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diff --git a/essays/letters.tex b/essays/letters.tex index 9dcd533..8f82eab 100644 --- a/essays/letters.tex +++ b/essays/letters.tex @@ -1,16 +1,25 @@ \chapter{Letters} - -\fancyhead{} \fancyfoot{} \fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage} \fancyhead[LE]{\textsc{Esthetics}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Letters}} -\section{Letter from Terry Riley, Paris, to Henry Flynt, Cambridge, Mass., \\ dated 11/8/62} +\clearpage + +\renewcommand\thesection{\arabic{section}} +\titleformat{\section}[block] +{\sffamily} +{\thesection}{1.5em}{\bfseries} +\titlespacing{\section}{0in}{0.5cm}{0.5cm}[0.5cm] + +\section{Letter from Terry Riley, Paris, to Henry Flynt, Cambridge, Mass., dated 11/8/62} + +\vfill One day a little boy got up and looked at his toys, appraised them and decided they were of no value to him so he did them in. Seeing that others were blindly and blissfully enjoying theirs he offered them a long and \enquote{radical new theory} of \enquote{pure recreation} for their enjoyment but before he let them in for this highly secret and \enquote{revolutionary theory} they should follow his example and partake of a little 20th C. iconoclasm. From those that balked he removed the label \enquote{avant-garde} and attached the label \enquote{traditionalist} or if they were already labeled \enquote{traditionalist} he added one more star. If they accepted they got a \enquote{hip} rating with gold cluster and if they comprehended the worth of his theory well enough to destroy their own art they would be awarded assignments to destroy those works whose designers were no longer around to speak out in their behalf. Now about this hip radical new theory of pure recreation.---Well---alor! its simply what people do anyway but don't realize it but it seems that what people \enquote{do anyway and don't realize it} will not be fully appreciated until \enquote{what people do in the name of art} is eliminated. If art can be relegated to obscurity, if some one can get John Coltrane to stop blowing, if someone can smash up all the old Art tatum records as well as all the existing pianos, if someone can get all that stuff out of those museums, If someone can only burn down all those concert halls, movie houses, small galleries as well as rooms in private houses that contain signs of art, If someone can do in all the cathedrals and monuments bridges etc, If someone can get rid of the sun, moon, stars, ocean, desert trees birds, bushes mountains, rivers, joy, sadness inspiration or any other natural phenomenon that reminds us of the ugly scourge art that has preoccupied and plagued man since he can remember then yes then at last Henry Flynt, sorry! - +\vfill {\centering \includegraphics[width=3in]{terry_flynt_name} \par} +\vfill will show us how to really enjoy ourselves. Whooopeeee \vfill\signoffnote{[Terry Riley's spelling etc. carefully preserved]} \clearpage @@ -26,23 +35,37 @@ One accepts language, one accepts logic. \vfill -\signoff{Best regards,}\signoff{Bob Morris} +\parbox{3in}{\raggedleft Best regards,\\ +Bob Morris} + +\vfill \clearpage -\section{} +\section{Press Release (March--April 1963)} + +\vskip 2em {\raggedleft \parbox{2.5in}{\textsc{From "Culture" to Veramusement} \\Boston--New York \\\textsc{Press Release:} for March--April, 1963 \par}\vskip 1em} +\vskip 2em + Henry Flynt, Tony Conrad, and Jack Smith braved the cold to demonstrate against Serious Culture (and art) on Wednesday, February 27. They began at the Museum of Modern Art at 1:30 p.m., picketing with signs bearing the slogans \textsc{Demolish serious culture! / Destroy art!} ; \textsc{Demolish art museums! / No more art!} ; \textsc{Demolish concert halls! / Demolish Lincoln Center!}and handing out announcements of Flynt's lecture the next evening. Benjamin Patterson came up to give encouragement. There was much spontaneous interest among people around and in the Museum. At about 1:50, a corpulent, richly dressed Museum official came out and imperiously told the pickets that he was going to straighten them out, that the Museum had never been picketed, that it could not be picketed without its permission, that it owned the sidewalk, and that the pickets would have to go elsewhere. The picket who had obtained police permission for the demonstration was immediately dispatched to call the police about the matter, while the other two stood aside. It was found that the Museum official had not told the truth; and the picketing was resumed. People who care about the rights of pickets generally should recognize the viciousness of, and oppose, the notion that picketing can only be at the permission of the establishment being picketed. (As for previous picketing of the Museum, it is a matter of record.) Interest in the demonstration increased; people stopped to ask questions and talk. There was a much greater demand for announcements than could be supplied. Some people indicated their sympathy with the demonstrators. The demonstrators then went on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Because of the unexpected requirement of a permit to picket on a park street, they had to picket on Lexington Avenue, crossing 82nd Street. As a result they were far from the fools lined up to worship the Mona Lisa, but there was still interest. Finally, they went to Philharmonic Hall. Because of the time, not many people were there, but still there was interest; people stopped to talk and wanted more announcements than were available. The demonstrations ended at 3:45 p.m. Photos of the pickets were taken at all three places. -On Thursday evening, February 28, at Walter DeMaria's loft, Henry Flynt gave a long lecture expositing the doctrine the Wednesday demonstrations were based on. On entering the lecture room, the visitor found himself stepping in the face of a Mona Lisa print placed as the doormat. To one side was an exhibition of demonstration photos and so forth. Behind the lecturer was a large picture of Viadimir Mayakovsky, while on either side were the signs used in the demonstrations, together with one saying \textsc{Veramusement---Not culture}. About 20 people came to the lecture. The lecturer showed first the suffering caused by Serious-Cultural snobbery, by its attempts to force individuals in line with things supposed to have objective validity, but actually representing only alien subjective tastes sanctioned by tradition. He then showed that artistic categories have disintegrated, and that their retention has become obscurantist. (He showed that the purpose of didactic art is better served by documentaries.) Finally, in the most intellectually sophisticated part of the lecture, he showed the superiority of each individual's veramusement (partially defined on the lecture announcement\editornote{The comment on the announcement read:\begin{quotation} \enquote{\textsc{Veramusement}} is every doing of an individual which is not naturally physiologically necessary (or harmful), is not for the satisfaction of a social demand, is not a means, does not involve competition; is done entirely because he just likes it as he does it, without any consciousness that anything is not-obligated-by-himself; and is not special exertion. (And is done and \enquote{then} turns out to be in the category of \enquote{veramusement})\end{quotation} Additionally, \essaytitle{My New Concept of General Acognitive Culture}, in the Appendix, provides additional explication of what is effectively \term{veramusement} or \term{brend}.}) to institutionalized amusement activities (which impose foreign tastes on the individual) and indeed to all \enquote{culture} the lecture was concerned with. After the lecture, Flynt told how his doctrine was anticipated by little known ideas of Mayakovsky, Dziga Vertov, and their group, as related in Ilya Ehrenburg's memoirs and elsewhere. He touched on the Wednesday demonstrations. He spoke of George Maciunas' \textsc{Fluxus}, with which all this is connected. Several people at the lecture congratulated Flynt on the clarity of the presentation and logicality of the arguments. Photos were taken. +On Thursday evening, February 28, at Walter DeMaria's loft, Henry Flynt gave a long lecture expositing the doctrine the Wednesday demonstrations were based on. On entering the lecture room, the visitor found himself stepping in the face of a Mona Lisa print placed as the doormat. To one side was an exhibition of demonstration photos and so forth. Behind the lecturer was a large picture of Viadimir Mayakovsky, while on either side were the signs used in the demonstrations, together with one saying \textsc{Veramusement---Not culture}. About 20 people came to the lecture. The lecturer showed first the suffering caused by Serious-Cultural snobbery, by its attempts to force individuals in line with things supposed to have objective validity, but actually representing only alien subjective tastes sanctioned by tradition. He then showed that artistic categories have disintegrated, and that their retention has become obscurantist. (He showed that the purpose of didactic art is better served by documentaries.) Finally, in the most intellectually sophisticated part of the lecture, he showed the superiority of each individual's veramusement (partially defined on the lecture announcement\editornote{The comment on the announcement read: +\begin{quotation} + \enquote{\textsc{Veramusement}} is every doing of an individual which is not naturally physiologically necessary (or harmful), is not for the satisfaction of a social demand, is not a means, does not involve competition; is done entirely because he just likes it as he does it, without any consciousness that anything is not-obligated-by-himself; and is not special exertion. (And is done and \enquote{then} turns out to be in the category of \enquote{veramusement})\end{quotation} + + \noindent Additionally, \essaytitle{My New Concept of General Acognitive Culture}, in the Appendix, provides \linebreak[2]additional explication of what is effectively \term{veramusement} or \term{brend}.}) to institutionalized amusement activities (which impose foreign tastes on the individual) and indeed to all \enquote{culture} the lecture was concerned with. After the lecture, Flynt told how his doctrine was anticipated by little known ideas of Mayakovsky, Dziga Vertov, and their group, as related in Ilya Ehrenburg's memoirs and elsewhere. He touched on the Wednesday demonstrations. He spoke of George Maciunas' \textsc{Fluxus}, with which all this is connected. Several people at the lecture congratulated Flynt on the clarity of the presentation and logicality of the arguments. Photos were taken. \vfill \section{Statement of November 1963} -Back in March 1963, I sent the first \textsc{FCTB\editornote{From Culture To Brend?} Press Release}, about FCTB's February picketing and lecture, to all the communications media, including the New Yorker. It is so good that the New Yorker wanted to use it, but they didn't want to give FCTB any free publicity; so they finally published an inept parody of it, in the October 12, 1963 issue, pp. 49--51. They changed my last name to Mackie, changed February 27 to September 25, the Museum of Modern Art to a church, changed our slogans to particularly idiotic ones (although they got in '\textsc{No More Art/Culture?}', later on), and added incidents; but the general outlines, and the phrases lifted verbatim from the \textsc{FCTB Release}, make the relationship clear.---Henry Flynt +\vfill + +\noindent Back in March 1963, I sent the first \textsc{FCTB}\editornote{From Culture To Brend?} Press Release, about FCTB's February picketing and lecture, to all the communications media, including the New Yorker. It is so good that the New Yorker wanted to use it, but they didn't want to give FCTB any free publicity; so they finally published an inept parody of it, in the October 12, 1963 issue, pp. 49--51. They changed my last name to Mackie, changed February 27 to September 25, the Museum of Modern Art to a church, changed our slogans to particularly idiotic ones (although they got in \enquote{\textsc{No More Art/Culture?}}, later on), and added incidents; but the general outlines, and the phrases lifted verbatim from the \textsc{FCTB Release}, make the relationship clear.\\\null\hfill ---Henry Flynt +\vfill \clearpage @@ -56,7 +79,10 @@ I thought you presented the lecture very well, but towards the end I was getting \vfill -\signoff{Best regards,}\signoff{Bob Morris} +\parbox{3in}{\raggedleft Best regards,\\ +Bob Morris} + +\vfill \clearpage \section{Letter from Walter DeMaria to Henry Flynt, dated 3/12/63} @@ -84,12 +110,14 @@ Yes I certainly do see the harmfullness of serious culture. My favorite movies a \noindent or wouldn't your \enquote{creep theory} which lets each person be himself and relish in himself---by extention from this---shouldn't the atheletic person be alowed to be himself? ---too. \\I think you were opening up the world to the people at the lecture---{ \vskip 1em \raggedleft \parbox{3in}{ \bgroup \setlength\tabcolsep{0.1em} \begin{tabular}{ c c l } making & them & move free-- \\ " & " & ready to be themselves \\ \end{tabular} \egroup}\vskip 1em} -\vfill\noindent I think you were right in not giving examples! \\\vfill\noindent however \\your absolute---statements and "come on"---and blend with the communist ideas---(My mind was pretty tired by then and I didn't follow how the veramusement---was tied to communism)---this \textsc{it} kind of talk.---can only shoo people off---and let them wait for the next revision or explication. +\vfill\noindent I think you were right in not giving examples! \\\vfill\noindent however \\your absolute---statements and \enquote{come on}---and blend with the communist ideas---(My mind was pretty tired by then and I didn't follow how the veramusement---was tied to communism)---this \textsc{it} kind of talk.---can only shoo people off---and let them wait for the next revision or explication. \vfill \signoff{Walter DeMaria} +\vfill + \clearpage |