"I have visited her eyes"

I have been trying to write on Bhanu Kapil's poetics since the winter now, and am currently making another go at it for the upcoming issue of ON. Frequenting her blog lately, I came across this beautiful passage last night, from an April 16th, 2009 post entitled "Rain":

"I loved being in a transpersonal classroom. As if that wasn't enough, the next speaker was Elizabeth Lonzano, a Colombian scholar specializing in global feminism and strategies of non-violence. Setting up her power point presentation, she put on some music and said: "This music just wants to make me burst out dancing. I don't know if I'm going to be able to help myself from bursting." It is hard to explain how alive this person was. Who then spoke on her work as an international witness in the peace community of St. Jose de Apartado, where the people who live there resist, through non-violent means, the "killing, rekilling, and superkilling" that have dominated life in their country since the massacres of the 1940s.

Territory/terror: "It's not just that we're going to kill you, we're going to tell you we're going to kill you first. Then, we're going to cut your body into little pieces, because we know that your body is sacred to you, that it represents the earth, and your relationship to the earth, who is like a mother to you." These were Elizabeth's expressions, describing what it's like there every day, the domination of corporate paramilitary and military alliances, and how an act of resistance might look like this: if someone is killed, beheaded, their body chopped up with a machete, the entire village "goes into the jungle, looking for the pieces of the body, and then they bring them back. It's a celebration, it's saying, this blood is life, it's spilled into the earth, and now we've gathered the body and we'll bury it rejoicing that from this life is going to come so much growth." A "symbolic burial." Integrated power versus the power that comes from threat, in peace studies discourse. She described a man who met a paramilitary soldier in the jungle, on a small path, and when the soldier began to tell him, I'm going to kill you, this is what is about to happen to you, I'm going to cut your arm off and then...the man said: "It is not in your power to kill me. You can kill me, but the order is not coming from you. It's coming from God. God has given that order. I follow God's orders, and so do you."

Tell me what you know about dismemberment. As Elizabeth was speaking, speaking about body, jungle/ground and divine feminine as linked by the cellular matter of blood, the blood a kind of milk, I thought of the goddess Parvati, killed by her father and left on the ground. Shiva, her lover, found her and slung her body around his neck. He sat in kind of ruined trance for a long time until one day, unable to tolerate the pain of having lost her any longer, he stood up and flung the pieces of her body to each direction. So that, in modern India, to recreate the body of the goddess, to make that body whole again and to integrate it (through the physical effort of pilgrimage, through meditation, through opening yourself to the vibration of place) with yours, you go, in a lifetime, to all the places -- in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Tibet -- where the parts of her fell. Vulture Peak is where her ear is, I think. In Kolkata: her eye. Her big toe. And so on. I have visited her eyes, her ears, her tongue and her heart. My blood ties flood me, sometimes, and I want to go to where her stomach is, and her nose.

Elizabeth: "Do me a favor. Don't drink Coca Cola ever again. Don't eat Chiquita bananas. Whatever you do, don't eat a Chiquita banana. If you want to support peace and non-violence in Colombia, don't drink that coke.""
--Bhanu Kapil

Conference of the Birds podcast

Check out Stephen Cope's cool podcast here, Conference of the Birds. The generic range and cross-pollination of the podcast is pretty incredible as you can probably tell from the playlist below:

Playlist, Conference of the Birds, 6-23-09 (pre podcast)
Host: Stephen Cope

Key: Artist/ Title/ Album/ Label Location: Label, Date.

HOUR ONE:

Set One:

Pierre Akendengue/ Salut Aux Combattants De La Liberte/Akendengue - Reveil De L'Afrique/
Gabon/France: NTYE/Melodie, 1995.

Jacques Coursil /Frantz Fanon 1952/Clameurs/ USA: Sunnyside, 2007.

Matébis/ Acid/Matébis/ France: Iris Musique, 1999.


Set Two:

Neville Marcano/ Yaraba Shang/ Shango, Shouter & Obeah: Supernatural Calypso from Trinidad
1934-1940/ USA: Rounder, 2001.

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou/ Nouèssénamè/ Volume ONE "The Vodoun Effect" - Funk
And Sato From Benin's Obscure Labels 1972-1975/ Germany: Analog Africa, 2008.

Balla Et Ses Balladins /Bi Diamana Moo/ The Syliphone Years: 1968-1972/UK/Brazil: Stern's
Africa, 2008.

Les Amazones de Guinée/ Alhamdoulilah/ "Wamato"/ UK/Brazil: Stern's Africa, 2008.

Kwabena Nyama / Okunin Nusu/ Ghana: Musique Vin de Palme/ France: Buda Musique, 2000.

F. Kenya's Guitar Band / Madame Zehae Ala (Just As I Am)/ Electric Highlife: Sessions From The
Bokoor Studios/ Canada/USA: HNH International/ Naxos , 2002.

William Parker/ El Puenteseco/ Long Hidden: The Olmec Series/ USA: Aum Fidelity, 2006.

Myra Melford; Be Bread/ Be Bread/ The Image of Your Body/ USA: Cryptogramophone, 2006.


HOUR TWO:

Set Three:

Craig Harris & the Nation of Imagination/ Dreamtime/ Istanbul/ Turkey: Doublemoon, 1998.

Orchestra Di Piazza Vittorio / Ya Baba Maragia/ Orchestra Di Piazza Vittorio/ Germany: Ausfahrt
MV Gmbh, 2006.

Fawzy Al-Aiedy / Layali/ Le Paris Bagdad/ France: Buda Musique, 1998.

Malouma / Lemra/ Nour/ France: Marabi, 2007.

Youssou N'Dour / Baay Niasse/ Egypt/ USA: Nonesuch, 2004.


Set Four:

Bahauddin Qutbuddin Qawwal & Party/ Khyal Ang Qawwali/ Troubadours Of Allah-Sufi Music
from the Indus Valley/ Germany: Wergo, 1999.

Abdel Hadi Halo & The El Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers / Win Saadi/ Abdel Hadi Halo & The El
Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers/ England: Honest Jon's, 2007.

Dahmane El Harrachi/ Elli Mab'gha Yebghini/ Chaabi: Volume 5/ France: Club du Disque Arabe,
2002.


HOUR THREE:

Set Five:

Billy Bang / Ly Ngua O/ Vietnam: reflections/ Canada: Justin Time, 2005.

I Wayan Sadra/ Stay a Maverick / Mana 689: New Music from Indonesia Volume 2: Central Java/
USA: Lyrichord, 1993.

Euis Komariah & Jugala Orchestra/ Bardin/ Jaipongan Java/ Indonesia/UK: Jugala/Globestyle,
1990.

Steve Coleman and Five Elements/ Li Bai, Astrology II, Triad Mutations I/ Weaving Symbolics/
France: Label Bleu, 2006.


Set Six:

Kang Jongsuk & Chang Dokhwa/ Pansori "Simch'ong-Ga" / Traditional Korean Music: Sanjo And
Vocal Music/ Japan: King Record Co., 1995.

Putra Sasak Asli (Cilokaq Modera Pusaka Group)/ Idik Gamak Inak/ Cilokaq Music Of Lombok/
Japan: King Record Co., 1994.

Francis Wong / Autumn Moon Reflected On The Peaceful Lake/ Great Wall/ USA: Asian Improv,
1993.

Equal Interest/ Rondo For Jenny / Equal Interest/ USA: OmniTone, 1999.


End of Playlist

Peace On A at PennSound

Some recordings of Peace on A events are now up at PennSound. These include Dan Featherston, Eleni Stecopoulos, Dorothea Lasky, Kevin Varrone, and a big group reading for O Books' War and Peace vol. 3, "The Future," which includes CAConrad, Michael Cross, Paolo Javier, Brenda Iijima, Rodrigo Toscano, Bruce Andrews, Evelyn Reilly, Susan Landers, and myself. Thanks again to Michael Hennessey and interns for their invaluable effort!

from Externalities

Chemicals syllogistics
We recrudesce around

Any place but here
In the air they call there

When they breathe it in
Their lungs then it becomes

Something more than shared
A private public the more

We bear this logistics out
The more clear it becomes

No one is safe from not
Having the most inter-

Connected view possible
Of when we contract.

Going Places (Doing Stuff) at Flux Factory

Flux Factory Presents:

Going Places (Doing Stuff) Part II, "Best Summer Ever" Edition

Sign up now for the first three tours! Seating is limited. Email rsvp@fluxfactory.org with your name, phone number, and the tour you are interested in.

July 11
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry, "Unheard of"

July 18
Jason Eppink and Matt Green, "Quest for Immortality"

July 25
Moses Gates, "To the Rising Sun"

You get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens!

Following the success of last summer’s acclaimed “Going Places (Doing Stuff),” Flux Factory will outdo itself and offer even more amazing artist-led tours to the general public. Think of it as "adventure as performance art." The content of the tours is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists will have "carte blanche" to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Tri-State area.

This year our tours will be on board a school bus propelled by vegetable oil provided by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.

Before each tour, we provide only the following information: the artists' name, title of adventure, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when people sign up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they’ll be gone, but will have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll experience. Last year's adventures included upstate swimming holes, a trip to a burning city known as "hell on earth," a gastronomic tour through NYC, and a chase after an imaginary character.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking members of the public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor a nd catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

Things that may or may not occur:

-Partial or total immersion in various bodies of water
-Impromptu back-of-the-bus dance parties
-Mesmerizing encounters with astonishing and unexpected fleeting beauty that will vanish before you can grasp it, leaving you with indescribable feelings of Baudelairian melancholy and enlightenment
-Naps
-Miscellaneous imbibitions
-Roaring
-Life-affirming encounters with extraordinary individuals and their extraordinary pursuits
-Breaking of world records
-And much more!


All tours will be first-come, first-serve with a suggested donation.

Curated by Jean Barberis.

Participating Artists:
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry, Jason Eppink and Matt Green, Moses Gates, Siobhan Rigg and Carolyn Lambert, Douglas Paulson, Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk, Jeff Stark, and David Felix Sutcliffe.

Dates an d contents of tours are subject to change.

For documentation of past tours please visit:

http://www.fluxfactory.org/going-places-doing-stuff/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalinkhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-70-all-boro-bonanza.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-67-new-yorkers-go.html

State of Exception Checklist

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors.
10. Suspend the rule of law.*

*from Naomi Wolf's The End of America

For Simone and Etel

I.
What if Charles Olson
Had gotten that Fulbright
To travel to Iraq would
We be sitting here right

Now before a revolution
After a war would the sun
Be late in the afternoon
Like some angel of no

One’s culture wishing
Things were different
This world we can see
Everyday with our eyes

Not a subtle one just the
Familiar stench of wealth
In Manhattan's Upper
West Side in contrast

It is so subtle to be
With you in conversation
Admire the bright ivy
Covering the back

Edifice of your apart-
ment building the Persian
Rugs and the books
Missing from your

Bookcases as if you
Were barely moved in
More likely in transit
The simplicity of

Your kitchen the fruit
On your table cherries
And red grapes a warm
Aesthetic of Sufism.

II.
“Such distances are short”
--Etel Adnan

Like the progress one makes
From sign-to-sign site-to-site
Since now we must be earth-bound

We can imagine other ages
Aeons when this isn’t so when
There is here where I is you

And this horizon is continually
Thin always waking smelling sweet
Becoming smells sweeter being

With you there is recourse to
Sensuality a kind of thinking or
Nonsense because the sun says so.