los perdidos

well, it seems the "postcard" effect (something I've totally co-opted from Gill and blown out of proportion) is alive and well.

The Lost Tribe of the Amazon

but at least it was being used for anti-logging (presumably anti exploitation?) purposes.

un plan

wise words of wisdom from denny's:

19 year old #1
"I've got a plan-
I'm going to get my shit together,
get myself organized
and get a job."

19 year old #2
"That's a good plan"

el mundo es muy pequeno

at least the world of speech & debate

i met the cope last fall. i found out he had been a texas debater back in his day. in fact, he had judged at least one other debate-savy texan i know. probably both, given the circumstances. but the connections continue.

cope recently informed me that a friend of his from MD, a blo/no native, was passing through austin. in tow was his friend, tim. and it seems that this curly blonde headed man remembered me, of course, because we did speech together.

so maybe its not all that strange, or small, but i haven't spoken to tim in 10 years. in fact, its possible that i have never had a conversation with him. of course we've heard each other give speeches, but its entirely possible that i have never said a single word directly to him. though i vaguely remember talking to him before copi's performance in Rumors senior year.

in any case, i felt the need to email him. which i suppose is sort of weird and creepy. hopefully not stalkerish. but, considering my past non-friendship with him, at least i'm not losing anything in the venture. i think this is a sign that i'm truly bored. and what a great feeling it is!

los russos

i never thought i'd have much to gain from a slavic studies masters thesis.

on friday i attended a talk on the similarities between Pushkin's and Brodsky's nationalistic ideas. My knowledge of the two writers' works, millieus, and politics is practically nonexistant, so i will forego a thorough discussion of the content of the talk, and move on almost directly to how it relates to anthropology.

basically, whether one thinks it is hypocrisy or ambivalence, both writers felt a need to defend their nation (or nation-state, or country) when outsiders criticized it, but were quite critical of it to a personal or domestic audience. this is all closely connected, of course, to ideas about the "East" and the "West," but i would not be one to reiterate how.

so on to anthropology...I think this intersects quite nicely with discussion about cultural relativism and "native" anthropology. though total relativism is about as plausible as total objectivity, there is still a lingering sense (and I'd argue rightfully so), that it is not the anthropologist's place to waltz into some foreign/unknown place and start judging the actions and ideas of those surroundings. However, when the "object" of "study" is the anthropologist's own "culture" this is perhaps more acceptable. Especially, perhaps, when "studying up." What this means then, without going into explicit details and examples of this phenomenon, is that we too hold this double standard. While Brodsky and Pushkin choose, or are emotionally motivated to chastise or correct foreigners for criticizing Russia, anthropologists, at least those of the contemporary, AAA code of ethics-approved, still abiding by the Boasian tradition sort, self-censor criticisms of the foreign. Of course in some senses there is the implicit idea that it should not be censoring, but that a well-trained anthropologist should not even have those reactions to begin with (but that another issue entirely).

But I think these ideas relate to non-academic life as well. I've mentioned in a number of contexts my strangely differing feelings of place and home depending upon my context. I'll summarize quickly: When I am in a city on the East Coast (and similarly, though not as viamently in the Midwest), i will defend to the end my Midwestern small-town upbringing. Indeed, I identify as a diasporic rural girl, masquerading as some sort of pseudo-academic East Coaster who really couldn't leave my country-music loving, corn planting, karoke singing, state fair-attending true self behind. While at the same time, when spending time in heytown, i feel illigitimate. I complained about the line dancing and country music. I scoffed at the tractors, and even the Shivy 4x4s (that's a phoenetic spelling, thar). I had academic parents, and lived in town. I never even detassled. And I didn't stick around. I've run off and only come back twice a year. And when I talk to my former classmates, our lives are totally detached and unrelatable to each other. I'm a total fraud.

And I think what the Brodsky paper pointed out is not that these two things are incompatible. But that these dualities exist for most people about one thing or another. Our relationships to our homes (however that is defined) are as imagined as our ideas of community. And thus, those relationships are not stable but contextually contingent, and shifting. So I argue its neither hypocracy nor ambivalence. Its simply a matter of adapting to one's environment.

la cuidad y el campo

i left heytown feeling down on home.

the train had some major delays but i made it to the city by 10. while there, i saw droves of old friends and like the weekend by the beach and stroh day weekend. its always good to catch up and reorient. especially when involving things like karaoke, tasty art, russian poetry, vodka, elevator music, awkward parties, and public playgrounds.

i got home yesterday evening feeling renewed, and then spent some time on the porch with the Ps, wine in hand, looking at the night sky, and talking about historical politics. it made me remember again, why i love this place. thick soft grass beneath my head. pure night quiet. a clear sky, with the most visible of stars. and the best company one could hope for.

i realize the sum up of the weekend is pretty lacking here, but i think its better addressed in a picture blog, to come shortly.

mas sobre papas

my favorite tuber

in addition to the now contentious discussion between peruanos y chileans about potatoes, it seems spuds are a hot topic for another reason. apparently, 2008 has been declared the international year of the potato. wikihow even offers some advice.

mis cosas favoritas

food, booze, imagined communities and the andes

it seems chile & peru are arguing over the origins of the potato & pisco.

but shouldn't we all just be thanking the pacha mama by pouring one out for her?
echamos una papa para la pachamama!

lucha libre

home makes me nostalgic

and then something like this comes along. the thing that started me off on the whole wrestling fascination. maybe even my interest in masculinity and pain.

look out for wily coyote and that sewing 17 year old girl who looks exactly like me (except maybe minus a few pounds). god, even the hairdo's the same. that was my very first ethnographic interview. of course, i was the informant/subject/interlocutor/person with whom larry worked, rather than the ethnographer. but still, in many ways, this is where it all started.

i wonder if i can get a grant to pay for my travel to the reunion....

el amor y futbol

futbol returns to la paz!

FIFA suspends the ban on high-altitude matches

and on a related note, i've mentioned evo's notorious quote a number of times (at least to my friends), but didn't have the exact quote or a source. fortunately, i have re-found it in reliable reference form. that is, of course, if you consider fox news a reliable reference...

pura vida

morality is a funny thing.

christy & i were talking today at p&p about "purity balls" where fathers and daughters pledge to do all they can to ensure the daughters' purity until they marry. of course, it wasn't explicitly stated what exactly they mean by "purity," but i doubt many would argue that there is an inherent sexual (or anti-sexual) connotation here. (at this point i will uncharacteristically bypass a diatribe on the problematic gender ideologies at play here, but i will simply submit the pledge as evidence).

which got me thinking. we have such a strange way of defining purity. what makes us pure, unaffected, without baggage.

the r___ wrote recently that what got him hooked on post secret was a card that said "i can't marry you because i'm still in love with a bitch."

and i think that's the kind of purity i wish i could preserve. i wish there was a way to enter a relationship and give oneself openly, freely, fully. no baggage, no expectations, no past. just two people with open minds about one another.

but that's an impossibility. we hurt each other unknowingly or unintentionally. and then we carry that pain into our future relationships. we are insecure, or guarded, or simply unwilling to be in that moment. and i sometimes wonder if maybe things weren't better in a time when people married their high school sweethearts and never looked back. fortunately, i'm too cynical to wonder for too long.

cariños

its funny how context affects perception

there are a few people from whom i enjoy hearing terms of endearment. my mom & lou, the nice, aunt kath and her daughters. also, people like cope, the gill, my wife (though its always facetiously), probably others i'm not thinking of at the moment.

and at the shore, i got a good helping of some "baby"s from someone whom i don't mind hearing it. but in a lot of cases, it drives me crazy. much like julia penelope, i find it disrespectful, and belittling.

she writes:

"that evening my phone rang, and when i answered it a woman's voice cheerily asked me if i was 'the lady of the house,' i told her no ladies lived in this house and hung up...In the Patriarchal Universe of Discourse, a lady is said to be a "term of respect." In my universe of discourse, however, it is an insult, because lady, in addition to its upperclass overtones, signals assumptions about how women should act-assumptions i find offensive and presumptuous. "ladies" behave in feminine ways: they sit with their legs crossed at the knees, they wear make-up and high heels, they tease, perm, and curl their hair, and they eat daintily. i live in a different universe of discourse, one with different assumptions, different values, and different ways of talking about the world."

(Penelope, Julia. 1990. Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues. pp. 36-37.)

sure, she's a little off her rocker, but i think her point should be taken seriously. words like "baby" "lady" "darling" and "sweetie" are laden with cultural connotation, which in many cases denote a lack of respect and equality. i would argue that in cases of extreme familiarity and mutual endearment term calling, they can connote just the opposite--a high amount of respect and equality--but in cases in which acquaintances or even strangers are called by such words/names, i take quite a bit of pause in respecting someone who denies respect via their naming.

so, the other day i came across this article in the detroit free press , recounting obama's use of the word "sweetie" a number of times. the original name-calling can even be seen in this video:

and what i think this demonstrates is not necessarily obama's lack of respect for women, but rather the extent to which the PUD is ingrained in our language use. Of course, Althusser, Vološinov, and leapfrog would gasp to hear me assert that this language does not betray underlying ideology. This is not my argument, but what I do think is that this language is revealing ideology that is unconsciously reinscribed. Perhaps I'm being lenient because I like to keep my illinois peeps close, but mostly i just wonder if Obama is completely unaware. in any case, somebody needs to clue him in.

scammellot!!!

i had the most perfect weekend

it was spent at scammellot, with plenty of captain pabst, capitán, horseshoes, meat, black beans, fireworks, sand, and love. not to mention an overabundance of r___s. here are some notable moments

both nights i slept in a twin bed next to the r___ in his own twin bed. waking up in the mornings was so nice. we had short little discussions, and then i could fall back asleep. it was like all the joys of morning pillow talk, only without the uncomfortable aspects of sharing a bed with someone you don't sleep well with. though we did get some good vertical spooning in.

i also gave scamz his birthday present and he seemed rather pleased with it. which of course pleases me.

saturday, during my second round of horseshoes, i was having some problems. really all weekend, i was having major issues with my release. most of the time too early. sometimes too late and the shoe would fly up into the air as if i was throwing a softball in order to get some solo deep fielding practice. but the r___ kept telling me he could hear tom petty, and all that implied. i eventually obliged the requests, throwing my tank top to the ground, and immediately landing a ringer. unfortunately, that was only met with requests for me to remove my pants.

after dinner we were sitting around, and someone took the ben & jerry's out of the freezer. i simply passed it to the person to my left, who happened to be the birthday boy. he then exclaimed "the world is so full of love and happiness and then someone hands me heath bar crunch!"

and then, last night, after the strip show to lights & music, after the poker chips and batteries were cashed in, after good's goodies, after the fiend was out of commission, the r____ had headed to his twin bed, and the capitán had only a thin layer of liquid covering the bottom of the bottle, we took some candles to the beach, and cowered against the wind. i tried to lean on scamz to give a little head-to-shoulder nuzzle, but instead gave a soft, loving head-but. in many ways, that describes our relationship to a T.

so, i had a nice uneventful drive home, and a peaceful day all around.

then the republican emailed me. basically chastising me for not responding in a while. which is true, and probably not the nicest thing ever, but its totally killed my post-scammellot glow (well, not literally, the cheeks are still quite pink) and i just want to say look dude. its shit like this that makes me not respond. but i'm too nice and i'll write something apologetic shortly, and hope that no one hates me. but really, what's so bad about being hated? dwt once told me i'm too benign for anyone to hate. which i took as a compliment. mostly because that backhanded sort of compliment is the only way dwt gives them. but now i wish i had a bit more fire in me. a bit more spunk. oh well. i'll deal with it in the morning.

numeros

i guess everyone has lucky numbers.

56 was mine since the 5th grade. not for any particular reason, i just decided on it one day.

but there are other numbers that, like certain songs, get so scratched into my soul.

i was just taking notes on a book, and wrote down "page 111." 111 was our brownie troop number. the other day i caught the clock at 4:09. there are other numbers like 309, 473, 847, and 312 that cause my ears to perk up. even numbers like 302, 912, 221 and the others like them bring pause. and then there's 12, the number that was always on my back. numbers like 51 and 136, and even 74 are deeply embedded as soothing in my mind.

there are many more numbers that have a special association, and i'm sure there will continue to be new ones. i guess its just one more example of the way things are intertextual, even on a very simple level. numbers, names, smells, places, phrases, songs....the tiny pieces that make up "Memory."

musica catolica en bolivia

npr did a story on youth orchestras in bolivia playing baroque music, influenced by chiquitano culture. pretty interesting. though they refer to it as "tropical" and i'm pretty sure that's neither literally accurate nor figuratively. just rainy i suppose. but after reading Turino's Moving Away From Silence recently, this is especially interesting. 

telephonos son malos

so, my first morning of not really having to be up at any particular time was rudely ruined by a weed whacker outside my bedroom window at the lovely time of 7:30 am. i eventually gave up trying to sleep and got some stuff done. i eventually made it to school with the graded exams, and found a nice stack of books in my mailbox, along with a graded paper from the vandy gill. both the books and paper were a pleasant surprise. lots of andean fun. and even a reproductive health book in there too.

later i was supposed to swing by her apartment to pick up some stuff, but her phone was off, so the plan went amiss, and i didn't talk to her until i was already at the dinner party. we made a plan for 8am. dinner was delicioso as was the conversation. after filling our bellies to their brims, the other gill convinced us to come out with him to u street.

it was a good time, but by the end i was feeling old. of course the casanova told me i am young and lovely and beautiful, but that's not what it was about. i feel like i wasted a number of years. i don't necessarily regret them, but then i hear these stories about 20 year olds working for harper collins, and its a bit depressing. i mean, i know enough people in publishing to realize that it is no dream job. its no glamorous life. and hell, i worked for nyrb for a time, but still. what have i done with my life? not much.

hopefully more in the future.

anyway, eventually the artist and i were dropped off at the dupont red line, and his phone rang as we approached the zoo stop. it was mr. casanova calling to say my phone was at his place still. but of course, being on the metro makes real communication difficult so no plan was figured out. and he, of course, has no internet at home. so i'll have to wait until he gets to work tomorrow for any method of phone recovery to be put into action.

which is well and good and fine. except a) i have to be at the gill's apt at 8 am. and now have no alarm clock and b) i have to make calls at 9 and 10am for cic, and after my snafu on tuesday, i feel the need to set things right.

so nell the problem solver has been set into action. i downloaded an alarm program for the computer. i pray it works. i know gill's apt number, so i guess i can go directly to her door and knock. and i can use the phones at school, but i'll have to purchase a calling card to dial off campus. but i still have the cic am ex, so hopefully that will work.

and if all goes well, i'll have my phone back by the time i need to do my 2:30pm interview.

it will be an interesting day, no doubt. but no matter how it works out, at least i get to spend the end of it at an anthro bbq.

woohoo!

lola, el segund dia

today at lola, i was forced to actually speak in front of people. in fact, i participated in an improvisational skit. en espanol. and i think i did quite well. not to say that my acting was anything to be excited about, but in terms of my language making sense and actually responding to what the other people were doing, i think it was on par.

at the end of the day, we did a little graduation ceremony where we get t shirts (like i need one more-but i'll take it!) and certificates (which i used to print out on my computer and carefully-ie not so carefully-place to the gold seal sticker wherever it would fit). the cubish was handing them out and said "and this graduate is special. she worked for us and helped organize 3 lola trainings, and now she lives in el districto and is a lola graduate." i almost started to cry...

but i pulled my machismo out and didn't.

inspiracion desde tomas

cuando era en peru (hace2 anos, casi), escribi este poema. a la vez, era para practica, solo. pero ahora, es muy relevante. la inspiracion era Skinny Legs and All:

mi corazon es un combi sudamericano

y tu eres llamando un taxi.

i've also been reading a particular quote from ol' tom a lot lately, but i'm not ready to type it out yet. maybe in the coming week i'll feel the need

in other events, i'm still at only 13 pages on my paper that's due for monday, despite my epiphany on an entirely new section. apparently i'm too concise.

but i did hang with the nlirh crew last night and today, and silvia told me today that she "forgot how well i speak spanish." i almost did a spit take. but she was serious, so i assumed i'd mastered the art of looking and sounding like i can speak without the actual ability.

at that point, i started thinking about cesar for some reason. he always told me how good my spanish was. clearly it was not, especially back in those days. but i think he had ulterior motives. at least i got a good chiles rellenos recipe out of it.

and then the strangest thing happened. cesar called me. and we only talked for about 10 minutes, but it was about 90% in spanish, and he told me how much better i was and how he could tell i had been practicing. i guess all the translating for the discourse paper is paying off or something!

but really, the latina time made me realize how drastically different my comprehension is depending on the speaker. basically, the cubish, the guyenese, and silvia i can understand perfectly well. others that speak quicker, or drop their "s"es, or just have a different accent i have more problems with. plus at the end of the afternoon, when i get lazy and my mind starts to wander, i'm hopeless. but it could be worse!

por telephono

i was waiting for the phone call for about a week. maybe not quite that long. and i was pretty sure i knew what was up. turns out, i was on the right track, but had the name wrong.

in any case, i can't decide if i'm happy or sad or relieved or scared or pissed or content.

but through it all, i have been me and more importantly, i have remained kind and true and supportive.

that's all i can give. and if that's not appreciated then i have to accept that. i am who i am, i am what i am, and situations are what you make of them. and at least in the end, my cynicism remains strong.

el estado y la nacion

i finished my paper on the bolivian constitution, imagined communities and the racial state today. it was pretty decent i think, but not anything revolutionary. now i'm just down to the discourse paper, which is the scarriest, but the leap seems to like my analysis. and he basically wrote my conclusion for me. now i just need to figure out how to turn 8 pages into 20-25. sigh.

i've been thinking a lot about how much i learned this semester. i think a lot more than last semester, though the fall did give me a much better handle on gramsci & althusser. but i think contemporary theory was really good this spring, and i feel conversant in things an anthropologist should be conversant in. plus, i feel like i actually know what's going on in bolivia these days (thanks google alerts!). and sunday's the big referendum. it will be interesting to see what happens.

i think i've also learned a lot about myself this semester. what i want, who i am. what i'll put up with and what i won't. basically, this year has been the happiest one since college, at least on a personal level. i have a lot of people i miss, and not many people i see on a regular basis that i really care about. but i guess they always say you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else (or something like that). i guess i'm getting there.

so in a mere 5 days i will be finished, and i can't f'ing wait. i see lots of yoga, painting, and (unfortunately) grading undergrad exams in store for next week. but oh, the freedom looks so good from this side.

on another happy note, b dub wants me to ta for her next semester, which i'm excited about. The Anthropology of American Life. Its funny that i'm the only non-North Americanist (aside from rodo & the partridge family) in my cohort, and i'm the one taing that class, but it sounds like fun. and she said she wouldn't make me do much work (always a good sign). i think this is mostly because we've bonded over our dwight-love. its hard not to. and i think in a way we're both still trying to channel him. i think i always will be. and its a comfort to have him sitting in the back of my mind. wwdd? be savvy.

so, that's a semester wrap up, i guess. perhaps premature, but i'm sticking with it. i'm not sure what the summer has in store. some nj shore, some chicago, maybe some guatemala. we shall see...

too bad they don't play tom petty in gay bars

warning: semi-explicit content...

i took my shirt off in public for the first time in almost 2 years last night.

after sushi, cocktails, and chocolate pudding pops at ee's, we went to the green lantern for the "free drinks in your underwear" special. on the walk from adams morgan to logan square we discussed public nudity, and i brought up the spare rib where crazy n & i exchanged clothing on stage. i wasn't totally comfortable with it at the time. i remember having long discussions with scamz about it, and concluding that i was not opposed to nudity in art as long as it was not exploitative or gratuitous.

not long after i ended up in undies with googly eyes in a film scamz made.

then 2 years ago, i ended up at 241 with sparks, paper telephone, anti-fiendism, a bathing rock, and some tom petty. suddenly faith had negotiated a shirtless porch, and i was sucked in briefly. despite the fact that i was with good, comfortable friends, i regretted it later. maybe it was just a charged atmosphere.

and then last night...the green lantern offered free drinks, and we accepted. on the walk there, i wasn't entirely sure i would actually take off my clothes. but we got inside, and ee took off his shirt. j followed. the bartender then mentioned that delf & i could also get free drinks for stripping down to undies. so we took our shirts off, and he said the pants would have to go too. so we obliged, after commenting that the boys had not taken theirs off. so the bartender insisted they did too. so the four of us, minus clothing, plus free drinks walked away to our table. we had a brief conversation about how comfortable and natural it felt to all be standing around a table in nothing but undies and shoes, and then didn't mention it again.

not long after man #1 approached us and told delf & i that we were "pioneers" because he had never seen women in their undies there before. he shook our hands. later, another man, fully clothed, came over and complimented delf & i on being "sexy" and he told us he liked our shoes. of course he had to preface the whole thing with "i'm gay, but you guys are sexy. and i appreciate that." hmmm... maybe he's holding himself to a little too homonormative of a standard? embrace the fluidity man!