Monday, February 5th, 2018- 12:13am
I decided to start my journals at an opportunity I can get the space to myself. After deciding to not treat myself to a movie, I came down to the UC and settled in at a table in the back-left corner of the basement underneath “For Comrades and Lovers” by Glenn Ligon. The only other people That exist now are me and the guards who are watching funny Facebook videos at the security desk upstairs. All the lights in the room are bright and sterile expect the stage lights, which are off. The tables are in no specific order and the chairs are askew. Some table tops are spotted with crumbs and stains from foodies before. The first words I see when I look up at the poem are ‘Walt Whitman.’ Whitman is the author one of my favorite poems, “I sing the body electric”
“I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
….
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?”
Whitman deals with gender in the last stanza as he talks about how loving a man and loving a woman has no stark difference. In “Comrades and Lovers”, Ligon includes “I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul.” He discusses not only what physically makes a person but what a emotionally and spiritually does.
Wednesday, February 7th, 2018 – 9:06pm
Again, I settle into the same seat as Monday night and watch as a girl with long black hair that match her cropped leggings pack her bag. The sound tonight is mostly quiet, despite the people in passing above. I’m alone for a bit before a couple (?) or maybe just two friends make their way to the table next to me. They put their Vivi bubble tea on the table and continue their conversation. The man begins by saying “Countries with the highest suicide rate are the richest. The Philippines are happy go lucky, it’s the part of life, you get a resilience. The richest countries are my individualized, there is no sense of community. Everything that has made me, my fundamental beliefs, is because I’m Filipino. If it was up to me, I would have left in High School, I would have left America because it wasn’t my choice to be here.” Hearing this kind of shocked me. I always believed that people wanted to come to America, or at least New York, because there was so much opportunity. I never really thought about how much one’s home shapes that person’s identity. “Her parents didn’t want me there but she wanted to experience an exchange student” the girl adds. One of the girl’s classmates, came over and started talking to them “Just talking about my life right now, hearing about her crazy temporary family” the Filipino added. The group are discussing their majors and have now moved on to talking about analytical philosophy. This conversation has captured more of my interest that the art piece in general. Was it the room, wall to wall with political and gender issues that are inspiring this deep conversation at such a strange time. “You can’t think about the world without thinking poetically of the world. Philosophy has to be literary” I almost wish I could get up and join the conversation because of how interesting and naturally insightful they seem.
Sunday, February 11, 2018 – 8:39pm
Today, the basement room is lit up completely, including the stage. I’m seated again at the back-left table where I can get a good scope of the room; my ideal spot. Three girls are sitting on the opposite end working on a project. They are discussing climate change over skype with one of their sick classmates (quite loudly if I must say.) A man is sitting to my right on his phone, avoiding the work that is sprawled on the table in in front of him. As I creepily watch the girls talk over their ideas, I notice one girl’s eyes travel up to the For Comrades and Lovers poem around the room. She adds “New Yorkers are so close minded, like, the climate change isn’t affecting them it’s affecting low income families, you know?”
“What is our end goal?” they keep reiterating. What was the end goal of the poem? Walt Whitman “wasn’t writing about kings and queens, but on the people he meets on the streets.” The poem talks about “no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest.” Perhaps this is referring to everyone being equal beings. Today, this space is used as a meeting space as well as one where people go to relax. The room doesn’t feel like it has a certain agenda, like a class room. Instead, it presents its self as one where people can go and relax, finish odds and ends work, or call their parents (a place I commonly used for that purpose). I believe this is due to its relaxed, stadium seating by the stairs at the top. I watch as people trickle in and out of the building, throw their head over their left should and gaze of the words of Glenn Ligon as they walk to the elevators.
