Elmo-wielding Terrorist Toddler Stars in Security Theater

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I live in Washington, D.C.

10967282_3799e75522_m.jpg I have lived here since I moved to this great city from my native California in 1999, to attend graduate school. Back then, I went home at least twice a year; between Priceline.com’s $125 roundtrip fares and living three miles from Reagan National Airport, flying to NorCal was as easy as taking the “Metroliner” to New York City. I loved traveling. I loved the excitement, the anticipation, the permission I gave myself to buy mind-rotting magazines and over-priced candy from Hudson News, right before sauntering up to my gate.

Then, everything changed.

Traveling was no longer glamorous and thrilling, it was fraught and terrifying. Was it going to happen again? How could we stop it? How do you protect a massive, liberty-loving nation from crazed zealots who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for some twisted ideal?

Security. Lots and lots of security.

Lining up to be screened for hidden box-cutters or submitting to more thorough searches through our baggage made sense. We were trying to protect this country. We kept repeating, “Never again.” But somewhere between justifiable caution and utterly comprehensible fear, common sense was lost. What replaced it was an obtuse over-reliance on the obvious– but not your obvious or mine, no. It was the “obviousness” of the ignorant which suddenly became a battering ram of blunt discrimination used to profile, persecute and pervert. Continue reading →

In Conversation With Vijay Iyer, Part II

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Yesterday, you saw Part I of my conversation with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer (who, by the way, is playing at Birdland again tonight!). Herewith, Part II!

Video of Vijay Iyer Trio’s version of M.I.A.’s “Galang”

Vijay Iyer Trio’s award-winning album, “Historicity“

VVG: What does it mean to be someone not only interested in making art, but also in articulating what it means? How did you get into writing? In a dialogue with your longtime collaborator, the saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, you talk about being accused of being “full of words and full of himself.” (I have some sympathy with this, having once been described as “fast-talking.”) You say, “But I felt like, either frame the discourse with your own language, or else let them take it over and completely misrepresent you.” Does this get at why you chose to take on writing as another facet of your career? To what extent do you feel that you are required to explain yourself, your philosophies of work and your work itself more because you are South Asian?

VI: I didn’t frame myself as a writer at first, but I’ve been publishing things here and there, first in academic journals, then in anthologies, then in some online media, and then in print magazines. Most of it has been by invitation, and the last few times I even got paid, so I guess that clinches it!

But seriously, I think the space where I’ve strived to produce specific discourse about identity was in the liner notes to my albums. I’ve always taken this task upon myself, sometimes to people’s dismay. (The “words and himself” quote was from a prominent jazz critic who actually likes my music.) I think of it as a textual counterpoint to an album, or as a letter to the future. But also it’s a rare opportunity to reach a captive audience; people don’t necessarily intend to read anything when they buy an album, but now they’re going to have those words in their hands every time they take the CD off the shelf. (At least that used to be the case when people still bought and listened to cd’s!) So it becomes a way to reach thousands of people over many years. People who revisit the music will at some point revisit the words.

I did find that I had to contextualize the music and my relationship to it. For all the rhetoric of tolerance and inclusiveness, there are some things that just don’t go down easy for Americans, and a South Asian American jazz composer-pianist is one of those things. It also doesn’t go down easy for jazz audiences, or other South Asians, or for people in general!

It’s never enough just to solve the problem internally for yourself. You’re always encountering people who are at some other point in the journey of awareness, and so you are constantly re-solving it for someone else. So that discourse becomes pretty crucial; fragments of it are going to keep coming back into the conversation. Continue reading →

In Conversation With Vijay Iyer, Part I

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Speekenbrink_HighRes_01.jpg photo by Hans Speekenbrink

Acclaimed jazz musician Vijay Iyer’s trio put out an amazing album last year. Historicity got terrific reviews. And the Jazz Journalists’ Association just named him Musician of the Year!

I have the album and love it and wanted to chat with him for the Mutiny; he was gracious enough to agree, and so here, in the first of two parts, is our conversation (which we did online).

(Tracks that are likely of special interest to some Mutiny readers: This track, a cover of M.I.A.’s “Galang,” has deservedly gotten lots of attention. An earlier album, Tragicomic, features a track called “Macaca Please.”

VVG: It’s been so exciting for me to watch your success, especially this year with “Historicity.” My older brother and I both played tenor saxophone relatively seriously when we were younger… Today, coincidentally, I am going to practice again for the first time in years! Your website describes you as “self-taught.” How do you teach yourself/practice? What’s your routine/process? How does your day as a musician work (when you’re not touring)?

VI: Thanks, Sugi! I am honored.

I’ve mostly grown musically over the years by trying new things. Sometimes that means trying to work through some existing musical idea that challenges me, and doing it very slowly; other times it’s about composing challenges for myself to try to play; still other times it’s through collaboration with others, whether in my area of music, in other areas of music, in other artistic fields like poetry, film, and theater, and even in less arts-oriented disciplines like the sciences. I don’t have much of a routine because I find every day is different – but my basic way of learning anything is by working on something for long enough that it’s not “practicing” anymore. As a player, I mostly practice being spontaneous; I practice improvising.

As for my day-to-day when I’m home, I spend an unwanted number of hours each day on business matters – emails, phone calls, paperwork, logistics. But I manage to make music every day, either playing or composing. And I spend as much time with my family as I can, especially my 5-year-old daughter. Continue reading →

Artwallah’s Afterlife – June 18 to June 20th

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artwallah_logo_w-on-b.jpg For Southern Californians who are making plans for the weekend – you should know, there has been a revival. Artwallah is back and though it is not as grandiose as the weekend long festival of yester years, the line-up this year seems pretty boss. It is the tenth anniversary festival, and long time Los Angeles residents will remember what an iconic event this festival once used to be.

North America’s decade-old, internationally renowned arts festival of the South Asian diaspora will present the freshest Cultural-Art-Collision on June 18th to 20th 2010 at the venerable Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.

> Co-presented by The South Asian Artists Collective and Highways, the tenth anniversary festival celebrates the theme of “Afterlife” with a presentation of original artist collaborations and multi-disciplinary performance – and an engaging children’s program for families. Tickets are now available online at www.highwaysperformance.org or via the Highways box office at 310-315-1459.[[artwallah](http://artwallah.southasianartists.org/)] Artists on the line-up The Pieces, [MadGuru’s screening of Gul](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/006079.html), a dance piece by [Shyamala Moorty](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005847.html), comedic songs by[ Rasika Mathur](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/006080.html), reading by Shilpa Agarwal (Haunting Bombay), and many, many more. There is also a gallery exhibit featuring “Thums Up N Up”, an installation by Yatin Parkhani. And on Sunday, there’s a children’s program with a yoga/comedy improv class and bhangra dance class. There’s a little bit of something, for everyone. Abhi and I will both be making it out to this amazing event. I hope you’ll be able to make it too, L.A.! Continue reading →

Tamtini, anyone?

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If you’re like me, sometimes you get a fever, and the only prescription is more tamarind.

A few months ago I found some mint in the fridge that was on its way to brown, and thought I’d salvage what I could and make myself a mojito. Unfortunately there was no lime to be found, so I decided I’d try with tamarind instead.

I took a lump out of a wet packet of tamarind (you know, the one that comes in plastic with the seeds), dissolved it in water, took out the seeds, and strained it. I muddled the mint, added a little sugar syrup, rum, and the tamarind. The result was… all right.

mojindo_400.JPG

I asked my genius partner-in-crime for her opinion, and she thought the same thing – all right. Then she thought about it for a little while and said, “You know those little Thai tamarind candies? The ones with chili powder in them – make it taste like that.”

Continue reading →

Get That Man a Record Deal

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New York Magazine posted the quintessential spontaneous New York Desi moment (h/t Sadaf).

Bhangra in the East Village from Derek Beres on Vimeo.

Do you recognize the deli? I It’s that one place on 1st street in New York’s East Village where all the taxi workers go. I went with The Kominas after a show last fall. They have great saag paneer. The man providing the beats in the video is Duke Mushroom (not Derek Beres as stated earlier), both of EarthRise SoundSystem. Continue reading →

He’s Just Not That Into You

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I started reading Slate’s “Dear Prudence” because it reminded me of a beloved Siouxsie Sioux cover from 1983 (and you scoffed when I said I was a Goth in high school); I continued to read Prudie because her work is quite interesting. Beyond composing her advice column, every week, Prudence (also known as Emily Yoffe) chats online via the Washington Post with people, “about their romantic, family, financial, and workplace problems”. Today’s chat included a doozy of a problem, starring an EVIL BROWN MAN! So very sad.

Q. Interracial Relationships: My long-term boyfriend recently informed me that, because I’m white and he’s Indian and Muslim, I could never be a good parent to children (that don’t yet exist) that are half his. Basically, he didn’t want to continue our relationship because he believes that Indian/Muslim children should have two Indian/Muslim parents, not one white parent and one Indian/Muslim parent (although if we had children, obviously half of their genes would come from me). When I tried to counter his arguments, he called me racist and said that I would never understand. I had to break up with him, but I’m still so enraged–I would be a great mom to any children, and I seriously think he’s wrong. I think he’s afraid to talk to his parents about our relationship (they have relatively firm religious beliefs, whereas he is nonreligious but values Muslim cultural traditions), so he decided that ending things was the best plan. How should I have reacted, and how do I react now, since he still wants to be friends? (Note: This isn’t about religion. He is quite firmly against organized religion, so he would never ask me to take up any religious beliefs, and offering to do that wouldn’t help the situation, as it would fly in the face of his beliefs about organized religion.)

A: I’m afraid that when someone says he finds you unsuitable as a potential mother to his children, he wins that argument by default. You are understandably enraged at the end of this relationship. But over the long run, you will be happier that you didn’t try to force someone to merge his DNA with yours just to show you how wrong he was. For some people, when it comes time to make marriage and reproduction decisions, their spouse’s ethnic or religious background doesn’t matter. Other people find it does. Of course it’s painful that your boyfriend has now informed you he’s in this latter camp after several years together. But since you want to become a mother, you have to move on and find someone else you can spend your life with. And for your own emotional health, that may mean taking a pass on his offer of “friendship.”

Oh, dear. I don’t want to seem unsympathetic to this woman’s complaints because, sister, we’ve all been there…brown, white, black, olive…who among us hasn’t been blue over love? As someone who spent the totality of her teens convinced that she would never, ever have a boyfriend and would never, ever be loved, I will always feel for anyone whose heart is aching. It’s pure awfulness with a chaser of real pain. There’s no denying how brutal rejection is, how it reaches in to your core and eviscerates you as if you are an extra in an extra-vile video game. It hurts. It hurts so very much. Continue reading →

Mark Your Calendars for UNIFICATION 2010

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Back in September, Taz planned a Boston meetup that attracted dozens of Sepia supporters. It was the first meetup Ravi and I attended on behalf of the Mutiny and we were humbled by the warm reception Boston’s mutineers gave us. That night, we met a lot of people, including BROWNSTAR REVOLUTION, a spoken-word duo composed of Pushkar Sharma and Sathya Sridharan, who Taz later interviewed for a post. Now, more than six months later, BROWNSTAR needs our help. The duo is in the middle of planning UNIFICATION 2010, a joint celebration of Pakistani and Indian independence in New York City and you’re invited.

Who: Join spoken-word duo BROWNSTAR REVOLUTION, NYC’s DJ Rekha, Boston-based punk rock band The Kominas, Hari the Comic, brother-sister singers Fair and Kind and other talented South Asian artists in Manhattan for double the independence day fun. Continue reading →

Aseem Shukla’s Piece on the Gaza Flotilla

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In his piece in The Washington Post’s “On Faith” column last Wednesday, Aseem Shukla, co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), begins with the following:

Watching events unfold in the Middle East, I lose the hyphen in Hindu-American here and comment only as an American. I do not represent the Hindu American Foundation here, but represent the views of one stunned by the existential challenges in the Middle East (On Faith).

He then questions the motives of the flotilla organizers, characterizing it as a political stunt rather than a genuine humanitarian effort (why are the two mutually exclusive?).

The flotillas insist on direct access to land controlled by the same Hamas thugs that are committed to destroying Israel and have purposefully launched thousands of rockets at Israel. These seaborne do-gooders could easily unload their supplies in Israel and have them transported to Gaza if their concerns were only humanitarian. But theirs were political, and they chose to protest, provoke and, yes, in a few cases, covet the perverse martyrdom of the extremist.

The problem with Mr. Shukla’s article, and the reason I find it disingenuous, is that though he claims to lose his hyphen, his argument fits neatly within the political framework of HAF.

Continue reading →