I

The English words tourist / tourism derives from the word tour, which comes from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare - "to turn on a lathe", which is itself from Ancient Greek tornos (τόρνος) - "lathe".

“A lathe is is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about that axis.” [1]

II

Picture sand pouring in an hourglass, but tilt its axis - into the edge of a triangle.

Inside the hourglass one hungry mouth slowly and steadily connects two bellies. As it forms the side of the larger shape, it props open the mouth that forms its hunger from a point on which all power and meaning will converge.

Long limbs scoop into the earth to wring out that which has been provided: to rise and return. Breeze bakes in the sun, concretizes another offering; the slabs of another invitation to gather.

First: steady is the rhythm. Limb to limb - some must still, so others can dig deeper, so less can amass more, so this less/more can pass back and forth, back and forth. 

Recapitulation is important:  it is the illusion of encirclement on which we all depend. This is the sorcery of the tour. In this rehearsal of reciprocity one beat is missed and the mask slips: reveals that that which was given (taken) can never be restored.

III

Now the hourglass is on a vertical axis. Imagine it holding time and its rhythms, not between two bellies, but through two eyes.

Here another encirclement, this time a manifestation:  a fort and a surround. [2]

Here we will move with those gathered by the drum. The ones who rub night all over their body and take to the streets. Here we will feel it; beat and pulse.

This curtain of ink will unsteady the frame.

Eyes close to wipe the black gloss on lids,  it is only through this hooding that everything can be seen. In the rhythm that the body remembers, past present and future quiver into a braid; three strands undulating yet distinct. Each one incomplete on its own, each one entangled with another’s completion.

The hourglass tilts and the braid unravels.

IV

The glossy ink of remembrance is not for everyone.

On the horizon, a ship rolls in. Here comes the hungry panopticon for whom the sand has been pouring. The leviathan that has single orbs stitched down its side. From its innards spill hundreds of locusts, waiting to gather the crumbs of encounter - ones that can be isolated, blown up, turned over and over. [3]

Look how eyes widen to unbraid the plait. Look how they hold tight the section of the present, (like children being shown the secrets of a magic trick.[4]). What magic makes the present a gift, not the history of bloody theft?

(Search for these incantations; Jugaad  in India zizhu chuangxin in China, gambiarra in Brazil - feel  how they make places small, to make others big.) [5]

See now how the children desire the passing of the past. Listen to the sound of past (un)freedoms - watch how it stays on the surface of  the upper body. Eye to eye, heads straight ahead. won’t you help to sing [6]

Listen / watch for another movement. The one that sways to include what is hidden on the edges of the stage. Watch the way the song is sung here, when the margin is centre. Watch how it travels from the very connection to the ground, up through the lower parts, into the chakra of the throat.

See how the eyes are firmly shut. The hand on the heart.

Listen over there, in another steady frame, the way the strings of the kora are plucked - glittering, flowing, crystal clear. Kora means journey but not the guarantee of arrival. A vibrational rebraiding - rushing, clear, brilliant,  it moves the frame into a spinal fluidity. A rippling that  returns us to the deep water .(Cause none of them can stop the time). [7]

See/hear how this sound cascades through looking. See how another paint of remembrance is mixed with the sea, applied on the breeze that has baked in the sun. This is all done by looking. [8]

[1] in Chapter 7 of US Army Training Circulation published in 1996 (Chemical Engineering Department, Carnegie Mellon University website)

[2] Moten, Fred, and Stefano Harney. 2013. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study.

[3] Kincaid, Jamaica. 2018. A Small Place

[4] Kincaid, Jamaica. 2018. A Small Place

[5] Kincaid, Jamaica. 2018. A Small Place

[6] Bob Marley - Redemption Song, sung at 105 minutes

[7] Bob Marley - Redemption Song, sung at 105 minutes

[8] Spoken at 127 minutes