recommitment

Feeling reinspired to commit to writing and my creative process. Just came back from several days’ time off from work where I made time to read and write, and this weekend got to take a film and novel writing workshop with Elisha Miranda from Chica Luna Productions in NYC.

Today I opened up my cello case and flirted with her for the first time in at least a year (it’s been several years since I’ve called myself a cellist and owned it). A friend and classmate from high school, also fellow cellist in Oakland Youth Orchestra, passed away two weeks ago. I went to his memorial service yesterday morning. My finger pads felt soft and weak playing cello today — it’ll take a while to build them up again.

Thanks to Elisha, I’ve committed to a new writing schedule beginning tomorrow: setting aside two hour chunks of time twice a week for writing, and recommitting to daily morning pages which I’ve been neglecting.

bluestar pr

The week before last, I found this ad riding BART from Oakland to Millbrae:

The ad was created and placed by BlueStarPR, an organization that markets Israel, based in San Francisco, according to its 501(c)3 registration with the IRS.

Scanning its website, I also found this disturbing ad, amongst others in its online gallery section:

BlueStarPR seems to have been in existence for about a year, according to its site, during which they say they have:

-Erected 125 Billboards seen by 150,000 commuters daily for 4 months;

-Placed 500 transit shelters ads seen by 100,000 commuters daily for an entire year;

-Distributed 560,000 postcards in trendy cafes and student bars in Boston, New York, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco;

-Sent 35,000 posters and fliers to more than 150 campuses and communities throughout North America;

-Gave away 10,000 DVDs at community festivals and film festivals;

-Supported grassroots activists and counter-protests with rally boards;

-Created this “web-blog” style website where users have downloaded 20,000 poster files for their own reproduction;

-Printed 20,000 postcards for both the Democratic and Republican National conventions in Boston & New York (paid for and distributed by the Israel Project)

Organized pro-Israel media producers like this — backed by the U.S. state — should be a reminder of the importance of cultural workers who tell it like it is: shout out to NaR , a queer Arab emcee duo of Oakland.

From “Meen Ana Meen Inti”:

[…]

They don’t know us

They don’t know who we be

[…]

I am the definition of a Semite

[…]

Images of me on TV describe me as a terrorist

Because my people resist imperialistic attacks

On our homes in fact

What would you do if someone attacked your home

Wouldn’t you fight back?

Reality has been tainted

Blood spills to pay corporate bills

Israel is the most anti-Semitic creation

Comin out of the American European nation

22 million Semitic Arabs can’t be wrong

Colonialism’s goin on a roll

Swallowing nations whole

Oh why must the people die?

There’s enough land to go around

The Torah’s written in Arabic and Hebrew

We’ve all been living on the land for thousands of years

So why you bringin my people tears

And killin them?

I have Arab descent

I’m from the Fertile Crescent

I am irridescent

I work with the peasants

Yo I’m sayin tho

Why do you hate me so?

Terrorism on the rise

Why despise / look into my eyes and see

That I am divinity

The cradle of civilization

Mother of creation

Israel / all I smell is corpses

And the armed forces

IDF has the most resources

Bulldoze the homes

You’re a U.S. chrome

Indigenous people fight to the bone

You call me terrorist when I resist

Colonization / put up my fist

Imperial nations / I’ve heard it before

But the true Semites came to settle the score

[…]

Arabs are Semites too

Assyrians, Phoenicians, Thelonians,

Syrians / yeah yeah we all Semites

[…]