This Week's This

MAHLOUL, A Palestine Journey

2009-09-27T09:43:00.003+02:00

Mahloul, A Palestine Journey
Voices from the front lines of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

April 2009: The Living Theatre went to Palestine and Israel.
We visited refugee camps, social centers, woman centers, squats, villages and cities, city halls.
We did workshops and performances. Mostly we listened.

This documentary gives voice to the individuals and groups living on the front lines in this divided and suffering land. Featured are Israeli "Refusniks" and activists and artists in Tel Aviv and social workers, organizers and artists in Palestinian refugee camps. Heard also are the many voices and personal stories of the Palestinians and Israelis we met who express their hopes and fears in their daily struggle of survival and resistance.

Living Theatre actors also take their theatre into the streets of Tel Aviv and and East Jerusalem and the documentary follows the course of a political theatre workshop.

Maybe it’s a good thing, when a Victor Lierbermann, which is a really crazy, racist man will be elected foreign minister, and Netenyahu will be prime minister, then maybe all around the world, Obama, and especially European countries, will truly understand that we are such a racist country and we are acting in such a violent way to Palestinians living here in Israel, and also certainly to Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, that they will boycott us, and eventually this thing will have to end. Just like South Africa.

Excerpt from a meeting with Israeli activists in Tel Aviv.

http://www.videoweekly.net/mahloul.html

If you see these paintings...

2008-07-18T09:40:00.007+02:00

If you meet a Buddha on your path kill him!
If you see one of these paintings steal it! And then write me at garyliving@yahoo.com.
I left Boston in 1989 and all of my art work too. I never went back so besides a few works that I gave away ALL of my paintings are lost to the corners of this earth (Except for 2 or 3 I managed to take home to N.C.)
So go to this link and let me hear what you think of them!
Painting's of Gary Brackett
PS Check back later on the link as have only uploaded about a third of the paintings (as of July 18 '08.)

Green Missing

2007-08-10T19:55:00.000+02:00

(Italiano in seguito)

But I alone am drifting,
not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.
Others have more than they need,
but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Others are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Others are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.
Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

Lao Tzu: "Tao Te Ching"

Download the video Green Missing at Videoweekly.net
Versione Italiano Videoweekly.net(Ital)
Viewing (lower quality) at Youtube
Italiano (meno qualita') Youtube

Sol io quanto son placido! tuttora senza presagio
come un pargolo che ancor non ha sorriso,
quanto son dimesso!
come chi non ha dove tornare.
Tutti gli uomini hanno d'avanzo
sol io sono come chi tutto ha abbandonato.
Oh, il mio cuore di stolto
quanto è confuso!
L'uomo comune è così brillante
sol io sono tutto ottenebrato,
l'uomo comune in tutto s'intromette,
solo io di tutto mi disinteresso,
agitato sono come il mare,
sballottato sono come chi non ha punto fermo.
Tutti gli uomini sono affaccendati
sol io sono ebete come villico.
Sol io mi differenzio dagli altri
e tengo in gran pregio la madre che nutre.

Apokatastasis:

2007-01-22T00:29:00.000+01:00

Apokatastasis: from the demonic to the divine.

From war to peace.

From violence to empathy.

From cruelty to compassion.

Each war epoch (and all epochs seem to be colored by their war) each have their iconic image.
In Vietnam, General Luan in cold blood kills Nguyen Van Lem, a Vietnamese militant.
In Iraq in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, again an image is stamped on the public’s imagination.

War without end.

What force can turn it around and end this one great and cruel constant of humanity?
Apokatastasis: from Paradise Now of The Living Theatre (1968) this is a theatrical action used to bring the Vietnam war into the theatre; used again in 1973 in front of the Chilean Embassy in New York; and an action we continue to use to speak against violence in all its forms: to show the great transformative power of I-Thou, of the sacred hand, sacred sex, sacred EVERYTHING- to turn it around. The truth is found at this juncture: in the non-fictional here and now between actors- between artist and spectator...between beings.

Link to the video: Apokatastasis

PS: My 9/11 5th Anniversary video is now on VIDEOWEEKLY.NET in a higher quality version. Download it now!

The Living Theatre to open a new theatre with an "American" classic

2006-09-26T23:45:00.000+02:00

I am not free. There is a structure in my mind that imprisons me. This structure is the world. I obey certain laws. I could be punished. I cannot act upon my sexual desires. I cannot find the resources I need to create my art. I cannot stop war. I cannot live without money.

I said these structures are in my mind. Yet prisons, walls, police, money systems, borders, taboos, are all structures of society. But my mind is, our minds are, society.

Iraq: a ruthless dictator holds the social fabric together. A warring machine, a political fiction, neo-cons, the military industrial complex, call it what you will, invades and does away with the dictator and now there is another structure, equally ruthless that does and does not hold the fabric together.

Thailand: a military coup believes that it is its manifest destiny to bring about democracy.

The United Nations: Bosnia yes; Rwanda no. Sometimes structures act, sometimes not. And today in the Sudan?

How is this decided?

Graffiti on the wall: “Who rules?”

Julian Beck, in 1964 asks: is it easier to observe life in the street or in the theatre?

Sitting in the restaurant I see a petty bust: a white cop handcuffing a young black male. They play their roles perfectly. They are BOTH embarrassed, awkward in their recitations. I am the anonymous public. Impotent. It is cruel.

It is more than a physical tempest, it is a spiritual concussion that is signified in the general trembling of their limbs and their rolling eyes. Artaud

In 1964 The Living Theatre stages The Brig (by Kenneth H. Brown) based on the experience of Marines in the Marine’s brig. Not a play about the Abu Ghraib prison …or Guantànamo but about Marines abusing Marines. The idea was to make the audience feel the cruelty of brute authority and drive home in them the desire to dissolve that same authority.

"Devastating." —Howard Taubman, The New York Times

"Grim, relentless, supercharged." —The New Yorker "

“Unforgettable." —Variety

"A drill, a fist in the guts, a hangover, a nightmare." —The Sunday Telegraph (London)

"Shocking." —New York Post

"An act of conscience, decency, and moral revolt." —The New Republic

"Shattering." — Daily Express (London)

"Blistering, slashing, relentless." —Associated Press

"A nightmare ballet." —Life

"Horrifying, inescapable, and brilliant." —Daily Mail (London)

"An experience that must leave its mark on the American theatre." —Gordon Rogoff, Plays and Players

Calls were made for congressional investigations. The Living Theatre was closed. It was historical. Where is theatre like this today?

"What we learned in The Brig 42 years ago is so much clearer today." Steve Ben Israel, actor who performed The Brig more than 100 times.

Harvey Keitel, when he went to audition for the play, having just left the Marines, said he had had enough of that already.

"Reading the minutiae of description with which Kenneth Brown prefaces his play, I already felt that beauty and that terror in the rigor of the detail." Taken from Directing The Brig (quoted here and below) by Judith Malina, director of The Brig. She tells me it is the best thing she has ever written on theatre. I think she is right.

In the rehearsals Judith applied the rules and regulations of behavior for Marines as prescribed in The Guidebook for Marines, their manual on how to dress, obey, kill, die...and over and over to obey…especially in dying.

Again Steve Ben: "every actor who played The Brig learned it all there in that one play, because that play was for real."

Judith Malina:

My first reading of The Brig was a physical experience of the sense of total restriction. The restriction of the author to the barest facts, like the restrictions on the lives of the prisoners, immediately communicated the immobility of the structure. But what can be done within these strict limits? There is no alternate movement, no choice as to what shall be played upstage or downstage. No clue to the range of possible dramatic action. This is the key. The immobility of the structure.

"Just as we knew where our fellow prisoner was standing and what he was doing without looking at him, so we came to know how he was feeling, if he was in pain, or if he was happy because he was clicked in. It was like telepathy. But it wasn't that. It was community." (Judith quoting an actor describing what came to be known from the actors as The Trip.)

The price of the chaos under which we suffer. The price of the rigid law which gives us a slave's ease. When the audience can know violence in the clear light of the kinship of our physical empathy, it will go out of the theatre and turn such evil into such good as transformed the Furies into the Kindly Ones.

___________________

I don’t know how to get free. I look to the greats to steer me: the Charlie Parker’s, The Janis Joplin’s, the dead and living poets, the eternal rebels. I don’t believe that any social system can ever free me. Perhaps even in an actualized utopist community I might still have to follow rules, limit myself, find a measure of what I can, and cannot get away with. Are we so doomed? I do know that freedom will never be found in The New York Times, on the Internet, by voting, from capitalism, in having things, or even from simple being.

Julian Beck: "No one is free until all of us are free."

For this same reason the Dali Lamas reincarnate in order to be the very last to leave this torture garden. This is the fallacy and limitation of psychoanalysis, of new ageism: those pompous assholes.

And Artaud said that there must still be new experiences, new levels of being yet to discover:

The human face
is an empty power, a
field of death.
... after countless thousands of years
that the human face has spoken
and breathed
one still has the impression
that it hasn't even begun to
say what it is and what it knows.

If in The Brig, in the empty, automaton faces of the prisoners, in the sadistic smiles and violence of the guards, in the complete and horrific silence of the audience, we can examine under the light of art and science this shop of horrors in which we live, if we can risk abandoning our perception of what we believe we are, of what we might become, then perhaps we might take a step together into the real: no fiction.

We need to learn how to feel again.

We are doing The Brig once more. We are risking everything. See you on Clinton Street (New York City) in January.

To read the complete Directing The Brig by Judith Malina go to:
Directing The Brig

9/11 5th anniversary: Ground Zero: what the media missed.

2006-09-12T17:16:00.000+02:00

On the ground at Ground Zero where the people appear: to debate, to argue, to witness. They are angry, sad, hopeful, irate. Many speak, a few listen, hardly any are convinced yet the people were there and the media missed it all. This is a small testament of that day.

Click below to go to the video (9 min.):

Ground Zero: What the media missed

SMOPSM Re-mix

2006-05-24T21:39:00.000+02:00

A new video by Gary Brackett
Adapted from Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism by The Living Theatre

“I just watched the disc of SMOPSM Re-mix. It's magnificent. A much desired mix, for me, of old forms and treasured moments with modern realizations. But also with new energy and today's insanity. It's a kind of video clip, rock video, theater video. I might say also, your theater maturity and skill is evident. Don't want to get your ego too out of tilt, but it's good…… I mean, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.”

Tom Walker

Link al video: English

Link to video: Italiano

The Whole Being

2005-12-22T19:10:00.000+01:00

The Whole Being

Dedicated to the little policeman in all of us!

I’ve been away for awhile from Blogville. I don’t know- call it frustration with the system: words and more words and nobody hearing or listening. Maybe that’s why we have art. As in music, fortunately we get far beyond words! Yet words CAN soar but HOW to make them soar ever anew: that is the question today.

The original intention of this blog was to call attention to my video series “This Week’s This”.

So for now that is the scope of this entry.

The Whole Being; The Being- whole. The Whole- being. The Earth being whole, the human being whole. With text by Rimbaud and Rudolf Steiner I’ve tried to present this wholeness in its contradictions of good and bad; light and dark; the individual and the collective. It is an Italian video, grounded in some of my work here in the streets of Napoli and Bologna: chance encounters, protests, meetings with light, the city and the environment. And as usual a lot of reflections on myself: the aging body, lost youth, hopes, loneliness…we all know about these elements, no?

Hopefully a thread comes through with the help of some master poets and some less know masters, those sublime and unique persons and their genius: the people. Enough said! Go to the video….and let me know what you have felt and thought. This is the dialogue that I want.

Direct link to video:
http://www.videoweekly.net/videos.html

The Legacy of Julian Beck and The Living Theatre Today

2005-09-08T18:53:00.000+02:00

Julian Beck

Note: For those of you who are not familiar with The Living Theatre, and its founders Julian Beck and Judith Malina, then welcome to a new universe! Political Theatre, theatre of joy, theatre of liberation, theatre of the ‘beautiful non-violent Anarchist revolution’, the Living gave birth to Off-Broadway, influenced generations of artists and activists, from the Beat poets of the 50’s, to Jim Morrison and the turbulent and wild 60’s, into the prisons of Brazil in the 70’s and still today in Europe, the US and the world this group continues to explore, challenge and define what it means to be an artist.

What follows is a commissioned article written for the 20th anniversary of the passing of Julian Beck that I want to share with blogland, of his living legacy and of the group’s more recent story. There are literally thousands of ‘hits’ for The Living Theatre to check out on the Internet, as well as many books and films, for those of you interested in theatre, poetry, pacifism and politics!

The Legacy of Julian Beck and The Living Theatre Today

Perhaps the test of a person’s influence is the extent to which his or her ideas continue to inspire, to give example of a path that others can for themselves substantiate. Equally so, that person’s life and work provide a measure of ones own work: a reference point in their experimentation, in their commitment and the possibilities of success. September 15 marks 20 years of the passing of Julian Beck, yet the work of the Living Theatre continues. We as a group, as well as any one working today in theatre, or poetry and film, have always before us his genius as a model of a complete artist. Not only is this a great challenge because of the wealth and scope of his work, but also personally I feel a certain responsibility to try to reach the level of his passion, his expertise, his profundity intellectually and his effectiveness as an artist and also as a human being. I have no doubt that he was one of the most important artists of the last century and if we add that other incredible element of the Living, that is Judith Malina, the story of the combination of these two great forces I am certain will be studied well into this new century, if not beyond. Fortunately for us she is thriving, (at 80 years of age!) and continues to create, always searching for the next play, the next form, that will realize ‘the beautiful non-violent anarchist revolution’.

Judith Malina, Paradise Now

Certainly one key element in this marvelously rich theatre is the work of the group. Too often when speaking about the Living there is an element missing, and that element is the dialectic between not only Judith and Julian (tempestuous as it was at times, so I am told), but also most importantly the dialectic between those two power dynamos and the company. Theatre, more than most arts, is a collaborative effort and with the Living one cannot minimize the importance of the group: those plays which brought the Living its greatest notoriety could only have been produced by the challenging presence of an ensemble. Challenging, because as Judith explains, there is an dynamic correlation between a social movement with that of an avant-garde of political artists: often the movement may follow behind the artists; at other times it is the artists that need to catch-up to the movement.

Rufus, Mysteries and Smaller Pieces

And so this rapport between the proper authority of the directors with the ensemble is equally valid. It’s sufficient to look at a play like Paradise Now: from the incredible amount of energy and experimentation of the ‘60’s generation, Judith and Julian were there to inspire, and to be inspired by, that great movement.

Perhaps I am in a unique position to speak on this legacy of the Living after his death, for I actually met the group while he lay in the hospital writing his last marvelous texts. Having never worked with him personally one could say I am part of the “after” generation. If one likes, one can look at the period “with Julian” and the period “after Julian” when studying the Living, but there is a risk of oversimplification, as many tend to do. If only life were that simple. Especially because the history of the Living is still being written. Still many have tried to ‘write off’ the Living as having finished their contribution to theatre creation. Yet those who express this idea really are uninformed and generally make up what I call the “cynical generation”: those deluded or critical of the 60’s, though they speak of it often. Looking at the Living today for example, or other political artists, these same people tend to lament: “oh but that’s been done already”. This theme of being a “Living legend” and the problem of style (the ‘Living’ style) and of creating new and vigorous work is an ongoing subject that we consistently confront. Certain ‘disobbediente’ (no-globalists), for example, commenting on a performance in Piazza Verdi (Bologna) criticized that our ‘peace and love’ style is no longer appropriate- as if their confrontational tactics and battles with the police are something new!

Nonetheless from our audiences, in New York City and further a field in the USA, to western and eastern Europe (Belgrade, Sarajevo, Prague), to a small villages and large metropolis in the mid-east (Lebanon), in fancy theatres, or Centri sociali (squatted social centers) of Italy and especially in the street where we always take our pieces, the Living’s new and old work has been enthusiastically received. Even more so have we encountered in workshops many persons who continue to testify that the Living is a new and fresh theatre that gives them an urgently needed outlet for their energies, and tools for moving forward in their own work. There is no doubt by the involvement and consequent excitement of these participants as wells as from our audiences that Julian Beck’s legacy and the present work of the group is alive and vibrant.

Collective creation is an example of Anarcho-Communist Autogestive Process which is of more value to the people than a play. Collective Creation as secret weapon of the people.

Julian Beck, The Life of the Theatre

I will touch on briefly various periods after the death of Julian to underline this crucial aspect of our work: theatre as conduit for mobilization. Students ask me sometimes if it’s possible to create new forms in the theatre today. I usually reply: No. Or as Judith says, “Only every hundred years or so does someone break into a new form”. But what can excitingly occur, and what is more important for me, is a development of its social function. For whom do we make theatre? Who comes to see it?

Third Street Community Center

'Sound and Movement', Mysteries and Smaller Pieces

We did not actually call The Living Theatre on East Third Street in Manhattan by this name but in effect that is what it became. Almost four years after Julian’s death we opened a ‘storefront’ in the East Village. A neighborhood embroiled in a struggle between long term residents, mostly poor and ‘of color’ and a new gentrification phenomenon that was trying to displace these same families and the many poor artists who had also for decades made their home there. Throw into this mix the many homeless persons, activists in the housing movement, various other political activists from hard-line communists to Anarchists and the many and various social advocacy groups, all against a backdrop of Rock’n’Roll club, bars, illegal after-hours clubs, junkies and their pushers and police molesting both groups, squatters, Narcotic Anonymous groups, poets, street musicians, street gangs and random criminals, Hare Krishnas, Fundamentalist Christians, students, punks, yuppies: this was the East Village and our audience. Most of the ‘theatre going public” were too scared to venture as far east and south as we were to come see our work. Many a night did we have more actors on stage than in the public!

The Body Pile, Resist Now (Bologna)

After knocking out walls and a ceiling, amid much excitement, we launched the new Living Theatre. The idea was to put new work into a revolving repertory. For almost four years we created four new plays each year, many texts adapted from poets in direct collaboration with us. In addition, once a week we had our Living Poetry series where the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Hunkie and Taylor Mead, among other famous names, were presented, as well as many lesser know poets and ‘open mic’ nights where any and everybody could present their work. Also there were jazz festivals, new play readings, dance showcases, outside groups with new productions, and many groups from the neighborhood with their events, parties or meetings.

Needless to say there was always activities until late night with people drinking, drugging, sleeping, making love, organizing, rehearsing, talking, fighting. Much like the centri sociali here in Italy the Third Street space had a little something for everyone yet its focus was political theatre and everything that was presented there had this flavor of political event.

There is not space enough here to elaborate the line of development of the Living Theatre form. Yet perhaps from its first political activism in the streets of New York in the ‘50’s against the atomic bomb, where to be present in a heightened sense, to appear in the street as in daily life yet in a theatrical manner of the protest, the first roots of non-fictional acting took hold. So it was at Third Street when together with a group of homeless persons from a local shelter we created the play, The Body of God. Again these were persons, not actors- ‘on stage’ but not acting- appearing within the frame of a theatrical presentation. Yet by the fact that there was no fiction, other than perhaps an honest and sincere storytelling, life became merged into theatre and theatre became an event.

Paradise Now

This aspect of life as theatre, theatre as life, be it in The Connection (1959) with live jazz musicians challenging the white actors not to ‘fake it’; or The Brig (1962) about Marine-corps prison with a staging so real and harsh it was impossible to ‘act’, or Paradise Now (1968) where the confrontation with, and the participation by, the public destroyed any separation between life and art, this super-realism of the event was the great discovery of the Living. Those today that do ‘Performance’ or ‘Performance Art’ perhaps do not realize the contribution of the Living to those forms. Yet what the Living’s forms maintain (and what much of ‘performance’ lacks) is a richness of styles and form with profound roots: the political-epic theatre of Piscator, expressionism, Artaud, the biomechanics from Meyerhold, Brechtian theatre, the theatre of the word and poetry, especially the Beat poets, and also the great influence of Jazz and even modern dance.

Perhaps for the very fact of our deep involvement in the local struggle in the East Village the city government found it all too necessary (and easy) to force us to close the space. One need to understand that there was little public funding for productions in that period (and in all periods!), nor for the actors, and at Third Street no one was on salary except myself (as technical and general manager) and one or two administrators. Thus faced with the impossibility of ‘coming up to code’ (licenses, regulations of building codes, etc), together with high costs of operating expenses, we had to close the theatre.

Again vagabonds

At this point the Living numbered some thirty active members. We had reconnected also with Europe and Italy, touring and work-shopping extensively, in this period. Once again without a home the Living leaned on its friends with theatres and rehearsal spaces in New York, and producers in Italy who could organize work. Even so, with the many difficulties for the company and its individual members who had struggle to stay afloat, the period produced notable plays such as Utopia, Capital Changes, Anarchia, the revival of Mysteries and Smaller Pieces (1964), and our important work against the death penalty, Not In My Name.

"I - Thou", Resist Now
Perhaps here one can comment on a process particular to the Living: collective creation. Most of the masterpieces of the Living during the ‘60’s and ‘70’s were all created collectively and this process continues today. The balance of the dynamic between direction, text writing, creation of the staging, design and music can best be described as fluid, depending on the needs of the play. (Hanon Reznikov for example has written four of our recent productions, his inspiration often the result of discussions from the group.) No doubt anyone looking in on one of our rehearsals would probably not immediately grasp the process as seemingly five or six, if not more, voices tend to direct by committee. In the Living anyone can give a ‘note’ to another actor: a difficult and sometimes frustrating process yet one feels part of a group process and here the Living achieves a certain praxis of its anarchist-pacifist philosophy. This also comes into play as one is often asked: how does one join the Living? With no formal auditions, to work with the Living one simply must ‘be with the Living’. Like any community the process is organic, depending on place, time, circumstances and the needs of a production. One just ‘comes around’.

Yet often the members of the Living are effectively scattered to the winds. Surviving as an artist in New York or Europe is a daunting task and to work with the Living entails at times much sacrifice. However this also bears fruitful work. Theatre groups born from the Living, or members who have parallel companies, are many. We all are directors, writers, poets, musicians, choreographers, designers, producers, and activists engaged in work outside the Living, which is fed and made more rich by this work, and who themselves take sustenance from the Living. Here in Italy there are few cities or centri sociali that have not hosted a Living Theatre workshop or spettacolo. One sometimes hears- “Which Living Theatre?”- because from Napoli, to Roma and Bologna there has been a continuous presence of Living members creating and maintaining ‘cell groups’. And these same groups have repeatedly broken off the Living Theatre branch to stand autonomous and forge their own ways.

A Home in Europe

'The Rite of Opposite Forces'
From 1999 to 2004 the Living found a home here in Italy, Centro Living Europa, in Rochetta Ligure in northwestern Italy. The successes and problems of this period are documented in the film Resist by Living actor Dirk Szuszies and also one can refer to the following link for several articles from this period (see: Gary's misc writings). Briefly, we created Resistenza, about the partisan struggle against fascism, Resist Now, presented for and during the tense days of the G8 in Genova, Love and Politics, with J. Malina and H. Reznikov and Enigmas, based on one of the last texts by Julian Beck. The work also in New York continued with The Water Play, Resist Now (American version), Quality of Life Crimes, and The Code Orange Cantata, for (against) the Republican National Convention (2004). We continued to tour Europe, and also Lebanon. I also recreated the Living’s Seven Mediations on Political Sadomasochism (1972) and wrote and produced two other new productions, Siddhartha, the River Smiles (from H. Hesse), and Giovanna la Mariposita (based on the life of Joan of Arc) all under the auspices of the Living.

The Moloch Machine, G8 Genova 2001

Starting Always Over

Today, once again, the Living is recreating itself. Having lost our sede here in Italy, and embroiled in legal, bureaucratic and financial difficulties for the opening of a new theatre in Manhattan, the Living, at this recurrence of the 20th anniversary of Julian’s death, seems to be starting anew! So where are we now? Returning to the words of Julian, the question always remains: why go to the theatre? And if indeed our answer affirms that yes, we should go to the theatre, then, what theatre, and where?

The only theatre possible today is ‘Emergency Theatre’.

Julian’s book The Life of the Theatre reads even more strongly than ever as an owner’s manual for his theatre of emergency. There we find, as well in his last book and testament Theandric, two essential and absolute treasure chests of texts, ideas, proposals and suggestions for artists and a people in struggle: for a political theatre. How can any artists today not commit their energies to create works that address the fundamental crisis that we face in this time of emergency? Of continuous war, of imminent ecological disaster, of economies of vast wealth and privilege amidst insufferable poverty and scarcity, of a culture whose core is entirely corrupt and therefore only supports its own corruption.

Yet from Julian’s voice still echoes the one possible antidote to this demise we are experiencing: hope. The function of theatre today, its role in life, can only be realized if it is committed to undermining a culture antithetically opposed to hope. ‘How can we make a theatre which is worthy of the life of its spectators?’, asked Julian. We appear, and as Judith expresses, we try to unify the divided aspects of life, what is seemingly impossible to unify: the political, the family and social, the religious and spiritual, the sexual, the psychological, the artistic, the economic- within and throughout daily life. If in traditional theatre the actor waiting in the wings is one person, and only as she steps onto stage becomes ‘alive to her great art’, that is, becomes another person, what we desire instead, and see especially in Julian Beck, is this possibility of total theatre meeting a total life. One is inseparable form the other. One is always ‘on’- there are no wings to hide behind in life. Living: life is the event and the event is Living.

Sid Vicious Return to New Orleans! Or why Anarchy Is a Good Thing

2005-09-03T22:09:00.000+02:00

There seems to be many ways to look at the events in New Orleans. I always liked Sid Vicious and his take on things, especially when ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ came around. Now how can one even think of the ‘anarchy’ in the flooded streets of lower Louisiana as a positive thing! The word anarchy is one of those loaded words meaning different things to different people. It’s usually batted about when situations of chaos have arisen; with bomb throwers, or like here in Italy, the so-called anarchists and their mail bombs. The press likes to vehemently denounce these groups as ‘insurrectionist anarchists’. (Also the ‘anarchist’ Black Bloc whose tactics I do not support!) There is not enough time here to get into the historical roots of the word, much less the history of anarchist movements, its philosophy and the scarce number of anarchist successes (see Kronstadt, Russia 1920’s; Seattle, early 1900’s; Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War). Nor am I interested in any semantic discussions with journalists, right-wingers or Marxists. What I want to talk about is how this disaster, this horrible plague of destruction by Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing chaos puts into high relief the question of who we are for one another as a society, of the modern state (I mean government) and the rule of coercive authority, and also of what we might call the human spirit. More specifically this crisis calls into question the role of the individual and society. These are for me the proper fields of discourse when speaking about anarchy (anarchism).

The plague: the great and crazy French poet and theatre artist and theoretician Antonin Artaud used the metaphor of the plague: The theatre like the plague should strip away the veil of all societal forms: the hypocrisy, the rule of violence, the fragile veneer of social order, the banality of daily life and ALL of its tedious concerns. And equally so, the individual when faced with crisis and a life and death struggle only the real and basic concerns of life matter: the desire to survive. Or perversely one sees exploding to extremes the driving forces that move ones desire, be it gold, sex, power or ego survival.

Anarchist poster : Spanish Civil War

What is important when crisis strikes? What becomes of our cherished ideas, of government, of religion and philosophy, of a life of status and prestige, of property and power? In a crisis of great magnitude all the ruling structures of our culture are laid bare and shown for what they really are: illusions, shells of thoughts and ideas. Just talk! And in the end, when confronted with harsh, brutal, relentless and raw life, such as the plague, or Hurricane Katrina- to use the vernacular: out come our true colors.

If in New Orleans we are surprised at the lawlessness, if we are shocked by the viciousness of individuals, if we are dismayed at the blatant racism, if we are disheartened by the ineffectiveness of government, if we are disgusted by yet another media frenzy feeding upon suffering, if we are left in wonder at the posturing and dallying of our president, if we are baffled by the callousness of the many absurd and ridiculous statements expressed in the press and on the Internet, well then, Katrina is the wake-up call that perhaps we need. For beyond the immenseness of the tragedy and loss of countless persons, the lesson to be gathered from this disaster is that it raises the question of who we are as a people, as a nation, and why have we so miserably failed.

When the forms and structures of our city fall away, the jails, the police, the law, the economies of buying and selling and of work, we are left naked and exposed to the brute reality of just what is a city: and what is a city? Without going too deep into an anthropological survey of its origins, I think we can safely say that a city exists on two basic fronts: one is a state of war where many poor people, and some other less poor people, must work and survive and scramble to procure their basic necessities- necessities which by the way are NOT scarce albeit for a false sense of scarcity created by a system that must create a false sense of scarcity in order to maintain a system of privilege and wealth. And on the other front we have the multitude of citizens who pacifically co-exist with each other: creating, helping, working, loving, despairing, hoping, dying: millions of mostly poor people who simply by reason of their innate goodness get along.

Yet, and it’s a big yet, in our CULTURE, what are the prevailing ideas that guide and influence the behavior and mindsets of these multitudes? Well if we look at “Big Brother” and other reality shows, for example, where to compete, lie, maneuver and basically F___ over your competitor is the way to win; if we examine the prevailing winds that say to be greedy and selfish is the way to get ahead; if we scrutinize conflict where to launch violence against your neighbors is justified; if we see that to get ahead in the world means to step over your co-workers; if we acknowledge that a person’s worth is based on how much one accumulates money and status symbols, we see then that many if not most, aspects of our so called culture are based on the cult of competition, greed and selfish individualism. With the messages that we are bombarded with everyday (not to mention the enormous amount of violence we see, and while I’m at it, thank you NRA, the idea that we have a right to buy and use guns to defend yourself, i.e. that killing is sometimes justified), IS IT ANY WONDER that what we have seen this last week in New Orleans presents the worst characteristics of our culture?!

In simple words, a crisis brings out the best or the worst in us. WE are to blame: not Bush, not the government, not the racism of Yahoo or the media. We have not laid the necessary groundwork of a caring nation. Which do we teach: Everyman for himself, or, All for one and one for all?

To finish: last night I saw the DVD Meet John Doe (by F. Capra). It’s the story of a rising social movement outside of the political mainstream of party politics, of a grass root movement of compassion for the underdog, of getting to know your neighbors (who nobody knows in America); of people solving problems by their own initiative (there was a telling scene of a welfare administrator lamenting that their offices were now becoming obsolete thanks to the work of community organizations, the John Doe Clubs.). This is exactly what is lacking in the USA. There is little sense of helping one another, of self-initiating and not waiting for the government, of creating real communities and extended families and tribes; of a real counter-culture to this culture of selfishness and greed. (All of these positive things DO exist of course, but they are drowned out by mass media and ‘popular’ culture, a veritable swamp of lies and false values.)

When disasters strikes, and I believe we will face other disasters soon enough in this world, be it crisis from energy, ecology or economic, then we will see the great distance between our professed ideas and ideals coming again into sharp relief with our actual behavior. To talk the talk is not enough; we must begin to walk the walk: with our neighbor, the stranger, the immigrant, the person of a different color, or religion or sexuality- to walk, rich and poor together. And hopefully the rich and the many of us who emulate their ethics and morals will let go of this culture of privilege and selfishness that continues to divide us. We see now too clearly just how dangerous and evil this society of the “me-culture” has become. It’s time we started preparing ourselves. Is this asking too much?

Ending Eminem’s End: War Poetry/Liberation Poetry

2005-08-29T10:31:00.000+02:00

I believe Eminem has decided to stop his touring, to renounce as it were his public life. Too bad because more than ever we are in need of poetry, of words that sound with the resonance of truth. I hope he comes back.

Poetry shapes the world. Ezra Pound (E.P.)

Words shape us. They create a shared reality. Television, newsprint, film and video, the computer, internet and now blogs: we have moved into the hyper-reality of video images flashing at the speed of light and millions of bloggers adding words to the communication mix. The question is, with this increase in technological savvy and its consequent explosion of words and images, are we more, or less, free? Are we communicating?

Yet today what we see are words in the service of ideology, a plague of conflicting ideas, of words enslaved to fixed ideas. It wasn’t always like this. Our development as a species was made possible only by the use of language. There is some interesting research which shows how our tool-building capacity and our use of language evolved together. Words as tools. Poetry as tool of liberation.

Poetry: A sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures,…but gives us equations for the human emotions. (E.P.)

We have an innate sense of the MAGICAL quality of words: poems, incantations, prayers, songs, mantras, even the Bible is supposedly a code of numerical meanings and truths. In older cultures the power of the spoken word was integral to the dissemination of history, knowledge and magic, of being. Now words fall flat, empty, or at worse are used to entice and enslave us to be good consumers, or words become the ammo of the corrupted and tiresome world of mainstream politics.

Poets: Unacknowledged legislatures of the world. Shelly

Isn’t that the battle today? Words, and from words, BEING. The problem with most words is that they become STATIC ideas. Where poetry should indicate and crystallize experience, should like odors from the kitchen lead us to the table where we eat, instead words and ideas are enclosing experience in word-boxes. We smell the putridness of ideas and forget we are hungry! And with this explosion of politicos, pundits and experts, (all with their blogs), words become like piranhas: they consume us, kill spontaneous life, pacify us, make free thought and free being impossible.

These words and ideas that tend to devour us can only fall upon minds already conditioned “to enjoy what they have been brought up to consider enjoyable, or what some essayist has talked about in [sweetly flowing] phrases… These minds think only ‘the shells of thoughts’, the thoughts that have been already thought out by others.” (E.P.) Words today fall on deaf ears; ideas fail to persuade because they are dead wood and only poetry can break these ‘shells’, can make ideas germinate anew.

Words today promote herd-thought. Led to the slaughter by words the voice of the gods and real magic have been usurped by demon shepherds who corral us into word-pens, or worse: a certain sheep is raised to be ‘an elected official’ who 'has the voice of the people' and takes the herd over the cliff.

How can poetry and words be revitalized and become tools for liberation and not oppression? If discourse today, from the left or right, from the politically correct or the compassionate conservatives, is unable to communicate or convince, it’s because it lacks the resonance of poetry.

Image is understood not as an idea but as a radiant node or cluster…a vortex from which, and through which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing. (E.P.)

Words, and from words, images: they can transmute us from what we were, to what we are becoming. Images and the forms in which they are organized and constructed become living forces inside our consciousness, not only intellectual forces but forces at the level of feeling. What the poet perceives and lives intensely, perhaps more intensely than most, she tries, she must, communicate. Poetry gives us powerful and potent ideas that provoke feeling: realizations beyond mere intellect that conduct us to primal archetypal constructs of being, of real knowledge.

Poetry: An art vital only so long as it is interpretive.... (E.P.)

Come along follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength
Come with me and I won't steer you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
To the light at the end of the tunnel…..
Take us right through the doors.
Eminem, from “Mosh”

Can words show us how to live? Can poetry become an owner’s manual for enlightened social revolution?

Even HILTER was a master of word and image. But he was a masterful EVIL shepherd, who could get the herd to the feed-trough, and like Daddys everywhere, kept strict order at the table with the relentless use of fear. The question becomes then, how can poetry confront in a SIMILAR but fundamentally subversive, anarchic manner the foundational desires of the human soul. Where Hitler bottled, blocked and channeled words into closure, into death, we want instead to excite toward freedom.

Can millenniums of crusty habit, of herd-behavior be so easily upended? If it’s erotic, beautiful, exciting, liberating and free, and by free I mean it can’t be dirtied by money. That must be its litmus test: no money which means anarchy: and if we mean chaos by that word, OK: risking chaos, attacking every mental and social structure that is grounded in herd-authority.

Herd-sports, herd-hate, herd-war, herd-accumulation, herd-talk radio, herd-shopping, herd-drugs, herd-porn, herd-fashion, herd-TV, herd-Hollywood: take any herd-energy of today and ask yourself could poetry substitute and fill those needs satisfied by those herd-activities. Who among us herd-creatures can know what to feel today in this Babel tower of ideas, in this charnel house? Who is capable of looking into and seeing its many rooms and god forbid that we should truly feel the horror!

Poetry, or rather experience, guided by poetry, could shows us once again how to feel, how to unshackle true desire, how to end the reign of the TERRIBLE:

An uplifting plague, this crawling light, his erect anger, her true walls, such white pain, our red reason, one vertical beauty, many sexy works, the thrashing love, a thousand fat wishes, that green death, those turtle dreams, a larked poem, two zigzagging freedoms, a heaving song….

Liberation poetry: is it possible? Bomb Poetry?

Those two bombs of 1945, which they said ushered in PEACE, still echo: echoes that passed through Korea, Vietnam, Chile, the Falklands, Sarajevo, Bosnia; that vibrate now in Afghanistan, Iraq and the hundred other civil wars the world over; that echo still in the ghettos of the poor in revolt, in the hunger pangs in Africa or Brooklyn, in the suicided teens, in the depressed, and in the psychotics in the overfull madhouses. Echoes over echoes from millenniums past: of the clanging of amour and sword, of the sound of fist against body. Even in the thunder of storms that waken us in the night we imagine we hear the echoes of war. Yet not simply the war between brothers, men and nations but that one primal battle each of us wages in our own hearts, the battle against our one loneliness and one death. Instead of staring directly, nakedly into that abyss, of discovering there a common denominator that might unify humanity, that might bring forth compassion, empathy and love between peoples and even nations at war, we instead create structures and ideas, a world of NEGATIONS of that which we are: That peace of 1945 was FALSE. And we still live that falsity. We are creatures passing through, biding temporarily our time on this one earth. If we live then on this earth, as long as there is ONE war then there is no peace.

It is here thus that the word, that poetry, when it strives and reaches it highest and purest intensity- through its music, rhythms, forms and imagery- can return to us the basic truth of the miracle of communication, this miracle over death, overcoming the tragedy of life to remind us of our magical origin, transcending our “all to humanness” to sense our divinity. Poetry’s purpose is liberation from the dead wood of ideas: poetry as divine protest, that says no to violence, no to war.

The Politics of Hate

2005-08-20T14:09:00.000+02:00

Do things have to get worse before they get better? I get around a bit checking out all the many blogs. It’s fairly obvious, if we don’t consider the ‘apolitical’ blogs (recipes, what my dog did today, personal stuff, etc,) that there are two diametrically opposed worldviews presented in blogland. Those on the right who love to hate the left and ‘liberals’, as if their raison d’etre was to destroy any political influence, gains and activism of liberals and the left in general. And then those on the left side of the equation where we find just as many passionate voices and just as many name-callers and at times intolerant points of view as we find on the right. I saw one blogger who thinks that in the USA we are even headed for civil war. If you have ever checked out a discussion forum on a Yahoo news article it is incredible the level of bigotry, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, meanness and stupidity that you can find there. And as expected the comments there also for the most part divide along Right/Left lines.

Are we living in two Americas? Are the persons who participate in this new medium representative of the divisions we could expect to find among the general population? Do blogs influence anybody or anything? Does a ‘left-blogger’ expect to win over a ‘right-blogger’? Could we ever find some common ground between these disparate points of view where both sides could save face as it were, and we could all work together to solve some of the urgent problems that we as a nation, as world citizens, are facing?

I once read somewhere that one should try to speak simply and clearly when confronting complex things, as if we were speaking to a child of ten years old child. I like that: certainly some comments I’ve read recently don’t go beyond the level of a 4th grader!

So, what makes the world go round? Many, if not most, might agree that money makes things go. We work to have money to survive. Now those leaning toward the right would add that this is the best and only system we have; that yes there are problems, that other systems (socialism, communism) did not work so we have to work with what we have. After all look at all the wonderful achievements mankind (with Capitalism) has realized. They might also accuse those who criticize this point of view of a certain hypocrisy: ‘It’s just too easy for you who benefit from the American system, that in fact has guaranteed your right to freedom and wealth and provided you all the privileges you enjoy, to turn around and hate America!’

Others would counter, yes, money does make the world go round but it does so only by a structure formed like a pyramid, where many, if not most, are poor, and a few rich persons (or countries) decide and control everything. That this is the root cause of all the bad things, from pollution, to war, to child labor, etc. And that we also love America and are just as patriotic because it does give us the right to criticize and you guys on the right have forgotten what’s written in the constitution about individual freedoms and the right to free expression.

Both sides in their own way use the same words: liberty, justice, freedom, etc. And the bickering goes on and on and everybody’s getting hotter under the collar.

Well little Joey (my theoretical ten year old), I say that both of these points of view are wrong. It is not money that makes the world go round. It’s not profits and Capitalism, or exploitation and poor workers, or rich nations in relation to poor ones. Yes these things are true and both sides when they speak about ‘the system’ are right in what they say. But there is something much more fundamental and basic to life, society and humankind. How is it really that schools and hospitals and roads are built and function? How did it happen that we created cities and farms and medicine and rockets? How is it that millions can even live altogether in one city without hurting one another? How is it that food is brought all the way from the other side of the world right to your dining room table? Is it because we hate one another, live in fear, wage war, are greedy and self-seeking, are divided into rich and poor, need police and guns and jails and banks, have the stock market, are forced to work? All these things on the surface seem to guide and order our lives. But are all these negative aspects, these structures, laws and systems responsible for the good things people and nations do? Is there not rather an underlying positive aspect: the fact that we cooperate, that we basically are a peaceful and collaborative and imaginative species? That without these basic qualities of respect, love, empathy and tolerance for THE OTHER, that without this divine capacity to imagine and create we would have perished as a species hundreds of thousands of years ago! It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention but I say love and caring, and the desire to help are the seeds of the fruits of invention.

But why do people forget this, and if people remember these things, Joey asks, will that solve our problems?

Not right away but UNLESS we have find this basic respect and tolerance for those we see as ‘the other’, for those we call ‘enemy’, for those we disagree with, what other possibilities are there? To use force, strength and violence; to out number the other guys; to weaken, discourage and dominate them? Let’s say you and I disagree Joey, that we are having a big fight: yes I can make you do what I want because I am bigger than you. But you will always remember that I forced you to accept my way and you will never forget that. It will flavor our relationship until the day you are big enough to try and make me accept your way.

We say: means determine ends. The manner in which I resolve a problem determines the nature of that future relationship. This is true between individuals, groups, and nations; true between those on the left who want to defeat those on the right, and vice versa.

To finish I think there is something in common that those on the right and left both share. There seems to be in the ‘American spirit’ an underlying ‘nameless hope’. Call it the American project. I think it has always been connected to our origins, to this land. (Leaving aside for the moment the genocide of Native Americas.) One feels it in the passion of all the writers of blogs, one would like to imagine it in the hearts of the soldiers in Iraq, and I even believe many politicians have this same hope. I can only wish that along with this feeling and desire for change, of this fundamental hope of improving life, that we can always place along side it the words: tolerance, respect and patience. And a new pledge of allegiance to the principle of ‘do no harm’. There is much that is wrong, much right in our country, and each of us sees the world their way. Before we can begin to address these many overwhelming problems, it seems a new communication grounded in respect has to be the first step. And above all: Stop the violence!

Who protects them

2005-08-15T16:16:00.000+02:00

Who protects them the wandering refugees searching for water and shelter waiting for the day of the return home Who protects them the hungry unfed in all the deserts jungles and towns and cities the world over Who protects them the exploited working hours upon hours in dust and poisons and darkness Who protects them the lonely isolated in prison or home or wandering Who protects them Who protects them the mothers worrying for their children waiting in their loneliness for the homecoming Who protects them the children aching for love Who protects them from fear from desolation Who protects them the women raped in war walking the sidewalks opening then receiving Who protects them the women loosing their sons and daughters to war disease famine Who protects them without their men racked by monthly pain birth pain love pain Who protects them our women who love us Who protects them the soldiers in fear killing or killed boy soldier girl soldier Who protects them the elderly starving for companionship for an ear that listens a place of usefulness respect and peace Who protects them

Who protects them the wealthy and powerful the pundits and politicians bankers lawyers Who protects them though they have all they need Who protects them they who also fear Who protects them their position their money mansions cars diamonds pools gardens Who protects them that conduct millions who direct manipulate and take who order killings Who protects them men of business believing organising risking trying loving hoping Who protects them the torturers the guards the captains Who protects them the pimps the dealers of arms drugs of women children of organs of unfit food and chemicals and death Who protects them the presidents and mayors and bosses the princesses the kings the dying bishop Who protects them

Who protects them the poets isolated in their frustration and folly Who protects them from madness desperation Who protects them from themselves from the extremes of drug and drink all excesses unto death Who protects them and gives them strength and inspiration fortitude insight and solutions

Who protects them in the madhouses the neurotic the psychotic the addict the drunk Who protects them the teens in trouble in rebellion they who challenge us be it vagabond or our best friend or best enemy Who protects them from medication isolation from the leather straps on the legs and arms from the needle and electroshock and from us Who protects them

Who protects them the innocent the children the only innocent Who protects them the cruelty the whip the TV the cock Who protects them from the dark and the nightmare from life Who protects them a love that demands that limits and bargains a love that wants instead of just is Who protects them in the schools left alone to compete to learn to hate to respect division rank class and privilege Who protects them the innocent in the night as they sleep and the earth shakes and destroys Who protects them

Who protects them the trees that give shade and beauty that hold the soil that breathe our life’s air Who protects them from the axe and bulldozer from the killing rain and heat Who protects them from profits and global business from the cow-eaters Who protects them from the tree-cutters who buy their daily bread bought with their destruction Who protects them from the readers of books and newspapers from the receipts bills tickets packaging ass-wiping window cleaning we the paper users Who protects them they whose disappearance will bring our final demise

Who protects the earth wrapped tied circled and divided by fences borders satellites missiles planes buildings bridges highways monuments cars trains tunnels ships mines farms pastures garbage and landfills Who protects her waters her air from us who take and never give even her wind we harness Who protects her eternal turning her circling her voyage her life a life bombed and burnt and dirtied to no end Who protects her sun also dying her moon ever faithful Who protects the earth

Who protects us those we love those we hate those we love to hate Who protects my friend my father and brother my brother of different colour Who protects my lover from my jealousy my pettiness my neediness Who protects my lover who gives what I need but not all I need Who protects those who make my bread and clean these streets who make the mines and bombs and bullets that destroy lives and limbs Who protects them who create death to earn their wages Who protects them who grow my food who it bring it to my city and Who protects those who build cities

click on image to enlarge

Who protects memory our history our one truth of one human effort Who protects the history of us all equally dying Who protects us born naked and dependent we who disappear in sadness Who protects our testaments our stories Who protects the memory of the lone man dying forgotten in his room Who protects the knowledge of the old ones grandmother grandfather Who protects those mountains who watch down over us without judging Who protects the stars who from afar are curious of us and give us mystery and desire Who protects the sky and heavens and the wind that moves all Who protects the birds and our brother animals insects and fishes Who protects that which we take into our bodies so that we may live

Who protects our creator

Who protects me

Limits

2005-08-09T00:05:00.000+02:00

There is a new video in the This Week’s This series: “Limits”. It’s a divergence from the usual form: an experiment in sound (music), action and editing.

“A cinema studded with dreams, which gives you the physical sensation of pure life… A certain agitation of objects, shapes and expressions that is interpreted by the convulsions and jerks of a reality which seems to destroy itself with irony, which makes the extremities of the mind cry out.” Artaud

(click on image)

Experimental film? It’s a genre little known by the viewing public of commercial cinema. It’s goals and intentions are far a field from the concerns of mere storytelling. I like to use examples from the visual arts to speak about theatre, or in this case cinema. It’s easier to speak about. Can we imagine a film in the style of cubism for example, or abstract expressionism, or pure abstraction? We thus get an idea of the aspirations of experimental film. There is a desire to approach the directness and immediacy of music, to be free from “the tyranny of the written word”.

Antonin Artaud: Almost 80 years ago he was already critical of the tendency of film to follow a literary form, that is, successful only to the extent that it must be supported by words. A big fan of Charlie Chaplin he wanted, like in his theatre, a cinema “where psychology itself is devoured by action”.

Think of our dreams, or a nightmare. Words hardly ever play a part and if they do, those words have weight…doubles…shadows which terrify!

“Dreams have more than their logic. They have their life where nothing but a sombre truth appears.”

And as in dreams, some paintings and most always music, from the void of our separateness a truly chaotic, anarchic journey is set in motion. From the interchange of forms, light, shadow and rhythm our bodies are confronted physically: bodies as vehicles. We are transmuted from what we were, to what we are becoming. It is cruel this crisis of the birth of feeling. It wells up inside of us, subjecting us to its power and unknowable mystery. Springing from the very source of our entrenchment to life and death we are touched, our souls quickened to its finest edge.

Amorino dormiente di Caravaggio

Perhaps this is why we don’t remember well our dreams. “Because they are the human skin of things. The derm of reality,” where we find the essential answer to the enigma of being. The veil is torn away and we stand face to face with our nothingness. And we wake up- and go and make the coffee!

Link to "Limits"

note: All the quotes are from Cinema and Reality (The Shell and the Clergyman)". Collected works, volume three, Antonin Artaud.

Being or Not Being?

2005-08-07T13:46:00.000+02:00

Yes, there is an obvious reference to the tragedy of old Hamlet. It’s been said that the substance of tragedies is reserved only for the great: the kings, the mighty, the rich, the heroic. Yet I want to speak about a larger human tragedy: that which all of us face, in daily life, with our own struggles to find meaning and a PLACE.

Darfur, Sudan

The largest single group of humans being are not being. Could we imagine a city or region 19 million persons strong? Well that is the number of refugees world-wide: persons forced, or forced to choose, to leave their homes because of war, famine or persecution. They have no place, no rights, they are not. If we include the homeless of our great cities, those living in shelters, on the sidewalks or tin-roofed shantytowns, this number explodes to how many MORE millions, or billions?

We are all under arrest.

Yet beyond this injustice that we only intermittently hear about in the media (around Christmas time, for example. Or remember Darfur, Sudan: they are still out there, for years now!) there seems to me a more universal, perhaps unacknowledged tragedy of our species: we have lost the right, the human right, to be. I believe it was Kafka who expressed succinctly: we are all under arrest.

There is a mistaken conception that so called primitive peoples, before the emergence of cities (civilisation?), somehow lived a rather “less-than” existence. Less comfortable, less intelligent, less free. That they lived shorter lives, suffered on-told difficulties and were subject to a certain barbarism. Yet if one were to compare our so-called modern way of life (even the middle-class in USA suffers from an incredible and subliminal angst of falling, of just barely keeping abreast of poverty), the litany of problems in our society is endless. And at the base of these problems is a lack of connectedness; of an unrealisable existential human prerequisite of place, of being. We can’t just BE.

Paradise lost

You can’t live without money.
I don’t know how to stop the wars.
I am not allowed to travel without a passport.
I haven’t the right to smoke marijuana.
I am not allowed to take my clothes off.

In this five phrases, these five prohibitions (from Paradise Now of The Living Theatre), we can perhaps feels the state of arrest in which we live. So obvious these phrases are as to easily pass our scrutiny. Looking at just one: the gates of Paradise are closed, we cannot move freely across the borders and fences that separate peoples and lands; a ridiculous piece of paper, tied to governments, nation-states and the money system is my only ticket. And without money I cannot be: I cannot have a home, a room of my own, a piece of earth; cannot, in USA especially, even stay on the sidewalk.

(Footnote: we do see an explosion of “nakedness’ on the Internet where the average Joe, or Mary, all too easily reveals everything. Yet this “freedom” seems to be a rather pathetic expression of a society bored with itself, with too much ample leisure, expressing perhaps distortedly natural desires and needs that have been repressed in modern life. The rite of Saturnalia was an seasonal orgiastic event of old cultures that expressed and liberated this need. But it was holy.)

Accepting life on life’s terms.

Life on life's terms: a magical phrase of 12-step programs, having much in common with yoga, Buddhism and other spiritual disciplines. Yet, there is a point in everyone’s life when we realise that we are indeed under arrest. From adolescence onward we see that the game is over, that we have to leave behind us the joys, hopes and camaraderies of youth. We suddenly discover in our parent’s downtrodden spirits, in their almost insane and automatic acquiescence to “life”, all that we must forever forsake. In short, we grow up. (See Growing Up Adsurd, by Paul Goodman.) Many do not make the transition. Some refuse and pay often a heavy price in suicide or “madness”.

Judith Malina in "Paradise Now"

Again in ancient societies this transition was ritualised, made sacred, heroic. A young man or woman became integrated into the tribe, her place was structured, perhaps dauntingly so. One can easily ask today: how are our teenagers integrated into modern life? Our ritualised events too easily become the fodder of the prevailing winds of commercialism (MTV), nationalism (and its consequent militarism), religious extremism (evangelical also!) or the competitiveness of commercial sports (where we become only spectators).

No more tribes.

What’s all this about? If we want to understand the root causes of the mess we call modern times (and its antidote), then the answers lie in an anthropological analysis of the transition from tribal life to city life (Quickly Gary, before the last existing tribes become the domain of Disneyland!) At a certain point groups of strong men, each probably led my one convincing and terribly strong and violent man, decided that they could take advantage of new advances in agriculture (that created abundance and surplus), and to make a long story short, created the city-state and a class (slave) system. Then generation after generation came to believe its lies and forms (that they were natural), and that this was the only secure and right way to live: the rule of class, law and money, enforced by the violence of the state. Then Alexander the Great (among others) conquered half the known world (the other half lived on in the Americas), destroying tribe after tribe, creating more or less the situation we have today. Granted this is a gross simplification (see Thom Hartmann for a more detailed study), yet indicates directions, tendencies and experiments already tested or in practice.

The holy people

Where is the holy man (or woman) today? Are they to be found in the bad girls and boys of MTV? (Hats off to Eminem and his anti-Bush video!) Are the communes and communities, the free love, music and experiments of the sixties finished, to be seen only in pale and sad commercial enterprises like Woodstock II? Is there a holy people out there?

Suffice it to say: “Yes” they (we) are out there in their temporary autonomous zones. (Required reading: TAZ by Hakim Bay.) The gist of this is that we must become holy: we must link up to the experiments that are still happening, Rainbow Family, Campo Carlo (here in Italy), or create anew our sacred societies. We cannot wait for a revolution but must create these free spaces now; we must create examples in our art and street theatre and in our protests for the next generation of rebellious teens; we must follow the visionary poets (see my video, Living Poetry) and rappers (non-commercial!); or, we must walk the earth...

a Sadhus in India

“…this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus, who will turn the world into a holiday…Not that I have much time…”

Nietzsche

On a personal note.

Householder: in yoga is a person who maintains a family, a home. The opposite are these wandering holy men and women, (the way of a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Jesus). These you find still in India (the sadhus, the wandering hermits). They renounce all ties to place, they embrace the ALL place. The TerraPiena (Full Earth). The entire earth becomes home.

I refer to these exemplary figures, NOT because I consider myself one of them: far from it! Yet at a certain point, one begins to ask how can we best confront this horrible and cruel system. And a certain confluence of events in my life- lack of work, expensive rent, inability or incapability of founding or finding my tribe, has led me to a point where once again I am packing up my belongings (very little indeed besides books) and leaving my keys with the landlord and setting off down the road.

Perhaps if more of us refused to pay the Pied-Piper of private property; if we cut our ties to work, landlord, taxes, automobiles, electricity, non-organic food, meat, pharmaceuticals, cell phones, (Internet?); if we refused the city and its ordering principles of class and law; if we left western privileges behind and set out to volunteer our time with those doing work in, for example, Afghanistan (Emergency); if we successfully created new tribes, far from cities; if our art was focused on the struggle for existence of those who can’t PAY for art, and we only brought our art to them; if we stopped watching TV or buying the news of mass corporate media; if we stopped voting; if we stopped trying to be rich, famous and successful through the system that grants riches and fame; if more of us simply appeared, jut showed up- (just being)- well, changes would occur! (I am not anti-technology per se, or proposing a false primitivism. These are rather strategies of resistance: perhaps we must live a period of refusal, as a way of protest in order to take responsibility for the technologies we choose to use.)

Pygmy tribal group

Lastly, there has to be nourished a simple idea that we are one family on this earth: that we must see the other as brother and sister; that yes, some of us are trapped in cycles of hate, violence and revenge, but like in our own homes, brothers may fight, may passionately disagree yet they do not resort to killing, and indeed take responsibility, each for the other. There is relatedness based in respect for kinship, recognition and value, because they are family. And it is this that must be nurtured among the greater human family.

Wandering 'till the truth be known.

Who are the real terrorists?

2005-07-26T20:24:00.000+02:00

We really don’t understand much theses days. Let’s just look at these recent bombings in London and I will weave a fabulous tale of global finance, organised crime and terrorism. Fiction, or reality?

Here’s the scenario:

At seemingly normal trading offices, computers and their geeks are busy at work. Actually there are several of these offices linked across the globe. Computers and state of the art programs are geared up to monitor various markets: money funds, various stock exchanges, etc. All the offices have televisions tuned into CNN, BBC and other international news groups. Suddenly there is breaking news: another terrorist attack has just hit the London Tube. That’s the sign for action: the “go” is given.

As news of the bombing seeps out to the press, markets begin falling. The markets fall a little more, and waiting for just the right moment, our market sharks move into action. They have at their disposal perhaps several million dollars, if not more, in which to play. Their sophisticated, state of the art computer programs identify at the speed of light the depressed prices of specific funds, money markets and other volatile markets. Soon the sharks have accumulated a large amount of currencies and other stocks at great discounts.

And then they go to lunch.

After lunch, calm has returned to the financial markets and prices are returning to their previous levels. Business as usual. There is a round of high-fives and other congratulations as the level of profit taking is realised. Depending on the resources of our sharks’ bosses, they have had a good day: millions, tens of millions of dollars in profit….maybe even more.

Nice little parable, no? Or is it just a story? Even with the first London bombs, after the shock, anger and sadness, I felt uncomfortable about the entire business. And then two weeks later the “failed” bombs and the usual arrests.

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it.”

Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom

Could this be related to all the suspicious circumstances related to 9/11 that I had been reading on the Internet? Is it possible that we are being duped? Am I just paranoid along with thousands of others, from conspiracy theorists to the BBC even.?

Al Qaeda?
For example, Al Qaeda DOES NOT EXSIST, never existed and was entirely a creation by Bush and his neo-conservative gang.

Here's three films by the BBC that will open your eyes! There is a great scene of Rumsfelled on TV news showing the elaborate bunkers of Al Qaeda and later you see they found only a few lonely caves.

Baby it's Cold Outside, The Phantom Victory, The Shadows in the Cave (Free download)

Each movie is an hour. Go to "The Shadows..." for the quick fix summary.

There are many folks on the web that have some great and resourceful sites on these subjects.....

(See: The Bulldog Manifesto, for example)

Still a few things to consider...

Organised crime and the financial networks:
“The emergence of a vast global criminal economy and its growing interdependence with the formal economy and with political institutions at all levels is one of the most disturbing features of the new network society.”
We are talking BIG money: arms deals, drug trafficking($400 billion a year!), prostitution and sex slave trade, smuggling of goods and people, gambling, kidnapping, and counterfeiting just to name a few. Much of this money turns up in banks and the stock markets and my little story above might possibly be a viable scenario for certain imaginative elements.

War and more war

Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over $950 billion in annual expenditure. (War spending counter)How can the governments in the west justify these huge economies when the Soviet threat is no more? Thus the new war on terror because: war is the health of the state. Who are the beneficiaries of this enormous economy? Comfortable bedfellows for sure are the war hawks and neo-cons together with those whose lifestyles and position depend on the military industrial complex.

Globalization of finance

Let's look at globalization and the crapshoot better known as the stock market. Our little parable makes a lot of sense given the newly emergent networks of global capitalism: "Capital shuttles back and forth between economies in a matter of hours, minutes and sometimes seconds. Favoured by deregulation…and the opening of domestic financial markets, powerful computer programs and skilful financial analysts/computer wizards sitting at the global nodes of a selective telecommunications network play games, literally with billions of dollars….These global gamblers are not obscure speculators, but major investment banks, pension funds, multinational corporations …and mutual funds organised precisely for the sake of financial manipulation......Every corporation depends on what happens in these complex networks, which nobody controls." And let’s add the organised crime groups to this party.

The thing to understand though is that this is a machine: driven and programmed for maximising only profits. This electronically based system of financial transactions is the new monster of Dr Frankenstein, controlling all aspects of our world. Useful factories will be closed, babies will die, wars will be fought, the environment will be sacrificed, child labour exploited, woman forced into prostitution, drugs made easily available in ghettos, social and cultural programs cut, more death-trap cars built at the expense of clean and green transport, and last but not least, governments bought and sold to this global finance creature, all in the name of PROFIT.

Anti-global: the final straw for the neo-cons

The anti-global movement created a vast alternative network centred around non-government agencies (NGA’s). From Seattle onward governments got nervous as we got wiser, more organised, more powerful, more creative. On many fronts, from peace and social justice, sustainable communities and technologies, tax shifting, environment, green energy, grassroot political groups, influential NGA think tanks, workplace, alternative medicine, to organic food, in every aspect of our lives new movements were organised and connected through the Internet. Each of these fronts challenged the hegemony of big business and their government henchmen. Enough was enough. Al Qaeda was born and the war on terror launched and Hollywood, the nightly news and mass media fanned the flames of fear.

What’s it all about?

Lies, fear, and a population who obediently consume.
That is their strategy.
Mine? Hope, and making sense of the seemingly senseless.

Conquer despair. Inform yourselves!

See: http://www.globalissues.org/
Center for Ecoliteracy www.ecoliteracy.org
Rocky Mountain Institute www.rmi.org
World Social Forum www.wsfindia.org/
Great book and writer:

The Hidden Connections, by Fritjof Capra www.fritjofcapra.net/

Power to the people!

Threads of Hope: desparachos (disappeared) and arpilleres (tapestries)

2005-07-20T15:08:00.000+02:00

I hope they give him to me: whether in pieces or as a corpse. That they give him to me and let me bury him. That’s what keeps me alive. It gives me strength until the hour of my death. I will not forgive them.

It happens on occasion in my work that a student asks me: is it possible to create new theatre forms?
I usually respond, rather dryly, no. Then I make a comparison of visual art and theatre. Yes, we have often new styles: seemingly every other new kid on the block has his gimmick, his particular way, or style. But look at the social form of painting: galleries are dead in the sense of who today can think of creating for the tastes and needs of the rich, the famous or some bank? Who goes to those galleries, or to museums, for that matter. For me, museums are as bad as church. (Obviously certain tourist and academic reasons do exist for going).

But form is another matter, related to function. Look at the origin of Hip Hop, as my friend MC Baba puts it: it was about a community creating a space (a form) where there was no space.

Or speaking on theatre: I would much rather see a show put up by a group of retirees in a social centre speaking about their lives than go to an expensive theatre and sit in the dark and watch the avantguardia "dallying with forms".

Nothing compares to the pain of the mother.

So this brings me to this wonderful and sad film, Threads of Hope by Andrew Johnson, about the Chilean mothers of the desparachos. We see how the cries of the souls of these mothers transformed a tradition of tapestry weaving into a political force that eventually brought the world’s attention to the brutal military regime of Pinochet.

Here we see the healing, transformative power of art at the service of politics. But more than politics: these are real acts, Promethean acts of courage and rebellion, death defying gestures, akin to that lone individual who stood up to the tanks in Tinaman Square. The police would actually seek out these arpilleres and their makers. They had to be smuggled out of the country to be put on exhibition.

My son is a piece of my heart and without that piece of heart the machine doesn’t work well.

In the naiveté of the visual forms, in the “poor” aspect of the production, in the sincerity of expression, in these desperate outcries, we find that all too evasive and perfect union of form and content; of political and artistic, of daily life and rebellion. In the fragmentation of their souls, in their actual physical loss of their children (an extension of their very bodies, their flesh) there is an attempt of reconstruction. In the actual working of the material, as they pieced together bits of found cloth, they were able to weave together new life. From pain and grief, through artistic creation, they found courage and strength. And in the consequent forming of new communities and of a sense solidarity with other grieving mothers they created a political movement.

We see also other art forms were transformed by the mothers of the desparachos, in music and dance; and in their travels and networking these new forms were exported to other countries in need, South Africa and Argentina, for example.

Yet for many there is still a search for closure, that only when the truths be told will their suffering be assuaged.

(a tapestry from Afghanistan)

I ask and I’ll never tire searching and asking: what has happened to him? Someday they’ll come back. A home is waiting, a beating heart is always asking: will they come home someday?

You can see this wonderful film for free online at the great and resource rich site: http://www.arcoiris.tv/

Look for the "Ricerca" window and type in "Threads of Hope".

Or download/open directly to the film: Real Player; Media Player.

The Limits of the Political

2005-07-16T17:46:00.000+02:00

What can art (theatre) do that “politics” has been unable to do?

To clarify, by politics I don’t mean modern, mass-media driven, democratic voting machines as found in western, (northern) first-world countries. I refer more to alternative activists and their strategies of promoting change in various fields: environment, poverty, various injustices, anti-war, anti-global, etc. and to the left and extreme left groups and (i.e. liberalists, socialists, reformists, communists and anarchists, etc.). It’s too easy to generalise, still the danger in these groups is that they tend to be focused on protest only. Protesting is necessary but creating visions, promoting tolerance, creating new ways to capture the imagination of a largely dissatisfied populace who are turned off by slogans, marches, and a certain militancy (like black bloc) seems to be equally, if not more important, today.

I am a newly converted fan to the 3rd sector and the thousands of groups (church groups also) and their volunteers who actually accomplish good works. I imagine many of these don’t consider their work political, but rather social in nature. Here one could accuse these groups of a lack of political sophistication and critique of capitalism that the above mentioned groups most certainly possess.

Social critics and their numerous books and essays fall into a separate category. Writing is art and we do need to make use of the word. The “boss” has millions of words at his disposal from political pundits, to advertising and to the mass-media news and their always fair and balanced reporting. But when do words become action? How can these important ideas be put into practice? How can they be organised?

One could also throw into this political/social soup spiritual, religious, and eastern disciplines and others (new age?) who “are working toward a better self, a better world”. One could say these last groups certainly promote positive means of developing the art of living, of finding serenity, peace of mind and meaning, (especially if they promote non-violence and vegetarianism). Are they politically savvy? Artistic? Politically artistic? Where is the balance between working on oneself and changing the system? Yet it’s perhaps here in these disciplines of the here and now that begin to approach the goals and means of what I call political theatre.

I’ve often asked in my work, in videos, and theatre: what is it about the human condition that makes us unable to realise the beautiful ideas that humanity has so sublimely expressed in art, music and literature? Why can’t we get it together as a species? We live a lie, a hypocrisy where we tout, plug, and peddle great promises but as soon as they are uttered another bombs goes off, another war starts, another child dies of hunger, another executioner inserts the syringe. Why this great divide between ideas and life? Is a political solution even enough to resolve the great human dilemmas, to alleviate what haunts the human spirit? And art for art’s sake seems be a pathetic type of intellectual, post-modernist masturbation, akin to new age ideologies.

The terrible has already happened!

“We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetuated by human beings on human beings.”

R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience

Or in a more poetic form:

“They are a playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing the game.”

R.D. Laing, Knots

Visionaries, malcontents, criminals, tramps, iconoclasts and others who challenge our basic beliefs, who challenge our reality, who challenge this unnatural system- like the schizophrenic, the manic-depressives, the discontent and rebellious teens and the mad poets- these we can only trivialise, isolate, lock away, medicate. (Modern forms of crucifixion.)

What can make us whole again?

If the bombs can’t teach then how can the theatre? Julian Beck. What can theatre do that “politics” has been unable to do? Ameliorative theatre?

How? In the theatre we can create magic! We can return to the power, mystery and terror of the Now. Sacred time, space and body. And ecstasy: where do we find it in life? And yet is this political?

We can in the enclosed space of the spectacle (between beginning and end) experience joy and meaning while we speak of terror, pain and injustice; realise harmony and hope while we show violence, lethargy and boredom; feel the degradation and humiliation of the body, limited by the social norm, and the contrary: bodies free, bodies touching and exploring the limits ofexpression, indicating new possibilities and directions.

And in the theatre we put light on our failure to create a world in which we could live in peace: peace without destroying ourselves, others and other life forms; where we can express poetically a critique of society and show “ways of being” that can challenge the prevailing winds of negative individualism.

It seems what is called for is a both secular, and spiritual, renewal of passion, analogous to a religious transformation, where the veil of lies and falsehoods about myself, society and who we are to each other is realised. I imagine a superbly ecstatic rave-like, circus-like, political theatre, pouring out into the street (if it wasn’t already there!), infecting all with its beauty, joy and seriousness. So we confront the terrible with the possible. And sometimes, with grace, the possible becomes actual.

A short preview:

Anarchy=Love
Stop the bombs

(The above photos are from the show.)

Theatre of the street; theatre of participation; theatre of joy.
We started from an idea best expressed by Julian Beck: Emergency Theatre.
How can we best respond to the calamities that are plaguing humankind? We found also in the impossible text of Antonin Artaud, No More Firmament, a poetic expression of our modern dilemma: the individual in confrontation with a society alienated from its self; and a science at the service of that same Frankenstein-ish structure. Daily life explodes, implodes, upon itself. No More Firmament shows the dissatisfaction of a society in decline, where we feel to be not only victim but also killer, and where the false security of science and the law further exasperates the crisis. But more: with Artaud there is always a beyond, a wish to hope, to fly, to taste the divine. The result is a type of ritualised happening: visions of apocalypse and the getaway plan, where the key to the prison rests in the hope, smiles and participation of the public.

To see the video (sorry, in Italian only, but lots to see anyway!)

go to Arcoiris TV and search The Living Theatre in the "RICERCA"window.

Or open in Real Player; Media Player.

For another nice video, Genova Citta' Aperta (in english), on the issues of G8 and protest (with an interview of myself and others with varying points of view) go to the same site: Arcoiris TV, search Living Theatre

Or, to go directly to the film click: Real Player; Media Player

What we can do...

2005-07-14T14:00:00.000+02:00

It is easy to just complain. Without making suggestions and proposing new (and old) ideas one could simply be called a cry baby. So the purpose of today’s blog is to make some observations and offer a few practical ideas.

When does 367 = 3 billion? When the total resource of property and money (what we generally call wealth) of 367 persons (men and mostly white) is equal to the total wealth of 3 billion persons. See it visually: On one side of the scale are 367 men: on the other side are 3 billion persons (half of the earth’s population).

Or if you want to talk about a pyramidal structure of society, Bill Gates and his posse at the top, and at the base, those 3 billion.

I have no problem with rich people. They can live as they like. But in a world of dire poverty (every three seconds death by hunger), wars without end, destruction of the environment, the enslavement of billions of people to hated work, death by disease, torture as an institution practised by over 60 countries (also Uncle Sam) -the list of injustices could continue- it seems that the way in which we live is abhorrently wrong, if not categorically EVIL.

One of the few things I liked about the first Matrix film (forget about the sequels) was the metaphor of our being programmed by machines, and how a few of us have escaped, and how it is possible that we all can escape. So the question is: how, and by what, are we programmed?

So here are some positive actions and fields of engagement:

Turn off the TV! Those 367 men want us to watch, to buy, to think, to worry and consider, to be a passive sponge, to accept an ideology that supports their position. They determine the terms of engagement of our minds. Try NOT watching for a week and see if you start to think about OTHER things!

Minimise car use: the automobile is probably the most influential aspect of modern life effecting every part of economy, lifestyle and death-style. Everyday in the USA there 123 deaths. 1,123,375 in 25 years! (How many more have been paralysed, finished in comas or disfigured!) Every hour, 5 deaths! One death very 12 minutes! Think of that when you get behind the wheel! They give you a license to drive but they should at the same time have us fill out our last will and testaments. Solutions: work where you live; agitate against the automobile; take mass transit. Get a bicycle!

Become a vegetarian. We do not have to eat the flesh of animals to survive. You want to end world hunger? "If everyone adopted a vegetarian diet and no food were wasted, current food production would theoretically feed 10 billion people, more than the projected population for the year 2050." Morally, ethically and for the benefits of a healthy body, the vegetarian diet is a must for the future of human-kind.

Go to:

http://www.vivavegie.org/ for a 101 reasons to dig the vegetable!

Be poor! Choose volunteer poverty as an ethical lifestyle. Fans of the “Rich and Famous”; of the Hollywood star system; buyers of Mercedes, Rolexes, million dollar homes, islands, yachts- beware! Not to brag but if more people lived like me and my friends the world economy would come to a grinding halt! I have not paid taxes in 20 years! I have no car, house or property.

This is more than a political question: it is a spiritual issue about what it means to be content, satisfied and to live according to ethical principles. On this note…..

Practice a discipline of body/mind work: Not happy, frustrated, overweight, nervous, neurotic, angry? The only person responsible for my misery, or my serenity, is myself. Tai Chi, meditation, yoga, Chi Kung, martial arts: there are hundreds of practical exercises and techniques where we can become masters of our own destinies, find new energy, make new friends. The emptiness of the human soul is waiting to be filled: not by the consumer society but by a return to sure and tested (ancient) systems of practical mind/body philosophy.

Get a spiritual program. Atheist? Doesn’t matter: call it an ethical program. Know yourself. Find techniques of developing a positive critique of ourselves. Read the words of the Dali Lama for example. Focus on alleviating the suffering of others and our own sense of purpose will be realised, and our own suffering will diminish.

Get involved in 3rd sector work (not in the market economy or government): community organisations, volunteer associations, art, cultural and activist groups.

Instil in your children a simple idea: no more soldiers! Without soldiers (and a tax base) there would be no wars. If brothers did not learn that fighting is acceptable behaviour then there would be no violence.

Be a responsible consumer: buy organic and natural. (Careful: “natural” is now a marketing technique of Madison Ave.) Have you seen the chemicals in your soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions? Try this: look at the labels and Google those chemicals. It’s frightening!
Go for “Zero garbage”. Worried about the oil crisis: how do you think all that plastic we buy and throw away is made? Check out your garbage: eliminate it! Let’s organise mass consumer boycotts. When we, the people, weld our mighty dollar’s power by not spending…changes will occur.

Eliminate the government! Big idea: don’t vote, don’t pay taxes. Inform yourself on what government really is: a system to protect the property of those 367 men!
1 billon dollars EVERDAY goes directly into the pockets of mostly rich, white and corporate farmers paid by tax payers to governments. "Can we take a piece of this billion dollars a day and put it to work on ending hunger and poverty in the developing world?"
Want to see where MOST of our tax dollars go: check out this counter on global military spending: http://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/

Create a community and break the economic back of the nuclear family: find some friends, find a common goal- in the city or country. Pool resources: create a tribe! Why must we confront Mammon all alone. Decide: Every man for himself! Or, All for one and one for all!

Start a free school. Let’s empty the public schools: we decide on how our children should learn. Have a talent or skill: offer free classes.

OK. It seems to me the basic question is how we move ourselves into the future. Is Capitalism the only way? Can it solve the crisis we are facing? Is not Capitalism an irrational system, without scruples, based only on the need for profits, and not on human needs? What to do? I believe the human imagination is a capable of resolving all of our human and Earth needs. How to release its great power? We are TOO rich! We have never had more wealth, ideas, fabulous technologies and THINGS than at any other time in history…but also, never more hunger, destruction and Evil!

In the meantime, as we confront this necessity of how to implement a new vision, there are some basic human rights that must still be won by a mass political movement: housing; the end of poverty (not JUST extreme poverty) and hunger; guaranteed minimum income; the end of wars; the protection of all plant and animal species and the Earth itself; and freedom from all violence and slavery, be it from governments or individuals. Let’s do it!

Please see: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, By Hakim Bey;

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann;

The End of Work, by Jeremey Rifkin

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, by Murray Bookchin

We're not afraid (?)

2005-07-12T18:54:00.000+02:00

War is wrong because it is war

Violence is wrong because it is violence

The terrible has already happened. R.D. Laing
Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Cain and Abel. When did we go down this inhuman path? Or is violence all too human?
Violence like war must become an idea whose very mention evokes a strong disgust. Like cannibalism. Yet we are so immersed in violent culture at every level of our social being that only a new step in our evolution could transform us.
I do not want to minimise the pain and sorrow of any of the London victims. (Or the We're not afraid campaign. See: http://www.werenotafraid.com/). I am only asking myself if there is not a certain hypocrisy in the huge amount of attention- or rather the small amount of attention that the daily bombings in Iraq are not having.
In any situation in which conflict is resolved by resorting to the use of force, or the threat of force, the final resolution will be determined by the means used to arrive at that end. Means determine ends.

Whether it is Black Block, Uncle Sam, Jihad or Big Daddy, the use of power and force is the easy choice. The litmus test of any strategy or policy can always be considered under the light of this simple formula: is it coercive, or is it collaborative? Could we have collaborated with Saddam? (I’m hearing those voices already!) Yes: we can only collaborate if we want to achieve peace. What if we had sent to the mid-east an “army” of tens of thousands of artists, poets, writers, musicians, doctors, sociologists, psychologists, children, elders, scientists, builders, etc., all crashing the borders with magic-ray zappers of love and respect. What if……

Care as much about each other as about yourselves...Never pay back evil for evil... If your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink...Do not let evil conquer you, but use good to defeat evil. (Romans 12:16-21)

Spielberg : a dangerous man!

2005-07-11T09:24:00.000+02:00

Spielberg a dangerous man?
When a billion dollar movie serves to support war, sexism, militarism and xenophobia, and further, subliminally conditions the viewing public to accept that killing, in some circumstances, is justified, then watch out! If you have not yet seen War of the Worlds, don’t! I want bother reviewing the film, (that you can find easily enough) but I’ll just make a few comments.

It seems the writers, producers and director are making quite the effort to further instil in the public the love of family and the need for the use of violence to solve problems. Someone once said that all images have their ideology.
So we see that Tom Cruise, (why even bother with his character’s name?) when he must save his blond and blue-eyed daughter’s virginal life, can only resort to killing. Forget reasoning, forget empathy- just tell your obedient and submissive offspring to look the other way while daddy goes and offs the hysterical man that just saved your life. It is this type of mindset that Hollywood is too keen on…has always been keen on, as the big buck movie backers and war machine stock market profiteers (thanks for all those tanks ands planes and soldiers Uncle Sam!) are given another pep rally. Kill, kill, kill- that’s the only way to save ourselves. That and the help of God, Earth’s God, MY God, not THEIR God! (In the last narration there is a type of thank you prayer to our God, who having created our world in such a way as to protect us, saves us from the big bad wolves.)

There is a heavy importance in this film given to the sacred nuclear family, to the right of the individuals to protect themselves and theirs. We see scenes of panic and chaos where instead of mutual aid and co-operation, the people can only fight it out, resorting always to force. The entire plot turns on this salmon like desire to return to the origin, to mother and grandparents, to the family, the supreme raison d’être of life, while the rest of humanity can fight it out amongst themselves.

These days I am re-reading Brave New World and it brings me to ask: how are we so conditioned by society (state, schools, family) that we accept all to easily the prevailing ideology of competition and the use of force. Hollywood is one if the most important storytellers for the young and when these war lovers, these so called liberals that the Right complain about, can only make these superficial, traditional, ideologically potent films of indoctrination then we must call Spielberg and company dangerous.Where are the pacifist, activist, alternative filmmakers and writers? Who has another vision?

Judith Malina (see Living Theatre) used to argue: I want to destroy the nuclear family! It is and has always been the prime conditioning mechanism of all that is wrong in society: every man and his castle instilling violence, the use of emotional blackmail, of class and poverty, of our psychological armour, of the ideologies of obedience, love of country, money and objects. Inside those four sacred walls we are conditioned to the established ruling system that governs our minds and souls.

"We are all murderers", said R.D. Laing, when we use the threat of violence; when we make use of power in the bedroom, or in the kitchen; when we use the bombs in Iraq or in the London subway. One could say we are all hypocrites also if in accusing the other of violence we don’t look into our own selves to see how it manifests in our own actions.

Welcome to my blog

2005-07-10T09:01:00.000+02:00

Welcome! This is my blog for my website: I call it This Week's This and you can find it at
www.videoweekly.net

Can art change the world? Should it try to change the world? Where is the avant guarde today? Who are the voices, the cutting edge "cultural workers" who, from the confusing clash between our daily life and the daily spectacle of the world stage, can make sense of a seemingly senseless world?

"Art is the inside of the world", once said a theatre artist. The site proposes a weekly video magazine of politics and culture. It presents the world through the eyes of this artist, allowing the video camera to fuse the distinction between TV journalism and art, creating a new art form, perhaps an overtly political art form, yet deeply personal and idiosyncratic.

And this Blog?
That's up to us! Here I hope to hear from you all: comments on my site and the videos; and this blog as a diary and forum. I will try to keep it updated about my ungoing activities (Living Theatre, for example) and the "this" of this week.