Word: kaprow
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...Glue. For days the local newspapers had been full of the mock-solemn high jinks that Art Professor Kaprow, Sculptor Charles Frazier and CBS Producer Gordon Hyatt were concocting. The point, explained Kaprow, was to have a plan, but no rehearsal, no separation of audience and spectators. Just pick a theme, arrange the setting, and let things happen. For the Hamptons' Happening, which was to go on for three days, the theme was "Gas," in part because Kaprow & Co. intended to use a lot of helium for balloons...
Laughing gas was what it needed, decided most of the Southampton spectators. "This is a lot of nothing with no glue to hold it together," growled one cop. "Not so," Kaprow smiled benignly. "This game is dream work-the kind kids do." But he did not waste time arguing the point with critics. CBS-TV was filming the Happening, and Kaprow had to bustle his motley throng off for the next event...
...beach and began blasting away in the hot afternoon sun. Then, in quick succession, giant, helium-filled balloons took off skyward, a red smoke bomb exploded, and from a plane overhead four hired sky divers plummeted downward. The doings brought crowds running from all along the beach, but Kaprow was unhappy: "I was looking for more surprises, and everything came out very orderly." It almost didn't. Two of the parachutists missed the beach by a wide margin and landed in the ocean, and suddenly it was up to the kids to paddle their air mattresses out to make...
...nothing matched the pandemonium on Montauk's bluffs. There the Montauk Fire Department's hoses and two foam makers were turned loose, sending gallons upon gallons of fire-fighting foam billowing down the cliffs. Joined by hardened surfers, who left their boards to join in the fun, Kaprow, like Moses, led his tribes of happy Happeners across the foamy...
...jumping into the cascade of suds, which came up to their knees, thighs, armpits. One plump sculptress plunked herself down, let the foam flow over her. Explained a Happener: "I'm exposing the five senses to a completely irrational environment." The suds were harmless, and they sent Kaprow into raptures. Said he: "It was like tons and tons of danger kissing you like a powder puff...