on total artwork and abundance

diss diary #4: i watched the j lo "movie"+doc and have feelings

Dear Weed-ers,

I have been adjusting to being in Boston again yay! During my first week back, I gave myself plenty to do, including:

• meetings! One was a 2-hour meeting with my advisor (this is normal for us lol). These are always scarier to think about than to actually do because she is so generous with her time and encouraging words. I also had meetings with friends who I’m organizing events with and/or share my research interests. And I also got to co-work over Zoom with another friend of mine who I haven’t been able to work with because of the time difference, and it felt sooo good to be with them again.

• getting reviewer comments back about my article. Fortunately, they are positive and very doable! I have about 2 weeks to integrate changes and write a response outlining how I’ve addressed the feedback.

• organizing a summer reading list. I am feeling really motivated to read this summer and have compiled a hefty source list. I also reached out to a couple folks to see if they’d be interested in reading some of those books with me, so I’m excited for that to start next month!

• end-of-the-year department gatherings. Weirdly, all of them had a taco bar as the main catering option. So maybe the cowboy caviar that I meal-prepped was overkill? What can I say, I love black beans (sorry, Da).

taken on my last day in Paris, where I spent the morning working at one of my fave cantine caféinées called On Partage

All of this has gotten me thinking about how much I have learned — and I mean, really forced myself to learn — to value working with people. I was always the person who, for any group project, contributed inequitably more than my groupmates. It made me resentful, though I’m not entirely sure of who. Realistically, I was probably annoyed with myself, but it manifested as frustration with other people.

I am slowly coming out of that, though. Partially because I have experienced the bouts of loneliness that accompany academic life. But I am also seeing that no great things are ever really done alone.

Roomie and I recently had a quiet Saturday where drizzly rain kept us cozy and dry with puzzles (me), a Switch (her), and crochet (both). Around dinnertime we decided to keep the proverbial good vibes going and watch a movie. Our options were Dune, Inception, or the Jennifer Lopez’s stab at a Gesamtkunstwerk with her visual album-movie-music video project. Now that I’m thinking about it, all three films have that total synthesis integration of plot-music-drama etc, though.

But I’ll let you guess what two Harvard musicologists who love camp and absurd humor opted for.

There are a bunch of reasons to be frustrated with what, on the surface, seems like an ambitious attempt to mythologize the vague contours of J. Lo’s tumultuous love life. I’m sure many of you have seen the clips of Ben Affleck’s ever-exasperated demeanor in the documentary, of Lopez’s disbelief that someone couldn’t be in her movie because they were in a *literal* wedding, or even of the amazing dance sequences choreographed by Luther Brown and Paris Goebbels.

She believes that the project could get people to believe in the transformative power of (romantic) love. But I came away with really different lessons about life and art-making than she probably intended. Which — isn’t that the cool thing about consuming art anyway? The multiplicity?

left: cherry blossoms on Mass Ave and Marlborough // right: a fascinating puddle somewhere on the Camberville border

The movie exposes the truths we all know about how the rich and famous remain detached from knowing how to use their wealth to actually change the world in materially meaningful ways.

And there’s another lesson about being realistic about why we do what we do: was this really about changing the world through the power of love, or was this to grab a piece of the media pie? Not saying it can’t be both.

I feel a little embarrassed to admit that I was in awe of how she fiercely backed herself. Like when all the major production houses declined to fund her project, she just said, “Fuck it, I have the money, let’s do it anyway.” She didn’t wait for gatekeepers. It’s the stuff of Amie McNee’s mantras about self-coronation, giving yourself permission to pursue what feels delusional or out of reach, or allowing room for failure and experimentation. (The post linked below is from a free masterclass Amie gave on being delusional that I attended and was really inspiring!!)

inspiredtowrite

A post shared by @inspiredtowrite

Maybe I’m jealous about not being able to bankroll my dreams. But I can easily let go of that frustration because there’s nothing in the immediate future that I can do about not having the money or clout behind me.

Maybe I’m annoyed that yet another conventionally attractive woman gets what she wants, even though the documentary that I’m sure she thought would prove why she and the project were valid really did her no favors.

I think we’re getting somewhere now.

I like to think I’m a nice person, if nothing else. On my birthday in first grade, I wanted to throw a party for the entire class. We all painted clay pots and filled them with purple and yellow pansies; everyone had a gift to take home. In fifth grade, I was told I was too nice because I was friends with some of the outcasts and always shared my school supplies. When I was President of my college choir, I sought to make sure that if people had no other friends, at least they could talk to me after rehearsal. I don’t think it’s a vain thing to say that I, like so many others, work hard to just be good, to be a pleasant person to be around, to live out something of a good life for myself and the world around me.

What really got me about the whole J. Lo thing was not necessarily the out-of-touch-ness of it all. That’s definitely there. Let me share a ramble from my journal on Sunday morning as I was working out my frustrations:

people with millions of billions of dollars don’t need to be delusional because…well, they already are. the kind of delusion that artists need, the everyday artists who are struggling to live creative lives at all is just permission to do something that feels silly and risky. writing 200 words a day is not risky, it’s literally not harming anyone. it’s only 30 minutes of your life everyday. that’s the kind of radicality we need, not this absolutely blind forcefulness forcing of things that maybe don’t work…

but gah maybe it’s the sense of not collaborating that gets me. i’m in this phase where i want to be radically collaborative and generous […] i’m not interested in associating with people who have no desire or interest in collaborating or working on a team with people in genuinely meaningful ways. because that’s how we can really change the world, by learning to work with people instead of hoarding ideas or making everything we do about the individual instead of the connections between people and the things they love. the individualist mindset bores me.

It’s the fact that no one in the documentary seemed to know what was going on, or why she was embarking on the project, or, in some cases, even bother to perform excitedness to be on set. What kind of creative life is it where people are not eager to engage with your work?

Sure, she didn’t wait for gatekeepers: but at what point do you become a gatekeeper? At what point does your responsibility shift away from self and toward community? At what point do you become the person responsible for opening things up for other people?

The thread I’ve been trying to pull is about collaborative notions of art-making. Perhaps because I spent so much time by myself in Paris, and will embark on a new Parisian journey next year, I am feeling this need for community. But I’m thinking beyond the need to ensure that I have a good social circle around me. If we’ve arrived at this Anthropocene, last-stage capitalist moment because of hyper-individualism, how can we re-write the stories about how we should live together?

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Intentions

I’m thinking about how to be more radically collaborative.

Writing is sometimes lonely, but that’s not the part that bothers me. It’s the parts around writing that I want to revamp. I want to become someone that people want to work with and are inspired by, and I want to work with people who inspire me! I want to try my hand at more co-writing! I want to organize mini conferences and roundtable gatherings and host dinners that bring people together and help us ideate freely! I want to do more creative parallel play aka hobby hour with friends new and old! (hmu if this would be of interest!!)

I’m thinking about how to be more radically generous.

My TikTok feed is full of people hacking the app’s Creator Fund to raise money for victims in Gaza or to pay off medical debt, and this is one sense of radical generosity that I’m doing my best to participate in. But more than financial generosity, I want to live more abundantly. Obviously I don’t want to run myself into the ground or give myself to people who won’t reciprocate. But I want to let go of the scarcity mindset that tells me to hoard ideas for fear of them being stolen, or makes me give excuses about not having time, or makes me complacent and nihilistic in other ways.

My horoscope reading on May 22nd told me to “send flowers.” So I bought flowers for the apartment and love the playful mess of this pairing.

I can’t help but wonder how the J. Lo diptych would have been different had she tried to interpolate her perspective of love through a deeper, more collective understanding of relationality. Or if she had supported up-and-coming actors rather than celebrities of her ilk in that mismatched astrological roundtable. Or if she had listened to the advice people like Jane Fonda or her own agents gave about strategizing around the storyline, rather than just blindly pushing forward with her vision as the Author.

At some point along the way, she became one of the powerful people. It was painful to watch her embrace a victim label without realizing the opportunity she had to use her power more equitably so that she wouldn’t have to feel burdened by being in charge of literally everything. I’m sure everyone got paid, but that’s not the point. It takes more than money to satisfy the thousands of creatives who worked on her project.

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My intentions to live more generously and more collaboratively are guiding how I spend my time this summer. My therapist told me very early on that anger/frustration are signs of boundaries having been crossed or that something needs to change. So I guess my conflicted feelings about the films around the release of the This is Me…Now album helped clarify where I want to be headed and that I’ve been in need of some change.

I used to dread summer because all my friends were out of town while my parents worked, and Atlanta summers are cripplingly HOT.

Today, though, despite the arrival of 80-degree temps, I feel like I’m on the edge of something great. I’m ready to sip iced matcha on my balcony while I read, and I’m ready to chip away at writing projects that have been spinning for years (not an exaggeration). I’m ready for the switch-up already underway, just like I’m ready for farmer’s market berries and peaches. I’m ready for all that connection and vulnerability and abundance babyyyy.

Thx as always for your eyes and ears!! <3 If you’ve seen the movies, I would love to know what you thought. I’d also love to chat about power, prestige, and collaboration in the comments! And if you’re feeling generous, share with a friend, upgrade your subscription, or feel free to leave a one-time tip!

The next post from me will be a travel diary from the trip my mom and I took together in April! We had a really nice time together, and it was such a gift to be with her on her first European adventure. After that will probably be an installment of my mini-series I’ve called “sprouts,” which includes short book reviews and journal peek-throughs. So many exciting things on the horizon after that!

bien cordialement,
Cana <3