RAT Re: yak butter

["Erik Ehn" <shadowtackle@worldnet.att.net>]

Regards:

     I say all kinds of crazy things. Vis-a-vis making theater I say "no money," and while there are ways to live this literally, I don't. Money makes producing easier in most cases and at-all possible in most. I say "no fame" in the sense of publicity and more broadly in the sense of lasting recognition, but publicity and life over time make producing easier. Neither fame nor money should be the problems that define our work; the lack of them doesn't have to shut us down. We don't have to pay to pray or be in love; (money can buy space for prayer, money can give love one less thing to argue about). Iowa costs money to get to, which frustrates me no end. The producing of a rat meeting is a lab for rat moral theory. The cost of getting to rat shows a) the bankruptcy of the no money idea; b) is a goad for innovation (some are reducing costs by carpooling, by taking the bus, by coming via Las Vegas - the cheapest city in the country to fly in and out of, by combining this trip with others - e.g. to family, by using the concept of rat-banking - where the will involved in making the trip happen is offered over in trust that the will will be returned somehow, someway... unreasonable but sufficiently effective for some). 

     Plays of mine that are gone are gone, gone, gone. The plays that are going are going fast. Like most writers I'll outlive my work and my name. Like most writers, if I'm lucky enough to live a long life, I'll outlive my work and my name. Like most bakers, lace makers, equestrians, volleyball coaches I will leave my self to burn with achievements in time, without acquiring enough money or name to assure me I've spent my time wisely, without contributing substantial innovation, but hopefully having written (baked, coached) as best I could without interfering unduly with the proper flow of peace through the world.

     Publishing plays is good for the literature of theater. Theater is not about literature, though theater can use literature (as theater uses/uses up/captures with cunning and consumes with tremendous appetite) any formal thing. The way to read a play is to produce it. This requires trust, deep personal knowledge of collaborators, and profound dialogue. Since the events of theater center on the care of bodies in space in real time, the way to discuss theater is to produce theater. Criticism helps perpetuate critical dialogue; productions perpetuate productions. E-mail perpetuates e-mail. I like e-mail, and depend on it. But e-mail is all prelude.

     The way to move a play is to move a production (in whole, but preferably in part - thus ensuring collaboration). The way to survive is to die a little. Where you have died is where community rushes in. Live long enough and you become a self for others.

     This is pietistic and flaky, but the best I can do - crackpot  but tested against my own cracked experience.


peace,

e


Rat note: As time marches on, keep me up on the head-to-free-bed ratio - a resource I will stretch once I get out there mid-January, but possibly insufficient. Ah insufficiency! An invitation to innovation.