An essay is a demonstration of an idea using words, symbols, and references. In this business-essay, we will offer ideas through books and objects.

There is an ethical way to engage with business, and if we don’t openly discuss the methods, we will be forced to unwittingly consume items that harm everyone involved, so this is also the essay-in-vivo where the process of creating and operating this business will be explained.

Materials.

-books published by small presses in North and South America.

-books translated by us from Spanish and indigenous Latin American languages.

-objects created by artisans local to various parts of Mexico.

Language.

A cornerstone of the added value we will produce is translation. We will translate Latin American authors from Spanish and indigenous languages (Nahuatl, Zapotec languages, etc.) into English in order to bring new thought to global publishing. Our translations will be done by a group of people. The text will be read and edited by bilingual writers as a community, ensuring nuanced and meticulously crafted reprises of the original works.

Objects.

We will partner will Latin American artists, artisans, and farmers, showcasing the value of craftsmanship and expertise in communities that are offer quality that far surpasses the work of factories or environmentally toxic enterprise. We’ll document the process and history that goes into the craftsmanship on our Instagram to hopefully inspire more small companies to do the same.

Books.

Each season, we’ll curate a list of 20 books from Mexico and other Latin American Countries with their English translations (for those that have them). We’ll have a collection of contemporary, classic, and lost texts.

Business as Art.

Art is a complicated topic. For now, we need not get into the weeds of Adorno, Hegel, and Kant. Instead, for the sake of this section, we can suffice ourselves with some examples. Art forms change over time, and they depend on technology and historical circumstance (i.e., each of the following examples arose in a specific place and time: oral poems, novels, plays, movies). I propose that another form could be business. The mode of self expression is typically done through branding, because it is the part of business that is concerned most with aesthetics (art and aesthetics are near impossible to untangle), but the rest of the process should not be neglected in service of appearance. The rest of it—the operations, the production, and the dialogue with the viewer—are inherently artistic aspects of enterprise. If the entirety of business is treated as an artistic practice, perhaps we can use it to create a niche community with a positive social mobility.

This is a business, not a brand.

While the term brand is popular in the postmodern lexicon, I propose that there is no such thing, in the same sense that there is no such thing as an illusion, a hallucination, or a phantom.

Most people are still somewhat aware of the word’s original usage. From old German (brinn-an: to burn), to brand means to burn a sign of ownership into the skin of an animal. In the early 2000s, the word brand became more commonly used in marketing phrases like, “brand image,” “brand perception,” and “brand recognition.” The timing coincided closely with the countrywide formation of the LLC (limited liability company; 1996), which lowered the barrier to entry and the risk involved in starting a new business. As a larger population of entrepreneurs arose, demand formed for greater ease in start-up cost. The phrase B2B (business to business) was invented (1999), and the modern model took hold: a few oligarchical companies sit behind a charade of little brands, eliminating any true variation in the market.

When someone says they own a brand, what they mean is they own an image/symbol/sign/icon that actually holds no reality or meaning within itself. Therefore, no, this will not be a brand.

A Place

There’s utility in making someone want to be somewhere. Recently while traveling, I noticed that when I walk around and look for a place to stop, I gravitate toward parks with fountains. I found myself circling around the periphery of a park, trying to find a spot with the right balance of tree leaves, golden sunlight, and flowing water. Once I found the right spot, I watched the fountain shoot up water that would fall down to get shot up again. This made me wonder about the cost (e.g. irrigation, electricity, park employees), which led to the following question, What’s the point? The question posed itself, but it also answered itself: the point is that I’m here.

Time has never been so expensive. I occasionally ask myself what my hourly rate (or my $/minute rate) should be, so when I looked at pretty fountains and park infrastructure, I wondered if the cost for ten minutes of the park’s existence was equal to the cost of my time to be in it.

Perhaps a business is a place, like a park, a book, or a website. One spends their time there, hoping that it’s worth it.

One thing that curation does is save time. It organically decreases the time searching, and it increases the chance of serendipity, of finding/discovering/arriving.

I see Snake Heads as a place, whether physical or ideological, where I want to spend my time, where arrival can occur. In Mexico, stone snake heads delineated space in ancient architecture. Sacred spaces and pyramids from pre-Columbian time were adorned with these giant signifiers.

Whether the space is created by a bookshelf in a store, through an essay on the website, or through a pen in your hand, the goal is to create a model for both producers and consumers to inhabit.

A Demonstration.

Each item or word that comes through our conceptual domain is an example of an ethical option in an increasingly unethical world. Hopefully, Snake Heads can be a model for other businesses to copy. In this model, literature lies at the junction of every decision. It’s a new form of business where branding isn’t used to hide a hollow shell of capital, designed for easy recognition.

We will use a cooperative business structure. In a co-op, the producers are also owners. There are partners instead of employees. This structure has been used by coffee farms in Chiapas, Mexico. It has also been used by a large finance and retail company in Spain, called Mondragon, which has over 70,000 workers. We will apply this methodology to the arts by working with writers and artisans.

Social Utility.

A purchase is an exercise of democratic will. If we don’t create the demand for ethical practices, we won’t receive the supply, and we will find ourselves in a prison of pre-decided options, where the only opportunity for good will be choosing a lesser evil.

As we try to find better ways to move products, create products, and exchange goods/services, we will document moral pitfalls, questions, and solutions once we find them. Snakes constantly die so that they may be reborn. They shed their pasts in order to remain in the present. There is a lasting essence when there is a willingness to die.