Dead Dog Tired

The back covers for Thom Pain and The Flu Season have excerpts from the New York Times labeling Will Eno as “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation.” Having delved into Beckett last semester—to the point where I can no longer escape the man—I was intrigued. However, I was also worried that by reading this my judgment of Eno would become predetermined. It was my fear that I would force Beckettian images and motifs onto Eno, instead of just letting them come out naturally. If they were there at all.

I first started with Thom Pain. Within the first couple of pages my Beckett radar was going off, but I could tell it was being forced. It started with similarities to Krapp’s Last Tape. The opening of Thom Pain finds Thom going through a dictionary. I was immediately reminded of Krapp looking through the dictionary in order to understand a word his younger self used. However, the scenes were not the same. Thom’s dictionary use is to illustrate the absurdity of words. Thom’s definition of fear is comical, and noticeably lacking in definition. So, I forgot about Krapp; I figured it was all in my head. Then I came across a long section of text that struck me as being Beckettian without me forcing it to be.

“I like the weather. It was nice out, sort of raining. I thought about the world. I liked looking in the dark windows. I just let everything come. Stopped thinking. Let the words run. They came and went, disappeared. Like the things the stood for. I miss her so much. I do, I do. Help me, bees, help. I’m going somewhere else now. My face was so swollen I lay in a meadow, behind her. I felt spasms. Our last. I like violins. I should have tried more. White markings above the paw. Her pretty ankles, dresses she wore. I lay there. I lay everywhere. Always looking up. She stopped to scratch. She quivered. You only have one day. I couldn’t make the matches work. I scratched behind her ear, kissed her lips, her neck. The nest was full of bees. She said I love you. I heard buzzing. My eyes were closed, the sun being bright. I said I love you. And I didn’t want to see. I walked around. I left home. Christmas carols played, I could smell my insides. I lay there. Weeping mother, waving father. I sniffed butterflies. I pissed on things. My poor face. I ate scraps. Wanted to be a cowboy. Had food poisoning. He said to me, ‘Sarah? Mary?’ I didn’t say anything. I thought I’d get dragged up on stage. I take things out on others. Who am I, now, and what difference does it make? I took her on walks. We ran through nature. We barked at cars. He put his mouth on me, and I, a lady, put my leg around his neck. I cut my hair half-off. He hurt me. She hurt me. I bled in the night. I hurt her. I wasn’t anywhere. That I was in love. Now I’m he” (36).

This passage reminded me not just of the whole premise of Krapp’s Last Tape, but of the ending scene in which Krapp plays his recorded memory of his last trip with his love. He is in that moment, but he is it a constant state of flux as well. He cannot seem to hold any one memory together. Thom is in the same situation. What are Beckett and Eno trying to say with this tessellated text? It seems, sticking with Eno, that he is trying to comment on our memories and our relation to them. Do events dictate the importance of a memory? Or, does the memory itself give rise to its own importance. In the above scene several memories are fused together, no one memory stands out as more important than the other. Something as seemingly profound and deep as his love for a woman is intermingled with his attack by bees and his inability to light a match. Essentially, they are all the same. They are all built into the mosaic that is Thom Pain. Thom, like the young Krapp, tries to order his memories based on importance. Yet, by the end of each play, what the character thought was important, turns out to be some menial event giving way to something greater. In both cases, neither character is able to sustain any one memory, and so they all exist on equal footing. Perhaps this the truest representation of memory. Too often we find ourselves ranking and filing our memories. Adding more importance to one and demoting others in the process. Perhaps Eno is indicating that we cannot truly do that, we are assembled by all those events. We are an amalgamation of everything that has ever occurred in our lives, whether we took it into account or not is irrelevant.

The Beckett motif continues throughout Eno’s work, but I think I’ve exhausted it for now. Now, let’s turn to the other side of the New York Times’ assertion that Eno is “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation.” How is Eno like Jon Stewart; or, what exactly is Eno doing that speaks to what is crudely described as a Jon Stewart generation? The obvious answer, and frankly the New York Times should try harder, is in the play Tragedy: A Tragedy. This play drips with the Jon Stewart critique of news outlets. It’s almost redundant to explore the similarities. Instead, let me focus on what Eno is doing that Jon Stewart does not. In this play, Eno is not merely poking fun at media, but rather, his is unraveling the very structure of modern communication. Where Stewart cracks jokes about Wolf Blitzer, or the always easy target of Jim Cramer, Eno shows us the foundations of our communication in ruins. For Eno, there is nothing funny about the state of televised news. We laugh at this play because the characters are absurd and because Jon Stewart has trained us to do so, but it in fact is a tragedy. Eno seems to be trying to remind us of this from the very onset of the play.

Tragedy: A Tragedy is filled with examples of our addiction to news, and our inability to allow anything to just be. As Frank in the Studio would say, “Well, certainly, perhaps, one look—if we’re looking hard enough—almost says it all” (82). Not only is this a critique of the news mentality, but it also is a critique on my approach to Eno’s work. If I was looking hard enough, of course I would infer Beckettian motifs from simple phrases and scenes. If you look hard enough at anything you will find meaning. That is what academia is structured around.
So, what about the similarities and images that spoke to me without me looking too hard? Again turning to Thom Pain, I found his adventures with bees to be hilarious and very familiar. At first, I couldn’t recall why the bee exploit was hilarious, then it hit me, it was reminding me of comics by Jamie Smart and Jhonen Vasquez (sorry if you read this Jamie, I know you are tired of being compared to Vasquez. Take it up with Paul Banks). Smart has several little comic strips centered around bee attacks, all of which are violent, and all of which are hilarious. Vasquez’s cartoon Invader Zim utilized bees in a similar fashion.

I think above all the comparisons that are being laid on Eno, it is important to take stock of his uniqueness. Eno, in the three plays we’ve read, has created his own motif. He has created his own style. You know it’s an Eno play if it involves dead dogs, dictionaries, communication errors, and unsteady memories. Eno hasn’t been around for a very long time, so I find it very impressive that he has been able to carve that much of a niche for himself in such a short period of time. Of course, it’s completely possible that Eno is a one-trick pony and can only write about dead dogs and failed dictionaries, but I like to think otherwise.

The Music of Sound

I went through a process with John Cage. First, there was “Lecture on Nothing” and the proceeding vignettes. This was enjoyable, almost comprehendible, but most assuredly amusing. Then came “Lecture on Something”. This was less enjoyable, still almost comprehendible, but the amusement was beginning to wane. Finally, there came the John Cage performances. Louis Goldstein’s performances of 4’33” and Sonatas and Interludes shed new light on John Cage. This new light was not a favorable one, neither to Goldstein or Cage.

John Cage’s writings are good, they are amusing. Up until the live performances, I felt the same way about Cage’s music. I got a CD from the library called 3 Compositions by John Cage. I popped this into my computer at work and gave it a whirl. The sounds and tones were interesting and I began to see how Cage was changing the musical layout of the world. I also began to see Cage’s influence on modern music. The documentary we watched in class helped to further my interest and my ability to see Cage’s influence on modern music. This said I was looking forward to Louis Goldstein’s performances of Cage’s work. I thought surely seeing it performed live would only add to my appreciation for Cage. It is safe to say that I thought wrong.

I understand that Goldstein was sick when he visiting our campus, and I also understand that we as an audience were not the most civil. All that said, the performances were lackluster and led me to a new understanding of Cage’s music. First, a brief attempt at a review of the evening. I am recalling this nearly a month—or longer—from the events, for whatever that is worth. I entered into a tiny recital room, a room that should have amplified the ambiance of the performance, to find no available chairs. Instead, I was greeted with the hard stairs that led to a slightly elevated area of the room. The atmosphere attempted to stay true to the Cage tradition, as we all sat in a tight circle around the performer. There was no stage; rather we were all clustered together in the hopes of experiencing something, or nothing if we were so inclined. After a long wait whilst lighting issues were sorted, the performance began. I cannot say what this wait, in which I found myself seated even longer on the hard floor, did to my experience of the performance. If it influenced it at all, it was probably in the negative. Goldstein introduced himself and launched into 4’33”. The shock of this performance was unavailable. Everyone in the room, save for two girls seated next to me, knew what to expect. This expectation, I feel, led to an unnatural silence. The point—if we can find one—of 4’33” is to illustrate that the music of a performance is not just in the performer, but rather in the audience as well. We as an audience were all too aware, and all too self-conscious to participate in the performance.

When 4’33” ended, we applauded. I don’t know if we were applauding for Goldstein, who took the pains of keeping time, or if we were applauding ourselves in a vain show that we had just created nothing. Either way, we moved on. Before Goldstein began playing Sonatas and Interludes he invited people to lie underneath the piano. This, he said, would add to the performance. I would later find out that he was correct. After several people leaped to the floor, and to the feet of Goldstein, the performance began. The music, I admit, was well played. There was nothing wrong with Goldstein’s technical mastery of Cage’s work. There was, however, much wrong with the setting. A combination of the audience’s inability to quiet themselves for more than five minutes, and Goldstein’s apparent temper, led to a caustic evening. The performance did allow me to see Cage’s work differently. That night I found myself less impressed with John Cage. I admit and concede that he is the most influential composer in modern times; however, I also recognize that we are deeply embedded in modern times. Because of this, because of our over-modernization, I think we have moved beyond John Cage.
As I’ve stated several times, I found Cage’s influence on modern music. I don’t mean modern music in the sense of modern composers, because speaking honestly, who cares or listens to modern composers? John Cage was lucky to come along at a time when he was not completely irrelevant. Though, he was cutting it pretty close. No, I can see Cage’s influence on modern popular music. The musical act that I see Cage reflected in the most would be Nine Inch Nails. As I listen to Cage’s works, and see how he altered the piano and altered what we considered to be music, I cannot help but think of Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails pioneered the industrial rock movement, which is/was a movement in rock music that saw the use of non-traditional instruments and sounds. Throughout Reznor’s albums he has always pushed and changed the concept of what is noise and what is music. It is in his instrumental pieces, however, that Cage’s influence is most found. On just about every Nine Inch Nails’ album are one or two instrumental pieces. These pieces feature the use of pianos, drums, and electronics. The piano pieces are Reznor’s bread and butter, and though I have no evidence in this claim, I am sure that Reznor finds himself using a prepared piano for many of his recordings. Even when Reznor is using a synthesizer, it is clear that this instrument and Reznor’s use of it owes heavily to Cage.

There is one Nine Inch Nails album that fully embodies Cage’s musical styles. It is one of Reznor’s latest called Ghosts I-IV. This album, which was released digitally through NIN’s website, is completely instrumental. The piano pieces on this album hark back to Cage’s prepared piano. Reznor’s use of noise and other non-traditional outlets on this album also find their birth with Cage’s experimental music. So, regardless of how I may feel about John Cage’s music, I am still aware of his lasting influence and his importance to music. However, with music like NIN and other progressive bands so ubiquitous and common in today’s world, it is easy to overlook Cage. It is easier still for today’s generation to find Cage’s music to be almost too traditional. Cage represented more of a bridge, he was the figure needed to allow other musicians to fully change the concept and appreciation of music.

Videos

Policy of Truth

There are many pitfalls to working theory into a play: the play could be too subtle and lose its intended message, or the play could be too heavy handed and lose its audience. Either way, a dramatist runs the risk of compromising the entertainment value of his work in order to pursue his artistic and theoretical values. Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author is an anomaly. It is a play dripping with theory, yet it remains entertaining despite, or because of, this fact. Pirandello creates a play that violently moves theater and theory in a new direction. In 1921, when the world was just being introduced to Modernism, Pirandello experiments with Post-Modernism and Deconstruction. The major theme being explored throughout Six Characters is the nature of truth and representation in art. In other words, Six Characters asks the question, what makes a character, and what makes person? The answer that it offers up is that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Six Characters predates Baudrillard’s definition of the simulacrum, yet putting aside this anachronistic disparity, we find that Six Characters is a prime example of Baudrillard’s theory. Within Pirandello’s play he blurs the line between reality and representation. Pirandello has Characters confronting characters, or to put it another way, Characters confronting reality as portrayed by actors. Baudrillard’s theory states that, “Representation starts from the principle that the sign and the real are equivalent…” (Baudrillard, 166-184), so by this logic, Pirandello’s Characters (signs) and living people (real) are one and the same.

Pirandello asserts that Characters are more real than the people they represent. In Act Two, the Father confronts the Director on the advantages of being a fixed character as opposed to being a living person, “[a] character truly has a life of his own, marked by his own characteristics, because of which he is always ‘someone’. On the other hand…a man in general, can be ‘nobody’” (55). Returning to Baudrillard’s definition of a simulacrum, we find that a character is capable of becoming more real than that which it represents. For Pirandello’s Characters, the path to becoming more real than their models forces them to confront the nature of truth in life and art.

The Characters maintain that their truth must be heard, yet their truth is fiction. It is here that Pirandello exerts most of his theoretical energy. Each Character asserts that their story is in fact their truth, more so than that of the other characters. This is because the Characters represent and embody living people. By representing a living person, and by being fixed to a series of events, the Characters become “living people more alive than those who breathe and wear clothes: less real, perhaps, but more true!” (12).

According to Six Characters, the truth being represented by characters is contingent upon immortality. In order for characters to “live eternally…they [must have] the good fortune to find a fertile matrix, a fantasy that [knows] how to raise and nourish them” (14). In this way, the fertile matrix, the author, creates a character that represents reality. Once that character is created, it embodies the multitude and complexities found in living people, but it embodies them all at once. A living person comes and goes through these multitudes and complexities of emotions, never permanently settling into one; the character does not exist in flux, it is static. Truth, it would seem, is in permanence.

Pirandello’s theory runs deeper than the truth of a character; it also tackles the truth of acting. Again we return to the simulacrum as described by Baudrillard. The simulacrum is not the instant reflection of life, but rather a result of that reflection becoming so distorted and perverted that it becomes its own reality. The acting of a character is the representation of represented life. As the Director explains to the Father, “you cannot exist as your real self! Here it is the actor that represents you” (36). A character represents truth, an actor represents a character, and so it becomes that an actor is truth. This happens because an actor “[gives] body and form, voice and gesture” (35), to a character, bringing that character to life. Six Characters is a heavy-handed and convoluted play. It puts forth more theory than plot, and more philosophy than story. Yet, it remains entertaining and engaging. Six Characters seeks to unnerve its audience and have them question the very base of their reality. This, for the most part, is done in a playful manner. Existence and consequentiality are not thrown askew; rather it is our definitions of the difference between real and fiction that is questioned. Ultimately, Pirandello argues that art creates reality, because art is the representation of reality.

Baudrillard, Jean. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings. ed. Mark Poster. Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988, pp.166-184. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html