I had been thinking through a post for a while and was on my way to write it when, as George put it, ‘The Great Provocation Debate of 2006 ‘ erupted. In many ways this was perfect as it totally derailed my train of thought that I had been building upon for weeks. But it also proves my point more exactly than anything I could write.
I have been interested for some time now in the notion of narrative interruptions. What I mean by this is those moments where a narrative is going along and some thing or some event completely alters the course of those events. Half the time these are mere blips, like the “cigarette burn” that Tyler Durden points out. And everything just keeps on going. My interest in interruptions grew out of my readings of John Cage and his explorations into indeterminacy. What intrigued me about the notion of chance, was how it could create a situation where unexpected things would come into confrontation with one another. A story would begin and then something would, unexpectedly break into that story and change it. Like a sudden thunderstorm, they only really impact during their existence, and are soon forgotten.
But there are other, more significant kinds of interruptions.
I moved to New York City from Berkeley in late August 2001. Less than two weeks after moving here, the entire landscape of American politics had shifted. A political system that had been limping without purpose after the cold war found a new enemy, and began to engage that threat with the fullest of rhetorical devices. I remember sitting in a teachers living room, displaced from my own downtown apartment, watching Bush’s speech that night and commenting, “This is the beginning of Fascism in America.”
This was no mere thunder storm.
The interruption exists in all great works of art. To one degree or another. Hamlet, like The Orestia is interrupted almost before the narrative begins with the death of a king. Ajax with Madness. Romeo and Juliet with the death of Mercutio.
Interruptions can exist in a larger sense as well, such as the aesthetic interruption caused by Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Or Duchamp’s Fountain. In theatre one such example would be Brecht, Weill and Neher at the Baden Baden Festival presenting Mahagonny.
Interruptions are significant because they point out our complacency. They show us where we have been calmly accepting of something that is perhaps much more significant or dangerous than we had previously imagined. Like the passive acceptance of a bully or a fascist. Interruptions are powerful because they exist, in a way, outside of linear time. By pointing out our complacency or blind assumptions, they recontextualize the past and thus change it as much as the future.
My friend Jeff is a painter. He has tried various experiments involving the destruction of his paintings. So he can focus on the work of art rather than the fabrication of cultural objects. This is the interruption.
It was a blue sky day.
That is what made it so shocking. A beautiful, soft fall day. With a slight wind and crystal clear skies. So beautiful.
I remember one night, it was winter a month or so later. A thick mist hung in the air, it was late night and dark. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a spark and as I turned to look a huge downpour of blue sparks few out of a steel I-Beam that still sat in a dusty hole in the ground just off Broadway in lower Manhattan. The construction crew, working late at night to dismantle what was left of these twisted steel arms. Clearing away the weeds, so something new could grow in its place. Beautiful.
In pop culture news, the new song on my MySpace is fantastic. Go listen.
