{"id":2029,"date":"2012-01-16T23:15:23","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T03:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/?page_id=2029"},"modified":"2024-12-26T13:53:17","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T17:53:17","slug":"the-bling-of-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/the-bling-of-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bling of Sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The Bling of Sustainability, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/bling_diagram1-590x399.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3055\" title=\"bling_diagram\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the clearest autumn night, in the 8<sup>th<\/sup> Ward of New Orleans, long after the horizontal rains of Katrina and Gustav, the precipitation is the lead of a gat 9 Glock: \u201cpoppoppop-pop\u2014pop-pop\u2014poppoppop.\u201d A staccato riff delivered into street party crowds confounds DJ Baby Boy\u2019s remixed \u201chammer hammer hammer.\u201d The unequalized, contrary rhythms are background to a screaming stream of adrenaline athleticism, a frantic race on this crumbling asphalt track of a road between streets named Music and Arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police lockdown and the lamenting, open, unedited howls of a mother cannot shake the brooding silence of eventual retribution that hangs out on the corner of the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In some other worldwide corner you can download the lowdown on \u201csustainability.\u201d It\u2019s a jewel-like Venn diagram of interlocked translucent orbs labeled in primary hues of <em>SOCIAL<\/em>, <em>ENVIRONMENT<\/em>, and <em>ECONOMIC<\/em> that yield complementary-colored in-betweens of <em>Bearable<\/em>, <em>Equitable<\/em>, and <em>Viable<\/em> and a gray-matter core of <em>Sustainable<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That being said&#8230;back to this corner in New Orleans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What bullets swept away in the night, trash talk replaces, and laughter peels away the yellow tape. Grandmothers with strong wit who will carry the new child through great generations make a courageous stance in the day. And with the help of mouths of the south at least a <em>Bearable<\/em> love is available and audible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this unrepaired, flood-wrecked, poverty-and-drug-dosed neighborhood, discover the other gray ore. Lead of nano scale in the soil, micro bullets industrially made and traded on stock exchanges, yielded great wealth to a few but is now stripped into dust by time or by labor, from old house paint, or spit from exhausting autos as tetraethyl lead. It is mined by a baby\u2019s lung or child\u2019s hands and is conveyed through blood to be locked away in the bone and brains. Here it will confound education\u2019s promise and complicate the body with a lifetime of elusive health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where the magnitude of environmental injustice is figured with the math of hurricane destruction, for those without options to flee, tragedy roots deeper and deeper into humid and heavy air, where a beautiful culture defiantly clings thick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here <em>\u201cSustainability<\/em>\u201d is a flawed bauble, an imperfect luxury for those who can afford its <em>bling<\/em>, or an exclusive delusion for those who can even consider it an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>originally published in Public Art Review, spring\/summer 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bling of Sustainability, 2009 On the clearest autumn night, in the 8th Ward of New Orleans, long after the horizontal rains of Katrina and Gustav, the precipitation is the lead of a gat 9 Glock: \u201cpoppoppop-pop\u2014pop-pop\u2014poppoppop.\u201d A staccato riff delivered into street party crowds confounds DJ Baby Boy\u2019s remixed \u201chammer hammer hammer.\u201d The unequalized, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2029","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8798,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2029\/revisions\/8798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}