One Night, One Day

I added a new song on my MySpace called One Night, One Day today that you should listen to?

Peace out.

Opposites

A week or so ago, I was having dinner with the six-or-so people on my floor that seem to have developed into a group of friends. It includes Spencer, Matt D., Matt V., Maura, Danny, and to some extent Katherine/Abby/myself. I was talking to Spencer, and I don't remember how we got to it, but he was talking about how his friends used to devote a lot of energy to finding out the opposite of things. For instance, what's the opposite of an elephant? Well, try to think of every property there is of an elephant and find its opposite. Whatever the opposite of the elephant is, it should be: small, not grey, not living, possibly man-made, perhaps not a concrete noun, perhaps made of anti-matter. I don't know exactly why, but we decided that the opposite of an elephant was the little thing on top of baseball hats.

Last night, I went to a WORD meeting, which is the performance poetry group here. I showed up a little bit late because I was held up playing Rachmaninoff at orchestra until a little after 9:30, I believe. I walked in in the middle of a poem, and sadly, I've forgotten what it was about already, but I only heard a few lines of it.

Actually, at first I couldn't find the building. Then I walked into the Rites & Reason Theater and went INTO the theater. And I just looked around. There was music playing and it looked like someone was painting or building sets. I pulled out my map to see if I was where I thought I was. I was just about to decide that I was in the wrong building when I heard a very deep voice boom from behind me, "Looking for WORD?"

And I kind of jumped because I didn't expect it. And then I turned around, and it was a tall black guy, probably about 21 or so, who looked like he was doing some work on the sets. I felt really bad jumping because it kind of made me feel racist, but at the same time, I didn't even know he was black when I was scared by him. And when I saw him I was fine. But I still felt bad about it, and like I might have hurt his feelings by it. He told me that I just had to go down the stairs and to the right, so I did.

OH! The first poem was read by this guy Tomas, a racially-mixed and culturally-mixed kid in New Pembroke (NP) 4 [one of four dorms called New Pembroke] about the question, "Where are you from?" and how it was such a small deal with most other people, but such a confusing ordeal for him whenever he was asked.

That sparked another girl to read a poem inspired by when someone asked her, "What do you think of the n word?" [I should mention, she was black]. It was a really cool poem, and it started off with a scene of two people in a bedroom, but the girl lifting up her skirt and feeling pain at the same time because for some reason she could tell the lover wasn't hers, and she was talking about how that's how she felt in America, surrounded by a people that weren't hers. There was also this really cool part where she was talking about forgetting her name, and she did a little wordplay that was excellent, like "Forgot my - forgot? - for my - got my - forgot - got my - for name - forgot my name?" You probably had to be there, but it was really excellent.

After that, a girl who calls herself Kiwi [I guess I should mention she was black?] read a poem... it was hard to describe what it was about. She was an incredible speaker, though. I don't exactly remember the theme of her poem, but I just remember really really wanting to listen to what she said because of how strongly she said it.

After that, a guy performed a really short poem starting with the line, "A woman shot me today." He played it really well, and it took us all like twenty seconds to figure out he was talking about a camera. Then Sarah Kay read a poem that was along those lines, although I sort of forget it.

Basically, after each poem, people would just go around and say good things they liked about the poem, or if they REALLY thought they had a wonderful way to improve the poem, they could say that too. Just so you get an idea for what was going on. People often snapped or clapped a little bit during the poem to show approval.

After that, a black guy with really awesome dreadlocks read a poem called something along the lines of "I Can't Believe She Was Ever Beautiful." It was inspired by a personal experience, he said, but not quite true. He was talking, of course, about a girl he knew who used to be very beautiful, but then how she grew up and got corrupted and how when he saw her now, callouses and burn marks and lines and torn, it was hard to believe she was ever beautiful. And he had some really interesting lines, like how she was beautiful back when the word "baby" meant all the right things, and something about cooking up loneliness like only your father could make it.

Then an Asian freshman girl read a poem trying to summarize the senior-year-of-high-school experience. She made it seem extremely painful... I wanted to say, "You know, my senior year ruled...!" but that wouldn't have been very useful, so I didn't say it, of course. She had some really interesting parts, though. A couple good images included lines like, "I watched the greatest minds of my generation have sex with each in their cars, and daydream about blowjobs in the Sunday pews," and then she listed a bunch of things that people became disenchanted with, including my two favorites "...Garden State... and Jesus."

After people were done reading poems, Sarah Kay decided it was time to start the Workshop. Some people left, but I wanted to hear the prompt. Basically, if someone has a prompt they like, they get up and say, "Here's an idea or way to start. Now, write." So Sarah Kay had a prompt this week. Opposite. She said, "Your poem should be based off the thought or line or sentence: The opposite of _____ is _____."

And then she talked about her experience with that line. She goes into city schools sometimes to get kids to be excited about poetry and she would often use this line with them, too. Then she'd ask them, "What's the opposite of light?" and everyone yells, "Dark!" Then what's the opposite of night? Day! of course. Then she'd get a little trickier. What's the opposite of flip-flop? Flop-flip? What's the opposite of ketchup? And then she'd ask them to try.

And this one little girl said, "The opposite of stars is inside me."

Holy crap. I know that there's a 99.9% chance that the girl had no idea how profound that line was, but man, that .1% of me really wants to believe that this little girl was just that brilliant. And that .1% of me will be waiting to hear some poems from her.

Peace out!

Farsi

During our Unit [Dorm] Meeting for West Andrews, there was a girl in the row in front of me and a little bit too my left whose interesting fact was, "I speak Farsi." I thought that was really interesting and I remembered it because I thought I could talk to her about what she thought of US-Iran relations right now and that I would learn something interesting.

The whole unit went to dinner after that and she was sitting, again, just beyond me and a little bit to the left. I turned to her and said, "You're the one that speaks Farsi, right?" And she said yes, and I said, "Is your family Iranian?" It turns out they're actually from Afghanistan - which, though not what I expected, was equally interesting to me. So I talked to her for a while - probably a good thirty minutes - about Afghanistan, her family, how it affected her, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns. She said the stories in those books were the stories her parents told her about their childhood. She said that if I ever got around to reading The Kite Runner, I could talk to her about it and her experiences. I thought it was a pretty awesome experience and I was really glad I had met her.

She doesn't live on the same floor as me so I didn't see her around very often, but I'm pretty sure I saw her on the street a few times and I think we waved to each other.

Tonight she came to the 4th Floor and was just introducing herself. She walked into my room and said what she was doing, and I said, "Oh, yeah, I know you." And she said, "...you do?"

I didn't know what to think...

Peace out.

The Daily Show

I'm in the middle of watching The Daily Show for the first time since I got here. It makes me miss home in a strange way... I'll try to describe it but I know I'll fail.

So pretty much, I watched The Daily Show every day throughout high school except, I think, for when I was out of the country and when I was at PGSS. No matter what I was doing, or who I was talking to, or what I neeed to do, I would always go be in the shower by 10:45 so I could be in bed, under the covers, alarm set, ready to laugh and fall asleep to Jon Stewart recounting yesterday's most ridiculous crap. And I guess it was just nice to know that, of course, I could always fall asleep to that. But more importantly, it was nice to know that I had enough control over my life to be able to go to sleep at 11PM every night and not have to worry about anything not getting done or something like that - everything always got done. The only except was Hi-Q Cram Nights, but I only had like 15 of those and some of them were Sundays so whatever.

But it also has some really good memories attached to it... Two summers ago, I would always watch it with Erin after Law and Order: SVU. This summer, I would always watch it with Gina after whatever we had done that day or that night. And it was always just such a wonderful day to close the day. I often wasn't really tired at 11:30, but after that, I knew there wasn't really anything else I'd like to do... so I often just went to sleep anyway.

I feel like there's more to The Daily Show and its role in my life, but I feel like I can't get into it right now for some reason.

I don't know if I'll ever get into a strict routine here. I don't know if I ever could. I'm not even absolutely positive that I want to. But the idea of it still makes me miss home and going to Garnet Valley.

Peace out!

Fire and Water

I think today was the first fire on on the campus since I've been here. Maybe even the first time a fire alarm has been pulled, which is pretty good, I guess.

I went to lunch at The Ratty after I took my quiz for Math 18 on limits [this is the first one I may not have gotten 10/10 on]. I got a hamburger and some chicken and some water and YES a cake cone and then I went outside, talked to Megan for a second, and then unlocked my bike and sat on it trying to figure out where I was going to go next. I figured I'd probably like to have my bike parked at BarHol, so I decided to ride over there and see what happened from there.

Just as I turned out of The Ratty's sidewalk area, I saw some firetrucks on George St. I didn't count exactly how many, but I'm guessing between 5 and 8. Some were on George Street before the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., some were just on Thayer St., and some were beyond the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., so I couldn't tell exactly where the fire was. I rode past the intersection [going beyond Thayer St.] and kept looking around, and I saw a bunch of people standing outside of a building on George St., and I figured that must be it. I don't know the name of the building or what it's used for. Just that everyone was standing outside of it and there were lots of fire engines nearby.

It was kind of strange, though, because there were no hoses being used, there was no sound of fire, there was no one screaming, no one calling for anything, no one using any latters, no one threatening to jump, not even smoke. I couldn't figure out why there were so many firetrucks. I kept going and parked my bike in the Bike Graveyard at BarHol and walked back [I figured I would go to the Brown Bookstore for clothes]. And as I walked past, a firefighter walked to the door of the building, opened it... and then people started to walk back in. I could NOT figure out what was going on. It's still a mystery to me.

I was looking for a sweatshirt in the bookstore, but I wasn't sure I could find the right size. What am I more likely to wear as a sweatshirt, a child's medium or an adult medium? In either case, they didn't have any adult smalls, so I figured I should wait.

When I came out of the bookstore and started walking back to BarHol, most of the firetrucks were gone. I remember that one was driving towards the scene earlier when I was on my bike, and he stopped at the intersection and waved at me, telling me to go by first. I thought it was weird - he was an emergency worker, shouldn't he go first??? - so I waved him through and sat there until he went. And it kind of just made everything more of a mystery... why are there so many firetrucks for something that seems so non-emergency?

While I was crossing Brook St. to get to BarHol, though, I did see and hear an ambulance fly down Waterman St. with it's sirens and lights on. I still couldn't figure it out though, because... there was no reason they should ever be going in that direction from that place if the emergency was on George St. Absolutely no reason. I can't figure it out.

***********

Apparently the water here has lead in it.

Well, okay. Not all of it. The water in Providence at large is safe and no one has problems with it, but the water in some of the buildings at Brown, apparently, did not pass inspection recently. The safe level of lead is 15 parts per billion, and the lead level was 15 parts per MILLION. Which means we're 1000x over the safe limit. Three orders of magnitude too much. Now, I think it's only in building I don't go to - like the Department of Applied Math - so I don't worry about it too much. But you do have to ask yourself.... HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?! Who let that go? There is clearly only ONE WAY this could happen - someone left lead pipes in those buildings - and it just doesn't make sense to think that some of the old buildings would have those removed but some of them wouldn't.

All I know is that now whenever a math/science/engineering student doesn't understand something, they'll just blame it in the lead in the water.

*********

They were playing Fast Car by Tracy Chapman in the V-Dub this morning during breakfast. It made me really want to listen to it, so when I went back to my room I found a copy of it and listened to it a few times.

I also listened to Soulja Boy. Danny came in while I was watching the video and starting singing and dacning along with it. I think I might ask him to teach it to me.

Peace out!

Slam

I went to a live Poetry Slam/Spoken Word Festival for the first time tonight. It was in Sayles Hall, I think, and the headliners were a group of five poets who just happened to be in the area before going on a national tour. Collectively, the five of them had won every single international and national individual and collective slam title in the past five years, except for one. So this was like, the best of the best - except there was no Taylor Mali and no Beau Sia.

At first there were some people from Brown performing to get us "warmed up," and I think their names were Ryan (a white guy) and Sarah Kay (half-asian girl?), both wearing blue. I forget what Ryan's poem was about - I think I might have missed it - but I remember Sarah's started off about Hiroshima, and an entire city turning into powder by the power of the temporary supernova of the A-Bomb, and then she was talking about being in a birth nursery and looking around at all the sleeping children waiting for their parents to pick them up, and thinking, "I've been here before." And she was talking about the only things left not turned to powder: a watch, a tooth, a bike lock, a page of a diary.

And she talked about her name, Sarah. It was a biblical name, and in the Bible, God told the very first Sarah that she would do something impossible, and Sarah laughed because how would she do something that was impossible? And Sarah Kay said, I don't know what I would do if somebody tried to tell me I was going to do something impossible, but I can tell you I try every day to do something impossible. I try make the connection, she said, between two people, a connection where two people are feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time and they're not waiting for their turn to talk but they're actually listnening and every time she met someone new, she said, she tried to connect with them, but it seemed somehow impossible. And she talked about her performing, and said, "You can measure out my self-confidence in teaspoons or less and you can mix it up with whatever you want and dilute it and expand it but it'll still taste funny in your mouth." I forget exactly how she came to the end, but I remember her saying strongly, "Maybe I don't believe in reincarnation... but I'm just trying to get it right this time around."

The next guy who came up was a Brown student who just graduated and moved to Seattle, WA, and came pretty much just to perform tonight. He won last year's national individual competition. His poem was about The Distance, and I can't remember the whole of it, but I do remember two really good parts. The first was when he talked about going to a pawn shop at the end of The Distance, and finding there a shopkeeper who kept clean his beard with the razor you gave to him in exchange for a second chance. I don't know why, but I thought the idea of trading something in for a second chance was a very interesting one. The second was at the end of his poem, his close, when he talked about reaching the end of The Distance, and realizing you would trade in everything you had just found to find your way home.

I don't think I need to explain why I found that line powerful.

Then Ryan and Sarah got back up, and they started going back and forth doing little things a bit at a time... They said things like, "When you pee your pants, I will still play four-square with you," then the other, "When you need a date to the prom, I'll let you go with my cousin," or "When you come out to your parents, I'll let you stay at my house," or "When your need a place to run away, I'll be your home away from home." They said so much, and they went on for so long, and it was all so beautiful... I wish I could remember it all. If I do nothing else with my time at Brown, I will find out every word and every line of that poem.

The only other really interesting part of the night, I think, was when the first famous poet came up and started You Have Just Been Given an Official Order to Rock the F*ck Out. And he would start listing ways and reasons to rock out. Rock out as if someone was holding a weapon to your head and said to you Rock out as if your life depended on it because it damn well does. Rock out like you just won both showcases. He spent about three minutes, and it was all very good and very entertaining... the one that really stuck out to me, though, was the line, "Rock out like your dead grandfather just came back to life to rock the f*ck out with you in your new car." And it just kind of made me think about doing that... and for the first time ever, I felt sad that I never knew my grandfathers. Either of them. And I wonder what I am missing out on by not knowing them. I wondered if my life would be different if I knew them, and if Nana and Grandmom would be different if they were still with them... is it bad that I feel I miss people I have never even known?

Peace out.