Angkor
The cicadas hum in the trees around Angkor like a thousand old IBM computers and burn a whole in the retina of my ear. Into this hole pour asparas, groupas, Shivas, Vishnus, motos, tuk-tuks, digital cameras, silk trees, orange dressed monks, legions of rice workers hidden in karmas, children on bikes three sizes to large and the shrieks of “pinaaaapplllee!” After ten days here at Angkor I am curious, weary and anxious. I cannot sort out the stimuli effectively so the chunks of experiences pile up in my inner ear like ruins waiting to be discovered by an excitable explorer with a pipe.
Angkor Wat’s main temple is at once stately, dignified, exotic and graceful. Maybe like Versailles through a Kaleidoscope. This might be why the French love Angkor, it reminds them of home. It’s not hard to imagine a constitution being written here or a document more metaphysical-one connecting man with ideas carved into stars. You know you’re somewhere powerful here, a moment of force and magic where men, the state and a fresh dose of Hinduism took off to unashamedly create myth and legend in their own time-over and over again. The walls tell their stories, the asparas still dance and the Buddhas, added later, provide contemporary access to the proceedings. At night it looks like the whole thing is ready to lift off to another planet like a space ship. And maybe it could.
Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival Parade
This is footage from the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival Parade February 2010. Ralph Eaton was organizer of the parade and designer of the Art Rat featured in the parade. Community High School was also heavily involved in the parade.
Audio-visual instruction
This is going to be my new vehicle for audio-visual instruction:
Ho Chi Minh
In Hanoi a dead man is guarded by 25 stern young men wearing fluorescent green uniforms trimmed with red and gold. Their uniforms fit their bodies like potato sacks held tight with leather belts- complete with dangling shiny black leather holsters. Ho Chi Minh is dead and lays there glowing orange and waxy in a rectangular glass case, blanket pulled up over his abdomen to keep away the chill of the grave. He doesn’t look real, his signature beard looks pasted on. Is this man an impostor?
The mausoleum is old fashioned doubtless modernism, a gloomier version of the Empire State Building lobby, all streaked marble and lines. Of course why would you built a doubt filled mausoleum for a great communist war hero? It’s really all too strange and surreal to summon much reverence for this amazing 20th century figure here , he was heroic after all. Now he resides in a scene from a wonderful science fiction movie: Painfully serious men in tacky green and white uniforms, a back lit clean marble room and an orange, dead god glowing beyond death in a glass case. Will he be here 500 years from now? Will he be moved to Detroit after some bizarre flux in civilizations? Shot into space maybe? The mausoleum room is spacious and dark, gloomy enough for a dead person but impressive enough to know that the Vietnamese communists wanted this important man to live on. So, there Ho lies, half dead and half alive in front of two huge hammer and sickle flags.
Children file by, tourists, old communists, people wearing stupid t-shirts. Somehow we’ve all figured out how to make it through the disorganized and unhelpful maze of “No Entry” signs and sidewalks to nowhere surrounding the Ho complex and finally hand over our cameras and cell phones to gain entry to the dead man’s lair. I approached the mausoleum from the north and was shuttled around Ho’s complex by shooing hands for 40 minutes before risking it, breaking rank and sneaking into a line headed in the direction of the mausoleum. To bum rush the mausoleum it really took timing, risk and an annoyed and tired desperation-key ingredients to getting anything out of travel. I was exhausted, tired, saw a line moving, a security guard get distracted and quickly filed behind an American in USC Trojan gear, his Vietnamese wife and their slow moving child, I imagined we formed a phalanx. What do children think when they see an old sleeping man in a glass case, in a big room with red flags and army men dressed in day-glow colors?
-Ames
Random Thoughts #19
I’ve occasionally been impressed by my ability to guesstimate what time it is.
When was the last time your chewed any Gator Aid gum?
I think a big presidential election night might be a good night to commit a crime.
I’ll bet there’s not a scientific analysis that determines how many parking lots should be put in front of a shopping plaza. It’s probably something contractors and builders think about a little bit before deciding to wing it.
Ever thought about getting your finger nails done?
It could be that Thanksgiving day is the day when most Heimlich maneuvers are performed.
Rebel Headquarters
Here is a batch of photos from MAMMA Presents Philosophy INC’s Rebel Headquarters Sale.