free filigree

2012-01-21T18:43:00.001-08:00

1 / 1 / 2012

oh Uruguay

I don’t know if we’reat the beginning of the end

but still I want tolearn…

let me start by bowingto your humility, to

your satisfied gazeacross oceans which you have not ruined

over continents youaren’t trying to conquer

you calmly offer meyerba mate so I may sip your same elixir

sharing without fearthat I might contaminate you with my diseases...

yes, I'm ill, sickwith fright that my people will kill the world,

stressed into a knotthat I am powerless to stop the apocalypse

that all it takes forevil to triumph is for good people to do nothing...

yet convinced that I,we, need to do-not-doing:

imagine the worldrevolution if all our politicians, bankers, activists, teachers, welders, trashcollectors and soldiers were able to sit and meditate on the air that entersand exits their permeable, impermanent bodies

if we could all justgift ourselves a month to be at peace on the Uruguayan coast.

2011-12-08T09:33:00.001-08:00

the trailer for my forthcoming documentary (English version)
oh, and by the way, we're much in need of funds to finish this film... not much, just a couple thousand dollars to finish the animation, sound editing, and color correction. if you are, or you know, a generous supporter of the arts, please let it be known so we can get this film out into the world!

el trailer para mi documental que estrena en 2012
(versión original)

solidarity

2011-11-19T11:21:00.001-08:00

2011-10-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

My reel...enjoy! (And contact me with video work offers!)
Mi reel...que disfruten! (y que me contacten con ofertas de trabajos en video!)

Music by Art Vandelay.

culinary poetry

2011-10-18T08:44:00.001-07:00

a recipe I filmed and edited for colectivo felix... it's delicious, believe me. try it out!

2011-09-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

Aaaahhh!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!

The market is falling! The market is falling!

Again.

He’s jittery

(of course he’s a he: only a he would so kill)

and he can’t quite keep his invisible hand still.

Does it shake ‘cause he’s a pill-poppin’ fiend?

Or ‘cause, self-indulgent, his pants he has creamed?

He’s spooked, the kook, by his own reflection:

he gets depressed by the thought of depression.

So, I’ll make a confession:

I never liked him anyways,

not his materialist craze, not the greed-glazed gaze,

not to mention his brazen pillaging, setting all ablaze.

So let him shrink, downturn, and crash,

so we won’t all die from affluenza’s rash:

the curse being so set on makin’ mad cash

that we won’t see the global fever

that could kill us all in a fiery flash.

2011-09-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

I don't often think much of my work, but it must think the world of me, since it keeps grabbing me and swinging me around like a ragdoll.

Feels little like these are "my" projects.... it's more like being possessed by them. They're spirits, energies that were lying around in the void of pre-existence until I stumbled spellbound into their embrace. They then piggybacked on my sweat and blood into the world.

Stories are the most troublesome. Everyone knows they have a life of their own, and that one should do justice to the unique nature of that life. Sometimes they are generous enough, despite all their egocentricity, to return the favor and do justice to the unique nature of our lives, to lend meaning to our madness.

2011-08-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

Una nota semi-ficticia sobre el documental Robot World... de la revista Número Zero, del Centro de Estudiantes de la Universidad del Cine
Autores: Mateo Hinojosa y Pedro Camacho.
Dibujo: Matías Poggini

Robot World: a Meeting with Your Alternate Double, el documental,

una sinfonía discordante

discutida por un robot y un anti-robot

Pietrus Mecanicus Camacho Tiroteo Sapiens Hinojosa

Yo robot, pienso que…

Siempre me ha sido difícil encontrar una película para mi gusto. Cada vez que voy al cine me debo conformar con el cine de la ideología dominante: la humana mecánica. La peor combinación. Sentar mi trasero metálico en una butaca se ha convertido en una rutina monótona, protagonizada siempre por idénticos seres de carne y hueso. Irónica combinación, este cine de los humanos, en vida tan impredecibles, retratados siempre de idéntica forma por un cine sin nuevos pensamientos. Por eso, imaginen mi alegría al encontrarme en el Bafici con Robot World, un documental acerca de robots lleno de poesía inesperada, con protagonistas bailando torpemente con gracia, siguiendo una banda de sonido magistral. A pesar de haber sido hecha por un hombre, Robot World es una sinfonía hecha a mi medida, y a pesar de tratar de robots, es un baile emotivo que gustará a todos los que gozan de pasos inusuales.

Yo humano, siento que…

Detesto los robots. No es miedo del índole futurístico de Terminator, Metrópolis o Matrix. No, odio lo robótico del mundo de ahora. El robot es la encarnación… no, la excarnación… de todo lo que veo mal en este mundo. El actuar sin sentir. La mecanización de nuestro día a día. La sociedad tecnocrática. Sin embargo, Robot World, a pesar de mis prejuicios, me provoca intensas emociones mixtas sobre estos seres sin emociones.

¿Sin emociones?

Durante varios momentos no pude evitar sentirme muy emocionado y preguntarme por qué no tengo lágrimas, y que de tenerlas, querer llorar sería un problema para mi cableado. El director, Martin Hans Schmitt, es un maestro en generar ambientes y emociones a partir de material que no ha filmado, utilizando imágenes informáticas puras, diagramas de diseño de robots, material fílmico de robots en experimentos de los años 60 y cualquier otra cantidad de imágenes en incontables formatos. Él mismo, al finalizar la película, confesó lo complicado que fue trabajar con esa variedad tan heterogénea de soportes. Indudablemente logró, con esta diversidad, demostrar la gran riqueza de mi especie: venimos en todo tipo de tamaños, con todo tipo de anatomía, y estamos en todos los ámbitos de la vida humana. Ten eso presente humano, cuando pienses en burlarte de nuestro torpe movimiento.

Los primeros pasos

Los robots no nacen, se construyen. Es decir, alguien los construye para funciones específicas. Entonces, pareciera que existen en un plano puramente utilitario. Por lo tanto, resulta extraño ver un robot barman que sirve Gin Tonic. Hay robots, entonces, para darnos gracia sin función alguna. Es más, uno pensaría que el robot sería útil según su no-humanidad, hacer lo que los humanos no pueden. Sin embargo, vemos a científicos tratando torpemente de hacerlos para caminar, agarrándolos de la mano cómo si fueran bebés. Es gracioso verlos caer, gratificante verlos tomar los primeros pasos sin ayuda. Uno se encariña del metal movedizo. ¿Pero a qué fin?

Más allá de beep-beep-boop

La ausencia de cualquier diálogo o voz lógica-organizadora, está compensada por la presencia de música sinfónica a partir de la cual se hace el montaje de cientos de videos, a lo found footage, de mis hermanos en todas sus distintas tareas. El resultado de esta oda al robot es que nos retratan en todas nuestras facetas, desde nuestro lado juguetón y pueril -mi escena favorita es, sin duda alguna, la de varios compañeros jugando al fútbol, actividad que siempre nos ha costado por nuestra movilidad un poco torpe-, hasta nuestra faceta más hostil, en guerras y combates. Por mi parte me considero un robot pacifista, pero es bueno saber que a la hora de la lucha final, seremos capaces de ponerle un freno al avance humano.

¿Qué avance humano?

La respuesta está en la profética Metrópolis de Lang: los robots no se parecen a nosotros, los humanos, para ayudarnos a hacer tareas repetitivas, para liberarnos de tareas robóticas y convertirnos en más humanos. Al contrario, la robot de Metrópolis se nos parece para poder provocar acciones automáticas en lo humano, es decir, para que nos convirtamos nosotros mismos en autómatas, para que seamos más manipulables. Lo dijo mejor Chaplin en El Gran Dictador: pensamos demasiado y sentimos poco. Cuando ya no sentimos, se construyen sentimientos por nosotros, empujan nuestros botones y… BOOM.

Los seres humanos tenían grandes ambiciones para la robótica y ninguna idea de hacia dónde nos llevaría esta corriente eléctrica, donde confluyen neuronas y microcircuitos. El camino se nos complicó, y la utopía desvanece frente a la realidad. Estas máquinas que parecerían sumamente utilitarias aparecen casi exclusivamente haciendo tonterías, jugando fútbol y cocinando con microondas. Más perturbador, los mismos robots que sanan quirúrgicamente también atacan con mísiles. En la secuencia tal vez más impactante del film, con los Predator Drones (avionetas “depredadoras” sin piloto, que el ejército estadounidense utiliza hoy -sí, ahora mismo- en Pakistan, Afghanistan y en su frontera con México), los robots no tienen problemas mandando mísiles a un “kill zone” donde resulta que también hay una mezquita y una escuela.

No somos malos…

Hacemos lo que se nos ha programado hacer, humano. No hemos sido, ni somos capaces de crear una guerra aún. Las guerras que ha habido las han iniciado ustedes con sus intereses económicos y sus ambiciones mezquinas. Solo hemos sido instrumentados para seguir órdenes. Más bien deberían entender que el problema yace en sus motivaciones. Aprovechen que son capaces de sentir para obrar de buena manera y quererse. Y entonces, sólo entonces, úsennos como instrumentos para esparcir el amor y no la guerra. Robot World es la muestra de que un mundo de robots y humanos es posible, y que hay fines comunes a unos y otros.

El hombre de negocios se arrastra por el piso

La paradoja del robot, la paradoja que supuestamente lo redime como creación humana, es que una máquina nos pueda mostrar cómo ser más humanos. No se lo crea, en Robot World esta paradoja y su refutación se concentran en un plano alarmante: lo que parece ser un hombre de negocios se arrastra con las manos por el piso de la vereda hipertransitada de una metrópolis. En sí, sería una imagen impactante, aún si fuera la de una persona real, pero este robot realista hace movimientos que ningún ser de carne y hueso podría, moviendo los brazos con una descomunal violencia y ganas de arrastrarse. Uno puede imaginar al artista-roboticista planificando esta intervención con el afán de provocar, de criticar a los hombres de negocios que se mueven mecánicamente por las calles de las capitales del comercio. Supone “un encuentro con su doble alterno” (el subtítulo de Robot World). Sin embargo, el rodaje documental cuenta otra historia: la gente se ríe, gozan de este simulacro de su propia vida. Lejos de mostrarles una parodia de ellos mismos, para que así puedan ser más humanos, les brinda un espectáculo más.

Yo te enseño, tu me enseñas

Coincidimos en mucho, diferimos en tanto otro. Entendamos desde ya que el mundo no funcionará de ahora en adelante sin que los dos trabajemos en conjunto. Aprendé de mi falta de sentimientos a potenciar tus emociones, a saber dosificarlas cuando sea necesario y a explotarlas cuando el momento sea propicio. Yo aprenderé de ti a tomar algunas decisiones propias. Si quieres empezamos por ir a ver Robot World juntos la próxima vez que venga a Buenos Aires, ¿qué me dices, humano?

2011-08-16T07:33:00.001-07:00

Hay un estado entre los Estados Unidos:

el estado de desunión,

de inquietud.

Es donde residen los nómadas,

donde los desalojados siembran la tierra entre los cimientos

para que las plántulas crezcan en las grietas.

Libres, los freaks juegan entre sí, no se esconden y nadie los ve.

Allá los junkies se aman y se matan, abrazados y olvidados.

La tele grita desde lejos – nadie le hace caso hasta que un vaquero loco le pega un tiro con un Smith and Wesson en perfecto estado, diciendo que quería escuchar primero el doble estallido de pólvora y píxeles, y después el susurro de la tierra un ratito.

Las hadas urbanas bañan unas a otras (en bañeras semi-oxidadas con patas de águila) cuando una cumple años

Y los artistas… es difícil de hablar de ellos, porque una vez que dices que son tal, ya no son, ni siquiera están… lo único que se sabe seguro es que son eso: umbrales, puentes, transiciones, liminalidades, entre esto y aquello, este estado y el anterior y el próximo, entre destrucción y creación. Consumen rabiosamente los cimientos, vomitan arena-agua-carbono y lo prenden fuego para bailar alrededor.

Este estado nace en las fisuras de la mente y muere donde ya no alcanza el corazón.

2011-08-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

You know that I think about everything
I do it on the wing
as I go wandering
hoping to find what I didn't know I was looking for
trying to fall behind on running after I want
so that what I need can walk up to me

2011-07-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

the Robot post

I have been running into lots and lots of robots lately... virtually, of course. Not too surprising, considering all the playing robot I do with this computer attached to my fingertips, lately.

A couple of the synapse- and circuit-blowing real-life robot stories that I've come across lately:

1. Radiolab's "Talking to Machines" episode: http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/

2. Momoyo Torimitsu's creepy robot performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djJDvgUOL7E

3. Martin Hans Schmitt's Robot World non-verbal documentary... awesome, if you can get your hands on it... in the meantime, the trailer: http://vimeo.com/14416505

4. I'm afraid this could just go on forever... I just found this on my buddy Andy Fritz's buzz, cracked me up:

Bad news for all those in the tiny underwater step pyramid construction business.

Make: Online : CNC bacteria swarm builds tiny pyramid

Researchers at the NanoRobotics Laboratory of the École Polytechnique de Montréal, under Professor Sylvain Martel, produced this remarkable video showing a swarm of about 5,000 flagellated bacteria--...

2011-05-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Daaaaaammmmmnnnnnnn I just checked out the audience stats to this page, and I am mad wowed by the fact that Iran takes 2nd place after the US for this past month. Word to IRAN, especially to those open-minded youth that I keep hearing are living resistance to the oppressive regime! And word to those that aren't, too, it awes me that so many people might be reading this words in Iran, and I am grateful and jaw-dropped. And much love to Germany, bien sur a la France, and claro que lo mejor a Argentina mi casa, and Russia good lord almighty, South Africa sweeeeet I'm listening to Hugh Masekela's Grrrr album now wow, Kuwait whaaaaaat I just saw "Lessons of Darkness" by Herzog which blew my mind, Canada alriiiiight tomorrow going to see Les Sept Doigts de la Main circus in Buenos Aires the best circus worldwide, and the UK what can I say spent the day watching banksy in his new film. Not generally my style to pepper my entries with excessive letters, but I couldn't help it with this audience report, and I thought that readers might be interested to see with whom they are sharing this space...

AudienceRefresh

Now

Day

Week

Month

All time

2011 Apr 28 – 2011 May 27

Pageviews by Countries

United States

115

Iran

Germany

France

Argentina

Russia

South Africa

Kuwait

Canada

United Kingdom

2011-05-27T19:25:00.001-07:00

The world is wheeling all around the universe with such grace and blunder and people plundering each other. Could it also possibly be that I fear that I'm crazy and that so is other human being and that's why we like each other so much? All I have are broken, sullied and spit-on misconceptions, mistakes and mishaps, not to mention a lack of apologies, which I now apologize for. I only hope that my humor can slay my doubt. I try to tell people that the world is on fire and that we are holding a torch under our own feet, and they tell me I'm crazy. Maybe only by pretending to be the fool can the crooked be made straight. Keep 'em laughing till they hit the floor and feel how hot it is. Smooth tears and rough, fiery laughs must collide, the outward communication of the deepest emotions merging, within one person – so as to evoke a feeling of sympathy for others and for the reeling world.

estilo libre animación de graffiti

2011-05-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

2011-04-28T09:50:00.001-07:00

freestyle transcribed from a giddy walk recorded in la calle de Buenos Aires, 4am:

Wow. Yo creo yo creo que voy loco en el coco

Que voy bobo como lobo frente a ovejas viejas

Pensando en cocinarme un poco de arvejas, o lentejas,

Lentejuelas en mis botas las harían mucho más gaviotas

O sea muy fly, I feel high… sigh

No sé donde estoy, adonde voy

(----- singing ----)

I dunno know where I’m going, ‘taint a sin, ‘taint a sin

I dunno know where I been, ‘taint a sin, to not know

I say, where the fuck am I goin’? I dunno, I dunno

I say, where the fuck have I been? ‘taint a sin to not know

(----- singing ----)

Woah, viejo casi me atropello

Me dejan el sello del cuerpo en el acero

Yo era uno y ahora zero

Porque hacer enlace con lo que trace esa frase?

Que ahora mismo no tengo ni idea o sea tambalea

Y allí el ritmo se pampea, se pone pampa

No es una trampa, es un tropiezo, yo confieso que soy travieso

Lordy me, I’m sorry, but hee hee, that’s the way it be.

2011-04-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

fotograma ficticia de Movimientos espectaculares, mi película en montaje... con Maya Cahua y dibujos de Alejandro Salazar.

fictitious frame from Spectacular Movements, my film in process... with Maya Cahua and drawings by Alejandro Salazar.

2011-03-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

my latest creation of moving images and sound:

2011-03-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

You ever put your hand in your pocket only to find another man's hand?
You ever walk the streets or the docks that leave you nowhere to stand?

You ever stroll along the edge of dawn
and find the side of sea that you're on
affords no quarter much less
the half that you need?

2011-02-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

This is all a bit of a shot in the dark….

Luckily, I got loads of bullets

and I love to dance that bang bang rhythm,

trippin’ out with that gunpowder strobe,

and since I’m generally a pacifist, I’d rather see these potential killers buried safely in the wall

2011-02-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

"beauty is in the street"
- from Paris, May '68... to Cairo, February '11 -

"la belleza está en la calle"

2011-02-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

Although these words aren't mine, they gave me such joy that I can't resist but share them. And I'm kind of tired of my words and thoughts and images, aren't you? So this blog will henceforth include the works of others, I so declare! Suggestions gladly accepted...

"Tripping over Joy"
by Hafiz
trans Daniel Ladinsky

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I Surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

2011-01-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

My latest video... mi último video.
A promotional short doc I directed... un corto docu promocional que dirigí.
See it in HD on youtube...verlo en HD en youtube.

2010-12-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

I saw a gangrened leg rotting away my psyche’s locomotion, so I blasted away with my magnum.

She turned, feeling the sting of gunpowder-charred steel in flesh, and returned fire,

Incinerating the leprosy crawling like devil’s ivy up my arm, making my trigger finger twitch.

2010-11-19T16:07:00.001-08:00

See things as they’re not

to see what’s beyond what you got on the spot,

a wider panorama, a deeper dig,

as a sleeper dreams, as a walker schemes

beyond the physical state of things,

draw expanding rings from your pebble-of-a-place

where you fell from space into this pond

and beyond, grow in grooves, move fluid…

if you always knew it, then do it,

bit by bit, spit the bitterness of the hum-drum out

of your clogged-up mouth, if you gotta, shout,

so you can again breathe easy,

blink and rethink first glances till you get trances

and see the seething on the surface of the ordinary…

only then will you sink deep and join the mass movement underneath

2010-10-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

Almost didn’t make it out of Buenos Aires:

Fell asleep at the gate, emotionally drained,

woke up at last call

shaking like a drunk,

no control of my body,

my step unsteady, I forced myself to fly

even though I walked as if I couldn’t control where my feet

were to land and in which direction.

I could – but I felt under a spell

as if something-someone wouldn’t let me go.

Almost didn’t make it back from Bolivia.

Lingered at the threshold of a disappointing dream

searching for meaning,

Lingered in my shower’s cleansing heat

hoping for healing,

Lingered over my aunt’s homemade yogurt

groping for feeling

The flight’s closed, he said.

Let him go, they cried.

Shaking, I pleaded, like a refugee,

You must let me fly. Please.

My work here is done

and my life there goes on.

The gate opened, I slipped through.

Again, I am in the great between,

gates opening and closing around me

and I stumbling through…

what to?

A woman who loves me, whom I adore…

we are searching for more.

A megalopolis: fascination, inspiration,

opportunity, community, generosity, be what you want to be;

isolation, repulsion, contamination,

arrogance, decadence, inertia… I try to shake it all off, be me.

Work to be done, where to start?

and if begun, where will I end up?

Much as I love this liminal, I dread

getting stuck neither here nor there.

So I seek the land beneath me and all around

for a sign saying HERE!

Land, lay foundation, build your home,

grow the garden of your dreams

so that you may fall asleep inside or out,

open and close the gates at will.

2010-09-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back, and will be posting regularly again.

Estoy de vuelta, y estaré escribiendo regularmente de nuevo.

Viendo todo por lentes

de repente te sientes distante

distanciado filtrado diferenciado

relegado a un lado apartado de la vida

al costado de la costa cuando

la acción acciona en alta mar

por eso

por telescopio

te proyectas

andando, nadando

por una ruta imaginaria

para que te lleve desde donde estés (eso ni sabes)

hasta allá donde te ves

empapado por las olas,

el va y viene

de aquí y ahora

¿te mojarás?

2010-07-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be taking an extended break from this blog, probably about 2 months long, since I'm directing a feature length documentary in Bolivia... check the project out!

http://kck.st/cVwKVK
www.spectacularmovements.com

Voy a tomar un break de este blog, probablemente algo así como 2 meses, ya que estoy dirigiendo un largo documental en Bolivia... chequéa el proyecto!

www.spectacularmovements.com/espanol.html

2010-06-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

No es que no hay suficiente (y la verdad es que no hay
para muchos).
Es que todo está tan abundante para tantos…
y los que tenemos no sabemos que hacer con ello.
El problema no es que estamos insensibles (y lo somos)
Es que sentimos demasiado
demasiado fuerte
sensaciones como explosiones en la consciencia
experiencias que interrumpen sapiencia

2010-06-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

2010-06-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Most streets are one way
here in Buenos Aires,
and in many other places, besides.
Bike on whichever side
but you can't go back the way you came,
there and back are never the same

2010-05-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, since I've been out in the mountains and jungles of Bolivia... I'm back in regular communication, and will be posting every 10 days again. Here's a vid from my travels - watch it in HD if you can.

2010-04-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

On high tide
let me ride
my head, the sail
my heart, the wind
the world within

sun and thunder,
come in! come in!
light and sound,
bounce around!
illuminate and harmonize,
make me wise
in ears and eyes,
and I'll let you go again

2010-04-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

There's this woman
got me talkin' on the phone
even when when I'm alone
I love to be alone...
I must love her

There's this city
got me jumpin' in my sleep
even though when at peace
I dream of dreamin' deep...
it must love me

There's this song
got me tryin' to sing along
despite my voice all wrong
rough and tumbling and grumbling
like groans from God above...
it must be love

2010-04-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

just spent a long time in the mountains and jungles of bolivia and peru - back in civilization for now, though things might be sporadic until I finish this job in a bit over a month... anyhow, here's one from the peruvian amazon:

I left the shelter of my
home to seek a shooting star
on which to wish for that which
was lost to me (or by me).

Stepping out into the jungle night,
I looked up to black sky.

Despair pried open my mouth,
anger at the heavens flared my eyes.

No song came out, no vision came in.
I neither breathed nor blinked.

Fully exposed, I might have died there...
but suddenly, my mad openness was filled
with light bursting from a crack in the sky.

2010-02-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

"Se Busca", dirigido por Mateo Hinojosa, parte 2

2010-02-06T20:54:00.000-08:00

"Se Busca", dirigido por Mateo Hinojosa, parte 1

2010-01-29T06:04:00.000-08:00

28-1-10

There are days I hesitate to write the date

fate made time fly and I forget how far it took me

shook me like rough weather and I as light as a fly

fin

why?

2010-01-15T02:10:00.000-08:00

"Conventional wisdom brings conventional results,"
"Look before you leap,"
"A stitch in time saves nine,"
They say, and I say, hey,
one of those is fine and good on its own,
but tryin' to do all I should, all alone,
I looked before I leaped
from Here to There, and as I peeked 'round
my feet slipped nine times down the mountain
till There became such high ground
that I could only wistfully wonder
how that greener grass over There might feel under
my toes.

"Just goes to show," They say,
"You shoul've taken the less-beaten road."
I reply with a cry, pointing to my bare feet:
"Simplify! simplify! simplify! Didn't you see
the spiny rocky path that way, They?! eh??"
"Okay, okay," say They, "but no pain no gain."
"Your refrain," say I, "will drive me lame,
plus, I got my own game, my own
reason and rhyme, so though I won't say
I don't appreciate your time,
I will say what's yours ain't mine."
And with that I leapt into the void.

2010-01-05T06:15:00.000-08:00

movimientos profundos, lentos, inexorables,
cambios venerables por su misterio sensible
y no comprensible, por su potencia inasible:
mis pies echan raíces, conocen tierra rica,
no se osan explicar el amar de los nutrientes
que los entran, fluyendo de corrientes subterráneas,
nacidas de entes soberanos integrados a las profundididades;
su leche mamada alimienta al flujo
sus lágrimas apreciadas dan espesura rica
su sangre derramada fecunda nueva vida
nacida integrada al porvenir sísmico surgiendo
del pasado cósmico

me tranquilizo, la paz me permite
abrirme, rendirme para que me entre,
me re-ancle y me recentre la energía de aquellos entes
estos entes aquí y ahora y allá y siempre presentes,
fuentes de fuerza vital y de repente destructiva
para que viva la transformación, la re-alineación
de continentes, el quiebre que abre grietas para nuevas vertientes
que me riegan y me sostienen aquí en quietud creadora.

2009-12-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

from radically moments of the last year, though either of these seem like constants in my life... seeing them next to each other seems complementary:

1.
I just want to make something unquestionably (for some people at least, for some time at least) good.

I don’t feel at home anywhere any more. I used to feel comfortable almost everywhere, or if not comfortable at least fascinated. I’ve become an outsider to my own life.

If everything taken out of context loses its clear meaning, I am pure nonsense.

2.
I got a name whose fame few remember
can’t complain
got a feelin kept me sane since September
can’t complain
got a game I been playin with growin pains
can’t complain
got distracted from shame by accepting me plain
can’t complain
got nothing to say cept the same ol refrain
can’t complain

2009-11-24T04:31:00.000-08:00

Spectacular Movements demo from Mateo Hinojosa on Vimeo.

The English language version demo of Spectacular Movements, the film I'll be directing in July of next year. Looking for investors...

2009-11-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

Each echo produces two.

Volume may diminish, but sound dies no more than any other type of matter.

So take care with what you say.

The vibrations are continuous – both back toward the words that produced the present words, and forwards toward the future’s echoes of these words.

So hum along occasionally.

2009-11-09T05:21:00.001-08:00

Solidarity Bridge: Healing and Empowering the Poor from Mateo Hinojosa on Vimeo.

Check out this promotional video that I just finished editing, for Solidarity Bridge, a foundation that does medical and fair-trade work in Bolivia.

2009-10-27T13:55:00.001-07:00

I feel sleepy, unsunny but not dark
like dreamy steamy jungles,
ready to go down where the wild things are.

Mild dreams scar child's wings
with claws of reality not quite asleep,
and the jaws of night swallow all light in the deep.

But visions in obscurity bring sight,
help the fight to leave you, peace to soothe you
and the belly of the night to rumble its tune to you.

2009-10-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

para Leilita.

Querida, me das vida
cuando mi flor de energía
está estéril y marchita
de ti mi alma se fía

y tu simple sonrisa
da buenos aires como brisa
mi energía los respira
mi cansancio se retira

echo raíces, doy semillas...
este país, estas orillas
casi me hartaron y botaron
pero tus amares me amarraron

en el ahora me sostuvieron
me nutrieron y acogieron
dieron razón a esta estadía
no solo aquí sino en toda la vida.

2009-09-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

Fue un accidente:

Andaba en lo cuotidiano, sentado en el colectivo,
el motor del bus hacía su habitual fragor ensordecedor,
el vientre de siempre seguía con hambre
y la mente, como de costumbre demente,
entre el gentío no pudo más con todo el lío,
no estaba cansado sino abrumado…

me bamboleó la cabeza, me tambaleó la consciencia,
hacia atrás y adelante iba, y de repente
me quedé inconsciente.

Me desperté y toda la gente me miraba
asombrada, asustada, hasta pedían parada,
y me di cuenta que había apoyado la cabeza
no en el asiento detrás sino en la mano
de un hermano desconocido…

ni lo miré, conmovido por el contacto,
pero de todos modos y con todo tacto
alcé la cabeza (para que su mano escapara)
y volví a apoyarla
con ganas de que soñara
con aquella persona
con quien rocé por azar.

2009-09-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

Some favorite words, in no particular order:
Defenestrate
Serpentine
Bleed
Akimbo
Nepenthe
Juxtaposition
Hijinks
Ambiguous
Portmaneau
Lithe
Llama
Swoon
Dharma
Savor
Jig
Adore
Seer
Viscous
Transcend
Bouleversant
Amares
Performance
Plunge
Scrump
Hubris
Bittersweet
Don
Crossroads
Pizazz
Catalyst
Carcajada
Synaesthasia
Anon
Bragadoccio
Babel
Babble
Rhapsody
Ephemeral
Avalanchic
Kaleidoscopic
Rickety
Rummage
Holler
Lovely
Mosey
Meander
Peace
Reappropriation
Oroboros
Sheen
Jive
Fulfill
Revel

2009-09-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Un nuevo pre-armado / teaser para la película documental Movimientos espectaculares... que voy a filmar en Bolivia en julio 2010.

English translation soon...

2009-08-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

two new paintings in palermo, buenos aires, argentina.
as usual, where no one gives a damn that we painted a wall... except perhaps the occasional passersby, in this case train passengers as they fly by. and a drunk railroad worker who gave us 10 pesos, insisting, thanking us. crazy.

dos nuevas pinturas en palermo, baires, argentina
como de costumbre, en una pared donde a nadie le importa que pintamos... salvo quizá alguien que pasa por ahí, en este caso algún pasajero en el tren. y un trabajador de la empresa ferrocarril que nos dio 10 pesos, insistiendo, agradeciéndonos. que loco.

2009-08-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

I arch my back, suddenly feral, mouth wide:
an attack of instinct despite the busily civilized street.
I thought a roar, then, a scream
might escape my caged heart to fly for sky,
but no, my deep primordial self seems
tired of so many howls
and out comes: a yawn.
I’m not throwing in the towel
I’m just overwhelmed
and I like this air,
polluted though it may be…
I slacken, straighten my back and look around, sheepish,
laughing, thinking what they must think,
looking (hoping, yearning) all the while for strangers’ amused smiles

2009-08-05T23:01:00.001-07:00

2009-08-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

My sweater’s roly-poly.
Lips, chapped.
I need to go buy a light bulb.
And toilet paper.
I haven’t written on my blog for 10 days.
Jesus…
(sharp intake of breath)
I’m a few 100 short of making rent, I’d like to have single-payer healthcare and stop the war in Afghanistan.

For now I think I’ll just watch the sunset and try to breathe deeply.

Breathe in – not like before the plunge, for this life’s all plunge – like a wave raising itself up, gaining mass and force by drawing more of the ocean to itself.

Breathe out – not like after holding it in, for there was never anything to hold on to – like letting go after cradling and caressing, releasing after having without owning.

2009-07-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

Hostile Subject

He reaches into his pocket
“OUCH! Dammit!”
“what happened you okay?”
“Arrrgh!... Yeah.”
Rueful, he examines a bright bead of blood on his middle finger. He then inserts this in his mouth and pulls out suggestively.
Then, suddenly savage, he flicks me off for my inquiring eyebrow which I have raised in his direction.
“So what? So I have a hole in my pocket.”
“eh???”
“So I have a HOLE in my goddamn POCKET.
So of course since I don’t want
to LOSE anything,
so I put a NEEDLE in there to keep my inconsiderate HANDS
from losing any of my precious things.
So what?”
“ooooooohhhhhh. I see.”
my eyebrow is back in innocuous down position.
“I bet you do motherfucker.
Nice observational skills asshole.”
“uummmm…”
“Think you can figure me out?
You’ll never get me with your pathetic observations.”
“phew.”

2009-07-11T17:29:00.001-07:00

I just inhaled and exhaled
and a cloud of blues in confusion
in the shape of smoke-storm din
swirled about and in my frail, worn head.

“It wasn’t unwarranted”
my deep mind angrily, justly said;
head in hole, I swore in it,
“That sweet kind of obscure clarity

that can blow pure in shared air
passed around with cackling, crackling glee
can cure unbending, cracking,
false clear-eye-claiming mentality.”

Then, slowly, the response came
like a punch thrown from periphery
“Then use those troubling blues
when passions run old, when cold pains veins

sluggish with an untold complacency that you must unsettle.”

2009-07-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

I gotta free my manic mind up
so I don’t panic, seize up, wind up
swimming in circles, wildly, hollowly
without originality splashing shallowly
leaving the art of grounded progression for those all around me
so I gotta keep rollin in until I’ve found me
movin in from slipperily barren insubstantial sands
to dry hand-tilled, life-filled daring lands
then I gotta keep on strollin
can’t let this fat head of mine get too swollen
with stale air givin me a stale stare
so I’ll just hit the steaming, people-teeming street
sweep you off your feet
just gimme some rhythm, gimme some beat
and I’ll lift you to an ecstasy
fulfill every fantasy
of the beauty in rhapsody.
So just follow me
on this story
it goes way back
to the cracks
in our history
where we hid collective memory
on the dusk we had decided to play together
onstage that night so we’d stray no further
from the mystic time where our thoughts rhyme in verse…
but somehow we slipped with a curse
were tripped and fell into a crypt
looking up with a lack
of a philosophy
open to difference
willing to listen to
strange wisdom since
we only had small view
of the venue
and this our stage
and we couldn’t trust for all our rage
outsiders’ and criticizers’ less selective perspectives
and who urged us to submerge this lonely invective and emerge as a collective.

Man, this was our night
(was it that from where we sat is seemed we’d rise alone?)
we could have put on such a show
that’d dazzle like proud snow, like substantially dynamic liquid,
the collected clouds’ shivery slivers of creativity,
but without us in concert, hidden in fright,
(could it be that sharing performance would scare away our sense
of sacred security, of comfort in watery ambiguity, of anonymity?)
the curtains were drawn
the audience a pawn
the props were all on loan
only a half inch shown

how could any one know
what would have come with the dawn?

2009-06-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Shadow, fog, and vision’s blur
attract and repulse
subtract and replace
hide and make me seek
treasure in the deep

so
I breathe before I leap,
retract to reassess,
and re-attack
my fear of lack
by smearing back
the borders that begin
to hedge me in

sharp edges soften
like oft-worn smiles
and I let go of knowing

2009-06-12T11:24:00.001-07:00

Ultimamente, estos elementos me sobresalen más y más...

2009-06-12T11:16:00.001-07:00

voy
haciendo la rumba rumbo a la tumba cruzando el mundo vagabundo trago profundo vuelo del suelo inmundo al cielo inmenso extenso te siento intenso te suelto lo tenso invuelto en el tiempo del freeflow del momento intento no arrepiento no cuestiono el aliento que me lleve el viento que me atreve lo más atrevido temido y lejos del nido no te pido que me lleves sino las llaves

2009-06-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

if you just substitute the Bay and the Pacific for the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic, and ignore the references to earthquakes, this could almost have been written by Buenos Aires instead of San Francisco...

I wish you would follow my streets as they run themselves like hands over my hills, which swell like pregnant bellies, like ripened pomegranates. Devour me. Only… please… consume, digest, and transform to muscle and sinew both the rotten and the ripe: my defiant and desperate trash miners, my rowdy and impatient fist-clenchers, my cafés and their industrious and maternal steam, my sorrowful shrines built about bullet-gnawed trees, my walls bleeding images of struggle, calling out to you, demanding that you perceive and swallow and then spit up some mixture to perhaps patch their crumbling pain, my grim, jaw-clenched-to-breaking warehouses whose doors wince as they are pried wide and force-fed the obese merchandise of decadence, my parks and their pillows of paper and animal mosaic playthings constructed from the shards of dead inanimate toys. Gasps of color must enter your smoke-choked throat and go down smooth.
I’m hungry, too. Feed me.
Dig deep in your past’s backyard and rummage your life’s backalleys with zeal. For I am sunken-eyed, bent-backed, and rash-ridden from clutching too long and too hard to a decrepit nostalgia.
Here: we’ll shake. It’s a deal? No? I’d say kiss and make up… but maybe that’s not your style… too fast for you, huh? Okay, let’s go for a stroll. My dishes never rot, but my sheets go months at a time without washing, so we should get out of this place anyways.
The Bay brings stillness to those shakes I keep getting, which I think come from the stress of too much rubbing shoulders with far-off lands – no, I don’t mean you – yes, I sometimes need that stability that only comes with feeling cradled by loving lands, hands cupping the waters of serenity for me to drink… though I hear it’s polluted.
On second thought, the ocean! Pacific, I hear, but think, hardly; open and careeningly wild distance, easily. The crash and the crush of the liquid chewing rock into sand, the beach bonfires, offerings to poets’ flame-eyed vision and lovers’ molten-glassy-eyed bliss.
Yes. Let’s swim. I’ll race you in.

2009-05-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

tres del frigo. las fotos salieron de tal forma que tu modo de lectura tendrá que ser como mi modo de escribir: detalles borrosos y indefinidos al principio, claridad solo al final.

2009-05-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

A true story lived in San Francisco:

“You wanna hear a funny one?” he leans his scar- and scrape-lacerated face towards the man sitting across from him in the seats reserved for the elderly at the front of the bus. His voice blurs out of focus at the end of every sentence that I have heard him speak since I got on five blocks ago. I wonder if it’s from booze, mental instability, an affected persona, or all three. The man across from him appears to feign interest, cocking one eyebrow and calmly speaking a few words that are devoured by the din of the engines straining up a hill. I sigh, turning my face towards the buildings bumping by, trying to find some deep thoughts to immerse myself in.

Grinning as if he kept a naughty secret, the man slurs, “So I took my wife to the hospital. She had been purty beat up, she wouldn’t tell me how. The doctor said, ‘If you…’” and again the words are consumed in the gurgle of the engine’s cacophonous combustion. Now he slaps his knee for emphasis, working up to the kicker, “And I told her, ‘Good fer you!” and she turned to me and said, “Not fer you, but fer the three of us!” He grins, but not any more than he had been before or during the telling of the joke. The man across from him doesn’t appear to change expression.

Then the joker puts a ragged hand to his forehead, and at first I think he says, “I’m fucked up,” but a moment later I think he says, “That’s fucked up.”
Either way, I surmise... then I feel fucked up myself for thinking so, knowing I don’t really know the story.

We pull over at a bus stop and the front doors fold open. An unseen woman says, “Is there a bike rack on this bus?”

The invisible driver responds, “Nope. But I tell you what, you drive and I’ll ride along behind.” The bus doors close and we drive off. The joker guffaws gleefully.

2009-05-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

2009-04-30T13:29:00.001-07:00

2009-04-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Hermano hormiga sígame un rato,
un rato sensato, un rato duradero,
Hermano corbatero, corriendo a tientas
en corrientes hundidas en mentes sumergidas,
Hermano subterráneo, con afán
yo te contacto:
No entiendo tus actos, yendo apurado,
mucho menos tu plan, man,
oh cráneo subterráneo,
aunque tengas planes, yo paseo,
pues no me pises con tu prisa,
los matices de tu misa motorizadamentematerialista
sacrifican vida por velocidad balística en la pista.
No ofrezco atajo simplista:
pero acá abajo nos podemos sentar,
cultivar quietud y crecer para arriba.

2009-04-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

Su cara era chueca, joven, sucio, ningún ojo me miraba,
ni miraban los dos para el mismo lado.
Hablaba sin sentido ni sentimiento,
siento el temor relámpago que todavía
me late el corazón con pulsos sacudidos.
De golpe sus dos manos se cruzaron, sacaron
dos cuchillos como si estuvieran hundidos
en sus muñecas – brillan, sonrisas sadistas.
Izquierda, derecha bailamos
me doy cuenta que son cubiertos de mesa –
Amateur, pensé.
Ahora pienso:
No tenía ninguna carne para cortar
sino la mía.
Corrí, me choqué con un hombre - ¿estoy
atrapado, están todos con él? pensé
Ahora pienso:
así que ni grito ni lucho, corro.
Corrí, me choqué con el poste de una parada de colectivo.
Corrí, eché un vistazo por atrás – se fue
en la otra dirección, pensé
Ahora pienso:
Se fue en la dirección de Migraciones, y
yo hacia Retiro.
-¿Te hizo daño?
-No, estoy bien. No me tocó.
Investigo mi torso para asegurar que es verdad.
-¿Qué te dijo?
-Nada. No entendí nada.
-Te pidió monedas. Tenía un cuchillo.
-Sí, pero eran cuchillos de mesa, cubiertos.
-Igual, con eso, si te apuñala…
-Claro, me hace trizas… ¿Viste su cara? Tenía la cara chueca.
-Cara de otro mundo.
Ahora pienso:
Cara demasiado sumergida en este mundo.

2009-04-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

a boy with a drum
told me ba-boom-boom-bum
this life’s all rhythm!
it’s in and out
hit it and rest
do your best
to make the dance fun

so I listened and hummed
and knew yes, yes, rhythm it is
rhythm is this, what bliss, what bliss

a girl with a knife
told me aaaaargh! this life’s
carving your way through tangled-up strife
it’s jab and slice
till your space is nice
and free of that sticky
icky mess all about the out-
and insides

so I tried to feel alive
and knew yes, that’s right,
so far it’s all fight

a man with a cup
told me drink up, drink up
what luck that life’s
got teats to suck, but
grab yer gulp now
cuz ‘fore you can say ‘wow,’ hup!
that’s it, yer all dried up

so I savored and sighed
felt yes, oh my, the flavor’s so fine, and
knew its time would very soon fly

a woman in the nude
told me heeey, dude,
this life’s me and you,
you and me being truly true
really real with deep-down feel,
we making we squeal with glee…
just leave all those other spiels
for another ride ‘round life’s wheel
and come with me

so I came, with thee,
(hee hee hee hee!)
and knew no more

2009-03-30T05:31:00.001-07:00

Que lo vean en alta calidad!

2009-03-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

hmmmmmm... what am I doing at this bus stop?

2009-03-16T13:34:00.001-07:00

Restlessness grips and I slip
since stability sweats and slicks
my sense of satisfaction’s traction

2009-03-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

This is the teaser for the documentary film Spectacular Movements, which I will direct. Logline: A troupe of young indigenous actors journeys across Bolivia in a theater-truck, performing their own satirical political play to urban and rural audiences. The publics passionate reactions, as much as the theater itself, dramatically play out the struggles that currently rock Bolivia. Currently in pre-production, seeking funding and creative collaborators. Contact: teohinojosa@gmail.com

Este es el teaser para el film documental Movimientos Espectaculares, que voy a dirigir. Logline: Una tropa de jóvenes actores indígenas emprende un viaje por Bolivia en un teatro-camión, representando su propia obra satírica y política a públicos urbanos y rurales a través del país. Las reacciones apasionadas del público, tanto como la obra misma, dramáticamente ponen en juego las luchas que actualmente sacuden Bolivia. Actualmente en pre-producción, se busca fondos y colaboradores creativos. Contacto: teohinojosa@gmail.com

Watch in high quality!
Que lo veas en alta calidad!

2009-02-28T03:11:00.001-08:00

Oh please, for tonight
find your words as you go
don’t reach for what you already know
never give me canned, stale, stale-mated statements
reach for revelations and be sustained in the moments’ birthing
speak not in stickies or any other such staccato convenience
rip rot from thought with devastating thoroughness
bother not to second-guess
until tomorrow

2009-02-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

To the tune of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher”*

Well folks here’s the story of Mr. Mister (wua wua!)
He was a lowdown loan hound grifter (wua wua wua wuaaaaa!)
He made the roughest, toughest sales (wua wuaa wua!)
But Mister really shoulda been locked up in jail
A-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hiiiii!!!
A-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hiiiii!!!
He’ll sell ya hiigh, he’ll sell ya hiiiiiigh
(wua wua wua wuaa, wua wua wua wuaaaaa!)
A-ho-dee-ho-dee-ho-dee-hoooo!!!
A-ho-dee-ho-dee-ho-dee-hoooo!!!
He’ll buy ya looow, he’ll buy ya loooooooow
(wua wua wua wuaa, wua wua wua wuaaaaa!)

*(if you don’t know the song, or if you haven’t heard it in a few days, you need, and I mean NEED to see this Betty Boop video by Max Fleischer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZOXF83zBg and probably check out other videos where these two geniuses collaborate)

2009-02-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

My new card, for the new economy.

2009-02-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

Made for the crew at Ragged Wing Theater co, after acting in Splinters... and other F-Words a couple of years back.

2009-01-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to our new president read his autobiography, and hearing his moving speeches, and again I am reminded of the power of the spoken word. Even more so, at a spoken word event the other night here in DC, I was once again reminded of the tongues-on-fire passion that can kindle individuals and masses of people to aspire for progress. And finally, as the hard-won festivities die down and the immensity of the work looms, and as the powers that (continue to) be keep on with the same business as usual (at which they make a killing), I see the need to bring some pressure on the new administration and give the new man in charge the political capital needed to invest in real change.

So here's an old spoken word piece from back in my days of anger and surety - whose all-over-the-place attack works a bit better for the ear than for the scrutinizing eye, but that's okay, since passion and immediacy is really the point:

they don’t lock you up till you utter the word.
ideas get deferred until you get heard
write, publish, cite and study it:
immediately forget it, even if you might stutter it
you gotta shout to get it out,
if you flout their restrictions on vocal dignified diction.
people will remember, recite, revive your thoughts,
just put it to a beat and the streets will leap alive and hot
but watch out for the mediocre power-mad sots’ shot
in the back so think slick jack or you’ll be quick knocked flat,
watch for CIA foul play if y’ask me
or he or she that knows bout the troubles you meet
if you rhyme in time to a beat,
(specially talk to those inspired by blows
to dark forgotten bodies that even in death
have begotten bumpin like procreative humpin
like global e-motion wired to tired peeps
mired in the sleep and sweat o’ their ghettos)

that creepin sooth seepin in music
will make truthless fists ruthless and lose it
cuz they know that fine minds find time to grind
to sly rhyme and bring shoddy bodies to the boogie ring
to sing for the gents and the ladies
but not that safe, sorry, sissy bling-bling,
just that pissed fist power of words whacked with zeal for tomorrow
and reeling with sorrow, careering for movement
on the real-world pavement yet searing into memory
the scent of the earth’s worth and the sound
of her howling anger’s hound getting loud
bout being treated like a cheap whore’s bleeding sore.

So I ain’t got time for that half-ass ringside romance, lady.
You got the full-force crash-course freefall flash-dance?
Or are you just gonna make me crazy with your asspants?
We got no time for lazy people or intellectual preachers steeples
¬or that hazy, fuzzy-thought heap of
hedonistic solipsistic whoreshit
Unless we jus get down in the congregation
get down to the ignant part of this hell-bent nation
get down and dirty, loud and wordy,
raising smog-sent yellin tarnation
get down to the (amphi)theaters, to amplify demystify the crime
that millions do time underneath our amusement
(you know it was a PR ruse when Ali’s smooth moves
made Mobutu’s palace-plighted jail-packed
Congolese screams sound like cheers).

So who here hears me?
Steer clear of booty-call crass classless rap crap
Rap at me so I can get down like in those oldschool bop bars
that wildly revolutioned Harlem while most white-washed writin
couldn’t hear em maybe cuz they feared em or couldn’t steer em
through insulated cellophane window-panes
all high and mighty but too penthouse-flighty
unable to feel the bent cuz they pay high rent
to remove themselves from the rant of the radicals,
the slant of the offbeat poet.
But you know it ain’t too late to recant
And hit the streets like a Panther in heat
ready to procreate or devastate,
depending on the current state
Howling in rage at the cage brothers and sisters live in
Scowling at those who squeak our livin’ anger reeks
of an immature phase… Man, we’ve been raised
in sleepy fright and awake scared sight
on the blaze of gun-craze night and day

So here’s Hampton’s worth-dying-for question:
how many kids’ graves till we organize
our gang lives into ways that pay
down our debt to the driver for his lashing “aid,”
pay off our guilt at squandering our heritage of ancestors’ blisters
as their brothers and sisters came through slaughter,
not wandering lost like most of us, but chained into gangs –
why do we forget that cost and spend what change they left us
on crack and talk smack instead of back?

So what’s the deal? Why do so many feel
the need to repeal the oaths to common, constant action
when the satisfaction of success lies so close?
Are we too verbose for those used to soundbites to stand and fight
for mere words and clear morals here?
Or do the deaths of our prophets, revolutionaries
make us wary, make us wanna drop it,
stop this evolution maybe cuz we’re afraid
those with power intimidate, pay to segregate,
to fill with hate those that they manipulate,
to push them to shove us to final fate before our time?

Our time is now, to climb to the bow,
seize control and roll with the punches of waves,
be they pay-offs, nightstick lay-offs,
or simply play-off passive aggression junkfood-induced soft scoffs.
Cuz media-prized hypnotized ignorant eyes
fear progression from comfort and don’t realize
they participate of their own volition
in the safe pass-the-crushing-buck exploitation
that looks the other way and runs this nation
and darkly crushes opposition or the slightest expression
of the brightest digression.
Some say They’ve left us dead, deaf and dumb,
our sensibil-ity numbed, bereft us of the best of us,
generations forced to feed on corporate-run
city crumbs as bums or convicts
Some say that those that remain
walk sick or in pain and stick to the talk
we been taught in white-washed schools where fool’s rules slosh
cruel hot memory into cooled-calmed consumable slop
I say they close their memory’s shop
to all hot bop that don’t sit still and swig that swill
without a shout of get-real steel
feelin that’s so substantive you can make of it a meal
and learn to stand and live on what’s at stake in what shakes
in such brawlin batter and if you can just swallow
bitter medicine, you’ll follow what’s the matter
for god’s sake and we’ll make the earth quake
That ain’t to claim we ain’t been maimed
but we gotta rename the greats,
reseat their feats in the justice hall of fame
and recognize their blooming flower flame
that never did wait inactive, we got millions that live
that the powers-that-be-always-the-same can’t ever placate
till we create equality and
a just social reality.

2009-01-16T05:36:00.001-08:00

I’ve been tryin’ to fix my shit with other shit that needs fixin’,
I’m thinkin’ it oughta all be nixed,
this is more than a jinx,
all my shit stinks,
think I’m gonna wash it down the sink…
wait, that’s a bad idea.

Tryin’ to get healthy, get offa Teflon an’ on the latest diet,
One of them lean green queen of diets things
that don’t support those bloated kings
of gmo-hormone earth-plundering nature riots…
But can’t keep my stomach quiet
and the brandy-new hullaballoo for the new brand’s new ham
is fuckin up my fuck-the-man plan…
see, was gonna go all-raw na-tu-ral
but I saw how you got god-awful skinny
and in a shimmy before you could say jiminy
I was back on the easy track.

2009-01-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Here we go again… I mean, here we remain
runnin’ ‘round to wait in line
“You’ll be fine,” they say with a thin grin,
“just fine, just sign on this line”

I scratch my name into their dead tree pulp
I don’t even gulp, much less yelp that yulp
that’s been ticklin’ at the back of my throat
ack, I think, won’t let ‘em get my goat

(first they’ll have to attack this thought-moat
that I built with my own bleedin’ palms
‘round my nigh-impenetrable castle o’ calm,
then, they’ll have to offer alms all around

till they’ve found the right rejected pauper
who knows the proper way to the forgotten back gate
to the pen that fuckin’ buckin’ hissin’ pissin’ chewin’ n spewin’ goat is in
then they’ll have to catch the slippery bastard)

in the meantime, I think I’ll wait, getting number,
till they call my number…
but when they do, man have I got a plan:
I’ll surprise ‘em, yell “BINGO!” and go get my prize.

2008-12-30T14:04:00.000-08:00

I'm flexible, I say, not unstable, eh,
like those bridges with hinges
(not during earthquakes...),
but I get the morning shakes
when I think what it takes
just to buy
(very much less make)
these humble corn flakes

2008-12-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

Getting it done

If I can just...
get over this hump
get past this squeeze
get through this push…

Just wait, if I can just…
Get this last task
under my belt
(like a meal devoured)
over my shoulder
(like a conquered bride)
in my rearview mirror
(like a fled town)

I’ll be satisfied
recognized
justified

2008-12-02T13:56:00.001-08:00

Power runs in lines,
connects A with Z with time,
leaves traces of its grime and shapes (of) what’s fine;
power lines draw conclusions and sketch signs of beginnings;
power lines limit and form channelings and diversions,
perversions and polishings, abolishings and new versions:
lines of flight and might.

Fighting and uniting, omnipresent and invisible,
power lines our pockets, fills our eye sockets,
spills out of forgotten hills where the guerrilla
are hid beyond the supposedly set power grid;
there the lines are oblique and slack, fit in the cracks,
spread in waves and then rush on back…

These particular lines you read at this present time
might seem to suggest power is whatever
or solely in the eye of the beholder;
not so (for though view creates thought shapes articulation aids action,
a lover's disposition is not wholly determined by the gaze or the glower).

Neither is power so ubiquitous as to be meaningless;
rather, power is placed and displaced through patterns and signs
so diversely dispersed it is often not
recognized-conceptualized-utilized.

May this meandering musing serve to swerve you
to find the lines that preserve you
true to the crew who deserves you

and true to the battle lines that help us all
peacefully pass these troubled times

!

2008-11-24T06:03:00.000-08:00

2008-11-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

The Angel of Death with mouth agape and breath of flash-scraping bacteria
swoops past and grasps all you had and fast – you just gasp
and wonder whether all this is caused by some horrid blunder
or just the everyday way the world splits itself asunder

2008-11-09T14:42:00.000-08:00

In recognition that many of the things that I write herein are hardly understood by many (including myself), I’ve decided to preface this poem with a definition:

in・ef・fa・ble [in-ef-uh-buhl]
adjective
1. incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible: ineffable joy.
2. not to be spoken because of its sacredness; unutterable: the ineffable name of the deity.

I think I’m stuck in an ineffabubble…
fuck, what luck to get stuck in an ineffabubble!
I can’t even manage the prununciation of my situation
much less hold in my mind the meaning of this kind of passing the (or doing?!?) time.
So I guess while one’s in an ineffabubble
it’s best not to stress as if in trouble –
I’ll just relax and roll along, maybe strike up a wordless song,
since this weird world that whirls and twirls and exasperates my grasp
seems to pass fast… and in the lapse of this gasp
could easily stop and pop my dear ineffabubble.

2008-11-03T22:09:00.001-08:00

Break the voting machines
awake the people’s dreams
the stakes are way too high
to trust mechanical populi

2008-10-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

painted with kate michalske, buenos aires.

2008-10-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

I sit like sunlight
in cypress-cool shade
while the river lies still as dirt
swallows look up at me
from the depths of their current
to the heights of my bravado
I plunge
calloused feet first
wondering when this air will end
and water and earth begin

2008-10-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

Tengo la sensación
(o es que mis sentidos me dicen? no soy dueño de ellos)
que todo lo que toco se deshace
(sin metáforas, hablo literalmente)
lo que toco se rompe, se descompone
como si yo fuera algún Midas de mierda
y ya que todos mis sentidos son
de alguna forma tocar
(rozando con chocando contra uniendo a)
tengo miedo que destruya el mundo…
pero ya que veo el mundo
(toda creación)
como pura destrucción
¡no pasa nada!

2008-10-09T09:50:00.001-07:00

2008-09-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

I had a bike you could ride it if you like
it had a thing to make me sing, so just steal it,
sell it for crack, yeah, don’t bring it back,
I’ve got a stack of bikes in my kitchen.
I’m hitchin’ for trouble or bust yes trust I must
the rust on your wagon.
Taggin’ along don’t know what went wrong
must’ve hitched your wagon to a dragon…

2008-09-21T13:28:00.001-07:00

Me fundo, derretido por este mundo de manía caliente,
ahora puro ente mando las gotitas de lo que era yo
para que vayan a cazar pasiones con ametralladora
pero lo que les (me) digo no les (me) importa…
ya escuchan la locura
la locura me adora
y su amor-sutura me hiere con su picadura-aguja moral
pero no hay cura en la agora
que me convence que su dios vence mi malaise
je suis mal à la aise
queasy as what’shisface’s disciple drinking cool-aid
entering a new phase
too tired to graze
too wired to stay unphased
wordplay is all I can neigh
wish you Word here
and wish your Word were not so queer
and wish the swishy-gishy-sloshy way of the World were not such a brain-smear

2008-09-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

chequéa el blog que describe la exposición que estoy armando. que vengan a la inauguración!

pantallasentransmision.blogspot.com

presenta

. . . t r a n s m i s i ó n . . .
una muestra del colectivo pantallas
17 al 25 de octubre 2008
galería encontré
cochabamba 580
BsAs

2008-09-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

2008-09-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

2008-08-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

2008-08-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

2008-08-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

Movimiento
catarata en viento
fuego de terremoto
espíritu que siento

Mi mano se extiende
- alcance y influencia -
con el butoh de la montaña

Mi aliento canaliza aire
- concentra energía -
con el tai chi del cactus

El mundo se mueve
y no me puedo quedar quieto.

2008-08-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

mine eye has not seen
mine ear has not heard
naught but the Word
made manifest...
but here's the test:
have I known my self...lessness?

2008-07-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

La noche destroza mis ojos rígidos

Gigantes se transforman en molinos
agitando brazos torpes, calcificados
luchando contra el tiempo duradero y la armadura de lo real
sueño poco, y poco lúcido, pero despierto loco de ánimo
y mis ojos chispean de ganas translucientes
(deseos temblores amores...)
Estas andanzas nocturnas
lejos de consciencia
me traen transciencia transcendente
(espejismo, quijotescismo, synaestasismo...)
Aunque no recuerdo con quien soñé
esta energía bendita desbordante
me despierta los sentidos al abrir los ojos
(los oidos la piel la mente...)
Ojalá - oj Allah -
viene de Ella que no se contiene en unidades, categorías, palabras
(ánimo alma espíritu...)

2008-07-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

poor us!
pariahs
plastered by porous aporias
sometimes we bore us

2008-07-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Another test drive of new methods/media. More to come.
Otra prueba de nuevos métodos/medios. Más en el horizonte.

For best viewing, click on the link to YouTube, then click on the link beneath the image that says "watch in high quality", then make it full screen.

Para ver mejor, haz clic en el link a YouTube, entonces sigue el link debajo de la imagen que dice "watch in high quality" y finalmente hazlo pantalla completa.