"mascara" en CSI

I better watch out!!!

thank goodness i work in bolivia, not mexico.

eleciones

hoy, la gente de bolivia votan.

the democracy center's reports.

and of course, how it relates to wrestling.

aaa 09: Installment 2

I woke up early in my big king size bed, to ee delivering me hot chocolate and croissant. i begrudgingly worked on the diss proposal for a few hours (methodology is complete), then finally in the afternoon i tore ee away from his musings on the workings of hegemony on the food network and we made our way to the marriott.

there, i briefly met up with the texan, then wandered off to a panel with ee to see riley. riley's paper was quite good, but the young man who followed him was painful to listen to. we skipped out. ee went to the book exhibit and i saw the texan again, and stopped to chat. at which point the lazy-eyed-texan also appeared. an uncomfortable conversation ensued.

time was drawing near for pine's epic honduran resolution vote so i wandered off to the business meeting and found a seat on the side. not long after i realized i was just down the row from the dumpling, and moved over to sit near her. much business was conducted including the official "goodbyes" to old board members performed through song by some old anthro dude with a guitar. the entire (250+) quorum was invited to sing along (to everyone's detriment). eventually, it came time for the big show...the resolution. immediately, an amendment was proposed by charles briggs to explicitly condemn the results of the recent election and call on the US government to not recognize the results. it passed unanimously.

and then things got a little funky. some dude (presumably honduran) read aloud what seemed like a 20 minute long letter from some honduran anthropologists condemning the resolution as among other things, imperialist. it accused some (honduran?) anthropologists of voluntarily leaving the ministry of culture. it suggested honduran anthros were not consulted in writing the resolution. bunny (a 90+ year old anthro) commented we needed to have a plan for implementation. the (presumably honduran) dude again stood up to clarify that he did not write the letter but agreed with it. someone asked rosemary joyce a question, which she did not understand, but setha low (aaa prez) clarified that robert's rules of order stipulate the question could not be restated. alas, we moved on to pine's empassioned (as usual) and frantic (as usual) plea that these honduran anthropologists represented not all honduran anthropologists, and there were plenty more academics in honduras who had been persecuted. she gave a number of examples. finally, a venezuelan woman stood up shouting, crying and suggesting we stand in solidarity, not with honduran anthropologists, but the honduran people.

the question was called and we VOTED to vote. it was confirmed. then we VOTED on the question (being whether to pass or not). it passed the (now iffy) quorum. but this second vote does not mean that the resolution passed. oh no. it simply means that it is now eligible to be put be VOTED on by the entire AAA membership. yes, 3 votes to make this happen. who knows when we'll know for sure.

After all this, I met up with the So Ill kids, Gerry, Yata-Tanaka, & Juancho. we had some tasty food, and came up with brilliant questions for Gerry (the primatologist among us) to ask in cultural sessions. Gems included "Can you explain how this is related to hegemonic ideologies of transnationalism?" and "One word. Intersubjectivity. Think about it." Later bryan suggested throwing in the word "Linkages." after dinner we wandered over to Finn's and drank a few beers with bryan and channell, who was getting on my nerves. Futurama eventually joined us, and she was actually quite pleasant to be around. We eventually wandered back to a king size bed and passed out with plenty of room between us.

a little andean candy

a picture of a luchador wearing a Manfred Reyes mask (Reyes is 2nd in the polls-after Evo-for the upcoming Bolivian Presidential election)

(from Wall Street Journal Photos of the Day)

aaa 09: installment 1

I bring you this message from a luxurious king sized bed off of rittenhouse square, philly's ritzy neighborhood.

it is practically noon and i am still in bed (though I've been working on a paper for 2 hours) wrapped in a fluffy hotel-provided robe, sipping free Ghirardelli hot chocolate. i have been gchatting my companero who is doing something similar (though at least he's showered already) in the next bedroom of our incredible aka suite.

but yesterday was quite a good one. i woke up before the sun rose and picked up ee for our drive to the city of sibling love. we got in, checked into the hotel, parked the car, and had a terrible breakfast of strangely flavored non-fat-frozen-yogurt and awful coffee (at least that's how ee reported on it. i of course, did not partake).

then off to the marriott to register. ee's first panel was right away, and i tagged along. speaker #1 spoke about Bolivian marketwomen's subjectivity within neoliberal formations (sound vaguely familiar?). It wasn't anything new to me, but now I know I need to get in touch with her. Most importantly, she was recovering from the flu and almost passed out during her presentation, so someone else in the room had to finish reading the paper for her. a few more papers and then tonsilitis-infected ee just gave a brief description of his research before commenting on the awful conference theme/session title employing the "End/s of Anthropology"

After the session, I met another audience member who will be on my panel on Saturday, who studies trans activism in Mexico City, along with Susan Paulson, a long-time Bolivianist. ee & i then walked to trader joe's and got some supplies. after dropping the foods off at aka, i went back to the marriott to see spaulson's presentation on humor and the familia galan in La Paz. she was using some disidentification theory which got me excited. and a few other presenters opened my eyes to some new theory i should look at. but most excitingly, when i walked into the room before the presentations began, she shouted out to me "hi nell!" and introduced me to stuart rockefeller, another bolivianist.

i left directly after that panel for e patrick's performance of sweet tea at Penn. there i also ran into jackson5 (with whom i re-exchanged phone numbers) and riley from radical intersections. as i waited for the perf to begin i glanced through the aaa program and found siu gerry's name. a few text messages to my wife later, i was in contact with him, and now have plans to meet up (after 5 years). i saw the perf, drank some free wine, then headed back to center city to meet mcneil for some whiskey. upon arriving in the midst of a torrential downpour, i discovered he was well into his 5th hour of drinking, and some painful karaoke had just begun, so we decided to brave the elements and walk back to aka to drink some free booze with ee. some watermelon vodka and 4 mini-bags of popcorn later he trekked home (to the travelodge) and ee & i passed out in our respective king size beds.

day 1=success.

grasa y la policia

i promised beards, but instead i bring you pishtaco!