Allen lecture on Time and Sound from Naropa, 1985 – tape is turned over and continues in media res...
transcript continuing from here
AG : …..(the) human voice complicated, and makes it into (a) more simplified, monolithic.. and destroys the complexity of the pattern already created and evolved over several thousand…several thousand million years…(and)…
Student: (Was he thinking of (the Bororo) when he wrote that?)
AG: No he was thinking of introducing the (cooking) pot to the Mato Grosso (you know, it’s usually a knife or an ax) – Anybody read Lévi-Strauss ? It’s really interesting . What he says is that, ultimately… what he says is that man is doomed, because he has, in residence on the planet, not treated.. has treated Nature as if it was dead, not realizing that the world around us is alive, and has not treated it with either sensitivity, or even (the) minimum of courtesy. That’s his last line in.. what is it? I think it’s something in the.. what is it? the history of table manners? (do you know that book? anybody know that book? – [L’Origine des manières de table (1968), The Origin of Table Manners, (1978)] – I think that’s his great thing – a history of table manners – And, apparently, he’s pronouncing this judgement on humanity for having bad table manners! – not appreciating what it’s eating up!
But anyway, getting back to this question of “emotion enduring” and “Dinner with Andre” and the grasping of the artifact… making an artifact. What is the…
Student: (I remember seeing a picture of a Southern Indian Buddha carved out of stone that… and another (out of).. limestone….. and the other (was).. (was) more refined, in a way.. (and)…)
AG: Well, what is refinement ? What good is refinement, though, in itself?
Student:What good is being human?
AG: Well, what good? I mean, it’s like, what good is art ? My question is What good is art?
Student (1): Fun
AG Fun?
Student(2): Power
AG: Uh?
Student(2): Power
Student (3): Communication?
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately sixty-four-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately sixty-six-and-quarter minutes in