DEAR HANOI JANE(FONDA)
context....this was written after i left ut texas,and servEd as a healing tool, nothing else.
TO BE READ IN AN ACTIVIST'SVOICE:Dear Hanoi Jane,Jane,you were right. Right to say that you were wrong back then.It was wrong of you not to do what everybody else was doing and right now to say that you were wrong then.You are right, you should not have sympathesized with the Viet Cong because many, many Americans thought that you were wrong.You should not have spoken against involvment of American troops in Vietnam because the majority of Americans thought that it was right for them to be there. Majority rules, Jane.You were wrong then and right now.Shame on you ,Jane. You should feel guilty now for having been one of the first Americans to be let into North Vietnam by Ho Chi Minh.You traitor,you.But now that you are almost 60 and wiser and have stopped fighting and joined the rest of the world, you have a chance to feel bad for awhile and then good.Now more and more people can run up to you in airports these days as was reported by the media recently, and throw their arms around you, the prodigal daughter, the good American girl, returning home to group think. We all make mistakes ,Jane, even you and as you age, you will discover even more of them!
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC'S VOICE:The reason I'm congratulating you , Jane, is because I feel the same way,Jane. Yes Jane, I'm home now and I feel wrong, not better,just wrong. Actually I'm almost 60 too and I'm very sorry for what I have done just as you are sorry for what you did.I'm sorry Jane that I didall of those scary, awfull,outrageous performances all of these years. Shame on me, Jane, I'm also a traitor.Just like you!
TO BE READ IN A BRITISH CRITIC'S VOICE:Ms Montano, how absurd, how utterly absurd.Your work is revolutionary, important and presents a critical art/life paradigm essential to the historical perspective of the post-modern dialectic. The paradoxes presented in your visionary hermeticism and comedic dramaturgy address not only a performatively brilliant stance but efficaciously interface minimalist conceptualism with Dionisian/autobiographical/tantric excess. As a woman of culture and learning you deserve the applause and endless commendations which accompany your legendary name.
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC VOICE:Maybe but shame on you, Jane.I mean shame on me,sorry! I have always been very innocent and naive and idealistic. Really!I was just like you but now I see students imitating the performances art receipe for all of the wrong reasons...for the fame, for tabloid covers, for sit-com spots, for e-commerce sites, for Hugh Hefner spreads, for reality shows. And Jane, I do admit that we weren't angels, not at all. We all wanted those movie contracts, those retrospectives, those broadway shows,but we are still very talented, creative and good artist from the old school, eventhough we are in a bit of a muddle right now.It's just that our good intentions and radical work got twisted by time and now we should really feel shame and sorrow for having glutted the galleries and performance spaces with out creative outrages and eschewed visions. Right, Jane?
TO BE READ IN A BRITISH CRITIC'S VOICE:Poppycock! Ms.Montano, you are a champion of humanity,confideently and optimistically exuding messianic-like depth into you highly sophisticated,elegant and refined iconography.Your philosophic thoughtfullness is culturally available to all and can be studied online or in scholarly journals, those interested can obtain copies of your many paged resume, foundations continue to grant you rewards well deserved and your colleagues all agree that the sacred and profane converge in your original ideations and they garner respect for you,for you are not only one of the primemovers in early performance art of the 70's but are internationally reverenced and renowned in the history of this innovatively challenging art.
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC'S VOICE:Jane,you are sorry for Viet Nam, right? I'm sorry too for alot of the things I've done. I'm sorry that I taught performance art because now it is being imitated by young whippersnappers who have taken it totally out of it's sacred context, it is being commodified and money has upstaged our pure spirit and honest approach to matter.These young people joke around and this jocularity is being substituted for what was for us in the 70's a highly concentrated rite of passage wherein we were able to cultivate trance, attentional depths and minds bordering on enlightened. Performance art was different then, Jane.Right? Jane, are you understanding why I feel so guilty, just like you do?TO BE READ IN A BRITISH CRITIC'S VOICE:I will not hear of this. Montano, your teaching style is impeccable and your educational intentionality has inspired thousands, permissioning them to pursue their art practice with a grace, refinement and restraint which skillfully and coherently allows them to aesthetically and financially travel the depths of their creative subconscious, only to return to freely and unabashedly express their visions to audiences who hunger for their innovative voices and visions.If we were to compare your skills, Montano, to those of the average person on the street, we might mention that you,Montano have aesthetic alertness and precesion similar to that of a board certified eye surgeon performing a cataract operation on a well loved relative..You are that carefull with your art and your life.Let the secret enrollers of the Macarthur Grant hear this. Reward this woman, please!Let Guggenheim do the same,Let's buy her extensive archive and produce her DVD! Let's give her anything she wants. We need her voice! We need this champion of culture, this living legend.
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC'S VOICE:Let's get back to the truth.You know Jane Fonda, we were the original performance artists, you and I.We were innocently doing our work without backbiting or competetiveness, without greed or the need for fame. These young people now, on TV, are becoming survivors instead of fine artists.It's all backwards Jane and we were never like that, right? We were more interested in conceptual practices, in sculpting form, shape ,color, time and our bodies with our ideas, right Jane? That's what we thought we were teaching when we taught performance art, right? But I was wrong Jane because today I saw a child-girl in a very conservative upstate NY village, walking around as if dazed and half drugged,half dressed, as if performing visibility/mask/body art/endurance/taboo all without an announcement of the show, all there for the public to witness .It's the stuff we did, Jane.It looked so familiar and yet I was shocked when I realized that 4 years ago, I would have applauded her urban neurosis and need to be seen performatively and yet today, Jane,I wanted her to go home to Mom, eat a bowl of home made soup and receive a nurturing/authentic hug.
TO BE READ IN A BRITISH CRITIC'S VOICE:Rediculous Montano, get a grip.You are and always have been a highly principled and morally outstanding exemplar of virtue.You've ennobled performance art with symbolistic/spiritual nourishment, with a severe and austere re-seeing of endurance. You've provided a cyborgian dismissal of outdated physicality, a virtual embracement of technological advances and a cross-cultural remapping of Lacanian discourse.This medicinal interiority, known only to this art form,is one practiced shamanically for centuries by the creative undergroound. Thank you, Ms.Montano .Don't feel shame, feel our thanks.
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC VOICE:But Jane,I'm sorry, not bitter. Sorry and sometimes I don't know why I'm sorry! Probably you're sorry that you made all of those sexy movies, right? Including Barbarella.I'm not being litigious or hostile or aggressive here but performance art has become a pie-in-the-face , and is no longer a dignified chapter in the history of art. The parody, dangerous actions, and disregard for the sanctity of the genre,scares me Jane. Do you feel the same way, that directors imitated your style and made many other Barbarella-looking movies and you ended up mentoring young starlets to be indecent and immodest, just like you were? So like you Jane, I apologize and I'm stopping the game, right here and now. No more art for me just like you probably said, no more movies,no more activism for you, right,Jane?
TO BE READ IN A BRITISH CRITIC'S VOICE:For those of us educated to your credentialed greatness and the vagaries of your career as heyoka, trickster,yogi,mystic,Blakeian genius and technician of consciousnes, your argument Montano does not hold water. You must not leave. Don't give up! Your mensa-like brilliance, excellent powers of aesthetic discrimination , your superior reflections on Truth itself, have lifted the art community to heights unknown in the field. With reverence we honor you as a pioneeer of higher consciousness. And with all due respect, I wish many years of contributions to this work of aesthetic evolution.
TO BE READ IN AN ALCOHOLIC VOICE:Jane, I've included in this letter, a 12 step exercise which has helped me alot.Hope you can use it too.The part about finding a Higher Power has been super.
Sincerely,
A fan.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
MY NURSES AIDE JOB, 1986
SHARING A TRANSITIONMouth
Mouth more open now. Twitches,reflexes gone.No more electrolytes. Smell of sweet lactose in the room. Not of cancer. As if I know what that smells like? Just imagining. Relatives only comfortable if they can small talk. They all stay away now.Fear? She wants white sheets , no patterns or colors. Ice water. Eats orange popsicles as if they werre gourmet meals. Apologizes for sucking them so loudly-proper even at the end.Flesh accordions off her bones.The entire skeletal system is unearthed.I walk her skeleton to the bathroom thinking of Alex and Allyson Grey's performance, circumnavigating together a Tibetan prayer wheel with a skeleton strapped to his back. So glad for artists. They give me images that help me get through daily life.The one-half glass of water that she drinks a day gets absorbed quickly and doesn't seem to dump into her stomach with a sound like other things do. A six inch plastic tube in the esophogus inhibits the cancer from closing the pipe off but the disease seems to have been squeezed down into her stomach and up into her throat as if the tube were an extended hour glass, pushing the enemy away from the site into new areas. Last night her features changed in front of my eyes.She andronized, turned grey, became an oldman/woman.Tha pallor was death. Methadon, the drug given to heroin addicts so that they detoxify but get addicted to the cure,is what she takes.She becomes surreal and poetic on it or is it the lack of food that produces poetry? We joke everyday. A comraderie has been established. Her stomach tumor pumps quickly.I wash her bones.She must weigh 60 or less and sometimes acts embarassed for me to see her and then I remind her that I weighed 80. That helps. Equal pitifulness. Her breasts have slipped down her chest and large nipples lie on floating ribs. As she goes, she gives me gifts of towels, red clothes and an orange jumpsuit for my next year color change. Maybe the art interests her?I give her assurance that the way she did her life was just fine.She was the maverick, the loner, had no God and now worries that she missed out. With no authority whatsoever, I assure her that she did just right. Assurance is more powerfull than my shaky truth telling right now because I have no answers myself. My job is to make her comfortable. Touching her brings back my own body-memory.I must have been horrendous too at 80 pounds.I adjust to seeing her atrophied, hairless torso and am fascinated by the way her mouth opens and closes just like a skeletons. Art training as life. Her words are slow and clear having worked professionally for almost 50 years, she still communicates well and her voice is throaty which seems incongruous and strange coming from that shell of a body. Marlena Deitric sounds and sentences come from the void of her memory and she wisdoms,"Life is one big, tall glass of water.", and "My world is simple now; cold water, medicine and peeing."
Being with her is as intense as being tied with an 8 foot rope for a year.Hmmmmmmm my doing? I wished that my whole life would approximate that level of intensity when I got off the rope and my wishes were heard.Should I unwish that one? We have become inseperable, a relationship of two renegade maverick types.I can tell we are alike, eventhough I never really knew her before. We both don't stand on ceremony, we both follow our own drummer, we both deviate when the muse commands, even when it was not fashionable to do so.She has hallucinated light once. I am surprised that she hasn't done these light journeys more often. Said a flashlight was turned on and coming into her window.Hmmmmmmmmmmm even without God, there seems to be the Presence of Light? She is clinical about it, not scared, but it seems that it is happening because her system is breaking down.Is Light a chemical response to death?I tell her to cultivate it, light that is, because my readings and teachers say LIGHT is a good thing and normal thing. I pass along information but not experience.One night she says,"I'm dying." It is late, i'm alone with her. She asks what she should do? Oye what to say? I get in her bed and hold her and ask the Divine for some words.I say,,"Just do it big!" Now where that prophecy came from I will never know but the combo of the closeness and the suggestion catapults her back into her skeleton and she shouts form one to ten loudly and "bigly", mantraing herself into the room again. She doesn't leave that time. Other times when she dies for 5 seconds or so, she calls it a whiteout.
Now won't sit or walk to the bathroom or sleep deeply.Begins to ask for drugs often, admitting shame that she wants them so much. Wish hospice was around then to make this all easier on everyone, but alas,nobody knew about all of that back then. Refuses to take off her turban. Whisps of straw, not hair by now, stick out of it.Still wears rollers and has the same rollers and turban on for four months. Makes me feel like an inept caregiver but you can only do what you can do given the circumstances and wishes of your client,no? Besides, my hair is always a hippie phenomena as well.
Stasis.Condition unchanging.Worse than death? Bed sores on coccyx.Bones scrape against sheets. Atrophy continues. Spinal column slipped out of place. Eyes rimmed and crusty,mucous strings around mouth. Like Job, she is visiteddaily by a new incapacity.
August 12:Still hasn't taken off turban. Last control. Popsicle, pee, pill she says and she is right. That's it now. Four times a day. The same rhythm. I change bed, give bath, over and over.She told me she was a gourmet cook and conoisseur of taste. Now she eats different kinds of popsicles and rates them the way she used to judge and taste one of her cheese cakes. Am pulling back. Necessity. Not there as much. A new person is doing it with us. At first it is difficult letting anyone else take care of her but the transition has been made.I am no longer savior, God or best nurse. She said the other day weighing in at 50 pounds or so, "I don't feel hungry anymore."I bring the radio up so that she can listen to the Sunday concert.The music dislodges feelings and when I go back upstairs she says that it is hard being here all day and having things done for her.I remind her that she told me she took care of both parents at home and she remembers and says that it was easier to give to them than it is to receive now. You got this Linda? I have to start doing receiving performances or I could be in the same boat some day! She sleeps little .I ask her if she is thinking.She says ,no, if she thought she would be morbid because it is frustrating being so dependent. Maybe because ( )is around she is making a new effort to "eat' which means drinking beef juice. She said the other day,"I don't want to starve."
I leave for Californiato teach and do some performances. Before I go she let me change the turban.I also took out a few rollers.She says she wants to be cremated.I am beyond emotion or sentiment. My cool is either shock or exhaustion.___and ___take over, my time is up. She lives with an elegant dignity still, an old world awareness despite pain and drugs and body-morphing.I give up thoughts of being Mother Theresa fulltime and move to my next work. I will send her a postcard. 1986 LINDA MARY MONTANO
Mouth more open now. Twitches,reflexes gone.No more electrolytes. Smell of sweet lactose in the room. Not of cancer. As if I know what that smells like? Just imagining. Relatives only comfortable if they can small talk. They all stay away now.Fear? She wants white sheets , no patterns or colors. Ice water. Eats orange popsicles as if they werre gourmet meals. Apologizes for sucking them so loudly-proper even at the end.Flesh accordions off her bones.The entire skeletal system is unearthed.I walk her skeleton to the bathroom thinking of Alex and Allyson Grey's performance, circumnavigating together a Tibetan prayer wheel with a skeleton strapped to his back. So glad for artists. They give me images that help me get through daily life.The one-half glass of water that she drinks a day gets absorbed quickly and doesn't seem to dump into her stomach with a sound like other things do. A six inch plastic tube in the esophogus inhibits the cancer from closing the pipe off but the disease seems to have been squeezed down into her stomach and up into her throat as if the tube were an extended hour glass, pushing the enemy away from the site into new areas. Last night her features changed in front of my eyes.She andronized, turned grey, became an oldman/woman.Tha pallor was death. Methadon, the drug given to heroin addicts so that they detoxify but get addicted to the cure,is what she takes.She becomes surreal and poetic on it or is it the lack of food that produces poetry? We joke everyday. A comraderie has been established. Her stomach tumor pumps quickly.I wash her bones.She must weigh 60 or less and sometimes acts embarassed for me to see her and then I remind her that I weighed 80. That helps. Equal pitifulness. Her breasts have slipped down her chest and large nipples lie on floating ribs. As she goes, she gives me gifts of towels, red clothes and an orange jumpsuit for my next year color change. Maybe the art interests her?I give her assurance that the way she did her life was just fine.She was the maverick, the loner, had no God and now worries that she missed out. With no authority whatsoever, I assure her that she did just right. Assurance is more powerfull than my shaky truth telling right now because I have no answers myself. My job is to make her comfortable. Touching her brings back my own body-memory.I must have been horrendous too at 80 pounds.I adjust to seeing her atrophied, hairless torso and am fascinated by the way her mouth opens and closes just like a skeletons. Art training as life. Her words are slow and clear having worked professionally for almost 50 years, she still communicates well and her voice is throaty which seems incongruous and strange coming from that shell of a body. Marlena Deitric sounds and sentences come from the void of her memory and she wisdoms,"Life is one big, tall glass of water.", and "My world is simple now; cold water, medicine and peeing."
Being with her is as intense as being tied with an 8 foot rope for a year.Hmmmmmmm my doing? I wished that my whole life would approximate that level of intensity when I got off the rope and my wishes were heard.Should I unwish that one? We have become inseperable, a relationship of two renegade maverick types.I can tell we are alike, eventhough I never really knew her before. We both don't stand on ceremony, we both follow our own drummer, we both deviate when the muse commands, even when it was not fashionable to do so.She has hallucinated light once. I am surprised that she hasn't done these light journeys more often. Said a flashlight was turned on and coming into her window.Hmmmmmmmmmmm even without God, there seems to be the Presence of Light? She is clinical about it, not scared, but it seems that it is happening because her system is breaking down.Is Light a chemical response to death?I tell her to cultivate it, light that is, because my readings and teachers say LIGHT is a good thing and normal thing. I pass along information but not experience.One night she says,"I'm dying." It is late, i'm alone with her. She asks what she should do? Oye what to say? I get in her bed and hold her and ask the Divine for some words.I say,,"Just do it big!" Now where that prophecy came from I will never know but the combo of the closeness and the suggestion catapults her back into her skeleton and she shouts form one to ten loudly and "bigly", mantraing herself into the room again. She doesn't leave that time. Other times when she dies for 5 seconds or so, she calls it a whiteout.
Now won't sit or walk to the bathroom or sleep deeply.Begins to ask for drugs often, admitting shame that she wants them so much. Wish hospice was around then to make this all easier on everyone, but alas,nobody knew about all of that back then. Refuses to take off her turban. Whisps of straw, not hair by now, stick out of it.Still wears rollers and has the same rollers and turban on for four months. Makes me feel like an inept caregiver but you can only do what you can do given the circumstances and wishes of your client,no? Besides, my hair is always a hippie phenomena as well.
Stasis.Condition unchanging.Worse than death? Bed sores on coccyx.Bones scrape against sheets. Atrophy continues. Spinal column slipped out of place. Eyes rimmed and crusty,mucous strings around mouth. Like Job, she is visiteddaily by a new incapacity.
August 12:Still hasn't taken off turban. Last control. Popsicle, pee, pill she says and she is right. That's it now. Four times a day. The same rhythm. I change bed, give bath, over and over.She told me she was a gourmet cook and conoisseur of taste. Now she eats different kinds of popsicles and rates them the way she used to judge and taste one of her cheese cakes. Am pulling back. Necessity. Not there as much. A new person is doing it with us. At first it is difficult letting anyone else take care of her but the transition has been made.I am no longer savior, God or best nurse. She said the other day weighing in at 50 pounds or so, "I don't feel hungry anymore."I bring the radio up so that she can listen to the Sunday concert.The music dislodges feelings and when I go back upstairs she says that it is hard being here all day and having things done for her.I remind her that she told me she took care of both parents at home and she remembers and says that it was easier to give to them than it is to receive now. You got this Linda? I have to start doing receiving performances or I could be in the same boat some day! She sleeps little .I ask her if she is thinking.She says ,no, if she thought she would be morbid because it is frustrating being so dependent. Maybe because ( )is around she is making a new effort to "eat' which means drinking beef juice. She said the other day,"I don't want to starve."
I leave for Californiato teach and do some performances. Before I go she let me change the turban.I also took out a few rollers.She says she wants to be cremated.I am beyond emotion or sentiment. My cool is either shock or exhaustion.___and ___take over, my time is up. She lives with an elegant dignity still, an old world awareness despite pain and drugs and body-morphing.I give up thoughts of being Mother Theresa fulltime and move to my next work. I will send her a postcard. 1986 LINDA MARY MONTANO
PREDICTIONS: DEATH AND THE 90'S
PREDICTIONS:DEATH AND THE 90'S...........1989
1. CPR will be taught in grammar schools.
2.In order to die we will need the permission of a lawyer.
3.Senior citizens willmoveout ofstate and out of country so they can die peacefully ,naturally and meditatively.
4.The gay community will de-taboo death.
5.TV will de-taboo death.
6."Death"will be able to be practiced on the computer using virtual reality as a methodology approximating the way Yogis practice in meditation.
7.A class called Conscious Dying will be offered on TV in place of QVC.
8.Coffins will become living room furniture.
9.The general public will give up fear of buying the least expensive pine box for their loved one's body and will never, ever be coerced by guilt into expensive funerals.
10.Cremations will become mandatory.
11According to their religious beliefs,.every family will house one of the following:a live-in Tibetan Lama,Catholic Priest,Buddhist Monk,Nun,hospice volunteer or Rabbi who will be available on a daily basis and at death to offer teachings on the Sacrament of forgiveness, the Bardo,meditation and other ways of achieving inner peace.
12.Carlos Castaneda's advice that we make death our advisor will be understood and practiced.13. St Francis called death,Sister Death,and was not afraid of her.We will do the same.
14. Your ideas:
1. CPR will be taught in grammar schools.
2.In order to die we will need the permission of a lawyer.
3.Senior citizens willmoveout ofstate and out of country so they can die peacefully ,naturally and meditatively.
4.The gay community will de-taboo death.
5.TV will de-taboo death.
6."Death"will be able to be practiced on the computer using virtual reality as a methodology approximating the way Yogis practice in meditation.
7.A class called Conscious Dying will be offered on TV in place of QVC.
8.Coffins will become living room furniture.
9.The general public will give up fear of buying the least expensive pine box for their loved one's body and will never, ever be coerced by guilt into expensive funerals.
10.Cremations will become mandatory.
11According to their religious beliefs,.every family will house one of the following:a live-in Tibetan Lama,Catholic Priest,Buddhist Monk,Nun,hospice volunteer or Rabbi who will be available on a daily basis and at death to offer teachings on the Sacrament of forgiveness, the Bardo,meditation and other ways of achieving inner peace.
12.Carlos Castaneda's advice that we make death our advisor will be understood and practiced.13. St Francis called death,Sister Death,and was not afraid of her.We will do the same.
14. Your ideas:
2 POEMS
THE FACING LIFE AWARD
Context: At a 1991 faculty show, UT Texas,I had this award engraved over a photo of my face with my eyes closed and included it in my installation.My face was beginning to show signs of menopause and this was my response.
THE FACING LIFE AWARD:1991
If my face is not burned beyond recognition in a fire or shot at by carjackers, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not smashed by falling rocks in an earthquake or covered by Karposi's sarcoma, it might look like this when I die.If my face is not smashed beyond recognition by a rapist or paralyzed by a stroke, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not excessively wrinkled by sun overexposure or twisted by Parkinsons, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not ravaged with pain from cancer of the breast, colon, bone , brain, or infantalized by Alzheimers,it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not vacated by a coma or crushed by an eighteen wheeler, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not shattered by a terrorist bomb or soured from bitterness, surgical intervention or fear of aging, it might look like this when I die.
PORTRAIT OF SAPPHO
Context: Pauline Oliveros invited me to be on a CD collection of women composers.I recorded myself chanting this poem.
PORTRAIT OF SAPPHO
My name is Sappho of Lesbos.
Once, I had 206 bones in my body.
Once, I had 33 vertebrae in my body.
My intestines were once 22 feet long.
Once, I had 10 billion nerve cells in my spinal chord.
Once, there were 5-9 pints of blood in my body.
Once, my heart pumped 1.5 gallons of blood throughout my body every minute.
Once, I had 12 pairs of ribs in my body.
Once, I had 650 muscles in my body.
Once, I had 33 vertebrae in my body.
Once, there were 3 million sweat glands in my body.
Once, my muscles mad up one-half the weight of my body.
Once, my lungs expanded and contracted 12-20 times in my body.
Once, my brain was composed of more than 12 billion neurons and 50 billion supporting cells.
Once, there were one and a half pounds of skin shed by my body.
Once a month,I replaced my outer skin and in my lifetime, I had 900 new skins.
My heart was a muscle the size of a grapefruit.
Once, my heart pumped 766,600 gallons of blood every year.
Once, my heart.....
Once,my heart.....
My heart.......
My heart.................
Context: At a 1991 faculty show, UT Texas,I had this award engraved over a photo of my face with my eyes closed and included it in my installation.My face was beginning to show signs of menopause and this was my response.
THE FACING LIFE AWARD:1991
If my face is not burned beyond recognition in a fire or shot at by carjackers, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not smashed by falling rocks in an earthquake or covered by Karposi's sarcoma, it might look like this when I die.If my face is not smashed beyond recognition by a rapist or paralyzed by a stroke, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not excessively wrinkled by sun overexposure or twisted by Parkinsons, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not ravaged with pain from cancer of the breast, colon, bone , brain, or infantalized by Alzheimers,it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not vacated by a coma or crushed by an eighteen wheeler, it might look like this when I die.
If my face is not shattered by a terrorist bomb or soured from bitterness, surgical intervention or fear of aging, it might look like this when I die.
PORTRAIT OF SAPPHO
Context: Pauline Oliveros invited me to be on a CD collection of women composers.I recorded myself chanting this poem.
PORTRAIT OF SAPPHO
My name is Sappho of Lesbos.
Once, I had 206 bones in my body.
Once, I had 33 vertebrae in my body.
My intestines were once 22 feet long.
Once, I had 10 billion nerve cells in my spinal chord.
Once, there were 5-9 pints of blood in my body.
Once, my heart pumped 1.5 gallons of blood throughout my body every minute.
Once, I had 12 pairs of ribs in my body.
Once, I had 650 muscles in my body.
Once, I had 33 vertebrae in my body.
Once, there were 3 million sweat glands in my body.
Once, my muscles mad up one-half the weight of my body.
Once, my lungs expanded and contracted 12-20 times in my body.
Once, my brain was composed of more than 12 billion neurons and 50 billion supporting cells.
Once, there were one and a half pounds of skin shed by my body.
Once a month,I replaced my outer skin and in my lifetime, I had 900 new skins.
My heart was a muscle the size of a grapefruit.
Once, my heart pumped 766,600 gallons of blood every year.
Once, my heart.....
Once,my heart.....
My heart.......
My heart.................
Friday, March 9, 2012
LETTER TO 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART
A LETTER TO MY PERFORMANCE: 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART
Dear 14 Years of Living Art,
This letter is an apology to you.You, the biggest,longest,most transforming,most encompassing,most generous,and most complex performance of my life.I can't sing your praises here. Why?
Because there are not 34874878 pages in this book, I will not be able to tell the reader about Dr. R.S.Mishra and the way he introduced his students to the chakras, day after day,year after year using color charts,chants,meditations and art practice.
Because there are not 276767673 pages in this book, I will not be able to include the essay Moira Roth wrote which describes 7 Years of Living Art. Everyone who visited me for seven years at The New Museum where I performed Art/Life Counseling, was given a copy of the essay which was printed on paper the color of the clothes I wore that year.
Because there are not 57873877 pages in this book,I will not be able to include the year-end reports I wrote for the first 7 Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 958487875 pages in this book,I cannot include Jennifer Fisher's essay from Parachute magazine.
Because there are not 94885775 pages in this book,I will not be able to describe the Summer Saint Camp I held each year for 2 weeks,or name the participants and first meetings with subsequent friends Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Vera and Barbara Carrelas.
Because there are not 48746746 pages in this book,I will not be able to tell Tehching Hsieh that he is an important influence on my work and has enriched my love of endurance.
Because there are not 485787576 pages in this book,I will not be able to tell the reader about the syncronistical aspects of the performance:that I completed menopause at the end of 7 Years of Living Art(1984-1991), and completed teaching in Texas at the end of Another 7 Years of Living Art(1991-1998).
Because there are not 587857 pages in this book,I cannot tell in detail that I am continuing this performance and it is titled,21 Years of Living Art(1998-2019),asking three people to perform for seven years in any way they wish.
Because there are not 597857875 pages in this book, I won't be able to include a chart created by Caroline Myss(ex-nun), who interfaces the Kabbalah,Catholic Sacraments and Chakras in a brilliant way .Her chart helped ease my return to Catholicism.
Because there are not 8758587 pages in this book,I will not be able to talk about the website the Robert Shiffler Foundationproduced.(WWW.LINDAMONTANO.COM)Peter Huttinger curated the site and it includes many images from 14 Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 45987587587 pages in this book, I will not be able to talk in depth about the courage of Marcia Tucker,director of The New Museum at that time, and her willingness to include a seven year installation-room at the museum where I performed Art/Life Counseling once a month for seven years .The space was painted a different color each year.
Because there are not 549858757 pages in this book,I will not be able to describe in detail the way I drew one image each year and limited myself to one drawing a year for seven years,drawing with my right hand ,year 1-7;and then for the next seven years of the performance I drew the same drawing with my left hand.
Because there are not 98498494 pages in this book, I will not be able to talk in detail about the two retrospectives I had of relics from 14 Years of Living Art. One, was curated by Carolyn Eyler in Maine; the other, by Jennifer Fisher, in Montreal.
Because there are not 948944787 pages in this book, I will not be able to describe the photo images Annie Sprinkle took of me imitating the seven mudras from the seven drawings.
Because there are not 487985787 pages in this book, I will not be able to fully describe Martha Wilson's report of going to "see" me at the United Nations Chagall Chapell , where I had donated my invisible self as a Living Sculpture for seven years during Another 7 Years of Living Art.Seasonally I "appeared"there for seven years,having "really"appeared at The New Museum for the first seven years of 7Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 5489587587587 pages in this book,I willl not be able to talk about the joys of making endurance vows.
In conclusion,14 Years of Living Art,my champion,my secret one, this is the last time I will write about you for seven more years.It is now January 10,2004. My new no-writng vow begins January 18,2004.With more space around you,maybe you will learn to fly by yourself!
Love, thanks, do you best and good luck,Linda.
Dear 14 Years of Living Art,
This letter is an apology to you.You, the biggest,longest,most transforming,most encompassing,most generous,and most complex performance of my life.I can't sing your praises here. Why?
Because there are not 34874878 pages in this book, I will not be able to tell the reader about Dr. R.S.Mishra and the way he introduced his students to the chakras, day after day,year after year using color charts,chants,meditations and art practice.
Because there are not 276767673 pages in this book, I will not be able to include the essay Moira Roth wrote which describes 7 Years of Living Art. Everyone who visited me for seven years at The New Museum where I performed Art/Life Counseling, was given a copy of the essay which was printed on paper the color of the clothes I wore that year.
Because there are not 57873877 pages in this book,I will not be able to include the year-end reports I wrote for the first 7 Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 958487875 pages in this book,I cannot include Jennifer Fisher's essay from Parachute magazine.
Because there are not 94885775 pages in this book,I will not be able to describe the Summer Saint Camp I held each year for 2 weeks,or name the participants and first meetings with subsequent friends Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Vera and Barbara Carrelas.
Because there are not 48746746 pages in this book,I will not be able to tell Tehching Hsieh that he is an important influence on my work and has enriched my love of endurance.
Because there are not 485787576 pages in this book,I will not be able to tell the reader about the syncronistical aspects of the performance:that I completed menopause at the end of 7 Years of Living Art(1984-1991), and completed teaching in Texas at the end of Another 7 Years of Living Art(1991-1998).
Because there are not 587857 pages in this book,I cannot tell in detail that I am continuing this performance and it is titled,21 Years of Living Art(1998-2019),asking three people to perform for seven years in any way they wish.
Because there are not 597857875 pages in this book, I won't be able to include a chart created by Caroline Myss(ex-nun), who interfaces the Kabbalah,Catholic Sacraments and Chakras in a brilliant way .Her chart helped ease my return to Catholicism.
Because there are not 8758587 pages in this book,I will not be able to talk about the website the Robert Shiffler Foundationproduced.(WWW.LINDAMONTANO.COM)Peter Huttinger curated the site and it includes many images from 14 Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 45987587587 pages in this book, I will not be able to talk in depth about the courage of Marcia Tucker,director of The New Museum at that time, and her willingness to include a seven year installation-room at the museum where I performed Art/Life Counseling once a month for seven years .The space was painted a different color each year.
Because there are not 549858757 pages in this book,I will not be able to describe in detail the way I drew one image each year and limited myself to one drawing a year for seven years,drawing with my right hand ,year 1-7;and then for the next seven years of the performance I drew the same drawing with my left hand.
Because there are not 98498494 pages in this book, I will not be able to talk in detail about the two retrospectives I had of relics from 14 Years of Living Art. One, was curated by Carolyn Eyler in Maine; the other, by Jennifer Fisher, in Montreal.
Because there are not 948944787 pages in this book, I will not be able to describe the photo images Annie Sprinkle took of me imitating the seven mudras from the seven drawings.
Because there are not 487985787 pages in this book, I will not be able to fully describe Martha Wilson's report of going to "see" me at the United Nations Chagall Chapell , where I had donated my invisible self as a Living Sculpture for seven years during Another 7 Years of Living Art.Seasonally I "appeared"there for seven years,having "really"appeared at The New Museum for the first seven years of 7Years of Living Art.
Because there are not 5489587587587 pages in this book,I willl not be able to talk about the joys of making endurance vows.
In conclusion,14 Years of Living Art,my champion,my secret one, this is the last time I will write about you for seven more years.It is now January 10,2004. My new no-writng vow begins January 18,2004.With more space around you,maybe you will learn to fly by yourself!
Love, thanks, do you best and good luck,Linda.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A PERFORMANCE ARTIST IF...............
YOU KNOW YOU'RE A PERFORMANCE ARTIST IF...........
1. You dress like an angel, astronaut,nurse etc and sing/dance to Jackie Gleason music at your local mall for no apparent reason.
2. You take your front dental plate out at your 30th class reunion and sing My Funny Valentine with the person you liked in the first grade.
3. You gather 1008 identical toasters, spas, outdoor barbequesof metal garages and place them on your front lawnfor a week and then distribute them to the first 1008 practitioners of Tantra.
4.You take a plane to a city you've never visited, choose a departure gate,wave and cry uncoontrollably as passengers leave for their plane. Crying continues until you exit the building.
5.You bring chocolate syrup ,honey or yogurt to your bathroom and pour it over yourself while trying to straighten out an HMO claim on the phone.
6.You dress your pets , your children and partner in identical clothing every Wednesday.
7.You sleep in a coffin that you have made in order to face your fear of dying.
8.You feign loss of control of limbs, words or bodily functions while watching TV (choose any program)alone on a saturday night.
9.You webcast daily 15 minutes every detail of your finances and after a month of disclosures you take an email poll to determine if you should tithe/adopt/support a church, child,senior citizen,third world country, Hospice,unemployed family, artist, teenager or yourself.
10.You voluntarily retire,give yourself the gift of time and take a vow of inner silence.
1. You dress like an angel, astronaut,nurse etc and sing/dance to Jackie Gleason music at your local mall for no apparent reason.
2. You take your front dental plate out at your 30th class reunion and sing My Funny Valentine with the person you liked in the first grade.
3. You gather 1008 identical toasters, spas, outdoor barbequesof metal garages and place them on your front lawnfor a week and then distribute them to the first 1008 practitioners of Tantra.
4.You take a plane to a city you've never visited, choose a departure gate,wave and cry uncoontrollably as passengers leave for their plane. Crying continues until you exit the building.
5.You bring chocolate syrup ,honey or yogurt to your bathroom and pour it over yourself while trying to straighten out an HMO claim on the phone.
6.You dress your pets , your children and partner in identical clothing every Wednesday.
7.You sleep in a coffin that you have made in order to face your fear of dying.
8.You feign loss of control of limbs, words or bodily functions while watching TV (choose any program)alone on a saturday night.
9.You webcast daily 15 minutes every detail of your finances and after a month of disclosures you take an email poll to determine if you should tithe/adopt/support a church, child,senior citizen,third world country, Hospice,unemployed family, artist, teenager or yourself.
10.You voluntarily retire,give yourself the gift of time and take a vow of inner silence.
TERESA OF AVILA: ONE ACT PLAY DIRECTIONS
TERESA OF AVILA: ONE ACT PLAY DIRECTIONS:
This one act play is performatively composed of inter-media elements which, through their repetition,create an atmosphere of relaible solidity and peace.
ELEMENTS:
VIDEO: Throughout the play,an overhead screen projects video images of "Theresa" lip-syncing the text.And where it says pause, "Theresa" demonstrating what penances not to do."Jesus" uses hand gestures to "explain" or sign the Sacraments.
AUDIO:Audio is a pre-recorded tape of the text, so the "actresses and actors" are free to move meditatively and visually without having to "speak" lines. STAGE: Stage is illuminated theatrically by a circle of votive candles but alsolit to illuminate the seven actions of the actresses and actors.
ACTIONS: Fourteen "Carmelite"nuns,and TERESA, very formally and ornately costumed demonstrate the quality of each of the seven scenes of the play.
SCENE 1:They enter carrying a long table, fruit and chairs.Sit down and eat slowly for scene one. FIRST PAUSE, BAPTISM , : Nuns leave, "Jesus" enters, walks through the audience, blessing all with Holy Water from a long branch. He leaves when Baptism is described.
SCENE 2: Fourteen nuns and Teresa enter,seven on stage left, seven on stage right,coming toward each other,imitating the gestures of the Visitation. SECOND PAUSE, COMMUNION: Nuns leave slowly, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water. SCENE 3:Nuns and Teresa enter with a very large rope.Seven pulling from one side, seven from the other.They play tug of war.Teresa goes from side to side.They make real sounds of exertion. THIRD PAUSE: Nuns leave, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE 4, MATRIMONY: Nuns enter with flowing white veils over their heads walking one by one toward Jesus who is mid-stage but raised on a flower dias.They prostrate to him and then get up to receive a ring on their finger from Jesus. FOURTH PAUSE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes into the audience,blessing all.
SCENE FIVE, PENANCE: Nuns enter, all are talking on blinking cell phones, and change phones with each other, running around the stage, but really calling real people in their lives, sharing the conversation with the other "nuns." The calls are to someone they love or someone they need to give forgiveness to so the reality factor is very high here inthis scene. PAUSE FIVE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes to another part of the audience and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE SIX,Holy Orders: Fourteen nuns come into the space with fourteen brooms but each one is wired to glow in the dark as it moves. The nuns"work" the space and the colorform the brooms, illuminates the stage as the nuns "work" their sacred chores. PAUSE SIX: Jesus enters as the nuns leave and he blesses with Holy Water.
SCENE SEVEN, EXTREME UNCTION, SACRAMENT OF THE SICK:Each nun brings a matt to the space, places it in a circular pattern with all of the others,lays down and Jesus enters with fourteen angels who sit next to each nun, laying their "wing" on a different part of the nun's body.Jesus and Teresa stand in the center, walking in a circle,together. ENDING: After the" Let nothing disturb you..." prayer, the audience is invited to come to the stage, in groups of fourteen and lay on the matt for a hands on healing by an "angel"and "nun".
WISHES:I would like the nuns in the play to be actual nuns and the angels, to be brothers or nuns.
This one act play is performatively composed of inter-media elements which, through their repetition,create an atmosphere of relaible solidity and peace.
ELEMENTS:
VIDEO: Throughout the play,an overhead screen projects video images of "Theresa" lip-syncing the text.And where it says pause, "Theresa" demonstrating what penances not to do."Jesus" uses hand gestures to "explain" or sign the Sacraments.
AUDIO:Audio is a pre-recorded tape of the text, so the "actresses and actors" are free to move meditatively and visually without having to "speak" lines. STAGE: Stage is illuminated theatrically by a circle of votive candles but alsolit to illuminate the seven actions of the actresses and actors.
ACTIONS: Fourteen "Carmelite"nuns,and TERESA, very formally and ornately costumed demonstrate the quality of each of the seven scenes of the play.
SCENE 1:They enter carrying a long table, fruit and chairs.Sit down and eat slowly for scene one. FIRST PAUSE, BAPTISM , : Nuns leave, "Jesus" enters, walks through the audience, blessing all with Holy Water from a long branch. He leaves when Baptism is described.
SCENE 2: Fourteen nuns and Teresa enter,seven on stage left, seven on stage right,coming toward each other,imitating the gestures of the Visitation. SECOND PAUSE, COMMUNION: Nuns leave slowly, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water. SCENE 3:Nuns and Teresa enter with a very large rope.Seven pulling from one side, seven from the other.They play tug of war.Teresa goes from side to side.They make real sounds of exertion. THIRD PAUSE: Nuns leave, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE 4, MATRIMONY: Nuns enter with flowing white veils over their heads walking one by one toward Jesus who is mid-stage but raised on a flower dias.They prostrate to him and then get up to receive a ring on their finger from Jesus. FOURTH PAUSE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes into the audience,blessing all.
SCENE FIVE, PENANCE: Nuns enter, all are talking on blinking cell phones, and change phones with each other, running around the stage, but really calling real people in their lives, sharing the conversation with the other "nuns." The calls are to someone they love or someone they need to give forgiveness to so the reality factor is very high here inthis scene. PAUSE FIVE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes to another part of the audience and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE SIX,Holy Orders: Fourteen nuns come into the space with fourteen brooms but each one is wired to glow in the dark as it moves. The nuns"work" the space and the colorform the brooms, illuminates the stage as the nuns "work" their sacred chores. PAUSE SIX: Jesus enters as the nuns leave and he blesses with Holy Water.
SCENE SEVEN, EXTREME UNCTION, SACRAMENT OF THE SICK:Each nun brings a matt to the space, places it in a circular pattern with all of the others,lays down and Jesus enters with fourteen angels who sit next to each nun, laying their "wing" on a different part of the nun's body.Jesus and Teresa stand in the center, walking in a circle,together. ENDING: After the" Let nothing disturb you..." prayer, the audience is invited to come to the stage, in groups of fourteen and lay on the matt for a hands on healing by an "angel"and "nun".
WISHES:I would like the nuns in the play to be actual nuns and the angels, to be brothers or nuns.
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