JOHN
PERREAULT
ROSALYN DREXLER
Saint Jill. Jil. Johnston's
wetings in the Voice and in Art
News were some of my firstof nowhere, hauled her home
introductions to Pop Art and
Hanpenings and to advanced
dance. I was even able to follow
her when she nipped and
descended or transcended into
the autobiographical poetry she the process of moving. Piles of
now produces to the dismay of
many. but to the delight of old coats were spread out all
many, also, my self included. Her over her loft and she had hired
writings, as extreme as they are,
bave nut been without their moving men were due in half an
influence upon my own hour, and she was just not
lousening as a critic and a
journalist
Many people still wonder
why Jill's Voice column still she should throw away.
carries the heading "Dance
Journal." since she never writes
about dance per se, but about
herself, about her freak-outs and threatened to kill him the week
her adventures. her madness and beforel but I could never figure
her quitky visions. The "Dance" out if it was because she blamed
in "Dance Journal should be in him for the recent minor fire in
double quotes The dance that their mutual lot building on
the writes about is metaphorical
deno l
peially remember
oplin a the Gandenethe
dof a mot datrous din her wayWhe he's
e eamingWhythedown mre ild e
ck don you ge of nering and aly dow
and dance
ife you are not dancing then All know sthat J
you are not living Move with important She makes me
the "music." Move with "grace"nervous. A few hours with Jill at
Everything is holy.
Jill with all her pitfalls and either more drinking or a three
heavy downs gets some of this hour nap. (When she and
feeling across. Everything is Gregory Battcock, whom she has
interesting, and in Jill's case, asked to marry her on television,
particularly language. She is a are together, all hell breaks
language freak
Of course, Jill's crazy. That's Jill slides in and out of her
obvious. But crazy
impossible in a special and exasperating as it is exhilerating.
valuable way. One of her But this time around she must
columns has more "dance" in it have learned something, because
than 1,000 boring dance she stayed out of the
concerts, by pudgey girls and funny-farm She's still on the
farty fags, that some dance fans loose, upsetting everyone, try ing
stall expect her to waste her time to drive her friends as cray
and her talent on. For a while she is. But, all in all, her
she wrote straight dance craziness is indicative of a
criticism gloriously and lucidly. particular time. I suspect that
It could be said that after Edwin this will be the ultimate value of
Denby, who no longer writes her writings which are in an
very much, in all of America
to paraphrase Gertrude Stein
there has been only Jill wants to find out about the
Johnston.
into a tourquoise toilet bowl
Les, who re-appeared from out
ROSALYN DREXLER
Jill Johnston is my friend.I
know her for about ten years.
When we lived in Washington
Heights, she was the most
avant-garde person in the park in
the afternoon. So, I invited her
up to my house She stayed for a
long time, and I didn't realize
that I could stop entertaining
her and do my work even if she
was there. Her two children were
very little. One of them went to
nursery school. One day she
asked me to take care of her kids
while she went around to
galleries to review art shows. Her
little boy had a bowel movement
in his pants, and I didn't clean
him up even though I couldn's
stand the smell. I figured it was
up to Jill to do that. I went to
Jill's house one evening and saw
where she did her writing It was
in a small space near the kitchen
and very disonganized w
ome wine and she told me that
she slept with hr clothes on T
envied her think it'saaste of
time to d nd und
think clothehould fall of vou
when they dy to nd
Since then it has been
off again, on-again. During last
spring's flip-out, she called me to
come over to her lot for some
reason or another and she was in
junk and books and bottles and
someoné to help her pack. The
making any headway. She went
through all these trips about
what she should keep and what
punetuated by diatribes against
Les for having. she fancied, tried
to burn down her loft. She had
because he had miselled he
ame on a pote
Wen p e l
p, To fact he i manie Nothing
her ife
ehithe
She ld me Andhek
they fought l the wy to th
subway When Jillwas
evicted from her apartment, a
painting I had given her as a gift
was stolen.. have the
photograph of it. Jill can sit on
my lap even though she is so big.
She looks like a Pitiful Pearl
doll. I won't go in a car if Jill is
driving. I forget why. Sometimes
she sings when she drives, or
carries on a heated conversation.
When we went to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
opening Jill and Mark De Suvero
got drunk and ripped clothes off
of each other and draped them
around a statue. I acted
horrified, but it was fun, and the
most interesting thing that
happened at the museum. I
usually see Jill at Sheindi's
house. Jill loves to eat white
in yourdon't kow which state iswone
a party or at Max's requires
John Perreault Photo By Ira Joel Haber
loose.)
craziness at a speed that is as
and
bread with mayonaise on it. I
think her unusual diet may have
something to do with her going
crazy. Unless mayonaise is made
fresh by the French, it is as
dangerous as ergot is in rye. Jill
thinks I'm chicken because all I
do is hug and kiss her, but never
meet her clandestinely do go all
the way. I love her; I love the
way she writes and the way she
looks, and the way she talks, and
she has the most beautiful legs in
town. But so what. One thing:
when Jill stands on her head she
seems taller. She does that at
parties. Or she ll dance, drop to
the floor, and try to drag down
anybody else who passes by.
Preferably male. Jill knows some
very dangerous things about me,
more things than I know about
isometrie relationship with her
life. If anyone in the future
Sixties, they will have to read
In the last three or four Jill's columns
years, however, she has taken
the dictum that "art should not apologize for her
dissolve into life" quite literally.unorthodox love life, in fact, she
Her fractured, sometimes cut-up. celebrates it in print, at that,
confessional syntax leaps from from week to week. She just
the newsprint page. Heard aloud doesn't give a fuck. Child of the
it is aural literature and it Fifties, record-keeper of the
becomes obvious that she has Sixties, prophetess of the
been influenced by Joyce, Stein, Seventies: she is innocent. Her
Whitman and Ginsberg. She column is her phallus and her
belongs to a venerable tradition cross
and she adds to the tradition a
madness that is all her own. the position of mythologizing or
Even though I had been glamorizing Jill. She is all too
writing the art column for the glamorous and mythological.
Voice for almost three years, it Above all she is almost always
Sex too is an issue. Jill does
I do not want to be put in
Peter Schjeona and i Patoto By Des Levine
really got to know Jill. The erazy. supersa ne, cool,sanity is that you are able to suffering mad men and women tew weeks ago at someone's
occasion was a typically dreary, hysterical. She's a wreck. But
m-packed opening at the very, very human. Jill is a
Modern and she came with Les woman caught between sexes
Levine, who
crushed velvet pants. Jill was errors and
wearing a top hat and parts of a
man's tuxedo, in a sublime
of society. My definitions of research or taking care of the her. She started telling them a
wasn't until last year that Ionly herself: tough, vulnerable,
that are under their control. house, but I played it cool.
So I want to tell her right now
take care of yourself and you do
not do any harm to anyone else. Jill has been mad. She let
Anything else is bull-shit. Jill
wouldn't harm a ly and she has psychiatrists. She knows better luck with her books that are
learned (with a little bit of help n
from her friends), by hook or by
crook, how to take care of beyond art and non-art. That
herself.
The psychiatrist-policemen
. 'Cut it out!" And also lots of
herself fall into the hands of the
now. There is something that coming out.
goes beyond dance, that goes
was wearing and continents and eras and
between states of consciousness
1, as a man, am caught in much
FISCHBACH
state of consciousness is what we
are all here for. Jill Johnston in
parody of Marlene Dietrich's the same way, but aren't we all?
parody. They were a great
29 WEST 57
staggered off to a party a matter of having the right in protecting us from everythingormented way, has at least
afterwards where Jill played the
RONALD
BALDEN
It's so boring to be sane.
brother and sister act. We all Sanity is-when it is not merely of our society are more engaged her very own quirky, sometimes
that is meta-linguistic.glimpsed that state. All the rest
brain chemicals merely
holdingsocial definition. The mad do meta-eultur al, and is making a living or bull-shit.
her forehead whilk she puked suffer, but they suffer because meta-physical, than they are in JOHN PERREAULT
