Re: RAT (not about) COLUMBINE

[Lorddada9@aol.com]

a message to you, johnathan...

i agree with you about art needing to be "evil", but what is evil is relative 
to the system(s) it opposes. you seemed to have only read beyond good and 
evil and completely missed out on ecce homo, twilight of the idols, or even 
thus spoke zarathustra. you have also seemed to read your own projections 
into my writing as well -- the association you posed between my quote and an 
anti-vietnam sentiment was perhaps logical (i am guilty of the occasional 
"hippy-sim" in my tone), but only in the most unproductive, unimaginative 
way: cynical. i have never avoided dark truths in my mailings (you can read 
that in my introductory email, it was the first one to have columbine in caps 
- or if you have already deleted it, i will be more than glad to mail of copy 
of it to you), preferring to address them as needed instead of dwelling on 
them or pushing them on others. amongst this group, i believe there is no 
reason to continue to dwell on that which is already a given reality.

but you are correct, i do need to clarify my position on art and life. art as 
a representation of life is a culturally dead subject. i believe, and am 
currently in the beginning stages of practicing, in the position that what 
can be considered art, or as the new-agers call abstractly "creativity", does 
not have to separated from the quickness of living.

i was first brought to this point of view by the works of the situationist 
international and later influenced by the writings of hakim bey. theatre is 
in a special relation to this concept of not existing separate from life 
because theatre holds the mostly unexplored yet potentially dangerous element 
of immediacy. and that immediacy of theatre makes it dangerous because it 
opens a spiritual (but not necessarily metaphysical or religious) potential 
for transformation. the moment of the seemingly unreal (or evil, if you 
prefer) in theatre quickly becomes the real.

so, i was incorrect in saying that art infuses life with wonderful things 
because, as you pointed out, the opposite of wonderful is necessary, but even 
more so correct was your observation that art is not the infuser in life. 
life is beyond judgment or any value we can possibly give it. but what i want 
to make clear is that it is our will to transform the current social 
realities we face (and all political dualities inherent in those social 
realities) that is important, and that to use our will through art, not as a 
means to distance life or represent it, but to intensify it, and thereby, 
hopefully, transform social realities by inverting what is personally 
beneficial to a given individual, and abandoning the rest for something as of 
yet undiscovered, but not undiscoverable, is what i think we are all striving 
for.

i hope that clears things up for you.

and, just as a bit of advise, learn to stand on your own legs. your 
compulsion to make yourself to appear taller by tearing down others is cheap, 
unproductive, and altogether ugly. at least act as if you have a greater 
spirit than that. in this world you cannot afford to burn bridges before you 
cross them.

david.