Robert Hayes Kee
This
is an edited transcription of the speech I delivered to the initial
gathering of the Chroma Future Party in Atlanta, Georgia this past
month. The CFP is a new esthetic union dedicated to providing the
city with a sorely-needed absurdist futurism for its political
praxis. This was the first of what I hope to be many such gatherings
to serve the coalescence of the revolutionary ideas of this nascent
movement, so needed to counter the long-standing conservatism of the
capital of the south.
Robert
Hayes Kee
October
31st
Atlanta
Now
is a time of transformation for our city. Atlanta is fulfilling its
role as the capital of the south like never before. We have long
acted as its economic capital, but now we are prepared to be its
cultural and political capital as well. Its citizens should be
thrilled at this development, as our city becomes a genuine urban
center. This is an ambitious future, not just a pivot, not a move in
two dimensions. We must look into the 3rd
dimension for the proper place of our city’s future.
For
too long, Atlanta has been spread out. There is a ring of suburbs
around this city that stretches in every direction for 50 miles,
built up over as many years. We have paved a forest and put a lot of
Foresters in its place. We have traded our legacy as ‘The City
in the Forest’ for a crisscrossing matrix of multilane highways
connecting an interchangeable series of Quick Trips, Krogers,
Wal-Marts, Old Navys, and Auto Zones. This city has been trapped by
its denizens’ dedication to the car and its need for flat,
paved roads. Many of us here in this room moved here from this
suburban ring and know its mundanity all too well.
We
are now finally seeing a return to the city and are starting to build
genuine urbanity. We are loosing many of our oldest buildings and
communities to this constant craning upwards. We can look around,
only blocks from here, and see great change to the city’s
skyline. Many decry this disruption of Atlanta’s status quo. I
am not one of them. Do not mourn the past.
While
we are focused on the future, we cannot afford to be ahistoric. The
key to our future is in the city’s past. What is Atlanta known
for? Our oldest export, Coca-Cola, is air trapped in sugar water. We
all know that flat coke is worse than a flat tire. Without air, coke
is only useful to clean corroded battery terminals. It is worse even
than Pepsi, preference for which is the surest sign of outsiderdom to
those of us inside the perimeter.
Like
a tire, Atlanta has rolled along on the ground for far too long. In
the preceeding decades, we built an airport, now the busiest in the
world. From there, one thousand flights a day come and go, moving
five-hundred thousand people per day to every corner of the globe.
This mass of people in the air outnumber us on the ground, even with
our newly-swelling numbers. We must find a way to follow their lead
and join them.
“But
how?!” You might say. What do you mean by this? I do not mince
my words—We must levitate Atlanta!
We must
lift this city, the entire city, into the air. We must find a way to
float it, an inversion of our homophonic cousin Atlantis. The whole
city, as many miles in the sky as Atlantis is under the sea.
You
may recall the counterculture protestors of the sixties, who tried
this levitation with the Pentagon. “What do we have that they
didn’t?”, you ask. The answer to this is very simple:
Atlanta’s real estate bubble.
We
must inflate the prices of everything and levitate! Spend not with
mind to your needs, but to your purchase’s speculative value.
Take out five mortgages on your house, and another five on your
neighbors. We can only swell the elevation of this city as we swell
its coffers, or those of its most distinguished citizens (who could
be you if you play your house of cards right).
How
much could that empty coffee cup be worth if it were to have locked
lips with Jennifer Aniston? She’s here somewhere; you can
realize this value. What about a Bic pen once held by Jennifer
Lawrence? She was just a few miles from here. How about a linear
algebra book once cradled by Justin Timberlake? Or a stick once
thrashed against the firm backside of Paul Rudd?
Atlanta’s
newfound status as the hub of filming has thus far only benefited
these film’s investors. These surfeit generated by these tax
breaks have not trickled down to us normal citizens, nor will it if
we do not take collective action. The master’s tools will never
dismantle the masters’s house. Even if that house was built for
only four weeks’ use as a set in Dumb and Dumberer. We must
take advantage of the miraculating presence of these celebrities in
Atlanta for the benefit of its citizens. We must not deny this
miracualting power, but believe in it more fully than the most
deluded writer of US Weekly. We will not maximize our profits with
only the fuel of cynicism. We require a powerful, enervating lift.
If
we do not lift the restraints of our disbelief, we will never lift
this city to its rightful place, in the air!!!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
In the
air!
