Godammit, I’m Mad!

In the current New Yorker, there is a long profile of the performance artist Marina Abramovic that caused me to wonder: Is my life actually Art?

Abramovic has been provoking and shocking people for thirty years. Next week, MOMA is hosting a retrospective of her work, with actors performing some of her most famous “pieces.” That alone is controversial; even her former collaborator and lover, Uwe Laysiepen, thinks it’s fundamentally dishonest to recreate performance art.

Most of Abramovic’s art has involved subjecting herself to pain and humiliation (a genre called ordealism.) Reading about it, you can’t help but feel that this art is beyond parody. My favorite piece is the one where she scrubbed a roomful of rotting, maggot-infested cow bones on her hands and knees, sobbing while video’s of her parents were projected on the walls of the “space.”

In another early piece, she stood still while the audience was offered a wide array of implements with which to torment her.

At MOMA, she will mount a work called “The Artist is Present,” in which she will sit still at a table for ten hours a day, staring into space, throughout the retrospective. Audience members may choose to sit opposite her at the table.

Here is the thing: I personally sit staring into space for MORE THAN TEN HOURS A DAY! I never thought of this as Art, but now I’m mulling it over. Maybe it is Art,  a sort of confrontation with time and eternity, a refusal to interact with gainful employment, and therefore a statement about the subjugation of of modern Man, I mean Women.

Read the article in the New Yorker if you possibly can. It’s a transformative experience that doesn’t even require you to get up off your ass!

Let me begin with I’m Sorry, because I really am. This blog has devolved into a tale of woe that is much too personal but still not personal enough.  Try to bear with me.

I broke my fucking hip. I KNOW it’s not a good time to break my hip. That didn’t stop me. It was dark outside and I tripped and fell on the concrete driveway. I knew something was broken but I waited a few minutes before admitting that I needed an ambulance. In fact, I think I was pretty businesslike, given the pain and horror.

A broken hip hurts so much, you have no idea until you have one. It is agony. For the first couple of hours, I begged everyone not to hurt me. “Please don’t hurt me!” and “Please don’t let anyone hurt me!” over and over. An ER nurse named Debbie and an ex-ray guy did their best to help. Thanks Debbie and ex-ray guy!

The ER doctor told me that I needed surgery. When I pleaded with him, he told me that it was a really “bad” break and that’s why my leg looked “two inches shorter than the other one.” I still don’t know what he was talking about but he gets zero points for bedside manner.

I will try to cut to the chase. It’s five days later and I’m home. The pain is still off the chart but I’m supposed to try to keep moving. I think there are nails and screws in my hip/leg but oh well.

I will let you in on a little secret. All anyone cares about in the hospital are bowel movements. People want you to have one. Patients in other rooms are desperate to have one. I had a little notice board in my room with a list of 3 goals for the day.  Bowel Movement was number 3, after Reduce Pain and Try to Move.

I hope that no one reading this ever has to endure a broken hip, even if I hate you. Please be careful! Take calcium, too.  Max is doing well and I told him that lots of people were sending prayers and Good Thoughts. I know I can count on you to keep up the good work for him while I recover. xo