this is actually freaking me out
Apr. 4th, 2010 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qiloramore than i realised:
Harlem Arts School Shuts Over Financial Problems
and i think i figured out why i'm freakin *so* bad... aside from the fact that its just right up there on my list of the Failures-of-Humanity that we make our kids suffer for what us grown-ups FUCK-up...
when i was little ms. sweet-n-innocent, and living my quasi-cracker existence in wetlands of coastal Jersey, i was basically growing up surrounded by families of Bennys** & commuters who just decided to relocate to NJ and STAY there... Brooklynese was me mother-tongue...
New York wasn't another "state" to me, i could see it from the beach (day OR night)... it was just like another part of Jersey, one that you'd have to take a CAR or ferry to get to, but of all the kids i knew, a lot of us had parents/grandparents from there (some of them STILL there)....
talk of the old-neighborhoods were like fairy tales from teh Old Country.... heard about where the best food was, which neighborhoods were the most dangerous (usually the ones the speaker was from!) and heard everyone throwing around addresses as intersections... and btw, i was super proud that i could say my mother was from "Hell's Kitchen" (first, because it would get some "oohs" sometimes, and also because it was the only time i could say aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks without getting in trouble)....
i wasn't the smartest kid with geography, i thought that the Coneheads were from France, and that was right in the middle of America near Wisconsin, but i also had other little Juju "truisms" in my head... Jews come from Brooklyn (ONLY Brooklyn)... you *have* to go to China Town to get cheap clothes... and Harlem is where JAZZ comes from! ;D like this Mecca of Soul in my head (and heart) and i am sure i dreamt up many not-at-all-accurate fantasies of what it would be like if i could live up there with all the music ;)
okay i know i was lacking a bit of info in most areas of life (i was a kid!)... i got over it as i grew up... most of it, anyway... now i know that Moses didn't part the East River and that my mother is apparently from "Clinton" (the FUCK??) but i can't give up my dreams of Harlem... i *can't* .. i feel like we owe Her & her children (and children's children!) so much!
so how the hell could New York let this happen?! it feels like such a horrible "omen" to see ...
- Z.
EDIT: address to their web-site: Harlem School of the Arts to find out more about the school and perhaps make a donation? (come on, don't make me whip out my Jewish-Mama guilt-trip on you now)
** re: "Bennys"... in case you don't know, a Benny is the kind of human that is predominantly very light-skinned, wears clip on sunglasss, has a shmear of white war-paint going down their nose, big BIG hats, wears shorts with waist-band pulled up to their nipples and (if male) is sure to wear black-socks with sandels. they live "away" and come "down to the Shore" to get sun (apparently they live underground?) and also buy cheap plastic trinkets on the Boardwalk, to bring home as souvenirs.
Harlem Arts School Shuts Over Financial Problems
and i think i figured out why i'm freakin *so* bad... aside from the fact that its just right up there on my list of the Failures-of-Humanity that we make our kids suffer for what us grown-ups FUCK-up...
when i was little ms. sweet-n-innocent, and living my quasi-cracker existence in wetlands of coastal Jersey, i was basically growing up surrounded by families of Bennys** & commuters who just decided to relocate to NJ and STAY there... Brooklynese was me mother-tongue...
New York wasn't another "state" to me, i could see it from the beach (day OR night)... it was just like another part of Jersey, one that you'd have to take a CAR or ferry to get to, but of all the kids i knew, a lot of us had parents/grandparents from there (some of them STILL there)....
talk of the old-neighborhoods were like fairy tales from teh Old Country.... heard about where the best food was, which neighborhoods were the most dangerous (usually the ones the speaker was from!) and heard everyone throwing around addresses as intersections... and btw, i was super proud that i could say my mother was from "Hell's Kitchen" (first, because it would get some "oohs" sometimes, and also because it was the only time i could say aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks without getting in trouble)....
i wasn't the smartest kid with geography, i thought that the Coneheads were from France, and that was right in the middle of America near Wisconsin, but i also had other little Juju "truisms" in my head... Jews come from Brooklyn (ONLY Brooklyn)... you *have* to go to China Town to get cheap clothes... and Harlem is where JAZZ comes from! ;D like this Mecca of Soul in my head (and heart) and i am sure i dreamt up many not-at-all-accurate fantasies of what it would be like if i could live up there with all the music ;)
okay i know i was lacking a bit of info in most areas of life (i was a kid!)... i got over it as i grew up... most of it, anyway... now i know that Moses didn't part the East River and that my mother is apparently from "Clinton" (the FUCK??) but i can't give up my dreams of Harlem... i *can't* .. i feel like we owe Her & her children (and children's children!) so much!
so how the hell could New York let this happen?! it feels like such a horrible "omen" to see ...
- Z.
EDIT: address to their web-site: Harlem School of the Arts to find out more about the school and perhaps make a donation? (come on, don't make me whip out my Jewish-Mama guilt-trip on you now)
** re: "Bennys"... in case you don't know, a Benny is the kind of human that is predominantly very light-skinned, wears clip on sunglasss, has a shmear of white war-paint going down their nose, big BIG hats, wears shorts with waist-band pulled up to their nipples and (if male) is sure to wear black-socks with sandels. they live "away" and come "down to the Shore" to get sun (apparently they live underground?) and also buy cheap plastic trinkets on the Boardwalk, to bring home as souvenirs.
