PARTISAN REVIEW
411
guage. Language as a technology is constantly changing and no one
changes language like black people in America. Not even Shakespeare,
not to mention a Norman Mailer, or a Saul Bellow. They only copy
black people. Symbolically, the Black Power Movement was a new
surge of language into the lethargic middle class; symbolically, black
people helped to sustain the illusion that white America's values were
still viable, and that's why there has been a new return back to their
o.Id values. Once again Black people have, in their thirst to be 'free'
(i.e., to possess whatever it is that will identify them as anything but
a complete black person ), to embrace the old values with such fervor
that white people also find new meaning in them. Hollywood is good
for another thirty years now that black people have moved in.
"To combat this, the new style must be radical. It must be new
not only in content, but form .
It
must contain paradox as one of its
str::nge; weapons. We must stop fooling ourselves about 'good writing' ;
there is no such thing. All 'good writing' is bad as Shakespeare proves.
The young writers should feel free (especially black writers ) to write
bad plays like John Ford's
'Tis a Pity She's a Whore ,
or create bad
characters like Shakespeare's Aaron the Moor, and give Othello that
long rest he needs. Plays should be written about television commer–
cials and films . These things which we can't criticize in the printed
page because they get involved with the printed medium, should be
made into plays ; so we may share them in the community. A play
about the blues genius Robert Johnson, from whom Mick J agger
stole songs (as an image of the white man's stealing from the black
culture which Mr. Bellow despises) and about how Mick Jagger
later kills that black kid in that Altamont Concert, where the black
kid turns out to be Robert Johnson. This is, of course, true already on
a symbolic level, that is to say, the only real level. . . . Or a play
.about Mr. Saul Bellow himself.
"The Theater is the form, bad writing is the content.
It
doesn't
really matter what one writes about as long as he mixes the media.
That is, a TV commercial or a political speech in the context of
Theater. Bad writing is what was hinted at by Sontag in 'Camp,'
which was a form of jive. Any new movement is a break first of all
from the confines of the printed page. One should learn to wipe his
ass with authors like Saul Bellow. I do this, because it frees me from
the confines of his literary judgment, which is necessary for creation.
Upcn being free one must then write -as bad as he can!" Well,
Uncle Willie ! Did you like it?
UNCLE WILLIE: I liked it. Just made me a little sleepy. Why do you write
so long, like that!
