22 Marzo: Ratoncito Pérez
Days & Days
. 22 Marzo Laura’s life requires kneepads, black trash bags She’s feeding her perrito Chinese food from a box A piece of sweet fried chicken for her, a piece for the little dog who’s dressed like it’s winter, though above us jacarandas lift their bunting, bloom and fall. Laura is a trash picker and the only person in this town (where I feel safer than at home) to warn me about women getting their throats slit (throats slit!) But here’s a cause for celebration: another day after another night, sleeping wherever they sleep. . 16 Marzo Bagdad Café, a 1987 West German English-language film is organized by things (things struck like chimes) to tell the story: the backpacker’s boomerang; the piano Junior plays; the mysterious coffee thermos that appears from elsewhere; the empty cans that Brenda, maxed-out hero, tries and fails to gather up; the baby’s plastic rattle. When was the last time I saw a film about the friendship of women? When was the last time I saw a film where decluttering (an empty, franchised word) was shown in its full emotional ferocity? I like the domestic squabbles. I like the shipwrecked quality, wherein Jasmin (the mysterious German immigrant without a man) is a note in a bottle if the Mojave Desert is the sea. It’s worth watching just for the outfits of Phyllis, teenager in her glory, with her Walkman; or the gentle striptease in the Airstream with fruit. I love, above all, how color works here: the world is shades of red and green (buttermint green, desert green, 1970s-curtains green) until it opens up. Then golds appear, whites, blues. The desert is soothed. Its hot mirages quiet. By the end, when Jasmin is a magician, and Brenda’s sad-ass diner is hopping, there are all the colors of life, because there is life. . 14 Marzo Franny is trying to lure Ratoncito Pérez to her bed, that’s why it’s full of sunflower seeds & oats. He is a Cuban or Mexican mouse maybe? Dapper. He wants her tooth. Works under cover of darkness, will triumph where the tooth fairy has, for this family, failed. Ratoncito Pérez wears a little vest, we agree & it is green. A bowtie. He took the note she wrote. When will some genius form a pedagogy out of teeth ajar for the years when that’s often what a child thinks about, plays with, eats for, sleeps on, dreams toward: lost teeth! . 12 Marzo HELY LDY on a sign, a marquee sign gorgeous tall decrepit In my dream healy lady, a healing lady that could be me: my body a quick curtain in new weather . 11 Marzo I learn the word for grout & try to convince our landlord to bring me some, so that I may repair these countertops Con esponja. Sí? Who knew my peace was so squarely on a Parade of Homes continuum. Anita the fashionable Scottish-Iraqi Brit who owns the coffee shop with the dried corn garland says if Trump starts World War III She’ll go back to Chiapas, (but not as a journalist this time: they get killed). That’s where she’ll want to be. . 8 Marzo "¡Romina, hermana, aquí está tu manada!" The big girls and I end up in the march and I cry. Why? Lucy asks. Do I answer: femicide? Those are the faces of rapists, I sort words to explain, they are shaming them. Shame must change sides.
I love the handpainted wall patterns all over this beautiful town. What incredible work! Here’s one from Templo De San Roque (pic by me).