Tad Williams

Sasha Watson talks to Marc-Antoine Mathieu about his comic about the Louvre, The Museum Vaults at Arthur Magazine.

.... But there is also a deeper reflection at the heart of Vaults, in which art itself is seen as infinite. “A work of art is a world,” says Mathieu. “The museum, a world of worlds, a morsel of the infinite.”

That’s just what we’re trying to do with Ordinary Farm – a world of worlds, a morsel of the infinite.

From: adrianbrooks@blah-di-blah
Subject: Two or three days without Deborah....
Date: February 4, 2009 10:09:57 PM PST

... and so a storm front, or several of them, approach our coast.

On Feb 5, 2009, at 9:17 PM, Deborah Beale wrote:
So to continue some of the things we were talking about today – Oh! I have just this second, truly, come upon this:

Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

Beaumont & Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune

On Feb 5, 2009, at 10:25 PM Adrian Brooks wrote:
You know – something made me write that ridiculous (party) email because I had to know if you were (also) a madwoman.

And when I found out that you are, my heart went soaring over the rooftops like Peter Pan out the nursery window.

Photo by Dan Nicoletta

On Jan 30, 2009, at 8:11 PM, Deborah Beale wrote:
I have been telling my dearest man all about you over pizza pasta and salad - we just charged through Italian food with the kids.

I have a great fascination - me and him both - with current physics: particles, strings, and all that. Your description today of how what we are is light - vibrating, wiggling and otherwise - was a very new and fresh angle on something I have thought about for years.

I don’t feel worthy of your praise. I have spent much of this evening thinking of how much I don’t know. Was it Socrates who said the idiot knows a lot, and the wise man knows how much he doesn’t know? Is that about humility, d’you think? I strove to listen and listen in your company…

(Socrates wrote down nothing. Isn’t that the most incredible tease?)

love – D

On Jan 30, 2009, at 6:45 PM, Adrian Brooks wrote:
Socrates said that the more he studied the more he realized how much he didn’t know. I prefer to think of what Lao Tze said: “Knowledge studies others. Wisdom is self-known.” Personally, I was never impressed by Mind knowledge. It is the shining soul I am in love with, intoxicated by.

Socrates also said he believed in God, reincarnation, vegetarianism, the universality of consciousness, but since he couldn’t prove it rationally, he’d devote himself to the subject of philosophy as “the next best thing.” From Socrates to Plato to Aristotle, Greeks got more stuck in Mind… So there went Western Philosophy: chronically unable to answer the axiomatic question you answered today: who am I?

… As for not feeling you merit my high regard, oh fine, be modest then. Knock yourself out. Tad and I will have drinks and praise you behind your back.

love, Adrian

[Next: His Own Star…]

Now, come on.... Get up. It’s seven-thirty pm. Okay, okay... yeah, I know about the birthday party.

And I am your new friend so I am on your side. Why shouldn’t you have polished off that second magnum of champagne all by yourself? Nobody else seemed to want any more. And I agree:

You didn’t want to see it go to waste. Okay, maybe your neighbors did have a point about your dance on top of that car. But Deborah, you looked fabulous. And if you ask me, it was just plain tacky for them to call the police and complain when you started doing that.... well... you know.

After all, if someone offered me fifty dollars to... you know, I would have. And that guy bet you two hundred and fifty that you wouldn’t. And if that policeman had had any sense of humor, or style, or Art, for god’s sake, he would have applauded instead of getting so damn stroppy. Okay, maybe you were a wee tad exuberant but the bottle was nearly empty, and he had his hat on, and you didn’t really bash him that hard… Anyway, I just want you to know that I was on your side and would have come to your aid but, by then, there were at least four squad cars and those whirling red lights kind of freaked me out. I was having acid flashbacks and by the time I realized that I wasn’t really wired they’d taken you away.

I gotta say, Deborah, you sure were kicking up a storm even if you were only wearing one high heel by that point and I think you should sue them for ruining your pretty sparkly dress, and if you want a character witness, you can count on me. Promise. Word of honor.

I forget: Did you want two or three dozen of the crimson fishnets?

[Next: Philosophy…]

But how did this magic all come about? Where was it from?

First, because it was free, the audience understood that this gift ran directly counter to the profit motive. The shows were sacred community offerings, making them quasi-messianic, a dynamic that was then reflected back to the stage from the audience. It was genuine phenomena.

Second, no one was trying to duplicate reality. And for spectators, watching performers self-actualize vaulted shows into the realm of dreams. Precisely because many Angels were not necessarily schooled, or in control of their art, or even themselves, there was something fascinating and disturbing about the shows to those who were accustomed to “normal human behavior”; traditional theater and core identities were being redefined onstage in an outrageous fata morgana that was seductive, stunning, and, at times, repulsive or psychotic. But always riveting.

… In Western culture, one might have to go back to medieval mystery plays – or even to ancient Greece – to find antecedents of such drama, for the Angels didn’t so much appear onstage as descend from above like wraiths, harpies, and ancient furies, awe-inspiring and totemic, sweeping aside all nonessentials with a spirit that was both unstoppable and uniquely gay.

… At a time when homosexuality meant danger and fear, with the always-present possibility of taunting, firing, isolation, beatings, and even murder, the Angels’ in-your-face ballsiness… flew defiantly in the face of authority.

[Next: Delirium Tremens…]