Sun Rabbit Moon: 兔子跑了月亮在等

During the years 2015 to 2018 Octavio went on several exploration trips to the south-western and the south-eastern tips of Europe, albeit not really reaching the very tips. Like a young Dickensian turning around on his heels in Punta Arenas and never making it to Tierra del Fuego, Octavio fails to convey a consistent plot in his version of a tale of two cities, the city of abundant water and the city of seven hills. The inattentive observer might overlook the south-western story of love and the south-eastern story of liberation, as neither of them is mentioned explicitly. In Octavio’s work death and despair are central themes, but so are survival and pleasure. And this book is no exception. It does not relate stories of gun-wielding Latin Kings or turpentine-sniffing children. Instead it chooses to document their homes, the streets where they live, exist, breathe, do their best to survive. Imagine being able to take photos of Ted Bundy’s bedroom. Imagine Townes Van Zandt had been a Euro trip tour guide, organizing romantic camping trips for the tacit North American bourgeoisie, and imagine the desperately gasping sounds of the campfires’ flames (play along) could have made distinct sounds – as if to impress the tourists – and if then sound could SOMEHOW have been printed, they would have come in a close first just ahead of Octavio’s alternative. Sun Rabbit Moon documents how one (irrelevant) man crossed over the mountain crest of who he is, towards the other side, opposite to the one he once was. If self-destruction is an internationally successful family restaurant chain popular with the global mainstream, and cocaine and cigarettes are the rebellious diet of much of the tributary stream populations, Octavio has always, out of an inborn urge to survive, preferred self-reinvention to self-destruction. Sun Rabbit Moon is no recipe for survival. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been written. It is a document of survival.