KINGSLEY WIDMER
545
Our visual art styles in recent years play with wasting: the self–
destruct museum obj ect; the disintegra ting rubbi sh form and the
accidental concretion ; the pop permanenti zing of the fatuously im–
permanent, whi ch soon slides back into its unna tural ori gins; and the
brilliant waste-econ omy of some "conceptual art" whi ch declines
actuall y to artifi ce an ything. The fin al was te-a rt may create no waste by
was tefull y creating nothing . Word-culture has greater difficulti es in
reaching such fin esse and absolute gesture. (Music achieves some of it
in the totall y noi sy popular as well as the to tall y silent vangu ardi st,
was ting our ears.) But litera ture approaches was te-purism in the
"nonsense" orientation of some modernist poetics, in the self–
parodying trivi aliza tion of fo rms, and in the absurdi st contradicting
out of meaning. This is no t to mention the cruder exampl es of cut-up
(Burrough s), clich ed-down (Brautigan ) and trashed-out (Barthelme)
writings, or much redundant poeticizing of cast-offs (even unto Wright
and Wright ). Wha t used to be call ed "expression " becomes largely the
manipulation of left- overs and left-out s. The diffi culties inherent in
leaving out some variety of experi ence between the dirt of coming and
the dirt of leaving are covered over by the waste ma teri als of langu age.
It
may reveal an ultra-aes theti c of pure being, which may also be pure
was te.
Certainly much of this was te aesthetic is not new, as the disdainful
point out, whi ch is also to admit that it is no t a temporary aberra tion ,
as the di sdainful fail to add. Some of the waste-arts' hi stori es may be
recognized in moderni sm, though the spiritual and moral metaphors
of "waste land," and of sh oring fragments against the ruin of the self,
may have reversed their ironies. The laments and cultural nostalgia
and traditi on alism and literary debris may now seem the thing itself,
the expressions of was te for its own sake. The fragments are less shored
aga in st ruin and despair than its bemused or defiant asserti on . An y–
thing else, any ques t through it, would be a refusal of candor in a was te
cosmos. Moderni st nega ti on and nihilism lose poe ti c shock and moral
indi gnation when all seems was te.
But isn 't tha t more generall y true? A few years ago "was te him"
became argot for murder, including offi ciall y ordered murder (recall–
ing one of the minor Vi etn am scandals). The tone of such wasting goes
beyond mere murder-hardl y new-to killing with little or no pretense
at justificati on , no t even the san ctifi cations of beli ef or ha tred or other
feeling. Life is to be gra tuitously was ted, without much cl aim to
was teful purpose or significance. As with the ultima te thermonuclear
