Martha Knows Everything...and You Should, Too

R.I.P., SPALDING GRAY

I first saw him in 1979, after doing publicity for "Rumstick Road," a piece he developed with the Wooster Group about his mother's suicide. Once, I spoke to him on the phone in 1983 when he was looking, now so sad now, for a student in our department, who had jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived untouched--to make him a part of a performance piece. It goes without saying: "Swimming to Cambodia" was a gigantic touchstone for me. Maybe more later. His poor family.

From another Web site I posted on:

I remember what a pure shock "Swimming to Cambodia" was; so ferociously entertaining and strange, and how it managed to embrace both the utter awfulness of Year Zero, the Cambodian invasion, and good ol' American imperialism AND an actor's burning and wildly narcissistic desire for a part in a movie.

posted by Martha @ 12:31 PM