Tiny Violences
Blind Items pt1.1
Hello!
For some reason this Wednesday’s Tiny Violences’ didn’t make it out into your inboxes. I blame:
White Supremacy
Sleep deprivation
Bonus: delayed embarrassment at the vulnerability of it all
Either way, here’s the full version of Tiny Violences that I wanted to share last week but didn’t because I am human, and tired and a wee bit self conscious… I wrote about that here.
Your Guess is as Good as Mine
Out at Dinner
Which Mexican American creative director with geometric silver rings on brown cylindrical fingers sat down to dinner:
and spoke, uninterrupted, for three 15-minute intervals about his work, his vision, how he tells stories for brands,
who assumed (incorrectly) who he was talking to and what she does,
and tells the aging white woman, with freshly bleached blonde roots, who happens to be the president of two multinational streetwear brands that I don’t want little janitors, when he shares, he didn’t understand what his children were learning at their Montessori school?
On the Scene
Was the beanied-bearded-white-male at a venue of a very cute queer function, the cocktail waiter, the bar back, security or something akin to all three who:
first admits 7 Black patrons to the back patio of the bar – only to hover within inches of them hugging and greeting their host to reminded them loudly that they must leave the backyard because they’re too loud for the neighbors?
Glared at the host all evening, except (to turn his head completely away) when holding the door open for her to leave said the backyard.
Interrupts a conversation between a host and her friend to say was it you who needs to close their tab at the bar, despite the host never once going to the bar?
Was Where are those glasses of yours that I love so much? offered instead of a “Hello,” in the study of a home-as-fashion-show-venue, from a woman who had, just months earlier, delighted in conversation and photo taking?
From the Ivory Tower
That’s just how my mother speaks, so says the stringy-blonde-hair-vacant-blue-eyed white woman who’s appearance comes into sharper focus, as caricature, every time she adds exotic and darker ethnicities to her litany of alleged cultural heritages (formerly Russian, Polish, then half Black, half Mexican, half Kiowa, half Apache, later Indian) after being asked why she used the word Hispanic 17 times in a written and then recited scene. Did she mention that her grandfather was mestizo; after her proclamation: Yes, that’s right, my grandfather used the word nigger.
Who doesn’t tell the caricature that she knows the opening lines of the recited scene have been plagiarized from the TV version of the Equalizer starting Queen Latifah?
Did she include any quotes for the (approved) application to teach high schoolers during the summer and Ivy League creative writers in the Fall?
Can you guess which boxes she ticked off on the Ethnicity questionnaire?
Can you guess which middle-aged white Canadian born ex-standup comedienne/rapper and now writer gets a tattoo on her face 18-months after (unsuccessfully) correcting a Lower East Side native about the famous rappers from her hood (none)? Did she really say: When I lived in Brooklyn in 2013 I hung out in the Lower East Side and there are several rappers from there and dozens of hip hop songs about the place. Was it she who stared out into space, silently after being asked to name one verse?
Can you guess whose father was the portly white man in his late 50’s wearing the busy tweed sportscoat who asks How do you fit into this whole thing? only to attempt to correct any answer (to the ambiguous question) offered to him by the Black woman he was just introduced to?
Did he know to which extent she was aware of his financial turmoil?
Who asked to meet him?
(to the ambiguous question) offered to him by the Black woman he was just introduced to?
o Did he know to which extent she was aware of his financial turmoil?
o Who asked to meet him?
From the Comforts of Home
Whose neighbors in their Harlem landmarked building finds the time to invite their building’s newest incoming tenant, who happens to resemble many of the progeny of the old-timers, to thanksgiving dinner in their 4-bedroom River-facing apartment but forgets to recognize their esteemed holiday guest:
In the elevator,
In the lobby,
By the elevator banks in said lobby,
At the main entrance of the building,
By the mailboxes,
As they wait for the elevator on their shared floor?
How many times did an uptown resident stroke his downtown neighbor’s orange faux fur jacket after noticing her nice jacket as she enters the confines of the elevator? Can you guess how many times he may have washed his hands before pawing the garment on the woman he greets usually with eye contact and tightly pursed-lipped smile?