Monday, March 31, 2014

Sunday

On our way onto UNM campus today, we ran into a protest against the police (the Albuquerque police recently shot and killed a homeless, mentally ill man who was camping in the foothills and, a couple of days after that killing came to light, they shot and killed another man who they claim shot at them first). Police in riot gear faced off against twenty or so people in their teens and early 20s who were shouting things. One guy had a sign. Lots of people were filming or taking pictures with their cell phones, including me and Dave.

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We were coming to campus to see Sherman Alexie. (This is not a picture of Sherman Alexie. This is a picture of the empty stage that I took while we were waiting for the lights to go down in the theater.)

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Luckily the tickets were given to us by a friend who has season tickets to the theater but who is out of town. (I say luckily because I love the guy's novels and movies, but his onstage performance/lecture/thingy was not particularly interesting and I would have felt a bit cheated if I had paid the $150 that the tickets were being sold for.) The whole thing reminded me of the pilot episode of The Boondocks in which one of the little black kids, Huey Freeman, has dreams about telling white people the truth (Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11) and provoking a riot. When he does finally get the chance to do it in real life, instead of rioting, the white people all laugh and applaud and patronizingly call him well-spoken.

The same thing happened to Sherman Alexie on Sunday. He talked about how lucky it is for white people are that Indians aren't prone to terrorist acts, openly mocked older white men, talked about how the reservation system is a continuing act of war--and the white people laughed and applauded and lined up to have their books signed.

More Strangeness

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In the form of a poster seen hung up all over the neighborhood where I walk Crunch.

Reset

I need to have a clearing out of my studio space. There isn't a single area where I can work.

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Creative chaos.

2 comments:

Rosa said...

I accidentally deleted a comment Laura left me, but luckily I had a copy in my email:

hey Rosa! I still love Sherman even if/when he's being patronized. hope you are swell, chica! I have been lurking around your blog, if not commenting. Love the cells!!! xoxo

Good to hear from you La-oh-rah! I hope your spring is going well. I'm work work working away. There's never enough time, is there?, when inspiration strikes.

Ruthy said...

Love the way your workplace looks;) Crazy Abq happenings, no?