Monday, March 9, 2009

phoenix

This is going to sound worse or better than I mean it to, because of the strange sense that Mercury is working on things and either paying too much attention or not enough, to how words mean, and there's a lot of things that could happen when Mercury reads post-structuralism, and I hear he is (she is), and so and so and so, with that in mind, not enough to go on like this, even writing or talking, but listen, this is for me:
I have a love for Phoenix, it's a love for the girl you always felt something for. Not you, by you, I mean me. Phoenix is the girl I always felt something for. It's like that.
And it gets more complicated. On this past Art Detour, when thousands and thousands gather to support local art, and become one with the cultural mess that is this city, the mess I love, I love the mess, when thousands gather upon this downtown and just melt into the galleries and hang out for days and everyone loves everyone, and people drink beer and smoke hash and share hookahs, and people fall in love, and kids make fingerpaintings in the style of Witkiewicz and Giacometti, and everyone releases balloons at the same time, the art detour weekend in my dreams where it's all everyone all doing everything with everyone, and art it's art it's about art it's art; this art detour, I was so ready to open my doors to my house/gallery, and see who might want to wander off grand and follow the map to my place, to see the installations of the brilliant paintings by Tiffinie Greer, check out the carefully laid exhibition of past TIMB production ephemera, see Elli's art on the walls (including one of her recent works where she writes 10 times, "I'm sorry I poked you in the face," which is part of a longer narrative), watch old video work from past productions, see Rebecca Martos' cool video samples, and generally get the vibe or the groove or the atmosphere of who we are: a mystical arts laboratory whose secrets can't be revealed (honestly), and whose work is transgressive and transcultural, and generally thinky and interesting and visceral. You can come and draw chalk on naked bellies during performances where text overwhelms image, and the images are surreal mindscapes that are erotic or disturbing or generally just fuckin funny. I could not wait to see who would wander in, with low expectations.
Phoenix is strange. Is for me that girl in Las Vegas who might have worked out, but I never called her (oh but there's no regret there, really, the things that worked out there were lovely, and I'm only talking about that longing feeling that starts with a "what-if," but really doesn't hit the back of the heart...)..
But somewhere in my heart, the part that has low expectations, holds out a small hope that suddenly suddenly, and the room will spin and she is there, Phoenix, she's come into the room, and she wants to see everything, and know everything, and she wants to see all the dvds, and draw on everyone's belly, and then she wants to ask questions, and ask more questions, and my questions make her swoony, and she has more questions about my questions, and a long night is ahead. It's the hope. But Phoenix always says she's on the way, but never makes it.
She is nearly there, but will get stopped for a drug charge after they check her tags, and suddenly, she's gone for another 3 months, but she's coming back, and she wants to see me when she's back.
It's always like that, except when it's different, and when it's different, it's stranger. Because even like this weekend, where it's obviously time to move to Berlin, where there is no fake glamour, and some of the artists are smart, Phoenix comes in, and she's got a new look, and she's been reading the Situationists, and it's kind of hot.
But then the night begins, and it's always the same, it's so pleasant to talk to her, she's so elusive, but there's a point in the evening, after she starts to get drunk, and it's past midnight, where her make-up starts to fade, and I see something underneath, something much younger than she looked before, something much more innocent and scared, and something much more needy, and I'm being asked for something unclear, and none of the things I can offer seem to make her calm down. And then, when this game starts to feel ok, and we have roles, and places, and moves, and it's working, she starts to talk about her theories of everything, and it's almost interesting, but somehow goes back to why she likes Barry Goldwater.
And I shake my head at Phoenix, and look at the living ghosts and the dead identities of the locals who have been here for generations and don't get shown in galleries, and it's a longing for an elsewhere that's hard to place.
Phoenix can't come back for a month.
I can't open the door for her.
And then another day opens another revelation, in the form and content of an Afro-Cuban deity whose name is Yeggua; she's the beautiful young virgin in the cosmology, who was living in paradise, then was violated, and relegated to the bottom of the grave, where she eats the flesh of the dead. This is a serious and harsh punishment, and lately I am forced to contend with her image and energy, and I wonder, I wonder, if she's the girl on the porch who talks about Barry Goldwater, and wonder if she's got something much deeper, and much more powerful to reveal, and I think that's probably right, it's probably exactly right, Phoenix has more, and it might be endless, like the virgin girl who loves the edge of the beach, it might be elusive, and attractive, and endless, and might open up here, (D.F. is another story, my heart is already there, this time not as a metaphor) or might open up in Berlin, I don't know, but I am chasing rabbits, this is what I do.
xo
CD

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