Shocker Art Center

I asked my parents to go to the Walker with me. I wanted to see the new addition to the building. Mom and Dad aren't exactly contemporary art fans, but since they're hardly reactionary, I wasn't too worried. I figured the worst that could happen is that we wouldn't get the art, or we'd be bored by the esoteric stuff, or that Mom might be a bit saddened by the Warhol disaster exhibition. Besides, admission was on me.

Everything went well at first. Mom got into the exhibit on prefab architecture and the high modernist stuff that was just shapes and colors. Dad was amused by the Huang Yong Ping Retrospective which included live lizards and scorpions, an emmense snake bone thing, and a giant herbalist gord with little poops coming out of it. The sculpture of a dog peeing in the shape of the contental US was pretty easy to read. (Poop seemed to be prevalent at the Walker.)

Then we went to the new wings where I was confronted with a choice between Warhol's celebrity disaster exhibit and the Kara Walker. Like toddlers drawn to knives, my parents headed straight for the Kara Walker gallery, and all I had time to do was say, "Uh...that's some pretty disturbing stuff in there." I think Dad was actually offended. "That's not too cool." he said. But it was hard to tell what Mom thought. She was actually laughing. Sometimes Mom laughs at strange things like news footage of people escaping from airplane wreckage and stories of political corruption. Once, she laughed all the way through reading an entire Faulkner novel. We soon left Kara Walker, with Mom saying "the woman is out of her mind."

In spite of that bit of discomfort, the visit went well. Mom was impressed by the layout of the galleries and they had some pretty cool jewerly marked down in the gift shop.

Transit Glory

A couple of days after Christmas, my parents and I decided to give my hometown's new light rail line a try. It took a few years of east coast living to tarnish my romantic feelings about train travel, but eventually, the grime, crowds, transit strikes and other big city grumbles killed the thrill. This week's ride on a brand spanking new line brought back a bit of the old feeling. They even gave us free posters just for buying tickets and all or tickets only cost 4.50.

Normally, boarding public transportation with a small pack of teenage boys behind me is not a good sign of a pleasant commute. But these guys turned out to be adorable. They said things like "These seats face each other! Cool!" and "6 more stops to go...5 more stops to go." "Now we can go to the mall whenever we want!"

I don't want to spoil things for the transit authority back home, but they really need to be a little more vigilent about the fare thing. No one checked to see if we had passes when we got on. No one checked when we got off. Even in a town where teenage boys express innocent joy at seats that face each other, the system is just begging to be abused.

"But we'd never have to look at the white side of it"

Papertrix's King Kong post, a focus on crazy ethnic violence in my town and abroad, and the aftertaste of the crusade against "them" who would destroy Christmas have all pushed me to post about this book: Buy Golly. Check it out, I say.

I've been itching to talk about it ever since I thumbed through the freaky find in the new book section of a nearby library. A little over ten years ago, blackface collectables made the news as high fashion tchotchkies here in the United States. Buy Golly illustrates these products in the U.K., where the Brits took them to mind-screwing new dimensions. In many instances of American blackface imagery, the hate practically smacks me in the face, but the stuff in Buy Golly confronts me with total weirdness. Yes, they present a few of the usual negative stereotypes and bizarrely white lipped masks, but often with twisted affection. They've managed to make dehumanization pretty. Talk about bamboozling!

For example, a beautiful group of black children grace the cover a book, painted in a naturalistic, yet vibrant style. It looks like Caledcott Medal worthy stuff. What's the book called? "Ten Little Niggers"!

Strangest of all is the Golliwogg himself. If there was a Raggedy Amos N' Andy, he'd be the star. He's a protean critter Like the tadpole he's named for. Like Aunt Jemima, he's gone through many makeovers. In the 80's, Golliwogg appeared in a series of Smurf like action poses. Football Golliwogg, Surfing Golliwogg, etc.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a button-eyed, dark skinned doll in an upscale suburban store and begging my mom to buy it. Since black dolls were hard to find, Mom was ordinarily happy to buy them, but that one wasn't worth it to her. She refused in disgust. It was one of those reversible dolls. Depending on how you pulled the skirt, you would see a white doll in a lacy dress with painted blue eyes or a black doll with button eyes in some kind of homely plaid. But we'd never have to look at the white side of it, I said. No, she said. I rode a churning swell of anger, shame and disappointment as we left the store. Why couldn't the people make the doll the right way? Why couldn't I have it anyway?

Years latter, I still don't know exactly what to say about Golliwogg, but he's definitely one doll that will never stuff any kid's Christmas stockings in my family.

Feel the Noise

Searching the web for blogs on culture, politics and history is truly cruising for a bruising. Oh, the ranting! Yet it must be done. It's actually part of my job!

At least I found Tom Tomorrow, a sweet noise to add to my liberal echo chamber.

Many Times, Many Ways

Mrs. Ass and I managed to do more than certain high paid pundits seem to be able to handle--we had a civilized discussion about the "Happy Holidays" salutation, "Holiday" trees in the public square, and the whole Pagan/Christian/Jewish vs. Everybody Else who shares this world deal.

When I comes to public celebration of the winter holidays and festivities, I say bring it all on.
On Kwanzaa, On Christmas, On Pagans with Fairies,
Ramadan, Festivus, Hanukkah Harry!
From the City Hall Lawn to the Shopping Mall
Let's celebrate celebrate celebrate All!

When I say "Happy Holidays," I mean Happy Holidays. Well, this is what I'm thinking when I say Happy Holidays.

"Dear Person,

Since it is a time when so many holidays coincide, I want to mark the occasion with a special greeting/farewell instead of the usual 'See you later' or 'How's it going?' I do not know the particulars of your beliefs. I barely know the particulars of my beliefs. In keeping with my Christian upbringing, I wish that you would experience the particular ideal of happiness and good will that I associate with Christmas time without endorsing or denouncing any belief."

In other words, Happy Holidays!

One More Dream from Wednesday Night

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GPS

I was resting in my bed when I somehow realized that it and the very bedroom it was in was somehow stuck on a looping municiple light rail system. It seems that every night, as I lay(lie or whatever) sleeping, I was simultaneously circling from my neighborhood to the Strawberry Mansion area, somehow through Center city and back again. Only I couldn't see this. All visual evidence indicated that I was just in my bedroom. This paradox had me worried, and if it had been a threatening nightmare paradox, I would have woken up at that point. But since I really wasn't in any danger, the worry just motivated me to solve the problem whether or not I was moving and still at the same time.

I thought, what if I moved my bed? That had no effect on the situation.

I thought, if I had a portable GPS system that would record my location throughout the night, I could latter map out where I'd been, even though I couldn't see where I really was. This helped me relax.

I took out a wooden knitting needle and let my minature short hair black cat play with it. It pawed it, then climbed it like it was a tree branch. Then I thought, I don't have a cat, but that's okay.

Post New York Trip Dream Series

Who knows why my dreams had more themes going that Spike Lee's last feature film? Last night's dream ended with a series of Pennsylvania Dutch/Hillbilly caricatures floating above a mountain landscape. And Nothing that happened during my one day visit to Manhattan on Wednesday could have foreshadowed the freaky series of dreams I had on the night of my return. Alls I did was attend a long meeting, resist yarn store temptation in the garment district, and eat two seafood centered meals. (Thank you, Waterlilysage, for the snapper hash).

Wednesday night dream scenarios:
1. My People My People
I was in some kind of basement cafeteria/gym space with a dingy linoeum floor. Some dude kept trying to pick a fight with me, but when the guy in charge came down, the dude got in trouble for drinking soda. As I tried to leave this shelter/public school/community center/airport place, I was approached by the most pathetic family I'd ever seen. The youngest son had this Tiny Tim crutch, and he asked me to read him a story or play checkers or some such, while his dirty incrusted parents looked on opportunistically hoping that my friendship with this boy would lead to some material reward. The family followed me into a parking ramp. I thought about what I ought to do for them. What was the top priority? Water, food, the humanizing hospitality of checkers? I noticed another poor family was managing to leave the parking area on their own, the burly father carrying a child on his back. But the Tiny Tim group kept following me because they couldn't deal on their own. When I met up with my parents, I asked them for advice. My mom was pretty clueless. She was distracted with trying to get me into the building where I used to work.

2. ID Card
I was in line to enter the library with my mom, but something was wrong with my ID. It was frayed. Someone said that I'd better spell out my name completely, lest I be confused for the man behind me who had the masculine form of my name.

3. The Amazing defecation and the Cow Frog Tragedy
A research team was thrilled when a woman at long last, took a dump. They'd implanted all kinds of monitors and sensors everywhere and were monitoring its progress like NASA monitors a shuttle launch. There was great rejoicing when the movement was complete.

The woman's ability to poo was all thanks to the amazing hybrid Cow Frog. The woman adored cheese, but it gave her troubles until the advent of this new slippery skinned bovine. Their meat and milk were no trouble to her at all. The small herd of cow frogs were frightening, yet adorable. After a few sides of cow frog beef were loaded onto the back of the woman's pick up truck, she drove away to lead a happy life. But then the bad news came. A televised documentary showed how the next batch of cow frogs had failed. Calf tadpoles had clustered on an iron railing of someone's front porch, much like a bunch of frog eggs in a pond. They were developing well, but all of the sudden, the genes that controlled their skin began to fail. The producers of the documentary decided to cut away from the sight of the dying calfpoles. I asked my mom what she thought, but she was distracted by some landscaping issues.

4. Dueling Ultimate and a free Homophobic Concert
People were trying to play two different games of ultimate simultaneously on the front lawn of the house I grew up in. A group of Dominican looking teenage girls called their game Tropical Disc. I was the only one worried that the simultaneous games would lead to trouble. Meanwhile, across the driveway, these Caribbean musicians were giving a free concert. It seemed fine until they started to sing about how evil gays and lesbians were. I decided to throw clods of sandy dirt at them. The singers yelled at me for disrupting their freedom of expression. I said they were free to say whatever they liked, but I was free to express myself by throwing dirt at them. Then I told them to get off my property.

A Sexy Mind?

This study is about people with "schizophrenia-related personality traits." My broader question is--given that nearly everybody I know has had some romantic or sexual attachment to at least one nutjob-- are crackpots really sexpots?

Mieces to Pieces

Here's another reason why I'd make a bad Buddhist. I killed a mouse last night in one of those old-fashioned snap traps. And I'll do it again. The quick kill occurred while I was asleep and I disposed of the remains first thing in the morning. I hope the little carcass stayed in the trap long enough so that the other mice could see it and know they aren't wanted around.

Is Photography Cheaper Than Knitting?

I just spent mad money at the nearest yarn store just so I could begin to make a fluffy scarf for an aunt. I could by a much better scarf for the money. At this rate, my bank account may be better off with photography.