City

He is in love with her right now
the evening before October
on the banks of the Hudson.

The moisture in the air makes the city diffuse,
fluorescence
and grime
to still be alive
pulsing at a slower rate.

Dim lights make charcoal paint out of the deep
gray concrete.
Winds of hurricane ask they city dwellers to wait,
wait,
wait for it
surely it will come.

They are too busy to look and wander,
to ask about what they will never know
the answers surround them
overly fluent
they cannot hear
warning drops
rustling leaves remind you the city can be weak
she can fall
she will leave if you don't follow her.

Contested Space

I am interested in the epistemological development of memory as an interlocutor of society and contested space. First and foremost I am interested in space--its material, aesthetic, and social iterations--as a dialogic form and object; how space, as such, is a staging ground and vehicle through which the turbulent formation of private and public identities across global, national, and local borderlands are consecrated and decimated;  imagined and re-inscribed. Borders are both site and concept that demarcate the limits of control within nation-states (at their most politically and hegemonically employed). The thresholds of the borders are the liminalities that enable bodies, imaginations, memories, guns, contraband, politics and ideas to violently migrate between the porous limits of nations and identities.

My approach to space is architectural, anthropological, and aesthetic. This triad of approaches enables me to interrogate space in its material, cultural, and creative forms; and like a musical triad, I find each contingent upon the other to complete the sonorous potential of the spatial chord. Situated within the borderlands, this project assumes that the geographical and ideological limits are the appropriate grounds to investigate how marginal groups inhabit spaces between hegemonic narratives-like nation, gender, and ethnicity-to disrupt and re-appropriate power within their alterity.

To know the worlds of the borderlands, I believe cultural memory and its relationship to built and un-built space is a powerfully intimate yet pervasive locale of individual and collective identity formation. Contested spaces illuminate contested memory, orienting us towards the violence of breaking through identities inscribed upon the bodies circulated between conflicting spaces.

I see this as a transnational and transdisciplinary project. The sites of greatest interest to me at the moments are: the Berlin Wall and, in particular, the decade after its fall and the production of oestalgie; the US-Mexico borderlands and the necessarily subversive and re-imagined practices of citizenship produced by perpetual migration; and the East Jerusalem as a comparative site the re-presents the borderlands within a distinct matrix of cultural, political, and religious contestations. The nature and scope of this study demands several methodological approaches that can question and integrate the highly personal confrontation of physical borders within a greater critical and cultural narratives about conscripted subjects the work they do at the interstices of nations and socio-ethnic cultures.

Thus, comparative ethnographic and cultural study is needed for gleaning resonance of everyday lived practices within border spaces, as is critical theoretical comparativism, emanating from the humanities (literary and artistic works that fall under a general category of aesthetics) to confront how the work of the imagination is a key interlocutor and enabler of transformation within the bounded spaces of nations, bodies, and memory. In dialogue, such work provokes a reading of the borderlands, and its inhabitants, as a space of convergence of personal and collective limits in imaginative work and everyday practice, staged tenuously between the monoliths of belonging imposed hierarchically from the state down. At stake in these spaces, I believe, is the epistemological formation memory, one of the greatest social projects that formulates an individual or group’s possibility of knowing the worlds the inhabit.

Walls of East Jerusalem

East Jerusalem Divided Life:
Israel's security barrier in and around the West Bank is about 60 percent complete. Israel says it was designed as a barrier against suicide bombers, but Palestinians say it's a land grab.
One east Jerusalem community has been essentially cut off from the rest of the city by a new barrier erected two weeks ago.
It's afternoon in Ras Khamis in east Jerusalem and Palestinian schoolchildren carefully walk through two sets of rotating metal doors between an Israeli checkpoint and watchtower.

The Death of Tyler Clementi and Gender Studies

The suicide of Tyler Clementi is a tragedy that has hit close to home for many Rutgers students, staff, and faculty as well as the greater university community in the country. Incidents like these are unfortunate and often times spark hasty reactions. While it is difficult to make any claims that Tyler's death was the result of a hate crime, it is clear that a general environment of disrespect, cruelty, and bullying were factors (again not particularly decisive) that affected the emotions and actions of this young man.

It is unclear as to whether or not, and to what extent, we can read gender, sexuality, or any form of identity politics into such a personal and singular act. This unfortunate event does, however, prompt a question of how a department like Women's and Gender Studies can engage with this event to examine how they conceive of and educate politics of difference through their respective disciplinary lens. Women's and Gender Studies is a department and discipline forged out of adversity that demands that perspectives of the world and the creation of knowledge need to equitably address groups historically marginalized by gender and sexuality. A most basic definition to be sure, I find the possibility of discussion about the multiple resonances of Tyler's death can be productively mediated through the tools this field has used to speak about, interrogate, and challenge the politics of difference and the right to identities both marginal and normative.

What I would like to ask of Women's and Gender Studies is not what the roots of greater historical and cultural causes that can be mapped onto and through Tyler's death but rather, 'how do we educate a new generation to create a world where his suicide could be prevented?' In other words, my most burning question after hearing of Tyler's passing was 'what have we done as a society to make this young man, almost a child still, feel as if this was his only solution?' Adolescence and college are difficult stages of human development to be sure, but it is unfortunate that events like these are the only times that we take a second look at how we are educating a new society of people to live in the world; a world that challenges every one of us at every moment.

I do not think that we teach hate; however I do feel it is not only a question of  'what gave him a reason to jump,' but also the flipside, 'what gave him a reason to live?' Do we have a responsibility to each other to give one another those reasons, to teach those reasons and their histories? Is it within our disciplines and ideologies of self-hood and freedom from oppression to take care and give one another reasons to be here, methods of ascertaining self-worth? It seems to me that is more than just allowing marginal groups to sit at the table, but actually inviting them without hesitation; setting a table implied with their place. How can we be active about respect of difference and the burdens that come with the idea of freedom of identity? Our orientations towards freedom, respect, and equality come with responsibilities that gesture towards social actions. Ideas of a democratic notion of belonging influence the way we teach and equip our new society to construct their worlds, but they are not a given.

This is why it is so important not just to have a department and pedagogy of Women's and Gender Studies, but to consider how the construction of the worlds through these discourses can be not only a revisionist perspective applicable to what has been, but a gesture outwards, towards a greater sensitivity to what our actions do and a greater possibility of what our world can be.

Bridge Dreams

It was one of those days where I wanted to live instead of doing what I told myself would give me meaning. I want to put on my black and white lace dress and haphazardly explore the world in my big brown boots.

I ran up the first 50feet of the incline, turned back, grabbed your hand, and pulled you towards me as I continued to run up the bridge of my dream. You were so shocked by my sudden gesture that you didn't have time to say no. All you could see was the shadowy movement of my dark silhouette (it was night). All you could hear was my laughingly encouraging voice that reminded you about that day, not so long ago, when this was the substance of life and the reason to wake up in the morning.

Wake up! She says. We have a world to conquer.

CupCakes

The photos are enough. Let's bake.

On the question of comparativism versus interdisciplinarity

If there is always this notion of justice involved in translation and comparativist practice, are we not limiting ourselves in our conceptions of what a comparativist practice looks like? How does the notion of treating objects of knowledge with respect affect our practice of object-making? Respect or justice are not neutral terms that lead us to objectivity but, in themselves, are mechanisms of objectification, a mode of knowledge production that functions within limitations to understand an object that functions as disciplines do.

When Foucault speaks of cutting and descending as a genealogy, as opposed to a linear and casual genealogy, he turns our attention towards a blind field (that of descent) where terms like "justice" and "humanist" cease to exist.

Genealogy does not resemble the evolution of a species and does not map the destiny of a people. On the contrary, to follow the complex course of descent is to maintain passing events in their proper dispersion [...] an unstable assemblage of faults, fissures, and heterogeneous layers that threaten the fragile inheritor from within or from underneath.

Being just and noble, for Foucault, is impossible within a system that reproduces subjugation under the auspices of justice, as an ideology that is a condition of humanist practice that assumes a whole and universal identity as the starting place of human heritage and history. Being in the darkness of descent, "disturbs what was previously considered immobile; it fragments what was thought unified; it shows the heterogeneity of what was imagined consistent with itself (146-147)." Justice, respect, and value are a few of terms of consistency that emerge as heterogeneous in the descent.

Taking into account how context, epoch, and language color any writer, philosopher, or theorist--as Braudel and Carr, and to a lesser extent Alberuni, alert us to--to what extent is a comparativist and/or interdisciplinary (are they the same?) approach deemed as such because of its process, the actual practice of bringing together disparate worlds or ways of knowing worlds; or, on the other hand, turned towards the question of process itself, questioning processes, as the practice of a comparativist? To relish always in the blind field, or to write always along fissures and margins that a "humanist heuristic" exists outside of (or where it does not exist at all)? What is the negotiation between anti-humanist realities, contexts and times continually erasing and re-creating worlds (reality as referring to the desire for an unchanging truth) and humanistic intentions that are locked in the borders of limited and sovereign ways of knowing?

Is Alberuni a receptacle? Is the comparativist a mechanism that has no responsibility over what she contains? How can Alberuni's work be, "nothing but  a simple historical record of facts?" It is problematic that we even think this is possible. The comparativist work is in the act, the process, which becomes the purpose, the distinction, between the historian and the comparativist. So she works as the historiographer, examining methods while simultaneously engaging the blind field? What worlds are possible and, furthermore, can possibilities that emerge from masteries and dissections be the concern of comparativist or interdisciplinary work? Is the unsaid part of the process of doing comparativist work? Is there even a possibility of doing a work like Foucault's for Khaldun and/or Alberuni? Should this be the question we ask and does it matter whether or not this is considered a just question to pose?

If the question is how we construct our objects of knowledge within systems (disciplines) of totality, than is the focus on the object or the process of object-making? Is it about mapping the fissures or falling into the spaces between the fissures? As Foucault leaves us:

It is no longer a question of judging the past in the name of a truth that only we can possess in the present; but risking the destruction of the subject who seeks knowledge in the endless deployment of the will to knowledge.

Ecritures do Sao Paulo

I was reading about citizenship when I was compelled to write this. Maybe I wrote it to you, maybe not. I wanted to share it with you:

Racontes-moi quelques histoires de Sao Paulo. Je veux pas cette vie quotidienne de travail et répétition. Je veux pas penser des ides plus grand que demain. Je veux savoir le monde du maintenant; l'air de notre temps que nous ne pouvons pas se refaire.


Alors, rappels-moi, monsieur de mes vacances, de ma vie de la monde de sud. Je me souviens notre conversations et mes espoirs pour les demains et les lendemains. C'était vrai? C'était juste? Tu m'as dit Un, deux, trois...notre temps a passé.

Et quelle dommage, n'est pas? Que nous nous pouvons pas vivre sans condition, sans responsabilité. Quand quelqu'un me demander je veux répondre

Because it is never enough. It is never, ever, ever enough for me to just say, "it's time to go home now." Home may be in exile, as I tell my friends, but exile always was a relief; not becuase it was easy, but because it was hard. And every moment, the weight of every moment, felt like the load of eternity that rests on Atlas' poor shoulders. Each decision gave birth to or executed potential: the sweet possibility of something...something...else. Else-where. Else-whom. Else-to. Else-from.

Reconciliation in Camboodia

My dear friend and college in the Division of Global Affairs Doug Irvin's most recent project on reconciliation, forgiveness, and change of heart in Cambodia:

If reconciliation is a grassroots process, as Linton (2004) and Lederach (1997) argue, it follows that reconciliation will occur through local idioms that are salient and meaningful to the people who must reconcile. Reconciliation will operate through local cultural models. It will flow through local values, beliefs systems, and cosmologies.[i]

            What does reconciliation mean? The etymology of the words for "reconcile" in English and Khmer is particularly important to pay attention to. The Latin root of the English word reconcile is conciliare, meaning "to bring together." In Latin, the prefix "re" was used as it is in English to mean "back," but it often expressed intensive force. Thus the Latin word reconciliare would have meant "to bring back together through force." The noun form of conciliare is concilium (from con-'together' + calare 'call'), which meant "assembly." Concilium gives English the word council. We thus have an etymological cluster around the word reconcile that suggests that restoring relations between people requires bringing people back together in dialogue through the advisory, deliberative, or legislative bodies that preside over social life. It is little surprise that many of the Western reconciliation models begin with a speech act held under the auspices of a deliberative body: a confession in a truth confession. Nor is it surprising that truth and reconciliation commissions from South Africa to Argentina have emphasized the public admission of guilt. The first speech act is then to be followed by a second speech act: the verbal acknowledgement of forgiveness. 

             The notion that reconciliation begins with the confession of guilt does not necessarily translate into the Cambodian context. The way of expressing reconciliation is kar phsas phsa, which means "the act of healing" and a "change of heart" that reunites people divided by conflict (Linton, 2004; Rodicio, 2001: 126).[ii] Literally, kar phsas phsa means "reconnecting broken pieces" (Ciorciari and Ly, 2009). This notion of "changing of the heart" and "reconnecting broken pieces" differs from the connotations of the English word "reconciliation." As the former monk Heng Monychenda, founder of the group Buddhists for Development, put it: "Forgiveness is not the only step in reconciliation — the first step is that you want to start doing good acts" (quoted in Linton, 2004: 76). In Cambodia, reconciliation begins with living life in a good way, peacefully and compassionately, then demonstrating the acknowledgement of guilt and forgiveness through deeds and actions.

            The social value of midwives in the reconstruction of Cambodian society can be fully appreciated when one understands how important notions of reincarnation and rebirth are to the way Cambodians think about the order of society. As Max Weber pointed out nearly a century ago in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the norms established by a culture's cosmological beliefs can transform themselves into so-called "secular" patterns of social organization and human behaviors. The argument can be extended to Cambodian notions of reconciliation, where Buddhist (and Hindu) cosmology transferred into Cambodian notions of social order (Hansen 1988; Sam, 1985).

            Much of Cambodian society is ordered around notions of reincarnation, where the birth of a new baby is seen as potentially the rebirth of previous family members. The people who were victims or perpetrators during the Khmer Rouge period are destined, eventually, to be reborn into the world through a calculation of merit and demerit that is beyond the scope of any one person to completely identify. In daily conversations and interactions, Cambodians will often speculate about the soul of a newborn infant — a particular aunt or uncle reborn into the family, perhaps?[iii] Buddhist social and political thought conceptualizes the cosmos (society and the universe) as operating in constant concentric decay-then-rebirth cycles, where individuals die and are reborn into a human society and a world that are themselves going through decay-rebirth cycles. This directly impacts the way Cambodians think about reconciliation. Rather than expressing social reconciliation in linear terms through tropes of "progress," Cambodians will speak of reconciliation in circular terms, emphasizing the notions of decay and reformation. The logic is often that Cambodian society crumbled during the Khmer Rouge regime, during which time many died tragically; but now is the period of rebirth.[iv] 

            In English, the word generation embodies the concept of begetting, procreating, or "generating" new life and new families. The cluster of words — generation, generate, genuine, genesis — connote "beginnings" or origins. Each generation of a family or society is a continuation of the one that came before it; but, nevertheless, each generation is distinct and consists of newly generated individuals. In Khmer, generation is translated as chum nann and denotes the same thing as the English word generation. Etymologically, chum nann encompasses the concepts of "---" and "—." Unlike the English word "generation," however, chum nann connotes a sense of "re-birth" or "re-generation." Social reconciliation — where social harmony is restored — ties into Cambodian cosmological beliefs of decay and rebirth cycles. The post-conflict generation is seen not as a new beginning, but as a reemergence of the society that decayed.

---

[i]Studies on how societies commemorate the past are particularly valuable for demonstrating this point. For instance, as Heonik Kwon demonstrates, Vietnam came to terms with the absolute destructiveness of the "American War" through a collectively held eschatology that actively determined the actions of Vietnamese people. In Vietnamese cosmology, Kwon writes, a grievous or unjust death entraps the soul, preventing it from moving on to the other world without external intervention, and forcing it to remain in a state of perpetual violent agony reliving its violent death perpetually. The right of the dead to be liberated from the violent history of death is inalienable, Kwon argues, and the protection of this right depends on the secular institutions of commemoration taken up by the living. The dead become vital political actors, in so far as they (or the belief in them) compelled the living towards specific actions (Kwon 2009 – get permission!).

[ii] The "change of heart" isn't as strong as changing from hate to love. Rather, kar phsas phsa usually denotes the ability to live peacefully side-by-side again, without strong anger or strong hate.

[iii] In June, after only one month of Khmer lessons, the co-author of this article Douglas Irvin walked into a small shop in Phnom Penh. The owner began a conversation and quickly began to ask questions about his lineage and birth. Although Doug is an American of European heritage, he looked like her daughter, (who we'll call) Tola, she said. Both Tola and Doug were born only a few days apart, in October 1982 — three years after two of her cousins (a brother and sister) died at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. The mother believed it was a suitable amount of time for the reincarnation of the two souls, and decided that the Tola and Doug were likely brother and sister in our past lives, that they were her cousins. She has suspected Tola's soul was that of her cousins, but she had no proof. That we both were university graduates who studied art and literature — and that she was beginning to learn English and he Khmer — was the proof she had needed. Her belief was confirmed when she learned that Doug was studying the Khmer Rouge history. She called Tola, now married with her first baby recently born, to come downstairs and meet Doug. Fate had brought him to the shop, she said. And she told him to tell his mother that she would pray for her and bless her, to thank her for bringing the soul of her older cousin into the world.

[iv] Skidmore on Buddhism and belief in decay

Public Housing and Art

Art. Activism. Public. Housing.

http://www.plannersnetwork.org/publications/2005_Fall/leavitt.htm

Mir-Arab Madrassah, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Photographs from The Design Observer Group

Limits

Limits

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure) That I by now have walked for the last time Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws, Sets up a secret and unwavering scale for all the shadows, dreams, and forms Woven into the texture of this life. If there is a limit to all things and a measure And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness, Who will tell us to whom in this house We without knowing it have said farewell? Through the dawning window night withdraws And among the stacked books which throw Irregular shadows on the dim table, There must be one which I will never read. There is in the South more than one worn gate, With its cement urns and planted cactus, Which is already forbidden to my entry, Inaccessible, as in a lithograph. There is a door you have closed forever And some mirror is expecting you in vain; To you the crossroads seem wide open, Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus. There is among all your memories one Which has now been lost beyond recall. You will not be seen going down to that fountain Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon. You will never recapture what the Persian Said in his language woven with birds and roses, When, in the sunset, before the light disperses, You wish to give words to unforgettable things. And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake, All that vast yesterday over which today I bend? They will be as lost as Carthage, Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt. At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent Murmur of crowds milling and fading away; They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me. Jorge Luis Borges

The Magnetic Fields--I Don't Really Love You Anymore

I Don't Really Love You Anymore

True, I'd give my right arm
To keep you safe from harm
And true, for you, I'd move to Ecuador
And I'd keep a little farm
Chop wood to keep you warm
But I don't really love you anymore

I don't have to love you now if I don't wish to
I won't see you anyhow if that's an issue
Because I am a gentleman
Think of me as just your fan
Who remembers every dress you ever wore.
Just the bad comedian
Your new boyfriend's better than
'Cos I don't really love you anymore.

There'll be someday when your eyes do not enthrall me,
I'll be numb but realize you'll never call me.

'Cos I've read your horoscope
And now I've given up all hope
So I don't really love you anymore
'Cos I've read your horoscope
And now I've given up all hope
So I don't really love you anymore.

Borders and Links

The Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics and their amazing online journal:

http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica

Also check out the work of Teddy Cruz, architect extraordinaire from San Diego.

http://www.publicspace.org/en/text-library/eng/b020-from-the-global-border-to-the-border-neighborhood

For the revolution:
http://subtopia.blogspot.com/

http://www.deconcrete.org/

http://www.publicspace.org/en/text-library/eng/b020-from-the-global-border-to-the-border-neighborhood

Strange maps:

http://atlasobscura.com/

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/

California As the World:

I couldn't help but sit here and wonder about the squareness of the buildings; of how architecturally and geometrically sound they are.

Oddly enough, downtown LA has become the city I know with the confidence and fluency with which I spell my name. I am astounded. I had no idea that this would be the place I know-the place I care about.

I found a garden and a grassy knoll on the third level of the Citi Group building leading to the top of Bunker Hill. For a moment it seems as if I have found an oasis in the Moroccan desert; the last treasured spot left in the city. As the knowledge creeps in that I am being watched by some all-knowing eye, i decide to rise up in defense. I will act as if this space were mine own despite the prying eyes and fast approaching dawn. For this balmy and breezy, almost fully mooned night, I'll pretend as if I really did find that oasis.

I stare up at the great monuments of glass and steel as if they were the Sierra Nevadas with their ancient austerity and natural magnificence, for buildings and great mountains are not much different. Neither makes sudden movements. Both are intricate and dominating: over powering. And both were forged out of a power beyond the myopic sight of one woman. They remind me of where I stand and what the world is capable of creating. I wonder (looking up) if the architects knew their buildings would be so straight.

I felt the Santa Ana winds for the first time tonight. I felt them, at first, as I was walking out of my care late this afternoon in Torrance. Quite windy, I thought, might not make it as pleasant to be outside. It was hotter downtown. I broke into my third apartment opening all the windows, letting the hot winds blow and clack my vertical white blinds. I slowly inhaled my orange-blossom flavored beer, wondering if I needed a real meal, and pondered acting on my desire to call him. I'd toyed with the idea all day after waking up from a vivid dream overwhelmed by his presence. It's difficult to for me to ignore these dreams; they seem to penetrate me deeper than the sting of reality. I woke up at seven in the morning with a desire for him deep in my bones: desire for the man I had always imagined him to be. I was covered in him and couldn't wash him away from my thoughts for the entire day. I battled with calling him. For what reason? I thought. What would I say to him? Come here? I need to be around you? I simply don't know.

As I was reading the hot winds swept through my windows, wrapping the thin hairs around the base of my neck gently about my face; teasing me. Enticing me to do something. I called him. He answered. Then, afterwards, I picked up my guitar and love him as I never have before. He suddenly felt soft and deep. Warm and distant. I let my fingers and the E string hypnotize me for a good thirty minutes. I made him loud so everyone in the street below could hear his cries, and I made him cry softly, falling down to an ending strum.

When I walked outside I felt the hot gusts blow up my legs and caught a full view of the large moon glowing above the city. Fire wind, full moon. this must have been why I woke up so early, so moved by the shadows that touched me in my dreams.

Friday Night in Philly

I have been back and forth between the coasts of this country for the past 3 weeks. What I am left with is an overwhelming urge to make something again, or rather, to comment on/engage with everything that I have seen, experienced, and been moved by since the beginning of it all.

Most recently I landed in Philadelphia, a city I was incredibly surprised by. Ever since I can remember I have been chasing the city of my dreams; the city that I remember I dreamed before I understood the difference between waking life and that of deep somnambulism. The narrow streets and 3-flats of the Phila streets took me back to this place I remember. The proximity of residents to the streets evoked that feeling of home, the one that eludes me despite how many streets I walk down in the middle of the night. Around every corner were monuments to men and moments that exist in the far corners of my memories from high school American history. Statues and gardens helped make bearable the sweltering heat that forced rivers of salt and water out of my pours from 9am until late into the evening. I'll admit that I licked my shoulders at one point, curious as to whether or not I tasted like Mediterranean sea salt or just good old-fashioned Morton Salt from Chicago. The result: neither really, just odd looks from the people walking by me on the sidewalk.

I was lucky enough to come across a small break-dancing circle off of South Street while I was dining at a fabulous middle-eastern restaurant. A band was setting-up in a blocked-off street just off South when we sat down for dinner. After ordering our meal (and a bottle of wine from a man on a cell phone who assured us that his delivery boy could bring us a decent pinot noir) this jazz band started playing. Or rather, a 13 year-old-boy started soloing on the drums like a seasoned pro. He just took the lead for a good 5-7minutes or so, drawing in a crowd intrigued by his ferocious rhythm and rather small stature behind the drum-set. After finishing his solo intro, the rest of the band came in with a funk-jazz sound that drew in a few dancers. As the young men began to dance the bassist turned-up the funk, giving the young men (not women) a solid bassline to get down to.

Black, Asian, White--all young--took to it on the street. On their hands and backs as well as up in the air, these boys threw-down like nobody's business. As they got hot, a crowd began to form around them. It was sparse at first, but filled out after the first 10minutes, without a space left by 15minutes into the street performance. The crowd cheered them on and held out their digital cameras and flip-cams to capture this joyous moment on a hot summer night in Philly. As the crowd thickened the moves got flashier: one kid on his left arm, body up in the air for a full 30seconds which seemed like hours, another kid throwing windmills for a good minute or so, and the crowd eating it all up.

A good 30minutes passed until it all finally died down. The boys moved on and the crowd lingered as a young lady from the street took to the mic to perform and impromptu "At Last" for the last remains of the sidewalk audience. Little by little it died down. Within the hour the band had reached their limit and the street moved on. But for a moment there, all of Philly seemed to radiate out of the soul of that street corner. That is why she'll always have a special place in my heart.