Sharing Cremains.

Today I ask you to indulge me in entertaining a hypothetical situation. Please keep in mind that I am not suggesting the following is true. Treat it as if it were fiction, and don't try to sort out any reality from the story. This is as standard a disclaimer as I can muster, so bear with me.

What if someone threw a pinch of cremains on you without any advanced notice? Perhaps we should define terms first. Do you know what "cremains" are? Very simply, they are exactly what they sound like- the remains left behind after a body is cremated. You know... the stuff that is usually referred to as "ashes", and is either buried with ceremony or kept in an urn on a mantel. Creamins are a material usually disposed of according to formal procedures. There are laws about what you can do with it. There are also religious, spiritual, and social taboos associated with human remains. Certainly people have come up with all types of creative ideas regarding this material. It's reasonable to suppose that many of these have been acted upon.

So how would you feel if you got dusted with human ash? Imagine that you went to see a performance by a band that you were only vaguely familiar with. Maybe you had one of their CD's over a decade ago, but you haven't been paying attention since. You don't know what they've been up to in the interim, and you haven't really thought about them in years. And then your friend tells you that she has an extra ticket to one of their performances, and figures that you (of all the people she knows) is best equipped to enjoy the show. Since you were initially intrigued by the novelty and creativity of the band, you feel that there is nothing to lose by accepting her offer. Who knows but that you might have a lot of fun?

Then you find yourself at a local arts space and you settle in. The room is so crowded that you find yourself in the back, on the floor. But then your friend suggests going up front, and you are surprised to find available seats with an unobstructed view. As the two musicians on stage proceed through their repertoire, you learn that the event is only one stop along a tour meant to commemorate the memory of the duo's mentor and musical collaborator. It turns out that the man is now six months dead, and that the bulk of the songs being presented were written by him. And they are conceptually and viscerally twisted. Murder, sexual perversion and the vile nature of humanity are prominent themes. Still there is a certain genius in the music. It is startlingly original and well articulated.

As the show continues, you begin to realize that you actually like it quite a bit. It's transgressive and it pushes boundaries in markedly innovative ways. But most importantly- it is entertaining and you can identify with a lot of it. You sit watching transfixed. You laugh out loud and cringe just a bit. You are truly enjoying yourself. And then it happens... the arbitrary boundary between performer and audience is abruptly violated. A benediction is offered without explanation. One of the artists on-stage removes something from a small, ornately designed box and sifts it through his hands. He walks purposefully into the audience and throws small amounts of this dusty substance on particular individuals. Upon inquiry he answers that the stuff he's sharing is "whatever you want it to be".

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what has happened, especially as your host (who has met and shares mutual friends with the band) confirms that your initial suspicion is quite possibly accurate. Given the nature of the night's tribute, there is only one explanation that makes sense. After the show you approach the performers and allude to the gesture with the mysterious (and gritty) substance, and ask whether it had anything to do with the last wishes of their fallen associate. One of the principal players looks around furtively and then carefully confirms your speculation without an explicit admission. You're told that there was indeed conversation and an agreement regarding the remains of the soon-to-be passing partner. This was a purposeful and well-thought out ritualistic offering.

How would you process such a hypothetical situation?

Danial Johnston, and his movie.

I finally got the chance to watch The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006), a documentary film directed by Jeff Feuerzeig. I had been intrigued by this story of a mentally ill man who wants to find fame as a singer-songwriter. In fact I'm generally interested in psychological portraits of artists who fight against convention to express themselves. Daniel Johnston fits that profile. He struggled with a bipolar disorder for decades. Still he believed that one day he would be famous, like his idol John Lennon. He used film, songs, and drawings to document his daily life. He recorded his raw, warbly, voice and simple guitar-playing on cassette tapes, and distributed them to everyone he met. Eventually people began to take notice. Musicians like Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Yo La Tengo, Beck, and The Flaming Lips became fans of his work.

Daniel Johnston grew up in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. He was the youngest of four children born to a pair of Christian Fundamentalist parents. From the very start his parents realized that he was different. He had a hard time controlling his impulses, and he liked to spend all of his time in the basement playing a rickety piano and creating line drawings. Sometimes he would enlist his brother's aid in making home movies. But he mostly kept to himself, articulating his dreams. Upon graduating high school he briefly attended Abilene Christian University, and later transferred to a branch of Kent State University in Ohio. It was during those years that his bipolar disorder began to manifest itself in serious ways.

While at Kent State, Johnston met what would turn out to be "the love of his life". Although they never even established a romantic relationship, the troubled young man became entirely obsessed with a girl named Laurie Allen. Through the years he would write hundreds of songs about her, claiming that she was his one and only muse. At the same time he was having a lot of difficulty living with his parents, and his siblings in Texas eventually invited him to live with them. It was upon his move to Austin that things began to develop for him. Johnston worked at McDonald's and in his off-hours began to establish himself as a bit of a local celebrity. His big break happened when MTV came to town, and he managed to worm his way into their programming.

As his exposure grew, and his music began to make its way into the hands of musicians and recording industry professionals, Johnston's behavior became increasingly erratic. He began to take LSD. His hallucinogenic drug use combined destructively with his millenarian biblical views to produce severe delusions. He began to act out in strange and maladaptive ways. His condition deteriorated until he ultimately tried to bring down a plane in which his father was attempting to fly him home. Although both Johnston and his father survived the crash landing, this stunt landed Daniel in a mental institution. Incredibly, he had become such a legend in the music underground that major record labels were offering him lucrative contracts while he was under commitment.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston brings us up-to-date with its subject's life. Johnston lives in Texas with his aging parents, in a home adjacent to their own. Although he seems relatively stable (thanks to a comprehensive regimen of modern medication), he is in need of support and care. He still records and performs music, and is assisted on the business end by his father. Tastes are different from the 90's, and there isn't such an appetite for quirky and raw fragility in the guise of indie pop-folk. While Johnston still has his following, he increasingly becomes a novelty act. I'm convinced that people go out to see him for his legend, rather than his actual creative output. He's even gotten his drawings into the Whitney Biennial, which pretty much guarantees that he is past his artistic zenith. But he is still a curiosity, and for those that are unfamiliar with him, the documentary is quite amusing.