Lying on the rug, beside a redwood coffee table, in preparation for her Tuesday class, Caydance was traversing Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee. Although Cha was born in Korea at the height of the Korean War, her films, performances, and artists books were nurtured at Cal -- at the time when Caydance was only an undergrad.
The unspeakable story that followed Dictee was that a week after it was published in 1982, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was murdered by the security guard at her New York City building. In the Cal art community and in Caydance's heart, there was a continuing sense of loss; yet, Cha's brilliant work was still with her. Teaching Dictee was important.
As Caydance traversed Cha's narratives of women -- set forth in Dictee against a background of war and politics, unfolding like a film with photographs and text -- on the beach house television with the sound off, the Raiders were playing the Chiefs in Kansas City.