“there is a bruise on her thigh. the right.”

This is one of many things — pencil sketches, watercolors, oil paintings, a script for a short film — that I have made over the years that were inspired by Donald Barthelme‘s experimental short story, The Explanation. The “story” is written in a Q & A format, without any of the expected markers of time, place, or character. Just the dialogue between two “speakers,” designated as Q and A, The conversations range from discussions relating to a new, groundbreaking technology, to parody of academic discourse, to simple, declarative sentences that could come from an ESL class, to more personal matters. The title of the piece above comes from the latter: a recurring thread that suggests (among other things) a jealous husband interrogating a private detective about the activities of an unnamed woman:

Q: Do you see what she’s doing?
A: Removing her blouse.
Q: How does she look?
A: Self-absorbed.
[…]
Q: Well, what is she doing now?
A: Removing her jeans.
Q: What is she wearing underneath?
A: Pants. Panties.
Q: But she’s still wearing her blouse?
A: Yes.
Q: Has she removed her panties?
A: Yes.
Q: Still wearing the blouse?
A: Yes. She’s walking along a log.
Q: In her blouse. Is she reading a book?
A: No. She has sunglasses.
Q: She’s wearing sunglasses?
A: Holding them in her hand.
Q: How does she look?
A: Quite beautiful.

After jumping in quick succession between several other conversations, Barthelme returns to the one quoted above:

Q: What is she doing now?
A: There is a bruise on her thigh. The right.

art, film, theater

things I tell myself of when i make art

“One of the functions of art is to remind the individual of the uniqueness of each moment.”

art, books, theater

INSPECTOR LEE of the NOVA POLICE

I’m currently attempting to create a new theater piece inspired by the writings of William S. Burroughs — particularly, The Nova Trilogy (or Cut-Up Trilogy ), as writer/adapter, and (eventually, hopefully) director/ designer, as well. It’s early enough in the process, however, that I’m not certain I’ll find the necessary hook to transform this massive, seemingly un-adaptable work of prose into a performance text.

Because early visualization is a crucial element for me when developing a new production, I always end up with a an enormous library of images that relate to the piece in some (often inscrutable) way. Some of the images are scavenged from the web, some from books, and some I create myself. Thus, the image above: a collage depicting Inspector J. Lee, an agent of the Nova Police, sitting in his time/space vehicle, and considering the giant centipede that returned with him from a trip back to the long-gone Mayan Empire.

(Lee’s vehicle is actually just a Linotype machine, which I thought had an unfamiliar, unwieldy, contraption-like shape that would make a perfect mode of transport for the Nova Police.)

art

“that’s what she Sade”

About a week ago, I was thinking about a favorite piece of art: Man Ray‘s Monument à D.A F. de Sade (1933), and was moved to fiddle around with collaging for the remainder of the afternoon, which resulted in the three horny images below:

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