I’ve had some media coverage over the last two months and wanted to share! First, at this link, is a segment from NBC New York. I was interviewed for this story that aired in late September on the dying trees around the Washington Square Fountain. It’s a saga I’ve been covering on my Washington Square Park Blog. The reporter, Chris Glorioso, did a really nice job on the piece. Video of the segment is at the link.

Next, last week, this article appeared in the Washington Square News, New York University’s daily newspaper. They don’t have articles on their web site so I’ve posted it below. I talk about the book a bit. Some of the info is off – this blog is more for thoughts, musings, the writing of the book (tho’ it’s way overdue for an update!); the B-girl Guide web site/blog will be for covering the topics I noted. (Okay, and I probably wouldn’t have picked that photo for this story but… so it goes.)

Union Sq George Washington Statue Sept 2001

In 2003, on the eve of the second anniversary, I wrote a piece about how it felt right after September 11^th, 2001 — that date thousands of people died, and, in various and profound ways, the lives of virtually every one of us in the United States and throughout the world were altered. The events of that day – aircraft intentionally targeting buildings in NYC and D.C. – changed U.S. and international history. Whether you knew someone who died or not, you were personally affected. Soon after, wars were launched and policies were ushered in that would have been quite difficult to implement prior.

For those of us in New York City on September 11^th and who spent time here in the weeks afterwards, there was something else we experienced. In the aftermath of tragedy, something broke open. There was a raw, vulnerable, almost gentle feeling in the air. Even riding the subway there was a quiet bond between passengers. It’s harder to recall now but almost everyone I’ve spoken to about this experienced it.

It was something so intangible that if I didn’t write about it, there would be no way to know it even happened. It’s not generally reported in the media and the rush to war happened so soon afterwards that it’s almost unrecognized in any public reflection of that time period.

What reminded me and caused me to write about it was, when, on September 10^th, 2003, I encountered a photography exhibit, “Words Fail,” by Richard Law at a church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I didn’t intend to walk in and yet I couldn’t avoid the pull inside. Law’s goal was to recapture what it felt like on September 12^th; the next day, featuring photographs he took around the city at that time. His exhibit called up the feelings I’d felt and experiences I’d had, causing me to revisit and remember. Law documented many of the heartbreaking “Missing” signs that were posted everywhere you looked throughout Manhattan; as well as pictures of Union Square, filled with flowers, candles, signs, calls for “peace.”

Walking through the exhibit, viewing the “missing” signs, I was struck by how beautiful everyone looked. In the days afterwards, the signs implied that the “missing” were somewhere and would possibly be found. These photos weren’t their “promotion” head shots or what they looked like going to work in the World Trade Center. These were personal. Something about the handmade quality of those “Missing signs” reminded me that someone connected to the person prepared this — Written in magic marker above the photo or typed on the paper was everything they knew about this man or woman on a piece of paper. Weight, height, age, profession, family, and interests were all recorded to identify the missing.  Blocks & blocks of city streets were designated for flyers with specific locations taking precedence — St. Vincent’s Hospital in the Village(since shuttered), the Armory on Lexington Avenue, Grand Central Station, Union Square.

9/11 caused me to get involved in activism in NYC in a different way. In 2001, I was still new to being “an activist.” My background was primarily as a music publicist, having only more recently left my full-time job after working in the music business for over 10 years representing high profile rock artists. I’d been involved with grassroots environmental advocacy for about a year and was still figuring my way around with much to learn. 9/11 caused me to look at war, not an easy topic to take on, particularly in light of what happened on that day and the atmosphere that followed.

On September 12^th, I traveled by subway into downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn to meet up with hundreds of people at a community center to discuss what was going to happen next. Those of us who gathered wanted to enter into the debate (if there even was one). In that large auditorium in the Charas Community Center, a former public school on 9th Street on the Lower East Side, I encountered a different form of activism and activist. A core group had met up on September 11th despite closings of subways and bridges and the overall environment in the city. They had roots in the direct action movement with a very thoughtful tone put forth aimed at outreach and dialogue. To a newbie like me, they seemed edgy and arty. They were ready to put themselves on the line.

Meetings were held weekly at Charas. It became a place to think through strategic, historical, political, and emotional issues in a fluid, dynamic way. People from all walks of life came; all races, classes, ages, and backgrounds. The group was set up to be non-hierarchical; there were “points of unity.” If you felt something was wrong, there was something called “in the moment-stop” and a person could bring their issue up to the group and it would be addressed. These ideas changed the way I worked with others and how I viewed activism in general. This experience caused me to look at everything differently. I was very much inspired by people coming together and there was an almost magical unity at that time. (Others, more seasoned, may remember these meetings as harder to bring together a new, diverse group of people.)

A name was finally settled upon – War Is Not the Answer. The meetings became a space for those who were trying to navigate a media environment where if you were against war, it often felt like you were the only one. No alternative views challenging the Bush Administration were presented in the news. Just old war generals who supposedly had all the answers. Hundreds of people were inspired to participate in those early months. Word spread via word of mouth and the internet.

Union Square Plaza After September 11th

Another location people congregated was at Union Square in downtown Manhattan at 14^thStreet, the entire first week after September 11th, and then particularly on Friday evenings. The George Washington-on-a-horse statue at 14th Street offered up the word “PEACE” scrawled across it in bold chalk, amidst the candles and the flowers that adorned the plaza below it. There existed the true spirit that honored the people who died that day. It was a spirit that did not deny the knowledge that people die elsewhere in large numbers & often many of us know little about it or else pay no attention. It was a spirit that knew that any day now people would die in the name of  ”revenge” of 9-11, somewhere else, far away.

On September 21st, ten days after September 11th, there were thousands of New Yorkers on the streets for an anti-war march announced just three days prior via the internet. A feeling of risk and also excitement co-existed with a need to be there. (No permit, we held back the traffic ourselves, until police arrived, and even then.) There were people who found it was disrespectful and then there were people who, you could see it on their faces, felt relief that they were not alone in protesting war as the sole and inevitable response.

Later that night, a scroll on CNN reported:

Hundreds of people marched peacefully from Union Square to Times Square to demonstrate against U.S. military action in the wake of terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, killing thousands.

As if people did not know. It was further evidence that to question war – and the official government ‘line’ – was immediately followed in all the media by a reminder of the tragedy of the event.

As hard as it is on some level to believe 10 years has gone by, if I had not written some of these thoughts down, it would be all too easy to forget. Somewhere archived is the original War Is Not the Answer web site and, as I wrote this, I searched for my old flyers and meeting notes which exist in a folder somewhere but, alas, I could not locate them. Our old meeting spot, Charas, the community center located in an old public school, was evicted in December 2001, after existing in that spot for 20 years long before the Lower East Side was a ‘go-to’ destination. The building was sold to a developer by the Giuliani Administration. (It still sits vacant to this day). Everything seemed to change after that time, in just a few months. By December, there was a whole different feeling in the air.

I suppose that eerie but comforting calm, the connectedness New Yorkers felt immediately afterwards, when everyone was scrambling to help in some way, would have had to dissipate over time. Yet it always felt as if it happened too soon, too fast. Before we had all processed what we were thinking or had even had time to reflect, our government started using words like “revenge,” “war,” “dead or alive.”

In the midst of extreme tragedy, there was a perceptible feeling: the world could change and we would help change it. What happened next could have transpired in a much different manner but a war response and the cycle of violence is as ingrained it seems as old war generals are on traditional media. It’s hard to say how long the initial feeling lasted… was it days? Weeks? How many? It was long enough to be memorable but too short to change the course of things to come.

**************************************************************************

Top Photo: Flatbush Gardener

On the Streets of Brooklyn

Street Poetry

I was walking in Brooklyn the other day, contemplating life, as it was, when this poem appeared pasted onto a light post. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect poem to encounter on that day by writer Marge Piercy. This is when New York is at its most inspiring. You never know where you’ll find culture or nature or inspiration or a needed boost, sometimes when you’re not even looking for it.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

- Marge Piercy

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein

This quote came from today’s Funds for Writers newsletter. This org. helps writers find grants and gives weekly inspiration via their newsletter.

Via a Google search, I found a lot of great Einstein quotes at goodreads, including this one:

Happy Spring!

-updated- After my last Alice in Wonderland post, a friend of mine said she wasn’t exactly sure what was meant by “muchness.” Not familiar with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories nor Tim Burton’s film, she thought she got it but she wasn’t entirely sure. Although there’s something perfectly nice about leaving it undefined, I wondered, if I had to define it, how would I?

It seems akin to me to a question writers are encouraged to answer when writing: is your own voice coming through? And what is that voice? Books and articles abound for writers on the topic of “finding your voice.” (And maybe, it’s like finding your Muchness.)

At times while writing my book, The B-girl Guide: In The Context Of Now – How to Live Your Life in Earth, Animal & People-Friendly Ways, I’d wish I could write in the cheery tone in which I wrote the initial B-girl diary entries (B-girl.com had diary entries before there were blogs). If I really think about it, however, those posts were cheery, yes, but also very stream of consciousness and wouldn’t necessarily represent who I am now anyway.

I could tell you my adventures -beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

All the chapters are written; they are just awaiting the hiring of an editor (that update’s forthcoming) and, well, maybe, a little more Muchness. I’m certain I’m almost there: my vision is for the final result to be informative yet combine a sense of whimsy with ways of taking action and living authentically.

So, in giving the matter some thought, how to define “Muchness,” very quickly, a tumble of words came to me which seemed to define the indefinable. (The French have the term je ne sais quoi.)

My definition of Muchness:

Sparkle. Sass. Feeling strong and whole within yourself. A little bit bold and ready to take on… well.. anything.

There’s a scene in Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” film where Alice sets out to rescue the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) after he’s been locked away by the Red Queen for protecting her (“he wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for me,” she tells her ally, Bayard the dog). The Hatter had already told Alice she’d “lost her muchness” but he obviously still very much believes in her (believing her muchness still exists; it’s just dormant). As she contemplates making her way to the castle across a large swamp in which the only route is leaping from one huge (dead) floating human head to another, to be navigated as if stepping stones, she ventures forward, and says, a bit defiantly, “Lost my Muchness, have I?” She then proceeds. I love that moment.

I suppose I’ve always been drawn to “Alice in Wonderland.” I used the “six impossible things” quote on B-girl materials over 10 years ago, and, as I reflected previously, I even won a contest for my costume as Alice growing up! And so, perhaps it is also a bit reassuring to recognize, that, whatever I might see in my present day as challenges, they do not include rescues involving mad dashes across human head-filled moats! I’d like to think tho’, if it were entirely necessary, I would do so.

***************************

A little something xtra: This picture is of my mother. She’s maybe in her ’20′s or ’30′s – it’s undated – in the midst of planning an event perhaps. Helen was an assistant fashion buyer at Butterick at Sixth Avenue and Spring in downtown Manhattan before she became a mom and then a teacher. I love this photo because it’s evident she so has her Muchness.

Photo #1: Sweetopia*

Updated March 5, 2011

Part I: Alice In Wonderland and Losing Your Muchness

-updated-
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“…one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.
“When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

(This Lewis Carroll quote may be my favorite.)

Recently, I was reading an interview with actress Anne Hathaway in the NY Daily News. I came across a part in the interview in which she said, “There’s a great line in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Hatter says to Alice, ‘You’ve lost your muchness‘. And I feel like I am the age where I’m more able to easily identify what my muchness is and be more fierce about protecting it.”

I stopped reading. I was not familiar with that line at all, and needed to find out more about it immediately. It has been a long time since I read the Lewis Carroll stories; the copy I have is beat up. I set about finding the books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (two stories comprise what we often just refer to as Alice in Wonderland).

With new copy in hand, I scour it diligently, relishing the opportunity to read the stories again. I see a reference to “muchness” but not that line. I go back to my old beaten up copy to see if it might be there. Nothing. Feeling like I’ve gone down the rabbit hole myself, at last, through online sleuthing, I realize that the line is only in the Tim Burton film which (I did not know and had not seen) is a newly written story. It picks up with Alice at an older age. (I also learned that screenwriter Linda Woolverton was not thought highly of in some quarters for tinkering with Carroll’s story.)

I then set about to watch the film on Netflix. The line Hathaway (who plays The White Queen) quoted appears in the scene in which The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), encountering Alice six years after they first met when she was 13, says,”You’re not the same as you were before. You were much more…muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.” What a perfect way to express something so seemingly hard to define!

Sometimes I feel that way. As if I have worn too many identities – publicist. aroma biz creator. activist. blogger. writer. blog designer. – to fit one person! Each one has been uniquely enriching but it can get a bit, uh, confusing. Then again, maybe the harder part is being so much more aware now of how troubled our world is – for people, places, animals, the ecosystem. Taking on issues and needing to be so logical so much of the time.

“It’s a terrible kind of memory that only works backwards.” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Growing up, I won a prize for best costume as Alice in Wonderland in our town’s Halloween parade. Somewhere a picture exists of me, elementary school age, standing, beaming, on the front brick steps of our white split level house; its red door visible behind me. Clearly, costumes were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are now. No matter, my makeshift Alice costume usurped whatever existed as my competition. My brown hair, made to replicate Alice’s blond mane was covered by what appears to be a mop-like wig; most likely comprised of thick strands of yellow – or was it white? – yarn.  I remember my smile at this point more than my hair.

There is no doubt that I felt my muchness at that moment! – and of course have many times since. I think maybe that’s the point of it all – to be sure we are living up to our muchness potential.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” - Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I’m hoping to finish The B-girl Guide shortly (full progress update forthcoming!), it includes stories of my experiences in these different worlds, information on topics that I think are important to rethinking the way we live - in relation to people, places, the environment, animals and ourselves. Illustrated with images of the (to be updated) B-girl!

So, you see, I certainly need my muchness to complete it, don’t I?

How do we not lose our muchness in today’s world? Remain serious about things going on and yet retain a sense of the whimsical? Lewis Carroll purposefully sprinkled whimsy throughout the stories of Alice’s Adventures. Personally, I want to embrace the feeling that the world will change and that six impossible things are possible before breakfast.

I’ve considered essential oils magical from the minute I learned of aromatherapy. In fact, one of the first books I ever read on the practice was called Magical Aromatherapy by Scott Cunningham. The book acts as “a guide to utilizing essential oils and aromatic plants to create changes in our lives.” He writes: “By correctly selecting the fragrance and inhaling it with visualization, true magic occurs.” I loved that then. I still do.

When I created B-girl, my aromatherapy line, the idea for the use of the oils (blends of essential oils in a carrier oil, packaged in small vials) jumped off of Cunningham’s belief. The aromas were created to be used for our own self-empowerment. Carry them with you wherever you go! I wrote initially. Use them as your secret source when you need empowering.

Here’s more about how aromatherapy works:

The part of the brain that most directly responds to olfactory stimulus is the limbic system, which corresponds to our feelings, memories, stored learned responses, and emotions.  When aromatic messages reach the limbic system, they are processed instantly and instinctively. – Susan and Valerie Ann Worwood, Essential Aromatherapy

It’s important to note that as wonderful and powerful as aromatherapy is, as Patricia Davis writes in Subtle Aromatherapy, “Oils are not magic spells … [they] do not replace inner efforts. Growth can be hard work.” Still, they can be our inner cheerleaders, moving us forward a bit.

One of the most perfect scents to work with is with roses – especially with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.

The smell of roses is uplifting, can heighten creativity, curb depression, helps heal grief and trauma, and is great for your love life (because of everything mentioned plus it acts as an aphrodisiac). Rose essential oil is excellent in skin care because it soothes and helps revive any type skin but is particularly good for mature skin and wrinkles.

Rose essential oil – rose otto (steam distilled) or rose absolute (solvent extracted) – is very expensive (thousands of pounds of rose petals make up a pound of the essential oil) but, if you can swing it, it’s worth it.

While I’ve been Ms. activist/blogger/writer and finishing the B-girl Guide (my book, update to be posted here shortly!), I ‘do’ B-girl biz in a low-key way. Yet I must say Valentine’s Day is a great time for Love & Bliss oil. It is made with the oil of organic roses from Bulgaria! — plus citrus, jasmine & more. The formula is hand crafted, all organic in a jojoba oil base. If you are in NYC, Manhattan or Brooklyn, we can hand deliver to you this weekend. It’s lovely any time of year however! It’s also great to give a friend or for yourself.

Whether we have a significant ‘other’ or not, recognizing that Valentine’s Day has become such a major greeting card-candy biz attraction, we can distance ourselves from the commercialization of it all. We associate roses with luxury and exquisiteness and love and we appreciate them because of their grace and uniqueness. How about reclaiming it and making it a day to appreciate all of that within ourselves too?

Photo: Bahman Farzad

B-girl Love & Bliss oil

Oops! This post has been moved to LUMA Blog. It felt more at home there.

Just another time 'round the block...

[Note: This story is one from my own experience as a community grassroots activist. I wanted to show an example of where something was lacking in our neighborhood/city and people moved in to address something the government was writing off and dismissing. Perhaps there's some similar situation in your neighborhood. You can do it too!]

Yes, that’s me, on the right, picking up Christmas Trees on the streets of Brooklyn! In NYC, the trees begin appearing, discarded and abandoned, tossed haphazardly and horizontally on the street shortly after December 25th, some looking still quite healthy. Or else they appear propped up against residential building trash cans, patiently awaiting their imminent disposal.

Either scenario elicits the same interminable outcome: a life sentence in a landfill. Plastic toys, diapers and last night’s Chinese dinner, discarded Bonne Bell lip tubes and Maybelline cosmetics sit alongside your Sony DVD player. These landfill inhabitants are insulated in drums many times over and we just hope that conditions don’t change some day so they leak into our ground and water supply. Cheery thought, eh? Keeping items out of the landfill becomes key.

Recycle Your Tree

The photo above is from 2003; it was one of two recent years that New York City canceled its curbside tree pick ups. It was particularly alarming since the city had already cut plastics and glass recycling in 2002, citing budgetary reasons. Recycle This! was a grassroots activist group I helped form after NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg canceled parts of the recycling program.* (Note: This was before he became a self-proclaimed “green” mayor.) Still in place were “MulchFest” events where, at designated locations, the trees are “recycled”, thrown into a chipper, where they become mulch/wood chips used to nourish plants and trees on city streets, and in parks, gardens and backyards. Since we, as a group, recognized that not everyone will bring their trees to these events, or even know they are happening, we set out to implement our own tree pick up program in Brooklyn!

NYC = 13,000 tons residential trash per day

Our goal was to subtract even a teeny bit from the 13,000 TONS of residential trash that are directed to the landfills of Ohio and New Jersey and Pennsylvania from New York City EACH DAY. (more…)

Inspiration Wall

Happy New Year!

At the time, I started B-girl Aromatherapy, other companies which were up & coming at the time were Kate Spade, Cynthia Rowley, Hard Candy – they, and their creators, had some sass and whimsy to them and individual spirit. As a new entrepreneur, I found their stories inspiring.

At the height of Hard Candy’s initial success, I was giving a B-girl presentation at Nordstrom in Orange County, California and Dineh Mojaher who started Hard Candy was doing an in-store appearance. The story of her blue nail polish, selling it to Fred Segal before she even had any made to sell, thereby going into overdrive to make a bunch in her bedroom to get to their Melrose store was somewhat famous at the time. Susan, my sister, was with me on the trip (and a huge help, of course!).

I ran over to Mojaher to say hi and tell her I’d started my own line and whatever else you might say in that situation. She was very sweet and encouraging. For me, at the time, it was fun to meet someone young who had started her own company and succeeded.

Hard Candy, Kate Spade, Cynthia Rowley – all those companies became big and changed in different ways.* I, at that time, aspired to be one of them but I went through my own personal changes that made me pull back somewhat and keep the B-girl line boutique, fluid. I write about this in my book some.

I was aware of the runaway success of Poppy King and her eponymous lipstick line. I read her book, “Diary of a Lipstick Queen,” a few years back, an engaging read about how her Australian-based lipstick company, started when she was 18, became a huge success. She candidly recounts how, after that quick success and expanding into the U.S., some errors followed. Her company ultimately went bankrupt and was sold. She later rebounded with her Lipstick Queen line. You can find some of her advice on the LQ Facebook page, such as today’s:

Career Tip: I heard on NPR yesterday that 21st Century will be a battle for our attention. Remember to put your attention towards things that build your soul this year and everything will benefit from that. X Poppy

I like that! 2010 didn’t unfold exactly as I expected but, whereas 2009 at times just confused me (and I don’t think I was alone!), 2010 felt like it had valuable lessons within its challenges, lessons which ultimately (I hope!) will also become opportunities.

Welcome 2011!

* Postscript:

Kate Spade and her husband sold their full shares in Kate Spade Inc. to Neiman Marcus Group in 2006; it is now owned by Liz Claiborne as of 2007.

In 1999, Hard Candy was sold to LVMH and is now owned by Falic Fashion Group and sold in Wal-Mart.

Cynthia Rowley still owns her own company.

** I wrote about 9 Star Ki and New Year’s 2009 last year. **