Hexagram Fifty-Six

I spent an hour and a half printing out 631 pages of Vietnamese...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:18:48 -0400

I spent an hour and a half printing out 631 pages of Vietnamese study materials yesterday. I have 2 months to get through it all, preferably three or four times over. This summer is going to be a fun one!

"We must try, through international education, to realize something new in the world — a purpose that..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:34:27 -0400

“We must try, through international education, to realize something new in the world — a purpose that will inspire us and challenge us to use our talents and material wealth in a new way, by persuasion rather than force, cooperatively rather than competitively, not with the intention of gaining dominance for a nation or an ideology, but for the purpose of helping every society develop its own concept of public decency and individual fulfillment.”

- Senator J. William Fulbright

Vietnam is on the horizon.

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:20:26 -0400

Vietnam is on the horizon.

"One thing that I hate is selling dreams. If you really want beauty in your life, do something with..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:41:15 -0400

“One thing that I hate is selling dreams. If you really want beauty in your life, do something with your ideas, but in a real way. Live with some sense that there is a larger world around.”

- MUICCIA PRADA

I have a document on my computer entitled The Future. As a college sophomore I made this document in...

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:40:00 -0400

I have a document on my computer entitled The Future. As a college sophomore I made this document in an attempt to parse out what I wanted to do with my life and to plan it in stages. It started simply, with three stages:

Travel
Intern
Graduate

I am about to leave the third stage behind me. The previous stages went more or less according to plan, but I’ve had to rearrange and shuffle around the stages that lay ahead. The future is a messy business, but sometimes a bit of organizing clarifies it all. Reorganizing the future is actually quite cathartic; you realize that it makes more sense under this new construction than the previous one.

Did M.I.A. Predict the Boston Marathon Bombings?

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 23:17:00 -0400

IN July 2010, M.I.A. (of “Paper Planes” fame) released a song called “Lovalot” on her new album. It was eerie and haunting, a song that made your heart sink, and for that reason critics declared it to be the gem of the otherwise lackluster album.

In “Lovalot” M.I.A. tries to get into the head of the 2010 Black Widow Bomber, Dzhanet Abdullayeva. Dzhanet lived in Dagestan, Chechnya’s sister state. Both states have 200 year histories fighting for sovereignty against Russian rule. She and another woman set off bombs in the Moscow subway system during rush hour. The damage was far greater than the damage incurred in Boston - 40 people died during that particular catastrophe.

Dzhanet was a self-styled terrorist. She supposedly set off the bombs to avenge the death of her husband, an extremist Muslim militant who died fighting in a shootout. But this is mere speculation. As we do with all terrorist acts, the world tried to process and rationalize her actions. But like all forms of evil, her actions can never truly be rationalized.

M.I.A., like all of us, tried to rationalize it through this song. The chorus of the song repeats the verse: “I really love a lot, I really love a lot.” But the words and the sounds meld into one another. The listener starts to hear: “I really love Allah, I really love Allah.” The verse ends with the statement “But I fight the ones that fight me.

Now, this would just be another chilling, politically charged song if it weren’t for some seemingly out-of-place references.The FBI is name checked, as is Obama. “Like Obama needs to love up Chen” she sings, referring directly to the Chechen people. This too seems like a factual error - Dzhanet was Dagestani, not Chechen. She references Hu Jintao, the former Chinese Head of State, for no apparent reason. In 2010, these incongruences seemed like statements made for the sake of provocation. It was as if M.I.A mentioned them just to make her song more political until you saw through the inaccuracy of it all. What did Obama and the FBI have to do with Chechnya? Today, though, her lyrics - scarily, uncomfortably, disturbingly - make sense.

The song and its lyrical contents, understood in the context of the Boston Marathon bombings, make near perfect sense. As the media has tried to parse through the backgrounds of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - as they have tried in vain to organize a compelling, rational motive behind their actions - this song has mutated into a complex and haunting political narrative. The song used to sink your heart; now it feels like a punch in the gut. The backgrounds of these two young men are complex, and we will probably never be able to condense this act of terrorism down to a clear and cogent motive. But “Lovalot” unintentionally seems to elucidate some of it.

I’m being blatantly sensationalist when I ask if M.I.A. predicted the bombings in Boston. Even establishing a connection between Dzhanet Abdullayeva and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is tenuous at best, based only on a shared origin. I, too, am guilty of trying to rationalize the irrational. To end, though, I’ll leave you with the lyrics in their entirety. Breaking its relevancy down line by line is possible, but tedious. Standing alone, the words still do more justice to my argument than my own feeble rationalizations:

They told me this is a free country,
But now it feels like a chicken factory.
I feel cooped up I wanna bust free,
Got nothing to lose if you get me.

Like a Taliban trucker eating boiled up yucca,
I keep my eyes down like I’m in a black burka.
Been through shit/ Yeah it’s a fucker.
Now I make tunes/ Say shaka laka laka,
Shaka laka la/ Shaka laka lee/ Shaka lakalakalaka lucky lucky me.
If you check me, I check you.
If they kick you, then I’ll back you.
Say somin’ new/ Say somin’ cool.
I give you my time, but I ain’t no fool.
Acca acca I/ Break a break a jaw/ Every every time someone steps on my toe.

I fight the ones that fight me.

I really love a lot,
I really love a lot,
I really love a lot,
I really love a lot,
But I fight the ones that fight me.
But I fight the ones that fight me.
I fight the ones who fight me.
But I fight/ But I fight/ But I fight,
But I fight the ones that fight me.

Who’s in town? (Dem no like me, me no like dem.)
Like Hu Jintao. (Instead of them I got a new found gem.)
Someone I can love up like men.
Like Obama needs to love up Chen.

Like a hand me down sucker throwing bombs out to Mecca.
Call it goodwill/ Get money to get better.
Keep your head down like a Unicef worker,
If you get hit you can’t question the fucker.
How come how come I/ Yeah but yeah but why?
If I be the F/ Who the F, B the I?
If you met me then you’ll get me/ But if you get me will you get a fee?
Shit’s meant to be free/ Where’s Bob Marley?
‘Cause I won’t turn my cheek like I’m Gandhi.

I fight the ones that fight me.
I fight the ones that fight me.

Repeat Chorus.

EDIT: I’ve just now realized that this song can probably be compared to Outkast’s “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad).” That song was recorded in 2000, pre-9/11, pre-Iraq War, pre-everything.

For those of you who remain unaware, PSY borrowed the dance from...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:39:37 -0400

For those of you who remain unaware, PSY borrowed the dance from his new song from these girls.

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:05:47 -0400

A few weeks back one of my stories was featured on Cowbird....

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:54:00 -0400

A few weeks back one of my stories was featured on Cowbird. I’ve just now seen the “retellings” of the story - the comments - because I had not been aware of this feature until today. I’m getting such a feel-good, warm and fuzzy vibe from reading them, and from realizing that something I wrote resonated with other people.

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:46:00 -0400

Anselmo Ralph - Não Me Toca I’m just going to lay...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:00:00 -0400

Anselmo Ralph - Não Me Toca

I’m just going to lay this question on the table: Is he the Angolan Usher or the Angolan Justin Timberlake?

Spring Cleaning

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:48:12 -0400

Today is a day for spring cleaning. I’ve spent my afternoon decluttering my digital files and reorganizing my online bookmarks. Today is a day for a digital cleanse.

Outside of my window I can hear the reverberations of chanting. It sounds like the sliding...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:46:36 -0400

Outside of my window I can hear the reverberations of chanting. It sounds like the sliding scale of Arabic words, a morning prayer broadcast out of a mosque. It sounds like a wandering prophet marching down Fordham Road, singing the fortunes of the world. It sounds like a car driving eastwards, Gregorian chants thumping out the bass systems. It sounds like spirituality, only in the Bronx.

Sounds for a Sunday afternoon. ...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:20:52 -0400

Sounds for a Sunday afternoon.

“This House” by Kindlewood

Photo

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 08:35:32 -0400

A Theory

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:30:17 -0400

New York is still gritty. Bloomberg and Giuliani cleaned the city up like a pair of five year old boys clean their rooms; they just hid the grime in pockets of the city that remain unseen to tourists and hipsters and investment bankers. It’s still there, and you can’t call yourself a New Yorker unless you know where to find it.

¡Enhorabuena! 3rd Indian Wells Title. 600th Career Match...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 08:20:48 -0400

¡Enhorabuena!

3rd Indian Wells Title.
600th Career Match Win.
22nd Masters 1000 Title, a world record.
1st Hard Court Title since October 2010 (Tokyo).
Moves up to #4 in the rankings, ahead of David Ferrer.
Best start of the season ever at a 17-1 YTD record, winning 3 out of 4 titles and reaching the finals of all 4.
Gets a heavy dose of peace of mind. Now he can head back home to Mallorca and rest for the next few weeks before Monte Carlo and the clay court swing! And the rest of his fans can rest assured that he’s back to his good ‘ol self.

I went to the New York Metropolitan Opera last night to...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:10:00 -0500

I went to the New York Metropolitan Opera last night to see Carmen, just like they did in Hey Arnold. My childhood has come full circle.

Spring comes in 25 days. Robert Julian Onderdonk, “Springtime”,...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:30:14 -0500

Spring comes in 25 days.

Robert Julian Onderdonk, “Springtime”, 1901

Photo

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:17:10 -0500