally found useful:

--Duolingo has a short learning tree (which includes ~⅓ the number of lessons as its French or Spanish counterpart). A fine place to get started.
--Glossika has a full 5,000 spoken Ukrainian sentences--voiced by one of the harshest speakers of Ukrainian I have ever heard. It's only free for 7 days, but is a great resource for improving one's ear. Caveat: it does not exactly further one's sense of the famously poetic character of the language.
--The UK Ukrainian Language organization is an excellent source for beginning pronunciation and for reading. The first three lessons are particularly helpful--before it launches into daunting immersive mode!
--Anna Ohoiko has a beautifully put together collection of language lessons and podcasts at Ukrainian Lessons. This is a free resource, with extras that can be added for a charge. This site has been active for a few years now, so there it a lot of content.
--for flashcards, Anki has some useful language decks (though Ukrainian does not rate as one of their top languages). Access to content requires a log-in. I find the ☀️Ukrainian Language Vocabulary: Illustrated deck particularly good--because it is my own creation and reflects my personal idiosyncrasies.

These sources—they subtly contradict each other, and it is, I find, that peculiar disorderly subtlety that offers my biggest challenge to learning Ukrainian. What is this language I am learning? A Russian influenced variant? A modern artificially nationalist one? Certainly it's not the "pure" ancient tongue of my forebears.

And yet, I find myself enraptured.  Between the 20th century diaspora and the last 30 years of Ukrainian independence--the culture and language are unsettled and in transition. It is a fascinating moment to participate in Ukrainian study.
Twin Cities Ukrainian Heritage Festival, "Ukrainian Fashion," September 19, 2021
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My Father Vanished When I Was 7. The Mystery Made Me Who I Am.

6/19/2021

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Article by Nicholas Casey, NYT, 06/17/2021

PictureHenry with his mom Sarah Risser, October 21, 2017. Cambridge Boat Club, Cambridge, MA
I've spent the past week working on the Henry L. Zietlow Memorial Trophy project.  My father and I began work on this project almost exactly two years ago, and, finally, it's reached its end stages. In memory, I sense that this work will merge into the unmoored passage of the months through the Covid-19 pandemic; I'll look back on these two years in a very particular time and way that will be marked by a heightened sensation of death and mortality and our places in that arc.

As I write this the pandemic is not over, but its character, post the release of four effective vaccinations this past spring, has very clearly changed. We have a means of protecting ourselves, whether or not we are able, as human beings, to deploy it effectively or humanely. So--the virus has evolved, but so has our capacity to evolve with it.

I read the Nicholas Carey article this morning and found it fascinating. Largely, it's about identity, and questions of self that address the ancient nurture/nature conundrum.

These thoughts are colliding in my head, and then, one of the commentators in Carey's piece chipped in with the quotation that closes this entry.

It pulled some ideas together in my mind about all the things I've written above. Not in a way I could express here--that would take hours of writing and revision for a piece that is meant to be short.

But also it made me want to read Of Human Bondage, to find the context for these words.


"There is no such thing as success or failure, only stories."

attr. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage,
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My Great Uncle Served at Ypres

2/20/2020

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We live in an amazing age when it comes to family documentation.  Philip Sampson was my grandmother's older brother.  He was one of the soldiers who participated in that famous "Christmas in the trenches."

Thanks go to my cousin Julie, for finding, and sharing, this article with me.
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"A Memorable Fancy" Goodbye, Sixth Chamber

3/20/2019

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For years, this was my local used bookstore. I missed buying a first edition of The Game of Thrones there. I missed buying a 12 volume set of My Bookhouse, a beloved childhood companion (the edition we'd grown up with was my father's, an early 1930s printing, and it's become too fragile to trust in a young person's hands... and many of the volumes are "read alone," not "read aloud"!).

But I also purchased many excellent books there. A replacement copy of Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. Connie Willis's Bellwether. And many more. Books and Christmas shopping. But evidently, between myself and the rest of my community, not enough.

​​In all the years... I was too shy to ask "why 'Sixth Chamber'?" and after that it was so familiar that I never thought to look it up. Only as it was closing, did it post my answer, on its Facebook page. The name came from "A Memorable Fancy," written and illustrated by William Blake (1790), a passage/page from his longer work, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell":
I was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the method in which knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.

In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing away the rubbish from a caves moth; within, a number of Dragons were hollowing the cave.

In the second chamber was a Viper folding round the rock & the cave, and others adorning it with gold, silver and precious stones.

In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and feathers of air; he caused the inside of the cave to be infinite; around were numbers of Eagle like men, who built palaces in the immense cliffs.

In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire raging around & melting the metals into living fluids.

In the fifth chamber were Unnam'd forms, which cast the metals into the expanse.

​There they were reciev'd by Men who occupied the sixth chamber, and took the forms of books & were arranged in libraries.

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"A Memorable Fancy" William Blake, 1790. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
I accept that the world is changing, but this change, this closing of my used bookshop--it's a bad one.
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"L'Étang" :: French Words

3/20/2018

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Small frog in large pond
I am currently going through a French language obsession. Or, more precisely, a French word obsession. In trying to understand why, I'm seeing myself loitering (with great pleasure) at the building blocks stage of things.

I'm very much enjoying these Sicklemoon decks on Tinycards (that's a vocabulary App, a subsidiary of the language learning Duolingo program, and a log in is probably needed to see them). Each of these decks, like a sort of "sonnet plus one," has fifteen entries, each on a closely related theme. I think that's related to the way the program is set up, but to me, they are like fifteen word poems, introducing me, almost from a child's point of view, to snippets of French life: "Les Animaux de L'Étang." "Les Animaux de la Plage." "Les Fruits de la Forêt."

The pond one is a particular favorite (also the berries). Who needs to know the French words for waterstrider and whirlygig beetle? Evidently... me.

They're words--they are names--in an Ursula K. Le Guin sort of sense. Knowing the names... I think that still bestows real power--even if only a brief flare of it.

And... drat. The formatting has cropped off the accent aigu from the capital "E" of étang.




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Delusions of Spring

1/31/2018

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Actually, I was tidying something boring and this sketchbook turned out to have been shoved in there by mistake.

I'm pleased that it turned up, and really like what I'd forgotten I had drawn.
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Thomas Andrews's Mount Auburn Cemetery Posts

11/8/2016

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My friend Thomas Andrews periodically posts short pieces, with photos, about his walks in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.  I love these pieces, which constitute brief rambles through a scenery with which I am intimately familiar.  Mt. Auburn, the first landscaped rural or “garden” cemetery in the United States, was founded in 1831 on a site that spread along the Cambridge and Watertown, MA line.

In honor of election day 2016 (US), I am reproducing here (with permission) his entries from today.  Text and photos, unless otherwise credited, are all Thomas's.

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Meandering Paths at Mount Auburn--Ann Chapman (click photo for linked source)

Less than 100 years ago, Helen Taussig was allowed to take medical classes at BU and Harvard, but not allowed to earn a medical degree from either school. Her Harvard histology professor only allowed her to take his class if she did not talk to any classmates, for fear of "contaminating" them.

She eventually got her MD at Johns Hopkins.

She was part of the team, with Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, who invented the first heart surgery, solving a common heart issue common to newborns.



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©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Helen Brooke Taussig, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.
©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Dorothy Dix, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.
©2016 Thomas O. Andrews. Grave of Dorothy Dix, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA.

Dorothea Dix worked tirelessly for the more humane treatment of the mentally ill.

During the Civil War, she was the Superintendent of Army Nurses.

She was never allowed to vote.

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Tape Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota II

5/4/2015

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On Saturday, May 2, from 12:00 - 4:00, I demonstrated tape sculpture techniques, and showed some of my tape sculptures.  My focus was on teaching museum visitors to build tape sculptures using:

Armatures

 (a structural framework over which other materials can be mounted.  It remains embedded within the sculpture when the sculpture is complete)
and

Forms

(a stabilizing structure over which a sculpture can be built. When the sculpture is complete, it is removed from the form)
The staff at the Science Museum of Minnesota was incredibly helpful and did everything they could to make my time enjoyable.  The visitors were a terrific group, and very adventurous.  Some beautiful bowls were created (form sculpures), and a variety of creative masks, animals, spaceships, and flowers.

Thanks are due to all who participated and made it such a great experience.
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Tape Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota

4/30/2015

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Saturday, May 2, is Tape Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota

From 12:00 - 4:00 I will be demonstrating tape sculpture techniques, and
showing some of my tape sculptures.

Animals, bowls, masks, and my large scale Chinese dragon will be on display.

It's been a lot of fun getting ready for this show.  Tape definitely has its limitations as a sculpture material--but there's also a lot you can create from a basic, flat, adhesive strap.
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Spring

4/21/2015

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...is a pretty big deal here in Minnesota.  We have it now.  The blossoms in my yard are there to show me that.  But, yes, there was a scattering of horizontally driven snow today just to remind us: this year we have it good.

I redid my webpages today.  Partially in honor of the day, partially because... these pages remain lamentable hand-made, and once the html gets a bit loony, there's no going back.

So--green, at least for now.  On these pages and out my window. 
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    Garden

    Sites I recommend

    These ones are maintained by long-time personal friends.

    William Reimann
    is a consummate artist.  There are so many images to enjoy on this site.  His carved wooden long-leaf red pine Rhinoceros (which he made for me when I was ~11 years old)  is a personal favorite.

    Starless River
    Is the U.K. based caving gear store run by serious hard-ass Tony Seddon. This link goes to the 'caves' section of the store's site--complete with alarming portrait photo of Tony ("After 7 days underground and 700m prussiking").

    The Oxford University 
    Cave Club
    Maintained by Steve Roberts, a guy who is extraordinary in so many ways, I'll just limit myself here to saying "Steve is a man who knows about motors."

    Bensozia
    John Bedell is an archaeologist, historian, and father of five living in Maryland. His blog is a fascinating grab-bag of historical, artistic, and political materials.  This entry about work and leisure gives a good example of his voice.

    Earthsign Studios
    This is Liz Manicatide (now Liz LaManche), principal at Emphasis Creative's personal art & graphics site.  I love Liz's work, panache, and aerial artistry, which leads me to-

    Flying Squirrel Consortium
    Phil Servita's site, and the place to go for custom fabricated circus equipment (either freestanding or fixed point), and aerial classes, if you happen to live in the area.

    Paul Nordberg
    Paul's site is... unique, authentic, & expressive, and pretty much exactly what I think of when I think of a website as an artform.

    Metro Bikes Trails Guide
    (St. Paul, MN)
    "Reviews and Reports on over 70 bicycle paths in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area!"
    Maintained by the tireless Seamus Flynn, and a great little site for those local to the Twin Cities area.

    Green Ivy
    I enjoy the Ukrainian/Russian artisanship on this website.

    Sites I enjoy

    I don't know these people, but I appreciate their work.

    What's That Bug?
    The title says it all.  A useful site for both the non-bug-phobic & the consummate bug-phobe.

    Margaret & Helen
    Best Friends for Sixty Years and Counting…

    Raging Grannies
    I'm not a grandmother (or raging!), but I appreciate this site.  Especially the fact-checking part.
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