(Cult)ure

The weapons I wish to advocate are weapons that change consciousness—cutups, scrambling, use of videotapes, etc. The weapons of illusion.

William S. Burroughs

Did y’all know EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow? I received this news in the late nineties and it hit me like a revelation. I’d watched too much Star Trek and listened to too much R.E.M. to not already understand that everything is everything, but EPCOT standing for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow taught me to nod more knowingly when William Blake asks “Are not Religion and Politics the Same Thing?”

In recent years, I’ve let that question guide me in my interactions with my fellow humans.

But I’m here to talk about Disney.

When I think Disney I think of Walt and his friendship with Charlie Chaplin and growing up with a record player and all those 45s inside the books and bright colors and stories and excitement.

I have an early memory of dancing and acting in front of my family in the role of the grasshopper who entertained the ants in the upper lefthand image. Something was cultivated within me by the cultural products of the constellation of creative efforts called Disney. It’s a corporation. It’s a co-opting of lots of people’s creativity into a perhaps unevenly distributed concentration of wealth, but…as institutions go…there are worse ones. We know them by their fruit.

The image up top is what recently came of my presence at what is referred to as a character breakfast in Orlando. When I told my son Peter I’d been to one, he informed me that all of his breakfasts are character breakfasts. This has me feeling proud.

I have always had a thing for Donald Duck. I think of him as a voice of dissent sometimes neatly and sometimes uncomfortably nestled within the tradition. I like how he inserts himself into the chorus of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. He isn’t disrupting the proceedings entirely, he’s just exercising a degree of good humor and self-respect while also honoring, in his unique way, a friend.

So, when Donald approached our table, I caved to a good friend’s cajoling, shared my heart, and posed for a selfie. I believe Donald’s flex is a reference to my t-shirt. Anyway, it was amazing.

Is Disney a good cult or a bad cult? We don’t have to answer that question with an up or down vote. We can go granular. It takes a lot of cults to make up the cultures that are our human barnyard.

I am here to point at the cult in culture. I say “point at” rather than “put,” because the cult in culture is always already there. We’re always cultivating. I tend to think we even cultivate when we’re sleeping. Something gets seeded. Something gets set down. Somethings else surface. We get to go granular in our consideration—our analysis—of the relationships that got us where we are and get us where we’re going.

Check this out:

That’s a painting by J. Todd Greene. Readers of Dark Matter will have heard of him before. Todd is essential to my thinking across the centuries as are so many who’ve found themselves passing through or dwelling on the periphery of or holing up within Downtown Presbyterian Church. Yes, it’s a church. But it’s also a community and an intersection of and for a whole lotta love. I love a lot of what’s been cultivated there. I’m committed to it. I’m sustained by these subcults. They help me in the work of keeping my feeling function alive and free and on the surface. Drawings of Donald and Dumbo and Goofy have sone that for me too.

The image above is from Tom Wills whose energy and labor is in large part why we have The Contributor and The Belcourt both. As you can see, Tom’s also an artist. His work and Todd’s and that of lots of others within our scene are part of a show opening tonight.

I love that the show’s called “FIRMAMENT.” To me that implies a space to breathe between the elements. A stay against confusion. A habitat for dwellers on the thresholds. Room to dream and imagine ourselves and others differently.

Tonight’s proceedings will also include a talk from the art critic Joe Nolan who has a book out on the arts scene of Nashville called Nowville: The Untold History of Nashville’s Contemporary Art Scene. Todd did an illustration of Joe some time ago which you can behold below.

And…following Joe’s talk, we’ll hear from Buulb.

So anyway, be the culture you want to see in the world.

As ever, I welcome feedback on all of the above.

Stay safe, y’all.