Sunday, May 25, 2008

Helicopters are Fascinating



There is a history of dumping news on the Memorial Day weekend, so it gets buried in the day-to-day muck of life. I stopped writing online when I felt that there was no use in continuing postmodern sophism through art criticism and Peoplelisation of Houston. I still had three obligations to fulfil while I was not writing here, and they were all obsessed with the spectre of May 1968. The three pieces were torture, and I hope I never write again.

The last piece I wrote before May was a hopeful take on technological communication and intimacy refuting Baudrillard's simulacra. Postmodernism can suck my fucking balls- it's some bullshit.

Then it was International Workers' Day, or in Texan- Thursday. I quit smoking. May 68 had been in the air, but it hit full force nostalgia with a masturbatory May Artforum and the real revelation for someone born in 1980 that the game that is being played in art and commerce is not viable, original or revolutionary. I have been so fucking depressed.

Have you ever read A Season in Hell? Don't read it if you are depressed. YAR asked me to write 3000 words for Gulf Coast, a literary mag, about his illustrations of the epic poem written by a seventeen year old. The other Parisian revolutions came into focus, but postmodernism fell apart for me. Rimbaud believed what he wrote. It was happening to him. Is that so stupid to say?

I rewrote that thing a million times. I took to watching Italian soccer games and writing on top of copies of the last revisions. I went to the Art Car party at the Orange Show. I saw the Houston Area Show, The Old Weird America at the CAMH, John Alexander at the MFAH, the Lawndale, and Diverseworks. I heard about Tom Jones' death while walking out of the new baroque cathedral in downtown. On the day that Robert Rauschenberg died I bought daisies and drove to the memorial on Heights Boulevard in the rain. I watched Chicago Cubs games and rewrote it again and again. I sent it away and I was in shambles. For Artshouston, I wrote about How Artists Draw at the Menil. Omar from the Free Press called and said he was going to Lebanon. He needed an article. I had nothing left but three obituaries in 500 words.

May 1968 is a funny thing to me now. it is stupid only because it is local- and I am elsewhere. There is something to be said for stepping away from rancor to do something productive. Postmodern market art, in all its facets and forms, is a restriction on life. This is stupid to think that there isn't real life and magic in objecthood. Otherwise we say that life and living it is not art itself. Systematic science is defined by human subjectivity. Look to youth to redefine art as a rich man's game that artists do not need.

Instead of fighting against the system, like William Cordova, I am content to get a job. Academic sophism is a lucrative business. Maybe I'll be an administrator. What Houston needs now is a market day, a public identity. Screw it, I'm moving to the northside.


There has been a lot of ink spilled regarding 1968 and where we are today. Don't forget 1948 either. The Old Left has no place today. Communism failed, but I really don't like the world they have created along with the right. Truly trainspotting, I am obsessed with politics now.

A quiet summer to you all. Let's grow a little.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

From one of the links you posted, the student writes this: "I see that Santa Cruz is like Paris, and that if change is going to start anywhere, it will start here. This is a call to the student body of which I am a part."

That's hilarious to me, that the person would see the events as similar (nowhere near the amount of people or the social / cultural ingredients to even compare). What a dumbed down version she expresses. How different is this form of eschatology from the sort of parallels that Jack Van Imp sees every single year related to the Bible and the "end times"?

I don't think any of the seeds are similar. People are different, decades have happened in between, the "wars" aren't the same... History / man has moved on... revolution / the revolutionary is a template.. Civil Rights is a Business, Anti-Warriors are Actors and Rock Stars, and their people are fans, dressing in the uniform of dissent. Protest music is Pop.

There are times for it, and this is not it. It seems the world is always on the verge of ending every four years, coinciding with a general election. I remember four years ago the cry was that we were in going into a great depression, the worst since Hoover etc. The Pres. is reelected, and suddenly you don't hear much UNTIL... the eight year comes along, another four... Now it's all going to hell again.

Van Imp always finds a new way to explain it, and leftists always find a new reason for revolution.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Spain '36; I will not govern you, and I forcibly insist on the same. And good luck.

Anonymous said...

Change happens from the inside out. Not the other way around. Get inside and then you can make strides. People are easier to convince when they agree.

_ said...

Dude, if it's politics you wanna chat, ring me up!!!

Fuck Art...

Anonymous said...

you fucking whine too much. shut the hell up and get off your ass. just because everone else has no balls that doesn't mean you have to...

_ said...

HAHAHAHAHA

You gotta love shit like the latest post above^^

What's ironic is that the poster is anonymous and calling people out for having "no balls"

They are also "whining" about BS and most likely "sitting on their ass" while posting to this blog.

CLASSIC!!!

Anonymous said...

Open source it!