non-linear LGBT experiences

I'm starting to realize that LGBT media often has to be taken in context of a fast and ever-changing historical landscape. Just this week, I read Larry Gross's "Contested Closets" in which he talks about the complex dynamics and motivations for outing famous and influential public figures. The book was published in 1993. In it, he describes the struggles that LGBT communities endure and the reasons why outing visible figures would help the overall LGBT cause. Who would have known that less than 2 decades after the book came out, we are at a tipping point for marriage equality with more visibility in the mainstream than ever before.

Similarly, I am watching the Birdcage in honor of Robin Williams' life, and I had to check on IMDB when it was made (1996). I wonder if the conflicts the characters encounter and the ensuing antics in the movie are still as relevant today. I'm not saying that they are not, as there are certainly segments in society that are still less accepting of LGBT people and communities than popular opinion would have us believe.

Hence, the media made is much more short-lived in terms of relevancy than possibly other narratives, as many struggles that are portrayed, especially when it comes to things of a legal nature. Such a good thing, but when retroactively consuming media from even a few years ago, harder to contextualize.

Summer updates

This summer has been....interesting. Not as productive (at least strictly on the dissertation front) as I would like, but at least my IRB has been approved (last week), and I have Jenny starting to fill out her time budget. Of course, today, Sunday, and her day off, her time budget is filled mostly with "played video games".

We've been trying to save money, so, cooking a lot. I've found that cooking for more than one person is awesome. First of all, we're both motivated to do it. Secondly, you have the satisfaction of hearing someone go "Mmmm! That's really good!" (even if she might be stretching the truth just a little sometimes...or a lot). We made 紅燒雞 tonight. 紅燒ing something is the best way to get meat REALLY tender. Amazing.

Finally, I've been working on two non-academic projects, which has given me flashbacks to indie filmmaking, but these are web-based and mobile-based applications. A bit different. Perhaps more later, as I am off to bed. G'nite y'all.

A nice weekend assault

I was assaulted this weekend in Venice, crossing the street. The perp was a crazy guy. And I mean this quite literally. We think he might have been schizophrenic (our armchair diagnosis, given that he was talking to himself and cussing very loudly and aggressively at cars). While we were standing at the crosswalk waiting for the light to turn green, we heard him walking from a block down, cussing up a storm for no apparent reason. Jenny, being the smart cookie she is, suggested we figure out some other way to cross the street to get out of his way. Me, being kind of stupid and not willing to stereotype crazy people as violent, shook that suggestion off.

Anyway, we were both at the crosswalk, and it looked like he was going to cross over to our side. Fine, shouldn't be a problem, right? The light turns green, and as we walked toward Crazy, I did the whole swerve to the left, then right, to try to avoid bumping into him, as normal humans do. But every time I adjusted my x-axis, he would follow me. Uh oh. As I got near him, he swung his foot at my ankle and caught me a good one. I lost some flesh and some blood. And as he walked away, he turned and yelled, "Motherfucking Chinks!" and some other colorful and inappropriate language. So we called 911 and filed a police report. The police were nice, but not too helpful. After all, they came 10-15 minutes after the incident, after Crazy was long gone. They offered to arrest him if they found him, but we told them that we mainly wanted someone to be keeping an eye out for him, since he's clearly aggressive and can be violent. I got off easy, but what if it were a kid.

The thing that struck me about this was, I wasn't even that mad. Just really spooked. And pissed that for all of my resistance to stereotyping mental illness and conflating it with violence, I had to be proven anecdotally wrong. Let me reiterate that the vast majority of people with mental illness are NOT violent. It was really unfortunate that the guy I encountered happened to be really aggressive. But he was not homeless. He looked well-groomed, with clean clothes.

But it does bring up questions about people who are mentally unstable or ill. What if they ARE violent and refuse to take meds? What if they continue to be a menace to society, even on a micro scale? What responsibilities do their families have? What choices do they have?

Road Trip

My road trip came to a conclusion on Monday night, where I got back just in time to stop by a Memorial Day BBQ that Jenny's co-resident hosted.

Two days driving through the Redwoods was pretty spectacular. Sunday, the other Cynthia threw a small dinner party in honor of the fact that I was in town, and we looked through her boudoir photos - basically glamour shots for adults. Stephanie and I were reduced to 12 year old boys. But, it did make me consider getting it done too. After all, when you're 80, and you pull out these scantily-clad pictures of you posing sexily for the camera... that's got to be a hoot. 

My cousin, who I met up with in Sacramento for a 3-hour brunch, asked if driving by myself was boring. No, I responded. It gives me time to think. You aren't obligated to answer emails, phone calls, texts. After all, getting to your destination alive is much more important. Or so we should hope.

Memorial Day traffic was at its ragiest though. So much traffic. It took a long time to get out of the SF vicinity, and the rest stops and gas stations on the way down were chock full of families with the need to relinquish liquids. I waited 20 minutes in 100 degree temperature to use a bathroom outside a gas station. This has never happened before. Note to self: Avoid roadtripping long weekends.

Otherwise, it was a relatively painless drive down. Taking four days to drive from Seattle is definitely a good amount of time - just enough so that you can take your time a bit, make some stops, see the scenery. We often forget that Sacramento is really in the middle of California, and Northern California is covered with forest and very big trees. And some lagoons. Highly recommend it. And don't forget to stop by Enchanted Forest, the weird theme part in Oregon.

Roadtripping: Portland to Salem

ICA is in Seattle this year. Naturally, I decided to road trip up and down. Chi drove up with me, and I'm driving back down by myself, taking in sites, and making random stops. It has been really fun. Oh yea, I had also lugged a payphone that was part of the Leimert Phone Project up to Seattle for Francois and Andrew.
The LA to Seattle roadtrip I had made once before, and I remember it being very beautiful. My memory did not disappoint me. We even re-found the weird mosaic dragon just south of the CA/Oregon border, and took in Mt. Shasta looking all pretty in the windshield.

I also somehow forgot that it's Memorial Day weekend. Which means that traffic from Seattle to Portland was HORRIBLE. But, seeing Lauren and Alexei totally made up for it and exceeded! And we met Alexei's friend, Erin, who's an aquatic scientist. We played shuffleboard, drank, had chili cheese tater tots. Thai food. Then home to play Origins (a game where you have to guess the origin of different sayings).

Then, this morning, I left Portland rather early, because on the way up, we passed this theme park called the Enchanted Forest, and given my recent obsession with Once Upon a Time, I just had to stop by.

The Enchanted Forest

(this is my yelp review)

Roadtripping means you find little gems like this super random, vaguely creepy, and totally charming little family-run theme park.I don't know why it's being called the PNW's Disneyland. This place is so different than Disneyland. Sure, there are similarities, but...it feels just.....creepier somehow.

Entrance fee is $10.75, which is totally worth it even if you don't go on any rides. You follow a trail (Which I like, so I didn't have to make a decision on what to see first), and can partake in the various structures (Indian caves, Pinocchio's house, mazes, many others...I really wanted to try crawling through the rabbit hole, but was afraid I would get, uh, stuck) which takes you all around the park, and pops you back at the entrance.

If you want to do rides, there are tickets. Each ticket is 95 cents. Rides take 2-4 tickets. Or you can get a rides pass for $25 more. I didn't think this was worth it.

I only went on two "rides" -- the Haunted House, and the Challenge of Mondor, as suggested by another yelp reviewer. The Haunted House isn't a ride - you just walk through. As I walked up to the entrance, there was a mother with two young children with her. Good, I thought. I wasn't going to be alone. But after they took our tickets, and the kids took two steps into the house, they started crying, so they just turned and left! Leaving me alone. Man. That was not cool. Yes, I got scared. Yes, I totally screamed like a girl at times. Alone. Heart pounding, palms sweaty. Afraid that someone -- like, a live someone, was going to jump out at me at any moment. It was pretty awesome.

The Challenge of Mondor is really charming. That is actually a ride, and they give you a laser gun to shoot at things.


And I got a hotdog ($2.35), a tea ($1.95)  and refunded my unused tickets to get some souvenirs. All in all, I spent less than $25, and about an hour of my time, this morning. (yea, it doesn't take all day - a perfect short detour for a roadtrip).

Grant's Pass/Redwoods

There is an amazing little place called Infuzed Xpress in Grants Pass. They have healthy stuff! I picked up some food, sat outside and scarfed it down, and set out on a very windy road between Grants Pass and Eureka (where I am currently writing this from). This path, incidentally, takes one right through Redwoods National Park. Beautiful. Took a break at the foot of giants.

Passed through Humboldt too, and made a quick trip around Humboldt University. Humboldt County has LAGOONS. I wish I knew what to do with lagoons other than take pictures of them, but they were very pretty. And, I think they are freshwater lagoons. Crazy. Who knew there were both lagoons and giant redwoods so close to the coast.

I'm bumming it up in Eureka now. In a sketchy hotel. Econo Lodge. But, I will say, they have free wifi, and SHAMPOO (something Motel 6 didn't provide). Hah. Good to know in the future.

Talk about temporal capital

...literally! Brookings Institute economist, Barry Bosworth, found a direct correlation between life expectancy and mid-career income. Absolute amount of time at one's disposal...

Temporal capital based on medium and activity

Temporal capital may not just apply to individual's control over their time on some abstract, macro level (based on sociocultural differentiating features), but can also be isolated in the activity itself. In this case, temporal capital would apply to the individual's control, but within the context of a particular activity.

I outlined a useful example of this in the Gnovis article, between images and video/audio. This is worth repeating. You can look at the Mona Lisa for however long you wish - 3 seconds, 3 minutes, 3 hours, 3 days. The image will not change. Your understanding of the image may change, but how long you choose to consume that medium, that image, is up to you. The image yields higher levels of temporal capital in the process of its consumption. In contrast, take Beethoven's 5th symphony. The first 6 seconds yields 8 notes - G G G Eb, F F F D... From these notes, we know next to nothing about the piece itself (assuming one is hearing this very famous opening for the first time). You have no control over the experience itself -- it's controlled by the conductor, by the producer. You're along for the ride. You don't dictate when the piece ends, when this experience is over, or how long it lasts. Hence, listening to music or audio (without technologically fast-forwarding or whatnot) is an act of low temporal capital, or high temporal investment. What's key here seem to be the "revealing" of the content. With an image or a text, the content in its entirety is revealed before more detailed consumption. With the Mona Lisa, one can see the entirety of the piece even before one begins to appreciate the finer details of it. With Beethoven, however, every moment that passes reveals more of the piece to the audience. The audience does not consume the piece in its entirety in a moment, but the act of revealing the piece is quite out of the audience member's control.

Presence, and an expectation of response in communication, tends to be correlated negatively with temporal capital. On the phone and in person, the person you are having a conversation with expects a response immediately. In contrast, with email and IM and text, you don't have to respond right away, and that's ok. Moreover, the difference in medium - text (a non-temporally binding medium, like images or pictures) versus a temporally binding medium (video or audio) becomes a factor here as well. Although William Mitchell in his 1999 book E-topia, and Jack Petranker, in his article, "The Presence of Others" in a collection of articles about time both address presence as a synchronous way to be together, the different mediums that are present during these conversations are also important to think about. Of course, one can have an IM conversation, and if one goes AFK (away from keyboard), one will likely tell the conversation partner, "brb" (be right back) or something to that effect to manage expectations in the conversation. But, the micro act of reading the text will be variable between different people. Some people may read faster than others, some may read slower. With audio and video, you will invest as much time as it takes for the audio or video clip to play. No more, no less (unless artificially and technologically altered). The temporal investment in the consumption of the content is exact, unlike a text.

That's all for now. Next time, maybe we'll talk about transportation, or maybe we'll talk about temporal capital in the workplace. After all, while there are segments of time, like work, leisure, personal time, transit time, etc, it is easy to think of temporal capital as the amount of time when one is not at work, or "free" time. Well, apparently there are subcategories of "free" and leisure time, as Sebastian De Grazia and Robert Stebbins point out very eloquently. Hence, temporal capital cuts across and is applicable to all segments of time, and is variable given an individual's position in the relevant hierarchy, or an individual's circumstance.

An instant brightening of the day

Have you ever seen a person who's just walking along, or (in today's case) biking along and just has the biggest smile on their face? That makes me happy.

I dropped by Union Station a couple weeks ago to do some fieldwork, doing some analysis of spaces of waiting. Union Station's an interesting spot. You can only sit and relax if you bought a ticket. You wait in comfort at an economic investment.

No plugs though. Or, rather, none that I could see in the sitting areas. And no one was plugged in. This indicates a couple possible of things to me. First of all it may be that the architecture of the place does not assume that people will need to use tech devices, and by assuming that, the place also indirectly assumes that the people who will be waiting there are not people who need to use tech devices - in other words, people who either cannot afford it, or whose time is not valuable enough to have to use technology to be productive. A stretch of the imagination? Maybe. Intentional? Maybe not. Perhaps this is the problem with interpretive analysis of spaces - we don't know for sure. But what I do know is, for the most part, trains in LA are not something people of a wide range of social classes take regularly. After all, a car gives one better control over one's time, and a plane is faster - both indicating higher temporal capital for those who choose (and can afford) to take these types of transportation. And while airports are scrambling to install more plugs, we shall see if the new renovations that Union Station is doing will take passengers' needs to be constantly connected into account.

Uses of Temporal Capital: Domestic Workers and Scheduling

Let me reiterate that temporal capital is the amount of time one has under one's control. It is not the amount of time one ostensibly has in any given amount of time, or the rate at which time passes in an objective and absolute fashion (24 hours per day). That being said, the concept of temporal capital to help us understand our experience of time can be used in a broad number of ways.

Indeed, the correlation between socioeconomic class and temporal capital is not straightforward at all. Other scholars the likes of David Harvey (1989), Robert Levine (1997), Ida Sabelis (2007), Pierre Bourdieu (1984), and Edward Hall (in the Silent Language) allude to the idea time is variable between individuals based on how much power they have, their position within the social stratum, their occupation, or their culture. While control over time correlated with class holds true some of the time, consider the following anecdote. A family friend whose elderly father is in the hospital told me that they hired two domestic workers to take care of her father. The domestic workers do not have to do much in the way of active care, as the father is bed-bound and the hospital takes care of most of his needs. The domestic workers spend a lot of their shift watching movies or messaging friends on the iPad that the family has purchased. In this case, these domestic workers experience rather high levels of temporal capital in a micro-level, as their time and physical location is controlled by the conditions of their employment, yet they are free to do what they wish on the mobile device.

Amy Jordan (1992) found that higher SES families tend to me monochronistic, meaning they have a set schedule - do homework from 5-6pm, watch TV from 8-9pm, go to bed at 9:30pm, whereas lower SES families tend to be polychronistic - there is more multitasking, and not everything has its own temporal spot or allocation. Families of lower SES, Jordan found, are more concerned with completing the task at hand, no matter how long it took. For example, they will finish a movie rather than cutting off the movie at a certain time in order to do the next thing. Jordan's main argument is that the value of time is perceived and felt differently given a family's SES, and is passed down and cultivated within the children. Temporal capital can be used to think about scheduling of time as well. There is a certain privilege attached to be able to control one's future, that is tied to a monochronistic way of scheduling. For example, if I am able to schedule my life next week, it means I retain control over my time as projected into the future - I am allowed temporal capital on a larger scale - one that spans days and weeks, as opposed to just minutes and hours. Ironically, if I choose to follow that schedule, my micro temporal capital disappears - I MUST be at a meeting for an hour next Tuesday, and then I must be at my computer finishing an article. Yet, within a broader perspective of temporal capital, I took control over my life by allowing myself to schedule in times to be productive and keeping to that schedule. In contrast, if I had less control over my own future, I may not be as concerned with scheduling far into the future, as I may not know if I will have next Tuesday from 3-4pm free to do as I please. So the "temporal orientation," as Jordan calls it, of monochronicity is not inculcated within me, and my value of time is not tied directly to productivity. Indeed, I may not be as concerned with making sure my temporal investment yields some form of productivity - I may write a paper for however long it takes me, taking YouTube breaks as often as I like. In this way, during that process of paper writing, I have more temporal capital, as I am free to do what I please.

License Plate Frames

For a society obsessed with projecting a self-image, I'm surprised by the number of people who don't have a license plate frame that portrays some sort of affiliation. I drive around LA, and most of the license plate frames that I see are the generic frames one gets with a new car - usually the name of the car company or the dealership.

Short one today. Yesterday, I spent some time on the MTR here in HK listing out people on the train, and whether they are using their mobile phone. I don't know if I'll be able to use any of this for my dissertation, but it was a fun exercise. If I were to use it for my dissertation, I would say, for sampling, something along the lines of, it was a random sample of a random part of the train. Perhaps that will work.

Waiting is such an interesting moment. Or series of moments. It's frustrating too, because by definition, waiting is when the person who waits is waiting for something... and he or she is at the lowest point of control over his or her time. After all, one cannot absolutely predict when the waiting time will be over, unless, of course, the waiting is scheduled. And even then, one is at the mercy of the ticking of the clock to determine when the waiting is over. There is an element of expectation here too - the more one can expect, and trust that expectation, the less frustrating the waiting is? This will be interesting to test...

A platform to practice writing

In an attempt to try and write a bit more, and coherently (as much of my ramblings in private spaces don't translate well to anyone other than me understanding it), I'm going to try and blog a bit more. Francesca and I were talking about how, after quals, it's hard to have a constant writing schedule (since one is presumably also not in class anymore at this point), and it's easy to get caught up in a plethora of other projects, as I have, that don't necessarily require constant writing.

There are actually a few sites that I use to help me get into a writing groove. One that I have used pretty extensively to brain vomit is 750words.com, a site inspired by a program (?) or process called The Artist's Way (which I have actually undertaken years ago, when I was writing a lot of music). In The Artist's Way, one of the activities that you do every day is what is called "Morning Papers," in which you write stream of consciousness 3 pages handwritten, just to get any "gunk" out of your system before you do actual writing. Hence the brain vomit.

Whenever I need a quick fix, I will head over the writtenkitten.net, where the site gives you a picture of a kitten every 100 words you write. It's quite the motivator. You just have to remember to cut and paste everything you write back into a word document, or you'll lose it.

Winmar has told me about a program called Write or Die which sounds seriously ominous. I haven't personally used this, but apparently you have to keep writing, or it will start (egads) DELETING what you write! If that's not a motivation to keep writing, I don't know what is.

So there you go. Happy writing!

Logics of Productivity and Waiting

Now that quals are done, I have to write a prospectus. Annenberg, unlike other departments at USC (and indeed, in other schools), do not require one to have a prospectus before taking quals, although the culture seems to be moving toward making sure students have an idea about what they would like to research for their dissertation before starting the quals process.

For those of you who aren't in a PhD program, a prospectus is a proposal detailing what you want to research for the next couple years. Although many prospecti (plural of prospectus?) are different, most include a research question (what exactly is it you want to find out?), some background on the topic (has there been any work done on this before that you can build on? Does this research address a lack or a gap in knowledge, or tackles some sort of problem?), methods (how you're going to get data), possible limitations, and anticipated findings.

In recent weeks, I've found myself being drawn to the idea of being "busy," and what sort of cultural or social norms create this impetus to always be doing something. Tim Kreider, of the New York Times, wrote an interesting article about being busy - how our sense of busy-ness is oftentimes self-imposed, and that the people who truly do not have any time for themselves aren't "busy" - they are, as Kreider says, "tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet." He makes the assumption that these people are often individuals of a lower social stratum. He takes a bit of an extreme in thinking about the "busy posers," who are painted in his article, as privileged, wearing their busy-ness as a badge of honor, running back and forth between self-imposed obligations, and those who necessarily have to do work in order to earn a living to ensure their survival. The former, it is implied, seem more susceptible to being subjugated to a logic of productivity, in which every minute of every day must be scheduled and planned, in which they have to be doing something, but that something is often something in addition to their basic survival needs, and they have a modicum of choice whether or not they want to do it (from a strictly resource-oriented perspective). I think of these people as having a (relatively) high temporal capital. The latter group, the group that relies on the ungodly commutes to minimum wage jobs in order to make enough economic capital to ensure their basic survival, then, has relatively lower temporal capital.

This is obviously a very reductive way of thinking about temporal capital. While we can certainly attempt an argument that temporal capital is a strong indicator of class, a determination of temporal capital itself is based on a multitude of different factors. Temporal capital does not only apply to the individual as a whole, but is, in fact, variable given the context and circumstance in which an individual, or a group of individuals find themselves. In other words, temporal capital is also based on who "owns" the time within a given circumstance. In most circumstances, temporal capital aligns with one's position on the relevant hierarchy. A factory worker has less control over his time than his supervisor. In this way, similar to Kreider's implications, temporal capital works as a way to communicate power between individuals. Additionally, time, if you have it, can be invested to increase one's economic capital (by working), social capital (through leisure activities or time spent with friends and family), cultural capital (going to museums, watching movies and TV shows, reading books),

However, there are also circumstances where institutional processes co-opt everyone's time in the same way, regardless of one's position in the social hierarchy. For example, everyone has to serve on jury duty as long as they are a resident of a certain county in the United States. One cannot decide that he or she does not want to go sit in a room and wait to see if any cases require a jury of peers. Similarly, Emergency Room waiting areas are equally blind (except in extreme cases) to one's class status, basing patient priority on the severity of the patient's condition. Doctor's offices, on the other hand, make the assumption that the doctor's time is more valuable than the patient's, and is therefore common as an area of great wait times. In this way, temporal capital communicates who has the power in a given context. You wait for the doctor because you want to get that strange, pus-filled lump in your armpit checked out, and hopefully get prescribed some antibiotics for it.

My very simple question that I wish to pose is whether mobile communication technologies have expanded temporal capital for those who can afford it, especially in times of waiting. I think the simple question is yes, but I also think it's going to be a bit more nuanced than that...

(ok, I had meant to take a shower, and come back and work on this some more, but between celebrating, quietly, New Year with my folks, and being sick, and lack of sleep, I'm going to post this now. G'nite, y'all.)

J&C Food (and other) Adventures: Confessions

Oops, this was supposed to have been posted yesterday.

A lot of people were telling us that doing this vegetarian thing for a few days wouldn't be hard at all. Well. After the first day, we already had some meat, and will do it again today. We're going to have to re-adjust our goals to just eating healthy, which I think is more doable than going completely vegetarian.

Yesterday, we did a salad lunch (but at a bar that Jenny's brother really wanted to go to, which included, uh, fried mushrooms and pepperoni bites. I can see your looks of disappointment already). But for dinner, we went to Green Temple which has delicious food that is all vegetarian.

Of course, yesterday was a very odd day. There was a death in the family. Jenny's family lost their parrot, Jimmy, who seemed to have gotten himself tangled in his bedding and asphyxiated himself. :( Jenny found him when we went over to her parents' house, and, well, I'll spare y'all the details...

So we went to the mall, to Buffalo Wild Wings, where we attempted to keep up the no-meat rule by looking at their salad section, where we were greeted with the utter lack of any entree that was meatless, forcing us to get their honey BBQ chicken salad, making us feel slightly less guilty about eating chicken. Later, I purchased 3 books for $2 at Bookoff. Amazing.

On our way home, we encountered a Shiba Inu named Sasha following our car in Jenny's parents' neighborhood and called his owner, whose response was, "oh, they hate him on that street." Hah! Sat outside with him for 20 minutes while his owner showed up. He was very standoffish. Clearly too good for the likes of us humans.

Today, again, we cheated. I guess at this point, we're giving up the meatless deal. We went to a Filipino restaurant called LA Rose Cafe with Kenneth and Grace, where we got things that were distinctly NOT vegetarian. Sausages and tocino and beef with eggs and rice. But tonight, we're trying to be a bit better. We're cooking up a feast. Yay.

J&C Veggie Adventures: T-2, with fried chicken and beef hash

I realized that stocking up on meats before trying to do a veggie thing is not the best idea at all, but we went to this place today called Mama Dip's, which had a random sculpture garden filled with sculptures of farm animals made of scrap metal in the back.

Brunch was fried chicken tenders with gravy and eggs and grits. Southern comfort food, which is not at all healthy. And we got a side of hush puppies. Jenny got beef hash. Yea...we need some leafy greens.

J&C's Veggie Adventures: The first road bump

Jenny just wailed in despair as she realized that she's on vacation until Sunday, and that she won't be able to eat meat for part of her vacation. Oy...this might be harder than we thought...

Jenny: Chicken's not a meat...

Cris: That's the gateway meat.

Our 5-day vegetarian stint

In the last year, Jenny and I have both gained weight. We would like to rectify this (not necessarily the weight thing - but definitely want to be healthier---and save money). And we keep making these pacts to eat less meat and more veggies, and cook at home more. This lasted about a week and a half last time... and now, we're eating our way through Tennessee and North Carolina.

We are currently in North Carolina, visiting Cris, who (as I'm sure most of you who read this blog know) has been a vegetarian for 2 decades, and after a conversation with her and Jenny's friend Cindy, we made a pact (a pinky swear), that between the time we get back (Dec 6th) till I leave for Hong Kong (11th), we will not eat meat. Only 5 days, because this is a close-ended and goal-oriented. Hopefully easier to accomplish rather than saying "we're going to stop eating so much meat NOW until FOREVER."

I (with Jenny's blessing) am keeping this blog to keep us accountable. I will try to blog every day as to our successes, failures, and cravings. Yes, we actually need this. Clearly, no self-control.

Katy Perry and the AMAs

My friend asked me what I thought about the Katy Perry AMA performance and the discussions going on about whether or not it is racist. Is it racist, or does it merely "celebrate" the Japanese culture?

This is a question that I've encountered a lot, and have not really been able to articulate in a way that I feel is satisfying. Another friend also jumped in the fray to say that Perry was merely "enamored by the beauty of a culture". So here are my responses (with hers interspersed):

"I think the question to ask is, would this have been ok if she did this in blackface? Asians and Asian Americans are an invisible minority in this country. Just look at our education system. We learn about MLK and the civil rights movement, so we are sensitive to black/AfAm issues. We're coming up on the immigration issue now, which has largely been focused on Hispanic and Latino undocumented workers, again making invisible working class Asian immigrants (although this has been talked about a lot in grassroots organizations taking this on). Here's a link from Psychology Today that had been going around today about this performance."

"And then, there was this incident too. It's different than the appropriation of culture (since the judge really makes some awful stereotypical and offensive remarks), but it likewise demonstrates this mentality that appropriating or stereotyping and making offensive jokes about Asian individuals and culture is 'ok.'"

Friend's response:
"Um. I liked the performance. I didn't think it was racist. I didn't think it was looking down or mocking on the Japanese culture. *shrug* The only thing I didn't like about the performance was the song itself. :)"

My response: 
"Everyone's entitled to their own opinions about things based on their own lived histories and experiences. But if there's a public discourse going on about a piece like this one, we have to at least listen to it and think about why so many other people find it offensive or problematic. I mean, if one person is making a big hooha about it, that one person is probably an outlier. But if there are multiple people and groups who represent social minorities (in this case, Asians), who are speaking up about it, shouldn't we at least try to consider WHY this MIGHT be "racist"? Again, I ask, what if this were blackface? Would you still like it then? Are we really becoming too culturally sensitive, too PC a society? Or is it that there's something else going on here, that people really are getting offended? And if a group of people are actually getting offended by this performance, should we still brush it off as "sensitivity"?

Here's a more even-handed article I found on this issue."

Her response:

"I can't even compare what she did to blackface. Not even a little bit. I didn't sense any malice or mockery with her performance. I didn't feel she was showing how she has power over other minorities as a white person (as the dude says in his article). All I saw was a PERSON (doesn't matter what ethnicity) who is enamored by the beauty of a culture and wanted to showcase it. At what point do we stop calling out white people for being racist when it seems like they just want to show appreciation for other cultures? That's enough for *me* personally to think it's not racist. But if other people want to think so, they are free to. I'm also free to think they're being way too sensitive."

And then my long response:

"Uuugghhhh ok, I really tried to avoid sounding like a mumbo jumbo academic, but i feel like it's gotten to the point where I must... Keep in mind that exoticization and fetishization often take the form of celebrating a culture that's not your own. As "unfair" as it may seem, it's hard to erase a history of Western colonization and imperialism that shapes the invisible power structures in which we live. Most acts of racism or stereotyping or discrimination often does not come from a place of intent. Oppression succeeds when its mechanisms are utterly invisible to the public, when we ourselves consent to the reinforcement of our own oppression, often without knowing it.

"This is the difference between traditional racism, where things like this are done with mockery and malice, overt prejudice, and obvious discrimination, and structural (or institutionalized) racism, a more invisible form of racism in which historical context and a broader racial power dynamic is disregarded because it's not obvious, because there's no direct way to point to that and say it's racism - because plausible deniability of racism is, well, plausible. It's what killed Trayvon Martin, it's what killed Vincent Chin. (ok, Vincent Chin was likely just good ol' traditional racism) Like it as not, a performance like Katy Perry's, innocuous as it may seem on the surface, reinforces the objectification of the Asian culture, and therefore anyone who wears an Asian face. It reinforces structural racism in that it's even having Asians themselves questioning whether yellowface is ok. Katherine Hepburn, in yellowface, was arguably trying to accurately portray the struggles of the Chinese in The Good Earth (and won an Oscar for it too). She certainly wasn't out to make a mockery of it, and yet, that portrayal is unarguably very problematic. Why? On one hand, it denied the role of the part to other Asians. On the other hand, it's sort of like saying, "Look, I can play an Asian role, or I can wear a geisha costume, as well or even better than Asians themselves." Bam. White superiority reinforced. I realize this is really murky, and things like this are also hard to substantiate. After all, how does one have "evidence" of superiority or oppression? It's sort of like saying, I'm pretty sure my husband is cheating on me, but I can't find any evidence to the contrary. It's not something that is rationalized, it's something that is felt. I often equate trying to describe structural or institutionalized racism as trying to describe water to a fish. "What's this water of which you speak??"

"Also, just the fact that she is "enamored" by the culture makes "the culture" (in this case, the Japanese historical culture doesn't even really match today's Japanese culture) into an object that CAN be enamored. It ceases to be an actual lived experience, rooted in history and tradition, but rather, a superficial object - a costume - to take up and discard as she feels like. That is the problem here. It objectifies a culture, and the individuals associated with that culture (read: Asians). It places that culture outside of oneself, thereby drawing lines between "us" and "them", legitimate and other, powerful and not. It subconsciously reinforces the idea that Asians, as a group, are "less than," and thereby can be as easily discarded as the costume that Perry wears.

"Sorry I'm going on a bit. This debate, and the argument that something like this (yellowface, costuming) isn't offensive, it's just people "enamored" by the culture and "appreciating" its "beauty", is nauseatingly familiar, and I've never really been able to articulate why "celebrating" a culture is problematic, so this is a good exercise for me too.

"Keep in mind that a lot of it is subconscious, and therefore done without intent. That is why structural/institutionalized racism is so hard to pin down, and so hard to place blame - it's very squishy...like an overripe persimmon...uh, never mind. Do I blame Kate Perry for this? No, I don't think she is aware of these dynamics, and in this case, I believe she was truly ignorant and had no malicious intent. However, I do think that this performance happened because she was unaware of her own privilege as a white person, and hope that the backlash will, well, make her a bit more aware of racial dynamics in society and the power that she has, as someone in the public eye, to influence it."

One day more until quals

(In the style of Les Miz)

One day more
A day for some last minute studying
These never-ending rows of lettering.
This faculty for whom I write
Will surely somehow make me cry.
One day more...

I could have waited for this day
But the days between departed
(One day more)
Tomorrow, quals are here to stay
By then, the writing will have started.
(One day more)

One more day all on my own
One more day of intense caring
What a life I might have known
If I didn't go to grad school......

Wonderfully Boring

Reading old blogs makes me want to write again, but I find that there is little to write about these days. When I was traveling a lot, writing about misadventures was par for the course - being disconnected from the normal day to day routine made life (and talking about it) exciting. Some of my best stories involve traveling mishaps - flying into the wrong airport in Korea, realizing at the last minute that a US citizen needed a visa to get into Australia... now, it's just me and my books and studying. And episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

But I should keep blogging. Blogging is one of those unique types of writing where it challenges me to make things accessible and not quite academic. Besides, if I just go off in academic jargon, that's boring to everyone but me. Honestly.

That being said, this is a unique way of writing because while it's a public forum and there is some filtering that goes along with blogging, I doubt anyone reads this anyway. But that being in the back of my head makes this type of writing considerably different than say, what I write in my journal, or what I write in 750words (which is mostly academic).

I have been Ingressing a lot lately. I actually bought an extended battery for my phone so I could play it. Yea, that's right. That's probably the most major excitement in my life at the moment. Oh, and there was a Werewolf night last weekend, and a barely bearable hour of Truckstop, where I looked at my watch every 5 minutes or so to see if I could leave yet.

Nostalgia with Canon Rock

Around 7 years ago, JerryC, a guitarist from Taiwan, posted his original rock arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D, calling it Canon Rock. A little after, another guitarist, known only to the world as "funtwo," posted a cover of JerryC's Canon Rock (which, in my opinion, was the more technically polished version - JerryC is much more raw). For a very long time, no one knew who funtwo was. Turns out, the guy was an engineering major studying in Australia.

Fast forward to last year, turns out funtwo posted another video of himself doing Canon Rock. It's still awesome. Check it out.