los anjalis to anjuquerque

My latest post on LAist.com:  Tablacentric: Two-Week Long Residency Starts Tonight. Check out the events if you can, most of them are free. [And check out the LAist interview I conducted two years ago, with Robin Sukhadia, the organizer of Tablacentric].

Oh yes they did. Very creative, slightly disturbing, and wow. Alien vs Pooh

My good friends live in a mostly latino neighborhood just south of the prestigious snooty Hancock Park area in Los Angeles, and we’d sometimes drive through Hancock Park on our way back from outings or to just be snooty about the snootyness.  On quite a few occasions we’ve passed the Norwood Young house, and I’ve marveled at the numerous statues of Michalangelo’s David outside the white mansion [check 'em out on googlemaps street view]

Well today’s LAist post on Mr Young’s house — “Happy Holidays from Youngwood Court” — titillated me. I was so stoked to see this house decked out with Black Santa and Mrs Santa life-size decorations, beautiful lights everywhere, each of the SEVENTEEN David’s with red tops and no bottoms, and a life-size cutout of Norwood himself. I love the creativity that went into this decoration — probably one of the most unique christmas house decorations I’ve ever seen. And it makes me giggle that he does that in Hancock Park, pissing off many of the neighbors and making them worry about their property values. Koga, who wrote the post on LAist, linked to this article from 1997, about neighbors’ reactions to the ‘House of Davids’. The best line from the article:

“It is like spitting in somebody’s eye,” said Marguerite Byrne, a member of the Hancock Park Homeowners Assn.’s board of directors. “It is individualism run amok.”

Oh, the irony! The irony!

Anyway, Norwood Young’s website is a trip, with full episodes about his house, his costume parties, and his music. All this eccentric youngwood court history I didn’t know of when I lived in Los Angeles. Norwood Young and LAist, you made my christmas day.

Cure This is a website that a few of us developed in the past two years to feature voices around health & healthcare, human rights, and healing.  It seeks to engage those who’ve been affected by the healthcare system, those who work to transform our culture, those who create innovative models.  We were fortunate to be approached by Bonnie Fortune about Cure This being part of an exhibit in Chicago, and we are grateful to her for the invitation.  The exhibit “presents work by artists and activists representing historical and visual exchanges around feminist health movements”. Take a look at the website for the event.  The blog Art Talk Chicago also has a piece with photos from the exhibit.  Check it out if you’re in or near Chicago.  And take a look at the websites and artwork of various artists, performers, and other multimedia contributors to the event (more below).

EveryBody!: Visual resistance in feminist health movements, 1969-2009

no, i don’t know how dead people can dance. no, i don’t know why mj turned into a zombie. no, i don’t know what that blood stuff is coming out of the zombie’s mouth. no, I wouldn’t want to be a zombie. Yes, those zombies are …like harry potter inferi. no, i don’t know how to scream as long as that girl does. no, i don’t think mj can tame zombies.

- brownfemipower (who blogs at flipfloppingjoy), answering her really cute kids as they all watch michael jackson’s Thriller video. this was a facebook status update i had to copy here. it made me so happy.

this is the number 1 reason why we need more public transportation (and train stations) in los angeles. (cross-posted at Cure This, a website you should get to know)

Two legends of American folk, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, sang “This Land is Your Land” (along with Pete Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger) at the Obama Pre-Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. However, they say the original lyrics, which includes two verses by Woody Guthrie that are not as well known (the verses about private property and the hungry Americans at the relief office). There were half a million people in the audience at this performance, and the video is quite moving. We share it with you here. Feel free to sing along, it’s better that way.

This Land Is Your Land

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Here’s a link to Woody Guthrie’s website with lyrics. And the Wikipedia entry for This Land is Your Land, with a bit of history (including why Guthrie wrote the famous folk song).

Check out this poster, starting with “389 Years ago the first slave ship lands in the American colonies.” And ending with “And on November 4th 2008, the people of the United States elect their first African-American President and his name is Barack Obama”.

Thanks, folks at Wallstats, for putting it together and for celebrating progress.

Yolanda Pierce of The Kitchen Table, on the selection of Elizabeth Alexander as the inaugural poet laureate:

I am celebrating this news because it honors a black woman we both know and deeply respect, a woman who has dedicated her life and work to not only writing, but training the next generation of writers. Alexander’s volume The Venus Hottentot, remains one of the most influential volumes of poetry I’ve read and I use it for my own teaching.

I am celebrating this news because Obama seems to fully grasp the idea that words and language truly matter. By restoring poetry as a central feature of his inauguration, Obama gives hope to those of us who believe that art is always important and necessary, especially during hard times. Artistic expression is as necessary and as vital as bread and water.

I am celebrating this news because our African American ancestors articulated their struggle for freedom and dignity in verse: poetry, song, and prose. And so, through poets like Alexander, we can pay homage to Phillis Wheatley, and Jupiter Hammon, and Lucy Terry Prince – 18th century black poets who dared to sing a free song, while their bodies were still enslaved.

I’m enjoying exploring some of Elizabeth Alexander’s poetry. Fitting for this site, here’s a beautiful poem she wrote about Los Angeles:

Stravinsky in L.A.

In white pleated trousers, peering through green
sunshades, looking for the way the sun is red
noise, how locusts hiss to replicate the sun.
What is the visual equivalent
of syncopation? Rows of seared palms wrinkle
in the heat waves through green glass. Sprinklers
tick, tick, tick. The Watts Towers aim to split
the sky into chroma, spires tiled with rubble
nothing less than aspiration. I’ve left
minarets for sun and syncopation,
sixty-seven shades of green which I have
counted, beginning: palm leaves, front and back,
luncheon pickle, bottle glass, etcetera.
One day I will comprehend the different
grades of red. On that day I will comprehend
these people, rhythms, jazz, Simon Rodia,
Watts, Los Angeles, aspiration.

And a wonderful poem on poetry itself:

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

She also wrote a beautiful piece on the legacy of poet and activist June Jordan. All these and more poetry, audio, and essays can be found at Elizabeth Alexander’s website.

Brenda Ann Kenneally, a photographer who documents the poor, was interviewed by Alternet (link to the interview and a photo essay of poor people in Troy, New York). A must read. Two excerpts:

NB: How was this “upstate” born?

AK: It came into being during the 1970s with the enactment of the Rockefeller drug laws, which created thousands of new convicts facing drug sentences of 10, 20, even 30 years for possession charges. The result was a prison boom upstate, which became increasingly important in towns like Troy, as manufacturing jobs were lost to globalization. So young male inmates with brown skin and low incomes were shipped from New York City to be counted as widgets in the state inventory where government money was awarded according to population numbers. And the only population gain in upstate New York over the past 10 years has been from inmates and those connected to inmates. Drug crimes have risen and the local police and sheriff have adopted a zero-tolerance policy, Giuliani-style, leading to more arrests and incarcerations, and the circle spins round and round. This has particularly impacted juveniles. There is now a special section in Albany County Jail for under 18 years old known as “baby jail.”

The policy of judicial intervention has become more widely acceptable, spreading to schools — children who are seen as behavioral problems are required to take medication. If parents do not comply, there have been cases where the parents have been charged with neglect through family court. The medication is seen as a permanent solution to an often short-term problem and can turn into another form of warehousing already disadvantaged young people. Many times the students have problems because they lack structure at home due to a working mother and an incarcerated father, so it is like they are criminalized at every turn. I met one woman who had been arrested and jailed because her teenage daughter became pregnant while “living under her mother’s roof.” It happened during a period when the woman was working at Wal-Mart and the daughter was home unsupervised. She was reported by a bitter ex-husband…

NB: Your photographs show three generations of poverty under one roof with no end to the cycle. Most of the men are in jail or have abandoned their partners and children. The women are battered in low-wage jobs, and the children, moved from apartment to shelter to youth homes, are traumatized, treated with prescription drugs for so-called learning disorders and depression. Through it all, more babies are being born. After spending five years photographing these families, what solutions can you imagine to stop the cycle?

AK: What saved me is this gift that came from the outside, almost like the big bang. I was lucky to meet some people who introduced me to radical thought. In these young women’s lives, there is no outside air getting in. You buckle down and accept hard work and drudgery, and you conform. The schools, rather than trying to open their minds, are trying to just get them to learn a trade at best. Their parents have not gone through any higher education, so the way would not be paved by them.

The force that should have empowered these women was the feminist movement, but this took place among women of education and privilege and rarely reached “downward” to the sisters who could have not only benefited form the movement, but strengthened and diversified it in a way that would be valuable today in the empowerment of this permanent underclass of working female heads of household. This is the same problem that the youth movement of the ’60s tried to address when the college-educated organizers tried to recruit the children of the proletariat. It was not seen as valuable to working class youth. … It is the educated class that learns and takes seriously their role in the larger world. This is the role of education — to expand the worldview. It is not as simple as the working-class kids did not have time to think of philosophical matters like stopping the war or fighting hypocrisy; they just did not understand this kind of impractical thinking, nor were they groomed to feel a sense of duty to such causes. Also, there was a resentment and suspicion for the educated class that still lingers today.

I must say I am honored to be here with Senator Obama tonight. And once again I thank him for inviting me.

I’ve spent 35 years writing about America and its people. About what does it mean to be an American, what is our duty, our responsibility, what are our reasonable expectations when we live in a free society. I really never saw myself as partisan, but more as an advocate for a set of ideas: economic and social justice, America as a positive influence around the world, truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and to a life filled with the dignity of work, promise and the sanctity of home. These are the things that make a life. These are the things that build and define a society. And I think that these are the things that we think of the deepest level when we think about our freedom.

But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally adrift administration. So we’re at the crossroads today. And I spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance in my music between the American dream and the American reality. And I look around today and for many Americans who are losing their jobs, or their homes or are seeing their retirement funds disappear and don’t have health care, who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that dream and that reality have grown greater and more painful than ever.

And I believe that Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his own work. And I believe that he understands in his heart the cost of that distance in blood and in suffering in the lives of everyday Americans. And I believe as president, he’ll work to bring that promise back to life, and into the lives of so many of our fellow Americans who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning.

Now in my job I travel around the world and I occasionally play to big stadiums or crowds like this, just like Senator Obama does. And I continue to find out that wherever I go, America remains a repository for people’s hopes, their desires. It remains a house of dreams. And a thousand George Bush’s and a thousand Dick Cheney’s will never be able to tear that house down. That’s something that only we can do, and we’re not going to let that happen.

This administration will be leaving office—that’s the good news. The bad new is that they’re going to be dumping in our laps the national tragedies of Katrina, and Iraq, and our financial crisis. Our house of dreams has been abused, it’s been looted, and it’s been left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power, and for influence, for a quick buck. It needs strong arms, strong hearts, strong minds. We need someone with Senator Obama’s understanding, his temperateness, his deliberativeness, his maturity, his pragmatism, his toughness, and his faith. But most of all it needs us—it needs you and it needs me. And he’s gonna need us. Cause all that a nation has that keeps it from coming apart is the social contract between us, between its citizens. And whatever grace God has decided to impart to us, it resides in our connection with one another, and in our life and the hopes and the dreams of the man or the woman up the street or across town—that’s where we make our small claim upon heaven.

Now in recent years that social contract has been shredded. We look around today and we can see it shredding before our eyes. But tonight and today we are at the crossroads. We are at the crossroads, and it’s been a long, long, long time coming.

I’m honored to be here on the same stage as Senator Obama. From the beginning there’s been something in Senator Obama that’s called upon our better angels. And I suspect it’s because he’s had a life, where he’s had so often to call upon his better angels. And we’re going to need all the angels we can get on the hard road ahead. So Senator Obama, help us rebuild our house big enough for the dreams of all our citizens. It’s how well we accomplish this task that’ll tell us just what it does mean to be an American in the new century, what the stakes are and what it means to live in a free society.

So I don’t know about you, but I know I want by country back. I want my dream back. I want my America back! Now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

Brilliant! Just brilliant. Just… the best way to go into the day before the election. With a renewed sense of belly-shaking, coordination, and attention to detail. I LOVE this comedy crew.

Get out and vote, yo. And shake that belly.

This morning on my drive to work, I tuned into Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman (who was arrested for asking the police why her colleagues had been arrested). Among the insightful reporting on the constitutional violations that the riot police committed, she shared an audio clip of her producer Nicole Salazar essentially filming her own arrest. The audio was almost unbearable. And then this evening I saw the actual video:

Absolutely unbearable and horrifying.

What’s happening in the video: Salazar is filming (she’s a producer for a well-respected tv and video show, and she has full official press pass information around her neck). Riot police come swarming in from 3 sides. You can hear her saying Where do you want me to go? as they’re rushing the crowd. She screams “I’m Press! I’m Press!” as she’s being pushed by them. They take her down to the ground, stomp her face in the asphalt, one officer puts his elbow in her back, the other picks her up by her leg, she tries to keep her face up off the ground so it doesn’t get macerated from being dragged while elbow is in back and other is holding her leg. She ends up with a bloody nose and a scratched up face. And she’s still detained. (info from witnesses)

Her charge?

CONSPIRACY TO RIOT. What was she doing? Videotaping the protests and interviewing people. She’s still being detained. The Department of Pre-Crime (Minority Report reference) is in FULL EFFECT.

Salazar is just one of the 250 people who were detained or arrested for conspiracy to riot. And she’s a journalist — so not only are the riot police attacking her, they’re attacking the right of the free press to report. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a video of Amy Goodman on the situation a short while after her arrest:

Amy Goodman, world-reknown and widely respected journalist broadcaster of the show Democracy Now!, being arrested for ASKING the police why they were doing what they were doing.

Yes, a woman peacefully holding a flower, getting pepper sprayed. (thanks to BFP for the video)

Just two examples of the violent protesters being nicely moved away by our police state. If this doesn’t infuriate you then I don’t know how you can believe in a free America.

- – - – -

As the DNC and RNC created “Free Speech Zones” far from the actual conventions, and as police are now pulling out tasers, concussion grenades, and tear gas at peaceful protesters at the RNC in Twin Cities Minnesota, and as police horses are stampeding protesters, and as cameras and cellphones are being seized without reason, and as police in the twin cities in Minnesota are jailing some without reason and threatening others, and as a friend of mine is involved in the Northstar Collective (a group of medics and others who have been preparing for months to provide medical and psychological support for victims of the police during the RNC), and as I’m hearing about victims of tear gas streaming into the Northstar makeshift clinics, I don’t know what to think.

Protests SHOULD matter, but increasingly they don’t, and people are criminalized and made out to be america-hating anarchists for it. Folks around America should be enraged, but it’s a bit hard to when the media isn’t covering it (and the media who IS is being arrested for it) and when the convergence of Palin/McCain and RNC media and Hurricane Gustav are all occurring at the same time.

In any case, I’m really proud of the folks who are tirelessly covering it.

The ColdSnapLegal collective is live-twittering (short live-blog posts) about up to date arrests and civil rights violations occurring at the RNC protests. Check out their messages here. And check out their website here. Thank you so much ColdSnapLegal.

Here are some of their latest twitter posts:

Cops threatening to arrest everybody @ river walk – 300+ ppl inc. medics, legal observers, journalists, concertgoers, kids. Tear gas used.

Mass arrests on Jackson & 9th, including Democracy Now! journalists Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddou, Nicole Salazar.

Ramsey Cty jail on lockdown – no lawyers allowed inside. St. Joseph hospital also on lockdown, denying people water.

Steady stream of folks with pepper spray injuries at the Northstar clinic; medic headed to jail with supplies soon.

2 medics arrested at 6th & Wall

7th & Jackson arrests at 30-40. Democracy Now! journalists among those arrested at Temperance. Lots of police brutality among these arrests.

Anti-capitalist bloc being tear gassed on Jackson by river.

Pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades being used in more locations than we can write in one tweet right now.

Person tackled by 5 SPPD in riot gear for refusing a search. Media was present for this.

~300 people being stampeded by police horses on 2nd & Kellogg

Cops are getting ready to gas funk the war blockade at kellogg and wabasha. Legal observers needed there now.

Others reporting on this (because the mainstream media is late to it):

Firedoglake (with videos and up to date reports)

The Uptake

Amazing to see so many folks using YouTube, Qik video (upload from phone), Twitter, and other social networking means for the dissemination of this much-needed information.

Last I checked, I thought we were living in the free world, not Beijing…

Stephen Colbert and Nas bring it.

Lyrics to “Sly Fox” by Nas below…
(more…)

I can’t even imagine how much work went into this project:

More short films by these innovators at eatPES or their YouTube channel.

Tomorrow night brings a very special event. Los Angeles folks — if you’re free, come on out and support! It’s called NOT EXACTLY THE PIXIES and it’s at The Echo (1822 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles), doors @9pm, show starts @9:30pm.

Local LA musicians will perform songs from The Pixies, as a benefit for the Downtown Womens Center (a truly beautiful and empowering organization serving over 2000 homeless and low-income women). My brother’s going to be in one of the bands, playing geeeeetar! And my wonderful friend Jen DeMartino put together this event, found the performers, and organized everything, in her spare time. If you go, she’ll be the one MC’ing and she’ll be singing in one of the bands.

More details at this piece over at LAist.com. There will also be raffles and other fun things.

The venue’s NOT big and it’s going to get packed quicky, so come early if you can!

How is it that a white “feminist” blogger who has been called out in the recent past for appropriating the work of women of color bloggers, publishes a book with retro-racist cover art, changes the cover art in response to calls of racism, and several months later comes out with the first printing of said book, with numerous other racist retro-art images STILL contained in the book, even though they do not relate to the book’s content, finds herself again amongst criticism of racist imagery, then apologizes and states that the second printing of the book will omit those images?

I mean, there’s a point where the supposed “ignorance” about imagery in your OWN damn book TWO different times reaches blatant INDIFFERENCE to the issue. A perceptive 10 year old could tell that the images were racist. Don’t tell me that a prominent white “feminist” blogger couldn’t. And that many of her fans think the images are being taken too seriously by many women, and that they’re just there for irony’s sake. This, after ALL the recent controversy about this said author appropriating. Fascinating. Just fascinating. And absolutely despicable.

More on the issue here (and much more articulately stated than my post):

Feministe (Holly) — It’s a Jungle in Here

Dear White Feminists (tagline: “Quite Goddamn Fucking Up”): Update

I understand that Amanda Marcotte has apologized for the racist imagery in her book, and that Seal Press (the publishing house) has apologized for the same, and that’s wonderful and all, but you know it’s just NOT ENOUGH. Especially after Marcotte’s repeated snarky comments about not appropriating women of color bloggers’ work and her refusal to accept her mistake in not at least linking to some prior work by WOC feminists on her alternet piece on immigration/violence/gender. This is a typical comment from her:

I dislike, strongly, people who treat feminism like a cool kids club and guard the borders to make sure that we don’t grow. There’s a lot effort spent trying to bash people who popularize ideas, and then everyone sits around wondering why young women don’t call themselves feminists. Gosh, maybe we should have reached out more, no?

And Seal Press, who I can’t see as respectful, after comments like this in response to a a comment from a woman of color blogger (best summarized here):

I get that you all engage best through negative discourse, but I find that too bad. It’s not servitude when we pay our authors advances. And book publishing is not an industry of outreach as much as it is editors being presented with an idea and engaging would-be authors in creative co-creation. I just find it curious more than anything that you all are wasting your time hating (yes, purposeful reuse of the word) rather than actively engaging in changing something you find problematic. I totally respect the creative space.

I recall seeing that comment and being SO very incensed at the comment aimed at women of color bloggers as a group: “I get that you all engage best through negative discourse.” Seal Press later apologized about their reactions on their blog, but failed to apologize for this very statement. Classic.

- – - – - -

This is just salt in the wounds of ANOTHER recent controversy involving Amanda Marcotte and white feminist’s appropriation of women of colors’ writings. Others have written about this said controversy in very thoughtful ways, so instead of trying to restate what’s been so beuatifully said, I’ll link to some of the pieces that give it context and reflect on it (with the caveat that tens of bloggers have written amazing posts on this issue, i’m just linking a few):

Feministe: “This has not been a good week for women of color blogging”

Problem Chylde/Sylvia: “Don’t Hate, Reappropriate”

Dear Whilte Feminists: “An Open Letter to the White Feminist Community” (where about 30 other bloggers’ responses to the controversy are also linked)

PhysioProf: “Intellectual Appropriation, Attribution of Credit, and Privilege”

One of the most amazing writers I’ve ever known, Brownfemipower, who I had the wonderful grace of hanging out with during the United States Social Forum last year, has shut down her blog as a result of this controversy. On a daily basis her writings have previously helped me unlearn and re-learn the truth about marginalized communities, violence, and dreaming about a better world. I learned more from her writings in the last two years than I did through most of college and beyond.

Brownfemipower has written a response to all the controversy: “Some Context”. An excerpt:

No, actually, I know I’m brownfemipower and I want to end violence against women. And I wanted to do that with all the women who keep insisting to me that we are all in this together and we have common problems that we have to work against and we’re all sisters, and there is such thing as a commonality of experience between us all—as I said in my original post—I thought feminism was important because it brought women together (I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.)

But how can it have “brought us together” when my implicit goal in feminist centered media justice is to write erased communities into existence—and the result of the work of the ’sister’ down the street is the erasure of the same communities I’m working to write into existence? (And no, I do NOT accept that I or any other fucking Latina out there should just be “grateful” that our work is being talked about while we remain hidden in the shadows. Even now, as a person who explicitly rejects feminism, I KNOW that Latinas have the right to demand that the work we do not be hidden in some dark silent space that nobody talks about and everybody avoids even as everybody else eats all the fruit that we pick. Yes, even Latina writers have the right to fucking unionize and come into the light.)

There is no “feminist movement” because the work being done is not just conflicting with the work of other “sisters”—it’s directly negating it.

Something to think very seriously about.

It’s comforting to know that a lot of serious reflection has occurred in the “blogosphere” after these controversies, but still, there’s major work to be done and wounds to be healed.

As BFP often says, La lucha continua…

A little more than a week ago, I interviewed Robin Sukhadia, an amazing and accomplished tabla performer and teacher, on his innovative artists residency in Los Angeles, called Tablacentric. The full interview is at LAist.com, where I’ve started writing. I’ve pasted it below too. If you get a chance, check out the event. Ok, interview here:

This month, from March 13th through April 12th, the folks at Machine Project are hosting Tablacentric — an entire month devoted to the concept and feel of not the snare drum, not the piano, but yet another form of percussion — the tabla — a majestic drum originating in South Asia.

For the entire month, 12 pairs of tabla will be setup in the gallery for all students and performers to touch and play. A series of classical and contemporary concerts featuring local and international tabla artists will help to present tabla in a performance context. Cooking classes, instrument invention workshops, film screenings and listening sessions will also provide cultural context to tabla and South Asian rhythm as well.

The concept is conceived and developed by Robin Sukhadia, a recent MFA graduate of Cal Arts’ World Music Program, who performs and mixes tabla beats, teaches tabla and other instruments, and sets up music education programs in other countries. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area but is spending the month here in Los Angeles as part of Machine Project’s artist in residency program.

LAist sat down and talked with Sukhadia about tablas, robots and tablas, giving tablas away to kids in other countries, and Los Angeles.
(more…)

Missed it missed it missed it. I totally forgot that the performance “En Un Sol Amarillo: Memorias de un temblor” (English translation “In a Yellow Sun: Memories of an Earthquake”) was in its last week at the Kirk Douglas Theater nearby (SO close to where I live). It looks powerful, beautiful, minimalist, and the theater is always a pleasure to see performances at. Above is a video clip from the performance.

From the description:

“Fusing actual testimonies with electrifying imagery, Teatro de Los Andes, one of the most influential and renowned theatrical groups in South American theatre, recreates the feverish atmosphere of Bolivia in 1998 when a massive earthquake rocked the country’s foundations. Timeless in its urgency, En Un Sol Amarillo sheds light on the calamity and corruption that followed. A gripping story told with wit, pathos, simplicity and creativity as it sounds an alarm for strikingly similar events both abroad and at home. (Performed in Spanish with English supertitles).

Y en espanol:
En una fusión de testimonios reales con imágenes conmovedoras, Teatro de los Andes, uno de los más respetados y prestigiosos colectivos del teatro latinoamericano, recrea la opresiva atmósfera que caracterizó a Bolivia ante el terremoto sufrido por ese país en 1998. Con una urgencia que traspasa fronteras temporales, En un sol amarillo arroja luz sobre la corrupción y las calamidades que se generalizaron a partir de ese evento. Se trata de una historia apasionante, narrada con ingenio, patetismo y simplicidad; una historia cuyos ecos resuenan hoy ante eventos similares, aquí o en cualquier parte. (En español con supertitulos en inglés).

Shoot! Well, I haven’t had success trying to find out if the performance group is touring in the US after los angeles (supposedly they performed in NYC in January), but if this is playing soon in your city you should see it…

It is upon us! The 10th anniversary MUTINY event is here, TODAY, and it’s time to reunion-ize and party at the first regular south-asian influenced electronic music event in the states! I’m DJing along with my fabulous co-residents Zakhm, Siraiki, Navdeep, and the famous DJ Rekha. We threw this party every month for 6 years (I jumped in durng year two) and it started with beautiful intentions — as a fundraiser for Siraiki (aka Vivek Bald)’s documentary called MUTINY: Asians Storm British Music (about the south asian electronica scene in Britain). The first party (the fundraiser) was super successful and it turned into a beautiful monthly event.

Summer MUTINY parties were off the hook and held at the Frying Pan, a boat anchored at Pier 63 on the west side of NYC (the boat was previously submerged for years and quite rusted). Winters were wonderful, as MUTINY was a warm (HOT!) place to dance and listen to damn good music. We had special guest performers most months, from the UK, India, and other parts of the US. We stopped throwing parties after 6 years as we were all working in various other projects and spread out by this point across the country. TONIGHT very special guest from the UK – Talvin Singh – is doing a DJ set, and the lovely Shaa’ir + Func are performing!

But now we’re back together again for one HOT night. More info at the MUTINY website (info on the MUTINY documentary too). I’ll be DJing an “early set” and a “late set” — though the party starts at 10pm so early is really not that early and late is “madrugada” as they say in Spanish. BUT alas, the end of daylight savings time means you get one extra hour for MUTINY. And TONIGHT very special guest from the UK – Talvin Singh – is doing a DJ set, and the lovely Shaa’ir + Func are performing!

And, most of all, please pretty please with sugar on top come say hi to me! I’d love to see ya’ll — old friends and people i’ve never met before. Bring it!

PJ Harvey ROCKS. The above video of her performing “Rid of Me” at the Big Day Out Festival in Australia says it all — angst and passion and sensuality and twistedness and an amazing performance. My brother and I off to experience a PJ Harvey performance tomorrow at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.

She’s already performed in New York City at the launch of this tour, and this is what the critics have to say about her most recent tour:

Looking like one of the Brontë sisters in a white frock dress, the indie rocker, now almost 40 (!), performed a motley mix of songs to a reverential crowd at her only scheduled show on the East Coast.

Sans opening act and backing band, Harvey played a 90-minute set drawing from all parts of her discography, with a focus on her minimalist but likable new album, White Chalk. Despite some time out of the spotlight and, well, the effects of aging, her vocal range still filled every square inch of the venue, on songs like the erotic “This Is Love” and the startling “Down by the Water.”

Harvey moved around the stage, which was decorated with a few simple Christmas lights, alternately playing the guitar and funking around with amps, keyboards, cymbals, and even a maraca. (2004’s Uh Huh Her featured Harvey on every instrument, save for the drums.)

It’s gonna be quite an experience. The Orpheum Theatre is an elegant venue, and the audience is never too far from the stage. My brother and a few friends and I saw Ani Difranco perform there last year — it was intimate and beautiful. I probably won’t go as crazy as I did with recording the Bright Eyes concert at the Hollywood Bowl (videos here), but I may get a photo or two at the concert, which I’ll share, of course.

Photos from pretty damn close to the stage, at the Hollywood Bowl (Bright Eyes + LA Philharmonic, M Ward performing):

Above:  Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst) and M Ward performing “Smoke without Fire” – Hollywood Bowl.

Above:  M Ward performing at Hollywood Bowl

Above:  Setting up the LA Philharmonic after M Ward’s performance and before Bright Eyes’ performance with the orchestra

“Lime Tree” performed by Bright Eyes and the LA Philharmonic — the last song of the night before the encore.

Bright Eyes and the LA Philharmonic made saturday night’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl such an emotional and beautiful experience for my friends and I. It was an added bonus that our seats were 30 feet away from the stage at a venue that fits 18,000 people! I got some good video (especially given my location), though it was taken on a digital camera that’s getting a bit old (soon, soon, i’ll try to think about investing in a videocamera). We were so close that we could see and hear EVERYTHING — even Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes’ singer) hitting his cowboy boot’s heel on the ground. Got some good views of the beautiful man all night too :>

M Ward and Yo La Tengo opened up, and both were great performances. I’ve uploaded a whole ton of video (almost 1 gigabyte worth) to my YouTube account, i’ll share some more videos here in upcoming blog posts.

Yes Yes! At the beautiful hollywood bowl outdoors (bright eyes will be accompanied by the LA Philharmonic!). Let’s just say we (my brother, friends, and I) are sitting up in the Pool Circle area. Yes, that’s SO close that I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up playing drums on stage. Ha! Below are some fantastic videos of Bright Eyes, M Ward performing. Enjoy!

“At the Bottom of Everything” (Bright Eyes and M Ward performing together)

Beautiful music video for “At the Bottom of Everything”

“When the President Talks to God” (Bright Eyes on the Jay Leno Show)

“Right in the Head” (M Ward)

Does this irk you? It irks me. I saw it at the Women of Color blog (check out the rest of the post here), where Brownfemipower (BFP) breaks it down. Other than portraying native americans as passive wusses, well-intentioned cartoons like this deny the history of native american resistance and as BFP says so well:

They imply that the colonization of indigenous land is parallel to or equivalent to the migration of brown people over falsely created borders.

Exactly.

Last night, my brother and two friends and I headed to OutFest, the annual Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. We saw a beautiful short film called Talking about Amy by Yorico Murakami — all animation, and all about the filmmaker’s thoughts on a friend’s free-spirited views on family and social norms. She narrated the film while stop-animations were going on to describe the abstract and concrete thoughts in her head. 9 minutes. That’s all we got, but every second of it was beautiful.

Then the feature film went on — Spider Lilies — a taiwanese film that deals with two womens’ losses and coming to terms and blah blah blah the details of the movie are less significant than the fact that I need to see more movies. Why? Because the symbolism in the movie was partly lost on me, and I was left taking a crucial piece of the story as literal. Oops. Thank goodness my brother could point out the symbolism and I didn’t have to ask the 2 other friends we went there with, who are filmmakers and cinematographers, the stupid questions. (hopefully they’re not reading this).

I’ve been so heavily involved with the literal that I’ve lost some appreciation for the symbolic. I really need to see more movies. Oh hey, OutFest is going on for another week! Jackpot.

Carnivals are cruise ships.  Carnivals are also blog roundups on a variety of issues.  I’m a big fan of the recently created “Carnival of Radical Action”.  Other than just sounding kickass, it’s a powerful blog roundup of posts that speak to effective actions, education, and radical thought.  Here’s the latest carnival (number 3), which is, even more excitedly focused around the Allied Media Conference from last month, in Detroit.  I was slated to go, speak, but was most excited to meet some of these people i hope to always surround myself with — energetic media makers, radical thought-sayers and beautiful booty shakers. Alas, I wasn’t able to make it, but thanks to the carnival that Nadia put together this month, I (and you too) can get a taste of the delicious deliveries of the conference. It’s posted at No Snow Here, so check it out.

Welcome to the third edition of the Carnival of Radical Action! This installment is inspired by the recent Allied Media Conference, and themed on media as a tool for organizing, education and social change…

In putting together this collection of blog posts, articles, poems, photos, videos and zines, I am even more convinced that we are populating the world with our messages by all means available to us. We aren’t just using media, but redefining media, to communicate with each other, speaking our truths, documenting our experiences, and recording our movements.

The Boston Globe did a story on my buddy Labid Aziz:

After nearly 10 years in Boston producing commercials and public service announcements for nonprofits, businesses , and other clients, Aziz moved to Los Angeles in December to pursue his dreams of becoming a Hollywood producer. But Aziz, who still splits his time between LA and Boston, wants to do more than just make movies. He wants to challenge what he sees as stereotypes of South Asians, Arabs, Muslims, and other ethnic and religious groups in film and television while showing younger people of the same backgrounds that not only can they make it in film and television but that film and television need them.

Crazy Labid is doing some fine thangs.  He’s good, good people, with some serious positive energy.  Funny, at his recent house party, a few of us got into discussion about the role of south asians and acting (see previous post “Just pretend you’re a terrorist”).  More from the article:

“There’s no question that if we had more diversity in terms of directors and producers, and anybody behind the camera, there would be more opportunities, the roles would be more complex and less stereotypical,” said Angel Rivera, director of diversity at the Screen Actors Guild in California. He has written to producers of television hospital shows, reproaching them for not casting more South Asians.

Recent reports from the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America show that minorities and women are underrepresented in their industries. And when they are underrepresented in “behind-the-camera” positions, they’ll be underrepresented on the screen as well, Rivera said…

“There’s a sense of responsibility on some level, as an artist of color and as an artist from that part of the world who is American, to explore this stuff with a certain amount of complexity, and to present the complexity and nuance to what is often lacking nuance and complexity,” said [Aasif] Mandvi [my newest Daily Show Correspondent hero].

From
“Erasing Tattoos, Out of Regret or for a New Canvas” (NYTimes, June 17, 2007)

On the horizon is a development that could change the very nature of tattooing: a type of ink encapsulated in beads and designed to break up after one treatment with a special laser.

The technology for the ink, called Freedom-2, was developed by scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brown and Duke Universities. It is to go on sale this fall.

“We think the fence-sitters who always wanted a tattoo but have been afraid of the permanence will jump in and get tattoos,” said Martin Schmieg, the chief executive of Freedom-2. “But as your life changes from young to middle-aged to older, from single to married to divorced, you get tattoo regret, so we think the tattoo removal market will increase as well.”

There are no hard statistics on tattoo removal, but Catherine A. Kniker, a senior vice president for Candela, a laser manufacturer, calculated that Americans may have 100,000 laser tattoo removal treatments this year.

Tattoos have been used for centuries to reflect changes in life status, whether passage into adulthood or induction into a group like the military or a gang. In recent years, tattoos have also become a fashion accessory, a trend fueled by basketball players, bands and celebrities.

A report by the Food and Drug Administration estimated that as many as 45 million Americans have tattoos. The report based the number on the finding by a Harris Interactive Poll in 2003 that 16 percent of all adults and 36 percent of people 25 to 29 had at least one tattoo. The poll also found that 17 percent of tattooed Americans regretted it.

Wow, 36 percent of folks in my age group have at least one tattoo. My friend Thilan just got a sweet one on his arm, done in Las Vegas. I’m working out some details for a design that may never come to fruition because the permanence of it all is ruining my creativity. But now with this removable ink… :>

Friends and I volunteer to do tattoo removals at a clinic set up at Homeboy Industries in East LA, for former gang members. It’s called Ya ‘Stuvo. And the Yag laser we use is dope. And big and scary.  So watch it. :>

Here’s a wonderful visualization of obesity in various countries around the world (ok and it’s super cute too):

“The percentage of the population older than 15 with a body-mass index greater than 30.” We in the United States officially win. It’s interesting that Mexico’s 2nd in the world. Is the fast food industry as hopping in mexico as it is here? Does any of this have to do with NAFTA and cross-border exports into Mexico? Our other neighbor, Canada, is doing much better than both of us. What intuitively about mexico on its own could contribute to this high a rate of obesity? And what’s with the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic both scoring in the top 10? And my dorky comment of the day — Hungary isn’t very hungry.

(though that’s a joking commentary about hungary. I know that food insecurity and food insufficiency are huge in the United States even though we’ve got the most obese people by percentage of total population, in the world).

thanks to ezra klein for the link, and thanks to wellingtongrey for the visualization.

From Off the Beaten Beat, NYTimes May 12, 2007:

But Mr. Patrick’s hallmark remains the cheap, on-the-fly, do-it-yourself concert, promoted through his Web site (toddpnyc.com), his e-mail list (13,000 strong) and MySpace, blog and newspaper and magazine listings. Essentially a one-man band, Mr. Patrick, 31, has interns who work the door (ticket prices rarely go above $10) and stamp hands (he only does all-ages shows) while he helps set up.

“Because the idea is about D.I.Y., I like to show the strings,” he said. “I want people to come to the show and see me build the P.A. system, see that there’s nothing glossy about what we’re doing. I think alternative venues are a great way of doing that. It just kind of throws it off. If a club is the quote-unquote appropriate place to see music, why do people have so much more fun in a warehouse?”

Last weekend was typical: On Saturday night he booked shows at two unexpected spaces, an Ecuadorian restaurant across from a low-income housing project in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and a loft apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. Both drew several hundred people to outer-borough neighborhoods not typically known as destinations.

The restaurant, Don Pedro, had a full menu of ceviche, $3 bottles of Negra Modelo and a small stage in a brick-walled back room where Cass McCombs, a singer with a Lou Reed croon, performed to a packed house. William Alberque, 36, a Defense Department analyst visiting from Washington and a longtime fan of Mr. McCombs’s, said he preferred seeing him anywhere but a rock club. “The D.I.Y. spirit is wonderful,” he said. “It’s just you and the band, five feet away. You buy into what’s happening so much more. It gives you musical butterflies.”

At the loft there was even less distance (and more butterflies). The headliner, Dan Deacon, a sensitive electro-party rocker from Baltimore, performed on a patch of carpet in the middle of the room. No stage or bouncer separated him from his audience, which swarmed around, fists pumping, creating a heaving, dancing, steaming mosh pit. Even the walls vibrated.

And the financial structure is beautiful…

Mr. Deacon, 25, credits Mr. Patrick with helping propel his career from unknown novelty act a year and a half ago to headliner today. (He plays the Mercury Lounge tomorrow.) “He helps out-of-town bands break and get known in New York more than anyone else I know,” Mr. Deacon said in a bedroom after the loft show. Nearby, interns counted the door money; Mr. Patrick takes 10 percent before expenses (security, interns) and the rest goes to performers. (Mr. Deacon noted that he made more money at Mr. Patrick’s shows than at regular club gigs.)

So — anyone know where this kind of D.I.Y. stuff is going on in Los Angeles? I’m down!

Yes, yes! Tonight! I’ve written about Rupa and the April Fishes previously on this blog. They graced Los Angeles with their presence in March 2007 (part of the Por la Frontera Tour from San Francisco to Tijuana). Here’s a personal quote from Rupa (who’s also a resident physician in internal medicine at UCSF and sees firsthand the struggles of immigrants through their health experiences):

This tour was inspired by several patients i met working at sf general, immigrants who came to health care too late in their disease process for fear of being deported. it struck me as messed up that a policy could alienate someone from their own sense of health so much that they would not seek help when they knew they needed it.

Below and above are two videos I’ve uploaded from the show at Temple Bar, Santa Monica, in March. They’ll make you want to dance all burlesque and stuff. Disclaimer — these videos were taken on an it’s-getting-up-there-in-age digital camera (not a videocamera) and I kept running out of memory so I wasn’t able to capture the whole songs (but nost of them).

Ok, so meet us there! Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 North Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles. 7pm! We can all hang with the band afterwards, groupie style :>

Want more?

• SUPER fun video from their Extraordinary Rendition cd release party at the Independent in SF.
• Rupa and the April Fishes MySpace page.
• Rupa and the April Fishes website.

Thanks to the impulsivity and spontaneity of a friend and I, we bought tix to Coachella Music Festival (this weekend) YESTERDAY. We’re head out in a few hours, staying at a friend’s place in Palm Springs, and checking out Saturday’s lineup of the festival. Sunday am is hiking/strolling time in the Joshua Tree National Park. Last year a few friends and I spent a half-day at the park before the Coachella madness and I enjoyed it — it was my first time ever in that national park (remember i’m a transplant fro the eas’ coas’). Don’t be fooled by “Los Anjalis” into thinking I’ve got generations of presence in this big ol’ city and state.

Last year two wonderful friends flew in from SF (via Paris where she was finishing a vacation there) and Cleveland to check out Coachella with my brother and I. It was grand. I found god through the music of Massive attack and i’m NOT kidding. Their music and their performance (i’ve got some video from a subsequent performance at the Hollywood Bowl this past summer, i’ll upload it to youtube) had me entranced and feeling every single emotion in the span of one hour. I laughed, cried, and was transported to a higher place (and I hadn’t smoked anything). I’ve loved Massive Attack since the early 1990′s but hadn’t seen them perform live EVER (this was their first performance in the United States in eight years!) Above — a photo of Sigur Ros (not massive attack, but so beautiful) performing at Coachella 2006.
What I’ll be missing (life is good when one choice means foregoing other options):

Opening night of “Gimme Shelter“, an art exhibit featuring 150 (!) artists who were given a piece of cardboard to paint/sculpt on. This exhibit benefits the National Coalition for the Homeless, an amazing organization. Good thing it runs for a few weeks :>

And Freewayblogging reminds us that tomorrow is the Big Day — the day of coordinated nationwide impeachment acts.

Freeway blogger posted some signs on freeways in LA this week — did you see them? Some photos here as well as how-to’s on making signs in a few minutes and posting them up in even fewer minutes! Hmm…the drive to the california desert tonight might be a good space to employ some creative “postings” :>