True Story? Riiiight....

I finished reading "Princess Sultana's Daughters" by Jean Sasson last night. It's the follow-up of "Princess," both of which are supposed to be exposes written by a Saudi princess, alias "Sultana," about how totally restricted the lives of Saudi women are. I read the first book more than a year ago, and for all I knew everything in it was true, though a few things seemed tacked on, to make men look even worse than they already had been portrayed. This book, however, is just too pat: For example, one daughter rejects God and has a mental breakdown while the other becomes very religious and complains that her family is too liberal. I had doubts when the first daughter's psychiatrist tells the parents that the daughter has told him that she has had a lesbian relationship, because no ethical psychiatrist would do this. Later, when "Sultana" describes the second daughter becoming an Islamic fundamentalist while she also loves lap dogs, I stopped believing in the book altogether.


A quick perusal of the reviews of this book doesn't show a lot of other people doubting that any of it is true, though the few that do actually explain why they think the books are false. I'm rather surprised, post-James Frey, that more people aren't questioning this, though it must be said that both books precede "A Million Little Pieces" by more than ten years.


In the end I felt really manipulated by Sasson. Women's rights are high on the list of concerns about Saudi Arabia (and other places in the Arab world). However, I wonder if she isn't just trotting out these stories for the sensational effect, stories which non-Muslims would totally "buy" because it fits so many of the stereotypes we already hold.


The last time I read a book that caught me like this was "The Kite Runner." That was my fault, though. I tend to read the same kinds of books for period of time, because of where I end up in the library. I'll read a bunch of authors whose last names begin with E because I was looking for a Louise Erdrich novel, and I'll read a bunch of memoirs in a row because one day I was in the Biographies section. I had been reading memoirs when someone loaned me "The Kite Runner" and was so totally sucked in that until the absolutely unbelievable coincidence I never read the back flap, which starts, " Hosseini's stunning debut novel..."


That time I felt silly, not cheated. I know in the future I will look closely at books that purport to be "as told to" the author.

Funny-Looking Englishmen

Jason Statham.


Daniel Craig.


They make me notice that American actors don't get to look like this and get cast in lead roles. Funny-looking American men get cast only in comedies, or as the sidekick or the bad guy in dramas and action films. Well, except for Johnny Depp, but I think I'm the only one who thinks he's only funny-looking and not handsome at all.


And if you were wondering... Yes, in a New York minute. (-;

Uno amigo de la pluma

I received an email from one of the bartenders at Playa Fiesta, Charly. I'd sent him and the owners Hayward postcards I purchased at Long's.


Charly suggests in his email that we can practice each other's languages by writing. He says, "You'll try to write all your email in Spanish and I'll try to reply in English, later I'll write you everything in Spanish and you'll reply in English and little by little we will see our spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, I think so that this way our advances will be great very soon I'm sure."


His English is much better than my Spanish, but I think he is right. Writing Spanish should be a little easier than speaking it, since I'll be able to consult my diccionario (dictionary) and my libro de la clase (textbook) for vocabulary and conjugations without actually stopping the conversation. Fortunately for me, spelling in Spanish is much less complex and irregular than it is in English. Have you ever noticed that "phonics," which is a reading system that teaches children to connect letters and sounds, is not spelled "fonics"?


I've never had a pen-pal before. I would have been a great pen-pal when I was a kid, because I liked to write and read, and I didn't have a close friend at school so pen-palling would have given me something to do at lunchtime. I also made up a lot of stuff. I think my fourth grade teacher tried to set my class up with the class of a friend of hers in Rome. I don't think the Roman class wrote back to us.


Having a pen-pal to whom I write in Spanish will probably alleviate the obligation I feel about being in a Spanish class this term. I was going to enroll in Spanish 1B at Chabot Community College this semester, but it began before I knew I wouldn't be going back to CSU East Bay. I'm hopeful that Charly and I do write to each other for a long time.



Besides, No found a house to rent in the same area as Playa Fiesta and it's always good to have a friend who's local.

The water's great!

I was at the bi meeting last night and we were - as we often do - talking about how we identify ourselves to the rest of the world. A very wise woman pointed out that identity is sovereign. What that means to me is I don't really need to explain myself to anyone else, or even respond to whatever they think it means. However, it's been in the category of Things That Are None Of Anyone's Business But I Feel I Must Respond When Asked, like why Zirpu and I don't have kids.


I think that one good thing came about because of the mean girls, and that is I'm always welcoming people to join me. I have taken it on as my charge to welcome new members to the group by name, and if there is a movement to go out afterwards (which there often is) that everyone knows she is welcome to join us. I never want someone to feel like she doesn't belong in "my group," whatever it may be.


One of the things I feel, and I've heard others say they feel, about being bi is that none of us are an "either-or." We inhabit that grey area, like interfaith families and multiracial folks. Being ourselves raises questions, especially because we break taboos around sexuality and its expression, not to mention that the stereotypes of bisexuals are exclusively negative because we live in a sex-negative culture and the stereotypes about us are all about sexual appetite. While I personally haven't had any experience with this, some people I know have felt excluded by lesbians when they came out as bi, and one person was actually excluded from a group because she isn't a lesbian. I did have a gay man tell me what he thought my "Kinsey score" was, so that he could justify his statement that I wasn't as queer as he but more so than someone else (can you find the ironical [to me] statement in this link?). As if that score were static!



I see my bisexuality as being like water, having properties of its own but taking the shape of whatever vessel it's in. The water itself doesn't change when I hold it in a different vessel. Likewise, the water can be holding the vessel in which I'm floating.


I was thinking last night that the way I feel about being bisexual is that everyone's welcome in my boat. I don't care how gay or straight you are or aren't, I don't care if you are sure, straight, gay/lesbian, bi, questioning, have a crush, kissed a girl, kissed a boy, I want you to come along with me, be a travelling companion, friend, acquaintance, or just be someone waving as I float by. Because I don't feel today about my sexuality exactly the same way I felt yesterday, I don't expect that you will. We're all only making it up as we go along, and as I've said before, the only thing I know for sure is that as soon as I think I know something, something changes everything.

Take me with you!

'Tis spring, and motorcycles fill the roads. Especially here around Hayward, it seems, perhaps because we are close to Oakland and its many motorcycle clubs but have prettier roads to ride on. It could be that they catch my eye so much because they still seem unusual to me after twelve years in the Northwest, where motorcycles are rare (but not as rare as convertibles).


I've noticed that most of the people riding these bikes are riding big cruising motorcycles, BMWs, Hondas, and especially Harley-Davidsons. Occasionally I see people on crotch-rocket motorcycles but even in commuter traffic the cruisers seem much more common. It also seems to me that the people on the crotch rockets seem to wear much less protective gear, riding in blue jeans and sneakers, and maybe a leather jacket. The cruisers wear smaller helmets, for the most part, but seem to wear more leather or Kevlar - all over their bodies.


While they are loud, I love seeing the motorcycle clubs cruising down Mission on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Between eight and fifteen people, just going along, waiting to get to the open part of Mission south of here and zoom away. I know it's a romantic vision.


Last Friday while driving in slow traffic on 880, I saw a woman on her cruiser bike. A very large woman, she was wearing either light-blue gear or just a denim jacket and pants. She was wearing regulation boots and a half helmet. Her long long black and red braids hung down her back (we were all driving too slowly for them to stream out, which I bet is quite the sight). As you can tell we were driving slowly enough for me to get a good look, but I wish we had been at a full stop long enough for me to take a picture.


I would have been happy to be her passenger!

Music With Meaning

This is going to sound incredibly geeky to (some of) you at first.


Those of us who have been watching Battlestar Galactica just got treated to the last episode of the season (season four starts in ten months). If you've been following the show and haven't yet seen the episode, this is your only Spoiler Warning.


Four of the characters hear this song throughout, a sitar-and-tabla tune that none of them knows and that hardly anyone else can hear. For most of the episode each one thinks he or she is the only one who hears it. Because the music was unfamiliar to me, I didn't figure it out until one of them says, "There's too much confusion," and then I immediately knew it was a song we all know: "All Along The Watchtower." Using this funky arrangement, written and played by the brother of the series' music composer, hides the music from us who would have recognized it instantaneously. Not to mention that really the actual tune is kind of minimal in the first place so it doesn't really "hum."


Given what's going on in the plot, the words make sense if you look at the lyrics last verse to first, which Dylan indicated was the "chronology" of the song. But what I've been thinking is, "This song is forty years old. Nobody wrote any songs of warning more recently than that?" Then I thought maybe it's a Boomer thing, and the producer chose a song from his youth. However, Ron Moore is only four years older than I, which technically makes him a Boomer but also means that he was listening to the same music everybody was listening to (or hearing) in the 1980s and 1990s.

It happens that I'm not very educated on the music that was on the radio at that time because I personally was mostly listening to '60s and '70s rock and folk music then, so this question isn't rhetorical. I keep seeing stories about the impact and influence the Boomers have had and are having on our popular culture (not to mention everything else) and I can't help but think that this is yet another example. For that reason itself, I wish that they had chosen an original composition.

Imagine The Longest Time

I went to the Friends and Family Concert by East Bay Harmony this evening after the food bank. I had volunteered to help sell raffle tickets; the F&F Concert is their big fundraiser. The concert was at the Lake Merritt Dance Center, in a beautiful ballroom with a big stage.

East Bay Harmonizers listen to Mark Bernfield, the director, introducing "Loch Lomond"

The songs they sang were:

Come Go With Me
Happy Together
Fyer Fyer (a 16th century madrigal - "I cry help me... and no help comes")
Weep O Mine Eyes (another 16th century madrigal - "I love you and you don't love me")
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
That’ll Be the Day
Na Na Hey, Hey
Son of a Preacher Man Ring of Fire
E Oru O ("The king comes to the marketplace")
In the Still of the Night
Ning Wendete ("I love you, you don't love me, why is that so?")
Loch Lomond
Imagine
The Longest Time
Blue Moon (this was introduced with "True love only happens once in... a baker's dozen?")
Ain't Misbehavin'
Because (arranged by a current member of the chorus)
Gonna Build a Mountain

The encore was "Imagine" with the audience singing the melody and the chorus singing the backup. It's an Oakland-Berkeley chorus and I suspect that since 2001 that song has a special place in its heart.


Most of the concert was the full chorus, with about forty members, but several songs were sung by small groups, four or five people. Only the women sang "Preacher Man" and only the men sang "Ring of Fire."

One of the five-member groups sang "The Longest Time," which has a special place in my heart. In the fall of 2001, I was learning this song with the chorus while I was falling in love with Zirpu.

"And the greatest miracle of all
Is how I need you
And how you needed me, too..."