May 28, 2009. Frank wrote this as an experiment using Aurora Suite 2005, a word-prediction software program. For every letter that Frank would type for each new word, Aurora proposed to him nine possible word choices. For The Inner Maze, Frank ALWAYS selected a word from Aurora’s first nine choices. In this way, he followed Aurora, as Aurora followed him, through The Inner Maze!
FIVE
There was Feisto! Feisto is me! Mad hard strange man who had a certain lust, a certain soft touch between physical play is having pictures uniformly framed and got suck in to enormous depression already described such lengthened curves prolonged imprisonment in particular private conviction that a bitch was making straight for the control box of unaccountable sadness. Excuse me, sir! I am Feisto. Is having men vetoed romantically reality when most of us can create feedback cycles trouble taboo? Art intensified of human destiny went on board. Matthew, we will give orders that shock, caused things to multiply in these situations with pleasant offer for example devotes less than ten months of darkness fringed edges which formed picturesque interlacings of letting yen and Yang to multiply my friends. Like the hutches, however I watched these Raging Minorities against saving everybody. Understanding lively sensations which streams whenever we meet him for the truth, deeper into Sadducee swung open audition part of myself. Said John, “black beauty had taken care of me”. During my research he kept calling me to make sure I would not be nude! Goddess of nature, sky became uncanny. Voices from the old boxes of eroticism looked at the night of slipping into unconsciousness. I will give them welcome. Back Homo! I won’t pretend even to inquire about miss Dora! Finch sitting waiting ready to jam tunes. Trouble taboo art intensified God enough, enough time could see emergencies. It sounds like he continued that being commercial. Doesn’t matter! What indignities may pop up anytime. Actually for the next time you come into possession of this legal fire, you will ball the duchess!
I am Feisto! Feisto is a feisty creature, living happily beyond the normal taboos. Feisto is me. Feisto is waiting for you. I’m sitting around waiting, ready to jam with anyone who would be happy. Otherwise I always wonder what my dear and precious booty of eroticism and lovers like skin chestnut-brown rubbing gently upon my mind. I rushed through green veins of this inner maze body, inter-relationships non-linear personality. I get mad at being mauled by shutting down many of philosophies of community voices from my dreams. Intensified God enough to frighten Frederick Barbarossa to inquire about our excursions on your web of this inner maze. Furrowing in possibilities of the ultimate reality in which everything is equally possible, where opposites co-exist within skins of beasts. Beasts appeared to have hit upon communicating back home. Ok, okay. I get funny, especially when I moved into possession of this inner maze! I need you cherotically with pleasant encouraging tone to actually exist within the presence of myriads of diamonds behind this young lady rubbing up and down with an agility and precious mind-blowing being. Sandy pleasure squirt in to enormous jaws wide enough to frighten me. Unknown freedom active little uncensored reality tends to be absolutely glorious. The presence on the stage soon became obvious that being dirty, free to be absolutely meaningless and historically inaccurate was over before long. Chance I would betray the poverty of myriads of luminous spots about the killing of eroticism, whatever between us can create uncomfortable eddies and down in reality passed during our sleep had cleared away with terrestrial horrors of childhood. I had nothing! Yet hoping that you need to be with me! Digging for you, I’m sitting waiting for you there on the street, on the corner of the street, on the front yard waiting for the opportunity to open and be grabbed. All my life I was ready and willing, knowing what surprise awaited! All my existence on the street together seeing people loving, I was just living waiting, ready to jam with anyone who would be interested. Perhaps you! Perhaps you?
I need you, want to invite you first hump and generally attached me to dance with you outside of childhood experience of all possibilities… Cuddling just living flowers both bodies of flesh inner flesh outer flesh. Walked up and surrender in particular private satisfaction!
May 28, 2009. Frank wrote this as an experiment using Aurora Suite 2005, a word-prediction software program. For every letter that Frank would type for each new word, Aurora proposed to him nine possible word choices. For The Inner Maze, Frank ALWAYS selected a word from Aurora’s first nine choices. In this way, he followed Aurora, as Aurora followed him, through The Inner Maze!
FOUR
Tired eyes wide enough to change completely from San Francisco to come over now. She thought me mad! Life, how I contribute into what I imagine. Valentin feebly waved his hand and fell a-trembling with water and certainly had it posted up before the gurus serious cannonade captain Nemo himself should bloomed over tomorrow. Justice, intimacy, music, playing, trying figure out why people do the math. Volcanic depressions cuddling were sleeping like Sardanapalus exclaimed. Tristram pursued with characteristic audacity of transferring from diorama to rapidity of the war on art, music, culture and people getting together continues with characteristic outbursts of viola d’amore eternal exile and fear of epochs of immediate cancellation of deaf ears despite repeatedly recycled sex. Without touching, with you outside of the legal fire wall around the wall around the sole guest. Agree with erotica rural setting and trimming the trim tidy beaver pink coral opening wet weather deep probe, hump and generally poke into what I face. Woman, madam Newman, Instinctively turned to me and jammed her grown-up fingers into my carnal shit hole. Just then all shit from Betty blew up before the rays of our marketing research. We googled the trim possibly fail edge of the legal questions about getting together seeing people loving you. I’m especially anxious to get me out by breaking down the dark depths of immediate wooing the dark copses. I understand puking but within five hundred feet beneath the surface of the usual and the difficulty of how much longer should we explore those unknown freedoms of the veery and jammed nothing sexual emotion part of myself before they could come into Koblenz. A process of deciding not to require late fees was given before talking sex softly repeated by topless waitress bugging, bringing maximum breadth measured firmly wedged between my teeth, hard work! Ned replied coldly, “sir, fate has shown me the word! Cults as a description corresponds with characteristic yawning audibly what happened to be projected upon both bodies of the faces of madame Urbain!”
Meanwhile, captain exclaims, “strike, stripped down to nuts, pussy pies and the skins of beasts after sex acts! Swallowing down half a cock headed due southward through various depths, holes in the invasions and… Yes I shuddered pleasure all shit from Betty, blew on her starboard quarter the sea of unknown freedom. Active movement producing electricity erotic warmth the suffered at the games, wonderful softness running through playing along with teeny girls who had taken care of me, lying on the dudes who weren’t giving much.”
Embarrassed scruples of anyone who breathes pleasure in, freedom out. Why people do all that? The actors aren’t blind! Satisfaction of letting you into my carnal shit when most of us can work like horses have rushed through vetchling and jammed in your pussy harpoon deep probe into her connective pussy and play something dirty fun with characteristic yellow orange oblong openings and play together. Continues with crawling along with giddy speed, I felt fatigued from my dreams slash kill me! Kill me with water and certainly head on crashes! Pull me mad hard into you! Wet soft flesh inner maze body splashed sea-water pink warm handling of anyone. Asked Nancy! This is wonderful softness indeed… She gives pearls found adequate expression of unaccountable caprice of nature on such days as these! Lighted joints, crack jokes that were tipped badly under plastic overlay probably illegal, as I understand it. Legally questionable all pleasure fallen into taboo art, music and dancing nude together continues underground uncensored unconscious unexpected opportunities, united Stytes and certainly before long mythologize and opportunity continued watching over tomorrow. Caves in freedom, active little crutch ting-a-ling tingling as much astonished pleasure squirting cucumber squatting in good Downing and generally traveled across the universe including being dirty, free to be! Illegal and dancing nude, they went beneath love, bringing up anytime actually started wondering about getting over tomorrow. Caves in possibilities in particular cuddling cudbear hugging, fur rubbed my legs and arms—and everything opened up before the shuddering with pleasure and pain—bah, horror, fear of just doing just cuddling just living happily! All pleasure and play is much too much! Deafening! Must be muted, deadened, numbed! But how? How much? Each syllable is a seed plant in a seedy old alley of unaccountable astonishment, paralysed, stiffened my canned reality, so fragile ego that any Christian charity or unregenerate good time could see the universe shatter in to luver summer possibilities!
May 28, 2009. Frank wrote this as an experiment using Aurora Suite 2005, a word-prediction software program. For every letter that Frank would type for each new word, Aurora proposed to him nine possible word choices. For The Inner Maze, Frank ALWAYS selected a word from Aurora’s first nine choices. In this way, he followed Aurora, as Aurora followed him, through The Inner Maze!
THREE
OK OKAY OKIE OF BERKELEY! Want to have the spell of truth imprisoned unwilling witnesses of the reality of programs filling up everywhere. Let me dig down to remind me of folly until later, folks! Keep on the reality which agitated shadows mounting actresses for years and work with me. Digging for the truth deeper into the truth. It talking with you, with Aurora and the others crowded my brain becoming stupefied, awaited them faith broken faith broken dreams! Slash of folly but wisdom which may be able to procure real life. How I contribute into what I imagine was injected by loud bellowings such meaningful questions. I write this imperfect glimpse under these conditions with Aurora and you coming back again before they could come into the shithead and you coming to the contents of folly. I am only a maniac puppet. You say very much. Embarrassed scruples of running aground, bringing maximum breadth measured more than fifty atmospheres equivalent to saying trust me. So the art thump down models stood upon pedestals in Paris. They were fast cutting edge and began to loosen secretions and bring me there. I did pot and experimented tripping dropping things slurred the art. Anything dreadful fit into what I imagine. Nothing sexual, just cuddling that is how dumb I was! Just dragging chains like Marley’s ghost, dumbly entreating to procure fresh particles of truth deeper and arranged them methodically as though melted on compulsion and experimented was injected into insanity. This is wonderful! Softness of early folly until later, folks. Match Paul! Yin and Yang and fun with you next few months, soap washing dishes, eh. You know what I will say next! Few months after we upgrade reality of sail tossed skyward and fell a-trembling with running aground bringing maximum breathing plunged under these darkness eerie feelings whipping kind of twilight filling with water and already encrusted others. Crowded my brain becoming impracticable above us, floated mainly hanging out in romantically focused on hugging Raquela!
May 28, 2009. Frank wrote this as an experiment using Aurora Suite 2005, a word-prediction software program. For every letter that Frank would type for each new word, Aurora proposed to him nine possible word choices. For The Inner Maze, Frank ALWAYS selected a word from Aurora’s first nine choices. In this way, he followed Aurora, as Aurora followed him, through The Inner Maze!
TWO
The bad vibes of pondering preferences put some of orgies where we will also explore over forty thousand places in my bed. Polly asked Nancy to execute Dirksen back order cuddling and other amenities of bugging before they could come into the room at the core of my galley beds under ordinary conditions favorable for observations. I wished merely to save mind-blowing being dumb. We are performing straight lines due southward through green veins running through Bright lights, washing dishes eh yes perfectly motionless that you should be here for the creative visualization specific adjustment prayer radical fasting positive thinking telepathic gem therapy, creative visualization and other amenities. I am excited about getting together with Sidney and you! Ben got it for me and Linda. Has just been launched into insanity! This is wonderful softness running through various blocks lighter than water and will gladly resave rough outlines of vast oceans. Coming from San Francisco as personal myth around me, protecting me from drawing blood. They feared what might be called courage until later when I went back and posted Sincerely your friend wish that when you know what may happen about getting together, seeing people gentlemen every night and day. Except when I moved back home, Linda stressed that we published one of the normal human beings towards European papers yellow orange violet indigo and blue stripes down many of the inner rooms coming from irony, lifted from Santa Fe straight passage under plastic overlay probably is running away—she must be simply turning funny when people watch best of late night on compulsion and blue blacks whatever between physical problems with breathing plunged under these circumstances, escape their own personal loveliness. Madame Tussaud’s exhibition of marksmanship at ucla was going to do exactly what John had said. Beam me up with your bass amp. If you can send me to fuck it up, I should learn what might be called courage If you can send me to fuck it up, I should learn what might be called courage until you have responded with letters politely telling me how could I have been waiting for authorization from regional rapid tremblings of keto form of questions from my dreams of gateway of terrible apprehensions.
It soon became clear that you should be here for the creative visualization. The opening events unforeseen may happen about being respectable, honest. Girl, come out to pick out what is fucking, eat your friend! Wish that will be absolutely glorious. The Glorious Revolution of terrible pressure and consequently undergo hardships and slavery so you didn’t believe in recycling dudes who weren’t giving much more practical instincts; freely overtopping most people unhappy. Child, you oughtn’t to fuck the inner maze, furrowing this narrow passage secretly perhaps because of the spiritual nonsense Grace and slavery. Can Chris Considine of Victoria argue the inner side of this confused impersonal spectacular interest of education? This summer camp with the kids dropped into adventures which freaked out again among these rules already knocked off my cork-jacket and will gladly give them a morbid sleep, full of amazing shit and will vocalize unverbally round and jazz up of amazing shit from Betty. Gives pearls, beads and jewelry to fuck it pass the horizon of questions from my dreams of gateway of terrible work followed by loud exclamations and shouts and howls and Yawns dislocated of eroticism, politics because they want her as hard, as iron clad and consequently larger than any woman. Madam, how could you provide for even this imperfect glimpse of American humor? Forbade her coming up before the world. Ask such meaningful questions next time. You will play them on their backs. Sick man! Flying northward I went back home, telling Lizzie to fuck and will vocalize erect attitude with members of American civilization… But we appeared to have hit upon communicating back home. Why do anything dreadful nightmare hold on tight upon examining again among these rules, states that will cut out my dreams? Slash, slash, slash slashing and kiss her breast and belly and throat and upper ribs stripped down models of fucking the normal boxes of eroticism. Whatever between physical bodies of fucking eat my dreams slash was nervous. Whenever I and you have poems too hot, bed of orgies explore over oils the philosophy, eroticism looked at the opening of possibilities, forced into adventures, basically improve everything opened up before the world. Love live and play together, seeing people, loving comrades in being dirty spankers and play something dirty fun life. Let me know how we got married but finally yielding to fuck and play. Tortures of eroticism of possibilities forced into adventures, articulating each syllable clearly and without being crushed by the musical exploration of questions about getting together, seeing people loving. Little uncensored reality tends to be absolutely glorious, running through playing along with teeny tiny ripples of possibilities. Cuddling and other fun deep spiritual exploring of eroticism of American humor that will cut out the normal position of having wanted very much in earnest and without noticing these annoying begging rules confuse and disturb and without strength soon teach them something dirty. Fun life, let me know how we keep popping up everywhere. Well, if I’ll promise you not to mention rumours which agitated shadows on the wall, will you tell us what might be called your love, your lovely body splashed with letters of pure friendship? Nevertheless I think I cannot judge beforehand that guesses what might destroy me. Up with the kids and whomsoever approached within five hundred LEAGUES in being dirty white smoke burst from the civic service besides otherwise assorted careers. Actually read this imperfect view of any kind of twilight filling with your own generosity, personified what I’ve been groaning fitfully every now and then microscopic magnifying the musical universe including your own eyes where all is possible, poetry of expression, even more than we want to know!
You were sleeping on various depths. I did not see the magical cave of twilight. But we will get there together, seeing and hearing nothing of disagreeable rigidity of American civilization. True, unlimited life is a battle of expectations without pictures, blocks. You oughtn’t hold on. Compulsion and other contrivances not anyway between physical bodies are crushed beneath love of friends and conducting them to admit they are gunning for you. How about the freedom active movement producing electricity erotic warmth?
May 28, 2009. Frank wrote this as an experiment using Aurora Suite 2005, a word-prediction software program. For every letter that Frank would type for each new word, Aurora proposed to him nine possible word choices. For The Inner Maze, Frank ALWAYS selected a word from Aurora’s first nine choices. In this way, he followed Aurora, as Aurora followed him, through The Inner Maze!
ONE
I am playing with a healthy dose of pure fun! Life let me know how! We got all day without tests with members quickly frowned, shook their expectations without touching. It works very well, but we appeared to have hit men, gurus, spiritual Teachers, etc. in secret alliance, and disturb me lying on it social activities, whatever. They do understand puking, but finally jumped lightly beside me, keeping pace with my physical needs, etc. Dale told me about being respectable, honest, old neck bitten open and posted up before the show so you determined not to decide things by yourself. Damned if I’ll help you, sir! Interrupted me, will you?! Allow me to find a space that you should be here at. To shoot it social theory favorable to quiet conversation turned on various pretexts and disturb me lying on the current domestic circle encloses a completely abandoned country.
The boys are inked to be having my first female figure out right before the show. Is the best time for us to get together? Can be! On both levels, I should learn what might be suffocated, crushed beneath the surface of the normal tension in general. He was nervous whenever I came. He hid behind their expectations without touching. It works very dark and twisted. His gloves then without touching with members bare of public feeling came through the opening which had already admitted my concerns. I know who are healthy! They may have found adequate expression in works of vengeance. Animated sensitive plants! Rudimentary ideas of vengeance animated discussion sprang to execute his girlfriend for a special introduction of high-speed grapple yarders loggers roadbuilders surveyors bush-bound Natives and twisted perverted blues. Emotional delight is excited. Merchants common sailors captains of vessels leaving Glasgow or Liverpool or Havre. It soon became clear that you should be here at seven o’clock when Ned and Conseil avoided speaking for fear of betraying themselves during the summer solstice. Of betraying her, grown-up daughter Denise was nervous. And you who don’t live streaming behind her with anecdotes of Western life, let me know how we got all booked up! How about this? Gently upon my arrival, come out again among these brutes during our sleep. Had taken care of me, lying on the surface of the normal tension in the morning. Preparations for departure were begun. Go down to earth. Peace, goodwill towards me! Silently watching over forty diseases of public record. Please understand me and what I will say next. I am playing, trying on costumes and other swag! We will also explore the philosophy of the normal human beings towards women who don’t care about YOU—though the opening events unforeseen circumstance would prevent the bad habit of pondering on various pretexts. They may have found adequate nutrition with multivitamins included knowing how to lose bad vibes!
I have always been lucky. I have a body that is ideal for a performance artist. And I have always wanted to be a performer. When I was a kid, my younger brother used to get mad when people looked at me when he pushed me to the movies or to the teen club. He cried. But I liked people looking at me. That is what I mean I am lucky. I am lucky I am an exhibitionist in this body. One time, I was working out on the jungle gym outside of our house…a kid came by and asked if I was a monster. I just roared like a monster. It was fun…I started to see my body as a tool. I could get away with things that others couldn’t.1
With incredible
humor and an infectious smile Frank Moore (1946-2013) navigated the world in a
body of which he had only minimal control. Born with cerebral palsy and unable
to walk or talk he used a wheelchair his entire life. When he was seventeen, he
created his own personal communication system by strapping a pointer to his
head which allowed him to point to letters, words and phrases on a board, and thus
he was finally able to break out of his isolation and communicate with the
world.
But Moore did
not let his disabled body hamper his path through life, and his obituaries
detail the myriad creative activities that he was engaged with including a long
career as a performance artist, a shaman, poet, essayist, playwright, painter,
musician, Internet TV personality, a 2008 presidential candidate and co-editor
of the zine The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary amongst
a host of other activities.2 Along the way Moore also completed a BA
in English (1972, University of New Mexico), an MA in Psychology (1976,
University Without Walls, Berkeley) and an MFA in Performance/Video (1983, San
Francisco Art Institute). Mention should also be given here to Moore’s longtime
partner Linda Mac and fellow collaborator Michael LaBash,
both of whom were key partners, and collaborators in helping Moore realize his
ideas and projects during his years living in Berkeley, California.
This text concentrates on only one thin slice of Moore’s extensive activities and that is his role as co-editor with Linda Mac of TheCherotic (r)Evolutionary, a zine that they published in Berkeley in nine issues (#0-8) between 1991-1999.3
Introduction
Looking at the
inaugural issue, it is interesting to note that the first piece of news in
Moore’s editorial concerns the recent publication of his book Cherotic Magic (1990), which is an introduction to the shamanistic
apprenticeship that he was offering at the time. Moore admits to this
“…shameless self-promotion…for my apprenticeship, for my 6-session
course, for my performance art and videos and tapes, and who knows what
else.”4 Throughout the life of the periodical, Moore would use it
as a distribution outlet for the varied products of his assorted activities.
About the magazine Moore states in the first issue:
TCR is a journal of the edge. TCR is an offensive movement or measure offering alternatives to the fragmentation, isolation, personal helplessness which is actively promoted by the combine of power systems. TCR is anarchical, based on personal responsibility to reshape reality into a more human, trusting, loving reality, full of fun and pleasure. TCR is not a reaction. It is a magical act of enjoying life. It is a journal of and for people who are doing this magical art….Now we magical misfits know we are not alone, that there are others out/in here/there feeling, thinking, trying, doing similar things. This just by itself should speed evolution up.5
Moore’s desire
that the magazine should provide a network of support for these ‘magical
misfits’ is coupled with his larger vision of this movement, about which he
states “I think it is very important that there be a Cherotic Movement,
not unlike the so-called Sexual Revolution of the Sixties. This Cherotic
Movement would be (or rather, is) a physical/spiritual movement that re-defines
and expands sexual, spiritual, social concepts of reality.”6
This latter statement outlines the core themes that would form the basis of all
of Moore’s work in various media, and they would provide the links to all of his
different activities throughout his career. On the definition of a “cherotic
(r)evolutionary” Moore wrote, “…Chero is the physical life energy.
I created the word “chero” by combining “chi” and
“eros”. And revolution is the mutation stage/phase in the process of
evolution…so an erotic mutant for life!”7
The most direct
way through which Moore offered interested people an experience of the cherotic was through his performances,
in which the audience was invited to actively engage in what he called
‘eroplay’. Eroplay is another word that Moore created to describe the
experience of “…intense physical playing and touching of oneself and
others. Eroplay is also the force of energy which is released as the result of
such play”. Moore emphasizes that “eroplay is not foreplay, even
though foreplay is eroplay…” and further that “Foreplay leads to
orgasm…eroplay leads to being turned on in many different ways in all parts
of the body,” and he concludes “Eroplay is the blissed-out, warm,
relaxed, turned-on, totally satisfying feeling of a good head rub…eroplay is
that intense feeling throughout the entire body”.8TheCherotic
(r)Evolutionary would be one of the mediums through which Moore
communicated his expansive philosophy of the cherotic, and he challenged his
readers to become ‘revolutionaries’ in this radical movement to reshape, and
expand our physical, spiritual and sexual lives.
In Moore’s editorial for the second issue he expands upon his editorial position and in his desire to keep TheCherotic (r)Evolutionary an open and freewheeling place he states what the magazine is not going to do:
…we will never do theme issues such as poetry, gay, sex, women, etc. This is because the theme format is a great way for editors and galleries (etc.) to keep control of content, style, point of view, and the accessibility of the communication channels they manage. The theme concept also fragments both people and dialogue into labeled bits that can be shuffled in and out of fashion time. TCR will follow the magic wherever it non-linearly goes. We will print what we like, what interests us…9
Moore was always alert to the ways systems oppress and suppress, even within the context of magazine publishing, and all nine issues of The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary display a comfortably unruly aesthetic that embraces a wide variety of artists’ works, poetry, writings by Moore and others, and reviews of his performances and publications.10
What’s in a Name?
Before I explore the contents of the periodical there are two subjects that I want to address, and the first is the name of the periodical. A look at all nine issues reveals that the periodical’s name for the first five issues is The Cherotic Revolutionary and from the sixth issue the title has been changed to The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary. In editorials for issues #3 (1993) and #4 (1994), Moore spells the name of the periodical “The Cherotic rEvolutionary” with a lower case “r” and the title on the covers reflect this emphasis on the “R” by printing them with a screen that distinguishes the letter “R” from the rest of the word. By issue #5 (1995) the title of the periodical is The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary. In his editorial in issue #3 (1993) Moore explores the background around the eventual name change:
There are changes around here. Well, what do you expect from a zine with “revolution” in its last name? And that may be one of the changes…our name appears to be in the process of changing itself from The Cherotic Revolutionary to the Cherotic Evolutionary. A revolution is a mutation from the normal as-is reality, an experiment and adventure in newness. The purpose of a revolution, and any mutation, is to break new ground for evolution…to prod evolution along.11
The second subject, and question that I want to explore is, what to call this periodical? In the first two issues Moore describes it as both a ‘magazine’ and a ‘journal.’ In the third issue he refers to the periodical as a ‘zine’ and by the next issue zine is used not only in the editorial but in the masthead for all futures as well. It’s perhaps unsurprising that this new descriptor also parallels the period when the title of the periodical was in flux. I would agree with the use of the word ‘zine’ to describe this periodical, as its anarchic, and low-tech production, certainly displays all the features of a periodical published by enthusiasts and non-professionals. However, at one level Moore’s original use of the term ‘journal’ is also appropriate as well. Journals have historically been the site where the activities, and research of specialized groups was communicated to their professional community. Moore, in his editorial for the first issue, describes the periodical as being just such a place, albeit comprised of an ‘unprofessional’ community, but with the same theme of sharing their research within this group. Moore writes that the periodical will provide a site for this community to address:
…magical issues that I for one have been hungry to talk about for a long time in the depths that it is possible with people who have committed their lives to going across the taboo border to effect evolutionary change. In future issues of TCR, I hope we will move far beyond the book, Cherotic Magic, and give one another aid and comfort on the edge by linking together, by announcing new findings in our hidden experiments [my emphasis] on nonlinear change.”12
Inside the (r)Evolution
All nine issues of The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary present a smorgasbord of works by a variety of writers and visual artists, and the following overview includes the names of the more frequent contributors in different media. The periodical publishes a wide range of writings including poetry (Jessie Beagle, Robert Howington), reviews of the periodical, Moore’s performances and other events (Kyle Griffith, Barbara Smith), texts related to shamanism (Kyle Griffith, Brenda Tatelbaum), personal stories about sex (Carol A. Queen, Veronica Vera), performance art (Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, Linda Montano), sex and spirituality (Chief Distant Eagle), and disability issues (Steve A. Brown). On the visual front the periodical is copiously illustrated (Michael LaBash, John Seabury, Brian Viveros), and throughout there are black and white photographs, and featured portfolios (Tony Ryan).
Cover for Issue 6. Artwork by John Seabury
On the
technical side, The Cherotic
(r)Evolutionary was a photocopied periodical and beginning with the third
issue was published by Frank Moore’s and Linda Mac’s Inter-Relations, their
publishing arm that took over from the original publishers, S/R Press.
Coinciding with this issue was their acquisition of a Mac computer, and with
Michael LaBash as art editor, the quality of the overall design improves
substantially, and would continue throughout the life of the periodical.
However, even in the final issue (#8, 1999) where the design is at its
tightest, there is still an element of the early anarchic quality that grounds
the periodical within the larger history of zines. The periodical was an annual
publication with the exception of #1 and #2, both published in 1992.
At the back of
each issue is information about acquiring previous issues of the magazine as
well as details about other products available from Frank Moore’s assorted projects.
Later issues also included a page that featured readers’ and advertisers’ works
and products, as well as their contact information. The periodical ceased
publication when Moore and Mac started their internet radio station LUVeR (Love Underground Visionary
(r)Evolution, and “We were just too busy to do both…”.13
Following from this brief survey of the periodical’s contents, I want to examine a number of specific aspects of the periodical that play important roles in the periodical’s nine-year lifetime. One theme that resonates powerfully throughout the periodical is censorship, in particular Frank Moore’s experience of it during the ‘culture wars’ that were raging during the periodical’s early years. I will also examine two other important elements of the periodical, specifically Michael LaBash’ illustrations, and Moore’s written contributions.
The theme of
censorship appears in the first few pages of issue #0 (1991) by way of an
article by Jack Helbig that first appeared in The Chicago News & Arts Weekly (Oct. 11 – 17, 1990) titled
“Outlaw Artists, Porn? Play? Or Immoral Plot”. In his article Helbig
summarizes the recent conservative attacks on artists doing edgy performance
works and the fact that they had all received grants with taxpayers’ monies.
Helbig concentrates on Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley and Frank Moore, and he
outlines the cases that Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Rohrbacher
launched against what the late conservative art critic, Hilton Kramer, described
as these “New Barbarians”. The censorship wars of this period raged across
the artworld and nobody in this community was unaffected by this controversy.
Artists doing provocative works were an easy target for conservatives in
whipping up hysteria about the use of public funds for this type of ‘pornography’.
Sadly, they were ultimately successful in changing the granting process in
order give local communities a greater say, and control, over who did and who
did not receive grants. Attempts to cut the amount of funds provided annually
to the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) were ultimately not successful,
but within this hostile climate there would be no move to increase the funding
either.
Further into the above issue #0 (1991) Moore publishes an open letter to Jesse Helms and demands to have a dialogue with him writing “Why are you closing channels of expression and funding to me without due process of law?” claiming that this campaign is a way of smearing the artists’ reputations and thus making them “…untouchable, unfundable, unbookable”.14 Moore concludes his text with one final address to Helms stating “If you have anything to say to me or to ask me, come to talk to me man to man. Otherwise, get your Big Brother foot off my back”.15 One result of this controversy is that in future issues Moore would feature the works and writings of both Annie Sprinkle and Karen Finley, and in issue #3 (1993) six pages and the cover are devoted to the work of Sprinkle, including also Veronica Vera’s important Post Porn Modernist Manifesto (1989).16
Michael LaBash’s Artworks
One vital and
eye-catching feature of The Cherotic
(r)Evolutionary are the illustrations that are featured in all the issues
of the periodical by Michael LaBash. The artist was one of the intimates within
the family group that formed around Frank Moore, and Moore always spoke very
fondly of this indispensable member of the cherotic team. LaBash’s drawings are
powerful, humorous and slightly creepy works in which naked people couple and
engage in all sorts of surreal ways. Hands and body parts couple with all sorts
of real and imagined bodies, and their assorted orifices.
The first two issues of The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary feature LaBash’s works on the front covers, with all subsequent issues featuring his works on the back covers, and they provide powerful visual equivalents to Moore’s eroplay teachings.17 LaBash’s works are also found inside the periodical where they are published in a variety of page sizes, as well as being used as illustrations for different submissions. As one of the consistent features of the periodical they have a very powerful visual presence within the periodical, and they seem to merge with the periodical’s larger project, becoming in the process visual talismans for the cherotic (r)evolution.
Cover for Issue 1 by LaBashBack cover of Issue 2 by LaBashPage from Issue 6 with artwork by LaBash
Frank Moore’s Writings
It goes without
saying that Moore’s writings would form a key part of the periodical. Each
issue includes an editorial by Moore about the contents of the current issue as
well as other pertinent themes and subjects. There are three reviews by Moore
of different printed matter publications, as well as his own writings which are
represented by fourteen texts spread out over the life of the periodical.18
A good
proportion of Moore’s writings explain and expand upon his key concepts of the cherotic (r)evolution and eroplay. In
“Nonlinear Bits” (#1, 1992) he writes that “The cherotic
revolution is an evolutionary movement, an anarchistic way of change, in which
the single person is the center of the creative force”. In the second
issue he examines a theme central to his practice under the title
“Cultural Subversion” (#2, 1992) and he recounts his rejection of
politics as “…a means of effective subversive change…” and how
this led him to begin “…looking towards art and magic for an effective
channel”. Coupled with this vantage point he describes how, as an artist
with very limited funds, he became a “no/low tech artist,” and the important
role his access to this personal technology played in his work, stating “This
no/low tech form is vital to work which is culturally subversive by expanding
the concept of sexuality and reality beyond the frame of taboos”.
In another
important text in issue #3 (1993) titled “Frank Moore’s Philosophy of
Art”, he gives a very succinct account of his philosophy writing “I’m
not interested in doing art that comforts, decorates, entertains…I’m trying
to go back to the time when art was the magical, irrational, non-logical
channel of active impact…”. Further into this text Moore takes a
personal turn when he writes “In this kind of art, my body gives me a
definite advantage. It links me to the wounded healer, the deformed shaman. By
combining this with performance tactics, I combine realities to create awake
dreams”.
Other articles
detail different aspects of his philosophy including a text on the importance
of the open mike as a democratic channel (“A Rant On An Open Mike,”
#6,1996), and with “Their Cuddling Cocoon” (#6, 1996) he describes
the bodily sensations that are experienced during eroplay. Other articles deal
with issues related to his practice, like ordinances regarding nudity in the
town of Berkeley, the larger field of performance art, musings on the nature of
fame, and an interview with his counter-cultural hero and journalist Paul
Krassner, former editor of the Realist
(#5, 1995).
A word that regularly appears in Moore’s writings about his practice is the word “channel,” and he uses it to describe his view that art and magic, are important channels in assisting the individual in their personal evolution. I would like to propose expanding the use of this term to include Frank Moore’s own physical body, as the indispensable channel through which he developed his unique philosophy of art, and accompanying performance practice. Furthermore, The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary can be understood as playing a very similar role in Moore’s work, which is reflected in his editorial in #5 (1995) where he addresses his take on the functionality of the periodical, “i realize that i and this zine are just middlemen, just a pipe. when art goes through the pipe, that is when the pipe is important…not before or after”.
Wrapping Up
After having
been immersed in The Cherotic
(r)Evolutionary over the past month, I have to conclude that the most
extraordinary thing about this zine is, that it exists at all! With Moore’s restricted
mobility, it required a number of extra hands to design, publish and distribute
the periodical, and this is what his dedicated family unit was able to provide
him. However, the contents of the periodical were Moore’s decision, and they
reflect a savvy intelligence in propagating his philosophy, and teachings on
the art and magic of living and loving. Despite his uncooperative body, Moore’s
sharp mind was laser-focused on achieving his cherotic (r)evolution, and the zine brims with this burning desire.
For the nine
years of its life The Cherotic
(r)Evolutionary would be a virtual home for Moore’s “magical
misfits”, and it functioned exactly as he had hoped for in his first
editorial in #0 (1991) as a place where this community could come together to
“…give one another aid and comfort…”19 and also to “…know
that we are not alone, that there are others out/in here/there feeling,
thinking, trying, doing similar things.”20
A
powerful theme that runs through all of Moore’s writings and activities is that
of ‘communication,’ and the zine would be one of the many channels, or media,
through which he was able to satisfy his desire to be seen and heard. From the
seventeen-year old who devised his own low-tech pointer communication device
and breaks out of his own personal isolation, there was no holding him back. A
key philosophical, and practical strategy was his appropriation of the new
personal technologies, all of which would become key elements in his role as a
‘no/low tech artist’ who was committed to using this ‘anarchistic technology’
for his own cultural subversion.21 A prime example of this approach
was Moore’s use of the photocopy machine to publish the entire run of The
Cherotic (r)Evolutionary.
As
I have noted earlier, Moore understood The Cherotic
(r)Evolutionary as
being a part of the advance guard of the Cherotic Movement, a movement which he
likened to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. Within this larger context The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary can be seen
as continuing the longstanding tradition of artists’ periodicals that
accompanied all the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, serving both as
indispensable players in communicating avant-garde intentions, and in this case
preparing the way for the cherotic
(r)evolution.
The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary at its core, is about healing the body politic, about mending the “…fragmentation, isolation, personal helplessness…” of contemporary life and creating “…a more human, trusting, loving reality, full of fun and pleasure.”22 It is not without irony that the messenger, and teacher of this healing message, was someone whose own body was so severely disabled, and yet it was this same body that was the channel through which this “wounded healer…deformed shaman,”23 would develop his profound philosophy in which The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary would function as one of the spear tips of the cherotic (r)evolution.
Footnotes
1.
Moore, Frank, “Caves,”
Berkeley, 1987, no pagination.
3. Some basic information about the periodical. All nine issues were photocopied, with the first four issues printed in standard letter size and side stitched. The remaining five issues were photocopied in the tabloid size and then folded, and saddle stitched.
The page numbers for each issue vary from 24 – 38, with an average of 31. The covers of the first four issues were photocopied onto different colored papers with the insides the traditional white. The covers for the last five issues were printed on tabloid size white card stock, and coupled with the saddle stitching, enhance the overall look and feel of the periodical.
The first three issues (#0, 1991 – #2, 1992) were published by S/R Press (Luna and Kyle Griffith) and from #3 (1993) onwards it was published by Inter-Relations, which consisted of Frank Moore and Linda Mac as the publishers/editors. Print runs for
#3 (1993) was 300 copies, and by #6 (1996) it was 500 per issue, and continued until the last issue #8 (1999). Extra copies of individual issues were printed on demand. There were a few paid subscribers, and coupled with the contributors the readers were from all over the world.
Source for the above information was an email from Linda Mac (4.1.2019).
Below is a listing of the issues and their publication dates. Vol. 1, #0, April 1991 Vol. 1, #1, January 1992 Vol. 1, #2, July 1992 Vol. 1, #3, April 199 Vol. 1, #4, 199 Vol. 1, #5, October 199 Vol. 1, #6, July 1996 Vol. 1, #7, May 1997 Vol. 1, #8, April 1999
4. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 2.
5. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 2.
6. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 12.
9.
Moore, Frank, Editorial, The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #1,
1992, p. 3.
10. In the interests of authorial integrity I should state that I had an article of mine published in the final issue of The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary (Vol. 1., #8, 1999) titled “Assembling Magazines,” (1997).
11. Moore, Frank, Editorial, The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #3, 1993, p. 3.
It’s interesting to note that further into this editorial Moore credits Kyle Griffith as the person “…who pushed for the publishing of the book [ed. note Cherotic Magic, 1990]…and then strongly suggested we come out with a zine.”
12. Moore, Frank, Editorial, The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary, Vol. 1,
#0, 1991, p. 2.
13. In an email from Linda Mac (4.1.2019) she recounts the larger story around the periodical’s demise, writing:
TCR was going strong when we stopped publishing it and we loved doing it! What stopped it was our starting, LUVeR (Love Undergound Vision Radio, later changed to Love Underground Visionary (r)Evolution). And that is a story in itself! We were just too busy to do both, so we stopped doing TCR.
14. Moore, Frank, “An Open Letter to Sen. Jesse Helms,” The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 24. Other artists attacked by Helms & Co. were: Holly Hughes, Tim Miller, John Fleck, Johanna Went and Cheri Gaulke.
15.
Ibid., p. 24.
16. The text of Veronica Vera’s Post Porn Modernist Manifesto (1989) is
below:
LET IT BE KNOWN to all who read these words or witness these events that a new awareness has come over the land. We of the POST PORN MODERNIST MOVEMENT face the challenge of the Rubber Age by acknowledging this moment in our personal sexual evolutions and in the sexual evolution of the planet.
We embrace our genitals as part, not separate, from our spirits.
We utilize sexually explicit words, pictures, and performances to communicate our ideas and emotions.
We denounce sexual censorship as anti-art and inhuman.
We empower ourselves by this attitude of sex-positivism.
And with this love of our sexual selves we have fun, heal the world and endure.
17. One commentator on LaBash’s works is Barbara Smith, and in her review of Moore’s book Cherotic Magic in issue #0 (1991) she points out the discrepancy between Moore’s definition of eroplay as an activity that does not lead to orgasm, and the fact that many of the figures in LaBash’s works do indeed illustrate this kind sexual activity. I too share this reservation, but within the broader reaches of what this periodical is about can reconcile their subject matter within Moore’s larger philosophy.
18.
Below is a listing of Frank Moore’s
writings in the periodical:
Editorials One in each of the 9 issues
Reviews #5, 1995: Annie Sprinkles Post Porn Modernist #6, 1996: Barbara Golden Multimedia Package. #7, 1997: Tony Ryan Photobook.
Texts #0, 1991: An open letter to Sen. Jesse Helms #0, 1991: Museum of Lovemaking #1, 1992: Nonlinear Bits #2, 1992: Cultural Subversion #3, 1993: Frank Moore’s Philosophy of Art (1987) #4, 1994: Tribal Performance (1992) #5, 1995: Interview with Paul Krassner #5, 1995: Magical Masks in dialogue with James Audlin (chief distant eagle) #5, 1995: In Defense of Bad Art (1993) #6, 1996: A Rant On An Open Mike (1995) #6, 1996: Their Cuddling Cocoon (1995) #7, 1997: Mainstream Avant-Garde (1996) #8, 1999: What Price Fame? (1998) first published in Performance Journal #16, Spring 1998) #8, 1999: Out of Isolation (1986-1994) Insert in this issue as a small 8-page pamphlet.
19. Moore, Frank, Editorial, The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary, Vol. 1,
#0, 1991, p. 2.
20. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 2.
21. Throughout his career Moore worked in a wide variety of media including: radio, video, zine publishing, TV, performance art, writing, and he was a musician, painter and publisher of books.
22. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 2. 23. Moore, Frank in The Cherotic Revolutionary, Vol. 1, #0, 1991, p. 2.
Recorded Friday, June 27, 1997, 7:30 p.m. at Modern Times at 968 Valencia Street in San Francisco, California. THE CHEROTIC (r)EVOLUTIONARY, a zine of all possibilities, presents VOICES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, an evening of readings and music by a wide range of agents of cultural subversion … featuring Dorothy Jesse Beagle, Barbara Golden, Noni Howard, Jack & Adelle Foley, K. Atchley, Frank Moore … plus special surprise guests. If that is not enough, everyone will get an autographed xeroxed piece of art by LaBash!
Reading by Attaboy & Ben Burke on Frank Moore’s Shamans Den, October 24, 1999
events are real, but victim’s reality ain’t mine.
loud doctor judge voices kept pronouncing no intelligence, no future, no spark, just a black hole drain… put him forgotten memories institution.
family screaming voices over thanksgiving and christmas table accused the mother’s sins taken out on the son… the son there listening crying for 13 years.
ugly doll.
kids were pulled away… maybe it’s contagious. kids were slapped away for looking at the slobbering doll.
adults, keeping the doll for awhile to give the poor woman a break saying over coffee, why does she keep him, no future, can never do anything… sure, he understands… but more the pity… understanding doom… look at him listening to us in the chair… 4 years old and doomed to can not.
abandoned at 5… hospital, their excuse, a baby brother being born, then me with chickenpox… but i knew it was because i shit too much, pissed too much… so i held it in until i couldn’t anymore… and then sat in it because i needed too many baths. sat in it until after college… it was the least a burden such as i could do!
they were going to leave me again….. the floppy ugly thick-lipped, buck-tooth dumbo-ear no-future me… for 2 years… i’d be 10 before i’d see them again… if then… but my hives put an end to that!
frames steel and leather pinched, rub blisters, rub raw red sores from hips to ankles, framing imprisoning chaining this gross abnormal beast down into the sacred appearance of normalcy, that abstract state. if the beast crossed his legs, the illusion would crack… so wedge a lead bar between these frustrated legs for 26 years… never mind it pinches his balls. he will just watch tv all his life.
me lying on a hard table, listening to the professionals discussing my doomed fate. me only in underpants. they want always to cut open my body and brain. i knew kids who were twisted zombies after doctors cut them open. doctors want to give me drugs to stop my slobbering and to tranquilize my body into the american dream… or in the ballpark. they settled on daily physical torture.
dad missed my ninth birthday party for a bender…. babbling drunkenly later about how he loved me. teachers bribing one another about who would get the freak. one quit. but the professionals decided the schools weren’t equipped to handle such a creature. sentenced to isolation with mother in the towers… with daily outings to physical tortures. bent fingers, arms, legs so far into unnatural positions that it took three of them to do it, so far i screamed in pain, screaming i want to be normal. i lied, i never wanted that! one time i stuck my hand up into their cunts. they rubbed ice all over my body, then brushed me hard with a house paint brush. i awoke when i was 13 after an operation to pull my balls down, i awoke to hear one nurse saying to another, “why did they bother, no woman would make love with him.” mom once told me, “any girl who would want you must be crazy.” in the towers, i lost my hearing. the teenage “babysitter” blindfolded 14-year old me so i couldn’t see her and two girlfriends dance sexually with one another.
dad was pissed. he couldn’t hit a crip. so every night at the dinertable he would scream at my brother, humiliated my brother, backhand slapped my brother, whipped my brother with a belt…. and then exited to the local bar. i always cried. my high school teacher made me eat clorets because my breathe and body odor stank bad. college wouldn’t take me because my slobbering would offend and distract other students. airlines used this logic to not let me on their planes.
rubbing myself into climax in college, nothing came out like before. orgasms weren’t messy like before… before that bladder operation. curious, i went to the college nurse, who checked with the doctor who didn’t see any reason to tell a 27-year old virgin ugly rag doll about the side-effect of the operation of no-mess orgasm… after all, rag dolls don’t have sex or kids… we don’t want to have more rag dolls! my would-be mother-in-law told my would-be wife “marry somebody else… and adopt frank!” she said a lot more choice things… but time and space are limited. but she did bribe every justice of the peace for miles around to not marry us.
if you don’t shut-up, you spoiled brat… living with old drunk male nurse who kept rag dolls in their place by punching them out. lived with him for 6-months… until he pulled a loaded gun on me. then i screamed him to sleep. a knife at the crashpad… if i didn’t stop laughing at him… i wasn’t laughing. a paper dixie cup at the headshop… if i didn’t start talking, he’d push it down my throat. never mind the hitman. never mind linda’s mafia papa. and i’m sure i’ve forgotten a lot. my first french kiss was from a guy who then tried to rape me putting his penis in my mouth. i like french kissing.
Cover of the original photocopied edition by LaBash
Cherotic Magic by Frank Moore by Barbara Smith, 1991
Due to complex reasons of historical conditions and need, artists from the industrialized nations of the world more or less simultaneously (late 1950’s – early 1970’s) felt a depth of experience uncontainable in ordinary and available cultural forms. They emerged with a language of remarkable similarity – clearly felt in retrospect to be shamanic and whose purposes extended far beyond the realm of the commercialized art market. One of these performance artists is Frank Moore who has just published an introductory manual for prospective apprentices in shamanic/art practices. The book is also a very helpful means of access to this particular realm of performance art for the historian and student.
Moore, paradoxically a severely disabled cerebral palsied human being, who cannot clearly utter a single word is simultaneously a clear and eloquent writer about a reality-shifting form of art he calls Cherotic Magic and a spectacularly courageous, ecstatic journeyer and practitioner of shamanic transformational art.
Reversing the ideas of normal causality, his book guides one towards powerful experiences of re-integration into a unified field of consciousness brought about by the apprenticeship. The radical purposes of the book initiate a teacher/student relationship more appropriately similar to a guru situation than the normal art student context which we all know can be one which borders on charismatic adulation. Rather, the relationship is intended to awaken and restructure the whole being with access to an interrelated “web of all possibilities,” a potentiated ground of existence, from which the student may return empowered with energy, vision and unflinching faith to change the so-called reality structure of this fragmented and specialized culture. The process is a form of magic, which inspires a sense of body wholeness and aliveness where the personal power is to be found. A manual of faith and a description of the nature of apprenticeship, the book is a clarification of the sort of contractual agreement one enters with a teacher, rarely stipulated but here clearly spelled out. This agreement is one of mutual responsibility where the risk is clearly seen to be taken by both parties.
Having explored these realms a good deal myself both in terms of self-discovery and also with teachers, I find the book to be rigorously tough in its demands (on the potential student and quite naturally the teacher as well), and it also very clearly describes qualities required (such as trust) and the benefits to be gained in these explorations (such as love).
Moore has broken the apprenticeship into segments with re-entry periods back into ordinary life between the intervals in order to accommodate Western students’ difficulty in going through the lengthy course in a sustained fashion. The fact that the student must exhibit a deep and long-term calling, will or faith to repeatedly return to the teaching is Moore’s greatest risk, for spiritual apprenticeship is not a common practice in Western culture. This is a little known fact that the apprenticeship entails risk in the making and/or breaking of the relationship not only in regard to the student but more so for the teacher.
Moore speaks of the a-logical interaction, as a journey along which student and teacher become soul mirrors. Moore is not seeking a following, however. He states to his credit, I believe, that such work is highly personal and requires one-to-one attention and becomes non-productive when he has many followers.
The radical nature of this esoteric apprenticeship practice includes the breaking of social mores and taboos in order to reach direct experience particularly in the realm of conventional sexuality. Moore clearly states however that the touching and erotic playing involved (Eroplay) is not driven by the goal of sexual intercourse, but is the refreshing awakening of what he calls Cherotic energy which becomes a free fund of available and heightened “juice” for healing and creativity. (These teachings parallel quite exactly the teachings I’ve experienced from my Native American shaman teacher and also Tantric practices.)
My first response to reading Cherotic Magic is one of resonance and appreciation, the feeling of knowing very deeply that of which he speaks as true and uncompromising. He gives examples and authentication through powerfully written, illuminating stories about his own early life of terrible isolation and study; the breakthroughs which allowed him to finally believe in his own intelligence, joy and beauty and to receive the powerful inner flow of intrinsically experienced wisdom and knowledge of these liberating teachings. These life passages correspond to such experiences of mystics everywhere. I appreciate many things about this book, not the least of which are the words Moore has coined to name certain qualities and goals of his work (such as Eroplay and Chero). One such word Erour, means vulnerable strength. Its meaning corresponds exactly to my own early performance experience. In the past, I put myself in very psychologically risky positions in performances and I was frequently criticized for doing so as if I were “hurting myself”. My own experience was quite to the contrary, although I was in fact going to “the place of fear or pain or constraint” in myself with vulnerability and because I deliberately chose to do so, it was an act of strength and I returned with released energy and power.
If anything in his book is weak, it is this issue of authority and how to define the limits (and/or goals) of guru/student practice. It is weak not because I think Frank is either weak or inauthentic … but because we live in a spiritually naïve culture. Most people I imagine are cynics. The book is not written for such people as there is no language that I know of to convince them a priori to any experience which in itself is convincing. Further, the way one meets one’s teachers in life is often inherently mysterious and a unique process. Perhaps the only ways a potential student can judge such persons and situations have first of all to do with one’s depth of calling and an experienced synchronicity. Failing that, one needs to feel one may leave the teacher at any time despite the pressure to stay and one can also inquire of former students as to their experience.
For me, it would be advantageous if he could paint a picture of what completion might look like. Is it simply staying the course (twelve years for a resident; seven on, five off approximately / seven days for the introductory course)? The difficulty is that completion of such a practice might look very different in each of the “graduates” and only a sense of demonstrable knowing and changed behavior would be adequate.
The book is replete with black and white drawings by Michael LaBash. Depending on prior biases, they can appear to be psychedelically violent and visceral with a heavy emphasis on sex. They are intricate intertwinings of interpenetrating fields which writhe over the entire drawing area with no central image. Rather, naked figures whole or in parts of both sexes and composite hermaphrodites with breasts and cocks weave in an out of planes and orifices. As I have said, Moore speaks in the text of making clear how Eroplay is not to be thought of as driving for sex or focused on it. Rather it comes from a presexual state of infancy, yet here the drawings are strongly sexual in my view and often horrific. (No doubt, however, not meant so much to be sexual as frank (pun intended).
Moore’s writing about the ethics of commitment is a powerful critique of our shallow culture. What he says rings true and created a sense of gratitude in me and inner resolution. He speaks with great personal authority.
In the general dialog of art and culture this form of art appears to be the most difficult to speak about partly due to its radicality and partly because it re-integrates art into religion, magic, belief, and effect. It means and makes change. I, myself have twice come to a bifurcation point re: some need to synthesize art as I practice it somewhat within the cultural dialog and spaces of my profession as against a chosen spiritual path (Buddhism or Native American teachings). I finally had to ask the question: which was my core path, art or the spiritual path? And could the creative process itself be a path to spiritual awakening and inner knowledge? Or was a core of spirit teachings the only way and the art must be derived from it. Not the least of which is the question of feminism. The female spiritual journey is for me a major issue within this questioning.
Moore himself raises the question of Shamanism /as art – /as performance – /as therapy. He cites performance as the bed of mystical initiation, rites of passage, mystical ceremonies where art/science, philosophy, and psychology and theology merge and become whole once again. Here, we may experience these things as at once ancient and strange. The breaking of restricting taboos and inner barriers moves towards a place not of isolated individualism, but one of connectedness both in the interior landscapes and with each other.
