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Bienvenido a Colombia: a Brief Story of Militarization and Rebirth

Friday, 02 October 2009
theNOISE logo

The following article marks my return to The Noise, an arts and culture monthly newspaper published in Northern Arizona. I wrote for them in 2006 and 2007, and they recently asked me back to their pages, which I am very grateful for. Thanks Chuck and Meredith! Expect new writing on Colombia for the next three months or so, posted on the first day of every month. Send along any comments and critiques.

“Colombia’s back” proclaims the travel guide Lonely Planet in its new introduction to the country. But back from what? The violent abyss of past decades? The cocaine-flavored stereotyping by foreigners? The guerilla forces that choked the highways like cholesterol? Well, yes, that’s what they mean. But how did it happen, and what’s changed?

To answer that question, a good starting point would be Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Colombia’s strong-arm president was first elected in 2002 with the campaign slogan “mano dura y corazón grande,” promising something like compassionate conservatism but with guns. Reelected in 2006 and currently enjoying an approval rating of 70% while contemplating a constitutional referendum allowing himself a third term, Uribe has brought about change in Colombia on a scale that Obama could only dream about––not that their objectives are at all similar.

“Bogotá is safe again,” a man selling cellphones in Bogotá tells me. “And now you see luxury cars cruising the streets, stuff like that. Before, you’d never see that. So I think Uribe has done us alright, the money is flowing.” Right there, seen from the street level, are two of Uribe’s principal gifts to his country: security in the cities and foreign investment.

As if to drill the point home, a taxi driver in Cartagena tells me a few weeks later: “Look, you can say what you will about Uribe. But really, without Uribe, you wouldn’t be here talking to me.” Like Lonely Planet alluded to, visits by foreigners are way up as of late, especially among Europeans.

The increase in security has also kicked off something of a rebirth in the arts as well. An entire generation of middle-class young people in Colombia were raised behind closed doors, their parents fearful of the violence in the streets. Now in their roaring 20’s, they have taken to those same streets, bringing with them an explosion of música, new activism and graffiti (more on the street art in a future edition).

This is the boom that resounds through Colombia today. It can be heard in bands like Bomba Éstereo, Tumbacatre, Choc Quib Town, and La Makina del Karibe. It can be understood by watching a crowd of fifty sitting in a plaza listening to a young street poet, or on the faces of tens of thousands indigenous people marching toward Bogotá in search of recognition. It can be seen in the pops and locks of a lone breakdancer busking in the centro to a soundtrack of “Brass Monkey” on repeat. It can be felt as a collective exhalation.

Not that everything is aerosol and roses. Those dark associations that might jump to mind when the word Colombia comes up––blow, the FARC, Pablo Escobar––have hung in the collective psyche of people in the U.S. since Colombia was big news in the 1980’s and 90’s. They are the same living ghosts that haunt the country today.

Take coke, for example. Colombia is of course still the world’s largest producer, and it is mostly Colombian cocaine sold to party people in the U.S. that fuels the “narco-violencia” slaughterhouse spiraling out of control in Mexico––between 3,500 and 4,000 dead so far this year. (Le Monde Diplomatique México, September) The cocaine is imported to the U.S., guns exported to Mexico and dollars exported to Colombia––dollars from both the illicit drug trade and from the U.S. military aide sent to combat it.

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MC Ewor

Thursday, 24 September 2009

Ewor es entre mis favoritos poetas de la Cd. de México, y además es de los mejores freestyleros que he visto jamás. Y si eso fuera poco, sus hablidades con el beatbox mejoran constantamente. Él es el MC principal de nuestro Sonidero Verbobala, aunque hasta ahora sólo nos ha podido acompañar en nuestras tocadas chilangas. Acabo de salir esta entrevista que hizo el con una radio cultural del DF, que lo disfrutes.

Ewor is among my favorite poets from Mexico City, and also happens to be one of the best freestyle rappers I have ever seen in any language. And if that wasn’t enough, his beatbox skills are always on the increase. He is the principal MC of our group Sonidero Verbobala, although as of the moment he’s only been able to play with us at our Mexico City shows. Here’s a new interview that he did for an arts & culture radio program, I hope you like it.

Bogotá: música callejera

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

I’ve finally had a chance to begin digging through the material I brought back from Colombia. Here’s a first taste, feel free to spread it around!:

Tucson: Bat Night 2009

Wednesday, 09 September 2009

Come see 40,000 bats fly out from under the Campbell Ave. bridge!
PLUS the spectacle & poetry of FLAM CHEN and Logan Phillips!

the Rillito River Project presents
BAT NIGHT 2009
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12th 5:30pm
Rillito Riverbed, Campbell Ave. bridge
Bat expert Tar Petryszyn, P.h.D.
Poet Logan Phillips
Tucson spectacle experts Flam Chen
FREE! One night only!

Poesía en Bogotá

Wednesday, 09 September 2009

Some video from a late-night performance at Mapa Teatro in central Bogotá, as part of the 7th Hemispheric Encuentro of Performance & Política. ¡Noches surrealistas!

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Into Venezuela: words have a hard time keeping up

Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Life is so busy being lived, words have a hard time keeping up. Divine how that happens sometimes.

A week ago I was set to enter Venezuela, which seems about a lifetime ago. The bus from Bogotá took 17 hours to the border. It was the longest buss-butt I have ever endured, and over the course of the trip I laughed, cried, and ran through just about every other travel cliché there is. In the end, I made friends with the three guys who took turns driving the buss, throwing it down mountain roads and through pueblitos. A good thing I endeared myself to them, they ended up offering to make me a reservation at the hotel they always stay at in Cucutá, the Colombian border town that was the final destination. At midnight I checked in to a cement square with a TV, toilet, sink, shower (PVC pipe), bed, AND AC for five American dollars.

Up early, showered & out the room. Traditional breakfast of eggs, beans and rice (can never go wrong), walked down the rutted dirt road to the highway, taxi to the Terminal de Pasajeros. Bad rumors had been getting thicker as we had approached the border the day before. Chávez is riled up again and Colombo-Venezuelan relations have once again deteriorated. This time Chávez has a pretty legitimate complaint: last month it was leaked that Colombia has agreed to allow the establishment of five US military bases within its borders. It was a pretty direct flouting of the 1994 Colombian constitution (given that the agreement was made without public scrutiny) and is seen by Colombia’s neighbors as a legitimate threat to their security. You have to understand people have a pretty cynical view of the US military here. History has not left our country in a good light.

So, Chávez is rattling sabers and generally being a pain in my ass this morning. He had previously closed the border to all cargo trucks carrying everything except food, causing a kilometers-long backup on the border highway and chaos in Cucutá. I had received some advice that I would be better off to cross into Venezuela at a much smaller crossing an hour north. So off I went, feeling pretty good about myself, timing and Life in General as I walked through the craziness that accompanies every international border, even at 8:30am.

There’s a single Colombian soldier posted at the bridge. I ask him about an exit stamp from Colombia, and he tells me that the only migration office is back in Cucutá, an hour away. Or, he says, cross and see what they tell you over there, maybe you don’t need one. So off I went, among the motorcycles and women crossing the dull metal of the bridge shoved between the two shores of a lazy tropical river of wide mud. Entering Venezuela I offer myself up to the soldiers on the other side, asking about passport stamps. They are sweaty and look at me only as if I only intend to make them sweat more. They do not want to sweat. But they like to make others sweat more than them, so they themselves feel less sweaty. This is as much as I understand them. They ask  me to unpack my bag, laying out everything on a small table for them. Particular interest in the unopened jar of chunky Jif peanut butter I’m carrying (reaction: disgust). Particular interest in my blackbook, leafing through the pages slowly (reaction: mutual sweatyness).

Moments like this one are something that few writers in the US have experience with. When a soldier is leafing through your notebook, what you have written or are thought to have written can suddenly get you into a lot of trouble. I have the habit of taking travel notes more in English than Spanish for this reason, and usually switch out the names of dictators for less impressive, Anglo equivalents. Fidel is Frank and so on. Words can be as dangerous as bullets (verbo = bala) or, as was pointed out to me later in VZ, as calming as arrows of peace.
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Art exhibition in Tucson

Monday, 27 July 2009

I’m a little late in posting about this, but I wanted to get it out there anyway. For the very first time I am showing work in a juried art exhibition! The gallery is a great space called Raices Taller 222 run by a well-organized group of artists in Tucson’s warehouse district. The name of the exhibition is “¡Chubasco!,” an annual event they do on the monsoons. I’m showing some of the prints from Arroyo Ink (still for sale online!), many of which have to do with the cosmic grit of mi tierra:

The exhibition opening was last weekend, but the work will be up through September 12th, and there is another reception this coming weekend for the 1st Saturday Artwalk. I saw a bit of the other artists’ work before I left Arizona, if you’re in town it is very worth stopping by to see this! Check below for an email from the gallery.

Hello Monsoon Artists,

We want to thank you for participating in our monsoon exhibition “¡Chubasco!”, which opened last night. Opening night was awesome, our unscientific manual head count at our most crowded was just about 200 visitors! We recieved lots of positive feedback from our regular patrons as well as from our new visitors. Lots of comments on the beautiful artwork and the great atmosphere they encountered at the gallery.

Contributing to the great atmosphere was the exciting drumming by local musicians Ashatari, Carlos, Donato, Bubba, Vitas & Darius, who treated us to drumming from Brazil, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Earlier in the day, we had contacted a couple of the drummers to see if a they were available to perform at the opening. They totally pulled it together by showing up with all 6 drummers! Thank you guys for a great performance!

If you missed the opening, you have another chance to attend another big event at the gallery next Saturday. Saturday August 1, 2009, is 1ST SATURDAY. This very well attended monthly event sponsored by CTGA (Central Tucson Gallery Association), of which we are founding members, gives us another chance to open our doors to the community, along with other galleries on 6th street and the surrounding downtown Tucson art district. Visit CTGA at www.ctgatucson.org for all the info. Bring friends & family and enjoy another great evening on Saturday, we will be open from 7 – 10 PM.

Once again, thank you all and we hope to see you on Saturday!

1st Saturday
Sat. August 1, 2009
7:00 – 10:00 PM

“¡Chubasco!” exhibition dates: July 25 – September 12, 2009

Regular gallery hours: Friday and Saturday 1:00 – 5:00 PM or by appointment

Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop
218 E. 6th Street
(1/2 block east of 6th St. & 6th Ave.)
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 881-5335

http://www.RaicesTaller222.org

Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop is Tucson’s only Latino based nonprofit cooperative contemporary art gallery located in the Downtown Historic Warehouse District

Arrival to Bogotá: impossible to be lost

Friday, 24 July 2009

I was having a conversation on the plane at 4:45am with a civil engineering professor who was coming home to visit Bogotá, which is where we were about to land. He and his girlfriend were asking me my plans for Bogotá. Namely, where I was going to stay. They both seemed mildly shocked when I told them I didn’t know, that I was planning to land first and figure it out later.

Then I arrived to Bogotá but my suitcase didn’t. My senses were so dulled from the previous 24 hours of travel that I found myself just standing next to the empty luggage conveyor, blank-faced. The peppy airline employee didn’t seem surprised at my situation, and I guess I shouldn’t be either. There were three flights between two airlines, likely my suitcase just decided to go out for some drinks in Houston and didn’t make it back to the airport in time. Understandable. I recieved a couple sheets of paper, a complimentary bag of girly toiletries and a phone number to call in the next few days to see if the suitcase makes it down.

The first thing I learned about Bogotá: it’s cold in July. Just a fistful of hours ago I was in Tucson with the temperature hovering around 108F (42C), and then it’s dawn and I’m standing in a grey sunrise, 45F (7C). Pull on the jacket, catch a taxi to La Candelaria to look for coffee and a grip on things at 8200’ (2500m) above sea level.

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¡Off to Colombia!

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

Well, here it is, compañeros. Opportunity and wanderlust have collided again, and I’m off to Colombia for five weeks. After spending the last three months in the US (the most in over three years), it feels strangely right to be heading somewhere where nobody knows my name and living in the moment is the only way to go. I’m sitting in Phoenix Sky Harbor right now, using the last few minutes of free internet access before my flight leaves.

I woke a dawn this morning in Sierra Vista after having stayed up most of the night packing. It was a hazy, pastel, slow burn. Then to Tucson to drop of artwork at the wonderful Raices Taller, where I’ll be showing prints from Arroyo Ink as part of a larger exhibition starting this weekend. My first art show… never expected that to happen. Then the shuttle to Phoenix, which today happened to be populated with large, tattooed and decidedly chatty men of every ethnicity. Now they’re boarding to LAX, then to Houston, then overnight to Bogotá. I’ll arrive to an unknown city at 5am Thursday.

I’ll be traveling Colombia for a few weeks, then attending the NYU Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics’ Encuentro at the end of August.

Time for the unknown. Hasta pronto.

ARROYO INK now for sale online!

Thursday, 18 June 2009

Ok, this is it! After a couple years of poetry, a few months of preparations and a few weeks of pulling things together, my new book Arroyo Ink is now for sale online!

I’m excited about this one, I think this is the best work I’ve put into print so far. It’s the fifth in the series of chapbooks that I have released since 2002, and like the rest of them, this is a hand-crafted, independently-produced piece of work. It also has strange illustrations in it drawn by myself and Adam Cooper-Terán. The illustrations are all based on remixed letterforms and will keep your eyes oh-so entertained.

I’m selling the books for $10, plus a couple bux for shipping. All purchases are handled by PayPal, which is a secure online payment company owned by eBay. 100% secure, not to worry. I know times are lean for everybody, but if you are able to plop down some virtual dollars, I’d love to put a book in the mail to you. I appreciate it.

The US book release performance was a couple weeks back in Bisbee, AZ, and it was more than I could have hoped for. Video art showcase, introduction by Adam Cooper-Terán, an hour-long performance of new poems and a reception featuring a showing of the fine art prints from the book. For all those who couldn’t be there, here’s the goods! Hopefully I’ll be touring a lot in the coming year, but until then:

arroyo ink oaxaca agave

design & writing: logan phillips 2001-2009. dirtyverbs.com

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