When I hear our native tongue in music I feel every inch of my body respond 
I picture the clothing we wear and 
The dances we do 
The ground is still warm with sandy dirt 
As Inti brushes our skin reminding us of what’s true 
That the land that humans have colonized with never be theirs 
And soon they’ll be extracted without a clue 
Because the ground still screams for her children 
Ella sabe lo que está pasando y es testigo del sufrimiento mundial 
Pachamama nunca era propiedad 
They may try to erase connections 
With their industrialization 
And their infections 
But the land screams for her children 
Pachamama siempre se recordará

And when our native music plays 
She remembers how we honor our givers of life 
For a moment we connect the way we did before the colonized days 
Images of my ancestors smiling and yelling with joy 
Inti watching over them as they come alive 
Because even when I was stripped from them 
Memories from the past my blood still relives 
Pachamama siempre gritatará 
Our culture is still surviving 
We will always hear her call 
Every time I hear the music, I feel us rising 
Pachamama will scream for her children 
Until they all can come home

Wiyankiku?

Philippines

Asian American

Caption: Photo of AVDLR taken on an iPhone with illustrations on top.
Initially, I wanted to start this project under the idea of being a “perpetual foreigner,” or the concept that regardless of me being an American citizen and having the tokens of what makes up an American (whatever that means… since the U.S. is a mix of cultures after all), I will always be perceived as “the other''.
As I was working on the project, I was led to a different and more general idea of the modernization of culture; sometimes it feels like culture is conflated with history (in that it is old and static) and we view it as a separate entity all together. I feel like knowledge of culture is often treated as a novelty or a parlor trick, like knowing how to dance tinikling or speak Tagalog, or even something as simple as eating a Filipino dish.
For some Filipino Americans, and for many other second generation immigrants, they aren’t given a choice of being able to celebrate their culture or not. And for many first generation immigrants, they leave behind a culture that continues to change even while they are away: there’s new slang, new pop culture trends, and maybe even a different political climate.
The debate between mainlanders versus the diaspora has been prevalent on social media but has been the worst on TikTok, I’ve found. The word “toxic” is commonly thrown around nowadays but that’s the best way to describe the lack of critical thinking, the apathy, and the refusal to take responsibility for and acknowledge mistakes. It’s difficult for me who sits on the fence of these two identities to be invalidated and for discussions to be halted because the desire to be correct outweighs the desire to learn… well that and the fact that I’ve seen arguments turn into ad hominem attacks. Thankfully I haven’t personally experienced any of this yet, but this is something I keep in the back of my mind that sometimes keeps me from putting my work out there (I’m slowly getting over it though).
To the main point of this work: culture is now. Thanks to the internet (as corny as it sounds), I can be 8,757 miles away from my hometown in the Philippines and still be caught up on the news, pop culture, and memes. But that can’t replace me physically being there and experiencing everything myself. Of course, I acknowledge that this comes from a place of privilege because I have the financial means to live comfortably. However, in a way, I feel lost. After taking a year off of my art and taking a step back, it would seem as though I was looking through my culture through that historical lens I mentioned earlier.
This work is a baby step for me. I think I’m moving in the direction I want my work to go in, both in terms of media and focus. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to create work. Is it because I lack guidance? Or creativity? Materials? I know that I am an impulsive artist that creates work when the spark happens, but I wonder if there is a way for me to nurture that better…
Anyway, let’s talk about the process and ideas that come into this work. This is a continuation of my photo collaboration project that I did for my senior thesis. I decided to get rid of the square dimensions and go for an 8x10 inches size.
<ol>
<li dir="auto">I knew I wanted to wear the barong, so that was an easy choice.</li>
<li dir="auto">I decided to tuck my hair to mimic choking or the feeling of being overwhelmed or drowning (I think I’ll make another project for this).</li>
</ol>
I love my hair. It used to be down to butt. But I would use it as a femininity marker to compare myself to other women. I knew I did this and I knew it was wrong. I cut it to my chin when I was a sophomore in college. I can’t tell you enough how disgusted I am with myself that I was like that. And doing that did help.
<ol>
<li dir="auto">The typography stickers are slang that’s commonly used today (and some even I use). I had to ask my boyfriend any other terms he knew since I felt like the ones I knew were pretty outdated.</li>
<li dir="auto">If you’re familiar with Japan’s purikura, or photo sticker booth, I’m sure you can see the inspiration. Culture was formed hundreds of years ago, but we insert ourselves into it and shape it today.</li>
</ol>
I honestly didn’t know how to tastefully illustrate on top of this, not that it needed to be aesthetically pleasing, I just didn’t know how to combine the background and the foreground to make it look like a complete piece. I didn’t want to edit the original photo too much but I also didn’t want it to look like it was just a photo.
I’m satisfied with how this piece turned out. I will keep this written piece as raw as possible for genuity purposes (and it would be nice to see where my head was when I look back later).&nbsp;
AVDLR

Acceptance

A photo of a woman wearing Philippine cultural attire with illustrations and typography overlaid.

Black lines on white background with words 'Rimay Raiz'

Dark audio waveforms against a white background

An autumn landscape with vibrant trees with leaves in oranges, yellows, and reds

Three men standing side-by-side near trees with a bridge in the foggy distance

About a dozen uncooked dumplings sitting upon a white plate dusted with flower

Flags of Ukraine and Trans Rights above an image of Spongebob and Patrick Starr smashing a computer with the title "Letter to Art, Ukraine, Trans Rights, and Doom(scrolling)"

Memoir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMSXQDE8cS0 

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dtTkGTXLPskuK2T6i_vARm-c4xEosEUjFbsBcimmRlk/edit?usp=sharing 

Letter to Art #4 - Ukraine, Trans Rights, and Doomscrolling (March 2022)

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx1 diaspora community of the United States. Launched in 2018 in New York City and New Jersey, our collective now has members in California and Illinois. We are: <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jamie_sa">Jamie San Andres</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/claudia.urd">Claudia Urdanivia</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha">Sandy Enriquez</a>, Ben Kruse-Calla, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/layqakuna">Layqa Nuna Yawar</a>, and <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sbarretolastra">Stephanie Barreto-Lastra</a>, among others that come and go.

Rimay Raiz was created given the erasure and racist portrayals of Andean and Andean-descendant communities among both Latinx and white communities in the United States. Thus, our collective seeks to confront this discrimination and sense of dual exclusion by uplifting and sharing the stories and experiencies of our communities on our own terms, as a way of exposing and resisting the insidious ways that colonialism and imperialism continue to impose their binary and Western epistemologies on our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities, across time and across borders. This resistance is also represented in our name, which connects two sides of our cultural heritage by using the Quechua/Kichwa word ‘rimay’ (to speak) and the Spanish word ‘raíz’ (roots). We are speaking from our roots. Quechua/Kichwa is an ancestral Indigenous language of the Andes and remains one of the most widely spoken Native American languages in the Americas today.

Our goal is to (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, from youth, adults, and elders, and include community leaders that have been carving spaces for our community for decades, be that cultural or political (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss our stories through multimedia, via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and Raymikuna or virtual parties in this pandemic era, and (4) organize gatherings to celebrate and unite Andean cultural advocacy efforts. Through these initiatives, we aim to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about our communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of our elders, and create a sense of solidarity across borders within the Andean diaspora.

Porque las historias nos llaman, las historias nos limpian y sanan, como el agua y neblina bendita de la montaña.

The last three years we have recorded 14 oral histories and published two zines, some of which are featured here.

 

Issue #1: Choclo y Chicha, self titled

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/10/cover-10/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_5.25.08_PM-original-489444.png"/>

In March 2020, Rimay Raiz launched <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-1/10">Choclo y Chicha</a>, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andinx diaspora through poetry, art, and storytelling. Both choclo and chicha are Quechua words for our ancestral foods of fresh corn and maize drinks, we chose them to reflect our cultural connections and create a space for a uniquely Andean zine. Chicha is also a type of music, Peruvian cumbia, that musicologists and sociologists claim emerged in the Amazon of Peru out of a sentiment of exclusion and otherness by dominant white, criollo elites.

We chose to include zines as part of our core mission because they would allow us to showcase creative, multimedia works from our communities on our own terms, without the need to compromise our vision through mainstream publishing. We also want to acknowledge the diverse ways that our communities express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, some orally, while others visually or through text. We hope to distribute the zines widely and inspire others in our community to value and share their own stories and experiences through this, and other mediums.

Our first zine featured profound stories such as “Camino hacia la Boca del Lobo-Simiatug” by Jimena Vega, powerful poems such as “Mama Negra, Mama Tierra” by Mónica Carrillo Zegarra, and art by colectivo member Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lenny Correa.

Initially, our zine launch was scheduled to be an intimate event with members of the collective and fellow contributors for the zine, with music, food, and dance. Once the pandemic swept the globe, we made the decision to transition to a virtual event that could replicate this celebration while holding space for our community during this immensely difficult time. You can watch our first two Raymikuna, virtual parties on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RimayRaiz" target="_blank">RR page</a> on Facebook.

 

Issue #2: Family Portraits

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/9/cover-9/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_4.33.36_PM-original-483649.png"/>

Our <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-2/9">second zine</a> focuses on the intersection of stories and memory through family photos. In this section we feature excerpts from the incredible oral history of Analisa Freitas and the beautiful poem by Marisol Silva, “when I make chicha morada and play your huaynos full blast, and I carry a backpack on the 7 train from Queens to Brooklyn brimming with jars of aji panca, aji amarillos, rocotos, I hold onto Ayni when I can’t remember words in any language, I hold onto Ayni, when I remember that who we are as a people is much too strong to ever be forgotten,” she writes.
 
Additionally, inspired by our colectivo member Jamie San Andres’ call to action, we are excited to also introduce a new section to our zine entitled Andean Political Reflections, that speaks to the issues and uprisings the Andean region has experienced in the last two years. It is impossible to do cultural work without addressing the political.

We invite you to join our Choclo y Chicha Zine Vol. 2 Raymikuna, virtual zine parties, this Sunday, January 10th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Family Portraits section, and Sunday February, 28th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Andean Political Reflection section.

 

Conclusion

To learn more about our work and stay in touch, please follow us @RimayRaiz on <a href="https://instagram.com/rimayraiz/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://facebook.com/rimayraiz">Facebook</a>. We will also be launching our website in Summer 2021 which will feature our oral history archive, zines, and other projects. If you would like to get in touch about potential collaborations or have questions, reach out to us at <a href="mailto:rimayraiz@gmail.com">rimayraiz@gmail.com</a>. We would love to hear from you.

Until then, tupananchiskama!

 

<hr/>

 

1&nbsp;The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. 
We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black Indigenous, and mestizo. We welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx diaspora community of the United States.

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

Poetry, in the popular imagination, is usually seen as a solo act. The lone poet bares their soul to the world, writes beautiful tortured lines, etc.

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

Joking aside, some poets these days are embracing the digital and don’t necessarily write poems the old-fashioned way. Here are some innovative poems that turn the idea of poetry – and the solo poet – on its head.

 

1.) Taroko Gorge, by Nick Montfort, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/taroko1-edited.png" width="723" height="571"/>

Taroko Gorge uses a computer algorithm to generate lines of poetry. The sidebar shows versions by writers who have hacked the code to make spinoffs.

 

At Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, Nick Montfort wrote a poem to celebrate the national park’s awesome beauty. Or, rather, in 21st century style, he wrote a computer program to make such poems for him.

The resulting work, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/" target="_blank">Taroko Gorge</a>, randomly chooses words from a list and endlessly assembles them into stanzas.


But Taroko Gorge is more than a single poem: it’s a platform that digital authors use to experiment, collaborate, and build new works. The code can be easily hacked to write any kind of poem imaginable. For example, in writer Flourish Klink's spinoff, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/fred_and_george/" target="_blank">Fred &amp; George</a>, Taroko Gorge transforms into a Harry Potter fanfic about an encounter between the twins and their… um, “wands.”

The poem’s sidebar lists many authors who have taken up the challenge of hacking Montfort’s original JavaScript code. (My own version, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/54_61_72_6f_6b_6f/" target="_blank">54_61_72_6F_6B_6F</a>, can be found on the page as well.)

 

2.) Pentametron, by Ranjit Bhatnagar, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/pentametron1.png" width="750" height="746"/>

Move aside, Shakespeare! Make room for... a Twitter bot!

 

"I’m just a squirrel looking for a nut 
You are a wizard harry i’m a what 
Glad to believe in #Jesus, He’s the best… 
From Fresno to Pomona fuck the rest" 
-A couple of random retweets, by Pentametron

Though these couplets have the right rhythm and the rhyme, no, they aren't authentic Elizabethan prose – they were actually strung together by a computer program.

Along with thousands more, these couplets  are the product of <a href="https://twitter.com/pentametron?lang=en" target="_blank">Pentametron</a>, a Twitter bot by <a href="http://moonmilk.com/" target="_blank">Ranjit Bhatnagar</a> that automatically retweets rhyming lines that users have written, consciously or otherwise, in iambic pentameter.

This raises the question, who “wrote” this endless epic poem?

Was it the Twitter users whose fragments were appropriated and put in a different context? Was the “author” the program itself? Or is Ranjit Bhatnagar the author of the work, even though he wrote none of the prose by himself?


 

3.) The Last Performance, by Judd Morrissey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/last-performance-1.png" width="1226" height="970"/>

The Last Performance is a poem whose structure is based on a cathedral. Here, we see a zoomed-out view of the "dome" and just a few of the "lenses" that constitute it.

 

<a href="http://thelastperformance.org/cupola_triads.php" target="_blank">The Last Performance</a>, by <a href="http://www.judisdaid.org/" target="_blank">Judd Morrissey</a>, is a digital poem based on architecture. (Note: If using a mobile device inside the piece, tap each link twice to proceed.)

Specifically, The Last Performance is about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia" target="_blank">Hagia Sophia</a>, a Byzantine cathedral that was converted to a mosque and eventually to a museum. In Morrissey’s textual cathedral, though, words don’t only provide meaning – they also define space.

In the mainstay of the piece, the reader encounters the “dome” of the poem, which consists of thousands of “lenses,” or texts, that were contributed by readers, writers, and collaborators.

Each word in a lens is a hyperlink that leads to another lens. The result is a labyrinthine structure that can be traversed in any number of ways, allowing the visitor to encounter any number of poems written by any number of authors.


 

4.) Bicycle Built for 2000, by Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/cover-5/bicycle-888413.png" width="1041" height="720"/>

Bicycle Built for 2000, a performative digital piece, was created by more than 2000 anonymous workers from around the world.

 


	<a href="http://www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com/" target="_blank">Bicycle Built for 2000</a> is the product of 2000 people around the globe working together, albeit without knowing it. (Note: It requires Flash.)


Through Amazon’s <a href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" target="_blank">Mechanical Turk service</a>, hired workers were given a short audio clip and tasked with recreating it with his or her own voice. Put together, these thousands of samples recreate Daisy Bell, a popular song from late 1800s.

Interestingly, Daisy Bell was previously used in 1962 to demonstrate the invention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis" target="_blank">computer speech synthesis</a>. Part of the project of Bicycle Built for 2000, then, is to reverse that formula, using countless human voices to create something digital.


 

So there you have it!

Four digital poems that play with the idea of poetry, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bookmark us or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thisisaltsalt/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/thisisaltsalt?lang=en" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to learn more about exciting developments happening in digital literature!

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

4 Digital Poems That Will Make You Rethink What Poetry Is

[Generations]

49 Days

So I’ve been playing around with creating my own tocapu, or pattern based on Andean sacred geometry. I’ve been inspired by the Andean Futurist Manifesto, and also this idea of fractality, shapes and ideas repeating, reflecting, and refracting on themselves, ad infinitum.

Something I learned from Zadir Milla Euribe, an educator from Peru from who I first began learning about Andean design and cosmovision, is how to begin reading the patterns of the earth and sky.

Tocapus like this one, designed with inspiration from Andean sacred geometry, are intrinsically connected with Andean cosmovision and dialogue with the planet

In the way one can see patterns repeated in nature, from the similarity of the branches of a tree to the bronchi of the lungs, to the spirals in a seashell and the spiral arms of a galaxy, in the tocapus one can see the patterns in small segments repeated in the larger segments.

This is because life itself is dynamic, a spiral — and you can see this play out even in history. Everything is always changing yet circling back on itself, evolving with similarities but transformed — what has happened will come again, and everything is similar yet nothing is the same.

When you walk up to the peak of a mountain, or stand beside a lake, if you look closely and choose to see it, you may see the patterns of clouds represented also in the treeline, and repeated again in the shape of a stone on the ground, and repeated against the horizon — everything always speaking, always dialoguing — this is how the world, how the universe speaks.

The ancestors of the Andes understood this, which is why their architecture takes on natural forms that, in the same way they saw the world speaking to them, attempts to speak with the world. That’s the reason the Nazca lines take on the massive shapes of animals. That’s the reason tocapus have that same characteristic of circling, repeating, the whole contained within the parts.

I’ve come to understand that perhaps this is beyond reason, and when you look at the clouds and see the shapes of animals and objects, perhaps it is all in our imaginations, or perhaps it is also the world thinking, dreaming, and imagining, and trying to speak to us.

In the practice of working with the tocapus, it’s another way of seeing, that’s for sure. It’s not a vision that sees the natural world as a resource to be analyzed, broken down, exploited. And yet maybe it’s this very way of seeing that will allow us to imagine another reality, to speak and create — in contrast to what we know — in reciprocity with the earth.

This is because life itself is dynamic, a spiral — and you can see this play out even in history. Everything is always changing yet circling back on itself, evolving with similarities but transformed.

Andean Sacred Geometry

Every year since my friend Bill committed suicide, his mother and I had exchanged Christmas cards. And I am one of those people who do holiday letters. As I have drifted apart from college friends, those annual missives are the only updates I get or give to them and some others in my life, including Bill’s mother. In the holiday letter of 1997, I had announced to the world that after years of hiding the truth even from myself, I had finally come to terms with being gay.&nbsp;I had just moved to the Normal Heights section San Diego from where I had been living in northern San Diego County, in Carlsbad. The house that I was now renting was on the hill above the Qualcomm Stadium where the 1998 Super Bowl would be held, close enough to hear the blimp engines and we’d be able to walk out to my front porch to see the Blue Angels flyover and watch the fireworks show. I decided to throw a Super Bowl/house warming/coming out party.&nbsp;When I packed for the move from Carlsbad to San Diego, I had vowed I would really weed things out. If I was never going to read that book or wear that shirt again, I’d donate it. Bags of clothes went to Goodwill and boxes of books went to the Carlsbad Library.&nbsp;The Friday before Super Bowl Sunday I still had lots of unpacking to do to and I had promised myself that every single box would be emptied so I’d have Saturday free for party prep. I had about 15 boxes to go and was slicing into them, quickly dispatching whatever I found to the appropriate shelf, closet, or cabinet. Then it happened. I slit open a box that I moved to Carlsbad and from Carlsbad without having ever opened. It had stayed for years out of sight up above my car on the joists of the garage. I knew I was never going to wear the clothes that were in it or read the books or look at the photos hidden in it. In it were all of the things that reminded me of Bill. Photos of the trips we had taken together, music cassettes, books, clothes, and gifts he had given me over the years of our friendship. Shortly after Bill’s death, unable to deal with my guilt and sadness, I had sealed all remembrances of him away and I had no intention of opening that box either before or after the move.&nbsp;Suicide is different. I have lost close friends to cancer and felt terrible, but I never felt guilty. I can’t cure cancer. I couldn’t have done anything to prevent the car accidents that claimed other friends’ lives. But suicide, rightly or wrongly, feels preventable. If I had listened better, if I had been a better friend, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Bill’s suicide haunted me so badly that I couldn’t bear to think about him without it causing days of depression.&nbsp;I opened that box and on top was a bicycling jersey Bill had given me. It made my heart sink. I hadn’t planned to deal with this box now or ever, but in my haste to finish unpacking, I had attacked the box without reading the magic marker warning on the top. Shit. I didn’t have time to deal with this. But the jersey wouldn’t release my stare. I had way too much to do and couldn’t spend time fixating on a stupid shirt. I should just re-seal the box and get back to work. Then I remembered my self-imposed dictum to get rid of anything I would never wear again. But I couldn’t throw it out. It was one of my last tangible reminders of Bill. A reminder I couldn’t bring myself to even look at, let alone wear, so I should just donate it to Goodwill. But I couldn’t give it away. I should just seal the box and deal with another time. But I had to deal with it sometime. I should just throw it out. And so it went, my wheels spinning in the same circle as I faced what I had avoided for years. I also thought of the absurdity of keeping a cycling jersey—my knees were too shot to ride more than a mile or two anyway. My days of riding centuries were over; that was something else Bill and I had in common, our knees had curtailed our serious cycling.I got tired of standing over the box, but still couldn’t let go of the dilemma. I carried the shirt to the living room and held it as I sat and stared at it and replayed the options in my head. Donate it. I can’t. Wear it. I can’t. Only to dismiss them all and start over again. After at least an hour, maybe two, I grew tired of my stupid indecision. I needed to go pick up my mail from my P.O. box before they closed and I hadn’t put a shirt on yet that day, so I just decided, screw it. It’s just a shirt. Put it on and go get the mail.<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/7/image-7/Ring Crop-152315.jpg" alt="A golden ring on a finger" style="height: auto;width: auto"/>Bill's ringIn that day’s mail was a package slip. I stood in line and gave it to the clerk who retrieved a padded envelope just slightly too large to fit in the box. On it was Bill’s mother’s return address. A month earlier, I had already received my once-a-year communication from her—a card with the usual short note, something to the effect of, “I hope you’re doing well” so I hadn’t expected anything.&nbsp;With great curiosity, I opened the envelope. In it was a gold ring. I recognized it immediately as Bill’s. He treasured that ring and had worn it for years. It had been made for him by his great-uncle, a dentist in England who used scraps of dental gold in wax molds to make jewelry of his own designs. After Bill’s great-uncle’s death, the ring meant even more to him as a daily reminder of the man who had been his surrogate grandfather. Bill and I had that in common, also—we each had a special great-uncle who took the place of the grandfathers we both lacked.&nbsp;After one trip to England to visit his mother’s family, Bill came back heartbroken. He said he had been helping his mother’s brother work in the garden and in the course of the digging and planting apparently the ring had slipped off his wet and slimy finger. He didn’t notice it was gone until they were done and he was washing his hands. They went back the garden and raked and dug and searched. They even borrowed a metal detector, but to no avail. Bill had lost the last piece of his great-uncle and there was no way to replace it.&nbsp;In the package with Bill’s ring was a handwritten note from his mother. She said her brother had been working in his garden and found the ring. He thought she should have it. She received the ring the same day she got my coming out letter and she knew I had to have the ring. She said she was giving it to me by proxy for Bill and that she was happy that I had finally found the self-acceptance that Bill never had. Suddenly everything fell into place. The real reason Bill had killed himself.&nbsp;I sat in the car and cried until I calmed down enough to drive home. It also seemed beyond coincidence that for the first time since Bill had died, I was wearing a shirt he had given me while I was holding his ring.&nbsp;Bill’s death had always been a scab for me. Not an open wound, but a barely-healed scab over a wound I was afraid to go anywhere near for fear of causing damage too deep to handle. I had a hard time ever remembering the good times with Bill since the ending was so horrible and my guilt so overwhelming that I shut out thinking about him at all. With the ring, I felt like he had forgiven me (if there was ever anything to forgive) and I knew I could finally start to think of him without immediately going to the bad places.&nbsp;When I got home, I called a friend of Bill’s in L.A. and asked how soon I could see him. Monday, the day after the Super Bowl, I drove to L.A. to have dinner with him. He and Bill had gone to high school together and lived together in Belgium for almost a year when they were trying to break into the ranks of professional track cyclists. I figured if anyone knew if Bill was secretly gay, he would. He said that even in high school, Bill’s friends had assured him that it was okay to come out. He’d still be their friend, and it would be okay. But Bill always vehemently denied being gay.<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/7/image-7/IYWH cover small-091429.jpg" alt="A book cover containing the title " style="height: auto;width: auto"/>The memoir containing this and other storiesI asked why he thought Bill was gay and he ran through a list of stereotypical gay interests including liking Morrissey, Lucy, and Marilyn Monroe. The way he dressed and held his cigarette. I had noticed some of those things, but attributed the mannerism to being half English and spending so much time in Europe. (There is the old joke: Is he gay? No, just European.) The friend also said he wondered about my friendship with Bill and how quickly Bill and I became friends when we started working together and Bill at times saying things about me that crossed the line from friendship to crush.&nbsp;The talk helped me understand so much. In my mind I replayed many of the moments I’d had with Bill and they made so much more sense now.&nbsp;Once I sorted out the flood of emotions, I wrote to his mother and told her that far more than his ring, she given me back Bill. I know Bill is still with me. He is a part of me and I can enjoy the good memories without having to dwell on the bad. I cried for days when he died, but had been afraid to since; afraid to start again for fear I’d never stop. I finally let out what I had kept inside. It put one more piece of my old unhappy life behind me, to be even happier out of the closet.&nbsp;I was able to unpack the rest of the box of Bill’s stuff. Wear those shirts again. Look at photos of him, have on display some of the other gifts he had given me.&nbsp;I sent Bill’s mother her annual Christmas card about three years ago and a few days later got an email from a real estate agent in Pasadena. He said he was sorry to inform me that Bill’s mother had died. He said in addition to selling the house for the family in England, he had been asked to check mail and follow up on things that required it. His mother never got over the death of her only son so at least now she was at peace.&nbsp;My eyes are moist and I am wearing his ring as I type this, and although still weirded out by the coincidence of the timing, but there has to be a message here: if I ever needed a final endorsement that I was doing the right thing by choosing to be happy for the first time in my life, Bill’s ring was certainly it.I have had so many people ask about the ring over the years. Sometimes just holding out my credit card to pay in a store, the clerk has grabbed my hand and wanted to look at the ring. Some seemed to sense there is some magic to it and asked if it had a story. Once at a drug store, I started telling the story to the clerk and then I realized a line was forming at the register and I apologized and stepped aside and everyone in the line said, “No, this is good. Go on. Finish the story. Please continue.”&nbsp;◇ ◇ ◇The story of The Coming Out Ring is abridged and adapted from <a href="http://www.waltergmeyer.com/product/werent-not-happening/" target="_blank">If You Weren’t Here, This Would Not Be Happening: plogs from my life</a>.&nbsp;Walter G. Meyer is the co- or ghost-writer of six nonfiction books and his the author of critically-acclaimed, award-winning, and Amazon-bestselling gay-themed novel Rounding Third. He has been on radio and television programs including NPR and he has spoken at colleges, libraries and community centers across the country.&nbsp;Mr. Meyer told his own coming out story in The Los Angeles Times, he has written for all of the major gay publications including Out and Advocate and he has written on LGBT topics for the mainstream press including The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His articles have appeared in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Orange County Register, Westways, Baja Explorer, and dozens of other magazines and newspapers. He is the co-author of a widely-produced stage play GAM3RS.&nbsp;Originally from Pittsburgh, Mr. Meyer has a degree from the School of Communications at Penn State and currently resides in San Diego.

Every year since my friend Bill committed suicide, his mother and I had exchanged Christmas cards. And I am one of those people who do holiday letters...

The Coming Out Ring

Untitled

A short story about legacy, revolution, and obliquely, terraforming Mars. Also contains a dumpling recipe.

The morning of the ritual, my fathers assured me there was no need to be nervous. One reminded me I would have all the time I needed. The other said nothing, only tugged gently on my earlobe, to remind me of where I bit my grandmother the first time I met her and that we still laughed about it at family gatherings.

In truth, my nai nai, my grandmother, was a jovial woman who alleviated her rare bad moods with marathon cooking sessions that earned her a legendary status within the neighborhood. She promised me a simple conversation, but I knew it was more, this beginning of my journey into adulthood, the first time I would be listening to a story as its caretaker rather than its recipient.

The whole way to her home, I imagined what it would be like: solemn, I thought, precise, for certain. By the time I arrived on the third floor of a building set into the wall of the lava tube, I thought anyone might be able tell that I was not fit to begin. I hovered outside the curtain in the open doorway until a voice called out from within.

“Suying, no need to loiter. Come in, haizi.” I smiled, both charmed and worried that she would see me as a child no matter how old I grew.

I took a deep breath to brace myself, straightened out of the slouch the aunties in my building always hollered about and ducked through the curtain. I thought there might be incense, perhaps offerings to the ancestors and worried about the appropriateness of my simple smock. I even brought a notebook, real paper and a pen to help the words lodge within my mind. So I was startled to see my grandmother in the kitchen with an array of ingredients on the stone top island counter.

I paused in the doorframe, but my grandma smiled at me, corners of her eyes wrinkling up. She gestured for me to come to the counter and took the notebook from my hand. “Take notes another time. This time, you need only to listen.”

“I thought I was learning a story,” I said, hesitant, surveying the ingredients. A bowl of flour, already shifted, small dishes of spices, apportioned out, and a bundle of green onions, picked fresh from the hydroponic garden shared by the building. The large head of napa cabbage and a package of ground bean-based meat substitute made it clear that my grandmother was preparing to make our traditional family dumplings.

“I am going to tell you a story and I will teach you a skill,” my grandmother said as she directed me to the sink. She said nothing else until I cleaned my hands, dried them upon a dish towel she embroidered with a dancing fish, and rolled my sleeves above my elbows. When we stood over the ingredients, my fear of having to learn multiple things obvious by the way my eyebrows pulled together, she said, “This story will be yours to keep and preserve. One day, you will choose how to pass it on. Today, we do things this way.”

First, we mixed the dough, one part water to four parts flour. I put my hands into a heavy stone bowl and pressed the clumps of flour into each other, rolling and kneading to pick up the dusting of powder that remained. As I worked, beads of sweat building on my temple and an honest ache building up in strange parts of my arm, unused muscles stretching and pulling from the strain, my grandmother began to tell her story.

You already know that your three times great grandparent Zhou Daitan participated in the revolutionary struggles. I will not speak about that today. Instead, I will tell you of their life before the revolution, what made them the sort of person willing to stand arm in arm with their neighbors, the world that shaped them and that they shaped in turn. And though I did not know your three times great grandparent, this story comes to me from their daughter, to her daughter, and down to me. Through them, I bestow it upon you.

Once I punched the dough into a smooth ball, my grandmother declared the task done and we set it aside to rest. Then, I added soy sauce, salt, white pepper, as well as an egg to the meat substitute. With rhythmic, circular motions, I folded these ingredients together.

Daitan grew up on earth, on a patch of sparse and harsh land set aside for refugees. They were a rambunctious child, creative in inventing games and new ways to attract trouble. Though they received the mandatory years of education, provided by the international government for all refugee children, they were not an attentive student. Still, they read widely and thought freely, a difficult thing to do. And someone must have seen potential in that for they received a scholarship to university, sponsored by companies eager to showcase their generosity. They studied as widely as they read and meandered out of university two years too late with a degree in food science. Without sufficient social capital to obtain a posting in a lab, they returned to and worked in the packaging factory next to the camp where they grew tall and strong.

Under my grandmother’s watchful eye, I minced a handful of wood ear mushrooms, the slivers sticking to my hands, as well as a few shitake mushrooms, their unami infused scent filling my nostrils. These I deposited into the marinating meat substitute along with a dollop of sesame oil. Again, I accepted the wooden chopsticks my grandmother passed to me and mixed to integrate the dark pieces of seasoning.

Daitan’s time in university turned them quiet and contemplative. But working in the factory alongside childhood friends and strangers turned into family by proximity and shared struggle, they found their voice again. That voice spoke against exploitation and it wasn’t long before they drew the ire of those who hoped a heavy hand could crush dissent before it bloomed in full.

Then I went back to the bamboo chopping board, passed down through the generations, lovingly cared for by each. I recalled running my hands across the surface as a toddler, feeling the marks left it in by use, some sanded down or covered by newer marks over the years, and wondering when I’d get a chance to use it. Now that I was older, I didn’t have quite the same fascination with chopping vegetables. Still, I found the crunch and thunk of the knife through the green onions and the napa cabbage satisfying. I thought I’d have trouble listening and avoiding injury, but the rhythmic motion proved no distraction.

And so it was that Daitan found themselves cast out, blacklisted, unable to obtain even the meanest of jobs. Their fellow refugees knew what it was to be forced to the margins of society and offered them sustenance. For a time, Daitan was able to do good work within the camp, using what they learned in the factory to rebuild the hastily raised residences, repair the solar still that produced water. These odd jobs also allowed them to distribute the revolutionary literature published by friends within the factory. And when the operation was discovered, Daitan volunteered to take the fall.

The green onions went on top of the mixture and the cabbage went in a separate dish with salt to pull out water. While both rested, my grandmother upended the ball of dough onto a dusting of flour and put me to work pushing it across the counter until it tightened. With one smooth motion, she twisted the dough in half and began to roll her half out, until it resembled a snake.

As there were few places to exile someone who was already a refugee, Daitan found themselves on a one-way trip to the stars. They were still terraforming the planet then and Daitan, like many who grew up in the camps, found it difficult to breathe on the red planet. Even so, they tended to the legume fields for though they did not choose to come to Mars, they were forced to work off the cost of the fuel.

Slowly, so I could copy each step, my grandmother lifted the length of dough and pinched the top of it between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. With her left, she twisted off pieces of dough. Mine were nowhere near as uniform, some small, some large, most torn off with great force rather than the deft and precise motions I failed to copy. When I grimaced at my collection of however, my grandmother only reached out to wipe a bit of flour from my chin and continued.

Daitan was hardly the only one who came to the planet unwillingly. Except for the youngest, taken in by a flashy recruitment poster and the promises of an unscrupulous earth-side recruitment center whose manager sated himself on kickbacks, all of their bunkmates fell afoul of one planetary power or another. And all of them dreamed of something different.

In synchronized motions, we crushed each knob of dough flat and tossed them in the flour so they would not stick together. Then I tipped the cabbage into the rest of the filling and mixed one last time, trying to ignore the ache in my arm and flinging a bit of filling onto the table in the process. Without

skipping a beat, my grandmother swiped the filling into a pan and set it atop the induction stove. Almost immediately, it began to sizzle and pop. She snatched it up with a pair of chopsticks, blew on it, and offered it to me. I closed my eyes as I considered the flavor and layered textures, to see if it needed anything else. When I decided it needed a bit more salt, I picked up the shaker, an old porcelain vinegar bottle repurposed and passed down.

During the day cycles, they rode lifts to the surface, where the vast legume fields blanketed the red dirt of the blossoming planet and fantasized about escaping over the horizon. At the end of their shifts, they urged the bovine herds that consumed the legumes into the shelter of the lava tubes and contemplated letting the animals loose. During their night cycle, they lay in their rickety three-layer bunks, six workers to a room, and traded stories or comfort.

My grandmother handed me a rolling pin, not much wider than my finger. She took one of the knobs of dough and brought the edge of it underneath the pin. In practiced motions, the pressed the dough from the outside in, turning the disc after each stroke. I ended up with an oblong shape of uneven thickness that made me wince when I compared it with her thin circle of dough. She took the wrapper from me without comment and began to fix it, gesturing for me to start another.

Life went on thus and though it seemed as if nothing changed as they repeated the same work against their ever-mounting debt, Daitan came to understood that they were building community. People who might have been enemies on earth taught each other their languages. No mode of living seemed all that strange from two meters away. Games and song and dance from different cultures passed back and forth, used to speed the trickle of time. And in these ways, large and small, sedition spread.

We continued rolling and pressing until we piled the wrappers high, dusted flour between each layer. I used chopsticks to position a dollop of filling in the middle of a wrapper. I set the chopsticks down and gathered the wrapper into my palm, watching my grandmother draw the edges together in folds that held the weight of her experience. Perhaps that’s what kept her dumplings closed because mine invariably peeked open at the edges, bits of filling threatening to burst out or the wrapper simply gaping wide.

At the factory, Daitan learned to play a game of make believe and magic. It was fantastical and fanciful and so no one took notice when they began to teach it to their friends. For diversion and escape, yes, but also to pass messages best left unsaid in rooms owned and operated by people who held debt over them like blades. And some things were better conveyed through simulation and practice than through explanation anyway.

My grandmother said that skill would come with time and practice. And I thought that this too, was a lesson she meant to impart. So I kept at it, crimping and folding and often failing, yet in the end, producing a precious few dumplings I would be proud to present to my fathers. Finally, we dropped them into the boiling water atop the stove, easing them into the roiling water one by one so that the hot water did not splash.

So it was that when the revolution began, Daitan knew what to do. They were part of a community once more, indebted to it, embedded within it, reliant upon it. Because what makes a person is not just who they are but what they do, the people who raise them, the society that shapes them, the atmosphere they breathe, the horizons they see. So it was with your three times great grandparent. So it will be with you. That is why we tell these stories, why we ask you to remember them, why we hope that you hold them to your hearts as we did, so you will make different mistakes, and so you will know what was freely given and what was taken to make a better world.

Within the Fold

ALTERNATIVE

WORLDS

ASIAN AMERICA

THE ANDES

I was right there with you in your mission statement, about feeling the dual exclusion from both Latinx and U.S. heritages. I've felt that so much growing up as a Peruvian in the United States, and I'm so glad that this organization exists 🙏I resonated so much with Marisol's poem, with the mixture of Spanish and English, and with the connection to your grandfather and thinking about future generations' connection to their heritage.I resonated with Elena's piece, when you spoke about going to Peru and the eagerness to fill a hole made of solitude.I was right there with Analisa in so many parts of her story, riding on the swerving bus with the sheer drop to the ocean, when you met your brother for the first time, and forgetting how to speak in any language.Super appreciate all that the contributors shared during both of your events. Congrats on this publication, looking forward to the next one 🙂

Love your post, Art. "Repeating, the whole contained within the parts." In chinese water color art and patterns, my teacher taught me how, the whole is a mirror of the parts. And in traditional chinese medicince they say that the health of the cell is the health of the species and the planet. There are so many different ways of seeing, thinking, dreaming &lt;3&nbsp;

<a href="/shirley" target="_self">@Shirley Man-Kin Leung</a> Thanks so much! it’s so cool to hearing about that similarity. It’s making me think of how the little things matter, of ways to potentially create harmony when making and designing in lots of different fields of practice thinking of how the components relate to the whole

I absolutely love this! This checks so many of my boxes; Social justice, Science fiction, Humanity and food.

Thanks Walter! Lovely story of healing and love.

<a href="/artemiosans" target="_self">@Artemio Morales</a> thank you so much for your poetry of a mesaage! it's an honor to have pieces of myself living on this online community.

Walter, this is so beautiful and moving. I resonate a lot with having jewelry that serves as a portal to another person's memories and life and stories.&nbsp;

<a href="/shirley" target="_self">@Shirley Man-Kin Leung</a> Hi Shirley - Thanks for writing. As I wrote in the story, the ring does seem to have a magic power that draws people. They want to talk about it I get to talk about Bill. At times I find myself twisting the ring on my finger and memories come flooding back.&nbsp;

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A cover image with the text "Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide", & a cute character at the summit of a mountain alongside a flag.

The background is the Colombian Flag with the Words "Colo-Mitolo-Gital" spanning each stripe. In the foreground is a floating back and a pair of red heels. In the top right, there is two buttons

Blue text on white background: "These are the things they took from us, They left us bare These are the things they couldn’t"

An abstract image of bubbles and dots and rays of sunshine in a blue and pink color palette

Title 'Dear Charles' over a man holding his heart in a meditative stance

Portrait of a child with night sky and plants in the background

Poem with pink graphic above and a picture of a mother with a baby.

Text with light blue graphic depicting a sister and brother hugging.

Left: a cute blob with a speech bubble saying, "Hi! I'm an artist who wants to use AI in my work!" Right: 4 icons with the text "You'll need: 1) Dataset, 2) Model Code, 3) Training resources, 4) A publishing plan"

A page with the title "dataset". On the left, an illustration of files and papers drifting down from a cloud into a large stack of papers.

A page with the title "Model Code". On the left, an illustration of a stack of blocks, and another block about to be placed on the pile of blocks.

It is a dialogue box describing the story "El Dedo En El Baño" overlaid onto the background. The background is the Colombian Flag with the Words "Colo-Mitolo-Gital" spanning each stripe. In the foreground is a floating back and a pair of red heels.

A black background with a bag in the center and the words "there is a finger inside the bag"

A woman with a white shirt and yellow skirt standing against a city background

A young person in three different stages of life, in three different outfits

A person playing a guitar opposing a portrait of another person looking at the camera

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A small machine facing a tentacled creature with option to use "vacuum" and "flashlight" as attacks

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an email displayed in a foreign language not recognizable

a cloaked figure stands over a writhing pile of chimera-like arthropod-reminiscent creatures

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Taiwan

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Your thoughts wander at sunset, taking you to different conclusions like waves to different shores...

This is a text-based game where you view the sights and sounds of the sunset and provide a space to inhabit your personal thoughts and feelings.

It was inspired by my experiences with meditation and the process of how innocuous thoughts could lead to more personal ones in a nonconfrontational way.

As such there are multiple conclusions you may reach with yourself.

Will you experience joy? Sorrow? Love? Loss?

Remember, your thoughts are yours alone to share.

- Mudita Heart

Reflections at Sunset

Machine learning tools provide the potential for unprecedented creative expression, but also the potential to cause unintended harms.“Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide” is an illustrated zine composed of questions and case studies to help AI artists use AI techniques responsibly and with care. We suggest that artists using AI should consider themselves part of the broader responsible AI community. As a result, it is important to consider factors such as consent of people represented in your datasets, labor involved in the model development and pre-existing codebase/tools, and AI infrastructure and environmental costs of training machine learning models. We hope that artists will attend to the potentially unintended harmful consequences of work as understood in domains like information security, misinformation, the environment, copyright, and biased and appropriative synthetic media.With this guide, we believe that by reflecting on what is “responsible” for their own creative works, artists can push forward best practices employed by all AI practitioners.Doing so can ensure that they harness the expressive potential of AI, responsibly.The Responsible AI Art Field Guide has been featured by Gray Area, DISEÑA, and Mozilla Festival.&nbsp;

Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide

Andean

Colo-Mitolo-Gítal is an anthology that reinterprets different family stories while layering in Colombian history and culture as a way to understand my own heritage through the lens of computation, the web, and play. Each object represents a chapter within the anthology with the first two stories being: "El Dedo En El Baño": For generations, there was a cloth bag in my great-great grandmother’s bathroom said to contain the finger bone of a family member who had passed away. When visiting the grave became impossible after my family was dislocated by the civil war, the bone was taken to maintain a spiritual link. "La Señora Con Tacones": A well-liked woman on my father’s street mysteriously went missing after a night out. She was never found, but the sound of her heels clacking could still be heard coming down the street every night as if she’s trying to make it back home.Colo-Mitolo-Gítal was researched, Designed and Developed By <a href="http://kevincadena.com/" target="_self">Kevin Cadena</a>. It was playtested by Andres Chang, Artemio Morales, Arnon Karnkaeng, Tracy Leung, and Hyacinth Ramsay. Special Thanks to Chantal Feitosa, Claudia Rincon, Nidia Rincon and Jose Mauricio Cadena.This project was produced during the 2020 Fall Residency Program at <a href="https://www.babycastles.com/" target="_self">Babycastles.</a>

Colo-Mítolo-Gítal

Part of the Kiona Ligtvoet’s solo exhibition “These Are the Things” at <a href="https://www.latitude53.org" target="_blank">Latitude 53</a>, this document is collaborator Paxsi's contribution to this gentle attempt at navigating intergenerational barriers to grief, tenderness and longing, in the presence of enfranchisement and personal displacement.In their essay, Paxsi, an Aymara and Welsh-Irish writer and artist, reflects on their Aymara roots as it relates to family connection and their trans non-binary identity.From the author:“I am honoured and privileged to be contributing to this collaboration with this piece of writing which expresses my grief and longing for the things that were taken from me, as well as a celebration of the things that cannot and will never be.“As you reflect upon and consume my words and Kiona’s work, please consider contributing reparations to Kiona’s home community, Michel First Nation, for the legal fees required to reclaim their land and status rights. Reparations can be sent as e-transfers to kionaligtvoet@gmail.com, which will be forwarded to Michel First Nation.”

Letter to Miguel, from “These Are the Things”

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Pyth, a 22 year old Cherokee twospirit who dabbles in hex removal and otherworldly conundrums, has recently made a bit of a name for themself. Introduction issues Ritual, Slow, Order, and Lure. PDF format. Music included.