Revista EOI Fuengirola: International Magazine That You Should Read



credit: EOI Fuengirola

Marta Moreno is pretty much one of the best teachers I have ever met. We met in 2006 when I was working as a bilingual educational assistant at en elementary school in La Cala de Mijas, Spain. Marta teaches English at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas in Fuengirola--just across the street from the apartment where I lived. Once a week, my American friends and I would join her for a bilingual "teatro" club with several of her Spanish students who were in her English classes. Marta organized these classes on her own time with the help of Amy Nickerson, a fellow American who, like me, had come to Spain as part of a national bilingualism-in-the-schools project. Each week we'd perform little skits in English and Spanish, in part just for kicks, and in part to engage that language part of our brain that was still transitioning from English to Spanish.

Marta and I often talked about writers and artists we liked in various languages, and by the end of the year she had become a wonderful friend and resource. This year, she emailed me to say that she and her class at the EOI were making an international magazine. She was asking around her international friends to see if we would contribute a short piece about the cities where we lived. I passed her along some notes about San Francisco, along with some photos. Today she emailed me to share the results of their year of hard work, and it is really well done:

http://eoifuengirolarevista.wikispaces.com/

Whether you speak English, Spanish, German or French -- whether you're an armchair traveler or a Trotemundos (Globetrotter), you'll love the work they've done.

Y a Marta y su clase de escritores, disenadores y artistas: bien hecho!

Cool Stuff You Should Know

There are a lot of them--things, that is. But I feel the need to dash off a list of some of the coolest nouns in my life these days. People, places, events, programs.

The Best New Literary Series

Would have to be Quiet Lightning, a monthly reading series curated by Evan Karp and Rajshree Chauhan. I was first turned on to this by my classmate (and Managing Editor of SF State's kickass graduate literary magazine, Fourteen Hills, D.W. Lichtenberg), who has been actively reading work from his first published collection of poetry, The Ancient Book of Hip. Karp and Chauhan take submissions of 5 minute pieces early in the month and then arrange them in specific reading order for the event, which has hopped from bar to gallery and back again. Writers are invited to submit poetry, flash fiction, excerpts and really it seems anything that can be performed in about five minutes. Not only is the event itself a fun gathering of writers and friends, but Karp and Chauhan have managed to bridge that gap between open mic and literary journal by publishing all the work in sPARKLE & bLINK, and by video-recording all of the readers and posting them online.

Best New Radio Shows

New to me, that is. Just yesterday I got turned on to Snap Judgment, an NPR program that explains itself as an "audio rollercoaster." Glynn Washington hosts these hourlong programs, which are sensationally produced with music, sound effects, and dramatic moments of pause in between personal narratives.

Risk is a New York-based personal storytelling program in the tradition of The Moth, except it allows its readers to offer long, entertaining and practiced personal anecdotes. Kevin Allison (most famously known for his work in the comedy troupe the State) hosts, and sometimes has celebrity guests such as Janeane Garafalo or Elna Baker -- two ladies whose writing I definitely admire.

Best Local Music Show

Golden Beat, from Berkeley's KALX, is my go-to when I've got a few hours to write an assignment and crave some indie, funky, country, bluesy, eclectic beats.

Best Impersonal Email Message

VSL, or Very Short List, has mastered the art of anonymous culture-busting. I got turned on to this by following Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 and another one of my literary heroes, who helped found the website in 2006. Basically, their concept is to summarize "one must-see gem" a day, and it's usually an underground book, film, band, or even political movement that might not otherwise see the light of day.

I'm not usually one for the mass email, but this one I read every day.

And, finally, last but not least:

Best Way to Respond to a Bad Pick-Up Line

A short, accidental moment of true, unblemished impoliteness. Every now and then someone will see the little machine on my hip and use it as a way to chat me up. 99% of the time it's a perfectly harmless exchange, but every now and then I find that it acts as an excellent screen. One example:

After the reading Monday night, I was talking with my cousin and my friend Max, and a young guy approached me and interjected rather loudly, "WOAH you must be a doctor or something because I haven't seen a PAGER like that in a long time!"

To which I responded, "I'm diabetic." In my head, I modulated the tone as a kind of "I'm happy to talk to you about it if you ask," but it actually came out in a much more of a "fuck off, you ignoramus" way. I didn't realize that until I saw the startled look on his face, and I turned back to my friends just as he did a full about-face and walked away.

So yeah. I think this stuff is cool. You don't have to agree with me, but if you ask me about my pager, I might accidentally shut you down.

Night at the Oakland Museum

This time last night I was just walking up the steps to the Oakland Museum of California, which was hosting a spectacular 30-hours re-opening celebration in honor of its recent renovation. There were deejays, documentaries, palm readers, and lots of vibrant, diverse, amazing exhibitions. It was "From the Mixed-Up-Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" meets "Night at the Museum" except in Oakland, on a beautiful spring night.

The only other time I'd ever been to the Oakland Museum was as a fourth-grader. We had driven all the way to the Bay Area to get a hands-on look at California history, and yet all I seem to remember about it was that there were koi in the pond, and that the adult chaperone in our group got lost on the 880 and we ended up in San Francisco. But last night--last night art was seeping in our pores. There are three main exhibits that are currently open to the public: "Art", "Nature," and "History." I don't think I've ever been to a museum that examined California identity so carefully, and displayed such an honest depiction of what it means to be multicultural. I was especially moved by the exhibit of art made in Japanese internment camps, many of them in the Bay Area.

There's something magical about being in a public place with lots of people late at night. It's almost as if the truly fascinating, exotic or curious parts of ourselves emerge when no one else is looking, and these are the parts most worth documenting.

Picture of the Day: Fairfield School




My favorite school: Fairfield Elementary. This is a two-room schoolhouse five miles west of the town where I grew up, a small little red brick building lost in miles of ag land. Hot air balloons used to land in the fields behind the school. Lizards used to lose their tails under the wooden walkway at lunchtime.

I hope that in this rush to salvage public education, we don't lose sight of just how much it means.

North Korea, La Mission, and Found Plays -- just another week in San Francisco

Last night, fiction writer and Stanford lecturer

Adam Johnson

read at our second annual Gina Berriault award event at San Francisco State University's Poetry Center. He read to us from a novel in progress that is set in North Korea. One of the story's main characters was a loudspeaker that made us, as an audience, chant nationalist propaganda in English and Korean.

Johnson was, in a word, phenomenal.

Every now and then I have these glimpses of how other people live creatively. On Monday, while interning at KQED's Forum, I had the opportunity to meet Benjamin Bratt and his brother Peter, two talented men in the film industry whose latest work, "La Mission," tackles the thorny yet common theme of clashing cultures and ideologies in one of San Francisco's most fascinating districts. The younger Bratt, who is most known for his television work, spoke eloquently about this desire to channel both the artistry and complexity of a bridge between generations and ideologies. I was struck not so much by both Benjamin and Peter's obvious talent, but by the way they made it all so personal. They grew up here. They've heard stories. They've driven low-riders. They have a desire to reconnect with a population that they both identify with and systematically question.

One local story that I find particularly exciting is a new SF State project headed by Theatre Arts Professor Joel Schechter, who while researching a book on 1930s Yiddish plays, stumbled across a lost script outline originally devised by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project in 1937. Schechter and a group of his graduate students then adapted the outline into a musical called Money, an aptly named piece both for its Great Depression origins and for its current economic relevance. Talk about the creative process - what must it be like to revive a story decades old, one that brings startling new meaning in the post-housing-crisis world.

I wonder what our country would look like, if we had a Federal Theatre Project now, if the government valued the arts in a way that it did the sciences or academia. Maybe then there'd be more out there about up-and-coming writers and artists whose work makes life digestible, even powerful.

The Ligre Debut

Introducing the world premiere of Ligre, an improvised comics tour de force created piecemeal by a Tiger (Ryan Alpers) and a Lioness (Julia Halprin Jackson).


"It wasn't the world that made him dream of beautiful girls and wonderful things..."


"and landscapes surreal with smoking pots and endangered desert tortoises..."





"It was his job, after all, to imagine..."




"unreal realities portrayed behind curtains on silver screens...
-Ever seen that dog before?
-Nope, but she's got style on those skis!
-Yip! Yap! Yeaaahh!"



"wondering what willed whatever wont withal..."



"smaller and smaller when love comes to call..."


...



All drawings by Julia, usually done in class, in a little notebook
all text done by Ryan, usually done on the weekends, on a little tiled counter in San Francisco
website help by Ammon Bartram

I found this poem

I had a legitimate moment of literary amnesia just now, when cherrypicking old work for potential submissions. I found these words and I know they held special meaning at the time, but the idea of titling something like this a "Bloodletting for Scarlet O'Hara" -- the Julia who wrote this poem is someone I no longer resemble.

Blood Letting for Scarlet O’Hara

You laughed when I said,
It’s been far too long since I’ve had a good scab.
It was true;
My body was tired of stories
Knee high fence posts
And narrow doorways.
We were at Whiskeytown lake
And it felt appropriate to be somewhere
Named after alcohol
Because my legs got drunk around you
Skidding down the boat ramp
It was 104 degrees
And the dirt was scarlet

O’Hara would’ve never done that
In a black bikini
Run down moss while you were still in the car
By the time you had your trunks on
My knees were the color of the dirt
Even lines of oxygen trailing into whiskey

Town lake and when you put me on your shoulders
I’d never been happier
To acquire a scab

-

I wonder at what point creative work simply overrides memory.

-

A brief follow-up to the Monday night Quiet Lightning event: Evan Karp, the San Francisco Literary Culture Examiner, wrote up a great summary of the reading at Gestalt.

Read-a-Roni



Before I wax poetic on Passover and Easter (and pre-Passover breakfast, which at my house consisted of bacon and French toast, how very kosher), I have two quick plugs to make. Tomorrow, Monday April 5, I'll be reading at the Gestalt bar in San Francisco, along with a great group of Bay Area poets and writers, including novelist Shanti Sekaran and fellow SFSU grad students. Come check it out if you're local -- cheap beer and expensive words!

Also - on April 22, I'll be sharing some work at a reading hosted by the amazing fantastic and cutting edge literary journal Flatmancrooked, which is publishing it's First Annual Poetry Anthology this fall. Rockstar poet / SFSU grad student / my neighbor Shideh Etaat will be hopping a ride up to Davis' John Natsoulas Gallery. Loverly.

And here's one image of an amazing Passover seder--intentionally blurry, you see, to reflect the four glasses of wine we are expected to consume during the dinner.

On Spring



This meadow is a childhood deja-vous.

This is the kind of place where an old person would sit down at the end of his or her long life, maybe lie back and look up at that spot where the leaves of neighboring trees crisscrossed, making darker, greener shadows, and slip into reverie. This is a place where the quality of light is different, where the air is still and quiet, where there are more banana slugs than people.

We discovered this meadow last weekend while hiking near Point Reyes, an hour northwest of San Francisco. This little bench was nestled in amongst a thicket of berry bushes and a small rushing creek.



We splayed our lunch across the little bridge and laid with our heads to the treetops. I remembered what it felt like to be tuned-out, turned-off, plugged off and out of reach--and I liked it.

Landmark Health Bill Approved--Nearly

Remember in 2008, when Obama promised a season of change in Washington?

It looks like it might have just begun, blooming with the beginning of spring's cherry blossoms. Just today, the House of Representatives approved the latest health care bill, which stipulates that health insurers allow children to stay on their parents' plans until their 26th birthday, that children with medical problems not be dropped from their family plans, and that many large companies face stiff fines for failing to cover their employees. The bipartisan bickering about passing this bill included a group of conservative Democrats (who are they, I want to know?) who insisted on including a clause clarifying that none of this federal health insurance money go to providing abortions.

Just what does this all mean?

It doesn't mean that getting health care coverage will be instantly easier, nor does it mean that this bill has yet become law. The vote now goes to the Senate. And even if the bill does get passed without hitch, it still might be several months before everyday Americans see real change in their health care coverage.

That said, I can't help fluttering with excitement at the thought that maybe, at some point, so many of the decisions I make in life aren't dictated by who will pay my medical bills, and how. It seems nothing short of ironic that this bill pass just two months shy of my 26th birthday, where for the past three years my family has been generous enough to pay to COBRA my health insurance. Fresh out of college I applied for my own health insurance, but was denied across the board because I have a pre-existing condition. I was offered insurance through my previous job, but didn't work there long enough for the transition between companies to make any real difference.

Now I'm back in school, and the CSU system (when faced with enough budget cuts to knock it to its knees) offers a laughable $500 reimbursement for insulin...per year. (Any diabetic reading this knows that one vial of insulin has a retail value of $90; as someone on an insulin pump, I go through 3 vials a month--$500 would last me about six weeks.) So - so I'm ridiculously lucky that my parents are able to help me out, but I'm damned well ready to help myself out, or to let the government throw me and my fellow pre-existing-conditioners a bone.

Harry Reid, you listening? Blue Cross? HealthNet? Aetna? Kaiser? Big business? Weak-kneed Democrats in the Senate, Republicans and Independents who don't know enough diabetics or asthmatics or recent college grads foregoing health insurance--I hope you're paying attention.

I hope you're all paying attention, because the rest of us everyday Americans, we certainly are.

And while I'm at it, I'd like a pony

I can't believe it. I've begun craving domesticity. And not in the ways I would expect. I don't want children. I don't anticipate marriage. I don't want to spend the day cooking. I just -- well, I find myself coveting houses. Apartments with beautiful windows. Big, sprawling gardens. Even those perky little studios atop corner stores.

I can't pinpoint exactly when or how it started, but at some point I realized that I spent as much time staring at the buildings I was passing as I was the road ahead. Every street in San Francisco has at least one interesting facade, whether it is a three-story Victorian with purple trim or a canary yellow apartment complex with neatly trimmed flower boxes. I'd like to attribute this newfound admiration to Kurt Andersen's influence--the host of PRI's Studio 360 focuses a lot on design and architecture, and often curates these amazing radio pieces that somehow capture the sound of buildings.

A more likely explanation is my own (rented) apartment's current mess; the entire building has been covered in green scaffolding since January 1, and the contractors finally started stripping the dry rot off the exterior this week. At any given time of day, there are about 30 Chinese construction workers hammering, stripping wood, and clamoring around (and sometimes in) our apartment. I know this will all benefit me and my housemates in the long run, but that's not my first thought when they begin hammering about bed-level at nine a.m. on a Saturday.

Between that, and the dawning realization that the chances of me ever having enough money to ever own any kind of property in San Francisco are close to nil, this mounting desire for my own place is almost dizzying. It's the weirdest, strongest material want that I've ever had. I don't usually want things. I'd rather get books from the library or movies from a rental store than buy either. I hate shopping. I don't like handbags and almost all of my jewelry I've received as gifts. When it comes to gifts, I'd much rather have an experience; that is, a concert, performance, trip, nice dinner, bike ride, thoughtful card.

And now, seemingly out of nowhere, I want a house. Although I'd settle for a tiny little studio, if it was all my own and I was my own landlady.

Maybe this is what happens when your friends start marrying off, when people your age are managing mortgages and your cousins start having kids. Maybe there's some symbol for adulthood that we are constantly seeking to measure; a yardstick for our own success that is easy to categorize. I recently saw a friend I hadn't seen in four years; in the time that I had used to work abroad, get a job, apply to and get into grad school, he had traveled the world over performing as a musician, met his fiancee, and discovered new career paths. Now he is contemplating how to best marry said fiancee, who is from another country, and he said that many of his friends are buying houses and settling down.

After we had lunch, I came home just as the construction workers were removing my bedroom window. Dust settled on my bedroom floor and I thought longingly of my own place, that hypothetical little corner somewhere in the world where all my passions and desires and ambitions would be, at long last, contained.

Running Through Yellow

This might be an unpopular opinion but I love Daylight Savings.

I went running today after work and the sunlight was that shade of yellow that seems like it should be reserved for childhood photographs. The best color in the world to run through. It makes you fast, shimmery, like a little fox darting through intersections, neighborhoods, sunsets. Tonight I made it up through Diamond Heights, further than I had anticipated, but I swear I could feel the endorphins shoot straight from my legs up to my ears.

And then, somehow, I found myself atop one of the steepest hills in San Francisco--one I'd only driven up before. When I first moved here, I was wary of running on city streets, much less scaling these hills, but now--now the hills are all fear and desire mixed in concrete and dizzying height. Now I love running and biking those hills. I love them in the way that when I run up them, I am forced to slow down, to concentrate on the minute movements of each muscle. Speed is secondary to simply moving, doing. And the slaps that my feet make on the way down--bad for the knees, yes, but every third or fourth step I indulge just to hear the concrete respond. To let the earth know that I'm here, not just standing on it, but running down it. And few things are more exhilarating.

All that said, I'll probably hate Daylight Savings when I get up in six hours.

On Indulgence

Today I went to my first public bath house. Or, perhaps it's better to say I went to my first public hot tub. When I think of public bath houses, I'm inclined to remember Mr. Kanna's cryptic lectures on Japanese history back in seventh grade, or the archeological remains of public baths in the tiny town of Ronda in southern Spain. So I guess I was expecting a slightly medieval experience.

We took the 49 bus all the way down Van Ness, which is one of those epic public transit journeys when you pass from neighborhood to neighborhood as if you were in a plane jumping continents. First the taquerias, then the huge Goodwill thrift mart, then the Civic Center and the Opera House and the hotels and, way off in the distance, that surprising blue-green of the bay. Ryan and I have both been harboring a cold--me for the better part of two weeks, him just for the last few days. We almost walked by the Hot Tubs, its neon sign obscured by an elm tree in front of the bus stop.

Inside it felt like we were walking into a classy by-the-hour hotel. We got a pretty good deal, considering that we'd printed a one-time coupon off their website, and the attendant walked us down the hall past a series of open doors.

"Do you ever go in the baths when nobody's here?" I asked.

"I try to at least twice a week," she said, her ponytail swinging.

She lead us to a small room at the end of the hall. I blinked. It was so clean and sharp. A jacuzzi in the corner, a small boxy sauna, a shower, a radio, even a massage table. All ours for an hour and a half--for thirty bucks.

What followed was one of those stunningly indulgent experiences, much like German chocolate cake or a really swanky restaurant. My whole body seemed suspended in time, and I kept stopping myself to wonder, "Is it okay to do this and not be actively accomplishing anything?" No homework, no exercise, no chores, no work. No--could it be?--worrying. Just floating. Breathing.

There was certainly nothing medieval about it. On the contrary, it was a little private world just outside one of the busiest streets in San Francisco. A reminder that health and health care don't have to be two different things, and there are lots of ways to treat both.

An ode to jalapenos

This recipe finally scared away my cold. My best friend told me on the phone that I sounded like there were monsters battling a losing battle in my throat. I've since stopped discriminating Kleenex from toilet paper, napkins, paper hand towels, and anything paper that's nearby when I feel a sneeze coming. And then--and then I made this chili.

I'm by no means an avid or exciting cook. I love the Farmer's Market and try to cook as healthy as I can within my means. I like cooking the most when it's a quiet evening and nobody's really around, and I'm hungry but not starving, and I've got all the ingredients and all the time in the world. Tuesday was one of those nights. So I picked up some eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and, yes, jalapenos, and got to work.

The result was pretty much the tastiest soup I've made yet. But the best part of it was after I'd eaten two full bowls and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I couldn't figure out why my nose suddenly felt so fresh and clean, and then when I looked in the mirror it was so obvious: my nasal passages were lit up, fiery red beneath my skin, and I could feel jalapeno coursing up my throat and down my nose.

Amazing. Now if there was just a magic recipe for cabin fever...

In Memorium, with Tea



This is my great-uncle Davie.

He is holding a postcard that his brother Izzy sent him in 1943--back when Davie was in training before serving in World War II.

Davie is one of those people you can't describe in just one word. Or maybe you can, but it would be in Yiddish, and what little I do know is transliterated from the dirty jokes he used to tell and retell at family gatherings over the years. This is the man who dispenses $2 liberally, so freely in fact that for much of my childhood I imagined him with his own little press in his basement. No one I knew had them, or spent them, so in my mind they had no monetary value whatsoever; they were Davie-money, like monopoly money, except better.

I saw Davie this weekend while visiting Los Angeles in a whirlwind trip that involved a family memorial service and twelve full hours at Disneyland. Thankfully, not at the same time. But it struck me as appropriate to have a literal roller coaster weekend surrounded by people who had, in one way or another, made my life what it is now. Whether they contributed DNA or sent me birthday greetings from halfway around the country or mailed me an espresso machine when I started college (smart thinking, cousin Shannon) or grew up with me in Davis or were game enough to make the drive to meet my loving and loud extended family (my boyfriend has, indeed, turned in his WASP card, as his brother said)--there was a lot of support emanating from everyone. And yet, we were there because someone had died. Not just someone; it doesn't feel right to leave out her name (even on a blog), because, just like every other iota of her being, her name is just too colorful and vibrant to leave out: Cippy Stambaugh.

There are at least a thousand words I could dedicate (and will dedicate) to the woman who, shortly after my 21st birthday, presented me with a Corona at 11 am at a family gathering, then gave me a painting she herself had created, and later mailed me one of her favorite stuffed animals as a good luck charm. The stories my family retold about her--hot-air ballooning, tromping around New Zealand in her 70s, untying her bikini top at a public pool to make a point--she was, in every possible sense of the word, a character.

So I'd like to raise a virtual toast (in Cippy's case, a toasted piece of bread) not only to the woman herself, but to her brother Davie, to my grandmother Saralee, to all the brilliant and brave souls of their generation who still want so much for their color, emotion, and legacy to be recognized. I recognize you.

2.10.10

I just transferred the title of my grandfather's car into my name. I am about to own a car for the first time in my life.

There's a reason I chose today to do this. February 10 is the day I tend to reserve for minor catastrophes and miracles. Sometimes these experiences choose me; sometimes I choose them. There's a cosmic comedic timing in the universe that seems to collide for different people on different days. February tenth is one of those days.

Last year I wrote about 2.10.01 as Julia day, the day my pancreas died and the day the rest of me lived on. This year the anniversary of my diagnosis as a diabetic has no apparent, overarching, thesis; it simply is. Nine years is long enough that the daily tragedies of testing my blood sugar and adjusting my lifestyle simply aren't unusual anymore. Yesterday, as I was leaving for the radio station, the tubing of my insulin pump looped around my doorknob, and I walked a full three paces before I recognized that vague sting in my abdomen.

Being diabetic has its gifts: at times, I find ways to compartmentalize my body in ways that seemingly remove all its emotional power. My fingers double as pincushions, my stomach is pockmarked with remnants of last weeks' pump sites, my pancreas is an eternal internal mystery. And that's all well and good. The detachment that comes with recognizing you have no overall power in the universe is, in the end, a powerful feeling. There's strength in realizing we're not as strong as we think we need to be.

And yet, there is that lingering essence to this one day a year that will always have some unnameable, unknowable drama to it. It's almost as if this day is the tiniest bit longer or shorter than all the others in the year, and those moments in either direction are the secret to some deeply-protected mystery.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with someone at FasterCures.org. This was part of a larger story we're pursuing at KQED, but I leaped at the opportunity to ask an expert, point blank, why nine years ago, a doctor told me I'd be cured within five years. Is it really fair to make that kind of hypothesis, to someone who has just learned she has a chronic condition?

The scientist, who I'll leave unnamed now, said simply: "I know...is it hope or hype?"

I'll never forget the doctor that day nine years ago, who looked at me and my parents and insisted that "She'll be cured in five--maybe ten--maybe fifteen years!" And I remember thinking, "What happens in the meantime?"

Here's what happens in the meantime: I graduated from high school, then college, lived abroad twice, got a job, went to graduate school, fell in love, acquired a new vocabulary and taste for glucose gel. And who knows, maybe diabetes will be cured next year, or six years after that, or twenty years after that.

Until then, I'll be driving my very first car.