Artificial Jungles
![Image](http://web.archive.org./web/20200926155937im_/https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XSPvx7f7yM8/XyoHyjl0AeI/AAAAAAAAQq4/VA6KfuxDaCIsbtDrQ6_V7wjhy134t97VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Ludlam%2BMuseum%2BWax.jpg)
The overall effect is one of denseness and kitsch exoticism. It is clear that these people are creatures of fantasy. —Charles Ludlam, stage directions for The Artificial Jungle
1. For a few weeks now, I have been bothered by the question of why so much American short fiction is, in comparison to poetry and theatre, unadventurous.
I got to thinking about this while watching lots of YouTube videos of Taylor Mac. Why, said I to meself, is little to no American short fiction as interesting and provocative and pleasurable as a performance by Taylor Mac? This is unfair, of course: very little of anything is as interesting, provocative, and pleasurable as a performance by Taylor Mac. But still. I wonder.
I began to bother a friend, whom I will call Richard, because that's his name. "Richard!" I screamed out to the sky (he lives a ways away, and so I must scream to the sky if he is to hear me), "Why is there little to no American short fiction that is as interesting and provocat…
1. For a few weeks now, I have been bothered by the question of why so much American short fiction is, in comparison to poetry and theatre, unadventurous.
I got to thinking about this while watching lots of YouTube videos of Taylor Mac. Why, said I to meself, is little to no American short fiction as interesting and provocative and pleasurable as a performance by Taylor Mac? This is unfair, of course: very little of anything is as interesting, provocative, and pleasurable as a performance by Taylor Mac. But still. I wonder.
I began to bother a friend, whom I will call Richard, because that's his name. "Richard!" I screamed out to the sky (he lives a ways away, and so I must scream to the sky if he is to hear me), "Why is there little to no American short fiction that is as interesting and provocat…