About Our Collective Craziness, take ii
When I was at Sonoma State, one of our visiting dance teachers told us about an experience from her college days in the late 60's at UCLA. "Once, on a Friday night," she shared, "there were two concerts scheduled on-campus. One was jam-packed as students and late-teeny-boppers swayed to the sugary-pop rhythms of the Beach Boys. The other was sadly absent of a rockin' crowd. Take a guess at who the second performer was," she cajoled us. "None other than Jimi Hendrix himself." What?! Yeah. I told a brother this story the other day and he was left with his jaw agape.
A true "WTF?" moment.
What is collectively up with us that we refuse to recognize raw talent and pure genius when it exists in these moments now? Why does it seem that we need death to wake us the fu$k up? Sometimes, I like to fantasize that both Tupac & Big Poppa faked their violent ends as a brilliant means to sell their records. Kahlo, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Dickinson, Galilei, Thoreau - the list goes on.
Thus it is that I spent last night in the company of artistic genius. The work of internationally renown performance artist, S.K. Thoth, will continue to bee around long after we are all gone. Thoth spent a decade developing his work in NYC's Central Park before he was joined by Lila Angelique. Now, they compromise the pray-forming duo known as "Tribal Baroque." Last night, however, we simply gathered at one of my soul sistar's Poway homes for family time over dinner.
As a graduate student, I first became familiar with Thoth's work as we over-intellectualized about art and forgot about our bodies. Then, in 2011, I was wandering through Balboa Park when I ran into some of my tribe who not only encouraged me to come witness Lila & Thoth pray-forming down a hallway but who also then introduced me to them. On New Year's Eve 2012, they were at Jon's Hamilton Street condo weaving their magic. For the Hive's 1st anniversary party, the dynamic duo also offered a blessing to our buzzing community space. And, now, here they are again. They say they love San Diego - US - because we're FAMILY.
So, we sat together, eating a scrumptious meal made by Mz. Luvlee herself as the children did their thing and we learned more about how this millennium-old, spiritual connection came to be. And I marveled at this LIFE now, as I silently sat grinning, filled up on my sisterhood (with both Cyn & Sorel), surrounded by old friends (S.B. and I date back to our freshman year in high school!), with Adelaide's panther painting prowling over the blazing fireplace (D.K. has the print of it in her Carlsbad studio, which I was just admiring on Tuesday night), and a hail storm outside leaving the streets of San Diego white like a winter dusting. His-story is over. This is our-story, here and now.......
