Two Hours, Forty-Seven Minutes

**timeline break**

It’s just another day up here. No one seems to care.  Just another reminder that I’m an Other (more on that later). Seriously, how can you not care about something that is humbling and awe-inspiring? Do you stand at the ocean’s edge and go, “eh. just a big bowla watta.”  Do you not Science?  Do you not think about the relative rarity and what effects something like this will have on light, on wildlife and nature, on weather?  I get it, on social media, it’s overwhelming and overdone, but goddamn.  Take a couple hours and appreciate the enormity of two enormous celestial bodies moving around us, something bigger than all of us.

I’ve procured glasses (thanks to a kind friend back in KS), and convinced my new friends K & D to come watch with me.  Somewhere else, somewhere outside of the place we work, so we don’t have to hear constant radio chatter, requests for toilet paper, propane tanks, moving reservations from one site to another.  Two and a half hours.  Just two and a half friggin’ hours of maybe being in wonder of the world rather than annoyed, angry, frustrated, sad, justifiably pissed off (are you paying attention? yes, I see you).  We can, and should, go back to that later.  So please don’t poo-poo anyone who is excited about this.  I understand.  I do.  I haven’t forgotten.  Everything is still there. 

It’s just smaller. 

For two hours, forty-seven minutes.

Glaciers did that.  BOR-ING.

 

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Chicago, James Beard, & Decisions | Pt. 1

So much has happened since I last posted a proper update, but I’ll spare you the hum-drummery, the “catching up” minutiae of the past few months, year(s)?  Because I have a feeling this is gonna be long:

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It’s true, I (was) still in Kansas.  Halfway through culinary school at Johnson County Community College even.  I do love my job/apprenticeship that lets me make good food with fun people.  My new love, my “second career”, my artistic switch to a different medium.  But if you know me, you know I’ve never been able to stay in one place very long.  I get bored easily, I suppose, or try and outrun my brain.  So I started looking for opportunities.  I had this dream of rooting down in my home state, of opening a small restaurant, which then became a food truck, then a small market/deli, but I just don’t know if that’s who I am…who I’ve ever been, and maybe it’s just time to stop fighting it.

I’ve been doing well in school.  I feel at home in a kitchen.  But I’d be lying if the male-dominated bullshit that I’ve been scrawling about in my small notebook hasn’t pissed me off enough that I started seeking outlets.  I found a program through the James Beard Foundation, “Women in Culinary Leadership”.  It is basically an accelerated, 8-month culinary program with different restaurants around the country.  I applied.  I was gifted some amazing recommendation letters from people I absolutely respect and admire.  I chose only restaurants within a day’s drive (I have health issues, my family has health issues).  Lo and behold, I was selected for a Skype interview for a restaurant in Chicago.  I passed that, knew by that night I had 10 days to figure out how to get up to Chicago to do a tasting (all of this is SO out of my comfort zone, as the restaurant was/is an ethnic fusion establishment).  I figured it out.  I have not been feeling well, and the whole time my anxiety and nerves were through the roof, but I got it done and got on a train.  I wanted a train so I would have time to think, to plan, to research.

I got into Chicago around 3pm.  I had a rolling bag and a backpack and foolishly (stubbornly) decided I would walk to my hostel.  It was hot, I’ve had terrible back/hip problems, and have GI issues as well (hello, stress!)  Got to the hostel and it was a damned oasis.  It was further than I thought.  I watched the spider remaking its web on the outside of our window for I don’t know how long.  Amazing view though.

That was one of two photos I took.  Me, the “photographer”.

So, I relaxed.  I showered.  I wrote this:
“This place smells like every place. The hostel, the McKittrick. Sunscreen, Louisville. The cold humidity of the lakefront, New Orleans in Winter. I’m being confronted with my body’s New World Order in relation to how I think of myself, a traveler, always in motion. Now limitation. Things I could once do without a second though, give pause, regret. It makes me sad, but it’s also a relief. Things are just different now, and I can’t force them back the way they were, just adjust and move forward.”

Then I went in search of a Walgreen’s and got exhausted, was in pain.  Ended up getting European-picnic style dinner from Eataly (which was on the next block, and I hate how much I went there).  But, you know, when you’re tired, when you’re confronted with Life Changes, Body Betrayals, you just need a cocktail in your room, arancini, black rice salad, fresh fruit, and dark chocolate.

Fun Fact/Honest Sidenote: C turned into D during this whole trip and I don’t think I can stay in hostels anymore.  It’s not exactly private.

I had one whole day before I had to do my tasting menu (four dishes, two in line with the fusion concept, two of my own).  I set up a time (2pm) with the Sous Chef to come in and look at the kitchen, pantry, walk-in and see what I would need.  I had the morning to try and not freak out, to just relax and think.  So I decided to walk a few blocks to the lakefront and grab a coffee.  I stumbled on a market (Ok, it was a fucking Whole Foods.) and grabbed a sourdough roll, a small wedge of cheese.  I was going to keep the European picnic train rolling.

I got to the lakefront and it was cloudy, colder than expected, and of course, windy.  I was starting to feel exhausted, so I sat on the steps and was just situating myself when I noticed a gentleman walking by and boisterously interacting with everyone.  It’s fine.  I lived in L.A.  I lived in New Orleans.  I can handle a little crazy.  I acknowledged him kindly and he started on his way, then doubled back.  Crap.  He started a conversation, I responded.  I was polite, but reserved.  I tried not to engage, but it didn’t matter.  With some people, it doesn’t matter.  He kept going.  And going.  He was animated, and a few times invaded my personal space.  As a female, you gauge every conversation with a male stranger and I couldn’t figure out the threat level on this one.  I honestly couldn’t.  I sat there, just listening and nodding, trying to figure out if he was full-blown unstable, delusional, or completely with it and just aggressively oblivious, to the point of not caring.

It was becoming clear that I wasn’t going to have some time to myself to think and then that started to piss me off.

But then, then I realized the dynamics of the situation weren’t that simple.  I sat there, a lone white girl, one an only somewhat busy lakefront, with this man, yes, this black man, standing over me being loud and occasionally getting close.  Then I noticed the cop cars.  They drove by, slowly, five or six times pointedly looking in our direction.  As much as I wanted out of that situation, I knew there was nothing I really could do unless things really and truly took a wrong turn.  And then I felt pissed because I was trapped, and I let myself get trapped because I had so much on my mind, so much stress, I didn’t feel like being called a bitch right then just to end it.  I was vulnerable and distant and it pissed me off more that another human being didn’t pick up on that, or simply didn’t care, and disengage.  And I was/am pissed that the reality of our country’s racism threw a wrench in the good ol’ fashioned “this man is borderline harassing me.”  So I sat there and took it.
The fucking levels, man.

I thought my best hope was going to be to simply say I had to be somewhere in a few minutes and got up to start walking.  He kept talking, non-stop, all these stories, grandiose stories, walking alongside me.  I would stop, nod, say I had to go and start walking again, and he ended up walking with me saying he was going in the same direction.  I knew there was a Target a few blocks away, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going “shopping” with me, so when we got to the corner, I tried to make my exit.  He mentioned again that he was taking me to a movie next week and if I wanted to come eat at his workplace, it would be on him.  I’m not sure why he thought I was a local, but after obligingly putting his email in my phone,  I let him down and finally walked into Target while he watched.

I walked around for awhile, long enough that he should be gone and went back to my hostel, mentally and emotionally fucking exhausted.

I hesitated sharing this, because it involves difficult issues and frankly, I’m scared to say the wrong thing anymore.  But it happened, and it’s as true as I can tell it, and if anything, I suppose it shows the difficulty of modern human engagement.  Just try not to hurt anyone, or get them hurt, I suppose.  I could’ve been more assertive, but the only thing he took was my time and mental energy.  All I could think about was de-escalation and even if it took an hour and a half (no joke), I guess it worked.

Also, dudes, fucking stop it.  Fucking stop dominating women without their consent.  Because that’s what that is.

This is ridiculously long and I’ve not even started day 2.  This is what happens when you don’t write for awhile.  Maybe someone got something out of this….more later

Immigrant Story

This is my Great Great Grandpa Petterson (Peterson) holding my Grandmother on his lap.  He and his future wife came to the United States from Sweden in 1884 and married about a year after their arrival.  They lived in a Swede settlement in Kansas and near/in Beattie, KS for 40 years.  According to my Grandmother, they were “hard working, poor, but respected.  Grandpa was a stone-cutter by trade.”  They went on to have four children, one of which was my Great Grandmother, Ida.  Ida married Jess and they had my Grandmother.  My Grandmother married Gordon Ensley in 1938 and had four boys, one of which is my Father.

I only know all of this because my Grandmother made it a point to write all of this down and give it to all of the grandchildren.  I am lucky.  I know at least some of my history and I cannot forget it because it stares back at me in black and white images and yellowed pages with painstakingly typed text.  And I have tears streaming down my face as I write this because people are being turned away from our country for no reason other than ignorance, fear, and blind hatred.  How quickly we forget when it is not happening to us in the present moment.  How quickly we forget that, unless we are Native American, we are ALL immigrants, the children of immigrants, descendants of immigrants.  The news today is littered with stories of perfectly legal U.S. citizens being turned away, refugees seeking safety being told they cannot come in, of Jews during World War II being sent from our borders only to be murdered by the Nazis.  So maybe, for some, there’s a convenient, privileged disconnect there, some distance that is allowing our leaders and those on the side of inhumanity to keep this from sinking in, but I am asking you, go back through your own lineage, trace your own family path and realize, yes, Virginia, you are the daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter, of an immigrant.  You might not be here today if not for the once-welcoming lamp beside the golden door.  Lady Liberty is also the Mother of Exiles.

Never forget.  Never let them forget, most of us enjoying the relatively intact freedoms today are here because this country was once open to the possibility of goodness.  Share your story, because most of us have one.

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

All I Have Is My Story

The following is a message I sent to my Congressional representatives this evening.  I have little hope that anyone of importance will read it, let alone listen to it:

All I have is my story.  And because I know my situation is not unique, I tell you my story in the hopes that you understand that there are probably hundreds more exactly like it, thousands more worse off, and millions who will be negatively affected if you ignore our needs.

I am a 39 year old single female who, two years ago, returned to the state of my birth, Kansas, to be closer to family, to start a new chapter in my life, and yes, for health reasons as well.  I have a Bachelors degree from Kansas University and have worked since I was 15 years old.  Now, I am attempting to pursue my passion and begin a second career in the culinary arts, but it is proving difficult as of late.  I have multiple chronic conditions, conditions that before the ACA, prevented me from getting my own health insurance.  Of course, the other reason I could not get much needed healthcare, was affordability.  That all changed with the ACA.  Yes, the rollout was messy and complicated and fraught with problems.  But it worked.  It worked for me, and it worked for millions of others.  Not hundreds, millions.  Yes, some people have had their insurance go up, so let’s address that issue.  Let’s get single-payer healthcare for ALL.  Let’s make healthcare a priority for our citizens so they don’t have to go broke with one emergency room visit.  Let’s rein in the insurance companies and make this more fair for all of us, not strip away the lifeline that so many of us have come to tears of gratefulness over.

I get six usable hours a day right now, and I spend them working.  I am trying.  Millions of us are trying, just to get by.  If you take the ACA away without a quantifiably more fair and just plan to back it up, you are sending a clear message to your fellow Americans that you do not care what happens to them, that profits matter more than people.  And after last night’s vote, it’s pretty clear that’s where things stand currently.  You are telling us that you are so out of touch, that you cannot fathom how one ER visit could bankrupt someone, send them down a financial spiral.  You are telling us that you don’t understand how someone would have to choose between paying their rent, buying groceries, or getting their necessary medications.  And if that wasn’t enough, you went ahead and took away the protections that most Americans are in favor of.  Who thought it was a bad idea to eliminate refusal based on pre-existing conditions?  Who thought it was a bad idea to let people stay on their parent’s insurance until they are 26?  At this point, it just seems petty and personal and vindictive.  Are you so wrapped up in political theater that you cannot remember it is the people you are supposed to be serving?  This isn’t a game.

And because one of my conditions is endometriosis and ovarian cysts, let’s talk about Planned Parenthood while were at it.  If you DO repeal the ACA, that’s where I would need to go, for at least some form of care.  Did you know that the treatment for endometriosis is usually birth control?  That’s right!  It’s not just for controlling birth!  Shocking, isn’t it.  I hate taking it, it’s a terrible drug, but it’s that or the pain.  Do you know how much it would cost to get my birth control without insurance and without Planned Parenthood?  It would be around $200.  In the grand scheme of drug pricing, that’s actually not that bad, but I couldn’t afford it.  I’d have to stop taking it and then we’re back to the pain, in addition to the pain I already cope with.  You cannot take away the only lifelines that people are relying on.  You can’t rush headlong to vindictively remove the ACA, without offering a BETTER solution for all, and then take away Planned Parenthood funding at the same time.  Unless you really don’t care.  Unless winning some political game means more to you than the well-being and day-to-day struggles of actual people.

Do you even remotely understand how important Planned Parenthood is, or the myriad of services they provide?  If you’re going to screw millions of people over, the least you can do is leave some small lifeline.  It might be the only thing that could keep me, and thousands of others, from that ER visit, from a debt spiral.

This is not the K blog you’re looking for.

St. Mary of The Angels school. Upper Ninth Ward. 2007.

 

 

 

 

 

Or maybe it is.  I don’t know.  I’m feel like I need to apologize for even writing this at all, but we all gotta do what we gotta do, right.  And for some of us, that means writing it out of our systems.  I’ve been trying not to post very much K/Federal Flood updates on social media, to not trigger the PTSD of the people I love, but know that I’m thinking of you today, and (quite literally) every day.  There are some things the rest of the country needs to remember though, things the rest of the country gets wrong, forgets, doesn’t understand.  And that’s where I live now, the Rest of The Country.  I won’t detail the errors, omissions, flat-out lies.  I’m even tired of the coverage.  But like the signs said, “Think that you may be wrong”.   At 16, I never thought I’d live there, then, at 30, I never thought I would leave.  I never did, really, not completely.  I didn’t go through it, I am not claiming that sorrow and that strength.  But New Orleans is my true home and it always will be.  You can’t take that from anyone.

So today I will be trying to feed the ever-hungry monarch caterpillars, driving to Eudora to pick up three baby bunnies, then driving to Operation Wildlife to drop them off and do my rehab duty.  At some point, I will make bread pudding.  At some point, I will stand over the Kaw and pour a little whiskey in.  Y’all let me know when you get it.

Today is also the day I drag this horse outta the barn.  Because it’s helped me before and it’s helped others before and it’s a Damn Fine Poem.

“Local Heroes”

Some days the worst that can happen happens.

The sky falls or evil overwhelms or

the world as we have come to know it turns

toward the eventual apocalypse

long predicted in all the holy books—

the end-times of old grudge and grievances

that bring us each to our oblivions.

Still, maybe this is not the end at all,

nor even the beginning of the end.

Rather, one more in a long list of sorrows

to be added to the ones thus far endured,

through what we have come to call our history—

another in that bitter litany

that we will, if we survive it, have survived.

God help us who must live through this, alive

to the terror and open wounds: the heart

torn, shaken faith, the violent, vengeful soul,

the nerve exposed, the broken body so

mingled with its breaking that it’s lost forever.

Lord send us, in our peril, local heroes.

Someone to listen, someone to watch, someone

to search and wait and keep the careful count

of the dead and missing, the dead and gone

but not forgotten. Some days all that can be done

is to salvage one sadness from the mass

of sadnesses, to bear one body home,

to lay the dead out among their people,

organize the flowers and casseroles,

write the obits, meet the mourners at the door,

drive the dark procession down through town,

toll the bell, dig the hole, tend the pyre.

It’s what we do. The daylong news is dire—

full of true believers and politicos,

bold talk of holy war and photo-ops.

But here, brave men and women pick the pieces up.

They serve the living, caring for the dead.

Here the distant battle is waged in homes.

Like politics, all funerals are local.

–Thomas Lynch

Fall, 2005.

100,000. On a Good Day

I had not planned on writing this. I was supposed to update about a mural project I assisted on in Hutchinson. But I just came home from (foolishly) trying to get to the library, in the heart of tiny Downtown Lawrence. What should take five minutes, took twenty. And I get that it’s small potatoes compared with other cities, with other “sprawling metropolises” (metropoli?), but sprawling metropolis is not Lawrence. God forbid the people that actually live here have to go to the community pool or library on a hot, Summer Sunday. And then it struck me, in that moment, I could, for one brief instant, see the OTHER SIDE behind this whole East 9th Street corridor. If I, someone who is adamantly against this expansion, could be so annoyed and frustrated and wish EVERYTHING didn’t have to be run through a five block stretch (or a fifteen block radius at best), then everyone else could too. So maybe this, this too-big-for-your-britches Free State Festival and this bike race and everything else that has been shoved under the LAC umbrella, is all just part of the plan. Maybe if they frustrate and annoy the parents, the West Siders, the middle-agers, the low-middle incomers, who have no solid feeling one way or the other, so much that we just say YES, YES.  OK. Anywhere but just here. Run it through another area and relieve some of the pressure. Fine.

Except it’s not fine. Lawrence is a town of 100,000 people, on a good day.  And gone are the days of Summer reversion when the students leave town.  So I pull out the New Orleans card again, I pull out the Kansas City card with it. These are bigger places, with longer histories of events and more room to do it. Someone, is thinking, wishing, hoping beyond their means. I know who it is, and maybe you do too. I also know who’s set to make money off these dreams, and I hope you do too.  And I hope you’re thinking about it.

On the way back from my eventually successful trip to pick up a book, I had flashbacks of Mardi Gras. How we would mock people who got trapped behind a parade, or didn’t avoid Uptown or St. Charles on certain days/times (ha! they’ll learn). And sure, people have to live there too. It’s a common issue for any city hosting a big event. But, Mardi Gras isn’t being forced upon them, not really (the Super Bowl, is another story). It’s part of a long history and they’ve got crowd control and parading down to a science. And, in New Orleans, as small as it actually is, you can escape it, if you wanted to.  There are options.

But perhaps the more appropriate card to pull out of the deck, is Austin. Because Someone wants this to be SXSW, or rather, NXNE. Except Austin is a town of 900,000+ people which leads me to believe someone is jumping the gun just a little bit, or padding their resume for the next gig. How confident are we that these place-makers, these noble “arts” saviors, are here to stay? Today, the topic of new residents vs. old guard came up in conversation. It’s something, since leaving New Orleans, I’ve thought about in passing, but hadn’t seen much evidence of, the notion of native vs. non-native outside that setting. Diaphanous and loaded meanings aside for now, the Outsider Mentality comes up a lot in New Orleans. I get it, to a point. It’s protection and fear of exploitation after a history of just that. In the case of New Orleans, we’re talking hundreds of years, but Lawrence, KS, is a different animal. Or is it? There is a culture and a history to be protected here as well, even if you’re not a part of it, or aren’t really aware of it, it’s there, and there will be lines drawn in the sand as this continues. I, personally, have not been called into question, not to my face. Yes, I am a renter, so I’m sure my opinion carries little weight, and I’m also a “native” Kansan, so maybe a little more is added on. But I’m not FROM Lawrence. At what point does that become an issue. In my view, for this place, all opinions matter, but that comes with the caveat that one must consider the dog in the race, and the ticket-holder’s willingness to listen to dissent, to give it more than lip service in retort, to understand that socio-economic status and “how you got here, how long will you stay”, the friends you keep, all factor into this, for everyone, not just Someone.

And because this is a small town (own it, Lawrence), there is a good-to-definite chance you are being talked about, could be labeled, could be, yes, blacklisted. At that point, livelihoods become threatened, people stop speaking up. Some people don’t have to worry about this, and that is the difference. Some people don’t have to worry that stating how they feel could affect their job search, or their current job, or future endeavors. Some people. What would it be like if we could have a real, honest, open conversation, a dialogue in a neutral space where we could all speak out about these changes without fear of repercussion? Is it even possible? Can the small potatoes and big tubers get together and hash(brown) it out? Or would we leave there, scared for our future, or adding names to that dark list?

I don’t know. I just know this is something we should all be talking and thinking about, not just East Siders, not just artists and homeowners, not just new residents and old guard. Consider those who stand to gain, those who stand to lose, the timing, the long-term sustainability, the current sustainability.  Consider the process.  Consider your neighbors, your friends, your kids, your grandkids.  Consider quality, quantity.  Organic growth vs. big development.  Consider the angles.

With that, below is the letter I sent at the last minute before the work plan acceptance meeting. It was written in haste, so isn’t perfect. It was also written using that sweet, free internet at our wonderful library, right in the heart of our crucial Downtown.
__________________
Greetings,

I realize this is coming in at the last hour, and may not even be read, but I cannot attend tonight’s meeting to make my voice heard.

I am a former Lawrence resident who, until last November, has been living in New Orleans, LA for the past 6 and a half years. I relocated back to Lawrence, to be closer to family (who are all in Topeka). And I chose Lawrence, as I always do, because it is a more open-minded and progressive city, one with a decent understanding of the importance of art, music, and culture.

Maybe that’s why I am so dismayed to see the fabric of Lawrence neighborhoods so quickly ripped and up for sale. I live in East Lawrence, XXXXXXXXXXX to be exact, and already see the changes. I am a struggling artist and chose East Lawrence not just for an affordable place to live, but for the people that live there. Coming from New Orleans, I feel I see a future that maybe not many others have seen, a city that prides itself on culture, music, and art, where schemes cached as “economic development” have discolored and gentrified entire sections of once vibrant communities. It is heartbreaking to see it beginning on a smaller scale here. You cannot refurbish and plop down a handful of trendy warehouses and call it a “district”. You cannot run land grabs through thriving communities and call it improvements (for their own good, right?). From what I can see, it didn’t need to be improved. No one is denying that basic infrastructure and street repair is needed, but attaching basic needs and services to forced cultural “improvements” (and grant money) is like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Lawrence is not yet big enough to sustain this path. The endless festivals, the tourist economy, works for New Orleans because they’ve been doing it for decades. It’s not perfect by a long shot, but it generally works there because it fits. But shoving pre-approved (NON-LOCAL) art (and soon, entertainment) right through the heart of a community just smacks of a development scheme and poor planning. True art and culture havens are born organically, not forced upon the people with a fistful of dollars and bad design. Too often, these plans are only abandoned in a few years because they cannot be sustained and the flock has moved on.

I urge you, slow it down, or shut it down. Be open, transparent, and let’s work together on a plan that works for EVERYONE, not just a few.
Thank you.

We are the Place-Makers, We are the Schemers of Schemes

For the complete backstory on the following, please consult this extremely well-written piece by Dave Loewenstein.  However, in broad terms, this issue is not inherently place-based, not special to Lawrence, KS.  It happens in cities big and small, nationwide.  It might be happening in your town, cached under the banner of those beautiful words, Progress, Revitalization, Economic Development.  The battle of hearts and minds is easier to win when you color the opposition as impediments to a Better Life and More Money, for everyone, surely.  In New Orleans, it’s cached under the outright lie of “no one was using it anyway”, probably because the big government No One didn’t care to revitalize it until big development money was on the table.  Rich people need grocery stores, poor people do not.  Rich people need to have a beautiful view of the river, poor people do not.  So, I found it disheartening, if not surprising, to see this, on a somewhat smaller scale, happening in a city I consider my hometown as much as my actual hometown.  My timing could have been better, should have been there for the actual vote to proceed, but after a three hour meeting, in a shaky, nervous voice and broken gut, I read something I personally felt needed to be said.

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From my public comment at the end of the City Commission meeting in Lawrence, KS on the evening of January 27th, 2015:

“We live in an age where authenticity is becoming commodified and privatized like oil, like gas, like water, like any other money-maker.  The problem is, you can’t hold the authentic, see it, touch it.  You only feel it, know it to be true.  Some are better judges than others, and unfortunately, to the money-makers, the truth of the thing doesn’t matter.  To the consumer, if it isn’t real and lasting, and when the shine has worn off, they will eventually move on.

I have just moved home after six and a half years in New Orleans, a city bursting at its sandy seams with absolute culture and authenticity, and even there, maybe especially there, the culture vultures have descended.  It seems to be the thing to do these days, to look to the music makers, the dreamers of dreams, to lift us up not just song and beauty, but with economic development and high-priced lofts.  It’s the same in nearly every town and it breaks my heart in Lawrence as much as it does in New Orleans.  To see dollar signs in the eyes of a few, stars in the eyes of those sold on these ideas, and deaf ears turned to those who sound a warning, a call to caution.  I’ve seen entire swaths of cities I love turned into meccas for “culture” and the upper-crust creative class, while the people who made that area so enticing, the people who were previously ignored and denied basic services, are priced out and sent to the outskirts, scattered and struggling to pay bills and build community once again.  The “district” is then used up, turned like an overripe peach, loses its flavor, its authenticity, and the consumers and developers move on.

I’m here today as one of those artists, those dreamers of dreams, to urge consideration in your E. 9th Street dealings, and any future projects.  You cannot force culture.  You cannot manufacture authenticity.  And you cannot exploit the very people who have made this town what it is.  We are not to be written off as naysayers.  We are not over-reacting or getting in the way of progress.  We are voting, tax-paying citizens who urge consideration of ALL citizens, inclusiveness, and long-range thinking.  If you want your so-called arts district to sincerely thrive and live on, consider the people, consider the future, consider what it takes to be a working artist, a low-income family, a student, a single mother, a middle-income couple, all of us.  We are what make up this specific place at this specific time and our cries for silly things like grocery stores, laundromats, health care, and well-paying day jobs fell on deaf ears before, but  consider these things before you drive throngs of culture-seekers through our streets.  Consider how day-to-day living happens just outside this proposed corridor before you try and sell us on the benefits.  But, if this is just about money, by all means, ignore the very people you’re relying on to cash in on culture.

Thank you.”

On @BeingNOLA

So, I was nominated by a friend to be a week-long curator for the @BeingNOLA account, a “This is my life venture based on a similar campaign in Sweden, here geared towards “opening up an insular New Orleans”.  I figured I might as well write about my experience, two and a half days in…

I will admit to some trepidation when I saw that line, “opening up an insular New Orleans”.  Part of me has the knee-jerk reaction of, “Why the hell would we want to do that.”  The outsider mentality has taken root in me, only five years in, and not a native.  It’s here my love for China and New Orleans overlaps, that insular quality is strong in both cultures.  In Chinese, it’s “waiguoren”, literally “out of country person”, or “foreigner”.  In New Orleans, it’s just, “What school did you go to?” Meaning, high school, which me being a waiguoren, mistook for college (once, now I know).  BUT, it is a bit off-putting to those of us truly invested and in love with New Orleans.  And when you get right down to it, the place you were born isn’t necessarily the place that feels like home.  So, there has to be a happy medium, a way to open up the culture and the city without losing its soul and destroying the qualities and beauty that have survived by being isolated and “foreign”, exotic.  There has to be a way to not let New Orleans turn into any other city and still welcoming to pure hearts that will inevitably add to the, and forgive me here, gumbo.  Yes, I said it.  Smack me if you ever hear me say “N’Awlins” or trolley (you’ll never hear it).  It’s funny, when I first moved here, I was convinced that all the local pronunciations (BurGUNdee, for instance) were just a way to test you.  I’m still fairly certain that’s the case, but I like it that way.  When you want to visit a different country, you at least learn a few phrases.

On the technological side, it’s odd for me to tweet this much.  It’s odd for me to say that word with a straight face even.  But maybe I didn’t, you don’t know.  (Yeah! Written word!)  Twitter has never grown on me, never been my medium.  See all these words?  That’s just a few minutes, and then there’s the editing.  Try and dispel all my crazy thoughts into 140 character snippets and I would overwhelm people or get overwhelmed, or both.  Twitter’s icon is a little bluebird, not a hummingbird.  So, yes, I feel pressured to perform right now.  Being a rather introverted person, I feel pressure to be an extrovert, to show all the interesting things I do in a day, when in reality most of my time is spent lying down (health problems) or working on the computer, occasionally taking photos.  (Look, bub, it’s not my fault I have a broken stomach and a Rich Inner Life, but there you go.)  I’m a slow-mover and I came to terms with that a long time ago.  I’m ok with that, and maybe that’s one reason I love this town, it forces you to slow down.  Yet the argument could be made that this is one of the things that is changing about New Orleans, and maybe that’s what scares me the most.  Having lived the same amount of time in Los Angeles, I do not want a shallow fast-lane life (apologies to my Angeleno friends. this is not personal, you know this).  I do not want a “good enough” and “just get it out there” life, a quantity above quality driven existence.  Because pressure.  Pressure to perform because there are so many people out there trying to do what you do and they’re driven, young and DRIVEN with just as much educational debt hanging over them as you.  I guess what I’m saying is, I worry that with the water rising, our coastlines sinking, I’m still concerned that there is an inevitable shallowness permeating a city a love so dearly.

And yet, and yet, it’s nice to shake the cobwebs from your eyes and see your beloved anew.  It’s good to see New Orleans as if you’re introducing her, through your eyes, to the world, or visiting friends, (or at least 1,500 random strangers).  So there is something to that, to not take her for granted.  And in the end, you get what you give, the tool means nothing unless you use it well, and all that jazz.  All. that. jazz.

Brave New Tweet

“The soul of wit may become the very body of untruth. However elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of complex situations.” -Aldous Huxley

The growing number of gated communities in our nation is but one example of the obsession with safety. With guards at the gate, individuals still have bars and elaborate internal security systems. Americans spend more than thirty billion dollars a year on security. When I have stayed with friends in these communities and inquired as to whether all the security is in response to an actual danger I am told “not really,” that it is the fear of threat rather than a real threat that is the catalyst for an obsession with safety that borders on madness.
 
Culturally we bear witness to this madness every day. We can all tell endless stories of how it makes itself known in everyday life. For example, an adult white male answers the door when a young Asian male rings the bell. We live in a culture where without responding to any gesture of aggression or hostility on the part of the stranger, who is simply lost and trying to find the correct address, the white male shoots him, believing he is protecting his life and his property. This is an everyday example of madness. The person who is really the threat here is the home owner who has been so well socialized by the thinking of white supremacy, of capitalism, of patriarchy that he can no longer respond rationally.
 
White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged to feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to “protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat. ” This is what the worship of death looks like.

bell hooks, All About Love, p. 194-195 (via machistado)