Re: Questions.

[uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor@harvard.harvard.edu (Ou sont les neiges d'antan?)]

While some others of us are struggling with our three-letter
identities and toasting the Dreaming on CD (Yes, it does sound
wonderful.), the erstwhile J.  Hofmann is, in his own way, down there
slaving away in the art-pits and wondering about how far our polite
sense of theatre extends....

>I do admit to feeling queasy in posting the psycodrama interview.  especially
>since it isn't until the end that they admit that their klan/white patriot
>thing is all an act.

And there's where the unease sets in, isn't it? That sense of hanging
on and waiting for the punch line that may *never come*. I spent a lot
of time wondering how uncomfortable Jim was in *doing* the review
(seeing as he did seem pretty restrained-to me, anyway). After doing
it, putting it in print is the easy part. The remaining risk lies with
the possibility of finding a poor reader with a gun and an ax to
gring-or a good reader with a bit more than the usual discomfort that
such views may be allowable even if they *are* a joke....Jim is aware
of this:

>I'm sure everyone thinks I'm a rascist for posting it
>in the first place and that psycodrama should be silenced (well, not
>everyone...) for this.  Is that true?  

I'd assume that anyone who would care to speculate that "since Jim has
no manners, he must have lots of other icky vices as well and racism
is no doubt one of them" might be tempted to think such. It wraps it
all up in a nicely disposable package, doesn't it? Jim and Wicinski
talk naughty and are therefore unreconstructed bigots. Ditto for
Trainor (who sends nasssty notes to Marvick and makes him squeal to
the Powers that Be). No, Jim. I imagined that you were reporting.  In
'zine world, reportage just looks diffeent-you know, the no-frills
approach.

>Is what they are doing a social statement (ask yourself if whether
>laurie anderson or someone had taken their most offensive statements,
>piped them through a voice synthesizer and put her requisite
>tinkly/psuedo-jazz music in the background whether you wouldn't
>blink?) or have they crossed the bounds?

Good question. David Byrne puts together a little terrorist scenario
with the heads (sub Kate's little silver buddha/silver bullet if you
like) and we praise their structure and detachment, right? We sit through
the swans and PTV and who else with nary a bat of the eyelash. This kind
of anomie is merely *described*, not advocated, we claim. But what's the
real difference? In a way, you could argue that the only real difference
is that we've got little contact with the real individuals themselves,
and that helps us to reinforce the objectification of artist/work. Music
in the marketplace expliots this separation when it serves the purpose
of rendering the product as the acceptable face of X. What Hof's thing
runs at is (in a way) whether or not this is an acceptable condition. ForFor
all we know, David Byrne *could* be funneling money to a network of
Basque separatists. Kate *could* be bankrolling IRA arms shipments
and we'd be none the wiser, would we? You put a little bit of personhood
into the equation with the chiming guitars and the dress and things
get complicated. To ask it another way.....

>Would they be
>received differently if they weren't country bumpkins but new york art
>school students.  (lord knows they wouldn't have gotten as far as they
>did in their "research" into klan meetings if they weren't couched in 
>the basics of country anti-etiquitte).  

THe answer, I think, is a qualified yes. Given the present situation,
context *does* confer a certain status on things. How far that status
would get them in New York is another matter however. I think that Greil
Marcus(e) would chew them up and spit them out, and the Voice would
slag them mercilessly (byline on the recent racial tensions in Howard
Beach)....

>Are they really subversive researchers
>in disguise - afterall, they claim to have given their klan buddies false
>names and at least one of them is a gay (a frequent target of klan hate).

No, since their interest in role-playing is itself a form of 
editorializing. You can think that G-P'Orrige is just doing all
the research on Crowley until he starts drinking goat's blood for
*fun*. Then it's over. There's nothing like frame of reference there.
Oh yeah. One other thing. To the extent that they draw crowds with
the put-on, they're exploiting it rather than researching. The possibiltiy
that they can out-Nazi the Nazis shouldn't really count as news.
It turns out that they're doing all that role playing in the context
of a slice of culture that doesn't go for the "acceptable face" of
anything. All the crudity one can muster is fair game-as I suppose 
it should be (here's where nice persons like me get a little touchy
about "real" pluralism....). But what I wonder about is somewhat akin
to a kind of bizarre parallel....they're running into the same problem
as someone like Stryper. I imagine that they may well stand or fall on
the same grounds: that of trying to take an idea that's extra musical
and ah...."textual" and reducing it to something that the loud music
and the role and the tapes will hold. That's what us boring college-types
call the "Procrustean Bed". You cut stuff out and off when you try it
and you're left with gesture alone. Is that enough to talk about real
ideas? Can there be a such thing as inherently *racist* music (the 
FORM, I mean. Serious distinction). What they're really left with
is the ability to evoke, and WHAT they evoke is out of their hands.
They can no more control interpretation than Kate or David or Brian
or Eggs can.

If this is all a game, then they're a bunch of trivially interesting
poseurs-men (one of whom is gay) playing fascists. And you know what
we think of poseurs here....right, Tim? What I want to know is, what's
the music like? It's a judgement call on mailing the rest out, Hof.
I think that making us all a little less comfortable about being
"live and let live" weenies was part of the idea, it worked-at least
for me. I'm sure that there are lots of other persons who'd like
nothing better than to go back to discussing nice things.

And we could lead this into an interesting attack on the whole aesthetic
of "industrial" music here, couldn't we? Of course, if I do that, I
guess I'm just a wimpy new-age dilettante, exchanging mail with my
racist pal Jim.... ;_)
-- 
"And all the seven heavens showed to me/their magnitudes, their speeds, 
the distances/of each from each. The little threshing floor/that so
incites our savagery was all-/from hills to river mouths-revealed
to me..." Dante, Paradiso (XX I,148-152) Gregory Taylor (gtaylor@astroatc)