WRITING / VIDEO / SOUND / PERFORMANCE
MEXICO CITY (2018)
MEXICO CITY (2018)
WRITING and VIDEO
MANIFESTO
No one can ever dictate to you what you should believe, do with your life, or how you should perceive the world. No matter how close to you or respected, whether family, friends, or those in positions of authority. The space inside belongs to no one else, you alone have the absolute right to your own definition. Many will try to impose their beliefs about god, to define your sexuality, tell you who you can associate with, and even what you may think. These attempts, no matter how well intentioned, come from a place of insecurity and control. Sharing ideas and experiences is a wonderful thing, its opposite, coercion is not. In praise of each person's beautiful and unique autonomy, and the voice that only you can hear whispering its inspiration.
MANIFESTO
No one can ever dictate to you what you should believe, do with your life, or how you should perceive the world. No matter how close to you or respected, whether family, friends, or those in positions of authority. The space inside belongs to no one else, you alone have the absolute right to your own definition. Many will try to impose their beliefs about god, to define your sexuality, tell you who you can associate with, and even what you may think. These attempts, no matter how well intentioned, come from a place of insecurity and control. Sharing ideas and experiences is a wonderful thing, its opposite, coercion is not. In praise of each person's beautiful and unique autonomy, and the voice that only you can hear whispering its inspiration.
ALLUVIAL
Everywhere is water, wet and relentless, as clouds gather under a bright sun. The ground it shifts beneath your feet as you walk. All is unstable here: the sidewalks they buckle, buildings sink into the ground, relationships fluid, flow and shift like the rivulets of rainwater along the curb and spiraling into the drain.
And down below, the pipes they leak, water seeping out onto five hundred year old skulls of sacrificial victims piled under the earth, mixing with dried blood and dropping further now into that ancient lake bed, where boats ploughed out toward distant shores, and the conquistadors first set eyes on the island city.
That city it's heart still beating, in the bustle of the tianguis, the taxis and micros blasting down the eje, the little children selling chicles on the street, borrachos passed out next to empty jugs of rum, as vendors shout "pasale pasale, todo bueno, todo bonito, todo barato".
Delinquents huff mona there on the steps of the metro, the dank aroma winding its way up from the platform below, where tattooed musicians and performers enact rites of suffering in the crowded cars, among the working people packed tight in the stifling air as they ride back to Pantitlan, then catch combis on home to Neza or Chimalhuacan.
You feel it inside too, the blood pushed along channels of flesh out from the beating heart, flowing to the shore of the extremities, dropping into the ocean of experience before it returns again.
And Tlaloc, the god of the waters, blesses them with rain and flooded streets, trash swirling in little whirlpools, shoes splashing through in wet socks, into mercados overflowing with brightly colored flowers, their petals falling to the floor of the pasillos, and crushed under foot in a continual offering of praise for life, and death.
CLOUDS IN THE TEA
Introspective, brought face to face with the ungrounded aspects of life, there in the airport waiting, looking into the faces of fellow travelers and imagining the stories behind those eyes: the successes, the yearnings, the loves, the infidelities. Some youthful and wide eyed, their full life ahead, others older, realism etched onto their faces. He remembers his own youth, not so far removed, and of age looming ahead.
Loading now, the man smiles as he checks the boarding pass. Walking in a faceless line of people, lost in their thoughts too, now on board the plane accelerates, its wheels lifting off the ground, a feeling of floating and weightless, untethered from any notion or fixed identity. There is a freedom suspended in that space, and a melancholy too, a wishing to be grounded in some identity, some place, tradition, or stability.
It flashes through his mind, the scene of the man wrapped in cloth, seated on the desert sand, carefully preparing tea for his friends, on the embers of a warm fire, clouds of steam rising from the glasses of tea arranged there on the sand. He wishes to be that man, but also sees the impossibility of that wish, the stark truth of being a nomad on this earth, of finding solace in oneself and in connection with some others in the true nature of solitude.
Looking out the window, as clouds float by, he takes refuge in that thought, the common truth though space is infinite, yet we all share in its vastness. The flight attendant walks by, and stopping says, “Would you like something? A coffee, soda, water?” He replies, “do you have tea?”.
MORELOS STEPS
Up and down the Morelos steps
todo la gente viene y se va
each with stories they carry
like texts on their phones.
A guy squeezes in through the exit
as the police looks down at his phone
el olor a humo de hierba hangs
in the air of the Metro entrance.
Sneaker prints left in blood on stone
walking into or out of other dimensions
it's hard to tell as dudes linger there
sube en el callejón y través.
Some working there washing cars
con cubos de agua en la calle
as desultory riders aimless wander
on bicycles too small for their feet.
The alley above these steps
it smells of danger
and respect and laughter
un lugar a salvar y ser salvaje.
todo la gente viene y se va
each with stories they carry
like texts on their phones.
A guy squeezes in through the exit
as the police looks down at his phone
el olor a humo de hierba hangs
in the air of the Metro entrance.
Sneaker prints left in blood on stone
walking into or out of other dimensions
it's hard to tell as dudes linger there
sube en el callejón y través.
Some working there washing cars
con cubos de agua en la calle
as desultory riders aimless wander
on bicycles too small for their feet.
The alley above these steps
it smells of danger
and respect and laughter
un lugar a salvar y ser salvaje.
ONCE AGAIN
America, once again I float on the clouds high above your beautiful land, deceptive in its quietude and splendor. From here I can feel your anxieties, the inner struggle to manage your true feelings, lest they begin to rise and cause you to ask questions, to challenge the way things are with the proposition of how things might be.
I see the toll it takes to maintain a system that looks down on anyone born different, that puts them through a rigorous process to prove their rightness in the eyes of justice, so they can graduate into the ranks of the just us.
And yet somehow their creative lights shine through all of the enforced sameness, or perhaps it is the cause for these lamps most different to persevere in burning more beautiful and strange. And I wonder, what will be the next chapter of your story, our story?
As I wager my life and love with one that is caught up in the realization of your dream, what will be our trajectory, and will you welcome us back to your shores with all the gifts we have to offer? A coupling of two worlds separated yet by a conceptual wall, one that we have decided to bridge and destroy before it can even be built, through the inherent creativity of this partnership.
So I leave your skies behind for this moment, to return to the work of my own planning committee to the south, touching down with an optimism that we will conquer and in our own way bridge this divide that has risen when we return to your fair and troubled lands.
SOUND COMPOSITIONS
