Culture comes in many forms

I am sitting here at the ridiculous hour of 7:09 am after taking Freeb to the airport. You can't beat a $39 fare, but sheesh, Ft. Lauderdale is far when the flight is at 7:10 am. Ahh well, that's what friends do. She came to down to visit me and was the consummate house guest. She has set the bar very high folks. You're all going to have to meet and exceed it! Not only did she take me to dinner and do all those sorts of things, she completely took charge of my lack of decoration if the apartment. She unpacked all of my photos and artwork. She laid them around the apartment with suggestions of where they should go. She then went to the ultimate step of implementation and hung them for me. Anyone can lay them out. Heck, I could have lived in that stage for a month or two. But no. She actually put them on the walls. Excellent. I am now decorated. Maybe not finished, but 100% farther than I was.

She also reorganized, rearranged and declutterized some things. At first when I got home from a work meeting, I was just surprised. You all know me and my complete and utter lack of poker face. Hey... where's such and such? Why is that there?... but then it dawned on me that there was a plan and quite a bit of work had gone into all this. She doesn't believe that I like almost all of what she's done, but I do. Someday I'll figure out why I am so change resistant. Maybe its my reptilian layer. Maybe its not.

Anyway, I now have culture in my apartment in that its finally starting to look like a home. My home. Rather than a corporate rental apartment.

After a day of hard work, we went to dinner (my treat this time) and went to hear Azar Nafisi, author or Reading Lolita in Tehran and her new book, Things I've Been Silent About. She was wonderful. She spoke from notes, but really spoke to the audience rather than just reading passages from the book. She talked about why she wrote it. Its "birth certificate." or how it came to be. But she also talked about the celebration and importance of imagination and thought. I loved it. She suggested we stop watching all those talk shows which tell us what to think and give us the analysis and get out there and read, think for ourselves, talk to each other about ideas and imagine what could be and what should be. It was really wonderful, moving, funny, compelling and a great commercial for reading. Many of you have heard me on my soapbox wondering about the death of communal activity and interaction with each other. Theatre is one of the few things we still do together. Engaging in a single evening of theatre, but doing it as a group each bringing our own pasts and presents thereby making that performance different from all others because we were there. She suggest a similar idea about books. Sure, we read them individually, but she says that through books, strangers and strange places become intimate strangers and then offer the opportunity for us to share them. Together we can share OUR experiences of those books which will still be unique to each of us because of what each of us brings to it. My past and present will have me read and interpret a book differently than you do just because we're different. My version of the hero may look or sound different than your but it doesn't lessen the book any, in fact. It only makes it stronger.

She had fascinating things to say about culture and what defines it. Does the Iranian government and its policies represent Iranian culture? Do US president's represent American culture? Is that fair? I am intrigued by the idea of small acts of rebellion. Each day, each and every one of us decides how to far to go -- or not -- to change the world or make an impact. While on the Metro yesterday, Freeb and I saw a young man eating breakfast. It was McDonald's pancakes or something. While there is a no-eating policy on the train, he was politely consuming his meal with a knife and fork. When he was done, he methodically put it all back in the bag, opened the window of the train, and tossed it out. I was stunned. I watched the whole thing in slow motion. Should I have said something? Could I have? Oh sure, we all worry these days about some violent response, but I was on a train full of people. I was totally safe. If I don't comment, am I complicit? This is a question that Nafisi asks. Or rather states. She says we are all complicit. An interesting concept since I did feel complicit. I felt cowardly that I'd missed an opportunity. Oh sure, its easy to be outraged quietly and to Freeb, but what good does it do if we don't rebel or speak up? How does it keep it from happening the next time?

I am on a fairly strict "no book buying" policy so I didn't buy the book, but Freeb did. She said I could read it before I mail it off. Excellent.

Last week I went to hear a Jamaican lesbian poet named Staceyann Chin. She doesn't have anything published yet but when she does, I highly suggest you all look her up. Actually no worries, you'll probably get it as gifts. I loved her. She was funny, irreverent, serious, world conscious and much more. She also spoke of her writing as a way to bear witness and change the world by giving voice to issues and occurrences that just can't be ignored or allowed to go unchallenged. she had me doubled over in laughter with a story that was about her first period and her "learning curve" on feminine products but was really about her fundamentalist grandmother and her emotional and almost physical abuse of the grand kids.

To the right is a picture of Chin performing the courtyard of Books and Books.

When I got to Miami I was stunned by the lack of culture. But I was so wrong. There is a definite lack of culture here as I knew it or was accustomed to experiencing it in DC. But there is no lack of culture here. First of all, I have never lived in such a diverse place. I am doing my best to begin my study of Spanish. Its not easy here as they speak so quickly and with such poor enunciation that one can't even hear where the words begin or end. If you ask them to repeat or speak more slowly, 90% will switch to impeccable English. So if culture is food, people, clothes, then I am surrounded by culture very different from anything I've ever known. If culture refers more specifically to arts and literature, the literature side has grown exponentially for me. Books and Books is an independent bookstore located right here in Coral Gables. They present authors and poets and music almost every night of the week. The majority of it is free and even when it has a charge, like when I went to see Annie Leibovitz, they'll credit the cost of the ticket to the purchase of a book.

They also have a really lovely cafe -- both indoors and outside -- which serves really good food. Sandwiches, salads, good soups, etc. Since I am on the no book-buying thing... I try to support them by visiting the cafe often. I believe wholeheartedly independent bookstores but more importantly I believe in books in general. I love to browse and feel the books and to find that something you never set out to find.

So come visit, check out my newly decorated apartment, have lunch at Books and Books and we'll take in a reading or appearance while you're here. But don't forget to grab a book or two for the plane. Because if we won't fight for imagination and thought, who will?