Just a quick note to say: substantial update coming soon. Life’s busy, it’s summertime–you know how it goes. You have my word. Update soon.

from the salon.com broadsheet…

The baby’s a…we’re not telling!
A Swedish couple believe so strongly that gender is a social construction that they do not reveal whether their 2.5-year-old is a boy or a girl.

Only those who have changed the toddler’s diapers know if “Pop,” which is not the child’s real name, is male or female. “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset,” the tot’s 24-year-old mother told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

Pop’s wardrobe includes both pants and dresses, and the child usually gets to decide what to wear. “Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop’s parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child — they just say Pop,” according to the English-language Swedish site the Local.

Not surprisingly, the pundits are split on the effect this flouting of convention will have on Pop. “Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual,” Susan Pinker, a psychologist who is the author of a book about sex differences in the workplace, told the Local. “I don’t think that trying to keep a child’s sex a secret will fool anyone, nor do I think it’s wise or ethical. As with any family secret, when we try to keep an elemental truth from children, it usually blows up in the parents’ face, via psychosomatic illness or rebellious behavior.”

Yet, Kristina Henkel, Swedish gender equality consultant, says Pop’s parents’ experiment could help the child develop as an individual without being boxed in by gender-role stereotyping from birth. “If the child is dressed up as a girl or boy, it affects them because people see and treat them in a more gender-typical way,” Henkel explains. “Girls are told they are cute in their dresses, and boys are told they are cool with their car toys. But if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl.”

Pop’s parents say that they will reveal the child’s gender when Pop thinks it is time to do so. In any case, he or she will soon have more company. The family is expecting another child, and with the next bundle of joy, the parents plan to continue playing the “what’s it to you?” gender card.

― Katharine Mieszkowski

Pina Bausch, German Choreographer, Dies at 68
Pina Bausch, the German choreographer who combined potent drama and dreamlike movement to create a powerful form of dance theater that influenced generations of dancemakers, died on Tuesday in Wuppertal, Germany. She was 68.

The cause was cancer, her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, announced. She received the diagnosis just five days ago, said Ursula Popp, a company spokeswoman. Ms. Bausch’s family did not release the exact nature of the illness, Ms. Popp said. As recently as June 21, Ms. Bausch stood on stage after a performance of a new work, which is untitled, Ms. Popp said.

Ms. Bausch, whose roots were in prewar German Expressionism, helped change the perception of what could be brought into a dance performance. Her shows featured a deep sense of theatricality; disconnected and sometimes absurd episodes; and elaborate, unusual sets, like carpets of carnations and peat moss or a collapsing wall.

Her base was in Wuppertal, an industrial city near Düsseldorf in northwest Germany, but the company was often at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris and festivals around the world. This summer, the company is to appear at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.

In the United States, Ms. Bausch has been a regular at the Brooklyn Academy of Music since 1984. The academy’s executive producer, Joseph V. Melillo, said he had attended a performance of Ms. Bausch’s new work in Wuppertal on June 12. She seemed tired, he said, but no more so than usual after creating a new piece.

“She was Pina, loving and enjoying the company of all of us who had come to be at the premiere, celebrating with the dancers who had worked so hard,” he added.

Mr. Melillo described Ms. Bausch as having created a new dance form — tanztheater — by transforming a pure formal dance background through “her own passions and technique and discipline.”

“The whole scale of Pina Bausch’s tanztheater no one had ever seen before,” he added.

Ms. Bausch established a method of creating dances that was widely copied. She would begin rehearsals by asking specific questions of the dancers: about memories, about their daily lives. She would ask them to act out the recollections, and create minidramas from their responses. The dance would grow out of that work, as well as a sense of place derived from foreign residencies.“I don’t know where the beginning or the end is,” she said in an interview with The New York Times last year. “You have to digest. I don’t know what will come out.”The ideas and feelings were often harsh, like frustration and alienation, cruelty and pain, but the works were frequently suffused with humor. Ms. Bausch was quoted as saying she was “not interested in how people move but in what moves them.”

Pina Bausch was born on July 27, 1940, in Solingen, also near Düsseldorf. She started dance study at 14, at the Folkwang School in Essen, which was directed by Kurt Jooss, a major figure in German dance before World War II whose antiwar masterpiece “The Green Table” (1932) is still performed. After graduating in 1958, she received a scholarship to continue her studies in the United States, working with José Limon, Antony Tudor and others at the Juilliard School.

She soon joined Tudor’s company at the Metropolitan Opera and also worked with Paul Taylor. In his autobiography, Mr. Taylor described Ms. Bausch back then as a Tudor favorite, homesick for Germany and “one of the thinnest human beings I’ve ever seen.” As a dancer, he said, she could “streak across the floor sharply, though a bit unevenly, like calipers across paper.”

“She’s also able to move slower than a clogged-up bicycle pump,” he added.

In 1962, Ms. Bausch returned to Germany and joined Jooss’s Folkwang Ballet as a soloist. She took up choreography, making her first work, “Fragment,” in 1968. She succeeded Jooss as company director the next year.

In 1973, she took over a company in Wuppertal, which was quickly renamed Tanztheater Wuppertal, and created her first work there, “Fritz,” with music by Wolfgang Hufschmidt. But what really captured the dance world’s attention was a 1975 production of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” on a stage covered with soil. She revived “The Rite of Spring” for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1997.

One of her most important early works, “Café Müller,” was based on memories of growing up in the restaurant and hotel run by her parents.

Ms. Bausch is survived by her companion, Ronald Kay, and a son, Salomon Bausch, 27.

Her influence is clear in the work of European choreographers like Jan Fabre, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Sasha Waltz and Alain Platel. Her work has also been a major influence on American contemporary-dance choreographers who question the boundaries between theater and dance.

Yet her work provoked sharp divisions among critics. Her “greatest and most terrifying works are unified by place and ambience,” wrote Deborah Jowitt in The Village Voice. “Bausch builds our expectations with brilliant theatricality.”

Others saw her as a purveyor of over-emotive and manipulative patchworks. Arlene Croce, the dance critic of The New Yorker, was notably scathing, calling her choreography “glum, despondent, dabblings in theatrical Dada,” pointlessly repetitive, marked by “thin but flashy shtick” suggestive of the “pornography of pain.”

In the mid-1970s, Ms. Bausch staged two Gluck operas, “Iphigénie en Tauride” and “Orfeo ed Euridice.” Her work was also featured in several films, including Fellini’s “E la Nave Va” (“And the Ship Sails On”) and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Hable con Ella” (“Talk to Her”).

Ms. Bausch restaged “Orfeo” at the Paris Opera Ballet in 2005. In an interview with Le Figaro at the time, she said the dancers had plenty of technique.

“I look for something else,” she said. “The possibility of making them feel what each gesture means internally. Everything must come from the heart, must be lived.”

article source: nytimes
more of pina…
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via al jazeera.net - i feel like more people should be talking about this…

US forces pull out of Iraq’s cities

Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.

US troops began withdrawing from the country’s major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed on Tuesday for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces.

“The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities, after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security,” Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said.

He told the Associated Press news agency on Tuesday that Iraq is “now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty”. The Pentagon did not comment.

Al-Maliki described the US withdrawal as a “turning point” for the country and declared Tuesday the country’s National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.
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School of Americas graduate is coup leader

A military coup has taken place in Honduras this morning (Sunday, June 28), led by SOA graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

A national vote had been scheduled to take place today in Honduras to consult the electorate on a proposal of holding a Constitutional Assembly in November. General Vasquez had refused to comply with this vote and was deposed by the president, only to later be reinstated by the Congress and Supreme Court.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. Government institutions were taken over by the military. While the traditional political parties, Catholic church and military have not issued any statements, the people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

While the European Union and several Latin American governments just came out in support of President Zelaya and spoke out against the coup, a statement that was just issued by Barack Obama fell short of calling for the reinstatement of Zelaya as the legitimate president.
Call the State Department and the White House
Demand that they call for the immediate reinstatement of Honduran President Zelaya.

State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414

and

Chaos erupts after Honduras coup
By Mica Rosenberg Mica Rosenberg
Mon Jun 29, 1:50 am ET

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Shots were fired near the presidential palace in Honduras where protests erupted after the army ousted and exiled leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in Central America’s first military coup since the Cold War.

Hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters, some masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades of chain link fences and downed billboards in the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and blocked roads to the presidential palace.

Reuters witnesses heard shots outside the presidential palace that apparently came after a truck arrived at the protest, and an ambulance also appeared. It was not clear who fired the shots. One witness said shots were fired only in the air and there were no initial reports of injuries.

In neighboring Nicaragua, leftist leaders from the region led by Zelaya’s ally Venezuelan Hugo Chavez gathered in the capital Managua for late night talks on the crisis.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was ousted in a dawn coup after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, who announced a curfew for Sunday and Monday nights. The country’s Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

The coup was strongly condemned by Chavez — who has long championed the left in Latin America. Chavez put his army on alert on Sunday in case Honduran troops moved against his embassy or envoy there.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, the European Union and a string of other foreign governments also voiced backing for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica.

The Organization of American States demanded Zelaya’s immediate and unconditional return to office.

Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and banana exporter with a population of 7 million, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s.

But Zelaya has moved the country further left since taking power and struck up a close alliance with Chavez, upsetting the army and the traditionally conservative rich elite.

In central Tegucigalpa, groups of men, some holding metal pipes and chains and their faces covered with T-shirts, threw rocks at cars trying to enter the area late on Sunday. Remnants of burned tires and a charred newsstand selling papers seen supporting the coup lay smoldering in the street.

Troops in full fatigues with automatic weapons lined the inside of the fenced-off presidential palace, some covering their faces with riot gear shields as protesters taunted them.

“For the country to have peace in the future, there will have to be deaths, injuries. We are willing to fight to the death,” said Cristhian Rodriguez, a 24-year-old plumber, who had set up an improvised tent in front of the palace.

Honduras is a big coffee producer but there was no immediate sign the unrest would affect output.

Honduras torn between ousted leader, replacement
By WILL WEISSERT and FREDDY CUEVAS

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras is now torn between two presidents: one legally recognized by world bodies after he was deposed and forced from the country by his own soldiers, and another supported by the Central American nation’s congress, courts and military.

Presidents from around Latin America were gathering in Nicaragua for meetings Monday to resolve the first military overthrow of a Central American government in 16 years, and once again Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took center stage, casting the dispute as a rebellion by the region’s poor.

“If the oligarchies break the rules of the game as they have done, the people have the right to resistance and combat, and we are with them,” Chavez said in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.

There is a deep rift between the outside world - which is clamoring for the return of democratically elected, but largely unpopular and soon-to-leave-office President Manuel Zelaya - and congressionally designated successor Roberto Micheletti.

Micheletti rejected any outside interference and declared a two-night curfew, while Chavez vowed that “we will overthrow (Micheletti).”

Zelaya was seized by soldiers and hustled aboard a plane to Costa Rica early Sunday, just hours before a rogue referendum Zelaya had called in defiance of the courts and Congress, and which his opponents said was an attempt to remain in power after his term ends Jan. 27.

The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single 4-year term, and Zelaya’s opponents feared he would use the referendum results to try to run again, just as Chavez reformed his country’s constitution to be able to seek re-election repeatedly.

Micheletti said the army acted on orders from the courts, and the ouster was carried out “to defend respect for the law and the principles of democracy.” But he threatened to jail Zelaya and put him on trial if he returned. Micheletti also hit back at Chavez, saying “nobody, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has any right to threaten this country.”

Earlier, Obama said in a statement he was “deeply concerned” about the events, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Zelaya’s arrest should be condemned.

“I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Obama’s statement read.

For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, U.S. officials said.

Two senior Obama administration officials told reporters that U.S. diplomats were working to ensure Zelaya’s safe return.

The officials said the Obama administration in recent days had warned Honduran power players, including the armed forces, that the U.S. would not support a coup, but Honduran military leaders stopped taking their calls.

Zelaya said soldiers seized him in his pajamas at gunpoint in what he called a “coup” and a “kidnapping.” The United Nations, the Organization of American States and governments throughout Latin America called for Zelaya to be allowed to resume office.

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Michael Jackson died.

Since I’m in shock, I’ll do this:

and one of my favorite videos of all time:

Thanks to Renee for passing on this article from The Brooklyn Rail. She knows that I’m a huge fan of Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Joel played Disc 1 for me at some point last spring, and I drifted off to sleep listening/loving Loops 1.1, giddy about writing to it in the future. I also published a piece with The New Yinzer about this particular track. So yes, a love. And a very interesting read about art and decay.

a picture of Basinski conducting Alter Ego as they play Disintegration Loops 1.1

The Music Was Dying
by Brandon Kreitler

“Sound and image flakes falling like luminous grey snow—falling softly from demagnetized patterns into blue silence.”—William S. Burroughs, The Ticket that Exploded

In 2003, American composer William Basinski released a four-disc set entitled The Disintegration Loops. The music on these discs was not initially intended for release, nor was it even really composed music at all. In August and September of 2001, Basinski discovered some loops of mostly orchestral music that he had recorded on then-standard magnetic tape in the early 80s. Because magnetic tape degrades over time, and because its use is becoming increasingly rare in the digital age, Basinski set out to transfer the music to digital form to preserve it. However, as the twenty or so-year-old tape passed over the reader, tiny bits of the tape were scratched or flaked off, sometimes to land in other places on the reel. The tape had begun to disintegrate in its long storage. The process of this degradation was slow and not initially noticeable to Basinski, who let the tapes roll. The music on the tapes underwent a long decay and endless reconfigurations during the digital transfer, which captured the results.

The individual loops last anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes. The listening experience, while initially languid and somber, becomes enthralling and disorienting as each piece progresses. The music begins as repetitive and transparent, over time revealing the infinite complexity and depth in even a short clip of audio information. The music becomes a ghost of itself. In a remarkable coincidence, as Basinski was listening to his loops destroy themselves in his Brooklyn apartment, two planes flew into the World Trade Center towers across the East River in downtown Manhattan. He and a few friends watched smoke and the haze of destruction cover the skyline across the river. Could there be a music more analogous?

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I went to the Pittsburgh peace vigil for Iran tonight. As the announcement stated:
As concerned Americans (and other nationalities involved with the planning) who acknowledge that Western governments must not overstep their boundaries in this matter, it is simply the intention of this
grassroots vigil to show support for the human right to peaceful assembly and to protest election
fraud worldwide.

People gathered in Market Square and handed out candles to light, green ribbons and bands to wear in support. Others brought signs, poetry, words. Some people sang the Iran national anthem, and I stood there holding my candle quietly, watching generations bring their voices together. At the end, one young man stepped forward and started singing again. Sometimes the peaceful things, our subtleties, are most intense. I want to write more, but I’m still wrapping my head around it. I know how helpless one can feel at times like this. I think it’s important that we find ways to show support, to be present, to acknowledge and listen to the people around us. Not just the people we see every day, and not just the people in our cities, our country. But people; humanity as a whole.

MLK’s papers to be basis of first rights course

By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vast personal collection of papers will be used for the first time to teach a college course on civil rights this fall.

Morehouse College in Atlanta said Tuesday it will use the library of about 10,000 documents, books and other papers that have been housed at the school since 2006.

The course called “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Modern Freedom Struggle” will be taught by Clayborne Carson, who was named executive director of the collection in January.

King graduated from historically black Morehouse with a degree in sociology in 1948.

Morehouse owns the collection, which was bought from the King estate for $32 million in June 2006 in a last-minute sale brokered by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to head off a planned public auction.

source