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on July 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Who shot Andy Warhol?

Valerie Solanas did. Author of SCUM, a feminist manifesto. Often referred to as the Society for Cutting Up Men. She used silver bullets. Or bullets coated in tin-foil. Andy Warhol was a vampire after all. I had never known who shot Andy Warhol. I knew there was a movie about it. I never watched it. I didn’t think I needed to know who shot Andy Warhol. But I do. Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol.

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic -minded, responsible, thrill seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. Solanas in SCUM (1968)

In the recent issue of October that focuses on Any Warhol, Catherine Lord writes about Valerie Solanas, in an article titled ‘Wonder Waif Meets Super Neutuer.

Solanas didn’t like the term feminist.

SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to achieve its ends. Such tactics are for nice genteel ladies who scrupulously take only such action as is guaranteed to be effective… SCUM will not subject itself to getting rapped on the head with billy clubs. – Solanas in SCUM (1968)

Feminists were ‘daddy’s girls’. She was queer. Lord describers her as “not just a working girl, but a working class queer who was either behind the times or ahead of her time or who never really had a time or whose fifteen minutes turned out to be more like five.”

American artist Carolee Schneeman credited Solanas with accelerating the “issues that would carry feminist theory and practice into our present moment”. Swedish author Sara Stridsberg wrote the book Dromfakulteten based on Salonas’ story. Delphine Seyrig and Christine Roussoplos made a video that documents Seyrig dictating the SCUM manuscript while Roussoplos types it up on an old typewriter.

To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo – Solanas in SCUM

Lord claims that “queer theory would not have happened without ACT UP would not have happened without the feminist movement. The feminist movement would not have happened not have happened without Valerie Solanas”. Lord also refers to curator Connie Butler’s 2007 exhibition “WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to posit that “absolutely nothing in the twentieth century was more influential than the feminist movement”. So who shot Andy Warhol? Valerie Solanas did. And I should know about Valeri Solanas.

Tags: act up, andy warhol (2), art (3), catherine lord, feminism, gender, journal article, manifesto, october, queer theory, scum, Valeri Solanas

on July 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply

If you are a Russian spy, it ain’t easy to vote

Like many young Australians, I move house a lot. Since Kevin07, I have been located at four different addresses within four different electorates. So when Julia Gillard dressed up in pure white to call an election, I went online and started to update my details with the Australian Electoral Commission. So did my girlfriend.

A couple of clicks and a signature and soon I was done. My girlfriend had a little more trouble. It seems she had disappeared from the electoral roll. Immediately I became suspicious. I castigated her for insulting our democratic privilege and never voting. I had already spent most of the weekend sulking because she refused to join me at the polls in August to hand out ‘how to vote’ cards. ‘You obviously don’t care about how much money we get given after you have a baby because the Government has pulled RU486 from the shelves,’ I said, slipping from my soap box as I wagged my finger at her.

‘I vote,’ she shrieked. ‘I voted for Kevin, I even voted at the Council elections’.

We called the AEC to confirm she had been erased from the electoral roll. ‘Have you gone by any other names,’ they asked. ‘No’ ’Are you sure about your birthday?’ ’Yes’ ’You’re not on the roll”

I looked at my girlfriend with distrust. The AEC doesn’t just erase you from the electoral roll. She had either lied to me about voting or had lied to me about her name. Possibly she was a spy. She was Russian after all. And attractive.

Sexy Russian spy Anna Chapman

After an hour of intense physical interrogation. I decided to trust her. The AEC must have erased her from the roll. But why? I needed to know. Luckily I knew what to do as I had taken an investigative journalism class at university. I jumped on to Google.

I typed in ‘lying voters unenrolled’ and came across an article on the GetUp site titled: ‘Your vote stopped! Get the facts’. It seems that if the bulk-mail from political candidates currently clogging up your letter box is returned to the sender, then the politician has the ability to report you to the AEC, and subsequently have you removed from the electoral roll. This allows political parties to target areas of the electorate and weed out any absentees. If you live in a Labor district of a marginal seat, then chances are the Liberal candidate will bulk-mail that area to weed out any potential Labor voters that have moved house, usually young mobile people like my girlfriend and I.

This wasn’t too much of a problem five years ago, you could still rock up on polling day despite being removed from the roll and cast your vote as a provisional voter. The Howard government got rid of this, and now these votes are rejected. So you could effectively turn up to vote on August 21, find you are not on the roll, and be told you can’t vote and be subsequently fined $110.

If you do decide to be conscientious and check if you are enrolled to vote on the day the election writs are issued, and discover you have been removed from the roll, like we did, you only have until 8pm to enrol. This shouldn’t be too much trouble, if you own a fax machine, have a scanner or live next to an AEC office. It also wouldn’t be too much trouble if you didn’t immigrate to Australia when you were a five-year-old and had to find some obscure citizenship certificate number that could possibly be on the other side of town in your mother’s filing cabinet. An Australian passport number just won’t do.

So after running around town, collecting certificates, filling in forms and finding an antique fax machine, my girlfriend was ready to send her re-enrolment form to the AEC. She had three hours to spare. After reading about how to use a fax machine on eHow.com and working out which side-up the paper should face we finally dialled the AEC. We got an engaged tone. We tried again. And again. And again. And then it was 8pm. Deadline past. She failed to enrol.

Liberal leader and vote opposer Tony Abbott

The Labor Government tried to amend the electoral act to make it easier to vote. To allow for provisional voters and to allow for a week’s grace to enrol. The Coalition opposed these changes. Why? Because it seems the rules they put in place stop young immigrants from voting, and as Antony Green has noted, ‘Labor always does better than the Coalition in the Provisional Vote’.

If my girlfriend could vote, I’m sure she would want to vote against a party that prevented her from voting and cost her a $110 fine. But maybe she’ll just become a spy instead.

Tags: aec, australia, australian electoral act, citizenship, eletoral reform, federal election, john howard, julia gillard, provisional voter, russian spy, tony abbott
on July 9, 2010 Permalink

It is raining outside

Puddles in the park at Surry Hills

Child screaming rain. rain. rain .rain. rain. rain. It is raining outside. The child screams rain. rain. rain. rain. The child giggles. The parents giggle. They all look outside. Yes it is raining outside, she says warmly to the child. The child glows. The child has been rewarded for recognising what is. Well what is. What is. What is happening outside, out the window. It is raining. I can see it is raining. I don’t scream it out loud. But is that what I should do? Look out the window and scream it is raining, when it is raining.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Everyone knows it is raining. But no one chooses to scream it out loud. But I will soon see someone I know. What will they say straightaway, they will look at me and exclaim ‘This rain!’ I will nod and smile approvingly. I understand it is raining outside. I empathise, I am here on this earth with this person, and it is, I know it is, and they know it is. It is. It is raining outside.
on July 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Half-wit, worry about cleanliness, don’t worry about pleasure

As an artist, as a writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals truth.

According to Heidegger in his essay The Origin of the Work of At, art is a form of unconcealment, and beauty ‘is one way in which truth essentially occurs as unconcealment’. In being exposed to truth through art, lives are infused with meaning, as he writes, ‘the temple, in its standing there, first gives things their look and to the men their outlook on themselves’. Fitzgerald surely then would have had some impact on the outlook on the lives, and the meaning infused in those lives, of the readers of his work. His novels and short stories might not tell us directly how to live, but by reading his work, our lives are altered in some sense. This is what art does, or at least what I hope it does.

But what if Fitzgerald cut through all the crap, the metaphor and imagery, and simply put in bullet form a list of directions on how to live, surely that would save some time, help us Get Things Done®. Why should we fluff about with art when we can simply refine our language, be concise and straightforward. Adapt the ‘inverted pyramid’ style of journalism to literature, where we start with all the information that is needed, the who, what, where, when and how, and leave the less valuable dribble to the end, so that it can be quickly cleared up by the editor’s delete key. The question then is what is the valuable dribble and what is the useless dribble? What in life should we value and what should we discard? I believe that judging value is what art gives us the capacity to do, but possibly a straightforward list, written by an esteemed artist, such as Fitzgerald, would suffice.

In a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Fitzgerald provides us with this straightforward list:

F. Scott Fitzgerald photographed by Carl Van Vechten

What to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

What not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Fitzgerald writes in the letter that all he believes in in life is “the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties”. These are extraordinarily conservative values for a ‘dreamer’, the role society generally ascribes to most artists, and seems to be more harmonious with the ideology of a Thatcher or Howard. Admittedly Fitzgerald is attempting to discipline his daughter in this letter, but I am sure that the way one raises their child is synchronous with the values one holds about life. The letter therefore provides a somewhat unique insight into the values that Fitzgerald holds, and in turn, highlights the conflicting values in his body of work.

I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.

In the letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Fitzgerald advises her not to worry about pleasure, and not to worry about disappointment. Happiness and misery might not exist in a ’real life’ where such things are overlooked. A life lived without worry for pleasure or disappointment will surely succumb to some sort of stasis, a state of being without struggle, an easy plateau. Yet Fitzgerald recognises that such a state does not make good fiction. His characters are obsessed by the threat of disappointment, the yearning for pleasure, and the torturous tangle of the two. As Gatsby recognises:

He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

Daisy and Gatsby in the 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby directed by Jack Clayton

Those unutterable visions. That perishable breath. Gatsby worried about pleasure his whole life, he hoped his successes, his wealth, could restore the moments of pleasure he experienced in his youth while with Daisy. Yet Fitzgerald tells his daughter not to worry about growing up. Perhaps he does this to spare her the disappointment of growing old. He was attributed to saying that “life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others”. The love of what once was. The love of what could have been. Gatsby was fuelled by this love, and he recognised that once he kissed Daisy, attempted to return to what once was, the fuel would burn up. Her breath was perishable. Her body breakable. His dream, his idolatry of her, was not.

Don’t worry about the past. Don’t worry about the future. Worry about courage. How does Fitzgerald expect his daughter to be courageous? She cannot be courageous in facing the future, as she should not worry about the future. She cannot be courageous in dealing with her past, as she should not worry about her past. She cannot be courageous when confronted with creepy crawlies, because she should not worry about insects. I feel that the courage that Fitzgerald talking about is talking about is the steely resolve required to face a life that does not hold happiness or misery. The courage to embrace a life devoid of drama, the courage to cleanly and efficiently get through life until that last breath. That perishable breath.

Nick Carraway must then be the hero of The Great Gatsby. He is the character who holds no real desires for his future, no regrets for his past. He does not worry too much about girls. He just carries on with his life. Cleanly and efficiently.

Fitzgerald himself worried about pleasure and misery. He worried about girls. His tenuous engagement with Zelda depended entirely on his financial viability, on having his first novel published, on triumph. And so he did worry about triumph, he did not regards the book deal as just reward for his virtue (according to his talents). As soon as the book was to be published he whisked himself and Daisy to New York, to revel in the high life, to flaunt his celebrity, to wallow in the pleasure of his celebrity. Do not worry about popular opinion.

Is the Great Gatsby then some sort of morality tale? Does it illustrate how far you will fall if you worry about the wrong things. Fall face first in the pool. Gatsby perishes. Carraway continues. If you strip the art from the novel you are left with a simple tale: man worries about the past, man worries about the future, man believes in happiness, man is murdered; man does not worry about the past, man does not worry about the future, man doesn’t believe much in happiness, man lives. It is a straightforward equation that complies with the guidelines that Fitzgerald gives to his daughter. It is simple. It is instructional. Why then did Fitzgerald bother with all this art bullshit, why didn’t he simply write up a pamphlet and hand it out on the street to passerbys? Why didn’t Fitzgerald lead by example and live his life according to these guidelines? Why then was Gatsby great, and Nick Carraway not?

It is because the plain truth is only half the truth, the more complicated and coloured truth, the creative truth, is where truth really happens. As Heidegger writes in the Origin of the Artwork:

Art is the origin of the artwork and the artist. Origin is the provenance of the essence in which the Being of a being essentially unfolds. What is art? We seek its essence in the actual work. The actuality of the work has been defined by that which is at work in the work, by the happening of truth.

Truth happens in art. If a novel is a work of fiction, and a letter is a work of non-fiction, then the truth of this non-fiction is nowhere near as revealing as the truth of Fitzgerald’s fiction, his art. Heidegger proposes that although truth may not necessarily be true, art is truth.

Truth is un-truth, insofar as there belongs to it the reservoir of the not-yet-revealed, the un-uncovered.

A Pair of Shoes by Vincent Van Gogh

Heidegger uses the example of a painting by Van Gogh of some peasants shoes. The shoe is a shoe. That is true. Although the painting of a peasants shoe is not as true as the actual shoe, the artist chooses to show the shoe to you, to reveal the shoe, to present its truth. Heidegger calls this happening of truth unconcealment. Heidegger posits that everything is always concealed.

Yet as a world opens itself the earth comes to tower. It stands forth as that which bears all, as that which sheltered in its own law and wrapped in itself.

Art attempts to clear this concealment, and it is in this attempt, what Heidegger calls ‘strife’, that truth is revealed. Yet truth is not what we call true. Those shoes there on your feet are true. Those shoes there in the painting are not true. But those shoes that Van Gogh paints reveal to us the truth, they make us see the fields the peasant has walked, the life the peasant has lived. We cannot know this truth, because this truth does not exist in the world, in the dirty real world. Yet we can feel this truth, experience this truth for a brief moment. It can pass through us. As Heidgger writes:

Truth does not exist in itself beforehand, somewhere among the stars, only subsequently to descend elsewhere among beings.

So we cannot seek out the truth, we can only create the truth. But the truth doesn’t hang around, we can only catch a glimpse of truth before it disappears again. Everything that is, is always concealed. Truth is struggle. Art is strife. It wrestles to keep it open, but it closes up again.

In the creation of a work, the strife, as rift, must be set back into the earth, and the earth itself must be set forth and put to use self-secluding.

So why bother with art? Why bother with the Great Gatsby when Fitzgerald has written up a simple straight-forward list of values. It is because there is no truth to those simple straight-forward values. There never is. Not to worry about pleasure is not to worry about disappointment. Not to worry about the past is not to worry about the future. Not to worry is not to choose. To think about the past, and the choices you made, hoping for pleasure but fearing disappointment. To think about the future, and to wonder if you ever will be satisfied. Worry about satisfaction and you will never be satisfied. We can worry about cleanliness, clear everything out from our lives, including the choices we make. Keep it simple and straight-forward. Keep it efficient.

This is what I call lazy fatalism. The clearing out of options. The unworry. Going with the flow. Not questioning the rules. The guidelines. The simple straight-forward values. An obedient life is an easy life. Yet there is no truth to this life. We may pass through it, but we never really live it. The life of the lazy fatalist might be clean and efficient, but it is a half-life that does not seek to unconceal truth.

Art brings us pleasure. Art brings us disappointment. Art is rarely clean, but in those messy moments where we can’t quite work out what it is, why it is, or sometimes even where it is, we can catch a glimpse of truth. Fitzgerald shows us this through Gatsby. Gatsby’s mind has been romping like the mind of god for most of his adult life because he has made his life into art. He has torn his world up with his desire for Daisy, his dream of happiness. He knows that once he kisses her, brings the dream back to earth, to her lips, to her very real flesh, the dream, the art of his life, will close itself up again. It will conceal itself. He knows he will be disappointed. He kisses her anyway.

This choice he makes. This worry he has. This is truth. Without the future and the past, without desire and regret, without it there is no tension, no strife, no art. Why worry about art? Why worry about anything at all. Why not simply cease.

As Fitzgerald said to his daughter.

I think of you, and always pleasantly, but I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bottom hard, six times for every time you are impertinent. Do you react to that? Half-wit.

Choose to be obedient. Half-wit. Have a half-life. I will however choose to worry about pleasure, and continue not to worry about cleanliness.

Tags: art (3), disappointment, F. Scott Fitzgerald, happiness, heidegger (6), love (5), pleasure, The Great Gatsby, vincent van gogh

Shauna_colnan is discussing. Toggle Comments
- Shauna_colnan on July 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  
  This is really interesting. Reconciling the artist, his work (in this case), his temperament, words from his everyday life…..it's a labyrinth with no centre. But if there is a centre, yes, I'd like to think that it's art. Fitzgerald's letter is intriguing and perplexing, causing dissonance for those of us who find his prose so lyrical and … See Moreso fine. How could the artist who wrote The Great Gatsby write that letter to his 11 yr old daughter? It's strange. For me, ultimately the letter is flat and disappointing. It can't be reconciled with Fitzgerald's beautiful novel. In my experience artists don't tend to explain their work with words that well. And why should they? As Sylvia Plath said, 'I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still'. Did Gatsby spring from Fitzgerald's inner life, his heart, his creative instincts that only revealed themselves when he wrote? Interesting to think also that the 11 yr old girl's mother was Zelda. I'd love to know more and now feel inspired to read some biographies of the Fitzgeralds and to read Heidegger. Thanks for this. A final thought: if Fitzgerald's daughter were to look back on the novel and the letter from her father, I wonder what she would make of it all?