Liberation Projects, Art Appreciation, and Perceptions of the Past
From my June 2024 reading list
I’ve been reading two books that discuss our perceptions of the past and to what extent the past can be changed. The ideas seem to intersect.
A Stone Is Hurled Backward in Time
Recently I read the introduction to Eder van Pelt’s Queer Crossroads in the Law. It was originally published in Portuguese as Encruzilhadas queer no direito (2022), and I have it in Spanish as Encrucijadas queer en el derecho (2023) — revisión de la traducción por Andrea Catalina León Amaya.
In the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria, Èṣù is the orisha (spirit) of crossroads and infinite movement. Van Pelt examines the Yoruba proverb: “Eshu mató un pájaro ayer con una piedra que solamente tiró hoy.” Èṣù killed a bird yesterday with a stone he threw only today. True to its form, the proverb struck van Pelt unexpectedly on his path one day and only later did he begin to understand its meaning.
I don’t know if the killing of a bird has significance within a Yoruba context. I think of this image more generically as an example of an event; killing a bird would be one way to change the past.
The proverb did not ask van Pelt’s permission to resurface in his memory, but it…
