Stupid Question
Rick Taylor
might help me understand it.}
Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
When this whole ball of wax managed to boil down to money and
bad theater and when underhanded and stupid business practices
became more important than anyone's pride... respect... self respect?
...When did cold and calloused and shark-like become positive
traits? When did everything become a game with no goal aside
from "winning"?
Whatever happened to art, anyway?
--
Rick Taylor - rickt...@speakeasy.net - {exile} - ex...@speakeasy.net
In a universe of free choice, unrestrained by divine tutelage, received
dominant ideas, or unshakable norms of "civilised" behavior, one can
do anything one chooses. {Free Noise Manifesto}
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>{I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but... I figured a few opinions
>might help me understand it.}
>
>Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
>When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
>
>When this whole ball of wax managed to boil down to money and
>bad theater and when underhanded and stupid business practices
>became more important than anyone's pride... respect... self respect?
>
>...When did cold and calloused and shark-like become positive
>traits? When did everything become a game with no goal aside
>from "winning"?
>
>Whatever happened to art, anyway?
Art is still very alive, as always, it just gets less media coverage.
Painting with shit and self mutilation is more interesting to the
media than the myriads of artists who carefully work on their skills
in order to make better art. The people who are so stupid to pay
hundred of thousands for studio paint smeared on a newspaper canvas
deserve to be ripped of.
Carmine Rhedd
says...
>
>{I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but... I figured a few opinions
>might help me understand it.}
>
>Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
Uhhhhh, could it have been when Adam took
the first bite out of that apple?
>When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
Maybe that's when God took a perfectly formed
rib from Adam in order to create Eve?
Nikolaus Maack
> Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
> When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
I believe it all started with a mass-produced poster of a soaking wet
kitten, with the words "SHIT HAPPENS" written across the bottom in great
big letters.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>In article <87smufd...@exile.speakeasy.net>, rickt...@speakeasy.net
>says...
>>
>>{I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but... I figured a few opinions
>>might help me understand it.}
>>
>>Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
>
>Uhhhhh, could it have been when Adam took
>the first bite out of that apple?
>
That's a lie! Eve did it but Adam got blamed for it ;-)
BTW I remember a nice story about a four/five year old girl. She had
to tell the Adam and Eve story and she made something like this from
it : God first made Adam but was not pleased and he thought to himself
"If I try again really hard then I'll get it right." :-)
Carmine Rhedd
says...
>That's a lie! Eve did it but Adam got blamed for it ;-)
Oh geez! What are you? Another feminist in drag?
Edward G. Nilges
> {I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but... I figured a few opinions
> might help me understand it.}
>
> Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
> When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
>
> When this whole ball of wax managed to boil down to money and
> bad theater and when underhanded and stupid business practices
> became more important than anyone's pride... respect... self respect?
>
> ...When did cold and calloused and shark-like become positive
> traits? When did everything become a game with no goal aside
> from "winning"?
>
> Whatever happened to art, anyway?
Good question.
Consider (if you work in software) the truly savage reactions you get
from managers to any suggestion that programming might take skill or
creativity.
Consider the strange attack on dancing in clubs in Chicago and New
York. Men and fat girls dancing have been attacked by bouncers and
ejected to preserve an "image" and in both the E2 and Great White
disasters this past week, the overcrowding and the casualties were
probably assisted by out of control security men.
In nightclubs it's assumed that the crowd won't behave itself and will
exit without paying, so access to exits is limited. Mere dancing is
viewed by bouncers as a preparation for fighting.
In New York and Chicago, people have been arrested for dancing in
clubs without explicit permits at the behest of owners of clubs with
permits...who prefer to pack people in rooms where, as in Chicago and
Rhode Island, they can become human sacrifices to money and power.
Consider also the way in which artists are commanded to exhibit
"skill" on this newsgroup as if one did not have the right to make art
without "skill" as defined by someone else.
Consider the way in which metal bands exploit the ignorance of young
people by reselling them a distorted and racist narrative of their own
traditions. Denied history, kids seek out distorted retellings of
Goth traditions without realizing that the Goths themselves climbed
out of the mud, and built the Gothic cathedrals. Denied history, the
kids are sold crypto racism in the very names of metal bands such as
Great White.
And as a result, black and white kids are penned like cattle in
separate musical Bantustans, there to be human sacrifices.
God forbid they should have a space to come together as at the Mall,
and, in Yugoslavia, Lord Owen penned kids and their parents up in a
checkerboard of war zones. Marshal Tito had with all his faults given
Yugoslavs access to the beaches and the mountains and the cities, and
the Yugos got naked, worked two hours a day and maxed out their credit
cards. This offended the West and as a result Western elites penned
the kids of Yugoslavia up with rattlesnake Serbs.
It was bad enough for my generation. We were given coding forms at
Time-Life and trained to write code, but we had fun fun fun until
Daddy took the TBird away. Today's kids have it worse, and this is
not some sort of never-changing "real world." Instead, it has a
direction and changes like Sep 11 are irreversible.
The answer is to dance anyway, as my ancestors danced in the holds of
the immigrant ship, creating the Irish jig, for in the spaces
allocated the human spirit is inexhaustible. The answer is to learn
how to question the need for a particular restriction or boundary with
dignity.
Humbert_Campbell
Well I tried putting up a post here last week but it doesnt seem to
have gone up. I suppose either my computer is up to its usual tricks
or some fun loving sport has joyfully made off with my post trying to
keep it for themselves. Its a problem I ran into a year or two ago on
here when a few people who felt threatened by my oppinions and ideas
decided to begin blocking my posts. I do hope we wont have to resort
to such paranoid Nazist sensorship again today. . .
Well in responce to your interesting post I have to say I agree with
Pauls post. There is a lot of good art being produced that doesnt get
the media attention it desrves, put out by flashy, catchy or gimmicky
artwork.
generally speaking the market changed. We shifted somewhere in the
late nineteenth century from this system of artist and patron to a
more openended individual approach. Instead of an artist working to
please his patron he had to please a wider number of poeple in order
to eat. In the best cases these men kept their integrity and continued
to paint because they loved to do it and their work grew rather than
suffered.
Unfortunatly a great number of people acheived quick and easy fame
with antagonistic, shocking, or wildly talked about but ultimately
shallow works.
I have never been a fan of Duchamp for this reason. I think he was a
wonderful theoretitian and thinker, but he is a person who ultimately
gave up attempting to take the more difficult yet ultimately more
fulfilling road of careful study and observation and gave in to the
wildly succesful but (as I stated above) ultimately shallow pieces he
did. His R.Mutt toilet was never intended to be anything more than an
insult. But like a bad joke gone horribly arry it was seized upon as a
wild and wonderful theoretical piece.
So in answer to your question I suppose all of the tradition of art
was tossed out not all at once, by any one person, for any one reason.
Its just the unfortunate state of the popular image of art that the
public has because of a century old change in sponsorship and the
growing dependence upon media support.
It could be argued that when we value theory over substance or
Manifestos over quality we are ultimately sacrificing that wich binds
all art together. Its this Grand Tradition I was thinking of last week
when I wrote and hence the reason I chose to respond to your post.
When I sasy History or Tradition for some silly reason everyone thinks
I mean safe museum pieces. Thats not what I mean at all.
I see the History of art as an unbroken chain, from teacher to student
passing down ideas theories and information over the millenia. Its
what binds us today to our ancestors who painted on cave walls. Its
each of us adding our voice to a greater corus. Thogh we may not
always like the songs we sing and there may be a sour note in there
along the way its all part of the larger story.
But look at me. Im a silly old man getting sentimental.
regardless of all that wether it be the most carefully studied and
balanced, or the energeticaly and daringly produced of works its all
part of a grand tradition.
I would say wait out the storm for there are surely better days ahead,
and there is good art being produced, you just have to know where to
look.
Im not sure if that answers your question with quite what your looking
for but its just a thought I thought I would share.
Take care
HC
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
>
> I see the History of art as an unbroken chain, from teacher to student
> passing down ideas theories and information over the millenia. Its
> what binds us today to our ancestors who painted on cave walls. Its
> each of us adding our voice to a greater corus.
>
surely there is good evidence that this 'chain' has been broken many
times - during the Dark Ages in Europe, under the invasion of and
sacking of Rome, under Cromwell in England and so forth. New theories
and ideas have also arisen over time in response to quite different
technological changes.
The dead are also not a chorus - they are notable for being silent!
Does it really matter if we are not bound directly through such a chain
to our ancestors in caves? For the theory of papal succession such
theoretical [though, even then, actually broken] chains of succession
have some silly, but understandable, justification.
gswork
> might help me understand it.}
>
> Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
> When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
I suspect you'll find the exposure of art, indeed 'fine art', to the
general public is greater now than it has ever been before.
I'm not sure how many medieval serfs were exposed to 'fine art',
except perhaps to brush down a tapestry in the castle now and then!
The exposure of the general populace to so much *else* is what might
be diminishing the role of art, if that premise holds (it may not,
perhaps the definition of art is a problem too - if 'everything is
art' then how does the onlooker discern first art, and then 'good'
art)
Anyway, with so much staggering variety vying for the attention of
eyes in the first, and much of the second, world, it is no surprise
that 'art' is faltering under the intense competition for attention.
> When this whole ball of wax managed to boil down to money and
> bad theater and when underhanded and stupid business practices
> became more important than anyone's pride... respect... self respect?
At one time it was all about power and bad theater - but we
romanticise that, it being in the fuzzy past and all.
> Whatever happened to art, anyway?
it's just carried on evolving alongside humanity, and in every
generation the 'end of art' is announced.
Carmine Rhedd
says...
>
>x-no-archive: yes
>> I see the History of art as an unbroken chain, from teacher to student
>> passing down ideas theories and information over the millenia.<
>Hooray for that. History (of anything) is at least, a tool for learning.
The problem with much of what is being passed
off as "history" in schools in the USA today
is that it's "revisionist" history. Meant to
sooth the feathers of those who wish history
to be "only politically correct" in its teachings.
Re-writing the history books to suit one faction
or another's wishful thinking is destroying the
educational system - IMHO.
USA students have little interest in MOST school
subjects in the first place, but re-writing the
text books to make them un-offensive to all
factions is sheer madness.
Edward G. Nilges
> In article <41m6a.2483$EN3....@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net>, a@spamless.z
> says...
> >
> >x-no-archive: yes
> >> I see the History of art as an unbroken chain, from teacher to student
> >> passing down ideas theories and information over the millenia.<
>
> >Hooray for that. History (of anything) is at least, a tool for learning.
>
> The problem with much of what is being passed
> off as "history" in schools in the USA today
> is that it's "revisionist" history. Meant to
> sooth the feathers of those who wish history
> to be "only politically correct" in its teachings.
> Re-writing the history books to suit one faction
> or another's wishful thinking is destroying the
> educational system - IMHO.
It is impossible to teach history without a point of view. Even a
bald recitation of facts has to have a point of view in selecting
facts.
But from a mathematical standpoint, it is clearly better to widen,
rather than narrow the perspective.
In my day, "world" history was the history of Western Europe as
narrated by Catholic priests.
A multicultural perspective does not in general replace this narrow
focus with an equally narrow focus on a favorite in-group, despite
conservative fantasies, and the reason for this is that
multiculturalism of necessity focuses on the relations of groups,
which unavoidably leads to talking about oppression.
This means that Howard Zinn is forced to renarrate, not only the
history of native peoples but also that of the Western Europeans who
whacked them, often at greater depth and in greater detail than
Eurocentric historians. For example, Zinn narrates the Spanish
colonization and mentions, along with the depredations of Cortez, the
genuine attempt of Las Casas to point out that Spanish cruelty was in
direct contradiction to the Catholic faith, if the latter was taken
seriously at all.
Of course, actual schools are reluctant to teach oppression per se,
for if they do, the kids will often enough link tales of repression
and oppression with their OWN treatment and form, like Kyle and the
lads in South Park, an analysis of their own position which tells them
to Fight the Power.
Therefore multiculturalism in American schools sometimes and to a
limited degree becomes identity politics in which the positive
accomplishments of each favored group is narrated in turn unlinked to
the relation of the group to its oppressor.
It's easier to list genuine Black accomplishments. It's harder to
describe Jim Crow in any detail because today, and financially, an
informal Jim Crow is enforced by de facto segregation. It's even
harder to show how Jim Crow was used to fool poor whites into thinking
they were getting anywhere.
At any rate, schools especially in the South respond to multicultural
pressures in the same way public swimming pools in the South responded
to integration. They simply stop teach history at all.
Chris
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f5dda427.03022...@posting.google.com...
> re...@noemailever.com (Carmine Rhedd) wrote in message
news:<3e5a...@news.zianet.com>...
> > In article <41m6a.2483$EN3....@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net>,
a@spamless.z
> > says...
>
> rather than narrow the perspective.
>
You're nilging again Eddie. Mathematics has nothing to say about which
persepective is better; it can only describe the relationship between them.
Chris
Paul Mesken
Hmm, this is beginning to look like an Alison/Marilyn relationship :-)
Edward G. Nilges
Bullshit. This is the discredited formalism of Hilbert in which
mathematics is represented as a meaningless game with symbols. This
completely fails to explain why ANY use of mathematics in judgement is
valid and does not do justice to practice.
Conservatism is the false claim that human beings do not by nature
seek to expand their world. It replaces this need with its ersatz
satisfaction in the form of commodities to the favored few.
>
>
> Chris
Chris
> > persepective is better; it can only describe the relationship between
them.
>
> Bullshit. This is the discredited formalism of Hilbert in which
> mathematics is represented as a meaningless game with symbols.
Bzzztt, wrong answer, Eddie. Did you get this notion the same place that you
dug up the info in Bellesisles gun control?
Mathematics has no more to say about good or evil than a hammer does; it's
just sad when wankers like yourself try to use it to justify decisions you
make but lack the wherewithall to take acountability for. Kind of a thread
in your life, isn't it?
>This
> completely fails to explain why ANY use of mathematics in judgement is
> valid and does not do justice to practice.
>
My dog has three legs (see, I'm learning, Andy).
> Conservatism is the false claim that human beings do not by nature
> seek to expand their world. It replaces this need with its ersatz
> satisfaction in the form of commodities to the favored few.
Or maybe two. But they match the other two.
Cheers;
Chris
G*rd*n
| ...
Oh, no, they are wired for sound and caused to shout at us.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 1/19/03 <-adv't
G*rd*n
| ...
| Mathematics has no more to say about good or evil than a hammer does....
| ...
But there are good hammers and bad hammers, and good mathematics
and bad mathematics, so these tools are not entirely separate
from value. I think Aristotle recognized this when he related
logic, a tool, and ethics: the good ways of using language
lead to truth and thus to the Good. One can disagree with
that idea, of course, but it's not absurd.
Paul Mesken
>"Chris" <n...@this.address>:
>| ...
>| Mathematics has no more to say about good or evil than a hammer does....
>| ...
>
>But there are good hammers and bad hammers, and good mathematics
>and bad mathematics, so these tools are not entirely separate
>from value. I think Aristotle recognized this when he related
>logic, a tool, and ethics: the good ways of using language
>lead to truth and thus to the Good. One can disagree with
>that idea, of course, but it's not absurd.
Very true indeed, logic is one of our many tools. The theoretical
models (scientific models) made by it are also tools and not the same
as reality. It needs to work. Also it is said that when one has a
hammer, everything looks like a nail :-)
Edward G. Nilges
And note the way in which education so separates theory and practice
that to use the mere name of mathematics in a political context
becomes a trigger for formalist rage.
Your compatriot Dijsktra discovered that precisely because, while he
regarded computer science as "applied mathematics", his realization
that the application itself has in turn a theory was literally
incomprehensible to the computer science elite.
At one and the same time, he found himself despised for actually
writing code on the one hand, and, on the other, for being theoretical
and arcane. Like William the Silent or Vincent van Gogh, he painted
himself in a neat Dutch corner: for William failed to see that Spanish
power was irreconcilable with Dutch aspiration, and van Gogh went mad.
This tragedy has a Dutch character and is universal and yet unnamed.
Rick Taylor
> On 23 Feb 2003 08:19:11 -0600, Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net>
Damn! A decent thread and I'm off upgrading my system... :}
> >Whatever happened to art, anyway?
>
> Art is still very alive, as always, it just gets less media coverage.
> Painting with shit and self mutilation is more interesting to the
> media than the myriads of artists who carefully work on their skills
> in order to make better art. The people who are so stupid to pay
> hundred of thousands for studio paint smeared on a newspaper canvas
> deserve to be ripped of.
I've never really accepted sensationalism as art anyway...
...To some extent... like Ernst with his axe...
I tend to wonder how much of that stuff he sold though.
I tend to wonder if he intended to sell any of it at all.
As to the "stupid" thing... I'd tend to agree... Tho' I tend
to think that's all up to the buyer. I think, as artists, that
we have a responsibility to the folk we sell stuff to... to
offer them a structurally sound, halfway aesthetically pleasing
"thing" to purchase... and... to, maybe, toss a bit of education
into the process... as far as imagery goes... folk like what they
like.
{Other than those folk that buy stuff because it's "cool".}
Rick Taylor
> In article <87smufd...@exile.speakeasy.net>, rickt...@speakeasy.net
> >Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
>
> Uhhhhh, could it have been when Adam took
> the first bite out of that apple?
I thought that was when we got smart.
> >When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
>
> Maybe that's when God took a perfectly formed
> rib from Adam in order to create Eve?
Are you seeing that as something like the very
first copyright violation?
Rick Taylor
:} Probably about the time someone took the thing, hung
it up in a $2000 frame in a gallery and sold it for it's
"artistic value" {$20,000} giving his audience some trite,
nonsense line as to how it made some incredible statement
about "temporal, as well as physical recontextualization...
elevating it above the merely banal, showing us just what
life means and offering a new, all encompassing, yet personal
solution to the problems that have plagued us since childhood."
Rick Taylor
> Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<87smufd...@exile.speakeasy.net>...
> > Whatever happened to art, anyway?
>
> Good question.
>
> Consider (if you work in software) the truly savage reactions you get
> from managers to any suggestion that programming might take skill or
> creativity.
I'm seeing those as only 2 parameters that define successful art.
> Consider the way in which metal bands exploit the ignorance of young
> people by reselling them a distorted and racist narrative of their own
> traditions. Denied history, kids seek out distorted retellings of
> Goth traditions without realizing that the Goths themselves climbed
> out of the mud, and built the Gothic cathedrals. Denied history, the
> kids are sold crypto racism in the very names of metal bands such as
> Great White.
I like metal... Todays "goth" has nothing to do with Goths.
I don't agree with the racism... I don't think it applies to most
fans or to most situations... or, even to most bands. I don't
think they're exploiting "the ignorance of youth" {which is
considerably less than it used to be.} I think they're providing
a product that their audience wants.
Beaver used to go to horror films all the time...
> And as a result, black and white kids are penned like cattle in
> separate musical Bantustans, there to be human sacrifices.
>
> God forbid they should have a space to come together as at the Mall,
> and, in Yugoslavia, Lord Owen penned kids and their parents up in a
> checkerboard of war zones. Marshal Tito had with all his faults given
> Yugoslavs access to the beaches and the mountains and the cities, and
> the Yugos got naked, worked two hours a day and maxed out their credit
> cards. This offended the West and as a result Western elites penned
> the kids of Yugoslavia up with rattlesnake Serbs.
>
> It was bad enough for my generation. We were given coding forms at
> Time-Life and trained to write code, but we had fun fun fun until
> Daddy took the TBird away. Today's kids have it worse, and this is
> not some sort of never-changing "real world." Instead, it has a
> direction and changes like Sep 11 are irreversible.
>
> The answer is to dance anyway, as my ancestors danced in the holds of
> the immigrant ship, creating the Irish jig, for in the spaces
> allocated the human spirit is inexhaustible. The answer is to learn
> how to question the need for a particular restriction or boundary with
> dignity.
There aren't many boundries I believe in.
...Where are you going with this?
Rick Taylor
> Well in responce to your interesting post I have to say I agree with
> Pauls post. There is a lot of good art being produced that doesnt get
> the media attention it desrves, put out by flashy, catchy or gimmicky
> artwork.
I'm not seeing it... Then, again... I'm thinking "new" and "original".
Something that goes beyond that mere acceptance of the idea that
"originality isn't possible"... doesn't revel in it and that, at
least trys to say something other than that.
...I'm sorry... I'm just bored to shit with being told that I have
no choice other than to be bored.
...Then, of course, there's the "art is a commodity" shtick.
{I know art is a commodity... I've know that my whole life. I
wouldn't have decided to become an artist if I thought that it
offered nothing more than a lifetime's "artistic" masturbation,
government cheese and space in public housing.
...I don't think salability has much of anything to do with quality.
I am sick to death of being reminded of something that many of
todays artists seem to have just discovered. ...I didn't need
to be told that "art is a product" in the first goddamned place.
...What does one do to get people to stop reminding them?}
{It's like... would you just shut up and make something
that's worth selling, dude?}
> generally speaking the market changed. We shifted somewhere in the
> late nineteenth century from this system of artist and patron to a
> more openended individual approach. Instead of an artist working to
> please his patron he had to please a wider number of poeple in order
> to eat. In the best cases these men kept their integrity and continued
> to paint because they loved to do it and their work grew rather than
> suffered.
>
> Unfortunatly a great number of people acheived quick and easy fame
> with antagonistic, shocking, or wildly talked about but ultimately
> shallow works.
When?
> I have never been a fan of Duchamp for this reason. I think he was a
> wonderful theoretitian and thinker, but he is a person who ultimately
> gave up attempting to take the more difficult yet ultimately more
> fulfilling road of careful study and observation and gave in to the
> wildly succesful but (as I stated above) ultimately shallow pieces he
> did. His R.Mutt toilet was never intended to be anything more than an
> insult. But like a bad joke gone horribly arry it was seized upon as a
> wild and wonderful theoretical piece.
I like a lot of Duchamps ideas... a bit less of his work. I don't
like readymades at all. It's wasted gallery space... someone who
actually gives a damn could be occupying it.
> So in answer to your question I suppose all of the tradition of art
> was tossed out not all at once, by any one person, for any one reason.
> Its just the unfortunate state of the popular image of art that the
> public has because of a century old change in sponsorship and the
> growing dependence upon media support.
I don't think the "tradition of art" got tossed out until
about 1o years ago... somewhere near the late end of modernism
and the late beginnings of post... {aside from a few minimalists
that is.}
I don't think it's "tossed" now. I think it's probably tired and
off sleeping somewhere... Waiting 'till the current crop of
folk get tired of calling their shoe-tying skills an art-form
and move on to other, similarly shallow, waters.
> It could be argued that when we value theory over substance or
> Manifestos over quality we are ultimately sacrificing that wich binds
> all art together. Its this Grand Tradition I was thinking of last week
> when I wrote and hence the reason I chose to respond to your post.
> When I sasy History or Tradition for some silly reason everyone thinks
> I mean safe museum pieces. Thats not what I mean at all.
>
> I see the History of art as an unbroken chain, from teacher to student
> passing down ideas theories and information over the millenia. Its
Ok. I see the high points coming from folk that told their
teachers to go to hell.
...Davinci, Seurat, Van Gogh, Ernst, {Bellmer}, Bacon... Whistler...
> what binds us today to our ancestors who painted on cave walls. Its
> each of us adding our voice to a greater corus. Thogh we may not
> always like the songs we sing and there may be a sour note in there
> along the way its all part of the larger story.
I see the problem today in attitudes... The idea above just comes
from perspective.
> But look at me. Im a silly old man getting sentimental.
>
> regardless of all that wether it be the most carefully studied and
> balanced, or the energeticaly and daringly produced of works its all
> part of a grand tradition.
One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
Why is this?
Neil Maxwell
>Can anyone tell me when the world got stupid?
>When art became devalued in the public's eyes?
Thus has it always been. I'm sure the folks living in caves looked at
the drawings of antelopes and said "It's pretty, but is it Art?"
>When this whole ball of wax managed to boil down to money and
>bad theater and when underhanded and stupid business practices
>became more important than anyone's pride... respect... self respect?
Many now-accepted art forms started out as communications to the
masses for the sole purpose of making money. French fashion pochoirs,
Japanese woodblock prints, Beardsley's illustrations... Artists need
money, and like any other segment of humanity, some crave power and
influence.
The sieve of time will sort it all out, ineffectively and
incompletely, as usual.
>...When did cold and calloused and shark-like become positive
>traits? When did everything become a game with no goal aside
>from "winning"?
>
>Whatever happened to art, anyway?
People are making it. Some is decried as trash (Emin and Eminem),
some is mass-produced pap elevated to collectibles (Kincaid), but
folks are cranking it out.
The only way to fight it is to make art for its own sake. It'd be
nice to make a living at the same time, though.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer
Neil Maxwell
>pe...@new.co.za:
>| ...
>| The dead are also not a chorus - they are notable for being silent!
>| ...
>
>Oh, no, they are wired for sound and caused to shout at us.
Ah, so *that's* what that is. Now I know how to deal with it.
NightMist
wrote:
>spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges) writes:
>> Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<87smufd...@exile.speakeasy.net>...
>
>> Consider the way in which metal bands exploit the ignorance of young
>> people by reselling them a distorted and racist narrative of their own
>> traditions. Denied history, kids seek out distorted retellings of
>> Goth traditions without realizing that the Goths themselves climbed
>> out of the mud, and built the Gothic cathedrals. Denied history, the
>> kids are sold crypto racism in the very names of metal bands such as
>> Great White.
>
> I like metal... Todays "goth" has nothing to do with Goths.
>
> I don't agree with the racism... I don't think it applies to most
> fans or to most situations... or, even to most bands. I don't
> think they're exploiting "the ignorance of youth" {which is
> considerably less than it used to be.} I think they're providing
> a product that their audience wants.
I missed the original you were responding to Rick, because I generally
ignore Monsieur Nilges. Therefore, forgive me for piggybacking on
your post.
It is obvious from his statement that the gentleman knows fuck all
about popular music , or at least the metal and goth genres, or the
accompanying subcultures.
Rather than going into a long spiel trying to educate the uneducable,
I shall content myself with correcting one minor point.
Great White is a shark reference, not a race reference.
Barbara
--
everybody is somebodys chew toy
Neil Maxwell
wrote:
> I like a lot of Duchamps ideas... a bit less of his work. I don't
> like readymades at all. It's wasted gallery space... someone who
> actually gives a damn could be occupying it.
I would consider many of Duchamp's works to be as much art history as
art. They're good for a bit of perspective.
It is rather amusing to see multiple copies of the R. Mutt "Fountain"
readymade, painstakingly copied from photos of the original. Duchamp
assisted in this, IIRC, and I'm not sure whether he laughed about the
process. I'd hope so.
Edward G. Nilges
> On 27 Feb 2003 02:07:37 -0600, Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net>
> wrote:
>
> >spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges) writes:
> >> Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message news:<87smufd...@exile.speakeasy.net>...
>
> >> Consider the way in which metal bands exploit the ignorance of young
> >> people by reselling them a distorted and racist narrative of their own
> >> traditions. Denied history, kids seek out distorted retellings of
> >> Goth traditions without realizing that the Goths themselves climbed
> >> out of the mud, and built the Gothic cathedrals. Denied history, the
> >> kids are sold crypto racism in the very names of metal bands such as
> >> Great White.
> >
> > I like metal... Todays "goth" has nothing to do with Goths.
Believing it so does not make it so, and my point was indeed that the
symbols are ignorantly used by ignorant people who are ignorantly
trying to fill a void that is left by the deliberate destruction of
public education.
> >
> > I don't agree with the racism... I don't think it applies to most
> > fans or to most situations... or, even to most bands. I don't
> > think they're exploiting "the ignorance of youth" {which is
> > considerably less than it used to be.} I think they're providing
> > a product that their audience wants.
>
> I missed the original you were responding to Rick, because I generally
> ignore Monsieur Nilges. Therefore, forgive me for piggybacking on
> your post.
>
> It is obvious from his statement that the gentleman knows fuck all
> about popular music , or at least the metal and goth genres, or the
> accompanying subcultures.
>
> Rather than going into a long spiel trying to educate the uneducable,
> I shall content myself with correcting one minor point.
>
> Great White is a shark reference, not a race reference.
You did not understand my point, which is that, of course, racist
symbols are going to be deeply coded. Indeed, they may be so deeply
coded that their targets may be themselves unaware of the reference.
The fact is that the Chicago audience was black, whereas the
Providence audience was white, and the fact is that commercialized pop
music has regressed to the point it was at before the Civil War.
Before the Civil War, white folks up north refused to either worship
or sing and dance with black folk. Courtesy of commercial radio
pressures that are represented as exclusively business, DJs in recent
years have amassed data which is so poorly assembled that it presents
an audience that is racist and desirous not to have its listening time
"invaded", in the case of white listeners, with black music.
Therefore metal, goth and to an extent "alternative" music has all
represented itself as music for young white guys. Metal and goth use
mediaeval symbols for this reason, and all these genres use deliberate
ugliness to avoid a "disco" or Motown feel, which would "pollute" the
pure experience of hearing a bunch of guys scream and yell at the top
of their lungs.
A turning point was the famous "death of disco" day at Wrigley Field
in Chicago in 1969 in which a local DJ announced a burning of disco
records. Some people represented this as a sort of working class hero
thing but what it was was a bunch of young guys anxious because disco
represented not only black people but gay people, which both
threatened personal boundaries already assaulted by ten years, in
Chicago, of deindustrialization and decay.
The result is that white and black listeners alike are led as lambs to
ghettoized and commodified Bantustans where the creation of harsh
genre boundaries presages the ethnic partition and the prison.
Edward G. Nilges
> spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges) writes:
> > Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message >
>
> ...Where are you going with this?
The question is where you crazy kids are going and it seems to me to
be clubs in which you are divided by race, class, and illusory levels
of hipness and awareness by ignorant security guards, to be lambs to
the slaughter and to be sacrificed in stampedes to the owners'
unquestioned need to make money.
The pity of it all is that you crazy kids just wanted to listen to
some music and not waste Iraq.
Let me tell you about your blood, bamboo kid. It ain't Coca Cola,
it's rice.
Carmine Rhedd
neil.m...@nospam.intel.com says...
>I'm not sure whether he laughed about the
>process. I'd hope so.
The latest issue of Art in America magazine
has a long-winded article with yet more
Duchampian analysis. I haven't tried reading
it yet and not sure I can stand much more
than all the past analysts have had to say
about him.
Neil Maxwell
Nilges) wrote:
>Metal and goth use
>mediaeval symbols for this reason, and all these genres use deliberate
>ugliness to avoid a "disco" or Motown feel, which would "pollute" the
>pure experience of hearing a bunch of guys scream and yell at the top
>of their lungs.
You really don't understand anything about this music, do you? Have
you ever heard goth, been to a goth-oriented club, or seen a goth
band? I have to assume not, based on your statements.
You embarass yourself, Edward. Try to get out more.
>The result is that white and black listeners alike are led as lambs to
>ghettoized and commodified Bantustans where the creation of harsh
>genre boundaries presages the ethnic partition and the prison.
Yeah, there's certainly no hip-hop influence in any of the pop albums
that white people are buying today.
"Cross a harsh genre boundary, go to prison."
Nice bumper sticker. You've got the sound bite thing down.
-=r00d d00d=-
Welcome to The World According To Edward, or TWATE (the E is silent).
Didja know Nilges is an anagram for Single?
-=r00d d00d=-
On 27 Feb 2003 02:07:37 -0600, Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net>
wrote:
NightMist
Nilges) wrote:
(Ha, you snagged me. I read your response to me, no doubt a sign of
my decline into decadence)
>> Great White is a shark reference, not a race reference.
>
>You did not understand my point, which is that, of course, racist
>symbols are going to be deeply coded. Indeed, they may be so deeply
>coded that their targets may be themselves unaware of the reference.
Shall we rename the sharks then?
The rest of what you wrote came so far above the tops of my hip waders
that I had to retreat from it.
You have a real talent sir. You should seriously consider becoming a
political writer. There are few who can say absolutely nothing and
make it sound so serious, or create such important sounding disortions
based on such flimsy presumptions and inadequate evidence. You
display much brilliance and I would think you have the potential to
become a star in the aforementioned field.
Edward G. Nilges
You imagine that I merely string words together for the fun of it.
The problem is that my reading in "critical race theory", which
confirms that organizations, today, avoid charges of being racially
discriminatory by "encoding", such as the use of an illdefined
"criminal" to represent "black man" is confirmed by street and
workplace experience.
At Nortel's Raleigh North Carolina in the 1980s, technicians in the
switch room had a two-way viewport to the cafeteria in which they
could be seen and not heard. Visiting engineers from Bell Northern
Research had to sit and listen to these white technicians make racist
remarks about their black co-workers.
A recent book, "A White Collar Profession", describes how African
American and Hispanic men were able to break into public accounting in
the 1960s but were pushed out in the 1980s and the 1990s. A bright
and personable Hispanic co-worker at my first job was admitted to a
partner track at Arthur Anderson but failed to make partner despite
the fact that he was a better accountant, as far as I could tell from
working with him on the university payroll and general ledger systems
as an analyst, than other white CPAs that I have worked with and that
made partner at Arthur Anderson.
In fact, precisely because Arthur Anderson, with the exception of
middle class white women, became, it appears, a boys club, dominated
in the 1990s by younger white males, it became possible (as described
in a recent series of Chicago Tribune articles) to systematically
persecute older employees when they failed to approve what turned out
to be dangerously dishonest certification of client companies
including Enron.
Precisely to the extent that Arthur Anderson became a boy's club,
insiders were able to persuade insider wannabes to sign off on what
turned out to be decisions that destroyed this company.
Whereas the mere presence of African American men would have made
internal relations more formal, above-board and documented...because
the insiders were not (unfortunately) drinking buddies.
And as it happens, the Arthur Anderson women who "blew the whistle" on
this company were there only because of EEO legislation initially
passed primarily to benefit people of color.
Teaching at DeVry I secured positions for my best African American
students only to learn they'd been let go just as soon as companies
had made their "numbers" and satisfied auditors from EEO despite the
fact that these students had survived my (very difficult) Visual Basic
material.
This is not stringing words together in some school with tenure (I was
an adjunct at DeVry.) It is instead a refusal of the implicit
commandment, "thou shalt not be aware."
It's OK, in our society, and on the one hand, to be some tenured
English professor, playing games with words and diddling his
undergraduates.
It's also OK to be an "angry white male" and emit ONLY the expected
Fascism based on false promises and true miseries.
But what makes you an Invisible Man, or the target, like Mike Davis
and Michael Bellesisles of well-funded campaigns of professional
assassination is to at one and the same time make an effort to read,
write and study and on the other hand remain engaged with the real
lives of working people in any way.
The apparent meaninglessness is the unusual quality of the message and
you fail to notice the message in what seems to be line noise. I have
done what I could and now you need to go the extra mile.
A reifying society, concerned to withdraw from us our labor and
attention in order to create exchange value, disregards the fact that
a text as a text needs a reader and attention.
>
> Barbara
Edward G. Nilges
> On 27 Feb 2003 15:26:47 -0800, spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G.
> Nilges) wrote:
>
> >Metal and goth use
> >mediaeval symbols for this reason, and all these genres use deliberate
> >ugliness to avoid a "disco" or Motown feel, which would "pollute" the
> >pure experience of hearing a bunch of guys scream and yell at the top
> >of their lungs.
>
> You really don't understand anything about this music, do you? Have
> you ever heard goth, been to a goth-oriented club, or seen a goth
> band? I have to assume not, based on your statements.
I was close personal friends from a Gothette who married and moved
away. No, we did not have a Thing going: she thought I was too old.
But we palled around and complained about our lovers to each other.
She filled me in on the Goth phenomenon.
I miss her. She would have preferred the 1960s and she reminded me of
the free spirits back then, but all her friends had married and she
felt left out...as if we'd gone back to the 1950s. Back in the 1960s,
women did not feel left out of it if they were not married.
The bouncers at a bar we both frequented would call her "your friend,
that little wierd girl" although she was conventionally Hot as far as
I could tell. My experience in the 1950s was that you could be
athletic yet still "marked" as a "mark" if you were smarter than the
average lunkhead (this happened to Robert Crumb's brother.) Courtesy
of a deliberate pop-culture Kulturkampf commencing in the 1970s, high
school mores of a particularly infantile culture are now enforced on
TwentySomethings. Girls can be "hot" yet violate any number of
unstated rules in a preparation for the corporate world.
The miracle of the 1960s was for me that everything changed. Jocks
and uberbabes started asking me about the war and for a few brief
words, the phrase "do you own thing" had a real meaning.
This freedom is represented as license today and an infantilized media
represents it as "Manson."
The problem is that Manson, like Charlie Starkweather, Richard Speck,
and the men who bombed a church in Birmingham in 1963 were Tim
McVeighs, products of the old system. Manson was already in his
thirties, if memory serves (feel free to correct me) and he was a
product of the prisons of the 1950s...prisons which we have carefully
rebuilt, there to manufacture psychos.
Almost as soon as "peace and love" got under way, the dominant culture
was busy manufacturing its own counter-counterculture...to such an
extent that many kids, especially in the Midwest, learned about peace
and love rather like we today make an AIDs diagnosis: by reading its
antibodies in the popular media, and saying, wow.
To fill space, the Chicago Tribune would carry stories about people
getting naked in the park. The problem that safely getting naked in
the park is a great way of overcoming the hang ups that manufacture
creeps and wife abusers, and the kids knew it.
But the media then started a *kulturkampf* (which means "culture war":
it was first invented by Otto von Bismarck as the name for his
campaign to make sure that German Catholics from Bavaria, incorporated
into the Reich, would go along with Prussian and Lutheran mores,
enough to make a functioning state.)
Long haired men were immune by 1969 to crude calls to "get a haircut."
But they were not at all immune to a vastly more sophisticated
campaign in the 1970s which, by pretending to adopt and bless their
"life style", disempowered it by draining it of tolerance and
compassion.
Examples abound. Saturday Night Live never seriously questioned
dominant culture, SNL allowed upper middle class women to identify
with Jane Curtin's rigidity and racial prejudice against an obvious
NYurican played by Gilda Radner as Roseanne Roseannadanna, and SNL
viciously exploited Gareth Morris (and several later black cast
members) in racist skits in which black anger was acknowledged...and
immediately transformed, as in a minstrel show, into humor and
consequently assent.
By the 1980s, Saturday Night Live mocked higher education in the
ghetto in the form of Eddie Murphy's "Velvet Jones' I Wanna Be a Ho"
and I fail to see how my Visual Basic students, driving from two jobs
to class at 6PM-10PM, could ever find this skit amusing EVEN IF
performed by a black man.
Happy Days completely misrepresented the 1950s by not mentioning the
nuclear sentence of death, the Cuban Missile crisis and the struggle
for equality which started not in the 1960s but in Montgomery,
Alabama, in 1958. It also failed to mention that the "greaser"
character of Fonz represented white, working class kids who were angry
because even at that time, their fathers were already beginning to
lose ground, as small tradesmen and factory hands, to "mods" and
"collegiates."
>
> You embarass yourself, Edward. Try to get out more.
>
> >The result is that white and black listeners alike are led as lambs to
> >ghettoized and commodified Bantustans where the creation of harsh
> >genre boundaries presages the ethnic partition and the prison.
>
> Yeah, there's certainly no hip-hop influence in any of the pop albums
> that white people are buying today.
I was of course referring not to the content of the music but to its
marketing in which the listener has to be assured of what type of
music he will be listening-to. Of course, in the music itself, black
people have a great influence because of the brutal fact that with the
exception of we Irish, there is no "American" music.
This is because the Puritans discouraged music in church and when they
allowed it it was as simple in its own way as Gregorian chant. While
this music has like Gregorian chant its own stark beauty, the result
is that middle class Americans have no music not taken from immigrants
EXCEPT for the European classical tradition, to which they cling to
with grim resentment.
The result is almost obscene. To be represented as a "good" white kid
and yet play music, you have to practice dreary scales, for in this
value system, you get no points for forming a garage band. Of course,
real kids long ago with musical taste and sensitivity long ago
abandoned classical music unless they had a genuine interest, and
Glenn Gould found that you did not even have to practice to play
Beethoven, only be a genius AND escape regimentation.
That's because classical music, today, has been forced into
ideological service to the state in the US and Israel as a rather lame
and forced riposte, in the case of Israel, to Um Kaldum and Arab pop.
Music creates a world. It becomes necessary in the USA for commercial
realities (which enforce political agendas) to REDUCE the rural white
persons imaginary worlds to ONLY a world of a woman, raging at men.
It becomes necessary, in the Pianist, to imply that European values
are the answer to European fascism, for this neatly forgets an entire
analysis which quietly points out (in Adorno's Dialectic of
Enlightenment) that horror emerged from men, like Adolf Eichmann in
Jerusalem, who claimed to have read Kant and who hated American jazz.
It becomes necessary, in metal, to create a mediaeval world in which
black people have no place, and white kids can then feel sexually
adequate.
And if white kids start to learn moves from black kids, it becomes
necessary for them to project a hatred which is clearly on sale to the
highest bidder.
What's missing is the universalism of the Beatles, of "What's Goin
On?" and of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues. Despite a clear
audience desire for "American roots music" as seen in the top selling
soundtrack of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, here the marketing men had to
turn to the political commissars of modern pop radio, who have said,
without the "numbers", that American "roots music" is NPR and elitist.
The result is that even Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash are no longer
played and this apparently is a political decision in the final
analysis, made because it's necessary for white rural people to
identify, not with The Man in Black but with property-owning white
women who got the gold mine and not the shaft. The ONLY musical
discourse left to the white man is "hooray for the USA", because
having been ripped-off, his citizenship papers are the boy has left.
In Europe, it seems that white kids use Arab pop in the same way white
kids here use hip hop, for it gets the adults mad when the kids start
going boom bop a lu la as of old.
In the States, marketers and not musicians enforce boundaries while
"permitting" the noise (as if human beings needed permission to wail)
by carefully structuring radio frequencies which are a public commons
that has been ripped-off, legally.
In Europe, especially in France, the government performs the same
function by laws that, in France, require a certain amount of
broadcasting in French, which effectively bars Arab rappers, wailers
and be boppers from French radio unless they sing in French.
>
> "Cross a harsh genre boundary, go to prison."
>
> Nice bumper sticker. You've got the sound bite thing down.
And you are so unaware that you actually confuse your false
representation of what I said with reality. Gee, I had to plow
through Dialectic of Enlightenment to learn about "the conquest of the
thing represented by its representation" but here, your idiocy is an
empirical confirmation of high Frankfurt School Theory.
>
Note that it sounds stupid. That's the problem. It takes what it
takes.
Why is the equivalence of verbosity prized in sports and not in
writing?
I have run marathons, and everyone cheered at the end. I suggest that
no special rule should be applied, not to a density of repetitious
words (for nobody refers to unnecessary line noise, or including old
posts in new posts, as verbosity) but of IDEAS?
If the ideas are false then I suppose this would be pernicious. But I
am prejudiced, OF COURSE, to my little critters.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> nigh...@uir.zzn.com (NightMist) wrote in message news:<3e5fe827...@news.madbbs.com>...
>
>>On 27 Feb 2003 15:26:47 -0800, spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G.
>>Nilges) wrote:
>>
>
>
> You imagine that I merely string words together for the fun of it.
>
However you do string together other people's words and ideas because
you think that their trite banality is actualy profundity.
--
We are all of us failures - at least, the best of us are. - J.M. Barrie
Humbert_Campbell
entirely agree. Lets see if I can make some sort of coherent responce
today.
> I don't wish to pick nits, and your points are generally good. However,
> surely there is good evidence that this 'chain' has been broken many
> times - during the Dark Ages in Europe, under the invasion of and
> sacking of Rome, under Cromwell in England and so forth. New theories
> and ideas have also arisen over time in response to quite different
> technological changes.
Agreed. Unfortunately it`s impossible to make a complete family tree
all the way back to Gadunga the great painter of caves and master
banana picker. However since we know all art continued the lineage is
there even though we are unfortunately unaware of it.
I like what you wrote about the breaking of the chain and agree there
also. Let me put this question to you because I wonder what you think
of it.
I have been influenced at some point by a number of ancient or
historical painters. People who are not my teachers but whose work has
informed me and educated me. As you said the Teacher-Student chain has
been broken countless times but if I am influenced or informed by
those works does the chain not exist here too? Certainly the fall of
Rome and the Dark Ages etc. have made for a rough ride but we as
artists today have the ability to respond to those works or assimilate
them into our own knowledge and understanding. The `responce to
technological advances` too is part of this.
So my question is thus- should we look at the chain we speak of in a
linear fashion or as a chain whose links may come incontact with one
another at any point along the line?
Im for being rid of the strictly linear perspective.
> The dead are also not a chorus - they are notable for being silent!
THEY are indeed quiet but somehow THEIR WORKS which survive them tell
volumes. (good lord I sound like a pollyanna today)
> Does it really matter if we are not bound directly through such a chain
> to our ancestors in caves? For the theory of papal succession such
> theoretical [though, even then, actually broken] chains of succession
> have some silly, but understandable, justification.
I believe this is what I was saying just above and so posed the
previous thing in confirmation to see if we are infact working from
the same idea.
Good hunting!!
HC
Humbert_Campbell
Im usually only on here once every week or two so Im sorry I wasnt
able to get back to you any sooner. Ok lets see what we have.
> Something that goes beyond that mere acceptance of the idea that
> "originality isn't possible"... doesn't revel in it and that, at
> least trys to say something other than that.
do.
Ill give you an example that you may find interesting. One of my
students started doing some drawings that were extremely similar to
the way in which Leland Bell had been working. Now I know this student
and I know that the similarities were only because he was trying to
fit shapes and colors together in a certain way that he found valid. I
know too he had never seen bells work. He had by coincidence arrived
at a kind of visual vocabulary that was similar to another artists by
chance or accident.
Lets look at it like this.
A. He was completely unorigional because what he came up with had
already been done by another artist years before.
B. He was completely origional becaus he came up with it himself and
didnt attempt to copy this style from anyone.
So do you believe that he was being origional or unorigional in this
case?
Incidentaly he was heartbroken when he did finally see bells work
because (althugh he loved it) it was so similar to what he was doing.
He felt some justification for his thinking to be sure but felt as
though his works were somehow devalued because of their similartiy to
a previous artist. He was very concerned with being `origional`. I
personaly thought he was.
> ...I'm sorry... I'm just bored to shit with being told that I have
> no choice other than to be bored.
Dont say sorry. I feel the same way. HERE HERE!
> ...I don't think salability has much of anything to do with quality.
EXACTLY! I agree whole heartedly. Quality is first of all a dificult
thing to define since none of us ever agree fully on what is good or
bad. My own way of thinking is to be as objective as I can and just
try to make good art. Regardless I dont think quality has anything to
do with salability. Look how many people have been virtually ignored
for years only to have their works praised in retrospect.
>
> I am sick to death of being reminded of something that many of
> todays artists seem to have just discovered. ...I didn't need
> to be told that "art is a product" in the first goddamned place.
>
> ...What does one do to get people to stop reminding them?}
Buy a rifle. Unfortunately thats a bit extreme so just nod and smile
and say `Yes yes, I know.`
> {It's like... would you just shut up and make something
> that's worth selling, dude?}
YEAH!!!
> > generally speaking the market changed. We shifted somewhere in the
> > late nineteenth century from this system of artist and patron to a
> > more openended individual approach. Instead of an artist working to
> > please his patron he had to please a wider number of poeple in order
> > to eat. In the best cases these men kept their integrity and continued
> > to paint because they loved to do it and their work grew rather than
> > suffered.
> >
> > Unfortunatly a great number of people acheived quick and easy fame
> > with antagonistic, shocking, or wildly talked about but ultimately
> > shallow works.
> When?
Sorry when did the market change or when did people acheive quick and
easy fame?
The market change was gradual. A lot of artists working in France
began to seperate from the traditional salons and set up their own way
of doing things. This was gradual and took years to really set in. You
could check out LOADS of books on the subject so Ill try not to
expound on that here.
As for the Latter, People have been getting away with gimicks for
years. They are snake oil salesmen and carpetbaggers at best. A few
years ago I saw someone spray paint the word RAT three times on a
canvas and sell it for about thirty grand. Now Im not going into the
deeper implications of this just now but I was a great deal less than
impressed.
A lot of those things just dont hold my attention. I look at them for
a minute and Im bored. I am interested in reading about them but its
like a doctor reading about experimental science, its theoretically
interesting but may not be whats best for the patients.
> I like a lot of Duchamps ideas... a bit less of his work. I don't
> like readymades at all. It's wasted gallery space... someone who
> actually gives a damn could be occupying it.
Agreed.
> I don't think the "tradition of art" got tossed out until
> about 1o years ago... somewhere near the late end of modernism
> and the late beginnings of post... {aside from a few minimalists
> that is.}
I have always thought that Modern art had a bit of the post attitude
in it all along. Im not sure Modern is finished just yet. thats a LONG
story though.
> Ok. I see the high points coming from folk that told their
> teachers to go to hell.
>
> ...Davinci, Seurat, Van Gogh, Ernst, {Bellmer}, Bacon... Whistler...
I always encourage my students to find their own way. My teachers
taught me a lot about Mythology. In many Mythological cycles for the
new god to become fully realized he has to rise up and kill his
father. (Zues and Cronos for example) what my teacher was telling me
was that in order to be your own man (or woman) you have to be able to
do it yourself, to stand on your own two feet and not parrot what you
were told by your teachers. To those who rejected their teachers and
struck out on there own. . . good work! What more could make a teacher
proud than to see his students becomeing the best they can be.
I think Im agreeig with you there in a round about sense.
> > what binds us today to our ancestors who painted on cave walls. Its
> > each of us adding our voice to a greater corus. Thogh we may not
> > always like the songs we sing and there may be a sour note in there
> > along the way its all part of the larger story.
>
> I see the problem today in attitudes... The idea above just comes
> from perspective.
Tell me more, what do you mean exactly?
> > But look at me. Im a silly old man getting sentimental.
> >
> > regardless of all that wether it be the most carefully studied and
> > balanced, or the energeticaly and daringly produced of works its all
> > part of a grand tradition.
>
> One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
>
> Why is this?
Ever see Star Wars? The Dark side is more tempting. Its quicker
easier. More sudductive. Its always been easier to give in to the
quick and simple answers. The more dificult path is not something
likely challenged.
Well I hope that made some sense. Do write back. Ill be checking in
again sometime next week.
Take care.
HC
Humbert_Campbell
> pe...@new.co.za:
> | ...
> | The dead are also not a chorus - they are notable for being silent!
> | ...
>
> Oh, no, they are wired for sound and caused to shout at us.
GOOD LORD!!
I hope my mother in law isnt one of those!
HC
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
>
> So my question is thus- should we look at the chain we speak of in a
> linear fashion or as a chain whose links may come incontact with one
> another at any point along the line?
>
things about a fire. I wouldn't put one before another unless it was a
more intersting pattern.
>
> Im for being rid of the strictly linear perspective.
>
>
>>The dead are also not a chorus - they are notable for being silent!
>
>
> THEY are indeed quiet but somehow THEIR WORKS which survive them tell
> volumes. (good lord I sound like a pollyanna today)
>
Indeed. Or, as for example the case of Gerard Manley Hopkins the works
that don't survive tell volumes.
>
>
>>Does it really matter if we are not bound directly through such a chain
>>to our ancestors in caves? For the theory of papal succession such
>>theoretical [though, even then, actually broken] chains of succession
>>have some silly, but understandable, justification.
>
>
> I believe this is what I was saying just above and so posed the
> previous thing in confirmation to see if we are infact working from
> the same idea.
>
If you like the 'small world' theory [aka 'six degrees of separation'],
a result of applying graph theory to human relations, then you might
want to extend it further to include the dead.
Neil Maxwell
Nilges) wrote:
>Neil Maxwell <neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote in message news:<l8bt5voodob4bn3ga...@4ax.com>...
>> You really don't understand anything about this music, do you? Have
>> you ever heard goth, been to a goth-oriented club, or seen a goth
>> band? I have to assume not, based on your statements.
>I was close personal friends from a Gothette who married and moved
>away. No, we did not have a Thing going: she thought I was too old.
>But we palled around and complained about our lovers to each other.
>She filled me in on the Goth phenomenon.
Umm... So someone told you about Goth. I think I see the problem.
This is like learning about sex from a book. If you actually listen
to some of this music, your erroneous conclusions would be immediately
obvious. Think for yourself for a change.
Aimless wanderings and cultural analyses via Saturday Night Live,
totally off the point, snipped...
>> Yeah, there's certainly no hip-hop influence in any of the pop albums
>> that white people are buying today.
>
>I was of course referring not to the content of the music but to its
>marketing in which the listener has to be assured of what type of
>music he will be listening-to. Of course, in the music itself, black
>people have a great influence because of the brutal fact that with the
>exception of we Irish, there is no "American" music.
Edward, you're hopeless. What astonishing, overwhelming blinders!
You really need to read less and think more.
>This is because the Puritans discouraged music in church and when they
>allowed it it was as simple in its own way as Gregorian chant. While
>this music has like Gregorian chant its own stark beauty, the result
>is that middle class Americans have no music not taken from immigrants
>EXCEPT for the European classical tradition, to which they cling to
>with grim resentment.
More prejudiced stereotypes...
>It becomes necessary, in metal, to create a mediaeval world in which
>black people have no place, and white kids can then feel sexually
>adequate.
And racist stereotypes...
>What's missing is the universalism of the Beatles, of "What's Goin
>On?" and of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues. Despite a clear
>audience desire for "American roots music" as seen in the top selling
>soundtrack of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, here the marketing men had to
>turn to the political commissars of modern pop radio, who have said,
>without the "numbers", that American "roots music" is NPR and elitist.
You've never gotten over the Beatles breaking up, have you? It must
save you a lot in CDs.
>> "Cross a harsh genre boundary, go to prison."
>>
>> Nice bumper sticker. You've got the sound bite thing down.
>
>And you are so unaware that you actually confuse your false
>representation of what I said with reality. Gee, I had to plow
>through Dialectic of Enlightenment to learn about "the conquest of the
>thing represented by its representation" but here, your idiocy is an
>empirical confirmation of high Frankfurt School Theory.
>
Edward, try thinking for yourself, rather than letting books and
theoreticians tell you how to think.
Paul Mesken
<neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote:
>This is like learning about sex from a book.
And what exactly is wrong with that? ;-)
Edward G. Nilges
Signs of intelligent life...
Paul, I bailed when that guy said "you need to read less and think
more."
For in America, an Enlightenment society, idiots like this have to
cling somehow to the name of Enlightenment while resisting its
manifestations.
This is why our President comes up with documented gibberish in his
speeches.
We simply don't have a language for expressing what we think of
trouble-makers who read AND think, when their conclusions disturb our
fantasies. We can't refer them to authorities because we have no
sense as did traditional Europeans that kings and priests can be
trusted.
Therefore, we come up with nonsense, such as "read less and think
more."
The "thought" is not thought but the reflection of views of others
that others hold because they are under stress and scared s*tless by
the depression, a series of unprecedented US diplomatic defeats, and
the insistence by Bush on going to war anyway.
The problem is that in America, rather like England and unlike the
Continent, traditional elites never got the boot as your princes got
the boot in 1919 and 1945, with the result that the working folks were
able to create a genuine, if frayed, safety net which gives the
ordinary man a sense of personal security.
It appears to me that the symbolic credibility of your Dutch
traditional elite was destroyed by the Nazi's use of traditional Dutch
symbols (such as recruiting posters for the Dutch Waffen-SS using
Wilhelmus) during the occupation, with the result that ordinary people
have completely replaced deep narratives with more enlightened
narratives:
IT'S EASY TO GET PEOPLE TO PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO HAVING ENOUGH TO
EAT
- Jenny Holzer
Note that I am more impressed, from far away, by your traditional
symbols than actual Dutch people. This is because the grass is always
greener, or more orange, on the other side, and also because
increasingly, the American narrative fails to work when, at one and
the same time, we are encouraged to be patriotic without question, and
betrayed in Vietnam and today.
In unthinking men, and me when drunk, this results in the Fascism of
revival of dead symbols. Since I am German, I love those old German
hunting and marching songs such as Frederick the Great's
Hohenfriedberger march, along with the Wilhelmus tune, and only a
political superego and my kids remind me to replace the old tunes with
the Internationale, or Born in the USA.
We, in the USA, labor under Constitutional arrangements which COMBINE
modernism and pre-modernism, and, I think the UK's political culture
resembles ours because its political integrity has lasted since Anglo
Saxon times.
In Scotland (for example) most farmers own their land under feudal
arrangements which combine with postmodern capitalism to sell the land
title, under mediaeval understandings, to rock stars and Arabs.
In the USA, you can hold residential property fee simple, but most
people cannot, and the structure of farm lending is so biased (by the
wrong sort of government interference) that only a tiny minority can
hold land for productive use. Massive debt replaces personal
integrity as visioned by Thomas Jefferson. As a result, in many ways,
modern Americans have LESS physical security than a Dutch smallholder
and field preacher of the 15th century, who had his little plot of
productive land, hopefully small enough to escape the Duke of Alba's
notice.
Modern Americans dream of beach-houses if only they can unlearn,
enough, compassion and solidarity and reading too many books. Modern
American computer developers (a remarkable number of whom have been
completely unemployed since March 2001) fantasize about meeting and
forming a "relationship" with a white woman and crossing mine fields
of errors and mistakes that would send their own fathers into gales of
horse laughter. They live in a dream world.
The legal structure of the arrangements in the USA date to the
Federalist period in which a natural aristocracy of genuinely
qualified men secured a position which is preserved today and which
was never questioned except in the South during the post Civil War
reconstruction. As a result, leading families such as the Pierces and
the Bushes have power which they are currently brutally and legally
reasserting in a *kulturkampf*.
They most assuredly do not want to become a Scandinavian aristocracy,
taking bikes to their job as Queen or Prince or Duke of Earl.
Historically, they have not needed titles, but that's coming down the
pike in the form of "honorary" knighthoods passed out like candy by
Queen Elizabeth in recent years, in violation of the Constitution, to
various powerful felons including Caspar Weinberger.
I am in the Dark Ages and in the court of the Merovingians, in which
thugs and uberbabes reminiscent of Pepin and his consorts are telling
the scholars, read less, think more, and shuddup.
As a result most ordinary people, like Neil, live in a space of
material denial in which you should be an Enlightenment subject, and
read, but not so much as to strain your eyes.
Neil represents, for me, a major waste of time and joins a lengthening
list. I need to work on my book and won't waste my time and yours in
replying to him.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<mp476vkfk3bngb57u...@4ax.com>...
>
>>On Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:17:49 -0800, Neil Maxwell
>><neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote:
>>
>
> Neil represents, for me, a major waste of time and joins a lengthening
> list. I need to work on my book and won't waste my time and yours in
> replying to him.
>
LOL! How nice to enjoy a joke, even if unintentional. Teddy can burble
on in his meaning free regurgitation of pinko non-thought for ages -
whenever his brain hurts trying to understand something, though, he 'has
no time to waste'.
It has been truly said that Yanks have no sense of irony.
Neil Maxwell
wrote:
>Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<mp476vkfk3bngb57u...@4ax.com>...
>> On Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:17:49 -0800, Neil Maxwell
>> <neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote:
>>
>> >This is like learning about sex from a book.
>>
>> And what exactly is wrong with that? ;-)
>
>Signs of intelligent life...
8-D
Edward G. Nilges
> On 3 Mar 2003 16:44:23 -0800, spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges)
> wrote:
> >Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<mp476vkfk3bngb57u...@4ax.com>...
> >> On Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:17:49 -0800, Neil Maxwell
> >> <neil.m...@nospam.intel.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >This is like learning about sex from a book.
> >>
> >> And what exactly is wrong with that? ;-)
> >
> >Signs of intelligent life...
>
> 8-D
>
>
pay for it on the Internet?
I should think that learning how to wake up with a woman from the
scene of Romeo and Juliet, and argue with her about what time it is,
is an EXCELLENT way of learning simple tenderness.
I should think that learning how a man feels when Natasha enters the
room, in War and Peace, is an EXCELLENT way of learning to deal with
powerful feelings...that most men in America and Australia today drown
with alcohol.
I think that reading about how Lady Chatterley wants to be a beast in
the rain might teach a few lessons about how to conduct a gruntfest
properly with your sweetie.
I know there are men so dense they could not do the deed, or pour piss
out of a boot, with or without instructions, and they are childishly
amused by the very idea.
Grow up.
-=r00d d00d=-
-=r00d d00d=-
>I was close personal friends from a Gothette who married and moved
>away. No, we did not have a Thing going: she thought I was too old.
>But we palled around and complained about our lovers to each other.
>She filled me in on the Goth phenomenon.
>
>I miss her. She would have preferred the 1960s and she reminded me of
>the free spirits back then, but all her friends had married and she
>felt left out...as if we'd gone back to the 1950s. Back in the 1960s,
>women did not feel left out of it if they were not married.
>
What's amusing is that American Woman, she defines de rules de game
and then says you are weak if in reality, you are wanking off with
your own set of goals.
Cu Chullain
> > Something that goes beyond that mere acceptance of the idea that
> > "originality isn't possible"... doesn't revel in it and that, at
> > least trys to say something other than that.
>
> That`s a tough one to adress. I try to be origional in everything I
> do.
I'll address both of you, if I may. The shift in the art world, at
least the recent one from modernism to po-mo, reflects an attitude
amongst artists that as you say "orriginality isn't possible". Really
what were witnessing here is the idea of individual sensability, and
Humbert you hit on this with your example from one of your students.
Let me lend some more fuel to this fire, another example of this
individual sensability at work. At the Queens MoMA now there is a show
which addresses this very issue. The show is called Matisse/Picasso.
The engine behind the curatorship is an idea I have thought about
alot, that being what happens when one giant of an artist confronts
another. Matisse very often painted like the younger Picasso, and vice
versa, but somehow each were able to maintain their individual
sensabilities. Now if orriginality is not possible....Originality all
depends on the degree to which one is willing to embrace one's
sensability. That said, let me throw this one on the fire.
"Originality for it's own sake" is just as empty an idea as
"originality isn't possible".
> Ill give you an example that you may find interesting. One of my
> students started doing some drawings that were extremely similar to
> the way in which Leland Bell had been working. Now I know this student
> and I know that the similarities were only because he was trying to
> fit shapes and colors together in a certain way that he found valid. I
> know too he had never seen bells work. He had by coincidence arrived
> at a kind of visual vocabulary that was similar to another artists by
> chance or accident.
Humbert, while this case is extremely remarkable it is not
isolated, not to take the wind out of your sails but I have been
witness to students happening upon another artist's way of making a
painting so to speak, but most of the time the simmilarities are only
superficial, surface elements like simmilar application of paint or
spatial organization etc. I would say, as you might have already
guessed that this student of yours was addressing his own sensability
and had chanced upon another's visual vocabulary. I've digressed a bit
but I will say this, artist's rarely come from 'nowhere' and Bell,
great as he is is no exception. There is something your student might
learn in finding where he felt Leeland Bell was coming from. This idea
that coming from somewhere is taboo, that artists are not allowed to
look at and paint like, or respond to other artists is absurd, the
notion that it is unorriginal to do so is equally perverse.
> > ...I'm sorry... I'm just bored to shit with being told that I have
> > no choice other than to be bored.
>
> Dont say sorry. I feel the same way. HERE HERE!
Agreed, here, here!!
> > > Unfortunatly a great number of people acheived quick and easy fame
> > > with antagonistic, shocking, or wildly talked about but ultimately
> > > shallow works.
>
> > When?
Perhaps you mean who? Recently some artists who have acheived
undeserved fame and notariety, David Hockney, Cindy Sherman, Eric
Fischel, Nam June Paik. I'm so sick of seeing these guys (and girls)
touted as if they have something important to say. I'm sick of being
bored by the art scene, I'm sick of the entertainment bored (read
boring) artists come up with to fill their next obligation to
superstardom (read gallery space). Not tired so much of being told
I've no choice, though if you look at any given gallery guide or art
in america review section from 1979 to the present one might decide
there is no choice but to be bored. Not true.
>
> I have always thought that Modern art had a bit of the post attitude
> in it all along. Im not sure Modern is finished just yet. thats a LONG
> story though.
>
> > Ok. I see the high points coming from folk that told their
> > teachers to go to hell.
> >
> > ...Davinci, Seurat, Van Gogh, Ernst, {Bellmer}, Bacon... Whistler...
>
> I always encourage my students to find their own way. My teachers
> taught me a lot about Mythology. In many Mythological cycles for the
> new god to become fully realized he has to rise up and kill his
> father. (Zues and Cronos for example) what my teacher was telling me
> was that in order to be your own man (or woman) you have to be able to
> do it yourself, to stand on your own two feet and not parrot what you
> were told by your teachers. To those who rejected their teachers and
> struck out on there own. . . good work! What more could make a teacher
> proud than to see his students becomeing the best they can be.
>
> I think Im agreeig with you there in a round about sense.
Everyone needs to find themselves, which is esentially telling
your teahcers to gotoeffinghell.
> > > ...But look at me. Im a silly old man getting sentimental.
> > > regardless of all that wether it be the most carefully studied and
> > > balanced, or the energeticaly and daringly produced of works its all
> > > part of a grand tradition.
> >
> > One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
> >
> > Why is this?
I will say here that the tradition is very much alive and well,
and though perhaps many artists seem to have lost a certain amount of
respect for this tradition thete are just as many who revere it. Only
the dumb and blind artworld sheep are making un-humorous puns on the
past whild passing it off as the latest supperdish. Rubbish. It is
however just as nearsighted to get lost in the past.
Humbert and all, thanks again for some interesting fodder,
hopefully we can continue this dialogue for some time to come. There
appear to be some brains here again, new meat, yummy.
Cheers,
C.M.
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
>>
>
> What, should I learn from you and Peter H. M. Brooks?
>
You are very clearly beyond the capability of learning.
I'd be happy to be proved wrong - but, whenever you have the chance of
learning something you run away like a scalded cat. You have such fear
within you (rightly) that your shabby edifice of pinko dogma can be
shattered.
Why not try Teddy? You have wonders to learn, sights to see that the
poor little box you confine yourself to cannot even begin to imagine.
Why not give yourself a chance to live?
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Peter H.M. Brooks
Remember: Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and
annoys the pig.
Neil Maxwell
wrote:
>What, should I learn from you and Peter H. M. Brooks? About how to
>pay for it on the Internet?
Sorry, I thought you were ignoring me. Can't believe everything you
read on usenet, I guess.
>I should think that learning how to wake up with a woman from the
>scene of Romeo and Juliet, and argue with her about what time it is,
>is an EXCELLENT way of learning simple tenderness.
Ummm... You are confusing sex and romance/personal relationships.
You really do need to get out more, and work on that reading
comprehension.
Back to the original topic, you can learn much about musical groups,
artists, labels, etc., from reading, but you can't learn anything
about the music proper without actually hearing it, and you can't
learn about the scene and the people without exposing yourself to it.
Then you can make statements about it without looking foolish. Try it
sometime.
>I should think that learning how a man feels when Natasha enters the
>room, in War and Peace, is an EXCELLENT way of learning to deal with
>powerful feelings...that most men in America and Australia today drown
>with alcohol.
Ooh, look. More sweeping generalizations. And learning about
emotions and feelings from a book? That sounds... unsatisfying.
I read about drinking once, but it didn't do anything for me.
>I think that reading about how Lady Chatterley wants to be a beast in
>the rain might teach a few lessons about how to conduct a gruntfest
>properly with your sweetie.
"Hang on, honey, I've got to re-read this chapter. Hold that
position! Hey, wait... where are you going?!?"
>I know there are men so dense they could not do the deed, or pour piss
>out of a boot, with or without instructions, and they are childishly
>amused by the very idea.
Edward, I'm a big fan of reading and knowledge for its own sake, but
there are some things that need to be done first-hand, one on one,
with slippery friction. Reading about them is just not the same for
most of us.
>Grow up.
Will it make me like you, humorless, prejudiced, and unable to craft
an argument based on logic and facts, instead relying on second hand
information others have filtered for you?
Thanks anyhow. I'll pass.
Peter H.M. Brooks
of self-knowledge and a deep ignorance to develop those - both of which
poor Teddy has in spades (as he carefully shouts out to the world almost
every time he writes).
G*rd*n
spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges):
| What, should I learn from you and Peter H. M. Brooks? About how to
| pay for it on the Internet?
|
| I should think that learning how to wake up with a woman from the
| scene of Romeo and Juliet, and argue with her about what time it is,
| is an EXCELLENT way of learning simple tenderness.
|
| I should think that learning how a man feels when Natasha enters the
| room, in War and Peace, is an EXCELLENT way of learning to deal with
| powerful feelings...that most men in America and Australia today drown
| with alcohol.
|
| I think that reading about how Lady Chatterley wants to be a beast in
| the rain might teach a few lessons about how to conduct a gruntfest
| properly with your sweetie.
|
| I know there are men so dense they could not do the deed, or pour piss
| out of a boot, with or without instructions, and they are childishly
| amused by the very idea.
The problem with learning about sex (or a number of other
things) from a book is that, anterior to actual experience
in the world, one has no way of separating the lies and the
bullshit from useful information or veracious depiction. Sex
in particular seems to occasion a torrent of misinformation,
posturing and delusion. Besides, most writing about sex is
both repressive and highly conventionalized, whether it's the
juicy stuff in a novel or yet another self-help book. In that
it resembles a lot of the writing about the fine arts.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 1/19/03 <-adv't
Edward G. Nilges
Neither Paul nor I are saying, of course, that you can learn
everything from a book, and the absurdity is the inference that that's
what he's saying.
Industrial specialization causes people to assume that you are EITHER
a hairy-chested denizen of The Real World, OR a wimp, reading books,
and industrial specialization occludes the very possibility that one
could be both.
Furthermore, experience in the real world of sex can easily harm other
people and spread disease, as well as distort one's perspective which
is broadened by reading about other perspectives about sex.
As to the arts, artists who read both history and criticism are better
artists.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>Furthermore, experience in the real world of sex can easily harm other
>people and spread disease, as well as distort one's perspective which
>is broadened by reading about other perspectives about sex.
Exactly, that's why I stick to reading about it (well at least that is
what I want to believe, it sure beats the sad truth ;-)
Peter H.M. Brooks
>
>
> As to the arts, artists who read both history and criticism are better
> artists.
>
artist.
Why be bothered with actually trying to understand if you have such and
absolute certainty.
Rick Taylor
> > Something that goes beyond that mere acceptance of the idea that
> > "originality isn't possible"... doesn't revel in it and that, at
> > least trys to say something other than that.
> A. He was completely unorigional because what he came up with had
> already been done by another artist years before.
>
> B. He was completely origional becaus he came up with it himself and
> didnt attempt to copy this style from anyone.
>
> So do you believe that he was being origional or unorigional in this
> case?
I don't really think it matters. You can take that all the way down to
the "no originality thing" by simply saying that we all use lines or
forms or dots or whatever... We all emulate... we all use similar forms
and convey similar messages. We're all influenced by our environment.
That all goes without saying. Technical matters are just that... I don't
think they're all that important. {Unless, of course, the artwork
happens to be about technique.}
What I think does matter is "is it original in the context of art?"
...Are the images unique... does he have his own style or imagery
{speaking in relative terms of course}? ...a specific message that he
conveys particularly well... a unique perspective, etc?
...Even more important than that is "is he striving for a unique perspective"?
...Is he trying to illuminate aspects of things that we've not all seen illuminated
a hundred times or more?
{This being "the crux of the biscuit" {Frank} in my opinion.}
> > > part of a grand tradition.
> >
> > One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
> >
> > Why is this?
>
> Ever see Star Wars? The Dark side is more tempting. Its quicker
> easier. More sudductive. Its always been easier to give in to the
> quick and simple answers. The more dificult path is not something
> likely challenged.
"Dark Side"?
--
Rick Taylor - rickt...@speakeasy.net - {exile} - ex...@speakeasy.net
In a universe of free choice, unrestrained by divine tutelage, received
dominant ideas, or unshakable norms of "civilised" behavior, one can
do anything one chooses. {Free Noise Manifesto}
Edward G. Nilges
> Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> >
> >
> > As to the arts, artists who read both history and criticism are better
> > artists.
> >
> How nice to be so certain. How nice to know exactly what makes a better
> artist.
Yeah, its nice to be Mister Fabulous.
Seriously, underneath the lameassed attempt at irony, an irony which
is simultaneously encouraged and concealed by the medium, which
changes tone into monospaced fonts, I do detect waveforms of simple
envy.
Peter H. M. Brooks has clearly long abandoned any sense of his
personal power, including his capacity to know and understand, and
this causes him to REDUCE knowledge to the debased coinage of that
brutal certainty which his managers at McDonald's use to maintain
control.
In the resulting mad world, ANY knowledge, having lost that
credibility which comes from pragmatic verifiability by the cultured
other, becomes astrology.
Peter, go to the beach and chill out. Then, read a book or two.
>
> Why be bothered with actually trying to understand if you have such and
> absolute certainty.
In fact, I am trying to understand a willed stupidity.
Edward G. Nilges
A sensible attitude. In America's Puritan/libertine society, people
on the other hand are expected, at one and the same time, to have
acquired arcane sexual sophistication, while not allowing themselves
to be polluted, by having actually had sex.
This of course is a contradiction.
The grassroots sexual experimentation of the 1960s was commodified by
a species of petite bourgeois of the 1970s which we named "hip"
capitalists.
These were young men who in the early 1970s exploited sexual and
lifestyle expression in small shops set up in the rotting parts of
inner American cities that even in 1970 had not fully recovered from
the lack of development during the 1930s and 1940s that resulted from
depression and war.
They created small shops including Victoria's Secret in San Francisco,
Bigsby and Kruthers in Chicago, and Starbuck's in Seattle, which grew
into today's megafirms.
The men who founded these shops were typically selfish, brutal and
sexist primitive accumulators. One of them harassed my girl-friend
when she was in his emporium.
Today, their firms oppress modern high school students by at one and
the same time, exalting the toned and unclothed naked body, while
discouraging competition in the form of sexuality at the grassroots by
making high school students so ashamed of their God-given bodies that,
I have learned, high school students hate gym class.
It appears that in high school, at one and the same time, libertinism
is used to laugh at and abuse students who deviate .1 of a degree from
the racist and classist Calvin Klein norms, while Puritanism is used
to punish sexual expressions.
But on March 5th, high school students, in a way reminiscent of an old
tale, broke the spells set upon them by the Baby Boomers.
They went on strike against Bush's war and took over downtown Evanston
and world-wide.
They took ownership of their bodies and minds.
In the 1970s, the hip capitalists stole grassroots expression except
for protest because they could not steal political protest and put it
on sale. That is, I think, the material basis of the dignity that
protesters have.
Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
G*rd*n
| > >Furthermore, experience in the real world of sex can easily harm other
| > >people and spread disease, as well as distort one's perspective which
| > >is broadened by reading about other perspectives about sex.
Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>:
| > Exactly, that's why I stick to reading about it (well at least that is
| > what I want to believe, it sure beats the sad truth ;-)
spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges):
| A sensible attitude. In America's Puritan/libertine society, people
| on the other hand are expected, at one and the same time, to have
| acquired arcane sexual sophistication, while not allowing themselves
| to be polluted, by having actually had sex.
|
| This of course is a contradiction.
But it's precisely what you get if you read about sex without
actually doing it. You can have a whole community of people
doing that and as the writings reflect the readings, i.e.
other writings, the entire cultural mass becomes quite separated
from anything that actually happens to anybody, resulting in
the very peculiar, very stylized erotic literature one observes
in popular magazines, books, films and on the Net.
You speak of disease, but this too is a disease. Maybe fatal
in its way. One misses one's life. I wonder also if people
conditioned in this way aren't primed to be victimized by the
kind of television politics promoted by Monkey Boy and his
immediate predecessors -- one can indulge a low taste for
ugly, moronic violence without having to suffer or pay for
anything.
| ...
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E68E020...@new.co.za>...
>
>>
>
> credibility which comes from pragmatic verifiability by the cultured
> other, becomes astrology.
>
letters.
Certainly I understand how you are envious of people with any knowledge
- it is good at least that you recognise your lack of it.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
>
>
> Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
> not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
> that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
> plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
> paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
>
As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
Edward G. Nilges
> Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> > Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
> >
>
> >
> > Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
> > not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
> > that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
> > plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
> > paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
> >
> As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
>
> Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
> wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
Thanks for the nickname, Teddy: it will remind the thoughtful and
well-read of Theodore "Teddy" Adorno.
The Internet provides a powerful symbolic verification of his claim in
Dialectic of Enlightenment, that people are so abused by the theft of
their culture that they become subhuman.
You are literally afraid to generate positive culture, and, you sit on
your bubble butt down in Australia generating nothing but negation.
A positive claim, not reinforced by authority, fills you with
uncomprehending rage and it becomes your mission (similar to that of a
typical destructive "human resources" department in a corporation) to
destroy that sign of vestigial humanity.
This destruction is in the name of symbols so necessarily abstract as
to be without meaning.
It appears that within Communist societies, this operation was
performed in the name of symbols such as "humanity" in such a way to
destroy the ability to talk of "humanity" and in such a way as to
create entire cities now filled with subhuman men who are, as in the
case of Albania, so cynical as to be, in a dialectical fashion, easy
marks for the crudest promises, including astrology, pyramid financial
schemes and participation in an attack on Iraq.
Your language is replete with references to "thinking" that is
carefully divorced from instantiation. This is no accident, for any
instantiation, on usenet, would be an easy target for random incoming
fire that would make you appear to be, what you fear to be: vulnerable
and disempowered by the very mechanisms in which you participate, and
which you replicate in the unutterably, vanishingly, small.
This mechanism appears in Stalinism as actually perceived on the
ground. I am reminded of the former apparatchik who had, in the 1930s
and in an actual factory position, the bad taste to express, during a
Stalinist version of the modern, corporate, performance review, his
"enthusiasm" for the latest Big Push, or more properly, forced march
to fulfill the Five Year Plan.
His interlocutor, a spiritual ancestor of the corporate apparatchik,
glared at him and said "we don't need your enthusiasm."
In Stalinism and in traditional corporate culture, the mechanisms were
exposed for what they actually are: domination. The Internet, as a
dialectical response to these mechanisms, has been, in turn, changed
into Yet Another mechanism of domination by the mechanism of "flaming"
which is a misnomer, for "flaming" completely fails to express the
fundamental assymmetry of domination aka bullying.
In the phenomenon, an individual poster decides on his own (or is in
signal but undocumented cases paid by a corporation or intelligence
service) to adopt the dominatrix pose, usually (when not performed for
a fee) in compensation for genuine feelings of disempowerment.
He then searches for signs of mere humanity including knowledge
claims, for these represent a threat to blind mechanisms and his own
feelings of disempowerment...usually, in the case of the Internet,
feelings based on genuine subordination to a position, in which, it
should be remarked, he is stealing time and network resources from his
employer by the very fact of using the Internet on work time, a
fundamental dishonesty itself disempowering.
The power of the system is, always and everywhere, on display in the
destruction of knowledge and knowledge claims. For example, it was a
simple matter to destroy David Noble and Michael Bellesisles when
management and the US National Rifle Association (a disservice to a
necessary Second Amendment) because while the system can no longer
even simulate public education, it is adept at proving negatives.
Hans Blix cannot find WOMD, but the system will CREATE, post facto,
the evidence by invading Iraq.
The cellular mechanism of flaming makes the Internet useless for the
Libertarian programme of so-called "freedom", and a pornography of
sado-masochistic speech void of content replaces the initial promise.
And these mechanisms were present at the creation.
Early transcripts of exchanges on Steward Brand's The Well in
Sausalito, CA, from the early 1980s show that even at this time, and
when the participants were statistically of higher education and
social class than today, the medium itself created the
sado-masochistic aura which biased the system, from day one, towards a
political conservatism (masquerading as "libertarianism") remarkably
at variance with Brand's Whole Earth Catalog of the preceding decade.
One poster now deceased made his bones, for example, by repeatedly
insulting women in a manner that would have been, by that time,
completely unacceptable person to person based on a crude apprehension
of the basics of feminist theory and practice.
In the late 1980s, I witnessed the character assassination of a woman
who merely wanted to post under a male pseudonym, for the medium was,
in terms of feminist theory and practice, a White counter-revolution
with which feminist theory has never adequately dealt, although
individual feminists of various sorts like Susan Sontag continue to
gamely soldier on in private list servers.
But the war being conducted is much broader, as Paul Mesken's humanity
and courage make plain in the vanishingly small. It is an American
*kulturkampf*, unwittingly assisted by clueless Australians who have
never adequately dealt with the near-genocidal issue of British
transportation during the Industrial Revolution, on the rest of the
world in the name of an intellectual property in the actual and
potential contents of the human mind.
The appelation "Teddy" is, with your usual blind ignorance, apropos,
for this is what self-styled student revolutionaries called Theodore
Adorno in 1968 when his expression of his humanity offended them.
Adorno, like Zhivago's father-in-law in the novel on which a Hollywood
product was based, felt that *qua* his personality as a Wilhelmine
professor victimized by the Nazis, "I'm one of the People, too."
His thug students, who without a doubt are now bubble butt executives
for Deutsches Bank and Springer, felt that to be one of the People one
had, like the victims of Pol Pot, to project a narrowly defined
Politically Correct personality. Therefore they found ignorant fault
with Adorno's mere assertions to KNOW and inferred (invalidly) to the
remarkably global claim that Adorno was, in terms of the crudest
German peasant thought, an allesweisen, and spiritual kin of the
village idiot.
They'd already been socialized by the vulgar and Nazi-influenced
*regimes* of Adenauer and Ehrard, and US domination during the 1950s,
to confuse personality with the mask of popular culture and its grin
or rictus.
You search, like a bouncer in a bar in some rotting East European
capital with a city center refurbished for Yuppies, for any sign of
actual personality, and make it your task to eradicate that
personality. But unlike an honest bouncer, you lack physical courage
and do this anonymously and from afar.
There is as a result an Antipodean hollowness about your bravado and
it makes the thoughtful reflect that Australian vain-glory resembles
US vain-glory in that both societies use relative physical isolation
as a reason for failing to examine the effect of their conduct and
language upon others.
"...they fashion on them the culture masks proffered to them and
practise themselves the magic that is already worked on them."
Edward G. Nilges
All very true, and this is why the lads need training in media theory
in school in how to consume popular culture, including stroke
magazines, critically.
After using Miss July in an onanistic fashion, the lad can then read
her biography with genuine awareness of, and compassion for, a woman
who has made only two grand for permanently damaging her standing in
the community.
He may realize that much of the culture to which he is exposed is a
constellation of the tattoo, in which he is marked permanantly by more
powerful men (such as in a literal sense the uncaring and incompetent
thug owners of "body art" establishments) for their profit and to his
own disempowerment.
Of course, public educators claim instead that the lads need
abstraction and standardized tests, for the very good reason that they
feel powerless to question the profit motive, even of some thug owner
of a tattoo parlor.
But the fact is that pornography and low culture are epiphenomenal and
unavoidable.
Also, there is a difference between sex in Shakespeare, and in
Playboy.
And I agree that Monkey Boy represents the lads who are maddened by
the false promises of Maxim.
>
> | ...
Cu Chullain
> What I think does matter is "is it original in the context of art?"
>...Are the images unique... does he have his own style or imagery
>{speaking in relative terms of course}? ...a specific message that he
>conveys particularly well... a unique perspective, etc?
>...Even more important than that is "is he striving for a unique
perspective"?
>...Is he trying to illuminate aspects of things that we've not all
seen >illuminated a hundred times or more?
>{This being "the crux of the biscuit" {Frank} in my opinion.}
- Rick,
Maybe I'm being a bit of a dolt but what do you mean by this.
You're being a bit vague here. Can you expound on what "is it original
in the context of art" means, I'm not following you here. One minute
you say originality dosn't matter then you say that it does, you're
confusing me here. As I've stated previously originality is directly
linked to sensability, I'd like to know what you think of this. I
don't think originality is of much import in the context of art
making. There are artists on whose sholders we all stand (to borrow a
phrase) but when one is engaging in artmaking and one is being true to
one's own sensability one can hardly help but make a work of art that
is unique to one's perspective and that conveys a specific message
well. Perhaps we might be better off speaking of these ideas in the
context of a particular artist's work, I'll leave it open to you to
pick one, if you like.
> > > > part of a grand tradition.
> > >
> > > One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
> > >
> > > Why is this?
-I've a temendous respect for tradition as well as a yearning to go
somewhere beyond that tradition. I feel that you do too. There are
plenty of artists adressing this issue every day. I am wondering what
you are so thirsty for that you haven't found your fountain to drink
from?
> > Ever see Star Wars? The Dark side is more tempting. Its quicker
> > easier. More sudductive. Its always been easier to give in to the
> > quick and simple answers. The more dificult path is not something
> > likely challenged.
>
> "Dark Side"?
-Humbert, you're loosing us here this is art making, not fantasizing
on George Lukas' masterbatory efforts on film. You will excuse me for
my lewdness, it is not meant to be hurtful but let's make an effort to
be clear.
hmmm...Rethinking that concept I believe the star wars comment was
in reference to marketability and again related to finding a voice in
one's own work. If one's own voice is marketable then bygod sell it,
but don't sell out, that's the gist, the dark side being the seduction
of money and the bending of one's creative skill to meet that desire
for the sole purpose of fame and wealth, ignoring truthfulness and
good painting in the process.
-well that's all for now, maybe we should move this discussion to
another topic heading, as we've just veered from what so many others
are saying in their posts above.
-thanks, Cu
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A036C...@new.co.za>...
>
>>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>>
>>>Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
>>>not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
>>>that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
>>>plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
>>>paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
>>
>> >
>>As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
>>
>>Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
>>wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
>
>
> Thanks for the nickname, Teddy: it will remind the thoughtful and
> well-read of Theodore "Teddy" Adorno.
>
have realised the importance of listening to me and ended your
self-imposed exile from wisdom - well done!
Well done too in getting rid of those tell tale capitals - most nutters
can't manage it, even when it is pointed out to them.
>
>
> You are literally afraid to generate positive culture, and, you sit on
> your bubble butt down in Australia generating nothing but negation.
>
Who knows what a 'bubble butt' might be, but I am not in Australia
(wrong again Teddy, try to kick this habit of being wrong all the time).
I am also a calm and positive person - a happy optimist. So your
characterisation is also wrong. It does, however, say rather a lot about
you, dear Ted!
>
> Your language is replete with references to "thinking" that is
> carefully divorced from instantiation. This is no accident, for any
> instantiation, on usenet, would be an easy target for random incoming
> fire that would make you appear to be, what you fear to be: vulnerable
> and disempowered by the very mechanisms in which you participate, and
> which you replicate in the unutterably, vanishingly, small.
>
You reveal so much of yourself, Ted - you should at least try to wear a
towel to protect a little of your modesty!
>
> This mechanism appears in Stalinism as actually perceived on the
> ground. I am reminded of the former apparatchik who had, in the 1930s
> and in an actual factory position, the bad taste to express, during a
> Stalinist version of the modern, corporate, performance review, his
> "enthusiasm" for the latest Big Push, or more properly, forced march
> to fulfill the Five Year Plan.
>
> His interlocutor, a spiritual ancestor of the corporate apparatchik,
> glared at him and said "we don't need your enthusiasm."
>
Yes, Teddy, I too am aware of, and anti, the excesses of Stalinism and
its repression of humanity. Actually, just by the by, I am a humanist,
so I reject all fascism, pinko and black shirted alike.
>
> The power of the system is, always and everywhere, on display in the
> destruction of knowledge and knowledge claims. For example, it was a
> simple matter to destroy David Noble and Michael Bellesisles when
> management and the US National Rifle Association (a disservice to a
> necessary Second Amendment) because while the system can no longer
> even simulate public education, it is adept at proving negatives.
> Hans Blix cannot find WOMD, but the system will CREATE, post facto,
> the evidence by invading Iraq.
>
Don't have so much fear, Ted. If you actually come up with anything
interesting, new, or original the internet is a place where you will
find (along with the wickeness of course) people who will glory in
learing from you. This will, I know, be a new experience for you, and
original thought is actually rather difficult, but, in your small way
you might be able to get out of your pinko prison and try a little
thought - a little thought does go a very long way, you'll find!
>
> But the war being conducted is much broader, as Paul Mesken's humanity
> and courage make plain in the vanishingly small. It is an American
> *kulturkampf*, unwittingly assisted by clueless Australians who have
> never adequately dealt with the near-genocidal issue of British
> transportation during the Industrial Revolution, on the rest of the
> world in the name of an intellectual property in the actual and
> potential contents of the human mind.
>
The mindfuck of the dialectic and its misunderstanding of history has
you in its thrall, I know. Most Yanks have bugger all idea of the
historical questions you mention - their problems are far easier to
explain, far simpler and far more recent in their aetiology.
>
> The appelation "Teddy" is, with your usual blind ignorance, apropos,
> for this is what self-styled student revolutionaries called Theodore
> Adorno in 1968 when his expression of his humanity offended them.
>
You parody yourself so well! Why are you so upset about your name or
nickname? You were banging on about how important your initials were to
you just the other day. Try to understand that a name is just a label -
it isn't you, unless you are too dimwitted to escape it.
>
> You search, like a bouncer in a bar in some rotting East European
> capital with a city center refurbished for Yuppies, for any sign of
> actual personality, and make it your task to eradicate that
> personality. But unlike an honest bouncer, you lack physical courage
> and do this anonymously and from afar.
>
You could almost develop a sense of humour, Ted, with enough practice!
I shan't tell you the story of the waiter in Vienna, nor the story of
the thugs in Pietermaritzburg - they wouldn't fit your 'thesis' (what a
huge word for your meanderings - I must be feeling kind!).
Also, just as a matter of fact, dear Ted, I am not anonymous, my name
really is Peter H.M.Brooks and I post using it with no fear whatsoever.
Bouncers, by the way, do little searching - but that is just another
error of fact, something you show something of an addiction for.
>
> There is as a result an Antipodean hollowness about your bravado and
> it makes the thoughtful reflect that Australian vain-glory resembles
> US vain-glory in that both societies use relative physical isolation
> as a reason for failing to examine the effect of their conduct and
> language upon others.
>
How beautifully you miss the mark every time! You would have thought
that simple random behaviour would enable you to get it right
occasionally, but, no, always the complete bullshit for our Ted!
Don't stop it in my account ( you may be happier in yourself, but that
is your problem) you are the nicest joke on r.a.f - please accept that
as a compliment, Ted. I truly do often laugh out loud when I read your
ponderous, self-important rubbish. I'd be sad to lose such an easy bit
of fun.
To be serious, though, Ted, my pleasure in your buffoonery is not
sufficient for me to wish you to continue forever to suffer as a
buffoon. As a humanist I would, truly, like it if you were able to
develop and improve yourself and would only have a sigh for my lost
delight. Don't worry about me, either, Ted, I could still dig up some of
your old posts when I was short of a novel and my projects weren't
needing my attention to enjoy the works of a genuine clown - one that
isn't even aware that he is a clown.
Good health to you, Ted, may you prosper in your illusion and
accidentally provide innocent pleasure to the rest of us - it doesn't
seem to make you very happy, but then happiness isn't given to everybody
(something that makes me feel a tifle guilty from time to time as I
see my cup of happiness overflow yet again).
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A036C...@new.co.za>...
>
>>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>>
>>>Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
>>>not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
>>>that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
>>>plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
>>>paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
>>
>> >
>>As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
>>
>>Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
>>wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
>
>
> Thanks for the nickname, Teddy: it will remind the thoughtful and
> well-read of Theodore "Teddy" Adorno.
>
that it is naughty of me to tease you so and that you invite it so much
doesn't really give me an excuse to indulge my pleasure.
I'd like to say more nice things. Teddy, though you are humourless and a
bore you are, I believe, not a nasty person at all. You have the
earnestness that invites teasing ( you probably were teased hugely at
school and never understood quite why). But your moral eanestness,
misguided as it is, is nevertheless a positive quality. I could contrast
you to another nutter who inhabits r.a.f, Alison, she too is humourless
and not at all bright, but she, unlike you, is actually an unpleasant
and nasty person (maybe she had a hard life and all that). You, are not.
Feel happy that you are essentially a nice person, it is more important
than being amusing, clever, charming or rich.
As Churchill said to a woman who pointed out that he was drunk, 'I may
be drunk, but tomorrow I shall be sober whilst you will still be ugly'.
You could benefit from dropping your paranoia too, I know that it is
something of a badge of pinkodom, but it isn't necessary. When people
disagree with you it doesn't mean that they are against you, or trying
to attack you.
The capitalist system, evil as it is in many ways, is not really out to
attack poor Teddy - it has more urgent interests.
Just to make you feel happier, I am not a capitalist, a right-winger or
a fascist, actually I am an anarchist. I know that pinkos hate
anarchists as well (many people hate those they know to be correct) but
actually anarchists are not only good people, but people who see the
good in humanity and celebrate it - few anarchists are not humanists.
Toot, toot, Teddy!
Edward G. Nilges
I really think that in view of your behavior, this offer of friendship
is completely inappropriate.
As to "teasing at school": in actuality, the culture of bullying and
of teasing is the problem, and neither my reaction to it, nor, my
participation in it (like most people, I have been involved in this
culture from different angles.)
Bullying and teasing, although naturalized, is in actuality an
artifact of patriachal societies and it is used to select "leaders"
such as George Bush.
In Australia it results, in all probability, from a social inferiority
complex which results from the transportation of the early 19th
century, which Australians have never dealt with as a society, by
means, for example, of a rebellion against the British...which was
healthy for us to an extent.
As a result, contemporary Aussie culture appears from afar to accept
unjust levels of class inequality and the destabilization of its
internal politics by the United States as needed, while taking out the
real anger on both Australian women and aboriginal folk.
You have taken out your insecurity inappropriately and any
conciliatory words, apart from a complete apology, are unacceptable
for this reason.
>
> Feel happy that you are essentially a nice person, it is more important
> than being amusing, clever, charming or rich.
>
> As Churchill said to a woman who pointed out that he was drunk, 'I may
> be drunk, but tomorrow I shall be sober whilst you will still be ugly'.
>
How clever: an incompetent who got people killed in the Boer war with
his despatches and who approved of an experiment at concentration
camps that inspired Hitler, is quoted approvingly insulting a woman
who called him what he was: a drunk and an alcoholic, in all
probability, who was voted out in 1946 and returned to help destroy
the British empire by pretending to manage the country from bed in
Blenheim palace.
> You could benefit from dropping your paranoia too, I know that it is
> something of a badge of pinkodom, but it isn't necessary. When people
> disagree with you it doesn't mean that they are against you, or trying
> to attack you.
>
> The capitalist system, evil as it is in many ways, is not really out to
> attack poor Teddy - it has more urgent interests.
>
> Just to make you feel happier, I am not a capitalist, a right-winger or
> a fascist, actually I am an anarchist. I know that pinkos hate
When people say they are "anarchist" this does not mean at all that
like genuine anarchists they would be willing to live communally, on
the model of Spanish anarchists of the Civil war.
It means instead that they would like to enjoy middle class comforts
while denying countless people the same government-funded benefits
that secured, for these "anarchists", a middle class life-style, and,
it means they cannot be troubled with any kind of disciplined thought.
It also means that they think disruption, where their cowardly
instincts tell them nothing bad will happen as a result, is a
political statement.
Get lost, punk.
Peter H.M. Brooks
I wasn't actually offering any friendship, as it happens, just being
friendly.
I think that you might benefit from rethinking your paranoid delusions
though - you need all the friends you are lucky enough to find, and then
a few more.
>
> As to "teasing at school": in actuality, the culture of bullying and
> of teasing is the problem, and neither my reaction to it, nor, my
> participation in it (like most people, I have been involved in this
> culture from different angles.)
>
I'll take that as a 'yes' then.
>
> As a result, contemporary Aussie culture appears from afar to accept
> unjust levels of class inequality and the destabilization of its
> internal politics by the United States as needed, while taking out the
> real anger on both Australian women and aboriginal folk..
>
Maybe you are right, Teddy, who knows? I'm not, an never have been, an
Australian.
>
> You have taken out your insecurity inappropriately and any
> conciliatory words, apart from a complete apology, are unacceptable
> for this reason.
>
Thank you for your apology - it wasn't needed.
You should try to deal with your insecurity better though, Teddy.
Exposing it to all and sundry does may you something of a target (just
friendly advice).
>
>>Just to make you feel happier, I am not a capitalist, a right-winger or
>>a fascist, actually I am an anarchist. I know that pinkos hate
>
>
> When people say they are "anarchist" this does not mean at all that
> like genuine anarchists they would be willing to live communally, on
> the model of Spanish anarchists of the Civil war.
>
You are right, no doubt it doesn't. Why you mention this is beyond me.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A4AEE...@new.co.za>...
>
>>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>>
>>>"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A036C...@new.co.za>...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>
>>Discussing your case with my wife led me to change my mind. I realise
>>that it is naughty of me to tease you so and that you invite it so much
>>doesn't really give me an excuse to indulge my pleasure.
>>
>>I'd like to say more nice things. Teddy, though you are humourless and a
>>bore you are, I believe, not a nasty person at all. You have the
>>earnestness that invites teasing ( you probably were teased hugely at
>>school and never understood quite why). But your moral eanestness,
>>misguided as it is, is nevertheless a positive quality. I could contrast
>>you to another nutter who inhabits r.a.f, Alison, she too is humourless
>>and not at all bright, but she, unlike you, is actually an unpleasant
>>and nasty person (maybe she had a hard life and all that). You, are not.
>
>
> I really think that in view of your behavior, this offer of friendship
> is completely inappropriate.
>
yourself 'punk').
Punk [I prefer to call you Teddy, but you chose the name for yourself],
thank you for enriching my day! You have such a deliciously ridiculous
sense of your own importance that you 'crease me up' [a Yankism I'm sure
that you will understand] every time you Pooterishly express your
petulance - as above.
Brilliant - you don't understand what it is, but don't change a thing,
we all love the performance...
So, farewell then, Punk, you claim again to be going into hiding from my
prose, lets see how long it lasts this time.
You must explain, some time, when you come back to discussions I mean,
why you chose the appelation 'punk' - is it a play on Teddy or does it
have some deeper meaning in Yank?
Edward G. Nilges
I don't care who you are, I don't care where you are from, you are a
jackanapes. Welcome back to my kill file.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A60C9...@new.co.za>...
>
>>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
>>
>>>"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
>>
>
> I don't care who you are, I don't care where you are from, you are a
> jackanapes. Welcome back to my kill file.
>
Bye, bye, Teddy! Running away from your betters won't help you in the
long run! You do, yet again, prove how cowardly Yanks are.
Don't cry too long though, Teddy - as I have said we all enjoy laughing
at you too much to have you all in a sulk.
You are not telling the truth again, though, you do care, you care very
much - that is why you have to run away.
Rick Taylor
> Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net> wrote:
>
> > What I think does matter is "is it original in the context of art?"
> >...Are the images unique... does he have his own style or imagery
> >{speaking in relative terms of course}? ...a specific message that he
> >conveys particularly well... a unique perspective, etc?
> >...Even more important than that is "is he striving for a unique
> perspective"?
> >...Is he trying to illuminate aspects of things that we've not all
> seen >illuminated a hundred times or more?
> >{This being "the crux of the biscuit" {Frank} in my opinion.}
>
> - Rick,
> Maybe I'm being a bit of a dolt but what do you mean by this.
> You're being a bit vague here. Can you expound on what "is it original
> in the context of art" means, I'm not following you here. One minute
Relative to the rest of art. Is it a statement by someone... born of that
persons thoughts, ideas and emotions or is it a copy of someone elses
stuff?
> you say originality dosn't matter then you say that it does, you're
> confusing me here. As I've stated previously originality is directly
Not at all.
> linked to sensability, I'd like to know what you think of this. I
> don't think originality is of much import in the context of art
Frankly, I'd rather not bother with yet another carbon copy of the Mona
Lisa... {Frankly, I'd rather you didn't bother either.} Art without some
originality is simply boring.
> making. There are artists on whose sholders we all stand (to borrow a
> phrase) but when one is engaging in artmaking and one is being true to
> one's own sensability one can hardly help but make a work of art that
> is unique to one's perspective and that conveys a specific message
> well. Perhaps we might be better off speaking of these ideas in the
> context of a particular artist's work, I'll leave it open to you to
> pick one, if you like.
Look at it this way... If someone had a patent on lines we'd all be screwed.
{Those of us that do digital would be really out of luck if the pixel were
copyrighted.}
The things you're describing have to do with technique... not art.
Technique is something to be shared. That's how the artworld and
society in general moves forward. Ideas... to a lesser extent... style,
etc, etc... that's how movements are born... it's one of the things that
makes it all interesting..
Compare collage to appropriation. One simply recontextualizes things...
{which may have been fine in the case of the first urinal but amounts
to a joke that got tiresome the second time it got told. Thousands of
re-tellings later... it's just a bore.} the other takes the same elements,
swishes them around, grinds them up a bit and, maybe covers them
with a sienna glaze. ...It hopefully, says something entirely different
from the originals... it's re-synthesized and becomes an original in
and of itself.
...Apply that idea to style, materials, technique, etc... Art has little to
do with those unless it's the intent of the artiist to use "wood" to
convey a specific element of his message.
I'm not seeing any new posts above. It's still relevant to my original
post anyway.
I had the impression that the "dark side" implied something like the
idea that folk might get some sort of naughty little thrill from breaking
rules of some sort... stealing from folk and so forth...
It does seem to me that much of the newest school has become a
little obsessed with that. I could be reading it wrong though.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> x-no-archive: yes
> Mr.Brooks, stop toying with our resident sage.
> Think of the bandwidth problems, at least.
> Besides, this obsession with each other is beginning to
> look very suspicious. I note that you have already discussed
> this person with our partner. Are you thinking of dating him?
> Send him some red roses and a box of choccies.
>
LOL! Thank you for your concern - don't worry, I have plenty of other
games to play in many other places...
Do you keep resident parsley, rosemary and thyme as well?
Cu Chullain
> Relative to the rest of art. Is it a statement by someone... born of that
> persons thoughts, ideas and emotions or is it a copy of someone elses
> stuff?
> Frankly, I'd rather not bother with yet another carbon copy of the Mona > Lisa... {Frankly, I'd rather you didn't bother either.} Art without some
> originality is simply boring.
> Look at it this way... If someone had a patent on lines we'd all be screwed.
> {Those of us that do digital would be really out of luck if the pixel were
> copyrighted.}
>
-I think I'm getting you here, I'm trying at least. Your post to the
age old mani deli thread from 1996 is relevent here and has helped me
flesh out where you are coming from a little. By the way I'd rather
not make that carbon copy either, the mona lisa is one of the worst
'revered' paintings in the western world, allong with the last supper,
great painters at the height of making their least interesting work.
> The things you're describing have to do with technique... not art.
> Technique is something to be shared. That's how the artworld and
> society in general moves forward. Ideas... to a lesser extent... style,
> etc, etc... that's how movements are born... it's one of the things that
> makes it all interesting..
>
-I don't see the connection between sensability and technique. Maybe I
wasn't being clear, I can be a bit vague sometimes. I'm confused about
your disticntion between technique and art. Technique was never shared
with me, maybe I missed something in art school, I was encouraged to
find my own way through technique. (by this i hope you are talking
about things like paint application and the like.) Nevertheless your
above statement isn't clear either.
> Compare collage to appropriation. One simply recontextualizes things...
> {which may have been fine in the case of the first urinal but amounts
> to a joke that got tiresome the second time it got told. Thousands of
> re-tellings later... it's just a bore.} the other takes the same elements,
> swishes them around, grinds them up a bit and, maybe covers them
> with a sienna glaze. ...It hopefully, says something entirely different
> from the originals... it's re-synthesized and becomes an original in
> and of itself.
>
-I can agree with this somewhat. Are you calling Duchamp's urinal
collage? And the second statement about swishing these elements around
and grinding them up, etc., are you saying we could give Duchamp's
idea new life by putting sand in the toilet and flushing??
Swishes...swishes? that word strikes me as rather odd in this
discussion. I don't see the distinction between collage and
appropriation as all that important, as i admittedly don't see any
important distinction between pomo and late modernism. I'm a terrible
guy for that, I know, I'm constantly chided by my pomo friends for
being dull. I mean geez, how archaic of me to still be making
paintings. "Using paint again, humph..." thats all they say to me
anymore.
> ...Apply that idea to style, materials, technique, etc... Art has little to
> do with those unless it's the intent of the artiist to use "wood" to
> convey a specific element of his message.
-I see. well I guess where I had a hangup was with the word
originallity. I just don't like that word, It's not useful to me. My
ideas on originallity and it's inevidability can be read in my last
post to you. This idea of conveying messages, can the message be so
simple as 'look at me, I'm a pretty painting, look how my colors
work'. or do we have to be making paintings about political and social
liberation and equal rights for blah blah blah. Because when you say
'message' (another word I don't like) that's exactly what comes to
mind. I don't like messages and agendas in my art. Painting with an
agenda leads to stupid paintings. Well, okay, not always, (am I
allowed to change my mind in mid sentence?) I've got to make an
amendment for Diego Rivera and a few others, but I don't read Rivera's
paintings in a political context, I read them in the context of other
largescale paintings like Giotto's Arena chappel or the Villa de
Mystery in Pompeii, or dare I say the Cistine Chappel.
> I had the impression that the "dark side" implied something like the
> idea that folk might get some sort of naughty little thrill from breaking
> rules of some sort... stealing from folk and so forth...
>
> It does seem to me that much of the newest school has become a
> little obsessed with that. I could be reading it wrong though.
-Hmmm. I get a naughty thrill from breaking rules. They do seem to be
appropriating alot more lately, is that what you call stealing? Maybe
I'm a part of the newest school. I doubt it though, I'm still using
pigment and brushes. Anyway what I'd like for you to get right down to
is what it is you believe should be the concerns of today's artists.
Or even more to the point what are the concerns of the artists you are
looking at and like. I've asked you this before, to structure an idea
in the context of particular works of art and I think it helps a bit
to see where you are coming from. We seem to be agreeing on a lot of
things and just wording it differently.
It's been a pleasure, you're one of a few people who realy has made me
think things through, and I haven't responded to anything anyone has
said in here in a few years. thank you. talk soon.
signed,
-C
Edward G. Nilges
> Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A036C...@new.co.za>...
> >
> >>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> >>
> >>>Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
> >>>not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
> >>>that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
> >>>plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
> >>>paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
>
> >> >
> >>As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
> >>
> >>Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
> >>wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the nickname, Teddy: it will remind the thoughtful and
> > well-read of Theodore "Teddy" Adorno.
> >
> Discussing your case with my wife led me to change my mind. I realise
Gee, I was talking to her the other night, what a coincidence...
(Couldn't resist)
(Have fun in my kill file_
Edward G. Nilges
> Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message news:<3E6A036C...@new.co.za>...
> >
> >>Edward G. Nilges wrote:
> >>
> >>>Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl> wrote in message news:<r5oh6v00l2l2cvd0n...@4ax.com>...
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Everybody has the right, I think, to read about sex and to have it or
> >>>not in a way that does not harm another. Because of AIDs, this means
> >>>that a combination of auto-eroticism and external chastity is a good
> >>>plan, and I am CERTAIN that this will send Peter and Neil into
> >>>paroxysms of Puritan/Libertine rage.
>
> >> >
> >>As usual your certainty (even when in nutter capitals) is simply wrong.
> >>
> >>Don't worry, though, Teddy, we're all used to you being wrong - you
> >>wouldn't be the same Ted without it.
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the nickname, Teddy: it will remind the thoughtful and
> > well-read of Theodore "Teddy" Adorno.
> >
> Discussing your case with my wife led me to change my mind. I realise
And what yo' Mama said to me, many years ago, now that was interesting...
(Having fun down there yet?)
Humbert_Campbell
What a blanket this will be when its done!
> > Ill give you an example that you may find interesting. One of my
> > students started doing some drawings that were extremely similar to
> > the way in which Leland Bell had been working. Now I know this student
> > and I know that the similarities were only because he was trying to
> > fit shapes and colors together in a certain way that he found valid. I
> > know too he had never seen bells work. He had by coincidence arrived
> > at a kind of visual vocabulary that was similar to another artists by
> > chance or accident.
>
> Humbert, while this case is extremely remarkable it is not
> isolated, not to take the wind out of your sails but I have been
> witness to students happening upon another artist's way of making a
> painting so to speak, but most of the time the simmilarities are only
> superficial, surface elements like simmilar application of paint or
> spatial organization etc. I would say, as you might have already
> guessed that this student of yours was addressing his own sensability
> and had chanced upon another's visual vocabulary. I've digressed a bit
> but I will say this, artist's rarely come from 'nowhere' and Bell,
> great as he is is no exception. There is something your student might
> learn in finding where he felt Leeland Bell was coming from. This idea
> that coming from somewhere is taboo, that artists are not allowed to
> look at and paint like, or respond to other artists is absurd, the
> notion that it is unorriginal to do so is equally perverse.
No wind taken, I agree with what you say and though I may trim the
mainsail abit to catch this new draft i would say you are expressing
my thoughts exactly.
> > > > part of a grand tradition.
> > >
> > > One, which it seems to me, that even artists have lost respect for.
> > >
> > > Why is this?
>
> I will say here that the tradition is very much alive and well,
> and though perhaps many artists seem to have lost a certain amount of
> respect for this tradition thete are just as many who revere it. Only
> the dumb and blind artworld sheep are making un-humorous puns on the
> past whild passing it off as the latest supperdish. Rubbish. It is
> however just as nearsighted to get lost in the past.
thank god for that. I liken this to one of the most basic aspects of
painting. Step back and look for a few minutes. While painting you get
up close to this thing you are making and its like you have blinders
on. Your focus is limited to this one thing for a time and so every
once in a while you have to step back, take a seat and think for a few
minutes. Have a smoke. hell just get away from it for a while. Change
to another painting. Put it away for a day, a week, a month, and come
back to it. So that is to say dont get lost in one aspect, dont get
"nearsighted and lost in the past" or go uterly blind making a
superdish. You have to get back. See it all as one whole.
Ill expound on this another time though. Im anxious to go start a new
thread so I shall here be brief.
> Humbert and all, thanks again for some interesting fodder,
> hopefully we can continue this dialogue for some time to come. There
> appear to be some brains here again, new meat, yummy.
>
> Cheers,
> C.M.
My word is that you!? Wonderful new incarnation.
Cheers,
HC
Rick Taylor
> > The things you're describing have to do with technique... not art.
> > Technique is something to be shared. That's how the artworld and
> > society in general moves forward. Ideas... to a lesser extent... style,
> > etc, etc... that's how movements are born... it's one of the things that
> > makes it all interesting..
> -I don't see the connection between sensability and technique. Maybe I
Folk usually define their technique through their sensibilities.
> wasn't being clear, I can be a bit vague sometimes. I'm confused about
> your disticntion between technique and art. Technique was never shared
> with me, maybe I missed something in art school, I was encouraged to
> find my own way through technique. (by this i hope you are talking
> about things like paint application and the like.) Nevertheless your
> above statement isn't clear either.
Technique is what one uses to make pictures with... "Art" is the
message conveyed by said pictures. Unless... your process is your
message. {Which is entirely appropriate for some artists}
> > Compare collage to appropriation. One simply recontextualizes things...
> > {which may have been fine in the case of the first urinal but amounts
> > to a joke that got tiresome the second time it got told. Thousands of
> > re-tellings later... it's just a bore.} the other takes the same elements,
> > swishes them around, grinds them up a bit and, maybe covers them
> > with a sienna glaze. ...It hopefully, says something entirely different
> > from the originals... it's re-synthesized and becomes an original in
> > and of itself.
> -I can agree with this somewhat. Are you calling Duchamp's urinal
> collage? And the second statement about swishing these elements around
No, I'm calling it a readymade.
> and grinding them up, etc., are you saying we could give Duchamp's
> idea new life by putting sand in the toilet and flushing??
I think Duchamp made his point years ago and that we shouldn't
belabor it.
> Swishes...swishes? that word strikes me as rather odd in this
Take all your little paper bits before you glue them down...
they're quite swishable.
> discussion. I don't see the distinction between collage and
> appropriation as all that important, as i admittedly don't see any
Appropriation is simply taking something, placing it in a different context
and calling it something entirely different. {I see this as a natural function
of art anyway... everytime the light in the museum changes... it's an
entirely new piece.}
> important distinction between pomo and late modernism. I'm a terrible
> guy for that, I know, I'm constantly chided by my pomo friends for
> being dull. I mean geez, how archaic of me to still be making
> paintings. "Using paint again, humph..." thats all they say to me
> anymore.
...It's your art.
> > ...Apply that idea to style, materials, technique, etc... Art has little to
> > do with those unless it's the intent of the artiist to use "wood" to
> > convey a specific element of his message.
>
> -I see. well I guess where I had a hangup was with the word
> originallity. I just don't like that word, It's not useful to me. My
Call it "fred" if you like.
> ideas on originallity and it's inevidability can be read in my last
> post to you. This idea of conveying messages, can the message be so
> simple as 'look at me, I'm a pretty painting, look how my colors
> work'. or do we have to be making paintings about political and social
Yes.
> liberation and equal rights for blah blah blah. Because when you say
> 'message' (another word I don't like) that's exactly what comes to
> mind. I don't like messages and agendas in my art. Painting with an
How do you justify it as art?
> agenda leads to stupid paintings. Well, okay, not always, (am I
> allowed to change my mind in mid sentence?) I've got to make an
> amendment for Diego Rivera and a few others, but I don't read Rivera's
> paintings in a political context, I read them in the context of other
> largescale paintings like Giotto's Arena chappel or the Villa de
> Mystery in Pompeii, or dare I say the Cistine Chappel.
>
> > I had the impression that the "dark side" implied something like the
> > idea that folk might get some sort of naughty little thrill from breaking
> > rules of some sort... stealing from folk and so forth...
> >
> > It does seem to me that much of the newest school has become a
> > little obsessed with that. I could be reading it wrong though.
>
> -Hmmm. I get a naughty thrill from breaking rules. They do seem to be
> appropriating alot more lately, is that what you call stealing? Maybe
Yeah... like when someone takes the images off of my web page and
puts them up under their name... that's stealing.
> I'm a part of the newest school. I doubt it though, I'm still using
> pigment and brushes. Anyway what I'd like for you to get right down to
Which means what?
> is what it is you believe should be the concerns of today's artists.
> Or even more to the point what are the concerns of the artists you are
> looking at and like. I've asked you this before, to structure an idea
> in the context of particular works of art and I think it helps a bit
> to see where you are coming from. We seem to be agreeing on a lot of
> things and just wording it differently.
I think the concern of all artists should be to make art.
> It's been a pleasure, you're one of a few people who realy has made me
> think things through, and I haven't responded to anything anyone has
> said in here in a few years. thank you. talk soon.
Thanks,
Chris
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f5dda427.03030...@posting.google.com...
> When people say they are "anarchist" this does not mean at all that
> like genuine anarchists they would be willing to live communally, on
> the model of Spanish anarchists of the Civil war.
>
Ted;
Anarchism has little or nothing to do with communal living; the word itself
is derived from the Greek anarchos, meaning having no ruler. You could try
any good dictionary if you want a fuller definition, but the definition has
changed little over the centuries.
The experience of the Spanish anarchists was that communism and anarchy (in
it's true sense) don't in fact mix - the only way people will live
communally on a large scale is if they are forced to do so. It's one of the
reasons Spanish anarchists wound up shooting lots of poeple whose crime was
solely to own property, and trying to establish their own oppressive
systems of state in the few areas of Spain they controlled early in the
Civil War. (Though as someone who worships at the feet of a faded star like
Chomsky, it is unlikely that you acknowlege that aspect of Spanish
history)..
Of course the anarchists wound up getting stabbed in the back by the
Stalinist side of the Republican forces, who in turn were crushed by the
Fascists, but that's another story.
A good introduction is Hugh Thomas' book, "The Spanish Civil War"; you might
want to give it a look.
Chris
Chris
Chris
the Spanish Civil War, and anarchism, were a classic example of nilging at
its purest...
Chris
"Chris" <n...@this.address> wrote in message
news:4t2ba.18372$0W6.6...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
G*rd*n
| > When people say they are "anarchist" this does not mean at all that
| > like genuine anarchists they would be willing to live communally, on
| > the model of Spanish anarchists of the Civil war.
"Chris" <n...@this.address>:
| Anarchism has little or nothing to do with communal living; the word itself
| is derived from the Greek anarchos, meaning having no ruler. You could try
| any good dictionary if you want a fuller definition, but the definition has
| changed little over the centuries.
|
| The experience of the Spanish anarchists was that communism and anarchy (in
| it's true sense) don't in fact mix - the only way people will live
| communally on a large scale is if they are forced to do so. It's one of the
| reasons Spanish anarchists wound up shooting lots of poeple whose crime was
| solely to own property, and trying to establish their own oppressive
| systems of state in the few areas of Spain they controlled early in the
| Civil War. (Though as someone who worships at the feet of a faded star like
| Chomsky, it is unlikely that you acknowlege that aspect of Spanish
| history)..
|
| Of course the anarchists wound up getting stabbed in the back by the
| Stalinist side of the Republican forces, who in turn were crushed by the
| Fascists, but that's another story.
|
| A good introduction is Hugh Thomas' book, "The Spanish Civil War"; you might
| want to give it a look.
There's a lot of variety of opinion and debate on the issues
raised above, but they are probably better served in a newsgroup
like alt.society.anarchy than one supposedly devoted for fine
arts.
Chris
> There's a lot of variety of opinion and debate on the issues
> raised above, but they are probably better served in a newsgroup
> like alt.society.anarchy than one supposedly devoted for fine
> arts.
>
Feel free to raise them there, then :)
Chris
Neil Maxwell
<pe...@new.co.za> wrote:
>Discussing your case with my wife led me to change my mind. I realise
>that it is naughty of me to tease you so and that you invite it so much
>doesn't really give me an excuse to indulge my pleasure.
It's interesting you should mention this, as I had come to a similar
conclusion recently. I'm feeling a bit sorry for Edward, and have
decided there's no point in beating up on him any more.
What initially started out as a well-intentioned challenge to faulty
logic and stereotyping turned into a somewhat cruel session of
shooting fish in a barrel. It's clear that there is no gain in
continuing to drub him, and it diminishes us all.
I'm sure he will crow about his victories in the next newsgroup he
wanders to. Out of curiousity, I looked up his discourses in
talk.politics.guns (since he mentioned it), and found the same
phenomenon we've become familiar with here.
Recent quote from TPG:
<The rest of his screed goes downhill from there. Fascinating, isn't
it, how he can create this entire world out of so little? Expounding
in a desperate attempt to bury the reader in words to cover his weak
position.>
Sounds familiar... Will this grant me admittance to his killfile?
That seems to be his most effective technique, as words fail him.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer
Neil Maxwell
wrote:
>Perhaps you mean who? Recently some artists who have acheived
>undeserved fame and notariety, David Hockney, Cindy Sherman, Eric
>Fischel, Nam June Paik.
Deseved vs. undeserved is a relative thing. Nam Jun Paik's larger
video-based assemblages include technical skill, insight, humor,
irony, aesthetic pleasure (for me, at least), and other artistic
merits. From there, it becomes a matter of taste, and there's no
accounting for that. The others all have their good and bad aspects
as well. What makes them undeserving?
>I'm so sick of seeing these guys (and girls)
>touted as if they have something important to say. I'm sick of being
>bored by the art scene, I'm sick of the entertainment bored (read
>boring) artists come up with to fill their next obligation to
>superstardom (read gallery space).
So who do you think should be in their places? Who are the
up-and-coming artists who have something important to say and are
being ignored? I'd love to see some links., since they're unlikely to
be in my local museums and galleries.
Of course, when any artist becomes Famous, there will be those
accusing them of selling out for superstardom and money.
>Not tired so much of being told
>I've no choice, though if you look at any given gallery guide or art
>in america review section from 1979 to the present one might decide
>there is no choice but to be bored. Not true.
Large cities and college towns are good places to look for interesting
art, but if you don't live where there are galleries for the unknown,
you may have to do with the internet. Not the same as real life, of
course, but better than nothing, if you can wade through the chaff.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 21:56:30 +0200, "Peter H.M. Brooks"
> <pe...@new.co.za> wrote:
>
> >Discussing your case with my wife led me to change my mind. I realise
> >that it is naughty of me to tease you so and that you invite it so much
> >doesn't really give me an excuse to indulge my pleasure.
>
> It's interesting you should mention this, as I had come to a similar
> conclusion recently. I'm feeling a bit sorry for Edward, and have
> decided there's no point in beating up on him any more.
>
>
> What initially started out as a well-intentioned challenge to faulty
> logic and stereotyping turned into a somewhat cruel session of
> shooting fish in a barrel. It's clear that there is no gain in
> continuing to drub him, and it diminishes us all.
>
flouncing off in tears saying he'd never speak to me again - he is
back, two days after going into his self-imposed exile, making girlie
comments! Even the more stupid people I've known have pretended not to
read my messages for a week or so before giving up!
>
> I'm sure he will crow about his victories in the next newsgroup he
> wanders to. Out of curiousity, I looked up his discourses in
> talk.politics.guns (since he mentioned it), and found the same
> phenomenon we've become familiar with here.
>
>
> Recent quote from TPG:
> <The rest of his screed goes downhill from there. Fascinating, isn't
> it, how he can create this entire world out of so little? Expounding
> in a desperate attempt to bury the reader in words to cover his weak
> position.>
>
> Sounds familiar... Will this grant me admittance to his killfile?
> That seems to be his most effective technique, as words fail him.
>
chemicals in the water when tiny and can't help it.
Peter H.M. Brooks
Wow, Teddy, you really are that stupid!
You rushed off to hide behind your kill file again, pouting and tearful.
Two days later, here you are, wanting to kiss and make up.
Look, Ted, to be credible you have to try to pretend that you aren't
reading my posts - your exile doesn't work very well otherwise!
You try to be helpful but some are truly beyond help!
Peter H.M. Brooks
Chris wrote:
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:f5dda427.03030...@posting.google.com...
>
>>When people say they are "anarchist" this does not mean at all that
>>like genuine anarchists they would be willing to live communally, on
>>the model of Spanish anarchists of the Civil war.
>>
>
>
> Ted;
>
> Anarchism has little or nothing to do with communal living; the word itself
> is derived from the Greek anarchos, meaning having no ruler. You could try
> any good dictionary if you want a fuller definition, but the definition has
> changed little over the centuries.
>
I fear Teddy doesn't have any good dictionaries to refer to - only old
pinko texts.
Two of the best thinkers to introduce a study of anarchy are Epicurus
and de Sade.
Rick Taylor
> Two of the best thinkers to introduce a study of anarchy are Epicurus
> and de Sade.
"The upper classes are superior to and were meant to rule, use and
abuse the lower class as they see fit" Sade?
G*rd*n
| > Two of the best thinkers to introduce a study of anarchy are Epicurus
| > and de Sade.
Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net>:
| "The upper classes are superior to and were meant to rule, use and
| abuse the lower class as they see fit" Sade?
This simply echoes Aristotle[1] and shows what a square de
Sade really was.
[1] But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave,
and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or
rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds
both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and
others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient;
from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for
subjection, others for rule.
-- Aristotle, _Politics_, I.5
G*rd*n
| ...
| I fear Teddy doesn't have any good dictionaries to refer to - only old
| pinko texts.
In the case of anarchism, some old pinko texts would be rather
appropriate.
| ...
Chris
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:b4kt7i$nlo$1...@panix3.panix.com...
> pe...@new.co.za:
> | ...
> | I fear Teddy doesn't have any good dictionaries to refer to - only old
> | pinko texts.
>
> In the case of anarchism, some old pinko texts would be rather
> appropriate.
>
> | ...
>
There's a lot of variety of opinion and debate on the issues
raised above, but they are probably better served in a newsgroup
like alt.society.anarchy than one supposedly devoted for fine
arts.
Chris :)
max
>"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> writes:
>| > Two of the best thinkers to introduce a study of anarchy are Epicurus
>| > and de Sade.
>
>Rick Taylor <rickt...@speakeasy.net>:
>| "The upper classes are superior to and were meant to rule, use and
>| abuse the lower class as they see fit" Sade?
>
>This simply echoes Aristotle[1] and shows what a square de
>Sade really was.
I'd suggest tempering other's thoughts, no matter how hoary and
respected, with a bit of logic and common sense of your own. Just
because Aristotle said something doesn't make it right or reasonable.
Chris
"max" <maxi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8b0s6v47kgjis3nf2...@4ax.com...
A number of yers ago, I had a 2 volume history of physics (and I can't for
the life of me remember who the author was, but it was published by Dover).
Anyway, on about page two he introduced Aristotle as the man "who held back
physics for 2000 years" - mostly on account of Aristotle's failure to credit
observation as important. It's an idea I've kept with me ever since -
particularly the interplay between observation and theory; for example, in
the renaissance arts , where observation rose to preminence, as versus our
current artistic remortification, where theory seems to hold sway.
Chris
G*rd*n
| > respected, with a bit of logic and common sense of your own. Just
| > because Aristotle said something doesn't make it right or reasonable.
"Chris" <n...@this.address>:
| A number of yers ago, I had a 2 volume history of physics (and I can't for
| the life of me remember who the author was, but it was published by Dover).
| Anyway, on about page two he introduced Aristotle as the man "who held back
| physics for 2000 years" - mostly on account of Aristotle's failure to credit
| observation as important. It's an idea I've kept with me ever since -
| particularly the interplay between observation and theory; for example, in
| the renaissance arts , where observation rose to preminence, as versus our
| current artistic remortification, where theory seems to hold sway.
In the Renaissance, a certain _kind_ of observation rose to
preeminence; in the period of Impressionism, another kind
which was more faithful, in fact, to optical and perceptual
actuality. Even Modernists claimed to be observing -- things
have many sides and move, so you've got to paint them all!
Observation has been very popular in recent centuries,
whereas I suppose makers of icons, thankas, and shamanistic
ceremonial masks would not have given a rat about observation:
their role was not to reflect images of the world around
them but to put forth images of other worlds, of the gods.
I don't think it was Aristotle, but slavery, which held back
physics for 2000 years. There was no great reason to develop
much physics or engineering under conditions of slavery.
Hiero's turbine, for instance, could provide torque, but you
could get torque from slaves or oxen for the price of feeding
and beating them. Aristotle went along with the crowd -- as
I said, he was a square. And de Sade was also a square,
making a fetish of beating up girls like any stupid peasant.
G*rd*n
| > | ...
| > | I fear Teddy doesn't have any good dictionaries to refer to - only old
| > | pinko texts.
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
| > In the case of anarchism, some old pinko texts would be rather
| > appropriate.
"Chris" <n...@this.address>:
| There's a lot of variety of opinion and debate on the issues
| raised above, but they are probably better served in a newsgroup
| like alt.society.anarchy than one supposedly devoted for fine
| arts.
I said that, but it didn't do any good.
Peter H.M. Brooks
things at all.
It is important that such people read the originals (not just their pinko
anti anarchist bullshit) however, such people are almost incapable of
reading anything that challenges their idee fixes, so they are incapable of
learning. Sad, and a challenge to anarchy, but true.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Chris" <n...@this.address> wrote in message