I don't remember walking on the edge of the huge planters that held the earth that held the tulips with their dusky green stalks lush and plush focussed toward the sun and flaming bright with flower. I don't remember that my little brother was there too. I don't remember what my mother said about the flowers or how she might have looked as she beheld the glory of those annual delights. What I have is a trigger and a splash of bliss and a thought about mother. Planted long ago and reappearing every year.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
mother's birthday
Today when I see a patch of tulips I am drilled through the skull and into my brain to a place so small I can't read what's written there. The only remnant of this imprint that is available to me is a feeling: my mother's joy. I don't remember the days we went to see the tulips in Michigan. I don't remember the tulips.
I don't remember walking on the edge of the huge planters that held the earth that held the tulips with their dusky green stalks lush and plush focussed toward the sun and flaming bright with flower. I don't remember that my little brother was there too. I don't remember what my mother said about the flowers or how she might have looked as she beheld the glory of those annual delights. What I have is a trigger and a splash of bliss and a thought about mother. Planted long ago and reappearing every year.
I don't remember walking on the edge of the huge planters that held the earth that held the tulips with their dusky green stalks lush and plush focussed toward the sun and flaming bright with flower. I don't remember that my little brother was there too. I don't remember what my mother said about the flowers or how she might have looked as she beheld the glory of those annual delights. What I have is a trigger and a splash of bliss and a thought about mother. Planted long ago and reappearing every year.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
a kind of answer
The following story was written in response to a prompt from Barbara Campbell on her website: 1001 nights cast for her live daily webcast as part of her durational performance telling 1001 stories over the same number of nights. Please visit to see her live performances. My story was #695 out of a future total of 1001 and was submitted and performed live on May 16th, 2007 from New York city. The version below is slightly longer than the one I submitted to Barabara's project as she has a word limit of 1001 words. The story below is 1,165 words.
a kind of answer
Consideration of the box and its contents was not an idle folly. It may in the long run matter quite a great deal. Consideration of what is in the box might actually be the most important event in his life. He didn’t really want to think about it now but now seemed to be when thinking about it was urgently in need of taking place. So while he waited for reinforcements or specialists or at least some advice from someone who knew more about this kind of thing and so that he didn’t lose his edge, he began to think of the things that could be in the box. He needed not to lose his edge. He needed to not lose it. His edge. It wasn’t such a large box. Not that that in itself was a comfort. It didn’t need to be large—but then it could’ve been. Large didn’t really restrict it as far as that goes nor did small. A small package could be just as alarming as a big one, maybe more alarming.
It could be a box of eggs separated by layers of that kind of particle mash molded in half egg-shaped cups like egg cartons for transport from the farm or factory or where ever the eggs were coming from. For that matter, in this heat, if they were eggs it wouldn’t take long for a nasty odor to emanate from such a large number of eggs if they remained undisturbed and if they had broken in their fall from wherever they came from. They could be eggs. Probably not eggs that would hatch even if they were kept warm enough. Probably eggs intended for kitchens. If so they might start to stink soon. How long would it take for them to stink?
a kind of answer
Consideration of the box and its contents was not an idle folly. It may in the long run matter quite a great deal. Consideration of what is in the box might actually be the most important event in his life. He didn’t really want to think about it now but now seemed to be when thinking about it was urgently in need of taking place. So while he waited for reinforcements or specialists or at least some advice from someone who knew more about this kind of thing and so that he didn’t lose his edge, he began to think of the things that could be in the box. He needed not to lose his edge. He needed to not lose it. His edge. It wasn’t such a large box. Not that that in itself was a comfort. It didn’t need to be large—but then it could’ve been. Large didn’t really restrict it as far as that goes nor did small. A small package could be just as alarming as a big one, maybe more alarming.
It could be a box of eggs separated by layers of that kind of particle mash molded in half egg-shaped cups like egg cartons for transport from the farm or factory or where ever the eggs were coming from. For that matter, in this heat, if they were eggs it wouldn’t take long for a nasty odor to emanate from such a large number of eggs if they remained undisturbed and if they had broken in their fall from wherever they came from. They could be eggs. Probably not eggs that would hatch even if they were kept warm enough. Probably eggs intended for kitchens. If so they might start to stink soon. How long would it take for them to stink?
He sat and contemplated the box. It seemed like a good idea to take this very seriously. Such a box could contain a world of hurt. Or nothing. Better not risk it.
It might be a computer. What were the chances? It could be a small one. They get smaller and smaller these days. It could be a laptop of a particular shape and the padding that would be around it, or a carton of cell phones all with their separate packaging and instructions.
He was getting hot sitting here, like this, wondering.
Perhaps a tighter attitude, one of wariness and attention. Tension. Perhaps staying alive depended on tension or on the lack of it. It could go either way.
Slowly his mind wavered over the heat strokes of the sun that shimmered across the road. The place on this side of the box, the space between where he cowered or, no, the place where he waited, and the position of the box was melting in the heat.
It could hold ten bottles of lager. Would ten bottles fill it up or would there be extra room? How big are the bottles? Or shampoo, it could be a shipment of shampoo. Or the kind of whipping cream that comes in cans and you shake it and the cream comes out in foam. It isn’t really like cream it is more like some kind of petroleum product but some people liked it. That stuff might explode. Wouldn’t it need to stay cold? Or it could be mangoes from
What if there were a head in there. A formerly human head now just a rotting hulk of flesh and skull and dead hair. The bodies they found didn’t have their heads and no one has found the heads yet and there could be exactly two heads in there or, well, there might be some extra space, depending on how big the heads are by now. Do heads swell? They could be quite raw by now. Quite rough. Quite hard to look at.
What’s the likelihood that the box is totally empty? Somehow that sounds right. It is empty. And the squad will show up and it will be empty and here will be a round of shoulder slapping and silly grins. Once the tension mounts and then breaks as the discovery is made. Perhaps the forward man will give it a good kick and everyone can see it’s as light as air. Just the cardboard. It is a cardboard box. That’s what it appears to be. Nothing really hazardous or sinister about it on the surface. It’s just. It’s just that. It’s just that no one saw how it got there and, well, it could just be empty but it is hard to tell from here. He told himself again that he is not an expert. He should wait for the expert.
He wanted even more now to just walk over and take a look. And the more he thought about it the more it seemed a distinct possibility. How much longer before the experts would arrive? He could just solve this himself. He could solve this himself right now. He could solve this himself right now by just walking over there and opening the box. Even an explosion would be a kind of answer.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
green filter
I drank milk because, with but one stomach, only through the filter of the cow could I handle so much green grass.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Friday
Paralysis as a concept is accessible to all of us. When it is presented in the body of someone who is physically paralyzed, because of spinal cord injury for example, it is received by those of us with spinal cords intact not only as a physical reality but as a breathing metaphor, idea made visible which, as in art work, is an idea delivered in a way we can experience viscerally. It touches not only our fear that a similar accident could paralyze us too but touches that part of us that is tortured by paralysis of another kind. In this way we can feel [this other paralysis] more acutely as it is brought from the abstract into the material world. Physical conditions such as paralysis or stutter or illness do affect our thoughts no matter how hard we try to keep metaphor away from our bodies.
I was made aware that the woman I saw before me, who had been paralyzed from the waist down at the age of fifteen, had a freedom of spirit so powerful she was able to actively transcend her physical paralysis in a way I am incapable of transcending my own conceptual or psychological paralysis.
of the companionship between body and mind
a single curling serpentine chemical path asserts itself into my brain while I sleep--the big physical monkey part of this organism that is either me or my house needs to awake, or release from this mortal coil, the spirit of me
Each part, body and soul, with its own way of communicating and its different reasons to stay alive in this form jostle for my attention and for influence with the weight of me. The eye using itself to see itself but not without an intermediary. Which part plays the mirror?
I've always sought the straight forward approach, thinking it the true way of the body and spirit but especially of the body which somehow always seemed the simpler and more honest of the two but as I drift in restorative sleep and tend toward coma in my chemistry, a fault brought on by disease, it can be easy to die or become impaired and wake up far away and damaged from the place I had originally laid my head and instead of a straight shot of pure adrenalin to wake me up or a boost of cortisol or whatever it takes (a startling pain would do the trick) that snaky chemical path twists and rattles my dreams telling me riddles that question how I've lived, poking a stick at my consciousness, until I finally awake in complete disorientation shouting uncle. OK, I'm alive. This weight must rise and feed itself some sugar or the end is near.
Interrupting these thoughts he asks for "enough for a cup of coffee" --a generalized amount. I didn't ask what kind of coffee he had in mind--there are so many choices to get through--I simply said no and then he wrinkled his face like a six-year-old boy and said with great anguished emphasis "please". In that moment I felt I knew him. This only increased my desire to deny his request--for obvious reasons.
I was made aware that the woman I saw before me, who had been paralyzed from the waist down at the age of fifteen, had a freedom of spirit so powerful she was able to actively transcend her physical paralysis in a way I am incapable of transcending my own conceptual or psychological paralysis.
of the companionship between body and mind
a single curling serpentine chemical path asserts itself into my brain while I sleep--the big physical monkey part of this organism that is either me or my house needs to awake, or release from this mortal coil, the spirit of me
Each part, body and soul, with its own way of communicating and its different reasons to stay alive in this form jostle for my attention and for influence with the weight of me. The eye using itself to see itself but not without an intermediary. Which part plays the mirror?
I've always sought the straight forward approach, thinking it the true way of the body and spirit but especially of the body which somehow always seemed the simpler and more honest of the two but as I drift in restorative sleep and tend toward coma in my chemistry, a fault brought on by disease, it can be easy to die or become impaired and wake up far away and damaged from the place I had originally laid my head and instead of a straight shot of pure adrenalin to wake me up or a boost of cortisol or whatever it takes (a startling pain would do the trick) that snaky chemical path twists and rattles my dreams telling me riddles that question how I've lived, poking a stick at my consciousness, until I finally awake in complete disorientation shouting uncle. OK, I'm alive. This weight must rise and feed itself some sugar or the end is near.
Interrupting these thoughts he asks for "enough for a cup of coffee" --a generalized amount. I didn't ask what kind of coffee he had in mind--there are so many choices to get through--I simply said no and then he wrinkled his face like a six-year-old boy and said with great anguished emphasis "please". In that moment I felt I knew him. This only increased my desire to deny his request--for obvious reasons.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
A list of smells
It smells like the hallway after the wet dogs have come through.
It smells like the skylight on a hot day.
It smells like she forgot what she was going to say.
It smells like the sparrows twisting their weight around the tiny blooms on the tree.
It smells like time passing.
It smells like the idea I had yesterday that I forgot when the subject of the gate distracted me.
It smells like Mark Booth.
It smells like the day I was thinking about Iceland.
It smells like the mourning dove that perched on my window for a day and now calls from down the street.
It smells like the UPS man with his bent pen.
It smells like rain in Chicago.
It smells like the truck full of metal driving the alleys just before a downpour.
It smells like my neighbor’s baby.
It smells like the sky is white and flat and far away.
It smells like the newspaper clipping I saved for you.
It smells like your birthday.
It smells like you are upset. That smell upsets me.
It smells like a mixture of everything I ever knew.
It smells like a perfume sample.
It smells like the wind coming across the lake.
It smells like five Indonesian megaliths.
It smells like someone died here. Maybe three months ago.
It smells like someone is mowing the grass down the block.
It smells like the college students are moving out for the summer.
It smells like narcissism times ten.
It smells like a mirror reflecting the sun.
It smells like the flowering trees in Chuck’s front yard in May.
It smells like the corner where you waited.
It smells like cold pizza the next morning.
It smells like the tightness in my hand.
It smells like the inside of my nose.
It smells like the phone ringing just as you place your hand on the door knob to leave.
It smells like the men that stand around outside talking about cars.
It smells like the men that stand around outside.
It smells like 8 and a quarter times 5 and a half.
It smells like the place where the workers stand outside to smoke.
It smells like the planter where they smudge out their stumps.
It smells like the sparrows never take a break.
It smells like the cactus outgrowing its pot.
It smells like I cleaned this house yesterday and then had friends over.
It smells like it but I didn’t.
It smells like I made dinner and then ate it.
It smells like when the phone rang you didn’t answer it.
It smells like the velvet from an old curtain.
It smells like you listening to music.
It smells like you sleeping in a dark room.
It smells like you know me.
It smells like you have that taste in your mouth.
It smells like you want me.
It smells like I better go before it’s too late.
It smells like the planes flying over head.
It smells like the hand towel they give you just before they serve a meal.
It smells like my brother.
It smells like my brother is never around.
It smells like the library of water.
It smells frozen.
It smells like old card board.
It smells like new carpet.
It smells like a carpet that was supposed to be washed after five years but wasn’t and now it is almost seven.
It smells like a trip to the hardware store to buy fuses.
It smells like my favorite TV program.
It smells like I had all day to tell you something.
It smells like mist creeping in imperceptibly.
It smells like when you look out the window and you are in the middle of a cloud and then you burst out on the other side and you are looking down at the tops of the clouds.
It smells like this is not my car.
It smells like I didn’t know what to say.
It smells like I am waiting for inspiration.
It smells like I should create a space for dialogue.
It smells like the day today.
It smells like seashells from my honeymoon.
It smells like all we have is the near future and the recent past.
It smells like there is no space.
It smells like there’s a moment coming, it’s not here yet, it’s still in the future, here it is . . . ah . . . it’s gone man. There is no present.
It smells like George Carlin.
It smells like 1975.
It smells like it has a name. If it has a name I will remember it.
It smells like the first part of the show.
It smells like I can’t remember the last part of the dance.
It smells like the name of the dance.
It smells like the dance when I know it by heart.
It smells like I am the book of my part.
It smells like the skylight on a hot day.
It smells like she forgot what she was going to say.
It smells like the sparrows twisting their weight around the tiny blooms on the tree.
It smells like time passing.
It smells like the idea I had yesterday that I forgot when the subject of the gate distracted me.
It smells like Mark Booth.
It smells like the day I was thinking about Iceland.
It smells like the mourning dove that perched on my window for a day and now calls from down the street.
It smells like the UPS man with his bent pen.
It smells like rain in Chicago.
It smells like the truck full of metal driving the alleys just before a downpour.
It smells like my neighbor’s baby.
It smells like the sky is white and flat and far away.
It smells like the newspaper clipping I saved for you.
It smells like your birthday.
It smells like you are upset. That smell upsets me.
It smells like a mixture of everything I ever knew.
It smells like a perfume sample.
It smells like the wind coming across the lake.
It smells like five Indonesian megaliths.
It smells like someone died here. Maybe three months ago.
It smells like someone is mowing the grass down the block.
It smells like the college students are moving out for the summer.
It smells like narcissism times ten.
It smells like a mirror reflecting the sun.
It smells like the flowering trees in Chuck’s front yard in May.
It smells like the corner where you waited.
It smells like cold pizza the next morning.
It smells like the tightness in my hand.
It smells like the inside of my nose.
It smells like the phone ringing just as you place your hand on the door knob to leave.
It smells like the men that stand around outside talking about cars.
It smells like the men that stand around outside.
It smells like 8 and a quarter times 5 and a half.
It smells like the place where the workers stand outside to smoke.
It smells like the planter where they smudge out their stumps.
It smells like the sparrows never take a break.
It smells like the cactus outgrowing its pot.
It smells like I cleaned this house yesterday and then had friends over.
It smells like it but I didn’t.
It smells like I made dinner and then ate it.
It smells like when the phone rang you didn’t answer it.
It smells like the velvet from an old curtain.
It smells like you listening to music.
It smells like you sleeping in a dark room.
It smells like you know me.
It smells like you have that taste in your mouth.
It smells like you want me.
It smells like I better go before it’s too late.
It smells like the planes flying over head.
It smells like the hand towel they give you just before they serve a meal.
It smells like my brother.
It smells like my brother is never around.
It smells like the library of water.
It smells frozen.
It smells like old card board.
It smells like new carpet.
It smells like a carpet that was supposed to be washed after five years but wasn’t and now it is almost seven.
It smells like a trip to the hardware store to buy fuses.
It smells like my favorite TV program.
It smells like I had all day to tell you something.
It smells like mist creeping in imperceptibly.
It smells like when you look out the window and you are in the middle of a cloud and then you burst out on the other side and you are looking down at the tops of the clouds.
It smells like this is not my car.
It smells like I didn’t know what to say.
It smells like I am waiting for inspiration.
It smells like I should create a space for dialogue.
It smells like the day today.
It smells like seashells from my honeymoon.
It smells like all we have is the near future and the recent past.
It smells like there is no space.
It smells like there’s a moment coming, it’s not here yet, it’s still in the future, here it is . . . ah . . . it’s gone man. There is no present.
It smells like George Carlin.
It smells like 1975.
It smells like it has a name. If it has a name I will remember it.
It smells like the first part of the show.
It smells like I can’t remember the last part of the dance.
It smells like the name of the dance.
It smells like the dance when I know it by heart.
It smells like I am the book of my part.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Saturday, May 5, 2007
performance response
I saw a performance recently. A dance performance. It was an improvisation on specific themes, themes that had been researched over a year-long process of preparation for a series of improvisational performances. I was asked to lead one of the post-show discussions. A friend of mine had seen the show the weekend before and wrote an exhaustive report on the experience. This was intended to assist me in my position as discussion leader on the following weekend. What follows is my attempt to return the favor as she was curious how the show had changed.
As I sat watching the performance it occurred to me that I wanted to do a creative response to it. I thought I should get what audience was left at the end of the post-show discussion out of their seats and onto the stage and have them perform for 10 seconds a movement they liked or remembered or to perform for 10 seconds a movement in response to her performance. I thought it would be nice to reflect back what we saw and for Molly to see the audience perform. I knew it would need exactly the right conditions though and so I didn’t go through with it. I felt the conditions weren’t right. The discussion went long and we were being asked to wrap up quickly.
Molly came out before the show and made a kind of introduction. In her introduction, which I think was a bit different than her introduction on the first weekend (source: Molly herself), she said something like:
This focussed our awareness of the situation. Not only did she come out with her towel and her water but then she started speaking directly to us and then she indicated explicitly our situation in relation to each other. Her specfic words fore fronted our situation whereas we might have taken it for granted.
Later, between sections of her show, she cleaned up a spot of sweat on the floor saying: I’m going to clean up a spot where there’s a lot of sweat. Our closeness, her use of breath and the changing of expression like cloud shadows across her face all contributed to the feeling that she was creating an experience for all of us to have together. This has a different effect than another kind of plan, a plan to tell us something we don’t know, for example, or a plan to dazzle us, or to transport. There was no transportation. And I felt the performance was delivered with humility (this may, in part, be because she felt her first weekend didn’t go so well—or maybe it was explicitly her intention). I mentioned something about this in the post-show discussion referring to the beginning in which she had begun speaking to us very softly. She said her entrance had been different the weekend before, when she had entered with a much grander attitude. This simplicity and humility was something that she aimed for the night I saw the show and I felt glad that I mentioned it and the effect I thought it had on how we saw her show. It caused us to read in a very close and personal way.
At a certain point she was making a move that seemed to link the tip of her toe with the tip of her fingers I thought: She’s a puppet of herself.
She came to some slow sections in which her slowness seemed to indicate she was approaching something or that there was something impending. It felt like a liminal place, a threshold from which she could take off in an unexpected direction. It was creating a possibility of change.
During the discussion one woman said to Molly:
I didn’t have that same feeling but I knew the point she was talking about. What strikes me here is that someone was feeling so connected to the performance that these kinds of notions were spontaneously constructed in the mind.
I thought about a number of things. I thought maybe it’s interesting to look very specifically at what an improvisation is for the audience. One aspect of this experience is connected to the quality of not-yet-happened that live performance has over film. In improvisation it is even more so since the terrain has not been set over and over again in repetitions meant to learn the material by heart. But also it made me think and feel: isn’t everyone a writer, isn’t everyone an actor, isn’t everyone a dancer, isn’t everyone a waitress, isn’t everyone the sheriff, isn’t everyone the garbage collector?
It guess I’m saying I experienced a leveling of the playing field. And instead of the fancy virtuoso performing for the humbled masses we were a group of people who agreed to sit and watch and listen and experience (give our attention to) what one of us created in the room in front of us. And I think performance like this is what I strive for and what I enjoy when I see it. Often in cases where this kind of dynamic is in place, the experience is enjoyable even if the performance is not so good. It is similar to when you see family or friends perform. It is enjoyable and the quality of the performance is a separate issue. We need more and more of what binds people together and makes them feel like friends and family. [During World War II American Secretary of War Harry Stimson, who had been to Kyoto a couple of times and couldn’t bear thought of destroying it and the people and culture there he personally admired, argued to take it off the list of bombing targets. He hadn’t been to Nagasaki. We never really want to bomb our friends.] In every little experience in our immediate environment there is an analog in the big world. If we can do our small work well and set the kind of example we want to see in the larger world, we are doing something toward a better global community.
Um, I think that’s what I had to say about it.
As I sat watching the performance it occurred to me that I wanted to do a creative response to it. I thought I should get what audience was left at the end of the post-show discussion out of their seats and onto the stage and have them perform for 10 seconds a movement they liked or remembered or to perform for 10 seconds a movement in response to her performance. I thought it would be nice to reflect back what we saw and for Molly to see the audience perform. I knew it would need exactly the right conditions though and so I didn’t go through with it. I felt the conditions weren’t right. The discussion went long and we were being asked to wrap up quickly.
Molly came out before the show and made a kind of introduction. In her introduction, which I think was a bit different than her introduction on the first weekend (source: Molly herself), she said something like:
We are very close here and I can see all of you and you can see me sweating up here. It might make you feel self-conscious if you want to look at your program or shift in your seat. Don’t worry I will not interpret your actions.
This focussed our awareness of the situation. Not only did she come out with her towel and her water but then she started speaking directly to us and then she indicated explicitly our situation in relation to each other. Her specfic words fore fronted our situation whereas we might have taken it for granted.
Later, between sections of her show, she cleaned up a spot of sweat on the floor saying: I’m going to clean up a spot where there’s a lot of sweat. Our closeness, her use of breath and the changing of expression like cloud shadows across her face all contributed to the feeling that she was creating an experience for all of us to have together. This has a different effect than another kind of plan, a plan to tell us something we don’t know, for example, or a plan to dazzle us, or to transport. There was no transportation. And I felt the performance was delivered with humility (this may, in part, be because she felt her first weekend didn’t go so well—or maybe it was explicitly her intention). I mentioned something about this in the post-show discussion referring to the beginning in which she had begun speaking to us very softly. She said her entrance had been different the weekend before, when she had entered with a much grander attitude. This simplicity and humility was something that she aimed for the night I saw the show and I felt glad that I mentioned it and the effect I thought it had on how we saw her show. It caused us to read in a very close and personal way.
At a certain point she was making a move that seemed to link the tip of her toe with the tip of her fingers I thought: She’s a puppet of herself.
She came to some slow sections in which her slowness seemed to indicate she was approaching something or that there was something impending. It felt like a liminal place, a threshold from which she could take off in an unexpected direction. It was creating a possibility of change.
During the discussion one woman said to Molly:
There was a point when you leaned against the wall when everything came together. The wall was not supporting you, you were supporting the wall.
I didn’t have that same feeling but I knew the point she was talking about. What strikes me here is that someone was feeling so connected to the performance that these kinds of notions were spontaneously constructed in the mind.
I thought about a number of things. I thought maybe it’s interesting to look very specifically at what an improvisation is for the audience. One aspect of this experience is connected to the quality of not-yet-happened that live performance has over film. In improvisation it is even more so since the terrain has not been set over and over again in repetitions meant to learn the material by heart. But also it made me think and feel: isn’t everyone a writer, isn’t everyone an actor, isn’t everyone a dancer, isn’t everyone a waitress, isn’t everyone the sheriff, isn’t everyone the garbage collector?
It guess I’m saying I experienced a leveling of the playing field. And instead of the fancy virtuoso performing for the humbled masses we were a group of people who agreed to sit and watch and listen and experience (give our attention to) what one of us created in the room in front of us. And I think performance like this is what I strive for and what I enjoy when I see it. Often in cases where this kind of dynamic is in place, the experience is enjoyable even if the performance is not so good. It is similar to when you see family or friends perform. It is enjoyable and the quality of the performance is a separate issue. We need more and more of what binds people together and makes them feel like friends and family. [During World War II American Secretary of War Harry Stimson, who had been to Kyoto a couple of times and couldn’t bear thought of destroying it and the people and culture there he personally admired, argued to take it off the list of bombing targets. He hadn’t been to Nagasaki. We never really want to bomb our friends.] In every little experience in our immediate environment there is an analog in the big world. If we can do our small work well and set the kind of example we want to see in the larger world, we are doing something toward a better global community.
Um, I think that’s what I had to say about it.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
some of the words on last
Last words: Strategies v. Tactics
[from panel on Strategies vs. Tactics through the lens of lastness as it pertains to the last days of the perfomance company Goat Island]
I hear the word strategy and I hear the word tactic and I think.
I think: money and strength and soldiers and marketing and games of war, I think war. I think: politics. Think: life or death. Think: survival. Think.
If not this, then what.
Think: I have a plan and it will result in my happiness.
And then think what we are doing here.
Absence. Avoid absence. My absence and those I need around me. My things. Think what is missing. What have I lost? How can I go on? What has taken my happiness? Why do I feel so alone?
Here in this country we are not, in the theater, on solid ground. In performance even less so. Performance is by its nature ephemeral. It dies the moment it is born and must be born again each time. It does not continue except as it resonates within the people who take it in.
We have no power over death.
This is the end. Everything we have is going to change. All of our instincts and those of our ancestors were to focus on survival. Survival in the primitive sense means finding a sustainable way of life and then protecting it. Change is not desirable. Change requires new plans, new dangers to learn, new obstacles to sustaining life. Get a plan and keep it going. That is our animal goal. But we are more complicated than that and we can change and change brings fresh ideas and new horizons.
How do we change? How do we resist the force of nature, the objective to save our habits, to bend to a plan that is safe?
Change comes to us in two ways: change that we choose and change that we cannot avoid.
Ultimately it is “nothing” that we are afraid of and that “nothing” represents loss and it represents death but we have to move toward difficulty we have to go beyond our fear of death and transform it using the power it has over us.
In response to the decision to end I think I said good, that explains the past few months. I think I said good, that solves my unsolvable problems. I will simply allow them to remain unsolved, that’s how I will solve them. Then I said: It must be my fault. This radical change is coming about because I am intolerable. I have grown a stench about me so strong that the people I work with can no longer continue in my presence. They will break up now and then reconfigure without me. This is easy enough to think about. Then I thought depth charge. There is no way I can survive in this new world. Then I thought I need something to wipe away my tears. I can’t breath. I am lost. The whole of my life is over with this change.
Just as the haiku composer avoids direct revelation of its subject, Goat Island has a silence at the heart of our work which the audience fills with its own material. And just as an afterimage flashes on the white space of a clean piece of paper so do the events of our performances project into the pauses embedded there for their development and imprint.
I remember the empty moments of my youth as if that is where the nurturing of my life took place. What thoughts came together in the moment from which I have an image of a sky ringed by tall grasses with only the sound of the wind as it whispered through them or the moment on the sparkling beach in which I looked up from the sand and my whole world seemed to have healed in the circle grown so small around me that day? A day in which nothing happened.
Simone Weil, the French philosopher, wrote: “To love truth means to accept the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death.”
In the United States right now there is a kind of irrationality born of fear. People are acting out of it. Fear of death grips us and makes us do things we wouldn’t otherwise do, make choices we wouldn’t otherwise make. In our piece When will the September roses bloom? Last night was only a comedy Goat Island performs silence. Silence reminds us of our ephemerality, of our end, or of the day things stop for us or for everyone. As an audience, silence allows us time to think: about ourselves, our seat, the people opposite, or the fleeting thoughts and associations we are having in relation to the performance we are watching. Some people experience a kind of falling into the void of silence, others find a space opening up and filling with thoughts. For some it is terrifying to be left with our own devices, our own thoughts. Waiting for something to happen brings on existential crisis.
When, in performance, we stop and signify the void we are signifying death and contemplating it and our own imperfections. And we are becoming used to this. If, over time, we become comfortable with it, it becomes less something that provokes fear and more something that provokes contemplation.
each wave, momentary
the roll, the kick
narrow winding
bridge arching
sand outstretched
each wave, momentary
the waves, continuous
It happened again, green
soft, bright, new first time
this air was breathed
the morning caught in its clear fine round
drops of water lined up on the blade of grass.
[from panel on Strategies vs. Tactics through the lens of lastness as it pertains to the last days of the perfomance company Goat Island]
I hear the word strategy and I hear the word tactic and I think.
I think: money and strength and soldiers and marketing and games of war, I think war. I think: politics. Think: life or death. Think: survival. Think.
If not this, then what.
Think: I have a plan and it will result in my happiness.
And then think what we are doing here.
Absence. Avoid absence. My absence and those I need around me. My things. Think what is missing. What have I lost? How can I go on? What has taken my happiness? Why do I feel so alone?
Here in this country we are not, in the theater, on solid ground. In performance even less so. Performance is by its nature ephemeral. It dies the moment it is born and must be born again each time. It does not continue except as it resonates within the people who take it in.
We have no power over death.
This is the end. Everything we have is going to change. All of our instincts and those of our ancestors were to focus on survival. Survival in the primitive sense means finding a sustainable way of life and then protecting it. Change is not desirable. Change requires new plans, new dangers to learn, new obstacles to sustaining life. Get a plan and keep it going. That is our animal goal. But we are more complicated than that and we can change and change brings fresh ideas and new horizons.
How do we change? How do we resist the force of nature, the objective to save our habits, to bend to a plan that is safe?
Change comes to us in two ways: change that we choose and change that we cannot avoid.
Ultimately it is “nothing” that we are afraid of and that “nothing” represents loss and it represents death but we have to move toward difficulty we have to go beyond our fear of death and transform it using the power it has over us.
In response to the decision to end I think I said good, that explains the past few months. I think I said good, that solves my unsolvable problems. I will simply allow them to remain unsolved, that’s how I will solve them. Then I said: It must be my fault. This radical change is coming about because I am intolerable. I have grown a stench about me so strong that the people I work with can no longer continue in my presence. They will break up now and then reconfigure without me. This is easy enough to think about. Then I thought depth charge. There is no way I can survive in this new world. Then I thought I need something to wipe away my tears. I can’t breath. I am lost. The whole of my life is over with this change.
Just as the haiku composer avoids direct revelation of its subject, Goat Island has a silence at the heart of our work which the audience fills with its own material. And just as an afterimage flashes on the white space of a clean piece of paper so do the events of our performances project into the pauses embedded there for their development and imprint.
I remember the empty moments of my youth as if that is where the nurturing of my life took place. What thoughts came together in the moment from which I have an image of a sky ringed by tall grasses with only the sound of the wind as it whispered through them or the moment on the sparkling beach in which I looked up from the sand and my whole world seemed to have healed in the circle grown so small around me that day? A day in which nothing happened.
Simone Weil, the French philosopher, wrote: “To love truth means to accept the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death.”
In the United States right now there is a kind of irrationality born of fear. People are acting out of it. Fear of death grips us and makes us do things we wouldn’t otherwise do, make choices we wouldn’t otherwise make. In our piece When will the September roses bloom? Last night was only a comedy Goat Island performs silence. Silence reminds us of our ephemerality, of our end, or of the day things stop for us or for everyone. As an audience, silence allows us time to think: about ourselves, our seat, the people opposite, or the fleeting thoughts and associations we are having in relation to the performance we are watching. Some people experience a kind of falling into the void of silence, others find a space opening up and filling with thoughts. For some it is terrifying to be left with our own devices, our own thoughts. Waiting for something to happen brings on existential crisis.
When, in performance, we stop and signify the void we are signifying death and contemplating it and our own imperfections. And we are becoming used to this. If, over time, we become comfortable with it, it becomes less something that provokes fear and more something that provokes contemplation.
each wave, momentary
the roll, the kick
narrow winding
bridge arching
sand outstretched
each wave, momentary
the waves, continuous
It happened again, green
soft, bright, new first time
this air was breathed
the morning caught in its clear fine round
drops of water lined up on the blade of grass.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
from Mondays in January 2002
Monday January 7th, 2002
Of the flowers that bloomed in my living room:
The first four flowers out of the bulb were spectacular. Red lush shimmering fuzzy iridescence.
Born for the holidays and growing so large they nearly toppled the whole plant.
The second crop are smaller more modest, looking into the bell at the deep blood red it is less sparkling but deeper, more pure, more true, suddenly a rush of loyalty, suddenly a sense of the stalwart second comer, the slow learner, the one more cautious, less appreciated. But deeper and more still and marking me for life.
After the death of the first and the quieting down of my house, the second one pours a long drink into my soul and finds the bottom. The second one fills me with a sense of everlasting continuity and in the half light of a gray afternoon, the second one needs only this small amount of light to display its color. The economy of it shivers my bones.
I was there when the priest asked: Have you something specific to confess, or would you like a general absolution? He kissed a bit of cloth. He said: Go in peace.
I confess I don’t know the name of my boss.
Monday January 14th, 2002
In the early days of my diagnosis, I could pick myself up with chopsticks. I meant nothing. It was hard to pinch enough flesh to get the needle in, the insulin formed mosquito bites when the needle landed vertically within layers of skin rather than beneath the skin where there should have been fat.
Enroute to Providence I am in the air, fear, sweat, heartbeat, turbulence, dropping, like drops in blood sugar. Fear of flying is about the laws of air, gravity, space, metal fatigue; over worked, overzealous, over time and the American way. And too much insulin.
The policeman drove the long way from one town to another with his suspect in the murder of a child in the backseat. It wasn’t supposed to be an opportunity for confession, by law it was no interview, but they drove through snow-covered countryside and the policeman talked about burial. They call it the Christian burial speech, you can read about it in the manual of interrogation techniques. The suspect, in the absence of his lawyer, told the policeman where to find the body.
I didn’t know what my boss meant, I knew the words, I heard them, I was confused about meaning. I read about confessions and how they are compelled.
Monday January 21st, 2002
Still sitting where you left me, I can’t move an inch. There’s a body of work, there’s a book here and some water and if it’s alright I’ll be here until you get back.
If I tried to get up nothing would happen anyway and the dread of trying and failing is more than the dread of stillness, of stasis, of calm, empty, naked, nothing.
The pile on my desk grows, there are several empty notebooks. Dust has settled undisturbed.
The radiator starts with a slow release and then the banging at the back of the building. Because someone got up and did something there is now a building here and a heating system and stairs and lights and outside there are roads and the whole city system.
In the last hours the spirit breaks the human being will say whatever it takes to make it stop. The interrogation creates the confession.
Have you heard about the woman in the northern suburbs who was hit in the face by a chunk of flying wood when a tree that was hit by lightning last night exploded? It broke her jaw and knocked out three of her teeth.
I thought I saw lightning last night but I stayed away from the window.
Monday January 28th, 2002
Each day something small, a little more.
I don’t know if it can be called progress. It moves forward, in time.
Yesterday, with a small child we tested over and over the laws of physics.
The night before we sat and tested how long we could talk about it before we got up to do it.
We found we could replace the doing completely with the talking.
All through the day we worked our shoulders against the birds.
They’ve huddled so often on the sill that we can never break the habit.
It’ll be wings and cooing and piles of shit forever.
And we inside this building flapping our arms.
Coming home last night, it was first gear all the way.
I confess that:
1) [T]he purpose for the interrogation is not to find out whether the suspect committed the crime but, rather, to determine what caused the suspect to commit it;
2) [I] express high confidence in the suspect’s guilt;
3) [I] attempt to prevent the suspect from verbalizing denials by maintaining a monologue urging the suspect to listen;
4) [I] falsely tell the suspect about evidence implicating him in the commission of the crime;
5) [I] move physically close to the suspect to maintain his attention and interest.
List is from C. Brian Jayne and Joseph P. Buckley, “Criminal Interrogation Techniques on Trial,” The Prosecutor (fall 1991); 23-32.
Of the flowers that bloomed in my living room:
The first four flowers out of the bulb were spectacular. Red lush shimmering fuzzy iridescence.
Born for the holidays and growing so large they nearly toppled the whole plant.
The second crop are smaller more modest, looking into the bell at the deep blood red it is less sparkling but deeper, more pure, more true, suddenly a rush of loyalty, suddenly a sense of the stalwart second comer, the slow learner, the one more cautious, less appreciated. But deeper and more still and marking me for life.
After the death of the first and the quieting down of my house, the second one pours a long drink into my soul and finds the bottom. The second one fills me with a sense of everlasting continuity and in the half light of a gray afternoon, the second one needs only this small amount of light to display its color. The economy of it shivers my bones.
I was there when the priest asked: Have you something specific to confess, or would you like a general absolution? He kissed a bit of cloth. He said: Go in peace.
I confess I don’t know the name of my boss.
Monday January 14th, 2002
In the early days of my diagnosis, I could pick myself up with chopsticks. I meant nothing. It was hard to pinch enough flesh to get the needle in, the insulin formed mosquito bites when the needle landed vertically within layers of skin rather than beneath the skin where there should have been fat.
Enroute to Providence I am in the air, fear, sweat, heartbeat, turbulence, dropping, like drops in blood sugar. Fear of flying is about the laws of air, gravity, space, metal fatigue; over worked, overzealous, over time and the American way. And too much insulin.
The policeman drove the long way from one town to another with his suspect in the murder of a child in the backseat. It wasn’t supposed to be an opportunity for confession, by law it was no interview, but they drove through snow-covered countryside and the policeman talked about burial. They call it the Christian burial speech, you can read about it in the manual of interrogation techniques. The suspect, in the absence of his lawyer, told the policeman where to find the body.
I didn’t know what my boss meant, I knew the words, I heard them, I was confused about meaning. I read about confessions and how they are compelled.
Monday January 21st, 2002
Still sitting where you left me, I can’t move an inch. There’s a body of work, there’s a book here and some water and if it’s alright I’ll be here until you get back.
If I tried to get up nothing would happen anyway and the dread of trying and failing is more than the dread of stillness, of stasis, of calm, empty, naked, nothing.
The pile on my desk grows, there are several empty notebooks. Dust has settled undisturbed.
The radiator starts with a slow release and then the banging at the back of the building. Because someone got up and did something there is now a building here and a heating system and stairs and lights and outside there are roads and the whole city system.
In the last hours the spirit breaks the human being will say whatever it takes to make it stop. The interrogation creates the confession.
Have you heard about the woman in the northern suburbs who was hit in the face by a chunk of flying wood when a tree that was hit by lightning last night exploded? It broke her jaw and knocked out three of her teeth.
I thought I saw lightning last night but I stayed away from the window.
Monday January 28th, 2002
Each day something small, a little more.
I don’t know if it can be called progress. It moves forward, in time.
Yesterday, with a small child we tested over and over the laws of physics.
The night before we sat and tested how long we could talk about it before we got up to do it.
We found we could replace the doing completely with the talking.
All through the day we worked our shoulders against the birds.
They’ve huddled so often on the sill that we can never break the habit.
It’ll be wings and cooing and piles of shit forever.
And we inside this building flapping our arms.
Coming home last night, it was first gear all the way.
I confess that:
1) [T]he purpose for the interrogation is not to find out whether the suspect committed the crime but, rather, to determine what caused the suspect to commit it;
2) [I] express high confidence in the suspect’s guilt;
3) [I] attempt to prevent the suspect from verbalizing denials by maintaining a monologue urging the suspect to listen;
4) [I] falsely tell the suspect about evidence implicating him in the commission of the crime;
5) [I] move physically close to the suspect to maintain his attention and interest.
List is from C. Brian Jayne and Joseph P. Buckley, “Criminal Interrogation Techniques on Trial,” The Prosecutor (fall 1991); 23-32.
this flag that doesn't wave
Nothing here but a flag to connect to the machine at large. More soon. Almost nothing here just this flag. Technorati Profile
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