on violence

i've learned to avert eye contact. it's a discipline formed not from peace or respect, but a base desire for the absence of conflict.

she was a small vietnamese girl, hair straightened and streaked with red, wearing the type of frilly party dress one typically wears at the age of 15, when one wants to declare loudly the presence of legs, titties, and hormones.

and boy, were those legs, titties, and hormones grilling me in my slummy, wife beater and lounge pants splendor. she stared as we waited for the elevator to come down, and while i could feel her slimy condescension oozing my way, i can't say i was very affected by it. it hasn't been the first time.

at least, until she walked into the elevator and, without pausing, hit the "close" button just as i started walking in. the heavy doors caught me on my shoulder ever so slightly, impeding neither my progress nor disrupting my balance, as those doors can be prone to do.

as i caught her glance in the mirrored walls of the elevator, her self-content smirk at what she had done, the physical non-injury gave way to a visceral anger. i seriously contemplated grabbing a handful of the girl's hair and slapping the cool off her face.

even in front of what seemed to be her sister and her nephew.

being a foreigner is like that sometimes. unable to defend yourself with words, unable to decipher the myriad language and signals of innumerable others, you lose the nuance of your emotions. the smallest slights and non-incidents give way to irrational anger, acts of violence disproportionate to their provocation.

a minute long ride in an elevator becoming an exercise in quelling a riot of impulse.

December Is On the Horizon

, originally uploaded by 11sixteen.

this is important

"Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."

Matthew Alexander, "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq"

A Thousand Splendid Suns

"With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what as long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not as nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion -- like the phantom pain of an amputee."

Khaled Hosseini | A Thousand Splendid Suns

Teacake & Tariq

I just finished the second novel by Khaled Hosseini, which I can say is as riveting and a quick a read as his first (The Kite Runner, for all those rock dwellers). I find Hosseini's sense of timing/his pacing exceptional. There have been many books in my adult life that have moved me, many books whose language, whose voices resonate against the strains of my own life. But there have been few books that I can say I could literally not put down; I can say that of both of Hosseini's novels. I zoomed through the book's 400 pages in a couple days and felt absolutely satiated (even though I have some issues with the ending...but that's neither here nor there for now).

I also have a new lit-crush.

A lit crush, as I know it, is an affection you develop for a fictional character. An affection deep enough that you will compare real people to this character, and often find the real people lacking. An affection that begs the character to leap off the pages and transform you the way he/she transforms the story.

A lit-crush can last a lifetime.

My first and foremost lit-crush has been (and prob always will be) Teacake from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Upon every re-read I see his flaws all the more clearly, his gambling, his recklessness, his violence, his flirtatiousness that would drive me up the wall if he were ever my man. But despite all of that, I find myself comparing the men I meet to Teacake. I realized that it isn't because Teacake was such an admirable man...rather, he strikes such a deep chord with me because I feel such a connection to Janie. Upon meeting some new (or old) fellow, and asking myself "is this my Teacake?" (which, err...I *have* done before) it's not because I want a 3D incarnation of the character. No.

I want to feel the things Janie felt through Teacake. I want a man who makes me feel the way Teacake made Janie feel. Budding and alive like that.

With A Thousand Splendid Suns, I have a new lit-crush in Tariq. Again, here is an honorable, completely likeable and appealing character that stands on his own. But what I really love about him is all the things he meant to Laila. In some ways, he reminds me of some of my best relationships. It's a strange mix of nostalgia and longing that he arouses.

Like all crushes, that trace of pain, that ever present yearning, is what makes the feeling so memorable and so delicious.

file under "pitiful"

Voters Fail the Test

"Out of 2,500 American quiz-takers, including college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked a 33-question test on basic civics. In fact, elected officials scored slightly lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent compared to 49 percent.

Most bracing: Only 27 percent of elected officeholders in the survey could identify a right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

....the ISI pose a bedeviling question, as crucial as any to the nation's health: Who will govern a free nation if no one understands the mechanics and instruments of that freedom?"

Happy Birthday Gaetano!

If you know me, then you must know Gaetano. And if do know this wonderful man, then you must know he recently had a born day. Or as he would call it, a B(eyonce) Day.

He currently runs the site, Ha/f Culture, which apparently is really big in Eastern Europe, and gets his paycheck being a huge dork in a clean suit in Boston. Or an "engineer."

Which means that not only is he smarter than me, but he's smarter than me and he looks better than I do in tight pants. The audacity. More than that, he knows all the best restaurants, the newest music, and where all the secret Bostonian sneaker bodegas are. And his girlfriend is hot.

All of this would make me hate him, were he not such a genuinely lovable, remarkable, funny and generous human being. Gaetano is, in many ways, the older (360 days, to be precise) brother I never had. I love him because he likes reading my poems. I love him because of afternoons spent on the lake, kayaking (or rather, him kayaking, and me throwing in a couple strokes here and there). I love him because he used to be a fat kid, because he has a 5 o'clock shadow by 9:30 am, and because, just by being himself, he reminds me of all the potential that life has: for fun and debauchery, for art and music and literature, for exploring ourselves and the world around us.

So, thank you for that. And a very, very happy birthday.

The Refinery

On Friday night, Paul, Andrea and I went to Vasco’s, a popular expat spot in Saigon which, after over a year of living here, I had yet to sit down and order a drink from.

One of the things I love about a city like Saigon is how history creeps up into the surroundings, suddenly and unexpectedly. “The Refinery” — the complex that Vascos is nestled in — is named such because it was once a big opium refinery. One need look no further for evidence than to glance up at the archway where, clearly visible, in an artfulness and grace not so easily found in this city, sits a gorgeous carving of opium poppies.

on my 23rd birthday

1. woke up to the sounds of filipino streets: a caucophony of rattling engines and roosters, brooms sweeping pavement, dog fights and blaring horns, and birds that screeched like monkeys. my cousins were still sleeping on a mattress on the floor. birthday girl got the bed.

2. humble birthday breakfast: scrambled eggs and rice, sweet sausages and bacon. chocolate milk. the kind of breakfast i've had so many times when i was growing up: wholly comforting, satiating, and utterly forgetable. my cousins and i discussed our plans for the day, including the possibility of getting a tattoo. i had been awake for 2 hours and already, was feeling like i needed a nap. the chocolate milk had fully reverted me back to childhood.

3. we watch: love guru, the movie. fail.
we take : a nap with the a/c on blast. WIN.

4. in Quezon City, the water is turned off everyday between 11 and 4 in an effort to conserve resources. so, if you want to take a shower, flush the toilet, or brush your teeth during those hours, it has to be done old school, using a bucket and large, plastic tubs of water filled from earlier that morning or the previous night. as a seven year old in the philippines, i had the most visceral reaction to the sight of those plastic buckets by the toilet. they represented a sort of uncivilized disorder, a departure from the clean, cold efficiency of the bathrooms in my house, where the toilets always flushed by themselves, the lights were always bright, and hot water rushed forth from the left spigot.

at 23, that prejudice has given way to practicality. that and a strong dose of "get over yourself."

5. my camera is out of battery and i forgot to bring my charger. i promise myself to buy batteries at the concert that evening, but of course, that never happens. hence, you will not see any photos of my birthday in this post or on flickr.

5. lunch at japanese restaurant with cousins and Tita Edith. Spicy tuna rolls, spicy salmon sushi, gyoza, & california rolls (with the awesome addition of mango). i sip on my iced tea and watch a very attractive young sushi chef who is busy cleaning up the counter. he's wearing a bandanna tied around his head in such a way that it's a mix between a do-rag and a gypsy head dress, something about it i find incredibly sexy. a bit of sadness rims my gaze because he not only is he completely unaware of me, but it occurs to me that he probably has no idea how handsome he is. he's got a deep brown tone, the kind of color you get when you mix a cup of cinnamon tea with just the softest splash of milk, his complexion is flawless and his skin glows underneath the recessed lights of the restaurant. because he is dark, and because this is a country that advertises skin bleachers as if they were holy water, all of these amazing qualities are probably dismissed or -- even worse -- radiate on, unnoticed.

6. we arrive at the rihanna/chris brown concert about four hours ahead of time. immediately, i'm disheartened by the sight of the flat, open field. given my towering height of 5'1, i can tell it's going to be a long night.

then i discover that beer will not be sold at the venue and i want to kick whoever planned this concert in the groin.

7. hours pass before finally, under the dark of night and the red of the stage lights, Chris Brown appears on stage hanging upside down from a cable. the pre-pubescent girl in me (the one that drinks chocolate milk for breakfast) screeches and squeals out as she recognizes his (GASP) bare arms. said girl also monkeys up her cousins' shoulders in order to perch and screech her approval of the young singer.

i'm pretty sure my inner tween threw her training bra at him.

8. rihanna complains about how quiet the crowd of 70,000 is. we're not quiet girl, we're just freaking hot and the acoustics are shite in a what is essentially an open field/parking lot. plus you're hot but you're kind of boring when you perform. dig the leather though.

then she sings umbrella and the crowd (including inner tween) goes wild. cue chris brown to saunter in a hoodie and khakis to sing his slice of the remix, and inner tween creams her limited too pants.

9. everyone is too hot and tired for the afterparty. in the interest of (quality) time, we decide to walk to a nearby restaurant to order sisig and beers. because of the unbelievable mass of hungry humanity around, we put our names on the waiting list and sit on plastic dinosaurs, waiting for the call from on high, beckoning us to drink and be merry.

but no call comes.

we wait, and we wait, and we wait.

people exit in short, inconsequential spurts.

we wait some more.

finally, a full 10 minutes before last call, we are let in. tired, disgruntled and utterly repelled by all manner of gladiator sandals (well, I was at least), my cousins and i are unable to muster up any conversation while drinking our San Miguels and crunching on fried kang kong.

they are out of sisig, the bastards.

10. a long cab ride later, we are home at last. the converses are unlaced and i scrub the sweat and makeup off my face, exhausted and yet a bit regretful that i hadn't done more. the day seemed more about regression than reinvention. just as well, reinvention is a bit of an obsession for scorpios.

i remind myself that tomorrow i will wake up to the sounds of filipino streets again; brush my teeth from the shower faucet; spend $40 at the airport on magazines and trinkets and, as the airplane roars off the runway, refuse to look out the window at the sight of Manila falling beneath me.

bon to the voyage

will see you back on the other side of 23.

That is, if you don't die of acute cuteness first:


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

on plane rides

i feel like someone needs to come into this apartment and drag me out by the hair. i've been home since 2:00 this afternoon, but i havent been able to muster much in the area of energy or motivation. granted, this week has been mighty rough on me, particularly the back end of it.

i'm anxiously awaiting my short weekend jaunt back down to the philippines for my 23rd birthday. lately saigon, more than i can remember, has been suffocating, and this trip feels much like coming up for air. almost as much as seeing my family, though, i look forward to being on a plane again.

i love the feeling i get while in transit -- especially planes and trains. that feeling of detachment -- so much so that it sits on the outskirts of the ethereal at times. i feel so disconnected from the realities of my destination, the cold and sometimes cruel ground beneath my feet. i turn inward in the best way possible, viewing myself as if that self were merely another square of woods, a small tributary winding it's way around pockmarked patches of earth.

it may be a universal thing. it may be a characteristic of journeymen/journeywomen, the kinds that spend large pieces of their lives with their feet on one soil and their nose searching the scent of another. it may just be an age thing. either way, i doubt it's just me.

even as i'm coming up for fresh air, in itself, the journey up and (yes, back down) will offer a really good opportunity to reflect on what things i need to leave behind in the next year, what needs to be carried over, and what else is left to be met.

in search of a pick me up

In a small effort to combat what has been a horrible, terrible, AND no-good very bad day, I've decided come up with a shortlist of things that help soothe the rough edges and bring me peace of mind (even if just a sliver).

1) The November pictures from the Sartorialist. With flicks from Rio, Moscow, and NYC, Sart is providing some grade-A fashion escapism. This is a personal fave: not anything that I could ever picture myself wearing, but wonderfully light, fun, and a bit reminiscent of dragonfruit.

2) Peppermint tea. In a country that loves it's coffee, I'm a devout tea drinker. My cup of peppermint tea is simple, to the point, and invigorating enough to give me that much needed boost to teach unmotivated Vietnamese students at 8:00 am.

Which I'll have to do tomorrow. Joy.

3) Reading advice columns. It's self-help meets voyeurism, and I have to admit I've applied advice from Carolyn Hax's problems to my own life, and have recycled her advice to others. In some ways, it's a reassuring reminder that what I'm going through, in the scheme of things, isn't so difficult -- or, if it is, that I'm not the only miserable soul in the boat.

4) Samba music. Mood facelift with a twist of lime.

5) Pineapple & ham pizza -- with fresh basil. My comfort food used to be mashed potatoes, but in their (formidable) absence (you might imagine, Vietnam isn't a big potato country), my PHB pizza concoction is stepping into the gap. Add a michelada (another wonderful hybrid: beer + tabasco sauce + lime = the endearing mongrel of drinks) and you got yourself a paaartay. Or at least, enough flavors to put your pity party on pause.

Kathleen Parker is quickly becoming one of my favorite columnists

"The alternative to criticizing, several friends have mentioned with perfectly straight faces, is to say nothing at all. Alas, I've always been partial to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who said, 'If you haven't got anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.' Not only is the conversation likely to be livelier, it is also likely to be truer. "

Kathleen Parker
[full article here]

feeling in a mark twain mood today

"...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more."

Mark Twain
"The Gilded Age"

all falls down

Today is also the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. A nice bookend to a week that's seen some pretty impressive blocks come tumbling down.

the sheer volume of wonder

"What I Know for Sure"
Bob Hickock

Some people, told of witness trees,
pause in chopping a carrot
or loosening a lug nut and ask, witness
to what? So while salad
is made, or getting from A to B
is repaired, these people
listen to the story
of the Burnside bridge sycamore,
alive at Antietam, bloodiest day
of the war, or the Appomattox Court House
honey locust, just coming to leaf
as Lee surrendered, and say, at the end,
Cool. Then the chopping continues
with its two sounds,
the slight snap to the separation
of carrot from carrot, the harder crack
of knife against cutting board,
or the sigh, also slight, of a lug nut
as it's tightened against a wheel. In time,
these people put their hands
under water and say, not so much to you
but to the window in front of the sink,
Think of all the things
trees have seen. Then it's time
for dinner, or to leave, and a month passes,
or a year, before two fawns
cross in front of the car,
or the man you've just given a dollar to
lifts his shirt to the start
of the 23rd psalm tattooed
to his chest, "The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want," when some people
say, I feel like one of those trees,
you know? And you do know.
You make a good salad, change
a wicked tire, you're one of those people,
watching, listening, a witness to whatever this is,
for as long as it is
amazing, isn't it, that I could call you
right now and say, They still
can't talk to dolphins
but are closer, as I still
can't say everything I want to
but am closer, for trying, to God,
if you must, to spirit, if you will,
to what's never easy for people
like us: life, breath, the sheer
volume of wonder.

sidenote: this poem, in a way i can't properly describe, captures a bit of that nebulous feeling i've had in the past week... that sense of the mundane & the amazing.

Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

"I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight."

MLK 1968

"There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there."

Obama 2008

(all Obama photos via washingtonpost.com)

go vote.

....it'll make you feel big and strong.

Bob Schieffer

to fully appreciate the post below

read this short summary/review of Beau Sia's "a night without armor II: the revenge."

p.s.

i really
don't like
jack kerouac
or
the way
you give
blowjobs.

Beau Sia

Susan Sontag

Information will never replace illumination. But something that sounds like, except that it's better than, information -- I mean the condition of being informed; I mean concrete, specific, detailed, historically dense, first hand knowledge is the indispensable prerequisite for a writer to express opinions in public.

Susan Sontag, "The Conscience of Words"

This is something I've mulled over before -- the difference between knowledge & information. Though she's talking specifically to and about writers, I do wish this expectation could be extended to all media and, really, all participators in democracy.

sweet november

i've always been soft for november.

i can't even front as to why: it's my birth month, so i always feel a jolt of rejuvenation during this month. the fact that it comes so close to the end of the calendar year adds to the feeling of introspection: assessing who i am at the close of another 365 days, where i've been, what's been done, and slowly turning around to face the next set of challenges.

especially in the weeks going into my birthday, i go inside of myself and shut the doors. there is a reverberation of change deep inside of me, one that is currently coursing through the veins of the world. in my conversations with people, there seems to be an almost universal restlessness. an itch for -- shit, i don't even know, i can't put my finger on mine, and i somehow doubt that most other people can concisely point to theirs either. but we're reaching.

coming to vietnam was, in many ways, a desire to return to some sort of embryonic stage. a retreat into a foreign land in the hopes of stepping back into the familiar with new eyes. i think vietnam has, in that sense, exceeded my expectations. the way i view the world, my country (countries?), and my countrymen has changed irrevocably.

i welcome that. it would be a waste, i think, to come into each and every city, town and country, each and every year, unaltered. the years tailor you, taking the basic fabric -- the fundamentals, as our politicians would like to say -- and stretch, fold, pleat, rip apart and stitch back together all that you are and capable of being.

truth be told, i feel as though i've been 22 for five years.

& i'm not quite sure how to end this blog, mainly because i came into it not knowing what i was going to write, but also because this is the sort of thought that will unravel slowly, dutifully, and on it's own accord.

unraveling the cloth of a year. that's what it feels like. quietly, purposefully, that's what it will come down to.