Proof Positive of the End of the World

Hieronymous Bosch Christ Carrying the Cross (detail). 1490. Oil on panel. 

I just heard on the news: Evangelicals invade Brazilian Politics. As usual, shenanigans everywhere and both candidates lying to appease a growing evangelical constituency.  Sounds familiar?  Ugh.  ...Where oh where will I be able to live when their rule finally overcomes all rational thought about existence?  ...Christian fanatics here, Muslim fanatics there, Jewish fanatics over yonder... Where did the Enlightenment go?  Did it get so defeated by postmodernist relativism to finally allow the Middle Ages to rear its ugly head again?

Ok, I exaggerate.  The reason for the rise of religious fanaticism has more to do with a marginal global rise in per capita income than with a handful of European intellectuals.  People no longer have to toil continuously in order to just survive; they now have enough leisure time to use in the annoyance (and worse) of others.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the always welcome divided government in Washington.  Here's to giving the godless a fighting chance for a little while longer....

My bad

In Again I called Nikki Haley an air brain for spelling her name as "Nikki".  Today I learned that she is actually South Asian, so spelling her name as Nikki might make sense and I apologize for my premature assumptions about her ethnic background. I just assumed she was American because of all the other stupid things she says that I considered to be the domain of a certain strain of  "pure American knee-jerk stupidity".

a rare moment of optimism

Although I have lived in Clemson way too long, and some days can't wait to leave it, there are things about living in this cultural desert that can't be beat.  Taking a less-than-a-minute drive from my house to a "not a chain" auto parts store where the owners and employees are extra friendly and change your battery in no time flat is certainly one of them.  Another is being in the parking lot of said auto parts store and having my car mechanic drive by and yell to the man taking care of me to take extra good care of me.  Already with a warm feeling in my heart, and after cranking my brand new battery and backing out of my space, I saw a van with a sticker that said Republicans for Sheehan (Sheehan being  "not Nikki Tea Party Haley" and a democrat to boot) on it.  I left the place buoyant and thinking about all the things I like about this  place .

Again

Bend over, it’s vô’tin’ tahm again.  yoohoo.

Last night, for a few seconds I was aware of a Nikki fucking Haley commercial on the fucking tube.  ... What kind of air brain spells Nicky as Nikki anyway ...  

There it was, her silent face looming on our screen; and already I could feel a hand pushing me down.  The image was silent instead of spouting off predictable platitudes only because Curtis mutes all and every commercial.  I looked up from whatever I was doing; and when I saw her face, I was not a believer...  

I told Curt, “There’s our next Governor...”  And Curtis replied with, “I wonder why we even vote in this state,” referring to the fact that no matter who is running in this day and age, the morons of this state will always vote for a republican, no matter how stupid he or she is, or how detrimental his or her stated policies might be to those same morons that vote these clowns into office. If Satan himself were running as a republican in this state, he'd win even if his campaign were to stick his multi-pronged dick up every one of our asses as long as he reduced property taxes for rich property owners, and babbled about family values for the pious poor, while, of course, sticking his multi-pronged dick up our asses or running down to Argentina to stick his dick up his lover’s ass while preaching from the bible..

Why vote indeed...

addendum

In Heartache Allison reminds me that once I used Hidey in one of my pieces--- and so I did, in a block print.  The print was not exactly about Hidey, but about humans' dual (or dueling) tendencies towards Apollonian abstraction and Dionysian instinct... My view being that no matter what amazing things we achieve through our ability to abstract, in the end Nature always wins.   I had been reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, and in the introduction she uses cats and their unwavering stare to illustrate a point.  Hidey was just the model for my piece which, in the end, might just be a pretty little picture of a beautiful little cat....

wag-da-dog

Dave Hickey no longer writes a monthly column for Art in America, but thank the gods Peter Plagens still does.  Plagens is an artist, but also one hell of an incisive writer who writes with that sense of irony which makes anything I read these days worth reading.  His almost-monthly columns have a way of clarifying reality, if only for a few minutes before the miasma takes over once more.  Recently he was on a couple of panel discussions; and in this month's issue of AIA he writes about that.  The fog clears for a few moments:

... [to Irving Blum (proprietor of the great Ferus Gallery, site of Andy Warhol's first solo show as a pop artist) and David Deitch, the New York dealer recently appointed director of the Museum of Comtemporary Art in LA] I did however pose a final question: "We're here at a giant art fair, probably the most important one in the world where contemporary art auctions make the news not only in the arts sections of newspapers but in the front pages.  Some dealers-- Larry Gagosian and Eli Broad, for example -- are more famous these days than artists.  Irving, you made history with your life in the art market.  Jeffrey, you got your job at MOCA substantially because of your reputation as a dealer.  so my question is, 'With regards to contemporary art and the contemporary art market, have we come to the point where the tail is wagging the dog?'"

The answers I got were politic...

...I was struck--gobsmacked might be more accurate--- by how, in an art world where 1970's "pluralism" has grown like kudzu into a devouring relativism that has obliterated the contours of "quality", people can still talk with such suave assurance about "good art", "appropriate" prices and "the right things". ...
p. 43, AIA October, 2010

Fall

The Fall Equinox has come and gone and I forgot to mark it.  Well, I did not forget, I was aware of it, got depressed about the end of summer, and just decided not to be OCD about marking the date with a blog this year.   But here I am, a little late.... 

Yesterday, driving home from work and looking at the still beautifully green trees, I was just amazed at how fast these damned seasons go by the older I get.  Will old age, whenever that starts officially, be just one big fast action experience followed by death?