On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 10:58 AM, JF wrote:
Live Action New York 09: Scandinavian Performance Art
Scandinavian performance art is on the move. Live Action New York 09
features in its first edition some of the most important contemporary
Scandinavian performance art in an intense and exciting event going
beyond mainstream contemporary art, Live Action New York 09 is here
and now, it's ephemeral, it has attitude, it's fleeting, and it is
avant-garde. Don’t miss out.
On Thu, 11/12/09, GE wrote:
Can one actually buy performance art? And if so, what does one do with the performer, when they become tiresome?
On Nov 12, 2009, at 11:06, VH wrote:
I believe there's a no-kill shelter for them out in Williamsburg, but really one should only adopt a PAT (performance artist trendster) if they can take care of them for life.
2009/11/12 JM wrote:
We adopted a mime from them a few years ago. It was terrible. She fractured her skull walking into an imaginary door, and we had to have her put to sleep.
On Nov 12, 2009, at 2:10 PM, JF wrote:
That was not an accident. It was suicide, induced by the fact that you kept throwing imaginary banana peels on the floor in front of her every time you saw her.
I still have the imaginary Shetland wool sweater she knit for me.
On Thu, 11/12/09, IM wrote:
You guys, I am right here. Okay? It was pretend...it was just art. Okay? OKAY? I am alive and well and living in Brooklyn.
I am happy to have escaped a cold fate in off-Drottninggatan theater, though. The unions made everything impossible.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:42 PM, VH wrote:
Evidence indeed that a performance artist is for life, not just for Christmas.
On Nov 12, 2009, at 2:56 PM, Gregory Edwards wrote:
You guys are missing the whole thing. Thing of it is, performance artists can make real good pit fighters. Back in Chicago, got a few second-hand from a breeder on the west side, ran my own kennel for while. Lots of fringe theater in Chicago, but you got to have the eye for the feisty ones. And if you take to breeding yourself, you gotta cull the soft ones. What you want is a real nasty, screechy, open-mike type—lots of piercings and such—but try as you might, some times you end up with a mime... or worse, a grad student. Then it's head in the bag, dunk 'em in pool. Nothing else to be done. But if you get a real bad-assed street artist, pissed-off protest type—well, all you gotta do is force-feed them red meat, and read them an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal time to time. Don't hardly need to beat them. When they hit the ring, it's holy hell out there.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A LETTER TO RAYMOND CARVER
Dear Mr. Carver:
I know that you were frail. I know your alcoholism was not too many beers at the bar. I know that it wasn't just embarrassing at dinner parties. I know that sobriety makes a drunk feel vulnerable, weak, as though the booze were an extra layer of skin. I have seen the newly sober try to make their way from a door to another door without their cozy armor. I have seen, in other words, men suffering from self-doubt.
Still, still. To see how you let someone come in and control you, someone like GORDON LISH of all people, a buffoon, an ass-kisser, a self-promoter. Was he your maker? Or just your teacher?
What is important is the work. I haven't been able to get the work out of my pen, though I only recently realized that it was there. Getting turned-on by your work is an old habit of mine, one that can never be cured, even by controversies about authorship.
And I've been there, Ray. I have had people tell me--after so long, after waiting and waiting for someone to pick up the ringing line, as I sat with the phone cradled, slipping off my ear from sweat, I waited and waited for an answer, and when it finally came, how could I question the quality of the voice? I know what it is to hear someone you don't know, someone who seems to be in possession of some power, say without reservations, "I believe in you."
Well, not without reservations. "I believe in you, but..."
It's okay, Ray. And anyway, you freed yourself from Lish's apron strings eventually. Maybe if you'd studied, like I do, if you'd been subjected to the opinions of so many critics, you would have gotten there anyway.
But even if you hadn't, I forgive you, Mr. Carver. Your work has meant so much to me. Thank you for writing it. I will thank Mr. Lish, should I ever have the opportunity, for editing it. I would not be the same writer without it.
All the best,
Ilana Manaster
I know that you were frail. I know your alcoholism was not too many beers at the bar. I know that it wasn't just embarrassing at dinner parties. I know that sobriety makes a drunk feel vulnerable, weak, as though the booze were an extra layer of skin. I have seen the newly sober try to make their way from a door to another door without their cozy armor. I have seen, in other words, men suffering from self-doubt.
Still, still. To see how you let someone come in and control you, someone like GORDON LISH of all people, a buffoon, an ass-kisser, a self-promoter. Was he your maker? Or just your teacher?
What is important is the work. I haven't been able to get the work out of my pen, though I only recently realized that it was there. Getting turned-on by your work is an old habit of mine, one that can never be cured, even by controversies about authorship.
And I've been there, Ray. I have had people tell me--after so long, after waiting and waiting for someone to pick up the ringing line, as I sat with the phone cradled, slipping off my ear from sweat, I waited and waited for an answer, and when it finally came, how could I question the quality of the voice? I know what it is to hear someone you don't know, someone who seems to be in possession of some power, say without reservations, "I believe in you."
Well, not without reservations. "I believe in you, but..."
It's okay, Ray. And anyway, you freed yourself from Lish's apron strings eventually. Maybe if you'd studied, like I do, if you'd been subjected to the opinions of so many critics, you would have gotten there anyway.
But even if you hadn't, I forgive you, Mr. Carver. Your work has meant so much to me. Thank you for writing it. I will thank Mr. Lish, should I ever have the opportunity, for editing it. I would not be the same writer without it.
All the best,
Ilana Manaster
Friday, October 16, 2009
SOMEBODY SPIKED THE PBR WITH TRUTHINESS
I was at a bar near my school last night. The place was lousy with writing students, pleasantly pickled from the free wine we'd guzzled by the styrofoam cupful at the school-sponsored reading we'd just attended, chatting amongst ourselves between sips from our $3 PBR tallboys. And maybe the combination of cheap red wine and corny beer overstimulates the tendency for alcoholic honesty. Or maybe there was something about the night, cold in a way that is impossible to dress for, cold-wet, weathery. Whatever the cause, I found myself engaged in one intense personal conversation after another with people with whom I'd had only the most superficial exchanges in the past. Relationship questions, questions of the heart, of beauty, of happiness. Sexuality and anxiety. These were the topics of conversation. Sip. Sip. Can I have two more PBRs please? Anyway, so your girlfriend is a sex worker. Sip. Sip. So you escaped the wilds of gay San Francisco. Hm. You're afraid you may never find love again.
Strangely, and those who know me will agree that it is strange, I was doing very little of the sharing. I just tippled happily, enjoying the warmth. Someone mistook me for a transvestite. I comforted him. He just misunderstood something I said, I didn't want him to feel embarrassed. We were all feeling fine.
"You're very intense," one man said to me while he was waiting in line for the bathroom. "You look people in the eye."
Soon it was time to go. I'd surpassed my cutoff time of midnight, after which the trains get wonky, lengthening the journey home by an hour or more. I said goodnight to my newly exposed friends and descended the subway stairs.
I am reading an excellent book. I have so much assigned reading, but I am reading this book anyway, because I like it too much to stop. It's called The Washington Square Ensemble and it is by Madison Smartt Bell and during the very long journey home I immersed myself in it. The chapter I was reading was about the Attica riots of 1971--good, nasty, violent stuff.
At 14th street I got out to change trains. I heard my name called--it must have been 2AM. Sitting across from me, undoubtedly for the better part of an hour, though I didn't notice him, was a student from my school. I have a workshop with him, and what I will say about him is that he has achieved a fair amount of success as a Hollywood actor. I don't really know him very well, and my attempts to engage him in conversation have not gone well up until then.
Well, it seems that the PBR truthiness did not affect only my classmates, because next thing I know I am launching into a conversation (would you call it a conversation if the other person is only smiling and nodding?) about fame and personal relationships and god knows what else. I ask him if he has a hard time with it. I tell him I work for an actor--as if that would explain why I could so easily talk to him like a regular person, which I was clearly incapable of doing. How do you like the workshop? That would have been another way to go. What are you working on? No. Sigh. I am an idiot among fools.
We said goodbye and I walked to my transfer. I hit myself on the head with my phone in embarrassment. I wished there was somebody I could call, but it was so late, and anyway, I was underground.
Strangely, and those who know me will agree that it is strange, I was doing very little of the sharing. I just tippled happily, enjoying the warmth. Someone mistook me for a transvestite. I comforted him. He just misunderstood something I said, I didn't want him to feel embarrassed. We were all feeling fine.
"You're very intense," one man said to me while he was waiting in line for the bathroom. "You look people in the eye."
Soon it was time to go. I'd surpassed my cutoff time of midnight, after which the trains get wonky, lengthening the journey home by an hour or more. I said goodnight to my newly exposed friends and descended the subway stairs.
I am reading an excellent book. I have so much assigned reading, but I am reading this book anyway, because I like it too much to stop. It's called The Washington Square Ensemble and it is by Madison Smartt Bell and during the very long journey home I immersed myself in it. The chapter I was reading was about the Attica riots of 1971--good, nasty, violent stuff.
At 14th street I got out to change trains. I heard my name called--it must have been 2AM. Sitting across from me, undoubtedly for the better part of an hour, though I didn't notice him, was a student from my school. I have a workshop with him, and what I will say about him is that he has achieved a fair amount of success as a Hollywood actor. I don't really know him very well, and my attempts to engage him in conversation have not gone well up until then.
Well, it seems that the PBR truthiness did not affect only my classmates, because next thing I know I am launching into a conversation (would you call it a conversation if the other person is only smiling and nodding?) about fame and personal relationships and god knows what else. I ask him if he has a hard time with it. I tell him I work for an actor--as if that would explain why I could so easily talk to him like a regular person, which I was clearly incapable of doing. How do you like the workshop? That would have been another way to go. What are you working on? No. Sigh. I am an idiot among fools.
We said goodbye and I walked to my transfer. I hit myself on the head with my phone in embarrassment. I wished there was somebody I could call, but it was so late, and anyway, I was underground.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
STAR GAZING
You can't see stars in New York. Well, you can see Claire Danes walking her dog, but that's not the kind of star-sighting that inspires a person to contemplate the universe. Instead we have a skyline. A beautiful, awe-inspiring skyline, no doubt about it. And if you are lucky enough to have access to a view, you can gaze upon it and think about your future. "I'm here, New York City!" you can call out to Manhattan. "I'm here to stay!!!" But the sky against which those awesome buildings scrape boasts only an occasional night flight into JFK. No stars, shooting or otherwise.
And I wonder if that does something to us, we city people. I wonder if it makes us feel so much more important than we are. A skyline is intimidating, but somehow conquerable. The vast, infinite curtain of light that is a summer night sky over a skittish mountain lake, on the other hand, can make a person take pause. Because even if you can get a same-day reservation at Il Mulino or you are a regular attendee of Paris Fashion Week, or you have seventeen Rolexes and a wife who looks like she belongs in a calendar hanging on the wall of a car repair shop, put in the context of infinity, no one is that much of a big shot.
And I wonder if that does something to us, we city people. I wonder if it makes us feel so much more important than we are. A skyline is intimidating, but somehow conquerable. The vast, infinite curtain of light that is a summer night sky over a skittish mountain lake, on the other hand, can make a person take pause. Because even if you can get a same-day reservation at Il Mulino or you are a regular attendee of Paris Fashion Week, or you have seventeen Rolexes and a wife who looks like she belongs in a calendar hanging on the wall of a car repair shop, put in the context of infinity, no one is that much of a big shot.
Friday, August 07, 2009
BORDER JUMPING IN THE SUBURBS
Suburbia was marketed at its inception as an exclusive, banded enclave for "desirable" inhabitants. We separate things into unlike categories, we surround ourselves with people who we identify as being like us. So we snuggle into our white protestant suburb or jewish suburb or black suburb or italian suburb. We have our own social gatherings; we hope and expect our children to marry from within. We exclude; we are excluded. We are comfortable with that. Crossing these boundaries of difference instills an anxiety in the community, for the insulated as well as for the trespasser.
This is the subject of John Hughes' films. They were funny and touching and entertaining, but more than that, they explored the thrill and anxiety of breaking down boundaries, between childhood and adulthood, cool and uncool, rich and poor, city and suburb. Are the rules of exclusion that cause a white woman to call the police when she sees a black man trying to enter a house in a wealthy white neighborhood any different than the sociological breakdown of a high school cafeteria? Stay Where You Belong, that's how our society would prefer us to behave. But the characters in Hughes' film perforate those borders; they will not allow themselves to be banded.
Consider the following scene from Pretty and Pink. To ask Andie out for the first time, Blaine leaves his friends, the rich kids who eat inside, and steps out to a courtyard where Andie and her friends eat lunch. Out in the courtyard, Blaine is greeted with a general hostility, and he is visibly self-conscious.
Andie: Is this your first time out here?Blaine: Yeah. I don't think I'm very popular out here.Andie: I don't know. You're just fine inside...
Or The Breakfast Club, wherein five high school students are removed from the daily pressure to stay in their own circles, and discover the meaninglessness of those differentiations.
You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s how we saw ourselves at seven o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed.
During the rest of the week it is the differences between these kids that defines them. On Saturday, in the library, with no one else around they realize that they have more uniting them than dividing them.
I wrote a paper about Suburbia as a location for 80's movies that I will post here.
In the meantime, John Hughes, rest in peace. And here's some Duckie for all of us. Sigh.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
MEDITATION ON A PAIR OF PANTS
Last night I was thinking about a pair of pants I used to have. They were a very deep black, soft, wide-ribbed corduroy. I bought them from the Gap.
I didn't buy much at the Gap when I was growing up, so when I did I would cherish the iconic blue plastic shopping bags with the chord tie enclosure. I would use the same bag for my lunch, or a change of clothes, or whatever other plastic bag type necessity I could fulfill. I would use them until they were worn away, until the blue had been scratched out and faded to a dull grey. One time I noticed that Cory Baskin, one half of the Baskin twins, a kid who was very smart and nice but also really really cool; all the girls liked him, he always had the newest Michael Jordan sneakers, his hair was black and spiky and he had a swath of freckles and a cute little button nose, but anyway I saw him carrying a white, plastic TJ Maxx bag, a variety of bag that even if I used a different one every day, I would barely dent my mother's supply. This may have been my first understanding of the difference between being and trying to be, and that the really cool kids never had to try.
But the pants I refer to came later. I bought them when I was at home from college to wear while in Europe. They fit really well, and had a nice bell at the bottom, and they were so warm and soft. I loved them alot.
That's all. I was just thinking about those pants.
I didn't buy much at the Gap when I was growing up, so when I did I would cherish the iconic blue plastic shopping bags with the chord tie enclosure. I would use the same bag for my lunch, or a change of clothes, or whatever other plastic bag type necessity I could fulfill. I would use them until they were worn away, until the blue had been scratched out and faded to a dull grey. One time I noticed that Cory Baskin, one half of the Baskin twins, a kid who was very smart and nice but also really really cool; all the girls liked him, he always had the newest Michael Jordan sneakers, his hair was black and spiky and he had a swath of freckles and a cute little button nose, but anyway I saw him carrying a white, plastic TJ Maxx bag, a variety of bag that even if I used a different one every day, I would barely dent my mother's supply. This may have been my first understanding of the difference between being and trying to be, and that the really cool kids never had to try.
But the pants I refer to came later. I bought them when I was at home from college to wear while in Europe. They fit really well, and had a nice bell at the bottom, and they were so warm and soft. I loved them alot.
That's all. I was just thinking about those pants.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A PRETTY PERFECT SENTENCE, WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME BUT SHOULD BE.
Most of the time I like who I am, but a lot of the time I hate who I am, and that's why people meditate I think.
Here's the source.
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