"The history of white people has led them to a fearful baffling place where they have begun to lose touch with reality – to lose touch, that is, with themselves… They do not know how this came about; they do not dare examine how this came about.” James Baldwin " A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion. It very quickly becomes a culture condemned to secrecy. This idea of clandestine culture is immediately seen in the reactions of the occupying power which interprets attachment to traditions as faithfulness to the spirit of the nation and as a refusal to submit. ... the oral tradition - stories, epics and songs … [Read more...]

"The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced." Tao Te Ching Lao Tzu "Doctors are no doubt correct in warning us not to touch wounds; and I am presumably taking chances in preaching as I do to a people which has long lost all sensitivity and, no longer conscious of its infirmity, is plainly suffering from mortal illness. Let us therefore understand by logic, if we can, how it happens that this obstinate willingness to submit has become so deeply rooted in a nation that the very love of liberty now seems no longer natural." Etienne de la Boetie The Politics of Obedience "Clear water all the way to the bottom; a fish swims like a fish." Master Dogen 13th century … [Read more...]

"Mystery is the essential element in any work of art" Luis Bunuel "The question remains as to why the government had need of it {war}, as to why it was necessary to impose the improbable reality of this lie. The reason was apparently to create consent in order to wage war. But why start a war if the danger was known not to be real? Out of anticipation? Due to possibly exaggerated feelings of insecurity? If remains necessary to invert the terms of the problem. Imagined feelings of insecurity did not neccessiate the war; the war was necessary to impose feelings of insecurity." Jacques Ranciere "The petty bourgeoisie is undoubtedly the social class most sensitive to the fascination of … [Read more...]

Gloucester : When shall I come to the top of that same hill? Edgar: You do climb up it now: look, how we labour. Gloucster: Methinks the ground is even. Edgar: Horrible steep. Hark, do you hear the sea? Gloucster: No, truly. Shakespeare, King Lear A few thoughts on space, and on the idea of teaching playwriting. I don't think its possible for writing courses, in theatre at least, to get things more wrong. This is born out by the quality of the plays coming out of University programs, and/or those being developed in big institutional theatres every year. The first thing that seems to have been forgotten is that theatre occupies, and simultaneously, creates a space. A place. … [Read more...]

For whatever reason, I have been thinking a lot about the artists that developed in the first two decades of the 20th century, in the United States. The last strain of realism, but a realism that had already felt the rise of cubism and surrealism, and which held onto its sense of realism in a particular sort of way. One can also look at this regionally to a degree, and perhaps in two generational divisions. But this was the non-corporate realism of a vision influenced by Quakers, and Amish, and by manual labor and farming. And by factories. It was work done outside the "Art Market", largely, too. George Ault is perhaps the most siginificant, but Charles Sheeler certainly, and a generation … [Read more...]

"The breath of God had carried out a planned And sensible withdrawal from this land; The multitude, once unconcerned with doubt, Once neither callous, curious nor devout, Jumped at broad noon, as though some peddler groaned At it in its familiar twang: “My friend, Cut your own throat. Cut your own throat. Now! Now!” September twenty-second, Sir, the bough Cracks with the unpicked apples, and at dawn The small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn." Robert Lowell After The Surprising Conversions Eric Bennett has an interesting small essay on the origins of post graduate writing programs in the U.S. "The Farfield Foundation was not really a foundation; it was … [Read more...]

"The task would be not to grasp art, but first to grasp what is ungraspable about art" Theodor Adorno "The greater the work of a thinker...all the richer is what remains unthought in that work, that is, what emerges for the first time thanks to it, as not yet been thought" Martin Heidegger “Cryptic” could be a go-to word for critics describing “Mister John,” the quietly impressive sophomore feature from Irish husband-and-wife team Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, but it’s ultimately the film’s avoidance of mystery that proves so effective and unnerving." Guy Lodge Last posting I was thinking about the increasing tendency to demonize the poor in film and TV. That the blatant … [Read more...]

"Some said, "It is he." Others said, “No, but he is like him." John 9:9 Sarah E. James, writing of Bernd and Hilla Becher's monumental decades long project of photographing industrial buildings, all of them abandoned and all of them presented in serialized sets, creating an industrial typology, has said: "There is no narrative". She suggests the structures are aestheticized and rendered as functionalist sculptures. Now, this is an understandable statement in a sense, because so little importance is placed on what constitutes a narrative, on understanding how narrative works. Micheal Fried has written of the Becher's, too. Fried is always interesting, and in the Bechers he sees an … [Read more...]