May 2013 – detail collector

May 31, 2013June 1, 2013

taksim gezi park, we are with you

eyes on istanbuland what some people are saying could be the beginning
of a turkish spring

taksim gezi park, we are with you

photos from here (heads up, graphic photo if you click on that page)

heads up:
this video gets graphic/intense (woman on ground shot in head with tear gas canister) but it is real

occupygezi tumblr
(again, let it be known, these images are the real deal, definitely some bloody and documenting violence/injury therefore, may be triggering)

and an open letter to the rest of the world from istanbul with more bloody and graphic images about getting the word out to and through the media

May 30, 2013May 31, 2013

lay another track of overlap

first taste of day:
homemade truffle in debra‘s handwriting
driven down yesterday from long beach
just to arrive at ocean and words and to lay another track of overlap
to a confluence that began in 2000
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i want to give all of you As
i say
and i would if i could
because i don’t believe in grades anyway
(which isn’t to say i don’t believe in learning
or feedback/evaluation
or mentorship, pedagogy and research and study and critical thought)

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many rivers no longer reach the sea
says the narrator of this video in her thick english accent
whose link max sent in an email from vancouver
which is gut punch enough
but she continues
we’ve drained half of global wetlands
we’ve built over 48,000 dams
damming mining and extraction are causing 2/3 of major deltas to sink
almost 800 million people have no safe drinking water
2.4 billion remain without adequate sanitation
1.7 billion people live in places where groundwater is being extracted faster than it can be replenishd
4 out or 5 people worldwide face risk to their water security

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this is not water
but i wrote a poem about these conflict minerals
three years ago
that goes like this:

location: performance venue with a stage and a live audience

ask the audience
to search the terms
cassiterite
cell phone
conflict mineral

on their i-phone
blackberry
or other hand held device

ask an audience member
if you may borrow the device

read out loud
from the articles that appear

Miners take a break at the Mudere mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo where they dig for cassiterite, coltan and manganese. bbc – day in photos

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smell of leather conditioner on soft cloth
in afternoon front porch sun
boots unlaced and cradled/cradling
(hand holding boot at times, hand inside boot other times)
something endearing in the holding/being held
(partially because it is a dad gesture
and i become a shape/gesture that i have memorized
from watching)
mamawolf: this is a semi-definition of bootboy

May 29, 2013May 31, 2013

document of a reading

document of a reading
(if you wait a while, it will load
if not, go here for a limited time
and if not, search ‘ucsd new writing series podcast franciszka voeltz’)
but because it is a document
it is nothing like being there
nothing like the sound of other people in the same room
even though you can’t even hear them breathe
nothing like the cape of darkness that lowers itself as the lights go down
and the sound is not so great and only comes in one ear if you listen on the headphones
(accompanied by some kind of hum in the other ear)
and then, even if you do listen, you won’t see the images that go with any of our readings
but perhaps you can close your eyes and project your ownand here are a few hints, but really, they are not enough
(so it’s a bit like a ‘wish you were here’ situation)
(also, there were fishnets, tallboots sequinned kercheifs involved):

the fabulous cathiana sylne, myself and the magnificent amanda martin sandino

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013

magnificence

news from the water world:

A lantern floats on the water after being released during a ceremony at Ala Moana beach park in Honolulu, Hawaii, held by the Shinnyo-en Buddhist organization, honoring victims of war, famine, and natural disasters on Memorial Day, May 27, 2013. voice of america – day in photos

begs the question: why doesn’t our memorial day look like this?
(next year i’d like to re-create.)

_______

and news from the not-so-water world:

A Turkish riot policeman uses tear gas as people protest against the destruction of trees in a park brought about by a pedestrian project, in Taksim Square in central Istanbul, Turkey. voice of america – day in photos

_______

and news from the academic world (facebook post)

I WENT TO MY THESIS DEFENSE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY CROWN. OH, AND AN APPROVAL FROM MY COMMITTEE MEMBERS.
(contrary to above statement, Lia made me this crown and it was the best thing ever. that and a non-alcoholic bottle of champagneness that appeared out of nowhere).
(also, none of it was so lousy at all, it was magnificent!)

_______

wherein wayne appears with stefan who appears with a bottle of non alcoholic champagne
and champagne glasses
and then lia stands to toast me
to the entire back patio

_______

we’ve decided
ben says upon my return to the deciding room
MFA stands for MotherFuckingArtist

May 27, 2013May 27, 2013

all who have carried

gathering spirit and tokens
(and building momentum)
for the ritual that is thesis defense
set for tomorrow at 4pm
i am taking you with me
(you meaning all who have carried me)

_______

and then, this water series:

An Orthodox Priest blesses members of the media shortly after having blessed the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome Launch pad in Kazakhstan. – voice of america, day in photos

An Indian boy sits atop a government water supply truck as residents fill water containers in New Delhi. Residents have been struggling with water shortages for the past few days after the upper Ganga Canal was shut for repairs. – voice of america, day in photos

A Palestinian fisherman casts his net at a beach in Gaza City. Israel permits Gaza fishermen to head out to sea from 3 miles to 6 miles, restoring a limit it cut in half two months ago in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. – voice of america, day in photos

May 26, 2013May 27, 2013

a sun circling

some days there are no details more than sun on skin
while devouring breakfast orange on side porch
in a sleeveless tshirt and short skirt
(and the side porch means the best chair
is a set of steps for citrusing)

no details more than the woman cashiering at min hoa market
who is always the woman cashiering at min hoa market
how we smile (sun smiles) as we both say ‘good’ about how
we’re doing while as she rings up the ting ting jahes and coconut water
in orange and mango flavors and i count my dollar bills and change

no details more than the black tea
(strawberry flavor with bleu cornflower petals
sounds disgusting but the strawberry is a mild sweetness)
and the honey dissolved in it called ‘meadow foam’ (that
solé and mahogany brought me from southern oregon)
and the focus and clarity this tea brings me
(tea that was grown somewhere sunny and collected in baskets on backs
perhaps a mountainside
perhaps harvested by machines instead of hands
but still, these are leaves that grew on a tree far from here)

sometimes the day is made up of nothing more than
church bells on the wind
not that you simply note the sound
but that you recognize it as an announcment of
time rivering past
and you actually count the tolls
and that the bells (if they are real metal struck by metal
rather than a towerless sound broadcast through a speaker)
might thank you for that
sometimes the day is waiting for you to take deep breaths
even though a certain poet would say something about
animating something that can’t be animated such as a day
and though the deep breaths don’t come
there is videochat laughter between here and carbondale illinois
and that is almost as good as a deep breath
if not better
especially when i hear sex parade, when what honna was really
saying was sex tornado
and then we talk about proposed re-routes

sometimes the details are in a brown paper bag with little grease spots
that a housemate delivers from litickers (the liquor store with a taco stand)
because even though i was too busy to adventure to the beach today
caroline offered to bring a slice of beach life (the taco tijuanito)
back to me

sometimes the day was never meant to be any bigger
than wayne reading my thesis in his
raised in the hustle
enlightened by the struggle tshirt
(by mike dream, beloved graffiti artist of the bay area
who was murdered over a decade ago)
while holding junobi’s hand (junobi watching his father read
thesis by the light of his little l.e.d. booklight
junobi who fell asleep sometime after the poetxts and before the notes)
that this is what comradeship/mentorship/allyship could look like
and that these things have sprouted out of a dead place

something about how all this smallness
could not be any more expansive
like the arc of a sun circling
around a planet earth

May 25, 2013May 26, 2013

the light ahead

addition to san diego cab collection:
rehoboth cab
key cab
how building this collection gives me something to look for
while pedaling over/down/through/across san diego streets

_______

gold graffiti
unwound vhs tape snaking in wind
purpley grasses sprouting out of concrete cracks
pink graffiti
white grafitti
broken glass (green, brown, clear – which is often a little blue)
rusted out mattress springs
abandoned shopping carts (two)
sand footprints
the sound of mango tea and ice cubes
not-quite-clinking (but whatever sound
it is they make in a metal thermos) in my backpack
purple grafitti
maroon/red grafitti
a potted green fern next to a concrete beam
the fluff of something that is like the fluff from a cottonwood tree (but is not the fluff from a cottonwood tree)
pallets lined along the soggy tunnel as makeshift bridge
black graffitti
the screech of the trolly curving on bridges overhead
twisted rusting rebar
busted electronics

a whole sky (is overwhelming
i can’t sleep under a night sky
even the stars are too overwhelming
i have to zip my head into my sleeping bag) above
in the concrete canal where some river must flow through
in the rain times
we are somewhere south
after exiting the series of concrete tunnels
that start under a tangle of freeways
tunnels where people used to go to punk shows
(someone would drag a generator down
but punks aren’t always on it with the planning
so often, no one would actually check how much fuel was in it)
both tunnels are long/short enough
that just when you think you can’t see anything
the light ahead comes into view

if we are heading south, i wonder
if this would take us all the way to mexico?

did you know that when san diego built the highways,
they built them wide enough to accommodate military tanks?

_______

there is a joke about a dealer
and nerds as acid
(pink and purple / strawberry and grape)

_______

our houseguest yos says
oh well, that’s ok
in response to everything he owned in storage
auctioned off three months ago due to an unpaid bill
because the credit card wasn’t set up correctly to the account
and folks at his old house didn’t open his mail to read the notice
_______

ashley talks about a psychic in ocean beach
how the psychic talked about three year cycles
and how the ghosts are still in a house in indiana
and how the loud pan-sounds of making grilled cheese
in an empty house alone
is something she will not can not do
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tea the same color as the strawberries in the cardboard pint

May 24, 2013May 25, 2013

a violent roughing

walking down menlo ave.
truck parked and in the cab, what i read to be a mom, dad and their 3 or 4 year old
i smile in and who i’m assuming to be ‘mom’ smiles (warm, open) back
at the same time
the angle of her and the sun
set off the sequins on her tshirt
dazzle + dazzle

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small spill of fruit loops near the back-back bus door
half crushed and half remaining whole

_______

you can sit in the front row
217 says from the front of the room sitting on the undocu-queer panel
it won’t make you gay (if you aren’t already)

_______

heading west on university in 217’s coche
what comes into view on a streetcorner sidewalk:
a bike, maybe two on the ground
(not as if they crashed, but were set down that way)
a bunch of stuff that looks much like other bunches of stuff i’ve seen folks who live on the street wheel around with themselves
one man sidewalk sitting with his back to brick wall of building
another man standing
that other man then going in for a shirt grab, a violent roughing, perhaps a facepunch
it’s not even the specific motions as much as the brute and violent force behind them
and the fact that the sitting person appeared to be passive and non-provoking
which is when i realize: his hands behind his back (cuffed)
and the shine of a badge on the standing man’s chest
(a silver streak under streeghtlight shining out from navy-dark outfit)

_______

lowflying planes over centro cutural de la raza
at the edge of balboa park
it is almost a collision with the full moon

_______

and finally
a slideshow which is all about heat
which is all about water

May 22, 2013May 23, 2013

a kind of choreography

sweatstache in shavasana
improv yoga in back porch sun
inviting me back into myself
something about embracing
something about forgiveness
_______

yos, who woke at 4 in the morning mexico time
which is 2 in the morning our time
still awake and standing
by our enchilada-laden table
beach sun still emanating from his face
(every morning for the past week,
i’d wake, take off my clothes
and swim in the ocean)

_______

whereupon i discover a video of fuerza bruta
and want to be one of those dancers
their bodies doing the opposite of what my body (sedentary) is doing
not that the kitchen was dancing but what sedentaryness can do
push me over into missing the 7am mornings
hauling 50pound potato bags
the navigation a kind of choreography

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there will be talk about butcher knives for a while now
when so many other joys and brutalities
shone and went dim

May 21, 2013May 22, 2013

that’s the sound of your blood

pedaling up to the shuttle stop
first it’s the sound
then the sight of green on white that greets me
patient care workers at the ucsd medical center strike
and when i say good turnout for san diego i mean at least two hundred if not three

i want to honk a horn in support
or raise my fist but instead
take in their insisting-on-dignity (for their patients, themselves and their families) energy
their morning light vibrance
their songsounds and momentum
(later i find they are part of an entire uc-system patient-care workers strike
that this group is linked to thousands across the state
doing the same)
and while it is not good (as 217 says) that it has to come to this
(meaning, conditions deteriorating to what they have)
i think i’d be hardpressed to find conditions for any laborers in this country
that aren’t strike-worthy

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one badass clarinetist
is how joe introduces our guest lecturer
(how many people do you know that can be introduced this way?)
wherein we watch yoko ono and john lennon make music with their brainwaves
and then we do the same with
alvin lucier’s music for solo performer

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and then there’s a video of john cage in an anechoic chamber
talking about how, on one of his first visits to the anechoic chamber
he said he could hear two frequencies
and when he asked the engineer in charge what they were
the engineer responded the high frequency? that’s your nervous system
the low frequency? that’s the sound of your blood circulating
and this is the moment when cage realized that he was making music unintentionally all the time
and the moment when he began to hear all sound as music

which brings me to several things:
1. i have felt kinship with so many of his projects/visions/articulations, and this framing reinforces that sensation (can one feel kinship with a concept?)
2. that’s kindof a detail collector move. (the all-sound-is-music thing), which means perhaps he is a kind of grandfather of this blog
3. i’m not kidding, i stumbled across this article yesterday
anechoic rooms recurring

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red-painted curb
sunfaded and scratched down

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today i feel like swiss cheese, all holes
mamawolf saysso i just decided to let the wind blow through

that breeze feels familiar i think
or rather, something like being bored into
and i am the solid bits that are left

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there is a delight
despite the unexpected price
of the man at the shoe repair shop
telling me these are nice boots
(emphasis on the word nice)
these aren’t american, are they?

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to add to the san diego cab company names list:
eritrean cab
one thing i like about these names is that they make me feel like i am not in san diego
or at least, not the san diego most of us know

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final thesis (print and bound) dropped off in committee members’ mailbox
this might have something to do with the
swiss cheese effect

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i forget about the silvery hello kitty sticker from 217’s coche
until i look at the mirror in the dressing room
smiling at its sweetsurpriseness