habe ich zu viel gesagt?

take back the mic

coming September 28th:
ForWord Girls
The mission of ForWord Girls is to create a space/event for women writers and spoken word performers of all cultures and ages from all over. We want to come together and hear, teach, entertain and inspire each other. We want to share information about how we utilize the power of the word. We want to recognize, sustain and further envision a movement of girls who feel excited, skilled and unrestricted about using our voices as a force for self-expression, social change, and everything else we see fit to speak about.

my new red haircut went out for a cocktail last night and managed not to get into trouble.
I still don't quite recognize myself in the mirror.
I had at least four years of hair cut off... I watched while it got swept into a huge pile, and I said, "oh, I am so scared of that."
several people turned around and gazed at the pile. someone said, "wow. did that just get cut off your head?"
I nodded.
"oh, honey, it was time."

Marking Time, indeed.

what was it that M wrote on that note a few months ago?
the pursuit of happiness is highly underrated.
she's right.

a snippet from Eli's travel diary:
in Marseilles-
"Snack-bar girl at the station: 'Where are you from?' N.Y. 'Oh... I thought maybe you are a slave.' Do I look that tired? 'You know... like from my country, Czech.' Oh, a Slav..."

last night before bed I saw a big hairy mosquito with fangs flying around my apartment, and I spent a good twenty minutes trying to hunt it down and kill it before it could drain all my blood while I slept. I never found the damn thing, and of course this morning I had three bites: one huge red welt on my knee, and two on my arm. not as bad as it could be, but now my knee is itching like crazy, and in the absence of any witch hazel I am scratching with gleeful abandon. I'll be sorry later.
now I'll have to go home and try to find it again, before it gets another shot at me.
right after I buy another screen for my window.

what is it with the lack of screens in the windows of San Francisco? it's ridiculous. as if we didn't have bugs.
after my Night of the Killer Mosquito, I woke up and found a very large insect that resembled a cricket. it was just sitting on the carpet, looking depressed. It may have been a cricket; I'm embarrassed to say that I wasn't able to make a positive ID before I scooped it onto a postcard and tossed it out of the window... such a city girl I've become.
at first I didn't have my glasses on, and thought it was my mosquito, grown much, much larger, after feeding on my knee all night...

tonight I'm going to see the all new restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, at the Castro Theatre.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is amazing. I haven't seen him perform for a very long time. I think I will run out to buy one of his books now... because there is one line that I can't remember, that I just spent an hour online looking for... if I find it, I'll post it later.
read this stuff in the meantime, please.
"As far as I am concerned, we have no real government looking after the human being."

-On the other side of the Mexican mirror
A border artist reflects on the new "post-national Mexicans," their bittersweet relationship with "homeland,"and their role in the forming of a virtual nation inside the U.S. called "Latinoamerica del Norte."

-The Virtual Barrio @ The Other Frontier

excerpts from The New World Border:
-Freefalling Toward a Borderless Future
-The Free Trade Art Agreement/El Tratado de Libre Cultura

mmm, heute morgen gibt's frische blaubeeren zum frühstück...
In July of 1988 I arrived at my aunt's house in middle of a forest in Northern Germany. I was there to go to school in Lüneburg for a year. In the two weeks before the school year started, I had all the time in the world to wander through the forest alone... because of my jetlag and general discombobulation, I woke up very early some mornings and was out among the trees at 6 in the morning, walking aimlessly in the complete silence. A few times I startled a deer or two and watched them gallop gently through the trees into the distance. there were little valleys here and there just covered with tiny, tart wild blueberries, and sometimes I brought a small bucket and picked enough of them to bring back for breakfast...

it's a very gloomy, foggy morning here in San Francisco.
I don't know where this past week went. work is keeping me extremely busy, and the new apartment still needs a bit of work. the Cultural Anthropology class that D and I are taking started this week, too.
I rewarded myself with a damned good night's sleep last night, which was almost spoiled by unbelievably vivid and disturbing dreams. I woke up briefly at 5:30 am, wondering what the hell was going on- still half in the dream, trying to reassure myself that it wasn't real. people I haven't seen for 10 years appeared with people I see every day, and with people I haven't met yet. I should have gotten up to write it all down, but I only wanted to go back to blessed sleep.

let's eat books!

I finally bought my very own print of my favorite painting by Andrice Arp.
hurray!

=^..^=

listen to

Les Petits Sous, the cutest band ever.
I just ordered their cd from their website for six bucks! and it's good!

make me stronger, baby

That/Which Does Not Kill Us,
by D. Mahoney

Ich weiß jetzt, was kein Engel weiß...


ich habe nie mit jemandem gespielt,
und trotzdem habe ich nie die Augen geöffet und gedacht,
jetzt ist es ernst... endlich wird es ernst.
so bin ich älter geworden...
war ich alleine so unernst?
ist die Zeit so unernst?
einsam war ich nie, weder allein noch mit jemand anderem.
aber ich wäre gerne endlich einsam gewesen.
einsamkeit heißt ja, ich bin endlich ganz; jetzt kann ich daß sagen, denn ich bin heute nacht endlich ganz.
mit dem zufall muss es jetzt aufhören.
Neumond, der entscheidung; ich weiß nicht, ob es eine bestimmung gibt, aber es gibt eine entscheidung...

ha!
fixed!
now you may peruse the lovely archives!

presents

hurray!
Dennis made me a cranky face button!

ok, so there was no fabulous new outfit, and the night wasn't so tawdry, and the dives just aren't as cheap as they used to be.
still fun.
possibly I'm so tired because after I got home I stayed up to watch "Arizona Dream," which I rented on a whim, very late last night, after countless beers... I hadn't seen it for a very long time and wasn't sure I'd like it as much as I used to, but I do, I do. Emir Kusturica is an amazing director. Lili Taylor makes the whole movie, but all the acting is pretty spectacular- Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Vincent Gallo, Johnny Depp... these are not usually actors I'd get all excited about, but there's a pretty great chemistry in this weird little movie.
I'm a little hung over, and in no shape to write movie reviews. go click on the links and rent the damn thing.
xoxox

a toast to Saint Etheldreda

Main Entry: 1.taw·dry
Pronunciation: 'to-drE, 'tä-
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): taw·dri·er; -est
Etymology: tawdry lace a tie of lace for the neck, from Saint Audrey (Saint Etheldreda) died 679 queen of Northumbria
Date: 1676
: cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality; also : IGNOBLE
synonym see GAUDY

wisdom

good advice from a dear friend:

"Go get a fabulous new-used outfit and spend a tawdry night at a cheap dive!"

random self-indulgence mixed with truth and confusion

self-indulgence: finding my blog mentioned on some expat list?
-and I'm not sure who I am or why I have this section either.

ah, I see why the confusion about the word "hooey." it's a pretty funny exchange:

person 1: I read saw this line "This year's Oscars offered glimpses of gratitude and truth, but a whole lot of hooey as well." Anyone know the history behind the word "hooey"? Is it related to the Russian word?
person 2: Hooy, or plural hooey, the word used in the text you quoted, is not simply "related" to the Russian word, but it IS the Russian word which is a slang term for intruder or penetrator.
What the author possibly meant was the truth is that Hollywood hooeys all the world and this should not be tolerated.

let me hear an amen...

filtrada en frio!

if life were fair, I could see this sign from the 4th floor view of my new apartment.
life, however, is not fair, and they took down the 17 Reasons sign in June.
it had been there for 70 years.
instead, I can see this hideous billboard for MGD as part of my view.

17reasonswhy.org.
buy a t-shirt.
save the sign.

"For it is in this inadequate flesh that each of us must serve his dream, and so, must fail in the dream's service."
-Imogen Cunningham

In a conversation between Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Imogen Cunningham (recorded in U. S. Camera Magazine, August, 1955), the question of the danger of categorization came up. Dorothea Lange complained that she was put into a niche called "documentary photographer." She pointed out that Ansel Adams was typed as a landscape photographer. "And as far as Imogen is concerned, because she enjoyed photographing plant forms..." Imogen interrupted: "Oh people have forgotten that, Dorothea. They’ve forgotten that I ever did plant forms. You know, I’ve tried my best to sell people on the idea that I photograph anything that can be exposed to light." Her best photograph, she always felt, would be made tomorrow.
from this site.

here are some more of her fotos.
and some more.

"Somewhere in Brooklyn, Wesley Crusher falls silent forever."

right and....

This is hysterical:
Right, followed two days later by Actually.
from Textism.

This week's favorite FTrain selection:

A Kick
The topic of Israel and Palestine is too big, tragic, I can't even begin to scale it; I feel like a fool for even trying to write anything. It needs a Goethe, or a Shakespeare, or a Thomas Mann. Paul Ford just remembers walking around Tel Aviv looking for good falafel and feels bad for Bryan's ribs, and sad, and pissed, always confused.

This article about Kaliningrad in today's New York Times interests me greatly, for a variety of reasons which I'll try to write about later:
A Russian City Digs Up Its Past and Finds Germany

bruderchen, vielen dank für den artikel.

just an example of a poorly written sentence

people who forget to feed their cats because they're too busy hanging out with tramps suck.

this would better read:
people who are so busy hanging out with tramps that they forget to feed their cats can go to hell.
no, wait, that's not right either.
how about:
what's the etiquette on fresh exes reading blogs?

friday night.
it's hot.
from my windows I can see two palm trees. they're not moving. there's no breeze.
it's hot.
there's a pitiful little fan blowing wanly at me from across the room.
there's mariachi music faintly playing from the street somewhere.
I'm listening to 69 Love Songs.
I just got a card from Eli, who's in Italy.
I'm going to the below-mentioned benefit for Other Magazine in a short while, but I have to find my head first.

maybe I'll run away with the circus

here's a snippet from my weekly newsletter from Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology:

-Your secret name is Squeeze
-The colors of your soul are diamond-hatched and marbled blue
-Your special emotion is skeptical faith
-The garage sale item you most resemble is an old but beautiful and sonorous accordion with a broken key
-Your magic smell is candy skulls being crushed on graves by dancing feet
-Your holiest pain comes from your ability to sense other people's cracked notions about you
-Your sacred fungus is yeast
-Your special time of day is the moment just before the mist evaporates
-The shape of your life is oval with soft dark sparks
-Your lucky phobia is epienopopontonphobia, or fear of crossing the wine-dark sea
-Your power spot is here and there
-The flavor that identifies you most is grapefruit smeared with honey

and here's my horoscope for this past week:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
If I ever get around to gathering the birth dates of history's greatest jugglers, I'm sure I'll find that a disproportionately high percentage of them have been Geminis. Members of your tribe are famously adept at keeping things up in the air. Down through the centuries, your sign has probably also dominated the professions of tightrope walking, sleight of hand, and ventriloquism. Let's hope you have your fair share of all four of these talents (or their metaphorical equivalents), because they'll come in especially handy in the coming weeks.

Jive Dangerously

* a benefit for Other Magazine *

The Magazine For People Who Defy Categorization

Come to the Jon Sims Center for the Arts (1519 Mission St. @ 11th St.) for
a
night of provocative performances and strange phenomena, including:

+ Feelings On A Grid
+ DJ Ouchy, DJ Joel Schalit (from Elders of Zion), and DJ Melanie
+ lesbian bedtime stories with Shar Rednour, Carol Queen and Michelle Tea
+ cock-fighting
+ strippers, including clown strippers!
+ spooky tarot readings
+ tranny contortionist
+ a tutorial on how to have the least safe sex possible
+ an independent video room, including award-winning show kittypr0n and Raised by Drag Queens
+ special treats
Also, give a farewell kiss to Charles, Annalee, and Jesse, who are
relocating
to Boston for 10 big months

Come support the magazine that refuses to put you in a box!

When: Friday, August 9, 2002, 9 PM to 1 AM
How much: $6 or $4 dressed up jive style - all proceeds benefit Other
Magazine
Where: Jon Sims Center for the Arts
Why: Because it's just too much work to be normal.

ah, the fabulous and silly Ann Magnuson is still around.
I know her best from her former band, Bongwater.
(wanna read some lyrics?)
I've been missing her shows for years now, but I'm always happy to see that she's still doing various events and movies.
Here's a video of her performance at the Velvet Hammer Burlesque Show, which is apparently coming to the Great American Music Hall this October.
(g'wan, look at some of these photos if you're not convinced you need to go...)