Saturday, August 4, 2007

Holy hey diddle diddle

Holy hey diddle diddle (didl didl in cut spelng for those curious explorer types), I've been working at Greenpeace for an effing month! So weird, it seems to me, that I do what I do.

Often in life, I've felt like some space alien who crashlanded on th wrongest planet possible. I have never bought others' reality, never excelled at assimilation, never found myself easily grokked by th people around me. Chicago has seemed like just another miserable city on th planet of th squares slash ueber hip slash conformists slash nonconformistconformists. As always, I can find no culture, no subculture, of Andrews.

But since I stumbled into Greenpeace, I very recently realized that I have things that I can fairly & proudly call friends. We're th office of th misfits, & I effing love it.

I have stumbled upon friends in th past of course. It happens thru avenues of theatre, music, clay, & chaos - thru art - transcendent, chaotic, divine, explosively rich & challenging art. Thinking of this, I reach a realization that we Greenpeacers do art.

It goes like this:

Every day, I go to some given streetcorner in Chicago, approach hundreds of absolute strangers - each in their own reality tunnels trying to get thru th hectic day without losing their minds - & start conversations:

How are you today, sir? How do you feel about Global Warming? - Ma'am, you wanna help save a Polar Bear today, right? - This guy looks like an environmentalist! Have you heard about Greenpeace, man? - Come talk to me about saving our Mother Earth!

I find it utterly fascinating how absolutely th same everyone seems & how absolutely unique at th same time. I never have th same conversation twice. Never! (But th goal remains th same, more or less: convince th mark that Greenpeace is worth donating to & get em to fill out my form & give me eir credit card number.)

In conclusion, we do art:

.th art of conversation
.th art of manipulation slash persuasion
.th art of selling (a reality-tunnel, an organization, a future)
.th art of rhetoric
.th art of canvassing (as this activity gets officially called)


No one does this job th same. No one paints th same painting (slash reality-tunnel slash conversation etc). We do art - transcendent, chaotic, divine, explosively rich & challenging art.

((((( So it feels on a "good day." )))))

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From Larry Richards:

Moments of art (3 descriptions): (1) when the logics of two or more worlds (domains) collide, creating an anomaly, (2) as contrasted with the times of consistency (already-named times of "truth"), and (3) experienced in conversation or thought as frictions, tensions, disagreements, contradictions, being on different "planes", being "out of sync".

Participation in social change (3 steps): (1) generate a logical anomaly, (2) compose a provocation (perturbation) around that anomaly (a pivot), and (3) avoid (anticipate, prevent, neutralize, negate) the undesirable consequences of the dynamics triggered by that provocation (as opposed to seeking specific ends).