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elements of Haring's work, (Le Compte
1992
) it drew upon imagery from much of
Burroughs' earlier works and starred as the central figure not Haring but the Great
God Pan. What follows is an attempt to unpack some of those sources to clarify the
message of the essay and its connection to not just the practice of street art in the
1980s but to current work in Augmented Reality art as well.
18.3
The Birth of the Death of Pan
Mariners sailing close to the shores of Tuscany heard a voice cry out from the hills, the trees
and the sky: “The Great God Pan is dead!” Pan, God of Panic: the sudden awareness that
everything is alive and significant. The date was December 25, 1 A.D.
But Pan lives on in
the realm of the imagination, in writing and painting and music
. Look at Van Gogh's
sunflowers, writhing with portentous life; listen to the Pipes of Pan in Joujouka. Now Pan is
neutralized framed in museums, entombed in topics, relegated to folklore (Burroughs and
Haring
1988
).
Juxtaposed narratives that become gradually more inter spliced are a common
element in many of Burrough's works, so beginning an essay about New York City
in the year 1988 with a story from Tuscany at the beginning of the first century and
using it as a central symbol is recognizably Burroughsian. He even ties it in with his
beloved Master Musicians of Joujouka so it is apparent that this essay is at least as
much about Burroughs' work and aims as it is about Haring's pictures. And as is
common with Burroughs' cut up based writing, this story wasn't written entirely by
him, but spliced together from several sources.
The original textual source for the death of Pan is the first century Greek born
Roman magistrate and essayist Plutarch.Tuckedintoacollectionof78ofhis
essays and speeches titled “Moralia” (loosely translated as “Customs and Mores”)
in between philosophical essays on the duty of siblings towards each other, and a
comical dialogue between Odysseus and an enchanted pig is an essay titled “On the
Decline of the Oracles”, as the introduction to the Loeb English translation explains:
Plutarch's answer to the question why many oracles in Greece have ceased to function is
that the population is now much less than it was, and so there is less need for oracles now
than in earlier times. For example, at Delphi there used to be two prophetic priestesses with
a third held in reserve; now there is only one, and yet she is sufficient for every need.
The statement of this simple fact hardly requires twenty-nine folio pages, but in this
essay, as in the two preceding, there is much of the conversation of cultured persons which
is not directly connected with the subject. Thus we find a discussion of whether the year is
growing shorter, whether the number of the worlds is one or some number not more than
five or is one hundred and eighty-three. We have further discussion of the number five, some
astronomy, and a good deal of geometry, some interesting bits of information about Britain
and the East and a rather long discussion of the daimones, the beings a little lower than the
gods and considerably higher than mortals; perhaps the translation 'demi-gods' might best
convey the idea in English. These beings are thought by many persons to be in charge of the
oracles; certainly the god himself does not appear personally at his oracles; and in the case of
the oracle at Delphi some account is given of the accidental discovery by a shepherd of the
peculiar powers of the exhalation from the cleft in the rocks (Loeb Classical Library
1936
).
