Daily Archives: August 14, 2012

Today is our fourth day together as 8 collaborators and after yesterday's NFL experience it feels like we're really starting to unpick and unravel the complexities of our notion of 'Stranger in a Strange Land'. The notion of America as a story and Americans as storytellers keeps returning and ownership over that story is what seems to be niggling us most. Constructing fictions and conducting life through role-play is perhaps not unnatural, perhaps its even a necessity and the U.S.A's

Raiders and cowboys, Young boys chanting and taunting the other team: TAPE sample: sports chants and taunts 30sec The Raiders are represented in silver and black, symbolizing pirates who invade and overtake with their steel and their destruction The Cowboys are represented in blue and white, colors extracted from the American flag, for rugged heroes who claim their territory Like many sports, American football is a game of  reclaiming territory on a field, conquering space, and passing into guarded zones.

Yesterday’s practice of being a stranger in a strange land at the Dallas Cowboy/Oakland Raider’s tailgate party was a failure. Not because it was bad (I had a great time), but because I didn’t feel like a stranger in a U.S. parking lot with Black and Latino Oakland Raider/Dallas Cowboy fans. I didn’t feel uncomfortable with people gawking at me hanging out with a group of mostly white people wearing blue sparkly lipstick, my tiny shorts, and tube top. In

Where is America?, You don't have to look,  America is what is happening. It's time can begin whenever you choose, even in some made up fiction of America. Everyone has a different interpretation of America, and no-one can possibly exchange each other's experience. Ernesto's story of a life was vivid and very effective to imagine, but one impossible to live by anyone other than himself. He ends on "We are all here singing the national anthem." Some of us don't