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StrangeTango.com is a multilayered art installation in cyberspace…the documentation of a life in three iterations: as a film treatment, a book, a blog.
“What remains as documentation of a life?”
Strange Tango haunts the boundaries of digital streams and visceral storytelling, where pixels and dreams flow together.
Video, reportage, and nonlinear narrative meld in captured moments from the life of A. D. Tejada, artist - traveler - citizen of the world.
Life is a strange tango...
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I like Barack Obama and sense that he is a person of destiny. The present conservative agenda, which first gained a stronghold during the ascent of Reaganomics, is now a thing of the past. It is about time that the shrill and divisive practitioners of media yip-yap will soon be subordinated—along with outmoded management styles and corporate/consumer excesses.
The nature of American society and corporatism tends to mirror the personality and policies of the commander-in-chief. In Reagan we had a man in his dotage; in Bush I a wealthy elitist who was seriously out-of-touch with how common people lived; in Clinton and Bush II, there was slippage into adolescent behavior. But Obama is something else—a consistently virtuous, mature, sober, and responsible adult. The smart way his presidential campaign was run is a sign of what is to come. What the mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” was to the Clinton administration, “good judgment” will be to the Obama administration.
The four C’s—communication, connection, creativity, and collaboration—will rule. Obama brings style and substance, the likes of which the world stage has not seen before. Continue reading Analysis and Synthesis: Current Affairs and Presidential Legacies
The crowds present at Barack Obama’s victory speech last night was the first time I have witnessed the most powerful manifestation of America’s collective subconscious. Bush and his cronies seriously underestimated the damage their policies have done to the population at large, so in psychic terms, yesterday’s election results represented a cleansing—the passing of the old guard and a step into the future.
Obama brought together a powerful coalition of voters that is coming into its own and supplanting the old order: ethnic minorities, youth, independents, and netizens. I didn’t have time in my 2,250 word essay that I wrote in under four hours to do more than touch on the significance of what will be the most important legacy of the Obama era: race. In the coming years, I hope to write more extensively on this premise.
In the year 2000, at the dawn of the new millennium, I was there as part of Census 2000—the nation’s first multicultural and multilingual census. I served on the regional media team on the staff of regional director Arthur Dukakis and as a press advance for the national director of the Census Bureau. For the first time in history, respondents to the census questionnaire were given an opportunity to self-identify their ethnicity. In the past, there were only a few boxes to check off: for example, bi-racial people had to choose between being black or white. In many ways, it was like choosing between one of your parents in a divorce case. In terms of identity politics, the decision was simplistic: if you were dark-skinned, you were black, and if you were light-skinned, you passed for white.
I would argue that Obama’s historic achievement would not have been possible but for the rise of multiculturalism in this country and its celebration among America’s immigrants and its youth. Continue reading Obama, Race, and Identity
I’m declaring for Obama in a landslide.
We knew the election results would either be a blowout or closer than expected. Nothing about the 2008 election season was ever middle ground or middle of the road. The 2008 election is nothing less than a battle for the hearts and minds of the American voter, a referendum on the future.
At 8:45 a.m. this morning, I arrived at Holy Family Catholic Church, in the 62nd district of Oklahoma, to cast my vote for Barack Obama. As I approached the church, the parking lot was filled to near capacity, as though a Sunday church service was already in session. But walking through the doors, the sight astounded me. There were about 200 people in line ahead of me, and it would be another 75 minutes until I was inside the auditorium to vote. I would learn that early risers who arrived to vote at 7:00 a.m. would have an even longer wait, an hour and a half. Early voting took place at the courthouse in our city on the previous Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—the line at the courthouse snaked even longer, with voters waiting an hour and a half to vote. My elderly father showed up at 7:00 a.m. at the Episcopalian church near his home and finished voting in no time flat.
I saw my congressman standing in line, presumably to vote for his own re-election. I was tempted to ask T.W. Shannon—an African-American man, a Republican, and a neighbor—if he would vote the party line or with history. Of the voters I saw, most were middle age or older and white. Fewer than 25% were people of color or college age or younger, and maybe 10 were soldiers in uniform. The time passed more quickly than expected as people engaged in friendly banter and an air of civic-mindedness prevailed. The retiree next to me complained that he hated it when news organizations projected the winner ahead of time; he felt it was a disincentive for people to come out and vote. Most voters arrived singly…there were retirees, farmers, older Asian women, college students, and African-American couples in line. Continue reading My Life in an Obama Administration, Part II
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