the Starbucks of Yoga

A lot of yoga folks look down on Bikram yoga, the 90-minute program of poses done in a very hot, steamy room. It is the same each time and its namesake and founder has some policies that regiment it even further, which can sometimes be frustrating to yoga studios doing his programme. If one is in a city with a wide range of yoga choices, and one lives there full-time, then Bikram may not be the best choice--there are other hot yogas if you like that, and other ways to do yoga that can be more challenging in some ways, and certainly have more variety if you're into that.

But as someone who has never lived in a place with decent yoga within an hour drive, I will attest that Bikram : Yoga as Starbucks : Coffee. It's not, as some people claim, the 'McDonalds of yoga'. That implies that it is bad-for-you, cheap, and unthinking product delivered as conveniently and quickly as possible. It is instead the Starbucks of yoga. Yes, some people only drink frappucinos, but you can also get good, consistent doppio macchiatos and americanos, and when you're in a strange city, it's good to know that you don't need to try every coffee place in town to find a decent bean.

Bikram has been my salvation when travelling, because I know that in an hour and a half I can get a good all-around workout and I know that the likelihood of anything vaguely hippie/Orientalist/new age is fairly low, aside from the 'namaste' at the end of the workout. I know what I'm getting, and I can do this while carrying almost no gear. My most recent experience was at a great studio in Berlin Mitte, but there have been many others. Herewith the map of Bikrams I have known:


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B2, the 2Bs

So B no. 2 was Bradford, you would think slightly less exotic than Berlin but in fact you'd be wrong. First, it's in northern England and for those of you keeping track, we live in a different country, namely Cymru. Everything is different in Yorkshire except the money and the Starbucks. Second, I stayed in a lovely railway hotel that was reminiscent of many Victorian railway hotels from where I grew up in Colorado, so that was a bit odd. Also odd was the bathtub in the room. and by in the room I mean in the room:

So that was cool. Obviously I had to take a bath.

I was there to visit the collection at the National Media Museum, which was lovely--lovely people, lovely pictures, great facility. In the short two days I was there I decided that I must seek out South Asian food, for Bradford has a proud and competitive group of excellent restaurants along these lines. After extensive research and forgoing the Bollywood-celeb packed Mumtaz (go to the website. it's insane), I went with the family-run Prashad Chaat House to the south of the university campus, past Bombay Stores (biggest retailer of S. Asian clothing/textiles in the UK, which is saying something), the Jami Masjid, the main Halal grocer/butcher in town and after a little while felt entirely at home in the lovely colony of south of Delhi. Except it was Bradford. So there you are.

The food, prepared by the award winning proprietress and chef, was astounding. I had a pea kachori for a starter, which turned out to be glorious pea pasteness with clove overtones shaped into a ball, wrapped in chickpea flour, and fried. Hea-ven. Everything was fabulous, and so my rec for Bradford is definitely this place. I advise walking there to get a sense of the neighbourhood.

Oh, and of course: it's Gujarati. It is a long-standing family maxim that everything good is from Gujarat and everything Gujarati is of course perfect. Prashad Chaat House now takes its place as yet another proof of this universal truth. (not that you need to prove universal truths, but there you are)

Back from the Bs

Berlin and Bradford that is. Last week Berlin, this week Bradford. Intriguingly different places, I might add.

I had not been to Berlin since July 1988, when I was young and impressionable and the city had a wall. I remember that one side was coloured and the other side was grey. One side was busy and the other side had really really wide streets with no one on them. I remember being astounded by the space of the Pergamon museum and scared when we crossed through Checkpoint Charlie, over the no-man's land and into the grey, commercial-free zone of East Berlin. People even wore grey--in my memory at least. And it was cold and rainy that July. I had packed one sweater. I wear it in every photo from the trip.

All of that has largely changed, as you might imagine. Checkpoint Charlie is a bit disneylandish now, and the strip where the wall was has been filled in with office buildingy things from the mid-90s. (I fear we will look back on mid-90s architecture with the same horror we reserve now for mid-60s architecture. I'm not saying that the latter doesn't have its charms--I secretly and truly love a lot of it (concrete is cool!)--but this 90s stuff is a bit horrifying in its, well, smugness.)

I walked everywhere, ate required sausage, took required pic of Zoo station, did Ku-damm and Mitte, ran around Tiergarten and through Brandenburg gate (not something I could have done 20 years ago, obviously--also the Starbucks right there didn't so much exist in 1988. weird.) And generally had a good time.

Thoughts: there are no cars in Berlin. Well, not where I was staying (in Mitte--center of the city). I'm not saying there are no no cars, but that usually there are bikes. and peds. and trams. and more of same, and then one car. repeat. It means the streets are quiet aside from the odd scooter, and that the cars are restricted to the major arteries. this is genius. whatever factors contribute to this state of affairs--everyone everywhere should copy them. Now. go on...

Other thought: Wales has no capitalism. There's nothing to buy here. Why would you buy things? In berlin there's everything to buy. stuff, and shoes, and clothes, and more stuff, and chocolate, and clothes, and cars, and paper, and whiskey, and absinthe, and art, and stuff. in Wales it's boot sales, grocery/farmer market food, and that's about it. so none of that communist stuff rubbed off on Berlin, but it seems that the sky, sea, food, and air is pretty much enough for those in Wales. cool.

right. why are we leaving again? oh yes. iPhone. obviously.

Meta-Blog

This blog began both as a form of travelling and as a way to negotiate our own travelling from one continent to another. Once that period of transition seemed to have come to an end, i.e. as we made a home here, I found myself slowing down in the blog department. I felt too out of context to say much about American culture and politics (after all, I now spell travelling with two 'l's). For a while I was able to comment on both British and Welsh culture as an outsider, sending missives back to the homeland. But that phase passed as I felt less like an outsider here, and the 'homeland' felt less like home. Yet (on some other hand) I didn't think I had a readership here that would want to hear my thoughts on the collapse of New Labour, the election of Boris, the role of Plaid Cymru, the promise of Compass, etc. And thus I didn't say a lot.

Now that another transition is about to start, I find myself with even less to say. I don't think I'll have any revelations about America for my American readers. Maybe I should promote the blog and widely circulate the web address to all my friends and colleagues over here - then I could tell them all about the truly insane land called America. No, if they want to know about America they can just turn on their television, open their Macbooks, pick up a newspaper. This is the other thing that's odd about living in the UK: America doesn't go away; it's hardly even distant; it's front and centre. Turn on BBC24 while eating lunch earlier this week and what do you see: breaking headlines, crane collapses in Manhattan. The US primaries have a central story on BBC and Guardian websites every single day. Hell, American culture and politics are what we UK academics write about, and then publish in Australian journals!

I suspect that my US culture shock will bring out something in me to write about. Obama is still inspiring, but I fear that putting that in to words will make it disappear. But if all else fails, I can talk about all the cool new technology I plan to buy in the states: iPhones, Plasmas, and MINIs (oh my). And if I get really desperate I'm going to turn to Philosophy: this Meillassoux guy is either a great sophist, or he's got something serious and radical to say - but I'll need help from TG on that 'transfinite' in order to understand it.

exceptionally seminal

I'm marking my last essay of the year--in the UK you don't assign anything in the middle of term, and then at the end you get an avalanche of marking. This is fine, as it means I mark nothing during the term (huzzah) in exchange for two weeks of solid marking at the end, which makes you only a wee bit crazy.

So I'm marking this essay, and it calls a certain postcolonial theorist 'exceptionally seminal'. I'm not sure what this really means, or if this is entirely appropriate. For years I've joked about the problem with the term 'seminal' as it is indeed gendered but no one seems to notice, or seemed to notice back when we cared about such things.

In response, I coined the term 'ovulal' and any day now it will enter normal discourse and it will be MY invention. MINE!! An ovulal neologism, no?

So to be exceptionally seminal, now that you know my issues with the term, would be to have what--very high motility in one's seminality? What would it mean to be exceptionally ovulal? A heightened production from the ova? Lots and lots of twins? Very very fertile, in any case. Ah fecundity.

Boot Sale Update!

Today's update (this is a 'regular feature' of the blog, if by 'regular' we mean 'twice'):

Boot sale trend today? Faux, plastic VHS tape covers that look like leatherbound books! Yes, saw these at about 6 of the vendors today. They are so unbelievably tacky that they can't even qualify as kitch. Really. Not even in your hip loft apartment. Trust me.

I managed to secure a lovely coffee server in my newly-chosen china pattern (it's not just for wedding registries anymore--you too can choose your china pattern after over 15 years with your partner!). It's called Indian tree. It is not at all Indian. This appeals to me. Plus, it's chinoiserie, my favourite word. What could be better?

My current holding in Indian Tree: four plates and the coffee server. Let the games begin!

um, it's almost June

Right. I am currently wearing wool socks (Christmassy pattern), trousers (and pants, but those are different things over here), long-sleeved shirt, and a heavy wool cardigan (think c. 1978 Patagonia and you've got it).

I'm not a huge fan of the heat, I will say. But this is a wee bit ridiculous, especially in light of last 'summer's' non-appearance. Ah well. They say we are due for 'sunny spells' on Friday. But they always say that about the weather two days ahead. Because they can.

In the meantime, check this awesome blog out, which gets it so right. so so right.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Am I right?

The Awakening and etc.

I have recently finished listening to the librivox version of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which was good on a number of levels. I found myself a bit surprised that it hasn't yet been made into a movie (with Cate Blanchett I think as Mrs. Pontellier, even though she's too skinny for the role, and Colin Firth as Robert, obviously).

It strikes me as a needed correction to the so-called 'third wave' feminism running amok out there--the Sex in the City, I don't want it all I just want my shoes kind of feminism. I say so-called because I am offended that other, more interesting directions that feminism has taken have not become canonized in 'wave' form, like the very legitimate critiques embodied in Black feminism, 'Third World' feminism, and queer theory. But I digress. The Awakening:

In some ways pop/third wave feminism recognises what The Awakening shows us: (elite) women's lives are circumscribed by a very limited number of choices, choices that are largely about existing in relation to a man and one's children first, and then only very secondarily something else. The difference: this was much much more true in turn of the century New Orleans elite culture than it is now. And Emma's choices are as follows: society wife, outcast, or death (where 'outcast' and 'death' are basically equivalent).

But what's interesting is the way that the narrative works in The Awakening. Emma doesn't particularly like her children. She's not a 'mother' type. She finds her husband to be kind and generous, but there's not a lot of love there. She has an encounter with a man whom she loves, and who loves her. But what's genius about the book is that she realises in the end that choosing to go off with him would just be another relation of ownership--they would be unable to be in any sort of queer relation and still maintain their family/social ties. And while she can barely imagine what that relationship would look like, he can't imagine it at all.

Her choice at the end isn't about unrequited love, or the loss of Robert (her lover). It's about her awakening to the possibility of living a queer life, and her recognition of its impossibility.

The study guide websites (which I haven't read because I know they would ruin the book for me) seem to label this book as 'proto-feminism'. I find it to be about queerness.

'Emma Pontellier's awakening shows us Sedgwick's closet'. Discuss.

PS: Librivox version is fascinating--each section of about 4 chapters is read by a different woman, many of whom have lovely French or Spanish accents, in contrast to the intervening chapters with the midwestern/upstate New York rounded flatness. Fab.

progress and update

An update for those to whom we have not talked in forever and apologies and etc. If you know me at all, you know I dislike picking up the phone and thus have difficulty with ye ol' communication. So a bloggy update...

1. We are moving back to the US! Both sad and happy news, as we love it here in Wales, we have lovely friends, and a lovely house. Plus I am not excited about having to actually go to a grocery store again. (I have my priorities straight here.)
   
2. Where? Baltimore, Balmer, Bodymore Murdaland.
   
3. Yes, we have watched (since finding out about the possibility of the move) the entirety of The Wire. And we love it. And it makes us like B'more more. We are drinking Jamesons and swearing a lot in preparation.
   
4. Yes, we picked the worst time (or at least the worst thus far since the late 1970s) to sell a house. But there you are. And no, we can't rent it.
   

That's the general update. More specific updates include:

q. we ordered a Mini Cooper S yesterday--John Cooper Works, in silver. because of the near universal truth that if you are utterly stressed about selling your house what you do is to buy a car. obviously. plus, ya kinda need a car in the US I hear. I may have to drive for more than 5 minutes/week. crap. and also: silver! shiny!


2. we are auctioning our house. Yes, auctioning. Not because we are totally ebay people and must auction everything (although we are), but because the hemorrhaging money shows little sign of stopping and we are moving in July. At which point we will be paying quite a lot of money each month for a space that we no longer live in. And its value will also be going down. Fun! We are this kind of crazy people, and the market, while not DC/Baltimore bad, is bad.


ichi. we will be flying on Virgin with Luke (he will be in the hold but on the same flight). Huzzah for Virgin.


quatorze. uncharacteristically, we are flying to B'more without housing sorted on the other end. It's like grad school, only with more stuff! and a dog! fun! Friends in DC/B'More/greater MD (shout out to the Waldorf crew!) have offered to house us. Hopefully this will only be for a few weeks.


undegpunt. I am unnesting. it's a thing. and I find in the multiple moves of the last few years, it's become a natural ritual. it involves eating down whatever food we have in the cupboards. giving away things to charities. ebaying the higher-priced items. and selling books on-line. perhaps I was a nomad in a previous life. I envision this prior life as depicted in the film Gabbeh. Highly recommended.


ch. perhaps I am a nomad in this life.


zed. we are at stress level Orange regarding house sale, and largely everything else has become secondary. but hopefully this auction thing will work, and we'll be free of the house sometime in August. If it doesn't, look for the large piles of goo on the streets of B'More. That will be us.

Welsh is fun! Ydy!

Friday I spent the day in a Welsh exam--9:30 to noon written and listening comprehension, followed by a 2:20 20-minute oral exam in which I had to speak for 3 minutes and then answer questions about my monologue, answer some other questions that tested my comprehension/use of passive, conditional, and emphatic constructions, and then answer ten questions with 'yes', in Welsh. The last thing seems silly, right? But they don't really say 'yes' or 'no' directly very much in Welsh. They do the following:

Are you going to the store? I am.
Do you have children? I do.
Will he make breakfast? He will.
Should we build a hot tub? You (pl) should.
Will I be able to help you? You will be able to. (oh yes. that one's fun)

This means there are about 20 million (give or take) ways to say 'yes' and 'no' in Welsh.

Then there's the tricky ones:

It's cold today! It is.
Mae hi'n oer heddiw! Ydy.
You can see that there's not really any 'ydy' looking thing in the sentence. This is what makes Welsh 'fun' by the way. It also means that often conversations go very slowly with folks like myself:
You: It's cold today!
Me: [pause, think, pause, think] er [pause think] Ydy?

Welsh also simplifies your life by using the singular of verbs even when you're talking about multiple things. This means you don't have to really use as many verb forms, which for me is lovely. But one of the fill-in-the-blanks on the written section was:

Were the pictures good?
except in Welsh it's actually: Was the pictures good?
You'd think the answer would be: they was. But no, when you use the pronoun 'they' you must then conjugate the verb properly. So the answer is: they were.

Oedd y lluniau dda?
On.

And on. Or at least I hope it was.

Welsh is fun! Good thing I'm learning this language that will serve me so well when I move to the mid-Atlantic in a few weeks. Sigh.

hello, gorgeous!

Sorry for the radio silence. Usually this means that we are having various issues regarding life and chaos. For example, just to pick one thing, failing to sell our house. And having to drop the asking price by a 10% or so, to below what we paid for it. Or, to pick another random thing, say, having to coordinate a move across the ocean (again) for stuff, us, and dog. Fun!

So I enjoy the greeting in the top right corner of Virgin Atlantic's site: Hello Gorgeous!

Hello Virgin. I heart you. And yes, I am gorgeous. Doncha know it.

Speaking of Tornadoes

TMcD blogs about the Nashville Tornado that narrowly missed him 10 years ago. I wasn't in Nashvegas for that event, but I remember TMcD's telling of the tale from back then quite vividly. But reading that post got me thinking about my own Tornado experience, and realising that in these days of the 21st century interwebs, I could probably now look up pictures and read about an event from 20 years ago that was probably formative for me in some way. 

I now discover that today the event is called 'The Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak'. It occurred on 10 April 1979 and involved a total of 13 tornadoes. At the time, we lived in in the red river valley, very near to Wichita Falls. The 3 Tornadoes that hit Wichita falls (they came together to form one massive cell and basically marched through town), left 20,000 people homeless, injured 1,700, and killed 45 people. 10 more people were also killed by the Vernon tornado, and 3 in by the Lawton tornado. 

Online there is, of course, lots of good information, an amazing map,unbelievable pictures, entire websites devoted to the event, and even a 2005 AP article describing the impact of the inspection of the Wichita Falls ruins on future Tornado safety. 

My own memories are obviously filtered through the eyes of a 7 year old. We lived in a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road surrounded by mesquite trees and cows. Nearby was Electra, TX, current population 3,000 and couldn't have been much bigger back then. At that point in my life, then, Wichita Falls was 'the city', the place you went to buy things, the place with lots of traffic and street lights and noise and people. And this event equated in my head to the total destruction of that place. What imprinted itself in my head were NOT the pictures of the Tornadoes themselves, as I had seen lot of dark black funnel clouds in my life - dashing from the house to the cellar was a routine affair at that time. But the pictures of the devastation afterwards, of block after city block of houses simply gone aside from 1 closet or a bathroom - that was something I just couldn't grasp. And more than the pictures, I still remember all the stories that circulated afterwards: the near misses, the missing persons, the coke bottles blown through someone's leg, the 2x4 through someone's arm...

I also remember how badly the event messed up the adults. In small towns near small towns, everybody knows everybody, and therefore everybody had friends or friends of friends who were directly affected by the tornado (loss of home, loss of life, often both). I vividly recall an event some months after the 13 tornado catastrophe: as was usual for the time, my parents were at a huge party at the house of friends who also lived out in the country. A tornado came through, so we all crammed into the cellar, the bathroom, etc., and waited for it to pass. It rattled the windows and passed by without causing damage. Afterwards, there was some new girlfriend of someone at the party who was studying psychology and had learned something (a little knowledge is dangerous) about trauma and children, and therefore she wanted to 'interview me' about my feelings/emotions/thoughts about the event so that she could match up my reactions and her observations with what the textbook said. I remember being very conscious at the time of the fact that it was she who was fucked up and scared to death, and also of the fact that she couldn't see that I was a reflective conscious being in this process - that I could see what she was doing, and was not merely a passive object to be observed. I wasn't mad at her, but it made me worry that this long after the the big tornado the adults still didn't have it together.

British bureaucracy: passive to its core

'When requesting goods be ordered you should ask that your grant code be charged'.

This sentence represents the entirety of instruction given to me by a lovely woman in the finance department here at my university in the UK. Whom? Whom do I request from? Whom do I ask that? But there is no there there. There is only the bureaucracy. And, as a colonial historian, I can tell you the Brits are the world masters.

When requesting instructions be given, you should specify that your questions be answered.

I heart passive voice.

Speaking of New Music

The tenacious one, over at Ffb, very helpfully pointed me toward the new REM album (which I hadn't heard a peep about on this side of the Atlantic). Only two listens to it so far, but wow, what a revelation. One is tempted to say it sounds like 'old REM', but that's too easy, since it's also a very mature album. I'm perhaps most impressed with the lyrics. I've always loved REM - as I said in comments over there, Automatic for the People probably makes my top 10 album list - but Michael Stipe's tendency to babble has always been their weak spot for me. So I was impressed with what's going on in the words on this album. Good stuff. I'm tempted, at this early stage, to compare it to U2's ATYCLB.

But that leads me to some musical notes and recommendations of my own. First of all, when heading to Amazon to download the new REM (by the way, everyone does know that Amazon sells albums without DRM for $8.99 in 256kbps, right???? You'll find no bigger apple fanboy than I, but I haven't given the iTunes store any money, for music that is, since Amazon opened up for mp3 business) I discovered that Counting Crows has a new album, and people are daring to compare it to their debut. Only one incomplete listen for me, so I'll withhold judgement.

I can, however, judge my friends, who have about 87 gazillion times more musical talent than I. I'll start with the second album from Soul Patch, with a wonderfully meta title of Sooner or Later. It's available on iTunes, Amazon, and everywhere else, and it's a fine piece of musicianship. This album is a bit more jazz and a bit less ska than their debut release, and I like that fact quite a lot. Soul Patch identifies their own influences as Beck and Phish, but listen carefully for some wonderful 70s and 80s influences as well. To my ear Scott's lyrics and Ryan's guitar take this album up a notch, and the production values are insanely high.

Last but not least, The Calculus Affair have also released their second album. It's a thematic album and some (including me) find the thematic content a bit intimdating, but I say ignore the theme and just listen to the damn music. Bad Quarto is the second RPM challenge release from The Calculus Affair. The first, appropriately titled RPM 0207, marked a clear departure from Mariz's early work as it opened with the rocking and raucous 'Freight Train' and continued to surprise and delight with an ecclectic mix of tunes that hooked you without your seeing the hook. This album also saw moments when Mariz's lyrics got out in front of the music and made you ask for more. If I were to criticise RPM 0207, and I should note that it clearly made my top 10 of 2007, it would only be that it was a bit uneven - unsurprising for an album made in 28 days. But this is what is so impressive about the new album: it is a complete album, not just a collection of songs. It's like a book you can't put down: you put it on to give it a listen, and then next moment at which you are conscious of listening to it is when it's over. Indeed, while the previous album had clear and striking favourite songs for me (Freight Train, Alexander, Bicycle Down the Hill, Man Who used to Hunt), I can't really name any individual songs on this album - I just love the whole album. And the days of the haunting and often transcendent, but still, I'd say, rather tentative lyrics of Mariz's debut If you Lived here..., those days are over. This is a confident and mature work that shows a wide range of style and ability. Oh, and did I mention that it's free: get it here.

Further on Tibet

OpenDemocracy has some interesting articles on Tibet/China, and they are reposting or linking to older commentaries as well.

One on the Chinese blogosphere/internet reaction to the protests in Tibet - here

Discussion of the grievances and the mistakes both sides have made - here

And a piece from 2006 interviewing the Spanish lawyer and one of the Tibetan witnesses in an on-going trial of several Chinese leaders for human rights abuses - here.

This last interests me in particular because it is interspersed with art from an exhibition that included a wide range of Tibetan and western artists. I saw a presentation of some of this work at a conference a few years back, and what the images don't tell you (simply used here as illustration rather than being read in the interview in any way) is that often galleries in Lhasa exhibit Tibetan contemporary art without discrimination as to the culture or ethnicity of the artist. If you're in Tibet or interested in its particular issues--political or not--you can participate in the art scene. The presenter suggested that there were bridges being built within the art community that undermined the identity politics of 'Tibetan' and 'Han Chinese'. Some cause for hope, perhaps.

The image I've included here is fascinating because it's about Tibet and globalization--not specifically aimed at China. Each object in the Buddha form is provided in great detail in the work, so you can see little contemporary Japanese toys and other bits of capitalist detrius from around the world. Good stuff. For more on Gyatso and Tibetan art, see: Harris, Clare. In the Image of Tibet: Tibetan Painting After 1959. London: Reaktion, 1999. Link.

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

At lunch today we caught coverage of the torch being carried through London. One of the Save Tibet protesters had attempted to grab the torch from a woman who used to present on Blue Peter--one of the best known kids' shows in Britain. Later someone from the protest group tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher. Both plots failed, protest went on peacefully, and torch progressed through the streets of Llundain without too much more ado. We watched as Gordon Brown greeted the torch (but importantly did not touch or hold it) in front of 10 Downing Street as it was transferred from to a man in a wheelchair; we watched as protesters were arrested in proximity of the torch in Trafalgar Square.

And the discussion in the house here on hollywood road was about Tibet. and the protests. and symbolism and politics, and what, exactly, the Free Tibet phenomenon was about.

This morning I finished reading Lost Horizon, published in 1933 and made into a film in 1937. It made popular and ubiquitous the term 'Shangri-la', which it (naturally) stole from Chinese narrative history. [interesting side note: Camp David was initially named Shangri-la by Roosevelt in 1942, such was the influence of this book and film. Eisenhower renamed the place after his son. Shangri-la is so much better, yes?] It is also the source of a lot of our ideas about Tibet.

One of the things we discussed over lunch was the incongruity between the 'Free Tibet' argument—which seems to be rooted in an argument for the sovereignty of Tibet as a nation grounded in some sort of adherence to an ethnic/linguistic/cultural essence—and a 'China should clean up its human rights' argument—which seems to start from an assumption that Tibet is part of China, and therefore the Chinese should clean up their human rights record there. And everywhere. I think that the alliance/elision between these two arguments is part of the fluidity of protest movements that often need to ally with groups not always in agreement with the motivating issue for others. But the unproblematic acceptance of the idea that one can put Free Tibet and human rights abuses in the same basket of protest, go down to Bloomsbury Square, and protest the torch being paraded through London (itself several steps removed from the Chinese government: London--relay--torch--Olympics--Beijing--China) seems a bit incongruous. Or at least ripe for unpacking. Toss in the guy who commandeered the BBC camera for 5 seconds to say something (he was cut off) about Cyprus, and you're off to the races.

And then we discussed the 'why Tibet' argument: why Tibet and not the Uyghurs in Xinxiang or the Naxi in Yunnan/Sichuan? Why Tibet and not the Chechens or the Basques? And this brings me back to Lost Horizon. Because the book is indeed the answer to 'why Tibet' in some ways. While Tibet romanticisations preceeded this text (it is built on them), it popularised an equation between not just hidden paradises and Tibet, but spiritual retreats of wisdom where westerners can find their humanity and Tibet.

In 1959 the Dalai Lama ran from Tibet into exile in India with many of his followers. The timing could not have been better--the Beat movement had peaked and was still active, the 'free love' sixties were on the horizon, and Asia rose as a place of spiritual haven, ganja, and finding oneself. Add in a downtrodden Buddhist leader (actually a Buddha) and you've got a cause behind which well-meaning Westerners can throw their support. They are exiled, but they're peaceful (Buddhists) and intellectual (monks) and they're from paradise (Lost Horizon)! We must save them. And suddenly we're back, not in Orientalism (which we are in of course) but in colonialism: the drive to save the east from itself.

I find the cultural genocide happening in Tibet (and other places listed above) to be horrifying and in need of some solution. I'm not sure divvying up territory along constructed ethnic/linguistic/cultural/religious lines is the answer, as history has on several occasions shown that path to be not so great in terms of lives lost and torn apart. And I know that activists rarely are able to articulate their causes (even to themselves) in coherent ways that take on board critical analyses of the international system as it stands now. So I agree that something needs to be done to deal with China's imperialism and imposition of a uniform culture on various parts (all?) of its sovereignty. And China is not alone in this. But perhaps figuring out how to live productively and politically in a multiethnic, multicultural world would be a better path? I know. crazy pie in the sky leftie thinking.

Oh, and you should read Lost Horizon. Because like all good Orientalist books, it provides an excellent picture of British and American culture and worries in the 1930s. It's quite funny ('Americans, Conway reflected, had the knack of being able to say patronising things without being offensive'. 27). Its core philosophy involves slowing down, embracing your inner lazy, and resignifying 'slacker' as a positive descriptor. And guess what. Shangri-la is multicultural. They've got folks from all over living there, in harmony, under the leadership of a lama who is not Tibetan. The world, after WWI, is going to pieces, just like Conway, the protagonist. Will he find his Shangri-la in the valley of the Blue Moon?

3 papers in March

Crazy crazy crazy. Three crazies. I'm a bit tired, I must admit, after all of the paper giving in March, somewhat accidental: I transformed from roundtable participant to paper giver in one panel and then from chair/organiser into paper giver in another. No excuse, though. Too many papers in March. And of course (of course!) on three different topics. 19th c. painting, contemporary film, and mid-20th c. architecture. But it's all good. Met some interesting people and got thinking on some new paths. But I still wonder how 'real people' seem to do this sort of thing all of the time without utter exhaustion. I suppose that's why they also drink RedBull and smoke like chimneys. Ah those real people.

But: two chapters in February, 3 papers in March--now it's on to 4 somethings in April--four relaxing day-trips? Four spa days? Ah yes. Frozen Four. What was I thinking? Sadly the Gophers are not in it this year, but some great teams are. If you are in Denver (and some of you indeed might be), you should check it out. I bet tickets outside the arena at gametime will be cheap and plentiful. Plus, college hockey rocks.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

This is a librivox recording. All librivox recordings are in the public domain. This reading by Stewart Wills. Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad. Chapters 34 and 35.

The envelope text for each mp3 file, chapter by chapter, all 45 of them, all 14 and a half hours of them. The entire thing is read by Wills, who, over the course of those 14 hours, becomes a meta-Marlow, narrating the internally narrated tale for you (or me, in this case), seemingly in the middle of my head as I, appropriately, row down the imaginary river.

Wills' reading was amazing. I will report on other readers and whether they are as good/professional/engaging, but having just finished Persuasion read by a professional actress, this was equally good. He didn't try too much for accents, but instead provided a change in the quality of his voice for certain characters, with a bit of accent thrown in--the key was that he was consistent: you knew you were hearing the German captain of the Patna, the Australian ne'er-do-well, the Malay deck hand. The book relates the story of Jim through the voice of Marlow, so we have multiple narrators: Conrad, describing Marlow's narration, Marlow, narrating the story of Jim to various audiences, and Jim, usually in conversation with Marlow. Wills changed his tone for each narrator such that the transition was seamless. He became the meta-Marlow.

Book-wise, I can recommend Lord Jim: it's a fascinating insight into the small world that was seafaring around the Indian Ocean in the late 19th century. It's got a heart-of-darkness theme (remember how we all only really have one idea and we repeat it--that's definitely true here, although it's repeated in an entertaining and fascinating way). It also talks about people falling into the 'one of us' category: Marlow helps Jim throughout the novel, but feels torn about it. He falls back on the 'he's (obviously) one of us' framework to justify it, which calls into question those who are not of 'us' and why they are not. It's about class primarily, but it's also about the fact that no matter how much Jim separates himself from his own past (class, family, actions), for Marlow he is always 'one of us' and will never shake that.

The novel does suffer occasionally from a feeling that Conrad was getting paid by the word and, well, needed to stretch things out a bit. But those passages also feel like short stories along the way in a larger narrative about the Indian Ocean, and so it maintains its entertaining edge even when the larger story isn't carried forward for a few chapters. The book also, like much Conrad, provides a counter-narrative to the imperialist understanding of colonialism: here we are on the ground with the unworthy and disorganised coloniser, seeing the scrabbling for just a bit more money, a bit more adventure, a bit more profit. And the successful ones (like Marlow) are those who are, frankly, a bit bored by it all, who remain aloof, not reaching for adventure but treating the world like the world. Of course, the world is one in which Europeans who are of the 'us' enjoy privilege of connection and birth. But Conrad lets you see that about Marlow too, and thereby provides a critical edge to his narrative about the seas. Recommended for rowers, those intrigued by port culture, colonialism, heroism, honesty, and butterflies.

something from nothing. or the other way around.

Easter: big day. day of disappearances, resurrections, caves left empty.

creation is the other way around, although there is some resurrection in creation--rewriting in writing. I sent off two chapters of a 'book' this week to a publisher for review. in rewriting and rethinking the words in the chapters it struck me--and struck me hard--that this was simply words. flimsy words, put up as some frail representation of ideas, ideas that don't really exist, or certainly didn't before the words. and then the words go together, and they form this thing called 'book'. but the weird thing is this: 'book' seems solid. it seems real. it seems whole and good and you put it in italics in a bibliography entry. words are thin little things. tiny. insignificant. and once, not too long ago, there weren't any of them. and yet we depend on them quite a lot. a lot a lot.

I am sure I'm not being clear. here it is: emptiness....words....book. but the book is really just emptiness. much like the cave. strange. and awesome.

or: tidy.

the dog knows a coda

Whilst at a supper dance at the golf club on Dewi Sant day (St. David's, 1 March), we sat next to a lovely couple who, it turned out, were fanatical dog people. In the sense that they love dogs and, finding us of like mind, regaled us with stories of past dogs (she was a good one, that) and present dogs (so I had to adopt him, mind--you understand! what could I do!). One of their dogs-of-yore was a collie who, according to the gentleman in question, could count. He taught her to count painstakingly with 'chocolate buttons', and eventually the dog could count to 10 with barks. How many fingers, pooch? 'bark bark bark' good girl!

I believe this to be entirely true. Dogs are smart (some of them) and can learn, particularly when there is chocolate involved. (Oddly like humans in that way, if I recall the persuasive graham cracker and chocolate milk combo of kindergarten days.) And so we reflected: could we teach our dog to count? Probably, but did we have the patience? No.

But we will say that our dog can do it one better: he understands the narrative structure of the television drama (and by extension, most dramatic forms). Specifically, he knows his codas. DS9, for all of its genius, follows the normal pattern of intro, [opening credits] three acts, and a coda with some regularity. And usually, after we are done watching said programme in the evening, we let Luke out for a final trip to the loo and then go to bed. After assiduous training through seven seasons of DS9, Luke can now anticipate this. He'll be dead asleep (for those who know, this is the upside-down, neck curled back, forearm in the air, chasing the squirrel type asleep) and we won't move or say anything, but something in the narrative arc of the show will change. A completion of the story's main narrative, followed by a palpable shift in the music, or the tone of the dialogue, or the sound of 'space'. Who knows--Luke can sense it. At the start of the coda, he wakes from sleep, stretches, and walks to the back door. We sometimes have to tell him to wait if the coda goes on for more than the usual minute or so, or if there are two codas (rare, but it happens).

Nothing like having a dog with an intimate understanding of narrative structure.

We believe that he will now shift to train his ear/body for the bass notes of the Wire's closing credits. Or our utterances of 'damn' at the end of each episode. One of the two. Not that we're creatures of habit at all. Not us.

Speaking of Television and Colonialism

Every one of should definitely check out the latest issue of Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy Studies. There is always some top quality stuff in Slayage, but for my money, this issue on Firefly/Serenity hold a particular gem.

Go take a look.

A vote for Hillary is a vote for Kai Winn

Folks, it's time to watch DS9 again. If you haven't seen it since it aired, obviously, it's way past time. And I'm not talking a few eps here and there. I'm talking the entire 7-season run. Because we learn a lot about power, colonialism, imperialism, resistance, and--perhaps most intriguing of them all--terrorism. DS9 was criticised by trekkies when it aired because it dared to set the entire show on a relatively stationary space station rather than a ship that zoomed around the galaxy. But this very fact allowed it to explore the aftermath of colonialism (and the repercussions of resistance movements), the role of religion in politics, and the valorisation of terrorist tactics--without ever losing sight of the human costs that come with torture, killing civilians, and sleeping with the enemy.

Kira Narys' character serves as a tactical adviser throughout the show--precisely because she has experience working within a resistance/terrorist-type organisation, one organised into autonomous cells and fighting with guerilla tactics, often taking civilians down with the rest. 'Collaboration', a theme examined to great effect on Battlestar as well, is sometimes articulated in the 'if you're not with us...' formulation, but is usually then explored to greater subtlety with the characters involved, specifically Kira's partner in the final season, Odo, who worked for the Cardassians during the occupation. Terrorism, and being a terrorist, and what it means to be a 'good' terrorist (including a great episode where Kira berates her Cardassian nemesis Ducat for not being a good terrorist) are themes that run throughout the series. I don't think these lines could even be thought today, nor put into the mouths of the characters who are consistently placed within the camp of 'the good guys' and certainly always in the camp of the 'us'.

Power plays complex and interesting roles within the series: the problems with seeking it, its relation to transcendent identities or god-like status, its repercussions once you have lost control, the power gained in giving up one's body/life to a cause, the assimilatory power of neo-liberalism. And so my title for this post. Kai Winn, the 'kai' or religious leader of Bajor, is consumed by her drive to have the love, loyalty, and respect of the Bajorans. But Capt. Sisko's anointing as 'the emissary' has thwarted her, and despite devoting her whole life to the religion, she has not been spoken to by the prophets, whereas many others have (Kira was even possessed by one of them, in addition to seeing them; Sisko sees them all the time it seems). She is a complex character: one who wants desperately to be a part of the prophet-seeing club, one who believes in the prophets, but one who, all along, does not really have faith. She is also politically savvy--throughout the series she often gets Sisko and others to do what she wants through maneuvering, and while on the one hand she truly truly desperately wants to have faith, that very desire preempts her ability to indeed put her faith in the prophets. Kai Winn's character demonstrates how desire cannot produce visions, and how desire in fact bars us from being able to speak to the prophets--those who can guide us on our path. Sisko does not desire and indeed tries to reject his role as the chosen one, the emissary, but in a few seasons he has embraced the role, and begun to have faith, even to the extent of ignoring his duties to (the almighty) Starfleet because of that faith. Kai Wynn, when presented with the option of stepping down as Kai in order to follow 'the path that the prophets have laid out' rejects this option in favour of, in the end, following the pah wraiths (the prophets' godly enemies) so as to secure her power.

I have not exhausted the complexities of Kai Winn's character--and this is no simple analogy I propose. This is why it's time to watch DS9 again. Because its complexity helps us to understand the problems we face right now, and the show reveals to us how limited we have become in the range of questions and answers we can voice today.

Book update: N. Ireland, gender, and persuasion

I haven't done the book-a-week thus far; my February writing got in the way a bit, but I'm close. So an update on some of the books I've finished over the past few weeks.

Persuasion, Jane Austen, on the ipod (audible)
I can recommend 'reading' the 'classics' such as this one on audiobook. Rather than a daunting, thick tome, you're faced with a file that has a delimited time (8 hours in this case). Plus, for books like those of the Austen variety, it's nice to rely on an actor to interpret the tone of various banal statements such that you easily and seamlessly understand snootiness, sarcasm, 'well I declare' naivete, and gruff embarrassment. Persuasion itself is an interesting book in terms of its depiction of the tiny spaces women have to maneuver within, whether they are persuaders or persuadees. It is a book about how to convince others and oneself of the proper path to take through sometimes treacherous social interrelations. On one level it's about relations among women, whether an aunt-like mentor, an older confidante, a sister, a cousin, or a rival. And it's about the emotional and physical harm done in the minutiae of social interactions. I find it very much like the original psychological novel: The Tale of Genji. Everything happens with one phrase, one note, one letter. Lives are saved or shattered on the backs of these tiny turns. I recommend reading it on audio book--it makes these nuances easier to absorb.

Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Marc Mulholland, OUP, in the loo
This book was demoted (promoted?) from 'plane reading' to 'loo reading' and as a result I actually got through the thing. 150 pages of utter lack of persuasion, wrapped up in terrible writing and capped by the assumption that the reader already knows everything about northern Ireland. Which is unfortunate for a book with its subtitle. The author takes no clear path through the confusing material, instead assuming we're following him: mentioning Stormont several pages before he actually explains what it is, casually noting the killing of 10 people on a bus on one page and then three pages later labelling it a 'massacre', failing utterly to define terms or provide necessary background for understanding party affiliations. I realise these little books are often tossed together in a week or two. And perhaps they should merely remain what the marketing seems to wish for them: books you buy as gifts at the checkout with no expectation the recipient will read them. If you would like to understand the northern Ireland conflict, do not read this book. It did, however, make me feel better about my own writing ability. Read it if you need that kind of contrast.

Written on the Body, Jeannette Winterson, on the sofa (link)
Omigod is this book soooo 1992. In a good way. But it made me realise how literature comes out of a particular context, and that by 'particular' we mean 'the 23rd week of 1992'. This is my first Winterson, and may be my last; I find it a bit too clever in the lack of gendered identification of the narrator, which is intellectually interesting but I'm not sure how much it adds to the overarching point of the narrative. That is, interesting trick, but what does it bring to the story? I enjoy the anti-cliche attitude of the text, and the writing is compelling, evocative and expressive. But I wasn't sure I liked being in the head of the narrator, not because of the a-gendered quality of the narration but because I wanted different perspectives. In that sense, the book succeeds in producing a feeling of being inside a body and wanting out, or wanting to connect--the interiority of the narration produces that extremely well. But I was reminded of heady days in grad school reading Butler and out-there lesbian/transgender literature, and it made me crave the coffee and whole-grain vegan cookies at Dunn Brothers across from Macalester. Perhaps not the kind of craving Winterson was going for!

Other books read recently:
Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations
Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica
Lisa Trivedi, Clothing Gandhi's Nation
Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies

my secret weapon

Really it's not me writing all those words. Luke is not only an excellent writer, but as you can tell, clearly enjoys his work. All he needs is a cuppa and he's good to go.

I'm sure someone else notices this....

Just last night we watched the pre-primary Daily Show in which he interviews Hilary (one day delay for US to UK, a second day for it being DVR'ed). I didn't take notice at first, so my tally only includes the last 2/3 of the interview, but in that very brief time HRC said 'you know' at least 18 times. Seriously. 18 times.

Does this not bother anyone else but me?

Honestly, I think I'd rather listen to GWB speak. Yes, he mangles the English language some times, but I swear he beats Hilary handily when it comes to dead-air-filling verbal ticks.

Oh, and one other thing: can Hilary not see the performative contradiction involved in giving a speech about the the hollowness of speeches?

the google dance

I'm happy to report that it is 29 Feb and I have finished two (unbelievably rough) chapters! huzzah. Now to the real work: rewriting.

I have discovered in my process this month a new way of googling (which is I'm sure old news to many of my 4 readers) in which you can limit your search to a particular 'site' using this difficult-to-remember command: 'site:' This came in handy when I was trying to find the records for certain archives on the Cambridge Centre of South Asia webpages. They don't have a universal search feature, and the navigation is a bit haphazard, so it's unclear from the surface of the site exactly how much info is on there. Putting my search term next to the 'site:[URL]' was genius at finding either what I needed or that it wasn't on the site.

Google has been (for a while) a very powerful search tool. With the expansion of Google scholar beyond its initial science-focused framework and with Google Books, it's almost like cheating. No more struggling through notes to try to find that full reference. No more running back to the bookshelf or library to check the exact quote. No more guessing by title and subject heading whether that book is really the one you want to buy or check out of the library or ILL. I find it to be a huge help, and a lot of fun, for I am a complete geek.

But like all tools it is on some level just a very good tool. My students can't seem to use it to find anything beyond wikipedia. Not because they don't use the interwebs, but because they don't have any idea that 'research' is not a treasure hunt in which one has clues and there will always be a treasure at the end, but instead an on-going, never-ending, semi-choreographed dance. While they follow the dance steps chalked out on the floor and thereby think they are actually doing the rhumba, the rest of us are, at the risk of overestimating my talents--and certainly at the risk of overextending the analogy--performing convincing interpretive modern dance with some of the best companies in the world. I'm not saying I'm the principle in the company. Far from it. I'm just saying that it's an art. And it's one that must be practised and performed regularly. And one that is helped by better lighting, a lovely theatre, advances in synthetic fabrics, and sometimes even props. But those props and lycra ain't doin' nothin' for my students. Except giving them two left feet.

Drink up: coca-cola or motor oil?

In my youths, I used to imbibe beverages that come in cans and are called 'cola' or 'pop' or 'soda' depending on the region of the US you are from (and 'soft drink' here in the UK which seems so refined and high-falutin' in a way). I realised sometime in late high school/college that those pains in my stomach seemed, fascinatingly, to be correlated to the aftermath of drinking said beverages. I kept on drinking them for a bit and then just stopped. Weirdly, the pain went away. huh.

Fast forward to 2003: we move. I find in move's aftermath that I own a rather rusted-out cast iron skillet. I google to find out whether I can resuscitate it. The answer: yes (for it is google and people in the world have too much time on their hands). The solution: Coca-cola. Soak rusty cast iron skillet in Coke overnight and voilà: clean as a whistle. Sure, I'd heard about the dissolving penny/nail trick, so while this is, er, disgusting, especially when pondering the amount of such beverages myself and those I know consumed/still consume. But I was happy, I had cast iron skillet, I cured it (thanks to google) and was on my way.

Fast forward to this week: F buys a putter on e-bay. Seems the putter has a factory coating on it to protect the head and face (I have another post about the anatomical metaphors related to golf and their weirdness, but that's for later). This particular type is also prone to a bit of spotty light rust. There are two solutions to this.

One: follow method above used for cast iron pan. This works, but the Coke takes the rust and the coating, which isn't optimal.
Two: soak head of putter in motor oil. Much milder than the Coke, it only takes the rust and leaves the coating behind! Wonderful!

Stoat: You're not really taking into consideration the toxicity of the motor oil, chemical properties that might effect humans more than putters, and really, why don't you ease up? Coke's the national drink! Get over yourself!

Me: er, what are you doing here?

Stoat: voice of reason my friend. voice of reason.

So, we conclude: patriotic duty. But please, drink motor oil. Much milder.

A Virtual Tie?

The Press's presentation of polling data along with the popular understanding of what poll results actually mean are both so awful that I place them into that category of things about which I consistently resist ranting. But this morning I seem to have lost my self-control, when I read this:

50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters support Clinton as their choice for the party's nominee, with 48 percent backing Obama.But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4½ percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.

First of all, I'm going to put aside the fact that if the sampling and polling techniques are not done properly than any poll tells us absolutely nothing (since it conveys information only about the sample and not about the entire population). Anyone who knows anything about polls knows this, of course. But the press never mentions it at all, and over the years I have discovered through my students that many readers of press coverage on polls therefore have no idea that a poll could ever be more wrong that the sampling error. (OK, I didn't put aside that fact.)

Let's assume, however, that this poll was properly conducted. Does it tell us that Obama and Clnton are tied? What, for that matter, is a virtual tie? Read straightforwardly the poll tells us that Clinton's support lies somewhere in the range between 45.5% and 54.5%; Obama's support lies somewhere in the range between 43.5% and 52.5%. Therefore, it is true that they could be tied. It is also true that either one could be ahead of the other slightly. Moreover:

• Clinton might be ahead by 11 points
  
• Obama might be ahead by 7 points
  

Is that a tie, or a virtual tie? No.

I think what the reporter means to say is that the poll cannot indicate clearly whether either candidate is ahead. Saying that they are in a virtual tie is like... (this analogy took me a while to come up with, and may not work, so bear with me)...the following:
The score in the football game is 7 to 10.
I hear a news report that one team has just scored, but I don't know which team.
So, assuming no safeties or missed extra points, the score could be

• 14 to 10
  
• 10 to 10
  
• 7 to 13
  
• 7 to 17
  

Whatever we want to call this situation, 'virtual tie' is the wrong choice.

Let me just close in noting that this is a ridiculous subject for me to blog about. I'm guessing there are about 5 readers of SecondAmericano: 3 of them know far more about politics and polling than I do, and one of them knows far more about statistics than I do. Still, if you can't preach to the choir, then what good is preaching (and besides, if I screwed something up here, I'm sure to be quickly informed). 

not enough words

You are witnessing procrastination in action. Perhaps not 'live' as such, but nonetheless, the words here represent a small sum of energy that I should currently devote to writing the next chapter of the book I'm working on.

Two chapters in February. Why does its shortness matter so much? two days isn't really a lot of time, but psychologically it feels like half a month, right?

Others are busy composing albums this month; in November many people write entire novels...I'm shooting for 1000 words per day. This is working more or less. One chapter is drafted (roughly) and the next has begun (3000 words and counting). I do find myself dreaming in sections of about 1000 words, or the dream-unit equivalent thereof.

I must get back to it. Writing is difficult.

[133 words]

Out of Touch (Out of Time*)

Wow - THIS is how out of touch I am. It never even occurred to me that 'I'm John Locke' would be anything other than the result of a 'What political philosopher are you?' quiz.

It also shows me how out of touch my subject matter is to the world out there. I mean, they wouldn't name a character on a TV show William Shakespeare or Charles Darwin, would they? Because people have, like, you know, HEARD of those people. But the name of probably the most important thinker of the principles at the heart of the American revolution and founding? Nah, why would anybody have heard of that guy - let's make him the bald character!!

I don't watch LOST, but I wonder if they have this character sneak in references to the importance of protecting 'life, liberty, and property'?

*Words in parentheses are nothing to do with the content of the post - just a gratuitous and paraphrased Hall and Oates reference.

Bullet point update

• a bird shat on my shoulder this morning. gross. ill boding for the semester that started today? hm.


• the bird we ate last night (a chicken) fell apart like it had done yoga all its life. may it be reborn as a calm asana guru. or perhaps the bird this morning was karma for the bird last night. hm.


• 5 workouts a week. not 6. 6 too hard. me lazy. 5 plenty.


• gave in to Peets promotion for Yemeni village coffee. was it the 1,001 nights Orientalism? or the cute village-y pic? or the fact that they called them 'micro-lots'? I'll never know.


• books: Winterson's Written on the Body in-progress.


• books: Martin Amis is a bit (lot?) of an arse and it kinda shows in his prose. not a huge fan after House of Meetings.


• film: Waitress: should be cute and yet its cuteness makes light of rape within marriage. I think: not okay. not okay. not okay.

here endeth the list.

10 Things I've done that you probably haven't

Got the idea from Stonesthrow, so here goes:

1. Organised and led an sleep-over in the Natural History Museum in Denver. For 500 Girl Scouts. With live snakes.
   
2. Been vigorously scrubbed (while naked) by an elderly Japanese woman at a public bath in Kyoto, having demonstrated my utter incompetence in the practice of public bathing.
   
3. Seen a dead body at the side of the Jumna river behind the Taj Mahal. Good times.
   
4. Been introduced as an honoured guest to a conference in Bangladesh. with the PM in the room. in Bangla. ick on many levels.
   
5. Seen the Sistine ceiling at 1 foot distance. (Refrained from touching it, sadly.)
   
6. Mounted this 19th century shadow puppet on plexiglass and carefully coloured each tiny thread to match the object.
   
7. Met Hiroshi Hara and heard him discuss this project of his before it was completed, and asked a question. Was invited to return any time.
   
8. Wrote lyrics to 'And then I Read Foucault', as well as several other political theorist anthems.
   
9. Sang solo at Boettcher Concert Hall.
   
10. Drove on the 10 from Santa Monica to Claremont seeing only half a dozen other cars.
    

New year's resolutions: books and rowing

A bit of time since the ol' last post. ah well.

Been reading, rowing, and relaxing (oddly different than Debbie and Doyle's three R's: "I believe in the three R’s—“R” children “R” “R” future.").

My new year's resolution is to work out 6 days a week. Because otherwise I am rather lazy (and even with this resolution I'm rather lazy) and so I need some sort of discipline and pattern to do things properly. Working out 6 days a week is rather difficult, it turns out. First there's the showering. Well, not first, obviously, but this is my primary issue with the regime. I dislike bathing. What can I say. Then there's the clothing, and the time, and the scheduling of it all. And the other things like lying on the couch that you can't do if you're rowing every day. Sigh. But it will be good for me. I have as yet not fallen off the wagon. I am recording each workout in my new Battlestar Gallactica calendar (huzzah!), in hopes that some of Starbuck's buffness will transfer. (For I do not have the legs to aspire to Six's physique. Some things are genetic. Sigh.)

F's new year's resolution is to copy No.3 over at FFB. Well, only in the resolution sense. Book a week. This results in two things: I am reading a book a week and F is working out nigh 6 days a week. Which is, also, good.

As forementioned I am lazy, and thus I have discovered that on the long rows it's lovely to listen to books on iPod. I finished Jane Austen's Persuasion last week (all 8.5 hours of it) and I believe that Austen should only be listened to. For it was sooo much better than reading it. So I highly recommend trying this out if you have had difficulty dealing with the classics. I have run into the problem that audiobooks are expensive. Something about paying actors to read them? Huh. For those wishing to explore the classics, however, there is a possible solution: LibriVox. Public domain works read by volunteers. It's the last bit that I will report back on. One doesn't want to hear an amateur drone on for 8 hours. But these people must be dedicated to the project, so perhaps it works. I'll let you know.

Books read since Christmas: Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman), Spook Country (William Gibson), House of Meetings (Martin Amis), and of course Persuasion (Jane Austen).

no expert

I have been called out from the end-of-year/beginning-of-year haze to comment, in my capacity as 'expert' on the loss of Bhutto last week to assassination. I have been reading OpenDemocracy's authors on this, along with the usual press coverage; salon's various articles are helpful, including a summation of the South Asian press's reactions, and several comments on the rather sad and pathetic reactions from the US's presidential hopefuls on both sides turning this into something related to 9/11 (Guiliani, natch) or something related to the US's borders (er, it's really, oddly not completely always about you, people). Others have commented on the potential better than I could; see Juan Cole in Salon as well. Perhaps the most annoying element of the coverage is the 'when I met Benazir' trope--wasn't she lovely and oo! so powerful! so manipulative! Hitchens is the worst on this (to be fair: it's an obituary, but still.); Fred Halliday also goes a bit in this direction.

I am not a Pakistan expert. This is perhaps indicative of the divisions within South Asia since I became a scholar more than a decade ago--despite teaching the entire region in various contexts, my focus is largely India. I'm somewhat still in shock from the Bhutto assassination--not surprised, I suppose, but in shock, in the way that one knows a sick relative will die, but then when it happens it's still sudden. Ascertaining who killed her will be difficult; it was one thing when you could capture the assassin (Godse killing Gandhi) and figure it out--even then most of my students think that Gandhi was killed by a Muslim. (Except that it was a Hindu fundamentalist upset that Gandhi was meeting with Muslims in an attempt to bridge post-Partition communal divisions. But close!) Here we have a shooting/suicide bomb combo. Musharraf had warned her not to speak in Rawalpindi back in November because of security concerns; it may indeed have been people acting in what they felt was the military/Musharraf best interest, but I'm not sure it was truly in *his* best interest to have her assassinated.

Bhutto also kept her family away from Pakistan; in part because her husband is not liked--the corruption charges and money scandals surrounding her are usually about him--Hitchens' obit pointed me to this NYT article detailing some of that. She also anticipated being the focus of assassination attempts and wanted her family away from that. It's difficult enough to protect major world leaders from this sort of thing--Hilary's campaign headquarters was taken over by a crazy person not too long ago--but when you're addressing public rallies out on the streets in Pakistan, it becomes a bit trickier to claim any level of 'security' for that leader. I haven't met Bhutto, but I've been in crowds in South Asia.

The PPP is her family's party. We in the West have been led to believe it was/is the saviour of democracy for Pakistan. I don't know. Perhaps she/it would have been. But the corruption charges are real. The demagoguery that her obituary 'when I met Bhutto' writers talk about is equally real. If democracy means civil society with space for dialogue and debate, then Pakistan needs a free judiciary back--that looks unlikely. And some sort of balance in order to acknowledge a bit of the Islam-centred identity of the nation (along with its multiethnicity) without tipping into extremism would be lovely. The Dubai-raised, Oxford-educated 19 year old now heading the PPP may provide that. But not this year.

Much more to think about re: US interests in the region and the Euro-American fascination with playing with this end of the Silk road (most recently from the 19th-20th century British Great Game through the mujahideen to Musharraf). It is the crossroads of culture. It's too bad that's been a curse rather than a blessing for the last little while.

Vote for Dan!!

All must go now and vote for Dan so that he can be victorious! He has created a lovely hallmark card for the (RED) campaign and he is lovely and thus he must win. (Logically. Obviously.)

vote early. vote often.

three books on the way to a hermitage

I was going to blog on: 'Killer app' for the misanthropic--a discussion of how instead of facebook or twitter we should have an on-line app for those of us (me) who are not big fans of, er, people. Hermitbook. Goawaybook. MyCave. I still think this a good idea. perhaps someone out there (not me) will run with this so that I don't have to interact with anyone.

But then I had to go interact with people at a conference, which was lovely (it's always fine once you're interacting. it's the prospect of doing so that's so dread-ful.) and there was no interwebs. how could this be? I don't know. but no interwebs. very calming not to have the ol' interface constantly, I will say. More time for reading.

I read Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide a few weeks back, to coincide (coincidentally) with the cyclone hitting precisely the region the book is set in--the Sundarbans of Bangladesh. It is excellent, as usual. Several things recommend it: it is realistic without ignoring the supernatural. It is not entirely depressing despite being a novel written about India. It has lovely science-y bits about river dolphins without being preachy. It does the 'each chapter a different POV' thing which doesn't quite meld the way you want it to--my one critique. But y'all know how I dislike conceits. That said, it comes together. it makes sense. it is about the past, the present, the otherworldly, generations, modernity, tradition, colonialism, socialism, and all that good stuff. plus did I mention dolphins?

I finished Spook Country a week or so ago, which was good--nothing can top Neuromancer for Gibson, and the best part about Spook Country is its short-story quality. Not that it's short. But that it has the flavour of a tight, small story carefully, expertly fleshed out. I liked it. Had Gibson's aesthetic of the future is now, but didn't have the draw of the female protagonist in his Pattern Recognition--she was an amazing, insightful, full character, and the lead in Spook Country isn't quite there. So, if you haven't read Gibson, shame. shame. shamies. Read Neuromancer, and Pattern Recognition, and Spook Country.

I also finished Richard Powers' Operation Wandering Soul which is about narrative. Well, what isn't really. (obviously.) but it's about children's stories, fables, history, crusades, telling stories to understand the (horrible) world. it opens with an amazingly accurate and beautiful--nay, sublime (er, goes without saying as it's Powers) description of driving in LA. I'm not sure Powers 'gets' LA in the same way he completely and utterly embodies the Midwest, but the opener is brilliant. And the re-telling of the Pied Piper in the middle of the book is nothing less than genius. It's Powers. Say no more. say no more.

Christmas Drinks

I have *two* e-mails with the above title in their subject-line in my in-box right now. How cool is that? to my recollection, at the three institutions I worked at in the US, we never (either officially or informally) did Christmas drinks--one, because it is utterly un-PC (part of that 'war on Christmas' I'm sure we'll hear about again soon) and two, because people drive everywhere in the US and so drinking with the driving not so much, and three, alcoholism aside, folks in the US don't drink enough. In a celebratory fashion, I mean. Or, everyone in Britain is an alcoholic. Either interpretation is plausible. I will debate it over drinks, multiple times, in the next week or so. Huzzah.

spam + viagra = perfect holiday dish

My fetish for science blogs has led to some extremely productive locales, not least is the following site. Because Spam = good and viagra = hilarious and so there you are. The dedication of some people to art (wax molds!) and food (blue sushi rice!) is quite astounding.

Link here.

compost-level 2

Back in the spring you will recall (ha!) that I made the move to try to reduce the waste we put in landfill by getting a bokashi bin set and fermenting kitchen waste. the idea is that you can then dig the waste into the soil and it decomposes really fast without attracting animals. We discovered one major problem with this theory: Luke the dog likes the smell of the bokashi bran stuff and thus, er, in fact digs the stuff out of the ground, licks the dirt into which it's been dug, and generally addresses bokashi as if it were one huge chocolate bar. I tried planting containers with it and I dug some of it into the front garden (where Luke doesn't go)--that seemed to work. I also put it in the regular rubbish pickup once or twice, reassured that once it got to landfill it would, indeed, decompose faster. Not sure that really works as a justification, but there you are.

So my conclusion now is that the bokashi bin system is a gateway drug. Despite all my best efforts at resisting becoming 'that guy', I have now installed a very simple compost bin in the corner of the garden into which the bokashi bin contents go once they've fermented a bit. Along with leaves, clippings and other crazy stuff. For example, I discovered in 'experiment 1' with bokashi that eggshells don't so much decompose. I knew this from advice from others, but it seemed such a pain, and really crazy gardner talk to do something different with the shells. Now it seems I'm on the path to really crazy gardener.

I now microwave the shells after using them, crush them a bit, and once there's a critical mass of shells (don't ask what a 'critical mass' of shells actually means)--I put them in the food processor and grind them into dusty shelly bits. Now that I have a compost bin these can go in there as well. I'm that guy. so sad.

I still don't like gardening--never fear. It is too much akin to cleaning house: always stuff to do, never done, and frustrating.

so I have now reached compost--level 2. not sure what this means, but I will report back on the compost progress and whether it leads to things like caring about shrubberies and the like.

Gender, Photography, and the Taliban

Surfing around Slate this morning and came across a video-essay that photographer Thomas Dworzak put together with journalist/author Ahmed Rashid. It is an extended commentary on the practice of young Taliban recruits having their photographs taken in studios in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, a regime that banned images of living things. Many interesting issues intersect in these images, from representation of human beings under a strict no-human-image regime to the relations between the people in the photographs to their own desire to be photographed, despite the repression of such activities by the very people these men worked for.

The photographer who collected these studio images along with the journalist who provided commentary both focus on the 'Gilbert and George'-like effeminization/homoeroticism of the images. Despite Dworzak partially dismissing this interpretation at the beginning of the video, the narration (by Rashid at this point) goes on to discuss various practices under Taliban rule of ancient-Greek-like mentoring relationships between an older man and a younger man, and link what they see as effeminate, intimate (hand holding) poses/images in the studio pictures with this practice. In the end, the video's reading of the pictures links these images to iconographies of homosexuality arising from cultures far removed from the Talibani one. In addition, the video shows no awareness that it is precisely the kind of male-male ancient Greek practice that largely sparked the critique of the search for 'gay history' and produced 'queer theory'--a space where acknowledging that different periods in history, cultures, classes have a wide range of sexual practices, and that just because your particular cultural space labels them as 'gay' or 'feminine' does not mean that those participating would do the same.

The video plays upon a presumed incongruity between the effeminate nature of the images and the perception of a unified strict Taliban regime. This seems to me to misread the images, which can, if read in context, be understood as articulations of power and strength without the overarching femininity Rashid and Dworzak see. It is odd that they did not link these images to well-documented and thoroughly-researched scholarship on 20th century studio photography patterns in South Asia as a whole (including Pakistan and Afghanistan) that include all of the elements found in these photographs: air-brushing, Swiss mountain backdrops, guns-as-props, men holding hands. The work of Chris Pinney in this area is widely known and easily accessible.

I'm not trying to protest the idea that there are certainly both gay men within the Taliban and also male-male sexual practices that may not fall within the 'gay' label. (The assumptive relation between gay and feminine is troubling, but that's another comment for another time.)

I am protesting the simplistic reading of images outside of any local, historical, or visual context. When you read images, just as when you read text or hear about an event, you need to look around to see if these images really are odd or strange, or if it's just your own encounter with them that makes them so. The photographs in this piece are part of a long history of South Asian photographic iconography that goes back to princely photographic portraits of the 19th century. Ripping them out of that context and putting them in the 'Gilbert and George' contemporary installation art context does not provide a responsible articulation of what these images meant to those sitting for them, for those taking them, or for those viewing them.

From a Euro-American 21st century eye alone they may appear effeminate. To assume that assessment is universal is to repeat Orientalist, sexist assumptions about men in the non-West ('non-European men are effeminate and, of course since women are weak, this means they are weak') and to underestimate the strength and power communicated through these images.

Perhaps another greek concept--hubris--might be appropriate here?

onions

this seems to be veering into food blog. but it is that time of year, traditional harvest time in parts of the northern hemisphere, and so one finds oneself in the kitchen cooking warm yummy things and the rest.

we get a weekly organic veg delivery from a farm less than four miles from here. the lovely organic man delivers the big paper bag of veg in his white biodiesel van, much like the one I imagine Willie Nelson drives. or wished he could drive, were he not so famous. Luke finds this van to be extremely aggravating and so barks incessantly at it, in a seemingly odd antagonistic relation with saving the nature of which he is our in-house representative. 'dog of the wild' we call him.

in the veg delivery each week is about a pound of lovely onions. the problem is F doesn't eat onions, or really any of what I call the 'Italian' family of vegetables: red/green peppers, the entire onion family, tomatoes, olives (okay not a veg, but neither are tomatoes, so...). anything you'd find on a traditional Italian-American pizza, aside from the meat (we love the meat). you get the picture.

so the onions pile up and I can't throw them out for, obviously, that would defeat the purpose of receiving the veg delivery, namely: saving the world. if you throw out the onions you're supporting the terrorists, right?

so, yesterday I had about 4 lbs of onions and decided something must be done. opened lovely farm cookbook gifted to us by friends from Mankato (go Mavericks, except when they're playing the Gophers of course). I made two huge batches of onion marmalade. I had encountered this substance before via a gift from an English friend (our rwgbi/football guru) and decided it's the best thing to do with onions, period. it involves, in addition to the obvious, red wine, red wine vinegar, sherry, honey, dates, and lots of butter. then you let it simmer for an hour and a half until it gets all thick and dark and congeal-y. it's lovely on burgers, slab-o-cheddar cheese sandwiches, and, according to the cookbook, as a pizza topping. I eat it on top of meat, myself. but that's me. mm. meat. mm. onions. what's not to like?