meaning in the moving design

I am a shit talker. I love telling stories- about myself and about the world- and when I'm talking about anything, in any context, about anyone, you can be sure that it's really just all about me.

Consequently, when I interact with others, I can't help but assume that they too are wrapped in self-reflexive sticky tape, and that the whisper of insight I glean from our interaction is a small fraction of the scream they intend to communicate. This is pretty much my working assumption with all attempts at communication- I don't know you; I can't know you; I can only know the you in me and that you is a story I've crafted through careful detective work laden with my own subjective bullshit.

So I find it pretty amusing that I've somehow found myself dating someone with an unshakeable faith in words; who firmly believes in the importance of classification; who has an aversion to narrative; who is happy to see a spade as a spade, whosoever should call it so. All this talk about talk brought me back to certain ideas that I used to circle around a lot, and back to Hannah Arendt. Last year, while writing an article for work about Women and Philosophy, I discovered Arendt's The Human Condition, and found all my thesis ideas articulated by A Famous Person, which made me feel both cheap and unoriginal, and immensely privileged to be philosophically aligned with A Famous Person.

Hannah (The Famous Person with which I am aligned and thus can casually refer to on a first name basis) and I both agree that understanding people through their words is about as exact a science as meteorology- you can amass as much evidence as you want to support your assertion that x is x, and you can devise your plan of action accordingly, but it simply may not be so. We all know this (duh, people are complex) but we sometimes don't recognize how much of our actions and interactions are based on these quick fix placeholders. We are in love with our nouns; intangibles don't sit well with us. So, to get through life without having our heads explode in the ideological netherworld, we say "ok. I know x is not exactly x, but let's assume it is... for the moment" and then we plan our counter-actions accordingly. But the assumptions build on more assumptions, and the placeholders of ourselves become the charicature stand-ins in our shared reality with others.

In Hannah's words, there is a distinction between "who" we are and "what" we are; and words can lead us only to the what: "The moment we want to say who someone is, our very vocabulary leads us astray into saying what she is; we get entagled in a description of qualities she necessarily shares with others like her; we begin to describe a type or a character... with the result that her specific uniqueness escapes us" (The Human Condition, 181).

This is why I put all my words in brackets, and why I like fridge poetry, anecdotes, rants without context, exquisite corpsey writing and non-sensical non-sequiters. Language to me is about codification, so I figure, if I can confuse the law that language governs; if I can use words in ways they aren't meant to be used, then maybe I can reveal more of myself. If I don't name my truth, it forces you to fill in the blanks with your youness, and maybe that will lead you to it via the scenic route. That mystery and revelation, that intangible moment in between, is honestly what most humbles me about being with and among other people.

Ok, let's leave that for now. Let's just frame this conversation in simpler terms- objectivity and subjectivity. Hannah talks about our subjective selves, and about a) how we relate to the common things and stuff of our shared world and b) how we relate to each other. She calls these relations "in-betweens" and says this:


To better explain this to myself, I drew a diagram (the conical shaped things on the sides [that look like tadpoles] are actually supposed to be eyes).


Figure A. illustrates how we relate to "worldly objective reality", you know, my red isn't the same as your red etc. Figure B. illustrates how that simple subjective premise is amplified when you're dealing with and reflecting back a whole other set of subjective filters. The effect is akin to holding a mirror up to another mirror- it's an endless strange loop of interpreted and reinterpreted subjective baggage and poof! brainfuck!

How do we resolve this? How the hell, then, can people understand and relate to one another? I feel like the answer is two-fold: look in and act out. One of the most profound analogies I've ever heard came from a live Saul Williams event at Glendon campus a few years back. He was talking about connecting to people, and he said there are 2 ways of going about this. He said


This, to me, is the starting point. With every social interaction, we should come into the conversation knowing that we're really (in a cynical sort of way) just talking to our own reflection.* That this "ask and answer" just happens to necessitate another body to help you in understanding yourself better. This may sound unconscionably self-serving but I actually think it can be very symbiotic- we are helping each other recognize ourselves more fully; to dig deeper inside to find the source material from which we are all made; to touch the intangible in-between Hannah refers to.

We are all made of the same "stuff", but how we articulate that- the patterns we weave with that universal source material, this unique and unrepeated design called the Self- is infinitely complex. So here comes the second part- I've always thought that the greatest gift you can give the world is to keep articulating who you are and why you are to everyone you encounter. In turn, I also think the most beautiful and humbling part of talking to people is trying to understand who they are and why they are, and this process- of recognizing how we have drawn from the universal "stuff", how we've taken from it or how it has taken from us to weave a unique life experience- this is how we connect.

Hannah and I both agree that the most beautiful thing about humanity is its ability to collectively reflect on both the sum and its parts. Hannah calls it "the paradoxical plurality of unique beings," and that is exactly how I understand the idea of community. Only by screaming out your own subjectivity can you arrive at an honest point of connection*, and it's this gift of difference that we can all collectively draw from, revel in. "Speech and action reveal this unique distinction. Through them, men distinguish themselves... they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other... This appearance rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human" (The Human Condition, 176).

Ok, this is long and rambly and I've only told you half of Hannah's story (or my story about Hannah and all this other stuff I thunked up) Hannah actually talks a lot about actions... and I've managed to say an awful lot about saying things and nothing about doing stuff.

So I'll end with a reflective observation about me and action. Hannah uses this term called praxis, simply put praxis is the process of gathering your reflections and ideas, and giving them life- putting your ideas into action.

Here's what I'll say about praxis. I use Firefox's "save and quit" function to keep all my existing tabs open, so that the next time I turn on my laptop, I have several tabs staring back at me, reminding me of what my focus/interest/obsession was from the day before. Some of these tabs have been hanging about on my computer for some 10 months- no joke. Here are my tabs:

1. reroot organic CSA, internship information
2. "Make Radio", This American Life
3. Transom.org- Ira Glass interview on making radio docs
4. My own tarsier photo on flickr (to remind myself I want to print it out)
and, newly added
5. Wikipedia definition- praxis

Ahem. I done praxis dem sludam** wicked well. Big up Hannah to the massive...

* You don't have to agree with me. I don't even know if I agree with me... but here's another paraphrased quote to excuse everything I've said: "Things go through me. And if I am individual it is because these threads are knotted together in this particular time and this particular place, and they hold."

** sludam is plural for sluts. I learned that from a Teen Slang expert

It's the close of the G20. After a month of media distractions about security budgets and fake lakes and riot anticipation and thugs in black and burning cop cars and all the rest, are you perhaps needing to remind yourself of what the hell it is that the G20/G8 does and why it's important and why all these people are out on the streets anyway?? If you don't know the answer to any of these it's because mainstream media has failed us. It's because Harper's gamble- that holding the G20 in the heart of the city would cause enough of a media circus to distract us from the real issues- is paying off. Don't take the bait.

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/why-are-they-protesting/3843

I am so disgusted with the CBC's coverage of all of this- so many collected quotes about the "thugs" and "hooligans," none about the illegal house raids, the random arrests and deplorable detention centre conditions. Of all the online mainstream media, national post has been the only one even remotely on point is the national post (?!?!). And I think it's because they're really pissed that their staff got arrested.

A humble thanks to all the folks at the Toronto Media Co-op for their sacrifice to give us the other side of the story.

T-minus 7 days to G20... get your dose of happy now! [maybe we should make this mandatory training for G20 security guards??]

June 16th – 20th - Rainbow City Installation at Queen’s Park
PRESS: Rainbow City welcomes all into a world of Magic, Luck, and Friendship! As the highlight of the 10-day festival, FriendsWithYou transform Toronto’s Queen’s Park into Rainbow City from June 16th-20th with their largest and most impressive installation to date. The Rainbow King and a cast of celestial pals embark on a mission to delight citizens by welcoming them into Rainbow City, a magical kingdom where happiness is the key and the more you play the better you feel!


[2008 Fun House – Scope Art Fair, Art Basel Miami, FL]
Bounce, dance and chill as the Wish Come True characters bring you into their colorful alternative dimension of gigantic totems, mushrooms, and bounce houses while inflatable friends shower you with magic, color, and love! FriendsWithYou and Luminato are offering this unique experience with the hope of bringing people together to find a central happiness that is common inside of everyone.

I am keen to check this out. But I am equally keen to be there during take down... and watch Rainbow City slowly deflate as Tent City rises. Someone should do a time lapse of central happiness giving way to police blockades, tear gas and chaos...

Getting old is a sneaky thing. Everyone always complains about the rumble of the big 3.0 but I'd say that my 30th birthday was perfectly chill- no neurotic impulse to deconstruct my life, no aching sentimentalism about all the lost years of my youth, no reminders of how time has past and the awe or reverence that comes with that.

No... that's all hitting me now, at 3.14159... tricky dick, that 31-and-a-half. Lately I've been running into a lot of old peeps. Not just people I used to hang out with, but also (and even weirder), people that I just used to see around. Like, back was I went out more. It's a strange feeling to be outside of a community you once felt so entrenched in, one that feels like it still carries that version of you with it.

I recently ran into some musician friends from OM days. I'd met their daughter when she was barely able to walk (we had a nice bonding moment when I picked her up as she was crying and she clung to me and fell back asleep. [Especially impressive because it was the morning after a sleepless night during which I was probably up to no good]). Last week, I saw her for the first time since and it blew my mind. She's six now. Six. like a completely real, actualized person. WEEEEIIIRD.

To save me from all these head trips, I recently got obsessed with feather stars, or rather, I reawakened an old obsession. I caught sight of these wily ocean invertebrates in Borneo, I was snorkeling along and suddenly I saw this awesome wiggling, wiggly feather thing. Then, when I dove down to get a better look, it went perfectly still and pretended that it was a plant!

Check it (sorry for the shaky video):

I come from a typical middle class Chinese family. My mother was a nurse, my father was an accountant. Growing up, all that was ever expected of me was to do well in school, get a higher education and find a good, well-paying job. One of those jobs that everyone's heard of, like Teacher, or Doctor, or Lawyer, or (... shudder) Dentist.

So when I started working in the arts, my parents were not only disappointed, they were confused. "Do you make movies?" they asked. "Are you a Director?" No, I said, I present movies at film festivals. I help publicize them, and I organize classes and events that help filmmakers make better films. That kind of stumped them. There was no easy NOC occupation that went with that, no one-word answer that they could take back to their friends. In short, they would rather I be a Dentist*.

When I was in Taiwan, I made things a lot easier for my parents. "She's a Writer," they would brag to their friends, relieved to finally have a name for me. But now that I'm back in Toronto, and have made yet another lateral step across careers (this time into environmental non-profit), I've once again put my parents in the awkward position of trying to figure out exactly what it is that I do. But they're trying....

This is just one of many cute emails I get from my dad, and it kind of made my day:

(Click on this to read it)










(the other super cute thing about my dad and emails is that he always puts the salutatory exclamation point in the wrong spot, like "Hi! Anita,"
... which, when I say it out loud, makes me laugh. A lot.)

I personally LOVE not being a one-word answer. And that's probably precisely the point, I'm happy to do laps around any word, any label, any noun. Happy to indulge this childish instinct to dance around the oppressive thumb trying to pin me down...

I am a living document, dagnammit.

So as for what it is I do....

A lot. I do a lot. Come talk to me about it sometime.


*Who the fuck grows up wanting to be a dentist?? That, to me, just points to an utter lack of imagination...

I got my fridge poetry set back recently. I missed its randomness, the effortless you can patch together meaning using words in ways they're not meant to be used. I'm a pretty veiled person, and fridge poetry is like this gutteral incoherent mess that bubbles up from my subconscious. A beautiful mess.

Usually my fridge poetry makes sense. However abstract, I can usually see where I'm going with something; I know what I'm trying to say to myself.

... This one escapes even me.

(I love how I take fridge poetry so goddamn seriously. I've tried so hard to write something funny with these things and I've failed every time.)

disclaimer:
I usually try to clean up my writing before broadcasting... but this is about 6 months old and I'm kind of mad at my own lazy lack of productivity, so I'm just lettin' 'er go*.

Michael and Ba
We tramp down the hill in search of a coffee shop. A man comes out of a nearby house waving emphatically. "You turists?" he asks. We explain that we'd been hiking the East Coast Trail and that we were in town for the night. He slams the porch rail enthusiastically and invites us in. "Ba!" he calls into the house. "We got guests! They're turists!"

Inside the house, a toothless man sits at the table in a simple kitchen. A few slabs of unidentifiable grey meat are sizzling in a pan next to a pot of boiled potatoes, and a half-drained bottle of rum sits on the table. The waver's name is Michael. He greets us with a combination of cheek kisses, hand-holding and fist pumps. The toothless man is Michael's uncle, whom he calls "Ba" but isn't actually related to him at all. Michael keeps apologizing because Ba is drunk... even though Michael is clearly drunk too. He chastises Ba with stern little speeches. "You can't be drunk, Ba. We got turists here. You're lucky to have turists in yer home like this. No more drinkin', ok? Tomorrow we stop drinkin'"

"Weeengshmaaaa," gurgles Ba.

Ba has the unfortunate disposition of being entirely incomprehensible. Three main factors contribute to this:
1. He's drunk
2. He's toothless
3. He's a Newfie

Everyone loves making lists for the new year. That's what new years are all about: lists. Nobody actually cares if you quit smoking, you just have to put it on your list...

All this end-of-the-decade listmaking makes me want to make lists. I don't know how many hours I've spent watching movies this decade, probably something in the region of "a fuck of a lot," so I guess that's as good a place to start as any. So, in no particular order, here we go.