Newnan “Performance Collective” announces next project.

Lacunagroup has decided upon its next project. The group will undertake an exact, documentary re-creation of a performance of Act III, Scene 1 from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus the group gave on the evening of November 1, 2008 at the Newnan Community Theatre Company.

“That performance had certain qualities that I find fascinating,” opined group member Dale Lyles, “and the tension in the space was palpable. Not even Shakespeare could script such moments. I think the performers uncovered something very special that night.”

“If for no other reason, I think the contributions this work could make to our understanding of the neuro-physiology of memory will make it worth seeing, ” adds group member Jeff Bishop. “Oliver Sacks has offered to deliver a short spoken introduction.”

The group plans to develop the piece through a process of assembling and reviewing both spokenreminiscencesand assorted journalistic accounts. “Some of the original participants are still alive,” offers member Kevin McInturff, “and have been very generous with their time and their personal recollections. Considering the emotions we’ve asked them to re-live, they’ve all been quite fearless. We have a rich abundance of material to work with.”

The group sees this as carrying forward its interest in “photorealist” theatrical representation. Member Marc Honea hopes the result will be “an intense, chamber-scale offering in meticulous detail–a final, impossible rendering of the ephemeral.” Due to some moments of violence, the performance will be for adults only.

The Art of Being Off-Task

I’m not trying to derail the progress of the scene breakdown. I was cleaning a room and got distracted. Maybe this is more appropriate for the Lichtenbergian site since it represents divided attention; I don’t know. It does touch on theatre art, however, so…

I wrote a speculative little thing a while ago in which I tried, yet again, to synthesize two of my interests: performance and psychoanalysis. Yes, I know; I’m pretty predictable, but don’t begin chanting the Te Dium just yet. And no pained sideways glances. Have a look at it and see what you make of it.

I’m not much interested in being asked questions beginning with What did you mean by…. or entertaining editorial observations; as exposition and improvisation, it is what it is. Rather,I think there are occasional passages I’m quite proud of because of the way they articulate some pretty arcane Lacan concepts in everyday language. Also, I want to inspire new thinking on performance issues. To my mind, nothing I’ve offered is shattering original, just another stirring up of the familiar into a slightly unfamiliar brew.

Useful for Coriolanus? Not a bad question. It’s not my agenda in encouraging you to read it, but if it inspires, why not. Too eccentric? We can only hope.

Shakespeare Openings: there has been some talk

Don’t expect details at this point. All I’m saying is, there’s been some talk. Shakespeare opening scenes on the stage in the new park downtown. Perhaps experiments with various playing styles that make a difference in the great outdoors? There’s been some talk. Let this be a site for artistic coordination and planning. Carry on.

Sometimes a Great Title

My Fellow Lichtenbergians, I have been struck by possibly the greatest title ever for a literary magnum opus fictional or autobiographical since War & Peace. I wish I were joking. Because if I were joking, I wouldn’t feel the weight of responsibility the title places squarely on my shoulders as a wretched Lichtenbergian who has created his share of promising titles in the past. You could spend hours elaborating upon the implications of this title. You think I’m warming up for a punch line. A building up just to undercut? No. The eternal, cyclical rhythms of the human condition, the very essence of birth, procreation and death, the nature of all our labor, love, dreams, and effort, everything is right there in one neat phrase. Here it is:

Heavings & Leavings

Told you. Such a title only comes around once in a hundred years. As Lichtenbergians we are already drowning in the impossibilities waiting for us in such a title. All the bargaining, the self-betrayal, the insomnia, the self-medicating. Where to begin? Ah, begin, we shouldn’t. Begin, we couldn’t. Therefore, it would be therapeutic for all of us to offer just an opening sentence, nothing more. If that task is too impossible–and I am thanking the Deity that I’m off the hook, having done my bit by coughing up the title (I only transcribed, mind you; I’m a vessel, a medium, a messenger, etc.)–perhaps you can come up with a title or two of your own. It won’t even begin to come close to Heavings & Leavings, naturally, and just knowing that might make the task possible. Or we could ignore both tasks and use this clean, new post for further chat.

More Lichtenbergian Distractions: the outline game

The struggling, infighting, name calling, and outright legerdemain which is taking place right now on the official Lichtenbergian web site has me tired and somewhat frightened. As a break from a nasty fracas, I thought I’d offer here, in among peaceful–very quiet–lacunagroup hills, another distraction away from all the bickering.

I was going to introduce The Outline Game by making reference to Herman Hesse’s novel Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game, but after stumbling over this, I don’t want to say too much and be accused of trying to make some sad little addition to an already imposing wealth of mumbo-jumbo. I’ll merely say I was inspired in my adolescence, after reading Hesse’s novel, to conceive of this game. Not able to recruit players, I soon forgot about it, but I was recently reminded of it while reading a description of the ancient Eastern strategy game Go (another perfectly acceptable Lichtenbergian distraction, by the way). The passage touched on the “cosmic” implications of the game, and I wondered if Hesse was inspired in part by Go when he wrote The Glass Bead Game. I then remembered the game Hesse’s novel inspired me to envision back in the Seventies, and that led to something of an epiphany. Back in the Seventies, the game would have been very difficult to chart, elaborate and preserve with nothing but pencil and paper; but now, computer layout software should make it relatively easy to play. And I also realized that it could be the Lichtenbergian pastime, par excellence. It’s a creative undertaking, a form of poetic composition, masquerading as a kind of encyclopaedic gathering-in of knowledge in true Enlightenment fashion. No single participating player has to bear the burden of The Whole, however, so its vaulting ambition is quite easy to bear.

The game is for any number of players and the object is to create an outline for some imaginary topic. The outline itself becomes the work of imagination inspired by the fanciful topic. The topic could announce it’s fanciful nature: A Tour in Autumnal Twilight or The Thoughts of Five Silent Stones or The Cheese Ambulance, etc. Or the topic might not betray a whiff of fancy: Shrubs of West Central Georgia or The Facts About Adoption or Bass Fishing. The players are to elaborate an imaginative outline for the topic, mingling knowledge and whimsy, until the result reads like a kind of poem. As we speak, Dale is finding the best computer software to use to develop an outline in the manner the game requires. Stay tuned. I’ll update this post with a possible link to our playing area, etc.
To give you some idea how the game unfolds, here’s the nuts and bolts description I sent to Dale:


A Topic or Subject or Title is chosen, pertaining to materials natural or fanciful or a little of both. Players set about creating an “outline” for this theme, subject, topic, or title by offering various headings, sub-headings, and other embedded delineations. The group as a whole decides when the outline is complete. The outline is to be read as a creative expression, so choice of headings and sub-headings and so on is the meat of it.

Start by proposing some headings numbered with roman numerals. If there is a I there must be at least a II. (This rule applies at all levels of headings.) If someone proposes a IV first thing (why not?), there must also ultimately be a I, II, and III. (This, too, applies at all levels.) Further numbering is a choice; though, again, if someone skips forward and introduces an X, then V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX must also be produced. (Applies at all levels.) Roman numeral headings can then be added at any time, as can any sub-heading, etc.

Once you have a roman numeral heading, you can choose to embed capital letter sub-headings. If someone proposes an A, however, there must be also at least a B. From there it’s up to the group, above restrictions and rules applying, as to how many sub-headings to include for a heading. You might also, as a whimsical challenge to the group, start a sub-heading by choosing an E and expect A through D to be supplied subsequently. Once you have a sub-heading you can choose to move to ordinal numbers embedded within: with a 1 and 2, at least, by the time of completion, but ultimately as many as the group wishes. Then of course lower case letters: a, b, then c, d, etc. After that you could go to lower case roman numerals, I suppose, and we could formulate further conventions. As with the Hindu conception of the cosmos, at a certain point it’s elephants all the way down. No heading need have further sub-delineations, of course

The game would be most rewarding if players could view the whole outline as it’s developing and then easily insert either titles or further embedded headings as they see fit.

I am now jotting down a date in February and a time. Players should send topic suggestions by way of comments to this post. The topic which is timed and dated closest to the time and date I’ve just jotted down will be the first one we go with.

Lichtenbergian Activity: sharing bookmark lists

Not the embarrassing ones, mind you. Just the ones that bear witness to the diverse peaks and valleys of your wanderings and avoidings. You could even annotate them, time permitting. I will attempt to paste what I’ve copied in a Comment. I’m proposing this activity here because the official Lichtenbergian web site is besieged by weightier matters at present

A little time to kill in Barnes & Noble, so I sit down with Swann’s Way…

This is the new translation by Lydia Davis. Says on the back cover she got a MacArthur Genius Grant. I had a French professor in college who told me French people don’t read Proust. It’s in what’s called a literary tense, he said. Probably the equivalent of my trying to converse casually but couching everything in “at this point last year I would have been such and such…” I can imagine such an attempt to sustain verbally those kinds of constructions might lead me to stutter. I’m going to skip the introduction and go right to “Combray I.” Otherwise it’s like holding back in some way. My reluctance to verbalize in social gatherings has often been characterized as “withholding.” I like this chair. My daughter once described these chairs as squishy. But I think this one’s pretty nice. Metempsychosis. Good word. A touch arcane. I wonder if Proust is using it wryly. I wonder if it was a literal translation. Probably have to be with a word like that. Can’t imagine Lydia Davis thinking a genius grant is license enough to plug in a word like that on a whim. I wonder if this is the official Christian Reading Pit since it sits in the middle of the Christian shelves. If it is, I’m not sure I should be here with Swann’s Way. I feel almost aggressively humanist. Pinter was profoundly affected by reading Proust; it changed his artistic agenda, some say. Many long and moment to moment descriptions about what it’s like to wake up from a dream. The “artist as psychologist” is how the summaries like to summarize it. Heh, heh, summarize Proust. Wait a minute, the woman who just sat down on my right has a book with SEX on the cover. Either she, too, is being aggressively humanist, or it’s a book about Christian SEX. I can’t tell. The man and woman pictured on the cover are wearing sweaters and look healthy and happy. There are no italics in Proust. I must confess I’m intrigued by the fact that the woman with the SEX book did not choose a SEX book with an African-American couple on the cover. She is African American, and I want to know if her book choice indicates her lack of strident allegiance to some cultural camp, because you know there must be a number of SEX books available targeting African Americans explicitly. Or if she has chosen the book because it is a Christian SEX book–and perhaps that is in fact why she feels safe and enclosed and un-self-conscious about sitting down with such a book in this pit–if it is a Christian SEX book, would she have chosen it due to not seeing any Christian SEX books with African Americans pictured in sweaters on the cover? Never thought of myself as aggressively humanist, per se. I bet my particular curiosity about the African American woman places me among the great unwashed. If that is true, surely dipping into Swann’s Way counts for something. Fewer commas, too, than I would have thought; Proust looks nice on the page. I’ve started re-reading this paragraph at least three times. Do you think anyone will see me sitting here with Swann’s Way and find it funny? If I’ve started re-reading a paragraph three times, how many times have I read it? Hah, got you. I will confess the decision to sit down with Swann’s Way was formulated in my mind in advance as a kind of “living joke.” I went to the P’s on the shelf with the plan already well-baked. Somewhere in my mind a notion takes shape about documenting my attempts to undertake a series of “living jokes.” And writing a book. And, heart swelling with secret pride, I see it on a bargain table at Barnes & Noble. Just like I want someone to see me sitting here and get the joke. And the person who did see me and did laugh quietly, possibly silently, perchance inwardly, would walk away transformed, briefly relieved from suffering. Or, to confess to my true craven selfishness, the person, a metaphysical being in disguise, would walk away having registered me in some transcendent Book of Days. When I finish my coffee I will stop reading and tell my daughter and her friends I’m ready to go.

Art: wince and wither

I’ve been assigned some occupational therapy by select concerned Mandarins of the Lichtenbergian Society. It’s also something of a test, I think, to see if I can play along and get along. And be funny. It has to be funny. Even witty.

Something on Art, with the capital A. My first impulse is to send you to an earlier post in which I think I come clean on the issue of Art. But I can go further. Note the shape of the capital letter A. Those of you familiar with Alpine architecture will see the form of a classic high-roofed lodge. Those anthropologists among you will note the Native American “tee-pee.” The capital A is clearly an icon for Shelter. Shelter is a “roof over your head” in this (upper) case. So Art is shelter; and while I seek something “over my head” to protect me from the storm, I know full well that in choosing Art for my protection: I’m in way “over my head.”

In true Lichtenburgian fashion I will let this initial burst of whimsy suffice for the moment and follow it up later with the necessary elaboration (don’t hold your breath). Better yet, let me be true to my belief in collaborative creative processes and open this up to a participatory fantasia. Does this particular conflicted form of Art fetish, this miserable creeping under the eaves of A, resonate for anyone else? Since your response need not be conscientious or earnest or anything in particular (we strive for Art, not accountability), do not waste time complaining you don’t have enough to go on. Consider yourself provoked.

Just follow the thread

So what’s up with lacunagroup at present? The group is all about it’s blog threads. Wherever they lead, that’s what we’re doing. As always, we are interested in an active and collaborative creative process. The real work of lacunagroup is as much in the thread as anywhere else. The work goes forward as the thread goes forward. Cryptic, isn’t it?

If you read through comments in the previous post, you’ll follow, in part, the beginnings of a film project. Take a look. The work will be carried forward on this blog as well as in cameras and editing. Please collaborate if you find it interesting. The blog exists for you to make of the work what you will.

Let me throw out another possibility for a project before I talk myself into seeing it as irrelevant. Consider it another start for some kind of collaborative exploration which could turn into something beyond the blog or not. lacunagroup, I hear tell, on occasion, tries to find its way toward working with performances.

A slight, practically inconsequential personal association to autumn. Too general and indistinct to be a memory. What is it, then? Images to accompany a feeling of warm containment. My brother taught me how to throw a spiral during the Thanksgiving holidays one year. Then I was inside watching one of those Hannah-Barbera animated versions of a classic book which always seemed to be on tv during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Between those two sets of sensations fall all of autumn, for me. And all of Winter, too, actually.

So I may spend some of my time on the blog working with this bit of stuff (bit of fluff?). In what way? Who knows? And it is available for anyone else who might want to take it somewhere. My interest is in using the material for any and all manner of ways to step off into experimentation. Still cryptic? Remember, we may not necessarily know what we’re after at the outset. And once someone does know something, it becomes one aspect now maybe feeding or inspiring other gestures. Or not. My hope is that the form things begin to take may be new and challenging.

Why this bit of material as a starting place? Exactly. Good question. And so it begins. I want to investigate it because it’s always there, particularly as the weather changes. Something, too, about it being apolitical and unspecific. Achieving a spiral was like learning to carry out a magic act and transform physical laws. Male bonding, of course. Initiation. Being home. My brother called me “Flash,” and I remember always laughing uncontrollably. The containment of autumn related to the containment present before sleep. Preference for autumn and winter as depressive. Others are free to take it up in some way. Or I may get encouraged to set it aside as my interests drift into something else emerging on the thread.

what why where when

Re-reading our history through posts, I was embarrassed over how savagely I attempted to will something into being through nothing more than sentence after pretentious sentence. I can now admit to myself and to others: not the way to go. I honked a few rhetorical horns no better than the most untalented trained seal, thinking to build through impressive stunts. So, chagrined and wanting to make an end, here’s my last version of what I think lacunagroup could be. It doesn’t involve building or actually undertaking anything. Allow me to devote a few more pretentious sentences to this task; then that voice is done. Imagine: out in the middle of nowhere (let’s face it–we are) is this thread of thought that at times seems to give shape to notions of theatre and performance, art and engagement, creativity and ambivalence. (Why theatre? We start from our immersion in the history we have in common. I know I can’t drop an obsession overnight.) This thread unspools anonymously, perhaps, and reaches out to notions and places one is hard pressed to imagine being reached, especially in the middle of nowhere (let’s face it–we are). The thread might go from the discursive to the playful and on toward the outrageous, returning at times to the ruminative, here local, there global, staging a few abrasive associations, and never forgetting to engineer the occasional irony or equivocation. The thread is a kind of work, or (better) a working-through, spinning out as artful performance. My hope is that the actual thread will make its start by reacting against this post…