Artist’s talks—up for review, like a gallery show or spread in Art­fo­rum? A few nights ago I saw pho­tog­ra­pher, video artist, and film­maker Laurel Naka­date give a pre­sen­ta­tion on her work at SAIC, and it was one hell of a mind­spin. As I see it, Naka­date makes two kinds of work: the kind she’s in, and the kind she’s not in. Inter­est­ingly enough, I can’t seem to find any images of the latter on the internet—which prob­a­bly has some­thing to do with the fact that, when Naka­date puts her­self in front of her camera, she’s usu­ally wear­ing little to no cloth­ing, unless she’s dressed up in what I roll my own eyes to call Lolita-​esque getups.

Man, what I wouldn’t give for a Demo­c­ra­tic party that stopped whin­ing about town-​hall inci­vil­ity and started acting like Barney Frank.

In the neon after­glow of yesterday’s inau­gural pomp and cer­e­mony, I offer a modest tale: a pro­file by CBS national news of some Chicago high school stu­dents involved with the Mikva Chal­lenge, a remark­able Chicago non-​profit for whom my wife works. Twenty-​six of these stu­dents were spon­sored by Mikva to attend the inau­gu­ra­tion, and Sen­a­tor Dick Durbin pro­vided them with some of the best seats in the house.

But rather than attempt to explain what Mikva is about myself, I direct you to the pro­file, where you can hear it from the mouths of the youth who make the orga­ni­za­tion thrive.  If you’re inter­ested, click here to learn more.