Grief: a perfect crystal, or travel by roundabout
By on May 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)
I’ve had a bit of practice with grieving.
Over the course of my twenty five years of life, I have experienced the loss of three grandparents, one aunt, one uncle, one brother, three friends, a dog and two cats. And those are just the deaths immediate to me - while it may not be directly intimate, we tend to feel deeply when our friends experience death in their own families. Also, it is not uncommon to be greatly impacted by the death of a celebrity or important public figure.
I guess it might seem strange to be quantifying things like this; counting deaths like keeping score. But the thing is that I think about death and grief like I think about commuting to work. It’s second nature. It’s a part of what I do each day.
At first, after the suicide of my brother Michael (he was 21, I was 18 at the time. He purchased a hand gun from an Albuquerque pawn shop and shot himself that same day), I felt a bit like this guy —————————————->
Existence became totally stunning. Traversing through time and space, I was ill-equipped and the battery in my emotional headlamp kept fritzing out. I was a solitary nomad in a cave full of reflective planes that offered little in the way of nourishment or direction.
I am writing this now just after the seven year mark of that event has come and gone and I no longer feel like I’m tromping around on scary shards of suprisingly organic materials.
Now, it’s a bit more like this. ————————————>
I know this place. It is a part of my familiar scenery and I have memories and sensations associated with it that I can call up or be surprised by. I can come here whenever I need to. I can make full circles for as long as I want, so long as I am mindful of other travelers, or I can splay off in whatever direction I choose. It’s real.
gurgle
By on April 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
When I started this whole blogging thing - I had a great big vision about where it would go: A blog about the city and the connective tissue making it move and breath and pulse - the documentation of the bodily functions of My City.
Trouble is, I spend my time in such a stupidly small parameter of space that I have forgotten my own bodily need to be inspired enough to ignite my spirit, much less write about the dynamic cityscape.
I can’t stop thinking about situationist art and mapping practices.
The kind of disjointed and inspired physical existence of the derive simply isn’t containable within a 9 - 5 (or 6 or 7), day job kind of life. The closet one might get to a derive from behind a desk is surfing the net. Admittedly, this is a fluid and often beautiful and enlightening experience. A person can travel through the internet in a way that is unattainable in material existence. Sure.
What bugs me is that the only physical evidence of this kind of exploration is a numb set of butt cheeks, a tight wrist and cold fingers.
Book Report
By on March 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
I read a great book for a class at UCLA extension. Here’s a few thoughts on it:
In The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles, William Fulton describes the growth of Los Angeles as a kind of run-away train being engineered by a diverse cadre of politicians, real-estate developers, property owners, citizens, and activists. To Fulton, this “growth machine” seems to take on a life of it’s own, which ultimately drives the people who inhabit the region to escape from the reality of the megalopolis to splintered suburban neighborhoods. Fulton advocates, admirably, poetically and convincingly, for a new transformation of an age-old sentiment: community.
Through a journalistic lens and a strong command of language, Fulton paints a vivid picture of the process — a strange and inefficient one to an outsider — that surrounds regional planning and development in Los Angeles. It is a system of opposing sides. Still, whether he fully believes in it or not, Fullton also shows what is so essentially important about negotiating deals for the benefit of social and developmental progress, even if attempts at compromise leave some unhappy.
Nowhere is this clearer than at Jordan and Ahmanson Ranch, Fulton describes the tension between the tract home environmentalists, a young and motivated politician Maria VaderKolk, and equally motivated developers engaged in an ongoing battle to purchase a large plot of land from Bob Hope.
Elected into office by a slim margin of votes and strong backing from the local environmentalists, Maria VanderKolk, then 28 years old, hopped onto amoving train, with the support and votes of the environmentalists, already headed toward deciding the fate of Jordan Ranch. Her job was to save it. And she did. By proposing the developers move their project to a different site, VanderKolk managed to directly influence the successful sale of Jordan Ranch by Bob Hope to the Park Service.
Unfortunately, for the tract home environmentalists, VanderKolk had apparently missed the point. Fulton writes:
“There was no question that Mary Weisbrock and her fellow eco-activists wanted Jordan Ranch saved. But giving the eco-activists what they said they wanted wasn’t enough. That was what Maria VanderKolk didn’t understand, having grown up in Colorado instead of Calabasas. Saving Jordan wasn’t a goal; it was a symbol, a metaphor for keeping the growth machine out.”
I was not raised in Calabasas either. But, having seen even just the edge of Ahmanson Ranch, with its nearly 3,000 acres of oak savanna accessible to the public, I would argue that it’s a hugely impressive symbol of cooperation (willing or not) for the entire Los Angeles region. And, though I certainly sympathize with the environmentalists, who’s vision was not realized in the manner they might have hoped, “dealing” with the developers is what ultimately saved the open space.
Additionally, with more expansion of the area’s transit to trails services, every Angeleno will have can have an opportunity to look into a vast and open expanse of California territory and imagine space enough for their own visions or hopes and dreams. That’s a pretty good deal. (I’m going out there in a couple weeks and hope to witness the hillsides ablaze with blooming wildflowers)
It is hard to imagine what, beyond thousands of acres of beautiful wilderness to enjoy and share with pride, might encourage the people of Calabasas to reexamine their idea of citizenship and community with those who participated in engineering that reality.
Neither Fulton nor myself have immediate suggestions for remedying that dynamic.
However, it is no secret where his admiration lies, particularly looking at his recounting and analysis of the Renters’ Rights group’s success in Santa Monica. There. much like Maria VanderKolk’s entrance into local politics, organized last minute by a specific block of voters, the Santa Monica example seems uniquely ‘LA.’
Fulton portrays the results of the Santa Monica City Council election in 1981, saying, “Renters’ Rights forces swept to power with a solid victory for their entire slate…” Vehemently opposed to the construction of a new office building by Welton Becket, the Renters’ Rights group had serious sway over the Santa Monica City Council, but the city had come to a standstill, wanting to remain aligned with their constituents but not wanting to lose the potential revenue.
Enter the deal-maker, this time Dennis Zane. Zane went to the table with N. David O’Malley, president of Welton Becket, and managed to reach a compromise that ensured access to more affordable housing, though not without his fair share of dissatisfaction.
“Hard-line rent control organizers were dismayed at Zane’s conciliatory attitude toward Becket. The taskforce members felt sold down the river, and Golday refused to vote in favor of the deal. But,…despite Goldway’s resistance, it was a remarkable achievement. The Renters’ Rights group had stared down the growth machine and gotten what it wanted.”
The momentum stirred in Santa Monica had a widespread affect on the surrounding parts of the region, leading to some widely adopted political strategies and other victories. However, opposing the growth machine has not always taken the same form, or always been successful.
In the wake of the 1992 South Central riots, the national media made the “Re-growth machine” an attractive project for politicians and developers alike.
The Interstate Bank tower on Vermont and 81st Street was borne from a public contest to design a 130-unit structure in the heart of South Central (aka: the Projects). The proposed construction was hotly contested by fellow council members; Mark Ridley-Thomas supported the project while Maxine Waters opposed it. Ultimately, Ridley-Thomas won out and the city approved the construction. That is, until Richard Riordan, then mayor, decided to get involved. Fulton writes:
“Dramatically, Riordan invited reporters to sit in on the forty-five-minute meeting while he listened to homeowners’ complaints. Asked by one of the reporters what he was going to do, he answered “I’m going to make up my mind in the next ten seconds.” Then he pulled out a veto letter and signed it, while the homeowners applauded.”
This pseudo deal breaking did not last long before Riordan caved under pressure organized by Ridley-Thomas. The project ultimately went forward.
This is not to say, however, that South Central did not benefit in real ways from other, more appropriately guided efforts to rebuild the community. There were consistent and ongoing successes brought about both with and without city support. Fulton says:
“In the end, South Central can’t be brought back until everyone lays some kind of claim to it—not to further their own political ends, but because they see the fate of these neighborhoods as inextricably tied to the fate of their own neighborhoods.”
This is the re-indoctrination, or re-absorption, of the sentiment of community that Fulton concludes as necessary to Los Angeles’ future. Fulton’s advocacy for an emotional and symbolic kind of widespread investment in South Central is echoed throughout the book and explicitly as he closes the book by saying, “Privacy, self-reliance, choice-all these can and must remain core American values. Yet, so too must we remember that other core American value, the value of community.” It is important to note here, to use the parlance of our times, that a successful community is one that can sustain itself and the health, safety and well being of all of its members.
Taking Fulton’s urgent advocacy to heart, Reluctant Metropolis will serve as an important reference for me personally. The kinds of creative partnerships Fulton describes as successes are the practice examples we should seek to expand and build from.
inter-vent
By on February 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Last night I dreamed I witnessed a brutal beating. Young men stomping on each others torsos and pausing between blows to get the right angle for the most damage. I was scared and with a couple of friends who were scared too and we were trying to walk past the scene undetected. But, I started crying. Loud and prolonged sobs of just straight-up, rocked-to-my-core sadness. I grabbed the chain link fence separating me from them and cried and cried until I woke up.
It’s scenes like this, subconscious interludes initiated by real-world stimulus, that I must believe in an apocalypse. I am readying myself to endure great change within this lifetime.
counter fellow
By on February 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
I met a guy last night who’s name I can’t remember because he was introduced by his nickname which is something like “wanleed” or “manscreed” or something. I couldn’t really tell if he was into the nickname or not and so I just left the space in my head where his name would go open to other possibilities. He had a lovely haircut. He ate macaroni and cheese with hot sauce and drank his own bottle of red wine. I had a bottle of white with a dapper horseman on the label. We sat at the bar with an extra stool between us and remarked that restaurants should install armrests between each seat, like the secret upholstered things that fold down in the backseats of most full-size sedans.
We talked about the cool possibilities of minimalist blogging:
Monday
I’m up.
Did not make bed.
Tuesday
Got up.
Fell asleep making bed.
Got up.
Did not finish making bed.
Wednesday
I’m up.
Did not make bed.
Thursday
Got second job so i can hire maid to make bed.
I went home thinking about clean sheets, naming conventions, and cheese plates.
stunned
By on November 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)
I am often overwhelmed.
Lately, I have been a giant crocheted bag swinging around the skyline of my life… a soft wrecking ball. The stitch on my bag is loose enough to allow several versions of me to stick their arms out the holes to grab at the stuff that seems always to be falling out. There’s also the other attractive and shiny debris that needs to be in my bag so, one of me will pick that stuff up too. Also, one of me is making sure to keep stitching the bag to make room for all of me and my important life stuff. And we keep zooming through time and space.
Last week, I swung through Washington D.C. and Baltimore for a week-long training session in Social Organizing.* It really is true about the East Coast trees in fall…utterly stunning. I got a lot of eye-rolling from the local types when I so typically remarked after the scenery… “yeah, yeah, it’s pretty,” they’d say. Really!? Is it actually possible to be so ‘over’ such miraculous surroundings? The red and the orange and the yellow against the weirdly luminous gray sky! my god! “yeah, yeah”!? And then I wondered if it was possible that I, myself, am guilty of that attitude towards the charms of my own city?
I woke up this morning and walked out the front door only to be stunned. There is something so specific about how LA sunlight seems to coat stuff. It soaks in to stuff. The sidewalks are two-inch sponges full and squishy with sunlight and dirt and shoe marks. The sides of buildings are the same way, they could become so sun-logged by afternoon, they’d melt and expose second-story dwellers in their socks and undies. And, though this has yet to happen, the possibility that the city will get too full of sun and dirt and shoe marks is what makes it miraculous at the moment.
Pretty overwhelming.
*Held at the Maritime Institute of Technology in a sweetly insular and pastoral zone adjacent to one of the major ‘Beltways’, like the city has a belly, our sessions went from 9am to 9pm Monday through Friday. I ate lunch and dinner in a ‘dining hall’, like the food hadn’t come straight out of the freezer, and spent twelve hours interacting with varied activists and organizers. It was probably one of the most important things I’ve done recently. More on this later.
beastly living
By on September 10, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Holy Schneyekies!
Life is certainly a rambunctious, slobbering beast, isn’t it!?
I’ve been feeling a bit like this lately:
I’m zooming out into god-knows-where-i’m-going territory and today I can’t believe i’m still hanging on.
My first few years in California, I was blindly in love with LA, even more in love with San Francisco, and subconsciously overtaken by the shapes of the trees and the extreme variety of vegetation abound. My notion of this LA LA city was so smally small small. I still have no idea how big it is but, i assure you, it is BIG. I’ve been so overwhelmed with the larger context that this weekend, when I had a moment to dismount the matted and loyal back of my steed ‘Momentum’ I found myself thinking about the benefits of small.
There is a little part of me that really pines for the simple confines of a shared dormitory room with everything immediately at hand and no where to really go. Something as banal as a couch picked up off of the curb had huge powers to change everything. Ta-da! a hang-out zone, a nap-zone, a make-out zone, a homey zone, a breakfast zone, a study zone. Markedly different, of course, than the zone in which one accrued what little sleep there was steal. The tiny, self-sufficient space with mini-fridge and microwave known as ‘kitchen nook’ was ‘window seat’ (6inch sill) adjacent and the desk was a built-in unit combined with a set of drawers. And yet it was amazing how much stuff a person could collect and store in such a tiny space. ‘stuff’ being the operative word driving the human fascination to collect random bits and pieces of everything they experience and to bring them back ‘home’.
most trees that are more than 500 years old are hollow. i think if most people ever had the chance to sit down inside of a towering vegetative beast, they might not want to leave. ‘stuff’ might seem silly in the face of such a thing.
I got an email from the mate i shared that dorm with saying that she had “just moved into a room thats 94by94inches, built a loft fort and painted it orange. home.” Sounds like the right idea. Maybe I’ll build a fort with the sofa cushions next weekend. or go to the park with a tarp and some sticks.
First Blush
By on August 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5)
On Tuesday, as I took the E Dash up 7th Street to City West, a man sat down directly across from me. He was rather large with a zip-up sleeveless cammo hoodie, weightlifting gloves, rainbow reflective wraparound oakley sunglasses, and a haircut like a shorn and disheveled baby. It took a minute to notice but I slowly understood that the man was intermittently and quite audibly grunting. I grinned to myself out the window thinking about the oft slightly-off liveliness of strangers and downtown LA until it became clear that he was grunting AT ME. I glanced over, and yep, it was a full on lean-in-grunting-stare-down from this big-strange-flashy-man-baby. A bit disturbed, I made eye contact through his single lens, smoothed my left brow with a prominent middle finger and he stopped. Moved a couple seats down even. And then came back. Resumed leaning. No grunting this time though. Until I stood up to get off of at my stop and he let out a long, nasty grunt that made everyone on the bus, including the driver, turn in our direction. All I could say was “What the fuck?” and then “Thank you” to the driver before I stepped onto the sidewalk.
I’m going to use Grunty as the role model for this blog. He had me chuckling and feeling entirely weird all day. Even now. Exactly what he meant or intended seems endless, inconcievable and spinning in all directions. That collision site of appearance, inference, assumption, and confusion is ultimately rich terrain, rife with ripening ways to understand (and laugh at) ourselves as we relate to our physical surroundings as well as our fellow humans. It’s called True-City Tendons because so much of experience relies on connective tissue. As a small beast intermingling with the larger beast of Los Angeles, I am compelled to seek out liminoid experiences with the landscape and those who build it.
As for the outstanding humans at Existential Media who have so immediately and warmly welcomed me as their friend: Thank you for extending your community and for cultivating such hopeful connections! I’m really glad to be here.
