My first art house film I watched in the theater was My Dinner with Andre.  I was sixteen and went to see it by myself at the Harvard Exit in Seattle.  I remember still walking out of the theater on Saturday late afternoon day, and just wandering into the bustling Capitol Hill flow.  There are a few moments in one's life when one knows there has been a major shift.  It is what some of us hope for every time we go to engage any art: let me see the world differently, pull the veil from eyes, make me question everything.

That a simple film about two men having dinner and a conversation could do that...

Many years later, in my last quarter of what was a long long time in the ivory towers of colleges I found myself in a philosophy class at  the alternative college attached to my last university I attended.  The students were hand picked by the professor (which caused some debate within the egalitarian philosophy of the alternative college).  As he put it, he didn't want students who were just discovering "deep thought," but those who wanted to take things to the "next level." 

For the most of the ten weeks it was basically an ongoing discussion between Henry Giroux, Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous, and Che Guevera.  Quite interesting and some incredible discussions. 

Then we were to give our last presentation.  Everybody gave their pesentation in the typical fashion.  I got up.  The professor has loaned me a book Take Up the Bodies (which I still have) by Herbert Blau (which became one of the most influential books of my life),  So I wanted to do something with a theater angle.  After a little scene from Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead and an excerpt from Irena Klepfisz's poem Monkey House and Other Cages, I ended with this compilation from Wally in My Dinner with Andre:

Yeah, but I mean, are you saying that it's impossible, I mean...I mean, isn't it a little upsetting to come to the conclusion that there's no way to wake people up any more? Except to involve them in some kind of a strange christening in Poland, or some kind of a strange experience on top of Mount Everest? I mean, because you know, the awful thing is that if you're really saying that it's necessary to take everybody to Everest, it's really tough! Because everybody can't be taken to Everest! I mean, there must have been periods in history when it would have been possible to "save the patient" through less drastic measures. I mean, there must have been periods when in order to give people a strong or meaningful experience you wouldn't actually have to take them to Everest!

I mean, you know, there was a time when you could have just, for instance, written, I don't know, Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen! And I'm sure the people who read it had a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they did. I mean, all right, now you're saying that people today wouldn't get it, and maybe that's true, but, I mean, isn't there any kind of writing, or any kind of a play that--I mean: isn't it still legitimate for writers to try to portray reality so that people can see it? I mean, really! Tell me: why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality? I mean...I mean: is Mount Everest more "real" than New York? I mean, isn't New York "real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean...I mean, isn't there just as much "reality" to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest? I mean, what do you think? You see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way. So that if you're--if your perceptions--I mean, if your own mechanism is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd! Because, I mean, it's just--I mean, of course, on some level, I mean, obviously it's very different from a cigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...

See, my actual response, I mean...I mean...I mean, I'm just trying to survive, you know. I mean, I'm just trying to earn a living, just trying to pay my rents and my bills. I mean, uh...ahhh. I live my life, I enjoy staying home with Debby. I'm reading Charlton Heston's autobiography, and that's that! I mean, you know, I mean, occasionally maybe Debby and I will step outside, we'll go to a party or something, and if I can occasionally get my little talent together and write a little play, well then that's just wonderful. And I mean, I enjoy reading about other little plays that other people have written, and reading the reviews of those plays, and what people said about them, and what people said about what people said, and.... And I mean, I have a list of errands and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook; I enjoy going through the notebook, carrying out the responsibilities, doing the errands, then crossing them off the list!

And I mean, I just don't know how anybody could enjoy anything more than I enjoy reading Charlton Heston's autobiography, or, you know, getting up in the morning and having the cup of cold coffee that's been waiting for me all night, still there for me to drink in the morning! And no cockroach or fly has died in it overnight. I mean, I'm just so thrilled when I get up and I see that coffee there just the way I wanted it, I mean, I just can't imagine how anybody could enjoy something else any more than that! I mean...I mean, obviously, if the cockroach--if there is a dead cockroach in it, well, then I just have a feeling of disappointment, and I'm sad.

But I mean, I just don't think I feel the need for anything more than all this. Whereas, you know, you seem to be saying that it's inconceivable that anybody could be having a meaningful life today, and you know, everyone is totally destroyed. And we all need to live in these outposts. But I mean, you know, I just can't believe, even for you, I mean, don't you find...? Isn't it pleasant just to get up in the morning, and there's Chiquita, there are the children, and the Times is delivered, you can read it! I mean, maybe you'll direct a play, maybe you won't direct a play, but forget about the play that you may or may not direct. Why is it necessary to...why not lean back and just enjoy these details? I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake. I mean, why is it necessary to have more than this, or to even think about having more than this. I mean, I don't really know what you're talking about. I mean...I mean I know what you're talking about, but I don't really know what you're talking about.

And I mean, you know, even if I were to totally agree with you, you know, and even if I were to accept the idea that there's just no way for anybody to have personal happiness now, well, you know, I still couldn't accept the idea that the way to make life wonderful would be to just totally, you know, reject western civilization and fall back into some kind of belief in some kind of weird something. I mean...I mean, I don't even know how to begin talking about this, but, do you know...? In the Middle Ages, before the arrival of scientific thinking as we know it today, well, people could believe anything. Anything could be true: the statue of the Virgin Mary could speak, or bleed, or whatever it was. But the wonderful thing that happened was that then in the development of science in the western world, well, certain things did come slowly to be known, and understood. I mean, you know, obviously all ideas in science are constantly being revised; I mean, that's the whole point. But we do at least know that the universe has some shape, and order, and that, you know, trees do not turn into people, or goddesses. And they're very good reasons why they don't, and you can't just believe absolutely anything!

You know, the truth is, I think I do know what really disturbs me about the work you've described, and I don't even know if I can express it. But somehow it seems that the whole point of the work that you did in those workshops, when you get right down to it and you ask: what was it really about; the whole point really, I think, was to enable the people in the workshops, including yourself, to somehow sort of strip away every scrap of purposefulness from certain selected moments. And the point of it was so that you would then all be able to experience somehow just pure being. In other words you were trying to discover what it would be like to live for certain moments without having any particular thing that you were supposed to be doing. And I think I just simply object to that. I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea that there should be moments in which you're not trying to do anything! I think it's our nature to do things, I think we should do things, I think that purposefulness is part of our ineradicable, basic human structure, and to say that we ought to be able to live without it is like saying that a tree ought to be able to live without branches or roots, but actually, without branches or roots it wouldn't be a tree. I mean, it would just be a log. You see what I'm saying?

I had been looking down the whole time, reading the script, and looked up.  There was silence.  In a good way.  Everyone was sitting there a little stunned.  In a good way.  I have to say it was one of those moments in my life when I knew I had impacted people in a significant way. It was then I truly understood what art is capable of accomplishing, how it is a pathway forward.

And also how far we have to go.  Together. Miles to go before we sleep.  Inconceivable.