I don't fit into your neat little plan and I never will
1. So I did not make Sunday's trans/queer immigrant solidarity protest because I was too busy sleeping for twelve hours to make up for the fact that I was (and am) sick and had not slept for thirty-six hours previous, but I did make it to the latter stages of a letter-writing party held by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gaudior and rushthatspeaks and sent an appreciative postcard to Mayor Curtatone (it is a joy to live in a city whose elected officials encourage and expect radical empathy, inclusivity, and activism from their community, like living in a Capra film without the creepier aspects of populism) and a hopeful letter to Governor Baker (thank you for recognizing that Trump's travel ban is a constitutional and human rights issue rather than an issue of partisan politics, now how about putting Massachusetts' money where its mouth is and passing the Safe Communities Act to make the entire state a sanctuary like your constituents have been requesting since November). As a monthly event, I could dig it.
Saturday morning I made myself breakfast after staying up all night (small cats appreciate it when you share your kippers with them) and got out of the house in time for the rally celebrating Somerville's thirty years as a sanctuary city, We Are One Somerville. It was bitterly, brightly freezing and Mayor Curtatone sounded like he was getting over a heinous cold, but he delivered a powerful reading of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" however his voice cracked. "We'll take the hits for you," he promised the immigrants in the crowd. He said very clearly that as mayor he could not guarantee that nothing would happen in Somerville; nobody can ever guarantee that nothing will happen; but he wanted the people of Somerville to be able to guarantee that no matter what happened they would stand up for each other, take care of each other. Representative Capuano got the obligatory sports reference out of the way ("Go Pats!" at which some people within earshot of me hissed) and then spoke of America's history of intolerance, reminding the crowd that waves of xenophobia and racist institutions are nothing new, the American dream has always been in the process of betraying itself, but the important thing is that the intolerance doesn't win: it can be fought, it has to be fought, let's fight it. "I'm Irish and Italian. My wife's Syrian-Lebanese. That makes our children the United States." Everyone spoke about the importance of education, but I believe it was Ben Echevarria of the Welcome Project—the organizers of the rally—who talked about unions, too. There were speakers from the school board, from other departments of the city government. There is a decent description in the Globe, but it leaves out the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band bluesily jamming on Florence Reece's "Which Side Are You On?" and does not give nearly enough attention to the immigrants who told their stories, from Perla Hernandez from Mexico (which "will always have my heart, but Somerville is my home") to Joe DeSouza from Brazil (who chose Somerville as a destination more or less at random—"It sounded like 'summer,'" he explained wryly, under the ice-snap sky) to the more than half-dozen high school students—some of them refugees—who did not all give their speeches in English, no more than the adult speakers. I appear to retain enough Spanish to understand about half of a short narrative speech and unhelpfully diagram bits of the grammar of the rest in my head while not knowing the vocabulary. Two students were Muslim and received especial hands from the audience. Habib who had been born in Afghanistan and grown up in Iran got rock-star levels of cheering when he addressed himself directly to Donald Trump: "I'm a refugee. I'm a Muslim. And I love this country more than you." If it's not a typo, 4800 people are estimated to have attended, which is hugely more than I'd thought from my place at close house right of the bandstand; I knew it was crowded around me, but I didn't realize how far out the crowd extended. I did not take any pictures because my hands got so cold that Gaudior's phone couldn't recognize my fingertips as a meaningful swipe rather than contact with a random inanimate object, but Gaudior got a shot of my favorite sign. Black cats on the side of social justice seems like a good thing to me. They, too, have been demonized and misunderstood.
2. The only thing I don't know about the March for Science is whether I'm going to try for the national march in D.C. this time or stick with the satellite march in Boston, which since it will benefit from the local presence of MIT will, actually, probably be ridiculously cool.
3. Courtesy ofmoon_custafer: two really cute pictures of Brad Dourif and a lot of coffee.
4. Courtesy of the New England Aquarium: Boston Harbor, looking like an Impressionist painting.
5. Courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brigdh: this is a perfectly valid description of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, but when you put it that way, I really don't know why there's not a TV show.
I have been having political nightmares for about a week and a half now. Literally the kind where I don't want to post them because I don't want to give anyone ideas. Last night I had two dreams that might have been metaphors, but at least weren't an eternally scrolling panorama of unfuturistic dystopia: I dreamed first of a supernatural creature without a name, born from a swirl of tar and a hank of hair; it looked more female than not and everyone was treating it like a succubus, the beautiful demon honeytrap that will gruesomely kill you after luring you with your own blind spots of desire, but all it wanted was to get away from human company into the mountains, into one particular cave or subterranean stream or coal-seam; it wanted from my perspective to disappear. I woke briefly whenderspatchel came back to bed, dreamed of a fictional WWII novel with the reputation of one of the great American satires, the misadventures of a comedically cowardly soldier blundering around occupied Europe, encountering horrors and never quite doing the right thing about them or doing the right thing because he was trying to do the opposite; Billy Wilder had wanted to film it in the early '50's and the PCA had fainted in coils, so the adaptation had had to wait until the 1970's. The two dreams were linked when I was asleep, but awake I can't see the connection. I had been quite happy to find a secondhand hardcover of the novel in a used book store. There were little cartoons above the chapter headings in a sort of Don Marquis style. I kept thinking while reading that it reminded me of Bulgakov.
gaudior and rushthatspeaks and sent an appreciative postcard to Mayor Curtatone (it is a joy to live in a city whose elected officials encourage and expect radical empathy, inclusivity, and activism from their community, like living in a Capra film without the creepier aspects of populism) and a hopeful letter to Governor Baker (thank you for recognizing that Trump's travel ban is a constitutional and human rights issue rather than an issue of partisan politics, now how about putting Massachusetts' money where its mouth is and passing the Safe Communities Act to make the entire state a sanctuary like your constituents have been requesting since November). As a monthly event, I could dig it.Saturday morning I made myself breakfast after staying up all night (small cats appreciate it when you share your kippers with them) and got out of the house in time for the rally celebrating Somerville's thirty years as a sanctuary city, We Are One Somerville. It was bitterly, brightly freezing and Mayor Curtatone sounded like he was getting over a heinous cold, but he delivered a powerful reading of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" however his voice cracked. "We'll take the hits for you," he promised the immigrants in the crowd. He said very clearly that as mayor he could not guarantee that nothing would happen in Somerville; nobody can ever guarantee that nothing will happen; but he wanted the people of Somerville to be able to guarantee that no matter what happened they would stand up for each other, take care of each other. Representative Capuano got the obligatory sports reference out of the way ("Go Pats!" at which some people within earshot of me hissed) and then spoke of America's history of intolerance, reminding the crowd that waves of xenophobia and racist institutions are nothing new, the American dream has always been in the process of betraying itself, but the important thing is that the intolerance doesn't win: it can be fought, it has to be fought, let's fight it. "I'm Irish and Italian. My wife's Syrian-Lebanese. That makes our children the United States." Everyone spoke about the importance of education, but I believe it was Ben Echevarria of the Welcome Project—the organizers of the rally—who talked about unions, too. There were speakers from the school board, from other departments of the city government. There is a decent description in the Globe, but it leaves out the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band bluesily jamming on Florence Reece's "Which Side Are You On?" and does not give nearly enough attention to the immigrants who told their stories, from Perla Hernandez from Mexico (which "will always have my heart, but Somerville is my home") to Joe DeSouza from Brazil (who chose Somerville as a destination more or less at random—"It sounded like 'summer,'" he explained wryly, under the ice-snap sky) to the more than half-dozen high school students—some of them refugees—who did not all give their speeches in English, no more than the adult speakers. I appear to retain enough Spanish to understand about half of a short narrative speech and unhelpfully diagram bits of the grammar of the rest in my head while not knowing the vocabulary. Two students were Muslim and received especial hands from the audience. Habib who had been born in Afghanistan and grown up in Iran got rock-star levels of cheering when he addressed himself directly to Donald Trump: "I'm a refugee. I'm a Muslim. And I love this country more than you." If it's not a typo, 4800 people are estimated to have attended, which is hugely more than I'd thought from my place at close house right of the bandstand; I knew it was crowded around me, but I didn't realize how far out the crowd extended. I did not take any pictures because my hands got so cold that Gaudior's phone couldn't recognize my fingertips as a meaningful swipe rather than contact with a random inanimate object, but Gaudior got a shot of my favorite sign. Black cats on the side of social justice seems like a good thing to me. They, too, have been demonized and misunderstood.
2. The only thing I don't know about the March for Science is whether I'm going to try for the national march in D.C. this time or stick with the satellite march in Boston, which since it will benefit from the local presence of MIT will, actually, probably be ridiculously cool.
3. Courtesy of
moon_custafer: two really cute pictures of Brad Dourif and a lot of coffee.4. Courtesy of the New England Aquarium: Boston Harbor, looking like an Impressionist painting.
5. Courtesy of
brigdh: this is a perfectly valid description of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, but when you put it that way, I really don't know why there's not a TV show.I have been having political nightmares for about a week and a half now. Literally the kind where I don't want to post them because I don't want to give anyone ideas. Last night I had two dreams that might have been metaphors, but at least weren't an eternally scrolling panorama of unfuturistic dystopia: I dreamed first of a supernatural creature without a name, born from a swirl of tar and a hank of hair; it looked more female than not and everyone was treating it like a succubus, the beautiful demon honeytrap that will gruesomely kill you after luring you with your own blind spots of desire, but all it wanted was to get away from human company into the mountains, into one particular cave or subterranean stream or coal-seam; it wanted from my perspective to disappear. I woke briefly when
derspatchel came back to bed, dreamed of a fictional WWII novel with the reputation of one of the great American satires, the misadventures of a comedically cowardly soldier blundering around occupied Europe, encountering horrors and never quite doing the right thing about them or doing the right thing because he was trying to do the opposite; Billy Wilder had wanted to film it in the early '50's and the PCA had fainted in coils, so the adaptation had had to wait until the 1970's. The two dreams were linked when I was asleep, but awake I can't see the connection. I had been quite happy to find a secondhand hardcover of the novel in a used book store. There were little cartoons above the chapter headings in a sort of Don Marquis style. I kept thinking while reading that it reminded me of Bulgakov.
no subject
I was really glad I went. It was entirely worth the not sleeping.
And that Afghani guy is so right. He **does** love America more than Trump. (Sadly, not a hard feat to accomplish, but still very worth saying.)
I have seen no evidence that Trump knows how to love. He's very invested in possessing, but that's not at all the same thing.
That Boston Harbor photo is beautiful.
It looks like paintings I've seen in the MFA. I really feel someone should just hang a copy in the relevant gallery and see how long it takes people to notice.
The dreams could be seen as expressing two fears: the fear that one has desires (e.g., to flee from humanity) that people would judge monstrous, and the fear that one's efforts are nothing but blundering missteps, only achieving good accidentally. --I'm not saying that this is what they signify for you, but if I were having them, that's how I'd interpret them for myself. ...
I worry very much about doing the right thing: knowing what it is and knowing how to do it. I know I've done it before. I just don't want now to turn out to be when I blow it.
In fact, though, I think you're doing a lot that's very concrete good.
Thank you. It doesn't feel like enough. And I know I have other obligations, but . . . It doesn't feel like enough. I don't know what will. Something that makes a change.
I think it's great that you wrote Gov. Baker to let him know your approval for his stance on Trump's executive order and encouraging him to pass the Safe Communities Act.
I hope he listens to me. And everyone else. It's the only way the idea of the sanctuary cities will hold up at all under pressure. I've been saying this since November; I'm not the only one. I just want Baker to start saying it and then sign.
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Elliott Ness's work must have earned eyerolls from cops on the beat who had to face bullets from gangsters. Must be nice to be just chasing up taxes. But his was the work that brought Capone down. So. We know from history that many strands come together to have an effect. We also know that unlikely threads can be important and that likely threads can sometimes not be as significant as they seemed. In the 1880s, a principled young woman might have put more energy into the temperance movement than into the suffrage movement, and nowadays we might say that was a poor choice, but the ravages of alcohol were dreadful, and she may have cared more about the effects of that on families. [emoticon of shrugging guy here] Since we can't know results, we just have to act on principle as best we can. ... I know you don't need convincing; consider this reinforcement. Which I'm putting down as much for my own sake, really.