my political herstory

I've always been fascinated with understanding how minority parties and demographics are represented in politics. When I interned at the Texas Capitol under a Democrat in the House, I was eager to draft legislation regarding prisoners enfranchisement, women’s issues, and other minority issues.  Unfortunately, I was discouraged to find that in a GOP-dominated legislature, the name of the game was to stay on voting laws, electoral redistricting, and other pieces that would affect re-election. That sucked.  

The next semester, I went to Samoa, where I conducted research on Women in Parliament (or lack thereof).  I found that there were few explicitly binding rules in the structure of the Parliament, but subtle barriers for women to be elected and other procedural difficulties once they are elected.  I began to see how Westminster Style Parliaments inherently prefer masculine deliberation, treating grace and cooperation as vices, rather than virtues.  Samoan culture prefers collaboration (communal lifestyle) over competition (capitalist/American lifestyle). Ultimately, the Parliament introduced by New Zealand doesn't seem like it fits Samoa, but the interesting thing is that other women's organizations are doing the actual governing in Samoa.

So, when I returned to America, rather than going back to the Capitol,  I came to the conclusion that my efforts would be better spent “getting my hands dirty”. Since felon enfranchisement was important to me, I spent several years in Georgia, North Carolina, and Hawaii working as a Wilderness Instructor for juvenile delinquents and at-risk youth. I felt like Thoreau… separate from a corrupt government living in a cabin in the woods that I built by myself (and a small group of teenagers). I felt proud doing this, and would boast that my altered career path was making more of an impact than I ever could at a desk drafting legislation. But one by one, these camps (except for private run Pacific Quest in Hawaii) were closed for lack of funding.  It seems like affairs in North Carolina and the Texas Legislature should be unrelated.  After all, we are just a bunch of nominally "united" States.  A friend once said that if you were to flip the map of the United States, Texas looks like the head on a really weird animal.  That image is stuck in my head. Texas is big, has a lot of money, and holds a lot of influence, but you have to flip the map to be able to see it.

TBC...

Edward Snowden be like...

GIFSoup

Kupira Marimba

I am a part of a Zimbabwean-style marimba band called Kupira Marimba. 

I work part time at Fiddlers Green, an acoustic strings shop that has a lot of American "traditional" musician clientele (bluegrass, folk, etc).  When asked if I'm playing with anyone, I usually mention the assertion above, which in turn gets me a few raised eyebrows...

While it may or may not be obvious, I am not Zimbabwean.  Nor have I ever visited.  So what business does a Texan girl like me have in playing traditional Zimbabwean music?



My Summer Shield

I played classical marimba through grade school, and when I moved back to Texas from Hawaii I inherited one.  I boasted that I wanted to start Austin's first marimba band, but was pleasantly surprised to hear that there was a guy named Joel LaViolette who had already spear-headed that.  So I introduced myself to him, and learned that he had studied traditional Shona music while living in Zimbabwe, and he wanted to form a group that would maintain a focus on just that.  As someone who does "alottamovin" and is fascinated by other cultures, this piqued my interest...

I showed up to our first practice casually late, and my hair was still wet from swimming at Barton Springs.  Joel glanced down at his watch, and looked disapprovingly back at me.  I had a sudden flashback to my old band hall... feeling my gut sink when the band director caught me trying to slip in late.  This was the first indicator that Joel wouldn't be just another free spirit making some hippie music in Austin, TX, but that he was disciplined and there would be structure around what we did.

He asked what our intentions were for the project, I replied that I basically wanted to play gigs and inspire people to dance.  I imagined playing something like this:


In my initial mindset, the western music theory I understood would just transfer over. The music would maintain an African sound, but still allow me to keep one foot in the comfort of my own American music heritage.  I would be in my element, and I could show off my skills. My ego would remain intact.

Such is a summer shield.

On learning traditional Zimbabwean music
(from the perspective of a Western musician who has never been to Zimbabwe, but has a history of going places she knows nothing about)
Within the first few practices, it became apparent that this was going to be like learning a foreign language.  You can memorize the dictionary in another language, but to be "fluent" you have to understand context, cadence, and be able to pick up on subtle queues from those with which you're communicating. 

Learning the music, Joel would show us our individual parts, and then pair us together (one person is the lead- Kushaura, and the other person's part is relative/responsive to the lead- Kutsinhira ) in another room to interlock our parts.  Then we'd bring it together as a group and play the same song until we fell apart.  The songs move in cycles... there's not really a clear cut way to end most of them.

Reading sheet music/ being able to repeat what I hear have always been relatively easy for me.  In Kupira, the individual parts are pretty straight forward and repetitive.  But the way we interlock polyrhythmically is so foreign.  To a westerner, one might say most of the songs are in 12/8... but it still feels like a western rule being applied to a totally different way of thinking.  In fact... the more I draw from my previous music education while I play with Kupira, the worse I am at playing it!

And then there's the Hosho. It's a pair of gourd shakers with hundreds of seeds inside.  Hundreds of variables that snap, swish, roll, etc... The right hand of the hosho drives the pace... and yet the left hand maintains a laid back swing that implies "be patient... I will arrive when I've arrived".   In this style of music, time is not as rigid as western styles.  The hosho reveals all...

The only way for me to really understand the music is to spend time with it... to play the cycles over and over and over until I stop thinking about it... and start feeling. 

My Winter Shield

Most Texans I know dismiss the idea of a "rite of passage" or any other ritual as some hippie shit.  And yet we've still managed to create our own... How do we celebrate being alive for 18 years? Porn and cigarettes. What did you do on your 21st birthday?  The point is, these are markers of a place and time where we are about to change.  They give us a sense of significance.

While I was working at Pacific Quest, we facilitated rites of passage for troubled teens using the School of Lost Borders curriculum.  The idea is that our mind/bodies/emotions go through a similar cycle as the seasons.  Being sensitive to nature helps us understand this. Each season sends us through an "initiation" that prepares and develops us for the next. This curriculum is great for teens, because they change so much and so rapidly!  But this curriculum can be applied to anyone... we all go through these cycles, and at different rates.  This allows us to forget about where we think we "should" be, and acknowledge where we are, with understanding that the only constant in life is change.

A doodle of my "Four Shields"
North Shield- Winter

East-Spring

South-Summer

West-Fall

I've been back in Austin for almost a year.  I haven't had a real winter in almost 3 years... and as mild as it's been, I remember a time in Hawaii when I realized I needed to feel that change in seasons.  Living there, everything felt so abundant in so many ways.  But I almost felt overwhelmed at times with so little direction. 

For me, winter has been a time when I conserve my resources.  I don't take as many risks, I don't connect with as many people, and I go into something of an introspective hibernation. Some people might call it a gumption trap. 

"Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding."
-Pirsig, ZATAOMM

Literally and figuratively, winter is a time of barrenness. So now, I'm developing my Winter Shield.  It's a time when I'm accepting the fruitlessness of some elements in my life, but learning how to nourish them for the next seasonal cycle.

Okay, so real talk... an example of this "barrenness" is how my creativity suddenly dried up.  In the spring and summer, I cannot write enough.  I cannot make enough music.   I want to push the envelope and create new styles.

Now that it's winter, I am less inspired.  My creative buds aren't blooming... but I do feel that this is a time for me to be obedient to something.  To observe where my energy does go when I feel like I have less of it... to learn what it feels like to be devoted to something.  Now is the time to work, to be dependable, to observe, apprentice, and learn. 

... TBC

US Incarcerations: Our Million Dollar Band-Aid

A recent segment on NPR highlights the "million dollar block"-- quantifiable data on the ineffectiveness of the US Incarceration System. 

A few thoughts:
1)   Nearly half of all prisoners in the US are locked up for nonviolent crimes.  The "war on drugs" is responsible for the exponential growth in our prisons over the last few decades (i.e. possession of marijuana=>slammer time for otherwise harmless individuals).  What an inefficient use of our tax dollars!

2) There's a revolving door for most prisoners. Prisons can be seen as "institutions of higher criminal learning".  Individuals learn how to function in an alternate economy where gang mentality and "us versus them"-isms prevail.  Prison time not only affects the prisoner, but their families as well. 

When I worked with a TX House Rep, the issue of US Prison Reformation was one of my main concerns.  I aided in creating legislation (that would be rejected without much debate) such as giving felons and those on parole the right to vote.  Working for a Left-wing Rep. in a Texas Legislature left me feeling frustrated with formal politics, so I threw everything to the wind and went to take a more hands-on approach working at various wilderness therapy programs (informally known as "hoods in the woods") for juvenile delinquents.

I witnessed some of the most beautiful and also most horrific demonstrations of humanity in various programs where I worked... only to realize that this is not just an isolatable demographic of un-represented people that can be manipulated to function in "we the people"'s economy.  This is a symptom of a much bigger problem... and as long as we attempt to put a name to it and keep it quarantined, it's only going to get worse.