Evening in the shuttered living room. A bottle of Plymouth Gin and two glasses. We speak about Dogma, our intellectual movement. We need to remind ourselves of the rules!, W. says. We need to write them down! Ah, but soon we'll be too drunk to write! We'll be too drunk to think!, I tell him. But that, too, is part of Dogma, W. says.
Dogma is collaborative, W. says. That's the first rule. Your work must stand or fall together. It must be genuinely cowritten, being born from friendship and returning to it. He likes that, W. says.
Dogma is clear, is the next rule. The presentation must be intelligible to everyone. Everyone must follow its points, its development. Dogma is fundamentally democratic, W. comments.
Dogma is spartan, W. reads. You can only refer to one proper name. There must be no quotations. And the next rule: Dogma is impassioned. You must stand behind every sentence you write. It must be clear that the material you present is of utmost importance to you.
The next rule – rule five, W. says, Dogma is personal. You must use personal anecdotes. You must speak of your life and its intersection with your thought. Speak of your friends. Speak of your passions and of your misfortunes.
Rule six, W. says, Dogma borrows. You can plagiarise any part of your paper from any source. In fact, you should plagiarise! Rule seven. Dogma is reticent. What is spoken is not for reading. You must never seek to publish what you say, nor say what you have published. Your presentation must be absolutely relevant for the occasion at which you present it.
Rule eight, says W, Dogma is studious. You must work very hard indeed on your presentation. Nothing must be left to the last minute. There must be nothing slapdash.
Rule nine, says W. Dogma is full of pathos. Do not be afraid to weep, or to see your audience weeping. And finally, W. says, Dogma is secretive. You mustn't tell the audience the constraints you have accepted. If you are asked, afterwards, about your presentation, you may speak of it then, but not before.
Of course, no one owns Dogma, W. says. Not even us. Dogma is its own thing, W. says. We drink, and W. wonders whether we should supplement the rules of Dogma with a few more. Rule eleven, W. says, Dogma is experimental. More rules can be added, but only through the experience of Dogma.
He likes that phrase, the experience of Dogma, W. says. What does it mean? He's not sure, he says. But perhaps there's a clue in the twelth rule. What's the twelth rule?, I ask him. Dogma is apocalyptic, W. says. Dogma accepts that these are the last days. Catastrophe is impending. Bear this in mind as you write!, W. says. You must write only about what matters most!
At the same time, W. says, Dogma is a friend to religion – that's the next rule. Haven't we undergone a messianic turn ourselves? We should speak of these matters without embarrassment, W. says. We're converts, W. says, men of faith. We are ferociously religious, he says, quoting Bataille.
Do you think we should carry out a human sacrifice, like Bataille's group, Acephale?, W. wonders. But then, in some sense, he's already been sacrificed, W. says. He sacrificed his intellectual credentials when he started hanging out with me. When he started taking my non-thinking seriously.
Rule fourteen, W. says, Dogma is on the side of the suffering. You need to watch Bela Tarr films over and over again, to be reminded of the omnipresence of suffering, of ontological shit and cosmological shit. And what about Stroszek? Oh yes, you have to watch Stroszek, W. says. You have to watch the dancing chicken. You have to see what Ian Curtis saw when he saw the dancing chicken. When he looked into the chicken's eyes, W. says.
He'd put Satantango and Stroszek into his Dogma kit, W. says. What about Jandek?, I ask him. Oh yes. He'd put in Khartoum and Khartoum Variations, W. says. And maybe Glasgow Monday, as well. A Dogma kit, W. says. Maybe we should have Dogma uniforms, too. Like Devo. Or Klaus Nomi. He's a great inspiration to me, isn't he, Klaus Nomi?
The fifteenth rule: Dogma is communal, W. says. Respond, in your presentation, to the work of your friends. Mention, in discussion, the inspiration that your friends are for you. Of course, this is difficult in my case, W. says, since he is my only friend. My only real friend. The nutters and weirdoes I surround myself with aren't real friends, he says.
And what next?, W. says. Oh yes, Dogma is peripheral. It avoids famous names. It is shy of fashionable topics. Dogma stays on the outside, with the people of the outside. It has nothing to do with the centre, W. says. Dogma eschews the centre.
But then, at the same time, Dogma is affirmative, W. says. That's rule seventeen. Do not engage with those with whom you disagree. There's no point! Never let the critic teach you the cloth, that's what William Burroughs said, W. reminds me. It's a metaphor from bullfighting.
Dogma is advocative: speak of those of whom others should hear, W. says. This is pretty similar to earlier rules, he admits, but it needs reaffirming. No, we need a genuine eighteenth rule, I tell W. Eighteen is a sacred number to Hindus. There are eighteen books of the Mahabharta, for example, I tell him.
The eighteenth rule, W. ponders. What would it be? Ah yes, you must always write of nuns and dogs. How we you have forgotten that? Didn't we miss out the rule about drinking?, I ask W. as he pours us more gin. We have enough rules, W. says.
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