A Tiny Break From Cynicism and Criticism

Here below please read the text from Sit In: What It Is Like, a book by the late, great zen poet, artist and philosopher Paul Reps, who, among other cool accomplishments, authored the first North American book of haiku in 1939. Sit In was published by Zen Center Press (San Francisco), in 1975. It is a tiny, sweet out-of-print paperback with Reps' ink painting-poems throughout, bought at San Francisco's Dog Eared Books. He doesn't tell you that he's teaching you how to meditate, but he does. He's basically the only zen poet who writes about how to meditate with a grounded practicality that I can grasp. Yes, it's not short, but it is CONCISE. Trust me, read it. You'll thank me later.


~~start quote~~



Book begins here



Head and heart are not apart



Sit in in-vites you

Into new experiencing

As new all through

Doing (no thing) well



In the Orient

Those who sit in

Become stronger healthier

And surer of their cosmos position



So may you



Humans from over the world

Visit these sitters

And often wonder what they are doing



This book explains what

So they may visit you



The act of sit in

Takes self discipline



Then it takes self guidance

Even to take a step you guide it



Then it takes other guidance

The coming together of cosmos as you

Accepting this togethering thankfully

Graduating from dissatisfaction



All this packs in sit

Keep in before words about it

Do not go beyond in



As men give their life for country

Give yours for life itself

In any position or act of good will

Graduate in



Please compose ourself

This may take a little while

Then



As you sit in

Without moving even a finger

With a friend present or

Present elsewhere



1 minute the first day

2 minutes the second day

3 minutes the third day



Increasing minutely up to 10



Or later maybe more



Preferably at the same time place

Perhaps in an empty quiet room



Your integrity begins to show

Cell rhythms smooth in

And you feel better and

Better



When standing

We balance our human instrument

As three inverted triangles



Head into shoulders



Shoulders into pelvis



Pelvis into feet



As this mobile balancing

Leans slightly

Muscle stress begins to recover

Us into weightless

Perfect

Bliss this



As we compose

Our lowest triangle

Into a firm base

Including our whole body

In-ing begins



Sitting crosslegged

On a hard cushion

Or forward on a low flat seat

with both feet on ground

Somthing amazing happens



We open

Shut up

Up in



Sit comfortably then most

Comfortably erect



Centering your weight equally

On two sit bones



Forehead smooth

Soft eyes near closing



Inbreathflow high through nostrils



Shoulders releasing

Back firm

Neck soft

Jaw not tight



Head floating up from back

As if about to nod yes

Though not yet nodding



The sitting itself

Your answer



The sitting itself

Your healing



Just do it



Difficult when stiff

More and more fluidly flexive

When firm and gentle with you



Impulse subdued



Emotive re-act pacified



Radiance through



Too simple to believe

In experiencing

Millions of years before yoga

Thousands of years before zen



Re-discovered gloriously by buddha

(2500 years ago) and other sages

And variously formalised





If a dull moment comes



Stretch



Loosen



In



"What is it like?"



Like inlight

Actually we are made of light

Too instant for birth death



"How?"



Observe natural breathflow

Outbreathflow

Inbreathflow

Imagine turning palms of hands

Down with outbreathflow

Up with inbreathflow

Continuing without moving hands

In your rhythm of suns and seas

Given with birth



Lo the great harmony



"Are you dreaming it?"

Waking from dream and

From waking dream

Graduate in



"Does it help others?"

Are you others?

Are others you?

Is empty full?



"Can it be done with overstepping

Overdoing overgoing?"

Yes



"Does it get to be a habit?"

If you sit and sag

Try too hard

Try to repeat it



It's electric

Just as it sits



Earned benefits of sit in

May be due in part to:



a) Your willing to practice it

As an act of integrity



b) Charging your batteries

Minding your business



c) Doing nothing beyond in



d) Mind attention accommodating

One aggregate at a time wholly



e) Smoothing broken breathflow



f) In-viting innate nerveflow

Bloodflow lymphflow juiceflow

Cell consciousnessing



g) Pressures on large base

Nerve cluster opening inner doors

To tophead



h) Entering silent sound

Awarefullness



i) Self-learning to do(no-thing)

When about your daily work

Moving water-smooth light-bright

So nothing is the water



j) Multiple other reasons unknown

As yet to us air and light breathers



in this lifetime

IS resolves

to help one individual

you (who me?) so

wondrously put

together



Something

Is

Immediate

Unchanging in change

Inchanting me me

In each grassblade



"Who me?"

Instead of me or I

May one answer



IS -- is does it



Is

Sits





Fresh

Shouts the bud



Strengthening



Trueing



Utterly still



You may feel it is meditating

Or praying or composing

Or graduating from talk-back



Before before say

Keep in

Firm as pyramid

In deep wake

As in deep sleep

Instantly regenerating

Rejuvenating



New life begins here



Thank you for your life



Our energy sea sees us.

Earth and its creatures are negative to light.

We break through to inlight.



any questions?

reps

ZEN CENTER

300 Page Street

San Francisco, Ca 94102



OPEN HERE



~~end quote~~



This guy Paul Reps only has one original book still in print, his famous Zen Telegrams, which is how I found him. The book Zen Flesh Zen Bones, his translations of ancient zen texts, is also still in print, and includes the sexiest poem I've ever read: Centering, with the two sexiest words ever put together in a love letter: "devotion frees."



Here is the most complete bibliography that I can muster for his sixty years of generating random, beautiful little books. I have most of these books, thanks to E-Bay(search titles AND descriptions, people don't always put Reps in the product title), and the Bay Area's (once Reps' home) used book stores, especially Dog Eared Books and Forest Books.



-- 1939 More Power To You: Poems Anyone Can Make. (California). (A book of "visual haiku" published 27 years before Robert Spiess' first collection of haiku, The Heron's Legs, was published, and over 20 years before any of the few other very early North American haiku collections were published in the early and mid-sixties.)


-- 1951 Unknot the World in You.


--1957 Zen Flesh Zen Bones.


-- 1958 Naked Essays by a Wandering Foreigner, publisehd by Komo Hadaka Aruki (Japan).


-- 1960 Big Bath.


--1961 Gold/ Fish Signatures (on ricepaper).


--1962-1964 Picture-Poem Primer (dated 1964 per Bibliography in Letters to a Friend, may be 1963 or earlier).


--1965 Unwrinkling Plays.


--1967 Square Sun, Square Moon.


--1967 Ask a Potato.


--1969 No Need to Kill: 10 Ways to Meditate.


--1971 Be!: New Uses for the Human Instrument.


--1974 Deep Wake.


-- 1975 Sit In, What It is Like.


-- 1978 Juicing: Words & Brushwork.


-- 1981 Letters to a Friend.


-- 1990 Let Good Fortune Jump on You.


and

---- a mysterious undated one-page folded puzzle 8 Ways to You by "Hut-of-Light" (Hawaii).



Read your Reps! It's a panacea better than chocolate, better than a snow day, better than a warm cat asleep on your lap. Or at least more reliable.

In Praise of the Great Ms. Dynamite

I blogged about her before but now I can't find my entry in the archives, so here it is again. Essential music, people!



Please prepare your ears for the amazing sweet groove of Ms. Dynamite, aged 21 and cleaning up the UK music awards after just one album, A Little Deeper. Her genre? Technically UK Garage, but she would fit in among the greats of US Hip Hop. She was a little misfiled under "Soul" at the Berkeley branch of Amoeba Records - but just talk to a nice clerk and they'll point you aright.



I didn't need to know this to love her music, but I heard about her because in September, 2002, Ms. D. won the UK Mercury Music Award, and I'm amazed to find out that (as one journalist wrote) she is " the first black female and youngest-ever winner of the Mercury Music Prize." Someone else wrote "It's official - Ms. Dynamite is the leading light of British music..."



So now I have to try to describe her... she has a silky, strong, slightly higher than Lauryn Hill - but Hill-ish - style voice. She stands out from Hill with a more reggae flavor, and (even) more of an explicitly political feminist set of topics in her songs. It also occurs to me to say that she's the singer Ani Difranco wishes she was. With all due respect to the big A.



Now this isn't the original set of links that I posted, but it will do for now.



The Official Ms. D. Site-- check out the videos, kids!



The BBC's "everything you need to know about" Ms. D.



An informative fan site, actually more informative than the official site.




A high quality version of "It Takes More" --- "if it's not too complex, tell me- how many Africans died for the baguettes on your Rolex?"



Here is the video for "It Takes More" (with the censored, AKA "clean," version of the lyrics). Click on "ADSL" for the RealPlayer version.



Listen to a medium quality version of "Ms. Dy-Na-Mi-Tee"-- Ms. D's first album's hit single whose video caught my attention on the international channel, the chorus thereof thereby lodging itself in my brain and not going away until I hunted down her album and played it about 200 times.



Listen to a medium quality version of "Booo!"-- Ms. D's first hit circa May, 2001-- about clubland violence, with UK Garage luminary Sticky (of So Solid Crew).




Lastly, a site where you can click to see footage of Ms. D LIVE, performing "Put Him Out" -- a nice little song about how a girl just needs to kick out the boy and change all the locks sometimes.



Coming soon--- How to Peacefully Share the Planet with Sagittarian-Americans and Their Tricky Inner Child (Who is Often More Outer than Inner)

Hello, the Genetic Disillusionment that is Thanksgiving



I am still choking on the turkey bone of my family dysfunction, trying to understand how so much that is strange, manic-depressive, and twisted could come out of the same country that spawned the wondrousness that is Ikea. It is no wonder that I have not gone and reclaimed my roots and learned Swedish. Every time I turn that way I find out a new layer of alienation and abuse churning down the genetic runway into my veins.



And now I find out my sister is pregnant with twins. For better or for worse, they will probably be born not only twins but GEMINIS - the sign of the twins. As if their genetic makeup wasn't enough of an uphill climb.



On the topic of big happy families, please write to my friend Paul if you have any connection to survivors of Jonestown. Here is his website for his movie After Jonestown.



Here are some other links about mayhem and conspiracy to take your minds off your own unfortunate and inevitable genetic predispositions:

The Mayhem Crime Archives



The Mayhem Jim Jones Blurb

A fun quote from a letter in the Mayhem archives: "Not all of Congressman Ryan's party got killed. Jackie Spier, then his aide, got shot, but survived, as did at least one other person. She then became a state Assemblywoman here in California [and is currently a CA State Senator, D-San Mateo]. In promoting gun control legislation, she has made pretty good mileage out of getting shot at Jonestown. A paraphrased quote: 'Well, I've been shot before. Have you?'"



The Jonestown Story from the Cult Awareness Network



A well-cited article detailing how Moscone appointed Rev. Jim Jones to a sinecure in order to allow him to commit election fraud and ensure Moscone's reelection.

The Slacker Stalker Rules for Living a Spiritually Right Pagan Life

...By me, Lady Pixie Moondrop, the self-selected heir to Lady Pixie Moondrip of the infamous "Guide to Craft Names."


There are 17 ways to right-live here because there should always be 17 Reasons Why. It's San Francisco trivia, you should look it up.



For Goddessakes:



1. SPELLING: "Incense" shall be spelled with a "c" and then an "s," never with an "s" first and never with an "sc." "Witch" shall only be spelled with an "i" and never the yonic "y" (i.e. womyn, wyfe, mynstrual cramp). "Deity" shall be spelled with "ei": remember deity = immortal = no "die."



2. NAMES: If you chose a Craft name or were reared by hippies, remember to take your nametag off before you go out the street door after the conference or workshop. People might not understand that "Crystal Seahorse" is a sacred name and not something you are selling.



3. CREDIT CARDS AND FLOOR SPACE: [ON drippy scary voice] Wield Ye Not your own credit card in a Pagan supply store with a floorspace whose square footage exceeds that of your apartment. And with one payment do not try to conquer a credit card bill that is larger than your paycheck. Therein lies ruin.[OFF drippy scary voice.]



4. MORE SPELLING AND NAMES: There will be no "h" in God. If you want to distance yourself from Judeo-Christian conformist spelling, then name the specific deity, or say the long version of the word: Goddess. If you don?t like any gender in your deity, call it the Intelligent All. If you insist on having a little "ho" in your God, then call her Ishtar.



5. RITUAL PARTY FAVORS: There will be NO throwing away of ritual favors (i.e. tiny smudge sticks, itsy crystals, red clay Goddess baubles). They will be kept until there is no memory extant of the original ritual or of anyone who was in it. Then they will be given to a non-Pagan who will be impressed by them and think they are Talismanic Power Objects and not just New Age Clutter.



6. WHAT ABOUT THE CAT? The cat will be in charge of arranging the house altar, house crystal collection, and house furniture.



7. WHAT IS ETERNAL? Only two things are eternal: taxes and gossip. The mysteries of the former were lost to modern people long ago. The mysteries of the latter are passed on in a whisper to new initiates whenever the subject of the gossip steps up to any microphone.



8. PROHIBITION ON GROCERY STORE LINE LINGUISTICS: There will be no use of the word "matristic" as a synonym for "egalitarian," or at all. Random cross-continental homonyms or homophones or homographs will not be the bases for a new system of gynocentric philosophy. There will be no pretending that there was a P.P.P.P. (pre-pale-penis-people) golden age of matriarchy with "little or no" (to quote from a 1983 matristic text) "sexism, classism, racism, ageism, or war." Did we learn nothing from the failures of the 70's feminist movement? Essentializing estrogen-as-panacea and playing pretend with the real history of multiple isolating oppressions does not build a strong society. Making up obscure new words and assigning arbitrary meanings also does not build a strong society. If you choose to use the word "matristic," you will be sentenced to membership in a local collective consensus-based feminist organic vegan consciousness raising activist group. You will be in charge of fundraising.



9. DIVINE INTERVENTION: Being that people generally suck, particularly in cities today, where life generally sucks, non-offensive interactions with other humans can be taken as signs of divine intervention.



10. SAINTHOOD: This is attained through not stalking and killing the SUV driver who cut you off not signaling turning left on red while talking on his cell phone, and/or through picking up other people's dogs' poops.



11. THE REQUISITE ANTI-SEX LAW: Love is the Law, but nonconsensual masturbation shall be prohibited.



12. INITIATION: this tradition will accept you as an initiate after you have been kicked out of a coven for questioning the priestess' arbitrary invasions of people's personal space, or some other severe, arbitrary exertion of power, especially if it involves public shaming or some noxious essential oil.



13. SIGNS OF RIGHT-LIVING: There will be no chasing of buses, or other public transit vehicles. Being able to make all your connections at a walk is a sign of blessedness and right-living. So is finding all your commute escalators in working order.



14. CURSING: There will be no cursing. Cussing, or swearing, is fine. Trying to exact revenge through casting a curse involves expensive ingredients, labor-intensive ritual, and unmeasurable results. Arson, now there's an effective revenge tactic.



15. GODS ARE LIKE CHILDREN: No deity is omnipotent, but they are extremely defensive about this, so please behave as though they are. Please pretend that they are all equal in your sight. Favoritism is manipulative, and although useful to certain ends, should be publicly discouraged.



16. REQUIRED SACRIFICES: Everyone who is not a roach or a peep must submit to entropy. All goldfish or houseplants who can be killed by overwatering or overfeeding must die, especially if they live with me.



17. WHAT IS GOOD: Everything is good. Everything that is not good is hereby prohibited and discouraged.



And Slacker Stalker wishes you a Happy Thank-the-Native-First-Nation-People Day!
A little reading between food courses, that's all I ask.


Read about the nation decimated by the people who hosted that first Thanksgiving.



Read the speech of Wamsutta James, a modern Wampanoag man, written for a 1970 gathering of Pilgrim descendants celebrating the Pilgrim's landing. The author was disinvited after they proofread his speech.



And check out the main site for the United American Indians of New England for more information on the National Day of Mourning held on the last Thursday in November.


And check out the main site for the awesome International Indian Treaty Council who host the annual Un-Thanksgiving Day sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz, where AIM staged their occupation in the early 70's. Their flier (which you can read on their site under upcoming events/ bay area) reads:



As Indigenous Peoples of this land we recognize Thanksgiving Day by remembering and honoring all those who died in defense of the land and the spiritual ways. At the same time Indians celebrate the vitality of their spirit, will to survive and dedication to the protection of Mother Earth. By remembering and rejoicing this day offers American Indians and non-Indians alike a unique opportunity to gather strength from one another for the future struggle to protect and preserve the land, resources and spiritual awareness for future generations.



And now, off to rural Michigan for my Swedish Congregationalist Minister grandmother's 84th birthday.


Slacker Stalker will be back in a week.

OK, another breather between the didactic babblings of your favorite stalker...

Read About My Neighborhood's Mythical Monster

the 'Devil of the Marsh', described as having a "snake-like body, dark greenish skin and a very large head with small horns."



This cool site also has info on my local free "liberation drive in" - hosted in a local parking lot near me!- and other nifty Oaklandcentric goodies. What a find!

OK, finally the

Slacker Stalker Guide to Shoebox Abuse

...an addendum to My Gender Identity Shoe Key



If you have shoes - i.e. a gender identiy - it's a metaphor, work with me - then you have a shoe box that you don't want to trap yourself or anyone else in.



Shoebox Use:

Safe storage for your ex's sex toys (borrowed permanently).

Shoebox Abuse:

Embarassing drag show photo storage- take them out! Let your little light shine!



Shoebox Use:

Starting element for diorama about what your life would be like if you were a football player or cheerleader.

Shoebox Abuse:

Starting element for diorama about your dark evil revenge fantasies about people who have made fun of your fashion choices.



Shoebox Use:

Handy storage for your spirit gum, fake facial hair, rhinestone bindis, glitter gel, false eyelashes, dressy polkadot bowties and cigarette holders.

Shoebox Abuse:

Unsanitary storage for the unfortunate mishap about which you are still in denial involving the Martha Stewart homeade vanilla soy sauce peanut brittle recipe when you were having a feminine nesting urge. Own your fabulous failures! How will you find a way to link to your inner feminine side if you don't find out how NOT to?



Shoebox Use:

House for your baby guinea pig named Thor, or your little garter snake named Penelope. Or your girl rat you named Boy.

Shoebox Abuse:

Carefully hidden home for that one ostentatious pair of platform latex glitter boots that you bought on a dare but haven't had the guts to wear and are hoping your friends forget about. Flex your feet, flex your gender!



Coming soon: ten new spiritual rules to live with, including spiritual spelling rules.

OK, I can't RESIST sending you all to check out the Wide Pancake Week schedule of events
...hosted by the City of Moscow Government Committee for Tourism. Turn up your volume for some not-to-be-missed cheesey techno Russian folk fusion.



Really, the tract on shoebox abuse prevention is still on the docket for this week, I promise.

Two Good Articles Someone Who Opposes the War or Someone Who Likes Cyborgs Should Read



There are two articles in today's Bay Guardian by people I know. One is by my good old pal and role model Pratap (pronounced like "Prothap"), someone who has his issues, as do we all, but whose political opinion I really respect. In this Op-Ed he talks about a trip he took to Afghanistan in January of this year, and his thoughts on the aftermath of our soon-to-be-waged war in Iraq. He's so smart the SFBG keeps a standing offer open to him to publish anything he gives them. Sometimes he researches a piece for years before submitting it. I could go on and on about him, but you know, that might start making me sound like a REAL stalker.



The other person I know who has something in the SFBG today, Annalee, in fact has a regular SFBG column that I have read for years: Techsploitation. She's a girl geek and writes about gender and technology and shit. To be truthful, she is more a friend of friends, but we do technically know eachother. I'm just a big starfcker and have a compulsion to drop names and call them "my friends." But anyway, her column today is a sad remembrance of her mother, who became a cyborg. It's just something that cyborg supporters should read. She's still a fan of cyborgs, I'm still a fan of cyborgs, we're ALL STILL FANS OF CYBORGS, just read the article anyway.



Tomorrow- Shoeboxes and Their Many Uses and Abuses.

Stalking Gender Identity with the New Gender Identity Shoe Key

Argue if you will, but I'm pretty sure it's unimproveable. With all available information, that is.



OK. Whatever. Behold the glory. Inspired by the ESPN rerun of the national cheerleading championships, which reminded me of the fact that outside the San Francisco Bay Area people actual engage the extreme ends of gender and take it seriously.



Starting at the masculine end and working towards the feminine, find that shoe that suits you:



FOOTBALL PLAYER

100% 24/7 passing male with an unchallenged gender identity

Adidas Running Shoes



STONE BUTCH

The can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em kind of guy/ FTM/butch who nevertheless is at the mercy of the HIGH FEMME.

Lace Up Hiking Boots

These tend to set the tone of the butch (male, female, trans, gay-les-bi, whatever) discourse, because they are the most likely to draw attention to their own gender identity, willingly or not.



SERVICEY BUTCH

The fop who likes to make all the ladies at ease, aware of his/her effect on people and voted Most Likely to Bring Flowers.

Penny Loafers



SOFT BUTCH

Voted Most Likely to Have a Political Agenda, and/or a Sarcastic Sense of Humor, and/or a Women's Studies Degree.

Classic example: Mo from Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For

Skechers or Other Vanity Pseudo Sport Shoe

AND Voted Most Likely to Wish S/He Set the Gender Discourse, Butch AND Femme



FUTCH

This category confounds gender identity. From pixies with bald heads to bodybuilders with long hair, from superheroes to performance artists. And bloggers.

Anything 'tall. From Jellies to Moon Boots.



LOW FEMME

I have a bit of a blind side about this category because it's where I fall most of the time. But it is my ASTUTE opinion that you can tell a low femme by her

Sensible Shoes, like Doc Martens or Blundstones.

Voted Most Likely to Wear Hand Me Down Shoes. (She can be a bottom feeder of a sort, she has no glamour to lose.)



HIGH FEMME

This is the one the Stone Butch can't live with but can't live without.

Duh. Pumps.



SUPERFEMME DIVA

These tend to set the tone of the femme (female, male, trans, gay-les-bi, whatever) discourse, because they are the most likely to draw attention to their own gender identity, willingly or not. Like the Stone Butch.

Open Toe Spike-Heeled Pumps or Other Extreme Toe-Cleavage-Revealing Shoes

Voted Most Likely to Own More Than One Each Wig and Boa (Feathered).



CHEERLEADER

100% 24/7 passing female with an unchallenged gender identity

Adidas Running Shoes

Voted Most Likely to Become a Vampire Slayer or Demon Goddess and Start Wearing Leather Pants.

...OK at least in my universe.



AND NOW THAT YOU HAVE THE TOOLS TO MEASURE YOUR GENDER STRENGTH:

go practice flexing your gender muscles. Try out a new gender presentation. Learn a cheer. Throw a football. Buy new shoes.

Or, if you want to try out Low Femme, scavenge them.



And for chissakes check out the Gender Terrorist's website. My friend Del-- who doesn't believe s/he is transitioning gender, but creating gender art every day with her/his own body. If you only knew the look on my 94 year old great uncle the Methodist Minister's face when he pulled Del's book off my shelf.



Here's Del defining Gender Terrorist:



A Gender Terrorist is anyone who consistently and intentionally subverts,destablizes and challenges the binary gender system.This is the notion that only two genders exist, male and female. The fact is, while this system might work (and that's a matter of opinion) for most people it doesn't work.Too many people are harmed both physically and mentally,in the attempt to force themselves into a shoe that doesn't fit.



Happy shoe shopping/ stalking/ scrounging, Cinderellas!

In Praise of a Beautiful Single Bi Girl with Cash who Has Grown Up into a Philanthropic Feminist


Everyone Take a Moment to Ponder the Loveliness that is Angelina Jolie

From the Department of What the Fuck

Ya'll deserve a treat for pondering the nature of life, death, compassion, and vengeance with me.

Please to Try Your Hand at Harnessing the Awesome Power of the Mysterious Singing Horses of Latvia, and Their Runaway Hit Single "Dum Dum Dum, Tim Tim Tam"

From a Latvian Blogger. You want to try your hand at reading the comments people wrote about this little ditty?



My favorite comment is the one that goes "aaaaaaaaaa, shallallallaallaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA, vai arii pum pum ã ã."



It looks like war is about to break about between Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania over these horses, though. That would be a pity.

Q. Why Is Compassion so Damn Hard for the Witty and Charming?

A. Because you are afraid it will make you into a fanatic.



Fact is you are already fanatically avoiding feeling compassion, every time you unthinkingly give the less fortunate people (there are ALWAYS less fortunate) a hand-out just to get them away from you, rather than because you think someday you might end up that way. Or every time you unthinkingly blame the more fortunate people for not helping you more often (my family's speciality). Or else you are fanatically avoiding all people so that nobody can ever criticize you or make you feel uncompassionate, which makes you feel bad. But think-- fanatically avoiding ever feeling bad means that you never know when you really feel GOOD.



I know, I know, it's not an exact science, but here are my inane equations anyway. There has to be a way to explain why people, seeing me dealing with grief over my dying girlfriend's suicide, are actually repulsed and even TELL me that they have a hard time feeling compassion for me. So here's my wild ride down the slippery slope of character equations.



YOUR AVERAGE PEOPLE PERSON + inner child (id) or inner optimist (desiring anything and acknowledging it takes optimism)= someone who will seek faith, a faith, something to direct their choices, a code of right and wrong, so that people will like her/him. This person seeks ways to ingratiate her or himself through wit (not just knowledge, but discernment, knowing what's funny when). This person is a natural flirt, even if they couldn't hold up their end of a conversation with a saw horse.



NON-PEOPLE PERSON + inner child = my sister, never quite getting a joke, never quite understanding why the choices of words she makes sometimes infuriate people, someone basically not open to leading an examined life because she gets it "wrong" so often. She knows how to want, and how to seek faith, but she condemns herself so often without seeking remedy, that she generally avoids people and got herself a heinous husband who people generally avoid. He thinks he's infallible, he criticizes her to the point where she categorically dismisses all his criticism, and then she lashes out at people to make herself feel superior because she doesn't really know what she's worth anymore.



OK. I had to open up a shelf in the hierarchy where I could leave my sister. What do you do with someone you don't trust to make good choices who specifically doesn't have compassion for anyone, even herself? What do you do with a drunken sailor? I'm just going to say call this a NON-PEOPLE PERSON and leave them to their slurred little Song of Theirself.



Moving on, let's say you are a PEOPLE PERSON SEEKING WIT (the highest expression of ego: discernment) but you have forgotten your optimistic side. You are rootless. You can't remember why you got up this morning, or came out of the womb in the first place. You are reading T.S. Elliot "The Wasteland" with your breakfast every morning and you can't quite grasp why HE got up every morning. Nobody reads poetry anyway. Nobody cares. You don't even care. Why try?



This is the state of mind that I think most people are in. From this state it is impossible to overcome your need for a right/ wrong answer, extend yourself beyond the few things you believe to be true, and be compassionate to a stranger who looks as though they've made at least a few choices that you would not have made.



I'll characterize this as: PEOPLE-PERSON - inner child + wit = your average twit. Myself on a bad day. The egoist with her latte and a bus pass but no way to see that the soulless bus driver is not actually TRYING to spill her drink, because it's technically illegal to drink on the bus. This person is prone to feeling permanently wrong, permanently punished, and that everyone's expectations are Too Damn High.



Then there is the PEOPLE-PERSON + inner child + wit = someone seeking routes to transcendence, new expansive ways of thinking, access to compassion. This person understands the role of the responsible citizen, the inner-parent / super-ego. They believe in parking laws, even if they sometimes break them. Then, they pay the ticket and don't act like that 28 dollars makes them Broken Down By The Man. They accept that they are tools, or better yet, cogs in the machine, and they aspire to understanding what this machine might be up to, and since they are bringing their inner child along for the ride, this machine might just be up to something Good.



Then there are the NON-PEOPLE-PEOPLE + inner child + wit, which equals the reclusive artists like Edward Gorey. And the NON-PEOPLE-PEOPLE - inner child + wit, which equals Andrew Dice Clay, back in the day.



And this brings us to the Compassionate Person.



PEOPLE-PERSON + inner child - wit + compassion= someone who follows blindly, like your average local 19 year old Mormon "Elder." Or someone at Jonestown. Someone who can't sit down and make a cost benefit analysis about a moral choice to save his life. These folks serve in the interest of whatever piques their interest that day, giving them good, optimistic feelings, like a child in a room of phones and a telepromter telling them what to say when they make those fundraising calls and a fearless leader there to offer them a glass of kool aid as a reward for their excellent work.



PEOPLE-PERSON - inner child + wit + compassion= I think a lot of existentialist liberals end up here. They understand service to a Greater Good. They understand a set of rights and wrongs. They just can't see the Why Try of things. They read the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet and end up like Eeyore. They become graduate students and eventually become lawyers and eventually end up becoming the life of the wine and cheese party only quoting book and movie reviews and never books or movies. Snore. I think this is the place I am most in danger of ending up.



PEOPLE PERSON - inner child - wit + compassion = a Methodist minister. My grandma, for example (who is a Methodist minister). She can't tell a joke. She takes herself incredibly seriously. She is almost militaristically "at service" to any and all. She doesn't visit, she steam rolls various parts of the family on a seasonal basis. Sigh. Two weeks until her 84th birthday. I have a completely wholesome low-fat anti-war pity-drenched dinner to look forward to this Thanksgiving. Not that I need fat, or war, or dry wit to keep me going. OK fat and wit, but not war. All I'm saying is that it is hard to have prolonged conversation with this person.



NON-PEOPLE-PERSON +/- inner child +/- wit + compassion= the non-people person's compassion is only theoretical: they don't actually leave their safety zones to test it, so I'm not going to count it. Let's just call this person My Sister That One Time She Nailed a Non-Abusive Joke And Had Intended to Do So To Show Someone Who Was Having a Hard Time that She Understood. A rare bird indeed.



So what's my bottom line here? To keep from getting stuck in a rut in life you might work harder to be aware of all these three-- optimism, discernment, and compassion. To realize when these three things come and go takes practice and discipline. And practice doesn't make perfect, it just makes less imperfect. And more daily practice.



1. Hold and enjoy the moment in your mind when you know you're feeling optimistic.

Me, trotting out to get a Gingerbread Latte without even thinking that they might screw up and burn the espresso.

2. Sit back and enjoy watching yourself make a decision. Take advantage of your ability to make good choices.

Hm, I want to save money, so I'll get a small Gingerbread Latte and use the rest of the money for bus fare. And I won't offer to buy the Gingerbread Latte of my friend in line behind me.

3. And then be kind to yourself and others in a conscious way, if only in your inside voice and not your outside voice.

That bus driver didn't mean to spill my latte on me, I think I won't imagine Buffy jumping out of a seat and killing him. Stab stab stab stab stab stab stab.



Well, I said it was a practice.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Could Branch Out For a Change

More Important than Compassion: Personal Vengeance



Buffy the Irresponsible Dog Owner Slayer

Making the Parks Safe for Children and Their Picnic Blankets Everywhere



Buffy the Drivers of SUVs Who Turn Left At Red Lights While Talking On Their Cell Phones and Not Signalling Slayer

These People Even Scare the Shit Out of Vampires



Buffy the Purveyor of Insufferably Cute Poetry Chain Letters and Concerned Citizen Petitions Slayer

The Taliban didn't ever read your petition protesting the treatment of women, and I will lose my few remaining friends, not a hallmark of good luck, if I forward them all your horrible poem about the child whose father died in the World Trade Center, OK?



Buffy the Uncaring Medical Professional Slayer

Can't Afford to Get a Bedside Manner Transplant in Time for Your Next Appointment With the Sick and Vulnerable Woman with Cancer Who Needs Help With her Pain Management? You Can't Afford Not To Get One!



Buffy the Overzealous Arbitrary Parking Law Enforcer Slayer

Soulless Creature, Nobody Likes You and Nobody Will Miss You



Buffy the Grammar Snob Slayer

You the Middle Management of the Literary Art World, Humanities Majors Gone Wrong, Underemployed and Taking Out Creative Insecurities on the Innocent-- Be Warned! Obsessively pointing out bad spelling to a short blonde cheerleader may be the last thing you do! I mean, I like a typo-free piece of text as well as the next person, or maybe more than the next person, but especially men who like to make women feel stupid by reading only a woman's typos and dismissing her ideas need to be stabbed more than once with a stake in the heart.



Buffy the Everyone Who Voted for Bill Simon Slayer

What was it, you liked his criminal record better than Grey Davis'? Repent and vote Green for chissakes. Or better yet, Meet Mister Pointy!



{Imagine Stabbing Noises Here}



Next, More on Compassion!

The Agenda of the Extreme Optimist

or, why people are afraid to be compassionate



The theme for this week is compassion and optimism. I think these are actually the same thing.



People fear that being an optimist (i.e. having compassion) will cause them to:

1. Lose their credit cards

2. Wear ugly shoes

3. Meditate



Solution:

Encourage optimism where you see it by:

1. Spreading optimistic information (noticing that we are barraged by negative information)

2. Noticing optimistic moments out loud

3. Finding out what causes optimism, like alcohol.



Later I will address the sport of Extreme Compassion and why it threatens, in particular, people who are witty and charming.

Haitian Homebrew from Hell
or, the Story of Miss Zora and the Zombie Makers


In 1937 the anthropologist (and African American/ Caribbean storyteller and story-collector) Zora Neale Hurston suspected a chemical poisoning to be behind the high Haitian zombie population... fifty years before science proved her right. Read a little about the amazing Miss Zora and the Recipe for Making Your Own Zombie Slave. Stock up on tetrodotoxin, atropine, and scopolamine, kids!



There are still some of those zombie folk employed by SF Muni as busdrivers... I guess it beats a labor camp. Won't someone please organize a zombie liberation movement? If only for the sake of all the fun acronyms you can make with the letter "z"?

Getting in Touch With Your Inner Undead Person

...through blue eye shadow abuse.



A year and four days ago my girlfriend died. I misspoke for a long time and said that I had died on that date instead of her. I still can't say her name plus the word "died" and believe my own words. But, well, I lived. She died.



Last night I danced at a local bellydancing restaurant, and made myself polished, glittered, and inky-eyed for the occasion, since someone was videotaping and that always washes out your features. Last time I just did mascara and lipstick. This time I tried out the eyeshadow that I found in a makeup bag alongside the road I walk to public transport in the morning. I have a personal rule: I don't buy any makeup besides coverup, I always have such good luck FINDING stuff. It's like all these femmes are walking around tossing brand new lipsticks into couches wherever I go. Well, anyway, I am not very good at putting on makeup and I don't want to waste my money on something I don't know how to use.



So, I made the mistake of mixing a lightish blue and a darkish blue on my eyelids just before going on stage last night, and the SHIT DON'T COME OFF. I came home and I looked in the mirror and there I was: me as a zombie. I don't know how many times in the last year I FELT just like I looked last night in that mirror.



For now I'm at peace with sticking it out with my cat and my various tattered lives that keep me busy, but I know that it is only a matter of time before I will be with my girlfriend. Meantime, I will try to live mostly as a living person and give my inner-undead-person a chance to express herself through a little occasional abuse of blue eyeshadow so that she won't EVER show up in my mirror unannounced and scare me like that again.



For the record, when I go I don't want to be one of the Walking Dead. I expect the Dancing Dead will let me join them when I show up at that great undead parade, marching towards the light.

More Undead News and Resources

Duke University Study Recommends the Living Wear Bicycle Helmets Around Undead-Americans

Georgegore Albush Declared President - A Red-Letter Day for All Composite Undead-Americans

A Nice Interview with Spike and Drusilla - The Vampire King & Queen of the Bon Mot

Continuing the Honor Roll of Undead-Americans and Other Undead Role Models



Amelia Earhart

Buffy

Superman

Xena & Gabrielle

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Bionic Woman

Robocop



Note that I've expanded my definition of the Undead to include cyborgs, i.e. everyone with an artificial vital organ; actually, I'm including everyone who wears glasses or any other life-enhancing prosthesis, has no magazine subscriptions, and wears out-of-style clothes. You yourself my unwittingly be eligible for my Undead Honor Roll. I think the Undead Continuum can be roughly outlined as this:

|- LESS UNDEAD (MORE DEAD-DEAD) ---> MORE UNDEAD (MORE DEAD-BUT-LIVING) -|

|-Residual Floating Energy Presence ~ Bottle-genie ~ Patron Saint/ Spirit Guide/ Deified Dead Person ~ Poltergeist ~ Zombie ~ Vampire ~ Cyborg ~ Basic Standard Issue Geek ~ Librarian -|

Honoring Our Inspiring Undead-Americans and Their Role Models



For the next few days I'm going to try to make a list of Inspiring Undead for us to think about as we approach the Day of the Undead (Oct. 31) which is followed by All Saint's Day (the day to honor the Goody Two-Shoes Undead, aka Hallows -- the 31st is Hallow's Eve, or Hallowe'en), and then the Day of the Dead (those who may be eligible for the Undead roster if they play their cards right).



Here we go. Some of my Favorite Undead (see definition of Undead in yesterday's blog entry if you need to):


Buddha

Jesus

Elvis

Lazarus

Angel and Spike, Buffy's lovely boytoy Vamp camp-followers

the Virgin of Guadelupe



to be continued...

The Undead Continuum



A coworker friend of mine used the word "Undead" today as he was describing the plot of a little play he just saw "Attack of the Living Dead Drag Queens." I contended that "Living Dead" was redundant for "Undead" and that if I were a Zombie Person I'd prefer to be called a Living Dead Person, rather than the dismissive-sounding Undead (which is also a confusing term-- aren't you really Resurrected rather than Undead?). He opened my eyes and got me to think about all the myriad ways you could be Undead.



So, welcome to the Undead Continuum:

UNDEAD-- umbrella term for the differently dead.




If you are "undead" you have a living-history and are now identifying with the post-living. However, you could be living with many different "undead" identities.



"Undead" does not include you if you are a Werewolf, Mermaid, or other seasonally/ environmentally changing creature, because you never technically died.



THE LIVING DEAD-- also called THE WALKING DEAD. These are the undead (formerly living) who are experiencing something like a life while actually not technically having a beating heart and traditional human dietary habits. Among the living dead you can find undead people who identify as any of the following:

ZOMBIES

VAMPIRES



They tend to dress a little out of step with fashion, but that's a beautiful thing too. It's ok to be different. It's not easy being green, as Kermit says.



DO NOT ASSUME THAT ALL LIVING DEAD REQUIRE:

* Nourishment from blood

* Protection from sunlight, holy water, or crosses

* A coffin for a bed

* A soil sample of her or his homeland to rest

* An invitation to enter a non-living-dead person's home



DO NOT ASSUME THAT ALL LIVING DEAD CAN:

* Survive anything

* Hear your personal conversations from miles away

* Do triple flips in mid-air from a standstill

* Heal themselves with blood (yours or someone else's)



DO NOT ASSUME THAT LIVING DEAD CAN BE "KILLED" by:

* Wooden stakes

* Decapitation

* Sunlight

* Any recitation of biblical source texts



Most of the above points are copped from this site---
I have no idea what it is.



If you are Undead, but not Living Dead, then you may identify as any of these...

GHOST (a category that includes Poltergeists, Ancestor Spirits, Casper-the-Friendlies, etc.)

GHOULIE

WILL O' THE WISP

MONSTER (Frankenstein's, etc.)

DEMON

PATRON SAINT



The more you dwell among the Currently Living (signified by the number of magazine subscriptions you have), then the more you may identify as a Living Dead person. There is no reason why a Ghost could not be living among us completely unnoticed and undifferentiated from the Currently Living. Look at your bus driver tomorrow morning-- could this person really be alive? Couldn't s/he be a Ghost? Would you really notice if s/he was?



The more you are tied to place or object (such as a genie in a bottle), the less likely you are to identify with the lifestyle of the Living Dead. However out of step with the world of Currently Living you may be, I'm sure you will be welcomed and supported among your Undead peers.



More than ever it is time to stop saying "EVIL" and "UNDEAD" in one breath without giving some consideration to the rich lives, uh, lifestyles these folks live. Are they reeeeally Evil or are you just envious of how they don't have to pay taxes?



Here are Some Resources for Undead People:

Care and Feeding of Undead Pets

Zombie Guide 2002

A Vampire-centric View of the Undead (for you Vampire fundamentalist-separatists)

An Actual News Article About Undead Banks in Russia ...slightly Vampicentric but a good read nevertheless.

Stalking the Sparkling Ms. Dynamite

She makes me happy.



"Dontcha know there's no such thing as superstars, you leave this world alone, so who gives a fuck about the things you own." --It Takes More.



Her Dynamitishness' Explosive Web Home where you can watch the video that I saw on the international TV channel that got me hooked on her song Dy-Na-Mi-Tee.



And a link toher first single Booo! - a reggae dancehall supergroove-- "feel tha bad girl bass injection..."



And lastly, the fansite that, despite the Angelfire plague of popup ads, is actually more user-friendly/ informative than Ms. D's own site Ms. Dynamite Online.



I might be a widowed old lady at 29 polishing my tarnished silver at home with my cat late into the night, but at least I am not reduced to being a fan of lite rock love songs.

The Poet in the Weather Room



Where can an English Major get work where you don't have to wear a funny hat and a grease-stained uniform? Either in social services, education, or, apparently, writing the San Francisco Chronicle weather report. Sitting at a burger joint-- where I do NOT work, thanks for asking-- reading yesterday's leftover paper I noticed that the forecast summary for yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all the same IDENTICAL forecast. But, written as artfully as a sestina, so that you would not know that the weather will not change a whit for three days. Notice how they change the temperature one degree each time to keep it exciting.



Witness the genius:

Today -- Mostly sunny skies after morning fog. Highs, 59 - 77. Lows, 44 - 53.

Tuesday-- Areas of fog, then mostly sunny skies. Highs, 60 - 78. Lows, 45 - 54.

Wednesday -- Clear to partly cloudy after morning fog. Highs, 59 - 75. Lows, 46 - 52.



This person clearly cares about the reader, wants the reader to have an interesting reading experience even though nothing is happening. This writer inspires me and makes me feel like a careless brute for cutting-and-pasting identical passages, missing opportunities to flex and glory in my English skills.



Grief has turned me into an old lady. At 29, I am checking the weather report every day, spending my evenings (lately) polishing my tarnished silverware, and doing Latin-- for fun.

Useless Knowledge to Live By

Things I have inadvertantly recently learned.



About 16% of women have extra taste buds that are specifically in the bitter range.



Alligators have a weakness for marshmallows.



Jell-o is made from such vile stuff that they won't allow the manufacturing process to be filmed.



Romania has closed its borders for adoptions because of the problem of poor people selling their prettiest children.



Civet juice comes from a dead civet cat and ambergris comes from dead whales. (These are both common perfume ingredients.) Also, civet cat shit is harvested for the coffee beans it selects to eat in the wild. Since it's a picky eater people pay 200 dollars a pound for the beans it has excreted.



Is that enough information for everyone for today?

P.S. to the post below-- Sapphire Doric is not a dyke band, and isn't from Slovenia. They are a UK ambient music and animation collective of unspecified anything. They are listed under "Queer" on a Slovenian music web site. But there are plenty of other reasons why you should love Slovenia.

Stalking Slovenia



This sounds like a lifestyle to strive for (from a Washington Post article at the site I linked above):

A Slovenian aristocrat evaded taxes and an angry emperor's armies by building a four-story castle -- complete with ballroom and chapel -- into the side of a mountain riddled with caves and tunnels. He used secret tunnels in the castle's back to sneak out and gather supplies while under siege. He taunted those below by throwing fresh cherries and roasted duck at them.



And besides being the home of the original Lipizzaner horse breed (famous in Vienna), it is the home of a nice and healthy skeptical political view- since they are the most successful / prosperous/ democratic of the former Yugoslav Republics and essentially are a bridge between Western and Eastern Europe... They are a liberal and tolerant society. Except they don't like the US much. But that's ok, I have lots of problems with the US too. Here's a link to a political cartoonist's page published in the online Slovenian news source Dnevnik. Here's a recent cartoon "Final Resolution," with George W. sending off a US missle aimed at Saddam with Kofi Annan & the UN flag roped onto it.



More reasons to love Slovenia: here's the latest Sestre interview (which I found in the latest edition of this mainstream Slovenian news source). They make a cute, very pink picture. Sestre (Sisters) is the world famous drag trio which was selected as the Slovenian contender in the Eurosong contest this past spring. In this interview, one of the Sestre, Marlenna, said "We’re a revolution in Slovenian thinking about sexuality."

And look! Here's the Sestre home page! Well, for the moment it's not working right, so here is a bunch of Sestre links from a fan site. And if you don't love Slovenia yet, here's a link to a site for a Slovenian dyke punk band Sapphire Doric.

Hot off the AP wire: "Lovers of Latin Rising"



I'm taking Latin. My volunteer at work who is cooler and younger than me just started taking Latin. Now I find out this is a trend all over the US-- We Are Everywhere.



As the article points out, you really can enjoy the Harry Potter books more if you know a little Latin. Now I must run off and finish off the Potter book number three so that I can get on with my life. Until someone loans me the 740 page book number four.



I'm a big geek you say. Well I'll just get back to you when I'm a supervillain whose secret superpower is to be able to curse you in three different dead languages. Non ambigitur. [No doubt.]

All That I've Learned Working for Three and a Half Years at an International Gay Organization




1. Gay don't mean nice. You answer the phone and try to help someone who just wants someone to talk to, and they will act like you are responsible for their death if you tell them to call another agency that can actually help them. The people who are actually in the most danger aren't usually threatening suicide and threatening to expose your organization as incompetent, they're fighting to live and be left alone.



2. If you are gay and you have political promise, you are sent far away. The Foreign Service is therefore full of gay people. Your visa is not delayed because of homophobia, it is delayed because of the satellite TV marathon of Queer as Folk. Or because you didn't pick up on the visa officer's hints that you should meet him later for cocktails.


3. You wouldn't believe how many people think they have chips in their heads. And think the CIA and KGB really are controlling their thoughts via TV commercials during Ally McBeal reruns. Being able to write a letter using both upper and lower case letters appropriately doesn't mean you're sane. Gay don't mean sane, and sure as hell don't mean smart! Whoever thinks LGBT people are better than other people-- just do an 8-hour shift answering our phones. We've got our share of red-zone whacko scary wingnuts. And if you are one of these: THE CIA DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU. They're too busy with "regime changes" to tap your phone just because you are a lesbian.



4. This is the most important one. Never chalk up to homophobia what can be accounted for by sheer incompetence. The post office doesn't hate you because you are receiving a lot of mail from organizations with the dreaded "GL " consonant cluster in their acronyms. They hate everyone the same.



Those four points really just about do it. I have a lot of advice to give to those new to working for/with the queer / LGBT community, but these four are the most enduring tidbits.

Blessings on Your Journey Aileen (Lee) Wournos

b. Feb. 29, 1956- d. six hours ago, executed as a serial killer

Dear Lee,

Your struggle is our struggle. Rest in peace. May my girlfriend Kris receive you and help you find your way to the other side.



Hardly a week has gone by that I didn't think about you since I joined the effort to publicize your case in 1996. Kris admired your use of force against your rapists. She froze when she was attacked. You acted.



Activists made stickers in San Francisco-- "Wournos Self-Defense Tip #1, carry mace"; "Wournos Self-Defense Tip #2, own a dog"; Wournos Self-Defense Tip #3, scream."

The Radical Cheerleaders wrote a cheer for you: aileen wournos is her name and she don't take no shit 
when some men tried to rape her well she shot them in the dick 
now she's on death row they wanna give her the chair 
what do we say? we say GET HER OUTTA THERE!! 
FREE (clapclap-clapclap) 
AILEEN (clapclap-clapclap) 
FREE (clapclap-clapclap) 
AILEEN (clapclap-clapclap) 
what did she do? 
SHE DEFENDED HERSELF AND WE WOULD TOO! 
what do we need? 
WE NEED TO LIBERATE OUR SISTA FROM LEGAL MISOGYNY! 


Some San Francisco artists even made an opera about your case. It didn't make much difference. The prison set cost a lot of money, and the singing was too good, too professional, to convey the gritty truths of your case. The good intentions of the artists melted into the ineffectual pool of well-wishing that trickled your way all these ten years you waited to die.



Your history of sexual abuse, mental disability, poverty, and betrayal by trusted loved ones was disregarded. Jeb Bush, one of the killing governors, today agreed to grant your suicidal wish to be executed by the State of Florida. I can't judge your wish to die. I can judge the government for being the next weapon you used to kill again.



I wish we activists and artists had been able to make you want to fight and live. Maybe I still can make a difference by talking about what happened to you. May you find the God of your heart and be loved now as you never were.


The Story of Aileen Wournos breaks it down with a perspective on how Lee was denied fair consideration and mislabeled a serial killer.



The CNN article on the execution, which I stumbled on while trying to figure out if the US had gone to war yet.



The Reuters article on the execution, that tells a little longer version of Lee's story.



A pretty straightforward version of Lee's tragic life story that includes the fact that journalists (not the police, who didn't bother) easily found out that one of her victims had served 10 years in prison for a violent rape in another state.

Now Presenting Aslan versus Dumbledore in the Center Ring

Or, How Rowling Divorced Authority from Power, Castrated Aslan, and Put the Kids in Charge



I'm just fascinated by power. Power is knowledge is magic-- the ability to transform, pliability in the face of stress, adapting and accepting and creating the world in your own image. I'm also reading the first book in the Harry Potter series after having just finished a re-read of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Neither Rowling nor Lewis treated race or gender with much imagination in their books (or, from what I've read/ reread so far...), but they did vastly different things with the idea of divinity/authority and power.


C.S. Lewis -as a man- had a lot to gain from authority, believed in authority, and- as an author- invested most of the power in his magical world in an authority figure, Aslan. J.K. Rowling, a divorced mother looking for a way out of poverty, doesn't seem to care for authority. Her Dumbledore, the Aslan of her series, is like Jesus as much as Santa Claus is like Jesus. Magical/ mythologized and human with a side of slightly-superhuman. Magic/divinity is imminent in all people, anyone can be good or evil, without some plan of redemption-- everyone's actions cause reactions and that is all. The law of the playground-- inventiveness and agility of mind as well as physical wholeness/aliveness-- reigns supreme in all worlds, which are really all one world. If resurrection of the dead happens, it is not necessarily a good thing (and it's not reserved for the cleansed-of-sin!).



I pretty much like everything the evangelists consider Pagan, and-- as this Focus on the Family article warns-- causes people to "become confused about supernatural matters." This article especially dislikes how power is divorced from authority:



Despite superficial similarities, Rowling’s and Lewis’ worlds are as far apart as east is from west. Rowling’s work invites children to a world where witchcraft is "neutral" and where authority is determined solely by one’s cleverness. Lewis invites readers to a world where God’s authority is not only recognized, but celebrated — a world that resounds with His goodness and care. It’s a difference no Christian should ignore.



...nor a Pagan fail to celebrate...



Aslan seems to have poor Dumbledore by the throat, but I can't tell who is winning from the swarm of kids on brooms trying to have a Quidditch game around them...


And on the topic of Quidditch...Here is a page of comments by kids giving their thumbs ups and downs to the "Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom" -- a vibrating toy that you stick between your legs. 10 year old Alessandra says "I think the Geek gadgeta are fabulicious." Here is a page of comments by parents, including a few who would take the batteries out of their children's little power toy. Except for one (probably fictitious) parent who wrote "I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick!"



Power=knowledge=magic=pleasure. As the kids say, ain't no power like the power of the yout' cuz the power of the yout' don't stop.

OK, Now Some Pleasant Things About Orthodoxy



After bashing Orthodox religion yesterday a little part of me was whimpering that the real scandal of how religion was used in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was that it was used thoughtlessly. The character was baptised as though it was a contractual fulfillment in a business deal, without consideration of what it really meant for his soul, or relation to the divine (at least as far as the movie was concerned). It reduces the role of religion to a cultural idiosyncracy. I don't think Orthodox faithful would like it any more than I, a jaded Pagan, like it.



So, for a counterpoint to my outcry yesterday about the bloody, racist and misogynist history of Orthodoxy, I'd like to list my top ten favorite things about Orthodox - Russian, Greek, Serbian- Christianity:


10. The all-male priesthood still wears the dressy robes, all the time. And, nice beards!


9. There is not a strong present-day tradition of Orthodox evangelism. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, nationalism, violence, yes, but evangelism, no. The Mormon and Protestant Christian evangelists treat the Orthodox (who have been faithful since the 800's) as though they were filthy unbaptized Unitarians or something, and I like any religion that evangelists think is Pagan.


8. They retain the use of Old Church Slavonic and other obscure ancient languages, and still believe in Satan as a individuated real-live being. Where would us occultists be without someone carrying the heavy torches of both obscurantism and the Fear of Evil?


7. The icons. There is nothing quite like the gold auras, ornate gilt iconostases, bejewelled frames, and the dark, dark, up-all-night-decaf-drinking faces of those faithful old saints and saintesses. They drank bad coffee to save your soul.


6. The standing. Originally Orthodox churches didn't have seating because, if I recall correctly, they could pack in more people and the closeness of the bodies would keep everyone warmer in the winter. These churches are about three degrees colder than the outside (if they are traditionally built) because there are almost no windows, because they didn't have glass at their disposal in the old days. I find the moving, pushing, living crowd of believers a more powerful experience than sitting in some chair or pew half asleep while someone reads a half-baked sermon. Here, mostly people don't understand a damn thing being sung or said (since it is in ancient tongues), and they are just trancing out, swaying to the music, eyes glittering with gold candlelight.


5. The bells. When I lived in Russia my violin lesson happened in a new building- the conservatory- built butt-up against a "kolokolitsa," a structure that holds bells up above the kremlin walls so that the whole countryside can hear the call to worship, which happened about ten minutes into my lesson. I watched the bell ringer climb this SEVERELY leaning old structure and dangle from a rope to make the most ethereal resounding music, amplified only by the cold in winter. The bells silenced all work in the conservatory for several minutes of sheer, cleansing, ringing joy.


4. The singing. I sang some liturgical music in the female choir of the convervatory, and later (here in San Francisco) joined an Orthodox choir for the Easter service as a favor to my friend the choir director. There is an Orthodox belief that anything that is sung reaches the ears of God, so *all* prayer and liturgy is sung, usually in many part polyphony, with haunting minor chords. Most of it is memorized by the faithful, which makes for an impressive force of voices responding to the bass drone of the priest.


3. The frankincense. The smell of heaven, according to the Orthodox. There is nothing more transporting than full-body entering a cloud of sweet incense while the bells are ringing to start the service.


2. The word "bogoroditsa." The god-birther. It underscores the female power of the Mother of God. She didn't just raise him, she BIRTHED him. I also like the liturgy of the Theotokos, another female divinity within Orthodoxy, but that's another story. Basically, there is a recognition of the absolute power of the feminine within, around, and above the figure of Jesus in many places in the Orthodox traditions, and we Pagans like that. Actually, I have known many Pagan Orthodox, who follow...


1. The Slavic tradition of "dvoeveriye." The double-faith. Since Orthodoxy was a hard sell to the staunchly Pagan peasants living in Slavic territory, the church openly campaigned to enfold Pagan beliefs and divine personalities into the Orthodox practices. So, people kept up with the worship of their ancestors and household deities and came to church to serve the Orthodox Jesus and the church accepted them as followers of the "dvoeveriye." They were respected, left alone, and because of the Orthodox church's relatively tolerant attitude, to this day many ancient Pagan beliefs are accepted and sustained among the Slavs. I personally saw a Summer Solstice (Ivan Kupalo) ritual at a Rainbow Gathering in Karelia that was 100% Pagan, complete with naked jumping over bonfires and casting floral wreaths onto the water, which was concluded with prayers by the local Orthodox Priest. He came out in the morning wearing his long robes to bless the groggy people poking about the bushes for their underwear, many of whom were not only baptised, but passionately Orthodox.

And on a lighter note: Save the Cones!... another neglected species in desperate need of your help. Please think about putting your support behindThe Traffic Cone Preservation Society. A rare Dwarf Speckled Cone adoption costs $4.50 (plus $2.25 shipping). They take Pay-pal. If you are short of cash, you can print out a Membership Card from their website for free. I'm disappointed at the list of names of Charter Members. You'd think some celebrities would have (been) signed up.

The rest of my review of My Big Fat Greek Wedding that I started below, cut off by my incompetence with HTML:

The Last Time I Circle Danced...

was at a Kitka concert at a Methodist Church one block from my house. Yes, I'm an (ex-)Unitarian middle class ethnically ambiguous (Swedish/Welsh/English) white person, and yes, circle dancing, besides being good exercize, tapped into my need for a sense of ethnic rootedness. But I wouldn't marry a circle dancer—they’re not my type. I'd rather marry a polka dancer. Wait, I can't marry a circle dancer or a polka dancer, it's not legal for me to marry anyone yet. The movie never addresses the problems of marriage as a construct, it only addresses the compulsive nature of marriage. Thank the gods they didn't follow the lead of Monsoon Wedding and couple off every last single character right down to the second cousin twice removed from Toledo.



There, now I've talked about every movie I've seen in a theater all year, except Spiderman. Spiderman definitely swam against the tide of compulsory couplehood. Was Peter Parker that movie's gay character? Hm... another time I'll revisit that question.


And still another time I'll tackle why everyone thinks gayness is an ethnicity. We have a flag, don't we? We must have a homeland and an aboriginal language if we have a flag... Maybe we could declare war on someone, say they stole our homeland. I think Tuvalu sounds good this time of year.



Suffice it to say, just because a white/light-skinned Greek-American, English-American, or Queer-American does the hora, it doesn't make her an anti-racist, or a white-supremicist, or Just Like You and Me. Well, Just Like You, anyway. Ethnic dancers are just dancers, and the Serb nationalists are still hostile to non-Serbs, and the Greek nationalists are hostile to Turks and Islamic Cypriots, and Russian nationalists are hostile to (the dark-skinned) Caucasians -- all under the flag of Orthodoxy.



In summary, go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but don't waste your time as I did looking for brown people in the movie to problematize its racial agenda, or guessing who they are going to kill off to give the movie more depth and remind us of the history of real sorrow that trails behind those quaint Orthodox rituals.

The SlackerStalker Review of My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Racializing white people - the ibuprofen for that nagging race anxiety headache.



I give it one thumbs up.



It met the minimum lesbian film requirement: at least one conversation between two female characters about something other than a man.



But, one thumb down because it informed my life very little. It was a pro-nerd movie, and in that I related to it, but it had a super duper bright shiny happy pretty (nail)polished sheen that leaves out the good girtty underpinnings of the totally problematic religious aspects. They had the groom baptized just to use the church! Without him learning a damn thing about the misogynist and racist history of Orthodoxy! As though Orthodoxy isn't still killing people-- as though it was just a quaint hold-over from a forgotten time. I really wanted someone to die. Would it have killed 'em? Just one little death, that's all I asked.



It also had no animals in it.



The breakdown:


FOUR conversations between women not about a man: one about college, one about business, one about ethnic heritage, and one about a zit.


JESUS FIGURE: the grandmother. I coulda sworn they were going to kill her. I wish they had, not just to give the movie more depth, and the neglected role of women in Orthodox cultures a little more space, but to give more face time to an interesting "nonpretty" (almost third-gendered) character. Death would've helped develop her character beyond the "redemption" scene of her sharing her wedding crown with our heroine. Come to think of it, they had to gender her in that scene, showing her as a young woman, to resolve her place in the movie. Did we ever see her again after that? I didn't.


GAY FIGURE: the brother. Weirdly single, comes and goes mysteriously, likes the company of other young men, "comes out" as an artist. I hope there's a sequel where he marries the groom's best friend, who looked a little lonely and gay.


QUESTIONS: compulsive sexuality, fertility, consumption, but also celebrates those things in the end.


ANXIETIES RELIEVED: professional class/ working class anxiety-- resolved through mysterious vodka-like substance out of tiny fluted glasses; race anxiety among light/white skinned people-- resolved through (surprise!) circle-dancing! The timeless and functional ethnic tension panacea where we can imagine Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class Generic Unitarian White People (yes, a little redundant, that) linking arms and heaving into the grape-vine with the Sopranos, Woody Allen, Crocodile Dundee, Juliette Binoche and other valorized and racialized white people in the popular mind.


THE LAST TIME I CIRCLE DANCED: was at a