E. Amato's Blog: Zestyverse, page 3

Quote of the Week - Blake

"If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out." 

~William Blake

That moon was brilliant. There had to be a moon quote today! And who better than Blake?

Happy Monday!

Quote of the Week - Kapoor

Image from Ai Weiwei's installation at Alcatraz

“It is important that artists are not outside the equation, we don’t stand on the sidelines. Artists are part of the story of a response, we cannot stand aside and let others make the response.” 

~ Anish Kapoor

It's so easy, as an artist, to feel outside, or marginalized, but it is in standing - or walking - with and for the outsiders and the marginalized that we have our greatest power. Responding to the call of social justice we connect across borders and create something new.

The quote is from an article about Kapoor and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei walking in London in solidarity with the refugees.

Practivist of the Week - E. Amato

Practivist of the Week - E. Amato

[Editor's note: E. Amato would like you to know that she is the editor of Zestyverse in the interests of full disclosure!]

How old are you, if you don't mind?



What is the main focus of your practivism at this time and how does that manifest? 

The main focus of my practivism at this time is creating live performance events that promote diversity, sustainability, and connection. After over a decade of promoting and producing events, I have begun to percolate a formula that allows maximum connection with the audience and sustainability for artists, audience, organizers and community. As a promoter and producer, I have always made sure there is parity on my stages between genders, orientation, age, ability, ethnicity, etc. In my time promoting, I have seen this parity decrease elsewhere. The lack of women on festival stages this past season has been well-documented, for example. My practivism is refocused on this issue for my own events, as I find it has renewed importance.

In 2013, I did an event called Secret Door featuring poets and musicians. It was in a tiny space that we designed specifically for the event. The evening took on a life of its own - the barrier between artist and audience erased itself and collaborations formed. This model has wider applications and can be partnered with community needs to develop audiences, spaces and creative relationships in ways that are financially sustainable. In order to learn and experiment more, I've accepted a place in the MFA, Creative Producing program at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In order to get there, I still need financial support, so I've begun a crowd fund to help.

What route did you take to get here?

The longest possible one! I began as a performer, who decided to direct. I've always written. I went into film production, which gave me a huge amount of down time between jobs as well as a strong sense of things being far too big and taking far too long. The combination of these led me - indirectly, of course - to get on stage and read some of my poems. I loved the immediacy and the audience being right in front of me instead of in a a darkened movie theatre 24 months from now. This led to a B-career as a performance poet. With the organizational skills I had from production and my voice as a poet, many encouraged me to start my own venue. My unpredictable work schedule made me start with one-off events that I knew I could actually attend! This led to hosting,then a monthly venue, and the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, among other things. Now I had three full-time careers! I did this for about ten years. Then I fell. My body did not bounce back - my resilience was worn out. I had a vision of what I wanted to build, but I did not have the strength, focus, or resources. It was frustrating and even debilitating in its own right. Getting back on my feet was a lot of work - I'm not sure I'm even all the way there, yet.

But there was also inner work to do - did I still have the commitment to the vision I had before everything went so wrong? I knew that in order to achieve this goal of the MFA and building a creative entrepreneurship I need more than one  hundred percent commitment. I felt sparks, but I knew sparks weren't enough. I continued to self care and meditate, stretch and strengthen. 

Eventually a flashpoint showed up - that place where I had to commit or choose another path. I knew that this was not a dream I could let go. I embraced with the strength that I had, but I knew I'd need to create community support around me to fully enable this vision. 

This is a great way to start this journey, as I feel sustainable arts require community involvement and collective choice-making. The entertainment industry's practices lag far behind where we actually are in 2015. In order to move them into the world we are living in, we have to move away from a hierarchical and pedagogical model of taste and presentation and towards one that will engage people viscerally. People need strong engagement now to counter the large amounts of time we spend partially engaged through our devices or altogether disengaged. 


I hope I've answered the questions! i'm so used to being the one asking! If you're a Zesty fan, a fan of any of my work or just stopping by and like the sound of all this, you can support by donating, sharing or just sending great energy! Thank you!

Why I Don’t Watch WWE Anymore by BH the Uncivilised

By BH the Uncivilised

I’ve been a wrestling fan since the early 90s. Watched WWE (back when it was called WWF) when I was a child, and all my friends watched it, and as an adult, when all my friends were saying it was stupid. Now, after some twenty-five years, I no longer watch WWE.

Recently Hulk Hogan was fired from WWE for using racially insensitive language in a private setting. On the surface this might seem perfectly reasonable, considering the public nature of the wrestlers and the company. But old school fans remember Vince McMahon, head of the company, on their very own TV show, in front of millions watching all over the world, saying “What’s up, my nigga” to John Cena. Thus, Hogan is just the latest example of the organization’s hypocrisy.

WWE have a long history of racial insensitivity. Many non-white wrestlers' gimmicks (the characters they portray on TV) were some kind of racial stereotype. Sometimes it worked, other times it was just awkward. In August 2014, former employee Alberto Del Rio complained of racism from staff. Del Rio was fired after slapping then Social Media Manger Cody Barbierri for making a racist joke. WWE were originally going to suspend Del Rio without pay, but Barbierri threatened to sue the company if they didn’t fire him, so Del Rio was fired. WWE never made an official comment as to what happened, nor stated what, if anything, happened to Barbierri as result of his alleged comment. Though it is worth noting that they never denied it either.



It’s not just racism. On more than a few occasions they’ve been inconsiderate of religious beliefs. Most notably the tag team match of Vince McMahon and his son Shane Vs Shawn Michaels and God. Yep, God, except God was a spotlight. What made this especially awkward was the fact that Michaels was a recent Born Again Christian. The build-up to the match included Vince McMahon going to a church, spitting holy water, and on the day of the match, telling ’God’ to get jiggy with it.

McMahon has also run several story lines where he gets to be intimate with the hot chick. Bear in mind that this is the Chairman of the company putting himself in stories where he has his employees dance for him, share a bathtub with him, feel their breasts and French kiss in front of his wife. Speaking of kissing, he also ran the “Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club”, where several wrestlers, an announcer, and his own son, kissed his bare ass on television.



Everything I’ve mentioned so far could fall under a couple of categories: “Only one side of the story” and “They obviously agreed to do it.” WWE have acknowledged at least some of their, shall we say, WTF moments. Which is one of the reasons I kept watching. The final straw for me came after Triple H appeared on the Stone Cold Steve Austin Podcast in February 2015 and was asked if Chyna would ever make it to the Hall of Fame (HoF). Chyna is the only female to ever hold a men’s championship, considered a legend amongst wrestling fans, and the ex-partner of Triple H. He replied no, citing her actions after leaving WWE as the reason. After leaving WWE (or fired without being told, according to Chyna) she briefly entered the adult entertainment industry. After leaving adult entertainment, Chyna settled in japan and worked as a teacher.

There are plenty of people who’ve had less than stellar life experiences after leaving wrestling, including one who killed a man. Chyna, like others in the HoF, had been working to get her life in order. Triple H chose to drag her through her history again. When Chyna was employed by WWE, they fully supported and promoted her posing for Playboy magazine, even working it into her story line. This was not just hypocritical, but potentially sent a whole new generation of people looking for something she was trying to move on from.

I haven’t been watching WWE for a while now, maybe one day I’ll come back to it. But for now, I am a wrestling fan, there’s only so much hypocrisy one can take.


BH the Uncivilised, aka Bunmi Hazzan, film geek, gamer geek, general all round geek. I've been writing since the Cretaceous period my life experience is long and varied, plus I'm kinda mysterious, some say I'm d

Dear Able People: I Eat. by Jennifer E. Hudgens

Dear Able People: I Eat.
by Jennifer E. Hudgens

You know the feeling that you get when someone holds you down to tickle you, then you’re laughing uncontrollably, and you have lost control over your body? It’s the same sort of fight or flight that rolls through a person with anxiety -- this is what it feels like to live with an eating disorder. As of July 28th, I will have hit my six-year mark of having had a gastric bypass. Just prior to the surgery I weighed 500 pounds.

I was proved sane enough and ready to undergo one of the most damaging and transformative things I’ve ever experienced.

I lost around 200 pounds in less than six months. I had a difficult time looking at myself in the mirror, I didn’t know who I was looking at. Among the massive amount of speed bumps and trauma that go with having this sort of surgery, I had to finally face the dark thing that brought me to 500 pounds in the first place. At one point I’d gone back to smoking three packs a day and living on diet pills and laxatives. I’d lost over 320 pounds and I could not get thin enough. If you see a picture from around that time my cheeks look caved in. One might wonder what causes a person to gain that much weight.

When I was little and still in diapers, I was molested. The molestation went on until I was around twelve years old. I had some unsavory family members that to this day make me sick to even think about, let alone see, at family functions. I was withdrawn, often kept to myself, and had very few friends as a child. When I was ten, my younger cousin and I had a shared birthday party. I was taken aside by one of the men that had hurt me; he told me that if I ever told anyone about what he had done, he would kill my mother.

That day, I gathered a large amount of cake on a plate, I hid in a room and shoveled as much of it in my face as I could. I ate so much cake that I made myself physically ill. There was a bathroom in the back of the house that nobody really used; I hid in there, feeling like I was going to vomit. That’s exactly what happened. After vomiting every bit of that cake and crying like crazy, I felt euphoric. I felt like I was in control.

I’d like to think if I had been an adult around a child that was so obviously introverted and shy, and had any number of signs of abuse, I would have done or said something. This is not to judge my parents, they worked hard, and provided the best they could. All of those years, nobody noticed. No one. I have barely spoken to anyone about the abuse that’s happened to me, I swallowed the guilt and shame of it.

The cycle of addiction, of binging and purging, continued for a few more years. I hoarded food. I hid food in my closet, under my bed, any place I thought that I could. I learned that gorging myself and purging the self-hatred was the only way I felt any sort of control.

As I became a teenager, I stopped the purging and started living on diet pills and cigarettes, a behavior that went well into my adulthood. I attempted suicide my freshman year of high school. I was sick of being bullied because I was quiet, fat, and didn’t fight back. I learned very early on that my only means of fighting back was a battle I had to fight internally.

I have had a number of abusive relationships that definitely contributed, too. I once dated a guy who sexually assaulted me and convinced me nobody would believe me. He said, “Who would believe a disgusting thing like you?” For so long I believed this about myself. I used to let others define my value as a woman and as a person. I thought my weight defined my worth.

I am now 36 years old. I weigh 255 pounds. I have loose skin, about 40 pounds worth. As a way to cope, I still eat my feelings. I will, on occasion, stop eating and start taking diet pills, water pills, and laxatives. I do this because sometimes I spin out of control, sometimes I unravel. I am not one of those people who thinks that eating disorders can be cured. I think that we can grow healthier relationships with food, absolutely. We can learn to love ourselves, and realize that those things that made us, do not define us. I still have days where I hate my body. More often, I find myself just not caring what anyone else thinks.


Originally from Oklahoma City, Jennifer E. Hudgens has been published in some stuff and is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma. She thinks life is poetry if you’re paying attention. Jennifer watches the sky the way most people watch television. She is terrified of clowns, horses, and animatronic toys. She genuinely hopes you enjoy her poems.





More posts in this series:

Wearing the Inside Out by Jerry Garcia
Dear Able People: New Series

If you would like to share your thoughts, please comment below. If you would like to be a guest blogger, please feel free to get in touch. We welcome anonymous guest posts on this subject, as we are aware of the pressures of discussing these subjects in a public forum.

Blood and Money: Rihanna, Feminism, and BBHMM

by Siofra McSherry
Rihanna is a fascinating cultural figure whose output I always consume with pleasure, as she has continually defied the expectations of her genre. Her new video has generated a reaction that is intriguing in itself, with young fans expressing their desire to be kidnapped and tortured by their idol, like the video’s hapless hostage. Dazed & Confused  and breathless fashion folk like it because it delivers Tarantino-lite, Instagram-filtered retro visuals with blood spatter and cult film references. Many more love it because it shows a Black woman taking power, unapologetically and unambiguously, from a white man, and that is something I can show up for. However, what has horrified me and many feminists is the fact that the video perpetuates the idea that the way you signal power is to beat up women, and the higher the social status of the woman (white, thin, blonde, wealthy) the more power you derive when you degrade her.
Some have suggested that the hostage—played by Rachel Roberts—is a legitimate target because of her race and her class. The first category is more complicated. It has been suggested that this spectacle of violence against the person of a white female is legitimate given the generations of systemic and person-to-person abuse from white womento Black women. But abuse is not a hierarchy anyone would really want to be at the top of, and the historical system is not in any way being meaningfully deconstructed here. We see an individual woman of colour taking power over an individual white man via the patriarchy's favourite technique, violent domination, and especially via the abuse of his wife, who is treated as his property. The empowerment of one woman comes at the expense of another. We know this story because we have seen it over and over again: Rihanna as protagonist takes the place of the male abuser that is this narrative’s native and its audience, and re-enacts her own—and our—abuse upon a subjugated female so stereotypically feminized that we are encouraged to not even see her as a person.
Therein lies the second category: class. The female victim of BBHMM is a parody of a woman, some women have said; a cartoon representation of all-American feminine aspiration, rich, white, thin, with an impractical dog, and therefore not a reasonable object of empathy. Her symbolic value overrides her personhood. Even her breasts override her personhood. The stark difference in the treatment of Rihanna’s nudity and that of her female victim is telling. Rihanna’s body is adorned with the blood of her antagonist and the cash she has earned for displaying it, in an unambiguous statement of power and control over the circumstances of her nakedness. This is the same point made so magnificently by her appearance at last year’s CDFA awards wearing nothing but Swarovski crystals. Her victim, on the other hand, is gagged, suspended, silenced, her breasts filling the screen in lieu of her agency or characterisation. The male victim, of course, remains clothed throughout. Nobody wants to see a naked accountant, right?
Rihanna’s character in BBHMM expresses a legitimate rage as a woman of colour in the most hostile of industries, a psychotic iconoclast, and she is adored for it. I am told that I am not the audience for this work, that this is a warning, a recalibration, a calling out of the historical, collective complicity of white womanhood in patriarchy and systemic racism; and that may be true. However, the target of the video’s violence is yet another sacrificial, stripped, tortured female body, objectified beyond the point of standing for anything, even herself. The target is not the patriarchy, nor racism, nor even an individual male abuser, as in the video for Man Down. In that story Rihanna’s revenge killing of her character’s rapist is questioned in the lyrics, which express guilt and sorrow.The Rihanna of 2015 seems to have evolved beyond regret or moral nuance. Even Tarantino’s unpleasant revenge fantasies are directed at Hitler, or slave-owners, or the guy that shot your entire wedding party and stole your baby. In BBHMM Rihanna is pissed that someone withheld part of the $120 million she is worth—an offence that calls for a lawyer, not dismemberment. The major brunt of the fantasy isn’t even bourne by the actual perpetrator.
In the end, the point of BBHMM is the glorious spectacle of a young Black woman wielding power with an icy and unwavering focus on the fulfilment of her will. However, while power may mean gaining the upper hand at any cost, empowerment implies liberation from the system that oppresses, not its endless restaging.  I could watch Rihanna be a badass all day, but I must question whether the means by which she gains and demonstrates power—through the subjugation of another woman—are useful or constructive in the long run.


Siofra McSherry is a writer, researcher and doctoral scholar. She has published her poetry widely and writes art reviews for thisistomorrow.info.

Quote of the Week - Rose

From Rose's film Modern Daydreams: Deere John

"... don't blink because the new is unfolding."

~ Mitchell Rose

I love this - as a life mantra! It's actually Mitchell talking about his wonderful crowd-sourced dance film Globe Trot in Screendance Journal.  I love this film and all of Mitchell's work. Shooting dance seems easy, but to do it in a way that translates the spirit of dance takes a dancer's eye for line and a filmmaker's understanding of the frame. Mitchell's work has all of this plus humor and a sense of human nature that are unique to his point of view.

Quote of the Week - Nightingale

"It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick, that second only to their need of fresh air is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room, and it is not only light but direct sun-light that they want. . . . People think that the effect is upon the spirits only. This is by no means the case. The sun is not only a painter but a sculptor." 

~ Florence Nightingale, Notes On Nursing

In this quote, which I came across in Norman Doidge's wonderful book,The Brain's Way of Healing
we see both why Nightingale was a great healer and also how much we have lost in our ways of healing.

I totally recommend daily sunshine in the healing and self-care process. Also - it's free and widely available - go get some sun!

How I’m Learning to Stop Obsessing Over My Follower Count

by Bunmi Hazzan

I’ve struggled with being myself for a long time. Growing up, anytime I’ve said or done something from a unique place it’s been met with “don’t be silly” or something along those lines; on some level I’ve associated being myself with being unaccepted. We all yearn for acceptance, so I learned to conform, learned to be what was expected of me.

Fast forward to the internet age, I’m constantly second guessing what I put on the internet. Not just stuff like, “Is it offensive?” “Have I used correct grammar and spelling?” I mean, that happens, too, but more, “What would they think of me after this?” “Would they still like me after this?” “Would I still be accepted after this?”

Most would agree that isn’t healthy. I am learning to be myself. I’ve become less restrictive about posting things that I’m interested in, no matter how silly it may seem to others. As I changed, I noticed my follower count going down, and down, and down, and, oh wait it’s gone up, oh no, false alarm - it was a cached page - it’s gone down again.

I know I shouldn’t be obsessing over follow numbers, after all, what does it really mean? But if people follow what they’re interested in, and they’re not following me, then that means, I’m not interesting. I think I’m interesting, but who else would corroborate that? What if I’m just deluding myself? Why can’t people just tell you, they don’t find you interesting, instead of this, sly, stop following cowardly nonsense? But then, if they told me, then I’d know I have to change for them to like me, and I’m back to not being able to be myself anymore.

Learning to be myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. So far, it has challenged most, if not all, things I believe about society and the value in other people’s perceptions of me. One of the things I feel helps is spending time alone. For example, when some event or news takes place, I avoid the opinions of others, so I can be sure my thoughts are completely my own.

But that’s an extreme tactic, the problem with only listening to your own thoughts is that it is a good way to become very narrow minded. You can convince yourself of anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) because every thought conforms to your own internal logic and reasoning.

Thus, the next step after formulating my own thoughts is to read/listen to what other people are saying, and consider their view points, especially those opposing to mine. This isn’t to change my mind, it’s to expand it.

I’ve learned that being myself isn’t just about “I.” It is about understanding that all opinions exist for a valid reason, even those I don’t agree with. Before, I looked at things like, it’s either my opinion, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then I’m not being myself. The truth is, no one person is ever just one thing, including your own thoughts. They need the input of other in order to mature properly. Finding that balance isn’t easy, but it is worthwhile.

Along the way, you may lose some followers, people may stop liking your page, or unfriend you, they may even post videos online talking about how stupid you are (but that’s only if you’re really lucky). I once read a blog by our dear editor E Amato, it said “Everyone has an audience.” I believe that to be true, and it seems I’m still searching for mine, come across a few so far, but there’s more out there, just gotta find them.

BH the Uncivilised, some call me  Bunmi Hazzan,  but a time traveller has many names. I've existed for over 10,000 years and lived over 9000 lives. Travelling through time, space and multiple dimensions and writing about my experiences and observations. Or, in other words, I analyse art, and create art. The driving license I hold in this realm claims I have residence in London, England. The truth is I spend most of my time in upper regions of my cerebral cortex. I am, that poet.

Quote of the Week - Rodriguez

"Find a cause bigger than yourself. Personal trauma has sources in society, family, community. A full circle has to be completed: All personal healing and growth are to help you become an impactful, positive and meaningful person in relation to others." 

~ Luis J. Rodriguez

 I wanted to quote this whole wonderful post called "From Trauma to Transformation" by Los Angeles Poet Laureated Luis J. Rodriguez. It's a gift - don't leave it unopened!

If anyone knows the journey from trauma to transformation, it's Luis Rodrigues. He's made this journey himself, and he has helped countless others do it, through his poetry, his community center, Tia Chucha's, workshops, and public speaking. He is a blessing to all his communities and we are grateful for his presence and his wisdom.