Adrienne Rich

 Adrienne Rich was 82 when she died this week of complications of rheumatoid arthritis. Her partner of decades, Michelle Cliff, and her children and grandchildren will miss her terribly, and so will many, many of her reader who, like me, were influenced tremendously by her words and ideas. Reading her essays when I was in college and graduate school shaped the person I have become. I was fortunate enough to see her read years ago, and I treasure her poems.


This video remixes a reading  by Adrienne Rich of her poem with music and images. Created by vlogger Syd the Skeptic.

Diving Into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers

the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
abroad the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it's a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or week

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
and I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
Obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to the scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

iPAD? really? REALLY?

MAD-TV did a bit back in 2007 which is getting its second wind because the dudes at Apple thought the best name for its new device was iPAD. Really?


I'm sure the device itself will be totally groovy--or at least as groovy as an oversized iPod Touch-- but iPad is definitely a #nowomenintheroom #namingfail.

On Twitter, iTampon is trending higher than iPad because we are juvenile,and need distraction from the grim prospect of the State of the Union address later today.

A few tweets I retweeted:

RT @annfriedman: I hope the iPad has wings for extra nighttime protection.


@ SpaceyG The iPad. For your light iDays.


hehe RT @goatking @cassidycody No, the iPad will come in two sizes. iPad and MaxiPad

Be careful talking about iPods and iPads in Boston.


RT @zuzansantos: el mundo paralizado por el iPad..... iWey x_x <-- #iWey =)
joeymornin

@joeymornin Mr. Obama’s speech could not come at a more critical time for... blah blah... #IPAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Updated: More jokes in the comments to this post here.

The Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Yesterday I had to work and couldn't follow the live coverage of the "Sotoshow"--the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor-- but I did get to check out Anne Marie Cox's live-blogging (a hilarious antidote to the pontificating and posturing by most of the Senators). After all the snark and laughing though, I get back to the fact that it's still OK for the mainstream media to make outrageously sexist and racist remarks with impunity. And some of the Senators, especially Sessions, were appealing to that hateful rhetoric.

The Women's Media Project documents the relentless smears against Sonia Sotomayor since her nomination. Listen to all these white men--all the usual suspects--rant and rave, attempting to accuse Sotomayor of what they themselves promote: malice and hate. Bullies who are afraid of mommy and teacher.


Thank goodness that there are a few people of common sense who can offer a different perspective. Like Rachel Maddow!



And Amy Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator, for showing us what it's like when a grown-up talks.


And what about Judge Sotomayor herself? Here she answers a question from Diane Feinstein on the limits of executive power. (For the Constitutional law wonk take on this process, try The SCOTUS blog. For the analysis of the political theater, try HuffPo's live coverage)

Sonia Sotomayor, nominee for Supreme Court

Sonia Sotomayor talks about her path as a Latina (Nuyorican!) and a judge in this speech from 2002 (printed in the New York Times)

Listen to her talk about her mother's example "I am who I am because of my mother, and I am only half the woman that she was." Listen to her talk about the influence of Spanish on her writing in English, and how she worked on it. So self-aware, so intelligent.

Here are some pictures. And, I am informed, she saved baseball! All right, then.

With Hillary Clinton on the team, the Democrats can't lose in November

From bitter experience, I know what it is like to put up with sexual harrasment at work, misogynists who constantly belittle and undermine my professional capacity, and the complicity of women and men in making excuses for the abusers rather than rallying to support the abused. Even though Hilary Clinton's stands on a number of issues are not ones I could embrace (nor are some of Obama's for that matter--my politics are far to the left of both) I was more than ready to vote for her if she had emerged as the Democratic nominee. So I join with Katha Pollitt at The Nation, and others in thanking her for having the courage and the fortitude to fight on, in spite of all the ugly, misogynist and hateful crap that was flung her way:

"There's another reason to be grateful to her. Clinton's run has put to rest the myth that we are living in a postfeminist wonderland in which all that stands in women's path is women themselves. Like a magnet--was it the pantsuit?--Clinton drew out the nation's misogyny in all its jeering glory and put it where we could all get a good look at it. "Iron my shirt" hecklers. Wearers of Bros Over Hos T-shirts and buyers of Hillary nutcrackers. Fans of the Citizens United Not Timid website (check the acronym). Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It's as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit.

As for the real pundits, thank you, Hillary, for showing us the snickering belittling of women that passes for media commentary: Rush Limbaugh, no Adonis, wondering out loud if "the country" was ready to watch a woman age in the White House; Chris Matthews, Don Imus and Tucker Carlson with their litany of insults--she-devil, Satan, witch, Antichrist, Lady Macbeth. NPR's Ken Rudin compared her to Glenn Close's indestructible bunny-boiler character in Fatal Attraction. And surely a special prize goes to Keith Olbermann for his indignant, hysterical bombast after Clinton's ham-handed reference to RFK's assassination. Rarely has men's terror of women with more brains than a Bratz doll been on such public display. And, of course, men were what we mostly saw up there on the small screen, yakking and blathering away.

It wasn't just men, though. Thank you, Hillary, for letting us get a good look at female sexism: the catty fashionistas and Style page dingbats obsessing over her clothes, her hair, her weight, her cleavage, her laugh. Air America's Randi Rhodes calling her a "big fucking whore," Maureen Dowd offering up her twice-weekly dose of vinegar and dozens of women writers musing prettily about why they and their friends all hate Hillary. Could it be they're jealous? Not, as novelist Mary Gordon has suggested, of Hillary's bagging of sexy Bill (yuck) but of her unsinkable ambition and drive. Hillary's run upset the carefully balanced apple cart of trade-off and resignation and semi-suppressed frustration that is how women of the professional class accommodate to patriarchy lite."

We are going to have to put up with a lot more yammering about what everyone "should" do in the next week, but I'm looking forward to bringing it to John McCain and the failed, discredited, divided Republican party. We cannot afford to let McCain win. I'm sure that Hillary Clinton will bring her formidable skills to that task, and that she will play an important role in shaping the political agenda of the next four years.

And while we're at it, let's throw out that slimeball Norm Coleman and elect Jack Nelson-Pallmayer, a candidate whose stands on the issues I really can endorse, and who will be a worthy successor of Paul Wellstone in the Senate.

Star Trek TOS parodies: gender and race on the Starship Enterprise

Fresca has watched all of Star Trek ("The Original Series" or TOS as I see it is called!), and wrote this fascinating post about the whole genre of K/S slash fiction. This reminded me of a very long graduate student conversation in a cheap restaurant on Telegraph avenue about why women wrote these fantasies. I've been talking to some graduate students lately about Carlos Monsiváis, Roger Bartra, and the mixed feelings that some academics have about popular culture. Monsiváis is both a fan and a cheerful analyst while others either don't experience the pleasures of pop culture or feel they must hide it.

In Fresca's honor, I post this Carol Burnett parody of Star Trek, in which something odd happens to the crew:


And this version by In Living Color, with Jim Carrey as Captain Kirk, is more daring than anything on TV these days:


And here is "The Really Last Voyage"


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Rachel Raimist and the impact of B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop

The fabulous Mary Lucia, DJ for MPR's radion station The Current, interviews the equally fabulous Rachel Raimist, filmmaker, scholar, photographer, writer, teacher, activist and all-around wonderful person. She directed the documentary film about women in hip-hop cultureNobody Knows My Name, and is editing a film that she describes as being about "incarcerated intelligence" made in collaboration with prisoners in Stillwater Prison.

You can listen to Rachel talk here about hip-hop as a cultural movement, the work of women and African-American women in film, her clear and sophisticated take on feminisms.

Rachel was an important participant in the group that convened the first B-Girl Be summit at Intermedia Arts in 2005. This summer the third B-Girl Be collaboration convened its third summit in June. The multimedia gallery show will be up until September. I'm going to check it out when my daughter gets back to town. Here's the description:

Welcome to the 3rd Annual B-Girl Be Summit:
A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop

Building on the last two years’ wildly successful festival, Intermedia Arts is proud to present the third annual B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop, a multimedia festival encompassing the four elements of hip-hop: MCing, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti—and more. The mission of B-Girl Be is to influence and inspire leadership to change the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for current and future generations. This annual event is a place to make connections, build confidence, sharpen skills and gain access to the tools to create music, film, poetry, rap, aerosol art and dance.

On June 28, 2007 B-Girl Be kicks off with the B-Girl Be Summit, a multidisciplinary summit that brings international, national and local girls and women in hip-hop together in Minneapolis for dialogues, art-making, screenings, performances, workshops and networking opportunities. This four-day summit (June 28-July 1) showcases women through live performances, fashion, films, videos, workshops and panels.

The summit features national and international guests aerosol artists Lady Pink (NYC), ZORI4 (Puerto Rico); spoken word artist Ursula Rucker (Philadelphia), lyricists Magia Emcee (Cuba), Sistaz in Rhyme (Stacy Epps, Invincible and Bahamadia), main stage host Medusa, (LA); DJ Shortee (LA) and DJ Pam the Funkstress (San Francisco); B-Girls AsiaOne (LA), Rokafella (NYC), Aruna (Holland), and Aiko (CA); keynote speaker Rosa Clemente (NYC); and photojournalist/historian Martha Cooper, who will all perform, present and engage in discussion ciphers and workshops alongside local Twin Cities artists.

The celebration continues throughout July and into August with The Art of T&A: Truth and Activism, an international visual art exhibition and a series of international film screenings. The Art of T&A: Truth and Activism is a multi-disciplinary, cutting edge exhibition that highlights the distinct aesthetics of hip-hop. The exhibit and film series feature the works of women who create new ways to visually represent themselves through hip-hop. These visual artists from all over the world paint on walls, wood, clothing, vinyl, canvas and metal. Female filmmakers direct, produce and edit their visual journeys. Inside Intermedia Arts’ main gallery, viewers can check out aerosol art, clothing, paintings, photographs, sculpture, and illustrations representing hip-hop inspired artwork from women around the world. The Art of T&A: Truth and Activism runs from June 21 ­ September 9, 2007.

Hip-hop scholar was interviewed by the Walker Art Center recently, and spoke of the impact that B-Girl Be has had in the hip-hop world:

Q:You've been praised for highlighting the non-celebrities of hip-hop, local organizers who are pushing for small-scale change in their own neighborhoods. Can you name one in the Twin Cities?

Chang: How can I stop at just one? I think the work of folks at Intermedia Arts and Juxtaposition Arts is amazing–they actually are creating global models. And although I haven’t been to the B-Girl-Be events, believe me I’m feeling the repercussions of their work everywhere I go on tour and the topic of gender and hip-hop cultural production comes up. I think the B-Girl-Be folks are creating a wave of inspiration all around the world, not just among girls and women, who finally get to be centered in the discussions and the cultural production, but among boys and men who now have a space to really express more of themselves.

(Emphasis mine).

I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Rachel on a few projects a couple of years ago, and I have so much respect for her and her accomplishments. I'm glad to see that she had the opportunity to share some of her knowledge on MPR.

You can do it!

I am extremely proud of myself because I was able to repair something wrong with the kitchen sink all by myself. What's the big deal you say? Well, like some many women my age (I turn 50 this year, wowza) I absorbed the idea that fixing things was a man's job. I needed to call The Plumber if something happened to the faucet in the kitchen sink that made it spray sideways. But I was able to overcome my natural inclination to inertia and my learned helplessness in the fixit department. I unscrewed the part that wasn't working, went to the hardware store, got the correct part, and went home and put it on. Voila! It seems so simple, but believe me, inside I feel as if I have won a major victory over The Patriarchy. At each step of the process I had to work to overcome the little voice that said, "turn off your brain, you can't do this."

Oh, and I bought a pair of giant clippers and spent four hours cutting back branches and brush that needed to be trimmed around the building. Again, it wasn't hard, but I had been thinking I needed to call someone to do it for me, and I did it myself. I feel like The Little Engine that Could!

Thoughts about consumption, materialism, ethics, and necessity

I've been reading some heated discussions elsewhere in the blogosphere about marriage, housework, capitalism, patriarchy, how to make social change, justice for immigrant workers. Of course these things are all related, and more and more people are trying to become aware of the relations and make changes in their lives and in our society. The particulars of the arguments are interesting in and of themselves, but I often get sidetracked in these discussions by how some folks like to think in the abstract and others prefer to think in the particular, and how few people move comfortably between these two kinds of thinking. We often talk at cross-purposes and get frustrated with each other, even though we might agree on some common goals (we should change our consumptions patterns to save the planet, for example, or exploiting other people's labor is a bad thing, whether that person is a wife-type person or a minimum-wage worker). These kinds of conversations can oblige us to stretch our empathy and solidarity muscles in ways that are painful, and also to do some soul-searching about values.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about my own passage through various stages of economic dependence and independence, and my own efforts to both live well within my means and to make more ethical choices as I do so. For years, I lived without a car. I did not get my driver's license until I was 32. Arguably, it was because I lived in a location (the SF Bay Area) and in circumstances (walking distance to excellent transportation services, work, school, etc) that meant that I did not need a car. And while I was in college and graduate school, I simply could not afford a car or car insurance. Any extra money I could get went into long distance travel instead. Therefore, accidentally, I also ended up saving a large amount of money by not owning a car, and reduced my carbon footprint, although neither of those two motives was uppermost in my mind at the time. Looking back, I know I wasn't unaware of these facts, but I just didn't sit down and decide that, as a matter of principle, I should not own a car for these reasons. Looking back, I also realize that I refused to learn to drive for many years because driving/riding in cars with my rage-aholic father was deeply traumatic, but that's another story. Did I live without a car because I was too poor to buy one? being frugal? virtuously thrifty? responsibly sustainable? too lazy to get my driver's license? able to live well without one by accident of geography? Who cares?

I finally did learn to drive and bought my first car after living for two years in a different city where the public transportation is only OK, and bike-riding can be extremely difficult for several months of the year due to weather extremes, both heat and cold, although I did gut it out for 2 years, and relied on walking, biking, the bus system (such as it is) and the kindness of friends. I also was finally earning enough money that I got my very first credit card, and had finally established enough of a credit record to be able to get a loan. For years before that, I had lived in a strictly cash economy because in California at the time, if you didn't have a credit card and a drivers' license, no business would accept your checks. I was turned down in my application for a credit card, even though I had a job, because of "choice of major" (Comparative Literature students were not good credit risks!). The only checks I could write were for rent and utilities; everything else was cash or recycling (other people's castoffs, garage sales, Good Will, trading).

I'm well aware of the degrees of privilege from which I've benefited over the years. On one level, as a student I was living on very little money, but I also had a safety net (family would put me up) and was working toward establishing a position as a credentialed professional, albeit in a field that does not pay the big bucks. As a white, well-educated woman, I also had access to opportunities that meant that if suddenly I needed a different job, I'd get my foot in the door more easily than many. So although I lived extremely frugally, I never felt poor or classified myself as living in poverty. Then again, I also made the deliberate choice not to merge my financial life with that of a man through marriage (self-reliance and economic independence above all) or to have a child (couldn't afford it and accomplish the goal of more stable forms of economic security). As I was the only one of my father's three children who received his financial support for my BA after high school, I was keenly aware that I was lucky. If my brother and sister could be kicked off the middle-class ladder to security by divorce along my mother just because they happened to be born after me, then I needed to make sure that I could provide for myself (and any children I might have) in the future, no matter what.

I've preserved many of the habits of frugality and thrift taught to me by my mother (who grew up in an immigrant family working its way toward the middle-class dream), and cultivated over fifteen years of living as a student. Now that I have a car, I find that I use it more than I absolutely need to because it makes so many things so much easier. I could take the bus to work, but I rationalize my choice to drive by saying that I need to be able to transport my child to school, buy groceries in larger quantities than I can carry on foot, etc, and this is because the time I would otherwise spend on these activities without the car could be better spent on work. This is true to some extent, but it is also true that the freedom and convenience of using the car enables me to do many pleasurable things, not just more work. When I had a broken foot and couldn't drive, many people helped me out, but I also got back on the bus once I was more mobile. I have next-door neighbors who work where I do who live without cars (but they don't have a child). I could take the bus more often, but I don't want to and I don't have to. I'm trying to refrain from qualifying these activities with judgmental language, but y'all can supply your own.

So, here's what I'm going to be thinking about today: what does it mean to live sustainably? Be a freegan? Be thrifty? What's the difference between being thrifty and being a tightwad? between being a tightwad and being too poor to eat without food stamps?

We do things to survive (eat out of dumpsters); we do things to be virtuous (waste not, want not, or, eat out of dumpsters); we do things to amuse ourselves (Look what I found in the dumpster!); we want to be responsible (we have to remove ourselves from the exploitative cycle of consuption, and rescue food from dumpsters); we do things to be mindful (I'm grateful for my food and all the labor that went into it). We do things because that's the way our family has always done it (clean your plate! those kids in Guatemala have to live in the dump!). We do things our families couldn't afford to do because now we can and that's why America is great (clean running water in your house. It's a good thing).

Safe, legal, accessible for all

Mexico City's legislature has voted to legalize abortion in the first trimester. La Jornada reports on the story, and the BBC provides this information:

There are an estimated 200,000 illegal abortions in Mexico each year.

Of women who opt for illegal procedures, at least 1,500 women die during botched operations performed in unhygienic backstreet clinics.

Many victims of rape are denied access to legal abortion, a Human Rights Watch report said last year.

This story, "Illegal abortions 'killing South American women'" gives the wider context for Latin America. Septic abortions kill or maim tens of thousands of women every year in Latin America. Last year's report by the World Health Organization tells how lack of access to contraception affects the health of millions of women world-wide.

Anti-racist activism by white folks

Last night, my daughter and I watched the news together (something we rarely do because I mostly hate the network news). We saw the Rutgers womens' basketball team players stand up and speak eloquently and with great dignity about the hurtful nature of the kinds of remarks that Don Imus and people like him make as a way of profiting from racism and sexism (and other kinds of ugliness). Their coach Vivian Stringer about what it means when young people grow up in a culture that accepts this kind of racist and sexist language as OK, as "just a joke."
My daughter and I had a conversation about this story--it was a good "teachable moment." I had to explain to her why "nappy-headed" was a racist insult, but she already knew about the word "ho" (tells us what is going around on the playground).
This underscored for me the necessity for white folks like me to be active and not passive in anti-racist work, something that is really hard to do, and doesn't always get a great reception from people we'd like to work with as allies, but something that we have to do anyway. Reading Professor Zero and Hah! as well as Changeseeker (who write about this situation) is very instructive. I highly recommend reading The Unapologetic Mexican's series "la lente blanca"/the white lens" for some amazing insight into this whole thing.

I don't write on this blog much about these issues, because I'm trying to limit the time I spend here, but I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think I have to start coming out of my blog shell, where some things feel safe to blog about and some things don't.
White people have to do the hard work of unlearning racism, too. One of the premises of This Bridge Called My Back was that people of color and feminists get tired of having to explain racism and sesim over and over again to people with (unrecognized) privilege of some kind, only to hear some form of denial ("but I'M not racist!" "but what about when women are mean to men?") At the same time, there is some justifiable anger when a white person talking about racism get attention that other folks talking about racism don't: "why do you only listen when a white man says it? Haven't I been telling you this for ages?" Both of these things are real. Sometimes the hardest part about being an ally to any kind of struggle is being listening to anger and trying not to take it personally, even when it takes a personal form. It IS hard.
So I'm going to see Tim Wise, a white anti-racism activist, who will be speaking on campus (probably about this) this Friday about his new book White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. , because I want to see how a white anti-racist man stands up and speaks out. Here are some links to some of his articles, courtesy of Eric Stoller. I want to see who is in the audience, and what their responses are as much as I want to hear what he has to say.

How Plan B really works

It prevents ovulation. Therefore, there is no egg to fertilize, no embryo, no "abortion" as some folks mistakenly believe. Here is the way it works, as explained by PZ Meyers, a real, live biologist who specializes in embryology.

Ellen Willis: hope and action

This image is from the Women's Liberation Studies Archives for Action Catalogue.
I was very sad to read the news of Ellen Willis' death over at Michael Berube's blog. I was also a fan of her writing, but I admit I didn't really know that much about her political history. With the post Ellen Willis presente! , Bitch l Lab does us the great service of rounding up links to the many tributes to Willis, and to places where we can read some of her writing, such as last year's wonderful essay "Ghosts, Fantasies and Hope" (in Dissent). Her home page at NYU where she was a professor of journalism, after a pioneering career as music critic and essayist, has many links to her essays as well. I want to learn more about her involvement with Redstockings, which she co-founded with Shulamith Firestone. RadGeek's post reminds us of the importance of direct action as well as the kinds of electoral work we've just witnessed. We have to remember this history, with all its mistakes, because how else will we learn?
I'm going to take a walk down the block to the bookstores and the library later this morning to see if I can find copies of her books. I won't have time to read them until I've graded the 20 papers, and read the 50 student journals I managed to have all due at the same time, but I like to have a destination for my walk.
Update: I found used copies of No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays and Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll. While I was at it, I got Joanna Russ' To Write Like a Woman and Nancy K Miller's Getting Personal.