Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Philosophical Tantrum
I wonder if community is still a source of hope? Community is one of our obsessions. We all long to belong to a larger “we” because we are obsessed precisely with what we lack. But you know locos, communities of sameness drive me up the wall, conjure my asthma, give me acute vertigo and claustrophobia. My community is not confined by ideological, national, or ethnic boundaries. Mine is a community of difference, and therefore it is fragmented, everchanging, and...temporary. And that’s how I like it. Besides, no one belongs to only one community, not even the Christian right, not even my Chihuahua Sigfrid ne Babalu. He hangs out with rodents, marsupials, and ghosts. Like Babalu’s, my peers are scattered all over the pinche planet, howling outsiders jumping all over the planet. Some of you are my peers; others are total strangers in my community of strangers. I long for my peers every night and hopefully, you long for me as well, and every now and then, when we get together, we lick each other’s wounds and dance until the morning like rabid kangaroos, and then we fall asleep in a circle of accidental bodies, and we dream of a better place and a better present.
Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. 2011 Philosophical Tantrum. 24 min. New WORLD Theater Symposium, June 14th. New York. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ajLA7MFDw
I wonder if community is still a source of hope? Community is one of our obsessions. We all long to belong to a larger “we” because we are obsessed precisely with what we lack. But you know locos, communities of sameness drive me up the wall, conjure my asthma, give me acute vertigo and claustrophobia. My community is not confined by ideological, national, or ethnic boundaries. Mine is a community of difference, and therefore it is fragmented, everchanging, and...temporary. And that’s how I like it. Besides, no one belongs to only one community, not even the Christian right, not even my Chihuahua Sigfrid ne Babalu. He hangs out with rodents, marsupials, and ghosts. Like Babalu’s, my peers are scattered all over the pinche planet, howling outsiders jumping all over the planet. Some of you are my peers; others are total strangers in my community of strangers. I long for my peers every night and hopefully, you long for me as well, and every now and then, when we get together, we lick each other’s wounds and dance until the morning like rabid kangaroos, and then we fall asleep in a circle of accidental bodies, and we dream of a better place and a better present.
Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. 2011 Philosophical Tantrum. 24 min. New WORLD Theater Symposium, June 14th. New York. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ajLA7MFDw
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