In Memoriam || UCR Professor, Lindon Barrett

Excerpted and reposted from something I wrote on Oh! Industry:

This morning we received tragic news about the passing of someone whose work, spirit and strength has inspired us for many years. Lindon Barrett, formerly the director of African American Studies at UC Irvine, and recently appointed Professor of English at UC Riverside, was found murdered in his residence this weekend in Long Beach, CA.
...
There is much to say about the beautiful complexity of Lindon's work--about the prescience of his early essay on Ann Petry's The Street; about his brilliant book, Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge, 1999), which has continued to exert a tremendous influence, both theoretical and lyrical on scholars of critical theory, aesthetics, musicality and race. In honor of him, and of a life and work so richly consumed by (in his own words) the "sly alterity of the singing voice, a voice assuming much more than mere 'traditional' speech," we offer this tribute in song:



Read the entire post here.
***
To follow up, a few remarks from the Chair of UCR's English Department, Katherine Kinney:

"The English faculty are devastated by the death of Lindon Barrett. Lindon joined the department just last year, but many of us had known him for years. He embraced his new position at Riverside, bringing a personal warmth and passion to the
department and his field of African American studies. A brilliant scholar, Lindon was just finishing a major book on slavery’s central role in the evolution of Western modernity. Lindon offered so much, personally and professionally, to the department, the campus, and the scholarly field of African American studies. He will be missed by friends and colleagues across campus and across the country."

Memorial services will be held on a date TBA in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. Further information can be found here.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity, as brief as it was, to share ideas with him at UC Irvine's Humanities Research Institute. My heartfelt condolences go out not only to his family and former colleagues at UCR and UCI, but also to his Inland Empire communities, and to all who were inspired by him in this region that he occupied with such vivacity.

donwill +suhBURB's "Suburban Sprawl" album

This is a little different from my own suburban soundscape of new-Ro inspired melodia, but worth a good listen nonetheless. Check out Suburban Sprawl--the latest collaboration between the producer, suhBURB and the Brooklyn based donwill of Tanya Morgan fame.

The collab was born like lots of things in the suburbs, during idle time:
"this project began in early 2006 i believe. suhburb would send these 15 minute long mp3 beat tapes to us and they would flow like an album. i remember the one that originally sparked the idea was the Brazil Beat tape (sounds like a porno now that i think about it) and when i had heard it i liked so much of it that i jokingly suggested to him that i would just write verses, two track it and release that. a few emails, aim conversations, phone calls and years later and we are both proud to present to you suburban sprawl."

Listen carefully for fun with digital watermarks in tracks like "Fly Me" and "Diwadiwadonald." Special thanks to la Doyle for passing the mixtape.com link on to me. Read the rest of donwill's liner notes here. And listen to the whole album right hurrr....

Skullphone at R.A.M.

As the L.A. Times recently reported, Skullphone, the anonymous and elusive guerrilla artist (a la Banksy), is making a splash at the Riverside Art Museum in the city's historic downtown.

Excerpt:
AMID THE stately Mediterranean and Classical architecture of the Riverside Art Museum, a 1929 building on the National Register of Historic Places, the underground street artist known as Skullphone has left his mark -- a black-and-white human skull chatting on a cellphone. The gritty images are everywhere -- on a Dumpster outside the museum, in common areas and throughout installations by other artists.

I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but will at some point in the coming 3 weeks as I try to cram in some I.E. fieldwork, despite being focused on the OC chapter these daze.

All this to say that I'm sorry I've been so remiss about posting here. The Inland Emperor lives, I promise! I'm aiming to post more frequently, but need to stick with quickie posts, re-posts and photo essays for now, as I try to keep up with the regular features at Oh!, and crank out some other pieces on the side...not to mention that whole book thing.

The Imperial Accent

It's been forever since I found a sliver of time to actually post something here. I even failed at the simple tenets of self promotion (no prefatory blast about the LACE Listening Party this March, for example--see flier to the left). What finally pushed me into posting today is a shout out from my Oh! Industry sistah, CBB, about a piece I read at the listening party that actually followed up on some of my previous remarks here at IEmperor about the Riversidian love affair with British pop bands. A girl I knew in high school (who shall remain nameless), spoke in a British accent our entire freshman year to try and convince us she helped choreograph some dance routines for Wham! Riverside has a long history of collective fascination with all things British (i.e. the annual Riverside "Dickens Fest")--which might explain a few things about my twisted career path. But for me it's always been about the music. I never would've memorized Shelley's poetry when I was 14 if I hadn't heard about him in pop songs...

||Excerpted from my SUBURBS listening party at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions||

BRITISH is the other accent I always have in mind, when I think about the music that maps the empires of my familiar. The Inland Empire to me was never a homogeneous conglomeration of little boxes, but truly the crossroads of empire. [Right: the "Riverside Enterprise," 1931 - from UCR's Asian American Riverside Archive]

Despite the region’s much maligned name, I’ve come retrospectively to understand that it is all too fitting: from the defense industries that once resided there "making America strong," to the re-creations of Spanish missionary culture in its downtown revivalisms, to the more genteel, Citrus-era Victorianism affirming, even now, a Brit stranglehold on “Culture” as well as "Anarchy," long after the sun has set beyond the British empire.

My suburban adolescence constantly toggled between the accented stylings of soft rock balladry—the esmooth sounds of Pinoy culture I return to over and over again in my work, and the slinky, synthy sounds of an Imperial New Wave--that much heralded second British Invasion sold to the So. Cal kids by Richard Blade (actually Richard Shepphard of Torquay, England. He changed his name to “Blade” when he moved to L.A. in 1982 as an homage to the film Blade Runner).



In many ways, Richard Blade--on shows like Video One on channel 9, Video Beat on KTLA, and of course as a DJ on KROQ, "Roq of the 80s"-- curated the “remote intimacies” of my youth. "Remote intimacy" is a phrase I’ve borrowed from queer studies legend, Jennifer Terry. While she's used it to describe, literally, some of the circuits of affect generated by certain war games and surveillance technologies, I personally imagine “remote intimacies” describing the fan communities for whom intimacies cohere across virtual networks of desire (through the radio, music and television, on the internet, and now online through social/friendship networks). Remote intimacies account, both technically and affectively, for the symbiosis that can happen between disparate subjects---between Latin@s and Morrissey, for example, or between suburban queers of color and anglophilic ear-candy in general.

For me “remote intimacies” means imagining our own spaces in correspondence with others. It's something akin to, but not as official as “sister cities” or "town twinning" (like Cannes and Beverly Hills). Unlike most urbanites who assume the sub-urban is always oriented towards its closest city, I like to think that these imaginary correspondences sometimes have to happen across greater distances, both conceptually and topographically with other ethnicities, accents, nations... even other empires that feel more benevolent (though they surely aren’t), simply owing to the fact that they aren’t ours.

I loved Duran Duran because nothing seemed more exotic to me than Birmingham, England. Out here where we’re so far West we were almost touching East again, my adolescent mind didn’t quite process the fact that all the locales in their videos had little to do with the Birmingham of my fantasies. Instead, they recaptured the colonial imaginaries of a British empire re-styled by Vivienne Westwood: “some new Romantic looking for the TV sound” on a re-drawn Planet Earth.

Little did I know that that Birmingham in all of its gritty, working class industrial glory might’ve actually been closer to Riverside, CA than I thought.

There's more to say on this subject, but for now I'll leave you with a song that was never a single, yet remains one of my favorites from Duran Duran's watershed RIO album. Maybe then you’ll understand why I didn’t so much let myself get captured by another empire, but made "my own way" towards something else by walking tall and jaunty like John Taylor’s bassline.

Media Alert: Mt. Rubidoux on Bravo's RHWOC

The sacred place where every troubled teen of Riverside has learned to drink, make out or both (successively), recently made a cameo in The Real Housewives of Orange County. Yes my friends, that imposing dirt hill of big boulders and an even bigger cross, Mt. Rubidoux (pictured left during Easter Sunrise service way back in There Will be Blood times) has finally had its close-up. Quinn, RHWOC's new Christian housewife, and the self-professed "cougar" of Coto de Caza, visited her born-again mom in Riverside before the season finale. During an awkward scene on mom's patio with a view of the Rubidoux cross, Quinn processes her very un-Christian urges to ravage, pre-maritally, a golf pro she's been dating named Billy. She pauses first to notice however, that "wow this is pretty for Riverside. Totally surprising!"

Girl, you know it's true.

BTW, I too have been up Mt. Rubidoux multiple times for Easter Sunrise service--an obligatory gig on a rotating basis for every High School choir/chamber singers group in the Riverside Unified School District. Most of my time on the mount was spent violating everything on the sign posted at the entry:

Home-o for the Holidaze || A Photo Essay

The fuzzy little fella under the tree is my parents' very cuddly, very effeminate boy dog, Yukon. For all intents and purposes "Yuki" is my younger sibling. Like all bullying older sibs, I'm having the little one do the dirty work for me--soften up the crowd with those shiny button eyes for what will be a quick and dirty post on this night of the 23rd...the eve of Christmas Eve.

To get to Riverside today I took the Metrolink, So. Cal's commuter train system and a distant cousin to something like the LIRR. On weekends the Metrolink goes the roundabout way (the only way available to the Empire from L.A.'s Union Station on weekends), through San Bernardino, Riverside's scrappier and scruffier neighbor to the Northeast. What is usually about a 50 minute drive on the 60FWY door-to-door from my place to my folks' took about an hour and 45 on the Sunday San Berdoo line that chugs alongside the 10 past El Monte, Baldwin Park, Covina, Northern Pomona, Claremont, Montclair, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Rialto and downtown San Bernardino before docking in downtown Riverside. The train was filled with holiday travelers, mostly Latino and African-American teens heading into the I.E. to see the cousins, aunts and uncles who re-lo'ed to the 'burbs in the 80s or 90s (see Next Friday, which was set in one of my scenic station stops today, Rancho Cucamonga).

The Metrolink ride yields plenty of stories, especially because the route provides picture-window glimpses at the backyards, freight doors and storage dumps that families, businesses and cities like to keep tucked out of view. I too will keep these stories close to the vest for now and let a few pictures do the talking. Part II of this post closes with a tableau of what the holidays look like at the parental abode on Santee place. In the meantime, this is how we enter the Empire...

1. Union Station














2. L.A. River














3. Three














4. Mobile Home Park














5. Montclair Station (Mt. Baldy, Hinterground)














6. Yellow 1.0














7. Yellow 2.0














8. Boxcars near Rialto















9. Yellow 3.0 (between San Bernardino and Riverside)














10. End Stop














11. Raincross














PART II: Santee Place
We all know the holidaze are chaotic, but they feel especially tumultuous for a Virgo like me when I schlep out to the parental hoarding pit. My folks have got to be the worst pack-rats EVER. I know they look sweet, well groomed and tidy on the outside, but at their very core they can't resist squirreling away every soy sauce packet* or spork in the event of the apocalypse (or "The Big One"--the latter being more immanent). I think their Bohemianism crossed with some of their "Fisher King" tendencies account for my unbearable Virgoan obsessiveness and minimalism now. [Left: Graveyard of craft books, hall closet]. When I arrived this late afternoon, I had my annual hissy fit about all the stuff crammed into every nook and cranny of the house: an assortment of catalogues for things like dog visors and Kleenex cozies; unread Rodale's "Organic Gardening" magazines from 1989 onward; DVD's from Columbia House that they forgot to reject through the monthly mailer; ceramic dolphin clocks gifted to them by acquaintances from the church of Religious Science; coupons from Dr. Butchko, I.E. Vet. It's all still here. Clearly I need therapy to work through all the residual immigrante and class shame triggered by all my parents' stuff. [L: Santas and Friends]. This time, I just decided to take pictures.

I know this might sound a bit too "American Beauty," but taking pictures of all of the oddities chez Mom and Dad really helped me see things differently. It made me actually appreciate some of the accidental beauty behind their otherwise chaotic accumulation. It helped me breathe. So in the spirit of Christmas sharing, here's something from my family to yours...Maligayang Pasko! Mele Kalikimaka! Frohe Weihnachten! And all that jazz...

a. Beethoven and Friends














b. Everything but the kitchen sink














c. The kitchen sink















d. Crown Rib Roast














e. Capicolla fr. D'Elia's














f. Gallery














g. Nativity Scene + Buddha Guest Stars














h. Notes














i. Screen, Elephants and Rudolph














j. Bongos || Romy Katindig Model














k. Hip-Swaying Outdoor Santa














l. Santa's Sleigh + Great Ideas Book Series, 1961-1974














m. Mom














n. Dad w. Sick Puppy














o. Tannenbaum





















* The genotype "soy sauce saver" isn't mine, but belongs to the venerable HN Lukes.

No Wonder || From Yentl to The Shondes

This Catholic Pinay lesbiana (on the Far From Heaven-side of butch) knows what “shonde” means. It’s Yiddish for shame, disgrace, pity or outrage. And I knew this before I peeped the definition thoughtfully provided on the website for queer dramarock sensations, The Shondes. I know what “shonde” means because—interfaith confession time—I fancied myself a spiritual Jewess the minute I saw Yentl on VHS and felt tingly about all the cross-dressing, carts of books and “like buttah” showtune meditations on female education and the Talmud. I was so moved by the sepia-toned, candle-lit, made-for-Barbra-by-Barbra exultations about desire, feminism and faith that the very next day I rushed to the B. Dalton bookstore across from WhereHouse Records at the Riverside Plaza to buy a copy of The Essential Talmud, and the collected works of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Drink it in here...



I knew it was deeper than my brief flirtation with the Baha’i faith circa the 7th grade. But I didn’t realize until much later what it all meant: all those grainy, black & white dreams of Brooklyn scored to the pizmonim-inspired harmonies of Fiddler, or those fantasies about being a stranger among them in Cicely, Alaska with Dr. Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure. For this nerdy, only-child from Southeast Asia coming of age in the white, working-class suburbs of Southern California, Jewishness meant intelligence, humor, showtunes, culture and cute glasses. Not only did Jewishness (or at least the made for TV versions I encountered) compliment my own sense of strangeness and my own sense of ethnicity, but oddly—thanks to my belated, analog encounter with Yentl—it also told me something about my budding queer sexuality. Only two months before I came out as a big homo, my Yentl costume on Halloween was misread as “Shaolin Kung-Fu Master” by all the other college dorkuses around me. A shonde in so many ways. It seems no accident that I am currently employed in a Gender Studies program with an endowed "Barbra Streisand Chair in Sexuality and Intimacy." Someday...somehow...somewhere...

It’s because of this awkward sense of communion (pardon the Catholicism), and a recommendation from a McSwonderful friend that now, more than 15-years later, I have found The Shondes...

Read my complete interview with The Shondes at OH! INDUSTRY.