Gina Harris's Blog, page 184

Band Review: Lowws

Lowws is an indie pop ambiance band from Oxford. That is their description, but I have to say that even though there are not currently many songs available, they convey greater depth than most of the other ambient bands I have listened to. There is emotion in the music, and an air of something otherworldly.
Previously known as The Sea The Sea, the band is currently doing some regrouping and getting ready to strengthen their web presence. They have potential, and should keep up their efforts.
https://www.facebook.com/lowwshq
https://soundcloud.com/lowws
https://twitter.com/LowwsHQ

Prejudice and Pride

There are some current events that I really want to react to, but I think it's best if I stick with the plan. In a way, it does all relate.
There are two thoughts that I left out of yesterday's post.
One is that it is easy to be racist in Portland because there are so few people of color, but that's not a very good excuse. I'm going to relate a different story that I read about the same time as the BrownInPDX Tumblr, but I don't think it was from there.
A black woman had applied for a job and she thought she had done well on the interview, but then she was told "I hired one of you before and she quit after a day, so you can see why I'm reluctant."
I guess my first response is to think of some of the horrible white employees I have seen, but that's not really an answer. The difference is that you see enough Caucasians that you know that it's not definitive. Shouldn't it be obvious then that other skin colors are not definitive? That just because you have only met a few black and brown people, it does not mean that there is not just as great variety of personality and characteristics as white? That sounds obvious, right?
So here are the things that I want to point out. One is about the stereotyping that we do. Yes there are often code words that are used, so we can pretend it's not about skin color, but the racist roots are there. The purpose is to maintain a social hierarchy where some people get to be on top, and people below them will defend their right to be on top as long as they don't have to be on the bottom.
I just finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last night. In those terms, the "pecking parties" may not be the point of "the Combine", but they do help keep it functioning smoothly. I see the desire to be above someone else manifest in a lot of different ways.
That is not how we are supposed to be. Any satisfaction that comes from it is illusory, and it produces real pain.
If the issue is that people want to feel special, it is also completely unnecessary. You are already special. I'm religious, so I will say that you're a child of God, and that makes you special. If you don't like that, you're a human being. You are capable of love and creativity. You can ask questions about and ponder your own existence in a way that other species can't. You are special - not more special than anyone else, but you don't need to be.
That leads to the other important part. When people see an Asian woman walking by, and assume she is Chinese, and greet her with "Ni hao", I believe there is a brag in there. Look! I know a Chinese greeting!
You are also reducing that woman to an audience for your great knowledge, and ignoring the fact that if you are in the States that she has quite possibly lived her entire life here, that even if her heritage is Chinese and not one of many other possible countries of origin, she still may not even know Chinese, but no, really, the important thing is that you know a word in another language. You lived in Asia for a year, so you know you must warn the Thai restaurant to not put any baby corn in your food even though it is not mentioned on the menu and there is in fact none in the restaurant.
It would be easy to go into tangents about street harassment now, or hair touching, or various micro aggressions, but I'm not going to. There's already a lot out there. If you are open to letting other people tell their stories, you can find it, and if you're not, my repeating it will just annoy you.
What I can say is that if you do know things, people tend to figure it out. Normal interaction will let people know if you're intelligent. If you're ignorant, that shows too.
That's why it was appropriate that this set of posts started with a story about going around L.A. with Steve and Jen. After a different trip with them (in Yellowstone), I wrote a post about humble brags, and how they were so unnecessary. We could enjoy each others' company and accomplishments, and it was good.
It's important to remember how things can be when humans get it right.
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/away-with-humble-brag.html

Baby Corn

Based on the people I follow on Twitter, I come across a lot of content that deals with racism that I would probably not otherwise see as a white person in the suburbs. One of those recent discoveries was the Brown In PDX Tumblr page. Reading over it was horrible in general, but this was the entry that made yesterday's post necessary:
http://browninpdx.tumblr.com/post/59124418747/baby-corn
I feel a need to dissect this a little.
First of all, Asia is big. We kind of covered that yesterday with some of the differences between Korean and Lao food. To be fair, they are not exactly neighbors. Vientiane and Seoul are about 3000 miles apart, so you should expect some differences.
I have heard some people talk about Northern versus Southern cuisine in India, and even people who don't eat a lot of Chinese food often recognize that there are some differences between Szechuan and Cantonese food. And Laos is not a particularly large country, but without me ever going there, and only interacting with the refugee population in two California cities, I still met people from at least three different mountain tribes. There were similarities, but there were also differences in food, language, and clothing.
I can only assume the woman in the story, when she lived in Asia, did not specifically live in Thailand, because surely then she would have said that, but what does she think Asia means? Let's even take out the Indian subcontinent and Russia (because it dips its toe in Europe), and the Middle East for no good reason, and still do you think that living in Mongolia would tell you what it's like to live in Malaysia? Shouldn't living abroad have made you less ignorant?
Okay, she was on shaky ground anyway. First of all, requesting things not on the menu your first time at a restaurant is questionable, and if you must do it at least leave the attitude behind.
Also, it is very questionable to use the term "you people". There are situations where it works. If I enter my work environment and find that my coworkers are standing around looking guilty in a sea of feathers and straw, I might reasonably say, especially if I have some managerial capacity, "You people have some explaining to do!"
On the other hand, if I am using "you people" to educate you about what foods you like, or what kind of characteristics you have, based on skin color that I have in fact mis-characterized because while the waitress did list Asian as a part of her heritage she also listed black and Caribbean, I am leaving myself open to criticism. I can see where employment in the Thai restaurant might seem like a context clue, but you think the largest continent on the planet is monolithic in its cuisine, so you lose all the points! Idiot! It would make more sense to walk into a French restaurant and insist that they make you a pizza in the name of Catherine de' Medici.
Incidentally, I think half the cooks at the Mongolian grill (which we all accept as not truly being characteristic of Mongolian food, but still tasting good) are Mexican, because one of them lived near our neighborhood. Actually, we had a next-door neighbor who was from Mexico but worked at an Indian restaurant too, so workplace is not a great predictor of heritage or ethnicity.
I believe tomorrow I will write a bit more about how we get people who feel so comfortable proclaiming their ignorance, and especially how we get them in Portland.
For now I will go back to my opening of yesterday, where Asian food makes me think "Yum!" That is pretty much true, because for me it means papaya salad and egg rolls and nasi goreng and Mongolian beef and pot stickers and bento and hom bao and a lot of different things that I like a lot. At the same time, Asian food includes sushi. With my combined aversions to fish, cucumber, and avocado, I do not love sushi. Asian food also includes a lot of foods that I have never tried, some of which I would probably love and others not.
(And the only thing I really remember seeing baby corn in was a dish of happy family that's claim to fame was including eight different vegetables. Adding it may have been a matter of running up the numbers, unless someone can use the baby corn clue to figure out what country that woman lived in.)
The continent of Asia includes mountains, hills, jungles, steppes, coastlines of oceans and rivers; of course there are lots of different foods. There are also different types of homes and jobs and modes of transportation. This could be said about even the smallest continent because there are some strong regional differences in Australia.
If you can accept that there are a lot of things that you don't know, and just enjoy the variety, that complexity is great. If you always feel like you know better than anyone else and need to show it, well, the world is the same size, but it's going to seem a lot smaller.

Asian Food

It is completely reasonable to think this is a terrible title. It works for my point, but that will not be completely clear until tomorrow's post. Personally, my first thought is "Yum!", but there are issues with that too.
About two months ago, my sisters and I were being shown around Los Angeles by Steve and Jen, two of our favorite people. Steve knows the city very well, and in general he thinks about things a lot, possibly over-analyzing, which I cannot criticize. This means that he can often provide little-known background information and make connections.
The discussion often turned to food. We would pass a restaurant, or a row of restaurants, or be near an area, and would start talking about that. While they do not self-describe as foodies, they have tried a lot of different places (and thought about them).
Anyway, there were two things that came up that made me think. One is that in talking about Korean food that you get in the States, Steve said that a lot of it is not what you would get in Korea, but it was developed here. The other was that in reference to Thai food, he said that the flavors were a lot more complex than Korean food, and it took some getting used to.
Just to give some context, Steve's parents came here from Korea, so that is his family background but he was raised here. I served a mission with Laotian refugees in Fresno, and Lao food is pretty similar to Thai food.
With the first comment, I had never known that about Korean American food. With the second, it made sense, but it was something that I never thought of.
I have done a little bit of Lao cooking, as well as watching natives cook. When I go into a Thai restaurant, most of the dishes sound familiar, but with different names. I am sure a lot of the dishes get Americanized too. For example, MSG was used a lot in the mission field; most restaurants probably shy away from it. There are other ingredients I doubt restaurants use, and I don't know what to call a lot of them because it's a different language with a different alphabet. So, there is something where I don't know what else to call it besides "rotten fish", but I bet it doesn't get used a lot.
Anyway, it was very common that regardless of your main ingredients, seasonings would involve something pungent (like shrimp paste), something sweet (like MSG or sugar or both), limes, and often chili peppers too. That gives you some fairly complex, layered flavors. I haven't tried any Korean recipes, but the seasonings do seem simpler from what I have tasted.
It was interesting to think about the differences in seasonings, but also not too surprising, because it is not unusual that as you get into hotter climates that more spices are used. Thinking about the Americanization of Korean food though also got me thinking about the camps.
Pho and banh mi are considered Vietnamese food, but a lot of Lao people served us pho. Now, I read in an article some time ago that those two dishes are considered to be influenced by the French colonists, both because of how they compare to other French and Vietnamese foods and because of their names. "Pho" the word is similar to "feu" for fire and as a food is somewhat similar to the Pot au Feu dish. "Banh" not only sounds like "pain" for bread, but is made with bread.
Okay, Laos was colonized by the French; did they get pho from that, or because when everyone was in the refugee camps, waiting for their chance to come to America, they all traded recipes? Maybe only for pho. Maybe the ingredients were easier to get.
While there I also once participated in a marathon egg-roll making session for Lao New Year. Is that a Lao food? Or something they borrowed from China? Or were they actually more like spring rolls and borrowed from Vietnam? I'm not sure.
Obviously you can eat and enjoy food without having a deep understanding of its origins, though that can enrich the experience. It's worth understanding that there is great complexity out there, and expecting complexity. Why I even mention that, I will get into tomorrow.
For now I will say that on that trip, though we discussed cuisines from many regions, we ate at an old-fashioned hamburger counter and a Jewish deli. And again, Yum!

Band Review: Nicholas Kade

There is a track on Nicholas Kade's 2012 album The Drive - "Deeper" that sounds like it is meant for slow dancing. It is not terribly slow, but it feels like you should be hanging on to your loved one, and finding the rhythm together.
(And if that sounds like a sexual reference, it's not. If I was going to go there I would point out "Bring Me Back".)
"Deeper" is probably my favorite track, though it was close with "Seven Hundred K", but the music is overall emotionally evocative, and well-preformed.
I focused on The Drive as it was kind of easier to find, but Kade himself has produced other work, both individually and in collaboration, and based on his web site will be continuing to do so. That's a good thing. I think he is one to watch.
http://www.kadesound.com/nk.html
http://www.reverbnation.com/nicholaskade
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk9l5GQbG9Lsy8naeZrDKQw
https://twitter.com/kadesound

Band Review: 0r4

Based in Milan, the proper pronunciation for that is Zero Erre Quattro. One thing he does is make chiptunes.
Recently I had reviewed a different chiptune maker and it got me into a discussion where someone was looking for other chiptunes, and I could recommend two. Not long ago I did not even know there was such a genre, so it felt good to be able to help someone.
One thing that sets 0r4's music apart is a cleanness of sound. Some artists will enhance their tracks with other instruments, but that does not seem to happen much here. (Tracks are made on a Gameboy Color with LSDJ according to his Facebook page.) There is still often a very danceable feel to the songs, while continuing to invoke the spirit of the games.
There is a greater selection of tracks available on Soundcloud, but there is a structured album available via the Bandcamp and Facebook pages, which may give a better sense of the artist's intentions.
http://0r4music.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/0r4milano
https://soundcloud.com/0r4
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDOZPTAIHeqtVx84hs5ivDw
https://twitter.com/zeroerrequattro

Marathon Reading

This year has involved learning more about my capabilities.
In some cases those are pretty good. Finishing Family Blood and the daily screenplay challenge in October had their difficulties, but I was able to do them, and I felt good about it.
I also planned to start the next screenplay right after Family Blood, and I was not really able to do that.
I needed a debriefing, for one thing, where I could get my head out of one world into the next. That took some journal writing, and research, and honestly, writing Family Ghosts would still be easier now than anything else, though I still believe that it will go better because I have done other things first.
In addition, sometimes I need to do non-writing things. That has mainly involved reading and video games.
I have mixed feelings about the video games. It doesn't feel productive, but if the point is to take a break, then refreshing my skills in Mappy and Dig Dug is a big change from writing.
For reading, I had several books that I was intending to read, and one I checked out by mistake, and one I had been reading forever and kind of hated but decided I would still finish, and I realized I was also really close to 100 books for the year. What if I just really focused on that?
Some of them were still just going too slowly though. I have currently completed ten books in December, which has only been possible because some of them were comic books and some were children's books, but I still want to read two more.
This would not be an issue if I did not have a social engagement tonight, or if I were not working extra hours right now. It would also not be an issue if one of the books weren't so pointlessly repetitive, or a different one - despite having interesting information - had been written in a more interesting manner, or if I had not played any video games at all, but only read. Still, I did read a lot.
I had decided once that life was too short to read annoying books, and I might have served myself better if I had stuck to that with two of these books, one of which I have already finished and one of which is still in progress. I was just feeling stubborn about them.
I am not ruling out reading two children's books tonight (my sister the kindergarten teacher has a wide selection) and then reading some in one of the other three books, but letting their completion happen in 2015. Regardless, there have been three trains of thought associated with this, and I want to get those down.
One is that challenging myself is good, but within reason. I love reading and writing, and they are both important to me, but burning me out won't help. The most pages I have ever written in a single day was, I think, 28, but then I didn't write again for a week. I have had weeks where 14 and 15 pages days were really common and I was able to keep going. Those weeks are ultimately more productive. It's important to build in breaks and recreation. That is especially important to remember while in the time of the year for my job where overtime is encouraged.
Two is that I know part of my frustration is that I am behind the schedule I want. I have books in lists arranged by things I want to learn, and timelines in mind for when I want to learn them. I am impatient for some of the things I don't know and the insight that I don't have yet. I am really impatient for the thing that I write that will ease my life financially.
If I gave up all reading or writing or exercise or any of those other things for a while, I might progress in one area, but I might also go bonkers. Caring about more than one thing makes me a better person and writer. And while my self-imposed deadlines aren't exactly arbitrary, they generally aren't world-enders.
The other thing is that I have realized that I have read a lot of Newberry winners, but not so much with the Caldecott winners. As I do care about art, and I have been impressed by the strength of many images in things I have read this year, that seems like something to work on in 2015.

Christmas Giving

Once I decided to make my book free it was easy to tell people about it because it was a gift.
Actually, let me back up. It was easy not to ask for money, but it still felt like I was asking for their time. Also, some people would be so impressed, but really, no one is checking for quality when you self-publish so anyone can do it. I will admit there is some accomplishment in completing it, but it doesn't feel that impressive.
Anyway, I did the general tweet and general Facebook post, then - knowing those are easy to overlook - started sending direct communications. First it was to the people whom I thought would recognize some of Sarah's problems as their own. That part was easy. Then it expanded to people who have encouraged me at various times, and friends, and fans of the All American Rejects. (I did not write to anyone in the Rejects, girlfriends, former girlfriends, or family members. That may have been a mistake, but it seemed presumptuous.)
I started thinking about other musicians, because while it could be easily seen as a vampire book, musicians should recognize many of the aspects of being in a band, and might enjoy it on that level. Mark's storyline in the sequel will relate to that even more.
I also started thinking about comic book people, because there are so many I like, some of whom have been really nice to me. Also, their work has given me pleasure. If I could return the favor, I want to do that.
It became a big concern that I was missing someone important, so I finally just expanded the full followers screen to look for names, and that took me back to last year.
A little over a year ago I started thinking of things I could do for people. I wanted to give everyone a Christmas present. It started because there were some things that I wanted to do for people and I realized I could. That was the real reason that I participated in Darkstar Day, because it was important to Steve Morris that people participated, and I could be one more participant. I bought Colleen's book. I took pictures of me with my bass and my dog for Bass Dogs. And I worried about missing people, so I created a spreadsheet.
There were three tabs: everyone I follow on Twitter, everyone I am friends with on Facebook, and then the people my family was praying for, because it's periodically good to check and see if there is something we should be doing besides praying.
Obviously I could not get everyone by Christmas, but I thought I could work from it over the year. I started on New Year's Day on Facebook by asking "What can I do for you?" They did not know why I was asking, but I did get three responses. I told Kim a story, and I became Chantelle's walking partner. I also kept blogging, though I would have done that even if Rebecca had not asked me to. I know social networking can be sterile and narcissistic, but it has been a good experience for me, and I thought it could be even better.
I did not keep the spreadsheet up. I did make more entries, but I found that except for the music reviews and songs of they day I was always in response mode. I would see that someone was having a rough time, and so I would send them 30 reasons to live, or send them something inspirational until they reached their 1-year clean mark, or whatever seemed appropriate.
This time around I wrote down several names to check on where I did not offer them the book, but I have messaged them, or seen an account change and followed the new account. I will be checking on those people for a while. It was just too many to get them all now, and for a lot of them it's probably not the book that they need.
This method is not bad. I do see people, and help them. Sometimes I know I make a difference, and sometimes I am not sure, but I try.
I do feel like there is this higher level, where I could be proactive instead of reactive. I do not seem to be capable of that yet. I am still so human.
So, this is my promise to you: I care about you. If I see a chance to brighten your day, or support you, I will. I am also really fallible, so if you think I can help you, ask. It makes life easier for both of us.
And if you missed Family Blood when it was free, you know, it's only $2.99. I would still love some reviews. They don't have to be long or fancy, just what you liked, or why you didn't like it, or something to let other people who know nothing about me whether or not this book is for them.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R1XYW62

With a little help from my friends

Last week I wrote about formative experiences that gave me an incorrect worldview. I was also thinking about the experiences that caused me to start unlearning. Often it took more than one experience for the sake of reinforcement. It was also interesting how often it was my friends that started to show me that I wasn't horrible.
That is an area where I have been really blessed, and there was some twisted luck, but it also leads to one more memory that I only recently think I understand.
One of the girls in my first grade class was Keena. We talked once about our middle names. If I remember correctly, her father told her that her middle name was Canadian Bacon and she was really embarrassed about that. In retrospect, I think he was just teasing her and she believed him. I can relate to that. She moved shortly after we talked and I was very sad.
We did not spend a lot of time together, so I always felt that it was weird that I remembered her so clearly, but then I put it together with two other things that happened in first grade, and I think I've got it now.
The other one I have written about, which was when a group of girls surrounded me on the playground and started talking about how fat I was. That was when I first saw myself as fat, and began disconnecting from my body, so it was a defining moment in that way. The other part, though, was the ringleader of that, Suzy, I kind of pictured as ruling all of the girls, so if she was against me I was out. I felt cut off from girls socially.
That might not have been so bad. I played with boys more anyway. At the time, it was pretty much all Star Wars and Buck Rogers, but that worked for me; I loved those things. I played with Casey a lot. He even came to my house for a Halloween party. I like him and thought he was cute. For reasons that I can only assume were silly, I wrote a list of boys I liked and put it in my desk. Shawna looked in my desk, saw it, and blabbed it, and Casey never spoke to me again. That kind of cut me off from boys.
I think that I did still play with other kids sometimes, but I really got to be a loner. I was already reading a lot, but I might have escaped more into it then.
In third grade I got lucky. Jennie moved here from Pennsylvania, and with a new kid I thought I had a chance. She became my first best friend.
I wasn't just lucky that someone came, but that it was her. She was also smart, and nice, and she was independent enough that it didn't matter if I wasn't popular. We played Dungeons & Dragons together (not with dice, we just made things up), and spent the nights at each other's houses.
Jennie also made it easier for me to be friends with other people. I know I had hung out with Josh before, but then we started hanging out again, first with him and Jonathan, and then Stephen. She is the reason I did Campfire in 6th grade, which led to my first time at a real restaurant, and my first attempts at woodworking and cooking. We did not always play together. One year I was almost always playing basketball at recess, and she might play Wall Ball or Four Square, which I never did, but we often jumped rope together and played imagination games. I still read a lot, but it wasn't my only option.
Then there were boundary changes, and all of the people I mentioned were going to Mountain View while I was going to Five Oaks. I imagined that the next three years would consist of hiding in the library, but against my expectations, I made friends. I found Karen, Anne, Ericka, Nicki, and Danielle, and then we ate lunch together, and sometimes had slumber parties, and did normal things.
Something that has been disturbing for me as I read about young girls is the concept of "frenemies". My friends and I were not mean to each other. I wondered why not. Was I missing something? Kind of.
Everyone else knew about frenemies. Jennie sat next to a pair in English, Ericka had a friend who pressured her to quit hanging out with us, and Karen got put on trial for being a bad friend before we met (they must have read Blubber). But we never did that to each other.
When I referred to twisted luck, what I meant was that I never realized that hanging out with people who were mean to you was an option. If they were mean to you, you were supposed to go away, I thought, and that's what I did.
There are pros and cons to that. I am socially awkward at times, and not skilled at small talk, but I am also straightforward, and have skipped many opportunities to have others whittle away at my self-esteem. There are girl things that I am bad at, but I feel like that is okay.
Here is the important thing: a weird, socially awkward kid was able to stumble upon great friends, who would be nice to her, and that she could cherish. There were kind people out there.
I am not still in touch with everyone. I have found some friendships that for a time were really good, and then we kind of outgrew, but it doesn't make the times when we were there for each other any less real. I have also found people that I know I will always want to hang onto. Sometimes there are long breaks between seeing each other, but then the catching up is good. Honestly, the busy lives aren't surprising when you see how talented and capable some of them are.
So looking back now, I think the reason Keena's move was so devastating was that it felt like my last shot at having a friend had evaporated, but it wasn't my last shot. It just took some time.
I still wouldn't mind catching up with her. I hope she found good friends where she went too.

Band Review: This Good Robot

I have wanted to check out the band for a while now, but this review is part of the magical thinking/summoning reviews I have been doing lately. It's a bit more complicated than the others.*
I want to let the band speak for itself to start, as their descriptors are more interesting than any I would use. At least on Facebook they list their genre as postindiefolkelectropopcore, and this is in the bio:
"Made up of comic book nerds, ex theater geeks and a few music theory snobs, This Good Robot is an 6-piece Science-Fiction/Indie-Rock band out of Long Island, NY. Pay attention, this song could save your life."
Personally I disagree with the "electro" in the genre line. There is a lot of acoustic, and while there certainly are times when they are plugged in, the term as generally used implies a greater emphasis on synthesizer than I hear. Their keyboards sound like actual piano. I would totally agree with simply postindiefolkpopcore.
Using my own descriptors, my first thought was that there is a real carnival atmosphere, with a feeling of wandering down a sideshow. It is amusing, but there is also an air of mystery and transience - maybe even some danger. The other thing it reminded me of was The Nightmare Before Christmas.
There is a sense of motion rather like a roller coaster on some songs, particularly "Woe is Barnaby Black" and some of "Call the Police", but there is a lot of rock in there as well. Even my favorite track, "The Human I Am", at first listen sounds like a quieter track, but there are some strong textures building and taking center stage on the bridge. It's an interesting mix, and it could easily be called eclectic, but then based on their bio, that sounds like what you should expect. Probably.
While there are no regular music videos on the Youtube channel, there is a fair amount of performance footage, as well as non-performance footage. It is interesting to watch them go back and forth between being really powerful performers and conversing as basically unassuming nerds (not a pejorative).
So it's a fun band, and worth checking out. Music is available via iTunes and Amazon, and tonight they play with Andrew WK and Patent Pending in Amityville, but I don't see any other scheduled show for a while.
http://www.thisgoodrobot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ThisGoodRobot
https://www.youtube.com/user/ThisGoodRobotMusic
https://soundcloud.com/ryanbirch-1
https://twitter.com/ThisGoodRobot
*Re the summoning, one friend has expressed a desire for a lineup consisting of frnkiero andthe cellabration, Science, and This Good Robot. It sounds good, and also sounds more probable than Science or This Good Robot making it out to Portland. So, that show, and me being able to go to it, would work, and I invoke it! That being said, I can totally imagine them sharing a bill with Gogol Bordello.
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/12/musical-magical-thinking.html