MJ & The Problem of the Color Line

I was just about to walk out of ballet class this evening, when my phone rang and it was Bobo yelling on the other end of the line: “Kilian, Michael Jackson died!” Do you know that feeling of ominous incredulity when you hear big tragic news like this and you can’t help but smile while passing the news to someone else? It’s not a smile of joy, but a smile of sensation, of knowing that this is so big you can’t quite comprehend its meaning as you inform your neighbor, text message your best friend, run to the computer and check the facts online, read all the tweets with the hashtag #RIP MJ. This smile persisted until the sadness sunk in while I watched a performance in a crumbling, dilapidated opera house, and it turned into a contemplative frown on my face, heavy and full of meaning-making.

This is not the first time I’ve tried to make meaning of Michael Jackson. The last paper I wrote at college, in late April of my senior year in 2001, before there was any talk of planes crashing into buildings, was about this man whom I came to know as the tragic figure of the 20th century. I wrestled with my topic about Michael Jackson’s transracial and transgender transgressions, at the trigger of America’s most deep-seeded hot buttons, exploding our precious and powerful post-chattel-slavery social codes around race, gender, beauty, genius and sexuality – all to backfire literally in his face.

We collectively created this monster/saint to live with us in our own homes. When I was 15, I plastered my room with pale-faced, chiseled images of the King of Pop, and I carefully preserved every magazine clipping I could find in immaculate ring binders. I cried when my mom suggested that the child molestation charges might be true. I defended his freedom of choice when my white friend complained about Michael’s betrayal of his own blackness. I was touched when he’d talk about the preciousness of our planet, and I was confused by his marriages, children, and shopping sprees. Little did I know that Michael Jackson triggers something – at least SOMEthing – in almost each and every one of us.

And little did I know that this something is so intrinsically linked to our collective legacies of violence, genocide, repression, exploitation, to our histories of power and greed; legacies and histories we keep reenacting with each other every single day of our lives. There is a violence in the jokes about how Michael Jackson turned from a black man into a white woman, a violence that he himself repeatedly – and self-destructively – punctured by his physical transformation, a violence that affects my House of Freak as well as yours.

While W.E.B. Du Bois forecast the problem of the 20th century as being the Problem of the Color Line, there’s been talk of our 21st century Obama-age as being post-racial, where color has allegedly lost its divisive significance. And I’m thinking of Michael Jackson’s passing in light of Barack Obama’s ascension, one freak of nature passing the torch to another freak of nature, both freakish in their genius and their appeal, one a victim, the other a victor.

The collective narcissism that has shaped and plagued us since the early 1980s when the King came of age infested this freak and ate him from the inside out, his face inscribed by our every social ill, with our undivided assistance. Now, the President is coming into his own in an age of transcendence, or so we hope. Who is whiter, Michael or Barack? And how has the meaning of this question changed between the time Michael Jackson started resembling a “white woman” in 1989 and the time the Obamas moved into the “white house” in 2009?

The pain and shock that prompted Bobo to call me as soon as the news broke is accompanied by our collective shame of having been unable to affirm Michael Jackson’s sensitive and transgressive being, besides making him the best-selling artist in the history of pop. His chart-topping success is only part of his brilliance – most of all, he’s been the man in the mirror of our world, beautiful, inspiring, sick, falling apart, and ready to be reborn.




[An interesting blog article on this topic, from a different viewpoint: http://www.antiracistparent.com/2008/01/28/explaining-michael-jackson/]

Friendship in Israel

Standing with Paul on an ancient city wall overlooking the heart of Jerusalem's complex inner workings, watching the sun set, listening to the cacophonous evening call to prayer from the green-lit minarets of East Jerusalem, bearing witness to throngs of orthodox hats gathering at the Western Wall during the final hour of Shabbat, I am aware that the two of us in our quasi-American tourist costumes make up but a tiny blot on the speckled cultural landscape of this deeply arcane and holy place.



The renewal and celebration of friendship is what my trip to Israel is about. Paul and I met in 2005 at an all-night contra dance in Vermont, where I had the distinct pleasure of repeatedly being twirled around by him until my feet couldn't handle it anymore at 6:30 in the morning. We exchanged addresses and started a letter correspondence not unlike a few I had as a young teenager, with creative uses of pens and stationery that pleased the sender as much as the recipient. Then he visited for an afternoon in Philadelphia, I visited for Thanksgiving in Maine, and again in the summer, he visited with my family in Vienna in winter, then I vacationed for a week in Portland, then he passed through Austria on his way to Israel (from where he's been blogging at paulheckler.blogspot.com), and now I'm here, nearly four years after our first balance and swing, with a friend for life.

That's how I travel, really: from friend to friend. And while I could write about the sights, sounds, weather and customs (and costumes) of my globetrotting adventures (which, I suppose, I do plenty of on this blog, now that I think about it), what sticks are these special moments with people whom I know I will reminisce with for years to come; reminisce and grow.

I'm Dating Spring Flowers

I was thinking of starting a photo series on backs of necks. I've seen some cool ones recently.

But somehow I feel less self-conscious taking pictures of plant-life, that simply sits there, ready for the perfect photo op. Spring is kind of amazing for that. In comparison to the magnolia and dogwood trees on the eastern seaboard of the United States a month ago in April, I'm finding very photogenic flowers and bushes here in Central and Western Europe in May:



Rhododendron flowers are in various states of bloom. Above, a fully flowering bush in Vienna; below a barely popping one near Cologne...





Personally, I find buttercups some of the most compelling flowers, so simple in their individual attire, and so bright when covering a juicy green meadow. I've seen several German girls with buttercup crowns in their hair while strolling through the park with their families on an easy May Day afternoon.

And lilac, of course, dominates the olfactory palette of springtime in Europe, happily fresh on large bushes in people's front yards; and instantly limp if placed in a vase.



I suppose the erotic nature of blossoming spring keeps my interest piqued for now, although backs of necks, tatooed or beautifully shaven, may be what will sustain me through the year...

My First 100 Days in Office

The white boy with the funny name has been back in Philadelphia for 100 days. That would be me, in the Blue House with my own round-table office at my new address in Pennsylvania.


I would rate my performance so far an A-, taking into account that I had inherited some of the world's largest problems, including my father's property a continent away, my step-father's 7-year-old laptop that was on its last legs, my mother's concern for my financial security and health care, and an uncanny ability to dream in broken Danish every single night since the inauguration. Last night, for example, I dreamt that H&M was out of the socks and t-shirts I was looking for, but instead I found a Danish phrase book for €24 that I could hardly afford but bought anyway.



Hope and hard work are what's stimulating my economy for now: I clean house (for a friend); I balance the books (for a dance company); I cut hair (illegally); I make wedding invitations (to save the institution of heterosexual marriage); and I'm reinvesting my real estate in order to clear my accumlulated deficit (including a new MacBook) and provide myself with practical educational opportunities.


[goldensilhouette.etsy.com]

I've drawn up an ambitious budget -- my own blueprint for the future: it includes investing in health care, education, transportation infracstructure (new lights for my bike!), alternative energy, and dinner. It also includes hamstering incandescent light bulbs before they become outlawed and replaced by those awful blue-spectrum, mercury-filled, unsightly hoax invented by the lighting industry. There might also be a puppy on the horizon, somewhere.


[I'm partial to Wheatens, hypoallergenic and all]

When my days in my home-office get especially rough, Michele stops by for a snack and a chat about Battlestar Galactica or the Rachel Maddow Show. That is, Michele, the dancer. We sometimes take ballet together, too, or spend some time on the Rittenhouse lawn.



Currently, I am meeting with heads of the family on a state visit to Europe and the Middle East, specifically to celebrate two parental round birthdays and to make peace with the people of Israel. All the while, I am reflecting on our tumultuous times, and will say with confidence: It ain't over.


[John McCain is a cylon]

Susan Boyle's Sacrifice

It seems that within minutes, the world got to know this face. The BBC claims YouTube videos featuring Susan Boyle, the quintessential Ugly Duckling du jour performing a musical number on Britain's Got Talent, have reached 50 million views. Facebook was and still is abuzz with commentary, most of it in the category of "I weep every time I see this video."

Here's a link, in case you've been hiding in a bomb shelter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nox2DRCAKxk&feature=bz303

Granted, the deeply archetypal stories of the frog turning into the prince and the ugly duckling growing up to become a beautiful swan are compelling. Don't judge the book by it's cover, or whatever. Something about no matter how mediocre, ostracized, unpopular, unsophisticated, or different-looking you are, there might be a pearl lurking in the oyster, a diamond in the rough.

I did not weep, cry, gasp, or feel tingles down my spine when I saw Susan Boyle sing. Rather, I became afraid for her, sacrificing her beauty so that we can redeem our collective insecurities about our own hyper-mediated body image and expectations of success. Within 5 minutes, we have placed onto this unsuspecting woman the burden of having to carry our collective guilt about doubting her in the first place, while constructing her starry-eyed success story for her, from beginning to end. We will make her win, make her famous, turn her life upside down, suck the life out of her spirit, use her up, and spit her out -- just so we can feel self-righteous and say "Look, I totally respect and believe in this ugly person. She's, like, such an inspiration to me. She's truly following her dream!"

Except that she's following someone else's dream of success. Except that we'll only feel inspired if we can simultaneously preserve her position of power -- down there, on a pedestal. We will like her as long as we know we're younger and/or more beautiful and/or more sophisticated and/or more all-knowing -- and as long as we have the power to cast our vote on her destiny, quite literally on this television competition.

Would we love Susan Boyle if she wasn't so awkward and backward-looking? Nope. Which is evidence enough that we are not actually considering her full humanity, that she's facing the real danger of having her self-esteem built up for her by her hysterical and complex-ladden audience only to find that she's being carried off on a hot air balloon slowly drifting into oblivion.

May you, Miss Boyle, harness the true power of transformation that is carefully concealed in this experience. I wish nothing less for you. (Hint: Your audience won't give it to you, other than in the form of bait.)

East Coast Bloom

If you live in the northern hemisphere, you may have noticed that spring is in full gear (at least I hope it is where you are, even in Canada and Finland). I have demonstrated my fascination with buds on this blog before. But now we're on to blossoms. Jerusalem might have blossoming date trees, olive trees, almond trees, and various and sundry other palms. Here on the Mid-Atlantic East Coast, the cherry blossoms have just passed their prime, as well as the magnolias, here shown in full bloom last week in Philadelphia:



This is not me smelling the popping buds, but they do smell really good. And here the vaginal close-up:





Tulips are now in bloom in Washington, where patches of neat rows of them grace city parks and suburban gardens. Out in the Virginia suburbs I also found this tree in bloom today (dogwood?)...



Ever so slowly, these colorful blossoms are being replaced by the juicy, fresh green of spring leaves, each tree, it seems, at its own pace as we head into the lush months of summer...

Goats On Ponies!

My friend Jonathan is a teacher. Last year, he got the coolest teaching job ever (at least to write home about): He teaches circus performers' kids in a one-room school house, all ages, all subjects. He has a room on the circus train, on which he has been traveling across the continent, becoming part of the Ringling circus family and getting to know the train yards of our country all too well.

And that is how I got hooked up with tickets to the show today. I took my aunt for a special birthday treat. I had two favorite parts:

1. Seven motorcyclists in this 5-meter sphere, going around at crazy speeds -- heartstopping.


2. Three goats riding their own ponies. Nothing can compare.


3. And of course, the elephants. Classic.



Thank you, Jonathan!

Doggie Park Sociologist

During my recent stint as a dogsitter, I made the following observations in the doggie park:



a) When dogs of all sizes, colors, temperaments, and levels of drool production congregate -- often 15+ at doggie park rush hour -- I can't stop laughing at who's humping whom, who's actually running after the slobbery tennis ball (human or animal), how it is possible that the pitbull slobbers all over the prissiest puggle-owner's coat, ... Dogs are just funny together.

And b) the social interactions between dog owners, some -- like me -- awkwardly standing by the sidelines laughing at the four-leggeds, others engaging in small talk that inevitably starts with "Oh, how old is your dog?" -- is ground zero for rich empirical study. There's the constant sizing up of each other's dog training skills -- how many minus points do i get when my little shitsu leaves a pawmark on the labradoodle's lady-owner's freshly washes jeans because he's so excited to see her? And the gauging of the precise moment of when it is obligatory to start a conversation with another dog-owner, once the dogs have been smelling each other's bits and butts for a while. Do you make eye contact with the human or just stare at their dog while you're starting this conversation? Do you tell the owners of large dogs that keeping them in the city is cruelty to animals, or do you just let it slide?

I guess, I opt to simply look around at the budding trees, like these magnolias that just popped:



Plants are so much less complicated.

Meine Führer

Together for the first time, each represents his and her people well: He, calmly passionate, rhetorically charismatic, necessarily humble, casually multiracial, able to get away with giving the Queen of England an iPod; She, spectacularly plain, secularly conservative, unmysteriously opaque, defiantly relaxed, able to hold her own in a world of bullies.

So American -- So German.

Here's to bridging the Great Cultural Divide, meine Führer!

How Being A Prisoner of War Changed My Life

I want to share with you a letter my American mother sent out from Vienna, after encountering a dying Austrian man whose favorite memory is the time when he was a prisoner of war on US soil.

Do allow me this Reader's Digest moment, if you don't mind...

Dear friends,

As some of you know, I volunteer regularly at a local hospice/palliative ward in Vienna. Yesterday I had an encounter there that made an unusually deep impression on me. The patient I was privileged to meet was an 85-year-old retired medical doctor who seemed rather subdued when I introduced myself. But as soon as I revealed to him that I was a native U.S. American he became very animated. “I lived in Virginia for 2 years”, he told me “and those were 2 of the best years of my life.” Of course, I asked him when that was and why he had been in America. “It was 1944-45 and I was a prisoner of war”, he promptly told me. That was the beginning of a 90 minute story that fascinated me from beginning to end.

Dr. A. was 14 when Hitler & Co. occupied Austria. He readily admitted that as an impressionable teen-ager he was fascinated by the Nazi propaganda and joined the Hitler Youth organization. When he was drafted into the army at age 18 (1942) he thought he was headed for a big adventure but was immediately confronted with the cruel realities of WWII. In the spring of 1944 after the allied forces had finally captured Montecasino (Italy) from the Germans, he was part of a small band of German/Austrian soldiers sent on a reconnaissance mission up to the top of the mountain. They successfully reached the high plateau only to find themselves surrounded by American soldiers. Dr. A. continued: “My American miracle began the minute the Americans captured us. I knew that if the situation were reversed the Germans would have shot the Americans on the spot. But we were simply ordered to put down our weapons. Our identities were established but no one beat, let alone tortured us.” Soon Dr. A. was brought to Naples where he was put on a ship bound for Norfolk, VA.

He has no idea how long the rough crossing lasted but he remembers begin full of fear at the thought of landing on “enemy soil” and being thrown into an American prisoner of war camp. He had witnessed how badly the Nazis had treated their captives and wondered if he would be strong enough to survive the anticipated suffering. When the ship docked in Norfolk Dr. A. was told they would be taken by train to the POW camp. “In Europe we soldiers had always been transported in cattle cars, so you can imagine my amazement when we were escorted to shining silver trains and allowed to sit in well padded seats. At that moment, I fell in love with America.” Dr. A. recounted in detail how respectfully he was treated during his captivity. Even though he sometimes had to clean latrines he felt grateful for his “good luck”. At times the prisoners worked outside the camp on near-by farms. He was absolutely incredulous when at noon-time the farmer’s family invited him and his fellow prisoner to join them at their dinner table. “Such humanity! Such generosity! That goodness created such hatred in me for the Nazis and all they had done and all the lies they had told us. Even being held prisoner in a democratic country was a 1000 times better than living under Fascism. I wanted more than anything for the Allies to defeat the Nazis so I could return home to a democratic Austria.”

Dr. A. was 21 when he returned home. He was too exhausted yesterday to tell me the rest of his story but he did emphasize that even though the American government has done some things over the years that he did not agree with, he has always defended America to its critics because of his POW experience.

I was moved to recount this story because it reminded me so painfully of how far America drifted from that POW camp in VA to the black hole of Guantanamo and other CIA prisons. Dr. A. was an enthusiastic young supporter of the Nazis when he went off to war and he had been convinced that America was his enemy. He was converted to the principals of Democracy by being treated according to the morals and values upon which our country was founded. Generous and humane treatment planted the seeds of democracy in a young soldier and the results were life-changing.

Peace,
J.

Watch those Buds Pop!

Live report from the Wisshickon: New life is poppin'!

Mindless Acts of Whiteness

Two events shaped my experience of Philadelphia today.

1. The Aftermath of St. Patrick's Day in South Philly
2. The Signing of a Treaty with Members of the Lenape Nation

*******

I find the celebration of the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, a baffling and confusing experience in America. On the one hand, Irish-Americans are more Irish than Irish on this excuse of a drink fest; and on the other hand, this is the one day in the year when Americans of many stripes get to partake in a vulgar celebration of their white ethnicity in general. Everyone who cares to is dressed in kelly green t-shirts, adorned with green mardi gras beads, four-leaf clover top hats, and a Guinness emblem somewhere on their person. And being of Irish descent is not of importance here: rather, this is your chance to explore your gritty, post-Mayflower immigrant, underdog, deeply ethnic whiteness, whether you're a bar-hopping elite college student or an extended family roasting hot dogs on the BBQ grill in your back yard. As long as the beer flows, that's all that matters.

And what can be better hangover medicine than a genuine Philly Cheesesteak from Geno's in South Philly. Mind you, you're coming from endulging your real or imagined Irishness to having a greasy experience with your real or imagined Italianess, mindlessly consuming your real or imagined working-classness and feeling proud -- for once -- of your real or imagined whiteness.

So, then, there is a line around the block to get that cheesesteak at 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon, because we will never forget!!!!

*******

Just hours before I biked past Geno's, I witnessed a blessing ceremony performed by members of the Lenape Nation at my church. A representative of each group signed a treaty committing to our renewed relationship with each other and the land on which this city stands.

The Lenape are the people who have lived in this geographic area for, hmm, the past 10,000 years. The reason why you may not have heard of them before is that they were forced to go totally underground in order to preserve their identity, language and culture. It is just now that they are becoming more public again.

Being in the presence of Native Philadelphians at Tabernacle United Church this morning, where people of many ethnicities were present -- but most of us of European descent -- gave me a sense of our varied histories of immigration and displacement, our complicated and shared history of oppression, extinction, exploitation... In this space, healing and reconciliation were on the top of the agenda, in addition to honoring our ancestors, especially the ancestors who have kept this land for us.

As it turns out, I'll be hiking in the woods with a Lenape name tomorrow morning: the Wissahickon. Glorifying the sacred ground on which we stand is, indeed, a sharp contrast to the grit and grease of the rest of the weekend's goings-on. Or is it?

A, D sharp and F as a Mazurka, please!

These two people are the reason I came to Philadelphia: Italo and Jean.

Italo was my mom's music teacher in high school. This was in Detroit in the 60s. Mom ended up singing professionally for 20 years in Germany; Italo to this day talks about her outstanding voice when she was 16 and singing solos with the Cass Tech choir which he conducted. In fact, Italo listens to old recordings from that time on a daily basis now. Music is what keeps him alive as his memory is fading and his mind frequently slips into obscurity.

Jean retired last year from being a school librarian at the tender age of 86. She plans to live to be no less than 100, like her mother. Jean introduced me to MANNA, an organization that provides meals for people living with HIV/AIDS. The two of us volunteered there togerther for several years. Now she helps stock a local food pantry and takes care of her hubby. When I asked her yesterday what her days look like now, she said each days starts with them looking for Italo's glasses. This, apparently, takes a good chunk o' time.

I got a taste of what else keeps Italo happy and occupied: You name three notes on the musical scale plus a rhythm pattern (see title of this posting) and he'll compose an impromptu piece for you on the piano (see picture below); or he starts off singing part of a melody and you go around the lunch table taking turns completing the melody however you like, regardless of how much food you currently have in your mouth. "Come on, just be creative!!" That's his favorite line these days.

This can go on for hours.

Jean and Italo live in the Philly suburbs, and their son went to Haverford. So I went to Haverford and, thus, landed in Philly. And now they have 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren, plus me.

Open Letter to Harvey Milk

Dear Harvey Milk,

The year you were killed, I was born. That makes me 30 years old in 2009. I have been out for 15 years, lived in 5 different countries, acquired 2 advanced degrees, fallen in love with 2 Jasons, been single-bilingual for 5 years since, and I am slowly becoming aware of the fact that I have been moved back into the closet with disturbing subtlety.

They just made a movie about you. I saw it a few days after a lover categorically refused to kiss me for fear of becoming infected with a disease I don't have. I live in a world where bishops are openly gay and speak at the nation's President's inaugural festivities. Where gay commitment ceremonies are the season's climax of family TV dramas. Where same-sex marriage has been legalized in Catholic Spain, a gay man is the mayor of Berlin, Sean Penn receives an Oscar for playing you.

I also live in a world where queer neighborhoods keep being gentrified and decentralized, where fear and sex come in the same package, where subcultures have become cynical about the fight for equal rights, where corporations like Bacardi and Absolut sponsor Pride parades while queer communities sponsor them to feed our rampant alcoholism, and where I make eye contact with unknown men only to intimidate them, never to flirt or simply acknowledge their humanity, for fear of being beaten up.

Irrational, I know. But that's how it (still) is in 2009. The gays get fired from the military, fired from their civil jobs, denied housing, refused service, refused adoption, refused marriage, refused rightful vindication for crimes against them, denied visitation rights, inheritance rights, tax breaks, full citizenship and immigration rights. We live in relative comfort but also in relative silence, we live openly but also in fear, our voice has been integrated but also submerged. We've become more straight-acting, more mainstream, more consumerist, more cynical, more complacent than you would ever have imagined.

I'm posting footage of the response to your killer's light sentence of 8 years in prison, of which he served 5 before being let go. The outrage generated during the 1979 riots has meanwhile been pacified by high glucose corn syrup, vodka tonics, crystal meth, fashion advertisement, gay cooking shows, and bad lesbian drama on cable TV.

But this year it's re-emerging in California and around the country and the globe with the fires that were lit by your outrageous presence on this Earth.



In reverence of our ancestors,

DKcosmonaut

Home: The Trilogy

I woke up this morning in Philadelphia with the notion that I have completed two major journeys in my life:

1. I have identified the land from whence I came as the flat coastal Baltic region of the Jutland peninsula, the land of sea farers, farmers, and artists. This is the soil and water I feel a primal connection to, a landscape that makes me feel like I'm home. This is a picture from the deck of the ferry crossing the Baltic sea from Denmark to Germany.



2. I have identified my people-home beyond my biological family as my circle of friends and extensive social networks centered in and around Philadelphia. My social life here is rich, spontaneous, diversified, and comfortable. I treasure the feeling of being known; and of knowing the social landscape of this city. Here's a picture of my weekly planner documenting last week's social engagements.



So, knowing that I have a geographic home, and knowing that I have a social home, and knowing that the two are irreconcilably an ocean apart, and knowing that I'll never be truly satisfied with being in just one of these, I need to move to the next level. We'll call it the search for my spiritual home -- a domain large enough to encompass all that makes me me.

I'm beginning this journey begins somewhere deep in the recesses of my belly. Wish me luck.