The makers of Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum invite you to enjoy life. Life with Luigi, a comedy show created by Psy Howard and starring that celebrated actor, Mr. J. Carol Mash with Alan Reed as the swallow. You know friends, Wrigley Spearman Chewing Gum is a typically American product that appeals to people of all ages and nationalities in all parts of our country. And the Wrigley people feel that Life with Luigi is a typically American radio program. A friendly, enjoyable show that sort of symbolizes the American spirit of tolerance and goodwill. So the makers of a refreshing, delicious Wrigley Spearman Gum are glad to bring you Life with Luigi each week and have you join them in this pleasant half-hour's entertainment. And now let's read Luigi's letter as he writes about his adventures in America to his mama Vasco in Italy. Dear Mamani, in America all the business is run by what we call accounting. Last week I had accountant in my antique shop. He's examining my books, accounting my profits, adding my expense.  But accountant has said, I'm going to change my profit system. Otherwise my countryman Pasquale is not going to renew lease on my store and then he's going to throw me out. Mamani, I'm going to argue with Pasquale because he's mad at me.  It's a business when the customers read everything I hear made before 1900. And the whole thing is made to me very sad. I'm in love with my antiques. I'm going to want to change my business. But what I'm going to do? Mamani, you look bad. And I'm going to think I'm going to go to my night school to class and ask them for advice. All right, class. Let's come to attention. How tall are all? Mr. Basco? Present. Mr. Howard? Present. Mr. Olsen? Mr. Olsen? Well, that's odd. This is the first time he's been absent. Oh, the quiz kit has a cold. And from that remark, I can discern Mr. Shokes is present, too. I am here, Miss Balding. Oh, him and the penicillin don't care who it helps. Sit down, Mr. Olsen. What delayed you? Well, James Balding, the boating was so heavy that I was. I see. Well, you're excused as long as you voted. I voted too, Miss Balding. It's a wonderful feeling to go into that boot and put your axe on the ballot.  Just because the authorities tell me to sign an axe, there's no reason to do it. What do you mean, Olsen? Well, maybe the other people can't write, but I can. I never once used the axe. I signed my name all over the ballot. To save Olsen, he took the legs of himself governor. Mr. Olsen, I'll explain that to you, but some other time. Now, let's get to our economics lesson for today. Mr. Horowitz, will you explain the law of supply and demand? With pleasure. The law of supply and demand is a simple question of God and ain't God. What? Sure. When you've got something people want. When you ain't God, they also want. But more, making other people who ain't God want when they shouldn't. That's the kind of answer I like. Simple, and yet you can't understand. Mr. Basso, will you explain the law of supply and demand to us? All right. A supply is my antics. Well, yes, your antics are your business, which you supply. And demand. Now, what is demand? It's another demand. What do you mean? Business is terrible. What?  And unless I'm going to do something to supply more business, Pasquale is a demand I'm closing my store because of the supply. Luigi, are you for shimmers? Mr. Schultz, I don't think that's helping, Mr. Basso. But maybe our economics lesson could help him out. Lovigy, did you ever think of supplying some other line of goods that the people would demand? That's an excellent idea, Olsen. I know just what would go fine with antics, Lovigy. Books and phonograph records. Some combination, Paul Revere and Mark Twain with Spike Jones in the middle. Mr. Schultz, please. Mr. Basso, I think you might very well consider that suggestion. I'm a thinker, so very good. But a wellimer can get a money for these things. From the bank, Lovigy. They're always happy to lend money to a responsible businessman, especially if it's to expand his establishment. Pure heart, that's right. And Lovigy, if you want to, we will all give you our names as friends. Oh, thank you, friends. You're wonderful to me. Luigi, my friend. Hello, Luigi. Hello, hello. Hello, Pasquale. You sound like you've got something on your mind. Speak up a little bit out of nose. Pasquale, I'm coming to you with a proposal. What? What do you say? I said I'm coming to you with a proposal. Luigi, you're no man in the world. The way that before you proposed, I got a call into my daughter, Rosa. Pasquale, I'm not going to propose it for Rosa. This is for you. Well, you're crazy. I've been married once. I'm not going to get married again. Pasquale, I'm not going to business your proposal. Luigi, you just marry my Rosa. That's all in the business I want to do. Let me explain. You don't want to sign on my list because I'm not going to do any business, right? The question is obvious. Keep talking. All you want is I'm sure to do business. You don't care how I'm a daughter, right? I'm listening to just get to the trap. It's not a trap, Pasquale. It's not a trap. I've got idea to open up another business in my antique shop to bring a lot of people in. That's not only help for me, but to the people at the pass-by is a help for you, Spaghetti Palace. See, I see you're interested. Just imagine, Pasquale. I've got just a sign for a new business at all. Look and listen. Look and listen. Sure. People come in and listen to beautiful phonograph records. Stop, stop. I think it's a wonderful idea, and I thought just the business you want to open. Here you go. Yeah, Saloon. Oh, Saloon. Oh, look and listen. They come in and listen to the jokey box and look on the television. Now, where do you a genius? No, Pasquale, you're all wrong. I couldn't have opened a Saloon, but I was thinking I would do something, something fine, like sell books and a phonograph for records. What? Where's the connection? I think books and a music is a food for the mind. I'm afraid of people's minds. You'll feed their stomachs. And between the both of us, the whole country gets indigestion. That's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to advance the money to put up with some high-class junk. But Pasquale, I'm going to get the money. I'm going to the bank, and I'm going to get the references from my friends. Oh, so you're scheming behind in my back. The cats have been playing while the rats away. Now, Pasquale, I'm going to scheming. I'm just going to help my business. You should renew my lease. Well, if you think I'm going to... All right, Luigi, go to the bank. I'm going to help if you need me. Oh, thank you, Pasquale. And if I'm going to get the money from the bank, are you listening to my proposal? Oh, but if they don't give you the money, you listen to my proposal. Before we return to life with Luigi, we'd like to put in a word about delicious wriggly spearmint chewing gum.  For times like that, there's nothing better than a stick of wriggly spearmint gum. It tastes good. It's refreshing. You can chew on it as long as you want.  Keep some delicious wriggly spearmint gum handy all the time. Enjoy it often. It's good and good for you. Now let's turn to page two of Luigi Basco's letter to his mother in Italy. I'm a went to the bank of Feralon, but the man he's a treat to me mean.  He's not everything about me.  First I didn't understand how he's found out all of these things. But then I must suffer myself.  And over him is a sign that you say, Teller, that the man is a tall anime. So here I am sitting in my store waiting to get thrown out there when it comes to my classmate the shoes. Luigi, my fellow boob. Hello, sir. Ah, what's the matter with you, Luigi? You look like an air dale with the air leaking out. Everything is a go bad. Bankers that refuse me to learn the Pasquale is not going to sign the lease. Looks like I'm going to have to move out. Though what, Luigi? Don't cry. Smile. Maybe at the time you tried something else anyway. Tell me this. What did you do in the old country? Well, let me say, once in a while I'm used to give a haircut. Haircuts? But that's wonderful. You could be a barber. Tell me, who did you give the haircuts to? Uncle Pietro's a god. Luigi, here we don't let our beards grow so long. But I think you got it a good idea. Yeah, you're going to learn to be a barber. Learn? Who's going to learn to me? Himmel, what grammar, Luigi? It's who's going to learn I. Anyway, you're going to go to barber college.  That sounds good. Barbers, they make a good money.  Don't smile, Luigi. Tell Pasquale he can keep it, please. You are independent. Oh, Luigi, I got a feeling you're going to make a wonderful barber. Hi, Shusi, you make me feel so good. How am I going to thank you? Don't thank me, Luigi. Just let me see one thing. What's that? A smile. Come on. Always happy, always laughing. Oh, my God. My roomacism is killing me. Well, Mr. Pasquale, there's no reason why you couldn't become an excellent barber with training in my college, but in order to have your own shop you at least have to pass a state-bought examination and pass all three parts, written, oral, and practical.  Well, I mean, I'm in a terrible trouble. Trouble? Why? I've been a shaver to myself for over 20 years and without a license. All right, Mr. Pasquale. Now let's begin your first lesson. I saw you operate the clippers and you seem to handle them well, but a very important thing about being a barber is how you handle the customers. How? Am I handling them? Well, certainly. You mean I'm also giving them a massage? No, no, no. It's a matter of business. See, a man walks up to your chair. You give him a nice smile and you say, Good morning, sir. What if it's a nighttime? Well, then you say, Good night, sir. My, my, my customers are going to walk out before he's even coming. Well, Mr. Pasquale, please, I meant to say good evening. Now, after you get the hair clout around his neck, you say, Nice weather we're having. Nice weather we're having. Yes, indeedy-dee-dee. Yes, indeedy-dee-dee. Would you like your haircut long, short or medium? Huh? Would you like your haircut long, short or medium? I think I'm going to take a shot, not too much off of the basket. No, Mr. Pasquale. You ask these things. Now, come on, try it. All right, then. All right. Good morning, sir. If it's a nighttime, a nice weather we're having, would you like your haircut long, short or medium? Yes, indeedy-dee-dee. You learn soon enough. Oh, you really think so? Sure. Good.  Smart? Yeah, sure. In one day, I'm going to skip from a 3 p.m. night to school to Barbara College. Mr. Pasquale, I tell you, the whole neighborhood's been going down there to give Luigi a show. Yes, that's what everybody's told me. Luigi, the Italian antique, has become a Yankee clipper. Where's my rosa? I sent her down there two hours ago. Isn't that her coming in? Oh, yes. Yes. Hello, Papa. Hello, Rosa. What's happening? Papa is amazing. I went into the Barbara College and sat down in the chair. Luigi was wearing a white coat. Yes. You could have thought he was a doctor, only he didn't say stick out your tongue. Lisa, don't give me no observatories. Just tell me what's happened. Papa, you'll never guess. He gave me a real haircut. What do you expect? Did he get a toupee? Rosa, it's a looker like a toupee.  What are you so happy about? Once a Luigi learns to make a living without his antique shop, he don't need us. You know what that means. Luigi wouldn't marry you? Uh-huh. I did. I think I'm going to get down there and get him into trouble with my haircut. I'm making such a complaint. He's going to be bothered from every shop in the country. I'm going to fix that little pub squeaky. Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out. Thank you, sir. And how do you like it? It looks okay. It's a dirty, dirty. Look at the mirror for yourself. I'm in my two places, sir. Fine, fine. Here, this is for you.  All right, next. Oh, wait a minute, I almost forgot something. Forgot what? I'm supposed to tell you about the weather report. It's a nice weather we're having, huh? Goodbye. Goodbye. Next. Luigi. You deserve a lot of credit.   Oh, that shave you gave me was perfect. You have a torch that is soft and gentle. Not your key. Thank you, well, sir. Luigi, the truth. You like this work? Hello, it's that truth. No. I thought so. Still dreaming of the antique shop, huh? Yeah, sure. You're, well, Luigi, that's life. Sometimes they got to take Luigi. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hello. Sure, sir. Hey, what's the matter? You better learn it. Yeah, sure. Oh, listen to me. The way my heart is racing now, it could wind up as a speeding ticket. Luigi, Luigi, guess what?  It was Pascuali. Yeah, just before the bank manager was in my delicatessen. And he asked me how I could give references to a fellow like you when Pascuali said you was worthless.  Now what? He could prove you're worthless. How do you like Pascuali? If it isn't a meanest move, it happens. Well, well, well. The barbershop's a quartet, sir. Hey, you must have been talking about me. My age is abated. Yeah. And if you heard what the patrol said, then all of you would be barbecued by now. Don't be so smart, Schultz. Hey, Mr. Barberman, are you opening for business? Yeah, sure. I'm a... I'm a man. Yes, sir. Are you next? Well, well, well. At least you know what's coming out of the mouth, the little popper squeak. Very good. Life's a trim, and if you make it a good, this nickel is all yours. Very good, sir. Yes, sir, baby, baby. Luigi. Luigi. Hey, what's going on? Then it's a nice weather to have an assailant. Don't you think? Listen to that. Nice weather we had with the yesterday to do it. How better when they let this greenhorn in the Statue of Liberty began swimming back to France. Clippers assailant? Yes, the clippers assailant. Hey, not too close. I said a light trim. But, Squally, it is so happens Amma got a little lace right here that Amma want you to sign. Stop, Luigi.  I am. Hey, I told you to take it easy when I was a clippers. I better get out of here. Hey, old sir, stop holding me. Who's the guy with my legs down? If you don't mind, sir, I'm giving you all a shine, sir. Wait, I'll get my hands off. Oh, my hands. And I'm the manicurist. But, Squally, sign this lace. Absolutely not. All right, you asked for it.  What? What do you say? You gonna sign this lace? Baldie? What are you? Luigi. We got quick, melon hat. All right, all right. Here, give me the lace. I signed. Good. Now I'm a saver for the next three years. As long as I'm a saver, my hair. Not so quick, Samson. What? Yeah, we owe you something for that bank loan deal. Hand me those clippers. No, it's not. You hold them over. I'm sure it's a stopper. Let me go hold them. Luigi, please. Do something to Luigi. Sign something to talk. Nice sweater we're having at Donny's. And so, I mean, Amma got to my lease of signs and everything has turned out to fine. Of course, I'm still not in my antique shop yet. No, there isn't nothing wrong. But after I was a barber, I'm still gotta be something else. A waiter. That's right. That's why it is so shame to serve as a customer who would have bowled ahead. After for the next two weeks, I'm taking care of his place. And right now, I'm waiting on the three very important barbers in the neighborhood. That's the Schultz, Orowitz, and Alson. And one thing I'm never learned in a barber shop or college is how to add. So even though they've been eating and they're drinking all night, Amma can't figure their merit to be more than a knicker. That's just the size of a Pasquale's tipper to me. Yes, it did it, did it. You're loving a son, Luigi. You must score the limit again. Folks, the makers of Wrigley's Spear Mint Chewing Gum hope you've enjoyed tonight's episode of Life with Luigi. And they want to remind you that Wrigley's Spear Mint Gum is an ideal treat for your whole family to enjoy. It's all helpful and wholesome. You can even give it to tiny children with perfect confidence. And you can pass it around often to everyone in your house because it costs so little. So next time you do your shopping, be sure to include Wrigley's Spear Mint Chewing Gum on your shopping list. Always have a few packages handy as a treat for yourself and your family and for other folks who might drop in. The makers of Wrigley's Spear Mint Chewing Gum invite you to listen next week at this time when Luigi Basco writes another letter to his mama basco in Italy. Life with Luigi is a Psy Howard production and is directed by Mr. Howard. Mac Benhoff writes the script with Lou Deman. J. Carol Ash is starred as Luigi Basco with Alan Reed as Pasquale, Hans Conrad as Schultz, Jodie Gilbert as Rosa, Mary Schipp as Miss Balding, Joe Forte as Horowitz, and Ken Peters as Rosa. Music is under the direction of Vlad Buskner. This is Bob Stevenson's speech. When you contribute to the 1950 Red Cross Fund, you're not just giving to the Red Cross. You're giving through the Red Cross to the American people. Yes, the American Red Cross is a partnership of the people of America. Remember, all may help through the Red Cross. This is CBS, The Columbia Broadcasting System.


So I'm going to make this short and sweet because John said too. John Kalaki served two terms in the Vermont House of Representatives. I'm sure most of you know who he is. Previously, he was executive director of the Flynn Center. If you went to the Flynn, you know who he is. And then Sean Clute received a master of fine arts degree from Mills College. That's in California, right? Yeah. He is currently a professor of fine and performing arts at Vermont State College, the Johnson campus, and also serves on the board of the Vermont Arts Council. Welcome, please, Sean and John. Well, thank you very much all for coming. I'm John, and this is Sean. And we collaborated on a video that we're going to show you at the end of our talk. And it was actually on Vermont PBS last week. And so Sean's mother felt he was validated as an artist because he was on PBS. So anyway, the last time I spoke here was a few years ago, and it was on pivot points and classical dance in the 20th century. So that was classicism. Today, we're going to talk about the avant-garde in the 1960s. So pretend you're laying on the floor and you're looking at the ceiling. So we're going to talk about artists who were changing all the norms in the 60s. And they were called fluxes. It was a movement that was brief. And we're going to describe it. And then we're going to show you a video made of it. We'll talk. I have over there some catalogs from different museums that have done fluxes exhibitions because it's a little hard to understand what some of these people made. So please feel free if you'd like to afterwards. And then in the back, I had a book come out last year. So if you want to get a copy of that, I'd be glad to sign it. Anyway, so I really loved the fluxes movement. It really began in the early 60s in New York. And it really came out of the DATA movement, which was in the 1920s in Europe. And they used photographs and typography and cheap copying stuff. And it was all political. It was anti-establishment. And they were using concrete poetry and performances and stuff. And that was happening then. And then Marcel Duchamp comes along. And do you remember, I think it was in the Art Fair in 1917, he put a urinal in the art show and signed it our mutt. But he didn't tell anyone that he had done that. So of course, all the people were like, what is this? This is just a porcelain urinal. How is that art? And he was just being Marcel Duchamp. He wasn't being our mutt. And he said, well, it's signed by an artist. So I think it's artist, isn't it? And we're all having such a great debate about it. That's a point of art. It's OK to keep it in. And of course, then he had to admit that it was his. Anyway, and he went on and did things where he turned bicycles upside down and made those ready-made sculptures and stuff. And so he was really questioning the authority of an artist and what that was about. And then 20 years later comes John Cage. And he was a big fan of Marcel Duchamp. And they actually used to play chess together. Apparently they didn't talk much, but they played chess regularly. And John Cage did something rather radical in the 50s where he did a composition called 4.33. And David Tudor came out on stage with a piano, opened up the music, and sat there in silence for four minutes and 30 seconds. And so just like the porcelain urinal was like, well, wait a minute, is that music? And Cage was saying to us, there's never silence. That in that 4.33, there isn't silence. I mean, just even here, I can hear someone on Dorset driving down the street, probably too fast over the speed limit. Or if we were quieter longer, we might hear the kids next door. Anyway, so that was Cage's point. Just to add to that, because it's a very interesting point and part of this whole fluxes movement, which is the researcher, scientist have tried to test is there such thing as silence. So at Harvard University, they built this large, antiotic chamber, which is completely silent, like deep in the ground, full of dirt on top of it, completely isolated from the world. And John Cage went into the chamber and sat there for a while, and when he came out, the scientist asked, did you hear anything? And he said, yes, I could hear two things. One was really low and one was really high. Really low pitch, really high pitch. Does anyone have a guess what those two things would be? Absolutely, it was his blood flow and his nervous system. So even when we are in silence, our bodies are still making noise. Great, yep, yep. So 1958 Cage decides he's gonna teach a class at the new school, and it's called composition as process. And of course, he was dealing with this thing that anything can be music. And silence is part of our world. He also had been studying Miss Suzuki Roshi at Columbia University, who was, I think the first Zen priest to come over to at least in New York. And Cage was very taken with the concept of nowness. Just be fully present now. Don't worry about what's coming and whatever's already gone is gone and stuff. So he was encouraging these students to think about this thing of the silence and the void, the thing of no authorship, the thing of absolutely right now be present. And he also became interested in the each thing, where you throw these things and it determines a plan of action. So Cage in his own compositions would compose these pieces and then he would throw the each thing and he would rearrange the way that he thought they were going to be or he would give you the score and he would have you throw the each thing and you could rearrange the composition how you want it. And he was saying, is that a John Cage composition or is that your composition? And does it matter? And does it matter at all? So what he was talking to these folks about is like, he was questioning the importance of an artist and the importance of the final art product is what he was questioning. So people in this class, it was 58, got really jazzed up and Yoko Ono, who you may know was married to John Lennon, but her previous husband before that was in one of Cage's classes. And so he became a big acolyte of this whole thing. And so they started hosting in their loft on Chamber Street these weekend concerts that were very much like data events where they invited all these people who maybe were composers or maybe they weren't composers with they were poets and they're all trying to just deconstruct everything and change everything. Someone else in the class had the first happening which were these immersive environments where Alan Capra was his name where people would come in to a loft and maybe some of you have been at a happening but and it was immersive. You didn't know where to look. There was no audience and there wasn't any event happening. You would see someone cooking in the kitchen and was that part of the event or was that because you're in someone's loft house? Or you'd hear people talking in the tub in the bathroom or something. So it was all about what's the audience and who defines what the work is and the artist isn't defining it for you. So there was that happening and then there was a man by the name of George Mccunus who was very interested in this and he had been to Yoko Ono's loft and he opened a gallery called the AG Gallery in 1960 and he did what he called neo-dada events which were all these people from Cage's class doing these objects, doing the sound, doing all these very different things. Mccunus is a very interesting character in New York because back then Soho, which is the fancy part of the art district now, was all these abandoned places. So George Mccunus decided that he was gonna have artists move into these spaces and he actually worked on 17 different artist's lofts. So that is really his contribution that he did this because as a business person, he was completely terrible. He kept everything he tried with bankrupt. So the gallery is bankrupt but he was working then for the United States government in the military in, we spot in Germany and he decided in 1962 that he was gonna start a magazine and he was gonna call it Fluxus and Fluxus was gonna be this neo-dada performance group of people that were completely renegades, completely changing, upending the rules and so he invited a few friends from New York and from Germany to come and perform a Fluxus event. It was gonna be a Fluxus festival to raise money for a Fluxus magazine that he won and so we're gonna show you from 1972, this is only a four minute clip of that very first Fluxus festival, okay? It's in German but you won't need to know what they're saying. It'll be clear. So people were coming to a concert hall thinking they were gonna see some experimental music or something. So that's Allison Knowles and 30 years later the Berkeley Art Museum has a retrospective of her work. The Kiggins, Benjamin Patterson, and then Williams. So they have on their little adding tapes there actions that they're gonna do in order but not how to do them, just what the action is and Sean and I are gonna explain that later. That's Namjoon Pike, so everyday sounds. That's George Matunas with the glasses. So finally the audience relaxes because they realize they're like pranksters. That is their, so Ben Patterson, it was interesting. He was a classical musician and then when John Cage came along he changed the way he thought about music and those of you know, Cage did pieces for prepared pianos where he put screws and things underneath the piano strings and then he would play it and make it sound different. So Ben decided he would up the ante on John Cage a little bit here. So often they have performance idea scores and one was from Lamont Young to draw a line and follow it. So this is Namjoon Pike doing what Lamont Young suggested and draw a line and follow it in Namjoon Pike's way. So I mean Namjoon Pike went on to be very famous and there's a great PBS documentary on him for his video work. But this is interesting because this is the kind of things they did and how do museums collect it and what are they collecting? And so a museum actually owns that piece that he dragged but is that, it's just a remnant of the thing. The video is almost more telling than the object itself and that was the point that they were trying to do is the action versus the result. And here they got a lot of trouble with the music hall that they had rented that evening. And they destroyed it, yeah. Anyway they carried out and that's the end of the concert. So they did two or three more dates in Europe and then suddenly there was now a fluxus movement even though there wasn't a fluxus movement before it was these artists doing different things. But what was interesting is there were artists from Europe there, there were artists in New York there and the artists from Japan were there, Namjoon Pike in Korean and they all went back to their places and used this ethos and you take these performance scores, you can do it any way you want, it doesn't matter. Who does it? And it doesn't matter what it looks like, it's the intent of the artist and it kind of do a process thing. So suddenly people were saying, oh there is a fluxus movement and it was these scores, this non-ego attachment like you couldn't, if you did a score like Lamont Young draw line and follow, you couldn't own the outcome because someone was gonna do it in their way and so what was important? They were task oriented, improvisatory. They were often intermediate what they called because sometimes they did video works, there were some really interesting, we'll talk about some of those later and it was playful, okay? It was all very playful. So one of the event scores that was at this, the person didn't come but George Brecht to the score and his piece was called Drip Music and the score just said for a single or multiple performance, a source of dripping water and an empty vessel are arranged so the water falls into the vessel. That's all it said. So anyone could do it any way they wanted to. So Nam June Pike who was sort of a bad boy back then stood in a tub and took a bucket of water and poured it over him and that was his version of George Brecht's Drip Music. Our buddy Sean here is on the ladder here in the church and he's gonna do his version of Drip Music, George Brecht's Drip Music. Yoko Ono had a score that she said let a match and watch till it goes out. So she actually made a film on this where it was just the camera, it was all in slow motion, the camera was just on the match until it went out and that was Yoko's score. I mentioned the Lamont Young one to draw a line and follow it and then Allison Knowles who was the first woman to walk on stage in Germany, she has this retrospective at Berkeley Art Museum this year, about 60 years of her art making it.  And she said, really? I said, yeah, you have a tuna fish family. He said, oh yeah, I like tuna fish. And her friend said, no, no, you have a tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast with lettuce and butter, no mayo, every day. Whether you have it in the studio or if you go downstairs to the deli, you order the same thing. So Allison said, okay, well that's a good idea. What I'll do is invite, for a year, I'll invite friends to join me and come to the studio or meet me at the deli and have a tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast with lettuce and butter, no mayo, okay? You made it already? I forgot the lettuce. You forgot the lettuce! Well, this is what happens in fluxes, okay? So, so what Allison did is she did this, she did it. And she took photographs of people doing this and you can see them in there for one year. And what she did is she took notes on where we were. So, if we were Allison Knowles, we'd be talking about we were here today at this and we were doing this in front of people. And that became for art project. Now what she did is, friends in Germany, she invited them not to come to New York but to do it at the same time. So at noon mine time, I'm gonna be eating a tuna fish sandwich and wheat toast with lettuce and butter, no mayo. And why don't you join me? So, Allison Knowles, it was less about eating, obviously, but it was about coming together, being intentional, sharing space and what that means for her. She's done amazing pieces. She was raising kids too and so food was an issue for the family and she did one called Make a Salad. That would be the score and so you could make a fruit salad if you wanted and you could make any kind of salad. But she had a retrospective in Los Angeles, Disney Hall, which is the Philharmonic Hall in 2019. They had a Make a Salad celebration for Allison Knowles where there were 50 people on stage, all mic'd, chopping up the salad and the audience was listening and watching.  And so, was the point, being at Disney Hall, was the point watching this or was the point eating together, you know, Allison Knowles would say, it's all of this. So, people, it's less of a movement really because people kept coming in and out of these festivals when they were happening. Leggetti, who wrote the music for 2001 Space Odyssey, remember that great, wonderful, weird music, beautiful. Well, he did a piece at a festival where he had a hundred metronomes on stage and people turned them on and the piece ended when the last metronome stopped. That was Leggetti's piece. Joseph Boyce, a wonderful conceptual artist, he did a piece where he had a toy orchestra, wound it up and he sat at a table like this and watched it and then bowed and walked off the stage. Yoko Ono, who, there's a really interesting right now in Japan's side in New York, an exhibition of four Japanese women in the Fluxus movement that just opened last week. There's a great review of it in New York Times. Yoko Ono was one of them. She did a piece in 64 in London called Cut Piece. I don't know if people know that piece where she actually knelt on stage and she had a scissors there and invited the audience to come and cut her clothes. And it was a really radical act, if you think about it, of a woman being that exposed and open to have that happen and fragile, but also claiming her own agency. One of the other Japanese women of the time who was in this movement, Shikeko Kubata did a piece called The Giant of Painting, which blew everyone's minds when it happened, but it's really considered a really seminal piece of feminist art where she literally squatted over a canvas and she had the paintbrush in her vagina and she painted like that. She claimed her own agency in a very radical way. This is the 60s, okay? We're talking about the 60s. That's the, Ben Voitier was a French Fluxus guy and he decided that the signature, like Duchamp, the signature meant everything. So he would take a found wine bottle and he'd sign his name to it and then he'd say, okay, now it's art because I signed it. He lived in a storefront gallery for a week and you've seen by the, many artists have done that subsequent, have they lived in galleries and stuff, but he was, I think, one of the first ones that it was the everyday action and was it the artist or was it the audience who was looking at this person in the gallery doing this, I mean, what was the art here? Dick Higgins, who lived in West Glover, Vermont, a wonderful guy, he was married to Allison Knowles for a while with the kids and he was at We Spotted too, but he talked about that it was really a, Fluxus to him was not a movement, it was a way of doing things and he's like, okay, you've seen it, now it's yours, do what you want. Did that was part of it. One of the other Japanese women, Mieko Shiyomi, talked about it as pragmatic consciousness, that she sees things differently in everyday life after performing or seeing these works. So Matunas, this guy who was the organizer of the festival, he was trying to organize this as a movement and so he was doing a lot of, he was a graphic designer and so he was doing a lot of logos and they had these boxes that he'd have each of these people send me something and I'll put it in a box and there'd be a collection of just found objects basically and then they would sell them at the Fluxus store. Well in the year the Fluxus store was there, no one bought anything. It was another one of George, but these Fluxus boxes are worth a lot of money, it's kind of amazing and we have a collector in Vermont who has 700 Fluxus pieces. So these things, you know, there were chess sets, there were, they tried to do different pamphlets and nothing really worked. The, they also started making films. I mentioned the one about Yoko doing the match. She did one called Blink, which you guess it's the close-up of an eye, opening and closing, one called Smile, but it was these everyday actions, right? Not glamorized, but just done as they are done and for the audience then to respond to them in the way they want to. The same time there was Nam June Pike did a piece called Zen for Film and it was just running Clear Leader for seven minutes and of course it was filmed so every time you did it, the sock got scratched and dirtier so it degraded over time and that's exactly what Nam June Pike wanted is for this object of film that had nothing on it to degrade. They were sending postcards to each other, there's a 91-year-old Fluxus artist in Brattleboro that's gotten to know, Nye Theribus is her name and she and Yoko Ono used to, they raised their kids together, they'd be in the Central Park with the kids but Yoko would send her a postcard that was half finished and then she would send it back to Yoko and there was a guy named Ray Johnson who would do these mail art, it was called and he would say add on to it and you send it on to anyone you want or you could hoard it and keep it or you could send it on or you could, and so it was hard to understand when Ray died about well is this a postcard started by him but is it a Ray Johnson postcard if you've taken it and you've drawn on it and then you've sent it along, like what's the ownership here and that's exactly what some of these folks were thinking about. The Nye Theribus I mentioned, she and her husband Jeff Hendricks they'd been married for 10 years and they decided that they had two kids they decided they were gonna separate. They kept the kids and family here but they weren't gonna live together anymore so they decided they'd have a flux divorce because of course they had to have a fluxes event so they invited everyone to come to their house and they had taken barbed wire and they put it down the middle of the hall and the men were to go on one side of the barbed wire and the women would go on the other side they had taken a saw and they chopped up their bed and they had ripped up their marriage certificate into shreds and then the kids had sewn mom and dad back to back in coats and the men were asked to pull on the male side and the women were asked to pull on the female side until they ripped apart at the coats and then that was the end of the party and Jill Johnston who was a critic from New York for the Village Voice was playing piano Louise Nevelson was there, John Lennon and Yoko Ono all the party, everyone was having a good time and the Museum of Modern Art in New York does have something called the flux divorce box which is remnants of these kinds of actions which it's hard to understand how they do so I mentioned Nile lives in Brattleboro Dick Higgins was Glover, Allison Knowles went to Middlebury and so there is an amazing collection of fluxes stuff that's happened here in Vermont that we're uncovering if you think about Andy Warhol's films and this by fluxes is interesting to me is that most of us don't remember any of their names but they so were, they influenced the next generation so Andy Warhol's films were very much influenced by fluxes he would hang out with these people when he was a young artist in New York and if you think about Andy Warhol made a film called Sleep which was nine hours long the camera was just on someone sleeping so but that was very fluxes like he also did these things where when people would come to his studio at the factory he would sit down and say okay well we're gonna do what would you call it an audition tape I guess it was a screen test, he called it a screen test and he said just sit there and I'll turn the camera on for two minutes with no instructions and then he'd say thank you and then he would say okay now we'll sit in the camera for two minutes no instructions so he has hundreds of these things and some of them are very famous people who came down there and so some were hamming it up some were silent, Lou Reed was sitting there smoking a cigarette he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing but it's like so Warhol and then of course Warhol took pop art with a number of other artists but this is the next generation after fluxes and they like the Brillo pads or the soup cans were totally influenced by these folks take everyday objects and reproduce them in a different way and so those artists brought it to scale what they're talking about so we're gonna see some of you may have seen it last week on PBS a video I made but when I started doing this research I really loved Sean as a person and I loved his work as an artist the beautiful sound composition person and I was thinking I wanted him to make the sound score for this fluxes piece even though it wasn't created yet I just wanted to work with him and so I have a Shetland pony at a barn in Williston that I hitch up to a cart and drive around so I was sitting there one day and Sean shows up with his two kids cause it was pony camp time so anyway he dropped the girls off they were with the horse I said another tree and I said I have this idea so I'll turn it over to you now Sean well John said I have this idea have you ever heard of fluxes before and I had to chuckle a little bit because I had but not intentionally when many years ago I was an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico and I was maybe not doing so well in a music composition class that I was in so the professor said well if you want some extra credit you gotta volunteer for this theatrical production that was happening so needing the extra credit I did and after volunteering for the theatrical production the director came up and said well I can't pay you but I can give you some CDs and I thought alright great I'll take whatever and he had this collection of CDs one of which was by Allison Knowles who John was talking about who made the sandwich piece and the salad piece I had never heard of Allison Knowles but there was something about the CD that really resonated with me and all it was it's called Frioles Canyon and it was these recordings of her traveling through Frioles Canyon which is in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado and doing field recordings of different people in the community making food with beans I loved it so much that it became a recording that I would listen to to I don't know help me get in the zone because I was also a track athlete at the time so I'd be at the track athlete and everyone would be warming up and I'd have my headphones on listening to Allison Knowles not knowing she was fluxes or anything about it it wasn't until many years later and I think when John asked that question there was an instant connection in many ways So it's 14 minutes, we'll see it and you'll actually see I hope that some of these scores that I mentioned of the water, drip, music, draw line and follow it what I did is I took 12 of these artists who I really admire for the impact they've had and took some of their performance scores but tried not to do it as they did it or anyone else did it it's like how could I do it in my own way in this 16 years afterwards but I'm not trying to be any of them but it's sort of an homage to this group of brassicals and then we'll take questions Did and she would always say beforehand will I like it or will it be good for me so I hope some of you liked it and the rest of you, it's good for you okay, you don't like it that was great, that was great we're glad to answer questions for your presentation I was listening quite attentively I declined when I was looking at the cake box but anyway, that one of you said was but what's the ownership of the action as a central kind of a premise or a force? and I think that I associated that with Lyne and Alice in Wonderland where the Queen of Hearts says something to Alice like it's about a word she says, well, when I use a word it'll mean whatever I want it to me there's nothing conventional about it there's nothing patterned or normative about it it's just my own network, I'll make it whatever I want it's completely, you know so it fosters an idiosyncratic, non-conventional non-normative kind of reality, it seems to me now my first big mistake I guess is to look for meaning but that is the point that everything is what you want to make it and there's a whole field of literature which I became very fond of or used a lot communication theory out of Palo Alto California's people anyway, the idea that all behavior communicates one cannot not communicate and message communicated is not necessarily message received and other kind of central premises around it's just the way we're built we're continually sending messages that have a kind of report part and also a relationship but context built in so it's, this to me defies that it ends up sounding like the Queen of Hearts I'll make this but action, this behavior I mean anything I want to me and so if you tend to see something coming your way and you want to make sense out of it in a way you usually make sense out of it which might be a little bit norm, it'll mean what I say and so maybe you can help me with the philosophical underpinnings of this in about 30 seconds but I don't get it you know, you got it no, no, no I'm not being facetious you totally got it, it's exactly that I had the last three weeks I was artist and resident at Champaign College and Sean was an invited artist to create a piece but 88 students made pieces inspired by fluxes and it was chaos, it was great, it was awful it was fantastic, it was banal, it was profound it was stupid but everyone got so excited about thinking of this and in one of the design classes I presented my notes to them and the kids were wearing masks and this one Japanese man was like he looked like he was unhappy and I said well I said so I think you have feelings about this what do you think and he said I think this is just stupid and he said and our class has, we have an assignment we have to do a poster about something we care about in the fluxes style and how am I gonna do that and I said well I don't know but if you think about everyday objects and what does that mean to you and I was so happy when he brought his poster he decided he wanted to do something about creating empathy for those who are unhoused and he took all of his clothes or all of his belongings and put them in the shopping cart and it was really interesting that he took ownership of the idea that he wanted to do something someone who is unhoused and he took his objects and made it an art piece and I said to him afterwards I said you know I knew when you called it stupid that you were really gonna come up with something really good and you did and he said yeah I like this piece so you end up with after you've gone through this that you've created something or that you haven't well that you know that's that's a fantastic question this was my 17th film and so I'm just gonna stand so I can see you you know every film I make is like I don't really know why I made it and what its purpose is in the world and this one in particular I had no idea I just wanted to do this and I had applied to the arts council and got turned down and so I found other resources to make it and then I thought well what is it and when friends would look at it they're like okay John and it was a year to the day that I shot that and downstairs in Flint space from those who know the downstairs space it aired on Perron PBS and you know we were artists and residents at Champlain so I didn't know what its purpose was when I made it I just made a new piece about living with chronic pain and I had no idea where that what that will be you know and so I just wanted to delve into the process of I need it like a restart after COVID and I had run the Flint for eight years I was in the Vermont legislature I was not gonna run again and I needed a restart and I thought fluxes is gonna be my restart where I just think about things and take everyday objects and work on the process of something and not worry about what the outcome's gonna be so we shot it in one take there were three cameras there so it was very stressful because the lights were there the sound was there and the three cameras were there so I just wasn't sort of you know and we only did one take on it so I couldn't screw it up so I was nervous during it and then we edited it and then I turned it over to Sean and said okay now you have to create the pulse of the piece with this sound score so I don't know why I made it but you know being at the open-ish Shandpane College and seeing the 88 kids really happy and doing just wild things like kids in college should be doing and art classes and the steamed artists like Sean were part of as well there were 108 pieces in the show it was all about celebrating this moment where artists just kind of reinvented themselves so that's why I made it I think it was probably for that and I didn't know that We have one time for one more question Okay, here's one from Zoom nice to know more about what was happening in the 60s is anyone new following this now? Is anyone new following Fluxus now? Is that working? Yes is anyone new following it now like youth perhaps or I mean I loved John's mention of the students at Shandpane College because I'm a professor too in Johnson which is a whole nother thing that we don't have time to get into but the younger generations that I see really need Fluxus in their lives and here's one big reason why is that I'm seeing so many students that have grown up in this system where everything is so scheduled everything is so directed everything has to have a purpose and like their schedule's coming out of high school or you know everything's so tight and I know this too being a parent it's like you're running around all the time and you always have to get to the next thing but there's very little time for reflection there's very little time for experimentation and there's very little time for play and when I see these students getting into college and when I see them trying to emulate some of the ideas that John's bringing about with the Fluxus it's very challenging for them it's really like switching a different pattern and a different gear so I think that there's a lot of room in our world right now for this kind of remodeling the kind of systems that especially the youth have really had very little opportunity to change you know it's an interesting question because many of these artists aren't remembered and so like Sean knew Alison from him being in the zone before his track meet and didn't realize that it was these beans being shaken in a bag in the field of recording but so Sean's music in this piece is very Fluxus-like even though he would never think he was a Fluxus person but it's these subsequent generations that may not know about them Wiley Garcia who is the curator at Champlain College she didn't know about Alice and Oles at all and she said oh you know this is interesting as you talk about this John because I did a piece in 2018 where I handed cards out and invited people to come to my house at Sunday from one to three and have tea and cookies and every Sunday I was there and sometimes people would show up and some didn't and she said I guess that was inspired by Alice and Oles even though I didn't know it right and I said well maybe but that this group really allowed conceptual art to happen performance art to happen body arts you know this is with these Yoko and Chiquico these women were really radical in what they were doing and allowed other women to do claim their own body as well so they're not as remembered as well but they there's you know how all change happens from the fringe we see that in our politics today I certainly learned that in the Vermont House the left and the right may not mainstream but their ideas push the center well the same thing happens these artists never mainstream but they actually pushed the center and you know Yoko Ono I mean she is very famous person of course but she put out this book in 1964 called Grapefruit right and these were performance scores like we've been talking about every day there was a different one well you know the song Imagine that was 1971 John Lennon took sole credit for writing even though there are imagined lyrics in the 1964 book of Yoko Ono okay the performance score so eventually John Lennon had to admit it was co-written by Yoko Ono and inspired by her of course but again Yoko was never going to mainstream in the way John Lennon mainstream but she allowed the John Lennons to change and so to our Zoom listener I think this has been a very influential group even though this generation has very little idea of who they were and Shawn, thank you so much for bringing such a different belief