cripchick's blog

hat tip (h/t) to kimchi mamas:

from the grace lee project website: When Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was growing up in Missouri, she was the only Grace Lee she knew. Once she left the Midwest however, everyone she met seemed to know “another Grace Lee.” But why did they assume that all Grace Lees were reserved, dutiful, piano-playing overachievers? The filmmaker plunges into a highly unscientific investigation into all those Grace Lees who break the mold — from a fiery social activist to a rebel who tried to burn down her high school. With wit and charm, THE GRACE LEE PROJECT puts a hilarious spin on the eternal question, “What’s in a name?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhLZ56iKlv0&hl=en]

i love it.

The word idiot makes me uncomfortable in the same way that retard, dumb, and crazy do, but this card from this week’s postsecret collection really spoke to me. It reads: “My pastor always talks about how if people would find God they wouldn’t need pills. I’m bipolar but I took his advice–my pastor is an idiot!”

One of the defining moments in my life was when a particular revivalist was in town and my mom dragged me to go see him. During the service, the congregation got in this mode of deep prayer and speaking in tongues and he asked me to come up. When I went up to the pulpit, he started praying hard and telling me to get out of my wheelchair and walk. Of course I refused— at that point in time I couldn’t stand without support (and who wants to fall on their face in front of the whole church?) I had been getting this for years and normally the pastors back down. This guy didn’t. He yelled at me and told the congregation that I did not walk because I did not have enough faith. From then on, they whispered about me. Read the rest of this entry »

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNlJpTzh5CE]

“you are not in the tattoo parlors etching yourself on the shoulders of frat boys
your blood is not mixed in the corporate flavor of a chai tea latte
you are not in the Civics drag-racing down Chinatown
or the place I fucking do my laundry…
but instead, you are the life-giving river rippling up the crooked spine of my loving mother,
you are the farmer’s tan skin I rock like pride into the summer,
you are the ambition my father sewed into my body when he raised me so I could provide for my children what my parents never gave me—
asia-america, you’re more than your key words of hair, and skin, and eyes
but you’re the reason I give my life to poetry.
you’re the fire that I speak, this tapestry I’m trying to weave…”

                —Alvin Lau, spoken word poet