Friends of Perfection

This past weekend, I had the privilege and honor of two times witnessing the play known as "Friends of Perfection" be performed, once in San Francisco at The Lab , and once in Berkeley at BAMPFA .

The story and the performance itself, as well as the play's creation, were all asking the questions of "what happens when we hold each other through times of transition, collapse, and uncertainty?" "how can we witness each other and co-create with one another when we still don't yet have it figured out for ourselves?" "how do we steward space such that those who come after can breathe?"

Each act was written in a dyad that formed and ended, giving rise to another. Each group of writers was only given the previous act as a reference point to write theirs. An exquisite corpse is an interesting microcosmic experiment for our understandings of how space is constructed: When you step into a new space, you see traces of what came before, and those who were there most immediately preceding your arrival—the evidence they left of their presence is what you can feel. Even if their stay was transient, it's their residual energy, their breaths, dust from their skin, that you feel.

If you look closer, you can see traces of those who came before them, and if you're lucky, you might trace a lineage, but the archive, the place itself, is inevitably an incomplete record of all the life that's happened within it. A communal living space becomes a speakeasy, becomes a dive bar, and amidst all the disorientation, the urge arises to form a polycule and carry on.

But in this hell of a whirlwind, there was humor, grit, fantastic character beats, and heart, that made the show worth watching twice, unless you are one of the few children that had to be excused from the audience by their parent or guardian when the language became too explicit.

Together, we can dream of worlds where leakage, spillage, and overgrowth are seen as markers of abundance not intrusion, where the right to relocate, find community, and transform surrounding ecologies towards sustainable thriving—where that divine right is protected, not punished.

"Let us not understand, and it's okay. Let us have what we need, and it's okay." -Monte Marin as T4T-3000

Sometimes, it's okay to break things. To try, and then fail, publicly. Sometimes, the vehicle is in motion before consensus can be reached. We can keep moving forward as we listen for feedback. We can adjust our course accordingly. Pick a direction, stay responsive, keep it moving, exclamation point. <3