"Sit down, shoulders forward, pelvis back, weight shift to your toes, and slowly bring your pelvis forward. And weight shift, left side, right side, don't bend the knee, left side, right side -- not forward."
I watch as group 1 lurches off, arms extended like zombies sleep walking towards the other side of the pool. Everyone is so intent on doing it right that I wonder if they have any idea of what they look like. My thoughts are treacherous; get with the programme; I'm up next. And if I don't concentrate, I will successfully smack my face into the water (again).
It's taken me a while to successfully manage the sequence of movement that is the precursor to water walking. This is the last part of my hip surgery rehab stuff. It's intense, and though I am doing very well, I hope I don't have to do the other hip as well. I could do without going through all that again. I have the suspicion Wizard feels similarly.
When my turn comes, I successfully stand up -- smooth, controlled movement -- and I set off. For the first months, I was like an upright brick; recently, however, I am beginning to find and use my pelvis in the side-to-side movement. Ah yes, the pelvic clock. I push my pelvis to the left. Hooray. I feel like I have finally achieved the ideal "woman's walk;" I attempt to push it back and feel my face hit the water.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Elite, Rich, and Wealthy
I'm hearing and seeing the word "elite" a lot these days. Usually, it's in reference to change occurring as a result of the economic downturn. Elite families, elite schools, elite nannies, brokers, bankers, schools, executives, magazines, colleges, clothes ... Elite. It also shows up with rich and wealthy. Elite. Rich. And wealthy. In the stories I read, they are proffered as everyone's dream. I mean, who wouldn't want to be elite, rich, and wealthy (rich and wealthy are different?)? The more I hear them, the queasier I feel.
The thing that is beginning to bug me is that I am hearing words like rich, elite, wealthy being tossed around in quick succession without any clear understanding of what membership in the class might mean (though that is practically the least of my concerns). I am more worried that it has simply become acceptable to hate the rich (without knowing whether rich means 100K p.a. or 2M or perhaps something in between). The rich, elite, and wealthy are simply nebulously grouped people that are most easily defined as "not the writer and/or projected audience."
I am not about to launch a defence of the people whose greed, ignorance, and stupidity is at the heart of the current economic crisis. These people are not members of protected classes and nor should they be. I don't deny that there are people of extreme wealth who are jerks with and about their money. Those people might deserve some kind of animus.
But I want to think about how we name groups. Go ahead! Stir up trouble, if trouble is what you want. When the revolution comes, next year, I want to be in the forefront. Incite ACTION! Focus on change. This country surely needs it. But if you are just fomenting trouble, hatred, envy, and jealousy, I am not for your hate the rich campaign: I cannot buy into a philosophical position that says "don't hate difference -- disability, race, class, gender, sexuality -- but hate the elite and wealthy (whatever that means to you!)." And I am scared of the world in which this is an unquestioned norm. Social change does not come from fear and hatred.
This interview from NPR's On the Media really got me thinking -- in a lot of directions. The context is generally ugly -- that the wealthy have a P.R problem not a moral problem and, further, that the "aspirational," i.e. not wealthy, but wannabees, are envious. As a whole, however, the ugliness serves my point. There's a kind of morbid fascination shown by the interviewer for the wealthy. I see and hear the irony, but I also see and hear a kind of, well, deference? -- you may have to go through the whole interview to see it. It's the kind of thing I used to see interviewer use for royalty: respect and deference even as you believe in the corruptness of the system. And as for the voice of the wealthy -- he speaks of the rest as envious wannabes. Neither is a good stance to hold towards each other in principle. Neither should serve as a social foundation, a basis for interaction, and a way of imaging the lives of those around you.
The NPR interviewer is Bob Garfield.
I do know that societies based around hatred, envy, fear, and resentment will neither change for the better nor remain the same.
The thing that is beginning to bug me is that I am hearing words like rich, elite, wealthy being tossed around in quick succession without any clear understanding of what membership in the class might mean (though that is practically the least of my concerns). I am more worried that it has simply become acceptable to hate the rich (without knowing whether rich means 100K p.a. or 2M or perhaps something in between). The rich, elite, and wealthy are simply nebulously grouped people that are most easily defined as "not the writer and/or projected audience."
I am not about to launch a defence of the people whose greed, ignorance, and stupidity is at the heart of the current economic crisis. These people are not members of protected classes and nor should they be. I don't deny that there are people of extreme wealth who are jerks with and about their money. Those people might deserve some kind of animus.
But I want to think about how we name groups. Go ahead! Stir up trouble, if trouble is what you want. When the revolution comes, next year, I want to be in the forefront. Incite ACTION! Focus on change. This country surely needs it. But if you are just fomenting trouble, hatred, envy, and jealousy, I am not for your hate the rich campaign: I cannot buy into a philosophical position that says "don't hate difference -- disability, race, class, gender, sexuality -- but hate the elite and wealthy (whatever that means to you!)." And I am scared of the world in which this is an unquestioned norm. Social change does not come from fear and hatred.
This interview from NPR's On the Media really got me thinking -- in a lot of directions. The context is generally ugly -- that the wealthy have a P.R problem not a moral problem and, further, that the "aspirational," i.e. not wealthy, but wannabees, are envious. As a whole, however, the ugliness serves my point. There's a kind of morbid fascination shown by the interviewer for the wealthy. I see and hear the irony, but I also see and hear a kind of, well, deference? -- you may have to go through the whole interview to see it. It's the kind of thing I used to see interviewer use for royalty: respect and deference even as you believe in the corruptness of the system. And as for the voice of the wealthy -- he speaks of the rest as envious wannabes. Neither is a good stance to hold towards each other in principle. Neither should serve as a social foundation, a basis for interaction, and a way of imaging the lives of those around you.
The NPR interviewer is Bob Garfield.
Hoi polloi? That's inflammatory. But OK. It's supposed to be ironic. More serious are the assumptions of tolerance and resentment. *Have* we always had a love/hate relationship with the rich? I don't see that. Envy? EnvY? That worries me. Do we tolerate or seek? Do we resent or fear? The question is more complicated than I know how to answer.
BOB GARFIELD: Okay, so the hoi polloi have always had a kind of love/hate relationship with the rich. And at a time like this, I suppose the resentment tends to spike.DOUG GOLLAN: I think, you know, seeing the wealthy on their yachts and their jets was generally tolerable when they were also able to dip their toe in the water. But, obviously, we're in an economic crisis right now, and many of with their mortgages in their own homes, they’re underwater - car payments and things like that - they are having to make cutbacks in their own lifestyle. And, you know, it’s a little bit maybe of envy that they see other people who are financially so well off that they don't have to change the way they live.
I do know that societies based around hatred, envy, fear, and resentment will neither change for the better nor remain the same.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
A Room With A View Or Perhaps Vice Versa
I haven't written about the construction site that is our house in a while.
Overall, I'd have to say that things are going surprisingly well. That is, there is a structure, and things are happening inside it. That's not to say that we've not had some bumps in the road. Utilities. Sewers. Holes. Pipes. Electricity. Propane. And all the hassles with AT&T. But we now have floors, cabinets, tile, bookshelves, stairs, walls, dry wall, decking, windows, a hot tub, and doors. The trailer has gone away, and the office and equipment have been moved inside the actual house. Oh yes! There's even a roof.
We're waiting for a lot of things -- some permits, some final design choices, some appliances. BUT our first piece of furniture showed up (unexpectedly) this week. Yes, I'd say, the house is underway. And that's a good thing, too. The finish date is supposed to be late August of this year. It's hard to see it, right now. But that's what they are promising. (Wizard and I figure that the house per se will be done and that we will be waiting for landscaping).
In the photo above, protective cardboard covers the floor of the living room.
The more finished the house is, the more I become intrigued by it. And what it doesn't have: rooms. Yes, I know, there are places in the house that we name "bedroom," "bathroom," and "living room," but this place does not have rooms in the sense in which I usually experience them. I imagine that actual architects spend a lot of time thinking about the function and design of rooms -- where to put the windows, outlets, walls, furniture, materials, colours, textures, dry walls, paint? panels? glass? concrete? I also imagine that there are article and book chapters theorizing the construction and function of rooms within houses. After all, rooms are where we spend our time and carry out our activities. And what you see above, in the photo, is clearly a room.
Yet, for the most part, I don't think of the place as having rooms. This is in part due to the fact that there are very few doors; some walls don't go all the way up; most spaces aren't square (in my mind, rooms should be identifiably square or rectangular at the very least); then, there's the outside and the outside space.
I think that this is the primary feature of the house for me. Because rather than having a room with a view, the house feels like it is a view with some rooms. Not that this is a bad thing -- no, not at all. But it does change how this house functions as a home.There are rooms with no walls -- entirely outside. Rooms with some walls, half walls, and regular wall-walls. But when I think of home, I recall the places I grew up. Very clearly defined spaces. Walls. Walls. Walls. Inside and out. Hedges. Fences.
I was very attuned to the sense of enclosure. Ours was one of the servants' cottages on what was formerly the village manor. The house is typically what we think of as an English cottage: half-timbred, a thatch when we first showed up, leaded windows, and wattle and daub. The walls leaned in to the rooms -- not ominously, but comfortingly. Nothing was straight; some walls were curved -- not intentionally, but just because they were the originals. The bent beams protruded down into the rooms. The torqued floor beams creaked as someone entered or exited a room. You could never be free of the sense of the walls; the windows served only to highlight the presence of the walls because they showed the world the walls prevented from penetrating the fortress that was our tiny cottage. The walls defined the exterior and the interior simultaneously; they were the rooms.
I think that my sense of the new house begins with the transitionary space. Many contemporary houses have foyer, hallway, entryway space -- I've seen it defined as party space or simply as a "grand entry." Our house doesn't have that kind of static space; the open areas are very clearly defined as pathways to another place. They are designed to transition people through three different "areas" of the house. It's dynamic; there are paths, bridges, rails, lines, windows, sightlines, openings... But it is dynamic. Even though, technically, the transition space occupies a fair amount of square footage, you wouldn't actually -- indeed, couldn't -- spend time there. Not in your every day life nor even in a party mode. As we discuss this, Wizard and I notice that the paths funnel us into the living room and again (in a different direction) into the bedroom.
How to put this? You open the front door, you walk in, and you arrive not at a room but at an intersection. You have to actively choose a direction. Ultimately, you will arrive at a room, but the primary experience of the house is one of movement. When you reach your room; the walls are most likely to be two thirds floor to ceiling glass; the ceiling has skylights. The deck rooms, the view down the hill, and the valley take your perspective away from the walls. It seems as if you could walk forever -- perhaps, though, you'd want to take a zipline across the water to the East Bay Hills. Because the doors are mostly pocket doors, the paths really do deliver you into a room.
That's it: the paths and view outweigh the walls and the rooms.
Friday, June 26, 2009
New Anatomies: Wheelchairs
Use your shoulders as your hips. Your thoracic/lumbar juncture functions as your pelvis, your power house. *Your* core is strong, but it is more of a base than a core. But remember, your wheels are your actual legs.
I try to reassemble an image of myself in my mind. I vainly try to substitute pictures of hip joints where my shoulders are. I add a pelvis to the middle of my back. A platform where my core is. And finish up with an image of feet on my leg-wheels. It's not a successful image. "That," I think, as I grab one of my wheels, "is the consequence of adaptive dancing. You end up with an adapted body. And an injured one at that."
The point about anatomy is singular, though. The more I recover and rehab, the more I write about dancing -- the more I prepare to dance -- the more I think that understanding body and chair as a contiguous coherent unit matters. We/I really have to reconfigure our kinesthetic understanding. I will never be able to study and or understand the physics, but someone should. It is hard enough for me to understand the potential in my hands on the wheels.
Part of this new understanding is disencouraged, if that is the word, by what we think we know about wheelchairs. All too often, even when we are getting customization, the chair and all to often the approach of the provider is about standardization. Take, for example, frames and wheels -- key parts of the chair, no? Let me ask: whose butt-legs are a precise 16x17 square (or whatever your butt-legs happen to be)? I mean, I look in the mirror and expect to see this squarish shape that is the standard seat. OK. So mine is the tapered package, but it isn't tapered the way MY ass is, umm, tapered. Designers make platforms to sit on; they don't think about making bodies.
My most recent gripe is wheelsize. I've been trying to get 25"s to put on my chair. No one on this forsaken planet apparently uses 25"s. Do *you* use 25"s? No. I didn't think so. Apparently, I have a long torso with short arms. (that despite my dance line -- which I think is pretty damn good). BUT I have short arms. At least compared with the rest of you. At this point in my PT/rehab, I can sit really nicely, but I can't reach my bloody wheels. Moving to 25's on my current chair (designed around 24"s and a rotated pelvis) will give me a nice open hip position and take some of the risk out of my work. But wheelchair world is almost designed around 24 inches. Getting 25's -- even to try -- is virtually impossible. I've been waiting now for 5 weeks for a sample from the rep.
Alongside the oddities of my body and the difficulty of acquiring non-standard standardized equipment comes the issue of money. Granted, few people pay to surgically acquire the bodies they desire, but disabled folk have to pay to acquire a body, so it might as well be a body you want. Wheelchairs cost. Wheels cost. Cushions cost. And the cost is not in the realms of the easy. Ebay's cheapest wheelchair right now is $20. It's not easily usable. The kind of titanium, high end aesthetically and functional thing you might crave? Thousands. Thousands.
I am including this video here as a reminder that our equipment itself is so beautiful and has such potential for movement. Each of the customizations here add to the possible movement vocabulary. I have no idea whose chairs these are or what they paid for them. But they make me want to go back to the studio, sit before a mirror, and work.
I try to reassemble an image of myself in my mind. I vainly try to substitute pictures of hip joints where my shoulders are. I add a pelvis to the middle of my back. A platform where my core is. And finish up with an image of feet on my leg-wheels. It's not a successful image. "That," I think, as I grab one of my wheels, "is the consequence of adaptive dancing. You end up with an adapted body. And an injured one at that."
The point about anatomy is singular, though. The more I recover and rehab, the more I write about dancing -- the more I prepare to dance -- the more I think that understanding body and chair as a contiguous coherent unit matters. We/I really have to reconfigure our kinesthetic understanding. I will never be able to study and or understand the physics, but someone should. It is hard enough for me to understand the potential in my hands on the wheels.
Part of this new understanding is disencouraged, if that is the word, by what we think we know about wheelchairs. All too often, even when we are getting customization, the chair and all to often the approach of the provider is about standardization. Take, for example, frames and wheels -- key parts of the chair, no? Let me ask: whose butt-legs are a precise 16x17 square (or whatever your butt-legs happen to be)? I mean, I look in the mirror and expect to see this squarish shape that is the standard seat. OK. So mine is the tapered package, but it isn't tapered the way MY ass is, umm, tapered. Designers make platforms to sit on; they don't think about making bodies.
My most recent gripe is wheelsize. I've been trying to get 25"s to put on my chair. No one on this forsaken planet apparently uses 25"s. Do *you* use 25"s? No. I didn't think so. Apparently, I have a long torso with short arms. (that despite my dance line -- which I think is pretty damn good). BUT I have short arms. At least compared with the rest of you. At this point in my PT/rehab, I can sit really nicely, but I can't reach my bloody wheels. Moving to 25's on my current chair (designed around 24"s and a rotated pelvis) will give me a nice open hip position and take some of the risk out of my work. But wheelchair world is almost designed around 24 inches. Getting 25's -- even to try -- is virtually impossible. I've been waiting now for 5 weeks for a sample from the rep.
Alongside the oddities of my body and the difficulty of acquiring non-standard standardized equipment comes the issue of money. Granted, few people pay to surgically acquire the bodies they desire, but disabled folk have to pay to acquire a body, so it might as well be a body you want. Wheelchairs cost. Wheels cost. Cushions cost. And the cost is not in the realms of the easy. Ebay's cheapest wheelchair right now is $20. It's not easily usable. The kind of titanium, high end aesthetically and functional thing you might crave? Thousands. Thousands.
I am including this video here as a reminder that our equipment itself is so beautiful and has such potential for movement. Each of the customizations here add to the possible movement vocabulary. I have no idea whose chairs these are or what they paid for them. But they make me want to go back to the studio, sit before a mirror, and work.
Monday, June 15, 2009
A Quickie on the Spine
Since last I blogged, I've been around the world and back. Well, all right then, not really. I've returned from NYC and I am off to Tucson with half the US disabled world on Wednesday for the Society for Disability Studies conference.
Meeting so many people for such a short and yet so long period of time in such intense ways has me feeling a little nervous and a little excited. I love doing this kind of thing and yet it brings out many of my own insecurities about how I live my life (when compared to the way others live and any expectations I think others may have about me).
So, I've been a-reflecting.
I'm feeling scattered across the many different parts of my lives. I've been looking for my roots. The elbow tendinitis has me asking what will happen next if I continue to be unable to dance. Where will I go? Who will I be? I will be OK. Yes, I will. But who will I be? What will I do? Will I try my hand in the working world? Will I not work? The issue for me is how we maintain the tissue of connections that link us one to another. Where is our center?
Scattered throughout this blog are various meditations about the place of back and back bone related figurative speech in our world. The spine is central. I hold it/it holds me as the center of my dance technique. There's probably some irony in working for a company the majority of whose dancers have spinal cord injuries, a company whose movement strategies arise from contact (and contact improv). Disabled or not, we all have strong relationships with our spines.
Since last I wrote of friendships of the spine, I have got to know some of you much better. Gosh, this has been a running theme in my writing since March. Huh. Nice to see some growth and development. We IM, email, g-chat, g-video, twitter, and call. Our connections are more than tissue; they are as fundamental to me as my spine.
Knowing what I do of Paxton's work, I know that I cannot do what he does in the way that he does it. I've spent 6 months in physical therapy and I still cannot do a pure PT and dance spinal roll. Try it. It's hard. Rolling is NOT the same as turning over. Here's Paxton talking a little more about spinal work.
You have to use the floor, your weight sinks into the floor, you can push against it and let it give you support and momentum. You can lead with a leg or an arm, but your spine carries you. That said, it's one thing to feel your spine when your spine hurts like f*ck. It's another to feel the spine in any arm movement. Dance technique facilitates this kind of thing -- though it usually talks about the "batwing" the arm beginning deep in your lat, moving from your back. Usually, they mean muscle not bone, but dance does have a vocabulary for thinking about these things.
The Paxton interview again:
In the meantime, though, I will pack my cases, roll up my ice cuffs, unplug my heating pad and head to Tucson. When I wake in the morning, I will roll out of bed and begin my spinal warm ups. Then, I will run down to get coffee and breakfast; I will get to reach deep into some of the connections I hold at the center of my life.
Meeting so many people for such a short and yet so long period of time in such intense ways has me feeling a little nervous and a little excited. I love doing this kind of thing and yet it brings out many of my own insecurities about how I live my life (when compared to the way others live and any expectations I think others may have about me).
So, I've been a-reflecting.
I'm feeling scattered across the many different parts of my lives. I've been looking for my roots. The elbow tendinitis has me asking what will happen next if I continue to be unable to dance. Where will I go? Who will I be? I will be OK. Yes, I will. But who will I be? What will I do? Will I try my hand in the working world? Will I not work? The issue for me is how we maintain the tissue of connections that link us one to another. Where is our center?
This section of an interview with contact improvisation specialist/founder/father, Steve Paxton, had me fascinated -- both because of what I have been writing about dance and bones and because "contact" in a variety of forms is the technique most often used by dancers with disabilities. Indeed, the contact arena was the space that first really accepted and nurtured disabled dancers. (A short statement of a long and complicated history)
The Material for the Spine is your new DVD and the theme for this workshop, what is “spine” for you?It's not clear to me whether Paxton here means spine bones or spinal cord with regard to his own injury. For the moment, I am going to sort of conflate the two into one huge backbone experience. I am not sure that I knew about my spine as a physical reality before the disability stuff showed up. I most certainly know it, intimately, now. I don't have a spinal cord injury in the traditional sense, but I do have both spinal cord issues and disk issues. And my awareness of my spine is part of every day and almost every move. I warm my spine before dancing, I do spine exercises, I do "spinal stretches" ... I can't get away from my spine (I do differentiate this, slightly, from my back stuff which is soft tissue).It is very difficult to sense unless the spine is injured. I had an injury in my spine, and I could not move—it was really painful…I had to use a wheelchair at that time. Thus, something is core about the spine within humans. The English word spine means “column” in Spanish and it may be a better way to explain it. Dance and most sports are focused outside of body, such as arms, legs and shoulders. On the other hand, the spine is the main focus for C.I. I started to create exercises for C.I. through analyzing how to use the spine in C.I. Using this exercise; I organized a workshop specifically for the spine. I focus on the skeleton and how to support the weight. I am curious about the weight of many parts of the body and how it is all connected around spine.
Scattered throughout this blog are various meditations about the place of back and back bone related figurative speech in our world. The spine is central. I hold it/it holds me as the center of my dance technique. There's probably some irony in working for a company the majority of whose dancers have spinal cord injuries, a company whose movement strategies arise from contact (and contact improv). Disabled or not, we all have strong relationships with our spines.
Since last I wrote of friendships of the spine, I have got to know some of you much better. Gosh, this has been a running theme in my writing since March. Huh. Nice to see some growth and development. We IM, email, g-chat, g-video, twitter, and call. Our connections are more than tissue; they are as fundamental to me as my spine.
Knowing what I do of Paxton's work, I know that I cannot do what he does in the way that he does it. I've spent 6 months in physical therapy and I still cannot do a pure PT and dance spinal roll. Try it. It's hard. Rolling is NOT the same as turning over. Here's Paxton talking a little more about spinal work.
You have to use the floor, your weight sinks into the floor, you can push against it and let it give you support and momentum. You can lead with a leg or an arm, but your spine carries you. That said, it's one thing to feel your spine when your spine hurts like f*ck. It's another to feel the spine in any arm movement. Dance technique facilitates this kind of thing -- though it usually talks about the "batwing" the arm beginning deep in your lat, moving from your back. Usually, they mean muscle not bone, but dance does have a vocabulary for thinking about these things.
The Paxton interview again:
For dance, muscle is normally the main concern, isn't it? Why are you curious about the skeleton more than muscle?True enough. But what happens when your spine does outre stuff? When your bones and cord are responsible for the very thing that separates you from the standard dance world? Mainstream dance doesn't know what to do with disabled spines. (Oh, check out the work of Laura Ferguson -- artist with scoliosis -- her visible skeleton series is awesome). How are spine and wheels connected? How are arms and wheels connected? Where is the powerhouse? Could what Paxton has to say about rolling on the floor change how my chair rolls across the floor? I have more work to do here.
Because so many people are already thinking of muscle. From my experience, there are some dance techniques of the spine, but that are not only of the spine. I cannot concentrate only on the spine for that because I need to be careful to be sure my step is correct and how I should move on the floor. Thus, it is necessary to think of the spine deeply. If you study the spine once, you have never forget it. ....
In the meantime, though, I will pack my cases, roll up my ice cuffs, unplug my heating pad and head to Tucson. When I wake in the morning, I will roll out of bed and begin my spinal warm ups. Then, I will run down to get coffee and breakfast; I will get to reach deep into some of the connections I hold at the center of my life.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
NSFW: Again! But it's Art, Honestly!
Today, we went to see some of Betty Tompkins Fuck and Cunt pictures. The gallery stuff introduced her by comparing her work to that of Chuck Close -- photorealist paintings. Up close -- full wall size -- pictures of heterosexual intercourse. Think you've seen it before? These aren't just bodies; it's cunts, dicks (yes, her words), and fucking. It's pierced clithoods, pierced labia, penetration with three fingers (quite entrancing, but also exhausting to look at), texture, hair, so large. It's bodies and sex so close, so, well, real you can smell them.
This was all rather new for me. I'm not a great denizen of the art gallery world. And I really don't know much about art. My tastes are not particularly sophisticated, I assume -- I have no idea what they are. I can only say that I like or don't like an individual piece. I do like some odd stuff. And I like some classical stuff. And, yes, I likes me some cheeze. I was curious to see what I would see. And why I would tell myself that I was seeing it. After all, you can see genitals in action (with and without the rest of their bodies) on the internet for free.
I think the strange thing about this is that seeing art in a gallery (vs a museum) really got to me. I got to looking with a consumer's eye, as opposed to a museum visitor's eye. Museum work is really out of reach; it's given, donated, on loan, purchased, and sky high expensive. Galleries, on the other hand, offer you the fiction that you might just, in another world, at another time -- tomorrow? -- buy the thing you are looking at. You, too, could own ART!
There's something appealing about these, though. It's not just that they are explicit, realistic -- they most certainly are. I can see the texture of the skin, the gleam of light or is that moisture? I want to touch the hair, the wiriness of it. I can see the smoke, smell the funk, and hear the noise as one body part slips against another. Oh, it's real(istic). But it is surprisingly unsexy. I am right there staring at this (girl on girl #2 -- vagina, anus, and fingers) and it's not turning me on in the slightest. Is there something wrong with me, I ask myself. I stare at this (cunt grid #17). I don't feel that stirring feeling. Everything I looked at beforehand spoke to the censorship, the boldness. Almost everything I glanced at (online) came to the conclusion that this was sexy -- I think because the detail, the explicitness, and the frank look at the body is so unflinching that the only word people can come up with is sexy.
I can't take my eyes away, but I realize that sex and explicit stuff isn't necessarily sexy by virtue of its openness. And I begin to look at the detail. I come to realize that it is exhausting to be so close to some thing so evocative. It is exhausting to feel that if you reached your hand out, you might touch the wetness. And then I see: these things are huge! Whole wall size huge. The cunt ring shines out of the blurred focus; that which is in focus and slightly out of focus moves your eye around, yes. But eventually you can't stop seeing. The piercings of cunt and labia in cunt painting #10 ( third from the left, first row here) suddenly look terrifying to me; there's no easy perceptible way in or out of that vagina. The lips look like they are held together with sharp, sharp teeth. In another world, would I be calling this infibulation? I admit to averting my eyes and to not going back for a second closer look. I couldn't stand it. It was too intense. Even now, the smaller, safer web version seems intense.
What would it be like to own one? Would I put one in my living room? Could I put a 58 x 58 version of cunt painting # 10 in my living room? It would dominate the whole room, yes. Would I be able to look at it everyday? What would it take to see something so deep, so unsparing, so ... every day? Could I lie on the couch in pain and look at it? What would my friends see? Could we have movie night and have #10 stare down at us? Could I put one in my bedroom. Well, not all of them are wall size, but could I do that? How would our sex be if we had cunt painting #11 on the bedroom wall? (second from left, first row here)
I want one. I don't have gallery space to display one. I can't imagine daily living with one. I am so drawn to them that the stirring I feel within me is one of acquisitiveness. I want to stare and stare and stare. I want to drink in the power and feel that while I can never own it, it belongs to me. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to look at it. I don't know where to put it. But I want it.
Oh galleries and the fiction that you might just be able to own something as beautiful as these.
This was all rather new for me. I'm not a great denizen of the art gallery world. And I really don't know much about art. My tastes are not particularly sophisticated, I assume -- I have no idea what they are. I can only say that I like or don't like an individual piece. I do like some odd stuff. And I like some classical stuff. And, yes, I likes me some cheeze. I was curious to see what I would see. And why I would tell myself that I was seeing it. After all, you can see genitals in action (with and without the rest of their bodies) on the internet for free.
I think the strange thing about this is that seeing art in a gallery (vs a museum) really got to me. I got to looking with a consumer's eye, as opposed to a museum visitor's eye. Museum work is really out of reach; it's given, donated, on loan, purchased, and sky high expensive. Galleries, on the other hand, offer you the fiction that you might just, in another world, at another time -- tomorrow? -- buy the thing you are looking at. You, too, could own ART!
There's something appealing about these, though. It's not just that they are explicit, realistic -- they most certainly are. I can see the texture of the skin, the gleam of light or is that moisture? I want to touch the hair, the wiriness of it. I can see the smoke, smell the funk, and hear the noise as one body part slips against another. Oh, it's real(istic). But it is surprisingly unsexy. I am right there staring at this (girl on girl #2 -- vagina, anus, and fingers) and it's not turning me on in the slightest. Is there something wrong with me, I ask myself. I stare at this (cunt grid #17). I don't feel that stirring feeling. Everything I looked at beforehand spoke to the censorship, the boldness. Almost everything I glanced at (online) came to the conclusion that this was sexy -- I think because the detail, the explicitness, and the frank look at the body is so unflinching that the only word people can come up with is sexy.
I can't take my eyes away, but I realize that sex and explicit stuff isn't necessarily sexy by virtue of its openness. And I begin to look at the detail. I come to realize that it is exhausting to be so close to some thing so evocative. It is exhausting to feel that if you reached your hand out, you might touch the wetness. And then I see: these things are huge! Whole wall size huge. The cunt ring shines out of the blurred focus; that which is in focus and slightly out of focus moves your eye around, yes. But eventually you can't stop seeing. The piercings of cunt and labia in cunt painting #10 ( third from the left, first row here) suddenly look terrifying to me; there's no easy perceptible way in or out of that vagina. The lips look like they are held together with sharp, sharp teeth. In another world, would I be calling this infibulation? I admit to averting my eyes and to not going back for a second closer look. I couldn't stand it. It was too intense. Even now, the smaller, safer web version seems intense.
What would it be like to own one? Would I put one in my living room? Could I put a 58 x 58 version of cunt painting # 10 in my living room? It would dominate the whole room, yes. Would I be able to look at it everyday? What would it take to see something so deep, so unsparing, so ... every day? Could I lie on the couch in pain and look at it? What would my friends see? Could we have movie night and have #10 stare down at us? Could I put one in my bedroom. Well, not all of them are wall size, but could I do that? How would our sex be if we had cunt painting #11 on the bedroom wall? (second from left, first row here)
I want one. I don't have gallery space to display one. I can't imagine daily living with one. I am so drawn to them that the stirring I feel within me is one of acquisitiveness. I want to stare and stare and stare. I want to drink in the power and feel that while I can never own it, it belongs to me. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to look at it. I don't know where to put it. But I want it.
Oh galleries and the fiction that you might just be able to own something as beautiful as these.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Dancing in Your Bones
I'm not dancing right now. I was cleared to go back -- hip surgery all good. Wonky shoulder (bursitis, tendinitis, impingement syndrome) strong and stable (finally). And ta-da! elbow tendinitis. I blew my elbows. Unbelievable. So, this is more of a theoretical meditation on dance.
Can I begin where I left off in that last post? The bones of my body hold true for me; my muscles are what my body has given me. So even when my joints are unstable and my muscles torque and spasm, I recognize in these places parts of my deepest self. I strive to hold on to these selfs in every day life and in dance. I strive to bring them to the street and to the stage. Does desiring muscle and bone make me butch and deny me femme as positions from which I can navigate the world?
This, I think, is crip, is gimp. It is an understanding of the sexuality of the deepest and rawest parts of the body -- it is not so much a focus on gender presentation and on responses to gendered roles. It is an answer to the call of the fibres, the sinews, the fluids, and the infinite structure of the bones.
What does this mean for dancing? And, in particular, for dancing in a wheelchair, with the dancers of West Coast? My first insight is a way of thinking about my wheels. I often write about how my chair is part of my body, but it apparently took me a while to get to thinking about "wheelwork." Yes, I wrote this about paying attention to where your wheels are, but even then it hadn't fully sunk in.
Wheelwork happened for me as a confluence of a couple of things. As part of my rehab program, I have been getting into gyrokinesis -- an interesting movement system that thinks about the spine, the joints, oppositions in the musculature, etc. -- a LOT of dancers use it for strengthening and body awareness. It also has rehab uses. Some of the first level exercises are performed from a stool or from a lying down position. As I worked, I started wondering how I could maintain that sense of active base as I sat in my chair and danced. I wanted to be able to keep that flow of energy and power through my legs, yes. I also wanted to be able to make my chair more than something I push -- though I believe *how* I push is important. I wanted to activate it; I wanted more options.
A while back, I wrote: "One thing my teacher taught me was, "Never let them see you pull your wheel. You want them to see the shape, the line, your body." Sometimes, I do that. I ask you to look up at my hand and lo! the chair turns. Mostly, however, I accept my chair as my body and you are invited to watch my hands on the wheels. I move my fingers to draw attention to this part of my movement; I vary my stroke. When I pull, I pull with deliberation. I want you to see that." See the sleight of hand? I am inviting you to watch my hand on the wheel, to watch the action of my pull. What would happen if I invited you to watch my wheel?
I watched one of West Coast's nondisabled dancers kick her leg out; I observed the detail of her feet. The thing that most easily caught my eye was her body shape, but as I followed her body, I noticed a tiny detail -- her feet spoke to the line of her body. Her feet opposed her body; she curled her toes up, out, down, and away. Away with her leg! But as I watched, I saw a little conversation between her feet, legs, and the rest of her body. In that moment, I knew that I had to do something different.
In that moment, I felt like a blob. I dance with my upper body and my arms, but I had not known how to send the active awareness and care that I have in my upper body down into my wheels. How was it that I had not yet made the wheels an active part of the dance expression?
In ballet class, one part of the center work focuses on intricate foot and leg work; some of it is strengthening for jumping, and some of it is intricacy of the feet as a pure art. What would it mean to actively treat the wheels themselves as the focus? Could my front wheels be provoked? I'm not imagining a display of casters, but I am imagining a visually perceptible and physically tangible line that would spread from the casters to my fingers. I am imagining how my rear wheels could kick. I am imagining a movement vocabulary in which I feel the wheels as the opposition and the tiny conversational but essential detail of my line.
I began with the idea of the bones. I am imagining using my wheels as bones.
Can I begin where I left off in that last post? The bones of my body hold true for me; my muscles are what my body has given me. So even when my joints are unstable and my muscles torque and spasm, I recognize in these places parts of my deepest self. I strive to hold on to these selfs in every day life and in dance. I strive to bring them to the street and to the stage. Does desiring muscle and bone make me butch and deny me femme as positions from which I can navigate the world?
This, I think, is crip, is gimp. It is an understanding of the sexuality of the deepest and rawest parts of the body -- it is not so much a focus on gender presentation and on responses to gendered roles. It is an answer to the call of the fibres, the sinews, the fluids, and the infinite structure of the bones.
What does this mean for dancing? And, in particular, for dancing in a wheelchair, with the dancers of West Coast? My first insight is a way of thinking about my wheels. I often write about how my chair is part of my body, but it apparently took me a while to get to thinking about "wheelwork." Yes, I wrote this about paying attention to where your wheels are, but even then it hadn't fully sunk in.
Wheelwork happened for me as a confluence of a couple of things. As part of my rehab program, I have been getting into gyrokinesis -- an interesting movement system that thinks about the spine, the joints, oppositions in the musculature, etc. -- a LOT of dancers use it for strengthening and body awareness. It also has rehab uses. Some of the first level exercises are performed from a stool or from a lying down position. As I worked, I started wondering how I could maintain that sense of active base as I sat in my chair and danced. I wanted to be able to keep that flow of energy and power through my legs, yes. I also wanted to be able to make my chair more than something I push -- though I believe *how* I push is important. I wanted to activate it; I wanted more options.
A while back, I wrote: "One thing my teacher taught me was, "Never let them see you pull your wheel. You want them to see the shape, the line, your body." Sometimes, I do that. I ask you to look up at my hand and lo! the chair turns. Mostly, however, I accept my chair as my body and you are invited to watch my hands on the wheels. I move my fingers to draw attention to this part of my movement; I vary my stroke. When I pull, I pull with deliberation. I want you to see that." See the sleight of hand? I am inviting you to watch my hand on the wheel, to watch the action of my pull. What would happen if I invited you to watch my wheel?
I watched one of West Coast's nondisabled dancers kick her leg out; I observed the detail of her feet. The thing that most easily caught my eye was her body shape, but as I followed her body, I noticed a tiny detail -- her feet spoke to the line of her body. Her feet opposed her body; she curled her toes up, out, down, and away. Away with her leg! But as I watched, I saw a little conversation between her feet, legs, and the rest of her body. In that moment, I knew that I had to do something different.
In that moment, I felt like a blob. I dance with my upper body and my arms, but I had not known how to send the active awareness and care that I have in my upper body down into my wheels. How was it that I had not yet made the wheels an active part of the dance expression?
In ballet class, one part of the center work focuses on intricate foot and leg work; some of it is strengthening for jumping, and some of it is intricacy of the feet as a pure art. What would it mean to actively treat the wheels themselves as the focus? Could my front wheels be provoked? I'm not imagining a display of casters, but I am imagining a visually perceptible and physically tangible line that would spread from the casters to my fingers. I am imagining how my rear wheels could kick. I am imagining a movement vocabulary in which I feel the wheels as the opposition and the tiny conversational but essential detail of my line.
I began with the idea of the bones. I am imagining using my wheels as bones.
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