Alejandro Escudé: “Human beings, in my point of view, are absolute masters of denial and distraction. The eclipse was just another event that reminded me of how well society can turn its gaze up and away from real societal issues, personal problems, true miracles, thought, insight, love, in order to participate in one more pointless venture.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé: “It’s difficult to say what prompted this poem. I think it was a gross and immoral miscalculation to take a group photo with this escaped convict. I think it made me ponder about the phenomenon of group photos in general. How there’s usually an ulterior motive for the photo and for the subsequent posting of that photo.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé: “I think the practice of secure store shelving is interesting because of the products themselves. They are things that human beings need to coexist. To me, this says a lot about capitalism as a general system of human organization. It says a lot about desire, consumption, beauty, survival, self esteem.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé: “Would it be so bad? Watch the moon skip out of sight like a rock sailing over a lake. Imagine all the heartache we’d save ourselves. That forever tease up there, that tide tyrant, gone for good. I, for one, wouldn’t miss it. The death of the Apollo program doubts once and for all. The way it means so much and then doesn’t mean a thing. Ever noticed the moon on a desolate bright city night? It sits there, as if it were placed there by the chamber of commerce. Just another public art project. Ignored. Insignificant. Who needs the damn thing? Piece of cheese. Cheshire cat smile. Lurer of lovers. Fog ruiner. Haiku degenerate.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé will join us at the start of Rattlecast 112 before we move on to our main guest, Marissa Davis. Catch it live at 12pm EDT …
Alejandro Escudé: “In this poem, Doctor Anthony Fauci drives a green Ford Fairmont, and he’s also an amalgam of Anthony Fauci and William Carlos Williams. He makes house calls and he is swallowed up by a Charybdis of tongues. Why is he swallowed up? Because that’s what happens when people scrutinize your perfectly innocent emails looking for a ‘smoking gun.’ Nobody knows what happened in that lab. Maybe there is no lab. Maybe it’s just a cover for a money laundering operation. Or maybe it’s a lab doing good work on behalf of humanity. Whatever the case, the instructor who led a class on how to operate that clunky IBM machine that afternoon in the basement of an electronics store on Santa Monica Boulevard was a wonderful man and made an impression on me.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé: “The death of Diego Armando Maradona is a momentous historical occasion for my home country of Argentina. He was a towering figure in the world of soccer, a true sports icon. His life was one of great controversy, his notorious behavior on and off the field, his battle with drug abuse, his strained relationships with close family, friends, owners, coaches, players, and fellow countrymen became legendary. It was a strange serendipitous night when I had the luck of meeting the soccer star. Yet, what I remember most was those arguably pathetic faces on the restaurant windows, crowding the panes to see Maradona. They were there the entire time my family and I were at the restaurant. Maradona was powerful and gifted and beloved by people all over the globe, especially those on the lowest rung of Western society.” (web)
Alejandro Escudé: “Life is surreal. There are these moments of divine yet absolutely useless premonition. Harris showed up in the tapestry of my life the way the poem describes. I’m cynical, so I think it means nothing. Will she become Vice President? I don’t know. But I do know that this incident occurred, and I remembered it when Biden chose Harris as his running mate.” (web)
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