dread + the city

got word today that a friend in nyc is being evicted from her place. the building has been condemned by the city and tenants have to clear out. this morning i saw a frantic post from her on fB to friends in brooklyn. the girls of course came to the rescue! she had convalesced at their place after getting her wisdom teeth pulled.

what saddens me is that this is yet another stroke of grave misfortune for a woman i met randomly waiting tables at a cafe restaurant in east harlem. i was trailing and unlike most people in the restaurant biz training you, it's sink or swim, baby. keep up or die tryin. she actually took the time to decipher the broke-down POS system for me, stayed after closing to share a glass of wine and we swapped our dreams of being groovy get-down artists in the big apple. our second chance as we were into our mid-30s at the time. she had come back from arizona, myself from cali, having left new york years before when i finished art school. but the difference between us is that i knew when the tough get going and can't find a job, while the bills keep piling up, and the sublet fell through with friend-turned-psycho, and having my cats in tow and stuff in storage on varik street and the money running out.. the tough go back home and re-group.

she stayed; eeking out a hustle here, a hustle there (rarely involving her photography) and an endless string of men somewhat good, but mostly bad to keep her afloat. she drank heavily and she partied incessantly. she got insanely thin even for her already petite frame. she bounced from one 'boyfriend's' place to another and residential hotels in between.

i knew bits and pieces of her past, but over time threaded together a woman from an affluent background. (she once mentioned having to pay for her parents' extensive art collection in storage back home. art collection?) i guess the parents were gone, but there was a brother who she had some on-going static with over the very costly lease (or payments?) for a high-end truck.

she had lived in europe for several years in the 1980s being arty and fabulous. she was well-educated and culturally sophisticated. she had been working professionally on photo shoots in california and the southwest. she knew people, but it seemed they had forgotten about her . several years ago, she got a job in the rothschilds household in the city. yeah, that family of insanely old school (18th century!), old world european wealth in international banking and finance. she said their art collection was amazing. a driver would pick her up and take her to the 'residence'. i was enthralled and fascinated with her anecdotes. she had hoped one day, to get some of her art into someone's face. a rothschilds as benefecator is certainly big time.

then health problems began to plauge her; abnormal pap smears, possible HPV, pre-cancerous cells on the cervix. all of this she would play off with her usual ironic and acerbic wit. on the occassion we've stayed in touch, she became more and more disconnected, nonsenical and angry. i've deleted her 'sounding like a crazy lady' replies on fB a few times...what ...? little asides about my ethnicity i found offensive; well yeah, but you're not full black. say what? underlined i felt with some displaced disappointment that she isn't any bit black. i stopped talking about race with her after that; keeping things in the safe zone of art and intellectual bantering. waiting for godot! going to the goog! etc.

eventually i stopped talking to her directly because i sensed a cool person caught up in a deep black hole (i have enough of that with immediate family, thanks!). i keep tabs on her through a mutual friend, who is herself a generous and sweet soul. i spoke to her today about the situation and she was on her way to long island, but seemed a bit distressed at her staying long-term given the highly negative space she's in.

still despite all her ups and downs and hard times, she's never simply gone home. it's as though misery loved being miserable in gotham; a harsh place to be falling apart. but she's in my thoughts and i pray for her.

leave her to heaven

one of my favorite movies from hollywood's golden age is leave her to heaven with gene tierney (one of the most gorgeous women of the era) and cornel wilde. it was the fatal attraction melodrama of its time, but much more quaint and subtle. no obsessed knife-wielding woman here; it's all in the crazed, desperate eyes of gene's character, ellen; her hands in knots as her desperate love for her husband gradually becomes more self-destructive.

there's some issues with the characterizations, taken into the context of the social mores of the time. women of a certain class in america spoke with a discernible north-atlantic accent, were impeccably groomed and dressed and only worked in the home or supervised work in the home. they were refined and educated solely for the purpose of marrying well. hollywood dished up this image of perfection for generations; much like the bad people pay for their bad ways and good people prevail or make saintly sacrifices narrative. there were no gray areas in the american experience (the production code adhered to this strictly through moral fascism and censorship). it was a simpler time; long before audiences became more sophisticated and the cultural landscape of america began to change.

what i love about this movie primarily is gene t. she's a scene stealer in her expressions and the subtle hits of mania hidden underneath her cool and appropriate exterior. she can say nothing and still drop a bomb on everyone in the room with her energy. by comparison, other actors do their parts effectively, but not quite so captivating. gene simply had the most interesting and complex role. her suffocating sense of love is explained through dialogue that she was fixated and obssesive over her father who has passed away. how she, her mother, and sister survived this creepy reverse-oedipal daddy issue drama is never really explored. her mother states, in some form of denial maybe, that 'there's nothing wrong with ellen, she just loves too much.'

in old hollywood lingo, love was the code word for everything good, salacious, evil, noble, sexual and destructive that motivated a human being to do anything. 'do you love her?'
'why yes, yes i do. quite desperately really.' translates into i want to fuck her so bad i can taste it.

the production design by art director Lyle R. Wheeler is stunning; the interiors are painstakingly detailed in the couple's lakeside house, back of the moon and the family's colonial beachfront cottage. one of the earlier color films (cinematographer Leon Shamroy won an Academy Award for his work), everything is in deeply saturated tones of blues, reds, browns, teals and yellows. fascinating to look at even though i doubt gene's lipstick palette actually existed in the real world; it beautifully contrasted or complimented her costume changes.

at the heart of the story is ellen's obsessive love for richard and lack of self. when richard's younger brother danny is given doctor's approval to live with them at back of the moon, ellen tries to no avail to talk his doctor out of it; feeling danny's presence an intrusion. her mother and sister come to visit, she becomes sullen and rude and then sees the friendly disposition between richard and her sister, ruth, as a threat.

ellen although beautiful and impeccable on the surface, is a train wreck of a human being. through a series of events she opportunistically either eliminates people richard also cares about or alienates them from their lives. she deliberately injures herself and miscarries their baby, seeing the baby as competition for richards's affection.

finally, the truth revealed of her twisted love for richard and her obsessive, destructive actions, he leaves her, but not without ellen taking one final bizarre act of revenge.

classic melodrama!
draq queen kitty

insomniac hottness

below was written during one sleepless night. some funny stuff me thinks. enjoy!
frohawk



it's fucking hot in the bay! okay, it's not caribbean hot, but it dayum hot. can't sleep. so i'm writing this and listening to gare du nord.

i've had some strange moments. like the creepy trailer parents and their hifey kid at grocery outlet one afternoon. everywhere i went in the store, i kept crossing their path. i would divert and bump into them again. their energy was disconcerting. it's a bit like having to adjust your pace to someone moving at the same speed and same direction you are. 'am i freaking them out? are they freaking me out?' or 'am i freaking myself out?'

on a run one night for coconut bliss ice cream (which btw is the bomb!) an employee at the ec natural market asks me if i need help, they're closing soon. i'm right near two other women he says nothing to. for some reason i'm singled-out. i was polite, 'i'm fine thanks.' but he seemed uncomfortable as though he was made to approach me. later i thought, wtf. did i look like a shoplifting thug eyeballing the bulk bins. maybe so. i was wearing my puffy jacket and yoga pants. you can stash a lot of bulk nuts in yoga pants.


***

spring. i love this time of year, paticularly around the bay. a lovely season to hike out to the coast. ladies and gentlemen, barbra - on a clear day you can see forever.

during class today i became conscious that my hands were clasped in a knot of stressed outedness. i then became self-aware and relaxed. be joyful in the moment, grasshopper. after that i got the sweetest hug from jaylen, a student who is riley freeman from the boondocks in human form. i kid not! some days i can't even look at him because i start to remember the gangstalicious episodes and i nearly lose my nut.

*****

white people suck. this is scientific fact. i've done the research and have developed this ground-breaking formula: arrogant + snatch all the coolest shit ever which then becomes suck + keep following or eye-balling me around in stores - appropriate my culture yet lack complete understanding + hippie scourge (who've co-opted reggae festivals, thai tattoos, and for naming themselves redwood bark or asstral moon) = wacky whitey. what is it they are lacking? identity?

disclaimer: my mother is not included in my formulation since she's 100% italian and therefore does not fall into the anglo-saxon determinate which my theory is based on.


*****
invasion of the mosquito hawks. there is a plethora of these big aerodynamically challenged creatures invading my apt. some live, others die (otome hunter), but as long as they get them nasty skeeters that feast on my mulatto blood i am so cool with their presence. trundle on, my culicidae critters!


****
i've come to the conclusion that i am not that interesting, but i have done interesting things. there are some really interesting people in the world however such as this dude. alas he passed away. insane artist freak. i actually saw his ass at a gay club in nyc. his costumes were amazing.

****
one of the most joyful things i've come across in awhile were fotos of a friend's trip to japan. this was broken up into several parts over several weeks as he zig-zagged between osaka, hiroshima, kyoto, and tokyo. some beautiful images, detailed well-written captions, and at times hilarious obervations. i still laugh thinking about the deer on an island off the coast of hiroshima that freaked him out. 'plague carriers'. (lol)


****
i said, 'gentelmen don't wear their pants like that.'
'only pimps!' ulysses stated.

jade sells her death : V1N4

this is england
banksy's stencil graffiti of jade with a pound sign on her forehead and vultures circling above

one of the oddest things i've been reading about lately is that of jade goody's tale of woe. she's a a 27 year old reality tv star in the uk from the show big brother. she shot to fame there in 2002 and last year she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. this month she was told her illness is terminal and everything which occurs in her life is now being taped for ITV2 in england.

it gets better. her beau jack tweed, a dude of only 21, (and recently released from jail for assault) proposed to her after she was given her prognosis. they're got married in late february near hatfield heath. jade also has two young sons from a previous relationship and has stated that the media circus documenting her illness is for the financial security of her kids.

and she's making bank as a dying woman. TV, writing a column for OK! magazine, books, and a perfume called Shh (no kid!) that outsold beckham in the UK. although the economy is in the tank there as much as it is here, jade's wheelins and dealins seems impervious to it.

it is odd, but at the same time seems relative to living in an age of 'reality' tv where everything is for consumption and scrutiny all the time. people are making a living from being documented; taking a wee, eating, fighting, failing, succeeding, and now...dying? it is morbid, but
is also an extreme form of getting one's hustle on in the modern age - that is the sale of one's own death.

it's become so grotesque it's as though she no longer exists in the mortal realm. she exists in the realm of illusion, but in the context of a human and very nearly ending young life. i asked a friend in london what she thought about it all, since she sees more jade hype 2-4-7 on her side of the pond:

i'm sick and tired of hearing about her. she is trash. i feel so so bad for her children. aside from that i don't care. thousands of women suffer and DIE of cancer every year in this country alone and they are often single mothers or struggling families that have to 'make do' and cant afford proper care or treatment!

she is totally exploiting the media! and what rubbish is this of her even trashier boyfriend asking her to marry him... can anyone smell dinero? in her will! he marries her, he gets half... surprise surprise! they broke up and recently got back together. its sick that he manipulates her like that too! but what really gets me angry is that she was called up by the hospital to come in for a checkup and review of her samples and she ignored it numerous times till it hit the point of no return.

do u know how privileged we are in this country to have the facilities and the resources to cater for this need and i guess she is paying for her own ignorance and selfishness. i just pray for her kids. cancer is an awful disease. i've lost family members to it and for her to turn her nose up at it, well its come back to bite her in the arse. good luck to her.

aya

passing strange: V1N3

A young black musician travels on a picaresque journey to rebel against his mother and his upbringing in a church-going, middle-class, late 1970s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood in order to find "the real". He finds new experiences in promiscuous Amsterdam, with its easy access to drugs and sex, and in artistic, chaotic, political Berlin, where he struggles with ethics and integrity when he misrepresents his background as poor to get ahead. Along with his "passing" from place to place and from lover to lover, the young musician moves through a number of musical styles from a background of gospel to punk, and then blues, jazz, and rock. He finally returns home.

Passing Strange : New York Times / Theater

cine-o-files : V1N4

still from hunger

the joy of film. loves it; artistry, narrative, the gorrific, and the bombastic. that is when it's good, which is about 10% of anything ever made - ever. so here's a recent rundown i've things seen in the past months. the good, the bad, and the ugly.

alexander - oliver stone's opus to alexander the great is pretty cool during the opening battle scene at gaugamela where alexander defeats the persian king darius. after that it's a hot mess except jared leto as the hardly speaking hotness of hephaestion , alexander's longtime companion and lover (unfortunately these two do not get it on; just lots of lingering gazes and man-love hugs). angelina jolie is hilarious as his dionysian worshiping and snake wielding mother olympias. i'm not sure if her pseudo-slavic accent was intended as a joke or her wacky artistic impression of this woman. she really does sound like 'rotten moose and squirrel' natasha. rosario dawson plays alexander's persian wife roxane who other than some lovely costumes and getting naked; this role was a waste of her time. val kilmer seems to be having a ball as alexander's father king philip II; bloated and drunk in nearly every scene. it's no challenge for him at all unless there's some method to playing a bloated and perverse monarch. be loud, gross, wield a goblet and wear a toga!

overall poo-poo ca-ca, although i would have delighted in more gay sex.

hunger - an amazing film by visual artist steve mcqueen about imprisoned IRA protester bobby sands who went on a hunger strike in 1981 with several other political prisoners. every single shot is a work of art and there isn't much dialogue except for an extended one-take scene between bobby and his priest whom he informs of his final and fatalistic decision to protest by sacrificing his own life. not much to say other than it's a stunning piece of work.

super faboosh!

quantum of solace - my first daniel craig as bond movie. he's quite hot, sullen, lethal and carries much more charisma than brosnan ever did. the production design in stunning; from the MK12 title sequences down to the graphic interfaces they designed for scenes at M15. (these cats are graphic design pimps!) the locations from siena, italy to london, to panama (as haiti), as well as locations used in chile. gorgeous! it's all here; the lovely revenge-seeking assassin, a few cool gadgets, the tom ford suits, some prada thrown in for la femme, and amazingly choreographed stunts. big ups to mr. craig for doing his own! paul haggis wrote the script; the same dude who wrote and directed crash.

fun bombastic!

here.i.ams : V1N3

it's been some time, but for sometime i haven't had much to write. things have been relatively...mellow. reflective, chill, calm, and relaxed. states that suit my natural vibe these days. i facebook a lot, but it's cool i can criss-cross the earth hollerin to friends. i actually know most of the people in my 'network'. facebook is based here in the bay area, but i learned about it thru several of my girls in europe two years ago (early 2007...when i came home after months in central america + mexico and didn't know about fB or youtube at all. i had been blissfully out of the loop).

i teach four days a week and it's the coolest. 'mslisa' is becoming a familiar sound to me. 'mslisa, look!' 'mslisa, i need help!' my students know me. i even receive hugs and have chats and their ability to reason often astonishes me. i'm certain i'm a maternal figure to them and i relate to them as though they were my own, which in a sense they are. my lovely african chillruns i call them. i've been introducing meditation exercises and nothing is as precious as a pair of 6 year old hands in lotus. i collaborate with my co-workers on aquatic environments, atomic science, and making playdough out of flour, water, food coloring and tartar.

a friend had a dream i showed up on her doorstep in...iceland. i had taken a detour at greenland.
there i appeared and she fed me herring and hot tea.

i've gotten deep into reading blood meridian. i watched body of lies (slick, at moments funny, entertaining, but hardly deep), madagascar (eh, although points for the east Indian lemur, the pilot penguins, and the english chess-playing monkeys in top hats chomping on cigars. probably would be funnier if one were high). the blue angel (a classic), gangs of new york (although about the irish it was filmed in italy at cinecitta. i love it for the production design). che: part 1 (excellent and en espanol), and to sir with love (a favorite poitier movie from 1967, his most prolific year as an actor and the year i was born).

i listened to obama today talking with the white house press corp. dude is cool. he's mindful of his words, thoughtful, and articulate. i'm optimistic about a future with him as prez. he gets a lot of static about his smoking habit, but he is a far superior individual to the bumbling bafoonery we'd been cursed with these past eight dreary years.

by the way i myself really need to quit smoking. it's tired and nasty like a salty, drooling dog.

a friend was in town from LA, on her hustle working the african health con in oakland this past weekend. she's determined to be self-sufficient in her life. despite any challenges or tribulations she's confronted with she's always full of energy and radiant. her young son will be an extremely tall dude one day. she also came with a friend who prayed at my altar. when i offered him tea he said, 'receive' (nice!). a handsome and soft-spoken brother, he's collaborating on a project in LA called 'green african'. how cool is that, i thought. he looked at me intently and when i asked him why he said, 'reflection'. dude was one of those people that take their time no matter the circumstance. just so chill and mindful. he wore a lovely mud cloth wrap around his shoulders.

a colleague gave me raw coffee beans from ethiopia. she had been there for several weeks attending a wedding in addis ababa. i thought to roast these at home and drink it, but instead i've been handing them out to friends as an offering. abundance from the homeland!

struck by my second cold this season. dangit. one of the pitfalls of working with youth, but it's purposeful and that makes me content.

the world in transition. i think eventually movie theaters will be a thing of the past. unless something is a smash it goes to DVD within 6 months or maybe 3; sometimes direct if it doesn't pre-screen well. the gap seems to shortens more and more. and now there's technology for movies in iPod / iPhone format, download them to your toaster, your phone, your toilet. i see it coming, people. the age of the klingons with cloaking device mode wired to our gadgets.

no lie. have you seen or heard of the pomegranate? this shiz makes coffee (seriously), can be used as a razor, harmonica, and has voice activated language translation. serious trippy sci-fi! i can't imagine how much this will sell for. gobz.

i found two movies that went under the radar of theatrical distribution: miracle at st. anna and * rec. heard of these? if not, please read on....

miracle at st. anna was directed by spike lee and follows four buffalo soldiers of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division who get trapped near a small Tuscan village on the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign of WWII after one of them risks his life to save a boy. i did a little diggery and the film was financed and produced in italy, which explains why there was barely any word of it here. i've always been compelled by spike's fascination with italians; particularly the cultural discord between new york blacks and italians. mobs, his love of pizza, his disdain for bensonhurst, howard beach, jungle fever. i always get a giggle out of his sometimes exaggerated, salacious depiction of this love-hate relationship he has.

st. anna is not the best spike movie ever, but it is far better than girl six or she hate me. the yin(light-skinned, roughneck) brother debates the yang (dark-skinned, upright) brother as usual. the id and ego of the blackman. martin vs. malcolm. they also vie for the affections of a local woman, rennata. there's lots of (poorly staged) action, dialogue in english, italian, and german, flashbacks and sub-flashbacks, and a few cameos of actors he works with regularly. you have moments of 'what the fuck?' but you're still compelled to see how the narrative resolves itself. one scene set in a diner in louisiana resonated of an experience my father had while stationed in north carolina.

*rec is a spanish horror film released in europe in 2007. this is so wildly creepy and cool the americans (as usual) snatched it and remade it into fug-duggery called quarantine. see the original and it wouldn't hurt to read subtitles....or learn espanol. better yet, learn spanish while reading subtitles! boycott american remakes. hollywood should just stick to the tried and true formulas of romantic comedies, high school musicals, super everyday-guy heroes, spy kids, and magic negros.

another under-the-radar DVD hit i read about was fireproof. the film poster shows a couple in silhouette in the background and in the foreground a pair of interlocked wedding bands, cast in glowing light. huh? lifetime movie, maybe? no this is an independent faith-based film about keeping that bond with god and your spouse no matter what. i kid not. and it was a serious hit with the protestant, christian-right crowd. these types of movies don't appeal to me personally because i don't get hyped about conventional values as art. what if your spouse is a psycho killer, abusive, a raggety ho, or sits on his ass all day talking shit? i highly doubt conundrums such as these would be easily resolved by having a rap session with one's pastor over tea. if faith is a component to a story or a character's experience i prefer tyler perry or td jakes. movies where woman souljah on alone, their faith in god steadfast; released from prison, in recovery, full of forgiveness for their evil children, they walk victoriously into the sunset.

also of note the DMV is a crooked operation. but there are worse alternatives such as riding the 72 down san pablo in the evening. a bit banana hectic.

much love
mslisa