University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Everything, nothing, something, always (walla!)

(USC Thesis Other)

Everything, nothing, something, always (walla!)

PDF

Download

Open document

Flip pages

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content EVERYTHING, NOTHING, SOMETHING, ALWAYS (WALLA!) By Emily Mast A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF FINE ARTS August 2009 Copyright 2009 Emily Mast ii EPIGRAPH Figure 1: Anonymous, Kilimanjaro, date unknown iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Figure 2: Emily Mast, Everything Nothing Something Always (Walla!) Program Interior, 2009 v TABLE OF CONTENTS EPIGRAPH ii DEDICATION iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES vi ABSTRACT vii PREFACE viii MANUSCRIPT 1 POSTSCRIPT 18 BIBLIOGRAPHY 19 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Anonymous, Kilimanjaro, date unknown 2 Figure 2: Emily Mast, Everything Nothing Something Always (Walla!) 4 Program Interior, 2009 Figure 3: Anonymous, Kilimanjaro, date unknown 26 vii ABSTRACT 1 “Everything, Nothing, Something, Always (Walla!)” is a performance-based installation that is comprised of a one-act theater piece repeated nine times over a three hour period. Each of its nine iterations varies slightly as a necessary result of its serial repetition. The document for which this abstract serves to synopsize and explain, otherwise known as my thesis, is comprised of the written script for the performance and is titled “Everything, Nothing, Something, Always (Walla!).” It should be considered a separate work, or an augmented index of the performance, as the entirety of the performed text has been semi-obliterated by a double strikethrough and subordinated by the addition of dozens of footnotes. This intentional obfuscation points to the central concerns of the two works: a distinct distrust of both certainty and the ideal of truth; the imprecision of language by means of the myriad ways it can be delivered and understood; and the ways in which the polyphonous references that influence a work become the primary terrain for an articulation of confusion as not only an essential condition for artistic production but also its subject. 1 Theoretical, pure, unapplied, conceptual, ideational, notional, metaphysical, ideal, transcendental, imaginary, visionary, immaterial, impractical, obscure, profound, enigmatical, incomprehensible, spiritual, non-representational, general, non-particular, not concrete and indefinite. viii PREFACE Radishes versus roses. The song you are about to hear is the Rumanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu accompanied by pianist Jeff Cohen singing Jean-Paul-Gilles Martini’s "Plaisir d'amour" in 2007 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. La Scala is notorious for its bad- tempered public and boisterous audience displays. Angela sang this song while the audience booed, hissed and threw garbage and vegetables on stage. 1 EVERYTHING, NOTHING, SOMETHING 2 , ALWAYS 3 (WALLA!) 4 CHARACTERS 5 / CARICATURES 6 EARL the STAGEHAND EVERESTE the ARTICULATOR EUGENE the WONDERER EDIE the ENTHUSIAST ELI the DOUBTER 7 THE ARTIFICIAL AUDIENCE 8 ACCORDIANIST GUITARIST 2 In 1963 On Kawara made a simple text drawing of the word “Something” underneath which he wrote: “Nothing, Something, Everything”. Sometimes it seems as though everything (or Something, in this case) has already been done. 3 According to the early-nineteenth-century German diplomat, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm Von Humboldt, language is “the infinite use of finite means”. 4 In American radio, film and television, walla is the sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background. The term walla was coined during the early days of radio, when it was discovered that having several people repeating the word walla was sufficient to imitate the indistinct chatter of a crowd. Walla actors now use recognizable words and conversations, often improvised and tailored to various contexts so that various languages, speech patterns, and accents can be incorporated. Walla is called “rhubarb” in the UK, “rhabarber” in Germany and “rabarber” in the Netherlands and Belgium. Other phrases that are employed are "chew on my knees," "carrots and peas," "cantaloupe hrajza frazzle," and "natter natter" (to which the response is "grommish grommish"). While it is generally considered against actors' unions rules to put decipherable words in a specific background performer's mouth (as this would turn 'extras' into actors) this problem can be avoided by recording gibberish that syncs with the on screen mouth movements or 'lip flap' of a specific background performer. It is thereby possible to make it sound as though an extra is saying something, when in fact they are not delivering any actual dialogue. This gibberish is known as 'Snazzum' - named in reference to the cartoon character Yosemite Sam’s manner of swearing when angry, i.e. "Yassin Sassin Snazzum Frazzum!" 5 In his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein talks about words that refer to too many things or too wide a variety of things and how, as a result, their meaning becomes less specific and the word itself less useful in conveying meaning. Wittgenstein submit Tractatus Logico Philosophcus to Cambridge University in 1929 for the degree of PhD. At his oral defense Bertrand Russell, who was one of his examiners, expressed doubts about Wittgenstein's ability to express sound truths with meaningless words. 6 Commedia dell’arte is a form of Italian Renaissance theater whose dialogue was almost entirely improvised, though a skeleton plot or scenario was provided to keep the actors on track. They also memorized stock speeches which could be adapted to almost any situation. The actors of the commedia dell’arte perpetually played the same part, thereby committing to a role for life. The actor’s own personality was often lost in the process of assuming his character’s identity and, in many cases, the actor exchanged his own name for that of the character. 7 E: ERIC SENIOR, MARTHA ELLEN, ERIC JUNIOR, EMILY, EVAN. 8 “Theater, like painting, is often dying but never dead”. The essential elements of theater are: Speaking or singing actors, an element of conflict conveyed in dialogue, and an emotionally involved audience. 2 THE STAGEHAND (doesn’t speak, only sings) the mover, the shifter, the wrinkle-smoother, the wrangler, the cleaner, the coordinator, the conductor, the reality-facer, the resumer, the recapitulater, the serenader, the liberator, the timekeeper, the imprisoner, the unemotional one. THE WONDERER (speaks only in questions) the follower, the baby, the bouncer, the bahhhing lamb, the goody-goody, the apprentice, the prepster, the flosser, the sniffer, the soldier, the self-conscious groomer, the graduate, the employee-of-the-month, the puppet, the parrot, the perfect record. THE ENTHUSIAST (energetic, optimistic 9 and enlightened) the wiggler, the squawker, the flirter, the show off, the sprinter, the maximalist, the everythingest 10 , the imaginer, the insomniac, the exclaimer, the migrater, the overeater, the loopy drunk, the baby deliverer, the novice, the knucklehead, the bad dancer who has the most fun. THE DOUBTER (cynical, angry and intellectual) the brooder, the complainer, the abstainer, the refuser, the out-of-shaper, the nose wrinkler, the cowerer, the penny pincher, the realist, the logician, the hiccupper, the back and forther, the snapper, the stubborn mule, the frozen leopard 11 . 9 “ ‘I can’ marks what is, for each of us, perhaps the hardest and bitterest experience possible: the experience of potentiality.” – Giorgio Agamben 10 I happened upon a book entitled Dried Millet Breaking while lost in the underbelly of USC’s Doheny library where the smell of dust and must pervades. I’m not terribly interested in “Music transcription symbols and Kpelle Orthography”, however I was taken by the book’s handsome beige, cloth cover and embossed dark brown decorative trim. The first sentence of the preface reads: “This study began from a puzzle.” The authors goes on to describe an intense interest in the “disjointed, disconnected and fragmented” texts of the Kpelle people in central Liberia. Just when she thought she was following a theme, “a shift appeared and another topic was inserted”. 11 "Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and it is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called by the Masai, 'Ngaje Ngai,' the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude." So begins Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Ever since reading those words in high school, I've been captivated by the idea that Hemingway was writing about a real, rather than a metaphoric, leopard. Kilimanjaro’s base stretches more than 50 miles and spans two countries; the 19,340-foot mountain (Hemingway was off by a few hundred feet) is so heavy that it actually depresses the earth's crust. The summit has the most wide-ranging view in the world. Myths have always shrouded Kilimanjaro. The peak was known to Ptolemy, the ancient Greek geographer, who wrote of "a great snow mountain" at a latitude of unspeakable heat. But the icy summit that had served as a landmark to Zanzibar traders and slave caravans was dismissed by the Royal Geographical Society in London as a ridiculous rumor until 1849, when Christian missionary Johann Rebmann confirmed the existence of a snow-covered mountain near the equator. Thirty-seven years later, as the story goes, Queen Victoria redrew the boundary between the British colony of Kenya and the German colony of Tanganyika so she could give Kilimanjaro to her grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm, as a wedding present. I was ready to give up on the leopard as myth, too, but I kept stumbling across intriguing clues online that alluded to its actual existence. There was a written reference to a 1926 photograph of the frozen leopard, seated just below the summit, taken by a local pastor. This photo, apparently, is what inspired Hemingway; he published the book seven years later. That same year, the British mountaineer H.W. Tilman wrote of seeing "the desicated remains of a leopard" on a little rocky knoll just below the rim of Kilimanjaro's summit crater. "Leopard Point," is now a twenty-minute detour off the normal climbing route towards the top of the mountain. 3 THE ARTICULATOR (“speaks” of the unspeakable 12 ) the elder, the learner, the meditator, the witness, the wise woman, the wincer, the investigator, the digger, the willing not knower, the lost one, the convalescent who cares. the deaf and dumb one who forms abstract and unspeakable thoughts into words, images and gestures. The Stagehand: (seemingly) utterly dependable and on top of it all, a real wrangler, wears all black and a pink leather tool belt. The Articulator: a lithe linguist who speaks only in sign language and occasional whispers. She wears a dusty pink dress, a knit hat and multiple layers of socks. She has white-painted fingernails. The Wonderer: a young man who looks and acts like a boy. He has a neglected haircut and no hair on his chest. Wears candy pink underwear, a pink t-shirt and knee-high argyle socks. The Enthusiast: highly energetic, optimistic, dynamic and even explosive at times, with a winning smile, flashing eyes and a short, daring ‘do. She wears flashy hot pink leggings and no shoes. The Doubter: stuffy, gruff and cynical, but incredibly charming nonetheless. He wears a pink t-shirt, too short creased beige slacks and a plaid cap. He is obviously (yet reluctantly) smitten by the Enthusiast. SETTING The play has already begun when the audience enters a white-walled gallery. Theater- in-the-round: a 12 x 24 foot “stage” sits smack in the middle of the room. It is split into two parts by a floating, beige velveteen curtain 13 that it is held open with gold tassels. One side of the stage is slightly elevated (and is where the five actors perform) and one side is filled with an “artificial audience”, or a “chorus 14 ” of ten to fifteen actors who play audience members (two of whom are live musicians – an accordionist and a classical guitarist). Also on stage: an old, pink paint-spattered wooden ladder 15 and a pink broom. Various props sit on a small square pedestal: a script 16 , a metronome, 12 René Daumal wrote, “views from high peaks violently contradict our visual habits, that the natural there takes on the attractions of the supernatural”. He even claimed that the average human mind could not bear “such a derangement of the senses.” 13 There is no curtain permanently permeating real life. 14 BOO versus BRAVO. RADISHES versus ROSES. Ancient Greek theater always included a chorus of anywhere between 15 and 50 members who represented the general population and were not professional actors. They observed and commented on the action on stage, underlining the main themes animating the action and modeling an ideal audience response to the unfolding drama. Aristotle regarded the chorus as one of the actors. A more recent emotional equivalent might be Coup du Monde soccer enthusiasts, la Scala opera-goers and talk show audiences (i.e. Heraldo, circa 1988). 15 You cannot always stay on the summits. You have to come down again... So what’s the point? In order to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro (via the Machame Route) one must hike for five days straight. On the sixth day hikers steal two or three hours of sleep before attempting the final seven hour ascent up Uhuru Peak. Due to brutal Arctic temperatures, hikers usually get to enjoy the summit for all of ten minutes before they head back down the mountain again. 16 Page 22 of The Elements of Style says, “Use definite, specific, concrete language. Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this, that the surest method of arousing and holding the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete”. 4 numerous cartons of eggs (which are actually full of confetti), pink bandanas, bubble gum, a bottle of rosé wine, a bottle of tequila, pink Dixie cups, bags of popcorn, fake tears and a box of tissues. The entire stage area is lit with numerous gallery spots. The rest of the gallery is in shadow. Seating is not provided for viewers, thus instigating constant physical displacement 17 . The play is visible from 360 degrees. All five actors are jumbled together on stage in a mountain 18 of fidgeting limbs. They squirm, groan, giggle and sigh. The clearly recycled soundscape of un-apathetic wind roars, over and over, in the background. ENTHUSIAST: Boy, do I have a sense of déjà vu right now! DOUBTER: Hey, watch it. This is unreal 19 ! (Each character slowly wakes up and extracts herself from the mound. The Stagehand and the Articulator are the only ones who ever leave the stage to enter the darkened gallery space. The Articulator wanders slowly among both the real audience and the artificial audience, carefully observing the play. The Stagehand makes sure that everything happens the way it “should”, every time, nine times in a row). WONDERER: Is this the end or the beginning? Whose fatigue am I feeling? Who am I, again? ENTHUSIAST: You can be anyone you want, only not all the time. Right now you are you because you were written that way. But later on you might be me! DOUBTER: Pfft 20 ! Are you saying we don’t possess our own selves? Because I know I’m self-possessed. (Wonderer starts tossing eggs in the air. Every time he misses one it cracks on the ground and confetti spills all over. The stagehand rushes over to sweep it up). 17 Constant motion can produce stability. For example, hummingbirds move very fast in order to stay still. When hiking at high altitudes, often the only way to avoid a headache is to keep hiking. Table Tennis (also known as Ping Pong) is a game in which ceaseless movement will most likely work to your advantage. I often think I can avoid spiritual and emotional stasis if I continually subject myself to unbalanced and volatile states. 18 “Thought of you as my mountain top / Thought of you as my peak. / Thought of you as everything / I’ve had but couldn’t keep.” “Pale Blue Eyes” was written by Lou Reed and performed by the Velvet Underground circa 1969. 19 Bertolt Brecht coined the term “Distancing Effect” which “prevents the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor, and which consequently leads the audience to be a conscious critical observer”. Barriers to empathy can be created via music and pantomime, as well as self-reflective techniques which disrupt the narrative flow and draw attention to the creative process by addressing the viewer. This approach to theater discourages involving the audience in an illusory narrative world and in the emotions of the characters. By being thus "distanced" emotionally from the characters and the action on stage, the audience could be able to reach an intellectual level of understanding. Therefore, they would be empowered to both analyze and act, which was Brecht's social and political goal as a playwright. 20 Pfft!: A French word and/or gesture that signifies, among other things, a lack of clarity. 5 WONDERER: Am I not me? Should I let myself go? Can you stare off into space when you’re in space? What is my reality? Will I still be here when you’re gone? ENTHUSIAST: Reality 21 can be extra-ordinary 22 ! DOUBTER: It can also be a corpse 23 . You have to watch out kid, there are crackpot creators out there who believe they can change people’s perceptions with this stuff. We’re just being used, you know. (Concerned and unsettled 24 , artificial audience members mumble and shift in their seats). WONDERER: So should I leave reality in peace? ENTHUSIAST: But just think how dreadfully dull it would be if we all wanted to be ice physicists or pretzel makers. (Enthusiast improvises new professions with each repetition). DOUBTER: Or artists 25 . 21 Recently, I pulled onto the highway behind a slow-moving massive truck with a character-less brown hull that spilled pink flower petals onto my windshield when it accelerated. 22 Delight is delightful. In his text “How to Write a Play (in which I am really telling myself how, but if you are the right one I am telling you how, too)” Richard Foreman said, “Let us assume we are delighted by a sunset. We are not delighted by a corpse”. 23 Inching through traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard one Friday afternoon, I realized I was shoulder-to- shoulder with a super slick, perfectly waxed, shining, black hearse. An unfurling silver crest accented its side. I could see the driver’s starched white collar, black satin vest and distinguished nose. His profile reminded me of the conductor’s in my favorite children’s storybook, “The Philharmonic Gets Dressed”. I caught a glimpse of creased blue velveteen curtains and the corner of a wooden casket. It suddenly occured to me that a cold, prostrate corpse was accompanying me down the street. All the while, Prince was squealing, “Do me baby like you never done before,” on the radio. 24 “The only certainty is uncertainty”. 25 Overwhelm. I often feel as though a zillion different opportunities are available to me at any given moment. How much choice can one really handle? The scientist George Miller conducted a series of memory tests in 1956 to discover that the average human can hold about seven random digits plus or minus two at any given moment in working memory. The Stanford Graduate School of Business and Marketing recently performed an experiment in which they asked their subjects to memorize a number, walk down a corridor to another room and recite the number. Some of the numbers were two-digits and some were seven-digits. As they walked down the hallway, a woman interrupted them and offered them a choice of snacks: a bowl of fruit salad or a slice of chocolate cake. By significant margins, the people with two digit numbers in their heads chose the healthy fruit and the people with seven digits in their heads chose the gooey cake! It turns out, the brain is anatomically organized into dual systems: the rational, organized system in the front of the brain and the unconscious, emotional system deeper in the back of the brain. These two systems are always competing for attention, especially when faced with choice. When the rational deliberative system is overwhelmed, emotion often takes over. Reason is therefore extremely feeble! 6 ENTHUSIAST: Oh, c’mon. I think our audience is perfectly capable of accepting this as artifice. DOUBTER: Oh, okay. Then I guess that means they don’t believe a word we’re saying. Which means they don’t believe that we believe (broken record 26 ) that they don’t believe that we believe - that they don’t believe that we believe - that they don’t believe that we believe-- (Stagehand slaps him on the ass) Ahem, a word we’re saying either. ENTHUSIAST: Hey! They all know we’re actors. DOUBTER: And bad actors 27 , at that. (Artificial audience members burst into canned laughter 28 ). DOUBTER: That really wasn’t very funny. (hurt) I’m a great actor. WONDERER: So am I alive or am I an illusion? Will I survive? Wouldn’t it be great if heaven were here in the ceiling? ENTHUSIAST: (indicating audience) These people will die. The person who wrote this 29 will die 30 . But invented characters live forever 31 ! (Artificial audience members sigh and complain. One of them murmurs, “I don’t want to die! 32 ” Stagehand rushes over and gives them back rubs). 26 Gene Chandler was much loved by the ladies. I love him for his rendition of “Rainbow ‘65” in which he sings the sounds of a broken record. He wails, “And I’m asking you baby (click) and I’m asking you baby (click) and I’m asking you baby (click) and I’m asking you baby (click) and I’m asking you baby,” until the women in the audience can no longer control themselves and, amidst their lustful catcalls, he finishes, “Please”. 27 Irony is probably the most prevalent tone of my generation and a rather tempting strategy to employ in art. My hesitation with irony is that it is too entangled with criticism to offer much redemption. Therefore, irony is hopeless. 28 Alex Israel told me the following joke over a beer shortly after my thesis show. Q: How many performance artists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: I don’t know, I left after two hours. 29 Mast, Emily: Artist, born 1976, lives and works. 30 At the age of 28, the British poet Jenny Joseph wrote a poem called “Warning” in which she pondered the ways in which she would “make up for the sobriety of her youth” in her old age. Some of her ideas included wearing purple clothing along with a mismatching red hat, eating only bread and pickles for a week and learning to spit. The poem received a lot of attention in 1996 when it was voted the UK’s most popular post- war poem. In 1998 a social organization for women over fifty called the Red Hat Society was established. It consists of women wearing red hats and purple clothing who convene for tea. Currently, there are over 1.5 million registered members of the society worldwide. 31 Is there a way to prevent my experiential work from being reduced to mere image? 32 I saw a bumper sticker today that said, “Don’t postpone joy” which reminded me that I do not want to perish without pleasure. 7 DOUBTER: Don’t you see we’re doomed? When this show closes we’ll disappear. We’re just going to fade away along with everyone’s faulty memory. ENTHUSIAST: I will not fade! WONDERER: Will I fade? Will I be a souvenir you will want to keep forever? Will my eyes change colors when I die 33 ? (Artificial audience members grumble and complain). DOUBTER: Listen, truth is bogus 34 . As soon as you get it, you lose it. I mean, we still don’t have any real, concrete, scientific proof that Descartes was not stupid 35 ! ENTHUSIAST: Geez, you’re a drag! Why are you so intent on revealing the complexities 36 of creation? DOUBTER: I’m not 37 , the artist is 38 ! WONDERER: Does that mean the artist is a drag too? (Artificial audience members snicker. One of them says, “She is a drag!” The others declare, “This play stinks!” and “It’s repetitive”). WONDERER: (Dropping an egg) Why is everyone looking at us? DOUBTER: Pfft, is everyone looking at us? ENTHUSIAST: Everyone is looking at us, woo-hoo 39 ! 33 Corneal Transplantation: A surgical procedure exists in which, essentially, thanks to eye banks, a living person’s eyes (or, corneas, rather) are replaced by a deceased person’s. 34 Tim Griffin says that anytime you generate meaning, you also lose meaning. 35 Descartes defined knowledge in terms of doubt. 36 The neuroscientist Dr. Oliver Sacks willfully chooses to forgo certain complexities in his life by weeding what he believes to be unnecessary choices. Every week, he has his housekeeper buy and prepare one half gallon of soy milk, one half gallon of prune juice, one gallon of orange Jell-O, a large bowl of taboulé, six or seven tins of sardines (because he eats sardines with taboulé every evening), seven apples and seven oranges (because he is very “greedy and impulsive” and if he had seventy apples he would eat them all). He also purchases one dollar’s worth, neither more nor less, of 72% cacao chocolate every single day. Dr. Sacks insists that he enjoys every bite of food with equal relish. 37 I was walking along the Boulevard Saint Germain and a man walked by with a little girl perched on his shoulders. She was holding two identical hair brushes, one in each hand, and was simultaneously brushing her father’s hair in two different directions. 38 “For a person who claims to suffer from complexity of the mind or schizophrenia. / Build a room where you do nothing but stand and carry a stone until it’s unbearable. You will soon find that your thoughts are purified to the point of thinking only about the weight of the stone.” – Yoko Ono 39 Fetishization. Saying this word over and over out loud invariably makes one sound as if she is sloshed. 8 (Enthusiast stands on her head and “dances” upside-down. Artificial audience members “oooh” and “aaah”). WONDERER: Why is everyone looking at us? I can’t remember, are we performing or are they 40 ? Should I make myself available for research 41 ? DOUBTER: Here we go again 42 . (to audience) I told you this was going to happen, didn’t I 43 ? (Artificial audience members say, “Yeah, I guess you did”). WONDERER: (To artificial audience members) Who are you? Do you know what you want? If you put a chameleon 44 in a room full of mirrors, what color would it turn? 40 Nena is one of five characters in Maria IRené Fornes’ play The Conduct of Life, first published in 1986. The play takes place in a private home in an unidentified Latin American country. Orlando, a sadistic army lieutenant and self-proclaimed professional torturer uses violence to subdue and destroy others. His colleague, Alejo, helplessly watches Orlando's behavior. His wife, Leticia, suffers his open contempt and verbal abuse when she speaks of wanting to become better educated and respected. Their servant, Olimpia, works well, but without recognition. She befriends Nena, a twelve-year-old street girl, whom Orlando kidnaps, repeatedly rapes and hides in the cellar. Once Leticia realizes that Nena is in their home, Orlando accuses her of infidelity, and during his violent interrogation of her she shoots and kills him. Leticia then passes the revolver to Nena. For most of my childhood I dreamed of one day becoming a professional actress. In 1995 I was cast as Nena in an undergraduate theater production in Saratoga Springs, New York. In assuming the role of Nena, I somehow lost my sense of self and gradually became the character I was portraying. By the end of the production, I had become Nena. I never tried out for another production again. 41 Pirahã is a hunter-gatherer tribe from northwestern Brazil which speaks a language based on just eight consonants and three vowels. However, the language possesses such a complex variety of “tones, stresses, and syllable lengths that its speakers can dispense with their vowels and consonants altogether and sing, hum, or whistle conversations.” The Pirahã reject nearly everything from the outside world and accept as real only what they observe. They embody a “live-in-the-present ethos and therefore do not think, or speak, in abstraction—and thus do not use color terms, quantifiers, numbers, or myths.” When someone walks deep into the forest, the Pirahã say that the person has not simply gone away, but “gone out of experience”. 42 Let go. The world is round. Oroboros. Kick up dust. Listening to a song on “repeat one”. Déjà vu. Ritornellos. Reset: No Regret. Perpetual change. Perpetual motion. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dust to dust to. The infernal. The endless. Ever. 43 I was working in a reputable art gallery in Paris. I spent a good part of my days entering inventory into a computer. Sometimes an edition of twenty or thirty or three hundred (it seemed) identical photographs would arrive and I would painstakingly have to enter data for each and every edition number into the computer. Time stood still. My days were endless. At night I would dream I was still at my desk at the gallery, sipping on diet Cokes and endlessly entering data into the computer while my too-tight tights made me forget my feet. I felt like I was imprisoned within the white walls of my own unconscious. After dreaming of inventory-entering every night for seven nights straight (on top of entering inventory every day while awake) I decided to quit my job. 44 I walked into an art gallery on Wilshire Boulevard during an opening. The walls were freckled with a proliferation of small-scale paintings, each of which was loud and bright and far from soothing. I recall an abundance of yellow and an obnoxious red oval. People milled about politely while my shoes clicked resonantly with each step. A somewhat stout man in his fifties was engaged in an animated discussion with someone. He spoke with his hands and wore a very brightly colored button-down short-sleeve rayon shirt. I recall an abundance of yellow and obnoxious red ovals. It was impossible not to notice the visual echo. The man’s outfit and the paintings on the walls were obviously vying for attention, but the shirt effortlessly 9 (A few artificial audience members look at each other, grimace and leave, saying “Oh, come on, let’s go, this isn’t art.” Two of them get up and leave). WONDERER: Why are you leaving? What do you expect? What do I expect? Doesn’t expecting the unexpected make the unexpected expected? DOUBTER: Hey, you circle talker, why don’t you try talking some sense into yourself? Don’t you know that questions are dangerous 45 ? Ugh, this is unbelievable! This is useless! (to audience) Is this not useless? (Artificial audience members grumble and shake their heads, agreeing, “Yes, this is useless, worthless, futile, meaningless and downright dumb.”) DOUBTER: (to other actors) You see?! WONDERER: Is nothing useless 46 ? How can I understand 47 something that is nothing 48 ? How do you know nothing is there if you can’t see it 49 ? Do I yawn in my sleep? (calling out) Hello, can you hear me out there? Why does nothing never happen 50 ? Is nothing still nothing if you call it something else? (terrified) And what is the most nothing of all?! (Stagehand starts up a mechanical metronome. Sixty seconds of “silence 51 ” follows, during which we hear the sound of wind 52 . Doubter and Enthusiast grasp each other for prevailed. I presumed the wearer of the shirt to be the maker of the paintings, but stuck around long enough to realize I was mistaken. 45 In Charlie Kaufman’s 2008 film Synecdoche, New York Claire says to Caden, “Knowing that you don’t know is the first and most essential step to knowing, you know?” to which Caden replies, “I don’t know”. 46 While parsing through Lebbeus Woods’s personal journals at the Getty Research Institute, the following phrase caught my eye, “Is knowing not the enemy of needing to know?” Knowing often explains nothing, which is why we return to what we do not know time and time again. 47 On February 12, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated, “As we know, there are unknown knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” 48 Simplicity. Sometimes it simply is what it is, so there. 49 Yves Klein’s “Le Vide”. Duchamp’s bottled “Air de Paris”. Andy Warhol’s 1985 “Invisible Sculpture” (or an empty pedestal and a wall label with the artist’s name, the title and a date). Maurizio Cattelan’s 1991 rubber- stamped police report registering the theft of an invisible sculpture from his car on the night preceding an exhibition opening. Jay Chung’s 2001 “Nothing is more practical than idealism” for which he produced, wrote and directed a 35 mm film which was shot without film in the camera. Tom Friedman staring at a blank piece of paper for 1,000 hours. A self portrait taken at the beach, my face buried behind the book Doing Nothing. 50 ESTRAGON: In the meantime nothing happens. 51 Wittgenstein states that what finds its reflection in language, language cannot represent. What expresses itself in language, we cannot express by means of language. 52 Awareness is when we manage to perceive our own perceptions. 10 comfort. Articulator approaches stage. Wonderer wanders 53 . Artificial audience members clear their throats and shift in their seats 54 . The stagehand finally tilts the metronome so that it loses rhythm and stops). ARTICULATOR: (signing, though no one notices her) I’ve got something to say about nothing… Sometimes nothing indicates the presence of an absence 55 . WONDERER: (inspecting curtain) Can silence be described in words? What is this for? (Wonderer starts to lower curtain. Stagehand, Enthusiast and Doubter dash over to stall action). ENTHUSIAST & DOUBTER: No, stop! WONDERER: Why? What difference does it make? What’s out there? (In unison) ENTHUSIAST: Everything 56 ! DOUBTER: Nothing! ARTICULATOR: (on stage, signing) Everything, nothing, something, always… Nothing is resolved, once and for all. WONDERER: Who are you? DOUBTER: Who the hell are you? ENTHUSIAST: Who are you? Hi! WONDERER: (distressed) If nothing is ever resolved then what’s the point? Why is this all so vague 57 ? Who do I listen to 58 ? 53 I meditated one morning for six minutes and imagined a bird perched on the crown of my head, chirping incessantly and pecking at my eyeballs. I meditated another morning for eight minutes and I thought I saw my inner ear. Later I meditated for five minutes and saw myself cross-legged on top of the earth, sending my head off with a generous nod into outer space. It was tethered by one red vein and bobbed among the stars like a helium balloon. 54 ESTRAGON: This is becoming really insignificant. 55 *: the presence of an absence. 56 What does it mean to be authentic? In Buddhist literature, the material world is often referred to as the “10,000 beings”. There are 73 different cocktails listed on the menu. Shall I order an Aviator, a Lazybird or French 75 tonight? Jacques Tati’s 1967 film “Playtime” has virtually no plot, no hero or heroine, no main characters, no close-ups and very little audible dialogue. All the actors who appear in the film occupy more or less equal roles in this cascade of incidents. Watching this film means seeing the big picture all of the time. 57 Vague: Abstract, abstruse, ambiguous, amorphous, amphibological, arcane, assumptive, baffling, bewildering, bleary, blurred, blurry, borderline, cloudy, confounding, confused, conjectural, cryptic, dark, dim, doubtful, dreamlike, dubious, enigmatic, equivocal, faded, faint, feeble, filmy, fluctuating, foggy, fuzzy, 11 (Artificial audience members, yell out a few names from program as suggestions. Actors join in. Everyone murmurs together for a cacophonous moment). DOUBTER: Walla! Walla! Walla! Terminate! You can’t possibly pay attention to all of these people without losing yourself 59 , whoever that is. It’s simply impossible to be yourself 60 ! Unity is a lie, goddamnit! We might as well close up, shut down and go home. (Doubter goes and sits among artificial audience members. Enthusiast joins him). ENTHUSIAST: Are you living life but don’t feel alive? DOUBTER: Can somebody hit the lights 61 ? (Stagehand runs over and turns all lights off. Artificial audience gasps.) WONDERER: (annoyed) But aren’t we supposed to do something for these people? Aren’t they waiting 62 for something? DOUBTER: (gravely) They’re waiting for something, but they don’t yet know what… (One audience-extra grumbles she won’t be waiting much longer. Stagehand turns lights back on. Enthusiast is suddenly sitting in Doubter’s lap). generalized, hazy, hesitant, hesitating, ill-defined, impalpable, impenetrable, imperceptible, imperspicuous, imprecise, inaudible, inconstant, incomprehensible, indefinite, indeterminate, indistinct, inexact, inexplicable, in question, lax, loose, misty, misunderstood, muddy, muffled, mumbled, mysterious, nebulous, obfuscated, obscure, on the fence, opaque, open, out of focus, pale, paradoxical, perplexing, problematic, puzzling, questionable, recondite, shadowy, shilly-shallying, speculative, superficial, tenebrous, touch-and-go, uncertain, unclear, undecided, undecipherable, undemonstrated, undetermined, unexplicit, unfathomable, unfixed, unfocused, unintelligible, unknown, unproven, unresolved, unsettled, unspecified, unsure, up in the air, vacillatating, veiled, wavering, weak, wishy-washy. 58 David Foster Wallace thought that footnotes were “almost like having a second voice in your head.” 59 The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The qui-- (Fiona Tan suggested I type this phrase over and over until my own thoughts came). 60 Chi-Wang Yang sent me a text message on Monday, May 11, 2009 that advised, “Remember, when in doubt, just navel gaze and sway back and forth”. 61 “A young doctor of laws and a canoness of whose entertaining relations not a soul was aware, were once among a numerous and handsome party at the home of the town major. The lady, young and fair, wore, as was fashionable at the time, a small black beauty-spot in her countenance, viz., closely above the lip, on the right-hand side of the mouth. By a coincidence of some sort, the party withdrew from the room for a moment, such that only the doctor and the abovementioned lady remained in it. When the party returned, it was found, to the former’s general astonishment, that the doctor wore the beauty-spot in his countenance, viz. also above the lip, but on the opposite side of the mouth.” 62 ESTRAGON: Nothing. / VLADIMIR: Show. / ESTRAGON: There’s nothing to show. 12 WONDERER: (to audience, desperate) Can you cry underwater? What are we doing here? Does it make any difference? Who are you 63 ? And what do you want? (intensely) What if I die without understanding why I have lived 64 ? (Wonderer breaks an egg in his fist. Stagehand screams in a corner. Audience members gasp). DOUBTER: Stop it! You’re being melodramatic. WONDERER: Is it so wrong to want to know who I am and why I’m here?! I mean, who the hell do you think YOU are 65 ?! (Wonderer gets in Doubter’s face. Enthusiast and Stagehand leap to Wonderer’s defense. Articulator bursts into the middle of things and interjects). ARTICULATOR: (signing 66 on stage to cast and both audiences) Listen, that which must be heard is often silenced so I will tell you without words about something that you 63 Giorgio Agamben stated, “If potentiality were, for example, only the potentiality for vision and if it existed only as such in the actuality of light, we could never experience darkness (nor hear silence, in the case of the potentiality to hear). But human beings can, instead, see shadows, they can experience darkness: they have the potential not to see, the possibility of privation.” 64 “Moments” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated from the Spanish by Emily Mast: If I could live my life again, / The next time I'd try to make more mistakes. / I wouldn't try to be so perfect, / I'd be more relaxed. / I'd be dumber than I am now, / In fact, I'd take fewer things seriously. / I'd be less hygienic. / I'd take more risks, I'd take more trips, I'd watch more sunsets, / I'd climb more mountains, / I'd swim in more rivers. / I'd go to more places I've never been, / I'd eat more ice cream and fewer lima beans, / I'd have more real problems / and less imaginary ones. / I was one of those people who lived a prudent and prolific life / every minute of his life; Of course I had moments of joy. / But, if I could go back I'd try to have only good moments. / Because if you don't know - that’s what life is made of, only moments / Don't lose the now. / I was one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer, / without a hot-water bottle, without an umbrella and without a parachute; / If I could start over - I would travel light. / If I could start over, I would walk around barefoot / from the beginning of Spring till the end of Autumn. / I'd ride more go-carts, / I'd watch more sunrises and play with more children, / If I had the chance to start over. / But I am now 85 years old, and I know that I am dying. 65 From Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Feminin: Man: The stadium? Waitress: At the other end of town, sir. Man: Ah, thank you. Paul: The stadium? Waitress: At the other end of town, sir. Paul: Ah, thank you. Friend: What were you doing? Paul: Putting myself in his shoes. Friend: And? Paul: And nothing. Friend: And? Paul: They say, “Put yourself in his shoes.” Well, it’s pointless. 66 Jan Van Woensel and I sat down at an outdoor café in Venice Beach, determined to drink rosé wine before it got too chilly out. It must have been October or November, and we were already shivering in our sweaters. The waiter informed us they didn’t serve rosé at that particular café, shoot. We contemplated leaving. I looked around and happened to notice an unremarkable middle-aged couple. They both wore khaki shorts that revealed plump calves and appeared to be rather miffed, though neither one of them said a word. The woman, her hair wild and windswept, trundled forward while staring at the cement sidewalk in front of her. 13 cannot see. There is a place 67 that is invisible due to excessive light very high up in the sky 68 , above and beyond the successive circles of increasingly elevated peaks, of increasingly white snow. It is so dazzling the eye can barely bear it. Way up there stands the extreme point of something that connects earth to sky. It’s divine, it’s sublime! Up there, in the finest air, exists the crystal of ultimate allure. Up there, in the full fire of the sky where all burns, there alone exists perpetual incandescence. There, at the center of it all, is something. It’s really something and it really exists! This performance may change your life! (Artificial audience applauds 69 ) WONDERER: (awe struck) Really? Is that true? DOUBTER: Pfft, that’s absurd. ENTHUSIAST: You’re absurd! Didn’t you hear a word she said? DOUBTER: (unconvinced) No, I didn’t! (Artificial audience members laugh 70 ). ENTHUSIAST: Well, I did and I think she’s right. Don’t you get it? Don’t you believe in anything? DOUBTER: Listen, no matter what we do or where we go, we’ll just end up right back where we started 71 , right here, again and again. So we’re not going anywhere. WONDERER: How can we climb a mountain we’re already climbing 72 ? Her partner, evidently quite agitated, ran ahead of her and gesticulated melodramatically in an attempt to capture her attention. She stubbornly refused to look at him and offered a few discourteous gestures instead. It took me a moment to realize they were “screaming” at each other in sign language. 67 Richard Long ascended Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1969. Afterwards he said, “My ambition when I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro was to make a sculpture on the top. In reality, the climb turned out to be more interesting than the work.” 68 Joan Didion said in her book The White Album, "Certain places seem to exist mainly because someone has written about them. Kilimanjaro belongs to Ernest Hemingway." 69 Mountain Recipe: “A mouthful of wine mixed with snow gathered along the way”. 70 Luis Ospina is a René Char scholar. He likes to recite these phrases: “Emerge autant que possible a ta propre surface. Que le risque soit ta clarté. Comme un vieux rire. Dans une entière modestie”. Roughly translated, it means, “Emerge as well as you can at your own surface. Let risk bring you clarity. Like an old laugh. And entirely modest”. 71 _____: Is there a word for the phenomenon of saying a word over and over until it melts into meaninglessness and starts to sound strange? 72 Miriam Makeba, also known as Mama Africa, sang a song in the sixties about Mt. Kilimanjaro while wearing a genuine leopard skin dress that went down to her ankles. The Teardrop Explodes put out an album called “Kilimanjaro” in 1980, although the original working title for the album was “Everyone Wants to Shag”. 14 ENTHUSIAST: That’s just it, we can still get there by staying here 73 . DOUBTER: But just where do you want to go 74 ? ENTHUSIAST: We’ll know where we’re going when we get there. Don’t you ever wish you could go off in search of something that could be discovered, time and again, for the first time 75 ? DOUBTER: Nothing is new anymore, you know that. ENTHUSIAST: (striking a heroic pose) We shall not cease from exploring and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time 76 . DOUBTER: (déjà vu) I’ve heard that before 77 . (stunned) You said that already. Nothing has changed! (Stagehand tosses a hot pink ping pong ball on stage, just missing Doubter). ENTHUSIAST: I love you, I’m leaving 78 . (She kisses Doubter on the lips and goes to lower the curtain). DOUBTER: (frantic) What? Wait! What are you doing? ENTHUSIAST: You can’t tell me what to do! WONDERER: Are we losing control 79 ? 73 If I could, I would stage an earthquake in the gallery ! 74 Thomas Laurent used to have a pet duck named Andrew who followed him around everywhere. Andrew was killed by a tornado. 75 The linguistics of wine. I would much rather read a good description of wine then almost anything else (this definitely includes art reviews and theoretical texts). Wine writers tend to be refreshingly loose with language and their reviews often feel akin to poetry or experimental prose. “It is a little, shy wine, like a gazelle. Like a leprechaun. Dappled, in a tapestry meadow. Like a flute by still water. And this is a wise old wine. A prophet in a cave. And this is a necklace of pearls on a white neck. Like a swan. Like a unicorn”. 76 On January 28, 2009 at 8:37 pm Zachary Leener sent this T.S. Eliot quote to me via text message. 77 The plots of all Greek plays were already well known to the audience. Although there’s nothing wrong with wanting something new, infinite reiterations of the old may be more plausible. 78 I once heard on the radio that a loveless and vengeful middle-aged teacher in a private high school was arrested for sending anonymous letters to heterosexual couples claiming to have witnessed infidelities. She sent out nearly two hundred letters in less than two years and was responsible for numerous broken marriages and countless bruised relationships. 79 In June 1816, the French naval frigate Méduse departed from Rochefort, bound for the Senegalese port of Saint-Louis and heading a convoy of three other ships. In an effort to make good time, the Méduse overtook the other ships, but due to its speed it drifted 100 miles off course. On July 2nd, it ran aground on a 15 ENTHUSIAST: It’s my truth and nothing else matters 80 . Come on, let’s go! DOUBTER: But where? And how? We still don’t know where we’re going! How do we face a world in which everything is available 81 ?! ENTHUSIAST: Those are just details. Look at the world 82 !!! sandbank off the West African coast, near today's Mauritania. Efforts to free the ship failed, so, on July 5, the frightened passengers and crew started an attempt to travel the 60 miles to the African coast in the frigate's six boats. Although the Méduse was carrying 400 people, including 160 crew, there was space for only about 250 in the boats. The remainder, 146 men and one woman, were piled onto a hastily built raft that partially submerged once it was loaded. For sustenance the crew of the raft had only a bag of ship's biscuit (consumed on the first day), two casks of water (lost overboard during fighting) and a few casks of wine. All but 15 of them died in the 13 days before their chance rescue by the Argus and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism, and madness. The situation was depicted in an oil painting of 1818-1819 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). In choosing the tragedy as subject matter for his first major work-an uncommissioned depiction of an event from recent history-Géricault consciously selected a well- known incident that would generate great public interest and help launch his career. The event fascinated the young artist, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. He interviewed two of the survivors, and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. His efforts took him to morgues and hospitals where he could view first-hand the color and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. (Overall the painting is dark and relies largely on the use of somber, mostly brown pigments, a palette that Géricault believed was effective in suggesting tragedy and pain). As the artist had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 Paris Salon, attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. It was subsequently exhibited in London and was acquired by the Louvre soon after the artist's early death at the age of 32. The display caption at the Louvre tells us that "the only hero in this poignant story is humanity." 80 Pending collapse. In John Cassavetes’s 1997 film “Opening Night” Gena Rowlands plays a Broadway star named Myrtle who rehearses for her latest play (“The Second Woman”) about a woman named Virginia who is unable to admit that she is aging. When she witnesses the (real or imagined, it is unclear) death of an adoring young fan, she begins to lose her grip on both her stage persona and her real one. “I seem to have lost…reality,” she says tearfully after collapsing on the floor due to a staged slap and bursting into hysterical laughter. In the film’s final scene, it’s opening night in New York and 3,000 well-dressed extras who play audience members (who never really knew whether anyone was acting or not) fill the playhouse. Myrtle arrives late and is so exceedingly drunk she can barely walk. She braves the stage anyway and, at one point, passes out so that the rest of the cast has to ad-lib around her. Later on, and slightly more sober, Myrtle and John Cassavetes (who plays an actor named Maurice who plays Virginia’s husband Marty) engage in an exchange on stage that is not unlike a showdown. Maurice scolds Myrtle for being destructive, and she retorts, "Well I am not me. I used to be me. I'm not me anymore." Whether this line is coming from Virginia or from Myrtle makes no difference, for reality has merged with theater. Both Myrtle and Maurice’s gestures, tone and language become increasingly melodramatic and ridiculous. It soon becomes obvious that they are not sticking to the script. The play ends after Myrtle and Maurice approach each other, lean over and grab each other’s ankles in a sort of awkward athletic shoe-shake. The audience bursts into wild applause and enthusiastic “bravos”. Thus, artifice has been unraveled, undone and outshone by “the real”. 81 Pistachio-honey-cardamon, organic apricot with almonds & pistachios, vanilla-rosewater-honey with pumpkin seeds, nutmeg with candied walnuts, triple ginger snap!, avocado-lime with caraway seeds, banana coconut-rum, antioxidant green tea, sweet rice ice-cream fennel & ginger, rosewater-pistachio-chocolate chip, rosewater-sage-pistachio-honey-yogurt, dulce de leche-walnut-thyme, strawberry-black-pepper, lemon curd & thyme ice cream, earl grey with dulce de leche, thin mint-sage ice cream, rosemary-morello cherry, ginger-saffron ice cream, lavender, grapefruit sage, cabernet pear, blackberry-rose wine, lavender-rose wine sorbet, coconut-lime-ginger with agave & candied ginger bits, coconut-ginger-pine nut with agave & candied ginger bits, dark chocolate with milk chocolate-chips, dark & bitter mocha chip. 16 WONDERER: Look at the world?! DOUBTER: But I can’t concentrate with all this enthusiasm! ENTHUSIAST: (breaks confetti egg over his head) Yes, you can! Nothing is now impossible! (Doubter suddenly kisses Enthusiast on the cheek. Enthusiast hesitates, and then bursts out laughing. Others burst out laughing as well. Artificial audience members start to laugh and cheer as well. This goes on for an uncomfortable amount of time 83 . Eventually, they all calm down and the five cast members settle themselves into a pinwheel formation. They sigh, reach upwards and then collapse on the floor together. Artificial audience sighs. Stageheand glances at his watch, gets up, grabs the broom and starts to sweep the floor). STAGEHAND: (singing, to accordion 84 ) I am dead because I have no desire, I have no desire because I think I possess, I think I possess because I do not try to give; Trying to give, we see we have nothing, Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves, 82 Not too far from the Pont Neuf, on my way to Saint Germain, I saw in the midst of a dreary crowd of frowners stalled at the corner (where I pedaled furiously through a red light) a very fat man with with a dab of something green at the corner of the right-hand side of his lip. He was by himself and smiling serenely. 83 A mysterious laughter epidemic struck northern Tanzania (most notably the city of Kashasha) nearly fifty years ago, just weeks after Tanzania declared its independence from Great Britain. Laughter is a form of social behavior that only works if it’s shared. In other words, laughter causes laughter; it’s contagious. In January 1962, a sixteen-year-old girl at an all girls mission boarding school was struck with a fit of uncontrollable laughter during a mathematics exam. Several other girls soon joined in and reacted violently when their teachers tried to calm them down. Eventually, the entire school had to be shut down for several weeks while the girls were carted off to hospitals and given Valium. Several British doctors arrived soon afterwards to investigate. They discovered that the epidemic had spread to other villages up and down coast of Lake Victoria. Hundreds of girls, boys, men and women, and even entire villages, had been afflicted with the mysterious disease. No one knows for sure why this epidemic hit Tanzania, but some surmise that it was due to the avalanche of change that had afflicted the country a few weeks prior. Immediately following its independence, Tanzania became a socialist state. After several days of fervid celebration, a new government arrived, land changed hands, local clans and religions were abolished, new churches moved in and a modern belief system was imposed. Everyone was suddenly making a massive leap into the terrifying void of “freedom” (since they were not “freed” as much as suddenly faced with a lack of infrastructure to sustain a permanently altered world perspective). Perhaps their response to this disorienting trauma was a collective scream that took the form of laughter. 84 Everyone is familiar with the French population’s obsession with accordion music, but are they familiar with just how pervasive accordion music really is in Paris? Not only do you find accordionists on every Metro line at all hours of every day, but they also all happen to play the same exact repertoire of a mere three songs. In other words, you hear the same thing, over and over, every day, everywhere you go. A 1986 The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson quipped, “Welcome to heaven, here’s your harp. Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion.” In 1997 Jean-Louis Noton became the first accordionist to climb a mountain (namely, the “Dent Blanche” of the Swiss Valley) with his accordion and then play it at 4,400m altitude. 17 Trying to give ourselves, we see we are nothing, Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become, Desiring to become, we live… 85 (One by one, the members of the cast break character and go to take a short breather: drinking water, stretching and checking cell phones. Artificial audience members pull out eye drops and “cry”, dabbing at their eyes with tissues and sniffling. By the end of the musical entr’acte 86 , all the core actors have reconvened on stage. They settle into their mound and fall asleep. The clearly recycled soundscape of un-apathetic wind roars, over and over, in the background 87 ). LOOP 88 85 René Daumal (born 1908, died 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, poet, translator and playwright who is known for his work on spirituality, altered states of consciousness and perception. Daumal died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-six, leaving his novel Mount Analogue unfinished. This allegorical story details the discovery and ascent of a sublime mountain. Daumal compares art and alpinism in this novel, saying: “Alpinism is the art of climbing mountains by confronting the greatest dangers with the greatest prudence” while art is “the accomplishment of knowledge in action”. This text comes from the last letter Daumal wrote to his wife a few days before he died. 86 Entr’acte is French for “between the acts”. It can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production (synonymous to an intermission), but it more often indicates a piece of music (interlude) performed between two acts of a theatrical performance. Originally, entr’actes were meant to act as “bridges” during closed curtain periods and fill time to make an emotional transition from one scene to the next, to prevent the audience from becoming restless and to give the chief players a short break. Often, the action was continued in front of the closed curtain with without scenery or props. This was similar to Italian “divertimentos”, or French “divertissements” during which “accidental” audience members got up and performed an inserted ballet passage. 87 And you, what are you looking for? 88 “The end is built into the beginning” 18 POSTSCRIPT Figure 3: Anonymous, Kilimanjaro, date unknown 19 BIBLIOGRAPHY Agamben, Giorgio. Potentialities. Stanford: Stanford University press, 1999. Bailey, Stuart & Gander, Ryan. Appendix Appendix. Zurich: Christoph Keller Editions, 2007. Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1986. Beckett, Samuel. Happy Days. London: Grove Press, Inc., 1961. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954. Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Bonami, Francesco. Fischli Weiss: Flowers & Questions. London: Tate Publishing, 2006. Buckley, F. H. The Morality of Laughter. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Pres2003. Burger, Peter. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1984. Carey, John. What Good Are the Arts? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Cassavetes, John. Opening Night. 144 minutes. Faces Distribution, 1977. DVD. Cavagnolo, Claude. “Famous French Accordionist to Climb a Mountain.” Accordion News : The Squeeze, July 4, 1997. <http://www.accordions.com>. Chandler, Gene. “Rainbow ’65 Part 1 & 2”. YouTube, 6 minutes 03 seconds. Song. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqpAa2k1Wnw>. Char, René. Recherche de la Base et du Sommet. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1965. “Choice”, Radiolab. 59 minutes 33 seconds. WNYC, November 14, 2008. Podcast. Colapinto, John. “The Interpreter”. The New Yorker. April 16, 2007. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto>. “Corneal Transplantation”. Wikipedia. June 9, 2009. Wikimedia. June 18, 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornea_transplant>. Daumal, René. Mount Analogue. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1981. Davis, Lydia. Varieties of Disturbance. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Didion, Joan. The White Album. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979. “Distancing Effect”. Wikipedia. March 2, 2009. Wikimedia. June 18, 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienation_effect>. 20 Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Eggers, Dave. How We Are Hungry. San Francisco: McSweeney’s Publishing, 2004. “Entr’Acte” Wikipedia. March 23, 2009. Wikimedia. June 20, 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entr'acte>. Fischer, Alfred M., ed. George Brecht: Events. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2005. Flaubert, Gustave. The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas. New York: New Directions Corporation, 1967. Flinn, John. “Looking For a Literary Leopard on the Rooftop of Africa”. SF Gate. March 31, 2002. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/31/>. Foreman, Richard. Paradise Hotel and Other Plays. Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2001. Fornes, Maria Irene. Plays : Mud, the Danube, the Conduct of Life, Sarita. New York: PAJ Publications, 1986 Forti, Simone. Handbook In Motion. New York: New York University Press, 1974. Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Gander, Ryan. Loose Associations. Paris: La Revue Parlée, 2004. Godard, Jean-Luc. Masculin Feminin. 103 minutes. Columbia Films S.A., 1966. DVD. Hainley, Bruce. “Trisha Donnelly: Over and Out”. Parkett. No. 77, 2006: 76-79. Hartnoll, Phyllis. The Theatre: A Concise History. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998. Hemingway, Ernest. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953. Hemingway, Ernest. Under Kilimanjaro. Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2005. Hill, Henry Chase, Ed. The Wonder Book of Knowledge. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company Publishers, 1923. Jennings, Dana. “Willing To Be Vulnerable: The Patient Grows Up”. The New York Times. May 18, 2009. < http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/health/19case.html>. Johnson, Lamont. “The Twilight Zone: Five Characters in Search of an Exit”, Season 3 Episode 14. 8 minutes 28 seconds. CBS Studios, 1961. TV Series. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zad4Y1Ljm-s>. 21 Kaufman, Charlie. Synecdoche, New York. 124 minutes. Sony Pictures Classics, 2008. DVD. Koch, Kenneth. One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1987. Kosuth, Joseph. Art After Philosophy and After. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991. Kuskin, Karla. The Philharmonic Gets Dressed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1982. Laing, R.D. The Divided Self. New York: Tavistock Publications Ltd, 1969. “Laughter”, Radiolab. 59 minutes 30 seconds. WNYC, February 25, 2008. Podcast. Levé, Édouard. Oeuvres. Paris: P.O.L. Editeur, 2002. Lutz, Tom. Doing Nothing. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. MacLean, Natalie. “Delirious Description - Describing Wine”, Chef2Chef, March 2003. <http://www.chef2chef.net/news/foodservice/Editorial- Chefs_Corner/Delirious_Description-Describing_Wine.htm> Max, D.T. “The Unfinished”, The New Yorker, March 9, 2009: 48-66. Megarry, Jacquetta. Explore Mount Kilimanjaro. Dunblane: Rucksack Readers, 2001. Ofcansky, Thomas P. & Yeager, Rodger. Historical Dictionary of Tanzania. London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1997. Ono, Yoko. Grapefruit. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964. Pirandello, Luigi. Six Characters In Search of An Author. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc. 1998. Queneau, Raymond. Exercises In Style. Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1947. Rabkin, Gerald, Ed. Richard Foreman. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 1999. Radul, Judy. “I Come to Bury Cesar: The Image of Theatre in the Imagination of Visual Art”. Art Lies. No. 60, Winter 2008: 66-70. “The Raft of the Medusa” Wikipedia. May 5, 2009. Wikimedia. June 20, 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa>. “Red Hat Society”. Wikipedia. June 4, 2009. Wikimedia. June 20, 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Society>. Reed, Lou. “Pale Blue Eyes”. 5 minutes 41 seconds, MGM Records, 1968. Song. 22 Rugoff, Ralph. A Brief History of Invisible Art. San Francisco, California College of the Arts, 2005. Seeley, Hart. “The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld”. Slate. April 2, 2003. <http://www.slate.com/id/2081042>. Stark, Frances. Frances Stark: Collected Writing: 1993-2003. London: Book Works, 2003. Stein, Gertrude. Selected Operas and Plays of Gertrude Stein. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1970. Stone, Ruth M. Dried Millet Breaking. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. Strunk, William. The Elements of Style. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006. Tufnell, Ben, Ed. Richard Long: Selected Statements & Interviews. London, Haunch of Venison, 2007. Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1996. Weschler, Lawrence. Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge Classics, 1971. Urdang, Laurence, Ed. The Synonym Finder. Emmaus: Rodale Press, Inc. 1978 Vergara, Carlos. “Jorge Luis Borges: Instantes / Moments” The Quiet Man, 20 December 2008. <http://www.thequietman.org/?p=264>. Verwoert, Jan. “Exhaustion Et Exuberance: Ways To Defy the Pressure to Perform”. Dot Dot Dot. No.15, Oct-Nov 2007, pp.90-112. Vulliamy, Ed. “Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna: A double Act of Arias and Anger.” The Observer. 17 December 2006. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/dec/17/classicalmusicandopera2>. Weinstein, Bruce. The Ultimate Ice-Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks and More. New York: William Morrow Cookbooks, 1999

Abstract (if available)

Abstract “Everything, Nothing, Something, Always (Walla!)” is a performance-based installation that is comprised of a one-act theater piece repeated nine times over a three hour period. Each of its nine iterations varies slightly as a necessary result of its serial repetition. The document for which this abstract serves to synopsize and explain, otherwise known as my thesis, is comprised of the written script for the performance and is titled “Everything, Nothing, Something, Always (Walla!).” It should be considered a separate work, or an augmented index of the performance, as the entirety of the performed text has been semi-obliterated by a double strikethrough and subordinated by the addition of dozens of footnotes. This intentional obfuscation points to the central concerns of the two works: a distinct distrust of both certainty and the ideal of truth

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

The significance of The Last Frontier casino in American history

PDF

An untitled act of withholding

PDF

When I get out of here

Asset Metadata

Creator Mast, Emily (author)

Core Title Everything, nothing, something, always (walla!)

School School of Fine Arts

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Fine Arts

Degree Conferral Date 2009-08

Publication Date 08/05/2009

Defense Date 03/05/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag always,everything,nothing,OAI-PMH Harvest,something,walla

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Zittel, Andrea (committee chair), Ebner, Shannon (committee member), Forti, Simone (committee member), Lockhart, Sharon (committee member), Tumlir, Jan (committee member)

Creator Email emast@usc.edu,emilymast@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2494

Unique identifier UC1186238

Identifier etd-mast-2892 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-174341 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2494 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-mast-2892.pdf

Dmrecord 174341

Document Type Thesis

Rights Mast, Emily

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu