Prompt #3a Silver Lining: Protest

There is a city block crowded with people around on an afternoon in March. A chilly wind blows, the trees still barren of their leaves. It’s an unusual day for such a large group to be hanging about, but it’s all for an important reason. There is a battle of beliefs happening on this crowded street, on this March afternoon.

On one side of the street reads a group of signs:
“GOD HATES FAGS”
“GOD HATES AMERICA”

On the opposite side is yet more signs:
“FREE HUGS”
“THANK GOD FOR LOVE”
“DONATE TO THE WORLD AIDS FUND”

The battle continues - loud but nonviolent - into the night.

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One of the ugliest things that I believe exist in this world is bigotry. Many people may have heard about the Westboro Baptist Church, a hate group led until 2014 by Fred Phelps. They spread their hateful message evangelically through protests of funerals, concerts and other public events with hateful slogans. In 2010, a group of Westboro protesters conducted a tour of Chicago to spread their message. Many of the surrounding citizens were uncomfortable or mocking or ignored the protesters all together.

Out of this horrible situation however, was a bit of silver lining. Across the street, with their own makeshift signs and slogans, was a counter-protest group boasting free hugs and love for all. UIC student Jason Connell used the appearance of the hate group to raise money for queer rights groups such as Human Rights Campaign, International AIDS Foundation and Chicago based Jerusalem Open House. The donations were named in honor of the Westboro Baptist Church and community thank you cards were sent from the non-profits to Westboro leader Fred Phelps.

Since this event, many people have found ways to use the publicity of the WBC for good causes. There have been counter-protests to promote fundraisers and veritable strangers coming together to let the group know that they are not welcome.

Though the WBC spew hate and bigotry everywhere they go, good things can come from these events. When faced with hate, people tend to band together and unite as a community against the threat. In an effort to counter evil, people go out of their way to put more good in the world.

Time Travel Episode 2: The Strange Zoner

Drake is sitting in his home on the hovering lounge trying to get the work done for this particular jump. He has to thoroughly study the period he is jumping to, in order to blend in as seemingly as possible. He checks his clock. Ironically, time means much more to zoners than to the average person. He sighs. It is almost his scheduled jump time. He is just about ready, so with a final glance at his studies, he gets dressed in his suit and heads back out to the Zone dock.

The dock is empty when he arrives. Unlike the offices in the adjacent building, the dock usually is empty. Drake guesses it’s because that makes it easier to avoid any mishaps, or because it’s just really weird to watch someone else be departicalized and sucked into a hole in time, so management tries to spare them that particular unpleasantry. His zone-standard watch beeps. He feels the pad underneath his feet vibrate, and the lights of the scanner aboye him confirming his identity and mission. A succession of three beeps and…

There. He’s arrived at his destination, indicated by the way he still feels a bit like his insides are vibrating. He checks his watch again, as is standard.

He is late. Zone jumpers are never late. It’s a part of the job to be on time for every single mission. In the seven years Drake has been in this job, he hasn’t been late once. He is nothing if not efficient. Something must have gone wrong. Small inconsequential things like the messages zoners took usually have very arbitrary consequences, as to not do any damage to the natural time line. However, being late was unacceptable.

Drake rushes to the shuttle just beyond the sliding doors of the zone dock. Thankfully, the personal shuttle is outside the dock as it should be. Drakes breathes a sigh of relief as he hops on the shuttle. You can always feel the differences in time the most during the transportation phase. The shuttles from this particular time do not hover as smoothly as the ones from Drake’s. It’s as if he can feel every bit of turbulence and it makes him unduly nervous.

He lands at he assumed destination, an unmarked P.O. Box, and checks his watch again. He should be right on time now. His anxiety settles, but he still walks a  bit faster as he stepped down from the shuttle. It's because of this that Drake is distracted. And it's because it's destructed that he runs headlong into another body. It's his second mistake today and he's a little exasperated with himself.

His exasperation turns to confusion when he looks up to see what exactly he has collided with. Standing before him is a person wearing a similar outfit and expression as him. Another zoner, one he doesn’t recognize, standing in front of his drop-off destination.

“Um, I think this might be a mistake,” he says after the initial confusion lifts.

“And who are you?” the strange zoner asks.

“I’m zoning here." Drake asserts, flashing the identity code on his watch.

“From when?” the stranger says, scrutiny obvious in his voice.

“Twenty-two twenty-two," Drake huffs.

“Who’s in charge then?”

Drake isn’t sure why it matters to the issue at hand, but in meeting another zoner, it is protocol to identify oneself. “Maximilian,” he says.

“Mistake indeed,” the zoner mumbles. “Well, this is my mission, so I’m gonna fulfil it." He opens the P.O. box and inserts an object from his air-tight carrier tube into the unknon darkness of the box. With one final, uninterested look, the zoner steps away and into a shuttle that has suddenly appeared during their conversation.

Drake, looks after the shuttle, bewildered. He has never had an interaction like that from another zoner. Zoners are profession by design and make it their goal that every delivery goes smoothly. At a true loss for what to do, Drake makes his delivery as well, before stepping on to his own newly-appeared shuttle. As he heads back to the Zone, he can’t help but question what just happened, and dread all the paperwork he would have to fill out in reporting it.

There is little reason why the Zoning board would send two carriers to deliver different messages to the same place, moments apart. Perhaps someone mistimed their jump or - impossible! The board is full of experts and algorithms and paperwork and paperwork and paperwork, just to avoid this sort of thing. They never make mistakes.

Something is seriously wrong here.

ABC Story: Men of the Rain

Buffed and shined shoes tap nervously on the carpeted floor. Collared shirt scratches against a sensitive throat. Dry hands pat smooth black slacks. Eli is not nervous. Forget nervous. Galaxies away from nervous. He is terrified. It isn't as if this is his last chance, but this opportunity would mean so much to him. Just when he feels as if he can calm his runaway heart, he thinks about all of the possibilities and his head spins again with visions of the future. Knowing that this could maybe change everything made him shake with anticipation.

Let the chips fall where they may, he tries to convince himself. Maybe we’ll make it, maybe we wont; there’s always next season. Next to him, his plus one, his best friend, is holding his hand and looking just as nervous as he feels. Only a few more moments left yet. Pressing their hands together tighter, Eli silently thanks his friend for being there with him. Quiet suspense radiates from them both. Readying himself for this was a process, he told himself that he wouldn't panic, and yet….

Something is telling him that this is it. Time seems to slow as the presentation inches by. Until that final announcement, Eli will not be satisfied, can not breathe a full breathe of air. Various noises threaten to distract him from his obsessive thoughts, but he can only find himself musing wildly on all it has taken to get to this place: the months of preparation, the sweat and tears and blood and paint.

When he tries to remember a time that he felt this stressed, felt like a single moment could decide everything, he thinks nostalgically back to his eighth grade spelling bee, as he was spelling the final word. “Xeriscape; X-E-R-I-S-C-A-P-E; xeriscape. ” Years later, and he feels the same anxiety, but this time he know that there are real world consequences at stake here, not just the possibility of disappointing his mom. Zero or everything.

“And the Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Broadway Play goes to...," Eli hears as he holds his breath, "Elias Zhu in Men of the Rain!” and all his dreams come true.

Review 6: Angel Haze (Rapper)

The Rap artist Angel Haze came to my attention when she released this free-style as a reaction to Macklemore's song Same Love.

I found the lyrics to this song very pertinent because of her identity as a queer person of color and the fact that she quotes a poem by one of my favorite spoken word artist Andrea Gibson.

Turns out, Angel Haze is a great rapper in her own right. I have listened to most of the songs on her latest album Dirty Gold. Her music is equal parts deeply personal and relatable. There are songs to party to and songs that relay the artist's history as a queer rebel in a conservative environment.

This is her most recent video:

I enjoy the album for it's the mix between the familiar, fast paced rap that's awesome to dance to and the slowed-down tracks where Haze shows her skills as an R&B singer. Though she isn't as skilled as some of my other favorite artists such as Kanye West or Childish Gambino, "Dirty Gold" is only her sophomore album and, as she gets more attention, I expect her to improve more and more.

Review 5: Vision Test (Video)

This really interesting video was brought to my attention a few weeks ago. It shows examples of basic micro-aggressions of such as stereotypes and how they change people's perceptions stereotyping. 

It is a clip by Wes Kim, "A routine eye exam turns into a troubling look at American attitudes towards minorities in positions of power. (Jury Prize from the 2003 Media That Matters Film Festival.)"

The way I experienced this video was that I answered the questions along with the patient. This can reveal our own biases, which we do not think about often. I thought it was a good look into how we stereotype people and a good start to thinking about where those stereotypes come from and how they affect our everyday interactions with others.

The most poignant point I found in the film was the very last question. "Which is more American?" The succession of images following was  particularly interesting, because after watching it again, I realized that every image was an equal part of American society and culture. Even the racist imagery is a part of American past and affects the American present. That, after going through that meticulous slide show of different  people, this entire culture is just a great amalgamation of different types of people. It's all one big mess. But it's our mess.

Review 4: The Shield of Achilles (Poem)

Earlier this week, my AP Literature did a practice test. The poem sampled for the test was a work by W. H. Auden called The Shield of Achilles. I really enjoyed the poem and decided to review it!

The Shield of Achilles 

by W. H. Auden

 She looked over his shoulder
      For vines and olive trees,
    Marble well-governed cities
      And ships upon untamed seas,
    But there on the shining metal
      His hands had put instead
    An artificial wilderness
      And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
  No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
  Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
  An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
  Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
  No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
  Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

    She looked over his shoulder
      For ritual pieties,
    White flower-garlanded heifers,
      Libation and sacrifice,
    But there on the shining metal
      Where the altar should have been,
    She saw by his flickering forge-light
      Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
  Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
  A crowd of ordinary decent folk
  Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
  That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
  And could not hope for help and no help came:
  What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

    She looked over his shoulder
      For athletes at their games,
    Men and women in a dance
      Moving their sweet limbs
    Quick, quick, to music,
      But there on the shining shield
    His hands had set no dancing-floor
      But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
  Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
  That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
  Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

    The thin-lipped armorer,
      Hephaestos, hobbled away,
    Thetis of the shining breasts
      Cried out in dismay
    At what the god had wrought
      To please her son, the strong
    Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
      Who would not live long.

The poem describes Thetis, mother of Achilles, looking over the shoulder of Haphaestos, the death god, as he forges Achilles' shield. Thetis expects to see images of gods or politicians or atheletes, or nature, but instead she sees a scene of war and destruction. Between the stanzas of Thetis's revelation, we see the sort of warfare and destruction that in the end, is depicted on Achilles shield. The poem mentions vacant fields and marching soldiers commanded by some unseen figure, people being executed while others watch motionless, and a man that knows only a world without empathy. 

One thing I really enjoyed about this poem was the back and forth of the narrative. We go from a very specific scene taking place during a specific even to a vague scene that could really be describing any major war in time. Because of Thetis' point of view, we get a very personal look at the effects of the images of war and descructiion. While we also get the detachment from the more vague scenes that truly portrays. the feeling of mechanized, totalitarian warfare where the feeling of individual are inconsequential.

Auden really blends these two perspectives in an interesting way, that may be hard to catch at first. I suggest reading the poem a few times to really understand the message.

Another great thing about this poem is that Auden wrote specifically so that it would be relatable to all time periods. The scenes of battle are not specific to one particular war, but could be describing any human conflict throughout history. The fact that the words are still so relevant today, though it was written sixty years ago shows how well-structured the poem is. 

The final irony at the end of the poem is that these scenes of battle that Achilles was so eager to have on his shield are eventually how he looses his life: in war. 

This poem is beautifully written and reveals some really important social commentary along with some cool Greek mythology.

Prompt #1: Found Poetry

Life is an acting game; this is theatre

We reach to affirm our fundamental worth

Against hate crime and institution

No power

To be allowed to dream out of sight

The hero, the reckless youth, the great battle

Anyone and everyone is welcome

Imagine what you could create