OmniCircus LANTERN event August 8, 2010

Comrades, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies-

Is my work dark? Or am I a strong lantern in a place of blackness? We
are living in the age of darkening. Late capitalism is spreading
it's cavernous tunnel of fear and ignorance and economic compulsion
...over us all, delivering souls into the concentration camp for the
human spirit known as ghetto, turning men into beggars and women into whores by the trainload, and stupefying and infantilizing the youth into paroxysms of idiocy.

Artists are the lanterns in this tunnel, and our greatness is measured
by the strength of our beacon. Most are shades of dark grey, barely
discernible in the night and may be reasonably ignored. There are
those who shine brightly but not yet so very far, and so illumine
mostly themselves, but a welcome light is that for sure to the weary
and blind, who are sore in need of such respite. What wonders will
such geniuses make in the full flower of their work to come!

My own persona is but a detail in the vast landscape of slavery and
oppression revealed by my lantern, and I must not forget this when
faced with the challenge of rejection. I recently performed the
acrobatic feat of simultaneously boring and alarming most of my
friends with an emotional fireworks display triggered by... well, not
much of anything, at least not anything unfamiliar to the OmniCircus
community. OmniCircus is many things - a performance space, a social vision, a mythos, a conduit to the collective unconscious - and I'm sure many of you are thinking some other less poetic descriptives as well now - so fuck you :) - but it is also a school of art and music and social vision, and as such, many talented young people and even geniuses have passed through these doors to learn and to process in creating themselves.

Human frailty being what it is, the nature of youth and learning is to
drink and be empowered, then turn ones back while you exit, haughtily disdaining the source of ones new found strength.

It is a painful thing that we must reject where we have sourced or
enlarged our vision, before we can truly make it our own. Painful but
necessary, and being necessary, with Buddhist aplomb, less painful the more we understand... As the street philosopher sayeth, "The tepid tea of truth is poured into the chalice of ignorance", most often spilled, sometimes not, but never appreciated. Once in a lifetime there is love as well, but then an even more toxic brew is made, as the Gods themselves are jealous when art is combined with love and they prepare an even more loathsome and painful revenge.

This is a heartfelt invitation to all those who have ever been a part
of OmniCircus to attend the CD release party for an historic work,
TRIPTYCH, a 3-CD invocation of the primordial, the earthly and the
truly spiritual in human life.

Now it is thus - we all together have made history, as this work -
TRIPTYCH - grew from the turmoil and terrors of our efforts, from our noble triumphs and from the wreckage of our defeats.

Let us move past our momentariness and feel the spirit of blessed
COMMUNITY grow in celebration of this great work, which many of you are directly a part of! A not inconsiderable muscle of TRIPTYCH and the collaborative process which birthed it is that it can help us heal our wounds, and heal we must. Civilization is in crisis and absolutely NEEDS communities of artists to make change against the forces of slavery and apocalypse. We must forgive each other our frailties and humanity, and draw together. As Ben Franklin said, "We must hang together or we will hang separately!"

Sunday August 8th at 7pm, at OmniCircus. It's Daniel Berkman's and my birthday party, it's a memorial for noble Monkey who died this week, it's a celebration of the genius of a community - let it also be a
place where we reach the best in ourselves, where we tap the waters of forgiveness and continue to address the reason we are artists, which is to drive humanity forward past the epoch of slavery. The task which lies ahead is hard, but less so if we are united, as friends, as artists and as revolutionaries.

In love and solidarity -
Frank

Official Website: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=147729528575422