The Aspirational Shoes of George "Toe" Wilson

On our first day of work during a recent shoot in Liberia I took one look at our driver's feet and reached for my camera. Like most of the world, many of West Africa's fashion cues come from American rappers, but in matters of footwear the region, and indeed most of this vast continent, has blazed its very own sartorial style. As if taking literally Freud's preoccupation with shoes as a representation of male sexuality, men from Cairo to Cape Town apparently see power and potency as attributes directly proportional to the length and pointedness of their footwear. First popularized in legislative halls and government offices, the absurdly long and almost spatula-like shoe now denotes dressing well and looking smart for any young urban go-getter in Africa.

Looking down at George's feet, I wondered where his toes ended along that great length of shoe. Like many from the Liberian elite, he was descended from repatriated freed slaves, which accounted for the Americanness of his name, George Wilson. His nickname, "Toe," was entirely coincidental, unrelated to his splendiferous collection of over-projecting shoes. On that first day, he thanked me for "snapping" them with my camera, but by the end of our shoot, after making a photograph of his feet had become part of my morning ritual, he must have thought me some sort of pervert, more crazy even than your average "obruni."

Years ago, in Rwanda, in the company of antarcticiana's Zimbabwean correspondent, I was at one ministry or another attempting to secure press credentials. The process involved a series of short and repetitive interviews with one spatula-footed functionary after another. At that time the shoes felt to us like an oppressive inevitability, a manifestation of the obfuscation of officialdom. We imagined perhaps that if we could only just meet a single bureaucrat sufficiently enlightened enough not to wear these obscenely platypussian shoes, then the necessary document would be quickly and painlessly provided. My friend noted that the phenomenon of "the men with the pointy shoes," was well known in Zimbabwe. These are the shoes of the power-tripper.

I would like to see an African sitcom, produced by Africans, in which the local taste for grandiose footwear is parodied, starring a bureaucrat with shoes so large he can scarcely get in and out the door of his office, a man literally falling over his own feet, tripped up by the trappings of power.

with apologies to George Wilson, a lovely guy, and a great driver

Security is tight at the Port of Monrovia

...and so is the safety gear

Photo: courtesy David Smoler

Top Secret Mission

On Superbowl Sunday a man sidled up to me and said: "Headed for Liberia, huh? How would you feel about taking over, you know, a small package for me?" We had only met that evening, at a party during the first half. It was now deep into the second, and over halftime both of us had changed venues, independently moving from one Red Hook bowl party to the next. It was hard not to think that he was following me around, trying to enlist me in some nefarious scheme. Between us was a sea of guacamole, and mountainous bags of chips, all destined to be neglected, for we were only minutes from the end of the fourth quarter. Some people nearby who had overheard this exchange looked at us strangely. "A package?"

                Exhibit A

"You know what I'm talking about," he said. "Take some along with you. I like to think of them as my children, going out into the world and spreading far and wide." Curiouser and curiouser. Then I understood. The man was the artist, Beriah Wall; I've written about him, but I had never laid eyes on him before. He's the guy responsible for manufacturing and distributing small coinlike clay lozenges that can turn up anywhere: in a flowerpot, on the stoop, atop a fencepost, on the welcome mat. A mass distribution of free art, a decades-long project. Wall had been handing them out at the party, shaking hands with fellow guests and pressing a clay coin into their palm. "This is for you."

                            B

I said that I would be pleased, no, more than that, proud, to carry a collection of Beriah Walls across the Atlantic; this is just the sort of pointless activity that makes life meaningful. Then I went back to grazing on the corn chips and thought nothing more about it.

                             C

Two days later, in a frenzy of packing and tidying, I went out the front door and down the stoop to take out a bag of trash. There, in the corner of the diminutive top landing, was half a sandwich baggie brimming with contraband disks. They had arrived at just the perfect time to go into my luggage. At Kennedy Airport, for the first time in living memory, nobody asked me if I had accepted any parcels from unknown persons. It seemed a good omen for the mission.

                               D

In Monrovia, the Liberian customs agent eyed us warily, for we had 19 pieces of luggage, mostly tactical duffle bags and vast black plastic impact-resistant suitcases filled with documentary film gear. I kept my secret bundle to myself and hoped we would not be too closely scrutinized. How to explain several dozen coin-shaped circles of fired clay, bearing messages like "Us / They," "Frog / Boil" "Sober / Somber"? I was pretty sure they weren't illegal, but looking at this particular import from the perspective of an African bureaucrat I was also confident they were inexplicable. However, they don't call the local enlisted production personnel on film shoots "fixers" for nothing, and in no time we were waltzing through the nothing-to-declare zone with our four mountainous luggage carts.

                    E

As I made my way into Liberia, a memory came to me, of a long ago New Year's eve. In 1985 I was in Paris, and after a much too long and much too festive champagne-soaked evening, some friends and I decided that the proper way to begin the year would be to drive drunk to Versailles and witness the dawn departure of the sober maniacs of the Paris-Dakar auto rally, the hell-for-leather trans-Saharan car and truck race. At the time, I was caught up in the romance and urban chic of graffiti, and as we wandered amongst the impressive monster trucks, their every surface plastered with corporate automotive advertizing, I surreptitiously added my own logo to more than one, drunkenly and gleefully imagining my signature bouncing over the rocky terrain all the way to Senegal. Beriah Wall's clay coins share something of the graffitist's ethos. They are the artist's mark on the world. They disperse on unpredictable and unchartable journeys, they make a web, an enveloping network of declarations of their creator's existence. I took a few in my pocket each morning as we headed out to film, placing them here and there in our daily travels. I hope whoever found them got as much amusement, bemusement and abstract, fleeting pleasure as I experienced, when I first came across one in the bed of my truck in Brooklyn.

 

 

                F1

 

 

                          F2

 

                             G

Partial list of collaborations:

A The illicit baggy on the nightstand in my Monrovia hotel room.

B A Beriah Wall on a retaining wall, at the International Rescue Committee HQ, Monrovia.

C "Us / They" on a garden shed with gang and Manchester Football Club graffiti, somewhere in the hood.

D  At the African Methodist Episcopal University.

E  At a palm oil wholesale dealership at Redlight market.

F1 At city hall, interior.

F2 At city hall, exterior.

G Left as a tip upon departure, in my hotel room safe.

Fishing and Faith

It takes a lot of faith to venture out into the Atlantic Ocean day after day to cast one's nets from a dugout canoe, propelled only by hand-carved wooden paddles. Protection is needed. The resting fishing boats pulled up on the beach in Monrovia are a testament to that faith and to that need; there is scarcely a single vessel without a biblical citation or a praise to the Lord emblazoned on the side. But like tap-taps, the ornately painted microbuses that serve as the entirety of Haiti's public transit system, the decoration of the Monrovia fleet juxtaposes a variety of elements from the spiritual, athletic and political worlds. Painting the insignia of the Manchester United Football Club on the side of a wheelbarrow, or of a canoe, is about making an association with the very best. The painter provides, literally, a brush with greatness. Your paintjob affiliates you with supremacy, whether represented by the divine, or a star attacking midfielder. You show respect, you ask for protection, you brand yourself, you are endorsed.

 The hand-carved fleet, at rest

 "Fresh and Ready / Only God #2"

 "In Jesus Name / Chelsea Football Club / Acts 5:10 (Miraculous signs and wonders wrought among the people)"

 Chelsea FC, detail

All praises be to the United Nations

 "Manchester United / Only God #1"

 "Heavenly Father"

Fixing the nets

Working up a thirst

Today's offerings at "Taylor Entertainment Spot," a hole-in-the-wall corner tavern / bodega in Congo Town, Monrovia

The proprietor wandered out of his closet-sized shop to learn why I was taking a picture of his wall, so I struck up a conversation. I know what "Man Power" is, as I had the misfortune to drink some of it in Ghana a few years back. What's "God Father?" I asked.

"It's this," he said, reaching into a plastic bin of empties. A petite bottle of this fine whiskey goes for 80 Liberian dollars. That's about $1.10.

 

The Happy Cell Phone Times

Exuberant mobile telephone aficionados, in the Monrovia, Liberia airport.

Photo: David Smoler

Guilty as Charged

Interesting things are happening in Guatemala. Despite the election of Otto Perez Molina, installed as president just a couple of weeks ago, the Guatemalan judiciary proved its bravery and independence two days ago by indicting former General and one-time de facto president Ephraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide. Ríos Montt was Otto Perez Molina's boss in the grim dark 1980s, when something like 200,000 Mayan Indian highland peasants were massacred by the dictadura. Perez Molina's election, on a campaign to restore security in a country that suffers from Juarez-like rates of murder and impunity, was generally seen as a setback to the cause of justice for the victims of the genocide. He is a genocide-denier and a former military man.

But on the same day that Perez Molina was sworn into office, Ríos Montt, leader of the junta in the bloodiest days of 1982 and 1983, ended his twelve-year term as a congressman, and with it ended his legislative immunity from prosecution. With pre-emptive bluster, he promptly announced that he was prepared to present himself before the courts, should they require his testimony. The courts, and specifically a heroic judge, Carol Patricia Flores Blanco, took him up on his offer. Flores Blanco decided two days ago that there is sufficient evidence to merit a trial, and Ríos Montt is now under house arrest. Impunity and corruption reign in Guatemala, and we may be some distance from seeing Ríos Montt rotting in prison, but that he went directly from a seat in Congress to home-bound defendant is, in the context of the country, extraordinarily significant. The Mayan majority, ostracized, marginalized and disenfranchised since the arrival of the Spanish conquest, may finally get some justice.

For background on the genocide and on Ríos Montt I highly recommend you seek out and see Pamela Yates' latest film, Granito, which among other things presents evidence of his guilt, in footage she shot in Guatemala thirty years ago. I'm very proud that I got the chance to work on this film. I'll be even happier if Ríos Montt goes to jail in any part because of it.

Today's Semiotic Malfunction: Please Enjoy Passively

 

In Fort Greene Park, where on one recent evening I passively walked past this sign and the monument it protects.

Happy Lower Manhattan Firecracker Day!

Time to Make the Cookies! UPDATED

Although I was showered with gifts yesterday on my birthday, the best present I received came last weekend when I fulfilled a Christmas promise to my niece, a budding baking aficionado, and invited her out to Brooklyn to make cookies and bake bread. This was just about the most fun I can remember having in months. First we traipsed around Fairway hand-in-hand, collecting ingredients. Then dough was kneaded, peanut butter, butter and assorted shades of brown sugar were creamed together. Bits of batter plopped onto the floor, swelling loaves were spritzed with a waterjet to generate steam. We formed blobs of insanely delicious mixture into golf-balls and tined them with forks. The kitchen filled with delicious smells. We tasted the results. So much better than any amusement park!

Photo: courtesy Ashley Singer

01/31/2012 UPDATE:

 Just found, the cutest shopping list in the history of shopping.

Blackout, UPDATED

I'm too internet clutzy to figure out whether there is a way to black out antarcticiana in solidarity with today's webwide SOPA and PIPA protests, so these screenshots of major websites, all shut down for the day, will have to do. SOPA and PIPA are two pernicious pieces of legislation making their way through Washington. They would make much of what makes the internet great, illegal, such as the ability to link to any bit of information, anywhere, at any time. Masquerading as enforcers of copyright protection, SOPIPA essentially makes websites responsible for the copyright, piracy and trademark infringements of any other website that they link to.

In the non-virtual world the equivalent of this would be if the police were to arrest me for giving a tourist directions to Canal Street because I might have known that the reason they wanted to go there was to purchase counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags.

This legislation would have two immediate results. The radical impoverishment of the richness of the web, and a mammoth migration of the United States information technology sector, one of our last thriving industries, to parts offshore. These laws were written by over-priced movie-business lawyers and Washington legislators whose web experience is having an assistant who checks their email for them. They have to be stopped.

 

UPDATE: Amy Goodman's story in the Guardian does a great job of laying out the issues and explaining why this is really censorship legislation masquerading as an anti-piracy initiative.

Metropolitan Etiquette Authority

Situated somewhere comfortably between street art and public service are the amazing signs of the Metropolitan Etiquette Authority. Presenting like a hybrid between an alternate-side parking warning and one of those friendly "mind-the-gap" style helpful hints you find in most subway cars, these pleas for sanity and common decency are ones you wish some city agency was actually producing and plastering all over the city. In fact, they are already fetish objects, "free" limited edition artworks that I suspect are frequently stolen just about as fast as the artist cleverly bolts them to existing signposts. So far, I have resisted the very powerful temptation to stalk one and bring it home for myself, if only because the messages on them so desperately need to get out there in front of the public.

This one is my favorite, so far. Photo spotted, and stolen from, Eileen Costa's facebook page.

Making too much of Gumbo

Although it was not an event officially sanctioned by the Association for the Promulgation of Gumbo, dinner at my house last night owed a lot to the founding spirit of that organization. Call it the fraternity of consumption. Never having invited twenty people to dine at once before, I was typically concerned that there wouldn't be enough food. While at this point I pretty much grasp what dinner for eight should look like when laid out on the chopping board, were two and half pounds of okra, two chickens, and my last few sticks of Laplace, Louisiana andouille going to be enough for the gathering hordes? The affirmative RSVP rate was running at about 96%.

Not to worry. Despite my protestations that I had everything under control, "although a bottle of wine would be welcome, if you feel like bringing one," everyone bought food, and dessert, and wine, and I probably could have fed forty.

 

Just one little corner of the groaning board. Wild rice with a trio of mushroom species bundled up in lotus leaf, by Ordoubadi. With friends who bring platters like this to your gumbo social, you can almost get away with not even bothering to cook at all, and just blaming the lack of gumbo on a last minute scorched roux accident. But I'm ahead of myself. "First," as it says at the beginning of hundreds of Louisiana recipes, "you make a roux."

Roux, along with okra, is one of the defining, character-bestowing ingredients in gumbo. White flour, slow-fried in bubbling oil, must be whisked constantly to avoid it carbonizing and infecting your gumbo with the acrid taste of arson. Donald Link, of the brilliant Cochon Restaurant, in New Orleans, whose gumbo recipe I was following, writes that "the process of making roux can be hypnotic.... Watching the oil and flour mixture slowly change color and begin to take on its unique aroma gives you plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts."

Indeed, with the narcotic swirling of the whisk, I began almost to hallucinate. The surface of  bubbling roux has the quality of primeval swamp, as if, ultimately, life may emerge from it, the product of some wondrous accident of science and heat. The world and my thoughts, reflected in this toasting caramel lake, put me in mind of that film school classic, Jean-Luc Godard's cosmos as experienced in the swirling bubbles on the surface of a cup of coffee. It's from "2 ou 3 Choses que je Sais d'elle," and while sort of fun, it is almost staggering in its pretentiousness:

It is now time to admit the artistic debt the Association for the Promulgation of Gumbo owes to Godard in its own cinematic debut from early 2011, even if our version is perhaps too minimalist to reach the same heights of pretension:

Almost ready: one wants the roux, says Link, to be the color of a dark copper penny.

Lots of stock.

Perhaps the defining moment in the preparation of gumbo is the addition of the so-called Holy Trinity, along with abundant cajun seasonings, to the lava-like roux. This mixture of equal parts finely chopped onions, celery, and peppers is an obvious manifestation of Louisiana's French culinary heritage, for the Holy Trinity is essentially a mirepoix, with the peppers substituting for carrots. Once this flavor-base is added to the stock, the only remaining question is what sort of gumbo the dish will become. Will it be foot of pork or pile of crawdad? Back of crab or eye of newt? Just about anything can go in there, because no matter what you do next, now it's unquestionably a gumbo.

 

This one was andouille and chicken, cooked until the chicken was shedding off the bones into string. Last to go in is the okra, a symbol of fertility and virility thanks to many attributes, from its proud, firm shape to its womb-like interior cavity, bursting with seed and slime. Okra likely originates from Africa and was brought to the new world for or by slaves to grow and eat, and Cubans call the vegetable quimbombo, a word almost identical to various West African Bantu names for okra. Gombo, ngombo, gumbo, okra is synonymous with the dish.

The (mostly) Manhattan contingent, the Brooklyn locals having (mostly) wandered home in a gumbo-induced stupor by this point. This and the first photo courtesy of WoWe.

That is the bottom of the kettle you see there. Malheuresement le gumbo est terminé.