>> I want to start by saying that, whatever the aesthetics, there is *no*
>> alternative to the text. I think that's so in the final analysis of 'the
>> final finding of the ear' (Stevens), the *sounding* of a text down to the
>> last fugitive syllable, or phoneme, when words seem to have left the page
>> as if there had never been any words, dematerialized in the air."
>
>Dear John,  No ALTERNATIVE to the text?  Is this a statement against
>non-linguistic knowledge, non-linguistic existence, what?
>
>I'm familiar with Blau's theorizing of the audience-performance relation
>as irreducibly reifying, or rather that there is an essential distance in
>order to maintain the desire-object configuration of the imagination.  A
>description whose power strucutre, become prescription, bothersme a great
>deal.
>
>So what are YOU saying here, person at John Cayley's address calling
>yourself John Cayley?

Dear Fionalist

You are absolutely right to pull me up on this. I admit, I quoted all but
senselessly, without having reached a reading of my own, without really
knowing what either Blau meant or what I meant by quoting his words...
though my intention was simply to give a flavour of the essay, quoting
sentences I'd found intriguing and offering them to other, more expert,
readers -- and giving some notice of current tube-travel reading, although
perhaps as sleepily as for bedside. Blau's essay comes from a world I do
not know well, that world of sounding and embodiment which has not been my
personal 'due form'. I do know that others here know it better. I also
wanted to find out what some of those others thought about Blau. And now I
guess I do know more.

OK. In the following paragraph, the bits in square brackets are,
unambiguously, my own readings of Blau or possibly ignorant suppositions I
am reading in; the rest is supposed to be a more-or-less faithful
description of what I think he says.

Blau problematizes the search [in experimental, theatre-space performance]
"for alternatives to the aesthetics of the text". His account is laregely
anecdotal [which is interesting and potentially misleading for someone like
me, as someone without extensive/professional direct experience of this
type of work]. He seems to be repudiating [a supposed /] the flight [by
experimentalists] from [programmed, scripted] text-based performance,
saying that, even at the moment in which the ladder of language has been
kicked away, the performance still gathers form from its [supposed]
absence. [This I warm to.] I also felt that there was an implicit extension
of the notion of text beyond the strictly linguisitic/logocentric, in line
with theory which I more-or-less take for granted. Rereading: I admit that
Blau does seem to imply [perhaps also indulge or revel in] a
duality/opposition/tension between text and performance which I would
repudiate. I guess that this relates to Fiona's understanding of his
position on the audience-performance relation, and I agree that this is
very bothersome. [Maybe rich but flawed is how I feel about the Blau
essay;] but surely of some help in understanding what certain performance
people were/are doing. Rereading: no, I don't think he was speaking
[clearly] against non-linguistic knowledge, or non-linguistic existence,
but ...

[to go on to speak now for myself]

... I may have been wishfully reading him as doing so, because, if "There
is No Alternative / to the Text" could be read as such, then I would
happily print it on a T-shirt (would I wear it? when?).* There is no
non-linguistic knowledge, or non-linguistic existence. And everything is
language. Every Thing. "Text" is just a word which allows us to inscribe
this truth in sentences which will not be mistaken for madness, mysticism
or -- logos** help us -- poetry.

John

(What an *effort* to hold mouryselves together for that one. How iwe hate
to use those -- and especially *that* -- opinion-forming shifter(s) "of"
identity, especially in this form of "problematized address" which, yes,
*we* do all understand much better these days (/pace/ Edgar Allen Poe in
_Raddle Moon_ 15). But yes, iwe will be held accountable. Iwe will. Iwe
will. Please, logos, make muse and *us all* accountable.)

* Front and back, as a dangerous flirtation with slogans of not-so-recent
British politics?

** Anagram of "gods" (markedly plural) where the initial "l" and one of the
"o"s combine to form a "d".

[Final email-form meta-comment and question: Is a List like a Quaker
meeting? Are you shaking?]

This message is signed

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >
John Cayley / Wellsweep Press         http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/
1 Grove End House  150 Highgate Road  London NW5 1PD  UK
Tel & Fax: (+44 171) 267 3525         Email: [log in to unmask]
< - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -




%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%