Death does not have to hang heavy in your head for you to be a fan of Obit. (I’m a fan, and I’m singing a happy tune as I type this. Worms crawl in, worms crawl out...)
Fellow AJ blogger, Jeff Weinstein, contributes to the site, most recently with a fine piece titled Hidden Memorials, on ephemeral Sufi shrines in the desert.
All that is by way of saying Obit’s Top 10 List of Stupid Death Tricks is not just anybody’s death-trick list.
Number 3, for example:
A prop can still be a deadly weapon.
Actors on Hollywood sets are routinely warned to be careful with guns used as props, but in 1984, Jon-Erik Hexum, a star of the CBS action series Cover-Up, pretended to play Russian roulette by putting a blank-loaded .44 Magnum to his temple. “Let’s see if this will do it,” he reportedly said, and pulled the trigger. The burst of hot gas fired at close range penetrated his skull.
I’d like to read a top ten list of stupid death tricks that didn’t work. Chris Burden in his reckless youth would loom large on it, when he attempted to electrocute himself, and had himself shot, nailed to a VW bug and stuffed into a sack left in traffic. The trick here, in the format of a top 10 list, would be to convey to an undifferentiated audience why everything he did continues to matter so much, to not make a joke out of some of art’s most soulful moments.
In fact, Regina, the sublime Jeff Weinstein has a new piece on Obit this very week. It’s titled “Judy and Stonewall, Together Wherever They Go.” We linked to it yesterday with the headline “The Central Myth Of Judy-ism.”
No one ever mentions the positions of Burden’s shooter, nailer, photographer, all of whom were put in very compromising positions. When he lay down in front of Mizuno’s gallery and got arrested, he could have avoided that by pulling a permit. Burden is a hypocrite and the art world is complicit with him in his endeavors. Shame on both.
Many things, but not a hypocrite. His work is straight from the beat of his heavy heart. Show a little gratitude.
For what? A photo-op on Wilshire? Sorry,but I’ll pass and stick with hypocrite.
Wow. Well, Diana, you prove we go through the same revolving door and end up on a different street. Chris Burden will always be a high-water mark for me.
I am still dreading the day I hear someone has fulfilled my nightmare; by placing a large blank canvas behind themselves to catch the fatal design sprayed by blood and brains from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Please forgive my morbid imagination.
Paul Pauper,
Curator and Janitor
Form/Space Atelier