At a certain point, I suppose, one just gets sick of the whole damned enterprise. And that's the time to step back and write a paper about it. Which we did. And presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association in Montréal. We just got back. The presentation went really well. Maybe a little too well. It was good to step back and take stock and have something academic to say about the one year experiment.
But this is what I'd say here:
Our Kaddish in Two-Part Harmony was not just a success, it was a grand failure as well. We set up rules to mourn by—and broke all the rules that really counted. Maybe if we'd stuck to our guns, we'd still be in mourning-mode today. But instead of immersing in our sorrows and staying there, our sorrows lifted. And after a while, impossible as it seems to me, the sorrow's just plain gone. I mean, is that fair?
Not that that means that we don't miss our dearly departed. No, not that. But we're no longer in mourning.
And I kinda feel guilty about that. I've put those photos away. I've stopped lighting candles. I no longer say kaddish unless I'm coerced. The loss is there, but it's not the same black cloud looming overhead. And worst of all: I'm just plain happy. We both are.
Now what kind of mourning project is that?
So. What it tells me is that ritual works. It does the job if you stick to it on a daily basis. And just that doing, day after day, is enough to do the trick. For us, it did the trick a month early. We were both ready to stop. Stop and move on. But my Kaddish partner is better at keeping on than I am. And because of her, we'll finish the year's experiment in formal mourning on November 27th. Will it feel any different then than it does now?
The main problem is that I've been happy. Now what kind of mourning is that? And as a result, I haven't written a single word in a month. Except for the paper we presented at the AAA Conference. But not a word on our blogs. Almost as if writing and unhappiness go together, which has to be absurd, right? Or a very bad habit.
For one month, it's been analysis rather than wallowing in death and dying.
But now, it's time to switch gears. And I can feel those gears heading into some new, strange, and dangerous territory...
Showing posts with label American Anthropological Association. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Anthropological Association. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Monday, November 22, 2010
a kaddish for new orleans
The meetings. New Orleans. Again.
Our session this time was 'On the Circulation of Trance: Trance in 21st century globalized society' or something like that. One of those times when every paper led seamlessly into the next, each amplifying the concerns of the previous. Each of us, in our own way, questioning the problems of authenticity, as trance and trance rituals become things of the past worth either retrieving or letting go. A fitting topic for New Orleans.
New Orleans, after all, specializes in entrancement. And here were 5,000 or more anthropologists hitting the Big Easy over the last week, each one of them it seems having a pretty hard time staying focused on the meetings when the city itself beckons so seductively.
Something happened while we were there, that might strike you as not terribly important in the scheme of things, given Katrina and the the BP oil spill in the Gulf. But I think it was indicative of more of the same to come.
It was a little thing. The water went out.
Can you say that? Meaning it the same way you might say 'the power went out'?
You go to brush your teeth or wash your face, or flush a toilet, and there just isn't any water. At all. Just like that. And you think, okay, there's something wrong in my room. But no. It's the whole town. With no water. And no warning.
And then the warnings come on the phone, the papers, banners on the bottom of your television screen: When the water returns, don't drink the water. Don't wash your face with it. Don't let it on your skin. Boil all your water. Or use bottled water.
Until we figure this one out.
And it makes me think just how incredibly fast a city can go down. That infrastructure in any community — from a major city to a tiny oasis in the Sahara — is a miraculous but fragile thing. We build it over very long periods of time. Build it up from scratch and watch it take shape, and grow, and provide more services. And come to depend on those services. We talk about the provision of schools, medical care, protection from fire or crime. Electricity.
But before that, and maybe first of all, comes the expectation — the necessity — of good clean, safe water.
In the Sahara we carried our own water. And we had maps that showed every well across the desert. Without knowledge of where those wells might be, one does not venture out across the Sahara. We rationed carefully. But we also knew where those wells were. And if one was dry, we knew where to expect the next one, and the next, in close enough proximity to survive. And in the Sahara, it's very clear when travelers have been mistaken in this regard. The remains of bone and metal litter the panorama, picked dry by birds and bandits in equal measure.
So, I'm used to this from the places that I've lived or traveled. Abroad. The power, if there is power, goes out. The water is rationed. You improvise. You share. You help your neighbors, or nobody survives. I've taken this for granted when I'm over there. The Middle East. North Africa. West Africa. Central. East. Systems on the edge of no system at all.
America, however, presents itself as immune to collapse of systems. But all systems eventually fail, do they not?
New Orleans has been giving us a lot to think about in this regard. We've been seeing one system failure after another, each one a little bit different. Each breach very possibly having no real, durable, long term solution at all.
In New Orleans, if anything, one expects too much water rather than none at all, right? But this week there was a drop in the water pressure on the east bank of Orleans Parish. And nobody's quite sure yet why. The Sewerage and Water Board power plant just failed. One report stated that apart from this the NOLA water system is leaking more than 70% of its water at present. I mean, that's worse than Damascus, isn't it?
Okay. So, I'm not talking here about how much I love New Orleans. How great the music is, everywhere you turn. How each person you meet is ready to talk your head off for hours at a time, just for the pleasure of the conversation. How walking the narrow lanes of the French Quarter makes my own town, San Francisco, seem downright boring, banal and tame. I'm not telling you anything about my visits with a voodon priest and meeting the newest young, sweet pythons in his brood. Or my tears over the loss of Jolie and Eugene, the elder pythons I remember. Nothing about the distinct flavors of 'Slap Ya Mama' spices, Alligator jerky, Swamp Fire Seafood Boil, or hot Cajun eggs. Not saying a word about New Orleans pride: the Bud Light 'Here We Geaux!' signs, the 'Geaux Saints' flags flying proud. Not a word about all that music. And not a word about Marie Laveau, the St. Louis cemeteries, and John T. Nothing about being called 'baby' or 'darlin' in that lyrical lilt every other sentence. Nothing 'bout just how very much I've loved New Orleans from the first time I set eyes on it about 25 years ago.
No. This is me, thinking infrastructure.
Thinking 'bout the Sewerage and Water Board proposing increased taxes to pay for projects to fix 'it' all — once they figure out what on earth the problem might actually be. This is me thinking about Mayor Landrieu saying, no, no way. No more taxes.
Thinking about how saying no to taxes is saying no to infrastructure.
A.F.C. Wallace reminds us, in case we have forgotten, that revitalization is not inevitable. The only thing that is inevitable is that the Steady State will fail.
And New Orleans seems to be our canary-in-the-coal mine in this regard. Our early warning system, that systems are going down. And we don't want to fix them. No, it's just so much easier to blame politicians for the failures and vote them out of office. And vote folks in who'll make sure nothing long term ever gets repaired again.
No taxes? Sure, we can do that. No water. There are, after all, consequences. Guess we don't want to think about that one when we call for smaller government.
Don't get me wrong. This is not a plea to fix New Orleans.
It might be a plea to think about la longue duree. The long term consequences of our actions.
Or maybe not that either. Maybe, as good little anthropologists, we just take notes and watch it all fall. Watch cities fail, one at a time. Maybe we move in time to save ourselves. Maybe we choose to go down with the ship. Maybe we say science can cure all this, if we just put our minds to it. Maybe we say, it's signs from the heavens. Maybe we change our habits. And maybe there are no habits that need changing. And maybe this isn't any problem that needs fixing.
Cities rise. Cities fall. That's just the way it is.
Well, for that matter, planets form. Planets die. No big deal.
Maybe we don't think large enough. Think geological time. Astronomical time. It's just a question of scale. In la long duree none of this really matters at all, does it?
Okay, so this sounds just like another bummer post from another bummer pessimist. But that's not what I intend here. The cosmic view might really be a thing of beauty. We step back and watch the choreography and ballet of it all.
I mean, what else is there to do with our gift of human consciousness?
And the insight of 5,000 anthropologists, (or however many there might have been), that we collectively might have on every human problem in every corner of the world, does not really help us when the water's going down.
The wisdom of New Orleans is a very matter-of-fact, "I just deal with it. Baby."
So, yeah. New Orleans entranced me. Again. And what all did I do with it? Well, what do you think I did with it? I took notes. After all, I'm just an anthropologist. Baby.
Our session this time was 'On the Circulation of Trance: Trance in 21st century globalized society' or something like that. One of those times when every paper led seamlessly into the next, each amplifying the concerns of the previous. Each of us, in our own way, questioning the problems of authenticity, as trance and trance rituals become things of the past worth either retrieving or letting go. A fitting topic for New Orleans.
New Orleans, after all, specializes in entrancement. And here were 5,000 or more anthropologists hitting the Big Easy over the last week, each one of them it seems having a pretty hard time staying focused on the meetings when the city itself beckons so seductively.
Something happened while we were there, that might strike you as not terribly important in the scheme of things, given Katrina and the the BP oil spill in the Gulf. But I think it was indicative of more of the same to come.
It was a little thing. The water went out.
Can you say that? Meaning it the same way you might say 'the power went out'?
You go to brush your teeth or wash your face, or flush a toilet, and there just isn't any water. At all. Just like that. And you think, okay, there's something wrong in my room. But no. It's the whole town. With no water. And no warning.
And then the warnings come on the phone, the papers, banners on the bottom of your television screen: When the water returns, don't drink the water. Don't wash your face with it. Don't let it on your skin. Boil all your water. Or use bottled water.
Until we figure this one out.
And it makes me think just how incredibly fast a city can go down. That infrastructure in any community — from a major city to a tiny oasis in the Sahara — is a miraculous but fragile thing. We build it over very long periods of time. Build it up from scratch and watch it take shape, and grow, and provide more services. And come to depend on those services. We talk about the provision of schools, medical care, protection from fire or crime. Electricity.
But before that, and maybe first of all, comes the expectation — the necessity — of good clean, safe water.
In the Sahara we carried our own water. And we had maps that showed every well across the desert. Without knowledge of where those wells might be, one does not venture out across the Sahara. We rationed carefully. But we also knew where those wells were. And if one was dry, we knew where to expect the next one, and the next, in close enough proximity to survive. And in the Sahara, it's very clear when travelers have been mistaken in this regard. The remains of bone and metal litter the panorama, picked dry by birds and bandits in equal measure.
So, I'm used to this from the places that I've lived or traveled. Abroad. The power, if there is power, goes out. The water is rationed. You improvise. You share. You help your neighbors, or nobody survives. I've taken this for granted when I'm over there. The Middle East. North Africa. West Africa. Central. East. Systems on the edge of no system at all.
America, however, presents itself as immune to collapse of systems. But all systems eventually fail, do they not?
New Orleans has been giving us a lot to think about in this regard. We've been seeing one system failure after another, each one a little bit different. Each breach very possibly having no real, durable, long term solution at all.
In New Orleans, if anything, one expects too much water rather than none at all, right? But this week there was a drop in the water pressure on the east bank of Orleans Parish. And nobody's quite sure yet why. The Sewerage and Water Board power plant just failed. One report stated that apart from this the NOLA water system is leaking more than 70% of its water at present. I mean, that's worse than Damascus, isn't it?
Okay. So, I'm not talking here about how much I love New Orleans. How great the music is, everywhere you turn. How each person you meet is ready to talk your head off for hours at a time, just for the pleasure of the conversation. How walking the narrow lanes of the French Quarter makes my own town, San Francisco, seem downright boring, banal and tame. I'm not telling you anything about my visits with a voodon priest and meeting the newest young, sweet pythons in his brood. Or my tears over the loss of Jolie and Eugene, the elder pythons I remember. Nothing about the distinct flavors of 'Slap Ya Mama' spices, Alligator jerky, Swamp Fire Seafood Boil, or hot Cajun eggs. Not saying a word about New Orleans pride: the Bud Light 'Here We Geaux!' signs, the 'Geaux Saints' flags flying proud. Not a word about all that music. And not a word about Marie Laveau, the St. Louis cemeteries, and John T. Nothing about being called 'baby' or 'darlin' in that lyrical lilt every other sentence. Nothing 'bout just how very much I've loved New Orleans from the first time I set eyes on it about 25 years ago.
No. This is me, thinking infrastructure.
Thinking 'bout the Sewerage and Water Board proposing increased taxes to pay for projects to fix 'it' all — once they figure out what on earth the problem might actually be. This is me thinking about Mayor Landrieu saying, no, no way. No more taxes.
Thinking about how saying no to taxes is saying no to infrastructure.
A.F.C. Wallace reminds us, in case we have forgotten, that revitalization is not inevitable. The only thing that is inevitable is that the Steady State will fail.
And New Orleans seems to be our canary-in-the-coal mine in this regard. Our early warning system, that systems are going down. And we don't want to fix them. No, it's just so much easier to blame politicians for the failures and vote them out of office. And vote folks in who'll make sure nothing long term ever gets repaired again.
No taxes? Sure, we can do that. No water. There are, after all, consequences. Guess we don't want to think about that one when we call for smaller government.
Don't get me wrong. This is not a plea to fix New Orleans.
It might be a plea to think about la longue duree. The long term consequences of our actions.
Or maybe not that either. Maybe, as good little anthropologists, we just take notes and watch it all fall. Watch cities fail, one at a time. Maybe we move in time to save ourselves. Maybe we choose to go down with the ship. Maybe we say science can cure all this, if we just put our minds to it. Maybe we say, it's signs from the heavens. Maybe we change our habits. And maybe there are no habits that need changing. And maybe this isn't any problem that needs fixing.
Cities rise. Cities fall. That's just the way it is.
Well, for that matter, planets form. Planets die. No big deal.
Maybe we don't think large enough. Think geological time. Astronomical time. It's just a question of scale. In la long duree none of this really matters at all, does it?
Okay, so this sounds just like another bummer post from another bummer pessimist. But that's not what I intend here. The cosmic view might really be a thing of beauty. We step back and watch the choreography and ballet of it all.
I mean, what else is there to do with our gift of human consciousness?
And the insight of 5,000 anthropologists, (or however many there might have been), that we collectively might have on every human problem in every corner of the world, does not really help us when the water's going down.
The wisdom of New Orleans is a very matter-of-fact, "I just deal with it. Baby."
So, yeah. New Orleans entranced me. Again. And what all did I do with it? Well, what do you think I did with it? I took notes. After all, I'm just an anthropologist. Baby.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
missing her as I do — new orleans revisited
Maybe I don't have any right to miss her as I do. Maybe the missing is reserved for what people conventionally call 'family.' For kin related by blood or marriage. And I am neither. She is 'family' in that other sense. The sense of what we call family.
My home was her home. Her home wasn't home to her.
She escaped as often as she could. She'd be in Moscow. In Tuva. In Brussels, when she had to be. She was here. She was there. She just wasn't home at home. Although, to be sure, I'm glad I got to be with her in Stockholm and see what her life was like there. People loved her there as well. And she had — and has — family. And love. Lots and lots of love.
So why am I thinking about her now? After all, it's not her Yahrtzeit until May. Until Memorial Day. She died on Memorial Day (on a US calendar, anyway), which makes the mourning process feel large, really large — as if the country itself takes up the mourning cry... I never thought much about Memorial Day until I got that phone call that she was gone.
The American Anthropological Association Meetings will be held in New Orleans this year. Our panel will focus on Trance. We've got two papers on North Africa — Hager's on the Zar cults in Egypt, and mine on accusations of faking it in Tunisia. We've got Jeff on Christianized Laotian refugees. Tina on contradance trance. And Jennifer on Sulawesi trance now for television audiences. It's gonna be a wonderful panel. With one exception.
She won't be there. The queen of trance and structural categories. Researcher extraordinaire. Indefatigable writer, editor. Not a thrilling teacher, if truth be told. But most of all, beloved.
The thing about conferences is that it forms some strange sort of bonds. Where you only see the people you love at the height of their form, and in a spectacular setting not your own. Altered time, altered space. And presenting the apex of your research at that moment. A high, of sorts, which is more than an academic high. It's a high of ideas, and the confluence of ideas. Of resonance to discover your own research dovetails with another's. Comparing notes. Deciding to present together the next year, to further the research to the next stage. To see what happens. To build momentum. To go from high to high: the meeting of more than minds.
Last time, in New Orleans, we were together. The theme of the meetings was '100 Years of Anthropology.' It was 2002. I presented on Mouloud Mammeri, Algerian anthropologist, and founder of the modern Amazigh Movement in North Africa. Did anybody care besides me? Does anyone ever really care? I'm not sure.
But she cared.
And we played. This was pre-Katrina New Orleans. Pre-Deepwater Horizon oil spill. New Orleans both playful and serious. We spent a lot of time in churches, as I recall. We were cleansed. We were healed. We were cleansed and healed. She was in her element, that's for sure. I, for sure, was not. I don't do church.
But then we visited John T. Martin. Four of us, I think, together. The Anthropology of Consciousness meets the Druidic Voodoo Priest. And the rapport was magnetic.
He stared into our eyes as he spoke. It wasn't about the transmission of charisma. It was about thirst. He was thirsty for this meeting of the minds. His readings were spontaneous and on target. But so were hers. Ours. The snakes were all upstairs, I remember, except for Jolie, the albino. It wasn't how I had remembered it from my last trip to New Orleans — right after the Voodoo Queen had died. When the snakes (who refused to be photographed, but appeared only as shining light) were still downstairs.
Now John kept them upstairs. Eugene, especially. Although Jolie still came downstairs. A barometer for who may and may not enter a more sacred and less public space. I keep a remembrance of them — pieces of the skins they've shed — inside a special wooden jar, set upon a special place. I don't call it an altar to Dhamballa. I don't have to.
I wanted him to speak at our next conference. He wanted travel funds for all the snakes as well. It wasn't like he was going to leave them for anyone else to attend. It wasn't like they'd leave him on his own.
There was a rapport, a resonance, an electricity among us all. Those trite words "I-can't-explain-it" are apt, but also inappropriate. It's my job, is it not, to be able to explain it?
No, it was my job to investigate further. I promised to call, when he asked me to call. I looked him straight in the eye and made the promise.
And every day from then till now, I have thought of calling. Every single day. I've thought of him.
But I don't make phone calls.
He probably knew it. I hope he knew it. I'm a flake. Just terrible at keeping contact. Bad, bad, bad. What else can I say?
But now. We're going back to New Orleans. I wonder what he's suffered. I wonder whether he's alive. I wonder what happened in all those intervening years in which each and every day I thought about calling.
Because I miss her as I do, I will go back and find him, if I can. I won't do it for him, or for me. I will do it for her. On her behalf. Because she is the one who follows through.
I know I have a message for him. I'm not sure what that will be. Just to say she's gone? Just to say I'm sorry? Just to cry out how much I miss her? Not sure.
All I'm sure of, is I won't call.
I want to look him in the eye, face to face and mind to mind, and have him tell me why I'm there.
And what I can do to make amends.
My home was her home. Her home wasn't home to her.
She escaped as often as she could. She'd be in Moscow. In Tuva. In Brussels, when she had to be. She was here. She was there. She just wasn't home at home. Although, to be sure, I'm glad I got to be with her in Stockholm and see what her life was like there. People loved her there as well. And she had — and has — family. And love. Lots and lots of love.
So why am I thinking about her now? After all, it's not her Yahrtzeit until May. Until Memorial Day. She died on Memorial Day (on a US calendar, anyway), which makes the mourning process feel large, really large — as if the country itself takes up the mourning cry... I never thought much about Memorial Day until I got that phone call that she was gone.
The American Anthropological Association Meetings will be held in New Orleans this year. Our panel will focus on Trance. We've got two papers on North Africa — Hager's on the Zar cults in Egypt, and mine on accusations of faking it in Tunisia. We've got Jeff on Christianized Laotian refugees. Tina on contradance trance. And Jennifer on Sulawesi trance now for television audiences. It's gonna be a wonderful panel. With one exception.
She won't be there. The queen of trance and structural categories. Researcher extraordinaire. Indefatigable writer, editor. Not a thrilling teacher, if truth be told. But most of all, beloved.
The thing about conferences is that it forms some strange sort of bonds. Where you only see the people you love at the height of their form, and in a spectacular setting not your own. Altered time, altered space. And presenting the apex of your research at that moment. A high, of sorts, which is more than an academic high. It's a high of ideas, and the confluence of ideas. Of resonance to discover your own research dovetails with another's. Comparing notes. Deciding to present together the next year, to further the research to the next stage. To see what happens. To build momentum. To go from high to high: the meeting of more than minds.
Last time, in New Orleans, we were together. The theme of the meetings was '100 Years of Anthropology.' It was 2002. I presented on Mouloud Mammeri, Algerian anthropologist, and founder of the modern Amazigh Movement in North Africa. Did anybody care besides me? Does anyone ever really care? I'm not sure.
But she cared.
And we played. This was pre-Katrina New Orleans. Pre-Deepwater Horizon oil spill. New Orleans both playful and serious. We spent a lot of time in churches, as I recall. We were cleansed. We were healed. We were cleansed and healed. She was in her element, that's for sure. I, for sure, was not. I don't do church.
But then we visited John T. Martin. Four of us, I think, together. The Anthropology of Consciousness meets the Druidic Voodoo Priest. And the rapport was magnetic.
He stared into our eyes as he spoke. It wasn't about the transmission of charisma. It was about thirst. He was thirsty for this meeting of the minds. His readings were spontaneous and on target. But so were hers. Ours. The snakes were all upstairs, I remember, except for Jolie, the albino. It wasn't how I had remembered it from my last trip to New Orleans — right after the Voodoo Queen had died. When the snakes (who refused to be photographed, but appeared only as shining light) were still downstairs.
Now John kept them upstairs. Eugene, especially. Although Jolie still came downstairs. A barometer for who may and may not enter a more sacred and less public space. I keep a remembrance of them — pieces of the skins they've shed — inside a special wooden jar, set upon a special place. I don't call it an altar to Dhamballa. I don't have to.
I wanted him to speak at our next conference. He wanted travel funds for all the snakes as well. It wasn't like he was going to leave them for anyone else to attend. It wasn't like they'd leave him on his own.
There was a rapport, a resonance, an electricity among us all. Those trite words "I-can't-explain-it" are apt, but also inappropriate. It's my job, is it not, to be able to explain it?
No, it was my job to investigate further. I promised to call, when he asked me to call. I looked him straight in the eye and made the promise.
And every day from then till now, I have thought of calling. Every single day. I've thought of him.
But I don't make phone calls.
He probably knew it. I hope he knew it. I'm a flake. Just terrible at keeping contact. Bad, bad, bad. What else can I say?
But now. We're going back to New Orleans. I wonder what he's suffered. I wonder whether he's alive. I wonder what happened in all those intervening years in which each and every day I thought about calling.
Because I miss her as I do, I will go back and find him, if I can. I won't do it for him, or for me. I will do it for her. On her behalf. Because she is the one who follows through.
I know I have a message for him. I'm not sure what that will be. Just to say she's gone? Just to say I'm sorry? Just to cry out how much I miss her? Not sure.
All I'm sure of, is I won't call.
I want to look him in the eye, face to face and mind to mind, and have him tell me why I'm there.
And what I can do to make amends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
