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February 23rd, 2006

09:25 pm - Hello LJ How ya been. It ain't rapped at ya in a while, and nows as good a time as any. So tomorrow I start my first day volunteering for the special collections department at UCL. I got a tour on Tuesday of the quite impressive collection and have agreed to do a few hours a week for a while, creating handlists of uncatalogued rare books and manuscripts, shelving, and various other anythings they can think up. I figure it is very good experience, in an academic library no less(something I am currently lacking), plus it is work with older special collections material that I hope to be doing in the future. Plus they told me they have just lost their shelver, so who knows what kind of things might just pop up if I stick with this. I had my first discussion with my tutor for my MA dissertation today. She is a slightly batty woman who teaches my Manuscript Studies class; her office was the most egregious display of blatant disregard for any principles of organization or order I have ever seen. Most abandoned buildings are safer to navigate than this office. Anyway, we talked about Old French (1200's) romances in manuscript form and what I could do in researching one. Actually, she wasn't a terribly huge amount of help. She just told me to go to the British library and have a look at some manuscripts and then get back to her with a slightly more narrowed focus. Which is probably what I needed to hear, but you know, I was hoping for a bit more. Then I went to a lecture on Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and the books he lost. It was alright, though one thing struck me as particularly odd. An italian politician, writing to Rome about Charles, mentioned that before he went to bed at night on the battlefield, he would have French versions of Roman histories read out loud, to which anyone was welcome, as a kind of inspiration to glory for the next day. I thought that was kind of interesting; that a king would allow himself to be part of something along with his common soldiers. As though the the reading out load in the vernacular (for soldiers who were probably illiterate) created a liminal space where hierarchies, a central notion in mediaeval thought, broke down. So i asked him about it; 'Oh, by everyone it was just referring to the king's inner circle.' Well shit! There goes that idea, but it also highlighted for me that the writer back them assumed that everyone referred to the king's inner circle, and so did everyone else tonight. It was best highlighted by the speaker's (the Curator of Western Manuscripts at the British Library) near closing line: While every manuscript is worthy of study as the physical result of a specific moment is history, some are more important than others. Some relate to bigger things, and they are what we are focusing on. Even if those common soldiers had left books that we could trace to them, it wouldn't be quite as important because they weren't included in the 'everybody' people are assuming. On a slightly better note, I was introduced to and talked at lenght with a woman who just retired as an Old French professor at the University of London. She is actually a friend of my Dissertation supervisor. She gave me lots of advice on what to avoid and told me I was being very general, but she gave me some pointers on places to look for information. She also told me to come talk to her when I have some more specific questions, so that is helpful. On a completely unrelated note, I was interviewed for a student journalism project last night. It was on freeganism ( a poor name, and really inaccuarte), or dumpster diving for food. I went to meet her and a woman that regularly dives because I had expressed interest in meeting people to go out and dive with on an email list. We walked through a fruit and veg market that was closing in Soho at the end of the day; the stalls were all closed and boxes lined the street. We poked around in a few and found about 25 plastic cartons of strawberries. Each carton had about 2 or three soft of squished strawberries in it, so we took a bunch. We than picked out the nasties and had ourselves about 4 full cartons of perfect, ripe, juicy strawberries. The package said they were from Egypt; the amount of money spent growing and transporting them, the gas used and pollution caused in them coming from thousands of mile away, the energy used for to refrigerate them in transit, and the people with nothing to eat that surround us in Soho, and all for them to be thrown out. That thought makes me feel queasy, more queasy than the thought of eating food that has been in a dumpster. After a quick rinse and scrub, they were delicious. A wonderful article on freegmanism was published in The Independent just a few days ago. Plus lots of other places. I think an american freegan is about to be on Mancow, for you Chicagoans. In general, I feel like I have my stuff together lately. A few low points here and there, but I feel full of energy and possibility. It feels quite good. Current Mood: energetic

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December 4th, 2005

06:06 pm - Finally, something comes to fruition So I spent last summer in Chicago helping a friend of mine write grant proposals for a hip-hop after-school program he runs. The last few years he has done it, including producing a cd with his students (he teaches Language arts at the same high school), having morning freestyle sessions, getting them into college radio stations for live performances, and more, but often at his own expanse. He gets some of thee money back when the students sell the cds, but the school is too broke to reimburse him or promise him any funding in the first place. Over the summer we basically did not alot enough time to really get our asses in gear and ended up only sending out one proper application. Well I just spoke to him today and he got the grant. From the Oppenheimer foundation, a grant specifically for Chicago Public schools that want to do extracurricular arts activities. I think it only amounts to $2000, but nonetheleess, it feels good that something I was independently doing has amounted to something. But more importantly, I'm glad that something is in motion for these students. The school has a 45% graduation rate, which in itself is skewed because that percentage is based on the number of students who make it to senior year...the number who start 9th grade and make to graduation is substantially lower. But most of the students who have been active in his program have been maintaining relatively good grades, and they are really excited about the program. He and I had hoped to really bolster the program into something more substantial. Bring in guest speakers to talk about writing poetry, about the music businesss and other work they can do in it besides just performing, maybe getting the kids writing music reviews so they can practice prose as well as verse. But, small steps. They can now afford a PA system to put on live performances and get put out a mix-cd that looks almost completely profesional. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Cat Power - You are free

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November 9th, 2005

09:25 pm - London Burning? Just yesterday, as I rode the 38 bus home after a few hours travelling back from Leamington Spa, the bus was stopped by the random patrols of ticket checkers and police that have bespotted the line since they switched to the new long busses. Needless to say, I hadn't paid for my fare, thinking they done trying to scare everyone into paying. As the inspectors walked through, i rummaged through my pockets. I found a single ticket from Saturday I had actually purchased from one of thee bus stand machines. I watched as a teenage boy, of a notably arab complexion walked off to the waiting police to face his fine of 20 quid. I handed the white inspector my ticket and smiled. She looked down for a long second, handed the ticket back to me, said thank you and walked to the next passenger. What luck, I thought to myself. As they continued through the bus, a single man was left, who had just boarded. They asked for his ticket, he slowly reached into his pocket, seeming to not even acknowledging the questions. They asked over and over, then asked him to get off the bus. He pulled out his travel card and showed them quickly. The middle aged, balding white Brit inspector now almost yelled for him to show it again. He held it out, then pulled it away. The inspector grabbed his hand. The pass was valid. The man, in a thick carribean accent, told the inspector he should quit picking on people. The inspector then told him it was a priviledge, not a right to be on the bus. several minutes of arguing, and the inspector asked for the whiote police officer to remove the man with the valid pass. I was furious, but too scared to do anything. I wanted to say something, but didn't want to bring down scrutiny on myself. My white skin let me slide through; my willingness to be docile because my white skin means I'm not harassed, checked and id'ed on a regular basis, helped me slip past; my luck was not luck. It was my place within a racist sytem. As so many people here in London shit-talk the French immigration system for not integrating enough of "them," and expound on the virtues of the English system, I grow quite angry. Everyone who I have heard say that, or something similar, has been...can you guess the answer...white. I wonder how long till the busses in London are burning, and white Brits are snapped out of their 'delusion of inclusion.' Current Mood: full

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November 8th, 2005

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November 5th, 2005

10:42 am - Post Colonial, yes, Post Oriental, maybe I started rereading Edward Said's "Orientalism" as I was coming home from the second night of my conference at UoL, and the two quotes at the beginning struck me as still so timely and true. The first was Karl Marx "They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented." and the second was Benjamin Disraeli "The East is a career." The two phrases seemed quite timely because I had just been to a panel on Publishing is West Africa in which five white people provided all the information. There was even a comment about a younger member being a "rising star" in the field, another was described as the authoritative critic on West African popular culture. The younger member, incidentally, had essentially produced a study of religious publishing in Ghana that will certainly be useful to contemporary western publishers looking for new markets to expand into. She finished up her talk with an attempt at neutrality, saying "Whether or not further religious publishing in English in Ghana, either by local printers or by western firms, is a good thing, is not something I have iscussed in this paper, but only the material conditions that currently exist." Knowledge, however, is never neutral. Who will use and exploit this info? Probably someone in or arond the Texas Baptist University where she studies. Current Mood: annoyed

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November 1st, 2005

09:14 pm - November...reminds me of...not much Turned in my first paper for Grad school today, and I must say...I have lost some serious skills. I remember writing about language games and the panopticon with with ease. Six hours to go and I'd type away non stop for five of them, make it to class with enough time for a coffee to keep myself awake for a few hours, and that was that. But writing about the prospect of a gloabl paperless information environment juist doesn't seem to inspire in me the same spark. Maybe i'm just out of practice, or just haven't been immersed in the field long enough to know how to extrapolate six paragraphs from a word yet. Either way, i'm glad it's done. And now it is smooth sailing for a little while. A conference this weekend on the History of Colonial and Post Colonial books, followed by reading week. Ah, student life is good. Current Mood: tired Current Music: The Blue Danube

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September 27th, 2005

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April 20th, 2005

10:16 pm - Good days Monday night I went to a meeting for a social centre recently opened in a building owned by UCL, my future educational institution. Only, the university doesn't want it open, but presently can't do anything about because the place is being squatted, mostly by university students. The school had left it vacant for several years after acquiring it; it used to be a counsel flat, which means it is reduced price housing that people can be on waiting lists for for years before they can get a place. The students thought it made the university just as much a part of the problem of scarcity and high prices in London. Someone could have been living in this place, yet it went unused for years. And now, they run a dirt cheap vegan organic cafe, sell equally cheap coffee, have parties, fundraisers, give free Arabic lessons, and where I am going to help set up a community darkroom. I'm excited because it means I'll have a place to play with pictures, a thing I desperately miss. But I'm also looking forward to talking about photos, sharing ideas, seeing other peoples work, and just generally putting lots of time into photography. But I also like the idea of the space. When the laws of capitalism (property gaining value and thus the University still benefitting from its disuse, the supply and demand of housing in London causing high prices) cause unnecessary waste, what better way to object to it than putting that waste to use. This empty flat now is full of life, people, interactions, communications. They held a zine symposium Saturday where tons of local independent people had a free space to share ideas, share books, share zines, share music. I'm going back tomorrow to meet the other photography people. Tuesday I went to the first meeting of a reading group I found out about through the internet. We met in a wine bar in Soho, one of London's pricier(sp?) hoods, and I was a little nervous about the other members. However, I ended up having a wonderful time. Besides talk about books, it eventually dissolved into a get-to-know-eachother that was very cool. Plus, we were all fairly drunk by the end of the night. Ten bottles of wine between ten of us is a good ratio, I'd say. It's a good mix of twentysomething people with very diverse tastes, from the goth librarian to the Iranian refugee with an MA in chemical engineering forced to work as an accountant because no one would hire him when he graduated in September of 2001. He told me that he had been offered jobs before 9-11 that were retracted afterwards. We are going to start of reading The Corrections, which I have already read, and Vernon God Little, which I am looking very forward to. Tomorrow I'm going to see The Olivia Tremor Control in a small venue right down my street. They haven;t toured in five years, and now when they decide to play three shows total for their entire tour, one of them happens to be right by me. Wonderful. Then Autolux is playing Friday night for 3 pounds. It couldn't get any better, unless of course I go to the William Shakespeare birthday parade and part in Stratford Saturday( which I won't, but oh imagine your envy of me if I were.) Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Nouvelle Vague

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April 15th, 2005

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April 6th, 2005

01:59 pm - Haircuts from Arkham Busy busy busy. So Giovanni finally took a stab at cutting my hair. He had promised he would make me look "psychopathic," and that he would love to cut my hair if he could just do whatever he wants. As a stylist, the chance to freely sculpt a scalp as he sees fit, not to another's specifications, is a joy. Well, he lived up to his word. When he had finished styling my hair, I agreed that psychopathic was certainly the term to use. Annabelle commented that it looks like I have a spikey yamakah of hair. I promise I will try real hard to get a picture of this sight online ofr everyone to see. While being psychoticized, I was able to talk to the new flatmate, David, who just moved in with the italians. The first time I met him, we discussed David Lynch, and he described his understanding of the film in a way that blew my mind. Then he told me about a short screenplay he had just written, which he gave me a copy of, and by which I was very interessted. He also turned me onto a very cool band, Blonde Redhead...amazing music. Needless to say we get along quite well. It is sad he is only sticking around a month. But, I have already started talking with him about that script. I have been thinking for a while that when I go back to Chicago for the summer, I would not mind making a short film, with the aid of some friends. So, we might collaborate on creating a shooting list, and developing some directorial ideas, and perhaps I can shoot his script this summer. Not that I need more to do this summer, but if Iplan ahead, I might just be able to get something done... This week is the first week I am back at Amnesty in a while. I had been working full time at the Medical Foundation. I really believe, after these five weeks, that I am just not built for 9-5, five days a week. I am a night owl, I like my quiet nights where I can be alone with my thoughts and books and pens. I never quite give in to the rational idea of going to bed early when I have to work early, because something manages to keep me awake and thinking. So getting back to Amnesty, much less stress, much more enjoyable work, going in late, staying late, I feel better already. Plus, I have finished the most recent batch of scholarship apps, and so that stress is over for a month, till the next batch is due. What is very exciting is that my boys Luke and Eric Waller are probably coming out to see me at the same time. It looks like, after several days of London with each of them, we three will head down to Montpellier, Southern France along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, then over to Turin, where the Italians next store are from, then up to Paris for a few days. Perhaps other places, perhaps not. Either way, it's something to look forward to, and I know it will be here before I even know it. Current Mood: mischievous Current Music: The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Survival Sickness

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March 23rd, 2005

12:18 pm Thursday night, St Patrick's Day, I went out with Lauen Koegler who was in London to pick up her mom at the airport later that night. We met at her friends flat, and when I showed up it turned out they had been drinking since noon, and they told me I had a lot of catching up tp do, so they bought me a bottle of whiskey. Not good whiskey. Baaaad Whiskey. The kind that does bad things to every imaginable fibre of your being. Needless to say, I drank quickly, but intelligently. Then to the bar for drinks and watching old drunkard men dance off beat to the singing of bad cover bands doing U2. Now, I was refusing to pay for the tube, but wanted to go along anyway, and was just drunk enough to not really care. And it worked. Despite tube officials standing right by the gates every time we walked in, they never noticed me slipping through the opened gates along with Lauren or her friend. We got off halfway there to catch a bus, on which Lauren's freind "lost her bearings" all over the floor. I felt bad for the driver who had to clean it. The bus was longer than we expected, and thus we were late in picking up Laurens mom and sister. Add to that a falling over drunk Ali (laurens Friend) and a not so sober Lauren, it was delelgated to me to courteosly handle Mrs Koegler. "No Mrs Koegler, she's fine." and similar comments the whole time. Then on the cab ride home, bearings were lost again, leaving my windbreaker (which I had borrowed to Ali as she had left the house in only a tshirt and it was growing colder by the minute) and jeans covered in...bearings. The cabbie was fairly pissed, and smooth talking and hard scrubbing convinced him not to charge the extra £50 cleaning charge. I caught the wrong bus home and had to walk, sans pukey jacket about a mile from where I got off. Exactly what I always hoped for from a St Patrick's Day. Friday I went up to Leamington Spa to see Ani DiFranco in a tiny little theatre. The opening act was this guy named Rory something or other, who was wonderful. He filled the whole room first with just a harmonica and the singing, then with his guitar and the stamping of his foot. He sang of travelling and sadness, of hardship and love. He sang a song of a Kurdish asylum seeker from Turkey he knew who threw himself out a window rather than get sent back home. It made me cry. It resonated with the story of a person I had heard at work earlier in the day. His songs were sweet and touching. It's a lovely feeling when music you've never heard before hits you so deeply, moves you, makes you remember why life is...well, whatever it is. Then Ani came on. It was the first time I have seen her and actually known most of the songs. It was nice. She was amazing, as she always is. I really am convinced she is perhaps the most accomplished poet of my generation, in the way Dylan was in his. The ability to shift and change and grow and become a completely different style of artist and yet retain a certain core of personal offering that finds its way into everything. She is an artist who I feel like I know so personally, not because her life is flashed onto every available inch of marketable space, or because she uses every opportunity to keep people interested in her, but because she offers up so much of herself in all of her work. Then I spent the weekend with Michelle, not doing much. I think I caught some kind of flu-thing from my flat mate as I was exhausted all weekend. We tried to go paddle boating in the local park, but never quite made it, though we did spend a few hours listening to the birds, watching the trees reach up to the clouds (or sometimes down towards the grass), and smoking too much on comfortable benches. We watched The Secretary, a wonderfully interesting movie about complex issues of submissive and dominant desires. It even found a way to make humorous very serious and difficult to discuss topics; I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a male director. Now, its work work work. Until the long weekend (unpaid, damnit) for the Easter holiday. Perhaps something will spring up. Just try to get over this illness that still hangs about. Current Mood: sick Current Music: Kings of Convenience- Riot on an Empty Street

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March 16th, 2005

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March 7th, 2005

01:25 pm About a week and a half ago, I was hanging out with Giovanni, Sylvia and Luca next door, just sitting around talking, nothing about in particular. Then at some point Sylvia pointed out that she thought I was shy. I started laughing. I can't think of a time when anybody called me shy. In fact, for the last 7 years of my life or so, I tend to think that most people would have categorically denied calling me shy. But Sylvia just looked at me, as did Gio and Luca; they all agreed that I was kind of shy. Now, perhaps it is just by comparison to people who answer the door in speedo's, talk, with anyone, about sex as openly as most people talk about music, and generally seem to not now the definition of the word shame. But, then I have also noticed changes in myself, and prerhaps they are just highlighting the point. I don't feel as extroverted as I once was. But I don't think that is a problem, in fact I really kind of like it. I have learned to somewhat enjoy my uncomfortability in some social situations. It gives me chance to sit back and watch situations, not just take part in them rabidly so as to destroy any feeling of anxiety. I like to sometimes have nothing to say. I like to not want to do things. I like this Sunday afternoon when I slept late, made coffee, wrote, read a book, and generally kept to myself. Perhaps I've been looking for shy for quite a while; and maybe I was always just to shy to believe it. That was then. This is also then. Just a more recent then. This past Thursday went to St George's, the squat church, for something called the void network. They are a group of Greeks who are travelling all over Europe giving three day presentations in squats and autonomous spaces. It includes music, art, movies, lectures, discussions, food, etc. I went thursday particularly to see the video Society of the Spectacle. It was directed by Guy Debord, a French philosopher who was very inspirational to the 68 student uprising in Paris. His writings and those of the othe "Situationalists International," as they called themselves, are a huge underpinning of much contemporary anarchist and activist movements. They critiqued the mass production of culture, but sought to reclaim cultural space not through traditional means of protest like marches or sit ins, but instead by disrupting the symbols and imagery of power. For example. One day in Notre Dame, one of the Situationalists dressed up as a monk, ascended to the altar, and began to speak as though he were giving mass. But what he said was "Verily, I say unto thee, it is the truth that God is Dead." He was then nearly stabbed to death by religious "protectionists." So, the film was Debord reading his book over images of war, sexualization of women, pop-culture, riots, and various other images. In earnest, it was too much to take in, trying to watch and read the sub-titles. This is the price I pay for my french being so poor. I went back Friday because they were showing The Weather Underground, a film about The Weathermen. They were an anti-war group in the 60's, based much in Chicago, that ended up becoming incredibly violent. They began bombing buildings, courthouses, and the like to protest the war or other, more domestic issues. Watching it, I couldn't hrlp but think of my mother, an active revolutionary in the 70's. I know she was in a similar crowd to all of these people, she has told me stories of what it was like. Lot's of her friends personally knew the people the film focused on. It really made me think about my mom's influence on me, on the fact that I am where I am right now in my life, have the interests I do, and it made me really happy. But I also remembered the stories she told me about the negative effects of her involvement. How when things fell apart in the organization she had given so much of her time to, there was nothing left. People in the group discouraging her from going to University to instead focus on campaigning. I've learned from my mom the point to not get so swept up in the REVOLUTION, so as to let yourself diappear inside it. I watched the film, and the dialogues after it, and the whole event with a certain critical distance. Not enough to push me outside of the circle of people I was among, but just enough to remind myself it was always me there, not some nameless particle driving forward the wave of some better future. While there I ran into a few adbusters people I knew, and it was so nice to sit around talking to them. They remembered me and asked where I had been. It felt friendly and welcoming. I told them, in earnest (openness based on my indulging too quickly in a bottle of cheap wine), I had been nervous about coming back because I didn't have any great ideas to present. They all laughed a laugh of reconition. A few even told me they too were nervous and anxious and self-conscious about activism and talking and proposing ideas. But thats part of what we are helping each other over, Martin from Norway said. It made sense, and a bit of anxiety disappeared for good, or so it feels. Current Mood: working Current Music: Tahiti 80(don't bother, it not very good)

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March 4th, 2005

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March 3rd, 2005

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February 20th, 2005

10:53 am - Surrounded by people, but quiet I woke up at 7:30 Saturday morning to head out to the Bluewater shopping Centre, the London Area's, and I think the UK's, biggest mall. The train ride out, between editing a paper about a 17th century british woman whom god spoke through (I just kept thinking of Dennis Hopper, "God didn't do that, man, you did" It is dennis hopper I am thinking of, right, because actually I really only recall my friends imitating that scene from the film, it is from a film, right?) and staring lovingly at the clouds I wishing I could disappear into them, I noticed the wonderful outskirts of London, full of garbage dumps, billowing smokestacks that allowed their stench to seep even into the trains closed doors. Nothing unusual, just the downside I don't usually see to this metropolis that keeps my gaze so firmly fixed. Arriving at the mall, I literally became lost looking for the Amnesty booth. I tried to follow the map, but it was too complicated. I think it is just a wonderful technique of directional sabotage to keep people walking through the branded paradise for longer. So finally finding the booth, two colleagues were there already, we talked, they told me about good and bad reactions they had gotten already since they had been there. The four one-minute videos we were trying to get men to watch each showed a different person talking about a situation that was obviously domestic violence, but the speaker was unaware of it. We lured in the men without telling them what it was about, only that we were screening one minute shorts, though suggestive messages were written on the side of the booth, "REAL LOVE. four short films. 18's and over only." In all I talked to about 15 guys, and a few women who were with a man. One, maybe 18, said he thought it was funny, like a porno. I wasn't sure how to respond. Another guy, first thing, joked that he liked a good punch-up now and then, but then turned out to be the most seriously interested in what we had to say. The entire day was bizarre for several reasons. 1st, that was the first time I have been into a mall in quite a while, many months for sure. I tend to avoid them like the plague, but I found myself stuck inside one spot in one for several hours. Secondly, this mall, being both a suburban mall and having expansive areas to just hang out, was filled to the brim with mallrats. But Brit mallrats are quite...different from American ones. I have had several Brit's explain to me the phenomena of Townies and Chavs, and I don't quite think I understood it till this mall experience. Swarms of teenage boys in hoodies, rolled up to the shins track-suit pants, wonky teeth, and impossibly ugly false gold jewelry (did I mention they tend to dress in the same outfit, yeah, FUCKING WIERD). Women with these foot warmers covering their entire shoe and going halfway to their knees made out of faux-fur, and huge hoop earings that flop about, bouncing off their helmet of pulled-back-so-tight-their-eyebrows-lift hair. Third, about twenty feet from where we st up, a mall fashion show was converging on a small stage. Loud music and women, weighing next to nothing, prancing about in next-to-nothing, was a wonderful complement to our message at the amnesty booth. Hundreds of people came over to consume the spectacle, and we used it as a chance for "greater visibility." Myself and another colleague walked through the thronging crowd passing out bright pink postcards, pretending to be part of the fasion show team. The words "Real Love" were written across the front, and stats on UK domstic violence on the back. As long as we were going to be upstaged, we might as well use the crowd to our own advantage. I spent the night at Make love, not War party just around the corner from my flat. The building is an old church that had been in dis-use for several years, until a group of people decided to squat, and turn it into a community arts center. Inside, a huge theatre modeled after the Globe thatre, occupies what must have been the chapel. It is designed for theatre in the round, the stage going all the way to the double doors exiting at the opposite of stage center. A band was on stage playing acoustic music with a white woman called Angel rapping in the heaviest jamaican accent, while seemingly random people played even more radom instruments. People were camped all over the floor, smoking spliffs, drinking shitty bottles of wine, and generally ignoring the band. I saw lots of people I had seen a few other places, Adbusters or G8 meetings, etc. I walked around the rest of the place, interested in the art all over, the political posters and adverts for upcoming events, including a screening of Guy Debord's movie version of Society of the Spectacle. I was interested and happy; a mix of old London hippies who hadn't cut their dreads in fourty years to he young activists to parents with their face-painted strangely young children in overalls and dirty striped red/green shirts. But despite all of the people, I left pretty early. I didn't really know anyone, and everyone else seemingly did. I felt alone even with all of the people there with whom I probably shared many things in common. I walked home, happy to have been there, and excited to go back, but still feeling the weight of becoming a part of a new place. Current Mood: lazy Current Music: Billy bragg & wilco - Mermaid Ave V.2 (Woody Guthrie covers)

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February 8th, 2005

12:58 pm - Last Tues-Thurs flew by I started off tuedsay at Ai, just the usual, but went later that night to a talk at the LSE about The existence of a European community. I was meeting my friend Sunmi and a friend from Paris, Agnes, actually from Budapest, who is now living in Lonodn as well. We met, went to the talk, and all agreed it was incredibly boring. This german sociologist, between making self-referencially ironic comments about his referencing of Max Weber all the time, talked basically about why sociological methodology needed to change along with the "reflexive modernity" that the world is now supposed to be in. While all of the the cool buzzwords were present: transnationality, hybridization, erosion of nationalistic borders, and "the production of poverty as a success of modernity;" it lacked any kind of application to anything but methodological concerns...booooo-ring. So, we three, each involved in our own form of tans-nationalization and territory erosion, decided to celebrate our victory over boredom in a truly cosmopolitan way: we got very drunk. Again, free red wine was poured and poured in glasses that drained too quickly. I ended up striking up a conversation with the wine server, a canadian here in London working on independent film projects, and thus having to self subsidize with silver-service work for fancy academe's like myself. I must say, though, she was quite excellent at her job, as my glass never quite did become empty. Leaving last of all of the, ahem, patrons, we headed home. I decided to revive an old custom from my youth called the drunk-and-dial. The ensuing conversation found me promising to hop a train to the middle of England the next day to see a mysterious Lady M. I slept like a lion, fitfully. So work the next day, and all day thinking how bad of an idea it was to make the promise i did. What cost, what terrible inconvenience...but a promise nonetheless, even if a drunken one. So, I hopped the train, hid in the tiolet as the conducter came through, because though I had a ticket, it wasn't exactly proper. Though when he came through again, I was forced to show it to him, and he just said ok. I spent the night in Leamington spa, and it was quite pleasant. Talking and talking, joking about James Joyce's drunkeb falls and Nora's horticultural expertise (thoroughly encouraged by James), and an argument between an anarchist and a socialist. I couldn't have been happier. Next morning, back to London, to make, just slightly late for training with Amnesty's UK division (I work for the International division) about their Stop Violence Against Women campaign, which is going to take me to the county of Kent next weekend for a day of showing short videos to men and asking their opinion.. Several hours, and many conversations later, I finally got home, and slept again, well. Current Mood: I just love this word Current Music: Teach Yourself Italian- CD 1

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February 6th, 2005

02:42 pm - My brains the cliff and my hearts the bitter buffalo Last Friday (it was still January) was a wild day, in total. It started out with work at the Medical Foundation, I got to sit in on what is called the Asylum Team meeting. Myself, a counselor, a lawyer, and a doctor sat around reading the case files of people tring to claim asylum in the uk. After going through a few individually, we discussed the statements from the person seeking asylum, from the counselor who interviewed them, plus lawyers statements and so on. For me, while I had looked breifly into a few files whilst processing them, I had never sat down and actually read everything inside. The stories these people told, the brutal hell of torture, rape, ethnic persecution, or the inability to stop any of these things happening to their loved ones, was everywhere. I read slow, trying not to be sick. I was only reading these four, I can't imagine the counsellors and doctors who deal with asylum seekers every day. My three colleagues were light in manner, joking even at points. I didn't hold it against any of them. They take on the gravity of this situation as their lives work. They didn't joke about the suffereing, just about people trying to claim asylum without any evidence or with stories where the dates don't match up. Still, I found it unsettling. All of the people are trying to get away from something. Whether it be political opression from their government, or economic opression of other governments, or some collusion of the two. But, I also understand that those problems are beyond the remit of the place where I work. We help people who have been tortured to get asylum. Trying to help everyone, clogging our offices with thousands of files, would effectively make us ineffective. It's chaos as it is dealing with 100 plus new asylum seekers a month, as opposed to the several hundreds of requests we get. Anyway...it was atough day at work. Words stuck to the inside of my head; thankfully no images went with them. I left work heading home. I had plans to meet Michelle at the National Portrait Gallery later that night. She was in London for a conference, and wanted to stick around for Saturday, so she asked if she could crash at the flat. I would be the first time we'd seen each other in months. I was a mix of nervous and excited. Unsure what I hoped this hanging out would be like. Further, no matter what I hoped it would be, what it would really be, hung as a heavier question. My stomach turned slightly on the bus ride over, my digestive ability have hit the slumps in the previous few days, no doubt in anticipation. I tried to read, but the same sentence, over and over, with no comprehansion resulting, was infuriating. I tried to write, but busses shake worse than vervous hands. Getting the the NPG, I noticed I had once again drastically underestimated the number of entrances a building can have. Going back and forth from one entrance to another, till finally I saw her standing in the lobby, asking the the guards if they'd seen someone who looked like me. My first reaction seeing her was "Is she wearing lipstick?" Her lips were bright red, made moreso by the contrast to her teeth showed from a smile that never went away, through laughter that didn't cease, around words that just kept flowing. . As we rode the bus, she kept laughing loudly, telling all of these stories that she thought were crazy or wild or deserving of sarcastic scrutiny. She pulled treasure after treasure from her bag to show me, or to relate an incident to me. I was put off. I wondered who this person was that couldn't quite sit still, or enjoy a moment of silence, or seem to relax at all. Then I realized, she was drunk. Very drunk. Her conference got out early, and she spent the time with two friends pulling bottles of wine like cups of coffee. And later, as she sobered, and we talked, I realized she was nervous too. I was good to talk to someone who understands me; rather to see the eyes of someone who understands me so they can tell me that my eyes don't waver as I speak. For all of the cool things, cool people, wild times, and unforgettable experiences I have had in this trip so far, I still think nothing quite compares to sitting down with someone I haven't seen for far too long and just talking about ourselves. And for all of the self confidence I have built, the surety of mind and hope for the future, it always feels incredible and invigorating to have a friend tell you you're doing well, and read in her eyes that she means it. Current Mood: hungry Current Music: Louis Prima - Buonasera signorina

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February 3rd, 2005

05:38 pm - Best of all possible words I hate having to make long updates after a week or so without posting. I always know i am leaving far too much out, and never quite get in everything I want to. But, enough of that. Two sundays ago, the night just post my last post, went to the first meeting of the publicity group for G8. We talked about quite a bit, but decided on nothing. We decided to meet in another couple of weeks to sit down with ideas so we would have something to propose at the next big meeting. Next day, went to a meeting for Adbusters UK. Not afilliated with the mag, but certainly inspired by it. A group of us sat in a squat in whitechapel, a particularly dodgy bit o' London, freezing a bit (as squats tend to be heat-free, something that has to be taken along with the whole rent-free part) but talking loads, and feeling my insides warm up. The first hour and a half was meant to be devoted to theory about culturejamming, adbusting, and what in general our point in being there was. It started off with a simple statement from one interesting bloke. "I feel like activism is dead, in that it no longer has the power to change the world." Odd, coming at the start of a meeting where we all gathered in hopes of really making some change in this city we all inhabit. It sparked talk, discussion, dispute, rambling, precise poiints reconfirming what each other were saying, but it can be boiled down to a couple things. Old activism is dead; the idea that the way to effect change is by begging the government to protect its citizens and the citizens of the world from harm via mass protest, letter writing, wearing armbands and the like, no longer works. A different approach to activism is necessary. The direction of activism needs to change. Turning our backs on political leaders to talk to the people around us, the people in everyday life, in our communities. Change the direction of our efforts. Further, instead of just naysaying and offering critiques, conversations with people provide the chance for real dialogue, real interaction, and offerings of joy, possibilities that no individual could contemplate all of, and affimations in activism. The end of the night involved a short demonstration of the ease of setting up a pirate radio station, or pirate transmitter, and the revelation that hundreds of pirate stations abound in London town, and other things I won't talk about here. It felt incredible, riding the bus home, having met so many other people who took on a view of the present as myself. Further, as happy as I am to be working with amnesty and the job I have helping people get asylum here in the UK, I was even happier to start getting a sense of what it exactly means to begin local orgaizing. To dream of a different style of politics is wonderful, but to begin to enact that is another thing entirely. The most wonderful things are always the hardest. They require time to unfold, balance and care, a willingness to dive into complexity, get lost if necessary, but remain pushing forward nonetheless; even when everything seems uncertain, somehow finding a will to push on is possibly the hardest obstacle I have ever faced in my life; buts its rewards are subtle and mesmerizing. For now, tis all. I'm still about a week behind, but to it I will get. I just need to think a little more before I write. Current Mood: tired Current Music: a particularly sordid watering hole- Azure Ray-

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January 24th, 2005

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