more hoops, less cars

Date: Sept. 21, 2007 / World PARK(ing) Day
Mission: take over space that society has allocated for cars and transform it into space for humans & fun & green
Location of metered PARK(ing) spot: Noe Street between Market and Beaver
# of hoops: 4 adult-sized, 2 child-sized
# of hours I hooped: six (11am-5pm)
# of people served: approximately 45 passersby stopped for hoop lessons/ stopped to hoop
cameo hoop appearances by: Allison and Philo
pants by (everyone kept asking): melo-phoenix
# of neighbors or passersby who fed my meter or brought me snacks/drinks: six (thank you Linda, Jerry, Cindy, JD, and strangers!)
# of men who gave me their phone number: five
# of women who gave me their number: one

See coverage of my HOOPARK! on the online magazine for all things hoop, hooping.org. Also a mention (and photo) on Adam Paul’s blog.

My words, bookbound

In 2004 my friend Pilar slipped me a copy of “LiP: Informed Revolt,” a quarterly magazine unlike the others. LiP took aim at the system– this corporate-held global matrix that feeds & maintains the worst in us humans–
–hatred, fear and/or envy of the Other (ie, immigrants, unAmericans, animals, people in turbans,people with brown skin (for fellow honkys), people who have more than me, people who have less than me because they might get fed up and rise up…);
–oblivion through television and drugs (on prescription and off) and so-many-shiny-things-to-own;
–and the sentiment that we are powerless to change any of this.

LiP entirely avoided any discussions of electoral politics, recognizing them for the diversion tactic they are (which is to say that there are no substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans, and money & thoughtspace spent on their jousting is Waste.)

LiP had the savviest voice on the dying set of categories we know as gender, already adopting the utterly fluid state of things to come.

And LiP was the only publication that had anything helpful to say on the subject of systemic racism to me as a white person trying to understand and tackle that painful taboo topic; LiP’s Race Editor Tim Wise is the wisest (and funniest) white voice I know on the subject of racism and anti-racist work.

And now, fresh from AK Press, there’s an anthology out of the best of it. It’s among the smartest and funniest social commentary out there, and I’m in there, too.

Making it the first time my work has ever appeared in a book. An actual book.

You can buy it here.

Back from the Future

I buy the New York Times at Booksmith, laughing at the financial transaction (with tax, I surrender five of these greengray paper dollars and forty nine cents comprised of silver and copper coins). Do you have glitter on your arms? The cashier asks me. I have glitter all over my body, I respond, and laugh maniacally.

I buy ciao bella lemon sherbet for breakfast. And Kombucha. Pulled from frozen and refrigerated cases, respectively, from behind doors fogged with the cold. Can you say miracle? I hand over more dollars and the man behind that counter says he likes my necklaces, tooth and claw hanging around my survivor of a neck. I thank him, vacant.

I read the paper over spoonfuls of sorbet, with a spoon I pull from an entire drawer full of gleaming silverware in the kitchen. So many drawers filled with so many clean and purposeful objects. On the second page of the paper I am drawn to what they’ve taken time and space to Correct for the Record. It describes how a picture caption from last week’s fashion magazine had included misinformation about one of the garments—it was a cashmere sweater, not a long-sleeve T-shirt, and costs as many dollars as there are days in the year, instead of $965. I split my sides laughing, I spit sherbet down my dress in driblets, kombucha spills from the pooch of my cheeks.

Everything’s ridiculou, opulent, unnecessary.

I got home around 8:30 last night. I turned on every light in the flat. Then off, then on again. I got into the shower. The water trundled dutifully out to greet me, beat patterns down on my skin and the tub’s floor. It grew a little too cool for my sun addicted skin, so I nudged the dial leftwards towards hot, and the water responded immediately, like the best lover in the world. I had to sit down I felt so overwhelmed.

Thank you, water, I say. Oh my gods, thank you. Thank you for this abundance, and responsiveness and presence.

I let the water run on and I look up at the lights shining on and I inhale tea tree oil shampoo and I watch the playa dust washing down the drain, that complex system of tubes and turns and tunnels I never think of, and I’m whispering thank you, thank you.