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[02 Sep 2005|12:40pm] |
donde esta mi amiga?!?!?!?
can whomever knows when vickie will get home to us in ny give me a call ASAP?? i will do the same if i am the one. i miss vic :o/
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[30 Aug 2005|04:59pm] |
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has anyone heard from Lod?????????????????????????????????????????????????? please please please please please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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| oh yeah.... |
[20 Jul 2005|03:09am] |
and since i havntmentioned it thus far,
i have a boyfriend now :o)
and hes really hott
and he makes me really happy
so i probably wont be posting much....
....because of just that....
(edited to mothers approval) :oP
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| last paper of the sememster!!! :o) |
[25 May 2005|03:11pm] |
And the Band Played On...and on...and on....
“This didn’t have to happen. We could have stopped it,” is what Don Francis, a researcher brought into study a new and terrible virus by the CDC, said to Bill Kraus as he died of AIDS. There are many tragic dynamics as to why the HIV virus was given allowance to spread amongst the American public as it did. There are many horrifying reasons as to why the federal government did not make every effort to contain an epidemic that made entire communities of people understand their own mortality. The two this paper will discuss are prominent among those reasons. They are fear and power.
Stigma is a token of disgrace that is, most always, birthed out of fear. We know from grade school that racism is a product of fear. It is xenophobia at its worst. In the word “homophobia” fear is obvious in the suffix. “Phobia.” So it is not unlikely (sad, but not unlikely) that a virus, as allusive as the HIV virus was, that effected Haitian and Gay communities would birth its own stigma.
This was a time when everyone was afraid. Not only did people were their preexisting fears of such communities as the gay community, immigrant and black communities (like the Haitian), and communities of IV drug users, but there was also fear within those communities. Fear of persecution. Fear to loose newly gained liberties. It may even be true that the fear of newly lost liberties was greater then the fear of dying from an unknown and deadly disease.
In the Castro district of the liberal state of California, gay men found a refuge against the blaring remarks and criticism from the larger society. Here, they opened up bathhouses. These bathhouses were a symbol of their newfound freedom. They found liberation from the idea that the kind of sex they wanted was dirty and unacceptable. It was very important for these men to assert that where they had sex and whom they had sex with was their choice to make. It said that they were human enough to have free will.
At the same time the CDC was beginning to understand that the virus, known at this time as GRID or Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, was sexually transmittable. A case study showed that most of the forty men surveyed acquired the disease from a bathhouse. Thus started the campaign to shut the bathhouses down.
In this case, pre-existing stigmas effected the turn of events in the spread of the HIV virus. As previously mentioned, the gay community had very recently a space in the world were they could be comfortably open about their sexuality. Now, the symbol of that very openness was being threatened by a government agency that was merely speculating (because at this point there was no scientific proof) that the virus was spread through sexual contact, and that the bathhouses housed the majority of gentlemen spreading this disease. And why should the gay community put any clout or trust into a government agency? This is the same government that people like Bill Kraus, president of the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club, had been lobbing for years to gain Gay rights, and those rights had come slowly, if at all.
But should the bathhouses have been shut down to prevent the spread of HIV? It’s very hard to say. Arguably, it may have helped to prevent more cases from breaking out. However, it seems as though this was just a quick fix in the fervor that the CDC felt to help stop this deadly epidemic from reaching more innocent victims. But this line of reasoning might have ignored the importance of the bathhouses served for the liberated gay community in San Francisco. The point of the matter was that gay men had a choice of who to sleep with, and that they didn’t have to hide behind closed doors to make that choice. In the end, it was the choice of those men who attended the bathhouses not to have protected sex. If not at the bathhouses then, again, behind closed doors. In the end, closing the bathhouses (which finally did happen in 1985) may have only served to further stigmatize the gay community. Without education coupled with action, without people knowing the importance of using condoms and the like, sexually transmitted diseases will still spread. The location of intimacy is arbitrary.
To keep the bathhouses open, the gay community had to fight against old stigmas. In the outbreak of HIV, they now had to fight against new stigmas as well. This is how it was when Jim Curran argued that it was not only unfair, but it was downright inaccurate to call the disease GRID, thereby linking it with the gay community, as if it was a gay cancer. Cases had shown those women, straight men, and even babies could acquire the syndrome. There was no contention from the CDC, who had always despised the acronym GRID. From that point forward the still allusive virus was called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Acquired insisted that there was nothing inherent about getting this syndrome. It didn’t have a sexual preference- and was in fact, not at all a “gay cancer.” With any hope, this new name would alleviate some of the new stigmas being placed on the gay community.
That was one contribution that the bio-medical community made to alleviate the stigma about AIDS. But still, they had much work ahead of them. Very few people understood what the AIDS virus was, and how it was transmitted. There was a degree of hysteria in the American Public concerning the new disease. Nurses quit their jobs rather then work with AIDS patients. City workers refused to get their CPR certification for fear that the demonstration dummy would give them AIDS. Even police and fire departments were issued protective masks in case they had to resuscitate someone who had AIDS, as if this was an airborne virus.
A huge education campaign was needed to educate the public as to how the virus was spread and who could be effected. However, the funding couldn’t be raised even to research a virus that was killing people. The federal government just would not reach into its pockets.
President Reagan was elected for a second term. He was the electorate of the Conservative Party and the religious right in America. He represented, among others, a constituency of people who somehow found it morally objectable to be a homosexual. Because of the role of the Media in spreading the news that the HIV virus was a “gay cancer”, this same constituency opposed the notion of putting tax dollars into researching AIDS. President Reagan, despite the number of lives that were threatened and the number of lives that had already been taken by AIDS, had every intention of serving the people that put him in office, and doing nothing for those who needed him most. In a time where medical research was necessary, and unemployment was vast, President Reagan decided raise funding for the military budget, and cut costs all other places. He was not concerned with virus that gay men, immigrants, and drug users. By the time he would publicly acknowledge the AIDS virus, by the time he would even use the acronym, AIDS had killed over 25,000 Americans.
President Reagan had failed. He was put into a position of great power, and he had failed the American public that he had promised to serve. But blood is on the hands of many of the powerful, as Randy Shilts points out over and over and over again in his book, And The Band Played On.
When taking notes to write this paper, I found myself writing one symbol time and time again. That symbol looked like this: $$$. Money played a huge role in why the AIDS virus spread as it did, and turned into a modern day epidemic.
Not only was research and education not properly funded by the federal government, but also money influenced other leaders of the American medical community. So it was with the blood banks.
Don Francis, who was also a specialist in Hepatitis B research, discovered that the Hepatitis B antibody test was 80% effective in testing for presence of the HIV virus, even before anyone could find a blood test for detecting AIDS in the blood stream. When 87% of sever hemophiliacs acquired the syndrome, the CDC took action and asked the blood banks to start screening their donors, and to catalog the old blood with the Hepatitis B antibody test.
This was a complicated issue, however. Screening new donors meant asking donors about sexual preference, and then discriminating against homosexuals. Homosexuals were one of the leading donor groups for blood banks, and without that valuable venue, they would have to start new campaigns looking for new donors.
Gay activists were also upset about this idea, because it would mean turning gay men away from the blood banks. As noted by the film, And The Band Played On, turning gay men away from the blood bank for fear of AIDS was much like turning black men away from the blood bank for fear of syphilis.
But this wasn’t the only reason that blood banks hesitated to screen for HIV. They also did not want to acknowledge that AIDS was in the blood stream. Testing for Hepatitis B in new donors and back logging already donated blood with take time and money, and lots of both. These were resources that the blood banks were not willing to give, even if it meant saving lives. Don Francis snidely told representatives form these blood banks, in the movie, And The Band Played On, to “Tell us when […] the amount of money you’ll be spending on lawsuits makes it more profitable to save people rather than kill them.” It is hard to believe that this stirringly dramatic statement is an accurate reflection of the politics being played out during discussions between health organizations. Another note was made, later on in the movie, that, “when doctors start acting like businessmen, whom can the people turn to for doctors.”
In power, with money comes prestige, and in the medical community one of the most prestigious scientists didn’t do much to control the spread of the AIDS virus.
Dr. Robert Gallo staked his claim to the AIDS virus because he discovered the first human retrovirus, a form of leukemia he called LAV, and believed the two to be the same. However, while he was busy looking for connections in America, French researchers from the Pasture Institute had been successful in isolated in the AIDS virus and found what they called HTLV-III was different from the virus that Dr. Gallo discovered. Gallo, who wanted to maintain credit for finding the AIDS virus, attested that his virus was the same as virus found by the French. He preformed laboratory misconduct and stole their virus, publishing it as his own. However, the Pasture Institute caught onto this, and publicly announced that it was likely the virus Gallo published was from the same patient that the French examined. This battle for prestige slowed further research that could have been done for a vaccine or a cure for the AIDS virus. It slowed the makings of even a blood test that could detect it. All to be the one to say, “look how great a scientist I am. I have found the AIDS virus.”
Dr. Robert Gallo; President Reagan; the American Media; numerous blood bank board members. These are the names and the people who we can hold accountable for making AIDS the epidemic that it is. But Ani Difranco says, “you can never place blame, because blame is much to messy. Some is bound to get everywhere.” It is not just a few notable names that are to blame for this epidemic, it is the climate of the culture that we create together. A culture that discerns that one group of people is less important then another; a culture who decides that its not worth spending money to research a disease that kills such and such a people.
It is notable that the movie starts out exploring Dr. Francis’ experiences in Africa with the Ebola virus. Though not AIDS, this was still a mortal disease that killed an entire village of people. The difference between these two viruses was that one was contained, and another, not. Ebola could have been AIDS. It could have turned into a pandemic and taken so many lives. But it is also important to note that AIDS could have been Ebola. It could have been contained, and it could have been stopped. Like Dr. Francis said, “This didn’t have to happen.”
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| poety reading |
[20 May 2005|11:37pm] |
Hello my bueatiful friends from every which where, :o)
whats up my dearest motherfuckers? :o) hows it going??? i wanted to let cha'll know that I'll be speaking poetry along side poet Chaka Knice and musicains Andrew Jimenez and Rorie Kelly this saturday, starting at 9 olcock, at the stain bar and cafe in brooklyn. its a specail mix music and poetry show which should be really really fuckin cool!!! :o) so i hope to see you all there :o) because the stain cafe and afore mentioned musicans rock very hard there is NO COVER, i repeat NO COVER....so your asses get in for free!!! plus they serve lots of great wine and the like.....muchos sangrea....so be sure the support your local artist community...'cause stain is a cool place (check it out at www.stainbar.com) and cool places are really important! (ask me about my paper when you get there ;o) ).
i miss the huge lot of you i havnt seen for awhile, and you should know that miss is only a misnomer for love when theres lots of space between people....so even if you dont come out on saturday (and this goes doubly for my queens folks) give me a call so as we can shoot the shit together :o)
all my [crazy little thing called] love,
vickie :o)
ps- the stain cafe is at:
766 grand street
brooklyn, ny 11211
(L to Grand,
1 block west)
718/387-7840
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| four letter words |
[20 May 2005|12:18am] |
Your #1 Match: ENFP
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The Inspirer
You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends.
You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules.
Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives.
You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller!
You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist. |
Your #2 Match: INFP
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The Idealist
You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.
Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.
It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.
But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop.
You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. |
Your #3 Match: ENFJ
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The Giver
You strive to maintain harmony in relationships, and usually succeed.
Articulate and enthusiastic, you are good at making personal connections.
Sometimes you idealize relationships too much - and end up being let down.
You find the most energy and comfort in social situations ... where you shine.
You would make a good writer, human resources director, or psychologist. |
Your #4 Match: ESFP
|
The Performer
You are a natural performer and happiest when you're entertaining others.
A great friend, you are generous, fun-loving and optimistic.
You love to laugh - and you like almost all people equally.
You accept life as it is, and you do your best to make each day fantastic.
You would make a good actor, designer, or counselor. |
Your #5 Match: ENTP
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The Visionary
You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression.
You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything.
Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off.
You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments.
You would make a great entrpreneur, marketing executive, or actor. |
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[05 May 2005|04:33pm] |
My Mama’s in Mythology
My mama’s in mythology
Yeah, she’s in mythology
And I find myself
Reading about her everywhere.
I’ve seen her in worn pages
Or worn photo albums.
Feet in fin, and
So free.
She’s still a mermaid.
She’s so much like me,
Because she is my
Contextualized heroin,
Never missing a letter:
Her palms are open
In the wisest
Way
Like she is the goddess
Athena.
The web weaver.
The spider totem,
She is making us,
Her little mushroom children,
A mural of a tapestry.
Of her past,
And our ancestry,
So we will know
Chromium black and white
Women from Hungry
And cowboy’s named slim
And the girl in the attic, and
Why it is we shouldn’t
Climb under
Football field bleachers.
She is like the creator
I’ve seen her love-laden eyes
In lead pencil skies;
She gives life so well
Through placenta,
Through her acquaintance,
And she keeps life alive
When she speaks in photographs
And holds out her hands
To those same words.
She is a Judea-non-dimensional
Guardian angel
Who I know
Strangers know
Namelessly.
I was worried my mama
Gave up her name,
With her fins
For her children,
But I realize, now,
That a name is as light
As anything.
And those nameless abstractions are
The greatest philosophies.
My mama creates
So much mythology,
And with her open palms, wisely,
She is teaching me
How to relax my fists,
And feel my fingers.
Thank you, mama,
For the loss of your fins.
My mama was a mermaid
But now her strong woman feet
Are the ones that
Tread footprints
Next to mine
While we walk, together,
On the beach.
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| outline for paper :o) |
[02 May 2005|05:23pm] |
Outline for
“Our Hungry Mouths are Full of Words”
Vickie Sliva :o)
Cover Art: Picasso’s “The Café”
“(In)terdependent” –Cairo, Soapbox Entertainment Spoken Word Artist.
Introduction
Experiences at soul kitchen open mic.
Black Lions “we have come accustomed.”
Introduction of Marcuse.
The Stick Man on Lined Paper: Explaining Marcuse.
Explanation of one-dimensionality.
The climate of our culture
Max Weber and the “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”
The terms of rebellion.
The importance of fiction.
What Words We Speak: Poetry as a weapon against one-dimensionality.
Marcuse and the importance of dialect for a collective imagination.
Definitions and redefinition.
English Women’s Poetry: assertion and sexuality in a hostile climate.
The case of the Black Panthers (black is beautiful; cops = pigs.)
“African American Poetry as Vernacular Culture.”
Words as protest.
Poetry from the “Vietnam Vortex.”
Room to Grow: the importance of public space.
“Brave new neighborhoods.”
The case of Long Island Free Space.
A Thunder of ChitChat: dialogue and the open mic community.
Bohemian café’s.
The case of the Pisces café; interview with owner, Jeffrey Auther.
Open “Mike” Night.
Those Who Paint With Shadows: artists who create communities.
“Back pack” open mic’s, make-shift production, and the penniless people that use them to battle one-dimensionality.
The case of Corey Houlihan and Soapbox Entertainment.
The case of Michael Cannatella (Clarity) and New Muse Productions.
Go Somewhere on Thursday Nights: connections and conclusions.
Open Mic Night: space, imagination, and dialogue vs. one-dimensionality.
“Paradoxical JiVE” -Clarity, New Muse Productions Spoken Word Artist.
Bibliography for
“Our Empty Mouths are Full of Words”
Vickie Sliva :o)
(Interviews may or may not have happened yet.)
Aurther, Jeffery. Personal Interview. Apr. 2005.
Barash, Carol. English Women’s Poetry, 1644-1714: Politics, Community, and Linguistic
Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.Weber, Max. The Protestant Bohemia and Counter-Culture Café’s. 28 Apr. <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/>
Brown, Fahamisha Patricia. Performing the Word: African American Poetry as
Vernacular Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick,
1999.
Cannatella, Michael Clarity. Personal Interview. Apr.2005.
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. USA: Charles Scriber’s
Sons, 1958
freeSPACE Social Center: by the kids, for the kids. 28 Apr. 2005 [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<www.lifreespace.org>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] Outline for
“Our Hungry Mouths are Full of Words”
Vickie Sliva :o)
Cover Art: Picasso’s “The Café”
“(In)terdependent” –Cairo, Soapbox Entertainment Spoken Word Artist.
Introduction
Experiences at soul kitchen open mic.
Black Lions “we have come accustomed.”
Introduction of Marcuse.
The Stick Man on Lined Paper: Explaining Marcuse.
Explanation of one-dimensionality.
The climate of our culture
Max Weber and the “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”
The terms of rebellion.
The importance of fiction.
What Words We Speak: Poetry as a weapon against one-dimensionality.
Marcuse and the importance of dialect for a collective imagination.
Definitions and redefinition.
English Women’s Poetry: assertion and sexuality in a hostile climate.
The case of the Black Panthers (black is beautiful; cops = pigs.)
“African American Poetry as Vernacular Culture.”
Words as protest.
Poetry from the “Vietnam Vortex.”
Room to Grow: the importance of public space.
“Brave new neighborhoods.”
The case of Long Island Free Space.
A Thunder of ChitChat: dialogue and the open mic community.
Bohemian café’s.
The case of the Pisces café; interview with owner, Jeffrey Auther.
Open “Mike” Night.
Those Who Paint With Shadows: artists who create communities.
“Back pack” open mic’s, make-shift production, and the penniless people that use them to battle one-dimensionality.
The case of Corey Houlihan and Soapbox Entertainment.
The case of Michael Cannatella (Clarity) and New Muse Productions.
Go Somewhere on Thursday Nights: connections and conclusions.
Open Mic Night: space, imagination, and dialogue vs. one-dimensionality.
“Paradoxical JiVE” -Clarity, New Muse Productions Spoken Word Artist.
Bibliography for
“Our Empty Mouths are Full of Words”
Vickie Sliva :o)
(Interviews may or may not have happened yet.)
Aurther, Jeffery. Personal Interview. Apr. 2005.
Barash, Carol. English Women’s Poetry, 1644-1714: Politics, Community, and Linguistic
Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.Weber, Max. The Protestant Bohemia and Counter-Culture Café’s. 28 Apr. <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/
courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/boheme/bohemiancafes.html>
Brown, Fahamisha Patricia. Performing the Word: African American Poetry as
Vernacular Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick,
1999.
Cannatella, Michael Clarity. Personal Interview. Apr.2005.
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. USA: Charles Scriber’s
Sons, 1958
freeSPACE Social Center: by the kids, for the kids. 28 Apr. 2005 <www.lifreespace.org>
Houlihan, Corey. Personal Interview. Apr. 2005.
Karp, Michael. “Open Mike Night.” Urban Folk. Feb. 2005: 21.
Kohn, Margaret. Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space. New
York: Taylor and Francis Books, 2004.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964.
Mersmann, James F. Out of the Vietnam Vortex: a Study of Poets and Poetry against
the war. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1974 |
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| new poetry (dont read till after open mic!!!) |
[01 May 2005|09:20am] |
DON'T READ THIS TILL AFTER THE OPEN MIC!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!
Am I a poem yet?
There is something
I thought was lonely
Who turned out to be
As nameless
As the smoke in
My amalgamation
Of tin and glass.
I know I am
Something of silver
And the secrete to
Tarnish
Is that it washes off
Every single time.
And single has been something
Of an aspiration
Cause something dually
Noted
Is a note hit too
Lightly
To go deep
I’ve been thinking.
I met the Buddha
Twice the first time
(Being honest and
Paying homage.)
And again a third second more
To make half a dozen.
And then another
On Tuesdays
But he is teaching me
That learning
Is not necessarily
Such an active process
And that mirrors
Are more fleshy then
The tin and glass
I throw together.
And intention
Is tarnish; but tarnish
Washes off
Every time.
If I could have
Any taste in my mouth
Right now
It would be yours.
I look worried when I’m thinking
Be gage of
Hot mirrors,
Beat keepers
But I know
I smile
At remembering
My eyes feel it
In the plumpness
Of my Czech plum checks
And I am dizzy
And warm
Like Slivovitz
Liquor
Like iron
That keeps us
In the moment.
You bring lady
Bugs
From the smalls
Of your eyes
And your
Hans white
Morning after
Standing in the sun beamed
Chest.
You are the something
In my underwear
Drawer
That I never kept
As a teenager.
And I hope you don’t
Mind my assigning
You meanings
But I’d love for
You
To spend the
Night
And I wont think
About the
Morning
Quite yet.
Because what math would there
Be?
When you don’t make sense?
But algebra was
Always fiction
Like lies, and damned lies
And statistics
You don’t make sense
But the point is,
You don’t have to.
Words falling flat on their faces.
I sat on the shitter
With my hands
Over my eyes
Expecting
To dispel water
From some part of
Me.
And so my nose ran.
Fuck.
You or, fuck me,
But fuck someone.
But fuck.
One letter shorter
Then aggression towards
Myself
Which is all you need
To be punk rock
My flat maimed tea bag
Told me so.
I lied and wore
AC~DC on my brothers
Hooded sweatshirt,
And spewed vulgarity
Though I was Slavic
Snow white, getting burnt in the sun
But being not so
Back in black,
As it read under
Capital letters.
When you’re anxious for
July to come,
Everything gives you the shits.
And I find that everything
Is moving.
My bowls moving up through
My nose,
So I can smell
The shit
I need to work through.
And shit-
I’ve got some shit,
That I need
To work through.
So I’m sitting
On the shitter
Round the corner from
Johns closet.
Feel free to come in
And keep me company
Because I’m leaving the door
Open.
But don’t expect
Not to smell my shit
Because shit, if
I don’t go through it
And I’m letting it hang out
All over the place.
The door shut- the door knob.
I’m thinking
That everything new
Is something like orgasm.
Because it feels
So
Good.
But despite
Your own bodily knowledge,
You have to keep your hands
In your mouth
So they don’t swat away
Whatever tongue
Or
Cock
Or finger
That ebbs your energy.
Because people
Who are damaged
Like all people
Must have something
In them that
Keeps then from feeling good.
From wanting
The pleasantries
Of orgasm, or obesity
Or new experience.
Something innate like
A carbon ink cover girl
Or creative like the
Time it takes
To swirl hot tongue
From midsection
To climax.
Are we afraid to
Climb-max-
Or to fall.
And are we always falling in the
Same direction?
From grace, in love,
What_the_fuck_ever.
Is it all the same way?
Once you climax, it
Feels like epiphany.
Like you have realized something
New.
That surges through you.
Like
There are stories of people that
Have died of electrocution.
S&M grodey
Taped to the electric chair
New and fresh
Like your own meat
Just cooked.
Smell in the air
Guilty
And good.
We all know how good feels to orgasm.
But we swat away
Anyway.
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|
| whoaly shit |
[21 Apr 2005|01:56pm] |
SmileAtOldPeople: guess whose a vegitarian
KingOFireNDesire: who?
SmileAtOldPeople: dave dick
KingOFireNDesire: next you'll be telling me brigitte's straight, jesse's working too hard, dennis is a little too happy, and while we're at it, I guess I'm a big fan of emo now.
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|
| extra credit |
[18 Apr 2005|11:41am] |
Vickie Sliva
Extra Credit: Teach in response
Would it be too ludicrous a topic to assert that the one-dimensional world creates a three dimensional person though the shock and horror that person must experience in the armed forces? This is what bore to mind when sitting at the teach in.
We have seen, through our Video Art and Activism class, the effect of shock on an audience. Works like “Hearts and Minds” showed us how devastating war is and what the price of white bread and apple pie really turns out to be after you factor in all the necessary blood shed. I can’t imagine the stomach churning impact of an actual Vietnam, but Iraq must have something of the same effect on soldiers.
Marcuse states that for us to break free of one-dimensional society there must be those who are unemployed or unemployable. Those people who own nothing to the system because the system either provides them with nothing, or mutilates them. Because they have nothing to loose, these people are able to through themselves down on the cogs of the machinery and participate in direct action. We have discussed this in terms of civil rights activists, and revolutionaries in class, but don’t these same actions and circumstances apply to officers abandoning their posts?
The empire needs an army to do its bidding. It is like the market system depending on the proletariat. If these armed workers refuse to fight they are only a force of labor refusing to produce for its money clad masters. You could call this act of refusal a union strike as easily as you could call it treason.
The young man who spoke about his experiences in the armed forces said something profound. “When you say support your troops, you’re agreeing to support them, even if they abandon their posts.” I though that he was remarkable, because he was able to step outside the one-dimensional doctrine spoon fed to soldiers, and Americans at large. He was able to say, ‘hold on, these people are saying one thing, and doing another. What’s going on?’ Furthermore, he wouldn’t participate in something senseless. This is an example of breaking down one-dimensionality because he was able to maintain his rationality apart from the rationality he was prompted to accept.
On a more functional note, I think I could have vomited when the same solider told us that troops are told that the war we’re fighting is a war for oil. In a twisted way, I think I would have been happier believing that our men could fight a war oblivious to what they’re fighting for then to know our men can fight a war knowing how degrading it is to the value of human life. At the same time, because of the poverty draft that was also discussed, I can understand why many may feel obligated to do so anyway. It is an awful situations all around.
I was very glad to see a student organizer brought in to speak. I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with him, and I wish he would have talked more about student campaigns, but I was elated to see him on the panel.
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| Go shorty...its your birfday...we goona party like its your berfday |
[13 Apr 2005|05:53pm] |
A little Anarchy In The Middle
I have always seen you
Streaked in satin oil paint
On some dark material that is not
Framed
Like canvas.
Like you were painted on the back
Of some dead rock star,
But without needles
So the disease never took.
Only the other one did.
So you are a hazy piece of art
Abstract and
I never needed clarification
Because these are the things
You don’t have eyes for
I love you,
My friend.
And your hazy image
Has a black chocolate
Horses tail
Below the blazer and bare chested
Spiked gaze
With your eyes staring out straight
At something
Always.
Its above the legs of an Old Mythology
With hooves that are biblical
But set fire to the book
Like we burnt the 16th chapel
And Divinci’s notebooks
And cremated Dali
Just so someone could
Create again
Your legs are strong for a reason
But you don’t know where to take them.
And I can see your pregnant with your own potential.
And I see you’ve been getting
Thinner
And it looks like you’ve given birth
And I wonder where you’re
Walking to.
They say that Evil is your middle name
But how you have rearranged those letters
To spell honest.
And me.
And a soft big cat hug
With its matching grin attire.
After the car ride-
Containing goodnight-
Its been my favorite sentence
And I wonder if you know
That I believe that youre a demon
But all its made me do
Is know how to love a demon
You and your lessons
Lovely
And I wonder if that’s where your
Walking too.
Hold the pen, tight, my friend
And know how much I love you
Happy Birthday Chaka :o)
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[06 Apr 2005|11:26am] |
speaking of ending up naked on the floor.....
Vasovagal reaction: A reflex of the involuntary nervous system that causes the heart to slow down (bradycardia) and that, at the same time, affects the nerves to the blood vessels in the legs permitting those vessels to dilate (widen). As a result the heart puts out less blood, the blood pressure drops, and what blood is circulating tends to go into the legs rather than to the head. The brain is deprived of oxygen and the fainting episode occurs. The vasovagal reaction is also called a vasovagal attack. The resultant fainting is synonymous with situational syncope, vasovagal syncope, vasodepressor syncope, and Gower syndrome which is named for Sir William Richard Gower (1845-1915), a famous English neurologist. See also: Syncope.
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[03 Apr 2005|02:49pm] |
Alright, my friends,
sexual favors for anyone willing to proofread
(and by sexual favors i mean hugs and cuddles, perhaps spooning)
Our Hungry Mouths Are Full of Words
Paper Proposal
Vickie Sliva :o)
It is late on a Thursday and some of the greatest people I’ve known, thus far, have gathered together at the Pisces café for the “Soapbox-Soul Kitchen” open mic. Though our days at work and school have been long, we are all full of energy. Thursdays are not like the rest of the week. Corey Houlihan and Clarity, two poets, charge in elated. They gather everyone around and so now we are 30 poets, musicians, and friends hovering over a barely hearable recording. They have presented us with one of their great adventures. Through the static, the voice of a poet, called Black Lion, resounds. He is reciting about how, as a people, “have grown accustomed” to various things in our western culture. The poem started a dialogue. Together we questioned the givens we live in and started to separate our beliefs from the larger societal beliefs. Afterward, we shared our hearts and minds with each other through the microphone, opened more dialogue, and asked more questions.
Black Lion spoke about one-dimensionality. These are all the things that we have accepted as absolute and unchangeable; the things that we do not dream against. The dialogue that fallowed was an example of how poets and poet communities, such as open mics, break down one-dimensionality. They establish, in its place, a culture that encourages dreaming rather than attempting to extinguish it. Poets are Marcuse’s goddess Kali.
To understand how poets are a mechanism in breaking down one-dimensionality, we much first understand what one-dimensionality is. It is a concept that Herbert Marcuse describes in his 1964 essay “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society.” It is also illustrated in the texts and video art that we have looked at throughout the semester, as well as in the culture we are currently experiencing in our lives.
The advanced industrial society (North America) is one in which all facets of the imagination are geared towards production. The non-democracy of the United States has at least one basic freedom: the freedom to dream up what you’d like the world to look like. Unfortunately and increasingly this freedom is being stripped away. Our society is based on the Judo-Christian work ethic of all work is hard work, only hard work is rewarded, and anything that is inherently rewarding is not to be considered work. In response to this we only reward those things that produce commodities efficiently and are painstaking in nature.
Because of this, all of our imaginative forces are put to the task of production of merchandise, weather that merchandise be bread or bombs. The worker toils over technical and efficient work all day. He looses the connection he once had with his work (like an artist is connected to her art.) Because he is only a cog in the greater wheel of her industry, the worker has no space to imagine outside the narrow scope of his or her particular duty.
The one-dimensional society establishes a certain way of life that is an assumed normality in any particular situation. Dramatic newscasts about urban poverty and violence are barely reacted to because the ideas of urban, poverty, and violence are all somehow inherently related in one-dimensional society. This is true, as well, for breasts, secretary, and woman and a number of other strings of ideas.
The one dimensional-man is the man who looses his ability to question these cultural givens, because he is hopeless to dream of an alternative world that she should live in. The one-dimensional man cannot destroy the system that he lives in or comprehend his ability to create a different one. She therefore travels in a circle of constant recreation, weather the culture “works” for her or not.
This system is not only a psychological tenet, but also a structural one. Roy starts out her essay on the “New American Empire” stating that she has the privilege to have reflected on her ideas, and to have sat down to write them. This privilege is not rewarded to many in the advanced industrial society. Because of the increasing price of life, and the decreasing living wage, a citizen of the advanced industrial society might be expected to long hours in a job that does not require imagination in order to afford rent, food, and meager forms of entertainment like cable television. This is a good citizen, because she works so hard, and enjoys so few things. She has achieved the highest ethic of one-dimensional society. Paradoxically, though, because of the time she spends outside her imagination, and because of the general mindset of the advanced industrial culture, this worker has found herself stuck.
We can also see grander examples of one-dimensionality through the class texts. In the speech given by the young president of the Students for a Democratic Society to protest the Vietnam War, you need only change “Vietnam” to “Iraq” and “Diem” to “Sadam” and you will find that you have a piece of literature that is completely applicable to our current reality.
This explains a one-dimensional society. The one-dimensional man is the man who accepts this society, and does dare to or wish to imagine anything different. For such a culture to exist, the larger mass of people must accept the conditions they live in. Evidence that illustrates that this is the American culture can be found in the methods of activists. Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter from the Birmingham jail, wrote about the importance of non-violent direct action. In actions such as boycotts, the oppressed black population refused to participate in the system of their oppression. Because of their refusal, the system was no longer allowed to operate as it did. The same goes for rioters. Because they had nothing to offer but civil order, the refused to uphold even that. Because of their refusal to keep the system operating as it normally does, the system is no longer allowed to operate
We have many thanks to give to those who are not so privileged. Because they live outside the system and because they are “unemployed or unemployable” absolute refusal is not only desirable, it is necessary. It is in response to these brave people that parts of the system can be destroyed.
I will attest that absolute refusal is only part of what it takes to destroy one-dimensionality. We have seen through the video art in class that those who are employed, employable, and relatively privileged can also be enlightened to the conditions under which they live. Films like “Hearts and Minds” use graphic images of what our reality looks like from the outside. What reproducing American rationality elsewhere in the world has done, and what destructive forces we are capable of. People used to apple pie and football games see what those same players do when teamed up in a uniform of fatigues. We can see how there are, in fact, other realities and visions other then those that can reproduce our culture. There exists Vietnam in the vision of Ho Chi Mien surrounded by curious children, full of warmth and self-determinism. There is also the vision of civilians bloody from a circumstance that is not there own.
After this awakening, weather it be through dialogue or circumstance, and after absolute refusal to participate in the culture under which we live, there must be creation. It is important to create an alternative to one-dimensional thinking, lest we be subject to a different sort of one-dimensionality. Lest we be activists that cannot conceive of anything valuable that does not have to do with social change and justice. This is the endeavor to dream of the unattainable Utopian society- One that is in no need of change at all.
This is the function of poets, and the culture of poetry. It is there to ask questions, to start dialogues, and to create a collective alternative. It creates a space that is Utopian society, if only for a few hours every other Thursday night. It is bohemian, and it functions only to create connections and community and to encourage people to imagine.
My paper will focus of these poets that create a community out of their shared capacity to imagine. My media figures will not be very recognizable, but those poets on the front line who are struggling to put food on the table. The people who are subject, and constantly bombarded, with one-dimensional culture. Some have been devoured by it, and others are alive and kicking, but all have managed to change minds, and create a place where dreams are valuable and “rational production” is not necessary. I will focus on communities such as Soapbox Entertainment, New Muse Productions, The Vault, and Live and the Tribes. Also, I will focus on poets who intentionally establish community.
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| new poetry |
[28 Mar 2005|12:31pm] |
All Black and Blue
I am pounding my hands
And bruising my wrists
On these ebonies and ivories
Who are meat based in acid.
Washing away my fingertips
To acquire a new handwriting,
And perhaps a new name,
Although nothing is as certain
As the state makes it out to be.
For instance:
“Old soul” is not written
On my drivers license
So I might only purchase
Tobacco, sweet cigars,
As my friends drink on the beach
While I am calf deep
In salt water
Trying to scroll out a new labyrinth
On my smooth palms
Before the sharks swim up
And eat me.
Forgetful.
I am pounding my hands
And bruising my wrists
On these acidic keys.
So much so that the acid
Dances up
Like rain rebelling (for Lucy’s sake)
And hits my face
Burning into blemishes.
I am the rock
So weathered
That my carnivorous caverns
Are as brittle as my fathers
Toenails.
Give me a decade,
And I will be sand.
But no, mama,
Though you would preserve me,
As the historical society you sometimes are,
I will play on.
Play on despite my fingers.
Play on despite my face.
I must play until the song
Is over.
Lest this maddening music
Be anything less
Then the sum of my being,
*Someone’s* got to get it soon.
Lest I play a third symphony
With the ground down calcium
That were my elbows.
*Someone’s* got to get it soon.
Or I’ll be sand
By sunset.
And suffer the quiet,
Calm oblivion
Of the beach.
With its big old waves
And sharks,
Sniffing out my ugly plams- exhausted-
As I try to scroll myself
Out
A new labyrinth.
Your Pretty Name
I forgot my name
After I asked you to spell it out for me.
A string of arbitrary
Letters, that I couldn’t pronounce
Ending in an explanation point, a question mark,
And an ellipsis….
Dot….Dot….Dot….
Just as if you could have been
Any more proverbial
And I, any more definitive.
Just like you were the bread and wine
And I was God
And I was never real
And you were a drunk and a missionary
In the same shallow burst of Jack-fermented
Breath.
You really were a drunk, though.
And I can twist you into as many
Metaphors as I want
But it doesn’t make you any less
Made out of bread
Or any more like God.
And I would go on Atkins
If it didn’t kill me first.
And I would stop scrolling your
Name pretty
With poetry
If I didn’t think it would kill me first
But maybe it would be
Better
Just to kill me.
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| linger on, your pale blue eyes |
[22 Mar 2005|08:26pm] |
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mood |
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 loved |
] |
so it is incredibly lonely right now. i miss MTR and pisces and my family and my hommies from queens that kind of disperces for diffrent reasons over the past year. i feel like i dont really have a core that i get to see and be with consistently right now. which sucks, because i certainly am a socail creture. its a good thing that if i was going to have a fling, its not going to happen now, because i can only predict the emotional repercussions that might have elliciated. (although if i have a chance with you know who (insert sexy, old man singer songwriter here) in april, goodness gracies if i'm not going to take it! :oP ) but i think its good to be established in queens now. my heads just screwed on in a diffrent way here. if only MTR and pisces were up in this joint, it would be a perfect life. but recreation only brings you so much. sometimes its important to create too. well- often its important to create.
ask me how cool my media studies teacher is? cool enough to know who saul williams is!! and she encourages me to write a paper on him. actually my paper is going to be about how poets are constantly working to break away the one-dimentionality of american society through forming communities around open mics, but eventually fall victims to the same concept that theyre working to disipate because to sustain themselves they much participate in one-dimentionality since poetry does not translate to productivity and therefore does not reward them in a way that can keep them alive. i'm sure it will be posted online at somepoint, because i'm going to need to print it at some point, and i seem to substitute a floppy disk with my livejournal. :oP i'm missing rorrie kellys show right now because i had to write my paper :o( that sucks ass :o( also, i have 30$ left in my checking account and so i couldnt really afford it either (damn you one-dimentional capitalistic society!!!) its a good thing i start working in two days, because goodness! i-m thirty bucks away from being brooooooooooooooooke ass!
it makes me feel really guilty to work and participate in consumption. is that crazy? that could be a little crazy i think. fucking privilage. i'd love to explore its psychologically and emotional dynamics, but right now i think i just want to go home and listen to fionna apple, and fall asleep. so peace out, home fries :o) be good, be happy, and get naked. immediatly :o)
ps- i was going to put up the "lonley" icon for my mood, but i liked the loved better. eh.
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| paper |
[22 Mar 2005|08:25pm] |
AIDS in Public Policy,
Coping with the Human Tragedy.
Paper by: Victoria Sliva
HIV is more than just a virus- it is a pandemic. It is dramatic change to your roles across personal and professional circumstances. It is a re-evaluation of self. It is the philosophical question of, ‘what does it mean to die?” and the understanding of what its like to live with a terminal illness. It is the constant inundation of questions like ‘why me?’ HIV/AIDS earns itself many meanings once it enters a person’s life and body. This paper seeks to explore some of the stressers’ men and women with the HIV virus undergo, and also some of the coping mechanisms that help alleviate those stressers’, and make it plausible to live with the virus.
Can you imagine going to a doctors office, or a planned parenthood feeling fine and ready to receive a precautionary check up only to find out that you’ve tested positive for the HIV virus? What is it like to feel physically healthy, like nothing has changed, but know that your life span has been cut to a terminal illness that is now in your body? How does your life change?
I. Suffering Stigmas, and other Frustrations in living with HIV/Aids
There are many frustrations and stressers’ associated with living with HIV/AIDS. One is a stresser that effects many of those who are HIV negative, as well, and this is inadequate health care and government funding. Because of the inefficiencies in our health care system, many people have to struggle to afford treatment for the virus. Beyond that, Education about HIV/AIDS is limited. As cited by Catherine Wyatt-Morley, in her journal, AIDS Memoir, one of the most densely populated locations, where one might find women with AIDS, is in the prison system. Yet, education about the HIV virus in these institutions is minimal, if it exists at all. Without proper education in our schools, and other venues of civil life, the HIV virus has the chance to spread and take over even more lives.
Also, a problem with health care is that many people must loose their jobs to receive disability, which enables them to pay for their medication. There is a problem in this. Many people who loose their job experience stress because of a significant piece of their life that is missing. One of their crucial roles in the world goes unfulfilled, because of the virus, and this can be extremely disheartening, leaving a person filled with hopelessness and restlessness.
Still others loose their jobs forcibly. Because of stigmas attached to AIDS, some people are forced out of their places of work, or made to feel uncomfortable in other situations. The surgeon who eventually operated on Catherine Wyatt-Morley first refused to do so because he knew that she was infected with HIV. One man in Being Positive could not come out about his positive status because he feared that his life would be threatened, by the other men is his correctional facility, if he did so.
Relationships are tested, too, in the face of AIDS. One woman in Being Positive lost her relationship with her mother, and effectively her children, because of the HIV virus. Another was not allowed to see her nieces and nephews because her husband’s sisters feared for their health. (These are all responses that could possibly be dealt with by means of adequate education.)
Your relationship with your sexual partner is another relationship that is challenged by the HIV virus. Catherine Wyatt-Morley was uncomfortable with the fact that she had to use a condom when sleeping with her husband because it put an unnatural barrier between them. This precaution was imperative, however, so as the two did not reinfect each other. Many people in Being Positive noted that they felt less like sexual beings after realizing that they had the virus; although there were also those who continued to practice unsafe sex despite the consequences.
To contrast all the stressers’ associated with HIV/AIDS, there are also many coping mechanisms to help people live with the virus. Where there is life, there is hope.
II. Coping with the Virus
Imagine now, stepping out of that doctor’s office or Planned Parenthood clinic and realizing that you still have to live your life. Even with the tremendous burden of your HIV positive status, you’re feet are still planted firmly on the earth, and there is life to be lived. How do you continue on with that knowledge? Catherine Wyatt-Morley, and those interviewed for Being Positive teach us ways to find peace even in the face of this Pandemic.
Some turn to God. Certainly this was the case for Catherine Wyatt-Morley, who used her faith to sustain her throughout her memoir. She turned her suffering into the idea of a mission. She had HIV for a reason, and that reason was to educate and support other women with the virus. Others, too, turned to religion in their time of need. One man, who had lost his partner to the virus, attended church twice more a week. Another man made a shrine in his home to a pagan god for support. It is reasonable that those who are asking questions in the face of their death to turn to something outside the scope of life for answers, but this is not the only relationship that people use to cope with HIV/AIDS.
Some turn to their families. They reestablish the relationships that may have become estranged. One women in Being Positive let her daughter move in with her after her diagnosis. Unfortunately, this new found closeness, can be a stresser as much as a tool for coping. One man in Being Positive was unable to deal with his parents once he had to move back in with them. They treated him as being sick, and he did not see himself that way. Their worry was burdensome to him.
Another coping tool is a support group. Catherine Wyatt-Morley formed her own support group known as WORTH- Women On Reasons To Heal. Through her support group she met an amalgamation of lovely ladies that were going through similar experiences as her. She was able to talk openly about the virus in a comfortable environment where she knew she would be understood. She was also able to gain insight on the progression of the virus and on treatments.
Support groups are not for everyone though. As illustrated in Being Positive, some people are uncomfortable in support groups, particularly because you get so close to people that are in your same predicament- about to die. Fortunately, however, there is another venue of community among those living with HIV.
Some people turn to activism. AIDS activism provides many things to people. It provides community and support amongst “safe” people. It provides role fulfillment to those who may have lost their jobs, helping them to feel productive; giving them purpose. Groups like ACT-UP are exceptional examples of AIDS activism, as is Catherine Wyatt-Morley, with her video, “Women, Their Families, and HIV.”
Facing AIDS is a terrifying undertaking, but too many people must undergo it, worldwide. Through support and coping mechanisms, many are ‘living with HIV/AIDS everyday, but even so, it is important that we work to educate ourselves, our neighbors, and our policy makers on the importance of AIDS education to ensure that fewer people suffer as the years move on. Hopefully the cure will come soon, but in the meantime it is imperative that we work together in AIDS awareness, understanding, and prevention.
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| my scathing privilage |
[20 Mar 2005|10:11am] |
El Altro Soy Yo
We are the ugly gods, you know.
Insomuch as we have created,
Out of air, an enemy.
One that separates our spirits
From our blood and our days
And holds it in a margin
Reserved for Bambis mother,
And cigarette thinking time,
And the cold things we like to touch.
We walk on snakes that cover bodies
In this Eden.
Our feet drenched in sticky red
So we cannot walk over blood
So much as water.
So much for water
Because when we are we
We are all so thirsty, presently.
And I stand here as guilt.
I am guilt and privilege,
Because my kind, in our colors of white
And green, red and blue,
Cannot conceive that there is struggle in happiness.
What we call happiness is stale and only one temperature,
It is lipstick instead of relations.
So because we have no struggle
And because we are privilege
I have nothing to sing about
Like those joyous songs
Of those song birds
I am crushing in the dryness
Of my tight-wedged beak.
I wish I was as urgent as that dinosaur
That the Greeks called Oedipus.
He is his own victim;
He is the western world.
But it would be to soft a fate, to gouge our eyes
And not to see.
We must see,
Because those slogan slain bumper stickers
Were right.
The fourth world war is being fought with sticks and stones.
But who would know
That they pumble, helpless, against the tin man metal
Of auxiliary tanks.
We are the ugly gods.
If we only had a heart.
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