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[iarighter-blog]

The winding road towards Professionalism -- 111117

Yesterday, I fell asleep at five in the afternoon. I woke up at 7 AM today. That’s my excuse for not blogging yesterday. I have the same excuse for the other day I didn’t blog this week. The ostensible reason is that I’m waking up earlier than usual – instead of waking up at 9 or 10, I’m waking up at 4, or 6 – and it’s fucking up my entire schedule. The experience of waking up early has been long desired and has already borne fruit, but it’s also throwing my writing life out of whack – is my pitiful excuse for not writing, which does not hold up under any type of scrutiny. Why not write in the morning, then? Why not write at the crack of dawn, before you go for a run? If you were a true professional, then you would do it! If you were a true professional, then you’d stave off sleep to write! My internal voice is right: if I were a professional, I’d be writing, regardless. Same thing goes for my other lame-as-shit excuse, that I’m not writing the things I’d like to be writing. Well if that’s the case, try harder! Be more experimental! Take more time for each post! Write more shit! Learn from your mistakes! And then there’s the idea that no one’s paying attention, no one cares. Well, yeah: you don’t care enough! And you’re not good enough! You need to work on yourself, before someone would care about you!

All of this reminds me of Bakuman. Bakuman is a manga (Japanese comic) about making manga. While it has its cons – female characters are represented badly, and the manga glorifies ‘manliness’ and karoshi – Bakuman at its best becomes an inspiration guide to living a creative life, for me at least. A lot of my inner voice comes from them. I don’t know if that’s healthy or not. Often what’s healthy isn’t what’s successful.

There’s a scene that reminds me of the contradiction I’m feeling, from volume 11, chapter 90: “Art and Merchandise.” The new assistants for Ashirogi’s new piece argue about whether manga should be made to sell or made as art. They go back and forth, until Ashirogi’s artist, Saiko, says “It’s true that we’re working for our manga to sell… but that’s just because we’re not talented enough.” That’s how I feel. If I were a better artist, I wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines, or making people like me, or accepting the generalities of what it means to be a working writer. But I’m me. I like myself a lot, and I think I have something unique to say, but, in the scheme of things, I’m not particularly special – which means I’ll work harder than anyone to be at the level of the genii, to turn my writing into art.

I’ve been working on a post recently, something with lots of promise: a review of Jon Ronson’s podcast, “The Butterfly Effect,” and its depiction of power. I feel like the argument is there, but I need time to sit with the post before I send it. And instead of figuring the post out now, I’m writing this off quickly to post something before I go to bed. I’m delaying what could be interesting for another day, hoping I write it, eventually – meanwhile, I’m traipsing off to Greenwich Village with another queer friend tomorrow, hoping to explore our queer identities – and that’ll inevitably become ten other posts, and amidst the chaos of so many raw ideas, I’ll end up writing about none of them. That always seems to happen: I think I have ten good blog posts and then I’ll sit down to write them and they all dissolve. The feeling seems to dissipate upon the page. I don’t know if this is because I currently lack the ability to write these posts or because I’m fooling myself into believing I have things to talk about. Which brings me back to that statement above: shouldn’t I be working harder, to be at the level of the genii? But I need sleep, and I need to preserve my rhythm; those are also important for writing. And I think Bakuman gets the concept of working more than a little wrong. I wonder if I’m copping out, whether this is healthy or not. Often what’s healthy isn’t what’s successful. I guess I’m not that hard-working, after all.

Oh -- and happy singles’ day! What a lovely concept, created by marketing, bringing back such lovely high school memories -- perhaps I’ll write about them one day.

[iarighter-blog]

How you leave Home -- 110917

The first step is to think of it as their house, not as home. You live there, but it’s not yours. You don’t own it. You won’t own it. You give up the security of ownership and begin stripping yourself of other privileges. You cook your own meals. You do your own laundry. You lessen your dependence on foreign help – or, in this case, domestic help. You get a job to pay the bills. You get a second job to pay for insurance. You reduce your budget to save money. This all involves a great deal of privilege: it supposes that your parents have paid for your education, that they do your laundry, provide your food, provide you room and board. It supposes you have a car. It supposes your parents own a home. It supposes that you can get a job – what if you’re considered unemployable, due to disability, race, criminal record, master status?

You begin the task of leaving. There is one big leap, but there are small leaps before the big leap: there’s running in the neighborhood, where your parents are convinced a car will run you over, or the redneck with the Confederate flag hanging from his garage door will shoot you; there’s cooking your food, which shames your parents into thinking they can’t provide for you; there’s getting a job, which provides a small income; there is a discarding of possessions, a letting go; there are long, intermittent talks, in which you convince your parents that you’re not going to grad school, that your undergrad was not a failure, that no, you will not be a lawyer; that you have a plan, that you are going to see it through – and then there’s convincing yourself every second to not be comfortable, to not accept where you are, to not accept your parents’ help, despite all the help they’re already giving you.

The next step is belief. Believing in your ideas, believing in your abilities. Believing there’s a future out there for you. Believing that, if your parents could cross continents and create a life, you can, too – and you can learn from their mistakes! You don’t have to sit discarded, working by the unlit family room fireplace; you don’t have to play old songs to yourself, trying to bring back memories long gone, people long dead, worlds long lost – you are not them, will not be them – believe! You, too, long to go back, long to be a kid again. You miss Michigan, miss the warmth of their bed, miss being special, and bright, and appreciated. You, too, remember the good times – but you know they’re over, too, that they will never come back, that the world has already erased once was, that the past is forever lost. Gone. You remember, of course, how it felt – and sometimes, you crave the feeling – but you give it up in favor of the future, in favor of what might be. Believe!

And then: create. Write, express, continue, change. Become what they could never be. Accept their failures, learn, keep learning. Learn from the worlds around you. Internalize them, digest them, transform them. You were the promised, you have performed; now, reap your rewards.

And when you leave, remember: home is a feeling, not a place. Create home within, wherever you go. You will never be lonely.

[iarighter-blog]

Discoveries, lead to Change -- 110717

What have I discovered today? I discovered that, while I might not find people I can talk with about Bomba Esteréo, there are lots of people who like them: they did a show with Arcade Fire, who are apparently fans; they did a remix to ‘Fiesta’ with Will Smith, who dropped a lukewarm verse; and they have a Tiny Desk Concert, which was posted to YouTube a little over a month ago. I went through google recommendations when I could’ve just checked the Tiny Desk Concerts! They recently posted a Natalia Lafourcade Concert, too; and that led me to Monsieur Periné! So much good music to check out.

All of these things came from a Reddit search, where there’s plenty of content with little to no attention. The highest-upvoted post is an AMA from two years ago, with 54 points; a low score. I guess they’re not too popular in the US. In Colombia, though... a student told me today that they’re a radio fixture in Colombia! And when I check their tour dates, they’re filling out arenas all over Latin America! For example, they’ll be at the Movistar Arena in Chile on December 11th. The arena seats up to 16,522 people, at maximum capacity. They’re crushing all across Latin America, and us USA people might start to catch on – “Despacito” crossed over, and “Mi Gente;” even “Havana” shows how the US population might be craving “Latin” sounds – but if there’s anything America prides itself on, it’s ignorance. Even I’m being ignorant, saying “Latin” sounds; I couldn’t tell you the difference between Salsa and Cumbia and Bachata and other styles I’ve never heard of, I couldn’t tell you which instruments are “native” or not; I have no idea, most of the time!

Which is fine. I’m learning. I listened to “Queery,” with Cameron Esposito (a podcast about diverse experiences within Queer identity!) yesterday, and learned a little about queer disabled folks. I’d never thought of queer disabled folks until yesterday; they were invisible to me. I listened, though it was hard to listen, at times. I felt like I’d be guilty of a lot of the ableism her guest, Andrew Gurza, described; I’d probably be awkward around him, not knowing how to act, not willing to see him as beautiful, or worth loving. While we both don’t fit the gay stereotype – a hot, independent white guy with six-pack abs and a big dick; I’m not white, he’s not independent – we have a vast gulf of experience, where I can be empathetic for certain issues and still not sure how to act around him. As willing as I am to talk about racism, I rarely think about disability, which is why I admired Cameron so much. She handled the talk thoughtfully, putting herself in places of uncertainty in order to learn more. I’d like to do the same. And while I’m learning about music, there are other areas where I’m seriously deficient.

For example: local government. New Jersey elections were today, and I voted Murphy. I was not happy to vote Murphy, because he perfectly encapsulates neo-liberalism: he’s a former Goldman Sachs executive with support from the DNC because he’s given lots of money to them, which means he’s going to throw the poor a couple bones while continuing laissez-faire economic policies that fuck everyone except the rich. At least he’ll say he’s investing in middle-class families! I mean, community college investment is cool, and raising the minimum wage is cool, but it’s literally the least you could do. Not to mention, he’s another old, rich, white guy who worked in business, who is now going to speak for all the minorities. I hear those ads on 96.3 – “Vota por Phil Murphy” – and I change the channel, because let’s be honest: Murphy doesn’t give a shit about Latinos beyond their votes. And I voted for Murphy anyways, because he’s still better than Guadagno. The fact that I have such little choice infuriates me. I want to do more than vote, because voting feels useless! I want better than the Murphys of the world. How do I learn to make real change?

[iarighter-blog]

read this in a half-posh accent -- 110617

You keep deciding to leave your home, and you keep staying where you are. It comes as a shock, every Monday, to find yourself in your old bed, using the same comforter and the same sheets, dotted with drab patterns. You get up and trail off to a messy desk. You feel as if the desk has become metaphor for life: every day, you say you’ll clean it up, but it only gets dirtier and dustier. One day, you start to clean, until you realize the sheets strewn about represent possibilities. This was a possible date. This was a possible business opportunity. This was a memento of a dead relative. This was something you should’ve done. This is an overdue library book. This is another overdue library book. This is a bank statement. This is a paper describing organization. They all serve as reminders of what should have been, or what could be, or should be. They will all die as soon as you throw them away: all possibilities, gone! It’s Sylvia Plath’s fig tree, in miniature – but you can keep the papers alive if you don’t throw them away!

https://zenpencils.com/comic/130-sylvia-plath-the-fig-tree/

And so you continue, day to day. Each week starts solid and ends disappointing. You barely notice life’s passage, caught up in your cycle. Occasionally, there are breaks. You spy the stars outside your window. You go to the city and meet a long-lost childhood friend. You find a better job. You go back to school. You cling to the love of your life, on a park bench, in the middle of winter. You have a fabulous Diwali. You watch a fantastic movie. You write a marvelously shitty blog post. You fall out of love with the love of your life. You continue to date for a year, hoping something will return. Everything gets absorbed in the daily routine of small discomforts and longings. You turn fifty and realize you’ve wasted what could’ve been momentous, had you cleaned yourself out. You panic, and look for more.

Or maybe you stay twenty-three, pretending to know what it feels like to be fifty, imagining how awful it would be to never change.

[iarighter-blog]

the loneliness of discovery -- 110517

I checked out Bomba Estéreo after reading the comments on a Mon Laferte video, listened to two of their albums through housework and driving, thought they were amazing. Here’s their video for Internacionales:

Here are the lyrics for the chorus:

Yo soy un colombiano Yo soy americano Yo soy un ciudadano del mundo Yo soy un mexicano Yo soy dominicano De la misma raza, el mismo color ¡Baila, baila! Qué para bailar no necesitas lengua ¡Baila, baila! Vamos a bailar en la misma fiesta

The translation: I am a Colombian, I am American, I am a citizen of the world; I am a Mexican, I am Dominican, of the same race, the same color. Dance, dance! To dance, you don’t need language. Dance, dance! We’ll dance together in the same party.

Such beautiful lyrics, even translated; especially beautiful when that woman sings them. Her voice is abrasive, fearless. I thought about “Mi Gente,” from J Balvin. That one line, “Mi musica no discrimina a nadie así que vamos a romper,” which, roughly translated, means “My music doesn’t discriminate against anyone so let’s party!” How, through party music, there’s a (slight) political message: we all belong here. This space belongs to everyone. Now let’s dance! And damn, is the music danceable. J Balvin is ubiquitous, while Bomba Estéreo is indie-er, but they both share this message of unity through dance. Reminds me of Stromae, making Papaoutai (translated: where are you, father?) one of the catchiest tracks of all time, uniting deep storytelling with catchy-AF beats.

I feel prideful, listening to this music. I feel like I’ve earned something. I’ve explored far beyond the average gringo! I’m better than the dumbass white boy who listens to Major Lazer; I discover my music, instead of letting Diplo tell me what’s good. I’ve gone off the beaten path to find this music, and now it’s mine. On the flip side: I don’t know anyone that I can share this with. If I went to Colombia, I assume people would know Bomba Estéreo; if I went to Mexico or Chile, I’m sure I’d find plenty of friends who’d want to discuss Mon Laferte. But in New Jersey? One of my friends listens to reggaetón, and that’s it. Even the internet lets me down: I searched Reddit for Mon Laferte, and found close to nothing. Truth is, New Jersey’s got a big Latino population, so there might be people -- and the Internet is fucking HUGE!!!! -- but I don’t know where to find them. Yet. Music discovery can be lonely. At least I’m dancing.

1I love reggaetón but I understand why people would hate it: it’s shallow, misogynistic, repetitive, unoriginal, and everywhere. But even with the usual problems, J Balvin gets a pass.

[iarighter-blog]

A Smart-ass feels Insecure -- 110417

I think I’m better than others. I hear about how people go through insecurity in their twenties and I laugh at them: I’m so secure! I chose to be a sociology major, because I cared more about understanding myself than slipping into a stable job in an unstable society. I didn’t want climb in some social scheme, getting exploited for a modicum of material wealth. I didn’t want to hurt others, working in a capitalistic world. I didn’t want to have a boss, I didn’t want to work in an office. I didn’t want to be harassed for being me; I didn’t want to harass others for being them. I didn’t want to have to live up to some hyper masculine stereotype, the way the C-suite kills humanity. I didn’t want to get caught up in a system that purges people of their consciences, that’s caught up in winners and losers! I sound so angsty! I’m not gonna be a part of your system, maaaan! But it’s true: the idea of being a social climber is abhorrent to me. It feels empty, crushing, binary. I want to embrace human complexity. I don’t want to die and feel empty. I want to do the right thing. I want to live a full life.

I want to want to live in a world of ideas and creations. I want to make myself, my family, my community. I want to make a better world. I know these things are out of reach – how many people want the same thing as me? How hard is it for queer people to be heard? For brown people to be heard? What if my ideas are complete shit? What if everything I do is perfect and no one ever hears? – I need to try. As I die, I want to know that I lived well. So clichéd. I’m made of cliché. Cliché sounds like éclair to my American brain. Yummy.

I graduated in January. I found a couple of jobs. I take pride in my work. I live at home. I have few expenses. My parents paid for my college. I’m making a small sum. I am a privileged, arrogant, obnoxious kid. I disobeyed my parents and got a ‘useless’ degree. I refuse to join the larger workforce. 10 months in and I’m still being a burden. I complain about patriarchy. I complain about white supremacy. I complain about Hindu nationalism. I think I know better than others. I watch way too much porn. I go to therapy. I have a hard time talking about going to therapy, being queer, watching porn, and knowing better than others. I bury myself in books. I ignore my friends.

I am the definition of insecure. By avoiding the obvious pitfalls of insecurity, I’ve made myself insecure in other ways. But it’s nice, too; as insecure as I can be, I’m not alone in my insecurity.

[iarighter-blog]

How do I be self? -- 110317

I took some time off yesterday to think about how I was writing the blog. I wanted to name the fear that I experienced when starting to write, and why I wasn’t satisfied with what I was writing – how, no matter how hard I tried to personalize the writing, it didn’t feel like me. The problem is that the blog is supposed to be an extension of my time, not a chore; and it became a chore. What was my mistake?

Is writing supposed to be a chore? Or is it supposed to be fun? Part of becoming a professional writer should be working a set amount of hours a day, or producing a certain amount every day, good or bad. But part of that professional mindset sounds fake, capitalistic: do I want to press out a bunch of shit to meet a writing requirement? It may be called for, but does that kind of deadline help my writing? I don’t know the answers, though I know that I strongly dislike the Bukowski method of writing; that ‘write to the fullest when the emotion takes you’ thing. At the least, I think the method doesn’t work for me; at worst, I think the method is over-pissed, pronounced by people who don’t take their writing seriously enough. “I’ll write when the inspiration strikes,” said the people who never challenged themselves, who never let themselves know they were shit writers. On the other hand, do I want to write like Murakami? I’ve tried his style of writing; I quickly run myself into the ground. Part of writing is undeniably work, but work is not writing, either. Where do I find myself on the balance? What works for me?

The last couple of days, I’ve been writing things that I think are terrible, to continue writing. Writing became an appointment, a chore. Sometimes, this writing was nice: it set me up with a space to think, a space I normally don’t allow myself. On the other hand, writing could become exhibitionistic, where I would find myself writing anything to keep writing. I imagined a phantom audience I’d have to please with analysis and originality. In order to be the writer I was expected to be, I was afraid to include me; I didn’t want to bore people with the personal. At the same time, I want this blog to be an exploration, not a journal; it’s personal, but not too personal. Unfortunately, I can’t recognize the line. By negating the personal, I stripped myself from my writing, lost the specificities in my experience. I became bland. How do I stay spicy?

I suppose I could be more specific. That’s the writing advice I give my students, anyways. But being specific seems irrevocable… what if this blog has an impact on my ‘real’ life? What if I’m publicly shamed for my opinion? It’s part of being an artist, and it’s part of free speech: an artist must have criticism in order to make art, and free speech must allow for criticism, and even censure. But I remember a story from “The Moth” where a teacher’s blog was cut up and sent to parents, to insinuate that he was a child predator; divorced of context, the attack nearly got the teacher fired. I remember stories from political campaigns, where candidates are slandered off similarly context-evading bits of ‘dirt.’ If this shaming happens to candidates and to teachers with blogs, couldn’t the same happen to me? There’s the story of a model whose career was ruined when her face was put on an image macro declaring “plastic surgery”; afterwards, everyone thought she’d been under the knife. (She was ‘natural.’ By the way, the concept of ‘natural’ beauty seems drenched in some patriarchal bullshit; that would be fun to talk about, some time!) And then there are trolls: by being a fat black woman on the internet, Roxane Gay gets a shit-ton of twitter trolls. That’s not criticism; that’s harassment. The further away you get from being a straight white male on the internet, the more harassment you tend to get. By creating a blog, by being myself on it, am I opening myself the same harassment? But I’m still too focused on the negatives, and not enough on the positives: I get a voice. I get to find a community. I get to create myself. It’s a worthwhile trade off, though I wish I didn’t have to trade so much.

So. I am male, queer, desi. I live in New Jersey. My parents are Kannada and Tamil. I speak no Indian languages, though I speak Spanish quite well. I have functioned primarily through shame, and I am looking to function through loving. Self-loving, first. I was a Sociology major in college. I give away too much of my time to others. I see a psychotherapist twice a week. I’m souring on NPR. I love lots of things that don’t make me happy, and a few that do. I read a bit and wish I read more. I don’t know the appropriate boundaries between personal and private. I don’t suppose anyone does. I hope to discover them here.

….

Oh, and one last note: I’m probably going to repeat a bunch of ideas and texts. And I have to be okay with that. I am many things, but I can’t be everything.

[iarighter-blog]

Daily Thoughts #8 (110117) -- Museum Visit

I went to a museum. The museum was in New York City. It was a museum of art. The art was divided by exhibitions and floor space. Some works were displayed on white walls. Some were displayed on blue walls. Some were not displayed on walls. These works preferred to be stored in cases, or on floors. There were surrealist works, Dadaist works. There were pictures, there were prints; there were sculptures, there were fading manuscripts. I saw artists from London, I saw artists from France; I saw someone’s underpants, in a photograph. There were works that made me think, and a few works that made me feel. Occasionally, I stared at people. The people were dressed up, fluffy and froufy. I wish I’d decided to dress up more, though I wasn’t sure I could. I didn’t think I had the money to buy such fancy coats and accessories. I didn’t think I could afford a pair of leather pants, or a cute black dress, or a pair of raw blue jeans. So I dismissed my thoughts, and bought a cookie, and some juice. I left tired, and continued to walk. I am not walking, but I am still left tired.

I thought I would write a “Thoughts From Places” type thing, the way John Green does on Vlogbrothers videos. I thought I’d bring Sarah Urist Green with me – and indeed, I read every piece of text in her voice – but I don’t know if I captured “The Art Assignment” spirit in my voyage. I thought, but I did not find feeling. I suppose the museum was not my space.

I miss the Menil Gallery. I miss the Rothko Chapel. This museum was beautiful, thoughtfully crafted. It did not move me. Perhaps I came tired. Perhaps I should go back.

I want a museum. A museum in New York City, with blue walls and white walls, with works in cases and on floors. A museum with surrealist works and Dadaist works. A museum much like the one I left. A museum for me.

[iarighter-blog]

Daily Thoughts #7 (103117) – Fighting and Living

It’s almost been a year since I asked myself how I was going to fight the Trump Administration – as a writer, as a person of color, as a queer person, as me. So far, the fight’s been going terribly: it’s been a year of starting, failing, and giving up. I joined a local campaign that I didn’t believe in and quit soon after. I effected zero change, and felt like I had been used. I freaked out every time I heard the news. I failed to imagine a world in which I could be. I read books to understand the world; I read books to escape from the world. I made friends, and kept friends, and left friends. I finished college, and didn’t look for jobs. I dated, for the first time, and then I stopped dating. I learned that I was beautiful, which was surprising; I had never seen myself as beautiful, before. I started to see me as others saw me; and now, I begin to see me as myself. There came a breaking point: was Trump going to get better? No. Was the world going to suddenly become awesome? No. But could I get better? Absolutely. And if I got better, maybe the world could get better, too. Am I revoking the right to despair? No: the threat of violence is real, the situation is worse than we let ourselves imagine. But through the threat of violence, life exists. And so I forgot about fighting, openly, and focused on myself.

I got a job – not a great paying job, not a permanent job, not an easy job – but a good, rewarding job. I tutor. I help people, at a basic level, one on one. As I teach, I become a better student. When I’m not tutoring, I’m teaching myself to believe: believing I have something to say, believing I have a right to take space, believing in me. When I’m not doing those things, I’m reading. Or exploring. Or writing. Or friend-making. Or despairing, still.

I may not have learned how to fight, yet. But I think I’m learning to live.

[iarighter-blog]

Daily Thoughts #6 (103017) – TWICE and Contrast

I’ve listened to the new TWICE comeback about 20 times, trying to find something pertinent and polished to talk about. Unfortunately, I need to go to bed soon, so I’ll settle for the thoughts I have now.

Here’s the song:

The song itself is great – I love how I’m expecting the chorus and I get this subversive (and fitting) pre-chorus instead; I like how the rap break comes directly after the slowed down bridge; I love how the timbres of the instruments shift from part to part, how the voices shift from more attention-grabbing to more mellow – but with TWICE, I’m especially to see how they manage to incorporate the girls into one ensemble. What’s so fascinating about TWICE, to me, is how they manage to incorporate very different-looking girls (by kpop standards) into one collective; everyone is different, but they’re all TWICE. For example, in the “TT” video, everyone has a different costume/persona – Tzuyu is a vampire(?), Mina is Jack Sparrow, Sana is Batwoman(?), Momo is Tinkerbell, etc. – but they’re united in a group shot, by the chorus, in the same outfits, doing the same dance. Additionally, within the verses, people are grouped together: Mina and Tzuyu, Sana and Momo, Nayeon and Jihyo – and, of course, Dahyun and Chaeyoung. These identifiers/personas change from title song to title song, and the groups change as well – except for, of course, Dahyun and Chaeyoung – but they’re always used to bolster the strengths of the members through contrast: the members play their personas off each other, to great effect.

Is any of this particularly new? No! Idol groups have been doing this forever, going back to the Beatles: each person in the band has a role, and plays to their persona. Kpop has been much the same: hell, f(x) was doing serious contrast years ago. But TWICE’s contrast is taken to a new level: there are formulae within formulae, rules made and rules broken; there’s an entire, complex, system to TWICE’s contrasts between members, a system that I could not begin to breach in a blog post. I’m sure the notes for each TWICE music video must be pages and pages. There’s so much thought put into each shot, there if you care to find it.

Some things I’ve noticed with this video so far: Momo has the same type of shot they used for the “Cheer Up” ‘real man’ bridge, and the “Knock Knock” beginning (or at least it looks like the same type of shot to me); and the shot is her sole focus. Jihyo has a line at the 1:50 mark that seems to call back to both “Cheer Up” (lyrically) and “TT” (ba~by). Jeongyeon and Jihyo get that verse change duty after the chorus. If I recall correctly, Jeongyeon generally gets these ‘interruptor’ parts, as her voice seems a little sharper. Sana starts (gasp!), instead of Nayeon – but Nayeon gets the first verse part. Dahyun-Chaeyoung trading off on the rap part, as always – well, except for that time Jeongyeon got a kinda rap part on “One More Time”? In any case, that trap part was really well done, and surprisingly cute. This brings me to two cute trap bits of songs; the other one is from some Baby Metal song. I wonder if cute trap is a thing – does Cardi B count? Because she’s fierce, but she’s also cute as hell – but if cute trap did exist, I don’t think I’d listen; I think it’d be pretty tiring for an entire song, or an entire album, once the novelty wears off. And the dancing remains the same, with a lot of specific TWICE things that I’m too tired to look into at the moment. Well… for starters, they’ve got that ‘trademark’ dance move they do for every single video – I think it’s the ‘heart, heart’ move for this one.

I thought I’d hate the lyrics, because TWICE lyrics are generally some patriarchal cringe shit – “A girl can’t give her heart away so easily,” “I’m just playing hard to get, but won’t you call me?” “I need a REAL man,” etc. These lyrics tie into those old concepts that girls are passive objects, for the guys to come and get, etc. It’s disappointing, because the TWICE girls seem like pretty dope individuals; it’s a shame to corner them with love songs. This song’s lyrics were a little better, though, because while the lyrics can be a love song, they can also be talking about the nature of fame and of social media. Lyrics talking about how hard it is to get ready, what to wear, all the cream and lipstick to put on, not feeling liked enough, are kind of fun, especially compared to the usual TWICE vocabulary – but then I realized that they’re not really criticizing any of these things, the way Beyoncé did with “Pretty Hurts”; they’re simply saying these things, in what comes across as a positive way, because they do nothing to suggest that any of these things are particularly hurtful or one-sided in favor of a particular gender or anything. Then again, I would never expect anything culturally subversive from TWICE; they are Korea’s newest biggest girl group. So… I’ll keep the lyrics off. But they’re not as bad as they usually are. Problematic faves stay problematic.

So yeah. TWICE is pretty damn amazing in its engineering, even if I dislike their lyrics, and their overall patriarchal bullshit connected stuff. I do have to say the “likey likey likey likey” chorus is getting annoying to me, though. Whatever. The more I write, the older I sound.

Good night.

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Daily Thoughts #5 (102917) – Indian Jews?!?!

Holy shit – there are Indian Jews! What?!?! I had no idea! I mean, yes, the whole concept of India seems like a very recent invention, and there are strong divides between populations: there are the external India vs. Pakistan vs. Bangladesh vs. Sri Lanka things, then you have the internal things – Muslim vs. Hindu vs. Christian vs. Sikh vs. Parsis vs. Jains (vs. Jews?), the whole North vs. South thing, too many ethnic populations and languages and customs and tribes and languages things – lots of things, to be sure. The internal conflicts are especially illustrative: you could live in India your entire life, travel to another part and feel like a complete foreigner. For example: in the book English, August – which I received as a gift about 3 years ago and have never finished; a book which, all of a sudden, seems very, very fun – the protagonist gets shipped off to this place called Madna, 18 hours from Delhi by train, and finds that despite speaking two (maybe three?) languages, no one speaks the same languages here. Well, that’s not entirely true: people do speak Hindi. But they don’t want to speak Hindi. Besides the language, there are many small customs and quirks that he, as an outsider, doesn’t understand (and frankly, doesn’t want to understand). He feels like an outsider in his own country – which is hilarious, to me. If I ventured into the heart of West Virginia, would I get stares? Probably. Would I get death threats? Maybe. I think people tend to be nicer in person than on the Internet, but I don’t want to get shot, either. But I would still be able to understand the people in the region. We’d speak the same language. We might listen to the same music. India? I guess there’s no guarantee. Keep in mind, though, I barely understand the first thing about India, even the places that my families are from. I don’t speak any Indian language (besides the language of food), I rarely venture outside of our homes; and while I India often, I India for short periods of time. At best, I am a tourist in my parents’ country – well, more like a tourist with benefits: I get the family discounts, the fast passes on the elephant rides, and if a snake bites me, I don’t die! Yay for genetically coded anti-venom.

So… yeah – Indian Jews. I looked them up because I had no idea what to write about. I knew there were Ethiopian Jews – and Drake, and Lenny Kravitz – but I generally think of Jews as white. Until now, I suppose. For example: there was a Desi guy in the Office who has a half-Indian-Jewish mother! His name is Ranjit Chowdry, apparently. I’ve seen the Office up to Season 2, but never further. I probably haven’t seen him, right?

In any case, these Jews seem to be called the Bene Israel. Going off of Dune: Bene Gesserit vs. Bene Israel? Bene bene bene, beni bendi bici… I wonder what Bene means. I suppose it means people? So Bene Israel would be People of Israel. Bene Gesserit – assuming Gesserit sounds like Jess-er-it – sounds a bit like the People of Jesuit. I’m getting very sidetracked today.

Perusing the Wikipedia article for the Bene Israel, they seem to have been treated better under British-fucked India than pretty much everyone else; the British seemed to take a liking to them, for some reason. A Bene Israel named Ezra Mir “became the first chief of India’s film division.” That’s kind of funny, considering the Hollywood parallels. “The JEWS are everywhere in Hollywood!” the White Nationalists type in their parents’ basements, echoing generations of their spiritual ancestors. And the stereotype is not completely untrue: Seinfeld’s Jewish, Jon Stewart’s Jewish, Drake is Jewish, apparently Charlie Puth, Ansel Elgort and Hailee Steinfeld are Jewish, whoa! That’s some pretty decent representation, though I suppose it would be better if I knew that the last three were Jewish, too. Perhaps it’s Keanu-type thing, where they pass as white. Perhaps it’s an Al Jolson thing, too. Hell – perhaps the Keanu thing is an Al Jolson thing. Or maybe it’s all passing, and it’s all the same.

Anyways, there’s a group of Bene Israel in Israel now! About 2,300 of them left India after the whole Independence thing. Many were afraid of growing Indian nationalism. They then faced racism in the new Jewish state. Most of the Bene Israel then proceeded to go back to India.

Aaaand I just realized that there are many more peoples than just the Bene Israel, after clicking on “History of the Jews in India.” Wow. Lots to explore. I’m going to stop here, though.

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Daily Thoughts #4 (102817) – Dune, self-inserts and social justice

I started reading Dune. Seems like a fun book so far. I resent the idea that the main character is the chosen man out of a clan of strong women, though. I mean seriously – another male savior? Fifteen, gifted with immense powers, trained in all sorts of shit, hailed as the chosen one, speciaaallll! Whose parents probably get killed and so on, the hero’s cycle repeats, and so on… I have a complaint with the exposition, too. Some points just seem trite, or overwrought, or clichéd, though it’s highly likely that Dune created some of these clichés. Well, one example in Chapter 2 just seems like a general cliché, to be honest:

“The Baron moved out and away from the globe of Arrakis. As he emerged from the shadows, his figure took on dimension – grossly and immensely fat. And with subtle bulges beneath folds of his dark robes to reveal that all this fat was sustained partly by portable suspensors harnessed to his flesh. He might weigh two hundred Standard kilos in actuality, but his feet would carry no more than fifty of them.” (pp. 21-22)

Greedy villain is corpulent, the literal manifestation of their greed. Great. It feels over-the-top to me, though I do like the bit with the suspensors, as they give me a sense of the inequality in Dune: the rich are sustained in their greed through burgeoning technology, put to increasingly insipid use. Doesn’t sound familiar at all. Doesn’t remind me of the gadgets the rich are increasingly using to live their increasingly over-the-top lives. There are the usual things: fancy car, private island, designer clothes, expensive tastes, big houses, private jets, etc. Of course, the true trappings of wealth include access and ease: access to the most important, influential, and desirable people, events, and information, without ever really having to try. And then there are the weirder perks. Want to go be a space tourist? Sure! Give it a couple years and a couple million dollars. Or just ask Russia to take you. While the rich get to play with their fancies and in their fantasies, there’s a vast inequality in how wealth is spread, where luxury becomes access to basic necessities and human dignity. For example, according to the World Health Organization, “844 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service, including 159 million people who are dependent on surface water.” And it’s going to get worse as the effects of climate change continue to creep in. And this is an obvious parallel with the Fremen in their stillsuits, yadda yadda, obvious comparison. Before I started reading the book, I’d heard plenty of the Inequality Climate Change stuff. And while I don’t particularly love the book – it’s compelling, but I’ve read many books that weren’t nearly as clunky and dug much deeper – I’m amazed at how galvanized many Dune readers can be. The ones that I’ve experienced often talk about how they can’t see water in the same way anymore. Perhaps having a self-insert character – a presumably ‘white’ male kid named Paul, around 15 years of age, who’s probably the same age and race as most of the book’s readers who saves the world and becomes a hero – might be a good way to make people generally apathetic to ideas of climate change and inequality start to open up to the possibilities that these problems exist. It can be a type of head-fake: the apathetic read the story to feel like they matter, and by the time the self-insert saves the world, the reader realizes that the real world is not so different from the fictional world they’ve found themselves absorbed by; galvanized by a twin feeling of injustice and heroism, they decide to change things.

And then they try and fail and give up quickly. But they don’t forget; they keep telling people to read Dune! Hell, even that observation isn’t particularly new: I mean, look at all the Randian fanboys out there. Paul Ryan, every edgy teen on the internet, your manchild cousin, literally RAND Paul. But that’s obvious, too.

I guess I’m writing for a day when I’m not obvious, anymore.

Also, watch as Herbert subverts all the ideas of a chosen one and self-inserts and I end up looking like an idiot -- but I guess I’m playing with the ability to be an idiot, so...

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Daily Thoughts #3 (102716) – Diminishment

I’ve been helping a friend write a college application essay. They’re Desi like me, but they’re completely different, too; they’re more like a UK Desi than a US Desi, what with their low-class background, their extra religiousness, their toughness. They’ve lived so much life in so many different spheres, and they mean so many things to so many people. So when they showed me their college essay, I was shocked; they didn’t exist within their words. They were defensive, apologetic; they covered their failures, instead of displaying their strengths. They minimized themselves. Why does that sound so familiar?

Well… me. I minimize myself all the time. Even when I try to be self-aggrandizing, I come off as meek. I don’t know how to ask for respect, because I don’t treat myself with respect. When I write a résumé, I write a third of who I am; I assume no one wants to know the other two-thirds. But employers might want to know about how I communicate with Ajji through Scrabble and Rummy; how we speak the language of play, when we lack language. They might want to know my experience with Caranatic music, my experience with Western Violin, with pop music from around the world. (For example: I’m getting heavy into Mon Laferte.) People might want to know about my love for ironing, for cooking, how I’m learning to take care of myself; how I explore, actively seeking out the world around me, how I put myself in spaces where I would not belong, normally; how I invented my identity, because I could see no clear role models, how I became and am becoming who I want to be; how I read a book every week, just to see what I can find. I try to imagine an employer – or someone – who would value these parts of me. But the child of immigrants, the self-made explorer, the endlessly empathetic, the overly analytical: these things all feel so general. Sometimes, they don’t even feel like me. And they are general; the specifics are too vulnerable to unpack. I don’t want to be attacked for being me. Which is why blogging seems hard.

I think part of this lack of self is at least partly a colonial thing; anyone lesser in the Matrix of Domination, in the sphere of White Supremacist Cis-Heteronormative Capitalist Patriarchy (that modified bell hooks adage) must feel a bit of this diminishment. (Fanon probably talks about a similar thing, but I’ll write that when I get to him, eventually.) That’s why immigrants scrunch their shoulders into their chests and keep their voices small. That’s why Black people, no matter how strong they are, turn to mush in front of the police. That’s why I turned to mush, when a cop asked to search my bag in a white space. Other people had bags. But I was the only one who wasn’t white. I gave him my bag. I wrote about it endlessly afterwards – was he being racist? Did he understand what he was doing? Did I look particularly suspicious? But mostly: Why didn’t I stand up for myself?

I made my friend the college essayist start by writing everything about their life: the ups and downs and in-betweens, the nothings and the nobodies that gave them community, to write without pause until they saw something that reflected them. I wanted them to feel their self. And from there, we could start cutting.

Today, they showed me four pages, single-spaced. Their pages were riddled with spelling errors and potential, glistening with emotions and comma splices and achievement and redemption. In their twenty-something years, they’d lived a full life. I was blown away. They were, too; they’d forgotten how awesome they were.

We began stitching their essay together. It came out great. I don’t know how their essay will be received – but at least they were there, undiminished. And that’s more than enough.

Bonus Hamilton:

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Daily Thoughts #2, 102617 -- Blogs

I want to write a blog, and I want to continue my blog. But I don’t know what to write. Why? Because I don’t know what belongs in a blog! What do I know about blogs?

I like cooking blogs, like Maangchi. But I don’t follow them; I just look up something to make when I’m hungry.

I like blogs that tackle the news from specific points of view. I like Angry Asian Man for always speaking his mind, and speaking up for the Asian American community. I like Tits and Sass for giving me insight into sex workers’ perspectives.

I remember when Blogspot was popular. I was jealous of my classmate’s page. It autoplayed a Harry Nilsson song when you visited. I had another classmate who set up a Harry Potter Geocities site, recreating Hogwarts. She would even assign homework! And I would do it!

I first read manga on blogs, starting with Naruto – there was some Yahoo Groups thing. Or was it Google Groups? Or was it Geocities? I just remember a web-2.0-type page with a banner and links on the left side. I recall having to click open each image. I read hundreds of chapters of Naruto this way. I got into One Piece this way. I tried and discarded Ranma ½ this way.

I’ve started multiple blogs; all fizzle out after a couple posts. I say I’ll continue, but I always get tripped up about privacy issues, or I feel I don’t have a voice, and I’ll discontinue whatever I started to say. I let the blog end before I can let it become anything meaningful.

I heard about this Princeton professor (or maybe he was an adjunct?) that wrote a small essay-like blog post every day for an entire year. I think he went on to publish the results. I have no idea how accurate the above is: I never investigated the source for myself. I like the idea of writing an essay-like blog post every day, though, and I’d like to do something similar here – but to be honest, I think I got the idea of daily essay-like blogs from the Vlogbrothers. And, to be fair, they got the idea from ZeFrank.

I’ve loved vlogs. My favorite people on Youtube are probably the Vlogbrothers, because they radiate so much creativity and positivity in the Youtube space. Perhaps it’s because they got in early, but I feel like they’re always willing to be weird. They don’t follow trends. And they have a consistent set release schedule. That’s amazing. I watched some of ZeFrank’s revamp of “The Show.” That “Invocation for Beginnings” video is fantastic. I love that video. I occasionally watched Casey Neistat vlogs. I think his intensity came off as insane – four hours of sleep?!?! Really?!?! – but I admired how well-made his vlogs were. And now, he’s revolutionized vlogging; I’ve seen so many of his techniques used in other peoples’ vlogs.

I even watched the Vlogumentary, by Shay Carl – well, it got boring and I didn’t make it the whole way through. I heard Shay had some troubles, cheated on his wife, they closed their channel… I don’t want to shame someone who’s already been so shamed. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. I hope they’re okay.

I’m using vlogs to improve my Spanish. At first, it was Los Polinesios – and then their music started to bother me. And they uploaded too much. And they were too smiley. And I felt overloaded with their content. So I watch Nekojitablog (Japón con Jamón) now. They upload once a week, while maintaining a vlog-type style. And they tend to be deeper than the Polinesios, somehow; or, at least, that’s how I feel about them.

I like my cousin’s blog. She writes maybe once every two weeks – Facebook’s her real blog, and I’m not on Facebook, anymore – but I enjoy the posts. They’re not particularly highbrow, but they’re very much her, and I like knowing her more.

I’m inspired by Amanda Fucking Palmer’s blog, where she’s unbelievably intimate with a huge group of people. Where she explains herself, often in excruciating detail; where she is undeniably herself, 100% of the time. Her book, The Art of Asking, feels like a series of blog posts, revolved around asking. I don’t love her music, but I love her book. I still wish I knew how to ask.

I fucking love everything Frank Ocean writes on his Tumblr. I wish he’d write more.

So what have I learned about blogs? They’re precious, they’re strange, they’re intimate. They’re boring, weird, accessible. They constitute memories. They can be used for all sorts of things. I’m sure they can be used for propaganda, but I’ve mostly seen blogs used for expression, for vulnerability. And I would like to add my voice to that collection. Even if blogs are passé by now.

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Daily Thoughts 10/25/17 (#1): ‘Havana’ and the beautiful fallout of trauma

I love Camila Cabello’s new video for “Havana” – the lights, the story, the video-within-a video – everything works, and works well. But what I love the most is “La Chancleta,” the instrument (read: flip-flop) that Abuelita threatens the kids with. I’m Desi, not Latino; I know fuck-all about La Chancleta. It came off as funny to me – what damage can you do with a flip-flop? And then I saw the reactions from Latino people online… La Chancleta was real, and shared. And funny! Funny in a different way, though. While I found La Chancleta funny in its ridiculousness, it seemed like others were laughing as a form of therapy, as a way not to hurt. Don’t get me wrong; La Chancleta is more than that – it’s a chance for people to bond over a common experience, a way for a community to come together, and undeniably funny – but it also includes memories of being beaten by your parents, which is undeniably traumatic. Here’s a Desi example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gD1woa_Cbw

In which Russell Peters (aka the first successful Desi comic) tells white people to beat their kids, otherwise they’ll “feel left out.” He talked about how, when he grew up, his dad whooped his ass all the time. And it’s hilarious! My dad beat me when I was a kid (which is a complex story in itself) and I choked up laughing the first time I heard the bit. My dad loved it, too; to this day, Russell Peters is his favorite comedian. For the longest time in middle school, I couldn’t go anywhere in my community without hearing “somebody gonna get hurt, real bad.” It’s the same thing as La Chancla: laughter from pain, connection through trauma. Because beating involves some serious trauma.

I can’t say I have a dramatic story about daily beatings – my beatings were tame, and almost playful, compared to the stories I hear. Like how Adrian Peterson was suspended from the NFL for beating his four-year-old son so badly, the boy sustained welts on his ass and his genitals. Like how Kendrick Lamar was beaten by his parents, sometimes for seemingly no reason. But while my beatings were tame, and I never sustained any physical wounds -- hell, I’m not sure if I should even call them beatings; I love my dad, and he’s a great person! -- I still feel a great deal of shame. I feel diminished. I get paralyzed when I deal with authority figures. I turn into a little boy again; I go stiff; I’m going to be beaten. And so I continue to withdraw. Which is similar to my father, in some ways. He’s always diminishing himself. No matter what he creates, no matter how successful he’s been, he never feels his success. It goes beyond mere humility: in his fancy house, my father feels like a failure.

What’s fascinating about this trauma is that it’s generational: beating becomes a way for parents to transfer trauma to their kids. In Between The World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about a time when he slipped away from his parents in a park. His parents panicked, searching for him. When they found him, “Dad did what every parent I knew would have done – he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice – ‘Either I can beat him, or the police.’” Ta-Nehisi’s father was a part of the Black Panther party, was a revolutionary. He was supposed to be tough, unafraid of the cops. Yet, in this moment, he did the cops’ work for them: he beat his son. The violence was supposed to be an act of love, to be an act of prevention: if the Dad beat Ta-Nehisi, then Ta-Nehisi would know somehow, inherently, to keep safe; that any toe out of line could kill him. And Ta-Nehisi learned his lesson. He stayed ‘safe.’ But he never felt safe; he knew that, at any moment, everything could be taken away. That he could be arrested without a reason; that he could be killed at any time. And so the fear, the trauma was passed on.

This trauma is not without its uses. It’s funny. It’s a collective experience that ties us minorities together. “Your daddy whooped your ass?” “Yeah – mine did too! One time, he whooped my ass so hard that…” La Chancleta, the belt, Eddie Huang stories, Russell Peters – they tie themselves together into one big belt, holding us all together. They keep us wary, they keep us disciplined.

But is the trauma truly worth it? All the self-doubt, all the feelings of inadequacy – those remain. Is it because of the beatings? Not entirely. But part of my inadequacy definitely comes from being beaten. Of course, my father was beaten; he says the beatings made him a man. Many people feel the same as my father. “It made me whole. It toughened me up.”

It’s hard to separate out the good and the bad. After all, I love my family. And I would give a kidney to my father, if he needed one. But I wish he hadn’t beaten me, either.

So – what do we keep? And what do we throw away?

Congrats to Camila – keep it up! And most of what I talked about is said more concisely and eloquently in this NPR Code Switch article from 2014: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/04/361205792/la-chancla-flip-flops-as-a-tool-of-discipline

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Feels like I wasted a lot of time, being miserable

I wrote for about 3 days straight and then kept my thoughts to myself. I still don’t know how to process everything that’s going on. I consume a lot of news and think a lot, but I never let the thoughts escape my head. And then sometimes I break out and remember that the thoughts mean nothing if they never leave me. If I don’t write them down, they stay invisible. I think most people feel invisible, though -- and why should I be any different? I wish I had the answers.

I’ve heard lots of people trying to synthesize the phenomena that have taken over what seems to be the world, or at least the US, Britain, France -- essentially former colonial powers -- and for a while they didn’t sound convincing. It’s not that they were wrong, but that any sense coming from this seems nonsensical. The center is not holding. It’s right to be confused. Nevertheless, I have a lot of admiration for those who keep synthesizing, who keep trying to work through the confusion. As much as I love the stupor that confusion carries, it seems rather useless to carry on without working through what’s going on. And, in some cases, I feel like their work has started to bear fruit. I loved Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece on President Obama. I enjoy watching Trevor Noah trying to explain Trump from an entertainer’s perspective. I enjoy Sam Bee reminding me that this isn’t normal, and should never be. And I admire the people who remind me that this is not good vs. evil: this is humanity, in all its insufficiencies. Donald Trump is toxic, insecure masculinity; his followers are like wounded animals, ready to lash out at anyone trying to get close to them.

And I feel the need to back away, anyways: I feel like I’m not enough, I feel like I’m going to be hurt, I feel like I’m going to hurt others, and I want to curl up in bed until something comes to kill me; I might as well indulge in comfort until the end. And I’m probably not going to write particularly insightful stuff – not for a while, anyways. But sooner or later, I hope that one thing I write has the kind of insight that I’m seeking; if not a permanent mark, maybe I can find the mind that I’ve been missing, especially when it comes to speaking publicly.

On a last note: facts aren’t dead. Yet. They’re trying their hardest to kill self-reflectiveness – not because they’re evil, but because they don’t understand. So we have to fight to stay alive, to stay visible. To tell our stories. To reflect our humanity; because sooner or later, they’re going to have to pause, to listen, to pay attention. They can’t stay locked in themselves forever.

I should know. I tried.

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Frank has away of saying what I feel; even if it comes from his perspective, and not mine.

I'm really excited for these inauguration crowd numbers to come in.

Don’t cook the books either Donald. We all know your event was dry. No matter how many times CNN anchors repeat majestic or peaceful transition of power. The world can see America divided and the chaos in the streets. Barack we love you but it would’ve been equally presidential if you would’ve just walked on out while Donald got through that struggle speech trashing your career. The majority knows man, we know you did good. We see it. The majority sees Donald for who he is too. He ain’t slick. And it’s too bad the majority doesn’t count. In any event, a first family that I can relate to will be missed. Really though.