...as in June. This time the lyrics were from a They Might Be Giants song, Lucky Ball and Chain that I've been listening to for 18 (yikes!) years now. The line is this:
Sure as you can steer a train/
You can change your fate
Sad to say I never gave that much thought to the train in the lyric, and the verb "to steer." But actually I think I missed the meaning in that line because I was fixated on my own mis-interpretation of the last word, "fate" --- I always thought it was "faith," and after singing it aloud, my voice would trail off as I contemplated the notion of changing one's faith; everything prior to "faith" was lost.
I've always appreciated the decisiveness of TMBG's quirky lyrics (they may be strange, but they know what they are and proclaim it without a hint of question in their delivery), and so this "faith" fate mix-up always bothered me. I feel better now, knowing trains cannot be steered without derailing disaster, so sit back and enjoy the ride. Good advice on a rainy weather day wherein all I want to do is just sit and breathe.
12.31.2007
7.07.2007
same as it ever was
the artworld is just like the "real" world in that as funding sources change with the dynamics of the economy, there are two distinct fields of production emerging -- a "nonprofit" and a "corporate' sphere.
To be an artist operating in the first sphere, you probably are doing site-specific and/or community outreach based work and rely heavily on grant-based funding to pay for the creation of the work and/or maintain your economic life as an artist. The second option for art production is much more commonly known --- it's the stuff that is covered by art magazines, art blogs, and other non-art specific periodicals...it's what sets artists like Warhol and Hirst into fame and motion ---- the idea is simple: innovate to create an artwork that looks enough like an Art product and/or can be marketed as such and then rely on the same business skills as an entreprenuer/any-old-corporate-employee (the biggest skill sets being PR, advertisement/product placement, networking, strategic R&D). Both methods meet the same end; the artist produces *something* that enters the cultural sphere.
However, what I am more interested in is the strict differences in the skill set each artist "type" (non-profit vs. commercial artist) necessitates for success. Let's face it...some artists doing public projects (for example) will always be paying out of their pocket (or rationalizing to themselves the modicum stipend offered in exchange for their artistic labor/material costs) to produce their works, unless they hone their fundraising/grant-writing skills. Others will be more adept at reading the demand (or if really skilled, creating the "demand for") of the marketplace and make work that fits that demand nicely enough to make sales out of the gate and is an art product that is highly marketable, or, is essentially commercially "aware" art...in other words, the art product has a successful "dot-one-point-oh" debut based on its inherent ability to capitalize on such "natural" facets of human nature as the want to be special (read: "i got the first one in the highly exclusive limited edition").
...
True, that at some point, both types of artists can reach a level of notoriety at which neither skill set is necessary to employ (i.e. the true definition of a "brand") in order to maintain one's position within the art market. However, I just simply want to recognize a simple fact (again, and again): Art is Business and Non-profits are just as much a Business in our contemporary times, regardlesss of the spin.
goodnight.
To be an artist operating in the first sphere, you probably are doing site-specific and/or community outreach based work and rely heavily on grant-based funding to pay for the creation of the work and/or maintain your economic life as an artist. The second option for art production is much more commonly known --- it's the stuff that is covered by art magazines, art blogs, and other non-art specific periodicals...it's what sets artists like Warhol and Hirst into fame and motion ---- the idea is simple: innovate to create an artwork that looks enough like an Art product and/or can be marketed as such and then rely on the same business skills as an entreprenuer/any-old-corporate-employee (the biggest skill sets being PR, advertisement/product placement, networking, strategic R&D). Both methods meet the same end; the artist produces *something* that enters the cultural sphere.
However, what I am more interested in is the strict differences in the skill set each artist "type" (non-profit vs. commercial artist) necessitates for success. Let's face it...some artists doing public projects (for example) will always be paying out of their pocket (or rationalizing to themselves the modicum stipend offered in exchange for their artistic labor/material costs) to produce their works, unless they hone their fundraising/grant-writing skills. Others will be more adept at reading the demand (or if really skilled, creating the "demand for") of the marketplace and make work that fits that demand nicely enough to make sales out of the gate and is an art product that is highly marketable, or, is essentially commercially "aware" art...in other words, the art product has a successful "dot-one-point-oh" debut based on its inherent ability to capitalize on such "natural" facets of human nature as the want to be special (read: "i got the first one in the highly exclusive limited edition").
...
True, that at some point, both types of artists can reach a level of notoriety at which neither skill set is necessary to employ (i.e. the true definition of a "brand") in order to maintain one's position within the art market. However, I just simply want to recognize a simple fact (again, and again): Art is Business and Non-profits are just as much a Business in our contemporary times, regardlesss of the spin.
goodnight.
6.15.2007
often reduced to just paying attention
to lyrics you never noticed before, originally drowned by the movie-style thematic banging about percussion in the background:
Neil Young - There's A World Lyrics
There's a world you're living in
No one else has your part
All God's children in the wind
Take it in and blow hard.
Look around it, have you found it
Walking down the avenue?
See what it brings,
could be good things
In the air for you.
We are leaving. We are gone.
Come with us to all alone.
Never worry. Never moan.
We will leave you all alone.
In the mountains, in the cities,
You can see the dream.
Look around you. Has it found you?
Is it what it seems?
There's a world you're living in
No one else has your part
All God's children in the wind
Take it in and blow hard.
---"There is a need for surprise endings;"
Neil Young - There's A World Lyrics
There's a world you're living in
No one else has your part
All God's children in the wind
Take it in and blow hard.
Look around it, have you found it
Walking down the avenue?
See what it brings,
could be good things
In the air for you.
We are leaving. We are gone.
Come with us to all alone.
Never worry. Never moan.
We will leave you all alone.
In the mountains, in the cities,
You can see the dream.
Look around you. Has it found you?
Is it what it seems?
There's a world you're living in
No one else has your part
All God's children in the wind
Take it in and blow hard.
---"There is a need for surprise endings;"
5.09.2007
1.24.2007
Discussing categories of Art earlier
and then reading this line:
"the human soul resists taxonomy"
how appropriate. my point exactly. there is no line; stop looking, and you will finally see the line for yourself.
"the human soul resists taxonomy"
how appropriate. my point exactly. there is no line; stop looking, and you will finally see the line for yourself.
1.16.2007
In case the last one didn't fool you...
it was all a farce...well, except for the driving stick shift.
anyway. new news is good news:
my first nyc show
anyway. new news is good news:
1.03.2007
but, the good (?value judgment?) thing is that
i've accomplished already so many of my life-long goals, in just one short year (the former, 2006).
and in no particular order:
1 - Travel to the pyramids
2 - Donate all of my Baby Sitter Club Books to my high school (oh it was such a difficult parting!)
3 - Learn how to drive stick shift - sweet...
4 - Finally buy (and use a back-up hard drive (now all my pre-K-fed Britney is safe and my computer is ready for the post-baby birth re-birth!)
5 - Watch Dirty Dancing (i know, i know) for the first time
6 - Organize all of my photographs, yes, even the baby pictures :)
7 - Learn French (...kissing, that is) with my eyes closed
8 - Teach my grandmother how to knit
Bring it ON two thousand and sev-en!
and in no particular order:
1 - Travel to the pyramids
2 - Donate all of my Baby Sitter Club Books to my high school (oh it was such a difficult parting!)
3 - Learn how to drive stick shift - sweet...
4 - Finally buy (and use a back-up hard drive (now all my pre-K-fed Britney is safe and my computer is ready for the post-baby birth re-birth!)
5 - Watch Dirty Dancing (i know, i know) for the first time
6 - Organize all of my photographs, yes, even the baby pictures :)
7 - Learn French (...kissing, that is) with my eyes closed
8 - Teach my grandmother how to knit
Bring it ON two thousand and sev-en!
lay-dee like
wow, my goodness. who wrote that last post? heavens to betsey! ME oh MY!
(again, "so this is the new year/and i don't feel any different")
(again, "so this is the new year/and i don't feel any different")
11.16.2006
10.31.2006
10.25.2006
A Call to Arms
or, Oms ...
Rise up! Rise Up! Young
Young, still so young
One
of many
That thought you'd be
some where/one
else
Bigger, Stronger, Faster more
Believable by Now ...
YOUr'e time has come
Ready, Go Steady
Bang away on your father's gun
all thoughts dreams he had
(wished) realized in you
Fight to re/claim
that that was never
yours
that which never
really manifested itself
beyond an ancestor's grave
Rise up! Rise Up! Young
Young, still so young
One
of many
That thought you'd be
some where/one
else
Bigger, Stronger, Faster more
Believable by Now ...
YOUr'e time has come
Ready, Go Steady
Bang away on your father's gun
all thoughts dreams he had
(wished) realized in you
Fight to re/claim
that that was never
yours
that which never
really manifested itself
beyond an ancestor's grave
10.17.2006
today The Room, tomorrow The Response
by Mark Strand
The Room
It is an old story, the way it happens
sometimes in winter, sometimes not.
The listener falls to sleep,
the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open
and into his room the misfortunes come --
death by daybreak, death by nightfall,
their wooden wings bruising the air,
their shadows the spilled milk the world cries over.
There is a need for surprise endings;
the green field where cows burn like newsprint,
where the farmer sits and stares,
where nothing, when it happens, is never terrible enough.
The Room
It is an old story, the way it happens
sometimes in winter, sometimes not.
The listener falls to sleep,
the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open
and into his room the misfortunes come --
death by daybreak, death by nightfall,
their wooden wings bruising the air,
their shadows the spilled milk the world cries over.
There is a need for surprise endings;
the green field where cows burn like newsprint,
where the farmer sits and stares,
where nothing, when it happens, is never terrible enough.
9.30.2006
UM, blogger dot com ...
Can we exchange a few words here?
Why, oh why, did you design (or acquire) and implement a spell check feature that does not recognize the word "blog" in its dictionary??!
um. yeah. thought so.
i guess we are all just as confused.
Why, oh why, did you design (or acquire) and implement a spell check feature that does not recognize the word "blog" in its dictionary??!
um. yeah. thought so.
i guess we are all just as confused.
love is a short name
for dismissal, of the many things that require attention,
responsibility
such as
doing the dishes
filing your bills, your nails
cataloging years of birthday cards received
and boxing the funny/sentimental/thiswillworkforsomeoccassion hallmark greetings picked up along the way that haven't received a receiver (yet)
Ex-said-er-rah!
...
oh, and there's that little thing
the tape always running in the background, composing the static of the day:
what are you still doing here, my love?
my sweet, sweet sweet Misses/d Opportunity
...your lungs have finally grown (time to leave Intensive Care)
time has come and time has passed and time will keep coming and when will "keep" finally be
the last stitch unstitched, the one keeping your lips closed from shouting to yourself
love is the short name
Attention! to the call -
(early beginners, late bloomers, one, too, and all)
responsibility
such as
doing the dishes
filing your bills, your nails
cataloging years of birthday cards received
and boxing the funny/sentimental/thiswillworkforsomeoccassion hallmark greetings picked up along the way that haven't received a receiver (yet)
Ex-said-er-rah!
...
oh, and there's that little thing
the tape always running in the background, composing the static of the day:
what are you still doing here, my love?
my sweet, sweet sweet Misses/d Opportunity
...your lungs have finally grown (time to leave Intensive Care)
time has come and time has passed and time will keep coming and when will "keep" finally be
the last stitch unstitched, the one keeping your lips closed from shouting to yourself
love is the short name
Attention! to the call -
(early beginners, late bloomers, one, too, and all)
9.19.2006
subtitles
wings of desire:
"What is wrong with peace...
that its inspiration does not endure...
and that it is almost
untellable?"
-------------------
this (above), after reading this.
Have we embarked?
"What is wrong with peace...
that its inspiration does not endure...
and that it is almost
untellable?"
-------------------
this (above), after reading this.
Have we embarked?
9.18.2006
they do what they say ...
check it (out) --- added to the gtown library (yikes! how official! has it really already been over a year? well, looks like they got their dates mixed up - publication date is really 2005, but who's counting?)
9.14.2006
maybe pittsburg
could use some revisiting:
http://collectedworks.blogspot.com/2005/01/for-indecisive-or-perhaps-honest.html
again, i found myself - twice now in the last week - referring to this salad, a little yang for your yin.
http://collectedworks.blogspot.com/2005/01/for-indecisive-or-perhaps-honest.html
again, i found myself - twice now in the last week - referring to this salad, a little yang for your yin.
9.11.2006
UnderLines ("But what do the dead say?")
i've always been obsessed with Other People's Underlines...I have spent minutes that were actually hours, pouring over library shelves and the musty (but cozy) smelling rows of printed matter in used book stores, combing through book after book - titles I've read and titles I haven't - to discover what little marks have been made, what symbols others employ to show importance or ready a contention with the author ... i could go on and on about the histories that have yet to be written from an anthropological study of underlines ...
but instead, i am going to share one, the only one in this title, and one of the very few i have ever found in any books once formerly owned by my mother ...
(in red link, underlined)
"You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time."
(and a red 'X', just after the closing of the above quoted paragraph)
"But what do the dead say?"
(from Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun
but instead, i am going to share one, the only one in this title, and one of the very few i have ever found in any books once formerly owned by my mother ...
(in red link, underlined)
"You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time."
(and a red 'X', just after the closing of the above quoted paragraph)
"But what do the dead say?"
(from Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun
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