It seems to be a bad combination that I am a person who thrives on "art," and letting the mysteries of the creative juices flow through me, and yet constantly I want to figure out why those juices work the way they do. So many great artists don't care to explain where it all comes from because they know they don't have the answer.
But then maybe this mental mash of art and scientific method isn't such a bad thing. After all, so many artists sizzle out when they make it big and are forced to wonder what made them so interesting and loved in the first place.
Part of the answer to where it all comes from is greatly described by Carl Jung as "taking your shadow out to coffee." One of the pitfalls about being self-analytical about your creative process is that it can get you hopelessly stuck in a rut if you are asking the wrong questions: "Why am I not a good artist?" "What did Picasso have that I don't?" But one of the best parts about being self-analytical is that, when asking the right questions, it can give you a wholly different approach to the creative process and open up a far deeper understanding of yourself. "What am I blocking that's keeping the juices from flowing?" "What inspired me to make art in the first place, and what do I naturally return to for inspiration?" Most importantly, perhaps, is "Why am I getting in my own way?"
No one will ever come to a single conclusion about what makes great art. If history has proven anything, it is that great art can be created from all different mediums, from any point of inspirational departure, in any corner of the world without regard to sex, class, race, sexuality, set of circumstances or any other determining factors of which you can think.
What is important, and what can perhaps be answered, is "What makes a good artist?" The answer, simply, is someone who is not afraid to be him(/her)self.
As the new year dawns, I have taken it as a sort of sign from the universe that I stumbled upon this website: The Artist's Way. I will be taking this simple exercise to heart as the inevitable apocalypse of 2012 begins.* Happy New Year, everyone!
*Side note: as it turns out, the Mayan calendar never predicted some catastrophic apocalypse. What the Mayan Calendar says about 2012 basically amounts to: "This one's done. Flip to the next system." It's the equivalent of switching your Sports Illustrated 2011 Swimsuit Calendar for your Sports Illustrated 2012 Swimsuit Calendar. But then if I'm wrong we'll all die a horrible fiery death as the bowels of the earth open up and comets rain down upon our most picturesque cities, and then maybe you'll be sad you didn't get that supply bunker ready.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Alone
My mother and sister left me a paper Christmas tree and a few things to open on Christmas day. That was ever so nice of them. Despite any sentiments I may have voiced earlier, I am really glad they came to visit. Now I face the prospect of a Christmas alone, my very first Christmas celebrated by myself, with myself.
It may sound sad, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I have certainly loved the Christmas times with my family, but something about being alone in this house for Christmas is… I don't know, it's new, it's not stressful, it's quite enjoyable. I am ever so glad, of course, that the internet is at my disposal so I may let those I love know I'm thinking about them. But I suppose my gift to myself this Christmas is giving myself some time. Time to think, to smile, to relax, to cook and draw. That's really what my whole trip has been, but a nice reminder is good always good.
Even here in Mexico they cannot escape the crash American commercialization of Christmas. But there is something different about being here rather than America. There is a care and support for family here in Mexico that seems to stretch throughout the year, and is not simply hoisted upon us as some otherworldly responsibility to be paid in massive quantities of expensive gifts. Indeed, Mexicans rarely leave their families and tend to have the support structure of relatives throughout their lives. While I personally really like the American ambition (or is that disfunction?) of moving about quite a bit, as my life tus far has been a testament to, there is something comforting and unexplainably nice about the way Mexicans don't feel a need to distance themselves from their families. America is not just ripe with racism and sexism, but ageism as well. The posadas I have been to and the families I have encountered emit a sense of goodwill and loving care. Certainly many have their problems, just as any family does, but they stick together where American families pull apart. And part of this is exemplified in the way we Americans have turned the family image into a responsibility rather than a joy.
I would feel I was remise if I didn't take an opportunity to point out the strange morphing our modern traditions have undergone. Though we think of this as a Christian holiday, many educated people know that this holiday was pagan in origin. Many people have a lot of doubts as to whether Jesus was even born in winter, let alone December. But as Christianity gained favor across the world, many of the world's festivals were absorbed by it, as was the case with Christmas. The Yule was the celebration of the winter solstice by the Germanic people of Europe. Often it involved sacrifices for a bountiful new season and consisted of 12 days of feasting. While toasts and sacrifices were made to gods like Odin, it could be argued that this celebration had little to do with religion and was more commonly seen as a gathering of people in midwinter to lighten the load of their dreary weather. The word Yule comes from Anglo-Saxon roots, in the Gothic and Old English languages. An Old Norse text "Ynglinga Saga" first mentions a Yule celebration taking place in 840 A.D. Around this time King Haakon I brought Christianity to Norway from Rome, and melded the two celebrations of Christ's birth and the Yule in order to bring people together and convert them to Christianity. Check out the Wikipedia page, it's fascinating.
However you choose to celebrate midwinter, I would hope it's filled with love and joy, and not polluted with capitalist fascinations. I will be taking some time to delve into myself and contemplate the things that bring us all together, even though I will be alone.
It may sound sad, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I have certainly loved the Christmas times with my family, but something about being alone in this house for Christmas is… I don't know, it's new, it's not stressful, it's quite enjoyable. I am ever so glad, of course, that the internet is at my disposal so I may let those I love know I'm thinking about them. But I suppose my gift to myself this Christmas is giving myself some time. Time to think, to smile, to relax, to cook and draw. That's really what my whole trip has been, but a nice reminder is good always good.
Even here in Mexico they cannot escape the crash American commercialization of Christmas. But there is something different about being here rather than America. There is a care and support for family here in Mexico that seems to stretch throughout the year, and is not simply hoisted upon us as some otherworldly responsibility to be paid in massive quantities of expensive gifts. Indeed, Mexicans rarely leave their families and tend to have the support structure of relatives throughout their lives. While I personally really like the American ambition (or is that disfunction?) of moving about quite a bit, as my life tus far has been a testament to, there is something comforting and unexplainably nice about the way Mexicans don't feel a need to distance themselves from their families. America is not just ripe with racism and sexism, but ageism as well. The posadas I have been to and the families I have encountered emit a sense of goodwill and loving care. Certainly many have their problems, just as any family does, but they stick together where American families pull apart. And part of this is exemplified in the way we Americans have turned the family image into a responsibility rather than a joy.
I would feel I was remise if I didn't take an opportunity to point out the strange morphing our modern traditions have undergone. Though we think of this as a Christian holiday, many educated people know that this holiday was pagan in origin. Many people have a lot of doubts as to whether Jesus was even born in winter, let alone December. But as Christianity gained favor across the world, many of the world's festivals were absorbed by it, as was the case with Christmas. The Yule was the celebration of the winter solstice by the Germanic people of Europe. Often it involved sacrifices for a bountiful new season and consisted of 12 days of feasting. While toasts and sacrifices were made to gods like Odin, it could be argued that this celebration had little to do with religion and was more commonly seen as a gathering of people in midwinter to lighten the load of their dreary weather. The word Yule comes from Anglo-Saxon roots, in the Gothic and Old English languages. An Old Norse text "Ynglinga Saga" first mentions a Yule celebration taking place in 840 A.D. Around this time King Haakon I brought Christianity to Norway from Rome, and melded the two celebrations of Christ's birth and the Yule in order to bring people together and convert them to Christianity. Check out the Wikipedia page, it's fascinating.
However you choose to celebrate midwinter, I would hope it's filled with love and joy, and not polluted with capitalist fascinations. I will be taking some time to delve into myself and contemplate the things that bring us all together, even though I will be alone.
The Last Few Days
Family Visit
From Sunday, 12/18 to Thursday, 12/22, my mother and sister graced my home with their presence. It was nice that I got at least one set of visitors; at the very least they can provide witness that I really was in Mexico and haven't just been writing these blog posts from some café in Santa Rosa.
My sister was just finished with her winter semester at CCA, and mom finally got some respite from the store. Mom will also be taking some time off to travel to Jamaica, so it was nice of her to plan an extra side trip to see me. On Sunday, we hung out in the Centro Historico, and I showed them some of the architecture and art, such as the interior of the Pallazzio del Bellas Artes. Then we met up with Alexander (who is a very dear friend of my sister's) and we went to the Museo Nacional del Arte, which was hosting an M.C. Escher exhibit. There were original prints and pencil drawings of his. It was really neat to see the progression of ideas he went through. Starting out in the 1920's, his stuff was obviously very influenced by Japanese prints, and geometrical shapes played a large role, but there were no optical tricks yet or visual "games." As his skill as an illustrator grew, he became much more interested in the intersection of geometry and illustration. The stuff towards the end of his career is confusing to look at at first, but stunning when you stop to examine it and realize everything is geometrically sound. I wonder what would have happened if he ever tried sculpting. There was a smaller room with an M.C. Escher inspired music video that got me really curious about trying some visual video trickery. Afterwards we ate at the Taco Inn, an uninspired chain restaurant that was close. Despite its "in-authenticity," I discovered Tacoas a la Arracherra, which is meat cooked in fried cheese. It was awesome. We walked back through the Centro Historico and saw the president's house and the church and the old Aztec temple. Mother and Meredith were astounded by the amount of people running around. We made some comments that it was in many ways similar to Europe (though much cheaper).
Los Pyramides
On Monday morning I got up early with mom, and we had a great intellectual chat over coffee, the kind I can always have with her. All of the things I had been thinking, pontificating on, balling up finally had a forum in which to be voiced. My mother is one of the smartest and most intellectual adults I regularly talk to; and it certainly helps that being her son, I tend to have a lot of similar opinions. Even if we differ in opinion we tend to have open minds about the discussion at hand. We covered everything from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to the metaphysics of the universe. My sister got up, still tired and adjusting to the altitude, and walked right into our fast-paced conversation. Her zero cups of coffee could not compete with my two and mom's four.
We got breakfast in Mercado Portales with Alexander. Later that day we traveled by bus to the Pyramids north of the city. The historical site of Teotihuacán is a vast city, believed to have been built sometime in the second century A.D. No one knows for sure which indigenous people built it, but "…possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi or Totonac ethnic groups." (Wikipedia) The ancient city includes two pyramids which were temples of the Sun and Moon, as well as a long residential pathway extending between and past the two temples known as the Avenue of the Dead. It is the largest pyramid structure in pre-Columbian America, and the artistic and architectural influence of the early advanced culture can be seen throughout other archeological sites of Mesoamerica. The Aztec would later inhabit this city. The first residents are believed to be a diverse mixture of various ethnic groups; it was a real bohemian center of pre-Columbian America.
It was my first time going to the pyramids, and it was nice to get to experience it for the first time with my family. Crowded throughout the Avenue of the Dead were vendors selling obsidian cats, necklaces and silver for "almost free," or so they said. They were not quite as adamant as some of the street vendors I've encountered in places like Italy, but they were close. We strolled down the Avenue of the Dead and climbed both temples. On top of the Temple of the Sun, we took pictures and rested on a wall for an hour-long siesta, admiring the countryside and talking. This part of Mexico was the first time I felt like I was inside my mental picture of Mexico. The landscape stretched out before us covered in cactus and desert-willow, the mountains of the valley in the distance amidst the atmospheric haze, the sun bearing down warmly as us gringos tried to keep our faces covered. It felt like being inside some of the picturesque scenes from "The Three Caballeros." It was quite a site, and I want to see more of this type of landscape. It was relaxing, and felt like there the land held vast stores of wisdom.
Fiesta Del Arte
On Tuesday Alexander and I had planned an Art Party. We were lucky to reschedule for a time when my sister and mother were in town. That day, before the party, I was apprehensive, nervous, and quiet. I was encountering some of those old feelings only family can give you. Mom had started planning all kinds of food and dishes to make, potato salad, cole slaw, pico de gallo. As happy as I was to have my mother making sure there was food for people to have, I think I felt as though she was taking control of my party. My mother has a tendency to do this, to make me feel as if I'm not the one on control, that I'm not able to do things the right way. It's not intentional, and I always know she just wants to help and has my best interests at heart. It's funny how you can have such conflicting and sometimes contradictory thoughts about your parents. You love them, and yet in some ways know they hold you back from your full potential. So, these thoughts in my head, I went through the day just acting casual and ignoring them. She was only there for 5 days and it wasn't worth it to bring up anything too grieving, I felt. The rest of the day was spent cleaning, arranging, and cooking. I stayed quiet mostly, not too many thoughts in my head besides some stress and agitation. But it got better once people began showing up.
Passion Soup
Meredith and Alexander had an idea to make a soup that tasted like passion. Finally together again here in Mexico City, it was the first thing they set about doing before the party started. I was the unofficial documentarian of this mad escapade. Alexander and I traveled to the local supermarket to obtain some of the important ingredients, including corn flour, honey, chile, and bourbon. Filming inside the store got us in a little trouble with a security guard and the store manager, and we were not able to get permission to film our shopping. That didn't matter because in true guerrilla style I kept the camera on. Later, at the house, the making of the soup was epic. It had a chocolate base, and the two artiste-cooks tried many things. Sautéed bourbon, it turns out, is not very good and when combined with honey turns to a jet black mass of disgusting liquid. I was able to find many a pertinent metaphor for the ups and downs of the process of making this soup as related to "passion." And you know what? In the end, they actually ended up making a damn good soup. It was a thin dark chocolate taste mingled with a spicy effect that hit you after a sweet honey-like sensation swept over you, hitting you in the back of the throat. Happily, like passion, it was warm, exciting, and had a whole lot of phases. Sadly, like passion, it also died out rather fast and had no chance of keeping. Chocolate-based soups must be eaten right away, for reheating is akin to trying to capture the magic again: it just won't work.
The party was nice, though not quite what we expected. We cooked food for about 30 people, about 7 showed up. But we sat around and shared culture and conversation, I met a friend of Patricia's who is hoping to be a Mexican film producer, and Alexander performed Cut Piece book-ended by two poems, one by Ginsberg and the other by some Eastern European.
Sombre Mood
One reason I may have been a little less than talkative was I was getting sick. By Wednesday I had a terribly sore throat, no doubt encouraged by the large amount of alcohol in my system from the night before lowering the defenses of my immune system. It may also have been aggravated by my insisting I sleep on the couch downstairs, which for the first night of my family's visit was numbingly cold. The couch is about half as long as me, so I slept most nights on my side in a fetal position. By the second night, we switched some blankets around and employed the heater I had been neglecting for so long, and got a more viable sleeping situation together for everyone. But the damage of one cold night was done for me. My sore throat pervaded the rest of the day and made my un-talkative, apathetic and slightly morose mood deepen a bit.
But I was determined to be with my family some more and enjoy their company. That day, we traveled to Coyoacán, one of the very nice parts of town and we saw the Frida Kahlo Museum. I enjoyed being back there but my sore throat bothered me a lot. I took a break from playing tour guide and let the ladies wander the premises and learn for themselves. Afterwards we went to the artesan market in the center of town, which was actually rather fun but my feet hurt and there are only so many hand-made necklaces and henna tattoo parlors you can look at before you feel like you've seen them all. Luckily Meredith and mom found plenty of good Christmas gifts for the people back home. I took some time to myself and hung out on the veranda of the second floor in the plaza while the girls browsed, watching the leaves fall, the annoying yet endearing 80's music playing on the market sound system, and observing the beautiful Mexican teenagers make their way through on this picturesque day. I tried to let the thoughts drift away from me and just enjoy the breeze on my face and ignore the pain of swallowing. Meredith and I tried some candy from a dulcería, and I ended up getting a stunningly sweet and bright red thing I was told was Guayaba. Why Mexicans think everything should be dipped in sugar, even the sweetest fruits they have to offer, I don't quite understand.
Because of being ill and a lack of energy on the side of my family, I had to miss a friend's art opening. Kristina Trejo does Bakti designs, which is fabric with dyed patterns that are achieved by applying and scraping off wax in various coats. Instead, mom, Meredith and I tried to go see a movie. Unfortunately, The Muppets was not playing in English, so instead we went to Papa Bill's Saloon and had some drinks. We were all kind of quiet, probably because we had just about run out of things to say. Still, I made the best of being around mom and my sister for the time it lasted. I have to admit I was looking forward to having my house and autonomy back again.
I don't mean to make it sound like I hate my family or despise my mother. The truth is that the things our parents do sometimes remind us of the things in childhood we found frustrating, or the adulthood pains we have had to endure. There is no hiding from your family; fortunately and unfortunately, they know everything about you, for better or worse. I am not planning on staying in Mexico much longer, but I have learned from my time here that I really enjoy being autonomous, my own man, and I want to continue this lifestyle. Being independent is scary but its far better than letting your past constantly define you. Best to let your past inform you, but let the present become you.
Undocumented Worker
Thursday I had to leave my family early, I had gotten a catering gig with Alexander's friend Juliet who was catering at a satellite of the American Embassy. My spirits perked up, and my throat had gotten a teensy bit better. Luckily Juliet liked me so it sounds like for my remaining time here I will get a few more gigs. We had a tense but fun time, as it is with many food-service gigs. Afterwards Alexander took me for some really good tacos around Condeza. And then he took me to Kristina's exhibit, of which I had missed the opening. Her stuff is really good. We discussed our opinions of it as we wandered the interior of the art cafe, also astonished that a fantasy painter was asking for something like 10,000 U.S. dollars for some strange paintings that I personally thought lacked compositional fluidity. But the colors were nice.
Walking down the streets and passing the hip joints of Condeza, Alexander and I shared a very nice moment. Alexander thanked me for being around in Mexico, for having fun with him and being someone to share an experience or two with in Mexico with; mostly just for being a friend. I was really flattered, and I felt the same way. There is something comforting about having another witness to your life, especially when you are in a foreign place and just getting your feet wet learning the ways of life. It seems we are always learning something new about life and ourselves, at least I would hope we are, and maybe those two aren't so very different. We separate these things in our life in some effort to make them more organized, more manageable, but as that wise Beatle said, "Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans."
I just recently finished reading "The Last Kingdom," a historical novel about the Dark Ages of late 9th century England, and its massive invasion by the Danes, commonly mis-named Vikings. The main character is raised by the pagan Danes, and he says often that "Destiny is everything." I have lately been having many thoughts along this line as well, though I am aware I am easily influenced in my ways of thinking when I am experiencing a good story. I am always trying to force my way into some categorized career path, some easy answer that will let me know what I'm going to do with my life. It's maddening and frustrating, dealing with my own delusions of grandeur and wanting to be so like the people I admire; to be wise in the face of stupidity, to be strong amidst adversity, wanting to be famous but abhorring fame, to be calm, courteous and open-minded while also being steadfast and decisive. I linger in meditative thought, trying to calm the raging torrent of my own mind in an attempt to amplify that little voice that tells everyone what is the right thing to do. And I am no big believer in fate, that logical part of me raised on science reminding me that there is no coincidence, that things just are. And yet there is something that lingers in me that thinks there could be some course I may or may not be meant to take.
I am reminded of that psychedelic feelings when it is clear that there is not a grain of sand, a stack of concrete, a footstep that is not exactly right where it should be. I believe that this is not because anything is written or that the present was always meant to be the way it is right now without anything we humans could do to change it. Rather, in the poetic (and paraphrased) words of Cormac McCarthy, there is no would or could or might have been and there never was. We are all creating this world as we go and nothing is out of place in it because there is no way it ever could have been. Life moseys along with us, and we are not powerless to stop it nor are we complete singular masters of our own destiny. We are life, part of it, and we are everything and nothing to it. So perhaps the best thing to do with our lives is simply to follow our passions as fully as we are able with the resources we have available in the present moment, and be pleasantly surprised by where it takes us.
From Sunday, 12/18 to Thursday, 12/22, my mother and sister graced my home with their presence. It was nice that I got at least one set of visitors; at the very least they can provide witness that I really was in Mexico and haven't just been writing these blog posts from some café in Santa Rosa.
My sister was just finished with her winter semester at CCA, and mom finally got some respite from the store. Mom will also be taking some time off to travel to Jamaica, so it was nice of her to plan an extra side trip to see me. On Sunday, we hung out in the Centro Historico, and I showed them some of the architecture and art, such as the interior of the Pallazzio del Bellas Artes. Then we met up with Alexander (who is a very dear friend of my sister's) and we went to the Museo Nacional del Arte, which was hosting an M.C. Escher exhibit. There were original prints and pencil drawings of his. It was really neat to see the progression of ideas he went through. Starting out in the 1920's, his stuff was obviously very influenced by Japanese prints, and geometrical shapes played a large role, but there were no optical tricks yet or visual "games." As his skill as an illustrator grew, he became much more interested in the intersection of geometry and illustration. The stuff towards the end of his career is confusing to look at at first, but stunning when you stop to examine it and realize everything is geometrically sound. I wonder what would have happened if he ever tried sculpting. There was a smaller room with an M.C. Escher inspired music video that got me really curious about trying some visual video trickery. Afterwards we ate at the Taco Inn, an uninspired chain restaurant that was close. Despite its "in-authenticity," I discovered Tacoas a la Arracherra, which is meat cooked in fried cheese. It was awesome. We walked back through the Centro Historico and saw the president's house and the church and the old Aztec temple. Mother and Meredith were astounded by the amount of people running around. We made some comments that it was in many ways similar to Europe (though much cheaper).
Los Pyramides
On Monday morning I got up early with mom, and we had a great intellectual chat over coffee, the kind I can always have with her. All of the things I had been thinking, pontificating on, balling up finally had a forum in which to be voiced. My mother is one of the smartest and most intellectual adults I regularly talk to; and it certainly helps that being her son, I tend to have a lot of similar opinions. Even if we differ in opinion we tend to have open minds about the discussion at hand. We covered everything from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to the metaphysics of the universe. My sister got up, still tired and adjusting to the altitude, and walked right into our fast-paced conversation. Her zero cups of coffee could not compete with my two and mom's four.
We got breakfast in Mercado Portales with Alexander. Later that day we traveled by bus to the Pyramids north of the city. The historical site of Teotihuacán is a vast city, believed to have been built sometime in the second century A.D. No one knows for sure which indigenous people built it, but "…possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi or Totonac ethnic groups." (Wikipedia) The ancient city includes two pyramids which were temples of the Sun and Moon, as well as a long residential pathway extending between and past the two temples known as the Avenue of the Dead. It is the largest pyramid structure in pre-Columbian America, and the artistic and architectural influence of the early advanced culture can be seen throughout other archeological sites of Mesoamerica. The Aztec would later inhabit this city. The first residents are believed to be a diverse mixture of various ethnic groups; it was a real bohemian center of pre-Columbian America.
It was my first time going to the pyramids, and it was nice to get to experience it for the first time with my family. Crowded throughout the Avenue of the Dead were vendors selling obsidian cats, necklaces and silver for "almost free," or so they said. They were not quite as adamant as some of the street vendors I've encountered in places like Italy, but they were close. We strolled down the Avenue of the Dead and climbed both temples. On top of the Temple of the Sun, we took pictures and rested on a wall for an hour-long siesta, admiring the countryside and talking. This part of Mexico was the first time I felt like I was inside my mental picture of Mexico. The landscape stretched out before us covered in cactus and desert-willow, the mountains of the valley in the distance amidst the atmospheric haze, the sun bearing down warmly as us gringos tried to keep our faces covered. It felt like being inside some of the picturesque scenes from "The Three Caballeros." It was quite a site, and I want to see more of this type of landscape. It was relaxing, and felt like there the land held vast stores of wisdom.
Fiesta Del Arte
On Tuesday Alexander and I had planned an Art Party. We were lucky to reschedule for a time when my sister and mother were in town. That day, before the party, I was apprehensive, nervous, and quiet. I was encountering some of those old feelings only family can give you. Mom had started planning all kinds of food and dishes to make, potato salad, cole slaw, pico de gallo. As happy as I was to have my mother making sure there was food for people to have, I think I felt as though she was taking control of my party. My mother has a tendency to do this, to make me feel as if I'm not the one on control, that I'm not able to do things the right way. It's not intentional, and I always know she just wants to help and has my best interests at heart. It's funny how you can have such conflicting and sometimes contradictory thoughts about your parents. You love them, and yet in some ways know they hold you back from your full potential. So, these thoughts in my head, I went through the day just acting casual and ignoring them. She was only there for 5 days and it wasn't worth it to bring up anything too grieving, I felt. The rest of the day was spent cleaning, arranging, and cooking. I stayed quiet mostly, not too many thoughts in my head besides some stress and agitation. But it got better once people began showing up.
Passion Soup
Meredith and Alexander had an idea to make a soup that tasted like passion. Finally together again here in Mexico City, it was the first thing they set about doing before the party started. I was the unofficial documentarian of this mad escapade. Alexander and I traveled to the local supermarket to obtain some of the important ingredients, including corn flour, honey, chile, and bourbon. Filming inside the store got us in a little trouble with a security guard and the store manager, and we were not able to get permission to film our shopping. That didn't matter because in true guerrilla style I kept the camera on. Later, at the house, the making of the soup was epic. It had a chocolate base, and the two artiste-cooks tried many things. Sautéed bourbon, it turns out, is not very good and when combined with honey turns to a jet black mass of disgusting liquid. I was able to find many a pertinent metaphor for the ups and downs of the process of making this soup as related to "passion." And you know what? In the end, they actually ended up making a damn good soup. It was a thin dark chocolate taste mingled with a spicy effect that hit you after a sweet honey-like sensation swept over you, hitting you in the back of the throat. Happily, like passion, it was warm, exciting, and had a whole lot of phases. Sadly, like passion, it also died out rather fast and had no chance of keeping. Chocolate-based soups must be eaten right away, for reheating is akin to trying to capture the magic again: it just won't work.
The party was nice, though not quite what we expected. We cooked food for about 30 people, about 7 showed up. But we sat around and shared culture and conversation, I met a friend of Patricia's who is hoping to be a Mexican film producer, and Alexander performed Cut Piece book-ended by two poems, one by Ginsberg and the other by some Eastern European.
Sombre Mood
One reason I may have been a little less than talkative was I was getting sick. By Wednesday I had a terribly sore throat, no doubt encouraged by the large amount of alcohol in my system from the night before lowering the defenses of my immune system. It may also have been aggravated by my insisting I sleep on the couch downstairs, which for the first night of my family's visit was numbingly cold. The couch is about half as long as me, so I slept most nights on my side in a fetal position. By the second night, we switched some blankets around and employed the heater I had been neglecting for so long, and got a more viable sleeping situation together for everyone. But the damage of one cold night was done for me. My sore throat pervaded the rest of the day and made my un-talkative, apathetic and slightly morose mood deepen a bit.
But I was determined to be with my family some more and enjoy their company. That day, we traveled to Coyoacán, one of the very nice parts of town and we saw the Frida Kahlo Museum. I enjoyed being back there but my sore throat bothered me a lot. I took a break from playing tour guide and let the ladies wander the premises and learn for themselves. Afterwards we went to the artesan market in the center of town, which was actually rather fun but my feet hurt and there are only so many hand-made necklaces and henna tattoo parlors you can look at before you feel like you've seen them all. Luckily Meredith and mom found plenty of good Christmas gifts for the people back home. I took some time to myself and hung out on the veranda of the second floor in the plaza while the girls browsed, watching the leaves fall, the annoying yet endearing 80's music playing on the market sound system, and observing the beautiful Mexican teenagers make their way through on this picturesque day. I tried to let the thoughts drift away from me and just enjoy the breeze on my face and ignore the pain of swallowing. Meredith and I tried some candy from a dulcería, and I ended up getting a stunningly sweet and bright red thing I was told was Guayaba. Why Mexicans think everything should be dipped in sugar, even the sweetest fruits they have to offer, I don't quite understand.
Because of being ill and a lack of energy on the side of my family, I had to miss a friend's art opening. Kristina Trejo does Bakti designs, which is fabric with dyed patterns that are achieved by applying and scraping off wax in various coats. Instead, mom, Meredith and I tried to go see a movie. Unfortunately, The Muppets was not playing in English, so instead we went to Papa Bill's Saloon and had some drinks. We were all kind of quiet, probably because we had just about run out of things to say. Still, I made the best of being around mom and my sister for the time it lasted. I have to admit I was looking forward to having my house and autonomy back again.
I don't mean to make it sound like I hate my family or despise my mother. The truth is that the things our parents do sometimes remind us of the things in childhood we found frustrating, or the adulthood pains we have had to endure. There is no hiding from your family; fortunately and unfortunately, they know everything about you, for better or worse. I am not planning on staying in Mexico much longer, but I have learned from my time here that I really enjoy being autonomous, my own man, and I want to continue this lifestyle. Being independent is scary but its far better than letting your past constantly define you. Best to let your past inform you, but let the present become you.
Undocumented Worker
Thursday I had to leave my family early, I had gotten a catering gig with Alexander's friend Juliet who was catering at a satellite of the American Embassy. My spirits perked up, and my throat had gotten a teensy bit better. Luckily Juliet liked me so it sounds like for my remaining time here I will get a few more gigs. We had a tense but fun time, as it is with many food-service gigs. Afterwards Alexander took me for some really good tacos around Condeza. And then he took me to Kristina's exhibit, of which I had missed the opening. Her stuff is really good. We discussed our opinions of it as we wandered the interior of the art cafe, also astonished that a fantasy painter was asking for something like 10,000 U.S. dollars for some strange paintings that I personally thought lacked compositional fluidity. But the colors were nice.
Walking down the streets and passing the hip joints of Condeza, Alexander and I shared a very nice moment. Alexander thanked me for being around in Mexico, for having fun with him and being someone to share an experience or two with in Mexico with; mostly just for being a friend. I was really flattered, and I felt the same way. There is something comforting about having another witness to your life, especially when you are in a foreign place and just getting your feet wet learning the ways of life. It seems we are always learning something new about life and ourselves, at least I would hope we are, and maybe those two aren't so very different. We separate these things in our life in some effort to make them more organized, more manageable, but as that wise Beatle said, "Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans."
I just recently finished reading "The Last Kingdom," a historical novel about the Dark Ages of late 9th century England, and its massive invasion by the Danes, commonly mis-named Vikings. The main character is raised by the pagan Danes, and he says often that "Destiny is everything." I have lately been having many thoughts along this line as well, though I am aware I am easily influenced in my ways of thinking when I am experiencing a good story. I am always trying to force my way into some categorized career path, some easy answer that will let me know what I'm going to do with my life. It's maddening and frustrating, dealing with my own delusions of grandeur and wanting to be so like the people I admire; to be wise in the face of stupidity, to be strong amidst adversity, wanting to be famous but abhorring fame, to be calm, courteous and open-minded while also being steadfast and decisive. I linger in meditative thought, trying to calm the raging torrent of my own mind in an attempt to amplify that little voice that tells everyone what is the right thing to do. And I am no big believer in fate, that logical part of me raised on science reminding me that there is no coincidence, that things just are. And yet there is something that lingers in me that thinks there could be some course I may or may not be meant to take.
I am reminded of that psychedelic feelings when it is clear that there is not a grain of sand, a stack of concrete, a footstep that is not exactly right where it should be. I believe that this is not because anything is written or that the present was always meant to be the way it is right now without anything we humans could do to change it. Rather, in the poetic (and paraphrased) words of Cormac McCarthy, there is no would or could or might have been and there never was. We are all creating this world as we go and nothing is out of place in it because there is no way it ever could have been. Life moseys along with us, and we are not powerless to stop it nor are we complete singular masters of our own destiny. We are life, part of it, and we are everything and nothing to it. So perhaps the best thing to do with our lives is simply to follow our passions as fully as we are able with the resources we have available in the present moment, and be pleasantly surprised by where it takes us.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
A Traditional Posada
On Friday, 12/16, Alexander invited me to a much more traditional posada. His Mexican family was celebrating with their neighborhood. We got a lesson in Mexican time when we showed up at 7pm (a.k.a., "right on time"), and proceeded to watch a Nature channel program on badgers for about an hour. But then, at 8p.m., Alexander's uncle Jeronimo told us we should go over to the gathering hall across the street.
A more traditional posada is celebrated during the 9 days before Christmas. A small gathering site held the local community, about as many people lived up and down for about two blocks. People sat and recited songs in between people saying what they were thankful for, and repeating a litany of... who knows what, it went by so fast that I couldn't understand it. When I realized they were all going in a row, I became deathly afraid that I was going to have to say something to 100 people I didn't know in embarrassingly broken Spanish. They were all mostly old ladies and elder dignified gentlemen, a few parents with young children. I was mortified. Luckily when it came to us we got passed over. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I stayed a little tense as I kept paying close attention to the amazing things I had no idea about. Alexander and I got plenty of happy smiles from those who must have realized we were way far out of our element.
The food, as it is at all Mexican parties, was great. Alexander made me try something slightly opaque and a little squishy that had the consistency of a gummy bear and tasted like bland chicken. Turns out it was cow tendon. Cool!
Later, we all gathered with candles and nightsticks in the street. A portable loudspeaker system crackled in and out of audibility as an older woman led the songs while we slowly walked up and down the street, imitating the pilgrimage of Joseph and Mary coming to the stable. Candles everywhere kept dying out in the wind, and everyone was rushing to one another to keep their lights alive. When we arrived back at the meeting hall, we sang a back-and-forth song imitating the stablemaster inviting Joseph and Mary in.
Then, piñatas were hung in the street, on a rope that was hung between two houses across the whole street. And such piñatas! There were piñatas for the tiniest children, for the boys, for the girls, for the teenagers, for the adults, some were filled with sugarcane, jicama, or sweets, others were trick piñatas filled with paper filler. On my turn, I started whacking that mother fogger straight-up gangsta style. I didn't realize there was a three-hit limit… as I swung my baton samurai-sword style, I started hearing English: "STOP!" Slightly embarrassed, I let the baton go to the next person. But I did some damage.
Though it wasn't quite as "fun" as the last posada, which had lots of people my age and plenty of drinking and dancing, I had a great time. It really felt like I was experiencing something foreign, as I couldn't understand a word people were saying near the beginning. Sadly, traditional posadas of the type I got to witness are slowly dying out in favor of much more western forms of celebration. Even Christmas trees were not common in Mexico until fairly recently. I hope that this tradition finds a way to continue in some way, though the young people find it boring, I found it a great example of the way a culture continues to move their stories and beliefs forward through the years.
A more traditional posada is celebrated during the 9 days before Christmas. A small gathering site held the local community, about as many people lived up and down for about two blocks. People sat and recited songs in between people saying what they were thankful for, and repeating a litany of... who knows what, it went by so fast that I couldn't understand it. When I realized they were all going in a row, I became deathly afraid that I was going to have to say something to 100 people I didn't know in embarrassingly broken Spanish. They were all mostly old ladies and elder dignified gentlemen, a few parents with young children. I was mortified. Luckily when it came to us we got passed over. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I stayed a little tense as I kept paying close attention to the amazing things I had no idea about. Alexander and I got plenty of happy smiles from those who must have realized we were way far out of our element.
The food, as it is at all Mexican parties, was great. Alexander made me try something slightly opaque and a little squishy that had the consistency of a gummy bear and tasted like bland chicken. Turns out it was cow tendon. Cool!
Later, we all gathered with candles and nightsticks in the street. A portable loudspeaker system crackled in and out of audibility as an older woman led the songs while we slowly walked up and down the street, imitating the pilgrimage of Joseph and Mary coming to the stable. Candles everywhere kept dying out in the wind, and everyone was rushing to one another to keep their lights alive. When we arrived back at the meeting hall, we sang a back-and-forth song imitating the stablemaster inviting Joseph and Mary in.
Then, piñatas were hung in the street, on a rope that was hung between two houses across the whole street. And such piñatas! There were piñatas for the tiniest children, for the boys, for the girls, for the teenagers, for the adults, some were filled with sugarcane, jicama, or sweets, others were trick piñatas filled with paper filler. On my turn, I started whacking that mother fogger straight-up gangsta style. I didn't realize there was a three-hit limit… as I swung my baton samurai-sword style, I started hearing English: "STOP!" Slightly embarrassed, I let the baton go to the next person. But I did some damage.
Though it wasn't quite as "fun" as the last posada, which had lots of people my age and plenty of drinking and dancing, I had a great time. It really felt like I was experiencing something foreign, as I couldn't understand a word people were saying near the beginning. Sadly, traditional posadas of the type I got to witness are slowly dying out in favor of much more western forms of celebration. Even Christmas trees were not common in Mexico until fairly recently. I hope that this tradition finds a way to continue in some way, though the young people find it boring, I found it a great example of the way a culture continues to move their stories and beliefs forward through the years.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Do You, Mind?
Sometimes I wish my mind would just slow the fuck down.
I could take you on a tour of the mental gymnastics but its a train wreck in there. Come back later, we're closed for renovations.
I could take you on a tour of the mental gymnastics but its a train wreck in there. Come back later, we're closed for renovations.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Out on the Weekend
Last Friday, I went to my first "Posada," hosted by my friend Patricia. A "Posada" is a traditional Mexican fiesta held before Christmas. It was all young people, about graduate student age. There is drinks, conversation, enjoyment of friends' company, a piñata, and food. Lots of food. One thing about Mexican parties: they know how to keep their guests and guts happy. At one point during the night, a book of songs (I was later corrected that they were "laments") was brought out. one of the children of the guests, a cute little girl named Miley, handed me a candle. Then, half of the guests stood outside the door, their candles lit, and half of us stayed behind the door, our candles lit, imitating the journey of Josef and Mary as they looked for sanctuary in the stable. A back-and-forth prayer was uttered between us, and the guests came in, as we set of some nightsticks. Then, we strung up our piñata across the courtyard of the small apartment complex and had a rollicking good time. I spent the night and left at 7 in the morning, after falling asleep at 3.
As Patricia guided me on the bus ride back to the metro station, she pointed out to me the countless pilgrims riding their bicycles to the Basilica to pay homage to the Virgin Mary (That weekend was the Day of Guadalupe, a sacred holiday among Mexican Catholics). It looked almost like Burning Man, with people camping out in small corner parks, people hanging around laughing, praying, eating food provided specifically for the pilgrims. Most of the food was even catered by local city residents specifically for the travelers, many who had come from miles outside of Mexico City for the stunning service to be held Sunday.
The weekend experience wasn't quite over. That day, Saturday, I had an interview for a modeling agency (of all things) at 11am. They had found me through Facebook, which is a little strange. I had very little prospects of getting the "job," and I had no idea how my Spanish would fare in the interview. So, going into the interview expecting to tell them the truth and be present (as I have avoided in so many interviews; worried about getting the job you agonize over thinking about what they want to hear out of you), I had a jolly good time. By the time I talked to a second woman about the work visa requirements, I was literally only seeing gibberish spew out of her mouth. But I caught enough to make sense, and I think I presented myself well. So, no modeling jobs at the moment, but I felt very proud that at the very least I had gone to my first Mexican job interview.
The building was in the Condeza district, a very nice part of town. With nothing much to do, I decided to take a stroll through the park. It reminded me of Halloween weekend with the guys, strolling on our little daytrip through the SF Botanical Garden, and really taking in the unique different-ness of Mexican flora and fauna. As a sat on a bridge giving a fond remembrance of home, a Jedi talked to me. He called himself Tiny. He carried a divining rod with him. It was very amusing.
Here is a transcribed poem I wrote that afternoon:
"Some moments are meant to be waited for. Walk. Walk. Walking through the park replaying, relaying those fond fond memories of men in a park observing the universe passing by, when you were the finest dudded gent in the playground pond. How does it feel to be the only white skinned devil on the bus of browns, light and dark ones, to be the only one reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Perhaps it is vainly stroking an ego, an id, a thought when someone wants you for your skin and eyes and ears. But the true satisfaction is in traversing the odd-edged sidewalks to the building of pretty gibberish ladies, that you came and went and took your walk in the park, where you met a tiny Jedi and discussed the Sith Lords of America. Perhaps it is the continued waking of this life, a stern continued lack of sleep that makes us weep at the growing, hoarse talking trees and plants and the old ladies waiting at their bus stop churches and all of the things we just can't catch up to. Remember your fine duds and your devil skin and then forget them. The trees will tell you why. Don't forget the way it feels to walk on water, to dance with your chances, to feel like every step is exactly where it should be."
That same day, around 5:00pm, a 6.5 earthquake hit Mexico City. I was back home and only felt a little shake and rattle. I was still incredibly surprised. I had lived a whole year in San Francisco and my whole life in California and never experienced an earthquake. I had to come to Mexico to see one. It was relatively easy-going in my part of town, but Alexander said his whole apartment complex was shaking for a good three minutes. Two people died in one of the poorer parts of town. My friend Patricia, who lives on the fourth floor of an apartment complex, really got a good scare.
On Sunday I went out for a few errands and had a great time getting some final pieces together for art projects. I have been slowly working on a comic bookstore for my dear fairy friend Koala, who lives in Thailand. It will be up on my website soon. I spent the afternoon stapling, gluing, covering, and decorating the book with leaves I found on the ground. I think she'll really like it.
When I got home I realized I had lost my call phone. I got really mad for awhile about that. I had just bought a hard drive that day as well. I think I was getting angry about my seemingly wasted money. Its incredible how worried money can get you about just about everything. So I fumed for awhile, but all in all it was a pleasant day. I still haven't sent the package to Koala, but once I get around a post office (probably this weekend) I'll be sending that shit out.
I've been thinking a lot about where I want to go in life, and where life is taking me, and whether they are the same thing. I've been finding a whole lot of personal power in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I would like to be in a position where I can meet people frequently from all types of existences and corners of the earth, and invite them over to dinner at my whim. I want to be able to tell stories and travel a lot. I want to have something at stake, to find a way I can use my interests for a public service, and not one that relies on the evil corporate endless economic growth structure. I want to have a house with a garden. Where will home be? Maybe it shall end up being back in the town of my birth. Maybe it will be in Austin. I feel a strong urge pulling me towards San Diego. I want to visit my niece, whom I believe will be turning four in the new year. I am realizing here that I truly love my family. They are some of the smartest, most creative, intellectually stimulating and incredibly interesting people I know. My parents escaped their families because they couldn't find something they recognized in themselves in their families. I don't have that problem, luckily. I want to see my niece, a person young enough still to not need a reason to love anybody. She just knows that she likes her parents, her grandparents, and me, I think.
It would be great to travel Mexico in January or February, go to Merida, Chiapas, and work on some farms through WWOOF. Then Go live in San Diego in my brother's mothers house (which she has offered me to stay at numerous times) for awhile. Then go out and live with dad in Virginia for 2 weeks, a month, or something. I think then I will be ready to start this thing called life. Get a job to support the comic-ing, or apply for that internship at Pixar. Or move to Los Angeles and do improv classes, write some scripts with Omar, do some PA jobs. I'm not sure which to do, but it all sounds like its time for me to get going. My allotted time in Mexico is almost up, I'm about halfway through a three-month stay.
I've always wished I could give myself up to living totally on faith. Like those people you hear about who jump a boxcar and don't know where they're going or where they'll be sleeping. I'd love to have an experience as inspiring and life-affirming and as full of purpose as the one described by Malcolm X when he made his pilgrimage to Mecca. It sounds so amazing to go in search of a spiritual awakening, to run with mobs of people across the desert, screaming to the heavens your faith in the living world, what they call Allah, what some people call God, what I choose to call The Universe. But reading his thoughts also made me realize I have been blessed with a strong and intelligent mind, and if it usually takes me down a path of plans, preparedness and plotting out my next avenue in life, then I should be thankful I have that ability. I believe that living through my mind and my body will fare me quite well, and when it is time to make a journey from which I am not sure I will return, my mind and body will tell me when I am ready.
As Patricia guided me on the bus ride back to the metro station, she pointed out to me the countless pilgrims riding their bicycles to the Basilica to pay homage to the Virgin Mary (That weekend was the Day of Guadalupe, a sacred holiday among Mexican Catholics). It looked almost like Burning Man, with people camping out in small corner parks, people hanging around laughing, praying, eating food provided specifically for the pilgrims. Most of the food was even catered by local city residents specifically for the travelers, many who had come from miles outside of Mexico City for the stunning service to be held Sunday.
The weekend experience wasn't quite over. That day, Saturday, I had an interview for a modeling agency (of all things) at 11am. They had found me through Facebook, which is a little strange. I had very little prospects of getting the "job," and I had no idea how my Spanish would fare in the interview. So, going into the interview expecting to tell them the truth and be present (as I have avoided in so many interviews; worried about getting the job you agonize over thinking about what they want to hear out of you), I had a jolly good time. By the time I talked to a second woman about the work visa requirements, I was literally only seeing gibberish spew out of her mouth. But I caught enough to make sense, and I think I presented myself well. So, no modeling jobs at the moment, but I felt very proud that at the very least I had gone to my first Mexican job interview.
The building was in the Condeza district, a very nice part of town. With nothing much to do, I decided to take a stroll through the park. It reminded me of Halloween weekend with the guys, strolling on our little daytrip through the SF Botanical Garden, and really taking in the unique different-ness of Mexican flora and fauna. As a sat on a bridge giving a fond remembrance of home, a Jedi talked to me. He called himself Tiny. He carried a divining rod with him. It was very amusing.
Here is a transcribed poem I wrote that afternoon:
"Some moments are meant to be waited for. Walk. Walk. Walking through the park replaying, relaying those fond fond memories of men in a park observing the universe passing by, when you were the finest dudded gent in the playground pond. How does it feel to be the only white skinned devil on the bus of browns, light and dark ones, to be the only one reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Perhaps it is vainly stroking an ego, an id, a thought when someone wants you for your skin and eyes and ears. But the true satisfaction is in traversing the odd-edged sidewalks to the building of pretty gibberish ladies, that you came and went and took your walk in the park, where you met a tiny Jedi and discussed the Sith Lords of America. Perhaps it is the continued waking of this life, a stern continued lack of sleep that makes us weep at the growing, hoarse talking trees and plants and the old ladies waiting at their bus stop churches and all of the things we just can't catch up to. Remember your fine duds and your devil skin and then forget them. The trees will tell you why. Don't forget the way it feels to walk on water, to dance with your chances, to feel like every step is exactly where it should be."
That same day, around 5:00pm, a 6.5 earthquake hit Mexico City. I was back home and only felt a little shake and rattle. I was still incredibly surprised. I had lived a whole year in San Francisco and my whole life in California and never experienced an earthquake. I had to come to Mexico to see one. It was relatively easy-going in my part of town, but Alexander said his whole apartment complex was shaking for a good three minutes. Two people died in one of the poorer parts of town. My friend Patricia, who lives on the fourth floor of an apartment complex, really got a good scare.
On Sunday I went out for a few errands and had a great time getting some final pieces together for art projects. I have been slowly working on a comic bookstore for my dear fairy friend Koala, who lives in Thailand. It will be up on my website soon. I spent the afternoon stapling, gluing, covering, and decorating the book with leaves I found on the ground. I think she'll really like it.
When I got home I realized I had lost my call phone. I got really mad for awhile about that. I had just bought a hard drive that day as well. I think I was getting angry about my seemingly wasted money. Its incredible how worried money can get you about just about everything. So I fumed for awhile, but all in all it was a pleasant day. I still haven't sent the package to Koala, but once I get around a post office (probably this weekend) I'll be sending that shit out.
I've been thinking a lot about where I want to go in life, and where life is taking me, and whether they are the same thing. I've been finding a whole lot of personal power in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I would like to be in a position where I can meet people frequently from all types of existences and corners of the earth, and invite them over to dinner at my whim. I want to be able to tell stories and travel a lot. I want to have something at stake, to find a way I can use my interests for a public service, and not one that relies on the evil corporate endless economic growth structure. I want to have a house with a garden. Where will home be? Maybe it shall end up being back in the town of my birth. Maybe it will be in Austin. I feel a strong urge pulling me towards San Diego. I want to visit my niece, whom I believe will be turning four in the new year. I am realizing here that I truly love my family. They are some of the smartest, most creative, intellectually stimulating and incredibly interesting people I know. My parents escaped their families because they couldn't find something they recognized in themselves in their families. I don't have that problem, luckily. I want to see my niece, a person young enough still to not need a reason to love anybody. She just knows that she likes her parents, her grandparents, and me, I think.
It would be great to travel Mexico in January or February, go to Merida, Chiapas, and work on some farms through WWOOF. Then Go live in San Diego in my brother's mothers house (which she has offered me to stay at numerous times) for awhile. Then go out and live with dad in Virginia for 2 weeks, a month, or something. I think then I will be ready to start this thing called life. Get a job to support the comic-ing, or apply for that internship at Pixar. Or move to Los Angeles and do improv classes, write some scripts with Omar, do some PA jobs. I'm not sure which to do, but it all sounds like its time for me to get going. My allotted time in Mexico is almost up, I'm about halfway through a three-month stay.
I've always wished I could give myself up to living totally on faith. Like those people you hear about who jump a boxcar and don't know where they're going or where they'll be sleeping. I'd love to have an experience as inspiring and life-affirming and as full of purpose as the one described by Malcolm X when he made his pilgrimage to Mecca. It sounds so amazing to go in search of a spiritual awakening, to run with mobs of people across the desert, screaming to the heavens your faith in the living world, what they call Allah, what some people call God, what I choose to call The Universe. But reading his thoughts also made me realize I have been blessed with a strong and intelligent mind, and if it usually takes me down a path of plans, preparedness and plotting out my next avenue in life, then I should be thankful I have that ability. I believe that living through my mind and my body will fare me quite well, and when it is time to make a journey from which I am not sure I will return, my mind and body will tell me when I am ready.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Toluca
Yesterday Alexander took me to Toluca, a small city outside the limits of Mexico City. It was quite nice.
"Toluca" is a náhuatl word meaning "lugar del dios Tolo," or "the place of the god Tolo." Apparently, Tolo was one of the gods worshiped by the Aztecs. We visited two large churches around the centro, the Catadral de Toluca and the Templo de Carmen. They contain some of the bloodiest Jesus statues I've ever seen. There was also the Cosmovital Jardín Botanico, a large building containing all native plants of Mexico. The plants add to the stunning beauty of the stained-glass mural which starts at the entrance, runs along either side of the walls (showering the plants in light of all colors, making them look almost alien at times), over to the back and along the ceiling. The Garden was designed by a Japanese artist who moved to Mexico in the late 19th century. This garden is well worth the 10 peso entrance fee; it is one of those marvelous fusions of art and nature of which we do not see enough.
A few times, I heard locals calling out in English to us. One man passing us on the street did a dead-on impression: "Hey, what's going on, guys?" You would think he was Dave Chappelle imitating white people.
If you wander outside the centro there are some stunningly cheap places to get food. We had a feast of chilaquiles and sopes. I also got a chance to try my first "gordita." Now, some of you probably have had gorditas in Mexican restaurants in America, which tend to be deep-fried burritos. A true Mexican gordita is not the same, though the two are probably on par with each other in terms of health benefits. A Mexican gordita is closer to a Mexican dim-sum. It is a thick corn tortilla stuffed with just about anything, ranging from meat to fruit or anything else. The meat is deep-fried. The tortilla is deep-fried. There is not a single part of this marvelous concoction that isn't attempting to give you a heart attack. There is a reason they call it "the little fat girl." Oh, and I found out afterwards that the stuffing inside my gordita was deep-fried pig skin. I do believe this is what Ambrosia tasted like.
Sadly, the next new experience was not as orgasmic-ally satisfying. After wandering around for awhile searching for a bar, we finally found one thanks to a tip from the lovely ladies at the Fiesta Inn. It was a little tavern in the second story of a building, up a narrow flight of stairs. There, I tried my very first "cubana." This recipe describes a cubana as "10 oz beer, 1 oz lime juice, 9 dashes tabasco and 2 oz clamato juice." I would also add to that list of ingredients "1 heaping spoonful of pure nasty." It is not exactly a pleasant drink to imbibe. In fact, it has the curious effect of getting more repulsive as you drink it. It looks kind of like the tarred-up sludge water at the bottom of a bong that hasn't been cleaned in a year. But, as was my duty, I pressed on and finished the whole thing.
Drunk and tired, Alexander and I made our way back to the bus terminal. Missing the bus by only seconds, we got the next one out, leaving a half-hour later. This gave us an opportunity to wander the terminal which must have been created by some monster from the 70's with an interior design degree. Pure whites and bright orange-browns clashed like titans across the ceiling and floor. Tiring of the visually depleting ensemble, we got pastries and ate them on a walkway looking out over the Toluca freeway. It was a lovely, surreal sight of urban beauty. A concrete pillar walkway merging off in different directions like a spiderweb. In one direction, the lights of a far-off city and the vague outline of a placid hillside. In another, a large set of windows looking in on a karate dojo on the third floor of the building attached to the bus terminal. All along the walkway vendors sat next to large blankets selling strange assortments of goods, like watches, scarves, and batteries. We almost missed the next bus when we got a little too carried away making fun of Catwoman, playing in a Spanish dub on the terminal telly.
It was nice to get out of the city, even if only to a smaller city. Returning to the hustle and bustle of Mexico City felt a little surreal. Next time, I really want to get out of my element and visit a pueblo. Thank goodness there are a multitude of ways to keep your mind open in this world.
"Toluca" is a náhuatl word meaning "lugar del dios Tolo," or "the place of the god Tolo." Apparently, Tolo was one of the gods worshiped by the Aztecs. We visited two large churches around the centro, the Catadral de Toluca and the Templo de Carmen. They contain some of the bloodiest Jesus statues I've ever seen. There was also the Cosmovital Jardín Botanico, a large building containing all native plants of Mexico. The plants add to the stunning beauty of the stained-glass mural which starts at the entrance, runs along either side of the walls (showering the plants in light of all colors, making them look almost alien at times), over to the back and along the ceiling. The Garden was designed by a Japanese artist who moved to Mexico in the late 19th century. This garden is well worth the 10 peso entrance fee; it is one of those marvelous fusions of art and nature of which we do not see enough.
A few times, I heard locals calling out in English to us. One man passing us on the street did a dead-on impression: "Hey, what's going on, guys?" You would think he was Dave Chappelle imitating white people.
If you wander outside the centro there are some stunningly cheap places to get food. We had a feast of chilaquiles and sopes. I also got a chance to try my first "gordita." Now, some of you probably have had gorditas in Mexican restaurants in America, which tend to be deep-fried burritos. A true Mexican gordita is not the same, though the two are probably on par with each other in terms of health benefits. A Mexican gordita is closer to a Mexican dim-sum. It is a thick corn tortilla stuffed with just about anything, ranging from meat to fruit or anything else. The meat is deep-fried. The tortilla is deep-fried. There is not a single part of this marvelous concoction that isn't attempting to give you a heart attack. There is a reason they call it "the little fat girl." Oh, and I found out afterwards that the stuffing inside my gordita was deep-fried pig skin. I do believe this is what Ambrosia tasted like.
Sadly, the next new experience was not as orgasmic-ally satisfying. After wandering around for awhile searching for a bar, we finally found one thanks to a tip from the lovely ladies at the Fiesta Inn. It was a little tavern in the second story of a building, up a narrow flight of stairs. There, I tried my very first "cubana." This recipe describes a cubana as "10 oz beer, 1 oz lime juice, 9 dashes tabasco and 2 oz clamato juice." I would also add to that list of ingredients "1 heaping spoonful of pure nasty." It is not exactly a pleasant drink to imbibe. In fact, it has the curious effect of getting more repulsive as you drink it. It looks kind of like the tarred-up sludge water at the bottom of a bong that hasn't been cleaned in a year. But, as was my duty, I pressed on and finished the whole thing.Drunk and tired, Alexander and I made our way back to the bus terminal. Missing the bus by only seconds, we got the next one out, leaving a half-hour later. This gave us an opportunity to wander the terminal which must have been created by some monster from the 70's with an interior design degree. Pure whites and bright orange-browns clashed like titans across the ceiling and floor. Tiring of the visually depleting ensemble, we got pastries and ate them on a walkway looking out over the Toluca freeway. It was a lovely, surreal sight of urban beauty. A concrete pillar walkway merging off in different directions like a spiderweb. In one direction, the lights of a far-off city and the vague outline of a placid hillside. In another, a large set of windows looking in on a karate dojo on the third floor of the building attached to the bus terminal. All along the walkway vendors sat next to large blankets selling strange assortments of goods, like watches, scarves, and batteries. We almost missed the next bus when we got a little too carried away making fun of Catwoman, playing in a Spanish dub on the terminal telly.
It was nice to get out of the city, even if only to a smaller city. Returning to the hustle and bustle of Mexico City felt a little surreal. Next time, I really want to get out of my element and visit a pueblo. Thank goodness there are a multitude of ways to keep your mind open in this world.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Art, Booze & Foreign Filmin'
I'm doing a lot of art today, it feels good.
I also bought a new pair of shoes! They have long flared tips. I feel very Mexican.
I had a killer headache last night. I'm starting to think I'm too old for alcohol. All I had was a shot of tequila and about an hour later two beers. Maybe its just the elevation and not enough water.
I had a thought last night as I was falling asleep that I need to move my body to really let the creative energy out of me. It's awfully constricting sitting at a desk or drafting table trying to get some little line perfect without getting up every once in awhile.
My friend Alexander and I will be making a foreign film soon (i.e., a film here in Mexico). I'm very excited. I think it's finally time for me to get back into a collaborative film-making experience. I've had enough Ol' Man Grizzles, it's time to embrace my "destiny," if that's what you want to call it. More details to come.
Also, I will be publishing ads on this site, to see how it works out. If you know me personally, PLEASE DO NOT CLICK THEM. Unless, of course, you are actually interested in the product. Haphazard clicking will get my account banned. We all remember cacrew, don't we? In the meantime, sorry about the visual clutter, but hopefully the ads come off as non-intrusive as possible.
I also bought a new pair of shoes! They have long flared tips. I feel very Mexican.
I had a killer headache last night. I'm starting to think I'm too old for alcohol. All I had was a shot of tequila and about an hour later two beers. Maybe its just the elevation and not enough water.
I had a thought last night as I was falling asleep that I need to move my body to really let the creative energy out of me. It's awfully constricting sitting at a desk or drafting table trying to get some little line perfect without getting up every once in awhile.
My friend Alexander and I will be making a foreign film soon (i.e., a film here in Mexico). I'm very excited. I think it's finally time for me to get back into a collaborative film-making experience. I've had enough Ol' Man Grizzles, it's time to embrace my "destiny," if that's what you want to call it. More details to come.
Also, I will be publishing ads on this site, to see how it works out. If you know me personally, PLEASE DO NOT CLICK THEM. Unless, of course, you are actually interested in the product. Haphazard clicking will get my account banned. We all remember cacrew, don't we? In the meantime, sorry about the visual clutter, but hopefully the ads come off as non-intrusive as possible.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Nos Vemos
Say that you are parting ways with a friend after an evening of intelligent conversation, working together, binge drinking, whatever. In America, we say "I'll see you." In Mexico, they say "Nos vemos." Literally translated, this means roughly "we'll be seeing each other." I like that. In American English, the subject is you, the selfish article that your friend gets the pleasure of seeing sometime in the future. There is a clear delineation between you and another. The Mexican Spanish equivalent just feels so much more equal when you break it down. It's also more economical to say.
Mexican Spanish is filled with all kinds of formalities, such as addressing an unfamiliar person in the third person "Usted," or the hierarchical system of addressing those older, more experienced, or seemingly above you in both age, status and (for native Mexicans) even ethnicity with respect and dignity. There are many idioms in the language south of the border to keep very clearly defined social roles in order.
But "Nos vemos," with its equal and eagerly divided attention between friends, its warm tone and affected surety, is a phrase I can really get behind.
Mexican Spanish is filled with all kinds of formalities, such as addressing an unfamiliar person in the third person "Usted," or the hierarchical system of addressing those older, more experienced, or seemingly above you in both age, status and (for native Mexicans) even ethnicity with respect and dignity. There are many idioms in the language south of the border to keep very clearly defined social roles in order.
But "Nos vemos," with its equal and eagerly divided attention between friends, its warm tone and affected surety, is a phrase I can really get behind.
Trash Humper Trauma
Last night I watched a film called Trash Humpers, written and directed by Harmony Korine. I'd read an article about Korine in Juxtapoz magazine once, and knew that for better or worse, I was curious about his films and just had to see one eventually. The most commercial one you may have heard of was Kids, written by Korine. It is about sexually active underage teenagers in early 90's New York City giving each other AIDS.
I'm not setting out to write a review of Trash Humpers, but rather just to record, document and examine my own reactions to it. It is easily one of the most disturbing and quietly traumatizing pieces of motion picture you can set your eyes to.
Trash Humpers, for those of you who have not seen it, is about a group of four elderly peeping toms who amble across the quintessential butthole of the American terrain: redneck's houses, train tracks, in dimly lit parking lots, fields near the sides of highways with signs of the recently departed homeless.
A good portion of the movie is easily written off by a discerning, logical viewer. These are actors. The things they do with their bodies (especially near the beginning before they really "inhabit" their characters) are far too youthful and it seems obvious their faces are masks. Eventually, however, something about the aesthetic of the VHS recording, the incessant yammering of the off-screen characters yelling "Git 'er done!," or simply screaming and laughing maniacally, eventually get to you.
There is one truly disturbing image. In a field of grass and strewn litter, we see something vaguely beige. The camera operator starts singing in an eery falsetto, "Oh, Devil, done lopped off his head..." As we move in on the object I began to realize it was a human body. Still, unmoving, not breathing. The prolonged take never gets too close to the body, and is followed by pretty shots of water in the nearby creek and plants in the vicinity, almost as if the camera operator is looking for something beautiful to counteract the horrendous image it just laid eyes upon. I'm not sure as to whether it was faked or was an actual dead body, as their is nothing in the interviews on this movie about it specifically. If it is indeed fake, kudos to Korine, because I am convinced in favor of the latter.
It is a good thing Korine did not leave copies of the film lying around on the street like a "found art object," as he had once thought about doing. If I had found this tape and watched it, I would have told the police there were four very old looking, very depraved lunatics parading through our cities somewhere that we had to stop.
This movie is a lot like Natural Born Killers. Like that under-appreciated Oliver Stone classic, Trash Humpers examines the sociopath, in particular the American sociopath. However, where these films differ is on the grounds of morality: Natural Born Killers expresses one, if a warped one, while Trash Humpers plainly has none at all. There is an amount of sense and order I don't think I will be getting back after viewing this movie. It was because of this, and a sensible need to fall asleep last night, that I went searching for answers.
My first inclination (being a brainwashed follower of the auteur theory) was to direct my attention towards the man in charge, the fellow with this strange and warped vision: Harmony Korine, writer, director, cinematographer, and star of "Trash Humpers." Before I feel asleep, I sought out interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, the kind of stuff I usually use to wrap my head around a film. Since I heard about Korine, I knew his work bent more towards the avante-garde/arthouse inclination. I wondered whether Korine had a fucked up childhood, to make him make movies such as Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, or whether he had a far too crispy-clean early life and was now lashing out against it. I think almost all the things we put passion and soul into come from our childhood. I have no answers in regard to Korine's childhood, though I certainly have ideas, but the interviews proved enlightening and, like the film itself, even a bit disturbing.
Harmony Korine is no dummy. He is a self-proclaimed provocateur. The lack of a moral slant is purposeful. It is clear that he sees the film medium differently than any other traditional storyteller/film-maker. The production involved the actors (which included himself, his wife, and two other actors) to actually live the lives of the people portrayed on screen: for the two weeks of filming they ambled through American suburbs, slept under bridges, and destroyed shit. Korine's process is one of discovery and tied closely to film as an artistic exercise. Things occur on the location that Korine uses, "If it feels right to me. If there is some strong, palpable, raw quality in the moment then I won't question it." To his credit with such disturbingly weird subject material, he intentionally titled the film Trash Humpers because he wanted to "to give people a heads up because I don’t want to damage anyone."
Even with the background knowledge I still had some very strange dreams last night. Some of the vignettes of my mind: Watching Pulp Fiction for the first time in HD Widescreen, showing a previously "unseen" version of the movie revealing that Sam Jackson is actually entirely naked in the car in the opening scene. Being invited over to a house by unsophisticated teenage girls and accidentally peeping in on their grandmother in their underwear, while their obese mothers rushed to embrace me and offer me pie in their grease-stained Mickey Mouse and Eeyore sweaters.
I woke up at 6am, searching through familiar pornography clips, a seemingly horrible idea after watching a movie about sociopaths humping trash cans. I wanted some familiarity and human connection, however unreal it was. At that deep evolutionary level the lure of sex is about pleasure in creation, the antithesis of pleasure in destruction with which I was over-run by this film. Perhaps I really needed someone to hug, but unfortunately as adults we must fight these battles ourselves.
After I fell back asleep I kept thinking I needed to get up, I really should get up. I had a dream of my sister and our father lying on a bed in a hotel room, many stories up. My father was recalling a time (that did not really happen) of when he led me and my sister on a treasure hunt, tricking us into a pristine grove where a showing of My Neighbor Totoro was taking place. He was describing his manic mood at the time and how everything was just clicking, and he was glad it had worked because it had given my sister and I one of our fondest childhood memories. As he was talking, I saw a passenger plane pass by tall skyscrapers, twisting its wings to avoid it in ways I didn't know a plane could actually handle. The next plane wasn't so lucky. It was desperately trying to bank up out of the way of the buildings, but hit it in a dramatic vertical belly-flop, from which the plane began to fall backwards into the street below. Suddenly adrenaline kicked in. "We have to get out of here," I said, knowing the destruction that falling plane could reign on the base of our own hotel tower. That was when I opened my eyes and knew it was time to get out of bed.
Trash Humpers find me desperately clawing to find some sort of moral compass, some sort of meaning behind the madness. That, however, is pure fantasy. There is not much to explain. Korine may have a differing opinion, having said: "With this film I was really interested in making something real with a tangible message." But to me, Trash Humpers comes from that same raw place in which animals inhabit, struggling to survive in the wild, driven by that keen instinct to kill and be superior.
Actually, no, I take that back. The characters in Trash Humpers are not like animals. Because animals, like humans, have very strict rules by which they play in order to stay alive. Even animals only kill out of necessity. An animal thinks of survival every waking moment of its fragile life. It adheres to precedent set by nature, and creates social rules and hierarchies to instill an order so as to continue propagating its species. The characters in Trash Humpers are below animals (if you care to think of it hierarchically like that, as I tend to do). They occupy the same branch of humanity as Stalins or Hitlers. In fact, they aren't even there. They are not seeking power. They wallow in the squalor of vandalism and destruction. They are not hinged to, and care very little about, the societal rules that keep everyone in check from doing something morally reprehensible and punishable by society. They don't even really seem to care if they continue to survive. And although they are horrible, depraved people, there is something awe-inspiring and deeply arresting about their nature.
Because Trash Humpers is also about something very noble: freedom. You wouldn't expect it, I suppose. But these people (like Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers) live out the extreme version of freedom. The death-wish mentality is even expressed by one of the people they encounter, a strange down-and-out trumpet player, in terms of civil liberties: "I have the right to die if I want to." Near the end of the film, the perennial cameraman has the camera directed towards him and gives a meandering speech about how much "free-er than them folks we are" and how he "feels bad for them, going to work everyday." Korine surprised and disturbed me with a few words attributed to him on the Trash Humpers Wikipedia page:
"I have a real deep love and admiration for these characters. Not for what they do, but for the way they do it." [link]
And Korine has wondered "whether this might make mainstream society envious of their social freedom." [link]
Again, perhaps it is futile to try to explain a movie as strange and raw and visceral as this one. However, I'd like to point out once more (to you as well as myself) that this is not about making sense out of the movie, but rather my reaction to it.
In the ever unproductive but stimulating and self-inflating debate that concerns "what is art?," this film has made me examine my morals, question my perception of the world, and made me wonder just who the hell Harmony Korine is. It seems a little ironic that a man named "Harmony" focuses much his creative energy on creating the equivalent of motion pictures to symphonies of discord. Whatever his intentions were with this film, it certainly made me think.
Korine is a self-proclaimed and gleeful provocateur. This film of his sank me deep into questions of moral ambiguity that I am not sure are helpful but I am very glad he stirred in me. And he is a far more courageous film-maker than I ever have the intention of being.
I'm not setting out to write a review of Trash Humpers, but rather just to record, document and examine my own reactions to it. It is easily one of the most disturbing and quietly traumatizing pieces of motion picture you can set your eyes to.
Trash Humpers, for those of you who have not seen it, is about a group of four elderly peeping toms who amble across the quintessential butthole of the American terrain: redneck's houses, train tracks, in dimly lit parking lots, fields near the sides of highways with signs of the recently departed homeless.
A good portion of the movie is easily written off by a discerning, logical viewer. These are actors. The things they do with their bodies (especially near the beginning before they really "inhabit" their characters) are far too youthful and it seems obvious their faces are masks. Eventually, however, something about the aesthetic of the VHS recording, the incessant yammering of the off-screen characters yelling "Git 'er done!," or simply screaming and laughing maniacally, eventually get to you.
There is one truly disturbing image. In a field of grass and strewn litter, we see something vaguely beige. The camera operator starts singing in an eery falsetto, "Oh, Devil, done lopped off his head..." As we move in on the object I began to realize it was a human body. Still, unmoving, not breathing. The prolonged take never gets too close to the body, and is followed by pretty shots of water in the nearby creek and plants in the vicinity, almost as if the camera operator is looking for something beautiful to counteract the horrendous image it just laid eyes upon. I'm not sure as to whether it was faked or was an actual dead body, as their is nothing in the interviews on this movie about it specifically. If it is indeed fake, kudos to Korine, because I am convinced in favor of the latter.
It is a good thing Korine did not leave copies of the film lying around on the street like a "found art object," as he had once thought about doing. If I had found this tape and watched it, I would have told the police there were four very old looking, very depraved lunatics parading through our cities somewhere that we had to stop.
This movie is a lot like Natural Born Killers. Like that under-appreciated Oliver Stone classic, Trash Humpers examines the sociopath, in particular the American sociopath. However, where these films differ is on the grounds of morality: Natural Born Killers expresses one, if a warped one, while Trash Humpers plainly has none at all. There is an amount of sense and order I don't think I will be getting back after viewing this movie. It was because of this, and a sensible need to fall asleep last night, that I went searching for answers.
My first inclination (being a brainwashed follower of the auteur theory) was to direct my attention towards the man in charge, the fellow with this strange and warped vision: Harmony Korine, writer, director, cinematographer, and star of "Trash Humpers." Before I feel asleep, I sought out interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, the kind of stuff I usually use to wrap my head around a film. Since I heard about Korine, I knew his work bent more towards the avante-garde/arthouse inclination. I wondered whether Korine had a fucked up childhood, to make him make movies such as Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, or whether he had a far too crispy-clean early life and was now lashing out against it. I think almost all the things we put passion and soul into come from our childhood. I have no answers in regard to Korine's childhood, though I certainly have ideas, but the interviews proved enlightening and, like the film itself, even a bit disturbing.
Harmony Korine is no dummy. He is a self-proclaimed provocateur. The lack of a moral slant is purposeful. It is clear that he sees the film medium differently than any other traditional storyteller/film-maker. The production involved the actors (which included himself, his wife, and two other actors) to actually live the lives of the people portrayed on screen: for the two weeks of filming they ambled through American suburbs, slept under bridges, and destroyed shit. Korine's process is one of discovery and tied closely to film as an artistic exercise. Things occur on the location that Korine uses, "If it feels right to me. If there is some strong, palpable, raw quality in the moment then I won't question it." To his credit with such disturbingly weird subject material, he intentionally titled the film Trash Humpers because he wanted to "to give people a heads up because I don’t want to damage anyone."
Even with the background knowledge I still had some very strange dreams last night. Some of the vignettes of my mind: Watching Pulp Fiction for the first time in HD Widescreen, showing a previously "unseen" version of the movie revealing that Sam Jackson is actually entirely naked in the car in the opening scene. Being invited over to a house by unsophisticated teenage girls and accidentally peeping in on their grandmother in their underwear, while their obese mothers rushed to embrace me and offer me pie in their grease-stained Mickey Mouse and Eeyore sweaters.
I woke up at 6am, searching through familiar pornography clips, a seemingly horrible idea after watching a movie about sociopaths humping trash cans. I wanted some familiarity and human connection, however unreal it was. At that deep evolutionary level the lure of sex is about pleasure in creation, the antithesis of pleasure in destruction with which I was over-run by this film. Perhaps I really needed someone to hug, but unfortunately as adults we must fight these battles ourselves.
After I fell back asleep I kept thinking I needed to get up, I really should get up. I had a dream of my sister and our father lying on a bed in a hotel room, many stories up. My father was recalling a time (that did not really happen) of when he led me and my sister on a treasure hunt, tricking us into a pristine grove where a showing of My Neighbor Totoro was taking place. He was describing his manic mood at the time and how everything was just clicking, and he was glad it had worked because it had given my sister and I one of our fondest childhood memories. As he was talking, I saw a passenger plane pass by tall skyscrapers, twisting its wings to avoid it in ways I didn't know a plane could actually handle. The next plane wasn't so lucky. It was desperately trying to bank up out of the way of the buildings, but hit it in a dramatic vertical belly-flop, from which the plane began to fall backwards into the street below. Suddenly adrenaline kicked in. "We have to get out of here," I said, knowing the destruction that falling plane could reign on the base of our own hotel tower. That was when I opened my eyes and knew it was time to get out of bed.
Trash Humpers find me desperately clawing to find some sort of moral compass, some sort of meaning behind the madness. That, however, is pure fantasy. There is not much to explain. Korine may have a differing opinion, having said: "With this film I was really interested in making something real with a tangible message." But to me, Trash Humpers comes from that same raw place in which animals inhabit, struggling to survive in the wild, driven by that keen instinct to kill and be superior.
Actually, no, I take that back. The characters in Trash Humpers are not like animals. Because animals, like humans, have very strict rules by which they play in order to stay alive. Even animals only kill out of necessity. An animal thinks of survival every waking moment of its fragile life. It adheres to precedent set by nature, and creates social rules and hierarchies to instill an order so as to continue propagating its species. The characters in Trash Humpers are below animals (if you care to think of it hierarchically like that, as I tend to do). They occupy the same branch of humanity as Stalins or Hitlers. In fact, they aren't even there. They are not seeking power. They wallow in the squalor of vandalism and destruction. They are not hinged to, and care very little about, the societal rules that keep everyone in check from doing something morally reprehensible and punishable by society. They don't even really seem to care if they continue to survive. And although they are horrible, depraved people, there is something awe-inspiring and deeply arresting about their nature.
Because Trash Humpers is also about something very noble: freedom. You wouldn't expect it, I suppose. But these people (like Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers) live out the extreme version of freedom. The death-wish mentality is even expressed by one of the people they encounter, a strange down-and-out trumpet player, in terms of civil liberties: "I have the right to die if I want to." Near the end of the film, the perennial cameraman has the camera directed towards him and gives a meandering speech about how much "free-er than them folks we are" and how he "feels bad for them, going to work everyday." Korine surprised and disturbed me with a few words attributed to him on the Trash Humpers Wikipedia page:
"I have a real deep love and admiration for these characters. Not for what they do, but for the way they do it." [link]
And Korine has wondered "whether this might make mainstream society envious of their social freedom." [link]
Again, perhaps it is futile to try to explain a movie as strange and raw and visceral as this one. However, I'd like to point out once more (to you as well as myself) that this is not about making sense out of the movie, but rather my reaction to it.
In the ever unproductive but stimulating and self-inflating debate that concerns "what is art?," this film has made me examine my morals, question my perception of the world, and made me wonder just who the hell Harmony Korine is. It seems a little ironic that a man named "Harmony" focuses much his creative energy on creating the equivalent of motion pictures to symphonies of discord. Whatever his intentions were with this film, it certainly made me think.
Korine is a self-proclaimed and gleeful provocateur. This film of his sank me deep into questions of moral ambiguity that I am not sure are helpful but I am very glad he stirred in me. And he is a far more courageous film-maker than I ever have the intention of being.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Living Alone (Far From Lonely)
I've come to find that living on my own really suits me.
Since I started college, the first big move of my life and my first experience with independent living, I have shared rooms. For the kind of lifestyle I wanted to live, i.e., the kind where I don't make a lot of money and had time for friends and art, it is rather difficult to find living situations that don't pair you up into a shared living space. I don't mean sharing a house with my own room, I mean literally for 5 years I have shared a room with another person.
Luckily the people themselves have not been bad. In order, they were:
Chris LaRuffa, the one exception to the rule. He was my college roommate Freshman year. We were as different as a cow is from a peapod. He was a model, a fratboy, and showed little to no interest in the larger questions of life. Though my appearence changed many times that year, I will always remember the stark contrast between us when we first met: him, a pedigree face with perfectly straight teeth and a perfect smile, the kind that implied he was better than you. Me, a long-haired, beard-faced hippie kid from the north, trying to figure out where I could score some weed. I had a long-distance girlfriend who I was desperately in love with, he brought over a new floozy every weekend (often waking me up in the middle of the night). We got along fine, over cheap beers and Halo tournaments, but we never ate together, shared classes, or interests.
Next of course was Steven Ray Morris, who would prove to be the longest living-together relationship I've had outside my family. We shared a small two-bed dormitory, and the next two years a studio apartment. The first night in The Studio we sat on either side of the room (a good 10 feet or so) and marveled at how much space we had. Straymo was always moving (still is, really), and was a raucous case of creative energy. It was tiring some times, coming home to hear about every new thing he had done, but it was enjoyable and our conversations were filled with an artistic passion and philosophical bent that to this day bolsters our enduring friendship. There was a stint where Steven left for New Zealand, and I picked up Mossimo, the Pancake-Loving Italian. He was by far the chillest and most easy-going person I've ever lived with. Things were usually quiet. I would enjoy introducing him to aspects of American culture and he enjoyed eating his pasta and watching the History channel. I introduced him to pancakes and he never looked back. He must have had pancakes every breakfast after that.
Then of course was Jackson, the first friend of my late adolescence. We met in 8th grade and were best buds by the time high school started. Kyle, Jackson and I moved in together, or rather, Kyle and Jackson moved in together, found James, who moved in as well, and I came in later. Sharing a room with Jackson was at times a trying experience. The situation was also new having to live in a house of four people- four very large and independent male personalities. Jokes flew around the house like spitballs in a 4th grade classroom. Clothes, bikes, and toiletries piled up on each other like a third world country. It was a manic scene, to say the least. Meanwhile, in the backroom was Jackson and me, him working away at the computer and me doing the same, or working on art. It was a cramped place for two people (my bed was in the closet, JaX's closet was in the stairway), but we made due.
Also exacerbating in its own way was this last summer, that saw me with now permanent home in the city I was making my living in, but rather commuting from Santa Rosa to San Francisco, living off the good graces and couches and floors of my friends. It was fun to not be tied down to one place. It was also hard on my back.
It's too bad it's so hard to have your own space in California. California really is the shit. A friend of mine was paying $1250 for a studio apartment in downtown San Francisco that was barely big enough for her bed. Housing prices have been steadily rising in the U.S. for as long as anyone has cared to keep track. California is where the "international boom in housing prices has been most pronounced," according to Wikipedia. The median property price in the San Francisco Bay Area has been $650,000. This is, of course, before the economic dive bomb we have settled into, but that is really only good news for home-buyers who still have money, not apartment-renters who never had any in the first place.
This is all a very long-winded way of saying: I like having my own place. Each morning I can get up and make my own breakfast. I have the amazing, new-found capacity to sit and meditate, just thinking about myself and my day. I have a stretching and exercise routine I'm doing every morning. And if I want to just walk around the house stark naked, dammit, I can let it all hang out. I am very slowly leaving behind the frantic mentality and preoccupation with my life goals. Or rather, instead of worrying about them constantly (which I am still doing plenty of but steadily decreasing), I am seeing ways to accomplish them.
The other day, I went or a walk in the Parque Hundido, a really lovely park just a few bus stations away from me. I sat at a cafe with a beer and food, reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Then I walked through the park. It's easy to forget where you are when you shut yourself into working or worrying about where the next dollar will come from. But walking through the park, I was dazzled by how truly dfferent the Mexican flora and fauna are. It made me feel like I was truly somewhere completely different and yet right at home. Plants have a way (in human-organized symmetry, anyway) to just make you feel right, no matter what they are.
As I strolled through the warm afternoon warmth and gazed at the sun through the treetops, I recalled strolling through Central Park with Alexandra. There is really nothing better than being out on the town in New York City with a beautiful woman at your side. Hundido brought back those memories of warmth, attention, affectionate laughter, and companionship. Only this time my companionship was directed at the stunning world around me.
Having the ability to really grab my life by the balls and direct it at my whim is probably what really lures me to living alone. The house is so spacious, but even then it allows me to get out of it, so long as I convince myself it is okay. Above all, it cannot be denied how good it is for us all to relax, take a deep breath and just slow down.
Since I started college, the first big move of my life and my first experience with independent living, I have shared rooms. For the kind of lifestyle I wanted to live, i.e., the kind where I don't make a lot of money and had time for friends and art, it is rather difficult to find living situations that don't pair you up into a shared living space. I don't mean sharing a house with my own room, I mean literally for 5 years I have shared a room with another person.
Luckily the people themselves have not been bad. In order, they were:
Chris LaRuffa, the one exception to the rule. He was my college roommate Freshman year. We were as different as a cow is from a peapod. He was a model, a fratboy, and showed little to no interest in the larger questions of life. Though my appearence changed many times that year, I will always remember the stark contrast between us when we first met: him, a pedigree face with perfectly straight teeth and a perfect smile, the kind that implied he was better than you. Me, a long-haired, beard-faced hippie kid from the north, trying to figure out where I could score some weed. I had a long-distance girlfriend who I was desperately in love with, he brought over a new floozy every weekend (often waking me up in the middle of the night). We got along fine, over cheap beers and Halo tournaments, but we never ate together, shared classes, or interests.
Next of course was Steven Ray Morris, who would prove to be the longest living-together relationship I've had outside my family. We shared a small two-bed dormitory, and the next two years a studio apartment. The first night in The Studio we sat on either side of the room (a good 10 feet or so) and marveled at how much space we had. Straymo was always moving (still is, really), and was a raucous case of creative energy. It was tiring some times, coming home to hear about every new thing he had done, but it was enjoyable and our conversations were filled with an artistic passion and philosophical bent that to this day bolsters our enduring friendship. There was a stint where Steven left for New Zealand, and I picked up Mossimo, the Pancake-Loving Italian. He was by far the chillest and most easy-going person I've ever lived with. Things were usually quiet. I would enjoy introducing him to aspects of American culture and he enjoyed eating his pasta and watching the History channel. I introduced him to pancakes and he never looked back. He must have had pancakes every breakfast after that.
Then of course was Jackson, the first friend of my late adolescence. We met in 8th grade and were best buds by the time high school started. Kyle, Jackson and I moved in together, or rather, Kyle and Jackson moved in together, found James, who moved in as well, and I came in later. Sharing a room with Jackson was at times a trying experience. The situation was also new having to live in a house of four people- four very large and independent male personalities. Jokes flew around the house like spitballs in a 4th grade classroom. Clothes, bikes, and toiletries piled up on each other like a third world country. It was a manic scene, to say the least. Meanwhile, in the backroom was Jackson and me, him working away at the computer and me doing the same, or working on art. It was a cramped place for two people (my bed was in the closet, JaX's closet was in the stairway), but we made due.
Also exacerbating in its own way was this last summer, that saw me with now permanent home in the city I was making my living in, but rather commuting from Santa Rosa to San Francisco, living off the good graces and couches and floors of my friends. It was fun to not be tied down to one place. It was also hard on my back.
It's too bad it's so hard to have your own space in California. California really is the shit. A friend of mine was paying $1250 for a studio apartment in downtown San Francisco that was barely big enough for her bed. Housing prices have been steadily rising in the U.S. for as long as anyone has cared to keep track. California is where the "international boom in housing prices has been most pronounced," according to Wikipedia. The median property price in the San Francisco Bay Area has been $650,000. This is, of course, before the economic dive bomb we have settled into, but that is really only good news for home-buyers who still have money, not apartment-renters who never had any in the first place.
This is all a very long-winded way of saying: I like having my own place. Each morning I can get up and make my own breakfast. I have the amazing, new-found capacity to sit and meditate, just thinking about myself and my day. I have a stretching and exercise routine I'm doing every morning. And if I want to just walk around the house stark naked, dammit, I can let it all hang out. I am very slowly leaving behind the frantic mentality and preoccupation with my life goals. Or rather, instead of worrying about them constantly (which I am still doing plenty of but steadily decreasing), I am seeing ways to accomplish them.
The other day, I went or a walk in the Parque Hundido, a really lovely park just a few bus stations away from me. I sat at a cafe with a beer and food, reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Then I walked through the park. It's easy to forget where you are when you shut yourself into working or worrying about where the next dollar will come from. But walking through the park, I was dazzled by how truly dfferent the Mexican flora and fauna are. It made me feel like I was truly somewhere completely different and yet right at home. Plants have a way (in human-organized symmetry, anyway) to just make you feel right, no matter what they are.
As I strolled through the warm afternoon warmth and gazed at the sun through the treetops, I recalled strolling through Central Park with Alexandra. There is really nothing better than being out on the town in New York City with a beautiful woman at your side. Hundido brought back those memories of warmth, attention, affectionate laughter, and companionship. Only this time my companionship was directed at the stunning world around me.
Having the ability to really grab my life by the balls and direct it at my whim is probably what really lures me to living alone. The house is so spacious, but even then it allows me to get out of it, so long as I convince myself it is okay. Above all, it cannot be denied how good it is for us all to relax, take a deep breath and just slow down.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
11.11.11
I participated in a YouTube-based world-community-style documentary last year called "Life In A Day." Me and my dear friend Christa Curtin made a rather artsy entry, and unfortunately didn't get picked for the final big-screen version.
But there is still hope! Another great Life-On-Earth documentary project is currently in the works, called One Day on Earth, following the exploits of the citizens of earth on November 11th, 2011 (or 11/11/11). Here are my submissions to this year's undertakings. Enjoy!
"One Day on Earth in Mexico City"
"Strange Talk"
"Final Thoughts"
Now, this one is me tipsily describing my day, and it goes on for awhile, but watch it and imagine you're indulging your mentally ill cousin making his first video blog, pontificating on life and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with a few of my morsels of un-wisdom.
But there is still hope! Another great Life-On-Earth documentary project is currently in the works, called One Day on Earth, following the exploits of the citizens of earth on November 11th, 2011 (or 11/11/11). Here are my submissions to this year's undertakings. Enjoy!
"One Day on Earth in Mexico City"
"Strange Talk"
"Final Thoughts"
Now, this one is me tipsily describing my day, and it goes on for awhile, but watch it and imagine you're indulging your mentally ill cousin making his first video blog, pontificating on life and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with a few of my morsels of un-wisdom.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Not a Travel Writer
I have to face up to the fact that I am just not a travel writer. My least favorite part about all the research papers I had to do in college was the part you have to devote the most time to: research. I'm not a big fan of looking up dates, names, citing sources, and all that malarkey. If Wikipedia was a credible source then I, like the rest of every campus community, would probably jump on board and let it be our one-stop information shop.
What I am interested in is recording my reactions, feelings and outlooks on events and activities in my life. I love learning, be it from reading a book or exploring a new culture. But once the experience has been lived, it feels so tedious and boring to go back and recollect it, and to point to all the things I learned about it for other people. I have started numerous blog posts, waiting to be published, about the things I have done. But lacking the interest to go and regurgitate facts about them (and a keen interest in having the posts seem "legitimate"), they have remained only a few lines long, with notes like "add interesting historical facts here." I guess it's good this is a blog, and not something more respectable.
I hoped to keep this blog as a way of getting some travel writing under my belt. In case I ever wanted to get a job where I could travel the world and get paid to do it, this seemed like a pretty legit way to kill two birds with one stone as it were.
But unfortunately I'm just not into it. I'm really into storytelling, honing a visual narrative and creating universes. The real world, thank goodness for it, gives me inspiration and holds my interest every day. But you're not going to get much more out of me other than how I "feel" about it.
Yesterday I was coming down with a good deal of self-doubt over being an artist. I continue to have trouble categorizing what I want to do. Do I want to be in the world of film? Video-Games? Comic illustration? Music? Writing? Acting and performance? Stand-up? Animation? I admire and have a desire (and occasionally a knack) for all of these activities, with a deep respect for all of the mediums. But the world seems to want us to be categorized and rigid in these desires.
I was watching "Inside the Actor's Studio," a truly great show where various celebrities are often interviewed about their craft. I watched the two on Robin Williams and Steven Spielberg. Whenever I watch these things, about celebrities discussing how they became successful, I always feel like I've started too late, or I'm not in the right place. Mostly I get an overwhelming fear of success, and an overwhelming sadness at what I will become if I don't try to overcome it. I'm already 24. Its about damn time I got over myself and started being part of this big world.
I inherited a lot of wonderful things from my parents, but two rather detrimental ones too: From my mother, a constant anguishing preoccupation with money and trying to have enough of it; from my father, a stern insistence that art made in the pursuit of making money was not truly "art." Along with these preoccupations being melded with some insistent fears of my own, I have grown up thinking that doing the things I want to will not get me anywhere. I have grown up seemingly in the shadow of giants, people I could never see myself becoming. But there's a fault in logic there, right? If I beat myself up for NOT being like Steven Spielberg, or Bob Marley, or Bill Watterson, why don't I ever praise myself for also NOT being like Adolph Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or any number of drug abusers et. all? It's a great blessing to not be like anyone else, because everyone is a total individual if they just let themselves be one.
Luckily, the great thing about watching "Inside the Actor's Studio" is that eventually the feeling turns the other way. Hearing the stories of the people I admire gets me thinking about doing the things I want to do for the sheer pleasure of wanting to do them. In his interview Steven Spielberg said that most of his movies are personal therapy sessions, and that the great responsibility an artist has to society is to get to know themselves. When you let yourself into the process, and allow yourself to be seen through your art, whatever medium it may be, is when magic stuff begins to happen.
So this morning I meditated on where this puts me. The truth is, I don't want to be a travel writer. I don't want to be a concert pianist, or an architect or a volunteer relief worker in Africa. I want to be a storyteller, and I want to use whatever medium fits my standards of that story. I want to be able to make a comic book, make a movie, write a song, write a book, and not worry about how I'm presenting myself commercially because that doesn't matter. That shouldn't matter. I'm ready to throw myself into letting people know who I am. Though it may not seem to have much good to do in the wider world, I really hope my capacity to understand the world's pain, its laughter and its humanity transforms into something that can help make someone's life a little better.
I'm ready to take the reins and do whatever it takes to allow me to continue doing this.
I'm also ready to say this is probably not going to be a blog about much traveling. There will be plenty about MY travels. But I'm not a travel writer.
What I am interested in is recording my reactions, feelings and outlooks on events and activities in my life. I love learning, be it from reading a book or exploring a new culture. But once the experience has been lived, it feels so tedious and boring to go back and recollect it, and to point to all the things I learned about it for other people. I have started numerous blog posts, waiting to be published, about the things I have done. But lacking the interest to go and regurgitate facts about them (and a keen interest in having the posts seem "legitimate"), they have remained only a few lines long, with notes like "add interesting historical facts here." I guess it's good this is a blog, and not something more respectable.
I hoped to keep this blog as a way of getting some travel writing under my belt. In case I ever wanted to get a job where I could travel the world and get paid to do it, this seemed like a pretty legit way to kill two birds with one stone as it were.
But unfortunately I'm just not into it. I'm really into storytelling, honing a visual narrative and creating universes. The real world, thank goodness for it, gives me inspiration and holds my interest every day. But you're not going to get much more out of me other than how I "feel" about it.
Yesterday I was coming down with a good deal of self-doubt over being an artist. I continue to have trouble categorizing what I want to do. Do I want to be in the world of film? Video-Games? Comic illustration? Music? Writing? Acting and performance? Stand-up? Animation? I admire and have a desire (and occasionally a knack) for all of these activities, with a deep respect for all of the mediums. But the world seems to want us to be categorized and rigid in these desires.
I was watching "Inside the Actor's Studio," a truly great show where various celebrities are often interviewed about their craft. I watched the two on Robin Williams and Steven Spielberg. Whenever I watch these things, about celebrities discussing how they became successful, I always feel like I've started too late, or I'm not in the right place. Mostly I get an overwhelming fear of success, and an overwhelming sadness at what I will become if I don't try to overcome it. I'm already 24. Its about damn time I got over myself and started being part of this big world.
I inherited a lot of wonderful things from my parents, but two rather detrimental ones too: From my mother, a constant anguishing preoccupation with money and trying to have enough of it; from my father, a stern insistence that art made in the pursuit of making money was not truly "art." Along with these preoccupations being melded with some insistent fears of my own, I have grown up thinking that doing the things I want to will not get me anywhere. I have grown up seemingly in the shadow of giants, people I could never see myself becoming. But there's a fault in logic there, right? If I beat myself up for NOT being like Steven Spielberg, or Bob Marley, or Bill Watterson, why don't I ever praise myself for also NOT being like Adolph Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or any number of drug abusers et. all? It's a great blessing to not be like anyone else, because everyone is a total individual if they just let themselves be one.
Luckily, the great thing about watching "Inside the Actor's Studio" is that eventually the feeling turns the other way. Hearing the stories of the people I admire gets me thinking about doing the things I want to do for the sheer pleasure of wanting to do them. In his interview Steven Spielberg said that most of his movies are personal therapy sessions, and that the great responsibility an artist has to society is to get to know themselves. When you let yourself into the process, and allow yourself to be seen through your art, whatever medium it may be, is when magic stuff begins to happen.
So this morning I meditated on where this puts me. The truth is, I don't want to be a travel writer. I don't want to be a concert pianist, or an architect or a volunteer relief worker in Africa. I want to be a storyteller, and I want to use whatever medium fits my standards of that story. I want to be able to make a comic book, make a movie, write a song, write a book, and not worry about how I'm presenting myself commercially because that doesn't matter. That shouldn't matter. I'm ready to throw myself into letting people know who I am. Though it may not seem to have much good to do in the wider world, I really hope my capacity to understand the world's pain, its laughter and its humanity transforms into something that can help make someone's life a little better.
I'm ready to take the reins and do whatever it takes to allow me to continue doing this.
I'm also ready to say this is probably not going to be a blog about much traveling. There will be plenty about MY travels. But I'm not a travel writer.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
La Palaza Del Bellas Artes and El Museo del Caricaturas
Sundays in Mexico City are relaxed and easy-going. One of the best ways to spend time on a lackadaisical afternoon is to visit the national museums around El Centro. An excursion to the national museums, such as La Palaza Del Bellas Artes and El Museo Nacional de Arte, is made even easier because they are free on Sundays.
So I found myself last Sunday, heading out to La Palaza and the Museo de Caricaturas (because it is not owned by the government, this institution does require a fee on Sundays). It was a whirlwind tour of the rich cultural and artistic heritage Mexico City has to offer.
La Palaza del Bellas Artes began construction in 1904. The President of Mexico at the time, Profirio Díaz, was the driving force behind its creation. However, the start of the Mexican Revolution would hold off its completion for another 20 years. This gap in construction is why La Palaza owes its exterior design to the school of Art Nouveau, while the interior is thoroughly (and extravagantly) Art Deco.
Many of the permanent collections were closed off on this first visit, but the halls offer quite a lot to look at. Perhaps most famously is Diego Rivera's "El Hombre En El Cruce de Caminos," a mural depicting Capitalist society on the left, and Communist society on the right, with "modern man" standing in the middle. Originally commissioned by the Rockefeller family for the building of their namesake in New York City, they had it subsequently destroyed after determining it an unsatisfactory representation of Democracy. Rivera was re-commissioned to paint it here on the third floor some years later.
A pleasant surprise awaited my departure: just as I made to leave, the entire building blocked the exit down the stairways. Everyone inside the building was eagerly snapping photos of a woman descending the main staircase. I turned to a Mexican friend of mine to find out who this woman was. It was Christina Pacheco, a famous journalist in Mexico known for investigating and reporting on the struggles between the Mexican economic gap. She is considered "a voice of the people here in Mexico," as my friend put it. How appropriate to learn about her, a voice of the modern Mexico, as I was taking in the culture and art of the old Mexico.
Next I made my way to El Museo De Las Caricaturas, or the "Cartoon Museum." As a cartoonist myself, I wanted to spend hours in here. Lining the walls are editorial cartoons dating back to before the turn of the century. The cartoons are appropriately organized by the political movements of Mexican history, starting with Mexican Independence, the Mexican-American War (with plenty heroic caricatures of Pancho Villa), the Revolution, and moving on into more modern times. Smaller rooms showcase other facets of Mexican life, such as luchadores (what we would call Mexican Wrestling), family life and political parties.
In my opinion, a cartoon is one of the most direct facets to the character of a culture. Perhaps this is because once one understands the humor of a culture, one gets more significant insights into how a people think. In just a simple image and a few words, cartoonists can poke fun at life in a way no other medium has found quite as succinct a way to pull off. This museum gave me plenty to laugh at, and plenty of names for my future study: Victor "Vic" Benitez, José Guadalupe Posada, and Luis Carreño, to name just a few.
The day at the museums gave me plenty of art to think over, and quite a lot to laugh at as well. The Mexican art culture is a full and vibrant one that has been going strong for a long time now, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
So I found myself last Sunday, heading out to La Palaza and the Museo de Caricaturas (because it is not owned by the government, this institution does require a fee on Sundays). It was a whirlwind tour of the rich cultural and artistic heritage Mexico City has to offer.
La Palaza del Bellas Artes began construction in 1904. The President of Mexico at the time, Profirio Díaz, was the driving force behind its creation. However, the start of the Mexican Revolution would hold off its completion for another 20 years. This gap in construction is why La Palaza owes its exterior design to the school of Art Nouveau, while the interior is thoroughly (and extravagantly) Art Deco.
Many of the permanent collections were closed off on this first visit, but the halls offer quite a lot to look at. Perhaps most famously is Diego Rivera's "El Hombre En El Cruce de Caminos," a mural depicting Capitalist society on the left, and Communist society on the right, with "modern man" standing in the middle. Originally commissioned by the Rockefeller family for the building of their namesake in New York City, they had it subsequently destroyed after determining it an unsatisfactory representation of Democracy. Rivera was re-commissioned to paint it here on the third floor some years later.
A pleasant surprise awaited my departure: just as I made to leave, the entire building blocked the exit down the stairways. Everyone inside the building was eagerly snapping photos of a woman descending the main staircase. I turned to a Mexican friend of mine to find out who this woman was. It was Christina Pacheco, a famous journalist in Mexico known for investigating and reporting on the struggles between the Mexican economic gap. She is considered "a voice of the people here in Mexico," as my friend put it. How appropriate to learn about her, a voice of the modern Mexico, as I was taking in the culture and art of the old Mexico.
Next I made my way to El Museo De Las Caricaturas, or the "Cartoon Museum." As a cartoonist myself, I wanted to spend hours in here. Lining the walls are editorial cartoons dating back to before the turn of the century. The cartoons are appropriately organized by the political movements of Mexican history, starting with Mexican Independence, the Mexican-American War (with plenty heroic caricatures of Pancho Villa), the Revolution, and moving on into more modern times. Smaller rooms showcase other facets of Mexican life, such as luchadores (what we would call Mexican Wrestling), family life and political parties.
In my opinion, a cartoon is one of the most direct facets to the character of a culture. Perhaps this is because once one understands the humor of a culture, one gets more significant insights into how a people think. In just a simple image and a few words, cartoonists can poke fun at life in a way no other medium has found quite as succinct a way to pull off. This museum gave me plenty to laugh at, and plenty of names for my future study: Victor "Vic" Benitez, José Guadalupe Posada, and Luis Carreño, to name just a few.
The day at the museums gave me plenty of art to think over, and quite a lot to laugh at as well. The Mexican art culture is a full and vibrant one that has been going strong for a long time now, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
Shut In
From Friday November 4th until pretty much this last Friday November 11th, I shut myself in the house and didn't go out. Being here got me very scared. I was thinking: "What the hell am I doing here? Why did I decide to do this to myself? How am I going to make this work?"
I came here without a plan, thinking that I could get by on just good graces. Not having a plan really works my mental gymnastics out.
This is only natural for people in a new place. My friend Alexander said he went so far as to travel to the mall and cried into a food court Hamburger for an hour. I'm a more reclusive person I suppose, and shutting myself into the nice house (that I'm paying for, dammit) seemed the most appropriate solution.
Thursday November 10th I decided I wasn't going to let a new place bring me down. I went ahead to accepting that there were going to be times that I didn't do anything. I started reading the guide book that was left in the house, learning about Mexican culture and coming to a better understanding of the place I'm in. Trying hard to learn Spanish from TV or conversations, and of course, delving into my art as much as possible.
So I'm better now. This last weekend has gotten me over the hump, and I think everything's really going to be okay.
I came here without a plan, thinking that I could get by on just good graces. Not having a plan really works my mental gymnastics out.
This is only natural for people in a new place. My friend Alexander said he went so far as to travel to the mall and cried into a food court Hamburger for an hour. I'm a more reclusive person I suppose, and shutting myself into the nice house (that I'm paying for, dammit) seemed the most appropriate solution.
Thursday November 10th I decided I wasn't going to let a new place bring me down. I went ahead to accepting that there were going to be times that I didn't do anything. I started reading the guide book that was left in the house, learning about Mexican culture and coming to a better understanding of the place I'm in. Trying hard to learn Spanish from TV or conversations, and of course, delving into my art as much as possible.
So I'm better now. This last weekend has gotten me over the hump, and I think everything's really going to be okay.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
La Casa Azul and Día de Muertos
Yesterday I went to La Casa Azul, the family home of the famous Mexican female painter Frida Kahlo. My friend Patrícia took me as a tour guide to the house. It's a pretty typical colonial house, built in a large square with an interior courtyard. The main difference between it and a typical colonial house was just how damn big it was. After examining the rooms and the expanse of the house, I thought to myself "Damn, these guys must have had a lot of money."
While it is uncertain whether the Kahlo family was actually wealthy, it seems certain that they were at least pleasantly above the poverty line. Carl Wilhelm Kahlo, who renamed himself Guillermo Kahlo when he emigrated from Germany to Mexico at the age of 19, worked as an accountant before becoming enamored with photography. He ran a studio as part of his practice. Later in life, when Frida Kahlo was immobilized due to an accident on a city bus, Guillermo encouraged her interest in painting and was able to support the habit. In the house Frida developed a taste for self-portraits. The bed where Kahlo spent most of her recovering days is located in a tiny room next to an open door, so she could enjoy the sunshine and participate in family conversations taking place in the open courtyard. Atop the frame of her bed is a large mirror, which she would use to reference herself for her compositions. Now her death mask resides on the bed.
The house is filled with Kahlo's paintings, and a number of Diego Rivera's paintings as well, the husband with whom she had a passionate and often tumultuous relationship. Another room on the opposite side of the building contains "retratos de milagros," small paintings on pieces of metal or wood commissioned by Mexican peasants to celebrate and remember prayers that had been answered for them. This folk art caught me by surprise and intrigued me far more than Kahlo's or Rivera's work. Kahlo and Rivera obviously found them special as well, as the ones displayed were from their personal collections. Inside each painting is a short story describing the miracle. It is immediately obvious that these were not pieces of "high art," as they range in quality of draftsmanship and usually contain many grammatical and spelling errors.One such painting caught my attention. A very simple picture showed a body resting underneath a pickup truck, with three women kneeling over it. The story told of a man who had been run over by a truck on a road near a peasant town. The man laid there, seemingly dying as his mother, wife and daughter rushed out and began praying over him. A saint in the upper right corner of the image came and saved him, granting the wishes of the three women.
The Casa Azul is located in the obscenely pretty neighborhood of Coyoacán (the "Land of Coyotes"). After the Casa Azul, we caught a taxi to the "centro," where the neighborhood's main plaza is located. The place was hopping this Wednesday afternoon, for it was November 2nd, the second day of the Mexican national holiday "Día de Muertos."
"Día de Muertos" originated from traditional indigenous celebrations, believed to be Aztec in origin, and usually in honor of the goddess of the dead, Mictecacihuatl. The indigenous pre-hispanic peoples believed that the souls of the deceased resided in Mictlan, the land of the dead, and could be coaxed back at a certain time of the year with ofrendas, or offerings. When Spanish conquerors came to Mexico spreading Catholicism, they found many similarities in customs and traditions between All Saint's Day and the indigenous traditions. The assimilation of the two holidays in Mexican culture became the "Day of the Dead" we know today. The goddess Mictecacihuatl the Aztecs once prayed and offered sacrifices to morphed into the modern day "Calavera Catrina," seen almost everywhere around Mexico during these celebrations.What I was not aware of is that Dia de Muertos tends to be celebrated with much more gusto in smaller towns. In Mexico City, there were certainly celebrations, but nothing as elaborate as I have been made to understand I would see in a place like Mixquic, where apparently family members will spend all night around the grave sites of their families, remembering them in fond stories and even picnicking on their tombs.
My own experience of the Days of the Dead was rather different than I expected. For instance, I went with a friend of a friend to meet his family in the largest cemetery in Mexico City. While I got to see the graves of many famous Mexicans with elaborate tombstones (including Diego Rivera), we got rather lost in the place and ended up not being able to find the family plot. We left shortly after to get some tacos. As we walked I saw little children taking up the more American Halloween traditions, donning store-bought ghost and skeleton costumes and trick-or-treating. A lot of Mexican children were waiting at the turnstiles of the subway, holding tiny pumpkin baskets out and asking for candy as commuters rushed past them. In contrast, the plaza of Coyoacán (where I was visiting after seeing La Casa Azul) was certainly in full swing, with young ladies in Catrina costumes, skeleton sculptures created by various schools or organizations on display and sidewalk art in the shapes of ancient Aztec symbols being made out of ground-up cornmeal flour of many vibrant colors. There was even an "Occupy Mexico" camp in the main square (perhaps a topic for a future post). People were standing in line for ice cream and sitting in cafes eating lazily and happily. The whole affair felt like a welcome respite from work for most of the people in the streets, in the same way city-dwellers in San Francisco might treat the Fourth of July: taking their children out, enjoying the sunshine, taking a moment to relax.
What is really striking to me about my short time in Mexico so far is just how colorful everything is. Houses are painted brightly, the memories of the dead are laughed at instead of somberly respected, and people have a general air of helpfulness. Also striking, however, is how much American culture seeps into the lives of the people here. I hope that those aspects that make Mexico unique, like the Casa Azul or Día de Muertos, can remain intact for some time to come. I for one would like to make it to a smaller pueblo next year and laugh myself silly as I drunkenly pass out on some dead Mexican's grave.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Falling into Place
I was positive the nervousness would go away when I bought the ticket. After much deliberation, nail-biting, and pacing up and down the floors of the apartment I was crashing in I finally sat down in front of my laptop. The Southwest airlines page was still open on the ticket options page, the cursor hovering ominously over a large button that read "Proceed >>." Still biting my nails and performing the mental equivalent of pacing, I did as the button told me. I gave over my credit card information to the internet gods, submitted my personal info, and let the powers that be process my order.
Did I feel relief? A sudden wave of emotional well-being; a voice from deep inside that calmly soothed me, saying "you did it, now everything is going to be all right"? Hell, no. In fact as the e-mail receipt dropped nonchalantly into my inbox I was overcome with a nervousness and angst of the most profound order. It finally hit me, as the digits of my confirmation number suddenly made it terrifyingly clear: I was going to Mexico City.
It all started out innocently enough as an idea, as so many big plans do. Life after college was getting slowly and tenaciously more lackadaisical. While I hardly ever heard the words "what are you going to do with your life?" from any authority figure of important note, the question seemed to be gaining more importance in my own head. Since the beginning of this year, I had been finding ways to get out of my comfortable surroundings. In February of 2011, I embarked on a month-and-a-half-long road trip to the grand city of New Orleans and back. In May, I traveled to Europe with my mother and sister. At the end of the summer, I went to the Nevada desert for Burning Man. All this time, I had been considering a drastic change from the easy-going Northern California life I had grown too accustomed to and comforted by.
I never kicked myself (metaphorically or literally) for not studying abroad in college. At the time, I was wrapped up in my goal of becoming a film-maker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I was dead-set on going to Spain, which I had fallen in love with on my first trip to Europe and was the only place I was stubbornly willing to consider. No university in Spain had a good film program, though. The best place to be for film was of course Southern California, where I already was. I set aside my passion for travel under the auspices of dedicating myself to my film studies and film making, but the truth was I was worried about leaving one place and becoming immersed in a new one, with all the troubles of loneliness, finding new friends, and learning a whole new language. I had already had enough of a problem with that going off to college in the first place.
I suppose I've always been a solitary kind of person. I remember very often being a solitary kind of kid. My sister and I were both home-schooled until 8th grade. Growing up, I had friends, but no consistent playmates besides my sister. By the time I graduated college, I had played a thorough amount of catch-up in terms of learning to be a social person with my peers. But somehow, at the beginning of 2011, something told me it was time to remind myself of who I was, something I have always done best on my own. I considered teaching English in Asia for a long time. Many of my friends had taken off to some completely foreign country right after college, in able to work and have some time to themselves. I considered South Korea for a long time, where supposedly one can make a lot of money after a year of teaching English. But I wasn't crazy about locking myself into a whole year worth of anything. I also knew that, while I would make a dynamite teacher, my true passion was in furthering my skills as a storyteller. Writing, drawing, music... these are the things I find challenging, the activities that I relish with great enthusiasm. Travel always made me need to express myself. The excitement of new places, new people and things helps me break down my thought process. The best way I have found for this is art.
Mexico was right next door, and it was a totally different culture. It was cheap. And I had always loved Mexican people. My friend Alexander had mentioned back in the summer that he was moving to Mexico City where his father lived. Somehow, his words about it caught my interest.
It was at Burning Man that I finally came to my choice. I could keep putting off living in a foreign country forever or I could accept that the one life I get to live goes by pretty fast, and being young is the best time to go on a crazy adventure. I remember telling my friend Kyle I would have to put my participation in our band on hold. I had to go spend some time on myself and really get serious about my storytelling.
Which is not to say that after I made The Decision it was easy. An idea, no matter how seemingly simple, still requires execution. It was in the execution that the gravity of leaving my comfort zone finally got to me. Suddenly I realized this was a large step in my life. Moving off to a completely new place and being responsible for my own money and well-being meant I was finally moving into the realm of adulthood. I have always needed to do something drastic when I feel it is time for a change, its like I need definite "endings" to the chapters of my life story. I'm glad to see I haven't let myself down yet.
The experience has been a lot like the first (and only) time I went skydiving. It's a funny sensation. You are nervous all the way up. You leave the ground and aren't too freaked out. Then you start thinking "Well, we're really high up now, aren't we?" You keep thinking "Oh, we must be leveling off now," while the plane simply continues on its chillingly steep ascent. All possible scenarios run through your mind of what could possibly go wrong, mostly about at what part of the incredibly fast vertical drop you discover the parachute is not actually going to open. You start sweating, thinking "please, just level off now, now would be fine, just don't go any higher," as if 1,000 feet less would make much of a difference to the intactness of your body once it hit the cold, hard earth at 100 miles per hour. So your trained skydiver takes you to the hatch as they open it, and a cold rush of air flies in your face, and you look a very, very, VERY long way down and think to yourself you are surely looking at the site of your impending doom. But then a funny thing happens. As you jump out of the plane, you feel light as a feather, free falling into a kind of euphoria as you gaze at the majestic sky through which you are plummeting. Perhaps it is the extremely thin atmosphere at 15,000 feet, but you reason that if indeed the parachute fails to open, there's really not much you can do about it, so you might as well enjoy the ride down. And guess what? The parachute does open, you get a magnificent view and a lovely high of simply having done something so incredibly fun and beautiful to behold, and you don't even hit so much as a bird on the way down.
And so it seems to be with this particular endeavor as well. I am here now, and everything seems all right, even quite pleasant and elating. To the credit of myself and the universe, so far everything has fallen into place. I found a painting studio apartment on the Mexico City craigslist. I sold my truck and have enough money to survive in a sedentary lifestyle for at least three months. I wasn't robbed, stabbed or killed the moment I stepped out of the airport.
My father, a man I often find myself comparing myself to, said to me that Mexico tends to be a serendipitous place, that things tend to fall into place once you think of them. It's time for me to let things happen to me, to follow my passions, to not try so hard to follow in the footsteps of those before me, and to let it all just fall into place.
As a way to remain interested in getting out of the house and making sure I force myself to discover plenty about this great city and country, I will be using this travel blog to write about the various sights I visit, the cultural differences I observe, and the occasional stray nagging and nervous thought that happens to get caught on these pages.
Here's a good "bueno suerte" to myself, and a very real hope that you will keep coming to read this blog as I post about the museums, historical sights, cultural observances, and personal changes I will have the truly great pleasure and luck of experiencing.
Did I feel relief? A sudden wave of emotional well-being; a voice from deep inside that calmly soothed me, saying "you did it, now everything is going to be all right"? Hell, no. In fact as the e-mail receipt dropped nonchalantly into my inbox I was overcome with a nervousness and angst of the most profound order. It finally hit me, as the digits of my confirmation number suddenly made it terrifyingly clear: I was going to Mexico City.
It all started out innocently enough as an idea, as so many big plans do. Life after college was getting slowly and tenaciously more lackadaisical. While I hardly ever heard the words "what are you going to do with your life?" from any authority figure of important note, the question seemed to be gaining more importance in my own head. Since the beginning of this year, I had been finding ways to get out of my comfortable surroundings. In February of 2011, I embarked on a month-and-a-half-long road trip to the grand city of New Orleans and back. In May, I traveled to Europe with my mother and sister. At the end of the summer, I went to the Nevada desert for Burning Man. All this time, I had been considering a drastic change from the easy-going Northern California life I had grown too accustomed to and comforted by.
I never kicked myself (metaphorically or literally) for not studying abroad in college. At the time, I was wrapped up in my goal of becoming a film-maker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I was dead-set on going to Spain, which I had fallen in love with on my first trip to Europe and was the only place I was stubbornly willing to consider. No university in Spain had a good film program, though. The best place to be for film was of course Southern California, where I already was. I set aside my passion for travel under the auspices of dedicating myself to my film studies and film making, but the truth was I was worried about leaving one place and becoming immersed in a new one, with all the troubles of loneliness, finding new friends, and learning a whole new language. I had already had enough of a problem with that going off to college in the first place.
I suppose I've always been a solitary kind of person. I remember very often being a solitary kind of kid. My sister and I were both home-schooled until 8th grade. Growing up, I had friends, but no consistent playmates besides my sister. By the time I graduated college, I had played a thorough amount of catch-up in terms of learning to be a social person with my peers. But somehow, at the beginning of 2011, something told me it was time to remind myself of who I was, something I have always done best on my own. I considered teaching English in Asia for a long time. Many of my friends had taken off to some completely foreign country right after college, in able to work and have some time to themselves. I considered South Korea for a long time, where supposedly one can make a lot of money after a year of teaching English. But I wasn't crazy about locking myself into a whole year worth of anything. I also knew that, while I would make a dynamite teacher, my true passion was in furthering my skills as a storyteller. Writing, drawing, music... these are the things I find challenging, the activities that I relish with great enthusiasm. Travel always made me need to express myself. The excitement of new places, new people and things helps me break down my thought process. The best way I have found for this is art.
Mexico was right next door, and it was a totally different culture. It was cheap. And I had always loved Mexican people. My friend Alexander had mentioned back in the summer that he was moving to Mexico City where his father lived. Somehow, his words about it caught my interest.
It was at Burning Man that I finally came to my choice. I could keep putting off living in a foreign country forever or I could accept that the one life I get to live goes by pretty fast, and being young is the best time to go on a crazy adventure. I remember telling my friend Kyle I would have to put my participation in our band on hold. I had to go spend some time on myself and really get serious about my storytelling.
Which is not to say that after I made The Decision it was easy. An idea, no matter how seemingly simple, still requires execution. It was in the execution that the gravity of leaving my comfort zone finally got to me. Suddenly I realized this was a large step in my life. Moving off to a completely new place and being responsible for my own money and well-being meant I was finally moving into the realm of adulthood. I have always needed to do something drastic when I feel it is time for a change, its like I need definite "endings" to the chapters of my life story. I'm glad to see I haven't let myself down yet.
The experience has been a lot like the first (and only) time I went skydiving. It's a funny sensation. You are nervous all the way up. You leave the ground and aren't too freaked out. Then you start thinking "Well, we're really high up now, aren't we?" You keep thinking "Oh, we must be leveling off now," while the plane simply continues on its chillingly steep ascent. All possible scenarios run through your mind of what could possibly go wrong, mostly about at what part of the incredibly fast vertical drop you discover the parachute is not actually going to open. You start sweating, thinking "please, just level off now, now would be fine, just don't go any higher," as if 1,000 feet less would make much of a difference to the intactness of your body once it hit the cold, hard earth at 100 miles per hour. So your trained skydiver takes you to the hatch as they open it, and a cold rush of air flies in your face, and you look a very, very, VERY long way down and think to yourself you are surely looking at the site of your impending doom. But then a funny thing happens. As you jump out of the plane, you feel light as a feather, free falling into a kind of euphoria as you gaze at the majestic sky through which you are plummeting. Perhaps it is the extremely thin atmosphere at 15,000 feet, but you reason that if indeed the parachute fails to open, there's really not much you can do about it, so you might as well enjoy the ride down. And guess what? The parachute does open, you get a magnificent view and a lovely high of simply having done something so incredibly fun and beautiful to behold, and you don't even hit so much as a bird on the way down.
And so it seems to be with this particular endeavor as well. I am here now, and everything seems all right, even quite pleasant and elating. To the credit of myself and the universe, so far everything has fallen into place. I found a painting studio apartment on the Mexico City craigslist. I sold my truck and have enough money to survive in a sedentary lifestyle for at least three months. I wasn't robbed, stabbed or killed the moment I stepped out of the airport.
My father, a man I often find myself comparing myself to, said to me that Mexico tends to be a serendipitous place, that things tend to fall into place once you think of them. It's time for me to let things happen to me, to follow my passions, to not try so hard to follow in the footsteps of those before me, and to let it all just fall into place.
As a way to remain interested in getting out of the house and making sure I force myself to discover plenty about this great city and country, I will be using this travel blog to write about the various sights I visit, the cultural differences I observe, and the occasional stray nagging and nervous thought that happens to get caught on these pages.
Here's a good "bueno suerte" to myself, and a very real hope that you will keep coming to read this blog as I post about the museums, historical sights, cultural observances, and personal changes I will have the truly great pleasure and luck of experiencing.
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