ZAFATISTA

The Beach

2011-06-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

"The Beach" was selected as a winner of the Margaret Lamb/Writing to the Right-Hand Margin Prize for Fiction in April 2011.This short-short story was first published in The Fordham Observer and later in the Fordham Prizes Anthology. View the original publication here.

The Beach

The beach was a short drive from Kathy’s house. The shore was all flatland, white sand broken up by iridescent rocks and patches of yellow grass.

“I told you it was beautiful,” said Frank, as he and Kathy spread blankets on the ground.

Jessica didn’t agree. The beach was clean and the water was blue, but it was not beautiful. It was better, at least, than Coney Island, where Frank had taken her on her first night in New York. That beach had smelled like burnt hot dogs and cigarettes, garbage left too long in the sun.

“I bet it’s nothing like the beaches in your country,” Kathy said.

“It’s not that different,” Jessica replied.

Frank uncapped a bottle of suntan lotion, and Jessica reached to help him. He waved her hand away.

It had been three weeks since Jessica came to New York to be with Frank. On the morning she left Santo Domingo, her family had gathered at the airport gate, dressed in their church clothes. Jessica’s sisters looked solemn, carrying red bunches of framboyan, her favorite flower. Hernando, the youngest, slurped loudly from a cup of guarapo Jessica had bought to appease him. Jessica’s father did not come to say goodbye. Her mother refused to embrace her. She wept instead, darkening the collar of her dress and muttering, “This is someone else’s dream. It was never supposed to be yours.”

Frank and Kathy ate oranges, the pulp sliding down their arms, as they gossiped about old classmates from Brown. They had done the same the night before in Kathy’s backyard, when Jessica and Frank arrived for the weekend. They discussed whose children had been admitted to private schools, which women were gaining an unseemly amount of weight, and whose husbands were cheating with the help. Kathy had laughed at all Frank’s jokes, sloshing wine over her lawn chair, a red flush creeping up her neck.

Later that night, in Kathy’s yellow wallpapered guest room, Frank had not wanted to make love.

“I’m tired, babe,” he had said.

Most nights Frank woke Jessica by shaking her by the shoulders, yanking at the clasp of her bra, and whispering, “Despiértate mamita.” But in Kathy’s guest room, he would not be moved.

“I’m turning off the light,” he had said with finality, and then the room was dark.

Making love was the most attention Frank showed Jessica most nights. Usually, he came home and graded papers over dinner, never thanking her for the rice and pernil that were the greatest accomplishments of her day. If she brought up looking for a job, he advised her to wait until they were married. It was harder to get a job in New York, he said. She was only twenty-one, and not yet a citizen.

Sometimes, Jessica was so lonely after Frank came home that she went out for walks, claiming she needed to buy more celery or soap. She got lost every time, her years of English lessons proving useless. Her mother had paid for the lessons with the money Jessica’s father sent monthly from his own house, in a better neighborhood, elsewhere in the capital.

“Would you like an orange Yes-ee-ca?”

“No thank you, Kathy.”

“I packed sandwiches, too.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“No wonder you’re so thin. Your women always have such beautiful figures. What’s it called, Frank? An hourglass?”

Kathy touched Frank on the shoulder and waited for him to answer. Her hair tossed in the wind. It was long and pale, the color of the sand. If it were not for the lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth when she smiled, she could have been Jessica’s age.

Frank helped himself to a sandwich. “Did you hear about Connor? He and his wife had to give up the house.”

“I heard! And it wasn’t even in that great a neighborhood…”

Jessica had turned down a job at the university in Santo Domingo to follow Frank. She was offered a research position working for the professor who had introduced them. When Frank arrived from New York, Jessica had given him a tour of the capital. She had liked Frank’s clumsy Spanish, the way he asked her opinion on things, the pressure of his hand on her back when they walked down a narrow street. It was easy to say yes, when after a few months, he asked her to follow him.

“It would not have been much of a job anyway,” Jessica had told her mother while they packed her things. “Nothing in this country moves forward.”

Jessica’s mother had warned, “Don’t believe everything a man promises. Look at me.”

“He’s not Papi,” Jessica had answered, zipping her maleta shut with a sound like tearing.

“So, Yes-ee-ca. How long will you be in the United States?

“As long as Frank wants to be here.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Plan?” Jessica repeated.

“Are you going to look for a job? Are you going to go on living with Frank?”

Jessica looked at Frank for an answer, but he did not look up from his sandwich.

“Our plan is to get married.”

“Married? I had no idea. My congratulations.”

Jessica waited again for Frank to say something or take her hand and prove what she had said was true. He tossed aside the crust of his sandwich and stood up.

“I think I’ll go for a swim. Do you ladies want to come along?”

“Frank, you know I only come to the beach to tan,” Kathy said. Jessica shook her head.

“Suit yourselves.”

Frank took off for the water, kicking sand up behind him.

“Just us girls now,” Kathy murmured, pulling apart an orange rind with her teeth.

Before they left for Long Island, Jessica had cleaned Frank’s study, where he spent most of his time. The room had not been properly cleaned in years. Jessica washed the windows and clapped the curtains together, dispersing clouds of dust into the air. She wiped coffee rings and ink stains from the desk. It took hours, but she did not mind the work. The day did not drag as it usually did, and Frank came home early.

When he saw the study, he raked his hand through his hair and frowned.

“Why did you do this?” he asked.

Jessica thought it was obvious. “I was trying to help.”

Frank sighed and dropped his briefcase into the chair.

“I’ve lived in this apartment for ten years. I know how I like my things.”

“Well, I’m here now,” Jessica had said, the sound of her voice surprising her.

“Don’t make this any more difficult.”

“I was trying to help,” she repeated and then left the room to pack for the trip.

She did not cry as she packed, although she came close. She had not been so close since the day she was accepted at the university in Santo Domingo. She had walked to her father’s house in La Plaza Colonial to tell him the good news, but he did not answer the door. She could hear him inside, laughing and eating dinner with his other family. Jessica kept knocking, the acceptance letter crumpled in her hand, until his maid came to the door and said Don Amado was busy and to come back another day.

When Jessica laid their things out on the bed: Frank’s swimming trunks and socks, her underwear and yellow bathing suit, it seemed like the evidence of their life together. She assured herself that Long Island, the beach, would help. Soon, they would be married.

Kathy did not speak after Frank left for the water. She and Jessica ignored each other; they watched other people read and tan, come in and out of sleep.

“I think I’ll go join, Frank,” Jessica said after a while. Kathy did not reply.

The sand was sticky between Jessica’s toes. It was not warm and powdery like the beaches in Samaná, where Frank had held her hand as the waves broke over their bodies. After those days at the beach, his skin would be covered in a dry white film and taste like salt.

Frank was already far from the shore when Jessica entered the surf. She tried walking toward him, but the water resisted, pushing her back. The distance between them grew quickly as Frank glided over the waves. It had been quiet on the beach, but out in the ocean, Jessica could not hear anything above the roar of the water. She wanted to call after him, but instead she kept wading, until the water swept her back to where she had been standing. Jessica had never been a good swimmer, and the waves knocked her knees out from under her, dragging her away. The salt stung her eyes. When she surfaced, she could not pick him out from the dozen other pale figures advancing against the tide.

“Frank! Frank!”

She kept calling, but he never turned around.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

2011-06-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

You can see the undersides of both bridges. The Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge are twin structures, one blue and one brown, stretching across the water toward Manhattan. The bridges form a triangle around the park; a field of grass and you are the center. You can hear the rumble of traffic and trains, the quiet lapping of water where the grass ends and slopes down to the East River. On the few yards of rocky shore, children hunt for stones to hurl across the water, in the direction of Manhattan.

On the Fourth of July, there are fireworks. You can watch the fireworks burst over the water and beyond the silhouettes of both bridges. You can run over the endless grass, under the open sky. There is only one tree in the whole field, but its branches so expansive, you can play under it for hours, climbing and shouting, convinced you have found a forest that is thriving in secret at the edge of Brooklyn.

This prose poem was originally published by The Fordham Observer in December 2010. View the original piece here.

coney island

2010-05-02T14:54:00.000-07:00

The beach. Hot dogs. Salsa on the boardwalk. Funnel cake. The Cyclone. A dazzlingly diverse and loony crowd of folks that could only be found in Brooklyn... This is the magic of Coney Island!

Beyond the rides and food and trash and lights of the amusement park, Coney Island is remarkable because of its story as a New York City neighborhood and landmark. Over the years, Coney Island has faced the threat of gentrification, a steamrolling force that is transforming New York City neighborhoods with soul and history into communities that are wealthy, white, and inaccessible. It is a struggle across the city for neighborhoods to keep their identities (and longtime residents) in the face of such rapid change.

I am not a resident of Coney Island. As a child, I visited the aquarium on school trips. I have taken family members there to marvel at the sharks and fish, the illuminated underwater tanks. As a young woman, I've had many unforgettable nights at Coney Island. For me, summer in New York has become synonymous with Fireworks Fridays at Coney Island, where the fireworks displays are dangerously close to the crowd. The burnt scraps of paper fall down all around you on the beach. You can smell the ash and smoke. Like much at Coney Island, the experience is visceral, exhilarating, and probably not all that safe.

I wrote this vignette a few years ago after a particularly memorable evening at Coney Island. It's not fully formed, but it is an impression of the sights and smells of Coney Island. I think it captures how instrumental place is in our construction of memories. Here you go! Copyright and all that!

The white surf broke over the rocks and the water did not look so far below. It seemed close, reaching and surging for us. The boardwalk came alive as vendors flicked on neon signs across the beach. Old men sold glow sticks, and young couples crushed cans of beer into sad discs to fling into the ocean. The kids were quieter now as they were tucked into carriages and cars, arms. There was the smell of popcorn burning and the sudden tragedy of someone’s last arepa falling in the sand. From this far and through the haze of tears, I could not discern the turning of the ferris wheel. All I could make out was the golden word printed in midair: WONDER.

Wonder Wheel at Coney Island and fireworks.

Photograph by Linus Gelber. View his photostream here.

another round of poems

2010-04-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

April is National Poetry Month. Poets and poetry-lovers alike are celebrating in a myriad of ways. There are conferences and festivals, slams and open mics, contests and challenges, like NaPoWriMo.

Over here at Zafatista, I know the least I can do to celebrate is post another list of some of my favorite poems. I created the first list back in September, and it is certainly time for another. I dug up many of these pieces in my Norton Anthology of Poetry, which I read in a high school English class. The book is a treasure, although it does not represent nearly enough women poets or poets of color or women poets of color.

Each poem tells a unique story. Read and comment as you see fit. Preferably, before NPM is over. :)

The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop

Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

El Chicle by Ana Castillo

Ars Politica by Julia Alvarez

When I Have Fears by John Keats

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud by William Wordsworth

This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams

The Wrong Kitchen by Nikki Giovanni

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

Crazy Bunch Barbecue by Willie Perdomo

The Promise by Sharon Olds

Poets from bottom to top: Ana Castillo, Nikki Giovanni, William Carlos Williams.

dancing in the streets

2010-04-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say about this video besides, "Huzzah! I love it!"

"Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" is the first single from Hanson's forthcoming LP, Shout It Out!, and it is irresistible. The Hanson brothers are no strangers to the process of writing excellent pop songs and this track is a cheery, infectious, big-band pop-soul gem.

The video is delightful, too, with choreographed dance numbers in the streets of Hanson's hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac aren't shy at all in this clip --- they join the masses at the very end of the song to shake their tailfeathers in solidarity. As if that wasn't enough to make you smile, there's a cameo by Weird Al, who appears gyrating and playing a mean tambourine.

The concept for the video was inspired by the Ray Charles scene in the 1980 cult film The Blues Brothers. "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" isn't the first time Hanson has played tribute to The Blues Brothers and Ray Charles. On their first world tour over a decade ago, Hanson covered several Blues Brother songs, and their song "Georgia" from the 2007 release The Walk is an obvious nod to Ray Charles's "Georgia On My Mind."

Hanson has always had a knack for writing good pop music. For over a decade now, they have been the only band that can put me in a better mood, no matter what. Their music does not rely on the shallow, artificial peppiness of bubblegum pop. There's a much deeper, dynamic joyfulness to a Hanson song. Taylor Hanson has called Shout It Out! an "unapologetic, bright, melodic thing" --- that sounds like a pretty accurate description of much of the boys' oeuvre.

Watch "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" --- I dare you not to tap your foot or smile. You will.

You can file this video under one more reason to love Hanson despite what naysayers and the ill-informed may have to say about these young men. If you need further proof, check out Hanson's work to fight HIV/AIDS and poverty over at Take The Walk.

See? They're the best.

love's philosophy

2010-04-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

Nothing calls for a love poem quite like spring! Here's one by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The photographs above were taken by yours truly last year in Fort Greene Park.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

by P.B. Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle -

Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea -

What are all these kissings worth

If thou kiss not me?

As far as the Romantics go, Keats has always been my favorite, but Shelley ain't bad here. Not bad at all!

Although I studied Shelley in college, I did not discover this poem until years later in the wrapper of a chocolate bar. Needless to say, I fell in love with this poem instantly.

I am not so crazy about the line, "No sister-flower would be forgiven/If it disdained its brother" for the clearly antiquated anti-feminist message it conveys (Ain't nothing romantic about the absence of consent!). However, overall, the poem is beautiful and its images do speak to the harmony and union possible in love and physicality.

Just look at the use of the word "clasp"! The waves clasp one another! The sunlight clasps the earth! Oh! Love it!

And then there is the final couplet! Who could ever forget these lines? "What are all these kissings worth/If thou kiss not me?"

The poem seems especially appropriate for springtime. The pear tree blossoms outside my window are kissing each other! The sunlight clasps the pavement! The bus kisses the curb and nearly runs us over! I will be walking around Brooklyn, identifying all the things that are kissing and clasping each other all season long.

the pura principle

2010-04-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Junot Diaz has a new short story out in The New Yorker. It's called "The Pura Principle." The narrator is the familiar Yunior, a character whose voice Junot has used before in his fiction. Yunior is one of my favorite voices in fiction, as well as one of the characters whose beliefs and choices tend to break my heart/make me flinch most often (see: Yunior's relationship with the character Lola in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao).

"The Pura Principle" is about Yunior's relationship with his older brother, Rafa, who is dying from leukemia, but still won't repent of his tigueraje, mistreatment of his mother, and general selfishness. Although Junot's depictions of a weakening Rafa are moving, Yunior is the one we love. His Dominican York vernacular rings true and his funny-as-hell observations cut right to the soul of Dominican family life. Read it for yourself and decide what you think of Yunior. One thing is for sure: you won't easily forget the world(s) he narrates or the people who move through his narrative --- from Pura, who is briefly married to Rafa, to the old church ladies Yunior christens "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

There is also the character Tammy Franco, a female figure I wanted to know more about. The misogynist gazes of Junot's protagonists sometimes render women characters in flat terms (this is deliberate --- I'm not saying Junot is a misogynist, merely that he sometimes writes from the perspective of male characters who are). And although women are certainly important in Junot's stories, they are not usually at the center. Tammy is an ex-girlfriend of Rafa's who into and out of the story. Her friendship with Rafa is enigmatic and she acts as somewhat of a hero, briefly, in the piece. At every apparition, I found myself thinking, "She's the one. She's the one I want to know more about." We never quite get what Tammy is all about, and the story is just fine that way, but I do secretly wish that Tammy will show up again in another piece by Junot.

I'm endlessly fascinated by gender politics in Junot's work and "The Pura Principle" is not different. In this story, Junot depicts a world with complicated, problematic gender dynamics, language, and characters that in all their messiness evoke real life.

If anyone wants to talk gender in "The Pura Principle," please send me an e-mail or hit me up on Twitter.

That's all for now. Enjoy the story. Keep reading!

soul for a rainy day

2010-03-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

erykah badu's new video, window seat, has caused quite a commotion online. it's a narrative music video: a "story" by erykah badu. its melody kept me company in the rain today.

the video premiered on badu's website this weekend, and i've got to say --- i'm glad the videos premiering online aren't all of the telephone variety. i don't know why lady gaga thought it would be clever or appropriate to set her video in a prison (jail never looked so good --- according to gaga, life behind bars is all high-fashion glitz). sure, she's trying to "make a statement", but what is the statement exactly? what is she trying to say?

badu is pretty clear about her message. the song is a glimpse into the deep interior life of a woman who is a great comfort and catalyst to herself. the lyrics about the desire to get away from a life that's not all bad. i understand the longing to go away for a bit and hope someone will call you back. at the end of the video, erykah philosophizes aloud about the dangers of groupthink and the power of self-love and transformation.

as for erykah, she is (to quote the good, brilliant, and compassionate friend who first showed me this video) real and beautiful.

all in all, i think this video is great --- it's got the feminism and the art i've been missing in mainstream music.

return of the novella

2010-03-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

twilight fans everywhere went beserk when stephenie meyer announced today that she will be releasing a novella in early june. as anyone who has read this blog knows, i love the twilight saga. what you might not know is that i also love novellas. although it is difficult to imagine any form of fiction that i would not love, honestly, novellas are awesome.

for those who do not know, a novella is a fictional work of prose that runs between 20,000 and 40,000 words. it is considerably longer than a short story, but shorter than your standard novel.

a story can be good at any length, but publishing conventions limit artists, compelling writers to stick to creating either short stories or novels. i'm all for bringing back the novella. some (see: heart of darkness) can stay dead and gone, but others (the house on mango street, the pearl, animal farm, and bartleby, the scrivener to name a few) are testaments to the form's capacity for awesomeness.

meyer's book, the short second life of bree tanner, is supposed to number 192 pages, which, in my opinion, makes it more of a novel, but we novella fans will take what we can get where we can get it! the book is going to be sold for considerably less than hardcover novels are usually sold ($13.99) and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross.

as the title suggests, the book is about the short life of bree, a girl who is turned into a vampire over the course of the novel eclipse. she is killed and transformed by bad-girl vampire victoria, who plays a much more prominent role in the novel. bree appears only once in eclipse. in this scene, she loses her life. the scene is haunting because it suggests that bree could have led a better, peaceful life if given the opportunity to change her ways. (redemption, as well as the free will to live righteously and against the logics of nature, are major themes in the twilight saga.)

some might say that by publishing the short second life meyer is just milking the twilight franchise for all it's worth. it is very strategic to publish a new book just in time for the big-screen release of the film eclipse. however, i think meyer's choice to delve into the interior and experience of such a peripheral character just goes to show that even the most minor figures in a story have multi-dimensional life and depth in the imagination of an author.

plus, she's bringing novellas back!

aguapanela

2010-03-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: "La Aguapanela"article from Semana.com on 24.6.06

Make aguapanela for someone you love. Lower a brick of sugar into the pot, turn up the flame, and let the water boil until it is black. Stir and taste; be sure that it remains sweet. When it's not too rich, but still strong, add milk and let it warm. Cut cheese, soft and white, queso de hoja or mozzarella, if you're making it in this country.

Serve two cups and you drink first. Let the cheese sink to the bottom and soak until it is the color of amber, and melting. He should save you the last few drops and say Mmm before he hands you his cup.

Ask him what it's good for and he'll say, “Hunger, remembering – hasta para curar enfermedades.”

It is like the guarapo you drank as a child from Styrofoam cups on a polluted beach in Orlando where you tried to invoke enough Spanish to say thank you and Que Dios te bendiga to everyone you met: your grandfather, your cousins, and strangers, like the man who cut the stalk and stripped back the flesh, lowered it into a machine so you could eat.

Aguapanela is the color of your skin in the sun. He will taste the sucrose and fructose, the caña on your tongue, after. This will remind you of home. Save what is left for tomorrow.

In two years, you will meet his grandmother. On a rainy night in Bogotá, she will make aguapanela for you, and say: This is what love is like. Seeping the panela in water and letting it dissolve. She will instruct you to drink from the pot with your hands. It is sweet, and it burns.

- NC, prose poem on a whim, March 10, 2010

edward, we're not in forks anymore

2010-03-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

this weekend i saw the runaways, a film from first-time director floria sigismondi about the '70s all-girl rock band fronted by guitarist joan jett and vocalist cherie currie.

kirsten stewart plays jett, an ambitious, tough teen who transgresses gender norms of the time by idolizing the sex pistols and chuck berry, wearing a secondhand men's leather jacket, making out with girls, and playing the electric guitar. young jett's love for rock 'n' roll is so earnest, infectious, and inextricable from her identity that she inevitably becomes the heroine of the film, or as a. scott of The New York Times says, the "one [we] root for... the spine and soul" of the story.

dakota fanning plays currie, a timid, beautiful girl who descends into addiction and isolation before finally learning to assert herself and find meaning in life beyond the limelight.

the movie dramatizes the divergent fates of currie and jett: currie eventually quits the runaways, while jett goes on to become a rock legend. as tough as jett is, currie is vulnerable. the film suggests that for currie, the runaways was more about acceptance and belonging than the music.

these disparate characterizations of jett and currie work narratively in the film, but are (of course) oversimplifications of the girls' real-life identities and desires. although jett served as executive producer for the film and currie's memoir, neon angel, provided much of the inspiration for the script, the runaways nonetheless includes some inaccuracies and omissions about the experiences of the band.

something the film does seem to get right, however, is the incredible intimacy shared by the two young women who found themselves united by the trials of coming of age in a macho music scene.

at times, the friendship between jett and currie feels like the only safe space in the movie. the girls retreat into their friendship, and so do we as viewers. it ain't easy to watch 15-year-old fanning trip on drugs, grow arrogant and alienated from her family, suffer insults during rock 'n' roll boot camp, and emerge as a star known not for her vocal ability, but rather, for her ability to sell "women's libido" and not "women's lib" to audiences.

cherie currie has called the film a "cautionary tale" that depicts the dangers of being young and female in a profit-driven, male-dominated music industry. the real-life runaways faced everything from sexual exploitation, emotional manipulation, verbal assault, and sketchy fiscal management at the hands of the adult men who managed their careers. most notable super-creep is kim fowley, producer and promoter for the runaways, who is played by michael shannon in the film.

sigismondi does a good job of capturing the empowerment, freedom, and fun the girls experienced on the road, as well as the ways they were mistreated. the film avoids becoming just another rock biopic that chronicles the quick rise and fall of a band that fell prey to drugs, alcohol, and "the decade." the scenes of stewart and fanning, giggling, high, and romping around motels, airplane bathrooms, and backstage, are balanced with just as many scenes of the girls, particularly currie, realizing they have lost themselves.

stewart and fanning are very convincing as jett and currie. they sing, they curse, they play, they shout and break things, and i believed them. both young actors seem to aim straight for the heart of things --- the runaways is about girlhood and experimentation and ambition and learning to assert oneself.

the performance sequences in the film are strong, and it is clear that sigismondi's background is in music video direction (she has directed videos for fiona apple, the racontuers, christina aguilera, and the cure). the performance sequences are enthralling, dizzying, and disturbing for the viewer --- much as they must have been for the runaways who rocked out on stage, while high or drunk or being ogled mercilessly by male crowds.

sigismondi also portrays life off-the-road with authenticity, artfully studying the wasteland of 1970s californian suburbia. cherie's life before the runaways highlights the emptiness of this world --- she is teased at a high school talent show for her Bowie-worship, harassed by her sister's sleazy boyfriend, neglected by her actress mother and alcoholic father, and is terrified of winding up as an employee at the local Pup 'N' Fries.

all in all, the film works. we understand why the runaways make the choices they do. we admire their rebelliousness and ambition, while remembering they were kids.

my favorite scene in the film was the last, in which currie calls into a radio show where jett is the on-air guest. the two women talk, years after the breakup of the runaways, and the viewer gets the overwhelming sense that the friendship between cherie and joan is the most important, lasting thing to come out of the success of the runaways. after the girls hang up, they smile, and crimson and clover plays before the credits roll. this song, originally by tommy james and the shondells, later covered by joan jett and the blackhearts, feels like a homage to the camaraderie between the two women, which was real and beautiful, messy, necessary --- the stuff rock 'n' roll legends (and biopics) are made of.

the original lineup of the runaways, from left to right

back: joan jett, jackie fox, lita ford, front: sandy west, cherie currie

persimmons by li-young lee

2010-03-14T18:29:00.001-07:00

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet,
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down.
I teach her Chinese.
Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten.
Naked:   I’ve forgotten. Ni, wo:   you and me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon...

The verses above make up the first three stanzas of the poem Persimmons by Li-Young Lee. View the full text of the poem here. I rediscovered this piece while looking through the Norton Anthology of Poetry I read for a high school poetry class.

The poem is beautiful. I love pieces that link food to memory, family, language, who we are, where we have been, and who we have been. Another good food/identity poem is Patricia Smith's When the Burning Begins, which is about hot water cornbread, her childhood, and her relationship to her father, loss, and the creative power of poetry.

zoë

2010-03-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

zoë saldaña is pretty stunning. and it’s pretty awesome that because of her work, there was a dominican woman actor present at the oscars this year. some would even say that she is a part of “movie-making history” because of her role in avatar, which wasn’t a bad film, colonial tropes and white male gaze aside (i am being ironic here, we never put those sorts of things aside).

still, the lady is fierce. peep the bright red lipstick.

yes! work!

from the heart of bed stuy

2010-03-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Spec Boogie - Bed Stuy from Boombaye' on Vimeo.

lately, i’ve been digging this video. it features some nice photographs of old school bed-stuy scenes and people. ali santana (director) and spec boogie do a good job of capturing the architecture and public art that are characteristic of the neighborhood. there are some allusions in the video to “the changing face” of Brooklyn (it is part of an exhibit atMoCADA, the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts, about gentrification). i haven’t picked through the lyrics enough to see how the message is conveyed in the words of the song, but the sign language sequences in silhouette are pretty clear in their meaning…

L-O-V-E

acrylic and ink on wood

2010-02-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

i loved this image the moment i saw it. i stumbled across it while reading live through this, an anthology from seven stories press about women, creativity, and self-destruction. the image is cristy c. road’s new year’s day, and it is acrylic and ink on wood.

i love that this woman is putting herself back together, holding her heart in her hands. i showed it to a friend and visual artist who said it looked like the woman was removing her own heart. we had very different interpretations, but i stick by mine.

what do you see?

what if all it took to put oneself back together was some needle and thread?

5 Thoughts In Response to John Mayer's Playboy Interview

2010-02-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Cause a picture of Staceyann Chin is always better than a picture of John Mayer

1. So, when John Mayer says his penis is a "white supremacist", does he realize he isn't just saying that he doesn't find black women attractive? Does he realize that the idea of a "white supremacist penis" evokes rape for a lot of women? Not to mention, slavery? White supremacy is not a simple matter of preference. If your penis is a white supremacist, you've got a big problem. Does your penis wear little pointed white hats too? If your penis is a white supremacist, you need a new one.

2. Why does John Mayer keep saying he was trying to be "witty" and "edgy"? Doesn't he know that being a white man with lots of power who brags of his sexual exploits, makes light of racism, and demeans women doesn't make him edgy? Things that are edgy should play with our expectations or challenge the power structure. John Mayer isn't shaking up any expectations or power structure - he is conforming to the violent status quo so many of us are trying to break down (for our own survival). Furthermore, you can't dismiss your racist, sexist comments as "slips of the tongue" or failed attempts at being clever. Take them for what they are --- insight into the internalized racism and sexism you're carrying and need to work on if you want to be a better person.

3. It's clear John Mayer doesn't love women. Having sex with women doesn't mean you love them. "Daughters" officially counts for nothing. A theoretical or professed love for women doesn't matter. Spare us the ballad and just treat women better/don't have a white supremacist penis.

4. Sexual napalm - WHAT!?

5. Never call yourself a blues singer. Again.

Enough about John Mayer. All this talk calls for some Staceyann Chin. Check out "Common Truths or Why I Love My Vagina." The poem includes some mature language, but it is beautiful and one of my favorites. On the link (which is an HTML version of a publication that printed the poem), go down to page 8 to read.

Three cheers for the women of color who wake up every day and mess up the power structure. That's edgy, to say the least.

ladies make the best art

2010-01-28T11:23:00.000-08:00

fumbling towards ecstasy is perhaps one of my favorite albums of all time. when my grandmother died, i listened to sarah mclachlan for days.

i remember my family thought it was taboo that i was listening to music and singing right after losing someone i loved. to my dominican family, grief often means abstaining from things; loss is solemn and best acknowledged through reverent silence, sacrifices, promises.

sarah's songs meant a great deal to me. they were about self-discovery and desire, learning fearlessness. there is something really feminist about surrender. so much of fumbling towards ecstasy is about choosing surrender. this message is important for me as someone who feminism (or patriarchy) has trained to face life with my fists up, ready at any moment to pick a fight or assume crash positions.

i am still waiting for another lilith fair... with more women of color.

and in that stillness there was a freedom

i'd never felt before

Avatar: The Blue, the Ugly, and the Redemptive

2010-01-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

THE BLUE

The word on everyone’s lips for over a month has been Avatar, the latest big-budget epic fantasy film from director James Cameron. The incessant buzz about the film has ranged from scathing critiques of its racial politics to euphoric acclaim for its stunning graphics.

I have been shocked by how many folks have vehemently condemned the film as racist. Don’t get me wrong – I firmly believe in calling it like it is and absolutely condemning/ rejecting/ blasting racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, etc. cultural products. But it is easy to bring one’s Race Analysis Goggles to a film like Avatar that so overtly considers themes of race and colonialism, and to leave those same goggles at home every time one enjoys a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy or action flick that is no less racist, sexist, or problematic, if not more so.

I do not aim to erase the flaws in Avatar in order to laud its worth. I flinched a fair amount during the movie, but no more than was standard for a trip to the movies (see: Sex and the City, Fast and Furious, et. al). Nonetheless, I would like to offer my own reading. I enjoyed Avatar for two reasons:

1) Zoe Saldaña – whose lead role in the film confirms that Dominican ladies make it to the future one way or another
2) The awesome ending, which provided a radical vision of power that was otherwise absent from the film

THE UGLY

While the bioluminescent forests and floating mountains of Pandora sure were pretty, there was much about the film that was just plain ugly.

For one, the plot hinged on a critique of corporate greed (the colonizers are ‘hired guns’ on a quest for the precious metal unobtanium), yet the film was supported by a promotional partnership between 20th Century Fox and McDonald’s. So much for fighting empire and so much for consistency of ethics…

Secondly, the victory in the film is achieved through violence. People die and, ultimately, the balance of life is not preserved. As blogger, Adrienne Maree Brown, points out in her review of the film, it is ironic and significant that during Avatar, mainstream audiences found themselves cheering when the American military lost a preemptive, imperialist war. However, there is still war and there is still loss.

There is violence, albeit bright, stereoscopic violence, but violence nonetheless, and the American audience still gets to indulge in a romantic vision of war – the kind of destruction and death that comes with an orchestral score, yelps of victory, 3D explosions, gorgeous, heroic violence.

While the film’s critiques of violence and greed were incomplete, what I found most problematic about the film was its failure to challenge white supremacy.

Avatar is the story of a white American man named Jake Sully. He is the protagonist of the film and narrates much of the action. He discloses his thoughts to the viewer through a series of video logs that punctuate the narrative. He tells the story of Pandora and its people, just as James Cameron, another white American man, holds the pen and tells this story of colonization and resistance. The film’s mass appeal is largely due to its point of view; it is easy for viewers to like, understand, and believe someone like Jake Sully. If Jake Sully says the indigenous people, the Na’vi, are human and that their civilization should not be wiped out, then he is right and there is a great deal at stake morally in this particular conflict and instance of imperialism.

The history of Pandora is relayed to us by someone who, in our world, is part of the majority. Granted Jake is a renegade member of the majority – but aren’t they always? Isn’t the sexiest, most radical and praiseworthy white male the one who rebels against the hegemony that has placed him on the top and yet somehow miraculously remains King?

Like The Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, and every other white supremacist fantasy about life with people of color, Avatar exalts Jake as a hero - the white dude who masters the customs and arts of a people by shedding his arrogance and dating an exotic native girl. Although Jake leaves behind the “dying world” of Earth, the nation of his birth, and his white body, he does not relinquish his privilege. In the final scene, Jake must die in order to gain new life. However, he does not fully die to himself because he has not died to his privilege. He merely asserts the same authority in a new skin.

This is the ugly of Avatar. The big, big ugly. My stomach did several flips when I saw the Na’vi bow to Jake. Blue-skinned body or not, Jake becoming the ruler of the Na’vi is a tremendous failure in the imagination of the filmmakers, who could dream up the awesome world of Pandora but could not conceive of a world in which the white man is not king.

What good is a story about the evils of colonization and the importance of struggling against oppression if the story upholds the myth of white supremacy?

THE REDEMPTIVE

Despite the film’s many problems, there were elements of the story that redeemed Avatar.

At the end of the movie, Neytiri, the badass Na'vi woman played by Zoe Saldaña, saves Jake twice. She saves his avatar body from destruction at the hands of a robot operated by a super-macho army colonel. She also saves his emaciated human body from suffocating on Pandora without an oxygen mask.

Moreover, Jake’s attempts to rally the Na’vi and save their way of life fail. During the battle scene, Jake tries to radio his friends and fellow warriors and discovers that they are all dead (human pilot Trudy Chacon, the avatar body of the scientist Norm, and the Na’vi warrior Tsu’tey are all gone). In this scene it is clear that the struggle has been lost under Jake's leadership.

The battle is not won until Eywa – the deity of the Na’vi people – enters the fray and defeats the invaders. She is the Savior. Jake may be the ruler of the Na’vi people (quite literally becoming the leader of one of the clans, the Omaticaya), but he is not a savior. I have no doubt that many viewers will indulge in this fantasy of Jake Sully as Savior, but I do not believe it is what is written in the film. To rule and to save are not the same.

Eywa, the goddess of the Na’vi, drives out the colonizers and protects Her people. As a deity that represents all of creation, she is the mass of all the memories, energies, and voices of the Na’vi and their ancestors. She is the most central element of their heritage and culture and the source of their victory and their strength. Although the indigenous belief in Eywa is ridiculed throughout the film by the corporate fat cats and marines, it is precisely this belief and this reality that triumphs over the oppressors.

Yes.

This ending alone was tough enough to redeem the film for me. The invaders leave. They lose and they leave. The people are saved by their own traditions and spiritual power, not some white guy who has seen the light and changed his ways.

In short, Avatar is worth watching. It will not change your life. Cameron’s racial politics are often clumsy and cliché, but the film still manages to offer visions of freedom and power that are refreshing and rare – for a big-budget, epic fantasy film.

L'Union Fait la force

2010-01-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

I know the recent earthquake in Port-au-Prince has been on the hearts and minds of many people, some of us more than others. A friend of mine shared with me a video of Edwidge Danticat giving a talk in 2004 after an earlier environmental crisis. Her talk is called, "Stories of Haiti."

Edwidge is my favorite writer and a winner of the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. In this video, she talks about the resilience and power of Haiti and Haitian people. She says, "There is also in the midst of this struggle, a lot of greatness." I think her words are true and a vital message for this time.

Here are two articles about the earthquake in Haiti, one from RaceWire, the other from COLORLINES. The first article compares the media coverage and aid policies during Hurricane Katrina to the media coverage and aid policies now in response to the recent earthquake in Haiti. The second is an article about the response of some Dominicans to the earthquake in Haiti --- the writer of this piece, Erika Martinez, knows what she is talking about.

Please Don't Superdome Haiti (update)

Dominicans Come to Haiti’s Aid

If anyone has found a good Christian response to what is happening right now, please share. I have had trouble finding any Christian writing (beyond the Bible) that calls for not only service, but also a commitment to real justice and real solidarity in this moment and beyond.

And if you've got it, give to Partners in Health. Trusting an organization to do right and do good with your money isn't always easy, but I trust PIH. If anyone else knows of other places to give, please post.

how memory works

2009-12-12T22:15:00.000-08:00

I just finished Black White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker. It was good, particularly the ending. The last vignette of the book is a reflection on Walker's experience at her paternal grandmother's funeral. She writes about her sadness at this woman's death and the fact that she mourns her Jewish grandmother in a way her brother and sister cannot. Unlike Walker, they are all white, all Jewish, and far younger. They are more greatly linked to the grandmother figure by blood, but not by memory.

Walker contends that memory is what undergirds our allegiances and builds our families and emotional investments. This assertion, of course, is the argument Walker makes throughout the memoir about her own identity; she is the people she has loved, the things she has felt and experienced and lost, the places she has lived in and left. She is everything documented in the pages of the book far more than she is 'her blood' or any of the identities crafted for her by others based upon that blood identity. Surely, different moments of her past have a particular color and gender and religion, but she is, ultimately, what she remembers.

Walker writes:

"It seems to me, that this, too, is how memory works. What we remember of what was done to us shapes our view, molds us, sets our stance. But what we remember is past, it no longer exists, and yet we hold on to it, live by it, surrender so much control to it. What do we become when we put down the scripts written by history and memory, when each person before us can be seen free of the cultural or personal narrative we've inherited or devised? When we, ourselves, can taste that freedom."

I have read several good books this year with unsatisfactory, easily forgotten endings. I will remember this one. It made the book feel whole.

What more could a writer want?

beggars

2009-12-07T09:58:00.001-08:00

I just discovered that one of my favorite bands has released a new record. Thrice is an amazing group - musically inventive with lyrics that center on issues of justice, humanity, courage, and faith. I didn't think anything could top their last two studio releases, Vheissu and The Alchemy Index, but I've got hope Beggars may reach even farther.

Thrice is the kind of band whose songs make you feel like they create music in order to make sense of the violence and suffering in this world. As they play, they seek understanding, and by the end of the song, you, the listener, have gained a bit of clarity and hope, as well. You feel as if the horrors you perceive in the world do exist and that there are other people who recognize these tragedies and injustices as well, and yet believe that there is another way. You feel as if others believe there is a better way, and that it is coming, that it is something in our hands.

It is this theme of resistance, hope, and compassion in Thrice's music that made me do a doubletake when I found the following lyrics in a song called All The World Is Mad (which is actually quite a lovely track - Dustin Kensrue's vocals remind me a great deal of Muse frontman, Matt Bellamy, on this one).

we can't medicate man to perfection again

we can't legislate peace in our hearts

we can't educate sin from our souls, it's been there from the start

If these lyrics are true, Thrice, what then?

I'm sure there is something more to be done or to believe in. With Thrice, there always is.

In Exile

Thrice | MySpace Music Videos

My heart is filled with songs of forever

The city that endures when all is new

I know I don't belong here

I'll never call this place my home, I'm just passing through

spotlight is on

2009-11-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

I really dig this song. The guitar riff is catchy and will be in your head for days. The video is a lot of fun and the performance in it seems to capture the forward-moving energy of the music. Also, there is clapping. Every good song has clapping.

I don't know much about this band, but this song is pretty great. It makes me want to learn more about Mute Math...

MUTEMATH - Spotlight

MUTEMATH | MySpace Video

The End.

poets out loud

2009-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, November 12, I went to a Poets Out Loud event at Fordham University. It was coordinated by my awesome friend and fellow writer, Li Yun Alvarado, who read some of her own work at the event. There were folks there from Acentos, the Fordham creative writing program, and the city at large.

In addition to Alvarado, three other poets read: Tara Betts, Rachel McKibbens, and Willie Perdomo. I was not familiar with their work before the event, but I am now a bonafide fan of each poet: I own books, I follow blogs, I quote favorite lines...

Tara Betts is a native of Chicago and a Cave Canem fellow. Her poems explore issues of urban life, race, and gender. Rachel McKibbens is the founder of the Right Coast Writers Brigade and her narrative poems are about coming of age, motherhood, and violence against women and children. Will ie Perdomo has been described as the unofficial poet laureate of the Puerto Rican Diaspora by Junto Diaz, who also proclaimed that what Perdomo " knows about being of color, being between languages, being poor, being a man, being in trouble, could save your life."

There is nothing like listening to a poet read her own work, so I am including links to audio and video of each poet reading. I was not able to find a recording of Li Yun reading, so you will find a link to the text of one of her poems below. I hope you enjoy the pieces.

"Poet in Harlem" - Willie Perdomo

"What It's Like to Be a Mixed Girl (For Those of You Who Aren't)" - Tara Betts

"Central Park, Mother's Day" - Rachel McKibbens

"Your Back" - Li Yun Alvarado

Discover these great poets and support their work!

a song, a tetralogy, a franchise

2009-11-02T17:26:00.000-08:00

There is a recent addition to my immense obsession with the Twilight saga. It is a song from the upcoming New Moon soundtrack. The soundtrack is getting quite a bit of buzz for being an interesting, albeit moody, companion to the film and novel. The song is called "Meet Me On The Equinox" and is by Death Cab for Cutie. I am not particularly fond of the video, but the song is pretty fantastic with emotive lyrics and a haunting refrain: "Everything ends."

Death Cab For Cutie |MTV Music

In case you were curious about the other things I love about the Twilight saga, here is a short list:

1) Kristen Stewart because she is fierce

2) The theological questions the books raise regarding right and wrong, heaven and hell, souls, humanity, monsters, commitment, the erotics of abstinence, and choice

3) Stephanie Meyer's stay-at-home-mom-turned-novelist success story

4) How fricking big and pretty the books are

5) The mania over the novels!

For me, it is very exciting to have so many people, particularly young people, excited about a book. People cannot get enough of these books - they cannot get enough of reading! This sort of fever for books is something I relate to and cherish.

Certainly, most writers do not write novels so that there is someday a lunchbox or a clothing line inspired by their characters. However, there is something terribly exciting about people being so obsessed with a story. People are crazy about a world that someone dreamed up and brought to life.

While a multi-million dollar franchise is not necessarily a part of my ambitions as a writer, I would love to make readers feel as much as Stephanie Meyer does. I cry, I laugh, I blush, I worry, I gasp each time I read one of her books. If I could do that to a reader, I would feel like I accomplished something - like I got through, like I communicated, like I said something.

Don't you worry about the haters, Stephanie! Twilight and all the subsequent novels are wonderful.

With the opening of New Moon just a few weeks away, I am relishing all the Twilight mania while it lasts. After all, pop culture phenomenon or not, this craze will pass. As Death Cab says:

Everything, everything ends.

The above picture is my own. I crushed and preserved rose petals in a copy of Eclipse. It is a custom I learned from my mother.

halloween macaroni

2009-10-29T12:43:00.001-07:00

The picture you see above is not your standard mac and cheese. It is Harvest Moon Macaroni a la Rachael Ray. It contains squash, parmasean cheese, cheddar cheese, butter, milk, vegetable stock, nutmeg, garlic, parsley, paprika, and onions. And hot sauce!

It was supposed to be a 30 minute meal, but it took me over an hour to make. Just grating all that cheese took a while. It is pretty though, isn't it? It was fun to cook using a recipe. It made me feel like I was truly making something, as opposed to throwing stuff together haphazardly and hoping it comes out alright. There were steps, a tried and true formula, tools, and the certainty that at the end I would have something great to share with others. And share I did. It was a big casserole.

I wanted to write about something Halloween-y on the blog today and this macaroni seemed to be a good topic. It contains squash, which is a relative of the pumpkin --- arguably, the most venerated symbol of all Halloween iconography. So there.

Eat the macaroni while listening to something scary like Alexisonfire or Underoath.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

listen to the cars

2009-10-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

My good friend, Novice Theory, is a magnificent musician. In September, he released an EP entitled, "Ordinary Death." This record is extraordinary, and one of my favorite tracks is "Listen to the Cars." It is a treatise on human relationships at the end of the world, and it is incredible.

As a fiction writer, I am constantly blown away by Novice Theory's lyrics. His songs are like poems or vignettes: narrative, vivid, and emotive. "Listen to the Cars" is no different. The track features imagery that burns with life and asks searingly poignant questions of its audience.

Gems include:

"Will you fix this, fix me, early Friday morning?"

as well as...

"At the start of the new world order, in our dark homes/... Our hammer-hearts, they go beat beat beat."

and...

"The low, low rumble in my gut tells me you are a creature, electric and dark."

Musically, "Listen to the Cars" is both interesting and beautiful. It is soulful, piano-driven, and utilizes lilting carnival music, as well as some lovely strings and the accordion.

I wrote a review of Ordinary Death and Novice Theory's work a while back for WireTap. Check it out here.

And while you're at it, listen to some Novice Theory. You won't regret it.

Buy an album. Support Brooklyn-based independent music that rocks!

the nook

2009-10-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I received an email about the nook, a new e-reader from Barnes & Noble. For the past 48 hours, I have been googling images of the nook, reading articles about it, imagining the way all of my favorite books will look displayed on the touchscreen, comparing it to the kindle, and fantasizing about how sleek and heavy it would feel in my hands.

I am in like.

Don't get me wrong. When it comes to books, I am usually a purist. I like the distinct characters of real books. I love the way each book is different in terms of size, cover art, age, wear, etc. I love the way books are physically altered by belonging to someone. I dog-ear pages, underline, crush books to my chest, sleep with them under my pillow. The nook is so fancy and expensive, I would be afraid to live with it the way I live with my other books.

Nonetheless, the nook has captured my interest. I am sure their stellar marketing has had a role in my obsession. I have spent a very long time at bn.com, watching a video about the nook, reading a checklist of its features, and taking the 360 tour of the device. That will do it.

Moreover, as a book lover, I am attracted to anything that is related to literature and reading. This is why I buy so many bags and T-shirts at The Strand - because they are "book-related" purchases.

This being said, the nook would be a very impractical purchase for me. First of all, it is $259. I could do a lot of things with that much money, including buy several books. Furthermore, there is nothing I can do with a nook that I cannot do with a real book. Nook has long battery life so that you can read for days! With Nook, you can lend books to your friends! With Nook, you can bookmark pages and even highlight text! All of these snazzy electronic features offer me nothing that I cannot enjoy with the sorts of books I already know and love.

I wonder if the nook will do to reading and booksellers what iPods did to music and the music industry. With the boom of iTunes and the death of music stores, I now experience music differently. I used to understand music in terms of albums: the CDs I carried around in my bag, the release dates I eagerly awaited, the jackets and liner notes I pored over and memorized. Now I have so much music at my fingertips all at once that I don't have the same full sense of artists - the development of their work from album to album. I play a few tracks, skip a few. The acquisition of music has been stripped of its formality, its ritual. I don't love music any less - it's just different.

I doubt that the nook will have a comparable impact on the bookselling and publishing world. I am biased; I do not believe anything can change the centrality of books (the kind with two covers and pages in between) to our culture.

Books (of the non-electronic variety) are not going anywhere without a fight. After all, books have an extraordinary knack for perseverance. In Book V of The Prelude, William Wordsworth muses about the fragility of books. He wonders wonders why precious ideas and stories are stored in such perishable vessels. He writes, "Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad/ Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?"

I do not mean to suggest Wordsworth would be a fan of the more durable nook, but I do wonder:

Isn't the perishable nature of books part of what makes them so wonderful? They are just sheets of paper stuck together, yet they endure all sorts of accidents, travels, and lengths of time. They get dusty, tear, come apart at the binding, are taped back together, survive spillages and falls.

That's a lot to compete with, nook.

Still, it is very pretty.

images of dumpsters

2009-10-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Here are two photographs I took in early 2009. These were some of my first few shots with my camera and, naturally, I took pictures in Brooklyn.

World Class Demolition

Rare Form

I like words and sometimes it is funny to see what sorts of phrases and words you can find printed on objects, stores, buildings, etc. Both of these images are of dumpsters - places where we keep our trash.

Trash defines New York as much as skyscrapers and bright lights do. This city is a place worth loving for what an old writing professor called its "beautiful ugliness."

I apologize for the lapse in blogging. I've been writing fiction again, which is very exciting. I have also begun two new jobs - one as an educator and another as a teaching artist. I am doing some freelance writing for WireTap magazine as well, which is very exciting. I have written four pieces for them. The articles are mostly about local organizing fights and victories in NYC. I would like to shift to writing about the arts more --- we'll see. Please do check the pieces out.

In other news, I saw the film Bright Star the other day. It was a very beautiful treatise on longing and the power of poetry to connect people. The film is in part about the Romantic poet, John Keats. I love Keats and even wrote a story named after one of his poems, "This Living Hand."

Enjoy the photographs.

'Tis all. Over and out.

julie & julia... delicious & delicious!

2009-09-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading Julie & Julia, and it's a really charming book. The memoir begins with author, Julie Powell, deciding that she is fed up with the mundane grind of her life as a secretary pushing thirty and living in Queens. To fight her feelings of ordinariness and waste, Julie decides to do something daring and unique: 1) cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and 2) chronicle her (mis)adventures in a blog.

Julie’s life (in an out of the kitchen) is a string of mini-disasters. She treats each kitchen mishap (food mill won’t work, lobster won’t die, not enough butter in the fridge) as a matter of grave importance. The upshot of this melodrama is a very funny series of events, narrated in Julie’s quirky, charming voice. The other characters are relatable and likable folks, particularly Julie’s husband, Eric, who is an unfailingly supportive partner-in-crime/cheerleader during the Julie/Julia project.

In moments, Julie’s observations about city life teeter on the irritating ramblings of a classist white girl. As a native New Yorker (daughter of immigrants, raised in Brooklyn), I was deeply unsympathetic to her gripes about living in an outer-borough and trying to communicate with non-English speakers. Such experiences are the stuff true city life is made of, and are not half as lamentable as Julie would have us believe.

Despite these moments, Julie & Julia is a pleasure to read. Powell's prose is easy to navigate and full of the rich, personal details that make so many of us turn to the voyeuristic blogosphere. And then, there are the recipes! The dishes are totally intriguing – more impressive than delicious, full of obscure, high-end ingredients, entirely too much butter, and strange animal parts.

(Plus, as Julie herself points out, there is a deep sensuality to the sort of cooking she engages in page after page. Each recipe is truly a labor of love, requiring more than a little bit of physical exertion, decadent ingredients, strange scents, heat, and time.)

It was indulgent and gripping to read about Julie’s experiments, and as she mastered the art of French cooking, so did I (in theory). I too learned how to make the perfect crepe, flip over omelets, and kill a crustacean several different ways. As a reader, I found myself celebrating each of Julie’s successful dishes and cringing at the violence and high-fat content called for in certain recipes – I shared in her kitchen defeats and victories.

This book entered my life at a very opportune time. My kitchen is not yet in cooking condition (an exterminator has been called), and my dinners have been last night’s Papa Johns, or Key Food natural peanut butter spread over an apple, or Farina microwaved with soy milk, salad out of a bag, or cheese --- just cheese. Thanks to Ms. Powell’s diaries I have been able to enjoy my fill of everything from artichokes to lamb to pink potato salad (which, interestingly enough, ain’t just a French thing – Dominicans eat it too).

But beyond the secondhand indulgence of each culinary catastrophe or triumph, I loved watching Julie fashion a new identity for herself over the course of the book. As Julie achieves something great and on her own terms, I felt pride for her and re-encouraged about the possibilities for greatness in my own life.

The true gift of this book is its message that we are all made extraordinary by the things that we decide to do. The projects that we undertake – whether social, professional, or domestic – give our lives meaning and define who we are.

Bon Appétit, indeed!

poems i like

2009-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

This post is pretty self-explanatory. I am putting up a list of some of my favorite poems. Each poem title links to a website where you can read the text. I cannot vouch for the websites hosting these poems. I found the links on Google and just put them up. Consider this my disclaimer for any sketchy content you may stumble upon on these sites. This being said, all of the poems are worth reading. Please leave comments including thoughts about these pieces or a list of your own favorite poems.

"Love in Bloodtime" by Sharon Olds

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

"This Living Hand" by John Keats

"Poema X" by Pablo Neruda

"Soliloquy of the Solipsist" by Sylvia Plath

"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes

"I Ask the Impossible" by Ana Castillo

"Kitchenette Building" by Gwendolyn Brooks

"Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth

"To A Dark Girl" by Gwendolyn Bennett

"Cross-Fire" by Staceyann Chin

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"From the Dark Tower" by Countee Cullen

"1 Corinthians 13"

seen

2009-09-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

These vignettes are based on people and scenes I have encountered on New York City subways. Big up to the Q, the A, and all my other trains. Also, please don't take any of these vignettes and say that you wrote them because that's just not true!

Seen

A little girl boards the train. She is two, maybe three years old. Her mother is with her, peddling. I search my pockets, but I have no singles left, no change. At the bottom of my bag, I find a couple of crayons. They are left over from a weekend trip to a diner with my nephew and niece. We ate burgers with mustard and onions, French fries, and heavy sweet shakes. They colored pictures of hot air balloons and sailboats, while I took photographs of them with a digital SLR, the kind with dials that click and whirl each time I focus, adjust, and snap.

As the woman and her daughter make their way across the car, I retrieve a handful of crayons. I extend them to the woman. I say, "I don't have any money, but I have crayons."

She smiles at me and runs her fingers along my palm, picking up the crayons. She nods thank you and begins to move away. I reach back into the bottom of my bag and see that there is one crayon left.

“Oh, here. I forgot one,” I say. I hand the orange crayon to the girl.

The child’s face breaks into a smile. Her eyes brighten and I see for the first time, their color. Her eyes are light blue with little orange spheres in them, like burning worlds suspended in sky.

“Orange!” she says. “Orange!”

She squeezes the orange crayon in her fist and moves away from me, smiling, trailing behind her mother, chanting.

Orange! Orange!

* * *

Coming out of the Union Square station, I see an old woman and a child – her nephew? Her son? Her grandson? The woman coughs into her shoulder. She is hunched over – to reprimand the child? Because she is ill? Because she cannot stand? She clutches a cane and boxes the child into a brick wall. He is stuck between the low, menacing curve of her, her cane, her limbs. In one hand, she balances a cigarette between two fingers. She presses her face close to the child and smoke floats above their heads in the night. “It’s a dangerous world,” she says, and coughs.

* * *

This woman is over six feet tall. Her skin is a deep brown and her hair is like honey, uneven at the edges, and drab against the richness of her skin. She leans far away from the pole, dangling her self. I do not know whom she is speaking to when she shouts.

“I’M A FUCKING PRINCESS!”

* * *

There are three boys. You can tell they’re brothers. They look mixed, all café con leche skin and soft gold fros. They have ashy hands and ankles and wear plain plaid shirts and pants that are only just too small.

They sit down right on the floor in the middle of the car and begin to play their instruments. The oldest has a guitar with long, unclipped strings. The middle brother has a tambourine covered in rainbow stickers. The youngest brother has only two drumsticks with him, to beat on the floor of the train.

Without much of an introduction, they begin singing, shaking the tambourine, strumming the guitar, and beating the floor. They play the Beatles.

I once had a girl, or you could say
She once had me.

The guitar is perfectly tuned. Each string twangs when it should, drops, chimes with the next. The oldest brother plucks and strums. His brown hand is beautiful.

They half-sing, half-shout, with voices too young to startle. Their harmonies are sweet; their call and response is a game.

Marco?
Polo!

I love this song.

The bells on the tambourine ring and the boys look so alike. I look up and down the car. Folks are smiling, rummaging for change, or swaying with eyes closed as the train charges ahead. I wonder what they are remembering.

We talked until two,
And then she said it’s time for bed

They don’t look at anyone or at each other as they play. In my mind, I see a motel room without chairs. And a thin woman, maybe with gold curls like theirs, laughing. A small fire blazing from damp logs, maybe driftwood, the kind that sparks blue and green, and smells like the sea. A box of wine on a cheap rug.

I get out a dollar. The boys finish up the last few bars.

And when I awoke, I was alone
This bird has flown

They do not say much. They collect their coins and move to the next car.

soccer, venus, & feminist grunting

2009-09-07T13:37:00.001-07:00

In June, I spent some time watching pick up soccer games. It was fascinating for me to watch people who love the game so much running, jumping, kicking, bickering with each other, and laughing on the field. Besides my short-lived basketball career in seventh grade, I have never been involved in team sports. When I used to practice muay thai, it felt like a very personal commitment to me that was ultimately about my body, confidence, and mental strength. It was also a way for me to belong to a community of people who loved the sport and trained hard. I have had a glimpse of the deeply personal and communal nature of sports, but as someone who has never followed any sport on television nor attended many sporting events, I was still very intrigued by the pick up soccer game. Here are some photographs I would like to share from that day in the park. I shot these pictures using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT.

Watching soccer that day in Fort Greene park was not just a window into the world of team sports; for me, it was also a window into the secret world of men. The ways the men interacted with each other felt so foreign to me: the aggression (two fights nearly broke out during the game), easy camaraderie, competition, and modes of communication felt so far from anything I have ever been a part of.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend the U.S. Open. I saw Venus Williams play and she was awesome. She seemed to win easily and have fun while doing it. She was gracious during the on-court interview after the match and the crowd was crazy for her.

I must confess that there was one small thing about her performance that made me a tad uncomfortable. Each time she served or returned a ball, she screamed or grunted. If I were serving a ball at upwards of 100 mph, surely I would grunt or scream too. Yet, I found myself cringing and embarrassed that a stadium full of people (many white, many male, many affluent) were watching her grunt and scream. The sounds seemed so sexual, so guttural and embodied.

At the time, I was very aware that my response was problematic. My embarrassment was due to my own internalized sexism. I was embarrassed for her and I was embarrassed for me. Each time she cried out, I, too, felt exposed. I felt like my physicality - strength, sex, body, presence - was being publicly articulated.

By the end of the match, I was making noise myself. Screaming and cheering and jumping up and down for Venus. I am not proud of my initial reaction during the match. Her grunts were the cries of ecstasy and exertion that must come from playing so spectacularly.

What would I have preferred? Neat silence? Control? Holding it in or holding back? Of course not.

Perhaps what I felt is the same shame that causes women to clap their hands over their mouths when they speak too loudly or out of turn, or when they make too much noise during sex, or when they say something unladylike.

One of my favorite zines about consent includes the following quote:

"Analysis does not equal immunity."

I am a feminist, but that doesn't change that I've got to work to decolonize my mind. Sometimes my thoughts are racist and antifeminist and perpetuate all of things that hate and hurt me. I'm a work in progress. For now, my goal is to be a little more like Venus. It was an honor to see her play. She is powerful and a supreme athlete. I did not take the above photograph of Venus, but I like it. It seems as if she is singing or dancing, as well as winning whatever match this is from. Cause that is what she does. And she is good at it.

eating pizza in a garden

2009-08-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I went to Lewis Ave. Lewis Ave. is home to a small strip of bougie restaurants and shops in Bed Stuy. My boyfriend and I made the long walk over in order to check out Saraghina, a restaurant I have heard about ever since I moved to the neighborhood. It has been hailed by The New York Times as not just a pizzeria, but a true trattoria, bringing artisanal pizza to a neighborhood that although it is being gentrified, still ain't teeming with snazzy restaurants like Billyburg or Park Slope.

First, a bit about me and gentrification. I inhabit an awkward role in the changing landscape of BK. I am from Brooklyn, it is in my blood and in my heart, it will always be home. But my privilege (chiefly due to my education) separates me from many of the people in my community. In some ways, I am implicated in the displacement of my people - of my own relatives, of my neighbors, of little girls like me who go to the same elementary school.

For instance, I scowl at white people at the Hoyt-Schemerhorn station, then I exit and find my way to a rooftop party near BAM. I usually feel awkward at these parties thrown by and for white alumni from my college. I clutch my Red Stripe like it's a security blanket, watch the lights, and feel guilty. I think about double consciousness, but mostly I think about whether I will be able to recognize any of these streets in a few years. I decide the music sucks, but sometimes I dig it, and then that reminds me of where I have been, the many different places, all the hybrid influences that have made me this hybrid brown girl with hybrid dreams and longings in her heart. I am always the first guest to leave and walk home. The whole way, I talk to myself and I complain about yuppies and hipsters and their pricey beer and fancy cheese and fucking lame music (it all sounds the same!). But I was still there and will be there again.

Just like I was at Saraghina. Do with that reality what you will. I split two pies with my boyfriend as part of the strange, ongoing experiment in double consciousness that is my life.

Before we entered the restaurant, we sat in front for a while, marveling at the absurd brunch prices. It was $7 for bread and butter with jam and nutella, $10 for organic eggs. I'm more of a $2 egg and cheese on a roll kind of girl. We joked about sticking to the Dominican spot we know where you can get "fluffy pancakes" or "Fhench toast" with meat and eggs for $5.

The interior of Saraghina is beautiful. The decor alone seemed to be a parable on gentrification. It was all dim lights and wooden tables, tall bottles of water. Everything looked old, from the Xeroxed menus, windows with chipped paint, dusty mason jars, Citronella candles, and plastic chairs that reminded me of my elementary school classrooms. Some would say Saraghina had a rustic Italian vibe, but I think the restaurant just looks like any other building in Bed Stuy with old details and chipped paint --- only more expensive.

Everything from industrial architecture to trash on the street to people of color makes Brooklyn feel real and edgy and chic to folks moving in, and Saraghina is certainly capitalizing on the grit factor of the neighborhood and the building to attract its clientele.

Nearly everyone inside the restaurant was white. I was expecting this since the place has been written up in the Times. I had also come across online reviews of Saraghina where people had posted comments like, "This is the only place in my neighborhood that I feel comfortable taking my family when they come to visit." The customers were white couples feeding slices to their small children and groups of thirtysomethings sharing wine and mussels. It seems that, in general, Saraghina customers are people who 1) like pizza and 2) enjoy eating pizza with other neighborhood folks who look like them. When we arrived, there was only one other couple of color in the garden. We smiled at them and said hello. SOLIDARITY.

All this being said, the food was good. We got a pie with buffala mozzarella, which tasted just like regular mozzarella, but cost $2 more. We also got a pie with zucchini and eggplant, which I loved. The crust was crispy and thin, there was not too much cheese, the marinara sauce was tomato-sweet, and the vegetables were grilled soft and perfect. It was very, very good.  

My boyfriend was not as impressed. He said, "How could you eat guiso and then think this is good?" I'm pretty sure he would have preferred for us to stay home and use adobo and a couple of packets of Goya azafran to make black beans and rice. It would have cost us about $2, as opposed to the $35 we spent on our meal and the tip. Despite his complaints, he still ate almost all of the buffala pie by himself.

We left with our stomachs full, and the curiosity that had first led me to the place was definitely satiated. Whether I will return again for another delicious and pricey experiment in double consciousness is TBD. The garden was beautiful, the waitstaff was kind, and the two Latino men in the kitchen held it down cooking the stuff that is the lifeblood of the establishment.

So there you go. My lengthy treatise on an evening out with my boyfriend (who looked very cute in his V-neck tee), gentrification, and this new neighborhood pizza place.

the purple room

2009-08-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

My new room is purple. It's a deep purple and I painted most of it myself with key help from some friends. I like to think of myself as living here, in this old house in Bed Stuy, writing from a purple room. I am guessing that I will come to associate this moment in my life with the color purple, which until now, I haven't really cared for. It just struck me as a good color for a room. I have a view of a busted garden from my window. It's all dead grass and fallen fruit, a tree larger than the three stories of this brownstone.

I dig the time I get to spend here alone, but for a few nights, I have had the company of a caring companion who falls asleep after I do, hammers things, and who sat out with me on the stoop during a thunderstorm. (The storm was amazing – I experienced rain like you never can in a building. When you are encased in brick, far up from the ground, a storm becomes just part of the view. It's not like when you're sitting out on the street and you can see rain pooling in the gutters, people gathering under the awnings of bodegas to stay dry, the way the whole street brightens like it's day when there is lightning, and the way the crack of thunder seems to start right above your head and unfold over the whole neighborhood).

I am twenty minutes away from where I grew up in Fort Greene. Where I am in Bed Stuy reminds me of Fort Greene ten years ago. Beautiful houses in disrepair, the G train, cafes and restaurants like lone satellites every couple of blocks, gunshots, schools, Golden Krust, open vans parked on the street playing jazz or Motown, old ladies perched like sentinels on stoops to survey everything that happens on the block, churches, the familiar sound of someone scraping ice from a cart to sell piraguas.

It's better for me to be here although I am already homesick for Fort Greene. If I were at home at my parents’ house, I would be watching Buffy DVDs in my pajamas and eating Indian food I can't afford, trying to escape the empty spaces in me by not moving at all. To stir would be to wake all those fears and possibilities up, make them alive and burning, looking for me by their own awful light. So I would just sit. Sit and steep myself in the sweat of our living room, feeling heavy and round, sick with secrets.

The purple room is supposed to be space for me to be still yet work to confront things. The college I went to is a tough place for poor girls of color like me, but it was easier than home in many ways because I had the freedom to build an identity for myself. After four years away, I returned to Brooklyn last summer and had to find a way to fit the woman I had become into the Old World of home.

Old school paradigms for Dominican good girls forbid all sorts of things – from boyfriends to girlfriends to birth control, beer, moving out before you’re married, disagreeing with your mother, and being fat.

The old cliché goes, "The truth will set you free." But I would like to contribute an addendum to the saying:
Only if you let it.

And it is in that spirit, of submitting to the truth about myself and my dreams, that I write to you, from my purple room.

something you've got to believe in

2009-08-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

I was not a fan of "Crazy." It was on the radio entirely too much and I just wasn't feeling the hook. But "Going On" by alternative hip-hop/neo soul act, Gnarls Barkley, is an excellent song. It is an anthem about freedom and self-reliance with a cool dance beat and some very beautiful, trippy and melodic moments.

The video concept is weird yet awesome (a la Gnarls Barkley). It features a group of people journeying in search of a portal to another dimension. It was shot in Jamaica and has some solid dance sequences and quality lip synching.

Watch it here:

Warning: if you listen to this song once, you may be bound to listen to it many, many times again.

subway love haiku

2009-08-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

underground we part

on platforms made for these times

when love shudders, dies.

As a young woman who came of age in New York City and on New York City trains, many of my most spiritual, most romantic, most heartbreaking, and most formative moments have taken place underground. The subways offer such a rich cross-section of people; the conversations and encounters in their cars range from uplifting to terrifying to lasting. I wrote this haiku on the platform of the Q train at a station in Manhattan after I could not bring myself to make amends with someone I love. I just got on the train and let the tracks put even greater distance between us.

Perhaps you have felt something similar? Perhaps you write haikus? Haikus are great.

manifesta of a zafatista

2009-08-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz tells us a Dominican creation story. Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the Garden of Eden play no part in this genesis. In Diaz's tale, there are only Tainos and Africans, invading Europeans, and the land. Diaz writes that when Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, the world was hit with fukú. Fukú is “a curse or doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and Doom of the New World” (Diaz 1).

The New World is fallen, and colonization is the original sin from which all subsequent loss, misfortune, and brokenness stem. According to Oscar Wao, almost anything can be the work of fukú - a hurricane, freak accident, or food poisoning. However, after reading about the lives of the characters in the novel, one can discern that the most sinister curses are the legacies of colonization. Poverty, racism, militarism, patriarchy, and self-hate, to name a few, are all fukú.

But Dominican folk wisdom contends that we New World babies have not been left defenseless against fukú.

"Only one way to prevent disaster from coiling around you, only one surefire counterspell that would keep you and your family safe. Not surprisingly, it was a word. A simple word (followed usually by a vigorous crossing of index fingers). Zafa."

(Diaz 7)

If fukú is what puts up divisions between us, zafas are what break down these walls. If fukú is danger and persecution, zafas are protection and sanctuary. If fukú is oppression and silence, zafas are freedom and imagination.

Diaz offers his first novel, Oscar Wao, as a zafa - a counterspell to all the hardships and distortions of history.

Here, a definition:

Verb

zafar (first-person singular present zafo, first-person singular preterite zafé, past participle zafado)

(transitive) To loosen; to untie.

(reflexive) To come undone; to loosen up.

(reflexive) To free oneself of; to get free of.

Source: Wiktionary.

The verb zafar is the perfect description of what good writing can do. It can loosen our bonds, help us find the strength and consciousness we need to untie one another and ourselves, and overturn the original curse of fukú.

I want to be a zafatista - zinging folks left and right with literary blessings. I want my stories to be the uttered words and crossed fingers that help my people be free.

Thus, I write to you from this blog. I will share some words and some pictures, some thoughts. Please send me your blogs so that I may read your work. Hopefully, together we can be some sort of community, counterspell.

Zafa!