a city visible but unseen

a phrase i borrowed from "the satanic verses", which i've now completed, thanks to a very long subway-ferry-bus ride to the african refuge drop-in center on staten island today. thank you, salman rushdie.

i have many thoughts as of late, and like my dear friend xarissa, am having trouble finding the energy to write them.... but i'll begin to try anyway :) so. i will start work next week at this drop-in center, run by a wonderfully brilliant and energetic liberian man, located in the projects of parkhill, a community nestled in the bizarre new york borough of staten island. going there today was the first time i had ever been to the island - i got hopelessly lost after debarking from the ferry, and when asking random people on the street how to get to parkhill i was met with sharp glances and disbelieving laughter - "parkhill? that area's a warzone!" "the projects? you wanna go there?" this is much the same reaction i get when i tell people i meet that i am living in harlem - all the way up on 149th. "what's up there? i've never been!" as this fascinated glow of interest passes over their faces as they realize that people actually go there, and even live there. (!!!) i don't live on 149th or work in parkhill out of any deliberate political statement, i'm just trying to live a "normal" life in this city which has no real "norm". i'm not trying to prove a point, i'm simply hoping to absorb all aspects of new york - to live and see the insane and overwhelming amount of diversity that is present in these 5 boroughs. (besides i really live in north harlem because rent is ridiculously cheap, and work on staten island because they had a posting and were looking for workers with a background in african issues.)

but really - why are so many swaths of new york simply overlooked and invisible? even by people who have lived here their whole lives?

it was really impossible to not feel my heart stir as i passed the statue of liberty this morning on the ferry (not a bad commute, eh?). i mean truly. all that this piece of metal means and signifies about what america is and what it has given to so many people is truly inspiring. it's incredibly ironic that i will pass it every time i go and work in a drop-in center to work with recent african immigrants - mostly refugees from political chaos at home. these families are struggling beyond struggling to make their lives work here in the US, despite all the personal history and baggage that they may be carrying.... oh man, where do you begin?

but in the end i am simply so excited to be involved in such a venture, really excited by the potential of this work - of the things i will hopefully learn or at least be exposed to. there is so much i'm simply so ignorant of, and i hope my new life here in the city will chip away at some of that ignorant shell - that i won't be prey to the delusion that new york is simply this or simply that - but instead let my own conceptions and ideas crumble away and feel in some small way more involved with all that surrounds me.

so yes, of course - more to come :)

and yes, i took these photos today - of the statue of liberty and manhattan from the ferry, and then the last one is actually of the parkhill projects. the drop-in center is simply in the basement of one of these apartment blocs, just so get an idea of my surroundings.

this is where i work (part 1)

my days are wonderfully full with various jobs these days. (and various wonderful train rides in between.) (and various wonderful literature read on said train rides.)

this is one place i have begun work at: the dumbo arts center (DAC) in brooklyn. (dumbo is the name of this area of brooklyn, meaning "down under manhattan bridge overpass".) i took this picture this morning of the front entry - notice the gorgeous manhattan bridge? you turn the corner to the left and boom there's the brooklyn bridge - the arts center is right at the corner of that famous park in every movie about new york, you know the one at the base of the brooklyn bridge looking right on all the skyscrapers of the financial district? of course the world trade centers used to make the view even more spectacular, but it is still stunning nonetheless. (too stunning for me to get a good picture of it, apparently...) i am seriously so beyond excited that i have an excuse to come here twice a week and gaze at the beauty...

....ah, life is running full force - i feel as if i have entered a time warp since moving to new york - the last week has been so brimming it feels like a year has passed. i have already indulged in so many events only available in a city as diverse and massive as this one - cat power at the apollo, movies on mexican mennonites at film forum, literature readings at east village bookstores, gourmet grocery stores in chelsea... normal pretentious adventures :) but honestly. i have been inundated just in the past 8 days alone. i have learned so much, experienced so much - my mind is stretched and expanded and pulled and challenged. (i.e. my favorite state of mind ever.)

i saw a documentary ("our city dreams") a few days ago at the IFC center - one of the artists in the movie said that she moved to new york from cairo and felt entirely comfortable not fitting in, because here, "no one fits in." i think that was so accurate and brilliant. the city is so diverse and gargantuan that anyone can find their niche, everyone is welcome and integral to the landscape. i could never expect to grasp it all - the city changes so much minute by minute - but who cares about total comprehension. i am just so happy to be here, more happy than i could ever, ever say. yay! so now everyone come visit. (les, it's totally not too early to give yourself a bday plane ticket.... :)

this is my 101st post!!!

i feel an exuberance in that my first official post from manhattan should be my 101st - as if i am embarking off on something entirely new and my blog actually gets it :)

it's hard to explain how i have felt since arriving here on saturday - but the best way to describe it may be to say that i simply feel an overwhelming calm. i am of course ecstatic to be here, but i don't feel a nervous excited happiness - instead i feel absolutely content and at peace with where i am. i no longer feel as if i'm lying in wait or expectation of anything - as if i am just looking to the next step. instead i feel so happy to be. the end.

nothing has changed in terms of my employment - i do the same frustratingly sporadic research work i've done for the last 4 months. but whereas before i felt uncertain and apprehensive each morning, i now just feel hugely grateful to be where i am. while falling asleep last night i was repeating over and over in my head a prayer of gratitude for all working out as it did - for this opportunity to have the freedom to actually live where i want to live. to be surrounded by 3 wonderful and creative and fabulous and kind roommates, to have stepped into a wonderful community around 149th and broadway (there have been so many instances just in the last days which have made me fall swiftly in love with my building and my neighborhood and the general kindness i've been met with here). i just feel an overwhelming sense of potential and possibility - the very opposite of stagnation. i haven't felt this in quite a long while - and i don't see it leaving anytime soon. i feel quite at home here in new york - moving here really did feel like i had already been here for years (i suppose i had been mentally), that i'm simply stepping into something i've always known. and i want to make it here for a long time yet :)

ok, so forgive the sappy over-cheesiness of this post, but i promise i'm absolutely sincere in all i've said. i am very happy and wanted you all to know that my apartment is absolutely huge and wonderfully brand-newly renovated, so everyone is welcome :) i'll post pictures soon hopefully - i also need to document some choice images from my neighborhood :)

so yes, so much more to come!

it has to be a good sign

today was my last day in DC, as tomorrow mom and i start the drive up to manhattan. so it was my last time walking from my house in arlington to the ballston metro stop - walking through the quiet suburban streets, waiting 14 bloody minutes for the orange line train, and getting out at dupont circle to do some last visits of friends. hm. it was lovely, and i wouldn't trade the experiences i had in DC for anything - i believe whole-heartedly in the value of experience, and am so happy to have a knowledge of our nation's capital. but all that being said, i really won't miss DC. i have not one shred of nostalgia in leaving the place, which is kind of sad, isn't it? i don't think i've ever been so detached to a place i have lived. oh well, it can't be helped. and really, DC was not very welcoming to me in the end, right? i realize this even more now, after the last few days has brought some very promising reactions from people in new york...

you see my at-home fistula research work for johns hopkins/UNFPA will basically keep me afloat financially in new york, in addition to what i earned in the last months with other part-time research positions. but of course i want to do more in the actual city of new york to feel like an actual resident. i sent out some emails on tuesday to some places about potential volunteer-work. (this, this, this and this place - in case you are interested) all said organizations got back to me within a day, all incredibly enthusiastic about me and my resume, and i have meetings set up with all of them to discuss how i could be involved. 2 of the places are interested in me for more than just volunteer work even, based on my background and "skill set." (this one and this one) now c'mon. isn't that a good sign that new york is already a great deal (as in 180,000%) more welcoming to me than DC ever was? my gosh the greatest note of encouragement i got in this town was from mr. yogato :) (who did say by the way that i was the best employee they've ever had. awesome! i was so dang proud.) rejection after rejection met me here - not even harsh rejection, just complete and utter apathy and non-responsiveness... not that i feel so entitled that i think everyone should be clamoring for my resume, but a bit of interest is always nice, right? and now people are actually saying they are impressed by my experience and really want me to work for them?! i mean honestly! i am very encouraged. and very thrilled. and very very ready to get going.

so. who said new yorkers were all just hard and tough-skinned? from what i have seen they already seem more than hospitable :) huzzah!

i think i should probably blog

1. berlin. oh too much to tell.

but here, let me try to recount one aspect at least of the journey: i went to dozens of small private galleries of contemporary art and am convinced that besides new york, berlin is the absolute most impressive epicenter of exciting and stunning art being produced today. i could literally write 100 blogposts based on what i saw. so yes, for this, and many other reasons, my 2 weeks in berlin were a resounding success, and i am in a semi-stupor having just returned last night and confronted with life once more on this side of the atlantic...

2. i move to new york city on friday. !!! 149th and broadway. !!! (notice my updated profile to the right!!!!!!!) mom is coming out to help, which is quite possibly the most wonderful news of the month :) thanks mom!

3. i am swiftly falling in love with both salman rushdie and margaret wise brown. geniuses of completely different modes of expression, but oh! how they have both reached my heart :)

a major award

so one more thing before heading off to berlin (!!!).

so i got an award for my dissertation last year at oxford. and it being oxford, the prize for said award was of course books (around 300 GBpounds worth!). and me being dorky me, i was absolutely thrilled.

and now, finally, 6 months later, the books arrived!!! oh the joy! look at these beauties....





























and yes, the one i'm most excited for: "women, work, and domestic virtue in uganda 1900-2003". totally awesome.

'tis promising

yes 2009 is already looking like it may be quite a beautiful year.

you see, i'm moving to new york in february. january in the meantime will be spent with various loved ones in the US and europe, and then it's off to 111th and lennox for me... to start a new life, once again.

i admit new york was always my dream, DC was a backup plan made out of prudence and practicality - i figured it was easier to find a job there (which theoretically it is), so i settled for post-oxford life in our nation's capital. i don't regret the decision, and being there did get me wonderfully connected in the fistula world, which i will now continue to work with (though more involved - or that's the idea) in new york. my largest reason for wanting to be in new york, however, is.... art. yes, pure and simple art.

many know that my initial aspiration when i was 17 and 18 was to be a contemporary art critic. i worshiped art forum magazine and wanted to be one of their writers, dropping words like "the other" "public vs. private" "transient" "the politics of ____" and "post-greenberg aesthetics" in each paragraph i penned. as i grew older and my other passion (africa) took a larger role in my life, so i shoved lacan, jameson, and baudrillard to the side in favor of ferguson, soyinka, and de waal. i'm very happy where i am now, but admit i still loooooong for the unabashed pretension and self-absorption of the art world :) i don't want to be sucked into meaningless, cynical expressions of overly self-important artists (jeff koons, bleh), but i do want to feel challenged and enlightened by the hundreds of gallery/museum spaces in new york city...

my move away from art was in many ways due to my reading of robert hughes' book the shock of the new when i was 18... he states boldly that "it is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say, this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian. specific books, perhaps; but as far as one can tell, no paintings or sculptures." i was thrown to pieces as to the point of studying art at all after reading this, and wanted to get away from the esoteric to the intensely practical.

BUT... i realized something quite the opposite after making my "practical" journey to mozambique: no, perhaps it's impossible to stop an entire genocide by painting a picture. but this is a very shallow way to look not only art, but also genocide itself. if we expect events to be only catastrophically massive and overpowering to be real, than we are living with a very false conception of reality. no genocide or war is anything more than minute, banal actions by individual people. all events in life can be reduced to the very act of daily existence - and it is HERE that art speaks to. yes some pieces (like guernica) can seem entirely other-worldly in their scale, but even such a canvas had to be diligently painted moment by moment by picasso - and can only be viewed in the physical moment of standing in a room in madrid. global poverty is a massive problem, no doubt - but if we look at as this amorphous entity of sorrow we are quite literally useless. instead why don't we look at it for what it actually is: daily, minute struggles of millions of individual human beings. yes there are large political machines that dictate much poverty, but do those political machines function without individuals? no, nothing does. (remember hannah arendt's brilliant phrase "the banality of evil" - becuase that is all it is, truly.)

and so in this sense, art - which speaks on an individual level (no matter what you say about collective consciousness or culture or whatever) - IS useful, is beautiful, and must be continued to be made, explored, and sought after.

so yes, i am very very excited to be in the heart of such a city as new york. with its absolute infinite potential for artistic spaces and expressions. and at the same time to continue working on fistula - to blend the two worlds in my own daily life. and so yes, 2009 does sound incredibly promising to me.... i do hope it is the same for you :)

SNOW + lots of gingerbread = christmas heaven

merry christmas from sundance!!! wish you were all here.

so much love to all,
jooj.

as many of you may have heard...

the lovely black volvo was stolen late saturday night while i was working at mr. yogato. stolen off the streets of DC. and i had accidentally left my phone in it too, so yes my phone was stolen as well.

yes it is an unbelievably frustrating event. i feel utterly violated, and the night itself was horrid as i frantically tried to find a way to tell the police the license plate number (which i hadn't memorized) - the 911 dispatcher wouldn't take the report until i had it. very difficult to be done when mom and dad are in tahiti and i have hardly anyone's number memorized, aside from lincoln's - who spent over an hour with me in my search, and gave me general calming support. thanks guggle :) the saving grace came from the combined efforts of dear friends xarissa and natalie, the former of whom was randomly with me at work that night, stood with me through the whole thing, and had natalie's number in her phone, whom i called to search my room for the license plate number, which she miraculously found, and then drove up (in her pajamas, because i had woken her up - it was about 3am at this point) to dupont circle to take me and xarissa home. so thanks to these 3, i survived the night :)

and thanks to my roommate's family, i have this awesome hunk of american glory to drive around for the next few days:


AWESOME. i admit the humor of me driving around in this is not lost on me, despite all the current frustration and stress :)

one year later, to the day

so exactly one year ago i posted the results of a haircut. today i post the results not only of a haircut, but also my very first venture in coloring my hair! i have always wanted to dye my hair darker, and i finally took the plunge. hard to get a good photo of the exact coloring... but what do you think?