I used to think that a city is a friend who I am so familiar with, but when I play in a city, as a bystander and explorer, I find that the city is more like a stranger to the civilians who “seem” to connect with it tightly. In fact, they are never bothered by the “serendipity”, because they actually only care the information benefits and interests them and neglect the surroundings automatically.

Davis, Mike. Dead Cities and Other Tales (New York: New Press, 2002).
Preface:  “Fear Studies”—or “Sociophobics”
media-conjured scares: guilty “oblique expressions” of the postliberal refusal to reform real conditions of inequality.
Freud on the uncanny: when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality”
when hysteria subsides, the uncanny will endure as lived experience, permanent foreboding about urban space as potential Ground Zero
what is the repressed root of modern urban fear? The ultimate psycho-social substrate upon which politics has deposited layers of danger (fear of poor/crime/Blackness/ and now bin Laden)?
eschatological nervousness of Ernst Bloch, other expressionists

Phoenix

MLord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, September 15th

The Art of Wandering

The article which most particularly resonates with our trip into Philadelphia is Cass Sunstein’s article, “So Much for Serendipity in Personalized News.” This is not perhaps particularly original, since everyone on the trip most likely found themselves released into a world of serendipity. However, I tried particularly hard to play in the city, to open myself to any and all possibilities for play, and found them delightful.

Upon being freed into the city, my group, consisting of myself, Marcia, Thea, and Agatha, agreed to visit the sculpture garden. There we discovered, among other things, a door decorated with many small figures. Although I rushed past the door at first, Thea pointed out that a large sculpture of three men entitled The Fades was reproduced in miniature on the door, which prompted me to look more closely and find that another large sculpture, apparently a replica of the famous Thinker, was also miniaturized on the door.

Read the hovertext for captions!

Vitiligo causes depigmentation of the skin. I know about this, because my son has patches of vitiligo on his wrists, hands, and jaw. The condition is much more noticeable in those of us who are dark skinned, than in those of us whose skin is lighter in color.

I'm trying to write a short story here about vitiligo. It is about the absence of homogeneity, the presence of authenticity (cf. Zukin) on Logan Square. It's about how a biological phenomenon invites a certain kind of social drama (cf. Mumford), playing out perceptions, creating uneasiness, dis-ease. Do I attend carefully enough to the raced and classed history and present of this country, in which people with darker skin bear a disproportionate burden of discrimination? Do I offend, in making a physical condition metaphoric?

I loved the conception of “The Quiet Volume.” I loved being whispered to attend to the sounds in the library, and to attend to the ink on the page. I loved the shadows cast by the image of my hand on the blank page—having my attention called to the gradations of color and sound created when I placed my hand there.

The more you know, or are informed about things, the better equipted you are to make better choices for yourself. But sometimes knowing more also confuses you. As I have been learning more about gender, I am more aware and conscious of my own identity, and being cautious of not labeling other's identities. However, the more information I recieve, the more I also become confused. Even in Persepolis, I see Marjane Satrapi adjusting and reconfiguring the choices she makes when given more knowledge about the social revolution happening right outside her doorsteps, yet she too is sometimes confused by the different (sometimes contrasting) information she recieves.

The more I know also seems to place a burden on me. I feel like having information many others may not, puts me outside the sphere where the majority live, and creates a barrier. Knowing and understanding the oppresive institutions that operate against marginalized groups and not feeling able to help because the mainstream accepts, perpetuates and encourages them is defeating. The question activity in class really got me thinking, why doesn't society question more, and push boundaries instead of accepting them blindlly? Is it becuase its more comfortable to live in blissful naivete? Do they also feel defeated or afraid to fight for a cause that may seem impossible? Or is it because they benefit from institutionalized racism, sexism, genderism, etc. that they choose to do nothing? 

knowledge is a gift and a burden

So: I'm wondering if Sasha has approached Civic Engagement about getting your all's transportation funded, as you suggested?

And if Sasha and Sara have made any progress in applying for a 1/2-credit independent study?
What are the procedures? Has the deadline passed?

And what our meeting schedule will be from here on out?
Will you three meet on 9/19, then all of us again on 9/28? (i mean 9/26)
(Sasha's not being able to come, Sarah's coming late, and Hayley's having to leave early this week makes me think that 5-6:30 on Thursday is NOT such a good time after all?)

Here's how I'm now seeing our reading list:

Aug. 9 Audre Lorde, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"
Sept. 6 Alice Walker, "Beauty"
Sept. 20 Howard Zehr, What Will Happen to Me?
Oct. 4 Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power ($14.73 x 15 copies= $220.95)
Oct. 25 Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power
Nov. 8  Toni Morrison, Sula ($10.89 x 15 copies = $163.35)
Nov. 22 Toni Morrison, Sula
Dec. 6 Gilliam, Kettle Bottom ($10.63 x 15 copies = $159.45)

This question was inspired by the exercise we did in class on Tuesday 09/10. I had difficulties answering the question "Why do we have to be one or the other?" with another question. I began to think of the characteristics that make men "men" and women "women": Do all women have to know how to cook? Do all men have to be emotionally blank? Do both women and men aspire to be great parents? It is interesting to think of my own gender, and how I have seemingly lived according to my sex assigned at birth, not willingly but because my parents understood the implications of what it meant to be giving birth to a baby girl. They brought me up implementing values that made me into the "perfect little lady", and denied me things that were said to belong to little boys. Still, I pursued a number of active/ contact sports, loved to wear sneakers, and liked to be dirty, all of which were said to belong to little boys - so according to society's view of gender I was both male and female. My older brother played Barbies with me, and helped me cook in my Easy-Bake oven (but ate everything we made) - and so he was also both male and female. This stream of consciousness led me to the question that is the title of this post: "Who is one or the other?"