This Ain't It, Lawrence

I figured out what to do with my next couple of posts on this blog ... I am going to remember the Los Angeles places my "best friend" Zen took me. One thing about Zen - he was everybody's best friend. I only just found out how many best friends HE had.

Though he was born in L.A., Zen died on Saturday, April 10, while visiting his mother in Rosarito, Mexico. We put him to rest here in L.A. (eewwww! The Valley!) near his father Hank on Sunday, and then we had a luncheon at his Uncle Bob's house, and then a rockin' wake-like-thing at Ye Rustic Inn (Hillhurst and Franklin).

The Rustic is where I met Zen. I had just moved to L.A. and I had just seen Roger Waters at the Hollywood Bowl with an icky date I met on the Big Island of Hawaii the previous month. It turns out he had tickets to the same concert for the next day's performance.

Thus, it was Friday, October 6, 2006 when I met Zen. It's so cool that I can pinpoint that.

Anyway, at Rustic on the 6th, the yucky man I was with became sort of aggressive and drunk. I turned to the guy next to me and mouthed, "Help Me!" Zen mouthed back, "Ok!" I got up to go to the gross little Rustic bathroom, escaping the date man, and Zen shouted across the very noise barroom, "Hey! What's your name?" I made him guess, giving him the clue that it's a Rolling Stones song. By the time I got back to my bar stool, which Zen had guarded for me (Rustic on a Friday? That took some work!), he had guessed it, or at least gotten close, and I had his name and number. Bad date dude got the hint and meandered off to squeeze some Barbie's fake tits or something. I never heard from Andy again. :)

I called Zen on my drive home late that night. Bad idea, I know. But I was VERY new to town, and this was pre-GPS and smart phones, and I was accidentally traveling north on the 405, instead of south toward Venice where I lived. Had I not called him, I would have ended up in Sacramento.

That is how ZenZen (what I called him in my head) became my Lawrence of Los Angeles. And so he shall remain. Over the next few days, or weeks, I'll revisit the cool secret LA places he showed me, and I'll take some pictures. He knew this city like no one else, and he made me fall in love with my City of Lost Angels, the city which has embraced me and swept me up in her wings and which hasn't spat me out yet and which yes, taunts me with the glint of gold and the glitter of fame and the sparkle of perfect white teeth and lifted tits and ...

but wait ... the skyline. The huge urban coyote he and I saw together at 4 a.m. in the mist alongside the Hollywood Reservoir. Laurel Canyon and his backstreets he loved. South Pasadena. Abuelitas in Topanga Canyon. Just last Tuesday shuffling through Little Tokyo: ME showing HIM something for once.

A loving passive aggressive vocal competition (how unusual). After he arrives an hour and a half late (HE CALLED):

"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know, what do you want to do?"
"I want to do what YOU want to do. We're celebrating your 5-year anniversary at ABC. And your haircut."
"Yeah, but didn't you just accomplish something too? Like, getting your data in Peru?"
"Well, the f--king sushi place I wanted to take you to is closed now. Let's just go get a beer."
"I don't like beer."
"Fine. Tequila."

Fucking Zen.

We never made love in the colloquial sense - never had sexual intercourse - but when we were together it was like we were making the abstract concept of love into a tangible and sarcastic magnetic imp child that everyone could feel. It made me smile, it made you smile, it made our city smile.

I'm going to try to write it and render it visual.

Shine on, you crazy diamond. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-8PtoSSBDI&feature=related

Querida Jardin: Plants for the Sunny Side

I love Los Angeles for her weather and her soil. While I was in Peru, my lovely subletters watered, so everything's blooming. In fact, they couldn't harvest fast enough, so a lot of my cabbage and all my lettuce bolted before they could use it. They uprooted it, and now I have an all but empty palette on one side of the yard.

Or I did.

Yesterday I spent less than $50 on plants for the sunny side. It's going to bring me a lot more joy than a night at the bars, for the same amount of money! I bought baby veggies and flowers, and I must say, since I have a green thumb like my sister Lisa, so I have great hope.

With luck and love, I'll have cayenne peppers, all sorts of herbs, snapdragons, more petunias (EASY), a creeping flowering vine/ground cover named "superbell," irises that my mom split from her own rhizomes (though I'm quite pissed - I left them for my landlady to plant, and she obviously left them outside all winter, because they're all shriveled up. It's going to take a miracle, friends. Keep your fingers crossed - they're lovely bearded heirloom varieties!), and pansies.

I also weeded, fertilized, and the works (I only use organic fertilizer). We got a lot of rain while I was gone, so the soil was super clay-ey and hard to work.

Tomorrow I will start butternut squash, beets, tomatoes, sweet peas, lettuces, cilantro, and sunflowers from seed. I've never been great at that skill, but I'm going to try. Here in LA we can generally plant all year 'round, so I suppose everything is conducive in the environmental arena.

I've decided I'm going to keep the house rather than moving, primarily for the yard. I'm getting a puppy soon, and hopefully my car will sell soon so I can get a convertible Mini Cooper. I love LaLaLand. I do.

What I'd really like to do is trade the garden food for art or maybe for other things, LA friends! There's no way I'm going to be able to eat all this come harvest time.

Off to make zucchini bread. Much love from Welcome Street.

LaLaList

There's a film I like, which other people don't like, which is not unusual, but hey. The film in question is "A Day Without a Mexican," and the scenario is that all the Latinos vanish from Los Angeles for 24-hours. Needless to say, the city stops dead. What I enjoyed about the film is not just the premise (imagine - you're a racist bastard and you don't know your husband is of Latino heritage, and he and your kids disappear!), but the cute informative subtitles that pop up at the bottom of the screen to sort of chide the audience into mindfulness. For example, one reads something to the effect of: "There are more than 20 countries south of the United States. They are not all named 'Mexico.'"

That rocks. People think Peru and Mexico are synonymous; I risk having to explain the difference each time I say I conduct research in Peru. This is especially the case among ignorant Anglos.

Having just traveled from Peru to Merida, Yucatan, Mexico (with a quick suitcase-changing layover in Los Angeles), I would like to delineate some important differences (barring the obvious geographical distance).

1. While people in both countries speak Spanish, they sometimes use different words. Words for peanut, monkey, avocado, for example, and lots of slang, are different and not interchangeable.

2. In Merida, a touristic Colonial city of about 1 million people, the taxi drivers don't give a damn where you're from. In Peru, they want to know "de donde eres," and all about you, and why you don't have kids.

3. In Mexico, there is no set price for anything. You can't just go shopping for, say, a shirt. It's a big, annoying game. Nothing has a price tag. You ask how much something costs, and they ask how much you want to pay. You have no clue how much you should pay for, say, a guayabera. Should you start at 100 pesos? 500 pesos? Shit. JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH THE SHIRT COSTS. In Peru, the price is marked or at least pretty firm. You can ask for a discount, but no means no and that's ok. Typical bargaining happens upon entering taxis, whose prices are set in Merida. Backasswards.

4. Policemen are NOT your friend in Mexico. They are only slightly your friend in Peru.

5. Don't tell Peruvians you like Mexican food. To Peruvians, all things Mexican are crap.

6. To Peruvians, all things non-Peruvian are crap.

7. Mexican food is diverse. Mexico has 32 states. It is a big country with lots of geographical diversity. There is corn, wheat, mole, chocolate, coffee, habañero, jalapeño, goat, huitlacoche. There is fish. There is beef.

8. Peruvian food is diverse. There is an amazing revitalization of Andean cuisine happening throughout Peru and South America in general. Pre-Spanish contact food included high protein grains, potatoes unlike any you've had before, cuy (guinea pig), alpaca and fish. The flavors are very, very different from Mexico, though now since the Spanish came there are similarities too.

9. The Maya and Aztec were the main prehistoric groups to affect Mexican behavior and language; the Inca were the main pre-Spanish people to affect Peruvian behavior and language. There may have been trade throughout the region before Spain arrived and stole everything from everyone. But the words and the customs and the art and all remain noticeably different.

10. Mexico has Speedy Gonzalez and other completely racist stereotypical ignorant cultural icons. Peru really doesn't.

11. You probably can't name a famous Peruvian person.

12. Peru is a lot poorer than Mexico. Lima is the fastest growing city in South America, though.

Out of the Woods

I left Lima Sunday (it's Saturday). I'm feeling raw and a bit sad, confused when I wake up as to where I am and who I'm with. I miss certain people pretty badly right now.

I'm in Mexico now for a conference. I had an 18-hour layover in El Lay, after a 7-hour one in El Salv. After this, I'll fly to Arizona to get my car, then drive home to L.A. sometime in the first week of April.

Sometime in early April, I'll start the LaLaLand part of the blog. You know the title is "LaLaLima LaLaLand" because it sounds cool, but LaLaLand is one of Los Angeles' many nicknames. I want to keep the blog thematic, but I'm not sure yet how I'll narrow the content. I don't want to publish a journal, so I need a topic.

There are 900 gazillion L.A.-related blogs, so I'm not sure where to go ... but I will go. I can't shut up :)

Of Two Hearts

This city is so confusing. I am so confused. There is a thin line between love and hate. That is a cliché, but it isn't and you know it. The ideas you hate most, you sometimes begin to love, if you let them in. I used to hate certain foods, and when I let them into my life, I began to love them. The same is true with music sometimes (I once detested all Country music, out of pride or something, and now I love some representations of the genre).

I can attest that the opposite is true. The people you love the most, you can too easily hate ... but that's not the point of this post.

The truth is, I used to hate Lima. I used to hate L.A. I used to be naive. But I let them both in. And now I have two hearts.

Everyone in L.A. and Arizona keeps saying, "I miss you." I can't say the same, and I'm sorry. THE REASON IS THE INTERNET. My friends Stateside are online all the time, like me, and I'm not ashamed of the fact. I get to see them virtually all the time, in real time. And that is COOL. Networking is part of my job (corresponding with students and professors) and, believe it or not, I am constantly working (actually reading and writing anthropological theory and method and grants and announcements and syllabi) in another window. As such, when I need a break, I click open another window and say "hi."

But here in Peru, people aren't online so much. I know, because I ask them. It's one of the questions I ask my friends and the people who participate in my study (who graciously estimate for me exactly how much time they spend online). We must MAKE TIME for one another, face time. Now granted, everyone has Facebook (though Hi5 is way more popular), but they're not on it, like anywhere near as much as we are. The teenagers are.

But I digress. The point is, I WILL miss my friends here, and I have a lot. That is my way: I am social, and I must be, for I need people (which, according to a rather famous song, makes me one of the luckiest people in the world), and I make deep friendships easily. They help me, and I help them a bit, I hope. I assume that if I am not helping them, they would leave.

I can't come back too soon. Maybe in August I can. Maybe I can bring a friend, because I won't be toooooooo busy. But it would be nice to have a vacation somewhere I haven't been, too. Or to see my friends on Hawaii.

Sometimes I think it seems like my work IS a vacation, but it isn't. It's more like I get settled here and then I have to leave again, and it sucks, because I DO get attached to people, and places have power, and buildings and plants and all. Then I get used to the water, and then I can start to eat lettuce (though strawberries are another story - ask my friend C!).

I leave Monday morning, really early, after a "despedida," which is a going-away party. I am sad to leave certain specific people, though one is visiting L.A. soon enough, and that will be FUN ... I can guarantee him ... we are free birds and we like to dance and eat and laugh together ... and no one is allowed to care (at least on my end).

Nonetheless, I miss my kitchen and my sewing machine and I'm thinking about moving and I want to sit in my office with the beautiful view at UCLA and all that. I just got new knives and a new magazine subscription and a new stock pot for soup and chili.

But I'm not homesick. That's because, I think, it's my first time living here without being married or in a relationship. It is AWESOME not to have ties when you're doing this. To have ties is too hard, too distracting, at least for me.

There was an article in the more liberal Limeño paper yesterday. It warned that in 5 WEALTHY districts there wouldn't be water for 13 hours today. I live in one of these districts.

http://www.larepublica.pe/sociedad/17/03/2010/atencion-este-jueves-habra-corte-de-agua-en-cinco-distritos-de-lima

I was stressed - I hadn't showered and these little sugar ants are really into my dirty dish (not dishes) lately. I needed water. And then I thought, "What the HELL? The city knows ahead of time that there won't be water for HOW LONG?"

And I mean no offense, but Lima is poor, ok? There are five classes here, A-E, and Class E is so poor it hurts even hearts of steel. So I can see half a day without water in the "cones;" I'm sure it's common.

But how can a modern city - the fastest growing city on this continent - possibly advertise such a warning?

I have three AWESOME assistants from the Catholic University here in town. They are bright as hell, and, more importantly, motivated. One said that this is normal, though not in this season (the rainy season in the highlands, where Lima's water derives), and that Classes A-B have cisterns for just such occasion. He rolled his eyes and said that if he turned on the shower and nothing came out, he'd just go turn on the alternate water source.

I don't think I have a cistern on my roof; I've never seen a way to turn it on. So I'm pissed. In I guess an arrogant way - god forbid I can't bathe for one day. People here can't freaking eat. But this city needs to get her shit together if she wants two hearts (modernity and history?).

Some photos of my recent trip to Ancash, out of context:

Homesick? Me? Nope.

I am in Home 7 tonight: Huaraz, Ancash, Peru. I type this from the hostel that belongs to two sisters ... friends of mine ... with whom I pass a lot of time in Lima. They are great girls. They are Huaracinas. Most Huaracinos are great people. They are soft-spoken, they have a great sense of humor (quick to laugh, witty), and they work hard. They speak Quechua and love animals.

I will post photos soon, but just know: I'm happy and healthy and safe, and I can see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, which always makes me glow.

If I had one wish for you tonight, it would be that you could have a place like this in another country - a place that you knew pretty well, where you have friends, where you can see the tallest mountain in Peru, or another amazing natural feature ... where you can feel at home in another world.

Cross-cultural Constructs of Two Big Deals - and Writing them Down

When I assign critical thinking papers, or interpretive papers, my students tend to start with concepts that are too vast. They want to solve the mysteries of the universe in five to ten pages.

In my upcoming Intro to Cultural Anthropology class that I get to teach at UCLA this summer, I will hand out this fun, funny list of writing rules. Several authors each provide 10 rules that they have learned and earned from their own experiences and mentors. I don't think it applies to fiction only.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

The recently deceased William Saffire  provided rules too:

http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/research/groups/protein/pert/safire.rules.html

and my masters degree mentor Christine Eber has a penchant for Orwellian writing rules:

http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/300

I admit that my writing has many flaws. Maybe in this post I will attack too much at once. But then again, a primary suggestion is to write, and I can't stop, especially after my morning Peruvian coffee, which is currently making me twitch, and this freaking car alarm next door won't shut off, and I realize I can't live here after all, or if I do, it must be on a quieter street, lest I lose what's left of my mind. Which leads me to segue into what the actual topic of the post IS ... cross-cultural constructs of the aesthetics of interior spaces (initial thoughts, for that is the topic of my current research) and cross-cultural constructs of etiquette.

Today I will go on an interview with a favorite family, one I already know. The dad is a relatively high-ranking government official in the tourism industry (as I recall); the mom is a wedding planner. When my Peruvian brother Lalo first introduced us, the mom middle-management at a credit card company, which I believe is Chilean. I have been to the family's house. It's cute but small, and it's in the neighborhood of Ate.

Ate, by the way, is on the far east side of Lima and features many archaeological sites within its municipality.

http://www.muniate.gob.pe/zonas.htm

Anyway, I doubt these people will cancel. I've been chasing them like a bloodhound for nearly two years, reminding them, complimenting them. I have help. My Peruvian brother is on my side, helping me out, reminding them. They're tired of me.

In their defense, they are busy. Everyone here is busy. I get it. I am busy. The people I want to know are busy. I don't like lazy people. I like go-getters, always have. This is one of the points of my research - busyness.

In my defense, they are interested in and informed about my study, especially the dad. I went to his father's funeral (at least the one-month anniversary of his dad's funeral). He likes me, and I him, and let's just get this DONE.

So again, I doubt they will cancel. Which is good, because my assistants have set aside time to help me, and I have a chocolate cake for them, and I can't deal with these damned cancellations anymore. Which segues into the other topic: cross-cultural constructs of etiquette.

Is it a Peruvian/ Limeño construct of etiquette, or is it a construct of time? If this family cancels, it will be the third cancellation (one social, two professional) that I experience this week. I find this implicit policy to be quite disrespectful of my time. I have only 18 days left in this country and I need to interview a lot more families.

At least with the interviews, I know that I am asking a big favor - 2 hours of their precious time. But don't cancel. Don't make the appointment if you don't want to do it.

Then again, this is a cultural thing. They don't trust that I won't use their information (the interiors of their living space, their names, their data about income, their kids' names) for bad purposes. I get it! It's an occupational hazard that no one teaches fledgling anthropologists how to do. You learn, or you don't. Sink or swim, baby. But in Lima, I'm barely afloat. I maintain my dignity and I might have to come back.

I'm not trying to bitch. The goal here is to try to understand the origins of these ways of treating people who want something from you (?), foreigners (?), time in general (?). Some don't even call to cancel.

What is this about? I'm not even going to get into the social cancellations - they have an origin of their own - but the professionalism. We don't do that in L.A. We don't do that in the U.S. and I'm not saying we're "better" - I'm too much of a cultural relativist to go there. I'd be a huge hypocrite. I'm too much of a martyr to be a hypocrite. But maybe I'm naive. My friends who are, say, salespeople or who've been called upon for their services (especially my gringo friends, come to think of it) are equally disrespected - their clients are late or don't show up at all. It's not a city thing. It's a Peruvian thing. Is it a Latin thing?

Ideas? Feedback?

So I kept it small. I don't want to go into interiors now. My coffee is preventing my yoga and I have to get ready for my lunch so I can be on time. I'll just hold plank and breathe first.