You feel related, but you want to circumvent the daunting frame of relational aesthetics. You don’t want to give up your feeling to an interpreter, either. You hate the burden of action, of conclusion. There is no conclusion to history, or art, or when the two come to merge. The performance yet collapses into an open wound, and you’re expected to examine it, and empathize.
It is the second installment of Against the Grain, initiated by the poet Paul Muldoon. You’re surrounded by the immediate friends of the guests tonight, poets, writers, musicians, anyone who might frankly frown upon the midtown dust on your suit. The dust is noisy and cold, like those central AC systems on the 24th floor, and yes, irresponsible. Denial does not help much with your dissonance. You allow yourself to fall for the loose and open composition, until you realize this backstage milieu has become the reality you live in. The percussion, supposedly speaking low to your heart, becomes ever more unsettling. It merges with the poem, language turning visceral, and you suddenly feel lost in an ascending cloud. It urges you to think, understand, and respond —indeed, you do—but you want to repress the provocation. Where is the path leading to? You see the moment is turning historical, embracing the nature that appears so alien. In the smallest dust rises an intelligence that resists the rules of this world. Awakening from the horror surrounding the indie theatre in Williamsburg, you sit tight, tuck away your plastic cup of beer, and join the heartless mammoths on stage at Park Avenue Armory. You stare at the Fachwerkhause that floats on the floor, their shadows heavy and thick as a robe trudging from the Middle Ages, and the rags that drags and pulls before they draw a modern wall-torn map.
Now you miss the grumpy coffee machine, printer, or wifi router, in which you may as well seek the spiritual.