All I can do is reply on my own behalf, realizing that what I say is relative. Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful. An analysis of the idea of revolt could help us to discover ideas capable of restoring a relative meaning to existence, although a meaning that would always be in danger. —-Albert Camus
Gustave Caillebotte
French 1848-1894
Portrait of Paul Hugot
1878
Houston Museum of Fine Arts
Impostor syndrome isn’t always a voice of unwarranted self-doubt that you should stifle. Sometimes, it is the voice of God telling you to stand down. —-Walter Russell Mead
It was good, maybe really good – but more than that it was unique.
Does a work of art have to make sense? Is it fair for a work to be purposefully ambiguous? Can perplexing be a positive attribute?
Or is life too short for all this?
Something in the Dirt is definitely purposefully ambiguous. It implies that it is a documentary – there are interviews with multiple cameramen, special effects experts, and a string of directors – they talk about making the film that we are watching which may or may not duplicate events that may or may not have actually happened.
It’s fun if you can relax and let it wash over you, if you can embrace the chaos – and I imagine it would be maddening and frustrating if you can’t.
The key is, I think, in the dedication at the end. It is dedicated to friends making movies together. The writers/directors/producers/stars have a long string of odd movies in their history – most with much larger budgets and production budgets than Something in the Dirt. Now I’m going to work through the other films, there is some real creativity going on here.
This one looks like the two of them decided to get some friends together and make a little film while they were in Covid lockdown and see what resulted.
What interests me is the sense of the darkness that we carry within us, the darkness that’s akin to one of the principal subjects of the sublime – terror.
—-Anish Kapoor
Sky Mirror by Anish Kapoor, Arlington, Texas
Monday the whole family went to the Cotton Bowl – my son Lee graduated from Tulane and a bunch of his friends were in town to see them play USC (Roll Wave).
While not as cool as The Bean – it was a pretty impressive hunk of reflections. It was a perfectly gray sky, so the other side, the one that reflects the heavens – wasn’t too impressive. I would love to see the thing at sunrise.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” ― H. P. Lovercraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
“Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond. Grew hisself a garden the likes of none. Sprouts all growin’ comin’ up glowin’ Fruit of jewels all shinin’ in the sun. Colors of the rainbow. See the sun and the rain grow sapphires and rubies on ivory vines, Grapes of jade, just ripenin’ in the shade, just ready for the squeezin’ into green jade wine. Pure gold corn there, Blowin’ in the warm air. Ol’ crow nibblin’ on the amnythyst seeds. In between the diamonds, Ol’ man Simon crawls about pullin’ out platinum weeds. Pink pearl berries, all you can carry, put ’em in a bushel and haul ’em into town. Up in the tree there’s opal nuts and gold pears- Hurry quick, grab a stick and shake some down. Take a silver tater, emerald tomater, fresh plump coral melons. Hangin’ in reach. Ol’ man Simon, diggin’ in his diamonds, stops and rests and dreams about one… real… peach.” ― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
“Things aren’t like this,” he kept repeating. “It shouldn’t be this way.”
As if he had access to some other plane of existence, some parallel, “right” universe, and had sensed that our time had somehow been put out of joint. Such was his vehemence that I found myself believing him, believing, for example, in the possibility of that other life in which Vina had never left and we were making our lives together, all three of us, ascending together to the stars.
Then he shook his head, and the spell broke. He opened his eyes, grinning ruefully. As if he knew his thoughts had infected mine. As if he knew his power. “Better get on with it,” he said. “Make do with what there is.” ― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
“When Armageddon takes place, parking is going to be a major problem.” ― J.G. Ballard, Millennium People
my Xootr Swift folding bike, plus helmet and gloves
I had a great time riding around (although the actual riding was not too great – about ten miles) on the 2022 Cedars Open Studios Tour. I’ll write and post some more photos over the next few days.
This is at the stop at Good Coworking on Good-Latimer Expressway, a very cool place. I guess my folding bike counts as a “Low Emitting & Fuel Efficient Vehicle”
“For these beings, fall is ever the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth….Such are the autumn people.” ― Ray Bradbury
My son Lee came over to visit last Saturday – to hang out and watch Tulane win a football game (both his school, Tulane, and mine, Kansas are 3-0 on the season – which doesn’t happen very often). He brought a pumpkin and, although Halloween is still a bit off he carved it up into a skull. Candy loves skulls. He still has his artistic talent.
Lee’s jack-o’-lantern, with candle inside, out on the back porch.
Bill Chance 