Having re-read my entry concerning the Attention Screen concert, I realize that it may sound as though I didn't like the performance. This, however, is not the case. I liked it very much. I enjoyed it. I even had a good time.
There've just been some things running through my mind. Things. Oh, for lack of better word! Things. What are these things? Inner things and outer things — what are they, but things and things?
Who wrote that? I can't remember. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was Walt Whitman.
Things, I should clarify, concerning communication and the exchange of ideas; the ecstasy of influence. And those things found their ways into my entry. But, something else that I wanted to say was this: The thing that I find really important and special about such "improvised" music — and I do wonder if anything is ever really improvised — is that everything included within the performance space becomes a part of the performance.
Hmm. As I approached the period of that last thought, it occurred to me that it's not only those things within the performance space which can be included, but all things audible to those within the performance space. Even those things — those sounds — coming from outside.
It will take me a little while to find the point, and I will get a little John Cageian on you here, but during the second half of the show, when Jonathan Scull stepped on stage to snap a few photos of the band while they did their thing, it was obvious to me that Jonathan Scull was now a part of the band. Jonathan Scull had, very clearly and unquestionably, entered the performance. Was it only a coincidence that he, too, like all of the other musicians, was dressed entirely in black?
Jonathan Scull. Was he the umbrella, or was he the sewing machine?
I watched him as much as I watched the others. I listened to him as much as I listened to the others. Jonathan was not only a photographer, but a dancer, tip-toeing and bending and stretching and sliding, ever so gingerly, to and with the music. I wanted to get on stage and join him. The music and everything else was nearly enough to free me. I saw myself leaving my seat, jumping on stage, twirling.
And it's that last sentiment — my desire to also become a part of the performance — which I think is so important. To witness the act of creation is to also create. And, when I stamped my foot into the Merkin Concert Hall floor, I made music. And the woman whose earrings dangled and chimed — she made music, too. And the man who sat before us, whose head bobbed and dropped into a dull slumber — he was a dancer, too.
And, beyond the concert hall, in the lobby, where people shuffled and whispered, where people exchanged money for compact discs, an extra-performance was taking place. And, outside the entrance doors, I could swear I heard a bus honk its horn, somehow impossibly in time with Mark Flynn's thunderous tom hits.
If Mark had heard it, I bet he would have done his best to reel it in. At least for a block or two, before moving on to some other thing.
