shadowOFAculture

Dear Mike, Sonal and Peter

2010-10-29T16:11:00.001-07:00

Where did we go?

Love,
Anne

Fight

2007-11-16T23:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Annie, Mike, and Peter,
I have edited this entry, which I wrote on a night when I opted to ascribe thought and meaning to my life in a way that I've largely refused to do during the last few years. Please excuse the apparent narcissism in this entry; I hope I'm speaking in response to our conversation. Forgive me if parts are repetitive:

In my youth I experienced constant and unyielding suicidal thoughts, and I grew accustomed to my desire to kill myself. The exercise of creatively imagining death as my companion grew seductive, then habitual. In the concept of death, I finally felt like I had found a constant, a companion. In one short piece, I shoot myself in the face and surreally survive. Then I stare at myself in a mirror, pondering the aesthetic of blood on my skull and hair, the beauty of the external finally mirroring my troubled internal self--symmetry.

Yesterday, I experienced a quasi-opposite occurrence. I was wasted on several strong margaritas, and in the process of giving my margarita-making friend a critique on the beginning of his novel. The words soared up and down as I attempted to read them, like an elusive but grand predator bird on the white sky of my computer screen. Suddenly, I felt his hand caressing the nape of my neck, then gently twirling my hair. I froze. I felt no attraction to this friend, but the touch was soothing, and I didn't want him to stop. As my fiance's eyes settled on his hand, my drunk friend abruptly removed it from the environs of my visage. Five minutes later he threw up.

My fiance asked me what happened, and why I didn't really react when my friend placed his hand on my neck. I replied that I had been taken completely aback by my (or so I thought) entirely platonic friend's move. Then I admitted that while I felt no physical attraction or chemistry to the friend, the touch felt good, felt needed. To me, it felt like a nurturing touch, even if my friend had ascribed another meaning to it.

Today I discovered that I didn't pass the New York bar. The news didn't surprise me.
A friend who is like a sister encouraged me to fight the law firm that fired me this summer on false pretenses two weeks before I was to sit for the bar exam. She said that all this not fighting, this avoiding conflict, that I'm engaged in has to be wearing on my self-esteem--my sense that I can win. Before the bar exam, my youngest brother said, "You know, you don't have to fail the bar exam to tell everyone that you don't want to be a lawyer. You can pass the bar exam and then do whatever you want to do."

Tonight I stood before my bathroom mirror as I started to disrobe. In the dim light, I stared--I dare say I even ogled myself. I had forgotten how much I adore my own physical beauty. My flawless skin with its beautiful light bronze, almost golden, hue. My deep eyes, cocoa and amber thrown together intelligently. My nose that proclaims with its longness and bigness an obviously non-aryan ethnicity, and complicates my face in a Penelope Cruz sort of way, as one ex-lover has described it. My lips are delicate, mauve, a small flower smirking, pondering. My shiny, dark hair, a bouquet of colors under sunlight that falls perfectly around my face and on my shoulders, like dark rivers dropped. My petite body with its model-like proportions in a seriously miniature package. I reflect (no pun intended) on the fact that I would alter almost nothing. Seriously, arriving at this stage of self-love and narcissism took much time and mental effort. It's actually quite an accomplishment, especially given the external self-hate I often felt as a teenager. Tonight I felt a tug of impatience as I smiled at my beautiful self. "You must accomplish," I instructed, "before you lose your beauty. Marketing, Sonal--your picture on the back of your book will take you very far." I have grown into my own toxic and adoring parent now.

At some point, I lost my love of fight. I lost any desire to fight anything or anyone. I absolutely despise fighting. I was tired. On some subconscious level, I believed that I have lost every fight from its inception, so why even bother, why tire myself out in the process? I'm constantly terrified of losing, so I just choose to lose. There are no games anymore--everything feels ridiculously high-stakes, and I have a habit now of opting out, and then back in, when it's already too late--after much self-sabotage. Tonight I have decided again that so many times when I've claimed that I've care about the fight but have just detached myself from the results (as Krishna advises Arjun to do int he Mahabharata), I've realized that I've been completely lying to myself. I have been detached throughout, which means that I'm not fighting at all. I'm lying there as if I'm already dead and waiting to be run over, or screwed over, or lost. If I continue this way of life, I will give away everything that I love about myself. This is the change I need to make immediately. Physical beauty without mental feist will not satisfy me at all. I desire my hunger back, and am trying to awaken her with kisses and arguments.

I'm taking the GRE in December and applying to grad schools in Anthropology. I'm also going to retake the bar exam in February, and have already begun to envision myself beating it senseless (truth be told from the mouth of this nerdette, I've begun to visualize outlines and vastly organized colored notecards). It's going to be a few rough months of tests, applications, and then additional tests and applications. They are not just means to certain ends, but the good fight that I have to remember I owe myself in order to bring my inner self to equilibrium with the beautiful woman I gloriously objectified tonight.

late advice

2007-10-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Of course I'm not alone in saying that there are ups and downs to everything. I think that this is the main reason that our parents always tried to remind us that we should "never put all of our eggs in one basket." Being up on one thing usually means being down on another and it's only through our liberal use of narrowed focus (or ignorance, depending on how you look at it) that we are uniformly one or the other.

Some of the things that you were saying about Burning Man mirror my thoughts about graduate school. Like anything we're feeling up about, there isn't perfection, there are always bureaucracy and controversies, and nothing is always 100% memorable.

I would also not be the first to say that utopia and perfection are never instantiated fully and cannot really exist per se, since doing so would ruin them as ideals to strive for, goals to move toward.

Certainly our thoughts change, as do our bodies, as both age. This is, truly, the way of things, and these changes can often be in our ideals, as our values can change over time. It's not the same world from generation to generation, and it's not the same world from decade to decade. The experience of the changes of the world over time can and ought to influence our ideals, therefore, we should expect and even hope that our ideals will change.

This is difficult because it means that I cannot know now what it is that I will want to be chasing in ten years. It is difficult. But the experience of change should yield an understanding of the nature of change and, therefore, more foresight (we hope). Many in our parents' generation are quite well aware of their mistakes. We should hope to be so well aware of ours when we reach their age.

I sense in a lot of people in our generation a hesitancy to choose a path because of a hyper-awareness of options and power in changing one's own life. We must, however, choose something because the alternative is paralysis. Change is terrifying, however, the specter of stasis is more so. Unfortunately, it is only noticeable how scary stasis is when change provides a stark juxtaposition.

I miss you too. Midterms are over now, so I will have more time to talk when you call.

xoxo,
mike

mike!

2007-09-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

mike,

you sound so happy. so energized. even in your fucking text messages you seemed alive (all those exclamation points!!!!) I'd like to take advantage of your state and ask you some questions regarding your last post and some things on my mind.

is change really always good? what if I wake up one day and find that despite my commitment to growth, I have grown into something despicable? what if I become one of Les Grandes Personnes? what if I so accustom myself to change that I cannot settle in and enjoy the depths of mastery? and if there's a line, what does it look like? where do I find it? how do I find it?

and then there's the goldfish, who either jumped out of the water onto the floor and suffocated, or jumped out into the air and then fell back into the water. can we actually ever change? it seems the older I get the more I realize that I don't change that much. it's mostly my willingness and/or ability to express myself that changes. what is fresh and exciting after 28 years might not be after 35 or 42 or (oh god) 82 years. will the eccentricities slowly institutionalize themselves in my character and become impediments to deepening knowledge of self?

please advise. (missing you)
anne.

burning

2007-09-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

hey loves,

there are not words to tell you what i have experienced in the last two months. maybe it was my first taste of human potential realized? maybe it was the reek of failure? maybe the feeling of dust that doesn't wash off, of faces breaking into square pixels before my eyes, or willie nelson cooing from inside silver scales piled 25 feet high and meandering down a dirty road, or the smell of beer baked by the sun into hundreds of thousands of hard wood panels spanning 11,000 miles? incidentally, i'm experiencing something like culture shock sitting here at work.

i can't even talk about the tour right now. after a week of hibernation, i went to burning man and had my mind blown out the back of my head. if you haven't experienced it - and i know none of you have - it is impossible to to describe. at least one of you would hate at least part of it. it's a week of not showering, and being covered in playa dust (a playa is an ancient lake bed that is completely dry now, on which absolutely nothing grows or lives). it is also a week of radical self-acceptance, of giving for the sake of giving, of extraordinary works of art and artistry, of relaxing into an effortless flow of time. for me it also meant a whole lot of experimenting, wandering, touching, feeling, retreating from thought, crying and more smiling than even i have ever done in one week.

at one point i was riding my bike on the playa and a little voice popped up in my head saying "start thinking, start digging, there's got to be some struggle, some conflict, something you're doing wrong that you have to right." but there wasn't. i had peace in my mind, and it wasn't because i was ignoring anything, it wasn't because i was intoxicated. i was just peaceful. happy even. it felt so foreign and yet so sweet.

the purpose of this blog is to describe the peculiar state of exile we are all in. it's different for each of us. at burning man i felt involved in human kind. i also felt a palpable absence of something i can't name - a face, a numbness, a stranger, maybe my own limits? i felt like burning man was a refugee camp at the edge of imagination. except that we had all willingly travelled there - we were not longing for a distant homeland, this was our home. maybe that's it. coming home, i long for that place. not the hot sun and pervasive dust, but the place where my absolute self is free to play on its own schedule and where what i give and what i take cannot be quantified on a value scale.

it wasn't perfect. and to be honest, there are whole days i hardly remember, having hardly slept all week. and it's got its own bureaucracy and controversies; it's an imperfect species' attempt at creating a perfect utopia. it is limited by the fact that we have come so far down the road of hatred, greed, loneliness and suspicion that we forget that we are not bound by them or to them.

it seems futile to try to describe this all from the peculiar state i am in - strungout, tired, sad to be back to a path i am ready to passing beyond, and simultaneously eager to do whatever i am doing right now as best as i can. futile. but everything is futile really. so that's no excuse.

i miss you all, oh and Sonal, i can't believe you're getting married. i carried you and Chirag in my heart all week, to bless and protect you on the road ahead. i love you dearly.

love, anne.

In pursuit of astonishment

2007-09-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Disparate Comrades,

"nowadays we are on a course of steady desensitization"

I've been very happy recently. So happy, actually, that I've not even noticed that my mood has changed. (Here I pause to affirm the fact that happiness is not the same as elation and the two should never be construed.) Right now--and I might still be reeling from all this--everything is simply new, different, and uncertain. The specific reason for this is that I've just quit my job and started graduate school full time. I have no paycheck and am totally uncertain how I will pay next month's rent. Nevertheless, I am meeting new people and having totally different experiences and I've already gained the following bit of perspective that I feel I really want to share with you.

You will notice that you feel really good about yourself when you have the emotional time to feel really good about someone else. Now that I'm not mopping up my own self-inflicted grief inside, I have time to say this: I have two friends who just started teaching today. I was so glad to hear that they were embarking on something today. I was happy for them that they had started something new. And part of it was because I was too, but it really would be different if all my friends were miserable right now. I want very much that my friends are happy.

I was also very happy to have all of you in one room (bar) not long ago. It was important that we all met together once. I think it's still important to meet in person, even if we are scattered here and there by chance and this country being absolutely enormous.

My sister has a little niece, who's a neat little lady. I'm super glad that she'll grow up with good parents. I don't think I said that last I was visiting.

Anyway, people are really awesome. And people from everywhere are awesome. And I wish that more people really understood that.

The second thing is about learning. In order to learn well, you have to be engaged in what you're learning. If you aren't engaged, you won't put energy into learning and you will, of course, not learn much or only what you have to learn. That's much worse than making a mistake and no way to learn anything at all. In order to be engaged, however, you must have some sort of reaction. It doesn't have to be a positive reaction: you could learn from frustration and being challenged. It's a bit of a chore that way, but it can lead to serious motivation. It could be excitement, or a more visceral reaction, a physical reaction. It feels good to learn this thing. It feels good to exercise this part of my mind, or my being. But it's not easy to be in a state like this--it's easier to be sarcastic and bitter, to turn your nose up because you already know that, to show off or develop a parallel agenda. Sometimes it takes nothing short of astonishment to snap out of that way of being. I've noticed this kind of process has taken place recently, making me suddenly realize how I've been for so long. It's like, Anne, when Naeem talked about that one moment when the goldfish jumps up into the air and realizes that she's been in the water all this time. So, I've promised to let myself be astonished as often as possible. (This one has great side effects.)

The last one I kind of already mentioned--in fact it's been a thread all the way through this. Change is essential for growth. Everything mentioned above is predicated on change. Every change is like a miniature version of the goldfish scenario. The Goldfish Principle states that "You can't fully understand where you are until you're somewhere else." There are many layers of meaning to this, which layers require more space and time than is currently available to explain. Suffice it to say here that, along any semantic trajectory you may chose on or through said layers of meaning, the concept is that it is simply not possible to give full context to your present position while you occupy it (whether or not it's possible to give full context at all is debatable, but irrelevant). You must change in order for context to be lent to your previous position. This gives rise to such poetic paradoxes as "you don't know yourself until you change" and is related to "you can't listen if you're talking (or thinking about what to say)."

I won't get into all the ways you can change your routine without throwing in the towel, I'm assuming we're above a pep-talk here. These are still things worth consideration and serious questions like, "what makes me happy for my friends?" and "when was the last time I was astonished by something?" If the answers to those sorts of questions yield little, CHANGE SOMETHING. It could be anything; talk to someone new, start playing the tuba, whatever.

This is probably my first really positive post, but I hope it won't be my last. There's tons to be concerned about, but we shouldn't forget this kind of stuff. I wish for all of you the following things: good sleep, laughs, and lovely dreams.

Mike

We're All Going to....?

2007-08-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

Hello All,
On the walk to the bus after work today, I found myself thinking a cynical thought about humanity. I had just witnessed two cars in the parking lot of an outlet store, with women inside talking to each other while the cars were running (I can only assume for the AC). In my head I remarked about the total lack of conscientiousness that must take. "They are goin to hell for that shit." Then I said to myself "Oh God, I'M goin straight to hell for that one." Then suddenly it dawned on me, that I wasn't cause I don't believe in that and it was awfully preposterous of me to say that.

So this got me thinking. I kind of do believe in it. Maybe hell is not so much a place in a metaphysical sense (such as a place you eventually go TO, far removed from this reality). Maybe hell is in fact a temporal phase of what we already know. Meaning that our world will one day become hell, instead of our souls going TO hell once our bodies die. The phrase "We're all going to hell" is semantically a construct of the religious assessment of this eventual environment. An archaic concept created by people to punish that which they fear most, the "sins" of humans. An idea they could imagine and had seen signs of in their world, but which had to exist on a grand scale to punish. And since they couldn't fathom a truly Globalized world, they put into another dimension.

Hell is the idea that we're all going to suffer that which we fear most unless we are good. And if THAT is the case, then Hell isn't a place we're GOING to in the next life. Hell is instead a phase of the earth. A phase we can now imagine quite easily given how much smaller the world is to us these days. A phase we can avoid if we can somehow reverse the current trend we are on (wasteful, globally detrimental living, ie. sinning). The religious idea is well intentioned then; to avoid the disgraceful way we are destroying the very environment WE depend on for our stability. Theologians or religionists were focused on the morality of humans collapsing, and that that would cause our undoing. But who is to say in a modern world where we have learned so much else about our universe and ourselves, that morality doesn't include destruction of ourselves over the long term by eliminating our environment. If there is a god, he/she/it don't need this environment. Nobody else but US needs it. Cockroaches, rats, jellfyish, and various and sundry parasites are just licking their lips waiting for us to expire. The religious concept of Hell encapsulated the views that it saw as creating a hell-ish form of humanity. So the concept then just needs a little 21st century updating. In this the phrase ought to be changed to "We're all headed towards the hell." If we keep up as we are, we'll all experience the hell in one of four forms: burning, through the drying out of lands once arable and usable, drowning, through the flooding of lands once dry-er, starving as a result of both those things, or through violence, again brought on by the challenges of all those previously mentioned. Sounds a bit like the Pitchforky depths dudn't it.

A bit morbid, maybe, but I think that since nowadays we are on a course of steady desensitization to just about everything else, we need to wake up, grow up, accept that we are shredding the very bed we sleep in, and start avoiding the hell.

Come on Kids! Dive right in!

Driving Me Crazy

2007-07-27T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hi There,
As Anne so eloquently and succinctly put it last night, it is great to finally put a face (or three) to the words. Personally, I find that lack of social stimulation makes Jack (or Peter, as it were) a very dull boy. Meeting you all in one place was, for lack of a better, more appropriate and energetic word, enriching.

One of the most puzzling and yet probably universal ties of the modern world is the commute to work. No matter what walk of life people come from, it seems no society with any degree of modern commerce can avoid having its members (or as Sonal appropriately said, Lemmings) commute. For the last year, that commute for me has been changed drastically. I underwent a shift from driving on highways and busy freeways to taking trains and buses. The luxury that came with having one's own car and the freedom to come and go as one pleases was easily offset by the lack of stress due to actually fearing for one's life. In addition, I get to read all the time and admire pretty faces (note: I'm not a letch or pervert, just human and I like beauty). And while being forced to take public transit was a bit jarring at first, I grew to like it and really appreciate the fact that in the New York Metro area, we are blessed to have such a fluid public transit system. In a car-based society like ours, there isn't much you can accomplish or get to without one. It also made me realize just how blessed, lucky, and privileged I am to not suffer any maladies that would interfere with the utilization of the sticks under my hips.

Last week, however, I went to see my folks to surprise my mother for her birthday and borrowed my father's truck to run some errands down here. For the last week I have been driving to work again, just for the convenience. And I found instantly that I miss my train and bus rides. I can't read, for fear of meeting my own unfortunate demise. The only face to look at is my own in the mirror, and I see that more than enough while I shave in the morning. Most of all though, I have to deal with the other folks on the road and the almost instantaneous frustration that comes with avoiding the other steel chambers of death on the roadway. I have to constantly unclench my hands from the wheel and remind myself to loosen up all over. I think it's probably the closest we'll ever get to being like squirrels or chipmunks in human society: the state of utter, high anxiety and fear of death at any moment that keeps us on the utmost edge and spastically tense. It's kinda stupid. I was raised Roman Catholic and periodically this really honest and refreshingly brash priest would serve mass at our church. One of the things he always used to say, in his own version of the liturgy, was the phrase "and deliver us, from USELESS, anxiety." The commute my friends, that's useless anxiety. It makes nastier animals out of us. But, it is unfortunately necessary, so find the best one you can. I look forward to two weeks from now and hopping back on the train.

And for Anne and Sonal, here's my email address if ya wanna reach out in other ways: holden.peter@gmail.com

-Peter

The Teacher and the Student

2007-06-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Anne,
Let me first say, no, I am not offended by your commentary. I prefer discourse that stirs the passions and challenges what I say, over simple agreement or disagreement. In addition, I recognize more as I hear from each of you that I have a good deal to learn about the intensity that is my emotional persona, as well as the many and varied travails of depression. I myself have just begun the process of dealing with it and how it affects me. I'm no stranger to it, as now that I know it well enough and know most of its ins and outs for me, I recognize it's been with me farther back than I can remember. Not the least of which is the lesson that it IS an everyday occurrence and something that has no simple solution. And in many respects, a "solution" is not what is needed. More a mastery of ourselves and an acceptance of its involvement in our lives (which you seem to have).

I have felt what you refer to as the boredom of happiness. Although I'd put a different label on it for myself. I'd say it's less a boredom with joy than it is a love affair with the height of joy and the depth of sorrow. In some odd way, I seem to derive more feeling from a deep pain than I do from a mild contentedness. Being mildly content is not enough. Joy would be great, but since joy and happiness is so hard to attain, and pain and sorrow seems to come easy for people of our ilk, I gravitate towards the latter. Simply because, as you say, we are poets and we Feel very, very deeply. Our souls are junkies that need to feel intense experience I guess. And we must, in our heads, investigate and think about it quite a lot.

You're far more eloquent in your prose and language than I am. I'm a bit more of a layman's poet in that respect I guess. But we agree on many things.

Where you and I differ I think is that I'm still learning how to understand my depression, and how to avoid dangerous scenarios with it (such as drinking a day away, simply to escape for a bit). So Sonal my friend, I apologize for my naivete if I seemed a little cliche in my advice. But I do stand by some of it. Rather than just accept happy and sad as my options, I'm embracing all the less extreme options as well. I'd rather have the box of 64 crayons than the standard 7 I guess. Because let's face it ROYGBIV is simply not enough choices for us, and aquamarine is a nice hue :)

And just because it's a friday, and I'm in a good mood, and he's a sex machine, here's a little Neil Diamond action:

Later folks,
-P.

the joy of living

2007-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

hi peter,

listen, we don't know each other well, so I hope you'll take this well enough. but I have to fight you a bit. I know Mike. I know Sonal. I know myself. and I know that we've all tried the "do the things that genuinely make you happy on a large scale" thing and you know what? it only works for a little while. eventually we get bored of happiness. eventually we sit at our desk staring at the water fountain, desperately thirsty and yet refusing to stand up and take a drink of water.

Khalil Gibran says "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." the trouble is that we are poets, and for us sorrow's point is sharp, and we tend to over-empathize.

take my mother for example. she is a poet, though she hardly writes. her instincts are impeccable, but she is bombarded by intangible stimuli at almost every turn - your mood affects her physiologically. it hits her from across the room, and it intoxicates her. she is constantly and simultaneously allowing you to energetically possess her, and waging war on that energy once it is inhabiting her. she is always feeling and always fighting. sorrow has forged canyons in her heart, which can be alternately flooded with joy, swelling with compassion, or draughted and harsh. she can't "avoid the poisonous stimuli." she cannot, nor does she suspect that she has a right to control their ebb and flow.

I saw a book today, in the window of a Shambhala bookstore. it said "The Joy of Living," and I realized that the joy of living is that we don't have to do it forever. this is our solace, and our impetus for testing and retesting the infinite capacities of the human heart. if we do it right, it's like the love affair with an end-date. you can ignore certain things and delve into despairing passion with others, because you know it will end, and you will be able to breathe again.

for all intents and purposes, it already is over. like the journal's blank page, waiting to be uncovered.

god I have horrible cramps today. wouldn't mind using my own advice to realize that these were already over. ok see you later.

anne.

i would be a happier American IF...

2007-06-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Civilians,

I am going to go on a small rant to introduce to you a computer game developed by the US Army as a (no kidding) recruitment tool. This is one of the craziest things I've ever heard of. The point of the game is to be a part of an team of US soldiers fighting groups of terrorists. All the weapons are as realistic as possible, and the graphics are state of the art. The game is online with people from anywhere and is mission-based, meaning it's not a deathmatch style game, but a goal-style game. You have to recapture the enemy's territory and eliminate all the players on the other side, & c. It's also free.

Here's the kicker: each side thinks that it is the US army and that the other side is the terrorist group. The game changes the "skin" of the player entities on the opposing team so that everyone playing the game thinks that they are on the Army's side... the "good guys," of course.

There's a wealth of information in the wikipedia article about the game (especially under the "controversy" sections and in the cited sources). I have a hard time with propaganda devices like this one for something like the US MILITARY. You've all seen the "Army of One" ads on TV. The government in this country is trying to popularize war and militarism through entertainment. War is not entertainment. Perhaps that deserves it's own line.

WAR IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT.

I feel like we shouldn't have to learn this lesson. I feel like it really ought to be obvious. I would be a happier American if this game did not exist. I would sleep better at night knowing that a simulated environment where everyone thinks that the Other is a Terrorist was not something that our Government wanted to give out for free to every kid in the country. Just how sick and barbaric are we?

Sad and scared,
Mike

Depression 2.0

2007-06-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Sonal,
In response to your "any ideas?" question, I do have a few. To begin with though, I think what is often the case with brooders like us (us being all of us here on this blog) is that we feel the sting of reality in several ways. Something is indeed off-putting about the society in which we live. We find ourselves constantly thinking and rethinking about what irks us and why it does so. We feel frustrated and ill-at-ease with the way society operates. We feel a desire to have it be different, so much so that it eats away at our core. Most of all, we feel a distance from ourselves and what we perceive as "everyone else" who seems to go along with their lives and perpetuate this capitalist/consumerist/sonambulist society. Part of us rails against that contigent, but, and correct me if I am wrong, part of us envies their ability to be so at ease when we struggle on a daily basis.

Because we are the way we are, and feel things so intensely so as to make us think long and hard, we have to recognize that everything, and I mean everything, affects us in deep ways. I've become a real proponent of healthy living these days. For me, I make sure to keep my stimulation in check. Stimulation is a good thing, but only when it comes from the right sources. Chemical stimulants are poisons to your body obviously. Eating right and getting excercise, reading rather than watching tv or movies, and talking with people (even total strangers) are the best forms of stimulation I have found. And for folks like ourselves, the more of this kind of stimulation the better. By engaging in a lot of these healthier stimuli, and avoiding the other poisons, we ease up the anxiety created by our normally overactive and overzealous brains.

Now, everyone, forgive me if I sound trite and preachy. I am by no means trying to tell anyone what to do. I'm merely sharing a bit of personal therapy I have engaged in in the last few months and from which I made some profound realizations. I'm certainly no stranger to the unideal stimuli though. I find myself engaging at times and thinking "duh, moron, you're different from other people and these things affect you in much deeper ways for longer periods of time. And we've learned this lesson already, so wise up."

So my ideas, in this respect, are merely to avoid the poisonous stimuli. Seems pretty simple till we realize how much we self-medicate and how much we like these medications.

Just thought I would share that note for everyone. I personally know Mike well and love him as a brother. As a result, I know how much he drinks and how much he smokes cigarettes and/or doesn't get as much excercise as I would like him to. He does, however, avoid television almost entirely and experiences people and society interactively. So, a bit a this a that. Peace where ya can get it.

Whatever you do, it's really just important to do the things that genuinely make you happy on a large scale. Not those that seemingly do so. Easy to mistake the two trust me.

By for now folks,
-Peter

Depression

2007-05-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Peter, Mike, Annie,

I loved Mike's post about depression...it reminded me of a thought I once had when I read a book about a woman who was hallucinating due to her bi-polar condition. She wrote about how all the ghosts that she saw disappeared after she took her meds. She medicated the ghosts away. Some of us have internalized these ghosts so deeply that they are embedded in the fabric of our skins--no, they may BE our skins. We are rebelling spiritually and intellectually against something. I've been accused recently of being an incorrigible Marxist, and its true that I believe that part of what we're rebelling against by denying life (by saying "No" instead of "Yes") is capitalism. But it's not that simple, I hope. I think many of us, particularly those of us whose parents told us over and over again that we "think too much" have a problem with the way power is utilized and projected, the way good and bad have been appropriated by the bad guys, the way that justice has no real core. I've only actually "seen" a few ghosts in my life. But I think these ghosts are valuable, and we shouldn't just medicate them away. I think it's telling that there is a broad dissatisfaction with the way lives are conducted by those with power and it just doesn't sit well with a lot of us. As Annie pointed out, the American gluttony affects us. It hurts, and I often don't know what to do with the pain except to deny myself life. I am trying to stop that bad habit (is depression the drug of the idealist?) and find other ways to channel my denials, but aside from talking to ghosts and you and writing generally, I haven't found a way to live with "reality." Any ideas?
Love,
Sonal

The Uber Mench of the Future will be Bipolar???

2007-05-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Peter,

This is a post based on our email exchange, which I wanted to share with our friends here. You had written:

I was watching X-Men the Last Stand yesterday and it got me thinking. Not of anarchy and rebellion, but about the idea that people say there's something wrong with us. That we need to be cured, etc etc. But maybe the lower serotonin levels are a sign of something else. Not being depressed, but our brains are trying to function in a different way for a different reason. Hell, maybe it's even evolution at work.

And I wrote you back the following very long discussion about the issues of depression and disease and dis-ease, & c. Apropos of our recent letters about social issues and the differences between group A vs. group B, I thought your feeling that you were being labeled (in this case as a diseased individual) because of your depression was particularly germane. Anyway, here it is again.

> of anarchy and rebellion, but about the idea that people
> say there's something wrong with us. That we need to be cured, etc etc.

Yeah, there's a danger inherent in the language. If you talk about it
like it's a disease, or that it's off-normal or off baseline kind of
state, then you're making the judgement that you *should* or *ought*
to be happy. It's entirely possible with rhetoric like this to make
people skip the part where they ask themselves questions like, "Okay,
I'm not happy. Not happy about what?" and, having answered that
question, ask, "Why does that make me unhappy? What would make me
happier?" These are definitely not easy questions to answer; they
time time, understanding, patience, and a whole slew of other things
that are hard to allocate when we're all so busy with life and shit
all the time. Similar to our complete lack of attention span and the
requirement that we be bombarded with stimuli all the time, it's
easier to treat these things chemically, blocking the symptoms (the
miracle fix or "cure") rather than trying to solve the problem (actual
*healing*). People have come to expect that it should be possible
with a simple dose of an SSRI and have given up trying to understand
themselves.

> maybe the lower serotonin levels are a sign of something else. Not being
> depressed, but our brains are trying to function in a different way for a
> different reason.

My personal feeling about the statistics on depression, which indicate
that a huge portion of society is depressed, is that this means that
there's something systemic going on here of which this is a direct
result. In other words, more sinister than one being depressed and
wanting a quick fix, is that one isn't alone in the depression; rather
the majority of people are depressed and that's a scary thought. The
questions we should be asking then become, "why is everyone becoming
depressed?", "is there something in the water?", "has life become too
fucked up for us to handle as humans?", "are we too numerous? are we
choking ourselves to death?", "have we set up our lives in an inhuman
way?", and the real downer: "what would be better?" The point: then
we have to start taking the time, patience, work, & c. to diagnose (a
better word would be "understand") the mounting depression of humanity
in general. And then to find a solution... a *real* one, not just a
quick-fix.

> Hell, maybe it's even evolution at work.

Although the X-Men parable is a bit on the fantastic side (fantastic
4?), I would like to think that the trend indicates that something is
not right with the world and that our bodies are warning us
(collectively, perhaps -- maybe via some collective psycho-physical
consciousness that is beyond the current scope of empirical science;
I'll even go so far) that our current state is not conducive to human
life (or life in general) and that we are missing the very point of
existence in the first place--or, at the very least, that it is an
indication that we can do so much better for ourselves and this
planet.

And I wouldn't count the above as separate from the rubric of
Evolution, either. Certainly, the long-standing scientific and
emprical pleas for fixing society and the planet have fallen on
willingly deaf ears; the inhumane policies of destruction and death
are perpetuated. I wouldn't know where to place depression on the
tree of evolutionary traits that could be selected for or against if
they wouldn't increase our chances of survival, right? Who knows,
perhaps it will be demonstrated that people need trees around them to
be happy, or that theres a direct relationship between the serotonin
levels in coastal humans and the relative population of dolphins. All
these things are theoretically possible. ;-)

Then again, there's another thought, namely that the Earth is more
than just the sum of it's inhabitants and there's an intelligent
policy of weeding-out that's occuring. We get diseases, viruses,
depression, we do stupid shit and kill each other... perhaps all this
is better for the Planet Earth? Fewer destructive humans = more
productive plants and animals? That way Life lives on (<-- notice the
capital 'L' in Life).

The one I generally tend to settle on is this (and please excuse my
cultural masochism here): There's plenty out there to be depressed
about, granted. But it's easier to focus on the depression when
you're not fighting for food, shelter, and clothing. We're so
pampered here that we worry about shit like how sad we are working our
crappy nine-to-fives and watching TV all the time, when we should be
using our leisure time for these lofty thoughts instead of turning
ourselves into that proverbial "pig, in a cage, on antibiotics" that
Thom Yorke sings about (not to mention that's where pork-chops come
from these days).

We don't even feel it very closely, but we in the West are fighting
(read: getting killed) too. But fighting for (manufactured)
conceptual reasons clearly leaves us wondering what the flying-hell
it's all about. You don't want to dig too far into that question
because you will only find more to be depressed about: it's about
capitalism vs. democracy and capitalism is winning, meaning that
money-interests trump human-interests. So... Even the ideals we in
the West held above all else at the inception of our nations are being
compromised (serotonin dropping to dangerously low levels) and we're
ignoring every lesson we should have learned (or were supposed to have
learned) over the last 60 years or so (danger, Will Robinson!) We're
not even fighting for anything worth fighting for, we're just fighting
because it's a great source of revenue (ALERT! ALERT!)

My general point is that this depression is something very important
that ought to be a giant red flag that we need to change--not just
ourselves as individuals (although that's the place to start, of
course) but as a society. That is, I believe, the main thrust of the world of X-Men anyway; this idea of Difference and how to deal with it as a society. In that world, you
have your mutants and humans, which are then cross-divided into the
mutants-for-peace, humans-for-peace, mutants-for-themselves,
human-for-themselves, and the-generally-confused-and-scared (mostly
humans there, although I think that's a factor of exposure to certain
idea-centers, like Xavier's School for Gifted, but I digress). What's
really germane here is the idea that social change needs to
occur in both groups, not just one or the other. It's the
learning-to-live-together thing that's the subtext for all the awesome
mutant action. And this can be applied to a bunch of different issue
categories, race, gender, cultural differences, wars, & c.

The reason that this is important is the fact that the parallel
you drew (mutant -> depressed, human -> undepressed) is lacking
consideration of the following question: "What effect does my
depression have on the set of all humans (e.g. depressed and
non-depressed)." Or rather, "what is the relationship between these
two groups and what are the effects of this relationship on each other or on the union of both groups?" The X-Men
example provides a parallel question, "What are is the effect of the
existence of mutants on the set of all sentient, Earthly beings?"
They are viewed as heros, as monsters, as a disease, as gods, & c.
Similarly, the depressed are viewed as sick, as abnormal, they are
misunderstood, they are seen as non-functional instead of just
functioning differently. And, you're right, it's not often asked
whether the un-depressed are only thus because they are missing some
vital piece of information, some clarity of perception that is
exhibited in certain people who can see that, in fact, there's so many
more compelling reasons to be depressed than there are to be content.
In both examples, and Xavier's character is the spearhead of this idea
in the X-Men, the real struggle is how to understand and change to some state of
acceptance, rather than divide and elliminate what is different, which is done as often by quick-fixes, and pharmaceutical "cures," as by war, and outright
genocide.

Love,
Mike

feast or famine or light meal

2007-05-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

dear Peter,

good to hear from you. I wanted to point out that your analogy of foods and analysis is actually more appropriate than you might think. between what you're saying, what Mike's said, Sonal's said to me at other times and what I am experiencing, and see everyone around me experiencing, we are truly "gorging" ourselves on the experiences of being alive and being American. it's gluttonous - instead of cutting out some potatoes to add the chicken, we pile the chicken on top. we stuff the salad in along the edges and throw the apple pie on top of it all. and it works for awhile because we have the cutlery to get through it, but before we've started digesting, we're already running back to fill another plate.

our lives move quickly. evolution of body/brain hasn't occurred at the same rate as that of technology, and now we're bound by schedules, and constant stimuli. even our "leisure" activities in this country are physically or mentally active. and particularly for those of us Westerners afflicted with that peculiar malaise of lives of luxury and privilege - depression, anxiety etc - it seems we never turn off our brains. Asimov and his contemporaries saw a lot in our future - but I don't think they imagined this. maybe these are evolutionary pangs. maybe this is how evolution happens, people lose their minds and then something changes to keep the species going.

we can't do everything; we can't think of everything; we can't notice, analyse, experience, feel, hear, touch or taste everything, and I think some of us want to. we're searching. we've got these gaping holes that we need to fill and we're rushing through the spectrum of experience to see what will fit in that space. it's time, for me at least, to just sit and feel the wind blowing through the holes. to measure their diameters, dig my own fingers into them and blindly feel around. and then just forget them and stare at a wall, or take a nap, or think of the waves coming in and the waves going out.

I never thought I'd say such a thing in the context of experiencing life to its full - but my mother's old "everything in moderation" seems a soothing balm these days for me.

hope you're chicken wings were yummy.

anne.

from Babylon

2007-05-06T23:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Annie, Mike, and Peter,

Greetings! As of now, I belong to no particular place. Did you know Babylon is simultaneously a place in New York and the ruined ancient city in Northern Iraq? But there's something symbolic and iconic and exiled about Babylon, some suggestion of too much knowledge and too much destruction. In other words, I like it.

I'm supposed to be finished with law school at Wash U in St. Louis. I will be studying for the bar exam in New York. I will move to D.C. in September, I think, to work for the smallest office of a St. Louis-based law firm. But over the years, New York has grown into home, which is why I chose to be from Babylon. I still claim exile as my home. Law school has exiled my imagination, and I'm split, like a woman quartered in a more civilized penal system. But I'm fighting back. Two weeks ago, I almost raised my hand in class to ask Duncan Kennedy if the Constitution exists--or if it is the Santa Clause of "Democracy". The exchange would have gone like this:

Me: Professor, I have another critique from the left. I think you believe that the Constiution exists. Professor, is there really a Constitution?

Professor Kennedy: Yes, my left wing friend, pinch yourself--there is a Constitution. You see, it's too late for you. You are a lawyer. You ARE the Constitution. But so is Justice Alito. I hope you use it for good and not to further the intelligensia and its "democracy." Pierce the veil, but you cannot burn it for you are a lawyer.

Haha--not yet my dear Professor--don't drag me down your river Styx so fast. I still have one paper yet to complete. Viva Procrastination! I could burn my veil right now, select all, delete send to trash, and game over. But I won't. For Babylon awaits. I guess I have signed up to channel Duncan Kennedy for a very long time. Here's the problem: I don't believe that I can define anything anymore, for I have unlearned everything they taught me, and now my old friend post-modernism has me by a sultry noose that I have bound tangibility up in with myself (we are like a suicidal pretzel), and I'm doubting so much of existence. I'm beginning to believe that there is a politics of the tangible that is too starry-eyed and bushy-tailed (to employ an American cultural phrase) for me. I'm beginning to believe that if I believe in the Constituion, then I will soon find myself believing in Jesus, the Tooth Fairy, and Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Yesterday a guy I went to school with since the age of 11 died in Iraq. His name was Andy Weiss. We lived in the same lower-middle class neighborhood in West Lafayette, Indiana. We used to stand at the same bus-stop until I became a sophomore in high school, and begged my parents to drive me and spare me some intangible embarrassment factor. Andy was always nice. He had a cute smile. I judged him as with the "wrong crowd" in terms of "success," but I liked him a lot. I only found out about his death because this is the year of my 10th high school reunion. I'm not going, but I decided to put myself on the list in case I encountered news or email addresses of old friends that I needed to reconnect with privately. Yesterday, someone sent this link:
http://jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070505/NEWS/705050341/1152/NEWS

It took 10 hours for it to sink in. The article, as you'll note, is such crap. It has nothing about who Andy was. It doesn't at all tell his story. It's generally very dehumanizing. Just like the bomb that killed him. There's this coalition of creepiness that keeps "democracy" together, and the press is the glue of this insidious force.

Here's what I wrote:

Welcome to the U.S.A., where leaders of democracy will persuade
the love of your life, your baby's father, and your college-bound daughter to sign
up for a highly increased odds of dying violently
in exchange for money and a gun.
It's as easy as signing up for tennis lessons, and cheaper.
It's easier than a mortgage. If you sign away
your life, there's no debt to pay down.

In the shadows of public discourse, I see only
specters slinking around in golden paper crowns,
grinning at how many are willing to die for "democracy."

I just checked on the Constitution; they say its still premature,
they covered it in glass for 2 hundred years, without air because its impure.
Meanwhile people lose their Constitutions.
heads are blown off bodies with metal and fire,
bullets separate hearts from their arteries,
but it's this paper that matters, these lungless words that govern
the heartless: so America, in the face of your empire, your genocide, your holy war,
keep on rooting for your sports teams, keep on shopping at WalMart,
keep on getting wasted on your stalest beers, keep on engaging in democracy,
this enraging cocktail of behavior that ensures
that this life's beauty has been oxidized by arrogance

I can't write anymore right now...words have become heavy, enemies, bullets. I look forward to your thoughts and thank you for including me. It is very humbling, especially because your posts are so witty, intelligent, and responsve.
yours,
Sonal

Analysis is a Dish Best Served Cold

2007-05-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Anne and Mike,
I find that I often do my best thinking on Cold Nights. Something about walking on a cold night gives me the most focused approach and constructive thoughts (this could in no small part be due to the fact that I envision my brain overheating like an engine or boiling when I think too much and that manifests itself in an actual sense of warmth. So the cold counteracts. Call it the nuclear reactor effect). We're coming to the end of our cold nights though, and the change is welcome. One specific cold night back in Williamstown, it occurred to me that I've felt exact same emotional states before. Now, that's sounds incredibly obvious, but what I mean to point out is that when we are in an emotional 'zone' for a period of time, we often don't remember this feeling from it's last incarnation. Either because the circumstances or the specifics of this time are different from that other time. If you follow. The specifics will blur the lines and make you forget you've been there before, you've done that before, and only the environment is a tad different. And it isn't until you snap out of it that you can see this. The immense similarities. The overwhelming and eternal 'duh' that overcomes you is pretty surprising. It's a little humbling too, but it's also refreshing as it reminds you of how well you know yourself and how silly our 'selves' can be at times.

For me though, I'm at a crossroads where of late I've found it hard to stick to any one conclusion about where to direct my life or what are my 'issues' that I need to tackle. And one of the reasons is because we live in a world that offers much stimulation. I think one of the keys to sanity is not to not question, but to limit the hyper-stimulating factors, as well as the anxiety driving toxins, so that the analysis is more constructive. Simplifying my life to include as many of the passive enjoyments as possible (those we don't have to think about, but just enjoy almost as instinct) is another key. Those things make the tough complex thinking easier to handle. And in my mind more productive. They are the yin and tough decisions/questions are the yang. That's just my two cents for the moment. A great math teacher I had back in junior high named Mr. Beloin used to say "Keep it Simple Stupid!" So true Mr. Beloin. Whenever possible, I try to keep things simple.
The thinkin that is.

Chicken wings are my yin to the question of where is my life going.

Nite folks,
-Peter

opening by closing

2007-05-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

dear Mike,

it's been a long time, and I'm just back from Paris now, trying to readjust to the climate, bad pants, English, and alleys that though Parisian in smell, lack the charm of ancient cobblestones spattered by eons of piss and garbage. this will not be long, I really do have to work. but I came across this a few weeks ago, or was it months? who knows. it is written by an incredible painter here, Todd Brown, whom I've met a few times and been incredibly intimidated by on account of I almost don't want to know he's human, want to keep him mystical and wise and free from human fallacy. he wrote this on his myspace blog, just thoughts I think. but they struck deep for me, particularly in the course of this existential chaos that surrounds me these days. incidentally, I made the mistake of reading the wikipedia entry for the columbine shootings, just after reading a book about a school shooting that came out only weeks before the VT massacre. I don't understand humans clemow. I just don't.

but this little quip seems to speak not only to art but also to life, as I can see it:

"evening thoughts

What am I discovering now as I work? As I sit in my rocking chair looking at my work (or lack of) with an abstract kind of desperation, I feel another level of this whole process (which I..ve never understood really) of creating a work of ..art.., and I always seem to think of music simultaneously as I consider the visual process of painting. I realize the impossibility of it all, of trying to compress a world of emotion, the storm of thought and feelings into a space of a few feet, into an inanimate object. I think of the composer and his/her equal challenge to channel entire emotional worlds into the space of a few minutes, be it 3 or 44. It is a compression. And the paradox is that, in that ..compression.. that exists for the artist, that limited space that is his or her window of expression, the resulting experience must be the opposite; one of expansion. One must compress a world into a window so that, when another looks into the window, one discovers a world; that within minutes an eternity is opened, and one is struck, and one must be struck (as if physically), as if the totality of some human experience had funneled itself down and into the most finite point, arriving like the strike of a heel to the floor in the most desperate dance. There where eternity meets the blade of the now, ungoverned by history..s procession, something comes alive and touches us. It is, almost, impossible. Better to not think about it, if one happens to be an ..artist... Better, perhaps, to paint flowers. At least until the storm hits."

until soon my friend,
anne.

the existential crisis is upon us

2007-03-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Mike,

it's so nice to have you here in San Francisco. it makes me wish you lived here all the time. I think you've asked me twelve times in the last two days if I'm okay. you seem always to ask just when my mind wanders into oblivion. I suppose that's what friends do: they notice.

the easy answer to your question is: yes, I am okay. I recently had a ct scan because I was having sudden migraines for the first time in my life and found out that my brain is hemmorage and strange-growth free! my job and my hobbies all matter to me. my family and I are on speaking terms. my boyfriend is kind and good to me. my friends are innumerable and the band is riding the bliss of our first 10,000 myspace hits.

the more complicated answer is probably more accurate.

our country is at war and everyday I wake up aware that people are being raped and murdered somewhere in the world and I can't do a goddamned thing about it. and when I see that bumpersticker that says "honk if you hate god" I want to honk so hard my hand breaks through the vinyl steering wheel fabric. but I don't hate god. I just hate what people do in god's name. I feel hopeless and scared. I find it difficult to keep my mind focused on anything. my heart aches sometimes so palpably that I wonder if I'm having anxiety attacks.

is it possible to be TOO empathetic? is that maybe one of the vestiges of a catholic childhood? to imagine other peoples' pain so intensely that I begin to take it on and feel as though the horror is being inflicted upon me. it would give me hope if I thought that my taking it on meant that it was lifted off someone else. but it isn't. and intellectually I know that the best thing I can do is hold firm emotional boundaries so that I am strong enough to keep my voice raised in opposition. but I am not strong Mike. I am just not strong enough.

it feels like the edges of meaning are folding in on themselves. all of this (life, the universe, and everything) has GOT to mean something. it has just GOT to. and yet . . . how could it possibly mean anything? meaning is inconstant.

I need wisdom. my friend urged me, kindly, to "focus on ONE THING AT A TIME . . . something small . . . but whatever you do, forget about the big picture completely. (and) travel . . . it doesn't even have to be very far . . . just turn down the wrong street and go to the end and sit there and wait . . ."

so I'm going to get out of here soon and go to the ocean and look for a single grain of sand that matches the color of my lover's eyes.

see you later tonight,
anne.

maybe that's what I ought to do.

white boys in harlem - part 1

2007-02-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Annie,

Well, I read those articles and checked out those sites. Marcel Diallo's project sounds very interesting. I'm glad that people like that are able to mobilize themselves and those around them and get something done. Yeah, I think that it's pretty idealistic of him. I'd say that also makes it even better. He believes that art has the power to change the world in which we live. I know that you believe that too. I'm another one.

I have to be honest: I'm not sure where I am on the maintain-cultural-distinctions versus assimilate continuum. I'd better explain that, quick...

On the one hand, like every young, peace-loving, bleeding-heart, liberal-minded American, I want us all to be able to get along. To a very idealistic extent I want to be able to get along with everyone. It's part of my personal psychological bent too--I avoid conflict. I don't bent over backwards to placate those who will oppose me, but I will try my best to avoid conflict. I believe that most conflicts are avoidable. Most of them.

Of course, not all conflicts are avoidable. But I think that all bias-related conflicts are avoidable, therefore, I think that when it comes down to it, except for in a friendly discussion about one's cultural heritage, race ought not to matter--it's not worth fighting over. In fact the very Idea of "race" is antithetical to my conception of humanity. That isn't to say that our culture as a whole hasn't gotten very good at disguising it's racism in un-racism. We (editorial "we" here) have become experts in making horribly racist decisions and giving very good, very egalitarian reasons for making those decisions. We've learned avoidance of racism. We've not learned to actually get rid of the racism. We just pretend it's not there. And as long as we hide it, we think it will be okay. It's not going to work.

If the Idea of Race is antithetical to my conception of humanity, does that mean that I'm beyond racism? No way. I grew up in the same world that you did--I try my best to avoid it, but I've still got that nagging thing that I'm sure all of us leftist, bleeding-heart liberals have, which is the fact that we're just as subject to stereotypes as the rest of humanity. You know what else is intrinsic to humanity in my conception of it? Flaw. There's an another Idea (big 'I' Idea) out there, which is Perfection. We not it and we never will be.

I lived in Harlem for a year. I wouldn't have chosen it as my first choice in neighborhoods. I really didn't want to live there, but I did because we found the best deal there in terms of apartments. To be honest, I would have chosen the Brooklyn neighborhood in which I currently live. In Harlem, we made our home inside the apartment. We had a lot of space and we stayed indoors unless absolutely necessary. Let me repeat that. We stayed indoors unless absolutely necessary.

Oh, our neighborhood was not unsafe--don't get that idea. Yes, we lived near a project. Yes, we heard gun shots once or twice. Yes, people were killed across Lenox Ave from us. But... and part of me is appalled that I'm phrasing it this way... it wasn't some reckless, gang-retribution-bullshit with automatic weapons and such. No, it was probably some very normal drama (drugs, love, etc) that went sour and someone was shot. It's still New York, after all. Given the number of guns in our country and how many people are packed together in Harlem (or in NYC in general), it's not at all against the odds that someone was killed on that block during the year that we lived there.

I grew up in rural America, where it's mostly white. So I know this: oppressed, ignorant rural people with guns or oppressed, ignorant urban people with guns, it's all the same. When we put our money into guns, wars, and killing people and not into education, social benefits and solving domestic issues like poverty, the unfair rat-race, and low-cost housing, we foster desperation. Where there's desperation, there's theft, violence, and murder.

My current neighborhood is overwhelmingly white and relatively expensive. I didn't choose it because of this, but because what I am most familiar with is here. It's totally cultural. I prefer it here. It's not because it's white, it's because it comfortable. Man, if Harlem was like this, it would be fine. I'm subject to biases to which I never gave any credence whatsoever. How is this possible? I don't really think that you can grow up in the United States and not be subject to these biases. They are pervasive.

Every single crime that was ever reported on the news when I was growing up was allegedly committed by a near six-foot black male in his early twenties. How was that possible? That guy was everywhere! They were always looking for him. Maybe they were always looking for an excuse to arrest black, male, twenty-somethings. These things affected our thinking without our even being aware of it.

Living in Harlem, I totally had to face my own hidden biases. I got called cracker, faggot, I got 'tude from people at the grocery store who seemed to be sweet and polite to everyone else. It pales and disappears in comparison to the systemic racism in our culture that runs the other way, but it was an eye-opener for me.

The worst thing, I think was that we were viewed as "gentrifiers" in the New Harlem. Our Metro stop (110th st. at the top of Central Park--at the very bottom of Harlem) got progressively whiter as the year went on. Celine and I wanted to get out of there because we didn't want to be viewed like that. Coming from downtown or Brooklyn, we were basically taking a larger Manhattan apartment away from a family of five. I didn't like it one bit. Plus, in Manhattan everyone is on top of everyone else. This is especially true in Harlem. There isn't much to do, so everyone hangs out on the street. I didn't until the other day when I went to visit a friend of mine (a white dude) who lives up on 135th, but the 1,2,3 subway ines are actually narrower than almost every other train in the system!

Too many people squished together on the trains. Too many people squished together in the buildings. Too many people who can't get or find jobs. Too many people who have too many kids to feed and not enough income. The City's low-income housing system is bollox. I think that the intent was okay, but the implementation is retarded. And now they're renovating buildings in Harlem and building luxury sky-rises. Harlem will be not look the same in 30 years. I don't want to be apart of it. I also know that I wasn't ever a part of the neighborhood. I didn't make a single friend up there. I just hid in my apartment. In a way, the best thing that I could do is move away to my, post-gentrification, rich white-kid neighborhood and hide there, if all I'm going to do is hide.

(I'm going to split this into parts so that I can finally get to my point in part 2... stay tuned...)

on the verge

2007-01-31T11:51:00.000-08:00

hi mike,

haven't heard from you in a while. january is hard, I know. it's been a hard one this month. reeling from the expense of the holidays - both financially and emotionally. this year, instead of my mind, I lost my health. flu, sinus infection and now, out of nowhere, migraines. but the show I had last night rocked february in mightily, and I woke up to a text message from my baby sister telling me that she loves me dearly. so I'm hopeful for a better month.

I couldn't wait for your next letter, sorry. something's been pressing on me, and its really the reason I wanted to start writing these letters in the first place. I had that sense of being in exile from my own culture the other day, and it spawned an unexpectedly ungracious, maybe even racist response, and I want to come clean.

there's a man in Oakland right now, Marcel Diallo, who's committed to creating an African-American cultural district in West Oakland - to be called the Lower Bottoms District - to preserve the history and heritage of the people and places in an area that is quickly being gentrified by people looking for cheap(ish) property, or warehouses to throw parties in. his vision is amazing, and, even though he's just a dude, not some millionaire, he's found ways of buying a bunch of property, encouraging his friends to do the same, and starting a group called the Blue Dot Collective to support African-American arts in the district.

Marcel's ideas are amazing. I think time and the local economy are on his side right now and that he'll do well. also I genuinely appreciate his mission - I think it's true that West Oakland should be preserved as an Afro-centric district. the history there is incredibly rich - and full of lots of racism: by the mid-forties it was home to the largest black middle class outside of Atlanta; family-run businesses drove the local economy while art and music thrived. at that same time, local (white) officials decided to build a highway, the "Nimitz", which would, and did eventually pave over the entire main street in West Oakland, dispersing the middle class folk, and leaving West Oakland to be devoured by warehouses, other industrial buildings and the slow unraveling of poverty.

far as I'm concerned, understanding the history of black people in this country is one of the most important things that any of us can do. black history is ours (whites') too - despite the fact that it is a significantly less empowering experience for white people to dive into.

okay, you're wondering where my lack of grace comes in. you're waiting for me to say Diallo's ideas are amazing, BUT. but I'm not going to say that. I do think Diallo's ideas are amazing. what happened a few days ago began with a search for more information about Diallo & his Blue Dot Collective. I ended up here.

this blog excited me - it's a multi-author, multi-media, Afro-centric smorgesbord - and then I came upon this article called "On the Verge of Dating White Girls." [enter unexpectedly ungracious, maybe even racist response]: what the fuck? why does dating white girls stand as a metaphor for cultural assimilation? why does this claiming of personal power have to be an act of exclusion? why am I expected drop my stereotypes of him, and yet lay down under his stereotypes of me?

I know the answers to my own questions of course: slavery, that's why. white people did horrible disgusting things to black people - and continue to do them - and that is not easily amended. this is American history. this is what my people (most of whom actually came over late in the 19th century due to the potato famine) have left as their legacy - for which the paleness of my skin is an unmistakable hallmark: such division, such deep division, and pain.

I remember taking a class about apartheid in South Africa at Ithaca and seeing this ad that some white Africaaners had taken out in local papers after it (apartheid) was dismantled. The ad said "Why cry over spilt milk? The past is just that - past" I remember being horrified and insulted by the message of this ad. the insinuation that mass murder = spilt milk. I wonder if my response to the title of this man's column is just the same though? am I frustrated by the "not getting over it" that it intimates?

no, I don't want anyone to get over it. I don't want to forget slavery happened. that's the point though I think. I want to HAVE the discussion. I just don't want it to be about white vs. black. the white/black division was what was used to create the context for such a horrible practice in the first place. keeping this division won't help us heal, or understand, or prevent it from happening again. I want the discussion to be about humanity - the incredible amounts of pain we can adapt to, and the incredible amounts of pain we can adapt to doling out.

maybe I don't really understand what he means by "on the verge of dating white girls".
help.

humbly,
anne.

a note

2007-01-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

dear mike,

that was a letter for you, but I forgot to say somethings:

Dear Mike,
Much love, Anne.

so there it is.

much love,
annie.

the way i see it

2007-01-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

the audience is unmoving, except for eyes following the path I trace. egoless, judgement-full. their opinions matter, matter more than (don't let it) they matter more than (spin, step, spin, step) mine. their opinions are not filtered like mine through the pain of being human.

the stage is unforgivingly bright - my eyes flooded so I can't see them, but I know, I know they're there. I can smell them their hunger between the slender poles. I'm shifting, dancing, the poles spinning, a forest, a forest spinning. I'm stepping in time with a path that's been named, every step with a beat and no room for mistakes, there are no breaks, no resting pausing or pleasing.

the audience doesn't care for success, they lust after defeat so when my feet slow, or
stumble, then I hear a seat-shifting, sideward-glancing glare of dissappointment and that at the wobbling, but what at the crash?

(step, spin, step, spin) a careful algorithm that keeps porcelin plates spinning on thin forest poles I get slow, I get tired, I lose the beat and then the raucous cacophony of shrieking cracking pottery, the shards explode confettily and that's what the critics concur as my destiny, unspeakingly. ghostly quiet and hidden by the blinding bright wall.

sometimes its true, I even lust for it myself, delight in the hush of expected defeat, and the (step, crash, spin, step, spin, crash, crash) breeze that makes its way to me when the heads start shaking back and forth, and the furrowed brows that disfigure pretty faces, faces, silent audience. this when I am leaning towards enlightenment.

one day I'm going to forget them. fuck them. no really, FUCK them. they might not even actually be there, see? there might not be anyone judging my life. and then I could sit and enjoy the contiguous crashes because if it were not for the perceived spectrum of failure and success why would I care anyway what happened?

Curses! Foiled Again!

2007-01-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Annie,

Your bike is my desktop background here. I think about you now every time I see a motorcycle. I also think that there's a lot to take away from your lessons on building a bike. I see that these things apply in my own life a lot. Highlights include a conversation I had with my father just today about taking a step back and re-approaching your problem after a break or a from different perspective and also that there's a certain amount of "either do it right or don't do it at all" in my own work. But that can also haunt you, when put like that. Certainly, one shouldn't expect life to be friendly to permanence.

I think that it's been my turn lately to have life go flying past me. It seems that each day (today included) has had the following form: Got up for work--wanted to sleep in because I didn't get enough sleep--work was hectic and I was thinking about all the things that I needed to do outside of work so I didn't get enough work done, which will make tomorrow hectic as well. After work, the things that I needed to get done were doubled and I only got half of what I intended done, meaning my to-do list is now 50% longer than it was when I started today. By the time I got home, made dinner, and settled in it was midnight and I found myself exhausted. One of the things that is happening now is my application to graduate school, which is not only taking up a lot of my time and energy, but is also stressing me out so much that I can barely think. This is why I could never apply to graduate school before. Each time I attempt it, I end up in panic attacks. Even if I don't get in, having successfully completed the application is going to be such an achievement for me that I really won't mind deferring my application to the following year because at least I'll know that I can complete an application. The GRE is just too much for me to handle, apparently. I'm glad that this program does not require I take it.

Regarding the two Gen-X curses: I think that it's possible to be afflicted by both simultaneously. I don't think that the two are mutually exclusive. For instance, I too am constantly doing something. I almost never get a moment's rest. Celine makes me take days off from time to time because she thinks that I'm over-stimulating myself. TV? Forget it. I can barely take in a movie--my Netflix just sit there all month unwatched (by me, anyway). I'm so busy I have to do two things at once just to keep up. No wonder I feel burned out. But I still don't know what I want to do.

Maybe it's that I don't know what I want to do.

Either way, it's doing something and me not knowing. Or perhaps, as you said, it's not about doing something, but being something. Or maybe just being.

Did I tell you I built a sandbox?

Well, first a retraction--or rather, a modification--of a previous statement. I think that your point about the curse is a good one, so I wanted to better describe what I'm feeling, rather than just to accept that what I'm feeling is crap, which is neither what you meant to imply nor what I was trying to evoke. Much of the time I think that I'm seeking empathy for these feelings. I want to know that I'm not alone and that others also feel this way. Empathy is not hard to find--especially in the case of a generational malaise--but it's very difficult to sustain. Recently, however, I've come to think that seeking empathy actually only leads to disappointment and more isolation, rather than what I intended to find (the exact opposite). More important to my quest is seeking understanding of the curse.

So, I built a sandbox. I built a sandbox because I wanted a place to play and I often don't let myself do it. It's really difficult to maintain the thought that I built it in order to play in because the thought is so new. Also, I've covered over this idea (probably since I was originally playing in sandboxes) with the idea of needing to produce something. I remember even as early as high school having my friends over and telling that we had to "make something" today--even at that age, I wanted a product. It makes me kind of sick, when I look back on it. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot from doing things that way. I learned how to feed my ambition, I learned how to let an idea grow to its most complex and beautiful form, I learned how to demand of myself things that I wasn't sure that I was able to do. I also learned how to punish myself for things over which I had no control, I learned how to let ideas get out of hand, and I learned how to take what could be a fun thing and turn it into work and drudgery. I learned how not to have fun.

Don't get me wrong; I have a ton of very big ideas for this sandbox. But right now, when people ask me what I'm planning on doing with it, I tell them, "I'm planning on playing in it." My first task with all of this is learning how to play. If I can't play, then I can't have fun. If I'm not having fun, then I can't immediately validate the process of doing anything, since the process, then, has no immediate value. It's very much like Thich Nhat Han's washing-the-dishes anecdote. If my mind is only on the outcome, then I will be miserable.

There's more to this, but it will have to wait for another letter. My sandbox awaits me.

Peace/Love,
Mike

the end of the beginning

2006-12-18T16:54:00.000-08:00

hi mike,

this is preemptive, since you even hinted in our brief conversation today that you've got a letter on the way . . . but I'm about to sell my motorcycle, and I wanted to share some of the pictures of it with you. it is bizarre, and almost uncomfortable to feel so emotionally attached to an old piece of metal. but i have literally bled into this machine. I never expected or intended to love this so much - I just wanted a motorcycle. it is so much more.

here are the lessons I've absorbed so far . . .

1) brute force will not get you nearly as far as intelligence
2) if you are trying and trying and trying and it just isn't working - STOP TRYING! step back, take in all of the elements, because you are probably missing something that will make what you're attempting easy
3) if you attach things just enough so they stay put, they will fall off when the bike (life) starts to vibrate excessively as it inevitably will. instead, when you put something in its place pull, yank, test, push and strengthen its hold until you are fully assured that it will stay.

ok, now I have to figure out how to attach pictures . . . oh, that was easy.

I'm sorry I won't be back east for the holidays as usual. all my travels this year have been tough on my body and my bank account . . . my birthday party is february 10th, come. bring celine.

love,
anne.

reverse curse

2006-12-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Mike,

Hello dear, sorry it's been such a lag since your last letter. Life has this way of zipping past me sometimes without my noticing days, weeks, years. Anyway here we are. It's Monday again and my favorite kind of day outside: brilliantly clear sky with a biting atmosphere. I wonder how long we'll have with days like this . . . seems like everywhere the air is growing increasingly warm.

Gen X has two curses: the I-Don't-Know-What-To-Do curse and its reverse: Overstimulation, overaction, unending overwhelm. From the moment I wake up, until the moment I fall asleep I am working on one project or another: music, painting, my motorcycle, community, my relationship, my living space, my body, my mind, yerm ahm, my ever-evolving job. I don't understand how people have time to watch television - I remember it (the tv) being on for hours and hours into the late night at my house when I was in middle school and high school. I wouldn't have time for ten minutes of it as my life is now. But I think in this case the curse is its reverse and its reverse is its curse. Follow?

In general, what I'm trying to say, without having said it yet at all if you'll forgive me, is that this "what am I going to do?" crap is . . . crap. We're already always doing something. It's more a matter of are we pleased with what we're doing? Or are we going to do something else instead? This is what you're saying I think: overstimulation of opportunities leads to a peculiar sort of paralysis.

And yet, I suspect that many of us who struggle with What To Be When We Grow Up, are already living or have already lived five or six lives when measured by output (maybe not so much by wisdom) . . .

Mike, you've produced three albums and you're still a shadow under thirty. Among my similarly-aged close friends I can count: probably two dozen published books/stories/poems, 2-3 dozen full length albums, national tours, 3 lawyers, 2 almost-PsyD's, 2 almost-PhD's, maybe a half dozen Master's degrees, an internationally recognized radio documentary, 2 full length films, a Turkmen Language Learning Guide, symphonies, plays, and the list goes on . . . .

I think it's a misnomer to say we're going to be someTHING when we grow up. We are many things - constantly reshaping, shifting. We're polymaths in training - learning a hundred trades at once. So I'd suggest that if you get to the end of your day and "don't know what to do" then do nothing. Maybe your Nothing Doing is really an exploration of the negative space around your 9-5.

I'm hedging my bets on living a long life (mostly because I wouldn't mind living a short one, and I suspect that fate has a cruel sense of irony.) Based on the thousands of things that I like to do, by the time I am 90 I anticipate being a: peaceful, master motorcycle repairwoman and mother with impeccable rhythm, absolute pitch and a fair endowment to leave for a most unlikely cause - i.e. a statue garden honoring underrated/unknown legends such as Victoria Williams and Naeem Inayatullah. In the meantime I don't know much about much, but I'm very very busy. And sometimes even happy thanks to this.

As parting words, I want you to read this poem: it is a translation of an Urdu poem from 1750 . . . my dear friend Sonal Bhatia (a brilliant poet) translated it between classes at law school, where she is also starting her own non-profit organization to protect the rights of domestic violence survivors.

Untitled (or maybe "Maya")

Desire is such a human disaster

that it breaks the fast

by destroying the existence of hunger--

I am such a human; my soul drowned

like the ant dropped in a well

in this tsunami of desire

for you;

save me, Beloved, from my indignity,

cover my eyes in a veil

of tears.

--Sonal Bhatia

Much love, and don't worry we'll talk more about God. maybe with a jug of wine and a phone call . . . and some blank paper taped to the walls.

Anne.

An Addendum

2006-11-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

Anne,

I neglected to address in my previous letter to you this notion of missing God. I want you to know that I am giving it my full consideration. It is doubtless a very important issue, which I will address in due time, although my current state is such that I find myself clueless as to what to say in response. I will, however, say this. I think that I started out missing God and never found it, at one point giving up the search. I'm afraid that this makes my sympathies rather bleak. Your examples are things that I do not associate with the divine as I conceive of it, and so it seems clear that I need to reconsider what it is that I do feel is responsible for those things in order to understand better what might be the differences between your conception of God and mine. I think that this is a very weighty issue and will have more to say after letting it stew for a bit.

Much love,
Mike

The Curse of Generation X

2006-11-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Anne,

The busy week for me was this past week. I think that I haven't had a week like that in a long time. I'm ready to have my own solitary festival of tears. Today I woke up feeling slightly depressed and it has spiraled into a fairly complete funk. I don't even know exactly what it's all about, I only know that it sucks and I feel really shitty about myself right now. I wonder to what yardstick I'm holding myself. For some reason I feel like I'll never measure up. What generation is it that never knows what to do with itself? I can't remember why I'm here or what my goals are. This is the curse of Gen X isn't it?

My therapist keeps telling me that it's okay not to know what I want to do. But I don't think she understands the scope of this. I'm okay not knowing what to do with my life. But I'm not okay not knowing what I want to do this afternoon, for instance. I feel like I can characterize particularly bad uses of my time, but I keep finding more and more that most of the other uses, if not bad, are merely disappointing. I'm disappointed with the way I'm using my time. And I don't know what would be better. I think that my values are either a) all messed up or, b) too easily swayed by every passing fancy that I have that I never develop proper goals or desires even. I think I'm so hyper-aware that I don't know what I want, that I simultaneously want everything and nothing.

But this is the height of apathy, is it not? For, despite being both capable and intelligent, I am producing nothing. I want to produce something. This much I do know. The one thing that I knew would always make me happy was the feeling that I got from looking behind me while mowing the lawn and seeing all the cut grass. It wasn't that cutting the grass was particularly fun, of course--it allowed me time to think and walk--but it provided a very clear feeling of accomplishment in seeing that, at every turn, more grass had been cut. It was this aspect of the task that I liked best.

I guess that's a first step: The recognition of the fact that, in order to feel good about what I'm doing I have to be able to look behind me and see that I have accomplished something. Perhaps I am unable to look behind me and quantify what I have done. That, however, brings up another question. Am I more focused on the quantity of my accomplishments than their quality? Could it also be that I just have not found a good way to measure either of these attributes? It seems logical to me that prior to deciding which is a better metric of accomplishment for a given task, I would have to define each term in the context of each individual task. The final question is this: What am I doing? I am afraid that this is the question that stumps me in the end. A proper characterization of my activities eludes me, leaving me completely unable to explain what I'm doing and how well I'm doing it.

I spoke earlier of desires. I suppose that it is appropriate at this time to ask myself the question, "do I want to characterize my activities, or my life's work?" What I mean to say is, do I want to be able to say that what I'm doing is X, where 'X' is a well-understood category of activity? Thus, what I am is an X-er, if you'll pardon the sardonic choice of letters. Well, leaving open the question of the value of each of these choices, I would simply answer yes, I would like to be able to characterize my activities. Perhaps it is because for years I have been uncomfortable with this ubiquitous question of "So, what do you do?" It frequently seems unconscionable to be unable to answer that question. How is it that I do not know what it is that I do? It's just not possible to live a life while remaining oblivious to its contents! And even if possible, it would certainly be shameful.

But this is only half an answer for the question itself is seriously flawed. Rather, it seems pretentious to expose the ridiculousness of this notion that the answer to a single question will reward the asker with some sort of bird's eye view of a person's goals, desires, or ideals toward which she is working. It is a trap! In truth, by answering this question, I all but hand the asker a box and demand that I be sealed up within it.

When I consider the subsequent generation I cannot help but feel that they are better prepared to succeed in whatever they choose to do. You and I are on the cusp, you see, just between Generation X and the younger Generation Y, which I refer to as the Disney Generation, partly because of the movies that they watched growing up and partly because of their strange, veiled conservatism. Perhaps it is this conservatism (call it consumerism, if you like) that enables them to be successful in the world our parents have left it.

There's more to that last thought, but I feel I've said enough for one day. I hope you are better this week than you were last week. I hope next week is even better than this week.

Love,
Mike

Dear Mike

2006-11-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

Mikey,

friend. whoah. what a week last week was. i feel thrashed. lowercase 'i' kind of thrashed. last night i was in bed and all of a sudden just started heaving and sobbing. no particular reason why. just a buncha stuff all shook up by an intense week - poor chris had to just hold me in silence. there wasn't anything to say. it was nice to find your letter amidst the end of it all . . .

there are so many things that i want to tell you. i don't know where to start, the little things perhaps: a homeless woman asked me this morning to sing at her wedding, she knew the words to one of my songs; the drummer of our supporting band on friday night threw his whole fucking kit out in the street in front of thee parkside in a rock star rage (it was amazing); yerm ahm is not done yet . . . this issue is taking the longest yet, but it's ok. just a zine. no stress, right?

the bigger things are bigger. they'll take longer to explain.

i also feel the lingering longing for something i can't identify or explain. it has moved into my body. maybe it's part of living in a city. san francisco is so much kinder than new york no doubt. for one the winters here include new growth, greening parks, and a whole slew of new flowers. for another, people say hello to each other, often know each other, or know people who know people who know each other etcetera. it's a small city.

still it's a city. and there is concrete in over-abundance. and i step out my front door onto a bustling street, and have to lock both it (the door) and the gate behind me. i have to not-look at certain things on account of who-knows-what-crackheads-do-if-you-interupt-their-cracking etc. and also there is an overwhelming absence of pleasant smells, (like cut grass, rotting seaweed, wood stoves burning) and of subtle sounds, (palm fronds slapping, an oar's bellowing smack against a canoe's side, impenetrable darkness). and i think people like us miss this.

another thing that i miss - against my will - is God. and i wonder if the insatiable longing is for God again to be able to answer my questions. there is a space in me ripped open by rejecting religion after so many years - leaving a feeling of brokenheartedness, an idyllic lover's palpable absence. you know? i was so in love with God. and now i'm trying to speak that name in a way that unlocks faith from my doubting mind - i want to believe that there is someone, or something somewhere that can answer all of this. that has a key to all of the confusion, mystery, and unexplainable. that knows how it makes sense somehow. the war, the dirty campaign ads, the smile on that homeless woman's face, the five inch hand of a boy who touched a wooden dolphin just to be SURE that it was not real. i don't understand.

the wanting pushes me to create. and for that i am grateful. but i doubt my own ability to differentiate between the voice of my Intuition and that of my fear. they both speak quietly and clearly these days. i can't tell whether the longing for more is a fear of the present, and the obsession with the empty spaces a fear of the fullness.

today i have the word GRATITUDE written on my wrist in pen. cause i keep forgetting about that. incidentally you should go here and look at, among the others, assignment #16. this guy, Rob Brezny, has coined this new term "Pronoia" which is basically the idea that the world is conspiring to make your life wonderful, and fulfilled. the assignments are "Experiments and exercises in becoming a mysteriously truthful, teasingly healing, fiercely magnanimous Master of Impartial Passion."

there is SO much more to say about all this, but i've blown off about three hours of work at this point and should really get to it. i do love my job.

much love to you too, (and celine)
annie

Dear Anne

2006-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Hi Anne,

I'm glad to have gotten your letter. I don't get good mail anymore--just bills and advertisements. What has happened to the letter? Someone told me recently that National Geographic has always come in the mail with a wrapper in brown paper around the middle of it (like porn does, actually). Over the years that brown paper wrapper has become a publishing medium in it's own right, attracting companies to pay to have their ads published on the wrapper for the popular journal. Nat Geo's utilitarian craft-paper packaging has become a lucrative venue for advertisements to the demographic of its readers. I think that this came up after someone mentioned that guy, who used to sell his chest as advertising space, writing a slogan for the customer on his chest with a magic marker. My nose for irony senses that his performance was intended to call into question the notion that anyone of us was anything more than a commodity, that anything can be sacred in this cultural climate. Somehow, on this blog, your letter is closer to the sacrament that I remember letter-writing being when I was younger.

Tariq Ali's performance sounded really interesting. I think that I don't go see enough stuff around here. For some reason, despite living in a cultural mecca, I manage not to attend events around the city--even the free ones. New York wears on its inhabitants in a way that I'm not yet able to describe. It's as if one is perpetually going uphill, or against the current. New Yorkers are always sailing "by" and never "large." (There's my maritime reference of the day.) Anyway, at the end of the day, I'm always feeling like I have just enough time to get home, get half a night's sleep and get up and start it all over again. Christ, I sound like those older cats I used to pity when I was wasn't one of them...

The Kronos Quartet is an amazing ensemble. I have this LP they released where they do a cover of Purple Haze, by Hendrix. It's just insane. I think I also have a few tracks they did for the Heat soundtrack, but I might have lost that CD. I'll have to look for it.

I was in my studio today talking to an artist I met when we were just setting up last month. He's a teacher in the Bronx and has his studio in Park Slope in our building. (I can't imagine making that commute, although I know that it's not abnormal around here.) We ended up talking about galleries and making a living at being an artist. Now, I'm from this school of thought that I got from being in a band where you bank-roll your own project so no one can tell you what to do. But it's really hard not to get frustrated when it doesn't take off--and it likely won't. I was wondering about the gallery system and how it must change one's mindset to have think about making artworks as a commodity to be bought and sold. I guess there's a mainstream in the art-world as well as in the world of rock and roll. I read this article recently (interview, actually) in Neural magazine that mentioned something like: "you have the mainstream, and then you have the mainstream with better haircuts that we call 'alternative.'" That made me laugh because it's so true. Something that's truly new won't sell well because demand-for is predicated on knowledge-of. This is a major flaw of Capitalism, in my book. Systemic mediocrity is not progress--I don't care what the economists say. And things change (albeit slower than they would without this system) because there actually is a demand for the new! There's that familiar smell...

Do people really want to be told what should desire? Is this self-imposed? Among my many crises of the psyche is this nagging feeling that I'm unfulfilled but have no idea what it is that would fulfill me. What is it that I want? Everyday I'm given thousands of messages designed to tell me what I want and how I can get it. Not only do they conflict with each other, but none of them strikes at the core of me and rings true. Advertisements tell me that I want to be rich. I don't want to be rich. Corporate culture tells me that I want to play their game and get good at it to make the company rich. I don't really care. I don't even want the career path they're offering. I've refused promotions because of this. They don't know what to do with me. I think about leaving to go to another job, but I know it will be the same. I'm told I want to own things--and I own a lot of things--but they often feel like boat anchors, weighing me down and tying me to this lifestyle. People want this? When I ask myself, "okay, so what do you want, if not this?" I don't have a good answer. Just not this.

I'm really tired. This must be the reason for my rambling response. I just want to do something important, Anne. But I don't know what's important.

By the way, Celine is well. She's sleeping right now and I think that I shall join her. Sweet dreams, Anne.

Love,
Mike

Dear Mike

2006-10-30T12:25:00.001-08:00

Hello Mike,

It's Monday morning, and I'm not doing much here at work. I also haven't eaten since lunch yesterday, so my head is spinning a little bit. The crazy thing lately that I've been subconsciously doing is skipping meals because I'm hoping to save a couple bucks. Bad idea. Because then I get so hungry that I splurge on a whole meal and spend twice as much as if I'd just grabbed a couple bananas from the market on the way to BART, you know?

So as I started to tell you earlier, I saw Tariq Ali last week at this amazing event in the Mission. It was Tariq Ali and David Barsamian doing a sort of live radio interview on stage with the Kronos Quartet playing music from all over the world in between their discussions. It blew my mind. Kronos Quartet is amazing first of all, the kind of music that gets under your skin and squirms there awkwardly until you figure out how to relax into it, which you quickly do - you know? Like early sexual experiences - awkward until you relax, and then astounding (hopefully). They played pieces from Afghanistan, Iraq, USA, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Mexico. Maybe others, I can't remember.

And in between it all Tariq and David were discussing Latin American politics, Middle Eastern poetry and film, the Wars, hope, history, really everything. It was incredible, the combination. The intensity of the music was tempered by the cerebral discourse, and the intensity of the discourse content was tempered by the emotive, visceral experience of the music. So in the end we all left feeling energized, as well as more informed. Oh, and then one of the friends I was with had a loose connection to the cellist, Jeffrey Zeigler, so we met him and his wife Paolo Prestini who were both delightful, and incredible artists in their own right.

The friends who brought me to the show are doing similar things to the event itself too - integrating multiple forms of art to create a meaningful experience for the listener/audience.

First it made me feel amazed and inspired, then it made me feel confused (where the fuck do they get the time to do all this???), and finally it all turned back around to awe and inspiration. There's something to it. A 3-D art exhibit that makes music when you interact with it. Music that writes itself into images - remember when we did this? You had that program on your computer that wrote images into sound waves . . . it was in the Garden Apartments in Ithaca. We used other people's images - famous paintings or something - and they all made these demonic screeches, wailing screams and screeches. There was something to that. I wonder if we could create pieces that would sing melodies we'd written?

But the particular brilliance of this event was that it was Politics and Art. Neither one had to be the other - they supported each other. It wasn't necessarily Political Art (though one could make lots of arguments that it WAS - and I will if you want) and it wasn't necessarily Artistic Politics (though Tariq Ali has a poetic lilt to his voice that sings, it is truly enchanting in the most melodic sense). But they cleared out space for each other.

Fucking cool, dude. I'm gonna go get some lunch now. VERY hungry - stomach eating itself.

How is Celine?

Love,
Anne.