More Life

Provided the visa thing works out okay, my parents may come visit me (a bit separate, a bit together, overlapping in the middle--it's as complex and awkward as their /yet again On, but this time 'Casual' (ahahahahahah yeah right mom)/ dating relationship) in March. Actually kind of excited about actually traveling for the first time in FOREVER (save Molly's wedding, which was in some ways more stress than vacation), and weirdly pleased to see my parents.

The overlap but alone time suggestion will mean that I'm not stuck dealing with it too long if they have weird spats, but neither am I subjected to the potential annoyances of the unrelieved presence of either, i.e. mom's capacity to be over-bearing as hell and dad's capacity to have no interests, spend an embarrassing amount of money (which leaves me physically nauseous), and not plan properly/actually want to do anything. Also it means dad won't try to bring Randima the Random Ho. Again. In any of her regenerations. None of whom are nice, interesting women with any conversation. Or my aunt, who still hasn't forgiven me over last August's truly trivial spat over hotel bookings. Predictably.

We thought London for a few days, and then a few days in maybe two more cities/close areas--so about a weak in total, maybe a day or two (three?) in various places. There's been some talk of France, Germany and Italy. Idk about France--I can understand soooome Italian (close enough to Spanish) and a pinch of German (ran through basic introductions, directions, numbers, and ordering of food in the shower the other night--shaky, but not unworkable), but no French, and it proved a problem in Paris last time. As did the erratic Louvre hours. And the hostel fees. and the sprinklers in the Tulleries, when we didn't want to pay the hostel fees. And the large rats in the subway, when we did then had to use a public bathroom at night (cat sized). And the man who catcalled at Molly in the subway and got pissed off when I was like 'noooo, don't ask what he's saying, he's saying 'I am a creeper', walk ooooon'. City of love. I am not going back without a Francophone.

Also I briefly and embarrassingly thought the Hotel de Ville place we were walking past was like, a hotel? ...I got a 5 in AP Euro. What was I smoking that morning. I blame the sprinklers/that rat.

But idk, are there parts of France that do not suck? Paris WAS pretty attractive, but a hard place to visit po. Suppose I wouldn't be, this time, b/c with parents.

There's an instinct to stick to Major Capitals because my parents have never been to Europe (only my mom's ever left the country, to go to Mexico), and I'd like them to see Big Things, esp. as they may not get back. But also they don't seem to particularly care where we go, and I've done Rome/Florence/Venice/Berlin. I could go back, but then, I'd also like to see some new places and things. I thought maybe I could do Vienna again, because I remember really liking Vienna, but there was not much interest. Where else in Germany and Italy and maybe France should I take them? Where's good?

...Mom had better not throw a weird 'you're trying to ruin my luff!!!' fit again. At any point. Because dumbest shit ever.

Also it has occurred to me they should probably meet Katy's mother for tea. *Eugh.*

***

An amazingly DEAD SERIOUS review of buildings in Star Wars by Architects' Journal.

POETRY FEUD!! Hat-tip to Katy.

Okay, weirdly? I think this is a GIANT relief. No longer do I have to have nightmares about plastic decomposition!!


Did you know football hooligans played a major role in the Egyptian uprising? NOR DID I!

Amazing-sounding doughnuts

The Math/Science Gender Gap roughly about as acculturated, bullshit as I always thought it was.

Former slave Epically Trolls his former master. Also trolling aside I like the weird hint of emotional complication and wildly ambivalent, complicated emotional relationships between these people (who you'd think of as having a pretty starkly uncomplicated interaction) in this period of strange upheaval, it makes you want to write about the period.

The History Boys called, it wants its critique of Oxbridge back. Actually it's a decent pointing-out of the ways 'meritocratic excellent' is preconditioned, but it could have pressed its conclusion point more thoroughly by being more searching in its body. It has a length issue in that it wants to realize its potential as a searching inditement of the American concept that people have an equal chance to succeed, thus those that do are justified by a sort of Calvanist pre-destination doctrine of success, and also it wants to talk about what that does to education and what that does to people--but it's two pages, so it waffles and gestures vaguely towards the things it wants to speak about before slinking off stage.

Paris sucks for people traveling with babies. Also if you don't speak French, or don't have a shit-ton of cash on you, I find...

Not a very productive day. Rather lazy and sad. Hard to feel okay when the visa is Out There and I don’t really have answers/security on that. Knowing that I can, quite probably, successfully counter opposition doesn’t feel like a relief so much as a looming obstacle ahead of me.

Have almost used all the left-over-crap from the holidays in various recipes without wasting much of any of it. Score.

( You all need to listen to this song though, for real real )

And musings on Pregnance:

Daniel: Beyonce's kid is named blue ivy
i think her next kid is purple kudzu
just calling it now

me: Danny, I already listened to the rap about this [in which Jay Z raps jubilantly about having spawned]
and I feel: correct
except when you say on fb that you're waiting for it [Purple Kudzu] to drop
you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of kudzu
that shit is clinging in there like a horrific foetus that dies inside, rots, and takes mom with it in the highest female gothic tradition
Cut to Jay Z wandering around Manderlay, screaming raps to the sea
the cold, uncaring sea
I guess Purple Kudzu truly was... destiny's child?
IN THAT IT WAS DESTINED TO KILL. O_O

Stolen from Amy/ chickenamu , b/c it intrigued me and I want to talk about it if you do. Also I owe bagheera_san  for listening to me flutter about post reading and saying v. interesting things about how the German educational system fails to serve its immigrant populations.

"If feminism is about social change, white feminism -- a feminism of assimilation, of gentle reform and/or strengthening of institutions that are instrumental to economic exploitation and white supremacy, of ignorance and/or appropriation of the work of feminists of color -- is an oxymoron. And it is not a thing of some bygone era before everyone read bell hooks in college. It is happening now; you might be part of it."

From "On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists," by Jessica Hoffman
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/81260/?page=entire


An excellent distillation of why feminism is compelling (italics mine):

“What keeps me connected to feminism is a radical history of multi-issue, multitactic activism that goes by that name. I know of no other social-justice tradition that has so frequently linked so-called private with so-called public political struggles, art with organizing. And that is why I find politics of privilege that call themselves feminism -- those that would work uncritically within existing power structures, even strengthening them; those that co-opt the revolutionary work of feminists of color by superficially "including" them in a movement that leaves privileged women and their priority issues at the center -- so frustrating.”

Interesting thought re: the nature of critique:

“[1] In a recent radio interview with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, author Chip Smith talked about critique as a form of mutual support through which privileged people who believe in justice can hold each other accountable. My friend and collaborator Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, an activist writer, has called critique a form of love. The white-middle-class culture I was educated in frames it, especially among girls, as scary conflict to avoid at all costs. I'm writing this letter in part to unlearn that lesson, to learn instead to critique with love and hope, to put it out there and find out whatever that's worth.”


So:

This article's an interesting indictment of white upper-class feminism as a palliative tool of assimilation. She makes some points about immigrant rights and prisoner’s rights being central concerns of feminism. Fair enough. But then she goes on to talk about how necessary the destruction of the prison-industrial complex is, and likewise how necessary it is to recognize the illegitimacy of national borders. And I feel... a touch right-wing and stupid, here, but I'm kind of left questioning what far-left feminism's effective strategy is for disassembling those institutions and then going about the business of governance without them?

I should read more Chomsky or something, b/c to me the destruction of the nation-state isn't intuitive, or indeed immediately accessible as a natural concern of feminism. Though that, I suppose, is the author's point. I’m not disagreeing with her, I just want to read something that more fully explores these arguments, esp. viz a viz their relation to feminism.

I think it's historically unrealistic to currently work towards the demise of the nation state, though obviously that's an eventual ideal. It's like the PETA question. They can believe that all they like that any human appropriation of animal labor is wrong, but would they do animal rights more service by turning their resources towards obtainable objectives ('humanizing' the current industrial farming system, for example), and working from there, in achievable steps, with the support of less radically progressive groups? Maybe it's a better use of time to focus on immigrant rights and rationalizing immigration under the presumption of the current system's legitimacy? But does saying that make me ye olde prop of the system, etc.

Also, is my constant ambivalence characteristic of me, demonstrative of a willingness to explore and consider a variety of views, or just a means of couching myself in a constant unimpeachable, uncommitted position?

ON COMMENTS FROM LAST POST: I'll answer them in a few hours when I'm home? It's not that I don't love y'all, but this internet's totally shit, I'm just writing in word and posting when there's a sunspot or something and it connects.

Happy Purim! Little Sister Molly forwards us this amaaazing Indie Rock Purim Story, as featured in nextbook’s online magazine. Nextbook is an a publishing company that seems to produce a bevy of books I’d bonnily buy, with a magazine so consistently well written that I loathed them entirely for a solid half hour yesterday morning before rediscovering (as I have to do every time) that it was okay if other people were super-articulate and fantastic, I should not be threatened. Instead I should enjoy their capacity to rock and feel heartened that I too may one day rock equally hard.

Alone with Hebe, I’d really like to sub the finished version of the Kibbutz!article over to them. When I’m back on my laptop (with its open tabs) instead of Katy’s I’ll rec you guys a REALLY good piece about hyper-conservative Jewish Settlements in the West Bank, and also some of the best art criticism I’ve read in some time.

I’ve never worn cufflinks before. I like the solidity of them: plumbs describing the depth of the air, the distance from bone to surface—sartorial signifiers of potential energy. I enjoy this gravity, dragging your wrists down to the keyboard and tapping the wooden table with muffled authority.

I love men’s suits. The blogger The Sartorialist does a great job suitporn spotting. If I had money I’d def. have a surplus of well-tailored women’s clothing (I've a weird figure, few things fit me well without alteration), but I don’t think I’d be able to resist a few vintage men’s suits. I blame an amalgamation of gay!daddy, too much Jeeves and Wooster as a child, and oddly but unsurprisingly Five’s Edwardian cricketing costume for my conviction that I won’t be whole until I own a truly well-cut coat.

I had to borrow Katy’s clothes to come up with anything like a normal, proper outfit, but in the end I’m feeling very near human again. Tights and black boy’s tuxedo pants: mine. Silky gray shirt that, amusingly, I own an almost exact copy of (in charcoal instead of dove, but same pattern), a vest very like the one I bought in North France (subsequently appropriated by little sister Molly—who thinks I somehow don’t know rather than am silently indulging her kleptomania), cufflinks in q. and black leather boots: not mine. What a relief to not dress for the fields, the factory or the kitchens. Trivial, but it all feels part of a slow re-assumption of myself, and I did miss me a bit.

When I get back I’m doing law research for bio!daddy. I’ll be using history research skillz to deal with 1) whether banks charging fees for the prep of closing documents counts as practicing law without a license, 2) a due diligence issue with insurance companies inspecting the things they insure before issuing policies and then claiming any major damage to the insured property must have happened before their client took up a claim with them, and 3) finally a building law issue wherein loan companies give struggling bankers enough rope to hand themselves on when really it might be more responsible to cut off requests for additional loans/extensions in a more custodial way.

It's so nepotistic: I'm telling myself that it's only for a few months, and that I /will/ be working, and hard, but I've always run screaming from family hand-outs. And the horrifying prospect of my deb ball—the only coming out I’d be doing was going to piss off my mother or bust. And it has! She has the phone bill from a trans-Atlantic fight staged in a Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport Foodcourt to prove it.

This is taking a temporary job that /does/ sound interesting and like I'm well qualified for in a shit economy. Lots of people work in family businesses, I guess, but it does seem sleazy. Though Danny points out that /his/ job was also obtained via Connections, so even my token Employed In The (General Area Of The) Field He Wants To Be In friend needed a leg up. Bah. It is what it is, I guess, and b/c he’s not on my birth certificate his rec/the job will look nice on my CV, next to the panache of ‘hard labour in socialist commune in the middle east,’ ‘political fundraiser for the DCCC and the Obama Campaign,’ and ‘Intern and Writer for Really Crap Lifestyle Magazine, Co-Writer of their Food Guide.’  

Dear grad schools of greater London: please want me with a fierceness. What glut of applicants due to recession?