intellectual properties

costuming, today and every day

i wear a lot of costumes.  i dress up for fun, often for parties late at night, sometimes at 9am on a tuesday, or when i’m running errands on sunday afternoon.  what i wear affects how i feel, what i feel like doing or what i can do, where i go, whether i bike or walk or drive, and what kind of energy i put out into the world. taking some time to dress myself up is almost a sure-fire way to put me in a better mood. and on the flip-side, looking plain or disheveled definitely makes me feel dull. uninspired. and before anyone decides to call this “vanity” or “shallow”, i maintain that we are all actors in our own lives, and you dress the part you want to play. dress codes and uniforms play a huge part in enforcing our roles:  you are a student.  you are an employee. you are a soldier.  you must dress and act your part.

i refuse dress codes and don’t have one at work, so now and then i get down on myself for getting lazy and dressing default.  jeans, t-shirt.  black pants, button up.  BORING.  i will only live so many days!  why do i even have things in my wardrobe that are plain?  what a waste!

but then i remember, it’s because sometimes, the “costume” i put on, it’s not weird, or funky, or sexy, or anything outstanding.  it’s totally “normal”.  it’s “i’m being normal today.  i am going to go to work, do my job, go to the gym, eat dinner, watch tv/read a book, and go to bed.” and i need those days.  i need that costume. i can’t spend every day weird, inspired, creative.  it’s too exhausting and unstable for me.

for adults, halloween is an annual chance for those who may not have the time, energy, or desire to “dress up” other days of the year to be someone else for a while.  try on a different persona.  i think this is a really important ritual, and while i do it many days a year, i love halloween because for 1 (or 4) day a year everyone feels comfortable doing it, and all week i’ve been smiling seeing people in SF wandering around dressed up on the streets.

so happy halloween y’all – may yours be fun and inspired. i have a long night of costuming ahead of me, as i’m part of the Bad Unkl Sista performance crew doing on and off performances all night long at the Spider Ball in SF.

and to all those people who “hate costuming” and aren’t dressing up, i say: even if you’re not dressed up, you are. whatever you wear, that is your costume.  your character. your role. your persona. your choice.

I don’t wake up in the morning. It’s more like an irritable emergence into the costume of my humanity. I leer in the mirror, suspiciously. What will I be today? A husband? A dad? Someone who goes through the motions at work? I get dressed up. I act like a man. – BHJ

anecdote

People’s Park in Berkeley has a revolutionary history and serves as a sanctuary for the homeless. Because of its history and political status, long-time residents are defiant against developers who want to profit from this centrally located block of land, while city and community officials often claim it’s dangerous and a drug haven, and the fight about what should be done with it has been going on for decades. anyway, there are always interesting things happening in People’s Park: free concerts, protests, or even when no schedule events, usually somebody is doing something.

last sunday, we were walking through People’s Park on a sunny afternoon on our way to Berkeley Thai House, hands down my fave thai restaurant in the bay, and a man was standing on the make-shift stage, loudly yelling something unintelligable about Michael Jackson. it seemed rather scathing, whatever he was saying, definitely not a fan tribute. then from across the lawn comes almost running another man, who yells defensively, with much emotion, almost as if he’s in tears:

“MICHAEL JACKSON IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER LOVED ME!”

oh, Berkeley. it never ceases to amuse.

QOTD

“I want to plumb the depths of the concrete to a secret place where the literal bleeds metaphors.”

–BHJ, on his “process”

i love his blog because his mind wanders and makes connections where there were none like mine does, only he is way better at writing about it.

uphill battle

traveling without moving
into a headwind
that will surely reverse for the way back home

these buildings do nothing to protect us
only forming wind tunnels
and then collapsing when Mother says it’s time

the forest has dreams to remember

counted blessings

i need to be grateful today. this morning i am grateful for, in no particular order:

the sun;

my bike commute, which is long enough yet easy enough to warm my body and mind up in the morning, and then bring it down in the afternoon on the way home, and allows me time outside i would not otherwise get;

my body, although giving me problems lately, is beautiful and healthy and strong;

my best friend and lover, who loves me perfectly enough to comfort me when needed but never shelter me, giving me the feeling that he’s always there like a rock to stand on, but that i have to have my own wings to fly;

my friends and family, near and far, who send such beautiful messages and share their lives with me; even if i haven’t seen you in weeks months or years i am grateful for you, and grateful for the internet for keeping us in touch ;

for the 3 cities i live in, so beautiful and diverse and containing everything i need, from amazing food to glorious vistas to a deeply invested artist community to progressive culture where citizens recognize that the problems we face are cause for growth, not fear. having travelled so far recently, i can say that this is one of the best places in the world to live without hesitation;

the freedoms of america, which allow me to feel informed, connected, empowered and involved in my world. having just travelled through and read the histories of places recovering from the iron curtain of malformed communism, i am evermore aware of the value of our freedoms. with all the liberties taken by differing social and political groups, i may not always like what i see or hear others doing, but i will defend their right to say or do it as long as you are not limiting or infringing on the right of anyone else;

for my employer, which allows me to both be myself and work for causes i believe in, flexible enough to let everyone lead full lives but earnest and focused enough to really get things done;

the opportunities all these things combined have afforded me, which i cannot compare to anyone else’s for they alone are mine;

and finally, for all which provides for me that i cannot see, feel, hear, taste, smell or comprehend. i will not speak of God, but there is more to life than what we know.

recently read

i mentioned that i’d read several great books lately, and so here’s a little about them:

i already discussed A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius but i’m still going to recommend it one more time. while i’m not sure about the genius part, it was heartbreaking as well as thoroughly entertaining in both form and content for me as a Gen Xer in SF, CA.

then i read The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis, mostly because the film was coming out and I wanted to read the book first.  i was a little bored with the content and style, as both the disaffection and ennui of the rich and bourgeois and graphic physical violence have been aspects of his previous work (Less Than Zero, American Psycho), but it’s still well-written (and short) enough to have kept me reading.  i’m interested in seeing hollywood’s treatment of the subplot revealed in the end, given the actors cast in the film as well as current trends in the genre.

then i read Jose Saramago’s new book, Death With Interruptions.  two of his previous books rank in my top 10:  Blindness was one of the most intense novels i’ve ever read (and i’ve yet to see the film because i loved the book so much), and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ was just truly beautiful and amazing and i wish i could buy everyone i know a copy.  I also read The Double, but for some reason didn’t enjoy the content of that as much as these other three.  his style of writing and storytelling is enthralling and unique, and i think that Death with Interruptions showcases his talent as a wordsmith the best yet.  i was dogearring pages left and right and stopping to savor his wry use of words.  while the topic is mildly political in the current context of “death panels” in amercia, i read it as nothing other than a fast and furious fictional treatment of one of life’s most enigmatic human questions:  would life be better if we were immortal? is death a curse, or a blessing?

having run out of books to read on the trip then, i bought one of the few english language novels at the airport in Amsterdam before the flight back:  Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father (the one that unabashedly details his younger years, with ancecdotes that some chose to use as ammunition during the election, like his occasional use of drugs as a student, incidents involving racial dynamics, and the use of language like the Fword, none of which, for me, affect your ability to be President.)  i’m sort of ashamed that i probably would never have purchased this book if it weren’t because it was one of the few in English (limited choice), and then once i started reading it, even more ashamed that i knew so little about a president i voted for. i’ve been pleasantly surprised at, first of all, how incredibly well-written it is, and then secondly, how much i relate to his story and worldview.  i didn’t think i had a lot in common with a black christian ivy league politician, but apparently i do, and i have to say i’m enjoying it very much and would recommend it to anyone, especially people like me who may not know as much about Obama as we should. whether you voted for him or not, and whether you like him now or not, it’s a well written autobiographical novel and hey, he is the President.

finally, we saw Where the Wild Things Are yesterday, and i was pleasantly surprised there also with how much different the film was than i somehow expected it to be. with Dave Eggers as a writer (and if you’ve read his books, like the one mentioned above, then you quickly hear his voice in the script) and Spike Jonze as director i knew it was going to be different, but it wasn’t what i expected.  the original story is only 10 sentences, so to make a feature length film you have to make up a lot about character and plot, but unlike children’s stories like Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Wizard of Oz or Brothers Grimm tales that have obvious dark sides to the original written works that were carefully reframed or edited out in the filmmaking for young audiences (Disneyfication), WTWTA goes the other way and takes a rather innocuous children’s tale and turns it into something much deeper, much weirder, and much darker than the original to the point that i don’t think it is even a children’s movie anymore. i think i expected something more like when they’ve taken short Dr. Seuss books and turned them into feature length films, adding silly adventures and subplots to the existing look and feel.  i love it when children’s movies center on adult themes (and Pixar has been a leader in that, with Wall-E and UP), but i think this goes beyond even that, which was surprising and interesting.  we went to an early show, and so the theatre was largely full of families with children, and i don’t think many of the smaller children got the movie at all, although the 10/11 year old boy next to me was crying, so for older kids it might mean a lot.   and, definitely a movie to see in the theatre, as visually it is stunning.

the yes men: how to fix the world

if you haven’t yet seen the footage of the Yes Men’s (who?) most recent stunt with the Chamber of Commerce, it’s here and worth 10 minutes of your time.

some articles and a little about the context:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/10/19/091019ta_talk_surowiecki

Resigning in protest is not in the American grain. Robert McNamara stuck around as Secretary of Defense even after he decided that the Vietnam War was a disaster; Colin Powell did the same during the Bush Administration’s push for war with Iraq; and in the lead-up to the financial crisis, few high-profile executives stepped down over disagreements in philosophy or tactics. But resigning in protest has gained popularity of late among an unlikely group: big corporations. Last Monday, Apple announced that it would be quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber’s opposition to global-warming legislation. And that was just the latest in a series of defections: in the past few weeks, the public-utility companies Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon all announced that they’d be leaving the Chamber, while Nike quit the organization’s board of directors…

…But it may reflect a calculation that global warming is simply too big an issue to get wrong, both economically—few companies are really going to benefit from the melting of the polar ice caps—and from a public-relations point of view. It’s also probably no coincidence that these resignations have come at a time when the Chamber’s anti-regulatory zeal looks not just outmoded but self-defeating. Had the Chamber supported tougher regulation of financial and housing markets, after all, the myriad small businesses it represents would undoubtedly be better off today. And it’s far from clear that across-the-board hostility to regulation is really in the best interests of the free-enterprise system. We assume that lobbies always recognize what’s best for their members. But they don’t, and, in the case of climate change, they may very well be missing what the companies that have resigned in protest have seen: global warming isn’t just bad for the planet; it’s bad for business.

follow-up

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2009/10/the-us-chamber-of-commerce-now-90-smaller.html

for privacy reasons, i can’t say too much about my professional experience working with the Chamber of Commerce on environmental issues, but i can say that this made me very happy.

their current movie “The Yes Men Fix The World” is out now.

the best is yet to come

i know, i know, a million things to write and note about our trip, but honestly there is so much that it’s taking some time to form it all in my mind. the sidenotes, the details, the overarching themes. i am organizing them in my brain, but they don’t want to come out just yet.  i’m also making a scrapbook, and jay’s making photobooks, and these processes affect the writing, and so there’s a lot to be done.  the problem, for me, with blogging large amounts of autobiographical content is that there are no deadlines (obvi, i wrote my BM08 post almost 12 months after the event), but i’m going to give myself one: by next monday morning, i need to have my posts written and my momentos organized.

i should have taken time to write notes while we were traveling, and i did from Amsterdam to Berlin.  but then it felt like i was doing this, and constantly taking notes in my head about what i would write instead of actually DOING the things, and that i wasn’t really “unplugging” if i kept drafting blog posts in my head. and so i stopped.  this would be disasterous for autobiographical reasons it weren’t for the photos we took, which help me remember the order of operations, and i’m sure there are things that i have already forgotten.

i also read 3 excellent books in the past 6 weeks and am on the 4th, and these are causing all kinds of interference with wanting to write autobiographical things.  the books! they are so thought-provoking.  i want to write about them instead.

so this is not just a “i’m blogging but i’m not” post, here is a thought, on which i ruminated much while travelling:

these days i am more and more greatly appreciating and admiring and taking inspiration from the people in my life who are living unconventional lives, whether “successful” or not.  when we were in our 20s, this was sort of expected – after college you joined the Peace Corps or volunteered in some 3rd world country, or traveled around the world, or tried being an artist/musician, or worked at starting your own company (if you are dot.commer, maybe you got lucky), but for a large percentage of people, after a few years of trying to wrangle the world into your dreams, many got married, settled down, bought houses, had children, and secured “regular” jobs. not that there’s anything wrong with that; for many, those few years were enough and settling down WAS their dream, and i fully support that, but i’d be lying if i said it was inspirational to me personally. so moving into our mid-30s, with many of my friends now approaching or passing 40, those people in my life who are still forging their own paths, struggling to maintain their business and not sell their souls to pay the bills (especially true for artists, musicians, and photogs), i am finding great comfort in them, despite their repeated exasperations over the difficulties, the stress, the waves of success and defeat.

i find myself currently realizing how “middle path” i am these days, and wondering if this is just my rather taoist nature, if maybe this is my true self and i am not who i thought i was, or if i have fears i am not addressing preventing me from actualizing my potential. these friends and colleagues, especially the strong women in my life (because no matter how much equality we have gained, we are still not equal), remind me that taking chances and pushing lines is really important, and that the adage about regretting more the things in life you didn’t do than the things you did is a truth.  i get annoyed by people who look at my life and tell me i’ve got it made and so i should “be happy with what i’ve got” when i start to complain/ruminate on who else i could be, what else i could be doing.  no, i’m sorry: i am happy, but i will not “just be happy”. this is my life.  i want more.

st. stephen’s basilica, budapest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen’s_Basilica

i am in this photo. can you see me?
churches in europe are big. really big.

we are home now, back in SF CA.
most of the photos are up, but the writing might take a while.

the nobel prize now = an A for effort?

many discussions recently about entitlement, telling all children they are smart, beautiful, can do anything, ‘EVERYONE IS A WINNER’, and how this leads to false benchmarks, false hopes……seems to have leaked over to the Nobel arena.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15622

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,

When the killing of civilians is upheld as “collateral damage”,

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as “insurgents” or “terrorists”.

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and “interrogation” techniques are routinely used to “protect peacekeeping operations”,

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as “national defense”

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

Obama’s “War Without Borders”

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon’s “Long War”:  “A War without Borders” in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.