Michelle Embree in a Time Like This

Over the years, I've been lucky to have an ongoing conversation with novelist/playwright/performer/Tarot genius Michelle Embree. We picked up this conversation again recently when she interviewed me about The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales. Read the interview HERE, where we talk about beginnings, realism, sneaky absurdism, Paul Auster, Jane Bowles, Pamela Colman Smith, and space/time!

Sarah McCarry on Messiness

Hey, look! I interviewed Sarah McCarry over at SFCB Blog. Sarah—who is creator of Glossolalia (zine), the mastermind behind The Rejectionist (blog), and author of All Our Pretty Songs (forthcoming novel)—is an old pal, and it was great to catch up. She also works as Presse Manager at Ugly Duckling Presse, a publisher dedicated to incorporating handmade elements into the titles it releases. Sarah dishes up the inside scoop on UDP, as well as the dirt on her own life as a writer/blogger/zinester/letterpress printer.

Death On the Highway: An Interview with Ginger Strand

I’ve never been to Niagara Falls, but reading Ginger Strand’s Inventing Niagara made me think I have. The book, which looks at the faded tourist trap that straddles the US-Canadian border, examines the site from every angle: historical, cultural, political, personal, and most importantly, physical. The book is notable for its keen sense of place, a quality that’s rare in this increasingly online world. And it’s a quality that carries over into her new book, Killer On the Road: Violence and the American Interstate (UT Press), which tackles a subject near to my heart: the world we’ve created to accommodate cars.

The effect of cars on our landscape (and our psyches) is vast—something I like to harp on in my Letters from Pedestrianica. And Strand’s book, which mixes true crime and cultural analysis, looks at the various nightmares the US Interstate system has fostered. Not only are its long, lonely, anonymous stretches perceived as breeding grounds for serial killers, it has also irreparably scarred our cities, slashing neighborhoods in half, displacing already vulnerable populations, and making the establishment of long-term urban communities near impossible. I was excited to talk to Strand recently about road rage, the interstate as corporate welfare, and the acquisitiveness of the serial killer.

All photos courtesy of Ginger Strand. See more over at her website!

Matt Runkle: Killer On the Road is much less personal than Inventing Niagara. In Niagara, you relay the experiences surrounding your research, and frankly discuss the way the iconic falls became interwoven with your life. Why did you decide to maintain a more detached point of view in Killer On the Road?

Ginger Strand: Hey, great question! People hardly ever ask questions about form, and it's always disappointing, because form is what writers think about nonstop. Anyway, yes, Killer is far less personal than my last book. In Inventing Niagara, I wrote myself in as a way of giving the book a narrative through-line. And I wanted to convey the excitement of historical discovery—it can be downright exciting to root around in archives! But I used my own obsession as a way of tying the story together. So when I started Killer on the Road, I intended to do something similar, but pretty quickly I realized that I had to get out of the way of this story. The through-line was already complicated enough with the history of the interstates and the rise of the serial killer as an outlaw type, not to mention the serial killers themselves, and having the story of my discovery of all this was just too many threads. So I 86ed myself, because I was the least essential part of the story.  

MR: This book is great, by the way. I love how you make these larger connections that aren’t usually made in true crime. I rarely hear violence explicitly being linked to the car like this—which is weird to me, since it’s such an essentially violent invention. “Behind the wheel, we are all psychopaths,” you write, referencing studies that show that driving makes it hard for us to be perceived as human, and that we, in turn, dehumanize others when we’re behind the wheel. Are there ways, do you think, for drivers to overcome this dehumanization? Your book covers a lot of geographical territory, and I imagine you had to cover thousands of freeway miles in order to investigate each chapter. Did you learn anything about yourself as a driver during your research?

GS: I would say I became much more aware of what is actually going on when I'm driving. Like most people, I have a tendency to get annoyed and scream obscenities at other cars—now I realize that my road rage is actually a response to being deprived of a sort of recognition that we humans crave from each other. That helps actually! I do think that maybe just by recognizing what's happening somewhat, we can resist the dehumanizing effects of automobility. But our cars—getting bigger and smoother and more encapsulated—are not helping us. Everyone's in his or her own world, zipping along at 75 miles an hour, probably texting to boot. But the car is just one of the many, many features of modernity that is making us less humane.

MR: I’m also curious about how the car serves as a sort of prosthesis, and in what ways this might make people feel disembodied. Could this feeling trigger the gratuitous sort of dismemberment so commonly carried out by serial killers? 

GS: I think that a lot of the gratuitous dismemberment or necrophilia carried out by serial killers is about ownership. They want to completely possess another person. And that's not unlike the acquisitive urges often expressed with respect to cars. In fact, Ted Bundy literally said that what he wanted was to own another person the way you would own a Porsche.

MR: It’s interesting that the interstate was originally pitched as something that would break down class barriers, even as it sped up class stratification. From today’s standpoint, as we see the middle- and lower-classes pretty flagrantly under attack by those at the top, I’m curious: do you feel like there was an explicitly sinister intention behind the interstate plan? Or did those who pushed it forward actually have nobler intentions?

GS: This is, I think, one of the key points of the book. The interstate highway system was a stimulus program, but it was not about creating jobs or helping workers. It was about handing big profits to big corporations: General Motors, Ford, Portland Cement, Bechtel, Haliburton. In that way, it was the first top-down entitlement. That sort of corporate welfare has become pretty central in our economy today. And I think it has failed us as a nation. That's not to say that the conservative economic advisors who shaped this program in the Eisenhower era were ill-willed or malevolent. But I do think they were wrong.

MR: Your observations about the class motivations of serial killers are fascinating: the way their psychoses often seem to be fueled by class resentment, and the way victims’ bodies feed an acquisitiveness patterned after consumer culture. You also point out the class disparity between most real-life serial killers and their fictional counterparts (Hannibal Lecter, Patrick Bateman), as well as the way the media exaggerated Ted Bundy’s cultured image. Why do you think the public prefers their serial killers to be upper class?

GS: It's an interesting question. The "upscaling" of the serial killer coincides with the serial killer becoming a recognized type of anti-hero. It makes him easier to get interested in—people are always more interested in hearing about the lives of rich people than the lives of poor people—and it also makes him more fun to hate and fear. So you can have someone like Hannibal Lecter, who is both terrifying but also weirdly admirable—he's so elegant, so sophisticated, so smart.  

MR: The book ends with the observation that the road, due to its anonymous nature, has always been a dangerous place. At an earlier point, you mention the Thuggee, a cultish group of highwaymen who supposedly killed millions of travelers between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in India. The interstate, through sheer bleakness and velocity, intensifies that intrinsic danger, but I’m curious: How much of the sinister mythos of the road is kind of there in our collective unconscious? I know it’s probably a topic for another book, but I’m wondering if you came across patterns of Dangerous Highway stories in pre-interstate myths and folklore. 

GS: Oh yeah, the road has always been a site of danger. The word "highwayman" predates cars; the ancient Greeks feared crossroads. The road stands for a kind of fundamental unknowability—you don't know where the road goes, you don't know who might come down it. It's a site of mystery. And it's a literal embodiment of the passage of time, and we all know what lies at the end of that: death.

MR: I love the chapter on the way hitchhiking was seen by the counterculture of the ‘60s and ‘70s: as a way to reconnect in the increasingly disconnected world being created by freeways. I pretty naively followed in their footsteps in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, hitchhiking back and forth across the country several times, sometimes feeling vaguely afraid, but ultimately deciding (as someone who wanted to write fiction) the insight I got into people’s lives was worth it. I decided that those who stopped to pick me up were either uncommonly nice or uncommonly crazy or both, and the conversation that was expected of me, while sometimes draining, was always worth it. During the hours I spent waiting at onramps, the absurdity of the interstate system really sunk in. The gap between how much constant movement there was and how long it took me to actually get moving seemed ridiculous. Do you think the interstate system could ever be re-imagined as something that more efficiently conveyed people, as a system whose primary function was patterned after mass transit rather than personal convenience?

GS: You never know what might happen as gasoline inches toward being correctly priced. There have been attempts in the past to institute things like official ride-share programs, and these things might come back. In fact, I was at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, a research facility for the Federal Highway Administration, and they had a huge ride-share bulletin board in their lobby! If the FHA can do it, why not the rest of us?

MR: The landscape of the freeway is one of death. Nothing grows there (besides the hardiest of plants, which are a landscaping afterthought). In your chapter on truckers, you detail the lack of nutrients available at truck stops. Is it a leap, do you think, to say that the lack of bounty at the Interstate’s resting points reflects its deathly terrain? And an even bigger leap to say that the killings it hosts are symptoms of a culture that is deprived of proper sustenance?

GS: I don't think either of those statements is too big a leap. The truck stops are helping to dehumanize the truckers who have to use them, and that in turn could very well be encouraging a small subset of them with sociopathic tendencies to go over the edge. They certainly are not creating an environment in which human connection and healthy human life can flourish. One of the most interesting things I learned about while working on this book is the criminological field of "place-based policing," which holds every crime is an interaction between a criminal, a victim and a place. Many of the places we are creating for ourselves—the landscape of the Sprawl is another example—are depriving of us of the humane elements we need to thrive. I might cite Arcade Fire's The Suburbs here.

MR: The book gives a re-cap of the Juarez killings, the series of murders that was an inspiration for Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. Similar to Bolaño’s novel, Killer On the Road looks at these events as a kind of key to the future: as developing countries pattern their economies—and transportation systems—after the US’s, the already gaping class divide is widened even further, which results in violence like that of the Juarez killings. How did you not get depressed during your research, as you witnessed such patterns, and saw the repeated mistakes made at the expense of the disadvantaged, in the interest of those in power? Were there any findings that gave you hope for the future?

GS: I did get depressed!  This book was a total downer to write! So where's the hope? In a funny way, the highway system itself is a sign of one hopeful truth: the world can change. We had a world that was built in a certain way: dense cities and walkable small towns linked by a network of heavy and light rail supplemented by roads. We dismantled that world and built another one—less dense sprawling metropolitan regions surrounded by suburbs and exurbs and large farms, all linked predominantly by highways. We enacted that transformation in less than fifty years. We could do that again.

The Business of Staying Alive.4: Hanging Out with Gloria Diaz

Gloria Diaz is a girl who knows how to hang out. Over at her blog, Eat-It-All: The Art of Hanging Out, she tells you how to act. One of my favorite Gloria moments was going to visit her in her Washington Heights apartment, and banging on the door without any response as muffled TV sounds came from inside. She had just returned from an oceanside hang-out session in Puerto Rico, followed by a trip to Chattanooga to kick it with the punks. After back-to-back beach time and wild-ass partying (Chattanooga punks do it like no others), Gloria had felt the need to phase into a hardcore Hang Out Type: Solo, and it took me a while to get her up off the couch.

Gloria also happens to be one of my number one apocalyptic dream comrades—precisely because she’s so damn good at hanging out. Who wouldn’t want to see the world going up in flames in the company of a devoted chiller? Gloria is unflappable, dedicated to hanging out at all costs, and even as she’s being sassy, you know it’s only a matter of time before she gets all sincere and deep. Even as she’s saying, “I can’t deal,” her other motto—“The year of living dangerously”—is never far behind. She’s the perfect person to talk to about The Business of Staying Alive, the type who can keep things casual even as she’s gearing up to get ready for the worst.

me: I was just looking at your blog and I have to say I really dig the pic of you hanging out with the tropical foliage.

Gloria: You should. I look good.

me: Hahaha! K, do you want to start by talking about the blog a little? Like, where did the concept come from? And in what ways has it evolved since you started?

Gloria: Sure. I talked about it in my first post a little but the idea was born at the end of an EPIC hang out day I was having with my buddy Janelle. She complimented me saying I was the queen of hanging out and I brushed it off and she was like, "No I am serious. You should write a book about it". And I realized I did want to write a book about it. But that idea seemed daunting so I thought as a beginning point I would start to write about the topic via blog so I could flesh out some concepts and also just to get in the habit of writing regularly.

me: And how has it been?

Gloria: It's been rad!! I use to do a zine and it's nice to have a platform to discuss different issues again.

me: Omg, I'm sorry, I feel so groggy. Hold on!

Gloria: Haha, you're fine. Robo tripping.

me: Hahaha! Have you noticed things being extra dramatic the past couple days?

Gloria: Haha. Yes, I believe we are in a transitional period.

me: Really?!

Gloria: Yes , I think there are times through the year we have to recalibrate and I think we are in one right now.

me: Why do you think that? And is it going to slow down any time soon?

Gloria: Instinctual. Spring cleaning. And things never slow down, this is life.

me: Got it. You just gave me a good segue. How do you hang out with grace in the midst of chaos? For example, do you ever picture yourself hanging out in apocalyptic scenarios?

Gloria: Hmmm, grace in chaos. I think that the world, while beautiful, is fairly chaotic and I like to think that my philosophy behind hanging out is about maintaining grace over all in general. I am not sure what type of apocalyptic scenario you are thinking of but of course I think of the world after "the shit hits the fan" and my place in it. But if it's like the Thunderdome, then I am not sure how I will pull through that because that certainly seems like a stressful life but I would figure it out eventually.

me: So what are some different ways you've pictured yourself in that world after the shit hits the fan? I know you have this tension between city and country living. Do you have any "Escape from New York" plans in mind?

Gloria: I moved to Brooklyn about six months ago and it has thrown me for a loop as far as escape plans. I used to live in Washington Heights right by the George Washington Bridge and it gave me some piece of mind to think if NYC went bat shit I could just walk right out of the city. In Brooklyn I feel a little deeper in the shit. I guess I like to think that I will be prepared for anything and I think inherently my interest is drawn by some sort of idea of post-civilization survival. For example, I took a First Aid class this past winter and I have begun to work out a lot. Part of the working out is I want to look extra fly but definitely part of it is that I want to be ready for anything. I had a friend recently say the same thing to me about their own motivation for working out and in that moment I just wondered if other people have similar motivation for working out or are my friend and I just kinda nuts? But it is not something people talk about often—how ready are you for difficult situations where your actual physical safety may be at risk.

me: It's true. There's kind of a stigma, I think, to being prepared for the worst. Like you're paranoid or something. Do you have a disaster kit?

Gloria: I don't!! I am just up to a First Aid kit and a "go bag". In actuality I wish I had a better supply of back-up food and water. There is a stigma—or people think it is a joke, but for those of us who have been through natural disasters you know that shit is very real. But perhaps also people are uncomfortable with their own mortality and just laugh to brush off the idea that they should be ready for anything. Because reality is that your life can change in a minute.

me: So you've lived through a natural disaster. Was that in Florida?

Gloria: Yes. I was living in Pensacola, Florida and we got hit with a Category 5 hurricane.

me: Can you talk about that a little bit?

Gloria: Yes, it was in 2004, the year that several large hurricanes hit Florida and the Gulf Coast region Hurricane Ivan. Me and my housemates at the time decided to ride out the storm. You have to understand hurricane culture in Florida and the Gulf Coast—it is really about brushing it off and riding it out. So we rode it out. But I think that mentality has changed since that year for Florida and after Hurricane Katrina.

me: Yeah. So talk about that culture. People are taking precautions even as they're riding it out, right? Like stocking up on food and boarding up the windows, etc?

Gloria: Yeah, there is that. What used to drive me a little nuts about people being prepared for disasters is that everyone waits until the last minute. So every major hurricane the local news is just showing images of long lines at stores and empty store shelves, of people rushing out to get water and flashlights. Hurricane season is the same time every year, people!

Things like having water and food are just more ways to make your life comfortable after the storm because the water may not be clean enough to drink or access to food may be affected depending on the roads, etc.

My parents have about twenty gallons of water and a week’s worth of food at any given moment. People take some precautions, especially boarding up windows, etc., but really, folks at risk are those who live on the coast or near large bodies of water—the risk is drowning. I think people think about the winds, but one thing that blew my mind about my experience in Pensacola is the damage the water had done. Flooding the whole downtown and just really damaging infrastructure in a way that the town was recovering from for years to come.

me: Ok, you mentioned earlier the psychology behind not being prepared: people not wanting to confront their mortality. I know you've been kind of on a spiritual quest lately—is this too embarrassing for me to bring up? Is seeking a spiritual path part of acknowledging this end we'd rather not think about? Do you feel like, similar to stocking up on food and water, it makes the inevitable chaos any easier?

Gloria: Yeah, let's get deep! People's spiritual beliefs are a complex thing. Certainly

there are people who use their spiritual practices as an escape from reality. So I think it can be used to escape the idea of one's own mortality, for example the promise of an eternal life. But I think that if practiced correctly you would use spirituality to face the reality of being here and being human. Like being prepared with food and water for a storm—it doesn't make the experience easier, per se, because seeing your whole town get torn up and the way the storm affects people's lives is an intense experience. But it makes the coping with that event easier, like you have something to eat. So for me, spirituality holds a similar importance, it helps with the coping. It doesn't justify, negate or change the severity of the situation.

me: Love getting deep. Ok, I know on your blog you've stressed the importance of adaptability (Rule #1: Always do what you never would have thought of doing, especially if you have an in). You've also talked about nomadism, which I think requires being pretty adaptable. You have some nomadic plans coming up in the next year—do you wanna talk about these and how you're getting ready to adapt?

Gloria: I am making moves to leave the country because I have not done that since I was five and it's about damn time. But other than that, I am planning on visiting towns where I have large groups of friends and visiting for a time. I wanted to spend part of this year spending real intentional time with long-distance friends and be part of their day-to-day lives, even if just momentarily—helping them with whatever projects they have going on. Really, the main thing I am doing to get ready to adapt, besides saving up money, is letting go of my doubts and fears about being 33 with a master's degree and taking time for myself to just be a punk. It is hard to let go of what society says about you when you choose to live your life the way you want it. But I have followed my gut so far and shit has been awesome, so fuck it. Being able to have the type of life that requires adaptability is a gift.

me: True! Ok, last question: When you finally decide to beef up your disaster kit, are there any "luxury" items you're going to put in there? Like anything to boost your morale in the middle of all that shit hitting the fan?

Gloria: Lube. And some really fly finger nail polish!

Sneak Peek at RUNX TALES #3!

Here's a glimpse at a comic I'm working on right now: a visual take on an interview I did with writer Jincy Willett. Jincy's books are drily humorous yet compassionate, and when I talked to her, she discussed her view of the universe as inherently slapstick. Joining me for the interview was my friend Jennifer Derilo, pictured here with Jincy and I as an ominous pie hangs overhead. This piece will be included in RUNX TALES #3, which I hope to have out this summer!

Interview with Stephen Boyer!

My interview with writer/performer Stephen Boyer is up at SFCB Blog. Stephen was involved with the People's Library at Zucotti Park, and is the motivating force behind the OWS Poetry Anthology. The anthology includes contributions from luminaries like CA Conrad and Ariana Reines, but also prides itself on its inclusiveness: not one of its submissions have been turned away. He is currently trying to fund a print edition of the book—which has grown to 1,000 pages!—and talks about the process. 

Endless Number of Stories: An Interview with Michelle Embree

A few months ago, I got the chance to talk with writer Michelle Embree when she asked me a few questions about creativity. She also told a hilarious story about rescuing my artists’ books from the clutches of mattress warehouse junkies. This happened years ago, when we were neighbors in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Since then Michelle has written two plays (Hand Over Fist and Fish in a Barrel), a Lambda-nominated novel (Manstealing for Fat Girls), and currently lives and writes in Baltimore, where one path of her writing life has evolved into that of a Tarot reader. Over at her website, Michelle muses on the Tarot, talking about its images as a narrative bridge between the conscious and the undermind. She emphasizes the Tarot as a means of thinking rather than belief, citing John Trudell’s idea that thought is dynamic while belief is a form of death.

Since reading Italo Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies, I’ve been interested in the gray area between literature and Tarot. Constrictive devices have been really helpful for my writing process lately, and the scenario Calvino sets up in the book—a castle where visitors can only communicate via a Tarot deck—appears to unfold on a similar wavelength. It really made me want to learn more. That’s why Michelle seemed like a perfect person to talk to: as a writer and Tarot reader, she’s the ideal guide to navigate the intuitive terrains. 

Note: The collaged Tarot cards below were all made by Michelle. Also, for those not in the Baltimore area, she now gives readings via Skype!

Matt Runkle: Can you start out by talking a little about how you first became interested in Tarot?

Michelle Embree: I'd seen Tarot cards, I'd had mine read a few times, then in 2002 a housemate gave me a deck.

MR: Do you remember what deck it was?

ME: It was the Rider-Waite deck. I still use that deck, in fact it was the only deck I ever used until a couple of months ago . . . I started reading using the deck designed for Aleister Crowley.

MR: Can you compare the two decks a little? Like what about the art on each do you connect with in your practice?

ME: The pictures on the Rider-Waite were done by an artist named Patricia Coleman-Smith, her initials are in the corner on each card. She was the first to make complete scenes on the suit cards and her interpretations are good, very memorable and evocative. Her art can make the characters seem very animated, and I like that about the deck. It makes talking about what is happening in the cards fairly easy to do. When I use the Thoth deck I rely more heavily on the numerology, which I also like. There is a different feel to each deck that is hard to describe exactly. My Thoth readings tend to go into more deep psychology than conscious actions.

MR: That's interesting. I'm not very familiar with the Thoth deck, but when I picture it, I think of more muted colors. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck has this vibrancy that makes sense with it being more connected to action. I know when we were neighbors long ago, you were in the midst of creating your own deck using collage. What was that process like for you? And do you still have that deck?

ME: I have yet to finish a deck. I made a handful of cards then in 2003, a couple of them will make it into a complete deck. I make cards based on Tarot often. I put them on postcards or give them as gifts or whatever, blessings, I guess. I am, however, in the midst of making my own deck now. It has taken many years for a sense of the right aesthetic to emerge. I have mostly made cards that directly interpret the Rider-Waite illustrations, which has been good practice. But I have begun to develop my own vision, and that is exciting because I really have been looking for it for nearly ten years.

MR: That's exciting! I can't wait to see it. So at what point did you start giving readings? Was it something that evolved out of you familiarizing yourself with the deck as you artistically re-interpreted the cards?

ME: I gave some readings to friends after about a year of using them, learning about them, and then I didn't read for other people for several years. Nothing bad happened, I just stopped doing it. But I still read cards for myself and books on the subject. At some point I wanted to read for other people again. I was slow about it, though; I took my time and now it's something I want to do everyday. This past summer I spent with Dave and Janet [our mutual friends in North Carolina], it was serious business out there with the cards. That experience really motivated a desire to read more cards.

MR: And so how would you characterize your personal approach to reading Tarot? Like could you explain your philosophy?

ME: I read this somewhere: Tarot is a book disguised as a deck of cards. It's the characters and landscapes and events and personality traits that make up stories. It is an infinite number of combinations, an endless number of stories made from a finite number of traits and experiences, the essentials, every card in the deck will be part of every human life. To different degrees and outcomes, anyway, every person will encounter the characters and landscapes and events depicted by the Tarot. A reading is a discussion about life, about the relationships we have with our thoughts and our history and our motivating desires.

MR: Wow! That's great. . . . I've been interested in the Tarot as a sort of book. It's interesting that Crowley actually named his deck after the Book of Thoth. I've also been trying to learn more about the relationship Tarot has with literature. I mean, really, the definition you just gave could also be a definition for the novel, right?

ME: Yes. It is the hero's journey or the fool’s journey, the quest, and inside of that story are all the other stories, all the things that happen.

MR: So do you feel like there's a lot of intersection between your work as an artist/writer and your work as a Tarot reader? Or is it even fair to make a distinction?

ME: Mmmm . . . It's relevant. It is part of a fiction writer’s job to adequately imagine what motivates a character, and to imagine what that character might find. Should they follow a certain path, they are likely to find, what? That is writing, that is reading cards, for me, yes.

MR: That makes sense. I was just doing a little research about the Tarot's history, and the less esoteric version goes that it evolved out of a deck that was used for games. The major arcana were added to the standard deck as trump cards (around the same time as the invention of the printing press, interestingly), and allegorical pictures were added to these trump cards. It seems natural that people would start using these pictures to meditate on their own lives and the lives of others—similar to how myths function, I guess. I like the idea that as time has gone on, these images have spiraled off into a lot of different directions, interpreted and re-interpreted by artists and then again by Tarot readers. Do you feel the weight of this history when you are reading? As someone who is not very naturally intuitive, I'm just curious about what it's like to be able to tap into a tradition like this.

ME: There are so many stories. What is exciting to me about using the imagery and structure of Tarot are the number of stories we can find that relate. Create more relationships, personal connections. Recently I heard myself call the Six of Cups, The Phillip K. Dick card. Because he wrote something about giving and receiving simultaneously being the nature of God. Something like that. Something that struck me and inspired my own mythologizing.

The Business of Staying Alive.2: An Interview with Nora Benson-Glaspey

Not only is Nora Benson-Glaspey a recent graduate of CORE (Citizens of Oakland Respond to Emergencies), she’s also a good friend of mine. Her storytelling skills are legendary, and it’s been a pleasure collaborating with her on “Nora Stories,” a comic featured in Runx Tales #2. Nora and I are now working on a new “Nora Stories,” one that started with a trip to the Winchester Mansion, and is beginning to turn into something bigger: a project where we hope to explore the role of the psychic in modern America.

Nora, who has lived in both pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, currently attends San Francisco City College, where she’s pursuing a certificate in Trauma Prevention and Recovery. I talked to her recently about Hurricane Katrina, the transformative power of disaster, and the problems with getting to know your neighbors.

Matt Runkle: Do you want to start by talking a little about CORE? What it is, who organized it, how you found out about it, why you decided to pursue it?

Nora Benson-Glaspey: CORE was started in 1990, in response to the Loma Prieta earthquake, by the Fire Department’s Office of Emergency Services. Basically their goal is to train as many people as possible to be better equipped to deal with large-scale disasters, whether it be earthquakes, fires, chemical accidents, severe weather or, yup, terrorism, too. After Loma Prieta, first responders were swamped—there just wasn't enough people trained to help everyone who needed the help. Kinda scary to think about. I found out about the program from a friend who took it while I was living in New Orleans. I was bummed cuz I didn’t know of any equivalent where I was at. It just seemed smart.

CORE consists of five classes and one practice disaster, and happens over a six-week period. Topics include personal emergency preparedness, community organizing, disaster first aid and triage, search and rescue, damage assessment, and disaster psychology. The great thing is it's all free: CORE members, firemen and EMT's all volunteer their time to skill share. There are lots of reasons I decided to go—living in New Orleans post-Katrina, I heard enough stories about survival that if I had the chance to learn more about it, I’d better! I also like its focus on community—the idea is to get to know your neighbors before everything goes to hell.

MR: I think a lot about my neighbors, how in a city, you just kind of end up next to these people you have no history with, and what it would be like to weather a disaster with them. I’ve pretty much failed at fostering relationships with my neighbors here in the Bay. Do you feel like CORE gave you any kind of tools to create pre-disaster communities?

NBG: Yes and no. CORE can be used as a legitimate conversation starter. It looks official, it's registered with the city—that really appeals to certain folks. Some people, though, don't want anything to do with the government! CORE also really encourages people to start neighborhood watch groups, participate in Night Out Against Crime. I'm uneasy about all that—I don't want to forge vigilante relationships like that with my neighbors.

MR: You’ve talked a little bit about how CORE was this place where a funny mix of people collided (disastrous pun intended). Do you have any “Nora Stories”-style anecdotes you want to tell from your experience in CORE?

NBG: This one woman I spoke to admitted to me that she worked for FEMA, but she didn't want anyone to know—she whispered it in my ear after I told her I moved here from NOLA. At first I thought she was funny, but the further our conversation went I really kinda hated her. She told a group of us that she thought that people who stayed for hurricanes probably deserved to die. Not like I haven't heard that before.

Come to think of it, there were quite a few people who expressed defensive attitudes about who deserved help—mostly intended at their neighbors already singled out as undesirable. I got the impression it was because they didn't know them—or they were renters. Homeowners don't seem to like renters. Attitudes like this scare me more than anything: they're bred out of fear, are cruel, and can incite violence. I was subjected to similar attitudes in New Orleans, neighbors who thought I was squatting repeatedly called the police and threatened to steal my dog. I was shocked no one ever directly asked me about it. We were renting, so they couldn't get rid of us.

I unintentionally met one of my accusers at the bar; she was a wreck of a yuppie, hell-bent on squatters. She told me, “Don't worry you're on the ‘good list.’ People on the ‘bad list,’ if they don't comply, their bodies will end up in the Bayou. I have a gun.” It was really sad and strange. You see, she snapped. Before the storm, her personality and lifestyle were similar to a Berkeley lady—a middleclass, save-Tibet, Volvo-driving liberal. The stress of living through a catastrophic disaster has the capacity to completely transform us, in ways that we never would have expected—for better or worse.

MR: Can you talk a little more about Katrina? I think you had actually just moved back to California prior to the storm, right? What this was like, experiencing from afar this horrible thing happening to what had become your home?

NBG: Well, I started smoking again. Watching the news was maddening, listening to people talk about what they thought about the news reports was disturbing. Not knowing if my friends were safe was terrifying. I knew from my experience in New Orleans that the media was hyping up the violence. I'm not denying violence by any means, but the way they framed it was so freakin’ sensational. Highly disturbing. It set up dialogues I still hear today that echo the FEMA lady at CORE—“they” just weren't acting right, so “they” don't deserve help. According to a few looping FOX news reports, it almost seemed that New Orleans was full of baby-raping, gun-toting looters, and it was their fault response was slow. What the fuck ever! Years later the media has been called out for racializing looting pictures—white people were “scavenging” and blacks were “looting.” The whole conversation sidestepped the point that our country's infrastructure sucks, and that the government reacted inadequately. The media facilitated this insidious outlook on our nation’s largest disaster, in a way that condoned how our institutions were responding.

MR: Rebecca Solnit wrote an essay for Harper's a few years back, pre-Katrina, I believe, but I think it was actually published around the same time the storm happened [it later became the book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster]. It talked about how, contrary to the myth of the stampede and the panic, communities form in the wake of disasters. It’s become clear, it seems, that the real panic occurs within the media. I’m just curious about this idea of communities that are born out of disasters. I know the final phase of CORE involved a simulated emergency. Did you feel a stronger sense of community forming as you participated in this simulation? If so, is this something that will continue into the future?

NBG: I haven't read Solnit's essay but I have read a handful of studies which indicate that directly following a disaster it is more likely that people will help each other out; however, the longer communities go without basic resources the more likely violence is to increase. In the first few months after Katrina, I witnessed way more people coming together and helping each other out than not. There was this intense momentum to get the city back up and running again; rather than wait for the government, people started getting done what they could on their own. Over time, though, the strain created by lack of resources and aid to the city really took its toll on people.

To answer your question, yes and no. I made some connections with some really great people, none of whom lived in my neighborhood. As far as I can tell, there are not many CORE groups in my neighborhood. The simulated disaster is very chaotic, partly due to learning how to operate within the CORE framework, a hierarchical Incident Command system. People are split into groups to survey damage and find victims, and required to report back to an elected Incident Commander who then, either by foot or radio, reports back to the Emergency Operation Center—usually a local fire station. In our first exercise, information bottlenecked and all I felt was panic. The second exercise went smoother and people were working together. In one respect, it’s easy to see why response can take so long—there is so much paperwork! I hate paperwork, and at one point in my life I would’ve flipped off the whole concept of CORE because of its bureaucratic model, but now I feel more comfortable knowing their protocol so I can make more informed decisions.

MR: I’ve noticed there’s kind of a stigma to being prepared for emergencies, like, “What’s up with ole Doom n’ Gloom over there?” When I talk about putting together a survival kit, some people have been excited about it, while others act like maybe I’m being a little paranoid. Have you encountered this at all?

NBG: Yesss! Mostly, it's “Oh, well that will never happen here” mentality. It's too bad really, cuz there is no harm in having a few more of this and that around the house if something were to come up. I think there is this idea that when and if something happens, there will be people there to respond with supplies. And there will be, but depending on the magnitude of the disaster, it might take time. The government suggests having enough supplies to last for 5-7 days. That's a long time. I get it though, not wanting to think about it.

In one of my classes at City College, we were assigned the task of adding a supply to our disaster kit. Coincidentally, the Fukushima disaster happened that week, so it occurred to me maybe vitamins and iodide tablets wouldn’t be a bad add. Next class we shared what we got with one another, I was scared to mention what I bought and even almost lied. People were very upset, some didn’t even know there had been an earthquake in Japan, others thought I was foolish and some just thought I was ridiculous for thinking something like that could happen here. I never ended up getting my tablets due to a shortage caused by mass buying. My favorite was seeing a couple whisper-fight in Rainbow Grocery about what was better: pharmaceutical or natural iodine.

MR: Did CORE cover nuclear fall-out situations at all?

NBG: Mmmm . . . not so much, but it did come up. Basically their advice was “shelter in place,” which obviously didn't sit well with anyone in the room. There was definitely a quiet “we're gonna run like hell” vibe in the room. The firemen assured us that all nuclear facilities in the state of California were being checked, refitted and super safe. There was a handful of cynical comments and we moved on to the next subject.

The Anti-Wedding: An Interview with Ariel Goldberg

I’m really into weddings. I mean that in the most complicated way possible—weddings have caused me a lot of misery, but at the same time, they’ve been a really bountiful source of material. My work as a caterer inspired the wedding reviews I’ve posted here, and I made a comic explaining the underlying gayness in straight weddings for the first issue of Runx Tales. I’m now gearing up to write a novel framed around the ceremony. I’m interested in how the points of view of the different participants—the couple, the parents, the wedding party, the guests, the caterers, etc.—might interweave/clash with the vision of a dictatorial wedding planner.

Ariel Goldberg, a New York-based writer/photographer/performance artist, has spent the past several years doing something similar: brazenly competing with the event’s master narrative. It is a confrontational project in a setting that strives to be devoid of conflict. Weddings, of course, are actually Petri dishes for conflict: nerves are high and multiple relatives are gathered in one place. Yet, still you’re expected to smile. And this is what Ariel refuses to do. They attend the weddings they’re invited to with camera in hand, wearing either high-femme drag or traditional tuxedo butch. Then they ask fellow guests to take their picture. The results are brilliantly uncomfortable. Not only do the photos speak to the strange role-playing that happens at weddings, they also make you re-think throwing around the word, happy.

Ariel has also inhabited their role as the Photographer in many other settings and incarnations. They are currently writing a related epistolary novel. I chatted with Ariel recently while they were lounging in New Jersey, wearing their dad’s sweats and drinking Ketel One on ice.

   

Matt Runkle: One of the reasons I’m so interested in weddings is because they are such a defining—maybe the defining ritual. I mean, we’re kind of inundated with this from every direction—our families, pop culture, etc.—from childhood on. Was there ever a time when you could picture yourself walking down the aisle?

Ariel Goldberg: Never. I imagined my Bat Mitzvah, very clearly, because it meant the end of Hebrew School. But then I went to Hebrew High, then I got a job at the Hebrew School...

I imagine books and art projects, I think, like people imagine weddings.

  

MR: Yes, weddings are so aesthetically crafted, they do seem like weird art projects if you step back for a minute. I think when I was a kid, I just assumed I would get married one day. Never thought I would be a priest, though, which is what my parents really wanted.

AG: I actually couldn't imagine my future when I was a kid. Or I cannot remember my imagination of the future. I think my parents wanted me to enter a more lucrative professional class than an artist who teaches. Lawyer? But they deny that accusation.

A priest. Have you ever been one for Halloween?

MR: No! I always thought they were so boring. Did you ever consider becoming a rabbi?

AG: No. Hebrew School was mostly social. My parents' friend has a lesbian daughter who is a rabbi and is married to a rabbi. This satisfies them.

MR: That's nice, it takes the weight off your shoulders. OK, I really want to talk about your wedding photography project, but first, one more warm-up question. What is your least favorite wedding tradition?

AG: When the bride and groom sit alone at that table that is in between the bride's side and groom’s side—it reminds me of bored couples out to eat at restaurants.

MR: Like a harbinger of the boring years to come?

AG: Or just symbolically unnecessary isolation.

MR: That's interesting. A wedding is ostensibly about the joining of two people. Do you think it's actually a more divisive event than it lets on?

AG: To join two people, but also to make them like celebrities to their families and friends. I think it's a risky event. Fun in a way where you have to work for it. All the triggering moments come up with people in your life, it seems. But I also feel like someone who cannot speak for a wedding being divisive as a guest. Or it has only seemed like a party I get invited to, and asked to celebrate. So I cannot call it divisive.

MR: You’ve written about your wedding photography project: “I was very insistent on being alone in the pictures, as if I was imitating the grandeur and spotlight on the bride, but I was the anti-bride.” Can you talk a little bit about the role of the bride and your role as her sort of foil? Have you gained any insight into bridal psychology through posing as this “anti-bride”?

AG: The bride is supposed to look beautiful. And they do in this very prescribed way. I think I am a foil of another version of feminine. Thinking about Judith/Jack Halberstam's Masculine Femininity. It's like that question of if you wear a suit, do you then identify as a man? Am I in drag? Or am I passing as the gender my family doesn't know me as? I just want to disrupt whatever molds are happening.

MR: Do you think these roles manifest themselves more when we’re wearing our wedding “best”? Boys wear suits and girls wear fancy dresses. Do you feel the pressure is greater?

AG: Definitely. And also my family doesn't really see each other much outside of holidays and birthdays. So it's a performance day in general. But I think it's important to think about how I might go to a wedding in a dress and feel like it is drag, or in a suit or tux and want to pass, and I don't think much about what I'm doing in the moment. It's more to pose a bunch of questions about my role as going to a wedding as an artist. Like I cannot just go and not be an artist. I want to perform with the bride and groom. The performance I do is incredibly slight, but it has read as insensitive and selfish.

MR: Can you talk about this a little? What sort of conflicts have the performances caused?

AG: Well, I think the biggest conflict is that they haven't gone away. At the most recent wedding (of my family's, which was the third one where I asked other guests to take my picture, in a directed self-portrait way), I was accused of being a show stealer, or just doing something that upset the whole dynamic of it being the bride and groom’s special day.

  

My pictures take about one minute or less to shoot. I asked about 30 people at that wedding. I'd say half of them know me. What was interesting was comparing the way I ask people to take my picture alone—as if I am in a foreign country—to how people at weddings will always have cameras, and the photographers are constantly taking pictures, and they also ask people to take their pictures. It is disturbing, I think, for someone to ask another person to take a picture of them alone. And this is strange because people are photographing themselves more and more because of the demand for an online profile to represent you.

I think my pictures are not in the vocabulary of the posed picture. People were confused about me not wanting to smile. I think I make pictures better when I don't smile. I think smiling in pictures is like saying something inauthentic. People are terrified of looking unhappy.

MR: I know this sounds dramatic, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as abject as I have as a wedding guest—it’s worse, even, than when I’m working as a caterer. With catering, at least, I’m anonymous and I can go hide if I want to. Do you feel like not smiling is reflecting your misery in the moment?

AG: Well, it is hard for me to splice. Because as a photographer, and someone who thinks so intensely and constantly about the way people are photographing and the pictures surrounding me and the history of the medium, I am across the board not interested in smiling in pictures. I think I am not necessarily miserable at weddings. I may be having a great time. I have had fun at weddings. I guess it depends on so many things. But what does make me miserable is the command to smile. The sort of presumption that if you are not smiling then you are miserable.

MR: I've had fun too, but I feel like there's always this underlying resentment, because my experience doesn't translate into the “straight” world. All the rituals (bouquet toss, garter toss) point us down this trajectory toward marriage we’re all expected to—enthusiastically—pursue. And if we don’t, then we’ve ruined the wedding. Everyone is required to be happy, because that is the goal of a wedding, isn’t it? Enforced lifelong happiness?

AG: Yes, that is an interesting point. There is a lot of myth making. Like how can you be at a wedding when you don't totally agree with the institution of marriage? How can you be at a wedding and be happy for people who have rights you don't have? How can you not even harbor resentment to the powerhouse gay rights nonprofits at these weddings for fighting so hard for assimulationist rights?

The happiness weddings are ushering in—"they are so happy together," "we are so happy for you"—is like billions of probiotics. It cannot be a whole emotion. But it is totally expected to be. There is a lot expected of wedding guests, I think. They have to be obedient extras.

MR: Totally! And there’s even more expected of the bridal party. There’s this real objectification that takes place. You’re being shuttled around like a prop, and you’re kind of there as an item in the bride’s collection. Can you contrast your experience being photographed as a member of the wedding party with being photographed by other guests as The Wedding Photographer?

AG: The experience of being a bridesmaid—or "bridesgay," as the other two gay male friends in the bridal party called it—felt like somewhere I didn't belong. I don't know what to do in formal group portraits besides write down notes of what the photographer directed us to do so I could work it in to some of my writings on photography. It was something I felt like I would mess up. Or that it was an unrealistic commitment. It was out of love for my friend, to be part of it, and to represent this part of her life that was high school, but then I felt like this loose screw. There was a lot of waiting around. I felt like as soon as the wedding started, and the group pictures were over (there were many stages of photos, I mean, so, so many photos—candids while getting ready, the ceremony, at a location near the reception, group portraits at the reception, and then they did family portraits, then candids of the party) … Simply put, I felt exhausted by the photos in the wedding, taken by the photographer.

I felt like my role at this recent wedding was to be an observer. The only person I wanted to photograph me, in a directed self-portrait way, was my partner, Amanda. And she did a very nice job. But I wanted it done quickly. I knew what type of directed portrait I wanted, and we just did it. This was a big break from the other three times when I would go up to many more people. I think I've become slower and more refined. It can be more a performance for myself. I mean, a photo—even one—can be an infinite gesture.

MR: I want to talk for a second about the groom. He kind of occupies this weird realm of masculinity, like in between virility and emasculation. He’s in the spotlight, yet remains overshadowed (or out-lit?) by the bride. Did you find yourself identifying with him at all as The Wedding Photographer? Or were you just as much the anti-groom as the anti-bride?

AG: I think I am the “art-wedding”—can I take back the “anti-bride”? I guess “bride” is some metonym for the whole wedding, because women are thought to get more into wedding fantasies than men? Like there is Bride magazine but is there a groom magazine?

I guess I am the “anti-wedding,” or maybe just the problem or the consciousness at the wedding. Because I don’t think marriage should be what we’re working towards. I think it is nice for some people, it is right, it is perfect, but for me right now, I see love and relationships outside of marriage. I would prefer it to be de-gendered. So I don’t associate with the masculine or feminine side.

MR: That makes sense. I like the idea of you calling yourself the anti-wedding. OK, last question: Where are you now? You’ve mentioned you feel like you’re through with being The Wedding Photographer. In what ways do you expect to cope with future weddings you’re invited to?

AG: The last family wedding I was invited to, I did not attend. I actually couldn't be faced with the question of: do I continue my pictures as I was doing them, or do I stop them, or do I change the project? My family actively requested me to stop the project. I think it was misinterpreted for attention grabbing, as opposed to a minor and necessary part of the wedding landscape. What I needed was time. I think when you do a project that is serial, it is hard to know when to stop it. I think the way of asking many people to take my picture is over. That project has ended. It will be different now.

A lot of queer people I know, they just don't go to weddings. Perhaps I need to sit out a few more. I'd like to go to weddings when I am actively part of the people's lives getting married. But having some picture of me at weddings seems important. It would be interesting if everyone did that in some way. I see my project mostly as a performance script; I'd want many more people to do it. We come so close to those self-portraits in the total abundance of photography, but everything is posed. I want less posing, more confrontation with cameras.

I have been to two friends' weddings this year and felt no interest in taking any pictures of myself, in "doing my project." I did ask friends what they thought about me doing these pictures of myself at their wedding and they gave permission, but then I didn't do it. In that way it is shifting. It cannot be this totalitarian prompt. I have to feel it out. Maybe the ingredient is estrangement. I didn't feel an outsider among these friends' weddings, and one of them was a lesbian wedding, where I knew so many people. There is less to resist or critique when you can feel a critique of marriage amongst us.