Actually I think Americans think of hedonism as a sign of
strength: look at Our Leader, good ol' Bill--
Do What Thou Wilt--sounds great in theory, but in practise can
prove to put it at its most absolutely milquetoast mildest--"a bummer,
man"
Back in the good old days of addiction and smoking,
drinking--lived in apartment
with 11 others--mental patients including bi-polar, post traumatic stress
syndrome veteran, several heroin addicts, a pot dealer, a couple of
alcoholics--
Now deprive a few of these boys--or they do so sometimes
themselves as they
miss being in their manic phases--of their meds and see just what the
seeds of wisdom
of
Old Uncle Al will sow!--and when the money and food stamps are gone, and
all that's worth a plug nickel sold off--just see how those junkies and
drunks act!--
not to mention, a number of these characters were armed--
you can imagine the friends who used to come over, all "doing what
thou wilt" to their hearts content
it was a regular old daily parade and frolic of downright
hedonism, heathenism and heroinism--
one of the most traumatic events for this merry crew was the
morning we all sat down together to watch a dumpster dive spray painted
TV--and beheld the Challenger explosion--
all I could think of was 17 years earlier wtaching the moon walk
on a bank of battered tvs in a falling apartment in a collapsing building
in Paris that Rimbaud had briefly lived in--with a small frenchanarchist
cell
busy
making their own embryo explosions--artfully made plastiques
it finally began to dawn on me i ought to start to give up all
this
hedonism and go in for the discipline of art
onwo/ards!
dbc
On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, Reed Altemus wrote:
>
>
> meryl wrote:
>
> > You're right though, people (Americans in particular)are taught very early
> > on that pleasure is "bad" and that self indulgence is always a sign of
> > weakness. All the flux artists I know of (particularly those most active in
> > the 50s and 60s) seemed to understand this or faked it remarkably well. I
> >
>
> There were definitely some drinkers in the crowd- Emmett Williams with his "In
> Vino Veritas" and Dick Higgins with a borderline alcohol problem.
>
> > believe that pleasure is at the heart of most good art (well, pleasure and
> > vaudeville to be painstakingly accurate). I believe in total hedonism as a
> > valid "lifesytle" (insofar as I believe in "lifestyles"). Crowley had it
> > right you know, "Do What Thou Will Shall be the Whole of the Law." Good old
> > Uncle Al...one of the last men to know the value of a good sideshow.
> >
>
> I used to practice total hedonism. I smoked, I ate meat, watched porno etc.It
> did bore me after a while though. Now I'm a bit older and I realize that
> there's was something missing i.e. taking care of my health! So I quit smoking
> which definitely would have killed me eventually considering how much I smoked.
> And went vegan for a diet and started excercising. I guess you reach a certain
> point where you say "Whoa!" I still hate excercising though. One Fluxus
> proposal by the mail artist Mark Bloch was to walk on a jogging paths and offer
> the joggers cigarettes. I thot that was very funny.
>
> There's always Max Stirner "The Ego and His Own" too.
>
> >
> > Indeed, blah, blah, blah, woof, woof, woof.
> > Clearly too much time on my hands today.
> >
> > Exactly under the sun
> > Badgergirl
> >
> > (it was Beuys who changed my life. i get the feeling that people don't
> > realize how funny he was.)
>
> YEEEEEEESSSS! Beuys definitely. I just purchased a set of his postcards and
> they're really terrific. I did a mock version of his Fluxus Zone West rubber
> stamp not too long ago.
>
> >
> > ----------
> >
>
> RA
>
>
