C'est la vie, c'est la mort.
Carpe diem!

New song! I didn't think I was going to finish it in time for Hallowee, but it all came together this morning. Happy Halloween <3

https://soundcloud.com/kiminoa

The first person I ever met from NASA was a black woman named Tiffany. I was 8, and she fundamentally changed my mind about what doors were open to me. She also gave me a quote I always keep in my pocket, "It's better to be late in this life, than early in the next."

This? This is long overdue. I AM SO EXCITED!



"Let me ask you. If you were a white male, would you want to be an engineer?"

"I wouldn't have to. I'd already be one."

SING IT. And thank you for paving the way for me, ladies ...

Love dances through the cosmos,
binding together all that is.
Every living thing is welcomed
with never a word of criticism.

Welcome each other
with the same expansiveness.
What pleases you
and does not please you
is of no importance.
Welcome is all that matters.

Can you merely notice the things you like or dislike,
without attaching importance to them
or altering the nature of your openness and acceptance?
What will be your first words
when next you meet your beloved?
Will they speak of spacious welcoming?

from William Martin's The Couple's Tao Te Ching

( Thoughts on this passageCollapse )

I walked home from Fremont with Mars and the full moon (luna luna luna). They sang Taylor Swift's "New Romantics" with me.

Earlier in the day I was picking fights on the internet before I realized I was in hissy PMS land. I thought about not going. I slept half the day away. I went.

I had dinner for one at Jai Thai. I got $2 worth of quarters and played 8 rounds of one of Add-a-Ball's two-flipper mechanical pinball machines. I stalled, I really did. And I was still the first to show up to Nectar Lounge that wasn't working there or shlepping gear.

I have to go back a few years to explain how I wound up at Nectar Lounge on a Sunday night.

One day, summer or two ago, I was walking - no bag, no cash, just me and my basic ID - on a gorgeous day not unlike today. A white guy with long blonde hair stopped me in Queen Anne.

"Do you like hip hop?" he asked.

"Yes." I said.

Of all the guys who've asked me this on the Seattle streets and heard my answer, he was the one who believed me, at least enough that he started beat boxing and showing me what he had. I might not look it, but I'm pushing 40, and while I do dress like a tech nerd, I have a certain "yep, I live in Queen Anne" quality to my demeanor, so I don't blame them for a certain amount of profiling skepticism. But Queen Anne people never fit the profile; Seattleites never do. Yeah, I like hip hop. I like a lot of hip hop. Especially high brow stuff with a 4/4 beat that challenges me to think.

Guys, he was amazing. Smar-T Jones, Kyle Smith, is high brow and 4/4 and challenges me to think. Like so: https://soundcloud.com/smar-t-jones/dichotomy-smartie-jones He wanted to give me one of his CDs and I literally had nothing to give with him. I was heartbroken, but I memorized his name, went home and bought his stuff with a $32 donation because ... he's so good. I'm so glad he's in the world. And $32 is my quirky numbers-girl way of honoring that.

Fast forward to the Sera Era, she drops me off on Aurora so I can go to a barber shop where Smar-T is recording a music video. I check in while I'm there and Vincent Av Burchett of Ill Writer's Guild winds up adding me on FB. I look him up when I get home, and oh, I definitely remember him. I've got some cougarish chagrin, but I honestly added him because... well, I've had a weakness for black guys in corn rows since one of my earliest man crushes: Leroy Johnson of Fame played by the omg beautiful Gene Anthony Ray.

Let's just pause to admire him for a moment.



Right? Right.

So, I confess, I accepted the friend request because, well, Burchett is a babe, hot af, etc. But then I paid attention to what he was saying, and I wound up staying tuned because what he had to say consistently had content.

It was through him, through his music - Ill Writer's Guild - that I wound up sticking tonight's show on my calendar. As with all my hip hop stuff, I asked everyone who has even a vague interest in hip hop, but ... yeah.

I do Seattle hip hop by myself. And it's fine. Except I feel like I'm hoarding something that everyone needs to see, because it's too big and too wonderful to keep to myself. I predict that our fusion-genre hip hop is going to be the next thing to explode out of Seattle.

When I saw Lizard Boy (the musical) at Seatte Rep for the first time, I told everyone who would listen: I was there for their first season before they were famous, touring like Rent. I'm going to lean back and smile smugly the day that does happen. It's going to happen.

I'm feeling that way about Double B & Laces (the produced stuff I'm finding online doesn't capture the extra layer of Hell Yes that their #3 - a female vocalist - brought to the stage), who was sandwiched in between Arless of Black Magic Noize and Ill Writer's Guild. They were all incredible. See for yourself:

Arless, Black Magic Noize: "Status Quid Pro Quo"
https://soundcloud.com/araless/araless-status-quid-pro-quo

Double B & Laces: "On My Own"
http://doublebandlaces.reverbnation.com/#song-22751969-on-my-own-new

Ill Writer's Guild:
https://soundcloud.com/illwritersguild-1

Bonus: I have no idea what was going on tonight, but there were so many gorgeous women at the show it was, like, weird. Good weird, wonderful weird, makeout quality goodness, like 3 sets of 2 and one with a guy, and I would not have, as the saying goes, kicked any of them out of bed for eating crackers. Nope. There were even a few guys there that caught my eye. Just one of those nights where all of Seattle's gorgeous randomly diverges magically onto a single bar. Thank you, Universe, for the eye candy :)

After Ill Writer's Guild, it was 23:00 and time for me to stop pretending I'm in my 20s. I left downtown Fremont and took a long, beautiful, contemplative walk home.

Feeling:
- grateful
- happy about my job
- determined to refocus my efforts away from FB BS and towards:
-- electromagnetic dynamo / water wheel project
-- writing more of my woops-maudlin major-scale-but-ya-wouldn't-guess-it music

Talking about that girl
That one time
She lives somewhere near my mind
And she's still a bad idea
Still
Always a little bit mine

That carmina burana
Phantom of the opera
Crescendo and crescendo and
It cannot sustain
But
Oh, what a refrain

Aurin Squire​'s first ping on my radar came last night when I read this article. Here are some food-for-thought quotes from it.

I want to see what you can contribute from your niche of knowledge about the quieter voices of entire classes of people in our history.

"Historical omission points toward a culture’s subconscious beliefs that some people matter less than others."

"When female stories are muted, we are teaching our kids that their dignity is second class and the historical accounts of their lives [are] less relevant. This lowered value carries over when women face sexual objectification and systemic brutalization from inside and outside the community."

"When we can’t see ourselves in our history, we begin to think that we are disconnected and suffering alone. Historical ignorance always precedes cultural imbalances and individual despair."

"Historical exclusivity often has a way of turning into present and institutionalized tragedy. Whose story gets told matters."

Consider this a short attention span theatre thread on increasing awareness for unsung and undersung history for later expansion or research.

Have you read a book, an article, seen an exhibit, a play, anything that opened your eyes to lesser known figures in our history who may have been omitted or simply fallen into the shadows by way of their second class status?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/mlk-mother-was-assassinated-forgotten-women-black-history-month

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
It’s time now to sing out, though the story never ends
Let's celebrate, remember a year, in the life of friends.
Remember the love! Remember the love! Remember the love!
Measure in love.
- "Seasons of Love", Rent

( Measure in loveCollapse )

What you say and what you do is a contradiction to the life that's safe and sound.
- Saigon Kick