Last night I watched, raptly, Absolute Wilson — the documentary about Robert Wilson, the singular artist. I hadn’t given him much thought lately (no fault of his), but the graceful clumsiness and gorgeous weirdness of his stage pieces felt so delicious and fresh and exciting to my weary eyes.

As I continue to interact with humans whose brains are wired in an infinite variety of ways, I appreciate how he’s been to develop new languages (almost always non-verbal) with people that need other languages in which to express themselves (just like him). Fascinating and exciting.

Click the pic at the top to read an interesting essay on Wilson.

Onto the next inspiring gent. I’m a little late to “Caine’s Arcade,” as I tend to avoid anything that contains the concepts “viral” or “flash mob,” but it’s worth it, oh how it’s worth it. I mean, a kid who DIYs a game arcade out of cardboard, we can just stop there, that’s the coolest. The video is cute and there are tears commanded out of the watcher, but I also feel a little sad, and not just at the loneliness of a 9-year old, or the implied financial straits the family appears to be in. It’s the sadness at knowing that this kind of unbounded creativity is rare here in the US anymore. I remember DIYing my entire entertainment life when I was that age — building a clubhouse, using my dad’s typewriter to create a magazine, creating a circus, a play, an elaborate alternate persona. That was just how it was done, right? Or at least for neglected sort-of only children?

I also cringe at the flash mob, the news team, the song written about the arcade. It’s the same way I feel about tourism — the desire to connect with something interesting is the very thing that can ruin it.

But that’s just me, being a curmudgeon. Caine has a scholarship now, and presumably is unburdened by the bigger issues his sudden popularity brings up. To my tortured brain, at least.

And instead of overanalyzing, I’ll just take away the extreme excitement — and incitement — I get by watch people create, create, create, because they have to.