Thursday, October 28, 2010

AN OPEN LETTER TO PETER MURPHY.


Peter,

Before I begin I would like to make it clear that I am not sure what this is all about.
The more time passes and the more I am absolutely sure I know X, Y, or Z,
the more convinced I have no idea what or why I do things. These things come
from a deeper place than I can often quantify.
I am doing this for a multitude of reason not the least is an almost overwhelming sense
of frustration. As an artist of many years in discipline you are one of the people I have
had an intense and unremitting need to communicate with on some level. In point of fact,
I have tried several times to reach you through various people we both know, at least tangentially,
to no avail. The photo I am posting I submit in evidence.
As someone who identifies as Sufi, for better or worse,( I believe I am something of a Qaalander, or it is the closest equivalent. the "line between the devils teeth"?) I have found your journey so personal I simply cannot ignore it. Your work cuts deep. It rings true.
I often think you write from the third person to enable you to look inside with a kind
of universal/personal double meaning. Your work has driven me to objectify a word, a
phrase in my own work. If you look, for better or worse, you will find ideas of yours
re-made and re-worked in any number of my own pieces. Is this a lack in me, or the true nature of art? Art has this ability to cross over disciplines and become something else while staying true to itself. Is this what is going on? Sufism is not an answer but a process.
One is one or not...though various Murshids have different opinions about this. Master? No master? Does it ultimately matter?
Four years ago I undertook the task of creating a vast piece of work that I dearly wanted
to quote a line from a song of yours, one that cut to the core of my artistic experience.
" The power of poetry lies in it's ability to defy logic, defy logic often."
I was A: worried I simply didn't have the available capital to pay you for the use, or B: that I simply could not find you out there in the world. Believe me, it is not easy to "go it alone" with no support of any kind. I had cut the corporate umbilicus several years previously and
simply sat down to create something of real worth. I think I did. But I still regret not
being able to quote you. I suppose in the long run, a minor disappointment, but it rankles to this day, on the eve of publication.
One lives with regrets as one does with ones years.
Why should your path, so different from mine seem so deeply familiar? Every time I listen the same question hits me with terrible certainty.
There is this shape in the darkness just beyond my lantern light that haunts me.
Either I am absolutely mad, ( a good possibility.) or there is really something there I need to understand.
I wonder.
Peace,

Michael Zulli.
iridescent idiot.



4 comments:

dogboy443 said...

Mr. Zed,
Would you like me to forward this to Murph?
Mr. Dog

dogboy443 said...

Oh Fuck! Never mind. You know what i did don't you? Zulli was in my head and I automatically thought Stephen Murphy and not Peter. Please ignore my comments. I is stupid sometimes.

Michael Zulli said...

Dear Mr. Dog,
Many thanks, but the idea was to experiment with something akin to what they call "viral".
And of course just to get a bit of the truth off my chest after so many years.
Then again, I might have the slightest doubt that you just may have meant, "stephen", when you said "Murph"

I AM in touch with that Murphy.
Best,
Z.

Michael Zulli said...

....Relax, it's alright. Perfectly reasonable error.
We're good.

Z. Heh.