In Those Years

In those years, people will say,
we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history
screamed and plunged
into our personal weather

They were headed somewhere else
but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore
through the rags of fog
where we stood,
saying I

Adrienne Rich, 1991

Abominations

Today at Spasso's, my favourite local fair-trade-coffee-and-tea-cafe, I saw a jar of Memoirs of A Geisha Cherry Green Tea

AAAAAARGHHHH!!!

OK, this is clearly a call for me to re-post........

Memoirs of a Geisha

The time has come to reveal to the world the novel I've been writing in secret. I don't want to boast, but I suspect it will be a runaway bestseller, a literary sensation. It presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of the Vatican's most celebrated Swiss Guards.

Teaser - Synopsis:

Chapter 1: Wherein we meet our hero, in the 1930s, child of a poor Alpine goatherd. Possessed of ethereal blond beauty, his most striking feature is (pay attention, this is important) a pair of flashing coal-black eyes.

Umm - reality check? you say. I've never seen someone blond and Swiss with coal-black....look, it's a novel. Fiction. Geddit? Who's the one getting calls from Oprah here?

Chapter 2-3: Wherein our hero loses home, parents, siblings, in unusually rapid succession, without the help of tsunamis, earthquakes or any other disasters. But, somewhere amidst all this, he has a random encounter with The Pope. The Pope gets a full wattage, 5-second freeze frame of our hero's (pay attention, this is important) flashing coal-black eyes.

Chapters 4 - 16: Our hero-victim finds himself in military school for the Swiss Guards. Persecuted by a vicious headmaster, bullied by the idolized and powerful headboy, he nevertheless demonstrates exceptional aptitude for the intricacies of puffed sleeves, knickerbockers, and sword balancing. Don't snigger - getting the hose of knickerbockers smooth is an ancient and demanding art. The angle and degree of puffage carry subtle erotic messages, codified over centuries (Hint: Back Of The Knee).

At the nadir of his apprenticeship, a prominent guard from another House suddenly takes our hero under his wing. Cinderella? Never heard of it. I don't know what you mean. This plot is uniquely original, OK? You're just jealous because I came up with it first.

Chapters 16 - 19: Our hero is presented to the public (within the cloistered confines of the Vatican). We follow him through the elaborately mannered rituals of his profession, and the various reactions to his flashing coal-black eyes.

Chapters 19 - 24: A fierce bidding war erupts among powerful men of unspecified profession for the prize of our hero's virginity. The drama! The backstabbing rivalries! The tortuous twists and manipulations! The markets in options and futures! The coy euphemisms! The prurient details of genital minutiae! The moment-by-moment description of the deflowering! The millimeter-by-millimeter removal of the knickerbockers!!

This section of the book is the one I take greatest pride in. It's no exaggeration to say that these five chapters are the apex of my craft as a writer. There were moments I completely lost myself in the power of the story - until I had to get it together to wipe the drool off my keyboard.

Chapters 25 - 34: Our hero encounters The Pope again. The Pope compliments him on the elegance of his knickerbocker management. World War II comes and goes in a few pages. A couple of hundred thousand people get slaughtered, but our hero suffers chiefly from the interruption of quality laundering for his knickerbockers. Different Cardinals vie for our hero's favors, but his longing for the Pope is unwavering.

Chapter 35: Our hero turns 25, and is no longer of interest to anyone, including his creator (myself) and the knickerbocker designers. The Pope sets him up in a little chocolate shop off the Via Veneto. Over the years, he develops a reputation for fine tartuffo, and a certain lingering je ne sais quois around the back of the knee.

My novel will take you into a world where appearances are paramount. A world which few outsiders have ever penetrated. Where a boy's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where winsome lads are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as an illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fetishism - er - fiction: at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.

Customised photo stamps coming soon. Gotta go - that's Spielberg on the line.

Censorship

Western media howled for weeks over freedom of speech and the clash of civilizations in the wake of the Danish Mohammed cartoon debacle. But there has been silence from the mainstream news outlets over the decision by the New York Theatre Workshop not to stage My Name is Rachel Corrie. A silence so deep it redefines vacuum and void

Leading American playwright, Tony Kushner, says in The Nation:

There is very highly organized attack machinery that will come after you if you express any kind of dissent about Israel's policies, and it's a very unpleasant experience to be in the cross hairs. These aren't hayseeds from Kansas screaming about gays burning in hell; they're newspaper columnists who are taken seriously.

From the Archives, 5/1/03: The Beauty We Know

I saw an exhibition recently at Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco's Mission District. This quote from the artist, Patrick “Pato” Herbert, stayed with me: So beauty is so profoundly subjective that just sharing the beauty that we know of each other becomes profoundly political.

That’s what we do as artists and activists. Share the beauty we know of each other, of lives outside the dominant culture, economy and media. Keep insisting on the beauty and value of those lives, those voices, those communities, worlds, and realities. Keep expanding the definitions of beauty.

dangerous beauty

The show I saw yesterday, by the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company.

Incredible how they linked oil addiction to global warming to hurricane katrina to racism to gun violence on oakland streets to war in iraq to personal choices to wake up or stay stuck in apathy - and did it with fierce, powerful joyful dance and tight compelling spoken word, all in just under 2 hours. They totally rocked.

One of the things that struck all of us was how incredible it was to see girls fully in their bodies. Potent, sensual, alive, warriors, goddesses, children, athletes - with no conflict or tension between all those different selves. What seemed to make it possible was that we heard their voices, before and between the dance. Telling us political truths, breaking down the world as they saw it. So they were "bodies that spoke", not just "bodies that moved."

It helped clarify the discomfort I've been grappling with around dance performances by other children - you can read about it in my piece on Children of Uganda.

From the Archives, 4/1/03: Flow

I'm thinking about flow this month. What flows and what doesn't. How to convert what does not flow: despair, lies, terror, paralysis, censorship, tyranny – into what does: tears, grief, histories, blood, energy, breath. I'm reading Ntozake Shange and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, feeding my vision of resistance art as the enzyme that makes flow.

Thanks to all of you for being out there. With your bodies, your voices, your prayers, your art, your skills, your services, your daily dogged determined work for humanity. I have seen you over and over on the streets, in the protests, behind the scenes – making things happen, stopping things happening, happening in a movement that will not be contained. You feed my spirit.

In community,
Shailja

NOTES FROM A LOST COUNTRY – A PARTIALLY FOUND PROSE POEM

"make tea not war make friends not war make gazpacho not war make saag paneer not war make me a channel of your peace not war make eggs"
From the window of Platanos, my local tapas joint.

Day 1 and 2 of Operation Iraqi Annihilation
protestors pack dowtown by day, helicopters
circle relentless by night. Until 4am, a flock
of roaring metal fists. Sleep impossible,
even with earplugs. Later, I hear
only one `copter was police –
the rest were media piranhas. Seeking flesh
to feed "Anarchy In San Francisco" headlines.

Snapshot 1, Anarchy in San Francisco:
8am, Market Street, at Beale. 7 activists do yoga asanas, beautiful as dancers on pavement. A radiance about them which draws a suit to set down his briefcase, join them, awkward, stiff. Facing these dangerous anarchists, row of cops. Full riot gear. Heavy boots, thick ugly uniforms, belts bristle with weapons. They would be ludicrous – if they weren't menacing. If we hadn't seen the footage – didn't know they will club and kick and strike at unarmed flesh.

Snapshot 2, Anarchy in San Francisco:
Lunchtime on Market and Main. Cops arrest non-violent protestors who sit in junction. Ratio: 6 police to every protestor. They fence us in on pavement, orc-line of cops up the street, all the way to Embarcadero. Female Asian officer right in front of me. Younger than me. Our faces level. No–eye–contact, gun-fat-on-hip, club-at-ready, legs-apart-boots-planted. Behind her, 4 cops carry limp protestor to van. I lean forward, eyes strain to record – one foot touches road. Her club, eyes, body, swing at me – GET BACK.

I've been waiting days to cry, thought my tears eloped with hope.
Now, before Officer I. Michaud, SFPD #915, and her cohorts, I cry.
Stand. Breathe. Cry.

Workplace conversation, day 2 of war.
"Are you all right?"
"No. 4 million pounds of bombs are falling on Iraq."
"Boy, you're not much fun today."
Did anyone have to explain not being `all right' on 9/11?

Palpable bewilderment of Pentagon, plaintive wail of playground bully: "But they weren't supposed to fight back!"

Dispatch, 1897, from Commander Jackson, British Army in Kenya, on resistance of Nandi people to British invasion: "...the ignorance of the people is so extreme that it is impossible to convey to such savages that the occupation of their country is not harmful to them..."

Column headline in Kenya's Daily Nation: "Pray That Kenya Never Discovers Oil."

"I want to do a Rip Van Winkle," I tell my lover. "Wake me in a hundred years if anything's better. If not, don't bother."
"Poor baby," he responds. "You need to drink more coffee."

I am chanting for the dead and dying, for the screaming survivors. Sarvesham shantir bhavatu – may peace be unto all. Sarvesham purnam bhavatu – may wholeness be unto all. May all be free of sorrow, pain, may all look to the good of others. I am chanting to hold my breath to my soul, my gut to my breath, my heart to my gut, my brain to my breathing heart.

"Ring the bell that still can ring." croons Leonard Cohen in his song, Anthem. "Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack in
everything. That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in."