June: Who is Your Birthday Twin?
June 7: a day that has birthed lunatics, visionaries, poets, assholes, and me. It's Gemini season, and we're going deep on birthday twins: those strangers with whom we share the most intimate of days.
In this issue:
🌩 June gloom: tired. Ball lightning: wired.
🗡 Killers, losers, artists, winners: my birthday twin clusterfuck
🍰 Proustian birthday questionnaire from June 7 icon Caer Maiko Ferguson
Thanks for reading, babe!
Ball lightning: a rare, unexplained phenomenon in which lightning literally takes the shape of a ball—sometimes as small as a pea, other times as large as a car. Apparently this flash lasts longer than the usual split-second lightning strike we’re used to. In the few rare reported sightings, witnesses have reported wildly varying accounts of ball lightning: some say they saw the ball moving around, some saw it explode, some saw it move in the direction of the wind, or out of the way of passing cars or animals. This is strange, as some witnesses are implying that the lightning ball interacts with physical objects in its trajectory, which is not generally how weather works. California wildfires: take note.
Basically, no one knows what exactly ball lightning is, why exactly it happens, or what exactly it means.
On June 7, 1195, an English monk named Gervase of Canterbury wrote this in his notes (paraphrased):
“A marvellous sign descended near London, consisting of a dense and dark cloud, emitting a white substance that grew into a spherical shape under the cloud, from which a fiery globe fell towards the river.”
It’s believed to be the earliest known written account of a ball lightning sighting.
Until recently, I’d never heard of ball lightning, let alone the fact that, 793 years to the day before I was born, another writer was writing about it.
For the past several years, whenever the conversation has turned to birthdays and astrological signs (as a bisexual millenial, this happens often), I find that most people are quick to share their birthday twins: strangers, often celebrities, born on the same day.
Few can compete with my June 7 nightmare blunt rotation:
Hitler’s dad, Alois (1837; despite his best efforts, he was not quite as big of an asshole as his son. Then again, few are.)
artist Paul Gauguin (1848; loved marrying children)
Muammar Gaddafi (1942; self-explanatory)
artist Damien Hirst (1965; not a murderer [not as far as I can tell, anyway] but the vibes are desperately off on this guy. I defer to Reddit.)
Mike Pence (1959; still hate you, babe)
Samuel Little (1940: to date, he is considered to be the most prolific serial killer in the United States, having admitted to 93 murders. Sixty have officially been linked to him. He purposely targeted vulnerable people whom authorities were less likely to care about. A real piece of shit!)
Happy birthday to this absolute clusterfuck!
It’s bizarre to share a birthday with some of the worst people you’ve ever heard of. Even though I don’t necessarily believe that our shared entry into the world is a sign that our destinies are intertwined, or that I share any of their personality traits, it’s still unsettling to think that, maybe at some point in the past 37 years, I was eating cake at the same time as one of these people. I was thinking about my future while they were thinking about theirs; reflecting on the same things they were reflecting on. Did any of them also pull a tarot card to see what the year ahead would hold?
When people ask me if I “believe” in astrology, I’m not always sure how to answer. Do I believe that certain aspects of our personalities can be shaped by the time of year in which we were born? Absolutely: all over the world, in every generation, humans have created specific narratives around each month of the year and the way time passes in a certain order, with certain milestones and holidays and seasons. I believe that the age we are when we experience these milestones does have some sort of effect on our relationship with the passing of time, and thus our interactions with, and perspectives on, the passing of time. And thus our personalities.
My birthday has always coincided with finals weeks, graduations, the start of summer—a time of transition, where many people feel caught between an era they’re about to leave behind, and a new era about to begin. The Gemini is the sign of the twins—dual personalities, but also dual perspectives. For years, I assumed it was a good-versus-evil type of thing: good twin, bad twin. The darker, assholish parts of my personality constantly fighting with the softer, more empathetic parts. I thought that maybe Geminis were just more open about this human duality than other signs.
Do I believe that our fates are inextricably tied to our astrological signs, or that we can use astrology to predict the future or gain actual, scientific insight into the events of our present?
I’m not sure. I hate ruling out anything entirely, because I think there’s so much of the universe we don’t—and will never—fully understand. Like ball lightning! But we are literally made of the same basic elements as everything else in the universe, so I have to believe that everything out there—all the planets, the weather, the general vibes, the shared consciousness—does shape us in some way, if not in every way. I think astrology is one of the many narrative devices we use to try to make sense of the chaos of existence. And if I believe in anything, it’s narrative.
When I started assembling the Calendar of Women Artists’ Birthdays, it took me days to come across an artist I shared my birthday with. And when I say “days,” I mean: this was the point when I had reached the deepest obsession on this project, when I was spending ten hours on my laptop building a list of birthdays. So what I’m saying is: it took a while. When you Google “artist birthdays June 7,” only male names come up, and it’s a lot of actors and musicians, not visual artists.
But when they appeared, it was in this order, and almost all at once:
Mary Kelly (1941) is mostly known for her Post-Partum Document (1976)—a work that charts her experience of motherhood during the first months of her son’s life. This document included everything from artist diaries to her son’s diapers, and it was controversial both for its subject matter (the dirty diapers, mostly) and because a woman was revealing everything—the good and the bad, the glamorous and the gross—about the physical, bodily realities of motherhood and the societal, external realities.
Mira Schendal (1919) was a European, Jewish artist who was forced to flee during WWII when the Italian Fascist regime stripped her of her citizenship. She settled in Brazil with her husband, and her artistic practice, while still experimental, veered away from painting in favor of sculpture. Her artistic voice was sharp and darkly funny—in a way now familiar to many of us who are also reckoning with outright fascism—and she often played with language in her work. Listen to this knockout description I found from my best friend (and possibly fellow Gemini?), Wikipedia: “Schendel explores language as action, faltering to absolute resistance.”
Marion Post Wolcott (1910) was an American photographer who largely documented the Great Depression. She was hired to work for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, but when they only sent her to do “ladies’ stories,” she sought help from the connections she’d made in her photography studies. Fellow photographer (and apparent feminist ally!) Ralph Steiner showed her work to his friend at the FSA (Farm Security Administration: a New Deal program meant to highlight the difficulties of rural farmers and provide them the means to escape poverty), and they were so impressed they hired her immediately.
So, to recap: not only have I spent 37 years focusing on the dregs of society who happen to share a birthday with me, but I also could have been celebrating the work of three of the baddest asses to ever embark on an art career. Classic Gemini chaos.
In honor of these three artists and our birthdays, and in order to wipe the slate clean of the men who shall no longer be named, I have three birthday wishes for my 37th year—one to honor each of these artists:
For Mary Kelly: Schedule a performance of the Church of Potential Life (a pro-abortion art performance I created, but that I have yet to perform in Los Angeles).
For Mira Schendal: Make one weird, visceral, unexplainable sculpture.
For Marion Post Wolcott: A simple one, but important: take more pictures.
Happy June, happy Gemini season, happy summer, and happy birthday, babe. 🍰
I’m so excited to introduce this month’s Proustian birthday questionnaire: artist and bartender Caer Maiko Ferguson. I work with Caer, and about a month ago I decided to write down all of my coworkers’ birthdays and pass them off to management so that we could possibly start having cake at our monthly meetings. This was a two-fold success: first, we did indeed start having cake at meetings, and second, I learned that Caer and I share a birthday. I immediately invited her to participate in the questionnaire, eager to see if her answers revealed us to be twins in any other respect. Spoiler: yes to creme brûlée, yes to potting soil, yes to meow.
Here’s a little more about Caer:
Caer Maiko Ferguson is a bartender and creative based in Los Angeles. Originally from Santa Monica, CA, she went on to Boston’s Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts where she studied Animation and Film. Her 2014 thesis film, “Missed,” was an official selection of the Boston Cinema Census, a ‘Winner’ of the MFA Film and Animation Annual and was awarded ‘Best Animated Film’ at the Santa Monica International Film Festival. Her career has pushed her towards hospitality, being a nationally recognized craft cocktail bartender, but she continues her visual creative practice through her installation-like pop-up events as well as selling her ceramic work, which combine functional forms with illustrative or sculptural design elements.
When is your birthday?
June 7, 1991
Two things you love and one thing you hate about birthdays.
I am a person who struggles with being selfish but I feel good throwing that out the window on my birthday. I love when I get to put friends from different parts of my world in the same room because an unexpected combo always clicks. I am a big planner and all the important people in my life are bad planners so I often end up planning the day.
I often encounter cockroaches on or near my birthday. I hate them. But I also believe that seeing one is a lucky omen. What are your birthday omens & superstitions?
I don’t have a ton of superstitions. I had a tradition of always closing down a bar the night before my birthday so I could cheers to my birthday with regulars and co-workers. This is the first year I won’t in almost a decade.
Your birthday dinner. You can invite any 3 women artists, living or dead - but they get to decide your menu and decor.
Naoko Takeuchi (Creator of Sailor Moon), Rebecca Sugar (Creator of Steven Universe), Issa Rae (Creator of Insecure) These are three women who celebrate female friendships in the shows/films/comics them make. They are all loving and funny and world builders in a way that I know they could create an amazing experience to celebrate another woman.
Describe the ideal edible birthday treat.
Creme brûlée, ideally with raspberries and a glass of champagne. Fancy cheese is also acceptable.
Someone has ten dollars to spend on you for your birthday. What should they get you?
Fox Farm 12 qt bag of potting soil. I love gardening and you can never have enough good dirt.
Write yourself a three-sentence birthday card.
Happy Birthday Caer! Today, let others care about you. Meow!
Favorite birthday scene in a movie, book, or other visual work of art?
(Spoiler for the movie Parasite!) The crazy birthday scene in Parasite where they all get murdered. Like obviously not what I want my birthday to be like but iconic and beautiful and fucked up.
For your next birthday, I give you a plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to go alone. Where?
Yakushima Japan. Once of my favorite places in the world mostly for its hiking. My husband collapsed his arches when we went together from how much we walked. I’ve hiked it solo when I was 22 and it was an defining moment of independence I could use again.
Fuck, marry, kill: frosting, piñata, bounce house.
Fuck frosting, kill bounce house and a kinda default marry Piñata. Can it be super cute?
What does another year mean to you?
Like this is very corny but another year with my daughter (also my other family and friends). Losing my dad a couple years back engrained a humility and gratitude for the opportunity to age.
Last one, stolen from the Proust Questionnaire: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
A morning glory.
More Proustian Birthday Questionnaires: