Geeky Chic

This is a little late, but on Friday night, I went to the Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man concert with Toasty.  I’m feeling a little lazy, so here’s his review of the event.

But let me make it clear that the concert was awe inspiring.  Beth Gibbons can now do this trick with her voice that sounds like one of those old fashioned wailing saws (think of the scene from Delicatessen where the couple plays the saws on the roof).  On the CD, I thought it was a synthesizer, so I was amazed when she brought out the sound on the first song (Romance).

My teenage sister was quoted in today’s S.F. Chronicle, in an article regarding a high school student’s attempt to start a Caucasian/White club at another Bay Area high school.

I don’t agree with her view, but it’s nicely reasoned:

Fifteen-year-old Michelle Wong agrees.

“How are we ever going to get beyond racism if we don’t allow everyone to have their say?” asked Wong, a junior at Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco, who is familiar with McClelland’s story.

Raoul Wallenberg, Wong said, is “over 50 percent Asian,” with clubs for Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans and Asian Americans.” There is racial tension even among the Asian students, Wong said.

It’s only fair, she said, that whites have their own clubs, too. “She’s not doing this to be racist,” added Wong. “She’s doing it because it makes sense.”

**

For the record, she reports that her words were paraphrased.

Earlier tonight, I went to the 50th anniversary celebration of the release of Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March.  Bellow himself was on the bill, but unable to make it (another audience member speculated that he was probably feeling out of it after watching the Cubs fall in the playoffs).

At the reading, Martin Amis chose a selection from the novel about the family’s trip to institutionalize the “imbecile” brother, Georgie.  As he read this passage, tears rolled down my checks.  I was caught in the same moment in time, as a younger me, watching Rain Man.  The scene that I remember the most vividly from that movie is the one where a childhood photo of the brothers is lost in a motel room bathtub.

Both these scenes discuss the feeling of loss that happens when a disabled sibling is put away, or kept away from us.  In the novel, its the point when Augie kisses his childhood goodbye.

I think back at these scenes, and see what motivates me, what I’m working towards.  I guess that I always believed that if I worked hard enough, I could somehow save my sister from the same fate.  I must keep my fingers crossed, and hope that I accomplish this.