| Mike Benedetti -> Content -> Reviews and Essays -> Object Little A (Oct. 1998) | ||||
Mike Benedetti's Review, October 22, 1998:
But it was also quite aesthetically pleasing, so let's forget about me for once. Let's be inspired by the rambling complexities and simplicities that we heard.
All I know about Lacan is that he liked "The Purloined Letter" a lot more than I do, but I should probably tell you the story of the first time I met him.
When I was in high school, I worked summers running errands for a private investigator in Athens, Ohio. Once he sent me to try and get Mitch Foucault out of the drunk tank: Foucault had called his lawyer, and the lawyer called the P.I., and the P.I. (Malvin "Dan" Daniel) had me do the job.
At the time, I wasn't sure why I was given this assignment. In retrospect, I think that neither Dan nor the lawyer wanted to make fools of themselves by begging the cops to release a drunken Frenchman, and so the naive kid was given the job.
I went down to the jail and conferred with Mitch. He was a bear of a man back then, and quite the hung-over bear. A feisty bear, too--he was drunk even after a night in a cell.
I explained to the cops that it would be bad to keep this eminent philosopher locked up, and somehow they were convinced. If you are familiar with the American justice system you will realize what a ridiculous request this was, but like I say I was a naive kid and wasn't surprised, just relieved.
I helped Mitch out to my car (a 1975 Malibu Classic station wagon). Mitch was staying near Ohio University, but he begged me to take him to a bar so he could have a drink to soothe his hangover. I suggested some places I'd heard of (even back in those days, teenagers were not allowed in bars in Ohio), but he directed me to a little bar in the basement of a bookstore. It was not remarkable in any way, except that they served me. I wish that bar would have been closer to my hometown :)
We took a table near the bar, and Foucault gulped some liquor while I sipped Budweiser from a bottle. He hailed some old guy at the bar, and the old guy sat down with us.
The old guy had one of the first waxed moustaches I'd ever seen. He introduced himself as "Hick'ry" Jack Lacan.
Well, the two men had a long and raucous conversation in French, drinking and talking and slapping the table. Mitch said his hangover was beginning to fade, and Hick'ry challenged me to trade shots with him. Encouraged by Foucault (the bastard) I agreed.
Like all teenagers, I'd been in several drinking contests, and like all teenagers my youthful metabolism had spared me the ill effects. Little did I suspect the fate in store for me.
The bartender went down into the subbasement and brought up four dusty bottles of absinthe. "Absinthe," Hick'ry informed me, "is just the drink for a boy your age. You are just starting to get ideas about life. Absinthe will lead to you act on them!"
I will spare you the details of the contest that followed. Suffice it to say that I kept sliding under the table, kept upright only by repeated goading from Lacan.
Finally, either my picked brain or outraged liver inspired me to speak against the wizened man who was apparently out to destroy me:
"You," I said, "come from a culture that doesn't pronounce the ends of words. A linguistic quirk that, by necessity, leads to a superficial world-view, one that recognizes only a tenth of the things any respectable culture does. I, on the other hand, come from where Appalachia meets the midwest, a place where we pronounce the entirety of each word, yet pronounce each letter the same. We West Virginians recognize, as the foundation for our lives, the absence of fixed terms, and express this realization ascetically, by making all terms, all phoenemes, all signifiers, all signifieds, all signs, identical. Yet you seek to draw a line between 'me' and 'you', to create an alcoholic discontinuity between us. This being the root of your--"
"Jack," said Mitch, "see what you done? You took this game too far. Now the kid's delirious. He'll be comatose in a second. Do you have a car?"
That was the last thing said before I hit the floor.
In the hospital, the two men related the story of the drinking contest to me (I'd lost most of it to blackout, of course), snickering over my hallucinatory rant. When it was clear I would survive, they bid me farewell.
We have since met on many occasions, all of them very pleasant. I've often joked to them that it would only take a couple more alcohol comas before I could be a poststructuralist. They've often joked that it would take quite a few comas for me to stop being a dumbass.
The audience for the Little A show was rather small, but not shamefully so, and anyway if the music's good enough why would you notice?
Train whistle. Mr. Forlano conducted from time to time, sat most of the time, and played some small instruments. When he played, his sound moved to the fore; it became the linking, synergistic force. Mr. Wright also took this role a handful of times: playing phrases that said "Let's recap...OK, now let's move on."
Small groups of 2-4 playing on top of accompaniment by the other players.
objet petit a
odd yet--get it? play
quintet seven stray
Todd Jack Evan Jay
The guitar's all roiling. Reeds and the drums slamming slapping on the rebound. There's a little combination of a thing in the side there, which could be like %%%%%^& or &&&^%%%%%%%%.
Moving from left to right. He's all into his sax, he's doing some massage there, he's in definite need of monofilament cause then he'd string it all between the keys, and out to the lamps outside, and when a car came by the breeze would work the sax and he could just BLOW. Because he wants to BLOW. And you can HEAR it.
Yes, my brothers and sisters. Yes, zealous ones. You will group the next two or three together, because they writhe like a couple of writhing things that dig one another.
We do not fear to trifle with these things, oh no, but there is juvenile silliness and then there is juvenile stupidity. And only the stupid would trifle with the string section. So acknowlege them and move on.
HuuuHuu. HuuuHuu. HuuuHuu. HuuuHuu. beep HuuuHuu. Thank HuuuHuu. you Charles. This is a boldly different sound, HuuuHuu. which requires a moment of preparation, but the group is into it as CC goes HuuuHuuHuuuHuuHuuuHuu.
There is a reed thing in the dark corner, not a reed "entity" but a reed association. It has taken on the characteristics of its haunt. And while maybe we don't want to run into monsters in real life, this isn't real life, this is fiction, this is music, and we are very excited as the reed thing goes jerrrrrrrrohhhhhhniiiiimooooopraaaatttttt. Elllllmeeeeereeee. We see it from one angle. And another. And then, when for a second you think you're getting a little carried away, that this is just some people playing jazz-like music with a dash more freedom, this big claw emerges from the corner, a lot larger than the reed thing, and you think, "hmm, well, this is not the best performance I've ever heard, but it does facilitate free associations and imaginings."
But hold on. More caffeine is making its way to my fingers.
Why should a description be written of the third piece?
There are two reasons for reviewing a performance. Sometimes they coexist and mingle.
Some things deserve praise. Much as a fine woman compells us to lust, a fine performance compells us to praise it. It is praise-worthy, we say; and so we praise.
Sometimes, we wish to share our interpretations. Interpretation is not science; there is no "truth" we are trying to approach. Art is a thing that inspires a story in each of us. Why not share those stories? And so we write about them.
But please, in sharing your story, make it accessible. Avoid theatrics. If you are not much of a writer, they will fail and distract from your story. If you are a good writer, you will avoid them as a matter of course.
Thank you for your time.
So I'm talking to this guy at the bar who took the bass player from Pavement (?!) to the Pho 75 in South Philly (!?) a couple weeks back, and the question comes up: what is the deal with these Phoes?
Anh Vu, one of the few American musicians to adopt a Vietnamese stage name, replies:
Not sure myself. Phi Duong, my conduit of information pertaining to all things Vietnamese, has left the company so I'm kinda stuck at the level I reached a few months ago. I asked him this specific question once, and didn't really get a satisfactory answer. The numbers may refer to years, akin to how in Mexico streets will have names like "Avenida 17 de Septiembre." Or they may refer to something else. I'm not sure. "Pho+? 54" is the best chain around. It's always a 2-digit number.