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DON"T SAY IT(A letter Lye wrote to Eric Kennington in 1928, while he was making the animated film ‘Tusalava’.)
Lo de do Eric, I’m up to where Debil-debil is just going to lick Mr. Bean-in-the-Pod with
a blunt three-pronged tongue and cover him with spit and eat him up. That means about
another 500 drawings, then first section’s completed. A second a day and why not? It
certainly moves and doesn’t get hung up on a wall to make you look. It moves on and off
the screen and you aren’t forced to see it if you don’t want to. I’m through with talking
about art: after all the fuss and when the art critics have stopped making history there’s
nothing left but a few designs by Aus., Af., Am., or Ocean Is. Aboriginals, designs
complete in themselves, unattached to history or sentiment; done because they were
feeling good and not goofy. They remain what they are, a record of well-being,
unspiritual. Don’t say it. The welterweight mass of London still means nothing. About
four people know the real chaos and are shining up the word reciprocation; if not the four
needn’t do any shining because they’ve got eyes. Apart from all that around here it’s easy
when it comes to fun. It’s easy jazz and ha-ha Sundays: give us that kind of not too far
away from work, separate from the mournings after, from any kind of fukkups
following late among the housetops and drinkups, none of that loose juice for us – the difference of
being awake for work, sleeping a break to pull the chain for no headaches and no one
needs to be reminded we’ve got the most to get nearer to turning our toes up to prove it.
© Len Lye
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