what are you calling the world?

I made it to Denver.

I'm visiting my friend Steve Kelly. He's a Buddhist priest in the process of converting to Judaism. The local rabbi gave him a list of instructions - what being Jewish looks like. The first thing on the list was to support the nation-state of Israel's right to exist. I'm not trying to argue that Israel has no right to exist. That feels heartless. What does supporting a nation-state's right to exist look like, thousands of miles away in a Denver studio? What does it have to do with the work of finding god? One thing I imagine: it could be a metaphor that you believe there is a space in the world for you, your people, god.

I've been listening in the car, to a lecture series on 20th century democracy. The woman - I don't remember her name, blonde, she lectures somewhere near San Diego and there's this canned clapping that starts each of the lectures that puzzles me every time I hear it - she says that the nation state as the standard for political unit became institutionalized in a new way at the end of WW1 in the Paris Peace Talks (Here, the Charter for the League of Nations was ratified because Wilson believed, "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.") This was in January 1919. She says that close following this meeting, April 1919, there was a large demonstration for independence in India where a British commander ordered soldiers to fire point blank into the crowd until the bullets ran out, the Amritsar massacre. She says a gesture of recognizing self-determining nation-state as sanctified next to a gesture of denying the right to express the desire for nation through extreme brutality - colors the lived experience of this word (nation) in the 20th century. The promise and the denial on the same breath.

Is there space for all of it?

We journey to the Denver Museum of Modern Art. The museum has an exhibit on Africa where they are looking at ways of re-framing Africa as a place in the world intimately connected to the US. Their curatorial strategies include placing artifacts in unconventional cases - they don't feel like looking through a window, they are shaped to create a feeling of vertigo - like the object inside is hurtling at you. They include artist names or "artist unknown" for all pieces. Art by someone who makes art. Not natural history. They have chairs where you can sit and listen to African music or American music influenced by African music (jazz, gospel...) while you spend time with art. They have a video on the rituals involved in making - some piece - what is it- ruining. story. ah! - also, they have contemporary pieces next to older pieces - like the one in the photo above - a tapestry constructed out of the tops of liquor bottles. On the whole, a useful project respectfully executed. Although to be honest, I think a little tame in its demonstration of interconnectedness. It's still a little African room in a giant modern art museum.

A woman overhears us deliberating on restaurants for dinner and asks for a recommendation. Turns out she too is driving across the country - from SF to DC. We exchange cards. Maybe we will meet again.

We go to Blockbuster which is selling bags of candy in the form of fake blood and we rent a movie with Keanu Reeves about good and evil and saving the world and it snows. It snows in May.