Ryan Platt
Assistant Professor of Performance Studies Colorado Collegerainerisms: a running list
Yvonne Rainer has one of the most inimitably witty writing styles that I know. Its inimitable quality comes directly from Rainer’s pitiless intelligence and penchant for the grossly mismatched materiality of the social world. I have decided to make a note here whenever she makes me chortle.
P.S. Preferences from the standpoint of taste are no justification for the rewriting of history. (Letter to Arlene Croce, 1980)
The palliative effects of social documentaries can no more be anticipated or assessed than “emanicipation” from a screening (or ten screenings) of Wavelength. (I went to the bathroom during the 1967 screening and missed the bit of drama in the middle.) (1996)
Those who need alternatives to subtle distinction-making will be elated… (1966)
If I ever have sex with a man again, I could say I am a provisional heterosexual, or a makeshift hetero. These imply sleeping with a man until the right woman comes along, or sleeping with a man but dreaming of women. How about “heterofluxual” or contingent hetero, or nonessential hetero?
(Letter to Judith Mayne, 1990)
