Author: Nada Gordon

Last night G. and I went to see The U.S. vs. John Lennon and I found myself getting so furious at how horrifically the world has evolved despite all his exertions. Yoko ( whom G. and I saw on the street a couple of months ago!!) was so transcendently beautiful, I realized over again. I think I want to get an even more Yoko-ish look, with big floppy hat and huge bug glasses. But honestly, what kind of world is this? Certainly not what I thought it would be, as a young beatlemaniac in San Francisco in 1971.

Now it’s like, all you need it BLING. Or all you need is RAW POWER. Or something. But I state the obvious. It’s still early here, I’m not quite awake yet.

I also had the sense watching the film that those people — Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and of course more than anyone John himself — were possessed of the most amazing charisma of which you simply don’t see the like these days. Now everyone is so slick and groomed and polished with products, so remodeled and remade that whatever actual charisma they have seems tainted and elusive. I’m thinking of Madonna, I suppose — how she has wasted her powers.

Oy what a world.

Richard Foreman has a new blog

His statements on theatre function for me also as statements of a desirable poetics.

Five things feminism has done for me
(a slightly belated response to a tag from Elizabeth Treadwell)

Helped me not to limit my life by making it possible for me to terminate a pregnancy when I was seventeen

Given me sense of bravado difficult to attain in non-feminist cultures and eras

Made me aware of my status as a female impersonator

Given me way more wardrobe options

Helped me rethink and rethink and rethink language

Tagged:Gary, Drew, Kasey, Stan, and Tim

Labor Day in NY

Getting off at Delancey St., stumbled upon the filming of a Bollywood movie. They had covered the awnings of the stores with faux awnings to make Orchard St. look like a little India — so that instead of selling leather jackets they were selling saris, phonecards, etc. Stars; Sayif Ali Khan & Rani Mukherjee. (They weren’t there.) Woo hoo!

I wanted to stay and see the dance scene being filmed, but Gary was hungry, so we went into a little health food market/restaurant on Ludlow. Inside there was a small group of Amish people — I mean, I guess they were Amish — the women with the little cases covering their buns and long skirts. As I ate my scrambled eggs with tomatoes, I looked at a big book on early humans.

Spent a little time kicking around Soho. Looked at the complete Beckett and history of costume books at the bookstore on Prince St. G. bought a fountain pen (not a really expensive one) and I a Moleskine planner for next year. We took the train up to Central Park. I peed in an “emergency toilet.” We rode the carousel — the Wurlitzer played songs from the Wizard of Oz. G.’s feet didn’t reach the stirrups of his horse.

Then, coming out of the park, walking past the Dakota, who should we see walking down the street with a big entourage but Yoko Ono? She was smiling and very tiny.

Then, after a stop at Barnes & Noble by Lincoln Center, in front of which there is an astounding sculpture of gravity-defying boats, like an enormous bouquet, we went to have horrible “Thai” food. That was anticlimactic. But the fullness of the day totally made up for the badness of the food.

Onward to work, and to autumn.

Speaking of cells, I have a new cell phone. Like my old cell phone, it has a camera. Gary commented that I don’t really need a camera. I said, but I do, what if some guy is jerking off on the train and I need to take his picture to give to the police (As one woman did to the owner of a Manhattan raw food restaurant — whose specialty is, ironically enough nut milk…)? I have often encountered such situations both here in NY and in Japan (once in an old cemetery). Theoretically, they shouldn’t be a problem — no more so than, say, blowing one’s nose or pulling on one’s earlobe — but the problem is that as a woman I always see the spectacle of public male masturbation as a potential prelude to, or a substitute for, an assault.

What if humans could do everything in public? Is that what we are moving towards, as a culture?

I don’t mind seeing people kissing in public but I hate to hear it — that sound of sticky flesh separating, sucking air through moisture. It nauseates me, as if I were obliged to sit next to someone eating a banana in the morning.

There was an article in the paper today about a couple who culled their embryos of those with a deadly colon-cancer gene. The article said that in order to test a three-day embryo’s DNA, doctors had to remove a single cell. The article went on to say that the effects of removing one cell from an embryo with eight cells was still unknown. EIGHT CELLS. The tone of the article was so prosaic — pure reportage — how blithely we take in facts like THE POSSIBILITY OF REMOVING ONE CELL from an EIGHT-CELL biological entity. How did we get here, and where do we go?

What is a book that changed your life?

Jobs in Japan. Many books have changed my life, but this one did so in the most palpable way.

What is a book you’d want to take with you to a desert island?

Clark Coolidge’s Solution Passage (I used to take it with me on beach trips to Thailand). It never grows old. Kim Lyons calls it Pollution Sausage!

What is a book that made you giddy?

Swoon. (duh!)

What is a book that made you sad?

The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry “Is that all there is?”

What is a book you wish you had written?

I don’t have this wish. I am content to rewrite books.

What is a book you are currently reading?

Letter Perfect ( a history of the alphabet)

I just finished The Sari

What is a book you’ve been meaning to read?

Hypnerotomachia

I don’t know who to tag. It seems like most people have been tagged already.
How about this: If you have been feeling left out because no one has tagged you, please consider this your tag.

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News from the besieged land of Najwa Karam and Tyrian purple:

Sabbah’s Lebanon blog

Who doesn’t love this bit from one of RFK’s most famous speeches?

“It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

I see it every time I ride down DeKalb Ave. on the B38 bus on the way home from Pratt.

The inverse of what Bobby was talking about could also be true, even if it seems too simple a chain of causality: even a tiny ripple of negativity might build a current which could sweep down the most laboriously forged human creations and bonds.

Some certain person needs to stop sending out those (at this point sizeable) ripples right now — and to recant what he has been saying and ask for forgiveness from those he has wronged. There’s no point in his continuing to foist his childhood traumas on innocent others over and over and over again. Particularly if he is in fact as self-aware as I suspect this person is, despite his bouts with nutty behavior.

I know I should follow the advice of others and not pay any attention to that behavior for fear of reinforcing it — and besides, I’m not the victim, so why should I care? Honestly, this isn’t intended as a reinforcement, and I hope it doesn’t function as such. It’s just… I’m a teacher… I can’t bear to see someone needlessly perpetuating this adrenaline cycle on himself. I can’t bear the painful but all-too-common paradox of seeing someone who wants to be loved turning himself into a pariah. Obviously, it’s his choice, and his behavior for which he needs to be responsible. And it’s none of my business. But this is a plea…and my last word on the subject.

Except that blogging (writing) is not a contact sport. That’s only one fucked-up paradigm out of billions possible.