photos from last night are up on MV galleries. a few of me (here with mark the photog (MV)), many of my beautiful friends christabel, reagan, k8 #2 (not to be confused with my other friend k8 #1), and orange, and a lovely shot of me and jay in which we both look sweaty and weird.
mark and gina also created a couple of "best of 2005" galleries that are nice little trips down late-night memory lane.
happy new year everyone!
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught."
- Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist
a funny little thing
some people jay and i recently met referred to us as "the hoopers"
to someone else,
and that person thought that was our name
as in
"The Hoopers" - Amy & Jay Hooper.
maybe we should change our names? it would be easier that way.
Global Exchange's "Most Wanted" Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005:the usual suspects: Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Philip Morris, Dow Chemical, Chevron....
what can you do? a) read that report, even if you think it's way too Left for your taste; and b) if you agree, stop giving them your money. get rid of any stocks you own that benefit from these monsters. drive less. think globally, shop locally. the usual.
my friend Reagan (pronounced "RE-gan", not "RAY-gan", who i met for the first time in NYC last winter (via Tribe) and then again on the playa and now she lives in West Oakland, yay!) made a pretty bitchin' fire hooping video:
video link
check that girl out. she gots mad skillz with that thing. i'd totally set myself on fire if i tried to do any of that.
on the topic of "individuality" being a myth, and in particular what seems to be a forced
attempt at individuality in places like northern california, where
"alternative" lifestyles are celebrated, but on a wide scale:
i'm going to steal this from IP for a moment:
i do not think that those who are trying to be "individual" are trying to do so in order to distinguish themselves. each of us individual by nature, no matter how we might appear on the outside, and we all know that. what we wear, who we hang around with, what we buy or drive or eat is all a PART of who we are and a rough representation of our inner personality.
we all have to make choices about what to wear and what to eat and where to work and where to live- we HAVE to, otherwise we die. so given that there is a finite set of those things to choose from, then yes, no one is a complete individual as far as their lifestyle and logistical choices go. those who try to achieve outward individuality get disappointed quickly.
but on the inside ...you don't believe we are all unique? and don't we all know that?
when i go back "home" to northern michigan, i stick out like a big pink thumb, as jay once put it. here i find people who are into the same things i always have been - it didn't just "adopt" a liking for performance art and dancing and nature and music and philosophy and alternative lifestyles when i moved to northern california.
i was also thinking, however, that part of the reason i think northern californians get so targeted for their behavior, as opposed to say, people who live in Boulder, which is just as much a hippie commune as berkeley if not more, is that perhaps there is some serious bipolarity to our culture. i say perhaps because i know many NorCal types who live as they speak - in the santa cruz mountains with compost toilet, diesel-driving bus types. but for most living in the city, when it comes down to the numbers, a good chunk of "us" are yuppies.
young. urban. professionals.
who buy expensive food and expensive coffee and expensive clothing, fair traded and organic, but still 25-50% more than what the average joe pays at Safeway or JC Penney. so to make up for it - our indulgent lifestyles, however you spend your money - we overcompensate by spiritually slumming it, building sod houses and driving biodiesel Mercedes, buying hemp Adidas instead of regular, giving money to local artists instead of Disney. The Bohemian Bourgeois.
again, i say that this of course does not apply to everyone - some people amazingly, through a lot of grace and effort, live perfectly aligned with their stated beliefs - but i know it does me.
what does this have to do with individuality? i think human nature downright prevents it. we are creatures of both habit and herd, and our lifestyle choices are confined to those instincts. what's truly unfortunate is that our instincts apparently don't prevent us from mimicking bad behaviour.
If you ever get close to a human
And human behaviour
You'd better be ready to get confused
There's definitely no logic
To human behaviour
But yet so irristible
There's no map
To human behaviour
They're terribly moody
Then all of a sudden turn happy
But, oh, to get involved in the exchange
Of human emotions is ever so satisfying
There's no map
And a compass
Wouldn't help at all
a report of some of the conversations between the San Francisco Police Department and our friends who were throwing the renegade outdoor party that got busted 3:30a saturday morning. the location is a public park that sits on the water facing east, next to a cement factory in a totally industrial hood. the scene is that after the bars closed, WAY too many people took cabs to this not-so-underground-anymore location and made a lot of noise. wasted people.
from Alx:
"Some sample interactions:
5-0:"Why don't you just rent a warehouse?"
DL: "Well, look around, it's just so much prettier here."
5-0: "That's true."
5-0: "We're just fascist pigs who don't know how to have a good time. And we hate all that Burning Man tribal stuff."
5-0: "Next time just invite me and get me a date and I won't bust your party. [Pointing at his buddy] He will, but I won't."
5-0: To our friend leaving the party: "Fuck you and your avant-garde ways."
5-0: "We're going to attend a Mumia-Abu Jamal Fundraising party after this."
5-0: "If you people just conformed and had fewer piercings and tattoos we'd probably just let the party keep going."
ah yes, the SFPD. real hardasses, and boy, aren't they ironic? i think they probably heard that the last time the cops showed up to bust one of these, they had "Happy Birthday" sung to them by a hundred or so people like it was a surprise party just for them, and where hoping for something similar.
"me and you and everyone we know" : we just watched this movie over the weekend, and i have to say it's one of the best films i've seen in quite some time. very original script, incredibly original characters, funny, moving, entertaining, and surprising. i really highly recommend it. i was engaged for the entire film, enjoyed the quirky-yet-real characters with huge personality flaws, and was very interested to see what happened to them. the child actors are incredible, and serious props to Mirana July for writing, directing, AND starring in this movie at the young age of 31!
someone asked, point blank, for the meaning of life, and i said:
there are at least two theories that explain life.
the first is that everything is interconnected by an invisible web, and not only will chain reactions happen in the biosphere and on the freeway but also with your karma, and even the smallest decisions have major consequences.
the second is that nothing is connected except by subjective perception, and that we have the power to change course 180 degrees at any point of time with little or no grand effect.
the meaning of life is figuring out the balance of the two, and knowing when to believe which one and to use that knowledge to your greatest advantages.
oh, and love. love is also the meaning of life. but only in a vague way, and finding love is not nearly as important is figuring out what love means.
11.29: let me play philosopher and add this:
i believe the meaning of life is something that you feel, not something that you necessarily know or can put into language. philosophers have struggled for thousands of years, through poetry, myth, debate and science, to put what they essentially knew in their hearts into comprehendable human language with little or no success. i say i don't think there is a "meaning" to life because i think each of us has a unique experience, and with infinite unique experiences, how can there be a conclusion? a format? a reason? infinite meaning, perhaps.
whatever it is, i really do think it is something you must feel. some people are lucky and have that feeling with them their entire lives; some discover it earlier, some later; sometimes through unfortunate events, sometimes through love. some people never have to leave their hometowns to find it, while others search the world over for decades. knowledge is limited; feeling is infinite.
(reposted from amyleblanc.com 11.28.05)
it is said that San Francisco is where 20-somethings go to retire. i don't know who started that, and i only just recently read/heard the saying in the book "Middlesex". it struck me, as it was very timely that i came across that statement. as silly as it sounds, it appears to be true. whether you're a student or an artist or a musician or beatnik of other sorts, if the real/default world is keeping you down, where can you go to do what you dream and be supported for it? san francisco.
i was thinking the other night, after another round of late-night decadence, about our friends, and our scene. for those of you who are sick of/could care less about Burner-mentality+activities, i guess you can stop reading now.
since we returned from the playa this year, it's not so much that we have changed, but what we're putting our energy into sort of has. don't worry - we're still amy+jay, there's no one else sleeping in our bed, i don't stay up for days on cocaine, and if anything we're straighter than ever before, despite peer influences.
over the past couple of months i've met a lot of new people. this is due to various factors: i stopped working at my Sunday job, which has enabled me to go out on saturdays; we met a lot of new people at burning man, and those people know a LOT of people; and most of all, quite a few of our old friends have moved away in the past year or so and we needed to make new ones.
for a while everything was going as expected, friends going to graduate school, getting married and having babies and moving away from the city, but instead of following along, we got ourselves involved in a different sort of thing, and a funny thing happened on the way to 30.
sometimes when we go out i feel like i'm at a high-school dance. this is partly because circles here in this fair city are fairly small, despite it's size. everyone knows everyone most of the time, and there are very few degrees of separation, like we all grew up in the same hometown. professional lives aside, when recreating, people get dressed up, and act sort of giddy. people flirt like it's improper not to, innuendos spread across the dancefloor, everyone is beautiful. girls giggle in corners and whisper about the "cute new boy". boys ogle and devise plans by which they can cop a feel. crushes run rampant, and everybody knows who likes who.
back in April, i wrote a little bit about this, as i sensed it blooming, even before we returned to the playa and before i knew most of the people i know now. i mentioned this whole thing to my friend Jeremy as we had pizza and beer at 11:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, and he immediately referenced the "SF retirement for 20-somethings" saying, which was crazily coincindental as i had JUST READ that very saying and had been thinking about it the few days before. "that's funny", he said, "because Fred said the same thing. when he came home from Mighty the last time he went, he said everyone there acts really young. like high school, and he couldn't figure it out".
one difference between now and 1989 of course is that for most of us, we were sober at junior high dances. ok, so we might have been a little high on schwag weed and malt liquor, but we certainly weren't doing lines in the bathroom or on our 3rd hit of E. the other difference is that now that most of us have outgrown our insecurities over being dorks (and whole-heartedly embrace our dorkiness to the point that we claim it's cool), people face these social games with a whole new perspective: it's fun, and is able to be quite enjoyed. so the play gets a little twisted, and way more sex happens at the end than did back in the 8th grade. it's wonderful to see, actually, so many former-wallflowers coming out of their shells and embracing life and love.
except that i'm not quite there. i'm still stuck back in 8th grade, where i blush from head to toe if a boy says he likes me and unwanted advances are treated with awkward silences and me running for the bathroom. sure, being in a long-term monogamous relationship means that even if i had the self-assurance to successfully play these reindeer games, i wouldn't, but that's not the point i'm struggling with. the point is that i'm watching my peers grow out of that awkwardness and embrace themselves for who they are, while i'm still recalcitrant. perhaps because of our LTR, i can't play the game and so i'm back where i started, thwarting advances and batting secret crushes, but i've been really trying to let things play out and see how it all goes, and that's not really the case - it's still something inside that keeps me from embracing this openess, because in all reality you don't have to hook up to enjoy the affections of others; there are lots of layers of human sensuality to be toyed with. perhaps it's because jay and i are generally two of the most sober people in the crowd, and our inhibitions aren't quite as lowered as others' are, and maybe they wouldn't be having so much fun either if they were sober. (in other words: if we did more drugs, would we have more fun? in the past that wasn't ever true, so i have no reason to believe it would be now.)
in any case, this scene has inflamed my internal struggle with self-conciousness, and it's sort of hard to handle, this reliving of adolescence. the hardest part is that i am now old enough to have full control over how these things go, that i know the real rules now and understand that it's no longer just a "cool kids" world, yet i still feel awkward, which makes it all even more frustrating. there are no factors-beyond-my-control like there were when i was 14. how i handle this opportunity - and i do believe this little subculture is all positive - is all up to me, yet i'm still the girl at the dance who doesn't want anyone to watch her dancing.
even though jay and i aren't fully engaging in the sort of dating games that are going on around us, the fact that we are in the midst of them (and being constantly consulted by others about their personal lives) is causing some interesting flashbacks, and worthwhile introspection about personal growth and desires.
why don't we get "real lives" (marriage+kids+mortgage)? why still stay out partying all night, acting like you're 18? why are you people still acting like such dorks? some people ask.
the answer is easy: because we can. this is san francisco.
you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young, whatever life you wear
it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on; and his mind take off time
that you should ever think, may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress, and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
~e.e.c.
(reposted from amyleblanc.com 11.22.05)
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