feeling better already
Y'all know I can't stay in a funk for too long. Things are already looking up, if not on the economic front, totally, it seems that things happen for a reason and it isn't all bad.
Last night we saw Keb' Mo'. I had never heard him or even heard of him, but who am I to disparage comp tickets, right? So after a very long day, as Thursdays always are, Ana offered to watch the princess I. and I got to go childless for two whole hours of bluesfull bliss. He was amazing, amazing. First rate guitarist, and a hell of a voice, and to top things off he had Susan Werner join him for a surprise visit on stage, and she just stole my breath from me, singing jazz-standard 20's style songs, that were hauntingly profound... (I can be anything for you baby, but I can't be new.) It was great to be enveloped in the walking blues, but again, Campbell hall is only so good when what you really want to do is move your body.
Today Tim and I were talking about this, as we sat in uncomfortable chairs for several hours (and he drew silly pictures and passed them back to us for comment- he always does this at every conference we go to, it is a miracle that he got tenure) at the yearly Mexicanist conference. It isn't that the presentations aren't good, in fact many are excellent, but neither he nor I can seem to sit still for very long. I think I am developing (or accentuating) ADD as I get older... in fact, my mom always wants to diagnose me, and one of its outward manifestations in women tends to be depression... so maybe she is right, though things have been mostly under wraps these days, even things that make me feel sad or scared or even panicked are not making me feel helpless, nor sunken in a mire of personal misery - thank god! But I actually got a tremendous amount out of the conference, perhaps moreso afterwards going to one of the professor's house for the evening reception and hanging with other (ha! I include myself in this group?) writers/ critics. I really enjoyed their company but had to withstand embarassingly glowing praise from my profe's as they introduced me. I swear, I can't take compliments, I just turn bright red and have to act silly and hide my face behind my shawl or scarf or whatever I have at my disposition.
I have lately, as I mentioned before, been on mental stimulation overload with all my reading and such. What happens when you combine romantic Spanish poets, Baroque poetry with neo-platonic tendencies, cybernetic nihilism and a good dose of eroticism? Stories and poetry that will most likely offend the masses. Ah well. I don't have to justify myself or my writing, and just because I explore eroticism and violent death doesn't mean I am fantasizing about inflicting it on anyone. Last night, before my feminist epistemology class (where I had a big presentation) I got the chance to listen to writer Margo Glantz (in whose honor this conference is being held) talk about her work and about one of the classes that she is teaching while at a big elite University here in Cali. which needs no introduction. She was discussing a re-reading of Greek creation myths and how all of them unfurled from the point of a woman's rape - that is, occidental tradition is founded on the most basic of violences against women. She also discussed one of the more productive and more forgotten authors of the Siglos de Oro -María de Saya (I think) who was anomalously extremely violent, gory and erotically graphic, and who always had her married women characters dying horrible deaths at the hands of their husbands. I was also watching a PBS special the other night about three different women, one from Italy, one from Iran, and one from Guatemala that had fled their countries and abusive marriages ending up in the US. I think the most heartbreaking story was that of the Guatemalan woman who has been seeking political refugee status for the last ten years because of the systemic lack of protection for women in domestic violence situations in her country. It said that something like 70% of women who were murdered were done so by their spouses and that the police refused to become involved.
Meanwhile, we had an "experiential learning activity" in the women's studies class, and there is always this weird dynamic in that class because there are these little cliques of sociologists (half of the class) that often don't get along and seem to spend a lot of time whispering amongst themselves. Nothing like a group of women to cut eachother down. But while we were doing one of the activities I was given the "disability" of not being able to talk, and after we processed and debriefed, I came to the conclusion that it isn't just that I need to talk about (or write down) my experiences, but that I actually am physically and mentally unable to process functionally without doing so. I finally (after all these years) discovered what my predominant learning style is, it is not auditory, nor visual, nor experiential, but verbal. I must verbalize in order to be able to understand my world. (It isn't just about me needing to capture all the attention in a room, or at least not entirely).
So with all these things bouncing around my head last night, no wonder I couldn't sleep, and no wonder I chose to write a micro-story of an inverted creation myth in which it is not the woman that is violated, but rather, she is the assassin - à la Quinto Jinete (though not nearly as good as his could be, no doubt - it is just that we have been having this ongoing conversation about liberation and matriarchy)
And then, of course today as I sat through my first talk (not part of the conference, but rather the translation studies focus group) on a local writer's translation from Sanscrit of the Goddess praising texts, and as he was discussing Kali, the goddess of destruction that emerges from the head of the Devidurga, I realized that last night, Kali had sprung forth from me too.
Ah yes, that is all for now, just enough to process my day, before another all day jornada at tomorrow's clausura.
Last night we saw Keb' Mo'. I had never heard him or even heard of him, but who am I to disparage comp tickets, right? So after a very long day, as Thursdays always are, Ana offered to watch the princess I. and I got to go childless for two whole hours of bluesfull bliss. He was amazing, amazing. First rate guitarist, and a hell of a voice, and to top things off he had Susan Werner join him for a surprise visit on stage, and she just stole my breath from me, singing jazz-standard 20's style songs, that were hauntingly profound... (I can be anything for you baby, but I can't be new.) It was great to be enveloped in the walking blues, but again, Campbell hall is only so good when what you really want to do is move your body.
Today Tim and I were talking about this, as we sat in uncomfortable chairs for several hours (and he drew silly pictures and passed them back to us for comment- he always does this at every conference we go to, it is a miracle that he got tenure) at the yearly Mexicanist conference. It isn't that the presentations aren't good, in fact many are excellent, but neither he nor I can seem to sit still for very long. I think I am developing (or accentuating) ADD as I get older... in fact, my mom always wants to diagnose me, and one of its outward manifestations in women tends to be depression... so maybe she is right, though things have been mostly under wraps these days, even things that make me feel sad or scared or even panicked are not making me feel helpless, nor sunken in a mire of personal misery - thank god! But I actually got a tremendous amount out of the conference, perhaps moreso afterwards going to one of the professor's house for the evening reception and hanging with other (ha! I include myself in this group?) writers/ critics. I really enjoyed their company but had to withstand embarassingly glowing praise from my profe's as they introduced me. I swear, I can't take compliments, I just turn bright red and have to act silly and hide my face behind my shawl or scarf or whatever I have at my disposition.
I have lately, as I mentioned before, been on mental stimulation overload with all my reading and such. What happens when you combine romantic Spanish poets, Baroque poetry with neo-platonic tendencies, cybernetic nihilism and a good dose of eroticism? Stories and poetry that will most likely offend the masses. Ah well. I don't have to justify myself or my writing, and just because I explore eroticism and violent death doesn't mean I am fantasizing about inflicting it on anyone. Last night, before my feminist epistemology class (where I had a big presentation) I got the chance to listen to writer Margo Glantz (in whose honor this conference is being held) talk about her work and about one of the classes that she is teaching while at a big elite University here in Cali. which needs no introduction. She was discussing a re-reading of Greek creation myths and how all of them unfurled from the point of a woman's rape - that is, occidental tradition is founded on the most basic of violences against women. She also discussed one of the more productive and more forgotten authors of the Siglos de Oro -María de Saya (I think) who was anomalously extremely violent, gory and erotically graphic, and who always had her married women characters dying horrible deaths at the hands of their husbands. I was also watching a PBS special the other night about three different women, one from Italy, one from Iran, and one from Guatemala that had fled their countries and abusive marriages ending up in the US. I think the most heartbreaking story was that of the Guatemalan woman who has been seeking political refugee status for the last ten years because of the systemic lack of protection for women in domestic violence situations in her country. It said that something like 70% of women who were murdered were done so by their spouses and that the police refused to become involved.
Meanwhile, we had an "experiential learning activity" in the women's studies class, and there is always this weird dynamic in that class because there are these little cliques of sociologists (half of the class) that often don't get along and seem to spend a lot of time whispering amongst themselves. Nothing like a group of women to cut eachother down. But while we were doing one of the activities I was given the "disability" of not being able to talk, and after we processed and debriefed, I came to the conclusion that it isn't just that I need to talk about (or write down) my experiences, but that I actually am physically and mentally unable to process functionally without doing so. I finally (after all these years) discovered what my predominant learning style is, it is not auditory, nor visual, nor experiential, but verbal. I must verbalize in order to be able to understand my world. (It isn't just about me needing to capture all the attention in a room, or at least not entirely).
So with all these things bouncing around my head last night, no wonder I couldn't sleep, and no wonder I chose to write a micro-story of an inverted creation myth in which it is not the woman that is violated, but rather, she is the assassin - à la Quinto Jinete (though not nearly as good as his could be, no doubt - it is just that we have been having this ongoing conversation about liberation and matriarchy)
And then, of course today as I sat through my first talk (not part of the conference, but rather the translation studies focus group) on a local writer's translation from Sanscrit of the Goddess praising texts, and as he was discussing Kali, the goddess of destruction that emerges from the head of the Devidurga, I realized that last night, Kali had sprung forth from me too.
Ah yes, that is all for now, just enough to process my day, before another all day jornada at tomorrow's clausura.
posted by ilana at 1:06 a.m.
9 Comments:
Fascinante instrospectiva, Ila. A veces es muy dificil (sino imposible) analizarnos a nosotros mismos, pero cuando se logra los resultados son, por lo general, muy provechosos. Yo tambien soy 100% verbal (que karma, porque la tachan a una de "lora", "escandalosa", "sapa" y etc) pero la verdad es que la gente no tiene la obligacion de entenderme, basta con que yo lo haga.
Pregunta: Entiendo lo del asesinato pero, que hay de malo en llevar el erotismo a la practica? Al contrario: Solo bueno!
Eso no se dice ni en broma (y si, mi cabeza continua arrabalera...) je je je.
Flor, me estás proponiendo algo? ;) ja ja ja...
Vos decis! Ahi esta el espacio llamando a gritos en el blog comunal...
Vos solo hace el arranque que yo te sigo!!!
Voy a decir una tontería, pero si algo no entiendo del feminismo es porque no usan las ventajas del sistema machista en su favor. Lectura recomendada: el varón domado, de ester vilar.
Urgente!!! Ila, andate a ver los poemas que nos escribio Quinto! Estan mortales!!!
Chicas... ahí voy... Sole, no es tontería, para nada. Flor... segura? dame chance que ando cargadísima de trabajo pero como vos sabés, siempre hay un tiempecito para erotismos;)
About verbalize to understand the world, I had to tell 'ya: art is human insatisfaction. I, being hardly satisfied, for me comunicate is hard and I found that my writing is somehow based on my inability to do that; so in order to express my insatisfaction, my cravings, my toughts, I must write and use it as a way to grasp reality, to solve (at least try to)the riddles of my mind and the aches of my "let-us-call-it" soul.
which must explain my compulsion, no?
for me it is strange, on some levels I am fully functional, I communicate well (strangely I am likeable, maybe even loveable, I make people feel safe)... but then there is this dark side... this is the part that I don't allow myself to communicate regularly, specifically because I know that it would disorder the universe for the people around me who depend on me...
in my "let us call it soul" there is a deep and limitless darkness, and a voracious hunger for something else, I can't name it, so I skirt around it with words and words and more words...
I understand! I also feel that something else, there, where it can be reached but you can sometimes have a glimpse of it and it's like a splinter in your mind, a eternal question that is never formulated and always hunts.
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