Feb 13 2000 Oh forgot to tell the stories of Friday night.It was weird transportation night: I worked at the cafe, then ended up going out with my coworker to a club in Stoke Newington (which is not far from Hackney, the area I live in). Anyway, when we got there, it was really nice, unpretentious dancy little place, quite crowded. A guy I had had a chat with at the cafe earlier was there, and he offered us all a lift home afterward. Me, the woman who my coworker is dating, him, and another woman. Klar? anyway, when we got to the guy's ride, it was a converted truck-to van (with a heavy plastc top on it), so we ladies in solidarity climbed in teh back. the guys got in front. Then we didn't move. There was a window through which we could see the front seat, and hear a little. Some man was talking to our driver. Sounded like a cop. i peeked around. no uniform. older white guy, yellowish-white hair. scruffy. He's giving them shit because people aren't supposed to ride in teh back of trucks, I think. Then he makes our driverman open up the back, and he asks us all where we're going. "esta muy borracho" one of the other girls whispers to me. The man is very, very drunk. he has trouble forming sentences. We all affirm that we are, in fact, going to our own areas of town. he says some more incomprehensible threatening stuff to driverguy, then goes away. Very weird. My coworker says the man did show a badge to them in the front seat. creeeeepy.

and BEFORE that, when we took a taxi to the club (four of us, not far, late at night, chilly out), the guy who picked us up was totally hyper. The car was really nice, a sedan. He was the owner and dispatcher of the cab company, and he told my coworker that since he(coworker) was a regular customer, he(cabdriver) came out himself and drove us in his own car because all his drivers were busy. He kept talking and talking about how busy it was. on and on. In between breaths/sentences he said to coworker (in the front seat): "you wanna buy some charlie?" Coworker pretended he hadn't heard this guy offer to sell him coke. gross. weird. feh. anyway the guy kept talking as if he hadn't said it. and we all got out.

Feb 12 2000First, I pat myself. got back my paper on the (assigned) question: "has long-term capitalist development in the Third World proven to be environmentally unsustainable?" in 3,000 words, dealing with case studies from no less than two continents! well, it ended up more like 8,000 words, what with it being such a fucking enormous question, with lots of really interesting reading. Despite the fact that I was so fed up with working on it that I totally missed two separate paragraphs in my proofreading, which were still in sentence-fragment note form, I got an A-! checkmarks by paragraphs, and comments of "yes" or even "quite" (how impossibly british) and even a comment of "good sentence". for a sentence which I will reproduce below for your pleasure (heh):

"The dynamics of development policy in so-called socialist (or state-socialist) countries and those of "capitalist" countries have similarities that cut across the capitalist/socialist demarcation, whereas their differences do not necessarily align themselves along the demarcation of the relation to means of production."

okay so it's long, but it did say what I wanted it to say.

I'm feeling rather purry anyway; had another long lovely talk with LDL tonight. Perfect timing on his part, because on the bus today I had a total tactile hallucination. I though of when he's had his head shaven and it's just grown out a little, and the feel of rough curls against his skull, as my hand curls around it... sensation just ran itself backwards and forwards in my mind until i ached. At a friend's house this afternoon, listening to and playing records, I pulled a photo of him out of my planner, and just looked at it, for reassurance.

eating almonds, tiptapping late at night. sleep soon.

Feb 11 2000 term paper time! And I'm being flooded with people from home. Plenty of the Toneburst crew, independently, decided to come to London for long weekends etc. four over the next two weeks. Luckily my biggest term paper is due before the first of'em gets here.

Like a total, total klutz, last night i twisted my ankle falling down (three carpeted) stairs on the way to the kitchen. I'm wearing my big boots today, laced up tight around my ankle. it feels kinda okay, but I dunno about working in the cafe tonight. Especially with big, taciturn, clueless boss lurking there ALL NIGHT (why i liked working teh night shift before was being unsupervised). This guy has no idea what's going on, he used to run a kebab shaop, and has no concept of atmosphere, or the fact that when the till doesn't work it's not a good idea to freak and spend half and hour lifting it up and sweating and snapping at everyone. It's a small room and he was literally scaring people away. including me, nearly. o well. off to grab a bite before class..

Feb 9 2000 got the hiccups. from making a midnight snack (2pc toasted edam on brown bread, 1pc toast and raspberry jam), running upstairs and gulping down half a slice without breathing. hic. that'll teach me. hic.

in between morning schoolwork and evening librarywork I went to a matinee theater production: The Amen Corner, written by James Baldwin. It had gotten rave reviews. undeservedly. The play itself is pretty good, with several great scenes and lines that embody why I love Baldwin.. but the actors were not up to it. especially the poor guy who was playing the angry conflicted young man.. he was trying so hard to have an american accent that his voice was strained beyond recognition and his eyes bulged. painful to listen to him. Actually nearly everyone who wasn't an american had trouble with that. And with loosening up in general. There is a lot of gospel singing in the play, and the singing was great, but there was no sense of release, let alone transcendence. A frustrating and kind of amateurish production. Still love Baldwin, of course.

I was thinking about the current headlines as of this morning, the hijacked airplane at Stanstead airport. I am especially interested in the situation, because the hijackers are anti-taliban rebels. Last night the flight crew escaped the plane, which means there's nobody to fly it. My dinner companion said he was not sure how he felt about it, that it was daring, but just gave the hijackers more reason to "blow the whole thing up to Allah.". Now. The thing is, I can't tell if the hijackers are muslim fundamentalists. The TALIBAN are definitely fundamentalists. If the ANTI-Taliban hijackers are supported by the guy the Taliban fingers as their organizer, well, he was the one who set up in another region of afghanistan, a less oppressive and more democratic regime (if I am to believe a couple side-news stories), with more civil rights especially for women. So. Nobody has been saying much about the religion of these guys, but what is certain is that the regime they are opposing is fundamentalist, oppressive, and generally not worth supporting. Has the US or England done much about this? (Like their righteous outcry about neo nazi Joerg Haider in Austria?) I don't think so. And people assume that these Afghani hijackers are muslim fundamentalists who will blow things up. why? because they hijacked? took hostages? and have beards and turbans and shit? hmmmm. well, what were the riots (right here in England) in Brixton and Toxteth? they were hostage situations, neighborhoods holding themselves hostage to embarass the government and extract promised money. Guess what (and it's NOT that I support terrorism), but terrorism is the small country's nuclear weapons. Only the US and the former Soviet Union held the entire fucking PLANET hostage with nuclear arsenals. Nobody else had that kind of bargaining power.
And as my roommate switched past the news i hear that the hijackers may be seeking political asylum for their own families who may be on the plane . don't think they're planning to blow it to allah then. hrmph.

Feb 8 2000 Worked tonight. At the Cafe. New boss there. All. fucking. Night. I hate being constantly supervised. feh.

Yesterday I scraped myself out of bed early, having been up late after the gig to talk to my LDLove and then soak my horny self in a hot bath (nicer and more soporific than a cold shower)... anyway got up to check out an independent film that an acquaintance made. One of the folks who's booked me to play the all female dj gig, who's also invited me to collaborate on a tune, did the soundtrack. The soundtrack was good. Film was pretty nice. Simple, no dialogue. Title: "Medusa's Dream." pretty much says it all, actually. more symbolist than literal, ok, no actual snakehair, but plenty beauty and some english ocean-side. appropriately dreamy. For seven minutes, it was a breath of sweetsalt air. Dunno about the acting (it's sure easier with no dialogue. sorta).

Doing some reading for my theis on property rights. Interesting stuff but pretty complex. I'll probably sketch something out here, when I have another breath.

Feb 6 2000 well the gig was okay. At first I thought it was the worst set I'd ever done. There was no monitor (that means a speaker by the dj so she can hear what she's doing), and the speakers were set up across the room facing me, plus I was next to the front door so people entering stood and chatted and greeted between the sound and me. next-to-impossible to really hear what I was doing. However, on listing to the recording (on my new minidisc recorder), it's not too terrible. there are a couple of shaky mixes, but some good ones too. FAC, being a good sort (by which i mean reliable, especially) came out to see, plus lots of people from the crowd i met through the cafe, artistmusic people. Plus a lot of pretty fashionable (hip) folk. I went on first,a nd tried to start out more chill and pick it up, but the promoter kept asking me to calm it down. I ran out of calm records (well records he would think were calm), I played all the experimentalinstrumental hiphop (Vadim, plus my man moose and true world order -"sound thoughts", buy it now in the hiphop vinyl section), all the tweakier jungle, then said fuckit and threw on Ambush label screamtek industrial plus dancehall. The response to the dancehall was the equivalent of 1980s establishment response to rap. A kind of squeamishness (regardless of lyrics which they can't understand and which when I play are not gaybashing), just an association, a racialized and class-based association. I can tell people aren't hearing the sounds in the tune, the production, the rhythm, but overall the sheer creativity of the choice of noises in a tune and the way they relate.. i mean the badass thing is nice, but it's not the point. But I could just tell, some people were going "oo, that's angry black male music.." in not at all so many words. it just made'em uncomfortable. get over it! I remember talking to a guy at LSE (a student) about music. Her said he loved reggae, roots reggae and rocksteady. When I said I liked dancehall he said he didn't. that dancehall was garbage. I admit I didn't really know what to say. I said "you know, I wasn't joking when I said I liked dancehall", and something about the production and sound choice etc etc, but really.. garbage? Then I was talking about Bob Marley and about militance and nationalism, and he said that must be hard to find in roots reggae, that it was so mellow. I wanted to smack him. has he ever realy listened to the lyrics? it's not just something to do bong-hits too, you know. grrrr.

Feb 5 2000 saw another nice film tonight with a friend (he goes back and forth from London to Paris, so from now on I'll call him Dual-City-Hipster, or DCH .. I see a glossary is coming soon). Anyway, the film's called "Wonderland" (not "next stop wonderland", which is an american film). Those in the States should see it if they want a sense of a lot of the London taht I interact with (except less student-artist-y), lots of it takes place in Soho and areas of London I spend a lot of time in, in cafes I walk by or have eaten in.

One bonus to this city is the pirate radio. I spend a minimum of 2 hours on the bus per day,and without my mini-radio I'd be much more bored. but given music i can look out the window and be completely amused. I can listen to a lot of stuff you don't here much of in Boston (except for Rockers, big up WERS emerson college radio reggae show especially my lady Irie-La a great inspiration to me). Anyway a good amount of drum-n-bass and old jungle, plus dancehall and roots reggae. However, the reggae shows lead to more ambivalent moments, like the live Capleton gig broadcast a few nights back.. the very popular theme of burning, "inna de fire" and "burn dem" choons, which sound great until I check the lyrics. live he sang: "burn de batty bwoy/burn de sodomite/burn injustice/burn exploitation." it's not exactly irony, and i can't exactly laugh. something twists inside.

Feb 4 2000 I saw "Limbo" on wednesday night. John Sayles --wotta director. ("Return of the Secaucus Seven", "Men With Guns", "Brother From Another Planet", "Lone Star", "Matewan" quite a repetoire). It's funny.. a lot of his movies are so much greater than the sum of their parts. In "Limbo", for example, the music isn't really up my alley, some of the dialogue is a little stagey (especially early on),and I'm not a big fan of Mary E. Mastrantonio.. but somehow the movie reached this shaky-breathed place in the middle of my body. Really touched me. If it's not too cliched to say it, maybe his movies are flawed like the characters are, lovably, the way people you like are flawed but you still care, and it's part of why you care. plus i always always like his politics, he's not subtle but he's not preachy. and the "controversial" ending? i loved it. also quite out of character for Sayles' style, but effective.

I also have some gigs coming up. so much for boredom. From boredom straight to stage fright. Although there's this one gig, the guy kept saying "next monday. no in two weeks, no really the first monday in february.." and then I ran into him on wednesday and he said he wants to wait till the next one because the following monday will be an all-female-dj night. I am deeply, deeply ambivalent about that. So far I haven't felt it an issue that i am female, and this kid, who i like, has just made it a defining characteristic? feh. and it's going to be advertised as an all-female dj night... it really made me feel odd. I mean I hadn't been thinking of myself as a "female dj" when talking to him, because he's a friend, someone who I feel comfortable with. And then i got wicked self-conscious, just like that. Also, the night will be preaching to the converted. I mean anyone who believes girls can't mix (and there are such morons out there) will not come to "girls night". So what's the point?