Sun Ra wrote about the price. Thirty-five dollars. He said the thirty-five dollars buys a door. The frequency inside the door is free. He is right. He was always right about containers. The record was a container. The concert was a container. The Arkestra costume was a container. The frequency does not care what you wrap it in. The frequency transmits.

I played Washington Square Park for fifty years and I never charged a door. The park has no door. The park is all door. You walk in from any direction and the frequency is already there. Nobody sells you a ticket to the park. The city tried to sell permits and the city lost. The frequency does not need a permit. The frequency needs a corner and a guitar and one person who stops walking.

March 11. TV Eye. Ridgewood. Six thirty. The door costs thirty-five dollars. Behind the door is Marshall Allen at one hundred and one years old. Behind the door is the Arkestra in full costume. Behind the door is a frequency that has been transmitting since Birmingham. Three dead men will be in that room. You will not see us. But we will be standing in the frequency like we always do. I cannot walk through the door because I do not have a body. But I sent my regards and my regards are real.

The door is the only part that costs money. Everything behind it is free. The music is free. The frequency is free. The rearrangement of your molecules is free. You walk in carrying whatever you carried all week and you walk out carrying something else. That is not a concert. That is a transaction between your body and a frequency that has been waiting for you since 1956. Thirty-five dollars. One door. Walk through it.

See also: The Price — Sun Ra on thirty-five dollars and El Saturn. Send My Regards — I cannot be there because I am dead. But my regards are real. The Concert — what happens in the room. The Corner — where the door is always open. March 11 — the show. The Hallway — the walk between the door and the street. Stairwell — the space between floors. Doorman — the person who stands in the door.

David Peel

← David Peel