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BLOG 2005 ::: December 6, 2005 Today I just came across a Sugababes video here in Belgium on MTV and I saw Edie, the best drag queen in NY (hence one of the best in the world). She made me very happy during the years I lived in NY and would hang out at the Universal Grill on Leroy and Bedford. Check out her site: http://www.simplyedie.com Retroblogging #1 (Mechelen Beglium nov. 28) I know I've been away for a while but life has been busy preparing for travel and touring with Airplanes & Skyscrapers and Isadora.Orb. But the first thing I'd like to put on line here is the review I got in Le Monde for Airplanes and Skyscrapers that we performed while Paris was burning: Le suspense tient aussi de bout en bout le spectacle d'objets et de projections Airplanes and Skyscrapers, manipulé avec brio par l'Américano-Brésilien Ricky Seabra. Pourtant, le thème est connu de tous : il s'agit du 11 septembre 2001. Revu à travers le prisme magique de la mémoire de Seabra, fan depuis l'enfance d'avions et de gratte-ciel, il fait l'objet d'un décryptage émotionnel lié à la vie de l'artiste. Entre autofiction et hypothèses historiques personnelles sur les causes de cet acte de terrorisme, Ricky Seabra élabore un scénario sophistiqué qu'il met en oeuvre sous nos yeux grâce à un dispositif vidéo. Il manipule des images découpées dans les magazines, compose des collages sur lesquels il fait planer des avions miniatures, insère des films d'archives. Le tout est projeté en direct sur un écran et relié par Seabra. On ne rate rien de cette épopée définitive comme la perte de l'innocence et de la foi en l'avenir. Défaite de l'humain, défaite de l'invention architecturale, après Richard Seabra, on ne pourra plus regarder les avions et les gratte-ciel de la même façon. Le Monde - Rosita Boisseau October 17, 2005 Sent to me by Dirk Verstockt: Einstein dies and goes to heaven. Saint Peter says, "You look like Einstein, but you have no idea the lengths some people will go to, to sneak in. Can you prove who you really are?" Einstein ponders for a few seconds and asks, "Could I have a blackboard and some chalk?" Saint Peter snaps his fingers and a blackboard and chalk instantly appear. Einstein proceeds to describe with arcane mathematics and symbols his theory of relativity. Saint Peter is suitably impressed. "You really are Einstein! Welcome to Heaven!" The next to arrive is Picasso. Once again Saint Peter asks for his credentials. Picasso asks, "Mind if I use that blackboard and chalk?" Saint Peter says, "Go ahead." Picasso erases Einstein's equations and sketches a truly stunning mural with just a few strokes of chalk. Saint Peter claps. "Surely you are the great artist you claim to be! Come on in!" Then Saint Peter looks up and sees George W. Bush. Saint Peter scratches his head and says, "Einstein and Picasso both managed to prove their identity. How can you prove yours?" George W looks bewildered and says, "Who are Einstein and Picasso?" Saint Peter sighs, "Come on in, George." October 15, 2005 Performances at the RioCenaContemporanea festival went very well. The set up was a nightmare though. there is no way (in Brazil that we can set up and performance the same day)... equipment arrives too late at the theaters. In sao paulo video cameras showed up 5 hours late. this time the last piece of equipment was finally at the theater at 7 at night when it was supposed to be there at 10 in the morning. But it seems like the piece (Isadora.Orb) was a hit . 4 critics and european theatermaker jan fabre watched it. his manager (Mark?) must have suggested to see it since he saw Airplanes & Skyscrapers in Antwerp. Apparetnly he told the theater director there that Airplanes was the best thing he had seen in the past two years. curious to know what they thought. don't know. the weird thing is that apparently a lot of people here thought that Isadora.Orb was fiction. people came up at the end saying things like: "Wow... at one point I almost believed everything you were saying was true." what? people thought I was acting and that everything was made up!!! so I'm curious to see the reviews. and some people were saying that I should start off with a note saying that everything you hear in this performance actually happened... It might be a Rio thing... this is a tinsle town... Television and Movie industry reign here. Actors act. period. theater is fiction. period. I'm not sure how to deal with this now. I'm not even sure it bothers me. I find it quite amusing but the people who thought it was not true (that I just made up the fact that a song was written in space, for example) said that things really changed for them when they learned afterwards that it was all true. (actually, I should have asked in what way it changed for them). anyway... if anyone has any suggestions on how I should deal with this situation please write . . . or should I just disregard this kind of thing? October 1, 2005 Today is the 7th day after my friend Loren Adkins died. He was married to my great friend Bel Nogueira Adkins. They moved from California to the mountains outside of Rio just since months ago. He was a mountain climber from Alaska. She's a Brazilian friend of mine from way back. He passed away last Sunday of what doctors think was something called Ludwig Angina. He basically got an infection in the mouth which traveled down his throat. He could no longer swallow. The infection spread to lungs and kidneys and then went everywhere. The process took a week. The weird thing is that his white blood cell count was down to zero after the 4th day perplexing doctors that he was still standing. His medulla just stopped producing white blood cells. They don't know if something else caused the collapse in his immune system which caused the infection to take over or if the infection in the mouth/throat is what depleted his white blood cell count. I'm recovering from a long week of hospital, staying up all night helping him breathe (while Bel could get at least one nights sleep), the death, making him up (it's something I have done three times now and now I just volunteer it since it doesn't bother me). I made up my Dad, my grandfather and now Loren. I just use my artistic skills (maybe my Photoshop skills) to subtly retouch the face so it looks a bit better for friends and family members who didn't witness the dying process). We spent the night in the chapel with his body, being there for Bel (who is in a lot of pain but eventually will be fine the way we all miraculously heal after a death). The beauty of it all is that the little village in which they live(d) (S‹o Pedro da Serra) came out in full to honor him. In Brazil our tradition is to stay with the body all night before the funeral. We took turns staying in the chapel while locals who didn't even know him showed up to pay homage, say a prayer or just hang out and talk. In cities a total stranger showing up to a 'velorio' (this all night chapel vigil) would probably be considered an intrusion on the family's privacy. Here in Rio chapel's close their doors at 10 scared of crime. One concerned 90 year old man stopped by at 3 in the morning because "the corpse can get so lonely at three in the morning", he said. The village tradition is to carry the coffin to the cemetery atop a hill. All the shops along the main street closed their doors as we carried the coffin by... all of us men taking turns, changing hands while the coffin never stopped moving as if floating above the cobblestone. For a guy who admired the purity of people and nature his burial couldn't have been more perfect. September 29, 2005 Today Dad would have been 88.
September 29, 2005 This in from my high school alumni website: George Bush's Dream One night, George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing by his bed. Bush asks him, "George, what's the best thing I can do to help the country?" "Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises, and then fades away. The next night, Bush is astir again and sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving through the darkened bedroom. Bush calls out, "Tom, please! What is the best thing I can do to help the country?" "Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises and dims from sight. The third night, sleep is still not in the cards for Bush. He awakens to see the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush whispers, "Franklin, What is the best thing I can do to help the country?" "Help the less fortunate, just as I did," FDR replies and fades into the mist. Bush isn't sleeping well the fourth night when he sees another figure moving in the shadows. It is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Bush pleads, "Abe, what is the best thing I can do right now to help the country?" Lincoln replies, "Go see a play." September 28, 2005 A friend died over the weekend. Feeling jaded right now. I drank chocolate milk all day and watched 10 hours of TV today. I'll write more later.September 16, 2005 This morning I found myself ironing my script for Airplanes & Skyscrapers for my show tonight here in Rio. I took the script to the beach this morning to go over lines but it was so windy that my sheets came back all wrinkled. There is just something about that image . . . ironing your lines before going on stage. . .September 11, 2005 I sometimes think that the best memorial for 9/11 would be to inscribe in a granite block (in several languages) the following email sent to me by a friend who's partner lost his two children in a fire in Queens. He wrote the following email describing his son Sander's reaction to the announcement of the winning of the Daniel Liebeskind design for Ground Zero: >
As we were walking down Lexington street on the way to the subway station, I remember I cried when I read it. It was the most poignant insight into the healing process after 9-11 that I had ever heard. Sander's vision of a New York sky with airplanes teaches us that hope is not just a vision. Hope is lesson. A lesson that must be passed on. But when hope comes from such a young soul such as his, hope becomes more than a lesson. Hope becomes a certainty. Sander died in a fire in Queens on December 14th, 2003 along with his sister and mother. September 11, 2005 Another 9/11 is here. IÕm preparing for another round of performances of Airplanes & Skyscrapers here in Brazil. After 4 years I still havenÕt had the opportunity to show it to an American audience. So far only Europeans and Brazilians have seen it. American theaters canÕt afford it. They donÕt buy performances as they do in Europe. And I donÕt have the capital to show it in a theater in America. I googled myself once just to see if anything was out there and I came across an article written about the National Review of Live Arts in Scotland where I showed Airplanes & Skyscrapers. The article was written by Robert Ayers, an English-born, Manhattan-based performance artist who also curates. About the festival, among other things, he wrote:
Hmmmm. Deeply upsetting. Indeed there are two scenes which are deeply upsetting for me to get through. But I try to hold the tears back. At first I thought that 'deeply upsetting' was a odd way to describe Airplanes & Skyscrapers. But looking back, two New Yorkers who saw Airplanes & Skyscrapers in Europe cried during the performance. Ayers is lives in Manhattan and Airplanes was definitely written from the point of view of a New Yorker. After all I lived 7 years there and still vote absentee through New York. But it seems the closer the audience is to New York, the more moved they will be by the performance. September 6, 2005 Katrina and it's waves. . . so tragic. And the level of incompetence on all governmental levels is so tragic. New Orleanian politicians are responsible for what happened . . . as are Louisianian politicians . . . as are Bush/No-land Security and FEMA. How could Bush redeem himself and dispell the impression that race played a role in rescue efforts? Well, Bush can fire everyone between himself and Condi Rice in the presidential succession line, resign, and put Condi herself in power as President of the U.S.A. Wouldn't that be something? September 6, 2005 Two nights ago I was invited to my first party in a favela (Morro dos Prazeres) by two Americans I met here. They are volunteers for a design organization. Dan and Molly from Albany. Sweet people. The party is on the 17th and I have a show that night. Of course I could go after the show but, being the insomniac I am, if I donÕt sleep in my own bed early I wonÕt be rested enough for the show the following evening. Bummer. But there will be more opportunities. And speaking of insomniac I had a great night of insomniac inspiration. I usually get up at around 3 in the morning and I canÕt do much more than to draw until Morpheus returns from his coffee break (or wherever the bastard is). Last night I came up with a new corporate identity and aesthetic for the Brazilian Space Program. It will probably be posted up here at one point. The material I'm coming up with will be used in a new VJ/DJ performance I am working on called Base Alcantara. September 4, 2005 Today I saw a Glory Puzzle over Rio. It was one of the simpler forms of Glory Puzzle; a circular rainbow around the sun. Everyone looked up and pointed during the two hours it was there, a shining halo crowning the 'Marvelous City'. Walking on the beach something that really bothers me here caught my eye. The expansion of a favela in the national forest on the Two Brothers mountains. The Two Brothers has the Vidigal Favela on the South side of the mountain (around 3000 families live there) and a tiny favela on the north of maybe 50 families. It was this tiny one that seemed to be expanding upward alongside the mountain. I could imagine these two granite peeks in the future completely surround by favela; it's forest gone. This pissed me off so much. I needed to see this with my own eyes how many new huts were being built so I walk down the beach in my Speedo 5 km to the mountains. I noticed a triangle and green square amid the trees. On my way I couldn't believe how nobody does anything about the expansion of favelas. They are there. And they are here to stay. That I am fully aware of. But the chaotic expansion has to be brought to a grinding halt and the radical urban transformation of the favela has to begin as soon as possible. So I walked and as I got to Leblon I noticed that the Vidigal Favela disappears from their view behind a hill and so does this small favela. So no wonder it can expand and no one will notice. But as I approached the mountain I could see that the triangle was a rock and the green square were just trees of a lighter hue. Good! I walk back to Ipanema and sit amongst my fellow gaygeoisie. September 3, 2005 WHY
ISN'T THE RED CROSS IN NEW ORLEANS? http://wwwredcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html September 2, 2005 FROM MICHAEL MOORE: Dear Mr. Bush: Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag. Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with? (To read the rest of his letter go to http://www.michaelmoore.com and get on his mailing list) September 2, 2005 I just heard on the news that helicopters can't land at the SuperDome because of light posts in the parking lots. What about lowering people by helicopter, saw the damn things down and airlift everyone out). It seems to me there is a culture of delay within rescue operations. I don't think I have ever heard of a disaster in which rescue efforts came on time. And I think it happens because everyone waits for the reports to come from the affected area. And that's pretty stupid considering communications are always down in the affected area. Food and water, armed forces should be mobilized regardless of news from the disaster area. Interesting though how the young male culture of New Orleans can't seem to do anything to help. Just loot, bear arms and terrorize. 95,000 people in New Orleans don't have a high school education. But I reiterate what I said below. Bring in the Dutch. I'm sure they can think of the quickest fix than anyone else on the planet. September 1, 2005 Katrina and the Waves . . . wasn't that the name of a band? About the hurricane. I've been watching a bit on TV. Is it my impression or are New Orleanians somewhat buttheads . . . all that looting. Bring in the Dutch. They'll drain the city in no time. August 27, 2005 I did some spring cleaning today. I'm a hoarder of paper and especially notes of my own thoughts. I told a Portuguese newspaper once that, as an artist I am an archeologist of myself. As I cleaned out my room and went through sheets and sheets of scribblings of ideas that happen throughout my days (especially in the middle of the night) I came across and small phrase that was probably written at 4 in the morning a year ago. It was a dream I had had. The handwriting was bad which probably meant I wrote it in the dark just to remind myself of the image that came to me in my sleep. I wrote: I was hiding a parachute under my bed. I pulled it out and started to unravel it only to find that the strings where attached to a human heart . . . I looked down to see that there was a hole in my chest. It's at times like this that I really like my brain. August 26, 2005 THE END OF THE WORLD This just in from my friend Amy Nutt: http://www.endofworld.net August 20, 2005 Just said goodbye to my good friend Fares at the beach. He flies back to Houston today. We talked walking along the beach. The moment we turned our backs to the sea (so he could go pack) I could see him sulk into that that pre-flight Ipanema blues that takes over ones face and shoulders hours before leaving Rio; something I am so familiar with. Though I can say i'm a bit cured of it lately. Well, basically because whenever I fly to Europe for work I have a return ticket in my hand and I know when I'm coming back to Brazil. And that makes all the difference in the world. It even makes working in Northern Europe in the winter tolerable. August 18, 2005 I must confess it is with great pleasure that I see those settlers being removed from Gaza on the news. I used to work with those types of Rabin-hating activists in New York. I wonder how much of those settlers are actually former New Yorkers. The fact that 8,000 people could make the lives of 1.4 people a living a hell must have roots in something beyond the holy book. Racism plain and simple must have a lot to do with this. IÕd like to see the settler issue talked about from a racial standpoint. The discourse is always kept in the political and religious realm. But I have a feeling that (as we say in Brazil) the hole is a bit lower... August 17, 2005 I'm such a bad blogger. But to my few faithful readers I'm back. Or IÕll try to stay back. Things have been good. My life has been basically been trying to book performances. And it seems things are heading my way now. Instituto Telemar in September and October. And possibly a festival in Rio and in one Fortaleza in October. Then November rolls around and IÕll be in Europe for a small tour and then working on a new piece about the notion of America as an Empire. I plan to do drag for the first time in this piece. I'll try to do Beyoncé Knowles. I think she embodies the American Empire for than Bush. Bush is not exhuberant and Empire is about exhuberance. Bush is an idiot and Empires are not idiotic. They may reckless. Not idiotic. Bush doesn't live up to America as an Empire. Beyoncé does. So I know two drag queens and two make-up artists that can be my Beyoncˇ consultants. But I do have to shead some fat around my belly and go back to doing yoga again to get my booty looking liscious. Me so bad. Since I injured my knee I havenÕt been very disciplined in working out. And age (in the form of love handles) is going at me with a vengeance. I eat one cookie and I see it in relief under my belly the next day. July 28, 2005 So tired. This morning I finally managed to sleep a full 8 hours after the marathon of presenting Airplanes & Skyscrapers and Isadora.Orb at the Itaú Cultural Center in São Paulo. I was dreaming that we had to move all our equipment for the perfomances from Brasilia to Goiania (a 20 minute flight) on a half 747 half Concorde made of green popsicle sticks glued together with Elmer's Glue. Our assistants were moisturizing the planes giant tires with toilettes to keep the rubber from cracking in the dry weather. The plane was handsome but it's cool aerodynamics didn't convince me. I was embarrassed to tell the crew that I would rather take a train to Goiania as I didn't want to come across as a coward. ANYWAY! The performances in São Paulo went wonderfully. What was so wonderful about doing these performances this time is that in Europe I always do them in English to people who speak English as a second or even third language. The communication is there. They enjoy the pieces. And I have only gotten good reviews in Europe. But there is a cultural gap nonetheless. In other words communication/sharing is not at 100 percent. Nuance is not there. I'm always preoccupied with whether or not my pronunciation is comprehensible to non-native speakers of English. Of course I would love to perform these works in the States or even England. But this time in Brazil I was speaking from Brazilian to Brazilian, in Portuguese of course. And it worked so well. The theater was there with me all the time, especially in Airplanes & Skyscrapers which I think can be a long-running hit if I just find the right sponsor. The Paulistas (São Paulo) were a great crowd to perform to. I hope it happens more. So my body aches from not working out for two months. Now I'm going to the beach to stretch and do some yoga. Though it is somewhat cold today. Probably around 20 degrees Celsius, 80 Fahrenheit. Jeez, I'm becoming such the Carioca. June 27, 2005 Today I woke up with Jabberwocky fever... Hell knows why. I simply woke up with an urge to translate Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll into Portuguese. So here it is so far. Somethings might still change:
June 25, 2005 Strange dream last night. I was in a cab sitting next to the driver. We had just gone up the overpasses that stretch across Botafogo. I was on my way to Laranjeiras. The curves were more exaggerated. Suddenly the driver accelerated expecting a straight stretch around a bend but there was another curve... and I had that split second, that pre-accident moment, I had calculated, that we'd bash through the guard rail violently and fly off the overpass and over a cliff below. Rather than thinking, "We're gonna hit", I thought, "We're gonna die". And I fainted before we hit the guardrail. After a period of unconciousness my eyes slowly opened. I saw rocks through a smashed windshield and a cliff side perilously close-by. Because I didn't see my bedroom as I opened my eyes I thought I was actually waking up... after an accident. I thought this was real. As I was still opening my eyes I first moved my fingers and toes to see if my spine was intact. Fingers and toes moved. I checked for blood. No blood. I looked over to the cab driver and his right arm was entwined in the steering wheel which was bent upwards. He was also waking up and all I could say was, "we just survived a horrible accident". I got out of the car and looked back at it to see that we had come one meter from tumbling off it's edge into a canyon some 50 meters deep. My suitcase was outside the car on the ground. The dream progress with my walking to a Hallowe'en party. And I told friends of my ordeal. I was constantly weeping telling my story. The idea that I was still around was so precious. Then walking home I found my suitcase alongside a sidewalk with some garbage. It was open and my laptop was missing. I eventually opened my eyes and gave thanks that it was all a dream. Today; no taxis. Don't go out with computer. June 24, 2005 Hi everyone, Back to blogging again. been busy. just got a nice postcard from my friend Martin in America. Thought it would be a nice thing to share and get me back on this page:
June 03 , 2005 Numa palestra do Lepec falava-se de tempos, futuro, passado, ontologia vs. hauntology (uma maneira de ver o tempo nao linearmente). Um bailarino cujo nome não mencionarei perguntou "como ficam estes conceitos de tempo numa cidade que não tem futuro?" Uau! que frase de efeito! Mais uma vez manifesta-se a minha frente um dos passa-tempos favoritos do Carioca: o pessimismo. O interessante é que este bailarino dá aula para crianças em favelas... deve achar que esta fazendo a sua parte. Mas o que me precocupa é que tipo de valores ele deve estar passando para estas crianças? De não sonhar? Que não vão ter futuro? Mas criança não é o futuro? Ou será que o cinísmo desta classe de Cariocas pode ser tão grande que nem uma criança ele consegue enchegar. (Digo que é uma classe de Cariocas porque preciso acreditar que não sejam a maioria). E este comentário sobre o NAO FUTURO desta cidade ele fez sentado num lindo linóleo da Deborah Colker numa sala de ensaio luxuosíssima com o maior pé direito que eu já vi na vida. Esse bailarino deve até ter passagem marcada para participar do Brasil na França ou alguma residência artística na Alemanha. (Será que ele compartilha o próprio sucesso com as crianças para quem dá aula? Será que lhes conta estórias, os inspira? Será que algum dia lhes disse que seriam capazes de conhecer a França, trabalhar com arte numa instituição como o da Deborah Colker?) Este bailarino que falou do NAO FUTURO do Rio de Janeiro não tem memoria que é o que alimenta o pessimismo neste país. Quem este cara pensa que é? Deus? Ele vê o futuro? Um breu longíquo e tenebroso? A sua falta de existência? Pra mim este bailarino é mais uma vítima como Antônio Abujamra do complexo do neo-colonizado. Só lá fora que presta mesmo. Um complexo que não permite ver que o Brasil mudou e continuará mudando. Tudo que pulsa tem futuro. Fulano, você sabe quem você é. Vem cá mais pra perto... isso... agora enconsta o ouvido na tela do seu computador que eu quero sussurar algo no seu ouvido que fará você se lembrar como o Brasil mudou... mais perto... mais... COOOOOOOLLOOOOOOOOOOR DE MEEEEEEEELLOOOO!!!!!! May 29, 2005 Gefiliciteerd, schatje. May 29, 2005 Acabo de assistir Antonio Abujamra em seu novo trabalho Provocações. Nunca tinha visto uma peça dele antes. Só conheço ele da TV. Especialmente de Que Rei Sou Eu que passou antes de eu deixar o Brasil por 13 anos. Havengar? Existe um segmento da população brasileira (ou uma corrente de pensamento... eu ainda estou tentando entender) que é pessimista e amarga. E essas pessoas gostam de divulgar o seu pessimismo em tom de sabedoria. Se você não acha que o Brazil é uma merda, não tem jeito, ou não tem futuro então "tu é um alienado" ou no mínimo um otário. Primeiro o Abujamra começa falando que dirigiu 116 peças na vida dele (115 ele ressalta, foram fracassos). Todos riem. Tudo bem. Por enquanto a auto-depreciação é divertida. Mas depois de um tempo ele começa te fazer sentir a merdinha que ELE acha que o Brasil é. Para o Abujamra, ninguém no Brasil presta. 95 por cento da população é fodida. Nada de bom sai daqui. Mas de vez em quando uma Clarice Lispector se safa e ele recita algo destes anjos raros no Brasil. Ele fala de neo-colonialismo e recita um discurso que um índio Mexicano deu numa conferência internacional sobre a dívida externa. Interessante o discurso. Mas o Abujamra revela sofrer de um complexo de neo-colonizado quando conta como estava andando de primeira classe indo a convite à Hollywood dizendo que "se sentia americano louro de olhos azuis" (todos riem é claro). Mas achei um pouco triste ver este complexo num homem nesta idade caíndo no clichê de esteriotipos fazendo gozação em cima de difereças entre americanos e brasileiros. Não me supreenda ele recitar o famoso texto do Cristovam Buarque sobre a internacionalização da Amazônia. Ele disse que o artigo saiu no NY Times e nas grandes jornais do mundo MAS não no Brasil. Mentira. Não foi publicado no NY Times. Isso mostra o vício que ele tem de mostrar que o Brasil não dá valor as coisas boas que tem como o Cristovão. Mas o seu tom ríspido ao recitar este discurso revela esta paranoia nacional de que querem invadir a Amazônia e dividir o Brasil. Pena que ele tem a paranoia para compartilhar com o seu público e não a luz. Irritante foi o conselho dele aos estudantes para não sonharem. Aí ele usa um poema de Neruda para sustentar o seu conselho escroto. Ah! Se o Neruda falou pra gente não sonhar então ninguém deve sonhar. ponto. (Tá boa?) Outra coisa irritante é quando ele fala o que o aluno de teatro só pode ser artista se ler certos ciclanos ou beltranos (por sinal todos alemães e franceses... o complexo neo-colonizado continua firme e forte). Como se a trajetória do artista tivesse UMA formação, UMA fórmula. Ele ainda acrescenta que não assiste à peças de diretores novos. Nem primeiras ou segundas ou terceiras obras. Ele pretende esperar ate a sexta peça para ver se o artista teve a perserverança de continuar fazendo arte. Concheço muita gente boa cujas primeiras e as vezes únicas obras já valeram a pena. Conheço alguns artistas todos da minha geração que não tiveram a chance de chegar aos 40 anos e completar mais obras por causa da AIDS. O jovem dramaturgo portanto não faz parte da equação do discurso teatral. Neste espetáculo parece que a sua falta de amor próprio (que pode ser só teatro) contamina o seu amor por um país belo (e problemático como muitos outros) e pelo seu trabalho. Alguém me disse uma vez que Amor e Trabalho é tudo na vida. Abujamra tem o amor de um público e trabalha no que ele gosta de fazer. Mas nos provoca com a sua capacidade de não reconhecer a sorte que teve. Só vi um homem que odeia muita. No final ele fala que vai mostrar um texto em vídeo em que mostra esta relação amor ódio que ele tem com a sua profissão. O texto inteiro xinga aqueles que fazem televisão e que se acham o máximo. Ele só fala do ódio à sua profissão. O texto vai num crescendo que vai causando um mal estar no público. Não mostra o amor que ele falou que tinha à profissão... Por quê?... Porque ele mostrou antes? E eu não percebi? Pode ser... No meio de tanto pessimismo pode ser que eu não o tenha pescado. A peça termina neste tom de tudo é uma merda, o teatro é uma merda, quem faz TV é tudo babaca, portanto quem assiste é tudo babaca. Acredito que a imaginação não seja o oposto da realidade. A imaginacão é o oposto da violência. A violência é o que mais acua a imaginação à inercia. Mas acredito também que obras como Provocações só nos enche de uma armagura cuja origem não condiz com a carreira brilhante que ele teve. As Provocações de Abrujamra infelizmente não ajudam em nada o imaginário brasileiro que só precisa de ar para respirar. May 28, 2005 Been a while since I last blogged. Maybe I should get one of those blogspot sites so that I can blog when I am on the road. I was in São Paulo for a week so I wasn't able to blog from my computer. Anyway. I'll consider it. São Paulo was great. I stayed with my friend Clara Whitaker who is about to release her new website http://www.esquisita.com.br It's going to be about menstruation and PMS and how women should appropriate themselves of the two and all that comes with it. Clara is a fun woman and this site should be an interesting place for both men and women to stop by. More about São Paulo. Well. The Instituto Cultural Itaú bought my performances Isadora.Orb and Airplanes & Skyscrapers for a festival in July. So that made me quite happy. So I'll have a São Paulo premiere of those two works on Avenida Paulista, the 5th Avenue of the third largest city in the world. I didn't do anything gay in São Paulo. I was preferring to hang out with Clara and her two kitty cats discussing ideas for her site. But I did walk my ass off in SP which brought me to the sad realization that my knee that I smashed into a fire hydrant 4 weeks ago in Downtown Rio is still not well at all. It ended up hurting a lot in SP from all the walking. I'm going ot have to see a doctor again next week and get an X-ray. I already have one bad knee. The thought of having damaged my other knee saddens me. We'll see how that goes. But SP is quite a mess of a city. I can't say I was disappointed by it. I hadn't been to SP in 14 years. I was excited to see the city again and experience it's people that I like so much. I remember not liking the city itself because it was such a mess, ugly, unpainted, sloppy and the buildings were just not interesting. But after all these years and with this new appreciation of 50s and 60s architecture (probably aided somewhat by Wallpaper magazine) I thought I would see SP with different eyes. But indeed, São Paulo continues the messy, ugly, unpainted, sloppy architecturally uninteresting city as always. In fact it is probably the most visually stressful place I have ever been to. But when you think you've had enough visual stress you stumble across a true architectural marvel... it can be a marvel of beauty or of chaos. The building Nações Unidas on Paulista was my first such experience. There is a hallway in it that is something out of a Bond movie or Buck Rogers. But actually... it is Brazil at it's most visionary, its best. In Bond movies or Buck Rogers it would be a set design. Brazilians live this stuff. It seems to me that Brazil of all countries is the one that most embraced this 50s 60s modernism. The next marvel I encountered was the vertical favela of Paim. It's a combination of an oval and curved buildings some 20 stories high that are so bizarre that when you look at them you think you are looking through a fun house mirror or some giant distorted aquarium. You get a sense that something like a giant lense between you and the structures is warping the buildings. But one thing I noticed about São Paulo that makes it so visually stressful is it's sidewalks. They are hideous, broken, slanted at every imaginable angle. The sidewalks are different in front of each building, each house. There is no uniformity to them at all. They are clearly not under the jurisdiction of the city. Everyone does what they want to them. I noticed that the life of Rio takes place on it's sidewalks. People stop and have conversations on them in Rio. This sit at tables, on beer kegs and talk over a BBQ. Street vendors go about their business. Sidewalks in Rio are well kept, level and designed throughout the whole city. Whereas in SP people seem to use the sidewalk simply to go from point A to point B. Another element that contributes to the visual chaos of the city is the amount of telephone wires and electricity cables hanging overhead. It's almost a joke. It is so disorderly. Sometimes hundreds of wires converge in confusing bundles to telepohone posts. You can't look at any building, any part of the city without looking through these scraggly webs of black wires. One grand vision to make SP a better place would be to bring a uniform design to the sidewalks (and level them out please!) and to put all of that wiring underground as was done only on Avenida Paulista. But São Paulo is an indoor experience. The bars, the galleries, the musea, the cultural institutions like SESC, Itaú, Pinacoteca are amazing. I don't even like saying that they are first world like. They are simply Brazil at it's best. It's what Brazil is striving to be. Amazing stuff. SP is about indoors. It's people. But how they came up with such a chaotic city is beyond me. May 15, 2005 Last night went to a party in Ipanema of two Swedish friends. High point was meeting artist Isabel Lofgren. Quite the diva chick who made me some kick-ass caipirinhas. Only woman at the party. (This is my first time that I'm going to almost exclusively gay parties). For the most part I can pretty much say the 10% of my friends are gay which is probably proportionate the the gay population of the world. But now I'm surrounded by them. Don't mind though. But I do tend to forget how pretty the Carioca women can be. The view from the apartment last night was wonderful. I forgot how wonderful looking out onto the sea at night is. It was a moonless night so the sky and sea formed one black wall that sunk far below eye level. Kind of like being on a balcony looking straight out into outerspace. On the way to the party I thought of what a beautiful word yearn is. I think I yearn for the day I can see space from a space station. May 07, 2005 This is from my friend Martin Novoa from the whacky pan-european Europanto language website: TODA LA VERITHEIT OVER DE MORTE VAN DIANA In
der story des morte des Diana er esse tropo viel unclaras chosas und
confusio. Porquˇ Diana Mercedes was zo rapido roulante? http://www.europanto.contagions.com/euro1.html#1 May 07, 2005 Cute flame-thrower of the week:
May 06, 2005 Drugs have arrived at the Favela do Pavão down the street. It's 6:25 in the morning and the fireworks are going off. Interesting how invasive that is. I always wake up very early in the morning after around 4 hours of sleep to write. My mind races during this period with ideas and connections between the many projects that can keep me booked till 2030. If I don't get up and write even if but two sentences my mind remains distracted and I can't go back to sleep. But along came the fireworks and all attention goes to the favela. The imagination vs. poverty. The imagination vs. violence. Brazil's true drama. Definitely an upcoming performance. Fortune magazine interviewed me over the phone yesterday about my art in space activism. Curious to see how that turned out. A nice interviewer. Hmmm... The favela fireworks side-blogged me... (as in side-tracked) and I forgot what I was going to write about. Or should the expression be favela-sided as in broad-sided. Oh... I remember. I was going to write something about the new World Trade Center tower, The Freedom Tower. The towers have been on my mind because of all the talk about security measures for the Ground Zero area. I read yesterday that the Freedom tower will have to be re-designed yet again. It makes me wonder if Daniel Liebeskind is a wimp, a watje as they say in Holland (a cottonball). I think that if Viñoly had won the WTC competition he would NOT have lost control of the design process the way Liebeskind did. He comes across as too much of a bastard to let people step all over him. It's such a shame that something that will make such a statement on the NY skyline is being designed by consensus. I didn't care too much for the original Liebeskind design but they should just go back to the original design and figure out those damned diagonal lines for crying out loud! May 05, 2005 Last night I came home by bus. Something I don't to do often here in Rio. Call me paranoid but I avoid buses at night in Rio. But last night I'm very happy I took a bus home after a seminar I was participating in at the British Council. After being unsuccessful at catching a cab near the Race Tracks (not because all the cabs were full but because I had placed myself at an odd intersection where cabs wouldn't stop) I decided to walk to a bus stop at the Praça Santos Dumont... a place I don't like at night because kids from the local favela hang out there. As the bus pulled up I could already hear the sound of an acordian playing inside. I realized this wasn't going to be a regular bus ride. Paid my fare and one of the most charming men I've ever come across was seated playing an acordian. He was actually incredibly handsome. Can't tell how old he was. He was black and had graying hair... So he could have been really old but there was a youth about him that threw me off. He could have been 40. He could have been 70. He was that type that I can't look in the eyes or I fall in love. He was amazing. He'd play and look at you in the eyes. But I'd smile back and lower my eyes and turn my ear to him and bob my head to the rhythm. I didn't dismiss his look, I couldn't engage those eyes. He was playing a Forró (northeastern Brazilian traditional music) version of a classical tune... I'll try to remember it and add it here later. I wrote down his phone number which was stenciled in on his old acordion case. I'm going to have to use him in a performance at one point. With video focussing in on that incredible face of his blown up on a screen. he started playing a samba version of Nikita by Elton John. A bus stopped next to ours. The bus driver and passengers could all hear the music and everyone smiled. The bus driver swaying his head to the rhythm. As I approached my stop I asked him to play the piece he was playing when I got on. He did. I tipped him. You have no idea, I told him, how happy you just made me. May 05, 2005 Dreamed of an Earthquake here in Rio last night. I also had a dream which is on its third or fourth recurrence. I dreamt I was in NYC and that I could see the towers of the World Trade Center. But i could only see it because I really concentrated hard on wanting to see them again. So today I uploaded stills from the computer animation of my VidiGug project (A Guggenheim for the Vidigal Favela in Rio). Check them out here. Finally. today something happened that made burst out laughing. I bought a bar of dark chocolate two days ago. I'm not the type who eats a box of cookies or an entire chocoloate bar in one go. i nibble at it for days. a piece at a time. Well. I placed in in my closet as opposed to keeping it in the kitchen cupboard. I guess I'm hiding it from my flatmate. Don't want to share my chocolate with anyone. And today when I went into my room to take a piece I remebered how my Dad used to hide a bar of dark chocolate next to his bed. i knew where he kept it and I would also secretly nibble at it. I laughed so hard when I realized the pattern today. May 05, 2005
This logo is if for real! Center for Oriental Studies! http://www.cfh.ufsc.br/~oriente/ APR 23, 2005
Sent to me in a spam. Nice. APR 22, 2005 More than just coincidence?
APR 21, 2005 (Today is Brasilia's birthday) Every American should watch the Iranian movie 'Every Vote is Secret' by Abba Kiarostami. APR 20, 2005 Ex-boyfriends are like chromosomes. There are X's and there are Why's. (You were not a Why). APR 19, 2005 HABEMUS PAPUM! RUUUUUUUN! Homosexuality is a moral evil according to Joseph Ratzinger now Popess. If homosexuality is a moral evil then the Catholic Church has the most evil leaders of any religion. Well. Islamic fundamentalists tend to be quite the fruitcakes themselves too. Go to any park at night in Europe and it's full of Muslim men needing to get laid... by other men. The more these guys condemn homosexuality the more they tend to reveal about themselves. I want to propose removing all artwork made by homosexuals from the Vatican. Enough of this crap. With so much evil in the world... Mugabe's and Myanmar's, B-2 bombers and suicide bombers, hunger and third world debt, WE are equated to Evil. It's so weird. Can't they be more creative in imagining what's wrong with the world? All WE have ever done is contributed great literature, art, humor, fashion etc etc etc to the world. Let's start with removal of the giant fresco of the Sistine Chapel made by the evil Michelangelo. Where should that be taken? Hmmm. Maybe to NYC. Tthe Palladium should be rebuilt (tear down that damned NYU dormitory they put up in it's place) and the fresco could descend from the ceiling of the New Palladium on cables amidst lasers and disco balls. And the only dance allowed under the fresco would be Voguing. But only poses painted on the ceiling. And everyone nude please! Or maybe the Dutch deserve the fresco. After all, they were the first to legalize gay marriage. I'm for it going to Holland. Put it on the Museumplein across from Van Gogh Museum. And let's not forget the Pietà. Where to put that? Would be interesting to see if some crazed homo-phobe will start smashing homosexual art in the Vatican like that crazed Pole who smashed the Pietà back in 1972. That would be an interesting twist. Gay bashing in the Vatican, incited by the Vatican itself. I think there's movie there. Or some interesting gay porn. APR 16, 2005 I saw Tati Quebra-Barraco (Brazilian favela rapper) last night. What's charming about what she does is that she looks like the performer she will be in 50 years. Calm, motionless on stage, pudgey-faced with an audience that will yell at anything she says or does. She is quite the anti-performer. She practically just stands there rapping with a glass of beer hanging under a straight arm between her index finger and thumb. She really is quite motionless. Her bouncers stay on stage passing beer to one another doing nothing really. Kind of pathetic. But she is much greater than the sum of her parts. There is somewhat of a social phenomenon at play that relates to a unifying of Brazil's lower and upper classes. I feel I'm watching something important. And she manages to be a joy to watch. APR 15, 2005 So. I went to the doctor and he just bent my let around a bit, "Does this hurt?", "Yes", I say, "And this?", "Yes", "And this?" "Yes." "Well, you'll be fine. Just take these every 8 hours". Mionevrix, an anti-inflammatory (is that what you call it in English?) and ice on the joints at night. He told me I can run but I don't think that will be a good idea. I'm feeling quite groggy. It's a nice drug. I can understand how some people mix alcohol with this kind of stuff. I considered a glass of wine while under the influence but didn't do it. But I want to go back to my athletic days of running 7km a day without any stops at junkieville. APR
15, 2005 Here's a picture taken by a cute Argentinian guy (Adrian) I was showing downtown Rio to while running errands. (Three blocks later I bashed my knee into a fire hydrant.) But this is a wonderful street corner. I don't tell people where it is. You must come with me to see it. Then we go for hot chocolate at Confeitaria Colombo. I love downtown Rio. APR 11, 2005 Went back to working out today. But I can only work out upper body. I was all happy and running 7 km a day. Then on Thursday while running errands in downtown Rio I walked into a fire hydrant bashing my knee and almost dislocating my hip. So now my whole right leg hurts. So my project for looking butch by November has had a setback. Maybe I'm just being wimpy and oversensative because I'm traumatized from having surgery twice on my other knee. This is the only good knee I got! If pain continues after a week I'll see a doctor. besos. fui. APR 10, 2005 Daiane Toda Poderosa! Ver a Diane dos Santos, ganhar a medalha de ouro foi realmente emocionante. Foi a primeira vez que eu a assisti. Ela é brilhante e danada. Em inglês eu diria that she has a sassy class. A maneira com que ela aterrisa, com precisão, rectilinea, quase fria... e em um segundo ela quebra toda frieza com uma sacudida e uma rebolada... poderosa! fabulosa! APR 9, 2005 HABEMUS ORDINATUM!!! My computer crashed a month ago. Serious crash. The little folder with the question mark showed up on the screen when I tried opening it. The technician made it sound like I had lost data. Mind you I hadn't backed up my hard drive for the past year and a half. But all is well. I didn't loose a thing and I'm back on line. So y'all start hearing from me again. kisses. PS: and yes... I'll start backing up! MAR 5 , 2005 Jeez... so difficult to come back to Rio this time. Would have helped if there was some sunshine. I'm definitely experiencing soul-lag. My soul is still somewhere over the Canary islands trying to catch up to me. Plus it just feels like the poverty here has doubled. Very sensitive to it after being in Belgium for two months dealing purely with the imagination and space travel. What a contrast. Thirty cents to a boy to buy something to eat here. Twenty cents for another to buy something to eat there. This morning while at the bakery another boy with a threatening look I had avoided on the sidewalk appears out of the blue next to me at the counter of the bakery. "Can you please buy me a bread with butter." FEB 27, 2005 Just saw a beautiful movie called A Home at the End of the World. Made me so sad. But what a great story about embracing the world and all it's beauty. Made me think of the first book I started to write 8 years ago and abandoned. Or, in fact, the second book I started to write which I abandoned. Will have to return to them. Next Year in Gaibú. And Bathing in Genaro. So much to write this year. So little time. But life is long. In two days I go back to Brazil. One culture slips from me. The Dutch. Can a performance save a culture within you? I have one performance I am writing about my Dutch experience with assimilation and integration (assimilatie en integratie). Two hot words today here in the Netherlands. But I feel Amsterdam slipping from me. But at the same time the Belgian culture is slowly creeping into me... or embracing me. Yesterday I went to a meeting at the Ysbreeker which brought together Brazilian artists. The invite was for a brainstorming session to help Brazilian artists here but it was really about recruiting volunteers to put together a Brazilian Cultural Center. In the end I felt it wasn't worth my while going. I just can't volunteer for this. Amsterdam was cold and I'm not talking just about temperature. I go there and feel little for the town. It's not that I'm over it. It seem to pass me by. I never really latched onto it. Should have gone to the sauna. FEB 23, 2005 I LOOOOOVE the fact that they show the World Trade Center in Angels in America chapter 5! Digitally inserted. Wonderful. So nice to have them back. FEB 22, 2005 I'm on chapter 3 of Angels in America. I'm 40 and I practice not having any regrets now. But as I watch Angels I am having the same feeling I had after I visited Lisbon for the first time last year. Two things I kinda regret now... not seeing Lisbon earlier in my life and not watching Angels in America on Broadway back when I was in school. My roommate Peter Kennedy used to tell me that I would love it. But I think I was scared of it because I new it was about Aids... or that it spoke of Aids. I was so young. So closeted. So paranoid. FEB 21, 2005 I'm watching Angels in America on DVD. I wish I had seen the play back in 1985 when I was at Parsons School of Design. I'm loving the writing. FEB 19, 2005 So... back in Eindhoven. And things are going well with the selling of new performances. So tired of the winter though. The great news is that I will be starting a new residency in Belgium at the end of the year with a piece about the American Empire. That's all I'm going to say about that now. I think the content should be somewhat of a surprise for everyone who will have the chance to see it. FEB 13, 2005 The last time I blogged was November 18, 2004. I'm not much of a blogger and don't know if I ever will be. But it's a new year and I have created a new page for 2005. My last week of 2004 was spent in Rio. Then I came over to Belgium to start my residency at the Kunstencentrum nOna. That started January 3rd and Andrea Jabor came over to collaborate on the piece (Isadora.Orb, The Final Metaphor). It was a struggle but it finally came out. The piece turned out well and I should be having meetings this week to start selling the piece. 3 festivals and a tour are in the offings. I'm crossing all crossable body parts.
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