my favorite beastie in the news

Adam Yauch has always been my favorite Beastie Boy. He's a bassist, skateboarder, snowboarder, buddhist, and a documentary filmmaker–how cool is all that. He directed a lot of the Beastie Boys' videos, some of them hilarious, and others are lovely grainy black and white jazzy things which I really like.

I was steered towards Buddhism through Yauch and his lyrics, at a time in my life when I really needed it. He continues to be an inspiration as a politically conscious documentary filmmaker. His new film is called "GUNNIN' FOR THAT #1 SPOT" (Check out the trailer here) it's about basketball and nyc, and apparently, it has also pissed off the Nestlé company. Nice.

the farm

We went to the farm yesterday evening. It was a great respite from the city. It was much prettier than I was expecting, more trees than I thought there would be. There were goats, chickens, a farm cat and dog, and a composting toilet with a grand view of the cornfields next door. Fireflies lit up the field once the sun went down.

It reminded me of Northern California, especially because the last time I'd used a composting toilet with a nice view was on some friends' property near Arcata, which seems so long ago. But, also because there were people last night who talked of collectives and different ways of living.

One woman is about to embark on a cross-country tour to visit friends to see "what kind of life they are making." I like that phrase. It's so good to remember that we make our own lives. The one I would choose to make is different than how I'm living now. It would involve being in a collective, in a more rural environment, and truly creating things– community, art, media, writing, anything we could dream up. I'm at that point now–the one a lot of people I know have reached already.

i left my heart...

I miss San Francisco. There's no doubt about it. Mostly, I don't think about it, but sometimes it's so acute I wonder if I should've left. I feel out of place in the Midwest, similar to when I moved to California as a kid–I just looked odd. As an adult you're not supposed to feel like you don't fit in, but it happens anyways.

I was eager to leave the bay, and I'm happy that I did. But still, sometimes, I remember how great it could be. This metropolis just doesn't seem filled with the same kind of crazy, dream-filled folks that SF attracts. Everyone has some fantastic idea that draws them to the bay, looking to create a life, cook up a plan, invent themselves, and most importantly, to make things right.

Some come to join a circus, lead a band, become a teacher, a journalist, a housing organizer, a puppet maker, a painter, an herbalist, a social worker, a pastry chef, an anarchist soccer player, an activist, a filmmaker, a poet, a gallery owner, a belly dancer, a bike mechanic, a hacker, a politician, a restaurant owner, a collective member, or all these things, but always something more than what they were.

I know the bay can be annoying, and overpriced, and cloistered, it's just that I'm sentimental about things that are gone. After all these years denying it, I can't escape that I'm truly a Californian now. Rather than returning to the West coast, Chicago is pushing me further east. But even on the East coast I feel more aligned. I miss the salt air like crazy, I'm a coastal kid at heart, that doesn't seem to change.

atonement

I saw Atonement over the weekend. More than anything, it was a feast for the eyes, yet it missed its mark as being the heart-wrenching story it was trying to be.

I find that most films could remedy the problem of viewer ambivalence - which is what Atonement suffers from - by spending more time with the characters, just one or two more scenes; it seems so simple and I don't know why directors don't do it.

Yes, a filmmaker can take many shortcuts that the audience will follow without a hitch, but there is only so much shorthand you can use when developing a character and/or a relationship. And perhaps these precious scenes are being cut in the editing process, I don't know.

Keira Knightley was visually stunning, but her character seemed flat. I still can't decide if I can't stand James McAvoy or if I really like him, but I will say that he was perfect for this role. I loved the use of sound as a transition and the quick back and forth of time sequences.

Overall, I liked it – you should see it. It was much better than The Hulk which I had the misfortune of seeing last weekend.

quiet sunday

I picked up these cute remnants of fabric at a yard sale today. And then A. found an entire NY Times on the sidewalk. What more could you ask for on a Sunday morning?

veggies have arrived

Our CSA veggie box is totally kicking ass this year (it's from Angelic Organics). This is our first box and there is a ridiculous amount of food in it. Tons of lettuce, broccoli, garlic scapes, zucchini, choi, spinach, radishes, parsley, and scallions. Ridiculous. We're gonna have to eat salad at every meal.

redwood retreat

I really miss walking in the redwoods. Mossy and green, cool and quiet. It was a place to get your thoughts together. I miss the odd lanky palm trees in my neighborhood that swayed above the houses. I could see them from the kitchen window. I miss catching a glimpse of the bay when the fog has receded while driving down Alcatraz. Even the sloping Berkeley hills twinkling with lights were calming. A walk in the redwoods would be nice right now.

oh no you didn't

Yet another reminder I am way far outside of the Northern California politically correct bubble. I found myself today having to explain why the word bitch is not appropriate language to be used in the work place and/or around minors.

The real kicker, is that instead of an open-minded conversation with the person, I was accused of acting superior and lecturing–even though he was the one who insisted that I explain what is so wrong about using the word.

Backed up in a corner, no win situation, the fact that I opened my mouth (and I must extrapolate because I'm a woman "correcting" a man) put me at fault. How tired am I of sexist bullshit eespecially from people around me who swear up and down that they are in no way sexist? So so so so tired.

I found solace in this post from "Finally a Feminism 101 Blog." Thank you feminist bloggers, you kept me sane today.

This sentence particulary sums up my opinion on the matter:

"If you feel like self-censoring to forego the use of misogynist language is a compromise of your integrity, you don’t have much integrity to begin with."

the city so small

Brown mystery sludge oozes from the cracks in the underground El station walls. The city doesn't hide its age. As the train roars towards the station and the pieces of debris flutter away from the tracks, the city closes in. I often feel claustrophobic here even when I'm outside. The Midwest feels so open, the weather changes so quickly. It's flat here, with low-lying buildings that extend for miles and miles from the downtown skyline. The city goes right to the edge of the lake. Human construction as far as you can see.

The new "luxury" condos that are popping up everywhere do not help; they slowly replace the character-laden three-flats with nondescript blandness that apparently appeals to young people with money, I assume because it appears "clean." The stand selling girly magazines definitely does not appear clean, but I yearn for an 'I Spy Sexism' sticker every morning as I pass it. The over-priced beer at the formerly cheap taqueria ($4.50 for a bottle of Heineken?) makes me sigh. And my favorite park, now severed in thirds by a new playground is no longer a refuge.

The corruption, so common that it isn't even talked about. Or when it is, the question is sunnyside or over easy, not what will you have today. I gag when I think about it, the city's residents suffocating from something they've never lived without.

The train gets stuck on the elevated tracks. It weaves when a passing train approaches. I can see the operator out on the tracks doing something, she gets back on the train and it creaks and heaves towards the station. I breathe deeply when we're stuck, because you never know what will happen in Chicago.

dad's day

It seems that dads are often disappointing. Most of my friends feel alienated from their fathers, but the spectrum is a wide one. Can you can have a friendly conversation with your dad? Do you wish your talks concerned subjects other than the weather and sports? Do you see him more than once a year? Do you talk at all anymore?

I think it's best to accept whatever your dad was able to give, even if at times it didn't seem like enough. Or even if the lessons you learned from him weren't the ones you wanted. I'm grateful for certain things my dad gave me: a childhood spent fishing on a dock, how to make stuffed mushrooms, an appreciation of big band music, my first records including a buddy holly record, a love of the movies and a curiosity about technology.

Maybe our generation will do a better job of being dads as some taboos about gender and emotional expression seem to have faded away. Possibilities for men to be more than male have multiplied, and this can only be a good thing.

the f-book

To think that I almost succumbed to Facebook, my only excuse being that I feel cut off from my larger network of people since moving to Chicago. But after reading this article I don't think I can do it.

The article was published in January, but I just came upon it in a roundabout way. I've been reading the Idler, and apparently the Idler guy wrote it. More on the attractiveness of being idle later.

Here is an excerpt from the article - and this excerpt doesn't even get into the Facebook founders' horrendous politics which are the real reason people shouldn't use it:

And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk? A friend of mine recently told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations.

Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in us, too. If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval. ("I like Facebook," said another friend. "I got a shag out of it.") It also encourages a disturbing competitivness around friendship: it seems that with friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king. The more friends you have, the better you are. You are "popular", in the sense much loved in American high schools. Witness the cover line on Dennis Publishing's new Facebook magazine: "How To Double Your Friends List."

AREA

Yesterday there was a release party/gathering for AREA magazine, a publication that I sometimes write for (see: "Health Care, Self Care". The current issues is about Chicago as a policy lab. You can peruse the magazine online here: www.areachicago.org

neighborhood peonies

uncontacted peoples

I was completely amazed to hear the news tidbit about the uncontacted tribe of people in the Amazon. I take for granted that everything in the world has been discovered and there are no more magical uncharted places on Earth. Could i be wrong?

Is it that i've been living in over-developed landfilled cities with man-made coastlines for too long, that i think every human settlement pushes the boundaries of geographical sustainability. My idea of the world has shrunken to match my urban surroundings, in a city where police shoot and kill a cougar who lost its way and a coyote finds refuge in a Loop Subway sandwich shop. Nature has nowhere to go here, the wild butts up against the unwild and is mundanely destroyed by it.

Just knowing about the uncontacted tribes makes "modern" behavior like a trip to Target seem absurd. It's important to remember that our way of life is not natural.

writing tips

It's hot and humid in that oppressive Midwestern way that makes you droop. After yesterday's thunderstorms and chilliness this heat surprises everyone who thought winter may keep going into June. Peonies are falling over themselves weighted down by their heavy blooms, tree pollen is floating in the air, and people's clothes are coming off.

This evening I had the pleasure of watching a smart group of teenagers interview Joe Meno who turns out to be pretty smart himself. He gave them all sorts of useful writing tips, including never title your poem "untitled" and the only way to write good stories is to write a lot of bad ones first. The best part of the interview was that he grew up in Chicago and these kids are Chicago kids. Yet again, I see how Chicago, even with all its problems, imprints upon a person's soul. "Oh yeah that's the block with the White Castle." It's the simple recognition that he grew up here just like they did. And most importantly, he imparted to those kids: 'I'm a writer, so you can be too.'

it was a genuine shock

From the Associated Press:

Missing Cape Cod lighthouse located in California
WELLFLEET, Mass. - Local historians for decades thought the 30-foot tall lighthouse that once overlooked Wellfleet Harbor had been taken down and destroyed in 1925.

Turns out, it had just been moved to the California coast.

The fate of the cast-iron tower was uncovered last year by lighthouse researchers and reported by Colleen MacNeney in this month's edition of Lighthouse Digest.

Wellfleet historian Helen Purcell says the discovery of the lighthouse at Point Montara at the southern end of San Francisco Bay was a genuine shock.

hello

It's spring 2008 already. It seems like I should freshen up the blog. I haven't written for a while because most of what I've been thinking was so uninteresting to myself that I can't imagine anyone else wanting to read about it. It was a long Chicago winter, but I survived it.