From 943fce1d5bc85c1f0df7f1ba16a0da5c3e1ba003 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: p <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2024 01:05:12 -0500
Subject: first chunk of esthetics

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-\chapter{Letters}
-\fancyhead[LE]{\textsc{Esthetics}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Letters}}
-
-\clearpage
-
-\renewcommand\thesection{\arabic{section}}
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-\section{Letter from Terry Riley, Paris, to Henry Flynt, Cambridge, Mass., dated 11/8/62}
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-\vfill
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-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]}
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-\clearpage
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-\section{Letter from Bob Morris to Henry Flynt, dated 8/13/62}
-
-\vfill \noindent Dear Henry, \\
-perhaps the desirability of certain kinds of experience in art is not important. The problem has been for some time one of ideas---those most admired are the ones with the biggest, most incisive ideas (e.g. Cage \& Duchamp). The mere exertion in the direction of finding \enquote{new} ideas has not shown too much more than that it has become established as a traditional method; not much fruit has appeared on this vine. Also it can't be avoided that this is an academic approach which presupposes a history to react against---what I mean here is the kind of continuity one is aware of when involved in this activity: it just seems academic (if the term can somehow be used without so much emotion attached to it). The difficulty with new ideas is that they are too hard to manufacture. Even the best have only had a few good ones. (I suppose none of this is very clear and I can't seem to get in the mood to do any more than put it down in an off-hand way---but what I mean by \enquote{new ideas} is not only what you might call\enquote{Concept Art} but rather effecting changes in the structures of art forms more than any specific content or forms) Once one is committed to attempt these efforts---and tries it for a while---one becomes aware that if one wants \enquote{experience} one must repeat himself until other new things occur: a position difficult if not impossible to accept with large \enquote{idea} ambitions. So one remains idle, repeats things, or finds some form of concentration and duration outside the art---jazz, chess, whatever. I think that today art is a form of art history. 
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-I don't think entertainment solves the problem presented by avant gard art since entertainment has mostly to do with replacing that part of art which is now hard to get---i.e. experience. It seems to me that to be concerned with \enquote{just liked} things as you present it is to avoid such things as tradition in art (some body of stuff to react against---to be thought of as opponent or memory or however). As I said before, I for one am not so self-sufficient and when avoiding \enquote{given} structures, e.g. art, or even the most tedious and decorous forms of social intercourse, I am bored. If I need concentration, which I do, I can't think of anything on my own as good as chess. 
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-One accepts language, one accepts logic. 
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-\vfill
-
-\parbox{3in}{\raggedleft Best regards,\\
-Bob Morris}
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-\vfill
-
-\clearpage
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-\section{Press Release (March--April 1963)}
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-\vskip 2em
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-{\raggedleft \parbox{2.5in}{\textsc{From "Culture" to Veramusement} \\Boston--New York \\\textsc{Press Release:} for March--April, 1963 \par}\vskip 1em}
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-\vskip 2em
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-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. 
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-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}
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-	\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. 
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-\vfill
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-\section{Statement of November 1963}
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-\vfill
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-\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 
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-\clearpage
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-\section{Letter from Bob Morris to Henry Flynt, dated 3/6/63}
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-\vfill 
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-\noindent Henry, \\\\Received your note this morning. I had written down a few things about the lecture the very night I got home but decided they were not very clear so I didn't send them. Don't know if I can make it any clearer\ldots actually I keep thinking that I must have overlooked something because the objection I have to make seems too obvious. You spend much time and effort locating Veramusement, stating clearly what it is not, and stating that it is, if I get it, of the essence of an awareness, rather memory, of an experience which cannot be predicted and therefore cannot be located or focused by external activities. And, in fact, as you said, may cut across, or \enquote{intersect} one or another or several activities. You have discredited activities---like art, competitive games---as pseudo work or unsatisfactory recreation by employing arguments which are external to \enquote{experiencing} these activities (e.g. chess is bad because why agree to some arbitrary standard of performance which doesn't fit you)\ldots well it seems to me that Veramusement could never replace any cultural form because it has no external \enquote{edges} but rather by definition can occur anywhere anytime anyplace (By the way I want to say here that its existence as a past tense or memory I find objectionable---but I can't at the moment really say why.) It seems that you have these two things going: Veramusement, that has to do with experience, and art, work, entertainment, that have to do with society and I don't think that the exposition of how the two things are related has been very clear. George Herbert Mead, an early Pragmatist (don't shudder at that word, but I can see you throwing up your hands in despair) talked about this relation as a kind of double aspect of the personality (which he called the \enquote{me} and the \enquote{I} \ldots can't remember his book, something like \booktitle{Mind, Self, and Society}). 
-
-I thought you presented the lecture very well, but towards the end I was getting too tired to listen very carefully and I am sorry because this was the newest writing. I would like very much to read this part, i.e. that which dealt with the evolution of work, automation and the liberation from drudgery---send me a copy if you can. 
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-\vfill
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-\parbox{3in}{\raggedleft Best regards,\\
-Bob Morris}
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-\vfill
-
-\clearpage
-\section{Letter from Walter DeMaria to Henry Flynt, dated 3/12/63}
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-\vfill 
-
-\noindent Henry 
-
-\begin{tabular}{ c c c c c }
-\redact{Jazz} & \redact{Cage} & \redact{"Folk Music"} & \redact{Communism} & 
-	\begin{tabular}{ c } (anti-art?) \\	
-		----------------- \\	
-		(communism) \\	
-	\end{tabular} \\
-\end{tabular} \\
-\noindent I've been along this road too. \\
-Yes I certainly do see the harmfullness of serious culture. My favorite movies are plain documentaries. 
-
-\vfill
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-\noindent \enquote{Veramusement} \\questions: the way you set it up it sound like veramusement is \textsc{it}. Some kind of Absolute good state or activity. ---ie) \textsc{athletics} are out. \\---now my brother is a healthy athelete---he enjoys nothing so much as swimming or playing tennis all day (he likes to use his body---and he likes the form---competition) 
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-{ \vskip 1em \raggedleft\parbox{3in}{Is this \enquote{wrong} \\Should he stop.---}\vskip 1em}
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-\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}
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-\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. 
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-\vfill
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-\signoff{Walter DeMaria}
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-\vfill
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-\clearpage
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-\section{\normalsize Letter from Diane Wakoski to Henry Flynt, dated 3/18/63}
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-\vfill\vfill
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-Dear Henry, 
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-\vfill
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-As I said before, my main reactions to yr lecture \& ideas is that I'm for Henry Flynt but not for his ideas. I think the spirit you show in carrying on yr crusade is admirable and exciting. However, I am not against art and think that any artist who would say that he is or think that he is would be masochistic enough to need psychiatric care. Since you make no claims to being an artist this does not refer to you. However, I do call myself a poet and do think of myself as one. I like art, culture, etc. and do not yet feel that I am being screwed by it. Until I do, I will not need to turn to anti-art movements. 
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-All best wishes. 
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-\vfill
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-\signoff{Yours,}\signoff{Diane Wakoski}
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-\vfill\vfill
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-\clearpage
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-\section*{}
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-"Dear Mr. Flynt\ldots Since I may be depending on organized culture for my loot \& livelihood I can wish you only a limited success in your movement\ldots Cornelius Cardew" \vskip 2em\signoff{[from a postcard of June 7, 1963]}
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