You've Got to Dress the Part

So, what would you have worn to the Anarchist Book Fair this weekend?

(Personally, I would have chosen a sandal instead of the oxford-style shoe.) But at least he's matched his socks to his footwear. And to be fair, it was quite cold and it did rain, so a closed-toe pair of shoes does make a lot of sense.

***

Today, The Boy dressed in a handsome navy blazer, crisp white shirt and striped tie bearing his school colors to attend an alumni meeting at the University Club downtown.

Once he had hopped in his taxi, I pondered what a person (namely, me) would wear to the 14th Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair being held at the San Francisco County Fair Building, just inside the entrance to Golden Gate Park.

I tend to think of Golden Gate Park as my backyard, so of course it's only natural for me to take an interest if there are a bunch of anarchists coming to visit my park, just as I did with the hordes of Ikebana enthusiasts last weekend.

The important thing, besides having an open mind, is to choose your outfit carefully so that you don't look like an outsider. Even though technically a bunch of anarchists are outsiders, I still think it's a good idea to dress the part.

I went with drab. I chose a grey sweater, black cotton skirt, tights, and low-heeled boots. My only splash of color was an old wool scarf that I bought at a market on Blvd. Raspail in Paris, and a cheap knit hat from H&M. I only wore blush, so as not to look too conformist by wearing makeup. (Okay, I lied. I did wear a little mascara and some very light lip gloss.) I just hoped that my hair looked naturally curly in a 70s hippie sort of way and not like I had permed it to be something my hair is definitely not.

***


The Anarchist Book Fair was free to enter (duh) but once inside, everything was for sale. I couldn't help being amused that many of the vendors took credit cards. Even little suburban-raised dorky me, in my non-aware, non-hipster state of political innocence/inaction, assumed it would be a cash-only affair.

This is the place to buy your t-shirts with assorted depressing/threatening messages, tote bags (same messages), patches bearing messages to put on parts of clothing, stickers and buttons. And of course you could find any number of books and DVDs for sale, on subjects ranging from the Zapatista National Liberation Army to herbal abortion methods, and everything in between.

Despite my drab outfit, I no longer have any facial piercings (that nose stud was truly a pain in the ass) and I don't have any tattoos. My hair is brown. Permed, I freely admit, but the color I was born with. I had to wonder, watching the body-modified set, if this Anarchist Book Fair is just another reason to dress up in a city where dressing up is already a way of life. Heck, you know me, I even dress up for film festivals. I'm the first to admit it.

***

The reason why I ask this is that I didn't hear a lot of people talking about ideas. I saw a lot of things to buy, and a lot of white people buying them.

I had gone to the book fair because I was curious to hear what this gathering of people believed in, because under the outfits and under the skin, I'm quite sure that I might have a few ideas in common with some of them. I can see that things in the world are broken too, I just don't wear my heart on my sleeve. And I don't act on my anger.

***

I have a parent who worked for the NSA and a major defense contractor for my whole upbringing. I had a husband who grew up in Communist Russia and lived in a ridiculous and corrupt society based on a flawed economic system. I had a boyfriend who owned a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook and followed the Maharishi around the world, just like the Beatles did. I have a boyfriend who quotes Warren Buffett (and Jimmy Buffett, but mostly Warren).

So it's not like I'm not used to or unwilling to understand a variety of viewpoints. I just wasn't enlightened or touched here.

***

And then I went outside.

First I saw this:


This local man is in critical condition in an Israeli hospital, after being shot in the head last Friday with a tear gas canister by Israeli soldiers while in a Palestinian village. I have not commented on the situation in Gaza or the current conflict because I really don't know enough about the situation, except that it saddens me. And because I deeply distrust our media, I don't think I am qualified to have an opinion.


But my heart goes out to a local fellow who thought he could help with a tragic and violent situation that is generations upon generations old, and now he is in desperate circumstances. The money box for donations was empty. I put in some money. I couldn't help thinking that those people inside buying their anarchist garb and stickers could have put some money in this box, too.

And then I saw this young lady, sitting quietly and making jewelry, her wares spread out on a dark blanket.

Perhaps because of my recent memories about being a jewelry vendor, and seeing a pretty little metal choker, I wanted to buy something from her. To support her efforts and appreciate her artistry. She seemed like the only real person there.

And she had a delightful screen print on canvas of a 20s-era woman musing about her love for Anaïs Nin, which you should know by now is definitely something I'd display proudly on my anarchist messenger tote (which I do not have so now will have to buy one).

***

After all of that bleakness, I was happy to see that the rest of Golden Gate Park wasn't buying into it. Luckily for us, nature ignores our cruelties and doesn't give a crap about our revolutions.


***

ps.: Nyssa's jewelry can be found here on Etsy at Hourglass Productions.
pps.: You can read more about Tristan Anderson here. There will be a rally for his cause tomorrow afternoon.

Tradition

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” ~ Buddha

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” ~ Stuart Chase

***

I wanted to thank all of you who so sweetly wished me a happy Chanukkah/ Hanukkah (however you like to spell it... I could never get the spelling right) from the last post.

I kind of feel like a heel. Part of me wants to just to revel in your lovely wishes because I know it made you happy to wish that for me. And it made me happy to receive your wishes, your blessings. You are all so very very kind. But the other part of me has to come clean and say I don't celebrate Hanukkah (or any other holidays) anymore. I fell off the wagon quite a while ago.

I think I first started to fall off it around the age of eight or ten. It had to do with me reading the story of Abraham and the Sacrifice of Issac, in a book I used to really love called The Children's Story of Israel. It was a really interesting book. I remember loving to read it, not only for the vivid stories, but for the smell and feel of the paper, and the stark black and white illustrations. I think they were engravings. The paper was incredibly silky and smooth. I remember just running my fingers over the pages because they felt beautiful. It was odd. I've never had another book quite like it. I have no idea where that book went to, but it was old.

Anyway, I used to read that book a lot. And then one day it dawned on me what was really going on in that story of Abraham and Isaac. I understood that it meant that Abraham might actually kill his own son because God told him to. And what would that say about any father who might get a message from God. That scared the piss out of me, to be quite frank. I never read that book again. I remember feeling betrayed. And it made me wonder exactly where these stories were coming from and why I read them.

This post isn't to rain on anyone's parade (I don't mean to do that in the least) or to expound what I believe or don't believe. But what this holiday wishing made made me think about is Tradition. Why we believe what we believe.

Like the Buddha says in that quote above: How much of our beliefs are our own? And how often do we question ourselves and our own minds? What is the relationship between our individual identity and what is forged by the traditions and beliefs handed down to us?

***

In thinking about my Hanukkahs of the past, I think about my grandmothers. My grandma Helen (aka Little Helen) and my grandma Annette. For Grandma Helen, I remember the potato latkes and how I've never had any that taste better than hers did. Every year she would come to my mother's house, with an old metal food grinder in an ancient cardboard box. The grinder part was held on by rubber bands. My mom and I would peel potatoes, keeping them in a bowl of water to keep them from turning pink, until Grandma Helen could grind them up into a big bowl filled with eggs, onions and flecks of black pepper. I remember her forehead getting damp. It was hard work grinding all of those potatoes.

But she said that's what made them taste so good and she was right about that. I've just come to realize that I'll never have that particular taste in my mouth again.

And then there was my Grandma Annette. In her being absent for most of my life now, I think she's come to make a greater impression on me because I didn't know her well. But she represented Tradition to me in a way I craved. She came from the "Old Country" (the Ukraine) as she called it in her heavy accented English, and I still vaguely remember her stories of village life and her brothers and sisters and escaping the Cossack raids.

She knew all of the Sabbath blessings and kept kosher. She was tiny and also very formidable in a quiet, fragile way. I used to watch Fiddler on the Roof a lot as a kid, because I imagined that her vanished village with no name was just like the one in the movie. In a way, I was probably right.

***

Looking back at grandma Annette and her lost world of the Old Country, I realized for many years that what I wanted, or perhaps envied most, was her tradition. The surety of a world where your place was known, where everyone knew what was expected of themselves and they were surrounded by a community that might have been confining but was also there as a protection. I had this fantasy of how life might just be so much easier if I knew exactly what I was supposed to be when I got older.

Unfortunately or fortunately, life in the 'burbs just isn't the same thing as life in the shtetl. Of course now I'm grateful that I ended up where I am, but for many years, I really felt I was missing out on something very subtle and very important. But my world is a lot bigger now. And I'm not so scared of it anymore. I'm not scared of not being what I thought I was going to be when I grew up, either.

***

Several years ago, I went on a business trip to Houston. On the flight home, my fellow passenger was an Orthodox rabbi. He had the peyes, the prayer shawl, the black hat. He was my age, rotund and jolly. He had five beautiful children (in his words, I'm sure they were) and he and his wife ran an Orthodox community in Dallas. He was flying to Palo Alto to perform a wedding.

Now all these years later, I felt like I finally had my chance. I had to ask him what was up with the Abraham and Isaac story. I told him what it did to my kid psyche and I could see on his face that I wasn't the only one who had a problem with the tale. He looked pained as I poured my heart out to him. He explained it to me, in what the metaphor of the story really meant, and apologized that no one was there to tell me that when I was young. I tried not to cry. But I did and he gave me his beverage napkin so I could blow my nose. His explanation was calming in its way, but still did not erase the savagery of the act that almost was.

I don't know why it affected me so, to have some closure on that story so many years after the fact. I mean, I could have gone to any temple around and just asked someone. But that was the right time for me. It was the right time, and at the same time, it was too late.

The rabbi and I kept in touch for a little while via email but whatever tradition I felt I should have had just wasn't inside me. I think some things you have to be exposed to at a very young age for them to take hold in your heart, otherwise the roots are just too shallow.

But I don't feel too badly, because I also realize that there was a little eight or ten year old girl who read something and then had an opinion about it and took a position. Above all else, I appreciate that little Julie who reads and thinks about what she reads. And wherever that tradition came from, I'm most grateful for that of all.

***

More and more, I'm fine with where I'm at. It's a journey though, and I'm still working on it. But I'm not as worried so much about not having all the answers.

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.” ~ George Carlin

***

Paintings by Marc Chagall: 1. Solitude (1933). 2. The Birthday (1915). 3. Title unknown (if you know, please tell me).

"One fine day... as my mother was putting the bread in the oven, I went up to her, and taking her by her flour-smeared elbow I said to her, 'Mama ... I want to be a painter.' " ~ Marc Chagall