Benjamin, got to get in there the romantic mid-eighteenth century aesthetic pleasure in the worship of art was the privilege of the few. I was saying, Mr. Huizinga, that the authentic work of art had its base in ritual, and mass reproduction freed it from this parasitical dependence. Ah, quite so Mr. Benjamin quite so, turn of the century religion was losing its steam and art came in as its substitute would you say? Absolutely Mr. Huizinga, and I’d add that this massive technical reproduction of works of art could be manipulated, changed the way the masses looked at art and manipulated them. Inadvertently Mr. Benjamin, you might say that art now became public property, for the simply educated Mona Lisa and the Last Supper became calendar art to hang over the kitchen sink. Absolutely Mr. Huizinga, Paul Valéry saw it coming, visual and auditory images brought into homes from far away like water gas and electricity and finally, God help us all, the television. Positively Mr. Benjamin, with mechanization, advertising artworks made directly for a market what America’s all about. Always has been, Mr. Huizinga. Always has been, Mr. Benjamin. Everything becomes an item of commerce and the market names the price. And the price becomes the criterion for everything. Absolutely Mr. Huizinga! Authenticity’s wiped out when the uniqueness of every reality is overcome by the acceptance of its reproduction, so art is designed for its reproducibility. Give them the choice, Mr. Benjamin, and the mass will always choose the fake. Choose the fake, Mr. Huizinga! Authenticity’s wiped out, it’s wiped out Mr. Benjamin. Wiped out, Mr. Huizinga. Choose the fake, Mr. Benjamin. Absolutely, Mr. Huizinga! Positively Mr. Benjamowww! Good God! a way to find a sharp pencil just sit still avoid stress stop singing what, anybody heard me they’d think I was losing my, that I’d lost it yes maybe I have but I’ve got to get back to the products of the imitative arts and the pantomimics all falls right into line, bark like a dog bleat like a Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee such a tender voice, making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee, Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee: Doctor Wilmut made thee, Doctor Ian Wilmut cloned thee outside Edinburgh, Scotland, a product of the imitative arts that Plato banished find a piece of paper got to get this down, you see? Cloned like slaves by the pantomimics who could imitate anything like, yes like the black slaves bred in Virginia when Eli Whitney’s cotton gin revolutionized the world markets for American cotton, people making millions, the African slave trade forbidden, illegal, over and done, so breeding slaves to cultivate the cotton turned Virginia into an immense breeding farm says Henry Adams’ sharper brother exporting 40,000 blacks a year to the southern states’ plantations where the market set the price piece of paper two whole heaps of it but they’re all no wait, letter here almost dry from those eye test doctors about clearing up this bleary vision with the predni, what in the, prednisone? Not the prednisone it says, you have developed cataracts and should make appointments for the operations necessary to correct this condition as promptly as good God! Operations? They think I’m a, same thing it’s the same thing it’s the same damn damn thing breeding slaves to be reproduced where the market sets the price where slavery wouldn’t be abolished George Washington said till it ceased to pay, being cloned to serve as bone banks letter in one of these heaps somewhere when I had a car asking if I’d like to be an organ eye and tissue donor see their faces when they open this package! Over fifty thousand out there waiting for these organ transplants, the first interchangeable parts made for guns by this same Eli Whitney two hundred years ago getting a little bit mixed up here why I’ve got to write this down before it’s lost, before it’s stolen, just to get the sequence right, what follows what, post hoc ergo this game you can’t win because that’s not why you play it trying to cultivate this whole swamp of chaos and chance, of paradox and perversity to wipe out the whole idea of cause and effect and, and, get my breath before I lose the, these belly-talkers and detached selves bred and cloned to be reproduced because that’s the heart of it, where the individual is lost, the unique is lost, where authenticity is lost not just authenticity but the whole concept of authenticity, that love for the beautiful creation before it’s created that that, it was Chesterton wasn’t it? That natural merging of created life in this creation in love that transcends it, a celebration of the love that created it they called agapē, that love feast in the early church, yes. That’s what’s lost, what you don’t find in these products of the imitative arts that are made for reproduction on a grand scale got to find some paper, piece of blank paper I’ve finally got the pencil now, now. Chance to straighten something out here’s Friedrich’s book where’s the other one, getting them mixed up I can mark the passages and find who said what, find Glenn Gould, can’t do better than Friedrich’s biography it’s stunning, a marvelous writer journalist and a prodigy, a piano prodigy himself, thousands of notes but which one? Spent six weeks making notes and sketches about Glenn that could be either one of them, finally decided they got in the way of what he was writing so he destroyed them all but that sounds like Wertheimer destroying his thousands of notes before he hanged himself, be the best or not at all that’s Horowitz, a lot of malice and envy for Horowitz could be both of them, either of them either book but why, envy for Horowitz’s brilliance or for his applause because Gould said he detested appearing before an audience and detested their applause didn’t he? Because it’s easy to let the piano become your enemy because it symbolizes the terror of the performance, if I hadn’t met Gould I wouldn’t have given up the piano, no more piano! I said. Absolutely no artist! The Goldberg Variations composed to help get an insomniac through the night, pleasure in all circumstances is bad says Pythagoras composed to delight the soul and they killed Wertheimer because we came here to be punished and we ought to be punished getting a little mixed up here by these detachable selves and demons making you do things you wouldn’t when Glenn got so carried away performing a Bach concerto he cut his thumb on the keys in his exuberant finale? Then would he have said he wanted to become the piano? That he wanted to be the Steinway because he hated the idea of being between Bach and the Steinway because if he could be the Steinway he wouldn’t need Glenn Gould he’d be the other. He’d be the Steinway and Glenn in one like the kangaroo he’d be the other! He’d be in control, he’d be in total control with his splicing and editing and altering pitch what he called creative cheating for the perfect performance with an arching melodic line that couldn’t be mechanically imitated but it could be it was that’s what all this is to, damn. Got it all there somewhere can’t find the other book got the pencil didn’t have time to write it down and it’s more confused than ever but that’s what it’s all about that’s the heart of it all can’t lose it, can’t lose it now because I had it wrong good thing I didn’t write it down all that business of authenticity and the perfect performance what did I just say, the melodic line that couldn’t be mechanically imitated because it was yes in Germany yes where else? Family named Welte in Freiburg with the reproducing piano, the Welte-Mignon that didn’t just record the notes but more perforations that actually reproduced all the shadings and subtleties of the artist, the unique performances of their own work by Debussy and Grieg, Rachmaninoff George Gershwin and the greatest pianists, Paderewski and God knows who, don’t you see? These Welte, Duo-Art Pianolas, Ampico all over the place what they’d done was to make the transient permanent, given the fleeting nature of music of great performances of great music a permanence that’s the heart of authenticity, that preserved the whole concept of authenticity stood Leonardo da Vinci on his ear holding painting an art superior to music because of music’s evanescent quality can’t lose it no, don’t have to write it down I can’t forget it, it’s beautiful, simple and beautiful like discovering space is curved good God, just the sheer simplicity of it the, where Occam’s razor looked on beauty bare got to write it down before it gets lost, before it gets stolen before I have a chance to write it down like everything else because if Gould hated the idea of being between Bach and the Steinway if he could be the Steinway he wouldn’t need Glenn Gould when Welte’s reproducing apparatus put Debussy into the piano then you wouldn’t need Debussy.
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