Never Done: I attended a live radio broadcast at the WNYC Greene Space
It was the 100th birthday of Bernard Herrmann, the iconic film composer whose career started with Citizen Kane and ended with Taxi Driver, and the WNYC Greene Space curated a panel with conductor John Mauceri, Bernard's daughter the writer Dorothy Herrmann, film director Josh Waletzky, composer Rob Schwimmer, and film composer Michael Giacchino -- for a celebratory panel discussion, with film clips and piano and theramin demonstrations. (Josh was on the panel because he made a documentary film about Bernard Herrmann, called Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann.)
Isn't it great that there's a sound-proof room where 80 people will gather to listen to five people tell stories about one great artist? And that this is happening, in different ways, all over the world at the same time? By that I mean that while we were gathering to pay homage to the greatest film composer of all times, it seems likely that somewhere in the world people gathered to hear a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, and somewhere else a horticulturalist, and a criminologist, and a puppet master. We go through portals into spaces where we get to let go of our daily mundanity and drop into the quirky or the sublime. We are called together through brochures, websites, and word of mouth -- and we form transitory armies of common interest -- stitched together for an evening or a year, deepened, expanded, and ever-changed by the live performance of a theramin.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
I got a parking ticket dismissed in Brooklyn Parking Violation Adjudication
Never Done: I got a parking ticket dismissed in Brooklyn Parking Violation Adjudication
One day last week I forgot to move my car for street cleaning. I realized it about 20 minutes too late, while I was on a phone meeting, and by the time I went outside, I had already gotten a $45 ticket. I brought it inside, and stuck it in my bill pile, and didn't haul it back out until I paid bills this week. But when I looked at it, I noticed something odd. It was written to my car's license plate, but in the state of Minnesota, not Maine (where my car is registered.) As in, the officer abbreviated Maine by writing MN, whereas it should be abbreviated ME.
Someone had just told me that all you have to do to get a ticket reduced in NYC is to show up at parking violation court, and that if you take the time to go before a judge, that you have the chance to get it dismissed. I decided to go down and try my luck. I'd never been to parking violation court before (nor have I been to traffic court) and was curious to see the process and culture. Also, I felt I had a legitimate reason to go before a judge -- to show them that the ticket was not written correctly. Now, I'm not saying that I was going to say the ticket wasn't deserved, or that the car isn't mine -- just that the ticket was written incorrectly. I had no idea what would come from this, but I hoped it would get dismissed.
So I went on down to the Brooklyn Municipal Building, and found the right room, which was, strangely, in the Business Center. I thought I was in the wrong place, because it looked sort of like the DMV -- you take a number, and then wait in plastic chairs til you get called up to one of many windows. After about 15 minutes, my number B333 got called to Window 19, and I handed a man my ticket and license, and he said, "$32 or judge?" I couldn't quite hear him, so I asked him to repeat himself. "$32 or judge?" So it was true! Just like that, I had the chance at a $13 ticket reduction. But I wanted the full experience, so I said, "Judge! I want to dispute it." He stapled some stuff together and handed it back to me, merely saying, "Window #17."
Off I went to the man at Window 17, who I then thought might be the judge, but he just glanced at my papers, and told me to come back behind the glass and around a corner, where I found some more plastic chairs, and a half dozen men sitting behind mahogany desks. I sat on a plastic chair and settled in for what I assumed would be quite a wait, but 30 seconds later, a man showed up from some other section and asked if I was next. As I followed him, he told me his name, (we'll call him Judge A) and took my ticket and ID, and asked me to sit.
So this wasn't an open court, like small claims court, where people watch each other's appeals. It was just me and Judge A with a desk between us. He asked me to raise my right hand and swear to tell the truth, and I made a conscious ethical decision to do so -- even if it meant I would lose my case. He looked at my ticket and said for the record, "This is a ticket for a car with Minnesota plate number XXXXX" and I said, "Actually, that's why I'm here. The car has Maine plates." He saw that I was holding my registration and asked if that was my evidence, and I said it was. He took it, and looked for where it said Maine, and then asked me to point it out for him, which I did. "Hmmm," he said. "OK. So you are claiming that the ticket is invalid because the officer wrote Minnesota instead of Maine?" "Correct," I said, as I suddenly became sad that the officer who wrote the ticket didn't know his state abbreviations, and I wondered if I was maybe taking advantage of a failing in the New York public school system. But before I had time to think about it too hard, Judge A got up and took my evidence to photocopy it, and when he returned he handed me my license and registration told me to go wait back at Window 17.
I thanked Judge A and he told me to take care, and I went back out to the main waiting room. I was pretty sure I had just won. At least I hadn't lied; I had barely spoken. When I got to the man at Window 17, he asked my name and number, "Jane Levison, B 333" -- and he officiously handed me a paper, indicating that I was free to go. But just as I was about to leave, he suddenly burst into a wide smile and sing-songed, "And Jane, his wife!" -- and made big jazz hands at the end. I had no idea what this reference was - the Jetsons? A mis-remembering of Gilligan's Island (The professor and his wife)? Something about Tarzan? I smiled back, laughed a little like I knew what was going on, took my paper, and got out of there. Case dismissed in under 30 minutes.
When I got out on the street, I looked at the paper, and I noticed two things. First, the decision:
Mis-description as to State. Dismissed, but not on the merits of the case. Summons Dismissed.
Second, right next to my address, which I corrected for them so I know it is current information, my car information:
Plate ID: XXXXX State: MN
I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long story.
One day last week I forgot to move my car for street cleaning. I realized it about 20 minutes too late, while I was on a phone meeting, and by the time I went outside, I had already gotten a $45 ticket. I brought it inside, and stuck it in my bill pile, and didn't haul it back out until I paid bills this week. But when I looked at it, I noticed something odd. It was written to my car's license plate, but in the state of Minnesota, not Maine (where my car is registered.) As in, the officer abbreviated Maine by writing MN, whereas it should be abbreviated ME.
Someone had just told me that all you have to do to get a ticket reduced in NYC is to show up at parking violation court, and that if you take the time to go before a judge, that you have the chance to get it dismissed. I decided to go down and try my luck. I'd never been to parking violation court before (nor have I been to traffic court) and was curious to see the process and culture. Also, I felt I had a legitimate reason to go before a judge -- to show them that the ticket was not written correctly. Now, I'm not saying that I was going to say the ticket wasn't deserved, or that the car isn't mine -- just that the ticket was written incorrectly. I had no idea what would come from this, but I hoped it would get dismissed.
So I went on down to the Brooklyn Municipal Building, and found the right room, which was, strangely, in the Business Center. I thought I was in the wrong place, because it looked sort of like the DMV -- you take a number, and then wait in plastic chairs til you get called up to one of many windows. After about 15 minutes, my number B333 got called to Window 19, and I handed a man my ticket and license, and he said, "$32 or judge?" I couldn't quite hear him, so I asked him to repeat himself. "$32 or judge?" So it was true! Just like that, I had the chance at a $13 ticket reduction. But I wanted the full experience, so I said, "Judge! I want to dispute it." He stapled some stuff together and handed it back to me, merely saying, "Window #17."
Off I went to the man at Window 17, who I then thought might be the judge, but he just glanced at my papers, and told me to come back behind the glass and around a corner, where I found some more plastic chairs, and a half dozen men sitting behind mahogany desks. I sat on a plastic chair and settled in for what I assumed would be quite a wait, but 30 seconds later, a man showed up from some other section and asked if I was next. As I followed him, he told me his name, (we'll call him Judge A) and took my ticket and ID, and asked me to sit.
So this wasn't an open court, like small claims court, where people watch each other's appeals. It was just me and Judge A with a desk between us. He asked me to raise my right hand and swear to tell the truth, and I made a conscious ethical decision to do so -- even if it meant I would lose my case. He looked at my ticket and said for the record, "This is a ticket for a car with Minnesota plate number XXXXX" and I said, "Actually, that's why I'm here. The car has Maine plates." He saw that I was holding my registration and asked if that was my evidence, and I said it was. He took it, and looked for where it said Maine, and then asked me to point it out for him, which I did. "Hmmm," he said. "OK. So you are claiming that the ticket is invalid because the officer wrote Minnesota instead of Maine?" "Correct," I said, as I suddenly became sad that the officer who wrote the ticket didn't know his state abbreviations, and I wondered if I was maybe taking advantage of a failing in the New York public school system. But before I had time to think about it too hard, Judge A got up and took my evidence to photocopy it, and when he returned he handed me my license and registration told me to go wait back at Window 17.
I thanked Judge A and he told me to take care, and I went back out to the main waiting room. I was pretty sure I had just won. At least I hadn't lied; I had barely spoken. When I got to the man at Window 17, he asked my name and number, "Jane Levison, B 333" -- and he officiously handed me a paper, indicating that I was free to go. But just as I was about to leave, he suddenly burst into a wide smile and sing-songed, "And Jane, his wife!" -- and made big jazz hands at the end. I had no idea what this reference was - the Jetsons? A mis-remembering of Gilligan's Island (The professor and his wife)? Something about Tarzan? I smiled back, laughed a little like I knew what was going on, took my paper, and got out of there. Case dismissed in under 30 minutes.
When I got out on the street, I looked at the paper, and I noticed two things. First, the decision:
Mis-description as to State. Dismissed, but not on the merits of the case. Summons Dismissed.
Second, right next to my address, which I corrected for them so I know it is current information, my car information:
Plate ID: XXXXX State: MN
I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long story.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
I started taking Prednisone
Never Done: I started taking Prednisone
For all of you have been following my asthma with baited breath (so to speak) -- or who haven't seen me this week -- I have developed a deep cough that sounds an awful lot like a smoker's cough. On the one hand, I'm the picture of health with muscles that are literally bulging out of my upper arms and lower legs, and on the other hand I can barely get through a good laugh -- or a night's sleep -- without, well you know know without what.
So I decided to take the lung doctor's prescription for Prednisone, to try to reduce the inflammation in my lungs. I feel a little sheepish about writing about yet another health-related thing for this blog, but I have not, in fact, ever taken a steroid before, and it's actually given me something to write about. They tell you to take it early in the day because it can give you the jitters, and put you on edge and make it hard to sleep. Great. I'm sure everyone around me will be delighted about this development.
It raises an interesting question: do we have an ethical responsibility to tell people when we are doing something that is good for us but could negatively affect them? Certainly it makes sense to tell the people close to us, but what about the people not so close to us? Here's a little story.
In the middle of the day I did get jittery -- very jittery. Couldn't hold a pen jittery. Legs jittering jittery. Agitated and indecisive and just out of sorts. I was tempted to skip swim practice, because it felt like maybe not the right thing to do with a bad cough, but it also seemed like the perfect thing to do for the jitters. So I went, but 15 minutes into the practice, I was super annoyed that the pool was crowded, that people were touching my feet, that a (slightly inept) teammate kept kicking me in the head. I mean, this is always annoying to me, but usually I just go with the flow, and keep swimming. This time however, I hopped out of the pool to give myself a break. My coach Molly asked me if I was OK, and I told her I was, but that I was getting kicked more than usual, so she helped me find an emptier place in the snake of swimmers. I put in another ten minutes of crowded swimming, and then someone swam up on top of me. I lifted my head, saw a green cap, and made a mental note to have words after practice. But then instead of keeping swimming, I just got out at the end of the lane. I didn't have the patience for the crowd, and instinctively understood that I was better off just getting out.
Molly asked me what was up, and I told her some guy with a green cap swam on top of me and I was just too frustrated to keep swimming, and that I was going to go to the Y to swim solo. She said, "He probably did that on purpose. To simulate race conditions." I told her that why some teammate took it upon himself to simulate race conditions was beyond me, and that I was just gonna go. She told me that actually, it was our head coach, and that she'd let him know it was freaking some people out.
I went and took a shower, and thought about how it really doesn't simulate race conditions to swim on top of someone in a pool. Because in a race, you can just stop and let the faster swimmer go past, but in a practice, if you stop, there are 25 people in a 3-foot wide lane behind you. I also thought about how good it felt to be out of the crowd of people, in an empty locker room. And that's when I realized that I was under the influence of drugs -- that I was not just reacting to the pokes and the kicks, but that I and my steroids were reacting to the pokes and the kicks. Oh, duh.
Just then, Molly came in to check on me. To make a long story short, I told her about the asthma, and she told me to slow down. Rest. She told me that I am muscularly fit enough to do the triathlon tomorrow if I had to. She told me that I don't need to be training 5-6 days a week -- that I could get by on 3-4 days a week if more is wearing me down. She gave me the name of her pulmonologist, and she reminded me that stress flares up asthma, and over-training is stressful. She told me to take a couple days off, and to get as much sleep as I can.
She went back to coaching, and I went home to eat dinner, and that's when I started thinking about our responsibilities to each other. Had I been over-careful and told Molly in advance, "Hey, you know, I'm taking some steroids, so if I'm a little edgy, just ignore it, ok?" -- then chances are that she wouldn't have followed me into the locker room, and wouldn't have listened to me enough to find out that I actually needed some deeper help than I was getting. And in that way, my impulse to take care of others might have actually gotten in the way of letting someone else take care of me. Now, if I had gotten out of the pool and yelled at someone, or stayed in the pool and started kicking back -- I'm thinking those actions wouldn't have had the same positive result as getting out and talking reasonably. So as usual, there's a balance to be struck when thinking about questions of responsibility to self and other, even for those of us who tend to err too far on one side or the other. As my mother loved to say, "moderation in all things, including moderation."
For all of you have been following my asthma with baited breath (so to speak) -- or who haven't seen me this week -- I have developed a deep cough that sounds an awful lot like a smoker's cough. On the one hand, I'm the picture of health with muscles that are literally bulging out of my upper arms and lower legs, and on the other hand I can barely get through a good laugh -- or a night's sleep -- without, well you know know without what.
So I decided to take the lung doctor's prescription for Prednisone, to try to reduce the inflammation in my lungs. I feel a little sheepish about writing about yet another health-related thing for this blog, but I have not, in fact, ever taken a steroid before, and it's actually given me something to write about. They tell you to take it early in the day because it can give you the jitters, and put you on edge and make it hard to sleep. Great. I'm sure everyone around me will be delighted about this development.
It raises an interesting question: do we have an ethical responsibility to tell people when we are doing something that is good for us but could negatively affect them? Certainly it makes sense to tell the people close to us, but what about the people not so close to us? Here's a little story.
In the middle of the day I did get jittery -- very jittery. Couldn't hold a pen jittery. Legs jittering jittery. Agitated and indecisive and just out of sorts. I was tempted to skip swim practice, because it felt like maybe not the right thing to do with a bad cough, but it also seemed like the perfect thing to do for the jitters. So I went, but 15 minutes into the practice, I was super annoyed that the pool was crowded, that people were touching my feet, that a (slightly inept) teammate kept kicking me in the head. I mean, this is always annoying to me, but usually I just go with the flow, and keep swimming. This time however, I hopped out of the pool to give myself a break. My coach Molly asked me if I was OK, and I told her I was, but that I was getting kicked more than usual, so she helped me find an emptier place in the snake of swimmers. I put in another ten minutes of crowded swimming, and then someone swam up on top of me. I lifted my head, saw a green cap, and made a mental note to have words after practice. But then instead of keeping swimming, I just got out at the end of the lane. I didn't have the patience for the crowd, and instinctively understood that I was better off just getting out.
Molly asked me what was up, and I told her some guy with a green cap swam on top of me and I was just too frustrated to keep swimming, and that I was going to go to the Y to swim solo. She said, "He probably did that on purpose. To simulate race conditions." I told her that why some teammate took it upon himself to simulate race conditions was beyond me, and that I was just gonna go. She told me that actually, it was our head coach, and that she'd let him know it was freaking some people out.
I went and took a shower, and thought about how it really doesn't simulate race conditions to swim on top of someone in a pool. Because in a race, you can just stop and let the faster swimmer go past, but in a practice, if you stop, there are 25 people in a 3-foot wide lane behind you. I also thought about how good it felt to be out of the crowd of people, in an empty locker room. And that's when I realized that I was under the influence of drugs -- that I was not just reacting to the pokes and the kicks, but that I and my steroids were reacting to the pokes and the kicks. Oh, duh.
Just then, Molly came in to check on me. To make a long story short, I told her about the asthma, and she told me to slow down. Rest. She told me that I am muscularly fit enough to do the triathlon tomorrow if I had to. She told me that I don't need to be training 5-6 days a week -- that I could get by on 3-4 days a week if more is wearing me down. She gave me the name of her pulmonologist, and she reminded me that stress flares up asthma, and over-training is stressful. She told me to take a couple days off, and to get as much sleep as I can.
She went back to coaching, and I went home to eat dinner, and that's when I started thinking about our responsibilities to each other. Had I been over-careful and told Molly in advance, "Hey, you know, I'm taking some steroids, so if I'm a little edgy, just ignore it, ok?" -- then chances are that she wouldn't have followed me into the locker room, and wouldn't have listened to me enough to find out that I actually needed some deeper help than I was getting. And in that way, my impulse to take care of others might have actually gotten in the way of letting someone else take care of me. Now, if I had gotten out of the pool and yelled at someone, or stayed in the pool and started kicking back -- I'm thinking those actions wouldn't have had the same positive result as getting out and talking reasonably. So as usual, there's a balance to be struck when thinking about questions of responsibility to self and other, even for those of us who tend to err too far on one side or the other. As my mother loved to say, "moderation in all things, including moderation."
Monday, June 27, 2011
I spent (Gay) Pride at the (gay) beach
Never Done: I spent (Gay) Pride at the (gay) beach
For years I've attended Pride celebrations, and for years I've felt like they lacked authenticity. I think there's something about the level of organization it takes to assemble thousands of people into essentially a long line that breaks my spirit a little bit, and then when thousands more people line up to watch, it starts to feel like we're on display in a giant urban terrarium, rather than taking over the streets in an assertion of cultural and political presence.
This year, with the passage of marriage equality in the New York senate, I was more inclined to go celebrate -- particularly to support the steadfast vision and hard work of my friend Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom To Marry. But I had already made plans with friends to avoid the island for an adjacent island: Long Island -- and to spend the day at Riis Beach. (First with a stop at Rockaway Taco, which I had never done, which I can't evaluate because we waited to eat our food until we got to the beach, at which point it the tortillas had stiffened up because the tacos were no longer hot. The grapefruit and pineapple ices I tried while standing in line for tacos were glorious though, and worth returning for.)
So about a dozen of my friends and I joined about 3 dozen of my acquaintances at the beach, to celebrate Pride by celebrating community. In the past, one of the things I loved about queer community is that it tended to be clothing-optional space. In recent years, I haven't actually loved that so much, but hadn't taken the time to articulate why. Upon reflection and discussion, I realized it's that the judgment and competition and admiration of youth that permeate New York culture even make their way into New York queer culture, so I just don't feel the kind of freedom from fashion that I have felt in the past, at women's music festivals for example, or just on remote beaches with friends. Also, I find bathing fashion to be even more challenging than street fashion -- bikini or full-piece? Function or fashion? I like a bikini to sunbathe in, but I don't like a bikini for swimming. Top or topless? Print or solid? Do I want attention for how I look or do I want to blend in? If I could find a bathing suit that I thought was truly good-looking, I think I would love the attention, the way I do when I wear a particularly beautiful dress, but mostly all the suits I see are either ugly sports prints or ugly tropical prints. Where is the good beach fashion?
And then I discovered something. I brought my wetsuit to the beach to get an open water practice in -- and people loved seeing me in my wetsuit. They wanted to touch it, to look at it, to see me swim in it. And suddenly thing that is for me 100% about function was being transformed into fashion -- even being reframed as sexy -- and I noticed that I didn't mind the attention, because it was organic -- not about my body, but about my actions. That sexy is what we do, and not what we look like. That's a sex appeal I can get behind! That's Lori Petty in Point Break. That's transforming normative culture into radical culture. That's the pride I came out into, and the pride I was delighted to rediscover at the beach.
For years I've attended Pride celebrations, and for years I've felt like they lacked authenticity. I think there's something about the level of organization it takes to assemble thousands of people into essentially a long line that breaks my spirit a little bit, and then when thousands more people line up to watch, it starts to feel like we're on display in a giant urban terrarium, rather than taking over the streets in an assertion of cultural and political presence.
This year, with the passage of marriage equality in the New York senate, I was more inclined to go celebrate -- particularly to support the steadfast vision and hard work of my friend Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom To Marry. But I had already made plans with friends to avoid the island for an adjacent island: Long Island -- and to spend the day at Riis Beach. (First with a stop at Rockaway Taco, which I had never done, which I can't evaluate because we waited to eat our food until we got to the beach, at which point it the tortillas had stiffened up because the tacos were no longer hot. The grapefruit and pineapple ices I tried while standing in line for tacos were glorious though, and worth returning for.)
So about a dozen of my friends and I joined about 3 dozen of my acquaintances at the beach, to celebrate Pride by celebrating community. In the past, one of the things I loved about queer community is that it tended to be clothing-optional space. In recent years, I haven't actually loved that so much, but hadn't taken the time to articulate why. Upon reflection and discussion, I realized it's that the judgment and competition and admiration of youth that permeate New York culture even make their way into New York queer culture, so I just don't feel the kind of freedom from fashion that I have felt in the past, at women's music festivals for example, or just on remote beaches with friends. Also, I find bathing fashion to be even more challenging than street fashion -- bikini or full-piece? Function or fashion? I like a bikini to sunbathe in, but I don't like a bikini for swimming. Top or topless? Print or solid? Do I want attention for how I look or do I want to blend in? If I could find a bathing suit that I thought was truly good-looking, I think I would love the attention, the way I do when I wear a particularly beautiful dress, but mostly all the suits I see are either ugly sports prints or ugly tropical prints. Where is the good beach fashion?
And then I discovered something. I brought my wetsuit to the beach to get an open water practice in -- and people loved seeing me in my wetsuit. They wanted to touch it, to look at it, to see me swim in it. And suddenly thing that is for me 100% about function was being transformed into fashion -- even being reframed as sexy -- and I noticed that I didn't mind the attention, because it was organic -- not about my body, but about my actions. That sexy is what we do, and not what we look like. That's a sex appeal I can get behind! That's Lori Petty in Point Break. That's transforming normative culture into radical culture. That's the pride I came out into, and the pride I was delighted to rediscover at the beach.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
I met Harry Belafonte at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Never Done: I went to the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
It's strange that I've never before gone to the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival -- it's a film festival with my name written all over it. When my friend P invited me out Saturday night, and I looked at the lineup, I immediately homed in on a film about Harry Belafonte's 60+ years of music and intense, thoughtful, engaged, global political activism: Sing Your Song. The problem was, lots of other people had also homed in on that film -- it was already sold out. But P knew someone who works for HRW, who told her there was a chance she might be able to get her some tickets, and that we should go early and wait in the standby line, and see whether or not she could score us some tickets.
We showed up over an hour early, and there were already 25 people in line ahead of us. The man right in front of us told us that he'd tried to get tickets three weeks ago, when they first went on sale, and that it was already sold out. He also let us know (in the course of conversation -- not just randomly) that he's not jaded, and that he works hard to remain un-jaded while still living in cynical New York. (He hails from Jamaica.) The man who came to line just was also not a native New Yorker (he comes from Belize) and in addition to being particularly knowledgeable about Harry Belafonte, was also interested in black film. It was one of those times, the four of us in this line waiting for a movie we didn't know if we'd get to see, that I felt that a film festival line made a city smaller, and brought together four people who were surprisingly well-suited to hang out together for an hour.
And then our free tickets came through, and we promised to save them seats in case they got in, and we parted ways. (One of them got in and joined us -- ironically, the unjaded one did not get a ticket, and left before finding out that there were at least 10 empty seats in the house, some of them right next to us, despite the fact that only a few people were admitted from the standby line.)
But all of this is side story compared to the main event of the evening: the film about Harry Belafonte, and Harry himself, who was interviewed after the screening by Amy Goodman. The film will screen on HBO in the Fall, so you will have a chance to see it then. It's too long (although maybe HBO will require a more concise cut) but it spends its time well: detailing Belafonte's incredible career, not only as a singer, but as a human rights activist and political advisor. He's been everywhere -- with MLK, in Ethiopia, Haiti, South Africa, Cuba -- and now that I think about it, probably the best argument for cutting the film down is to avoid Forrest Gump references. But Belafonte is no simpleton (like Gump) -- but is instead an astute political thinker with unflagging moral character.
He was red baited, CIA and FBI infiltrated by his own psychoanalyst, and yet talk about not becoming jaded. At 83, he is still an unflagging voice for social justice -- always lending his celebrity, his money, and just as importantly his political analysis wherever he sees it could have an impact. In the post-screening interview, Amy Goodman asked him about his connections with Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedys, A. Philip Randolph's influence over Teddy Roosevelt, and and finally -- whether he thought it would be possible to similarly influence Obama, and whether he (Belafonte) intends to do it.
His answer was riveting. He said that he thought that it's more possible to influence Obama than any other president in history, but that at the same time he is deeply disappointed in Obama -- that he sees no evidence of his moral courage. And yet, Belafonte has not given up on him. Thinks he's reachable. Thinks that he needs people to show him that you can't yield morality to political pragmatism and still maintain a reputation as someone who cares about humanity.
My takeaway from the evening was Belafonte's commitment, hope, persistence, and lack of jaded cynicism. I hope that whenever I think I should yield my morality to political pragmatism, that I can remember his example, and sing out on the side of justice.
It's strange that I've never before gone to the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival -- it's a film festival with my name written all over it. When my friend P invited me out Saturday night, and I looked at the lineup, I immediately homed in on a film about Harry Belafonte's 60+ years of music and intense, thoughtful, engaged, global political activism: Sing Your Song. The problem was, lots of other people had also homed in on that film -- it was already sold out. But P knew someone who works for HRW, who told her there was a chance she might be able to get her some tickets, and that we should go early and wait in the standby line, and see whether or not she could score us some tickets.
We showed up over an hour early, and there were already 25 people in line ahead of us. The man right in front of us told us that he'd tried to get tickets three weeks ago, when they first went on sale, and that it was already sold out. He also let us know (in the course of conversation -- not just randomly) that he's not jaded, and that he works hard to remain un-jaded while still living in cynical New York. (He hails from Jamaica.) The man who came to line just was also not a native New Yorker (he comes from Belize) and in addition to being particularly knowledgeable about Harry Belafonte, was also interested in black film. It was one of those times, the four of us in this line waiting for a movie we didn't know if we'd get to see, that I felt that a film festival line made a city smaller, and brought together four people who were surprisingly well-suited to hang out together for an hour.
And then our free tickets came through, and we promised to save them seats in case they got in, and we parted ways. (One of them got in and joined us -- ironically, the unjaded one did not get a ticket, and left before finding out that there were at least 10 empty seats in the house, some of them right next to us, despite the fact that only a few people were admitted from the standby line.)
But all of this is side story compared to the main event of the evening: the film about Harry Belafonte, and Harry himself, who was interviewed after the screening by Amy Goodman. The film will screen on HBO in the Fall, so you will have a chance to see it then. It's too long (although maybe HBO will require a more concise cut) but it spends its time well: detailing Belafonte's incredible career, not only as a singer, but as a human rights activist and political advisor. He's been everywhere -- with MLK, in Ethiopia, Haiti, South Africa, Cuba -- and now that I think about it, probably the best argument for cutting the film down is to avoid Forrest Gump references. But Belafonte is no simpleton (like Gump) -- but is instead an astute political thinker with unflagging moral character.
He was red baited, CIA and FBI infiltrated by his own psychoanalyst, and yet talk about not becoming jaded. At 83, he is still an unflagging voice for social justice -- always lending his celebrity, his money, and just as importantly his political analysis wherever he sees it could have an impact. In the post-screening interview, Amy Goodman asked him about his connections with Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedys, A. Philip Randolph's influence over Teddy Roosevelt, and and finally -- whether he thought it would be possible to similarly influence Obama, and whether he (Belafonte) intends to do it.
His answer was riveting. He said that he thought that it's more possible to influence Obama than any other president in history, but that at the same time he is deeply disappointed in Obama -- that he sees no evidence of his moral courage. And yet, Belafonte has not given up on him. Thinks he's reachable. Thinks that he needs people to show him that you can't yield morality to political pragmatism and still maintain a reputation as someone who cares about humanity.
My takeaway from the evening was Belafonte's commitment, hope, persistence, and lack of jaded cynicism. I hope that whenever I think I should yield my morality to political pragmatism, that I can remember his example, and sing out on the side of justice.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
I ordered dinner with GrubHub
Never Done: I ordered dinner with GrubHub
I spent some time today thinking about all the things I've done this year, and how many of them I've come to integrate into my life. Every week I have a quart of homemade soup in my fridge. (This week promises to be either strawberry soup or gazpacho.) I've discovered that I am a pretty good shopper if I just don't try the clothes on in the store. (99% of the time, they fit when I get them home -- I must have a pretty good eye.) I'm obsessed with Battlestar Gallactica. I fell in love with food sculpture, and can barely wait for next Chanukah, so I can make more food menorahs. And maybe most importantly, I run my shortcomings through an ethical framework on a daily basis. Then there are things I've tried this year that I don't intend to keep trying. I gave a cat Prozac. I took a draping class. Even though I am consumed (literally -- I still seem to have the consumption, only without the weight loss) with triathlon training, I can barely wait for the triathlon to arrive so I can stop training for it!
One of the things I tried this year is to download iPhone apps when I want to, even if they cost money. And as a result of that, I ordered take-out dinner using GrubHub -- which is an application that knows all the food delivery places that will deliver to your location at the time you are looking for some delivery. Now, I say this as if I order delivery all the time, when in fact I rarely do. I'm more of a cook for myself kind of person. But I was hungry, and I knew there wasn't much food in the house, and I wasn't going to get home til about 6, which isn't that late, but it is late if you're already hungry and there's not that much food in the house. Plus, if you're already thinking about how you have to get up at 6 the next morning for a 2 1/2 hour triathlon training that you're not enthusiastic about but you're trying to summon enthusiasm because that's your mussar practice this week, and also about the vaguely inappropriate thing that happened at the doctor's office earlier and how you're going to balance out getting good medical attention with speaking up and saying that it was inappropriate. If you're thinking about all that, and hungry and there's not much food in the house, then it seems like it's maybe a good night to order take-out.
But if you don't do that very often, and you don't really know where to order from, what do you do? You go to GrubHub, and you type in Indian, or Pasta, or Organic, and you get a list of nearby places that cook the food you want that are available to deliver. And their menus. So when you're standing in the pharmacy waiting for your prescription to be filled, you can order dinner and you can know that it will arrive to your home just after you do.
Oh, thank you, modern amenities! You bring convenience and wonderment and coconut shrimp to the end of my weariest days.
Also, thank you Marriage Equality visioneers, activists, senators, and volunteers. I wrote this post before I stayed up watching the NY Senate live feed (never done) and before we won marriage equality in New York state.
I spent some time today thinking about all the things I've done this year, and how many of them I've come to integrate into my life. Every week I have a quart of homemade soup in my fridge. (This week promises to be either strawberry soup or gazpacho.) I've discovered that I am a pretty good shopper if I just don't try the clothes on in the store. (99% of the time, they fit when I get them home -- I must have a pretty good eye.) I'm obsessed with Battlestar Gallactica. I fell in love with food sculpture, and can barely wait for next Chanukah, so I can make more food menorahs. And maybe most importantly, I run my shortcomings through an ethical framework on a daily basis. Then there are things I've tried this year that I don't intend to keep trying. I gave a cat Prozac. I took a draping class. Even though I am consumed (literally -- I still seem to have the consumption, only without the weight loss) with triathlon training, I can barely wait for the triathlon to arrive so I can stop training for it!
One of the things I tried this year is to download iPhone apps when I want to, even if they cost money. And as a result of that, I ordered take-out dinner using GrubHub -- which is an application that knows all the food delivery places that will deliver to your location at the time you are looking for some delivery. Now, I say this as if I order delivery all the time, when in fact I rarely do. I'm more of a cook for myself kind of person. But I was hungry, and I knew there wasn't much food in the house, and I wasn't going to get home til about 6, which isn't that late, but it is late if you're already hungry and there's not that much food in the house. Plus, if you're already thinking about how you have to get up at 6 the next morning for a 2 1/2 hour triathlon training that you're not enthusiastic about but you're trying to summon enthusiasm because that's your mussar practice this week, and also about the vaguely inappropriate thing that happened at the doctor's office earlier and how you're going to balance out getting good medical attention with speaking up and saying that it was inappropriate. If you're thinking about all that, and hungry and there's not much food in the house, then it seems like it's maybe a good night to order take-out.
But if you don't do that very often, and you don't really know where to order from, what do you do? You go to GrubHub, and you type in Indian, or Pasta, or Organic, and you get a list of nearby places that cook the food you want that are available to deliver. And their menus. So when you're standing in the pharmacy waiting for your prescription to be filled, you can order dinner and you can know that it will arrive to your home just after you do.
Oh, thank you, modern amenities! You bring convenience and wonderment and coconut shrimp to the end of my weariest days.
Also, thank you Marriage Equality visioneers, activists, senators, and volunteers. I wrote this post before I stayed up watching the NY Senate live feed (never done) and before we won marriage equality in New York state.
Friday, June 24, 2011
I forgot what my Never Done activity was
Never Done: I forgot what my Never Done activity was
I literally can't remember. I know I did it. It was one of the kind that sneaks up on me. I remember that because I had two others planned (go to Fairway -- can you believe I have never been? -- and eat street meat) which I ended up not doing because this other thing happened. I remember thinking about how to write about it, because I think it was a little delicate and extra personal. And for the life of me, I cannot remember what it is. I started not remembering what it was last night before going to sleep, and when I woke up still not remembering what it was, it occurred to me that this is, in and of itself, a Never Done activity.
Not sure what else to say about that new and embarrassing level of obliqueness. In other news, I have completed 3/4 of my Never Done year!
I literally can't remember. I know I did it. It was one of the kind that sneaks up on me. I remember that because I had two others planned (go to Fairway -- can you believe I have never been? -- and eat street meat) which I ended up not doing because this other thing happened. I remember thinking about how to write about it, because I think it was a little delicate and extra personal. And for the life of me, I cannot remember what it is. I started not remembering what it was last night before going to sleep, and when I woke up still not remembering what it was, it occurred to me that this is, in and of itself, a Never Done activity.
Not sure what else to say about that new and embarrassing level of obliqueness. In other news, I have completed 3/4 of my Never Done year!
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