One day last week, I woke up with one thing on my immediate to-do list: read The Fever by Wallace Shawn. So I did it. I bought the book at Open Books during their final weekend at the River North location. It was listed in the theater section (or was it dramatic literature?) but it's not a play in the conventional sense. There is no action, no dialogue, no characters really. Rather, it is a 67-page monologue about celebrating life and the inherent guilt that thrives in the awareness of living a privileged existence. The fever of the title strikes the narrator while traveling in a country in which they do not speak the language and in which they are forced to viscerally confront poverty and suffering, in a way which their cushy life never even thought to contemplate before hand.
I've read some of Shawn's essays in the past and the dramatic work The Designated Mourner is one of my favorite pieces of anything ever. The Fever, in fact, could be considered a precursor to The Designated Mourner, that although features three characters, they still depend on monologues and rarely interact with each other. I found The Designated Mourner to be more compelling and to go deeper than The Fever, though that may be because it came out seven years after, giving Shawn plenty of time to ruminate on identity, anxiety, man's relationship to the exterior world, and other themes that pop up in his work. In fact, I'll probably reread The Designated Mourner (soon) (again) and see if it's still as compelling (it will be).
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
4.20.2015
The Rothko Room
My experience at The Rothko Room at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. You should go to there.
"No more than eight people at a time. No strollers" a sign commands. A dampness pads the nostrils as you enter the room. You are introduced to four giant canvases on the white walls: red and orange; green, red, and blue; yellow, orange, and red; forest green and orange. Of course, these are not the only colors present. But they have the most presence.
A lattice of wooden floorboards creaks beneath your feet. Have a seat: a creakier bench feels like it may collapse beneath your weight, despite how weightless you feel in this room.
The room. It's quiet. It's calm. Are you calm? It's how Rothko's paintings make me feel. Forget that he's the posterboy for how silly abstract expressionism is represented in the mainstream (maybe behind Pollack). Rothko's paintings outrage many, but they are calming to me. To sit in the Rothko Room, alone, is as close as I've felt to a meditative experience in awhile.
I feel small but I don't feel insignificant. I feel free of desire, but not overwhelmed. I also feel a bit overwhelmed. There is me, four painted canvases, a sliver of a vertical window facing north, and I feel something that not a lot of people have the chance to feel. Does the fact that abstract expressionism creates a serene feeling in me add to my privilege? Should I just lean into my privilege at this point? Stop running away from what I am?
A man walks into the room. He takes one picture. He leaves.
A man walks into the room. He takes four pictures. He stands for a moment. He leaves.
Were these men even in the room?
I sat in this room for five minutes. I spent some time walking around the room, looking at the paintings up close and from afar. I took a selfie with each photo. I left the room. Was I any more present than the previous men? Was I ever even in the room?
"No more than eight people at a time. No strollers" a sign commands. A dampness pads the nostrils as you enter the room. You are introduced to four giant canvases on the white walls: red and orange; green, red, and blue; yellow, orange, and red; forest green and orange. Of course, these are not the only colors present. But they have the most presence.
A lattice of wooden floorboards creaks beneath your feet. Have a seat: a creakier bench feels like it may collapse beneath your weight, despite how weightless you feel in this room.
The room. It's quiet. It's calm. Are you calm? It's how Rothko's paintings make me feel. Forget that he's the posterboy for how silly abstract expressionism is represented in the mainstream (maybe behind Pollack). Rothko's paintings outrage many, but they are calming to me. To sit in the Rothko Room, alone, is as close as I've felt to a meditative experience in awhile.
I feel small but I don't feel insignificant. I feel free of desire, but not overwhelmed. I also feel a bit overwhelmed. There is me, four painted canvases, a sliver of a vertical window facing north, and I feel something that not a lot of people have the chance to feel. Does the fact that abstract expressionism creates a serene feeling in me add to my privilege? Should I just lean into my privilege at this point? Stop running away from what I am?
A man walks into the room. He takes one picture. He leaves.
A man walks into the room. He takes four pictures. He stands for a moment. He leaves.
Were these men even in the room?
I sat in this room for five minutes. I spent some time walking around the room, looking at the paintings up close and from afar. I took a selfie with each photo. I left the room. Was I any more present than the previous men? Was I ever even in the room?
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