I had the good fortune of meeting Sebesatian several times. Some of the more memorable conversations I ever had with any tattooer took place inside his shop. In the midst of Tibetan images and classic works of art by other tattooers that hung on the walls is where he spoke eloquently on the many different histories that exist in every valley on earth. He recently published Many Stories: The Point of the Needle, and in this short video he briefly discusses his book and how the psyche is transformed once one gets a tattoo. Great explanation to something that is mysterious yet modern, mythical but imbued with symbolism.
This blog is to talk about my interests in travel, the outdoors, music, art, writing and literature; all of which have altered my views of this small world.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Sebastian Orth: Tattoo Artist and Writer
I had the good fortune of meeting Sebesatian several times. Some of the more memorable conversations I ever had with any tattooer took place inside his shop. In the midst of Tibetan images and classic works of art by other tattooers that hung on the walls is where he spoke eloquently on the many different histories that exist in every valley on earth. He recently published Many Stories: The Point of the Needle, and in this short video he briefly discusses his book and how the psyche is transformed once one gets a tattoo. Great explanation to something that is mysterious yet modern, mythical but imbued with symbolism.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Gustave Moreau: Hieroglyphic Myth and Modern Symbols
(Jupiter and Semele, 1894-95) G. Moreau |
(Fairy and Griffon) G. Moreau |
(Death on the Pale Hore, 1865) G. Dore |
(Mermaids/Whitefish, 1899) G. Klimt |
(Persus and Andromeda, 1870) G. Moreau |
(Phoebus and Boreas, 1879) G. Moreau |
(The Apparition, 1876) G. Moreau |
Monday, September 24, 2012
Roberto Bolano's Savage Detectives: Book Review
The Savage Detectives: A Review
by Armando Ortiz
In his famous novel The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano sheds light into the lives of many Spanish speaking poets that make up the worlds of Arturo Belano and Ulyses Lima’s circle of friends and acquaintances. These two main characters embark on several journeys that parallel the experiences of those in the Odyssey and in a way resemble the young and adventurous life of Arthur Ribaud, who despite the works he produced at a young age decided on a life in the African frontier, working as an arms dealer, adventurer and desperado. The presence of Pynchon’s Slothrop of Gravity’s Rainbow is there as well since he too is on a journey or more like an escape, wandering around the earth in search of something. Bolano describes the youthful experiences of these two poets, and those that form a loose circle of poets called the Visceral Poets.
As he details the lives of Belano and Lima one is taken on a 15 year journey where one sees the vicissitudes of poets that have decided to take on the adventure of life and all its risks. Both of these poets experience love. Separately, they encounter their own rejection. Other times, they share drinks with other poets and desperados. They live the life of vagrant poets that take them throughout Central America, Europe, Israel and Africa. Through their adventures and as time passes they continue to live their lives as wandering barbs, diving into the underworlds of Communist plotters and freedom fighting vagabonds though always keeping a fierce independence, knowing very well that all that is available to them is their freedom and mind.
They come to discover the real rivers of humanity that flow from South America all the way to the borders of the United States that by the 1980’s were becoming more and more intense. The civil wars happening in several countries would eventually make the routes for other illicit activities. They discover that even in tough circumstances poetry can be a common ground for even violent people and artists who the thought of poetry or writing never crosses their mind. They carry that impulse to create within them as does the light that shines in darkness. In the book the real artist can live the life of a thug, and might not be at all linked to a creative group.
There are various camps of writers and artists in the book but the main group presented is an insignificant speck when compared to the larger camps of writers that existed back in the late-60s in Latin America, and the world at large. In Mexico, there were two large groups of writers, one was supported by the governments which represented the established powers of government with their censorship, and the media that published and made writers famous. The other group was made up of leftist writers and were supported by foreign governments or by a small circle of leftist elite who’d been allowed to have the opposing voice. However, Bolano presents an alternative group-other poets from the lower ends of society, who express themselves with raw sentiments and navigate the world of poverty and struggles. These poets, despite their modest means, make their presence known throughout time. Going against everything that represented money and power, and living out their lives as artists, and crashing literary events that they felt were masked to represent writers that were not talented. Their unsettling sentiments create havoc and chaos to the literary establishment.
The Savage Detectives lacks the violence and is not as dark as 2666 but it definitely demonstrates Bolano’s ability to capture a reader’s imagination and take them on an epic journey. One learns of Lima and Belano via others who have met them and have had conversations with them; poets, revolutionaries, prostitutes, house wives, professors, lawyers, vagabonds, swindlers, editors and cops. Through those descriptions we are able to piece together the rough outlines of two men who decided to be poets.
Their lives became one epic poem that unfolded with one journey after another, an adventure begun with every ending adventure. We see two young adults dive into their journeys head first and with fists flying. Towards the end of the book these two are mere shadows of who they were and now have to deal with the realities of age, the mind’s exhaustion and the quest for more journeys and adventure. Yet they continue on with their lives in search of that thing that keeps their flicker ignited, that will satiate their thirst for poetry, literature, life and adventure.
The Savage Detectives is a remarkable novel that seamlessly fits within Bolano’s larger-than-life world. Bolano’s skillful use of language creates a palpable texture in his writing, immersing readers in vivid imagery. It is evident that Bolano aimed to create a lasting work of literature. Moreover, his profound understanding of the power of the Spanish language allowed him to captivate the imaginations of readers within Spanish-speaking communities, while also introducing readers from different backgrounds, different nations and language, to a world that might have remained hidden in plain sight.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
A Drive to the Coast: Part 7
Part 7: Dawn Awakes
by Armando Ortiz
Sculptures create artificial shadows where white plaster bodies and papier-mâché skulls animate themselves under the bonfire and painted murals transform into the plastered walls of sacrificial ball courts.
Everyone embarking on the night’s journey rowing Mayan canoes of brown mahogany
They kick comets from here to yonder. Heads roll to their destiny.
Charon leading the procession of pasty white skeletons
Souls crossing lakes where caiman float prancing through valleys of spears swiftly hopping through old growth forests like jack rabbits that disappear into the chaos of nature’s pulse.
Persephone greeting the agonies of people whose journey continues to drown rivers, and we speak to screaming spider monkeys.
Peace is found inside Tibetan skulls that are traded at midnight along the trampled caravan roads, and grains are poured out from the heads of pious souls.
Boat burials take us to destinations that are as old as clouds that hover over unknown trails where spotted orcas and elephant seals guide spirits and morning vapors ride the fog of night.
Even after life, our trajectories are clearly uncertain, and the bubbles of our childhood will one day cease to be.
The pitch black pumas of yesterday become the third eye of the rising Huitzilopochtli.
Mocking birds coo their calls, reminding us that this night is not eternal.
The huitzi sounds, and the hum of tiny lustrous birds welcome the morning dawn revival.
A sunrise in pause gleams of morning light approaching, yellow needles piercing the armor of demons, vanishing with buckets of spiraling fire and everything is engulfed by morning’s dawn.
Streets polluted with plastic bottles and trails trampled by rising pedestrians. All is flooded in beige, and contrasted by morning shadows.
We follow the giant green serpent and hide with bushmasters waiting to pounce.
Devouring all under their view under that golden dinar that never loses value.
Purple violets surround opposing yellows in pink and everyone emerges with a stretching pose. The prickly pear cactus sheds a morning drop.
The sun sends thunder in waves repeating the cycle and we ride the ocean of snakes while our mother rides the carp of dawns orange that takes worshiping parties to a day of pleasures and mourning.
We bathe in the amber nectar of gods.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Laurie Lipton: Artist in Los Angeles
Friday, August 31, 2012
Growing up in Los Angeles (Part Thirteen): Morning Quake
Part 13: Morning Quake
by Armando Ortiz
Back in the mid-eighties there was an earthquake that happened early in the morning during school hours. The ground began to move side to side, like a rocking chair, and I began to run, but running was like racing across an old suspension bridge. Then the teachers began to yell to get on the ground, which I immediately did. The swaying seemed to last forever, the ground seemed to rock up and down, the telephone cables were swinging round and round but without anyone jumping over them, and the red rubber balls seemed to be confused and could not stop rolling in circles. The earth was churning and something was brewing under the earth. That day we came out early from school. I had to wait for an hour or two on the playground. My cousin came and picked me up, we both hurriedly walked back home.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
A Drive to the Coast: Part 6
Part 6: Descent and Ascent
by Armando Ortiz
The sun descends into purgatory and wild shape shifters appear from hidden parts of the land.
Grave robbers come out, and pirates land to pillage in places where faceless people rest in peace.
St. Anthony emerges from his cave unharmed playfully pretending that captivity is a sacred past time from a self-imposed exile in a tiny Buddhist tomb.
Separate worlds running parallel to each other meet on the axis of all gravitational centers where dawn remains infinitely on pause and the sacred mornings of death are trampled by greed, hunger, and desperation.
Black panthers devour pythons and anacondas swallow the pale moon whole while caiman lie ready to devour the wandering soul.
Men snatch the precious coral, layered onyx, fine embroidery and speckled gold pins of yesterday exchanging it for paper gold.
Prometheus arrives carrying the sacred fire, and starts setting piles and piles of plywood over mounds of paper preparing for the sacred ceremony under the sky.
We circle and dance, panting, and singing praises to past ancestors using old Zippo lighters to illuminate our way and in unison attempt to ignite the fire.
The torch handed down to us is sent soaring into an arch, and starts the pyre.
Gentle waters reflect the trajectory of the speck of light that ignites a day within the night.
Whispers from the morning air pass through our bodies.
In this sacred conch of wind and water are waves of yonder that mix and get lost in our parade of wonder.
Miniature protons ignite the needed flame to keep this performance going all night.
An artificial day in darkness is born, and our hearts illuminate our steps, bringing up postulations for contact and lightness of touch.
Ecstasies of cosmic paragons start to happen and sacred creatures that paraglide next to soaring peregrines experience interstellar parallax.
Shadows are cast aside and reveal the door to our hearts.
The earth palpitating thermal waves turn cold, the grains touched with every ponderous step as we dance to the beat in a splendorous trance.
The moon casts her dress on the ocean water. Now her body is naked, and shimmers on the dark waves like the paleness of her white dress.
The dark silhouette of the mountains hold up the cobalt glass above us and the obsidian waters reflect the shivers of the midnight stars.