1. |
Inheritance
04:16
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To dig the box from buried earth:
The attic as a metaphor
For hyperlinks, for hyperplasts,
For grift of silt that blocks the pass
To click, to think, to know, to love
To link the soul to frozen roots
To lick the finger to unfold
Honey and milk and wine and gold
Eight splayed hands, brittle map
Mom and son, twin and aunt
You, your face, your output
We, our songs, our selfhood
We're organic abstracts
Shapelessly designed
Vast neural networks
Don't have me in mind
What is it? To inherit? To bear it gently
Down the attic stairs? To get it? To merit?
To share a secret tree with you? To bind the bough?
Can I really know you now?
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2. |
Corn Husks
04:05
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(ARIELA: I found my old yearbooks from preschool, and when asked, like, what job I wanted, I literally said actor-singer-dancer-painter-scientist.)
Goodbye, dusty tomb!
Then again, I never knew you
My heart’s a sleeper train
from this field to California
They say it’s all corn these days
I shiver toward the glitter of the cabaret
War has happened, lover’s absent,
Reinvention seems the fashion
Cut up the papers for ticker tape
Sweep up the scraps on the next day
Peppers ripe for reaping, I leave while Gueya’s sleeping
Plant myself among the stars in the golden ground
Act for all my life like I do when no one’s around
Aah, ahh, aaah, aaaah
I was corn queen
Sweetest 16
Come to life again
She was corn queen
Sweetest 16
She’s alive again
This is the encore
Of the song that you ignored
Watch me spin cardboard to gold (2x)
Gold fields from the Pullman trains
The land of milk and honey waits
I’ll teach the lights to spell my name
I-S-A-D-O-R-A
I-S-A-D-O-R-A
I-S-A-D-O-R-A
(ARIELA: In any group I'm in, I'm not quite anything. I identify more as, like, Mexican American. Like, when I go to Mexico, I suddenly feel American. And it's like, whenever I'm hanging out with white people, then I suddenly feel like I have some sort of authority over my culture. But if there's anyone else who is, like, more Mexican than me, then...they get it. They get the authority.)
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3. |
XXS
05:24
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You ask if the crossed line
Affected any friends of mine
And I hope that somehow my answer excludes me this time
We take the bikes out for a ride
Miriam falls at the top of the drive
And I stay up late listening to true crime
At least you won’t remember me
I never click ‘remember me’
A cache of muscle memory
Is hardly documentary
But I’m a mess, XXS
You wouldn’t settle for any less
In my mind I take the Red line, dressed
Impressively, and I only speak when pressed
Telegraph Hill in ‘84;
Woman I don’t know anymore;
The decentralized networks that ran us aground and ashore
But I am still a worrier
Blood in my ears is a barrier
Between me and the headlines I wish I could simply ignore
At least you won’t remember me
I never click ‘remember me’
And I am what I’m supposed to be
I change my profile’s privacy
I’m a mess, XXS
You wouldn’t settle for any less
I am poised and I am self-possessed
An avatar; a scimitar; bright-eyed; blessed
I bike home with all my bruises
You never name the one who loses
(KAI: I don't know, I think at least one of the apps on my phone is using my microphone. The worst part of that is how, like, I find it normal, right? How it doesn't even weird me out anymore. But I think that the intrusion of privacy is something that's unavoidable today. I mean, Mom has, like, the tape over the camera, and I do that too...it doesn't really matter, right? You're not really making a difference. Because we don't have the power of the Western world behind us, and everyone else does when they're trying to get our data. It's not so bad. So what, you know?)
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4. |
Unreal Ingenue
03:37
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I first came alive
When I saw the whites of your eyes
Your body sweating, petrified
By my look, by my sweet disguise
And I knew
I could watch my cash accrue
As the lawdy-dawdy lady on view
I give to you: your new unreal ingenue
So tell me tough guy,
You see what you like?
I know I’m selling it,
Move on unless you’re here to buy
White boys with mai tais –
You like that, tough guy?
All eyes on Isadora
When I metamorphosize
I’m a green-skinned martian babe
I’m a demon, full of hate
I’m a stuffy stay-home mom
I’m a Grecian Amazon
I’m Liz Taylor, opulent
I’m in charge and dominant
I’m the empress of the world
I’m a goddess, I’m a girl!
Feel the breeze
White sand and glassy seas
At last at ease
To fulfill your fantasies
Follow me
To the island of make-believe
But nothing’s free
This corn queen’s gotta eat
Don’t look!
I’m changing my wig!
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5. |
||||
Carve out mud
From around my soul:
I am iron
Wrapped around the fold
I am ash
Pickaxe, muscle, plan
You are a mighty man
Even if my blood
Could have solidified
When I am trapped in silver
I won’t be recognized
This is king
Struggling, heaving thing
But I’m the reason it is living
Too, I’m small
But I know what I’m owed
I will not lay this iron road
(Goliath wave, so tender, break
upon the sand behind me;
No chain resists the touch of rust;
No man will ever find me)
Even if my blood
Could have been strained and sold,
What would I be worth, encased in
Silver and mold?
I am the burdened river: once-dead
Now a daguerreotype
Even when you feel my breath on your neck
I won’t be recognized
SPOKEN:
Old friend:
This time tomorrow,
I will be forty miles deeper into the southwest.
Do not look for me.
Do not worry anymore about
the brutalities that I have wrought.
It’s all over
Today, you are a free man; you’re welcome.
Maybe someday we will meet again.
Until then, I will miss you close to me.
Forever yours,
Tu cuate, X
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6. |
Conjuro (interlude)
00:40
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Corazón de luz candente!
Mas suave que la cachemira
Más rico que el aguardiente
Corazón de edades olvidadas!
Yo quiero pedir poder oculto
Y suerte en mis escapadas
“Y que tenga dinero
Y que no se muero”
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7. |
Summer of Sharks
04:16
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She is who I am in mirrors
The summer after sun eclipse
Turns smoking bar believers toward
The shimmer in her hips
And smearing all that rouge around
She’ll purse her lips and say:
“Shit like this, it was poisonous,
I think, back in the day”
She said, “Make yourself at home now, sailor
No need to say what’s understood:
I work the room like a dream
Miss Mai Tai and Nicotine
A taste of what you fancy does you good”
“Corazón de luz candente!
Mas suave que la cachemira
Más rico que el aguardiente
Corazón de edades olvidadas!
Yo quiero pedir poder oculto
Y suerte en mis escapadas”
SPOKEN:
Y entonces mortal,
Qué te haces digno de una ninfa como yo?
Me llaman el espíritu de maíz, de la cosecha, y de fertilidad...
Poder, poder, poder
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8. |
Exit
04:23
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I awoke
From the finish line
Of the life that caused the life
That caused the life that caused the life
That caused mine
True, I’ve seen
Some shit
In my time
But I’ll die before I pander
To another human eye
He died at ninety-three
Wrapped warm in anonymity
All love to friends and family
But I don’t want you to see me
“J dot doe, as my client, you know
It’s all about the optics”
Well then, let’s pray that my great escape
Is included in the synopsis
Somewhere in the desert
There’s a shadow on the sand
Of a prop in a shoebox model
Of the fall of a mighty man
(ROSIE: Well, I have access to everything, you know? Just growing up with the Internet and especially social media, that's completely changed the way I create and construct my identity – it's completely affected that, with, kind of, giving me a much more accessible template than ever before. But in that same vein: I have access to things, but things have access to me. And I'm kind of, you know, becoming more aware of my footprint and of the dangers –)
I put my thumb down onto that burner
I put my thumb down onto that burner
I put my thumb down onto that burner
I burn my thumbprint off
That’s not how to catch me
You’ll never catch me now
That’s not how to have me
I burn my thumbprint off
You’d never sell the clientele if you could not divorce
The personal from personnel in your classified reports
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9. |
Intermission
01:40
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(STEPHEN: I think we are in an interesting age. We are in this age of both preserving media in ways that we have not, and then – super important – being able to have it served back up to us much quicker and...in ways that can allow individuals – rather obscure ones – to wield some kind of cultural force, even if it's so splintered and fragmented. The whole power of media is that this small thing is heard by so many.)
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10. |
Teatro Massimo
03:56
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Eckhart Tolle, Estee Lauder
De la Renta, Ian Hodder
Sick of hearing: “meet my daughter”
God mom, why did you drag me here?
A bragging-rights handbag you cling to for dear
Life, whatever I’ve never felt cleverer
Ever, however we do need to sever
Ciao bello, love how you can’t say my name,
Love how you translate me. I’m a hyrogl-
If i took too my heels tonight
Could I crash into town like a meteorite?
Emboss your image
On my skin, cuz I’m a realist
Embodied lovin’
Know it ain’t real if you can’t feel it
LET’S GET LOST 2NITE!
LET’S GET LOST TONIGHT!
LET’S GET LOST TO NIGHT!
T-t-tear it out but count the pages
Dear Diary, this feels amazing
Around the little towns, my men
Come drink the nighttime from my hands
Baby, I’m so glad you don’t know who the fuck I am!
My voice will linger longer in its deeper sandy strands
The more you let me take it, so show me your unwinding
I will take you home so I can catalog the findings
Emboss your image
On my skin, cuz I’m a realist
Embodied lovin’
Know it ain’t real if you can’t feel it
LET’S GET LOST 2NITE!
LET’S GET LOST TONIGHT!
LET’S GET LOST TO NIGHT! (x2)
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11. |
||||
(D: We, of course, made a lot of prank phone calls...we roasted marshmallows on a candle in Jackie Clement's bedroom – until her mom found out...we played Barbies, we rode our bikes everywhere, we played street baseball...)
Bell opens the blue, white tennis shoes, and my red dress
Me, cousin Marikit, her siblings three, y mi cuate
Cross grass and wide streets to the library, to the library
One, two, three
Cave under the red roof
Star bright as a dog tooth
I read all about you
Do you know how to read, too?
Well, that can’t bother me
I have powers of invisibility, and
A map in my memory
Of my school and my house and my cousin’s street and
We’re at the library
Books on tigers and dolphins for Marikit, and
Mi cuate likes mysteries
Roque, Don, and Ana like everything, okay
Bikes sleep on the bright street; chalk drums on our scab knees
Mi cuate trips up homerunning, brow crunch in the gold heat
Later I’ll say, I know you get this way, lose your words to the lurch of your hurting
But I love you the same, but for now, just today, I will take you away with our books in our arms
See this? on Mérida,
Manila, where Marikit’s mama’s from
Sound out each syllanum
Dad asks where you got all the Band-Aids from
And not much bothers me
You watch the moon dance with the shadow-trees
Yucatán yawns in front of me
As I read with a flashlight beneath the sheets
(One, two, three)
(D: We frame it nowadays in terms of, "kids had so much freedom then." And I think that that's true, but I also think that that had something to do with – women were home and were mothers 24/7, and they just didn't need you in their face. They just wanted you out of the house. And I don't know if it was any safer back then, but it wasn't considered freedom at that time. I think part of it was just, like, the way that we viewed children back then. You weren't thinking about their emotional health and how to make sure they feel included in whatever games they're playing with their friends. There was not a lot of intervention in the life of children. We didn't really see children as, like, little humans with emotional lives. It was more, "they're these other things.")
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12. |
Underground Tree
06:11
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(ANN: I think I've always like, imagined myself – I've imagined them being in my future. And I realize that I'll probably end up, if I do have kids, it'll probably be like this, most vanilla white picket house situation. But I do have that sick need to repeat my life, and I really want to raise a daughter on my own. Is that horrible? You know? "I can support my baby, and I'll just do it better this time!" And part of me wants to be a very cool single mom who's very present. But, uh, that's fucked up. You know? [laughs])
It’s in a cave you couldn’t enter,
Couldn’t plumb, and couldn’t breathe in
My heart left soot stains on the walls,
Whose trails crept up the ceiling
i didn’t live there
i didn’t visit often
it means more than you’ll ever know
When you took a step inside
The air reared back and hissed, demanding
Answers to a question asked in
Codes beyond your understanding
the cave wasn’t a grave,
but Thompson dug in anyway
betrayal, strata in shale-
like plaster laid to terminate
the age being upstaged
when itza came to b’lankanché
a quake, shudder awake
the belly of the beast you desecrate
it’s alive!
feel the rumble of the roar
we’re alive
of the ground we are borne
so it goes
i tell my children the lore
it’s who we are
it’s how we say who we say we are
it wasn’t left for you to find!
it was sealed, and it was mine!
the pots, the jade, the bodies...
now tourists come to the underground tree
i wonder what they think they’ll see;
A mother with a dirty trowel,
Her child sulking near to me,
The 400 years between us
Boiled down to an inch or three;
I hold them again, my family
Del and Nancy, Del and Nancy
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13. |
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(SUSAN: I'm very connected with the music, and I'm feeling it in the moment, and I'm finding ways to express the...
...the groove!
What – what those musicians and the composer are communicating, I express it in a visual way, and I – it's just like electricity going through, and I am feeling the patterns and I am performing them and then I think, OK, that was great....
OK, that was great, that was great, I'm gonna do that again....)
Waiting for Sunday
My aunt will come over
She's gonna teach me how to dance (teach me how to dance!)
Teach me how to dance
Waiting for someday
When I get older
Waiting for someday
When I get bolder
The vinyl and the needle
Her high heels bright as beetles
A dozen doves, a baby grand,
Isadora’s waiting hand
(SUSAN: Um...and I am thinking, "Look at me." Because I know I've got something to see. So watch this, watch this, look at me. Being out on stage – I'm fine, I'm fine! I know what I'm doing. I have confidence. You should be looking at me! This is fan-frickin'-tastic! Watch this, watch this. I'm gonna do this now – and it's not just what my body is doing, it's what my face is doing, how I'm feeling, and I'm doing it all. So watch it. Don't miss it.)
Mi Mamá!
(Gueya!)
Su hermana!
(Isadora!)
Mi papá!
(Roberto!)
Su papá!
(Antonio!)
Abuelita!
(Fidelia!)
Mi tía!
(Chavela!)
Mi primo!
(Mishon!)
Y mi cuate!
Wada lee acha, wada lee acha
Doodley doo, doodley doo
Wada lee acha, wada lee acha
Doodley doo, doodley doo
Here’s the funny thing: there isn’t much to it
All you gotta do is doodley-doo it
I like the rest, but the part I like best goes:
“Doodley doodley doo”
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14. |
Post Op
09:09
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Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe
And all the seats that face departing stations
Make you feel motion sick in foreign nations;
As if you’d dropped it from a higher place
I watch your body glint, then fade away
What do I want? Since I could barely say it:
What do I want? Or could it never be:
What do I want? Suppose that I’ve been lying:
Would you still take care of me?
Draped across the table with your arms wide
On Percocet and feeling like the second Christ
Your friends will wash your hair and say they love you
The lamps will sway like seraphim above you
(CECILIA: Every single context that I'm in, I'm like, a different person. Cuz it's all relative. All of my identities are all relative. My gender is relative to who I'm with. My racial identity, my ethic identity, is relative to who I'm with. If I'm with, like, a brown-skinned Latinx person, I'm whiter! If I'm with another Mexican person who is a friend of the family in Mexico City, it's a lot of white-passing Mexicans, but I grew up in the States. So I'm definitely more American and they're definitely more Mexican. But it's – it's all relative. And like, every single context that I'm in, it changes. So I can't tell you, like, "I am this thing." Because in every single context it changes.)
Beyond “be”
We become
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15. |
Manzanita
03:37
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Are you the deer that came to our window
Out of your deep grey forest?
How could you tell we’re tourists?
Let’s pretend like we’re our ancestors
Let’s live and die and try it all
Let’s carve our names in stone for the centuries
And still feel nebulously small
Am I the land from which I’m growing
Or shoved off this rocky shore,
Unmoored forever more?
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Deathless Gods with Human Bods Los Angeles, California
LA twins' tinyband seeking small gardens, weird samples, & avocados the size of your head
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