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3/26/03:And now for some random comic relief - Some jazzy kittens from buffoonery. posted by jeremy @ 4:44 PM :
[via consumtpive.] And a bitter test of these shifting notions - an image of so-called collateral damage [via randomWalks.] And more images of war in a more condemning historical context (these are very difficult, careful). This is one of many quite similarly sharp links from conscientious. posted by jeremy @ 3:38 PM 3/25/03:Some links as I kill another break - From the Chicago Tribune - increasing hate crimes against Muslim-Americans From NPR war and weblogs And from Brazzil.com - an English translation of Lula da Silva's statement to Brazlians on the US's invasion of Iraq. posted by jeremy @ 5:05 PM 3/24/03:Cinema Olympia A good friend from back home told me that demonstrations in Chicago are growing with each event - blocking Lakeshore Drive, constant presence of police in riot gear, arrests, some violence. I tried to find some info on what happened last Sunday but, not-so-surprisingly the local papers are a bit thin on the coverage.
Here the news is just as saturated with coverage of the war, last week sharing equal time with stories about a former president's assasination. The titles for the television coverage are usually something like Guerra de Bush and the journalism angles centre everything around the administration. There are the usual infrared camera images, detailed diagrams of weaponry and all those other uncanny abstractions.
My inability to understand the slogans affirmed the point of demonstrations - one that you'll never understand if you only see the images - that all those thousands of people are talking to each other the entire time. When the marches are peaceful, ideas are being shared; idealistic, intelligent, and oftentimes optimistic people are talking and acting. I learn more from the people I walk against than any umbrella of media saturation. It is strangely unexpected culture shock to have all this information reduced to salient images and a few key words, not being able to say more than Eu n?o gosto George Bush or understand the nuances of the highly animated conversations blurted out around the TV where I live. posted by jeremy @ 3:53 PM 3/21/03:Quick personal communiqu? I'm fairly sure that my usual email address is finally sending the notes down here, so send me your good words iffin' the spirit moves you. cheers posted by jeremy @ 6:58 PM :Pais tropical In Rio, whenever it rains for like a day, the sewers back up, at least in the section where I live which is a crumblier, working-class neighbourhood. where I'd look out the window and normally anticipate that familiar smell of wet leaves or worms, I walk out and it's this muted scent of shit lurking underneath the air. I saw the ocean for the first time in my life last Saturday night and I had the oddest reaction - I couldn't possibly have smelled salt-water air before in my life, yet it seemed so familiar, like - at last, here I am again... lots of stories in my head now. just thought I'd share one. posted by jeremy @ 6:50 PM 3/17/03:N?o a guerra!
At last some links that I quite appreciate in my currently tender mood - Fifteen things scarier than Saddam by way of cheesedip. From Moveon.org, photos from last night's candlelight vigils around the world (via consumptive)
and this quote from an Iraqi weblogger copied onto this Modern World and now here -
I feel safer in a city whose sewers are currently backing up from today's tropical storm than the overheated militarism of the US. I know I'm exaggerating but it's an honest feeling. Hope you're well, everyone. posted by jeremy @ 5:15 PM 3/13/03:
Choosing the long way home by getting off the train at Catete (and I'm always glad when I do), I hear, underneath the thick jackhammer that's the noise of this city, this unmistakeable beat - dat-dat-dat dat-dat-dat dat-dat-dat - and follow it past the vendors blankets to the courtyard of a crumbling old church. There's about twenty-five people, mostly kids or closer to my age clustered around a circle of capoiera dancers, and the triad beat grows to bells and wild drums, counterhythms threaten to knock the solid crowd to pieces. They're all kids, all young, faces with a slight mud like the walls of this church, and their bare feet brush the concrete, mocking bruises by the thick adrenaline that twists them into impossible flips, and the beat - dat-dat-dat- dat-dat-dat - steady in that dark three, sticks in my head for days and I wonder why I'd ever want ot leave. posted by jeremy @ 7:16 PM :
Greetings. I'm really wondering whether or not to let La beta corpo collect weeds this month, or to at least attempt to keep up some texting. I'd hate to pass up adding a brief bit of Brazilian flair to this little blognapse, but my few Internet outlets here are much less than accomodating (not to mention my illiteracy to both Portuguese and the Windows OS). And, of course, I've much more to talk/ link/ think about than ever before. It's not that I'm necessarily uninterested in these communiqu?s at the moment, but I've far too much to talk about than what will fit in this little picture postcard space. And, of course, I haven't the slightest interest in surfing the web right now, despite my desperate lack of updates on looming wars that don't loom quite so ominously over here. However I've brought a really quite amazing read with me - Once by Wim Wenders - and it's inspired me to keep writing these little vignettes about all the strange little scenes that pass my eyes constantly way out here. I think on Saturday, I'll spend the six reais on an hour of Internet cafe time and copy over some of these better journalings. And for a quick rundown of life out here as a flashy list - I'm eating the best food I've had in my life; I'm snapping up amazing Tropicalia and Bossa records on the street for a song; the noise of Rio is like standing under the Wells street El tracks from 9 to 5; I saw someone get his cell phone stolen and it's actually kinda funny to watch (the thieves just punch it out of their hands, catch it and take off - then they sell the rest of the minutes on carts outside of real cell phone dealers); fresh fruit juice is a whole other spectrum of tastes; and this whole delightful inefficiency makes me astounded at why Americans (especially Chicagoans) want everything to be so smooth and hurried. Take care all, pardon the dust on this site, I know it's embarrasing, and go look have a look at the quality blogheros lining my sidebar until I can finally put up some diary writing from Rio. Tchau... posted by jeremy @ 11:29 AM 3/7/03:Ate mais Later all - I'm off to a few big jet planes now. See you in Rio... posted by jeremy @ 9:24 PM 3/6/03:
[via consumptive.]
And of course my slightly more matured dating life (and the near-extinction of the cassette) has made me realise I've somewhere abandoned the art of the romantic mixtape, and that can't possibly be a good thing. One look at the Art of the Mix, wherein public users post their favourite playlists, and now I'm scrambling to figure out a way to woo any certain someones with some of the crazy tropica sounds I've collected over the years (post-cassette, still pre-CD-burner, and emphatically loyal to vinyl - not a very compatible setup to be sure). [link via purselipsquarejaw.]
As I'm scrolling through this less-than-totally-navigable site, I'm quite drawn to those sweetly awkward mixtape titles, oh-so high school - "Putting Pennies On The Reading Railroad","my love life can be compared to driving a chopstick up your nose","why's america so straight and me so bent" , and I'll add a personal favourite title from the boxes of left-behind crap music scattered about my own workplace - "Thought I was Henry Rollins 'til I saw I looked like Phil Collins." posted by jeremy @ 1:29 AM 3/4/03:Some of the textings I'll carry under my arm all the way to Brazil (assuming I actually get in - I'm having last minute Visa issues right now) - The United States is a country without a name: America is the name of the continent where, among others, the states that were once English colonies united. Brazil is a name without a country. The English seem to have stolen the name of the continent and given it to the country they founded. The Portuguese seem not to have really founded a country, but managed to suggest that they landed in a part of America that was absolutely Other, and they called it Brazil. The parallel with the United States is inevitable. If all the countries in the world today must measure themselves against "America," position themselves in relation to the American Empire, and if the other countries in America have to do so in an even more direct way - comparing their repsective histories to that of their stronger and more fortunate brother - Brazil's case is even more acute, since the mirror image is more evident and the alienation more radical. Brazil is America's other giant, the other melting pot of races and cultures, the other promised land to European and Asian immigrants, the Other. The double, the shadow, the negative image of the great adventure of the New World.
(See also an interview with Caetano about the book.) And so, black-eyed peas and rice or "Hoppin' John" even collard greens and pig's feet, are not so much arbitrary predilections of the"nigra" as they are symbolic defiance; we shall celebrate on a day of our choosing in honor of those events and souls who are an honor to us. Yes, we eat potato salad on Independence day, but a shortage of potatoes up and down Brooklyn's Nostrand Avenue in July will not create the serious consternation and sadness I saw/experienced one New Year's Eve when there weren't no chitlins to be found.
- Ntozake Shange If I Can Cook/You Know God Can ? Bonus: What do you think about when you think about soul food? >posted by jeremy @ 9:58 PM 3/3/03:An interesting writeup on the three major Pacific Northwest cities - how Portland became North America's prime living laboratory for New Urbanism; how Vancouver successfully leveraged the interests of commercial developers into a sound overall public plan (and in doing so managed to avoid paying for surrounding parklands with tax money) ; and how Seattle (and elsewhere) could learn a thing or two from its resourceful neighbours. [via rebecca'sPocket.]
posted by jeremy @ 10:51 PM :From Peacewomen.org (a surprisingly useful site despite its flimsy title), a page of International Women's Week resources including the following rally in Chicago this Friday - Chicago Assemble @ Daley Plaza ? Noon Bonus: a very detailed overview of the UN System. posted by jeremy @ 10:26 PM :The Enigmatic Mermaid posted an interesting alternate take on the Brazilian Carnaval and
"What I really like about Carnaval, however, is neither the excitement nor the glitter and masquerades. In the days preceding and following Carnaval, what I really love is looking under bridges and overpasses for the carros aleg?ricos. The escolas de samba many times lack the space to store them, so they are left unattended under bridges, the costumary home of the homeless. You can spot them along the major thoroughfares or in forgotten alleyways, shining like a miracle under the scorching sun, never complete and admirable as you seem them on TV, but rather downtrodden or half-built, the matte ossature showing through the sparkles of illusion. At once an augury and a summation of the euphory on the streets. " posted by jeremy @ 10:13 PM :How to make a duct tape wallet. [via cheesedip.] posted by jeremy @ 10:06 PM 3/2/03:Notes from the fragile monument
The music was way better than anticipated. The Prehistorics (unfortunately sans web site) rocked. derek's new band had a powerful Talking Head's-ish first start (and this band doesn't even have a friggin' name, let alone a web site) and the surprise set from legendary Chicago buskers Twang Bang was a brilliant bit of generosity. Having only been around them taking their show to the Critical Mass Rides, performing in a pedal-powered Santa sleigh, it was nice this time to actually hear them and their wacked-out wordsmithery ("Got a nineteen-sixty-eight cadillac
So yeah, you should've been there. The only next best thing I can do is hope to get a little virtual gallery of everything in the show up on Betacorpo.net this week. I really think there's some interesting interplay between my irreverent signs and Renae's ancient Greece and all its valndalisms, so it'll be worth a look. But this week also includes leaving for Brazil, so obviously my priorities and promises have gotta stay a bit in check. Bonus: I learned about Freedom Fries last night. Somehow I missed the headlines on that one. Freakin' wierd! posted by jeremy @ 1:45 AM :An interesting NPR story unfortunately relegated to the thinner weekend audience - Hip Hop: Today's Civil Rights Movement? wherein media studies professor Todd Boyd makes the likely discomforting assertion that the present state of the Hip Hop movement has more currency in addressing Civil Rights (through defiant positioning and ironic excesses) than retrospective views of Dr. King's peaceful dissent. He writes: "I would suggest that you might get a better read of what's going on the world of Black people today by listening to DMX on It's Dark as Hell is Hot than by listening to the repeated broadcasts of Martin Luther King speeches." The Real Audio Stream does well in sampling the aformentioned references to DMX, Jay-Z, and Tupac in presenting Boyd's argument that these rather excessively marketed rap products advance the causes of 60's freedom marches and 70's Black Power movements.
posted by jeremy @ 1:44 AM :A pair of particularly scathing arguments on the illegality of a war on Iraq - Law Professors? Statement on Iraq - Every nation that has ever committed aggression against another claimed to be "defending" itself. The United States helped establish the United Nations precisely in order to impose the rule of law on such claims, to make it unlawful for nations to strike against others unless they were themselves under armed attack. The United States is not under armed attack by Iraq.
Also, Dr. Lawrence Moquera's "A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders: An Advisory to US Troops" is circulating quite a bit lately, unique for addressing the US Military rather than the usual sectors of public opinion (I prefer this particular above link for its useful and equally informative offsite references) -
The reasons for war are not supposed to be the purview of soldiers in the field. They are just supposed to follow orders. But when a war is so blatantly illegal soldiers need to have some background to make an informed decision about how to conduct themselves. In a short space it is not possible to delineate the full reasons, but it is not about the dangers of Saddam Hussein. As indicated above, there are no credible anti-war or peace advocates that advocate any positive statements about Saddam Hussein or the Government of Iraq. The world, however, in general, does not believe that the Bush administration has any solution to the situation. In fact many believe that Bush, himself, is a significant part of the problem. [cheers to consumptive and followMeHere for leading to this essay]
posted by jeremy @ 1:09 AM |
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![[image]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/South/02/19/offbeat.freedom.fries.ap/story.freedom.fries.jpg){kind=link}