Avant-grandparents

[imomus]

You carry your avant-grandparents inside you wherever you go. You carry them around inside you as voices you find yourself mimicking. It may well be against your will. It may even be your own "real" voice, but your avant-grandparents got there first. People hear you talking, people who knew your avant-parents and your avant-grandparents before that, and hear them. It makes you "cute", as cute as The Strokes. It makes you reassuring, reassuringly unoriginal. You fit a pre-cut hole. Hey, you sound just like grumpy grandpa Lou!

Lou's "up to Lexington, 125, feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive" popped into my head, as it always does, when I found myself on Lexington Avenue yesterday. I also caught myself earlier in the day sounding remarkably like Laurie Anderson in my art show, with an 80s string machine loop backing a narrative about Hummers, recited in the glazed-appalled schizo-mesmer sprechgesang style Laurie has made her own over the years. And I've been doing the "prematurely air-conditioned supermarket" piece from Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, adding the twist that someone on the beach is listening to it on an iPod.



How appropriate, then, that a certain C. Depp, who's working on Robert Wilson's archives, would kindly give Mai and I tickets to see Wilson's new epic, I La Galigo at the Lincoln Center. The piece, three hours long, was inspired by the Galigo Manuscript, a sacred epic poem of the Bugis people of South Sulawesi in the Indonesian archipelago.

Unfortunately, I La Galigo was like the school play from hell, a three hour yawnfest of frigid tableaux, depoliticized Piscator, pastel lighting, costumes apparently bought from Saks 5th Avenue, tepid humanism, slow-mo tai chi, fake, neutered ethnic music, the mannerism but not the viciousness of Peter Greenaway, and animal scenes worthy of "The Lion King". The plot (projected in supertitles above the stage) constrained the gesture, everything worked to diminish everything else, the cast of thousands felt like nobody was on stage at all, and I felt a curious absence of any guiding theatrical intelligence whatsoever. It was like some tourist folk dance spectacular staged at the Hilton Hotel, Jakarta.

The audience at the Lincoln Center—average age 60—seemed to love the piece, though, giving it a standing ovation at the end. The elderly Jewish couple in front of me were typical. The man fell quickly asleep, which was fine, he wasn't snoring. I kind of envied him. But his wife insisted on waving her hand in front of his eyes and talking to him continuously to wake him up. "You're missing it!" she hissed. "I'll wake up when important bits of plot are happening", he grunted. "You missed important bits of plot already," she said, lying through her teeth, since for the last ten minutes all that had happened was that people had walked very slowly across the stage, gradually rotating their hands.

A couple of balconies down from us sat Shazna and her friend Claudia. In front of them were Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, pals of Robert Wilson. Shazna tells me that Lou slept through most of the play, while Laurie watched with a fixed, blissful smile. Mai and I ran into them on the sidewalk outside as we headed towards the subway. Lou was wearing long shorts and a faded Hawaiian shirt, small steel-rimmed spectacles. They'd left the Lincoln Center but were returning against the crowd, as if they'd just realised they'd left something under the seat. Lou glanced at my eyepatch and I recognised him, shocked to see how frail, silver-haired and dithery he looked, like a Floridian retiree. Laurie walked close behind, blurry-faced, unexpectedly tiny. They looked like your avant-grandparents from the countryside, frazzled by the big city.

PS: Just a reminder that your very own avant-grandfather Momus plays Tonic tonight between 8pm and midnight, joined by Rusty Santos and the Billy Nayer Show. Also, uberdionysus has a page of drawings, photos and descriptions of his trip to "I'll Speak, You Sing" here.

Comments

[freddster.livejournal.com]

i'd like ryuichi sakamoto to be my avante-garde dad.

[(Anonymous)]

This reminds me that I'd been avoiding the beach.

[trrill.livejournal.com]

That was I.

It also reminded me that I still haven't managed to see any of Wilson's Wagner work. The first time I read about him was when I was a teenager obsessed with the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts. There was something about his make-a-300-plus-pound-soprano-cross-the-breadth-of-the-stage
-slowly-over-the-course-of-two-and-a-half-minute approach that struck me, and I vowed that when I was older I'd experience it in real life and real time. God knows that artform (at least in its non-modern sense) needs some revivification. It's too bad he's been ill-received by the traditional opera-going public. To me, he's one of the few that's even carrying on the tradition.

[trrill.livejournal.com]

It's also fascinating that you comment on Wilson's way of making the context outweigh and overpower the content. Charles Mudede here at Seattle's The Stranger made a similar observation (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=21969) about the joint Noguchi-Wilson exhibit at our Seattle Art Museum.

[junkerr.livejournal.com]

haha, as cute as the Strokes, lovely.
've you been hearing the buzz in your locale over this odd new band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah?

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I may be completely full of crap here but isn't that what arch-reactionary Harold Bloom calls "the theory of poetic influence" in which subsequent writers must intentionally "misread" their influential predecessors' work in order to create new works? you have avant-grandparents in the form of Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, but you must differentiate yourself just enough from their influence so you're not just rehashing?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I haven't read much Ravelstein Bloom, but it sounds plausible, if hardly rocket science.

[alionunderaw.livejournal.com]

The problem with Bloom is that he makes funny arguments that make him sound as if he's really just a frustrated writer. That's not to denigrate "the critic's art" (or whatever), but it sure makes me roll my eyes when he says, "All poetry is misreading, therefore all criticism is prose poetry." Someone should bonk him on the head!

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

When I feel as if I'm falling into a creative trap, I re-read Wilde's "The Critic as Artist" and that usually sets me straight.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I've been reading Bloom. His style's not bad, but he's basically smug and narrow-minded. I got fed up with him after he commented that Poe "Benefits from translation, even into English."

What a bore.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Ravelstein? what? [does quick googling] Nono, Harold Bloom, not Allan Bloom. Western Canon guy, not the neocon Closing of the American Mind guy. Harold Bloom's a big fan of the western canon, and probably the biggest shakespeare fanboy to ever walk the earth, but not actually evil. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Have you read 'Poem Unlimited', his book on Hamlet? It's hilarious but completely cracked...

Sam

[alionunderaw.livejournal.com]

...with a plush strawberry, of course.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

I really like Bloom's theories of artistic production. I like how they side-step ideas about qualia and essences and just deal with geneology.

[vampiresoflove.livejournal.com]

thats insane.
i love luarie anderson, especially the song From The Air...there is no captain....ahh! so disturbing!

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

The audience at the Lincoln Center—average age 60—seemed to love the piece, though, giving it a standing ovation at the end.
Getting an S.O. is no indication that the piece was either good or well received. It has become part of the American theatre tradition. You go to a show, fall asleep, wake up at the applause and stand up. Sad really. I used to get excited with an S.O. but now I just wait for it like taxes.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

True. A standing ovation just means they paid a lot for their tickets.

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

Because if you don't look like you enjoyed yourself, you might have to admit to the reality of your existence.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Or it means it was a long damn show, and they're ready to stand up now dammit!

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

No, I understand. I genreally prefer shows that are under two hours. If for no reason than it gets uncomfortabel to sit so long. But I still feel that sadly most audiences go to the theatre out of some strange sense of obligation or guilt. And that just depresses me.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Nej, I agree too. I'm a theatre worker, and at theatre events on the high end of the ticket price spectrum, I think the audiences go so that they can say they went in front of people who didn't: "Oh, yes, we saw Merry Wives at Chicago Shakespeare, oh yes, we saw the new Mary Zimmerman at the Goodman wasn't it wonderful..." It's a lot like grand opera that way. Have you ever wondered why the opera houses of Europe have those fancy boxes with such crap views of the stage? It's because the people who sat in boxes didn't come to watch the *show*, they came *to be seen going to the show*, and *to spy on the other people in the other boxes*. 'S true.

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

My favorite are the Theaters built for Louis XIV where every seat is designed so that the audience can see HIM. Opera generally depresses me becuase it has so much potential. I was working at the SF Opera last fall when we produced Ligetti's Le Grand Macabre. It was great, an a tonal opera about The Apocalypse opening in San Francisco the day before Halloween. Truly amazing, there were 6'-6" drag-queen brides of Frankenstein sitting next to blue haired Civil War vets who were falling asleep. Of course every other piece that season was filled with stiff lipped folk who took in amazing music and beautiful production like bad medicine.

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Peter Greenaway's film "The Baby of Macon"? The Prince and his immediate entourage are seated on the stage, and are invited to partake of the action.

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

Nice. I'll check it out. BTW, I'm adding you to my friends list if you don't mind.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

your very own avant-grandfather

For some, this would imply a sense of being hapless and "behind". Though you, dear avant-gramps, seem to have gotten more interesting with age. Definitely less hapless, though sometimes your loveable grandfatherly side shines through, an example being the girl pic you used for your moronic cynicism post.

P.S. - Did you get my e-mail? I used the address on your site: momasu@gmail.com

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The one about Beckett? Yes... I made a reading, but it's full of horrible digital glitches.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

Beckett? Nay, my email was about Conner's robots.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In that case I believe your mail didn't arrive, please resend.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

Re-sent.

tidy catch phrases

[(Anonymous)]

what's up with the cute catch phrases, horrid reductions?

'moronic cynicism' 'avant-grandfather' 'nipposexual'

bubonic circumcision , retard-savant , hypodermic finger fuck you all

you are turning into a scientologist

i'm the goddamn poet man

[(Anonymous)]

Quite a coincidence thatyou found a picture of them both (Lour Reed and Laurie Anderson) with an eyepatch on!

SubjectLiner

[bone-chandelier.livejournal.com]

Momus,
I happened to see Lou Reed in Chelsea 3wks ago tonight...He looked just as I expected him to look, sort of stiff, aged, quite like the animatronic version of himself that starred in one of his mid-80s videos. My large group of friends surrounding me (the ones who didn't here my semi-frantic whispering about Lou), who were in town for a friends' opening, simply walked right past him.
Congratulations on the finale, today, I was there--ass pasted to the floor, peering over a shoulder to try to figure out your desktop image, improvised yogish-stretches--for the last 1.5 hrs today, the first chance I had gotten to see it...I was excited to hear some "decadent biscuits" get thrown into the tale-blender from a recent LJ post...and was enraptured by your ending, where you coaxed immortality outward by urging the aether to "keep telling 1,001 never-ending stories...think fast, think on your feet" and then leading Mai through some elegiac Tuvan-lite...I'm paraphrasing, and I hope to follow suit. Thanks for giving generously.
NY Resident,
Brent Cowley

not a tale out of school

[darksomnabule.livejournal.com]

lou reed's predilection for defecating on his boy toys is always nice to keep in one's mind when you run into him at the ueberboring venues.