fish tales

Baby Nap Circuit Training

2012-01-27T11:08:00.004-05:00

The moment I successfully tiptoe out of LittleGorilla's room, asleep in his crib and covered by a light blanket, the race is supposed to begin. Usually my mind has already begun planning as he falls asleep. How urgent is the laundry today? Dishes? Is there anything to eat? Have I had breakfast yet? What does this hallway need to brighten up?

Out the door, I may zone out for the duration of his nap. That's ok. That usually happens when I'm just over my limit. It's good to pull back and just rest like a tired-out zombie, sometimes.

Other times I may actually get a few things done. At my peak I've actually cleaned the whole house before he wakes up, or weeded the backyard, or something equally ridiculous.

Stations on the Circuit: Bathroom! Teethbrushing! Get dressed! Eat breakfast (or lunch)! Put in a load of laundry! Do the dishes/start the dishwasher! Start dinner! Clean the fridge! Answer student emails! Put up art! Mop!

I'm getting tired writing this post. Excuse me while find something to eat and zone out.

2012-01-09T22:45:00.006-05:00

Standing in the kitchen drinking water and reading a poorly pixelated printout "Basic Concepts in the Methodology of the Social Sciences" to teach my students tomorrow, I can hear the baby monitor: static, distant singing, the periodic click of the rocking chair coming to rest on the ground, occasional squeaks from the floorboards. Babygorilla sleeps better in his own crib, but when he wakes up he wants to get into our bed, between us. Once there, he'll flop violently onto his side, so completely asleep mid-flop it's like a switch has turned off. He'll lie comatose, the end of one limb touching either of us, slowly rotating until he's at such an odd angle I wake up periodically to make sure the blanket isn't covering his head. But sometimes he gets baby-insomnia and then watch out. No amount of water drunk the night before will stave off dehydration of such magnitude that by morning, my fingers are wrinkled.

The truth is that I drink in those moments stolen out of the norms of baby-parenting strictures and structures we resignedly follow, for all of our ultimate well-being (out of experience: babygorilla needs routine and daily structure to sleep well). But no bedtime routine substitutes for offering one's curved stillness and warmth as nearby comfort, watching the pretty black crescents his eyelashes make over his closed eyes, following the slow sideways droop of baby cheeks as his sleep deepens, while his hand snakes out, mid-sleep, and hangs onto my shirt.

2011-12-29T10:45:00.010-05:00

Baby-gorilla, held in his father's arms, stares open-mouthed at me as I towel my wet hair. Something looks different to him; something has struck him. His wide eyes slowly wander over my face with a complex expression: his eyes are soft yet glued to my face, his expression a few shades gentler than shock. He is absorbing something, but what? The steam clouds the air around us; his hair and skin are damp. He has seen me like this before. A smile plays over his face, he comes close to me, but not just to jump into my arms; he needs to continue looking into my face, his eyes luminous with something new (in me? in him?) before he rests his wet face on my shoulder and relaxes into my body, his nose finally running clear.

"How does a child develop into a person who, as a parent, is able to recognize her or his own child? What are the internal processes, the psychic landmarks, of such development? Where is the theory that tracks the development of the child's responsiveness, empathy, and concern, and not just the parent's sufficiency or failure?"

Benjamin, Jessica. "An Outline of Intersubjactivity: The Development of Recognition."
New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 1990, 7 (Suppl.), 33-46

2011-11-24T15:16:00.005-05:00

Teetering between babyhood and toddlerhood, littlegorilla sits on my lap breastfeeding, in the wooden rocking chair on which each cousin fed in turn. He sucks, eyes wandering, feet kicking against the slats, then disengages and sits up. He arches his back to slide down my lap and takes a few directionless steps on his thin blue and red wool carpet. Turning back to me, he steps his way beside and then behind the rocking chair, into the corner of the room. Each lurch forward is a trick, a funny game. He laughs at his own joke in going someplace he hasn't been before and that is obviously not intended as a place to walk. I follow him, eying and ignoring the dust, raising the curtain before he can pull on it and bring down the unstable rod, mentally adding to my list of things to do, but outwardly staying calm and receptive to his baby-on-the-margins moment, smiling. He ends up circling the chair clockwise. I sit back down and he climbs back into my lap, and feeds from the other breast. After a few minutes, he disengages, sits up, slides down my lap, and this time steps around the rocking chair counter-clockwise, returning once again to feed, this time from the first breast.

Right breast, clockwise; left breast, counter-clockwise, over and over again.

He has mastered breastfeeding; he has no idea there is such a thing as weaning. Walking is a brand new accomplishment. Making unusual paths is fun and funny; these become circles, which are games. Littlegorilla cuddles and feeds, leaves and comes back, works and rests. He has drawn the circle, and he is inside; he is the drawer and we are the drawn. I let him draw me inside the circle. I let him leave. I let him come back.

The chair rocks, the broken spring a slanted squiggle pointing into the room and outside the circle of the moment. My list of things to do glows in neon letters just outside the circle, turned to their lowest by a dimmer switch (installing which is also on the list), but which I cannot fully turn off. This year, like all new mothers, I have found paths of mother-work and they have become my circles of routine, so that we can have these moments--so there is a chair, there is milk, he is fed and changed, there are curtains keeping out the light--but it is never enough; there is also dust, there are unstable curtain rods. Each moment is also time we don't have together. Around we go, around each other, until the darkness falls and sleep puts an end to it for the day.

2011-11-12T20:55:00.006-05:00

Babygorilla blows bubbles on my belly. He bites my knee. He opens his jaw as widely as he can and bears down on my face—biting, sucking—leaving my nose, my mouth, my cheek sopping wet. He pulls my hair. He smacks my cheek. He reaches out for and fingers my earring, pushing my face to the side so he can examine it more closely. He pushes his fingers into my eyeball over my closed eyelid, rolling it over and over again, back and forth. He runs his finger along my eyelashes, pushing up the closed eyelid. He hangs onto my nose, staring up at me. And he feeds. He feeds, he feeds, he feeds, he feeds.

I blow bubbles on Babygorilla’s belly. I put my finger into his warm, soft mouth and sweep both sides, looking for objects he’s placed in there, his eyes round and wondering. I hold him up and wash him clean, directing water around the sink to rinse the remains of his meal into the drain. I clean the fold where the back of his ear meets his head until the cheesy smell of him is gone, looking forward to finding it again by the end of the next day. In the morning I look into his face, seeing its shape superimposed on its yesterday and its tomorrow.

And I feed him. I feed, I feed, I feed, I feed.

2011-09-11T22:49:00.006-04:00

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
''Look at your eyes, they are small but they
see enormous things.'' - Rumi

2011-05-14T22:40:00.008-04:00

Five month old babyfish, pudgy feet planted firmly in my lap and sturdy legs splayed, stands slightly higher than my face. Arms spread wide open for balance, he looks down into my face. His full cheeks hang down in wide crescents. His sharply bright baby eyes are blurry up close. His open, smiling mouth hovers over my cheeks, my mouth, my nose. He finally closes his mouth over my mouth, and begins to suck with surprising force, in a savagely loving baby kiss. When he's finished he smiles at me beneficently. The twilight is gathered into the slightly mad gleam of his eyes.

Snail? Guppy? Shark!

2011-04-11T22:24:00.010-04:00

I dreamt babyfish was a snail. He was innocent, tiny, placid, bright-eyed, neutral as milk, soft, and glistened. He did a snail-walk around a little red blanket.

In real life, he's all those things, yet he adds up to more than a snail. A while back he began responding when we were talking to him by opening his mouth as wide as possible. We surmised he was trying to talk back, but didn't know he had to make noises on cue, and perhaps thought opening his mouth even wider would do the trick. It was the act of opening in particular that seemed important, and which he would repeat silently and periodically, watching us. This open-closed-open mouth-trick used to make him look like a guppy. Now that he's bigger, it's more of a toothless shark mouth trick. This is partly because his stomach muscles have developed, so the open mouth tends to be accompanied by a slow steady movement up towards our bodies, as though through water, that one associates with a shark heading for its target. Also, he appears to have no neck.

Though he's learned how to baby-speak, babyfish still expresses positive feelings by opening his mouth at us, the wider the better--love, pleasure, happiness, effervescent joy at being alive, feelings of closeness. I love you...and so much, he's saying, that perhaps I shall eat you. And now that he's teething, he does often grip our hands or arms and draw them into his mouth, the softness belying the powerful suction about to engulf us.

And now what shall I write about, given the themes of this blog? The Central Asian rice dish I made for the first time, with chana dal and prunes, courtesy of Mark Bittman, that opened me up to the yummy world of dried fruit steamed into dal and rice? The hilariously awesome movie Untitled we watched a week ago? Canadian election news? None of the above! I'm going to sleep.

Bittman's Baked White Bean Boulangerie

2011-03-15T03:35:00.012-04:00

The other day Babyfish and I hung out at a local café where I reconnected with the adult world and read the newspaper over coffee. Near the end of our sojourn I encircled the newly-awoken Babyfish with my arms and scanned the Globe Arts section. We happened to face a mirror—every time I lifted the paper to peek at his face and check his expression, his face followed up as well, and I realized he was looking at the paper with at least as much interest as I was.

On our way home I - we - picked up a can of beans from a convenience store. The beans turned out to be falling apart, virtually mush at the bottom of the can. I held the can over the sink and pondered how old it could conceivably be, how long it takes for beans to turn to mush under their own weight. Two years? Five years? TWENTY years? Finally I freed myself from my imagination, rinsed the beans about a hundred times, tossed them with salt, pepper and thyme, and poured them on the bottom of a lightly oiled glass baking dish. The recipe called for three cups of beans, but I had on yet another day burned the bottom of the pressure cooker into a cindery bean shaped pattern after trying to cook black eyed peas and breastfeed at the same time. Have you ever seen a baby react to a household smoke alarm? (Babyfish looked truly shocked but did not cry, and calmed down immediately after I climbed on a ladder and pressed stop on the alarm).

I topped the beans with translucently sliced onion rings, and then with thin overlapping slices of two sweet potatoes. I shook some more salt and pepper over this, along with some cayenne pepper, and a generous teaspoon of dried thyme. I then poured a cup of vegetable broth over the whole thing, covered it in foil, and baked it at 375 Fahrenheit for an hour and a half (the last 30 minutes without the foil).

The whole house filled with a warm, light, fragrant, savory scent. Somehow the broth hadn't baked off, but the remaining liqiod turned out to be fabulous vegetable flavored 'gravy' for the brown rice and barley. The beans melted with creamy flavor. The onion had lost its harshness without getting caramelized, and the glazed sweet potato was fresh and sweet with the thyme. I would suggest making this with enough beans to make a substantial meal, or having a salad on the side with nuts and cheeses to make sure you're getting enough protein.

2011-03-11T09:08:00.005-05:00

Babyfish had a hard time falling asleep for his early afternoon nap the other day. I held him and walked back and forth in the darkened room, singing snatches of his favourite old Hindi film songs and Nusrat ballads (sanu ik pal chain na ave, sajna tere bina). His body grew heavier in my arms. From time to time I glanced over at the mirror at his face. His cheek spelled out a solid, chunky, curved ‘wao,’ his eye squished shut to a slit from sheer baby fat pressed up against my shoulder. His other pupil, black as a kalonji-seed, grew unseeing. His eyelid lowered, then shut. His plump lips softened and drooped apart, draped at odd angles that would be depraved if not so innocent, and began to glisten. I pressed my hand against his back into me, bent my own cheek against his, and kept singing until he was unequivocally deep in slumber.

Some babyfish theme songs:

I fed all night, wrapped in your arms.

Is that all right?

(Celine Dion, for those nights he sleeps ever so sweetly for four, five hours at a stretch)

Dancing with myself…uh oh uh/dancing with myself…uh oh uh

If I take another drink/it will give me time to think

Dancing with myself

(Billy Idol, for the ecstatic moments he wriggles all his limbs and whole body, his face alive with glee)

Poooooooooooo motion…

Shaking my ass, doing a poo/dunh na na na, dunh na na na

(for those moments he screws up his face and exerts his sphincter muscle).

Cooking with a newborn is a challenge. Yesterday I took five hours to make dinner—a savory broccoli tart with potato crust. Four-fifths of this time was spent feeding babyfish, who is clearly going through a growth spurt.

Savory broccoli tart with potato crust, a la Mark Bittman, the desi version.

Potato crust

I grated three medium sized organic potatoes, rescued from a plastic bag in which a fourth had begun to rot, and tossed the bowlful with salt and pepper. I squeezed the water out of handfuls of grated potato, and pressed them flat into an oiled eight-inch glass baking dish. I baked the dish for 30-40 minutes until the crust was golden (actually, it turned brown on the bottom and remained beige on top—next time I would add 5-10 minutes of broiling time to get that nice crisp texture on the top as well).

Vegetable filling

I chopped up an enormous bowlful of fresh organic broccoli, and diced three skinny and limp carrots with a turnip just this side of wizened. Under the wrinkly, hairy purple and dirty-white exterior, the turnip-insides were smooth and golden. I carmelized two organic onions in The Giant Cast-Iron Pot (TGC-IP), and then added the chopped vegetables, letting them soften with salt, pepper, sage, thyme, and parsley.

Dairy to bind it together

I whisked together a glass of organic skim milk, two eggs, two egg whites, and a cup of grated low-fast cheddar cheese into a large bowl, adding a teaspoon of curry powder, one chopped green chili pepper and some cayenne powder to taste.

All mixed up

I mixed the bowl of liquid with the sautéed vegetables and poured the whole shebang over the potato crust, baking the dish for about 50 minutes until set and no longer jiggly (I don’t like jiggly eggs). The meal was light but satisfying with a salad on the side (aka mixed lettuce leaves with no dressing). The turnip was amazingly sweet and delicious with the broccoli. The tart did not taste egg-y, as I dreaded. There is nothing quite as nauseating as overly egg-y eggs, particularly with curry powder, which I find in dishes is either the best thing ever or a useless and enervating innovation. The potato crust was fabulous. Mark Bittman is a genius. Eat this with quinoa on the side and you’re set.

2011-02-28T21:20:00.006-05:00

Today, babyfish and I looked into each other's eyes for about five minutes, wondering and smiling and looking. We're developing our relationship, us two. Later I made him thoroughly miserable by pressing a warm compress on his eye for a few minutes. It was a terribly 'mommy' thing to do. Usually his needs are decipherable through his desires, but sometimes he needs something for which he has no desire, such as a strange wet fabric on his eye for minutes at a time. You can see how as a parent you do things that can come across as arbitrary, how powerful a figure you are to a tiny baby. Babyfish is wonderfully warm and sensitive, happy and observant, and luckily he's quite easy-going, but he yells his little heart out in these moments.

Tonight we ate rajma chawal (red kidney beans with rice), with a grated carrot and black radish salad, adapted from this recipe.

The salad was a rather random affair; I put a black radish, five or six carrots, two apples and half a small onion in the food processor, and then tossed this mixture in a bowl with a diced orange, torn up arugula leaves, and cashews. For dressing I stirred together a tablespoon of honey, two tablespoons of canola oil (we're out of olive oil), two tablespoons of vinegar, a whole blended orange, and some salt and pepper.

The salad was fresh and lively but the radish and onion together made it slightly too strong. I would leave out the onion next time, and chop in more diced orange, to further sweeten it. I would also mix in lots of walnuts and some raisins or cranberries.

The red kidney beans were undercooked after a whole hour in our sadly ineffective pressure cooker, but we ate the curry nonetheless, with brown rice. I ate my food while breastfeeding, musing over wisps of memories of eating rajma with buttery white rice, made by a younger Khala, while in Sialkot. Grey cement walls, echoes and shadows, painfully unexpected glimpses of outdoors, the unfamiliar configuration of inside. Thin, delicious, spicy shorba, never enough of it, easily digested on rice. Too shy to ask for more.

Kale and Parsnip Huli

2011-02-22T23:33:00.003-05:00

Today was one of those days when the baby naps for hours on your chest, and you go with it, cuddling him and accepting you're not going to get anything else done. We had friends over last night and babyfish hung out with all, head bobbing, looking from face to face. Even when he fed from behind a sheet, only his feet visible, he still managed to convey excitement. Between feeds he followed the action with big excited eyes until he conked out in my arms, and we put him to bed. All this just plumb tuckered him out.

Today as evening drew near, I mentally cataloged what we had in our recently repaired -- or should I say over-repaired -- fridge, which no longer heats our food, but rather freezes all the vegetables and fruit in the crisper. What could be done with few leaves of kale and inexplicably frozen parsnip, that could go with rice, and have some protein? Aha--huli!

And so periodically holding a sleepy baby who could bear his swing for only so long, I threw together the following in a giant cast-iron pot on the gas stove: a cup of red lentils, boiled with two cups of water, a teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon of oil.

(I then turned everything to low heat because babyfish was whimpering for a few minutes, knowing he needed attention even though he wasn't crying, as he's not a baby who cries easily).

I eventually returned just in time to stop the red lentils from burning, whisked them into a liquidy texture, and then heated up another splash of oil in a smaller cast iron pan. I roasted a teaspoon of mustard seeds, five torn up red chillies, and a teaspoon of cumin seeds. To this mix of spices I added a chopped onion and covered it all with a mismatched lid to let it soften.

I put babyfish down in a little bassinet with giraffes hanging above it, and his face transformed from the beginnings of distress ('whyyyyy are you putting me down?') to utter mesmerized absorption ('GIRAFFES') exactly 30 seconds before baby-daddy came home, who, luckily, unwinds by playing with babyfish. This meant I could add some chopped kale and defrosted parsnip chunks to the spices, stir them around for a while, then add the whole pan to the larger pot of boiled lentils.

To this large pot, I added a cup of diced tomato, two tablespoons of sambhar powder, a whole bunch of salt, and the defrosted pulpy juice of a whole frozen lemon to the pot, letting it boil for a while. When it was done, it was ridiculously delicious with rice.

We ate it watching Shekhar Kapur's 1983 art film Masoom. I enjoyed the campy delight of Shabana Azmi's perfect Delhi housewife performance--stunning long black shiny hair, constant makeup, lovely starched shalwar kameezes and perfectly tied saris, seamless attention to two little girls, doing her husband's tie at the breakfast table as he drinks his coffee, massaging his back at night as he reads a novel. Watching Shabana Azmi's achingly gorgeous housewife performance is like eating sugar--you enjoy it, but there are after-effects. The after-effect is, naturally, anxiety, anxiety also provoked by this list: 8 things your baby needs to thrive. I think we're doing all of it, but how do you ever know if you are doing it right, and enough? And could I have picked him up sooner instead of cooking? And do I use too much baby talk? And how come my hair is only silky from not having showered in far too long? In the South Asian context, it's ridiculous to pay too much attention to a baby. Responding immediately to his needs makes you a sucker, less of an adult. It takes work to follow your desires, to put the baby first, to enjoy his huge grins without reaching for a camera, to silence the older female voices in your head observing you cook, observing you turn off the stove, commenting on the moment right before and the moment right after the precise moment you reach out, turn off the swing, and pick him up into your arms. I am not Shabana Azmi, voices. Even Shabana Azmi isn't Shabana Azmi. No one has hair that silky in the middle of the night when you're up because your husband's illegitimate child has run away from your home, prompting you to realize your maternal affection now flows for him as well as for your own biological children, unless you simply haven't had time to shower.

Minestrone Soup

2011-02-17T22:49:00.006-05:00

Tonight was all about the minestrone soup. Everyone in our little household is sick; the baby is startled by his dad's cough. The other day the baby was enormously shocked into stunned, open-mouthed silence after I sneezed. I suspect for all he knew, he was the only ever being in existence to have sneezed. He's also recently fascinated by the sight of us eating, particularly noodles. It's as though he can't wrap his mind around it.

What with all this sneezing and coughing, tonight we needed some steamy liquid with vegetables and protein. I cracked open my Mark Bittman cookbook, looked up some ingredients, and off baby and I went to pick up chickpeas and tiny fragments of strangely expensive pasta. We came back after some exploring, and between diaper changes and four feedings I managed to make minestrone soup. Here's how:

I sauteed one small onion, a carrot, and the one celery stalk retrieved from the vegetable crisper that hadn't mysteriously frozen. (5 minutes, on low, while feeding the baby).

I threw in about two cups of peeled and diced parsnips and stirred them around, then added another small chopped onion because I like onion and wanted more. (1 minute, on medium). I sprinkled on salt and pepper, and fed the baby some more.

I added a cup of diced tomato and its juice, 6 cups of vegetable broth, a rinsed can of chickpeas, and turned the flame to high until the pot of nascent soup boiled, at which point I turned it down to a gentle bubble, and left to feed the baby again indefinitely. (30 minutes, medium)

I added about two cups of chopped green beans and kale, along with three quarters of a cup of adorable tiny pasta squares, lots more water, more salt and cayenne pepper. Eventually, once the baby had fed himself to contented sleep while I spoke on the phone with a friend, I added a teaspoon of minced garlic, a touch of lime, and some dried basil and parsley. (20 minutes, medium)

The soup was hot, fragrant, fresh, colorful and steamy. I served it as per Bittman's instructions, with Parmesan cheese, which made it unexpectedly delicious. Adult members of the household ate it with lentil crackers and cheese sandwiches, breathing in the steam while fervently hoping for release from illness. The baby woke up after we'd eaten; he cuddled in my arms and eventually fell asleep again while looking up at me. I watched his eyes transition from wakefulness to sleep, open all the while, and marveled. He'll taste that soup in his milk tonight.

2011-02-17T14:31:00.004-05:00

Rabfish has reproduced.

Babyfish swam into the world a little ways back, and is steadily getting bigger and smiley-er by the day.

I am resuscitating this blog after a few years vacation from this kind of public presence on the internet. I am returning with some abiding interests--poetry, politics, cooking, and art--but with fresher energy, as well as with baby-nap length time frames for writing posts, instead of single-girl length time frames (aka all night).

Speaking of which, this sandwich isn't going to eat itself!

2009-03-12T17:51:00.003-04:00

Pakistan: HRCP Press Release - Govt. crackdown during Long March

2009-03-12T17:47:00.001-04:00

The government is using Section 144 of the1860 Penal Code, a law left over by the British that forbids public gatherings of four or more people to crackdown on the marchers.

Govt adopting dictatorial ways: HRCP
March 12, 2009 by HRCP
Press Release, March 11, 2009

Lahore: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed dismay at curbs on freedom of assembly, arbitrary arrests and harassment of lawyers, political figures and civil society activists ahead of the lawyers’ long march.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, HRCP said: “A wave of indiscriminate arrests has been reported from across the country ahead of the long march. Such arrests, snatching and placing of containers on roads, and imposing curbs on the right to peaceful assembly are measures disturbingly similar to the path military ruler Pervez Musharraf had taken against dissent and peaceful protest. The government is abusing legal process to prevent the people from exercising their democratic rights.

There is no justification for the government’s undemocratic decision to impose Section 144 curbs on the right to assembly and unleash a spate of arrests and harassment against lawyers, political workers and civil society activists. In Punjab, the enforcement of Section 144 restrictions has compounded the already tense situation created by the imposition of governor’s rule.

All the marches, rallies and protests of lawyers in the past two years have been peaceful without exception. The government, therefore, has no justification in preventing gathering of lawyers.

Indiscriminate actions – such as arrest and confinement in police stations of people like Tahira Abdullah, an HRCP board member – are hardly a distinction for a government that prides itself at being democratically elected.

The government’s resort to ways of authoritarian regimes has cancelled out whatever goodwill it had achieved by not interfering with the lawyers’ long march last year.

The government’s action is undemocratic, counterproductive and will only fuel confrontation. Whatever the outcome of the present protest, the government’s reckless policy is posing a grave threat not only to the democratic experiment but also to the state’s integrity.

There is still time for the government to give up the policy of conflict and defuse tensions by accommodating the demands of lawyers, ending governor Raj in Punjab, and allowing the Punjab Assembly to exercise its right to elect its leader.

The government must release all the detainees and desist from impeding in any way the people’s constitutional right to peaceful assembly and protest.”

Iqbal Haider
Co-chairperson

2009-01-26T09:51:00.002-05:00

Ahwak.
I love you.
We atmana law ansak,
And I wish if I ever forget you,
Ansa rohy wayak.
I forget my soul with you.
Wen daiet teba fadak
And if it becomes lost, it's OK,
Law tensany.
If you've forgotten me.

We ansak,
So I forget you,
watareeny bansa gafak.
And I forget all you pain.
Wa ashtak le azaby maak.
And I start longing for it again.
We alaky demooi fakrak,
And I find my tears remember you.
Warga tany.
So I return to you.

Fe loak,
At times,
El donia tegeny maak.
The whole world comes with you.
We redaha teba redak.
And its wish is your wish.
We sa-et-ha ye hoon fe hawak.
And then, maybe you will end,
Tool hermany.
Depriving my love of you.

Flying Inside Your Own Body

2009-01-25T01:40:00.002-05:00

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.

Margaret Atwood

2008-06-24T01:23:00.001-04:00

Death Experienced

We know nothing of this going-hence that
does not share with us. We have no grounds
for showing admiration or love or hate
to death, whom a costume mask

of tragic lament crazily disfigures.
Still the world is full of roles we act.
So long as we try anxiously to please,
death acts also, though never to acclaim.

But when you went, a streak of reality
broke in upon this stage through that fissure
where you left: green of real green,
real sunshine, real forest.

We go on acting. Fearful and reciting
things difficult to learn and now and then
raising gestures; but your existence,
withdrawn from us and taken from our play,

can sometimes come over us, like a knowledge
of that reality settling in,
so that for a while we act life
transported, not thinking of applause.

Ranier Maria Rilke

The Too Late Poem

2008-06-16T20:41:00.000-04:00

Nothing in the room can go back.
The ashes couldn't be paper again,
the paper couldn't return to its parental linen rags.
That arrow doesn't reverse: the linen
could never again be a possibility
waiting, alive, inside the field of flax.
Whatever's recently happened
in the room is beyond the boundary of this poem,
but we know this: its people can't go back
to who they were before. And the light,
here, now, or any light as the day goes forward,
yours, or mine ... it can't regain its first existence,
at the start of things: an innocence.
For once it touches the world, it becomes complicit.

__________________

She's left the room. He stays in the bed,
below the covers, and when she exits the house
—the door is audible—he curls up, bean of sadness
that he is. Her travel is greedy, it needs the miles (by now
she's past the city limits). His is weaker, but ambitious,
if by fetal position we mean a desire to travel
the whole life-corridor back to its insular source.
I'm sorry, but we can't: nor can the photons of the cosmos
do a U-turn and reconstitute the Original Field of Energy
the size of a barnyard egg. They're going to scatter outward
over the edge of zero. Barnyard egg ... he remembers
his grandparents' small, hand-labor farm ... the horror when he first saw
a decapitated chicken running crazy in the grit, to flee
the fate that had already happened.

Albert Goldbarth
The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems
Graywolf Press

2008-06-10T22:49:00.001-04:00

PAKISTAN: 52 illegal torture and detention centres identified

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-158-2008
June 05, 2008
A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PAKISTAN: 52 illegal torture and detention centres identified

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has collected details of detention and torture centres in Pakistan, where missing persons are held for long periods of time in order to force them to confess their involvement in terrorist and sabotage activities. The information about the places of illegal detention was collected from the persons who were detained in these centres for several years after arrest. Their whereabouts were never made known to their family members.

Now journalists, human rights organisations and the families of the victims gathered and contributed information to reveal the places of detention of these 'missing persons'. Persons released from these centres are often abandoned on the roadside. Many of them were released after the active interventions of the higher judiciary, particularly by deposed Chief Justice Mr. Iftekhar Choudry.

Many of the missing persons have testified in courts and to the media that they were kept in the custody by the army and that they were tortured. For further information please see: UG-003-2006, UA- 227-2006, UG-013-2006, UA-145-2006, UP-127-2006, UA-171-2006, UA-169-2006, UA-132-2006 and UP-191-2006.

Military intelligence (MI), Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), Federal Intelligence Agency (FIA), Pakistan Rangers, and the Frontier Constabulary (FC) are the main agencies who are keeping persons incommunicado and who torture them to confess their involvement in anti-state activities.
It is interesting to note that the army officials are interrogating persons from Balochistan to force a confession admitting their involvement with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and those arrested from Sindh about their involvement with the Sindh Liberation Army (SLA). The military rulers are certain that both these organisations are working to disassociate themselves from Pakistan.

Arrestees from the North West Frontier Province were initially held in the custody of the army before being transferred to Afghanistan. There, after going through severe torture and being held incommunicado, many of them were handed over to the occupied forces, to be again transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the notorious American holding/interrogating centre. The Pakistan army was the beneficiary of this whole episode and this is the reason why the western countries never criticised the government of Pakistan on the issue of missing persons.

The newly elected government has totally ignored the issue of missing persons. It has not started to probe the issue of missing persons despite several persons, who were kept incommunicado in military detention, have testified before the courts that they were kept in army camps and tortured severely.

There still remain several thousands of persons who have been missing since 2001 and the seemingly callous attitude of the government is creating a sense of depression and disappointment in the people. And these are the people who elected the ruling coalition expecting a change in the country.
The AHRC urges the international community, particularly the UN Human Rights Council and other international human rights groups to intervene in the cases of missing persons of Pakistan who are still being held incommunicado by the law enforcement agencies. There is a high risk of many of them disappearing soon if action is not taken quickly.

The following is a list of some of the illegal detention centres. There are still hundreds of human rights activists held in torture centres according to local human rights organisations, media and nationalist and political groups. It is believed that there are 52 such torture centres in Pakistan:

Islamabad, capital of Pakistan

(1) Sector I-9 Islamabad; (2) Cell 20 in Sector I-9 Islamabad; (3) 'safe house' of the ISI, Islamabad

Sindh Province:

- In Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, there are three detention centres of the army. They are: (1) the centre of MI at Shar-e-Faisal, Saddar, near Hotel Holiday Inn; (2) the torture and detention centre of the ISI is also in this vicinity which could be accessed through the St. Paul's School; (3) in Malir cantonment area in one of the 'safe houses' with several small cells
In Karachi, the Pakistan Rangers is also running a detention centre at Landhi. However the actual location is not confirmed as the persons released from there were kept blindfolded all the time.
- In Hyderabad, Sindh province, at the cantonment area, at the Army House, off Qasim Chowk
- Jacobabad is the border district with Balochistan province. This city is providing the United States Air Force and the NATO air support facilities. There is a detention centre run by the Pakistan army which is used as a 'transit centre'. This centre was unearthed when two journalists of a prominent television channel spoke when they were recovered after several months of detention and torture allegedly for taking pictures of an airbase.

Balochistan Province:

- In Balochistan province there are dozens of military detention centres, where people after their arrest, are detained and tortured to force confession statements about their alleged activities against the army in the province. Following are places in Balochistan province where Pakistan army and FC are running their torture and detention centres:
- Quli Camp Cantonment Queta, in the capital of Balochistan province. In front of this detention camp there is a mountain called as Koh-e-Murad (Dead Mountain) which has been taken over by the Pakistan Army and is used as a dumping area for some sensitive arms and ammunitions. According to local people, people are brought here and detained for several months.
- Safe house of the ISI at Khuzdar Cantonment area. The Khuzdar district is in southeast of the province and all detained or arrested persons by the state intelligence agencies from south and southeast districts are brought and kept over here. The place is notorious for torture.
- The fort at Turbat town, a sub-district of the province. This fort is used for keeping missing persons and still there are dozens of missing persons in the fort, but it is under the control of FC. In the port city of Gwadar there is one more camp used by the FC for keeping people in illegal detention for several months.
- In the northern part of the Balochistan province, there are several places of detention and torture in three districts namely - Sibi, Dera Bugti and Kohlu. Here, the military have their own bases and camps. But in military terms these army centres are called "settlements" instead of cantonments. In these districts the persons arrested are mainly from the central and the northern parts. The main military detention centres are in Loti gas field, Pir Koh gas field and Dera Bugti gas field.
Most of the detainees are local residents of the above named districts. They are charged with mutiny against the 'army control' of the districts, blowing up of the main gas supply line to the other parts of the country, sabotage, bomb attacks on military installations, affiliation with different nationalist parties and association with the Balochistan Liberation Army.
In Kohlu district's military settlement there is one check post. This is purely run by the army which has torture cells. In Sui sub-district there is also a military check post which runs torture cell besides a main detention centre in the "settlement" at Sui gas field.

Punjab Province:

- In Punjab, there are two main cantonment areas where detention and torture centres are maintained only for the purpose of keeping "missing persons". These centres are Multan and Rawalpindi cantonment areas. These areas are close to the General Head Quarter (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army. The Rawalpindi cantonment based detention centre is in 'safe house' which is said to be the most cruel among all army detention centres. Still there are more than four dozens of missing persons who are kept since several months in these centres. It is said to be that it is here persons who are 'hard to crack' are kept, who had not confessed during the torture in other detention centres.
There are more centres of detention in Rawalpindi city which are maintained in hospitals. Here, people from the North-West Frontier Province and those alleged as Jihadis are kept besides the nationalists from the Sindh and Balochistan provinces. In the Multan cantonment, the 'safe houses' meant for rest houses, are used as detention centres and much of the so called high profile terrorists are detained.
The following detention centres in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were revealed by Mrs. Amina Masood Paracha, the Chair Person of an NGO named Defense Human Rights, Islamabad:
- ISI Detention Centre in Kent Garrison Chaklala (near Rawalpindi airport)
- ISI Detention Centre behind the Military Hospital in Rawalpindi - Hamza Centre (Ojri Camp Rawalpindi)
- FIA Centre near Qasim Market
- Chaklala Airbase Rawalpindi
- Military hospitals on Mall Road Rawalpindi
- Hamza Centre - Ojri Camp Faizabad - Rawalpindi
In Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan districts there are detention centres at the cantonments. When in 2004, 13 students from Balochistan, belonging to the Baloch Students' Organization were detained at the Dera Ghazi Khan Cantonment detention centre for almost five months and tortured, this centre was exposed. It is still functioning and it is infamous for dumping tortured people on the roadside when it is confirmed that the victim cannot survive further torture.
- The cantonment areas of Peshawar and Chirat are used as detention centres for keeping arrested persons from areas dominated by fundamentalists Islamic forces.

There are 48 cantonments in Pakistan which all have illegal detention centres that operate as torture cells. All these cantonments have rest-houses which are called 'safe houses' that has been converted into illegal detention centres.

Now that these places of detention and torture are identified, there is no excuse for the Government of Pakistan to ignore it. Yet this is precisely what it happening. The AHRC urges the international community and the UN to intervene in this situation calling upon the government to investigate about the existence of these centres in the country and to immediately release the prisoners held therein.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

2008-05-27T15:56:00.001-04:00

For a Special Issue of the Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies on Modern and Contemporary Pakistani Literature, the guest editors seek essays of between 6,000 and 8,500 words in length.

Deadline for complete essays is October 1, 2008.

Suggested topics for the essays include but are not limited to the following: movements and trends in Pakistani poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; politics and literature; Pakistani literature in English; Diasporas and the immigrant experience; essays, memoirs, and travel writing; culture and cultural productions.

The Journal is devoted to and welcomes scholarly submissions on all aspects of colonial narratives and postcolonial texts and theory: history, language, race, gender, identity, migration and cultural exchange, among others. While the Journal does not presuppose or advocate a particular ideology or specific cultural approach, it prefers that considerations of individual authors and texts be placed in the context of literary, theoretical, sociopolitical, and cultural paradigms.

Guidelines for essays: Electronic submission, MLA Style Sheet. Please direct inquiries or submit essays to both editors: Waqas Khwaja, wkhwaja@agnesscott.edu wkhwaja@agnesscott.edu> and Ghazala Hashmi, ghashmi@reynolds.edu ghashmi@reynolds.edu>

tere bin main yun kaise jiya

2008-05-25T19:18:00.003-04:00

Shaam

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

is tarah hai ke har ek peR ko’ii mandir hai
ko’ii ujRaa huaa, benuur puraanaa mandir
DhuunDtaa hai jo Kharaabii ke bahaane kab se
chaak har baam, har ek dar kaa dam-e-aaKhir hai
aasmaaN ko’ii purohit hai jo har baam tale
jism par raaKh male, maathe pe sinduur male
sar-niguuN baithaa hai chup-chaap na jaane kab se
is tarah hai ke pas-e-pardaa ko’ii saahir hai

jis ne aafaaq pe phailaayaa hai yuN seh’r ka daam
daaman-e-vaqt se paivast hai yuN daamna-e-shaam
ab kabhii shaam bujhegii na andheraa hogaa
ab kabhii raat Dhalegii na saveraa hogaa

aasmaaN aas liye hai ke ye jaaduu TuuTe
chup ki zanjiir kaTe, vaqt kaa daaman chhuTe
de ko’ii shanKh duhayii, ko’ii paayal bole
ko’ii but jaage, ko’ii saaNvlii ghuuNGhat khole

Translation by Agha Shahid Ali

Evening

The trees are dark ruins of temples,
seeking excuses to tremble
since who knows when–
their roofs are cracked,
their doors lost to ancient winds.
And the sky is a priest,
saffron marks on his forehead,
ashes smeared on his body.
He sits by the temples, worn to a shadow, not looking up.

Some terrible magician, hidden behind curtains,
has hypnotized Time
so this evening is a net
in which the twilight is caught.
Now darkness will never come–
and there will never be morning.

The sky waits for this spell to be broken,
for history to tear itself from this net,
for Silence to break its chains
so that a symphony of conch shells
may wake up to the statues
and a beautiful, dark goddess,
her anklets echoing, may unveil herself.

(from The Rebel’s Silhouette)

Chay Magazine

2008-04-26T20:57:00.001-04:00

Our focus is on Pakistani society and our themes emerge from this context. However, Pakistan is only our starting point. Chay Magazine aims to enter the fray of international feminist discourse and, as such, we invite writers of all nationalities, geographies, stripes to contribute. We are not so much interested in where you come from as in what you have to say.

For the first few issues, we have outlined some broad themes, which are listed below. While we are looking in particular for work around those themes, we are always looking ahead to later issues so, if you have some work kicking around that you’d like to submit, feel free. Deadline is May 15, 2008.

Let’s Talk about Sex
o Talking about sex and sexuality – why do it, the taboos around it, the problems with it, the silences
o Sex/Gender, gender roles and gender identity
o Talking about sex and romance
o Standards of “moral” conduct relating to sex

The Politics of Sex
o Sex-positivity
o Sex and feminism in Pakistan
o The politics of shame
o Religion and sex(uality)
o Visions for a new Pakistani Feminism

Marriage
o Sex: enjoyment, coercion, guilt, force
o Sex and marriage
o Domestic violence and rape
o Virginity

Promiscuity
o Saying no and saying yes
o “Sluts” and “whores”
o Sex-work
o Religion and Sex
o Virginity
o Re-appropriating language

We are looking for

- Feature Articles 500-1000 words. These can be analysis, commentary, historical explorations or any other non-fiction on the theme of the issue.
- Poetry and Fiction. There is no real restriction on the subject of the poem or story. If it gives a nod in the direction of the theme, we’re happy. Please send no more than 3 poems or fiction pieces in the vicinity of 1000 words.
- Artwork. Again, there is no particular restriction on artwork. If there is particular work you are interested in submitting, please email in with a query.
- Translations. We accept original translations of thematically relevant works in any genre, from any language.

Send queries and submissions to: chaymagazine at gmail dot com . Please attach .rtf or .doc files (we cannot accept .docx files), .jpg or .pdf for images. Please send in a small bio along with your submission as well.

We are an utterly non-profit, non-commercial, money-less concern; therefore we cannot offer any compensation to our writers. In time, we hope to become rich, famous and commercial, at which point we hope to offer you pots of money.

Words, Lentils, Dates, Pork

2008-02-18T14:29:00.010-05:00

Walking up my snowy street I see a silver Honda Accord tentatively reversing into a parking spot across my front porch. I walk up, tap my father’s car window and smile. He smiles abstractly, the car wiggling backwards and forwards, while my mother gestures repeatedly for me to get into the car. "What? Where are we going?" I ask. "Get in! Get in!" she mouths through the window my father has rolled back up. “Stop the car, Dad,” I say, and I get in. “We need dinner,” she says. They are visiting me on their way back home from a concert at Roy Thompson Hall.

“What kind of food?” I ask, after mentally checking my fridge. I’ve just finished the last of my mattar paneer. “Not Indian,” my mother says vehemently. “How about Ethiopian?” I say. My father’s expression sours.

“No!” he says. “It is not halaal. They serve PORK.” It is as though the word itself is the taboo flesh, in his mouth, and the harder he rolls his r's and faster he brings them to a stop against a hard, hard k, the less he will be infected by it.

“Um, I’ve never seen pork at an Ethiopian place,” I say, “But, uh, I know a vegetarian Ethiopian place.” It's actually vegan, but this is too much to explain.

“No! It is not halaal. They serve PORK,” he spits out again, word for word. My mother tries to explain: “It’s VEGATARIAN,” she says.

“Well, there’s always Tibetan,” I say—“It’s not Indian but it’s similar, so you’ll like it.” Silence from Dad.

“Which do you prefer, Dad?”

Silence from Dad.

“Dad, will you eat it?"

"–DAD?!”

“Well, if I am sitting it, I will be having to do SOMETHING,” he says unhappily. “What is that Lebanese place, long ago?” he asks, straining his memory, looking for a way out.

“I can’t think of one close by....what about a place around here?”

Silence.

“Dad, I don’t know of a Middle Eastern place. Dad, do you want either?"

"Which do you prefer Dad?"

"DAD?!!!”

“If there is ‘park,’ there is ‘pork,’” he jokes unexpectedly, sidling out through the verbal loop marked ‘pun.’

In our attempt to find parking we end up at the Ethiopian place. My father and my mother not only enjoy but fall in love with the food, much to my relief, and as I wondered they might, if I could get them to try it. My father slurps his soup. He’s an old man; he trembles reaching for the injera bread, coughs violently into his soup, gripping it with his thumb in the bowl, passing it to my mother, who eats quietly while daintily holding a hand over the sequined white hijaab falling across her bosom, over the fancy black suit she’s donned for the concert. She’d flapped her arms in the street to show me how she’s lost weight. They bend their heads over the food, trying to figure out the grains. Chickpea? Barley? Whole wheat? They question the store owner, who brings out her bags of supplies, which we all examine together. My mother wants to try the injera bread with Indian food. I can see her mouth salivating. “I had bread like this in the village, as a girl,” she says. “Never since.”

They tell me about the concert. She’s wowed by the museum of pluralist Islam that’s being built in Ottawa. “It was all gujaratis and white people”, she says. “No one like us. The Ismailis are very organized.” “The Agha Khan is my age,” my father says, and my mother falls silent.

After eating my father puts his hand in his pocket and, his eyes twinkling, hands me a raw date. He always has something sweet in his coat pocket that he hands silently, randomly and surreptitiously, sideways, to his three adult daughters and slew of toddler granddaughters.

“Remember when you were little girl?” he says. “You always wanted date when I was eating the date. Here is a date.”

Dates, my parents agree, correcting each other—peanuts when I was smaller, then almonds when I got bigger.

The date is yellow and dry and sweet, just like the raw dates on the towering palm trees in our neighbor’s yard in Sindh. He offers to share the other date with my mother, which she refuses. We sip the spicy tea the owner has brought us on the house, because I keep bringing her business. There are Indians in Ethiopia, the store owner tells us. My father picks out different Amharic words for different kinds of lentils from the menu, relating them to their names in Urdu, and repeatedly pointing out which ones he can’t eat because of digestive problems. Hazrat blah-blah ate this type of daal, he says fondly, referring to an ancestor-saint who lived 900 years ago. He lived in Ethiopia for many years, he adds as an explanation, twinkling at me as though telling me about a family beloved family member. He’s confused when I look at him blankly, without any response of recognition. His saints are as close to him as family members, and I don’t know who they are.

His family members may not be my family members, but I love how my father tells history through words and lentils. How the hell does he know that Hazrat what-his-name ate missr daal? But he does, and its utterly relevant to our meal, and our relationship to the store owner, and how we connect to her, and his enjoyment of what he ate. It is very close to your house, my father says happily, driving me home, to my little two-bedroom apartment.

My mother comes into the apartment with me while my father waits in the car. I show her my new baking dishes, she comments on my gourds. We hug each other. Bit by bit I let go and hug her closer.

Review

2008-02-18T14:27:00.006-05:00

feisty, intelligent, must-read Canadian feminist bloggers: an incomplete beginning

by May Lui | December 13, 2007

Feminist blogs are everywhere – which is a wonderful thing! Below, writer May Lui offers up a sampling of some lesser-known Canadian feminist blogs.

She says, “They simply overwhelmed me with their smarts, gorgeous layouts and overall fabulousness. I hope these blogs get bigger audiences. Please check out their various links pages for more pro-feminist online fun!”

brown rab girl fish

This eclectic blog covers topics as wide-ranging as a clip of Kermit the frog from a classic Sesame Street episode, to music by The Cinematic Orchestra, Mokobé, and collaborations with Kouider, Khalèd, Cheikh Djelloul and French hip hop collective Mafia K’1 Fry. She also talks about her favourite poems, and explores the classic question, “Why are you here?”

We are here because my father couldn't make it work back home. He left home and country against his father's wishes and went to school in Canada. His inordinate pride at being an engineer spoke to how empty he must have felt inside underneath that identity.

See the blog for the rest of this poem.

brownstargirl

This is a visually beautiful blog and website by Toronto writer and performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. On the site you'll find some of Leah’s amazing poetry, as well as information about her published book of poetry, Consensual Genocide.

Excerpted from the online poem “restorative justice”:

What if every time they pulled over one of us
we got to grab one of them?
What if we could bring them to that long beige place
and make them unlock all the ones who didn’t make it through?
keep going open the doors at Guantanimo and the Celebrity Inn
what if we could jump behind that counter
get on the PA and announce
It is hereby declared
that all borders are bullshit
and starting today
we will never stand on this line
sweating terror
ever
again

Confessions of a Funky Ghetto Hijabi

This blog is written by a 27-year-old Muslim woman whose mom is French Canadian and whose father is Nigerian. She became a Sunni Muslim when she was 21, chooses to wear the hijab, and talks about tons of feminist and progressive issues such as violence, war in Africa and Palestine, and being a “Muslim by choice in a post-9/11 world.” She talks about growing up poor, her dysfunctional and abusive family, and her commitment to anti-oppression politics.

In other words, read this blog and bookmark it!

One Tenacious Baby Mama

This is a powerful and beautiful blog, filled with creativity, power and wisdom. The author fills the screen with her words and images about life, her family and what angers her. Read this blog with an open heart, link to it, and tell others about it.

When I look at my blog through the eyes of so many, too many of the wimmin I’ve encountered in community, tried to build a sense of community with, tried to befriend or partner with ... wimmin of colour who are ex lovers, ex friends, ex roommates, ex allies whose feminist book learning hasn’t done a damn thing to stop them from taking experiences of trauma and hurt and oppression, to lie about their healing and instead offer rage and harm cloaked, smiling, underground suffering to others including me ... when I think about these wimmin gazing and perhaps understanding me as exposed and stupid, I feel sad ... I feel like digging inside myself, finding the place and time where I loved them and scraping the memory, touch, taste, feel of it out from inside’a me like an alleyway abortion, dashing away the half dead carcass and covering it with a bloody newspaper.

Pomegranate Queen

This is a wonderful blog by a passionate and powerful voice, a young woman of colour who writes about the creative process: “[My blog] has allowed me to create and grow as a writer. it’s allowed me to create for the sake of sharing. and that in itself has pushed me to write. yes, i might have written a lot of bad poetry. and some good stuff too. but the point is that i wrote.”

The F Word

2008-02-13T22:10:00.011-05:00

Nominated for Best Woman of Color Centered Blog, along with these good peeps (Funky Ghetto Hijabi, One Tenacious Baby Mama, LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA, Pomegranate Queen). Thank you Beijing York.

Rabfish

Submitted by Beijing York on January 26, 2008 - 1:02pm.
aka brown rab girl fish
Great sense of humour: "Whoops! Your tongue is now a magnet. Whatever will you use for silverware?" "Roti"

2007-12-13T19:57:00.000-05:00

"your growth cannot be contingent on anything outside yourself," my friend said to me today

BOUM.

2007-12-04T00:49:00.001-05:00

2007-09-19T22:08:00.000-04:00

"Dancing is not rising to your feet, painlessly, like speck of dust, blown in the wind. Dancing is when you rise above both worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and giving up your soul." Rumi

The Muslim Girl Who Turned into a Fish

2007-09-03T20:38:00.000-04:00

Breathe

2007-07-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

From the album Ma Fleur, by The Cinematic Orchestra

(Oh that feelin's rising...

rising over me)
Oh, that song is singin'
Singin' in to me.
Over everything,

I used to be.

Oh, that song is singin'
Singin' in to me.

Slow and sweet
It carries me
Carries me
Out to sea

And swallows me
In to the deep
And comforts me

(Oh, it's all around me, it's all I can see
Even when I close my eyes, it's holdin' me)
Oh, that weight is liftin'
Liftin' on me

It carries me
Out to the sea
And swallows me
Into the deep
And comforts me
In ... into the deep
And comforts me

Oh, that silence singin', singing to me...

Breathe up to me
Breathe in through me
Breathe out through me
Breathe in through me

ooh Breathe out through... through me
Why don't you breathe in... breathe in through me
and breathe out through me

2007-07-25T00:50:00.000-04:00

Music I'm listening to:

Mon Afrique by Mokobé.

One of the best tracks is called Politique featuring Manu Chao, Amadou and Mariam, Tiken Jah Fakoly & Fou Malade.

"In a way, 'Mon Afrique' looks more like a compilation than a solo album. Every song is a collabo with a big name in African pop music. Youssou n'Dour to Patson, Seun Kuti to Tiken Jah Fakoly, they are all here. Rather than just hip hop-ifying the different styles that Mokobe's guests bring along, often Mokobe is more like a guest of the people he works with, as he adapts coupé decalé, Ivory Coast's dance music on C'est dans la joie, and on Malembe (featuring Fally Ipupa from Kofi Olomide's band) it's as if you are listening to a Congolese rumba track. On 'Profitez' featuring Youssou N'dour, the beat samples a 1970's classic tune from Etoile de Dakar, Youssou's first band."

"While the album is musically very diverse, the raps of Mokobé provide the necessary binding factor. The album is interesting mostly because of its sonical diversity: where else can you hear Malinese musical legend Salif Keita singing over a 808 beat? The pure afrobeat collabo with Fela Kuti's son Seun is another treat." (More here)

The unconscious in its social conditions

2007-07-23T22:39:00.000-04:00

"The unconscious is the only defense against a language frozen into pure, fixed or institutionalized meaning, and what we call sexuality, in its capacity to unsettle the subject, is a break against the intolerable limits of common sense."

"There are key unconscious fantasies operating at the heart of most institutions, linked into fundamental images of sexual difference--adoration to the male, chaos or exclusion to the female. There is another scene to the language with which we normatively identify and recognize ourselves--an unconscious scene."

"The difficulty is to pull psychoanalysis in the direction....toward [both] a recognition of the fully social constitution of identity and norms, and then back again to that point of tension between ego and unconscious where they are endlessly remodeled and endlessly break."

"Each time the psychoanalytic description of internal conflict and psychic division is referred to in its social conditions, the latter absorb the former, and the unconscious shifts - in that same moment - from the site of a division into the vision of an ideal unity to come." Jacqueline Rose, Sexuality in the Field of Vision

SPECULATIVE LITERATURE ANNOUNCES THE 2007 GULLIVER TRAVEL RESEARCH GRANT

2007-07-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

The 2007 Gulliver Travel Research Grant will be open for applications from July 1st, 2007 to September 30th, 2007. The grant is not currently available foracademic research, though we hope to offer such funds in the future.

The SLF is currently offering one $600 travel grant annually, to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other travel expenses.

The Gulliver Travel Research Grant is awarded to assist writers ofspeculative literature, including fiction, drama, poetry, and creativenonfiction, intheir research. (The Gulliver Travel Research Grant is only awarded to writers of speculative fiction, poetry, drama, or creative nonfiction. The speculative genre typically includes science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and sometimes horror).

The Gulliver Travel Research Grant, formerly the Speculative Literature Foundation Travel Research Grant, was renamed in November 2006 at the request ofthe grant sponsor. Gulliver, a character in the 1726 story "Gulliver's Travels"written by Jonathan Swift, represents one of the earliest examples of fantasy travel. The Gulliver Travel Grant will be awarded by a committee of SLF staff members on the basis of interest and merit.

Factors considered will include:
. a one-page written description of the project in question, including details on the travel location and an estimated completion date (nomore than 500words)
· a writing sample in the proposed genre (up to 10 pages of poetry, 10 pagesof drama, or 5000 words of fiction or creative nonfiction); please note that the writing sample must be a solo work (work completed only by the applicant).
· a bibliography of previously-published work by the author (no more than one page, typed); however, applicants need not have previous publications toapply. The 2006 winner was previously unpublished.

If awarded the grant, the recipient agrees to write a brief report of their research experience (500-1000 words) for the SLF's files, and for possible public dissemination on our website.

PLEASE NOTE: This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended to help writers working with speculative literature only.

Travel Grant Application Procedures
1. Send the three items listed above to our travel grant administrators, Colin Harvey and Tiffany Jonas, as attached .doc files, totravel@speculativeliterature.org. Include a brief cover letter with your name and contact info(e-mail, phone in case of emergency). If you have questions, direct them to that same address.

2. You may apply for travel to take place at any point in thefollowing year (from October to the following October).

3. Travel may take place from any country to any country, or internally within a country; the grants are unrestricted. Funds willbe disbursed inU.S. currency (but can be sent through PayPal if that is more convenient forinternational recipients).

4. Travel grant applications will only be considered from July 1st toSeptember 30th 2007. Applications received before or after that period will bediscarded unread.

5. The grant recipient will be announced by October 15th 2007. Allapplicants will be notified of the status of their application by that date.

Quail

2007-06-25T14:34:00.001-04:00

Going where the car
went but under, not
through the guardrail,
a caravan of quail
hazards a mountain road:
mom, five chicks then
dad in near-comic
triple-time, parents
warily swiveling
apostrophed heads,
little ones in
linearity's thrall. Mid-
step and breath,
you watch them
family-find the green
fabric of a June re-
stitching itself
after being torn.

Dore Kiesselbach
New Letters
Volume 72, Number 2

I like a couple of things about this poem. The car going through the guardrail tore a kind of fabric. Both the guard rail (the parts of which look like stitches themselves) and normalcy were torn. The quails on their walk are restitching that fabric--their presence returns a sense of dailiness and normalcy to a scene that represents a rent in space, but they are also visually like small green stitches themselves, particularly the very little ones, who are in thrall to linearity. Linearity, cautious linearity, is soothing after a a violent rip. You can just see them, bobbing along, each rhythmic step forward closing up the wound, a little family led by wary yet determined parents.

Hyphens are placed deliberately in the poem, like stitches themselves, holding together words: "family-find," and "re-stitching." Family-find is a hyphenated word that communicates a kind of group-way of feeling out and coming to know and create a space anew. One could simultaneously read the hyphen as not just creating compound words but separating phrases, in which case the poet says "you watch them family." That would make "family" a verb, connoting a heartwarming activity in this context--bobbing along, they relate to one another, parents all protective and little kids all in thrall to group linearity, remaking and rewriting the space as they traverse it in this dynamic, interrelated way. They are related invisibly the way stitches are to one another, the way family members are to one another when children are very young, separate but connected by a common thread, headed in one cautious, bobbing direction, in a movement as cautious and rhythmic as healing.

Things that need stitching back together are things that were torn apart--when the car went through the guardrail, maybe a family was torn apart, in addition to the guardrail, and normalcy. The poem's narrator is in solitary mid-step and breath when confronted by the stitching quails. One hopes the narrator's steps are stitches themselves, if not connected to the quails' then at least in solitary parallel, remaking a life, step by step, word by word. rabfish

Why Are You Here?

2007-06-23T14:19:00.000-04:00

We are here because my father couldn’t make it work back home. He left home and country against his father’s wishes and went to school in Canada. His inordinate pride at being an engineer spoke to how empty he must have felt inside underneath that identity. As soon as my father finished his degree he imported a wife. That was my mother.

Why are you here? she inquired of him.

I am here because I couldn’t make it work back home. I left against my father’s wishes and then went to school in Canada. I am very proud of being an engineer. As soon as I finished I told myself, "No life, without wife." That’s when I met you, chose you, and brought you here, to stay with me, in Canada. That’s why you are here, he said to her.

Why am I here? she asked herself.

I am here because my father has six daughters. I am here because he did something unusual in the sixties and let each of us, save one, go to university and complete Masters degrees. I am here because he paid for that choice by making sure we each got married, and not a whit later than would raise anyone’s eyebrows. I am here because you chose me over my eldest sister. I am here because you snuck into our house, peered through an open door, and saw me praying. I am here because my parents would not let me go to my convocation, even though I had won the highest prize. I am here because I said yes, then no—did I say yes? Did I say no? I am here because I can never decide whether I chose to be here or not. I am here because you are here, and because they are here, those who came from us, after us.

What are you doing here? she threw at us.

We are here because we were expected to arrive. We were visitors on a schedule that required us yet had nothing to do with us. We are here because you were there, and he was there, and no one else was, they were all the way over the ocean, and you had to repopulate your lives with familiar ghosts. We are here because of the emptiness you didn’t bargain for. We are, here, the fullness you didn’t expect. We are here.

Klaus Nomi: 'The Cold Song'

2007-06-22T00:14:00.000-04:00

This goes out to all the over air-conditioned, at the height of this mid-summer. rabfish

THE COLD SONG (Henry Purcell)

What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise, unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow!
See'st thou not how stiff and wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold
I can scarcely move, or draw my breath
Let me, let me, freeze again to death.

Siren Song

2007-06-18T02:20:00.000-04:00

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

Margaret Atwood

More and More

2007-06-18T02:04:00.000-04:00

More and more frequently the edges
of me dissolve and I become
a wish to assimilate the world, including
you, if possible through the skin
like a cool plant's tricks with oxygen
and live by a harmless green burning.

I would not consume
you or ever
finish, you would still be there
surrounding me, complete
as the air.

Unfortunately I don't have leaves.
Instead I have eyes
and teeth and other non-green
things which rule out osmosis.

So be careful, I mean it,
I give you fair warning:

This kind of hunger draws
everything into its own
space; nor can we
talk it all over, have a calm
rational discussion.

There is no reason for this, only
a starved dog's logic about bones.

Margaret Atwood

Morning in the Burned House

2007-06-18T01:54:00.000-04:00

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

Margaret Atwood

The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (1968) - Ghost Dance Sequence

2007-05-08T10:24:00.000-04:00

The Dance of the Ghosts sequence from 'Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne', Satyajit Ray's 1968 film fable.

2007-05-02T12:17:00.001-04:00

Now accepting submissions from writers and visual artists
ARE YOU A WRITER? Looking to express yourself through literature or visual art?
Look no further…...

After having launched two successful issues, DesiLit Magazine is again on the search for talent and exceptional writers and visual artists. This is an open call for submissions in works. Submissions must be either about South Asia and the diaspora, or be by submitters from South Asia or the diaspora.

Fiction Submissions – Deadline May 21, 2007
Essays, Humor, Poetry, Reviews and Visual Art Submissions – Deadline May 31, 2007.

Please log on to our website for submission guidelines http://desilit.org/magazine/

We are excited to inform you, DesiLit Magazine is one among a very few South Asian literary magazines that pays people for submissions.

Our magazine will print essays, fiction, humor, poetry, reviews, and art.

http://www.desilit.org/magazine/

South Asia is defined as Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Bhutan , India , The Maldives, Nepal , Pakistan & Sri Lanka.

About DesiLit Magazine
Founded by like-minded activists, writers, and readers in 2006, DesiLit Magazine will be a biannual online magazine. We are committed to creating a forum for exceptional contemporary writing and art focused on South Asia and the diaspora.

Willow, by Mark Levine

2007-04-23T12:34:00.000-04:00

Okay, willow, breathe on me
from the sunless opening in you—
crescent of gouges and breezes—slope
on which beetles stumble and are
flushed out—

Traffic, human traffic with its rinse
of promises and pauses is coming
for keeps.
And look there goes a swallow transplanting soil.
Me (let me think it)
I can sit on this bench longer than nature
and not know or crave a thing
about this bench, bottle cap dented into its plank

and initials scratched beside it, beside
the point: two raw letters forward to back just
as rare as any combination.
And now the date, plume of digits, daily
statistic.

This is behavior, willow, this
drone, it accompanied you once
in your grove of which
you have a memory—a lush one—don't you?
Was there no breath of you there?

I crossed the arc of your silhouette and lapped
your leaves' signature.
Things grew from you
beneath you in the patched grass
and not far away sat a man on
a bench.

You take it in or you don't.
You hide the sky or else.
Things lived in you.
You, stranger.

Mark Levine
The Wilds
University of California Press

Gangsta Arabic Grandma

2007-04-11T00:26:00.000-04:00

Ela Shah, in the new Desilit Magazine

2007-03-13T00:39:00.000-04:00

slightly burned cardboard cityscapes on animal-plant monster-like things balancing on american elephants

elephants on roller skates, tails in ears, nippled knees, 'oriental' rugs, harem ladies, tipping palm trees and more tipsy cityscapes, falling men, angled ladders to nowhere, multistoried banana sundae terraces and big bird at the centre raising the roof...titled 'at a mouse click.'

Click on her website--her installations are extremely interesting.

New Grant for people of colour

2007-03-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

Program for: Individuals

Purpose: Access and Career Development is a new Ontario Arts Council (OAC) program that supports Ontario-based Aboriginal arts professionals and arts professionals of colour. The program will fund professional development and skill-building opportunities that advance the applicants’ artistic work and careers.

In keeping with its strategic plan, Stability and Strength, the OAC is committed to reflecting the cultural diversity and Aboriginal identity of the province through its programs. The OAC also recognizes that there continue to be systemic barriers for arts professionals of colour and Aboriginal arts professionals. Part of the solution is the launch of Access and Career Development to support the cultural diversity of Ontario’s arts sector.

Applicants can request funding for training, mentoring or apprenticing in all contemporary and traditional art practices.

Eligibility: Individual Aboriginal arts professionals and arts professionals of colour. Aboriginal includes Mètis, Inuit, Status and Non-Status People of Colour includes Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arabic, West Asian, Japanese, Korean and Pacific Islander, etc. It also includes New Canadians of colour.

Arts Professionals are artists, arts administrators, community animators, curators, programmers, technicians and arts educators who are engaged in creating, promoting, presenting, distributing and programming artistic work.

You can submit your application in French and we will have your application translated by accredited translators before assessment. The English translations are available to you by request after the results have been announced. We do not translate written material that is not a required element of the application. We will make sure an assessor is Francophone.

Examples of Eligible projects

Mentorship with a senior artist in your art form
Training program with an organization or school that does not lead to a degree
Arts instruction from a master artist
Professional support for portfolio and support material development
Training for artists who want to teach art in the schools
Attendance at professional development workshops, seminars, conferences
Mentorship/apprenticeship projects for arts administrators.
Mentorship with an Elder.

For more information, please contact Wanda Nanibush, Aboriginal Arts Officer, 416-969-7454, toll free 1-800-387-0058 extension 7454, wnanibush@arts.on.ca.

Services in French are available by contacting Larissa Momryk, Acting Program Assistant, 416-969-7424, toll free 1-800-387-0058 extension 7424, lmomryk@arts.on.ca.

Deadline: May 1, 2007

The following guidelines are for information only. Before making an application, please ensure you have the most up-to-date guidelines, and a complete package, which can be obtained by contacting Wanda Nanibush or Sheena Lessard. Guidelines are available on the web at least three months before the deadline.

Program Guidelines For Information Only:

Program Guidelines (Microsoft Word format) (PDF format)

The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario
External Links Disclaimer© 2003 Ontario Arts Council

Queering the Fight for Status Rights: Trans and Queer Immigrants Speak Out

2007-03-07T23:37:00.001-05:00

No One Is Illegal – Toronto and CUPE 3903’s Trans Feminist Action Caucus present…

Queering the Fight for Status Rights: Trans and Queer Immigrants Speak Out

Sunday, March 18th

2:30 – 5pm

The 519 Community Centre

519 Church St.

with:

Rocio Velasquez, No One Is Illegal – Toronto

El-Farouk Khaki, Salaam

Alvaro Orozco, currently fighting for refugee status

Yasmeen Persad, Trans Access Project @ the 519

Suhail AbualSameed, Supporting Our Youth

Immigrant and refugee activists from local organizations speak on key issues facing trans and queer immigrants and refugees fighting for status in Canada. Multiple barriers face trans and queer people living without legal immigration status as they seek access to services in the Toronto area, such as housing, health care, legal representation, employment, and others. In their fight for status rights, immigrants and refugees encounter the transphobia, heterosexism and racism of Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Rocio will speak on the broad issues facing queer and trans immigrants in Canada. El-Farouk will provide a more in-depth criticism of the Canadian immigration system. Alvaro will explain his encounters with the Immigrant and Refugee Board, who judged him ‘not gay enough’ for refugee status. We’ll hear Yasmeen discuss the need for access to services for newcomer and non-status immigrants living in Toronto. Suhail will address the need for broad community involvement and community development initiatives to challenge barriers facing queer immigrant/refugee youth in Toronto.

And we will all strategize about how to mobilize for change.

Free childcare available on-site. Wheelchair accessible.

This event is part of a series leading to the May 5th "Status for All! Stop the Deportations" demonstration called by No One Is Illegal - Toronto.

For more information, contact Jean McDonald at: jean@riseup.com

No One Is Illegal - Toronto: toronto.nooneisillegal.org
Don't Ask, Don't Tell: www.dadttoronto.org
CUPE 3903's Trans Feminist Action Caucus: http://tao.ca/~cupe3903/web/?q=node/22
Supporting Our Youth: www.soytoronto.org
The 519 Community Centre: www.the519.org
Salaam: www.salaamcanada.com

2007-03-04T02:50:00.000-05:00

let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull
of what you really love

rumi

Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Network of South Asian Popular Visual Culture

2007-03-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

We are delighted to announce the launch of Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Network of South Asian Popular Visual Culture. Tasveer Ghar is a trans-national virtual "home" for collecting, digitizing, and documenting various materials produced by South Asia's exciting popular visual sphere including posters, calendar art, pilgrimage maps and paraphernalia, cinema hoardings, advertisements, and other forms of street and bazaar art.

Tasveer Ghar invites proposals for its first short-term fellowship involving the collection and documentation of popular visual arts with a focus on "Gender, Nation and Spaces for the Everyday", resulting in the digitization of the collected specimens and their virtual exhibition on the website of Tasveer Ghar at the end of the fellowship.

This fellowship is ideally meant for individuals or groups who already have an important collection of popular arts that needs to be archived, digitized, or restored, but may not have the resources or know-how to go about doing that. We are also open to proposals that seek to start a new collection or document/photograph something that is available in a public space and needs urgent attention (say, some unique political graffiti on the streets of Kolkata!). Currently we offer this fellowship to individuals or groups based in India only. In exceptional cases, we may consider projects from outside India, but the subject of research/ documentation would have to
be Indian and the artwork needs to be sent to New Delhi, India.

The Tasveer Ghar Fellowship 2007 is a meant for a period of 6 months, starting June 2007. The last date for the submission of proposals is April 30, 2007.

For more information on what we mean by popular visual culture, who is eligible to apply to this fellowship, and what one is expected to do during this fellowship, kindly visit our website www.tasveerghar.net, or write to us at tasveerghar@gmail.com

We invite you as friend, colleague, and partner, to join this initiative in whatever capacity that you are comfortable with. Kindly see our detailed Call for Proposals on the website. We also request to kindly forward this message to many more friends and inststitutions that maybe interested in such an initiative.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Christiane Brosius
Sumathi Ramaswamy
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Yousuf Saeed

http://www.tasveerghar.net

Website developer? Fish? Honk?

2007-02-26T02:23:00.000-05:00

I'm looking for someone creative and politically lefty who is interested in helping me develop a website. I'm looking for something with an interesting banner and a way to post writing and images with cross-referenced labels. Think prose poetry/desi pop culture/deconstructed muslim culture/transnational political analysis/rewriting mythologies/a muslim girl who has turned into a fish/underwater writing/curry writing exercises. Let's talk!

Click on the following links for sample content:

feminist protest in iran busted up, but don't bomb them for it

watch where you point that thing

transitioning ethnocentrisms

ramadhan kareem

The Shipping of Souls and the Reception of Cultures: Staging Migration in Intercultural Performance

2007-02-21T11:18:00.000-05:00

THEATRE PASSE MURAILLE PRESENTS:

The Shipping of Souls and the Reception of Cultures:
Staging Migration in Intercultural Performance

(Toronto) Following last winter's successful conference on Canadian
collective creation, Theatre Passe Muraille is pleased to announce a
second three-day artist/scholar conference. The Shipping of Souls and
the Reception of Cultures runs February 26-28, 2007 at Theatre Passe
Muraille. It focuses on the staging of migration in intercultural
performance.

The conference will provide all those interested in the performing
arts at the local and international levels a unique opportunity to
engage in discussion with leading Toronto-area theatre artists,
historians, theorists and commentators.

The Shipping of Souls and the Reception of Cultures features
presentations and papers by speakers whose work involves and
challenges intercultural performance. Presenters include Judith
Rudakoff (YorkU) and the "Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid
Reality" Web Project, fu-GEN Theatre, Carlos Bulosan Theatre,
Guillermo Verdecchia (theatre artist), Damiano Pietropoalo (CBC
Radio), Ato Quayson (UofT), Alan Filewod (UGuelph), Holly Lewis
(theatre artist), Naila Keleta Mae (theatre artist) and Aktina
Stathaki (UofT).

Keynote Addresses will be given by theatre artist, producer and
cultural advocate Jean Yoon and University of Guelph Professor Ric
Knowles.

Accompanying the presentations is a Roundtable Discussion on
"Producing Intercultural Theatre" moderated by Kathleen Gallagher
(UofT OISE) and featuring some of Toronto's leading theatre producers
and instructors: John Van Burek (Pleiades Theatre), C. Derrick Chua
(independent producer), Soheil Parsa (Modern Times Stage Company),
Michal Schonberg (UTSC) and Jovanni Sy (Cahoots Theatre Projects).

The Shipping of Souls and the Reception of Cultures expands on themes
raised by Theatre Passe Muraille's second show of the season, The
Sheep and the Whale (Feb 20 - Mar 11, 2007), a co-production between
Cahoots Theatre Projects and Modern Times Stage Company, in
association with Theatre Passe Muraille. The conference features a
special matinee performance of the play, with post-show talkback, on
Wednesday (2pm).

February 26 - 28, 2007 at Theatre Passe Muraille. 16 Ryerson Ave., Toronto
3-Day Conference Registration: $20 ($15 for students). Order in
advance at the Bell Arts Box Office: 416.504.7529 or visit
artsboxoffice.ca
For more information, please contact Bramwell Pemberton at 416.504.7529 x2140

CONFERENCE PROGRAM (subject to change):

Theatre Passe Muraille, February 26-28, 2007

Monday, February 26
10:00am gallery opens, registration and coffee
10:30 Welcome, and Opening Keynote Address: Jean Yoon
11:30 break
11:45 Panel 1: Guillermo Verdecchia, Holly Lewis
1:15 lunch
2:30 Panel 2: Naila Keleta Mae, Aktina Stathaki, Ato Quayson
4:00 break
4:15-5:00 The Tide Effect: Theatre Makes Your Whites Whiter (fu-GEN Theatre)

Tuesday, February 27
10:00am gallery opens, registration and coffee
10:30 Panel 3: Damiano Pietropaolo, Alan Filewod
12:00 lunch
1:30 Roundtable Discussion: Producing Intercultural Theatre,
Kathleen Gallagher (moderator), John Van Burek, C. Derrick Chua,
Soheil Parsa, Michal Schonberg, Jovanni Sy
3:30 Break
3:45-5:15 Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality
Judith Rudakoff

Wednesday, February 28
10:30am gallery opens, registration and coffee
11:00 Presentation
Carlos Bulosan Theatre
12:30 lunch
2:00 The Sheep and the Whale Matinee & Talkback
break
4:45-6:00 Closing Keynote Address: Ric Knowles
Closing Remarks: Layne Coleman

2007-02-18T11:24:00.000-05:00

Blue Crest of Fondness

2007-02-17T01:04:00.000-05:00

sometimes you read and reread a particularly special poem. you give it to others to read, and the similarities and differences in their responses remind you of the original person who'd sent it to you and the irreplaceable way you'd connected about it.

this is what sat on the sofa that came before the poem, the poem that would come later via the medium of email which was to replace what had been the medium of sofa: argument, ash, smoke, nicotine, beer, sweat, bitter tea, mint, sugar, friendship. politics, history, memory. old and new crossed paths, middle east, amerika, canaduh, south asia. the sweetness of hope.

and through it all, smoke curling about turning pages. print holding bodies in place. displaced intensity. reading paper, ignoring what the sofa has to say, underneath.

aesthetes stinky with smoke and shiny with clean sweat. the stony landscape. the cigarettes burning out at seven in the morning, finally unattended.

so much of what had been isolated before came together then. became something, in moments between denial and postponement. then shifted through the dissolve of the landscape and the sofa into telephone wires, into other places, into something else.

Blue Crest of Fondness

my shifting ground from season
to season became an excuse
for begging meals, poised
for more migration
and, like the birds in their
wise flight, I kept on
beating from ocean
to ocean
from peaks to branches
from night to night
till I was struck
with the reputation of a gentle madness

after we have seen how
wise birds are
I remind you that
it is in the nature
of beings
to hurt themselves

lying on stones I was
a tortoise
carved into trunks
of trees and armrests
carved inside rings
carved on mountains' ankles

and I saw space
then I really saw space

when I found it beautiful I fell
in love with a dove
who carried me up high
she came down in the dust
when I admired
the fragrance of the earth
I lifted my spirit off the dove
and it stood erect like a spear
in space
no other fragrance actually
after Danae's

I laid the treasure between her wings
over my knees
she lowered down
ignorance and knowledge
and in my mouth she hid
witnesses of love

together we knew
the unnamable things

like a spear she froze
and lived like lightning
I wallowed in dust like a dervish
a fortune-teller in my tent
an acrobat, a wanderer
my strings droned like a bee
storming inside a bottle

I reminded you before
that beings by impulse
hurt themselves
and that between one being
and another
there is a tortoise and a dove
likewise between a tortoise
and a dove
the kiss of solitude in flight
generous blade of the impossible
and the blue crest of fondness

let my departure
from season to season
become a plea to you all
I am the truest testimony
on this matter like sealed glue
illiterate like the lion
which has a simple name
among the names:
a fable.

Unsi Al-Haj (Lebanon)

Reposted from November 14th, 2005

Via AswatGroup.org: 'Notes of a Feminist Lesbian During Wartime'

2007-02-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

Notes of a Feminist Lesbian During Wartime
Lepa Mladjenovic
2001

War narrows the spaces for every human rights issue.
From the time the war started in Croatia in 1991, in Belgrade where I live some men who walk down the streets became killers and rapists. You enter the bus, the cafe or a shop, and some faces are those of war criminals, and you don’t even know which one. Violence increased and reality became more male. Hanging out in town for some of us had changed, the bookstore windows showed only Serbian titles, theaters as well. The air of oblivion with regard to the crimes across the border was unbreathable. What happened in neighboring regions was no longer of any value or importance: Sarajevo, Zagreb, Osijek, Prizren... many citizens of Belgrade have agreed with the logic of nationalism: to bury the Other. They must not care about the injustices in these towns any more. Walking in the city was not the same joy as before. Men in uniforms, or men invalids for whom you don’t know if you feel angry or pity. Women and lesbians are absent as any possible subject in the street matters. Nothing new in the world, but in the wartime emotions of your absence in the public representation intensify.

...

I have outlined a few points about lesbians and feminists - for a feminist lesbian who is politically responsible, the war is a situation that splits her in pieces. This is a very difficult issue, and each out lesbian deals with the war in a different way. I can only express a few personal thoughts and images regarding the splitting I have experienced. (more)

Short Story by Bushra Rehman: The Old Italian

2007-02-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

The Old Italian

"When Saima and I got outside, with the sound of her little brother Zia screaming behind us, we saw that Lucy and Farah were already hanging out in the frontyard, under the grape vines. Zia was screaming because his mother was forcing tablespoons of hot chili powder into his mouth. It was the way Saima and Zia’s mother punished them."

(published in pulp.net)

2007-02-05T23:46:00.000-05:00

If you like the Terry Callier, you'll probably like this Bent remix of Billie Holiday's 'Speak Low'

2007-02-05T13:26:00.000-05:00

Success!

Click here to hear Terry Callier singing 'Live With Me' remixed very nicely by Massive Attack

Thank you Creative Commons and archive.org!

2007-02-03T15:20:00.001-05:00

You never know what the real story is, but here's Terry Callier (soul and folk singer-guitarist) on walking away from music in the 80s for the more stable job of computer programmer:

I believe that everything happens for a reason and at the time the most important thing for me was to make sure was that my daughter got through her adolescent years in reasonable shape because a lot of people run aground emotionally and physically and psychologically during that time. It's a very sensitive time. It was a different kind of music. I look at sending her through life as kind of a symphony. I don't know if it wasn't for my own good, because a lot of musicians run aground when they're at the stage where I was, where you're almost making it. So that may have been God's way of moving me out of harm's way. It might have been a test. At that point, not only do you have to take the bitter with the sweet, but you have to be wise enough to know where your priorities really are. Like me being out of music wasn't important as me taking care of this child. (more)

Ritual of My Legs

2007-01-31T23:44:00.000-05:00

Pablo Neruda meme....

here and here (so beautiful) and here (I love that sock one, he's such a freak) and here and here

For a long time I have stayed looking at my long legs,
with infinite and curious tenderness, with my accustomed passion,
as if they had been the legs of a divine woman,
deeply sunk in the abyss of my thorax:
and, to tell the truth, when time, when time passes
over the earth, over the roof, over my impure head,
and it passes, time passes, and in my bed I do not feel at night that a woman is breathing sleeping naked and at my side,
then strange, dark things take the place of the absent one,
vicious, melancholy thoughts
sow heavy possibilities in my bedroom,
and so, then, I look at my legs as if they belonged to another body
and were stuck strongly and gently to my insides.

Like stems or feminine adorable things,
from the knees they rise, cylindrical and thick,
with a disturbed and compact material of existence:
like brutal, thick goddess arms,
like trees monstrously dressed as human beings,
like fatal, immense lips thirsty and tranquil,
they are, there, the best part of my body:
the entirely substantial part, without complicated content
of senses or tracheas or intestines or ganglia:
nothing but the pure, the sweet, and the thick part of my own life,
nothing but form and volume existing,
guarding life, nevertheless, in a complete way.

People cross through the world nowadays
scarcely remembering that they possess a body and life within it,
and there is fear, in the world there is fear of the words that designate the body,
and one talks favourably of clothes,
it is possible to speak of trousers, of suits,
and of women's underwear (of "ladies'" stockings and garters)
as if the articles and the suits went completely empty through the streets
and a dark and obscene clothes closet occupied the world.

Suits have existence, color, form, design,
and a profound place in our myths, to much of a place,
there is too much furniture and there are too many rooms in the world
and my body lives downcast among and beneath so many things,
with an obsession of slavery and chains.

Well, my knees, like knots,
private, functional, evident,
separate neatly the halves of my legs:
and really two different worlds, two different sexes
are not so different as the two halves of my legs.

Fromt the knee to the foot a hard form,
mineral, coldly useful, appears,
a creature of bone and persistance,
and the ankles are now nothing bu the naked purpose,
exactitude and necessity definitively exposed.

Without sensuality, short and hard, and masculine,
my legsl exist, there, and endowed
wit muscular groups like complementary animals,
and there too a life, a solid, subtle, sharp life
endures without trembling, waiting and performing.

At my feet ticklish
and hard like the sun, and open like flowers,
and perpetual, magnificent soldiers
in the grey war of space
everything ends, life definitively ends at my feet,
what is foreign and hostile begins there:
the names of the world, the frontier and the remote,
the substantive and the adjectival too great for my heart
originate there with dense and cold constancy.

Always,
manufactured products, socks, shoes,
or simply infinite air,
there will be between my feet and the earth
stressing the isolated and solitary part of my being,
something tenaciously involved between my life and the earth,
something openly unconquerable and unfriendly.

my head was roaring with a strange emptiness Dambudzo Marechera

2007-01-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

This is the best beginning of any short story I've ever read. I first came across it in a glossy collection I gave away years ago along with some other objects of beauty I'd needed to get rid of as quickly as possible, including some I threw into the middle of a lake from a canoe. Years later, browsing alone in a much quieter, private, sober little corner underground, I spied and acquired for myself a faded, pencilled-in ten dollar copy of "Anthology of World Writing in English," the best part of which is these words:

My skin sticks out a mile in all the crowds around here. Every time I go out I feel it tensing up, hardening, torturing itself. It only relaxes when I am in shadow, when I am alone, when I wake up early in the morning, when I am doing mechanical actions, and strangely enough, when I am angry. But it is coy and self-conscious when I draw in my chair and begin to write.

It is like a silent friend: moody, assertive, possessive, callous--sometimes.

I had such a friend once. He finally slashed his wrists. He is now in a lunatic asylum. I have since asked myself why he did what he did, but I still cannot come to a conclusive answer.

How does Dambudzo Marechera write?

The critic, Annie Gagiano, a Marechera champion, notes that, “The discomfiture of some critics with the African cosmopolitanism or African modernism embodied in Marechera’s work might be linked with a representative passage in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s influential essay collection, Decolonising the Mind (1986): ‘By acquiring the thought-processes and values of the foreign tongue, [the African] becomes alienated from the values of his mother-tongue or from the language of the masses.’” But Marechera’s answer to all these charges, given in his typical eloquent and iconoclastic manner, was: “If you are a writer for a specific nation or a specific race, then fuck you.”

More words from the man himself:

As the plane burred into the night, leaving the Angolan coast and heading out into the void across the Atlantic, I suddenly remembered that I had, in the rude hurry of it all, left my spectacles behind. I was coming to England literally blind . . . I was on my own, sipping a whisky, and my head was roaring with a strange emptiness. What was it really that I had left behind me . . . I think I knew then that before me were years of desperate loneliness, and the whisky would be followed by other whiskies, other self-destructive poisons: I had nothing but books inside my head, and they were burning me, burring with the engines of hope and illusion into the endless expanse of air. Dambudzo Marechera

2007-01-30T01:52:00.000-05:00

"help i m a fish"

2007-01-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

It's Muharram. Wyclef and secret guilty pleasure Justin Timberlake come off and the nohas, marsias and nasheeds of mourning come on.

In the dialogue titled "Choosing One's Heritage," Elizabeth Roudesco says to Derrida: "You have stressed that we must think the contemporary world on the basis of concepts provided by philosophy insofar as it is never identical to itself, like culture in fact, of which you have also say also that its basic characteristic is not to have an identity but to be the bearer of a difference." Derrida responds: "There is an infinite task of deconstruction: it is necessary to draw on the heritage and its memory for the conceptual tools that allow one to challenge the limits this heritage has imposed up to now." (For What Tomorrow) Sometimes I think that this is the spirit Ali and Hussein and Zainab and Fatima and the Prophet have at times embodied for Sufism.

If you are interested in reinterpretations of Muharram, Sumayya has started a new group blog called tarjuma-e-azaa (the translation of mourning: reflections on muharram 1428).

Video of of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing 'Ali Maula Haq Ali Ali' in what looks like Pakistan--except women are at the mosque too, which I don't remember happening very frequently given Pakistan is mostly Hanifi school of thought.

Lyrics: (this particular qawwali starts halfway through the second verse)

Ali imaam-e-manasto manam Ghulaam-e-Ali
hazaar jaan-e-giraamii fidaa-e-naam-e-Ali

Ali is the master of all, I am the slave of Ali
a thousand lives are to be sacrificed for Ali

Note: Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. He is especially revered by the Sufi mystics.

Haidariam qalandaram mastam
bandaa-e-Murtaza Ali hastam
peshvaa-e-tamaam virdaaram
ke sage kuu-e-sher-e-yazdaanam

Haider [Ali] is the generous monk
Ali is the chosen one [by God]
[and] the leader of the people swaying in [God’s] remembrance
I am the dog of the streets of God’s lion.

kabhii diivaar hiltii hai, kabhii dar kaaNp jaataa hai
Ali kaa naam sun kar ab bhii Khaibar kaaNp jaataa hai

Sometimes the wall shakes, sometimes trembles the door
on listening the name of Ali, the fort of Khaibar trembles even now.

Note: During the fight for the Fort of Khaibar, Ali rooted out the heavy door of the fort and used it as his shield.

shaah-e-mardaaN Ali
Ali Ali Ali
Ali Maula Ali

King of the brave
Ali
Ali, [my] master Ali.

patthar pe alam deen ka gaaRaa jisne
lalkaar kar Marhab ko pichaaRaa jisne

[One] who implanted the flag of faith on the rocks
[One] who challenged Marhab and defeated him.

Note: In the same war, Ali challenged and defeated the celebrated warrior Marhab.

Haq
Ali Ali Ali
Ali Maula Ali

[The] truth!
Ali
Ali, [my] master Ali

jap le jap le mere manvaa
yahii naam sacchaa hai pyaare
yahii naam tere sab dukh haare
isii naam kii barkat ne diye raaz-e-haqiiqat khol

O my heart! chant this
[as] this is the name that is true.
This is the name that removes suffering
[and] the auspiciousness of this name opened the secrets of being.

shaah-e-mardaaN Ali
la fataa illah Ali
sher-e-yazdaaN Ali

King of the brave, Ali.
There is no one except Ali
[and] the lion of God is Ali.

tan par Ali, Ali ho zubaaN par Al Ali
mar jauuN to kafan par bhii likhna Ali Ali

My body chants Ali, so does my tongue
[and] when I die, then write Ali on my shroud.

baGhair hubb-e-Ali mudd’aa nahiiN miltaa
ibaadatoN kaa bhii hargiz silaa nahiiN miltaa
Khudaa ke bandoN suno Ghaur se Khudaa kii qasam
jise Ali nahiiN milte use Khudaa nahiiN miltaa

Without the love of Ali, desire is not fulfilled
not even the prayers are answered.
O! slaves of God listen carefully, by God!
One who does not realizes Ali does not realize God.

basad talaash na ab kuch vus’at-e-nazar se milaa
nishaan-e-manzil-e-maqsuud raahbar se milaa
Ali mile to mile Khaana-e-Khudaa saa hameN
Khudaa ko dhuuNdha to vo bhi Ali ke ghar se milaa

Don’t search for anything now, match the eternal search
match the footprints of the desired destination with guide
to get Ali is like getting a house of God
searching for God too, we found Him in Ali’s house.

diid Haider kii ibaadat, hai ye farmaan-e-nabii
hai Ali ruuh-e-nabii, jism-e-nabii, jaan-e-nabii
gul-e-tathiir Ali
haq kii shamshiir Ali
piiroN ke piir Ali

The sight of Ali in itself is prayer, so said the Prophet
Ali is the soul, body and life of the Prophet
Ali is the purified flower
Ali is the sword of the truth
Ali is the saint of the saints.

dast-e-ilaa kyuuN na ho sher-e-Khudaa Ali
maqsuud har ataa hai shah-e-laa-fataa Ali
jis tarah ek zaat-e-Muhammad hai be-misaal
paidaa hu’aa na hogaa ko’ii duusraa Ali
“Bedam” yahii to paaNch haiN maqsuud-e-qaaynaat
Khairunnisaa, Hasan, Hussain, Mustafaa, Ali

Haq
Ali Ali Ali
Ali Maula Ali

[The] truth!
Ali
Ali, [my] master Ali

Cuz sometimes, you need some lyrics

2007-01-20T16:06:00.000-05:00

Funny transcription issues: whoever wrote down these lyrics recorded "djinn" as "gin" and "europeans" as "your in pins." Guess they can't fathom the cultural or critical references. Funny though how the lyrics occupy this space between progressive and reactionary politics. rabfish

Doo Wop (That Thing)
LAURYN HILL

Chorus one:
Girls you know you betta watch out
Some guys, some guys are only about
That thing, that thing, that thing
That thing, that thing, that thing

(admit two shots in the atmosphere)

It's been three weeks since you were looking for your friend
The one you let hit it and never called you again
'Member when he told you he was da benjamins
You act like you ain't here him but give up a little trim
To begin how you think you really gon' pretend
Like you wasn't down and you called him again
Plus when you give it up so easy you ain't even foolin' him
If you did then you'd probably do it again
Talkin' out cha neck like you a Christain
A Muslim sleepin' wit da djinn
Now that was the sin that did Jezebell in
Who you gon' tell when the reprecussion spin
Showin' off your ass cause your thinkin' it's a trend
Girlfriend, let me break it down for you again
You know I only say it cause i'm truely genuine
Don't be a hard rock [harlot?] when you really are a gem
Baby girl the respect is just the minimum
Nigga creepin' when you still defendin' him
Now Lauryn is only human
Don't think I haven't been through the same predicament
Let it sit inside your head like a million women
It's silly when girls sell their souls cause it's in
Look at where you been, hair weaves like europeans
Fake nails up out Korea Come again

When when come again
When when come again
My freind coem again

Chorus two:
Guys you know you betta watch out
Some girls, some girls are only about
That thing, that thing, that thing
That thing, that thing, that thing

The second verse it dedicated to the men
Who are concerned wit his rims & his tim's & his women
Him and his men come in the club like hooligans
Don't care who date ya friend .........
Let's stop pretend the one that pissed out by they waste men
Pissed out by they case men, still the name of this basement
The pretty face men claiming that they do .....me
Need to take care of their three and four kids
But they facing court case when the child support place
Money takin' and heart break,
Now you wonderin' why women hate men
And to speak of silent men, the violence men
Quick to shot the scene, stop actin' like boys and be men
How you gon' win when you ain't right within
How you gon' win when you ain't right within
How you gon' win when you ain't right within
Uh Uh Come Again!

Watch out, watch out
Watch out, watch out
Watch out, watch out
Watch out, watch out
Watch out, watch out

2007-01-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

This is some nice writing. From Taking Steps, Via The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum

the seam of skin and scales

What I say may be in a language incomprehensible, but there is a time for that, and it is right now, because this is a monster’s creed. It is for the cobbled-together, the sewn-up, the grafted-on. It is for the golden, the under-the-earth, the foreign, the travels-by-night; the filthy ship-sinking cave-dwelling bone-cracking gorgeousness that says hell no, I am not tidy. I am not easy. I am not what you suppose me to be and until you listen to my voice and look me in my eyes, I will cling fast to this life no matter how far you drive me, how deep, with how many torches and pitchforks, biting back the whole way down. I will not give you my suicide. I will not give you my surrender.

2007-01-19T00:56:00.001-05:00

blue, and a cure
for blues, sky in a small cage,

badly hurt but flying.
everybody's scandalous flaw is mine

rumi

This is how a human being can change:

2007-01-18T00:13:00.000-05:00

There's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace, whatever, something
wakes him, and he's no longer
a worm.

He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too,
the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need to devour.

Rumi

(I find something very funny about the image of a worm turning into a vineyard. Makes me think of Otis the cat. Maybe one day Otis will wake up and he'll be Toronto West. rabfish)

2007-01-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

Brown Rab Girl Fish has been nominated for the Best Writing Category in the 2006 Koufax Awards. Props to other nominees like Zuky and nominee for Best Woman of Color Blog (yes, she is a category of her own!)

Mon., Jan. 15, 12 Noon: Martin Luther King Day at Toronto's Deportation Factory

2007-01-12T00:57:00.000-05:00

Join us on Martin Luther King Day at Toronto's Deportation Factory...

Support Canada's Secret Trial Detainees and Close Guantanamo North
Monday, January 15, 12 Noon
Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), 6900 Airport Road
Rides leave downtown Toronto at 11 am sharp (call 416-651-5800 to book a seat or if you can drive folks up)

January 15 marks day 55 of a hunger strike by secret trial detainee Mohammad Mahjoub, currently being denied medical care at Kingston, Ontario's Guantanamo North facility. Fellow detainees Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan Almrei will mark 40 days of their hunger strike, protesting their conditions of detention. Stockwell Day, minister responsible for the CBSA (which runs the Guantanamo North facility at Millhaven Penitentiary), refuses to negotiate with the detainees, whose lives are once again at grave risk as the hunger strikes continues.

WHY CBSA?
The facility at 6900 Airport Road is a factory that produces human misery: it's "enforcement" and "removals" units are responsible for rounding up many of the 12,000+ human beings who are forcibly deported from this country and returned to uncertain fates every year. It is here that agents of the CBSA daily work in defiance of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the deportation of ANYONE to face torture. All of Canada's secret trial detainees (and those under draconian bail conditions) face deportation to torture, yet the federal government continues efforts to deport them to Syria, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco.

Our annual Martin Luther King day action is part of a series of national actions calling for an end to indefinite detention and deportation to torture that are taking place January 11-15. Join us in the loving spirit of radical, transformative justice that served as a cornerstone of the nonviolent civil rights movement!

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

BACKGROUND
January 11, 2007 marks 5 years since the official opening of Guantanamo Bay, a detention and torture centre run by the United States in Cuba that has been a legal black hole for countless people swept up in the terror of war. While many have been released (after spending upwards of four or more years without being charged or given a trial), hundreds of others languish under illegal detention, facing inhumane conditions without access to the outside world.

Canada has its own Guantanamo Bay, located in Millhaven Penitentiary, Kingston. Here, three "security certificate" detainees who have been held upwards of seven years without charge on secret evidence, are fighting deportation to torture. All are currently on hunger strike protesting their conditions of detention, including denial of medical treatment. Two other men, also held between two and four years, are currently "out" on some of the most severe restrictions on human liberty ever imposed in a Canadian bail release. These draconian restrictions also curtail the freedoms of their entire families. They too continue to live under the threat of deportation to torture.

Human rights groups in the U.S. are calling for international actions on January 11 for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We join in that call, adding our own demand for the closure of Guantanamo Bay North, right here in Canada. Actions in Canada are planned from coast to coast between January 11 and 15.

Join us to demand that the Canadian government:
1. Immediately close Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (Guantanamo Bay North)
2. Immediately release Canada's secret trial "security certificate"
detainees or provide them with a fair, transparent, open trial.
3. End all proceedings to deport the Secret Trial Five (Mahmoud Jaballah,
Mohammad Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, Adil Charkaoui)
4. Abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture.
5. Immediately condemn the illegal Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Contact the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada at tasc@web.ca or (416) 651-5800.

mechanics of joy

2007-01-11T16:00:00.000-05:00

you think
i have a blood bubble
sticking out the back of my head
full of love i give to everyone but you
i smile at someone else
and you see it slosh
you think you have nothing
and i have everything

i think
you have a blood bubble
sticking out the back of your head
full of love you give to everyone but me
you smile at someone else
and i see it slosh
i think i have nothing
and you have everything

i don't know what's coming
but one day
you will hold up someone else's severed head
I will wield my exacto knife
we will spatter each other with blood
cave in what was never there
and release what was

2007-01-10T19:49:00.000-05:00

smash smash smash
i chop onions with the blunt edge of the blade.
i am cooking for you.
wet onion flies
along the arc of the knife.
husks of skin
make half moons around us.
you pretend you are not hungry
and i pretend i don't like cooking.

eye to eye

2007-01-08T11:41:00.000-05:00

Audre Lourde Quote Via Woman of Color Blog

Every Black woman in america has survived several lifetimes of hatred, where even in the candy store cases of our childhood, little brown niggerbaby candies testified against us. We survived the wind-driven spittle on our child’s shoe and pink flesh colored bandaids, attempted rapes on rooftops and the prodding fingers of the super’s boy, seeing our girlfriends blown to bits in Sunday School, and we absorbed that loathing as a natural state. We had to metabolize such hatred that our cells have learned to live upon it because we had to, or die of it. Old Kind Mithridates learned to eat arsenic bit by bit and so outwitted his poisoners, but I’d have hated to kiss him upon his lips! Now we deny such hatred ever existed because we have learned to neutralize it through ourselves, and the catabolic process throws off waste products of fury even when we love.

I see hatred
I am bathed in it, drowning in it
since almost the beginning of my life
it has been the air I breathe
the food I eat, the content of my preceptions;
the single most constant fact of my existence
is their hatred…
I am too young for my history

It is not that Black women shed each other’s psychic blood so easily, but that we have ourselves bled so often, the pain of bloodshed becomes almost commonplace. If I have learned to eat my own flesh in the forest-starving, keening, learning the lesson of the she-wolf who chews off her own paw to leave the trap behind-if I must drink my own blood, thirsting, why should I stop at yours until your dear dead arms hang like withered garlands upon my breast and I weep for your going, oh, my sister, I grieve for our gone.

~~Audre Lorde. Eye to Eye. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. The Crossing Press. 1984 156-7

Jaballah's kids. Please get involved. Close Guantanamo South and North

2007-01-08T02:24:00.000-05:00

Yes. It's Allah Written on a Fish.

2007-01-07T16:00:00.001-05:00

This plus Brown Brad Pitt are the most popular searches which lead people to this blog. Plus the bad Muslim girl who turned into a fish for kicking the Quran.

World o' miracles.

Pakistan lifts kite-flying ban...

2007-01-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Pakistan province lifts kite ban

The government of Pakistan's Punjab province is to allow kite-flying during the Basant spring festival in February.

The Banksy Manifesto

2007-01-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Read while listening to this: (right click it)

"An extract from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was among the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belson in 1945.

Camp

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand proping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentary which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Source: Imperial War museum"

Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year from Rabfish

2006-12-31T02:26:00.000-05:00

Play this entire playlist

Abyssinean Dub				Blue Asia
Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am				Baaba Maal & Taj Mahal (Featuring Kaouding Cissoko & Antibalas)
Yalili				Nicolas-Yvan Mingot-Wadhi Al Safi-El Karour
Shuffering & Shmiling				Dead Prez, Jorge Ben Jor, Talib Kweli, Bilal & Postive Force
Electioneering				Easy Star All Stars
10 As a Child I Could Walk on the Ceiling [Dub Mix]
Organdonor (Extended Overhaul)				DJ Shadow
I Drive Alone				Esthero
By Your Side (Cottonbelly's Fola Mix Edit)				Sade
Allah La Yehremny Minnak				Amr Diab

Kvisa Shchora: Black Laundry

2006-12-29T03:21:00.000-05:00

Lifted from a Friendster profile. In Hebrew: 'I have sex with Palestinian women.'

"'Kvisa Shchora' (Black Laundry) is a direct action group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and others against the occupation and for social justice. Kvisa Shchora tries to stress the connection between different forms of oppression - our own oppression as lesbians, gays and transpeople enhances our solidarity with members of other oppressed groups."

Search engine metaphor toss (# 2)

2006-12-20T03:50:00.001-05:00

Someone in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire comes upon my blog via these words typed into a search engine:
"bringing up a daughter is as pointless as watering a neighbour's plant."

Someone in
Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire
wants:

A daughter to bring up? No
To water their neighbour's plant? Why?
Maybe they have a crush on the neighbour.
Maybe they want to water the plant pointlessly.

(How do you bring up your neighbour's plant?

take it to school
give it food and water
love it
catch it masturbating and make it feel bad)

Someone in
Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire
is looking for:

Pointless watering
Pointless--cuz someone else reaps the fruit?
Well....could you not share the fruit?

Will the neighbour bring up the daughter, or is she like a plant?

I bet its the daughter who waters the neighbour's plant.

She brings herself up, by doing so.

I bet she scrapes out the sludgy remnent-y overflow.
I bet she steals the fruit. She knows. Earning her right to exist by caring for others, she takes for herself. Hopefully.

Bringing up a daughter is as pointless as watering a neighbour's plant
Maybe when the daughter leaves she's going to take the neighbour's plant with her and that's why its all just so pointless.

Someone in
Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire
wants
something
and in looking for it
finds this blog

Maybe this blog is the neighbour's plant.
It's what happens when you water pointlessly anyway. You never know what will grow.

The blog is getting watered. It grew legs and snuck out.
(Maybe that's why you don't water the neighbour's plant.
Maybe that's why even the neighbour doesn't water the neighbour's plant).

After sneaking away it grew fingers and worked at a women's centre just long enough to buy a computer. It's writing itself. It's waving its planty tentacles towards something. The writing is growing, higher and higher, vine-words and seed-punctuation, narrative-stems, abandoned mulch of experimentation.
There's a point in there somewhere, maybe.

Weird searches of the day

2006-12-19T15:57:00.000-05:00

Someone in Reading, United Kingdom looking for "ALLAHU AKBAR written on fish"

Someone in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire looking for "bringing up a daughter is as pointless as watering a neighbour's plant"

Someone in Tory, Michigan looking for "sexy funky smelling feet.com"

2006-12-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

how will you know the difficulties of being human,
if you're always
flying off to blue perfection?

where
will you plant your
grief-seeds?

we need
ground
to scrape and hoe,
not the sky of unspecified desire

rumi

Close Guantanamo North and South: Cross-Canada Actions January 11-15, 2007

2006-12-18T11:16:00.000-05:00

"Please consider joining the days of action proposed below, wherever you may be. Feel free to forward this email far and wide and contact tasc@web.ca if you can organize something...

Close Guantanamo North and South
End Indefinite Detention and Deportation to Torture, from Canada to U.S.-Occupied Cuba
A Call for Cross-Canada actions, January 11-15, 2007

January 11, 2007 marks 5 years since the official opening of Guantanamo Bay, a detention and torture centre run by the United States in Cuba that has been a legal black hole for countless people swept up in the terror of war. While many have been released (after spending upwards of four or more years without being charged or given a trial), hundreds of others languish under illegal detention, facing inhumane conditions without access to the outside world.

Canada has its own Guantanamo Bay, located in Millhaven Penitentiary, Kingston. Here, three "security certificate" detainees who have been held upwards of seven years without charge on secret evidence, are fighting deportation to torture. All are currently on hunger strike protesting their conditions of detention, including denial of medical treatment. Two other men, also held between two and four years, are currently "out" on some of the most severe restrictions on human liberty ever imposed in a Canadian bail release. These draconian restrictions also curtail the freedoms of their entire families. They too continue to live under the threat of deportation to torture.

Human rights groups in the U.S. are calling for international actions on January 11 for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We join in that call, adding our own demand for the closure of Guantanamo Bay North, right here in Canada. January 15 is Martin Luther King Day, an opportunity to remember the radical spirit of the civil rights movement that demanded full human rights for ALL people.

We are asking that groups across Canada choose a date that works best for them between January 11 and January 15, 2007, to organize a vigil or some other public show of support for the demand to close Guantanamo Bay, North and South. Offices of Members of Parliament, federal government buildings, offices of CSIS or the RCMP or Canadian Border Services Agency, make excellent places for such public expressions.

If you would like to discuss other ideas or need help preparing a flyer, feel free to contact the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada at tasc@web.ca or (416) 651-5800. Please let us know of your plans so we can coordinate a national press release.

Join us to demand that the Canadian government:
1. Immediately close Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (Guantanamo Bay North)
2. Immediately release Canada's secret trial "security certificate"
detainees or provide them with a fair, transparent, open trial.
3. End all proceedings to deport the Secret Trial Five (Mahmoud Jaballah,
Mohammad Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, Adil Charkaoui)
4. Abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture.
5. Immediately condemn the illegal Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Callout from: Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, Justice for
Mohamed Harkat Committee, Justice for Adil"

2006-12-17T22:35:00.001-05:00

I do not know who
lives here in my chest.

Or why the smile comes.

I am not myself, more the bare
green knob of a rose that
lost every leaf and petal to
the morning wind.

Rumi

2006-12-13T02:08:00.000-05:00

parti hoon namaaz do raqaat ki
waqt farjr, farz adaa wajib
allahu akbar
allahu akbar
allahu akbar
bismillah hirahman nirrahim

I wear hijaab under my skin
It's the sort of purity that allows you to sin
Protect where you are, hide where you been
farz adaa wajib, qurbatanallah

ashadhoan la ilah ha il lal la
I paint my skull black
ashadhoan la ilah ha il lal la
I paint my skull black
ashadhoan la ilah ha il lal la
for this I get much flack
ashadhoan la ilah ha il lal la
tiny flakes skitter down my back

Sadaqallahualazeem
We wore our bodies like clothes
sadaqallahualazeem
Sucked on the toes that stuck out in rows
Sadaqallahualazeem
Put on the attar and smelled like the rose
Sadaqallahualazeem
Did He hear our prayers only He knows

I am the mother who did not die
To this sort of truth there is no reply

Five a day?!

2006-12-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

Canadian Workplace Deaths Spiking

"In 2005, the number of workplace fatalities totalled 1,097, an average of five every working day, said Andrew Sharpe, executive director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards."

Apple Fig Bread Pudding with Maple Walnut Sauce

2006-12-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

I need to make this.

Ingredients

•	16 Slices day-old bread
•	1/2 cup (125 mL) Dried figs, chopped
•	3 cups (750 mL) Milk
•	1/2 cup (125 mL) Raw sugar such as Demerara sugar
•	1/2 cup (125 mL) Whipping cream
•	4 Eggs
•	1 tsp (5 mL) Cinnamon
•	1/4 tsp (1 mL) Each nutmeg and salt
•	4 Cooking apples, such as Empire or Jonagold
•	1/4 cup (50 mL) Port wine

•	MAPLE WALNUT SAUCE:
•	1 cup (250 mL) Walnuts
•	1/2 cup (125 mL) Maple syrup
•	1/4 cup (50 mL) Raw sugar such as Demerara sugar
•	1 cup (250 mL) Whipping cream

Preparation

Trim crusts off bread; cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes. Arrange in greased 12-inch (2.5 L) oval glass baking dish; sprinkle with figs.

In large bowl, whisk together milk, sugar, cream, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; pour over bread mixture and let stand for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel, core and slice apples; arrangely evenly over bread mixture. Drizzle with port.

Bake in centre of 375°F (190°C) oven until puffed, golden and knife inserted in centre comes out clean, 45 to 60 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes.

MAPLE WALNUT SAUCE: Meanwhile, in small saucepan, heat walnuts, maple syrup and sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, about 3 minutes. Add cream; cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until thickened enough to coat back of spoon, about 5 minutes. Serve with pudding.

More Information

Tip: Unpurified and unprocessed, raw sugar is similar in colour and flavour to brown sugar.

TABOO MEMORIES, DIASPORIC VOICES, by Dr. Ella Shohat

2006-11-29T16:15:00.000-05:00

ELLA SHOHAT in conversation

SATURDAY DECEMBER 9, 7pm
Innis Town Hall
2 Sussex Ave.
$7 - $20 sliding scale, tickets available at Toronto Women's Bookstore Wheelchair accessible.

Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices, written over the past two decades, traces a powerful intellectual trajectory as Shohat rigorously teases out the consequences of a deep critique of Eurocentric epistemology, whether to rethink feminism through race, nationalism through ethnicity, or colonialism through sexuality. Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices not only illuminates many of the concerns that have animated the study of cultural politics over the past two decades; it also points toward new scholarly possibilities.

Ella Shohat is an internationally renowned theorist of postcolonial and cultural studies.

Co-sponsored by: Ontario College of Art & Design, York University School of Kinesiology & Health, Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies (OISE), York University's Research Project on Diaspora, Islam & Gender, Department of Sociology & Equity Studies (OISE).

Toronto: Pink Ink

2006-11-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

Pink Ink 2006, SOY's writing program for queer, trans and questioning youth, is starting in two weeks! On Saturday, December 2, 2006 from 2-4 PM! For some , this may be cause for great excitement, but some others may be asking...

*Uh, what is it?* Pink Ink is SOY's writing program for queer, trans, Two Spirit and questioning youth from 14-29. It's a chill space where writers of any level of experience can come together in a community of trust to have a focused place to write, access writing and spoken word by queer, trans and Two Spirit writers, and get supportive feedback on their work.

*When does it meet?* Pink Ink stretches over 12 weeks from late November 2006 to March 2007. We meet on Saturday afternoons from 2-4 PM at the 519 Church Street Community Center. There are always healthy snacks, free notebooks and tokens for folks who need them. People can feel free to come to as many classes as they can on a drop-in basis.

*What's so exciting about this, anyway?* Workshops are usually a mix of writing exercises, time to share work and get feedback and time to look at writing by queer and trans writers. We have great writers from Toronto’s LGBT community come in as guest teachers and to share their work, including trey anhtony (da kink in my hair), Nalo Hopkinson, Zoe Whittall and Karine Silverwoman.

Two years ago we created a zine, Ten Reasons to Riot, that won Best Zine of the year in NOW’s annual Best of Toronto 2005 issue. Last year's zine, More Reasons to Riot, is available at the SOY office, Toronto Women's Bookstore and This Ain't the Rosedale Library. Every year, Pink Ink performs at Fruit Loops, SOY's youth stage at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for Pride.

OKAY, MAYBE... WHEN IS IT AGAIN? Pink Ink starts on Saturday, November 25, 2006, and will meet every Saturday from 2-4 PM until March, with a break for the winter holidays.

WHERE IS IT HELD? The 519 Church Street Community Centre is located at 519 Church Street, just north of Wellesley on the east side. Our room changes weekly, so look on the board at the front or ask one of the staff. The closest TTC stop is Wellelsey- just walk one block east and make a left.

*What do I have to bring? Do I have to preregister? Does it cost anything?** Pink Ink is free and you don’t have to preregister. You don’t have to commit to all 12 weeks- you can come to as many workshops as you can. Whether you’ve written for years or never tried it , whether you are a spoken word queen or your words have never left your journal, there is room for you!

***Who the hell is the teaching artist anyway?** Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (me): is a queer Sri Lankan high femme spoken word artist, writer and teaching artist. The author of Consensual Genocide (TSAR, 2006) I've also had work anthologized in Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Time and Place, We Don't Need Another Wave, Bitchfest, With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn, Without a Net, Colonize This!, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws and A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World. I write frequently for Colorlines and Bitch magazines, as well as for Fuse, Herizons, Now, Xtra, Clamour and a bunch of other magazines. I produce the Browngirlworld queer/trans of colour spoken word series and perform frequently throughout North America. I've taught Pink Ink for the past four years and love working with LGBT youth to create free space to write down our dreams, visions and nightmares.

Got any further questions? Email Leah at brownstargirl@riseup.net

Krrrrrrish!

2006-11-16T01:02:00.000-05:00

tonight i watched krrish, a bollywood superhero movie mixer borrowing from at least minority report, the matrix, blade and crouching tiger hidden dragon--with these important unique elements and differences:

the superhero is overwhelmingly suffocated by an indian grandma who's dedicated her entire life to taking care of him and hiding him from the world, which makes him feel even more guilty for wanting to bust the heck out there and develop new relationships ("do you want me to stay stuck here and just stare at your face?!!" "but beta, all i do is live for your face...")
unlike in minority report in which the plot hinged on the surprise elements of free will, the indian future is predestined and cannot be changed
the hero goes from hanging out in the mountains in peasant garb to dressed in super slick urban wear in cosmopolitan singapore in one shot
when indians acquire super powers the pinnacle of success is to get an IT job (no joke)
given the right pair of chappals you can run faster than a horse and fly through the air

note: if your personal copy of the video of the future shows a masked man killing you, then when disposing of the person you assume to be under the mask, be sure to also grab the mask on your way out

Kid Koala

2006-11-16T00:36:00.000-05:00

some kid koala for your viewing pleasure

because i'm listening to him tonight and he's mixing a man squawking like a chicken, and somehow it works

flying crows, floating pigs, alligators and coffins

Tasveer--Call for films

2006-11-15T23:22:00.000-05:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

Tasveer, an independent film organization in Seattle, seeks short films, experimental films, documentaries, and narratives of any length for submission for “Aaina: South Asian Women Film Focus”.

The event will take place in Seattle in March 2006 on the occasion of International Women’s Month. Film themes must have primary focus on issues pertaining to South Asian women (living anywhere in the world). “South Asia” includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet.

If you would like to submit your film, please include the following info along with a vhs ntsc/dvd preview copy: title of film, brief synopsis, length of film, production year, country, previous screenings, filmmaker bio, and contact information and send to our mailing address:

Tasveer, 9053 36th Ave South, Seattle, WA 98118.

Deadline for submissions is January 15th, 2007.

If you have any questions, email info@tasveer.org.
Website: www.tasveer.org.

Toronto Conference: Written in Color!

2006-11-13T18:23:00.000-05:00

TORONTO WOMEN’S BOOKSTORE
presents…

The WRITTEN in COLOUR symposium was started two years ago to provide a space for experienced writers of Colour and Indigenous authors to pass on knowledge to emerging and aspiring of colour/indigenous writers about the often inaccessible world of publishing and writing. The workshop themes ranged from giving participants tools to break into the publishing world to techniques behind writing dub poetry to simple character and novel development. It was again, such a success, that this year we are expanding it to two days of workshops with over twenty workshops. Moreover, there will be a reading series that will bring together authors from all over Canada .

Get started with the WRITTEN in COLOUR kick off CONCERT!
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17, 7pm
Toronto Women’s Bookstore, 73 Harbord Street
with live music and spoken word, featuring…
Naila Keleta Mae, Mama D., Motion and Belladona

THEN saturate your mind with two full days of back-to-back workshops
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18 and SUNDAY NOVEMBER 19
New College (45 Willcocks St.) + The North Borden Building (563 Spadina Ave.) at U of T
$9 to $99 sliding scale, pre-registration available at TWB, 416 922-8744 or register
at the door. Wheelchair accessible. ALL WELCOME.

Listen to the theory behind the practice at the opening plenary panel with: George Dei, Rozena Maart, Lee Maracle and Ashok Mathur.

Attend the Reading Panels and Immerse yourself in Living Stories with: Madeleine Thien, Kerri Sakamoto, Richard Van Camp, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Joanne Arnott, Hiromi Goto and Anosh Irani.

Attend the Meet and Greet Lunch (lunch included in registration fee!) and meet with your favorite authors, talk with literary agent Denise Bukowski, talk with reps from local publishing houses including TSAR Publishing and Between the Lines Press.

Choose from over twenty hands-on workshops, including:

- How to Approach a Literary Agent with Anar Ali
- “I hate Poetry!” Poetry workshop with Souvankham Thammavongsa
- How to make a Living as an Artist with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinah )
- Writing and Illustrating Children’s Books with Rina Singh and Farida Zaman
- Getting Grants and Writers Residencies with Kerri Sakamoto
- Creative Writing with Richard Van Camp
- Writing Non-Fiction with Afua Cooper
- Auto-biographical Writing with Rozena Maart
- Introduction to Graphic Novels with Dominique Hui
- Getting Published with Harmony Rice
- Dub Poetry/Spoken-Word with Naila Keleta Mae
- Academic Publishing with Daniel Justice
- Writing From Life with Dianah Smith
- Indigenous Storytelling Through Performance with Monique Mojica and Jill
Carter
- Birthing Stories with Joanne Arnott
- Beginners Manuscript Review with Hiromi Goto
- Advanced Manuscript Review with Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

For more schedule information visit: www.womensbookstore.com or contact Edite Pine, WRITTEN in COLOUR co-ordinator 416-922-8744, edite@womensbookstore.com

DesiLit

2006-11-13T05:55:00.000-05:00

*DesiLit Magazine*—celebrating exceptional contemporary writing and Visual art focused on South Asia and the diaspora.

(South Asia is defined as Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Bhutan , India , The Maldives, Nepal , Pakistan & Sri Lanka).

*Now accepting submissions* from writers and visual artists*

*ARE YOU A WRITER? Looking to express yourself through literature or visual art?*

Look no Further…...
After having launched a very successful Inaugural issue, DesiLit Magazine is again on the search for talent and exceptional writers and visual artists. This is an open call for submissions in works. Submissions must be either about South Asia and the diaspora, or be by submitters from South Asia or the diaspora.

We are excited to inform you, DesiLit Magazine is one among a very few South Asian literary magazines that pays people for submissions.

Important- Please note our **DEADLINE**.

Essays, Humor, Poetry, Reviews and Visual Art Submissions:
Deadline November 30, 2006**.

Please log on to our website for submission guidelines http://desilit.org/magazine
Our magazine will print essays, fiction, humor, poetry, reviews, and art.

*If you haven't yet, check out our Online Zine: http://www.desilit.org/magazine/ *

About DesiLit Magazine
Founded by like-minded activists, writers, and readers in 2006, DesiLit Magazine will be a biannual online magazine, publishing in Spring and Fall. We are committed to creating a forum for exceptional contemporary writing and art focused on South Asia and the diaspora.

Ellen Meloy Fund Desert Writers Award

2006-11-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

A prize of $1,000 will be given annually to provide support to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers to spend creative time in a desert environment. Submit up to 10 pages of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, a project description, and a biography by December 31. There is no entry fee. Call or visit the Web site for complete guidelines. Ellen Meloy Fund, Desert Writers Award, P.O. Box 484, Bluff, UT 84512. (435) 669-5326. Greer Chesher, Contact. www.ellenmeloy.com

Ali G on feminism....

2006-11-03T13:54:00.001-05:00

2006-11-02T18:38:00.000-05:00

Please see the following posts on the situation in Oaxaca....

Woman of Color Blog

Solidarity with the People of Oaxaca, via Canadian Lefty

2006-11-02T01:59:00.000-05:00

All these old posts of mine are showing up in the RSS feeds and I don't know why!

Roasted Curried Sweet Potato Squash Chickpea Apple Coconut Procrastination Soup

2006-11-02T00:22:00.000-05:00

Get your sweet potatoes out of the fridge. Dump the rotten one in the compost and cut off the gross soft top of the other. Wash, wrap in tin foil and place in a tray along with unwrapped and seeded quarters of a squash. Put the tray in an oven set to 300 degrees Farenheit. Be sure to forget the other squash lying hidden on the table in its grocery bag. Play with the cat. Read for forty-five minutes to an hour until the sweet scent of roasting potato and squash rouses you out of your room and draws you back to the kitchen.

Chop up one medium onion and mince up a couple cloves of garlic and half an inch of ginger. (Mince the garlic and ginger very finely unless you have a blender and the motivation to blend it all up into a paste once you've fried them for a while). Let everything soften for a while in a hunk of butter on low to medium heat. Add spices that do well with frying--crushed cumin and coriander seeds, a bay leaf, some mustard seeds right at the very end (if you add them too soon they pop right out of the pot haphazardly all over the kitchen). Cook it for a while then blend it all with some water (don't blend the bay leaf!!!) and then dump it back in the pot. It should be an interesting brown color and grainy texture. Stir it around.

Take the steaming bowl of chickpeas (about one cup) and water out of the microwave where its been cooking on high for about fifteen minutes and add it all to the pot. (Check first if the chickpeas are relatively cooked but watch your fingers). This is a good time to add a couple cups of water (not too much) and one or two veggie broth cubes along with some salt, cayenne pepper, paprika, cumin powder, more mustard seeds, coriander powder if you have it, and finally your roommate's garam masala (or something that looks and smells like garam masala) for that certain je ne sais quoi. Waffle on adding brown sugar and decide according to chance and taste.

Take the tray out of the oven. Peel off strips of hardened skin and leftover seed goop, scoop out chunks of hot flesh from the squash and drop it from smarting fingers into the pot. Extract the softened sweet potato from the thickened layer of potato skin, cut into chunks and drop into the pot of water. These should be meditative tasks. Meditate.

Stir. Stir. Stir. Taste. Add more spices. Contemplate what else you can add to your exciting pot of soup. There should be lots of colors and textures in the pot before you. Watch it change. Encourage the chunks of roasted squash and potato to disintegrate. Add more water. Cut up an apple, scoop it up from the wooden cutting board with the flat edge of your knife and start dropping it in. Realize it would be better peeled and in smaller chunks halfway through and adjust accordingly.

Scoop out spoonfuls of chickpeas and apples, blend them, and return them to the pot. This should have the effect of thickening the soup before its finished cooking, thus increasing the likelihood of burning at the bottom and coarsening the taste. (That's not good).

Slowly add about half a can of coconut milk, a few tablespoons at a time, all the while thinking with some unease about good and bad fats and your family history of heart disease but also anticipating the sweetness of the milk combined with the carbs simmering before you.

Add a few capfuls of vinegar to add some tartness to the soup as you've run out of apple cider. Keep adjusting the spices, mentally calculating for the coconut milk factor, which softens the flavours of the soup.

Stir in a bunch of water then cover the pot and leave it on medium to let everything cook and cook and cook and soften and melt and disintegrate. Stir it once in a while to break up the layer that forms on the bottom and threatens to burn. Burn your hand every single time. Answer the phone with wet hands and immediately start describing the soup.

Make custard with the leftover coconut milk, 2% milk at the edge of its expiry date, green colored Pakistan National Custard Powder (banana flavour) and some defrosted frozen strawberries and bananas.

Clean up. Think of what you will have in your fridge now and the conditions under which you will eat it. Think about protein and if the soup would go with quinoia. Be grateful. Share. Eat.

The 99

2006-10-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

Via Planet Grenada:

Muslim cartoon characters based on the 99 names of Allah!

Presenting: The 99

Meet two of them: Hidayeh and Noora...

Markus Hoffer

2006-10-29T10:20:00.000-05:00

via Ektopia

Normally he makes stuff that plays with liquids and solids, like this:

fish tales

Baby Nap Circuit Training

I am so small I can barely be seen.How can this great love be inside me?''Look at your eyes, they are small but theysee enormous things.'' - Rumi

Snail? Guppy? Shark!

Bittman's Baked White Bean Boulangerie

Kale and Parsnip Huli

Minestrone Soup

Pakistan: HRCP Press Release - Govt. crackdown during Long March

Flying Inside Your Own Body

The Too Late Poem

tere bin main yun kaise jiya

Chay Magazine

Words, Lentils, Dates, Pork

Review

feisty, intelligent, must-read Canadian feminist bloggers: an incomplete beginning

by May Lui | December 13, 2007

brown rab girl fish

brownstargirl

Confessions of a Funky Ghetto Hijabi

One Tenacious Baby Mama

Pomegranate Queen

The F Word

BOUM.

The Muslim Girl Who Turned into a Fish

Breathe

The unconscious in its social conditions

SPECULATIVE LITERATURE ANNOUNCES THE 2007 GULLIVER TRAVEL RESEARCH GRANT

Quail

Why Are You Here?

Klaus Nomi: 'The Cold Song'

Siren Song

More and More

Morning in the Burned House

The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (1968) - Ghost Dance Sequence

Willow, by Mark Levine

Gangsta Arabic Grandma

Ela Shah, in the new Desilit Magazine

New Grant for people of colour

Queering the Fight for Status Rights: Trans and Queer Immigrants Speak Out

Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Network of South Asian Popular Visual Culture

Website developer? Fish? Honk?

The Shipping of Souls and the Reception of Cultures: Staging Migration in Intercultural Performance

Blue Crest of Fondness

Via AswatGroup.org: 'Notes of a Feminist Lesbian During Wartime'

Short Story by Bushra Rehman: The Old Italian

Ritual of My Legs

my head was roaring with a strange emptiness Dambudzo Marechera

Cuz sometimes, you need some lyrics

This is how a human being can change:

Mon., Jan. 15, 12 Noon: Martin Luther King Day at Toronto's Deportation Factory

mechanics of joy

eye to eye

Jaballah's kids. Please get involved. Close Guantanamo South and North

Yes. It's Allah Written on a Fish.

Pakistan lifts kite-flying ban...

The Banksy Manifesto

Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year from Rabfish

Kvisa Shchora: Black Laundry

Search engine metaphor toss (# 2)

Weird searches of the day

Close Guantanamo North and South: Cross-Canada Actions January 11-15, 2007

Five a day?!

Apple Fig Bread Pudding with Maple Walnut Sauce

TABOO MEMORIES, DIASPORIC VOICES, by Dr. Ella Shohat

Toronto: Pink Ink

Krrrrrrish!

Kid Koala

Tasveer--Call for films

Toronto Conference: Written in Color!

DesiLit

*Ellen Meloy Fund* Desert Writers Award

Ali G on feminism....

Roasted Curried Sweet Potato Squash Chickpea Apple Coconut Procrastination Soup

The 99

Markus Hoffer

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
''Look at your eyes, they are small but they
see enormous things.'' - Rumi

Ellen Meloy Fund Desert Writers Award