Re: RAT Marx in Soho (in SF)

["erik ehn" <shadowtackle@worldnet.att.net>]

Dear Rats:

    Well, yeah, ya gotta eat. , and ya gotta do what ya gotta do to eat
sometimes. There's no one model that works - that has unassailble integrity
over other models; good theater gets done for free, for 18 bucks, for a
hundred. Each system has frustration and contradiction in it. I'd like to
reduce my frustrations by a third, so far as I can (not always that far),
after all. So I cut out the middle. I gotta eat, but I don't want to eat off
of theater. Or when I do, I want to eat gold. The middle way impacts my
imagination negatively, giving me the sense that theater is practical and
permissable in a consumerist society. Anthropologists of the future will
define the religion of our age as superstitious fetishim of the vestigal
self - where people were meant to survive with as far apart from each other
as possible (even in crowds), and weak, unsustainable (not rugged
individualism, but puny individualism - leave the house with a backpack full
of stuff so that you will want for nothing - and so that you can be
constantly responsive to business - which winds up translating to getting
and spending). We are turning ourselves into appendixes, and capital is the
intestine we hang from. When computers learn to buy and sell without the
intermediacy of humans, we're outta here. And since the market IS stronger
than we are, maybe that's why genocide and refugee crises define the blood
sacrifices of our contemporary religion. Theater economy is attractive to me
when it suggests that what we do can't be bought or sold - doesn't need
buying or selling to happen at all. Broke theater and rich theater can yeild
this liberation. No Box Office. Pay for the show with grants or goodwill or
Kings and Queens before it goes up. If you charge, charge in a way that
makes money ridiculous.

     And I just don't think it works - sustaining or building potential
through admissions. Movies and CD's are more and more expensive, but they
aren't getting any better. Punk and hip hop found first footing when music
could be easily stolen and distributed and modified with cassette tapes.
Napster is doing something similar with techno/dj work (and Napsterism is
just getting started); digital is bringing filmmaking down to theater level.
Not access to the market, but a vent out of the market. Not an escape from
or turning from the market - but a different set of priorities. Art-first
priorities. We charge 18 bucks, but hunt for comps when it's our turn to
pony up.

     I want to eat at Jeff's house. I mean - I really do. I'd rather arrive
hungry and empty handed, knowing I owed him one, paying him back with art or
painting his closets or getting a meal into him down the line... or if I'm
flush I'd like to bring him a bottle of wine so good you want to spread the
stuff on bread like butter. But I don't want the fake barrier of admission
price - pay it (shamefully) - never mention it - slipping it  like a
transparent condom on my toungue prior to putting that first forkful of well
seasoned gnocci in my mouth.


- e






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