Monthly Archive for June, 2007

I Don’t Care That You’re Bowlegged

Published
by
Alisha
on June 26, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 6 Comments

I am five days into my fellowship with Northwest Institute for Social Change. Doesn't fellowship sound super fancy? We watched Wet Hot American Summer last night--a sign that I am home.

All my fears were annihilated. I fear I may be annihilated by the end of this. Everyone is beautiful and no one knows how they got here (especially me). We are 28. We are 19. We are babies, every last one. I am dragging the lake of each person here with my fine, quiet net and finding treasure. Do you ever get the feeling that every person has a giant squid--a bigger-than-a-school-bus squid--resting under the surface?

In the car we participated in a simple personality test (I don't know what to call it). You choose a color and then describe it with three adjectives. Next, you choose an animal and describe it with three adjectives. If you want to try this, don't read on. Do it.

The color is how you think others percieve you. The animal is how you percieve yourself. I said, "Yellow: soft, warm, lively. And... Whale: massive, slow, gentle." This brings me to my point: I think of myself as massive, physically and otherwise.

I have always felt like the moon rolling over the sloping surfaces of the earth, of my brothers' bodies, of my parents' expectations, of my friends' hands, of strangers' vision. I have been whisked into the company and isolation of complete strangers, unable to leave, pressed from all directions. I imagine I must obscure their vision when I walk by. When I look into her eyes, certainly my face is all-consuming, erasing the peripheral. Certainly he is afraid I will crush him. I am not warm, soft or lively; I am whale and whale. What I see, you see.

Does this sound self-centered? I can't help it. I always sense it acutely when I am in new places, dragging my weight. How does one make friends? How can I share myself? Can a sphere unfold? Can blubber be made intelligible? Yes, I see it, sheer arrogance.

I am very happy with these new folk, but more excited to share the goings-on with the true playas for real. There are definitely goings-ons (mostly writing) that will be shared at the right moment. Los Angeles is sweating right now--a sign that my true home lives.

Wires and Strings

Published
by
Alisha
on June 19, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

It may very well be that in our conscious inner lives, the interplay among our senses is what constitutes the sense of touch. Perhaps touch is not just skin contact with things, but the very life of things in the mind. --Marshall McLuhan

If I could just do this right now, I would know what to do next.

Though you are in the midst of some of the wildest country in America, and even though you may want to walk unaccompanied, you will be safe. You will be guided by a wire. There are wires on both sides of the path, and you can reach from one wire to the other in most places.--Dr. Alfred Etter, author of Aspen Braille Trail trail markers

I'll just do this:

Fingering pine and fingering the word, pine.
This touch separates, that rub breaks.
Each thing raised and capable of sound.

Each thing as intimate as the mole at the center of my back.
The raised tail of the animal that burrows under my skin.
I press my back against a wall and feel it pressing back.

I know exactly where every thing is hidden.
My finger is attached to a string attached to tails and pine needles.
In the dark I raise my fingertip and follow the sweet sting.

“We’re Blowin’ Up!”

Published
by
Alisha
on June 8, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Now other people are mentioning our names. The Righteous and Harmonious Fists were treated to this kindly review by Judesays :

Last night as I was walking towards downtown I came across some live music at this nice-looking store that just opened in my neighborhood. The band was The Righteous and Harmonious Fists, of which I have heard but not seen. They were really fun live, just simple and happy, and quite beautiful. I love it when people can translate and minimize their recorded work into something cohesive to their musical values but consists of almost entirely different musical sounds. I suggest you check them out.

What a perfect description.

On June 7th, Glimpse Abroad, an online journal "devoted to cross-cultural learning and exchange," published my article on Women and Water in rural Sierra Leone. In the article I discuss the potential effects of water sanitation technology on the daily lives of women and their relationship with their environment. These words are drawn from my time and research in Portoru, a community in southeastern Sierra Leone. Here's a taste:

ALFRED, AN 11-YEAR-OLD, told me this Mende proverb: "The water that you cannot expect to die under is the water that you will die under." In other words, the water that appears most safe is the water that will drown you. He was referring to deceptive currents in calm, deep rivers. After observing simple innovations in water management, I wonder if this warning might also speak to the seductions of development.

We--me and the Fists--believe that humble beginnings can fracture and multiply into undeserved connections and opportunities. Our journeys are well underway, it's just a matter of time before we make some SWEET HOOK-UPS.

Of course, those of us waiting for the hook-ups can't be picky. The Fists are fortunate that Jude has an ear for their style; I (willingly) submitted myself to some awkward editing for the chance to say I've been published. The experience has reminded me that sometimes limited exposure means delicious--and frustrating--freedom. We can strike out with our truest selves. We can postpone baptism. Thank the Lord God on High for Existential Media, where I may christen my public self, hitherto losing steam in flickering exposures on the vast and often poorly-mediated internet.

P.S. I realize that by refering to my blog persona as my "public self" I raise a whole host of interesting questions. For now, I set these aside.

Anthony Campbell Jr. or, Vincent Van Goghmen

Published
by
Alisha
on June 7, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 4 Comments

Good omens.

We had a brief conversation about metaphors for life on the car ride into the city.
Like, "Life is What You Make It!"
"To Everything There is a Season," and, begrudgingly,
"Love the One You're With."

It's difficult to talk about metaphor because metaphor is everything. Or, everything is metaphor. And, somehow, this is important for me to begin with. Somehow, this in itself is my metaphor for life.

It was the perfect start to my first day in a new home, that conversation. The metaphor you choose changes everything, which sounds like a "Life is What You Make It!" attitude, but most often life makes the choice for us. We adapt our metaphors to our circumstances, environment, level of assuredness.

I hope you can understand. I hope that as I write I can help you understand. I would love to share, to document, the morphology of my metaphors. I put this out there at the risk of sounding like the impossible love child of Tony Robbins and Joseph Campbell. I know full well what I say. Take it for what it's worth; it's worth everything to me.

At the further risk of being too lengthy, I think it is appropriate to inaugurate this page with a poem. These are my words imbedded in a quote from a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. I found The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh in a used bookstore yesterday and took it as a very good omen.

But I always think that the best way
to understand timbre, touch--
to know God--is to love many things.
Like highness, lowness, time and a half, to
Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like,
and you will be
perfectly distant, perfectly tickled,
on the right way to knowing more,
perfectly in mind
about it. That is what I say to myself.
But one must love
grammar and patterning,
with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy,
with an editor's eye,
with strength, with intelligence,
with memorization,
and one must always try to know deeper,
to know the highness and the lowness, the
better and more. That leads to God,
the perfectly timed and half-memorized.
That leads to unwavering faith,
perfectly touched.


So there it is. The first. More to come.