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By
Mitzel
I don't think I will ever get use to mass society. The gobs and gobs of people, massing everywhere. Where do they all come from? How do football stadiums get filled up each Sunday? How can it happen that so
many thousands get massed at a Phish concert? At the Promise Keepers rally? I was even mildly shocked, back in 1979, that so many of our folks massed in DC at the first Gay March on Washington. It's hard to conceive of
so many people-- and of all that conceiving and birthing. Everything so much the same. That poor woman who had septuplets, well, it's just a freak show and the major media treat it like a miracle. I expected Stalin to show
up and give her some sort of award!
In other recent news, I noted with interest that it was reported, regarding the murders at that high school in Paducah, KY, that some of those attending the probably unconstitutional Christian prayer meeting
in the school's facilities (no, not the toilets, alas) were members of the football team. Are members of high school football teams ever members of The Atheist Club? Of the Tom Paine Club? Does the fine public school system
in Paducah even offer an Atheist Club to its young, inquisitive scholars?
People swarm to sporting events. To Marilyn Manson musicales. Even the Pope can draw a crowd, especially when the opening act is Bob Dylan, as recently happened-- Bob was booked because the
Italian sponsors thought Bob had special appeal to the under-20 generation; Dylan is 56 and has had three by-pass operations.
As I was sitting in the steam room this morning, I thought of Jack Smith, the late NYC avant-garde film-maker, though that is really not the right phrase to describe him. Jack Smith never drew a crowd,
and why should he? His signature film, Flaming
Creatures, is, of course, not a really very good film if judged in that Siskel & Ebert way. But it is emblematic of that moment when something new-- something
different-- something contrarian-- was being done, yes, in a basement, a loft, a coffee shop, as the great Robert Patrick writes so fondly in his novel
Temple Slave about the seminal Cafe Cino. (Hi, Robert!) From the late 50s through
the late 60s, a lot of new windows opened; it was a cultural atmosphere that lingered into the 70s but was largely tapped out. The reaction was getting into gear: the anschluss of the real estate moguls-- taking away the
cheap spaces so needed by creative people-- to make way for Yuppie ghettos, the media massing, wherein everything is owned by five corporations-- even dear Ellen, if you look hard enough, is wearing those hated Mouse ears.
How can a voice get through? Andy Warhol is not my favorite icon of this era, but he had his court of freaks, for which we should be grateful. And-- get this!-- I met a young, twentyish, quean at work last week. His name?
Ondine! Named after the Warhol super-star! Tradition lives!
One place in this culture where the hordes do not mass is-- guess where?-- Poetry Readings. Big Plus right off the bat. It always seemed odd to me, back in the days of the USSR, that poets like
Yevtushenko could fill a football stadium with folks who wanted to hear him read poems. No doubt there was some sort of political content in this act-- like Allen Ginsberg getting thrown out of Cuba: "I've been thrown out of
better dumps!" and later being crowned, in Prague, Queen of The May. There is the dear gay poet Frank Bidart, one of my favorites, and Frank has a new collection of poems out,
Desire. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; it
is a slim volume and costs $23. Now, $23 make not seem like a lot to you, but it does to me, and I looked through Frank's book. He has a poem called "Homo Faber." It is two lines long, that's it. Short poems can be OK.
Think of Dorothy Parker's classic: "Men don't make passes at girls with fat asses," and at least Dorothy's poem rhymed, which can count. I know I am being picky, but I am trying to help point the way. So many ways for us:
Jasper Johns, Warhol, Jack Smith, John Wieners, Robert Patrick, Aaron Shurin, Ron Schreiber, Charley Shively, Larry Mitchell. If it should come to pass, and your prayers will help, that the massing culture, those stadia filled
with drones, would just collapse under its own dead weight, then know what? We're just fine. The god Shiva might not only be responsible for the crumbling of all those Patrons of the Farts, but
us the essence of The Arts. You can pick the Vikings by 8 in the Super-Bowl. Or Shiva. So many choices. So much time.
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