krewe zulu's centennial

In 1909, William Story marched as King, wearing a lard.can crown and holding a banana.stalk scepter. The raggedy pants and jubliee songs of the original Tramps changed to black face paint and grass skirts. Inspired by the vaudeville troupe Smart Set's performance about the Zulu tribe, the group of laborers formed the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Combining several ward.based groups, the emergent benevolent society was incorporated seven years later with social objectives. The Club continued in its role as insurance.provider for the sick and deceased as well as its popular role in Mardi Gras.

Krewe Zulu originally constructed a mule.drawn float from dried.goods' boxes and a spring wagon. In 1916, four Dukes and the King rode through the black neighborhoods, throwing coconuts, toasting at the Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home, and patronizing the sponsoring bars. The coconuts, or golden nuggets, substituted for the expensive glass beads thrown in other parades. The modest float, adorned with palmetto leaves and moss, led the walking members through the segregated city.

The parade and krewe have grown in size and custom since the founding days. Growing from about a dozen members to over 500 strong, the Zulu S.A.P. celebrates its centennial with pride. Reflective of its long history, the organization recalls the integral role it had in breaking down the color and gender barriers of the last 100 years. Louis Armstrong and Desiree Glapion-Rogers (present White House social secretary) reigned as king and queen, repectively, showing the significance of 'black royalty' in adverse times.

It is Shrove Tuesday in New Orleans. Early on this Mardi Gras morning, before the white folks' Rex comes in splendor to Canal Street, the Negroes are having their own carnival. Up squalid New Basin glides a barge, canopied in sacking, to the wharf at Rampart Street and Howard Avenue. Off the barge strides the King of the Zulus, right royal in black underwear, a hula skirt of sea grass, a tin crown. His sceptre is a broomstick, topped by a snow-white rooster. Preceding him is his Queen, behind are his capering dukes. The King mounts his throne—a decrepit easy chair on a mule-drawn wagon. Up darktown's Rampart Street whoop King and courtiers, laughing at the whites on the royal way. At 7 p. m. their parade ends, and the drinking and the loving begin. It is carnival for the merriest of people. It is also dark satire on the pretentious, elite Mardi Gras courts of the white folks' Rex, Momus, Comus, Proteus, the Druids.

[excerpt from Time magazine's 1949 article Louis the First]

amor amore amour aşık olmak 爱 情 kochać liebe love ρομαντικά любовь 낭만적 감정

I will tell you a Joke about Jouel and mary
It is neither a joke nor a [s]tory
For rubin and Charles has married two girles
But biley has married a boy
The girles he had tried on every Side
But none could he get to agree
All was in vain he went home again
And sens that he is married to natty

So biley and naty agreed very well
And momas well pleased at the matc[h]
The egg it is laid but Natys afraid
The Shell is So Soft that it will never hatc[h]
But betsy She Said you Cursed ball head
My suiter you never can be
Besides your low Croch proclaimes you a botch
And that never can answer for me

[poem written by Abraham Lincoln recounting the marriage of William "Billy" Greene and Natty Grigsby, as recounted by Elizabeth Crawford]

The circulating article, Marriage and Gays: What Would Lincoln Do? discusses what C.A. Tripp writes about the "predominately homosexual" tendencies of Abraham Lincoln. The discussion becomes particularly interesting in the month of February, where we celebrate Lincoln's birthday, Valentine's Day and National Freedom to Marry Week. The LGBT community selected the proximate date to Lincoln's birthday because he "was committed to equality, freedom, and calling Americans to the better angels of our nature." Lincoln admonished, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

don't sit so close...you'll ruin your eyesight!

Although many a wife has told this tale, there is no evidence to support this claim. The American Academy of Ophthalmology actually concludes that the eye muscles simply accommodate the shape according to the distance between its lens and the object. Close-range viewing does cause the eyes to blink less frequently; therefore, the dryness may lead to eyestrain and fatigue. However, it does not cause any permanent damage. Moreover, children often focus better up close without eyestrain than adults and therefore may choose to view the clearer objects of a nearer screen.

[Another busted myth: reading in poor light will damage eyesight.
What we need is a spring cleaning of these dusty old wives and their spun tales!]

nueva constitución

The Movement Toward Socialism succeeded in the latest debate concerning a new constitution for Bolivia. MAS emerged from a well organized social and trade union movement that holds the support of the poor, rural, indigenous population. The January 25th referendum passed with over sixty percent of the vote. Its approval will empower the indigenous majority with documented rights, provide levels of regional autonomy, allow state sovereignty of most natural resources, and limit land ownership to 12,000 acres. Upon signing the charter, President Evo Morales stated, "This is the second independence, the true liberation of Bolivia. It protects all Bolivians and excludes no one."

However, MAS is still vehemently opposed in the eastern lowland regions of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando. Morales' Movement lacks both constituent and leader support in the Orient as well as a majority in the upper house. Therefore MAS will struggle to make the constitution operational. Now complicated by the global recession, the political conflict is likely to continue. The poorest country in South America relies on the exportation of oil, gas, zinc, and tin. While the global economy recesses, the commodity prices, demand, and remittances have all declined in Bolivia. Although Morales will now struggle to deliver social improvements to his supporters, he comments, "You can take me from the presidential palace, you can kill me, (but) the mission has been accomplished for the refounding of Bolivia."

[photos courtesy of Boston Globe's photojournalist perspective]

the ash of burned bras

We are the wilting leaves,
desiring the right to live and flourish
as individual sources of breath
in a polluted forest.
Thick haze looms.
Fallen plumes lay still.
The ash
collects
on the branches,
mixes with the humidity,
and hardens smooth over the scars.
The vestiges sleep deep within
the petrifaction, beneath the reach
of a scratched surface.

The vegetation awaits
a fresh current to push against
the profuse syrup of air
and awaken the dormant,
fading green.

chairman meow

[obey the kitty: propaganda for the feline revolution]

let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend, but don't ever take away my cat nap...

all reactionaries are paper tigers and all revolutionaries are kittehs...

then I will go, to the countryside, lead the peasant and lick, leap, paw, and purr copiously in cat nip.

Friend of Chairman Meow

authentic thinking

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level…involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students)… Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into receptacles to be “filled” by the teacher…(However) one must seek to live with others in solidarity. One cannot impose oneself, nor even merely co-exist with one’s student. Solidarity requires true communication... The teacher's thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the student's thinking. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication.

[excerpts from Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire, original publication 1970]


My thesis research about the duality of relationships, specifically between artist and ‘non-artist,’ had tangentially placed Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed in my hands. My dissertation suggests that spatial design can enable reciprocal relationships between distinct identities: the painter-pediatrician exchange and the film maker-factory worker bond will be facilitated by the physical space. Potentially, these diverse relationships not only interact, but engage in a fluid, shared dialogue of “authentic thinking.” Behaving in synergetic interactions, the relationships never classify roles such as “depository” or “depositor.” Each has as much to gain, as he/she has to give. Together, we persist in a mutual “naming of the world.”

My thesis coursework ended and my theories about education were immediately tested in an intensive, in-residence workshop at California Polytechnic State University. As a teacher’s assistant, my position required mentoring the architectural interest of forty-four high school students. With an intention to experientially share architecture as a career-path, the workshop presents program with a learn-by-doing maxim. Projects were issued by senior faculty and the students were given time and space to develop physical, 3D responses to the prompts. Deliberate experimentation was encouraged. Working with two other recent graduates, I guided these novice designers through the intimidating world of glue, chipboard, dried spaghetti, and wire mesh.

In order to prepare for the teaching position, I thought back to the strategies of my mentor educators. I realized that the most challenging and beneficial instruction came from prompts for exploration versus the dictation of theory. Posing inquiries actually instigates the sharing of ideas. It places faith in “humankind, faith in their power to make and remake, to create and re-create, faith in their vocation to be more fully human.” It humbly identifies that content evolves when all agree to share in its development. Thought, therefore, “is not the privilege of an elite, but the birthright of all.”

The challenge as an assistant teacher, or facilitator, actually was in the liberation of these chained minds, those that were in the act of becoming hollow so as to receive the contents of narrating teachers. The first step involves convincing these “oppressed” youth that their words and thoughts are not only sensible, but actually indisputable and indispensable. Therefore, it is my responsibility as a citizen of humanity to engage in this reciprocity. A narrative role not only dehumanizes and oppresses the group seated before me, but it also renders me as a mechanical entity. As Freire solicits, the “quest for mutual humanization” is a horizontal partnership. His pedagogy is what I tried to share with my workshop group and what I would hope to continue with young New Yorkers. The invitation to engage in dialogue not only promotes exchange. It promotes the creative freedom to wander into the dumpster for scraps of plastic and re-emerge with a confident objective.

living in the present

I was just months away from a legitimate hiatus from my formal education and my disposition hesitated in disbelief. I approached the visible end of a twenty-year old string of hallways, lectures, and loose-leaf paper. The string was full of knots and braids. It frayed in sections. At the other end, it remained securely tethered to a post my parents had meticulously anchored. I began to gather the cord, rubbing my hands over its texture in rumination. I then cast it to the sky, allowing the wind to carry my circumstance to an alternate possibility. Half a year later I held my savings, a vaccination certificate, and a one-way departure ticket to Cochabamba, Bolivia.

I had made the decision to volunteer in a community in South America. With the anxiety of a stranger entering a foreign land, I packed my emotions beneath my thermals and mosquito repellant and made landfall in time for La Carnaval celebration. The sun stirred the air from its stupor, coercing the local energy to song and dance. Standing at the corner of the bus terminal with a year’s worth of gear and fervor, I began to maneuver the crowded streets toward my hostel. Anticipating a modest rest after twenty hours of travel, I instead had fallen prey to a pick pocketing and later a reservation scam. I had lost various valuables and my online payment and would have to forfeit an inflated price for another accommodation. Electing a dark room of three straw mattresses and a tiny padlock, I removed the weight from my shoulders, sighed, and returned to the parade route.

La Carnaval celebrates a mixture of custom between the indigenous tradition and the colonial influence. Days of parading and carousing persuade ornery behavior, such as the swindling and badgering of unsuspecting people. The merriment has extended to water and shaving cream fights that essentially are permissible forms of physical assault. Without a reserved seat or company for protection, a bystander must seek refuge beneath the bleachers, as a voyeur peering through legs for glimpses of the parading feathers, coins, and sequins. Attempting strategic passage from one set of bleachers to the next, I was unable to hide from the ‘festival ammunition’ and instead found myself trembling in the shadows, soaked with dirty water, beer, and shaving cream. I decided to wipe the stench from my eyes and ears and articulate any frustration in the quietness of my room.

Every doubt came racing forward. I could not help but become disheartened of my ‘greeting’ to this foreign circumstance. Eventually, I began to redress, re-establishing my perception of the opportunity before me. I was still surrounded by an Andean/European amalgamation, rich with tradition and solidarity. There were indigenous women in full skirts and elaborate shawls, scrambling beneath the bleachers for dropped aluminum cans to be exchanged at a modest rate. There were vendors selling water balloons beside coca leaves and dried animal amulets. If I resigned to fear, I would never have the opportunity for insight in such a unique setting.

My Bolivian experience not only offered distinct sights, smells, tongues and textures, but also an available stillness to perceive them. There was a recuperation to live in the present and allow the sensuous “now” to inform my existence. I determined that I would regard the stinging shaving cream just as well as the warm bath that cleansed it from my face. I became mindful of each opportunity, actively engaging in the moment, whether it is arduous or tranquil. Therefore, it is less about seizing the day than living present within that day. My assumption is that one’s coherent presence actually yields a more fruitful past and future.

la cocina

The recording proceeded with the dedication and experimentation of fresh ingredients and fresh ideas from the kitchen. La cocina symbolically is the heart of the home as it holds the fire, nourishment, and table. It serves as a comfort space, warmed by the hearth and gathering of the family. The Bustamante kitchen (of my host family) provided that warmth and seasoning of my South American adventure:

Dishes from various regions were prepared here. Orange placemats would cover a checkered, green tablecloth. Glass bowls of hearty soups were served with a spicy, pepper salsa called llajua. Fresh-squeezed juice would moisten those lips holding conversations of current events such as the revocation of the local leader. Segundos would follow as the dial of the hand radio would search a new signal, a new signal to add further commotion to the lunchtime affair. Potatoes would certainly be served, either boiled, fried, or baked. The grandkids would negotiate lesser portions of food and larger portions of ketchup. Eventually, the conversation would slow with the onset of digestion. A piece of fresh fruit, perhaps a cherimoya (if in season), would be sliced and passed around the table. Finally, each person would retire from the table, offering “provechos” to one another before slipping to his or her bedroom for mid-day siesta. The table would also rest in silence, awaiting the next gathering of dishes and mouths.