Text Reading-Kim Jones

The topic of this read was Inventing Biography-Fictionalized Fact and Factualized Fiction. I chose this a my first read based off of my interest in the title. They are contradictory of each other. Can something be true and asl ofalse at the same time. Modernity would say no. That is why certain things fall under Fact and Fiction. More or less fact and fiction refer to reading primarily, so is what I'm reading fact or fiction? Does it really exist to serve a purpose? Or is the fact in fiction presented supposed to be about the artist's work?

I found it interesting that Kim JOnes demonstrates that the human self need not be singular. Himself expandsinto themselves, because he tranforms himself into his alter ego. But when I read this statement it translates to me a dismissel of indivudalism. "The human self need not be singualr." Why should it not be singular. Plenty of people are look to find themselves on a journey of self expploration. I know I am. He discusses that alter egos are true and complimentary beings. I do agree with this. Many times in our day to day lives people strive to be someone different than who they really are. But are they acting? Are they pretending? Soon they assume the totaly identity of who they want to become and have become, to a point where they nor you can distinguish between who they were and who they are. But is that an alter ego taking over? Or is it jsut the physical manifestation of evolution?

I find his theatrical perfomance of "Mudman" very hipocritical. At one point in the discussion he makes several statements that go against his argument of art. Adding mud changed me. It was like "adding another skin, making him closer to the stick and the cheesecloth" transformed him into something. Did he want to be MUdman or he want to be mud andsticks. Either way he was acting. A tree is animate. A stick is inanimate, it is no longer alive, no longer attached. A human being is alive, there fore he is trying to act inanimate like these objects, but he walks around in this suit. Giving life back to something that is still dead. He also states that "Mudman doesn't have a personality or a mission." But he then contradicts himself by saying earlier in the chapter that Mudman isa conversational piece, it forces Jones to stand out and force him to tlak to people. So Mudman does have a purpose. Art has a purpose. Art makes people think, feel, talk. BY him saying that Mudman has no mission, he is saying that Mudman is not art. Therefore Mudman is just an act.

I think Jones really is a lunatic. He even states that he "lost all of his marbles" at one point. He lit rats on fire. "When they were buring and screaming, I bent down and screamed with them. I don't know whether it helped them or not. They were scapegoats for my pain." Why not inflict pain upon yourself then? Unless you are afraid to. If he was bothered by the facts that rats crawled all over him in the war then he should have gotten those rats from Vietnam, trapped them in the jungle and used those in his performance. He jsut made an ambiguous choice. There is no lineage, no connection. He basically just burned rats. He didn't burn the rats that tormented him. In all of those gangster movies there is a statement that is always made " I will kill you and then I'm gonna go after your wife, and your kid's and the rest of your family, until all of you are dead, and or suffering." Jones totally bypassed that idea and settled for ambiguity. He less of an artist and less of a human being for harming something innocent in my book.

He makes only one statement in this whole chapter that I agree with. "I like when people are nice to me, but the world seems, for the most part and aggressive place. If you are weak, it will kill you. That's just the way it is all over the world. Something you think is weak is really sneaky." Do not turn your back on the world.

I agree with onl