black day

Rauschenberg is dead. I don't know quite what to do with myself. I am sad.

Slightly Hypocritical Thought’s On Blogging, and Why Were Are the Most Fearful and Vulnerable Generation Yet

This entry will be titiled:

"Slightly Hypocritical Thought’s On Blogging, and Why Were Are the Most Fearful and Vulnerable Generation Yet." 

or

"When You Drive Alone, You Drive With Ghosty Hitler"

In modern times with digital pictures, audio recording, and other tools to document every little aspect of life (perhaps even blogging), our identity has become closely linked with how well we can document it.  Modern thought has its influence on this: if you can’t prove it with a picture, you are apt to be doubted in your claim of catching anything bigger than a 5 lb fish.  But I believe over-documentation, and the world of empirical proof have fostered a fear of forgetting.  If we cannot produce the physical, literal evidence of our being somewhere, what’s to say we ever went?  Technology, combined with the move from modern thought to postmodern thought has resulted in our fear of forgetting, or worse, being forgotten.

This fear extends into public art and policy.  The general populations compulsion to memorialize anyone and erect monuments to everything come from a deep-seated belief that if they do not force people to remember, not one will.  Particularly surrounding the war and our contemporary climate of terror, “Never Forget”, and “Remember the Sacrifice” seem to have replaced, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” “Food Is a Weapon, Don’t Waste It.”  Instead of advice on how to do our part in the fight we are all fighting, contemporary slogans try and remind (or convince) is why we are fighting.

To be fair, I recall “Remember the Alamo,” but not what I am supposed to remember about it.

I’m not sure what this fear and compulsion say about us as an American people, but I’m saddened that we are afraid of our failing memories, and the inability to transmit real love and respect through oral tradition.  Think back to all the sci-fi movies that warn about trusting too much knowledge that otherwise would be in our brains, to outside sources.  Or even teen novel The Giver.  Let’s not get lazy people.  Remember “You Can’t Beat the Axis if You’ve Got VD.”



PS: I got into a group show at the Brooklyn Artist Gym called "Rockers and Posers". Sounds fun, right? Go me! More information to come. And yes, I am aware that I didn't post anything on here about the last show at NYCAMS," Who Lost This Piece of Paper?" Images forthcoming. Promise.

Generational

I am standing on my mother, and she is standing on my grandmother. My great grandmother can not longer breath under the eighteen of us. I do not know her mother.

Hello, Kitty.

I have been feeling terribly desperate lately, in the whole range of areas to feel desperate in. From jobs, to work, to men. It’s just really no good. So here’s today’s hope: To drink deeply from the cup, and not grasp wildly at straws.

I went for a walk in the sun today to photograph widows and orphans. Here’s one of my favorites:

xox

I’VE HAD A BABY!  Well, to be more accurate, I’ve had a baby vomit on me.  I have recently become the part-time caregiver to a three-month-old.  Who would have predicted?  (Or allowed?)

Some thoughts for the day:

I am broken.
I am remade better.
I don’t need the cardboard sleeve on my coffee, which means my hands are calloused enough to protect my nerves.  It’s some sign of hard work.

Passion v. Vision- KO!

So it comes to passion and vision, the two things one cannot live without in the City.  Without the pairing, men are destined to be the walking dead.  These men are necessary in the City, but not the heart of it.  So, I am left in the despair of the realization of only being with one of the lovers.  Passion abounds, but with no object, there is no vision, and all the energy and fervor in the world are for naught.  My soft heart tears like a rotten peach on every blunt edge, and my body will not slow for its own welfare.  Licking my own wounds is counterproductive to healing, but brings temporary comfort and target to distract me from my lack of vision.  If only I could figure how to lick my own heart and eyes to heal the rift of my passion and vision. 
            Sometimes I long to be a great artist.  To make works able to move the hardest of men to tears.  Not by sentimental appeal, by but illustrating and being Truth.  Other times I think I might have some masterpiece of words welling up inside me that will bring about civic catharsis and lift all people out of their trance.
            But my greatest longing and desire is to impassion others, for the Lord, beauty, truth, and life.  But I lack the vision, and in it, become the walking dead myself.  I can see the final composition I want, but when I try to focus on a part or stroke, I am left confused or blind, like the first time I had a migraine, or a brain tumor. 
            I would rather be thwarted, than be so powerless.  In hitting a brick wall, at least one is moving beforehand, and then there’s even the ricochet.  It seems better than sleeping awake.
            So vision and passion, glass and fire.  The imprecise and global desires of my heart for peace, beauty, and truth paralyze me.  Vision seems so immediate and local to me that I could never accomplish all that I see.  Paralyzed by my own inaction, there are so many causes that I ache for.  But I do not feel a pull.  And cannot know where success lies.  And I am frozen. 
            If I cannot see any outcome, regardless of probability, I am dismissive.  I feel like I must ride my bike off a cliff, to make sure my parachute doesn’t have any holes in it.  Perhaps I should knock on all the doors to have them slammed in my face, rather than wait in the cold for one to open.  A draft of warm air every now and then is enough to keep me going. 

Mid-Winter's BBQ

So after that last posting of writing jeremy reminded me of this piece I wrote at the end of fall/beginning of winter when I could still ride my bike. I have been experiencing a bit of the winter gloom lately, so I though maybe I would post it to urge "bikeable" weather forward. I think there might soon be plans for a "Mid-Winter's BBQ" as well with the same purpose.

Sunny cloudy Sunday ride
down Ocean Parkway to see the bay.
Pay respect to the gray scale amusement park who rivals the coma of the beach.
And the thumbp, thumbp, thumbp of my bike on the boardwalk sounds like a happy eternal flat tire.
A scratchy Italian radio is playing for two scratchy Italian men.
No bass at all.
I sit two benches away on an otherwise deserted stretch of planks to eavesdrop on the movie magic.
I wish I had a thermos of something to sip and wrap my hand around.
Ride home trying to remember sand and thumbp, thumbp, thumbp.
My love for an island that is not really an island is stillborn in the early winter air.
I am trying to ignore the “empire” in “The Empire State” of every license plate.
I pass.
The spooky grit of coney island trumps antiseptic fireworks of Times Square