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The Journey
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First published January 1, 1992
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December 29, 2018
review of
Dick Higgins's The Journey: eight colored scenes
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 29, 2018
W/ this review I will've actually succeeded in reviewing every bk I've read this yr w/in its yr of reading. Usually, I begin the next yr reviewing bks I actually finished at the end of the previous yr. 'So the fuck what?!' you exclaim angrily! Ok, ok, chill out.
Dick Higgins is an important figure to me. I probably 1st learned about him & his Something Else Press in 1975 when I was 21 yrs old, living w/ my friend Chas Brohawn, & researching Fluxus at the Enoch Pratt Central Free Library. I loved Fluxus, I loved Something Else Press, I loved the Great Bear pamphlets that Higgins also published.
I 1st met Higgins a few yrs later when he came to Baltimore to give a reading at my friend Marshall Reese's apartment sometime in the late '70s. The fact that he did this at all for an audience of maybe 10 people still boggles my mind. Ed Sanders gave a reading in someone's private 2 car garage around the same time. Here were these people who were major figures for me coming to Baltimore & reading under astonishingly bad conditions. I respect that. Of course, I've done the same thing. I gave a concert in someone's bedroom to a small group of maybe 20 people who all seemed high on designer drugs in 2006. Does anyone who was there remember that uncert w/ special fondness these 12 yrs later? I hope so.
At that Higgins reading, I remember thinking that he went on for too long & that it wasn't really that great. SHEESH! I'd love to be able to go thru that experience again!! Soon thereafter, I crossed paths w/ Higgins at a New York Avant Garde Festival & he gave me a Printed Editions catalog. That was the name of the new press that replaced Something Else. I was a little irritated that he was giving me advertising & I didn't think that the new press name was as good as the old one had been. I saw Higgins again at Jackson Mac Low's 60th birthday party / performance event at a church in NYC in September, 1982. A friend of mine who was sitting next to me asked me who he was & I whispered something to the effect of He's a Fluxus guy, published some great stuff on his own Something Else Press, done some interesting writing & performance. I wasn't exactly raving about him. The point is that in retrospect I think I UNDERAPPRECIATED Higgins at the time. Now I wish I'd taken the time to get to know him better.
I feel fortunate to've been able to find this bk. I'm sure Higgins has plenty of publications but they're probably mostly on small presses & long since out-of-print. This a play. On the back cover it's described as:
"The Journey is a collage of parlor game, Renaissance pageant, broken record, crazy wisdom, wild west show and fluxus feedback. Its madcap pacing and wily, kinetic language never spin out of control; as though the play's theme were some kind of dead star no longer capable of illuminating the action, but by virtue of its "gravitational pull" keeping it circling it.
"Perhaps the rite performed by the characters in the final scene—"The Monument to an Unknown Saint"—reflects this dynamic; if so, it is at once homage and reflex. The "monument" represents whatever you—as reader—might bring to the play. The Journey is a cosmology; and the monument to an unknown saint is its Big Bang, its exploding template."
So what if that's hyperbole? The play is still in its own category. It's not really absurdist, it's not really Theater of the Ridiculous, it's not really a happening, it's not really a political play, it's not really symbolist — but it has a little of all of those in it. It's interesting to me that it was actually performed:
"The Journey was produced by Apple Blossom Productions on December 8, 1988, running for the weekends of December 8-11 and 15-18 at the Mid-Hudson Arts and Science Center, Poughkeepsie, New York. The cast featured Elizabeth Benedict, Keith Kupferer, Brennan McKenzie, John LeFever, Will Murchison and Keith Teller, who also directed." - p 32
That's something I wd very much have liked to witness. As probably w/ all plays, seeing it brought to life off the page wd make a huge difference.
Scene One has no color instructions, just "Darkness". Each scene is short. This 1st scene introduces all the characters. Here's a taste:
"PICKLE MAN: Absolutely delightful. He wants to dance alone.
"WALRUS MAN: They're real Reaganites.
"PICKLE MAN: I doubt they know what that means either. After all, Reagan didn't.
"LILY MAN: Is there anything you don't doubt?
"PICKLE MAN: I doubt it, except—
"LILY MAN: Absolutely!
"BUFFALO MAN: Oh God!
"WALRUS MAN: He wants to dance alone. Absolutely alone. (A film of buffalo stampeding is projected, and some 1920's dance music is heard, but only briefly; the film breaks. Short silence and darkness. Spotlight on Buffalo Man dancing alone on stage. Fade. Curtain.)" - p 9
As a 65 yr old it's strange knowing that something like "Reaganites" might require explication for many of the readers of this review. Ronald Reagan was an actor, many thought of him as a '2nd rate actor'. He was 'conservative'. He became the governor of California. He was notorious for suppressing progressive causes, in particular persecuting black radicals. He became president of the US & served 2 terms. For me & others like me, the election of an actor to the presidency signified a full-blown flaunting of a puppet figure. It was mind-bogglingly repulsive. I voted for the 1st time in 1984 to try to prevent his serving a 2nd term. I failed. That added to my suspicion that the elections were rigged.
A "Reaganite", of course, was someone who supported Reagan & his political policies — one of wch was to weaponize off-planet space. It was during the Reagan regime that the US supported many covert wars in Latin America. Such policies were little more than an echoing of the criminal behavior of William Walker from the century before (witness my "Filibuster" reading here: https://youtu.be/7iU87E_2Y2s ).
The next scene designates color:
"Red, in Front of the Curtain and in the Audience. Walrus Man enters and speaks to the audience from the side.
"WALRUS MAN: You've been to weddings, I'm sure. Well, now you're at a redding. Anyone who would like may come up here and be reddened, please do so. Volunteers? (Pause: if anyone comes up to him, he reddens what he can with red powder, make-up or paint. This is done with maximum ceremony. Any speech is ad lib. When this is over, he bows to the audience.) Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. And since, in my heart of hearts, I seem to need some redding myself, I now offer you—may it please the Lord Jehovah—my heart in redness!! (Pours red paint and/or powder all over himself." - p 11
Reading this as a black & white text doesn't 'do it justice'. I'm sure that having every scene be specifically colored produces a strong visual effect. Scene 3 is:
"Amber light throughout, starting with a spotlight on The Exploding Woman's head, following her movements, slowly spreading to include her whole body and then, gradually, fading up to blanket the stage. Shadows of trees, suggesting a forest, appear where indicated." - p 14
Scene 4 is yellow:
"Throughout this scene, according to some system developed by the lighting designer, all kinds of yellow light are projected, some large, some small, some spotlights, some floodlights, some perhaps with images, some darker or warmer or richer, some from overhead, some from the side. They constantly but slowly shift in and out." - p 17
I like these staging/lighting instructions but, nonetheless, what's a bit strange to me as a DIY type is the way Higgins takes for granted that other people will fill in the gaps for him: that there'll be a "lighting designer", e.g..
I find much of this play funny. Take this from Scene 4:
"Then there was the evening of the monks. My roommate decided to invite some monks—he was a spiritual kind of person, you know, and he decided we'd been getting away too far from spiritual things, so we needed some monks. So he got on the phone, and invited six—seven—eight monks of various kinds. I didn't know monks would come if you phoned. Should I start a Dial-a-Monk service?" - p 17
Scene 5 is green & features only, appropriately enuf, the PICKLE MAN:
"Green light, and insipidly sweet music—Albert Ketelbey's "Sanctuary of the Heart" for instance. Slow-moving green projections with dark areas, suggesting a tropical forest.
"PICKLE MAN (entering downstage): Given what I've just seen—is it any wonder that I find it hard to take anyone seriously? Least of all myself—but so it goes. I've replaced the Life of Redemption with a Life of Preemption. But nobody knows better than I what I've lost. I know all about the fine print, but cannot, for the life of me, read the capital letters. I know how much everything costs, but I have no sense of what it's worth." - p 20
There's color in the word play:
"Purple light. Soft renaissance music. Chicken Man and Buffalo Man enter L in front of the curtain.
"BUFFALO MAN: This is the purple place, isn't it?
"CHICKEN MAN: It must be.
"BUFFALO MAN: The lost tribes had nothing like this.
"CHICKEN MAN: What lost tribes?
"BUFFALO MAN: My lost tribes. The purple hills behind our village. Our vanished watering holes and grazing lands.
"CHICKEN MAN: What are you talking about?
"BUFFALO MAN: Anger and hurt, my friend. Say, whatever happened to Red?
"CHICKEN MAN: Red? I don't know—some of him got into the purple, I guess.
"BUFFALO MAN: And just what do you mean by that?
"CHICKEN MAN: Well, purple has blue and red, doesn't it?
"BUFFALO MAN: But I didn't mean the color, I meant our friend Red.
"CHICKEN MAN: I know you did, but there wasn't much difference between him and it, and he got into the Program. After a while he got blue—and the result, well, you can see for yourself, this is a very purple place.
"BUFFALO MAN: True enough.
"CHICKEN MAN: Well, when Red gets the blues he turns purple." - p 25
The play ends:
"THE EXPLODING WOMAN: But—watch your step—(The statue explodes. All gaze at it dumbfounded. The curtain falls rapidly.)" - p 30
I generally prefer things that're in their own category, that don't easily fit into genres. The Journey: eight colored scenes probably qualifies. Nonetheless, as I was reading it I found myself wishing that I found more profound content in it.. or something. Very few plays have deeply impressed me upon reading them. Alfred Jarry's Caesar Antichrist is probably one of them — but, then, I read that over 40 yrs ago when I was considerably less jaded than I am now.
Dick Higgins's The Journey: eight colored scenes
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 29, 2018
W/ this review I will've actually succeeded in reviewing every bk I've read this yr w/in its yr of reading. Usually, I begin the next yr reviewing bks I actually finished at the end of the previous yr. 'So the fuck what?!' you exclaim angrily! Ok, ok, chill out.
Dick Higgins is an important figure to me. I probably 1st learned about him & his Something Else Press in 1975 when I was 21 yrs old, living w/ my friend Chas Brohawn, & researching Fluxus at the Enoch Pratt Central Free Library. I loved Fluxus, I loved Something Else Press, I loved the Great Bear pamphlets that Higgins also published.
I 1st met Higgins a few yrs later when he came to Baltimore to give a reading at my friend Marshall Reese's apartment sometime in the late '70s. The fact that he did this at all for an audience of maybe 10 people still boggles my mind. Ed Sanders gave a reading in someone's private 2 car garage around the same time. Here were these people who were major figures for me coming to Baltimore & reading under astonishingly bad conditions. I respect that. Of course, I've done the same thing. I gave a concert in someone's bedroom to a small group of maybe 20 people who all seemed high on designer drugs in 2006. Does anyone who was there remember that uncert w/ special fondness these 12 yrs later? I hope so.
At that Higgins reading, I remember thinking that he went on for too long & that it wasn't really that great. SHEESH! I'd love to be able to go thru that experience again!! Soon thereafter, I crossed paths w/ Higgins at a New York Avant Garde Festival & he gave me a Printed Editions catalog. That was the name of the new press that replaced Something Else. I was a little irritated that he was giving me advertising & I didn't think that the new press name was as good as the old one had been. I saw Higgins again at Jackson Mac Low's 60th birthday party / performance event at a church in NYC in September, 1982. A friend of mine who was sitting next to me asked me who he was & I whispered something to the effect of He's a Fluxus guy, published some great stuff on his own Something Else Press, done some interesting writing & performance. I wasn't exactly raving about him. The point is that in retrospect I think I UNDERAPPRECIATED Higgins at the time. Now I wish I'd taken the time to get to know him better.
I feel fortunate to've been able to find this bk. I'm sure Higgins has plenty of publications but they're probably mostly on small presses & long since out-of-print. This a play. On the back cover it's described as:
"The Journey is a collage of parlor game, Renaissance pageant, broken record, crazy wisdom, wild west show and fluxus feedback. Its madcap pacing and wily, kinetic language never spin out of control; as though the play's theme were some kind of dead star no longer capable of illuminating the action, but by virtue of its "gravitational pull" keeping it circling it.
"Perhaps the rite performed by the characters in the final scene—"The Monument to an Unknown Saint"—reflects this dynamic; if so, it is at once homage and reflex. The "monument" represents whatever you—as reader—might bring to the play. The Journey is a cosmology; and the monument to an unknown saint is its Big Bang, its exploding template."
So what if that's hyperbole? The play is still in its own category. It's not really absurdist, it's not really Theater of the Ridiculous, it's not really a happening, it's not really a political play, it's not really symbolist — but it has a little of all of those in it. It's interesting to me that it was actually performed:
"The Journey was produced by Apple Blossom Productions on December 8, 1988, running for the weekends of December 8-11 and 15-18 at the Mid-Hudson Arts and Science Center, Poughkeepsie, New York. The cast featured Elizabeth Benedict, Keith Kupferer, Brennan McKenzie, John LeFever, Will Murchison and Keith Teller, who also directed." - p 32
That's something I wd very much have liked to witness. As probably w/ all plays, seeing it brought to life off the page wd make a huge difference.
Scene One has no color instructions, just "Darkness". Each scene is short. This 1st scene introduces all the characters. Here's a taste:
"PICKLE MAN: Absolutely delightful. He wants to dance alone.
"WALRUS MAN: They're real Reaganites.
"PICKLE MAN: I doubt they know what that means either. After all, Reagan didn't.
"LILY MAN: Is there anything you don't doubt?
"PICKLE MAN: I doubt it, except—
"LILY MAN: Absolutely!
"BUFFALO MAN: Oh God!
"WALRUS MAN: He wants to dance alone. Absolutely alone. (A film of buffalo stampeding is projected, and some 1920's dance music is heard, but only briefly; the film breaks. Short silence and darkness. Spotlight on Buffalo Man dancing alone on stage. Fade. Curtain.)" - p 9
As a 65 yr old it's strange knowing that something like "Reaganites" might require explication for many of the readers of this review. Ronald Reagan was an actor, many thought of him as a '2nd rate actor'. He was 'conservative'. He became the governor of California. He was notorious for suppressing progressive causes, in particular persecuting black radicals. He became president of the US & served 2 terms. For me & others like me, the election of an actor to the presidency signified a full-blown flaunting of a puppet figure. It was mind-bogglingly repulsive. I voted for the 1st time in 1984 to try to prevent his serving a 2nd term. I failed. That added to my suspicion that the elections were rigged.
A "Reaganite", of course, was someone who supported Reagan & his political policies — one of wch was to weaponize off-planet space. It was during the Reagan regime that the US supported many covert wars in Latin America. Such policies were little more than an echoing of the criminal behavior of William Walker from the century before (witness my "Filibuster" reading here: https://youtu.be/7iU87E_2Y2s ).
The next scene designates color:
"Red, in Front of the Curtain and in the Audience. Walrus Man enters and speaks to the audience from the side.
"WALRUS MAN: You've been to weddings, I'm sure. Well, now you're at a redding. Anyone who would like may come up here and be reddened, please do so. Volunteers? (Pause: if anyone comes up to him, he reddens what he can with red powder, make-up or paint. This is done with maximum ceremony. Any speech is ad lib. When this is over, he bows to the audience.) Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. And since, in my heart of hearts, I seem to need some redding myself, I now offer you—may it please the Lord Jehovah—my heart in redness!! (Pours red paint and/or powder all over himself." - p 11
Reading this as a black & white text doesn't 'do it justice'. I'm sure that having every scene be specifically colored produces a strong visual effect. Scene 3 is:
"Amber light throughout, starting with a spotlight on The Exploding Woman's head, following her movements, slowly spreading to include her whole body and then, gradually, fading up to blanket the stage. Shadows of trees, suggesting a forest, appear where indicated." - p 14
Scene 4 is yellow:
"Throughout this scene, according to some system developed by the lighting designer, all kinds of yellow light are projected, some large, some small, some spotlights, some floodlights, some perhaps with images, some darker or warmer or richer, some from overhead, some from the side. They constantly but slowly shift in and out." - p 17
I like these staging/lighting instructions but, nonetheless, what's a bit strange to me as a DIY type is the way Higgins takes for granted that other people will fill in the gaps for him: that there'll be a "lighting designer", e.g..
I find much of this play funny. Take this from Scene 4:
"Then there was the evening of the monks. My roommate decided to invite some monks—he was a spiritual kind of person, you know, and he decided we'd been getting away too far from spiritual things, so we needed some monks. So he got on the phone, and invited six—seven—eight monks of various kinds. I didn't know monks would come if you phoned. Should I start a Dial-a-Monk service?" - p 17
Scene 5 is green & features only, appropriately enuf, the PICKLE MAN:
"Green light, and insipidly sweet music—Albert Ketelbey's "Sanctuary of the Heart" for instance. Slow-moving green projections with dark areas, suggesting a tropical forest.
"PICKLE MAN (entering downstage): Given what I've just seen—is it any wonder that I find it hard to take anyone seriously? Least of all myself—but so it goes. I've replaced the Life of Redemption with a Life of Preemption. But nobody knows better than I what I've lost. I know all about the fine print, but cannot, for the life of me, read the capital letters. I know how much everything costs, but I have no sense of what it's worth." - p 20
There's color in the word play:
"Purple light. Soft renaissance music. Chicken Man and Buffalo Man enter L in front of the curtain.
"BUFFALO MAN: This is the purple place, isn't it?
"CHICKEN MAN: It must be.
"BUFFALO MAN: The lost tribes had nothing like this.
"CHICKEN MAN: What lost tribes?
"BUFFALO MAN: My lost tribes. The purple hills behind our village. Our vanished watering holes and grazing lands.
"CHICKEN MAN: What are you talking about?
"BUFFALO MAN: Anger and hurt, my friend. Say, whatever happened to Red?
"CHICKEN MAN: Red? I don't know—some of him got into the purple, I guess.
"BUFFALO MAN: And just what do you mean by that?
"CHICKEN MAN: Well, purple has blue and red, doesn't it?
"BUFFALO MAN: But I didn't mean the color, I meant our friend Red.
"CHICKEN MAN: I know you did, but there wasn't much difference between him and it, and he got into the Program. After a while he got blue—and the result, well, you can see for yourself, this is a very purple place.
"BUFFALO MAN: True enough.
"CHICKEN MAN: Well, when Red gets the blues he turns purple." - p 25
The play ends:
"THE EXPLODING WOMAN: But—watch your step—(The statue explodes. All gaze at it dumbfounded. The curtain falls rapidly.)" - p 30
I generally prefer things that're in their own category, that don't easily fit into genres. The Journey: eight colored scenes probably qualifies. Nonetheless, as I was reading it I found myself wishing that I found more profound content in it.. or something. Very few plays have deeply impressed me upon reading them. Alfred Jarry's Caesar Antichrist is probably one of them — but, then, I read that over 40 yrs ago when I was considerably less jaded than I am now.
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