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Last Updated
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Shadow Dancing (Review)
by Ron Mader
2006 is the 20th anniversary of Michael Ventura's Shadow
Dancing in the USA published by Jeremy Tarcher and released
in September, 1986. This is one of our favorite books, and sadly,
out of print.
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There are few writers who are more passionate, more creative
or more visionary than Ventura. Shadow Dancing is an anthology
of essays taken from Ventura's column, "Letters at 3 AM"
which originally appeared in L.A.
Weekly and later became a staple of the Austin
Chronicle.
For readers who have read Shadow
Dancing, it's a unique volume that took on the Reagan administration,
not to mention the movie The Big Chill. It's also highly personal.
Born in New York City in 1945, Ventura discusses the 'dance
for your life in the marriage zone' and the idea that 'we all
live in the South Bronx.'
Cities and wilderness and the love drives in between comprise
the physical geography of the book. That said, the urban setting
is where Ventura makes his mark. There is no finer history of
Las Vegas than what Ventura pens in 'Report from El Dorado'
or New
Orleans in 'Hear that long snake moan.' Los
Angeles receives its due throughout the book and most poignantly
in the 'The Great Wall of Hollywood.'
My only frustration is that there have been so few Ventura anthologies
published, and this one is out of print. The good news is that
current columns are available on the Web with illustrations
by Jason Stout.
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EXCERPTS
Only the act of envisioning can one day become an embodiment.
(p. 226)
The words 'urban,' 'rural,' and 'suburban' are less distinct
every day. L.A. Is less a contained area than it is a sprawling
neighborhood, and just down the street lies Albuquerque, nearer
by plane than Pasadena by car from Santa Monica in traffic.
And Albuquerque is merely, in turn, an overgrown shopping mall
for Santa Fe. (p. 192)
The crises of our world express themselves as political crises
but they are without political solutions. This drives everyone
concerned with solving them quite crazy. The only possible solutions
are cultural and cultural solutions can't be legislated and
they usually can't be willed. Cultural solutions evolve. (p.
226)
Our idea of 'a vacation' is an idea only about 100 years old.
To 'vacation' is to enter an image. Las Vegas is only the most
shrill embodiment of this phenomenon ... People come here to
step into an image, a daydream, a film-like world where 'everything'
is promised. No matter that the Vegas definition of 'everything'
is severely limited, what thrills tourists is the sense of being
surrounded in 'real life' by the same images they see on TV.
But the same is true of Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National
Park or Yosemite or Death Valley of virtually an of our 'natural'
attractions. (pp. 91-92)
An audience has very different needs, different values, different
expectations than those of a people. A people is a historical
entity, with an identity in place and time. An audience gathers
for a show and then leaves, all its parts going in separate
directions. (p. 173)
Hollywood's products are fantasies made from the fragments of
real dreams, hence expressing those dreams inadvertently, powerfully
and often in reverse. So we live in the psychic country of the
photographic negative. (p. 174)
We overvalue the public event, undervalue the private event,
and rarely see the connective tissue between the two. This,
coupled with the speed of information, the capacity of any shred
of event or speculation or concoction suddenly to occupy the
center of our lives ... So that every day is a coming to terms.
(p. 175)
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SEMINARS
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