Inside Out

MEMOfesto #33: Carbondale, Art, and the Complex of Inferiority

2010-12-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

Our art need not be

Fringe or festival.

We have no need for a center to vaguely border, a big apple to hover around like flies or desperados

Milling outside the party. The ropes aren’t velvet. The curtain has unraveled. And we are all… playing in the wings.

And we’re already wearing wings

And when we flock together

Hear our flutter,

Hear us hum

The stage is the wings.

And we are the ones who happen to hear

Sonic flocks

And duck flap about town

The theory of the queer swarm

The story of the ones who buzz the open mic,

Who turn the bars into bizarres

We are

The not artists

The not poets

The not comedians

The not activists

The not students

And ours is the art of the knot

Ours is the art of tying and untying

Of holding it together and coming undone

I’m a frayed knot

And you’re afraid not

Entwined, we are but tangled cords

Hear us hum

Listen.

Those aren’t sirens…

This roof is not on fire.

It sags. Holding the weight of an ice storm.

It shakes. Touching the wind from all around.

Weather without name

Whether without name

Weather without name

Whether without name

When the trees throw themselves at our feet,

When the roof comes crashing down,

When the power goes out, we burn brighter.

We move the art to the garden, the garden to the party, the party to the porch, and the porch—

Stands alone.

Homeless in the eyes of the high risers, we write with feet on the ground and perform with our heads in

The dirt, in the dirty dirt.

In the soil.

In the So ill.

I got sick on Hospital Street

After partying on College
While satisfying my Communication Drive

I wandered around Forest

Before getting high on University

And now… I have trouble seeing the other side of Wall

Have you noticed?

There are roads through this town

Trails blazed by the slow fading exhaust of flyovers

And there are tracks that cut,

Histories of sunrise and sundown

Civil wars at dusk

Or was it dawn?

The birds wonder

Flocking on this fence
The birds wonder

As the sun weighs its options.

What do we do in the meantime?

In these mean times?

In these average times, these middle ages,

These boundless plateaus of crisis

There are multiple clocks in the sky

And the poems must begin between 9 and next time

And the list is a ghost that haunts the night

The open mic is an unreliable source of light

That’s why some birds prefer to chirp after dark,

Singing songs like,

How long can we possibly keep going on like this?

(You know that one) and,

How long will I have the privilege of perching here?

Speaking here

Breathing here

And what should I do with it in the meantime?

What do I do with an open mic in these mean times?

And the birds sing:

Unpack your queer contents

Piece by piece

Pass ‘em around the class

We’re having a transpoetic show and tell

Open your rib cages and let your fairies go

Open your jar and let your fire flies go

Open your mouth and let your anger go

Sing if it helps

Scream if it helps

Silence is the straitjacket of the sane

And you got to be crazy to speak truth anymore

You got to be crazy to speak anymore

Idol Hands

2010-11-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

Prop 8 Trial, FYI

2010-01-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

The only good thing that happened this week for the proponents of California's Prop 8 is that no one outside the Northern California U.S. District Court and its closed-circuit press pool will get to see them make their bigoted arguments. There will be official transcripts after the trial as over, but for now we have to rely on the quick fingers of bloggers and citizen journalists who are transcribing the proceedings as they happen and the summary and analysis provided by local and national media. Not wanting to be seen saying the stupid, hateful shit they are saying about LGBT people is the one flash of humanity they have shown thus far.

It is strange to think that a relatively small group of people are sitting in a room somewhere across the country making a decision that will greatly effect my life. Sadly, a privileged mob full of irrational fear used democracy to discriminate. I should take comfort that this in the courts, where justice is supposed to be sought through reason. Still, I am finding the whole thing to be surreal.

The NY Times says the trial is expected to last three weeks, and it may actually end on time because 4 of 6 of the Defense's witnesses (the bad guys) have dropped out citing fear of harassment from LGBT activist. Although not on youtube, the trial is being filmed for Judge Walker's use, and that, apparently, is too scary for witnesses. In truth, the Plaintiffs (hooray for the good guys) point out that the witnesses who have left gave depositions that are not supported by their actual studies and so need to avoid cross examination. After centuries of violence against gay people, proponents of Prop 8 and anti-gay rights are cowering in the face of rationality and compassion, pretending that they are somehow victims because their desire to discriminate is under scrutiny.

It is worth noting the SCOTUS ruling against the public broadcast of the trial cited the fact that only 5 days were given for comments when the District Court decided to allow cameras, instead of the 30 that is usually (though not legally) required. This is to say, we should not necessarily interpret the decision to exclude cameras as a sign that the High Court is leaning one way or the other on gay marriage. It's a totally separate question. The ruling was only concerned with the relatively small question of how a District Court can amend its own rules. Most of the analysis I have read says the Supremes are spilt, with Justice Kennedy as the swing vote. (The plaintiff's may already be thinking ahead to Kennedy in their current argument and strategy). When SCOTUS uses the phrase "irreparable harm" in their youtube ruling, they don't mean that witnesses will be harmed by activists, but that once it is broadcast, it can't be unbroadcast, so to speak.

The lawsuit being brought forth by the two couples, Kris Perry & Sandy Stier and Paul Katami & Jeff Zarrillo, argues that prop 8 violates the equal protection clause (14th amendment), and that the proponents were motivated by anti-gay prejudice. The second part of the argument is causing a bit of a controversy because the judge has allowed for argument over the intent of the pro prop 8 voter.

At the core of the Defense's argument is the idea that marriage is essentially for reproductive purposes, and that gays and lesbians are not discriminated against. (Yep, that's it. As far as I can tell, they are on the verge of a major ass-whooping. But I'm jumping ahead.) According to CBS, "Proposition 8 sponsors say the courts need only find a rational basis for the measure and that a rational basis is provided by tradition and by the state's interest in having male-female couples produce and raise children."

The plaintiff's, on the other hand, argue that society's interest in marriage has always been to promote stability for children AND adults. According to CBS, the Plaintiffs "contend there must a strong justification" for Prop 8, not just a single shaky reason like reproduction, "because gays and lesbians are a historically persecuted group."

One major theme that appears to be emerging in the defense's tactics is to discredit social science as too biased because the scholars performing the studies are also acting on their findings by advocating for public policy.

Interestingly, both sides have brought up President Obama quotes that appear to argue against gay marriage. The plaintiffs have refuted both of the President's statements.

Almost everything I have read says that this has been a great week for advocates of gay rights. We cannot look into the heart of Judge Walker, and although he is described as conservative, he is libertarian (at one point in the trial he questions why the government should be involved in any type of marriage, gay or straight!), and he is also an intellectual who respects science. Whatever the ruling, this is appears to heading to the Supreme Court.

Facebook De Ja Vu

2009-12-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

While sitting in the living room with my housemate, David, and my good friend Nick, I happened to remember a Huffington Post entertainment piece I had read early in the day. It was titled "The Funniest Facebook Snafus of All Time" and had screen shots of some hilarious and unfortunate facebook exchanges. Somehow or another we started toying with the idea re-performing some of these now classic micro internet moments. Since we were all in the same room, the staging of the fb conversations turned out to be really easy. Like three evil geniuses we were laughing hysterically the whole time we were doing it. We also performed exchanges ripped right from the pages of some of our friends, although I'm not gonna post those ones, yet, as I feel they are still "in process." Here are our first two performances along with the originals. Enjoy!

Tough Love

Raw Deal

Personal Branding

2009-12-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

I have always been somewhat of a contrarian. In high school I presented my self to others as an atheist communist. I would pick arguments with members of ROTC and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was well liked, but still had a reputation as outspoken and too political for many of my peers. In a way, I viewed my identity as a disruption to the normalcy of others. I said I was atheist, not because I didn’t believe in a god, but rather because I didn’t believe in a Christian god and knew the term “atheist” drove my Christian friends crazy. All of this is to say that my presentation of self at this time was more a response to the environment I was in (i.e. constructed in relation to other prevalent identities like Christians and ROTC members) then a genuine expression of who I was and am.

Looking back at the past from my current perch, I am struck by the major shift in my presentation of self from high school to graduate school. In accepting the role of a professional I have altered my outward disposition toward systems of power I would have shunned in high school (I really thought my life would be an extra long version of On the Road.) I have become what my past self may have called a “sell-out.” I found that that contrarian position will not open the doors through which I wish to enter. This has led my to consider the concept of “personal branding” that has gained currency in self-help literature on building a career. I want to discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages to conceptualizing one’s performance of self in the work place as “personal branding.” I begin with the disadvantages (discussed by organization rhetoric scholars Lair, Sullivan and Cheney) and end with the advantages (not in the words of self-help lit., but rather based on my own experience.

Lair, Sullivan and Cheney (2005) examine the concept of “self-branding,” an idea that has risen to prominence in self-help literature marketed to the unemployed, underemployed, and generally unsatisfied. Through the rhetorical analysis of several such books, the authors show how rhetors argue for the efficacy of “self-branding.” They take a critical perspective on this literature that reveals some of the potentially problematic aspects of turning ones self into a commodity to be marketed. In general, self-branding appeals to the American myths of individualism and self-reliance, with little attention paid to gender, race, and class. As such, it shifts the blame to the individual who fails to properly package him/herself in a supposedly apolitical, level market place. If you do not succeed it must be because you presented yourself as undesirable. Furthermore, self-branding encourages individuals to generate and maintain a surface image with little regard for self-reflection and authenticity. What you appear to be is more important than what you actually are. This aspect of self-branding presents obvious ethical quandaries. Lastly, personal branding literature encourages workers to neglect personal and familial relationships in order to advance personal brand.

I do not wish to downplay the above concerns. However, in articulating some of the advantages of personal branding I hope to navigate through some of these criticism as a way developing a more useful and ethical concept of personal branding then that portrayed in self-help literature. For this reason, I will ignore arguments put forth by self-help authors and focus on my own argument.

I find the whole concept of self-branding to be intriguing. I get lost in its paradoxes. The appeals to self-reliance in a chaotic world of labor get my attention. As a student and a teacher of the liberal arts, I believe that we should be teaching and studying those things that can help our students exercise their rights in a democratic society, gain access to more opportunities, and in general, to become self-actualized people and productive members of society. If self-branding is the new game, then I think it is wise to learn the rules. Consider for a moment the environments and contexts most of our students will be entering once they leave college. According to Cloud (2005), “the capitalist work place is a paradigmatic case of coercive power relations because workers depend upon the employers for survival and because employers depend on labor to produce goods for the company’s profit” (p. 511). Hoffman and Cowan (2008) analyze the rhetoric of 96 of the top 100 fortune 500 companies in order to perform a rhetorical “cluster” analysis of how these companies affect the meanings of work and life through various statements that describe their approach to the work/life balance. The construction of the meaning of work/life, they conclude, ultimately benefit of the organization over the individual workers. Given this coercive environment, I believe that personal branding has become a necessary survival strategy for individuals dealing with forces, like corporate culture, beyond their control.

I have accepted this fate for myself. I recognize that in order to be successful as a professional, I am going to have to present myself in a certain way, regardless of how I feel I really am. As a queer person, I am distinctly aware of the many different selves I present to others depending on the context of our interaction. This type of shape shifting is a survival tactic. My position in a homophobic society has forced me to be creative and malleable in my performance of self. Similarly, all of us working in a late capitalist, neo-liberal society will encounter forces to which we must creatively respond. The self is a co-construct, dialogically negotiated through interaction with systems of power, history, and others with which we interact. This does not mean that we should not be critical. Rather, I just want to recognize that the critical mode may not be that useful in a lot of our practical situations. We have many different selves and we shouldn’t feel fraudulent or apologetic about this fact. Not all of our relationships have to be “genuine.” I do not need to be loved by everyone. I will settle for not being harmed by anyone.

I find the concept of personal branding to be both problematic and potentially liberating. I think more work needs to be done to expand the list of traits that companies and we as culture find desirable traits of good workers. For example, Lair, Sullivan and Cheney (2005) authors’ note that “self-branding” rhetoric does not consider the role of collaboration in work and neglects the undeniable fact that we are all connected. In the light of this tension, I think we need to continue to develop scholarship that deals with the ethical paradoxes that exist within this market-saturated culture, while at the same time helping people empower themselves and others.

Cloud, D. L. (2005). Labor and the limits of communication at Staley, 1993 to 1996. Management Communication Quarterly, 18, 509-542.

Hoffman, M. F. and Cowan, R. L. (2008). “The Meaning of Work/Life.” Communication Quarterly, 56.3, 227 – 246.

Lair, D. J., Sullivan, K., & Cheney, G. (2005). Marketization and the recasting of the professional self: The rhetoric and ethics of personal branding. Management Communication Quarterly, 18, 307-343.

The Thrill of Academic Freedom

2009-12-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

The comic character Caspar Milquetoast, whose last name has come to mean a person who is timid or submissive in many American English dictionaries, begins to loosen the constraints of textual oppression. My future will not be dictated by the past, he says.

Works Like a Clock and an Orange

2009-12-02T17:32:00.000-08:00

Works Like a Clock and an Orange

Am I a player on a stage?

The stage, of course, being the world.

You know that feeling,

you’ve seen that show,

a body stumbles in from the wings

with the empty eyes of a humanoid

and so much depends on the first few faces it sees.

“Nice to meet you body. We eat dinner at 8 o’clock. And after dinner you will halfheartedly participate in your own unspectacular death. Here’s the cup of poison!”

Am I condemned to simply follow the script?

Or am I a performer in the world?

The world, of course, being a stage.

You know the feeling,

you are in and of this world.

It’s more like a protocol than script.

“This piece ends when performer dies.”

What happens in between is big fat Variable X.

Just be timely as you assert yourself,

be careful as you intervene.

For this is an experiment in being accountable

as much is it is art.

Ours is a tensed existence.

We have one foot dragging in the dust of past events,

while the other swings forward into anticipated action.

Paul Ricouer says the self comes to be in the tension between

sameness and ipseity.

Sameness, the pattern over time,

a smiling face in a flip book,

the character we discover ourselves becoming.

We are all our own archeaologists, scouring through the sedimentary record.

Ipseity, I am a promise, with a capital P.

I am a promise, full of potentiality.

And in the in between,

in between

what I’ve done and what I am giving my word to do,

this tension, this friction, this conflict, this drama, this living.

I felt it when I said “I love you,”

that present tension that really meant

“I have loved you and I intend to keep loving you.”

And I feel it with old friends I haven’t seen in awhile,

when I feel this need to apologize.

“I know you know me as straight. I know we were straight together. But I’m different now.”

I know I shouldn’t,

but I feel the need to say that I am sorry.

Sorry, not for who I am now, but for what I promised to be then.

I give my word to myself, I give my word to others

and I have trouble remembering which is which.

And if the human being is a work of art,

it’s a dialogic piece.

And if being human is a work of art,

it’s a conversation piece.

To be together is to become together.

“We” is emergent. “We” comes to be through interaction over the course of time. “We” can be seen like film projected on wall, a series of stills changing in the light of new contexts, piled one upon the other, producing motion in a static frame, bringing the dead to life. “

We” is an artistic collaboration, is agency, an agency, a corporation.

Trying to see the “we” is the work of relationship,

and in this world,

the work of art.

Do the Dead Lie Alone?

2009-10-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

I come from quiet, stubborn stock, qualities I demonstrate from time to time. I never came out to my grandmother. I chose not to. The first time I thought she might die, after she broke her hip, I was visiting her in a rehab center. She was really out of it (from a fever and pain killers it turns out) and I thought this might be the last time I would talk her. (I'd be away at school). I told her I was dating a girl (which I was) even though I knew I was days away from breaking it with her, and knew for certain it was time to explore aspects of my sexuality I had been denying. Through drug and fever fogginess, my grandma's face came alive with with news. I decided to let that little lie lay.

Do the Dead Lie Alone?

“Hearing is the last thing to go.”

Do you believe that?

It’s what the nurses said.

A little lie you say, when someone’s dying

A little lie I was willing to believe

I would do a rain dance if it would help

“Hearing is the last thing to go.”

Do you believe that?

My mother said she sounded like a humidifier

Looked like a corpse

A little exaggeration to “prepare” me,

And it did: It wasn’t that bad

She failed to mention the calming,

The shallow and smooth

Sea breeze flowing from the tubes

Into her nose

The last conversation we had,

Two weeks before her stroke,

Was at my great Aunt Doray’s wake

Her sister, her companion for life

After a few minutes of sitting on the couch

Facing Doray’s body

She said,

Joey, I’m so glad

you stopped shaking your leg

I hadn’t really,

just wasn’t doing it at the time

I said

I guess I hadn’t noticed

I wonder if my sweet Aunt

from where she lay

heard that lie

There’s so much we never knew about each other

Do you find it comforting to know?

How other people deal with death?

Some believe the dead are all around us

Like little friendly ghosts

whispering in our ears

My scientific brother got spiritual

Went looking for the atomic weight of souls

And while I’m not certain

which little lies I believe

A safe distance from that moment of danger

I do know for sure

the air was a lighter

When she died

MEMOfesto: No to Marinetti; Yes to the Future!

2009-09-20T19:02:00.001-07:00

(Note: This MEMOfesto was originally posted on the BAR Corp facebook group page and I decided to publish it on my blog. This is an on-going discussion between myself Jonny Gray and anyone else who would like to join in. I just ask that you read all three posts below before jumping in. Send extended thoughts directly to me and I will publish them here and on the BAR Corp page)

No to Marinetti; Yes to the future!

Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, founding member of the Italian Futurist and integral figure in Modern (performance) art, was an arrogant ideologue. The futurist’s impulse toward anti-traditionalism and violence (they believed violence was an essential function of the universe) led them to embrace fascism and war. Their confrontational ideology was reflected in the structural feature of their performances and their tense relationships with their audiences. Marinetti and the Futurists believed they were waking the masses from a slumber. They challenged the old Italian aristocracy and polite society. Yet, fights were very common at their events. Masculinity was on full display. In one exchange in which the audience was throwing food, futurist Carlo Carra yelled, “Throw an idea instead of a potato, you idiots.” While their anti-establishment attitudes and change-fetish can be greatly admired, their stance toward audience and community must be avoided. Further, while recognition of the utter dynamism of the universe is crucial to understanding performance art, we must also recognize that the fluidity of change can be both thin and viscous. To navigate these waters we cannot presume with certainty what lies ahead, and we must not convince our passengers otherwise. The present will not be defined by what we destroyed of the past but by what we build for the future. June, 2009.

RE: No to Marinetti; Yes to the future!

Hmmm. I'm a both/and kind of guy, so I tend to think the future (whatever it turns out to be) will be defined by what we destroyed AND by what we build. But there is a difference between a carefully planned demolition and an anarchic "destroy this house" party -- as the refrigerator that was not scheduled for demolition can attest.

But so, I am struck by this line: "Marinetti and the Futurists believed they were waking the masses from a slumber." I tend to agree that the masses slumber and need awakening. I am suspicious of anyone (Marinetti or even myself) who claims the privileged position of being wide awake.

But so, if the masses (including myself) need to be awakened, is throwing cold water on them (us) the best way to go about it? How has that ever worked out for the person with the water (or the loud radio, or the hand lotion, or...)? Do you really want to wake the masses up in such a way that it makes them grumpy...and worse, grumpy at you???

So if we deploy this metaphor to its associative end, what is the better way to wake the masses?

"Mornin' sleepyhead. Here's some coffee for ya and a sweet kiss on the cheek. C'mon now, rise and shine. We've got a lot to do. There's global warming. There're toxins in the food supply. There's the ever increasing gap between the haves and have nots. There's corporate globalization exploiting every nation, profiting even off of economic collapse. There's an increase in obesity and decrease in attention span. Oh, and the lawn needs mowing. What? No baby, don't go back to sleep..." June, 2009.

Portrait of Marinetti by Enrico Prampolini

RE:RE: No to Marinetti; Yes to the future!

"I'm a both/and kind of guy, so I tend to think the future (whatever it turns out to be) will be defined by what we destroyed AND by what we build."

I really like this. The funny part is, when I wrote the concluding line, I felt that, of all the sentences (minus the title), this was the most "manifesto-like," with its rhetorical flourish yet punchy confidence. I was from the outset trying to avoid reproducing the same dichotomies as Marinetti. Yet, I remember feeling, as I wrote that last sentence (was it the election?) that our "true calling," our kairos-in-the-sky-with-diamonds” was to construct a new future. (You know, that Obama looking forward kinda gesture). In many ways, that sentence was a product of its time, the turn the page-the-page mentality. At the same time, despite my resistance to dichotomies, I was reacting against, with few qualifiers, (as the title suggests) Marinetti's beliefs. Alan Woods, in his article, "Italian Futurism and Fascism," compares the Futurists’ stance with the position of Russian revolutionary, Bakunin, “before we can build a new society it is first necessary to destroy.”

In the opening of his futurist manifesto, Marinetti writes: "Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs." They are acting wide-awake, making a whole lot of sleepy people grumpy, and they love it.

In his eleven futurist declarations he speaks of "rashness," "courage, audacity, and revolt," which sound nice to me in the academic sense, but not in the "here come the blackshirts" kinda way. He writes "We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman." And, "We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice."

In 1915, the year Italy entered World War I, Marinetti wrote a book called "“War-the Sole Hygene of the World.”

When attacking their choice objects the Futurists lacked a "carefully planned demolition," and the objects they attacked would soon be "scheduled for demolition" by Fascist. Perhaps my downplaying of destructive operations of change in favor of constructive ones is a product of overreaction to the history of the futurist, the use of and call to violence in order to suppress the possibility of real socialist movement.

Alan Woods, critiquing the Futurists from the standpoint of Marxist thought, points to their portrayal of the worker as a mindless cog in the machine of capitalism grinding away heartlessly toward a future of national greatness. However, I have trouble extending this suspicion toward the promise of a better future, to the potential for liberating innovations generated in vibrant capitalist economies and creative artistic communities. He writes, “The development of modern techniques does not abolish the alienation but only reproduces it on an immeasurably vaster scale than ever before. The invention of things like the laptop computer, bleepers (sic.) and mobile phones places the worker at the disposal of the boss twenty four hours a day.” It is in the face of this critique, that I tentatively admire the Italian Futurists for their raw enthusiasm for things yet to come and say, “yes to the future!" September, 2009.

Redacted Poems: "5.1 Sources" and "5.2 Style"

2009-09-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

I redacted these poems for the Transpoetic Playground. Click on the image below and give it a gander. I think you might find the reading process fun.

The BAR Corp has decided to protect the free-spirited poets and performers of the Transpoetic Playground from the propaganda of the Modern Language Association. While we admire (and spend every waking minute trying to replicate) thier status, sociopolitical pull, and hegemonic grip on language and form, we worry that the MLA's pre 9/11, institutional ideology threatens the creative infrastructure and art network we have been working so hard to foster. At the same time, we recognize that any dynamic and personally profitable art community can not be sustained in the face of total censorship and complete secrecy. We release this redacted portion to alleviate this concern, while at the same time showing in a language the MLA does not speak, one example of what transpoetry might be.

BAR CORP

BAR Confabulation: The Importance of Being Artists

2009-09-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

|kənˈføbjəˈleɪʃən| noun

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin confabulat- ‘chatted together,’ from the verb confabulari, from con- ‘together’ + fabulari (from fabula ‘fable’ )

From MacBook dictionary

Shauna MacDonald and Molly Cummins called a meeting, a get-together, an artists’ salon. They called it a “BAR Confabulation,” a nod to the BAR Corporation, the “third hand” with which we have been loosely organizing ourselves together as artists. Unfortunately, my improv practice with Cult of the Stage Monkey ran right into the meeting time, and as a result I was a little late to the conversation. I will definitely update with links if anyone else provides more details or writes about the confabulation.

Shauna and Molly had written a few questions on note cards that prompted and guided the discussion. The questions asked us to consider our personal thoughts and feelings about the artist identity. The questions elicited a variety of responses from the people present. It was interesting to me, when considering the eagerness with which I attach the plural possessive artists’ to the salon, the number of my friends who are uncomfortable calling themselves artists. Despite this, we seemed to drift toward consensus on the principle that all people have the capacity to be artists, and what’s more, that all people are already artists in the performance of their everyday activities (of all places!) The mathematician wants to know, then, what percentage of this dark matter consists of people who consider themselves artists ontologically, yet refuse this identity socially. The preacher wants to know how many we can bring over, proselytize into the ranks of art. The cynic wants to know why I even care.

Any person who interacts, in whatever fashion, with any “art world,” must consider (as David Hanley-Tejeda reminded us) the productive possibilities and (as Shauna MacDonald pointed out) the strategic implications of identifying oneself as an artist. Molly Cummins referred to this as the ability to tell a convincing story, conjuring in Brian Healy’s mind the image of a con-man. I, a lover of Garfinkel, latch on to this: the artist is the one who can successfully account to the others for the fact that she/he is an artist. (The Nirvana song “All Apologies” comes to mind).

The artists, whether or not they call themselves “artists,” are the ones with the ability to shape the expectations of others so as to “break the law” while avoiding “going to jail” in the process. Some law breakers, like Nick Zaunbrecher, for example, prefer “performer;” while some fugitives, like Charlie Hope Dorsey, lean on ‘poet.’ Whether or not “art” is the concept with which we are loosely bound, it is the coming together, the confabulation itself that holds the most potential for the motion (the sense of “trans” that resulted from our surrealist gaming of the our newest neologism “transpoetic”). Perhaps, it is in conversation, the drift that we will find that transformation, that transcendence, that motion through, from one state to another and then back again.

Small Town Art Scene, I Got a Trick in This Box

2009-09-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my brother Jim put a link to this absolutely sublime performance art piece (at least that's how I see it) on my wall. I encourage you to take two minutes to watch it before continuing to read.

The clip was filmed in 1977, sixty-one years after the Dada performances of the Cabaret Voltaire, seventeen years after Ray Johnson performed(?) his "Nothings" in New York, and three years before I was born in Joliet, IL. The heteroglossia, the clips cadre of space and time traveling tentacles, is all I see when I watch Ms. Gloria Hunter's Gong Show performance. One tentacle is even tickling my birth, an allusion to something that had not happened yet-- my expulsion from one box to another. (Some see trauma in the movement, one of the first in a series of traumatic waves washing ashore in our unconscious. I see absurdity. I see a box stuck on our collective heads. In the wake of trauma, I see a prank, a ridiculous predicament.) One tentacle gestures wildly, like Hugo Ball (or is that Marinetti?), the destructive deployment of anti-art or, more precisely, anti-talent. And there's one reaching out to something someone said: "Life's not a prison; you can leave whenever you want." Just ask Ray Johnson, another seems to reply.

And then there's the gong, whose noble sonorous tones sound more like the shrill cries of mediocrity, d-list media-hackery. The voice of our inhibitions and constraint, it's the siren that preceded the theatre fire. Don't worry, Gloria, one way or another, we all get the gong in the end.

This poem is dedicated to Gloria Hunter, and to all the folks who have passed through Carbondale in the last few years and made art with me. Special thoughts go out to Chris Collins, Alison Fisher, and all of Hurricane Charlie. I performed this at the graduate spotlight hour in the Kleinau Theatre just last week.

Small Town Art Scene, I Got a Trick in This Box

I got a trick in this box that I’d like to show everybody

I can’t get this box off my head. I can’t get this box off my head.

Can anybody get this box off my head?

Is there performer in the room who can get this box off my head?

It’s hard to see,I’m learning, with a box stuck on your head

It’s like midnight in a room full of light

Blind with my eyes open

I can’t get this box off my head

And my voice, it’s really loud, it fills this box

An echo chamber buried beneath a shanty town

Or a windy city

And your sounds, they’re muffled

distant abstract emotive

sounds as if you are the ones stuck inside a box

I should help you escape

But this box ain’t all bad

It’s what the touched call sensory depravation

I almost dozed off there

This box is getting warmer

The more I protest with breath

And it is getting lonely

The more I hold to the edges

And it is losing meaning

The more I wonder if you’re listening

Are you listening?

I can’t get this box off my head!

Is there performer in the room who can get this box off my head?

I received a text request from ex who needed boxes

Maybe it’s the time of year, everyone packing in,

Shipping off

That has me worried about

My contents

What’s written on my box

And all the things lost in the move

In the movement, in the movement of art, in the art movement

a mere gesture

failing to wipe away the question

What are you about?

I mean realllllly,

What are you about?

And I answer:

Here’s how you wanna pack your queer contents:

Piece by piece, each wrapped in the news of the day

And here’s how you wanna unpack your queer contents:

Day by day, each day unwrapping new pieces

Will it help?

To carry his boxes or her book’s, to load a lover’s bed ?

Like ritual cleansing

Is it enough?

To help a friend move; To move a friend

Waving as is if to say:

Our art was just beginning

Then it’s back to the box.

The box house, box building, box office

that box performance

that trick in the box

the lie that keep things going

Say it with me friends:

Our art is just beginning

I can’t get this box off my head.

Poem for Scott and Michelle

2009-08-24T11:19:00.000-07:00

First,

Let’s question the wisdom,

Of a poet performing in this sacred ceremony,

Especially a poet so untempered, unholy,

so queer:

For

This is a day for declaiming,

For declaration,

For the unambiguous naming

Of love and commitment

Yet, before you stands a guide

Whose maps where drawn

while wandering,

Whose life has never been lived

To scale

As a poet,

I should, I suppose,

Use the lyrical arsenal of sound devices and prose

To sensuously evoke and give shape,

To that formless region we call love,

For,

Love, like the poet, hates cliché,

And love, like the poet,

Is always looking for

More interesting pathways of expression

To tickle the toes of our lovers,

To dance around the fire inside,

To fly way too close to the sun,

To give back, just a pittance,

The light we soaked in

However, it’s not this energy,

the winds of love,

The pixie dust in our eyes,

The ocean currents in our souls,

That this poem wants to know

Rather, this poem

Is concerned with an energy,

Most often left the physicist,

Defined in the purest poem,

As the ability to do work,

Though in the eyes of Plato,

poems lack all rigor,

It is through the eyes of the poet,

As she stares intently at her screen,

That she learns labor

And so I share

what little I’ve learned

About the art of love,

Of love as the work of art,

Of love as the labor of art

If love is performance art

Then it is an endurance piece,

Not the single smile of a Mona Lisa,

But a Sisyphean effort

Against entropy

Just as the static art object

has lost our interest,

So to has

the Hollywood ending,

the happily ever after

Love is an epic that must

Continually be written,

Told and retold,

Elaborated and abstracted,

Symbolized and concretized

Art and relationships

require it both ways,

the holy and the base,

the joy tethered

to the sorrow

For love is process art,

A spiral,

Corkscrewing forward through time,

The ups followed by the downs,

never in the same way

Fear stagnation,

those eddies in the river of your love

Keep paddling,

Sing each other songs

To keep rhythym

Remember to be wary

Of blank pages,

Of blank faces,

Of busy days,

and silent nights

Never underestimate

The erotic possibilities

of an open ear,

an open mind,

an open heart

Scott and Michelle

This love project has so much potential

Still, love knows no masterpieces,

Only the daily labor of

Page after page

Love is a poem,

A collaborative poem,

That no one has memorized

That must be written

On the fly, as you go

If you need a thesaurus

Look to your family

The love of parents

And the adventures

Of your friends

We are your most dedicated

Audience,

Your richest patrons,

But you are the sole artists

Of your love…

I leave you with words

Rarely intoned

by the poet:

enough with dreaming,

it’s time to get to work

Summer Movies: Some Are Movies

2009-08-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

A montage of my summer 2009. Features many of my friends and family and the music of Mates of State. Enjoy!

Space Guide: Carbondale Couplets

2009-07-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

This "space guide" was conceived and executed for BAR Corporation INCUBATOR 2.1 led by Nico Wood and myself. Space guides, like this one, offer a unique guided tour of a specific locale in order to alter the situation of being in and moving through space. Space guiding is one way we can begin to see the city, as Michel de Certeau argues in Practices of Everyday Life, as a dynamic, power-laden set of practices and interactions. As tactical artists, we must "make do" in spaces controlled by the strategies of others. This "making do" is artistry, a rhetoric of practice; walking through the city operates as articulation: 1) walking is an appropriation and re-appropiration of pre-existing geography like speaking with language, 2) walking acts out space in a way that creates a sense of place, just as "the speech act is an acoustic acting out of language," and 3) walking creates relations between the walker and the other objects in space, just as the speaker assumes a relationship and posits a contract with a given audience. Space guides are a way we can share our artistry, our own styles of walking, amongst a community of tactical artists.

For this space guide, which I call Carbondale Couplets, I decided to take my camera for meandering walks around Carbondale looking for two objects (buildings, geographic formations, various infrastructure, etc...) that I considered to be pairings or couples. The objects would not have to be identical; I just needed to perceive them as in relation to one another. For each of these relationships, I took a picture and wrote a simple couplet.

Whereas the flâneur wanders the city leisurely and detatched, the space guide wanders curiously and interested. The space guide plays games with the city, and sees the city as both an able teammate and worthy opponent. If your service is in play, the city will return it.

I will post these from time to time. I encourage people to find the couples pictured here and to write their own couplets. Also, feel free to discover your own carbondale couplets. I would definitely be willing to post then here. eyevote@yahoo.com

Carbondale Couplets

C.C. #1

One thing from these two is inferred

What happens to appliances deferred.

(behind Murdale)

C.C. #2

Alcoholics Anonymous? Ansel Adams or Abigail?

An unknown artist I must unveil.

(park on the corner of 51 and Wall)

C. C. #3

With downtown shoes to walk the strip,

swing your bag,
sway your hips.

(strip, near Jewel of India)

Pride

2009-07-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's June 25th, 2009. I am on a train. It’s not the train they call the City of New Orleans (that one actually left early in the morning), but the Saluki Express, a $34 ride from Carbondale to Kankakee and the cheapest way home. The evening sun is glaring through the west side windows of our northbound train. Being the clueless Boy Scout, I choose to sit in the hot spot. Three other passengers in this car and myself have apparently embraced our initial mistake. The rest either thought this one through before departure (the Amish couple headed to Matoon?) or have migrated to the cooler air out East.

I am heading home for a wedding, or at least that was the impetus. Tomorrow my high school girlfriend, my still great (although distant) friend, is marrying the only other serious boyfriend she has had beside me. As the ex, I should make it clear that I fully intend to let this proceed. It has been nine years since I knew with certainty that I did not want to spend my life with her. Just last month I told her that I was dating men, that I liked both men and women. So if this thing goes down in flames, rest assured that I had nothing to do with it.

Michael Jackson has just died. I saw on CNN, just before I walked to the train station, that he had suffered some sort of heart failure and was on his way to an LA hospital. I have received two text messages in the last five minutes telling me he is dead. The first was an exasperated text from my sister, the second, a bad joke about plastic, cremation, MJ action figures, and little boys, forwarded to me from a colleague. People on the train are passing the news around. The Amish couple appears to be unaffected. So begins, I imagine, the MJ-news-a-polooza. Jackson was the national media’s gift that kept on giving. This will be their last dance with the king, and I am sure they will make it a really slow one. Iran be damned. Governor love affair be gone. Stonewall? That revolution was never going to be televised, anyway. We can thank the FCC for that.

It’s Pride weekend and after the wedding, the exorcising of ghosts of the past, I plan to celebrate in the city by marching with the spirits of the future. I have just recently come to understand what means to have pride, to stand in the face of vile hatred violence and chose to love oneself and others. I need this weekend.

I have just been informed that our car does not have AC. The Amish couple finds this unacceptable and have moved to a more modern coach. The conductor, a large man that looks like Pen from Pen and Teller, says that there are not yet seats for the five of us still baking in this rolling toaster. At least I have my health. RIP Michael Jackson.