Why I Hate Men: Mountaintop Removal

My sister had a show at Animals coffee house a few months ago. It was great, she did a lot of figures and kind of modern portraits with bold and simple geometric backgroungs that jumped out against the predominantly black and white portraits. From this show, she garnered several comission peices which is fantastic, really. Its what you hope for from a show, I would imagine. But, both these people gave her photographs of family members that they wanted her to paint likenesses of! like they saw her paintings of people and were like "hey! i would like a picture of my son/auntie dorothy/me and craig at the boonstra luncheon on that kind of background!" The picture of the kid is wholly unremarkable and the other one is of three people in dark suits at some event, one recognizable as female only by the tall blonde coif. Ive never seen a drier, less inspirational photograph. How you could look at that and think "Im going to get this immortalized and hang it for all to see" is totally beyond me. The whole comission based on prior work is a weird concept anyway. I mean, Ariel isnt really a portraitist in the while-you-watch-next-to-the-sno-kone-vendor-on-the-boardwalk kind of way, so what if you pay her 300 bucks for a likeness of little bobby and it comes out looking like a beautifully composed, flawlessly executed portrait of chairman mao, or maybe you just dont like the colors she chose, can you say you dont want it? What about artistic license? The upshot is that she's holed away painting all the time in her studio nee my old bedroom at moms house. I went over there to visit and make dinner after work last Sat and sat on the floor while she painted, accompanied by the narration of the PBS special on Appalachia. It was a great program. It showed all the condescending coverage by the news stations in the 50s at the beginning of the "war on poverty" which posited appalachia as the face of poverty in america. They made their mountain culture look so pitiable and run down, showed so many pathos shots of kids with deplorable dental care and women raising water from wells (gasp!), when Urban America sighed in pity, the Appalachian people were like "Fuck off!! We might be poor and if you want to help us build some shit we can use, then great but quit making fun of us on TV!" Then, and this is the part that has kind of changed my worldview, or at least my understanding of gender and male female composition, they talked about the destruction of the Appalachian landscape due to mining and dam building. They interviewed this BLM (bearau of land management) mining specialist who set about talking about the practice of MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL. In order to get to the ore and coal and all that good stuff that makes industry and environmental degradation possible, you have to take the top off of a mountain. I thought to myself, that is the most profoudly male concept and practice I have ever heard of. No woman would ever look at a mountain, even knowing that there was something useful within, and see removing the top of the mountain as a feasible possibility. THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS ARE HUGE AND PERMANANT!!! YOU CANT REMOVE THEM!! Theyre obviously there for a reason, and if there is something that is inside a mountain, and you want it, well thats just too bad!! Make the factories run on grass, pine needles or flipping daisy chains because those are the only things that can really be removed from a mountain in my worldview. Then they talked about how all the indigenous farmers land was covered in water when they dammed the rivers to make MANMADE LAKES! Here we are again, no woman would go outside, look at a pastoral scene, farms, rolling hills, houses, animals and think to herself, "this area would make a nice lake, there should be some body of water here." If there is no lake, how does it occur to you that you have the ability, let alone the right, to make one? Even if there is tourism money to be gained through boating were boating possible in that area, IF YOU CANT BOAT IN A CORNFIELD YOU CANT BOAT IN A CORNFIELD. Most ironically, these are arms of the same government which promises the war against poverty and vows to help the poor, adorable, pathetic, hungry, white children of the romantic mountain people at all costs. To that end we'll be removing all means of income available to you and either plunging your families identity; the land you've inherited from your forefathers for generations, under a quarter mile of H20 or blowing it sky high. Great music though, love that sweet, sweet banjo. I started this week at Robert Leonard. I was there Wed and Thursday. I dont have too much to report yet...I cant actually do any cutting or services there so I do a lot of shadowing and standing around watching. Which is cool, I have A LOT to learn, which becomes more obvious the more I watch Becca and Robert and all the other stylists who turn out absolutely flawless heads in record time for 8-9 hours a day. Its very slick in there, but everyone is nice and welcoming in their own way. A couple of the younger girls ignore me completely, but theyll come around. Or not, whatever. Theres a lot of diet talk in the back room. Its pretty annoying. In fact taped up by the computer in the back theres a little blurb from one of those starfucker mags that talks about how even the stars have to starve themselves to be thin. It quotes elizabeth hurley talking about how her diet regime requires her to go to bed "quite hungry and crying." And Carmen Electra says at the end of her little interview "in fact Im starving right now!" I dont know if thats supposed to be inspirational to us as we fold foils and formulate color but I find it pretty freaking sad. I watched Becca cut Mom's hair and it looks about 500 times better. Moms got bangs now, its a family affair! Its just practice, she didnt do anything earthshatteringly different than I did, she just knows hair so well and never gets lost. Ill get there. I watched the "I cant beleive hes not gay" man-ceptionist get melt on extensions, like I saw at the hair show. He wanted fuller hair. So rediculous. I dont think I could be attracted to a man in a weave. I dont want to test the waters either. I took a makeup class which was fun, then one of Becca's clients, a very cool Altzheimers specialist from UW who was getting some funky color done, let me do her makeup. That was great. I was glad Becca trusted me enough sight unseen to let me do it. I was also glad I had just taken the makeup class cause my foundation skills are...sub-par. THere are a lot of assistants there, you have to assist for two years before you can be a stylist if youre just outta school. I think thats a similar truth at most really upscale salons...i have got to figure out how to get around that...I started the week with a funeral on Tuesday. It was a wonderful service for a man whose kids went to school with Ariel and myself since first grade. He founded the WA state chapter of the ACLU and did a lot of legal work for the black panthers in the 70s. In the last part of his career he did defense for people with drug charges and long incarcerations for small offenses. There were about 300+ people at his service including ex panthers, amazing civil rights lawyers, foodies, starbucks founders, half the mount baker neighborhood, countless old school seattle families and their kids Ive known forever and all the teachers Ive ever had give or take. It was very inspirational and very grounding. I hope that when I pass over, people come out in numbers and are able to speak as well about me. Even more I hope I'm able to have enough faith and love to do as much for the human community as he did. We didnt have school on Friday so basically I wasnt in there all week, the distance from it combined with the classiness of RL made me realize that school is actually really fun, and Im going to miss it. I love being around all those people and all that weirdness. Its one of the most hilarious and fun things Ive ever done, and I take it for granted in my hastiness to move on. Mission: be mindful of what is really good and enjoy everything while it lasts. OH NO!! Be here now; its a Ram Dassism!! Soon people are going to be asking me to speak about death!