Grand Army Plaza Epiphanies

Inspiration comes from a book passed between colleagues across departments from different generations that makes their lives seem so potentially similar.

The gesture is what most effects me and hours later. After the unreal explosions at the Boston Marathon, after the exhausted train ride home, after lecturing my insolent dog who had once again dispersed the contents of my trash all over the floor, after life's evening activities and outside with the dog near the arch in plaza, on the grass by the fountain that is still seasonally dry. The epiphany comes in the form of a rough draft.

It's been coming, really. For weeks now. However, I've been saying I'm not going to go out and recruit youth this time, I'll just see if they contact me. What's egging me on to continue is that which remains undone: an incomplete feeling like an invisible stone in a hiking boot that reminds me that what I set out to do is not done. An event organized by youth. A print publication.

The team that currently comprises Raw Fiction has established a concept, created a slogan, set a tone, called for submissions, designed a logo and website and read and written and are reading and writing. Bickety-bam. They've done this pretty much from scratch with the support of mentors. That's impressive, I could call this project a day and feel really good about what's been accomplished.

However, I also think about the imperfections in this first template and the revisions I could implement the next time. I think about how to make Raw Fiction bigger and better. I'm procrastinating on the formation of evaluations and how to perfect the mentor trainings and I can see that I am capable of improving upon the initial concept, I can see clearly many possible repairs. And that's where I get overwhelmed and want to run away. Because I can't do all that unless I can give myself a salary. And I can't get a salary unless I apply for a grant. And I think about all the work I'd have to do and I want to vanish up a tree like a lunatic or a baron. What it finally comes down to is the most important question on the evaluation: Are you glad you participated in this project? I know the answers.

And what would my answer be?

I love creating space that brings people together. At my last event all of the readers exchanged information and became Facebook friends. The space was filled with love. The energy was fantastic. I love meeting with my youth and giving them literary works that they don't really like right now but will impact them later. I love sitting back and watching them collaborate. I don't like writing grants all that much, I don't hate it but I don't like the language.

There is no sublime meaning in a mission statement. I take no pleasure in getting to a point quickly.

So, what I've decided is that I want to continue but next time I'll do less. How about that, Society. I'm going to aim to recruit young writers who want to build upon what the current group has established to either coordinate an event or create a print publication or do both. I want to coordinate a regular meeting space to allow for intellectual growth and proactive collaboration. That's what I enjoy doing and I don't have to give it up because I am done with fundraising. I think it was important to do the first round of Raw Fiction "legitimately." Perhaps, I had something to prove to myself. Receiving fiscal sponsorship and a grant has made me feel like my idea was legitimate. To receive generous donations from family, friends and strangers is really reaffirming but I want to go to grad school and I want to write another novel, not another grant. I don't want to be an ED I just want to be me, hehehe.

In the mailroom, Kevin gave me a copy of the journal he edited in another lifetime, his words, it is called "murmur." It's a wonderful collection with J.M.G. Le Clezio, Danzy Senna, Eileen Myles and Mark Jay Mirsky, among others. The concept is "a journal devoted to convening conversations between new and established writers of fiction and poetry, and each issue will feature a series of these dialogues. The themes and topics will be determined by those involved, but at some point, the talks will address the question of who and what influences their writing. Following the discussion, work by both authors will appear side by side, as if to continue the conversation in the practice of their art." - Kevin P.Q. Phelan, Editor.

The gift was Kevin's second journal. The first was called "whatever" because it was themeless. Having worked with my current group of youth I think the themeless is essential to creative development. Youth don't really know what they want; they want experience and opportunities. I thanked my colleague for his awesome journal and he explained it stopped because money ran out. It was those words that really got me thinking about Raw Fiction. Yes, there's no way I can afford to keep it going, it's not what I want. But what if I do it without money, or much less money. Cut the stipends, cut the mentors, cut the field trips to things with ticket prices.

So, thank you, Kevin for sharing the past of another you with the present I'm chiseling out for myself. I will go on until time and money run out, and that is yet to happen.

Surviving Raw Fiction at The Brooklyn Museum

I have barely been surviving Raw Fiction. I feel there is a wealth of creativity ready to burst forth. I've been a dry well filling up with thought, laughter, tears, anger, revelation and peace for the past few years. In many ways Raw Fiction was inspired in order to survive life and I created this blog with a humorous but pertinent title. For a fiction writer to coordinate an administrative intensive project such as Raw Fiction, on top of my job, my dog, my Spanish lessons, all of which are necessary to the maintenance of my jubilant spirit, she chooses to leave no space for elongated creative time.

This blog was my consolation prize: required written expression - which has gradually become less creative since the project start.

The youth I am working with are amazing but I could certainly challenge them more, make things more fun, go more in-depth. Potential is ever-expansive.

I've also been working more hours at work than expected. I'm pretty sensitive to boredom and I'm usually pretty good at side-stepping it but it's taken hold. I'm distracted and unfocused. I have two events coming up and I can't really wrap my head around them.

However, even though I feel this lethargic slump, I know it's just my body's way of telling me to slow down and go in search of inspiration.

I found a collection of short stories by Colette, who is not at all on my curriculum, and have been  relishing in a short novella about a heterosexual couple posing as lesbians who run a sex vacation resort for the aristocracy because they are apparently hiding from the law. I have been away from the demands of lesson planning. I have been reading for my own pleasure. And today was the first I have left work on time (a luxurious 2pm) this week, I came home feeling no more pressure of responsibility than that which drives me to walk my unsocialized dog since Raw Fiction has a field trip on Saturday and then it's Spring Break.

I showered well and long. I dressed up and I went to get cash at the museum ATM. I got called inside. There was a banner on the outside of the museum featuring a hand and the word "hi." It was presumably the only exhibit I hadn't yet seen. Entering the museum was splendid. An open to-go coffee cup sat on the guard's empty desk. The man at the membership desk didn't give me the third degree about the purpose of my visit like the overeager buzz-killer did on my last visit.

I entered unmolested like it was still the year 2000. I dashed up the relatively discrete Stairway D and exited on the 3rd Floor. Egyptian art. I walked past the paintings in the large gallery where First Saturday's dance parties were formerly held. And I walked up a flight in search of the exhibit whose advertisement had greeted me. On the wall in the elevator bank I saw I name I cherish and hadn't known was visiting: Kathe Kollwitz. I made a beeline toward the Stackler Center greeting my reassuring staples, Mikalene Thomas, Kara Walker, and Nick Cave, en route. I opened the door to the gallery of feminist art and was overwhelmed by a magnificent display of quilts. Women's history. Women's art. Women's expression. It was amazing but too overwhelming to thoroughly absorb knowing that there were Kollwitz works on display very near by.

     

I spent time with these live works. I originally found Kollwitz at the Strand Bookstore before it was renovated to feel so, so . . . clean? is that the word I'm looking for? Orderly? Before it was renovated and when the art books were on the ground floor. I absorbed her and filled myself with the beauty and healing she was able to produce from her evident pain. Her realist depictions of the German human experience in the 1920s are far more hopeful and, perhaps, thus radical than her expressionist contemporaries.

I walked away from the Kollwitz exhibit and rested for a bit near my nourishing staples and looked out over the vast gallery. A guard appeared at another terrace, I kept feeling like they were watching me, those women in unbecoming grey uniforms. I decided to visit El Anatsui again, since I was so close. I headed up to the fifth floor and breezed through American Art to special exhibits.

Even though I'd already seen this exhibit twice it was my first time without too many people. The experience was less urgent and I felt the freedom to revisit that which moved me most. His wood. His work, tapestries and sculpture fits into his concept of the Nonfixed Form, this means that each piece has an inconstant composition that can reinvented by the curator and the space in which the work is displayed. I'll let his work speak for itself.

I took a spin through the art of the Americas and was drawn to the small Native American section. The Dakota war club below caught my attention for a first time. There was even video footage that dated back to before the invention of the moving image. I stopped to watch but a tourist felt comfortable sharing my space. I moved on and responded with a smile to his dismay and informed him that I come every few weeks so I don't need a shared perspective.

 Next I was drawn to a portrait I know well. Luigi Lucioni's Portrait of Paul Cadmus. 1928. Gay artists. I'm sure I've read the description before but this was the first time it registered. These beautiful and brave young artists.





I left the museum before the Thursday night extravaganza took off. I was going to have a coffee or wine at the new cafe looking out into the courtyard but I wouldn't endure the sterile atmosphere and the women in cafeteria uniforms. A singer and a flutist warmed up on the stage of the grand lobby. The grey outside welcomed me and I left to buy suitable clothing for the burial of Harry Tarzian that will be held in Greenwood Cemetery tomorrow. He is the man who provided my mum with the job that enabled her to raise me and my sisters very nicely with above average vacation time and the radical flexibility to be a mother. May you rest in peace Harry, Hardware store owner and passionate photography hobbyist.

Audre Lorde is an Idealist and Zahra made us Meditate

Audre Lorde is too idealistic, one of my young writers sighed with dispassion this past Saturday. The assignment had been to read poetry and essay. They like neither form, generally. However, Ferlinghetti's anti-war excerpt from 'Americus I' went over better than the obscure poetics taken from Lorde's 'New York Headshop and Museum.' And agreement was universal that Lorde's 1979 essay, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, is still relevant today, 34 or 44 (depending on which youth is doing the math) years later, however, and perhaps because of this immortal relevance of needing to cherish our differences and women needing to support other women, the youth of today were less inspired than I was when the essay was merely 22 years old. And perhaps, the youth see me as too idealistic, too.

Our Saturday sessions are generally broken up into two segments. First we write and discuss the readings - the literary and critical thinking part of the day. Second there is a project meeting. In between the theory and practical there is always a brief break. Meditation and yoga is something I have wanted to incorporate into the project since its inception, however, real world situations don't necessarily permit our ideas to be perfect from the start. So this week I dove on in. I sent the team an email informing them of their meditative and silent break and when it came up they were down. No objections, no giggles. Just open minds.

Because I was unprepared and didn't know how to set the timer on my phone I had to open my eyes to glance at the clock a couple of times during the five minute meditation session. They were all sitting silent and upright and all sets of eyes were closed. Upon time I told them not to speak for another five minutes, to gather their thoughts and think about the meeting, or think about nothing, or go to the bathroom, just don't speak. When I suggested we start one of them objected and said, It hasn't been five minutes, yet. Gosh darn, I love it when they speak up and I love it when they're making choices toward the betterment of their souls. Hehe, yeah, I totally talk about the artist's soul as something that needs to be nurtured.

And after that I asked their permission to bounce. My best friend is in town for her boyfriend's birthday and I need to get home and change and feed and walk my dog before running off to play. And they were fine with it. And they emailed me their meeting notes and their website looks fabulous and the call for submissions is final and in their voice and image and oh I'm just so thrilled.

Plus I got to bounce on the meeting and have dinner in Bay Ridge at a Moroccan restaurant called Casablanca and then saw Isabelle Adjani in a Luc Besson film from 1985 that was about people living in the Paris Metro and it made me want to live underground off the grid dirty and free.

The End. For Now.

The Organic Growth of Youth

On Thursday, I bought a video camera. The idea was for the group to write a script about their project, video tape themselves and upload the new video onto their website, Facebook page and tumblr. That didn't happen. Of course it didn't happen. What did happen was the crew discussed a lot, wrote a little, then did spontaneous interviews on the topics on hand - what is Raw Fiction? why is Raw Fiction? and so on.

The publicist shot most of the footage, except for that which she is in, and took the SD card with her to do the video edits. Raw Theater.

Last week I was stressed out because I didn't think the group was necessarily going to be able to achieve their goals, and I let them know. They let me know that this project is theirs and they want to do it and they'd communicated amongst themselves and had direction and drive. I was so proud of them I started crying. Really. Literally, there were tears.

So today, I just released the reigns. And it feels good not to be accountable.

I could have gotten annoyed. Or made snide comments (I'm an expert at those). However, when I walked in, 8 minutes early, with the Web Programmer who I'd run into walking over, and saw three of the group already there, waiting for me, demanding where the fifth one was. So eager. So inspiring. And then I sit down and listen to their conversation. Pink Berry. They're anxious for my arrival, they have so much work to do, they know what is on the agenda for today and yet they sit discussing frozen yogurt. A corporate frozen yogurt chain.

What made the possibility of me being annoyed and obnoxious even greater was the fact that the Editor-in-Chief had just said to me, two days before, that they need more time for project discussion and less on the readings. (I seriously beg to differ, but it's theirs, I created the monster. Just call me Shelley.)

But I reasoned with myself. It's nice for them to chat and get to know each other and be comfortable on a social level. Yet, at the same time due to the immaturity in me, the child that needs to put you in front of a mirror to expose the food stuck between your teeth instead of simply nicely telling you, whispering discretely, I couldn't be bothered to take over and say, okay, so now it's 1:30 on the dot, let's get started.

I don't work with children because I hate to micromanage. I do work with teenagers because when you don't micromanage there's a lot to laugh about - but more importantly, that's exactly when they blow you away with their original insights and brilliance. When it all clicks and that child mind begins to take control of its own life.

The wheels got rolling when the Graphic Designer walked in 5 minutes late, expecting to join in, looked confused at the silliness around her and asked, what's going on. The others snapped to and got to work.

I feel free, it's theirs. There are things I would change. I would certainly go about doing just about everything differently, but it's theirs. And I'm free. Free to focus on their intellectual development as independent and critical thinkers.

This is a photograph of the Graphic Designer, Web Programmer and Publicist fine-tuning their social media site and website last week:

The Team Goes to El Museo del Barrio

I missed a great photograph today. The youth sitting on a bench facing a gigantic photograph of a path leading to a mountain. Not speaking. Waiting.

I had attempted to steal the language reigns of the project due to lack of speed but the Editor-in-chief coup'd. She claimed her own pretension and snobbery and stated that even she wouldn't request such high writing. So fix it, I said. It's written. Why isn't it here?  It's saved in my computer. With complete sentences as opposed to a bullet list? Yes, she assured me. So I want to see it.

One of my writers gave the thumbs to my boosting them over this first hurdle; after telling me she wouldn't be able to make it, she'd forgotten about a school trip, so stressed out; Raw Fiction is enrichment, it shouldn't be stressful. Another writer also approved and gave feedback regarding some of the technical details, very helpful. One thought the opening paragraph was too refined to be asking for the unrefined: it's complicated and unapproachable and where's the grittiness? One wanted to redo it herself (see paragraph above). One had no comment, the same who was waiting at the wrong museum for 20 minutes.

I told them to just go in and experience the art. No assignment. Just look at what you like.

There was a photograph on the wall of the museum. Of fire escapes full of people. Like water slides, the Editor said.

While they were waiting for me to get my bag from the bag check, I handed the camera to the Project Manager. She had them take a picture of her:

And returned the camera. So I gave it to the Graphic Designer for the walk to East Harlem Cafe where we were heading for snacks and a meeting. She did nothing but turn it off after a few minutes.

There they discussed the project and I got some snapshots of their serious seriousness.

The project manager took the last shot of the cafe.

The following I found in the museum where there weren't any guards:

I sent them home with Baldwin and told them to write on the photocopies. Underline the most powerful sentences. Reread five paragraphs once you're done.

Variables in Autonomous Hierarchical Collaboration

Today I met Raw Fiction's graphic designer on the corner of Dekalb and S. Elliott to retrieve my computer. I share it with her so she can learn the software and create a logo, design flyers and do whatever it is a graphic designer must do. I was dressed like a ringmaster. She looked like a high school student.

I keep preaching hierarchy and autonomy to them, my kids. Which is funny, because I'm an anarchist. Or maybe that is why. Everyone is their own individual monarch. Can monarchs with no masses work together?

The graphic designer had a present for me. One I was not expecting. A small white candy box with chocolate covered insects inside. There were four total. Two worms and two crickets, either milk or white chocolate. We stood across from Fort Greene park eating bugs and questioning progress.

Admittedly, progress has been slow. When I try to tell them this and encourage them to reconsider such big ideas as publishing others (we haven't even started to tackle the event yet) they ignore me. I love that they want this so much. But I also want them to get the most out of the reading, writing and field trips.

In lieu of the museum trip to El Museo del Barrio this Saturday, the graphic designer suggested the group have a meeting. Now, I did not say no. [This project is theirs. I can only provide them with options and hope they make the best decisions, or those I'd prefer. They have their mentors to ponder questions about time management and goals. They are on different pages and didn't meet last weekend due to the snow. Nor did they organize a conference session, which I suggested.] I simply asked her if she'd proposed this idea to the others and then emphasized the necessity of expanding one's cultural horizons in order to grow as a writer, thinker, human.

We finished the insects, I put Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man in her hands, and went our separate ways. I went home to walk my dog, chilled for a bit, felt social while longing for solitude, took the later and wound up the the BPL's Tuesday night movie. Scarface. Action, art, guns, immigrants, cops, morals and murder. The film has it all. The depths of loneliness, desperation and greed. I was moved.

I came home ready to scribble about solitude, anxiety, love and loneliness in the new tiny notebook I bought in the Brooklyn Museum shop after the El Anatsui exhibit on Thursday but checked my email first. An email to the group, from the Graphic Designer. Basically saying: There's much to be discussed (full stop). Let's meet to talk this week and do the museum next week (full stop). Respond All if you agree (full stop). Like a telegram. It'd been a couple of hours but no one had responded. I piped in. Not so easy. First: I haven't reserved a room for this Saturday. Second: There's a workshop next weekend. So the choice must be meeting and museum or no museum.

The web programmer responded: Meeting.

I kind of like the idea of being overthrown. However, I dislike the idea of work over art. Except, of course, the work is art. Is it the tangible taking priority over the metaphysical that irks me? The growth of spirit being deemed less important than professional growth?

And therefore, I must think hard, introspectively, about my own motivation. Motivation has so little to do outcome. My motivation was to bring youth together like frozen compounds of unknown, untested substance placed in a bowl to thaw and react to one another. The only constant is that they all want this to work.

Madison Avenue Is Not A Number; It's A Lesson

Today, Raw Fiction began it's journey to whatever it will be. Four out five participants got off the train not knowing where Madison Avenue is. Thus my witty comment: Madison Avenue is not a number; it's a lesson.

Raw Fiction is five young women from the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn. For now, that's all they know. They do not know each other and, perhaps, they do not yet fully know themselves.

I know pretty much why I started Raw Fiction and why it's important to me. What became evident in my structuring of the idea is that I could not be the one who decided how to define the project. It has to be them. But the big question is: What is important to them? 

The Editor-in-Chief posed a great question after everyone left today - she did that after the Orientation too. She asked if there was space for chit-chat (my words) during the meetings. I wanted to know what she was getting at and dead-panned something about time management and that the field trips are better venues for team building. She was curious about what the others enjoy reading. It's a pertinent question that I told her I would negotiate into the next meeting.

However, on the platform at 34th Street I started thinking about books and writing and voices. What is important to these young writers? What makes them angry, ruffles their feathers, makes them spit and cry and scream? Or am I too late? Generation A for apathy? - But that's impossible with this group of self-starters. What kind of teenager jumps on board a boat with an unknown destination, a vague promise that they'll learn how to navigate the vessel along the way, and a novice interest in boating in general - A Raw Fiction teenager, that's who.

I know they've got original ideas inside. They just need to figure out what's really important to them. The Editor-in-Chief needs to declare what is meaningful.

Is making a voice public important? Of course. But isn't it much more important to make heard a voice that has meaning. And then we must define what is meaningful. However, if I try to interject too much then they might revolt and do something frivolous. Would that action of disregard for authority be enough? For me?

This week we started slow. Saw a bunch of glitches and worked around them. First question: what is the publication going to be? We need to know this before anything else happens. And we need to know this soon because, as the Project Manager just realized, planning takes time. A venue needs to be booked months in advance, not a month before. Speaking of which, I'm going to pause and go the SIBL page to reserve the room for next week.

We only took half an hour on Toni Morrison's "Moby Dick" essay and Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" because ConEd decided to shut the library down early thus evicting us a half hour before we should have been ready. Therefore, I prioritized project planning over literary discussion.

Vonnegut's story just screams government control to me. However, our new Communications Director pointed out the aspect of people being silly. She's better than me, that's not fair. My goodness Vonnegut, you hate a whiner don't you. And as a society how do we cope with an imbalance of talent - we try to change the laws of nature. And Man shall always play God.

I didn't get them talking enough about Morrison's essay but I'm glad they read it, even if none of them enjoyed it. I'm excited to follow up satire with Manto and essay writing with ... hmm, who will it be? Blanchot? Lorde? Calvino? But that will be down the line.

Next stop is Sandra Cisneros.

I want to introduce them to as many ideas as possible without overwhelming them and force them to think about who they are and where they come from and then see where they stand in a couple of weeks.

I feel like this has been a terse but necessary entry. 

A la prochaine. We're about to get regular again.