Who's Afraid of Destroying Edward Albee?

[Sneelock]

It's the wish of the individual who created it, to destroy it after his death. I am genuinely puzzled why that is so hard to accept.

just stubborn, I guess.
I'm not a very creative person but I try my hand from time to time. I crumple up a LOT of paper. I guess what I find weird is asking somebody else to crumple it for you.

[Robert]

It's the wish of the individual who created it, to destroy it after his death. I am genuinely puzzled why that is so hard to accept.

just stubborn, I guess.
I'm not a very creative person but I try my hand from time to time. I crumple up a LOT of paper. I guess what I find weird is asking somebody else to crumple it for you.

Maybe one puts it in its will in case life stops sooner than anticipated

[Quaco]

Or in cases where there are other copies that aren't in his grasp.

[zoomboogity]

Or maybe the artist's unfinished work in still "in progress" even after several years. Books, paintings and songs are often finished years, even decades, after the original inspiration. Nobody dies on schedule.

I used to be on the side of wanting to take it all in, warts and all. When I first learned that there was more to Syd Barrett than his two albums and the Floyd stuff, that was fun. Once it got to Chukka-Chukka-Chug-Chug, it felt like going through someone's clothes hamper. On the other hand, I've really enjoyed the recent Gene Clark release. That stuff was all finished, and his estate (sons) authorized it, so I assume that they acted in his best interests. I don't feel like digging through other people's stuff anymore, I'll be happy with whatever they want to share. Part of the bargain of being a fan should be mutual respect. You don't put out crap, and I don't rummage through your trash can.

[Sneelock]

I do.

[Quaco]

If I can just remove this from Albee to a wider point. While neither my mother nor Chip left me with any deathbed instructions (except, in Chip's case, to do whatever I felt was right) I've thought a lot about this, and although I knee-jerk voted for destruction, in general I don't think the wishes of people in extremis should be binding on those left behind. This whole thing smacks to me of a denial of I-death at best, and at worse an overweening sense of self-importance, neither of which are anything I can get behind.

Just a personal side note. My paternal grandmother, knowing she was dying in the last month of her life, destroyed all her old photos. This was a real loss because not only did it include images of her ancestors and places she'd lived and been, but also baby pictures of my father, etc. My father never really forgave her for that. When he found out she had done it and confronted her, her reasons were strange and vague -- nobody really cares about all that, it's all just temporal, that sort of thing. I still think it was technically her right to do so, but it was unnecessary and I think being near death can give people in a very different, sometimes selfish, view on life.

Sure, none of this matters, but it matters to me!

[zoomboogity]

I do.

No need to feel embarrassed. I used to be into all that too, so I get why others would be. I'm glad for Fripp that he finally saw fit to release the concert recording he did with Eno in 1975, but I'm also glad that I didn't wait for him to realize how great it is. (Besides, the mix on the bootleg is still better!)

Speaking of whom, for all my cracking on his whole persnickety routine, it's great that he places so much value on the relationship between performer and audience. When we saw KC a couple weeks ago, they did one song that ended with the singer doing one verse a capella, several seconds of silence between each line. The perfect opportunity for someone to yell something out, but instead, there was complete silence. At the end, people even waited to applaud. It was as though the entire audience had enough respect for the performers, each other, and themselves to not go "WOO!" and spoil it. For 5000 to do that and lift the moment up to something more than just another night at the circus was really nice. I like a good circus too, but sometimes I want more, and it's nice to know that other people still do as well. Quaco and Bobzilla were there, they'll attest to that.

[Quaco]

I used to have a bootleg of KC in Europe in '74, and there was about two minutes of almost silence on stage ("The Mincer" I think), and the audience didn't make a sound.

[Minnie the Minx]

If I can just remove this from Albee to a wider point. While neither my mother nor Chip left me with any deathbed instructions (except, in Chip's case, to do whatever I felt was right) I've thought a lot about this, and although I knee-jerk voted for destruction, in general I don't think the wishes of people in extremis should be binding on those left behind. This whole thing smacks to me of a denial of I-death at best, and at worse an overweening sense of self-importance, neither of which are anything I can get behind.

Just a personal side note. My paternal grandmother, knowing she was dying in the last month of her life, destroyed all her old photos. This was a real loss because not only did it include images of her ancestors and places she'd lived and been, but also baby pictures of my father, etc. My father never really forgave her for that. When he found out she had done it and confronted her, her reasons were strange and vague -- nobody really cares about all that, it's all just temporal, that sort of thing. I still think it was technically her right to do so, but it was unnecessary and I think being near death can give people in a very different, sometimes selfish, view on life.

Sure, none of this matters, but it matters to me!

As it should. But this is your family.
Not a play you might fancy seeing sometime.

[sloopjohnc]

If I can just remove this from Albee to a wider point. While neither my mother nor Chip left me with any deathbed instructions (except, in Chip's case, to do whatever I felt was right) I've thought a lot about this, and although I knee-jerk voted for destruction, in general I don't think the wishes of people in extremis should be binding on those left behind. This whole thing smacks to me of a denial of I-death at best, and at worse an overweening sense of self-importance, neither of which are anything I can get behind.

Just a personal side note. My paternal grandmother, knowing she was dying in the last month of her life, destroyed all her old photos. This was a real loss because not only did it include images of her ancestors and places she'd lived and been, but also baby pictures of my father, etc. My father never really forgave her for that. When he found out she had done it and confronted her, her reasons were strange and vague -- nobody really cares about all that, it's all just temporal, that sort of thing. I still think it was technically her right to do so, but it was unnecessary and I think being near death can give people in a very different, sometimes selfish, view on life.

Sure, none of this matters, but it matters to me!

Sorry to hear that, Jim. That's one of the things - people do stuff at the end of life for weird, personal reasons. My dad wanted to do a bunch of weird stuff with his personal effects, stuff that included him and my mom, and finances. I got to hear all of these things after I'd been at work all day and he'd been stewing about things. My brother and I put some stuff in a hole the back of his closet and screwed them shut so he couldn't get at 'em. Some, my brother took to his place because he cared more about those kind of things than I did. One day, I found a photo of my dad and my mom in the trash before I dumped it. There was a sticky note on the back of the photo saying something was under the frame. I opened the frame and found my original adoption transfer folded up neatly under the photo. Why he put it there, who knows? I'd never seen it. My original, given name was Paul. That I found out.

After he'd told me what he wanted to do, I'd tell him we'd talk about it in the morning. He'd usually forgotten by then. If not, I'd pretend to start doing what he wanted and just wait it out another day.

Living with my grandmother, she just wanted to go back to Sweden, but there was no way she was getting on a plane at 90.

[Robert]

If I can just remove this from Albee to a wider point. While neither my mother nor Chip left me with any deathbed instructions (except, in Chip's case, to do whatever I felt was right) I've thought a lot about this, and although I knee-jerk voted for destruction, in general I don't think the wishes of people in extremis should be binding on those left behind. This whole thing smacks to me of a denial of I-death at best, and at worse an overweening sense of self-importance, neither of which are anything I can get behind.

I for instance, have willed my carcase to science, and if science doesn't want it, have left instructions for no religious involvement in its disposal; but in the act of willing it, I have done my bit. If those still living want to throw a party or funeral, shove the meat into a mausoleum or resort to cannibalism, then that is what they must do. I cannot for the life of me (clever wording, cheers) see how what happens after I'm dead will have any importance, or indeed reality for me. My time ends with my body's death. And the importance and significance of all my 'art' (writings, photos, sculptures, gardens, whatever) and accumulated stuff vanishes with it. Other people can do what they like. I'm fine with being forgotten. That's as it should be. Ancestor worship is all about the descendants, not the progenitors, anyway.

Also, while I have never been in a position where I have had to make this choice, either because the deaths of loved ones have been so abrupt of because the dying person had the gumption not to attempt to put a lien on the living, I can't see it as 'wrong' to agree to a wish someone expresses on their deathbed in order that their last days are not marked with conflict, then not carry it out because it conflicts with one's own moral sense or in some way harms (in the widest possible sense) anyone living. I wouldn't break a solemn promise to the living (tbh, I'd think very hard before making one), but I cannot bound by the dead. It's not that I didn't respect them or didn't love them, because I did. Some may find this horribly venal, but it's pretty much hard-wired into my sense of self, and what it is to be alive.

Respect for a person's wishes vanishes once he's dead ?
This is utter crap and I am strongly disappointed.

If that's all you got from what I wrote, I am mildly disappointed.
And what's with this 'disappointed' crap. What expectations have I failed to fulfill?

That wasn't all I read into it, I just focused on the thing that mattered most in the context of this topic. I know you can't disappoint me but somehow I am, in your absolute belief that your view on being dead is superior to any other view. To the extent that your 'hard wired sense of self' allows for proceeding in whatever way you want, once the person's dead. Your views on what it is to be dead are as meaningless as the concept of heaven and hell in as much as it's all just a belief. And not just a belief but a rather radical hardline version too in that it releases you from what most people would consider just the decent thing to do.

[Moleskin]

In the context of the thread... I think absolutely that the executors should destroy the unpublished work. As a side note, if Brod did tell Kafka that he would not obey the instruction to burn his work, I regard him as off-the-hook.

No artist owes her audience anything beyond what she has already released into the public sphere, and if they would prefer not to leave scraps and doodles to be pored over then that is their absolute right. Sure, I'd like the Harrison estate to release some of the stuff he was (presumably) messing around with in his last couple of decades, or the Salinger estate to say 'here's the first of the 25 novels JD wrote after he went into seclusion', but I'm not entitled to it, and nor is anyone else, except where the artist has allowed for it.

On the other hand, I have fewer qualms about disregarding someone's wishes for their funeral. I would argue for them to be followed, but if another member of the deceased family felt very strongly otherwise (eg., if the deceased wanted to be planted with a tree and widower wants them in the churchyard so as to 'join them' later), then I'd let the living outrule the dead. (I feel in any case that the funeral rite is there for the mourner rather than the deceased, it's saying goodbye and coming together to comfort one another. I'd be disappointed if my wife chose a religious funeral for me, but if it eases her mind why should I care?)

[...]

I think the key problems here are the executors and beneficiaries of writers'/artists' estates.

While Albee et al entrust their executors and legatees to carry out their wishes and block the appearance of stuff they deem unfit for public consumption after their deaths, said executors/legatees ultimately have the most to gain from opening the floodgates in an attempt to rake in the cash while the recently dead artist's/writer's standing is still high.

[sloopjohnc]

I think the key problems here are the executors and beneficiaries of writers'/artists' estates.

While Albee et al entrust their executors and legatees to carry out their wishes and block the appearance of stuff they deem unfit for public consumption after their deaths, said executors/legatees ultimately have the most to gain from opening the floodgates in an attempt to rake in the cash while the recently dead artist's/writer's standing is still high.

They do and one reason I'm kinda respectful of Albee's gatekeepers. They're doing what he wanted, hell or high water.

[Quaco]

Maybe they should just make a public statement: "Don't worry, we've read them and they weren't very good."

[zoomboogity]

Maybe they should just make a public statement: "Don't worry, we've read them and they weren't very good."

Or, "Go write your own damn plays, you fucking vultures."

Back to Syd, I think what turned me around with this is the infamous "stalker footage" where he's walking down the street in his later years. I remember even the hardcore fanbase frowning on this at the time. There's also a photo of him answering the door to some "fans" with this sad look of total exasperation - "Syd isn't here, just an old bald fat bloke named Roger, why do you people keep knocking on my door?" There are plenty of public figures who bask in the attention, go hound them. If he wanted to spend his days creating paintings then burning them when he was done, there was nothing for us to lose.

[Jimbo]

If Albee's unpublished work is as boring and inscrutable as I recall in Albee plays I was forced to endure, he must know, too, his work is shit and wouldn't want to encourage the snobs who claim to love it. If it were any good Albee, or anyone in their right mind would love to have it published and produced.

[Sneelock]

"My God, you gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are."

[zoomboogity]

But you'll have to have them all pulled out...

[Rayge]

Redacted