retreat is not an option

Wasn’t woken up by an earthquake today, so it’s a bit later than yesterday by the time i get myself on-line. Disturbed by the news of the vote in the House against any perspective on withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. These people in Washington, mostly Republicans of course but a bunch of Democrats as well (what the hell…) would like to “complete the mission” in Iraq. Haven’t been terribly impressed with the word “mission” since i’m living here and visited the State Historic Park of the Santa Cruz Mission, but that aside. I’m really wondering how those people in that House consider the state of the mission. “Retreat is not an option,” said one of the Republican representatives just before the vote, and since de facto it obviously always is an option, since it has been an “option” before (remember Vietnam), i’m wondering what this statement means in terms of his vision on the current war situation. I guess those people in the House must believe that the situation in Iraq is better than it was some years ago (i wonder how many Iraqis would agree…), or if it’s not better now, than at least it will get better soon. En effet, tout va très bien, Monsieur le Président… As i’m struggling to understand just a bit more of the quagmire of this war, and just a little bit more what it would take for Iraq to have a better future, i’m frankly quite baffled by the (arrogant) confidence of this House. It almost gets fascinating: so you’re confidently striding on your mission to be completed eh, please do tell me more about that cause frankly i’d like to understand how you can come up with such a disney-wonderland vision on the world…

(from the NYTimes) “WASHINGTON, June 16 — The House of Representatives voted, 256 to 153, today in favor of a resolution promising to “complete the mission” in Iraq, prevail in the global fight against terrorism and oppose any “arbitrary date for withdrawal” of American troops.

The nonbinding but politically significant resolution was approved with just three Republicans voting against it and 42 Democrats voting for it. The measure also expresses gratitude for the valor and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and congratulates the new Iraqi government.

This morning’s vote, coming after an emotional and partisan debate, was a victory for President Bush, who has declared that it is in the national-security interest of the United States to stay in Iraq until that country is secure. It was a victory, too, for the House Republican leadership.”

yes, once more

I’m awake early today, as i was (gently) shaken out of my sleep by a (light) earthquake (a magnitude of 4.7, the news reports say). (“Did you enjoy it?” Leta asked when we met in the kitchen, “I always enjoy them a lot.” These California people…) Started reading The Olive Readers by Christine Aziz, it is beautiful so far. And i find that after every 5 pages, i go back to the opening quote from James Baldwin. Yes, once more, and thanks again Rutvica.

“One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found – and it is found in terrible places… For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light falls, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

boardwalk vampires

in need of the immense ocean and its breeze to clear some of the cobwebs away. water and wind to sooth. on the beach, i find berna. we walk arm in arm, pleasantly talking about everything and nothing. the sun light is turning all soft and golden before it calls it a day. from the beach we reach the boardwalk, which is closed, empty, desolate. there is something about an old and desolate luna park that invokes other realities. i’m especially reminded of the luna park in decay in Tbilisi were i hung out more than 10 years ago, as the beautiful young people we were with deployed it as a metaphor for the communist regime. there’s something about the frozen grins of clowns and other figures that, without the life and laughter of kids around them, all of a sudden seem quite mean and nasty. the decor connects with silent gutfeelings and before we know it, we’re all excited about the film that is spun out before our eyes: the place fills up with vampires and we see a horror-movie at the Santa Cruz boardwalk in the making. under the gallery of the casino, the sound-track plays:

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely Place
Such a lovely face
They’re livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
Bring your alibies

When i get home i google a little bit, and find that – of course! – Santa Cruz has starred in horror-movies. Notably in the vampire classic The Lost Boys which was set in a fictional small Californian coastal town (“Santa Carla”) nick-named as “The Murder Capital of the World”. I find out that this used to be Santa Cruz’ name because at some point in the 1970s or 80s there were two active serial killers and one mass murderer in town (of 50.000 inhabitants). All we need now is a camera…

b-day barbeque

So yesterday was my American b-day barbeque thing. I somehow got convinced that i should honor the tradition and have a bbq while i’m here. Confidence that shrinked a bit after the invitations had gone out, as Diana sweetly mentioned that “you also deserve credit for taking on the american bbq tradition!” (oops, am i actually up to this…) and Susan began to refer to the whole thing as “a historical event”. Ay, the weight of a tradition… Can one ever live up to them? And when is something a failure or an interesting innovation in the light of tradition? When David asked me if i needed some help, all i could respond was that i needed to know whether he had done one of these bbqs before (as i hadn’t). At least some kind of experience/knowledge to relate to. The response was reassuring: “Sarah: 234 times.” P1000702.JPG

Now i’m not really sure if we indeed had an american bbq. Meat is new thing for me so there wasn’t much of that around, but i made sure that there was corn, patatoes and mashmellows (to stick in the fire we can make in our garden, which seemed a disgusting idea to some of the non-american guests…). But the food that i indulged in was taboule, blue cheese, quinoa salad with marinated tempeh (thanks to mary), gratin aux légumes (merci didier), pasta with homemade pesto, nice bread, humus, fennel-olive-orange salad, nice wine… and ah, the most amazing chocolate raspberry cake! (how did maría know…)

P1000719.JPG American or not, it turned out to be the sweetest thing of finding oneself in such good company. Lizards, biology, DNA and science. (the sparkle in her eyes, wide open with amazement, made it so clear that maría will be studying our new housemate ammon who is studying the mating patterns of lizards…) And puppets puppets puppets. (at some point everybody should hear Rebecca’s stories about teaching Emily Martin’s feminist deconstruction of the story of conception – ask your students to enact a different story with sock puppets…) And Feza’s voice on the phone all the way from Ankara (as he got up in the morning)… (a taste of what i’ll have to deal with as well? after all that time of complaining about santa cruz, actually missing some parts of it… Feza, how did that happen?)

Now Berna wants to come and live in our house for her last weeks in Santa Cruz, and David suggests we start a weekly salon. And i’m filled with so much joy with what this house can become. Remember, it’s all about tribes…

b-day bonfire

54830035.JPG Imagine: i got some beers in the supermarket today and was asked to show identification – i’m 35 today.
And imagine the coincidence: Leta and i have our birthday on the same day. We weren’t actually born on the same day, i’m a year older than she is. And when she was born it might actually have been the 7th of june where i was born. But still the coincidence is amazing.

Leta was born in Saigon, airlifted out of the place soon before the U.S. army withdrew completely from Vietnam. A war time baby, put up for adoption to an American family. Some years ago, i think for the 30th birthday of that war time generation, Time magazine did a reportage with a group of young Americans going back to the place they were born. The coverage included accounts of life in Saigon 30 years ago, and one day Leta found herself opening Time magazine and reading a detailed eye-witness report by an American soldier or journalist or observer of some kind of the morning of the 8th of June in Saigon. A cloudy sky, raining bombs and artillery. A strange read when you know that at the very same time, under the very same sky, in some house in Saigon you were born, Leta added. 54830033.JPG

Some years ago she travelled to Vietnam, to Saigon, to seek that house where she was born. Finding that house shifted the story she had constructed for herself up till then. Who was giving up children for adoption at the time? Vietnamese women who expected a baby from an American soldier. And then it seemed that her biological mother was not Vietnamese, but a Chinese migrant into Vietnam. And that her biological father was not American, but French. A different story all together, which Leta still wants to pursue (the neighbors told her that her mother moved to Australia many years ago). Easy to get dizzy when one begins thinking about all those billion stories that weave connections between people and places and how they meet, in such ordinary things like a house or on a birthday.

54830032.JPG Today was Leta’s Santa Cruz b-day thing which i eagerly joined: a bonfire on the beach. My first one since i’m here actually. We went out early to get ourselves a beautiful spot on the beach, and installed ourselves with food and drinks (alcohol must be hidden) and a cake for the evening (hm, till 10 pm, when the police comes to stop the fires). I had expected the sunset to be really something, but it was nothing compared to the rising of the moon (not so far from full) and her pearl-like pale light playing on the waves of the ocean. What a beauty just to watch.

A brief homecoming at Berna’s place after leaving the bonfire crowd (always a good idea for me when i’ve passed hours in an American-only crowd). You smell of bonfire, Berna laughed when i greeted her, and as i wrap my black woolen shawl around me while i’m writing this, i hope the scent stays with me for a while.

reclaim the streets… well, trying.

saturday night on Pacific Avenue means it gets crowded and restaurants are full. we put our names on the waiting list of the Thai place, and stroll down the street as we’re waiting for our table. that’s how we stroll into a Santa Cruz Reclaim the Streets March. from Pacific Avenue to the clock tower at the intersection with Mission Street, which is where it really becomes apparent how the carpeople don’t like their traffic flow to be disturbed. but wait a minute, it is actually not very much disturbed. the crowd gathers around the clock-tower, where people dance to the sound system or burn an american flag on the police car. admittingly both things can be very fun, and in this era of war burning the U.S. flag provides a nice spectacle, and then what do you do saturday night in a small town, but frankly the sense escapes me a bit. is this a reclaiming the streets action or a playing war with the cops game? sure, the small thrills of annoying the cops are a familiar and well-rehearsed part of leftie culture. but i’m not impressed, especially not in this place where i’m mostly angry at the lack of political awareness and mobilization.

so i begin dancing in the middle of what is basically Highway One intersecting with down town Santa Cruz’ main street. a bit scary, but slowly (believe me, it seemed very slowly from the middle of the intersection location…) some people join the dance. but cars are aggressive and make people very reluctant to actually occupy the intersection. i’m getting really annoyed with the honking SUV’s, don’t feel like dancing anymore, and just sit down in the middle of the intersection. this attracks a small crowd around me, taking pictures and doing interviews. and women from the Dyke March who very friendly, addressing me as “sister”, ask me to leave the intersection.

the thing is… two marches kind of bumped into each other in Pacific Avenue and decided to join hands and march together for, well, everything. sexual diversity and taking back the streets. but the Dyke March had a permit, which Reclaim the Streets didn’t seek or have. so at the moment of arriving at the clock tower, the Dyke March people needed to have the small crowd off the intersection as fast as they could, while that wasn’t really part of the RTS people’s idea, but then again their ideas weren’t well articulated in any case. (check out the indymedia audio reportage if you want a sense of how the small bunch of people came on the street to have some fun, without much of a vision.)

i ended up doing this spontaneous one woman’s action that didn’t connect well with neither RTS nor the Dyke march (and in case you’re wondering, of course i left the intersection when my sisters of the Dyke March asked me to do so.), and that i didn’t manage to explain very well cause honestly i was a bit shaky in the middle of the intersection with the angry cars around me. but for some reason it did make me feel better, ventilate a bit of the anger against this place. so then we strolled back on Pacific Avenue and had nice Thai food. so far our saturday night adventures in small town Santa Cruz.

read and listen more on indymedia bayarea.

american eyes

54820028.JPG American eyes
Bury the past
Rob us blind
+ view the world
from American eyes

As we walk on the UCSC campus, Sara and i come across this writing on the wall (of the Visual Arts building). (Rage against the machine.) Resonates with many of the things we’ve been thinking and talking about. Wondering which inhabitant (student, worker, janitor, faculty, visitor,…) of the campus wrote this and what else is going on in her/his mind…