laH coyote walk for Hal the Coyote.

Returning the Spirit of Hal to the Wilderness
Monuments (1-6) (7-12) (13-17) (18-23)

List of the gifts given
1 phrase
1 hawaiian lei
3 corks
3 poems
1 LP record
4 tickets or passes
3 pipe cleaner creations
1 snack bar
3 plastic animals (2 wrapped in string)
1 large wooden rabbit
1 japanese toy/candy
1 London Guardian magazine
2 small pinecones

Many of the gifts that were given have a quality of that which was "laying around", contents of emptied pockets- expendables. The form of this piece is the shape of my path on the map, and the ordering/placement of the gift objects onto an animal-like route. It was my hope that the objects would be taken out of a potential destination as waste and into monumental limbo revealing their gift meaning.

The tension between the natural-scientific explanation of Hal's occurrence in the city (it is normal for young coyotes to travel long distances, coyotes are an opportunistic species) and his personification (as willful, wily etc.) in the media/folklore interested me. Nature since Darwin has worked silently and insensibly, but in this case I felt that surely there was some sort of message that needed to be decoded. I wanted to see what a journey from "the city" to "nature" would feel like. I wasn't traveling as a coyote but as a human, in a reciprocal journey.

If you want to see the googlemap showing where all the objects were deposited, click the little ornamental flowers located between each entry. Note - the Safari browser does not seem to handle googlemaps very well. If you have any questions or thoughts on LAH, please email me at implausibot (at) yahoo (dot) com.
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Monument #1 "Coyote was going along..." (words)
location: Hallett Sanctuary- Central Park, NYC

We were honored to have Kay Turner, Folklorist from the Brooklyn Arts Council speak at our Hal event on March 29, the day before my journey. In her presentation she noted that coyote trickster tales of various Native American traditions begin simply with the words "Coyote was going along". She offered these words to me for my journey. I used them to create the first monument to Hal, speaking them at the Hallett Sanctuary. This is where Hal was first officially ID ed as a coyote, other people had reported a "hyena" or "wild dog" in northern areas of the park. I didn't realize that the sanctuary is a fully enclosed area, secluded from human activity. Hal had found a perfect spot to settle down!

As we all know, dogs (canis lupus familiaris) and coyotes (canis latrans) are both members of the family canidae. I figured Balto, a permanent sentinel in Central park could sport a lei for a day in honor of the third anniversary of the untimely death of his cousin, Hal.

As I made my way up through the NYC green spaces that I supposed Hal had come through on his way to Central Park (Morningside, St. Nicholas, Jackie Robinson, Highbridge) I really wondered how he did it. There aren't a whole lot of places to hide. It was supposed in the NYT articles that Hal had come down westside green spaces, but when I spoke with a Westchester parks official about Hal, his guess was that Hal had come down the Bronx River corridor and after looking at the map I could see why he thought this. So I decided to follow that route.

This would be a running theme- the cork on the bridge. It makes for a doubly safe return of the spirit. Hal must have either swam or crossed a bridge on his way in to Manhattan. The corks, I believe, are from the wine that was drunk at the send off at the City Reliquary... like pouring a libation/a 40oz on the ground for those have been lost.

This was the most "natural" monument material. As such, I thought it should be used to compliment a typically urban setting.

For me, this was like the two figures of and Hal and I crossing paths. I ended up thinking a lot about what the differences are between humans and animals on the trip. At many points I felt reduced to more base, animal-like actions, mentality. This would be later on the journey at times when I was in pain, looking for a place to sleep, to eat etc.

This monument touches on the relationship of garbage to the LAH piece. It relates in two ways- first, the coyote, as an opportunistic and behaviorally adaptive species that proliferates in the presence of human civilization (like pigeons) has been known to take advantage of man's waste for food. Secondly, art itself shares many qualities with garbage. In its pure state its functionality is indefinable. It takes up (public) space. There is a reason that trash materials have often been incorporated into sculpture and painting. There is an efficiency of use, maybe a responsible conservation of material. One issue that people may have with LAH is that the journey is ostensibly being made "in the name of" nature, and yet, here I am littering physical material everywhere. To that I have to say: 1. This is not litter, these are unofficially consecrated monuments. 2. Just because you "throw something out" does not mean it disappears. It goes somewhere. I tried to be as responsible as I could with the placement of the monuments to Hal.

A worker at the Bronx Zoo was kind enough to allow me to pass through without paying. I had planned to take a path skirting the edge of the entire Bronx Park (which is huge) and I discovered.. that the path had not been constructed yet. This was made clear to me by a very nice MTA worker. So many people helped me out on the journey. People immediately know the deal when they see a "traveler". They know they can offer a bit of help, and the traveler moves on. Needless to say I also got a lot of funny looks and laughs, wearing the huge backpack and trekker's gear going through the South Bronx.