miércoles, abril 27, 2005

Oh mia mamma...

Said the tiny girl from Firenze... and my heart did a flip flop for the inversion of the possesive adjective from what I would have expected to hear. Little I. has been playing witht her older sister Silvia, a beautiful child, her blond hair and delicate features acccentuating her mischeivous and secretive grin. She speaks no English, and I.no Italian (though she insists that we must learn) but somehow they are able to play for hours with no parental intervention. Of course when asked if she wants to learn from her new friend, she says, no, she wants to learn from her mother.

Ah, la mamma... Always the mama. She focuses her chocolate gaze on mine, home late as is typical of Tuesdays. How long will you be gone? A few days. I miss you. How can you miss me, I haven't left yet? I miss you while I am at school. I forced myself to be the good mama and read books of poetry with her before she conked out at 10. I know most parents would be horrified that I don't have a set schedule for her, or that she stays up late watching "grown-up" movies (through mama's fingers if the scene is too violent of sexually explicit for her to see, but I can't help wanting to be with her, and short of sedatives or large bumps on the head, her policy is to be with me every possible waking minute.

So I was particularly elated leaving class yesterday. We spent the time discussing Eco's thoughts on tempering radical reader-oriented theories of literary interpretation and slipped into an analysis of current cultural problems (no solutions, little boys with Sig-saurs, polarizing forces and fundamentalism etc.) I came to the conclusion that human stupidity is boundless and eternally expanding. We were also discussing the falacy of authorial intent and the "intentio operis"... how the text's intent is to elicit its model reader. However, if there is no empirical reader of said text (hmmph) there is no opportunity for a model reader to conjecture about its semiotic possibilities.

But the despair that I felt just a few weeks before has been replaced by fascination, this professoressa is brilliant, if a bit anarchist, (and it turns out studied with Eco before he was as famous as he know is) and I am reminded (not painlessly, but also not without certain pleasure and awe at all that I have left to read) of how truly paltry my educational formation really was. I should have studied philosophy. Ah well, can't abandon what I've started, guess I'll just have to include more.

I was also amused this morning to read Jenny's (darling Idealist Savant) thoughts on Baudrillard and the equal repulsion and appeal of an aging dirty Frenchman philosopher with deep accent. It may just be "accent goggles", but heck it is funny that we can be playing with the same thoughts at such a distance.

lunes, abril 25, 2005

So there's a name for it, is there?

"The Gnostic views himself as an exile in the world, as the victim of his own body, which he defines as a tomb and a prison. He has been cast into the world, from which he must find a way out. Existence is an ill-- and we know it. The more frustrated we feel here, the more we are struck with a delirium of omnipotence and desires for revenge."

--Umberto Eco, Interpretation and overinterpretation

Internet pornography scandal shared with the world!!!

Oh god, totally apropos of the movie we watched yesterday _The Holy Land_ by Eitan Gorlin, about a nerdy Yeshiva boy that goes to Jerusalem because he falls madly in love with a Russian prostitute who can only, as she says, get wet for older men, and that ends with a bomb that he himself smuggled across "borders" unbeknownst to him, much like the fall guy in _Terra Estrangeira_...

So, I was searching the web for information on Rio's Zona Sul for a paper for tomorrow and (of course now I can't find it to link, oh well) I was distracted by an article about a sex scandal with some 40-year-old hebrew teacher (I know, what I reporter I would make) and his cohort the Israeli consul, caught in "sexual exploration" with young girls (a 17-year-old, who he swears gave hims papers saying she was 18, accused him) and boys. Aparently they were accused of running a sex-tourism ring, and they were caught with, get this, 17 photos, 8 videos and 2 DVDs, clearly professionals. But the most amusing part of this article was not the surprising prudishness of the Brazilian press, but the unabashed hypocrisy. This girl was complaining that she found her image -naked on the roof of a car, and nothing much harder than what you might find in a Victoria's Secret catalogue- posted on the internet and they INCLUDED the image in the article. What the faaa?

I was chuckling to myself for a good half hour.

domingo, abril 24, 2005

il bacio


il bacio
Originally uploaded by lunita.

This picture is older, but it is indicative of how I spent my lazy Sunday. Nothing more, nothing less.
Oh yeah, well, read a couple of books too. But other than that...

AAAdventure

Yesterday was Shakespeare's birthday, and, I learned the 400th anniversary of the Quijote. A day for la belle lettre if nothing else. The semi-thwarted forray into the mountains, left me meditating on the subtle changing of the California seasons. The wildflowers still burst out in unexpected orange patches, purple clusters and strips of incandescent yellow. Fields were plowed and empty, mechanized agriculture at its best sprayed water in pre-determined trajectories, irrigating the earth but irritating the eye that casts its gaze upon the highly organized growing paths. The milkweed reminded me of the smell on the nose of a sick cat, sick with heat, and incapable of panting out the furnace within him. But the lush green, inspired by the winter's rains, succumbs slowly to the encroaching gold, the deathly dry golden grass that threatens incendiary flash-fires.

In the afternoon, Alicia and Ignacio came for me and I., to head for Oxnard for a reading of Ignacio's poetry. We left with plenty of time, but we missed the exit, because it was closed and we were unsure of our bearings. Lesson of the day, never trust a gas-station attendant, who very kindly sent us fifteen minutes south, not north from Camarillo. At which time, on the terrible hill of "El Conejo weigh station" their '89 Subaru Loyale started to emit fumes and refuse to advance up the hill. Luck was with us, as we were by a shoulder and before the engine seized (we later discovered that not only was there no fluid in the engine coolant tank, there was virtually no oil, barely wetting the edge of the dipstick, and releasing tendrils of smoke from its empty cavity). Now, if it had been me driving, and M. going to a presentation, we would have been screaming at one another, and while they were both feeling awful for us, there were no screams nor recriminations, just the silent aknowledgment of tension... Meanwhile, I was removed enough from the action to observe with mild amusement. It is good to have a pain-free car adventure once in a while, it keeps you on your toes. And fortunately for all involved, I not only had a cell phone, but a AAA plus membership, and so, we were towed the fifteen to twenty miles back north to the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, with a whole twenty minutes to spare before the reading.
Of course, I felt the need, as I often do in taxis as well, to chat with the driver in order to assure the level of service that a more personal relationship demands. People love to talk about themselves and when he discovered that we were coming from SB he told us about how he and his towing company whooped the asses of a towing team in SB, claiming a regional prize... and off they were to the national competition. The twangy country music was the icing on the cake, with a mournful man wailing about his homeroom sweetheart. And the A&W cream soda resting loosely in the plastic cupholder jiggled furiously as we rumbled over the rough patches of the 101.

So we missed the reception that was made in his honor... but at least all were alive and well. The reading was succesful and the public seemed very receptive, which is inspiring of a possible translation project to continue. And so, in honor of National Poetry month, I was feeling inspired this morning and was playing with the images and feelings of yesterday (and everyday)... and when asked if I write poetry, today I can say... ummm, here goes, sort of.

sábado, abril 23, 2005

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Perhaps, because instead of casually ignoring my "religious duties" I am blatantly thumbing my nose at them. What? No bread of affliction for me? Well, this year, unlike other years. My failure to uphold my (mother's) cultural expectations have a political undertone.

How can we, with one hand lament our years of slavery in Egypt, decry the cruelty of oppression of a people, and with the other neatly call for the systematic destruction of another, building fortresses with the sweat of their brows to keep them from the fruits of their own production.

I never did claim to be more than culturally, tangentially related to my religion of birth, but I hereby disavow all connection to any (and all) institutionalized religions because all they promise to do is protect the power-mongerers, and disenfranchise the weak.

My four questions:

Why do we choose to ignore our own responibility in catastrophic world events but take credit for technological advances that purport to better the lives of others?

Why do we spend the better part of our lives accumulating things whose maintanence requires perpetual investment of time and energy and very little return?

Why do we conform ourselves with the daily death of comfort instead of painfully invigorating life of action?

Why are we (the world, the UN, the EU, the "49%") not invoking insurgence against a government that generates more planet choking pollution, death and destruction than any other in known history?

viernes, abril 22, 2005

On truths that are painful to see...

The Magdalene Sisters
Film by Peter Mullan

Sure films about the church sex abuse scandals are abundant in their production, and one wouldn't expect less from Ireland (and not surprisingly it won best film at the Venice Film Festival), but this film is extremely interesting because of its view of nuns as sadistic, punitive players in the church hierarchy. What I found particularly intriguing and powerful was the scene where all of the young "sinners" are subjected to a cattle-call like evaluation of their physical attributes, viewed stark naked (with very real bodies) by a pair of derisive nuns who instead of rehabilitating them from their "wayward" ways were intent on destroying their spirits. You can only take so much social denouncement, but this movie, which represented the lives of three women who were responsible for the exposure of the abuses and subsequent demise (in 1996) of the Magdalene laundries, was beautiful and exquisitely painful to watch. It is impossible to watch and not become indignant, but it is not without its touch of sardonic humor.

jueves, abril 21, 2005

No news is good news

I have been too sapped of late to write anything of interest, but as I just completed my paper re-write, I thought you would all be happy to know that I will either be fabulously brilliantly subversive in my incursions into academia, or I will go down in a blaze of glory. I know, I can't help being controversial or political, and I may indeed incite the wrath of the academes, but I always thought this game should be about fucking shit up and shaking people out of their comfortable complacency. Maybe it isn't a good idea, but if I am meant to go down this path, then it will have to be on my terms, and no toes are too holy for me to tread upon.

That said, I really do hope to not make an ass of myself, so, of course I can talk big here, but will probably remain with my mouth shut and ears open for the majority of the time...

Last night we watched (The) -see Jeff, there I go again altering titles to my whim- Ladykillers... Man, the Coen brothers kill me, sometimes nothing but a noir will do, I always say. It was hysterical, portraying deaths worthy of any or many Darwin awards. (My favorite bathroom reading at mom and dad's house).

Now the only other exciting discovery is that I can actually get work done in the library! I can't quite place it, but it is foreign enough of setting, and yet familiar enough in its expectations of silent diligence, that I can actually do work without getting distracted (by other work) despite the fact that I actually have wireless internet here. I just turn off the airport and deceive myself into thinking that I don't have it available as an option and I burrow in... (this works on the same principle as setting my clock ahead fifteen minutes, but setting it for 7 am. I am consciously aware of the deception, but it still somehow functions because I am willing to suspend my disbelief.)

I am off, ready to ride home in the sari that annoyingly opens in the most inopportune ways and times, complete with bike trailer for my hefty load. Of late I have been tempted by sleepiness and allergy driven mysery to drive little I. to school in the newly tweaked car (now dubbed "tubarão"), but have resisted, even when she asks to not go in the bike again, because I insist that it is better for the environment and better for me. And it is.

martes, abril 19, 2005

Spiderwoman... no more... or no less?

Last night I conned little I. into picking Spiderman II for her video selection and we watched it in all its comic book formulaity, science genius turned maniacal villain, nerdy guy in love with the pretty girl, sexy girls screaming and flailing, chained to poles, (with wet t-shirt no less). I found myself snickering despite myself, terrible, terrible film, but mindlessness is sometimes just the thing...

But today my body is paying for my spiderwoman reenactment. Hmm? You wonder, do you? No, actually no spiderwoman, just a Brazilian Jiu Jitzu class, in lieu of Portuguese class, although the demo was done in Portuguese. It felt great to work up a sweat so early in the morning, and flipping people over your back is just fun. I did learn a fabulous technique for defending against men who go for the hair... but my bunda and lower back, used for said activity (full contact), are sadly in need of attention, and my pectoral muscles are tender from so many push-ups (keep in mind that I am at least 30 lbs. heavier than I should be and I have done no such activity in quite some time). Of course I am reminded about how much I love doing physical activity and how extremely un-internally motivated I truly am (in all things, not just excercise). I can't seem to do anything that I set out to do myself, but put me in a class setting, with a clear goal and someone telling me what to do, and I will go to the end of the earth to please them. I think, that in my heart I am just a submissive... I just pretend to have some agency. I can't even write well without an implied audience.

In other news... Lit crit profe had a really interesting analogy for puritanical fundamentalist Jesusland reading of the bible, equating it to pornography... strange but wonderful. Yes, it is like pornography because it debases a multifaceted, interpretable (book as opposed to act) objectifies it and strips it of all nuance (ok, maybe I am adding that part). But it sparked an interesting coffee-break debate. I have further clarified my points about why pornography is particularly uninteresting to me (and perhaps a definition of the "pornographic" as opposed to "erotica") : lack of layering and interpretability: there is only one pat meaning meant to be derived of images we shall consider "pornographic" and they are generally geared toward the sense of an ending, whereas erotica while still possibly focusing on the human body in all its permutations and representations, is multi-facetic, demands interpretation and focuses primarily on the process, not the end product. Just a thought. Dear readers, don't mind my obsession of late, I just feel the need to work things out until I have a satisfactory analisis. Moving on...

So, tomorrow my goal (now that my classes for the week are over) is to sit down and finish the rewritten conference paper. There... external motivator... released into the world to exert obligatory pressure on me based on other's expectaions.

Quote of the day (with regard to new papal order perhaps?)

"comme vous scavez estre du mouton le naturel, tous jours suyvre le premier, quelque part qu'il aille. Aussi le dict Aristoteles, lib. IX, de Histo. animal., estre le plus sot et inepte animant du monde."

o en anglais...

"for you know that it is the nature of sheep always to follow the first, wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib. 9, De Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in the world."

---Rabelais, Pantagruel

What would he say about Sheeple, I wonder?

domingo, abril 17, 2005

The thing about horoscopes

Is that they are vague enough that one can always read her own fortune and life's events into them. As such, when we are looking for answers, any answer will do, we just mold it to our own pleasure. Likewise when we expect someone to read our mind, we often find that they do just that. Uncanny coincidences? Great minds think alike? Equally depraved beings? Accidental opportunity? I don't know, but it really pisses me off, because now what I wanted to write about (which was going to be really exciting based on an afternoon alone in the house with a... book) will seem totally unoriginal and contrived, therefore I renounce. (English?) That is, I quit. Time to take my own good advice.

I'll have what she's having... quite literally

Taxes are done and accepted, why do I feel the need to get up at 4 in the morning and do paperwork? Getting a jump on tomorrow? Perhaps, but really I woke up at 3:30 and had the urge to look up the source of a quote that was bouncing around the inside of my otherwise empty head. It was from the evangelical gospels (and most decidedly used with irony in the work that I am analyzing) but man... if you look up bible quotes on the internet there is some crazy shit out there, I mean really scary...(or perhaps it only seems that way because of the late hour?)

Then of course I was fully awake and felt obligated to peruse my many accounts for recent activity. Nothing interesting, but a funny, sad, justice seeking email from Miguelito to Mafalda from someone who is not officially a friend (I don't really know the person at all, save for a few scraps of information gleaned from varying on-line sources, and interaction is very limited) but who lacks better classification and shall therefore, until proven otherwise, be filed under said heading.

Also, I am feeling rotten. Whatever stomach bug I. had, has been passed on with a vengeance, and while my smug satisfaction about filing has returned, I realize that this arrogance, this "it won't happen to me" attitude, has got to go... I am not above contagion of germs... and no, sharing eating utensils with someone who is ill, even if she is your child, is not smart ... didn't the rampant sweeps of plague in the Middle Ages teach me anything? Or the hygiene campaigns in so called "third world" nations ('cause you know filth is only related to "others")? Apparently not.

Of course the stomach unease may have more to do with the guilt of spending the best 6 hours of my Saturday at not one, but two kinderfesten... But I suppose something has got to give and strangely it is usually me... What can I say, I am a sucker.

Now, of course, the problem will be getting back to sleep. No good bad-guys with anvils to wonk you over the head when you need them. Just thought about the enormity of human inhumanity and tyranny and the little that writing about it can really do.

viernes, abril 15, 2005

Addendum to tax-filing hubris

Of course I fucked something up... but it was just a misreading of I.'s ss# (my father has terrible hand-writing, and I read off of last year's return) and a bunk employer id#. The nice thing, of course, is that the computer program actually tells you what is wrong thereby making trouble-shooting more like shooting fish with a rifle in a barrel than harpooning butterflies.

So here's to round two! Hope nothing else is wrong.

Fearful Fridays

I awoke with The Marriage of Fígaro in my head, feeling drugged and sluggish, dreaming that I was writing the composition myself, and imagining the spectacular possibilities in the multiplicity of endings that the staff offers. Of course, I can't really write music, and my reading skills are embarassingly lacking, much like my French speaking and writing... I know I am so far from perfect, from even acceptable... and I would like to just curl up in a ball somewhere where no one would find me, but for the fact that I am now in panic mode over the paper that I have to present at a conference in two weeks and must be re-written.

I watched La mala educación the other night and while I enjoyed it, and its plot intricacies were perhaps cleaner than in other films, I just don't think that this is his best. Gael was a high point, as high femme, singing "quizás, quizás, quizás" but I didn't feel the visceral connection to the characters that I have in other films, and while the idea of characters transforming before our eyes (much like our opinion of a lover does as we discover their dirty little secrets) was well done, I felt that the ending just fell flat.

Now last night I went to see Born Into Brothels, and Laura was right, it was an amazing film. It was a documentary about the life for children in Calcutta's red light district, but far from being preachy or overly hopeful it was simply honest. There was a line by one of the little boys who through his photographic expression (and blood sweat and tears of the woman "Zana Auntie" who taught them to use the cameras and made the documentary) was able to travel to an international photography symposium for children in Amsterdam, he commented something to the effect of "It is painful to look at, but we must, because it is truth." The wisest of our world are always the children.

miércoles, abril 13, 2005

Another perfect album

I had forgotten. Oh my god, how could I forget such perfection? I didn't even have to listen to it to have the perfect shivers send goosebumps to my extremities. This will forever be etched in my brain from my first trip to California to see Lindsay at UC Santa Cruz (I fell in love with the red woods- I was just 18) and then our trip across the country darling K. And then, like the Eva Cassidy album, I will sadly remember the glorious beginnings of our project with Maria, and the ecstasy that a warm chord can strike in one's core, as it is emanating from one's chest and mouth.

It is, as you may have guessed, the Verve recording of "Getz/Gilberto" featuring Carlos Jobim with the surprising collaboration of Astrud, before she was "discovered".

Why I love my computer (and hate being an American)

Oh this list could be sooooooo long, but gleefully, I will limit myself to the bare bones.

I love my computer, her name is Lucy (which of course is a pun stemming from her light-emitting tendency), I realize that this is completely infantile, much like naming one's car (I always wished I had such a loving relationship with a car as to have it name itself, like Lucía's "Carmen" - only, I have yet to feel the love), but I don't care... it is better than naming one's breasts, or genitals, I say.

Why do I love her so??? Well today because she has made it possible to file instantaneously the dreaded yearly gauging... only in my case it is reversed. I sent off my taxes! Yay me. I know, my puerile gaiety will amuse you, but this is the very first time that I have filed my own damn taxes, all by my lonesome, and I get to bask in a moment of hubris, I'll allow myself that. You only lose your tax virginity once, and well, it should always be this pleasureable.

Here is why I hate being American... No, the government is actually giving me a couple thousand dollars back this year (money would never be a motivation for hate in me). Would that we could all live this well, in a poverty-stricken state, in fact I wonder how it is - beyond student loan credit - that I manage to live so comfortably... All the essentials are covered: good food, good books, good music and film and a beautiful environs to caress my soul. No, I hate being an American because I finally, finally got my hands on "La mala educación" only to find that it had been mutilated to an R-rated version. AGHHHHHH. Fuck censorship. I wanted to see the real thing, not a watered-down version, and now, I won't even know what it is that I am missing.

Things like this remind me why I can't possibly live in this country for more than a few more years. (Sure I say that now, you can dangle this, like the sword of Damacles, over my head if I back down, please, please...)

But there it is. I also wish to comment on my continued waffling. I firmly believe in the validity of paying taxes, and I am fully willing to pay such taxes to help the less fortunate, yet I still feel elated by the thought of a "free" check in my mailbox, larger this year than others. And I absolutely support people's right to organize and yet I have yet to join a union myself. I know, and I call myself a leftist... its just that... well, I am also a control freak and I don't trust that my money would be used for things of which I would really approve, nor do I have the time or energy to assure that it be so - maybe I am really more of a libertarian? Maybe it doesn't really matter what the hell I am anyway, because it is how we live and treat others that counts. So tomorrow there will be a strike, and while I hope that the workers attain their goals, better wages and benefits, I am also mildly annoyed because I now have to invent a last minute childcare option for little I. Ah well, nothing worth getting upset about, perhaps she will just come to class with me, as it is a "cultural" day... she can be the cultural artefact.

On situational ethics or why we are contradictory beings

One of my good friends sent this article the other day, and of course I read it because the latent feminist (not so latent? umm. not sure) in me was reminded of our utopian women's college days where foreign language neuter genders were bent to favor the female, if only for a few brief moments of subversive bliss.

I am reminded then of several things, none of which have any real connection to the death of Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist icon, but all of which spring to mind nonetheless. Like:

K.'s and my cubicle cum car of spite in which we were very "unfeminist" and catty (see Laura's thoughts on cattiness today) when referring to a certain kind of woman - like Nell the prom-queen turned socialist poseur, blue-haired, combat-boot sporting, most likely LUG* (not that we didn't end up LUGs too, but what can we count on but our own hypocrisy or biologic urges), who accosted us from her high horse on our way into Haffner's starchy food college dining hall milieu, about why we weren't signing petitions left and right to save the world... Last time I checked, petitions didn't save the world, and in fact wasted an inordinate amount of paper.

There I go again. You see there is this morose nihilistic vein that bulges when the starry-eyed begin their speeches, but there is also this part of me that really, really wants to believe that a difference can be made, it is just that the other part of me is quite sure that the only real effect we can have is based on our personal choices (of consumption in this hyper-capitalist world in its decadence).

Which brings me back to Dworkin. Her rhetoric leaves me a bit ambivalent, and the demonization or the direct equation of pornography to violence against women leaves me with my eternal desire to temper things with a "but... ", however that is not to say that the women who fought for more protection for women and less degrading/agressive media weren't absolutely necessary or important, I just admire their ability to subscribe so whole-heartedly and unbendingly to a particular dogma. Ok when I say admire, I really mean, am puzzled by... Yes there are all sorts of ways in which objectively pornography is "bad" we could start with the fact that it is generally lacking in verisimilitude and therefore panders to the tastes of the mentally deficient, (note please that I did not inscribe any particular gender into this group). We could break it down into its varying components as a market, it generally exploits its "actors" both male and female (I think that the argument that meaningless sex is great for men and horrible for women is decidedly bunk, I imagine that in the long run it is pretty horrible for anyone), but if the people being portrayed are willing to use their bodies (Jenny, this goes back to our whole discussion about prostitution) for profit, then who are we to regulate this? Of course we can assign the title of "bad" to those scenarios that require coercion of persons unable to advocate on their own behalf (children, people who have been drugged etc.), and certainly to those situations in which a person is maimed or killed in reality for the sake of the pleasure of the viewers.

But, what really begs the question is where do you draw the line? Are mainstream movies with full frontal nudity to be considered "pornographic"? What about artistic photos of nude children? Does indulging in fantasy have a direct manifestation in reality? Are all consumers of pornography dysfunctional freaks that will necessarily carry out violent acts against women, children and farm animals? Probably not. The consumption of any product can be detrimental if in excess, but I do think that this particular umbrella term is a bit too encompassing in its current form.

Plato would agree that to see such representations would necessariliy cause negative actions in its receptors, where Aristotle was a proponent of the pleasure of text and argued that we often take pleasure in the mimesis, the representation, of things that we would otherwise find painful to see in reality, and that we take pleasure in learning from the error of others. If two pillars of western thought could not agree on the psychological effects and the "goodness" of representation (or art?) on the viewer, I would say we are still hard-pressed to find an answer in these times.

I propose that both are right. Certain texts (visual or otherwise) will stimulate anti-social behavior in some people while they will provoke the opposite reaction in others. In a loving situation where both partners are excited by erotic images and/or words, utilizing objects in which no person was harmed in their creation, where is the damage? Conversely, if we are fed media images of powerlessness (in certain groups: read non-white male) and violence against anybody (how many tv programs do we see in which people are assasinated, beaten or raped?) from a young age do we not lose our sensitivity to the real horror of those actions carried out on a mass scale (Shock and Awe anyone)?

I reiterate, that personally there are images and words that I find detestable, acts of which I would never choose to partake, but I firmly believe that the problem lies not in the existence of "pornography" per se but with (some of) its users and the underlying social structures that exist which make it possible or socially acceptable to carry out the acts of violence against others of all genders and sexual persuasions.


*LUG -in BMC-speak= Lesbian until graduation also often used in conjunction with BDOC - Big dyke on campus, which, incidentally, I discovered, (to my chagrin for lateness of said discovery, ie. pregnant and married) that I was :( Why do we always get the important information too late???

lunes, abril 11, 2005

Playing with words

Must be genetic. Of late, little I. has been impressing me with her varied lexicon and desire to explore and express herself with an exactitude of word choice. She is often able to express very specific and surprisingly clear ideas just by using words that are uncommon. She seems to derive pleasure from this creative play, and who, I ask, would not.

Part of what is so amazing are the uninhibited probes that she makes into language, her lack of fear of error or malapropisms. Today as we were discussing freezing the pedialyte (rehydrating fluids) she said "Mommy if we're going to 'isolate' it, it'll have to be really really cold" Fabulous! Icelate... the process by which one makes liquid solid! Incidentally, I have been playing more word games myself.

Spring fever

Alison and I sat outside in the sun doing what girls do when left to their own devices: compare sex notes and racy stories... Yes boys, believe it or not we do talk about these things and in fact I think we can be more hard-core than even you. Sometimes. Of course the conversation can lazily roll around to how last night's dinner party went and whether one can believe one is a mother (one can, but other titles are harder to assume and not for lack of trying). Perhaps it is the hyper-sexualized atmosphere of a large university campus in the spring time, the twitching asses in short skirts, the semi-naked Adonnis-like cruisers, cutting in and out of the crowds on their wheeled boards, but today was particularly exciting. No, no, don't get me wrong, nothing _that_ exciting, just a little midday titilation to keeps the brain bristling with ideas and clear enough to return to greek philosophers (not geek philosphers, that will have to be later). Which reminds me. Michael Jackson should have been an ancient greek (maybe he was?), his personal predilections would not only have been condoned but lauded. Last week we were discussing the fact that Oedipus' whole stained existence stemmed from his father's fornicating with a consenting adult man, which apparently was a horrific thought for these fellas. So who says sex is a natural act? Not me. Of course, come to think of it, why didn't we get to read the "good" version in school? More marginal mores being shoved down the throat of white middle-class suburbia?

But all is not well in who-ville tonight, spring fever manifesting itself in somewhat less pleasant tones in a little person, who stayed home from school, and failed to eat anything, and lays listlessly by my side as I write, without so much as a weak protest or demand for my attention, despite the glassy eyes that roll in my direction. Her fever was high enough that the rosy pink of her cheeks seemed unnatural, speckled with fever spots and she clung to me, more like a baby chimpanzee than anything else. Why she had been given no fever reducer is a mystery, but her spirits seem to be lifting just a bit now that she received the low dose pain killer for her headache. Of course you know it is bad when she agrees to go to the doctor on first suggestion, almost as out of place as a dog or cat that happily goes to his cage with the knowledge that it means a trip to the vet with an anal probe at least.

Today's lesson was about vocabulary to describe nature and the environment, and I covered María José's class too, so I got a double shot at inculcating my environmentalist propaganda. What causes contamination? What can we do about it? What are some programs that governments have in place. Do you understand the word "infraestructura"... "sobrepoblación"? What are the reasons for pollution in the country-side? Pesticides, slash and burn agriculture... Very useful knowledge, undoubtedly for the death of our beautifully moribund planet. Read a fabulous story that envisions a world of future misery... and what is tragedy for if not to make us feel better? Alas, the rest will have to wait for the moonlight, like the highwayman...

sábado, abril 09, 2005

More thoughts on religion...

"Adam And Eve"

tonight you stooped to my level
i am your mangy little whore
you are trying to find your underwear
and then your socks and then the door
and you're trying to find a reason
why you have to leave
i know it's 'cuz you think you're adam
and you think i'm eve

you rhapsodize about beauty
and my eyes glaze
everything that i love is ugly
i mean really, you would be amazed
just do me a favor
it's the least that you can do
just don't treat me like i am
something that happened to you

i am truly sorry about all this

you put a tiny pinprick
in my big red balloon
and as i slowly start to exhale
that's when you leave the room
i did not design this game
i did not name the stakes
i just happen to like apples
and i am not afraid of snakes

i am truly sorry about all this
i envy your ignorance
i hear that it's bliss

so i let go of the ratio
of things said to things heard
and i leave you to your garden
and the beauty you preferred
and i wonder what of this
will have meaning for you
when you've left it all behind
i guess i'll even wonder
if you meant it
at the time
---Ani (Dilate)

Still exploring...

The many possibilities available to me. This would actually be kinda fun, if not for the moral hangover that I have from last night. I think that there are vestigial ethics, ones we have no need for, but that nag at us nonetheless.

I am in a funk. And I don't want to talk about it, which is the odd thing. But at least I paid all my bills, so now I have a $0 balance on all my credit cards! Finally.

viernes, abril 08, 2005

Bad habits be gone...

In an attempt to conquer all my bad habits (right... like that is a possible task), I have been trying to go back and adress the issue of inspiration versus craft. For so long my only real "literary" production (save for the silly word games I play, but of course those I take very un-seriously) has always been guided by the "poet as a vessel of the gods" model. No, no messianic complexes here, nor overly developed sense of self-esteem. I don't vouch for the quality of the production, but I have always only been able to write "when the spirit moves me". Well, spirit... you seem to have gone away, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and actually try to excercise "craft" over a particular story. Terribly slow going, I am afraid. And it occurs to me that what I considered "divine inspiration" was really only a ruse to mask my own intrinsic laziness. There, I said it. Me not going back and adding or fixing or changing things that I have written reflects not their inherent perfection (or my belief of such perfection) but merely my own lack of motivation, talent and follow-through. Damn, honesty hurts... self-deception is much more comfortable.

But... I like the changes I made so far, albeit small ones. And, who said things had to go quickly, except the urgent voice that shouts directions in my internal monologue? Why am I so damn obsessive? Why am I so fucking impatient? Why do I always need to be doing something? Why can't I just be? There must be some drug I could take to kill that part of me, no? Then what would be left? Bliss?

Funny, a few weeks back (just before we decided to go to the Comic museum, oddly enough) Becca was talking about a study that she had read (or heard about on the radio... we were discussing the whole tranny-fetish thing) about testosterone and its effect on people (of all genders) and how there was a man who had a disorder that caused a testosterone production failure, that went undiagnosed for several months, in which time he wandered around looking at the world as if it were beautiful, and peaceful and marvelous... His description was oddly like the Nirvana that is sought through deep meditation. Now here is the real question... could the prophets who have experienced this bliss really not been under the same sort of negative-testosterone spell? Or could ascetic meditation have some sort of effect on testosterone production? Hmmm, I wonder. We were also discussing some (very possibly pseudo-) scientific research which links hand-span or finger length to presence of mathematical ability in women and also testosterone levels... We know it makes people more productive, but productive towards what goals may be the question...


Grumble grumble. Whine, whine. I am going to go get undressed now, and take a shower, and let the water falling down on me wash away some of this dissatisfaction. Then I am going to put the creative cap back on and continue work on a translation. I will not avoid work, I will not obsess, I will not be cruel to myself, I will not want that which I cannot have. Oh, there I go again, bad habits do refuse to be banished.

jueves, abril 07, 2005

Terra Estrangeira

Foreign Land (1996)
Marcos Bernstein written
Millor Fernandes written
Walter Salles written, directed
Daniela Thomas written, directed

Ok, so I am hopelessly behind the times with good cinema, and Netflix looks better and better as an entertainment option but I resist, because it seems all so planned... what? you mean actually get the movie that you want to see when you ask for it? Novel. I know. But I like the serendipitous possibilities that sprout from a trip to the video store, and I am trying to reject online activity as my primary form of interaction with the world. It is a losing battle, and it sounds a bit like the death throes of a beached walrus whose tusks have become embedded in the ice.

Breathtaking, truly.

This film is amazing in several ways that are of interest to me of late and mayhaps will be to you. First, it is beautifully filmed in a gritty black and white which acts to enhance the tension in the tightly intertwined plot. It is a film noir without any cheeky humor to distract us from the ultimate crux of the argument: what is it to be eternally desterrado? Exiled within your own skin?

The narrative development is crisp, if not linear, and while the characters are more like rough sketches, the inner core of each is vibrant. (If you have read any of my stories, this is my own personal tendency, so it stands to reason that I liked this) It presents semi-anonymous characters, whose past is a mystery but whose experience of the present is fiercely immediate and universal at the same time.

The film plays with the ideas of accidental or fateful meetings, and with the feeling of eternal otherness that those whose lives have been uprooted feel regardless of where they end up reestablishing their roots. Its violence is extreme but controlled, never gratuitious.

What I found most interesting, well, besides the interesting play between the players from the Madre Patria and the colonies, and the inherent hierarchies that are present, between Portuguese, Brazilians and Angolans, was that this was a collective production. So much of what we are expected to do, it seems, is individual, as if we were all initially together and we passed through a funnel dropping out in little droplets of individual genius. I don't think that this is ultimately a fruitful system, or at least, it doesn't work for me. I am left wondering why it is unacceptable these days to make collective texts. It isn't, I know, there are people all over the world making projects where you write a chapter and then somebody else writes another... but that isn't really what I am looking for either, as there is no vouching for the quality or aesthetic of your co-conspirators.

So clearly I was pleased by the superior outcome of this film whose conception was a collective writing and directing project. It gives me hope.

And indeed, despite the desperation of the closing action, we are left with a tenuous string of possibility: a return to the homeland? A new life? A sweet death?

miércoles, abril 06, 2005

Paradiso


Paradiso
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Halfway down Mount Diablo, here we ate cheese and fruit to our heart's content.

Mission Santa Barbara


Mission Santa Barbara
Originally uploaded by lunita.

As you have probably already discerned, I have this little obsession with water in general and fountains specifically. Well, perhaps not an obsession, but a propensity for portraying, to say the least.

The Court House


The Court House
Originally uploaded by lunita.

This I took several months ago, but the light is behaving much this way these days too. I really do love where I live.

fun with flickr

In search of new procrastination techniques??? I am being sucked shamelessly into the world of web publishing photographs, and what, after all, are photos for, if not sharing?

In my defense, I read the whole first nine chapters of the Hagiography of Teresa de Avila, so there.

I have been exploring all of the possibilities and adding lots of new pictures, some of which will show up here, but that might get boring, oh I don't know, it will avoid real work a little longer. I am actually really excited about this because if I were a visual artist (meaning if I really had talent) I would be a photographer. I remember so fondly the smell of silver nitrate in the depths of my parents basement on Meadow Lane, the house that I convinced them to buy because I had an unbearable crush on the much older neighbor, a dark and swarthy twin to his brother's blond beauty. Of course this didn't come into play in my outwardly verbalized reasoning with them, but I even got the bedroom that had a direct line of sight into their yard and I could always keep tabs on Steve's comings and goings. Of course the times that he picked me up on my walk home from school in his white marshmallowy Ford something with his soccer buddies I always failed to perform the aloof and mysterious part that I practiced, the one that would intrigue him enough to seek me out, 18-year-old him and 13-year-old me. Needless to say, it never happened. But then we visited his family at their house in the Florida Keys, and 19-year-old me was so over it, he had that horrible post college beer paunch and he was much shorter than I remembered.

But I digress. I spent so many solitary hours in the darkroom developing film and then watching as the image revealed itself in all its mystical power. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the manipulation of images. Now I will never match M.'s plastic ability, nor his Photoshop prowess, but I will be proud of my almost totally organic shots that now will not destroy the environment in their revelation.

word games

The reallinging of the Kosmos (or setting chaos back a step)

Purification of putrefaction, pestilence and pain,
Wading into the abyss, more slowly now, in vain.
The sucking maw pulls quickly,
the bleeding heart wastes sickly,
A weakened will attempts to wash the stain.

The voice, the words, are tempered only by their fear,
A silence, fresh, perhaps too much to hear.
And solitude hides the core,
whose pleasure would adore,
Race with abandon to the place so dear.

Regret, the word that sours only on the tongue
A look cast back, and then the song unsung.
Lamenting serves no use,
for a pairing so obtuse.
The scales of justice in the balance now are hung.

work avoidance work avoidance lalalalalala

In a curry-induced coma... must make attempt to do work. But serious problems are being posed:

a) can't work at home because I will be distracted by my computer and the movie that needs to be watched. Oh and those pesky clothes that haven't been washed in weeks, but one is hoping that another will do that...

b) can't lounge in office b/c office-mates (especially prim and proper one) are present.

c) can't work outside because, despite being able to lie flat on stomach as if a lizard on a rock, it is too gorgeous to concentrate on anything but the scenery, both static and mobile.

d)all I want to do is drive around with the roof open and the very east coast music (Eva Cassidy, Live at Blues Alley... what a great album, such a shame she died so young) blasting and singing at the top of my lungs as the wind whips my hair into a massive frenzied ball of spun gold watching the greenery whiz by at 80 mph. Sigh.

What to do? what to do? Guess I could go pretend to be productive? Best alternative. Ok, outside wins.

martes, abril 05, 2005

Os filmes de hoje

Well, not today, exactly. As is typical of a new quarter cycle, I am madly submerged in work, and diligently doing my reading. Yes, pat myself on back (my poor ego, fraco e desolado, needs some boosting once in a while).

And in fact today I got to have someone else's hands on my back too. No, nothing exciting, just a free 10-minute chair massage (no, me, not the chair...). Apparently it is professional student appreciation week, so all sorts of alabatory events are being lavished on us. Like free massages and last night, pizza and a movie "The Incredibles" at the Multi-cultural center. Now, what it had of multicultural is a mystery to me, well, besides the multi-colored children all playing harmoniously in the pavillion overlooking the lagoon.

The last few days the light has been so incredible, and although my skin has suffered significant sun-damage (I swear, I was only out for a couple of hours a day, ok, midday, damn hole in the ozone...) I have been basking shamelessly. And it was a joy to ride I. over to the University in the bike trailer. M. gave up and let me do that, and I still ended up going much faster despite the fifty odd extra pounds in tow. I guess I am in better bike shape than I had imagined.

I. ran into a little friend, Regina, also Mexican, that we met at a random gathering for "el día de la candelaria"... February 2... the person who pulls the baby Jesus out of the "rosca de reyes" on January 6 becomes responsible for the supply of tamales for the candelaria celebration, and our neighbors just happened to invite us along to the Mexican family gathering. Anyhow, I. and R. made instant reconnection and what was best was that they were whispering back and forth in Spanish throughout the whole movie, which, I have to say despite being beneath my elevated (ha ha) standars, was a lot of fun. Of course going home and reading Plato lambast the poetry (read: pop-culture) of his day and the commerical manipulative power of rhetoric made me feel a little guilty, but only just a little.

So, on that note, I write with a recommendation for the aged, or anyone feeling a little old... The other day I watched a fabulously funny feel-good flick from, I believe the Czech Republik, called "Autumn Spring". What a beautiful film, absolutley worth the three extra dollars in late fees.

I know, nothing mind-shattering today, just more chronicling of my daily existence. What else was out of the ordinary today? Well despite the fact that I am now taking Portuguese 3, and lacking certain key components (about 150 pages of text missed between class changes) I ended up tutoring my Israeli seatmate. An interesting fellow, a bit enigmatic. He ascertained my name's origin immediately, but I dissappointed him by my decided lack of knowledge of Hebrew. Ok, so at one point I did learn to decipher the letters (not script which uses no vowels) but knowing how to say "mom" and "dad" and "be quiet please" (sheket b'vakasha) hardly constitutes valuable knowledge. Anyway, the uses of the subjunctive are almost exactly the same in Spanish and Portuguese and he looked so bewildered with our teacher's lacksadaisical explanations that I felt it almost my obligation to help the poor chap out. And, of course, he respected my desire to not talk about politics because I was against what was going on there, and didn't want to discuss the finer points of middle eastern politics with a casual stranger, which wins respect points in my book.

Actually as another tangent to the religious/ language thing, this quarter's musical selection is ever so pleasing, including liturgical pieces in Latin (yay, I love Scarlatti), Czech, Hebrew and in some undetermined African language(s). I have to say, while I detest the whole institution of religion thing, the art that was subsidized by the church especially tends to make me feel really at peace, much like sitting in front of the rolling waves and contemplating the vastness of the sea.

domingo, abril 03, 2005

Food for thought

Reflecting on cultural diferences from east to west coast at yet another half-pint birthday party today with a man more than twice my age (whose daughter was only a few years older than my daughter... these parenting age inequities are so strange), I believe I discovered the key to our inherent differences!

There are no such things as good bagels on the west coast. There. That simple. Sure you'll say, but they have good sushi... Who cares I say... I can't get past the texture - gasp - I know I just lost total coolness points with some of you, but its kind of like sex, I think... there are some things that are easily enjoyed by all, but others that are extremely personal, and in many cases not worth the effort of aquiring a taste with regard to individual pleasure return...And in a meager attempt at self-defense, I do like sashimi, but I definitely prefer things that are "cooked", cured, or that have a harder texture... can't escape my intrinsic being, now can I?

Ok, we (they?) also have good tortillas and excellent (hmmm) strawberries that you can buy by the side of the road and eat until your fingers and lips are red with the juices. That's another thought for the day... As I interact lovingly with my food (Armenian string cheese, oh yes) and luscious strawberries whose skin is reminiscent of the loveliest pink vulva, lightly shiny, slightly tacky, pecked with tiny little bumps... one more thing I never could get the taste for, lucky for me, it is not a cultural expectation or else I would feel like a miserable failure.

But back to bagels. The absence of bagels can function allegorically for all the differences between east and west coast... Or even better, (Jenny, here is another little analogy for you, but no sexual politics here, yet) Bagel is to tortilla as East coast is to West coast. Ahem. Thicker, meatier, stodgier but with more substance... to free(r) form, flimsier, but perhaps with more ultimate possibility for creative accesorizing?

So for breakfast I solved the East coast Jew bagel dilemma (actually, I can't even conceive of eating a whole bagel anymore, sorry mom, though you are not reading this)... Handcrafted organic flour torillas transformed into a cream cheese, lox (smoked salmon for you west coasters) and caper quesadilla.

The marriage of east and west in all their vibrant and vacilating tradition.

The bees knees


The bees knees
Originally uploaded by lunita.

More beautiful flowers... just can't seem to stay inside (or focused) these days...

Enough already


Enough already
Originally uploaded by lunita.

I know I'm gorgeous, but would you quit taking pictures of me?

Way too much red wine

Whine... I have been drinking several glasses of wine an hour since four this afternoon, and I am only just starting to feel not so good. The shaking shivers are not a good sign. I don't think that it is the lack of heat in the house. Gustavo and Clara are leaving so soon, and then Ignacio and Alicia... María José and Naseem... We had to have a big tri-tip eating, wine-drinking binge to celebrate...All my friends are leaving:( then what will we do for fun?

viernes, abril 01, 2005

A good album is hard to find...

There are very few perfect albums in this world, that is in terms of overall cohesiveness as a collective entity. Sure, there are lots of albums with great songs, that we would consider "great", but the art of creating a collection whose structure not only accomodates the songs pleasantly, but actually enhances their value, creating a depth of character that is greater than the sum of its parts, well, it may well be all but a lost art, what with people ripping MP3's left and right, the concept of a "concept" is practically lost.

Now, you may not agree with me, but I was listening to Counting Crows' "August and Everything After" and I was reminded of its albumistic perfection. Sure, his voice is a little whiny, but nothing you can't overlook, but its integrity as a whole is unmatched in present pop, which lead me to reflect on those few albums about which I can really say the entire piece is a work of art.

This is my list, thus far, and it represents tastes that cover the span of my lifetime, so don't judge too harshly, or do, I don't really care:

Billy Joel - "Innocent Man" (The LP version, played over and over and over in the living room of my first house on Smithfield Road, languidly imagining, at age 7 what people could possibly be afraid of when referring to love.)

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - "So far" (The ending with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes cinches this one for me, and I can even forgive the cheesiness of "Our house" because as I learned at age 8 listening to Casey Casum's top forty countdown on my clock radio - early childhood education at its best- it was written for Joni Mitchell, who I would later discover for myself, or rather through Amy who made a mix tape for me that accompanied me through endless hours of solitude on the Miramar beaches)

Joni Mitchell - "Songs to a Seagull" (matches, if not exceeds the perfection of overall coherence of "Blue")

Counting Crows - "August and Everything After" (I already said this one, and it always makes me sigh, remembering the days when... nobody (well, that isn't entirely true, but not in the last couple of months) writes songs for me anymore, and much less two men (ok boys) in ardor and harmony... why can't I still have that???)

Matthew Sweet - "Girlfriend" (Oh god do I wish I still had this tape, I really do miss having a cassette player, if only because I can't listen to this and Depeche Mode's "Violator" which doesn't quite make the list.)

Ani Difranco - "Dilate" (She rocks no matter what, but this album is the only one whose structure amplifies its intensity as if sympathetic vibrations were kicking it into an emotional wave double its original size)


Sigh. It really is a shame that I have hardly any of these albums anymore... I'm gonna go eat worms.

Arroyo Burro


Arroyo Burro
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Beautiful Santa Barbara... I feel fortunate today.

Quotes for a "foolish" Friday morning:

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
Douglas Adams
-Related to yesterday's post, but you might ask the Irish about this one.

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
-This is a truism for all of us who are lamenting the miserable state of politics.

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
Douglas Adams, "Last Chance to See"
-Need I say more?

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
Douglas Adams
-And this one is for you, Jenny;)