“CCTV” Visual Text by Chantal Peñalosa & Jose-Luis Moctezuma
| June 28, 2023 | Posted by Webmaster under Volume 32, Number 2, January 2022 |
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JLM:
wearing a brown unisex apron the hands that pertain to the arm and the arms that belong to the shoulders and the shoulders that weave the delicate fabric of nerves and arteries and musculature what we call the mind or the self or the voice that speaks to you within this system of cloud- drift and gesture assembles and then polishes a series of knives – forks – spoons – arranged on a table face concealed, the light stores up the color and a wave- crash of gray static freezes every thing ex- cept a circum- flex in aeternum the angle of repose for the eye deranges a movement where the hand and the heart hold the metal invisible to the camera’s caduceus & its repetitions announce an un- suturing of labor from its place- meant
CP:
19 de octubre del 2012 7:05 am Viernes Llego Digo buenos días Afuera la luz es nueva y la calle lleva el sonido de algunos carros Adentro enciendo la luz del comedor y la atmósfera se vuelve más amarilla, contrasta con los azules que veo desde la ventana. También enciendo la radio, radiolatina es la estación que me dicen que ponga en las mañanas. La cafetera ya está lista pero sé que tal vez nadie llegue hoy. Afuera todo es movimiento, en los árboles, en los cables de luz y en una bolsa de Sabritas que pasa rodando por la calle, son los vientos de Santa Ana que hacen que todo cobre vida.
JLM:
“they believed that the worst punishment imaginable was a bullshit job” a hillside does not have a job but what does it do? the grass serenading the hillside does not have a job so what does it do? the flies leaping in the shit-stained grass in the field do not have a job but what do they do? the fingers dancing do not have a job so what do they do? what is the role of a hand when the rest of the body is performing a job? what does the body know of the hand when it falls asleep on the clock? sisyphus does not have a job so what does he do? what did he do to deserve this? I write letters to everyone I know: a letter to my manager a letter to my neighbor’s dog a letter to the grate at the end of the door a letter to my primos across the border a letter to the myopic tecolotes who patiently wait for the light- house to burn down a letter to the grasses in the earth’s mouth & the mushrooms and the mosses a letter to the rust that can’t sit still in the chromatisms of a chair that sits in the rain and sits still a letter to the pentagon in the heart of the inner country a letter to ward off the nine eyes of google a letter that represents the alchemy of consonants but never the vowels a letter that rewards long penitence after much degradation and sweat a letter to the bottles of salt carefully positioned to mimic coastal erosion a letter for the left hand who writes to the right hand of what happens on the other side of the screen that divides the body from its cloud of wires & skin
CP:
Sobre la Avenida México hay una batalla comienza a las 6 am De un lado suena el himno nacional mexicano, del otro lado suena el himno nacional de Estados Unidos. El gobierno le regaló a la ciudad un reloj conmemorativo de la independencia. a ciertas horas suena una canción A las 6:00 am el himno nacional A medio día suena la vikinga A las 4 el cachanilla Y a las 6 cielito lindo La idea era que las canciones marcaran diariamente las horas de los habitantes. Un mes después de que instalaran el reloj. Los de la border patrol comenzaron a poner el himno nacional de Estados Unidos a la misma hora, a todo volumen desde la camioneta que se estaciona todos los días en la cima de una loma para vigilar la frontera. Las vecinas dicen que es la batalla de las 6:00 am sobre la Avenida México.
JLM:
the network is a series of cameras in a closed-circuit telepathy the tele-vision in the mind erects a structure of feeling the network is a series of empty gestures in a black box the border is a series of plateaus in which we intensify and speak in tongues the network is a refraction in the glass that slices the eye open the camera is a room inside a stanza inside a poem inside a box inside a bottle the network is a series of views of the end of the world a view of Antwerp awash in its grime and mercury a view of several large cranes and shipyards and maybe a crack pipe a view of the Global City a view of merchants and tradesmen and longue-durée economics and maybe a syringe a view of a book written by Roberto Bolaño in 1980 a view of diamonds in the River Scheldt a diamond sea (a view of) a view of not one sea (the north sea) but many seas a view of diamonds hence the Diamond Sutra a view of World-Systems-Theory a view of Subhuti respectfully asking the Buddha if he would like Dunkin Donuts a view of diamonds being dunked into a pool of blood in slow motion for a music video a view of the World Bank from the banks of Port-au-prince a view of the Age of Explorations a view of broken factory windows because they are always broken a view of fork-tongued white men in armor bearing contracts a view of contractual relations in the Antwerp of the 1600s a view of someone lying completely utterly still in a cage a view of several cages, emptied a view of someone else in a cage who is looking at the camera a view of the Ever Given terminally stuck in the evergreen waters of the Suez Canal from the satellites of Antwerp’s business district a view of the Evergrande Liquidity Crisis from the living room of a sinjoren a view of hands in vinyl gloves carefully fabricating time – one brushstroke at a time
CP:
Pasaban avionetas muy a lo lejos haciendo piruetas en los cielos de Tecate, y cada vez que la estela aparecía, escuchaba decir a la gente: son los americanos, ya están otra vez tirando hielo para que llueva. There’s something about the weather of this place.
JLM:
the hand is no longer free from the organs and their conspiracy my body like a dandelion grows in the crevice of someone else’s vision my tremulous soul like a fly wavering in its inertia can find no signal in the noise of the flesh or the poisoned air and yet I resume my work – this aimless labor at reconstructing time I polish the spoons and see my face in them one after another one after another one after another – “dear managers of human arrangement: I am writing to report that inside the onion all the constructs of labor rest concealed like the blade sleeping inside a knife at vanishing point inside the worker a salt accrues and builds up builds up builds up until it spills out at the moment an onion is bladed open inside time are all the rudiments of labor: a worker – a rustworn onion – a knife-all-blade – glass bottles pregnant with salt and tears and the effort to keep from vanishing”
CP:
Lo habían encomendado a subir una roca hasta la cima de una montaña Desde donde la piedra volvia a caer por su propio peso. Habían pensado que no hay castigo más terrible que el trabajo inútil. Lo unico que vemos es el esfuerzo de un cuerpo para levantar la piedra Y subirla por una pendiente cien veces recorrida El rostro crispado, la mejilla pegada a la piedra, La tension de los brazos, La seguridad enteramente humana de dos manos llenas de tierra. Una vez arriba, la piedra desciende al pie de la montaña. Desde donde habra de volver a subirla hasta la cima Solo para verla bajar de nuevo a la llanura. Todo su ser se dedica a no acabar nada.