SHIP / SHAPE Chronicle, Part 1
I mentioned in a prior post that i planned to do an installation for my final project in my Contemporary New Orleans Literature class. I'm going to be building it over the next 3 days, and thought it would be cool to chronicle that process here in this blog.
Thank you to everyone who submitted responses, either in comments to my prior post or on Facebook, via email and private-message. I really appreciate what a great collection of stories and thoughts i received! Several of you who emailed privately expressed a desire for anonymity which i have honored in the printed elements to be hung in the gallery space, and i will not be reprinting any of the testimonials in this blog or anywhere else online. The only ones readable by the general web-browsing public will be those left as comments in the prior blog post, and even the printed/posted ones are anonymized/pseudonymized for those who requested it.
I've written a fairly lengthy (9 pages) justification of the various elements of the installation, which i think i'll post tomorrow. Today though, i'm going to talk about what a pain in the ass it is to obtain all the supplies i'll need in a small Mexican mountain town when you don't speak Spanish or really know the town that well.
Right now what i'm doing is waiting for stores to open--nothing is open until at least 10am here, and to be safe, i ought to wait until around 11am. I can't wait too late though, because everybody goes on siesta and the stores close from about 1pm-4pm. This window is irregular and peculiar to each storekeeper on each day--if they feel like siesta from 2-5pm, that's when they close instead. And, they usually reopen afterward, but only if they feel like it, and stay open as late as they wish, which might be til 6pm or might be til 10pm. Shopping in Mexico is a crapshoot.
Today, i need to print some files, make a bunch of photocopies, and buy tape, staples, colored paper, string, and eyedroppers.
The easiest way to do this would be to hop in a taxi and go to the Mega, which is basically the Mexican Wal-Mart (except Wal-Mart does have stores in Mexico--they apparently destroyed some archaeological site building one over by Teotihuacan--so it's more like the Mexican competition to Wal-Mart). That kind of grosses me out, and also goes against the spirit of the installation, which speaks to New Orleanian thematic tropes brought about by the Katrina disaster.
It would only be appropriate for me to get my supplies from Mega if i had to paddle there on an air mattress and then steal everything i needed, including all the water and non-perishable food i could carry, while dodging hostile police treating me like some kind of carjacking felon.
Instead though, i'm relying upon the small shops of San Miguel.
First, i'll have to find a string store. (Seriously.) I hear there's a good one on Insurgentes, a street several blocks from where i live, that this Insurgentes string store has tons of different cords and twines and ropes. Nobody knows the name though, it's just a place i'll "know when i see."
Similarly, i have to find a papeladeria, a paper store, where i can buy several colors of copy paper, and hopefully the tape and staples. There's one of these right up the street, on Canal. I pass it every day on the way home from class.
Then, i need to find a place that does copias, a copy-shop, which ideally would also be an internet cafe, as i have to print out all the testimonials and other placards, and then photocopy them onto the colored paper for an element i'm calling "Confessional Tenement Flags." Strung up like rlung ta (Tibetan prayer flags), like papel picado (Mexican cut paper banners), like parade banners and tenement laundry, the text responses i've collected will hang in carnival flag swags aroumd the installation space. I hear there's a good one of these on Insurgentes, again no name for the store but "there's a big ceramic sign over the door."
And THEN i need to find a farmacia, which will be the most likely place to get the eyedroppers, which will form the "diver" component of a huge (3gal) Cartesian Diver chamber at the center of the installation. There's one on Canal just up from the papeladeria, though i know from trying to buy aloe vera gel there for bug-bites that i will have to draw a picture of an eyedropper on a little piece of paper and say "quatro, por favor," and hope that's good enough to get me what i want.
That's what i have to do today, starting in an hour or so. But for now, i'm just biding my time.
Luckily, i have plenty to write between now and then.
Asta mañana!
Thank you to everyone who submitted responses, either in comments to my prior post or on Facebook, via email and private-message. I really appreciate what a great collection of stories and thoughts i received! Several of you who emailed privately expressed a desire for anonymity which i have honored in the printed elements to be hung in the gallery space, and i will not be reprinting any of the testimonials in this blog or anywhere else online. The only ones readable by the general web-browsing public will be those left as comments in the prior blog post, and even the printed/posted ones are anonymized/pseudonymized for those who requested it.
I've written a fairly lengthy (9 pages) justification of the various elements of the installation, which i think i'll post tomorrow. Today though, i'm going to talk about what a pain in the ass it is to obtain all the supplies i'll need in a small Mexican mountain town when you don't speak Spanish or really know the town that well.
Right now what i'm doing is waiting for stores to open--nothing is open until at least 10am here, and to be safe, i ought to wait until around 11am. I can't wait too late though, because everybody goes on siesta and the stores close from about 1pm-4pm. This window is irregular and peculiar to each storekeeper on each day--if they feel like siesta from 2-5pm, that's when they close instead. And, they usually reopen afterward, but only if they feel like it, and stay open as late as they wish, which might be til 6pm or might be til 10pm. Shopping in Mexico is a crapshoot.
Today, i need to print some files, make a bunch of photocopies, and buy tape, staples, colored paper, string, and eyedroppers.
The easiest way to do this would be to hop in a taxi and go to the Mega, which is basically the Mexican Wal-Mart (except Wal-Mart does have stores in Mexico--they apparently destroyed some archaeological site building one over by Teotihuacan--so it's more like the Mexican competition to Wal-Mart). That kind of grosses me out, and also goes against the spirit of the installation, which speaks to New Orleanian thematic tropes brought about by the Katrina disaster.
It would only be appropriate for me to get my supplies from Mega if i had to paddle there on an air mattress and then steal everything i needed, including all the water and non-perishable food i could carry, while dodging hostile police treating me like some kind of carjacking felon.
Instead though, i'm relying upon the small shops of San Miguel.
First, i'll have to find a string store. (Seriously.) I hear there's a good one on Insurgentes, a street several blocks from where i live, that this Insurgentes string store has tons of different cords and twines and ropes. Nobody knows the name though, it's just a place i'll "know when i see."
Similarly, i have to find a papeladeria, a paper store, where i can buy several colors of copy paper, and hopefully the tape and staples. There's one of these right up the street, on Canal. I pass it every day on the way home from class.
Then, i need to find a place that does copias, a copy-shop, which ideally would also be an internet cafe, as i have to print out all the testimonials and other placards, and then photocopy them onto the colored paper for an element i'm calling "Confessional Tenement Flags." Strung up like rlung ta (Tibetan prayer flags), like papel picado (Mexican cut paper banners), like parade banners and tenement laundry, the text responses i've collected will hang in carnival flag swags aroumd the installation space. I hear there's a good one of these on Insurgentes, again no name for the store but "there's a big ceramic sign over the door."
And THEN i need to find a farmacia, which will be the most likely place to get the eyedroppers, which will form the "diver" component of a huge (3gal) Cartesian Diver chamber at the center of the installation. There's one on Canal just up from the papeladeria, though i know from trying to buy aloe vera gel there for bug-bites that i will have to draw a picture of an eyedropper on a little piece of paper and say "quatro, por favor," and hope that's good enough to get me what i want.
That's what i have to do today, starting in an hour or so. But for now, i'm just biding my time.
Luckily, i have plenty to write between now and then.
Asta mañana!
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