Monuments and its Discontents: What are you wearing this Halloween?

Lessons in embalming

I know every path leading to stone pavements, high arcs and monuments are nothing but the bitter-
sweet sounding melody of a forgotten past. Empty and silent. The effort to put something as a mark
to remember, is a motion to accept the eventual passing of the memory of a thing. To put a
monument to remember, resolves quite the contrary. It covers the fact that something is forgotten
that's why there has to be something to remind you that it had existed. Moreover, in materializing
memory, is to accept its death. Yes, death. As Nietzsche would say, that churches are nothing but
God's mausoleum. Therefore, God is dead. So, Marinetti and the futurists would say, that museums,
galleries and libraries are nothing but tombs for the lost and defunct ancient art. Debord would later
comment, that art is dead. Or was it Tristan Tzara, I cant remember. No artist can be responsible for
the death of art. If anybody could kill it, an artists effort to kill it would give more life to it. Hence, I
think it was Andre Breton whose art killed art Everything is dead nowadays. No wonder, we have
successfully assigned a product for every disease and symptom of our loneliness. It is funny how
malls and shopping centers resemble a gigantic casket. How air conditioners preserve everything
inside them like your fried chicken and your lovers interest. How sales lady, in department stores
speak like corpses who died of lung cancer or how calmly, flight stewardesses explain how you will
die if the pilot of the plane you are boarding succumbed to the devils of sleep. The grander it gets,
the darker its secret. Yes, beauty is for the lonely. And the loneliest occasions of mourning for the
dead creates most memories and beauty.

I was walking around Intramuros just the other day, and what I saw really hit me hard. It was not the
beauty of the ruins or the amazing sad tale of each brick, but the effort of memorializing past defeats.
I cannot follow what people believe about history. Or albeit this obsession on history that is purely
based on its materiality. I had the same nauseating feeling when I went to the Soviet war memorial in
Berlin. I didnt asked the stupid monuments of fallen soldiers looking down at me but I asked myself,
why spare an effort to bury something that belongs to the future? Why embalm the defaced memory
of a revolution? It is clear, like the expressions of each of the comrades faces. This is about death,
this is about defeat. The role of this memorial is not to enlighten a dead flame but to put a cross at
the heart of the last standing soldier, to wave the stick with the head of its commander. This is the
most solemn fuck you the victors have given the martyrs of this cause.

To be Free is to forget

The truth is, the more reminder that you have, the less you are free. There are values and lessons in
memory. But history is not a thing of the past. History is to be made through logic coupled with
reason. Memorizing is a passive activity. Memorializing on the other hand is a negating activity.
Comprehension, understanding if it leads to misinterpretation is an aberration. It could lead to
another death but at least (hopefully) a different one. Nothing better. But assimilation or to imbibe
and to transcend is the worst disease of having to acquire or to commit something into memory. But
that is the only way. To speak of your own language as you see fit. Even bad grammar of resistance,
even if it fails is better than to do the same thing and achieve the same results. The present and the
practice of creating revolutionary moments are always experimental. You dont have to seek for the
adventure for it will come your way. Willingly and w/o delay. History repeats itself, first as tragedy,
(but if you are good at writing better scripts or manifesto) it will either be a worse tragedy or Marx as
he would have put it, a farce. But far better than anything history has to offer in the Pandora box of
the game of chance offered by its playful brutality lies not a promise but a warning.

The most radical gesture is to free ones self from the burden of the past. The past is not given to be
followed but to be transcended. Create your poetry from the future.

P.S.

Happy all souls day everyone. Enjoy your mourning.