Betraying Gestures #5

navel-gazing Monday gestures

I usually stay home on Mondays. On Mondays I do laundry, I change my bedsheets, I cook lunch, I call my mom, and I trim my beard. On Mondays, before the washing, the trimming, the cooking, and the talking begin, I have a few hours to stay in bed, spread some books on it, read and write while drinking one cup of coffee after the other, buy new books online, and feel euphoric. The last time I had a Monday like this, I was reading Bed by Tao Lin (the book that opposes Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, a book I read in bed), writing scattered notes and J an email, and buying With the Animals by Noëlle Revaz and Wrong by Dennis Cooper. I began reading both, but I have not finished either. It's been four weeks since Mondays have also been the day of writing Betraying Gestures’ newsletters, which requires a considerable amount of time. I chose Monday because it is the only day of the week that is almost always the same. The last two Mondays weren’t. They were busy, and I struggled to finish the newsletter on time. On-time is before midnight (UTC+2). Last Monday, I was at L’s reading for her work. We were four: three readers and L. We sat at a round table, L moved the recorder around it to capture each one of our voices. We read a text about construction. When L invited me to read it, I told her I happily accepted the invitation, but that I had to tell her something before. I had to tell her about Betraying Gestures. I had to tell her that if she invites me to read, she is inviting Betraying Gestures to read. Reading, or vocally publishing, or aloud publication, is at the very foundation of Betraying Gestures. I explained Betraying Gestures to L in a confusing way, but she agreed in extending the invitation. We finished recording on Wednesday. I left L’s place satisfied with the result but asking myself if I had to have told her about Betraying Gestures. "What did it change?”, I thought. When I decided I had to tell her, I thought I owed that to Betraying Gestures. With the fee I got from the reading, I bought three small ceramic cats a friend makes and calls Memory Cats because she carefully places a memory inside each one of them; it can be a good or a bad memory. Last Monday, after the reading, I went to my studio. I was hungry, tired, and my sight was hazy, but I decided to only go home, eat and sleep, when I had finished the newsletter. And so I did. People who are close to me and read Betraying Gestures now look at me and raise their eyebrows, wink, or whisper "betraying gestures" to me when something reminds them of betrayal or of something I wrote. On Wednesday, after we finished reading, L mentioned Betraying Gestures. In the confusing explanation I gave her to say that if she invited me, she was inviting Betraying Gestures as well, I said that the only thing I would probably do would be to write about it. And so I do. On a phone call, S asked me if I had seen that Neymar

admitted he had an affair. I didn’t engage in the affair subject—we were also talking about other things. She insisted, she referred to Neymar’s affair for the second time. I asked, “Why are you asking me about Neymar?”. She replied, "Because he betrayed her". I laughed. I have time today, I don’t plan on finishing the letter in the final minutes of the day. My bike's dynamo light broke, and I made an appointment to repair it in the middle of the afternoon, exactly so I have to stay home—the company that repairs it makes house calls. This Monday tastes like a last Monday. I move next Saturday, so it is the last Monday of these Mondays that made me think Mondays were a good day to write a weekly newsletter. Of course, Mondays will continue to exist, and Mondays can still be stay-at-home-working-on-the-newsletter days. However, it is the last Monday in this bed, in this particular setting. I went to a friend’s opening on Thursday. Milky Way Gallery, New York’s gallerist was there. She was with the artist she is showing at the gallery. She told the artist about Betraying Gestures, and that the gallery had appeared in Betraying Gestures #4. I explained the newsletter to the artist, and I said, “You are more than welcome to subscribe to it”. More than welcome... Betraying Gestures wants to publish something with M. Last week, we discussed what it could be. She told me the biggest betrayal she can think of is writing in another language. Betraying Gestures #4 ended in a frustrated tone, as if will holder had failed. As if the message hadn’t reached the recipient. On Tuesday, I got an email asking me if I had a good photo of the will holder piece. It was from someone who knew WH and wanted to forward it to him—“(if that is ok for you)”, the person wrote. I promptly replied with a picture of the piece with my reflection on the glass of the frame. On Tuesday, right before I received the email, I presented the will holder in a critique class. The art critic who was invited to critique the works told me that she liked seeing a work about language about someone who works with language in English from someone who doesn’t have English as their first language. I had spoken about my relationship with English, and my writing affairs with it. I’m working with D on a cassette tape we are releasing with the label Coisas Que Matam. The tape is a recording of us reading texts and talking. We recorded it on Friday afternoon. We read and talked for three hours, we will edit the conversation so it fits on a tape. We talked about language. I like how D is a bit sceptical of some things I say and think. She asked me, “To write is to live, Vinícius?” She asks me, and she asks herself—even though I think she has already decided it is not. I loved her question, and I spoke about Ana Cristina Cesar, attempting an answer. I spoke about Ana Cristina’s practice with translation, her fascination with English, and her writing that transitioned from Portuguese to English as if they were the same. Betraying Gestures thematises these questions while, ironically, seems to believe in a language that communicates. D told me she showed Betraying Gestures’ newsletter to a friend, and the friend told her that she liked how the text was accessible. D told her friend to subscribe to it; the friend said she didn’t want to. When D asked me “To write is to live, Vinícius?”, I remembered a friend who likes cars and roads as I do. We once took a very long road trip together. I think she likes cars and roads more than I do. I remembered a work she did, a photo of her belly button. Someone who only looks at their own belly button, in Portuguese, means someone who is too preoccupied with themselves, their interests, and their thoughts. I had to research if such an expression exists in English. It does. “Navel-gazing” or "contemplating one's navel” comes from ancient Greek and is found in the practice of Yoga, Hinduism, and sometimes in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but is also used as an expression to refer to self-absorbed pursuits. It makes me think of the solipsism I discuss with J. Last week, J sent me a WhatsApp message. It said, “Is solipsism the temporary suffering of the Importance Syndrome?" I don’t recall anyone ever describing anything I did as accessible. I haven’t heard back from WH. Does saying that someone is “more than welcome” sound pushy? This week, Z said that I like all texts; that I like text. He is right. I like text.