Nebunele.com

It’s late and, believe it or not, I’m about to leave the house. But I have to write this down before I lose it. I just finished reading this article in the New York Times, called “What is Art For?”

The article is about a poet/essayist named Hyde who has some thoughtful things to say about intellectual property rights. And there’s something in what he says that resonates strongly with something that’s been growing in my own head for the past several years, which is a slightly different thought, which is: what if art *shouldn’t* make money?

If you’re an artist trying to be a working artist, there’s a little bit of heresy in this, because the people who work for free spoil it for the honest stiffs trying to make a living doing what they do, because why hire someone for money when this other dude will volunteer? And lots of us spent lots of money on our training, and the cultural perception of value gets all skewed when doctors make money and dancers don’t, when truly, truly, I will argue with you any day (and so would the dancer) that these functions are both equally, vitally important. But without a dollar sign attached to it, Americans especially have trouble coming to terms with that concept.

But the commercialization of theatre, in particular, is often the death of theatre. And I don’t know much about other genres of art, but I like how my buddy Dave Malloy puts this on his own website… it’s beautiful enough that I’m going to just quote it here.

remember, remember, when the artist was an anonymous drunkard, unwashed and unshaven, slaving over his sculptures in a bubonic haze, begging his dinner of meat on the bone, crusts and rotten cabbages, and in the moonlight sleeping with blossoming blushing barmaids on beds of stolen wine? and never ever once believing that he deserved anything more than this? that anything more was possible, or even desirable?

perhaps: artists dont actually, really deserve to be paid for their work, any more than the bleeding mother deserves payment for her just suddenly breathing child. what is nice and what is deserved, are just, not, the same.

take it! take it! take it!
i dont want it!

(this is the page on his site where a bunch of his music is available for free download.)

So, been talking to Claytie lately about theatre and how to make it part of the community again, because this is something that theatre still can do better than film (and for me the quest is always to distinguish those mediums, because theatre that’s trying to do what film does, but never as well, is just so pathetic to me, like tofu pretending to be turkey instead of glorying in its real tofu-iness.) And one of the things that’s drifted on and off our conversational radar is that the economy sucks right now, and it’s hitting theatres hard, and people think of live theatre as a luxury rather than an affordable necessity. And the idea has come up, once or twice, to drop the sham entirely. Ticket sales never cover more than a third of expenses anyway; why not just make every show pay-what-you-can, give it away for free to the audience who deserves it so much, and figure out the money on the back end, from donors and institutions who can afford to pay? Or just donate it all ourselves, out of our own damn pocket, because it’s better that way.

But I don’t know. Would an American audience feel okay about that? Or would they assume they were being fed something inferior, tossed a bone, a “free” prize that is inevitably a disappointing plastic piece of crap designed to sell boxes of cereal at inflated prices? Would people think it was valuable if we didn’t assign a value to it for them? Would they even come if they hadn’t committed some dollars to a pre-bought ticket?

Man, I dunno. But I recently read an article about the fine art auction houses like Sotheby’s being hit hard by the economic downturn, having to sell classic paintings by masters for a scant $15 million instead of the $30 million or whatever they deserve, and there’s some hopeful quote from a curater going “oh, I’m not too worried; I think people still recognize the value of these pieces.” and I just
feel
like
something
is
off.

What do you think?

Ready to beg my dinner of meat on the bone, crusts and rotten cabbages,
Alissa

I saw another play tonight–well, a collection of monologues, not exactly a play–called Eating Around the Bruise at Annex Theatre. The monologues are sweet and competently delivered, but they were all more or less about what’s wrong with the world in general and this country in particular, and I left the theatre having re-awakened the knot of anxiety in my stomach that I thought I had conquered with my inspiring meeting with a new collaborator this morning. The last line delivered from the stage tonight was “Don’t screw up.” Jesus.

So I drove toward home fast through the rainy dark, not sure what I’d do when I got here. But–turning up the steep, windy (that’s whine-dee, like winding around something, not win-dee like the weather pattern, though that was also the case), almost-my-street-but-not-quite, there was a big gust of wind (weather this time), and the air was suddenly full of huge yellow wet leaves, showering thickly down onto my windshield and my hood. Oh beauty! And when I parked at home, and stepped out of my car, another damp gust came, carrying rain right into my too-light jacket and making me close the car door fast and giggle out loud.

My yard has been transformed. There’s a huge tree arching over all the front lawn that has been bleeding gold for about two weeks, carpeting the entire front yard in gushy bright yellow leaves. Leaving my house when it’s light out is like walking onto a sun; it’s brighter below than above, and oh! So bright that is! Warm and homey and sorry-I’m-leaving-but-I-can’t-wait-till-I-get-home-again beautiful.

So it’s cold and rainy and I’m not dressed right, surprise surprise, and I start walking toward my front door but another gust of wind makes me stop and turn. And I see that nearly my whole street has turned gold. There’s still some green foliage, but everything, cars, houses, the street, the bushes, everything is coated in this dusky downpour. And I walked to the edge of the street in front of my house and stood there, looking like an idiot, or maybe just like I was waiting for someone to come pick me up, peering down my street at those isolated pools of streetlight and the dance, I mean the DANCE, the motherfucking grand ball of the century, of leaves twirling down in the wind and the rain. The big ones, bigger than my hand, come down slow in big lazy spirals; the medium ones in tighter, dizzier spirals; and the fifty-cent piece size come barreling straight down and spinning like a top, no end to them, like a multidimensional tetris game, just a snow of precious metal coming down. And few enough cars drive on my street that the asphalt is gold with them and looks soft, too, like I could lie down in the rain and roll around and be safe and warm, lit from the inside by the flame on the ground, the second sun, shining even at night, radiating in the sparse streetlight.

It was revelation time, I mean I’m tired of being stressed out and feeling guilty about spending money or not spending enough time productively or this or that, I live in this beautiful world and the best possible use of my time is to stand there gaping at it like an idiot, getting wet and shivering. I was so excited I called Silas, who I owed a call to, and left him a breathless voicemail about it, and then I called Mike, who happened at that moment to be freezing, walking to dinner up the Ave without a coat in the rain where it was just as cold but not beautiful. And he couldn’t hear me properly walking in the street so he ducked away from the wind somewhere cold while I gasped and went on about how pretty it was on my street, and he listened patiently and shivered until I finished, and then excused himself so he could get out of the cold and get where he was going, and I felt sort of apologetic for demanding he listen to my experience of beauty. I think I got so wrapped up in my “experience” that I forgot to just keep looking. I think maybe it would have been better if I had kept it just for me. Or maybe written it down for someone to read at their leisure, or for me to read later. Which I’m doing now.

With awe and chagrin and love,
Alissa

It’s 1am for the first time tonight; in another hour it will be 1am again, and so this is the Lost Hour, the hour that will rewind and be lived again. I’m kinda tired but not sleepy; I’ve got a glass of wine and leisure time but not the energy or determination to do anything productive. I saw a good play tonight, though. It was called Love Person (those of you in Seattle, see it! It’s at Live Girls in Ballard and it runs through Nov. 22nd and it’s good) and it was this great interweaving of a story about a deaf woman and her girlfriend, and the deaf woman’s sister who falls in love with a man who emails with the deaf woman at night, thinking it’s her sister. He’s a Sanscrit translator and the girlfriend is a poetry professor and the sister is a drunk, and the play is told in three languages: English, American Sign Language and Sanscrit. It was a touching story and a really well-constructed play and it’s the best thing I’ve seen at Live Girls Theatre (except possibly the last thing Joy directed there, Patty Red Pants.) The acting was great and watching deaf people sign is totally transporting, totally dramatic, totally engaged. I wanted to learn ASL and use it to make poetry. The deaf girl doesn’t like poetry because to her, words get in the way of real meaning…much was said about ASL and how signing is direct and beautiful, like poetry itself.

A nice line about how the best way of explaining love was sex, which came off less cynically than it might sound. It got me thinking about sex and deaf people, how signing is such a physical language and that in that context, sex is really the ultimate intimate communication. How sensual it is to be deaf. I sat next to my friend the director, Joy, who’ll be working with us on the next Nebunele show, and watched her interact with her deaf co-director; Joy doesn’t sign, so they write their thoughts down to show to each other. When we were in the lobby, though, there was an interpreter there, and it was the first time I had ever interacted with someone and used an interpreter. I watched the interpreter sign my “nice to meet you” to Dawn, the co-director, and that was trippy and cool and awkward but in a way I wanted to do more of. I realize I have no deaf friends, or blind friends, or paraplegic friends, or any differently-abled friends at all, unless you count my colorblind boyfriend (I don’t.) But anyway. Dawn was SO animated, so engaged, and so charming, that I really wanted to be able to talk to her properly. I think having a language that includes facial expressions as grammar is beautiful.

In the car on the way home, Claytie asked me whether, if I had a child who was deaf, I would have them have an operation to allow them to hear. Apparently this is a bit of a controversy in the deaf community–the option could destroy deaf culture, which is lively and completely separate, a radical sub-culture buried in the world of the hearing. Before seeing this show, I would have said Of course I would give my child such an operation! I don’t think my answer has changed, but there is more hesitation in me now. The deaf girl in the show had a certain pity for hearing people…

Not often I go to a play that changes my perspective on the world in an immediately measurable way. Kudos, Aditi Brennan Kapil. Good night…

Contemplating earplugs,
Alissa