Saturday March 17, 2012 at 15:04

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Walking the Tightrope: This American Life Retraction

I’m drawing a lot of inspiration from Ira Glass and the program he’s been doing since the 90s, This American Life. :) Go figure what I was thinking when I chose the name of my project!

This week they’ve posted a retraction of an episode they had maybe 6 weeks ago, apparently one of their most popular, with the most downloads ever. The show, and subsequent retraction center around the “creative license” of writer and actor Mike Daisey, taken in creating the apparently popular, heart wrenching monologue, detailing supposed Apple activities in China. This is the first retraction they’ve made EVER. 

I write this after having done my first trip of 20, and having been criticized over the past year about my lack of ‘agenda’. I’ve refused to allow various interests to take hold of it, and even when I have tried to align it with non-profit organizations and tourism companyies, for example, I’m not about to make my trip ONLY about whatever it is they want and are selling.

I feel like this was Mike Daisey’s creative mistake: deciding that his creative product would only be valuable/viable for creative output if it was about Apple and it’s manufacturing practices in China, a very particular economic and humanitarian debate. Once that story proved hard to find in real life, he felt like he had to fake it - whatever he did see wasn’t good enough to tell another story. 

Who knows, perhaps he’d paid for his China trip himself, perhaps someone had paid for it - it must have been a gamble of some kind, and the expected outcome was the fabulous story he would tell. Assuming he isn’t just a pathological bad lier, I get that. I’m an artist,  singly investing my time, financial and other resources into This Kenyan Life. I want it to pay me back, one way or another - I want it to be worth it at the end of it. And I do not possess unlimited resources to ensure that it is. 

I feel a little bit better now about not having a clear “story” that I want to tell of each place. It really just cements that decision. I hope I do find, or come to small truths along the way. I resolve not make stuff up, or fall under the pressure to be sensational, because maybe that would get me more hits. I will make some kind of art out of this - perhaps a book of poems, and I don’t project wanting to write about anything that would require or suggest a fact-checkable thing - that will be the blog space. 

No, I’m not a journalist, I haven’t wanted to be one really since I was a teenager. But I value facts, and i value truth. Art can be both subsumed by or devoid of either and both of these, I suppose it just needs to be clear when confusion is possible, or important.

I never want to be walking in Mike Daisey’s shoes right now. And I totally feel for Ira Glass. To have a perfect record soiled is a horrible, horrible thing. 

Link to the show:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

Wednesday June 08, 2011 at 18:25

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Had a date yesterday with a lovely artist Miriam Syowia Kyambi who’s rather obsessed with Mexico - and I see why its a useful obsession with this book recommendation. Note: I’m collecting book recommendations to read while on the trip and she recommended two. I’m archiving the list here and little tidbits about the books. From Wikipedia: The Labyrinth of Solitude (Spanish: El laberinto de la soledad), one of Octavio Paz’s most famous works, is a collection of nine essays: ‘The Pachuco and other extremes’, ‘Mexican Mask’, ‘The Day of the Dead’, ‘The Sons of La Malinche’, ‘The Conquest and Colonialism’, ‘From Independence to the Revolution’, ‘The Mexican Intelligence’, ‘The Present Day’ and ‘The Dialectic of Solitude’. The book’s first publication was in 1950 but after 1975 some editions included the essay ‘Post data’ which discusses the massacre of hundreds of Mexican students in 1968. As a reaction to this event, Paz abandoned his position as ambassador in India. The essays are predominantly concerned with the theme of Mexican identity and demonstrate how at the end of the existential labyrinth there is a profound feeling of solitude.[1] As Paz argues: ‘Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature -if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature- consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.’[2] Paz observes that solitude is responsible for the Mexican’s perspective on death, ‘fiesta’, and identity. Death is seen as an event that is celebrated but at the same time repelled because of the uncertainty behind it. As for the fiestas, they express a sense of communality, crucially emphasizing the idea of not being alone and in so doing helps to bring out the true Mexican that is usually hidden behind a mask of self-denial. This represents the way in which the Mexicans have inherited two distinct cultures, the indigenous and the Spanish, but by denying one part of their identity they become stuck in a world of solitude. From the essay ‘The Conquest and Colonialism’ onwards, Paz makes a detailed analysis of Mexican history beginning with a look at their Pre-Columbian culture and in particular reflecting on the 1910 Revolt. In his analysis, he expresses how the humanists take a primary role as the intellectuals of the country. His major criticism is that to be an intellectual it is necessary to distance oneself from the subject that you are studying so that the argument remains critical yet rational and objective. As the intellectual gets more involved with the political environment, his arguments can often become influenced by other factors such as political motivation and pressure to conform.

Had a date yesterday with a lovely artist Miriam Syowia Kyambi who’s rather obsessed with Mexico - and I see why its a useful obsession with this book recommendation.

Note: I’m collecting book recommendations to read while on the trip and she recommended two. I’m archiving the list here and little tidbits about the books.

From Wikipedia:

The Labyrinth of Solitude (Spanish: El laberinto de la soledad), one of Octavio Paz’s most famous works, is a collection of nine essays: ‘The Pachuco and other extremes’, ‘Mexican Mask’, ‘The Day of the Dead’, ‘The Sons of La Malinche’, ‘The Conquest and Colonialism’, ‘From Independence to the Revolution’, ‘The Mexican Intelligence’, ‘The Present Day’ and ‘The Dialectic of Solitude’. The book’s first publication was in 1950 but after 1975 some editions included the essay ‘Post data’ which discusses the massacre of hundreds of Mexican students in 1968. As a reaction to this event, Paz abandoned his position as ambassador in India. The essays are predominantly concerned with the theme of Mexican identity and demonstrate how at the end of the existential labyrinth there is a profound feeling of solitude.[1] As Paz argues:

‘Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature -if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature- consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.’[2]

Paz observes that solitude is responsible for the Mexican’s perspective on death, ‘fiesta’, and identity. Death is seen as an event that is celebrated but at the same time repelled because of the uncertainty behind it. As for the fiestas, they express a sense of communality, crucially emphasizing the idea of not being alone and in so doing helps to bring out the true Mexican that is usually hidden behind a mask of self-denial. This represents the way in which the Mexicans have inherited two distinct cultures, the indigenous and the Spanish, but by denying one part of their identity they become stuck in a world of solitude.

From the essay ‘The Conquest and Colonialism’ onwards, Paz makes a detailed analysis of Mexican history beginning with a look at their Pre-Columbian culture and in particular reflecting on the 1910 Revolt. In his analysis, he expresses how the humanists take a primary role as the intellectuals of the country. His major criticism is that to be an intellectual it is necessary to distance oneself from the subject that you are studying so that the argument remains critical yet rational and objective. As the intellectual gets more involved with the political environment, his arguments can often become influenced by other factors such as political motivation and pressure to conform.

Wednesday June 01, 2011 at 10:00

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(Source: queersshouldnthaveinternet)

This post was reblogged from .

Monday May 30, 2011 at 20:54

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The word that’s taking me from last week to this week. Thank you Ben Cameron! Thank you TED!

Monday May 30, 2011 at 20:41

732 notes

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sugabelly: flyyybrown: modern + tribal. I really hate the word “tribal” . Signed - A Nigerian. For the last time, we are NOT tribes. Tribe is a dimunitive word used by the west to diminish the importance of pre-colonial empires that were often times bigger than the populations of many countries in Europe.  There are 30 million Igbos. There are 9 million people in Sweden, but Igbo people get called a tribe and Sweden gets called a nation.  Seriously, stop saying tribe or tribal in relation to Africans or our various cultures. It is extremely insulting and offensive.

sugabelly:

flyyybrown:

modern + tribal.

I really hate the word “tribal” . Signed - A Nigerian. For the last time, we are NOT tribes. Tribe is a dimunitive word used by the west to diminish the importance of pre-colonial empires that were often times bigger than the populations of many countries in Europe. 

There are 30 million Igbos. There are 9 million people in Sweden, but Igbo people get called a tribe and Sweden gets called a nation. 

Seriously, stop saying tribe or tribal in relation to Africans or our various cultures. It is extremely insulting and offensive.

(Source: lovelyandbrown)

This post was reblogged from Learning to Fly Again.

Monday May 30, 2011 at 20:34

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Peter Bakowski, "Where Words Take Us"

sharingpoetry:

I write poetry —
because it puts windows where there were walls

because today is a mountain
I’d like to reduce to a few stanzas

because now is the time to write it.

I write poetry, hoping to astound myself.

I write poetry because I enjoy
coaxing words
out of the corral of my ribs,
letting them graze
upon the blank page
under the shade of an adverb.

I try to write poetry clearly, use words sparingly,
each word, a small cog or spring needed
to make the poem tick.

Don’t want to fog or flood
any readers proceeding to the end of my poem,
where they may rest
in the quiet clearing
just beyond
the last full stop.

(source; submitted by weissewiese)

This post was reblogged from Sharing Poetry.

Friday May 27, 2011 at 14:01

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Reading Ruth Behar’s “The Vulnerable Observer”

I first called this project “Ngwatilo’s Kenya” almost a year ago when the idea first began to crystalize. I got in touch with a professor friend of mine from my college days, Dr. Margaret Kent Bass and asked if she would direct me to some useful reading. She pointed me to The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart, a collection of essays by Ruth Behar about her work in and perspective on anthropology.

- FTR, Ruth Behar is the ish, if like me you’re wanting to turn ethnographic oriented research into creative writing- like, say poetry. :)

The bits below are taken from the first part of her essay, “The Vulnerable Observer.” They’re especially bits I’m thinking about in thinking about and plotting my own research, I’m basically using tumblr in this moment to take some notes :).  Get the book if you’re into this stuff- Amazon will let you look inside the actual book. if you’re interested.

Anthropology…is the most fascinating, bizarre, disturbing, and necessary form of witness left to us at the end of the twentieth century. As a mode of knowing that depends on the particular relationship formed by a particular anthropologist with a particular set of people in a particular time and place, anthropology has always been vexed about the question of vulnerability. Clifford Geertz says, “You don’t exactly penetrate another culture, as the masculinist image would have it. You put yourself in its way and it bodies forth and enmeshes you.”  

Our intellectual mission is deeply paradoxical: get the “native point of view,” … without actually “going native.

hm: ok. If you want to start with the idea that Anthropology has traditionally been a field where the Westerner travels far to the land of the Eastern native “other” - then my relationship to my subject is different, in that, technically, i shall be living among my own countrymen. But for all  linguistic, experiential (urban vs rural) (cosmopolitan vs not?) and other differences, there’s a sense in which i might as well be going to Australia. kind of. Some of the time.

What happens within the observer must be made known [George] Devereux insisted, if the nature of what has been observed is to be understood. The subjectivity of the observer, he noted, “influences the course of the observed event as radically as ‘inspection’ influences (‘disturbs’) the behavior of an electron.”

so. basically, it matters whether it’s Ngwatilo going around the country or someone else. what is observed and noted fundamentally  different. ok, fine. no pressure, as long as everyone understands that. Which i guess is kind of part of my job.

An anthropologist’s conversations and interactions in the field can never again be exactly reproduced. They are unique, irrecoverable, gone before they happen, always in the past, even when written up in the present tense. The ethnography serves as the only proof of the anthropologist’s voyage, and the success of the enterprise hinges on how gracefully the anthropologist shoulders … the “burden of authorship.”

right. So to some extent I’m trying to balance this with the blog effort (the habit for which I’m trying to cultivate as we speak :)) - because I suppose, I shall be publishing [most of?] my “field notes” online.

but when an author has made herself or himself vulnerable, the stakes are higher: a boring self-revelation, one that fails to move the reader, is more than embarrassing; it is humiliating. …The exposure of the self who is also a spectator has to take us somewhere we couldn’t otherwise get to. It has to be essential to the argument, not just decorative flourish, not exposure for its own sake.

I’ve been wondering about this lately; and particularly in this moment-before, of preparation, what’s important to say or confess - if one assumes that for people to support you, they need to understand why you’re doing something, and that one needs people’s support. Also for the purpose of expanding the box of what people might think about the idea of a been-to babi used to her comforts wanting to go “rural” - what perceptions people will create for themselves that will inform their decision to choose to participate in the project or not to participate… I suppose there will be more to say on this… [bookmark]

But here comes the gold:

…a personal voice if creatively used, can lead the reader…into the enormous sea of serious social issues.

the proof?: this interesting section about several readers’ responses to an essay she wrote:

Since I have put myself in the ethnographic picture, readers feel they have come to know me. They have poured their own feelings into their construction of me and in that way come to identify with me, or at least their fictional image of who I am. These responses have taught me that when readers take the voyage through anthropology’s tunnel it is themselves they must be able to see in the observer who is serving as their guide.

When you write vulnerably, others respond vulnerably.

I hope so. truly. The purpose is really to get people to look at themselves, how they have been, or construct themselves, first as individuals and then as a society. GOLD.

Sunday May 22, 2011 at 7:13

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Pointed Ramble No. 1 

Yesterday I had a conversation with a really amazing visual artist over at Kuona Trust. There was a photographer. I think by the end of it I established that I was the only person who had grown up middle class. It also became apparent that this was an important factor in whether I was taken seriously as an artist or not.

We were talking about struggle and what our stories were. I don’t remember exactly. What’s burned in my mind was this now familiar pseudo-question accusation: “Ama we ni Babi?” –“Or are you a softie/punk/posh/not-ghetto.” Apparently the word comes from Rasta parlance, meaning or referring to Babylon. I always associated it with Barbie dolls.

The accusation, question, dismissal usually leads off into a light hearted conversation, the kind that tells you you’re in a box and no one will ever take you or anything you say seriously.  But I didn’t want to be written off in this instance. I felt like I was having a conversation with a real artist, rather than a Good Moaner with really Ugly Stories of Beautiful Survival – I really wanted to protect and continue the conversation we were having about art and story and creativity. I guess I also felt like these dudes, or the main dude was open enough to hear me out. Actually the second dude left shortly after; talk about being written off. I am not from “the” ghetto. I’ve grown up firmly, if modestly middle-class. Public school by default, totting bread and cocoa for break for the longest time, if that shall be said to be an indicator. 

I see them snickering. I remind myself you cannot win when you speak about what and who you are not or try to indicate/signify for proof.

So who am I?

borrowed butterflies

The first two poems of my book, “Teacups” and “Childhood Revisited” are perhaps the most nakedly autobiographical in the collection, and they frame much of my story thus far: the loss of home, issues of identity, an obsession (perhaps) with place, and a simultaneously fanciful and probing outlook on life: I am as likely to chase butterflies on fields of tall grass as I am to stand before the field and ponder on what the land is doing, how we can cajole it (okay, it’s owners) to do better for the earth and human sustenance.

I’ve moved around a lot, and I’ve come back a lot also. The things I have seen and have come to believe isolate me because I have seen many of them alone, as do the things I have not been able to see or do with the various others that I return to.

sustenance. Besides background, I have figts that have helped me make sense of my path. I continue to employ them. In twenty years, I want to have created and to continue to create knowledge and experiences beyond my background and current thinking. “Babi-hood” cannot  define me, nor will it curtail my journey or catapult me to the next place. 

To be clear (and longwinded), I will make good art with fodder from the things and places I know, from the ideas I have, from what The Creator sticks in my heart and mind. “Good Art” does not require a personal “ghetto” history. It’s not even about ‘the ghetto’ necessarily, but it can be.Those of us struck with the inkling to make “Good Art” can make it wherever we are, with whatever there is there, and we can step further and seek out new experiences and ideas to create around.

 I am not merely “not stuck,” I am free.