Tosin Otitoju: 'Lovebirds' (2016)

I. Lovebirds. Poems by Tosin Otitoju (2016) in three sections. This is a new book, Tosin’s eighth. Format:

A TRUE STORY (20 poems)

TWO ANGRY BIRDS (10 poems)

THE LOVE MOVEMENT (25 poems)

From my perspective as a reader, these are some of the vivid tropes and themes in  Lovebirds: technology; social media; business; mirrors; gods; angels; God; marriage; luck.

Permeating Lovebirds, there is a refined testimony of ancient, enduring human themes mixed with contemporary technology and ongoing concerns.

A few poetic samples from longer poems:

“Wishes and Horses”

Everything points to a need for a merger

To save on duplicating auras on twitter . . .

It’s good to be wise, better to be lucky.

(pages 23-24).

“Feedback”

I see in you a blur

 instead of your face a ghost

   question-marks, answers,

     hypnotizing laughs.

. . . black-magic or test-the-spirits

       angels here with us.

(pages 26-27).

“Sometimes You Need”

Misery loves company

And gravity needs distance.

(page 42).

“When the Boat Hit the Rocks”

There comes a point

when you start to yearn

for the simple complexity

of city life.

(page 43).

II. Questions & Answers. Q = me. A = Tosin. 

Q: What is it about mirrors?

A: Mirrors for some weird reason. I'd actually meant to do a whole collection of poems either directly about mirrors or indirectly by writing a poem and an opposite or something like that. I later decided on Love and a couple of other collections to come...mirrors are more abstract...you try to hang a commercial project on mirrors and...I don't know, Nigerians know love and maybe have less time for you to explain that the topic is mirrors - nobody wants the headache. If you want more people to love you(r work), try Arithmetic over Differential Equations. :)

Q: Lovebirds is timeless, but also of the contemporary tech world. What kind of impact does tech have on love and social relationships?

A: In this collection I hoped to do love and romance, but I'm delighted that it also had an interesting setting, namely, tech. So it's romantic, but it's robotic.

Tech is a thing masculine and robot-like, which would seem to be the opposite of romantic. It's physics, chemistry, planets, science, feedback amplification, bits/bytes/packets/cyber, twitter.

By the way, Janelle Monáe did androids too in her music, a whole album titled The ArchAndroid, and that's specifically why I had the guts to choose "Android Love" for the title of the poem I placed first. I think of this as the "overture" introducing the opera, the robot opera.

Q: How does business figure into Lovebirds?  And other systems?

A: Another example of the hard-edged - calculations and robots - in what should be soft and romantic. I mean, in the realm of love, who thinks of mergers and cost-savings, hedges and insurance? Then again, who doesn't - I mean who doesn't among people who think in these terms about almost everything else?

And once you discover that there are planetary systems with multiple suns, won't your love poetry or even your mythology shift to include this image of a "two-sun dance"?

And if your work includes experiencing or understanding positive feedback loops, when you then consider thoughts feeding on similar thoughts, or an image feeding on its mirror image, or two people sharing synchronized feelings, won't you deduce or imagine resonance, system overheating, heightened excitement, or that screeching noise from the microphone-with-speakers?

In summary, at the center of this collection is a love, mystical, old-fashioned, yearning, and poetic. Yet in the poems we find hints of academics, mathematics, technology, science, business, and so on. For example, there is the "Definition" which feels quite formal to me, like something I would do in math and I presume others would do in law for instance - begin a study of a thing with a precise definition and logically go through a proof, examples, corollaries and the rest. I adore this definition of love. I tried to get it in Wikipedia but some gatekeeper kept rejecting it. That was annoying. I'm expert enough to provide a definition of love! I get annoyed with things like this. It would take another page to explore and explain the annoyance.

Q: In several of the poems, there is an interesting interplay between different ways of perceiving reality. For example, gods and God are mentioned, angels, ghosts. Do they all exist simultaneously in some kind of dreamscape?

A: There's a bit I'm not saying about the angels, ghosts, and shall we say more mystical experiences that inspired this love and parts of this collection.

2015 or so, I told my good friend (an ex, naturally) that I was in love with someone online even though it was not an affair and there was no actual talking and how very psychic everything was from day one. I was amazed that he understood.

In public, I won't talk like that for fear that they still lock people up in mental institutions - do they? I also told a very young friend (a veritable cool kid, some sort of art student, teenager, in university abroad) and he understood too. He said, oh, you mean subbing. Apparently, young people did that all the time - relating privately on social media through subliminal but public messages. Then they collectively dumped twitter and moved on to...what was it the youngsters moved on to? Instagram? SnapChat?

Let's just say this: I am very thankful to the muses for this work, and very thankful to one major muse - wink, and thankful to God, and to ... I usually don't write acknowledgement pages because it's so impossible to truly pin down all the major inspirations for a work. I don't feel as psychic today as I did in those days, and I think it's because this work is done?

Aside, there's a child that lives in my compound, who's back today from two weeks away at Grandma's. I wish I had the talent to write about her - the way her voice makes me feel. It rings like a bell. She talks simply all the time, and I simply die of happiness at her enthusiasm. Oh I love the other kids as well - the one that just learned to talk animal talk to invisible friends, startling her mother, and the littler one whose voice I haven't found yet, although sometimes she cries, and now she calls my name when she sees me.

We had a lot of additional kids here for the holidays - some boys for a change hohoho. Anyhow, I pray one day for the talent to explain the beauty that is her excited talking. She was just shouting something now, I think they were making play-food and she was inviting the others to eat.

Q: What’s next?

A: [See this link]: I'm still writing. 

Note: We did a Q & A session in 2011 that is available in two parts. One of the topics was the beauty of Yemen, but this is too painful a topic to revive here, given the ongoing war and its catastrophic impact. Maybe we can speak of it down the road, when peace is brokered.

October 10, 2011: Interview with Tosin Otitoju, Part One.

October 11, 2011: Interview with Tosin Otitoju, Part Two.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Freedom of Assembly in Action and Contested

The Occupy Wall Street movement -- or civil uprising -- has been unfolding for a couple of months now, spreading around from NYC. It's mostly peaceful. Responses have been mixed. Legal skirmishes have been ongoing -- city ordinances, permits, tents, parades, signs, police raids, social media, celebrities, writers, bread and circuses. It's gone global.  

So far, compared to simultaneous protests in Syria, Yemen or Somalia, there has not with the OWS movement been much violence from either direction. Compare, so far, to the 1960s -- when there were countless bombings, assassinations, and numerous instances of police and vigilante brutality.  Around the OWS happenings, constitutional rights are more or less intact and well-defended. But it's a big game of hit or miss so far. Some of the protesters are goofy, and some of the "official" response is heavy-handed at the local level. I dread the possibility of vigilante violence.

My impressions are not strictly from the perspective of a distant observer. I have participated directly if moderately, carrying signs, talking with OWS people, giving encouragement, that kind of thing.

It's clear what the movement is saying: social priorities are important and they are presently askew.  Improvements can and should be made. It's really that basic. The message is more important than the messengers, or even the tactics.  

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.    

Tosin Otitoju Interview, Part II

Erik's Choice (EC): You’ve lived in Nigeria, the USA, Egypt and Yemen. Your next poetry collection (Yalla! / Let’s Go) was inspired by your stay in Yemen. What is it about Yemen? Do you have any comments about the tumult that’s going on there right now?

Tosin Otitoju (TO): Yalla! has poems from several places - Nigeria, America, Arabia.

What is it about place -- place matters. Humans can move. When one place sucks, you move and guess what? End of tyranny or the particular problems of that place. It describes place, takes the reader to some places . . .

What is it about Yemen? It was the most special place I had been. It was a preserve of something pure, less average. In other countries, the copying from other cultures is so much that new experiences are rare. Here, newness was all around. Love the architecture, lessons for us about choosing functional designs, lessons in attention to beauty. Then I did really feel such happiness, such release from being somewhat depressed in California. I can't imagine not being a little depressed in California. Hot summer days were much better. I did like the food and restaurants. I once had a sunny boyfriend. I did many happy things. But in Yemen I was the complete opposite of depressed.

The tumult -- Yemenis will often fix Yemeni society. Yemen is not about the USS Cole or whatever intersection with US National Security. Sad that for now the economy must be suffering. Proud that they are fighting for something better. God let me go back, Amen.

EC: Nigeria has approximately 155 million people and is about 50-50% Muslim-Christian and also about 50-50% urban-rural. Lagos has some eight million people, fifteen million in the greater area. Nigeria’s population will probably surpass that of the USA in the second half of the 21st century. What is Nigeria’s ideal place in the world? What is your ideal place in the world?

TO: I can't verify the data; I won't be surprised if the US has better data on Nigeria than Nigeria. :) Ideal is what we want it to be and for many Nigerians it would be a return to good values (kill corruption, for instance); respect among nations (living up to the name 'giant of Africa' for instance); wealth (and it's not going to come from oil, it's going to take work, at least some large and efficient structures/organizations, attention to the minimum/the poorest, increased access to capital). I think Nigerians are irritated that we fail so much, when we think we ought to be winners.

My ideal place: I still want to travel. I still want to honeymoon in Yemen (assuming I marry that Rafa character, lol). I learned from Caltech to see work as central to a person's life. This is a little bad, perhaps, but in life I want to be where I'm doing the important work that I must do. This instant it's in Nigeria (in a writer's residency - see? we have one . . .) but I'm considering California again. Variety rocks, so yeah I want to do the Morocco/Turkey axis with its colours and spices, but also the beach -- which Nigeria has, but also the black -- in Africa, Cuba, wherever, but also the Louvre and the cold, the wealthy, the old, the run-down, the natural. I want to see my old friends, I want to hovel in my little room, I want to go on the cheap, and I want to do Monte Carlo in expensive style. Is there enough time to live all these lives? Hmm, maybe I should be an actor, lol.

EC: Can you say something about the different groups such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Edo? And the role of OPEC and oil and gas production in Nigeria?)

TO: On Oil and Gas and OPEC - Nigeria fights the so-called "resource curse." For a while now, this distorted our economy, too easy to rob the nation at the center, too easy to ignore every other possible source of income, when you have oil. Cool story: illustrates.

On ethnicity: So many languages. Three are said to be major, but is it really three? Or four?

The North, with predominantly Hausa and Fulani speakers reminds me of Arabia; it's the more Muslim half of Nigeria. I felt at home up North but many Southerners don't see the value in going to the North. I am from the South, in the Yoruba region, i.e. I speak Yoruba. We like to stereotype one another. The distinct groups are still large and important, but there is quite some traveling and inter-marrying so we're not free to really hate one another. There is a system of government in which we try to make everything equal, regionally speaking. It insures against civil war, although some would say it slows down our development.

Cool story: here on stereotypes; and a sad story on the worst of our follies: here.

That writer (former colleague, amazing work) also wrote this.

I've got to rearrange, edit and publish it someday, he's so damn lazy, but it's clear that he has a real insight into our miscommunication across tribes.

Endnote: I've dated a few Nigerians finally but never dated a straight-up Yoruba guy. The closest I've got were mixes. But most Nigerians, even in faraway countries or in mixed cities/universities/environments, seek out exclusively their own ethnic group.

Today's Rune: Movement.  For more, please also see here.

Jean-Luc Godard: La chinoise, Part 1

Jean-Luc Godard's La chinoise (1967) beautifully presages the worldwide socio-political upheaval of 1968 and the subsequent havoc caused by radical splinter groups in the 1970s. It follows the French Aden Arabia cell, a Maoist group, as it moves from theoretical discussions to acts of violence. Not quite "radical chic" in the way Tom Wolfe would deride wealthy patrons of radical causes in 1970, nonetheless the cell members seem half-baked in their ideas (they barely have any understanding of what they're doing), and are presented at times as unintentionally naive and comical. "What's for Monday?" "Crime and politics."

The cell's name derives from the British-Yemen War or "Aden Insurgency" of the 1960s and a Paul Nizan novel. The US-Vietnam War is also prominent in their discussions. Group members are pro-Chinese because they feel the Soviets have become too "revisionist," whereas Mao and his regime have remained "pure" to their Marxist-Leninist ideals. "There are two communisms." Only China's version is worth espousing. They form a "combat group" and determine to either attack the university with bombs to force its shutdown (aiming to kill professors and students) or assassinate a visiting Russian official. One member is expelled from the group for advocating peaceful co-existence. 

Godard's ubiquitous placement of Mao's Little Red Book (Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung) is really inspired (dare I see genius?) Cell members randomly quote from copies of it, carry them around, pass them out like Bibles, create symbolic barricades out of stacks of them (used memorably in a mini-play about the US-Vietnam War), and so on. Overall, the riot of red and other basic colors is impressive, and it's difficult to refrain from smiling at the absurd accompanying "Mao Mao" ditty. With La chinoise, Godard scores again.

Today's Rune: Gateway.   

Jean-Luc Godard: Pierrot le fou

Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965): one of the strangest variations on Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise that you may never ever see. It deconstructs and reconstructs itself from opening image to the FIN that never comes. As in the Big Lebowski, there's even bowling. "Allonsy, Alonzo! / Let's go, Daddy-O!"

What's it all about? The arc: a cross-country flee spree sparked by the chance repeat meeting of Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who is married with kids and bored, and Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), a past flame and femme fatale, at a party that unfolds like a series of advertisements.

Godard's imaginative stirring of "reality" and "surreality" with literature, pop culture and museum art is weird enough to inspire dreams in primary colors, the palette of this movie, which has the breadth of a novel, albeit a Postmodern one replete with hyperlinks. Godard as prophet, torchbearer and time traveler.  
 

Snippet One:

Ferdinand: Too much going on. There's a little harbor like in a Conrad novel.
Marianne: A sailboat, like in Robert Louis Stevenson.
Ferdinand: An old brothel, like in Faulkner.
Marianne: A steward turned millionaire like in Jack London.
Ferdinand: With you it's always so complicated.
Marianne: No, it's simple.
Ferdinand: Too much going on. Two guys beat me up like in Raymond Chandler . . .

Snippet Two:

A woman can kill lots of people easy. Full breasts and soft thighs don't mean she can't kill everyone to remain free or protect herself. Just look at Cuba or Vietnam or Israel.  

Finally, let's not forget other allusions to the Vietnam War, to Yemen and Lebanon, and brief scenes -- spookily contemporary in the twenty-first century -- of waterboarding and a suicide bomber. Yes, dreams will come forth, and perhaps nightmares, too.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Egypt: The Widening Gyre

In interpreting what's going on, it may be useful to know the relative population sizes of the various countries in the greater Middle Eastern region and beyond. Otherwise, it would be as if California was given the same relative weight as Wyoming, or New York the same as Rhode Island. There are differences -- everything is not weighted equally. In fact, world news coverage is often quite skewed in other directions for cultural, political, economic or other reasons.

Demographics/population

Tunisia: 10-11 million
Egypt: 80 million
Israel: 7-8 million
Libya: 6-7 million
Lebanon: 4-5 million
Syria: 22 million
Jordan: 6-7 million
Saudi Arabia: 20-26 million
Iraq: 31-32 million
Iran: 77 million
Turkey: 74 million
Somalia: 9-10 million
Sudan: 44-45 million
Ethiopia: 85-86 million
Algeria: 35 million
Yemen: 24 million

The largest populations of those listed above:
Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Algeria.

The smallest populations of those listed above:
Tunisia, Somalia, Israel, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon.

What will happen if the Tunisia-Egypt convulsions ripple throughout the region?   Should those in power in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan (etc.) be nervous?  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.   

International Arab American Fest Double-O Seven

Great fun and people watching at the International Arab American Festival 2007 in East Dearborn, Michigan today. It continues through tomorrow and, Insha’ Allah / God willing, I may check it out again, and also check out the Arab American National Museum at 13624 Michigan Avenue since it's open on Sundays.

Dearborn, a city of about 100,000 located just west of Detroit proper, has a population of about 30,000 Arabs and Arab Americans, mostly Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi and Palestinian. Security was reasonable and unobtrusive, though some of the corporate sponsor booths, Army, FBI and translator recruiting stations seemed a little too forward for my tastes. Maybe I didn't want to be so brazenly reminded of the various interconnected conflicts in the Middle East today.

The variety of people and dress, rhythmic music and tasty food offset many "mainstream" representations of things Arabic. The highlight for me was nearing the main stage just as Lebanese singer Dominique Hourani undulated her way through several songs. A mesmerizing performance -- and she is much prettier in person than in any of the photographs I've seen of her.


Today's Rune: Protection.

Birthdays: Giovanni Boccaccio, Jean de Thévenot, Adam Smith (Julian calendar), Geronimo (Goyaałé), Jack Albertson, John Howard Griffin, Faith Domergue, Erich Wolf Segal , Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Van Ark, Valerie Mahaffey, Lauren Ophelia Metcalf, Femi Kuti, Adrienne Shelly (Levine), Clifton Collins, Jr. (Gonzalez-Gonzalez), Tupac Shakur, Nehir Erdoğan.

Where's the Beef?

There are two things we Americans hold dear to our hearts: TV and mobility.

Sick of all the smoke, mirrors and general b.s. about all the changes in the works, I did a little research and came up with a few essential facts according to the latest policies.

Traditional analog TV broadcasts will end "no later than February 17, 2009." This means that everyone who wants to watch TV in the USA will need to convert to digital TVs or have digital converters within the next two years. I'd wait until they make us do it in 2009 or later (if there are political delays).

New passport laws: According to the U.S. State Department (verbatim):

Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air [emphasis added] between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document, or an Alien Registration Card, Form I-551, if applicable.

As early as January 1, 2008, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda by land or sea (including ferries), may be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security. While recent legislative changes permit a later deadline, the Departments of State and Homeland Security are working to meet all requirements as soon as possible. Ample advance notice will be provided to enable the public to obtain passports or passport cards for land/sea entries.

Finally, here are the State Department's places to avoid. Notably, Cuba is not on the list, though you're still supposed to sneak into that colorful country via Canada or Mexico or elsewhere. And we can't, ridiculously, legally buy Cuban cigars, even though Detroiters can safely smoke them in Windsor or anywhere else in Canada. Too bad the Loyalists didn't win back in the day. We might now have a multi-party system and a truly representative parliament if they had instead of a bogus two-party farce. And the right to smoke the best cigars in the world in our own homes.

Iraq and Afghanistan are on the list. I wonder of any of the Poor Bloody Infantry have pointed this out to their commanders, and with what success?

Current Travel Warnings

Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department recommends that Americans avoid a certain country. The countries listed below are currently on that list. . . . .

Lebanon 12/22/2006
Algeria 12/20/2006
Central African Republic 12/19/2006
Saudi Arabia 12/19/2006
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 12/18/2006
Côte d'Ivoire 12/18/2006
Nepal 12/08/2006
Pakistan 12/05/2006
Chad 11/20/2006
Syria 11/13/2006
East Timor 11/01/2006
Sri Lanka 10/23/2006
Yemen 10/13/2006
Iran 10/10/2006
Sudan 10/05/2006
Uzbekistan 10/04/2006
Syria 09/14/2006
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza 08/29/2006
Iraq 08/28/2006
Nigeria 08/24/2006
Kenya 08/10/2006
Haiti 07/07/2006
Burundi 06/23/2006
Afghanistan 06/22/2006
Philippines 06/16/2006
Eritrea 06/05/2006
Somalia 06/05/2006
Bosnia-Herzegovina 03/30/2006
Liberia 03/30/2006
Colombia 01/18/2006
Indonesia 11/18/2005

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Bon Voyage -- if you're allowed to leave the country.

Mass Myopia

The news, dear readers, is myopic. Take one variable: population. The following are sample national estimates for 2003 (in millions) taken from UN sources and from The Economist. How should we suppose these estimates will change over say, the next fifty years? It's good to keep some perspective for our viewfinders.

China 1,304.2
India 1,065.5
USA 294.0
Brazil 178.5
Pakistan 153.6
Russia 143.2
Egypt 71.9
Turkey 71.3
Ethiopia 70.7
Iran 68.9
France 60.1
United Kingdom 59.3
Italy 57.4
South Korea 47.7
Spain 41.1
Sudan 33.6
Algeria 31.8
Canada 31.5
Morocco 30.6
Uzbekistan 26.1
Iraq 25.2
Saudi Arabia 24.2
Afganistan 23.9
North Korea 22.7
Taiwan 22.5
Yemen 20.0
Syria 17.8
Kazakhstan 15.4
Portugal 10.1
Somalia 9.9
Tunisia 9.8
Israel 6.4
Libya 5.6
Jordan 5.5
Georgia 5.1
Lebanon 3.7
West Bank and Gaza 3.6
Armenia 3.1
Kuwait 2.5

If one glances at the bottom of the list and compares the figures with recent headlines, one can see that when the Israelis lose nine killed in action in one day of fighting against Hezbollah guerillas, it is comparable to the U.S.A. losing about 450 troops K.I.A. in one day. So far, the U.S. has suffered about 2,570 K.I.A. and nearly 19,000 W.I.A. in Iraq in the last three years. The Israeli Army is facing an intense foe and are finding themselves in a nasty little war. The Lebanese have suffered worse than the Americans did during the 9/11 attacks by far in the last couple of weeks, proportionally. We'll see what happens next; but meanwhile, let's not lose sight of the rest of the world. There's a lot more going on than Israel and Lebanon. And just wait until 2025 or so, if we make it!

Hasta La Vista!