My 10K Run -- and it only took 4 months!
In the next day or two I will cross 10,000 hits on Sitemeter. It's pretty cool, though I'm not exactly popping out the champagne (if I ever reach 1 million, maybe then).
I'm happy because I've been averaging 140 hits a day for the past few weeks. But unlike blogs that actually have 140 unique readers per day, there are probably only between 20 and 40 actual regular readers of this blog -- most people come to this site through Google. My biggest 'hits' have been, oddly enough, "Manmohan Singh" and "George Orwell Fahrenheit 9/11". Why would Google rank my site highly on these? I'm still not sure, though I have a theory that referring to the topic in the title of the post (in Blogger it becomes the title of the file) and posting quickly helped. Other popular posts have been "Wendy Doniger," "Operation Bluestar," "Meera Nanda," and "V.S. Naipaul, Farrukh Dhondy, and William Dalrymple." I've personally been happy with my posts on stuff like: Postcolonial FAQ, Fugazi, Brazilian Dance Music, and the film Yuva. But almost no one comes to my site looking for those things -- too bad.
I want to say thank you to the people who've commented on this site, who have put me on blogrolls, and who have linked to me on occasion. Here's a short list (I may be forgetting some people. If so, forgive me):
Brey
Sharleen Mondal
The Weblog
Anjali Taneja/ To the Teeth
Kumar (the friendly Kashmiri Kumar, now in the midwest somewhere)
Scott McLemee
Shashwati Talukdar
P. Kerim Friedman/ Keywords
Chuck Tryon
Not Really Indian
Tyler Curtain/ Bentkid
Timothy Burke
Michael Bérubé
Dan Green
Greg Perry
Sutton Stokes
Apostropher
Erin O'Connor
Ophelia Benson/Butterflies & Wheels
Joanne Jacobs
The blog formerly known as Jivha
Little Professor / Miriam Burstein
Kitabkhana
Bala Subra/ Lost In Media
All About George
Yves Etheart
Mikaela Reid
Oh, and thanks also to all the people who have sent supportive emails in response to this blog. You know who you are.
On Vacation
We're going to India for a couple of weeks. The highlight will undoubtedly be Ladakh (more links here, here, here). It's in eastern Jammu & Kashmir, and one of the major centers of Tibetan Buddhism outside of Tibet and Ithaca, New York (little joke there). I'm looking forward to it mainly because it will be completely and totally different from the (lately) drab eastern seaboard of the U.S.A.
But Delhi and Bombay are also always fun: books are cheap, music is plentiful, food is fantastic, and I have a new camera to play with.
Cheers, everyone.
On High Tech workers returning to India
In the New York Times, Amy Waldman's latest is on high-tech workers returning to gated communities, uninterrupted power, and various California-type amenities in Bangalore.
It generally rings true, though statistically I think it's still a pretty small phenomenon. And despite the attendant oddities (some of which are explored in the article), I think it's definitely a net gainer for the Indian economy and India's cultural integration into the rest of the world.
It generally rings true, though statistically I think it's still a pretty small phenomenon. And despite the attendant oddities (some of which are explored in the article), I think it's definitely a net gainer for the Indian economy and India's cultural integration into the rest of the world.
Best Bakery Retrial in India; problems in the Criminal Justice system
The "Best Bakery" case is being retried outside of Gujurat. The Christian Science Monitor has a good story on it. You should read the whole thing, but the following stood out to me:
Earlier, I was mocked for coming up with some odd ideas for getting better results from the Indian criminal justice system (I had suggested the central government use helicopters to videotape communal incidents that police are incapable or unwilling to stop). And maybe the idea was a little silly.
But with statistics like that (4 percent conviction rate on violent crimes, 10 years to complete a trial), I think even really radical solutions deserve a hearing.
The first trial, held in May 2003 in the state of Gujarat, where the massacre took place, ended in the acquittal of all 21 of the accused rioters after the victims changed their testimony. The Indian Supreme Court last April ordered a retrial out of state, calling state officials "modern-day Neros" for ignoring the complaints of witnesses that they had been politically harassed and pressured to change their testimony by police and state officials.
The opportunity for another trial in this cornerstone case is seen here as an important chance to resolve a major irritant in Hindu- Muslim relations and a chance to chip away at the pervasive problem of witness tampering in the Indian justice system."This case has been a kind of systematic failure of the Indian legal system," says Teesta Setalwad, a human rights activist who led the effort to get the case a second hearing. "This has been a symbol, hopefully, to revive the criminal justice system in India."
In a country where prosecutors win violent criminal cases only 4 percent of the time, some dramatic reforms are required, Ms. Setalwad says. "In India, we have failed (in providing justice.) Trials take 10 years to finish. Witnesses turn hostile and change their testimony. The whole system needs to change."
Earlier, I was mocked for coming up with some odd ideas for getting better results from the Indian criminal justice system (I had suggested the central government use helicopters to videotape communal incidents that police are incapable or unwilling to stop). And maybe the idea was a little silly.
But with statistics like that (4 percent conviction rate on violent crimes, 10 years to complete a trial), I think even really radical solutions deserve a hearing.
Apostrophic Alignment Index
This is what I hoped would happen.
It would be great to start a cultural index Wiki. But I have no idea how Wiki works, or how to start one.
(Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself)
It would be great to start a cultural index Wiki. But I have no idea how Wiki works, or how to start one.
(Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself)
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (a "Review")
Harold and Kumar: the funniest movie I've seen all year, completely mad. There's transgressive genius in the conceit of a Hindu on an epic quest for hamburgers and a Korean (Christian) in search of "Buddha" (i.e., high quality marijuana). And let's not forget the parallel quest of their neighbors -- Jews in search of the perfect hot dog. None of this is particularly remarked upon in the film, and in fact I got the sense that everyone in the audience in Orange last night completely missed it.
Side note: I predict more damage to the Bush presidency from a certain T-shirt Kal Penn wears in one scene than from anything Michael Moore comes up with in F9/11.
Kal Penn is hilarious. Apparently he was in a crap movie called Malibu's Most Wanted, last year (I'm still not going to see it). And in real life he's a vegetarian -- so no White Castle. But it's a good ensemble overall: John Chu, Neal Patrick Harris (i.e., of Doogie Howser, and now of Cabaret), and Chris Meloni are great.
I would recommend this as long as a little gross-out humor doesn't freak you out (for the record, the scatological "gags" are less numerous than the brilliant plays on ethnicity). And it's not a cerebral date movie (go see Before Sunset for that), or an "impress your colleagues with your exquisite taste and refinement" type of affair. Indeed, if anything, it's more of a "don't admit to anyone that you laughed so hard there were tears in your eyes" type of affair.
Side note: I predict more damage to the Bush presidency from a certain T-shirt Kal Penn wears in one scene than from anything Michael Moore comes up with in F9/11.
Kal Penn is hilarious. Apparently he was in a crap movie called Malibu's Most Wanted, last year (I'm still not going to see it). And in real life he's a vegetarian -- so no White Castle. But it's a good ensemble overall: John Chu, Neal Patrick Harris (i.e., of Doogie Howser, and now of Cabaret), and Chris Meloni are great.
I would recommend this as long as a little gross-out humor doesn't freak you out (for the record, the scatological "gags" are less numerous than the brilliant plays on ethnicity). And it's not a cerebral date movie (go see Before Sunset for that), or an "impress your colleagues with your exquisite taste and refinement" type of affair. Indeed, if anything, it's more of a "don't admit to anyone that you laughed so hard there were tears in your eyes" type of affair.
Palimpsest
Palimpsest:
1. Does it make sense?
2. Is it useful? (Is there a simpler word you would use to describe this?)
3. Think of examples?
Originally the term for a parchment on which several inscriptions had been made after earlier ones had been erased. The characteristic of the palimpsest is that, despite such erasures, there are always traces of previous inscriptions that have been 'overwritten.' Hence the term has become particularly valuable for suggesting the ways in which the traces of earlier 'inscriptions' remain as a continual feature of the 'text' of culture, giving it its particular density and character. Any cultural experience is itself an accretion of many layers, and the term is valuable because it illustrates the ways in which pre-colonial culture as well as the experience of colonization are continuing aspects of a post-colonial society's developing cultural identity. (from Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts)Questions:
1. Does it make sense?
2. Is it useful? (Is there a simpler word you would use to describe this?)
3. Think of examples?
ASCI: Amardeep Singh Cultural Index
Some of you may have tried the Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index test a few weeks ago. I myself abstained, basically because the very first question stumped me ("Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?"), and a third of the references that followed were essentially foreign to me.
That's not to say that I'm a Philistine... Actually, I'm pretty much a snob, but of a slightly different kind. My tastes: hip hop, indie rock, electronic music, eccentric films, assorted eclectic weirdness. As I've gotten older I've also dabbled in jazz, lots and lots of Indian music (which I'm keeping off the list -- maybe there should be a separate, 'desi' taste list), and the odd classical number. But my heart and soul is still rock and roll.
I'm trying to sustain some logic in the contrasts: Originators versus appropriators, "sell-outs" versus die-hard independents, slightly goofy versus slightly serious, alienated versus exotic... I also stole a few from Terry Teachout that I liked.
In every case, you can pick "DC" (Don't care) or "NHOI" (Never Heard Of It)
And I'm not sure it matters whether you "concur" or not with me. If you really must have a mathematical formula, try this:
Final note: obviously, given a choice between a legendary band like Bad Brains and a more recent, (briefly) radio-friendly band like Living Colour, most serious people will pick the original as "better." But don't tell me who is more respectable. Rather, tell me whom you would rather put in your CD player when you're driving around town. Honestly.
1. (It's 11pm) The internet or Jon Stewart?
2. Pavement or Wilco?
(Too lame? Try: Clinic or the Doves?)
3. Sonic Youth or Unwound?
4. (It's 1991) Fugazi or Nirvana?
5. Bikini Kill or Sleater-Kinney?
6. Bad Brains or Living Colour?
7. Fatboy Slim or Moby?
(Too lame? Do this one: Mouse on Mars or Aphex Twin?)
8. Le Tigre or Peaches?
9. Grandmaster Flash or Run DMC?
10. The Nation of Ulysses or The Make-Up?
11. Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) or Alan Moore (The Watchmen)?
12. Mos Def or Talib Kweli?
13. Public Enemy or Dead Prez?
14. Nas or Jay-Z?
15. Bands with "mouse" in the title or bands with "cat" in the title?
16. The Cable Guy or The Matrix?
17. Repo Man or Slacker?
18. Juliette Binoche or Audrey Tatou?
19. Dude, Where's My Car? or Friday?
20. Afrika Bambaataa or Kraftwerk?
21. Adult or Fischerspooner?
(You can also substitute Ladytron for Adult)
22. Andy Warhol or Keith Haring?
23. Actual graffiti or Jean-Michel Basquiat?
24. Andre the Giant or Hulk Hogan?
25. "Vogue" era Madonna or Marilyn Monroe?
26. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
27. Mac or PC?
28. Jill Scott or Alicia Keys?
29. Aimee Mann or Liz Phair?
30. Deep house or drum n bass?
31. Ambient or trip-hop?
32. (Want to dance) A live band or a great DJ?
33. Vegetarian or meat?
34. Juice or soda?
35. On a date: Sushi, yes or no?
36. On your own: Taco Bell, no or yes?
37. Organic vegetables or regular veggies?
38. Backpack or sling?
39. Dead Kennedys or Bad Religion?
40. A little sublime (not the band, the real thing) or a lot of beautiful?
41. Reggae or ska?
42. CDs or MP3s?
43. Atmosphere or Aesop Rock?
44. 1969 or 1979?
45. 1981 or 1991?
46. The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?
47. Tolkein or Rowling?
(Too lame? Try: Le Guin or L'Engle?)
48. In New York: Brooklyn or the Lower East Side?
49. In the Bay Area: San Francisco or Berkeley?
50. On a mountain or on a beach?
Obviously there's more that could reasonably be added. If people have ones they want to add (or if you want to make your own, 'specialty' sub-list), feel free to go ahead, in the comments, in an email to me, or on your own blog. Also, feel free to tell me if anything on the list absolutely sucks. I'm thinking of this as a kind of group project, rather than my own thingie. If other people join in, we can change the name to something else...
In particular, I would be grateful if people could put up more authors -- more literature. My tastes in literature are so obscure that it might throw off the whole list (I've read every author on Terry's Index).
That's not to say that I'm a Philistine... Actually, I'm pretty much a snob, but of a slightly different kind. My tastes: hip hop, indie rock, electronic music, eccentric films, assorted eclectic weirdness. As I've gotten older I've also dabbled in jazz, lots and lots of Indian music (which I'm keeping off the list -- maybe there should be a separate, 'desi' taste list), and the odd classical number. But my heart and soul is still rock and roll.
I'm trying to sustain some logic in the contrasts: Originators versus appropriators, "sell-outs" versus die-hard independents, slightly goofy versus slightly serious, alienated versus exotic... I also stole a few from Terry Teachout that I liked.
In every case, you can pick "DC" (Don't care) or "NHOI" (Never Heard Of It)
And I'm not sure it matters whether you "concur" or not with me. If you really must have a mathematical formula, try this:
number of "A answers - number of "B" answers = ASCI scoreFor every DC, subtract three points. For every NHOI add three points. If you want. What does the final number mean? It's a secret.
Final note: obviously, given a choice between a legendary band like Bad Brains and a more recent, (briefly) radio-friendly band like Living Colour, most serious people will pick the original as "better." But don't tell me who is more respectable. Rather, tell me whom you would rather put in your CD player when you're driving around town. Honestly.
1. (It's 11pm) The internet or Jon Stewart?
2. Pavement or Wilco?
(Too lame? Try: Clinic or the Doves?)
3. Sonic Youth or Unwound?
4. (It's 1991) Fugazi or Nirvana?
5. Bikini Kill or Sleater-Kinney?
6. Bad Brains or Living Colour?
7. Fatboy Slim or Moby?
(Too lame? Do this one: Mouse on Mars or Aphex Twin?)
8. Le Tigre or Peaches?
9. Grandmaster Flash or Run DMC?
10. The Nation of Ulysses or The Make-Up?
11. Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) or Alan Moore (The Watchmen)?
12. Mos Def or Talib Kweli?
13. Public Enemy or Dead Prez?
14. Nas or Jay-Z?
15. Bands with "mouse" in the title or bands with "cat" in the title?
16. The Cable Guy or The Matrix?
17. Repo Man or Slacker?
18. Juliette Binoche or Audrey Tatou?
19. Dude, Where's My Car? or Friday?
20. Afrika Bambaataa or Kraftwerk?
21. Adult or Fischerspooner?
(You can also substitute Ladytron for Adult)
22. Andy Warhol or Keith Haring?
23. Actual graffiti or Jean-Michel Basquiat?
24. Andre the Giant or Hulk Hogan?
25. "Vogue" era Madonna or Marilyn Monroe?
26. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
27. Mac or PC?
28. Jill Scott or Alicia Keys?
29. Aimee Mann or Liz Phair?
30. Deep house or drum n bass?
31. Ambient or trip-hop?
32. (Want to dance) A live band or a great DJ?
33. Vegetarian or meat?
34. Juice or soda?
35. On a date: Sushi, yes or no?
36. On your own: Taco Bell, no or yes?
37. Organic vegetables or regular veggies?
38. Backpack or sling?
39. Dead Kennedys or Bad Religion?
40. A little sublime (not the band, the real thing) or a lot of beautiful?
41. Reggae or ska?
42. CDs or MP3s?
43. Atmosphere or Aesop Rock?
44. 1969 or 1979?
45. 1981 or 1991?
46. The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?
47. Tolkein or Rowling?
(Too lame? Try: Le Guin or L'Engle?)
48. In New York: Brooklyn or the Lower East Side?
49. In the Bay Area: San Francisco or Berkeley?
50. On a mountain or on a beach?
Obviously there's more that could reasonably be added. If people have ones they want to add (or if you want to make your own, 'specialty' sub-list), feel free to go ahead, in the comments, in an email to me, or on your own blog. Also, feel free to tell me if anything on the list absolutely sucks. I'm thinking of this as a kind of group project, rather than my own thingie. If other people join in, we can change the name to something else...
In particular, I would be grateful if people could put up more authors -- more literature. My tastes in literature are so obscure that it might throw off the whole list (I've read every author on Terry's Index).
The Nameless: Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake
[My recent computer problems -- fried laptop -- led me to pull out some archive CDs. On one I came across an essay I wrote in November that I thought I'd lost. Since I doubt that many magazines will still be interested in it, I thought I would put it on the blog today.]
A Novel of Names for a Community Without a Name
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
(Originally written in November, 2003)
I was captivated by this novel in large part because of the uncanny sense of identification I felt with Lahiri’s protagonist, Gogol Ganguli. I also think it raises a number of interesting issues regarding names: misnaming, renaming, and the epistemological problem of namelessness.
The Nameless: ABCD, South Asian American... This is a novel that represents – perhaps definitively – the experiences of a very specific community. But which community? Unfortunately, the community to which I refer has no name that is not clunkily sociological or somehow pejorative. Sociologically, they are second-generation South Asian immigrants, or South Asian Americans. By people within, and recently from, South Asia, they are called, pejoratively, ABCD’s (American Born Confused Desis). And while in recent years “ABCD” has lost its edge of mockery, and gained a measure of academic respect, it is still inadequately descriptive – something of a joke even if conference papers and a series of low-budget films have disseminated the title.
Against “ABCD,” critics like Vijay Prashad have attempted to simplify and unify categories by legitimizing the flexible name Desi. Many diasporic South Asians use this word as a community marker, irrespective of when they immigrated or if they even are immigrants. So a person on an H-1 visa is as much a desi as a person whose parents came to the US in the 1960s, and who speaks no South Asian language effectively. In parts of New Jersey and California these communities are blended, but elsewhere (especially on college campuses) there are sharp divides between different kinds of desis. Amongst the various communities that recognize the term, desi may work, but it remains a name like a Punjabi or Bengali pet-name, a name used around the house rather than recognized by a broader public. In this case, there is a chance that the term will reach a critical mass, but it is not yet broadly available. I find it hard to imagine the word rolling off the tongue of someone like Charlie Rose (who recently interviewed Lahiri at length on PBS).
Overdetermination: the Osama Diaspora. On the streets of America’s cities and towns, the problem is not the lack of a name, but rather, especially in the wake of 9/11, too many names –- and nearly all of them insulting. Before 9/11, the standard pejorative for an Indian man was merely “Apu,” a name that now seems completely benign in relation to what has followed. On the streets of south Philadelphia and Brooklyn, it is routine for people on the street (often minorities themselves) to colloquially throw out Muslim names (always Muslim names) as a kind of casual insult – “watch where you’re going, Abdul.” Sometimes politically conscious African Americans (the same folks who routinely greet me with ‘A salaam a laikum’) will use other names –- I was recently sort of pleased to be addressed by a street bookseller as “Habib” (Arabic: beloved, friend). Though there will be exceptions, it begins to seem likely that “Abdul” and “Mohammed” will come to fill the same slot as the old white ethnic slurs – “Mick” for an Irishman, or “Guido” for an Italian. For Sikh men of course, the misnaming is much more aggressive: “Osama” and “Bin Laden” are the most common mis-names one hears. One South Philly man (a caucasian), in a moment of inspired racist efficiency, recently referred to me simply as “Bin,” thus saving himself the expenditure of five syllables he no doubt did not have to spare.
A History of Naming Conundrums: Peoples of color. In the sense that there is no ‘good’ name, but rather a thousand pejoratives and ingroup pet-names, the experience of Desis/ABCDs/South Asian Americans/Osamas does echo that of African Americans, who have used and discarded a series of public names: “colored,” “Negro,” “black,” “African American,” the too-diluted-to-be-useful “people of color,” and the hybrid derogatory/pet-name “nigger/nigga.” The points of comparison are interesting and potentially very compelling, but beyond the scope of this particular review. To the extent that the experience of African American naming and self-naming has been difficult, however, it seems to me that the struggle to name the diasporic community, and of naming within the community, will be a long and difficult road.
“Gogol.” The great conceit of Lahiri’s novel is that her Gogol, the ambassador of a community without a name, is himself misnamed. His parents legally give him as a first name the last name of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol in the Massachusetts hospital where he is born. It is chosen with the understanding that it is merely a formality, and will in time become just a pet-name, because at the moment the grandmother’s letter, with the ritually-selected Hindu name on it, was lost somewhere in the mail from Calcutta. “Gogol,” the name of his father’s favorite writer, goes on the birth certificate, and it stays with him in his early school years. His parents give him a proper name, Nikhil, but it doesn’t really stick. As he goes to college, Gogol wants to redefine himself on terms that he feels are his own rather than those that come from his parents’ Bengali immigrant culture. In an amazing act of self-definition, which loses nothing by the fact that it is in fact a common event, he abandons the name Gogol, and tries to become someone else. In this review I won’t say anything further about what happens with Gogol’s attempt to rename (or find, identify) himself.
“Jhumpa,” according to Deep. Lahiri’s own experience as a writer echoes Gogol’s. In her recent Charlie Rose interview, Lahiri revealed (no surprise to anyone who knows Bengali names), that “Jhumpa” is her pet name rather than her good name. Growing up in America, however, she has chosen it as her official, public name. The gesture annoys some members of Lahiri’s family, who must find the public use of a private, family name to be inappropriate. But it is a gesture that allows Lahiri to continue to claim the version of herself she knows best, and that she wants others to know. Asserting the name “Jhumpa” is at once a misnaming and a refusal to be misnamed –- it is a powerful hybridizing speech act addressed to both her familial-ethnic community and to her American (actually global) readership. [And “Jhumpa” is a gesture, I must confess, that has got me thinking: I know my family would be horrified if I ever decided to identify myself in print as “Deep” (pet name) rather than as “Amardeep” (proper name)?]
Eponymous Nikolai. A word about the other Gogol. If a namesake is the person who is named after someone else, who is the person named? Answer: the eponym. As I mentioned earlier, the eponym of Lahiri’s protagonist is one of the many beloved madmen of Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol. Lahiri uses the nominal link between her protagonist and the writer Gogol seriously, but without allowing the Russian philosophical mood to weigh down her story. There are a number of interesting and provocative parallels to Gogol’s “The Overcoat” in The Namesake – especially regarding the odd status of names and naming in Gogol’s story. Gogol’s protagonist has a surreal name himself – Akaky Akakyevich (the latter means, son of Akaky), which suggests a kind of parthenogenetic birth, without history or family. Gogol refuses to name the office where Akaky works (“In the department of … but it is better not to name the department.”). In that the story toys with anonymity, with the prospect of namelessness, it is a perfect reference point for Lahiri’s story about the strangeness of the Indian immigrant experience in the United States.
Really, the child of immigrants begins in a kind of nowhere place. She is firmly of America, but is not quite an American, in part because she is not recognized as such by others. The child may have privileges -- access to education, significant mobility – but she still has to first discover and then adapt to American values and life-concepts, which are firmly resisted at home. She can buy herself the appropriate overcoat, but it will not be cheap, and it can always be stolen. Overcoats can be purchased, but it is difficult to change the fact that the city remains cold.
Catachresis. The critic Gayatri Spivak has revived the Greek term “catechresis,” in a number of recent essays (see The Critique of Postcolonial Reason). It is actually a rather simple and straightforward concept: when you misname something because there is no name for it, that is catachresis. “American Indian” is an example of catechresis – there was no singular ethnicity to describe all the different civilizations of the western hemisphere before European discovery and conquest. Lahiri’s The Namesake is a novel of catachresis, at once an American immigrant story and an intriguing contribution to a growing postcolonial canon. As my example of “American Indian” shows, misnaming is global, and it doesn’t start with American school teachers who find it difficult to pronounce difficult Indian names like “Siddharada” (who inevitably gets renamed “Sid”) or “Jaswinder” (who inevitably becomes “Jesse”).
Though it was quite a different thing, misnaming and renaming is a process that began much earlier -- at the moment of the colonial encounter. Remember that it is Anglicization that originally creates Gogol’s last name – Gangopadhyay became Ganguli. It goes further: “India” (like Calcutta and Delhi) is itself is an Anglicization of “al-Hind,” the Persian name for the area around the Indus River. (And Lahiri, in her novel, plays with the fact that the Ganguli family lives on Amherst Street in Calcutta – while the American Ganguli’s live in a college town in Massachusetts.) What was India before it was misnamed? The confusion of the community-without-a-name is merely the latest extension of a permanent historical crisis in naming.
A Novel of Names for a Community Without a Name
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
(Originally written in November, 2003)
I was captivated by this novel in large part because of the uncanny sense of identification I felt with Lahiri’s protagonist, Gogol Ganguli. I also think it raises a number of interesting issues regarding names: misnaming, renaming, and the epistemological problem of namelessness.
The Nameless: ABCD, South Asian American... This is a novel that represents – perhaps definitively – the experiences of a very specific community. But which community? Unfortunately, the community to which I refer has no name that is not clunkily sociological or somehow pejorative. Sociologically, they are second-generation South Asian immigrants, or South Asian Americans. By people within, and recently from, South Asia, they are called, pejoratively, ABCD’s (American Born Confused Desis). And while in recent years “ABCD” has lost its edge of mockery, and gained a measure of academic respect, it is still inadequately descriptive – something of a joke even if conference papers and a series of low-budget films have disseminated the title.
Against “ABCD,” critics like Vijay Prashad have attempted to simplify and unify categories by legitimizing the flexible name Desi. Many diasporic South Asians use this word as a community marker, irrespective of when they immigrated or if they even are immigrants. So a person on an H-1 visa is as much a desi as a person whose parents came to the US in the 1960s, and who speaks no South Asian language effectively. In parts of New Jersey and California these communities are blended, but elsewhere (especially on college campuses) there are sharp divides between different kinds of desis. Amongst the various communities that recognize the term, desi may work, but it remains a name like a Punjabi or Bengali pet-name, a name used around the house rather than recognized by a broader public. In this case, there is a chance that the term will reach a critical mass, but it is not yet broadly available. I find it hard to imagine the word rolling off the tongue of someone like Charlie Rose (who recently interviewed Lahiri at length on PBS).
Overdetermination: the Osama Diaspora. On the streets of America’s cities and towns, the problem is not the lack of a name, but rather, especially in the wake of 9/11, too many names –- and nearly all of them insulting. Before 9/11, the standard pejorative for an Indian man was merely “Apu,” a name that now seems completely benign in relation to what has followed. On the streets of south Philadelphia and Brooklyn, it is routine for people on the street (often minorities themselves) to colloquially throw out Muslim names (always Muslim names) as a kind of casual insult – “watch where you’re going, Abdul.” Sometimes politically conscious African Americans (the same folks who routinely greet me with ‘A salaam a laikum’) will use other names –- I was recently sort of pleased to be addressed by a street bookseller as “Habib” (Arabic: beloved, friend). Though there will be exceptions, it begins to seem likely that “Abdul” and “Mohammed” will come to fill the same slot as the old white ethnic slurs – “Mick” for an Irishman, or “Guido” for an Italian. For Sikh men of course, the misnaming is much more aggressive: “Osama” and “Bin Laden” are the most common mis-names one hears. One South Philly man (a caucasian), in a moment of inspired racist efficiency, recently referred to me simply as “Bin,” thus saving himself the expenditure of five syllables he no doubt did not have to spare.
A History of Naming Conundrums: Peoples of color. In the sense that there is no ‘good’ name, but rather a thousand pejoratives and ingroup pet-names, the experience of Desis/ABCDs/South Asian Americans/Osamas does echo that of African Americans, who have used and discarded a series of public names: “colored,” “Negro,” “black,” “African American,” the too-diluted-to-be-useful “people of color,” and the hybrid derogatory/pet-name “nigger/nigga.” The points of comparison are interesting and potentially very compelling, but beyond the scope of this particular review. To the extent that the experience of African American naming and self-naming has been difficult, however, it seems to me that the struggle to name the diasporic community, and of naming within the community, will be a long and difficult road.
“Gogol.” The great conceit of Lahiri’s novel is that her Gogol, the ambassador of a community without a name, is himself misnamed. His parents legally give him as a first name the last name of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol in the Massachusetts hospital where he is born. It is chosen with the understanding that it is merely a formality, and will in time become just a pet-name, because at the moment the grandmother’s letter, with the ritually-selected Hindu name on it, was lost somewhere in the mail from Calcutta. “Gogol,” the name of his father’s favorite writer, goes on the birth certificate, and it stays with him in his early school years. His parents give him a proper name, Nikhil, but it doesn’t really stick. As he goes to college, Gogol wants to redefine himself on terms that he feels are his own rather than those that come from his parents’ Bengali immigrant culture. In an amazing act of self-definition, which loses nothing by the fact that it is in fact a common event, he abandons the name Gogol, and tries to become someone else. In this review I won’t say anything further about what happens with Gogol’s attempt to rename (or find, identify) himself.
“Jhumpa,” according to Deep. Lahiri’s own experience as a writer echoes Gogol’s. In her recent Charlie Rose interview, Lahiri revealed (no surprise to anyone who knows Bengali names), that “Jhumpa” is her pet name rather than her good name. Growing up in America, however, she has chosen it as her official, public name. The gesture annoys some members of Lahiri’s family, who must find the public use of a private, family name to be inappropriate. But it is a gesture that allows Lahiri to continue to claim the version of herself she knows best, and that she wants others to know. Asserting the name “Jhumpa” is at once a misnaming and a refusal to be misnamed –- it is a powerful hybridizing speech act addressed to both her familial-ethnic community and to her American (actually global) readership. [And “Jhumpa” is a gesture, I must confess, that has got me thinking: I know my family would be horrified if I ever decided to identify myself in print as “Deep” (pet name) rather than as “Amardeep” (proper name)?]
Eponymous Nikolai. A word about the other Gogol. If a namesake is the person who is named after someone else, who is the person named? Answer: the eponym. As I mentioned earlier, the eponym of Lahiri’s protagonist is one of the many beloved madmen of Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol. Lahiri uses the nominal link between her protagonist and the writer Gogol seriously, but without allowing the Russian philosophical mood to weigh down her story. There are a number of interesting and provocative parallels to Gogol’s “The Overcoat” in The Namesake – especially regarding the odd status of names and naming in Gogol’s story. Gogol’s protagonist has a surreal name himself – Akaky Akakyevich (the latter means, son of Akaky), which suggests a kind of parthenogenetic birth, without history or family. Gogol refuses to name the office where Akaky works (“In the department of … but it is better not to name the department.”). In that the story toys with anonymity, with the prospect of namelessness, it is a perfect reference point for Lahiri’s story about the strangeness of the Indian immigrant experience in the United States.
Really, the child of immigrants begins in a kind of nowhere place. She is firmly of America, but is not quite an American, in part because she is not recognized as such by others. The child may have privileges -- access to education, significant mobility – but she still has to first discover and then adapt to American values and life-concepts, which are firmly resisted at home. She can buy herself the appropriate overcoat, but it will not be cheap, and it can always be stolen. Overcoats can be purchased, but it is difficult to change the fact that the city remains cold.
Catachresis. The critic Gayatri Spivak has revived the Greek term “catechresis,” in a number of recent essays (see The Critique of Postcolonial Reason). It is actually a rather simple and straightforward concept: when you misname something because there is no name for it, that is catachresis. “American Indian” is an example of catechresis – there was no singular ethnicity to describe all the different civilizations of the western hemisphere before European discovery and conquest. Lahiri’s The Namesake is a novel of catachresis, at once an American immigrant story and an intriguing contribution to a growing postcolonial canon. As my example of “American Indian” shows, misnaming is global, and it doesn’t start with American school teachers who find it difficult to pronounce difficult Indian names like “Siddharada” (who inevitably gets renamed “Sid”) or “Jaswinder” (who inevitably becomes “Jesse”).
Though it was quite a different thing, misnaming and renaming is a process that began much earlier -- at the moment of the colonial encounter. Remember that it is Anglicization that originally creates Gogol’s last name – Gangopadhyay became Ganguli. It goes further: “India” (like Calcutta and Delhi) is itself is an Anglicization of “al-Hind,” the Persian name for the area around the Indus River. (And Lahiri, in her novel, plays with the fact that the Ganguli family lives on Amherst Street in Calcutta – while the American Ganguli’s live in a college town in Massachusetts.) What was India before it was misnamed? The confusion of the community-without-a-name is merely the latest extension of a permanent historical crisis in naming.
New book of Eqbal Ahmad essays; Bangladesh 1971
In the Daily Times of Pakistan, there's a descriptive review of a book of essays by Eqbal Ahmad, called Between Past and Future.
Ahmad, a life-long dissident both in South Asia and in the United States, led a remarkably full and varied life. Born in Bihar in 1934, during the Partition his family migrated to Pakistan. He came to the U.S in the early 1950s, and eventually did a Ph.D. at Princeton in Middle East Studies. Then he went to Algeria to support the FLN (Frantz Fanon was a colleague). Then he returned to the U.S., where he soon found himself caught up in anti-Vietnam war activism (he was charged alongside the Berrigan brothers with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger; the charges were later dropped). Then he finally slowed down: between 1982 and 1997 he taught at Hampshire College, where he developed a reputation as a clear-headed radical political thinker. He returned to Pakistan in 1997, and died in 1999. (A more detailed biography of Ahmad can be found here)
The highlight of the review is the account of Ahmad's criticism of the actions of the Pakistani government against East Pakistan (soon to become Bangladesh) in 1971:
Ahmad was right about Bangladesh in 1971; he was also right about Algeria and Vietnam. What else was he right about? I'll have to pick up the book to see.
Ahmad, a life-long dissident both in South Asia and in the United States, led a remarkably full and varied life. Born in Bihar in 1934, during the Partition his family migrated to Pakistan. He came to the U.S in the early 1950s, and eventually did a Ph.D. at Princeton in Middle East Studies. Then he went to Algeria to support the FLN (Frantz Fanon was a colleague). Then he returned to the U.S., where he soon found himself caught up in anti-Vietnam war activism (he was charged alongside the Berrigan brothers with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger; the charges were later dropped). Then he finally slowed down: between 1982 and 1997 he taught at Hampshire College, where he developed a reputation as a clear-headed radical political thinker. He returned to Pakistan in 1997, and died in 1999. (A more detailed biography of Ahmad can be found here)
The highlight of the review is the account of Ahmad's criticism of the actions of the Pakistani government against East Pakistan (soon to become Bangladesh) in 1971:
In his article “Letter to a Pakistani Diplomat” that first appeared in the New York Review of Books, Eqbal responded to protests by officials against his highly critical statement to the New York Times that followed the army action in East Pakistan on March 25, 1971. First, he wrote, he had no natural sympathy either for the Bangladesh movement or Shiekh Mujibur Rahman who impressed him as being a limited man. Second, he pointed out that he himself was originally from Bihar and most of his people had migrated to East Pakistan and many were killed in the period preceding the military’s intervention. But, he said, the only viable course for West Pakistanis was to insist on the immediate termination of martial law, convening of the duly elected National Assembly and a commitment that the majority decision of that assembly shall be binding on all. Eqbal spelt out the principles underlying his position in these words: “I know that I shall be condemned for my position. For someone who is facing a serious trial in America, it is not easy to confront one’s own government. Yet it is not possible for me to oppose American crimes in Southeast Asia or Indian occupation of Kashmir while accepting the crimes my government is committing against the people of East Pakistan. Although I mourn the death of Biharis by Bengali vigilantes, and condemn the irresponsibilities of the Awami League, I am not willing to equate their actions with that of the government and the criminal acts of an organised professional army.” It would be useful to keep in mind that many similarly refuse to accept such an equation when it comes to the Israeli army and the Palestinians or the Kashmiris’ struggle against the Indian army. But few amongst us paid heed to what Eqbal wrote in those fateful days about what was happening in East Pakistan, soon to become Bangladesh.
Ahmad was right about Bangladesh in 1971; he was also right about Algeria and Vietnam. What else was he right about? I'll have to pick up the book to see.
Stanley Crouch excerpt, with sincere editorial suggestions
I was a little restrained in commenting on Crouch/Peck last week because I hadn't actually read any of Stanley Crouch's fictional prose.
But today, through Ed Rants (see his parody of the Crouch/Peck encounter), I came across an excerpt from Crouch's novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome. It's a novel that begins, at least, with an account of an interracial romance in trouble:
The word for this is: truly and seriously overwrought.
My shortened, simplified version:
Does my revision convey anything less than Crouch's original prose? Do all of Crouch's metaphors about rubber bands, interior cactuses, and blue-eyed fogs really add anything? And I haven't said anything about some of the grossly misogynist writing that comes later in the same chapter (which I won't quote).
But today, through Ed Rants (see his parody of the Crouch/Peck encounter), I came across an excerpt from Crouch's novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome. It's a novel that begins, at least, with an account of an interracial romance in trouble:
This contrast, which they used to joke about, meant too much right now. That put a gash in her spirit. They were no longer so damn superior to the dank rhetoric of racial talk. The two had been together for five years. The first four were so good they presently seemed like no more than an elaborate fantasy, a tale she told to herself about an idiotically wonderful life she had never lived. Over the last ten or twelve months, the supreme closeness of their love was suffering. Their home, as if from nowhere, was invaded by emotional disorder. It might linger, it might not. She hated most the mystery of wondering just how long that divisive prickliness would dominate his mood, then infect hers. If she had to experience the sudden spread of this interior cactus, Carla preferred the times when it disappeared almost immediately and Maxwell became himself again, not a perfect guy by any means, but her man. Then, sure, there was reaffirmation in his tone of voice, in his touch, in the way his eyes put themselves on her, as if she were now clear to him again, not a blue-eyed fog he could almost see through, knowing no warmth, no substance. At first, it always felt like a gleaming gift to know that her soul and flesh had risen from beneath a dehumanizing abstraction and had returned to their rightful place. Way inside, however, her heart eventually felt like a rubber band that had been pulled and pulled until it could not go back to its original size. Some hard, hard bitterness went with that.
The word for this is: truly and seriously overwrought.
My shortened, simplified version:
Carla considered their five years together during the flight. Over the past few years, their intimacy had suffered, and Carla now wondered if the relationship would survive at all. Maxwell had become prone to a fearful moodiness that, as now, seemed to begin and end inexplicably. As the airplane finally approached Houston, she worried that the gap of racial difference that lay between them--always such a liability when they traveled together--had hardened in his mind.
Does my revision convey anything less than Crouch's original prose? Do all of Crouch's metaphors about rubber bands, interior cactuses, and blue-eyed fogs really add anything? And I haven't said anything about some of the grossly misogynist writing that comes later in the same chapter (which I won't quote).
End of Jivha?
Say it isn't so...
I never even got the guy's email address. If anybody knows it, please forward it to me -- I want to plead with him to keep his archives online (right now you can still access them if you go through a permalink, but not from the main page).
I think his posts on Indian secularism were especially great. Scholars of the subject will find that it is a gold mine of observations on the news of the past year.
Beyond that, Jivha had a masterful ability to decode hypocrisy, posturing, and spin in the Indian media. He was an important voice, and will be missed.
I never even got the guy's email address. If anybody knows it, please forward it to me -- I want to plead with him to keep his archives online (right now you can still access them if you go through a permalink, but not from the main page).
I think his posts on Indian secularism were especially great. Scholars of the subject will find that it is a gold mine of observations on the news of the past year.
Beyond that, Jivha had a masterful ability to decode hypocrisy, posturing, and spin in the Indian media. He was an important voice, and will be missed.
Goodbye Ambience, Hello Music: Vishal Vaid and Karsh Kale
Saturday night we went to see Vishal Vaid (see this thoughtful interview at MyBindi) at Joe's Pub in New York City. It was pretty great -- he and his band have found what I think is just the right way to blend the traditional bhajan/ghazal style of music with a few modern, 'fusion' elements. I'm not sure if Vaid is planning to put out a solo CD; I think he probably should.
Vaid sang on a number of tracks on Karsh Kale's 2001 CD Realize, which is one of the better examples in the chill-out drum n bass genre. The attraction on that CD was the sophisticated production and the Asian underground "vibe." While I've always enjoyed listening to Realize, but I've never loved it -- it's mostly music I listen to in the background. (Talvin Singh's Ha, in contrast, is something I can listen to intensely.)
I'm glad to see Vaid going in a new direction here, aiming for a return to a style of music approaching conventional light-classical style of bhajan/ghazal singing. The electronics are completely out. When Karsh Kale did come into the performance for the last two songs, he was playing live drums. There's more emphasis on song structure, and on the content of the songs themselves. The poetry of forbidden love and the meditations on life and death -- the truly priceless heritage of the Indo-Islamic literary tradition -- come to the foreground. Say goodbye to ambience, and hello to a (dynamic and evolving concept of) the real thing.
Though Vaid's music is as a whole much closer to the traditional ghazal style, there are still many things Vaid is doing that deviate from what you hear in Jagjit Singh, for instance. I'm not an expert (to say the least) on this, but to my ear he is using a much wider vocal range, and considerably more emphasis on improvisation. Vaid works the tension between the formal austerity of the ghazal and the wild expressivism of the Qawwali aria.
Apparently, he is doing it from a perspective of personal investment and scholarship, as this interviewer found:
Vaid takes the classical tradition seriously, and perhaps modernizes it in a controlled way. Others (in recent years) have tended to approach the tradition as more of a mining operation.
Counterpoint: I really enjoyed Vaid's original songs and his style of singing, but several of the people in my party thought that Rahis Khan's astonishing tabla playing was really the standout aspect of the evening. My cousin from Delhi found Vaid's occasional use of integrated English translation to be a little irritating. I didn't mind so much because I don't have any training in Hindustani classical music, and therefore don't have much investment in its "authenticity." Also, the translations open the music up to a much larger audience in the U.S. as well as elsewhere than might otherwise be possible. Having watched the rise and fall of many a world music "sensation" (Bob Marley, King Sunny Ade, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Fela Kuti, Bally Sagoo, Cheb i Sabbah, etc.), it seems to me that an effort at translation can make a very big difference. (See my earlier piece on the Brazilian dance music fad for more on the importance of translation.)
Vaid also does some vocals on Karsh Kale's new CD Liberation. I haven't heard it yet, so I'm not sure whether what I saw on Saturday is a trend that Kale is also following. Maybe when I get the CD I will write a follow-up.
[This post was slightly modified]
Vaid sang on a number of tracks on Karsh Kale's 2001 CD Realize, which is one of the better examples in the chill-out drum n bass genre. The attraction on that CD was the sophisticated production and the Asian underground "vibe." While I've always enjoyed listening to Realize, but I've never loved it -- it's mostly music I listen to in the background. (Talvin Singh's Ha, in contrast, is something I can listen to intensely.)
I'm glad to see Vaid going in a new direction here, aiming for a return to a style of music approaching conventional light-classical style of bhajan/ghazal singing. The electronics are completely out. When Karsh Kale did come into the performance for the last two songs, he was playing live drums. There's more emphasis on song structure, and on the content of the songs themselves. The poetry of forbidden love and the meditations on life and death -- the truly priceless heritage of the Indo-Islamic literary tradition -- come to the foreground. Say goodbye to ambience, and hello to a (dynamic and evolving concept of) the real thing.
Though Vaid's music is as a whole much closer to the traditional ghazal style, there are still many things Vaid is doing that deviate from what you hear in Jagjit Singh, for instance. I'm not an expert (to say the least) on this, but to my ear he is using a much wider vocal range, and considerably more emphasis on improvisation. Vaid works the tension between the formal austerity of the ghazal and the wild expressivism of the Qawwali aria.
Apparently, he is doing it from a perspective of personal investment and scholarship, as this interviewer found:
In addition to providing vocals for the electronically-oriented Realize band of which Karsh Kale is the driving force, Vishal also does more traditional ghazal mehfils, with Karsh accompanying him on the tabla, and he’s acquainted with the work of great Urdu and Punjabi poets such as Bullhe Shah, Ghalib, Qateel Shifai, and their ilk. More than this, he seems to have his finger on the pulse of the newer Urdu poetry developing in the wake of the very political poetic period that seems to have died down a bit with the passing away or decreasing activity of the great Socialist poets such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sahir Ludhianwi, and Habib Jalib. Vishal also writes ghazals himself, though I didn’t have the presence of mine to ask whether the short bait that he iterates in “Liberation” is his own:
dawâ milî na masîhâ milâ
kashtî ko na kinâra milâ
We found no medicine and no messiah,
Our boat found no shore. (from the MyBindi interview)
Vaid takes the classical tradition seriously, and perhaps modernizes it in a controlled way. Others (in recent years) have tended to approach the tradition as more of a mining operation.
Counterpoint: I really enjoyed Vaid's original songs and his style of singing, but several of the people in my party thought that Rahis Khan's astonishing tabla playing was really the standout aspect of the evening. My cousin from Delhi found Vaid's occasional use of integrated English translation to be a little irritating. I didn't mind so much because I don't have any training in Hindustani classical music, and therefore don't have much investment in its "authenticity." Also, the translations open the music up to a much larger audience in the U.S. as well as elsewhere than might otherwise be possible. Having watched the rise and fall of many a world music "sensation" (Bob Marley, King Sunny Ade, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Fela Kuti, Bally Sagoo, Cheb i Sabbah, etc.), it seems to me that an effort at translation can make a very big difference. (See my earlier piece on the Brazilian dance music fad for more on the importance of translation.)
Vaid also does some vocals on Karsh Kale's new CD Liberation. I haven't heard it yet, so I'm not sure whether what I saw on Saturday is a trend that Kale is also following. Maybe when I get the CD I will write a follow-up.
[This post was slightly modified]
DJ notes
On Friday, I attempted to entertain 125 people for a few hours. It was fun, but the dancing was a bit weak. So here are a few quick notes, to the guests as well as to myself.
Notes to wedding guests:
1. You are required to burn off your dinner with at least half an hour of vigorous dancing. I will play "It's the Time to Disco," "Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe," and "Mundian to Bach Ke" as often as you want, up to five times. I will even play Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive," Sister Sledge's "Good Times," Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," the Bee Gees's "Stayin Alive," and any Abba that you may require. It's a wedding: I will play whatever you want. (Except Audioslave -- sorry, friend.)
Important: sitting around outside the wedding hall, sipping champagne, and enjoying the sea breeze is not an acceptable alternative. Come back inside and sweat it up a little; the water is free.
2. Please don't approach a DJ playing music to an empty dance floor, and congratulate him on the great music he is playing. Get on the dance floor and dance, mofo!
3. For the older folks likely to complain about the volume of the music (it wasn't even that loud): bring earplugs. Or go check out the sea breeze. Please.
4. Kids: I will play Jay-Z's "Dirt off your shoulder," because it has a good beat and a positive message (even with the "N" word). However, I will not play "99 Problems," or any song with the word "bitch" in it. Please don't ask me to. I will also prefer not to play Usher's "Yeah," because it actually kind of sucks. How about Christina Milian or Nina Skye instead?
And why don't you like the Black Eyed Peas's "Hey Mama"? I know they're a little too radio-friendly, but come on, it's a good beat. (What's wrong with kids these days?)
5. Guests at a culturally mixed wedding are required to come three hours early to socialize and develop an appropriate comfort level with people of the other party/ ethnic group. Activities could include the joint building of sandcastles, the drafting of sub-committee proposals, debates over the aesthetic quality of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, as well as the general personal curiosity and/or erotic tension essential in any environment where substantial dancing is likely to occur.
/bureaucratese
Notes to self:
1. Avoid spilling champagne on your laptop while using it to play music. (ARGH) Especially avoid doing it three weeks after the warranty expired.
2. Avoid the song "Fanaa" from Yuva. Other people aren't that excited about it. (Luckily you knew enough to avoid "Dol Dol" from the same film.)
3. Avoid Outkast's "Hey Ya" at the end of the night, when only 15 people are on the dance floor. Too much, man.
4. Hire 50 migratory drunken Punjabi wedding guests for all future wedding engagements. Without them, no party is truly complete. (Also without them, your own limitations as a DJ become somewhat of a liability...)
Notes to wedding guests:
1. You are required to burn off your dinner with at least half an hour of vigorous dancing. I will play "It's the Time to Disco," "Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe," and "Mundian to Bach Ke" as often as you want, up to five times. I will even play Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive," Sister Sledge's "Good Times," Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," the Bee Gees's "Stayin Alive," and any Abba that you may require. It's a wedding: I will play whatever you want. (Except Audioslave -- sorry, friend.)
Important: sitting around outside the wedding hall, sipping champagne, and enjoying the sea breeze is not an acceptable alternative. Come back inside and sweat it up a little; the water is free.
2. Please don't approach a DJ playing music to an empty dance floor, and congratulate him on the great music he is playing. Get on the dance floor and dance, mofo!
3. For the older folks likely to complain about the volume of the music (it wasn't even that loud): bring earplugs. Or go check out the sea breeze. Please.
4. Kids: I will play Jay-Z's "Dirt off your shoulder," because it has a good beat and a positive message (even with the "N" word). However, I will not play "99 Problems," or any song with the word "bitch" in it. Please don't ask me to. I will also prefer not to play Usher's "Yeah," because it actually kind of sucks. How about Christina Milian or Nina Skye instead?
And why don't you like the Black Eyed Peas's "Hey Mama"? I know they're a little too radio-friendly, but come on, it's a good beat. (What's wrong with kids these days?)
5. Guests at a culturally mixed wedding are required to come three hours early to socialize and develop an appropriate comfort level with people of the other party/ ethnic group. Activities could include the joint building of sandcastles, the drafting of sub-committee proposals, debates over the aesthetic quality of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, as well as the general personal curiosity and/or erotic tension essential in any environment where substantial dancing is likely to occur.
/bureaucratese
Notes to self:
1. Avoid spilling champagne on your laptop while using it to play music. (ARGH) Especially avoid doing it three weeks after the warranty expired.
2. Avoid the song "Fanaa" from Yuva. Other people aren't that excited about it. (Luckily you knew enough to avoid "Dol Dol" from the same film.)
3. Avoid Outkast's "Hey Ya" at the end of the night, when only 15 people are on the dance floor. Too much, man.
4. Hire 50 migratory drunken Punjabi wedding guests for all future wedding engagements. Without them, no party is truly complete. (Also without them, your own limitations as a DJ become somewhat of a liability...)
Freethinkers vs. Secularists: Susan Jacoby
Overall, I think Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers is a marvelous book. Her research helps me with the project I'm working on, and it's quite well written.
At the very least, I think it will lead to a renewal of general interest in Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll. Jacoby draws a vivid picture of each, and finds some particularly compelling quotes from their respective works. I already cited one of the great quotes from Ingersoll, in my 'pre-review' of the book last week. The kernel: "Secularism teaches us to be just here and now."
Thomas Paine
Paine is extraordinary -- he nailed several major veins of acceptable discrimination, and devoted (sacrificed, really) his life to ending them. To begin with, he spoke out against the disabilities against English Jews when he was still living in England (here he was almost 100 years ahead of his time). Then, after moving to Philadelphia in 1774 on Ben Franklin's suggestion, he helped to found the first U.S. anti-slavery organization, and wrote fiery editorials denouncing the hypocrisy of the pro-independence American settlers. As Jacoby puts it:
In 1802, Jefferson invited him to come back to the U.S. But because of Paine's extremely aggressive 1794 book The Age of Reason, Paine found himself in the hot-seat yet again. Here Paine moved from attacking the injustices of Britain's treatments of its religious minorities, the foul American institution of slavery, and the terroristic violence of Jacobin France, to attack religion itself. This is Jacoby's quote from Paine:
The Absence of "God" in the U.S. Constitution
Many people (especially colleagues in Europe) seem to think that America is somehow less secular than European countries, because America is a more religious culture than the northern European societies are.
But it's not really true. Politically, the United States is every bit as secularized as Europe, and in some cases (in education especially), the Jeffersonian idea of a "wall of separation between Church and State" has led the country to a form of secularism that is much more rigorous than that practiced in England, Germany, or the Netherlands. Thanks in large part to the revolutionary vision of Thomas Jefferson, America's constitution is framed entirely in the world of human rights and human obligations; it has no references to God.
Even the references to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God, "our Creator" and "Divine Providence" in the Declaration of Independence, point to an essentially Deist entity, where God is acknowledged as a creator but not as an active presence. Even in the Declaration, the onus is on human beings to make laws and voice protest using their own judgment as a guide. (And Jacoby argues that the phrase "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" points more to Isaac Newton -- the laws of Nature being those of science -- than it does to the Bible.)
Which isn't to say that this country is perfect on matters of tolerance of dissent, or treatment of minorities. Despite the federal requirement for disestablishment, states have been sometimes painfully slow to remove a fabric of laws that essentially reflect a Christian worldview. Jacoby argues that standing controversies like abortion, the death penalty, and the censorship of film and literature are as much about religion and secularism as the more obviously religiously-inflected issues like prayer in schools, "Under God," and federal funding for "faith-based" organizations.
Where the book's argument begins to show its seams is in the role of the freethinkers in achieving the real secularization of American society through the juridical resolution of the above issues (generally, to the favor of a secularist perspective). Jacoby argues that "freethinking" and secularism are essentially one and the same (this appositeness is even suggested in her title: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism). But her actual historical research, especially in the 20th century, shows that the phenomenon of Paine, Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Grimke sisters, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, etc., were in actuality a relatively small component of the long struggle to achieve and sustain American secularism.
Jacoby laments that the current movements to ensure the maintenance of secularism as well as continued secularization, through cases like Michael Newdow's, are generally supported by people who refuse to criticize religion per se (the ACLU figures particularly strongly in many of the major Supreme Court decisions after World War II). But I think the critique of organized religion isn't necessary, and potentially does more harm than good in the sense that it writes off the many people of faith who are supportive of strong secularism in the United States.
I have much more to say about this book -- Jacoby has some great bits on Antonin Scalia (she nails him), American feminism, John F. Kennedy, and the Civil Rights movement. But I'm toying with the idea of writing a proper book review for a magazine somewhere (anyone got a suggestion?) so perhaps I should save some things for later.
At the very least, I think it will lead to a renewal of general interest in Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll. Jacoby draws a vivid picture of each, and finds some particularly compelling quotes from their respective works. I already cited one of the great quotes from Ingersoll, in my 'pre-review' of the book last week. The kernel: "Secularism teaches us to be just here and now."
Thomas Paine
Paine is extraordinary -- he nailed several major veins of acceptable discrimination, and devoted (sacrificed, really) his life to ending them. To begin with, he spoke out against the disabilities against English Jews when he was still living in England (here he was almost 100 years ahead of his time). Then, after moving to Philadelphia in 1774 on Ben Franklin's suggestion, he helped to found the first U.S. anti-slavery organization, and wrote fiery editorials denouncing the hypocrisy of the pro-independence American settlers. As Jacoby puts it:
Paine regarded it as particularly ironic that Americans should complain with increasing vociferousness of injustices done them by Britain while the colonists themselves enslaved other men. Six weeks after the article was published, the first antislavery society in America was established in Philadelphia, with Paine as a founding member. Certain that American independence would lead as inevitably to the abolition of slavery as to a revolution in religion, the English immigrant soon became one of the most ardent and articulate advocates of rebellion against England.He went back to England for a visit that ended up turning into something more. He wrote The Rights of Man as a response to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke condemned the French Revolution; Paine, in contrast, extolled its possibilities. England was hostile to the French revolution at the time, as it had dangerous implications for the local aristocracy. Paine was forced to flee to France; he was "tried and convicted of sedition in absentia, barred from ever returning to the country of his birth, and burned in effigy." In France, he soon fell afoul of the violence of the Jacobins. He was thrown in prison by the Jacobins, and spent nine months in a French prison before James Monroe got him released (1793-4). Sick with a suppurating ulcer, he then lived, rather meekly, in James Monroe's house.
In 1802, Jefferson invited him to come back to the U.S. But because of Paine's extremely aggressive 1794 book The Age of Reason, Paine found himself in the hot-seat yet again. Here Paine moved from attacking the injustices of Britain's treatments of its religious minorities, the foul American institution of slavery, and the terroristic violence of Jacobin France, to attack religion itself. This is Jacoby's quote from Paine:
Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God were not open to every man alike. Each of these churches show certain books, which they call revelations, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses; face to face; the Christians say their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.The fire here reminds me of Voltaire.
The Absence of "God" in the U.S. Constitution
Many people (especially colleagues in Europe) seem to think that America is somehow less secular than European countries, because America is a more religious culture than the northern European societies are.
But it's not really true. Politically, the United States is every bit as secularized as Europe, and in some cases (in education especially), the Jeffersonian idea of a "wall of separation between Church and State" has led the country to a form of secularism that is much more rigorous than that practiced in England, Germany, or the Netherlands. Thanks in large part to the revolutionary vision of Thomas Jefferson, America's constitution is framed entirely in the world of human rights and human obligations; it has no references to God.
Even the references to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God, "our Creator" and "Divine Providence" in the Declaration of Independence, point to an essentially Deist entity, where God is acknowledged as a creator but not as an active presence. Even in the Declaration, the onus is on human beings to make laws and voice protest using their own judgment as a guide. (And Jacoby argues that the phrase "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" points more to Isaac Newton -- the laws of Nature being those of science -- than it does to the Bible.)
Which isn't to say that this country is perfect on matters of tolerance of dissent, or treatment of minorities. Despite the federal requirement for disestablishment, states have been sometimes painfully slow to remove a fabric of laws that essentially reflect a Christian worldview. Jacoby argues that standing controversies like abortion, the death penalty, and the censorship of film and literature are as much about religion and secularism as the more obviously religiously-inflected issues like prayer in schools, "Under God," and federal funding for "faith-based" organizations.
Where the book's argument begins to show its seams is in the role of the freethinkers in achieving the real secularization of American society through the juridical resolution of the above issues (generally, to the favor of a secularist perspective). Jacoby argues that "freethinking" and secularism are essentially one and the same (this appositeness is even suggested in her title: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism). But her actual historical research, especially in the 20th century, shows that the phenomenon of Paine, Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Grimke sisters, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, etc., were in actuality a relatively small component of the long struggle to achieve and sustain American secularism.
Jacoby laments that the current movements to ensure the maintenance of secularism as well as continued secularization, through cases like Michael Newdow's, are generally supported by people who refuse to criticize religion per se (the ACLU figures particularly strongly in many of the major Supreme Court decisions after World War II). But I think the critique of organized religion isn't necessary, and potentially does more harm than good in the sense that it writes off the many people of faith who are supportive of strong secularism in the United States.
I have much more to say about this book -- Jacoby has some great bits on Antonin Scalia (she nails him), American feminism, John F. Kennedy, and the Civil Rights movement. But I'm toying with the idea of writing a proper book review for a magazine somewhere (anyone got a suggestion?) so perhaps I should save some things for later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)