baile de la escuela de doctorado

last friday i went to what i am now referring to as grad school prom. Dvine's book, Island of Shame, hit bookstores and his parents threw him a party. and despite his insistence that is was a casual affair, its location on a rooftop overlooking the washington monument suggested otherwise.

so, the department was buzzing all week with "what shall we wear?" in particular, all the HAGGs were trying to coordinate level of dressiness. this led to conversations (in person, via email, & on facebook) about whether dresses, skirts, or pants were best, what shoes were appropriate, and the requisite "how short is too short?" discussion. in the end we decided dresses, heels, and sax's earrings were most appropriate, as well as deciding we were all acting like 15 year olds.

now, at first glance, fancy events at this age might be more easily compared to weddings, what with the congratulatory speeches, fancy food, alcohol, and number of people of older generations present. but to me this felt more like prom because of the presence of people i see every day. these are people i've come to know in a very quotidian way. i've seen these folks racked with nervousness over class presentations, caving under the stress of final papers, frustrated with losses on the futbol field, and on the brink of utter breakdown thinking about comps. in essence i've seen these people at their worst (and they've seen me at mine). we live in a world where "how are you?" is more often met with "uh......still alive" than "good, how are you?" granted, i haven't seen these folks grow up the way i had with those attending high school prom. but i have seen them grow into their academic selves, which from our (privileged) position is perhaps just as important a formation.

and grad school prom is far superior to high school prom. there is no anxiety about dates. no drama in the women's bathroom (like with LM & MH), and there's WINE! lots and lots of free wine. and food. and beautiful views (not quite available in miller park). and an afterparty (that far surpasses the hey hi afterprom activties). rumagin, being the perennial cool kid, got too drunk on rum with his roommates to show up, so otto, jag & i met him at his place later for our usual basement activities.

i guess in a way, the evening provided a new episode in the saga that is my feelings about the people here: and on that night, in my heels and makeup, sitting in the basement on chesapeake, i felt like i was where i was supposed to be, with the people i was supposed to be. despite my aching feet, it felt comfortable. with the end of the year approaching quickly it was the perfect time with the perfect reason for celebration.

and you know its a good night when you lose important things like your wallet and don't even care.

scandal, blo/no style

http://normalcoalbears.com/

adendum

oh my

"women are hard wired to want peace....its i our DNA"

"boys will be boys"

this just gets better and better

aye, television

ok, so i somehow just started watching GREEK on abc family. i'm not sure why i did not surf around after turning the television on to this channel, but i didn't.

and now i just have to rant (i know, i know, its my own fault). but so on the show (which i know absolutely nothing about) there's a women's studies class of all women and one man. the professor asks a question, what 3 female leaders have in common (i've never heard of any of them....shows you what kind of womanist/feminist/queer/political scientist i am...) and the one man answers correctly: they all have a strong record of conflict resolution.

the professor affirms that this is correct then goes on to say "it is their instinct as women that has cultivated their abilities at conflict resolution." i waited for the "Psych!" and fully expected it, especially because the professor was being portrayed by Janine Garofalo. but no....apparently they were serious.

WTF? I guess I'd expect them to at least consult some sort of women's studies textbook. Maybe they did. Maybe it was written in the 1940s.

Makes you wonder what gross inaccuracies are being perpetuated in the art history class scenes.

la raza

i'm probably not as qualified to write about this as i'd like to think, but rumagin, delf & i were talking last week about comedy skits that satirize racial stereotypes, and (no matter their intentions) whether they serve to reinforce and naturalize sterotypes and ghettoization, or whether they destabalize them. i, being one to usually argue for the revolutionary potential of performance argue that comedic representations of stereotypes do destabalize them. perhaps people find them funny because they think they're "rooted in truth" but i think they also find them funny because they realize that they are satire-that they don't represent reality, but an exaggeration. and this tends to call into question how these things are constructed. overly-"ghettoized" language makes us realize that people who might talk in similar ways are themselves engaging in a social performance. satirizing the employment options in low income neighborhoods focuses attention on social inequalities.

of course, people often bring up Chappelle's resignation from his show because he felt people were laughing at him, not with him. and i don't doubt his reasons for feeling that way. but what this argument ignores is that at one point, and presumably for some time, he felt that his performance did have potential to change things. to denaturalize. perhaps to break down and reform popular and ideological notions of race. and maybe it didn't happen as quickly or as completely as he'd have liked. and he certainly had every right to decide what he did. but i think he was more effective than he thought. npr did a series in 2002 addressing these issues, and some other comic did seem to feel effective in dismantling stereotypes, at least to an extent.

but then again, maybe i give audiences too much credit. maybe i assume a critical viewer, where there are none. now, leap would say at this point we need audience reception studies. so, despite the fact that no one ever comments here these days, i know you're out there. so how do you think this stuff is received?

when you watch WacArnold, does it highlight for you the structural inequalities and violences of urban ghettoization, or do you laugh because, oh, those crazy black urban folks....they really do need to get a job.

Chappelle's Show
WacArnold's
comedycentral.com
Charlie Murphy Videos Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy

do you laugh at bon qui qui because it presents critique of racial stereotypes, or because "those people" really do talk funny?

seriously, i'm curious.

iowa

i used to dislike iowa. mostly because i had family in ames, and every thanksgiving and every december 26th, and often on a random july day, i'd be forced into sharing the blue station wagon's backset with my sister for a 6 hour journey across flat land. inevitably we'd arrive and my cousins, who i did actually rather enjoy, would be off with their cool older friends, and i'd be forced to endure "grownup" time with the aunts and uncles.

then in 2003, everything changed. a little documentary called "pats of glory," introduced me to the beauties of iowa's fair history, camping next to carnies, and deep fried...well, everything. i was hooked. and i won't go into too much detail because as rule #2 of the fair states, "what stays at the fair, stays at the fair," but my feelings on the state have only become more and more positive in the last 6 years.

and now, well, it might just be surpassing my love for its neighbor to the east. and its not just because of gay marriage. iowa has a long history of progressivism, which i admire. and this article really sums it up.

my love of iowa may even be surpassing my love of the land of lincoln (and obama--but then again, if i'm closely associating obama with illinois, some recent presidential actions -such as this and this-may be making the state slip in the rankings independent of what iowa's doing). illinois might have to start selling rooster booster to redeem itself.

sloppy & unprofessional

it seems butter carving (or sculpture) may make its debut on the big screen. but seriously....there's a big difference between carving and sculpture, and the blurb conflates the two. get it right!

just a little duff dog eye candy

also, in case you weren't paying attention, fujimori got sentanced to 25 years.

recuerdos y ideas

I wrote this for scammell's most recent piece, about memory. i'm not sure it'll make it into the final piece, but after about a month of reflection, i still kind of like what i said.

as something of an anthropologist i feel like i should frame memory in some sort of anthropological theory. of course, this is in no way indicative of anthropology as a whole, but i think memory is very intimately connected to ideas of truth and history. we are all who we are because of what we've experienced. we have these experiences and we try to break them up into digestible, understandable pieces. we chop experience up into memories in order to endow them with meaning. this is the moment i realized something, or this happened, or this experience is why i feel this way. but in reality, experience is just a long run on sentence of occurrances. and much like history, they depend entirely on perception. there is no single truth. there are as many truths as people who witness or live through an event. and yet, some truths are valued over others. they are reproduced and written down, and thus become fact, "official history." I think we do similar things with memories. We have a vast amount of experience from which to draw, but we choose certain memories from which to make meaning. these memories are a key part of the construction of our identities. they tell us who we were, and thus who we are. we make ourselves through our memories.

i've also been thinking about attraction a lot lately, too, and i think in a way its related. in fact, i think attraction may be the converse of memory in some ways. i have come to the conclusion that (and maybe this is cynical, but that would be rather in line with my usual musings on relationships) we are all attracted to people based on the idea of them. we attribute meaning before the substance, and sometimes forget that's the case.

its the idea that attracts us. the idea of that brooding filmmaker, or that silly footballer. and i think it matters very little how well we know the person. even if the object of attraction is an old friend, someone with whom we collaborate or create, even if we've witnessed them in other relationships or had our own previous relationships with them, its still the idea that attracts us initially. the idea of the good friend that becomes the lover. the idea of carrying over what we have into something else. the idea of the past relationship becoming renewed. we apply cultural narratives to our unique situations to make them meaningful. maybe epic.

perhaps more obviously, even if we've only known the person for a few moments, or simply seen them across a room. the attraction is the idea of them. we make assumptions based on our visual perceptions. As Celia Lury has written, vision and knowledge have become inextricably intertwined in modern Euro-American societies (1998:2). We make assumptions based on the visual. Certain clothing represents interests or values, glasses translate to intelligence, dreadlocks translate to particular recreational practices, a hoodie with 15 mini-buttons translates to some sort of leftist, anti-consumerist, possibly anarchist political position. And because, for the most part, we're using a common script, or what Eco calls “successive transcriptions” (1992:3) the translation is often close to what was intended by the performer. so, this is to say that often the idea of the person is not so far from the reality.

However, the idea is simply the iconic permutation of the real person. Certain aspects of identity may be highlighted while others are ignored or downplayed. And this happens on both ends, the attractor and the attracted. Or perhaps it's aspects of the affair itself that are highlighted or downplayed. Its scandalous nature highlighted, the mundane interactions downplayed. Or the comfort level highlighted, the misunderstandings downplayed.

But this is not to say that attraction is meaningless. Its what happens after the attraction that counts. Its what's built on top of the attraction that lasts. Because eventually (maybe it takes 30 seconds, maybe 4 years) the idea of this person, this encounter or relationship melts away to reveal the truth beneath it. That charasmatic artist becomes a real human with talent, but confidence issues, or the young ambitious politician transforms into a someone too absorbed with the state of affairs in the world, and not absorbed enough with you. But if you're lucky, that quirky bass player slowly transforms into a complex personality that is compatible, comfortable, and real. complete with faults and failings, but with just the right combination of smirks, jokes, surprises, and awkward talks about the future to make you realize its not just the idea of it anymore. there's real substance.

but only if you're lucky.

palabras y nombres

the world was feeling a little out of whack this weekend. maybe because i spent too much time at school. maybe because i cleaned our giant white board with harsh chemicals and the fumes were getting to me. i'm sure it had something to do with certain friendship weirdnesses, but things are feeling back in order again (nothing a little pineapple can't fix). i also think part of the fix has been the way i've been addressed by a number of people. "darlings" are always nice, as are "hello, love". "hey lady" or "baby" from certain folks. "nellochka!" is always nice. I even enjoy "haynes!" coming through on g chat.

last week, when mama H was visiting, i was actually thinking about being called "haynes." My mother calls my father that. My mom's coworkers call her Haynes. But i've never been called Haynes. Not even back in my team sports days. It was always "nellerz." The closest i've come is "Hell Nanes" thanks to the epic farter and rave demon. So maybe this is silly and crazy, but being called haynes actually make me like e.d.a. much better. funny how little things like discourse change minds and moods.

i suppose voloshinov was right

para serge

this blog needs more pictures.

las estrellas

i've mentioned this before, but i don't read my horoscope much. however, it seems like on the odd occasions when i do happen to check it out, it always seems far too appropriate.

today's:

You would be wise today to remember that your imagined scenario isn't the only one possible. This isn't to say you are wrong in any of your perceptions or even in your conclusions. But there are multiple paths diverging from several points along your way, even if they aren't obvious to you right now. Keep in mind that the Taurus Moon is currently in your 7th House of Environment, giving you the impression that reality is more rigid than it actually is. New solutions will become apparent as soon as tomorrow.

so, perhaps i worry too much. i get too caught up in things, and my control freak comes out. sometimes i need to remember that a deep breath can work wonders.

i still don't regret it though.

world theater day

i actually randomly stumbled upon this by someone who is not technically a perf stud (though really, had life circumstances been different, i can totally see rumagin being quite a perf stud in a number of ways), but i think it speaks to a number of ideas i've held for a long time.

i remember first telling people i was double majoring in theater and anthropology. everyone thought this was crazy because a) the only worse than theater for finding work is anthropology and b) what could the two possibly have in common with each other.

and agosto boal on this World Theater Day, states it all quite clearly. but to sum up, we are all actors. life is spectacle. it is what you do with your action and spectacle that makes or unmakes (sometimes both) the world. so today i remember dwight and will consciously work to create social justice through activism, art, and academics.

hablamos

the beginning of this week was kind of rough emotionally (not for any good reason), but there's something about seeing one of my favorite old students (the wave on NM ave. did the trick) on national television to make me feel better. that kid who sits in the back of human mirror is also on there, but i don't have as much affection for him as i do for bryce.

but really, a number of things have changed. first, the weather is warming up, and though its rainy, and still getting quite cold at night, the world smells like spring, and that's enough for me. second, i spent 45 minutes this morning talking to ee about how language used on online dating websites is strikingly neoliberal (the body as machine, flexibly accumulating attributes, commodifying desires) and at one point, i had to chuckle to myself. this is exactly what i always thought was missing in the dale. the sort of spontaneous, organic anthropological discussions that make me feel like a grad student. and as annoyed as i get about how little i get done in the cubes, its really because so much of this happens. i mean, sure, there's plenty of gossiping, complaining, arguing, and plain ridiculousness, but those moments when we get into deep discussions and challenge each other, and i can actually feel my opinions changing or narrowing, or being refined...those are the moments i know i'm in the right place.

to top it all off, the film is still in a precarious position, but is at least coming together a little, i've gotten some work done on my paper for montreal, and there's free lunch tomorrow. plus our first futbol practice. so, while i've been complaining that my friends just aren't cutting it, i'm really proud to be part of a community. and one that (maybe its egotistical, but) i feel like i've had a hand in creating.

so tonight, instead of sitting in the library discussing david harvey, otto, the jag, ee, rumagin, and otto's friend alva & i went to ee's place, sat in his basement office drinking wine and discussed everything from postmodernism to ways in which sea monster on iphone reflects shifting forms of fragmented identity. i guess being a nerd isn't so bad. for the moment at least.

mis chicos

oh my.
a new season of my boys in impending.

this does not bode well for my ability to defend my television viewing habits.

a casa

there's always something about changing the time zone on my computer's clock that feels meaningful. the watch gets pushed ahead or pulled back usually when the time announcement comes over the airplane's intercom as we land. the cell phone clock changes automatically when driving from one time zone to another. but often, i consciously avoid changing the clock on my little laptop. when i moved to the dale, it took me a full month to admit i no longer lived in EST and pull it back an hour. and now, i find myself hesitating to push it the other way. to admit that i am back on the east coast to stay for a while. that i live here. that i live here.

yes, this is where my stacks of books and old canvases are. this is where my snow boots sit next to my old green converses on the shelf of my closet. where the Vegetarian Epicure my mother gave me rests atop the fridge, and my chola puppet and carebear share a seat by the window. but after a year and a half, it still doesn't feel like home. i've met some wonderful people that have opened me up to new ideas, and i've certainly had my share of fun. but it still doesn't fit. i really want to like this place. i try to like it. some nights everything falls into place and the people and timing and weather and architecture all come alive and i forget the reasons i've concocted that i should think this place is wonderful and i can just feel it. but then an hour passes, and the magic is gone, and its back to consciously concentrating on the small pieces of this city that i connect to. the pieces that remind me of other places, usually.

and so, i come back here from a week in a place i love, and everything is dulled. it rains, but without ferocity. i see familiar faces, but i have to prepare myself to smile for them. i find myself in a foul mood, and not even the things that usually snap me out of it will work.

and i don't mean for this to be too self-pitying or depressing. my life is quite nice and i have people here who care about me and believe in me. i'm getting to do what i really love, for the most part, and in a place that nurtures the things i find important in life. but i'm just not sure this will ever be home. maybe i've been misinterpreting robert frost all along. maybe its not that you can't go home again, because places change. perhaps its because once you've experienced something like home, its just impossible to find again.

but i did just reset my computer's clock.

mal futbol

its a bad day for spanish-speaking footballers. Peru and Spain are both having problems. there's nothing like pederasty, murder, and narcotics to give a sport a bad name.

and woot! again

woot!

a silbar

i'm reading (for a 2nd time) Evelyn Hammonds's "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality." She touches on the double silence of black lesbians' sexualities, and its reminding me a bit of the cholas, though I'm taking it in a different direction. Weismantel & Albro both agree (for once) that cholas are historically sexualized because they are "white enough to be desirable, non-white enough to be accessible" (really, that's a paraphrase of Weismantel 2003, because i'm too lazy to walk into the other room, and look up the page #). Cholas are often portrayed as busty "cholitas" in short skirts, and are periodically the butt of jokes about what's under (or not under) their skirts. On the other hand, cholas are imagined in a Gill-ian Postcard way, to be the mothers of the nation. They are associated with fertility and feeding their children, but not as part of a household or sexual relationship. Much like the madonna/whore dichotomy, cholas are either sexless mothers or scantily clad vixens waiting for the taking. So my question (in light of both cholas and black lesbians--and let's throw in Wesley Crichlow's discussion of Trinidadian Bullermen as well) is this: How does one resist sexual objectification without resisting sexuality or objectifying others?

I have no answer. It is an open question. I only have an example of the way I failed to negotiate such a situation.

The Grabowskis (my one-time favorite sports team and subject of my research on pain & masculinity) had a habit of whistling at women. Guzman always suggested a nice round of applause was more respectful. I disagreed, but admitted this was preferable to the "hey single lady" sidewalk calls. In any event, often on the drive from JC to hobroken (yes, that's spelled as I intended) windows would be rolled down, and some nice young woman walking down Monmouth might get an acknowledgement, often in the form of a short double honk of the horn. Usually at that point I would get pissed off, and tell them to stop the car, I was going home, etc. But one day, on the drive back to JC, with a few beers in my belly, we passed two young men moving into an apartment near Hamilton Park. They had their shirts off and were lifting furniture. Being in the front seat, i leaned across JK and hit the horn twice. I waved out the window. The boys in the backseat cracked up and encouraged me. And we all had a good laugh.

And despite my laughter, I didn't feel totally ok about it. I did it to demonstrate a point to them, but I think it was probably lost. And I doubt the two men, being in a generally priveleged position were really offended or hurt. But I chose to make my point in a way that only served to reinforce their ideas. I played into the trope that sexuality is only expressible through the objectification of others. And this seems to be a widespread problem across culture, time, location, class, race, sexuality, etc. And with sexuality being such a wonderful thing, in general, why is it so hard to express without hurting others? damn.

volver a hablando sobre genero en nueva york

On Friday, after sushi, the first 2 rounds of flaming absinthe shots, and a couple swigs off the recession special, I ended up at a bar just off atlantic ave in blkyn. It was there that scamz & I met up with tits & curly. Curly is doing a reading of his play (screenplay?) there and was checking it out. scamz was describing my travel companion as Ricardo Montalbán and a discussion ensued in which he was contrasted with my previous new york travel companion. So, of course, the infamous greenwich village argument came up. along the recounting to tits and curly, tits mentioned he used to live with 2 trans guys. he had an interesting perspective on the situation, not so unlike scamz's original reaction. the 3 cisgendered men agreed that there is a physical anatomical difference between men and women. Trying to negotiate a space for discussion i didn't disagree (though i would have changed the wording to male and female rather than men and women, despite the fact that butler would shake her head and remind us all that male and female are just the names given to particular anatomy based on socially conceived difference). Tits suggested that you can't say gender is all in your mind, when there is something between your legs. I responded that while there are differences in genetalia (leaving aside the fact that ambiguous sex anatomy is far from rare), genetalia doesn't necessarily correspond to modes of expression and identity that make people comfortable or happy. This led back to a discussion of fluidity and the fact that many transpeople wish to be men, rather than just not-women (or vice versa-clearly indicating adherence to the binary). In fact, a number of scholars have been criticized for suggesting that transpeople are in some ways responsible for destroying our notions of gender, embracing fluidity, and pretty much problemetizing the current sex/gender system. But the truth is (and this is only in my experience-which is admittedly limited, but probably more extensive than the average experience) certainly not all, but most transpeople living in the North Atlantic do still abide by the society's ideas of what being a "man" or "woman" is. Leaving aside the complex ideas around the bodily parts conceptualized as being inherently gendered, most transgendered people, like most cisgendered people wear clothing, engage in activities and adopt techniques of the body (M. Mauss, "Techniques of the Body," Economy and Society 2(1973 [1934]):70-88) that generally fall within spectrums that are socially intelligible as gendered. That is the point at which I spoke up and pointed out the ways in which our associations between genetalia and its social meaning are totally arbitrary and in no way inherent. this seemed to sit well with the guys. At that point tits brought up the recent npr story about trans children

and this all brings up the strange notion of why we think of penises as men's etc. if we're denying the connection between that and being a man, why the surgery?

Bjork Puppet feels constrained by what's under her skirt