Before They Were Night Vale: "the very definition of what it is"

It's not hard to piss someone off. You can insult their mother, or call them a rude name, or physically assault them, or whatever. All of that is quite dull, and not really useful. It's just a form of violence, lazily designed to incite action. It's trolling at its most base level. 

A much more interesting way to piss someone off is to find those hidden buttons, those secret keys in their subconscious. The ones that tickle their guilt or shame. Really great art does this all the time. 

My belief is that a vast majority of anger toward other people is actually just externalized guilt. We hate our roommate for the way he doesn't clean dishes thoroughly, but if we took a moment of self-reflection, we might realize that we're mad at ourselves for the same thing. Our dumb roommate is simply reminding our subconscious of our self-loathing. 

Art forces us to see ourselves, and usually we consume art in the passive, safe confines of a lush, dark, quiet theater, or a well-lit, sterile, and spacious museum. So we are afford the space and comfort we need for our thoughts. 

But once art comes to our daily lives, it's a different relationship. A painting at The Met is rarely going to piss you off. But the moment someone spray tags a building or creates theater in a public space, where there are no defined fourth walls, we get uncomfortable. We are forced to ask how much space we truly need. We must see ourselves in the fun-house mirror that the artist presents. And it doesn't matter how narrative, how direct, how political the work. In fact, often nonpolitical works can incite controversy simply by being present in a place we did not expect to see them. 

But why do we get mad? I think the answer varies from incident to incident. And the answer can only be found within. Hopefully we can remember to look at ourselves first for that anger before looking at the artists. 

Here's a monologue I wrote about this very nebulous issue. It's a true story (some of the details might be wrong, like the town and name of the building, but the events themselves are real.) And it has always stuck with me. 

the very definition of what it is
© Jeffrey Cranor, 2012

      [Jeffrey onstage center. Normal lighting. No sound.]

JEFFREY: Years ago, a playwright friend of mine, the late Stuart Litchfield, told me the story of a man back in Stuart's college town of Topeka, Kansas. This man, this artist, made scale cardboard replicas of buildings in Topeka. These cardboard replicas were about 5 feet tall, and fairly detailed. When complete, he would cut a hole in the top and two on the sides and wear it. Then, he would go to that building and walk around it the entire day, dressed as that building.

        [Jeffrey begins walking up the aisle to the back of the house.]

One late morning, as the normal lunch crowd started growing in the ground-floor café where Stuart worked. (I feel like Stuart said it was in the AT&T Building, but I could be wrong on that detail.) That morning, Stuart saw that guy, dressed as the AT&T Building and beginning his daylong march as its tiny twin satellite. Stuart laughed. I mean that guy chose his building.

But the volume in the restaurant rose. It became a commotion. Diners called Stuart over demanding that he have this man removed from the sidewalk. What an annoyance. That Stuart should immediately alert security and have this nuisance - this disturbance - sent on his way. One red-faced woman called for the derelict's arrest. Another business man-looking man suggested he might go out there and punch the troublemaker square on the nose.

That controversial artist had nothing on but clothes and a cardboard box. No message. No words. No overt statement of politics or anything anti-Topeka, anti-this building, anti-America, anti-lunch. It was a celebration you might even say. A waste of time you might even say. A public menace you might even say. Performance art you might even say.

        [At this point, stage and house lights cut out & a flood light turns on, facing audience. Jeffrey is at the top of the stairs & speaks the remainder into a megaphone.]

And to that point in my life, when I heard this story as a 20-something writer, I only ever thought you had to be provocative, like Robert Mapplethorpe or Tim Miller or Annie Sprinkle or Holly Hughes to make the world angry through art. But no, you just need to say something. Say something intimate. Say something personal. Say something local. Say something honest and say something sincere via which those around you are forced to confront their own bodies. Their own souls. Say something in a way they cannot deflect as cliché or brute.

        [Flood light out. House lights out. Stage lights up. Stage is empty. Beat.]

Say, something. Say, a cardboard box, and nothing is more upsetting than yourself.

        [Extra-long beat.]

CURTAIN