Saw toystory2 last night with FAC. the perfect break from studying for my stats exam. wheee! I laughed until my face ached. It's so rare that I see a comedy that doesn't bug me in any way. It's just damn funny. Especially all the StarWars mockery. The entire opening sequence they're like: "you want animation? here's edited highlights of every phantomenace trick, done better and funny, and without racist stereotyping." hah!

been swanning around the town in this asymmetrical fakefur wrap (black), feeling glam and soaking up the springtime which does seem to be making an appearance. It was WARM yesterday. And today it's still pretty mild. I could get to like this. Then again, I have to pack for Jamaica, where I'm spending 2 weeks trying to be a researcher. over/under dressing is a fear.

March 10 2000 Friday I went to an all-day conference on doing research on/in the Caribbean. Power, Positionality (and something else beginning with P). By LSE standards it was touchy-feely stuff. But I was left feeling that this is really where it's at. Some of the papers/presentations were just fascinating, and really showed people trying to get into what's happening, especially in an interview situation, on different levels of power and communication. It's easy to do mushy (touchyfeely) reflexive stuff, but then it's easy to do bad economics too. The challenge is to do it well. And in some ways it may be harder to do that with qualitative research. The point has been made repeatedly, but for some reason it doesn't seem to sink in to some, that you must identify whatever it is that you can judge will affect your research. Power relationships (through matrices of class, race, gender, age, nationality, etc) are key. There was also a lot of frustration aired, not least of which was: why is all the self-critical or self-aware and self-identifying research coming from women and people of color? unless white men do it as well, it just normalizes whitemaleness again. Many at the conference are sick of always talking through their own identity because it ends up ghettoizing them. This relates to the kind of work one is doing, and how one is speaking to power. Because, especially in research, your audience may be academia, but academia on several levels. Not only are 'insiders' reading your work, people who maybe more mainstream, more entrenched, more powerful (able to affect your hiring or publishing), but also students, people coming into the field. And one of the things that keeps folks out is when they can't relate to the stories being told in the field. In research this comes out in reading of articles where i am amazed at the ease with which some authors assume they are incorporated into the society. With the assumptions they make about who it is who speaks to them. When I think about little old me heading to Kingston in a month, to try to talk to academics, maybe some lawyers, and hopefully some musicians and record label people about my research, i don't see how i will suddenly be transformed into the authority and surety so prevalent in the texts. But this conference and the paper presented really gave me an idea for how to think constructively about all these differences (which often seem disadvantages) from the researcher-character: my age, my size, my gender; as well as about how my similarities to the researcher-character: race (sort of, though i don't know what they think of Jews in Jamaica), class, nationality-- are really double-edged as well.

From that conference, I headed home to pick up a sweet message on the machine from my coworker who just got married today. I had missed the wedding cuz of the conference, but i headed to the party at his house. He's Venezuelan, and it was a half-to-a-third spanish speakers in the room. I can follow most of the conversation, but I cant speak. Then some Germans and even some Brits showed up, as well as my HSC and more folk switched to english. Other folks who used to work at the cafe showed up, and I found out that even more folk have quitin the past week. hah. the stupid owner man is doomed, i tell you. Brought records along, and by the time I got up to play, had a sizable mess o folks dancing to the ragga jungle tunes. It was a great vibe, and a decent set, and a guy there invited me to dj at a weekly event he runs in Stoke Newington (not far from me, a historic gangster area). Stayed around, lounging on the nice mats on the floor, dancing to '60s latin music, and chatting with such a nice group of people until about 4:30. snagged a ride home with the guy who gave me a ride a few weeks ago (see below).

March 9 2000 Well last night was the final evening of my boston pals' visit, and it truly had it all. We went record shopping in islington, and Dj Flack picked up and then GAVE TO ME a killer ragga jungle tune from '94, Barrington Levy vocals on a classic classic ragga anthem. Such a fab tune I can't even believe it, and he just gave it to me. what a prince.. Then we headed up northways to his dad's place on beautiful Highgate Hill. When we arrived at the house there was a message on the machine from a friend of his, inviting the two of us to DJ that night at a club in Soho. Miraculously another dinner guest had a car, so after a tasty dinner we bounced to my place to pick up some records and then headed to the club. It turned out the dj who they'd booked had bailed entirely, so we played from 9 to 11 pm! not many people, comfy couches, but a better vibe than the last gig in that we could play whatever we wanted.. And it was a fun exercise, because DJ flack does more hip-hop, and scratches like a master (very expressive, not just wiggedywiggedywiggedy), whereas i can't scratch my way out of a paper bag (...yet..) but i beatmatch, but I have more jungle and drum'n'bass. So the setup is this: DJ Flack needs the right-hand turntable free, and sparse beats so you can really hear his scratching. that means that whenever I mixed i had to try to leave the right turntable enmpty and the right kind of tune running on the left one. It's atotally artificial constraint, but it forced me to get up in my records in a different way. sharing the turntables is so much fun. we kind of hit a groove too, where I would mix twice then let it run so he could scratch, then mix twice again and let it run... good fun good fun.

On Monday night, we all caught "Rosetta" a new film by the Belgian brothers who also made "La Promesse". It is a bleak bleak movie. It kinda did for me what John Berger's King did for me. It reminded me of why I study economics. not because it gives you a handle on big systems and arrangements and rules, but actually the opposite. In a lot of economic debate, and even more in debates between economists and activists or non-economist leftists, or even in a debate within myself on economic issues, it becomes very easy to lose a sense of urgency. This is partly because of the atttention to the big picture, in which you can say "sure this a a bad effect, but, overall, things are getting better. Even though this person (or these people) may be suffering, on the whole, people are better off, and they are not suffering as much as they would be." I do think that in some cases, it doesn't matter if it only happens to one person, that's too much, you have to take responsibility. Watching Rosetta live without almost any humanity, stripped down to the bare pursuit of her goal, you fell (or I felt) "nothing is worth this. nothing nothing nothing." I don't want to lose that feeling.

March 7 2000 it's been a nice few days. virtuous me, i even DID do some homework yesterday. econometrics/statistics hooey, punching numbers into Microfit, our trusty econometrics program in the library. And getting cosier with regression equations and other beasties. Mostly though it's been enjoying my pals from Boston and taking them to my favorite haunts.. so it was brick Lane and Spitalfields markets on Sunday, then soho and the curzon to see a flick on monday. Today was Art Day and that's what I want to talk about.
Saw two shows: one at the whitechapel art gallery (all links provided tomorrow or the next few days when I can connect for free from school). Conceptual art from the early 1970s. Most of it totally rocked. I mean it was really good, and smart and funny. A touch weak on the gender front.. I mean nearly all of it was by men, and only two or three pieces had muchto do with gender.. i don't just care cuz it's a topic I'm especially into, (or get reconstructed if you think it's just cuz i'm a chick), but come on, it's the 70s, gender and feminism was kind of a big deal, and lots of conceptual art was about that. The two pieces explicitly "about" race and about gender were in the "political art" section. as separate from the rest of the exhibit. i know, classification and division is a bitch but still that seems a bit weak. On the other hand, many of the pieces were about classifying things, and i found them fascinating. One person had collected a ton of English postcards of "rough seas" --like a big wave curling above the shore, and done a survey of the coast and marked maps and charts with the exact locations of the pictures, and made all of these tables classifying the postcards and noting the artists' name (if printed) and identifying categories.. it was data collection on ephemera. Another one was a machine for classifying and identifying different kinds of interactions between people. I never noticed that as a theme from that era before. so interesting.. all these library science and quantitative research methods.. I wonder if they were art students or what jobs they had... Anyway that show was still good, despite the holes. and then.....

PANAMERENKO. This man is the koolest! It was by far the best show I've scene in years. He makes mostly flying machines, life-size models, paintings and sketches, incredibly detailed and well-thought-out. Also theories of space and physics for space travel. The gallery was an interesting brutalist concrete structure, and it was peopled with little winged machines with pedals or pumps and balloons, or rotors and magnets.. And all the notes were written by the artist and very funny. Comments and descriptions of attempts to get this or that off the ground, or why it was a particularly good design. It made me think of Wile E. Coyote, only with poetry. but so funny, somehow! All these romantic, heroic, dashing machines, in cream-colored epoxy resin, steel and wood and propellers everywhere. This enormous air-balloon machine which he apparently built to impress Brigitte Bardot as he would hypothetically land in her backyard, with a hilarious account of his attempt to fly it, his apprehension, and that of the local police and the farmer on whose grass land it was resting. hard to put into words but seriously inspiring and. erm. uplifting. (heh)

Mar 6 2000 I'm finally getting search hits again.. I think they often don't show up because of my i.am pointer thingy. it was all so you could type in less to get to this page. whoever it is that you are. (feel free to let me know, via guestbook or email) Anyway, they are pretty funny: "joerg haider fanclub" and "sweetsalt music" are my favorites. "skinhead tattoos" is not so interesting. If anyone has linked to me from their site, if they could actually put the long version of my address (whatever's up there now) it means i will know more where fokls are coming from, which is always fun.

This weekend, my pals from boston are in town, one of whome recently revamped his website and put a flash version up, which you must check out. We decided to see an intriguing if weird-sounding production: Godard's "Alphaville", in an IMAX theater with live music by Scanner. It was horrendous. Really really bad. I think I like the movie, but it was not an IMAX print, it was regular 35mm, and then stretched horizontally with an anamorphic lens, so that everybody was really squat and looked like munchkins. And any closeups of faces were too distorted to look at head-on, and whenever the camera moved, it was totally disorienting. Scanner's music was also boring and didn't interact with the film much. Plus the whole event was delayed and hour and a half, and we missed the last train. it seemed quite amateur and ill-thought-out. However, we did manage to make it to a club to catch Ollie Teeba(from the herbalizer)'s set, which was absolutely splendid. Great tunes, impeccable mixing, and the man can scratch like a fiend. It was in a smallish venue, so we stood directly in front of him, with the decks just at eye level, and soaked up the whole thing. Saved our evening, thanks Ollie.

Mar 2 2000 Monday night a friend from Boston (kinda a friend of a friend) stayed over. Actually, monday and tuesday. We went out both nights, monday to bar Rumba (Picadilly) to That's How It IS, a very popular evening of mixed beats and tunes, organized by BBC Radio ! DJ Giles Peterson, with guests. Two weeks ago Kruder (of Kruder and Dorfmeister) played. Monday night somebody whose name I couldn't catch palyed. It's an unpredictable mix of music, usually, but it's often interesting.. Anyweay there were these two tunes played that I think were in a genre that I don't know the name of, unless it's a subgenere of something I thought I didn't like.. Intense R&B/Soul vocals (a la stevie wonder plus a little of the new D'Angelo), over a spare rythm track of really good beats. Kinda spare, just vocals, drums and a little bass. But the beats were complex, not simple hiphop or garage or house. not quite Drum and bass either. It had a lot of tension and complexity. interesting.... I wonder if there's a name for it?

Then on Tuesday I worked at the cafe. my last night, really. And FAC come by and stayed all the way until closing. Bostongurl came too, and we all headed down to brixton (yay!) where FAC lives, to go to Dogstar, which has hiphop on tuesday nights, with ninjatune djs plus sometimes the dj from portishead (whose name I utterly, utterly forget). This gentleman I know through cafe folk had showed up as we were closing, fairly lit, and asked to tag along. He was not quite coherent and I argued enthusiastically with him on the train, over nonsense, mostly to see how he'd respond. in retrospect, i hope he doesn't take it too seriously. i wasn't. But I figure if you're drunk enough to say silly things, and your drunkenness makes you inflict them on other people, then i have the right to inflict my sober arguing on you. Anyway, he offered to pay for a cab home (since he'd never have made it in his condition), and as he works in The City for big dough, i was down with that. so we all got a lift back up and east. Which was a convenience i am unused to, and it's pretty nice. At the club, he pretty much slept with his head on the table after his first beer in the place. Me and bostongurl and FAC sat around and watched folks and the DJ, who played some good tunes, some commercial tunes, scratched a little (pretty well), didn't mix much.. while bostongurl was being chatted up by someone. then FAC left. Soon after, I go up to dance, bgurl's boy has vanished. drunkboy is still asleep. and the mood changes a little. all of a sudden i notice that there are about half the number of women that there were before. the remaining men are getting aggresssive. Bgurl gets chatted up by someone who talks her ear off while she's obviously not interested. I come over and start talking to her (cockblock #1). she excuses herself to go to the loo. he tries to chat with me: "are you from boston too?" "Yep." "I was talking to your friend. she didn't seem very interested." "Yep." he goes away. later, as I'm dancing, I put my hand up to shade my eyes from a light, which this enormous (6foot6 at least) white hippy-hiphop guy takes as a signal to plow across half the dancefloor to attempt to grind pelvises with me. i turn sideways as he aims for me, gesturing him to keep right on going past me, buddy. it takes him a minute to get it. I turn around and another guy is well, not chatting, but trying to sit on the chair that bgurl is sitting behind and resting her feet on. he wants her to keep her feet there. basically, he's inviting himself to sit between her legs. she moves to the other side of the table. he follows. i come over (cockblock #2) and chat with her. he starts trying to touch my arms, my tattoos, he doesn't seem able to speak, he's so drunk, but he's trying to ask me something about them and this act is inextricable from trying to touch me. he's a grabby man. we decide it's getting ugly, wake drunkboy and get out. Overall, the music is good, but it was a weird timespiral: after a crucial cutoff point, the night gets desparate, or the men do, I should say. Couldn't tell if it was the time or the ratio of men-to-women, but the mood swung hard in an unpleasant direction. o well.