Impressive to write a scene in which a character shits himself is actually a scene of hopefulness. Very funny, too.

A Tribe Called Red – a take on the famous act A Tribe Called Quest who were hip-hop – so it’s a Native American take on DJ music but using the name of a more famous act. Strange identity issues wrapped up in that – their song Stadium Pow Wow is pretty good.

He tells her everything that’s on his mind, everything he’s angry and upset about but she seems to just brush it off as if it’s not a big deal for him having no social life, no job, no father, and getting fatter everyday.

That’s a lot of education trying to find an identity. A lot of searching.

He sees himself in what he thinks is his father’s face – but he also sees himself as a monster that has gotten fat.

This is also the first mention of the Oakland Pow Wow from Tony’s story.

“Does what we try most to avoid come after us because we paid too much attention to it with our worry?”

He’s talking about losing memory, about how the internet is like the media that will be the new shared cultural memory that is curated by whoever is running the servers. “Remembering is becoming old-fashioned”.

Unlike Opal who had no home, Edwin hardly ever leaves his room – but they are both isolated from the world.

Huh, The Picatrix is a real thing – I though he just made it up. So is he comparing the internet to the sacred grimoires of the ancient past? The internet is sort of like a shaman guiding you around to tell you what you need to know but at the same time filling you with shit that will eventually have to be sucked out of your nose with a tube in the hospital.

Is this a full of shit pun?

His addiction is the internet, of trying to connect to anything other than his own life. IS a virtual space a ‘there’, is there a there there in the virtual world?

Cancer is a theme of this novel, cancer and sickness in general, be it Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, cancer, anxiety with depression, more cancer. Everyone’s bodies are giving out or they are at war with their own bodies – but the spirits in the bodies are strong, like the people who occupied Alcatraz (like Richard Oakes). So Alcatraz was sort of like the sick body that the spirits were trying to revive.

Her mom was laying like that because of cancer – stomach?

“She told me the world was made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about stories” – she’s right. Everything is a story and reality gets to be whoever tells it. In their case their reality is at odds with the US government, is at odds even with the white kids who make fun of their names in the schools.

There in the weird space where the adults want to make a stand and teach the kids about their heritage and past but the kids just want to go home and watch TV and, well, be kids. It’s like the kids know that this is all a lost cause, that all they’ve done is occupy somewhere people only wanted to escape from.

“You gotta know about the history of your people. How you got to be here, that’s all based on what people done to get you here.”

Names again, this time it’s Two Shoes talking about how teddy bears got their names but also how the media made it seem Roosevelt had been merciful but actually killed the bear the teddy bear was inspired by.

Interesting to willingly want to go occupy a prison. And I like how the two girls are having fun sleeping in the cells and eating beef stew. But what a crazy life it would be dragging your kids to something like that because you’ve really got nowhere else to go.

Her mom leaves the eviction notices up to claim she didn’t see them, then they all sit on the bus as if they don’t know each other.

I like how she isn’t sure if Bear Shield is supposed to be a shield bears use to protect themselves, or a shield people use to protect themselves against bears. She doesn’t understand her name and feels burdened carrying “that big old name around”. The kids don’t even change it to make fun of it, they just say the whole thing because it sounds funny to them.

The power of names. The “old Indian names” were changed to the white names “to keep the power with the dads” – but for Opal the dads are all gone – at least after they abuse her mother.

Beautiful scene of him pointing the camera at his mother as she mourns the death of her brother, Lucas but does not look through the camera, he looks away, lets the camera do all the real looking which he’ll then only look at reflected on a monitor. There is a great distance to there from here.

Guns as violence; guns as cameras.

“I know this means a lot of editing, a lot of watching, and a lot of listening, but that’s just what our community needs considering how long it’s been ignored, has remained invisible” – and it’s interesting he will remain invisible to make the project.

Interesting how the one person to be skeptical was the other Native American, was weird and fascinating to see that tension there (there).

I like the playing with the expression “There There”. In the Radiohead song it’s almost like it’s about “there” always being somewhere else (as in ‘over there’) but not here. There is also the false comforting expression of “There there” we say when we don’t have anything to say to someone who is distressed, and then the Gertrude Stein sense in that there is no there there, it’s gone.

“I’m sick from dying” is a good line – and he relates that to life in general where “time has us”. Granted this is a pessimistic view, but it fits his Uncle who is dying and has been dying his whole life.

Interesting play on the idea of medicine with “Some medicine is poison” – obviously alcoholism and drug addiction is often associated with Native Americans, but it is a real threat.

Dropping plates and having characters look at the broken pieces on the floor as a representation of their shattered lives is cliche. I mean, I get it, but c’mon, man, this was sort of unnecessary.

The confusion about the scripts is interesting in that it sort of ties back to Tony’s story where Indians are on TV (scripted entertainment where nothing was real or accurate) or, if it’s a transcription, it’s an attempt to set the record straight, but also by turning it into entertainment. It’s a weird blending of reality and unreality, fact and fiction, truth and fiction.

Lucas’ movie idea is actually really good, especially how he leaves the room after he’s asked the interviewee the question about how they wound up in Oakland so that he doesn’t get in the way of the story. Is this where Dene gets the idea since this story of Lucas is told in a flashback?

The lyrics from Radiohead’s “There There” say “Just cause you feel it / doesn’t mean it’s there”, and that “We are accidents waiting / Waiting to happen”. I can see why Dene might like this song since there is a hint of paranoia in it but also an anxiety of our lives being accidents and that something, anything, might happen and that “someone’s on your shoulder” either watching you or it’s you judging you.

Dene Oxendene seems anxious, low self-esteem, and needing something the ease him (drugs, weed) but nothing satisfies him. He’s hyper aware of how people see him in that he know how to not get the attention of people who might question him, “Whatchyoulookingat”. Though this is typical for anyone in the city to look without looking, he seems nervous about all of it. The city might not be the best place for him.