Because is saddens me that I have not posted in eons I will be selecting a few pieces I write every week and then post them on the blog. I think this is a realistic compromise since I have no time, nor room in my brain to pump out any more words at the end of the day.
Get ready for tomorrow! Hopefully something good will come this way since I will be spending election night covering a party at Obama’s barbershop on the Southside. I AM PSYCHED!
Raj Jewels displays necklaces ranging from $3,500 to $4,000 in their window
For the fine jewelers lining Chicago’s West Devon Avenue, business has shown that this year’s Diwali festival of lights has been less than stellar.
With the price of gold in the commodities markets hovering at $755 an ounce and an economic crisis in full effect, fine gold jewelry has become out of reach for many South Asian immigrants, who have traditionally celebrated the Hindu festival. The festival signifies a new year of luck and wealth, with the exchange of ornaments glistening with this precious metal.
Yet keeping in tradition has led to a demand for costume jewelry and imitation gold.
“People basically don’t have the money or don’t have the mood to buy anything,” says Nari Nagrani, the owner of West Devon Avenue’s bridal and jewelry shop, Niketan. “It is like someone is sick at home, you don’t feel like leaving the house.”
Tuesday marked the conclusion of the week long Diwali celebration, when many South Asian businesses open new account books and begin their financial year anew. While not all businesses follow this calendar, it is obvious that those interviewed are wary of ushering in the new year with declining sales and fluctuating gold prices.
For Raj Jewels, whose necklaces average $3,500 to $4,000, sales have plunged 30 percent from last year. Asked if there had been a surge during the Diwali holiday, Bhusan Tuleshar, and employee of Raj, said, “unfortunately no.”
Yet maintaining convention still has cash registers ringing, with a current trend toward purchasing more high-end costume jewelry. While jewelers dealing exclusively in gold products may be suffering, merchants selling well-made imitation products have seen a spike in sales.
“We did sell a lot of jewelry before the festival,” said Maria Fatima, an employee of Taj Sari Palace, which deals exclusively in costume jewelry. “I have definitely seen an improvement in sales,” Fatima said. Who went on say an average purchase of imitation gold bangles and necklaces ranges from $75 to $200.
Nagrani said, “We will order more costume jewelry because there is a market. Generally people are doing more business in the high end costume jewelry.”
Sahil, a premier sari shop on West Devon Avenue also deals exclusively in costume jewelry, a more affordable and realistic option for those hoping to match their baubles to the custom made saris Sahil crafts. “People like it because it’s cheap, and it looks real,” says Apexa Katel, a sales associate at Sahil.
While gold may have risen 300 percent in the past five years, Regal Jewelers on Devon Avenue say its clientele remains faithful. “They all know that we have a reputation for having quality product at reasonable prices and a large variety to choose from,” said Jayesh Shewakramani, the manager of Regal Jewelers. In an e-mail, Jayesh admitted that, “Business is slow, but recently we have been pretty busy due to the Indian festivals.”
In a recent trip to Regal Jewelers it was obvious that some people are not afraid to walk away from a purchase.
Jayesh and a customer hovered over a pair of earrings. “$850, $850, that’s it,” said Jayesh. “$750,” said the customer, leaning further and further over the counter. The bargaining process went back and forth for a few minutes until Jayesh had been pushed to his limit: “$800, I can’t go any lower, I can’t. $800, I have to make money too.”
The man then took his daughter’s hand in his and walked away.
Bargaining is part of the buying and selling process, said Jayesh in an e-mail. And while the customer had walked away from a pair of diamond earrings, Jayesh explained that, “surprisingly the bargaining has gone down. People come to our store knowing that we won’t charge them extra,” he wrote. “Many times people have offered us a price and even after the negotiations, if we see that we have room, we reduce the price ourselves.”
Kinetan owner, Nagrani has had similar experiences. “We are forced to give people a bigger discount,” he said. Luckily with the markup being so high, Nagrani says he can afford to slash prices.
Amie Zander, the executive director of the West Ridge Chamber of Commerce said everything she had heard regarding sales both in general and surrounding the Diwali holiday were positive, although she added that few establishments keep accurate records, making numbers to back up the claims virtually impossible to obtain.
“Everyone I spoke with said people were shopping and business was good,” Zander said.
Allied POWs await their liberators on a dock at Omori POW camp in Japan, Aug. 29, 1945. (John Swope/ © John Swope Trust/ Hammer Museum)
Meribah Knight
Dozens of Allied prisoners of war stand eagerly at the end of wooden dock waving official and makeshift flags. Their faces bear the joy of freedom as they wait to greet their liberators.
On another wall, a Japanese woman carries a patterned parasol in her arms and an infant on her back as she walks among the rubble of a demolished building in the city of Hamamatsu, Japan. This is the stark reality of her new world.
For the first time ever, “A Letter From Japan: The Photographs of John Swope,” combines 125 images of the photographer’s with a 144-page letter written to his wife, actress Dorothy McGuire, during a three-and-a-half-week journey through post-war Japan in 1945. Swope worked tirelessly in an attempt to publish his photos and writings as one unit but was never successful. Not until this posthumous exhibit has his intent been fully realized in both a book and traveling exhibition, now on display at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art.
Together the images and text vividly depict the tragedies of World War II on both the Japanese and Allied sides, as well as the resulting internal conflict of a deeply sympathetic man.
“I do know that with a camera and a desire to take pictures it is very difficult not to talk with them, befriend them, and try and find out more about them in an effort to resolve the great paradox of the Japanese people and their Empire,” Swope wrote.
According to Carolyn Peter, the original curator of the exhibition—previously on display at UCLA’s Hammer Museum—the collection portrays a range of “different and multiple facets of the war” by eliminating the propaganda and allowing the humanity to shine through. “The photos that he took convey emotion and horror and really give you a different idea of what was going on,” Peter said.
Commissioned by the U.S. Navy to document the liberation of Allied POWs after the end of World War II, Swope found himself drawn increasingly to Japan’s local population and the war’s effect on them.
In an effort to reconcile his own feelings, Swope’s images show an obvious departure from his government assignment of documenting the liberation of Allied POWs. What emerges is a larger pursuit of capturing the humanity of the Japanese people and the universal human experience.
The exhibition is filled with deeply moving images of both Allied and Japanese POW camps, smiling youth and mothers caring for their children.
In a photograph taken in Ohashi a huddle of children stand smiling and curious. “Little boys in clusters stared hard and ran when we approached, then stared from behind another wall, and then ran again. But soon they got used to us and boldly came out with outstretched hands,” Swope wrote.
In another taken in Nagoya, an aerial view from Swope’s hotel shows a nearly empty road cutting through a village turned to rubble. “Absolutely nothing has been accomplished,” Swope wrote. “Unless by having fought this war we will stop the next and the next, until suddenly people realize that there aren’t any more wars.”
Museum visitor Carrie Peterson, 44, was touched by the exhibition. “I think it’s important for us to see [the photos], whether now or then, or of any war, just because we live in our little worlds and don’t really know what’s going on out there,” she said.
“A Letter From Japan: The Photographs of John Swope” is on view at the Block Museum until Nov. 30, after which it will travel to its final stop at The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.
Simply the best
Doing the dance
The one and only
It has been an eventful few weeks. School has begun and I am in the process of being baptized by a blazing fire called Journalism Methods. Its consists of eight hours a day in lecture and lab and then running home to work, write, interview random people and meet deadlines, seven days a week I am living and breathing journalism. So needless to say it has been hard to find time to do anything not related to a beat or class assignment. But last night my dear friend Meg blessed me with an extra ticket and invited me to check something off my bucket list. Going to see the one and only Tina Turner.
TINAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
After weeks of near break downs, the fear of a misplaced comma or misspelled name (which results in the infamous Medill F) we trucked our utterly exhausted asses to see the show of a lifetime. It was like a three-ring circus and a therapy session all in one. There is no one quite like Tina. Watching her run around the stage in 4 inch Christian Louboutin heels, giving me her luscious legs and telling me to scream, “WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT” with as much attitude as I could muster was just the rejuvination I needed after such an intense few weeks.
What’s love got to do, got to do, got to do with it?
I am not sure, but right now I think it has something to do with loving myself, wearing fabulous beaded Bob Mackie mini dresses and sporting a 7lb wig. That’s right. It’s 7 glorious pounds of shag a la Tina.
When I refer to the circus, I am talking about the pyrotechnics, the ninjas (kinda bizarre) the 7 foot tall man-of-muscle that appeared when she did Beyond Thunderdome in a crystal encrusted gown adorned with crystal shoulder pads that projected about 10 inches on either side (with a blond mullet wig down to her ass to boot), and the cherry picker-esque device that thrust Tina over the crowd and made us think if we reached out just a bit further we could touch the hem of her garment.
When I say therapy session, I mean that as a woman, when you watch Tina she just exudes this strength unlike any other. She lifts you up and makes you want to be a better, stronger, sexier and braver woman. She is major. But unlike someone like Madonna or Janet who looms over you with such a force that one finds themselves at the mercy of their grandeur, Tina, for some reason, still manages to stay on your level. But she brings you up with her. Together you rise from where you are, to where you could be, with some amazing dance moves along the way.
Last night Tina spoon fed me confidence, strength and then told me with a smile on her face that I already had those things to begin with. She just showed me where I had left them.
Tina I FUCKING LOVE YOU!!
