Karma

Karma's arrival was the last major event of the summer. One day we woke up with a bunch of middle aged and aging cats, and then there was a hungry, howling kitten.

We think the male cat we feed outside brought her to us because she looks like a tiny version of him.

She went from waif to diva almost overnight.

The big cats are still trying to figure out what happened to their quiet world.

I tell them they were once orphans, and someone took them in.

They are not sure.

Karma has stolen all of their toys.

The conference

This morning I gave my paper in this building, La Casa Presno, the location of some of the social science departments of BUAP. The conference room opens to the left of this central courtyard. Climbing the stairs took me into a world of gold leaf and potted plants that I don't usually associate with the social sciences.
The historical center of Puebla is full of buildings that have been renovated from private mansions into official, commercial or educational spaces. I have enjoyed the openness of the conference. Usually, the scholarly conferences I attend are held in convention centers or hotels: this one took place all over the city. In between sessions of the conference, we got to go outside, breathe fresh air and participate in street life.

I'm glad I made use of my first days in the city for photo wanderings. This ice stand is right outside a cathedral, and when I asked if I could take photos, the saleswoman told me when the cathedral opened. She was very surprised that I wanted to photograph her selling ice. Of course, I'm not so good at explaining what I'm doing, but she said it was ok.

This is the building on the corner next to my hotel, where I am now resting on my last afternoon in Puebla because I am sick. I have such a delicate digestive system. Sigh. The little "H" on the right marks my hotel.

I guess I'll have to cross Puebla off the potential-places-to-retire list after all.

Everyone has been very nice to me in Mexico, from the airline counters in San Antonio to the waitcaptain at the banquet who took the time to listen to me explain in baby Spanish that I didn't feel well, and could I please have some yogurt (most expensive yogurt I've ever eaten, I imagine), to the bellmen who thought I really liked my room in the hotel and wanted to stay in it even though they were preparing to fumigate that floor with pesticide. They went out of their way to get permission to let me stay there in spite of my willingness to move to a room that would not be fumigated.

I still haven't mentioned anything about the content of the conference. I know readers will be really interested if they get this far and keep clicking...

I was one of 15 participants in a seminar on the theme, "This is not your home." The topics ranged from my consideration of Anna Politkovskaia's reporting on the Chechen war to the reconstruction of Berlin, building at the site of the 9/11 attacks, South African fiction that interrogates the notions of reconciliation and truth, fiction about the German invasion and occuaption of France during WWII, the apartheid wall in Israel/Palestine, poetry about the Israeli invasions of Lebanon, illegal immigration into Western Europe from the East, German fiction about Mau Mau (revolution in Kenya), a novel about the genocide in Rwanda, Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow and a Palestinian novel of resistance.

I found all the papers fascinating and have a lot of literature and scholarship to add to my summer reading list. You'd think with intellectual interests such as these, I would have a stronger stomach.

Gym Source

Yo estoy en Mexico

I haven't written anything since the ice storm, because I've had a storm of things to do! By the time I get done with everything in the week, then I just want to sleep instead of writing.

I am currently at a conference in Puebla, Mexico.

In 1988 I visited Puebla on a day tour from Mexico City. We got the tour as compensation for some bad experiences with the tour company. That is, the guide on a private tour we took thought that neither of us could speak Spanish and was saying mean things about Americans. I astounded him when I asked questions about something he had been telling our driver in Spanish. I'll never forget the look of horror on his face!

From the previous visit to Puebla, I remember the convent where the nuns hid for years to avoid having to leave the convent for political reasons and mole Poblano.

I have already had some wonderful mole poblano. The waiter told us that the mole at La Fonda de Santa Clara has 24 spices, chocolate, three kinds of chiles (ancho, chipotle, and one that started with a p), shredded tortilla, sesame seeds and peanuts. He thought he might have missed some ingredients....

Today I found a vegetarian restuarant and decided I could retire here. If I do, I'll have to pull together some sentences that make sense in Spanish. So far, I'm getting by on nonsense that combines Spanish, Russian and French (thank God I forgot almost all the Farsi I learned last year, or I'd really be in trouble!) and big smiles. Mexican people are gracious; they figure out what I mean.

The reception for the conference took place in a courtyard of the BUAP (Puebla's university), which is located in a 17th-century building where an important philosopher who was also a friend of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz studied. It was something on the order of a high school then.

I walked all over the historic district. Mexican cities are colorful, and Puebla is no exception. This is one of my favorite images so far. I am glad to be taking photos. Now, all I have to do is find the time to get my printer fixed and I'll be able to inspire myself by hanging the photos all over my studio walls. I don't have as many good feelings about pixels as I do about paper.

I sat at a cafe on the central square, or zocalo, to work on my paper for the conference. One of those moments when I think, "This is how life should be." I managed to cut about five pages. Some of my favorite ideas landed on the cobblestones because I don't have much time to present the paper, which is about Anna Politkovskaia's reporting on Chechnya. When I publish this work, I am moving away from writing about war to something else.

I don't know what yet, but it will be geared to inspire us to acts of friendship and hospitality.

Gym Source

More Ice

These are some of the prettier moments of the ice storm, or "arctic blast" as the TV meteorologists were calling it. You can tell how mild winter had been before this week by the flowers and berries that were thriving and then suddenly found themselves encased in ice.








Although it never snowed, the plants took on the crystalline shapes of snowflakes.


I shot these at about 4 p.m. when the temperature was 34 degrees F and the ice had tried to melt a little.


The leaves were not holding up as well as their icy counterparts.




However, holly berries and flowers encased in ice look sweet.

Gym Source

Ice

If you wanted to drive somewhere today in Texas, you would have faced this:

I chose to stay inside after a brief tour around the yard to shoot these photos.

My furnace (recently fixed so it heats the house up into the high 60s F) is working overtime to deal with the ice that covers everything. The house isn't very tightly built, so the ice on the roof melts and re-freezes as it runs off. Inside, the kitty cats have a heating pad under a blanket, and I have sweaters and wool socks.

The bushes are beautiful; green leaves encased in ice.






At 3 p.m. my neighbor called to tell me she had wonderful icy plants in her yard. I'll upload some photos tomorrow. Until then, I want to give the Seguin Photo Blog a chance to catch up.

I loved the ice days.

Gym Source

The Importance of Self

Two articles in today’s San Antonio Express News helped explain my state of mind lately, and offer insight into why Woman hollerin stays silent sometimes.

First, a wire service feature asks readers why we care about the ups and downs of the lives of three young women who were born under stars (ill-fated or otherwise). Britney Spears doesn’t wear underwear. Lindsay Lohan drinks too much. Nicole Richie is cursed. Why do we care about the minutiae of these women’s lives?

Second, a review of My Name is Iran: A Memoir. Michiko Kakutani, who writes for the New York Times, thought the book missed the opportunity to share thoughts about Iran the country by focusing on the formation of the identity of Iran the woman. “The problem is she never convinces the reader that her personal journey is more interesting than the plight of Iran, and in focusing too insistently on her own search for an identity, she seems to have squandered a splendid opportunity to give us a window on a conundrum of a country that she has known intimately through several tumultuous decades of change.”

I haven’t read the book yet, but Kakutani has a reputation for harsh criticism, so perhaps the work is more compelling than she thinks. Why would we expect the small life of one woman to interest North American readers more than the history of a country we find either exotically appealing or threatening? Why should any single life or single person’s thoughts compel such interest?

Maybe Ardalan should have written the book Kakatuni wanted to read, she placed her focus where I would expect in this moment in U.S. cultural history. Rather than rejoice in the promotion of the individual, I falter in presenting my work to the public because of my answer to this question. I don’t think that I am all that important.

While this is, perhaps, the indicator of a healthy soul, the attitude doesn’t lend itself to winning public office or building an impressive body of work as a writer or photographer. Of course, my attitude doesn’t impede the building of a body of work or involvement in efforts to build healthy community. I just don’t stick with self promotion. If you don’t like what I write or do, fine. I will not impose on you. I am a counterforce to people like Kakutani, but hardly anyone knows. This is the conundrum. How does one promote the idea that exploration of individual identity is less important than knowledge of events that connect individuals to humanity and the universe in the individualistic United States?

The question of my identity may be interesting to me, but if I don’t make the connection to something larger than myself, there’s no reason for anyone to care. I’ve had wonderful opportunities to learn about the world beyond me and have devoted my professional energies to encourage students to explore the world around them. We all need to explore ourselves, but if we don’t place ourselves, our own families, our own communities, in the context of the world beyond our sight and feelings, we are stunted.

I may not be as compelling as a social movement, but when people like me don't speak, the self-absorbed attention seekers can monopolize the floor.

Gym Source