Much like the travel tours for the stuffed toys of the infirm and elderly, this video is so beautiful and weird and Japanese and heartbreaking to me.

A Robotic Dog's Mortality

And as Trevor gently reminds me when I read these things and feel all out of sorts: "Japanese are not Americans."

Hi y'all! I'm baaaaaaack.

It's been nearly a year since I blogged last. Sorry, different priorities. But I am ready to scream into the void again feel like it's time to start engaging in this platform again with my opinions on this human culture, pop and otherwise.

A couple of things on my mind to catch you up with where I'm at -- some timely, some not so much:

1) If you're not sick of it already, how you doin', Game of Thrones?

Big fan of the books here, even though GRRM's writing evokes a massive clusterfuck; as such, I was really impressed with how the showrunners streamlined it into a lithe and springy animal. And yes, I acknowledge the depiction of unnecessary and added violence (particularly sexual) against women has clearly become lazy knee-jerk writing and a turnoff. That's why Outlander is where I've been getting my epic sword fighting fantasy lately, as well as really digging that a 70-year old white man is outdoing these young bucks in engaging a female audience.

(via Feminist Mad Max)

But, me = digression; back to brass tacks. I have been a bit reluctant to rejoin the world of GRRM because clusterfuck and because even with how overly rapey it is, the show seems to still be making that clusterfuck feel more cohesive. Reading not being a lot of humans to-do list anyway (boo!), I do also think that I'm not alone among people who still do enjoy reading. So, this:

Stop Defending "Game of Thrones": How HBO Gutted the Stories I Love

UGH. This shit is all over the internets. A slow build, from tweets his editor put up and took down, to GRRM's slow boil from happy go lucky collaborator to tsk tsker. Funny how this happens only prior to release of the next book. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I see this phenomenon we are experiencing as an orchestrated way to generate renewed interest in the books. This is a huge franchise with lots of big players and massive money to be made, not a bunch of amateurs squabbling over scraps. If this crap really exists and it's not helpful to the machine, it gets locked down. Bleh.

Speaking of clusterfucks...

2) Rachel Dolezal: Black or White? A Woman's Story Stirs Up a Furor

I have been ignoring this story because it IS complicated, but a friend who is a creative writing professor and someone who has personally struggled with issues within her mixed family posted this bit to the Friendface from her friend, and it spoke to me.

Transracial Lives Matter: Rachel Dolezal and the Privilege of Racial Manipulation

It's a powerful piece of writing with some controversial ideas. To get the negatives out of the way first: I am a bit uncomfortable with the some of the more aggressive attitudes she shares regarding transracial adoption -- that there's somehow always an injustice that was done to the child, or the idea that seems to be put forth here that adoptive parents are complicit in destroying a child's potential identity if they involve them in white culture or should be ridiculed if they try to seek out ways to incorporate their child's racial or ethnic background in their daily lives. Another friend also pointed out that her only problem with this article is that the author says Dolezal adopted her black brother to gain authenticity, and how could this person possibly know why Dolezal did this, why can't it just be out of love? I, like my friend, am more inclined to think love might have had something to do with it. Nothing is perfect, and I always feel like love is completely divorced from a lot of these conversations.

Anyway, I wasn't adopted, but I was just talking to my husband about this within the context of my experience growing up as a biracial girl in a very small town, all-white environment. My parents both prepared and tried to heal me the best they could for how I was treated, and I identify with a lot of what she is saying. It is very hard for anyone who has an outside that looks like the dominant culture to understand what that privilege is truly like, and I say this as someone who has had the ability in the past to "pass" -- and let me tell you, I did it when I could because it DOES grant you privilege.

I get really tired though, and sometimes feel like the best way is what a white male friend from my hometown commented:

I'm so salty toward people's judgments at all anymore. I'm like an old man that's done caring about stuff like "opinions" grumble grumble life is too valuable. Let's get it over with and just say, "does it increase diversity or not?" If not, then let's not do that thing.

If only life was so simple. Can it be? Not until we all stop caring about judgments, which is a defining aspect of being human.

from "Farmers Wary of GMO Crops," The Zimbabwean

I continue to be wary of the long-term health effects of some GMO crops, and the use of the poor, uneducated, and/or malnourished as guinea pigs plus the predatory practices of big BioAg doesn't put me any closer to being on the thumbs-up path; however, in the interest of education, this was a good read.

A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

Of course, I am looking for answers myself, and thus really try to check my skepticism, but this did stand out to me:

...the risk of [GMO crops] could be reliably tested, and had so far proved safe. "With scientists, we never say anything is 100 percent certain one way or another," Dr. Suzuki said. "We weigh conclusions on accumulated knowledge or evidence..." 

Yes, absolutely. But, the big BUT:  Like organic and conventional dairy and vegetables being deemed equal in nutritional profiles just a few years ago, or the scientific claim that thalidomide wouldn't cross the placental barrier, accumulated scientific knowledge sometimes goes horribly wrong. GMO crops should not be rushed to market or be allowed to propagate and be sold while in litigation, and should also be subject to litigation should there be health problems clearly associated with them; they should also submit to continual testing and monitoring once they are in the market (for now), and the patent holders/users be okay with informing the public with labeling so people have a choice.

I'm not one for a nanny state, but this should be the standard when we screw with the basic building blocks of life, especially ones that have the potential to have profound effects on the population.

There are so many promising things in GMOs, so I really hope I'm wrong, but we have to slow. down.

Six pages of Republicans holding the government hostage, war, death, invasions of privacy, fear fear fear. I had literally just put my head in my hands and then I glanced at the Chopard ad and the thought raced through my tired mind: "I just want that right now." No. But then the eye roams; "stop dreaming and start cooking."

I worked in marketing; am I reading too much into this, or do you also wonder about advertisement and placement?

Stuttered-over-again world
where I shall have been
a Guest, a Name,
sweated down from the Wall,
that a Wound licks up.

~ Paul Celan

Witnesses to History, 50 Years Later

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963

P&P and we

2013: 200 years of Pride and Prejudice.

That peacock cover, and the 1880s P&P/Northanger Abbey? WANT.

This P&P retrospective is a classic example of how the intersection of art, design, and literature critically influence (and are influenced by) our rapidly moving culture. I really don't think this is something we often think about whilst picking up a Penguin Classics version of Austen, or Bronte, or Nabokov (or, before you know it: Barbery, or Carlotto, or Meek) at the bookstore. We know we often choose books by their covers (even if, as the author of the slideshow posits, it is embarrassing to admit) but we remain somewhat oblivious to the ideas that went into the why of the approximate size of our beach read, or what is on the cover, or the why of that font as we toss it into our messenger bag. We also don't often entertain how such a critical intersection can be so misunderstood -- even reviled.

Consider that nerdly pursuit, the comic book. Equally a literary and visual art genre, often produced monthly and serially, which positions it perfectly on the pulse of society; a genre that has not only birthed the biggest film blockbusters of every summer season in significant memory, but of late has become a medium that is primarily consumed by adults -- a fact that has revolutionized the industry. All but gone are the crudely drawn, sometimes barely coherent storylines of some major comics of the 70s and 80s that catered to 12 year old boys (and those 12 year olds masquerading as men). If you are going to make it in the comics industry today, the rule of the day is richness: in artistry, design, plotline.

I was sitting in a cafe with Trevor a few months ago, and a friend happened to stop by our table with one of her friends, a man about our age. We had just picked up some weekly comics and were in the process of catching up on our favorite storylines. Our friend's friend saw what we were reading and said, "wow, you're not ashamed to read these in public?"

No.

Stigma prevails; yet, while I lament the ignorance of the brilliant cultural shifts one can see manifest in part through the appreciation of these flimsy paper books, I'm also pretty sure the nerdly reputation of consuming these major tastemakers is something most aficionados wear with pride. I know I do.

Some folks are aware that I am one half of a team publishing chapbooks by California poets with art by California artists. I am really blessed to have a coterie of friends and acquaintances who are vastly talented, challenging, and driven (and community-minded!) in their pursuits, both literary and visual. I also feel blessed to be involving myself in something that not only expresses my love of contemporary American poetry and visual art, but also what those things can say about a moment in time and space.

A little late to the party, but this is oh so good.

Stephen Colbert Spoofs 'Accidental Racist'

If you haven't heard the original 'Accidental Racist' I think that really, it's not necessary: Colbert covers the salient points. I also think David Graham at The Atlantic does a bang up job of laying down how offensive, and in many ways, damaging, this song is.

It really hits home here:

It's pretty insane to compare an inoffensive piece of headgear to a flag that represents a treasonous secession movement devoting to maintaining the practice of slavery. It's even more insane to compare jewelry to, you know, slave shackles.

The deeply offensive gold chains and iron chains thing aside, we're also talking about a flag that represents a movement devoted to maintaining the practice of slavery and comparing it to a 'do-rag' -- a piece of clothing that has been given connotations of offense by, well, racists. The flag, however, remains what it is. I get that these guys probably had good intentions, but good intentions aren't enough when it comes to learning how not to be entitled. This song does not much more than bolster white privilege and white entitlement around racism.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and inevitable fallout for the Muslim community (and the poor Czechs!) I've been thinking a lot about "accidental racism" and white privilege. I read two great pieces on this recently.

For anyone who struggles with the idea of white privilege, this:

The Saudi Marathon Man

Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured [Saudi Arabian] man’s name tweeted out, attached to the word “suspect”? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction—so was the young man. Many, like him, were wounded; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets...In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then “tackled him,” bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.

What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?

And this one, which while written from the perspective of a Swede, had so many hallmarks of my own tiny town American childhood that I could recall my Japanese mother's pride, shame, and anger at the hands of "accidental racists" like it was yesterday:

Sweden's Closet Racists

Being 6 years old and walking toward passport control with Dad, who has sweaty hands, who clears his throat, who fixes his hair and shines up his shoes on the backs of his knees. All the pink-colored people are let by. But our dad is stopped. And we think, maybe it was by chance, until we see the same scene repeated year after year.

Being 7 and starting school and being told about society by a dad who was terrified even then that his outsiderness would be inherited by his children. He says, “When you look like we do, you must always be a thousand times better than everyone else if you don’t want to be refused.”

I remember my mother's bewilderment -- then fear when security arrived, then shaking rage when she realized what was happening -- when a department store in my hometown wouldn't take her check; the check with her strange and difficult-to-pronounce name printed in script below my white father's, the check accompanied by a military ID ("it's from the US government, it's better than a driver's license," my non-driving mother repeated over and over, in vain). They demanded that my father be there, in person, for them to honor the check. I remember her shame and defeat, and moreover I remember my embarrassment at yet another thing that set me apart from my white peers -- an embarrassment only rivaled by my shame now in looking back on my childhood lack of perspective and support for my mother.

When someone wears a Confederate Flag in spite of the fact that it is first and foremost a symbol of whites owning human beings, and then has the nerve to tell me that foundational symbolism isn't intended -- it's only "accidentally racist" and purely on me -- privilege is the first thing that goes through my mind.

I have seen this flying around the internets for the last couple of days, but just now got the chance to sit down and read it.

Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square

Ruinous. Unlovable. Inedible.

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

There are too many gems to post. WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!

I've got lots of friends who are public service employees -- firefighters, police officers, FEMA, and the like. I was reading this article in the SF Chronicle about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in NYC and some of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. The accompanying slideshow really made me appreciate the gravity of what it is that they are committed to doing for our communities.

New York City police officers go door to door in a housing project to take note of which residents are ignoring the mandatory evacuation order as Hurricane Sandy approaches on October 28, 2012 in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. 

So, in light of this, I find what we have at stake November 6 in the United States as even more important.


Romney Says America Doesn't Need 'More Firemen, More Policemen, More Teachers'

plus this excellent, no pulled punches opinion piece from the NY Times:

A Big Storm Requires Big Government

[Eliminating federal disaster coordination and support] is an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Oh Chris Christie, you Romney shill, the irony.

I mean, this is definitely the rotten cherry on top of Romney's willingness to say anything to win, his abysmal knowledge of foreign policy (as demonstrated in the third Presidential debate), plus his views on women, gay rights, birth control, "the 47%" -- you name the right thing to do, and he's on the wrong side of both compassion and history.

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, 1788

Let's re-elect Barack Obama.

One other thing: I think it rips through your clothes when it takes you over. Windows found Bennings' torn and bloody clothes in the storage room after he was taken over. Earlier, Nauls found a pair of shredded and dirty longjohns in the kitchen trash can, but the nametag was missing. They could be anybody's. Nobody, nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired. There's nothing more I can do, just wait. This is R.J. MacReady, helicopter pilot, US outpost #31...

Russian Scientists Bore Into Ancient Antarctic Lake

Yeeeeeeee!










Revenge of the Econobox: Early Japanese Imports Find Admirers

I have a longstanding crush dating back to junior high on these great little cars, a crush that is not only aesthetic, but practical: my mechanic says the engines are practically indestructible. My love lives on as an adult; I recently chronicled a 1972 Honda 600 Coupe I saw at my corner gas station. I am so happy to see these cars making a comeback -- even though it means my dream of owning one is probably getting sidelined by a few more thousand dollars.

And that also means I'll have to be content with my 1986 Honda Civic sedan for now, and my memories of Trevor's first car: a rusted out 1977 Datsun 510 wagon.

Wow, what a fantastic piece in the New York Times on Haruki Murakami, his new tome, 1Q84, and the odd and oddly intoxicating organism that is Japanese culture.

I read an excerpt from the 1Q84, "Town of Cats" in the New Yorker last month, and it was terrific. But this piece by Sam Anderson is so great because instead of focusing strongly on this single book, he so deftly zeroes in on the beating heart of Murakami's work -- that terrible and beautiful Murakami muse: the darkness and light, the "ennui and eroticism" that is Japan, and his self-described outsider status.

Anderson implies that Murakami is bemused by his unofficial Japanese literary ambassadorship to the world, as he thinks of himself as a sort of reject from Japanese society. But this is what I find so tragic and beautiful about Japanese culture: their wa (which means both "Japan" and "harmony") -- and thus their perceived homogeneity -- while working well on the surface, lends itself to an individual and private feeling of otherness, of outsider status. This paradox of rejection and complete Japanese-ness, and Murakami's ability to heave this sort of unrequited love out of himself and into the novels that he writes, is what makes him the perfect ambassador for this country in perpetual identity crisis. I don't think Murakami is alone, and I think both he and Anderson know that.

After a few minutes, a strange creature fluttered into my view of the garden. At first it seemed like some kind of bird — a strange hairy hummingbird, maybe, based on the way it was hovering. But then it started to look more like two birds stuck together: it wobbled more than it flew, and it had all kinds of flaps and extra parts hanging off it. I decided, in the end, that it was a big, black butterfly, the strangest butterfly I had ever seen...[m]oments after the butterfly left, Murakami came down the stairs and sat, quietly, at his dining-room table. I told him I had just seen the weirdest butterfly I had ever seen in my entire life. He took a drink from his plastic water bottle, then looked up at me. “There are many butterflies in Japan,” he said. “It is not strange to see a butterfly.”

Ballad of a Thin Man -- Godfathers of Glam Who Can Still Rock a Skinny Suit.





















































Fierce.

The Arizona tragedy is being covered quite extensively, so not to go on and on, but this is well done:

No One Listened to Gabrielle Giffords

While the article does engage in pointing fingers -- what many on the right are bemoaning as unfair, and some, ridiculously, as "blood libel" -- it does so in more than one direction, and acknowledges something obvious I hadn't really thought about: that the current rabid antigovernment radicalism on the right is as dangerous as the same on the left in the late 1960s.

The difference now, full stop? Mainstream media outlets for the radical right that legitimizes it, and a major party that is an apologist for it.

Oh Arizona.




















Tombstone Politics

This is a tragedy that I think anyone with a reasonable bone in his or her body saw coming in some form or another, and as such I've been really at loathe to add my voice to the chorus of voices condemning the radical (and mainstream) right wing for their perceived role, but in the end there are too many implications around all the things I complain about with modern day dumb American politics to NOT comment.

Part of my hesitation to comment is sorting out my feelings around the idea of free speech, and where it crosses the line into incitement of violence. What would seem like clear ignorant nut jobs like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin encouraging others to be ignorant nut jobs is one negative consequence of the right to free speech. So do we "compromise liberty for security and then deserve neither" and all that jazz? I'm somewhat reminded of the criticism of gangsta rap and the Tipper Gore PMRC hysteria years, and the attempt to link music to gun violence and suicide.

But music is entertainment, not real life. Yeah, I always say certain bands and songs shaped who I am, but the people who really shape how I am obligated to live my life within the confines of the laws of my country -- as well as those non-politicians with immense political power -- need to hold themselves to a higher standard, and use common sense with their constituencies.

Utilizing gun sights to indicate targeted lawmakers, rhetoric about "reloading" not retreating against lawmakers, and talk from (aforementioned nut job endorsed) candidates about being angry enough to use "Second Amendment remedies" is clear incitement to violence.

Would the sympathizers stand for environmental radicals like the ELF using gun sights as the symbol for targeting lawmakers in an election who had abysmal environmental voting records? Of course not. And nor would they stand for anyone using that same rhetoric to target lawmakers who were anti-health care bill, or anti-DREAM Act, or anti- any other countless thing that would be good for the United States that right-wingers deem "Socialist" or "anti-American."

The nasty "make the rich richer" liars that make up the Republican Party, and the redneck laughingstock that is the Tea Party claim to want less government intrusion in their lives. *snort* Do we need to legislate their common sense? It has to stop.