It was not the usual night out for Daphne and Katrine. Daphne had been encouraged by her husband to be; who expressed that such an experience would make for good conversation at a dinner or cocktail party. He impressed upon her that as his wife she would be expected to maintain a regular diet of cultural activity. Katrine was there because she was everywhere that Daphne was.

The buzz was that a new poet was appearing at a local college and her readings were quite avant-garde. So it was that Daphne and Katrine put down the afternoon decanter and headed over to the campus. The room was not large, but could accommodate a few dozen people. There were a few students probably there for extra credit, other academic types and some who seemed genuinely excited to be there. The room was filling fast. Daphne and Katrine arrived early enough to find three seats in the middle of the venue. Each took one and in the middle placed their Prada purses. Just as they became acclimated to this new territory, a woman of slight build with dark hair and Andean complexion pushed in and claimed the seat between them. With purses reluctantly reclaimed, Daphne and Katrine, now silent, sat with stone faces straight ahead.

The air was not electric, but there was a certain anxious anticipation, especially now that it was three minutes past start time. The artist had yet to appear. Suddenly, the woman between Daphne and Katrine began moaning and gently rocking from side to side. She reached into what looked like a bag of rags and pulled out a skein of red yarn; the kind used in arts and craft classes.

With this yarn, the woman began attaching and wrapping up both Daphne and Katrine in an asymmetrical, haphazard fashion; humming all the while. Daphne blushed red, but was not sure how to react to this new development. Mortified, the ladies realized that THIS was the poet and that they were now a part of the performance. Daphne longed for an ejection button to magically return her to life as she had known it. But, it was too late for that. She watched helplessly as the red yarn wound its way into a road map-like pattern across her carefully chosen outfit. Katrine’s face had simply given up all its blood as she sat attempting an understanding smile.

Now the lady moved to front of the room where a podium stood awaiting her offerings. By now, her voice had crescendoed  to a high pitched, but not unpleasant note that engulfed the entire room:

 AaaaHHH

aaaahhhh

We’re all tired aren’t we

aaaaahhhhhhhhhh

In this room they learned the atrocity of the tits:

…but they paid two pounds

for each

woman

who had been killed.

And the proof of the killing

in their case

was their tits

cut

off.

Their tits.

They were proud of their tits—

…

they were covered

by the missionaries

and no more right

to even speak.

Tits.

No more rights.

Tits.

And they learned of hummingbirds:

…and the swallows do just like the hummingbirds

they pretend

that light

is flashing

on their bodies

TAH

they go like that

and turn the  ray

in a different direction

so I will begin

with a hummingbird poem for you

because this is what Ihey do

some of these creatures they have

this is the males

they have this red plumage

here in the front of their breast

And so it went, this intersection with the lady Vicuna. After what seemed like hours, Daphne and Katrine deftly removed the yarn and slid along the walls until they were once again breathing fresh New England air. Both were not sure yet how they had changed, but they had a new respect for breasts and Spanish and English and nectarines.

In the recording, Vicuna discusses some myths. One in particular caught my ear. It was the one in which Europeans were depicted with little notebooks because they were unable to remember. This caused me to reflect upon what is almost a universal theme in cultures that have intersected with  European colonial conquest and its catastrophic consequences. Although she laughed at the comedy in the depiction (a nuance unavailable in the written version), I recognized what I believe to be a cultural resentment; a subtle disdain. If the observation has merit, then I expect to learn that the tone of some of her work will reflect such sentiment.  The second part of the recording for which we have only audio sounds like an incantation. Even though, it is a foreign language to me, it “feels” as if Vicuna is reaching out for ancestral support or to some higher source beyond the moment.

Interesting too is how she handles the malfunctioning microphone situation. As readings for today attest, Vicuna discards the idea of fixity with these performances. When the microphone situation is resolved, she does not pick up where she left off, but considers the original direction of her performance as “lost.”  But this loss is a good thing in that it does not affect the creation of the performance in any meaningful way. Not clear on how much time elapsed between the malfunction and the resolution. What did she do with that time? Was it edited out of the recording? Did she drink water during this break?

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