I’ve been too addicted lately, unable to structure myself to at least get things done that won’t make me need to rush later.
But first, some gratitude:
- I was invited to DJ by K
- invited to re-visit Bar-Fund by Tatiana
- a poetry thing by Joey
- am in an exhibition that I was invited to by Holliday
- and I need to silkscreen a shirt for Sylvie who I met through Kim.
But I’m also completely immobilized. I found myself enthralled by Clubhouse, an invite only app and “Being seen” on Instagram.
I think I need to get back to the basics.
- I haven’t done yoga in months but have been doing physical therapy every other day,
- I asked my dad to help pay for somatic therapy,
- I’m really on a kick to make a radical vision board,
- I’ll be sharing that in a “Hip Magic” class I’m in,
- I might be talking with friends about starting a gallery to support QTBIPOC folx and conversations in Mexico City later today,
- I’ll be taking meds paid for by being on Medi-Cal eating food paid for by food stamps and maybe just need to call EDD one more time to find out what is going on with the $810 I would get every two weeks...
- I’m trying to get myself to show up to practice Spanish,
- to bathe/lotion more,
- to set up studio visits with friends,
- to play and have pleasure routinely...
and to be honest I feel about 40% here.
One of the reasons I’ve been staying in bed longer (besides that I went to bed at 4:30 am) is because I’ve been doing “Morning Pages” another app, and it’s one of those “don’t break the chain” productivity apps and it’s been great (it is great).
But also if I’m honest, there are some people that I miss talking to and being with, the Weirdos (5 hilarious women who met up once a week with no plans), being with Fabiola who met in Mexico City, everyone in Glasgow but especially Francis McKee’s rambling research, but at the same time I feel alone in a good way, like the way you may find yourself needing to go your own way with no guide (and I’m not great with maps).
So that’s a rough summation I guess of where I’m at.
If I had to give a summation of my context:- CoViD is a useful holding pattern especially for enjoying what little Socialism America has to offer but it’s still not enough to keep people from working and catching and spreading it.
- Deb Haaland is the first and only American Indian ever nominated to a Cabinet position in the United States of America!
- And everyone is going bonkers over Bernie Sanders’ gloves weeks after a bunch of White supremacist off duty police and military stormed the Capital building and even killed some on duty police officers (Happy no Black folx were killed in this skirmish, and what happened to “Blue Lives Matter”?).
And with that I’d like to go into a topic/focus for this mornings writing:
What does it mean to be a trickster?
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No goals, not even values, but full on curiosity, drive and pure energy.
It means to want to help and be helped in the process of doing and woke in the sense that there are infinite, equally fake versions of reality, and so everything and nothing is sacred.
A trickster first tries to mask their own sadness, to trick themselves into moving, and yet can have the deepest darkest existential angst.
A trick could be a placebo, a spectacle, a hustle, a quick exchange, a long con, it could be years in the making for something seeming stupid, foolish, obnoxious, and it asks why and how and what else is there?
Trickster energy is a goat that can play the devil gouging out eyes with a satisfying pop and has plenty of real advice to give and can talk (or play) with anybody. (See: Asher Hartman)
Maybe let’s take a moment to talk about misdirection or vulnerability because I don’t think it takes any money to be a trickster but I don’t think a trickster could not value themselves very highly. Then again the trickster may be smiling, a personality trait of concealing getting what one wants at another’s expense and so I wouldn’t say there’s much sincerity in that look but it’s actually crazy sincere isn’t it? Yeah there’s a lot of showmanship, but there’s a lot of indirectness and pain management isn’t there?
There’s flexing and setting the stage and and a great deal of production behind the scenes to only show what one wants to show but there’s a feeling to it isn’t there? Maybe some heroes include Houdini (a great marketer) and Penn and Teller (the most lovable Libertarians) and Alejandro Jodorowsky but what about the women?
Maybe that’s Queen Nanny of the Maroons, and that’s Kim Zumpfe and that’s even my own mother, who would see people waiting in line and make herself laugh imagining people's lives and what they’re really up to, and when she was a kid saying “ka-ping” so much in a car that her dad pulled over because he thought something was wrong with the car.
Had to look something up on Wikipedia and Etymology, "Trickster" didn’t really exist on the Etymology site I use but “Trick” did:
“from trikier "to deceive, to cheat," variant of Old French trichier "to cheat, trick, deceive," of uncertain origin, probably from Vulgar Latin *triccare, from Latin tricari "be evasive, shuffle," from tricæ "trifles, nonsense, a tangle of difficulties," of unknown origin.
Meaning "a roguish prank" is recorded from 1580s; sense of "the art of doing something" is first attested 1610s. Meaning "prostitute's client" is first attested 1915; earlier it was U.S. slang for "a robbery" (1865).”
And now for Trickster on Wikipedia:
“who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.”
“Br'er Rabbit is a trickster character who succeeds through his wits rather than through strength.”
Ah so there it is, it’s survival isn’t it?
To be an animal that can speak and get others to act, but also, these perhaps are stories of hope, of being smarter than the actual person in the actual skin of being a prisoner, but perhaps one with an audience.
“Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception.”
Oh to be needed..., to be a guide, to be important. People tell me this shouldn’t be embarrassing, but when isn’t needing love not vulnerable?
Humor is also a heightened control of focus: attention, interest, maybe misdirection, maybe timing, maybe tickling, the lowest form of pain, absurdity, the lowest form of existential angst.
Laughing is relief, sharing is a relief, being heard is a relief, the end is a relief.
What is not a trickster? God, (but the Gods are) plants like grasses with no thorns, poisons or sticky parts, mechanical moving parts that are exact and replicated?
This seems too difficult really to say what definitely is NOT a trickster, who is looking? Who feels tricked?
More importantly,
What is the bodily feeling of a trickster? It’s a quick rush of air out of the nose, it’s the holding of a secret in the crick of the neck behind the ears, it is a broad chest and open hands in an offense/defense position, it is a buzzing mind and a silent mouth and withholding eyes. It is waiting with a smirk, it is comfortable in its clothes but aware of all of the pockets and what is contained in each one.
I think I want to know more about what does it mean to write a bio on the app Clubhouse, where ephemeral podcasts meets LinkedIn if LinkedIn included empaths talking about CBD oil and linking to their Instagram which had a Link-tree with a link to a cash app. It gets meta that on the app you can hear them talking about how they want to improve the app, how they want to improve bubble of what you see based on who you follow, hearing people take turns speaking and moderating and pitching and choosing which sentence to pick apart.
What about a chat room where every person who talks must be asking a question and each question can only be answered with another question? So far what is toxic is only kind-of amusing (as opposed to totally disrupting and day ruining),
yes it’s easy to see who has more friends and celebrity status than you, yes it’s filled with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, creative, but where is the trickster producer with a big bag of silence?
And it’s not the same as being a listener or limiting the number of speakers, but it’s the practice of not networking, not seeking endless connections, not 20 second pitches and not being a model minority. At least the nap ministry can take a break.
Where are the people who are working against White Supremacy characteristics?
I’m saying a lot here, but on Clubhouse I notice that I have nothing to say...
The weirdest/awful part is I feel like I want to have “the perfect” bio... *sigh*
This is what I made, feeling cute, may delete later:
(Rach says that she'll join it if someone pays her, but even this much info in a bio is akin to giving too much of our own personal data...)
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(Plain text version)
