Justin Torres, We the Animals
Read it in one go on Wednesday. Makes me again wonder about the things I’ve missed out on being an only child.
And then a check for twenty-five hundred dollars fell out of the envelope. The irony is that the one person who gives me money is the one person I wish I could hand the check back to and say no, only joy can pass between you and me. I found it difficult to write back. But I did, stingy with loving words because they don’t come out of me easily. I hoped she could read between the lines; I hoped that the presence of the letter in my own hand, the texture of it, the wear and tear it had received on its trip across five states revealed my heart to her. I can’t explain why it’s easy to tell you and not her how she smooths the way for me, how her letters are the only true things in my life, how touching them connects me to the world.
— Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company
To be making something as yet unformed, unknown—to be living in a deferred moment—is the most seductive way to exist.
— Moyra Davey, “Polyvalence”
In Distinction (1979), a thorough study of “taste” in mid-20th-century France, Pierre Bourdieu laments that the primary activity of artists and academics today is to reproduce their own privileged cultural status. Peter Burger, in his Theory of the Avant-Garde (1974), contrasts the historical avant-gardes of Europe at the turn of the 20th century—led by artists who were actively involved in reshaping society’s norms—with later forms of modern art such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop art, which merely reframed the idea of revolution as esthetic transformation. These findings continue to be my reality check, preventing me from considering art as some kind of moral good in and of itself.
— Erin Sickler, “Art and the 99%”, Art in America, Jan 2012
Ultimately, we know that the creation of a few art stars is based on the unrewarded labor of the majority, but the art market, which has grown exponentially in the last 20 years, has made art look like a viable form of employment. Art students flock to MFA programs, which have increased drastically since the 1990s, with the expectation that they too can “make it.” The vast sums of money floating through galleries and auction houses has helped to conceal the fact that most artists will never earn a living from their work. Driven to ever greater fits of productivity, artists become more vulnerable by competing against one another for every opportunity—all for the chance to succeed in an industry that treats their cultural output as products for a hyperinflated market or as display items in noncommercial spaces that are unlikely to pay them.
—
Erin Sickler, “Art and the 99%”, Art in America, Jan 2012
Thanks for explaining to me why I should not beat myself up over the fact that I’m working for racists and why everybody has been calling Time Warner to change their internet package from “standard” to “basic”. I can shower, eat, feed and walk my dog, and wash my car in the time it takes my tumblr dashboard to load now after my downgrade. I am blogging from a library.
Also, I hate the good-natured but stupid coffeehouses that have art hanging on the walls with cream-colored price tags dangling from the frames. Nobody buys art from those places, because people who go there are grad students who can hardly afford a 3 dollar latte. Can you imagine how humiliating and depressing it must be for someone to walk in the cafe and see their own art still hanging there with an inch of dust sitting on top of the frame? I can.
I watched CCTV’s lunar new year variety show with my dad. All the singing and dancing that wasn’t from the Mao era reminded me of this, so at least there was new material. Like that one segment that was literally and seriously called “The Gaga Show”. But some things will always remain the same. You bet they had 888888 good-looking elementary-school-aged geniuses singing in unison standing in Dragon formation every third act. And the hosts tried so hard to look sincere while singing praises of this greatest and most diverse nation of all I thought their faces were going to burst open.
things i can do without (a series): #2 CLOTHING
- R pointed out I might want to shop for some new clothes, because my super comfy light-blue-and-white striped men’s shirt that I’ve been wearing at least once a week since senior year of high school is “so old that it smells even if you’ve just washed it”. It doesn’t smell bad, it just smells like sleep and bleached coffee stains and shampooed-and-blow-dried dog, which to me means my shirt smells kind of good. I ordered some stuff online anyway. Just tried on a shirt I got from Madewell. It has a giant pocket on the front that makes me look like I have a very long left boob and no right boob. It does not smell. I’m returning everything.
- No pants made for adults come in my size. I’ve been wearing the same pair - literally my only pair of pants - of size 14S skinny jeans from Abercrombie Kids for at least 6 years.
- Everything out there including black tights costs $150.
- If this cut-out shirt covers less of my torso than my bra does, can I wear it to work?
- I’m glad it’s rainy and cold today so I can just head out the door naked under my coat.
