Quote of the…

January 4, 2010 by Syreeta

Day? Maybe of the week. A friend passed along a recent interview with The Wire creator, David Simon.

It’s one thing to recognize capitalism for the powerful economic tool it is and to acknowledge that, for better or for worse, we’re stuck with it and, hey, thank God we have it. There’s not a lot else that can produce mass wealth with the dexterity that capitalism can. But to mistake it for a social framework is an incredible intellectual corruption and it’s one that the West has accepted as a given since 1980—since Reagan. Human beings—in this country in particular—are worth less and less. When capitalism triumphs unequivocally, labor is diminished. It’s a zero-sum game. People paid a much higher tax rate when Eisenhower was president, a much higher tax rate for the benefit of society, and all of us had more of a sense that we were included….I guess what I’m saying is that the overall theme was: We’ve given ourselves over to the Olympian god that is capitalism and now we’re reaping the whirlwind. This is the America that unencumbered capitalism has built. It’s the America that we deserve because we let it happen. We don’t deserve anything better. The Wire was trying to take the scales from people’s eyes and say, “This is what you’ve built. Take a look at it.” It’s an accurate portrayal of the problems inherent in American cities. Continue reading →

Bartleby.

December 16, 2009 by Syreeta

I read Bartleby, the Scrivener in the eleventh grade. It was required reading for IB English I at my high school.

For the uninitiated, Bartleby was a scrivener, a writer, if you will, who worked for a real estate lawyer. Our modern tongues would define his position as ‘administrative assistant’, or ‘paralegal.’ And while the narrator of the story itself suggests that Bartleby offered no indication of any emotion to his circumstance, I’d submit that underneath the veil of ambivalence, Bartleby hated his job. Bartleby was bored out of his mind. Bartleby only offers a very controlled and passive response to all the directives issued by the boss, ‘I prefer not to.’ We watch this détente between boss and employee unfold over a period of time, and the slow degeneration of Bartleby, the office relocates and Bartleby, the everyman working in the offices of a boom economy, condemned to banal tasks of recording mortgages, deeds for would-be moguls, all the while passively resisting any work that demanded more of his mental mind. The story concludes with the discovery that Bartleby lived in the old offices and died bereft.

Yeah. Continue reading →

My Mental Health Break

December 9, 2009 by Syreeta

via youtube.com

I’ve listened to this track an embarrassing amount of times since its release nearly four years ago. The playful mixture of the score’s optimistic poppy, bubble gum feel, its lyrics of angsty, millennial frustration and Jem’s mellow crooning, can calm a stomach full of butterflies and silence a potty mouth.

Oh wait… maybe that’s just me.

Anyway. Jem is truly outrageous.

Algophobia

December 3, 2009 by Syreeta

flickr image. by 68esc

Fat girls named Precious. I think it begins there for me.

In the 2^nd grade, I was terrorized by a fat girl named Precious. She wore pink berets and ribbons in her hair. She was her mother’s first born. She was her mother’s only child. They lived across the street. My mom insisted that we play together because she was in want of new friends. Precious went to my elementary school.

Precious was a bully.

I didn’t know how to fight back yet.

I got transferred to a different school. Precious moved away. I don’t know what’s become of her. I’m not sure if I care. She was a bitch; a precocious, insufferable, spoiled bitch that had everything. I had government cheese.

So I may be the last black person on the planet that will go see Precious at the theaters. Continue reading →

the things we still carry…

November 13, 2009 by Syreeta

The Fort Hood tragedy raises the tempo on yet another aspect to our health care debate. Mental Health. While we’re still trying to parse out the motives of the shooter (i don’t need to rehash here), it’s clear to me that mental health is at the core. It’s too critical an issue to ignore. I’m not alone. Still, our national conversation about health care has held the issue of mental health at the margins. The fringe right has held the center on demonizing Obama to such an extent that MSM has barely devoted any attention to the individual messages from the President and First Lady about veteran services, particularly treatment for PTSD.

Writers have always been sensitive to this issue. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, is a masterpiece. But it’s more than that. It’s a record. The entire collection of short stories follows a soldier in Vietnam through his return home. I don’t think I can ever really appreciate what these men and women have to endure on our behalf, whether I agree with it or not. You don’t go through an experience like that without it changing you internally.

I’ve never really been able to write in a vacuum. Looking at my own short fiction, I seem to write characters who are veterans. Below is a clip from a very, very old short story I wrote.

He still wore his medals. His Purple Heart. His Medal of Honor. This one liked to talk in fast staccato clichés, yet buried between, there was something of the truth of his horror. Why he’ll never sleep a full night. Why he’ll never be able to work. Why he was homeless. Why his skin was so ashen and colorless. How his homie split into pieces like coal cinders, almost like the big fireworks you see at the top of Reservoir Hill every Fourth of July. They open real big and fall on you like raindrops. That was how he blew up when he stepped on that mine. But it was daylight and it didn’t look purple then white. It was just red. “Man red. Man. Red man. That’s the way… the way of the world…” Behind her was the vet. To her right, through the window she could see the second floor classrooms of the elementary school, their yellow ribbons cut from construction paper hanging like paper snowflakes in the windows. Corin tried to concentrate on the light breaks streaming through the window of the bus as it made its next turning point.

Enrich Maria Remarque’s All’s Quiet on The Western Front, predates O’Brien’s book. It was the first novel I’ve ever read about the realities soldiers face in wartime and their challenges in living ‘normal’ lives in peacetime. Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, also dramatizes the difficulties for a war veteran assimilating back into civilian life. Last fall, my poet friend wondered aloud about our oncoming crisis, as more men and women return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, “They’re returning home to the worse economy since the great depression, after serving multiple tours of duty and the thanks we can give them amount to what? Health care they can barely afford, no jobs, and barely any money to send them to school so that they can work at McDonalds? These were not the ‘freedoms’ we sent them to fight for.”

The current issue of A Public Space features a story by Danielle Evans, giving us a window of the interior life of our new generation of veterans returning from Iraq and trying to recreate ‘normal’.

But Esther couldn’t forget about it. Mindy was on the side of the bus they took to the zoo. Mindy was on the nightly news, and every commercial between kids’ TV shows . Mindy was on the radio, lisping Pop my bub-ble, pop pop my bub-ble. What he felt for Mindy was barely short of violence. He restrained himself from shouting back at posters, and the radio, and the television: What is your position on civilians in combat zones? Mindy, what’s your position on waterboarding? Mindy, do you think Iraq was a mistake? He got letters occassionally, from people who were still there -one from Jones, one from Ramirez, three from guys he didn’t know that well and fgured must have been lonely enough that they’d write to anyone. He hadn’t read them.

Evan’s story takes on PTSD directly while her main character looks at it sideways. More recently, we’re seeing films emerge that dig deeper into the lives of men and women at war. Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, although mostly set in Iraq, gives a contrasting snapshot when a soldier comes home. Faced with the banal reality of home, the main character goes back. Not really an outcome we’d all assume. I plan to see Brothers, which comes out in December. From the previews alone, it flags another issue that the military is forced to be honest about. General Casey expounds further in his recent interview on Meet The Press.
From the NYT:

General Casey acknowledged that fighting two wars at the same time have put strains on the Army and its soldiers. But he said the Army had taken steps to ensure that soldiers are prepared for the mental stress of combat and treated well if they suffer psychologically.

“We’ve also worked very, very hard to enhance what we’re doing to — for the mental fitness of the force,” he said on “Meet the Press. “ He cited a “stigma reduction program” started in 2007 that “resulted in about a 40 percent increase in soldiers willing to come forward saying they have some symptoms of post-traumatic stress.”

He said that last year the suicide rate exceeded the civilian rate for the first time and as a result the Army is spending $5 million to have the National Institute of Health study the problem. More recently, he said, the Army has started a program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness designed to give soldiers skills “to build the resilience to deal with some of the challenges that they’re facing.” will provide us with another window into the struggles of veterans returning home and challenges their caregivers face.

Our generation is overwhelmingly defined by one word: Iraq. The first short story I ever wrote is from the point of view of a woman who shares a bus ride with a Vietnam vet during the first gulf war. The first decade of the 21st century is dominated by the fact of war. For almost twenty years, Iraq has been part of my imagination and nightmare. I wonder about the lasting effects of two wars on our overall psyche. I wonder still if there will ever be any relief from the weight of all these things…

The Berlin Wall, 20 years gone – The Big Picture

November 11, 2009 by Syreeta

via boston.com

I was a freshmen in high school in 1989.

What I remember most about that moment is not the continuing coverage from our three national news networks, but a visit from two West Berliners in my World History class. We were talking about the sweeping changes in Eastern Europe. It was the last week of October. And I asked them if they thought the wall would come down. I remember how quiet the room got when I asked the question. I remember the look of controlled hope and sincerity behind their eyes. One of them responded and said, ‘Dear God I hope it does.’

Some in my class didn’t believe it was possible. When they left, I said to someone, ‘that wall is coming down.’ We’d taken many history classes together, class trips… most of the kids in my freshmen World History class had been in classes with since Golda Meir Elementary. We debated what we understood of world affairs between periods and lunch. We had studied much history together. American History, the Cold War, World War 2, transatlantic slave trade, pogroms. Some of my classmates remained skeptical.

Three weeks later, Jeremy runs to class saying to me, ‘You called it! You called it! How’d you do that? How’d you know it would come down?’ I can’t say now that I knew anything. Now, I can only say that people dream in a common language. And if you saw the truth in the eyes of those two West Berliners in my class in the fall of 1989, three weeks before East Berliners took sledgehammers to concrete, you’d know it was coming. All I can say is that in that moment, I felt the urgency of now, the change that was coming and bent toward the arc of history and watched walls come tumbling down.

remember, remember the 5th of november

November 5, 2009 by Syreeta

Allison Kilkenny takes a deeper look.

A quest for accountability really was the root of Fawkes’s plot. Admittedly, he picked the crudest, most violent means to express his disdain for the governing principles of the royals. However, a suppressed people who feel they lack representation in their government usually lash out in “uncivilized” ways. Human beings can only be beaten, mistreated, and marginalized for so long before they snap.

[snip]

The oligarchy is misbehaving once again. Corrupt, overfed, and cruel to their constituents – who are poorer, sicker, and angrier than ever — the residents of the Houses of Power should not raise their brows in surprise when a flaming effigy floats by them. It’s just a sign that the people finally recognize the true villains of history — and it’s not some dead dude who wore a funny hat.

Despite the awesome casting choice of Hugo Weaving as “V” in V for Vendetta, the film overall was… meh. However, watching and reading the news of our times now, the film still resonates. The fact that I value fake news over the establishment, a flu pandemic, the backlash and undeniably repressive stance our fellow Americans take against same sex couples, the fact that we’re debating the legalities of torture and fail to hold ourselves accountable to our own rule of law. Jeez, am I stealing plot lines from a Hollywood blockbuster or am I talking our lives now? Even today, the “Right” and its fringe are convening a rally bemoaning the ‘loss’ of American values and whining about persecution because of the specter of universal health care reform or in its most weakest incarnation, the public option.

This speech in the beginning of the film totes the line between fiction and reality.

Crazy right? Personally, I’m interested in topics and solutions in our national conversation that lead toward a sustainable future. I’m not a mother yet, but I’m an aunt and godmother to some. Somehow, during this time of great difficulty, more of us will have to rise to the occasion and make the ‘right’ choice: to affirm life.

Remember, we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.

never dreamed you leave in summer…

September 24, 2009 by Syreeta

I don’t think we could have ever anticipated that the Summer of 2009 would be marked by the passing of giants and innocents.

Neda Agah-Soltan

Farrah Fawcet

Ed McMahon

Michael Jackson

Walter Cronkite

Shem Walker

John Hughes

Eunice Shriver

Ted Kennedy

Patrick Swayze

A generational struggle continues in Iran, despite Ahmadinejad’s ‘re-election’. And as that conflict still unfolds in the limited information we’re able to gather from the internets, our own civil society bristles in a debate that’s ostensibly about regulation and values. The racial animus came out of the box swinging, masked in rhetoric questioning the legitimacy of the president’s citizenship.

While we debated the race/class conundrum surrounding Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates’ arrest in Cambridge, an army veteran in my own neighborhood was shot and killed by undercover police officers at his front door step.

This wasn’t exactly a reprise of the Summer of Love. Perhaps this summer will be remembered as the Summer of Mourning. Mourning the deaths of young dissidents in Iran, mourning the death of cultural giants, lions of the senate, trusted men of journalism, and artists that defined a generation. And in their wake, I wonder how will we fill these shoes they left us.

once in a lifetime…

September 22, 2009 by Syreeta

I’m posting this as yet another ‘stub’.

Indulge me a little bit here. Talking Head’s dance interlude aside, the sentiment and lyrics of this track strikes hyperreal nerves. This track is twenty years old and still struggles with all of our middle class, bourgeois aspirations. Compounded with my Mad Men obsession and simultaneous crash course in Feminist history (I’m currently reading Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique) and the uber-timely post on Huffington Post about modern woman’s happiness (or lack thereof) there seems to be an issue worth looking at closely.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been deeply engaged in conversations with friends, or just people of my generation about the pursuit of happiness. We’re still parsing out our answers. However, the key question for my generation at present, prior to our economic woes, has been, is this it? All the hard work, staying in school, brand name education, mountains of student loan debt, inevitable marriages and mortgages, the job… and we still find that we still trying to find our bliss. I’ve had too many conversations these past two years where people from my generation still feel that something is missing once we achieved some measure of success in our careers, or in owning a home or condo, or marriage or baby. There is this lingering longing that kinda hangs in the ether, some gnawing sensation that says that the individual desires something more that brings them closer to wholeness.

Friedan referred to it in the context of mid 20th century housewives as ‘the problem with no name.’ I’d even posit that ‘the problem with no name’ in early 21st century America cuts across gender, class and ethnicity. I think the problem with no name lives is present in the lives Generation X and the millenials as we try to determine our economic and cultural future going forward.

Same as it ever was? More later.

In The Shadow of No Towers.

September 11, 2009 by Syreeta

I’m talking here about being a child of my time.

When I think of September 11th, 2001, I am thinking more of the days just before it. I am remembering Sunday, September 9th. It was a light Sunday afternoon where Lynne, Bassey, Seed and I met up in Fort Greene, had brunch and then not quite ready to part ways —there was so much more for us to say to each other— we went to Fort Greene Park, hiked up a hill to the highest summit in the park to the Prison Martyr’s Ship monument, laid out a blanket and took in all that was beautiful, young and full. Seed was visiting town from Knoxville and had a gig at the Nuyorican. We talked about writing and music. I brought my camera along, for no particular reason. I had stopped taking pictures for a year after college, but I was getting serious about it again. Seed had an idea for a musical. I think we talked poetry, nationals, dreams, plans… always, always about writing and art. I don’t remember the details of what we talked about. I do remember feeling content and connected. We felt possibility with each other. We were all together. For no particular reason, I looked over my right shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you can see the World Trade Center from here.’ I don’t remember if it was Bassey or Seed or Lynne or if they all said ‘Yeah, you sure can.” I snapped my shutter. We were in the park for hours until the September wind chilled and we decided to go to Chez Oskar for dinner. There are gaps in my memory; they bleed into the following night. That night before, it rained so hard. A punishing and wrenching rain. I thought to myself, God is weeping. I remember earlier in the day that I couldn’t see the towers from the window of my boss’s office at work. The sky was muddy. And my memory flashes to a bar, and there we were again, together. Al had joined us. He had just finished a show at PS122 and we all went to a bar on University Place that wasn’t Reservoir. Al and Bassey spontaneously broke into characters, our private comedy improv group. Seed, Al and Peter took turns wearing my glasses, and goaded me to take their pictures. Elana mocked Al and Bassey’s schtick. Everything was lively and our conversations glittered. We were fully present in our innocence. Before the collapse of towers, before two wars, before Bin Laden, before cancer, before tumors, before…

I was up so late that I barely slept, Seed crashed at my apartment and kept me up talking about his grand idea for a musical he was writing. My dreams were a mashup of Moulin Rouge and Stevie’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. I still woke up at my usual time. And the only thought in my head that morning was that I had been meaning to go to the World Trade Center for days to pick up something I ordered at one of the stores. I remember saying to myself, if I don’t go today, I’ll never go. How was I to know the truth of such words?

I remember listening to the radio because the TV signal was out. Answering my phone to tell everyone that I was home in Brooklyn, that I hadn’t left my house yet. I remember Bassey telling us to come to her apartment. I remember that night we left Bassey’s and went to Park Slope to eat. I had an inexplicable craving for tabouli. I remember that we ran into Matthew who was comforting a friend who worked in the Towers. I remember that Al, Bassey, Lynne and Seed were my family for those days and will always be family because of it. I can’t remember now if Al had worked for American Airlines as a Flight Attendant, but I do remember him saying that he could’ve been working one of those planes because it was a route he’d worked frequently, and if he hadn’t had the gig at PS122, pursuing his art…

But all I know is that we felt blessed to be with each other. We were all where we needed to be, holding each other, waiting for the new world to begin.