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BLOG 2004 ::: NOV 18, 2004 Last night I thought I heard my first war at the Cantagalo Favela. It was around midnight and incredibly loud explosions started to go off making the windows of my apartment rattle. There was some gunfire too. But it didn't last long. Some 15 minutes which made me think that this was not a war between Cantagalo and the Vidigal Favela (where I think the new Guggenheim should be built) but just an announcement of the arrival of a drug shipment. I had always heard these firework announcements but only from a distance. But what was it really? My flat-mate Fernando and I just sat there away from the window wondering. What is this? What does this all mean? We called the police to find out but the line was busy. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't even aware of it had they answered. Everyone in the buildings across the way kept on with their routines of watching TV etc. One window was closed and that's it. NOV 3 , 2004
Looking at this picture of the Bushes on the cover of the NY Times makes me think of the all the headlines and pictures of ruling families that people living across the Middle East must be used to looking at. NOV 3 , 2004 How depressing. Four more years of Bush. A great day for Republicans. A terrible day for Americans. A scary day for the planet. Though it might do the US some good for the Republicans to show their true colors once and for all. The US has been wanting to swing entirely right since Reagan. Just get it all out of your systems once and for all. Ken Starr was a glimpse into the lengths that the Republican mind will go to get their way. OK, Republicans, bring it on! Let America experience the Grand Botching of eveything we have ever stood for. PS: I take some solace in the fact that the States most affected by the 9/11 attacks voted for Kerry. Oct 27, 2004 Today during my walk down Copacabana this morning: There is a life-size bronze sculpture of the late Brazilian writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade siting on a bench in Copacabana. A woman in her 50s, in shorts, walking in a quick pace (making me think she does this every morning) walks by the sculpture and strokes his head making me believe she does this every morning. I'll check if she indeed repeats this ritual. A bird (I think a sabiá [looks like a yellow-breasted robin]) walks slowly down the sand towards the water. He steps into the tracks that one of the police dune buggies left in the sand. He leaps on to the elevated part of the track and observes the sea. Not looking for food. He walks down further to the next track. Leaps onto the next elevation and just observes. He must have been well fed. His little belly and speedy metabolism allowing him a moment of curiousity and true contemplation. He was cautious and maybe intrigued. This was the first time he was seeing the sea.
Oct 26, 2004 Well, today I voted against the wrong President in the wrong place at the wrong time.Took my ballot to the American Consulate in Downtown Rio. PS: Today I heard my first shoot-out at the Favela Cantagalo nearby. It was about time. Vote for change in the favela: vote for VidiGug! Oct 24, 2004 Today the Esquadrilha da Fumaça (the Brazilian equivalent of the Blue Angels) suddenly flew over Ipanema beach as the sun set. It was spectacular. They flew in low, you could see the pilots clearly in their cockpits. Each T 27-Tucano coming from Copacabana, making a serious bank over Arpoador and then flying all the way down Ipanema towards the Two Brothers Mountains. They cork-screwed and let out trails of smoke. They flew at different heights making it look casual and fun. They were obviously going home after a presentation somewhere. One guy sitting near me yelled out at them as they flew by pointing in the opposite direction, "The White House is that way!". Brazilians will be Brazilians. Oct 20, 2004 I just got this picture taken from my friend Patricia and I am shocked at how dark I am. I have changed ethnicities here in Rio. It shows me with Pedro and Patricia Thompson-Flores and their two fabulous children.
This picture makes me think of the first time I saw the movie The Wiz (the Black version of The Wizard of Oz with Michael Jackson as the scarecrow, Diana Ross as Dorothy and the World Trade Center as the Emerald City.) I went to see this movie with a friend Greg Neuschwanger in my Foundation Year at the Corcoran School of Art. We were 19 years old and I think we saw it at the Biograph. I told Greg upon leaving the cinema, "I liked the movie and all but why did they have to choose a white woman to be the Good Witch of the East. (The actress was Lena Horn... I had been living in Brazil as a teenager and had never heard of Lena Horn.) Greg was surprised and said, "Lena Horn is not white. She's black." I was even more surprised and said, "Well, if she's black, so am I". And he said, "Yeah, you're black." It was then I realized I was ethnically ambiguous. Black in Copacabana Summers. White in Dutch winters. Oct 16, 2004 Today I wake up feeling obliged to talk about the wars in Iraq and the war going on in the Vigario Geral favela here in Rio. In what seems to be a dispute against drug lords 100 families have been displaced and are living in the streets. The drug lords don't even allow help to reach these families. I don't read about Iraq anymore. Nor do I see images on TV since I'm in an empty apartment. People who call me can hear the echo in my living room as I speak. I just know that in Iraq things are the same through headlines in the New York Times website that I visit everyday. Car bomb in Fallujah kills 26. Car bomb in Bagdad... Car bomb Car Bomb. But I just woke up and I'm still somewhat tired. Maybe I just don't feel like talking too much about these wars right now. In Iraq... what can I say now but I want Bush to loose the election. In Vigario Geral I feel that if you have a refugee situation then the Red Cross should get involved so that Brazilians start gaining another understanding of the their conflicts. A refugee is a refugee is a refugee. Why aren't we hearing more about this war in Vigario Geral? Because to the Carioca, "isso não tem jeito, não" (there is no solution... [there is always no solution to the Carioca... i'm beginning to notice this about the Carioca]). So here you can't think too much about conflict. Part of the problem here is that they seem keep their thoughts in the Present tense. Only desperation is percieved. Not process. There is no vision of an outcome. I feel, quite often, that the Carioca lives in a mode of 'not-imagining'. There is so much to talk about. So much that offers revelations and solutions. But here in Rio and perhaps in the rest of this country the preoccupation with violence curbs the imagination. There seems to be either no time or no room for imagination. But whether they like it or not they have to start making that time, making that room. For the door out of all this shit is somewhere in that room. Oct 12, 2004 Today is Our Lady of Aparecida day. Copacabana is teeming with bikers, Harley Davidsons, Tatoos and pins. Not sure what the connection between the two is. I asked one woman on the street and she just said that every year they accompany the procession of Our Lady. Last night had dinner with Annie Sprinkle, Eduardo Bonito and his girlfriend. Met some interesting people at the table. Queer theory was discussed. And I met an interesting woman from Australia named Zenith. Oct 11, 2004 I've been having a bad feeling that I my absentee ballot to vote in the upcoming US elections won't be arriving. For some reason I just don't see those people at the New York Board of Elections correctly transcribing my address in Rio on to an envelope. So I went to the American Consulate today to ask them if there is an alternative way to vote. There is. I was given an "Official Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot" to fill out in case my NY ballot doesn't arrive before October 22nd. Nice. But check out the typo on the ballot in the location I'm supposed to fill out my Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates:
Oct 10, 2004 5:52 in the morning. Just took a cab home from party. (No, Ray, no naughty stories to report). Just a bit of desire for a cute red-head Australian. He was straight and went home with an incredibly beautiful/exotic Brazilian choreographer. I hope a baby comes out of it. I'll look him up in 18 years. It was my director Andrea Jabor's birthday party. Fabulous dancing till sunrise. No neighbors hassled us. Brazil is good in that sense. Let the party be. When people had had enough of dancing I put on Blade Runner, Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte. What a way to watch the sunrise over the Sugar Loaf Mountain. (Andrea has a 270 degree view of Rio.) During my cab ride home gold rays bathed Corcovado (the 710 meter mountain with the Christ statue on it). Corcovado right there... next to me. So huge. So amazing. I remember my days back in the 90s of taking cabs home at 6 in the morning in NY after wild salsa parties deep in Brooklyn. On the way home into Manhattan, the World Trade Center bathed in gold at sunrise............ sigh. Oct 9, 2004 Bumped into Annie Sprinkle last night at the opening of the RioCenaContemporanea Festival. She's in town to do a lecture version of her performance "Herstory of Porn". The last time we saw each other was at the Porn Art Around the World Festival in Belgium where she did "Herstory' and I performed my "Weird Circumcision". She had to leave the day of my performance so last night I told her how it went. I thanked her again for wanting to ritualistically get me into my piece by offering to sweep my dressing room floor. She's truly a sweetie. So after talking to Annie I butterflied around schmoozing and punching names and phone numbers into my mobile as interesting people came my way. I knew I was drinking one too many when I sat down next to a woman, pointed half way down my caipirinha and said, "This is where I should stop. The rest is naughtiness". Well, I kept drinking. She introduced me to the glory of sucking Cashew fruit (which were part of the decoration at the opening). Her group of friends showed up and soon I was part of a rambunctiousness that I can no longer remember. I concentrated a lot on a charming man in the group. I remember talking about the friends who have died of AIDS. And the friends who are no longer dying of AIDS. He got punched into my mobile too. I almost SMS'd him just minutes after parting at the door of the club. I punched in the letters "Gato" (Cat meaning Cutey). That's all. I arrived home with the unsent text in my pocket. Hit Send? I imagined him getting the text still in his cab with his friends. Imagined him getting into a another cab and coming to my place (or I to his). Imagined the sex. Imagined. Imagined. Good enough for tonight. Too tired. I hit the red button. Text cleared. And intuitively hit Menu, *. Keypad locked. Pillow. Oct 7, 2004 SHARING THE WALK. Every morning I am confronted with the dillemma of taking my morning walk in Ipanema or Copacabana. (I live in a small area where the two beaches converge). Today: Hmmmm... Copacabana. But I miscalculated the distance to walk. In Ipanema I'm used to walking from Posto 8 to the Leblon Canal. Today I walked what felt like twice the distance. I must do my math. When I came to my turn-around point (Princess Isabel street) I was too tired and hungry so I walked into the city in my Speedo to search for a place to have my daily breakfast that consists of standing up at a bakery counter and ordering a banana, mamão (a large papaya) and apple smoothy and a ham and cheese sandwich (toasted). The bakery or juice place I chose was on the corner of Prado Junior and Our Lady of Copacabana. One woman sitting outside with a group of people at a table raised her voice telling someone off. "You're a shit! You're a shit!" Occasionally she got up and threatened to punch out the guy sitting across from her. Her friends holding her down. So early and so angry. But then I realized that I was surrounded by sex workers and this was an after after after hours joint. Blue contact lenses covered what were probably perfectly beautiful black eyes. Ironed out hair, once wavy. Tight tight tight jeans. And those Angelina Jolie lips. Silicone donuts of the face. Smoothy and sandwich ingested I pulled my warm bills from my speedo and paid. Oops, excuse the humidity. My pooch my pouch. As I left, a girl on the street distributing flyers for internet service at 3 Reais an hour, leaned into me as she handed me the flyer, "Watch that money, boy". (Did she see me place my coin change down my speedo? Was she warning me not to jiggle too much as I walked so my change wouldn't trickle out over the asphalt?) I don't know. But Copacabana is definitely a place of 'figuras', characters. Now I had another huge distance to walk to get home (first time I refer to my new apartment as home). The beach was crowding up now. I passed beautiful bodies, some with head phones on, sleeping in the sand. One boy slept which is mouth slightly opened, his beautiful eyelashes as erect as he was. Sex exudes here. And so do the pot bellies of the old men of Copacabana who play volleyball in the morning. In Copa you gotta keep on exuding... just keep on exuding. Oct 5, 2004 MON PIED-A-TERRE A RIO. Moved into an apartment in Copacabana the day before yesterday. On the cusp of Ipanema. Missed living in Ipanema by two blocks. Rats! But I don't feel too much like I'm living here. It is a pied-a-terre considering I'm going to spend at least 6 months out of the year working in Europe. But it's a big deal. I always dreamed of living in Rio. Especially in the locatioin where I managed to find an apartment. Today I get up early and take what I hope will be my daily walk on the beach. I walk along Ipanema Beach in the sand. Sunshine. One of those postcard days. The water is transparent. Waves move ashore and as the waves crest start to create a tube they form a long lense that concentrates the light into thick lines travelling in the sand beneath them. Fireworks go off in the Favela do Vidigal in the shadow of the Two Brothers mountains. So I am told this is how the druglords announce the arrival a shipment of drugs. Imagination shifts to the so called "Reality" that Brazilians love to talk about so much. I can already tell that the favela is going to be a large distraction (or focus) of my creative energy here in Rio. (Yesterday 10 armed men and one women invade an apartment building and tie up everyone inside; Today druglords dislocated 80 families from their homes in the Favela of Vigario Geral forcing them to live on the streets... small detail: police does nothing... and last week a gang of 15 kids rob tourist on the beach). When I am offended I demand change. The favela offends me as a social activist and a designer (how can the favelas have gotten to the point that they got... the level of community irresponsibility [on the part of surrounding communities] and urban disconsideration and cluelessness [on the part of dwellers] is mind-boggling). But the existence of the favela also challenge me to want to figure out how to make them operational architectural structures allowing social and economic integration for their dwellers. Of course I've been thinking a lot about this since my arrival on July 14th. I will reveal my first plan on this matter soon. It has taken form in a first step plan called Vidi-Gug. More to come soon. Oct 4, 2004 The shape of things to come! Sept 30 , 2004 Today is New Years Eve in my mind. Tomorrrow the new year begins for me. For some reason when I was a kid I thought that October was the first month of the year. That was up until I was 6 or 7. Then one night my mom came into my bedroom and tucked me into bed and said, "Happy New Year". (Obviously on December 31) I was intrigued. Does the New Year begin tomorrow? I remember thingking. I don't remember questioning her. Just knew that she was right and that I had been wrong all along. There was just something about the abbreviations: Oct, Nov, Dec that seemed like a beginning to me. Sept had one too many letters. That would be the last month of the year. And till this day, in my mind, the months of the year are lined up from left to right beginning with October and ending with September. So this New Year of mine feels like a new year. I'm about to sign a contract to rent an apartment in Copacabana. It is where I hope to write my next projects. I will now be based between Copacabana and Eindhoven in the Netherlands. But work will more than likely be shifting between Belgium and São Paulo... the respective cool neighbors. Rio has proved to be too unprofessional to deal with. I love the city but the most interesting people I meet here are invariably from São Paulo. And in the Netherlands (although I have met some great people there) the Belgians seem to be more into me than the Dutch. So I hope to spend 6 months out of the year in Europe working on performances and the other 6 months showing work here in Brazil and writing projects in Portuguese. So... moving into a new apartment. Copacabana of all places! I start re-writing ISADORA.ORB, the Final Metaphor as soon as I move in. So Happy New Year to me. And what a year it will be: the odd quadrangle: Copacabana, São Paulo, Eindhoven & Mechelen. SEPT 22, 2004 It's early morn. I'm in Brazil and I think I will maintain this blog in English. I must sustain this dichotomy in my life which is bi-nationality. I always wake up 3 -4 hours after I sleep. It's my most creative time in the day. But I find myself wasting this one hour period in looped thoughts, laying in bed waiting for sleep to return. Waking up in the tropics is quite different than waking up in Northern Europe. I get out of bed and find a squashed queen termite under me. It's termite season now and they are everywhere. At night they fly in through the window seeking The Almighty Lightbulb and often crash into your computer screen and disappear down your keyboard. Click, click, click, squish, click, click click. So some of you might not know this I am looking for an apartment here in Rio to rent. I want to keep something here in Rio while I continue with my theater residencies in Europe. Things are happening over there but I want them to happen here too. Today I will see an apartment on Alberto de Campos Street in Ipanema. It was too cheap to be true. My future flat-mate looked at it first and warned me that, indeed, it is gorgeous - out the window is a garden, trees, monkeys a cliff and (the catch) the Cantagalo Favela atop the cliff. "But you can bearly see", it my friend Fernando said. "Just a rooftop of one of the huts". But now the druglords are using bazookas in their battles against each other and the police. And the last shoot out that took place just a few weeks ago forced half of Ipanema to hide under their beds at four o'clock in the morning... my most creative period. You know... it may not be a bad thing to move into this place. This may be my only chance to experiencing living in a war zone as a writer... in Ipanema. Today I saw a replay of the second airplane hitting the South Tower of the WTC. Today I read an article about the people who jumped from the towers. September 11th feels like the opposite of Christmas. A day in which I only know how to feel bad. AUGUST 27, 2004 So... it has been a long time since I have updated this Blog... I have been computerless for two months. When I was performing in Lisbon my laptop screen got smashed. I didn't realize they could break like glass. I have no idea when or how it happened. Just opened it up to edit my text for my first performance in portuguese and when the computer screen came on it looked like a Joan Miro painting. I think I wasn't upset because the image of the malfunctioning LCD display was so beautiful with orange, red and black forms webbing out from the spider web-like break in the glass. So now I'm back on line and a lot has happened since I became computerless in June. I've been to Portugal, discovered relatives, went to the States on a United Airlines flight to Dulles Airport on the 4th of July (we survived), caught a viscious cold that lasted over a month, came to Rio with my boyfriend for his vacation, went to Brasilia, Goiania for my cousins wedding, Salvador and now I'm back in Rio rehearsing a new piece with my artistic collaborator. Rio is now gloomy as is my mood today. Nothing dramatic. I'm in a clogged up mode. There is a lot that I have to write and I have been on vacation and i'm starting to feel the jumbled grammer accumulate in my chest. But one thing that has been worthy of noting is since I've been back in Brazil is how vehemently anti-American they are here. It deserves a lecture, an essay... something. Not necessarily a performance. I'll get to it Finally... I'm still hoping that someone will streak at the Olympics... you know.. like in the good ol' days. JUNE 18 , 2004 Wouldn't it be great if the athletes streaked at the opening of the Summer Olympics in Athens? JUNE 13 , 2004 Football (Soccer) is being marketed as "The Beatiful Game". It looks more like "The Frantic Game" to me. I just watched England play France. (I got bored with the game because of the quality of the playing. I got up to take a shower during the last three minutes during which France scored it's two goals suddenly defeating the English. But that comes as no surprise in a way. What bored me was the speedy superman quality of all the game. Nowadays, everyone storms the ball. They don't run towards the ball anymore. Everyone is guarded so closely, so desperately. The collisions at high speed are constant. Is it all the money at stake? All the commerical deals that the players have signed? "If I make a really fabulous goal I might just land another endorsement deal?" Or is it a generational thing? Is this generation just taller, stronger, faster than the last? I started watching soccer in the 70s. It seemed that, back then, styles between countries was more distinct. There was room for actual playing and not just desperate storming of the ball. Brazil played with art. The Argentinians had that kind of mean/drama-queen game. The Germans were the powerful ones. Then there was the always joyful Cameroon. But now all the teams look quite similar to me. There seems to be a homogenization, a leveling-out of expertise, technique and strength. And I don't see this in soccer alone. It is quite evident in Gymnastics and Ice-skating. In gymnastics... i just can't absorb all those flips anymore. I can't count the turns in the air. As in ice-skating. Isn't there a quadruple-something now? The movements have become one big frantic blur when they take to the air. Tennis is faster and more powerful. Is it a generation that is getting stronger? Or is it me just getting bored with time... my youthful enchantment with these sports fading? Watching England and France last night I thought one solution to make game more interesting would be to increase the pitch size by 10 percent adding more space between the players giving them time to show what they got. Or... just take one guy off each team. And this is what I miss. They are all clearly talented players but I just can't see what they've all got! The only time I see the charm and the art of the football I once knew is on Nike and Adidas commercials; those images of playful young men getting creative with the ball making fabulous passes to each other to the music of Sergio Mendes. It's as if the corporations have apropriated themselves of the art. And all we see now is field full of strong milionnaires running after a ball. JUNE 12 , 2004 Portugal plays Greece in the UEFA Cup. More human hair on a football field? Impossible. JUNE 09, 2004 REMEMBERING THE REAGAN YEARS - Ronald Reagan - Reaganisms So. The dufus is dead. Sorry but I have no diplomatic way to express my feelings for a man (puppet) who's administration harrassed Central America, frightened Europe with Cruise and MX missles, brought the Cold War to new heights with the Soviet Union and doubled the amount of those living in poverty in America. I remember the first time watching him speak... Oh my god! He's memorized his lines! He's memorized his every pause and gaze into the crowd. Oh my god! He's acting! I remember Reagan joking about nuclear war while testing a microphone: My fellow Americans, I have just past legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 minutes, he said. I remember Judson Church south of Washington Square put up a sign saying: That's not funny Mr. President. I remember more of his Reaganisms: ŅFacts are stupid things.Ó "A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." "Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93 percent of the oxides of nitrogen." "Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" "It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice." "Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders." "We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet." (When I find them I'll post the really good Reaganisms that contained the incomplete thoughts and confused ramblings of a puppet who couldn't deal with normal conversation and press conferences (as opposed to memorizing lines of speech writers). And what about the LACK of press conferences simply because he just didn't know how to speak! Remember how he would make his statements, walk off and then the White House spokesman would take the questions? George W. Bush at least tries to answer questions. I remember the press completely sucking up to Ronald Reagan. Remember the expression "Teflon Suit" - how nothing bad used to stick to Reagan? Well that Teflon Suit was only made possible by a wimpy press AND a weak Congress (remember: the Democrats were in power in Congress during those 8 years and let the guy get away with everything. I remember the Democratic Congress passing 27 million in aid to the Contras in Nicaragua). There was no left wing in Congress... except McGovern and Biden. I remember a press conference from the White House with a map of North America behind Reagan himself or some military guy. I remember a big red arrow representing THE COMMUNIST THREAT which stemmed from Nicaragua cut across Honduras and all the way through Mexico up into Texas. I remember asking myself: What do we have to fear? Aren't there more Brooklynites than Nicaraguans? I remember being in my Parsons School of Design dormitory at 31 Union Square West, during his second election. Everyone of the 30 students watching the results coming in (except me and two others) were rooting for Reagan to win. I remember the political lameness of my generation. I remember my Modernism in Literature teacher Mary Claire Barton, a graying elegant sexy former hippy seated with her legs crossed up on her seat looking at us and saying, Your generation is BORING! The 80's are going to go by and no one's going to remember them! I remember Reagan's complete and utter harassment of El Salvador, Guatemala and especially Nicaragua. I remember Reagan's build up of American troops along the border of Nicaragua and the bombing of a Nicaraguan harbor. I remember the rehearsal for Nicaragua's invasion: Grenada. I remember coming home late one night from classes at the Corcoran School of Art and turning on the TV to ambiguous and sketchy news reports about the invasion of an island... Cubans involved... Russians involved... American ships... No word from Moscow... No comment from the White House... I remember the fear and wondering if it was just time to start running north up Connecticut Avenue as far away from Washington as possible. I remember Nicaragua and Cuba having the highest literacy rates of Latin America. I remember Nicaragua having a woman president too. When will THAT happen in America? I remember how lame and small the left wing was. I remember going to the Pentagon to demonstrate against the installation of Cruise, Pershing and MX missiles in Europe. 50 people showed up. I remember having the feeling of wondering who was in charge of the country. McFarland? Casper Wienberger? Shultz? Bush Senior? Fawn Hall? Reagan was clearly a puppet who often slept through cabinet meetings. And this is what was most scary about the Reagan Administration. The lack of transparency. With George W. Bush, even though I also find him to be a dufus I don't have that feeling. He has some intelligent people around him and there seems to be a direct corelation between statements made, actions taken by people in his administration. The buck is easier to track in the Bush Administration (except when it passes by Rumsfeld) ... but they are all scary people none-the-less. I remember the shreading that went on at the White House and the missing memo that would implicate Reagan directly in the Iran-Contra Scam! Remember that? All they needed was that memo signed by Reagan showing he had knowledge of the Iran-Contra deal. But no one could produce it... dammit! But you know, I don't despair too much if Bush wins another 4 years. We all survived 8 years of Reagan. We'll survive 8 years of Bush. Now if 9/11 had happened on Reagan's watch that would have been an even huger mess than Bush's Iraq mess. Because Margaret Thatcher would have been his ally! Jesus! Yuck! I don't want to even go there! Stop thinking... stop thinking... MAY 24, 2004 Happy Birthday, Zel! MAY 23, 2004 I bet the collapse of that terminal at Charles de Gaulle which killed 4 people will have something to do with the fact that it was designed on computers like everything else today... don't know... just have a feeling. MAY 15, 2004 So depressing all those pictures that surfaced regarding the treatment/abuse/torture of the prisoners at the Abu Grahib prison in Bagdad. I don't know if they exist but in 20 years of military dictatorship in Argentina for example I never saw pictures of people being tortured. One of the things that I find so disturbing about these photos is the childishness nature of them. Firstly, you have to have some sort of naive childish nature to think that you can torture someone, take pictures and get away with it. Two, the way these soldiers posed for the photographs, showing thumbs up and smiling makes it all more warped. I've heard of torturers boasting about what they did but to register it for posterity and make it look like a game makes you wonder about how these people view their mission, their captures, their profession and the nature of war. It's all a game. The world is a playground. Rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention are but silly rules that you can cheat on while giggling. As for who else knew it's clear that this went much higher than the few that are being prosecuted. The fact that people aren't in from of the White House protesting the resignation of Rumsfeld makes me sick. OK, I'm in Holland and I'm not egging the embassy but come on America! MAY 04, 2004 I was cleaning out some screen dumps from my computer today and came across this one from February. I had forgotten about it. Someone from the Palestinian Territories viewed 4 pages of my site. Look at how the hits show up on my hit tracker:
MAY 04, 2004 OK, yes the culture of the CIA, FBI and whatever bureaucratic walls that were in place at the time allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place. However, I would like to focus in on one ŅcultureÓ that hasnÕt been getting the bad rap it deserves. The culture of the airline industry. LetÕs not forget that Sept 11 involved 4 airplanes. Hijackings in airline industry culture are nothing new. In fact they have been happening for the past 30 years. And a good portion of those hijackings involved men breaking into or simply opening up doors to cockpits. All hijackings involved taking airplanes to a specific airport and making certain demands. However, I can think of three hijackings in which the intention was to crash the airplane. IÕm sure there are more. The first I remember was during the Collor years in Brazil around 1991 when some guy hijacked a VASP 737 with passengers on board and tried to get the pilot to fly the aircraft into the presidential palace. Somehow they convinced the guy to land. He was arrested and died Ņof a heart attackÓ on the way to prison. Uh huh! The second was a drag queen flying Paris to Rio on a VARIG 747 in 1994. In the middle of the night air rage overcame this queen for reasons unbeknownst to me and she stormed the cockpit and started a cat fight with the pilots scratching nail polish into pilot, co-pilot and navigators faces. The pilots lost control of the plane which started to drop out of the sky but she was finally overpowered and the plane made it safely to Rio. The third and most dramatic hijacking happened over Africa. A group of drunken hijackers branding machetes stormed the cockpit of an Ethiopean Airliner 767 and told the pilot they wanted to go to Australia. They didnÕt have enough fuel but the men demanded the pilot keep flying. They flew so far that the aircraft finally ran out of fuel. As they were loosing altitude the hijackers told the pilots to crash the plane into a resort hotel on the islands that approached them (the Comoro Islands near Madagascar). The pilot during the last moments of the flight veered the plane away from the beach and ditched into the sea.
A Lebanese couple on honeymoon captured the plane on video. This was the first time an airliner was caught on film crashing in a location other than an airport. She was filming her husband and caught the plane flying over the water in the background. She followed it thinking she was watching air show. It finally hit the water in a gargantuan splash breaking apart. The lady behind the camera exclaimed with a cute French accentÉ shiiiiiiiit. WerenÕt these three incidents (let alone the other 100 over 30 years) enough to make airlines realize that they had to put locks on cockpit doors? And I mean heavy locks. And maybe to think about the alternatives in case hijackers threatened passengers to get the doors opened? Did airlines ever consider some sort of sleeping gas to put everyone including hijackers to sleep behind the cockpit? The culture of the airline industry enabled the hijackers to take adavantage of their inertia on the hijack issue. 9/11 wasnÕt so much about the brilliance of the 19 Arabs but more about the lameness of an airline industry that couldnÕt envision that airplanes could one day be used as missiles. But a public that was na•ve about terrorism contributed to the enabling of the attacks. Nobody fought back on the first plane on 9/11. Nobody fought back on the second plane. Nobody fought back on the third plane. But as soon as people found out what was going on on the fourth plane all naivite was lost and they fought back; the evolution of a culture in just two hours. Unfortunately you gotta live something to learn something. That innocence made that Lebanese woman filming the Ethiopian Airliner believe an airshow was going on as a passenger jet approached the sea. That same innocence (or rather lameness) lead to an INS bureacrat approve Mohamed AttaÕs student visa 9 months after he flew into the Pentagon. And the most blatant sign of the innocence (even idiocy) became evident when a bomb went off at a concert at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Oh you donÕt remember that? Watch the video. In the video you hear the explosion and see the flash, then you hear some guy yell, "Yeeeeehaw!" Need I say more?
MAY 03, 2004 So, the 17 year cicadas will be returning this summer. I can't believe another 17 years have gone by!!! I remember distinctly the cycle of 1970. I was tiny and I remember looking up at my mother talking to a friend on the sidewalk. I remember being somewhere behind the Hecht's Co. in Friendship Heights, DC with my mom. I remember looking up at my mother talking to her friend and seeing cicadas flying around everywhere. The air was dense with them. Occasionally one would land on one of their skirts and they would slap it away. I remember how the cicadas still in their white larvae phase use to come out of the ground. A friend and I would scream and run as we watched the creep out. But we would go back and look again ... and scream and run again. So young and already such a drama queen. 17 years later in 1987 I was in my last year at Parsons School of Design. I was living in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The sound came back. I went to DC during the cicada cycle and I recall seeing tin rings tied around tree trunks to keep the cidadas from climbing up and completing their cycle. I thought that that should be made illegal and thinking about the sickos that did that. Why would anyone want to prevent that from happening? Once every 17 years is bearable. It's such a wonderful burst of nature. I remember one cartoon (maybe I can find it in one of my sketchbooks), of a hippy-cicada wearing a head band, a peace sign around his neck and making the peace sign with his fingers greeting Ronald Reagan as it emerged from the ground. when my friend Ray told me they would be returning I thought Pennsylvania might be on another cycle, another brood. Then it depressed me to realize that I have lived to witness three cycles! It HAS been 17 years since my Parsons days! Ouch! I hope I will be able to get a plane ticket through the States this summer on my way to Brazil (still haven't bought it) just so I can witness the critters live in action, flying about, hitting windows with their cellophane flapping noises and screeching, " I wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! JAN 23, 2004 So nice to be doing yoga. I've heard so people tell me for the past 18 years probably that it changes your life. And I feel how it can. I sweat more doing yoga than in any other work out. But you have to be ready to want to practice it. It has probably been one of my new years resolutions in the past. But this year was the first year I made no resolutions. And I'm doing everything I want. Swimming again. Yoga. Working with Andrea Jabor in theater. Last night in yoga I had a breakthrough. I was causing myself pain in a really contorted pose. I was one big knot and I had to take my nose down as close as possible to my knee. I found myself struggling and going for more pain and ... enjoying it! Then I had to laugh.
Jan 21 , 2004 O Brasil mudou muito. Pra quem está fora há 10 anos percebo muitas mudanças mesmo. Mas uma coisa não muda. A cara de Gloria Pires. Jan 16 , 2004 I have discovered Yoga! Hallelujah. Don't worry. I won't start writing world music ... Jan 9 , 2004 Yesterday the winner of the WTC memorial was announced. REFLECTING ABSENCE was chosen. What a shame. An ode to the hole left in the ground. Jan 1 , 2004 Just watched TRON on cable. It's beauty was in its perfection. Today it's beauty is in it's imperfections.
Jan 1 , 2004 BRASILIA This is the first year that I don't make new years resolutions.
December 25, 2003 Brasila, Brasila, papai, mamãe, titia! Que maravilha estar aqui. Não adianta. Aqui é onde me sinto mais em casa. Passei o natal com família. Vó, tios, tias, primos. Mas acabei o natal indo na casa de Silvio Caramaschi. As festas dele são sempre ótimas. Ele vive para receber bem os amigos. Mas indo para a casa dele concheci pela primeira vez a nova ponte de Brasilia. A ponte JK. Inacreditavelmente linda. Espero que o arquiteto que projetou esta ponte desenhe mais coisas para Brasilia. December 20, 2003 Palavrões; escrever para cristovam buarque ou gilberto gil, carijocentrismo e palavroes. tem que comecar uma campanha. Estou chocado com a quantidade de palavrões que o carioca fala. Eu comecei a falar palavrão até na frente de crianças. Acho que vou escrever uma carta para o Gilberto Gil e para o Cristovão Buarque para começarem uma campanha contra o palavrão. O palavrão quando usado o tempo todo pra mim é sinal de preguiça e falta de vocabulario. Tem tantas outras maneiras (mais eficientes e engraçadas até) para exclamar um sentimento. Vou escrever estas cartas sim porque a lingua portuguesa da ficando foda! December 20, 2003 AGUA BRILHANDO OLHA A PISTA CHEGANDO... Apesar dos engarrafamentos na linha vermelha o Rio estava com outro astral sem aquele cheiro de cocô de bem-vindo que a gente sente saindo do Galeão passando pelos mangues da Ilha do Governador. Será que tem alguma coisa a ver com a despoluição do Guanabara? Outra coisa que reparei é que aquela obra deprimente que parece que era pra ser um estadio de ciclismo agora esta sendo utilizada como feira nordestina. Uma obra com tendas. Gráfico e bem feito. Estou na casa da Andrea Jabor e estamos no Rio para discutir a nossa parceiria de trabalho. Mas quando sai o sol no Rio não penso em mais nada a nao ser a praia. Fui. Na ida comprei sunga adidas preta e haivaianas pretas com aquela alça nova de calcanhar. Passei os meus protetores e fui pra areia na altura da Farme, Posto 8. Andei (sem camisa e de muchila nas costas até o Arpoador. Voltei e andei até o final da praia do Leblon. Como eu amo isso. É só aqui que sinto me um como na Holanda... com a liberdade para criar. Aqui nas areias de Ipanema a minha cabeça fica livre para criar. Mas ao inves de criar coisas sobre o espaço por exemplo, ou outras historias, penso em odes. Odes ao Rio. Ipanema é uma distração que liberta, não como o resto da cidade. Do final do Leblon voltei pelo calçadão até a altura da General Osório onde fui almoçar no self -service. Quando cheguei em casa estava ardendo. E com duas marcas feias das alças da muchila no peito, ombro e costas. CLARO! Onde é que eu estava com a cabeça! Ficar tanto tempo no sol de muchila... realmente! Eu sou uma besta mesmo. Ou melhor... um gringo mesmo. Até os vendedores de cangas na praia me olham e falam: Fala, my friend! My friend? penso: My friend, caralho! Mas agora não posso mais pegar sol. Ando de camiseta de manga comprida no sol segurando-a até o queixo pra cobrir a nuca que de tão queimado sinto que cozinhei a musculatura do pescoço. October 24, 2003 O CONCORDE SOBRE BRASILIA Hoje é o último dia que o Concorde voa. Estou na Holanda e acabo de assistir emocionado a transmissão ao vivo das últimas aterrisagens de tres Concordes da British Airways pela BBC. A forma do avião provoca em mim uma nostalgia de uma era em que o mundo sonhava alto. Elegancia demais para uma maquina só. Não tem como não ficar arrepiado e com um nó na garganta sabendo que nenhum de nós vai poder sonhar em voar perto do espaço, ver a curvatura da terra e voar duas vezes a velociadade do som. E claro tenho nostalgia pela ˇpoca que vivi em Brasília e vi pela primeira vez o Concorde. Era mais ou menos 1978 e o primeiro ministro da França Giscard DÕEstang veio a BrasíliaÉ de Concorde. Parece que a bela nave recebeu mais aten¨ão da mídia do que o próprio primeiro ministro. Eu estava no Colégio Santo Antonio tendo aulas de ginástica olímpica e perdi a comoção toda quando o avião passou por cima de Brasília. Ouvi de amigos como o meu irmão Alex correu feito relâmpago pelos corredores da Escola Americana pulando uma mesa até chegar no campo de futebol onde foi parar para ter uma vista melhor do supersônico presidencial. Ele me contou como o Concorde voava baixo acompanhado por um cortejo de tres jatos da FAB. Um de cada lado e mais um na frente que voava fazendo curvas graciosas. Ele me descreveu o que viu tão bem que guardo a imagem como se eu tivesse o visto também. Mas acabei ficando triste aquele dia porque havia perdido o Concorde. Aí, um ou dois dias depois eu estava no carro sendo levado para a escola. Estavamos no Eixo Monumental, lado Sul perto do Touring Club. Tinhamos acabado de passar por debaixo da Plataforma Rodoviário quando o transito simplesmente parou. As pessoas desciam dos carros e olhavam para cima. O Concorde estava voando por cima do Congresso inclinando as suas asas lindas e brancas no mais azul dos céus. Giscard DÕEstang partia sobre uma cidade boquiaberta, portas dos carros abertos, pessoas em pé no asfalto esperando o futuro passar. Foi a coisa mais linda que eu tinha visto nos meus 13 ou 14 anos de vida. Foi como se um dos monumentos de Niemeyer, cheio de hélio, havia se desprendido do barro de Brasília. Um monumento em pleno vôo sobre um jardim de monumentos. No rádio do carro, Jane e Herondy cantavam: Não se vá! Não me abandone por favor! Pois sem você vou ficar louco! October 24, 2003 Today is the last day that Concorde flies. The first time I saw Concorde was back in around 1978 when Prime Minister of France Giscard D'Estang visited Brasilia. It was a huge deal that he was arriving in Concorde. The plane itself probably got more news coverage than the Prime Minister. I was at my gymnastics class after school at Colegio Santo Antonio and I missed the commotion when the plane arrived. I heard that my brother Alex had darted down the hallway at EAB and leaped over tables to get to the soccer field to get a better view of the plane coming in. He described it as gliding by with three Brazilian Air Force jets accompanying it in the sky. Two on each side and one in front swirving from side to side in graceful curves. I still maintain that as one of my own legitimate memories even though I lived it vicariously through my brotherÕs description. I was pretty bummed that I hadn't seen it arrive. Then one afternoon a day or two later I was in our car being driven somewhere. We were on the Eixo Monumental and had just driven under the Plataforma Rodoviaria on the south side next to the Touring Club heading in the direction of the Cathedral. Suddenly the traffic came to a stand still and it was NOT due to traffic lights. Everyone got out of their cars on the Esplanada dos Ministerios and looked up. Concorde was flying over the Congress building and banking towards us. Giscard D'Estang was leaving. It was truly one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. It was like one of Niemeyer's monuments filled with helium had broken loose from the city. A monument in flight over a garden of monuments. E no radio do carro, Jane & Herondy cantavam: Nao se vá!, Não me abandone por favor! Pois sem você vou ficar louco!
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