Wednesday, March 31, 2004

just a couple of links this morning.

took a break from editing to read online a bit, and am now preparing to go in to work.


---------
chomsky on the iraq invasion:

All opponents of the invasion of Iraq -- at least, all those who bothered to think the matter through -- took for granted that there would be beneficial effects, as is often the case with military interventions: the bombing of Pearl Harbor, for example, which led to the expulsion of Western imperial powers from Asia, saving millions of lives. Does that justify Japanese fascism and its crimes? Of course not: there is far more to consider, and I've never had any question that these other considerations amply justify condemning Japan's aggression as a war crime -- the "supreme crime" of Nuremberg.


---------
the little prince online (if you don't own a copy, you should. my friend lex has him tattooed on her lower back, with a star on her neck.
(thanks to micah for the link)

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

oh my goodness. listening to npr.

ugh.

apparently conservatives wrote into heinz, voicing their intent to boycott heinz products. (kerry's wife is a heinz heiress.)
heinz responded by claiming no political affiliation.

bush, you're safe eating their condiments with your freedom fries!


on a side note, i'm acquainted with a philip-morris heiress. she's rich, graceful and charming -- everything you'd expect from one who owes her economic status to mounds of cigarettes.

i'm realizing that i've become kind of mean. i guess the publishing world is hardening me. actually, k. is a brilliant, beautiful woman who deserves a much kinder description. she's a fascinating, literate mind.
i've had a number of meaningful conversations with family here lately.

my grandfather, a retired pentecostal preacher, plans to vote for nader this november.

in fact, he feels a great burden and responsibility for having voted for bush in the last election (each death and casualty in iraq that he hears of on the local news affects him personally).

my sister, a staunch republican and fundamentalist christian, believes in civil unions for homosexuals.

my aunt, a burgeoning gospel singer who doesn't watch movies with curse words in them, is disappointed with her experience of church. fed up, giving up, starving for community like she knew when growing up living in dank louisiana parsonages, she clings to the phrase "when two or more gather together...."

now, my dad does believe that i'm in danger of letting demons into my body when i do yoga, and there's still a strong streak of racism embedded in the lives of many i love. mom still sends me cliched forwards that are drenched in bible verses and cute christian anecdotes. pretty much all of them would not protest if janet jackson were arrested for the breast-baring.

there's a lot that's shocking and distressing, sometimes humorous or strange. but i'll tell you this: it's all real.

these people i love are living out contingent meaning with heart, hope and strength. steeped in a striking genuine quality, they fight, push forward and change as they negotiate identities that are considered little more than a joke in our culture.

they do not handle snakes.
they are no more ignorant than i am -- the distinction lies in the things we are ignorant of.
their faith is electric, energetic and joyous. it's so real, so tangible.

the details are fascinating, but these people are just the examples i know of what it means to be alive and human.
i love them, and wish i had a way to communicate how thankful i am that our relationships remind me to not other those who seem so different from me, whether in religion, politics, diet, etc.

the details and labels don't comprise them; they tell nothing of the complex identities that inhabit the human forms of father, sibling, aunt, cousin, family....
up early this morning.

Monday, March 29, 2004

US
shuts down
the Al Howza paper in Iraq

The building was sealed, and anyone caught attempting to publish the paper could face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine....


The newspaper's editors said shutting down publications would only fuel attacks.

"If the coalition forces are going to keep on presenting us with such messages ... they can just dream about any sort of end to terrorism," a statement from the newspaper said. "And they can also dream that we will stay quiet and step down from what we believe."


Sunday, March 28, 2004

the brains behind bbbooks:



disaster!


longing for the internet:


shopping for a magnet for my neighbors:


los editores:

just in from the con.

my plants have all grown like crazy.
the cats are happy to see me.
i am way over-caffeinated.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

things are crazy in bb hq:

our boss is printing letters on fancy paper
our convention "menus" are taking a lifetime to print

we just declared it karmic label evening, and i'm trying to read leah's lips across the office (as the color printer is loud as heck). i think she's saying something about a calculator.

....

i'm feeling good about my decision to not commit to certain events tonight (as much as i wanted to go), given the current hurried state of things.

laundry awaits me, along with a visit from salma (leah's tomato plant).

feeling much better after a rough morning. i came home for a lunch break and hit the floor for halasana, supta virasana and a good ten minutes in viparita karani.

it is so funny how just slowing down can grant you perspective -- perspective enough to change your attitude. that said, i am looking forward to romping about a college town with leah this weekend. i am glad for the time to catch up on some reading.

look out, college station. the publishing mavens are coming.

-------(and it looks like our printer woes of late will soon be solved!)--------

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

the past week:
brunch, sunlit loft, exhausting searches for tomato plants and much more....


Saturday, March 20, 2004

Rallies around the world protest Iraq war **


(Rev. Louis Vitale is arrested by a San Francisco police officer after blocking the entrance to Bechtel Corp. in downtown San Francisco on Friday.)


(An anti-war protester argues with a police officer during a demonstration in downtown San Francisco on Friday.)


(Anti-war protesters march down Market Street in an attempt to disrupt the morning commute in downtown San Francisco on Friday.)


(Shiites and Sunnis in Baghdad joined together in a protest Friday against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.)



In Greece, more than 10,000 people marched to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, protesting the war in Iraq and government plans to have NATO assist in the security of the August 13-29 Olympics.

As many as 30,000 people turned out in Tokyo to protest Japan's involvement in the war, organizers there said. The country has sent 1,000 personnel to Iraq, its largest foreign deployment since World War II.




Powell, in Baghdad:

"The killing fields are gone, the mass graves are not having new bodies piled up day after day, as happened under Saddam Hussein," Rumsfeld said.

"The prisons have been changed, and they are no longer torturing and killing people there," he said.


... why wasn't anyone there to ask him about torture in Guatanamo Bay?


**does anyone else feel like we're in a science fiction story?

Friday, March 19, 2004

i left work today with that particular kind of exhaustion, the one that crashes all mind/body distinctions.

i laughed a dry tired half-laugh as i zoomedexcelerated on the ramp down onto 75; i remembered that this was the way i felt every day on the way home from aohell.

(i know that "aohell" is not really a clever thing to call it, but perhaps i'm uncomfortable with the idea of getting sued. does the disclosure statement i signed (that bound me for something like ten (!!) years) extend to blog posts?)


i came home to hungry cats and i fed them and microwaved some of the coffee i made this morning. i had plans to go to the park with friends.

i got back into my car, clicked the windows down button and pushed a random button to switch cds and an old wilco album brought everything back to life again.

i'd forgotten that i'd even put it in the rotation; must've been weeks ago.

----

i even sang.

----

and so, with renewed fervor i/we tumbled and climbed and ran and sped across the odd woodshaving-carpeted park, laughing and screaming and yelling and sideways swings, dizzying merrygorounds, updated nighttime tag

----

-------------------------

some people i know
have just begun to blog

i think this is a good thing.

for some reason (complex social contingencies, no?) the infinitive verb to socialize seldom involves a certain kind of communication, the kind i'm most interested in. there is an unspoken taboo against honesty in regards to "negative" or "personal" things.

---please note the quotation marks---

when people write their honest thoughts, you can get a glimpse of them that isn't going to emerge in a crazy drinking, or work, or a classroom, or a (fill in the blank) setting. (there are rare exceptions to this of course, post-post being a meaningful one in my life)

at any rate, i'm thrilled to read the thoughts of grandpa's chipmunk and moonshine muse

-----

i wonder if i'm so drawn to blogging because i worry that i come across like some kind of chick lit character in my social interactions. i remember telling my roommate jen "i'm really a serious person"

. . . about a year later she had the opportunity to read a journal from an amazingly transformative part of my life and she indicated that she now knew what i meant. wow, shnn. you are serious.

it was a compliment.

-----


so, onto the serious stuff i guess.

-----

i'm trying to avoid being really over-dramatic, because everything is really okay. so keep that in mind.

on tuesday my sister was hit by a car as she walked home from work. she was talking on her cell with mom.

of course mom freaked the fuck out, given that she heard tires screeching and a human surprise shock noises before the phone went dead.

but s. called her back and then an officer called to assure her that everything was okay, s. was on her way to the hospital and she was going to be fine, she would be fine, she had minimal injuries, maybe some neck strain and perhaps a broken leg but she was okay.

----

i think i have to put those ---- there right now. because i don't know how to transition to mom calling me, hysterical.
or the phone calls that ensued to various family members, all in states of panic, all incensing me to pray.

pray pray pray.

----

all of my conviction to be honest with my family evaporated.

"i'm praying," i said.

i wanted to try, to do yoga. to sit here and do that thing, my version... but i couldn't. i didn't even call the people who would....

i swept my apartment. found myself occasionally sweeping a quiet tear or two from my face with my sweaty arm, spreading the evidence of my concern across my cheek, my temple. i moved furniture and the straw scraped wood and my body cried in seepingslowsweat-tears as my mind focused on this corner or that. filling the dustpan. dumping it in the trash.

----

i spoke w/ s. soon after. she was still in the midst of tests, she had no broken bones, etc.
she put on the tone i'd likely crunched out at the rudds earlier, the convivial thing and laughed the laugh we share and said
"at least i was wearing clean underwear"

----

only my sister is the funniest person i know.
and, and she doesn't joke cliches.

she was trying too hard.

----

lie #2:

i spread it to the whole family. to granny, who cried even as i told her s. was okay,
an attempt to penetrate the worry and anguish of my mom and my aunt
she's fine... you want to know what she told me?

my laughs hollow....

and they sucked it in hungrily. every single person i talked to said "at least she's got her sense of humor!"

....my sister was in pain. she was afraid and her concern for everyone so palpable that she joked a cliche that only i saw through.

------------------------
------------------------

and all this i say to you while things much more horrific occur.

i read this today on theyblinked.

i'm ill. i'm sick from what i read of what the guantanamo bay "enemy combatants" somehow endure.


making all of the above really... small. it's just a story.
but all i know right now is to tell it to you, because i don't have any answers, and i can't free the innocent or the suspicious, i can't make our government treat them like we treat convicted murderers and rapists within our borders


it seems all bullshit shnn dailygoingson... and yet i have to be me to fight this. we have to share our stories, know each other, it's what keeps us here, keeps us from fleeing to canada, from escaping civic responsibility and conviction....
Bush campaign gear made in Burma

The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship.

Violators of the import ban are subject to fines and jail, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.


(link found in this salon column)
sigh.

apparently my latest computer ailment is spreading; leah just reported that she cannot copy and paste.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004



this ad that accompanied this nyt article, Kosovo Torn by Widest Violence Since U.N. Took Control in '99 was almost bigger than the text.

somehow this seems more indecent than the word fuck or the breast of an entertainer (no link necessary on this one, i'm sure).

----

from the article:



By nightfall the United Nations had lost control of several city centers, and mobs of Albanian men were attacking Serbian areas at will....

A United Nations police spokesman said the exact number of casualties was difficult to calculate because the police and peacekeeping troops had not re-established control.





Tuesday, March 16, 2004

i got home from work yesterday to find about eight huge trucks in the back parking lot, complete with men in hard hats riding the little buckets up high. i drove into the pitch black parking garage and scurried through the dense dark to the front of my building.

it's fascinating to me how reliant on electricity we are. all of the things i'd planned on doing when i got home (other than napping) were called into question. i couldn't steam my artichoke, or take a warm bath (i didn't think... how long do water heaters keep their contents warm?), or make a mix cd or listen to music, charge my cell phone or even use my home phone (it's a cordless). fortunately i was only in the dark for a couple of hours.

i can't help but think of the people in iraq who lived without electricity (or with sporadic access to such) just about a year ago. not that that was the worst they are dealing or have dealt with . . . it's just things like this that bring their experience an inch closer to my understanding.
the soles of my feet are really good at picking up the tiny shards of glass that the broom misses. i've currently got something embedded in the heel and next-to-smallest toe of my left foot. this makes walking an interesting feat.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

(while listening to damien rice via headphones, i sat and typed an email to my brandon, the windows flung open and birds darting here and there, to and fro, and the cats not knowing whether to fight for my lap or stand up on the sill and do that weird thing with their jaws and stalk.... and here is a small window into correspondance b/w me and bran, bran and me... it's a holy thing, all sacred and flawed and beautiful and i said to him:)


i want to write songs, and stories, and dance naked in fair park with hot pink underwear on my head with a drink in my hand and toast the world! i love you! thank you so much for the joy we have brought to each other!!!!!
i miss trev. i'm currently playing around in photoshop with images from today's brunch. and listening to damien rice cover fucking radiohead's creep.

holy hell. i'm so happy right now, sitting here in my messy apartment. beringer is sleeping on the tarp-covered bed (i can't bear to disturb him) and berkley is curled in the acute angle my left leg makes when i sit cross-legged at the computer.

okay. i can't help it, i have to post a bunch of pictures. here i am at the computer:



and here is damon, and some plants:


and a bunch of other stuff, and people i love....
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