I looked at four apartments today, the best being 820 West Cuyler. Itās a short street, and everyone in the building is from Mexico or Central America. Thereās trash in the courtyard and on the landings, but the rent is only a hundred and ninety dollars. The living room/bedroom ceiling is covered with plastic to catch the falling plaster. The floors are collaged with different patterns of linoleum, but the bathroomās O.K. There are plenty of windows and a kitchen big enough to do all my work in. Best of all, itās eight blocks from an ihop that looks exactly like the one I left behind in Raleigh, both inside and out.
January 15, 1984
George, the super, told me I can take up the linoleum if I want and remove the flimsy wall that divides the main room in half. The closetās big, and he will replaster the ceiling.
While cleaning it I found lots of matches, a cap, and a rattrap. The last tenants left behind a sofa Iāll be getting rid of and a framed picture of Jesus spreading his arms as wide as they will go. There are roach eggs everywhere, and the place stinks of pesticide.
January 17, 1984
Because Iām basically starting from scratch, I have to take a number of core classes. These are 2-D (basic drawing), 3-D (basic sculpture), and 4-D, which can be video or performance or whatever the teacher, whose name is Ken Shorr, wants. Our first assignment from him is to collect overheard sentences and shape them into a dialogue. Then weāre to find a scrap of something measuring four by five feet, and slap a word or image on it. This is right up my alley, and Iāve already started on it. My scrap will be some of the linoleum Iāve ripped off my living-room floor.
Ken said that school is one of the few placesāperhaps the only placeāwhere weāll find people who are interested in what we have to say. Heās sort of a pessimist that way. Before class, I looked him up and learned he was in the Whitney Biennial. I wanted to ask what heād done to get there, but I had already talked too much in 2-D and 3-D and didnāt want to exhaust everybody.
Remember when Sarah Palin came into the political arena in 2008 and turned the right-wing rhetoric up to 10? Well, the leading GOP candidate for president in 2016, Donald Trump, is cranking it up to
The 14 points of Fascism
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of āneed.ā The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the governmentās policies or actions.
Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, this twitter account is posting the names and photos (when available) of refugees turned away from America who became victims of Naziism. #NoBanNoWall #RefugeesWelcomeĀ
There may not be a right thing to say, but it is wrong to say nothing. Innocent people are being murdered, and we are all responsible if we sit by, idle and silent. Both with the words of others and with my own, I sayĀ āŖ#āblacklivesmatterā¬.
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Elie Wiesel
"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?" - Eleanor Roosevelt
āI decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.ā - Nadezhda Mandelstam
Normally in Tokyo we rent an apartment and stay for a week. This time, though, we got a whole house. The neighborhood it was ināEbisuāis home to one of our favorite shops, Kapital. The clothes they sell are new but appear to have been previously worn, perhaps by someone who was shot or stabbed and then thrown off a boat. Everything looks as if it had been pulled from the evidence rack at a murder trial. I donāt know how they do it. Most distressed clothing looks fake, but not theirs, for some reason. Do they put it in a dryer with broken glass and rusty steak knives? Do they drag it behind a tank over a still-smoldering battlefield? How do they get the cuts and stains so . . . right?
If I had to use one word to describe Kapitalās clothing, Iād be torn between 'wrong' and 'tragic.' A shirt might look normal enough until you try it on, and discover that the armholes have been moved, and are no longer level with your shoulders, like a capital 'T,' but farther down your torso, like a lowercase one.
Jackets with patches on them might senselessly bunch at your left hip, or maybe they poof out at the small of your back, where for no good reason thereās a pocket. Iāve yet to see a pair of Kapital trousers with a single leg hole, but that doesnāt mean the designers havenāt already done it. Their motto seems to be 'Why not?'
Most people would answer, 'Iāll tell you why not!' But I like Kapitalās philosophy. I like their clothing as well, though I canāt say that it always likes me in return. Iām not narrow enough in the chest for most of their jackets, but what was to stop me, on this most recent trip, from buying a flannel shirt made of five differently patterned flannel shirts ripped apart and then stitched together into a kind of doleful Frankentop? I got hats as well, three of them, which I like to wear stacked up, all at the same time, partly just to get it over with but mainly because I think they look good as a tower.
The Perfect Fit, David Sedaris,Ā http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/28/david-sedaris-shops-for-clothes-in-tokyo
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