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.
