Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Germophobe, Not Homophobe

"Germophobe, not homophobe," said the old man with the cane to the old man with the walker.

They passed us as I smoked cigarettes on the steps of K & D's place. "He won't go bowling. He won't put his feet in shoes that other people wear."

"I would never put my feet in shoes that just anyone can wear," the other one said as they hobbled by, shouting.

D was ready to follow them with a recorder. K had missed the germophobe, not homophobe comment and didn't get why we were laughing so hard.

I was there to rage and smoke D's cigarettes. I was furious about a literary event at the Brooklyn Public Library and had heard a dialogue I wasn't expecting to hear. Two women. One young and in awe, her hair all over her face so that no one could see her. The other old with stark white hair pulled off of her face, a hot older writer. Ruddy complexion and solid build.

The conversation went something like:

"Why do you write?" "Where do you write?" "Your life has been hard."

It sucked and I wanted to leave. I got my excuse to book it very early on.

Moderator with hair all over her face: "Blah, blah, blah are you a feminist?"'

Novelist woman who lives in exile from her native country but refuses to identify as an exile because the people are too nice: "I am not a feminist, I am a humanist. I do not think women should be involved in all spheres of participatory life, it is the men who should be involved with politics. A woman's real role is motherhood."

I didn't wait for her definition of motherhood and bounced.

The lesbian who walked out of the limited and narrow atmosphere into a chilly spring night.

It was the second night in a row that my bubble was infiltrated by my rotting idealistic crutch (see "Confronting a Limited Idealism," April 29 blog); like I'm just walking along and the crutch falls apart and I slip and something dirty gets inside my bubble.

Yesterday was imperialistic status quos.
Today was women going back to the home.

Maybe it strikes me so hard to get inside and filibuster my sanctum because I do just want a bourgeois life in a safe country on a nice block telling children stories. Let the men, whoever they may be, play at politics.

I am not a man. I am a woman who wants to be in the kitchen.

There is this woman I met a few months ago who startled me so deeply I cannot shake her, however much I'd like to. She entered my home, the most sacred of my landscapes, called me a fat boy and left.

I went on a juice fast for two weeks - kind of, I've never been good with either discipline or not eating but I did lose winter with an iron deficiency pounds pretty quickly. I suffered from this plaguing identity crisis. I, who have never done labels, have allowed myself to become boi-ed by the "community." I am not a boy and I am not a boi. I am a woman.

I sent her an angry text.

She called me.

Put me on speaker phone to a room full of parrots without my knowing.

 She called the writer a gypsy and wondered why I cared so much. I spoke about my bubble. She thought I was PMS. I told her I'd just spent the past few days bleeding everywhere.

I am a lunatic who lives in a bubble so I can go out and play with anyone I like. It is when my safe spaces are desecrated that I become intolerant.

I am outraged, I said to everyone who would listen.

Drinking a beer in a bar with this writer speaking her truth that I do not want to believe, I would kiss her ancient mouth, that has seen more than my Brooklyn bubbled ass getting tighter by the day will ever see, that keeps her secrets hers.

It is my own escapist tactics that failed and I was angry. I was angry yesterday when free speech was dismissed by the male upper echelons of this fantastic humanitarian organization as I was angry today when free speech was allowed through the voice of a controversial woman novelist from somewhere else.

I took my dog and went to K & D's to demand a conversation. They are serious people and they take me and my serious seriousness quite seriously, which I find funny.

We ranted on the steps and two old men passed by. Germophobe, not homophobe, the one with the cane said to the one with the walker.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Confronting A Limited Idealism; Or, How PEN American Center Enters the Mainstream and Champions Conformity

When I use the term "limited idealism" in my title I am referring to myself. One must face one's own shortcomings and continue to grow and not simply reject the source of those limits for they are the simultaneously the primary source of growth.

Last week I sent an email to a number of friends and acquaintances announcing that my favorite week of the year was coming up: The PEN World Voices Festival. In the email I listed the events I was planning on attending, suggested friends purchase their own tickets and commented on the fact that there were no queer events, however, I am not as up on my queer writer names as I ought to be so I cannot say there is not representation. But I knew well enough that of course there was a gay writer in the lot and perhaps there was only one.

I have never been able to attend every single PEN festival event. Sometimes they are at the same time sometimes I have to work. But I do recall always having to make that hard choice. Some events I remember being amazing were just two years ago. There was a panel that I showed up quite late for that was about the prison systems in the United States and Ireland and other places (I was late). Michelle Alexander was there. Another event that year included a small panel in a small room in an independent music school on a small street on the imperial crackdown on Hungarian arts funding. There was the opening event at the 92nd Street Y with writers reading in their mother tongues and Patti Smith sang a ballad to the empty chair who represented those unable to attend because they were in prison or because they were not allowed to enter the US.

The first PEN World Voices Festival event I ever went to was a tribute to the poet Czeslaw Milosz. Ryszard Kapuscinski was there reading a Milosz poem in Polish. It was at Hunter College.

Now events are being held at Cooper Union and Joe's Pub. NYU and the New School. I am not upset about the idea of going to a literary event turned cabaret of translated Japanese texts while sipping a fine cocktail in the casual glamorous atmosphere of the Public Theater's fancy bar. However, who can afford the ticket price and Joe's minimum food/drink purchase? Not everyone. Not a whole lot of people.

I remember two years ago I was thinking critically about PEN and accessibility in regards to a panel about the gentrification of New York and the weird little stipulation of purchasing tickets online only - not at the door in cash. That was weird. Who are they trying to keep out? So, I suppose, my thoughts tonight are thoughts that have been happening.

But I've always trusted PEN.

Something changed in January. They brought in a new Executive Director, Suzanne Nossel. When I received the member email announcing her appointment I did my research and I was horribly confused. She is an imperialist. It's weird because she was coming from Amnesty International - how did she get in there? But there was a lot of controversy surrounding her appointment at Amnesty - none at PEN. Yet even more confusing.

How can an organization state a mission based on Freedom of Expression and be led by a pro-NATO interventionist? It's flabbergasting. And then I kind of just blocked it all out - because I guess that's kind of what everyone else was doing.

And then I got the PEN World Voices Festival calendar of events in the mail. On Bravery. Yet. The panels are more consumer-friendly than political or critical as they had been in the past. There is a panel on gender that is completely exclusionary of transgender. There is a panel about publishing headlining the most conservative looking man I have ever seen at a literary event -- Ah, and here we have our gay man: The rich, married, Ivy Leaguer with a dog. The closing ceremony on Freedom is to be given by Sonia Sotomayor. Two years ago it was Wole Soyinka at the New York Public Library. It was amazing.

Something has gone awry.

Tonight a lone man was protesting Nossel. A PEN member. A paying attendee of the event. The only voice challenging these changes. An older white man, of course. Still in the 60s THANK GOD.

PEN leadership refused to respond to him at the beginning of the event. His concerns are legitimate and should have been addressed to appease everyone in the audience. Rushdie simply cursed him out. Right on, Salmon, your charm is commendable.

Bravery is the theme of this year's PEN literary festival and it is a farce.

Where are the transgender voices? Where are the queers and the lesbians? Why isn't PEN taking advantage of their clout to speak out against the US government? How can Salmon Rushdie get up and stand in front of us and say that we are living in a different America than we were 9 years ago when the festival started?

Today we are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today Guantanamo is still open and over 100 prisoners are on hunger strike and the US is force-feeding a number of them.

And what about this immediate city? What about stop-and-frisk? The prison system is only getting worse. What about the homeless people and the offensive city-wide subway campaigns that are astoundingly offensive to young mothers? Why is PEN silencing the controversial topics by not giving them platform?

If I noted any shortcomings in this organization I have idolized since I first heard of it nine years ago then I was naive not to know what I could see coming.

And I'm not saying there aren't powerful, thought provoking events this year with amazing writers and important minds but I am saying there's an obvious conservatization that is forcefully happening under the guise of freedom of expression.

I'm saying, I'm confronting my own limited idealism and I choose not to be on the side of exclusionary politics that maintain the status quo of power politics. I stand in solidarity with the most radical and dissident voices in the name of peace and freedom for all humans.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

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.