BATHTUB INTERVIEW

(transcribed from a tape running while in the tub)

“the avant-garde has been made up, I think, completely, 

and all through history, with people who are bored 

by other people’s ideas.

– Frank O’Hara

Are human beings restricted?

     Human beings live conscious of immediate barrier-like surroundings which only enclose so much space. That's why art galleries or museums are still viable, because the concept of a museum or gallery is that you can walk into a restricted space, I mean you know what's going on on the other sides of the gallery walls, and be transformed. Which relates directly to a Japanese tea garden where you can blot out the traffic noise and sights and city goings-on by just stepping in this area which is surrounded by trees, and step into a room which is surrounded by wood, and really understand what it's like to read about something you have never experienced.

(Bathtub Water Noise)

     The secret of any kind of enter-able event is its restriction in space. If it didnt have that restriction in space it wdnt be as powerful, therefore you can be content with the friends you have. But the problem with contentment is that it's an ideal, and everybody wants to make new friends all the time. So some make new friends faster than others, others take a long time to make good friends. And then there Is the difference between two people concerning the definition of friendship and whether or not your friend is really an acquaintance or just a friend. But I have never been able to find out who a friend is, because friend is an ideal and it remains as an ideal, and is occasionally touched on by reality.

     I think the true friends are the ones that are with you the most whoever they may be, how many there may be, that when you're by yourself, that's the true test of friendship. That cd only be for a few minutes in a particular day say, that you're completely by yrself, surrounded by the room that youre in at the time, or the sky outside. Then is when yon can best define friendship and know who your friends truly are, because generally they will come to you, one after the other, as friends in your mind, and if you are reasonably content at that time, it's like watching a zodiac of people you know well, and trust and love, knowing that within each category of trust there are deleterious wanderings along the way, zigzags from the ideal, as those big words always are ideals. And love, whether you consider friendship to be companionship or love, sex-love, friendship will continue to be friendship. Friendship will generally be when you're talking about something very important to both of you, very important, and it's also simultaneously very important that both of you are talking about it, and it seems almost a secret as you're talking about it. That's the test of friendship when you are with your friend, not when you are away from her, or him, or it.

     10 years later you may not be seeing that friend anymore, and youve heard such & such has happened to your friend and it seems like you are very far away from this friend, but you don’t particularly miss this friend because so many things have happened and youve made new friends.

(Bathtub Water Noise)

Mr. Goodell, wd you mind telling us what you think about performance.
     Everybody performs all the time. Oscar Wilde said "Appearance is all." It is up to you to change it if you want to. If you don’t like your appearance change it, it's as simple as that. A couple red checks on each cheek, a little hydrogen pyroxide on a lock over your forehead. Just think (it's like) a little swish & sway with Danny Kaye. Or Aikido Now, Forever, or Judo, or writing books about subduing mastodons, or just an increased interest in Egypt. I think that America's history has led to the final awareness, though all awarenesses are final. America's history has led to one shining development – the hobby. That's where America can be seen at its best. In the hobby sections of all the fairs, and there's one coming up here. Now my hobby is carrying on an interview while taking a bath. I find it quite modern to do that, actually it's decadent that's why I call it modern. The things which I really value in my life I classify as contemporary. Modern to me is a really old-fashioned term. It's probably showing up in antique stores now, and there certainly is a boom in antiques.

     Most of my interests have now become antiques. There's a hell of a lot of me that is definitely saleable, however there needs to be a name for my saleable product and I havent quite figured out whether I should call it Larry Goodell Specimens, or simply an attribute of someone we all love. For instance, if youre really bored, why don’t you start collecting knotholes. Knot-holes are fascinating because they go in a different direction in their grain, than the wood that they are within, so they leak moisture like mad, and you have to seal them a lot if you're sealing them, and have to seal windows with knotholes. I’ve always felt a special affinity with knotholes, especially when the knots are in them. It bothers me a little more if the knots have fallen out, because to identify with a knothole when the knot has fallen out, is much more difficult and vacuous a thing to do, at least for me.

----------- (end of recording)

/25Aug76

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / nb #23 1976