Betraying Gestures #17
outstanding gestures
Dear reader,
I’m at the airport.
I couldn’t write the items on the list of things I’d like to write about in this week’s edition in the format of a running text.
The week started with trying to write a list with K.
We had a phone conversation.
The week ends—now my weeks end on Monday, after I publish Betraying Gestures—with the list having become a running text.
A text of sorts.
“A book of sorts”, told me the woman with a cap written “books” on it about her website book of sorts called misted.cc at Dubious Gestures’ table at Feira Tijuana.
Another person who caught my attention at the fair chewed gum ferociously while looking at the publications without saying a word or touching anything. Long looks.
I was at an airport yesterday and at another today. Do I like airports?
I say I like hotels, but I was not happy in my hotel room two nights ago when a fight in the next room left it completely trashed—the receptionist later confirmed what I had heard—and kept me awake all night and my eyes heavy throughout the next day.
Extra means outside.
On the phone call with K, we discussed the word “outstanding”. She later wrote, “Rome is an outstanding city, we agreed, once in a conversation. Since then, ‘outstanding’ has been our word—containing 1) a wit; 2) an unknown meaning of "remaining to be paid or dealt with;" and 3) correspondence in moments of suppressed connection.”
At Feira Tijuana, I felt both a suppressed and an intensified connection.
Reception?
"Reception? Gesture?” is the subject K gave the email that led us to talk on the phone to write about something that is extra or of something extra is.
Extra because of an open call whose topic is “extra”.
Reception became correspondence. What a dream.
At Feira Tijuana, I met Correio-monstro (monster-mail?). A micropublisher from Rio I overheard a conversation from and learned they also have or exist through a newsletter on Substack.
I didn’t buy a Correio-monstro publication.
I did buy a Céu da Boca publication.
Céu da boca means palate, roof of the mouth, or sky of the mouth in Portuguese.
Céu da boca is a label by Raquel Stolf. Label in Portuguese is selo. Selo, in Portuguese, means both label and stamp.
Two European people who spoke Portuguese recognised will holder.
Will Holder in the poster will holder I wrote about in Betraying Gestures #4.
One of them asked if Will Holder was aware of the poster. I replied that he was, but that I didn't know if he was happy about it.
I indirectly sent Will Holder a picture of the poster with my reflection on the glass frame.
Artist Carmela Gross installed a neon sign with the word “hotel” at the São Paulo Biennial Pavillion for the 25th São Paulo Art Biennial.
I didn’t see the São Paulo Biennial while in São Paulo—one of the things I didn’t do.
When this text is published, I’ll be on the plane back to Europe.
Back to the text with K, the list was going to be of the reasons for fake windows, overlapping the "secret" meaning of extra (outside) with the one of outstanding (remaining to be dealt with).
Last week, I mentioned the jam list I wrote with J. He called me the following day. We haven’t been talking much, not for any reason other than the rhythm of life. I thought he had called me because of the smoke sign last week’s edition was, but he hadn’t read it. Well, he read the beginning, he told me. He stopped before I mentioned him because the small letters on the cell phone make reading difficult, he told me.
Misted.cc's website is blurry.
D told me my ability to work while moving, traveling, is outstanding.
I wrote the running text that the list with K about fake windows became on the bus.
Taxisímile: an outstanding word invented from a misunderstanding.
The bus I was on hit a truck. Nothing serious, but I couldn’t sleep. I felt I had to stay alert.
In a book about mail art I saw at Feira Tijuana, I read a sentence by Gilberto Gil: “O sonho acabou. Quem não dormiu no sleeping bag nem sequer sonhou.”
I saw another cap with the word “book” embroidered on it. This one had “books and poetry”. I liked it.
I’ve been looking for a cap to buy for a while now. I don’t seem to find the right one. Maybe because I haven’t found one with the word book on it.
Outstanding Books?