This December, Honorary Bedouin Presents
AN EVENING ALONE WITH LAWRENCE ARABIA
NOTHING makes me procrastinate more than having to write a press release about myself. So why I do I now find myself doing this very thing!
Well, its BECAUSE Im playing some solo shows this December in Oamaru and Christchurch and I need to “publicise” them so there will be an “audience” in attendance. Without an “audience” – i.e. you – there will be no performance, because a performance without an audience is merely a rehearsal.
And rehearsals, as fun as they are, do not pay money. And MONEY is what I need, specifically your money, in the form of ticket sales. Its ugly and gauche to talk about money like this, I suppose, but I want to be upfront with you. These shows are not merely a pure artistic statement – they are a transaction.
BUT, of all the transactions you have recently carried out (and what is life if not a series of transactions, from the sexual encounter that resulted in your conception to the contract with the crematorium that incinerates your mortal remains) this should, at least in theory, be one of the most satisfying.
Why so satisfying Well, my sceptical friend, because SCIENCE. Psychologists from San Francisco State University have proven that experiences provide more lasting happiness than material possessions.* In addition, the shared experience of music provides a primal thrill evoking the earliest days of human communication and allows a communal experience of joy so rare in this decadent age of digital insularity.
So come along – Oamaruvians, Christchurchites – and join me, Lawrence Arabia, New Zealands pre-eminent chronicler of 21st Century bourgeois dilemmas, for a “communal experience of joy so rare in this decadent age of digital insularity.”
AN EVENING ALONE WITH LAWRENCE ARABIA
OAMARU Friday December 22 Grainstore Gallery
CHRISTCHURCH Saturday December 23 The Gym at the Arts Centre
*http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2014.898316journalCode=rpos20&
