by David Byrne
Some citizens of the city are upstanding, while others are tired of living.
And some will soon be devoured by buzzards.
Musical Connections
I’m performing tonight, sitting in on a couple of songs with the local band La Portuaria, whose lead singer, Diego Frenkel, is an acquaintance of mine. Diego’s wife appears in the afternoon, carrying their new baby. She was in the original company of the De La Guarda theatrical piece Villa Villa when that group came to New York City. When I saw that show—and was swept up into the air by a man with hairy butt cheeks—I imagined it was a kind of political allegory, a celebration of release, freedom, and anarchy after years of dictatorship—a roar of freedom, yet still an acknowledgment of the painful and terrifying past. I might have been imagining all that, projecting my own ideas about Argentine culture and memory onto a freewheeling piece of physical theater. But maybe a theatrical explosion like this happens after being bottled up?
Diego, it turns out, is also friends with Juana Molina, whom I invited to join me on my most recent U.S. tour. I’d heard Juana’s second CD, Segundo, and loved it, though I didn’t know her history at that time. Her dad, Horacio Molina, was a great musician, and when Juana was a little girl the likes of Vinicius De Moraes and Chico Buarque passed through their house. The family eventually left Argentina and spent six years exiled in Paris during the dictatorship. Later, with her siblings, she showed a gift for comedy and for inhabiting characters, so before long she had her own TV show called Juana and Her Sisters. She might be compared to Tracey Ullman if one needs a reference. Success proved to be wonderful but also a trap and a huge detour from the music that she had always hoped to write, so a few years ago she stopped doing the TV show and began to perform her quiet, peculiar, and wonderful songs.
The local public hated her initial foray into music. They heckled her and shouted, “Be funny!” Luckily, Ms. Molina heard that she was getting played on the influential public radio station KCRW in L.A., so she moved there and began to acquire a small following. I don’t know how she is received in Buenos Aires now, but with glowing reviews from the north under her belt the locals might be ready to have another listen. Her music is serious, quiet, and experimental, for want of a better word—she didn’t leave TV to be a pop star, that much is obvious.
“Maximum Effort—Minimum Results”
While in Recoleta I stop by the new contemporary art museum, MALBA, where there is a show called Los Usos de la Imagen, with works mainly borrowed from a large Mexican art collection. There are some of the usual international names, but there are also a good number of South and Central American artists represented, some of whom are new to me. One of them, Santiago Sierra, made a video of indigenous women repeating a Spanish phrase they’d learned phonetically: “I am being paid to say something the meaning of which I ignore.”
Sierra also had a photo of another indigenous group, which he had paid to dye their hair blond—a heavily loaded symbol in much of Latin America. In another piece, a truck was paid to block a highway for five minutes. People were paid to fill a room, to hold up a wall, to masturbate. I found this work disturbing. I wasn’t sure if these people were simply being exploited or if the exploitation, being so obvious, was instead ironic and a criticism of the exploitation that exists all around. The ambiguity, for me, was unsettling.
Another artist, Francis Alÿs, a Belgian who now lives in Mexico, paid five hundred Peruvians to form, side by side, a huge line, and they were then instructed to shovel the sand of a massive dune that lies in the desert south of Lima as they inched forward, step-by-step, continually shoveling. Theoretically they were moving the whole dune, imperceptibly, as the massive human chain of laborers made its way across the hill. “Maximum effort—minimum results” was his catchphrase summarizing the effort.
I assume that in some way these works are a comment on both the exploitation of the local labor force and the gulf between rich and poor in many Latin American countries. The exchange of cash for absurd or loaded behavior is sort of funny, and more than a little sad. In an art context it’s shocking—but one becomes used to it on the streets, where people willingly perform tedious and repetitive tasks for very little money. It reminds me a little of bum fights—a rumored L.A. practice in which young men would pay homeless guys on skid row to fight one another and then they’d circulate videos of the results. It was a debasing, disrespectful, and degrading way to treat other people. Getting cash for shoveling sand or memorizing a meaningless phrase may be disrespectful, but it’s hardly as demeaning as getting punched for cash.
The “work” that these artists pay for might be absurd, but it’s harmless. It’s provocative in a sad, fucked-up kind of way. As a poetic response to a social and financial context, these acts seem intuitive, instinctual, but when transposed to an art fair or a shiny gallery or museum in New York City a whole other level of meaning is added. And when billionaires buy and sell art about the exploitation of the lower classes, the layers of context and meaning are maybe not exactly what the artist had in mind.
The Saint of Unemployment
I ride farther out from the center of town. I don’t have a destination. I stumble upon a feria—a village fair—this one an outdoor festival that celebrates gaucho and country culture. It takes place in a small plaza out in the suburbs. On the way I pass a queue of people. One sees only the line, no destination or end—just people standing, patiently, and occasionally inching forward, but toward what is unclear. The line is so long that it disappears somewhere down the road, and where it ends is too far away to tell. The line snakes through a succession of neighborhoods, in and out of small town centers. It disappears from my view and then incredibly it suddenly appears again. It’s four kilometers long at least. Half a million people or more, so I am told later, waiting to see San Cay etano, the patron saint of the unemployed. This is the saint that people pray to when they are in need of work, and today is his day. All the local roads in the area around the church where the saint is housed are blocked off by the police. The people come to pray for work, for employment. Some of them come carrying a few stalks of DayGlo-dyed wheat, which they will take home in remembrance, while others leave with nothing.
Being Your Own Billboard
Almost all the girls in the big cities of Argentina I visit this year wear extremely tight stretch jeans. It is as if there is a mating ritual in progress and we foreigners here are privileged to witness it. These skintight jeans constitute their courtship plumage. The local guys mostly pretend not to notice. But how can they not? It is such a blatant effort to attract their attention. Trying to be cool, the men play an elaborate game of not paying any mind. So there is this obvious signaling and pretending not to notice going on. It’s beautiful, and the tension must be unbearable.
Apparently there are more women than men in Argentina, so maybe that explains part of it—with an imbalance like that, the women face more competition than they would in most other countries, so they have to try harder to attract a man’s attention. At least that would explain it in Darwinian terms.
I think a similar process operates in Los Angeles, though the context there is slightly different. I don’t know what the male-female balance is in L.A., but I suspect that because people in that town come into close contact with one another relatively infrequently—they are usually physically isolated at work, at home, or in their cars—they have to make an immediate and profound impression on the opposite sex and on their rivals whenever a chance presents itself. Subtlety will get you nowhere in this context.
This applies particularly in L.A. but also in much of the United States, where chances and opportunities to be seen and noticed by the opposite sex sometimes occur not just infrequently but also at some physical distance—across a parking lot, as one walks from car to building, or in a crowded mall. Therefore the signal that I am sexy, powerful, and desirable has to be broadcast at a slightly “louder” volume than in other towns where people actually come into closer cont
act and don’t need to “shout.” In L.A. one has to be one’s own billboard.
Consequently in L.A. the women, on the face of it, must feel a greater need to get physically augmented, tanned, and have flowing manes of hair that can be seen from a considerable distance. Their clothes are a little (or a lot) too sexy (especially when seen up close) and to add to this effect they strike come-hither poses as they stand or walk—postures that drive the Angelino males to distraction and probably influence much of that city’s creative output.
The Stolen Building
I make my way back toward the center of town, and on my way I pass by a beautiful old administration building. It is covered with different-colored ceramic tiles, and these tiles seem different from many of the others used in town. I am told later that this edifice houses the Department of Water, which is in charge of the city’s water supply. The need for this department was made painfully obvious during the city’s great yellow fever epidemic in 1871 when between 150 and 170 people died every day. The outbreak killed half the population of Buenos Aires, and during the height of the epidemic so many people were dying every day that the railway company laid in a temporary branch line to serve a new cemetery—special trains for the dead leading to the magnificent town for the dead.
Why, though, does this building look so different from all the other period buildings? It turns out that the tiles and ornamentation all arrived by boat from Europe and were originally intended for a building in Venezuela, but someone made a mistake, and the boat ended up in Argentina instead. The mistake was thought to be fortuitous, and rather than sending them on their way, they were used for the construction of the Water Department building.
No Encuentros
I bike through the Parque Ecológico, a park that has paths through the wetlands that border one whole side of the city. As if the New Jersey Meadowlands were attached to Manhattan and had paths winding through the acres of reeds and marshlands. It seems the park is also a spot for secluded meetings, as there are signs advising that it is not a place for “encuentros ” (meetings) . . . meaning sexual liaisons. The reeds hide much of the city, though it is right next door. It’s a strange sort of park. You can’t leave the paths even if you want to, for to venture off the trails would be to wade into the marshy wetlands.
Mondo Cane
I stop by the waterfront to watch a group of maybe six dogs that have gathered there. A black doggie, an outsider possibly attempting to join the group, or wanting at least to be taken seriously, stands slightly apart from the rest of the dogs and barks, fairly aggressively, while a large Labrador repeatedly mounts a sad-looking female with a houndlike face. He eventually succeeds in the task, after which the two are locked together for a few minutes.
None of the other dogs seem to pay much attention to this sex act taking place in their midst. Barking Blackie is shooed off by the others repeatedly, but he returns, again and again. A twin of the Lab fucker barks, demanding to chase sticks thrown in the water by some nearby people—he somehow seems to miraculously ignore all the fucking and barking and growling around him. This dog can focus! The lovers have unlocked now, and the others pass by one after another and smell the sad gal’s pussy, but they make no attempt to mount her. The two lovers now lick their privates . . . possibly to ease the pain of being stuck together.
Finally, fed up with the outsider Blackie’s aggressive nonstop growling and barking, a muscular member of the group takes the case in hand, grabs Blackie by his red collar, and, while both dogs are knee-deep in the water, attempts to semidrown him. Or at least that’s what it looks like he’s trying to do. Others join in—one chomping down on poor Blackie’s leg. A violent scrum ensues. Blackie, the outsider, could easily be drowned as the others thrash about and hold him down—but no—after a minute or two of violence they all let go of him and there is no blood, despite all the showing of teeth and even what seemed like real biting.
The pack seems satisfied that maybe now he will know his place. It seems they intentionally didn’t hurt him. It was all for show, to demonstrate that they weren’t going to put up with his noise, aggressiveness, and implied threats. The social hierarchy has been reasserted. Blackie stands up, still knee-deep in water, dripping, slightly stunned, not moving. He doesn’t run away. He slowly saunters up the bank to the “protection” of some bushes. A minute or so later here he comes again for more punishment; once again throwing down his never-ending challenge.
One dog pisses on another’s face. No reaction. What! The hierarchies here must be well worked out if the pissed-upon doesn’t even react.
On my way biking downtown from where I live in midtown Manhattan I sometimes pass by a little dog park at Twenty-third Street and Eleventh Avenue, next to the West Side bike path. It’s a triangle of man-made hillocks and humps. The dogs brought there by their owners usually each pick a hump to occupy, and there they stand—one dog on top of each mound, each a king of his own hill. Everybody’s happy. Clever design for a dog park.
I imagine that if there were only one mound in that park there might be more fights—a constant and nasty struggle might ensue to see who would be top dog—but as there are quite a few options available every dog can be king, at least for a little while.
Watching dogs, it sure seems we haven’t “advanced” much from the territorial and hierarchical struggles that they act out so transparently in front of our eyes. The thing about dogs is that their posturing is often just that—Blackie wasn’t really hurt, no blood was shed. Actual violence is truly a last resort. We humans constantly push to see where the boundaries lie as well, but sometimes when acted out on a national or global scale, or when the posturing involves a handy gun or some tanks and cluster bombs, it’s a little too easy to quickly fire off a few rounds and zap the target, knowing there will probably be no (immediate) repercussions. Rather than simply relegating an “inferior” to his or her appropriate position in the pecking order one has eliminated the person completely.
I cycle back to the hotel, where they instruct me not to bring my bike into the lobby. They suggest I ride down into the underground parking area—and from there I can use the elevator to take myself, with the bike, up to my room.
What’s Going On in Your Country?
The next day I do an interview at the local radio station. The studio is filled with people engaged in mysterious activities, all of which produce various kinds of noises. This, as I can eventually see, is entirely purposeful and intentional. A man next to me casually lifts up a piece of metal on a string and strikes it—CLAANNNGG! A woman noisily plays with an infant on the floor. Another man casually strums an out-of-tune guitar. Papers are rustled. It is as if they are “scoring” my conversation—creating an artificial sonic ambience and an imaginary “place” in which the interview is occurring. I wonder if they have a whole set of environments and ambiences that they can re-create—offices, beaches (on the weekend), factories, forests, ranches?
On the table are some tiny books. One is no bigger than an inch from top to bottom. They are published in Peru, and contain quotations and popular wisdom. They are bite-sized. I could eat one.
It’s the mid-aughts, and these days many journalists ask me, “What is going on in New York?” They mean: what is the political feeling since 9/11? I usually reply that New York, after a year or two, has more or less returned to its cosmopolitan, multicultural self, where no one thinks twice if the cab driver is wearing a turban. But the interior of the country, with access only to USA Today and Fox News for their information, well, they are still trembling with fear that Saddam or Osama bin Laden is going to come and steal their SUVs. The lack of information available to the populace that isn’t pure propaganda, and the continual efforts of the Bush administration to keep everyone in fear, has created a nation that wants nothing more than to close its doors and hide and to have other people—the imperial troops—make whatever imagined threat there is out there simply go away. They want someone else to do whatever it takes to protect the
m from this weird, inscrutable, and invisible enemy that they believe wants to take their comfortable lives from them.
Most of the journalists here, as in Europe, are searching for an explanation from me as to why people in the United States continued to support Bush and Company. It’s a constant puzzle to them how he could have been reelected. A puzzle to me too. As support for Bush and his policies continues in the U.S.A., the press and people here lose what is left of their admiration for the American people, whom they largely have looked up to for their spunk, imagination, freedom, business acumen, can-do spirit, and brilliant pop culture. They admire the democratic institutions of the United States too—but that’s more complicated, because all these southern countries know from experience that it was the United States that helped instigate and support the dictatorships they lived under for decades. So platitudes from U.S. politicians about spreading democracy and freedom ring pretty hollow here—those phrases are recognized as a cover for spreading U.S. influence, power, and business.
I tell them that I am guardedly optimistic. In my recent touring experience in the U.S.A., lots of ordinary people, many of whom indeed voted for Bush last time around, now express feelings that he hasn’t done a very good job, even if they continue to believe that, for example, the invasion of Iraq was justified. I suspect that it will be many years before we know just how bad a job he and his cronies have done. It saddens me, because, like a lot of people, I was inculcated with a kind of faith and belief that the opportunities and the system of checks and balances that the United States seemed to represent were a new political animal on the face of the earth. One that could and did influence and inspire others around the world, for good. That myth of benign and beneficial influence and inspiration to other nations and people was true, at least to some extent. The best of the United States—rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Martin Luther King, and so on—were inspirational in other completely different cultures. But eventually, as I read more accounts of recent history, I became more skeptical. I came to know about the various misadventures the United States had gotten itself into—supporting dictatorships and toppling democracies. I continued to harbor a sense that deep down a moral invisible hand—the sometimes wacky but practical and good-hearted American people—would have the sense to adjust the course and therefore continue to be an example for other nations. In the mid-aughts, I, and it seems much of the rest of world, have had serious doubts about that. Now, with the election of Barack Obama, a huge measure of hope, optimism, and respect has returned, though this poor guy has been handed a country with its economic legs cut off and mired in an expensive and never-ending occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.