you know where to find me

why i love the internet

breakzqueen — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:58:26 GMT

one day each year i am reminded why the internet was invented & what its exact purpose is. that day is today: my mother's birthday. may 2nd sneaks up on me every year which puts a daughter like myself, living half-way across the globe, at a severe disadvantage. the story repeats itself, as seasons tend to do: april comes and goes, and before i know it may 1st arrives like a cruel time-bomb, ticking the hours down to mom's birthday. in fact, it usually already is my mom's birthday. but as quickly as the hint of panic comes, so it goes away. because, like last year and the years before, i search the web for flower delivery in the southern Dutch town of Breda. and yet again, without fail, the order in my universe has been restored: one long-stemmed rose for each year she's orbited around the sun. happy birthday, mom! ============================================== "Mom was a world all her own... We were a quality of landscape, Mom and I." --Scott Bradfield, The History of Luminous Motion ==============================================

Kelly's Birthday Wish

breakzqueen — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:51:14 GMT

Please support my fundraising efforts for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Kelly lost her father to pancreatic cancer 2 weeks ago. He had been diagnosed only 4 months ago. Think about that for a moment: 4 months. 4 months is a flash. Many of us have been unemployed for longer periods than that, have traveled for longer periods than that. Think about a semester in college. We're talking a very short period of time. I can't even imagine what Kelly, Brad and Emily have gone through these past months, having to say goodbye to their dad in such a short amount of time. I'll be joining Kelly on her birthday for a fundraiser walk, in memory of her father: Mike Blanchard. Please stop by my fundraiser page & join us if you want to, donate if you can: http://tinyurl.com/cf6qob Thanks for taking the time to read this. Much love sam ps: http://mike.linedef.com

TONIGHT! ANON SALON goes all Dee-Lite-Fool @ Whisper

breakzqueen — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:17:57 GMT

ANON SALON goes all Dee-Lite-Fool A BeautiFOOl Departure FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008 @ Whisper 535 Florida St. (@ Mariposa) in SF 9pm-4am! They Serve Food as Well! Suggestive Donations: $10 before 10:00 /$15 fOOlhearted/ $20 alOOf Dress elegant, whimsical & even romantic http://www.anonsalon.com/april08 =================================================== downstairs 9:00 - 11:00 - Roy McNeil (Organik Music) - http://www.youtube.com/organikmusic 11:00 - 12:30 - Kid Whatever (Portland) - http://www.myspace.com/kidwhatever 12:30 - 2:00 - Lazy $lave (Flowbotics/ Anon) - http://profile.myspace.com/slavelazy 2:00 - 4:00 - Laird (LUSH/Ultra-Video Lounge) - http://www.djlaird.org upstairs 10:30 - 12:00 - Maer (Psyphy Machine, OEM Radio) - http://www.oemradio.org/ 12:00 - 1:30 - Shissla (House of Lotus, pARTicipate) - http://houseoflotus.tribe.net/ 1:30 - 3:30 - Samira ( SisterSF, Seismic ) - http://sistersf.com/bios/samira.php deck.. 10:30 - Michael Olsen Flamenco Guitar 11:30 - Vatra (Firespinning)

TONIGHT! Third Annual FLIP YOUR LID!

breakzqueen — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:04:19 GMT

Third Annual FLIP YOUR LID! Black Rock Arts Foundation Benefit THURSDAY, APRIL 17th 6:30pm - 2:00am (there are 3 parts to the evening; see below) at supperclub 657 Harrison Street (between 2nd and 3rd) San Francisco Here are the full details: http://tinyurl.com/3fouqu Smoove and I will be tag-teaming from 1-2am. Let me know if you want to go & I may just put you on my guestlist ;-) BOOM!

Fri. 04/11: Break Beat Booty @ Temple, feat. Autobots, Carbon Community, Sister SF & more!

breakzqueen — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:01:36 GMT

I hope you're ready to dance all night, because Temple has an all-star lineup planned for Friday's Break Beat Booty. The Autobots bring their bumping basslines and funktastic breaks while Carbon Community drops his glitched out, live breakbeats that you've come to love so much. Sister SF residents Melyss, Samira and Seraphim join Icon, Paul Hemming, Tone and DJ Von as they rock the rooms at Temple. (http://www.nitevibe.com) Event: Break Beat Booty DJs: The Autobots, Carbon Community, Icon, Paul Hemming, Melyss, Samira, Seraphim, Tone, DJ Von 3 rooms of dope sound | 21+ w/ID | 10PM-4AM TEMPLE 540 Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94105 Info & Presales @ www.templesf.com $10 presales available @ eventvibe.com/templesf $15 @ door

Words

breakzqueen — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:48:28 GMT

words accost me when i need them most. words strangle me when i want to be unstrangled. untangled. words silence when i wish to speak. the rest gets played out in metaphors. (history relies upon dissonance, upon discontinued familiarity, a fading into metaphors: the substitution of book for body; the colors that remind of him; the sounds that have become her) metaphor: to substitute one thing for another. something vanishes from your life, and thus you fill the empty space with symbols. like a song that reminds you of someone, or a street name, a number, a certain time of day. things that are important to some, not to others. arbitrary concrete signifiers, with which we attempt to fill the vacancies in our lives.they are not the things themselves, but rather the memories they represent. i struggle with words, because i cannot trust them. i know how unreliable language is; i speak too many of them to still believe in some absolute truth. culture shapes language. experience shapes language. also, language shapes us. i have learned that language itself is not truth. i have learned that everything outside of language is truth. and sometimes i still hate the fact that language cannot be pure. i hate that words are untrustworty, yet i rely on them so much. metaphor: to substitute one thing for another. i see language as one of the most pervasive metaphors in my life. i substitute language for all the sacred things in my life that i cannot express. like love. like sadness. and this is why i write. ================================================ the magician ================================================ You continue to watch the disappearing act, Determined to catch this moment between visible and gone. The rabbit is gone. Soon another. A pigeon dipped-blue nosedives into a scarf And it is gone. The silk square with it. The woman is gone, of course; she was a pretty brunette, You already know this, just as you remind yourself how you’ll remember her When you see a face with a similar complexion. Over and over it will come, The magician as awestruck as you, He can’t believe it either, As pettingzoo goats, potbellied pigs, Carousel herds vanish from his stage. Finally three grown elephants. Perhaps you’ve heard that he does not sleep anymore, the magician, because one night he woke up to his answering machine flashing, and a voice that said "I no longer love you. And please return my things to their original state. Return the swallows to their canvas and silence my violin. I long to play it myself again. Please return my pillows to their normal size and take the bananatree away. Fruit cannot be grown in diningrooms." He’ll let you in for free if you bring your videocamera, If he may borrow your tapes, and he will watch them all. He will rewind them, pause them night after night, he does not blink, Because like you, he can’t believe it either, That somewhere between his gloved fingers hums a system that is beyond him, The blossoming of being into absence, And the reason why, Over and over again, They are not the things themselves but the departed spaces that seem more real. --sam ---------------------------- image taken from a Paul Van Dyk album cover: Words

Tomorrow 3/19: Qool vs Sister SF!

breakzqueen — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:33:11 GMT

From www.qoolsf.com Qool vs. Sister SF The SF underground scene would not be the same without the amazing Sister SF DJs. Lineup: 5-6pm Amber 6-645pm Silencefiction 645-730pm Samira 730-815pm Icon 815-9pm Gil 9-945pm Jondi 111 Minna Street @ 2nd Street San Francisco 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM Free before 6pm. $5 after 6pm., 21+ Hope to see you there!

Gratitude

breakzqueen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:32:57 GMT

at this exact moment i am grateful for: * a good night's rest last night, which helped me kick ass today * finishing up my 2007 taxes * staying on track with building my new savings account, putting away 20% of my earnings each paycheck * my job, my colleagues & the growth we're experiencing * kelly, who just plain rocks my socks off--she's such a wonderful friend * my relationship with todd, from which i continue to grow and learn * todd, who continues to crack me open with his tiniest of gestures * my colleague chris, who left the company last friday after 6 1/2 years-- his absence this week really crystallized for me how important it is to love your job: over the past 4 years i've spent more time with some of my colleagues than with my family and even some friends. we spend a large percentage of lives at work. please do something you enjoy! * my cat. she is perfect. * mateo, for knowing where to find me. * belen, for reaching out & being so wonderfully up front and open in her communications (whether it concerns beer & pizza, or deep and personal matters) * luscious (no particular reason. she just makes me happy) i know there's more, but this is a good start. sam

Can you recommend a travel agent? And: who has been to Iceland?

breakzqueen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:04:40 GMT

i want to go to Iceland! i've been obsessed with the idea of traveling to Iceland & it's going to happen this year. who has been to Iceland? tell me stories! give me advise! also, who can recommend a travel agent? i want to visit my family during the same trip, so this will be a multi-destination affair & i realize i do not have the patience to do the flight searching/booking myself. i just want to go to Iceland :-) thanks for any help. sam

the grace of others (Part II)

breakzqueen — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:22:53 GMT

since this has been a really neat experiment, i'm reposting. see: http://people.tribe.net/breakzqueen/blog/4b916988-ed01-4f60-ba27-d6a882c8aecf lets call it a meta-meme: & how else to withstand the enormity of such burden, the burden of sight, but to believe that there can only be the grace of others? Danetta & Belen made me smile this week. so here you go: reply to this blog & i'll tell you why you make my world a better place to live. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you're permitted to copy, distribute, display and perform the contents of this blog entry, as well as make derivative works based on it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the grace of others (spiral, viral, meme)

breakzqueen — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:16:16 GMT

& how else to withstand the enormity of such burden, the burden of sight, but to believe that there can only be the grace of others? Danetta & Belen made me smile this week. so here you go: reply to this blog & i'll tell you why you make my world a better place to live. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you're permitted to copy, distribute, display and perform the contents of this blog entry, as well as make derivative works based on it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

today

breakzqueen — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:10:31 GMT

"Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want one who pretends that you are faultless--one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her." George Sand, Intimate Journal, 1834

Don't forget! Thur. Dec. 27th: Thirsty with DJs: Amber, Denise, Samira & Missao

breakzqueen — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:32:10 GMT

Thirsty (Every 4th Thursday) Beginning December 27th With Resident DJs: DJ Amber DJ Denise Samira dj Missao Your favorite house, techno, and breakbeat sounds including original track premieres. Venue recently renovated including new sound and DJ gear. Come on out! Matador, 10 6th Street, SF 10pm - 2am No cover. 21+

Tonight! BASS LIBR:ATION

breakzqueen — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:45:00 GMT

Pronoia presents BASS LIBR:ATION Saturday, 11/24 ESKMO (Vertical Sound / Cyberfunk / BassRock / Downbeat) DJ ICON (djicon.com / Sister SF) MOZAIC (Nexus) KAPTN KIRK (Space Cowboys) ALXNDR (DownLow) RAYDEUS (Pronoia) SAMIRA (Sister SF / Seismic) JIVE (FiX) JONBOY (Dubalicous) OBI-J (False Profit) PIETER RIZEN (Pronoia) Location: Anon Gallery, SF Check www.pronoiasf.com on 11/24 for address, if you don't already know it. 10 pm - 5 am $10 presale (go to www.pronoiasf.com) $10 before 11:00 $15 at the door after 11:00

Mateo captures 5th and Howard

breakzqueen — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:29:24 GMT

http://people.tribe.net/thearchitect/photos/ccdbab8d-0caf-457e-9874-711b024de62e From Mateo's album: "I wonder what the sorry was behind this… it was in a plastic bag I removed. Dropped or thrown on the street? Was it dramatic?…was it forgetful? Perhaps it was ordinary…or not so ordinary…. A brief moment captured on the street scape." this picture speaks to me on so many levels. but for me, its most important message is the fact that you posted it. that you captured it in the midst of yet another 80+ work week. i’ve been watching you burn the candle at both ends for months now: even living with you, all i mostly see is that you leave for work & you go to sleep. this snapshot signifies your perseverance and strength: even at the height of this crazy rat-race, sacrificing yet another saturday to the firm, you saw a thing of intrigue. you stopped. you captured it. you shared it. i’m impressed. and i’m smiling. love you

Tomorrow! Come to Stockton with us!

breakzqueen — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:44:33 GMT

November 16, 2007 8:PM the Stockton Breakbeat Alliance Strikes Again! Our schooled and learned diplomats have searched far and wide (mostly the Bay Area) to bring you two DJ's that you should check out and dance your ass off to. The other one's from Stockton and keeps putting these things on. 1) Samira (Sister SF/Seismic) is a DJ of epic ability and following. You should feel so lucky to catch her set. 2) The Arhitect: precise, bass heavy and just right now! 3) your own 3r@in (Perpetual dB) is from Stockton and is itching to get some bass waves to your brain...from his brain that is! So Come on down to the Blackwater Cafe from 8-12 and dance your rear end off!!!!! The Blackwater Cafe 912 N. Yosemite Ave. Stockton, CA

Operation: Declutter, part 1

breakzqueen — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:12:43 GMT

About 6 weeks ago I decided to tackle a few small projects, which rapidly turned into a mission to simplify my life. I have been purging. I mean, I have really been purging stuff, and it feels great. Clothes My closet (my “proverbial closet”, since I don’t have an actual closet) was by far the easiest area of Operation Declutter. And that’s why it was also the first area I really focused on. Strategy Before I started I gave myself one simple guideline: What haven’t I worn in a year? I’m not talking 3 months, or even 6 months—I’m talking one whole year. I didn’t want to spend too much time trying to figure out whether I might wear a certain item at some point. If I haven’t worn an article of clothing in the past year, chances are pretty high that I will not wear it ever. Despite the fact that said article is in as good as new condition. Within 20 minutes I managed to downsize my closet by 50%. I filled up 2 large garbage bags: 1 was trash (stained, beyond repair, too worn out), and 1 was to be donated. Socks My sock situation was truly out of hand. I know, how bad can a sock situation be? All I know is that my ratio of single socks to pairs of socks was beyond astronomical. I would do a load of laundry, wash all my dirty socks, and somehow only manage to find 5 pairs of socks. Out of some 30 or 40 socks. How is this possible? I know I’m not alone in this; it seems to be a fairly common problem, so I decided enough was enough. Strategy My guideline for the sock project was to throw away all socks that did not have a matching pair. It’s time that I would rather spend elsewhere, and a source of irritation—however minor–that I don’t really find useful to perpetuate ;-) So, I washed “all” (I’ll come back to this later) my laundry, and put all the socks in a different hamper. After I finished folding my clothes, I allowed myself 15 minutes to tackle the sock pile: anything beyond 15 minutes was likely to end up in a forged union. After I put away my matching socks, I was rather appalled at the volume of lonely singletons. I hesitated for a brief moment, but prevailed: straight to the trash. To be continued…

Sister SF returns to Qool! Come to 111 Minna tonight!

breakzqueen — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:23:50 GMT

One of my absolute favorite parties on the planet! TONITE - AUGUST 15th: SISTER SF VS. QOOL The only DJ collective to get two of the Qoöl residents to dress up like women is in the house tonight. Sister SF DJs J-fi, Melyss, Samira & Icon rock Qoöl with open and close by Jondi & Spesh. 5-6pm Jondi 6-645pm J-FI 645-730 MELYSS 730-815pm SAMIRA 815-9pm ICON 9-945pm Spesh 111 Minna Street @ 2nd Street San Francisco 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM Free before 6pm, $5 after., 21++

Fri. 08/10: Angels of bAss @ Shine!

breakzqueen — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:56:20 GMT

Angels of bAss - One Off Friday - August 10th @ Shine We are combining a few months into one special night...a one off that is sure to go off! He he! Be there! Please join us for our last summer gathering and we are proud to bring you some very special guests playing along side j9, ViaJay, & Tamo! LUX (lux_sound@yahoo.com) aka Rodman Raydeus (Pronoia, DeckAde) Samira (SEISMIC, Sister SF) Shine, 1337 Mission 10-2 $5 (Free before 11:00)

Happy Birthday, Paul

breakzqueen — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:58:16 GMT

this week has had an overtone of bitter-sweet, and undertow of memories screaming both tremendous joy as well as sorrow. it wasn’t until last night that it finally hit me, Paul: Happy Birthday. 6 of your birthdays. 6 of mine. we even met at your birthday party: no wonder these past few days have been so wrought with emotion. realizing that this is the first time in 6 years that we are not spending our birthdays together missing that part of the relationship having a home with someone thinking of all the ways in which we spent those days together 4th of july fireworks from the couch playing records in the sun going on road trips and other stuff like how broke we were and how we’d just have each other and as much as that was the bad it was also the good and i miss that i miss having my friend, my partner my touch stone somebody to come home to thinking about taking Little Bit to the vet and it made me think about you and Little Bit & how much you love her & how you probably would have taken her today because that’s the kind of relationship you had with her. this is not a story of regret, for i am too proud of you. and i am proud of me, too. and today, on your 38th birthday, Paul, i want to thank you for our journey together, for everything that we’ve endured & felt & tried & forsaken, for everything that we’ve taken away & learned, forgotten & remembered, become enraged for, beaten ourselves up over, forgiven. thank you for our bicycle ride, for that rubik’s cube, and that one good record, too. i am so incredibly proud of you. i love you.

Mighty Breaks presents Atomic Hooligan tonight!

breakzqueen — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 04:26:41 GMT

Come & get it! Outside: 1030 M.O.D. 1230 an-ten-nae 200 Mozaic Main: 10 Tamo 1130 Samira 1230 Atomic Hooligan 215 ErnieTrevino Mighty, 119 Utah (@15th) 10pm-4am

Audium

breakzqueen — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:20:55 GMT

i've been wanting to go here for years & tonight i'm finally going: "Audium is the only theatre of its kind in the world, pioneering the exploration of space in music. The theatre's 169 speakers bathe listeners in sounds that move past, over, and under them. "Sound sculptures" are performed in darkness in the 49-seat theatre." "I have always been possessed by the evocative qualities all sounds seem to have, whether natural or electronic. Sounds touch deeper levels of our inner life, layers that lie just beneath the visual world. All sounds are communicative - sound as birth, life and death; sound as time and space; sound as object, environment or event. Audiences should feel sound as it bumps up against them, caresses, travels through, covers and enfolds them. "I ask listeners to see with their ears and feel with their bodies sounds as images, dreams and memories. As people walk into a work, they become part of its realization. From entrance to exit, AUDIUM is a sound-space continuum." -- Stan Shaff, Composer Check out the website: http://www.audium.org/ i'll write a follow-up post to this. can't wait! sam

Tonight: SISTER SF hosts the Breaks Lounge @ LOCAL LOVE at 1015 Folsom

breakzqueen — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:31:33 GMT

Come to the debut of Sister SF in the newly remodeled and decked out Cirque Lounge of 1015 Folsom... we will be rocking funky and dirty breaks ALL night long! Support your local female breaks pushers! To sign up on the FREE guestlist before 10:15PM and $10 before 11PM guestlist, please sign up on http://www.1015.com/emails/2007-03-24.html Lineup: J-Fi 11pm-12:15am Melyss 12:15-1:30am Samira 1:30-2:45am ICON 2:45-4:00am 1015 Folsom San Francisco, CA 21+ w/ ID :: 10PM-7AM :: $20 & $15 pre-sales: http://wanttickets.com/1015 http://www.1015.com

Off to Seattle tomorrow, New York in 2 weeks, and ...

breakzqueen — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:02:00 GMT

i've been enjoying my time on the decks again, and it's evident. it's a great reminder to simply do what you love: not what you think you love, or what you think you're supposed to love. just do what you love. i feel free to speak once again, almost like re-learning how to breathe. and i'm loving every minute of it. tomorrow i'll be throwing down in Seattle with NAHA who is, btw, a fucking ninja on the decks. next week is Flambe Lounge. March 9-12th i'll be dropping the bass on New York. And in April, DJ ICON and i are heading up to Tahoe to spin a powdergirls.com sponsored event. and in May? i am so excited about May....i am not even going to start :-) It's good to be back! BOOM!

still waiting. your silence disappoints me.

breakzqueen — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:53:59 GMT

fallen i see you as a victim of your own virtue. you have given your life to humanity, and thus the world praises you. your virtue must be so large now. so convincing, it is the mockery of natural instinct to preserve the species. a noble cause. but i mourn your one mistake, and that is Batman. your failure lies in losing your Self by creating a fiction and then becoming it. they love you, Bruce--right now they do. how can they not? you are better than a God; you intercepted the rhetoric. you materialized an ideal in a world of words and immaterial gods. you are the illusion of Batman built upon the illusion of purpose and certainty. you live for the world. but how, Bruce? all you have done is inventively reinforce the same story; in the name of morality, of good and evil. i see you selfless, and defined by the world, caught in a tragic dependency from the moment you wore the costume and became an icon for order. you gave them Batman; they expect it now. and what have you now but fear? is your function really to protect the species, or to avoid the potential disappointment and scorn of the world? you, Batman, are the symptom of an ideology. your good and their good are as much of a lie as their God. if you reject the fiction you entered, the world will lean closer to the stage to hear the word. if you disillusion them now, you will become their next evil. remember, first there was the word, then there was God. it's all lies, Bruce, all lies. you are Batman. and in pursuit of Truth and goodness for all, you lost the one thing you can be sure of. sam Originally published in Totems to Hip Hop: Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002. Edited by Ishmael Reed