3 texts from 1999: 3 - Art the dictator

Art is the dictator when the dead artist rules.
When the dead artist rules, there can be no question.
There can be no question so one must obey.
The reward of obedience is beauty.
Beauty without obedience is false.
Beauty belongs to the dead artist.
Beauty belongs to the past.
The present is ugly because we are ugly.
The present is ugly because it is the present.
The past was beautiful.
We do not deserve the past.
That is why we are living now.

The living artist seeks self-worth.
He knows the dead artist rules.
So naturally he must rule too.
He rules through his art.
So his art is dead before it is born.
Anything else would be questionable.
Beauty is questionable.
Questions are dangerous.
Answers are dangerous.
Answers imply understanding.
To be understood is to be vulnerable.
It is better to die first.

© Devil’s Advocate

3 texts from 1999: 2 - Not the same piece

When a musician sits and plays a piece of Schubert
it is not the same piece which Schubert wrote.
When he wrote it, it was not an object but a process,
through which he gave feeling to the world;
but with the passage of time it became an object,
the object of manipulation.

Feeling is universal - it belongs to us all.
Schubert speaks for us all,
and if we attribute certain feelings to Schubert
it is because we are afraid to own them ourselves,
preferring to handle them through the filter of history.

Is it possible for a player to play without manipulation?
That depends on his motivation.
His sincerity must match Schubert’s sincerity,
and then maybe Schubert can help him to express himself.

3 texts from 1999: 1 - Music belongs to the listener

If the listener owns the music
then all is changed.
If the listener owns the music
he knows his rights.

But he must also recognise
the rights of every other;
and everyone can accept
what the other knows as true.

He can say “I accept
your truth as true for you
but retain my truth
as true for me…

We agree not to differ
but rather to expand
our understanding of what
the TRUTH may be.

We agree to believe
that the TRUTH is far bigger
than anything
that anyONE can see.”

Art need not be a battleground
where people lose self-worth
but rather a marvellous labyrinth
where souls can meet on earth.