I am trying to write something cohesive about last year, but I can’t seem to find a way to do it. One of the questions that keeps bugging me is why I never feel "at home" wherever I am.
Home: I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what home is to me. At times I have said that home exists wherever you love someone. We each have a bit of home divided up and spread throughout the world. As I get older and as I move more and more, I am not quite sure that this is the case. When I go to a place with people that I love, the place feels comfortable, but not like home. I found this out first when I moved back to California after college. The place felt comfortable and I knew my way around, but I had a tumultuous relationship with Orange County and quickly realized that I always had. I don’t think that I wasn’t welcome in OC, but the welcome felt temporary, as though the county was trying to tell me that I didn’t belong.
Neil Gaiman, in his Sandman series, has a comic called “A Tale of Two Cities.” In the comic a man wakes up and finds himself in the dream of the city in which he spent his entire life. In that dream he encounters a man who tells him that the city is indeed asleep. He did not know when the city would wake, but was fearful of what might happen if and when that occurred.
As I move from place to place, and city to city, I wonder if some cities are asleep and some are awake. If I personify Orange County, I can imagine someone with authority fast asleep. As they sleep, a raucous party forms around them. Throughout the party, people draw on OC’s face, they put OC’s hand in cold water and cover OC’s face with shaving cream. OC sleeps so deeply that eventually the partygoers stop worrying about the possibility of OC waking up. They shave OC a Mohawk. They tattoo “enter here” just above OC’s ass. With all this having happened, what will the repercussions be when OC finally does wake up? Maybe OC will just accept what happened and try to move forward. Maybe OC will get belligerent and do something crazy to the partygoers. Who knows. Time will tell.
Just thinking of a city as alive is, I think, a productive act. This is not to say that I think that people will treat their cities better if they thought of them as alive. We treat living things poorly all the time. To look at a city as alive is to see that everything about that city has gone into giving it the life it possesses, from the lay of the land that attracted the first people to it and determined how the infrastructure would be laid, to the people who continue to build/destroy/preserve the city today. These things affect the temperament of the city. They make it so some parts work better than others and some not at all. We can think of our relationship to a city, then, as sometimes parasitic, sometimes symbiotic, and sometimes both. Furthermore, if we think of these relationships as not inherently good or bad, but simply complicated and fluctuating (we move back and forth between the various relationships, and the city does as well), we can see that, depending on the current state of a city and its population, those relationships might need to shift and change. What is good for one city and its residents might not be good for others. Of course, what is good for one city is not necessarily good for its inhabitants, and vice versa.
I said that my relationship to OC was tumultuous. I felt that I was welcomed, but not because I belonged, but because I had been there for so long and had given a lot of my life and time to OC and its inhabitants. I had friends and family there, some of whom really belong there. However, what I wanted from a city was not what I found in OC. I used the analogy of a sleeping authority and it well may be that OC is sleeping and yet to wake up. It could be the inhabitants of the city that I don’t mesh well with. It could be the city itself. It could also be, and this is probably it, a combination of the two.
I have lived in 8 cities. I have visited countless others. It’s hard for me to say if any of the cities I’ve visited could ever be home. I’m still not quite sure what home is. I’m thinking that it has to do with being able to maintain a symbiotic relationship with a city which means that I would be willing to give and take from the city and allow the city to give and take from me. I have yet to feel comfortable enough with a city to allow this exchange to take place. I want to say that the closest I’ve felt to this was the few months I spent in Dublin, and the couple of weeks I spent in San Francisco and Boston. I was attracted to each of these cities for different reasons and found more reasons once there that I wanted to be there, but have still not explored them sufficiently. While in those cities I acted primarily as a tourist, which is a very different experience than living in a city. I also sometimes wonder if I have created some sort of idealized city in my head that doesn’t really exist. Of course, I’ve never really felt comfortable in the places I’ve lived and always wanted to move on, and I think that there’s something to be said about that.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
seeing white: part 2
*spoiler alert*
I don’t remember what it was that got me thinking about Harvey Milk for the second time, but sometime between college and grad school, I rented a documentary called The Times of Harvey Milk. The documentary, released in 1984, chronicles Milk’s activism as a community organizer and politician in the Castro in the 70’s. The film is particularly adept at revealing the amount that Milk was able to accomplish in his short time in the Castro and in his even shorter time as a politician. What the film fails to show is the progressive nature and hopes of the time. We see a community brought together by a single man, and at the end of the film, when Dan White is awarded the minimum sentence, we see the riots break out and the community ruptured. Without Milk it seems as though the movement is quick to turn to violence. Now, it’s been a while since I saw the film, but I believe that after the riots, it moves on to quickly chronicle the last few years of Dan White’s life, from his short time in prison to his move back to San Francisco, and finally to his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The initial reaction to Milk’s death was the candlelight march through San Francisco and up to City Hall. We hear the interviewees say how much Milk would have enjoyed this moment. It becomes, then, an act done for Harvey Milk. The riot, on the other hand, is an event that is depicted as independent of Milk, and shows very little other than the anger that the gay community felt at the sentence received by Dan White. This sequence in the documentary is, as I remember it, as follows: Milk is assassinated; candlelight vigil; sentence declared; riots ensue. We interpret the vigil as something caused by Milk and the riots as something caused by the sentence meted out by the jury. Neither, we see, were of the audience's doing.
Gus Van Sant’s film sends a new message, one that is reverent of Milk and what he was able to do, but also casts the net a lot wider. Through “Milk,” we see Harvey Milk as a strong and influential catalyst, but by no means the only one. We see the work and the skills of a variety of individuals put together that made the movement. An individual does no act alone unless that act is misguided, destructive, and caustic. What we see as productive acts are all done by a community. In Van Sant’s film, for instance, the assassination of Milk and Moscone is brought up at the beginning. We know what is going to happen and we sense that Dan White will be the one who does it as we watch him grow more and more unstable throughout the film. When Milk is killed we see Milk’s friends Anne Kronenberg and Scott Smith wondering why no one came to city hall. As they leave the building dejected, they are suddenly confronted by thousands of people walking the streets holding candles in memory of Milk and Moscone. It is not an act of one person, or for one person, but instead an act by a community, for the community. It serves to hold the people together in this time of great loss. Additionally, the riots are never shown, only told, through screen text. This telling, not showing, is significant. It does not leave us with an image of violence. Instead, it says that after the riots, despite the massive amounts of destruction, no arrests were made. In the documentary we see the violence as an effect of the outcome of the trial. In Van Sant’s film, however, we see the violence as a communal catharsis sanctioned by the city through the lack of response from city officials. Earlier in the film we see state sanctioned violence against homosexuals in the form of arrests and police brutality. At this moment, when violence is greatest and committed against the state, the fact that the state does nothing to reprimand the protesters suggests that even if the state doesn’t stand with the protesters, it does not stand against them.
There is, I think, much more to talk about in this film but for the moment I will stop and suggest a discussion if anyone would like. I am interested in violence against the state and how/when it is affective and effective. I might post one more entry about “Milk.” If I do it will deal with Dan White, how he was portrayed, and the role of absurdity and individual action in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It was directed towards a sympathetic audience and might not read as strongly to an opponent of gay rights and I’m glad that it eschewed this larger (or so I’m led to believe) audience. It’s purpose was to send a message of hope, and I thought it did this quite well. To watch an individual change a community is one thing, but to watch a community come together and try to make the world a better world for everyone is another thing entirely. Van Sant’s film shows one aspect of what a community acting together can accomplish and the necessity of such acts.
I don’t remember what it was that got me thinking about Harvey Milk for the second time, but sometime between college and grad school, I rented a documentary called The Times of Harvey Milk. The documentary, released in 1984, chronicles Milk’s activism as a community organizer and politician in the Castro in the 70’s. The film is particularly adept at revealing the amount that Milk was able to accomplish in his short time in the Castro and in his even shorter time as a politician. What the film fails to show is the progressive nature and hopes of the time. We see a community brought together by a single man, and at the end of the film, when Dan White is awarded the minimum sentence, we see the riots break out and the community ruptured. Without Milk it seems as though the movement is quick to turn to violence. Now, it’s been a while since I saw the film, but I believe that after the riots, it moves on to quickly chronicle the last few years of Dan White’s life, from his short time in prison to his move back to San Francisco, and finally to his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The initial reaction to Milk’s death was the candlelight march through San Francisco and up to City Hall. We hear the interviewees say how much Milk would have enjoyed this moment. It becomes, then, an act done for Harvey Milk. The riot, on the other hand, is an event that is depicted as independent of Milk, and shows very little other than the anger that the gay community felt at the sentence received by Dan White. This sequence in the documentary is, as I remember it, as follows: Milk is assassinated; candlelight vigil; sentence declared; riots ensue. We interpret the vigil as something caused by Milk and the riots as something caused by the sentence meted out by the jury. Neither, we see, were of the audience's doing.
Gus Van Sant’s film sends a new message, one that is reverent of Milk and what he was able to do, but also casts the net a lot wider. Through “Milk,” we see Harvey Milk as a strong and influential catalyst, but by no means the only one. We see the work and the skills of a variety of individuals put together that made the movement. An individual does no act alone unless that act is misguided, destructive, and caustic. What we see as productive acts are all done by a community. In Van Sant’s film, for instance, the assassination of Milk and Moscone is brought up at the beginning. We know what is going to happen and we sense that Dan White will be the one who does it as we watch him grow more and more unstable throughout the film. When Milk is killed we see Milk’s friends Anne Kronenberg and Scott Smith wondering why no one came to city hall. As they leave the building dejected, they are suddenly confronted by thousands of people walking the streets holding candles in memory of Milk and Moscone. It is not an act of one person, or for one person, but instead an act by a community, for the community. It serves to hold the people together in this time of great loss. Additionally, the riots are never shown, only told, through screen text. This telling, not showing, is significant. It does not leave us with an image of violence. Instead, it says that after the riots, despite the massive amounts of destruction, no arrests were made. In the documentary we see the violence as an effect of the outcome of the trial. In Van Sant’s film, however, we see the violence as a communal catharsis sanctioned by the city through the lack of response from city officials. Earlier in the film we see state sanctioned violence against homosexuals in the form of arrests and police brutality. At this moment, when violence is greatest and committed against the state, the fact that the state does nothing to reprimand the protesters suggests that even if the state doesn’t stand with the protesters, it does not stand against them.
There is, I think, much more to talk about in this film but for the moment I will stop and suggest a discussion if anyone would like. I am interested in violence against the state and how/when it is affective and effective. I might post one more entry about “Milk.” If I do it will deal with Dan White, how he was portrayed, and the role of absurdity and individual action in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It was directed towards a sympathetic audience and might not read as strongly to an opponent of gay rights and I’m glad that it eschewed this larger (or so I’m led to believe) audience. It’s purpose was to send a message of hope, and I thought it did this quite well. To watch an individual change a community is one thing, but to watch a community come together and try to make the world a better world for everyone is another thing entirely. Van Sant’s film shows one aspect of what a community acting together can accomplish and the necessity of such acts.
seeing white: part 1
The other night, after I finished my last paper for the semester, Sarah and I drove to New Orleans to pick up my sister, Shira. We then met up with Andy, had some extra salty and cheesy Mexican food, and went to go see Milk, the new Gus Van Sant movie about Harvey Milk.
The first time I heard about Harvey Milk was during my sophomore year of college. I was taking a solo-performance class and was performing an interpretation of Tim Miller’s “Spilt Milk.” Miller’s piece accentuated what it means to have your hopes shattered in a major way for the first time. I read it as a parallel story to my own, and as such, the death of Harvey Milk was not that interesting to me at the time. For me, the death of Harvey Milk in Miller’s story struck me as the moment that sealed Miller’s temporal doom. It meant that his journey was not going to be as simple as he thought. It was the realization that he had a journey, in the Gilgamesh, Jesus, Buddha kind of way. Miller says that San Francisco felt like a gay utopia in the late 70’s and the death of Harvey Milk shattered that false image. It’s here where the title of Miller’s piece is particularly disturbing. Miller is a highly affective performer, but if and when I have seen him cry, I can’t help but feel that there is still a part of him that is “acting.” This is by no means an admonition, especially since I think that he is only in part acting. The best affective performances are where the performer knows how close they can get to the line and position their performance at that point. Miller excels at this, and as such his performances are emotionally and politically charged. When we hear the last lines of this particular piece, and we hear of the death of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, we don’t see Miller break down. We do not see Miller cry over “Spilt Milk.” Instead, we see the burgeoning political activist coming into his own. We do not see that the utopia was shattered, but that the utopian image was shattered. The utopia never existed. When I was 19 and performing my adaptation of this piece, I focused on the shattering of the image without giving much thought to the particular image that Miller was evoking. In his piece, Miller was remembering a point in time where, for millions of people, an image of what could be seemed so close but was proven to be so very far away. Miller situates this in relation to his own story but is constantly evoking this larger audience.
I look back on my performance at the time and see that what I did was leave the global message that Miller was evoking, totally out of the performance, and focused instead on myself at a particular moment in time. My performance, while highly effective (I drew some conclusions that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I created an enjoyable thirty minutes of theatre for my audience), was barely, if at all, affective. As such, I allowed my audience and myself to leave the theater unchanged.
The first time I heard about Harvey Milk was during my sophomore year of college. I was taking a solo-performance class and was performing an interpretation of Tim Miller’s “Spilt Milk.” Miller’s piece accentuated what it means to have your hopes shattered in a major way for the first time. I read it as a parallel story to my own, and as such, the death of Harvey Milk was not that interesting to me at the time. For me, the death of Harvey Milk in Miller’s story struck me as the moment that sealed Miller’s temporal doom. It meant that his journey was not going to be as simple as he thought. It was the realization that he had a journey, in the Gilgamesh, Jesus, Buddha kind of way. Miller says that San Francisco felt like a gay utopia in the late 70’s and the death of Harvey Milk shattered that false image. It’s here where the title of Miller’s piece is particularly disturbing. Miller is a highly affective performer, but if and when I have seen him cry, I can’t help but feel that there is still a part of him that is “acting.” This is by no means an admonition, especially since I think that he is only in part acting. The best affective performances are where the performer knows how close they can get to the line and position their performance at that point. Miller excels at this, and as such his performances are emotionally and politically charged. When we hear the last lines of this particular piece, and we hear of the death of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, we don’t see Miller break down. We do not see Miller cry over “Spilt Milk.” Instead, we see the burgeoning political activist coming into his own. We do not see that the utopia was shattered, but that the utopian image was shattered. The utopia never existed. When I was 19 and performing my adaptation of this piece, I focused on the shattering of the image without giving much thought to the particular image that Miller was evoking. In his piece, Miller was remembering a point in time where, for millions of people, an image of what could be seemed so close but was proven to be so very far away. Miller situates this in relation to his own story but is constantly evoking this larger audience.
I look back on my performance at the time and see that what I did was leave the global message that Miller was evoking, totally out of the performance, and focused instead on myself at a particular moment in time. My performance, while highly effective (I drew some conclusions that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I created an enjoyable thirty minutes of theatre for my audience), was barely, if at all, affective. As such, I allowed my audience and myself to leave the theater unchanged.
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