Re: RAT COLUMBINE

[Lorddada9@aol.com]

hello, aileen.

in your last email to the group you mentioned me only by my aol address name, 
Lorddada9. my real name is david sinclair. i introduced myself to the rat 
conference during the beginning discussions on the columbine topic, and in 
the past, short, two days of discussion, i have written a few emails about 
what columbine means for us, as a group of theatre artists, as members of a 
larger society, and for our immediate futures. there have been quite a few 
responses to writings where people have referred to me by name-- david. the 
only email i did not sign by name, as an oversight, was the last one i wrote 
in response to josh's joke to you. this being the only email of mine  to 
which you responded, you wrote that i had not given my name.

why do i bring this up?

i think what is going on here, as illuminated by your last email, is that you 
have not read the previous emails that i wrote for the conference. if you 
had, you would have a reference for my name on file, or, at least, on an 
email someone else wrote in response to my mailings where they referred to me 
by name.

that leads me to believe that you were not aware as to nature of what josh, 
along with skip and sharon, were actively publicly discussing when you came 
into the forum.

furthermore, since you did not read my emails, then you were not fully aware 
as to what the subjects of the discussions entailed. you were not aware that 
i too was constantly surrounded by violence in high school, that i was a 
victim of school violence, and that i do not feel as if those circumstances 
warrant me to claim a monopoly on understanding the tcm in their totality, 
nor do i feel as if i have a cross to bear because of my past. in fact, most 
of the discussions after my introduction were centered on the collapse of our 
society from its own ills, and how we, as artists, respond to it, adapt to 
it, and move beyond it.

i mention these things to you because the tcm is not necessarily the focus of 
our conversation here, and neither is violence. also, your statement about 
this being your cross to bear gives me worry, for it means that you have 
positioned yourself into a role of martyr: since you claim total 
understanding of the events, you effectively cut yourself off by closing down 
the discussion. i do not mention this because i am afraid that you will put 
an end to this discourse (because you can't), but because i want you to 
understand that i think you are closing yourself off from something that had 
a positive momentum.

but you may not be open to hear this, i don't know.

what worries me even more is that you took josh's joke so seriously. i have 
to say that last letter you wrote him about doom had an ugly element of 
semantic violence in it, especially the way you repeated his name over and 
over again. i am not here to defend mr. furst, he is quite capable of doing 
that himself, (and he did a poetic one in writing that joke). i understand 
how you feel about what columbine means to you, but to write a nasty letter 
to somebody and then turn around a joke on them to get all preachy about 
violent tendencies is absurd.

aileen, i write this letter to you because i am concerned. do not draw lines 
around yourself too quickly. go back and read what we have all been saying 
here about art and insurgency, let it sink in, and come back with gifts for 
us all. i can get a sense that you are capable of it in what you wrote about 
your production of life is a dream by calderone - a personal favorite play of 
mine. give us all some more of that, that beauty, and we will be more than 
willing to shower you with ours.

david.