Reflexivity

The bachelors have been reduced from five to three (and one of them is actually taken but his partner is back home in India.) I will move out soon (when I stop procrastinating). I don't WANT to leave, because I keep getting introduced to new yummy food (recipe for
sabudana khichadi below).

While we ate, we engaged in a lengthy political discussion. [sidebar] (Well, they did, mostly I listened. The guys drift into and out of Hindi and English. I've deduced that they've made a decision to include me - or at least make the topic accessible - when they use English. Otherwise they're just doing their thing while I'm doing mine - usually on the computer. :-) Very comfortable.) [end of sidebar]

During the reprise at dinner time, Ambarish complained (!) "why do we always talk about right and wrong?" Perhaps as preparation for the extraordinary upcoming conversation hosted by Dropping Knowledge?

They have a one minute video describing a global Table of Free Voices. If you register you can rate the questions for discussion on September 9th - the questions have gone through a generation and prioritization process on the web over the past several months, being cut from 20,000 submitted to 500 condensed. Now they're working on the top 100. (Barry Wellman posted info on this to the aoir-listserv. Thanks.)

This is what Koushik, Puru, and Ambarish were debating, inspired by a question posed by The Bohemian the night before. Their examples were based in India, especially the urban/rural split and the efforts of the Maoists there. Dada kept arguing that basic citizenship will resolve most problems: "Whatever you are doing, do it with absolute honesty. Basic thing - do primary school teaching with absolute honesty; whatever else you do is bonus." He had several personal examples illustrating his own process of learning good citizenship. Puru argued against the idealism of this solution, describing four individual options:

1. I don't care, just get along the best I can: the system will do what it does with/without me.
2. I embrace the system, i.e., try to make money.
3. Work inside the system toward change.
4. Work against/outside the system.

As I listened I thought, these orientations are evident in these units of languages I've been calling discourses. Perhaps the challenge I perceive, and the juxtapostion I seek to both co-create and proactively engage, is at the "places" where these orientations meet? Because there is an incommensurability between the person who can choose Options 1-3, and the person who is forced into Option 4. Anyone with a choice has relative privilege compared with those revolutionary movements who do not experience this luxury. (It seems possible to me that one point of contention is whether or not choice does exist, and to what extent. Another point is the transition process from an orientation/mode of Option 4 to one of the others: both systemically - institutionally and culturally - and individually.)

Ambarish argued that everyone simply keeps on moving: one chooses a point-of-view and tries to implement it. The key that he emphasized, is that there are consequences regardless of which choice one makes. The "consequence" I'm trying to resist is a predetermined channeling of viewpoints/discourses into more-or-less "traditional" lines. By "traditional" I mean customary to that political perspective or point-of-view, and I include my own!

Puruman claimed there is "no answer in any of the four options." I agree. Any "answer", if there is to be one, must be a confluence of the options, it must include/accommodate them all.

Dada offered a phenomenological example of time and living. He revisiting a movie they had watched the previous night (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi) (situated in the 1970s) and argued that we make parallel choices now - living "in this time" with the choices made, for instance, by people living in the time of the 1920s in India (during the revolt against the British).

There were many other nuances, examples, and illustrations. I could imagine this conversation in various forms (different languages, different contexts) and the same overall pattern (individual range-of-choice vs systematic impositions & constraints, circumstantial differences setting distinct and variable limits, the struggle of finding adequate points of leverage, the resistance of the elites to change).

I missed the moment to actually submit a question to the Table of Free Voices event, and - in truth - I'm still formulating it, but I know it is along these lines. It was fitting that the evening ended with a game of Carrom, which illustrates the precise challenge of dialogue: how do we shift patterns of talk that produces sharp (even if minute) concussions to talk that allows some kind of merger or blending? Simultaneously, can we develop skills to absorb the subtle shocks of real difference and work past them together?

Sabudana (name of "grain") Khichadi (a generic dish, sortof like "stir fry")

Ingredients: sabudana, ground peanut, green chili's, cumin seeds, finely chopped potato, salt, tiny bit of sugar (optional)

soak sabudana in a small amount of water overnight (ideally all water is absorbed)

add ground peanut

finely chop potatos & chili's and fry in oil & cumin seeds

combine and add salt (a fair amount) and sugar (tiny tiny) to taste

As kids it was received as a feast during fasting :-)

Posted by Steph at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2006

"talk to strangers"

I tried to skip town fast but Lee cut me and June off at the pass and plied me with provisions. (I ate everything. I want to know the brand of those lemon wafers.)

I needed it after June conned me into yoga torture at the hands of a Russian contortionist at 8 am on Sunday morning. (What was I thinking?!)

Lee sent me off with two tips: "talk to strangers" (but of course!) and "watch the gap" (between train and platform). I think she meant them both literally, but I pondered the second as a metaphor. I'm always watching for "the gap" in communication, meaning, relationship... how, when, why, to what ends (functions, effects) do these gaps get mediated? Are they closed, bridged, widened? Do they cause problems (too much distance) or prevent them (provide a buffer)? What are the options in approach and intent that align more tightly with desired outcomes? Is there "an outcome" that is desired or is the gap nonconsequential?

Creation was still much on mind, loose images from Deb's paintings floating across my brainscape. I kept thinking of Immanuel Velikovsky and his argument about planetary evolution and its impact on the species. I extrapolate that creation and evolution are violent, catastrophic events (not the nice warm and cozy mitosis where a cell painlessly and smoothly subdivides...)

I successfully navigated the NYC subway before spending the second half of the day on Greyhound (fun commentary from the driver - spicing up an essential feature of class culture).

I almost finished reading an excellent biography of Ataturk on the bus (no motion sickness!)

Puru rescued me from the rain; the Razmobile started without hesitation; Smita cooked a great meal; Mei Mei pretended she didn't know me. Welcome home!

Posted by Steph at 8:11 PM | Comments (1)

August 27, 2006

Gestation ( return and continuation )

"It's the longest Sunday," June observed, after Deb commented on my whipping out the camera to record the spread at Lee and Ralph's last night: "You're still on vacation!"

Yes. :-)

Once again I had no idea how the day would unfold. Lee had offered that I could stay in Long Beach for a few days upon my return and I looked forward to a day or so of rest and adjustment from jetlag. Ambiguity was immediately introduced, however, as other company had arrived. I was chauffered to June's instead.

I hardly hesitated to make myself at home - how could I, when she'd already drawn a bath in the jacuzzi for me?!!! I slept deep and well, waking up early yesterday to begin in earnest the task of being back. I commandeered the dining room table for a few hours of work, then meandered through the day. Before leaving the house, I met June's turtles (among the rest of the menagerie, which includes a cat named Bob). Lee collected me and I resumed mediterranean mode, tagging along wherever, whenever: a tagsale (or was it a yardsale?), a jaunt on the boardwalk (15 minute massage for $10!), a visit to Deborah and Steven's which turned into lunch with Raki.

Next up? Shopping. Oooo, my favorite! (not) I was aimless for awhile. After a few hours though (!), what could one do but join in the spirit? "That was a frivolous day," said Lee, when we finally pulled out of the TJ Maxx parking lot, dispelling my perception that she lives this way all the time. ;-)

I have already learned many things this day: about hosting, giving gifts, taking care to be sure no one feels the least bit extraneous. I adjusted to shifts in conversation - from intensive, animated political discussion with Deb to general care and concern for issues and persons in each other's lives. In the past these would have caused me some angst but today was merely the way of the flow. All this was, it seems in retrospect, prelude to the deep and sweet stuff to come.

When I entered Deb's living room I felt almost assaulted by the large canvas leaned up against one wall. My reaction was gut, visceral; I had no words. As we drove away at the end of the evening, June told me about teasing Deborah about "a lot of red" and asking, "Where's the crime scene?"

Yes, my first reaction was to the implicit violence. I wondered about the insides of this woman: what sources inspire such production?

I almost cried in her studio, standing on the toilet (!), taking in the full visual presence of #40 after her description of its material, theoretical, and spiritual elements. I showed her my tattoo. "That's a lot like my work!" she exclaimed. :-) Yes, our canvasses differ, but the stuff of our work - genetics (dialectics) and dialogue (creation) run parallel.

From there we went to dinner, eventually dubbed my welcome home party. (I only grinned from ear-to-ear for most - not all - of the evening.) ;-) Lee brought out Sam's last bottle of wine. June finally found us and we toasted the spirit of Sam, the day, new and old friends, good food, and memories.

Ralph manipulated the musical environment masterfully as we chomped and chatted our way through several courses, including a dessert to die for - the best canoli and chocolate-covered blueberries!

Can you believe all that was followed by tiramisu? Stop already! (No, don't!) ;-) Not long thereafter I hit the wall. Deb and June noticed immediately - poof, within ten minutes we were on the road.

Chance moves on.

Goodbye for now.

Posted by Steph at 6:19 AM | Comments (1)

August 24, 2006

Tesekkür Ederim

A wave of grief swelled up in me when Leylim asked me not to leave last night, “First night and last night!” Only an hour before Arzu had asked me how I feel about going back to the States. “Mixed.”

“Keep your heart with you,” encouraged Umit. :-) How can I not when life rewards me with such sweet meetings? Early yesterday morning, I’d told Fatih I wanted to spend my last night with old friends instead of new ones. I meant it when I said it, but life doesn’t always conform to expectation. Instead I had a perfect day and perfect night with five new people and seven old friends. Quality time with a dozen people in one day! Who would ever have imagined my capacity could expand so much?

Liminal Turkey (as I’ve subtitled my holiday here) has done its work in me. Warning: My sentimental streak is in high gear. Double warning: I won’t apologize for the excess I can’t contain! :-)

I got started late even though I woke up early. Instead of throwing a blanket on Erdem’s face to wake him this morning I tried shaking his feet. Three times. Finally the woman in the bunk above was also disturbed by his alarm (she thought it was mine), so I roused myself, getting out of bed to go to the head of his bunk and shake the dude. I was pleased to be awake and alert after our (unphotographed!) late night and immediately dove into work.

There were conversations to have with Gunseli, Nina, and Fatih. The morning stretched luxuriously into early afternoon. Yikes! I was supposed to be “doing things!” I bumped into Jillian as I readied myself to leave and it turned out her afternoon was free. “Have you been to Moda?” she asked me? Nope. And we were off. :-)

After much meandering – in conversation as well as path – we arrived at a cay bahcesi.

Since it was my last day, Jill offered me “the better view.” I accepted but then realized I didn’t want to see the city, I wanted more of the water as my visual horizon. “Perfect! I get the mosque,” she said. “Perfect!” I responded, “I get the open sea.”

Something in me chafed a few times….wasn’t I in a hurry to get somewhere? I noted this temporal residue: being in a constant rush, as if whatever I was engaged in was en route to somewhere else where there was (supposedly?) something “more.” I reminded myself that the only destination is now. Besides, I really did not have anything else that needed doing! A few phone calls to touch base and coordinate schedules offer some proof of the “Mediterranean attitude” I’ve absorbed. (Of course we’ll have to see how long it lasts once back in the gristmill of the academic calendar.)

The afternoon floated along like sailboats. Eventually, it was time to rendezvous with Arzu and Ahmet for dinner: delicious crab salad. The evening’s pre-planned schedule faded: more “things to do next time.” Instead, I viewed Ahmet’s first short film, The Trashcan, listened to some of his mixes, and burned Kabakoz photos for Arzu. We were starting to wind down when the phone rang. Ten minutes later Umit and Leylim arrived. I sucked down some coffee fast. :-) We enjoyed some dessert and stretched our wings in stimulating conversation. Meanwhile we perused Arzu’s artwork. We laughed often and deep.

I flew until my body stopped (hi, Claire). :-)

Returning to the hostel conjured the sense of coming home, a place of respite, affection and teasing after respective days full of who knows what. Old (!) friends – including Recep, Özcan, Erdem, and Olga – opened, closed, and touched the middle of the day. New friends filled it with light.

Kolay.

Posted by Steph at 12:42 AM | Comments (2)

August 23, 2006

Bye Bye Sabanci!

Life caught up with me quickly when I moved away from my friend’s place at Sabanci University some weeks (?) [!!!!] ago. It was a terrific refuge while I tried to find my bearings after my plan to travel to Iran was dashed. The effort of generating an alternative on the spot overwhelmed me, leaving me content to plant my butt and let weeds grow. It is a fantastic campus with a gorgeous library (whose friendly staff

facilitated my communication with an IT staffer (Osman should get a raise) who arranged wireless access for me as a temporary guest), outdoor sculptures, a water fountain (good for reading by), fantastic gym facilities, and good food. See me eat!

In addition to the tasty cafeteria meals there is a fast food joint that serves a delicious tavuk (and whose staff wanted to be famous).

Out of fairness then, I asked my daily coffee suppliers if they would like their picture taken as well. They did.

Meanwhile, all is not so open (shhhhhhh, tease forthcoming!) I was allowed access to secure (coded) housing but not to the mysterious, concealed biophysics lab. I was able to capture photos only from behind cover.

The arrival of new technological equipment escaped my camera. Careful, painstaking, and prolonged observation determined that the office of a certain accomplished biophysicist is behind these one-way windows.

I had spied the campus rocket upon arrival and saved it on purpose for the last day. I had determined that the steps to the top were open.

Imagine my emotions after climbing some 57 (or was it 84?) stairs! My emotions were also stirred by the spectacular student art exhibit, Nu Portreler 2.

I began my collection of hand images most deliberately here - I hope none of the artists are offended (and if they are, that they will let me know). I thought I included one recently but now can't find it; at any rate watch for more in future posts! (Unfortunately, glare is a problem with some: either from my flash or the natural light.)

Only one thing at Sabanci was left undone. ;-)

Posted by Steph at 4:40 AM | Comments (2)

August 17, 2006

West-Eastern Divan Concert Istanbul

The applause after the first number, Leonore Overture, No. 3, Op. 72, was overwhelming. Beethoven is usually rousing, but there was a quality to the upsurge of gratitude and appreciation that seemed to exceed recognition of the quality of the performance. My own guess is that a significant component of the emotion was sheer relief - for now, at least, the Israeli/Hezbollah ceasefire plan in Lebanon appears to be working.

This orchestra is the 1999 brainchild of intellectual and public critic Edward Said (a Palestinian); and conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim (an Israeli). Its performances raise money to support young people from the Middle East and Israel to play classical music together. The Foundation, now based in Seville, Spain, issued a declaration in 2004, and

An ancient hall of Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Eirene Museum was sold out but we obtained standing room only tickets and wound up sitting (comfortably enough) in the rear stairwell (our view from below, first half; for the second half we made it to the uppermost stairs). Acoustically, I was amazed at the sound. It was stunning. I wondered about performances in this space over the millennia (!) and the constitution of audiences. What kinds of court intrigues and politics occurred during and regarding public performances? How public was “public”, then? (I was unaware at the time of the cancellation and reinstatement of the concert for political purposes.)

I haven’t attended a live orchestra performance for at least 20 years. Various impressions flitted through my mind mixed with vague memories of growing up. Have I heard these pieces before? It was an educated audience, no one applauded falsely between the many movements of Schubert’s Trout Quintet. After the third or forth movement the audience and musicians had cohered. The warmth of the summer evening and lack of ventilation heated up the air to the edge of discomfort: the discipline of sitting still and listening was released in a full group rustle of throat-clearing, rapid brochure-fanning, and general bodily rearrangement. Such was reenacted in each pause thereafter.

What a contrast with Depeche Mode and its audience’s constant, unrestrained movement and attention leapfrogging between the music, mobiles, location, beer…

I also thought about voice and modern-day, mass-mediated politics. I imagined mideast politics as a symphony. There’s the constant thrum of the violins, the basics of everyday life, ebbing and cresting in twitters, chirps, and plucks of melancholy, pleasure, contentment, discord. Occasionally deep swells converge in coordinated harmonies, complimenting or contesting other tides. The deeper strings, brass and woodwinds vacillate among drawing out the dark power of living and accentuating the surface manifestations of conflict and dissension. Percussion marks the points of decision. Commit or retreat but know that whichever is chosen is consequential, even if only circumstantially so.

I know my characterization is crude: I am not a musician. But I felt the music and this is what I thought: a strong voice was needed to pound the drums long and hard enough to force political forces to stop the surface burst of unbelievable human violence. Let’s say the voices of my friends raised in outrage were the cellos and horns, and I came in as a woodwind. Or perhaps I was a lone French Horn against the trumpets. My notes were heard (?) as a threat to the cohesion of the necessary cumulation of voice (sound, power). I would prefer to be positioned as a complementary voice playing an alternative melody, or striking my notes along a different yet compatible scale (but this may be out of my control). What matters to me is the overall “sound” – the co-generated orchestral production. What a good conductor does is balance the volume of each section (sometimes even each individual instrument) so that each thematic strand is auditorily consonant with every other; but the conductor cannot make this happen, the musicians must be responsive, they must trust the conductor’s ear, which hears that which they cannot.

I suppose I came up with this analogy because of a section in Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68. I am not sure which instrument it was, perhaps (?) the contrabassoon. Its sound was almost too deep, too soft to be discerned yet Barenboim coaxed it up, quieting the violins just enough for the lone voice to emerge with the distinctiveness of its own rhythm.

Of course, the difference in social relations and musical collaboration are that there are no conductors (or too many, smile) for social relations. There is also little precedent for such wholistic orchestration in societies or groups where, for instance, we are mostly strangers to each other. Hence, our attunements are more likely random and historical rather than deliberate and visionary.

At the end of the concert I wanted more. So did the vast majority of the audience, and I believe the musicians did too. No go. :-( Maybe Barenboim wasn’t feeling well; maybe he was affected by the absence of the double-bassist who had been called back to Berlin for some reason (leading to an alteration in the program). Who knows. The love was there. :-)

The audience’s appreciation did not dim after that first round of applause, making me wonder if it was “only” the music after all. Or perhaps the even more simple effect of the fundraiser wine we had to gulp before entering? :-) The music was extraordinary, of that there can be no doubt. The setting was magical, the timing historic, the company superb. (Erdem did make sure there was no confusion about our relationship.) ;-)

The title of the orchestra is from Goethe's poem of this name, West-Eastern Divan, "in which he brings the poetic culture culture of the Islamic and Western worlds together" (liner notes). Goethe is noted for beginning to learn Arabic after the age of 60 as well as for truthfully representing "the Eastern spirit of poetry." Imagine! Old dogs can learn new tricks!

Posted by Steph at 4:34 AM | Comments (0)

August 9, 2006

oops!

I posted a few days ago about a new trove of data for internet researchers, with accompanying debates regarding the ethics of using it.

It seems AOL released the data in error.

Meanwhile, it is suggested that the release violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. (A law everyone affecting everyone who uses email.)

Posted by Wojciech to the air-l listserv, air-l Digest, Vol 25, Issue 8, August 8, 2006.

Posted by Steph at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

am I missing

the best parties in Amherst?

It would seem so: Mr. Motown fronts Anuj serving bira.

I recognize my own singing peers in the background: flat tenors. I would have fit right in!

I'm not really jealous. Istanbul is pretty cool. :-)

Posted by Steph at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

August 8, 2006

Your private search history on the web?

Yesterday's air-l Digest, Vol 25, Issue 7, includes discussion of private information made publicly available by AOL for a short window of time. A summary is here. The discussion has begun with questions of ethical use. I also wonder about the squeeze of surveillance technologies on the academy: certainly industry and government will feel no such compunction against mining this data for their own purposes.

Posted by Steph at 5:16 AM | Comments (0)

July 31, 2006

Depeche Mode

Gizem worked hard to get us tickets. I helped.

It was great. :-) They played 20-30 songs, almost all of which I recognized (!), all of which were imminently danceable, except one of the encore numbers, "Leave in Silence." I haven't been to such a mass ritual in more years than I can recall. Seriously, I was trying to remember the last large popular music concert I attended - U2, I think. Before that was Michael Jackson (a last minute sub for tickets my dad had). The first one ever? Bob Seger. There was also KISS (that was a great show), and some others, but we're talking 15-20 years ago. but hey, who's counting?!

No pix - cameras were banned. :-( The stadium, Kurecesme Arena is cool - set right on the shore of the Bosphorus, nestled up against a hill, cool breezes blew in off the water at irregular intervals but often enough. The bright wealthy folk just cruised on up in their fancy boats; some folks were brought in by ferry.

A special treat was the bonus show on the ride home with Mr. Jet-Set Comedian himself, Baris (I think it's properly spelled with a whoolamajig at the bottom of the "s" but my symbol panel doesn't include that option - sounds like "sh"). He was busy recounting his world travels and assessing the likelihood of becoming an oil baron. ;-) I'll put money on him!

Posted by Steph at 6:23 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2006

Random Encounters

Not only did I bump into Derek after blogging about him (he was engaged in the business of stealing pistachios) but I also met Elaine and we had a great talk about the blurring of boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, various uses of performance, and the ambiguities we experience (if I’m not overattributing?) regarding displays of emotion and affectivity. Ien Ang and Greg Noble were both at (3.38) Multilingual Cosmopoliticians this evening, which gave me a chance to greet them. I also introduced myself to Tom Cheesman, who gave me such a boost of cyber-encouragement when I first started thinking about interpretation in Europe.

Erkan found me tonight, as did Ezgi, Alisa, and others. (Nothing like a bit of notoriety, eh?!) Meanwhile, Gin and Tonic Man keeps yelling "Butch Power!"

I faded a bit at The Deep (my introvert side?); hopefully the extrovert will reappear for dancing in a bit. Or did I use up all that energy last night?

Posted by Steph at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2006

Reception

I approached a couple of likely young men. Likely for what? Who knew?!!! “Are you friendly?” I inquired, wondering if they would bite. Burak replied that he was exhausted. “I can’t speak in English or Turkish.”

It’s a good thing I wrote my reflections of Day 1 during the last panel, before the conference “get together.” Veysel (of the gin and tonics) told me about Foucault and disciplinary discourses: “Discipline starts in deficits not real imitation.” (We were speaking about the debate initiated by Göle with Chatterjee.) Kutlughan (the mainstream guy) condemned postmodernists in general. Altug told us of eating Turkish crayfish in Sweden (they’re not eaten in Turkey, only caught here and shipped there as a "delicacy" ~ talk about "postmodern!") Yonca promised to email. Yasemin identified tursu as pickled plum. That was a treat, although not as delicious as the deniz berulcesi devoured at the after-party. (As well as for breakfast this morning!)

Serkan didn’t stick around but I did get the briefest synopsis of his presentation (1.43) which sounded awesome. Baris (“peace”) also vanished even though he had complained of being left out when it took a moment for introductions to be made. I’m not sure where Veysal ended up. He’d had his eye on someone and was in hot pursuit when we left. He gave me one of the best compliments on my hair that I’ve ever received: “It’s just noise!” :-)

The reception ended: “Tomorrow this will be a school,” the security guard informed us as he chased us away. But we weren’t done. Camiye me geldik! We ended up somewhere deep in the Nevizade.

Burak dubbed me “mommy” – which turned out not to be so special as he had at least two others of various genders and a “father” as well. Who are the rest of these people? Dilek, Kaan, Mark, Omer, and Ayse, among unnamed others. :-) There was even a Koray lookalike - giving a hint of things to come. Turns out I like the lion’s milk, and all the spreads that came with it (eggplant, yogurt, a bean paste, olives). I want to know what fish arrived later? It was fantastic.

The question that lingers is, did any of us become prettier? Igelim guzelleselim!

Posted by Steph at 5:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2006

being sentimental sigh :-)

I confess, I had a very particular child in mind last night while colleagues spoke of giving kids the stink eye, detailing various and myriad reasons why none should ever be allowed out in public, and declaiming against pregnancy in the first place. I admit, it was too close to home for me to join in the banter, but I appreciated it nonetheless. (Although apparently not as much as our waiter, who overheard one of the birthday girls suggesting that it was just such talk that prevented me from hanging out with them more often: “You should hear what it sounds like from here.”)

I laughed hard throughout the evening. :-) It was good to see and be with the assorted “criminals” and “suspects” from the Communication Department, even if my energy was too low to contribute much beyond (my usual?!) rather staid facts and observations.

“Why would you travel to such a hostile region?” Art asked, and others joined in with some comments about my common sense. I did, in fact, actually draw up and sign a will (how’s that for placing someone’s age?) and the Legal Secretary (whom I’ve known for several years) did tease about wondering whether or not I was “really in my right mind” or not. :-)

“It’s not hostile inside Iran,” I replied, to which there was a general murmur of acknowledgment. “Just the surrounding region,” Art clarified.

When I got in last night, Neil said, “It’s not looking good.” Huh? He’s been watching Fox. The Bush administration is blaming Iran for the violence among Israel-Gaza-Lebanon-Hezbollah. Damn. When I woke up this morning I realized that the Foreign Ministry in Iran probably considers my “late” application so suspicious because it’s probably precisely a time when the US might try to slip agitators and spies into the country. I remember talking with Arturo, who said if he was the paranoid type, my general openness about things would make him more suspicious of me, rather than less. Sigh.

I will be disappointed if I can’t go. I became quite excited about the adventure (experience, opportunity) as a reward for completing comps and myriad other similarly important life tasks in the past two months. I’ll be more disappointed, however, if the US continues down the path of war. What about the road less traveled? As I listened to the teasing among the partygoers last night I marveled at the practiced ease of ironic distance. Perhaps it is simply my own bias and projection, but I don’t believe people enter the field of communication without some desire to make things better. It’s the balance between being so keenly aware of life’s absurdity: seemingly trapped (?) within the (dialectical) power of history and yet soaking up every possible pleasure, creating our own bubbles of joy founded in/upon ‘another way.’

This morning I woke up from indeterminate dreams yet a solid idea about the power of the moment challenging the crisis of history. It occurs to me that my colleagues figured this out a long time ago. I am still playing catch-up.

Posted by Steph at 3:29 AM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2006

Bliss!

"You do look relaxed and peaceful," Lorna told me while cutting my hair today. She refrained from mentioning what a change this is from usual! :-)

Kathy asked me if I was "relieved" when I gave her the last question yesterday. No, not yet - I was already on to all the other things needing to be done prior to departure... too wound up? I'd also lost steam in the final half-hour and really struggled to come up with some semblance of a conclusion.

It helped the most that Tejal feasted me, Smita beat me at bombardment, and we all shared lots of laughs and silliness. Puru snapped some photos. Fugu honored me - on only our second meeting! - with her nickname. (I'm sure she realized there was minimal chance I would learn to say her proper name correctly. Neil and Satya arrived in time for food. Estelle carried herself with aplomb. I could not have had a better evening to celebrate being done. :-)

The rest of today was also sweet! The universe smiles on me. Yippee!

Posted by Steph at 3:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2006

the police came

so by Boston standards it was a good party. !!

I did manage to squeeze in a bit more socializing last night (pure comps-escapism). Cris and Marcelo's new place is sweeeeet and the gathered friends way cool. The neighbors leave something to be desired though, calling in a complaint to the fire marshall on the very modest campfire the guys labored over for an hour (with all the wet wood) to get going.

The officer said something about "a cooking fire" being ok so I asked, "If we roasted marshmallows then it would be ok?" I'm not sure, but I think he thought I was being a smart-aleck, so I hastened to add, "I just want to understand the parameters!"

He was friendly enough then, even apologized for having to bust up this element of the house-warming party. Amherst town has an ordinance against any kind of fires except the cooking kind - which means grill and the whole nine yards of an entire meal. "I'd have to consider marshmallows just an excuse," he explained. Oh well.

I did have a few great conversations with a couple of really cool folk from the Translation Department, English Department, and Marcelo's work. Had a bit of trouble with some of the Spanish names pronounced with a mouth full of food (Ramon is not exactly the most difficult, but I couldn't "hear" it the first two times around!) . . . I hope this wasn't too much of a precursor to the social embarrassment I'm no doubt going to be feeling soon enough in Turkey and (fingers still crossed!) Iran.

Posted by Steph at 11:53 AM | Comments (1)

July 9, 2006

World Cup final

There was some passion at Delano's today, but not much. I had some sympathy for Zidane but it went out the window when he headbutted the Italian player. I don't care what the provocation. I was happy Italy won. Mostly, though, I was glad to see Sai (great burrito, man), Satya (in full regalia), Neil (more-or-less) . . . and Chris and Jung Yup and Srini and Alex and Dhaka . . . and others less familiar but still friendly.

It was probably my last social respite until comps are done.

A few quickies though: Friday, July 7th, Writer's Almanac included the poem, Female Comic Book Superheroes. Fun to listen to.

and tonight, less fun...a broadcast about Iran. I heard it on WMUA but can't track the details. Darn. Is it possible it was Seymour Hersh? Here's an old article he wrote about Iran, just after Bush's apparent reelection. (There was evidence of voting fraud - particularly in Ohio - but it was severely underreported.) Here's a more recent Hersh story: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb? (It might be one I blogged before, seems familiar.)

Whoever I heard today felt that whatever messianic ambitions Bush has, he'll wait until after the November elections.

Posted by Steph at 7:19 PM | Comments (0)

July 8, 2006

(comps) Law #16

Evil Kachina sends this along with the suggestion: "Some of these probably apply."

These are the unavoidable laws of the natural universe...

1. Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease your nose will begin to itch or you'll have to pee.

2. Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least
accessible corner.

3. Law of probability: The probability of being watched is directly
proportional to the stupidity of your act.

4. Law of the Telephone: When you dial a wrong number, you never get a
busy signal.

5. Law of the Alibi: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

6. Variation Law: If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you
were in will start to move faster than the one you are in now. (works every time).

7. Bath Theorem: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

8. Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

9. Law of the Result: When you try to prove to someone that a machine
won't work, it will.

10. Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

11. Theater Rule: At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

12. Law of Coffee: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

13. Murphy's Law of Lockers: If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

14. Law of Dirty Rugs/Carpets: The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness, color and cost of the carpet/rug.

15. Law of Location: No matter where you go, there you are.

16. Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

17. Brown's Law: If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

18. Oliver's Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet.

19. Wilson's Law: As soon as you find a product that you really like,
they will stop making it.

Posted by Steph at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2006

Comps (advice)

Be humble.

Take control of the question:

Establish clear parameters for what you will include/exclude, acknowledge possible parts of the answer then rephrase to establish boundaries for the answer.

Pay homage:

Acknowledge big names, theories, etc so you can’t be accused of having overlooked something, someone important. Explain why/how these theorist’s work is – while still important – less relevant to the direction you wish to take.

Outline the course of the paper (in advance is recommended).

Rest well the day before.

Posted by Steph at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)

July 3, 2006

"tie a knot and move it forward..."

I said farewell to the Townhouse bachelor-pad today. These guys were great to and for me. They included me almost as if I'd always been there, allowed me my own room, tolerated my bike in the middle of the living room, fed me, introduced me to their friends...and gave me lots of space/time to study.

I gotta say something about Neil with the Mind of Steel. I think I know why Mei Mei huddled under the comforter every time he was in the house. You can't get nothing past this guy!

A week or so ago, he noticed I had not included his name in a certain description of a conversation he and I had, and wanted me to know it was ok for me to name him. He thought perhaps I hadn’t included his name because I was worried he might be upset. Not to worry, he assured me.

My immediate response was …uh… a little squirmy. I said I wanted to make the conversation appear broader than it really was? But I knew that wasn’t quite right – there was a deeper source. Ah, I was worried. I didn’t know how to identify him without including more details, and I didn’t want to appear to be bragging about having convinced him of something. I guess perhaps there was a worry (?) that he might feel bad about having been convinced? Worse, convinced by Me.

I made a bunch of tactical errors regarding confidentiality and respect etc. in the early days of the blog (which constitutes the first couple of years' worth). I think my criteria and representations have improved considerably but I know it’s not perfect. Occasionally I get hints and whiffs of someone’s displeasure or annoyance, and I am still usually puzzled as to why but continue to expand my own perception of the range of reasons. At any rate, it is a distinct pleasure to engage with someone so sensitive to nuance and so proactive in following up on it. Might even miss that guy. :-/

At any rate, I told Neil that giving me such blanket permission was rather daring, "You're in trouble now!" He laughed, "There are things about myself that I don't know." Yes, me too, I thought. What better way to find out?

The quote up top was shared by Basha, who hosted the most fantastic meal and night of live music I've ever attended. (Not ever having been much of a music-head.) I was invited along spontaneously, knowing no one but my roommates. That night was a taste of living I haven't felt in a long time. Been having lots of those experiences lately.

It's good. :-)

Posted by Steph at 5:49 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2006

the doctoral candidate!

Posted by Steph at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

off the map

Last night, I arrived (unusually!) early to work, giving me time to walk the labyrinth (built in the classical style).

It was cool. It took longer than I anticipated (oops), but was a strikingly parallel experience to the process of receiving feedback on a paper earlier in the afternoon. My pace was slow, measured; my mood contemplative. I wove through its curves, following the path. I wasn’t conscious of time passing – or I thought I wasn’t – until the moment I thought I’d arrived at the center and realized there was another circuit to complete. A visceral feeling of shock rippled through me. Ah, I’ve already felt this today! In retrospect, the event and interaction around it were unfortunate, but possibly (?) not avoidable? Different sets of expectations and priorities. Two strong personalities. Crash.

But the morning was incredible. I had a massage (first one in three years or so) and the masseuse said it was a pleasure to work on me because my body was so responsive. She could see the muscles sussurate while she worked some of the pressure points. I was struck by the fact that even though I was tired and nearly fell asleep, my jaw remained clenched throughout. I couldn’t keep it relaxed. What? Me worry? It has to go somewhere, so they say.

At the end of the appointment I asked if she happened to know a tattoist. She hesitated, thinking. Yeah, she said, this guy Gabe. He just opened a shop in Easthampton. As she was digging out his phone number she added, “His body is covered with birds. He has a pair of lovebirds on the back of his neck.” He’s the one, I thought (actually felt) to myself (recognition?) The masseuse hadn’t remembered the name of his shop and didn’t have his work number so when I reached him on his cell phone he suggested I get directions by checking out his website. It doesn’t get more perfect than this!

Posted by Steph at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2006

Tejal's birthday!

Mango lassi and chanasamosa started me off. Well, actually this was after the almost gender-divided hugs. Puru wouldn't let me get away with just hugging the women. :-) It was pretty cool, actually, as I got about a half-dozen hugs (handshakes with the folks I was just meeting for the first time). Did I mention I sortof kindof invited myself? shhhhhh! It was a great party to crash for some social interaction - just as Neil's has been the perfect idiomatic crash pad. (Countdown to departure has commenced, wah.) Although I doubt I'll miss Satya's militaristic party garb.

Food segregation continued. At least this time it was on the basis of vegetarians and carnivores, instead of men and women. Although then we noticed that the men were clustered at both ends of the table, essentially surrounding us. The most trapped, by the way, was the birthday girl herself. Neil had to pick a fight with the waitress (can’t take him out in public!), who threatened to withhold his food. (His behavior subsequently improved tremendously.)

The most interesting thing I learned was how to smuggle mangos. This is an Indian cottage industry. The first thing you do to throw the customs officials off the scent is to scrupulously recite the several dozens of different spices you’ve brought back. They really don’t want to know. Second, the amount of spices will confuse the dogs, who won’t be able to distinguish the smell of mangos in the midst of sneezing. Third (most important), sing English songs in Punjabi. Folks will be offended by the dissonance and they’ll usher you through as fast as possible.

I might have been offensive (?) as I heard (with my untrained american ears) “Sulu” as Sudarshan’s nickname. And Shiva had to fight with the clothing rod in my backseat all the way home (not to mention his virtual exclusion from Sitma's and my dive into Althusser). Hema! You’ve gotten email from me before! Did I forget meeting you? Oh my. ;-/

Posted by Steph at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2006

random?

"What the heck is that about?" I wondered as a colleague drove past me with arm fully extended, middle finger high in the air, yelling a resounding "F*ck You!"

Per shall remain nameless.

Posted by Steph at 2:15 PM | Comments (0)

Spectacusolstice!

I'm gonna need some help on a few details, please? What's the Turkish word for the type of dream in which a dark lump settles down on your chest, preventing movement?

And what was the name of that most fantabulous mini-Australian dessert? Can a non-chef make them?

The luminaria ushered me in, as part of the second wave of guests to a combo-birthday, defense, summer solstice celebration.

Highlights abound (noteless, we'll see what I recall).

The defense queen greeted me, aglow herself with success. I think she raked in a bundle too (although there was a slight question regarding whether two donations in particular actually arrived to the envelope).

Luscious was on the hunt for nationalistic fandom. I know someone wishing for a Brazil-Argentina final. Arturo (from Mexico) and Maria (from Argentina) preserved their relationship on the agreement that whoever could beat Germany should win.

Fascinating thing - talking about my (anticipated!) trip to Iran - was Arturo and Maria's concern not about my going, rather about my ability to return. Will US Customs allow me back in? Do I need to fill out paperwork with them, traveling against the State Department's advice? Lord help us all if such is the case.

Greg and I had an extended discussion about French pessimism and US optimism; with the caveat that there are stupid people everywhere. :-)

The dream analysis was cool, although there's no doubt someone had a secret agenda in offering an interpretation. Mine, I'm sure was no better, being, as Florencia noted, so incredibly qualifed to offer definitive opinions!

I missed Raz. Folks ask me about him at each event.

JC told me the blog looks "very professional." I wonder if he'll change his mind when he reads that I got to fondle a young hunk's six-pack?!

There were other conversations, esp with folks I just met and/or only briefly said hello to before either I or they were spirited into another discursive direction. All-in-all, it was a blast, and was still going strong when I left just before 1 a.m. Did you beat last year's record and make it to the dawn?

Posted by Steph at 1:38 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2006

Opening Day: Round of 16

Germany took Sweden apart in short order today; it wasn't much of a game except for the performance of Sweden's goalie, Isaksson (11 shots on goal were credited to the German side; he saved most of them with no help from his defenders). I recall a few games like that, when my defenders just couldn't anticipate and left me alone to field more shots than anyone should ever have to face in one match. He played one hell of a game, even though it's the Germans who gain all the attention. I admired Teddy Lucic's calm reaction to receiving a red card after two undeserved yellows.

There's been some magic about the first ten minutes: Germany scores in the 4th and then the 12th minute, and later Mexico and Argentina both scored in the early minutes of their tense match. I wound up passionately on Mexico's side even though I entered Delano's with no preference whatsover. They were the identified underdog, for one thing. And the mostly international crowd was cheering for Argentina - or seemed to be. As the match wound on it became evident that the crowd was evenly split, which made for a great atmosphere: both in terms of fellow-fanship and also that everyone seemed to appreciate great plays by either team. (I heard there was a rabidly anti-Mexico contingent in "the back room" - watching Univision in order (apparently?) to pique their fervor to a maximum pitch.)

Jed filled me in on South Korea's loss yesterday. "It was sad." I conveyed my condolences to Gladys, who observed that all the Asian nations were out. (She included Saudi Arabia in her list, which surprised me: a different perspective on the dividing boundary, obviously.)

I said, "You can't be everywhere all the time!"

Gladys responded, "But we want to be everywhere all the time!"

Meanwhile, Puru tried to make up for the gender battle by offering me a chair up front. When I declined, teasing him about being gentlemanly, Neil wasted no time at all occupying the empty seat. (Later, he bought me a beer: as compensation?) I got excited about the sports production angle near the end of regulation time when Argentina "scored" a goal with barely a minute left and the next visual was of the offsides flag. Scott - you're still with me, man!

This engaged us in a brief conversation about the power/influence of making the decisions about which camera angle to broadcast - something which inevitably alters perception yet can also heighten engagement if done well. I was thinking the same earlier about the announcers trying desperately to create the illusion of a possibility for Sweden to rebound against Germany. Then we got into the artificiality of professional organization, a format which can "kill the human spirit." Certainly it can, although (working upon Nietzsche) it could be that professional, organized sports really is a suitable substitute and outlet for aggression that historically would have to end in death. (Neitzsche seems to prefer that we had stayed that way, but I think that's more a reaction to his awareness of living in a transitional time when the re-channeling of such vitality was still so deeply in process and the potential life-affirming outcomes only vaguely intuited.)

It is cool that Ghana made it; and somehow I'm going to have to resist watching every single match from here on out. Maybe I can allow myself an internet peek every now and then?

Posted by Steph at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2006

Does your spirit squint?

Some months ago I was nearly skewered at the pinpoint of a rapier. I deflected the blow and mine enemy did retreat. I was accused of Nietzschean ressentiment, of being an unwitting participant in “the revolt of the slaves in morals” because of my “depriv[ation]…of the proper outlet of action” and thus particular behaviors were perceivable as reactive attempts “to find [my] compensation in an imaginary revenge” (“Good and Evil,” “Good and Bad” p. 19).

I hadn’t yet read Nietzsche then, so wasn’t aware of the extent of the insult. Reading The Genealogy of Morals now, I can readily perceive two constitutive/constituting elements that brought forth the judgment:

1) the rationale for characterizing me as having succumbed to the so-called slave morality at the sublime ideological level, and
2) that the epistemology which justifies this judgment of my character was motivated dialectically – as an essential response to certain unfortunate dynamics that played themselves out in the beginning of “Communication in Crisis” conference planning. (Which, let it be duly noted, was a resounding success.)

I’m working on point one: the accusation of slave morality. Being of a more heteroglossic rather than essentialist bent I’m less inclined to accept Nietzsche’s polemical terror at what he calls the victory of the priestly-aristocratic caste (using the Jews as his exemplar) as a death knell for humanity. My own self-assessment now is thus a combined yes-and-no affair. (In fact, it seems evident to me that Nietzsche drops hints that he himself is not quite so disdainful as he deliberately seeks to appear.) Indeed, there is an important distinction to be made between stereotypical labeling of aristocratic or slave morality and recognition of the typical characteristics in diverse individuals. I did react - on the basis of emotions Nietzsche valorizes as aristocratic - and I did react - on the basis of another, uncontrollable situation in regards to which my emotions were unresolved.

As to the 2nd point, regarding a dialectical essentialism, my opinion is also dual-toned. Yes, in the "first" instance (during initial conference planning, counted as "first" in others' external perception of my behavior; rather than from that point with which I would initiate the chain of events) I was deprived of action in the proper zone – that zone (alluded to above) had nothing to do with school or the department in any way. Events (dynamics of group relations) within that initial configuration of the conference group triggered certain visceral memories from the other zone and my lack of power there was transferred and projected by me into the conference group – definitely improper. So the dual overlay was between two entirely different situations and contexts – some would (and did, as I recall) suggest that I violated certain boundaries. Of course, reducing the analysis of the "first" incident to this conflation on my part neglects recognition of the actions that called forth such a response of resistance.

In the second instance (regarding a procedural proposal for departmental student governance), which incurred the accusation of resentment, something else was going on. I am less confident in hypothesizing what that “something else” might be, as doing so requires making generalized attributions: please read them as tentative and provisional. I am not claiming to know, only speculating. It seems possible that my earlier “bad” behavior (“bad” because it was sanctioned) planted certain seeds of doubt and/or suspicion among some peers, which possibly lay dormant until triggered by a new situation with a somewhat similar context – many of the same individuals, at least.

This will seem like a tangent, but my dentist’s office made me a present today. I’m in the midst of having two teeth crowned. They offer certain discounts depending upon how one makes payment. I wanted to minimize my cost and had proposed paying for each crown separately using two different modes of payment. This would take maximum advantage of what I could afford. I was told separating the bill wasn’t possible; the discounts only applied to a certain overall minimum. This occurred last week. Today, I was back for a routine cleaning and the office manager told me that they had revisited their decision and now wanted to make me a gift of the discount, in keeping with their policy of providing exceptional customer service. Of course, I was delighted! She explained what happened as me giving them “a proposal that was a little bit foreign to us.” No one had apparently ever wanted to pay in the configuration I proposed, so they needed some time to think about it (and – to their credit and my benefit – they took that time.)

With that framing in mind, if we return to the second instance (in which I was proposing a particular addition to the operating rules of the department’s student government which - as the discussions unfolded over a few all-department meetings and several intermediary conversations - invoked questions of overall organizational mission), it seems possible that what transpired was something along similar lines? I proposed something “a bit foreign” and explained it in possibly even more foreign/obscure terms (a theoretical language not shared by everyone as well as in an atypical discourse for this kind of setting) and there was a reaction from the group that stunned me with its force. I would be surprised if anyone intentionally meant to blow me out of the water; rather, I speculate (emphasis on speculate!) that there were enough similarities between this situation (with the CGSA) and the previous one (with the conference planning group) that it opened up or called forth a reaction from some who had possibly (I’m just guessing, hypothesizing!) felt deprived of suitable methods of action (punishment?) to sanction my improper behavior in the first go-round. (I simply withdrew – a solution that seemed satisfactory enough at the time but perhaps not sufficient?)

I think this logic makes sense only dialectically, because it relies on certain essentialist assumptions. Such as, if I acted up/acted out once then I’ve always got that capability, i.e., it must be my nature. Where the logic breaks down, (I’m more confident about this), is dialogically. If language is alive and meaning is always heteroglossically co-produced then what necessitates essentialism? At this point, the accusation of resentiment can be as easily turned the other way? In this regard, dialecticalism has the characteristics of a sublime ideology. I think what I felt in the second instance, overwhelmed as I was, was the juxtaposition of both dialectical and dialogical possibilities. A dialectical reading requires (relies upon and reinforces) stereotyping; a dialogical reading enables the possibility of a shift in established (dialectical) dynamics. Happily (at least for me!), such a small-scale shift appears to have occurred among some of my peers. I am grateful. (Does this make me a sublime slave?!)

Rise up mine foe! (Dr. Metropolis advises, however, that I should not be too eager. Chapter Twelve, in How to be a SuperHero.) Ok, so, like, whenever.

But note the call of aristocratic morality: “it acts and grows spontaneously, it merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and exultant ‘yes’ to its own self” (p. 19).

Posted by Steph at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2006

"look better next time!"

Thus was I greeted upon arriving at Shakespeare under the Stars for opening night. Who, me? Not paying attention? Didn't notice something? For shame! I chattered with the assembled peasantry (!), laughed hard at the Porter (MacBeth's servant), and admired the passion of our friend Dan, exposing the depths of his capacity for depravity. Yes, Daniel Kennedy is Macbeth! He is accompanied by a stellar cast. The witches and Lady Macbeth are well-worth seeing, but forsooth - none played poorly!

Posted by Steph at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2006

the neil effect

Besides terrorizing my cat, and scattering football players with his amazing defensive skills, the dude came after me last night! I thought it was great. :-) He reminded me that US ignorance of the rest of the world population's actual experiences living day-to-day is racism. Period. It could have been the end of conversation.

It wasn't, however, because I concede the point. There are situations when the nuance of naivete/deliberation matters a great deal, but if we're going to establish a baseline definition the material fact of privilege is that it shields one from needing to know. So we moved on to some other topics with more room for intellectual exploration, including Nietzche.

The point I was trying to make with Satya - that I circled around for awhile, getting lost in my own preamble (!)- is Nietzsche's assertion that we (human beings) NEED fear in order to truly live. I am not opposed to this thesis, but I'm not sure I agree with the terms with which it seems Nietzsche limits fear's range. I'll have to look closer at his actual language (as translated, since I don't know German), to see if there's a way to tease out the implication I perceived of a limited domain of what he might consider "legitimate" fear.

Posted by Steph at 5:29 PM | Comments (2)

June 19, 2006

"The Game is ON!"

Jung Yup hosted a World Cup event for the Asian-Pacific forces yesterday. It was too bad Australia lost, but the Korea-France match was tense! France had the first ten minutes, then 70 minutes ensued of close calls and tension and growing concern until Korea took the last ten minutes for a 1-1 draw. Very exciting. :-) They didn't quite live up to the banner, "We Go Beyond!" but who knows...they're already gone beyond where some folks expected them to be. FYI - Univision's in-between game coverage (in Spanish) was much more entertaining than ABC's.

I've been resisting watching because I MUST keep FOCUSED on comps. So far so good. Bumped into Gita and Pei at Rao's; one of them was crushed to learn she'd been associated with the losers who celebrated my birthday with me this year. Oh dear. (At least she's not one of Nietzche's frogs.) Then Puru and Tejal came by; he practically dared me to give him a hard time on the blog! He insists his moves away from the women (which began the gender division were motivated only by a desire for food but I'm not sure I'm convinced....

Meanwhile...Nietzsche (online text provided by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC.) I'm reading the Dover Edition, 2003, "an unabridged translation of a standard edition of the 1913 translation by Horace B. Samuel."

"...I am told it is simply a case of old frigid and tedious frogs rawling and hopping around men and inside men, as if they were as thoroughly at home there, as they would be in a swamp" (originally published 1913, p. 10).

I don't think I would particularly enjoy having Nietzsche pissed off at me. He is referring to "English psychologists" and speculating as to their motives for "pushing to the front the [shameful part] of our inner world, and looking for the efficient, governing, and decisive principle in that precise quarter where the intellectual self-respect of the race would be the most reluctant to find it..." (p. 9). He continues that he doesn't wish to believe in their frogdom, rather that they are, "at bottom, brave, proud and magnanimous animals who know how to bridle both their hearts and their smarts, and have specifically trained themselves to sacrifice what is desirable to what is true, any truth in fact, even the simple, bitter, ugly, repulsive, unchristian, and immortal truths - for there are truths of that description" (p. 10).

Don may (?) be encountering one of those truths this evening... :-0

Posted by Steph at 6:55 PM | Comments (2)

June 17, 2006

a rogue? :-)

I had more fun yesterday evening than I have had in a long time. :-) I'm not convinced of my own skill as a conversationalist, but I'm pleased that I know so many people who are talented in this regard. It also felt good (!) to be wished well on my anticipated travels by so many. Of course, such is returned to all! (Hmm, kinda mushy, huh?!)

I'm reading Bakhtin, experiencing a string of those phenomenological moments that lend themselves to a more mystical form of epistemology. Check this out:

"The chronotope of the encounter; in such a chronotope the temporal element predominates, and it is marked by a higher degree of intensity in emotions and values. The chronotope of the road associated with encounter is characterized by a broader scope, but by a somewhat lesser degree of emotional and evaluative intensity. [thank heaven!] ... The road is a particularly good place for random encounters. On the road ('the high road'), the spatial and temporal paths of the most varied people - representatives of all social classes, estates, religions, nationalities, ages - intersect at one spatial and temporal point. People who are normally kept separate by social and spatial distance can accidentally meet; any contrast may crop up, the most various fates may collide and interweave with one another. On the road the spatial and temporal series defining human fates and lives combine with one another in distinctive ways, even as they become more complex and more concrete by the collapse of social distance. The chronotope of the road is both a point of new departures and a place for events to find their denouement. Time, as it were, fuses together with space and flow in it (forming the road)..." (Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel, in The Dialogic Imagination, 1981, p. 243-244).

In addition to this coincidence, I was given the best belated (by two years!) birthday present imaginable. I investigated some of the tips on choosing a name ...my first choice is already taken. Here's Bakhtin again:

"“Essential to these three figures [rogue, clown, fool] is a distinctive feature that is as well a privilege – the right to be ‘other’ in this world, the right not to make common cause with any single one of the existing categories that life makes available; none of these categories quite suits them, they see the underside and the falseness of every situation…” (p. 159).

There's a bit of "full circle" magic to reading all this now as it was the first place I went outside of the assigned curriculum of courses. And you know what? It got blogged! Leda Leda Leda, it seems you knew where I was headed . . .

Oo Oo Oo - "News from the Profession discusses tutoring with ESL students!

And an application to Henry James The Golden Bowl.

Posted by Steph at 8:27 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

eccentricity

My dentist told me (as he ripped out some seven ancient fillings to make way for two new crowns) that my bite is eccentric. (He'll have to tell me if bruxism is at fault.) He used the term, properly spelled eccentric but pronounced e-centric, to simply mean off-center. We couldn't help but notice, however, the common use of eccentric to be a potentially apt descriptor of yours truly. {gasp!}

He gave me quite the hard time for my "thrilling" reading material. (We'll see if I go back to him again, hmmph!)

My new roomie and his pals are into it, though. Not that it was a subject of discussion last night, instead, as we ate our scrumptious dinner last night Smita and I both noticed the gender division: men at the table, women in the living room. We teasingly applauded ourselves for having a higher order conversation. Within minutes, while we were discussing the 1970’s Emergency in India, the men become quite animated regarding hairstyles.

That sums up the meterosexual portion of the evening. (Perhaps I can inspire more political discussion?) Prior to this, however, Sourya tried to set me right regarding quantum mechanics...a "pillar" of physics that I think can be a metaphor (and vice-versa?) for human relations.

He introduced me to the concept of commutability. The article linked mentions Bose-Einstein . I'm not sure how those figure in to our conversation. I was trying to explain my understanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, in which (supposedly) energy and matter are both dually present, and what you get is what you look for: the fact of observation in-and-of-itself changes the manifestation or "reality" of the object. Sourya explained that really matter and energy are "the same thing", but that some things don't commute. His example had to do with location and velocity. One cannot both pinpoint location and accurately measure speed at the quantum level. If you get an accurate measure of velocity it is impossible to fix a specific location at any given time; if you fix a particular location then the speed becomes indeterminate.

Aren't people like this too? :-) Here are a few quotes I culled from recent reading to provide a minimal sketch of what I study:

“…the fragility and ineluctably historical nature of language, the coming and dying of meaning that it, as a phenomenon, shares with that other phenomenon it ventriloquates, man” (p.xviii).

[dialectics, I argue] goes for “a general voice” which Bahktin says doesn’t exist in isolation from “a specific saying…..Language, when it means, is somebody talking to somebody else, even when that someone else is one’s own inner addressee” (emphasis in original, p. xxi).

These are from Michael Holquist's introduction to four of Bakhtin's essays. Another one to follow up on some day - in relation to me and the act of blogging - is this:

“...the way intimacy with our own voice conduces to the illusion of presence” (p. xxi) – Holquist links Bakhtin with Husserl and Derrida on this point. I have become more real to my own self through writing; is this an illusion or a delusion?

Kinda puts me in mind of "the working-class solution to sideburns."

Posted by Steph at 4:13 PM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2006

practice

I was introduced to the granth at a gurudwara last night, ate langar (delicious!), and made eye contact with the granthi. The latter happened twice, once while I was veiled (during the service, happy), once when I wasn't (departing, not so?) The veil hides my hairstyle, y'know? :-o

The most fundamental principle of the Sikh religion is seva.

Need advice? I'm feeling a bit out-of-place this morning, so I decided to "take hukamnama: I received Page 721.

The granth is written in Gurmukhi.

Posted by Steph at 9:47 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2006

"home" for June

I received quite the welcome to my primary lodging for the rest of this month. First of all, my bedroom has glow-in-the-dark stars. How cool is that?!! I've always wanted them. :-)

Then, a spectacular meal by Neil and spirited discussion from Sai and Satya. What got us going is a book by Tariq Ali about the 1960s, Street Fighting Years. It is a sad commentary on my own education as a representation of general U.S. myopia, but I really didn't know that the civil, social, and political turbulence of the 1960s was a global phenomena.

A few features of our interaction impressed me: the vigor of disagreements and that these lacked animosity, episodes of silence punctuating the exchange, and the sheer pace and density of thoughtfulness these young men possess. My own contributions felt fumbling and awkward by comparison. I recognize the vitality as a characteristic of youth (!) but also as indicative of intellectual and emotional presence: these young men have been actively aware of and engaged with their own lives and the world around them. Each of them is younger than I was when it first pierced my consciousness that such perception was even possible!

I'm looking forward to more debate. :-) In particular I'm eager to test an observation about a tendency toward extremes. One theme involved the experience of oppression and whether or not a member of a targeted group, such as African-Americans in the US, might prefer the overt racism of the South to the covert racism of the North. This was taken to the furthest ends of the continuum of violence: "I would prefer any day to live where I could sit down at a table with a white man instead of where I could be killed."

Of course! It's in the middle range of these extremes that the question becomes intriguing. Where is the boundary between tolerance and acceptance, to what extent is one valued over the other, under which conditions and circumstances, to what ends? I often reflect on the amount of tolerance I encountered during my most passionate, public activism. While I dwelt in the possibility of acceptance (presenting it as a challenge more than an invitation [aha!]), it was the tension itself that was instructive and compelling. That none of my exertions brought me into contact with direct violence seems coincidental - a coincidence of white-skin and apparent middle-class privilege and the good fortune not to encounter someone prone to violence at a vulnerable moment.

Posted by Steph at 8:38 AM | Comments (2)

June 5, 2006

In the nick of time

It's not a done deal yet, but "Just-in-Time" might have located me a place to hang for the rest of June. And none too soon as Elizabeth's hospitality is not to be taken casually! I'd gain 100 pounds if I stayed here for very long!

JIT also relayed a joke about (me?) becoming a spinster. Actually, the joke was about how spinsters are related to strong young men. Through their cats. Do you think this means he might yet agree to keep Mei-Mei for the summer while I'm gone? I am gonna be gone . . . I think. Timing is tight, but various bits keep falling into place...

The movie JIT selected for our viewing pleasure was intended to inspire my pending visit to Iran. The Suitors, however, does not live up to its billing as half-Hitchcock (sortof) and half-Lucille Ball (hardly). We tolerated it after realizing it was made in 1988. A few of the opening scenes with the sheep were mildly humorous. And JIT giggled quite a bit at the end when my early sympathy for the woman under siege turned out to have been premature. Oh well.

We did not dicuss critical realism this time (because we were living it). Nothing like your upstairs neighbors blasting rock-n-roll while doing aerobics at 4 am!

Posted by Steph at 6:49 PM | Comments (3)

May 25, 2006

karaoke blur

Someone got engaged last night. No, someone got married? No, someone was already engaged and is going to get married! I ate octopus. I ordered squid. How did that happen? I didn't notice until I was 3/4's done with the dish. It was delicious.

Ten people RSVPed for Hunju's "bridal shower". One didn't show (until karaoke), one didn't RSVP (such nerve!), and two additional people appeared for a total of ... an even dozen celebrants. We followed no customs except our own, so Hunju did not receive any advice on her upcoming life as a married woman. Perhaps we should take up a collection to send her to school?

Posted by Steph at 9:52 AM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2006

incredulity

I've been asked if I have common sense. I've been asked if I'm nuts. I was roasted for considering serious study while visiting Iran: do your comps first and then ENJOY yourself!

Some of the analysis is pretty freaky, for instance, this article from the April 17 edition of The New Yorker.

Here's a blogpost by an American woman in Iran. She made a Request to news agencies covering the Iran nuclear issue back in February.

NOTE: Looks like I'll have to figure out how to wear a hajib.

Posted by Steph at 10:48 PM | Comments (2)

May 21, 2006

in the company of losers...

Well, that was just the last stage in my extended birthday celebration. :-) Little Brother, his ex (?), and his best friend/roommate, treated me at the infamous ABC from midnight to about 2 am. Besides the minus-a-decade mythology (making me 33, ha!), there was the gender-bending conversation in which the Ex-of-Indeterminate Relationship tried to make common cause with me on the basis of us both being women, and Little Brother reeled out a ream of reasons that lumped me in with him and the BF/RM. The Ex-of-IR surrendered quickly in the face of overwhelming evidence. (I'm not sure this was a good thing?!) The list was basically a litany of what people (young men?) with no real life do to pass the time... (ouch!)

Then there was the redemption of Napolean Brandy. Wow.

Previous to this was the Keith Wann show (check out this interpreted clip) at a fundraiser in honor of Yolande "YoYo" Henry. Six pals with no previous exposure to American Deaf Culture accompanied me and enjoyed the show. We barely arrived in time to acquire FM systems so they could follow the fantastic spoken English interpretation. At intermission, we had "birthday bread" made by my good friend, VPP (undisclosed, secret recipe), and I visited with a few folk (receiving one of the best hugs ever from Marion, who SCORED a hundred bucks with the second prize in the raffle! Dang that girl is lucky!)

We snagged quick appetizers at Thai Garden, then dealt with a minor vehicular vibration problem. Or, I should say, Afry dealt with it using a unique karate kick tire-changing technique that won praise from the crowd of onlookers.

A wonderfully successful evening, all the way around: good friends, superb food, laughter, drama, a few special gifts (despite the request for none, harumph!), who could ask for more? Well, the day OF my actual birthday plenty of folks remembered and I received a slew of hugs, handshakes, and well wishes. Awesome. :-) I also met some new folk and learned about bathymetry. There are more speciality kinds of science than I ever imagined!

Posted by Steph at 9:35 PM | Comments (2)

May 18, 2006

iced coffee

People who don't do caffeine too often should watch out for McDonald's summer brew. Actually, my favorite teller-promoted-upstairs at my wicked cool small-town bank was just as wired when I was in the bank last week. I don't think Roxy had the coffee excuse then? At any rate, her repartee made my day, and I was happy to get a repeat. :-)

In addition to the kvetching about having teenage children (wasn't it easier when your worst worries were changing diapers and diagnosing tears instead of role shifting and lord-knows-what kinds of experimentation?), we shared some seriousness about how some people connect and know things on different levels or planes. People are in denial about reality, she argued. I was intrigued at the time, but who knew our talk was prelude to things I would read a few hours later? Not a surprise, though, if one accepts the possibility of communication on planes other than language. The irony is that we need language to make sense of these other forms of communication, or, perhaps I should say, we use language to try and make sense of - or dismiss - these other forms of communication.

At any rate, it was a fun and healing connection. Her humor is the packaging for the parts of life that matter most: "Your children are the product of your heart."

Posted by Steph at 9:51 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2006

rumors

Little Brother says he bowled a 167 after I left last night, beating Lava for the second time in a row by only one (1) pin. When Luscious arrived, he looked at the five of us and exclaimed, "This is it?" Was it Anuj who reflected on the implication of how exciting we must be?! I know it was he who described the evening as a requiem. Cata was wearing his "Let's Get Nerdy" t-shirt. I don't know if that's why he copied my score for five frames straight but it's true, frames 3-8 we matched perfectly (even though we didn't always have the same combinations). Then he broke free.

I wrote some note about asking for permission. Lord only knows for what. Oh yeah, I had a 153 again. That's my third time. At least it's an odd number.

Posted by Steph at 9:19 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2006

Bella Peppers

A better camera would do this dish invented by Jamie much more justice. It's yummy! :-)

Posted by Steph at 9:10 AM | Comments (0)

May 8, 2006

overshooting

Broughton is visiting and has given me a raft of grief about "overshooting" while driving. If I recall correctly there was the road this morning (two choices, I was trying to time breaks in the flow of oncoming traffic); a driveway into a shop (just drifted a little far ahead); and another turn (somewhere?) as the navigator couldn't decide if I should or should not turn "here".

We speculated on this as a possible personality flaw.

An English irregular verb (!), to overshoot means simply to go too far.

Guilty as charged. :-/

This puts me in dubious company with ecological overshoot (E.O. Wilson has calculated that humanity is currently operating at 120% of earth's sustainable capacity), telecommunications overshoot (transitions that (somehow?) exceed a final value and convective overshoot (dealing with instability, which goes without saying).

Posted by Steph at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)

May 7, 2006

geologists

know how to enjoy themselves. :-) Whether it's wondering if Justin was drinking Ginger Ale, Hosannah can tolerate some western philosophy, Scotty is bootlegging Coors Lite, Chris is telling someone to "take a chill pill," Michele is showing her tendons, Mario is proclaiming (through a ventriloquist), "I'm not a geologist, I'm a jelly donut," Ryan is describing the complexity of his wife's work, or everyone is wondering how many giggles Evan acquired, these folk have spent some time together and come to enjoy each other's company quite a bit.

I learned about normal faults, reverse faults, thrust faults, and my fault.

Anyway, there's nothing like working on a nuggetized project with uber-qualified folks having a good time!

Posted by Steph at 9:56 PM | Comments (2)

May 3, 2006

Ellen's wisdom :-)

F - false
E - expectations
A - appear
R - real

From Nowhere to Now Here.

I needed this today! :-)

Posted by Steph at 4:25 PM | Comments (2)

the regulars

Yeah. It was just us. Me, Little Brother, and the Nepalese.

We bowled.
We knocked the pins down.
We left.

You lose!

Posted by Steph at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2006

progress for progressives!

On Apr 29, 2006, at 11:56 PM, Chris Boulton wrote:

AMHERST, MA, April 29 - In a stunning turn of events, Brett Ingram cast the deciding vote in the GSS elections yesterday. Mr. Ingram's ballot, marked with his signature uppercase 'X,' pushed the GEO-endorsed slate of candidates over the top of a hotly contested election. Turn-out was high. But in spite of 600 voters (up 250 from the previous year) coming to the polls, in the end, it all came down to Brett. Elections observer George Liu was there. Marveling at Mr. Ingram's insouciance in the face of such a historic moment, Liu concluded "Never before have I witnessed such exquisite suffering on behalf of suffrage. But one thing is certain: that old curmudgeon carried the day with his vigorous exercise of the franchise." One minor annoyance for Brett; one giant leap for the Graduate Student Senate.

Oh alright. Then there's the official announcement (much less entertaining, but what can one do in the face of bureaucracy?):

On Apr 30, 2006, at 12:24 AM, Liu, Zixu wrote:

As your representative in the graduate student senate, I want to inform you of the results of the elections of GSS officers for thenext academic year.

After two and half hours of counting on Friday after the closing of ballot table, the GEO endorsed stale (Jeff-labor studies, Flavia-anthropology, Hasan-economics, and Sai-African American studies) won the election with a margin of 100 or more votes in every one of the four contested position. Also, the intense campaign on both sides brought 604 (including four provisional votes) graduate students to the balloting table, which set a record in GSS history.

I also want to thank all those who went down to campus center and cast your precious votes. Please keep the spirit of participation, which will be more than necessary for the newly elected leadership to fulfill their campaign promises.

That being said, enjoy the gorgeous day and have a very nice weekend.

george

Congrats to all the candidates!

Posted by Steph at 12:37 AM | Comments (1)

April 29, 2006

"when the going gets tough

read second paragraph email conversation with non-god dated Apr. 29 2006."

you have to trust that no matter what happens you will get through it, that it's just what's meant to be - not because it's fate but because that's the way it is/was. so you invent your story about it in a way that cultivates the kind of human be-ing to which you aspire. it ain't easy and it ain't fun when things don't go as we desire but, somehowsomeway, if you can hold fast to any kind of belief that sustains you then you can get through.

Posted by Steph at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2006

"declared elected"

Copied from the April 26, 2006 6:31:55 PM EDT email newsletter of the Graduate Employee Organization (emphasis added).

2. GEO Election Results:
-------------------------
Following the elections on April 18th and 19th, the following candidates were declared elected:
President - Srinivas Lankala (Communication)
Vice-President - Jeremy Wolf (Political Science)
Secretary-Treasurer - Mandy Cheung (School of Education)
Members of the Steering Committee - Jason Rodriguez (Sociology) and Anna Curtis (Sociology)

The new officers will be inaugurated at the last membership meeting of this semester on May 10th at 6 pm.

Posted by Steph at 9:24 AM | Comments (0)

Fame: Take More!

Communication in Crisis conference organizers might be frantically trying to recoup the semester (could be a projection on my part) but the event is still on the radar.

Posted by Steph at 9:18 AM | Comments (0)

rubbing shoulders

A long time ago (!), Donal got me into the Department of Communication here at UMass.

Posted by Steph at 9:15 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2006

"we were right to come"

and the rest of you are LOSERS! Who says the Black Eyed Peas are better than bowling? The Blog Victim won three of four games, but if I won the last game by 64 pins....setting a new personal best (!) of 158...who's the better bowler? BV approached his personal best. Alas. He fell short by one. 1. That's o-n-e pin. Even then, his margin of victory was only 71 pins. Oh. So much for Blog Gossip. :-/

After he won that game, he speculated about his character, pondering (out loud!) whether he was the kind of person to celebrate a victory by continuing to crush his opponents or . . . (he left the rest unsaid. Hmmmm.) Let me just note the margin of loss progressed from six pins, to eleven ("I just have to knock 'em out, at least a spare") to the aforementioned seventy-one. And this, after saying "the house of the straight-shooters" held no enmity, blaming all of that on those who aspire to spin. Having been so soundly pulverized in the third game, you must imagine that I was pleased by the spread after my turkey (another first!) in the last game when the score showed me with 122 (7th frame) and BV with 37 (5th, b'cuz he had a strike in the 6th and hadn't yet bowled his 7th). NO DOUBT that was the largest spread of the match and yes, thank you, I'll just take my bows. :-0

Posted by Steph at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

Pankopaat

"a heart-shaped leaf" - this must be the image of the 19 folks who converged on the bowling lanes tonight in honor of Luscious' 72nd birthday and JC's successful dissertation defense. Or, perhaps it was merely a reference to the (gendered) fashion observation that "all the women are wearing green, almost," "except," adds a graffiti-ghost, "those who are wearing red. and blue. if not yellow."

Bowling was merely filler for the real show tonight. CAKE! There was a profusion of cards and well-wishing, such that a portrait of (the back of) JC's head) as he sets off on his new life wound up in Luscious b'day card, and a birthday memory for Luscious wound up in the blog notes. The negotiations for a trade-off to mask the first error resulted in an "economic metaphor showing the capitalist ideology of the contemporary global village": "What are you gonna do in return?"

Competition spun down the lanes and among onlookers. Strikes by the following were witnessed: Siri, JC, Greg, Rajiv, Linus, Darpan, Zeynep, and Alenka. LB too but barely - according to the "if its not blogged; it didn't happen" rule, a group cheer indicating a possible strike doesn't verify the strike; however an actual eyewitness strike did (eventually) occur. Four doubles were thrown tonight, by Luscious (as usual), Cata (in the 10th frame!), dadofzeynep (officially, Nejat), and yours truly. :-) Zeynep, having waited 15 years to beat her dad at bowling, soundly pounded him 132 to 100 in the second game. No one set any records tonight, although I came close, falling short by four measly pins. I had a 93 in the fifth frame bowling right-handed; compare that with the 95 total I had in the game I bowled as a lefty. (Then it started to go downhill. Not as severely as Linus though, who cooked our breakfast in the first game and fizzled like a fire in the rain during the second.)

Meanwhile, JC continued the streak of his good day, pummelling his opponents by 30 pins. Alenka, Maja, and Jake all tied at 106, doing some threesome kind of thing? Then there was a flask going 'round one of the other lanes, and a backpack sounding suspiciously full of empty bottles....a rowdy encounter between Anuj and Rajiv which paled in comparison to the lunge and knock-down between Lava and Linus later. What was up with the testosterone tonight?

Don's creativity of JC (a bald head morphing into a bandanna-covered hairy head) inspired additional artwork, including this pregnant duck. ("Duckness" is obvious; you might have to stretch to glean the pregnant part.) It's unclear if this sketch is an actual portrait or an amalgam of the clutch of us nondescript types. Did I mention Darpan got confused about the sport of the evening? It may all have been some kind of discharge for the real, poignant details of JC's defense, in which some of the beneficiaries of his community work on fair housing expressed their gratitude for his work above and beyond the call of academic scholarship.

Kinda gives ya a nice warm, heart-shaped leafy-feeling, doesn't it?

Posted by Steph at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2006

WHY?

Once upon a time there were bowlers.

Actually, bowling has persisted and I've even been there; just behind the times with the blogreports. And this after folks started inquiring and/or commenting about these posts in particular! (I guess I'm still not very audience-friendly.) :-/

Why what? Why bowl, when the most one can say about an evening's effort is, "that was an odd ball"?

Two weeks ago (!), Luscious bowled with a calf injury. No, not a baby cow, he twisted something in his lower leg playing basketball. His injury did not lead to the worst bowling of the evening, however. That honor fell to Dan, who was bolluxed, boogered, and otherwise convinced he should have stayed home to watch DVDs. "It is nice," he conceded, "to see Luscious suck." As it turned out, "only Steph" had a decent night, although Lava pulled off a right- and left-handed combo score of 161. (He does pay me to write nice things about him.)

Maja was prepping for her defense the next day (which she passed with roaring colors), Mafu and Angie dropped by for a quick hello, and the Hungarian (as he was introduced!?!) on the team rolled a couple of muffie games. There is one enigmatic scribble I can no longer decode:

What is my "x"?

I await the answer with suspence.

Posted by Steph at 8:18 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2006

Navavarsha

I have a hang over. It's the fault of those dang Nepalese! I didn't have that much wine; I think it was the apple tobacco. Or perhaps it was the time warp to 2063 B.S.? (No, that's not what you think, it's Bikram Sambat.) (Which may or may not be the same as the Vikram calendar, which describes the four eras of Hindi temporality.)

Supposedly the flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah is a traditional fixture among folks gathering just to chat. I smoked more than the last time (and I'm not a smoker). The truth is, I'm no longer in my twenties, or even early thirties! Can't party so hearty anymore. sigh I had to leave before the promised 4 am meatballs and music.

I reacquainted myself with now Dr. Alenka, Jake, and a few other occasional bowlers as well as folks I tend to see only at these soirees. I had a great conversation with Suvas (whose field of study so shocked me I've completely blanked it from memory) and Dinesh (who mostly eavesdropped) about limits to consciousness. We reflected on the universal (!) human fact that we are all raised in environments with norms for talking and conceptualizing the world that become a kind of mental boundary. And then, somehow, some people choose to leave that environment (most stay) and encounter new ways of talking and conceptualizing the world. And then various accommodations occur along a continuum of refusal/denial of difference (a kind of entrenchment, eh?), resistance to changing one's cognitive boundaries, to versions of acceptance and change up to and (for some) including conversion.

There's a challenge for those of us who "leave" in dealing with those who "stay", because we have to figure out how to interact with them on the basis of the boundaries they've got without pity or judgment. It reminds me of the conversation I had earlier in the day with one of the Tent State organizers. We briefly touched on the question of "too much" vs "not enough" structure. I'm hoping to explore the question somewhat (during TSU) from the angle of group relations theory.

I digress. :-)

Only Luscious had a clue regarding the originary event for the Nepali calendar. There are no references to a virgin bleeding to death in any of the sites I searched. (I think he made it up.) And there's our other recently anointed Dr. who had strange visions at a pollen tube dissertation defense. And a couple of (strange) Russians attending from Mars.

I did not neglect a poll regarding affairs of state in Nepal. The King as a symbolic figurehead was supported by two of the three victims of my un-party-like curiosity. His present actions are deplored by all. An interview by Amy Goodman yesterday emphasized the necessity of recognizing the country's Maoists. I was assured that Nepal's Maoists are "very different" from Chairman Mao's Maoists.

All intellectualizing aside, I'm most grateful to Afry for his suggestion of miso soup as a medical treatment.

Posted by Steph at 1:58 PM | Comments (2)

April 7, 2006

A History of Violence

My peers are more critical than me. I thought it was pretty good, but they lamented it's predictability and (hello?) the amount of violence.

I was intrigued by the relationship between a man who has reinvented himself and a woman who has to reconcile her attraction to this man with a past she abhors.

Otherwise, it was predictable. There were also several loose ends not pursued and/or left untied. "Half-assed," was the assessment of the clerk at Captain Video. Then they (my friends?!!) tried to blame me :-0 only because Munich was out, there would have been too much thinking involved with Good Night, And Good Luck, and Jarhead didn't grab their interest. Maybe they regret passing up the opportunity to watch Jesus Christ Superstar?

Posted by Steph at 11:47 PM | Comments (2)

April 6, 2006

random moments

There was the colleague I saw this morning who didn't moderate the emphasis: "You look like you could use a cup of coffee."

The professor who took pains to express in several different ways what I "need to understand."

The lecture that included details about the despicable events at Duke over the weekend.

The cartoon drawn for me by a student mocking my emphasis on parsimony in writing. I forgot to write down the sentence reconstructed to correct a dangling modifier. :-( It referred to "festering trolls in the basement" and was a genuine collaborative effort, with the adjective, subject, and location (I think) all supplied by different individuals. More of this!

The idea for a SNL skit on a PR firm specializing in dissertation titles for graduate students.

Finally, there were blini. (Delicious!)

Posted by Steph at 9:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 4, 2006

overshadowed

Last week at bowling I set my personal best: 153, setting up a tie with Zeynep.

However, I couldn't bask in the glory too long because of this

and then its revision . . .

I'm not sure of which to be most afraid?

Posted by Steph at 4:52 PM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2006

"hidden" in plain view?

Anuj parachuted in just in time to wave at Don before the movie began. (I received the clandestine codes: spongecell and backpack. shhh)

"There's something hidden in the long, static closing shot of Cache—a clue, an answer, a red herring, an epiphany. It's embedded deep, somewhere back in the shadows—or, perhaps, it's right up front, hiding in plain sight. It vastly alters everything that preceded it, demanding a total reevaluation of the film—or it just further complicates this already profoundly inscrutable mystery. It is a conclusion both languidly drawn out and violently abrupt, stunning in its simplicity, infuriating in its opacity."

It kept me tense, that's for sure. Was the entire movie made for one scene? And who made the videos? Why does it matter who made the videos? Majid is dead. Is he dead because of the videos or for another reason? Why now? Re-traumatization after he obviously had managed to make a life for himself? or is the point what hell wreaks itself upon a guilty conscience? Is it better to whet one's soul on the sharp edge of guilt or pass let it pass disinterested into the maw of forgotten memory?

What was hidden, besides a guilty conscience? A possibly illicit attraction? A nation's neglect of an immigrant population?

I wondered about the boy whose house Pierrot winds up at overnight, unannounced. I thought it was him (Francois?) engaged in animated conversation with Pierrot on the school steps in the final scene but apparently it was Majid's son: "The last shot in the film is of his son and the son of Moroccan man who once lived with the protagonist as a child." Did they plot together? A younger generation in cross-ethnic alliance against the deeply-buried sins of their parents?

To cap the undecidable weirdness of the evening, as we walked to the car afterwards, a young man with wild hair and clothing strikingly akin to Pierrot's strolled by in the cool spring-ish night air. We had just been talking about ghosts . . .

Posted by Steph at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

powers of ten

Here's another item I'm sure I've posted before but obviously didn't catalog or code correctly for later retrieval. At any rate, I saw this short video on the powers of ten when I interpreted a science class some years back for upper elementary school students (possibly fifth-graders). I find it a useful metaphor for this notion of social metonymy that I keep trying to articulate as a means of linking the microsocial with the macrosocial and vice-versa.

Posted by Steph at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2006

"the lane thing"

It's just a minor driving issue. Turning left from the right-hand lane. My current protege is quite casual about it. I'm calmer too, after surviving Korean driving lessons last year, the Romanian version seems like old hat.

We did pass through the infamous Hun Ju intersection. A full vehicle stop occurred in its proper place.

Posted by Steph at 2:38 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

buck up!

Ruth sends this:

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow. - DOROTHY THOMPSON

Missing from among the other quotes on courage is this one from Amelia Earhart:

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace."

Posted by Steph at 5:34 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2006

problematic moments (theory)

As James and I have discussed and theorized the role of time in group interaction, I think a PM might come down to the incursion of a diachronic element into the synchronic. As long as the ritual elements of an essentially linear unfoldment of moment-after-moment occurs as expected (familiar) then synchronicity secures enough stability and predictability that one can exercise various forms of control (over self, over an interaction, over a process, perhaps even over an outcome). When the synchronic is disrupted by the diachronic, however, unpredictability and instability emerge, threatening the established order. [I'm not sure "order" here must necessarily invoke power; it could just be regularity, routine.]

Hmmmmm, it could be that diachronic emergences at the individual level are able to be subsumed into 'the routine' - even if they are disruptive to the group - and thus don't constitute a problematic moment at the level of the group's operational constitution. But if there is a synchronicity of diachrony among several members then it becomes a group-level event, which necessarily evokes the power structure and calls it into question?

There might be some equation between the scale of perceived threat and the intensity of backlash....

Posted by Steph at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2006

"A New Hope"

It's hard to imagine there's a person with any access to media who hasn't seen the original Star Wars movie, Episode IV, A New Hope, released (ohmygosh) in 1977 (six technical Oscars). I saw it in the theatre six times. The only other movie I've seen so many times is Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Its reviews are awful, but the album by The Beatles "is often cited as the most influential rock album of all time," according to Wikipedia.

Those two movies pretty much sum up my 9th grade year in Florida, except for playing soccer (goalie - "you can't be stupid...but perhaps you must be a little crazy"), and personal encounters with pervasive racism. I wish I could say I found respite in someone besides the Bee Gees but...that's not the way it happened. :-/

(Wow, that was a tangent!)

Just-in-Time, in fact, never had seen ANH but somehow managed to enjoy it despite the occasional admonition to visualize the size of the Imperial Cruiser on the big screen and "imagine the sound coming from all around you." Not to mention enduring gasps of glee, outbursts of recognition, and various and sundry triggered tales associated with our first viewings.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating (I think I gained three pounds), and checking out Mei Mei the travel cat, who appears no worse for the wear.

For the record, I was only accused of being inspired by The Force once.

Posted by Steph at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

"with a little help from my friends"

List of things to work on:

1) Get new phone/ repair old phone...SOON
2) Do not read paper sent about a month ago
3) Request current version of paper
4) Plan trip to Columbus
5) Train cat
6) Stay well and happy
7) Learn to cook. Cook for friend
8) Continue being a pain in friend's butt
9) Call friend

Posted by Steph at 4:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2006

"blog fodder"

Dan's on to me. "You don't come to bowl, you just come to collect stories for your blog!" Then he went on to set a personal best. He continued by speculating that blogs are the trainspotting of the decade, with someone checking in on how Anuj does every week. (He's been doing better and better! Not only at bowling: check out his latest minute of fame! He's way high on the cool factor too.) Turkish did not repeat her record performance from last week. Alas. LB couldn't hit a spare to save his life but did still win a game or two, much to the dismay of the brothers who felt the need to record one of his lowest scores ever.
Not that there's any rivalry beyond outright sabotage.

This week's variation included speed bowling on two lanes, culminating in Lava's two-handed double bowl. ("Not worth it," he muttered to me and Zeynep, wringing out his left wrist. I was impressed both his balls actually stayed in their respective lanes!) There was some confusion in the rush to manage turns on two lanes, and Anuj killed one of Luscious' strikes getting only "1" before anyone realized it was not his turn! (Then he went on to roll his own strike. hmmmmm.)

Luscious decided it is NOT the second game but the third game that is the best. (For Luscious this week, it was almost "no game" until Come Back Time in the 4th game when he went from a 30 in the 7th frame to nearly 100.)

My blognotes came through unscathed this week, although there were spies and an issue with boogers. There's something quite charming about the individual strike swaggers, as well as the expressions of disdain when all the pins don't fall. Alex put it into words: "It's rare for me to actually hit the spot I'm aiming for but when I do...? I really don't understand this game." The other memorable quote of the evening?

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March 14, 2006

Zeynep! Zeynep!

Will we have a repeat? Last week's record 153* (frantically tied by LB as he desperately sought to stave off this dark horse competitor) was roundly cheered by all. The regulars were all there (not the full extended crowd), mixing it up on Goth night - shifted from the dance club across the way because of a competing event. I truly thought I'd jumped dimensions when I walked in to the black lights, strobes, and fashion nightmares (and you think I dress poorly?!?): "It is still Tuesday, right?" I confirmed with the staff. A couple of times. :-)

It was a busy night, what with the main event being supplemented with collaborative art night, and the live dj rolling tunes about cats that seriously distracted the boys. There was a dark corner that kept trapping LB (the 7 pin) and Lava (the 10). Anuj got (what I thought was his first) double, and also "got shot", spilling wine on his previously bright white t-shirt. After the art work on it was complete, he was adorned with a lacey bra, a peace symbol, a wine bottle and glass, and a naked woman. (Doesn't he just wish?!)

Luscious says "the second game is the best" - LB hit a 161, if the notes are not mistaken. (There was no attempt at graffiti this week, although "Dinky" a.k.a. Bowler K.A. Master did sign an informed consent form...)

btw - if you missed the birthday boy's night, check out the balloon-sporting gang at Anuj's blog.

*The scores are Luscious 104; Lava 130; Anuj 111; Raz 153; and Zeynep 153!!!!!

Posted by Steph at 8:54 AM | Comments (1)

too good to pass up!

Posted by Steph at 8:52 AM | Comments (2)

March 13, 2006

growl

"People can't distinguish, it seems, between describing dissent and being dissent." Celia Farber, journalist for Harper's, in an article about the link between HIV and AIDS, which she reports is questioned by some.

I've no clue about that debate, but I do know that publicly voicing concerns about possible disagreements is punishable. How to pursue a line of critique without succumbing to personally-directed aggression is the challenge. I've actually managed some humor this time around, trying to enact Burke's comic frame instead of the tragic one. We did it in Stephen's class some time back, when Shannon presented on defamiliarization. In particular I'll repeat the quote on perception; it uses vision as a metaphor:

"Humans, too, are victims of selective blindness. We often fail to see things around us because they are too familiar and seem to convey no new information, or because we are focusing our attention elsewhere. We don't know nearly enough about attention though it's a vital survival function. Visual attention seems to be a pair of processes. The first, the process of focusing on a stimulus or idea, has received a lot of research. The other equally important process involves concurrent decisions about which stimuli to ignore. Let me emphasize that. Visual attention is always partly, and often largely, selective blindness to other stimuli considered to be irrelevant at the moment" (from How a Poet Sees).

I'm being told (in no uncertain terms, mind you) what has fallen outside the range of my vision, beyond the blinders of my focused attention. My actions have been psychologized and my intentions impugned. My own ear has been sculpted over time to certain tunes and pitches, to frequencies that rub (push, pull) in conditioned ways.

It has been suggested that my style of presentation appears "teacherly", as if I am trying to convey something that I know which others don't. Oy. If this is how I've been read (heard, received) no wonder the rejection is so intense. I imagine myself more as an explorer. I suppose this is problematic as well? But one must understand my orientation - I do not think I'm leading, rather I'm one of many on a journey together. I guess I'm not convinced any of us is actually qualified "to lead" this journey, so I'm not willing to submit passively to authority or procedures that strike me as arbitrary or simply conditioned by precedent.

So, I dissent. Not only that, I dissent incorrectly. She can't follow the rules for anything, can she?!! Because my conformity quotient is so low, I have to describe my dissent as dissent, instead of as .... whatever attributions it garners. In my case, does this mean that describing dissent and being dissent are indistinguishable? I name the interpellation. Someday, I might have to work out the distinctions between interpellation (as a function of ideologies) and valence (as a function of group relations). I've equated them before.

Posted by Steph at 9:42 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2006

About face! (inversion?)

I mentioned reading Derrida (slowly); his subject is Nietzsche (slower still). "...do we hear, do we understand each other already with another ear?" (1985:35).

Derrida is discussing the inversion of Nietzsche into Naziism, in which "what passes elsewhere for the 'same' utterance says exactly the opposite and corresponds instead to the inverse, to the reactive inversion of the very thing it mimes" (30). He goes on to discuss how language is always "the double of the other", that "the one can always be the other" (32).

So, I wonder, with what "ear" have I been heard by colleagues in the CGSA? If it was the opposite, the double, the other of what I meant, then I'd have to flip the Bahktinian schematic around the other way. In other words, from my peers vantage point, *I* operate as "the centrifugal force" pushing us apart while they reflect back to me the centripetal forces they perceive pulling us together. This might be one reason why translation has been so arduous - coming from different 'centers', as it were?

Also, I think the emphasis on discourse has led me a bit astray. To the extent that discourse (in groups) is my "pet project" (how nice to be known!), it is only a tool. What's coming into clarity for me now (yes, not prior, not before, not on the timeline that would (?) perhaps have been more easily received, sigh) is that "the problem" I've been sensing and trying to address (go ahead, say it, in my regretably fumbling manner) has to do with the relationship between discourse and structure.

The discourse of CGSA, as reflected in its public documents, the supposed "norms" of conduct in meetings, even including interventions with me in private, presuppose that dissent is undesirable. I object! (It is ironic, given my consensus background, that this is where I find myself, now.) Yet, this is my understanding of what democracy entails. "Aha," you say! (Me, too, smile.) There WAS an "agenda"!

If you don't really know me yet, let me explain my "way". I am less deliberate than impulsive (a personality trait or character flaw, depending how one wishes to read it); I have definitely been operating on a democratic assumption which I now recognize may or may not be shared. I want to be part of a democratic process in as close to an ideal sense as possible, which means a process (system, structure) that proactively resists its own entrenchment, its own tendency toward paternalism (e.g., aren't we taking care of everything?) and even fascism (for example, what "mandate"? and when did we all agree that meetings of the CGSA representatives would be confidential?)

(Oh my god did I really write that?!)

Yeah, I did. Shoot me now and get it over with. I want accountability (all ways - from representatives to the rest of us, from the rest of us to the representatives, from all of us to/with each other: this is what I understand as a commitment to collective action). I want democratic mechanisms that a) guarantee unpopular and minority views get a full airing before the whole graduate student body and that b) bind us - explicitly and overtly - to joint action, or at least to conscious and intentional community support of actions taken 'in our name'.

I'm not proposing that these mechanisms be applied rigidly or without exception (necessarily), but I am proposing that they be in place should anyone ever feel the need to use them. I think the four-step procedure outlined by the brainstorming process last December adequately (even simply) covers the basics.

In point of practice, as Joanna stated, the procedure is (almost) what has occurred. Steps 1 and 2 have occurred. What hasn't yet been done is to carry out step 3 (discussion and analysis) and step 4 (majority vote) in regard to a specific instance. A tension (perhaps not the only one, but a biggie) is that I'm asking the CGSA to institutionalize the procedure first, and (at least some people) want to experience it in action/application. It is unclear to me whether or not "going through the motions" will lead to adoption of the procedure, or just reinforce the status quo of dealing with each item independently and informally. I could re-bring the example of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights if folks want a trial run (I do still think it'd be cool for us to become a signatory), but I'm hesitant as to its efficacy as a more-or-less neutral example (especially since it would set me up to talk more - the horror)!

Perhaps someone else could propose an issue or cause to serve as a test case?

Posted by Steph at 9:32 AM | Comments (5)

March 10, 2006

swirled

Note to self: when most confident, be most wary of unrecognized assumptions.

I did think, going into the Communication Graduate Student Association meeting yesterday, that the handouts were practically self-explanatory. I had distributed the first handout the day before in order to jog people's memories of the brainstorming session in December. I covered it very fast (time limit) and moved into the second handout, which I also covered quickly.

I was then pulled under by the discursive currents with the very first comment. I do not remember who spoke, or what was said, except that I was instantly fighting for my life. I felt desperate and appeared as such, speaking with increased volume, intense diction, and sweeping generalizations. My attempt to pull (to bind centripetal forces in a formal procedure) and others' (centrifugal) countering pushes thickened the borderzone where “a group” is constituted. I was sucked deep into the maelstrom.

It took a while for me to re-establish the kind of balance necessary to float, to be relaxed enough to trust that my head was going to stay above water.

I appreciate the advocacy of our Australian buddy (especially when she very diplomatically told me to shut up! - something to the effect of a particular line of inquiry not being very productive). She stayed after the meeting with some others to try and hash out the confusion and did a great job of translating me. After several rounds of back-and-forth, with folks arguing that the procedure I'm advocating is already in place and me insisting that current procedures are not the same as what I'm proposing, Li articulated two assumptions and their temporal juxtaposition. The difference, he said, is at the starting point. I'm beginning from an assumption of cohesiveness (that we all do belong and are always already "members" of an extant group), and others are beginning from an assumption of essential individuality (the independence of the self, the freedom to choose whether or not to belong at any given moment or regarding any particular issue).

These differing assumptions may be (probably are) part of heteroglossic equations of discourse about student governance that require translation into mutually intelligible language.

[I could not have said this yesterday. This is 'new knowledge' cohering in my mind as I reflect on the critical feedback and supportive interpretations presented in conversations with various colleagues during and since the meeting. Some part of these thoughts are also influenced by reading some pages in Derrida's Otobiographies yesterday afternoon and this morning, to wit: "A prejudice: life. Or perhaps not so much life in general, but my life, this 'that I live,' the 'I-live' in the present" (1985:9).]

Phenomenologically, I swim against the current. Somehow, I need to remember that its countervailing force is not necessarily deliberately directed against "me" (or anyone else), but is rather an effect of momentum and historical flow. The confusion voiced by some members of the group was (and may still be) genuine: I was "too abstract". Some resistance was, also, specific and particular: "It's too dangerous to be political in academia right now." "I don't want [the potential of] a majority view imposed upon my minority view."

How do I become more concrete for those who are struggling with the abstractions? I could give another "for instance" that is more tied to where we (graduate students) are right now in terms of negotiations with management about space. We've lost the graduate lounge and the present computer lab. We've been given a different space that has no natural light, no air-conditioning, and no wiring. We've been told the work and materials needed to remedy these deficiences is too expensive. Negotiations with management about these issues continue in "the spirit of cooperation and collaboration."

Why did we give up the present computer lab? I suggest at least one reason we gave it up is because we don't have the collective willpower to be confrontational enough to demand respect in the form of adequate resources. We haven't sought alliances with each other that would protect individuals enough from the risks of "being political" in order to say (hypothetically - let me rush to qualify!!), this department literally could not function without us. Chances are good we wouldn't be on our own (as graduate students only) if faculty knew how unhappy we are. They need us, and I imagine they'd rather have us satisfied than disgruntled!

Posted by Steph at 1:43 PM | Comments (9)

March 4, 2006

#1 Treasure

We celebrated a friend's new job last night. It will be very interesting to watch the future unfold!

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March 3, 2006

Oh Johnny...

We were again a more subdued group of rapscallions last night at La Guarida, taking in Johnny Cash and June Carter's story via the Oscar-nominated Walk the Line. Did we like it? I'd say the general mood was, 'it was ok', but perhaps that's just my take? Not being familiar with Cash's music, I was introduced to him and his music at the same time. Talk about moody! His affinity with the criminals in Folsom Prison was a bit disconcerting - not because of his recognition of their humanity, but because he seemed to enjoy a vicarious violence through association. Not that he came across as a particularly gentle guy...

La Guarida's head honcho took a significant risk leaving seven of us untended in his lair. No doubt he was relieved to find his easel still standing. Celebration was in the air as someone passed her comps!!!! I wouldn't say anyone was eager to leave afterwards, although when it became common knowledge that the witching hour had been passed there was a concerted effort at departure.

Next week...a comedy?

Posted by Steph at 5:39 PM | Comments (0)

March 1, 2006

floating sunshine out his butt

That was the birthday boy, trailing his balloon parrot down the bowling lane. It was an eventful night, with two personal all-time highs: Anuj, spinning 147, and Zeynep with a 122. Lava had a turkey and he and Luscious both had four baggers. Lava actually rolled five strikes in a row (there was a game break) and had an 8 frame streak with 7 strikes and 1 spare. (Ok. I admit it. I was impressed.)

Someone(s) contributed quite actively to this week's notes, editing, drawing, revising, and altering the codes to obscure their originally intended meaning. The uncertainty this inspired occurred simultaneously with the recounting of an earthquake dream resulting in sleepwalking. "We have earthquakes all the time in my country - 'Get out of the house!'" Don's need to publish a paper continues to trump blog-updating. They don't make cup sizes large enough for 9 pounders. (Welcome to my world.)

Bowling continued, per usual. "It's my hair," when things didn't go quite as one planned. "Be humble," when you get a strike (as if!) When trouble begins to loom (not that it would, not with us), "I don't speak the language." There were a few fingerpuppet associations. I was the monkey, in desperate need of advice from the parrot. The elephant whipped our butts in game one but moaned that I'd scored higher than him in later games (not new!) There was the frog that roared, the goose/swan that wanted to be a duck, the panda (or was it polar?) bear, gopher, and lion (chosen for being of the feline persuasion).

The lion was selected by the birthday boy, affectionately known as poonte, who may have been a tad bit overoiled for the evening's serious competition. I mean, come on! Luscious actually catapulted Lava right through the air onto his back! This was after Lava had tossed a 10-lb bowling ball at me and before he nearly knocked the b'day boy over and the two practically wound up in a wrestling match. [Note: bowling is a non-contact sport.]

Any gender confusion at the bowling alley was left there when we moved to the Iron Horse for salsa. I received a number of good lessons and a showing-up by the birthday boy himself in terms of knee-dexterity. I had a serious problem bowling straight tonight, but I was a good foil for dancing. I mean, how much trouble could a guy get into if he was dancing with me?

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February 24, 2006

North Country

This "most important movie for women to see in 2005" was too intense for light banter throughout. Although a few flip comments did float out into the darkened living room at La Guarida, for the most part we were a quiet and attentive audience. Banter was intense before and after . . .

Prior to the screening, Consuela Bananahammock was asked, "Do you want a piece of my bottom?" - apparently because she didn't appreciate the coconut on top of the homemade carrot cake. A late arrival, after getting a synopsis of what had happened so far, thought he'd "seen the end of this before" and was promptly informed how such could not be possible. One of our hosts spent most of the time out of the room on the phone. He did inquire as to the media effect of this particular film at this particular time - is it attempting "to do" something? I almost wondered if there was a subtext: sexual harassment is so DOA? Don't we wish. :-( I speculated about the number of social justice-themed movies up for one kind of Oscar or another. Now, I wonder, this may or may not be a direct effect of the type of movies selected - many of which (so I'm told) are smaller production affairs than the typical Hollywood glitz.

# of rapscallions in attendance? Nine.

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February 22, 2006

no vanity here!

It was some kind of bowling night. Not only did we have to wait forever to get a lane, but only two (2) people broke into triple digits! Well, unless you count Anuj, a.k.a. Robin Hood, who bowled a perfect 100 in his last game.

For some reason, tonight was the night I finally remembered to take the informed consent forms. Since we weren't bowling (!), everyone had plenty of time to dispute my intentions. LB did his level best to dissuade folks from giving permission of any kind...I don't know if the fact that most everyone did sign a form means I have a higher trust factor than he does? ;-)

We did a tandom note-taking process. I like it. I leave my notes out where folks can see and add to them. There was only one addition - in addition to whomever folded the notes into a paper airplane, - an arrow from "Lava" (who loves his King and described his game as "a dog day for bowling") to "asexual reproduction", which was the conversation I had with Alenka (a plant biologist) about parallels concerning the way pollen tubes grow through elongation of one cell rather than cell division. I likened it to the process of a person without a partner seeking to extend their morality into the world.

Meanwhile, Jake the Anarchist refused to sign a form, taking his chances with my interpretation without constraints. Welcome to the real world! It's an on-going puzzle: who's reachable and who isn't, by whom, when, where, and how. [Reprise: Speaking of the real world, I'm teasing my friend about his non-political stance in the world but actually things appear a bit grim in his home country. Me, the naive American, didn't have a clue. :-(]

David of the exotic name (from Spain) is working on environmental engineering concerning water but can't do a dang thing about droughts. He did pick up a strike in his second attempt at bowling ever and I think we need to watch out for him. Then there's "Paul" - who had Big Concerns about his bowling performance but not so many about his pool game. After he whipped me and JIT he decided I could use his real name. Ha! As if! ;-)

We did have a conversation about amperes being just a part of the equation that produces watts. I thought I understood it at the time but I'm not sure it stuck. He also told me Newton and Einstein are actually not in conflict.

Zeynep entered the competition for most frames in the single digits but needs to do better to beat the all-time high of seven. Right after she accused me of beating her "by 100" she threw a strike, although maybe that was becuase she'd just had her arm shortened? "Sara" got the girls going on this - I thought it was a het thing at first, but my arm shortened too with vigorous elbow-rubbing. Then she got the guys involved, but it didn't seem to have quite the same effect.

There was a bit of a concern that I might "go crazy now" that I had official consent from folks. (Shhh, I'm gonna string 'em on a while longer!)

Luscious Larry was not on tonight. It's bound to hit everyone at some point. Juan couldn't integrate the info about the informed consent form but he did arrive long after the melee in which my character was dissected and my aim questioned. "Amy is dangerous?" Juan missed the consultation with advisors and requested a special meeting. In the meantime, LB scored a 144 and then a 162, decimating "the professionals" who he said "can take it." I missed some high fives after a lone strike and caught some flack for waiting on the green, 11 lb. ball. Fine then! That 10 lb orange got me another strike!

I didn't stick with it, but maybe that's something to consider for next week...

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February 19, 2006

for Dad

Feel free to share this link to the "Presidential Warp".

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"Let's Have a Party with The Blues"

This was the encore number at "Remembering Ray," a mixed combo, big band, and solo vocalist who performed at the Academy of Music this afternoon. Cynthia Scott was fun (if a wee bit heterosexist - I sang with the women and the men).

I liked Come Rain or Come Shine, then she followed it with Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying. Romance don't last long, does it?

Fathead was hot. Kinda bold too, announcing that Ms. Scott was not one of the Raelettes who "let Ray." Can you imagine that price of fame? No no no, I never slept with the lecher.

I especially enjoyed the third song played by the Jeff Holmes Big Band. Was it Walkin 'and Talkin'? Then there was the best small group moment: Yoron Isreal refusing to come out the groove after his first drum solo. Radam and Scott checked him out and laughed.

Music : Remembering Ray
Now in its 14th season, The Northampton Arts Council presents the Four Sundays in February Series has become a winter tradition at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton. On Sunday, February 19th we will present Remembering Ray, a tribute performance to the late Ray Charles with Ray's sidekick saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, former Raelette, Cynthia Scott along with the Jeff Holmes Big Band, Radam Schwartz, Yoron Israel and Scott Sasinecki. All seats $10 in advance, $12 at the door, day of show. Sponsored by Smith College. For more information visit www.northamptonartscouncil.org.
Sunday, February 19

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February 17, 2006

goat test

Six Rapscallions gathered again at La Guarida last night to dissect The Constant Gardener. A seventh left before the movie, not wanting to "ruin it" for the rest of us by talking through it. As if! Some of us struggled with the British brogue and the low/muffled sound of much of the dialogue. After the first rewind and debriefing (in which it was determined only 30% of us "caught it" the first time around) we turned on the captioning. Oh my.

There were too many examples (talk about an object for analysis!), but "She adored Tessa" becoming "the goat test" is near the top of the list. Not to mention him being "large of house" instead of "large of heart". I was reminded of the old Deaf School communal activity of watching movies before there was any captioning at all. I'd have loved to have seen some of the reenactments! The kids in the dorm would watch an entire film and then invent the storyline, plot, and dialogue. Apparently, the stories they came up with were always better than the "actual" movie. :-)

Anyway, I personally thought "Gardener" was well done on all the other counts. I'm surprised at the range of like/dislike in the reviews. I was thoroughly corraled (!) when I wanted to explore the blatant racism that is the structural feature which enables taking the movie as "just a movie" - distracted as audiences often are by classic depictions of romance and heroism. "Let's watch a happy movie next time!" I don't mean it as a barb - clearly we all knew and reacted to the grim parts of pharmaceutical company/government collusion. The power of the movie is, I think, how insidiously it both depicts a continuing political economy of profiting through racism and insulates us from it with familiar tropes.

I don't know how "happy" North Country is, we determined that it will be released in time for the next gathering. Meanwhile, can you guess which of our hosts shaved his head? Which one wants to have short curly hair? Which guest displayed handstand talents and almost created a new breakfast nook? Who thinks soap is inadequate to wash dirt off spoons? Who's been banned from eating cake? PS - the alpha male's room was inadvertently on display. And wouldn't you know, there was the exact same Picasso print of Don Quixote that Sam had forever and ever and ever. :-)

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February 15, 2006

two ball bowling

It was an eventful evening, perhaps capped off by the new ricocheting-ball technique invented by the newbie who "got the link [last week] but didn't even check". Alex helped the cause tremendously when she confirmed, "It was kindof rude." [Gasp! The nerve!]

Responses to the blog continue to range from none (with its vast range of possible meanings) through varying degrees of puzzlement to statements of ... well, appreciation is an overstatement, mild enjoyment perhaps. As I've heard, sometimes anyone can read and understand, sometimes the entries are sensible only to those who were at the event, and, as Anuj says: "Sometimes no one knows what's going on!" Rumor has it (btw) that his spin "turned the corner" this week. Such was noted - independently - both by LB and Lava, who said "watch his spoons." I don't really know what that meant, but I watched anyway. He was tied with Lava at 43 in the 4th frame of their first game....

Broughton equated coming out to bowling on the night before her thesis defense with eating raw sea urchin. "That's adventurous enough for me!" She's a "Monkey" according to the Chinese calendar: "clever and skillful to the point of genius, practical and given to detail..." Perfect for the defense!

Just in Time showed up NOT on time, but promises he'll be back and actually bowl next time. uh hmmm. ;-) Max showed up in his cowboy boots drinking beer. Meanwhile Sabina was here for two days worth of work for some study abroad program (for some reason she was shy to give me a link to it...?)

I scored my highest ever - 161! I decided to bowl right-handed from the get-go tonight. LB discounted it, even though he arrived while the score was still up - he "didn't see each frame with [his] own eyes." It's true, actually, that I accidentally bowled in Broughton's 10th frame, and so she bowled for me - getting a strike which I followed with a spare. Wouldn't you know, some minutes later, LB nudged me to look at his score from his first game. He scored 161 too!

Meanwhile, Alenka got directly out of the single digits and even averaged (nearly) ten pins/frame. Not bad! Not bad! John Raymond had the high score last night, with 178. Alex was pleased we didn't have to compete for the correct bowling ball since we were in the same lane, and she was thrilled to have the chance to nudge me about it being my turn. "My turn? Again?" Anuj: "You never finished the second frame!" oops

He also had the nerve to ask me if I'm feeling ok. He was being solicitous - or so I thought. When I confirmed that I actually was "feeling ok", he said, "Then why aren't you bowling better?!?" Uncle Sam would have loved that. :-) He'd also have liked talking with Jake about "the real world."

Finally, two odd bits: "history in the making" (coined among our very own hovering over my notes, and claimed as a competitor for original coinage) and, "It's all about the style, Steph." I'm not sure, but there was a bit of nuance in the tone...rather like, "haven't you gotten it yet?" I still think Cata wins the style contest but notice how I hedged the statement since someone threatened to "sue the blog" if the content wasn't suitably flattering...

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February 14, 2006

Vote for Swati!

There will be a run-off election for secretary-treasurer of the Graduate Employee Organization (roughly, the student union) this week. Read Swati's statement.
(Yes, read her competitor's as well.)

Then vote!

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February 8, 2006

night of the left-handed spin

Somehow, my balls started curving . . . not that it did me much good, a 107 and a stunning 73! I did come back to 137 once I switched to the right...but LB still blew me away by 30 pins. None of the spinmeisters was on, :-(, leaving the hottest competition of the night to Alenka and Renee, who struggled to stay in the single digits for the longest number of frames. Renee's 1 in the first frame held until the 5th, but she didn't break into double digits until the 7th! Amazing. Alenka's streak was a bit shorter - she hit the doubles in her 5th frame.

Qiao scored 70 in her very first game ever, and picked up both a strike and a spare before the night was over. Eli, I mean Steve, started with a high 120 and did the sine curve to 73. Alex kept trying to steal my ball - picking up some strikes of her own when she was successful. Dan was busy showing off the scarf he knitted. I was wondering about making an offer but thought that might be a bit presumptuous...?

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February 4, 2006

La Guarida

I will not reveal the identities of the eight rapscallions who recently gathered at the department's new pseudo-gay couple's lair to view Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Quips and clarifications occurred during the viewing, but the most pungent statement was made after it was over, to the effect of Lay and Skilling being appropriate candidates for capital punishment: "if we've got it, why not use it?"

Let me mention, briefly, that there were two sets of (coded) directions to the lair, which is part open, "come and see my room", and part closed, "guided tours only." A meal for one was, however, generously shared with drooling onlookers. Rumor has it we'll watch Junebug (?) next week.

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February 1, 2006

"Bravo!"

This is the most appropriate Romanian way to say "Good job!" (It is left to the imagination what a literal translation might mean...) It was some kind of bowling night. Anuj opened with a strike - although this might surprise you if you came in on the 8th frame of game two when he was crowing about his score: "22! Twenty-two!" Luscious Larry got another turkey and even rolled a strike with his left-hand! I think he does deserve honorifics for it, since he's a serious righty. Let me note, however, that I pulled off four (cont 'em, 1, 2, 3, 4!) left-handed strikes tonight. Unfortunately, they didn't help my overall scores too much: at one point I was told, "You're a disgrace to The Final Countdown." This was before LB managed NOT to beat me in the last frame of the last game, even though I'd told him it was his game to lose. We ended up tied, 109-109.

Zeynep started collecting high fives before her turn, leading to apparent improvement, Cesar and Cata played with characteristic understated style, and Claudia pulled off a couple of strikes in her very first games! Luscious Larry thinks, superstitiously, that he bowls best when there's a new woman joining us who has never bowled before. He also said, "Green is out; blue is in." This does not account for the pink ball he was using near the end of the evening.

Burcu also managed a very strong showing, considering she's still recovering from the sledding mishap that is apparently all Don's fault. Or the fault of Don's shoes. Or some other agentless whimsy of the universe.

Luckily Elena was there to make sure I knew when it was my turn. I'm not usually (?) so distractable. Or perhaps I am and last night it registered? :-) Somehow I found conversation more engaging than actually bowling...the topic? Organic chemistry.

Ok, maybe you're not so thrilled about it, but I was fascinated. Did you know they're working on making plastic magnets? Seriously! If they can just get enough molecules stripped down to one electron - a free radical - and get them all spinning in the same direction and somehow combined, these can produce enough force to function as a magnet, attracting substances with it's solo electron spinning in the opposite direction. Such would lead to innovations in all kinds of fields where iron is now used, because plastics are lighter and take up less volume than iron.

Now, you know me and my penchant for social metonymy. I was just imagining all of a person's free radicals spinning harmoniously in the same direction (the state of being at peace with oneself?) and attracting someone else who's free radicals are also spinning harmoniously in the opposite direction. At least more, rather then less, of time spent together. Wouldn't this provide a different basis of attraction than pheromones? (Some are used in pest control.) Perhaps there is a correlation between electron spin and the production of pheromones?

Now, who in their right mind would think a turn at bowling is more important than such romantic speculation?!!

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January 22, 2006

excitement!

Talked with Jesus Evil Kachina on my way to Boston yesterday evening and she asked what was new and "exciting" in my life. I had to laugh: I'm trying to stand up while life runs me over and she wants to know what's "exciting?" Well, let me tell you:

I picked up my pals "Just in Time" and "Very Private Person" who kept forgetting who was nagivating as the car moved through town on its own momentum. After a few scenic circles when we rediscovered where we were (!) we eventually found the new Korean restaurant where we had a yummy dinner. Then, my tourism continued. "Don't say we never took you anywhere!" announced VPP.

In the meantime we talked about the differences between postmodernism, poststructuralism, and critical realism. I'll post separately about that. There was a good bit of family history too. I made comparisons between the moral vacuum produced for a generation or three of Germans and Eastern Europeans during/after the Holocaust and the one produced in China by the Cultural Revolution. VPP talked briefly about her dad's family's internment experiences in California and her mom's family's (intended) short-term return to Japan for the children's education before the war began (near Kobe ; other family was in Hiroshima - the incineration of many family members was a known fact rarely acknowledged). The family was not able to return to the States when the war began; a fact that later isolated them from the Japanese-American community who had collectively experienced internment.

On a lighter note, JIT and I discussed sibling rivalries. He used to alternately gang up with his younger brother against the older, or the older brother against the younger. Case in point, the trans-ghost: a male wearing a woman's white dress who might "get" you for various infractions... my brother relished the rare moments he put one over on me and could glory in the last few seconds before his (perceived) impending death. :-)

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January 21, 2006

manifesto from a wannabe farmer

The Sears Man is acquiring some farmland in "southern country" and talking about removing himself from civilisation. He claims these questions about Northern intelligence will be part of his manifesto against the rest of us:

We are sick and tired of hearing about how dumb people are in the
South and we challenge any so-called smart Yankee to take this exam:

1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will support a 10 pound possum.

2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in your front yard?
(A) '65 Ford Fairlane
(B) '69 Chevrolet Chevelle
(C) '64 Pontiac GTO.

3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at a capacity of 20 gallons of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to condense the product?

4. A woodcutter has a chain saw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density of the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot is 2.3 acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweisers will be drunk before the trees are cut down?

5. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24-inch centers with a field rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The porch floor is 1-inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many dogs will be killed?

6. A man owns a Georgia house and 3.7 acres of land in a hollow with an average slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown children place a mobile home on the man's land and still have enough property for their electric appliances to sit out front?

7. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep slope on a secondary road at 45 MPH. The brakes fail. Given average traffic conditions on secondary roads, what is the probability that it will strike a vehicle with a muffler?

8. With a gene pool reduction of of 7.5% per generation, how long will it take a town which has been bypassed by the Interstate to breed a
country-western singer?

There's a hole heap of things that big city book-learning don't prepare ya for in this life.

As an added bonus for taking the "REDNECK CHALLENGE", here's some southerly advice that may come in handy down the road a piece...

Next time you are too drunk to drive, walk to the nearest pizza shop and place an order. When they go to deliver it, catch a ride home with them.

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January 16, 2006

museumfreak

The lazy bum! She's still sleeping. Going on 12 hours. Ok, ok, her trip's been rough and it seems more things have gone wrong than right. I'm familiar with that dynamic - although not regarding my own recent journey beginning December 24 and ending on January 4.

Nothing like using her as an excuse to write about me! :-/ Symptomatic of self-absorbed suffering? Awhile back, Shemaya quoted this line to me: "Pain is unavoidable; suffering is optional." Tell that to my stomach!

[end of digression] When the direction to look to find my car finally registered (!), and this young chickie walked over and opened the door, my first reaction was "she's cute!" :-)

She is. Also talkative (did someone say, "talks a blue streak?!"), which turned out fine, as I wasn't so much. Besides, she's wicked smart and knows a whole ton of stuff about things I've either never heard of/thought about or only been exposed to peripherally. So I enjoyed listening and learning.

Later, over Thai, she challenged my quietness, asking if that was a butch thing. Maybe? It's true that most of my closest friends talk way more than I do. (And I love them for this!) ;-)

Well, now (for a minute) I'm in a blog-zone where she might write about me....she might also write about her experiences Arisia (I ended up not going). Or something else. Who knows? This, of course, is the secret to the good life - embracing the fact that one doesn't know, can never know, what will happen next, and then meeting that 'next-ness' with openness and (dare I say?) a kind of innocence.

This learning has been a long time coming. :-/

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January 12, 2006

sweet moment

Left a friend's after dinner this evening and encountered some kids running up and down the hallway. While the 2 year old wandered in (!) to the apartment (to be attacked by the killer cat), the three year old announced to me:

"Christmas is over."

"It'll be back next year," I said.

"OK," he responded, with the total assurance of a child not yet disillusioned by too much "reality".

Posted by Steph at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2006

my perspective on bowling: a funky other

Woodrow Wilson once described golf thus: "Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose."

How about a competition? Bowling is the futile attempt to throw an erratic ball into an unpredictable nest of pins with biomechanical precision impossible to duplicate. Real comedians have tried to be funny too.

For me, it's more about being social, in the crudest sense, not being alone but more than that for the stimulation of getting to laugh, build friendships, get to know each other, and divert energy from incessant intellectualizing. (Although I bet we could do a study of personality characteristics focusing on cultural and gendered performances of competitiveness and sportsmanship seeking cultural and/or gendered patterns....or not.) ;-)

Which isn't to say there isn't the opportunity for philosophizing! Take the concept of the English word "else." According to LB, this is a difficult word for those learning English as a second (or third, or seventh) language, coming developmentally after other semantically simpler words: other, instead, different, alternately...

If I wasn't bowling, I would be doing something else.

Else I wallow narcissistically in self-pity, I bowl.

It can be used as a threat, too: If you don't learn to spin, we'll think you're a wuss. [Note: "wuss" appears in technical jargon and "else" in computer programming.]

As to the bowling itself, well! Game 1, 9th frame is when things got hot. My lefthander sleepily nudged over three pins for a spare, then Anuj took out his widely separated two with a ricochet off the side board, Lava picked up a spare with the last pin wobbling like a weeble but it *did* fall down, and then LB went TURKEY! Tied his high (as witnessed by us) 181.

Meanwhile, the lowest score in Game One was 53 (it wasn't me, although I was next-to-last). Ahem.

Another hot streak in Game Two: Dan had the longest, slowest-motion last pin fall I've ever seen. Anuj and Alex both picked up strikes that only counted as spares (the injustice!), LB stomps and his last pin goes down. Lava meanwhile, spins left-handed and takes out that single 10-pin in the back right corner! An amazing feat of bowling prowess. (Although he's apparently bribed people - again! - to repeat the story of a 198 while I wasn't there to witness it. This rumor has gone around before...)

How could I bypass such human drama? Not to mention cases of mistaken identity and merged subjectivities! I thought Alex was Gizem, and she always calls Anuj, "Lava": "When I look at them together it's obvious, but conceptually they're one person."

I stayed to watch the end of the duel to the death between Luscious Larry and Little Brother last night. BOTH faded at crucial moments and Lava smoked 'em. So there you have it, bowling is my "funky other". What else could take its place? :-)

[Disclaimer: the use of "wuss" has no relationship to queer cowboys.]

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January 7, 2006

on waiting...

I've received a certain piece of advice regarding a certain situation consistently for the past several months (well, the last year plus, and if one wants to get really picky, the last eight years). "Wait."

In my faster-than-light personal growth process (don't I wish: *sigh*), I've been tuning in to the moments and events that spark a desire to hurry. I had a crucial half-hour with Jesus Evil Kachina (a quasi!?! code name, in case you haven't guessed, Spanish pronounciation) in which it was ALL I could do not to explode with impatience. There was no reason for me to be in such a rush; but I felt it so deeply it hurt. Sitting that out calmly was a biggie.

I can recall way too many instances where I wanted to already be somewhere, or already engaged in doing something....that, or I was trapped by something in the past I couldn't quite let go. Either way, I've often not been "in" the present as much as I thought at the time.

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a moment passes...

I did submit one proposal to the Communication in Crisis conference - it's an updated version of the one accepted by Crossroads. I did not submit the radical one. It seemed too likely it would be misinterpreted as an attempt to hijack the event. :-( And, maybe it really is too big of a risk, to actually "do" post-modernism at an academic conference? Too big a leap for the genre?

Someday, somewhere, with some folk...we'll manage to pull something like this off. I hope. :-)

Posted by Steph at 9:58 AM | Comments (0)

January 6, 2006

Muffy vs Mei Mei

LB says his cat told him all this already but MY cat told ME a LONG time ago! ;-)

The globe-trotting evolution of the cat family describes how researchers have reconstructed "a series of at least ten intercontinental migrations in which cats colonized the world." Sadly, "most of the large cats are in peril."

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January 5, 2006

"The weather is wonderful"

I carried this fortune (from lunch with Hunju and LB the day before I left) with me the entire trip. In fact, the weather was incredibly mild. Between Buffalo and Albany yesterday afternoon there was rain, ranging from drizzle to downpour, with a brief period of actual hail but otherwise, no inclement weather whatsover. I thought it a nice symmetry that I drove through rain in NY both going and coming back.

I got out of Columbus a lot earlier than I'd expected, but I woke up unexpectedly eager to get on the road. Nothing for it, I guess, than to face the future that awaits. I finished listening to Other People's Children, which didn't plunge me into as much purging as I'd anticipated. The characters weren't so recognizable to me (or maybe I resist identification and accusation?), although I painfully recognized the theme of "separateness, and the heartbreak and diligence it takes to mold that into the togetherness of a family."

The phrase that had stuck with me from the previous day was about being "held down by the gossamer threads of the past." I also kept noticing that it was Rufus, the eight year old, who was most adept at accepting change and embracing affection. The moral is captured in this line:

"Sometimes hard things turn out better because you have to make an effort at them."

Before I dove into the next audiobook, I listened to the radio for awhile, enjoying Born to be Blue by The Judds, among others. (I'm sortof listening to Bonnie Raitt, Souls Alike, now.) I also spent an hour on the phone with Frances, missing the exit (!) that would take me around Cleveland instead of through it. I don't think it added too much time to my trip. By the time I figured it out it was easier to keep going than turn around. It might have been when were recalling me taking the kids camping without food. Who knows what I was thinking? (It seems I wasn't.) grin We all came out of it ok.

I'll post separately about The Light of the Universe, but one line captured much of the sense of this time in my life:

"We have to understand each failure before we can move on to success."

I took in much of the landscape and some architecture as I drove these two thousand plus miles roundtrip. Entering Indiana on I-71 at the Pennsylvania border is the ugliest state-to-state transition I've ever noticed. Billboards peppered both sides of the highway. Crass, to say the least. While I'm complaining, I-71 eastbound in Ohio is an awful stretch of bumpy highway.

Kansas City has built up some new funky stuff ... saw a cool photo of four towers they've built up somewhere downtown. I touched Ohio State University - their amenities in the Linguistics Department put ours to shame (an automatic coffee/latte/hot chocolate maker!) and drove past the sign to Kent State University. The upcoming Communication in Crisis conference is displaying a photo from that era.

The mild weather provided great views of the land. The best parts are in-between cities, rolling hills, some forested, some cultivated, and some open prairie. The bare trees were amazing - so colorful! Varying shades of gray, brown, and orange. Plenty of green conifers and in some places, even green grass. I was amused by the bison statues scattered at one junction coming into Buffalo but hey, I suppose it's better to remember they used to roam free than erase their memory altogether.

Now, Carrie Newcomer. I think she fits my mood better.

Posted by Steph at 9:34 AM | Comments (3)

January 3, 2006

horrorscopes

We construct our own reality, right? So who's to say that reading these horrorscopes (a Lynchism, along with "brown-crusted outies" and other savory sayings) didn't set the tone for some deep thought and stimulating conversation?

Taurus: "This looks like a high-profile or soaring professional day for you. Get motivated and use this energy to promote your career or a business idea."

Gemini: "You will find communicating your thoughts and feelings to others is easy today. Let them know exactly what is on your mind."

Pisces: "You are at your intuitive best today. Tune into your subconscious for some enlightening information about a sibling or a peer."

IndyStar.com

Posted by Steph at 9:46 PM | Comments (2)

karaoke discourse

"Some people you clap because they're done. There are different kinds of appreciation" (Ruth).

It took us quite a while to end up at the Varsity (described by Pridesource as a "low-keyed, butch, neighborhood joints popular with rugged guys") where we were greeted with, "Aren't you hot things?" I decided it wasn't us, actually, but the black supercharged ultra Buick we pulled up in.

We were stuck, as it were, with karaoke because of false advertising by Apres Jacks (where we went first hoping to listen to Soul Bus) and Local's Only (the closer karaoke option, but its parking lot was empty). Most of the singing was scary, only "close" in tone and/or pitch and when I went to the bathroom Ruth wrote, "Don't leave me!!" She was initially aghast I was "taking notes" but jumped right into adding what she thought were relevant moments:

"present company excepted"

some extreme genre shifts, from Skin to Rub it in, Rub it in

"get in line"

There were a few lines I noted, "love...the kind you clean up with a mop and a bucket" (The Bad Touch) and "When its through its through, fate will twist the both of you" (Next To Be With You).

"Life's full of disrespect," Ruth announced to me at one point, "You've gotta learn to be flexible." We certainly adapted to the conditions of the evening as it evolved, all we knew was that the music had to be right. Cruising town listening to 101.9 classic rock got us started. Which Poco song contains: "the sun's coming up, I'm running with lady luck"? There were more good songs played than I could possibly record. :-)

After I bought a bunch of used books on tape (and resisted buying a gift), we went to find a Nuvo and plan the evening. (Fyi - this is a backwards chronology). The waitress told us she'd "run a tip" - one can guess where her mind was! We started with the Rob Brezny horrorscopes ("live from the dreamtime"):

Pisces: In his book, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard quotes the counsel of his teacher: "A jet airliner is always going off course, but through constant correction it arrives at its destination. So will you arrive at yours." Remember that advice throughout 2006, Pisces. My analysis of the astrological omens suggests that you will be frequently straying from the path of your highest destiny, and yet that's exactly what needs to happen in order for you to reach your highest destiny. Forced to keep making regular adjustments, you will tone and strengthen your willpower, which is essential to you achieving the goals that really matter.

Taurus: "We live in a world with too much music," writes Joe Nickell at Missoulian.com. He's bothered by the fact that everywhere he goes, there are tunes pouring from cell phones and mp3 players and TVs and radios and live bands. As far as you're concerned, though, Nickell is utterly off-base. In 2006, you should take advantage of the profusion; you should immerse yourself in music more than you ever have before. To do so will be instrumental in helping you accomplish your top assignment in the coming months, which is to feel deep, rich, interesting emotions as often as possible.

Well. One of the new yet familiar emotions I experienced yesterday included going out with the Sears Catalog Man. We walked on the moon together. "Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." Neil Armstrong.

This was after the SCM did NOT want to know about a former fun adventure known in infamy as the B&E in the NT. Our actions prevented a fire. :-)

And no, there is no revision of history in the telling of that tale!

Posted by Steph at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

January 2, 2006

Romanian folklore

According to Little Brother, whatever one is doing on New Year's Eve is what one will spend a lot of time doing for the next year. I was with friends, remembering the past, watching children play. Not bad!

On New Year's Day, I started the drive back east. I had a feeling the return trip would be harder than the outbound...the Korean acupuncturist kept emphasizing my tendency toward melancholy, because I'm "so sensitive." I'm feeling it. My friends saw it too, thinking I looked tired. Not physically, no, but emotionally and spiritually. "It shows." I know. But I think it's temporary, fallout from the return to family (after 13 years no less) and the stark evidence of socialization. There's no doubt where my "stuff" originates. :-/

At the same time, the warm embrace and unconditional acceptance is, I guess, the hallmark of true family ties. So Dad and Christi's reluctance to see me go means a lot. Frances also gave me a hard time for staying such a short time and not seeing more people. Maybe next time, with more planning. I certainly miss the teasing: "You drive like an old lady!" We've all grown up a bit, eh? :-)

One of the sweetest moments was when Madison "made" me. In code at the bottom of my portrait she wrote, "I love Stephanie."

Meanwhile, I listened to the end of Prodigal Summer: "Every choice is a world made new for the chosen." My nephews and Ruth questioned the noise made by the Apache burden basket hanging from my rear view mirror. Mom sent it for Xmas - for its symbolism, of course. S.E. noticed it, commenting on its small size, then saying the burdens could just slip right on through the mesh. The tinkling is a bit much at times, but it has served to pull my mind back into the task of driving a few different times when my consciousness went too far away. At the end of this journey I'll take it down. If I'm lucky, it will have served its purpose.

I keep thinking of a moment that occurred at the end of an interpreting job a few weeks ago. It was a reorganization of institutional structure that required someone giving up a position they'd held for many years and moving into a new role. The event was informational for staff, and also somewhat celebratory of the transition. It just so happened that I was among the very last to leave - Deaf folk tending to linger as they do. As we walked out the door, the person whose job was officially over offered us food, which we declined. She looked around the empty room and said, "That's the end of it."

Jay, responding to a "Hon-dah" from Grandmother S.E., writes about the New Year that it is "truth that keeps things rolling." Yes. I add: the deepest truths are those we create together.

Here's to new creations, not severed from the past but integrating its lessons and moving on toward whatever calls us - peace, love, beauty.

Posted by Steph at 11:47 AM | Comments (1)

January 1, 2006

blasted by the past

Frances and Kathy regaled me with memories last night, camping trips, this person and that, who's doing what now, who's with who now, who's had a baby. They're still in touch with all the "groups" of my former life - a circle from college, UPS and other people associated with work, and the social crowd. It seems fitting to end my trip with these reminescences. Those were the people who knew me when I was brash and completely unaware that emotions were a figural part of human existence.

We hailed in the New Year on New York time - 11 pm here in Kansas City, fooling the kids who went berserk in a neighbor's front yard with poppers and pot lids, then toilet papered Frances' son's truck. "Payback", I heard, for a few parties when Robbie and his pals woke them up with partying.

It's been a trip driving around, vaguely recalling places from high school, how familiar this place feels and yet so distant in actual memory. Of course, there are specific events and conversations that come to mind, as well as subtle drifts of visceral memory - how I felt during this time of my life, with various folk, about certain situations. Wild.

I came out to Kathy and Frances' place after seeing Rich, who's looking kindof like my Uncle Dick in the face and a football player in the trunk. It has been 13 years. Our best connection was a conversation about Nuremberg - he saw a special on C-Span a night or two ago, and I just wrote about it from my research last summer. :-) I knew there was a reason I brought a copy of that paper with me!

Said bye to the boys and Christi. They were curious about how my surprising Rich would go (I think it kinda weirded him out - such a shock - but he was obviously delighted).

Dad and I talked some more - heavy sedation if he's in a lot of pain and there's no chance of recovery. We'll be continuing this as he works through the paperwork. It's a grim subject but also intimate - you get to know things about a person (your parent!) talking about their wishes. At this time in our lives, it seems to be a good thing.

Posted by Steph at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)

December 31, 2005

family

Well. I spent the evening (last night) with my father, who introduced me to his girlfriend and treated us to dinner at Mi Ranchito (it was yummy).

There were a number of reflective moments (!), a fair amount of joking, and basic information sharing. I learned more about the details of the automobile accident last year, that they thought dad's spleen had ruptured and almost took it out, they almost didn't let Shirley in to see him, etc.

It gave us the opportunity to talk about a health care proxy and end-of-life wishes. He wants to be cremated, but I pressed on details prior to that: what about heroic measures to extend your life? "I don't want to be in a vegetative state hooked up to a bunch of tubes." I asked him about that time in critical condition after the wreck...did he ever want it to end or feel it was over? "Oh no." He explained he was vaguely aware of things happening around him, and Shirley confirmed there was evidence he was 'still there'. Dad said at no time did he feel that it was time to go. I asked, so if there's any consciousness then you want to hang in? "Of course."

Dad doesn't seem to be at any imminent risk, he's 74, still gets out into the world just about every day. One has to grab these moments when one can, though, because who knows what might happen and then how do you decide? The legal paperwork is called Advance Directives, and the regulations vary by state.

While we were at dad's place I noticed an audiotape from my childhood, Nilsson's "The Point", which dad let me borrow for the ride back east. I remember listening to it on roadtrips when I was growing up, but don't think I ever understood it. "That is one of the highlights of my life," dad said. "It's a wonderful allegory set to music."

Then he dug up a CD of the Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra. "They're all Norwegian!" It's the first time I'm aware of dad celebrating his roots. He says it's of the same type as "The Point." The song, Sheik of Araby, "says it all."

Can I learn how to add sound?

Posted by Steph at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)

December 30, 2005

Nephews

Both of them are a trip. Separately and together. Austin took us on the scenic route to Waid's for breakfast that just happened to take us by GameStop where the new release of DOA 4 awaited. :-) I really enjoyed watching him play last night, shifting between female and male characters and winning every single game. He explained a lot to me. Very interesting discourse involved with gaming. I asked Alec last night about whether he felt himself thinking in the ways of the games during his real life. "It doesn't make me violent, if that's what you mean." No, that wasn't where I was going. (Obviously he's aware of that interpretation.) He's articulate and concise: you don't solve problems in real-life like you do in the game. I know. What I meant was, there are parts of the games - especially the commercial elements - that are quite optimistic. They point toward possibilities. Austin acknowledged this: some things are just cool, but part of what makes them cool is that they demonstrate potential.

Alec was playing Conker's Bad Fur Day this morning. There are squirrels and teddies. "The teddies are evil but they're better." What does that mean? "The teddies don't take fall damage. Squirrels do. Squirrels can run fast but I don't care about that cuz I'm a good sniper."

I haven't learned much about Runescape yet. "It's a mythical game. You know what runes are? They're not just used in that game."

I'm having a great time. :-)

Posted by Steph at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)

Cream

Jesus Evil Kachina tells me one ought to communicate only that which rises to the top.

I arrived in KC to surprise my nephews and sister-in-law. Dad had a few hours warning. :-) The youngest's eyes just about popped out of his head when I told him who I was. Yes, it's been that long. I'm getting lessons in PSP, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 (Alec scored a perfect 100 tonight on Captain Jack), Halo (Gamertag SS4 Shinobi), and Dead or Alive Ultimate (Austin is in the top 100 worldwide).

I'm planning on downloading Full Metal Alchemy once I've finished this trip; got a bit of an explanation from the Jamester as I peered over his shoulder yesterday and was intrigued.

Posted by Steph at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2005