neurosis

A daughter is sitting at the breakfast table, reading her book. Her father walks into the room and sees how innocent and vulnerable she looks, sitting there and unaware of her surroundings. He realizes that he may not be able to keep her safe much longer, as she is growing up to be an independent young woman. She is the oldest of his children, and her mother is estranged. He sits at the table and prepares to fulfill his fatherly duties:

Father: speaking slowly, hesitantly “daughter, I want you to learn how to shoot a gun. It doesn’t need to be a complex sports rifle, just… just learn how to pull the damn trigger without shooting yourself. I worried about you when you played in the woods behind the house as a little girl because of what kind of animals could bite you and what hole you could trip into. Now that you’re older and going out with people I don’t know, I worry even more.

Father: I worry about your tough guy boyfriends and the places they’re taking you to without thinking about your safety first. When you find yourself thrown into some pot-cocaine deal gone bad, you’ll need to be able to grab tough guy’s gun and use it to protect yourself”

Daughter: protesting “but my boyfriend isn’t a tough guy, daddy”

Father: not distracted: “he thinks he is. They all do. Now listen, this is how you drive a car with a stick-shift.  It gets easier with practice, but even if you don’t ever want to practice I want you to at least know how it works, and that way… if you find yourself stranded in a parking lot with a dead boyfriend after a drug deal goes bad and all you have is his supercharged sports car, you’ll at least be able to make that car go and it’ll take you home to safety. “

Daughter:  optimistically “or maybe he won’t be dead. If he’s not, I can make the supercharged sports car go and I’ll take us to a hospital and probably be able to save his life! ”

Father: getting a little frustrated with daughter’s optimism during this somber conversation “daughter, I want you to always keep a $20 bill in your wallet, and never ever spend it. Keep it in a little pocket away from your spending money for emergency situations, and I mean emergency ONLY. What if you find yourself in a dangerous city with no gas in your car? You’ll be able to get enough gas to get to safety and that’s all that matters. And if you’re held up by a crook and you have no money to give him? Right away he’ll think you’re lying and start to beat you up.  As soon as he asks for money, give him that $20 and tell him it’s all you have. There’s a good chance that will satisfy him and you know what? He’ll leave you alone. “

                                    Daughter: fearful for her money “give him all of it??”        

Father: matter of factly, feeling smart and protective “and more, if you have some! It’s not a question of saving your hard earned money; it’s for your safety. Don’t you understand? Daughter, do you know how important protection is? I want you to practice safe sex. I know that it’s common sense, but realize what danger there is in unprotected sex. Think about your health, and how quickly that can degrade after one thoughtless mistake. Think about the cost of specialty doctors and special medications to treat a disease given to you by a careless tough guy. And pregnancy isn’t treatable like the herpes… you don’t want to end up tied to the captain of the soccer team by a kid, do you?  Think about the cost of prenatal care… the pain of childbirth!”

                                    Daughter: laughing it off “daddy I’m not going to have baby!”

Father: unconvinced “well just remember that you can’t wear a condom on your heart. You’ve got to protect that too, you know.

Daughter: only listening to half of what father is saying by now “They make heart shaped condoms?”

re: the steiner phenomena

the inspiration for my own benshii project came from a youtube clip i'd seen of carla harryman performing her project,  "La Notte". I had run into it last semester while looking up some of her work, and never really looked into the form, i just assumed it was a creative phenomenon and i wanted to get my fingers on it. Learning that it has a name, a form and an expectation (never mind an archive of brilliance for comparison!), i feel like i've done it no justice, but i'll try again sometime. I watched steiner's "A Nightcap" and was immediately drawn to the ventrilloquist effect. Also the comedy! can i say that i find relief in humor within creativity? how i love hearing a laugh, a silly line. He uses the words coming right out of each character's mouth in a funny way, a way that they weren't intended to be speaking originally. It juxtaposes with the physical actions of the characters on screen, their movement and even their physical qualities -hey one has the voice of a woman! what interests me is the idea of taking one artists idea and injecting my own voice (not always literally) to claim it as my own. Should we, then, cut out the hunting dogs from a kinkade painting, adhere them to sticks and use them against a new and entirely different background? electronic musicians use "mash ups" of pop songs to create a new beat. writers refer to other authors and pieces of literature. what is this? have we run out of creative design to create new pieces, or is it just more fun to use pieces that already exist? and when does it become plagiarism?

Dutchman: on my analytical level

The binaries evident here are simply overwhelming. Take a look: white/black, male/female, oppressor/oppressed, 20 years of age/ 30 years. The character Lula plays is surprisingly accurate today, in my own opinion, as women are developing a very strong sense of power and using sexuality to their advantage (perhaps they always have). I'm not surprised she is interested in a game of cat and mouse, a "catch me if you can" facade. What is surprising, however, is the turn taken once something of a relationship has been established between Clay and Lula. I feel like this was a criticism of society in '64. Sure, equality was on its way and slavery was abolished. But what does this play say of the way black people were treated? I think Lula is the white, upper class society and represents their false friendly cover which they only commit to for the sake of staying out of trouble. What lies beneath is another personality, one full of rage and profanity. White society continuously was reminding black people of their "place", as Lula does:
"and who do you think you were? who do you think you are now?
"well, in college i thought i was Baudelaire..."
"i bet you never once thought you were a black *man*...a black Baudelaire"
how cruel of her to distinguish a difference between dreams of a writer, and dreams of a black writer. it speaks to the ongoing oppression writers such as Baraka were experiencing even after segregation became illegal, and it evokes sympathy through the inhumane way Lula treats Clay.