asphalt dance, scrambled and celestial

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what we’ll be capable of. when we’re in residence. when we’re together. when we learn how to untie the bonds and not let us be tainted by the streets. by the noise that surrounds.

crossroads of encounters and a bit of peeling earth, house — many have lived here. we are. a short period of time, these days: i see transition. transition for me, transition at last, transition of polishing edges.

transience. we are. rio de janeiro comes transitory, poking its lands down, so many layers below. would it be not only the dust coming through the windows or the loud noise from the machines, it happens sometimes, just like samba. but it persists. this electric saw is as soap as our socks, you don’t question them. you don’t question the electric saw nor perhaps the helicopters (airplanes we feel more often ’round here), not even the drilling machine you think about. is this noise a choice of whom? do we dream of silent machines?

let us use only cranks and pedals and reco-recos at any cost so as not to deafen any neighborhood, whether we live there or not. then comes my home my debt, my doubt or desire or indeed something that does not exist. there are nearly any houses we can call home in such a city, where we cross subterranean tunnels and then we all turn into asphalt, gradually asphalt, marrying all the mafia of these construction companies that keep on striking us down.

taken by assault, abrupt, and yet it takes years. dream resort of so many brazilians, watching television, men and women, in this subordinate order with not so gentle and not so noble categories because yes, it was commanded, in a land where people were turned into slaves, once a refuge for some white europeans who then brought guns and they are still killing natives, today

multitude, we’ll make it and we are and we built bridges in between detaching membranes and layers that come to surface like fury, furiously letting us pass through layers that fall, little by little, every day, furiously pierced by noisy machines that build tunnels wherever passes all kinds of concrete and rivers that are no longer rivers but fetid detritus of what they call basic sanitation, people.

people join together, people collaborate. people think street. people will never be unison, that’s not what multitude is about. i have learned a great deal on dissent and distension, plus some practical knowledge of (urban) autonomy during times and times that occur from time to time, and we come across them. a terrain of mixture and utopias exposed, actions and hugs and joint confusions and parades of random accidents, among other movements

what about all this concrete around? can viaducts end up swallowing us? will cars remember what they once were, when there were no engines? what was it like to live without engines?

rrr rrr rr. i cross ruins with a bicycle.

physical effort, legs. like socks, soap: physical effort, arms. yoga by the morning, to settle muscles and not dwelling too much. gradually. i reach

hiking the mountains was a keen and long-nurtured intention in what they call rio, the city — forests, indeed — too complex to act as desired, perhaps by the excess of it, or maybe the classic fatality of days and nights (and the division of working hours, our most common obstacle, as well as partying all night long)

forests are still there by night, but while in town, we won’t go much often (survival; priorities)

i would fly there on the heights of the hills and strong legs, dormant legs, crescent legs as well as the moon now watching us from above, building other random homes much more gentle than any of these made of concrete

are made of fluid matter the longest and most beautiful dreams and also fastest to taste (it’s possible to live from matter, malleable and fertile component of other houses, other voices, elemental construction of inventions and worlds, yes, houses, dwellings and everyday life)

and of hectic schedules, my dear, we know, we’re overloaded. but if you think of another kind of motion, of speed, the one that occurs in dreams, in which you are here then somewhere else, just like this, followed, then overlapped, time-collage, turning

i wanted to work with old photography techniques because, ok, nostalgia, and also flea market, the best of all cities, full of memories of our grandparents who were never our own, but whose lives were part of an underworld that comes across us, jumping from almost forgotten places and coming here in front of us say that they still exist (and in vivid colors, vivid vivid and puerile)

foreign travel images also fill the flea market, at praça xv, and then so many mickeys populate a colonized children’s imaginary, which only three decades later we begin to fully realize what was that anyway, all those animals that were never seen in our lands, all those weird referents, yet so colorful, white and rather uncritical, after all

(and of criticism perhaps we’ll be many, but also breathing, breathing, not just that dust that comes around but also the importance so giant of being permeable, of not being affected and thus growing bones more resistant that can survive to all this scrambled ground matter, the most ancient and frightening past rising with such fury to the surface and dancing

dance, let’s go

place

1. if there is high and low, right and left, front and back, there is a place. 2. if where there was one thing and now there is another, there is a place. 3. if there is a body, there is a place. 4. if every body is situated in a place of their own, there is a place.

[yes, aristotle. rely on the bases, even if we overwrite them later.]

artifact. built people. wandering place.

of wilderness only boots are left, so many trips around that spent my memories become, i stop to pull myself together.

to imagine a land that is not matter of composition but disaster, delay, same trails so elusive i can only remember. survival techniques are vast. handling places, behaviour, the daily struggle and dancing.

the floor is made of wood, pitched roof, built with their own hands. previewing minimal interference in the environment, for real. forest enters the house and turns it into a labyrinthine challenge that brings comfort, fun. dry in the sun what’s left beforehand, fill with water what they want to cultivate. observe.

for the stoics, the problem of place is connected to the problem of movement. a place is conceived by the transition of bodies that pass through it. as in aristotle.

( )

boundaries. is place an interlude? a position.

territorialists would say, this is my place. distinction by barriers, ticket gates, limits arbitrarily developed, generating the notion of ownership. does place has an owner?

i’d say land. a piece of land, a place. pure matter, perceived in consonance with what surrounds it. music. structure, systemic movements that meet varying routes, paths, damage, elevation. cyclical voltages, even before construction.

from limit comes reference. perhaps, of an accurate ground. then, routes are drawn, maps, myths and memories grow. families are formed, networks and coalitions organized by systems of kinship, continuities. then perhaps this: instead of fences, notions of group assimilation. contiguities, ways of doing and living.

one day, a protocol is issued, stepping over any notion of habit, even care. foreigners are those who won’t take part in decisions. mounts grant demolition of the land, buildings replacement. they say, “it is modernity!”. purposeless horseshoes, crack the ground.

the fearless take front. “it’s for a sense of belonging, for the rights kicked away. and where to build, then?” some lives. some rest. habits, so electric they float. pass through walls, break areas, spreading flowers wherever they go.

TRANS-

to conceive LEAVING the PLACE implies in a certain sense an overcoming. like going beyond a previous experience; a point that driven by MOVEMENT generates another situation.

to transcend a shapeless moment, barely functional, rickety. to undo a certain numbness, recognize all processes. to mix the disposal of intellects.

an upturned compass, refreshed.

in recent trips I made sure to carry a compass, my dearest companion together with a flashlight and a slighly tall, chubby backpack. useful accoutrements, perhaps in this case even more useful as travel ideas, nomadism desires. flings of incorporating an explorer character: expedito azuis, the one who acts, jaunty traveler. expedito hitchhikes, learns to fly. fills in with colours and forests a landscape, as image of both quiet and challenge, shelter, located more INSIDE than OUTSIDE, to speak of coordinates. desires, like squares and places, get confused. nothing is just a same, affable thing distinguishable from the others.

going beyond implies in transit. against traffic jams*, i walk unhurried, cross bridges and climb buildings. it’s about overcoming expectations, for acquiring abrupt directions, too uncertain to speculate. nothing but practice, until one knows not to exist in wait or complex planning, but process, stream, that flows and drains off the sidewalks, only walks on foot.

a precision of grouts: to extract the simplicity of things. decomplexify, as a chemical process. for such, one must deprogram, rethink all systems and existing methods. derange. will it be needed; what if i do a different way; is it true that i need so much; can’t soil regenerate itself? composition. learn the colours of a place, build from it and that’s all. around, there are so many things that stimulate aimless loss, the same crystal path, of skyscrapers with plasma TV and rush.

transition. transitive transit of mystery beings, minerals, rhythms that compound the shallow clean slate of monotony. monotype, routes in vain: so many techniques and i only see one color. voltage noise, confuses our brains.

x

trans is a queer radical. it lies beyond the system, of the usual understanding of betweenthings. sews up embroidery and laughs at their own folly, changes the subject, you never know for sure when they go. they may assume absurd characters, travess the amazon forest, transform.

transe disorders are possible, sincere aspects that come to surface, get lost. water and animals, wonder twin powers activate, always something other than expected. x, no gender no class, take on different shapes according to the situation. strategy is part of their deconstructive structure – prepared to transcend the biggest crisis, transpose, hallucinate.