Artistic License Revoked

I consider myself to be somewhat of an artist. I know writing is not a performing art but that doesn't mean that I don't want an audience for my "art". Obviously, I want people to read most of what I write; however, I think it goes without saying that I don't want a mass audience to read my private texts or e-mails and I don't want anyone to read my private journal. There are things, like this blog, which are meant to be read by a wide audience. Keeping that in mind, I make an effort to entertain or to educate or at least to philosophize.

Perhaps I've been cursed with a very banal view of art. Maybe I'm dense and I don't understand more complex artistic expression, but I am just now in a state of expressive discombobulation because I just accidentally watched a documentary on one of those pot-smoker's movie channel's like Sundance or IFC...I really don't even know the difference sometimes. Anyway, I saw a documentary about a Japanese "dancer" named, Oguri. Apparently he got a whole film crew, co-dancers (or whatever they're called), and, perhaps most amazingly, an audience to schlep through the desert for several days, to enact some sort of spasmodic poky dance. I think it was edited down to about three minutes in the documentary, as that's all a TV audience could possibly bear - even while high. It seems that Mr. Oguri was interpreting the movement of the desert plant life via dance. Since desert plant life doesn't move very much, neither does he. Since desert plant life is dry and crusty, so is he.

My problem with the whole thing is two-fold. The first being that I am just annoyed that ten or so seemingly healthy human beings who could be out in the world doing some good by, you know, maybe working on a farm or tending to the sick, are plodding through the desert to perform an insipid dance for nearly no one (understandably) and spending at least a few dollars of someone's money to do this. Why? What's the point? The whole thing seems very self-indulgent. My other, perhaps bigger problem with this is that it frustrates me when I think that I've been writing plays and screenplays for years and no one has been willing to spend the money to help bring my work to life. I know it might not be perfect but at least I don't want to bring my audience out to the middle of nowhere and put their lives in danger just to listen and watch.

Maybe I'm just jealous.