Re: RAT Moron Worse (and not the last word)(told ya)

[Jeffrey Jones <Diogenes_@compuserve.com>]

Dear Gaby,

This is really exceptionally fine stuff, which I will want to think about
for a while before responding, esp. the introduction of the soul ("now why
didn't I think of that?!") The question it raises is an old one for me: is
it the self that make art, or the soul?  Obviously there will be a certain,
ahem, degree of allowable difference in responses here.  One wants to say
it is the Soul (soul being of finer stuff than self, no?) but I reluctantly
concluded during my brief, potted study of Buddhism that it is, still, the
self. The self in rapt communion with the Soul where ever possible, OK--and
certainly singing its lovesong to the Soul, sure--but still the self, for
the Soul needs no art. The Soul just is.  I think art is to wake you up, so
I sadly conclude that art is (perhaps) only the glory of a drowsy soul, a
middle stage in the passage toward enlightenment. (That non-attachment
thing is such a pisser!)

But surely your average Joe, let alone your average Arthur Miller, would
argue that LSD was not in any way sincere. That it was, in fact, tantamount
to a betrayal (and if you want to argue for the possibility of a sincere
betrayal, be my guest, Edgar.) The Woosters are what Wilson ain't--which is
ironic. They say it one way, but mean it in quite another (Wilson is
c-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-l, but he means what he says). You and I can nonetheless
read the Woosters as sincere and authentic, but the last time I looked this
was distinctly a minority opinion.

Did you see Paul Lazar/Annie B. Parsons' A SIMPLE HEART at CSC this spring?
 It was an adaptation of a Flaubert story (the one with the dead parrot, as
a matter of fact)--what most people would call dance-theatre, I suppose,
but it got me to wondering where it was that the dance became theatre, for
it worked as a pure piece of theatre by any measure, even if it was theatre
told through dance (does this make any sense to anyone but me??) Well, I
decided the defining element was the use of language--almost imperceptible,
through projected slides, amounting to no more than perhaps a hundred words
in all, just giving you the signposts to the story.  But however reduced,
you still had language rendering story... and that is one of the places
where theatre lives.  But to answer you, I would say look not to the
exceptions but to the kind of experience that anybody would accept as
theatrical--that your Auntie Em would call theatre, for chrissake--and
while you can do that kind of theatre without words, it is much much harder
I think and feels forced somehow--like a chihuahua instead of a black Lab.

And would be captious of me to suggest that the best way to defend the
thinking of M. Artaud might be to quote him as little as possible? I am
obviously allergic to the man, (he has apparently never even heard of me)
but my last words on this particular subject are "The prosecution rests..."



Diogenes M. Jones
of Brooklyn, 
out of Sinope