Dinner / Rape / War / Art
1. We made dinner.
On Saturday evening, after Underthrust rehearsal, Dave and I met up with Matt Katz, who was going to drive us to see Joseph perform at Sound Fix. Before we even got to the car, Joseph called us to tell us that Sound Fix had been shut down by the cops for some unknown reason. So we picked him up and went to the grocery store.
Dave had a Manwich.
Joseph contemplated margarine:
Matt took over my kitchen with the million ingredients necessary to make marinara sauce. It was really nice.
2. Women in the military are "more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire." I know. Read about it here.
3. I went to a vigil on March 20th, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of this stupid war. Does the war feel unreal to you? Does death feel unreal to you?
3.1. I started watching "Six Feet Under" for the first time, and so I've been thinking a lot about funerals, and how we need physical rituals in order to understand abstract paradoxes like death. I think we need this kind of ritual on a national level as well. I remember early 2003, before the war started, and how I hated everyone except my activist friends. I mean, we were working so hard to express our dissent, but others who shared our perspective were watching "Sex in the City" and shopping. "How can they go about their business?" I kept asking. "Don't they realize how serious this is?"
3.2. After the war started, but before I graduated, sometime between March and May, 2003, Michael Moore came to speak at my university. The hall was packed. People were cheering. Everyone seemed to agree with him about everything. I was like, WHERE WERE YOU!!??! IF YOU FELT THIS WAY, WHY WEREN'T YOU IN THE STREETS?! WHY WEREN'T YOU AT OUR PROTESTS?!?! WHY DID YOU DO NOTHING?!!?!?!?
3.2.1. Watch this clip of Michael Moore and Wolf Blitzer. Moore demands that Blitzer apologize for not investigating the lead-up to the war. Blitzer has no idea how to respond. I am still waiting for every mainstream reporter in the country to stand up and say, "This is my fault."
3.2.2. Check out this incredible Bill Moyers documentary about the media's role in allowing the war to happen. It's called "Buying The War."
3.3. After the war started, I stopped going to anti-war protests because I disagreed with their message. "Bring the Troops Home Now" felt insane in 2004. We had demolished their country - how could we just abandon it? So I moved to New York, became an artist, and tried to dedicate my life to social activism - to making people feel connected to each other, and hoping that that connectivity would spiral outwards, and maybe, just maybe, contribute to a larger sense of global responsibility. In 2006, someone told me that he sponsored an African orphan because of my song "The News Today." "Okay," I thought, "Maybe this is working, kinda, a little." Still, I have always felt that I did something terribly wrong by not becoming a career activist.
3.4. At that vigil on the 20th, I felt so radically connected to every human being on the planet, by the simple virtue of standing in a crowd, by mourning in a group, by hearing stories of pain, by participating in a ritual of outrage. And suddenly I realized why no one seemed to care about the war, back in college, when I hated everyone. They didn't care because it didn't seem real to them. Because nothing seems real unless it encounters your body. Because you only feel connected to a war thousands of miles away if you DO something - if you feel the rain on the tips of your ears at a protest, and feel the desire to go inside, and then realize that you're not going to go inside, that you're going to stay put, that you have to stay put, because of something bigger than you that you don't understand and don't have to understand. I have forgotten this, because I, too, have not been standing in crowds, not standing in the cold, not performing a ritual of outrage.
3.5. I wrote a play about this. It used to be called The Last Chanukah, but now I think it's called You Will Experience Silence. We had a reading on March 26th, at The Center For Jewish History. I learned a lot from everyone who came. I had a wonderful time.
4. Underthrust is dancing with Kimya Dawson on Sunday, during her show at Webster Hall. Kimya knows how to make global horror seem personal. I think there is no greater skill. I'm excited to support that magic with my body.
Love
Dan
On Saturday evening, after Underthrust rehearsal, Dave and I met up with Matt Katz, who was going to drive us to see Joseph perform at Sound Fix. Before we even got to the car, Joseph called us to tell us that Sound Fix had been shut down by the cops for some unknown reason. So we picked him up and went to the grocery store.Dave had a Manwich.
Joseph contemplated margarine:Matt took over my kitchen with the million ingredients necessary to make marinara sauce. It was really nice.2. Women in the military are "more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire." I know. Read about it here.
3. I went to a vigil on March 20th, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of this stupid war. Does the war feel unreal to you? Does death feel unreal to you?
3.1. I started watching "Six Feet Under" for the first time, and so I've been thinking a lot about funerals, and how we need physical rituals in order to understand abstract paradoxes like death. I think we need this kind of ritual on a national level as well. I remember early 2003, before the war started, and how I hated everyone except my activist friends. I mean, we were working so hard to express our dissent, but others who shared our perspective were watching "Sex in the City" and shopping. "How can they go about their business?" I kept asking. "Don't they realize how serious this is?"
3.2. After the war started, but before I graduated, sometime between March and May, 2003, Michael Moore came to speak at my university. The hall was packed. People were cheering. Everyone seemed to agree with him about everything. I was like, WHERE WERE YOU!!??! IF YOU FELT THIS WAY, WHY WEREN'T YOU IN THE STREETS?! WHY WEREN'T YOU AT OUR PROTESTS?!?! WHY DID YOU DO NOTHING?!!?!?!?
3.2.1. Watch this clip of Michael Moore and Wolf Blitzer. Moore demands that Blitzer apologize for not investigating the lead-up to the war. Blitzer has no idea how to respond. I am still waiting for every mainstream reporter in the country to stand up and say, "This is my fault."
3.2.2. Check out this incredible Bill Moyers documentary about the media's role in allowing the war to happen. It's called "Buying The War."
3.3. After the war started, I stopped going to anti-war protests because I disagreed with their message. "Bring the Troops Home Now" felt insane in 2004. We had demolished their country - how could we just abandon it? So I moved to New York, became an artist, and tried to dedicate my life to social activism - to making people feel connected to each other, and hoping that that connectivity would spiral outwards, and maybe, just maybe, contribute to a larger sense of global responsibility. In 2006, someone told me that he sponsored an African orphan because of my song "The News Today." "Okay," I thought, "Maybe this is working, kinda, a little." Still, I have always felt that I did something terribly wrong by not becoming a career activist.
3.4. At that vigil on the 20th, I felt so radically connected to every human being on the planet, by the simple virtue of standing in a crowd, by mourning in a group, by hearing stories of pain, by participating in a ritual of outrage. And suddenly I realized why no one seemed to care about the war, back in college, when I hated everyone. They didn't care because it didn't seem real to them. Because nothing seems real unless it encounters your body. Because you only feel connected to a war thousands of miles away if you DO something - if you feel the rain on the tips of your ears at a protest, and feel the desire to go inside, and then realize that you're not going to go inside, that you're going to stay put, that you have to stay put, because of something bigger than you that you don't understand and don't have to understand. I have forgotten this, because I, too, have not been standing in crowds, not standing in the cold, not performing a ritual of outrage.
3.5. I wrote a play about this. It used to be called The Last Chanukah, but now I think it's called You Will Experience Silence. We had a reading on March 26th, at The Center For Jewish History. I learned a lot from everyone who came. I had a wonderful time.
4. Underthrust is dancing with Kimya Dawson on Sunday, during her show at Webster Hall. Kimya knows how to make global horror seem personal. I think there is no greater skill. I'm excited to support that magic with my body.
Love
Dan
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Dan Fishback is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Dan Fishback may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
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