Reality and Space

This is an essay I wrote in 1979 after a meeting with Michael Gonzales and the Mime Caravan that he was the co-founder of in Santa Barbara, California. The now famous parade was just a few years old. In 1979 the idea was to hold a huge rally in the courtyard of the Santa Barbara city hall. For more information about this amazing festival that has become an international event, click here. Rest in peace Michael, my friend. May your legacy continue to enrich the world for many more years!

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In Santa Barbara there is a group of people called the Mime Caravan. They hold their meetings where they can, in the places they happen to be renting at the time. On early Sunday morning we had a meeting in the shade. Some of us were wearing shoes and shirts. The whole caravan consists of anywhere from twenty to fifty members, with a core of roughly fifteen people. Most have outside sources of income. I can't tell about the others. They seem to be professional artists (whatever that means) who subsist on their art and each other's religious dedication. Five of us met with Michael on Sunday.

Under the veranda of what was once a church, we discussed the mechanics of the newest project; a piece about the earth, the spirit, and man, to put it simply. What a waste of energy! Michael, who moves better than he speaks, was "communicating" his piece to us. There was much talk of energy, connections, space, movements, and sequence.

We sat, sometimes asking questions, sometimes offering suggestions, but mostly trying to connect with the nebulous and powerful image in his mind. we began the process of unraveling this complex image. We, as scientists of art, each with our own special skills and perceptions, dissected his mind – breaking little pieces off of him to reform them into our own shapes – fitting them into the jigsaw of our art structure.

He had prepared for us what he called a script to guide us. It was written simply, and put simply, it doesn't do much good to read it alone. It needs the author to breath life into it. As the composer of the group, I am to create, according to this image, "...a song for a tree that is short but echoes time... the sounds of metal and grinding that are loud and threatening! ...the sound of hypnotic music of high intensity with harmonious tones ringing out like a gamelon orchestra celebrating the cycle and evolution of life...", among other "sounds". I will create these aural images with Michael's help, with endless hours in the electronic music studio, and with the help of whatever spirits there are that echo time and are somewhat hypnotic.

At eleven-thirty I popped up to announce my impending departure into the other reality. I was not alone. We all had to get back into that other space. I intromitted my peregrination vehicle and began a two hour journey to Los Angeles.

On Monday morning I was jolted from my usual Monday Morning languor while reading the following:

Initializing the block and word decoder begins with the decoding of address O08 by SDC control 2 (A2A52), which in turn, generates block strobe lBLST2. Signal 1BLST2 is buffered and inverted on SDC control 1(A2A52) and inputed to control 4(A2A46) and 1BLST3. In SDC control 4, 1BLST3 clears the block counter to zero and enables the word counter. The contents of the block counter are ANDed with lBLKlO. when this condition exists, and COIN5...