The (nocturnal) painted lady

I saw a painted lady,
with opaquely-stockinged wings
her ripe yellow flesh,
'neath black leather,
for birds or bees to sting.

The painted lady,
on grass a sprawl,
does justice as she sings...
The tortured tenderness of her rhapsody
Makes a virgin of an enchantress

But like butterfly,
the eyes do fall
on men and beast to sop....
I stare at you my heart's content
but you cant' run away

The lighted wings deject for secrecy
Hit my heart with camouflage...
sputtering, fluttering to safety
While two legs compel me to run...

With gumdrop lullabies
Juicy mangos, lanky fig tree vines,
the feet that tuck beneath define...
An organism...blood through spine

Yet SHE...for food...will never be mine.
Through the leaves sway silk beauty...
beloved and fine.

*Note: The painted lady is a species of butterfly that is a regular source of food for the hawk. The hawk swoops down, crushes the endoskeleton, and extracts the juicy flesh incrementally.

Blog Post 2: in-class Eurocentrism

The first week of my winter quarter have gone by uneventfully as planned so far. I thoroughly enjoy three out of my four professors and the one that I do not like explicitly declared that his course would be "straightforward and comprehensive." (code talk for easy A)  The courses I am taking are Global Studies 100A (i.e. "History of globalization"), History 134C ("History of Modern European Economy"), History 125C (History of Germany in the 20th century) and History 121E (History of Europe, 1914-45). As you can easily discern from the latter three course titles, I am a History major with a concentration on Modern Europe: it may come across as a surprise then that two of the three history courses count as foundational units toward my second major of Global Studies. The History 121E professor troublesomely reminded me that "Europe is responsible, for better or for worse, for most of the attributes of the modern age." Additional reminders of the paramount importance of 20th-century Europe's economic history on the "world" vis-à-vis the dictates of its imperial powers (and influence on the west), only further hammered home in another "Global Studies course" (History 134C) the ultimate metonym embodied in a peninsula that could fit into Canada.

And yet, isn’t history more about examination and introspection as opposed to mere description? The arc of European dominance, I have been told before-runs from ancient Greek democracy to “Medieval” law codes and “Renaissance”- only to see a culmination in the twentieth century’s suicide of the Westphalian nation-state system and the spread of world communism and fascism. However, prior to the 19^th-century imperialism, the vast majority of the world’s landmass (and a good deal of its people) remained outside of the “western” tradition (which within Europe, was largely confined to elites) and though the next century saw European ideas, institutions, and political implanted on all corners of the globe, these structures (with the exception of the “settler colonies” in Southern Africa and Australaisa) largely failed to diffuse beyond a select grouping of local elites. Today, following Afro-Asian decolonialization and the recognition of (non-western) minority rights in the West (particularly the US), the political and economic dominance of America (as opposed to Eurpe) have resulted“imperialism” of commodities such as rock music that is as much representative of the hybrid  “African-american” folk culture as of anything explicitly "western," while the rise of "Confucian" China enables a further threat to the early 20th-century "Judeo-Christian," "West European" hegemony. But then again, I am getting ahead of myself. When we step back to view the full course time, Europe’s (or the “West’s”) “modern” dominance of global affairs occupies but the last hour of the day. At the time of China’s Tang dynasty (not the first nor the most recent of that civilization’s “Golden ages”) and the Ummayad Caliphate, half of Europe was a tribal backwater still caught up in the Bronze Age. The Greco-Roman was more world “Mediterranean” than “European” geographically and one could easily argue in fact (as Martin Bernal does in Black Athena) that it emerged from the latching on of Near Eastern and Egyptian civilization to the extremety of Europe. When European kingdoms first established foreign colonies-during the so-called “Age of Exploration”-, the Chinese Ming dynasty, the Ottoman Turks, and the Indian Mughals managed vast, efficiently centralized empires. The very “Greco-Roman civilization” that proved pivotal to fueling Europe’s rational scientific and intellectual tradition during the Renaissance was largely filtered back in from the “Arab” commentators such as Averroes (see http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ir/index.html )-who reconciled Aristotle's rationalism with monotheistic religious belief- and Avicenna (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/45755/Avicenna) -who espoused Platonic "logic" and Galen's and Hippocrates' idea on Human anatomy. Additionally, one cannot forget that such fundamental mechanisms of modern “civilization” as firearms and paper came from “Eastern” China.

All of this does not deny the fact that it was Europe (firstly, Britain) that first underwent the decisive processes “industrialization” and “liberalization” that would define the condition of modernity (thereby enabling Europe to politically subjugate less-advanced parts of the globe). But prior to that most recent historical millisecond, the "traditions"of intellectual rationalism, economic entrepreneurship, and political constitutionalism developed in Europe in tandem with through Europe's interaction with other Eurasian cultures'. By framing Europe's regional history, even in the colonial era, as a "global" one, one implicitly reduces civilizations that (both before and after) have not only rivaled the "West" but helped shape it as colorless cogs in the mechanism. An alternative to such pedagogy can be exemplified by another course I am taking this quarter, Global Studies 100A: concentrating on a single, fixed period in time (1400-1800), the main text (Charles H. Parker's Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age) portrays the era of  centralized monarchies that promoted trade and territorial expansion across the “whole” of Eurasia  (including entities as far-removed as Bourbon France, Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India, and Qing China) as a coherent period of “early modernity."  Though still limited in scope to those societies arguably advanced enough to be deemed “complex” civilizations, Parker's analysis (regarding a time, when as previously mentioned, Europe was a growing fish in a crowded pond) focuses on comparative developments and "points of contact" to "pursue a more balanced global approach." (Parker 9-10) I only wish that the Global Studies program could build on Parker's humanism, excluding from the  "Global Foundations" requirement, courses like History 121E that are so blatantly regional  ( though, then again, that would make the department's literally “ahistorical”).

                                           

typing on Livejournal while surfing Wikitravel and checking Facebook while drinking a PEPSI at 4 am (i.e. an electronic rap song)

The modern world leaves little room for thought.

Amidst tons of..bs, bs, bs, bs,

Oh

nature couture PVC

Oh

fb chat...and bottle of skyy

and herbal-grown...and light rail

and breakfasting....basil grained

loose leaf....Pink autumn day


bs bs bs bs bs bs bs bs


Sitting by my

Carbohydrate

liquidates

me

DJ RYLAND LU

First blog session of the year

Today, I return to school following my three-week winter vacation.

I feel refreshed, well-fed (thanks to the gratuitous appetite only encouraged by Chinese family Holiday banquets), and energized by the possibilities that abound for the year 2013!

For one thing, my Global Studies major (interdisciplinary, international relations-like program) requires that I "study" in Europe before the end of the year, an obligation that I will likely fulfill during the summer months. I will travel alone, for my first time, enabling for all sorts of adventures and hopefully, the development of a greater sense of independence and self-responsibility.

More immediately, I seek to raise money to fund the trip costs, my current tuition, and sky-high living expenses. (yikes!) Being young, 21, in Hollywood, with a roommate studying theater, I hope to dabble in film-writing, song-writing (utilizing my sister's talent). as well as writing research articles, and see where it all leads.

With that said, it is getting past my bedtime. Good-bye for now!

Setting sun after a winter rainstorm day by Royce Quad

Cloudy whisps of pink, grey and white too dark for day, too mellow for night. Blocking out sun, filtering in light at this hour, we scurry with fright... Back into the suburb, the shtetl, the barrio... Driving at 50, ears blasting radio Or grating against concrete, gunning to fight... push and shove human pillars...pedestrian lights The day is over. What's done is done. Atoms fall proportionate to mass. And clouds and people...drift.

Armageddon averted, life passes by

When did '97 transform into '11?

When did stout petunias, crust on edge and turn to new ones?

When did '97 transform into '11?

When did stout petunias crust on edge and turn to new ones?

When was my beloved beholden to another?
What must I do after I turn 22?

The old corner store has gained another window board.
The boy at the newsstand, wears dreads and a caftan.*
The bosom buddies have moved miles away.
But the bullies, inside now, torment always.

(NOTE: composed 12/21/2012)

*Orthodox Jewish ritual garb. The Author grew up in a neighborhood populated by secular Jews, many of whom later become Baalei Teshuva (returnees to the faith).

Scanning an ex-friend's Facebook.

When you swing from side to side,

between two eras or galaxies

and your face quivers like a monkey's...

You face those dirty little secrets.

On the phone…

Her voice stammers softly, like a child’s

Still…couched by lost desires

At twenty-one,…this barbituated alibi

In 2011, online…has the face aged?

A private photo, a new name,

Icons that would put to shame...

Amidst the timeline, comments flash,

Once "friends" poked, now they're blocked.

The two dates, "created"..."today,"

Different dimensions, one Facebook page.

When #s were low and convo feeds longer...

Before the wasted nights, futile binges, spent sex and drugs...

When we just frolicked and joshed...

on playgrounds, at playdates.

Immediate laughter, encroaching euphoria

that you now shoot up in silence ...?

The messages I last sent now fall "deleted,"

The spikes in your haircut make me shiver,,

Who is that "husband"? Where are our photos?

Once a source of youthful joy,

now divided and torn...