Myth of Sizzliphus

The following is an email sent from Art to the group on 2 April 2016.



Since I have some time, I'm going to explore a little more about the cult/LGAT. After giving them a lecture on the major themes of existentialism, I showed my students the Sizzler promo commercial and asked them to analyze it.

There seemed to be two major interpretations:

One was that this was a kind of heaven for übermenschen, ones who are capable of facing the full extent of their freedom. I know Sartre said that rational human beings, faced with the full extent of their freedom, rightly experience nausea and anguish. But we entertained the notion that perhaps they had somehow transcended that and were now Nietzschean “birds of prey,” triumphantly reveling in their restaurant within a restaurant, laughing fearlessly as they are confronted its dizzying array of options. There are a few characters in the video that support this interpretation. I think of these two and the dismissive way the Italian guy looks at the camera, showing a Nietzschean scorn for the timid, insipid values of the imagined viewers. Another point in favor of this view is the many vertiginous elements incorporated into the camera work (for instance, here and here), suggesting that, although the inhabitants of this world seem to relish their experience of contingency, we the plebeian viewers are nauseated.

The second and more popular interpretation was that all these people are living in bad faith, that, terrified of the full extent of their freedom, they instead accept “mediated choices” (thus, “Sizzler is the one that gives us choices”). The “restaurant within a restaurant” implies that they have buffered themselves from their freedom and subjectivity even further. The doubling, as mentioned in the previous email, suggests that this method of escaping one's subjectivity can be repeated ad infinitum, as one flees endlessly down this tunnel toward a theoretical dimensionless restaurant within an infinite series of restaurants where one would finally and definitively objectify oneself. The dizzying array of choices available in Sizzler's restaurant within a restaurant can be explained as another attempt by the herd to appropriate the values and prerogatives of the ruler caste. The paradox of fleeing one's freedom while ostensibly embracing an ever-expanding array of options is simply the inherent hypocrisy of the “lie to oneself.” Indeed, following this line of reasoning, the dimensionless restaurant at the end of this long line of nested restaurants would promise an infinite array of choices. The vertiginous camera work can be explained in that, even as they try to situate themselves within the seemingly stable environs of the restaurant within a restaurant, their efforts are doomed to failure: the anguish of repressed freedom can never be fully repressed; they are, as Sartre puts it, “condemned to be free.”

In looking at how any of this could provide inspiration for Knology, I like the idea of Farthington being an übermensch who has found a way to package and peddle the values and lifestyle of the ruler caste to the herd. I honestly think that this is exactly what people like Werner Erhard and L. Ron Hubbard did.

They did it by serving up the paradox of the restaurant within a restaurant ad infinitum.

Sheer Vertiginous Horror

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 1 April 2016.



What is the significance of two?

You need two mirrors to create an infinite regress, an infinite series of receding images produced by two facing mirrors.

This has been an ongoing motif in our project in terms of dialectics and dichotomies; retweet, repost, embed; the proliferation of Joe Lazarus's clones; the multiplication of y's in Rustyy Kryystyylz's name; the postscenium and proscenium with their telescoping arches; tunnels within tunnels means an infinitude of nothing; not to mention more beneficent pairings like being made in the image and likeness of God and the holy rivalry concept.

What am I missing?

Joseph Conrad's obsession with the double, the shadow self, the doppelgänger, Lord Jim's “I--you--I”

One other area that has interested me recently is that of the entrepreneur or inspirational speaker who helps people find their passion or succeed in business. I find this to be so postmodern and Baudrillardian and unacceptable. Is it acceptable that a person's passion would consist in helping other people find their passion? Is it acceptable that a person's successful business is helping people have success in business? Is it acceptable that a person successfully leverages social media to teach others how to successfully leverage social media? To me, that seems “contentless.” To me, that snaps me back to the image of the proscenium with little or no scenium.

My first experience with this was the large-group awareness training organization I joined at the end of the 90's. It was all about living an transformed life, but to do that one needed to not only take the course (and ideally, many subsequent courses), but also to “enroll” people in the fact that you had undergone said transformation.

Going along with Heidegger's “Language is the house of being,” you needed others to “get” your transformation, otherwise the transformation wouldn't have any real meaning or existence. Who you “be” is a function of who you speak yourself to be. Word = world. And for a while at least, this notion of enrollment was collapsed with the act of registering those same people to take the course. Toward the end of my time there, they endeavored to “uncollapse” these two concepts, but the notion persisted, namely, how do you know that you've fully enrolled people in your transformation? They register for the course themselves.

I've already talked about modeling Knology (Farthington's cult or LGAT) after this concept. I've also mentioned Sizzler's “restaurant within a restaurant” idea, which to me captures the sheer vertiginous horror of the 90's.

Twins, doubles, and clones have been favorites of postmodernism because they convey its notions of circularity, self-referentiality, Baudrillard's collapse of polarities and the endless reproducibility of the simulacrum.

Anyone Can Fire Our Neurons

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art and the group on 10 November 2015.



Have you read McLuhan's War and Peace in the Global Village?

He's pretty insistent in that and in several interviews that renewed tribalism brings more war, not less. He says the cost of electronic culture is civilization. It would be lovely if stretching our consciousnesses all over the world resulted in one village, but it doesn't. Stretching our nerves everywhere means anyone can fire our neurons. Our tribes are just not as geographically organized as they were before, that's all.

Two seconds scrolling through a Facebook feed shows that we aren't all in one tribe, and that the enmity between tribes is accelerating. Also, the way people reduce tribal conflict on Facebook is to defriend anyone who create conflict, which paradoxically reinforces tribalism, since one limits one's interactions to those with people of the same tribe. 

It makes sense to address the issue of tribalism, as the 70's begin with the end of the 60's dream of one tribe, we get the age of cults, then we end with the digital age trying to absorb the power of The Lodestone. 

I see Arthur as tribal, too. He's torn by the family tribe and the universal tribe of man, as well as a personal relationship with God.

Is is What's Being!

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 17 April 2015.



After our recent exchange on Facebook, I think this is a pretty important thread to start following. The Sizzler promotional commercial truly opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me.

I think we've gone through a bit of a platonic process: first it was just you and me, then we opened things to Allison and Liza, now it's supposed to universalize.

We've talked about the pros and cons of going the cult route vs. that of the large-group awareness training organization. I think the Sizzler video settles it: LGAT all the way.

And, like Sizzler, a "restaurant within a restaurant" is where it all starts.

The flip side of this spark of inspiration is the ongoing frustration that our growth has been incremental at best. Without forgetting about the music, I think we need to change our tactics. We've been leading with the band when we should be leading with the organization, figuring out what this whole Knology thing is and getting people to join it.

Why can't we involve others, they who would sell all their belongings and join Knology in a heartbeat? Buy them a loose-fitting tunics and tambourines!

Glasnost!

Some other topics: It's been a while since we've talked about Iceland and why it's so important. Obviously there's the element of Journey to the Center of the Earth, also Captain Walton's frame story from Frankenstein. Check out this story about the sMars simulation. I'd like to have a moment where some seafaring vessel becomes encased in ice like the Belgica. Maybe in the process of piloting the Ericsson from Tokyo to Iceland?

Back in Ann Arbor, my housemates and I had something we called "The Whitewater Tapes," recordings made by a secret commission appointed to investigate the Whitewater scandal. Something went wrong and they were later found dead having interred themselves in a school bus (dubbed "The Lincoln Bus") beneath the White House. All those tapes were lost.

Is is what's being!

Basement Meeting

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 8 March 2015.



Still confused on Arthur's attire. I guess if we thought of something really symbolic, we could just go with it. What about highly Country Club and/or Yacht Club?

One of the weirdest situations I've been in was when I went to this quasi cult ("large-group awareness training seminar") gathering in Philadelphia and stayed with the parents of a rich middle-aged former alcoholic who had failed to launch (and, even in the context of this empowerment group, was continuing to fail). He had every advantage...and an addled brain.

Now this guy was WASP, so that's very different than Arthur, but could we imagine an addled Arthur living at the family boathouse in Bloomfield Hills? Or eating his meals everyday at the Yacht Club on Cass Lake, all on the family tab? I'm imagining a daily uniform of khakis, white oxford, monogrammed v-neck or turtleneck cable-knit sweater. Maybe even a captain's hat.

And just spending the days sailing...that's all he can manage any more. Kind of like Yacht Rock in general: we're so burned out by the last two decades we can't do anything else but go on sailboats. And we can't listen to anything heavier than a Christopher Cross guitar solo (although I flipping love this song).

And I love cable-knit sweaters. And you're welcome.

Alternatively, Arthur could be doing the same thing at a Country Club somewhere back in the lakes area of Bloomfield Hills. I like that tight tennis gear that you see in just about every Wes Anderson movie.

Of course, I guess it might be even more likely that Arthur would be returning to his Catholic roots at this point, setting up a Thomas Merton-style hermitage in the family's boathouse. Hermitage-era Thomas Merton clothing might work well too. That would be a totally different feel. Kind of working class/proletariat on top with karate style pants and split-toed socks.

One last thought: the yacht club look might be the most symbolically satisfying, making Arthur more like an Ophelia/Hamlet-type hero whose madness consists in being "native and indued" to (or at least reconciled with) that primordial element of water.

By the way, I like the idea of Carlton Farthington trying to sell his ideas as a "large-group awareness training" (LGAT) rather than a cult. That was really what was happening toward the end of the 70's and into the 80's.

This is where we have the slogan: "Because knology. Is is what's being."

This is the sort of thing that latter-day Diana Ross and John Denver fell into. Much less about dirty hippies looking for some place to crash and burn.

Shakespeare's Sister, Biyaches!

The following is an excerpt of a 27 February 2015 email exchange between Will and Art.

Charlotte Cushman as Meg Merrilees

Will:

I love the idea! 

I am so sick today...just out of nowhere! 

I've been running ideas by musicians. 

Also, Allison and Liza are both in. Have you read any of Liza's responses yet? They are pretty cool. I like the possibility of a Leif Erickson's sister idea, kind of like Victoria Woolf's Shakespeare's Sister, except more of a badass.

Art:

Hope you feel better, Will! Virginia Woolf, I assume, although I think Victoria Woolf is hilarious (probably for some politically incorrect reasons, though). I just like the Glasnost that is happening. Breaking down this iron curtain of inscrutability, this wall of wiliness. Do we need a Ronald Reagan? "Mr. Witkowski, tear down this wall!" No, I think we need more people like Victoria Woolf's sister! 

I have read her responses and I'm enjoying them. I'll have to chime in soon, but I wanted you two to do your thing for a while. From the way she talks, I wonder if she is Steffi Humboldt. That's basically the same thing as Victoria (never going to stop using that, by the way ) Woolf or Shakespeare sister. 

We floated the possibility that Steffi was a little more familiar with the tunnels than expected. That hers is the hand that holds the apple. A fact that Farthington may have found out too late. A fact that Will realizes as he descends into the tunnel looking to dispatch Farthington.  

There are no apple orchards in Burma. Farthington is nothing more than Steffi's mouthpiece. 

And now, thanks to Will, Steffi has no mouth..."not that a mouth can ever be taken away." Farthington may or may not be dead. 

"Farthing" suggests that Farthington never was much to begin with. Or at least that he came to nothing...or next to nothing. Cult leaders are a dime a dozen, so to speak...nod to Lewis's The Great Divorce, Arthur Miller's Willy, Eliot's Hollow Men, Conrad's Kurtz. 

I'm not against Liza being Leif Erickson's sister, but she seems so right for the role of Steffi Humboldt. 

Maybe when she comes into her power, when she reveals herself she becomes Victoria Woolf: Shakespeare's Sister, biyaches! 

Leif Erickson's sister, Victoria's Secret, Virginia Woolf, The Anti-Virgin, Shakespeare's Sister, Primordial Sea Devil, and Steffi Humboldt all rolled into one.  

Eve is remembered in all of those names (primordial pronunciations?):

Leif Erickson → eif

Victoria Woolf → v or ia W

Sea Devil → ev

Or, alternatively, the word evil:

eif Er

ia Wool

evil

I'm not sure if any of what I'm saying even makes sense.

An Open Letter to Iceland

Kæru Íslendingar mínir

Í fáfræði mína, takast ég þér, og vona eftir svari. Það er erfitt að lýsa því hvernig þetta byrjaði allt.

Í grundvallaratriðum erum við að búa til goðsögn um 70 er lagasmiður heitir Arthur White, sem var fæddur til að vera dýrlingur en afl með fjölskyldu sinni til að verða Rock Star. Til að gera langa sögu stutta, tónlist feril sinn nam engu. Hann féll undir ráðum Cult leiðtogi, Carlton Farthington, sem sannfærði hann um að leiksvið a endanlega ávinningi tónleika fyrir Ísland, sem á þeim tíma var að gangast undir röð skelfilegar eldgos. Farthington spáðu að þessi gos boðberi komandi "turbulent víxlar", sem myndi þíða risaeðlur og leiða í fullan snúist við inertial lögum. Hann hélt því fram að eina flýja var að fara niður í eldfjöll, framhjá reanimated risaeðlur, niður í innri kjarna jarðar. Tónleikarnir gerðist aldrei. Hvort turbulent umskipti átt sér stað er opin spurning háð mörgum túlkunum.

Þar þá daga, Arthur White hefur tekið Raflostsmeðferð og verið á stofnunum. Á undanförnum dögum, þó hann hafi byrjað að sýna hættulega hegðun, klifra upp á stoðin-eins og hlutir og hvetja aðra til að gera slíkt hið sama. Hann hefur orðið að ólíklegt andlegur leiðtogi, ekki aðeins til að náungi sjúklingum hans, heldur einnig til hjúkrunarfræðinga, orderlies og groundskeepers. Læknar hans hafa komið að trúa því að Arthur æsingur stafar af komandi 40 ára afmæli tónleikunum fyrir Ísland, 4 Júlí 2016, og sem, sviðsetning spotta útgáfa af þessum tónleikum, þeir mega vera fær um að koma Arthur frið.

Í þessari viðleitni, Arthur White fylgir bróður sínum, fyrirtæki framkvæmdastjóri, og trommara, Will Witkowski; andlega ráðgjafi, bassaleikari / organisti og her Detroit Public sjónvarpsþáttur All Things New, faðir Bernard; og niður-og-út gítarleikari upphaflega ákveða að spila tónleika fyrir Ísland, Rustyy Kryystyylz.

Og viljum við bæta við nokkrum Íslendingum í fjölda okkar.

Þó að það er erfitt að útskýra, teljum við að Detroit, Michigan, er bein framlenging á primordial anda eyju þjóð þína. Annaðhvort að Leif Ericsson raun uppgötvaði Detroit eða að það er einhver neðanjarðar vatnaleiðum milli tveggja staða. Eða bæði. Við teljum að Leif Ericsson getur samt lifa á bökkum þess neðanjarðar ána, veitta ódauðlegur með boltann hans dularfulla steini hann hrifsa frá hjarta forn íslensk eldfjall.

Við viljum gjarnan að finna hljóðfæraleikurum og bakgrunnur vocalists sem deila sækni okkar fyrir 70 s R & B og blá-eyed sál.

Hvað væri að niðurstöður þessarar tónlistar skipti? Ég veit ekki, en ég hef nokkrar hugmyndir. Einn viljum við vinna í "fjarlægð" getu, kannski að taka smá tónlist eða jafnvel sviðsetning alvöru tónleika í Michigan eða Íslands.

Með kveðju,

Arthúr

Will's Canon of Influences Countdown - #4

I was just thinking that a nice entry or series of entries for the blog might be a list of some of the records that have inspired the project directly or indirectly. Maybe we could each do a top ten!

4.  Delay by Can, Monkey Pockie Boo by Sonny Sharrock, and Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music by Eddie Gale

I've got a three-way tie here for what I'd like Arthur White's Apotheosis to sound like. Before I realized that there is a long tradition of cults making strange music, I thought that Arthur might make some music like this with Carlton Farthington's people.

The Monster May Actually Be Real

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 20 August 2014.

Maybe a "staged" Concert for Iceland is an attempt by Arthur's therapists to overcome his psychic break. I don't know, maybe a post-ECT Arthur has become uncooperative, incorrigible. Although never violent, he becomes a danger to himself and others.

Maybe it's his stylite phase, climbing up on things.

Fr. Bernard comes on at the beginning of the show, explaining the whole concept: "Thanks for coming tonight, and thank you for your support for Arthur and his ongoing recovery and healing..." Fr. Bernard explains that the Concert for Iceland was a sham hatched by the charlatan cult leader, Carlton Farthington, and that Arthur was swept up in the story. At the recommendation of his therapists, they are trying to give Arthur an experience of closure: preparing for the Concert and performing it. The idea being that, once that is all done, he will have peace.

St. Alpius the Stylite

Finally, after the long explanatory intro, Arthur is wheeled out on stage by his nurse. Seems like everything is going according to plan. Nothing would need to be huge or amazingly produced because we're just trying to trick this borderline-catatonic guy that the Concert is happening.

But then we can have some weird stuff happen that makes us wonder whose reality is real.

Maybe he's a stylite and he's encouraging the other patients to do the same through his example. Maybe even some of the orderlies are being converted. Could he be wheeled in in a straitjacket and just do the singing? Could the entire band be made up of people from the sanitarium: therapists, orderlies, etc. (also Will and Fr. Bernard, of course)? Could we field questions from the crowd between songs (maybe even members of the media)?

And maybe he somehow gets away again in the end.

The crowd follows him through the streets. Could we fake a death with him falling from a pillar (there is a row of nonfunctional pillars on campus). Or could he just wade across the river and disappear into the darkness? That'd be some awesome footage, people tweeting it as they follow.

I think Will would be pissed and do it begrudgingly. But probably he also does it because there was nothing else doing at that point. Maybe this is the penance Fr. Bernard gave him for doing this to Arthur in the first place. There could be heated conversations between him and Fr. Bernard. Maybe Arthur has to go to the bathroom at some point so they wheel him off and Will and Fr. Bernard come downstage and have a conversation while he's gone. It'd be cool for them to be having that conversation the way they way people plot against each other in Shakespeare plays--not acknowledging the audience. But then have one of the media break down the wall by asking them questions, giving Will and Fr. Bernard a chance to field some uncomfortable questions, providing some more character development in the process.

I'm thinking we could get a large percentage of the story--including the apocalyptic ending with the sea monster--through diegesis, just telling it. A lot of what we've imagined would be very hard to show and I think it'd be better to start from the rationalistic perspective that these are just the dreams of a madman. Maybe we can get some scary scrawled drawings on a slideshow as part of the intro. Perhaps the head therapist comes in at this point and takes over the telling of the story.

As the show goes on, however, we should cast some doubt on these rationalistic narratives; the monster may actually be real.

Arthur's "Solution"

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 4 August 2014.

If everything Arthur experiences is a distorted version of the antecedent will of God, then Iceland should have been his Patmos experience. The solution that Will comes up with is a religious stretch for him, but not for Arthur.

So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me empty,
but shall do what pleases me,
achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Being a good Catholic is not enough for Arthur; he is a type of Catholic that has been largely banished from both secular and religious circles. He's kind of like a Abba Joseph of the Desert Fathers or a St. Joseph Cupertino or a St. John the Apostle. It's also reminiscent of Thomas Merton, who spent his early conversion days teaching Harlem youth--clearly a good thing--but not where he belongs. He's a contemplative, a visionary, a mystic. The guy levitates, has fire come out of his fingers, alternates between visions of Heaven and Hell, and does very little that would work in the context of a K of C Pancake Breakfast.

Iceland is not where he belongs either, but it needs to be something on that level. This is the situation inside God's consequent will, which is patiently guiding Arthur's feet back making use of these broken elements.

Perhaps the happy ending can be conveyed in an epilogue-type thing, like at the end of Life of Pi. Maybe we visit Arthur in a small hermitage. Maybe he has even become a priest through some special dispensation (he wouldn't be able to get through any of the heavy theological study--I'm sure there is some example of this in history).

That's the final frontier for Catholics: being able to retreat from life altogether. But only priests who can confect the Eucharist can truly live this lifestyle. Maybe the hermitage is out back on some huge property that Will bought with the money from some successful endeavor--maybe even from making it big with Arthur White!

Will's solution is a neat and tidy one, but the point for me is that Arthur's "solution" no longer has any place in society--maybe it never did. The only fellow feeling he finds is in music world of the Jimi Hendrix-style druggie mystic and in the cult world of Carlton Farthington. It's not like either of those are necessarily closer to God's will, but I think this may be one of those areas in which “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you" (Mt. 21:31).

The people sitting in the pews--still trying to "win a game of ball in a cup," as you say--are so far removed from the reality of the kingdom. Who would convert more quickly were they to meet Jesus face to face: the former or the latter? I think what Jesus is saying is that the former, having unmoored themselves from any chance of success in the worldly sense, are so much more ready to embrace the kingdom. They already live in tents; once they see the column of flame, there's nothing to slow them down from following it through the desert.

So, the Catholic audience is chastened by this message, coaxed into laughing at Carlton Farthington and the cult, only later realizing that they need to get down to at least that level themselves--not in the context of the cult, of course, but in the context of their detachment from the world and seeking the kingdom first.

Last little bit: I've often wondered if the ring in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is something like this fervor that drives someone to burn out on psychedelic drugs or join a cult. It's nothing that the usual hobbits in the Shire would ever encounter because they're too comfortable, too averse to adventure. So, from that perspective, Bilbo, Frodo, and--yes--even Gollum can be considered closer to the kingdom than the hobbits back in Hobbiton. Yes, there are many dangers and pitfalls that beset the hobbits that come in contact with the magic of the ring (or of the adventure in general), but there is never any sense in which ordinary life back in Hobbiton would have been the better or more noble option.

Mimesis Not Diegesis Effecting Catharsis!

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 31 July 2014.

Apollo and Socrates (at the Academy of Athens)

I am also interested in bringing up a new topic, that of mimesis vs. diegesis. I began thinking along these lines when you brought up Drunk History, which is a pretty unalloyed modern example of diegesis, although the actors, of course, engage in (deliberately pitiful) mimesis. It must be first admitted that the writers of Drunk History would--without the slightest doubt--be forcibly and immediately expelled from the Republic, because their narration does absolutely nothing to promote values and virtues of youth.

That said, the only poets who would be allowed to remain in the Republic were the diegetical ones; mimesis is considered unacceptable because, among other things, "human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only" (The Republic, Book III). I don't have a fully formed idea here, but there seems to be an intersection between this and the idea of multiple identities that occur after the turbulent reversals. Actually, it seems to intersect in a lot of ways, but I haven't figured them all out.

Socrates would reject what we are doing in imitating our characters. And it doesn't help matters that most of the characters we imitate in this drama are not ones of a praiseworthy sort. Also, some of our characters do the same thing as we do, usurping the identity of others. Finally, we have the more overarching sense in which we all--to a greater or lesser extent--fashion multiple identities for ourselves in this age of avatars.

This same Book III talks about the importance of engendering courage in youth. And the blame is placed on even the poet Socrates revered--Homer--for perpetuating ideas of the afterlife that were contrary to nurturing this all-important virture. The main issue is making it look like everyone--with the exception of maybe Teiresias--has a shitty afterlife, and thus that death is to be avoided at all costs. They've got a point about that one passage in The Odyssey in which the fearless demigod Achilles says he would rather be alive as the basest slave than king of the dead. It's almost as if he regrets the valor that put him constantly in harm's way.

This aspect seems to have a connection to our focus on the underworld and Hell. In some ways, Farthington is doing what Socrates would have him do, that is, make that realm more desireable or palatable, and make life as we know it a thing of lesser value and passing worth, thus engendering courage in his followers. But the followers of Farthington are well on their way to becoming shades, to entering into the anonymous and ignominious part of Hell. More and more, they live the life of a disembodied shade, seeking only to drink blood on the rare occasion it becomes available. Perhaps Farthington thinks that, by leading them into the underworld willingly and while still alive, he is making them kings of that world, himself being the high king.

There is also the issue of exile, the fate which all mimetic poets would suffer in Plato's Republic. Is Arthur and Farthington's trip to Iceland an experience of exile? It sure bears a distinct resemblance to St. John's exile on the island of Patmos and capitalizes on that visionary tradition. I think it is an exile in the sense that neither of them have any place in modern civilization. They have been expelled by Nietzsche's hated Socratic man, who sees rationality, science, and mechanistic thinking as perfectly capable of fathoming the depths of reality.

Apollo and Marsyas

Arthur and Farthington turn this all its head by enacting their modern mythmaking, co-opting the symbols and concepts of empiricism/positivism (think dinosaurs), and allowing the Dionysian to regain superiority.

Arthur is likely from the upstart musical tradition of Marsyas, not Apollo, and is, in some sense flayed alive (or is just among those musicians and poets expelled in The Republic).

Your idea about podcasting also brings up the whole diegesis/mimesis idea. As long as it's just us talking about the characters and the story, we might last longer in a republic ruled by the Socratic man. Of course, I guess that's sort of what we've been doing with the blog as well.

Now with all this hating on Socrates in our story, it's interesting that, in some ways, he also gives voice to its happy ending:

our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? 

This seems to be an apt ending for any divine comedy, if we replace "freedom" with "virtue" and "State" with "Church."

A major criticism of our approach is that we delve so deeply into baseness--to an extent that can our work even be considered Christian? Did anyone who attended "An Evening with Arthur White" feel strengthened in their faith? Did anyone feel "encouraged" or "equipped"? And if so, what is the mechanism that allows someone to profit from this? Obviously, Socrates sees no benefit in this approach; I think a whole lot of Christians see no benefit in this approach either--they too have roundly expelled these kinds of poets (just keep that dial locked on Family Life Radio!).

Or is it, as Aristotle says, "an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude...in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions"?

In other words, mimesis not diegesis effecting catharsis!

The History of Arthur White: Tokyo Nights

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 2 January 2013.

The Sweet World master tapes disappeared. Agniesczka got tired of Arthur's flightiness and divorced him.

A bootleg of the master tapes had surfaced in Japan and become a huge seller, so Will decided to travel to Japan to tour and sue, with the thought that even if they couldn't win the lawsuit, they could record the second album and have a built-in audience hungry for it. He used this quest to get a little leverage with the record company, who wanted the case of their missing tape solved and wanted their advance and lost potential profits recouped.

The group began a tour of Japan. The hard work over the past two years had kept Arthur from mass except on Sundays. One night, a waitress said she was a huge fan and asked if he'd like to go sightseeing. She ended up introducing him to members of her cult, although Arthur didn't understand that at the time. The more time he spent with them, the more free he felt.

They encouraged him to relinquish all of the baggage and burdens that were causing him trouble. Arthur decided to make a break with the Sweet World, stranding them in Japan and creating a grudge that lasts to this very day. Arthur brought cult member Silent Rick with him to do a BBC television special, then announced on TV that he was leaving the Sweet World and launching a new band with his new friends from Japan.

When they returned to Japan, the cult kept Arthur in hiding so Will couldn't get to him. Will had to give up his lawsuit in order to figure out how to get The Sweet World home with no money. Arthur had given it all to the cult.

Inside the cult, Arthur formed Apotheosis. The cult also convinced him to give them the master tapes and rights to his old songs as a way of breaking with his tortured past.

After a while, Arthur asked why the cult asked him to renounce so much, but never filled the emptiness with any substance. They responded by teaching him an arcane meditation technique. Arthur began meditating and promptly saw the woman from the Sweet World, whose baby was now crying. She showed him the true nature of the cult, which had been stealing his music, keeping him from mass, breaking up his family, and siphoning his spiritual powers. She warned him to leave immediately and showed him a vision of a freighter docking twenty miles down the main road.

Arthur snuck out of the compound, walked all night, and boarded the freighter that morning. The freighter eventually brought him through the Panama Canal to New York, where customs officials contacted Will about the starving, passportless stowaway.

Will drove out and brought Arthur back home.

Cataclysmic Changes (Part 3 of 3)

The following is an excerpt of an exchange between Will and Art on 10 April 2014.

Will:

All good stuff, Art! 

I'm wondering if the turbulent reversal is the Internet...the idea that somehow Arthur is responsible for it because of the Concert for Iceland!  At the same time, I have another vision...that the concert asks that, at its high point, Arthur use his gifts of prophecy and sees nothingness as he looks at Farthington. 

About this part:

And as for Arthur's mental state, I don't think he needs to be a vegetable.  We can nuance that.  My main idea is that his powers were paradoxically released by this sort of outsider meddling.

I totally get that...I think I was writing against myself a little, or at least against the fact that we haven't looked at Arthur's entire life in a while...we've been fixating on the late 70's and pre-comeback stage for so long that I've lost sight a little of the full view.

Art:

Yes, I think that the turbulent reversals is the Internet or at least the new paradigm in which the Internet arises.  It's a similar move to what Judeo-Christian thought pulled on the entire world at its advent: turning the heirarchy on its head, turning the slaves into masters and vice versa.  But remember that Carlton's thought is going to parallel Christianity in a counterfeit way.  He turned the people who have nothing to say into prophets and vice versa.  The artist is like Beowulf in the second part of the 2007 film: he has been supplanted by unctuous, fawning, sycophantic, opportunistic "hollow men," who have no substance or heroism or prophecy or artistry of their own.  In an astonishing reversal, the hero has been rendered irrelevant.

Will:

You're describing Farthington as antichristish...interesting.

Cataclysmic Changes (Part 1 of 3)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 10 April 2014.

I was thinking about the idea of cataclysmic changes and the Concert for Iceland while watching a documentary about backup singers that had some reflections on the Concert for Bangladesh.

I started thinking about Farthington, and it dawned on me that maybe he isn't just using Arthur for his talent, but for his spiritual gifts...that maybe the number one thing he wants is to somehow siphon Arthur's power from him.  Whether that can actually be done is unclear to me and I don't want to put anything rooted in magic rather than Catholicism out there, but I wonder about a few possibilities:

1. Is it not just the electroshock, but some sort of power-siphoning that damages Arthur?
2. Do the cataclysmic changes happen on some level?  Does Farthington somehow use Arthur's power to bring about some horrible power that shapes the 80's?  Some sort of void?  Maybe something electronic?
3. If so, does Arthur know?  Does he feel guilt?

I worry about Arthur coming off as too much of a vegetable.  He may appear to be one at times, but his interior life should nearly always be far more dramatic than any other character's.

His natural state should be life in the Sweet World--joy in God's garden with Mary--but being torn from that Garden, seduced away from it, weaving in and out of it, being convinced that it isn't the highest reality of his experiences, all of these things and more should be sources of inexplicable drama.

Arthur should be inexplicable because he is tied into the inexplicable.  The appeal of both Will and Farthington--the American dream and cultish psychospiritual babble--is that both offer some order to the inexplicable.

Will reduces reality to a very simple code, and Farthington offers answers, even if they are grounded in nothing.  The appeal of both Joe Lazaruses is their ability to catch glimpses of the Sweet World that Arthur lives in, to share in that beauty on even a small level with Arthur as friends, and to help communicate what Arthur sees to the rest of the world.

The Concert for Iceland

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will and Joe on 12 March 2014.

Catastrophic eruptions in Iceland

I want to see if I can help hammer out the Iceland story a bit.  Remember that in our "more commodious" frame, this may just be one story among many, not the least of which being our own story: three guys trying to make rock music past our prime (well, not you Joe).

My hope is that this doesn't sound absolutely, utterly insane.

Here goes:

1. Sometime during his Asian odyssey, Arthur falls in with Carlton Farthington
2. Will, seeing his brother sinking deeper into a dangerous cult, manages to get Arthur home again: disaster averted (for the time being)
3. From America, Arthur begins campaigning to have Farthington brought to the states
4. Farthington, who had never considered the idea, becomes personally interested
5. With his Oxford doctorate, Farthington actually receives permission to run a summer pilot program at a Midwestern university on the topic of "multidimensional learning"
6. Long story short, the program devolves into spending a lot of time down in the university's steam tunnels trying to find an entrance to the underworld
7. Arthur is ecstatic about this development; for the sake of the story, however, he needs to be occupied such that he is unable to be with Farthington that summer
8. Meanwhile, catastrophic eruptions occur in Iceland; Farthington begins talking to his students/followers and Arthur about mounting a humanitarian campaign
9. Plans are made for "The Concert for Iceland"; Rustyy Kryystyylz, famed guitarist of the band Beefoven, is contacted and promptly becomes a cult member (he's a little ditzy)
10. Will, in a last ditch effort to save everything that he has worked for, is able to have Arthur committed to a sanitarium and zapped
11. Around the same time, Farthington's pilot program goes horribly wrong with university officials pulling the plug; Farthington and his handful of students/followers get mangled and/or killed by some unknown beast in the steam tunnels beneath the school
12. Arthur is catatonic; Farthington may or may not be dead (spoiler alert: not)
13. Some years after the fact (circa 2014?) buzz originating from an online source begins circling: the Concert for Iceland will finally happen!
14. But the status of just about every participant in the project is in doubt: Isn't Arthur still catatonic? Wasn't Farthington was among the mangled dead found in the steam tunnels? Isn't Rustyy Kryystyylz just a washed-up has-been? And where is Will Witkowski? (Not like he would have been in the benefit band)
15. As time goes on, clues emerge that the online source is none other than Carlton Farthington; after all, his cult involved a "novitiate" whereby novices would forfeit all identifying information and artifacts about themselves--the online source (a blog) indeed seems to be a "clearinghouse" for this kind of material
16. The blog builds to the point that actualization seems imminent.  Posts reveal increasing focus, productivity, and purpose...

What happens?

• The Concert for Iceland: The "original" imagined concert (leave it to the audience to decide whether it actually did happen or this is a figment of someone's imagination) OR
• A "Second-Chance" Concert for Iceland: The original never happened; this occurs long after the fact with a bunch of washed-up has-beens seeking redemption OR
• Karaoke Tour of Arthur White and Rustyy Kryystyylz: This may lead to the "Second-Chance" Concert once people realize who these two losers are OR
• Joe Lazarus Jr.'s Crusade: Joe finds Arthur and leads a campaign to win back the rights to Arthur's material à la The Artist Formerly Known As Prince re-recording and re-releasing all the old material (although it wouldn't need to take that exact form)

Other fun facts:

• Carlton Farthington, if he is still alive, is now ensconced in an entirely electronic identity.  He lives through the blog, websites, online voicemail, text-to-speech software, and speech-to-text transcription.  One of the more disturbing developments is Carlton's "spoken" synthetic messages that begin surfacing around this time, leading to two interpretations: (1) Carlton is dead and someone else is creating these transmissions or (2) he was severely mangled, likely losing the parts of his face and mouth used for speaking and now pulling the strings using these electronic tools.  In some ways, it's the old Star Wars theme of how evil makes one less human ("He's more machine now than man"). And, yes, this wholly electronic existence is meant to be a reflection of the plight of modern man in general.
• Carlton Farthington's real reason for wanting to go to Iceland had to do with an arcane theory that melting ice from the volcanic eruptions will cool the lava, opening up caverns that go down to the center of the earth, safe haven from all the "turbulent reversals" he thought imminent. Complicating matters, he believed that live dinosaurs--both frozen in the ice and living in the warm subterranean caves--would be released at precisely this moment (he considered this one of the less dramatic aspects of the "turbulent reversals," which he theorized would ultimately result in a "new physics").  The humanitarian concert was a front for this agenda.

Farthington's Voicemail: people who are compelled to buy his beer

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



5/7/14 10:39 PM 4 days ago

So I'm getting down to. I think one of the war features of this You know this, but I don't know. I'll probably be there. Is. You know that with that need You know what. First of all for really have a lot this day. You know and I think we we have some something quite different. In the person of Christ, that he doesn't have. You don't have any has allowed to say yes but he also has a suspect. Where You know, It's just is presence that barks questions in other people you know that there is just something about on that. That Has P P 4. You know it's not provocative words necessarily all the time. Actually on some of the more. Some of our point poignant compelling episodes in the gospel. It's people who are compelled to buy his beer, presents to ask very deep questions. And you know we sometimes gives them very satisfied, or, you know very direct answers to those questions and sometimes not. You know, but I think one of the interesting things with him. That sets him. Apart from these other leaders who really do try to take. I've net messy innate mantle Is that he does not micro manage the context. So many. So I'll run however puts out the Apollo stars alb of in 1973 or 1974. And it and he writes stole, weinher know. I mean, it's obvious that it somehow. It's either him or someone you know, pretty close to his writing the liner notes and and pretty much setting up the entire context for everything that's been set. You know and I think even to this day you some of these people are constantly and actively involved in lawsuits, getting the curing offline, which is is like impossible to deal. You know just writing letters cease and desist from you know putting this information out there and just really try and trying to get a strangle hold on anything that would cast a somewhat negative flight out anything that's been said by this individual or by the organization or anything that they've been involved in You know that. That is not something that Christ is overly concerned with us. When we knew when you see him that he is.

Farthington's Voicemail: About calls and calls called involvement

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



5/7/14 10:18 PM 3 days ago

And I guess one of the things that I've been kind of interested in, lately has been. It's the reading up on some of these actual stories. You Know About calls and calls called involvement and call like organization I think one that I've been particularly interested in this is L. Ron Hubbard is full story in Werner Earhart and some of that whole cast of characters, from back in the seventies and eighties Obviously you know. Kind of a different character. To those different, inclination this Of of that phenomenon. I'll run harbored is is just I. I mean just in saying he put put Carlton Farthington to you soon, okay cool. So You know, I mean just really really disturbing stuff. But I'm really in. Juline being able to have it. And then maybe a little bit scary, but enjoying being able to have that mind of a call. Leader in the freedom to be able to say whatever comes to mind and have it be true. It is that wrong is that disturbing kind of fun. Just just how free wheeling. I mean when you watch video footage, just tell free wheeling and confident. These people were no, Second, casting themselves. Just, always ready With a very detailed and confident reply really be able to pontificating. At 18, and, and I think that that's a pretty amazing. Pretty amazing opportunity. Actually what it comes to You know, maybe a Dramatic monologues being able to have it, that voice before artistic group or what. It purposes. I'm kind of. Please, scraping the surface of it so far, but I'm kinda interested in getting into a little bit more deeply. What does Carlton Farthington have to say. What is his talk to you soon. What are his. Very. D's and I think one of the things.

An Early Chronology of Songs (Part 2 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 26 August 2012.

Arthur White's Apotheosis:

Not sure how this happens, but Arthur White loses his band and his family at this point.  The loss of The Sweet World occurs at the end (or perhaps before the end) of the Asian tour.  Thus in "Tokyo Nights," he muses: "Wonder if I could bail on the boys in the band."  Apotheosis is kind of like Hendrix's Band of Gypsies with maybe only a live album.

• Tokyo Nights
• Losing Game
• Tell Me Why (You Took Away My Children)

Asian spiritual odyssey (kind of like Richard Alpert/Ram Dass or Leonard Cohen): Burned by these losses, Arthur White tries to find solace in the spiritual, parting ways with the band after their show at the Budokan (perhaps he leaves between the first and second show).

• Arthur White Theme
• Centerstage
• Paradise Parade
• High Time
• Tryptych

Arthur White's Brand New Life

Whereas I personally would likely have gone with an austere Zen or Theravadin Buddhist monastic tradition, I think these are too imaginatively impoverished for Arthur White.  He gets embroiled in some arcane, convoluted cult run by some megalomaniac charlatan, ultimately signing over all his possessions, including his entire discography.

I see him having been asked to destroy his music because it is too worldly, but the cult double deals with him and actually holds onto the rights, thinking they may be valuable later.  He does eventually get out, but there are rumors of him being followed and even that his life is in danger.  Having undergone brainwashing, he is racked with doubts about his choice to escape. There are probably some more difficult romantic relationships in here as well.

• Seven Storey Mountain
• Mountain Cave
• The Splinter

Somehow, Arthur finds the peace of mind necessary to bang out some very strange, new songs--a seeming total departure musically and lyrically from things he's written in the past (wonder why!).  Maybe he starts trying to reconnect with his children, etc.  This could be a burst of clarity right before his ultimate demise, almost like he has a premonition of his imminent transcendence and is no longer grasping.

• Brand New Life Theme
• Selling My Gold
• Retire the Empire
• Helen of Troy

An Austere Cult

The following is an excerpt of a 26 December 2012 email sent from Art to Will.

I still see an austere cult as fitting the story/songs, for several reasons.

It's more in keeping with the meaning/process of apotheosis

I'm thinking very much of Ovid's (my paesan, who lived and wrote just 20 miles north of where my family originates!) telling of Heracles poisoning and subsequent apotheosis.  Apotheosis usually (to my knowledge, always) involves a burning away of the human so that the only divine is left.  It's a pagan concept, co-opted probably by the Manichaeans, but it is also not a far cry from John of the Cross or Catherine of Genoa.

So apotheosis would not likely happen after or during a period of self-indulgence, but rather after a period of self-abnegation and mortification.  I think it's perfect that Heracles' apotheosis occurs shortly after his new wife is almost kidnapped by a centaur, and that, upon realizing that he has been poisoned, he initiates his apotheosis himself (building and igniting his own funeral pyre!).  Likewise, Arthur's initiates his own imagined apotheosis during or shortly after his divorce.

It's more in keeping with the normative rock/r&b star phenomenon

I see the spirituality of chastened hubris as the more common phenomenon when it comes to rock star types (cf. George Harrison and the Beatles generally, John MacLaughlin/Mahavishnu, Carlos Santana, Robert Alpert/Ram Dass, Stevie Wonder, etc., etc.).

You can also lump in Al Green and Marvin Gaye, who, when burned by the fires of human love, would retreat into spirituality (the Rev. Al Green did this for a couple decades after his then girlfriend assaulted him with a pan of hot grits and then committed suicide).

I am less impressed by the more modern phenomenon of Scientology and Kabbala (and by the types of people who tend fall into it).  I think  it's a distinctly different phenomenon and one reserved for people who don't have the rich spiritual background (such as Catholics or blacks have).

It more clearly parallels the normative path as laid out by the mystical doctors of the Church

I really see this as key to the plot line of this story.

It's borrowed loosely from the Household Saints character Teresa Santangelo, played by Lili Taylor. By the end of the movie, it's clear that, in spite of getting knocked off the traditional saintly path by modernity, she nonetheless became the saint God intended her to be.

In short, it seems that God used the spiritual desolation of modern life as her road of trials.

Arthur goes through a similar process.  His divorce is a distorted version of the dark night of the senses. The cult represents a distorted version of the dark night of the spirit.  Electroshock represents the final threshold after which Arthur arrives at a distorted version of "the soul in a state of perfection" from which it is unlikely to fall again (in his case, a pure spiritual state that many ascribe to cognitively disabled people).

In other words, all these stages have their normative counterpart in mysticism.

But, since modern American life provides none of the traditional guides or guideposts (once widely available to anyone desiring to embark on the journey toward God), God intervenes and sanctifies Arthur through these counterfeit, unintended trials.

It illustrates something that I believe generally about an unbelieving age: that many modern saints (though probably not the canonized ones) will be sanctified almost entirely within God's consequent (as opposed to antecedent) will.  The irony is that someone who departs from God's will can't fully free himself from God's will; God's will asserts itself even in an evil and unbelieving age.

Yes, Jonah returns to the right path and preaches repentance to the Ninevites, but the famed "sign of Jonah" is his time spent in the belly of the whale!

A sudden loss of musical inspiration wouldn't seem rational

One of the ideas implicit in the distorted spiritual path concept is that something pure persists in spite of being dragged through the muck.  It's a very incarnational idea.

In the case of Arthur White, that something is music.

Whether he is at the height of his hubris/bravado, in the abyss of his involvement with a cult, or even the catatonia of his post-electroshock life, the music persists.  In fact, it is paradoxically strengthened by each debasement.  Grace flourishes further.

I know that a cult could be considered an "irrational element" that brings about an abrupt change (such as an abrupt loss of musical taste/talent), but, like Aristotle, I believe that irrational elements (another one would be deus ex machina) should be kept to a minimum.  It seems more likely that his inspiration would remain with him through this period as well.

A Mechanical Spider Built of Harpsichord Parts

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 24 August 2012.

As for Arthur White's love life, I think it's very Marvin Gaye influenced.

It's kind of a feast or famine, with no middle ground of quotidian, pedestrian realities of love.

It is clear in Marvin's case how this idealization of his love object leads him headlong toward his own ignominious downfall.

But one can also see in his personal catastrophe a distorted version of the contemplative's singleminded desire for divine union, a desire that renders everything else--praiseworthy worldly endeavors, the beauty of creation, even sweetness in prayer--repugnant.

There's nothing wrong with this kind of love; it's just when it is focused on a creature rather than the Creator that it tends to burn up and destroy everything. God alone is the appropriate object of such unrestrained adoration.  Arthur White's Asian odyssey (post-"Tokyo Nights") stems from this same impulse, but results in more burnout as he is drawn into some kind of destructive cult.

Maybe they're the ones who have prevented the release of his music!

At this point, I think Arthur White is at the end of his love life.  Involvement in the cult places a barrier between him and the earlier period, which is a wasteland of abandoned wives and children.

From now on, the only love song he'll ever write will be akin to the saccharine-sweet, stomach-turning Marvin Gaye song "Falling in Love Again":

I found somebody...said she loves me

This song, buried as it is at the end of Here, My Dear, is so disturbing in light of everything that has come before and in its weird instrumentation, which for some reason sounds to me like a mechanical spider made out of harpsichord parts.

There's something to a song where someone who has plumbed the depths of misery tries something utterly shallow and superficial again, when everyone--artist and audience alike--knows that it will only hasten his demise.

Spotify link: http://sptfy.com/5Qe