My favorite commercial ever.



Taken from Sociological Images.

sinsense: I love his tiny claws. And his disgruntled face.
hetrez: exactly! disgruntled!
sinsense: There are no gruntles in his world! He had some, but they were taken away!
hetrez: no more gruntles for ever! wah tiny monkey! he is lacking in gruntles!
sinsense: Won't someone think of his gruntles?
hetrez: no! because he is too tiny!
sinsense: OH NOOOOO. Oh my god, seriously, maybe those monkeys are us.
hetrez: that picture is like a metaphor for my existence.

I'm playing around with storytelling, and I wrote a couple things that I like. Many thanks to proscription for some of the source material.

( fictions! )

Small, weird things keep happening. Like, the other day I realized I'm an atheist. I've spent my whole life believing in something cosmic, some huge delicious holy soup that holds us all together and shakes with laughter when we laugh, that glows with happiness at the sight of us. And the other day I realized that I don't believe in the afterlife or the otherness of objects or the presence of god, and that it felt good to just sink into myself and not wonder, it felt good to look at the trees outside and people on the street and love them for what they are, and to see how brilliant the world is just by itself, without cause but with infinite value. So: things like that.

I call sinsense sometimes and freak out about moving, and she laughs at me and sets my head on straight. I miss my friends. I'm working at an arts festival right now, and it's my thirteenth day in a row at the office. I have at least six people that I actually, deliberately want to seek friendships with, not just people who I sort of enjoy and wouldn't mind if they stuck around. I haven't written a single word of fiction since I got here, although I think about it all the time. Small things. The freshness of the air.

This morning I woke up and it was raining, and I was so happy not to see the fierce reckless California sun that I walked the mile to work without an umbrella.

I don't know. It's hard to explain. Mostly I've been good.

YOU GUYS I JUST GOT SCAMMED BY SOME DUDE WHO SAID HE WAS FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA I ALMOST WIRED HIM LIKE SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS FROM MY PERSONAL ACCOUNT I SWEAR I'M NOT ALWAYS THIS STUPID OH GOD IT'S ONLY TUESDAY.

You guys, there was a baby in my office! For like, three whole hours!

Taken from racism_101.

Black Like Them, by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly, highly recommend that you read this.

The success of West Indians is not proof that discrimination against American blacks does not exist. Rather, it is the means by which discrimination against American blacks is given one last, vicious twist: I am not so shallow as to despise you for the color of your skin, because I have found people your color that I like. Now I can despise you for who you are.

Goorin Brothers -- the haberdashery of my soul.

The Remyth Project: "The Remyth project is this: You, as a person of color, as a person whose myths have been sidelined, removed, changed, altered, turned into movies, popularized and sold, you as a participant of your heritage (even divorced by many generations)... You write up, draw, or ramble in whatever way befits you about a myth you can claim ownership to. You take back that myth. You tell us what you think it is. Reinterpret, reconstruct, or even revise- give it a rebirth, as you would."

Verb Noire: "The mission: To celebrate the works of talented, underrepresented authors and deliver them to a readership that demands more. What does that mean? That if you're a talented writer with an awesome, original story about a POC girl/guy/transgendered character, there is a place for you. And that if you're a sci-fi/fantasy fan who has grown tired of the constant whitewashing of these genres, there is a place for you, too."

Women's land rights can help battle hunger in Africa. "There is a human rights dimension to this calamity that is frequently missed or ignored - women and their children are most likely to lack food and go hungry. One of the most under-used, and cheapest, mechanisms of ensuring better food security for women is to improve and secure their access to land. Women produce between 60 and 80 percent of food in rural Africa, but laws often allow male relatives to take away their land. Laws that protect their right to property can therefore play an important role in reducing hunger and ensuring access to a dependable food supply."

Movie recommendation: Pressure Cooker. Summary: "Three seniors at Philadelphia's Frankford High School find an unlikely champion in the kitchen of Wilma Stephenson. A legend in the school system, Mrs. Stephenson's hilariously blunt boot-camp method of teaching Culinary Arts is validated by years of scholarship success. Against the backdrop of the row homes of working-class Philadelphia, she has helped countless students reach the top culinary schools in the country. And under her fierce direction, the usual distractions of high school are swept aside as Erica, Dudley and Fatoumata prepare to achieve beyond what anyone else expects from them."

This movie is one of the best I've seen in a long time. If you get a chance to see it, either during one of its festival runs or when it goes to wide release in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, I highly recommend that you check it out.

You can also donate to C-CAP, and help other disadvantaged kids like the ones shown in this movie.

Support the New York City CROP Hunger Walk. Right now they have 4000 walkers -- mostly people in homeless shelters who are directly affected by the outcome of this fundraiser -- and only $900 raised. My good friend proscription is trying to change that.

If you can give some money, please do. If not, please pass this along.

The Queens County Farm Museum:

"As director of agriculture, Robertson has transformed the Queens County Farm Museum from a tourist attraction to a productive piece of land, growing everything from Brussels sprouts to salad greens. The farm is also home to a brood of unruly chickens, pigs, goats, sheep and bees — creatures that, for a native New Yorker, are almost as thrilling as giraffes and manatees."

And,

"Now there is an extra-large chicken coop with plenty of outdoor space for scratching and pecking. By the summer Mr. Robertson plans to have several chicken tractors — small hen houses on wheels that enable the birds to fertilize the fields with their droppings and feast on crop-damaging insects. In a few months there may be as many 250 hens — including 50 Araucana birds — triple the number the farm museum used to have."

New Yorkers, if you get a chance, try to visit their stall at the Union Square Market on Mondays.

"Today, the NAACP filed separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in California against two of the country’s largest lenders, Wells Fargo, and HSBC. These lawsuits allege systematic, institutionalized racism in sub-prime home mortgage lending. The remedies being asked for in the lawsuit include measures for increased accountability and transparency."

How to support the NAACP.

I've been thinking about my last post since I made it, and more and more I'm certain that I screwed it up. A lot of this is due to Navia's comment, which made me see how differently my words could be read, and how sloppy I was with throwing them about -- and how hurtful they were, because of this. So, I want to say I'm sorry, and try again.

I've been seeing a lot of people on my friendslist link to rydra_wong's links posts over and over,, usually with some soundbite like, "If you haven't been reading this, you should definitely take a look." Sometimes they move right on to other things. Sometimes the same person will make two or three posts, linking to other people's essays, link lists, and commentary. When I thought about doing this myself I got uncomfortable in ways that I can't really explain to people -- the way I'd feel walking up to a doctor who'd just performed some kind of complicated brain surgery, shaking his hand and said, "Good work, son." Like, who am I to congratulate that doctor? What brain surgery have I performed lately?

There are mixed feelings on this. The white people who post want to show they are listening, they want to show support. The POC want to know that they are supported. I respect that, and I know it's needed, but I don't feel like I have a right to talk here about this issue unless I'm making some kind of measurable change in my life, and unless I can show that I'm doing good by others.

That's what I was trying to say in my last post. That my obligation to myself is to stop sitting back and letting the people around me get away with doing and saying things that I disagree with. What I meant was: POC, please keep talking. I will listen to you and respect you as much as I am able. What I meant was: I'm going to work hard not to write about important issues unless I have something to say.

What I said was something quite different, and I'm sorry.

My dad and I were talking about this film that came out in the festival circuit last year, Medicine for Melancholy. I'd been looking at interviews of Barry Jenkins, the writer/director, and it was interesting because Medicine for Melancholy is absolutely about race, but the magazines I'd read were filmmaker magazines and mostly asked him about his production budget and filmmaking techniques

I told dad was interested in hearing more of Barry Jenkins's thoughts on race, especially since the movie is set in San Francisco and I just moved here, and I really have no deeper understanding of the race and class issues in this city -- and dad was like, "Well, Jenkins isn't really what you'd call a 'Race Man'."

I thought: "Are you kidding me?"

I thought: "You've seen his movie, right?"

I thought: "I bet most black men are race men, just not where you can see it."

I didn't say any of it.

I've been thinking about it for the last couple days, because there's been all this talk about RaceFail '09 -- not contributing to the discussion, but talk about how we should contribute to the discussion. And I think about this every time a conversation about privilege and minority status comes down the pike, because it's important to have these conversations, and I think LiveJournal is a wonderful place for them, but. Then what? Conversations are only important if they're more than just talk.

As a white person, the other day, I failed to do that. I will try again, and I'll probably fail again, and I'll keep trying until I get it right. And then I'll try again, because being a good person is going to take the rest of my life. But I probably won't talk about this online again, because online is not where I need to change myself. You're welcome to disagree.

Small update.

Work is good and also awful. Good because I like the people a lot, and I like the organization, and the place where I work is beautiful, and I'm learning a lot. But it's awful because I'm new and I don't know anything and I'm lonely and homesick for my friends and when I get nervous it makes me super awkward and I just feel disjointed and wrong. Yesterday was miserable. Today is all right.

I've been getting home really late from work every day. My work day technically ends at 6:30, but I stayed later one evening to clean up after a board meeting, and then another night I was out at dinner with my father, and another it just took me a long time to get out the door. The result is that I'm super tired when I get back to my (temporary) apartment, and it's too late for me to call any of my friends back in New York. I've spent the last couple evenings feeling sorry for myself, watching strange and wonderful and sad French movies with my father and then going back to my little alcove bedroom and trying not to cry.

My room is a little storage closet off the main room, filled with coat-racks and old books and packed to the seams with all my worldly possessions. Dad gave me three bookshelves to do with whatever I chose, and I've got tons of bedding on the blow-up mattress so it's soft and cushy and warm at night. I'm going to wait until I settle in a bit more before I start looking for my own place.

I miss everyone. I feel good but weird, being just Hetre instead of Hetre-in-city or Hetre-with-friends, and I'm going to feel that way for a long while, and that's all right. I was expecting it. I know it's a lengthy process of whatever. But in the meantime, I feel homesick and pathetically desperate for the small details of my friends' lives -- if they saw any crazy people on the subway, if they had any random conversations that made them laugh, what they ate and what dreams they had, anything. sinsense called me earlier, and while we were on the phone some guy in front of her flipped his skateboard in a really cool way and she was gushing to me about it, trying to describe it exactly and nearly squeaking with happiness, and listening to her made me feel like myself for the first time in days.

I am in San Francisco. I start my new (temporary) job tomorrow. I miss everyone desperately, and there are huge empty spaces in my day where a social network and a schedule and responsibilities and options used to be. I called my gentleman earlier while he was at the bookstore with a mutual friend of ours, and I wanted so badly to be with them that I had to hang up and think about something else for a while.

But I organized my room this morning, and I am getting a Wells Fargo bank account sometime this week, and the ocean air smells clean and inviting, and I think, despite the intense stupidity of what I have just done to myself, that I may get the hang of this.

I just got a call informing me that, while I failed my audition and cannot enroll in the School of Music and Dance at Temple as a Music Therapy student, I have the grades to enroll in some other department, and would I like to take the opportunity to do so? I told the lady no, and she seemed kind of surprised.

I'm not really upset at all. I had a plan, and now I get to make a new plan, and I know how these auditions go and I know what I need to learn between now and my next set of applications. I'm bummed that I won't get to settle down the way I'd been hoping, and that I'm going to have another year of camping out and crappy admin jobs and stumbling around trying to find myself. But who's to say Temple would have been the right place for me anyway?

hetrez: I love it when you're super polite to assholes.
sinsense: Me too. It makes me feel superior.
hetrez: I wrote one of my college application essays on how I use courtesy to manipulate people.
sinsense: Oh, god. Of course you did. Which school?
hetrez: Uh. Williams College.
sinsense: [laughing] Oh my god.
hetrez: What?
sinsense: "Hi, I'm Hetre, let me tell you how I'm a sociopath."
hetrez: No way! I mean -- well. Shit. Is that why I didn't get in?

I have winnowed down my possessions until they fit into five or so medium-sized boxes, and I am just waiting for the opportunity to mail them, and wandering through the days I have left until I leave. Once I get out to SF, I'll be staying at my dad's apartment for a little while, and then depending on what I hear from Temple I will either sign a lease on an apartment or find a sublet for a couple of months.

My biggest dream right now is to get to a place where I can settle down for a while. It feels like I've been in limbo for years -- first with college, and moving around in the summers, and then after school, being homeless, trying to find an apartment I could afford, trying to find a job where I fit, where I thought I had some kind of future. I would love to get to a point where I can get my own magazine subscription because I know I'll be in one place for long enough to enjoy it. I want to buy a bookshelf, and paint my bedroom all the different, swirling, speckled colors of a ripe apple. I want a kitchen that feels like mine and a street I can get used to, and neighbors I recognize. Every time I think about getting my own place and filling it with my own things, it seems like heaven. If I had that, I might never leave the house.

Oh, hey, so I have a delicious account. I may have forgotten to mention that.

Reccing mostly Merlin right now, but in the past I've focused on Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural, xxxHolic, bandom, and a bunch of others. Enjoy.

Ten Year Old Divorcee Takes Paris: "In a dimly lit corner of a Paris bar a delighted young divorcée describes in a soft voice how she spent the day throwing snowballs for the first time in her life. That is not remarkable. This is: Nujood Ali is just 10 years old — and was, until recently, the youngest known divorced person in the world."

Yesterday I had an audition at Temple University for their program in Music Therapy. I had three songs prepared, and had written out my own charts as carefully as I could and photocopied them and taped them together in the hopes that it looked quasi-professional. I'd practiced some sight singing, I knew the basics of music theory, and I was wearing my super sweet "I'm a polite kitty-cat so please take me home and love me" expression. And I was so nervous that I was halfway to vomiting out my intestines by ten in the morning.

The three faculty sitting in on my audition stopped me after my first song and asked me to do a little sight-singing. I was totally, totally ready to hum "Mary Had A Little Lamb" in solfege or whatever they wanted, and instead they handed me a Bach piano concerto and asked me to just sing the notes until they told me to stop. I sang -- something. I'm reasonably certain it was nowhere near what was written. And then they thanked me for my time and kicked me out.

I'll know in a couple of weeks what the results are. Until then, I will make a special effort to forget any music theory I may have learned, and sing off-key as much as possible.

More book recommendations.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Picture book. I picked this book up at a graphic novel and comic shop in Brooklyn, and after looking at the first few pages I turned around and bought it. Tan describes the immigrant experience using fantastical images: a city filled with flying paper birds and strange creatures, maps carved into the sidewalks, odd and lovely architecture, incomprehensible letters and foods. The pictures are absolutely beautiful, and the story is sweet and slow and wistful. I loved it because I felt just as lost as the characters, just as wide-eyed and wondering.

The Great Language Panic and Other Essays in Cultural History by Robert Erwin. Adult non-fiction. The word "heresy" doesn't mean what you think it does. Neither does "feudalism", "liberal", "Socratic", or any number of dead metaphors and words we've taken and stretched out of their original meaning, or that have grown away from their original time and place. Erwin takes the words that we throw around without knowing it, that we overload with meaning, and looks at their histories -- ancient Mesopotamia, feudal Europe, ancient Greece, Walden Pond. In the process, he shows us that each word we use is textured and woven like a cloth, and that our history is a little giddier, a little more crooked, than we may have ever suspected.

Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop by Michael Eric Dyson. Adult non-fiction. I love Dyson's use of language here. He blends Standard Written/Academic English with slang and rhythms from hip-hop culture, while explaining the beauty and artistry of hip-hop, its significance in the Black community, the ways that Black artists and scholars encounter it and struggle with its problems (misogyny, violence, materialism), and the ways that, in the future, scholars and artists have to struggle with hip-hop in order for it to survive.