Blog Archives

gurk | i’m so scared i could spit!

November 3, 2010

The more we progress technologically, the further we seem to get from the tangible world. Take for example the word “camel.” The word is a bunch of letters combined that have absolutely nothing to do with the sand-dwelling, hump-possessing mammal that has a penchant for spitting. I can only imagine that the word itself comes from the Hebrew word for the same animal,”גמל” (gammel). That word is also the name of the first letter of the word, “ג” and the letter from which we eventually get the letter “g.” Hebrew is an interesting language because it’s a sort of gateway language. It came about during the move from a pictographic form of writing to an abstract one. The letter ג was supposed to resemble a camel. It could then also stand in for the animal and at the same time represent sounds that were similar to the beginning sound of that common animal that is found in the Judean desert. Technology creates new things and new things require us to engage in new relationships, oftentimes in new ways. The Hebrew alphabet allowed for a bridging between a world that was becoming more and more spread out and that was learning

this week on the avant guardian | the letter ‘g’

November 1, 2010

By ari gratch

this week on the avant guardian | the letter ‘g’

Image Credit: super fun patrol; eus imaging; capricorn 007; Laura Hartmark; ohdeedoh; morning paper; nola.com;

this week on the avant guardian | samhain

October 25, 2010

By ari gratch

this week on the avant guardian | samhain

“you’re going to reap just what you sow…” Samhain, from the old Irish meaning “summer’s end.” Its celebration marked the end of the harvest season and the coming of the cold winter months in which one hoped to whatever god or gods they believed ran the world that the food they brought in would be enough to sustain them and their own during the harsh months that followed. Back in the days where we had a relationship with the earth, a give and take where foods and other goods were “processed” by our own hands and where we understood that we had to reciprocate for that which we took, it was well nigh impossible to take for granted the fact that the earth was a living, breathing entity that held our destinies in its hands as much (maybe more so) as we held Hers. There are things the earth could say and do that we have no control over, and there was a time when we respected that. The festival of Samhain ends the period of time in which we take from the earth and reminds us that she can just as easily take from us.

this week on the avant guardian | fall

October 4, 2010

By ari gratch

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. - Robert Frost Image Credit: JuliaY

this week on the avant guardian \/\/ mourning

September 20, 2010

By ari gratch

$this week on the avant guardian \/\/ mourning$

Freud once said that when we lose shit, we get sad. Or something along those lines. Way to go Freud. And sure, the loss of a loved one, an ideal, a people also usually means the loss of a little bit (or a large bit) of our self (our soul, our being, whatever), but life goes on. We find a way and we push forward, and we do that by mourning, i.e. paying due respect to the thing that was and is no more. As the avant guardian slowly marches on towards its death I’m sure there will be plenty of occasions where some of us might reminisce and remember the past year or so that led us towards what can’t help to be anything other than a pretty amazing venture. Mourning the past expresses itself in a whole bunch of ways. Let’s see what happens… Photo Credit: New Orleans Ladder

the broken past

September 8, 2010

By ari gratch

There are three ways we seem to look at our past. First, as antiquarians, we see the past as something to be venerated and sanctified. If you ever find yourself nostalgic for a time since gone, for home, wherever and whatever that might be, you might be an antiquarian. We also have a tendency to monumentalize the past. We look at the giant ideas and people that came before us and strive for the greatness they once knew. I will, every now and again, find myself at a sporting event or a political rally and someone will sing the anthem or America the Beautiful, or something of that ilk and tears will come to my eyes as I think of all that has been accomplished in American history and all the good that we are capable of with all the power we possess. These moments are always tempered by the bad that has been done in American history, but the good is still there and that hope is what pushes me forward. In these moments I am a monumentalist. Finally, we can be critical of our history. We can understand our past as so much rubble to be sifted through.

it burns

September 1, 2010

By ari gratch

“Memory is shaped by forgetting just as the shore is shaped by the sea” Marc Augé How do you perform your memories? Do you wear them on your sleeves? Can I read your memories in the same way that I read your personality? The way you wear your hair or where you choose to place your tattoos? Is it on your All Stars, or in the way you sashay? Our memories flow from everything we do and say. Take for example the time I learned how to walk. I was 11 years old and in middle school when a couple of boys slapped the books out of my hand, knocked me over, and told me I walked like a girl. I thought that maybe if I learned how to walk like a boy I might not have such a hard time and so began my 6th grade reconnaissance mission: operation “walk like a man.” I found nooks and crevices around campus to hide in while others walked to class or the cafeteria. I waited and took notes. Copious notes. When I got home I snuck out to the alley ways around our house and practiced, sometimes for hours, until the