Yes, I’m home
I’ve been around since wednesday, but I’ve been offline and kind of hiding in Cola’s apartment. I did go see Sophie graduate from mills with her BA (it’s about time…). I have pictures, which I will post later. Saw her mother. It was nice to see her again. Sophie and her mom are so cute. Danica and T also came. It’s funny seeing how people have and have not changed. When I saw folks over spring break, I thought “wow, they have not changed a bit!” and thought it was odd that they could be frozen in time. But, of course, they have changed. Subtly and not so subtly. Danica, for example, is on testosterone and has acquired a certain gravitas and air of responcibility. However, still managed to run out of gas on the way to the Berkeley biodiesel station. That biodiesel station is conviently located directly behind my building, but my pickup runs on gas. oh well.
Yesterday, Cola and I went out on Mitch’s boat with Mitch and Humanchu and two French women. Every time I’ve been out on that boat, there’s a small craft advisory, but yesterday was definitely the most choppy trip I’ve been on ever. We bounced and got wet a lot. Mitch has a new boat stereo, which is very nifty. After boating, we went to Mitch’s new house. He lives in a scary townhouse development. But it has a little pool and a hottub, so we went and sat in the hottub, which was very nice. And Mitch’s household lent me a bike. yay! It needs new innertubes, which I will go get later today, after I get done lounging.
I like Cola. She makes me hapeeeee.
If you want to hang out, you can reach me by calling my cell phone 860-301-2508, which is a connecticut number or by calling my berkeley home phone, which has not changed. my berkeley abode is in a cell dead spot, so trying both numbers can be a good idea, or just call berkeley if you’re in california without “free” long distance. i’m here till august. I am currently jobless (if you see anything, esp part time or audio -related, drop me a line!) so have lots of time to hang w/ you, although I must write mad amounts of music and spent 2 hours a day practcing double bass. I’m about to go rent one. yay.
Old Comments for this Post
There’s no place like home
I’m home. I’m in california. I have finished my last paper. I am free and clear. I am here for weeks! weeks! months! for the summer! If you want to hand out with me, you should email or call. I have my cell phone, with it’s connecticut number 860-301-2508. My old berkeley home number still works as well. Yes I want to hang out with you. Yes we should get drinks / get dinner / jam / play some gigs / talk about old times / whatever.
East coasters take heart, you can fly from hartford or from jfk to oakland international round trip for $200, which is really not bad at all.
gig information will be forthcoming as soon as i figure some out. I want to play out here, i do. I want you to play out here too.
So I trimmed my old concluding paragraph
If she did, indeed, chose death rather than change clothes, then her clothing represents a highly developed technique of self. She was strongly invested in her sense of selfhood. Her gender performance, repressed and questioned, had become fully internally ingrained. The dialog she had with her judges and her voices lead her to value her nonheteronormative gender performance more than her life. If it was so central to her selfhood, then she was queerly self-aware. Her identity was evident to herself as queer. It was not just a place of opposition, it was a place of opposition that she was aware of and invested in. She “came out” as genderqueer, proclaiming it fundamental to her sense of self. She embodied a category that did not yet exist, by enduring repression and questioning in a process analogous to current queers. She lived and died the queer experience.
She was so fucking queer. If she were alive right now, she’d have gotten married in san francisco earlier this term. she’d be hanging out at lesbian bars in paris. she’d be a contributer to stone butch blues. she’d inspire a generation of bulldykes to adopt page-boy haircuts. she’d be so fucking awesome. man, i would date her. she’d be the lead singer in her own punk rock band. she’d wear badass jeans with a big leather belt. she’d have big stomping boots. nobody would mess with her. she’d take the chunnel to england to go raise hell in london. she would tell english tourists to get the hell out of france and leave her alone. she’d have like 700 girlfriends and break all of thier hearts cuz she was like 19 and 19 year olds are wont to do that. 700 broken hearted exes and a line a mile long to snag her after her shows. people who were older and should know better would fall for her. older guys in the buisiness would respect her, they wouldn’t even see her as a piece of ass, they’d think she was an equal. and man, she’d get action. she told her judges, “as for where she lodged or slept at night, she usually had a woman with her; when she was fighting, she would lie fully dressed and armed, if there was no woman to be found. In respect of the end of the article, she refers herself to God.” (Barrett 217) yah, all those chicks refer to god too. “ooohhhh god!” she’d be like cara crash, “i’ve got a crush on cara crash. her fast fingers make me trash . . .. ejaculate when i hear the sound of her playing.” (Breedlove) she’d fucking rule. so fucking punk rock, but with really fancy clothes, cuz she was into the bling. and man, anybody smart would stay the hell away from her. she’s going to burn out and die young. but her heart won’t burn, oh no. they have to toss that into the seine. leaving a trail of bodies behind her, her heart unburned, she’d flame so spectacularly, they’d be talking about it for like another 600 years. man, and every young dyke would fucking want her, but ever more, they’d want to be her. be her major ass kicking badass girl-getting never sleeps alone self. and what about her? the bourgeois of paris would be as perplexed now as he was then. “what it was god only knows” he’d still be talking about exposing her body like you could tell something about what the hell she was by looking at her naked corpse. he just wants to feel better about things. say, yah, it’s just a girl after all. still. lifeless. dead. not so inexplicable. not so awesome. just weird. she’s a fucking heretic. things are better this way. we’re going to win cuz god is on our side. but god is not on his side. god is with her. she’s taking over even from after death. what she started isn’t going to stop when she does. it’s bigger than a signle charismatic figure. her guys are going all the way. your sorry ass is going to be kissing theirs. you don’t mess with her, cuz she’ll kick your ass, even if you think you won. you’ll just make a martyr out of her. you’ll just turn the crowds against you. just do what she says, man, it’s easier. you can’t mess with her, she’s inspired. she’s guided by voices. she is SO FUCKING QUEER. so back off motherfuckah. this is not your spritzhead girlfriend this is hothead fucking joan of fuck arc paisan, yeah. FUCK YOU
But seriously folks
Please give me feedback. Paper: http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/acad/wes/joan-queer.rtf and bibliography: http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/acad/wes/joan-queer-bib.rtf . Feedback pretty please? Especially the end paragraphs, cuz, um, I stayed up way too late. but i can sleep on the plane. and maybe nap before my flight after i finish all my chores i have to do.
Status update
My TA stuff is under control. My gear is returned to the lab. I’m waiting till fall to ship Christi’s stuff, even though this means shipping it to france, which will be much more expensive. My hosue is still a disaster. I have 8 pages left to write. The paper in progress is continually being updated at http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/acad/wes/joan-queer.rtf
Todo:
- Pack to go home (augh, still don’t have big suitcase – i should go check out thrift stores, but alas, i bet other students have already cleaned them out)
- Buy more dogfood
- get two sets of key copies made for folks that will be around my wes house over the summer
- clean room. do non-essential laundry. don’t want ot come home to a festering pile of months old dirty underwear, no i don’t. anymore than folks luring around my house in the summer would like the idea….
- completely empty the refrigerator. all the way empty. i do not want to repeat spring break fiasco.
- return the 30 or so library books i have out
If it’s not on this list, I’ve forgotten about it and need to be reminded.
So how is that paper going, anyway?
You can read my paper in progress at http://www.xkey.com/~celesteh/acad/wes/joan-queer.rtf . Feedback is always welcome, at least, it is before Friday as that is the final due date. I’ll be periodically re-publishing my paper to that url as I work on it.
and, alas there is more on my todo list:
- Pack and ship things to christi’s parents, including CDs, books, dished and vinyl records
- Go get images from the lab for documentation, including any unphotographedhardware and screen shots from lab specific software, like the MOTU interface thingee
- Pack to go home (augh, still don’t have big suitcase – i should go check out thrift stores, but alas, i bet other students have already cleaned them out)
- Buy more dogfood
- get two sets of key copies made for folks that will be around my wes house over the summer
- clean room. do non-essential laundry. don’t want ot come home to a festering pile of months old dirty underwear, no i don’t. anymore than folks luring around my house in the summer would like the idea….
- completely empty the refrigerator. all the way empty. i do not want to repeat spring break fiasco.
- return the 30 or so library books i have out
- return equipment to the lab
bah. there’s probably more. I must have all of this done by 2:00 wednesday.
temptest in a teapot
Ok, so a couple of weeks ago there was a student-organized composer’s concert. I had a piece in the firts one of these. The first concert was a small test run with only a few composers willing to try something new, meaning that, on the whole, it was a lot better than the second one. I don’t likie to post negative reviews, so I usually don’t, but the second concert had a high level of suckage. Most of the pieces by undergrads. Many had a tendency to go on way too long. At least twice as long as they should. Hello, we have compositon faculty who would love to help you edit (read: shorten and modify) your work. Also, it would be really helpful to consider such elements as a structure. And having at least one rehersal might be a good idea. And the reason I don’t say these things is because I know the composers of these works and I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And they’re students. Student works are supposed to be exploratory and not necessarily materpieces. One unrehearsed piece that went on far too long was written by a very talented young composer. The piece had good elements in it that I hope are developed more in future pieces. I look forward to seeing the composer mature and find a voice. Great things ahead. Part of being a community means going to concerts full of works that are not going to be fabulous so you can see what your comrades are working on. It means, obviously, not critizing the hell out of something, unless you’re making a specific helpful point. And really, unless you’re good friends, a TA or a prof, you might want to hold off on making these points. I mean, if you gave a concert and your piece had a great ending point 5 minutes before the actual end and you missed five notes at the beginning, would you want every signle member of the sudience to tell you “great piece, but . . ..” So as a community, we support each other. We go to each other’s concerts. We offer criticisms when it’s appropriate or when we are asked for feedback. We offer encouragement.
I played in the second composer’s concert in the opening piece by my housemate. It was an unsual piece in which all the players dropped marbles in unison down clear plastic pipes, which fell to the concert hall stage floor. the parts indicated how long players should wait until picking up the marble. The interesting thing about the piece, more than the sounds of marbles hitting the floor in-semi unison, was the theatrical aspect of watching people pick up marbles at different times. The parts were distributed at random. The timing markers in the piece were non exact. So what looked to me like count 4 & 1/2, might have been 3 or 4 or 5 to somebody else. And there were a bunch of lines in the score. So on count 2, for example, a cluster of people on the right might grab their marbles. Then, the next time, on count 5, some folks in the corners, might bend down. An interesting idea. I can’t critique it too much, cuz i was in it, not watching it.
another person who failed to watch this theatre piece, apparently felt like he should not only offer criticism, but write a letter to the newspaper ciriticising all wes composers and the audience for clapping. Hey kid: you’re wrong. You missed the piece, you missed the point and you don’t understand community. And what the hell with invoking Hilter?? Um, I know that The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is not required reading or anything, but as a rule, and in that specific case, right wing governments are also against new art. Wrong analogy. Wrong side of wrong analogy. I hope nobody takes this kid too seriously on this article and some teacher or good friend or TA gives him some criticism on how to better formulate his ideas.
Terror, Trafficing in Evil
I’ve already posted twice about the NYTimes article that said we should “traffic in evil” to win the war on terror, which the author defined in such a way as to be unwinnable. Well, looks like we’ve been following that advice in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, this has completely defanged all the terrorist organizations that hate our government and caused the Middle East to love us and fear us. Rush Limbaugh calls it a “thoughtful” approach. Those of us who have not falled off the wagon (he must be back on drugs), are somewhat appalled. However, this is exactly what the NYTimes seems to think is a good idea. this is exactly what has been suggested. And it’s what we’ve been doing, according to the Red Cross and other groups, for more than two years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? the justified war? Where prisoners have now been held in inhumane conditions for two years with no access to legal counsel and without being charged with any crime. Remember how we were bring freedom to Afghanistan, quoth Bush, “once ruled by the brutal Taliban regime.” Now ruled by the brutal american regime.
Human Rights Watch articulates the problems with the reasoning behing the nytimes article,
But imagine for a moment that you’re an interrogator, and that you have in front of you a person who has information about an imminent attack on the United States. What would you do to get that information?
That is the classic “ticking bomb” scenario that proponents of torture always bring forward … But what we’ve found is that it puts you on a slippery slope that leads to extensive torture. If you can use torture against somebody who today you believe knows where the ticking bomb is, why not use torture on the person who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows where the ticking bomb is going to be in two weeks?
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/07/iraq8562.htm
and this reasoning leads directly to the kind of abuse that has been photodocumented in Iraq. I mean, these prisoners might know something, even if they haven’t done anything wrong themselves, right?
The Times suggested that we torture suspects for information. Not people convicted of something. Not even people who are charged with something, necessarily. People who might know stuff. The abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan are what happens when that reasoning is followed. And if this is not enough to convince you, if you think maybe these soldiers are not systematically “softening up” inmates, maybe they’re “blowing off some stream” (says Rush) or it’s not worse than Frat Hazing (say many people who are apparently unaware that frat boys volunteer for hazing and anyway it’s illegal at many schools), or maybe it is actually systematic, but who cares these guys are all foreigners, or whatever. If you want to excuse it: the NYTimes thinks we should start this sort of thing at home. That’s not just foreigners, in that case. That’s your neighbor. That’s your kid. That’s you. You, even as an upright Republican voter, have a duty to protect yourself by standing up against this at home and abroad.
and
Obviously, I’m procrastinating on my paper. This abuse thing is very very bad. but I must write my paper. I wonder if I have any “upright republican” readers.
shoutouts
thank you to David for recording, webcasting and photodocumenting thursday cocnert.
thank you to tim for organizing thursday concert.
thank you to dan for promoting thursday concert.
thank you to tim, dan and charlie for playing in thursday concert.
thank you to aaron for providing beer, seating, hospitality, mixing board and monitor speakers for thursday concert.
thank you to people who came/listened on the web to thursday concert.
thank you to sophie for offering a ride from airpot on wednesday.
thank you to david for offering a ride to the airport on wednesday.
thank you to angela for taking xena for the summer.
thank you to cola for offering me temporary lodging (while CN was to be unavilable)
thank you to mitch and to jean’s friend sarah for offering me bicycles (I will take one of you up on the offer)
thank you to ellen for offering me summer lodging
oh my, I am quite lucky to have had so many people be nice and helpful. I must now go back to working on my paper.