Sat Apr 07, 2012
During each performance I did a fair amount of free-text writing from my notebook computer, projected for the audience to read on a larger monitor. You can see this in one of the photographs. I also asked questions of the audience during the performance, and incorporated their answers into the writing. So that for example, "I" in the resulting text often, but not always, refers to me.
I told each night's audience, and now I'm telling anyone who reads this, that this collective writing is available for anyone to make use of, in whole or in part, for any other purpose except commercial purposes. Anyone includes you, whether you came to the performance or not. To use the Creative Commons language: "Low Concept performance text by No Attribution Needed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at http://www.mobius.org/blog/david-miller." No attribution to me is necessary, but do let me know if you use this and how you used it. I'm just curious about it.
Performance text, Friday, March 30, 2012
Friday night text - Low Concept
It’s 8 pm, so we’re beginning. People I haven’t seen in quite awhile are here, as well as a couple of people I haven’t met, or don’t recall having met ….
One question I have for myself in doing this kind of writing is whether or not I should keep the typos. I, no that’s an example right there, I was going to begin with a sentence with “I”, then changed my mind, then changed my mind back again to start the sentence with “I” as I just did. But I still, or perhaps “till” haven’t answered the question about the typos and probably won’t answer that question. Here is George Moseley. Now he’s is going around, no he’s not yet going around to the side, he’s standing by his bicycle. But I think he gets it. George is sharp like that, or “shart” whatever that is. People think I type quickly who only listen but that’s because they are also listening to me backspace to correct mistakes. Too hasty.
First thought, best thought, Ginsberg said, but I can’t say I always agree with that, no disrespect to his memory. By, or but, first thought is more or less what this is about. Well, first thought and then second thought. This keyboard has one key positioned differently from my last laptop, so characteristically I wind up highlighting and deleting a whole lot of text, fortunately I can undo it if I catch it in time. Like that for instance. If I could figure out the problem I’d correct it. Save.
I am simply typing. You could address this question later. It would be worthwhile to incorporate not only what comes from my own mind. But then again, this might be like being called on in class. Right?
A question about the question. Did we know it then? Did we only know it later? What opened your mind. Well, to help I will give an example. It would come from theater, almost inevitably. In college, I saw a production of Alice in Wonderland by the Manhattan Project - highly physical theater, almost entirely actor’s bodies. Plural. It completely opened up how I thought about acting and theater. There were other experiences. I knew it at the time, But there were probably resonances later.
Arthur - movies at the Garden Theater in Greenfield Mass. With lights in the shape of stars that came on before the show. One of his favorite places, in Greenfield, Also a little village on either side.
Thought, two examples, given were kind of safe to talk about perhaps? Other examples could be borderline traumatic, not so easy to talk about. So many, that “warped him” he says, repeating misspelling too.
One thing that I often think about when I come to this space on Norfolk Street - at Mobius, or when it was Meme Gallery - is that I think it really was Norfolk Street where this person I used to know well lived around 1983. This person, that’s coy. This woman I used to know well. I haven’t spent a lot of time on Norfolk Street since then, or even at the time. But I keep thinking it was on the next corner from this one, a house that is now painted a light blue, (color is redundant), where I did not stay the night, and we both knew I was not going to stay the night, and we both knew why, and I never in fact did. And I was only in that house once. But it seems so certain to me that it was the house on the next corner. I was living in Somerville at the time and I am not sure how I got home - but now as I am writing this I remember that I do know how I got home. I just walked home, all the way up Prospect Street through Union Square in Somerville and close to Sullivan Square. It was a long walk and I had a lot to consider.
The nostalgia question is embarrassing.
Mobius on Congress Street. Why is this question embarrassing? I have a lot of nostalgia and it seems that a lot of people don’t and maybe it’s a good thing, because you could get stuck in the past. Maybe the question is not embarrassing, but after all. But it feels good. But after all, here you are getting this question out of nowhere. Are there uses for nostalgia?
What does nostalgia mean? How would you define it?
Is that why Aerosmith is going on tour? Whose nostalgia. The fans’ Mountain Park. I went to Mountain Park as well when my family was growing up. My first amusement park. My girlfriend in college went with me later on, years later. We were on one of those tilt-a whirl rides. A couple of young boys were on the ride too. It was not very large. One of them got sick and vomited. My girlfriend got sick seeing this and vomited too. I started screaming at the ride operator, STOP people are throwing up! But, like Arthur, I still miss Mountain Park. Nowadays Mountain Park is the name of an outdoor music venue, in more or less the same area.
