Areas of Unrest

8 June 1999 - After Scott Kelman's Workshop

This is something of an experiment and relates to a performance art workshop I went to tonight. Bear with me and I think it makes some sense in the end. If not - well, be glad I nixed the idea of drawing little stick figures to get the movement part of the experience in!

Riff #1

So what it all is is playing praying but I don't know what he wants me to do I don't know what he wants me to do what the hell does he want me to do to do to coo to chant to hum to sing to too two three four but I couldn't get there and I had to take the bus the train the plane the drain the brain the brain the brain stuck in the brain and I couldn't get off the brain off the brain.

Deliberation

Make contact with the space. Look up, down, around, left, into their eyes. Meditate with the space. Choose to be present.

If you have a good idea, don't use it.

Engage. Deliberate. Be present. Choose.

Subtle.

Sound

Huuuh. Yee! Owowowowowowowowowowowowowow.

bababebebibibobobubu.

Mufufu.

Riff #2

Zero

is

the

S P A C E

between

words

Ten is riffing as fast as you can as fast as fast no time to stop think choose words every word you think of you have to say and your whole body moving moving every second like you have Tourette's syndrome wicky ticky riki tiki tavi mongoose chanting riffing somewhere the rhythm comes in and you find you can't stop saying certain words certain ways slowly melifluosly you don't know what will happen and you have to say yes to everything oh yes yes yes.

Deliberation #2

Be subtle. Be present. When you move, move. When you stop, stop. When you stop, check it out. See everything.

Sounds outside are inside when you are inside.

Sound #2

Ummmmmmmmm. Yow! Yummmm. Hai ho hee jee chee shiiii sloooo.

Riff #3

Patterns patterns, patter in patterns, patter matter mad as a hatter, rhyme in time in crime in thyme in lime, rhyme in mime, meter heater, I was so hot all I could think of was degrees - feverish, bachelor, master, doctor, riding the mercury to the top, riding mercury to Zeus to Hera to herald, herald tribune, world, sun, times, none of the newspapers left, all of the newspapers left just to crumble into carbon in the ground, sound, wound.

Deliberation #3

Check it out. CHECK it out. Check IT out. Check it OUT.

You are part of IT.

Be present.

Sound #3

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee

Whee! Wowowowowowowawawawawaaaaaaaaaah!

What This is About - A Final Riff

So there I thought I was having this real grownup day. You'd think at 40 days should mostly be grownup days but most of the time they aren't and it takes having all these grownup experiences to think "aha! today I am an adult" (though I can never think that without thinking of the old joke about the boy at his Bar Mitzvah who has prepared the usual speech that is supposed to start "today I am a man" but he's thinking of the gifts he's going to get so he says "today I am a fountain pen"). What was so grownup was first going to the dentist, willingly being lectured on flossing, well not willingly being lectured but knowing that yes you have to face going and that means being lectured on gums, and then afterwards I went to my stockbroker and it just sounds so so grownup to have a stockbroker at all and to have to make choices about money moolah bucks dough where to put it how to make it grow, grow the dough, oh! Then to vote to note the cares of the school board then work work work work so you see it was all very adult and then came the workshop this performance art workshop that was all about process and not about results and say yes to green, yes to yellow and be deliberate and fill the space and pass the sounds and movements around the room and sound jam you can't do it wrong because whatever sound comes out is right and then you riff, riff, riff, riff at every speed from zero space between words to ten as rapid as you can to sound jam and there went all the adult stuff evaporated in four hours of playing playing playing but you know its never a game when you call it art instead.