Friday, July 29, 2016


We must get home
We must get home! How could we stray like this?--
So far from home, we know not where it is,--
Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
Of children's faces--and the mother's face--
We dimly dream it, till the vision clears
Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.

We must get home--for we have been away
So long, it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its song as vain,--
We must get home--we must get home again!
We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn
To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...
The child's shout lifted from the questing band
Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,
But faces brightening, as if clouds at last
Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.

We must get home: It hurts so staying here,
Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
When most our lack, the least our hope of rest--
When most our need of joy, the more our pain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home--home to the simple things--
The morning-glories twirling up the strings
And bugling color, as they blared in blue-
And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;
The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade
Blue as the green and purple overlaid.

We must get home: All is so quiet there:
The touch of loving hands on brow and hair--
Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild--
The lost love of the mother and the child
Restored in restful lullabies of rain,--
We must get home--we must get home again!

The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans
Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans
The giant sunflower in barbaric pride
Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;
The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,
That clamber almost to the martin-box.

We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
With dreams--not tear-drops--brimming our clenched eyes,--
Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home! The willow-whistle's call
Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall--
Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees
And making discord of such rhymes as these,
That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds
First warbled--then all poets afterwards.

We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambition otherwhere,
Rest--from the feverish victory, and the crown
Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.--
Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home again--we must--we must!--
(Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)
Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife
To find not anywhere in all of life
A happier happiness than blest us then ...
We must get home--we must get home again!

-James Whitcomb Riley

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

nightmares, cauchemars

The first nightmare I can remember, at least the first time I woke up genuinely scared and freaked out about what I had just dreamt, was around when I was 16. Ironically, I had always prided myself on never having nightmares; I guess I was still just a normal boy wanting to be like everyone else. It seems as if it is the time when you realize you aren't that your nightmares tart.
I saw several airplaines cricling the sky, unable to land due to the awful weather, which felt big, strong, and mighty as God's Wrath, thunder and lightning, with huge, silver and shiny flying machines so close to the ground I could almost touch them. They felt real.
One by one, as if pulled by a magnetic force, they started to crash down, as falling bodies, weightless, and crashed loud, with a crackling explosion. The vision still makes me scared.
All the airplanes crashed.
We went back home and my mom and uncle were talking about survivors, apparently one of my friends parents had died (he did eventually die; murdered).

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Narratives from Unconscious states

1. A drugged-out pandillero asked me to come inside his house, a sad affair next to the creek I was jogging across. I laughed his invite off, gesturing with my hands to my headphones as if to say "no time, doing my jogging" but i did not know if he really understood; I heard muffled sounds of laughter mixed with screams in doppler effect.

2. I saw hired boys, most whom were young and half-starved, in tattered rags, pushing dead people, freshly shot dead, over filthy mounds of dust and shit, making sure they slumped, like bloody, ratty garbage bags over the bluff and into the filthy river, full to the brim with expectant vultures, rats and stray dogs, mixed with the feces,guts, and mud, the brownish-green water promising nothing but decomposition and a stench so foul, no other animals came, save the scavengers, some which were also human, who lived under the bridge, drunk on maize alcohol and gasoline fumes.
A dead, very bloated, half-naked man was being poked by a stick by a half-naked boy, laughing and picking his filth covered nose with his blackened fingers. They never knew the police to come around and organize crime scenes inside these slums. They were too busy doing otherwise. The weak current splashed on the fat man's body, trying, but unable to, move him anywhere. The vultures would soon peck his soft flesh and penetrate his soft cavities.

3. A woman, with eyes of a scared deer, stared into my eyes, for a brief moment, and I thought she was playing with her little boy, inside the garage. My tattoos were visible, though, and I soon recognized the metallic form of her (I think) 9mm pistol, which also froze in her hands, as if recognizing that it was too late for her to react. She was even more surprised I kept on walking, saying hello. It only dawned on me then that my tattoos could define me as a mortal enemy.


Saturday, April 9, 2016

En las aldeas y pueblos de occidente de, así como en las zonas fronterizas del sur, muchas familias fueron sometidas a crueles y depravados actos de violencia por grupos paramilitares en la década de los ochenta. Era la cúspide de la “Guerra Fría” y, Centroamérica, el traspatio de los yanquis, la última esperanza de la dictadura soviética y cubana, era la moneda caprichosa en el metafísico juego de monopolio ideológico del siglo 20.

Por suerte para ambas potencias militares, pero para desgracia de los habitantes del país centroamericano, no había interferencia de parte de los gobiernos que éstos gobernaban. Es más, dichos gobiernos ayudaron a las fuerzas colosales, especialmente las yanquis, aunque a veces también a las soviéticas, a frenar el paso de la versión imbécil del comunismo y la interminable y voraz fauces capitalista que hasta entonces existió. No puedo decir mucho si hubo resistencia comunista aparte de frases obscenas hechas con aerosol y pintura para casas y marchas pusilánimes de estudiantes con versiones malentendidas de Lenin y Trotsky, pero lo que si sabemos es que éstas aficiones juveniles, en su afán de revolución, que era más bien un reclamo casi juvenil por derechos humanos, dignidad y ese tipo de cosas que a los gringos nunca les gusta escuchar de sus colonias, fueron los que sufrieron las más graves consecuencias. 

Los gobernantes, siendo patrocinados por las élites comerciales, fueron poco a poco aislándose en sus mundos, creando una burbuja tan completa pero tan transparente, diáfana pero tan distinta, que solo en ciertos momentos traslapaba la realidad de los demás habitantes, aunque daba la apariencia de no existir más que de una manera socio-económica, es decir, teóricamente, estaban en el mismo género de existencia. ¡Qué mágico realista! Esta burbuja se podía ver, por ejemplo, en los cinemas, donde todo aparentaba realidad, aunque los blanquísimos, ultra limpios jóvenes con guardaespaldas, paseando un domingo de vacaciones de sus estudios en Vanderbilt o la Universidad de Loyola, nunca sabría lo que significa “Realidad” hasta, tal vez, el momento en que esta, en la forma de el fallecimiento prematuro de un ser querido, o la forma de un automóvil aplastando su esqueleto en media calle del Cuarto Francés de Nueva Orleans, comprendería apenas que tal entidad tenía semejante masa. El traslape,quizás, sucedía solamente al apagarse las luces y todos, de alguna manera, eran una sola conciencia viendo porquerías carísimas fabricadas en Hollywood, California. Al salir, no obstante, aquellos que tenían que utilizar los taxis, se distinguían de sobremanera de los que eran guiados a sus enormes camiones por sus guardaespaldas, notorios por sus pistolas en la cintura y su tez mucho más oscura que de sus empleadores. 

La llamada Guerra Fría sucedió aquí sin pena ni gloria, para el momento en que nací era más que una fábula, un par de cuentos en la pseudo historia del país. Aunque existen países donde pasó con atención y diligentemente trazado por escritores, historiadores, periodistas y demás, en Hoyo, por alguna razón, es decir, por muchas razones de incompetencia y maldad, esto no sucedió. El único libro es una novela que pretende ser reportaje, aunque lastimosamente carece de mucha evidencia. “La noche de los alacranes” fue un símbolo de resistencia, literatura requerida en partes izquierdistas de la nación, hasta un momento en la universidad era parte  de un curriculum, hasta que la gente, aparentemente aburrida, cesó de darle más atención. Es difícil encontrar un ejemplar estos días sobre un libro publicado 25 años atrás. Internacionalmente, Hoyo solo tiene un para de referencias oblicuas, sobre todo como mención a los militares yanki.

La historia del Hoyo, por cierto, está llena de estos vacíos. En comparación con los libros de historia yanqui que se enseñan en las escuelas privadas y bilingües, los libros de Historia de Hoyo parecen más bien pasquines; panfletos escuálidos con pocos detalles y tipografía barata que relatan cuentos para niños, con pocos, si algunos detalles y referencias bibliográficas inexistentes. Hay pocos eventos en el país que son históricamente comprobados. La existencia misma de su historia es poco más que un rumor y fervor de tener una identidad.

    *****


Decidí entonces acceder a los términos como cinematógrafo del reality que iba a tomar lugar en Honduras, en pleno siglo 21, lejos de las ideologías europeas que formaron nuestro pensamiento americano en el siglo anterior. Es decir, quería de alguna manera ver, si bien es cierto a través de un lente, la idea de un pasado cruel, de cuerpos mutilados y de vidas destrozadas por personas que simplemente obedecían ordenes, y por gentes que daban esas órdenes a cambio de unas vacaciones en Miami o un Cadillac nuevo, y lo que esto me podía explicar de mi propia crisis como un ser humano; es decir, alguien al quien se le robo el tan básico, pero escaso derecho de tener una nacionalidad, de pertenecer a un estado.

La idea del reality era simple: hacer entrevistas con las víctimas o las familias de éstas y tratar de re-crear los eventos de la manera mas fidedigna posible. Esto es para luego editarla y maquillarla de la manera más melodramática posible, con un narrador (o narradora, dependiendo de la sensibilidad de nuestros televidentes) de voz soprano, cautivadora, pero al mismo tiempo que nos hiciera recordar una especie de suspiro acerca de las maldades de las cuales el ser humano es capaz de hacer. En su dado momento, esta era en realidad la base cruel del entretenimiento, someter a las víctimas y a sus familias a la misma experiencia para ver como se sentirían en estos momentos si los eventos fueran a pasar de nuevo, o si pasaran como si fuera la primera vez. La propuesta era obscena, pero tenía una perversidad que podía pasar por entretenimiento de alta calidad, lo cual, con tal de que no fuese pornografía, podía ser vistos por niños y adultos a las 19.00 todos los miércoles.

Según el papa:
WASHINGTON—Admitting the startling discovery had compelled him to reexamine his long-held beliefs, His Holiness Pope Francis announced Tuesday that he had reversed his critical stance toward capitalism after seeing the immense variety of Oreos available in the United States. “Oh, my goodness, look at all these! Golden Oreos, Cookie Dough Oreos, Mega Stuf Oreos, Birthday Cake Oreos—perhaps the system of free enterprise is not as terrible as I once feared,” said the visibly awed bishop of Rome while visiting a Washington, D.C. supermarket, adding that the sheer diversity of flavors, various colors and quantities of creme filling, and presence or absence of an outer fudge layer had led to a profound philosophical shift in his feelings toward the global economy and opened his eyes to the remarkable capabilities of the free market. “Only a truly exceptional and powerful economic system would be capable of producing so many limited-edition and holiday-themed flavors of a single cookie brand, such as these extraordinary Key Lime Pie Oreos and Candy Corn Oreos. This is not a force of global impoverishment at all, but one of endless enrichment.” At press time, the pontiff had reportedly withdrawn his acceptance of capitalism, calling any system that would unleash a Roadhouse Chili Monster Slim Jim on the public “an unholy abomination.



Saturday, June 6, 2015

The Celebrity Artist

I can't really remember what I expected, but I was still very new to the city and eager to be involved in its art scene. 

This particular affair was a festival of some sort, celebrating digital and new media art. 

The Celebrity Artist, the one who was, of course, the main attraction that evening, as far as celebrity artists go anyway, infected to bone by cocaine, in his role as professor extraordinaire of something or other in the famous (as far as Art schools go) Royal Nazi school, would be headlining a conversation to discuss the "artistic practice", i.e. videos and short films of a marvelously unknown video artist, in an overseas Ivy League school, an unsung hero, as it were, of the medium. He is actually so obscure that his name not only now escapes me, but I suspect it never really registered on anyone who was at said "festival". He is likely not even on the internet.

The Celebrity Artist would, of course, be playing a double role that night: as an academic, and yet also, more importantly, a celebrity interviewing a critically acclaimed, albeit marvelously unknown artist. This discussion was to be held with intermittent views or glimpses of the Unknown Artist's videos in an informal conversation set up like a TV Show, which enhanced the Reality/Absurdity theme in the context of a multimedia exhibition, overall; about the Unknown Video Artist's "artistic practice", whose work, to be sure, was/is supposed to be held as groundbreaking, even though they were mainly repetitive, seemingly interminable reports of his drug use and various toilet scenes. His tenure track position at the most famous Art School in the United States, speaks for itself about the importance (read: relevance) of his videos. All this fragmentation of reality was of course, not even mentioned.

My interest in attending this fascinating "festival" hid my interest, I must confess, in meeting the Celebrity Artist. He was, in his early works, brilliant, to me anyway. It was an inspiration for my own work as an art student, trying to escape the confines of "traditional" painting, while not totally surrendering to technology-based gimmickry. I believe his early work was and still is the some of the best video art, and photography of the late 90's, challenging roles of film, appropriation, text, that played with perception as an actual material essential experience, and not just a redundant intellectual exercise. His work was material, using projectors, clunky monitors, cables and boxes as mediums. The themes were mainly binaries, but no less interesting, even if somewhat obviously platonic: virtue/goodness; evil/grace; self/other; absence/presence; object/subject. It was so slick and radically different from what I had seen before that it made me grab a super 8mm camera and shoot mediocre, yet fairly creepy, films, and then, make even more mediocre installations during my graduate studies at the same Alma Mater of The Celebrity Artist. Yes, he was that influential; at least to me, but I suspect some other dimwit doing some similar things. 

Two decades later, the Celebrity Artist became a kind of self-ingratiated person, much like any other celebrity, getting tattoos of the extremely expensive kind, and worrying more about his looks, it seems, than his pornographically expensive videos. He apparently (now) needed thick, hipster glasses, although it seemed to never before be an issue with his eyesight. His work had slumped, to my mind, but his celebrity status still rose, or leveled at least; and, even though his later works are mediocre at best, they look lavish and expensive, and he makes sure they look that way, because nothing says it's great art as much as something that costs a small fortune to produce. Superficial, redundant, expensive. That's the game. Vanity of vanities, alas. 

But that's beside the point. 

I had the distinct impression that the Celebrity Artist was directly staring at me. Perhaps I looked very eager; finally seeing/witnessing this legend of video art and moving images surely would do that to a person. The Celebrity Artist often gazed at the ceiling while the other, much less known, video artist spoke, as if meditating on the latter's words; but more than likely, he was thinking about nothing in particular, a good pose, actually, since it made the audience assume that he was absorbed in deep, metaphysical, or perhaps empirically skeptical thoughts. 

Either way, as soon as it would get too boring, even for the Celebrity Artist, he would casually let us have a look at his 15- inch Macbook Pro's mirror projection on the visual projector screen, mainly to showcase his itunes library, which held albums like "The Best of David Bowie", and also, quite predictably, The Clash, and of course, The Beatles, in order to play a scene from the Unknown, or little known, video artist. And but of course, he would also interject, or stream-of-consciously ruminate, on the total amazingness of video art. The Unknown, or very little-known, video artist always nodded as if agreeing. He seemed very polite, even for a French person. Perhaps 40 years of slamming heroin down your veins will do that to a person. 

The Celebrity Artist, for whatever reason, in one of these interjections, spoke about his personal drawing practice. According to him, he drew every day. Not literally, I think he meant. As in, not with pencil and paper, but a sort of "meta/video-Drawing", with his camcorder, or 16mm Bolex, or his iphone S6, or whatever. He went everywhere, he argued, and drew every day, much like an urban Van Gogh in France. Except of course, The Celebrity Artist did this, presumably, in modern Brooklyn or London, in the metros and crowded streets. His arms gestured in the room as to help us, the audience, visualize his video sketching, and he prophesized that in the future(?), this would be easier to make, as technology, advancing at such an unprecedented velocity, would permit simple pens, to finally let us draw/film reality. After this,the Celebrity Artist chose to let us imagine this universe, certain that drawing with video cameras, literally sketching, as one would with graphite or ink pens, was a distinct and inevitable future.

At this point the panel was over, and while no one had questions, I found it surprising that there were not. Anyway, as many more events followed this exchange between two greats of Video Art, the Celebrity Artist, in order to let us know he was not always so academic and artsy, intellectually dense, and almost always totally profound and complex, he played "Blurred Lines" by Robyn Thicke from his itunes library, and consequently danced with his colleague, the Unknown Video Artist, not in any way a homosexual or erotic gesture, but playfully, ecstatically; a lovely gesture to let us know how truly emancipated from "serious things" he really was, celebrity art status and all other things considered.


It was at this point that I decided to approach The Celebrity Artist, no doubt convinced that he was obviously such a fun loving individual that he would not mind meeting a younger, if totally unknown painter that coincidentally, also went to his Alma Mater. I introduced myself and my knowledge of his work, etc. At which point he seemed a bit troubled, perplexed, as it were, and made a point of utilizing this moment to let me know, mainly by way of shrugs, shakes of hand, and gestures that he was, indeed, incredibly busy and sort of stressed out about this whole "festival" business, and also, about his next set of interviews and panels, which would make for a rather long night, and he did not have time to, well, really do "this thing", emphasizing the "this", which implied my obsequious attempt at public fawning and trying to make friends with him. 

He knew I was not interested in just, well, perhaps saying hi, or a casual how are you, but convinced that I was there to feel his greatness and ask for an autographed photo with him. He actually grimaced, somewhat apologetically and shrugged his shoulders to indicate he knew this was indeed vexing for both of us, awkward, but unfortunately, he did have indeed have shit to do, unlike myself, who was, neither an Unknown, or Very little Known Video Artist with acclaim, or a Celebrity Artist with acclaim. Not even a photographer. He proceeded to wipe his sweaty forehead. One of his other colleagues looked at me with pity and then looked at the floor, unable to bring his gaze back to my miserable level.

Admitting this rather cruel fact made me blush, and in the eternal seconds before I could find some invisible, unnoticeable way of excusing myself, I noticed we imagine Celebrities to be taller almost always. And but what did I expect? I suppose for him to like me, or make me famous like him?  As I bizarrely turned around and shook his sweaty palm, I made my way through the staircase downstairs, in a kind of perplexed shock at the level of asshole-ness exhibited by the Celebrity Artist, and the embarrassing,feeling of public rejection. I tried not to fall into an epileptic fit with all the bloops, bleeps, and flashes multiplying themselves in the rooms, like images in a mirror, infinite, like an endless convention for Apple, Microsoft, or Oracle.

I was now outside, in the cold, and I was surrounded by dozens of medieval buildings, flashed and photographed by tourists, people with selfie-sticks, phones, fascinated, or at least intrigued, by being in the middle of such old things.