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- VERMILION's TEXT -
[Communique: 12.27.01]
Recently, whenever I try to explain myself, I end up thinking I'm depressed. In the past, talking about the intersections and contradictions of art & politics has always made me happy. But now it just makes me frustrated and paralyzed. I'm not coming up with anything new. I'm just whining about how my aesthetics and my morals are not in alignment, and how can I change the world when I love Tolkein so much, and blah blah blah... I tried to explain myself to my best friend last night, and by the end of it I was completely dead inside. All hope was gone. I sat there, unable to speak, like the times when I have been really depressed.
Only I am not depressed. As soon as I stopped talking and stopped trying so hard, I began to remember other things. I do have faith, I do have hope, I do have visions. They just aren't the kind I'm used to. They aren't easily explained, they don't sound good to grownups, they aren't mature, they don't reach into the future, they don't embody clear-cut politics. I can't justify them to my superego. But they're real. I can feel them. Especially in my body, in my new ability to do a headstand, in a lightness of foot that I'm learning with NaCl, in the "eroticism of everyday life," the utter joy of rolling around on the floor, of stretching out on a long brown couch, of reading Dostoyevsky and eating chocolate ice cream in the kitchen after my grandparents are asleep. And that's just the beginning, because I'm still excited about writing cultural theory articles -- even though I have no identity politics to speak from and I know I'm not the smartest theorist out there. And I'm still excited about seeking out radical cultural performance in NYC -- even though I know that my dream is utopian and my methods are naive. Perhaps it's time for me to stop thinking so much for a while.
Or at least to stop talking so much. The thinking continues, whether I will it or no. Today I finally finished reading "Radical Street Performance" (ed. Jan Cohen-Cruz). It's clear to me that the need for theater must be felt *urgently* by everyone involved. There must be no theater without lives at stake. Radical theater is theater done under seige, in the face of a dangerous world. It was there in Tienenman Square, in the face of the Chinese government. It was there in South Africa in the face of Apartheid. It was there in the Phillipines in the face of colonial domination. It was there in the Hmong refugee camps in the face of squalor and displacement. But America is repressive. America is in a state of emergency. Every day more Americans are maimed by cars, deformed by factories, enslaved by corporations, bloated with garbage, spoiled with luxury, starved for community, and locked away behind bars. Of course, most people who realize this become activists. But not all of them. This is an open call to radical cultural performance artists. We will find each other.
[Communique: 12.26.01]
Watching: "Motocrossed." Description: "A teen poses as her brother and competes in motocross race." Alana Austin plays a biker chick without the chick. I feel like a dyke, thrilled to have come across the closest thing to a dyke-image that mainstream television has to offer. Of course, she's fated to fall in love with a boy. Maybe they will do that terrible thing where in the final scene, after winning the race, she reveals herself in her "true" femininity, wearing a white dress and her hair down like the punk warrior at the end of "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" (or was it 5?). I don't stay for the ending. I take what I want and run. More and more, this has become my standard way of relating to pop culture. That was certainly how I watched "The Lord of the Rings." Walking through the plastic empire of Loews Cinema at Lincoln Center, paying $10 for a ticket, thinking to myself: "Just get what you came for and get out." I came for the magic, for the epic, for an echo of childhood. Everything else they're selling, I don't want.
If only it were that simple. But the thing I came for has been poisoned by its context. Walking back from the movie, the questions begin almost immediately. What right do I have to love such a movie? What kind of imperialist, protofascist politics must be lodged in my fantasy world in order for me to enjoy such a manicheaen portrait of the world, in which orcs are evil not individually but as a race, and kingdoms fail when the blood of kings is mixed with the blood of "lesser" men? Watching Alana Austin in "Motocrossed," the same thing happens. For a moment I am alone with the image, with my love, with my own self-defined queerness. And then the questions arrive, like a familiar package. How dare I claim to "feel like a dyke"? How dare I be turned on by a cross-dressing biker when I wouldn't be equally turned on by her brother (they look almost identical)? It's one thing to be a lesbian and favor a butch woman over her male counterpart. Of course *that's* okay. That's the essence of queerness. But for me to have the same preference is to declare myself straight, closed-minded, unwilling or unable to think of boys the way I think of girls. And so the beautiful image is lost, or at least complicated. Desire itself is questioned, the id is interrogated by the superego, and modernism gives way to the pomo. Naturally, that's how I like it. Rough. That is the world I believe in -- where intuition is important but not holy, and where seeking truth is a good deal more difficult than following one's "bliss."
"would you prefer the easy way? / no well okay then / don't cry."
- "Joyful Girl" by Ani
[Communique: 12.26.01]
There was a man with a dog standing at the crosswalk with me today. The dog was cute. We had a moment. I looked deeply into its eyes, and it looked deeply into mine. Then it barked at me and approached me, straining at the leash, and tried to jump up on me. I didn't know what to do. I've been scared of dogs since a guard dog bit me when I was a kid. I just didn't know how to gauge its attitude. Was it mad at me, or scared, or did it just want to play? Am I cool because it barked at me, am I one of those people who animals love, or am I uncool, am I one of those people who animals hate? Does my gaze seem loving or threatening to a dog? Is my heart kind? Do I pass the test of the innocent eye?
I ordered a whole bunch of zines from pander. They're wonderful. I'm reading one now by a dyke who lives in Brooklyn. It's beautiful, and the words feel so familiar to me, like I've lived so many of them. I'm falling in love with her, in a playful, distant, hardly-know-you way. And I'm already imagining the rejection. Because I'm a boy. Because I always fail that way. I'm already asked her in my head: "Would it be any different if I told you I was trans?" And she is asking back: "Well, are you trans?" And I'm looking down, muttering no, no I'm not trans, I'm not queer, I'm not anything. Just a dumb straight boy. Never mind.
[Communique: 12.25.01]
I am only interested in theater that can be justified against the backdrop of the current world situation. This doesn't mean it has to be dark. It can be joyous. But it has to be that kind of joy that is not about forgetting. As the Doctor says in my favorite novel, there exists a kind of smile "that forgets nothing, not even death." I am constantly amazed to realize that there is such a smile -- that happiness does not mean forgetting... That death does not always mean despair. Isn't that amazing?
Mary Zimmerman's "Metamorphoses" has been acclaimed as a moving modern version of Ovid's epic poem. I found it to be exquisitely lyrical and beautiful, but not really all that modern or moving. She has put a superficial veneer of "modernity" on top of an essentially classical vision. This is not because Ovid is so old. The myths of Ovid could be retold in a modern way, but this is not what she does. Her method of modernization is to set up the story -- its mileiu and characters -- as modern. However, the end of the story, its moral center, the heart of its meaning, its message, remains firmly classical. For example, the story of Phaeton is set up in a very modern way, with a hip yuppie floating in a pool talking to his therapist. But it ends with pure fantasy, a crash of the sun that has no obvious relation to our world. It would be much more radical of her (and more truly modern) to begin the story in a fantastical / classical mode but then end it by relating the crash to a car crash or some other contemporary tragedy. Similarly, the story of Midas begins as a critique of money-loving capitalists, but the solution to this problem turns out to be a magical pool of stars in a distant land. How much more interesting would it be to begin the tale as a classical story about a King but then to *end* it with a comment on capitalism, emotional priorities, and love.
I have a fairly cynical reading of why everybody loved Zimmerman's "Metamorphoses" so much. It's because it allows them to feel hip and modern while retaining a very deep and ingrained classicism. They get to laugh at Phaeton's arrogance or Midas' greed without having to actually question anything, because by the time the stories reach their moral climaxes, the promised "modernization" has disappeared and been replaced by pure fantasy. If Zimmerman had truly wanted to modernize Ovid and make it relevant to our current world, she would have had to bring not only the imagery up to date but also the ethical and spiritual meaning behind the imagery. But who wants to see that sort of thing? Most likely not the same crowd of people who are willing or able to pay $66 for a ticket.
[Communique: 12.24.01]
What if my whole "existential crisis" about "art and politics" boils down to the fact that I become uneasy when it has been more than a couple months since I last Made a Project? I begin to feel "fuzzy." It worries me when I don't have at least one major project going on, and "researching radical cultural performance in NYC" is not exactly a Project in the true sense of the word. So perhaps I just need to buckle down and figure out what I want to do in the next two weeks before NaCl training begins. Here is my new list: 1) brainstorm on the possibilities of a three-actor ensemble, 2) write articles for various (maga)zines, 3) really try to publish my books, and 4) work on a solo spoken word performance piece. Ah, I feel better already.
[Communique: 12.23.01]
The people trying to save the forests, the people trying to feed the poor, and the people trying to save theater... We are all on the same team. Art and politics cannot be separated. Art is politics. Culture is material. The personal is the political. Industrialization, capitalism, and becoming-cyborg are the same process. If we win, we will all win, and there will be trees and food and theater. If we lose, we will all lose, and then there will only be buildings, pills, and television.
[Communique: 12.21.01]
Something inside me has died. Something else has been born. I went to see Lord of the Rings and it was different somehow. I came back to normal more quickly. I felt less directly spoken-to by its wisdom. Even during the movie, critical voices appeared in my head. (I was reminded of a brilliant parody of Star Wars I once saw: "I'm trying to reach Lando Calrisian." / "I'm sorry, I've never heard of the Lando System." / "Lando's not a system, he's a man! The only black man in the universe!" This is pure genius: The *only* black man in the *entire* universe. Of course, Lando's existence actually makes Star Wars *more* racially diverse than The Lord of the Rings.) I am no longer capable of feeling what I used to feel when reading the Lord of the Rings or the Dark is Rising.
I don't say if this change in me is good or bad. It's really both. It is an awakening, a coming into the world, a different world if not a more real one. Because George Bush is not the Dark Lord Sauron. In the first place, if you got rid of him there would still be a global system of economic and environmental violence and injustice to contend with. In the second place, anyone who wants to get rid of the whole global system needs to come up with an idea for what will take it's place. There is no long-lost King to step up to the throne, and the dictatorship of the proletariat has not been seen to work on any large scale. Anarchists have a nice vision of utopia but no real plan of how to get there.
The feeling that has gone from me is the feeling of perfect righteousness. I do not think that it will ever come again, because once one begins to look around a bit, it is obvious that none of us are perfectly righteous. Visions and quests may be followed, but not are guiltless. Nietzsche said that God is dead. Dostoevsky took this to mean that "everything is permitted," but it also means that nothing is blessed. If there is no perfect evil then there can be no perfect good, and if Bush is not a Dark Lord then activists are not warriors of the light. There may still be villains and heroes, but only in the context of a given story, and as I have come to realize, there is no one story. There are infinite stories, and each one has the same cast, but they play different roles. I hope that there will be times when I can call myself a wizard, a king, a warrior, a friend, or a fool, but I also know that I have been and will be a demon, a minion, a wraithe, an orc, a power-hungry traitor, and a spoiled brat. I always wonder: Is it universally human to crave for an easy distinction between good and evil? Or is this something specific to my culture, to my psychology?
[Communique: 12.21.01]
Scene: White female dancer auditions for "artsy" production using technique learned from (black, male) "street" dance. Judges are astounded by the "new" style. Dancer gets into show. Hiphop breaks into the mainstream. Everyone lives happily ever after.
-"Flashdance" (1983), "Breakin'" (1984), "Save the Last Dance" (2001)
Has this ever actually been good for black people? This is a serious question, not a rhetorical one. Has it been helpful to blacks & latinos in any material way that hiphop has become so popular? Has it been helpful to blacks in the time since slavery that their culture has permeated whitey's own? Does the fact that I love hiphop contribute to my interest in racial justice? Does the fact that Jewish culture has been deeply influential in academics and entertainment have any relation to the fact that Jews have been financially successful in this country? Did the Greeks benefit from the fact that the Roman Empire absorbed their culture into itself? Does art affect politics? Is there any hope?
[Communique: 12.21.01]
"And now I don't remember anything else about that famous night though I do remember that it was wild. And of course the thing was that none of us knew till the next morning ... that around us in the darkness the city was being wrecked in the storm. We heard and saw nothing; we were too intent on our celebration."
- Neil Bartlett
"Partying against the darkness..."
- Neil Gaiman
The Temporary Autonomous Zone is a party against the darkness, a New Year's eve bash in someone's loft while the world ends, a festival in the woods while the cities burn, a carnival at the outskirts of town while life disintegrates, a rave in a warehouse while capitalism turns to fascism, a few queer punks in Times Square trying to de-capitalize Christmas, a radical anarchist collective formed while the government bombs foreign lands, a joke told in a concentration camp, masturbation while the world fucks itself. All of these are only moments, they fade, they disappear, they change nothing, they are in vain. At the same time, these are the threads that hold us together, the quickly-dying embers that warm us in the night, the bits & pieces that keep us going, the stuff that dreams are made on. The Village Voice informed me today that there are 103 operational nuclear power plants in the United States, and if the planes of 9/11 had been crashed into one of them instead, then millions would be dead and vast stretches of land would be uninhabitable and everyone I know would be dying of cancer. Meanwhile, my grandmother and grandfather, who remember the days before cars and television, are in the other room dying, perhaps from cancer, perhaps just from old age -- old age, which will take me eventually if nothing else does, me and everyone I know. But still I sit here and I write this, still I care if people read it, still I rejoice that I can finally do a headstand, and I talk about math and slang with Benny in Boston, and I talk about queerness and economics with Cara in Middletown, and all of this seems to have meaning. Sometimes it feels as though every moment of pleasure is a Temporary Autonomous Zone, a little spasm of life in the wilderness, a little flicker of something in the nothing.
[Communique: 12.20.01]
"[Boy] kissed strangers deeply and well... He smiled his devastating smile, gave himself away, made is suitor for the night feel almost shocked by how much he gave and how quickly."
- "Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall" by Neil Bartlett
"if you ask me / i'll say / yes please / to you today ... if you see me walk by / you better just let me walk by / you better not bat your pretty eyes / you better not stop me to say hi / cuz i got a sweet tooth today so / you better not cut that pie..."
- "o.k." by Ani
It feels thrillingly dangerous to imagine myself as Boy, or as Ani's open-minded heroine. The other side of flirting: To flirt as if I have something to give rather than something get. To be truly open to the world, constantly amazed. To be unformed and unconstituted by any strong vector of desire. Like a gayboy, like a chick, like my queer self. Somehow winter makes this easier. I will be Helen Hunt or Meg Ryan, wandering through New York City in big jacket and a scarf, waiting for a charming brown-haired comedian to take me ice-skating. I will be Seth Gilliam, waiting for the boy next door to ask me to dinner. I will be Leonardo di Caprio smoking a cigarette at dawn in Verona, writing poetry while waiting for love to strike. Waiting, it's all about waiting, waiting be found, waiting to be taken, waiting to be loved. Some delicious hide-and-seek in these snowless, image-plastered, product-laden streets.
[Communique: 12.18.01]
Sometimes I imagine jumping out of a window or in front of a train, or putting my right hand on the tracks when a train comes so that the metal wheels roll over my flesh, breaking muscle and tendon and ruining my most vital organ of outreach to the world. It's not that I want these things to happen. It's not about punishment. It's just that I am fascinated by the idea of an irrevocable decision, an act that cannot be undone, and the schizophrenic difference between the whimsical, curious self who steps out of the window and the terrified, betrayed self who realizes a split second later what irreparable damage has been done. Someone once said: "We are not afraid of falling, we are afraid of jumping." Is this what masochism is?
[Communique: 12.18.01]
Tonight I wore blue sunglasses on Canal St. and I realized that the future of Blade Runner is already here. You can already buy illegal animals from old Chinese men in the backs of tiny shops. The neon signs are already up advertising life-changing trips to virtual moons. Everyone one is already concerned only with survival. Money is already the only Real. Meanwhile, high above, men in business suits already determine the fate of the humanity while sipping imported champagne and getting blowjobs from synthetic whores. And these men, they already know our dreams, because they have manufactured our minds. Their minds are manufactured too, only they don't know it. Their dreams are the same as ours, from the same stock footage. The only difference is the color scheme. They dwell respendent in gold, while we suffer through an eternity of electric blues. I could see that I soon as I put on the glasses. I've taken them off now, but the vision won't go away. I'm surrounded by metal, glass, and plastic. It is already impossible to tell the replicants from the replicators. Even the pedestrians are becoming-synthetic. There is nothing Real in sight.
[Communique: 12.17.01]
After the open mic at ABC no rio I began to feel like I might have something to say again. Not exactly poems. I have written poems but they aren't any good. Something between a poem and a very short story. My friend used to call them "prosums." I call them "werala," but that's just a word I made up. I have a lot of first lines, and finally it's winter, and I think maybe some of those first lines have potential...
the power of the erotic: if you stay on the A train long enough it's winter in new york city Okay, so maybe they are a little like poems. But I can't write them that way. It only works if I think of them as prose. And no rhyming! God, I can't do rhyming! And a different rhythm, please! As much as I love Ani and Saul, as much as they have indeed changed my life, I do sometimes think that slam poetry has a tendency to fall into a rhythmic rut. Is that true? I guess I will have to go to Nuyorican to find out.
[Communique: 12.15.01]
I went to a parade for riotous queer anarchist kids, but I was the only one who showed up. Me and the two kids who had organized the party walked around Toys 'R Us and Macy's for a while and gave chocolate to people with shitty jobs. We found an elf named Lucky who told us that David Sedaris' essay is all true and being an elf really is a terrible fate. We gave him a copy of our radical carols to sing and he said we had made his morning. I followed my new friends to Coney Island where we roasted stolen tofu dogs over coals in a cookie tin. It was wonderful. Perhaps they will be my crew?
I haven't had a crew since high school. College was full of amazing and wonderful friends but all of them separate, always from different worlds, and me getting a kick out of my friends not liking each other. Me feeling like I could see beauty where others could not. I don't feel like that anymore. Suddenly I'm longing for a crew.
[Communique: 12.13.01]
At the Actor's Studio, people give me funny looks for being in the wrong place. As soon as I enter the room they start scrunching their eyebrows and frowning askance in my direction. Not helpful looks, "Oh, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong place, you're friend must be somewhere else, and actually these meetings are private." No, it's much more urgent for them. They are offended that I could mistake their meeting for someplace I might belong. "Do you go to the New School?" they ask. No. "Oh. Well... You can't be here." It's seems that they need me to leave right away, as if they were a touring rockstar band, or the Pentagon. As if they were having a sacred meeting. But I overheard, they were just sitting silently as a professor barked at them that they would have to do their own makeup. "You have to! Every actor must do their own makeup! Even in _Cats_ they do their own makeup. They teach you and then you're on your own. That's how it is." But they want me to leave. It's important to them. So I go.
In Washington Square Park a modern swordsman with a wooden sword is explaining to a small crowd how he will slice an orange in half with a single stroke. The orange is tossed, the stroke is made, the orange bounces grazed to the ground. "That orange is like a rubber ball," the swordsman mumbles. He tells us he is training a legion of swordsmen who will go on to become actors and stunt-doubles. A woman starts talking to him, an old woman with grey hair who seems to have fallen off her path in life and is looking for a way to get back on. She likes the swordsman. She tells him he is a great actor, and he tells her she is beautiful. The rest of the crowd is a small group of multiracial queer punk high schoolers -- the people I most think of as my crew. I smile at them. I want to be their friend. Then the hottest, queerest, punkiest boy of them all goes over to the old crazy lady and starts teasing her. She yells back at him righteously. He prances away and shouts something about what a nasty and wrinkly vagina such a crazy old lady must have. This is not my crew. I don't know where my crew is, but they are not here. So I go.
anarchy is a stirring
in the fleshy parts.
it will take you to Kandahar.
which means the bears will be out
didn't you know there are bears in this city?
oh, yes
this is not a metaphor.
vermilion's text = journal of a rootless cosmopolitan
inspired by slander
all text by bspatz
go to anagnorisis