RE: RAT Re: yak butter

["Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com>]

Why Erik Ehn as I live and breath. 


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Erik Ehn [SMTP:shadowtackle@worldnet.att.net]
> Sent:	Wednesday, December 22, 1999 3:59 PM
> To:	rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> Subject:	RAT Re: yak butter
> 
> 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 wi!
> !
> th 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.