Arr! It
Avast, me hearties!
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Speaking of Blogging and Art.
The BloggerCon 2003 at Harvard is scheduled to have “Art Interludes,” but I sure hope they come up with something more creative than what’s been suggested so far. Except for my suggestion, of course, which was:
Rather than display works already created, since bloggers tend to improvise on the spot, why not have those brave enough improvise/create their own art. For example, (and you would need people to have access to the net and printers, you also would need magic markers, paper, fabric, sticky tape etc.), have Chris Locke begin affixing to a blank wall some improvisational creation as soon as he arrives — words, drawings, images from blogs. And then others add to this in some associative way, playing off each others’ themes (just as many of us verbally do in our weblogs already). In a way, it becomes a group “wall-log.” If you can come up with a way to cover the wall with large pieces of paper so that the resulting mural can be saved, at the end, everyone can take a piece of it home, digitize it, and use it as a jump-off point for blogging about the Blogger Con. Use your imaginations, guys!!
Art is as much process as product. Wouldn’t it be cool to see what kind of “art” bloggers might produce if they approach that creative act as they do the process of blogging?
And I am planning to be there for the second day, ’cause it’s for free. And I’ll be wearing my own personally-designed Kalilily Time t-shirt so that everyone will notice me. Or not.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Shuffle. Slap. Stomp. Scuffle. Stamp. Chug. Leap.
That’s me, tap-dancing. I’m taking tap-dancing lessons, and I’m not doing badly at all. I’m in a class of five women and one guy, all over the age of 55, who are tying to keep their bodies moving and their blood pumping.
The last time I took tap I was five years old and my mom had to take me on a bus to the lessons. That all lasted about six months. My mom did her best to socialize me to her standards. Most of it didn’t work. But she tried.
Now, of course, at the age of 87, what she is, is “trying.” She says she’s hearing voices singing Polish Christmas songs. And sometimes it’s at odd hours — like 4 a.m. Now, it’s possible that, given the building full of octogenians in which we live (me excluded, of course), someone just might be up at 4 a.m. playing and singing Polish songs. It’s possible.
And as for me at the age of 63, I’m trying to tap-dance. After all, there’s more to life than blogging, right?
I think it was the radio.
Shamanic. Imaginal. Numinal. All words having something to do with experiences of the mind and body, the understanding of which is more related to creative psychological analysis than logical, empirical examination. All experiences that have little to do with external sensory adventures and more to do with the capacity of the mind to create another reality.
Back in the 1940s, when I was a severely asthmatic only child confined to bed for long periods of time, the radio offered me escape through imagination. Let
Schizoid in Fantasyland
So, on one hand, I
Not hooked on hooks
I picked her up because RageBoy, who often buries diamonds among his ubiquitous dreck, mentions her positively. I
betwixt and between
between lives
between lines
between minds
between times
That
The Art of Art.
At one point I owned a chain-sawed sculpture of a small bear (made out of a tree stump) that I bought on my way back from a women’s empowerment retreat held at a lodge in the Adironacks. The bear was standing upright, and one of his craggy paws had a notch in it that was supposed to hold a beer can. I think I ultimately put a a big crystal in it. Or maybe a bunch of flowers. It was a long time ago.
I bought it because I thought it was cool, and at the time I was into Mother Bear as one of my Totem Animals. I didn’t think the piece was really “art,” but I liked looking at it — it looked powerful and playful at the same time. And it looked great standing outside my apartment door for all of my passing neighbors to look at and wonder about. It had meaning for me on many, many levels.
I’ve admitted before that I’m pretty much an elitist about “art.” I believe that there has to be inspired craft imposed upon an artifact of creative expression before I can think of it as “art.” That’s why writing poetry, for me, takes a great deal of time and revisions. I’m not just trying to express myself creatively; I’m really trying to create a work of art.
Long before I owned the tree-stumped bear, I remember staying up half the night with a bunch of friends arguing whether the most important thing about art is the process or the product. If it’s the process, the actual act of creation, then we might as well destroy all of the old art that’s hanging around in museums. Of course, I argued the other side: great art should be shared with those who also find inspiration and delight in the product. That doesn’t diminish the value of any kind of creative act, but we can all engage in creative acts and we can enjoy the creative acts of others. But that it doesn’t mean that what has been created is necessarily good “art.”
On the other hand:
Don
Trying to stay awake.
Party politics puts me to sleep. I’ve been trying to keep up with what the Democrats are up to, since the upcoming election is such an important one, and I’m really yawning. An op-ed piece in today’s NY Times by Matthew Miller shed some light on the inability of the Democratic effort to hold my attention:
[snip]
What American politics urgently needs, in other words, is not a new left, but a new center. Democrats need to refocus domestic debate around a handful of fundamental goals on which all Americans can agree
Laugh so you don’t cry.
From Baghdad Burning:
…type “Weapons of mass destruction” in the google.com search and click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” bar. Read the standard-looking error page CAREFULLY!
Doncha just love the Net!