h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I finally got word that I am going to be a participant in The Skin Project: http://ineradicablestain.com/skin.html

I have been waiting for over a year to get a responce and, within a few weeks of each other, I got the scknowledgement of my application and a "wait and see" notification, and then the acceptance.

I am so excited.

That is faintly disturbing, even for performance art.

I'm not sure why anyone would find it disturbing. Tattoos and tattoing aren't everyone's cup of tea, but this isn't like getting a tattoo of a snake on your @ss or something.

I found it realy fascinating.

When I applied, I had to provide an explanation of why I wanted to be part of the project.

This is what I wrote ....

"I would very much like to be part of your book.

I have three tattoos, each with special significance to me, and all done in the last four years. Since the year 2000, when I divorced, started on a quest to find my family, began a spiritual quest, and finally began a quest to "become myself", I have marked each process with a tattoo. However, I have been waiting for something with which to mark my recent "process".

I should say that I had previously heard about your book, but did not fully understand what it was about. This evening, when I saw a program about tattooing which talked about your project, I knew what the inspiration for my next commemoration.

After spending so many years erasing myself in order to please others, the last 4 years have been about withdrawing and gaining knowledge about the me I barely knew. Recently, however, I have begun the process of connecting and appreciating the interconnectedness of all humanity. As a Unitarian, I accept and affirm the interconnectedness of all living things; that, as human beings, we are all equal; and that all living beings have dignity and worth.

More and more, I have come to understand and appreciate the diversity and sameness of humans. We all have commonalities and we all have differences. I have learned to celebrate both things in the people I encounter.

Your project really made an impression on me. Firstly, I am a writer of sorts and have lived and worked with books for nearly 25 years. Currently, I work in Indian Residential School Resolutions, deciphering old documents. For me, words are concrete, and yet transient. Some of the documents I read give cold, hard facts detailing finances, outlining plans, defining laws and regulations.

Others explain, complain, wheedle, order, and obscure.

I find it fascinating to read, for example, a letter dismissing a complaint about the lack of proper food or harsh treatment with "You know how Indians like to complain.", that we, today, would interpret as racist, offensive, and obviously criminal, would, 75 or even 50 years ago, was understood as exoneration.

I look at a documents that lists absences or truancy from school, and see the connection between the conditions in the schools and the lengths of the lists.

I don't need anyone to tell me what would to cause two pages of students to run away from one school in one month, the list of names is enough. To me, words can be beautiful in their simplicity, but they can also be horrifying in their absence.

A single word, on its own, can mean nothing. Yet, it can also be awesomely profound. Likewise, many words together can mean nothing and everything.

What I find particularly striking about your project is that a single word can be interpreted by every person who sees it in in infinite number of ways.

Even the person who is the word, the people who eventually "are" the book, and you, will interpret each word, and the whole book differently. In a way, the words, the book, and the people who wear and become them, are metaphors for themselves. Just as we can never know the "true" meaning of the words, but rather, interpret what we understand the meaning to be, we cannot truly know and understand the "true" person who wears the word. Like the word, we must interpret the person through our own life experience, perceptions, mores, and prejudices.

By participating in the project, each person is doing so for their own reasons, with their own moral and spiritual beliefs, and each will give and take away from the experience a different understanding of what the book is, and what their role in it is."

so where is this tattoo gonna go?

Depends on what the word is.

Like what you wrote - I think I understand the project a little better now.

What I found disturbing (not criticising the project, just a little worrying) was the idea of the people who made up the book dying and being 'erased'. But I think I get the idea now.

What you said about the documents relating to the reservation schools mirrors what I've been finding the last few weeks, as I've been helping edit an online catalogue of artifacts for the (US) National Museum of American Jewish History. The student interns thought the spreadsheets were boring, but I found them full of fascinating glimpses into other lives.

Yesterday, I learned about Mickey Cohen, the gangster, and a Mr Blumenthal, who was born in Germany and fought in the Franco-Prussian War before running a store in Philadelphia. Today, I found out more than I wanted to know about Leo Frank, who was lynched in Georgia.

So, with your project!

That is interesting...

My ex's grandmother was born in New York City, on W63th Street, where the YMCA now stands, and her father was a German glove salesman working un New York. Her mother was, apparently, not married to her father. We were never sure but we believe they were Jewish. Gussie knew nothing about her parents, really. Just before WWI, her father went back to Germany, as he did frequently, and never returned. Her mother died when she was I think 6 and she was raised by the minister of the church around the corner on Central Park West at 69th, Holy Trinity Lutheran.

They always supected that the father actually had a wife and family in Germany, as well as a family here.

The only thing about her father that she could recall was that he had a hosre that he would take her riding on in Central Park.

I just received my "word"....

I am going to wait until I have it done before I unveil it for everyone.

Hope it's a cool one and not just "the" or "a".

It isn't...

isn't a cool one or isn't "a" or "the"?

isn't an "a" or a "the"...

A very appropriate one for me. I WAS worried it would be "fat" or something...

I am going to get my tattoo done this afternoon...

Depending on the cost, I may have another 2 done at the same time. With any luck I can afford it.

Well, the other two will wait for next month.

In the meantime...

http://mudhooks.blogspot.com/
(George has me wondering if I shouldn't run off and become a bike-bunny....)

I had my nose re-pierced at the same time.