indira cassirer

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biography

Indira Cassirer was born August 24, 1985 in Indio, California at the peak of what would later be known as Paul Cassirer and Karen Marten's spiritual phase. The Indio compound where Indira and her two siblings, bookcase brothers both born thirteen and eighteen months apart respectively, were born was also home to a thriving ashram of assorted Bohemians and soul seekers. Paul and Karen were two of the more illustrious members thanks to the Munich-born Paul's career as a singer and Karen's as his shampoo model turned muse. The two made late seventies, early eighties comparisons to the likes of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin due to their physical dissimilarities and provocative duets on Cassirer's albums. Their relationship, public and intense as it was, floundered nine years into the partnership. It was around this time that the Indio house also began to fissure and break apart due to differences in ideologies and management styles. Karen left with the guru, henceforth known as Phil, while Paul took up with another comely blonde named Suze.

In an effort to assimilate their blended family better into mainstream culture, Karen and Phil settled in Santa Cruz with what was now a house of five children. Indra and her two brothers now had two teen sisters to contend with, but on the whole, everyone seemed to adjust remarkably well to one another and Indira's childhood and adolescence can only be described as typical. It was around the time that the family settled into their new life in Santa Cruz that Indira decided her name was too weird for words and christened herself 'Cass' as a riff on her last name. Everyone considered it a mature and independent choice to make and agreed to honor her decision, a few slip-ups here and there aside. Aside from that awkward correction that came at the beginning of every school year during attendance, Cass was just Cass. She was a middle of the road student who excelled in English and arts, was hopeless in math and the sciences, and enjoyed a range of extracurricular activities as determined by her social pool. In high school, Cass joined the school's yearbook staff. What started initially as a whim developed over the next three years as a passion for photography and photojournalism. With the guidance of the staff's advisor, Cass built up a portfolio of both her work at school and in her independent pursuits. She applied and was accepted to Purchase College SUNY to study journalism and photography.

Growing up, Cass and her siblings spent the school year with their mother and stepfather and the summers with Paul and Suze be it in their Laurel Canyon home or on the road as Paul toured. More often than not, Paul was on tour. Though his campy act wasn't exactly cool or her own personal style, Cass was enthralled by the reception that Paul received, especially in his native Germany. As she got older, she also became aware of the full scope of her parent's media history. The intimate portrait of her family life and the relationship between Paul and Karen were initially a shock and something of an embarrassment, but Cass has learned to embrace and even admire that sort of ardor, as short lived as it can be.

In Boston, Cass thrived both academically and socially. She loved the independence that came from being so distant from what was otherwise a bustling and bursting household -- by then, Karen and Phil, a life coach and financial adviser respectively, had added two more kids to the brood. In her final year of school, Paul Cassirer died of respiratory failure in Los Angeles. His death was a blow to Cass and she spent her first post-college year in hibernation. Rather than continue her schooling or take any of the internships she had been offered, she traveled extensively instead and made Paul and Suze's Laurel Canyon estate her homebase. This continued for nearly two years until Cass was encouraged by Suze to stop, just for a bit, and let things settle. From there, Cass returned to the east coast where she settled into a clock watching job with a Lifestyle and Fashion magazine house based out of New York. She lived in Astoria, Queens with her Craigslist-soulmate of a roommate and best friend, Nina Paulson. The two made a run of the city and all was well until the magazine restructured in early 2011. She's been employed in a similar job at in the art and layout department of Time Warner's publishing house since Fall 2011.

Currently, Cass lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY. For the first time in her life she lives alone and is convinced something (real or mythical) is going to break into her home and eat her. Her work consists of photo editing and magazine layout settings. It's not her ideal profession, but the work is steady and so, in turn, she is as well. In her free time, she scours the city with her camera and participates in a variety of hobbies as led by weather and interest. She's a devoted practitioner of Bikram yoga and plays softball on the weekend with her coworkers as a part of a local charity league to benefit the Red Cross disaster relief.

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