I now write a column for Alterati called Get Bent which mainly focuses on DIY circuit bending and DIY instuments.
I also host a podcast called "Sunday Night Noise" form experimental music in the Western NY area on All WNY Radio which is on at Sundays from 8-9 Eastern Time. You can listen live at this link. Information on past podcasts can be found on be found on the 716 Noise Collective myspace page. Archived podcasts can be found here.
And here are two shots from a shoot with Ron Douglas
I also host a podcast called "Sunday Night Noise" form experimental music in the Western NY area on All WNY Radio which is on at Sundays from 8-9 Eastern Time. You can listen live at this link. Information on past podcasts can be found on be found on the 716 Noise Collective myspace page. Archived podcasts can be found here.
And here are two shots from a shoot with Ron Douglas
Spoken word performance Friday, 2/23/2007
That Friday night I gave a spoken word reading at the "Not the Usual Suspects" Art show. It is similar to the shows at 99 Custard Street (which I believe take place in a basement), only it is on Minnesota Avenue, around University of Buffalo's South Campus, in an Attic. Generally, it is an art show with short films made by students and displayed artwork. Once and a while they have a band or a solo performer. Sometimes spoken word.
Despite my tiny stature, it is hard to miss a 5-foot-1 girl in a blood-colored calf length duster. I stood out from the trendy college kids and art students, if not for the coat then for my inability to relate to school associated things. And I was the only person there (or one of three or four) who wasn't a UB student. But everyone was nice regardless. Although I wasn't nervous, I haven't given a spoken word performance since I lived in Rochester. And on Friday I read "Exils", a free verse poem which I describe as an examination of identity and culture.
I started my performance with the announcement "I went to print this out before I left only to find that my printer was broken. So I had to write 3 pages typed all out by hand." Some cheered. One person yelled, "Fuck printers!" I looked on the audience and asked myself What do I have in common with these people? And I wonder how much of what I am trying to convey they will catch. But in the greater scheme it doesn't matter. It is what it is. And then I started . . .
Exils
-ANZ
(For Han Yu)
I.
We met prior
To the time your roots tried to
Keep you.
Shuttling through Asia,
You were an exile
From the frame of Mao.
A future prodigy
In their revolution factories,
Having that certain definition
To make your mother country proud.
I am also an explanation.
I am defined by the adjectives I cannot control.
I had no choice.
My description is comprised of my attributes.
Nothing more.
Influences aside,
What can we claim
As our own?
Does every word belong
To some one else?
Have I out-produced
My in-vironment?
Have you?
II.
I am estranged from the strangers
Taking my place
Although no one
Can see:
My color is like anemia
With sickness my culture has never known
And it isn't clear
Like your separation.
Everyone knows what you appear to be,
But they are unsure what they see in me
With sharp features
Of an almost extinct society
Rendering me an unidentifiable,
A person without origin.
We are different relicts
Of an atom bomb
(Although it could be said
That your walls were drawn
And no one knew much of you
Besides the remains brought west by Marco Polo
And the millions of failures who sought you
While my culture
Spoke in codes for the same side
Who burned the original words, stories, languages
And exiled its residents to a third world
Inside the richest country
The America inside the America,
The state within the state,
The sovereign nation forced to kowtow to the dark clouds of Marshal Law
And the law of marshals and cowboys
Now and one-hundred years before.)
If not for 1937,
Would you have sided with Russia
While I allied with my own type of traitors
Or would you stay hidden with the dreams of your red books
To come years later
While I would sign home and roots away
For life in big cities
Walking the miles of iron and sky?
Would they have put you away like they put me away
Like they put others away
And denied it ever happened?
Would they give you a chance to urbanize,
Switch sides,
Before the castigation?
Did you open your doors to a western world
Not knowing the consequences of your actions?
Did you see B-52s like the Santa Maria,
Great birds of mysterious origins,
Or did you know they weren't to be trusted?
There is nothing for us here
And yet there is no place
For Berdaches and La Las
In our respective cultures.
III.
And sometimes I doubt my own claims to origin,
As though the Mongoloid strip
On my childhood back that dictated
80% or more of that blood
Was in my genetic code
And high cheek bones and a prize-fighter's nose
All amounts to nothing
Because I grew up in the land Woody Guthrie,
A land owned by everybody,
A land of manifest destiny.
And I may have woke this morning
And ever other morning
Only to become charlatan
Whose skin has paled to the point
Where there is no red.
Whose heritage is cloudy
Despite being recognized as a member of a nation.
And maybe I should just
Bite the bullet
Instead of searching for a culture
Knowing
It will not accept me as I am
Without taking a native husband
And dragging native children in tow.
And you-
From a land which prides itself
In prodigal sons and dead or foot-bound daughters,
Where everyone is either a musician, a businessman
Or dishonored,
How is it that you were able to disconnect
From a culture that doesn't know
About your not-so-secret life
But wants you and your Harvard education?
Your genocide of gender
Is like my manifest destiny:
Things that others did to construct
A new and better world
(For some.)
But countries try to claim
What they don't own
The souls of the citizens,
And the byproduct of an effort
As their right to exploit within and without
Their walls.
Their boundaries.
Their customary cautiousness.
But they don't know our lives.
They see our achievements
And the byproducts of our efforts
And don't assume that we are
Their lost children,
The ones that strayed from the values
So carefully molded and educated within our own lives
When there is glory to be gained.
And if they did
They would roll the red carpet
Back up
And tuck it in the box
Beside the other archaic structures
And relegate us
Back to the corners
Of another world,
One more place
That isn't our own.
There was a low murmur when I started reading but when I ended you could hear a pin drop. Then applause. After I got off "stage" several people congratulated me and a few others asked if I read anywhere else/had any published works.
I wish I brought my shitty tape recorder.
That Friday night I gave a spoken word reading at the "Not the Usual Suspects" Art show. It is similar to the shows at 99 Custard Street (which I believe take place in a basement), only it is on Minnesota Avenue, around University of Buffalo's South Campus, in an Attic. Generally, it is an art show with short films made by students and displayed artwork. Once and a while they have a band or a solo performer. Sometimes spoken word.
Despite my tiny stature, it is hard to miss a 5-foot-1 girl in a blood-colored calf length duster. I stood out from the trendy college kids and art students, if not for the coat then for my inability to relate to school associated things. And I was the only person there (or one of three or four) who wasn't a UB student. But everyone was nice regardless. Although I wasn't nervous, I haven't given a spoken word performance since I lived in Rochester. And on Friday I read "Exils", a free verse poem which I describe as an examination of identity and culture.
I started my performance with the announcement "I went to print this out before I left only to find that my printer was broken. So I had to write 3 pages typed all out by hand." Some cheered. One person yelled, "Fuck printers!" I looked on the audience and asked myself What do I have in common with these people? And I wonder how much of what I am trying to convey they will catch. But in the greater scheme it doesn't matter. It is what it is. And then I started . . .
Exils
-ANZ
(For Han Yu)
I.
We met prior
To the time your roots tried to
Keep you.
Shuttling through Asia,
You were an exile
From the frame of Mao.
A future prodigy
In their revolution factories,
Having that certain definition
To make your mother country proud.
I am also an explanation.
I am defined by the adjectives I cannot control.
I had no choice.
My description is comprised of my attributes.
Nothing more.
Influences aside,
What can we claim
As our own?
Does every word belong
To some one else?
Have I out-produced
My in-vironment?
Have you?
II.
I am estranged from the strangers
Taking my place
Although no one
Can see:
My color is like anemia
With sickness my culture has never known
And it isn't clear
Like your separation.
Everyone knows what you appear to be,
But they are unsure what they see in me
With sharp features
Of an almost extinct society
Rendering me an unidentifiable,
A person without origin.
We are different relicts
Of an atom bomb
(Although it could be said
That your walls were drawn
And no one knew much of you
Besides the remains brought west by Marco Polo
And the millions of failures who sought you
While my culture
Spoke in codes for the same side
Who burned the original words, stories, languages
And exiled its residents to a third world
Inside the richest country
The America inside the America,
The state within the state,
The sovereign nation forced to kowtow to the dark clouds of Marshal Law
And the law of marshals and cowboys
Now and one-hundred years before.)
If not for 1937,
Would you have sided with Russia
While I allied with my own type of traitors
Or would you stay hidden with the dreams of your red books
To come years later
While I would sign home and roots away
For life in big cities
Walking the miles of iron and sky?
Would they have put you away like they put me away
Like they put others away
And denied it ever happened?
Would they give you a chance to urbanize,
Switch sides,
Before the castigation?
Did you open your doors to a western world
Not knowing the consequences of your actions?
Did you see B-52s like the Santa Maria,
Great birds of mysterious origins,
Or did you know they weren't to be trusted?
There is nothing for us here
And yet there is no place
For Berdaches and La Las
In our respective cultures.
III.
And sometimes I doubt my own claims to origin,
As though the Mongoloid strip
On my childhood back that dictated
80% or more of that blood
Was in my genetic code
And high cheek bones and a prize-fighter's nose
All amounts to nothing
Because I grew up in the land Woody Guthrie,
A land owned by everybody,
A land of manifest destiny.
And I may have woke this morning
And ever other morning
Only to become charlatan
Whose skin has paled to the point
Where there is no red.
Whose heritage is cloudy
Despite being recognized as a member of a nation.
And maybe I should just
Bite the bullet
Instead of searching for a culture
Knowing
It will not accept me as I am
Without taking a native husband
And dragging native children in tow.
And you-
From a land which prides itself
In prodigal sons and dead or foot-bound daughters,
Where everyone is either a musician, a businessman
Or dishonored,
How is it that you were able to disconnect
From a culture that doesn't know
About your not-so-secret life
But wants you and your Harvard education?
Your genocide of gender
Is like my manifest destiny:
Things that others did to construct
A new and better world
(For some.)
But countries try to claim
What they don't own
The souls of the citizens,
And the byproduct of an effort
As their right to exploit within and without
Their walls.
Their boundaries.
Their customary cautiousness.
But they don't know our lives.
They see our achievements
And the byproducts of our efforts
And don't assume that we are
Their lost children,
The ones that strayed from the values
So carefully molded and educated within our own lives
When there is glory to be gained.
And if they did
They would roll the red carpet
Back up
And tuck it in the box
Beside the other archaic structures
And relegate us
Back to the corners
Of another world,
One more place
That isn't our own.
There was a low murmur when I started reading but when I ended you could hear a pin drop. Then applause. After I got off "stage" several people congratulated me and a few others asked if I read anywhere else/had any published works.
I wish I brought my shitty tape recorder.
Yesterday, I gave out candy the lazy way. I left a large bowl of candy on the front porch with a sign that read "doorbell broken, take some candy". I was warned that the honor system doesn't work when it comes to candy and the first kids there would take it all (I believed that this may be true but given the circumstances, I could not police the amount of candy I was shelling.) But surprising enough, at 9:30pm when I brought the bowl back in I had candy left over--chocolate bars and gummy fangs-- not just the "trick" candy for the late-comers (in this case would be the gummy corn candy from an Asian grocery store that, much to my horror, was not only shaped like corn but had the taste of corn also.) And it must be said, the rest of the chocolate bars I will not go to waste and as for the corn candy. . .well, there is always next Halloween.
Although I am still away from the place of my birth, it doesn't feel as far as it once did. Frequently I am there, emptying out what will by my house (someday) and where I will live starting October. Last weekend I reaffirmed any thoughts I had that I was coming back to family and no, even after two years, I will never be a stranger.
And I was nervous. I appeared like a potential unwelcome guest, with an extended invitation only from a few people I knew well from my adolescence. But last year the lines were drawn between who is welcome and who is not in order to keep the peace. And it isn't always clear when or when not these boundaries will be enforced, although family comes first and family is always protected. Knocking on the door I wondered on which side I fell.
I really can't speak for the thousands of others that live in my destination, but personally I can say that I've never felt the love anywhere that I have experienced in the city of my birth. I can't imagine in any other place being welcomed after showing up two years later (and in the eyes of some, barely recognizable when contrasted against the memories my old appearance) and been fed and at 6 in the morning, covered with a blanket while I dosed on the coach while waiting for someone I haven't seen in about four years (who was asked by someone I just met) to give me a ride back home. And an invitation was extended to me for a similar event next weekend.
The truth is I never really left. This place, these people, has always been my home. Like everyone else who circulates through the doors, I was in a transient state. A boomerang. No one (except perhaps maybe me) had any doubt of where my heart was. Transitioning back is easier when you know that the sensation of home and family wasn't something you imagined.
And I was nervous. I appeared like a potential unwelcome guest, with an extended invitation only from a few people I knew well from my adolescence. But last year the lines were drawn between who is welcome and who is not in order to keep the peace. And it isn't always clear when or when not these boundaries will be enforced, although family comes first and family is always protected. Knocking on the door I wondered on which side I fell.
I really can't speak for the thousands of others that live in my destination, but personally I can say that I've never felt the love anywhere that I have experienced in the city of my birth. I can't imagine in any other place being welcomed after showing up two years later (and in the eyes of some, barely recognizable when contrasted against the memories my old appearance) and been fed and at 6 in the morning, covered with a blanket while I dosed on the coach while waiting for someone I haven't seen in about four years (who was asked by someone I just met) to give me a ride back home. And an invitation was extended to me for a similar event next weekend.
The truth is I never really left. This place, these people, has always been my home. Like everyone else who circulates through the doors, I was in a transient state. A boomerang. No one (except perhaps maybe me) had any doubt of where my heart was. Transitioning back is easier when you know that the sensation of home and family wasn't something you imagined.
A book I ordered Sunday night arrived today in the mail. With it were complimentary bumper stickers from the person who sent me the book. One of the bumper stickers: Eat a pizza with Satan. Obviously on 06/06/06 it is an omenbut not because of the sticker, because something I ordered took only two days to get here being shipped via USPS media rate. TWO DAYS! The warning labels under media rate say to expect your book(s) to take 7-14 days and at times theyve even taken up to a month to get to me. This must be a sign from the great beyond telling me to parade the streets and hand out the end is near leaflets.
Sadly, I ordered these three months ago express shipping in preparation for this grand 06/06/06 occasion and theyve yet to arrive.
Sadly, I ordered these three months ago express shipping in preparation for this grand 06/06/06 occasion and theyve yet to arrive.
On Sunday night the airports were graveyards. The passengers that would have flown that day delayed their plans for the Monday-long weekend. Not me, though. Day off is a relative concept when you are primarily self-employed. All I could think about was noise and acrylics, the way the wheels rolled over dirty tiles on the way to the x-ray machine . . . and the 5 pound bag of soybeans in my checked luggage. The small comforts that only a big city can provide.
Its funny. For two years running I always seem to skip town on the week that marks a potential anniversary. The irony of deliberately making mental notes of occasions Ive decided to forget doesnt escape me. In certain instances its good to be gone.
Its funny. For two years running I always seem to skip town on the week that marks a potential anniversary. The irony of deliberately making mental notes of occasions Ive decided to forget doesnt escape me. In certain instances its good to be gone.
Soon to be another cog in the machine (if all goes as planned.) But there are so many things that can get in the way of a destination. Sometimes I agonize over the little things, simple things: missing my train, crossed wires, accidentally standing up a stranger (as well as friends, but people I know well might understandnot that it is an excuse) etc. And I like all my Ts dotted and Is crossed (har har) before I jump into something, which set me apart from my friend anyway. I do not look forward to the opportunity to relive my last trip: stuck in transition, running 8 blocks the wrong way following directions to the subway . . . restaurant. Perhaps next time I should be more specific about these things.
I took a nap before going to work at the library yesterday and I look back upon it with great fondness. I suppose that says something about how little Ive been sleeping or how tired I am lately when I think about that 1-hour nap and I equate it to some level of bliss. Like remembering an old friend or a past affair; it filled me with a subtle happiness while I plodded through ridiculous amounts of work today. Remember that nap I took . . . yesterday? It is funny how it feels as if a much long time has passed.
Sometimes I am completely overwhelmed by coincidences. It as though Ive crack the shell of the communal unconscious and managed to slip inside. Somehow shadow the mimicker.
Whoops. Well, we'll see. . .
Whoops. Well, we'll see. . .
