Day-old thots: a stupid redo

My aunt & cousin gifted me a book of "100 DRAWING PROMPTS!" Each page has a phrase written in its top-left corner; here's the first:

Dear diary,

Tho I called it a redo, I actually wrote the following entry prior to my last. I wasn't satisfied with this initial batch of morn-thots, so I tried to improve it by adding to it, but I added too much and ultimately decided to publish only the additions, which became my Jan 3 post. In other words: Now that the world has aged by 24 hours, I feel that it deserves my sub-par outtakes...

Before re-beginning, however, I just want to relay to you what my sweetheart told me about her morning dream:

In her dream, my sweetheart is at the mall. She's supposed to be meeting Yours Truly in one of the stores, so she's wandering to & fro amid the commerce. But here's the catch: This mall has neither escalators nor elevators; instead there are buttons installed at intervals which, when pressed, move THE WHOLE ENTIRE FLOOR up or down; thus, while searching about, all the shoppers on each level know that you, the dreamer, are lost and looking for your love.

Dear diary (2nd try),

I hope I never give up attempting to make these blog posts stupider and stupider. Aren’t they stupid enough? No, I feel that nothing can ever be stupid enough. But why hold stupidity as a goal? Well, if you think it sounds like a state that should be avoided rather than aspired to, I must be using the word differently than you are using it.

By stupid I mean relaxed, not posing, not worried about appearing dignified; not stuffily complicated. Simple, casual. If complex at all, then only like a Rube Goldberg mechanism. So maybe I just proved that I’m simply misusing the accolade.

I like art: That’s what’s on my mind this morning, again. I just woke up. My first thought was: write a blog, keep it stupid—perhaps talk about art.

I have a stupid view of art. (Here, 'stupid' = 'uncritically inclusive'.) I hold that everything qualifies as art. Now, I have heard that some of the finest people object to my calling every damned thing art. But why is this wrong? You find a candy wrapper on the side of the road, you pick it up, you frame it: Boom, you got art.

Yet why the need of a frame? Isn’t the wrapper, while sitting by its lonesome at roadside, already an artwork—that is, before you give it a frame? Yes, but the addition of a frame serves to emphasize this natural condition: Artists discern the aesthetic value in everything, as they look around the world; but, to share this vision with regular folk (non-artists), a frame is helpful: it’s like a sign in the shape of a hand that points out a treasure.

I call myself an artist, but I’m not allowed in the art world. Why am I not allowed to have an exhibit? (An art exhibit is what a smart artist does to get herself known.) Because I don’t have any art yet. Well why don’t I make some art? Because I prefer not to.

So I guess I have no complaints. Who cares about art! It’s for the birds.

Now here is a passage from the novel Hebdomeros, by Giorgio de Chirico, which I happened to encounter this afternoon (I read the book every day):

. . . This was more than enough to arouse the enthusiasm of Casca, the painter who hailed from the south. Addressing himself to Hebdomeros, he expressed his emotion simply but lyrically: “Now there’s happiness for us artists,” he said. “What do we need, after all, to be happy? A couple of apples on a table with salt and pepper, a ray of sunlight on the floor, a sweet, faithful woman to lighten the burden of life; and last and most important—” and here he paused for a moment to look around the circle of people listening to him—“last and most important, a clear conscience. Yes, a clear conscience, to be able, rather to have the right, in the evening when, tired from the day’s work, we stretch out in bed to enjoy a well-earned rest, to have the right to say not only the famous words: I too am a painter, which is all very fine, but which unfortunately is not everything, but also the less famous but not less important words: I too am an honest man.” This kind of talk always got on Hebdomeros’ nerves. . . .

What I love most about this excerpt is that final sentence.

Really, why is art so important? Why keep talking about it? Why is it a hot topic, even among those who’d not seem to have any interest in it at all—it’s like the term “God” or “truth” or “freedom.” People even call Jesus of Nazareth an artist. But did Jesus ever paint a single painting? If not, then where was his art? You can’t say that he was a U.S. POET, because he published no chapbooks...

I like those people who say that painting died when photography was invented. That’s how I predict that poets are going to feel when the Dream Recorder is invented.

But why? Is poetry only dreams? No: it’s a combination of stuff that comes from one’s mind PLUS regular “worldly” stuff. Therefore an Automatic Dream Publisher would be like if a corporation were to dump a big pile of concrete and molten steel in your backyard & then charge you for a skyscraper. Without even constructing the thing!

But a raw dream could be seen as a type of poem, whereas a heap of wood cannot in good faith be sold as an all-glass building. Maybe it’d serve as a shelter for beavers, but you don’t want to… [end this sentence with a joke about insurance firms]

I like the feel of scribbling with a pencil on paper. I like the ink pens that glide. I like felt-tip markers.

You take any surface, and you move a utensil upon it. Then look at what you made. If you like it, tack it up in your co-worker’s cubicle. If you dislike it, change it, then stand back and judge the new result. Eventually, you should be able to find satisfaction in what you’ve created. But the important thing to remember is that, during each stage of the journey, the thing you’re messing with is already art – what I mean is that you could call it quits anytime; you don’t have to wait until you feel good about your creation (remember how God became Christ and then committed suicide); even if you just tack up a blank piece of paper, you’ve got yourself a contender.

And yet, where’s the competition? All this talk of nominees, candidates, challengers, runners—but where’s the race?

Nobody refers to artists as “runners,” however; so it’s not a race that can be won by speed alone, or by producing a large quantity of works. You could make just one poem or painting in your life, and it could win you the jackpot.

I guess you could say that critics determine the winner of the battle of art. And who invested critics with this power? The same authority that permitted this or that soul to be called an artist. In other words, nobody invested anybody with anything: we’re all just choosing a way to act in an inherently meaningless exercise. Some critics persuade me that they deserve to be heeded; and some artists persuade me that they deserve to be praised; but, in truth, even the critics who don’t appeal to me, and even the artists who bore me, are as justified as flies in continuing to buzz.

I called art a “game.” Was I right to do this? Yes and no. Actually, just no. For a game has rules, and art has no rules at all. You can assert rules for art, but nobody will listen to you. Or, in truth, a few billion generations will listen to you, but eventually your fraud will be exposed, and you will be stuck paying a fine. So that takes care of the lie that art is a game. It only feels like a game, because you wait your turn, bet the farm, and lose every time.

But what about the notion of art being a “battle”? This is wrong, too. A battle requires bloodshed, and since art is almost entirely a mental experience…

So there IS a mental fight. And you “die on the field in dishonor” if your artwork does not last beyond your own generation. And you are the victor if you influence all future artists.

Now, what about those artists who say that my idea of the Great War of Art is wholly false, and they themselves refuse to participate: they are not aggressive; they create artwork out of love, and they befriend their fellow artists; and whether or not their artworks last into futurity concerns them zero, because they will be dead by then? — I say that this is a wise way of thinking. I want to try to make this perspective my own. You could avoid a lot of stress if you just let go and enjoy your time alive, instead of engaging in brawls with every passerby.

But it’s hard for me to abandon the habit of judging art harshly, in the manner of a battle, because I know that my hourglass is running out, and I want to experience the best artworks possible during my earthly imprisonment.

If art is about pleasing the viewer, then didn’t postcards and beer commercials win the battle already? Because look at the mountains with their beautiful snowy tops, on the postcard that your cousin sent you from Colorado: isn’t it nice? And the sexy young people in swimsuits playing volleyball in the sunshine on the beach, with a cooler of glistening light-amber bottles in the foreground…

Yet, the idea that your government is just a powerful business that neither employs nor serves you: how is this bad, exactly? As a child, my Sunday-school teacher in church and also my civics teacher in public school taught me the same thing: they said that the system of government that we have here in the U.S. is the best and fairest way to govern people. They said: Just think about the way it used to be: back when they had kings who were selfish vicious tyrants. And then they graduated to systems like feudalism, which my encyclopedia broadly defines as “a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.” Is our current system still better than these old systems: feudalism, or the old royal system (I’m limiting my comparisons to just two, for the sake of excitement)? A king rules until he dies; then his son takes over; and if he doesn’t have a son, the queen rules until she can produce an heir with the nearest willing servant (the royal palace must keep a bevy of electricians on staff, to tend the torches in the vestibule – any one of these will do the trick). Nowadays we have… what are they called? elected leaders? I guess that’s better. But we don’t really get to choose our favorite from among the multitude like Yahweh God did, when we don’t like the one who’s ruling at present:

And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

[…Then] Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD hath not chosen these.

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children?

And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep.

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.
[1 Samuel 16:1; 10-12]

I’ll stop this entry now, because I secretly made a deal with myself in the beginning: to write until I copy a second quotation. I’m trying to get away from quoting so much in these entries. These blog posts should be about MY words, MY thoughts, MY stupid ideas, not the LORD God’s. I’ve developed the bad habit of copying way too much text from the stuff that I’m reading. Instead of indulging in this, I should simply quit writing when my own words run out. But I’m like a small child who does not want to go to bed. I’m afraid of the entry ending, like I’m afraid of the dark. When my pen stops, the silence looms large and I’m afraid it’ll blank me.

Yet I like how Yahweh chooses leaders—it’s not because David was wise, proficient in administration, or adept at delegating authority: no, but he was fit to be king because he was “ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to.”