My last response to Galen got lost in the spam filter so I’m doing this directly.
The upshot was:
I agree. The Audience was The Audience and unless you do some higher level intervention like in Heiner Muller’s “Mauser” it’s not doing much for the relationship. Sometimes community is oppressive and you just want to get out.
And as far as the cliches go, I don’t know enough to judge if they’re cliches or not so I don’t know what they meant as cliches. But sometimes (and this is where my reference to children is applicable, sort of) it felt like it does when you’re the only sober one in a room full of drunks. This did seem to “examine…embodied presence” In MG’s words, but not what I’d call the “wonder” of it. Sometimes kids are as dull as they are fascinating.
Which is only to say that this piece, as in all good work, surpasses or escapes our ability to articulate a message, subject, or agenda. And although at the moment I am not able to articulate how it worked for me, I know it has something to do with the true nature of Real Kids(TM). I promise my brain will get to this somehow…
Not having kids I’m just not with you on this one, Charles. I didn’t think genuine childishness was being evoked at all–more the extended childishness that we acknowledge to be normal these days. Actually, the whole thing reminded me of grad school!
Comment by Lightsey Darst — January 11, 2008 @ 8:17 am
No, childishness was not evoked. What they were doing (or where it came from) was childish (as far as genuine will take us) — the repetition, the seemingly imperturbable focus inward or on the micro-scale (little sense of the Big Picture), etc.
Grad school is not far from childhood…
Comment by Charles Campbell — January 11, 2008 @ 8:35 pm