Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, A Rite of Passage: The Velvet Cat Tail and the Silk Tiger Lily, 1987–1988

Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt: The whole thing is supposed to be pleasant. the materials are supposed to be rich emotionally, but they're poor economically. If they were taken out of that box, they might fall apart.

Within the piece itself is a 45 RPM record. “Will You [Still] Love Me Tomorrow?” by The Shirelles. It was one of my favorite records back when I was around fifteen years old. 45 records aren't made anymore, but it's there because it's about a memory.  

The fragility of the materials is as close as I can get to the fragility of memory itself. It's mostly about longing, the combination of memory and longing. It's also saturated with sex, but it's very repressed and veiled, the cat tail is obviously a kind of phallic symbol. The AIDS crisis is naturally a part of it, because this was made when there wasn't any cure or way of keeping a person alive with AIDS. 

We go through many rites of passage. We first have our childhood with a transition into adulthood through our teenage years. It's kind of calibrated through sexual desire when we first fall in love when we first have sex, or we do, or we don't.

It's done in a way that's palatable to a very repressed person or a person who just wants the lyricism of desire, but doesn't want to deal with the animal side of it. “Will You [Still] Love Me Tomorrow?” The song is filled with hope and doubt.