From c14e19c8343f3f00944b9d50840501906c4ae2d7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: grr <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 18:17:14 -0400
Subject: breaking more things into files

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+\chapter{Letters}
+
+\section{Letter from Terry Riley, Paris, to Henry Flynt, Cambridge, 
+Mass., dated 11/8/62}
+
+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 
+"radical new theory" of "pure recreation" for their enjoyment but before he 
+let them in for this highly secret and "revolutionary theory" they should 
+follow his example and partake of a little 20th C. iconoclasm. From those 
+that balked he removed the label "avant-garde" and attached the label 
+"traditionalist" or if they were already labeled "traditionalist" he added one 
+more star. If they accepted they got a "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 "do anyway and don't realize it" will not be fully appreciated until 
+"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! 
+
+\img{terry_flynt_name}
+
+will show us how to really enjoy ourselves. Whooopeeee 
+
+\signoffnote{[Terry Riley's spelling etc. carefully preserved]}
+
+\clearpage
+
+\section{letter from Bob Morris to Henry Flynt, dated 8/13/62}
+
+Dear Henry, 
+
+\gap
+
+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 "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 "new ideas" is not only what you might call
+"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 
+"experience" one must repeat himself until other new things occur: a 
+position difficult if not impossible to accept with large "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. 
+
+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 
+"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 "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. 
+
+One accepts language, one accepts logic. 
+
+\signoff{Best regards,}
+\signoff{Bob Morris}
+
+\section{}
+
+{ 
+\raggedleft
+\textsc{From "Culture" to Veramusement} \\
+Boston--New York \\
+\textsc{Press Release:} for March--April, 1963 \par
+}
+
+
+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) to institutionalized amusement activities (which 
+impose foreign tastes on the individual) and indeed to all "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. 
+
+\section{Statement of November 1963}
+
+
+Back in March 1963, I sent the first \textsc{FCTB 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 FCTB RELEASE, make the relationship clear.---Henry Fiynt 
+
+\section{}
+
+{ \raggedleft 3/6/63 \par }
+
+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 wnat 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 "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 "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 "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 "me" and the "I" 
+\ldots can't remember his book, something like \booktitle{Mind, Self, and Society}). 
+
+I thought you presented the lecture very weil, 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. 
+
+\signoff{Best regards,}
+\signoff{Bob Morris}
+
+\section{}
+
+{ \raggedleft 3/12/1963 \par }
+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}
+
+I've been along this road too. 
+Yes I certainly do see the harmfullness of serious culture. My favorite movies are plain documentaries. 
+
+\gap
+
+
+"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) 
+
+{ \centering
+Is this "wrong" \\
+Should he stop.--- \par
+}
+
+or wouldn't your "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---
+
+
+{
+making them move free-- 
+" " ready to be themselves \par
+}
+
+
+I think you were right in not giving examples! 
+
+
+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. \\
+people off---and let them wait for the next revision or explication. 
+
+\signoff{Walter DeMaria}
+
+\section{}
+
+Dear Henry, March 18, 1963 
+
+
+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. 
+
+All best wishes. 
+
+Yours, 
+
+Diane Wakoski 
+
+\section{}
+
+"Dear Mr. Flynt...Since I may be depending on o-ganized culture for my 
+loot \& livelihood I can wish you only a limited success in your movement... 
+Cornelius Cardew" [froma postcard of June 7, 1963] 
+
+
+\clearpage
+
+{
+2/22/1963 
+
+
+Jack Smith and Henry Flynt demonstrate against the 
+February 22, 1963 
+
+
+(photo by Tony Conrad) 
+
+Museum of Modern Art, 
+}
+\clearpage
-- 
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