oh snap. oakland knows how to do community right. like i didn't know and that's not why i live here or something. (minus the fact that they used the web cloud for this interaction, which is something to consider, but for now, i'll leave it at this) from abetteroakland.com

- - - - -

AC Transit’s extensive service reduction planning process yields great results

November 25, 2009

...In any case, the massive amount of outreach worked. AC Transit recorded nearly 5,000 comments on the service reduction proposal altogether, through a combination of workshops, public hearings, letters, e-mails, website comments, phone calls, petitions, and comments at their customer service office.

Meanwhile, realizing just how awful the proposed cuts were, no matter how carefully they tried to be in crafting them, the agency scrambled to figure out a way to avoid at least some of the devastation. And lo and behold, they came up with one. AC Transit is working with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to take some funds previously earmarked for BRT and transfer them into operations. Although the funding swap has not yet been completed, the AC Transit Board of Director agreed to a set of conditions requested by the MTC at last week’s meeting, and at the moment, things look good for the funding swap.

Which brings us to AC Transit’s revised service adjustments plan. It’s great....

read the rest here

photographer sam taylor wood created a portraiture series of hollywood's most masculine actors crying for the camera. it's beautiful.

When grown men cry

there were a number of music videos and a documentary about waila chicken scratch music from the tohono o'odham nation in southwestern arizona. but, by far, the absolute highlight of my night was watching a special feature by rising star, sterlin harjo, called "barking water." it ended up winning "best film" of the festival. it was totally beautiful.

(insert squee of note: there was a hilarious comedic interlude brought by two of my talented colleagues, ryan red corn and quese imc)

and even though, i'm not an oklahoma ndn, the ride through and the love of beauty of the land reminded me of my road trips through ontario, nishnaabe'ki.

it aches.

- - - - -

Barking Water

Before Oklahoma was a red state, it was known as the Land of the Red People, described by the Choctaw phrase Okla Humma. In his sophomore film, Sterlin Harjo takes viewers on a road trip through his own personal Oklahoma, which includes an eclectic mix of humanity.Irene and Frankie have a difficult past, but Frankie needs Irene to help him with one task. He needs to get out of the hospital and go home to his daughter and new grandbaby to make amends. Irene had been his one, true, on-again, off-again love until they parted ways for good. But to make up for the past, Irene agrees to help him in this trying time.With steady and graceful performances by Richard Ray Whitman as Frankie and Casey Camp-Horinek as Irene, this story takes viewers for a ride in the backseat of Frankie and Irene’s Indian car, listening to their past and the rhythmic soundtrack that sets the beat for a redemptive road journey. Harjo wraps us in the charm and love of Oklahoma through the people and places Irene and Frankie visit along the way. In this sparingly sentimental and achingly poignant film, Harjo claims his place as one of the most truthful and honest voices working in American cinema today. Barking Water is an expression of gratitude for the ability to have lived and loved.

In case you needed another endless distraction from the rest of your life from the Van Gogh Museum:

The artist speaks
9 October 2009 - 3 January 2010

From 9 October 2009 to 3 January 2010 Van Gogh's letters will take centre stage in the exhibition Van Gogh's letters: The artist speaks. More than 120 original letters will be on show alongside the works that Van Gogh was writing about. These important documents have seldom or never been shown to the public due to their extreme fragility and sensitivity to light.

The combination of more than 300 works from the museum's own rich collection, including paintings, drawings, letters and letter sketches, offers a penetrating and comprehensive insight into Van Gogh as letter writer and as artist.

Especially for this exhibition the Van Gogh Museum has been able to secure the loan of three special letters from Vincent van Gogh to the artist Emile Bernard (1868-1941) from The Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

‘There are so many people, especially among our pals, who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don’t you think, it’s as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint a thing.’
Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard, 19 April 1888

this guy lives in my neighborhood. he leaves his post its and other tiny cartoon creatures all over my hood about once a month. i've actually met him, too. but, i didn't put two and two together until this morning when i found the website on the back of one of the post it's. how lucky am i?

http://www.thedailypostit.com/

I only caught two feature documentaries last night, and I really only have the capacity to talk about one. The other served as a kind of cleansing after the first. This story hits extremely close to home and I've met and heard the stories of dozens of other lost birds whose story can be found in some or most of this film.

The film "Lost Sparrow" left the audience in a dead silence for several minutes after it had ended. The white adoptive brother of the two Crow boys that were the focus of the film is also the filmmaker and was there to answer some extremely difficult questions from the audience. I can say that I don't think the movie settled everything, which is probably alright, life is far from perfect. I can't fathom the amount of courage it took to make this film. I can barely fathom the amount of healing this will have among ndns in both Canada and the U.S.



- - - - -

Lost Sparrow

Some questions are never answered. Some answers are hard to take. Three decades ago, two Crow Indian brothers ran away from home and no one knew why. Their sudden and mysterious deaths sent shockwaves through a tiny upstate New York community.

This is their adoptive brother’s journey to bring Bobby and Tyler home and confront a painful truth that shattered his family.

So, I made it to the American Indian Film Festival going on in San Francisco this week. It technically started last Friday, but I've had a number of other social and non-social engagements to see to (o, my oppressive social life!). This morning, my emotions feel like they were run over by a truck. It's fine, I willingly submit myself to the emotional roller coaster that is the Film Festival -- and typically, it's painful in subterranean landscapes. What did Sherman Alexie say? To be Indian is to be tragic. And I don't think that's a statement of victim hood, but maybe a statement of sobriety. Our collective post-Apocalyptic survival is no joke.

Last year, I wanted to throw myself off of the Bay Bridge after watching an extremely rare showing of "The Exiles." Several years ago, I forced myself through documentary after documentary from ANWR to Ipperwash with the effect of wanting to lose my lunch when I left.

So, the program last night (Monday, Nov. 9, 7:00 p.m.) started with music videos that were mildly entertaining. Having worked in Ohsweken for a year at my first job, I could have sworn that they filmed the video for "Two Lane Road" on Six Nations. The song was cute, but I'm not a fan of mainstream country. However, I will never diss a piece of art that has an ndn woman as the object of beauty, even if she is a kind of damsel in distress, there's just too few ndn women in any mainstream media.

"Totem" was well constructed and certainly well acted (oh, thank you, Canada Council for the Arts, we grovel to your hefty fundings), but the message was far less subtle than I would have liked. It was nice to see some cameos of Ryan Red Corn's Demockratees in it (if Ryan ever starts an army, I wanna be Sergeant-At-Arms). It was refreshing to see new ndn actors and of course, the overall message of rejuvenation and survival was empowering, I just hate how it gets wrapped up in such a cliche of Native culture as "craft," i.e., in the Canadian mainstream, our culture is all-too-often wrapped up in reductionist-portrayal of traditional "crafts" that I have issue with, more on that another time. What I would give to see the application of racial formation theory to ndn identity in Canada.

"Burn the Wagon" was hella real, which I loved. More importantly, it depicted personal heroes in my world: ndn lawyers (and damn if the protagonist wasn't frighteningly like a particular hero on my f-list, grrl, you know who you are)... but it totally lacked any motivation of plot! It was really frustrating. To which, I told myself, maybe it doesn't need a plot... which is a plausible answer, I'm particular to the suspense of a plot.

And really, what nearly had me in tears was the very short documentary of local Bay Area ndn, LaVerne Roberts, "A New Frontier." Getting back to what made me want to lose my emotional cookies at the other films, it was here, in this one. The simple compacted serving of several individual stories of painfully young ndns who were disenfranchised, abandoned, neglected at the hands of various federally-mandanted bureaucratic programs and just left to (die?) figure it out. Imagining an 18-year old LaVerne, scared shitless on a park bench in San Jose overnight, because she had the audacity to think that someone was going to escort her to the Indian Relocation Office from the Greyhound station (did anyone bother to give her a map?) because had she been home, a relative would have done the same. And yes, it also comes with the restitution of her finding the local ndn community, Alcatraz, and making herself a life in the great urban reservation of San Francisco; but it's the sudden feeling of realizing that an entire army of LaVerne's found themselves in her helpless position and the collective grief is too much to bear, cue: regurgitation.

The night ended with the long documentary of the life of Adam Fortunate Eagle. I won't speak to it. It was made by a white man, and it showed. There was a powerful dynamic of apologism and performitivity for a non-ndn audience that I struggled to appreciate. But that struggle existed in Fortunate Eagle's life and he found his peace with it and I have to appreciate that were it not for his struggles and defeats, my righteous ndn ass would not be here right now writing this blog. And there it is, where we all fit on this timeline of survival, each generation overcoming some other tidal wave of genocide, digesting and forming new (and eventually problematic) defense mechanisms, until the waves settle down in some bright future that we're all moving towards -- or so, we hope, lest we throw ourselves off of the Golden Gate. Let's throw a film festival instead.

amazing. absolutely, amazing.

(from five years ago)

- - - - -

Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity
By RON NIXON
Published: November 8, 2009

...The experiences of Ms. Young are common among adopted children from Korea, according to one of the largest studies of transracial adoptions, which is to be released on Monday. The report, which focuses on the first generation of children adopted from South Korea, found that 78 percent of those who responded had considered themselves to be white or had wanted to be white when they were children. Sixty percent indicated their racial identity had become important by the time they were in middle school, and, as adults, nearly 61 percent said they had traveled to Korea both to learn more about the culture and to find their birth parents...

...“So much of the research on transracial adoption has been done from the perspective of adoptive parents or adolescent children,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the institute. “We wanted to be able to draw on the knowledge and life experience of a group of individuals who can provide insight into what we need to do better....” [emphasis mine]

read the rest here

an excerpt from a book of mine of letters written by mark twain. the man was a master of the figurative middle finger.

(i completely adore mark twain even though he hated ndns. life is full of dualities.)

- - - - -

Hartford, Feb 18/83.

J. W. Bouton, Esq--

Dr Sir--
Draw & be damned. I subscribed for your Portfolio one year & no more. I paid for it. Since then you have thrust it upon me & persecuted me with it at your own risk & in defiance of my several protests.

You'll "draw" on me! The hell you will! Messrs. Slote & Co "refer" you to me. No! -- why you can't be in earnest. If they refer you to me, of course it must be all right. Dear me, why didn't you get the peanut man on the corner to add HIS authority.

Well, what a marvelous sort of publisher you must be, sure enough! You ought to write a book, & call it "How to Combine the Methods of the Highwayman & the Publisher Successfully."
I kiss you, Sweetheart! -- Goodbye, good-bye -- ta-ta! -- ta-ta!

Dearest, I am

Truly Yours

S L Clemens

I told hardyharhar yesterday that I'd spend some time that evening writing in solidarity with him, but instead, I read. Ganked from Wicked Alice. Please note: this is one of four movements.

- - - - -

Things Lost: An Inspection
by April Durham

If I said I had the cameo earrings my grandma gave me on my 11th birthday, I would be lying. I lost them in the tangled blue carpet in my bedroom or down the bathroom drain at Maywood Junior High School or in the hayloft where I was hiding so I could read Little Women instead of feeding the chickens.

If I said I found the cameo earrings my grandma gave me on my 11th birthday in my mother’s sweater drawer 20 years later when I was helping her pack for a trip to Alaska, I’d be telling the truth.

If I said I lost my virtue in the back seat of a Chrysler on a cold March night when rain threatened to wash the car and half the town away, I’d be lying.

If I said I lost my best friend Jesse over a careless remark I made while cleaning the bathtub, I would be telling the truth.

If loss is yellow-green like a bruised cloud waiting to rain but unable to travel.

If memory is connected to loss and ceaselessly moving via theoretical constructs invented in laboratories.

If laboratories are constructs of the mind's eye.

If imagination is the only sane link in a chain of loss.

If that chain is made of yellow gold and has a cameo in cream and rust with loose tendrils drifting, hanging somewhere between here and the North.

If my mother is a thief for my own good.

- - - - -

April Durham is a writer and visual artist who builds a story through accumulation in both her texts and visual works. Recent publications include Midway Journal, Phantom Seed, and Slouching Toward Mt. Rubidoux. She has exhibited widely in 2009 in strange places including Los Angeles International Airport, The Armory Center in Pasadena, and the museo archeologico di Amelia (maA) in Umbria, Italy. She is the director of Small Wonder Foundation, an experimental venue for art and literature and the publisher of [com]motion, an online magazine and curatorial venue. She is a PhD student in the Comparative Literature department at UC Riverside.

Diversity educator and filmmaker Lee Mun Wah is putting together a book called "Let's Get Real: What People of Color Can't Say and Whites Won't Ask."

He's got a series of questions for both POC and white people, and is asking for responses from anyone who cares to answer some or all of them. The deadline for responses is November 15th. Participants whose responses are selected for publication get a free, autographed copy of the book.

Info is here:

http://www.stirfryseminars.com/letsgetreal/

and a link to some of the more interesting alphabets, one of my personal faves is the invented cube font (tm) -- totes free, yo.

some literal, some figurative.

- - - - -

Hotel California (acoustic) - anonymous dashing young man with classical guitar at rehearsal dinner
Billie Jean/bad metal techno mashup - Michael Jackson and Unknown Artist
Caribou - The Pixies
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
"La Primavera" - Movement 1: Allegro - Antonio Vivaldi
Canon in D Major - Johann Pachelbel
Beautiful Day - U2
Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-A-Lot
White Riot - The Clash
Daughter - Pearl Jam
Symphony of Factory Sirens - Arseny Avraamov
In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)/The Roost - Elliott Smith
Creep - Radiohead
I'm So Tired - The Beatles

The Oakland Public Art Program and the Oakland Redevelopment Agency are seeking an artist to collaborate on the transformation of a strategically located public transportation entrance site into a memorable and distinctive arts-centered gateway to Oakland's re-emerging Uptown arts and entertainment district. The qualified applicant will have demonstrated experience working with a six- or seven-figure budget, as part of a design team, on integrated architectural design, and preferably with experience in the creation of light-based / new media art installations.

The site is the 17th Street BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station entrance located between Telegraph Avenue and Broadway. The goal of the project is to increase awareness of and traffic to the site and to help transform the station entrance into a key gateway into the Uptown Arts & Entertainment District. The public art component will be the centerpiece of the improvements.

This Request for Qualifications is available online on the Cultural Arts & Marketing Division's website at www.oaklandculturalarts.org.

When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.
Published: October 19, 2009

You can divorce an abusive spouse. You can call it quits if your lover mistreats you. But what can you do if the source of your misery is your own parent?

Granted, no parent is perfect. And whining about parental failure, real or not, is practically an American pastime that keeps the therapeutic community dutifully employed.

But just as there are ordinary good-enough parents who mysteriously produce a difficult child, there are some decent people who have the misfortune of having a truly toxic parent...

...“Sometimes we consider a paradoxical intervention and say to a patient, ‘I really admire your loyalty to your parents — even at the expense of failing to protect yourself in any way from harm,’ ” Dr. Herman told me in an interview...

read the whole thing here

last night, a cold front moved into the bay. it never fails. the week before halloween is gorgeous, and then right before halloween the temperature plummets and all the little marina (and beyond) ladies in their sexy angel/devil/maid/policewoman/armyseargant/mentalpatient get beyond uncomfortable and even more miserable while roaming the fair streets of san francisco on their way to one of hundreds of halloween parties. i used to love halloween, but ever since they closed down the castro, it just ain't as fun anymore.

via amyleblanc

- - - - -

IT'S DECORATIVE
GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

BY COLIN NISSAN

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash...

read the rest of this fucking work of brilliance here